February 12, 2010
New glutathione peroxidase research has been reported by S. Sfar et al
NewsRx.com 02-11-10
"Trace elements like zinc and copper play an important role in maintaining metabolic homeostasis in elderly subjects and is therefore expected to have a crucial effect on antioxidant mechanism. The objective of the present study was to investigate age-related variations of zinc, copper and antioxidant enzyme activities (superoxide dismutase: SOD, glutathione peroxidase: GPx and catalase: CAT) taking into account gender differences in a Tunisian elderly population," scientists in Monastir, Tunisia report (see also Glutathione Peroxidase).
"A group of 100 healthy elderly subjects (55-85 years old) were then separated in three sub-groups according to age intervals. A control group of 100 adults aged between 30 and 45 years was considered. The obtained results confirmed the decrease of plasma zinc level with age increase in both men and women. Moreover, prevalence of zinc deficiency increased with age: normal zinc concentration was obtained in about 60% of adults and only in 35% of the elderly subjects over 75 years old. No significant variation was obtained for copper concentration. GPx and SOD activities were lower in aged subjects in comparison to adults. Zinc and antioxidant enzyme activities were found to be negatively correlated to age," wrote S. Sfar and colleagues.
The researchers concluded: "However, an investigation on a large size sample with various health and well-controlled dietary statuses should be conducted for a better understanding of the zinc or copper metabolism and their effect on oxidant stress during aging."
Sfar and colleagues published their study in Experimental Gerontology (Zinc, copper and antioxidant enzyme activities in healthy elderly Tunisian subjects. Experimental Gerontology, 2009;44(12):812-817).
http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=9305&Section=Aging
More than 1,500 affected in NY, NJ mumps outbreak
Last Updated: 2010-02-11 16:15:45 -0400 (Reuters Health)
* Outbreak is biggest in U.S. since 2006
* Jewish communities in New York hardest hit
CHICAGO (Reuters) - An outbreak of mumps that started in a summer camp last June has sickened more than 1,500 people in New York and New Jersey, state and federal health officials said on Thursday.
The outbreak is the biggest in the United States since 2006, when more than 6,000 people became infected, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its weekly report on death and disease.
School-age children in orthodox Jewish communities in New York have been hard hit. Officials said the group had high vaccination rates, included some that had not been vaccinated or had only received one dose of the mumps vaccine.
The New York City Department of Health this week urged young Jewish adults to get vaccinated unless they knew they had been fully vaccinated in the past.
"Mumps can lead to serious complications in people who are not vaccinated, especially adults," said Dr. Jane Zucker, assistant commissioner for immunization.
Widespread vaccination with the measles, mumps and rubella or MMR vaccine vastly cut the number of U.S. mumps cases to fewer than 500 in the early 2000s.
But concerns that the vaccine could cause autism, based on a discredited study that was retracted this month, prompted some parents not to protect their children.
Mumps made a resurgence in parts of Europe last year with outbreaks in Britain, the Balkans and Moldova. Complications can include viral meningitis, hearing loss and reproductive problems for men.
The current outbreak appears to have started with an 11-year-old boy who returned from a trip to Britain in June and then attended a summer camp where he infected others. The illness then spread as campers returned home.
As of January 29, 1,521 cases had been reported, almost two thirds among people aged 7 to 18. Nineteen people needed hospitalization, but none had died. Three quarters of those infected were male.
About 88 percent of those who reported their vaccination status had received at least one dose of vaccine, and three quarters of those infected had been given two doses.
The mumps virus can mutate, so people who have had only one or even two doses of vaccine remain vulnerable.
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2010/02/11/eline/links/20100211elin016.html
Rye beats laxatives for constipation relief: Study
Nutraingredients.com, 12-Feb-2010
Consumption of fibre-rich rye bread may ease constipation and perform commercial laxatives, according to a new study from Finland.
Writing in the Journal of Nutrition, researchers from the University of Helsinki report that whole-grain rye bread performed better than laxatives and white wheat bread in the easing of symptoms of constipation, a condition reported to affects up to 27 per cent of the population of Western countries, according to the researchers.
“To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to evaluate the effects of rye bread in treating constipation as compared with laxatives and to simultaneously investigate the changes in the colonic metabolism,” wrote the researchers, led by Reetta Holma.
“The results are encouraging,” they added.
The beneficial effects of rye were put down to its fibre content, which could fermented by bacteria in the colon, and lead to an increase in colonic short chain fatty acids (SCFA).
“Arabinoxylan, which is abundant in rye, appears to be a preferred substrate for fermentative generation of SCFA,” noted the researchers. “SCFA may induce propulsive contractions, leading to accelerated transit and relief of constipation.
“The decrease in fecal pH caused by rye bread consumption, which was found in the present study, is a natural consequence of increased fecal SCFA and also decreased intestinal transit time. The importance of maintaining a slightly acidic environment is critical, because the majority of harmful bacterial enzymes operate optimally at a neutral to slightly basic pH,” they added.
Study details
The Finnish researchers recruited 51 constipated adults and randomly assigned them to one fo five groups: One group received the whole-grain rye bread (240 grams per day), one group received buttermilk containing Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG), one group received both rye bread and LGG, the fourth group received white wheat bread, and the final group received laxatives.
At the end of the study an increase in intestinal transit time of 23 and 41 per cent was reported for the rye bread group, compared with white wheat bread and laxatives, respectively, and the average number of weekly defactions increased by 1.4.
On the other hand, LGG supplementation did not affect constipation, they noted.
“In conclusion, rye bread relieves mild constipation and improves colonic metabolism compared with white wheat bread and commonly used laxatives without increasing gastrointestinal adverse effects,” wrote Holma and her colleagues.
Source: Journal of Nutrition
Published online ahead of print, doi: 10.3945/jn.109.118570
“Constipation Is Relieved More by Rye Bread Than Wheat Bread or Laxatives without Increased Adverse Gastrointestinal Effects”
Authors: R. Holma, S.-M. Hongisto, M. Saxelin, R. Korpela
http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/Rye-beats-laxatives-for-constipation-relief-Study
Gut microflora and diabetes: Study suggests role for pro-, pre-biotics
Nutraingredients.com, 12-Feb-2010
Bacterial populations in the gut of diabetics differ from non-diabetics, says a new study from Denmark that may open up a potential role for modify gut microflora with probiotics and prebiotics and improve health.
The study, published in the open-access peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE, builds on earlier studies that have linked gut microflora and obesity. A breakthrough paper published in Nature in December 2006 reported that microbial populations in the gut are different between obese and lean people, and that when the obese people lost weight their microflora reverted back to that observed in a lean person, suggesting that obesity may have a microbial component.
Led by Nadja Larsen from the University of Copenhagen, the new research is reportedly the first to look at intestinal microbiota in humans with and without type-2 diabetes.
“Our data suggest that the levels of glucose tolerance or severity of diabetes should be considered while linking microbiota with obesity and other metabolic diseases in humans,” wrote the Danish researchers.
“It is especially important for developing the strategies to modify the gut microbiota in order to control metabolic diseases, since obesity and diabetes might be associated with different bacterial populations,” they added.
It is too soon to consider a role for probiotics and/or prebiotics in diabetes prevention or management, but the new research points to a potential use in the future.
Commenting independently on the study, Professor Glenn Gibson from the University of Reading told NutraIngredients that the link between human gut bacteriology and metabolic syndrome, and other related disorders is “intriguing and gathering much pace”.
“There seems to be a consensus that differences do exist between microbiota competition and obesity, Type 2 diabetes etc. However, the precise nature of those differences is contentious. The current study adds to this debate and has used robust molecular based methodologies to do so. What is clear is that the metabolic function of gut flora is able to impact markedly upon the host and affect health status - including satiety, effects upon calory extraction rates,” said Prof Gibson.
“The good news is that probiotic and prebiotic intervention may be used, in high risk populations, to change this for the better. In terms of metabolic syndrome the target outcome (i.e. desired flora change) is still under debate, but the tools are ready to fire at this target,” he added.
Study details
Thirty-six men with range of ages and body-mass indices (BMIs) were recruited to take part in the new study. Half the participants were diagnosed with type-2 diabetes.
Results showed significant differences in intestinal populations of various bacterial groups. In particular, a reduction in the “relative abundance” of Firmicutes was observed, as well as increases in the proportion of Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria in diabetics, compared their non-diabetics.
A positive correlation was observed for the ratios of Bacteroidetes to Firmicutes and reduced glucose tolerance, added Larsen and her co-workers.
“Assuming that diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance are linked to obesity, our results are in agreement with the recent evidence obtained for overweight persons,” they wrote.
“Furthermore, based on the assumption above, a positive correlation between ratios of Bacteroidetes to Firmicutes and BMI could be expected. However, the reverse tendency was observed, indicating that overweight and diabetes are associated with different groups of the intestinal microbiota,” they noted.
Take home
“The results of this study indicate that type-2 diabetes in humans is associated with compositional changes in intestinal microbiota,” wrote the researchers.
“The level of glucose tolerance should be considered when linking microbiota with metabolic diseases such as obesity and developing strategies to control metabolic diseases by modifying the gut microbiota,” they concluded.
An estimated 19 million people are affected by diabetes in the EU 25, equal to four per cent of the total population. This figure is projected to increase to 26 million by 2030.
In the US, there are almost 24 million people with diabetes, equal to 8 per cent of the population. The total costs are thought to be as much as $174 billion, with $116 billion being direct costs from medication, according to 2005-2007 American Diabetes Association figures.
Source: PLoS ONE
February 2010, Volume 5, Issue 2: e9085. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009085
“Gut Microbiota in Human Adults with Type 2 Diabetes Differs from Non-Diabetic Adults”
Authors: N. Larsen, F.K. Vogensen, F.W.J. van den Berg, D.S. Nielsen, A.S. Andreasen
http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/Gut-microflora-and-diabetes-Study-suggests-role-for-pro-pre-biotics
Dangerous Nanoparticles Can be Transported by Insects
David Gutierrez, NaturalNews.com February 12, 2010
(NaturalNews) Nanoparticles can adhere to the bodies of flying insects, which may then transport the potentially dangerous particles long distances, according to a new study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Nanotechnology concerns the manipulation and manufacture of particles on the scale of single atoms or molecules. So-called "nanoparticles" are so tiny that they may behave in ways completely different than the same substances on a larger scale.
"Rapid growth in nanomaterial manufacturing is raising concerns about potential adverse effects on the environment," the researchers write. "Scale is of critical importance in biological function, and we can expect a host of unique interactions between living organisms and engineered nanoparticles that have not been present in the natural environment during our evolutionary history."
Prior studies have found that a variety of nanoparticles may pose toxic and other harmful effects, moving through cellular membranes and past other bodily defenses with ease. Few studies have looked directly at how the particles affect whole organisms, however.
"Nanoparticle contact with intact organisms in the wild may lead to different biological responses than those observed in laboratory cell-based toxicity assays," the researchers write. "In nature, the scale and chemistry of nanoparticles coupled with the surface properties, texture, and behaviors of the organisms will influence biologically significant exposure and ultimate toxicity."
In the current study, researchers exposed both adult and larval fruit flies to carbon nanoparticles just over 1/5,000th the width of a human hair. While larvae were apparently unaffected by consuming food containing the particles, adult flies became incapacitated or died when the particles "adhered extensively to fly surfaces and overwhelmed natural grooming mechanisms." More notably, the researchers observed the transfer of nanoparticles between contaminated and uncontaminated flies, raising the specter that a spill from a nanoparticle manufacturing facility could easily lead to the spread of nanoparticles throughout the environment.
Currently there is no regulation of nanotechnology in the United States, and nanoparticles are already used in the manufacture of products as varied as sporting equipment, sunscreens and other cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and electronics.
http://www.naturalnews.com/028147_nanoparticles_insects.html
Margarine Consumption Linked to Lower IQ of Children
David Gutierrez, NaturalNews.com February 12, 2010
(NaturalNews) A recent study on dietary influences on IQ turned up a surprising connection: children who ate margarine regularly scored significantly lower on intelligence tests than their peers.
The study was conducted by researchers from Auckland University in New Zealand and published in the journal Intelligence.
Researchers studied the dietary intake and intelligence scores of children born in the mid-1990s.
"We found a number of dietary factors to be significantly associated with intelligence measures," the researchers said. "The association between margarine consumption and IQ scores was the most consistent and novel finding."
After adjusting for other factors that might influence IQ, including socioeconomic status, the researchers found that children who ate margarine daily scored three points lower on IQ tests by the age of three-and-a-half than children with lower margarine consumption.
By the age of seven, the average IQ scores of some margarine eaters were six points below those of their peers. This occurred only in children who had been born underweight, suggesting that disadvantaged brains might be more vulnerable to diet-induced problems.
Because the study was correlational, researchers were unable to determine what exactly caused the IQ gap between the two groups of children. They suspect, however, that the culprit may be transfats, also known as partially hydrogenated oils.
Formed by adding hydrogen atoms to unsaturated vegetable oils, transfats have a longer shelf life and are more solid at room temperature than natural vegetable oils. In the mid-1990s, margarines were made with up to 17 percent transfats. In recent years, however, scientists discovered that not only do transfats have no nutritional value, they also drastically increase the risk of heart attack and death in those who consume them.
Most margarines now contain approximately 1 percent transfats.
Sian Porter of the British Dietetic Association noted that while margarine tends to be healthier than butter, dietary consumption of both should be kept low.
http://www.naturalnews.com/028150_margarine_intelligence.html
Aspartame has been renamed and is now being marketed as a natural sweetener
Ethan Huff, NaturalNews.com February 12, 2010
(NaturalNews) In response to growing awareness about the dangers of artificial sweeteners, what does the manufacturer of one of the world's most notable artificial sweeteners do? Why, rename it and begin marketing it as natural, of course. This is precisely the strategy of Ajinomoto, maker of aspartame, which hopes to pull the wool over the eyes of the public with its rebranded version of aspartame, called "AminoSweet".
Over 25 years ago, aspartame was first introduced into the European food supply. Today, it is an everyday component of most diet beverages, sugar-free desserts, and chewing gums in countries worldwide. But the tides have been turning as the general public is waking up to the truth about artificial sweeteners like aspartame and the harm they cause to health. The latest aspartame marketing scheme is a desperate effort to indoctrinate the public into accepting the chemical sweetener as natural and safe, despite evidence to the contrary.
Aspartame was an accidental discovery by James Schlatter, a chemist who had been trying to produce an anti-ulcer pharmaceutical drug for G.D. Searle & Company back in 1965. Upon mixing aspartic acid and phenylalanine, two naturally-occurring amino acids, he discovered that the new compound had a sweet taste. The company merely changed its FDA approval application from drug to food additive and, voila, aspartame was born.
G.D. Searle & Company first patented aspartame in 1970. An internal memo released in the same year urged company executives to work on getting the FDA into the "habit of saying yes" and of encouraging a "subconscious spirit of participation" in getting the chemical approved.
G.D. Searle & Company submitted its first petition to the FDA in 1973 and fought for years to gain FDA approval, submitting its own safety studies that many believed were inadequate and deceptive. Despite numerous objections, including one from its own scientists, the company was able to convince the FDA to approve aspartame for commercial use in a few products in 1974, igniting a blaze of controversy.
In 1976, then FDA Commissioner Alexander Schmidt wrote a letter to Sen. Ted Kennedy expressing concern over the "questionable integrity of the basic safety data submitted for aspartame safety". FDA Chief Counsel Richard Merrill believed that a grand jury should investigate G.D. Searle & Company for lying about the safety of aspartame in its reports and for concealing evidence proving the chemical is unsafe for consumption.
Despite the myriad of evidence gained over the years showing that aspartame is a dangerous toxin, it has remained on the global market with the exception of a few countries that have banned it. In fact, it continued to gain approval for use in new types of food despite evidence showing that it causes neurological brain damage, cancerous tumors, and endocrine disruption, among other things.
The details of aspartame's history are lengthy, but the point remains that the carcinogen was illegitimately approved as a food additive through heavy-handed prodding by a powerful corporation with its own interests in mind. Practically all drugs and food additives are approved by the FDA not because science shows they are safe but because companies essentially lobby the FDA with monetary payoffs and complete the agency's multi-million dollar approval process.
Changing aspartame's name to something that is "appealing and memorable", in Ajinomoto's own words, may hoodwink some but hopefully most will reject this clever marketing tactic as nothing more than a desperate attempt to preserve the company's multi-billion dollar cash cow. Do not be deceived.
http://www.naturalnews.com/028151_aspartame_sweeteners.html
Gluten Intolerance Leads to Cancer, Heart Disease and Death, Research Shows
Melanie Grimes, NaturalNews.com February 12, 2010
(NaturalNews) New research shows that people with wheat allergies and gluten intolerance have a higher risk of heart disease, cancer and death. Gluten is a protein contained in many grains, including wheat, barley, rye, and oats. It is even found in more unusual grains, such as spelt and kamut. Gluten is also found in beer. Wheat or gluten intolerance plague many people and cause gastric disturbances, but research now shows chronic health conditions are triggered by gluten intolerance, gluten sensitivity, and the extreme form of wheat allergy called celiac disease.
Gluten sensitivity creates inflammation in the entire body, beginning in the gut. It is a form of autoimmune disease. Celiac disease, the chronic and most severe type of gluten intolerance, affects one in a hundred people. This is close to over three million in America alone. Less severe symptoms of gluten allergy or gluten sensitivity may affect as much as one third of the US population. Celiac disease is also called coeliac, nontropical sprue, celiac sprue, gluten intolerant enteropathy, or gluten sensitive enteropathy.
An article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reported on a study with over 30,000 patients. The data was collected from 1969 until 2008. Divided into three groups, the patients either had celiac, had intestinal inflammation but not full-blown celiac disease or had gluten sensitivity. Those individuals with full blown celiac disease had a 39% higher risk of death. The risk was 72% for those with intestinal inflammation, and 35% for those with gluten sensitivity.
Another study looked at the blood tests of ten thousand people from fifty years ago and compared them to tests on 10,000 people today. The study discovered a 400% increase in full-blown celiac disease. The results were measured by elevated antibodies in the blood, called TTG antibodies, which increase when there is a reaction to gluten.
Many people suffer from gluten intolerance and are not aware that this is the cause of their symptoms. Symptoms can include irritable bowel disease, canker sores, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, osteoporosis, anemia, cancer, autoimmune disease, MS, and neurological problems such as depression, anxiety, dementia, schizophrenia, nerve damage, migraines, epilepsy, and autism.
The first step in eliminating gluten intolerance is to avoid all foods that contain gluten and see if symptoms go away. In addition to grains, gluten can be hidden in products such as soup, salad dressings, and even vitamins, stamps, and cosmetics. Gluten intolerance tests are available at doctor's offices as well. Alternative treatments involve liver cleansing, and digestive aids, such as probiotics.
http://www.naturalnews.com/028145_gluten_intolerance_cancer.html
Frankincense - a cure for cancer?
BBC News, February 11, 2010
The gift given by the wise men to the baby Jesus probably came across the deserts from Oman. The BBC's Jeremy Howell visits the country to ask whether a commodity that was once worth its weight in gold could be reborn as a treatment for cancer.
Oman's Land of Frankincense is an 11-hour drive southwards from the capital, Muscat.
Most of the journey is through Arabia's Empty Quarter - hundreds of kilometres of flat, dun-coloured desert. Just when you are starting to think this is the only scenery you will ever see again, the Dhofar mountains appear in the distance.
On the other side are green valleys, with cows grazing in them. The Dhofar region catches the tail-end of India's summer monsoons, and they make this the most verdant place on the Arabian peninsula.
Warm winters and showery summers are the perfect conditions for the Boswellia sacra tree to produce the sap called frankincense. These trees grow wild in Dhofar. A tour guide, Mohammed Al-Shahri took me to Wadi Dawkah, a valley 20 km inland from the main city of Salalah, to see a forest of them.
"The records show that frankincense was produced here as far back as 7,000 BC," he says. He produces an army knife. He used to be a member of the Sultan's Special Forces. With a practised flick, he cuts a strip of bark from the trunk of one of the Boswellia sacra trees. Pinpricks of milky-white sap appear on the wood and, very slowly, start to ooze out.
"This is the first cut. But you don't gather this sap," he says. "It releases whatever impurities are in the wood. The farmers return after two or three weeks and make a second, and a third, cut. Then the sap comes out yellow, or bright green, or brown or even black. They take this."
Shortly afterwards, a frankincense farmer arrives in a pick-up truck. He is white-bearded, wearing a brown thobe and the traditional Omani, paisley-patterned turban.
He is 67-year-old Salem Mohammed from the Gidad family. Most of the Boswellia sacra trees grow on public land, but custom dictates that each forest is given to one of the local families to farm, and Wadi Dawkah is his turf.
Camel train
He has an old, black, iron chisel with which he gouges out clumps of dried frankincense.
"We learnt about frankincense from our forefathers and they learnt it from theirs" he says. "The practice has been passed down through the generations. We exported the frankincense, and that's how the families in Dhofar made their livings."
And what an export trade it was. Frankincense was sent by camel train to Egypt, and from there to Europe. It was shipped from the ancient port of Sumharan to Persia, India and China. Religions adopted frankincense as a burnt offering.
That is why, according to Matthew's Gospel in the Bible, the Wise Men brought it as a gift to the infant Jesus. Gold: for a king. Frankincense: for God. Myrrh: to embalm Jesus' body after death.
The Roman Empire coveted the frankincense trade. In the first century BCE, Augustus Caesar sent 10,000 troops to invade what the Romans called Arabia Felix to find the source of frankincense and to control its production. The legions, marching from Yemen, were driven back by the heat and the aridity of the desert. They never found their Eldorado.
Oman's frankincense trade went into decline three centuries ago, when Portugal fought Oman for dominance of the sea routes in the Indian and the Pacific Oceans.
Nowadays, hardly any Omani frankincense is exported. Partly, this is because bulk buyers, such as the Roman Catholic Church, buy cheaper Somalian varieties. Partly, it is because Omanis now produce so little.
"Years ago, 20 families farmed frankincense in this area," says Salem Mohammed Gidad. "But the younger generation can get well-paid jobs in the government and the oil companies, with pensions. Now, only three people still produce frankincense around here. The trade is really, really tiny!"
Cancer hope
But immunologist Mahmoud Suhail is hoping to open a new chapter in the history of frankincense.
Scientists have observed that there is some agent within frankincense which stops cancer spreading, and which induces cancerous cells to close themselves down. He is trying to find out what this is.
"Cancer starts when the DNA code within the cell's nucleus becomes corrupted," he says. "It seems frankincense has a re-set function. It can tell the cell what the right DNA code should be.
"Frankincense separates the 'brain' of the cancerous cell - the nucleus - from the 'body' - the cytoplasm, and closes down the nucleus to stop it reproducing corrupted DNA codes."
Working with frankincense could revolutionise the treatment of cancer. Currently, with chemotherapy, doctors blast the area around a tumour to kill the cancer, but that also kills healthy cells, and weakens the patient. Treatment with frankincense could eradicate the cancerous cells alone and let the others live.
The task now is to isolate the agent within frankincense which, apparently, works this wonder. Some ingredients of frankincense are allergenic, so you cannot give a patient the whole thing.
FRANKINCENSE FACTS
· Boswellia sacra grows in Oman, Yemen and Somalia
· Other Boswellia species grow in Africa and India
· The tree may have been named after John Boswell, the uncle of Samuel Johnson's biographer
· In ancient Egypt frankincense was thought to be sweat of the gods Source: The Pharmaceutical Journal
Dr Suhail (who is originally from Iraq) has teamed up with medical scientists from the University of Oklahoma for the task.
In his laboratory in Salalah, he extracts the essential oil from locally produced frankincense. Then, he separates the oil into its constituent agents, such as Boswellic acid.
"There are 17 active agents in frankincense essential oil," says Dr Suhail. "We are using a process of elimination. We have cancer sufferers - for example, a horse in South Africa - and we are giving them tiny doses of each agent until we find the one which works."
"Some scientists think Boswellic acid is the key ingredient. But I think this is wrong. Many other essential oils - like oil from sandalwood - contain Boswellic acid, but they don't have this effect on cancer cells. So we are starting afresh."
The trials will take months to conduct and whatever results come out of them will take longer still to be verified. But this is a blink of the eye in the history of frankincense.
Nine thousand years ago, Omanis gathered it and burnt it for its curative and cleansing properties. It could be a key to the medical science of tomorrow.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8505251.stm
Hong Kong dieters warned against swallowing live worms
The Hindu, February 11, 2010
(Hong Kong) Dieters in Hong Kong were Tuesday warned by government doctors against a craze for swallowing parasite worms as a means of losing weight.
The city's Department of Health has been alarmed to see websites offering products containing potentially fatal parasites as a means of weight control.
The products are thought to use Ascaris worms: giant intestinal roundworms which grow up to 40 centimetres in length in a host's intestine and lay up to 200,000 eggs a day.
A Department of Health spokesman warned that swallowing the parasites could cause abdominal pain and distention, vomiting, diarrhoea and malnutrition.
“Parasite infestation may also be fatal if serious complications such as intestinal, biliary tract or pancreatic duct obstruction arise,” the spokesman said. “The worms may even invade such organs as the lungs.
“The infestation can be treated with medication that kills the parasite. The worms may require surgical removal if there are obstructions.”
He urged people to consult doctors before dieting and said the only natural, healthy and effective means of weight loss was through dietary regulation and regular exercise.
Dieting is big business in Hong Kong where obesity levels have soared because of sedentary lifestyles, fast-food diets and long office hours in the city of 7 million.
Clinics and websites offer a bizarre variety of questionable short-cut weight loss methods including hot wraps, fat-dissolving injections and even using controlled fire to literally burn off fat.
http://beta.thehindu.com/health/diet-and-nutrition/article105088.ece
PepsiCo Net Doubles as Americas Snack Revenue Rises (Update2)
Businessweek, February 11, 2010
Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- PepsiCo Inc., the world’s largest snack maker, said fourth-quarter profit doubled, as food sales grew in the Americas.
Net income increased to $1.43 billion, or 90 cents a share, from $719 million, or 46 cents, a year earlier, Purchase, New York-based PepsiCo said today in a statement. Year-earlier profit included restructuring costs. Earnings per share matched the average of 10 analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
PepsiCo affirmed its forecast of an 11 percent to 13 percent gain in earnings per share this year, excluding some costs and foreign-currency effects. Changes in pricing last quarter helped counter little-changed sales volume at the Americas foods division and volume declines at Americas beverages. Total revenue increased 4.5 percent to $13.3 billion, in line with analysts’ estimates.
PepsiCo rose 81 cents to $61.19 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares gained 11 percent in 2009.
Latin America Foods’ net revenue rose 10 percent, leading the food gains in the Americas. The results exclude the effects of foreign currency fluctuations. The company forecast a one- time charge of about $125 million in the first quarter because of currency devaluation and hyperinflationary accounting in Venezuela.
Share repurchases together with a voluntary $600 million funding of PepsiCo’s pension plans may total about $5 billion this year, the company said.
Coca-Cola Co., the world’s largest soft-drink maker, said Feb. 9 that fourth-quarter profit gained 55 percent as volume sales grew in China and India.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-11/pepsico-profit-doubles-as-snack-food-revenue-in-americas-climbs.html
Baked Rhubarb Could Help Fight Cancer
ScienceDaily (Feb. 12, 2010) — Eating rhubarb baked in a crumble is not only tasty it may also be the best way to take advantage of its health benefits, and could lead to the development of new cancer treatments.
Researchers have found that baking British garden rhubarb for 20 minutes dramatically increases its levels of anti-cancerous chemicals. The findings from academics at Sheffield Hallam University, together with the Scottish Crop Research Institute, were published in the journal Food Chemistry.
These chemicals, called polyphenols, have been shown to selectively kill or prevent the growth of cancer cells, and could be used to develop new, less toxic, treatments for the disease, even in cases where cancers have proven resistant to other treatments.
Academics are now hoping to use the results to study the effect of rhubarb's polyphenols on leukaemia. They aim to discover the best combination of polyphenols and chemotherapy agents to kill leukaemia cells, even those previously resistant to treatment.
It is the first time the benefits of British garden rhubarb, specifically a variety grown in South Yorkshire, have been studied. Previous research has focussed on Oriental medicinal rhubarb, which has been recognised for its health benefits and used in traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years.
Dr Nikki Jordan-Mahy, from Sheffield Hallam University's Biomedical Research Centre, said: "Our research has shown that British rhubarb is a potential source of pharmacological agents that may be used to develop new anti-cancerous drugs."
"Current treatments are not effective in all cancers and resistance is a common problem. Cancer affects one in three individuals in the UK so it's very important to discover novel, less toxic, treatments, which can overcome resistance."
Food Chemistry, Volume 119, Issue 2, 15 March 2010, Pages 758-764 Gordon J. McDougall, Pat Dobson and Nikki Jordan-Mahy
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100211212117.htm
Young Patients With Chronic Illnesses Find Relief in Acupuncture
ScienceDaily (Feb. 12, 2010) — Doctors at Rush University Medical Center are offering pediatric patients diagnosed with chronic illnesses acupuncture therapy to help ease the pain and negative side effects like nausea, fatigue, and vomiting caused by chronic health conditions and intensive treatments. The confluence of Chinese and Western medicine at Rush Children's Hospital is part of a study to analyze and document how acupuncture might help in reducing pain in children and increase quality of life.
"Treating children with acupuncture is a new frontier," said Dr. Paul Kent, pediatric hematology and oncology expert, Rush Children's Hospital. "We are looking to see if there is an effective pain management therapy we can offer that does not have the serious side effects that can be caused by narcotics and other serious pain medications."
The lack of options for pain management in children has been reported as one of the most difficult aspects of providing care to pediatric patients. Research indicates that up to 70 percent of pediatric patients experience pain and those with chronic illnesses often do not have adequate relief or prevention of pain.
"Acupuncture could be a potential solution to this dilemma of controlling pain in pediatric patients," said Angela Johnson, Chinese medicine practitioner at Rush.
Acupuncture is the use of tiny, hair-thin needles which are gently inserted along various parts of the body. The therapy is based on the premise that patterns of energy flowing through the body are essential for health. This energy, called Qi, flows along certain pathways. It is believed that placing the tiny needles at points along the pathways reduce pain and improve the healing process.
The National Institute of Health (NIH) has published a statement concluding that acupuncture is effective for treating adults for nausea following chemotherapy and for pain after dental surgery. The agency also said that the therapy might be useful in treating other health issues such as addiction, migraines, headaches, menstrual cramps, abdominal pain, tennis elbow, fibromyalgia, arthritis, low-back pain, carpal tunnel syndrome and asthma. In some pediatric studies, both patients and parents have stated that acupuncture treatments were both helpful and relaxing.
Rush will be offering acupuncture therapy to pediatric patients between the ages of 5-20 years of age, who are experiencing pain. A practitioner who is licensed in acupuncture by the State of Illinois and certified by the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine will be giving the treatments. Study participants will receive eight acupuncture treatments at no charge.
"Many children with chronic or acute health issues turn to complementary or integrative approaches after all other conventional treatment options are exhausted," said Johnson. "Parents should be aware that integrative therapies like acupuncture can be helpful from the onset of disease and can have a tremendously positive influence on a child's quality of life."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100209191441.htm
Can Chocolate Lower Your Risk of Stroke?
ScienceDaily (Feb. 12, 2010) — Eating chocolate may lower your risk of having a stroke, according to an analysis of available research that was released February 11 and will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 62nd Annual Meeting in Toronto April 10 to April 17, 2010. Another study found that eating chocolate may lower the risk of death after suffering a stroke.
The analysis involved reviewing three studies on chocolate and stroke.
"More research is needed to determine whether chocolate truly lowers stroke risk, or whether healthier people are simply more likely to eat chocolate than others," said study author Sarah Sahib, BScCA, with McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Sahib worked alongside Gustavo Saposnik, MD, MSc, where the study was completed at St. Michael's Hospital and the University of Toronto.
Chocolate is rich in antioxidants called flavonoids, which may have a protective effect against stroke, but more research is needed.
The first study found that 44,489 people who ate one serving of chocolate per week were 22 percent less likely to have a stroke than people who ate no chocolate. The second study found that 1,169 people who ate 50 grams of chocolate once a week were 46 percent less likely to die following a stroke than people who did not eat chocolate.
The researchers found only one additional relevant study in their search of all the available research. That study found no link between eating chocolate and risk of stroke or death.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100211163114.htm
Increased antioxidant vitamin intake linked with lower cervical cancer risk
Life Extensions, February 10, 2010
An article published in the latest issue of Nutrition and Cancer reports an association between the intake of beta-carotene, and vitamins A, C and E and a lower risk of cervical cancer in Korean women.
Mi Kyung Kim of the Republic of Korea’s National Cancer Center and colleagues age-matched 144 women diagnosed with cervical cancer with 288 control subjects with no history of the disease. Sociodemographic information was collected upon enrollment and dietary questionnaire responses were analyzed for nutrient intake.
The researchers uncovered associations between higher intakes of vitamins A, C, and E from diet and supplements with a significantly lower risk of cervical cancer. Participants in the top 25 percent of vitamin E intake had a 47 percent lower risk of cervical cancer than those in the lowest fourth, and those in the top one-fourth of vitamins A and C intake had a 65 percent lower risk. When intake from diet alone was examined, participants whose vitamin A, beta-carotene, and vitamin C were in the top quarter of subjects experienced a 64, 52 and 64 percent lower risk than those in the lowest fourth.
“The present study is the first to explore the association between antioxidant vitamin intakes and the risk of cervical cancer in a Korean population, taking total nutrient intakes (food and supplements) into consideration,” the authors announce. In their discussion of a possible mechanism, they note that antioxidants induce cell differentiation and growth inhibition in animal and human cancer cells.
“The findings support a role for increased antioxidant vitamin intake in decreasing the risk of cervical cancer,” they conclude. “These associations need to be assessed in large prospective studies with long-term follow-up.”
http://www.lef.org/whatshot/2010_02.htm#Increased-antioxidant-vitamin-intake-linked-with-lower-cervical-cancer-risk
Bill Lohmann: Heart doctors proselytze for vegetarian diets
Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. 02-10-10
Feb. 10--Here, it seems, is a surefire business-losing proposition:
A cardiac surgeon learns firsthand how to stop and even reverse heart disease and starts proselytizing about it, thus potentially reducing the number of patients needing to have him open their chests for repairs.
I mean, who wouldn't want to avoid being sliced open?
Meet Dr. Marc R. Katz, who would be glad to see a slowdown in the number of people requiring heart bypasses and other procedures. Katz has lost 35 pounds and lowered his cholesterol by a third in the past year adhering to a seriously low-fat diet and could be a poster boy for February's American Heart Month. But he's not convinced a lot of his patients or Americans in general are motivated to follow him.
"It's hard to get people to do this," said Katz, chief medical officer of the Bon Secours Heart & Vascular Institute. "It's amazing, people will take a pill, but if you tell them they can actually do better in some ways by changing their lifestyle and their diet, they just say, 'Aw, I could never do that.'"
Katz, 54, began his personal mission after last year's Super Bowl, which he watched while eating a bowl of chili. The next day, he pushed himself away from the table of meat, cheese and fat of just about any kind. He significantly changed his diet to a vegan one -- he eats nothing that comes from anything with a face -- favoring instead bok choy and lasagna with tofu and pizzas made on pita bread with sauce and veggies.
He was inspired by the research and books of Drs. Dean Ornish, T. Colin Campbell and Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr. -- and, closer to home, by the lead of his friend Dr. David G. Hughes, a cardiologist, who heard Esselstyn speak at a conference in December 2008 and shared his conversion with Katz.
After hearing Esselstyn, a gen eral surgeon who conducted some pretty convincing studies involving a plant-based, oil-free diet and the arresting and reversal of coronary artery disease in long-term patients, Hughes went out and ate a lunch following those guidelines. Then he ate a similar dinner.
"I just sort of did it meal-by-meal for a couple of weeks, and I lost four pounds without trying to lose weight, and I felt better," said Hughes, 61, who practices primarily at Bon Secours St. Francis Medical Center. "The longer it went, the better I felt."
In little more than a year, Hughes has lost 20 pounds and is back to wearing the same pants size he wore as a college undergrad. He also cut eight minutes off his half-marathon time, so it's not like he's hurting for energy.
Cardiovascular diseases are America's No. 1 killer. Despite decades-long advancements in medicine, 400,000 Americans will die in 2010 from heart disease, according to a British study. The reason? Rising obesity rates.
"We're doing all kinds of expensive research and taking all kinds of costly medicines," said Hughes, "but what are we doing to ourselves?"
Hughes and Katz are big believers in "The China Study," written by Campbell, that points up dramatic connections between nutrition and heart disease, diabetes and cancers -- known by some as the "diseases of affluence." The study boils down to this: People who eat the most animal-based foods (generally in more affluent cultures) get the most chronic diseases, and people who eat the most plant-based foods (generally in poorer cultures) tended to avoid chronic disease.
This, of course, is a touchy subject with people who enjoy eating what they enjoy eating (and I don't absolve myself from this point of view, although I've come to eat meat only on occasion and I'm trying to clean up my diet overall; I'll let you know how it goes) -- not to mention the meat-production industry.
But here's another touchy subject: All of the heart bypasses and arterial stents in the world are nothing more than really expensive plumbing repairs that can indeed extend lives but on their own do not solve the problem.
"I've always considered coronary disease to be basically a terminal disease," Katz said. "If you had it, you could hopefully mitigate it or slow it down, but you weren't going to stop it."
Which is why Katz is jazzed about the notion of patients potentially reversing their heart disease through diet. He has applied to the American Heart Association for a grant to conduct a local study to measure the effects of diet and exercise on heart disease. Now, if he could only find what he calls the "motivational switch" to make others buy into it.
"How many things in life do you get a do-over on?" ------
http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=9301&Section=Disease
Prebiotic-soy combination may boost heart health: Study
Nutraingredients.com , 11-Feb-2010
Combining prebiotics and soy protein may lower cholesterol levels and boost heart health, effects not seen when prebiotic or soy were taken separately, says new research from Canada.
Consumption of a soy-food based diet, providing soy protein and isoflavones in combination with 10 grams per day of oligofructose-enriched inulin led to significant reductions in levels of LDL-cholesterol, according to results of a small randomised controlled crossover study published in Metabolism.
The LDL reductions were only observed when soy and prebiotics were co-ingested, an observation that suggests “the provision of fermentable substrates may be one means to increase the effectiveness of soy foods as part of a dietary strategy for cardiovascular disease risk reduction”, wrote the researchers led by David Jenkins from the University of Toronto.
The association between soy protein and blood lipid levels led the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve a cardiovascular disease (CVD) reduction claim for soybean protein in 1999.
Hypercholesterolaemia has a long association with many diseases, particularly cardiovascular disease (CVD), the cause of almost 50 per cent of deaths in Europe, and reported to cost the EU economy an estimated €169bn ($202bn) per year.
“The maintenance of soy's status as one of a few cholesterol-lowering foods recognized by the FDA, therefore, appears warranted,” they added.
The study was supported financially by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario and The Orafti Group, which provided the prebiotic (Synergy1) used in the study.
Study details
Twenty-three people with an average age if 58 and average blood LDL levels of 4.18 millimoles per litre were recruited and randomly assigned to one of three groups: One group received a soy food–containing diet, providing 30 grams per day of soy protein, and 61 milligrams per day of isoflavones plus maltodextrin (placebo); the second group received the soy food diet plus prebiotic; the final group received a low-fat dairy diet plus the prebiotic. Two weeks separated each dietary intervention and 23 people completed all three phases.
The results showed that the joint consumption of soy and prebiotic produced greater reductions in LDL-C of around 0.18 mmol/L and improved the ratio of LDL-C to HDL-cholesterol, compared with only the prebiotic phase.
HDL-cholesterol levels were also significantly increased following the soy plus prebiotic diet, compared with only prebiotic.
No significant changes were observed in gut microflora levels, however, noted Jenkins and his co-workers.
“These data support the lipid-lowering basis for the current FDA health claim for soy foods. They demonstrate how a non-significant (about 3 per cent) LDL-C reduction seen when soy was consumed alone can be converted to a significant (about 5 per cent) LDL-C reduction when soy was taken with a prebiotic,” wrote the researchers.
Implications for health claims
The FDA’s health claim for soy is currently being reconsidered following the “relatively poor performance of soy in recent studies”, said the researchers.
“We believe the present study therefore supports the value of soy as one of the few cholesterol-lowering foods, in the 5 per cent reduction range, especially when given with fermentable substrates such as would be naturally present in diets that also contained viscous fibres to lower serum cholesterol,” they added.
Source: Metabolism Clinical and Experimental
Published online ahead of press, doi: 10.1016/j.metabol.2009.12.017
“The effect on the blood lipid profile of soy foods combined with a prebiotic: a randomized controlled trial”
Authors: J.M.W. Wong, C.W.C. Kendall, R. de Souza, A. Emam, A. Marchie, E. Vidgen, C. Holmes, D.J.A. Jenkins
http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/Prebiotic-soy-combination-may-boost-heart-health-Study
Quinoa and buckwheat top nutrition tables for gluten-free
nutraingredients.com 10-Feb-2010
The polyphenol content of quinoa and buckwheat flours may enhance the nutritional profile of gluten-free formulations, and may be a better option than amaranth, says a new study.
The findings could lead to enhanced products for the blossoming gluten-free food market, worth almost $1.6bn last year, according to Packaged Facts, and experiencing a compound annual growth rate of 28 per cent over four years.
Sufferers of coeliac disease have to avoid all gluten in their diet, but diagnosis is not the only factor. Other sectors of the population, such as those who have self-diagnosed wheat or gluten intolerance or who believe gluten-free to be a healthier way of eating, are also strong drivers.
But against this backdrop of popularity, there have been concerns that some gluten-free products on the market made with rice, corn and potato flour and xanthan or guar gum to improve texture have sub-optimal levels of essential nutrients.
“Improving the nutritional quality of gluten-free products is essential, as the presently available gluten-free products in the market have been shown to be of poor nutritional quality,” wrote the researchers, led by Eimear Gallagher from the Ashtown Food Research Centre, Teagasc.
According to their results, published in Food Chemistry, bread made from quinoa and buckwheat had significantly higher nutritional content in terms of antioxidants and polyphenol than wheat bread.
“Therefore, these pseudocereal seeds represent feasible ingredients in gluten-free baking for increasing the antioxidant properties and phenolic content of gluten-free breads, and improving their overall nutritional quality,” they stated.
Study details
Gallagher and her co-workers examined the polyphenol and antioxidant content of extracts of amaranth, quinoa, and buckwheat, and compared them to wheat. They subsequently investigated how sprouting and baking affected the results.
According to their findings, buckwheat topped the rankings for phenol content, followed by quinoa, then wheat, and finally amaranth. Analysis of using chromatography showed the main pehnols were phenolic acids, catechins, flavanol, flavone and flavonol glycosides.
Baking (breadmaking) of all samples led to a reduction in total phenol content and antioxidant activity, but “all of the breads containing pseudocereals showed significantly higher antioxidant capacity when compared with the gluten-free control”, said the researchers.
Science grows
The study supports earlier findings from the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University in New York, which found that replacing standard gluten-free flours with those made from ‘alternative’ grains like oats and quinoa may improve intakes of protein, iron, calcium and fibre, according to researchers
“By adding three servings of gluten-free alternative grains, the nutrients (fiber, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, folate and iron) are improved,” wrote the researchers, led by Anne Lee, in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics.
Supply issues
In a review in the journal Trends in Food Science & Technology (2010, Vol. 21, pp 106-113) co-authored by Professor Arendt, it is noted that, despite the successful formulation of gluten-free products using these ‘pseudo-cereals’ “availability of these products in the market is still quite limited. More research is necessary to fully exploit the functionality of these seeds as gluten-free ingredients in the production of palatable products which are also nutritionally balanced,” they added.
Source: Food Chemistry
Volume 119, Issue 2, Pages 770-778
“Polyphenol composition and in vitro antioxidant activity of amaranth, quinoa buckwheat and wheat as affected by sprouting and baking”
Authros: L. Alvarez-Jubete, H. Wijngaard, E.K. Arendt, E. Gallagher
http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Quinoa-and-buckwheat-top-nutrition-tables-for-gluten-free
India quashes GM aubergine plan
Foodnavigator.com 09-Feb-2010
India has put off the commercial cultivation of a GM aubergine due to safety concerns, despite getting the go-ahead from government scientists last year.
BT Brinjal was developed by Indian seed company Mahyco, a partner of Monsanto. More resistant to natural pests than regular aubergines, it would have been the world’s first GM vegetable.
But according to the BBC, the decision not to plough ahead with cultivation was taken by environment minister Jairam Ramesh, who said more studies are needed to be sure it is safe for both humans and the environment.
The question has divided public opinion in India, which cultivates some 2000 different varieties of aubergine. Anti-GM protestors taking to the streets dressed in aubergine suits.
Dr PM Salimath, director of research at the University of Agriculture Sciences in Dharwad in Karnataka state, who led the field trials, insists there is no danger, He argues that the same gene, Cry1Ac, has been used in corn, canola and soya for the past decade.
http://www.foodnavigator.com/Legislation/India-quashes-GM-aubergine-plan
Parasites in Your Gut Actually Help Protect You From Allergies
by David Gutierrez,, NaturalNews.com February 11, 2010
(NaturalNews) Humans and gastrointestinal parasites might have co-evolved in such a way that the parasites actually help regulate to human immune system to prevent against allergies, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Nottingham.
Researchers believe that over the course of millions of years, gastrointestinal parasites have evolved an ability to suppress the human immune system as a survival mechanism. Because parasitic infestation has been so common throughout human evolutionary history, the human immune system has in turn evolved to compensate for this effect.
This means that if the parasites are removed, the immune system may actually function too strongly, resulting in maladaptive immune responses such as asthma, eczema and other allergies.
To test this hypothesis, researchers used drugs to eliminate hookworm infection in a 1,500 children between the ages of six and 17 who were living in a rural village in central Vietnam. This region was selected for its very low rates of allergies and high parasitic infestation rate. Two-thirds of all children in the area are infested with hookworm or other gastrointestinal parasites.
The researchers found that once the children were no longer infected with parasites, their rates of dust mite allergies significantly increased. This supports the hypothesis that parasites help regulate immune responses.
"The next step is to understand exactly how and when gut parasites program the human immune system in a way that protects against allergies, and for such studies, follow-up from birth will be essential," said researcher Carsten Flohr.
Researchers hope that understanding the relationship between parasites and the human immune system could lead to a better overall understanding of allergies.
"The prospects of further studies in this area are very exciting, as we could see groundbreaking treatments for asthma and other allergies developed as a result," said Elaine Vickers of Asthma UK, which funded the study.
http://www.naturalnews.com/028141_parasites_allergies.html
Human Civilization is Losing the War Against Superbugs
by David Gutierrez, NaturalNews.com February 11, 2010
(NaturalNews) The steady medical advance against viruses and bacteria that many experts were trumpeting in the early days of vaccines and antibiotics seems to have stalled, if not reversed. The ongoing emergence of new and increasingly drug-resistant diseases is now causing many to question whether the war against microbes is one that can ever be won.
"It is a war of attrition," said David Livermore of the United Kingdom's Health Protection Agency. "There have been points where we have been advancing, and points when we have had to beat a retreat. If we were having this conversation 20 years ago, for instance, we would be celebrating the vaccine for bacterial meningitis."
The news these days contains less of celebration and more of alarm. Even with H1N1 swine flu now appearing less dangerous than originally thought and infection rates of the superbug Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) falling in the United Kingdom, widespread antibiotic use and a globalized world have made the processes of pathogen evolution and spread faster than ever before.
The threat from the highly lethal H5N1 bird flu - a mere mutation away from a highly contagious form - has not abated, and other infectious threats thought long vanquished continue to rear their heads. China, for example, is currently battling an outbreak of pneumonic plague caused by Yersina pestis, the same bacterium that wiped out a third of Europe's population as the Black Plague. Meanwhile, longer lifespans have encouraged the emergence of suberbugs such as Clostridium difficile, which preferentially targets elderly patients who have already been treated with antibiotics.
"Sensible prescribing is part of the answer, but we also need new antibiotics," Livermore said. "It's not one of the most attractive areas for pharmaceutical companies as people don't take them for very long, unlike treatments for heart disease or cancer."
"We will always be at war with microbes," said Primrose Freestone of the University of Leicester. "Their genetic promiscuity is impressive."
http://www.naturalnews.com/028137_superbugs_antibiotics.html
Brazilian Farmers Declare War on Monsanto
GM Watch, Feb 9, 2010
EXTRACT: When it arrives at the warehouses the grain is tested and identified as GMO or non-GMO. The problem occurs when, in many cases, conventional oleaginous seeds are contaminated and the growers end up having to pay royalties [to Monsanto] without having acquired any GMO seeds in the first place.
War against Monsanto
Marcondes Maciel and Tania Rauber
Diario de Cuiaba [Brazil], 29 January 2010
http://www.diariodecuiaba.com.br
• In Cuiaba, Aprosoja is preparing a court action against Monsanto, and in Sinop, steps are being taken to follow suit
[English translation courtesy Cert ID Brazil and GM-free Ireland]
Growers in [the Brazilian State of] Mato Grosso have declared war against Monsanto, the multinational corporate owner of the GMO soya technology known as RR (Roundup Ready). After exhausting all attempts to engage the company in dialogue, the growers are now considering legal action. In Cuiaba, Aprosoja (the Association of Soya and Corn Producers Association of the State of Mato Grosso) is preparing a lawsuit. In Sinop (500km North of Cuiaba) the growers are looking to sue the company as well.
Aprosoya wants to determine if the [patent] royalty fee paid by the soya growers is actualy due. "We want to know what sort of patent is generating this type of fee, because depending on the type, the company does not have the right to charge us anything at all. We also need to know the patent's validity period," explains the President of Aprosoja, Mr. Glauber Silveira.
In Mato Grosso, growers increased the cultivated area of GMOs from 2.6 million hectares (2008/09 crop) to approximately 3 million hectares in this year's crop. The expansion of the area will increase Monsanto's profit from R$39 million (*15.2m) to R$45 million (*15.6m), an increase of 15.38%. According to calculations made by the producers, the fee Monanto charged for the use of its patent amounts to R$15.00 (*5.85) per hectare.
Aprosoja intends to issue a notification demanding that Monsanto provide proper justification regarding the royalty fees. "We have been informed that Monsanto is inducing the seed producers of Mato Grosso to provide only GMO seeds", denounces Mr. Silveira. In Mato Grosso the GMO plantation now occupies half of the entire cultivated area of soya, comprising about 6 million hectares.
SINOP - Following several meetings without any positive results, the Sinop Rural Union is also planning to sue Monsanto. Approximately 50% of the crop fields in the Northern Region of Mato Grosso are currently cultivated with GMO varieties. These differ from the conventional because of their resistance to herbicides containing glyphosate, used in desiccation before and after planting to eliminate all kinds of weeds.
This kind of resistance enables the growers to apply the herbicide on the soya only, thus reducing their production costs and the number of herbicide applications. But the sectors' questions concern the royalty fees imposed by Monsanto for their use of the seed.
The president of the Union, Mr. Antônio Galvan, explained that two collections are made: The first one being when the seed is bought (by bank order). "In January they charged R$0.45 per kilo of seed, which is equivalent to 30% of the price of each sack.
The main questioning lies on the second collection which is made when the product is leaving the fields. When it arrives at the warehouses the grain is tested and identified as GMO or non-GMO. The problem occurs when, in many cases, conventional oleaginous seeds are contaminated and the growers end up having to pay royalties without having acquired any GMO seeds in the first place.
This contamination occurs in the fields by means of pollination or at the time of planting, as well as at the time of stocking the harvest. "Cross pollination may take place if there's a field of GMO soya next to a Non-GMO one at flowering time. Contamination can also take place if the machines are not well cleaned at harvest time, and some GMO beans remain. In this way, they will be considered GMO when they are tested".
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_20196.cfm
Two High School Students Find Epidemic of Mislabeled Foods
by Aaron Turpen, NaturalNews.com February 11, 2010
(NaturalNews) Two high school students, Brenda Tan and Matt Cost at the Trinity School of Manhattan, gathered 151 DNA samples from foods and objects in their and neighbor's homes as part of a science project. Of the samples, a large percentage were found to not be what their packaging said they were - they were mislabeled and, some think, intentionally so.
The project was part of a test of a technology that Rockefeller University and the American Museum of Natural History have developed. The technology is a new databank of DNA "bar codes" pioneered by Canadian scientists at the University of Guelph in Ontario. What the results from those tests showed is alarming.
Of 66 fish samples, 11 of them were mislabeled as the wrong type of fish. Most of those fish were the prepackaged varieties. Expensive sheep`s milk cheese and pricey goat`s milk were both found to have been from cows instead. Venison dog treats were based on beef, not venison. Sturgeon caviar was found to really be from Mississippi paddlefish.
The DNA samples were gathered from their homes and neighbors` homes and were purchased as products from local supermarkets and food stores. They found that of the hundreds of samples taken, most had detectable DNA samples available (even after having been frozen).
The usable samples were then sent to Rockefeller University, who pulled the DNA sequences and sent electronic queries on the samples through the AMNH Consortium for the Bar Code of Life database. The reports were then returned to the high schoolers, who compiled the results against the original source. They indicate that the substitutions are purposeful, with the swapped items being very much like those they are replacing, except cheaper.
The work by these two students follows that done in 2008 by two others, who found that 25% of the fish they purchased and tested was mislabeled. The FDA has adopted the database for use in fish identification and the USDA is working towards using the Code of Life to identify fruit fly species and lumber from endangered trees. Results from the hard work of the Trinity students will be published in the January 2010 issue of BioScience.
Bob Hanner, a biologist at Guelph who led the work on this new type of DNA bar coding and cataloging, said he works closely with the FDA and USDA and that as the technology gains ground, he hopes to see it used to combat mislabeling, smuggling, and more.
As a final cap to their great work, the two high school students have been told that they may have identified a new species of cockroach as well. This, of course, made national news headlines while the larger story about the mislabeling was ignored.
Food mislabeling is nothing new, of course, as NaturalNews has noted in the past.
http://www.naturalnews.com/028134_food_labels_DNA.html
Fight Tumor Re-Seeding with Natural Remedies
by Luella May, NaturalNews.com February 11, 2010
(NaturalNews) Researchers stated in the Journal Cell on Thursday, December 24, 2009, that tumors, besides metastasizing throughout the body, can actually re-seed themselves. They stated that this may be one explanation as to why a tumor reappears after being removed. The premise given is that circulating cancer cells can go back to their place of origin, recolonizing in the original tumor site. This process is called self-seeding. The repopulation of the tumor site with these aggressive cells enables the tumor to grow at a more rapid rate. The research team's focus in controlling these cells is our very immune system. A failed immune system plays a critical part in the re-seeding process. Tumor recurrence is the consequence of a failed immune system. Concentrating on the immune system is an integral part of preventing, not only metastasis, but also future recolonization of the primary tumor site. In doing so, all parts of a person`s lifestyle must be addressed which includes diet, exercise, providing the body with the needed vitamins and minerals, and taking the proper anti-cancer and immune strengthening supplements.
There are many reasons that an immune system becomes compromised. As people age, their immune system becomes weakened. Other contributing factors are:
Poor Nutrition
Lack of Exercise
Sleep Deprivation
Emotional Trauma
Medications
Toxins
The first area to take into consideration is one`s diet. A healthy diet should consist of raw fruits and vegetables, nuts, roots and tubers. However, because of their sugar content, the emphasis should be on vegetables, while limiting fruits. Additionally, juicing has powerful health benefits that have been known to reverse disease.
Other effective natural healing alternatives that work on both killing cancer and strengthening the immune system are:
Oleander Extract: Although extremely toxic in its raw state, when properly made into an extract, it is extremely effective when addressing cancer and other health conditions. Not only does it contain cancer fighting properties, but it also has been found to have six times the immune stimulating activity compared to many of the immune stimulators known to man.
Curcumin is another highly proven cancer fighter and preventative.
Black Cumin Oil (Nigella Sativa) has been highly revered throughout history. Both the Bible and the Prophet Mohammed make reference to its healing qualities. Although it has been used in healing many conditions, it is highly effective when it comes to cancer. It is one of the few cancer fighters that have had success with regard to pancreatic cancer.
Cayenne Pepper Tincture, another effective anti-cancer agent, has been especially successful when dealing with prostate cancer.
Vitamin B-17 (Laetrile), although difficult to find, is another potent cancer fighter. The best source is apricot pits.
It is important to ensure that the body is provided with adequate amounts of iodine, selenium, magnesium, potassium, zinc, vitamin C, Calcium, and Vitamin D. Studies are proving the value of vitamin D not only in addressing cancer, but also in all types of health conditions.
Last but not least, our emotional state has everything to do with illness. Conflict, forgiveness, trauma, and grief should be resolved.
Nature`s medicine cabinet is full of options when addressing cancer. It is important to reiterate that when dealing with this disease; one must take his/her entire lifestyle into consideration. We cannot expect healing if we hold on to unhealthy habits in any area of our lives.
http://www.NaturalNews.com/028138_cancer_tumors_natural_remedies.html
Infection-Fighting Antibodies Made in Plants as Effective as Costlier Conventional Version
ScienceDaily (Feb. 11, 2010) — The first head-to-head comparison of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies produced from plants versus the same antibodies produced from mammalian cells has shown that plant-produced antibodies can fight infection equally well.
Scientists from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Arizona State University conducted the comparison as a test of the potential for treating disease in developing nations with the significantly less expensive plant-based production technique. The results are reported online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Antibodies, which are part of the immune system, bind to foreign invaders to disable them and label them for destruction. Because of their finely tuned targeting capabilities, scientists have developed ways to mass-produce a particular antibody. They have used such monoclonal antibodies in a variety of contexts.
For example, a monoclonal antibody against West Nile virus, originally developed at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is in clinical trials by a company that licensed the antibody from Washington University.
Monoclonal antibodies are also in development for a variety of other diseases, but the expense of manufacturing such antibodies makes it economically infeasible to use them to treat disease in the developing world. So researchers at Washington University and Arizona State University decided to see if they could adapt the West Nile virus monoclonal antibody for production in a much less expensive factory: genetically modified plants.
Plants normally do not make antibodies, but in 1989 scientists developed a technique to genetically alter a tobacco plant so it would produce monoclonal antibodies. Proponents of the new technique noted that it had the potential to make antibodies much more affordable. In addition, plants do not carry viruses that can infect humans.
Researchers had to adjust the West Nile virus antibody to adapt it for production in Nicotiana benthamiana, a relative of tobacco.
"We altered the genetic coding of the antibody slightly, not changing its parts but using alternate forms of the coding for those parts to maximize the plant's ability to produce it," says co-senior author Qiang Chen, Ph.D., of Arizona State. "We also stabilized the antibody, preventing copies of it from being degraded inside the plant cells. Together, those two techniques increased our average antibody yield by 60 percent above any previous efforts."
Scientists then tested regular and plant-produced monoclonal antibodies in mice both as preventatives against West Nile infection and as treatments for animals already infected with the virus. They found the antibodies from plants were equally effective at preventing infection and fighting existing infections.
Researchers at Macrogenics Inc., the company that licensed the antibody from Washington University, analyzed the plant-produced antibody's ability to bind to West Nile virus particles. They found that one important receptor was binding appropriately, but the strength of a second receptor's bond was lowered.
"This results from the fact that plants combine their proteins with slightly different sugars than mammals," says co-senior author Michael Diamond, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine, of molecular microbiology and of pathology and immunology at Washington University. "We're already working on genetically modifying the plants to humanize the sugars the plants combine with the antibody's proteins."
Diamond stresses that the study was not designed to make a case for using plant-produced antibodies to treat West Nile virus infections, which continue to occur throughout the United States.
"That's a decision for manufacturers and governmental regulators to make," he says. "Our hope is that once this technology is proven and widely available, it will be taken up by innovative, technology-savvy nations like India and Brazil where the need for more affordable solutions for endemic diseases is much greater."
Funding from the National Institutes of Health and the Midwest Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research supported this research.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100208185349.htm
Eczema in Early Childhood May Influence Mental Health Later
ScienceDaily (Feb. 10, 2010) — Eczema in early childhood may influence behavior and mental health later in life. This is a key finding of a prospective birth cohort study to which scientists of Helmholtz Zentrum München contributed. In cooperation with colleagues of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU), Technische Universität München (TUM) and Marien-Hospital in Wesel, North Rhine-Westphalia this study followed 5,991 children who were born between 1995 and 1998.
The study has been published in the current issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
Researchers, led by Assistant Professor Jochen Schmitt of Dresden University Hospital, Dr. Christian Apfelbacher (Heidelberg University Hospital) and Dr. Joachim Heinrich of the Institute of Epidemiology of Helmholtz Zentrum München, discovered that children who suffered from eczema during the first two years of life were more likely to demonstrate psychological abnormalities, in particular emotional problems, at age ten years than children of the same age who had not suffered from the disease. "This indicates that eczema can precede and lead to behavioral and psychological problems in children," Dr. Heinrich explained.
Children whose eczema persisted beyond the first two years of life were more likely to have mental health problems than children who had eczema only in infancy.
Within the framework of the GINIplus study, scientists tracked the family history of the children, collected data on their physical health and emotional condition at age 10 years and gathered information on their daily lives. Questions were asked about the course of disease -- also in early childhood -- with special focus on diseases such as eczema, asthma, allergic rhinitis, stress tolerance and behavioral abnormalities.
Eczema is a non-infectious skin disease characterized by scaling itchy skin rashes. It is the most common skin disease in children and adolescents. Children who suffer from eczema are known to have an increased predisposition for hay fever and allergic asthma. Eczema symptoms are accompanied by a broad spectrum of secondary symptoms, such as sleep disorders.
"We suspect that it is mainly the secondary symptoms that have a long-term effect on the emotions of the affected children," Joachim Heinrich said. The authors of the study therefore recommend documenting the occurrence of eczema as potential risk factor for later psychological problems in the children's medical records, even if the actual primary disease abates and disappears during the course of childhood.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100210101516.htm
Climate 'Tipping Points' May Arrive Without Warning, Says Top Forecaster
ScienceDaily (Feb. 10, 2010) — A new University of California, Davis, study by a top ecological forecaster says it is harder than experts thought to predict when sudden shifts in Earth's natural systems will occur -- a worrisome finding for scientists trying to identify the tipping points that could push climate change into an irreparable global disaster.
"Many scientists are looking for the warning signs that herald sudden changes in natural systems, in hopes of forestalling those changes, or improving our preparations for them," said UC Davis theoretical ecologist Alan Hastings. "Our new study found, unfortunately, that regime shifts with potentially large consequences can happen without warning — systems can ‘tip’ precipitously.
"This means that some effects of global climate change on ecosystems can be seen only once the effects are dramatic. By that point returning the system to a desirable state will be difficult, if not impossible."
The current study focuses on models from ecology, but its findings may be applicable to other complex systems, especially ones involving human dynamics such as harvesting of fish stocks or financial markets.
Hastings, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Environmental Science and Policy, is one of the world's top experts in using mathematical models (sets of equations) to understand natural systems. His current studies range from researching the dynamics of salmon and cod populations to modeling plant and animal species' response to global climate change.
In 2006, Hastings received the Robert H. MacArthur Award, the highest honor given by the Ecological Society of America.
Hastings' collaborator and co-author on the new study, Derin Wysham, was previously a postdoctoral scholar at UC Davis and is now a research scientist in the Department of Computational and Systems Biology at the John Innes Center in Norwich, England.
Scientists widely agree that global climate change is already causing major environmental effects, such as changes in the frequency and intensity of precipitation, droughts, heat waves and wildfires; rising sea level; water shortages in arid regions; new and larger pest outbreaks afflicting crops and forests; and expanding ranges for tropical pathogens that cause human illness.
And they fear that worse is in store. As U.S. presidential science adviser John Holdren (not an author of the new UC Davis study) recently told a congressional committee: "Climate scientists worry about 'tipping points' ... thresholds beyond which a small additional increase in average temperature or some associated climate variable results in major changes to the affected system."
Among the tipping points Holdren listed were: the complete disappearance of Arctic sea ice in summer, leading to drastic changes in ocean circulation and climate patterns across the whole Northern Hemisphere; acceleration of ice loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, driving rates of sea-level increase to 6 feet or more per century; and ocean acidification from carbon dioxide absorption, causing massive disruption in ocean food webs.
The new UC Davis study was supported by the Advancing Theory in Biology program at the U.S. National Science Foundation.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100209191445.htm
Thirty-Eight Percent of World's Surface in Danger of Desertification
ScienceDaily (Feb. 10, 2010) — Researchers have measured the degradation of the planet's soil using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), a scientific methodology that analyses the environmental impact of human activities, and which now for the first time includes indicators on desertification. The results show that 38 percent of the world is made up of arid regions at risk of desertification.
"Despite improvements in the LCA, it has a methodological weakness, which is a lack of environmental impact categories to measure the effect of human activities such as cultivation or grazing on the soil," Montserrat Núñez, lead author and a researcher at the Institute of Agro Food Research and Technology (IRTA), said.
The research, published in the latest issue of the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, is the first study in the world to include the impact of desertification in the LCA, based on classifying 15 natural areas or "eco-regions" according to their degree of aridity. By simultaneously using the LCA and a Geographic Information System (GIS), the researchers have shown that eight of these 15 areas can be classified as at risk of desertification, representing 38% of the land surface of the world.
The eight natural areas at risk are coastal areas, the Prairies, the Mediterranean region, the savannah, the temperate Steppes, the temperate deserts, tropical and subtropical Steppes, and the tropical and subtropical deserts.
"The greatest risk of desertification (7.6 out of 10 on a scale produced using various desertification indicators) is in the subtropical desert regions -- North Africa, the countries of the Middle East, Australia, South West China and the western edge of South America," the scientist explains.
These are followed by areas such as the Mediterranean and the tropical and subtropical Steppes, both of which score 6.3 out of 10 on the scale of desertification risk. Coastal areas and the Prairies are at a lower risk of desertification, with 4 out of 10.
"Unsustainable land use may lead to soil becoming degraded. If this happens in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid regions, such as Spain, this degradation is known as desertification, and the effects can be irreversible, because they lead to areas becoming totally unproductive," says Núñez, who worked on the study with scientists from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the National Technological University in Mendoza, Argentina.
In order to establish their methodology, the researchers used four biophysical variables that are the main causes of desertification -- aridity, erosion, over-exploitation of aquifers and risk of fire. "This makes it possible to satisfactorily evaluate the impact of desertification of a particular human activity, and compare the impact of the same activity in a different place, or the impact of different activities carried out in the same place," explains the researcher. The methodology proposed by the scientists is currently being put to use in various case studies in Spain and Argentina.
Completing the study of desertification
The new research shows that using the LCA in combination with GIS makes it easier to adapt the LCA to study the impacts of land use, not only in the case of desertification, but also in terms of loss of biodiversity, erosion, or even water consumption.
This new methodology will provide the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) with an environmental impact category that will make it possible to measure "the desertification potential caused by any human activity," adds Núñez.
The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a scientific methodology that objectively analyses the environmental impacts of an activity or process, taking in the full cycle, from extraction of raw materials right through to management of the waste generated at the end of this material's useful life.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100209183133.htm
Enzyme may protect from inflammation
United Press International 02-09-10
U.S. researchers say an enzyme could protect obese people against diabetes and heart disease. Scientists at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease in San Francisco found overeating can cause cells to fill up with dietary fats and begin to die. When macrophages -- "eater" white blood cells -- come in to clear away the dead cells, exposure to large amounts of dietary, especially saturated, fats can cause an inflammatory response where macrophages secrete cytokines, proteins that encourage insulin resistance and heart disease. The researchers tested the idea altering the inflammatory response by enhancing macrophage storage capacity for dietary fats by looking at a special strain of mice that makes large amounts of an enzyme that turns dietary fats into triglycerides. On a high-fat diet, the special mice became obese, but their macrophages did not become inflammatory and the mice were protected from the systemic inflammation, insulin resistance and fatty liver found in the control mice. "We found in experimental mice that a single enzyme, DGAT1, in macrophages is involved in many of the problems associated with obesity," study leader Dr. Suneil Koliwad said in a statement. "This is exciting because humans have this enzyme as well, providing the potential for a therapeutic target to examine."
http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=9294&Section=Nutrition
Brain works best with proper exercise, diet, sleep: Special Section: Education / Getting Smarter
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 02-09-10
Feb. 9--Depending on what technology reigned supreme at the time, the human brain has been compared to a telegraph, a TV and a computer.
But it's also a three-pound, flesh-and-blood human organ, and with 100 billion neurons, a very demanding one at that. Even though it comprises only 2 percent of the body's weight, it consumes 20 percent of its oxygen and a majority of its blood sugar.
It makes sense that a biochemical factory that complicated will work best with proper care and feeding, even in young and healthy college students.
The brain starts out with some built-in advantages. Not only is it encased in a sturdy skull, but a set of cells known as the blood-brain barrier keeps many bacteria and other harmful substances out of the cerebrospinal fluid that bathes the brain and spinal cord.
The brain also gets first dibs on a lot of vitamins and nutrients, says Simon Evans, a University of Michigan neuroscientist who wrote the book "BrainFit for Life: A User's Guide to Life-Long Brain Health and Fitness."
Even so, college students still need to pay attention to their diets, exercise and sleep patterns, all of which play key roles in basic brain health, Dr. Evans says.
In fact, taking care of your brain when you are in your late teens and early 20s will pay lifelong benefits, he and other experts say.
The human brain continues to form new internal connections throughout youth, adolescence and early adulthood, they say. While the peak demand for brain-boosting nutrition is from 4 to 8 years of age, the process continues into the college years, says Robert Clark, a brain researcher and chief of pediatric critical care medicine at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC.
"There is an idea out there that if you produce a lot of new neurons when you're young, that once they are there, they are there for good," adds Henriette Van Praag, a brain researcher with the National Institute on Aging.
Sleep is one commodity that college students often shortchange, and that not only can affect their thinking ability, but their memories, their growth and even their weight, Dr. Evans says.
Research has shown that sleep is when the day's memories are consolidated in the brain. It is also when the body secretes most of its growth hormone, which is why children who don't get enough sleep tend to be shorter than average, he says. Sleep is also a time when the body uses energy from fat cells, which is one reason why too little sleep is linked with obesity, Dr. Evans says.
Exercise doesn't just build muscles, burn fat and expand heart and lung capacity. It also makes the brain smarter.
That's one result of studies done by Dr. Van Praag and others on mice that use treadmills and perform learning tasks.
After training mice to press their noses against icons on a computer screen to get a sugar pellet, her team split them into two groups -- one that was sedentary and the other that had plenty of treadmill workouts.
The mice that exercised were not only better at pressing the right icons and learning to negotiate a maze, but were quicker to adapt when researchers changed the icon that yielded the reward, she says.
When the scientists examined the mice brains later, they found that the ones that exercised had grown new neurons in a key part of the hippocampus, a brain area involved in memory and learning, and that the number of fresh neurons correlated nicely with how well the mice performed on the tests.
While she is cautious about extrapolating her results to humans, Dr. Van Praag says that the exercise-induced brain growth in mice seems to be connected to substances that flow into the brain in the bloodstream, particularly one called insulin-like growth factor.
On the nutritional front, college students' bodies are pretty good at supplying energy to the brain. "Anybody who can take an Extra Value Meal at McDonald's and convert it into something useful has a pretty sophisticated digestive system," says Dr. Clark.
That doesn't mean a balanced diet is unimportant, though, the experts say.
Like the rest of the body, the brain benefits when a person's diet has a proper ratio of Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids. Americans tend to consume too much Omega-6, which is prevalent in vegetable oils and can constrict blood vessels and cause inflammation, Dr. Evans says, while Omega-3, found most famously in fish oil, is anti-inflammatory.
Dr. Clark has found in his own research that when the brain is starved of nutrients, it begins to eat itself to survive, a process known as autophagy.
The same thing happens during starvation in the rest of the body, he says, but the effects are not as dire. " If you're sick and don't eat, you will lose muscle mass," he says, "but after a couple of weeks you'll be back to your old self. But if that happens to the brain it can be kind of catastrophic," and can kill off neurons.
That kind of brain stress doesn't happen easily with college students, he notes, but it is possible, especially with students who drink too much.
"It used to be thought that alcohol kills brain cells because of its chemical makeup," Dr. Clark says, "but it's possible it has more to do with swapping alcohol for other nutrition."
"To maximize your academic potential," he adds, "you want to have a balanced diet. In general, it's pretty hard to be malnourished in America, but if you add another stress -- you're anorexic or most of your calories are coming through alcohol or you get sick -- that's when the brain is most vulnerable to nutritional shortcomings."
Exercise, diet and sleep are not just about preserving neurons -- they also boost the health of the rest of the brain, the cells known as white matter.
They get that name from the fatty myelin sheaths that protect neurons connecting one brain region to another. Just like the insulation on an electrical cable, myelin can speed up brain transmissions a hundredfold, says R. Douglas Fields, a senior investigator at the National Institutes of Health and author of a new book, "The Other Brain: From Dementia to Schizophrenia, How New Discoveries About the Brain Are Revolutionizing Medicine and Science."
White matter in the brain doesn't just help link together brain regions, he says. Emerging research shows it also helps the brain fight off infections, regulates the chemicals that the neurons use to function and can even stimulate the growth of new neurons and blood vessels in the brain.
One study showing the importance of white matter was the analysis of autopsy slices from Albert Einstein's brain, he says. Much to the scientists' surprise, the famous physicist did not have any more gray matter neurons than other people, but his brain did have a much denser network of white matter.
There is one other thing to remember, says Michigan's Dr. Evans. Whether it's gray matter or white matter, all those cells are active all the time.
"The brain is an electrochemical organ," he says, "and it's always on. Even when you're sleeping it's recharging hormones that were depleted during the day. The brain is at constant, almost full tilt."
http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=9296&Section=Nutrition
Potassium supplements benefit heart, bone
Life Extensions, February 08, 2010
An article published ahead of print on January 18, 2010 in the American Heart Association journalHypertension reports the benefit of potassium supplements on risk factors for bone loss andcardiovascular disease.
In a double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial, 42 men and women with mildly elevated blood pressure received potassium chloride for 4 weeks, potassium bicarbonate for 4 weeks, or a placebo for 4 weeks in random order over a 12 week period. Blood pressure was measured and blood and urine samples were analyzed at the beginning of the study and at the end of each 4 week period. Endothelial function, a key factor in cardiovascular health, was assessed at each time point by brachial artery flow-mediated dilatation.
Both types of potassium elevated urinary potassium and were associated with significant improvements in endothelial function and left ventricular diastolic function, as well as with decreased left ventricular mass compared to the placebo. While potassium chloride supplementation was associated with a small improvement in 24 hour and daytime systolic blood pressure and a reduction in 24-hour urinary albumin (which, when elevated, is a risk factor for the development and progression of renal and cardiovascular disease), potassium bicarbonate reduced 24-hour urinary calcium, calcium to creatinine ratio, and plasma C-terminal cross-linking telopeptide of type 1 collagen, which are markers of bone turnover.
“The potassium intake achieved in our study is very similar to the adequate intake for adults recommended by the US Institute of Medicine (120 millimoles per day),” the authors write. “The current potassium intake in most populations is approximately 60 to 70 millimoles per day. Increasing potassium intake could play an important role in the prevention of cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis in the long term.”
http://www.lef.org/whatshot/2010_02.htm#Potassium-supplements-benefit-heart-bone
Study links sugary soft drinks to pancreatic cancer
Last Updated: 2010-02-08 12:25:19 -0400 (Reuters Health)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People who drink two or more sweetened soft drinks a week have a much higher risk of pancreatic cancer, an unusual but deadly cancer, researchers reported on Monday.
People who drank mostly fruit juice instead of sodas did not have the same risk, the study of 60,000 people in Singapore found.
Sugar may be to blame but people who drink sweetened sodas regularly often have other poor health habits, said Mark Pereira of the University of Minnesota, who led the study.
"The high levels of sugar in soft drinks may be increasing the level of insulin in the body, which we think contributes to pancreatic cancer cell growth," Pereira said in a statement.
Insulin, which helps the body metabolize sugar, is made in the pancreas.
Writing in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, Pereira and colleagues said they followed 60,524 men and women in the Singapore Chinese Health Study for 14 years.
Over that time, 140 of the volunteers developed pancreatic cancer. Those who drank two or more soft drinks a week had an 87 percent higher risk of being among those who got pancreatic cancer.
Pereira said he believed the findings would apply elsewhere.
"Singapore is a wealthy country with excellent healthcare. Favorite pastimes are eating and shopping, so the findings should apply to other western countries," he said.
But Susan Mayne of the Yale Cancer Center at Yale University in Connecticut was cautious.
"Although this study found a risk, the finding was based on a relatively small number of cases and it remains unclear whether it is a causal association or not," said Mayne, who serves on the board of the journal, which is published by the American Association for Cancer Research.
"Soft drink consumption in Singapore was associated with several other adverse health behaviors such as smoking and red meat intake, which we can't accurately control for."
Other studies have linked pancreatic cancer to red meat, especially burned or charred meat.
Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest forms of cancer, with 230,000 cases globally. In the United States, 37,680 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in a year and 34,290 die of it.
The American Cancer Society says the five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer patients is about 5 percent.
Some researchers believe high sugar intake may fuel some forms of cancer, although the evidence has been contradictory. Tumor cells use more glucose than other cells.
One 12-ounce (355 ml) can of non-diet soda contains about 130 calories, almost all of them from sugar.
SOURCE: Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, February 2010.
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2010/02/08/eline/links/20100208elin010.html
Weed killer atrazine may be linked to birth defect
Last Updated: 2010-02-08 14:58:33 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Living near farms that use the weed killer atrazine may up the risk of a rare birth defect, according to a study presented this past Friday at the annual meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine in Chicago.
About 1 in 5000 babies born in the U.S. each year suffers from gastroschisis, in which part of the intestines bulges through a separation in the belly, according to the March of Dimes. The rate of gastroschisis has risen 2- to 4-fold over the last three decades, according to Dr. Sarah Waller, of the University of Washington, Seattle, and colleagues.
Waller's team studied the potential link between the weed killer and the birth defect because, as they note in their conference abstract, "during the last 10 years, the highest percentage per population of gastroschisis was in Yakima County, in the eastern part of the state, where agriculture is the primary industry."
Overall, Washington state has about double the national average of gastroschisis cases - an average of 43 cases per year, Waller told Reuters Health.
The researchers looked at more than 4,400 birth certificates from 1987-2006 - including more than 800 cases of gastroschisis -- and U.S. Geological Survey databases of agricultural spraying between 2001 and 2006.
Using Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards to define high chemical exposure levels in surface water, they found that the closer a mother lived to a site of high surface water contamination by atrazine, the more likely she was to deliver an infant with gastroschisis.
The birth defect occurred more often among infants who lived less than 25 km (about 15 miles) from one of these sites, and it occurred more often among babies conceived between March and May, when agricultural spraying is common.
A mother's tobacco use, and being the first born, were also linked to a higher rate of the birth defect. Two other commonly used farm chemicals - nitrates and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) - were not linked to gastroschisis.
However, Steven Goldsmith, a spokesperson for atrazine manufacturer Syngenta, told Reuters Health that the study "is not credible for a number of reasons."
According to a Syngenta press statement, studies designed like Waller's "make broad generalizations about environmental conditions and often overlook" factors that might affect the rate of a given condition.
The study, said Syngenta, "provides no direct or credible link between atrazine and the kind of birth defect, gastroschisis, which it examined."
"Through thousands of studies, atrazine has been found again and again to not cause any variety of health effects, including those in this Washington study," Goldsmith said. "Use of atrazine in Washington state is the second lowest amount in the country, and in eastern Washington, so little is used that it barely appears in surface water."
But Dr. Waller's group is not the first to report a link between gastroschisis-like birth defects and surface water atrazine levels. In 2007, Indiana researchers reported in the Journal of Pediatric Surgery that in their state, where rates of such birth defects are also very high, atrazine levels were significantly linked with the rate of gastroschisis and other defects. That study was done using data from the Centers for Disease Control and from the Indiana State Department of Health.
Another study, published last year in Acta Paediatrica, found similar results for the general rate of birth defects in the U.S. population. Atrazine, that study found, upped the risk of nine birth defects in babies born to mothers whose last menstrual period was from April to July -- that is, when surface water levels of the pesticide were highest.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has also reported that high levels of the chemical have been shown to cause birth defects in animals.
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2010/02/08/eline/links/20100208elin023.html
Being religious may not make you healthier after all
Last Updated: 2010-02-08 15:44:20 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -- A number of studies over the past two decades have shown that religious people tend to be healthier. But a new study suggests that when it comes to heart disease and clogged arteries, attending religious services or having spiritual experiences may not protect against heart attacks and strokes.
This study suggests "there's not a lot of extra burden or extra protection afforded by this particular aspect of people's lives," said Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones, of the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, who led the study, published in the journal Circulation.
In their review of data from nearly 5,500 people who were part of another study, Lloyd-Jones and his colleagues -- one of whom, Matthew Feinstein, is a Northwestern medical student who suggested the research -- expected to see less risk for heart disease among those with more "religiosity."
The authors defined religiosity as participation in religious activities, prayer or meditation, and spirituality, regardless of denomination. They did not report the religious faiths of study participants.
Over the course of 4 years, those in the study had 152 events related to heart disease or clogged arteries, including 9 deaths, 42 heart attacks, and 24 strokes. That rate of such events -- less than one percent per year -- was lower than in the general population, which the team expected because they excluded people who were already diagnosed with heart disease and related conditions.
However, neither the rate of heart disease events, nor the number of certain risk factors -- such as high cholesterol, diabetes, and high blood pressure -- differed among those who were more or less religious or spiritual. The only exceptions: Those who went to religious services, otherwise prayed or meditated, or were highly spiritual were more likely to be obese, and less likely to smoke.
Given that many religions discourage smoking tobacco, the smoking finding was not difficult to explain, Lloyd-Jones said, and is consistent with earlier studies.
The reasons for the obesity finding, which is similar to some previous studies but the opposite of others, are less clear. "We're not sure whether it is that religious people are more likely to gain weight through activities they pursue, or maybe heavier people seek out religion as a result of stigmatization," Lloyd-Jones said.
Dr. Harold G. Koenig, a professor of psychiatry and medicine at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, said the obesity finding was not surprising, given that congregations and families often "fellowship" over meals.
Koenig, who has studied the potential connection between health and religion, was not involved in Lloyd-Jones' work. He said the research is well-done, but it has a lot of limitations that make the meaning of the results unclear. For example, he said the low rate of heart attacks and other events could be a weakness of the study, because at small numbers, the likelihood of an effect is more difficult to tease out.
Koenig also noted that half of the people studied were either African American or Hispanic -- groups that, on average, have poorer access to health care than do whites and Asian Americans, who made up the rest of the study sample.
African Americans, on average, are also some of the most religious people in the world, Koenig said. "When you've got a population with this big a difference, struggling, and under stress, religion would have to overcome an enormous number of risk factors to have a significant effect."
Lloyd-Jones agreed that the study is "not the final word. But it's very interesting."
Heart disease "is very complex," Lloyd-Jones said. "It does not arise from a single source. Each of us brings our own mix of genes and environment."
SOURCE: Circulation, online January 25, 2010.
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2010/02/08/eline/links/20100208elin014.html
Flavonols may slash stroke risk in women: Study
Nutraingredients.com, 09-Feb-2010
Increased intakes of flavonol-rich foods may reduce a woman’s risk of stroke by 20 per cent, according to a new meta-analysis involving over 110,000 people.
Despite reporting a potential risk reducing effect of compounds from tea, onions, apples, and broccoli the results should be “interpreted with caution”, report the Dutch researchers in the Journal of Nutrition.
“We showed for the first time, to our knowledge, that flavonol intake was inversely associated with stroke incidence,” wrote the researchers, led by Dr Peter Hollman, an associate professor of Nutrition and health in the Division of Human Nutrition of Wageningen University.
“We conclude that evidence is accumulating that flavonol intake is inversely related to different cardiovascular disease outcomes,” they added.
Strokes occur when blood clots or an artery bursts in the brain and interrupts the blood supply to a part of the brain. It is the leading cause of disability and the third leading cause of death in Europe and the US. According to the Stroke Alliance for E
The flavonols family tree
Flavonols make up a sub-group of flavonoids, which can be split into a number of sub-classes, including anthocyanins found in berries, flavonols from a variety of fruit and vegetables, flavones from parsley and thyme, for example, flavanones from citrus, isoflavones from soy, mono- and poly-meric flavonols like the catechins in tea, and proanthocyanidins from berries, wine and chocolate.
According to an editorial in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (July 2008, Vol. 88, pp. 12-13), Hollman, along with Johanna Geleijnse also from Wageningen University, stated that the contribution of flavonones to a person's antioxidant capacity was significant.
"More than 6000 different flavonoids in plants have been described, and their total intake could amount to 1 g/d, whereas combined intakes of beta-carotene, vitamin C, and vitamin E from food most often are less than 100 mg/d," they said in the AJCN.
Study details
Hollman and his co-workers conducted a meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies using data from individuals free of CVD or stroke at the start of their respective studies.
Data was available for 111,067 people and follow-up ranged from six to 28 years. Overall, 2,155 non-fatal and fatal strokes were documented, and the researchers noted that a high intake of flavonols, predominantly from tea in the Dutch population and from tea, onions, apples, and broccoli in US studies, was associated with a 20 per cent reduction in stroke risk.
The differences between flavonol intakes between the populations are important, said the researchers, since this has an effect on the levels of the compounds in the blood and tissue. “The bioavailability of flavonols in onions is much better than that of tea and apples,” said Hollman and his co-workers. “As a consequence, plasma and tissue concentrations of flavonols depend also on the type of dietary flavonol source.
“In the etiology of stroke, these plasma and tissue concentrations are relevant. Flavonol bioavailability determines the relation between flavonols consumed and plasma and tissue levels. Flavonol bioavailability of a food is dependent on the type of flavonol glycoside in that food,” they added.
Despite this association, the researchers noted that the results should be interpreted with caution since only a small number of studies were available for the meta-analysis, they detected some publication bias.
The area of flavonoids will be considered in more detail at the upcomingNutraIngredients Antioxidants 2010 Conference. For more information and to register, please click here. http://www.ni-antioxidants.com/page/home.html
Source: Journal of Nutrition
Published online ahead of print, doi: 10.3945/jn.109.116632
“Dietary Flavonol Intake May Lower Stroke Risk in Men and Women”
Authors: P.C. H. Hollman, A. Geelen, D. Kromhout
http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/Flavonols-may-slash-stroke-risk-in-women-Study
Bruce Ames: Vitamin insufficiency boosting age-related diseases
Nutraingredients.com 09-Feb-2010
It is literally all about living for today. By understanding that nature favours survival today over tomorrow, a theory that vitamin inadequacy is behind the rise in chronic diseases “makes sense… and it is almost certainly going to be right,” says world-renowned scientist Bruce Ames.
In an exclusive interview with Stephen Daniells, Professor Bruce Ames from the University of California, Berkeley explains why his “triage theory” could have enormous implications for human health.
For many, Professor Ames needs no introduction. In the 1970s, he invented the Ames Test, a simple and inexpensive assay to check the mutagenicity of compounds. Since then he has dedicated his research to understanding the biochemistry of ageing, with a focus on mitochondria, the power plants of our cells, as well as how micronutrients may prevent disease, malnutrition, and obesity.
So, when the native New Yorker with over 450 scientific publications tells you histriage theory is “the most important thing I have ever worked on”, you sit up and listen.
Evolutionary mechanisms
Triage – from the French word trier meaning to sort, separate, or select – works on the battlefield by military doctors prioritising treatments depending on the probable survival of the wounded.
Prof Ames’ theory works in much the same way: By appreciating that natural selection favours short-term survival over the long-term, Prof Ames’ hypothesised that our short-term survival is achieved by prioritising the allocation of scarce micronutrients. In other words, to stop us falling over from a lack of iron in the heart, for example, iron is pulled from non-essential sources.
The triage theory is a way of “measuring the insidious damage going on over time”, he said.
The theory was first proposed in 2006 (PNAS, Vol. 103, Pages 17589-94) to explain why age-related diseases like heart disease, cancer, and dementia may be unintended consequences of mechanisms developed during evolution to protect against episodic vitamin/mineral shortages.
“If this hypothesis is correct, micronutrient deficiencies that trigger the triage response would accelerate cancer, aging, and neural decay but would leave critical metabolic functions, such as ATP production, intact,” explained Prof Ames in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
However, since it was first published Prof Ames concedes that the wider nutrition community has not embraced the theory.
“A new idea is always hard to get through,” he said. The resistance has come from some of the “old timers”, said the octogenarian scientist, who think that such a theory would “encourage people to take more vitamins”.
Despite claims that the theory may have important implications for determining the optimum intake of all vitamins and minerals, as well as major implications for preventive medicine, financial funding for triage research has been difficult to obtain, said Prof Ames.
Scientific support
While the finances may be the lacking, scientific support is not. Working with the“very good” Joyce McCann, PhD, Prof Ames recently applied his theory tovitamin K. Writing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Vol. 90, pp. 889-907), they reported that five of the 16 known vitamin K-dependent proteins are required for coagulation had critical functions, meaning that animals genetically manipulated to have inactive forms did not survive.
On the other hand, another five proteins were found to be less critical, and the animals survived through weaning. However, a lack of these less critical vitamin K-dependent proteins, inadequate intakes of vitamin K1 from the diet, or vitamin K deficiency were all associated with age-related conditions, including weaker bones and hardening of the arteries, which increased the risk of cardiovascular disease. An increase in the incidence of spontaneous cancer was also observed.
“The triage theory supplies a unifying framework explaining why a crop of diseases associated with aging is emerging for so many micronutrients,” wrote McCann and Ames in the AJCN.
“It is our hope that this analysis will stimulate further efforts to redefine micronutrient adequacy on the basis of long-term effects,” they added.
Triage theory has cleared every hurdle it has come up against, but that doesn’t surprise Prof Ames.
“My triage theory makes sense,” he said. “And it is almost certainly going to be right.”
Professor Ames is also a senior scientist at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI).
http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/Bruce-Ames-Vitamin-insufficiency-boosting-age-related-diseases
Tea science stacks up for weight management, but concerns continue for extracts
Nutraingredients.com, 09-Feb-2010
Leaf through the scientific literature and the benefits of tea, green and black, for weight managements garner much support, but more research is needed before the beverage and its extracts have “greatpublic health importance”, says a new review.
On the other hand, researchers from Pennsylvania State University note that high-dose extracts may pose safety concerns, according to their timely assessment of the science to date in the Journal of Nutrition.
With the World Health Organization estimating that by 2015, there will be more than 1.5 billion overweight consumers, incurring health costs beyond $117 billion per year in the US alone, the opportunities for a scientifically-substantiatedweight management food product are impressive.
The market for food, beverage and supplement weight management products is already valued at $3.64bn (2009 figures) in the US, according to Euromonitor. In Western Europe, the market was worth $1.3bn in 2009.
Green tea has been studied extensively for its potential in the weight management category, with the compound epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) highlighted as a key component.
Three mechanisms have been proposed: EGCG could increase energy metabolism and fatty acid oxidation; inhibit fat cell development (apidogenesis); and/or reduce lipid absorption and increase fat excretion.
It has also been reported that caffeine must also be present as, for EGCG to aid weight loss, a stimulated nervous system is needed.
However, Dr Lambert said the underlying mechanism seems to be reduced absorption of dietary fat, although green tea may also stimulate energy expenditure. “The polyphenols seem to be the active components, but the interaction between tea poylphenols and caffeine has not been well-studied,” he said.
Dr Josh Lambert, assistant professor in the Department of Food Science at Penn State told NutraIngredients.com that laboratory studies and small-scale human intervention studies “indicate that consumption of tea might promote weight loss, help maintain body weight following weight loss, and prevent the development of some diseases associated with obesity such as diabetes and fatty liver disease”.
“The effective doses seem to be 3 to 10 cups of green tea per day,” he added.
Green or black?
The health benefits of tea have been linked to the polyphenol content of the tea. Green tea contains between 30 and 40 per cent of water-extractable polyphenols, while black tea (green tea that has been oxidised by fermentation) contains between 3 and 10 per cent.
The four primary polyphenols found in fresh tealeaves are epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), epigallocatechin, epicatechin gallate, and epicatechin.
“The majority of studies have been conducted using green tea, whereas a more limited number of have been conducted on black and Oolong teas,” wrote Lambert and Kimberly Grove. “Given the high prevalence of black tea consumption (80 per cent of worldwide tea consumption), further studies on the anti-obesity effects of this beverage could be of great public health importance.”
Unanswered questions and cause for concern
The reviewers raise concerns over green tea extracts, noting that high doses taken in the form of a supplement may cause toxicity. “These toxicities have not been widely observed in controlled human studies, but the case-reports and animal data suggest the need for further investigation and would indicate the need for caution in dose selection,” they said.
For this reason, the reviewers noted questions remain unanswered regarding the therapeutic index when the tea compounds are consumed via the diet or taken as supplements, either as a pill or capsule. “Only with such a complete understanding can the potential benefits of dietary components with anti-obesity effects, including tea, be realized,” wrote Lambert and Grove.
Source: Journal of Nutrition
Published online ahead of print, doi: 10.3945/jn.109.115972
“Laboratory, Epidemiological, and Human Intervention Studies Show That Tea (Camellia sinensis) May Be Useful in the Prevention of Obesity”
Authors: K.A. Grove, J.D. Lambert
http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/Tea-science-stacks-up-for-weight-management-but-concerns-continue-for-extracts
Polyphenols and Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Contribute to Building New Brain Cells
bAnthony Gucciardi, NaturalNews.com February 9, 2010
(NaturalNews) A diet containing high levels of polyphenols and polyunsaturated fatty acids has been found not only to aid in building new brain cells, but also to prevent deterioration of brain cells already in existence. The study comes from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB), in which mice were fed a diet rich in polyphenols and polyunsaturated fatty acids over a period of forty days.
The results of the study highlight how a diet rich in polyphenols and polyunsatured fatty acids can actually prevent neural death, and strengthen neural networks. This information is particularly useful to those suffering from diseases such as Alzheimer's. Since Alzheimer's is a neurodegenerative disease, a diet high in polyphenols and polyunsaturated fatty acids may be extremely beneficial. The regenerative properties of such a diet could act as a natural aid in the fight against cellular degeneration.
The olfactory bulb and the hippocampus are the two areas of the brain in which neurogenesis occur. The study found that the mice that were given a diet high in polyphenols and polyunsaturated fats had a much higher rate of cell creation in these areas than the mice that were not. According to the study, these findings show that such a diet could indeed delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease. It is possible that the diet could even determine the severity of Alzheimer's.
To ensure you are getting enough polyphenols and polyunsaturated fatty acids in your diet, try adding a sufficient amount of fruits and vegetables to your dietary regiment. Another popular choice is the supplementation of DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), a polyunsaturated fatty acid that is in many essential fatty acid supplements. DHA is typically in fish oil supplements, which usually contain other beneficial ingredients such as EFA (eicosapentaenoic acid), another omega-3 fatty acid. Thanks to the demand for such great natural supplements, purified fish oil can now be purchased for a reasonable price.
The findings of this study help establish the effectiveness of natural health alternatives in addition to a properly constructed diet. Those suffering from neurodegenerative diseases now have other options when it comes to treating, or possibly halting, their conditions. In addition to a healthier lifestyle, a diet rich in polyphenols and polyunsaturated fats is a step in the right direction when it comes to reaching your health goals.
http://www.naturalnews.com/028122_polyphenols_brain_cells.html
Exercise 'can cut gallstone risk'
Doing lots of exercise drastically cuts the risk of developing painful gallstones, UK researchers have found.
BBC Health, Februrary 8, 2010
Gallstones are common but only 30% of cases have symptoms and complications.
A University of East Anglia study of 25,000 men and women found those who were the most active had a 70% reduced risk of those complaints.
The team, writing in the European Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, said one reason might be reduced cholesterol levels in the bile.
They said exercise also raised levels of "good" cholesterol and help improves movement through the gut, all of which could contribute to the lowered risk.
“ If everyone was to achieve the impossible and do the same amount of exercise as those in the most active category, gallstones could be reduced by 70% ”
Dr Paul Banim, study leader
Those taking part in the study were split into four groups depending on how much exercise they did and the researchers found that those who did moderate amounts of exercise also had a lower risk of painful symptoms from gallstones than those who were the most inactive.
They worked out that if everyone increased the amount of exercise they did by one category 17% of gallstones that need medical treatment could be prevented.
Using the same data the researchers had previously discovered that drinking a moderate amount of alcohol is protective against gallstones.
Consuming two units a day cuts the chance of developing gallstones by a third, the earlier study showed.
Cholesterol
Gallstones form in the gallbladder from bile and are generally made up of hardened cholesterol.
It is thought that around one in three women and one in six men get gallstones at some point in their life but they are more common in older adults.
ACTIVITY LEVELS
Inactive - sedentary job, no exercise
Moderately inactive - sedentary job plus 30 min exercise daily or standing job but no exercise
Moderately active - sedentary job plus 1h exercise daily, standing job plus 30 min exercise or physical job
Active - Sedentary job plus more than 1h exercise daily, standing job plus more than 30 min exercise, or physical job with some exercise
Other factors which increase the chances of them forming include pregnancy, obesity, rapid weight loss and some medications.
Many people who have gallstones may never know they have them but for some they cause severe pain, inflammation and infection and jaundice.
And almost 50,000 people have to have their gallbladders removed every year in the UK.
Study leader Dr Paul Banim, a clinical lecturer at the University of East Anglia and a specialist registrar in gastroenterology said: "It is difficult to prove a link between lifestyle and disease but we weren't surprised to see these results.
"If everyone was to achieve the impossible and do the same amount of exercise as those in the most active category, gallstones could be reduced by 70%."
Dr Charlie Murray, secretary of the British Society of Gastroenterology, said the study seemed to show a direct protective effect of higher levels of exercise.
"The study does not however tell us how much exercise is effective in prevention of gallstones as this would require specific recording of exercise activity, nor the mechanism by which exercise is protective.
"It does however demonstrate that as with the prevention of many disease processes, exercise improves your chances of staying healthy."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/8500827.stm
Stop selling unlicensed natural health remedies: pharmacy regulators
Tom Blackwell, National Post (Canada)
Makers of natural-health products say they are bracing for widespread layoffs and millions of dollars in losses after Canada's pharmacy regulators issued a surprise directive recently urging druggists to stop selling unlicensed natural remedies.
The order affects thousands of herbal treatments, multi-vitamins and other products, most of them waiting for approval from Health Canada under a backlogged, five-year-old program to regulate natural-health goods.
The National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities (NAPRA) says pharmacists cannot be assured the products are safe until they are granted a government licence, and should not sell them in those circumstances. "Pharmacists are obliged to hold the health and safety of the public or patient as their first and foremost consideration," said the association's recently issued position statement.
Representatives of the natural health industry, however, have reacted angrily to the directive issued last month, predicting it will have little impact on patient safety, while triggering an economic "crisis" for their members.
"We are talking about job loss, we are talking about a lot of income loss, we are talking about product stuck in warehouses that cannot be sold," Jean-Yves Dionne, a spokesman for the Canadian Health Food Association, said in an interview.
A statement issued by the association calls the directive self-serving and contrary to federal government policy.
"It has taken a sledge hammer to a finishing nail," the group said. "It will create confusion for consumers. It is the wrong thing to do."
NAPRA is comprised of representatives of the provincial colleges of pharmacy that regulate the profession. It is now up to the individual provinces to implement the statement. The Ontario and Quebec colleges have already done so, with Ontario pressing pharmacists to not buy or order any more of the affected products, and its neighbour pushing for druggists to also remove unlicensed product already on their shelves, Mr. Dionne said.
Pharmacies, as surprised by the directive as anyone, are caught in the middle, said Jeff Poston of the Canadian Pharmacists Association.
"One of the questions that everybody is asking in the pharmacy world is, ‘Why now?' As far as people can determine, nothing has significantly changed."
A spokesman for NAPRA was not available for comment.
The controversy revolves around Health Canada's natural-health products regime, launched in 2004 to vet treatments that had been virtually unregulated before, in a new system some critics said was still too lax. As it ploughed through tens of thousands of applications for licences, the department said manufacturers could continue selling their products, so long as they had at least applied for approval.
The department has issued about 18,000 natural-health licences, while at least 10,000 products are still waiting for certification, industry representatives said. The whole process was supposed to be done by this January.
The natural-food association argues that it makes no sense for the pharmacy regulators to try to block sales of products awaiting licences, when Health Canada itself has said they can be sold pending an approval decision.
The industry is worth an estimated $1.5-billion to $2-billion a year, but many producers are small operations with sales of $1-million to $2-million annually and could be decimated by the directive, Mr. Dionne said. He cited a call he got last week from a manufacturer in Nova Scotia who sells two products -- a homeopathic remedy for diabetes-related pain and a vitamin-based pill -- that are waiting for approval and could be forced off the shelves.
"They are really panicking out there," he said.
Some manufacturers could sell their products in health-food stores instead, but others rely exclusively on pharmacies, said Mr. Dionne.
Gerry Harrington of Consumer Health Products Canada, another industry group that represents natural-health producers, said his members strongly support the regulations. NAPRA may be targeting others, though, who are trying to evade any government oversight, he said.
"There is a sub-set of companies out there who have no intention of complying with the regulations, who have taken advantage of the interim approach to essentially ignore the regulations," Mr. Harrington said. "Some companies have chosen ... to lobby politically for an essentially unregulated or minimally regulated industry."
Meanwhile, Mr. Poston said pharmacists are pressing for the regulators to lessen the disruption by phasing in the policy.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2534645
Scientists May Have Uncovered Why Antidepressants Cause Suicidal Behavior
Kim Evans, NaturalNews.com February 9, 2010
(NaturalNews) For years, antidepressant drugs have been connected with an increased suicide risk and aggressive behavior - and researchers may have just unknowingly uncovered the reason. A new study has just found that antidepressants are actually decreasing the amount of serotonin in many patients' brains, instead of increasing it as they are meant to. Serotonin is a feel good brain chemical that's thought to be lacking in depression patients, and depression drugs are meant to function by increasing serotonin levels. However, according to Columbia University's Dr. Rene Hen who led the study, in about half of the population "the more antidepressants try to increase serotonin production, the less serotonin (these people) actually produce." So, for half of the population, these drugs would actually be making the condition worse.
This is a conundrum for the makers of antidepressants and the doctors prescribing them; the effects of lowered serotonin levels aren't pretty, particularly on people with already low levels. According to researchers, "lower serotonin function and impulsive/aggressive traits are associated with suicidal acts, including completed suicide." Autopsies of suicide victims have also found lowered levels of serotonin in the frontal cortex region of the brain, compared to those who died of other causes.
After years of antidepressants being associated with increased suicide risks and aggressive behavior, we may finally know why. Now, it'd be interesting to learn if the drugs were having this "opposite effect" on all of people who have killed themselves and others while on the drugs. Perhaps, they were having this "opposite effect" on Eric Harris before he was inspired to shoot his classmates at Columbine. It's likely that a lot of people with missing loved ones would like these answers too.
Aside from speaking loudly about the dangers of antidepressants - the most widely prescribed drugs in the nation - this should tell you something else pretty clearly too. Doctors and drug companies who call themselves authorities on health often have no idea what their drugs are doing to the people who take them.
You'd think at some point during the years of "gold standard" clinical trails the fact that these drugs were having the exact opposite effect as intended on half of the people taking them would have come out. This really points to some pretty glaring deficiencies in the gold standard and all those connected with the process. It should also be a wake up call to anyone taking any pharmaceutical drug that you're simply a guinea pig of the chemical-driven drug companies - no matter what drug you're taking.
In 2008, 164 million prescriptions were written for antidepressant drugs.
http://www.naturalnews.com/028125_antidepressants_suicidal_behavior.html
When Hispanics Immigrate to the U.S., Their Cancer Rates Begin to Soar
David Gutierrez, NaturalNews.com February 9, 2010
(NaturalNews) Cancer rates among Hispanics rise following migration to the United States, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Miami.
"This study is [reminiscent] of studies from the late 1960s that looked at immigrants from China and Japan to the United States," said Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society. "They raise risk of cancer by immigrating and raise rates for second generation Americans even more so."
The researchers used data from the Florida cancer registry, International Agency for Research on Cancer, and 2000 U.S. census to compare the rates of various cancers among Hispanics of different national origins both in the United States and in their home countries, as well as rates among non-Hispanics in the United States, between 1999 and 2001. They found that cancer rates among Hispanics living in the United States are approximately 40 percent higher than rates in Latin America, although the specifics vary by national origin and cancer type. For example, rates of colorectal cancer practically double among Puerto Ricans moving to the mainland, while roughly tripling among Mexican and Cuban migrants.
Mexican immigrants had the lowest cancer rates overall, although rates of cancers associated with minorities, such as cervical, stomach and liver cancer, were high. "New Latinos," which includes Hispanics from Central or South America, the Dominican Republic or Spain, also had high rates of "minority" cancers, as well as high rates of thyroid cancer and low rates of lung cancer.
The researchers attributed the rise in cancer rates among immigrants to the adoption of unhealthy lifestyle patterns prevalent in the United States, particularly dietary changes including a higher consumption of red meat. Lower levels of physical activity and higher tobacco and alcohol consumption are also likely culprits.
"For Hispanic populations, there are beneficial lifestyles associated with their origin that probably should be kept," said lead author Paulo Pinheiro. "There are lifestyles that may be more prevalent in the United States that probably should be avoided."
http://www.naturalnews.com/028121_Hispanics_cancer.html
Chemicals Pass Through Breast Milk to Cause Testicular Cancer
David Gutierrez, NaturalNews.com February 9, 2010
(NaturalNews) Higher exposure to toxic chemicals may explain the difference in testicular cancer rates between Denmark and Finland, researchers from the University Department of Growth and Reproduction have found in a study on breast milk.
"Our findings reinforce the view that environmental exposure to [endocrine-disrupting chemicals] may explain some of the temporal and between-country differences in incidence of male reproductive disorders," said lead researcher Niels Skakkebaek.
Rates of testicular cancer, genital abnormalities, low semen quality, and other male reproductive disorders are four times higher in Denmark than in nearby Finland. These conditions have previously been linked to exposure to industrial chemicals that disrupt the hormonal (endocrine) system.
Endocrine disruptors have also been linked to birth defects, neurological problems, and increased rates of cancer and heart disease. The most dangerous chemicals are known as persistent organic pollutants, because they resist environmental degradation and accumulate in the environment.
Most of these chemicals bind to animal fat. As a consequence, animal-based foods tend to contain higher concentrations. So does human breast milk.
In the current study, researchers tested the breast milk of 68 women in Denmark and Finland for 121 different chemicals. They found significantly higher levels of pesticides, dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in the Danish breast milk.
The higher rates of testicular cancer and other reproductive disorders in Denmark may not be explained directly by contamination via breast milk. Breast milk contamination is thought to be a reliable marker of prenatal chemical exposure, which is likely to pose an even greater risk.
Skakkebaek stressed that women should not take the study as a reason to continue breast feeding, which has been shown to have "many beneficial effects for the child."
In addition to animal foods, people may be exposed to endocrine disruptors from pesticides, plastics, resins used to line food containers, and other chemicals used in manufacturing.
http://www.naturalnews.com/028124_brst_milk_testicular_cancer.html
After horrible deaths caused by medical radiation mistakes are uncovered, medical group issues (sort of) an apology
S. L. Baker, NaturalNews.com February 9, 2010
(NaturalNews) In late January, the New York Times published a startling and groundbreaking series of reports by investigative reporter Walt Bogdanich who has uncovered case after case of people who suffered devastating consequences -- including horrendously painful, torture-like deaths -- because of medical mistakes related to radiation treatment. In response to these articles, the American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) just issued a statement saying the group and its members "deeply regret that these events have occurred, and we continue to work hard to reduce the likelihood of similar events in the future."
Nowhere in the statement does the AAPM acknowledge specifically what events they are talking about -- and they do not even mention the almost incomprehensible human suffering connected to these unnamed "events". Instead, the AAPM is clearly most interested in pacifying the public so they won't be worried about the dangers associated with medical radiation.
As the statement puts it, the AAPM "seeks to reassure the public on the safety of radiation therapy, which is safely and effectively used to treat hundreds of thousands of people with cancer and other diseases every year in the United States. Medical physicists in hospitals and clinics across the United States are board-certified professionals who play a key role in assuring quality during these treatments."
That reassurance is likely to mean little to the friends and relatives of people killed by medical radiation. No doubt, these patients were assured before their treatment began that their radiation was state-of-the-art western medicine, delivered by highly trained medical professionals.
Horrifying deaths caused by "medical" radiation
For example, Bogdanich reported on the heartbreaking tale of Scott Jerome-Parks who was literally irradiated to death. While he was being treated for tongue cancer, staff in a New York City hospital didn't notice a computer error was directing a linear accelerator to zap Jerome-Parks' brain stem and neck with off-target beams of high-dose radiation on three consecutive days.
He was left deaf, almost blind, burned, and unable to swallow. His teeth fell out among the ulcers lacing his mouth and throat. He died, in excruciating pain, weeks after his radiation "treatment" at the age of 43.
The very day a warning was issued to other hospitals to be more careful with radiation, Bogdanich pointed out in his report, at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn a 32-year-old woman with breast cancer was subjected to a huge radiation overdose -- three times the prescribed amount. And it didn't stop there. This intense irradiation of her body went on for 27 days until it burned a hideous, open hole into her chest. The young mother of two young children suffered horrendous pain and then died a month after Jerome-Parks.
Unfortunately, anyone who is assured by the AAPM's public relations statement about the intrinsic safety of medical radiation is simply not well informed. One worrisome concern is the fact Americans are being exposed to cancer-causing radiation in huge numbers -- the average lifetime dose of diagnostic radiation Americans receive has gone up 600 percent in the last three decades (http://www.naturalnews.com/025767_c...). In addition, when safety rules are overlooked or the incredibly complex and high powered 21st century radiation devices have a glitch, the consequences clearly can be disastrous.
And while the AAPM may want patients to think mistakes involving medical radiation are so rare as to be nothing to worry about, the fact is more and more of these tragedies have been reported over the past few years. For example, NaturalNews has previously reported on the death of a teenager who received a massive overdose of radiation (http://www.naturalnews.com/020824_c...) and how patients receiving CT brain scans at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles unknowingly received large overdoses of radiation over a course of 18 months
http://www.naturalnews.com/028127_radiation_therapy_medical_mistakes.html
Mediterranean Diet May Lower Risk of Brain Damage That Causes Thinking Problems
ScienceDaily (Feb. 9, 2010) — A Mediterranean diet may help people avoid the small areas of brain damage that can lead to problems with thinking and memory, according to a study that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 62nd Annual Meeting in Toronto April 10 to April 17, 2010.
The study found that people who ate a Mediterranean-like diet were less likely to have brain infarcts, or small areas of dead tissue linked to thinking problems.
The Mediterranean diet includes high intake of vegetables, legumes, fruits, cereals, fish and monounsaturated fatty acids such as olive oil; low intake of saturated fatty acids, dairy products, meat and poultry; and mild to moderate amounts of alcohol.
For the study, researchers assessed the diets of 712 people in New York and divided them into three groups based on how closely they were following the Mediterranean diet. Then they conducted MRI brain scans of the people an average of six years later. A total of 238 people had at least one area of brain damage.
Those who were most closely following a Mediterranean-like diet were 36 percent less likely to have areas of brain damage than those who were least following the diet. Those moderately following the diet were 21 percent less likely to have brain damage than the lowest group.
"The relationship between this type of brain damage and the Mediterranean diet was comparable with that of high blood pressure," said study author Nikolaos Scarmeas, MD, MSc, of Columbia University Medical Center in New York and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. "In this study, not eating a Mediterranean-like diet had about the same effect on the brain as having high blood pressure."
Previous research by Scarmeas and his colleagues showed that a Mediterranean-like diet may be associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer's disease and may lengthen survival in people with Alzheimer's disease. According to the present study, these associations may be partially explained by fewer brain infarcts.
The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100208185158.htm
Blueberries Counteract Intestinal Diseases
ScienceDaily (Feb. 9, 2010) — It is already known that blueberries are rich in antioxidants and vitamins. New research from the Lund University Faculty of Engineering in Sweden shows that blueberry fibre are important and can alleviate and protect against intestinal inflammations, such as ulcerative colitis. The protective effect is even better if the blueberries are eaten together with probiotics.
The project originated as an attempt to see whether various types of dietary fibre and health-promoting bacteria, so-called probiotic bacteria such as lactobacillus and bifidobacteria, can help alleviate and prevent the risk of ulcerative colitis and colorectal cancer.
"But new knowledge of this field is also of interest to those who don't believe they run the risk of developing any intestinal diseases. In recent years the research world has been realizing that our health is governed to a great extent by what happens in our large intestine," explain Camilla Bränning, a PhD in Applied Nutrition and Åsa Håkansson, a doctoral candidate in Food Hygiene at the Division of Applied Nutrition and Food Chemistry.
The researchers tested various types of diets of blueberry husks, rye bran and oat bran with or without a mixture of probiotic bacteria. The results showed that the protective effect of blueberries was reinforced if they were eaten together with probiotics.
"The probiotics proved to have a protective effect on the liver, an organ that is often negatively impacted by intestinal inflammations," explains Åsa Håkansson.
Blueberries are rich in polyphenols, which have an antimicrobial and antioxidative effect. The combination of blueberries and probiotics reduced inflammation-inducing bacteria in the intestine at the same time as the number of health-promoting lactobacilla increased.
Åsa Håkansson and Camilla Bränning also noted that if blueberries are eaten together with probiotics, the content of butyric acid and propionic acid increased in the blood, two substances that are formed when fibre are broken down and that have previously been known to be important energy sources for intestinal cells. In recent years they have also been shown to favourably impact the immune defence. It seems as if the absorption of these components is facilitated by the presence of probiotics.
"What surprised us was that such a large share of the butyric acid not only was taken up by the intestinal cells but was also transported onward to the blood. Previously it was thought that the intestinal cells used all of the butyric acid, but this is not at all the case," says Camilla Bränning, who recently defended her dissertation on the subject.
"A further explanation for the extremely positive effect of blueberries may be that the blueberry fibre are not degraded to such a high degree in the large intestine. This means that inflammation-inducing substances do not come into contact with the mucous lining of the intestine but are embedded in the fibre instead. Then these substances are transported out of body together with the faeces," explains Camilla Bränning.
The researchers also found that rye bran was broken down in the large intestine, in the same place that ulcerative colitis and large-intestine cancer often occur, and that the rye bran provided a rich supply of butyric acid and propionic acid. On the other hand, the fibre in oat bran were degraded earlier in the large intestine. The most striking result, however, was that blueberries themselves had such a favourable effect compared with both rye bran and oat bran.
Some 15-20 percent of all Swedes suffer from stomach pains, diarrhoea, or constipation, complaints resulting from intestinal disorders and more undefined intestinal problems. The disease ulcerative colitis is one of the inflammatory intestinal diseases included under the general name IBD, inflammatory bowel diseases. It can lead to colorectal cancer and afflicts about 1,000 Swedes per year.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100208145055.htm
Plant Derivative Could Help Refine Cancer Treatment
ScienceDaily (Feb. 9, 2010) — Medical College of Georgia researchers are seeking to refine cancer treatment with an anti-inflammatory plant derivative long used in Chinese medicine.
Celastrol, derived from trees and shrubs called celastracaea, has been used for centuries in China to treat symptoms such as fever, chills, joint pain and inflammation. The MCG researchers think it may also play a role in cancer treatment by inactivating a protein required for cancer growth.
That protein, P23, is one of many proteins helping the heat shock protein 90. Scientists are just beginning to realize the potential of controlling inflammation-related diseases, including cancer, by inhibiting HSP90.
"Cancer cells need HSP90 more than normal cells because cancer cells have thousands of mutations," said Dr. Ahmed Chadli, biochemist in the MCG Center for Molecular Chaperones/Radiobiology and Cancer Virology. "They need chaperones all the time to keep their mutated proteins active. By taking heat shock proteins away from cells, the stabilization is taken away and cell death occurs."
But most HSP90 inhibitors lack selectivity, disabling the functions of all proteins activated by HSP90 rather than only the ones implicated in a specific tumor. Those proteins vary from one tumor to another.
Dr. Chadli and colleagues at the Mayo Clinic believe celastrol holds the key to specificity, targeting the HSP90-activated protein required for folding steroid receptors.
"The celastrol induces the protein to form fibrils and clusters it together, which inactivates it," said Dr. Chadli, whose research was published in the January edition of The Journal of Biological Chemistry. "When they are clustered, they're not available for other functions that help cancer grow."
The research was funded by a seed grant from the MCG Cardiovascular Discovery Institute and a Scientist Development Grant from The American Heart Association.
Dr. Chadli envisions future studies on cancer patients using even more potent derivatives of celastrol.
"They can hopefully be used in combination with other therapeutic agents to reduce the probability of cancer resistance," he said.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100203161432.htm
Industrial Cleaner Linked to Increased Risk of Parkinson's Disease
ScienceDaily (Feb. 8, 2010) — Workers exposed to tricholorethylene (TCE), a chemical once widely used to clean metal such as auto parts, may be at a significantly higher risk of developing Parkinson's disease, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 62nd Annual Meeting in Toronto April 10 to April 17, 2010.
"This is the first time a population-based study has confirmed case reports that exposure to TCE may increase a person's risk of developing Parkinson's disease," said study author Samuel Goldman, MD, with the Parkinson's Institute in Sunnyvale, California, and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. "TCE was once a popular industrial solvent used in dry cleaning and to clean grease off metal parts, but due to other health concerns the chemical is no longer widely used."
For the study, researchers obtained job histories from 99 pairs of twins in which only one of the twins had Parkinson's disease. All of the twins were men and identified from the World War II-Veterans Twins Cohort study. Scientists used twins in the study because they are genetically identical or very similar and provide an ideal population for evaluating environmental risk factors.
The study found workers who were exposed to TCE were five and a half times more likely to have Parkinson's disease than people not exposed to the chemical. Those who were exposed to TCE had job histories including work as dry cleaners, machinists, mechanics or electricians.
The study was supported by grants from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, The Valley Foundation and the James and Sharron Clark Family Fund.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100207214119.htm
Hypertension May Predict Dementia in Older Adults With Certain Cognitive Deficits
ScienceDaily (Feb. 8, 2010) — High blood pressure appears to predict the progression to dementia in older adults with impaired executive functions (ability to organize thoughts and make decisions) but not in those with memory dysfunction, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
"Although midlife hypertension has been confirmed as a risk factor for the development of dementia in late life, there have been conflicting findings about the role of late-life hypertension," the authors write as background information in the article. Individuals with mild cognitive (thinking, learning and memory) impairment -- the state between aging-related brain changes and fully developed dementia -- may experience deficits in different domains. For instance, some have impairments only in memory function and are more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease, whereas those whose impairment follows a stroke or other vascular (blood vessel-related) event often experience executive dysfunction.
"Because hypertension is a major risk factor for vascular brain diseases and vascular cognitive impairment, we postulated that the cognitive domain of dysfunction may be the crucial factor that determines the association between hypertension and cognitive deterioration," the authors write. To test this hypothesis, Shahram Oveisgharan, M.D., of University of Western Ontario, Canada, and Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran, and Vladimir Hachinski, M.D., F.R.C.P.C., D.Sc.(Lond)., also of University of Western Ontario, studied 990 older adults (average age 83) with cognitive impairment but no dementia.
Over a five-year follow-up period, dementia developed at approximately the same rate among participants with and without hypertension (59.5 percent of individuals with high blood pressure vs. 64.2 percent of those without). A similar pattern was observed among those with memory dysfunction alone and with both memory and executive dysfunction. However, among patients with executive dysfunction only, presence of hypertension was associated with an increased risk of developing dementia (57.7 percent of those with high blood pressure progressed to dementia, vs. 28 percent of those without).
"This study may have profound implications for community dwellers with cognitive impairment, no dementia," the authors write. "Worldwide, neurologic disorders are the most frequent cause of disability-adjusted life years; among these, cerebrovascular disease is the most common risk factor, and dementia is the second most common. There is no preventive or therapeutic intervention to mitigate this public health burden."
"We show herein that the presence of hypertension predicts progression to dementia in a subgroup of about one-third of subjects with cognitive impairment, no dementia," they conclude. "Control of hypertension in this population could decrease by one-half the projected 50-percent five-year rate of progression to dementia."
This work was supported by a grant from the Alzheimer Association.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100208185214.htm
Family Meals, Adequate Sleep and Limited TV May Lower Childhood Obesity
ScienceDaily (Feb. 8, 2010) — A new national study suggests that preschool-aged children are likely to have a lower risk for obesity if they regularly engage in one or more of three specific household routines: eating dinner as a family, getting adequate sleep and limiting their weekday television viewing time.
In a large sample of the U.S. population, the study showed that 4-year-olds living in homes with all three routines had an almost 40 percent lower prevalence of obesity than did children living in homes that practiced none of these routines.
Other studies have linked obesity to the individual behaviors of excessive TV viewing, a lack of sleep and, to a lesser extent, a low frequency of family meals. But this is the first study to assess the combination of all three routines with obesity prevalence in a national sample of preschoolers.
The researchers suggested that adopting these three household routines could be an attractive obesity-prevention strategy for all families with young children, especially because these routines may benefit children's overall development. However, they also cautioned that this study alone does not confirm whether the routines themselves, or some other factor, protect children from obesity.
The study appears online and is scheduled for publication in the March issue of the journal Pediatrics.
Each routine on its own was associated with lower obesity, and more routines translated to lower obesity prevalence among 4-year-olds, according to the analysis. The link between the routines and lower obesity prevalence was also seen in children with and without other risk factors for obesity.
"The routines were protective even among groups that typically have a high risk for obesity. This is important because it suggests that there's a potential for these routines to be useful targets for obesity prevention in all children," said Sarah Anderson, assistant professor of epidemiology at Ohio State University and lead author of the study.
Anderson co-authored the paper with Robert Whitaker, professor of public health and pediatrics at Temple University.
Anderson and Whitaker analyzed data collected in 2005 on 8,550 children who were born in the United States in 2001. The data were collected as part of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort, a study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics to provide information about learning environments, health and development of young U.S. children.
The researchers examined the association of childhood obesity among preschool-aged children with three household routines: eating the evening meal as a family more than five times per week; obtaining at least 10½ hours of sleep per night; and watching less than two hours per day of TV on weekdays -- referred to as "screen-viewing time."
The researchers calculated the body mass index (BMI) of the children using the measured heights and weights of the children. BMI measurements were converted into percentiles for age and sex based on growth charts developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2000. For this study, children were considered obese if their BMI scores were at or above the 95th percentile on those charts.
Eighteen percent of the children were determined to be obese by this standard. Among 4-year-old children whose households practiced all three routines, the prevalence of obesity was 14.3 percent. In contrast, almost one in four of the children (24.5 percent) living in households without any of the routines were obese.
The study also suggested that in households practicing none of these routines, adopting just one could lower a child's risk of becoming obese, and having two or three of the routines was more protective than just one.
"I imagine people are going to want to know which of the routines is most important: Is it limited TV, is it dinner, is it adequate sleep? And what this suggests is that you can't point to any one of these routines. Each one appears to be associated with a lower risk of obesity, and having more of these routines appears to lower the risk further," Anderson said.
That association could be seen even when children were already at higher risk for obesity based on other aspects of their lives, the researchers noted. For example, previous research has shown that children are at higher risk for obesity if their mothers are obese, if their household income is below the poverty level, if their mothers did not finish high school, and if they are growing up in a single-parent home.
All of those predictors of a higher prevalence of obesity in 4-year-olds were seen in this study. But even in these children, the practice of all three household routines appeared to lower the likelihood that they were obese.
She said the research suggests that an approach to obesity prevention that emphasizes these routines might be acceptable to both parents and pediatricians because adopting these practices could enhance child well-being without a need to focus entirely on weight.
The researchers noted that the analysis revealed other important details. Many families already practiced at least two of the routines: 56.6 percent of families had dinner together at least six evenings per week, and 57.5 percent reported that their preschooler slept at least 10½ hours per night. TV time was limited to two hours or less among 40.4 percent of families.
On the other hand, some children were obese even when families practiced all three routines -- a reminder that research based on large populations does not necessarily apply to every individual case.
"Our research suggests these routines may have the opportunity for impact. And they may help families move beyond the discussion of eating and exercise to other aspects of behavior and biology that have potential to be linked to obesity," Anderson said. "Parents should talk to their child's doctor if they're worried about their child's weight.
"It may be more difficult for some families than others to have regular meals together, ensure their child gets enough sleep, and limit TV time. However, given their specific circumstances and constraints, families with young children may want to consider what it would take for them to have these routines for their child. We should support parents in their efforts to establish and maintain these household routines."
This study was funded by the Food Assistance and Nutrition Research Program within the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100208091916.htm
Lifestyle should be given same priority as medication following acute coronary syndrome
Life Exensions February 05, 2010
An article published online on February 1, 2010 in the American Heart Association journal Circulationreveals the importance of lifestyle changes in preventing recurrent cardiovascular events in individuals with acute coronary syndrome.
Researchers led by Clara K Chow of Hamilton General Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario evaluated data from 18,809 subjects enrolled in the Organization to Assess Strategies in Acute Ischemic Syndromes (OASIS) 5 randomized clinical trial. Patients were eligible for the enrollment if they were aged 60 and older, had an elevated level of troponin or creatine kinase-MB isoenzyme, or electrocardiogram changes indicative of ischemia. Demographic and other data were collected at the beginning of the study, and questions concerning smoking status and adherence to recommended exercise programs and dietary modifications were answered by the participants during follow-up visits at 1, 3 and 6 months. Heart attack, stroke, cardiovascular death and mortality from all causes were documented.
Among those who survived to 30 days after presenting with acute coronary syndrome, 481 deaths and 575 cardiovascular events occurred by the end of the 6 month follow-up period. Thirty percent of the participants reported having adhered to both diet and exercise recommendations at the 30 day follow-up while 28.5 percent adhered to neither. Nearly two-thirds were able to stop smoking. Compliance with both diet and exercise recommendations was associated with a risk of heart attack that was half that of those who did not comply. For those who failed to stop smoking as well as to comply with diet and exercise recommendations, there was a 3.8-fold increase in the risk of cardiovascular events or death compared with those who never smoked and who modified their diet and exercise habits.
“Adherence to behavioral advice after acute coronary syndrome was associated with a substantially lower risk of recurrent cardiovascular events,” the authors conclude. “These findings suggest that behavioral modification should be given priority similar to other preventive medications immediately after acute coronary syndrome.”
K-STATE: For Valentine's Day: Planning To Give Sweets To Your Sweetie? K-State Professor Says Some Types Of Dark Chocolate a Little Healthier Than Others Types Of Chocolate
M2 Communications 02-08-10
MANHATTAN -- Before buying that box of chocolates for your Valentine, it is important to understand the type of chocolate to buy if you are looking for health benefits, according to Brian Lindshield, Kansas State University assistant professor of human nutrition.
Lindshield said dark chocolate can be good for you -- but it depends on how the chocolate is processed.
"The whole idea behind chocolate being beneficial comes from the Kuna who live on a remote island off of Panama," Lindshield said. "The Kuna people have a unique diet, and one of the reasons scientists were interested in them is because they are one of the only populations that does not develop high blood pressure."
Generally, as Americans age, blood pressure rises, which results in many developing the chronic high blood pressure condition known as hypertension, Lindshield said. However, when researchers studied the Kuna, they found that their blood pressure did not increase as they aged. Scientists also studied Kuna who had moved off the remote island to Panama City and found that after they moved, their blood pressure increased as they aged, more like most other populations in the world.
"Clearly, there was something that they were doing on the island that was resulting in lower blood pressure," Lindshield said. "What researchers found was the Kuna's cocoa consumption on the island was huge compared to when they moved off the island. We're not talking chocolate, we're talking cocoa powder, which is super bitter."
That bitterness is due to compounds found in cocoa called flavinols which have been attributed to lowering blood pressure, Lindshield said.
The problem with most chocolates, however, is that most of their flavinols are destroyed during processing. Lindshield said that Mars Candy Company has developed a processing method that retains the flavinols, resulting in some of its products that are more heart-healthy.
Carotenoids may reduce breast cancer risk in women: Study
Nutragredients.com, 08-Feb-2010
Increased dietary intakes of alpha- and beta-carotene may reduce the risk of breast cancer among female smokers, suggests a new study from Sweden.
Although expert advice is clearly to avoid tobacco smoke altogether, the results suggest female smokers could benefit from upping their intakes of carotenoid-rich foods, particularly those rich in alpha- and beta-carotene, according to findings published in European Journal of Cancer.
The role of carotenoids, and beta-carotene in particular, in cancer is controversial, with several studies reporting that beta-carotene supplements may increase the risk of lung cancer in smokers.
The new study, which followed 36,664 women for almost a a decade, reports no link between dietary carotenoids and overal breast cancer risk. However, increased dietary intakes of alpha- and beta-carotene was associated with a 60 per cent reduction in hormone-sensitive breast cancer in female smokers.
Over one million women worldwide are diagnosed with breast cancer every year, with the highest incidences in the US and the Netherlands. China has the lowest incidence and mortality rate of the disease.
Hormone-sensitive oestrogen-receptor (ER) positive and progesterone-receptor (PR) positive tumours are said to be the most common type diagnosed among breast cancer patients in the US. These tumours are stimulated to grow by the female hormones oestrogen and progesterone.
Led by Susanna Larsson from Karolinska Institutet, the researchers note that it is biologically plausible that carotenoids may reduce the risk of breast cancer.
“If the potential protective effect of alpha-carotene and beta-carotene against breast cancer is mediated through their antioxidant properties, an association may be stronger or limited to women who do not obtain other antioxidants from dietary supplements. A protective effect of carotenoids may also be more pronounced among smokers because tobacco smoke induces oxidative stress,”they noted.
Larsson and her co-workers analysed data from the Swedish Mammography Cohort. Over the course of 9.4 years, the researchers documents 1,008 cases of breast cancer. Only alpha- and beta-carotene were associated with breast cancer risk, and only with ER and PR breast cancer in female smokers.
The highest average levels of alpha- and beta-carotene were associated with a 68 and 65 per cent reduction in the risk of ER-PR breast cancer among smokers, respectively.
“The risk of breast cancer also decreased with increasing intakes of alpha-carotene and beta-carotene among women who did not use dietary supplements,” added the researchers.
“Further studies are needed to clarify whether carotenoids confer more protection among non-users of supplements and smokers, and whether the association varies by hormone-receptor status,” they concluded.
Source: European Journal of Cancer
Published online ahead of print, doi: 10.1016/j.ejca.2010.01.004
“Dietary carotenoids and risk of hormone receptor-defined breast cancer in a prospective cohort of Swedish women”
Authors: S.C. Larsson, L. Bergkvist, A. Wolk
DHA and eye health: Study supports omega-3 in formula
Nutraingredients.com, 08-Feb-2010
Adding the omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) to infant formula may improve the visual acuity of the infants, says a new clinical trial from the US.
Doses of 0.32 and 0.64 per cent DHA led to improvements in eye health of infants, compared to infants fed non-supplemented formula, according to new results published in the prestigious American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
“The [DHA Intake And Measurement Of Neural Development] (DIAMOND) is the first double-masked, randomized, controlled, parallel-group, prospective, dose-response study of DHA in term infant formula,” wrote the researchers, led by Eileen Birch from the Texas-based Retina Foundation of the Southwest.
Infant formula is a highly emotive area, with watchdogs keeping a close eye on companies' marketing tactics lest they drift towards promoting their products as preferable to breast-feeding.
While it is agreed that breastfeeding is the best way to ensure an infant receives the nutrients it needs in its first months, formulas are indispensable in cases where mothers are unable to feed their children - be it for health or logistical reasons. Mothers' desire to give their children the best possible start in life means that there is scope for fortification.
European support
The study follows hot on the heels of, and vindicates, backing from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for DHA-related brain and eye health claims for infants.
EFSA’s Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA) said DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) levels of 100mg of per day were appropriate for 7-24 month-old infants along with 200mg per day for pregnant and lactating women.
The DHA claims relating to eye health stated: “DHA intake can contribute to normal development of the eye of the foetus, infant and young children”, and“DHA intake can contribute to the visual development of the infant”.
Study details
Birch and her co-workers enrolled 244 healthy formula-fed infants between one and nine days of age, and born in Kansas and Dallas. The infants were randomly assigned them to one of four groups. The study was funded by Mead Johnson Nutrition and used the company’s Enfamil with Iron as the control formula, and Enfamil LIPIL fortified with 0.32 per cent DHA, or with 0.64, and 0.96 per cent DHA (Martek Biosciences). The DHA-supplemented formulas also contained 0.64 per cent arachidonic acid (ARA).
When the infants reached 12 months of age, measures of the clarity of the infants’ vision showed that those fed the DHA-supplemented formula had significantly better vision than infants fed the control formula.
There was no difference between the three DHA doses, however. Importantly, there were differences in the incidence of adverse events between any of the groups, added the researchers.
“Our data speak directly to the safety and tolerance profiles of DHA levels as high as 0.96% of fatty acids in infant formula,” report the researchers. “The safety and tolerance of these higher DHA concentrations was expected, because they are within the range of DHA concentrations found in human milk worldwide.”
“Whether differences in long-term outcomes will be observed between control and supplemented formula groups and whether they follow a similar dose-response function as the primary 12-mo outcome remains to be determined,”they concluded.
Source: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Published online ahead of print, doi: 10.3945/ajcn.2009.28557
“The DIAMOND (DHA Intake And Measurement Of Neural Development) Study: a double-masked, randomized controlled clinical trial of the maturation of infant visual acuity as a function of the dietary level of docosahexaenoic acid”
Authors: E.E. Birch, S.E. Carlson, D.R. Hoffman, K.M. Fitzgerald-Gustafson, V.L.N. Fu, J.R. Drover, Y.S. Castaneda, L. Minns, D.K.H. Wheaton, D. Mundy, J. Marunycz, D.A. Diersen-Schade
Study shows how Medicare rewards MDs for overuse
Last Updated: 2010-02-08 10:45:19 -0400 (Reuters Health)
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Medicare's move in 2005 to pay doctors to do bladder cancer surgery in their offices rather than in hospitals dramatically raised the number of procedures and overall health costs, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
The findings reflect the complexity of cutting health costs in the United States, showing how in some cases Medicare - the insurance program for the elderly and disabled - gives doctors incentives to provide too much care, they said.
Cutting costs and improving access for millions of Americans now without health insurance are major aims of President Barack Obama's efforts to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system but the legislation is stalled in Congress.
"It's incredibly complicated," said Dr. Micah Hemani, a bladder cancer expert at the New York University Langone Medical Center, who studied changes in treatment patterns in his group practice before and after the pay hike.
"What we found based on our billing data was that the number of procedures dramatically increased without a decline in the number of hospital-based procedures," Hemani, whose study appears in the journal Cancer, said in a telephone interview.
"If you adjust for the growth of our practice and you are doing more of these procedures but your hospital-based ones don't decline, you are spending more money."
Bladder cancer is the most expensive of all cancers to treat, with an average cost from diagnosis to death ranging from $96,000 to $187,000, according to Hemani and colleagues.
In theory, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services decision in 2005 to pay doctors extra to do the procedure in their offices would cost less than doing it in a hospital, he said.
Instead, the number of outpatient bladder cancer procedures in Hemani's group practice doubled after the Medicare pay hike and costs to Medicare rose 50 percent overall.
LOWER BAR
With doctors getting paid more to do the procedure in their offices, Hemani said, "the threshold seemed to be lower after the reimbursement change."
Hemani said doctors, policyholders and patients should realize that "despite best efforts, there are factors other than just evidence-based medicine that influence how physicians treat patients."
"One of those factors implied by our study is financial reimbursement," he said.
Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society and a member of the Relative Value Update Committee that advises Medicare on physician payments, said when doctors do procedures in their offices, Medicare compensates them for using their equipment.
This fee often far outstrips the actual cost of doing the procedure, creating what Lichtenfeld called "an incredible distortion."
"We've tried to deal with some of these questions," Lichtenfeld said in a telephone interview of his work on the committee, noting the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is taking steps to reduce reimbursement to physicians for certain outpatient radiology and cardiology procedures.
"It's a very political question right now."
Last week, a study commissioned by the Community Oncology Alliance found that changes to Medicare meant community cancer centers were reimbursed for only about half the cost of administering chemotherapy.
SOURCE: Cancer, February 8, 2010.
Men who eat soy may have lower lung cancer risk
Last Updated: 2010-02-05 14:50:18 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Men who don't smoke and eat a lot of soy may have a lower risk of lung cancer, according to a new study.
Soy contains isoflavones, which act similarly to the hormone estrogen, and may have anti-cancer qualities in hormone-related cancers of the breast and prostate, the researchers note in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Cells in the lung have properties that suggest they may also respond to isoflavones.
Dr. Taichi Shimazu, of the National Cancer Center in Tokyo, and colleagues studied more than 36,000 Japanese men and more than 40,000 Japanese women, 45 to 74 years old and free of cancer at the start of the study.
The researchers followed the women for about 11 years, after surveying their food intake, smoking status, medical history, and other lifestyle factors between 1995 and 1999.
Overall rates of lung cancer were small: 481 men -- or about one in 75 -- and 178 women, or about one in 225 -- were diagnosed during the 11 years of the study.
Among the slightly more than 13,000 men who never smoked, there were 22 lung cancer cases among men who ate the least soy, and just 13 lung cancer cases among those who ate the most. Shimazu said men's soy intake from food varied widely, from about 34 to about 162 grams per day.
After taking a number of factors into account, the risk about halved in the highest versus the lowest intake group.
There were even fewer lung cancer cases among women, so researchers could draw no conclusions about their risks.
The authors note that men it may not be the act of eating soy that lowered lung cancer risk in the men in their study. Men who eat soy may be more likely to take part in other activities that may lower the risk, or may be more likely to eat other healthy foods. But they did take many of those factors into account.
However, the current study did not gather data on isoflavone supplement use, nor did it look at exposure second-hand smoking. That means these findings should be confirmed among Japanese and other populations, the authors conclude.
In other words, the study does not provide enough evidence to suggest a change in eating behavior, Shimazu told Reuters Health by email.
SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, published online January 13, 2010.
EXPOSED: "Scandalous Abuse" of the Elderly Being Killed With Psychiatric Medications
by David Gutierrez, NaturalNews February 8, 2010
(NaturalNews) Elderly dementia patients are being subjected to "scandalous abuse" by being drugged with dangerous antipsychotic drugs, according to a letter by ten influential health organizations, published in The Daily Telegraph.
"[One hundred thousand] people with dementia in care homes are being inappropriately prescribed a damaging chemical cosh of antipsychotic drugs and new research suggests that there is a significant problem in hospitals too," the letter reads. "Antipsychotics should only ever be a last resort. This over prescription is abuse and it must stop. ... We cannot stand by while this scandalous abuse of vulnerable citizens continues."
Although antipsychotic drugs are intended for people with medical conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and are not approved for the treatment of dementia, studies show that nursing homes and hospitals regularly prescribe them to these patients as sedatives, in order to make them easier for doctors and nurses to handle.
Research has shown, however, that antipsychotic drugs can double a patient's risk of death if used for three years. Another study found that dementia patients are three times more likely to suffer a stroke if given antipsychotic drugs.
A 2008 report by British Minister of Parliament Paul Burstow concluded that 23,500 dementia patients are being killed every year by inappropriate prescription of antipsychotics in nursing homes. However, a recent survey by the Alzheimer's Society marks the first time that researchers have looked into the prevalence of the problem in hospitals.
The trust found that three-quarters of nurses surveyed said they had seen antipsychotics used to sedate dementia patients, while one-quarter said they had seen the drugs used inappropriately.
"The massive over prescription of antipsychotics to people with dementia is an abuse of human rights, causing serious side effects and increasing risk of death," said Neil Hunt of the Alzheimer's Society. "The government must take action to ensure that these drugs are only ever used as a last resort."
"While the Department of Health prevaricates, thousands of people are being put at risk through the misuse of antipsychotics," said Rebecca Wood of the Alzheimer's Research Trust.
CSPI calling for outright censorship of "structure and function" claims for nutritional supplements
by Ethan A. Huff, NaturalNews February 8, 2010
(NaturalNews) The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has put together a 158-page report for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that contains detailed information about food manufacturers that it says are making false or misleading health claims about their products. The powerful lobbying group is urging a restructuring of the regulatory system that would likely damage the nutritional supplement industry and eliminate freedom of health speech.
On the surface, the CSPI report primarily targets "Big Food" manufacturers like Kellogg's and Nestle which have been making embellished, deceptive health claims about products that are essentially junk foods with miniscule amounts of vitamins and minerals thrown in. But rather than address the need for the FDA to crack down on these illegitimate claims, CSPI is seeking to abolish the freedom to make health claims altogether.
The CSPI tactic is a popular one, identifying a legitimate problem while suggesting an illegitimate solution. While on the surface regulatory "reform" seems to have consumers' best interests in mind, the kind of reform suggested by CSPI would actually eradicate free speech by muzzling all legitimate health claims made for natural products.
DSHEA and the freedom to make health claims
As it stands under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994, health product manufacturers can legally make legitimate health claims about their products. The Act provides for structure/function claims, which are not reviewed and authorized by the FDA, and qualified health claims, which are typically supported by conclusive scientific evidence.
Both types of claims are regulated by the FDA using an "innocent until proven guilty" approach which allows product manufacturers to include information at their discretion. The FDA can challenge questionable claims if it perceives them to be false but it must provide conclusive evidence before requiring it to be removed. If the FDA is unable to prove that a statement is false, manufacturers are permitted to print the information as long as the mandatory dietary supplement disclaimer is included on the container explaining that the FDA has not evaluated the claims.
Supplement manufacturers legally use both types of claims to educate consumers about the health benefits of their products. However CSPI and other groups seem to believe that such a system should be disbanded. Many organizations mistakenly believe and perpetuate the false idea that dietary supplements are wholly unregulated and that the entire sector is a free-for-all. While there are some bad players, including Kellogg's and Nestle, the majority of companies within the industry are making truthful, valid claims about their products.
Advocates worked very hard to pass DSHEA in 1994, the single most important piece of legislation in protecting freedom of health speech in the U.S. So why the push to eliminate it by the very groups and agencies that claim to support the public interest?
Food control by a few
It is important to understand that the players who stand to lose the most from increased restrictions and regulations are small- to medium-sized nutritional supplement companies, the true pioneers in the natural health world, not the large multi-national corporations operating supplement divisions. Small manufacturers make up the majority of the supplement industry.
In 2007, the FDA initiated its "current Good Manufacturing Practices" (cGMP) guidelines in accordance with DSHEA provisions that tasked the agency with ensuring that dietary supplements are manufactured safely and accurately. As worthy as it sounds, the FDA ended up designing cGMP with large manufacturers in mind, placing an immense new burden on small manufacturers.
The one-size-fits-all requirements for daily operations and record keeping are expensive and laborious, making it virtually impossible for small manufacturers to comply. The rules also mimic pharmaceutical requirements, many of which are pointless and unnecessary for supplements.
Hundreds of supplement manufacturers will likely be put out of business once the three year phase-in of cGMP is complete in June of 2010. The final installment on this date will force companies with fewer than 20 employees, which represent a large portion of the industry, into compliance. This final group is said to be hit the hardest by mandatory compliance.
Many dietary supplement trade groups are on board with the FDA's agenda, including the Natural Products Association (NPA) and the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN). The CRN membership roll is filled with multi-national giants such as Archer Daniels Midland, Bayer, Cargill, and Dow Chemical Company, as well as pharmaceutical companies like GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, and Pfizer.
Copying the EU to bring about a world standard
According to Dr. Robert Verkerk, the executive and scientific director of the Alliance for Natural Health, the two primary sources of attack against natural health freedom are European Union (EU) regulations and Codex Alimentarius.
The EU's Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation (NHCR) is arguably the most restrictive health law yet to be passed anywhere in the world. Established in 2006, NHCR allows health claims to be made only if they have been preliminarily approved by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). In opposition to the U.S. model where a health claim is supposed to be considered valid unless proven false, the EU now operates under the Napoleonic law structure where a health claim is false and restricted until declared valid by an unelected body of bureaucrats.
Under the NHCR restrictions, no unauthorized health claims can be made in either print or speech. This means that doctors are not allowed to recommend foods or supplements to their patients, nor can they offer any other type of health advice unless it has been rubber-stamped by the EFSA. Even if scientific studies prove that a nutrient or food is effective at treating a certain disease, a doctor is prohibited from speaking about it unless it is formally approved.
The consequences of such a draconion restriction on free speech is the decimation of the natural products industry, including everything from trade shows and educational seminars to naturopathic practices and health food stores. The restrictions on the free flow of health information also has the potential to eliminate over time all knowledge amongst the population about natural health, other than what is approved by the overlords.
Codex Alimentarius, the world food code
All of this ties into Codex Alimentarius, the world food code designed to integrate and harmonize the world's food guidelines for the purpose of power and control. While Codex has not yet been fully implemented worldwide, the pieces are slowly being assembled as to eliminate all national sovereignty and bring all nations into unified, international compliance with its dictates.
In the United States, provisions in the NAFTA and CAFTA treaties helped to facilitate the harmonizing of U.S. law between North and South America, a precursor to late compliance with Codex. Similar to the NHCR in the EU, Codex will operate under the Napoleonic law system, permitting only what has been approved to be lawful.
Codex's Vitamin and Mineral Guidelines are also being designed to dictate which vitamins will be permitted for use and in what doses. According to researchers, vitamin doses will be assessed using toxicity risk assessment, the method used in pharmaceuticals to determine the dose at which a drug becomes identifiably toxic. When applied to vitamins, this method will ensure that permitted doses remain below therapeutic levels, rendering them useless.
The CSPI recommendations are merely a stepping stone toward a much larger goal of global control over food, for which supplements are only a part. If successful, it could become illegal to even buy and sell unadulterated foods and supplements, let alone speak freely about their health benefits.
Chevron hires twelve public relations firms to discredit indigenous Indians in Ecuador
by Ethan A. Huff, NaturalNews February 8, 2010
(NaturalNews) In response to an environmental lawsuit filed against the oil giant, Chevron has fortified its defenses with at least twelve different public relations firms whose purpose is to debunk the claims made against the company by indigenous people living in the Amazon forests of Ecuador. According to them, Chevron dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste in the Amazon between 1964 and 1990, causing damages assessed at more than $27 billion.
The company is being criticized by people and organizations from across the social and political spectrum for its unethical behavior in regards to the case. Originally filed in U.S. federal district court back in 1993, the lawsuit was eventually moved to courts in Ecuador at Chevron's behest. Having initially lauded Ecuador's legal system in an effort to have the case moved there, Chevron later changed its mind and began attacking the system when that system found the company liable for damages.
Shareholders are also upset with Chevron for its gross mismanagement of the case in which it has sidestepped the rule of law and employed guerilla-style tactics in a last ditch effort to fend off an unfavorable ruling. Part of this includes hiring Hill & Knowlton, the same firm that represented the tobacco industry during its indictment over tobacco causing cancer, to perform the same task concerning toxic oil contaminants.
Evidence presented at Chevron's trial included over 50,000 chemical samples taken by the company itself which proved that all of its former oil drilling sites are contaminated with toxic byproducts that cause cancer. Many of these wells have contaminated rivers, streams, and other water sources which natives use for drinking water. Despite all the undeniable evidence, Chevron is working hard to cover up the facts and dismiss its responsibility in the matter.
Speaking of responsibility, Chevron's other hired firms are trying to claim that the company worked out a deal with the government in Ecuador back in the mid-1990s that released it from cleanup responsibility. However the terms expressed in the current case regarding cleanup are exempt from the former agreement which, in and of itself, was determined to be fraudulent. Two former Chevron lawyers and a handful of former government officials were indicted because of that agreement which makes it ludicrous to try to use the incident as a defense in the current case.
A final ruling on the case is set to be made sometime this year. Most likely, Ecuadorian courts will find Chevron guilty as charged despite its lobbying efforts.
Join the Non-GMO Uprising (Opinion)
by Hesh Goldstein, NaturalNews February 8, 2010
(NaturalNews) For several years, The Institute for Responsible Technology has predicted that the US would soon experience a tipping point of consumer rejection against genetically modified foods. Now, in a December article in "Supermarket News", that prediction is supported and the non-GMO consciousness uprising is gaining momentum.
Besides the Institute`s new non-GMO website and non-GMO shopping guide, which was disclosed in a previous article, another Non-GMO project is being launched. The project would offer the country`s first consensus-based guidelines to include third-party certification and a uniform seal for approved products. The organization would also require documented traceability and segregation to ensure the tested ingredients are what go into the final product.
The "Supermarket News" article alerts supermarket executives to the fact that the growth of organic, local, and green product categories reflects a generation of consumers that could be less tolerant of genetic modification.
In the past, health culprits like fats, refined carbs, salt and sugar were addressed, in that food companies offered options with, without, or with low levels of them. Now, the GMOs are coming to light. These executives are becoming aware that GMOs do not offer a single consumer benefit. They are finally learning that the five major GMOs, soy, corn, cottonseed, canola, and sugar beets, which are gene spliced to tolerate or produce poisonous insecticides, offer the consumer nothing. They are also learning that companies can eliminate GMOs without having to change recipes.
When the major food companies notice even tiny losses in market share, their GMO clean out will be widespread. The large food companies will recognize that the same consumer trend that forced them to remove all GM ingredients in Europe and Japan is taking place in the US.
Right now, about 28 million Americans regularly buy organic and about 87 million are opposed to GM foods and believe they are unsafe. And, 159 million say they would avoid GMOs if they were labeled. Imagine what people would say if they all learned that Monsanto paid off our elected officials to not require labeling of GMOs. You see, they knew full well that no one would buy their GMO garbage if it were labeled as such.
In the past, the decade could be defined with regard to the "culprits". In the 80`s, it was fat; in the 90`s, it was carbs. Hopefully, we won`t need this whole decade to send GMOs packing. And, God willing, by this time next year, Monsanto, the largest GMO producer in the world, will not be a "happy camper".
Read labels. If soy (including soy lecithin), corn, cotton, canola and sugar do not say organic, do not buy it.
China threatens world health by unleashing waves of superbugs
China's reckless use of antibiotics in the health system and agricultural production is unleashing an explosion of drug resistant superbugs that endanger global health, according to leading scientists.
By Peter Foster in Beijing
DAILY MAIL 05 Feb 2010
Chinese doctors routinely hand out multiple doses of antibiotics for simple maladies like the sore throats and the country's farmers excessive dependence on the drugs has tainted the food chain.
Studies in China show a "frightening" increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as staphylococcus aureus bacteria, also know as MRSA . There are warnings that new strains of antibiotic-resistant bugs will spread quickly through international air travel and internation food sourcing.
"We have a lot of data from Chinese hospitals and it shows a very frightening picture of high-level antibiotic resistance," said Dr Andreas Heddini of the Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease Control.
"Doctors are daily finding there is nothing they can do, even third and fourth-line antibiotics are not working.
"There is a real risk that globally we will return to a pre-antibiotic era of medicine, where we face a situation where a number of medical treatment options would no longer be there. What happens in China matters for the rest of the world."
Particular alarm has been raised by resistance rates of MRSA in Chinese hospitals, which has more than doubled from 30 per cent to 70 per cent, according to Professor Xiao Yonghong of the Institute of Clinical Pharmacology at Beijing University.
Last year researchers found a new strain of MRSA in Chinese pigs imported into Hong Kong and called for urgent new studies into its potential to infect humans after an infection of the new strain was confirmed in Guangzhou, where many of the pigs were farmed.
A Beijing-based health expert with access to unpublished surveys showed that the situation in China was actually worse earlier studies had indicated.
"The Chinese Ministry of Health has all the data," the expert warned, "but they seem unable or unwilling to believe it. The situation has global implications and is highly disturbing."
The Chinese Ministry of Health failed to respond to requests for an interview or information by phone, email and fax over a three-day period.
New prescription guidelines to restrict antibiotic use being issued by the Chinese Ministry of Health in 2004.
"The guidelines are not being followed effectively," added Professor Xiao, "over just the last five years, for example, our studies show the rate antibiotic-resistant E.coli has quadrupled from 10 per cent to 40 per cent."
Public health experts say the rampant over-use of antibiotics in China is primarily caused by China's under-funded healthcare system where hospitals derive up to half of their operating income from selling drugs. In some cities, such as Chongqing, almost half of all drugs sold are antibiotics.
"In Chinese hospitals our data shows that 60 per cent of in-patients are being prescribed antibiotics compared with the WHO guideline of 30 per cent," added Professor Xiao who also heads China's National Antibiotic Resistance Investigation Network.
China's State Food and Drug Administration bans the sale of antibiotics without prescription but a survey by the The Daily Telegraph found the drugs were still easily obtainable over-the-counter.
Three out of five chemists agreed to sell antibiotics after a cursory consultation with the 'patient' who complained of a sore throat.
At one outlet a pharmacist handed over a course of the second-generation antibiotic, Cefuroxime Axetil, with minimal hesitation.
Asked if the sale could "get her into trouble" she said that the pharmacy would get a doctor to write the prescription later to cover their sales records. She added that even doctors from the nearby Capital Institute of Pediatrics came to buy antibiotics without prescription.
"When the surveillance is strict, we won't risk selling antibiotics," Ms Zhang added. Asked to elaborate, she explained, "For example during the 2008 Olympic Games period, we didn't sell them".
Soft drink consumption may increase risk of pancreatic cancer
American Association for Cancer Research February 8m 2010
PHILADELPHIA — Consuming two or more soft drinks per week increased the risk of developing pancreatic cancer by nearly twofold compared to individuals who did not consume soft drinks, according to a report inCancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Although relatively rare, pancreatic cancer remains one of the most deadly, and only 5 percent of people who are diagnosed are alive five years later.
Mark Pereira, Ph.D., senior author on the study and associate professor in the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota, said people who consume soft drinks on a regular basis, defined as primarily carbonated sugar-sweetened beverages, tend to have a poor behavioral profile overall.
However, the effect of these drinks on pancreatic cancer may be unique.
"The high levels of sugar in soft drinks may be increasing the level of insulin in the body, which we think contributes to pancreatic cancer cell growth," said Pereira.
For the current study, Pereira and colleagues followed 60,524 men and women in the Singapore Chinese Health Study for 14 years. During that time, there were 140 pancreatic cancer cases. Those who consumed two or more soft drinks per week (averaging five per week) had an 87 percent increased risk compared with individuals who did not.
No association was seen between fruit juice consumption and pancreatic cancer.
Pereira said that these results from Singapore are likely applicable to the United States.
"Singapore is a wealthy country with excellent health care. Favorite pastimes are eating and shopping, so the findings should apply to other western countries," said Pereira.
Susan Mayne, Ph.D., associate director of the Yale Cancer Center and professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, said these study results are intriguing but have some key limitations that should be considered in any interpretation.
"Although this study found a risk, the finding was based on a relatively small number of cases and it remains unclear whether it is a causal association or not. Soft drink consumption in Singapore was associated with several other adverse health behaviors such as smoking and red meat intake, which we can't accurately control for," said Mayne, an editorial board member of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
Pereira points out that the findings are biologically plausible, held up in non-smokers, remained similar after taking other dietary habits into account and are consistent with findings in Caucasian populations.
UC Davis study confirms link between advanced maternal age and autism
University of California - Davis - Health System February 8, 2010
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Advanced maternal age is linked to a significantly elevated risk of having a child with autism, regardless of the father's age, according to an exhaustive study of all births in California during the 1990s by UC Davis Health System researchers. Advanced paternal age is associated with elevated autism risk only when the father is older and the mother is under 30, the study found.
Published online today in the February issue of the journal Autism Research, the study, "Independent and Dependent Contributions of Advanced Maternal and Paternal Ages to Autism Risk," is one of the largest population-based studies to quantify how each parent's age — separately and together — affects the risk of having a child with autism.
The study found that the incremental risk of having a child with autism increased by 18 percent — nearly one fifth — for every five-year increase in the mother's age. A 40-year-old woman's risk of having a child later diagnosed with autism was 50 percent greater than that of a woman between 25 and 29 years old.
Advanced parental age is a known risk factor for having a child with autism. However, previous research has shown contradictory results regarding whether it is the mother, the father or both who contribute most to the increased risk of autism. For example, one study reported that fathers over 40 were six times more likely than fathers under 30 to have a child with autism.
"This study challenges a current theory in autism epidemiology that identifies the father's age as a key factor in increasing the risk of having a child with autism," said Janie Shelton, the study's lead author and a doctoral student in the UC Davis Department of Public Health Sciences. "It shows that while maternal age consistently increases the risk of autism, the father's age only contributes an increased risk when the father is older and the mother is under 30 years old. Among mothers over 30, increases in the father's age do not appear to further increase the risk of autism."
Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder of deficits in social skills and communication, as well as repetitive and restricted behaviors, with onset occurring prior to age 3. Abnormal brain development, probably beginning in the womb, is known to be fundamental to the behaviors that characterize autism. Current estimates place the incidence of autism at between 1 in 100 and 1 in 110 children in the United States.
During the 1990s, the number of California women over 40 giving birth increased by more than 300 percent. But only about 5 percent of the 600-percent increase in the number of autism cases in the state can be attributed to women waiting longer to have children, the study suggests.
To conduct their investigation, the researchers obtained the electronic records for all births in California between Jan. 1, 1990 and Dec. 31, 1999. The records incorporated detailed demographic information, including the ages of both parents. To identify which children would develop autism, the researchers obtained electronic records identifying children born during the study period who later received an autism diagnosis from state Department of Developmental Services. In this study autism was defined as a diagnosis of full-syndrome autism at a California Regional Center.
The researchers also excluded a small number of births where demographic information about parents, such as their ages and levels of education, was not available. Instances of multiple births were analyzed separately. The exclusions brought the total size of the study sample to approximately 4.9 million births and 12,159 cases of autism.
For older mothers, the step-wise progression in the risk of having a child who later would be diagnosed with autism was apparent among every age group of fathers. When the father was older and the mother was younger — under 30 — the child's risk for developing autism also was elevated. For example, among births to mothers under 25, children fathered by a man over 40 were twice as likely to develop autism as those whose father was between 25 and 29. Among mothers over 30, the increased risk associated with older fathers dissipated, the study found.
Because of the large study size, the researchers were able to show how risk for autism was affected by each parent's age by holding one parent's age constant and then comparing autism incidence across the age of the other parent across five-year increments. The subtle interaction of how each parent's age affects the risk of autism then became quantifiable even when it was reliant on the other parent's age. This methodology is more efficacious and requires fewer assumptions than the mathematical modeling used by earlier studies, the researchers said.
The researchers note that understanding the relationship between increased parental age and autism risk is critical to understanding its biological causes. Earlier studies have observed that advanced maternal age is a risk factor for a variety of other birth-related conditions, including infertility, early fetal loss, low birth-weight, chromosomal aberrations and congenital anomalies.
Irva Hertz-Picciotto, professor of public health sciences, a researcher at the UC Davis MIND Institute and the study's senior author, said the reason that having an older parent places a child at risk for autism is not known.
"We still need to figure out what it is about older parents that puts their children at greater risk for autism and other adverse outcomes, so that we can begin to design interventions," Hertz-Picciotto said.
One possible clue comes from a 2008 UC Davis study that found some mothers of children with autism had antibodies to fetal brain protein, while none of the mothers of typical children did. Advancing age has been associated with an increase in autoantibody production. Further work investigating advancing age in such findings may be useful, the study authors said. They added that some persistent environmental chemicals accumulate in the body and also may have a role to play in autism, possibly contributing to the apparent effect of parental age.
The study also suggests that epigenetic changes over time "may enable an older parent to transfer a multitude of molecular functional alterations to a child ... thus epigenetics may be involved in the risks contributed by advancing parental age as a result of changes induced by stresses from environmental chemicals, co-morbidity or assistive reproductive therapy."
Public release date: 7-Feb-2010
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Contact: Emma Dickinson
edickinson@bmjgroup.com
44-207-383-6529
Estrogen-only HRT may increase risk of asthma after menopause
BMJ-British Medical Journal February 7, 2010
Oestrogen-only hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may increase the risk of developing asthma after the menopause, suggests a large scale study published ahead of print in the journal Thorax.
The authors base their findings on 57, 664 women, who were quizzed about their use of HRT and development of asthma symptoms every two years between 1990 and 2002.
All the women were taking part in the French E3N study, which includes almost 100, 000 women born between 1925 and 1950, and is the French component of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC).
None of these women had asthma when menopausal symptoms began.
The monitoring period equated to 495,448 person years in all, of which over a third was accounted for by women who had not used HRT (35.7%).
Previous users made up 4.5% while information on how long HRT was used was not known for a further 4%. Of the remainder, just under 56% were recent users of HRT.
Between 1990 and 2002, 569 women were newly diagnosed with asthma, corresponding to a rate of 1.15 cases per 1000 women a year.
Compared with women who had never used any form of HRT, those who did use it were 21% more likely to develop asthma, after adjusting for factors likely to influence the results.
Almost one in 10 women with a natural menopause (9.4%), and more than one in four (28%) of those with a surgically induced menopause, used HRT containing oestrogen alone.
The risk of asthma was significant only among those using oestrogen alone. Among these women the overall risk of asthma was 54% higher than among those who had never used any form of HRT.
Oestrogen only users who had never smoked and those who had had some form of allergy before their asthma diagnosis were at greatest risk of developing asthma— 80% and 86% higher, respectively.
A small increased risk for asthma was also seen in women using combined oestrogen and progesterone HRT who were either non smokers or who had had some form of allergic reaction in the past.
Previous research has suggested that female hormones may have a role in the development and severity of asthma, say the authors.
The disease is more common in young women after they have started having periods, while hospital admissions for asthma are more common among women than men.
The severity of asthma also varies throughout the menstrual cycle and during pregnancy, and the incidence of the disease tends to fall after the menopause, except among those who put on a lot of weight, the authors point out.
They conclude that while their findings point to an increased risk of asthma, this must be judged in "the light of all the other health effects of HRT use, including its beneficial effect on the quality of life of menopausal women."
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