That Late-night Snack: Worse Than You Think: "Eat less, exercise more. Now there is new evidence to support adding another 'must' to the weight-loss mantra: eat at the right time of day. A study has found that eating at irregular times -- the equivalent of the middle of the night for humans, when the body wants to sleep -- influences weight gain. This is the first causal evidence linking meal timing and increased weight gain."
Researchers at Imperial College London have found evidence a chemical in broccoli and other green leafy vegetables could boost a natural defense mechanism that protects arteries from the clogging that can cause heart attacks.
In a study funded by the British Heart Foundation charity and conducted on mice, the researchers found that sulforaphane -- a compound occurring naturally in broccoli and other brassicas -- could 'switch on' a protective protein which is inactive in parts of the arteries vulnerable to clogging.
'We know that vegetables are clearly good for you, but surprisingly the molecular mechanisms of why they are good for you have remained unknown for many years,' said Paul Evans of the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College.
How Much Omega-3 Fatty Acid Do We Need To Prevent Cardiovascular Disease?
How Much Omega-3 Fatty Acid Do We Need To Prevent Cardiovascular Disease?: "Scientists found the dose of DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) that is 'just right' for preventing cardiovascular disease in healthy men. In a new study, they show that 200 mg of DHA per day is enough to affect biochemical markers that reliably predict cardiovascular problems. This study is the first to identify how much DHA is necessary to promote optimal heart health."
In the waning months of the Bush Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released a proposal to completely overhaul its regulation of genetically engineered crops, significantly weakening its oversight. The proposed rules would virtually ensure that contamination of organic and conventional crops will become even more frequent, and even excuses the Agency from taking any action to remedy such contamination. The rules would continue to allow the dangerous practice of producing drugs and industrial chemicals in food crops grown in the open environment, and in many cases even allow the biotechnology industry to decide whether their GE crops are regulated at all.
Over four years ago, USDA promised stricter oversight of genetically engineered crops; unfortunately, improvements considered early on have vanished and the regulations have instead become weaker. The proposed rule now has even more gaping holes than the regulations it is replacing, and creates a few new ones as well, resulting in more public exposure to untested and unlabeled genetically engineered foods. Instead of tightening controls to protect the public and the environment from contamination and harm, what USDA has offered further endangers your right to choose the foods you and your family eat and farmers’ right to their chosen livelihoods.
To make matters worse, USDA published the rules before publishing the full Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), as required by law, and in the absence of public review of the data needed to make regulatory recommendations. Clearly, there is something wrong with this picture. We are calling on the Obama Administration to reject the irresponsible Bush "anything goes" biotech policy, and to put in place rules that will create real change in the regulation and oversight of GE crops. And we are requesting a moratorium on commercial planting of any new GE crops until such comprehensive regulations are in place.
The comment period has been extended to June 29, 2009. Please send your comment to USDA today – the Agency is listening, let’s demand better oversight of GE crops to protect citizens, farmers, wildlife, and the environment!
This is an excellent site to find out what it is you are really using on your body. Simply type in the product or company and you will get a full description of what the ingredients are in the product, and an analysis of their relative danger. You will be surprised and perhaps even shocked.
For the past century, changes in the Western diet have altered the consumption of omega-6 fatty acids (w6, found in meat and vegetable oils) compared with omega-3 fatty acids (w3, found in flax and fish oil). Many studies seem to indicate this shift has brought about an increased risk of inflammation (associated with autoimmunity and allergy), and now using a controlled diet study with human volunteers, researchers may have teased out a biological basis for these reported changes.
Anthropological evidence suggests that human ancestors maintained a 2:1 w6/w3 ratio for much of history, but in Western countries today the ratio has spiked to as high as 10:1. Since these omega fatty acids can be converted into inflammatory molecules, this dietary change is believed to also disrupt the proper balance of pro- and anti- inflammatory agents, resulting in increased systemic inflammation and a higher incidence of problems including asthma, allergies, diabetes, and arthritis.
This study demonstrates, for the first time in humans, that large changes in gene expression are likely an important mechanism by which these omega fatty acids exert their potent clinical effects.
Use Of Acid-suppressive Medications Associated With Increased Risk Of Hospital-acquired Pneumonia
Proton pump inhibitors are bad news in several different ways. Here's a new one. For most people the need for PPI's can be eliminated simply by better food choices, food combining, under-eating (what a concept!), judicious use of digestive enzymes, elimination of excess fat and sugar from the diet, and taking time to really chew your food. A bit boring, yeah, but so is osteoporosis and pneumonia.
"Hospitalized patients who receive acid-suppressive medications such as a proton-pump inhibitor have a 30 percent increased odds of developing pneumonia while in the hospital, according to a new study.
With the introduction of proton-pump inhibitors, used primarily in the treatment of ulcers and gastroesophageal reflux disease, the use of acid-suppressive medications has increased significantly over the last several years, with estimates that between 40 percent and 70 percent of hospitalized patients receive some form of them. But this high use in the inpatient setting has been of concern for several reasons, including use for indications that are not supported by research and data suggesting an increased risk for community-acquired pneumonia with use in outpatient settings, according to background information in the article."
Try Thai Or Rosemary When Spicing The Meat To Curb Carcinogens
Summer is the time for gatherings that include grilled foods. If you are a meat eater, this information is important. But the really good thing is that if you use the spices mentioned, your food will taste great!
"Warm weather brings on the seasonal meat favorites that are barbecued, grilled, broiled or fried. That also means more potential exposure to carcinogenic compounds known as heterocyclic amines (HCAs). There’s a way to reduce the risk significantly by just adding some spices – rosemary extracts or Thai spices.
“Just one of the spices would work,” said J. Scott Smith, a Kansas State University food chemistry professor who researched the issue for the Food Safety Consortium. “Rosemary would be fine or one of the Thai spices would be fine.”
The numbers from Smith’s research tell the story. Some commercial rosemary extracts can inhibit the formation of HCAs in cooked beef patties by 61 to 79 percent. Thai spices can inhibit the formation by about 40 to 43 percent. The key is the level of antioxidants present in each, and Thai spices have lower levels than rosemary."
Carbohydrate Restriction May Slow Prostate Tumor Growth
Just another example of the importance of diet in treating serious illnesses. My assumption will be that this information will be true for many types of malignant tumors, not just prostate cancer.
Carbohydrate Restriction May Slow Prostate Tumor Growth: "Restricting carbohydrates, regardless of weight loss, appears to slow the growth of prostate tumors, according to an animal study being published this week by researchers in the Duke Prostate Center.
'Previous work here and elsewhere has shown that a diet light in carbohydrates could slow tumor growth, but the animals in those studies also lost weight, and because we know that weight loss can restrict the amount of energy feeding tumors, we weren't able to tell just how big an impact the pure carbohydrate restriction was having, until now,' said Stephen Freedland, M.D., a urologist in the Duke Prostate Center and lead investigator on this study.
The researchers believe that insulin and insulin-like growth factor contribute to the growth and proliferation of prostate cancer, and that a diet devoid of carbohydrates lowers serum insulin levels in the bodies of the mice, thereby slowing tumor growth, Freedland said."
"Mayo Clinic researchers are reporting positive results in early leukemia clinical trials using the chemical epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), an active ingredient in green tea. The trial determined that patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) can tolerate the chemical fairly well when high doses are administered in capsule form and that lymphocyte count was reduced in one-third of participants."
"Doctors have issued a warning about excessive cola consumption after noticing an increase in the number of patients suffering from muscle problems, according to the June issue of IJCP, the International Journal of Clinical Practice."
We are consuming more soft drinks than ever before and a number of health issues have already been identified including tooth problems, bone demineralisation and the development of metabolic syndrome and diabetes” says Dr Moses Elisaf from the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Ioannina, Greece.
“Evidence is increasing to suggest that excessive cola consumption can also lead to hypokalaemia, in which the blood potassium levels fall, causing an adverse effect on vital muscle functions.”
"Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is the most common vaginal infection in US women of childbearing age, and is common in pregnant women. BV occurs when the normal balance of bacteria in the vagina is disrupted and replaced by an overgrowth of certain bacteria. Because having BV puts a woman at increased risk for a variety of complications, such as preterm delivery, there is great interest in understanding how it can be prevented."
Vitamin D may play a role in BV because it exerts influence over a number of aspects of the immune system.
This hypothesis is circumstantially supported by the fact that BV is far more common in black than white women, and vitamin D status is substantially lower in black than white women. This relation, however, has not been rigorously studied. To assess whether poor vitamin D status may play a role in predisposing a woman to BV, Bodnar and coworkers at the University of Pittsburgh and the Magee-Womens Research Institute studied 469 pregnant women.
"Vitamin D may slow the progressive decline in the ability to breathe that can occur in people with asthma as a result of human airway smooth muscle (HASM) proliferation, according to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania."
The group found that calcitriol, a form of vitamin D synthesized within the body, reduced growth-factor-induced HASM proliferation in cells isolated from both persons with asthma and from persons without the disease. The proliferation is a part of process called airway remodeling, which occurs in many people with asthma, and leads to reduced lung function over time.
The researchers believe that by slowing airway remodeling, they can prevent or forestall the irreversible decline in breathing that leaves many asthmatics even more vulnerable when they suffer an asthma attack.
"Today, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) called on “Physicians to educate their patients, the medical community, and the public to avoid GM (genetically modified) foods when possible and provide educational materials concerning GM foods and health risks.”[i] They called for a moratorium on GM foods, long-term independent studies, and labeling.
AAEM’s position paper stated, “Several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food,” including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system. They conclude, “There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation,” as defined by recognized scientific criteria. “The strength of association and consistency between GM foods and disease is confirmed in several animal studies.”
More and more doctors are already prescribing GM-free diets. Dr. Amy Dean, a Michigan internal medicine specialist, and board member of AAEM says, “I strongly recommend patients eat strictly non-genetically modified foods.” Ohio allergist Dr. John Boyles says “I used to test for soy allergies all the time, but now that soy is genetically engineered, it is so dangerous that I tell people never to eat it.
Dr. Jennifer Armstrong, President of AAEM, says, “Physicians are probably seeing the effects in their patients, but need to know how to ask the right questions.” World renowned biologist Pushpa M. Bhargava goes one step further. After reviewing more than 600 scientific journals, he concludes that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are a major contributor to the sharply deteriorating health of Americans.
Among the population, biologist David Schubert of the Salk Institute warns that “children are the most likely to be adversely effected by toxins and other dietary problems” related to GM foods. He says without adequate studies, the children become “the experimental animals.”
Note: It's old, very old, and it's almost a cliche, but we are not body, mind, and spirit. We are body-mind-spirit. Unfortunately, in most of the modern world, the spirit part has been relegated to being less important than the other two. What is it that exists when the mind is still? Who are you when not your job, family, personality, and hobbies? Ancient sages said that what that is can't be named or spoken of by words of the mouth. Yet it is something that can be experienced. This study shows that even bumping up against that experience can have profound physiological and health enhancing effects. And that it doesn't have to be unpleasant or a struggle. This is important.
Chinese researchers have unlocked the mechanism of an emerging mind-body technique that produces measurable changes in attention and stress reduction in just five days of practice.
. . . .
IBMT avoids struggles to control thought, relying instead on a state of restful alertness, allowing for a high degree of body-mind awareness while receiving instructions from a coach, who provides breath-adjustment guidance and mental imagery and other techniques., while soothing music plays in the background. Thought control is achieved gradually through posture, relaxation, body-mind harmony and balanced breathing. A good coach is critical, Tang said.
"Life is full of stress, and people need to learn methods to handle stress and improve their performance," Tang said. "There is physical training but we wanted to see about mental training. This method appears to have benefit for the modern society where the pace is fast."
Turmeric Extract Suppresses Fat Tissue Growth In Rodent Models
Note: There are no miracle cures, but Turmeric comes close. In addition to the new and important information in this article, turmeric also is a potent and safe anti-inflamatory agent, helps prevent Alzheimer's disease and some forms of cancer. My guess is we are just scratching the surface of this and other amazing plant medicines for the prevention of serious diseases.
Turmeric Extract Suppresses Fat Tissue Growth In Rodent Models: "Curcumin, the major polyphenol found in turmeric, appears to reduce weight gain in mice and suppress the growth of fat tissue in mice and cell models. Researchers at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University (USDA HNRCA) studied mice fed high fat diets supplemented with curcumin and cell cultures incubated with curcumin."
"Weight gain is the result of the growth and expansion of fat tissue, which cannot happen unless new blood vessels form, a process known as angiogenesis." said senior author Mohsen Meydani, DVM, PhD, director of the Vascular Biology Laboratory at the USDA HNRCA. "Based on our data, curcumin appears to suppress angiogenic activity in the fat tissue of mice fed high fat diets."
Note: In my opinion, this, next to Global Climate Change, is one of the most critical issues facing the human (and many other) race. Seed diversity, family farms, and chemical free farming are critical for health and well being. The use of patented genetically modified seeds is the doom of the small farmer, and the small family farm is essential for the health of the planet. This is a long article, but every word in it is important.
"In June 2005 I attended the National Media Reform Conference in St. Louis, Missouri. While there I visited the historic St. Louis courthouse and the huge Gateway Arch by the Mississippi River that symbolizes St. Louis as the gateway to the west. It was here that US corporate agribusiness, the US occupation of Iraq and the Dred Scott decision intersected in reality as well as symbolically." . . .
Why would corporate agribusiness be salivating??? Some history here. It is thought that agriculture started 13,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent - in the area now called Iraq - where the Tigress and the Euphrates rivers intersect. The Iraqi ancestral farmers and this fertile land brought us major crops such as wheat, barley, dates and pulses (see Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies"). The area is hugely important in world history. Given they are considered the initiators, for thousands of years the contributions of the Iraqi farmers to the world's agriculture production system have been unquestionably profound.
It is also likely that women were the initiators of agriculture. Women were the gatherers in hunting and gathering pre-agricultural societies. As women were the ones gathering nuts and roots for their communities, they would have been the observers of seeds and their growth patterns. This is likely why the majority of the African farmers today are women and throughout our human history the world's farmers have largely been women.
Now comes the corporate connection. Food is something everyone needs. There is no question about this and no need for a survey - the market is a given. Huge profits are in the offing. Controlling all aspects of food its production, packaging, distribution and commodity markets - is the dream world of corporate agribusiness.
"Pregnant women who take probiotic supplements starting in the first trimester are less likely to develop central obesity after they've given birth, according to a new study.
Central obesity was defined as a body mass index of 30 or higher or a waist circumference greater than 80 centimeters, about 31-1/2 inches.
At 1 year after giving birth, 25 percent of women given probiotics along with dietary counseling had central obesity based on that definition, compared with 43 percent of women given diet advice alone.
The findings were reported Thursday at the European Congress on Obesity being held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands."
"Obese children and teens are at increased risk for allergies, especially food allergies, say U.S. researchers.
The study authors analyzed data from 4,111 participants, aged 2 to 19, who took part in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, and found that obese children and teens were 26 percent more likely to have any kind of allergy, and 59 percent more likely to have a food allergy, than their normal-weight peers.
'We found a positive association between obesity and allergies,' senior author Dr. Darryl Zeldin, acting clinical director at the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), said in an institute news release. 'While the results from this study are interesting, they do not prove that obesity causes allergies. More research is needed to further investigate this potential link.'"
Daily exercise provides cardiovascular benefits even during the preteen years, reveals a new German study.
It found that schoolchildren, who averaged 11 years old, lowered their blood pressure, improved their levels of HDL ('good') cholesterol and triglycerides and were less likely to be obese if they regularly participated in a supervised exercise program that included at least 15 minutes of endurance training. The research was conducted in the city of Leipzig.
'Even from these first-year results, we can say that regular physical activity has a significant beneficial effect on body composition, exercise capacity and cardiovascular risk markers in children,'"
"Stress may indeed be a direct contributor to childhood obesity. That's according to a new Iowa State University study finding that increased levels of stress in adolescents are associated with a greater likelihood of them being overweight or obese."
"We found that an adolescent or youth who's more stressed -- caused by such things as having poor grades, mental health problems, more aggressive behavior, or doing more drugs and alcohol -- is also more likely to be overweight or obese," said lead author Brenda Lohman, an Iowa State assistant professor of human development and family studies (HDFS).
High Blood Pressure Could Be Caused By A Common Virus, Study Suggests
A new study suggests for the first time that cytomegalovirus (CMV), a common viral infection affecting between 60 and 99 percent of adults worldwide, is a cause of high blood pressure, a leading risk factor for heart disease, stroke and kidney disease.
Led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and published in the May 15, 2009 issue of PLoS Pathogens, the findings further demonstrate that, when coupled with other risk factors for heart disease, the virus can lead to the development of atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries.
\"CMV infects humans all over the world,\" explains co-senior author Clyde Crumpacker, MD, an investigator in the Division of Infectious Diseases at BIDMC and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. \"This new discovery may eventually provide doctors with a whole new approach to treating hypertension, with anti-viral therapies or vaccines becoming part of the prescription.\"
Glutamine Supplements Show Promise In Treating Stomach Ulcers
This is good news and is a very real alternative to the proton ion pumps. Another valuable addition would be DGL Licorice which effectively stops excess acid production. There are many reasons not to take pharmaceutical medications for ulcers and excess stomach acid.
"Nearly 20 years ago, it was discovered that bacteria known as Helicobacter pylori were responsible for stomach ulcers. Since then, antibiotics have become the primary therapy used to combat the H. pylori infection, which affects approximately six percent of the world population and is also a primary cause of stomach cancer. But today the bacteria is growing increasingly resistant to antibiotics."
. . .
"Our findings suggest that extra glutamine in the diet could protect against gastric damage caused by H. pylori," says senior author Susan Hagen, PhD, Associate Director of Research in the Department of Surgery at BIDMC and Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. "Gastric damage develops when the bacteria weakens the stomach's protective mucous coating, damages cells and elicits a robust immune response that is ineffective at ridding the infection." Eventually, she notes, years of infection result in a combination of persistent gastritis, cell damage and an environment conducive to cancer development.
Michael Pollan: "Don't Buy Any Food You've Ever Seen Advertised"
Note: This is an interview between Michael Pollan and Amy Goodman. It's well worth a read. It focuses on the differences between real food and the "food like substances" that most people consume. Real food is a major key to a good life.
"Amy Goodman: Energy, healthcare, agriculture, climate change, global outbreaks like swine flu—what do all these topics have in common? Food. That’s right, none of these issues can really be tackled without addressing some of the fundamental problems of the food system and the American diet.
Well, my next guest is one of the leading writers and thinkers in this country on food. Michael Pollan is a professor of science and environmental journalism at University of California, Berkeley, author of several books about food, including The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore’s Dilemma and his latest, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, which just came out in paperback. ... Let’s start with the latest news over the last month, swine flu. How is that connected to industrialized agriculture?
Michael Pollan: Well, we don’t know for sure yet. We’re still kind of investigating. But the best knowledge we have is that this outbreak came from a very large industrial pork operation, pork confinement operation, where, you know, tens of thousands of pigs live in filth and close contact. And this was in Mexico."
Studies find two new methods for curbing nausea of chemotherapy - Los Angeles Times
Note: This is good information for those who choose to pursue chemotherapy as a treatment for cancer. It is my strong opinion that there are other avenues that one could pursue either instead of chemo or concurrently with chemo.
Simply adding about half a teaspoon of ginger to food in the days before, during and after chemotherapy can reduce the often-debilitating side effects of nausea and vomiting, a large, randomized clinical trial has found. And a newer type of anti-nausea drug, when added to standard medications, can help prevent such side effects as well.
The ginger results will be presented this month at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting; the drug study was published this week in the Lancet Oncology journal.
The findings are significant, cancer experts say, because about 70% of chemotherapy patients experience nausea and vomiting -- often severe -- during treatment."
"Fear of swine flu is fading, but there are still plenty of reasons to wash your hands frequently.
The list of infections that can spread via unwashed hands reads like the Biblical plagues, including staph, strep, salmonella, E. coli, hepatitis, MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), colds, flu and norovirus -- the infamous cruise-ship bug.
The importance of hand washing has been known since 1847, when a doctor named Ignaz Semmelweis suspected that maternity patients were dying in his Vienna hospital because med students treated them right after working on cadavers. When he instituted hand-cleaning, the deaths fell sharply.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says hand washing is the most effective way to stay healthy. But many people don't do it often enough, or long enough, to be effective. Here's a guide: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124208945194709049.html"
"Regularly eating fish, nuts, olive oil and other foods containing omega-three fatty acids and avoiding trans fats appears to be associated with a lower risk for the eye disease age-related macular degeneration, according to two new reports."
After adjusting for age, sex and smoking, eating one serving of fish per week was associated with a 31 percent lower risk of developing early AMD. The association was stronger among individuals with a lower intake of linoleic acid, an unsaturated omega-6 fatty acid found primarily in vegetable oils. Eating one to two servings of nuts per week was associated with a 35 percent lower risk of early AMD.
"In conclusion, our findings support the hypothesis that increased intake of omega-three polyunsaturated fatty acids and regular consumption of fish and/or nuts in the diet may protect against the development of early AMD," the authors write. These fatty acids may protect the eyes by preventing the buildup of plaque in the arteries or reducing inflammation, blood vessel formation and oxygen-related cell damage in the retina.
"A research group from Saudi Arabia studied the anti-ulcer properties of the salad herb Rocket, also known as Arugula, species name Eruca sativa. They found that Rocket extract possesses antisecretory, cytoprotective and anti-ulcer activities against experimentally-induced gastric lesions in rats. The anti-ulcer effect is possibly through prostaglandin mediated activity and/or through its anti-secretory and antioxidant properties."
Gastric ulcer is an illness that affects a considerable number of people worldwide. Although the introduction of proton-pump inhibitors to the classic anti-ulcer therapy has revolutionized treatment of peptic ulcers and other gastrointestinal disorders, there is still no complete cure for this disease. It has been shown that long term use of these drugs leads to various adverse and side effects. Relapses of the malady, ineffectiveness of different drug regimens and even resistance to drugs are emerging. Thus, there is an urgent requirement to identify more effective and safe anti-ulcer agents. In recent years, Rocket "Eruca sativa L." (EER), a member of the Brassicacae family, has gained greater importance as a salad vegetable and spice, especially among Middle Eastern populations and Europeans. It is believed that plants belonging to the Brassicacae family possess diversified medicinal and therapeutic properties including inhibition of tumorigenesis, anti-ulcer, and hepatoprotective activities.
Ginseng: Nature's Anti-inflammatory?: "Laboratory experiments have demonstrated the immunological effects of ginseng. Researchers have now shown that the herb, much used in traditional Chinese and other Asian medicine, has anti-inflammatory effects.
Allan Lau led a team of researchers from the University of Hong Kong who identified seven ginseng constituents, ginsenosides, which showed immune-suppressive effects. He said, 'The anti-inflammatory role of ginseng may be due to the combined effects of these ginsenosides, targeting different levels of immunological activity, and so contributing to the diverse actions of ginseng in humans'.
The scientists treated human immune cells with different extracts of ginseng. They found that of the nine ginsenosides they identified, seven could selectively inhibit expression of the inflammatory gene CXCL-10. Lau concludes, "Further studies will be needed to examine the potential beneficial effects of ginsenosides in the management of acute and chronic inflammatory diseases in humans".
"When the Agriculture Department released its 2007 census recently, the news appeared surprisingly good: For the first time since World War II, the United States did not lose farms, it gained them -- 75,810, to be exact, for a total of 2.2 million."
But on closer inspection, the numbers aren't so hopeful. The discrepancy stems from this tricky question: What is a farm? The census has changed its definition nine times since 1850, most recently to "any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold, or normally would have been sold, during the census year."
This loose definition is meant to err on the side of inclusion, but ultimately it just errs. Take, for example, the four chickens I keep in my back yard. I sometimes sell eggs to neighbors, and at the going rate I could make $500 a year. If I got four more hens, my suburban home could qualify as a farm.
Silly, right? But where do you place the lower limit -- or the upper limit? The Cargill feedlot in Lockney, Texas, consists of 60,000 cattle kept in dirt yards and fattened on feed grown elsewhere. Is that a farm? While the census says yes, most Americans would say no.
So then, what is a farm? To answer that, we must first ask: Why do we care? Really, why is it good news when farms -- and, more importantly, the farmers who run them -- increase?
"A research team from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) has carried out a study entitled, “Hypericum perforatum. Possible option against Parkinson's disease”, which suggests that this plant with antidepressant properties has antioxidant active ingredients that could help reduce the neuronal degeneration caused by the disease."
In the last few years, the idea that the excessive numbers of free radicals has an important role in the complex etiology of Parkinson's disease has spread. Post-mortem investigations have revealed evidence of lipid peroxidation as well as oxidative damage to the DNA of brain proteins in patients suffering from the disease. The increase of oxidative stress is attributed, among other factors, to a less active mitochondrial complex I. Certain environmental contaminants such as pesticides, and in particular Rotenone, can cause Parkinson's. Nevertheless, the mechanism that causes Rotenone to have these effects is not yet fully understood. The hypothesis is that the increase in the production of Reactive oxygen species (ROS) caused by the altered function of the mitochondrial complex I could be the cause of the degeneration of dopaminergic neurons through the apoptotic process.
"Researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia have found a traditional extract of Kava, a medicinal plant from the South Pacific, to be safe and effective in reducing anxiety."
To be published online this week in the Springer journal Psychopharmacology, the results of a world-first clinical trial which found that a water-soluble extract of Kava was effective in treating anxiety and improving mood. The Kava was prescribed in the form of tablets.
Lead researcher Jerome Sarris, a PhD candidate from UQ’s School of Medicine, said the placebo-controlled study found Kava to be an effective and safe treatment option for people with chronic anxiety and varying levels of depression.
“We’ve been able to show that Kava offers a natural alternative for the treatment of anxiety, and unlike some pharmaceutical options, has less risk of dependency and less potential of side effects,” Mr. Sarris said.
Order a meal in any fast-food restaurant, and you'll likely walk away with a sandwich, fries and a drink. If you had to identify the ingredients of this meal, you might list beef (or chicken), lettuce, tomato, cheese, ketchup, bread, potatoes and soda. Not complicated, right? Wrong.
Burger and chicken joints don't think of the building blocks of a menu item as ingredients. They think of them as components, which are made of ingredients. For example, McDonald's famous Big Mac jingle -- 'two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun' -- suggests the sandwich has seven components. Would you believe it has 67 ingredients?"
Clearly, fast food is more complicated than it looks. Many menu items contain processed foods, which have been modified from their natural state for safety or convenience. Processed foods tend to have multiple additives to keep them fresher longer. Across an entire fast-food menu, there are thousands of ingredients, ranging from the commonplace (water) to the exotic (xanthan gum).
Considering that some of these ingredients have been implicated in serious health issues, it would be good to know which are the most common. We've set out to answer that very question. We started with menus from five popular fast-food chains -- McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, KFC and Arby's -- did some tallying, then cross-matched our findings with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's list of common food ingredients and colors. The result is the top 10 most common ingredients in fast food, organized by the type of ingredient and what it does.
Note: So do young people. Sadly, we live in a world where sunshine has been demonized. Many slather themselves with (potentially toxic) sunscreens, wear hats, sunglasses, and long sleeves before spending more than a few moments in the sun. Yet the only way that our body can make active Vitamin D is through sun exposure. And vitamin D is vitally important, not just for bone health but for the health of our immune system and to help prevent certain cancers. So get some sun - but of course not too much. If you skin gets red, it's too much. For most people 15-20 minutes a day is sufficient.
"Spending more time in the sunshine could help older people to reduce their risk of developing heart disease and diabetes.
Exposure to sunlight stimulates vitamin D in the skin and older people are more likely to have a vitamin D deficiency due to the natural aging process and changes in lifestyle.
Researchers at the University of Warwick have shown vitamin D deficiency is significantly associated with metabolic syndrome, a combination of medical and metabolic disorders that increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and diabetes."
There's more to climate change than temperature. It's easy to get caught up in which supplements to take or not to take, how to properly wash hands to prevent flu, just how many calories are in that supersized piece of pizza - yet climate change will be trumping all of those as a major health concern far sooner than we think. RG.
"Future Climate Change Likely To Cause More Respiratory Problems In Young Children
ScienceDaily (May 11, 2009) — More children will end up hospitalized over the next decade because of respiratory problems as a result of projected climate change, according to a new study from Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
The lead author of this research is Perry Elizabeth Sheffield, MD, Pediatric Environmental Health Fellow in the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine and the Department of Pediatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.* Mount Sinai worked with Natural Resources Defense Council and the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health on this eye-opening research that finds a direct connection between air pollution and the health of children."
"Even if you're not trying to lose weight, chances are you've seen some ideas on how to do so:
'Eat what you want and lose weight!' 'Lose thirty pounds in thirty days!' 'Finally, a diet that really works!' 'Lose one jean size every seven days!' 'Top three fat burners revealed' 'Ten minutes to a tighter tummy!'
But these claims are readily rebuked by anyone who's tried to lose five, ten, or one hundred pounds. Losing weight ain't that easy. It's not in a pill, it doesn't (usually) happen in thirty days, and judging from the myriad plans out there, there is no one diet that works for everyone.
Looking past the outrageous claims, there are a few hard truths the diet/food industry isn't going to tell you, but might just help you take a more realistic approach to sustained weight loss.
1. You have to exercise more than you think. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends getting at least thirty minutes of moderate exercise most days of the week; this includes things like shoveling snow and gardening. And while this is great for improving heart health and staying active, research indicates that those looking to lose weight or maintain weight loss have to do more -- about twice as much."
White Tea: Solution To Obesity Epidemic?: "Possible anti-obesity effects of white tea have been demonstrated in a series of experiments on human fat cells (adipocytes). Researchers have now shown that an extract of the herbal brew effectively inhibits the generation of new adipocytes and stimulates fat mobilization from mature fat cells.
Marc Winnefeld led a team of researchers from Beiersdorf AG, Germany, who studied the biological effects of an extract of white tea – the least processed version of the tea plant Camellia sinensis. He said, 'In the industrialized countries, the rising incidence of obesity-associated disorders including cardiovascular diseases and diabetes constitutes a growing problem. We've shown that white tea may be an ideal natural source of slimming substances'."
African Tea Offers Promising Treatment For Type-2 Diabetes
African Tea Offers Promising Treatment For Type-2 Diabetes: "Researchers are attempting, with the help of a special African tea, to develop a new treatment for type-2 diabetics. The tea is used as a treatment in traditional Nigerian medicine and is produced from the extract of Rauvolfia Vomitoria leaves and the fruit of Citrus aurantium. The scientists have recently tested the tea on patients with type-2 diabetes and the results are promising."
Inspired by studies, doctors prescribing higher doses of Vitamin D
It could be a couple of years before formal recommendations are established for taking higher doses of vitamin D as a way to help prevent or treat heart disease, but some doctors aren\'t waiting.
This month, doctors at Aurora Sinai Medical Center in Milwaukee began giving a mega-dose of 100,000 international units of vitamin D to all patients with chest pains. After that, they are advised to take 2,000 IU a day, said John Whitcomb, an emergency room physician with the hospital.
Other Aurora hospitals are considering doing the same thing, he said.
Given that the current recommendation for adults is 600 IU a day, that\'s a considerable departure from the norm, although 2,000 IU a day is considered to be safe for adults.
More and more studies are linking vitamin D deficiency, which is common in large segments of the U.S. population, especially in the winter, to increased risk of heart disease and other ailments.
This month, a review article in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology came to a similar conclusion.
It said heart patients who have insufficient vitamin D levels should be treated with one dose of 50,000 IU a week for eight weeks. Pills of 50,000 IU generally are available only as a prescription. After eight weeks, patients can take 50,000 IU every two weeks, or 1,000 to 2,000 IU a day.
The authors recommended vitamin D3, which can be found over the counter at drugstores.
\"Vitamin D supplementation is simple, safe and inexpensive,\" the authors wrote.
A Japanese Town That Kicked the Oil Habit Shin Abe doesn\'t find it odd that the picturesque little Japanese town of Kuzumaki, where he has lived all his life, generates some of its electricity with cow dung. Nor is the 15-year-old middle school student blown away by the vista of a dozen wind turbines spinning atop the forested peak of nearby Mt. Kamisodegawa. And it\'s old news to Abe that his school gets 25% of its power from an array of 420 solar panels located near the campus. \"That\'s the way it\'s been,\" he shrugs. \"It\'s natural."
To Abe, it is. But the blase teen has grown up in an alternative universe — one that might be envisioned by Al Gore. That\'s because Kuzumaki (population 8,000) has over the past decade transformed itself into a living laboratory for the development of sustainable and diversified energy sources. \"When I was growing up, all we had [to generate power] was oil,\" says Kazunori Fukasawaguchi, a Kuzumaki native who now serves in local government. \"I never imagined this kind of change.\" (Read TIME\'s Top 10 Green Ideas of 2008.)
In resource-poor Japan, which imports 90% of its fuel, Kuzumaki is a marvel of energy self-sufficiency. Signs of the town\'s comprehensive focus on environmental sustainability are visible from its mountaintops to the pens of the dairy cows that once were the bedrock of local commerce. Atop Mt. Kamisodegawa, the 12 wind turbines, each 305 feet (93 m) tall, have the capacity to convert mountain gusts into 21,000 KW of electricity — more than enough to meet the needs of the town\'s residents. The excess is sold to neighboring communities.
Vitamin D Deficiency Associated With Greater Rates Of Cesarean Sections
Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Boston Medical Center (BMC) found that pregnant women who are vitamin D deficient are also at an increased risk for delivering a baby by caesarean section as compared to pregnant women who are not vitamin D deficient. These findings currently appear on-line in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. At the turn of the 20th century, women commonly died in childbirth due to \"rachitic pelvis\" rickets of the pelvis. While rickets virtually disappeared with the discovery of vitamin D, recent reports suggest that vitamin D deficiency is widespread in industrialized nations.
Over a two-year period, the researchers analyzed the relationship between maternal serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] and the prevalence of primary caesarean section. In total, 253 women were enrolled in this study, of whom 43 (17 percent) had a caesarean section. The researchers found that 28 percent of women with serum 25(OH)D less than 37.5 nmol/L had a caesarean section, compared to only 14 percent of women with 25(OH)D greater than 37.5 nmol/L.
Women should go for the broccoli when the relish tray comes around during holiday celebrations this season. While it has been known for some time that eating cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage, can help prevent breast cancer, the mechanism by which the active substances in these vegetables inhibit cell proliferation was unknown — until now.
Scientists in the UC Santa Barbara laboratories of Leslie Wilson, professor of biochemistry and pharmacology, and Mary Ann Jordan, adjunct professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology, have shown how the healing power of these vegetables works at the cellular level. Their research is published in this month\'s journal Carcinogenesis.
Sixty per cent of women undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer experience a range of significant short term side effects. These include nausea, vomiting and fatigue, as well as inflammation of the gut lining, decreased numbers of red and white blood cells and decreased numbers of blood platelets.
Chinese medicinal herbs include mixtures of herbal compounds or extracts from herbs, and they are prescribed to counteract the side effects of chemotherapy. This Cochrane Systematic Review set out to see if there is conventional evidence indicating that these medicines are safe and whether there is evidence that the medicines are effective.
The researchers identified seven randomised studies involving 542 patients with breast cancer. By analysing these data, the researchers concluded that there was no evidence that the Chinese medicinal herbal treatment caused harm, and some evidence that it might reduce side effects."
Omega-3 Fatty Acid May Help Prevent Alzheimer's Brain Lesions
Omega-3 Fatty Acid May Help Prevent Alzheimer's Brain Lesions: "A type of omega-3 fatty acid may slow the growth of two brain lesions that are hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease, UC Irvine scientists have discovered. The finding suggests that diets rich in docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) can help prevent the development of Alzheimer's disease later in life.
This study with genetically modified mice is the first to show that DHA, an omega-3 fatty acid, can slow the accumulation of tau, a protein that leads to the development of neurofibrillary tangles. Such tangles are one of two signature brain lesions of Alzheimer's disease. DHA also was found to reduce levels of the protein beta amyloid, which can clump in the brain and form plaques, the other Alzheimer's lesion.
Previous studies have shown that DHA may have therapeutic value for Alzheimer's patients, but this research is among the first to show that it may delay the onset of the disease. DHA is found in fish, eggs, organ meats, micro-algae, fortified foods and food supplements."
Popular Herbal Supplement Hinders Growth Of Pancreatic Cancer Cells
Herbal Supplement Hinders Growth Of Pancreatic Cancer Cells: "A new study from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute suggests that a commonly used herbal supplement, triphala, has cancer-fighting properties that prevent or slow the growth of pancreatic cancer tumors implanted in mice. The study found that an extract of triphala, the dried and powdered fruits of three plants, caused pancreatic cancer cells to die through a process called apoptosis -- the body's normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted or unneeded cells. This process often is faulty in cancer cells. Results of the study, are being presented in a late-breaking session at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, April 14-18, at the Los Angeles Convention Center.
Triphala, one of the most popular herbal preparations in the world, is used for the treatment of intestinal-related disorders. It is typically taken with water and thought to promote appetite and digestion and to increase the number of red blood cells.
'We discovered that triphala fed orally to mice with human pancreatic tumors was an extremely effective inhibitor of the cancer process, inducing apoptosis in cancer cells,' said Sanjay K. Srivastava, Ph.D., lead investigator and assistant professor, department of pharmacology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. 'Triphala triggered the cancerous cells to die off . . . "
Breastfeeding Reduces Risk Of Breast Cancer For Women Who Delay Childbirth
Breastfeeding Reduces Risk Of Breast Cancer For Women Who Delay Childbirth: "Breastfeeding can offset the increased risk of invasive breast cancer for women who had their first full-term pregnancy after the age of 25, a study led by researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) suggests.
'Breastfeeding may have a protective effect that negates the increased risk of breast cancer associated with late pregnancies,' says Giske Ursin, M.D., Ph.D, associate professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. 'As more women may choose to delay pregnancy until after 25, it is important to note that breastfeeding provides protection against both estrogen and progesterone receptor positive and negative tumors.'
Breastfeeding appears to have a protective effect regardless of when women started giving birth, Ursin says. This is important since having many children was only protective among women who gave birth early, she says. Giving birth after age 25--the average age that women in the U.S. first give birth, according to Census data--was associated with increased risk of hormone receptor negative breast cancer."
Red Meat Linked To Breast Cancer: "Eating red meat increases a woman’s chance of developing breast cancer, according to new research from the University of Leeds.
The findings are most striking for post-menopausal women – those with the highest intake of red meat, the equivalent to one portion a day (more than 57 grams) - run a 56 per cent greater risk of breast cancer than those who eat none.
Women who eat the most processed meat, such as bacon, sausages, ham or pies, run a 64 per cent greater risk of breast cancer than those who eat none.
Researchers at the University’s Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics have been tracking the eating habits and health of more than 35,000 women for the past seven years, and their latest findings are published in the British Journal of Cancer. Earlier findings, widely reported in January, showed that pre-menopausal women who have the greatest intake of fibre have cut their risk of breast cancer in half.
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University of Leeds."
Red Meat Linked To Breast Cancer: "Eating red meat increases a woman’s chance of developing breast cancer, according to new research from the University of Leeds.
The findings are most striking for post-menopausal women – those with the highest intake of red meat, the equivalent to one portion a day (more than 57 grams) - run a 56 per cent greater risk of breast cancer than those who eat none.
Women who eat the most processed meat, such as bacon, sausages, ham or pies, run a 64 per cent greater risk of breast cancer than those who eat none.
Researchers at the University’s Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics have been tracking the eating habits and health of more than 35,000 women for the past seven years, and their latest findings are published in the British Journal of Cancer. Earlier findings, widely reported in January, showed that pre-menopausal women who have the greatest intake of fibre have cut their risk of breast cancer in half.
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University of Leeds."
Treatment may fuel cancer's spread: "Treating cancer with surgery, chemotherapy or radiation may sometimes cause tumors to spread and U.S. researchers said on Thursday they may have nailed down one of the causes -- a compound called TGF-beta.
Tests in mice show that using the chemotherapy drug doxorubicin or radiation both raised levels of TGF-beta, which in turn helped breast cancer tumors spread to the lung.
But using an antibody to block TGF-beta stopped the process, Dr. Carlos Arteaga and colleagues at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee reported."
Violent Video Games And Hostile Personalities Go Together
Violent Video Games And Hostile Personalities Go Together: "New research by Iowa State University psychologists provides more concrete evidence of the adverse effects of violent video game exposure on the behavior of children and adolescents.
ISU Distinguished Professor of Psychology Craig Anderson, Assistant Professor of Psychology Douglas Gentile, and doctoral student Katherine Buckley share the results of three new studies in their book, 'Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents' (Oxford University Press, 2007). It is the first book to unite empirical research and public policy related to violent video games."
Mediterranean Diet Wards Off Childhood Respiratory Allergies
Mediterranean Diet Wards Off Childhood Respiratory Allergies: "A 'Mediterranean' diet rich in fruits, vegetables and nuts protects against allergic rhinitis and asthma symptoms, suggests research published ahead of print in Thorax. The researchers assessed the dietary habits, respiratory symptoms, and allergic reactions of almost 700 children living in four rural areas on the Greek island of Crete.
The children were all aged between 7 and 18 years of age. Skin allergies are relatively common in Crete, but respiratory allergies, such as asthma and allergic rhinitis are relatively rare. Parents completed detailed questionnaires on their children's allergic and respiratory symptoms and dietary habits.
Whether the children ate a 'Mediterranean' diet was measured against a set of 12 foodstuffs, including fruits, vegetables, whole-grains, legumes, nuts, and olive oil. Eight out of 10 children ate fresh fruit, and over two thirds of them ate fresh vegetables, at least twice a day."
New Sustainable Plant Source Of Omega-3: "A study by scientists from King's College London has found that relatively small amounts of omega-3 fatty acids from algae can lower blood pressure and could ultimately reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. This form of omega-3, unlike fish oil, has the advantage of being both sustainable and acceptable to vegetarians.
The research, which is published in the April issue of the Journal of Nutrition, made measurements of cardiovascular function in healthy middle-aged men and women before and after three months supplementation with a placebo or a purified oil rich in the omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). The DHA was extracted from the marine algae crypthecodinium cohnii. Each subject received both DHA and placebo with a four month break between treatments. The study was conducted ‘double-blind' so that neither the investigators nor the subjects knew which treatment was which.
Results showed that a daily intake of 0.7g DHA lowered diastolic blood pressure by 3mm of Hg. Diastolic blood pressure (resting or background pressure) is a strong risk factor for cardiovascular events. A 3mm reduction in the average population blood pressure could help to prevent thousands of heart attacks and strokes.
Previous studies which have used fish oil have found in excess of 2-3g of omega-3 fatty acids are needed to lower blood pressure; fish"
Omega-3 Fatty Acids Affect Risk Of Depression, Inflammation
Omega-3 Fatty Acids Affect Risk Of Depression, Inflammation: "A new study suggests that people whose diets contain dramatically more of one kind of polyunsaturated fatty acid than another may be at greater risk for both clinical depression and certain inflammatory diseases.
The report, published online in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, suggests that we need to balance out our intake of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids. The current typical American diet contains 20 times more omega-6 than omega-3, a ratio that researchers say should be lowered to 4-to-1, or even 2-to-1.
This is the most recent in a long series of experiments Ohio State University researchers have conducted on the links between psychological stress and immunity. The addition of dietary questions to studies that have previously focused solely on emotional and biochemical markers may yield important new clues about the immune system.
'In this study, we're looking at the intersection of behavior, immune function and diet. In past experiments, we concentrated only on the first two,' explained Jan Kiecolt-Glaser, professor of psychiatry and psychology at Ohio State and lead author on the paper.
'It now appears that diet is a very important variable in the equation as to how people respond to depression and stress.'"
Fruit Juice/Drink Link To Children's Weight Gain: "In a study of children aged four to 12 years from the Barwon South Western region researchers Andrea Sanigorski, Colin Bell and Boyd Swinburn from the University's Faculty of Health, Medicine, Nursing and Behavioural Sciences found that children who had drank more than two glasses (500ml) of fruit juice/drink per day were more likely to be overweight or obese.
'These odds increased as the amounts of fruit juice/drink consumed increased,' Dr Sanigorski said.
'Children who drank more than three glasses of soft drink (three quarters of a litre/750ml) or 4 glasses of fruit juice/drinks (1 litre) on the day in question were more than twice as likely to be overweight or obese compared with children who did not drink these drinks.'"
Higher Trans Fat Levels In Blood Associated With Elevated Risk Of Heart Disease
Higher Trans Fat Levels In Blood Associated With Elevated Risk Of Heart Disease: "High consumption of trans fat, found mainly in partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and widely used by the food industry, has been linked to an increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). New York and Philadelphia have passed measures eliminating its use in restaurants, and other cities are considering similar bans. A new study from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) provides the strongest association to date between trans fat and heart disease. It found that women in the U.S. with the highest levels of trans fat in their blood had three times the risk of CHD as those with the lowest levels. The study will appear in the April 10, 2007 print issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
“The strength of this study is that the amount of trans fatty acid levels was measured in blood samples from the study population. Because humans cannot synthesize trans fatty acids, the amount of trans fat in red blood cells is an excellent biomarker of trans fat intake,” said senior author Frank Hu, associate professor of nutrition and epidemiology at HSPH."
Owner says dog saved her with 'Heimlich': "Toby, a 2-year-old golden retriever, saw his owner choking on a piece of fruit and began jumping up and down on the woman's chest. The dog's owner believes the dog was trying to perform the Heimlich maneuver and saved her life.
Debbie Parkhurst, 45, of Calvert told the Cecil Whig she was eating an apple at her home Friday when a piece lodged in her throat. She attempted to perform the Heimlich maneuver on herself but it didn't work. After she began beating on her chest, she said Toby noticed and got involved.
'The next think I know, Toby's up on his hind feet and he's got his front paws on my shoulders,' she recalled. 'He pushed me to the ground, and once I was on my back, he began jumping up and down on my chest.'
That's when the apple dislodged and Toby started licking her face to keep her from passing out, she said.
'I literally have pawprint-shaped bruises on my chest. I'm still a little hoarse, but otherwise, I'm OK,' Parkhurst said.
'The doctor said I probably wouldn't be here without Toby,' said Parkhurst, a jewelry artist. 'I keep looking at him and saying 'You're amazing.''"
Herbal Extract Extends Life For Heart Failure Patients
Herbal Extract Extends Life For Heart Failure Patients: "An herbal medicinal substance, Crataegus Extract WS?1442, safely extends the lives of congestive heart failure patients already receiving pharmacological treatment for the disease, according to a study presented at the American College of Cardiology's 56th Annual Scientific Session. Crataegus Extract WS?1442 is an extract of leaves of the Crataegus tree, and is a natural antioxidant. The herb is currently approved for use in some European countries to treat early congestive heart failure, a condition in which the heart cannot pump enough blood to the body's other organs."
ScienceDaily: Zinc Supplementation Found To Reduce Mortality In Older Children
Note: Far better to give children a multi-vitamin, multi-mineral supplement that contains zinc than to just give zinc.
Zinc Supplementation Found To Reduce Mortality In Older Children: "A clinical trial conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public concluded that daily zinc supplements reduced the risk of death among children aged 12 to 48 months by 18 percent. However, the researchers did not find any significant reduction in mortality among children 1 to 11 months of age. The study is published in the March 17, 2007, edition of The Lancet.
Zinc is one of the most plentiful trace elements in the body, second only to iron. It mediates many physiological functions and is believed to be essential for maintaining a healthy immune system. The trial examined whether zinc supplementation would benefit children living in areas where malaria is prevalent. Pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria account for 45 percent of the 10 million child deaths worldwide each year.
“This large trial demonstrates that the benefits of zinc supplementation include mortality reduction in addition to the reduction in cases of pneumonia, diarrhea and malaria that we found in previous trials,” said Robert Black, MD, the study’s senior author and professor and chair of the Bloomberg School’s Department of International Health."
Increased Breast Cancer Risk Associated With Greater Fat Intake
Increased Breast Cancer Risk Associated With Greater Fat Intake: "Eating a high-fat diet may lead to an increased risk of invasive breast cancer in postmenopausal women, according to a study in the March 21 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Although environmental and animal studies have suggested that greater fat consumption may increase the likelihood of developing breast cancer, the results of epidemiologic studies have been inconclusive.
The researchers found that doubling fat intake, from 20 percent to 40 percent, was associated with a 15 percent increase in breast cancer risk. The increase in risk was similar for all types of fat—saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated."
Tea Reduces Bacteria In Meats: "Take a serving of extracts from green tea or Jasmine tea, mix in some wildflower dark honey and you have something more useful than a drink. It’s actually a scientific mixture that can be used to reduce pathogenic bacteria in meats.
“Our results indicated that Jasmine tea with honey and green tea with honey had the highest antimicrobial activity,” said Daniel Fung, the Kansas State University food science professor who supervised the research for the Food Safety Consortium.
The tests were first conducted in a liquid medium and found that the tea extract and honey treatments caused significant reductions of Listeria monocytogenes and E. coli O157:H7 bacteria. “That’s not surprising,” Fung said. “In liquid medium, it’s easier for the compounds to interact with the organisms in liquid.”"
Quick walks may help smokers quit: "As little as five minutes of exercise could help smokers quit, says a new study. Research published in the international medical journal Addiction showed that moderate exercise, such as walking, significantly reduced the intensity of smokers' nicotine withdrawal symptoms.
'If we found the same effects in a drug, it would immediately be sold as an aid to help people quit smoking,' said Dr. Adrian Taylor, the study's lead author and professor of exercise and health psychology at the University of Exeter.
Taylor and colleagues reviewed 12 papers looking at the connection between exercise and nicotine deprivation. They focused on exercises that could be done outside a gym, such as walking and isometrics, or the flexing and tensing of muscles. According to their research, just five-minutes of exercise was often enough to help smokers overcome their immediate need for a nicotine fix.
After various types of moderate physical exertion, researchers asked people to rate their need for a cigarette. People who had exercised reported reduced a desire.
'What's surprising is the strength of the effect,' said Dr. Robert West, professor of health psychology at University College London. West was not involved in the review. 'They found that the acute effects of exercise were as effective"
Belly Fat May Drive Inflammatory Processes Associated With Disease
Belly Fat May Drive Inflammatory Processes Associated With Disease: "As scientists learn more about the key role of inflammation in diabetes, heart disease and other disorders, new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that fat in the belly may be an important promoter of that inflammation.
In this abdominal MRI scan, it is possible to see subcutaneous fat around the abdomen, surrounding abdominal muscles. Visceral fat is deeper inside the abdomen, surrounding internal organs.It is the visceral fat that secretes IL-6, strongly suggesting a mechanistic link to systemic inflammation. (Credit: Image courtesy of Washington University School of Medicine)
Excess fat is known to be associated with disease, but now the researchers have confirmed that fat cells inside the abdomen are secreting molecules that increase inflammation. It's the first evidence of a potential mechanistic link between abdominal fat and systemic inflammation.
For years, scientists have been aware of a relationship between disease risk and excess belly fat. 'Apple-shaped' people, who carry fat in the abdomen, have a higher risk of heart disease, diabetes and other problems than 'pear-shaped' people, who tend to store fat in the hips and thighs. Too much abdominal fat is associated with a defect in the body's response to insulin. During medical exams, some physicians measure"
Sleep Disorders Can Impair Children's IQs As Much As Lead Exposure
Sleep Disorders Can Impair Children's IQs As Much As Lead Exposure: "Three decades ago, medical investigators began sounding the alarm about how lead exposure causes IQ deficits in children. Today, researchers at the University of Virginia Health System say children with sleep disorders can face similar risks of intellectual impairment.
UVa researchers have been studying sleep disturbances in children with enlarged tonsils and adenoids for the past seven years. In a recent study, they discovered that youngsters who snore nightly scored significantly lower on vocabulary tests than those who snore less often.
'Vocabulary scores are known to be the best single predictor of a child's IQ and the strongest predictor of academic success,' explains Dr. Paul M. Suratt, a pulmonologist who directs the UVa Sleep Laboratory.
According to Dr. Suratt, the vocabulary differences associated with nightly snoring are equivalent to the IQ dissimilarities attributed to lead exposure. 'Studies show that, even at nontoxic levels, lead exposure can reduce a child's IQ by more than seven points,' he notes."
Obesity Surgery Can Lead To Memory Loss, Other Problems
Obesity Surgery Can Lead To Memory Loss, Other Problems: "Weight loss surgery, such as gastric bypass surgery, can lead to a vitamin deficiency that can cause memory loss and confusion, inability to coordinate movement, and other problems, according to a study published in the March 13, 2007, issue of Neurology®, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
The syndrome, called Wernicke encephalopathy, affects the brain and nervous system when the body doesn't get enough vitamin B1, or thiamine. It can also cause vision problems, such as rapid eye movements.
The study found that the syndrome occurs most often in people who have frequent vomiting after the surgery. It usually occurs within one to three months after the surgery, although one case occurred 18 months after surgery.
The study reviewed the scientific literature for all reported cases of the syndrome occurring after obesity surgery. A total of 32 cases had been reported. Many of the people also had neurological symptoms that are not typical of Wernicke encephalopathy, such as seizures, deafness, psychosis, muscle weakness, and pain or numbness in the feet or hands."
Cocoa 'Vitamin' Health Benefits Could Outshine Penicillin
Cocoa 'Vitamin' Health Benefits Could Outshine Penicillin: "The health benefits of epicatechin, a compound found in cocoa, are so striking that it may rival penicillin and anaesthesia in terms of importance to public health, reports Marina Murphy in Chemistry & Industry, the magazine of the SCI. Norman Hollenberg, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, told C&I that epicatechin is so important that it should be considered a vitamin.
Hollenberg has spent years studying the benefits of cocoa drinking on the Kuna people in Panama. He found that the risk of 4 of the 5 most common killer diseases: stroke, heart failure, cancer and diabetes, is reduced to less then 10% in the Kuna. They can drink up to 40 cups of cocoa a week. Natural cocoa has high levels of epicatechin.
'If these observations predict the future, then we can say without blushing that they are among the most important observations in the history of medicine,' Hollenberg says. 'We all agree that penicillin and anaesthesia are enormously important. But epicatechin could potentially get rid of 4 of the 5 most common diseases in the western world, how important does that make epicatechin?... I would say very important'"
Research Strengthens Link Between Smoking, Pancreatic Cancer
Research Strengthens Link Between Smoking, Pancreatic Cancer: "Researchers at Michigan State University have added yet another piece to the puzzle that links cigarette smoking with cancer of the pancreas, one of the deadliest forms of cancer.
In research published in the recent issue of the International Journal of Cancer, MSU’s James Trosko and colleagues zeroed in on the mechanism by which a healthy cell turns cancerous.
Specifically, they found that the chemicals produced by the burning of tobacco products – polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs – interfere with communication between the body’s cells. More importantly, the work showed that some of these chemicals don’t necessarily initiate the cancer, but rather contribute to the promotion of it."
Vitamin D Deficiency Widespread During Pregnancy: "Even regular use of prenatal multivitamin supplements is not adequate to prevent vitamin D insufficiency, University of Pittsburgh researchers report in the current issue of the Journal of Nutrition, the publication of the American Society for Nutrition. A condition linked to rickets and other musculoskeletal and health complications, vitamin D insufficiency was found to be widespread among women during pregnancy, particularly in the northern latitudes.
'In our study, more than 80 percent of African-American women and nearly half of white women tested at delivery had levels of vitamin D that were too low, even though more than 90 percent of them used prenatal vitamins during pregnancy,' said Lisa Bodnar, Ph.D., M.P.H., R.D., assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH) and lead author of the study. 'The numbers also were striking for their newborns -- 92.4 percent of African-American babies and 66.1 percent of white infants were found to have insufficient vitamin D at birth.'
A vitamin closely associated with bone health, vitamin D deficiency early in life is associated with rickets -- a disorder characterized by soft bones and thought to have been eradicated in the United States more than 50 years ago -- as well as increased risk for type 1 diabetes, asthma and s"
Can Ecology and Commerce Coexist?: "Our small boat bobs along the unimaginably wide Amazon River, then heads up a fast-flowing tributary the colour of tea with cream, and finally turns onto a stream leading into the heart of the rainforest. Monkeys scamper in the trees above us as the motorboat chugs more and more slowly until the stream becomes too narrow to travel. This is where José Luiz de Oliveira and his 17-year-old son Alex live on a small farmstead alive with bird calls. Piglets frolic in the cool mud below their dock while ducks march in formation.
In many ways this boat ride feels like a trip into the past. The forest is largely untouched here except for the sunny clearing around the house (although we did spot an illegal lumber operation downriver). The de Oliveiras live as people have for centuries -- drawing their daily meals and livelihood from the land, the river and the livestock. It's an enchanting place if you can get used to the mosquitoes. Yet beauty and peace do not translate into prosperity. The tiny house has no electricity, no telephone, no fans, no screens in the windows.
The great debates about sustainable development being waged in government assemblies and at environmental institutes, corporate headquarters and street protests around the world are really about this place. Is it possible to bring the de Oliveiras some of the advantages of"
Link Between Obesity And Environmental Chemicals?: "A team of researchers at UNH is investigating whether the increasing ubiquity of chemical flame retardants found in foam furniture, carpeting, microwaves and computers might be related to the climbing rate of obesity in the United States.
“Environmental chemicals are a possible third component to the obesity epidemic, along with diet and exercise,” says Gale Carey, professor of nutrition and a leader of the research project, along with professor of nutrition Anthony Tagliaferro and Deena Small, assistant professor of molecular biology and biochemistry. The trio received funding for the project from the President’s Excellence Initiative Awards, which provide support for interdisciplinary research.
The flame retardants, called polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), have been produced since the 1960s; they’re now found in consumer products like carpeting, upholstered furniture, computers and hair dryers, where they retard the combustibility of these products. It’s estimated that American consumers come into contact with up to 100 products containing PBDEs per day."
In Obesity, Brain Becomes 'Unaware' Of Fat: "Critical portions of the brain in those who are obese don't really know they are overweight, researchers have reported in the March issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, published by Cell Press. These findings in obese mice show that a sensor in the brain that normally detects a critical fat hormone--causing a cascade of events that keeps energy balance in check--fails to engage. Meanwhile, the rest of the metabolic pathway remains ready to respond.
'Obesity is not a failure of will power, it is a biological failure,' said Michael Cowley of Oregon Health & Science University of his group's findings in the mice. 'The brain is not aware that the body is obese.'
If the same is true in humans, he added, people may be consciously aware that they are overweight, but 'that's different from the homeostatic circuitry being aware.'"
Stress-signaling Fat Is A Culprit Behind Insulin Resistance
Stress-signaling Fat Is A Culprit Behind Insulin Resistance: "A new study in the March issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, published by Cell Press, has identified a common link between multiple assaults on the body, including saturated fats, obesity, and certain types of drugs, all of which can lead to insulin resistance. The researchers found that these metabolic stresses lead to an upswing in production of a particular kind of fat molecule, known as ceramide.
Moreover, the researchers show, a treatment that blocks ceramide's synthesis markedly improves insulin response and prevents the onset of diabetes in obese rodents. The findings therefore identify ceramide as a target for therapies aimed at improving insulin response and blood sugar control, the researchers said.
'A collision of genetic and environmental factors has produced an epidemic growth of obesity and insulin-resistance rates during the last decade,' said Scott Summers of the University of Utah. As a result, he noted, some have even suggested that life expectancies may soon start to decline."
Diet Study Tips Scale In Favor Of Atkins Plan: "The case for low-carbohydrate diets is gaining weight. Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have completed the largest and longest-ever comparison of four popular diets, and the lowest-carbohydrate Atkins diet came out on top.
'Many health professionals, including us, have either dismissed the value of very-low-carbohydrate diets for weight loss or been very skeptical of them,' said lead researcher Christopher Gardner, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center. 'But it seems to be a viable alternative for dieters.'
Of the more than 300 women in the study, those randomly assigned to follow the Atkins diet for a year not only lost more weight than the other participants, but also experienced the most benefits in terms of cholesterol and blood pressure.
'Many health professionals, including us, have either dismissed the value of very-low-carbohydrate diets for weight loss or been very skeptical of them,' said lead researcher Christopher Gardner, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention Research Center. 'But it seems to be a viable alternative for dieters"
Children Under Stress Develop More Fevers: "Children whose parents and families are under ongoing stress have more fevers with illness than other children. Published this month in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, the study also shows the unanticipated conclusion that children's natural killer cell function, part of the body's innate immune system, increases under chronic stress, unlike adults, whose function is decreased.
'These findings are somewhat surprising to me but also exciting because they show us possible new avenues for improving children's health,' said Mary Caserta, M.D., principal investigator of the study and associate professor of Pediatrics in the division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the University of Rochester Medical Center. 'I figured families under stress might think their children were sick more often when they actually weren't, but fevers are not subjective. These kids living with chronic stress in their families really were sick more often.'
While an illness with a fever isn't necessarily any worse than an illness without one, it does point to an objective sign of illness, often an infection, Caserta said. This suggests an association between family stress and susceptibility to infectious diseases."
Link Found Between Teens' Stress Levels And Acne Severity
Link Found Between Teens' Stress Levels And Acne Severity: "The largest study ever conducted on acne and stress reveals that teenagers who were under high levels of stress were 23 percent more likely to have increased acne severity, according to researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and colleagues.
'Acne significantly affects physical and psychosocial well-being, so it is important to understand the interplay between the factors that exacerbate acne,' said Gil Yosipovitch, M.D., lead author and a professor of dermatology. 'Our study suggests a significant association between stress and severity of acne.'
The results of the study, which involved 94 adolescents from Singapore, are reported today in Acta Derm Venereol, a Swedish medical journal.
While psychological stress had been identified among many factors that can worsen acne, there has been little research to understand the mechanisms behind this relationship. The current study looked at whether levels of sebum, the oily substance that coats the skin and protects the hair, increase in times of stress and are related to acne severity. Hormone levels, sebum production and bacteria are all known to play major roles in acne."
Red Pepper: Hot Stuff For Fighting Fat?: "Food scientists in Taiwan are reporting new evidence from laboratory experiments that capsaicin — the natural compound that gives red pepper that spicy hot kick — can reduce the growth of fat cells. The study is scheduled for the March 21 issue of the ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-weekly publication.
In the report, Gow-Chin Yen and Chin-Lin Hsu cite previous research suggesting that obesity can be reduced by preventing immature fat cells (adipocytes) from developing into mature cells.
Past research also linked capsaicin to a decrease in the amount of fat tissue and decreased blood-fat levels. With that knowledge, the researchers tested capsaicin’s effects on pre-adipocytes and adipocytes growing in laboratory cultures.
They found that capsaicin prevented pre-adipocytes from filling with fat and becoming full-fledged fat cells. The effects occurred at levels just slightly greater than those found in the stomach fluid of an individual eating a typical Indian or Thai diet, the researchers noted. Capsaicin worked by providing a biochemical signal that made fat cells undergo apoptosis, a mechanism in which cells self-destruct."
Exercise Reduces Risk Of Developing Invasive Breast Cancer
Exercise Reduces Risk Of Developing Invasive Breast Cancer: "Significant findings have emerged from the California Teachers Study (CTS) that suggest long-term recreational physical activity plays a protective role against invasive and in situ breast cancer.
'Previous studies have linked physical activity with a reduction in breast cancer, but few studies have examined risk separately for in situ and invasive breast cancers or have characterized risk by hormone receptor status,' said Leslie Bernstein, professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and primary investigator of the CTS. 'This study is unique because it provides the first prospective study data documenting that a woman's long-term exercise habits are important in determining her future breast cancer risk.'
In a study to be published in the February 26 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers analyzed data collected from a cohort of 110,599 women who were current or former California teachers and public school professionals with no prior history of breast cancer, and who were between the ages of 22 and 79 years at the start of the study. The study was initiated in 1995 with detailed collection of information on women's exercise histories and current exercise habits."
