June 18, 2009

Increased thyroid stimulating hormone associated with extreme longevity
LIFE EXTENSIONS  June 17, 2009
In the April, 2009 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, researchers from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York report the discovery of a significant correlation between exceptional longevity and elevated levels of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH, which increases production of hormones by the thyroid gland). According to the authors of the study, “subclinical hypothyroidism is diagnosed when serum TSH concentration is above the upper reference limit and free T4 remains within the reference range.” Hypothyroidism has been associated with extreme longevity in some animals as well as in some human studies, however, it is unknown whether it contributes to healthy aging.
The current study analyzed serum TSH and free T4 (thyroid hormone) levels in 232 Ashkenazi Jews with a median age of 97, 188 Ashkenazi Jews whose median age was 72, and 605 subjects aged 60 to 79 without thyroid disease who had participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 1998-2002. Thyroid stimulating hormone was significantly higher in the older Ashkenazi Jews compared with both control groups, although T4 levels were similar in both Ashkenazi groups.
“Serum TSH concentrations and distribution gradually increase with age, suggesting either a decline in thyroid function or a reset in the TSH set point, which may occur with aging,” the authors write. “Although it remains unclear from numerous clinical studies whether altered negative-feedback between free T4 and TSH or subtle hypothyroidism raises the risk of adverse health outcomes, this, a priori, does not seem likely for individuals who have achieved exceptional longevity.”
They add that until the issue is settled, it may not be prudent for elderly patients who exhibit minimally increased TSH to be routinely treated with the thyroid hormone levothyroxine.
increased-thyroid-stimulating-hormone-associated-extreme-longevity

Lifestyle may counter blood pressure genes

Xinhua News Agency  06-18-09
LOS ANGELES, Jun 17, 2009 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Lifestyle may affect genes that predispose people to high blood pressure, a new study has found.
People born with high blood pressure genes are not doomed to have the problem if they have a healthy lifestyle, according to the study by researchers at the University of North Carolina.
The researchers based their study on data from the Strong Heart Family Study, which has been looking at diabetes and high blood pressure among American Indians in Arizona, North and South Dakota and Oklahoma, an ethnic group in which the incidence of both is high. The study now includes more than 3,600 people aged 14 to 93.
Different lifestyles and socioeconomic status influence the effect of inherited genetic patterns, according to the study published by HealthDay News on Wednesday.
The study linked the effects of three behavioral traits -- drinking, smoking and exercise -- with that of the genes. It also looked at education level, a socioeconomic factor.
"It's been known for many years that blood pressure is affected by genes," said Dr. Nora Franceschini, an assistant professor of epidemiology who led the study.
"It's also known that lifestyle affects blood pressure. Now we are showing that they interact, and that the effect of those genes varies among individuals who have different behaviors."
It's an important finding because high blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases, health experts said.
The study "reinforces the message that lifestyle changes can alter the effect of genetics," Franceschini said.
About 15 percent of the variation in diastolic blood pressure, the lower of the two numbers in a blood pressure reading, is because of genes, Franceschini said.
The study found that genes for high blood pressure have a greater effect in smokers than nonsmokers, Franceschini said. It also found a similar effect for physical exercise.
Blood pressure among drinkers is affected by different genes than in people who quit drinking or never drank, Franceschini added.
"Our study shows a comprehensive effect across multiple behaviors," she said.
The next step in the study is an effort to identify the specific genes that interact with each of the behavioral traits to increase blood pressure, according to Franceschini.
Analysis of the entire genome "may allow us to identify the particular genes that account for the interaction," she said.
http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=8401&Section=Disease

New findings from Louisiana State University in the area of cyclooxygenase published

NewsRx.com 06-17-09
"Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), the main omega-3 fatty acid, is concentrated and avidly retained in membrane phospholipids of the nervous system. DHA is involved in brain and retina function, aging, and neurological and psychiatric/behavioral illnesses," scientists writing in the Journal of Lipid Research report (see also Cyclooxygenase).
"Neuroprotectin D1 (NPD1), the first-identified stereoselective bioactive product of DHA, exerts neuroprotection in models of experimental stroke by down-regulating brain ischemia reperfusion (BIR)-induced leukocyte infiltration, proinflammatory signaling, and infarct size. Moreover, NPD1 inhibits cytokine-mediated cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression. Photoreceptor membranes display the highest content of DHA of any cell. Retinal pigment epithelial cells participate in the phagocytosis of the tips of photoreceptor cells (photoreceptor outer segment renewal). There is a DHA retrieval-intercellular mechanism between both types of cells that conserves this fatty acid during this process. NPD1 promotes homeostatic regulation of the integrity of these two cells, particularly during oxidative stress, and this protective signaling may be relevant in retinal degenerative diseases. Moreover, neurotrophins are NPD1-synthesis agonists, and NPD1 content is decreased in the CA1 region of the hippocampus of Alzheimer's patients. Overall, NPD1 promotes brain cell survival via the induction of antiapoptotic and neuroprotective gene-expression programs that suppress Ab42 production and its neurotoxicity," wrote N.G. Bazan and colleagues, Louisiana State University.
The researchers concluded: "Thus, NPD1 elicits potent cell-protective, anti-inflammatory, prosurvival repair signaling.-Bazan, N. G. Neuroprotectin D1-mediated anti-inflammatory and survival signaling in stroke, retinal degenerations, and Alzheimer's disease. J. Lipid Res. 2009. S400-S405."
Bazan and colleagues published their study in the Journal of Lipid Research (Neuroprotectin D1-mediated anti-inflammatory and survival signaling in stroke, retinal degenerations, and Alzheimer's disease. Journal of Lipid Research, 2009;50(Suppl. S):S400-S405).
http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=8398&Section=Aging

Nutrition vs Cost: Survey outlines consumer priorities

Nutraingredients.com, 17-Jun-2009

Over half of Americans are willing to spend more on healthier versions of food, but price remains a barrier for some, according to a new online survey.
Commissioned by the United Soybean Board and conducted by an independent research firm, the survey found that most people who do not opt for healthier food are still interested in nutrition but cannot deal with the heftier price tag.
Consumer Attitudes about Nutrition 2009 has a strong focus on the nutritional benefits of soy – presented as a “budget-friendly” health food – but it also reveals some useful general statistics about consumer shopping behavior.
The latest study, which is the 16th annual report of its kind, includes 1,009 random online surveys conducted in January 2009, selected to provide a sample representative of the US population.
Interest in nutrition?
The survey findings, released yesterday, reveal that 54 percent of Americans will spend more on healthier products. Of those that do not opt for the healthier versions, the majority (52 percent) say the obstacle is financial, suggesting that a lack of interest in nutrition is not always the case.
Some 87 percent of respondents said they were concerned about the nutritional content of the food they eat. In addition, 88 percent said they consider nutrition important when purchasing foods at the grocery store.
According to the United Soybeans Board, which backs the interests of soy producers, soyfoods could provide a “nutrient-dense”, “affordable” option for those health conscious consumers that are unable to pay the extra buck.
On questioning consumers about soy, the group found that 84 percent of respondents rate soy as healthy, a 25 percent increase compared to 12 years ago. One-third of respondents said they purchase foods specifically because they contain soy.
Functional foods market
A report published last month by Packaged Facts estimates that the USfunctional foods and beverages market was valued at $30.7bn last year, up 6 percent on 2007.
“This performance reflects a slow-down from the 8 per cent growth rate seen in 2007, reflecting both the increasing maturity of the market and the impact of recessionary pressures on consumer spending on ‘fancier’ and less essential food and beverage items,” wrote the report, entitled Functional Foods and Beverages in the US, 4th Edition
The compound annual growth rate between 2003 and 2008 was 8 per cent. By 2013, the US functional foods market is predicted to be worth around $43bn.
Nutrition-vs-Cost-Survey-outlines-consumer-priorities

Could vinegar be natural fat fighter?

Nutraingredients.com, 18-Jun-2009

Ordinary vinegar – acetic acid – may prevent the build up of fat, and therefore weight gain, according to results of a study with mice from Japan.
Animals fed a high-fat diet and supplemented with acetic acid developed about 10 per cent less body fat than mice just eating the diet, according to findings published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
If the results can be repeated in further studies, particularly in human studies, it could see vinegar establish itself in the burgeoning weight managementcategory, estimated to be worth about US$0.93bn (€0.73bn) in Europe in 2005 and $3.93bn in the US, indicating that call to slim down or face the health consequences is being heeded by a slice of the overweight population at least, according to Euromonitor International.
The Japanese researchers, led by Tomoo Kondo from the Central Research Institute of the Mizkan Group Corporation, found that vinegar was working at a genetic level, by influencing genes linked to fatty acid oxidation and heat-generating (energy burning) proteins.
“We intend to perform further clinical studies to confirm fat pad reduction and energy consumption enhancement by vinegar intake. Moreover, we will investigate the effect of acetic acid on fatty oxidative activation in other organs, particularly skeletal muscles,” wrote the researchers.
This is not the first time vinegar has been linked to weight control. In 2005 scientists from Lund University reported that increasing intake of the common flavouring could help dieters eat less and reduce cravings brought on by sugar peaks after meals (European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 59, pp 983-988).
Study details
Kondo and co-workers fed mice a high-fat diet, with 50 per cent of energy coming from fat, and treated the animals with 1.5 per cent vinegar (high-dose group), 0.3 per cent vinegar (low-dose group), or water (control group).
At the end of the study, the researchers noted that that both vinegar groups produced reductions in fat mass of about 10 per cent, with no apparent dose-dependent effect, compared to the control mice.
Furthermore, the researchers noted changes in the gene-expression of peroxisome-proliferator-activated receptor-alpha (PPAR-alpha), which controls enzymes linked to fatty-acid-oxidation, such as acetyl-CoA oxidase and carnitine palmitoyl transferase-1, as well as a protein linked to thermogenesis called uncoupling protein-2.
“The results of this study suggest that acetic acid suppresses body fat accumulation by increasing fatty oxidation and thermogenesis in the liver through PPAR-alpha,” wrote the researchers.
Journal of Agricultural and Food ChemistryPublished online ahead of print, ASAP Article, doi: 10.1021/jf900470c “Acetic Acid Upregulates the Expression of Genes for Fatty Acid Oxidation Enzymes in Liver To Suppress Body Fat Accumulation”Authors: T. Kondo, M. Kishi, T. Fushimi, T. Kaga
http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/Could-vinegar-be-natural-fat-fighter

Nanotechnology: The new asbestos?

Foodnavigator-USA.com, 17-Jun-2009

The safety risks of nanotechnology use by the food industry could make it “the new asbestos”, says toxicologist Dr George Burdock of the Burdock Group.
Nanotechnology refers to controlling matter at an atomic or molecular scale measured in nanometers, or millionths of millimeters. In the food industry, the technology has excited manufacturers as its potential uses are explored, including detecting bacteria in packaging, or producing stronger flavors and colorings.
But Dr Burdock claims that manufacturers lack understanding about how particles can change when they are shrunk to nano-size, and the current economic situation has exacerbated potential dangers, as some cost-cutting companies could look to cheaper, less reliable safety assessments.
Altered properties
One of the major safety worries about nanotechnology has been the suggestion that such small particles could feasibly cross cellular membrane barriers, meaning that an ingredient that is currently GRAS (generally recognized as safe) could become dangerous if it is nano-sized – a worry that Dr Burdock shares.
He told FoodNavigator-USA.com: “The problem is that a lot of food ingredient manufacturers are looking at ingredients and saying that a product is GRAS, but if it’s nano-sized it’s going to have different properties.
“The answer is that if you nano-size the particle you have to test it like a new substance. This is what could make nanotechnology the new asbestos.”
His views were echoed in a new report from the Investor Environmental Health Network (IEHN) released on Tuesday which discusses what it terms “disturbing asbestos-nanotech parallels”.
According to the report, “some of these technologies are showing signs of posing serious hazards to human health and the environment, including the same kind of grave threats resulting from exposure to asbestos.”
FDA testing
However, Dr Burdock agreed with the FDA’s view that it already has the tools it needs to test the technology’s safety, saying: “Even though a nanotech particle takes on different properties you can still test its safety with standardized testing.”
But problems could arise, he said, because – unlike genetic engineering – nanotechnology is “very cheap to get into”, a situation that further opens up the potential for unethical practices, such as not testing a newly nano-sized ingredient.
“Manufacturers have a moral and ethical responsibility to test. Eighty percent of people play by the rules but you still have the bottom feeders,” he said.
For those manufacturers that do choose to explore the uses of nanotechnology, Dr Burdock said: “Once food manufacturers get something approved their job isn’t over. They have got to be very proactive…New data is being developed all the time and when it is, they need to make sure the person checking their product knows what they are doing.”
http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Financial-Industry/Nanotechnology-The-new-asbestos

Reason for farming link to brain cancer unclear
Last Updated: 2009-06-17 10:44:30 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Farmers are known to be at higher risk of a type of brain cancer known as glioma, but a comprehensive new study has found no association between types of farming or farm activities and the disease.
"We didn't find a 'culprit' among all the farming activities, the crops, the animals -- none of these were associated with a higher risk of glioma," Dr. Avima M. Ruder of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Cincinnati told Reuters Health. "It's something else."
Ruder believes the association is likely due to farmers' well-documented lower risk of having allergies. Studies have found a reduced risk of cancers--including gliomas--among people with allergies, she explained, probably because their "hypersensitive" immune systems are better able to find and destroy abnormal cells before tumors form.
In the current study, she and her colleagues looked at dozens of different factors including pesticide use, type of crops farmed, and length of time living on a farm to determine whether any might account for the increased risk of gliomas found among farmers. They included 288 people with gliomas and 474 healthy controls, all of whom lived on farms in Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota or Wisconsin at age 18 or afterwards.
People who didn't wash up after applying pesticides or who didn't change clothes after using these chemicals were about three times as likely to develop gliomas, the researchers found. Those who lived on farms where corn, oats, soybeans or hogs were raised were actually at lower risk.
Ruder points out that people who don't follow precautions about pesticide use may be less cautious in other areas of their lives as well; she also noted that gliomas can affect a person's memory, so it's possible that the sick individuals had an impaired recollection of their pesticide use practices.
Whether or not the link between taking these precautions and glioma risk was real, she added, "there are other diseases that you can increase your risk for if you don't follow good work practices. People do get poisoned by pesticides."
SOURCE: American Journal of Epidemiology, June 15, 2009.
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2009/06/17/eline/links/20090617elin021.html

Traditional Chinese Food Ingredients Prevent Breast Cancer
David Gutierrez, June 18, 2009 

(NaturalNews) Two foods commonly eaten as part of the traditional Chinese diet can reduce a woman's risk of breast cancer by as much as 90 percent, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Western Australia in Perth, and published in the International Journal of Cancer.

Researchers compared consumption of mushrooms and green tea between two groups of Chinese women, one with breast cancer and one without. They found that women who ate at least 10 grams (0.35 ounces) of fresh mushrooms per day had a 64 percent lower risk of developing breast cancerthan those who did not eat as much. Those who also regularly drank green tea reduced their risk by a total of 90 percent. Dried mushrooms also reduced breast cancer risk, although they were not as effective as fresh ones. 

The protective benefit of mushrooms and green tea remained significant even after researchers adjusted for other breast cancer risk factors, including weight, exercise, smoking and education level.

Breast cancer rates are four to five times lower in China than in most Western countries, a fact widely attributed to a different lifestyle.

"Breast cancer incidence rates do vary in different countries, and China has lower rates than the United Kingdom," said Sarah Cant of Breakthrough Breast Cancer. "This is likely to be due to cultural and lifestyle differences such as having children earlier or exercising more [as well as diet]." 

Previous research has supported the cancer-fighting properties of both mushrooms and green tea. Mushrooms are believed to suppress tumor growth and boost the immune system, and may also block production of the hormone estrogen. Green tea contains polyphenols, which have been shown to remove free radicals from the blood and hamper breast tumor development.

Julie Sharp of Cancer Research UK noted that mushrooms and green tea alone cannot make up for an otherwise unhealthy lifestyle.

"It is important to remember there is no one particular 'super' food that will protect you from cancer," she said. "Large scientific studies have proven that the best way to reduce your risk of many cancers is to eat a healthy balanced diet."
http://www.naturalnews.com/z026467_cancer_food_breast_cancer.html

SSRIs Prescribed for Autistic Children Make Them Worse
S. L. Baker, June 17, 2009 

(NaturalNews) Despite the fact the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved any prescription medications to treat the symptoms of autism and related disorders, drugs are frequently -- and increasingly -- being given to autistic children, according to a study in the June issue ofArchives of General Psychiatry. An especially popular medication for autistic kids is the antidepressant citalopram, sold under the brand name Celexa, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), which interferes with the way the brain regulates the neurotransmitter serotonin.

Celexa supposedly reduces the occurrence of repetitive behaviors in children and teenagers with autism and related condition. At least, that's the reason countless doctors have said they were prescribing it for autistic youngsters. The problem is, the new research shows the drugs do absolutely nothing to help. And a careful reading of the study's conclusion shows the drug makes autistic kids' repetitive behavior symptoms worse.

Children with autism often demonstrate the same actions over and over, like repetitive play and sticking to inflexible routines. The behaviors usually continue over time. "Because of suggested similarities between repetitive behavior in autism spectrum disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder and the findings of serotonin system abnormalities in autism, anti-obsessional agents such as SSRIs have long been of interest," the authors write. "Despite the relative dearth of evidence supporting their use, SSRIs are among the most frequently used medications for children with autism, partially because of their perceived safety."

Bryan H. King, M.D., of Seattle Children's Hospital and the University of Washington, Seattle, and his research team set out to find evidence about how the SSRI might affect those with autism. The scientists conducted a randomized controlled trial to document the safety and efficacy of citalopram in children with autism spectrum disorders who had moderate or higher levels of repetitive behavior. Out of a group of 149 research subjects with autism spectrum disorders between the ages of 5 to 17, 73 were randomly assigned to receive citalopram (taking a typical average maximum dosage of 16.5 milligrams per day). Another control group received an inactive placebo for 12 weeks. 

After the three month treatment period was over, the scientists could find no improvement in the group treated with citalopram when compared to the kids in the placebo group. However, there were differences in the two groups of youngsters -- the ones on the SSRI had far more problems after taking the drug than the kid who didn't. In fact, instead of halting repetitive movement, citalopram actually increased a form of repetitive movement.

What's more, the children put on the SSRI suffered from a long list of potentially serious side effects. "Citalopram use was significantly more likely to be associated with adverse events, particularly increased energy level, impulsiveness, decreased concentration, hyperactivity, stereotypy (mechanical repetition of the same posture or movement), diarrhea, insomnia and dry skin or pruritis," the authors write. 

"To date, there are few large-scale trials to guide clinical practice, so clinicians are left to address these problems with inadequate information. The results of this trial indicate that citalopram is not an effective treatment for children having autism spectrum disorders with moderate or greater repetitive behavior," the researchers continue in their Archives of General Psychiatry paper. "The results also highlight the urgent need for placebo-controlled trials of medications commonly used for children with autism spectrum disorders to determine whether the risks of specific drugs substantially outweigh their benefits."

In other words, they are admitting that commonly used, powerful drugs are widely being given to children with autism -- without anyone knowing whether there are any benefits at all, much less whether there are dangerous side effects that could outweigh any potential help from the prescription medications. Citalopram, i.e. Celexa, and the other SSRIs are particularly worrisome because they can spur youngsters to hurt themselves. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), "Children, teenagers, and young adults who take antidepressants to treat depression or other mental illnesses may be more likely to become suicidal than children, teenagers, and young adults who do not take antidepressants to treat these conditions."

Remarkably, although citalopram is widely prescribed for autistic youngsters, the NIH web side states, "However, experts are not sure about how great this risk is and how much it should be considered in deciding whether a child or teenager should take an antidepressant. Children younger than 18 years of age should not normally take citalopram..." 

Archives of General Psychiatry, 2009;66[6]:583-590.
http://www.naturalnews.com/z026464_autism_SSRIs_SSRI.html

World "sleepwalking" into disasters: U.N. aid chief
Tue Jun 16, 2009 10:06am EDT
GENEVA (Reuters) - The world is 'sleepwalking' toward preventable natural disasters whose effects could be cut significantly with a modest increase in spending on risk reduction, the United Nations aid chief said on Tuesday.
"The trends in disasters, particularly from climate change, are of enormous concern," said John Holmes, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs.
"We can only expect that this kind of trend is going to continue," he told a news conference.
Holmes was speaking at the start of a four-day Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction which gathers over 1,800 participants from 169 governments and around 140 international and non-governmental organizations.
Risk reduction efforts had improved since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed more than 250,000 people, but much more was needed, Holmes said.
"We're still to some extent sleepwalking our way into disasters for the future which we know are going to happen, and not enough is being done to mitigate the damage," he said.
Holmes hoped the Global Platform would agree to spend around $3 billion a year on disaster risk reduction, representing about 10 percent of the $8 billion spent each year on disaster relief, plus 1 percent of the $239 billion development aid budget.
By comparison, disasters in 2008 caused approximately $200 billion in damage, Holmes said. While the cost two years earlier was a quarter of that, the trend was clearly rising.
"The most damaging disasters in developing countries can seem to cause the least damage because the property being damaged is less expensive ... but the real damage done to lives and livelihoods is much greater," Holmes said.
It was important global efforts to deal with climate change include disaster risk reduction and look at adapting behavior as well as mitigating the effects of disasters, he said.
About 90 percent of disasters are climate-related, said Holmes, who noted cyclones in Brazil in 2004 and Oman in 2007 had been of an intensity never before seen in those regions.
The massive earthquake in Sichuan, China, last year, and another earthquake in Italy this year had shown both the need for tough building codes and the importance of enforcing them.
PREVENTATIVE MEASURES
Priorities for the Global Platform meeting include plans to disaster-proof schools and hospitals, build up early-warning systems, reduce human settlement in disaster-prone areas and restore and safeguard ecosystems.
Bangladesh, where many people live in a coastal area prone to flooding and cyclone-driven sea swells, has cut the death toll from disasters dramatically through early-warning systems.
But the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization estimates 60 of its members do not have adequate systems, Holmes said.
Most of the 10 biggest "megacities" of 25-35 million people are in dangerous coastal areas or earthquake zones. Nearly one billion people live in "informal settlements" or city slums, with the number growing by 25 million a year, as urbanization exposes more people to the risk of disaster, he said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE55F3Z320090616

Multivitamins Linked to Younger Biological Age
Jason Cairns On June 12, 2009   Organic Jar.com
(OrganicJar) Research conducted at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences discovered that cells from individuals who take a multivitamin have a younger biological age than cells from individuals who don’t take a multivitamin. Researchers looked at the length of telomeres, DNA sequences at the end of chromosomes that shorten as cells replicate and age.
The ageing and lifespan of normal, healthy cells are linked to the telomerase shortening, which limits cells to a fixed number of divisions. During cell replication, the telomeres function by ensuring the cell’s chromosomes do not fuse with each other or rearrange, which can lead to cancer. Elizabeth Blackburn, a telomere pioneer at the University of California San Francisco, likened telomeres to the ends of shoelaces, without which the lace would unravel.
Dr. Honglei Chen from the NIEH noted that telomere length may therefore be a marker of biological ageing, and that multivitamins may beneficially affect telomere length via modulation of oxidative stress and chronic inflammation.
With each replication the telomeres shorten, and when the telomeres are totally consumed, the cells are destroyed. Previous studies have also reported that telomeres are highly susceptible to oxidative stress.
In an attempt to identify specific nutrients that could be behind the observations, a positive relationship between telomere length and intakes of vitamins C and E from foods was observed.
http://organicjar.com/2009/1300/

The Superfood that is Rooibos Tea
Jason Cairns On June 3, 2009   Organic Jar.com
(OrganicJar) Rooibos (pronounced ROY-boss) appears to rival the health benefits of green, red and black tea. A favorite among South Africans for years, the tea is made from Aspalathus Linearis, an indigenous shrub that grows only in the mountainous region close to the Cape of Good Hope.
The beverage is said to have 50% more antioxidants than are found in green tea and new research is showing rooibos helps delay the aging process! The aging of our bodies is caused by toxic compounds called free radicals which are produced as a by-product of normal cell function. These free radicals attack our healthy cells. Over our lifetime this damage contributes to aging and our immune system weakens. Recently, Japanese scientists have found that Rooibos tea contains a mimic of the enzyme Super Oxide Dismutase (S.O.D.), an antioxidant which attacks the free radicals and limits their damaging effects.
Rooibos tea contains no colors, additives or preservatives. It helps to relieve insomnia, irritability, headaches, stomach ulcers, nausea, constipation, and heartburn. It also shows anti-mutagenic, anti-carcinogenic, anti-inflammatory and anti-viral activity.
Rooibos contains alpha hydroxy acid and zinc for healthy, smooth skin. This wonder tea is especially useful when brewed and applied to skin irritations like itchy skin, eczema, sunburns, diaper rash and acne.

More Amazing Benefits of Rooibos Tea!

• Helps to give you strong bones and teeth because of its calcium, manganese and fluoride content.
• Is often prescribed for nervous tension and mild depression as it makes a relaxing sedative.
• Helps to control your appetite thus beneficial in weight loss.
• Contains magnesium which is necessary for a healthy nervous system.
• Helps pacify infants with colic, stomach cramps and sleeping problems. Simply mix some Rooibos tea with expressed breast milk or formula. It is 100% natural with no colorants or preservatives.
• Contains no oxalic acid and can therefore be enjoyed by persons suffering from kidney stones.
• Put used rooibos tea bags in the refrigerator or freezer. After a hard day’s work, put on tired or red eyes to soothe and relax.
• Increases the absorption of iron in the body.
• Makes a great thirst-quencher and sport drink. Because of its mineral content of iron, potassium, zinc, manganese and sodium, it restores the body’s equilibrium after strenuous exercise.
• Drink it hot or cold, with or without milk, sugar or honey. Add lemon or mix it with fruit juices for a lovely blend. Rooibos tea is also used in cooking and baking. It replaces the liquid content in recipes for soups, marinades, sauces, stews and cakes for added flavor and nutrition.
• And Rooibos tastes divine! It is less bitter than most teas.

http://organicjar.com/2009/1282/

Fungus Threatens 80% of Worlds Wheat Crop!
Jason Cairns On June 17, 2009   OrganicJar.com
(OrganicJar) The Ug99 fungus, called stem rust, could wipe out more than 80% of the world’s wheat as it spreads from Africa, scientists fear. The race is on to breed resistant plants before it reaches the U.S.
It has already jumped the Red Sea and traveled as far as Iran. Experts say it is poised to enter the breadbasket of northern India and Pakistan, and the wind will inevitably carry it to Russia, China and even North America — if it doesn’t hitch a ride with people first.
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center in Mexico estimates that 19% of the world’s wheat, which provides food for 1 billion people in Asia and Africa, is in imminent danger. American plant breeders say $10 billion worth of wheat would be destroyed if the fungus suddenly made its way to U.S. fields.
After several years of feverish work, scientists have identified a mere half-dozen genes that are immediately useful for protecting wheat from Ug99. Incorporating them into crops using conventional breeding techniques is a nine- to 12-year process that has only just begun. And that process will have to be repeated for each of the thousands of wheat varieties that is specially adapted to a particular region and climate.
http://organicjar.com/2009/1321/

Scientists Show Bacteria Can 'Learn' And Plan Ahead
ScienceDaily (June 18, 2009) — Bacteria can anticipate a future event and prepare for it, according to new research at the Weizmann Institute of Science. In a paper that appeared June 17 in Nature, Prof. Yitzhak Pilpel, doctoral student Amir Mitchell and research associate Dr. Orna Dahan of the Institute's Molecular Genetics Department, together with Prof. Martin Kupiec and Gal Romano of Tel Aviv University, examined microorganisms living in environments that change in predictable ways.
Their findings show that these microorganisms' genetic networks are hard-wired to 'foresee' what comes next in the sequence of events and begin responding to the new state of affairs before its onset.
E. coli bacteria, for instance, which normally cruise harmlessly down the digestive tract, encounter a number of different environments on their way. In particular, they find that one type of sugar – lactose – is invariably followed by a second sugar – maltose – soon afterward. Pilpel and his team of the Molecular Genetics Department, checked the bacterium's genetic response to lactose, and found that, in addition to the genes that enable it to digest lactose, the gene network for utilizing maltose was partially activated. When they switched the order of the sugars, giving the bacteria maltose first, there was no corresponding activation of lactose genes, implying that bacteria have naturally 'learned' to get ready for a serving of maltose after a lactose appetizer.
Another microorganism that experiences consistent changes is wine yeast. As fermentation progresses, sugar and acidity levels change, alcohol levels rise, and the yeast's environment heats up. Although the system was somewhat more complicated that that of E. coli, the scientists found that when the wine yeast feel the heat, they begin activating genes for dealing with the stresses of the next stage. Further analysis showed that this anticipation and early response is an evolutionary adaptation that increases the organism's chances of survival.
Ivan Pavlov first demonstrated this type of adaptive anticipation, known as a conditioned response, in dogs in the 1890s. He trained the dogs to salivate in response to a stimulus by repeatedly ringing a bell before giving them food. In the microorganisms, says Pilpel, 'evolution over many generations replaces conditioned learning, but the end result is similar.' 'In both evolution and learning,' says Mitchell, 'the organism adapts its responses to environmental cues, improving its ability to survive.' Romano: 'This is not a generalized stress response, but one that is precisely geared to an anticipated event.'
To see whether the microorganisms were truly exhibiting a conditioned response, Pilpel and Mitchell devised a further test for the E. coli based on another of Pavlov's experiments. When Pavlov stopped giving the dogs food after ringing the bell, the conditioned response faded until they eventually ceased salivating at its sound. The scientists did something similar, using bacteria grown by Dr. Erez Dekel, in the lab of Prof. Uri Alon of the Molecular Cell Biology Department, in an environment containing the first sugar, lactose, but not following it up with maltose. After several months, the bacteria had evolved to stop activating their maltose genes at the taste of lactose, only turning them on when maltose was actually available.
'This showed us that there is a cost to advanced preparation, but that the benefits to the organism outweigh the costs in the right circumstances,' says Pilpel. What are those circumstances? Based on the experimental evidence, the research team created a sort of cost/benefit model to predict the types of situations in which an organism could increase its chances of survival by evolving to anticipate future events. They are already planning a number of new tests for their model, as well as different avenues of experimentation based on the insights they have gained.
Pilpel and his team believe that genetic conditioned response may be a widespread means of evolutionary adaptation that enhances survival in many organisms – one that may also take place in the cells of higher organisms, including humans. These findings could have practical implications, as well. Genetically engineered microorganisms for fermenting plant materials to produce biofuels, for example, might work more efficiently if they gained the genetic ability to prepare themselves for the next step in the process.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090617131400.htm

Wish Fulfillment? No. But Dreams (and Sleep) Have Meaning
YAHOO NEWS   June 16, 2009
Dreams may not be the secret window into the frustrated desires of the unconscious that Sigmund Freud first posited in 1899, but growing evidence suggests that dreams - and, more so, sleep - are powerfully connected to the processing of human emotions.
According to new research presented last week at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies in Seattle, adequate sleep may underpin our ability to understand complex emotions properly in waking life. "Sleep essentially is resetting the magnetic north of your emotional compass," says Matthew Walker, director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Lab at the University of California, Berkeley. (See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2008.)
A recent study by Walker and his colleagues examined how rest - specifically, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep - influences our ability to read emotions in other people's faces. In the small analysis of 36 adults, volunteers were asked to interpret the facial expressions of people in photographs, following either a 60- or 90-minute nap during the day or with no nap. Participants who had reached REM sleep (when dreaming most frequently occurs) during their nap were better able to identify expressions of positive emotions like happiness in other people, compared with participants who did not achieve REM sleep or did not nap at all. Those volunteers were more sensitive to negative expressions, including anger and fear.
Past research by Walker and colleagues at Harvard Medical School, which was published in the journal Current Biology, found that in people who were sleep deprived, activity in the prefrontal lobe - a region of the brain involved in controlling emotion - was significantly diminished. He suggests that a similar response may be occurring in the nap-deprived volunteers, albeit to a lesser extent, and that it may have its roots in evolution. "If you're walking through the jungle and you're tired, it might benefit you more to be hypersensitive to negative things," he says. The idea is that with little mental energy to spare, you're emotionally more attuned to things that are likely to be the most threatening in the immediate moment. Inversely, when you're well rested, you may be more sensitive to positive emotions, which could benefit long-term survival, he suggests: "If it's getting food, if it's getting some kind of reward, finding a wife - those things are pretty good to pick up on."
Our daily existence is largely influenced by our ability "to understand our societal interactions, to understand someone else's emotional state of mind, to understand the expression on their face," says Ninad Gujar, a senior research scientist at Walker's lab and lead author of the study, which was recently submitted for publication. "These are the most fundamental processes guiding our personal and professional lives."
REM sleep appears to not only improve our ability to identify positive emotions in others; it may also round out the sharp angles of our own emotional experiences. Walker suggests that one function of REM sleep - dreaming, in particular - is to allow the brain to sift through that day's events, process any negative emotion attached to them, then strip it away from the memories. He likens the process to applying a "nocturnal soothing balm." REM sleep, he says, "tries to ameliorate the sharp emotional chips and dents that life gives you along the way." (See the top 10 medical breakthroughs of 2008.)
"It's not that you've forgotten. You haven't," he says. "It's a memory of an emotional episode, but it's no longer emotional itself."
That palliative safety-valve quality of sleep may be hampered when we fail to reach REM sleep or when REM sleep is disrupted, Walker says. "If you don't let go of the emotion, what results is a constant state of anxiety," he says.
The theory is consistent with new research conducted by Rebecca Bernert, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at Florida State University who specializes in the relationship between sleep and suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and who also presented her work at the sleep conference this week.
In her study of 82 men and women between the ages of 18 and 66 who were admitted into a mental-health hospital for emergency psychiatric evaluation, Bernert discovered that the presence of severe and frequent nightmares or insomnia was a strong predictor of suicidal thoughts and behaviors. More than half of the study participants had attempted suicide at least once in the past, and the 17% of the study group who had made an attempt within the previous month had dramatically higher scores in nightmare frequency and intensity than the rest. Bernert found that the relationship between nightmares or insomnia and suicide persisted, even when researchers controlled for other factors like depression.
Past studies have also established a link between chronic sleep disruption and suicide. Sleep complaints, which include nightmares, insomnia and other sleep disturbances, are listed in the current Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's inventory of suicide-prevention warning signs. Yet what distinguishes Bernert's research is that when nightmares and insomnia were evaluated separately, nightmares were independently predictive of suicidal behavior. "It may be that nightmares present a unique risk for suicidal symptoms, which may have to do with the way we process emotion within dreams," Bernert says.
If that's the case, it may help explain the recurring nightmares that characterize psychiatric conditions like posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Walker says. "The brain has not stripped away the emotional rind from that experience memory," he says, so "the next night, the brain offers this up, and it fails again, and it starts to sound like a broken record ... What you hear [PTSD] patients describing is, 'I can't get over the event.' "
At the biological level, Walker explains, the "emotional rind" translates to sympathetic nervous-system activity during sleep: faster heart rate and the release of stress chemicals. Understanding why nightmares recur and how REM sleep facilitates emotional processing - or hinders it, when nightmares take place and perpetuate the physical stress symptoms - may eventually provide clues to effective treatments of painful mental disorders. Perhaps, even, by simply addressingsleeping habits, doctors could potentially interrupt the emotional cycle that can lead to suicide. "There is an opportunity for prevention," Bernert says.
The new findings highlight what researchers are increasingly recognizing as a two-way relationship between psychiatric disorders and disrupted sleep. "Modern medicine and psychiatry have consistently thought that psychological disorders seem to have co-occuring sleep problems and that it's the disorder perpetuating the sleep problems," says Walker. "Is it possible that, in fact, it's the sleep disruption contributing to the psychiatric disorder?"

Diet may make a difference in prostate cancer
Last Updated: 2009-06-16 10:51:21 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Men may be able to lower their risk of developing prostate cancer, or slow its progression, by watching their diets, a new research review suggests.
In an analysis of previous studies, mostly published since the 1990s, Australian researchers found that, in general, diets relatively high in fat, processed or grilled meats, or dairy products were linked to an increased risk of prostate cancer.
In contrast, men who regularly eat their vegetables -- in particular, tomatoes and cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprouts -- seem to have a relatively lower risk of developing the cancer.
The same appears true of men who consume greater amounts of vitamin E, soy, fish and omega-3 fatty acids -- "good" fats found in oily fish and certain other foods, such as flaxseeds.
What's more, the review found, there is evidence that a similar eating pattern may help slow tumor progression in men who have prostate cancer.
The findings appear in the current issue of the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics.
The role of diet in prostate cancer is still not completely clear. Studies on individual foods or nutrients -- including dairy, calcium, tomatoes and lycopene -- have often come to conflicting confusions.
But while the evidence is "not concrete," men should be aware that diet may influence their risk of prostate cancer, lead researcher Dr. Robert Ma, of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, told Reuters Health.
On balance, he explained, research suggests that eating grilled or processed meat more than five times per week is associated with a higher risk of prostate cancer. Similarly, men who eat dairy products more than five times per week may have a higher risk than those who consume such foods infrequently.
On the other hand, a diet low in saturated fat, but high in tomatoes, cruciferous vegetables, fish and omega-3 fats may help lower the chances of prostate cancer development or progression.
That said, Ma advised that men with prostate cancer discuss any diet and lifestyle changes with their doctors.
Those hoping to prevent the disease should exercise some caution as well, according to Ma, who pointed out that the review did not look at the effects of excessively high consumption of any nutrients, some of which could be harmful.
Men should be careful about taking high doses of any supplement, he and his colleagues say.
Last year, a large U.S. study found that vitamin E and selenium supplements, together or alone, did not lower men's chances of developing prostate cancer -- and among men on vitamin E alone, there was a slightly higher number of cancer cases, though the link may have been due to chance.
SOURCE: Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, June 2009.
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2009/06/16/eline/links/20090616elin002.html

2008 confirmed rise in weather disasters - Red Cross
Last Updated: 2009-06-16 16:16:23 -0400 (Reuters Health)
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A global trend towards increasing weather-related disasters was confirmed in 2008, the second deadliest year in the past decade for natural catastrophes, an annual Red Cross report said on Tuesday.
The number of people reported killed by natural disasters last year -- a total of 235,736 -- was surpassed only in 2004, the year of the Indian Ocean tsunami, said the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).
The 2008 toll was accounted for mainly by two events in Asia - Cyclone Nargis, which left over 138,000 people dead or missing in Myanmar, and the Sichuan earthquake, which killed more than 87,000 people in China.
Damage from natural disasters cost more than $181 billion last year, according to the report.
More than three quarters of the disasters struck developing countries, which suffered 99 percent of the deaths, Maarten van Aalst, an author of the report, told a news conference.
"We also see a confirmation of the trend that we've seen in the past decade of a rise in weather-related disasters, which is concerning us and putting an additional strain on our operations," van Aalst said.
"In the 1990s, we saw an average of about 200 natural weather-related disasters per year. In the past decade that's been on average about 350. Last year we had 297, which is ... still well above what we've been used to in the past."
Some experts have blamed the perceived rise in freak weather events on climate change caused by pollution. It is a controversial subject ahead of a conference in Copenhagen in December that is meant to impose tougher targets for greenhouse gas emissions.
"It is now highly likely that that extreme-weather events -- floods, droughts and storms -- will become more frequent and more severe. And we cannot say we have not been warned," IFRC Secretary General Bekele Geleta said in a commentary.
"The disasters which climate change will trigger potentially threaten more lives and livelihoods than any before," Geleta said, adding that the world's response to the warning had so far been "piecemeal."
Trygve Nordby, a deputy to Geleta, told the news conference he believed the Red Cross was succeeding in getting references to the humanitarian effects of climate change and the need for early action into the Copenhagen document.
"The hope is that the new climate change adaptation mechanism ... also will include mechanisms whereby this perspective of early warning, early action, disaster risk reduction preparedness also gets its fair share of those ... hopefully new resources," he said.
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2009/06/16/eline/links/20090616elin028.html

Teenage Girls Develop Degenerative Muscle Diseases After HPV Vaccine Injections
David Gutierrez, NaturalNews.com  June 17, 2009 

(NaturalNews) The FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have launched an investigation into a potential connection between the Gardasil vaccine for the human papillomavirus (HPV) and a rare degenerative muscle disease.

Concern over a connection between Gardasil and the rare disease -- known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig's disease -- was first raised by Phil Tetlock and Barbara Mellers on their blog. Shortly after receiving the Gardasil vaccine two years ago, their daughter Jenny began to lose motor strength and control, eventually becoming completely paralyzed before dying on March 15. Doctors suspect that she suffered from a rare juvenile form of ALS, which affects one out of every two million children.

Government researchers might have taken no further notice, if two other sets of parents had not contacted Tetlock and Mellers with similar cases. In one, a 22-year-old woman died 13 months after receiving the vaccine, apparently from ALS. In the other, a 12-year-old girl who received the vaccine began losing the ability to walk soon after.

"They don't know what she has," her mother said, "but it's destroying her nerves and muscles, and none of the treatments they've given her are working. Before the vaccine, she was a perfectly healthy child, going for her brown belt in karate."

According to ALS expert Barbara Shapiro of the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, it is unlikely that the cases are just coincidence.

"Juvenile ALS tends to progress very slowly over years or even decades," she said, "but these girls all seemed to have a more rapid, progressive form."

Shapiro has uncovered what may be a fourth case in the CDC's adverse events database. CDC researchers are now searching the database for other cases, and the FDA has begun to investigate whether a vaccine could trigger ALS.

The CDC has also received reports of ALS developing in people vaccinated against anthrax.
http://www.naturalnews.com/z026463_HPV_vaccine_HPV_teenage_girls.html

Cancer boost from whole carrots
BBC News  June 17, 2009
The anti-cancer properties of carrots are more potent if the vegetable is not cut up before cooking, research shows.
Scientists found "boiled before cut" carrots contained 25% more of the anti-cancer compound falcarinol than those chopped up first.
Experiments on rats fed falcarinol have shown they develop fewer tumours.
The Newcastle University study will be presented at NutrEvent, a conference on nutrition and health, to be held in France.
Lead researcher Dr Kirsten Brandt, from Newcastle University's School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, said: "Chopping up your carrots increases the surface area so more of the nutrients leach out into the water while they are cooked.
"By keeping them whole and chopping them up afterwards you are locking in nutrients and the taste, so the carrot is better for you all round."
The Newcastle scientist, along with colleagues at the University of Denmark, discovered the health benefits of falcarinol in carrots four years ago.
Heat effect
Rats fed on a diet containing carrots or falcarinol were found to be one-third less likely to develop full-scale tumours than those in the control group.
Since then the scientists in Newcastle have been studying what happens when carrots are chopped and cooked.
The latest findings show that when carrots are heated, the heat kills the cells, so they lose the ability to hold on to the water inside them, increasing the concentration of falcarinol as the carrots lose water.
However, the heat also softens the cell walls, allowing water-soluble compounds such as sugar and vitamin C to be lost via the surface of the tissue, leading to the leaching out of other compounds such as falcarinol.
If the carrot is cut before being boiled, the surface area becomes much greater - and so the loss of nutrients is increased.
More tasty
Dr Brandt added that in blind taste studies the whole carrots also tasted much better.
Eight of ten people favoured the whole vegetables over those that were pre-chopped.
This is because the naturally occurring sugars which are responsible for giving the carrot its distinctively sweet flavour were also found in higher concentrations in the carrot that had been cooked whole.
Dr Brandt said: "The great thing about this is it's a simple way for people to increase their uptake of a compound we know is good for you.
"All you need is a bigger saucepan."
Dr Kat Arney, of the charity Cancer Research UK, remained unconvinced that keeping carrots whole would have any impact on cancer risk.
She said: "When it comes to eating, we know that a healthy balanced diet - rich in a range of fruit and vegetables - plays an important part in reducing the risk of many types of cancer, rather than any one specific food."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8101403.stm

Men warned of greater cancer risk
The reluctance of men to adopt a healthy lifestyle and visit the doctor may be fuelling a gender gap in cancer cases and deaths, experts say.
Among cancers which affect both sexes, men are 60% more likely to develop the disease and 70% more likely to die from it, Cancer Research UK said.
There is no known biological reason for this but it may be because women take better care of themselves, they said.
Experts said men needed to be made aware of the risks they faced.
It is thought half of all cancers can be prevented through lifestyle changes.
For the latest report, published to coincide with Men's Health Week, researchers first analysed data on all cancers from 2006 and 2007.
They found that overall men are 40% more likely than women to die from cancer and 16% more likely to develop the disease in the first place.
But excluding breast cancer and cancers that are gender specific, as well as lung cancer which is more likely to affect men because more men smoke, the difference between the sexes was far greater.
TOP MALE CANCER KILLERS 2007 
   Lung: 24% of all cancer deaths
   Prostate: 13%
   Colorectal: 10%
   Oesophagus: 6%
   Pancreas: 5%
The researchers had expected to see that men and women are just as likely as each other to develop and die from the disease.
However, the figures showed that men are significantly more likely than women to be diagnosed with and die from every one of the specific types of cancer considered, apart from melanoma.
'Surprise result'
Professor David Forman, information lead for the National Cancer Intelligence Network, which helped carry out the research, said: "For many of the types of cancer we looked at that affect both sexes, there's no known biological reason why men should be at a greater risk than women, so we were surprised to see such consistent differences."
He added: "Men have a reputation for having a 'stiff upper lip' and not being as health conscious as women.
"What we see from this report could be a reflection of this attitude, meaning men are less likely to make lifestyle changes that could reduce their risk of the disease and less likely to go to their doctor with cancer symptoms."
“ We have to look very much more at how we change the services so they are more male appropriate ” 
Professor Alan White
Professor Alan White, chairman of the Men's Health Forum, said men were generally less aware that factors such as smoking, carrying excess weight around the waist, having a high alcohol intake, a poor diet and family history all contributed to an increased cancer risk.
However, he said more research was needed on the causes of the gender gap and services needed to do more to reach out to men.
Professor White told the BBC: "Men have got a certain degree of responsibility to look to their lifestyle, but the services also have to be reaching out to men.
"If you think that nearly 14m men work full-time and of those 28% are working over 45 hours, then getting to the services is actually very problematic.
"And it's not just the GP, it's smoking cessation services, it's weight loss services.
'Get it checked'
"We have to look very much more at how we change the services so they are more male appropriate.
"I think if you are suffering from something and it's not going away, then get it checked out. That's the simple message."
The government's cancer tsar, Professor Mike Richards, said there was no doubt of the gravity of the findings.
HAVE YOUR SAY Men are more reluctant to visit the doctor and monitor themselves for signs of illness Julie, London
Prof Richards told the BBC: "I agree with Professor White that the scale of this has come as a surprise even to researchers.
"There seems to be no doubt - there is a higher risk of getting cancer and a higher risk of death.
"That maybe due to different ways of approaching the health services and being less likely to seek help.
"We certainly need to make men of these risks, of the lifestyle factors."
Sara Hiom, director of health information at Cancer Research UK, said: "We know that around half of all cancers could be prevented by changes to lifestyle and it's worrying that this message could be falling on deaf ears for men.
"Delays in reporting symptoms to a doctor could be helping to fuel this gender gap in cancer mortality."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8097639.stm

Discover the Benefits and Uses of Gotu Kola
Elizabeth Walling, NaturalNews.com  June 15, 2009
(NaturalNews) Gotu kola is an herb native to India and Sri Lanka. It plays a key role in traditional Ayurvedic medicine, treating a myriad of conditions. Its reputation is almost mythical: gotu kola is famous for its rumored link to the long life span of elephants as well as the Chinese herbalist Li Ching Yun, who supposedly lived for an incredible 256 years.

Gotu kola's ancient reputation earned its place in modern alternative medicine and it has even been examined in a number of clinical studies. Gotu kola is often recommended by homeopathic and naturopathic doctors for patients who need more energy and mental clarity. But gotu kola has many other practical uses because of its ability to ease inflammation, improve circulation and speed healing.

Specifically, gotu kola can be used for:

Brain function. Several modern studies have shown gotu kola can be used to improve memory and mental clarity.

Hemorrhoids. By improving circulation and strengthening blood vessels, gotu kola is an effective natural hemorrhoid treatment.

Inflammatory conditions. Gotu kola has anti-inflammatory properties that can aid in the treatment of conditions like arthritis.

Skin conditions. Acne, eczema, psoriasis and other skin conditions can be treated with gotu kola because of its unique anti-inflammatory and healing properties.

Varicose and spider veins. Gotu kola improves circulation and strengthens vessel walls, making it a great herbal choice for treating and preventing vein disorders.

Water retention. Gotu kola is a very mild diuretic that can be used to treat water retention and edema.

Wounds and burns. Traditionally, gotu kola has often been used to speed the healing of wounds and minor burns.

Scars. Clinical studies have shown that gotu kola was effective for improving the appearance of unsightly scars. It is especially useful during the healing process, and can even have an impact on deep scarring.

Gotu kola can be used in a variety of ways. In traditional medicine, gotu kola was often prepared as a tea or a tincture. These can also be mixed with oil or cornstarch to apply topically for treatment of scrapes, minor burns and irritated skin. Mixed with oil, gotu kola liquid makes a very good massage medium. Today you can also buy gotu kola in supplement form, but be sure you are getting it from a quality source.
Even with its many useful applications, gotu kola should be avoided in certain cases. This herb can raise blood sugar levels, so it is not recommended for diabetics. It should also be avoided by pregnant women because of its affect on blood circulation.
http://www.naturalnews.com/z026457_gotu_kola_blood_medicine.html

Individuals Who Apply Pesticides Are Found To Have Double The Risk Of Blood Disorder
ScienceDaily (June 17, 2009) — A study involving 678 individuals who apply pesticides, culled from a U.S. Agricultural Health Study of over 50,000 farmers, recently found that exposure to certain pesticides doubles one's risk of developing an abnormal blood condition called MGUS (monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance) compared with individuals in the general population. The disorder, characterized by an abnormal level of a plasma protein, requires lifelong monitoring as it is a pre-cancerous condition that can lead to multiple myeloma, a painful cancer of the plasma cells in the bone marrow.
"Previously, inconclusive evidence has linked agricultural work to an increased multiple myeloma risk. Our study is the first to show an association between pesticide exposure and an excess prevalence of MGUS," said lead author Ola Landgren, MD, PhD, of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), which is part of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. "This finding is particularly important given that we recently found in a large prospective cancer screening study that virtually all multiple myeloma patients experienced a MGUS state prior to developing myeloma."
"As several million Americans use pesticides, it's important that the risks of developing MGUS from the use of pesticides is known," added senior study author and NCI investigator Michael Alavanja, DrPH.
The blood of study participants, who were individuals licensed to apply restricted-use pesticides, was assessed for MGUS prevalence. The median age of participants was 60 years (range 30-94 years), and all lived in either Iowa or North Carolina. Participants also completed questionnaires providing comprehensive occupational exposure information for a wide range of pesticides, including information such as the average number of days of pesticide use per year, years of use, use of protective gear while applying pesticides, and pesticide application methods. Information on smoking and alcohol use, cancer histories of the participants' first-degree relatives, and other basic demographic and health data were also obtained. Individuals with prior histories of lymphoproliferative malignancies (such as multiple myeloma or lymphoma) were excluded. Cancer incidence and mortality were monitored annually, and, after five years, follow-up interviews were conducted to update the information about participants' occupational exposures, medical histories, and lifestyle factors.
For comparison, data were obtained from a large MGUS-screening study conducted by the Mayo Clinic, and the results from the pesticide-exposed group were compared with the assessments of 9,469 men from the general population of Olmsted County, Minnesota. The two groups were similar in terms of age, race, and educational attainment. Because of the low prevalence of women among workers who apply pesticides, women were excluded from the study.
In the pesticide-exposed group, no MGUS cases were observed among those who were less than 50 years of age, but the prevalence of MGUS in those older than 50 was 6.8 percent, which is 1.9 times higher than the general population study group of men in Minnesota.
The researchers also evaluated the potential association between MGUS prevalence and 50 specific pesticides for which usage data were known. Of the chemicals studied, a significantly increased risk of MGUS was observed among users of dieldrin (an insecticide), carbon-tetrachloride/carbon disulfide (a fumigant mixture), and chlorothalonil (a fungicide). The MGUS risk for these agents increased 5.6-fold, 3.9-fold, and 2.4-fold, respectively. Several other insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides were associated with MGUS, but not significantly.
"There is great concern regarding the increase in frequency in mature B-cell malignancies in the Western world and what may be the cause of this. A number of reports in the past have linked exposure to pesticides with increased risk of these types of cancers, but the present study is the first to link agricultural work to a pre-malignant condition," said John G. Gribben, MD, DSc, Professor of Experimental Cancer Medicine at Barts and the London School of Medicine, who is not affiliated with the study. "It is vital to assess the risk of workplace exposure and disease, and the results lend further support to providing safe workplace practices to limit exposure to potential carcinogens."
"Our findings are intriguing," stated Dr. Landgren. If replicated in a larger sample from our study and other large studies, further work should focus on gaining a better understanding of the molecular basis of MGUS and multiple myeloma. Ultimately, this will result in the identification of novel molecular targets involved in the progression from MGUS to multiple myeloma and in the development of targeted therapies."
The study will appear in the June 18 issue of Blood.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090612163533.htm

Trans Fats Hinder Multiple Steps In Blood Flow Regulation Pathways
ScienceDaily (June 17, 2009) — Partially hydrogenated vegetable oils in processed foods contain trans fatty acids that interfere with the regulation of blood flow. A new report reveals a new way in which these "trans fats" gum up the cellular machinery that keeps blood moving through arteries and veins.
In the August 2009 issue of the international journal Atherosclerosis, University of Illinois emeritus veterinary biosciences professor Fred Kummerow reports for the first time that trans fats interfere with more than one key enzyme in the regulation of blood flow.
Kummerow begins by describing the two main causes of heart disease – sudden blood clots in the coronary arteries, and atherosclerosis, the buildup of plaque in the arteries to the point where it interferes with blood flow.
"The arteries of someone who dies from atherosclerosis look like old scrub boards as a result of the formation of plaques," Kummerow said. "They look corrugated, and this plaque buildup continues to the point where it will stop blood flow."
Trans fats contribute to both of these causes of heart disease, Kummerow said.
Trans fats are made through hydrogenation, which involves bubbling hydrogen through hot vegetable oil, changing the arrangement of double bonds in the essential fatty acids in the oil and "saturating" the "unsaturated" carbon chain with hydrogen. Because double bonds are rigid, altering them can straighten or twist fat molecules into new configurations that give the fats their special qualities, such as the lower melting point of margarine that makes it creamy at room temperature.
Kummerow, 94, has spent nearly six decades studying lipid biochemistry, and is a long-time advocate for a ban on trans fats in food.
While the body can use trans fats as a source of energy for maintenance and growth, Kummerow said, trans fats interfere with the body's ability to perform certain tasks critical to good health. Because these effects are less obvious, many researchers have missed the underlying pathologies that result from a diet that includes trans fats, he said.
Trans fats displace – and cannot replace – the essential fatty acids linoleic acid (omega-6) and linolenic acid (omega-3), which the body needs for a variety of functions, including blood flow regulation. Studies have shown that trans fats also increase low-density lipoproteins (LDLs) in the blood, a factor which some believe contributes to heart disease.
Trans fats are associated with increased inflammation in the arteries. And trans fats have been found to change the composition of cell membranes, making them more leaky to calcium. Inflammation, high LDL cholesterol and calcified arteries are the signature ingredients of atherosclerosis.
Trans fats also were shown to interfere with an enzyme that converts the essential fatty acid linoleic acid into arachidonic acid, which is needed for the production of prostacyclin (a blood-flow enhancer) and thromboxane (which regulates the formation of blood clots needed for wound healing). While some in the food oil industry believed this problem could be overcome simply by adding more linoleic acid to partially hydrogenated fats, in 2007 Kummerow's team reported that extra linoleic acid did not overcome the problem.
"Trans fats inhibited the synthesis of arachidonic acid from linoleic acid, even when there was plenty of linoleic acid available," he said.
The new study reports that in addition to interfering with the production of arachidonic acid from linoleic acid, trans fats also reduce the amount of prostacyclin needed to keep blood flowing. Thus blood clots may more easily develop, and sudden death is possible.
According to the American Heart Association, each year more than 330,000 people in the U.S. die from coronary heart disease before reaching a hospital or while in an emergency room. Most of those deaths are the result of sudden cardiac arrest, the Heart Association reports.
"This is the first time that trans fatty acids have been shown to interfere with yet another part of the blood-flow process," Kummerow said. This study adds another piece of evidence to a long list that points to trans fats as significant contributors to heart disease, he said.
Kummerow believes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's new requirement (begun in 2006) that trans fats be included on food labels is inadequate and misleading. Anything less than one-half gram of trans fats per serving can be listed as zero grams, Kummerow said, so people are often getting the mistaken impression that their food is trans fat-free.
"Go to the grocery store and compare the labels on the margarines," he said. "Some of them say zero trans fat. That's not true. Anything with partially hydrogenated oils in it contains trans fat."
"Partially hydrogenated fats can be made trans fat-free," Kummerow said. "The industry would be helped by an FDA ban on trans fat that would save labeling costs, medical costs and lives."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090616121345.htm

Tai Chi Benefits For Arthritis Shown
ScienceDaily (June 17, 2009) — A new study by The George Institute for International Health has found Tai Chi to have positive health benefits for musculoskeletal pain. The results of the first comprehensive analysis of Tai Chi suggest that it produces positive effects for improving pain and disability among arthritis sufferers.
The researchers are now embarking on a new trial to establish if similar benefits can be seen among people with chronic low back pain.
"This is the first robust evidence to support the beneficial effects of Tai Chi. Our study proves that Tai Chi relieves pain and disability among people with arthritis and shows a positive trend towards effects for overall physical health. We now want to see if these benefits are the same for people suffering from low back pain", said author Dr Chris Maher at The George Institute.
Musculoskeletal pain, such as that experienced by people with arthritis, places a severe burden on the patient and community and is recognised as an international health priority. Arthritis is the major cause of disability and chronic pain in Australia, with 3.85million Australians affected. Low back pain is the most prevalent and costly musculoskeletal condition in Australia, estimated to cost up to $1billion per annum with indirect costs exceeding $8billion.
"This research should reassure people with musculoskeletal conditions such as arthritis to seek exercise to relieve the pain. The fact that Tai Chi is inexpensive, convenient, enjoyable and conveys other psychological and social benefits supports the use this type of intervention for pain conditions", added Ms Amanda Hall, The George Institute.
Tai Chi is a form of exercise that is regularly practiced in China for general health purposes and has gained increasing popularity in North America and Australia and thus a growing body of research aimed at investigating its health benefits has emerged.
Tai Chi is a versatile activity that can be easily incorporated into people's daily activities. Usually preformed in a group, Tai Chi can also be practiced individually, which differs from traditional exercise therapy approaches in clinic.
Amanda M Hall, Chris G Mahe, Jane Latimer, Manuela L Ferreira and Paul Lam. A randomized controlled trial of tai chi for long-term low back pain (TAI CHI): Study rationale, design, and methods.. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, 2009; 10 (1): 55 DOI: 10.1186/1471-2474-10-55
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090616103213.htm

Climate Change Already Having Impact On U.S., Expected To Worsen

Precipitation map developed by Berkeley Lab's Michael Wehner shows, among other things, a substantial reduction in springtime rains in California, and summertime rains in the Pacific Northwest. (Credit: Image courtesy of DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
ScienceDaily (June 17, 2009) — Two researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), Evan Mills and Michael Wehner, contributed to the analysis of the effects of climate change on all regions of the United States, described in a major report released June 16 by the multi-agency U.S. Global Change Research Program.
For the southwest region of the United States, which includes California, the report forecasts a hotter, drier climate with significant effects on the environment, agriculture and health.
“Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States” covers such effects as changes in rainfall patterns, drought, wildfire, Atlantic hurricanes, and effects on food production, fish stocks and other wildlife, energy, agriculture, water supplies, and coastal communities.
“This is the most thorough and up-to-date review ever assembled of climate-change impacts observed to date as well as those anticipated in the future across the United States,” says Evan Mills, one of the Berkeley Lab scientists who contributed to the report. While the report paints an ominous picture of potential impacts, “the good news is that the harshest impacts of future climate change can be avoided if the nation takes deliberate action soon. This can be done through a balanced mix of activities to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and adaptation to the otherwise unavoidable impacts,” says Mills.
The report addresses nine zones of the United States (Southwest, Northwest, Great Plains, Midwest, Southeast, Northeast, Alaska, U.S. islands, and coasts), and describes potential climate change effects in each. California is part of the southwest zone, as well as a coastal zone.
Wehner, who is a climate researcher in the Scientific Computing Group of Berkeley Lab’s Computational Research Division, developed projections of future climate change for the report chapters covering global and national impacts of climate change. One of Wehner’s research interests is extreme weather conditions resulting from climate change.
The precipitation map shown is one of the projections developed by Wehner. It shows, among other things, a substantial reduction in springtime rains in California, and summertime rains in the Pacific Northwest.
“Even in areas where precipitation is projected to increase, higher temperatures will cause greater evaporation leading to a future where drought conditions are the normal state. In the southwest United States, water resource issues will become a major issue,” says Wehner.
Another of Wehner’s graphics shows past and future projections of the global mean surface air temperature, an indicator of the magnitude of the effects of global climate change. The three different trajectories after 2009 show low emissions, and two high emissions scenarios of how the temperature increase caused by greenhouse gas emissions could play out. The projections are based on the most sophisticated climate models available.
“These and similar projections reveal that actions taken today would take several decades to make any noticeable change in the rate of warming. This is one of the factors that makes climate change a difficult policy issue. There is no instant gratification,” says Wehner.
Mills, who studies climate change and the insurance industry in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of Berkeley Lab, worked on the report’s sections addressing impacts on society and on the energy sector. The insurance industry has been one of the early responders to the threats posed by climate change, because the industry has been a leader in preventive education against catastrophes such as fire and windstorm hazards. Extreme weather conditions, and the resulting damage, will probably impact the industry’s bottom line, possibly severely, as well as that of government provided insurance programs for floods and crops.
“Insurance is one of the industries particularly vulnerable to increasing extreme weather events such as severe storms, but it also is beginning to help society manage the risks,” says Mills. “Insurance, the world’s largest industry, will be one of the primary mechanisms through which the costs of climate change are distributed across society. Some insurers are emerging as partners in climate science and the formulation of public policy and adaptation strategies. Others have recognized that mitigation and adaptation can work hand in hand in a coordinated climate risk-management strategy and are offering “green” insurance products designed to capture these dual benefits.”
A Drier California
Decline in precipitation and water supplies will likely be one of the most prominent effects of climate change in California and other states of the southwest (Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico). The report suggests that runoff will decline from 10 to 40 percent in 2040 to 2060 relative to the 1901-1970 baseline, and warns that scarce water supplies will call for trade-offs among competing uses.
“Floods and droughts are likely to become much more common and intense as regional and seasonal precipitation patterns change and rainfall is more concentrated into heavy events with longer dry periods in between,” it states.
There will likely be less snow, with more winter precipitation falling as rain, and the wet areas will get wetter as dry areas get dryer. The region will likely see declines in the mountain snowpack, and runoff will shift to earlier in spring, reducing water flows later in the year in the summer. California is strongly dependent on spring and summer runoff to supply water for residential, commercial and agricultural uses.
Agriculture in California will likely face increasing stress from the decline in runoff and drought, as well as increasing air temperatures, and the probable rise in agricultural pests and weeds expected in a warmer climate. Flooding and storm surges are threats to coastal regions.
Forest growth in the west will decrease because of the decreasing availability of water. This will also put additional stress on salmon, trout and other coldwater fish. Superinfestations of insects will cause ecological and economic damages to timberlands.
A Hotter California
Increasing air temperatures attributed to global warming are expected to cause a rise in the number of heat-related illnesses in the 2080 to 2099 timeframe. In parts of southern California, the state’s southern Central Valley, and western Arizona, for instance, the number of days in which the temperature exceeds 100°F could exceed 120 under the report’s higher emissions scenario.
Changes in the nation’s population and distribution could combine to amplify the probability of increasing heat-related disease. As the nation ages, its older members move to warmer areas of the country including the desert southwest.
Another effect of these higher temperatures will be increased energy demand. The report predicts “increases in demand for cooling energy” in California as well as elsewhere, which will result in “significant increases in electricity use and higher peak demand in most regions.” Mills contributed analysis to the report of the strongly rising role of extreme weather events in causing electric power disruptions, while non-weather-related events show no upward trend.
The full report, “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States” is available.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090616133944.htm

Science supports dairy calcium for weight loss

Nutraingredients.com, 17-Jun-2009

Increased intakes of calcium can increase excretion of fat in the faeces, and may play a role in weight management and preventing weight gain, says a review of the science.
Increasing daily calcium intakes from dairy by 1241 mg was associated with an increase in fat excretion of 5.2 grams per day, according to a systematic review with meta-analysis of randomised, controlled trials.
Writing in Obesity Reviews, Professor Arne Astrup from the University of Copenhagen and his co-workers concluded: “Dietary calcium has the potential to increase faecal fat excretion to an extent that could be relevant for prevention of weight (re-)gain.”
The review adds to a large body of observational studies linking calcium intake, mainly from dairy products, to weight loss. The topic is a source of controversy with both camps able to quote research that supports their side and undermines the other.
Over 300m adults are obese worldwide, according to latest statistics from the WHO and the International Obesity Task Force. About one-quarter of the US adult population is said to be obese, with rates in Western Europe on the rise, although not yet at similar levels.
Review details
Professor Astrup and his co-workers identified 13 studies which fitted their inclusion criteria, including enrolment of healthy participants over six years of age, provision of data on calcium intakes from dairy and supplemental sources, and provision of data on faecal fat changes.
When the studies were taken in their entirety, a wide variation was observed. When the Scandinavian researchers considered only calcium from dairy sources, a good consistency was achieved.
“An increased dairy calcium intake of 1241 mg day-1 increased faecal fat excretion by 5.2 g day-1 compared with low-calcium (less than 700 mg day-1) dairy diet,” they wrote.
“It has been suggested that the effect of increased calcium intake on body weight and composition is most pronounced in subjects with a low habitual intake,” wrote the researchers. “Furthermore, the majority of the studies included in this meta-analysis, which found a significant effect of increased calcium intake on faecal fat excretion, compared a high intake of dietary calcium with a relatively low intake of dietary calcium.
“Thus it is likely that subjects with a low habitual calcium intake will benefit more from an increased calcium intake than subjects with a high habitual calcium intake,” they concluded.
Source: Obesity Reviews
Published online ahead of print, doi: 10.1111/j.1467-789X.2009.00599.x
"Effect of calcium from dairy and dietary supplements on faecal fat excretion: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials"
Authors: R. Christensen, J.K. Lorenzen, C.R. Svith, E.M. Bartels, E.L. Melanson, W.H. Saris, A. Tremblay, A. Astrup
http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/Science-supports-dairy-calcium-for-weight-loss

CoQ10 may boost sperm quality: Study

Nutraingredients.com, 16-Jun-2009

Supplements of co-enzyme Q10 (CoQ10) may improve the motility and density of sperm in infertile men, according to a new study using Kaneka’s ingredient.
The statistically significant but modest results suggest that CoQ10 may have“potential clinical applications in infertile men”, wrote Mohammad Reza Safarinejad from Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, Iran in the peer-reviewed Journal of Urology.
The researcher called for further prospective studies to evaluate if CoQ10 supplementation may play a role in achieving pregnancy in infertile couples.
CoQ10 has properties similar to vitamins, but since it is naturally synthesized in the body it is not classed as such. With chemical structure 2,3-dimethoxy-5-methyl-6-decaprenyl-1,4-benzoquinone, it is also known as ubiquinone because of its 'ubiquitous' distribution throughout the human body.
The coenzyme is concentrated in the mitochondria - the 'power plants' of the cell - and plays a vital role in the production of chemical energy by participating in the production of adenosince triphosphate (ATP), the body's co-called 'energy currency'.
A role beyond the mitochondria is also acknowledged, with CoQ10 acting as a potent antioxidant. The coenzyme plays an important role in preserving levels of vitamin E and vitamin C.
There is an ever-growing body of scientific data that shows substantial health benefits of CoQ10 supplementation for people suffering from angina, heart attack and hypertension. Clinical trials have also reported benefits for cardiomyopathy and congestive heart failure.
Study details
Sperm quality has been linked to the level of oxidative stress, and in order to test if CoQ10 levels might beneficially effect sperm quality, Safarinejad recruited 212 infertile men and randomly assigned them to receive a daily CoQ10 supplement (300 mg, Kaneka, Japan) or placebo for 26 weeks. This was followed by 30 weeks with no intervention.
The Tehran-based researchers reported a significant improvement in both sperm density and motility following supplements of the coenzyme. A positive association was also found with regards to sperm count. Further analysis showed an increase in the percent of normal forms of sperm, added Safarinejad.
Finally, an increase in the acrosome reaction of over 100 per cent was observed in the CoQ10 group, compared to a 1 per cent increase in the placebo group. The acrosome reaction aids in egg penetration, and subsequently fertilisation.
“Coenzyme Q10 supplementation resulted in a statistically significant improvement in certain semen parameters,” wrote Safarinejad. “However, further studies are needed to draw a final conclusion and evaluate the effect of coenzyme Q10 supplementation on the pregnancy rate.”
Caveats
No improvements in pregnancy levels were observed between the groups during the intervention period, said Safarinejad.
“Sperm motility was 27.6 per ml in the CoQ10 group and 23.1 per ml in the placebo group, which may not be clinically relevant,” he added. “The two values are far from the recommended normal value for sperm motility (motility 50 per cent or greater with forward progression). In addition, at the 26-week treatment phase mean total sperm count in the CoQ10 group was less than 60 million.”
“To our knowledge whether a longer treatment trial or higher doses might have resulted in better findings has yet to be identified.”
Source: The Journal of Urology
Volume 182, Issue 1, Pages 237-248
“Efficacy of Coenzyme Q10 on Semen Parameters, Sperm Function and Reproductive Hormones in Infertile Men”
Authors: M.R. Safarinejad
http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/CoQ10-may-boost-sperm-quality-Study

Fruits and Veggies May Improve Sperm Quality
Whether antioxidants from supplements would help, too, is unclear, expert says

Omega-3 plus AREDS supplement works for eye health: Study

Nutraingredients.com, , 16-Jun-2009

Higher intakes of the omega-3 fatty acids, combined with the age related eye disease and nutrition (AREDS) supplement, may reduce the risk of AMD, says a new study.
Increased intake of DHA was associated with a 27 per cent reduction in the progression to advanced age-related macular degeneration (AMD), while EPA was linked to a 26 per cent reduction, according to findings published in theBritish Journal of Ophthalmology.
AMD is a degenerative retinal disease that causes central vision loss and leaves only peripheral vision, and the leading cause of legal blindness for people over 55 years of age in the Western world, according to AMD Alliance International.
The AREDS formula, the patent for which is held by Bausch and Lomb, comprises vitamins C and E, beta carotene, zinc and copper. AREDS2 will include the antioxidant carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin, and the omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA.
The new study, by researchers from Tufts University, the University of Wisconsin, and The EMMES Corporation, appears to support the inclusion of the omega-3 fatty acids, with significant reductions in the risk of advanced AMD.
“Our findings show an association of consuming a diet rich in DHA with lower progression of early AMD,” wrote lead author Ching-Jung Chiu. “In addition to the AREDS supplement, lower [dietary glycaemic index] with higher intakes of DHA and EPA was associated with reduced progression to advanced AMD.”
Study details
Chiu and his co-workers analysed dietary information from 2,924 participants eligible for the eight-year AREDS AMD trial. The highest average intakes of DHA of over 64 mg per day were associated with a 27 per cent reduction in advanced AMD, compared with intakes less than 25 grams per day. Moreover, EPA intakes over 42.3 mg per day were associated with a 26 per cent reduction, compared to intakes of less than 12.7 mg per day.
Furthermore, dietary GI of less than 75.2 was linked to a 24 per cent lower risk, compared to a dietary GO of over 81.5, added the researchers.
When considering participants in the trial’s placebo arm, only high intakes of DHA were associated with a reduced risk of early AMD progression, added Chiu.
Source: British Journal of Ophthalmology 
Published online ahead of print, 9 June 2009, doi:10.1136/bjo.2008.143412
“Does eating particular diets alter risk of age-related macular degeneration in users of the age-related eye disease study supplements?”
Authors: C-J Chiu, R Klein, RC Milton, G Gensler, A Taylor
supplement-works-for-eye-health-Study

More support for heart healthy wholegrains

Nutraingredients.com, 16-Jun-2009

Consumption of wholemeal wheat foods may improve both total and ‘bad’ cholesterol levels, compared to refined foods, says new research from Italy.
Reductions of about 4.5 percent were recorded for both cholesterol measures following consumption of wholemeal wheat products for three weeks, compared to consumption of refined grains, according to new findings published inNutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases.
“Since wholemeal cereal intake is associated also with lower body weight gain in prospective epidemiological studies, it can be hypothesized that habitual wholemeal consumption could improve metabolic parameters and reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases and type-2 diabetes, mainly by preventing body weight gain in the long term,” wrote the researchers, led by Rosalba Giacco.
The study adds to the ever-growing body of science supporting the benefits of wholegrain consumption for heart health, which have already led the FDA to permit foods containing at least 51 percent whole grains by weight and are low in total fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol to carry a health claim linking them to a reduced risk of heart disease and certain cancers.
The term wholegrain is considered to be more consumer-friendly than the term fiber, which leads some manufacturers to favor it on product packaging since it is likely to strike more of a chord of recognition for its healthy benefits.
Study details
Giacco and her co-workers recruited 15 healthy individuals with an average age of 54.5 and an average BMI of 27.4 kg/m2, and randomly assigned them to consume one of two equal-calorie diets containing either wholemeal wheat foods, or refined foods. The fiber content of the wholemeal group was 23.1 grams per day, while the refined group consumed 9.8 grams per day.
At the end of the study, the researchers report that no changes in blood or fat metabolism, antioxidant activity, levels of magnesium, or measures of incretins (hormone associated with insulin levels), adipokines (compounds linked to an immune response), or high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP, a marker of inflammation).
However, total and LDL cholesterol levels were 4.3 and 4.9 percent lower following consumption of the wholemeal diet, compared to the refined wheat diet, said the researchers.
“In conclusion, our study demonstrates that consumption of wholemeal wheat foods compared to similar refined foods is able to improve fasting cholesterol levels; conversely this type of diet does not influence glucose and insulin metabolism, antioxidant status or markers of inflammation,” they concluded.
The researchers were affiliated with Italy’s National Research Council (CNR), Federico II University (Naples), Barilla G&R F.lli. SpA (Parma), and the University of Parma.
Source: Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases
Published online ahead of print, 9 June 2009, doi: 
“Effects of the regular consumption of wholemeal wheat foods on cardiovascular risk factors in healthy people”
Authors: R. Giacco, G. Clemente, D. Cipriano, D. Luongo, D. Viscovo, L. Patti, L. Di Marino, A. Giacco, D. Naviglio, M.A. Bianchi, R. Ciati, F. Brighenti, A.A. Rivellese, G. Riccardi
http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Science-Nutrition/More-support-for-heart-healthy-wholegrains

Multivitamins linked to 25 percent of supplement AERs

Foodnavigator-USA.com, 16-Jun-2009

Multivitamins and minerals were the subject of one quarter of Adverse Event Reports (AERs) filed with FDA in the first six months of last year, but this does not mean that this product category is problematic, says the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA).
The trade group analyzed 598 AERs received by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) between January 1 and June 30 2008, which highlighted potential adverse health effects of dietary supplement products.
However, although 25 per cent of these were for mainstream multivitamins and minerals, the findings must not be misinterpreted as identifying this as the most dangerous class of products, said Michael McGuffin, director AHPA.
“This is not a cause and effect reporting system, it’s an association system. So although a large part of the AERs are linked to multivitamins, this does not mean that they are dangerous. It simply reflects usage patterns, and the most used dietary supplements are multivitamins,” McGuffin told NutraIngredients-USA.com.
To listen to brief comments by McGuffin, click here .
Common brands
The AER reports were obtained by AHPA via Freedom of Information (FOI) requests with FDA. AHPA revealed its analysis of these reports at the recent SupplySide East trade show in Secaucus, New Jersey.
A number of supplement brands or products were repeatedly flagged up in the AERs. The most common single product reports were for:
· Total Body Formula (93 reports)
· Bayer One a Day (all formulas) (81 reports)
· Centrum (all formulas) (25 reports)
· Flintstones Vitamins (all formulas) (24 reports)
· Mainstream calcium products (25 reports)
However, McGuffin again cautioned that this does not implicate these brands or products as being dangerous. It reflects the frequency of reporting by a select number of companies, which have put systematic reporting systems in place, he explained.
Indeed, the 600 reports from the first sic months of 2008 were submitted by around 50 companies.
Fear factor
He highlighted the importance for all companies to put AER systems in place, stressing that filing a report does not identify a cause-effect relationship between the product and the adverse event.
“Not every company understands that they have this reporting burden – we need to help educate them and make them understand that they have this obligation. And we need to remove the ‘fear factor’; making a report does not implicate a company, it doesn’t mean your products are doing harm,” he said.
However, in some cases, AERs do identify real problems, raising an alarm that allows products to be investigated.
For example, AERs received last year for the Total Body Formula product identified repeated symptoms of hair loss, muscle cramps, diarrhea, joint pain and fatigue. Once the signals were raised, FDA was able to investigate the supplements and found that the company had accidentally overdosed on selenium. Consequently, the agency issued a consumer warning for the products.
More findings
Out of the 600 AERs reviewed by AHPA, 44 percent were for combination products, 25 percent were for vitamins and minerals, 10 percent were for ‘other primary ingredients’ products, and 5 percent were for herbals.
The majority (almost 60 percent) of reports had been submitted by companies, while just under a third (30 percent) were submitted by consumers. Around 10 percent were sent in by health professionals.
The majority of cases (73 percent) were female consumers, and 54 percent of reports were for people aged between 50 and 79. Again, this reflects supplement usage, said McGuffin.
http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/content/view/print/250747

Congressional briefing positions supplements as preventative healthcare

Foodnavigator-USA.com, 16-Jun-2009

Dietary supplements are key to the prevention of a number of health conditions, and as such they would form a cost-effective approach to healthcare reform, Congress heard in a recent briefing.
The lunch meeting between Congressional staffers and an industry-sponsored education initiative was one of a string of meetings designed to alert Congress to the importance of supplements in health promotion and disease prevention.
The Congressional Dietary Supplement Caucus was set up in 2006 in cooperation with two leading trade groups – Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) and Natural Products Association (NPA). Its latest meeting with Congressional staffers, which is the first of three to take place this year, included an address by a medical director of cardiovascular surgery, and a supporter of supplements, William Cooper, MD.
You don’t want surgery…
Dr Cooper, from Wellstar-Kennestone Hospital in Marietta, Ga., and also assistant professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Emory University School of Medicine, said the focus in ensuring good health should be on preventative health as opposed to the current sick-care health system in the US.
“When you get to me, you really don’t want to buy what I’m selling,” he said, referring to heart surgery.
“Healthcare reform will happen in this country when you and I change our habits to be healthier. As a nation, we are consistently inconsistent. But there are simple things that all of us can do everyday to better our health—and that includes taking dietary supplements,” he told an audience of 90.
Congressional support
Support for the health benefits of supplements also came from co-chairs of the Congressional Dietary Supplement Caucus, Rep. Jason Chaffetz and Rep. Jared Polis.
“Prevention is the most cost-effective initiative to contain costs in healthcare and dietary supplements are an important part of prevention,” said Rep. Polis.
Rep. Chaffetz added: “I know that these products provide so much benefit for consumers. I’m a product of it.”
More education
The Congressional Dietary Supplement Caucus aims to continue its briefings on a quarterly basis.
CRN and NPA said that briefings, which will feature speakers who will address the latest science and “offer practical information”, will focus on topics relevant to the dietary supplement industry and wellness arena.
“These briefings will also serve to position the Dietary Supplement Caucus as the experts when it comes to educating Congress on dietary supplement legislation and regulation,” said the trade groups.
supplements-as-preventative-healthcare

Brain detects happiness more quickly than sadness
Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology, June 17, 2009
People make value judgements about others based on their facial expressions. A new study, carried out be Spanish and Brazilian researchers, shows that – after looking at a face for only 100 milliseconds – we can detect expressions of happiness and surprise faster than those of sadness or fear.
Our brains get a first impression of people's overriding social signals after seeing their faces for only 100 milliseconds (0.1 seconds). Whether this impression is correct, however, is another question. Now an international group of experts has carried out an in-depth study into how we process emotional expressions, looking at the pattern of cerebral asymmetry in the perception of positive and negative facial signals.
The researchers worked with 80 psychology students (65 women and 15 men) to analyze the differences between their cerebral hemispheres using the "divided visual field" technique, which is based on the anatomical properties of the visual system.
"What is new about this study is that working in this way ensures that the information is focused on one cerebral hemisphere or the other", J. Antonio Aznar-Casanova, one of the authors of the study and a researcher at the University of Barcelona (UB), tells SINC.
The results, published in the latest issue of the journal Laterality, show that the right hemisphere performs better in processing emotions. "However, this advantage appears to be more evident when it comes to processing happy and surprised faces than sad or frightened ones", the researcher points out.
"Positive expressions, or expressions of approach, are perceived more quickly and more precisely than negative, or withdrawal, ones. So happiness and surprise are processed faster than sadness and fear", explains Aznar-Casanova.
The two faces of the brain
This research study adds to previous ones, which had revealed asymmetries in the way the brain processes emotions, and enriches the international debate in cognitive-emotional neuroscience in terms of how to define the exact way in which human beings process these facial expressions.
People make deductions from the expressions on people's faces. "These inferences can strongly influence election results or the sentences given in trials, and have been studied before in fields such as criminology and the pseudoscience of physiognomy", the neuroscientist tells SINC.
Two theories are currently "competing" to explain the pattern of cerebral asymmetry in processing emotions. The older one postulates the dominance of the right hemisphere in the processing of emotions, while the second is based on the approach-withdrawal hypothesis, which holds that the pattern of cerebral asymmetry depends upon the emotion in question, in other words that each hemisphere is better at processing particular emotions (the right, withdrawal, and the left, approach).
"Today there is scientific evidence in favour of both these theories, but there is a certain consensus in favour of the lateralisation of emotional processing predicted by the approach-withdrawal hypothesis", concludes Aznar-Casanova.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/f-sf-bdh061709.php

Depression may increase risk of Alzheimer's disease in people with memory problems
American Academy of Neurology, June 15, 2009
ST. PAUL, Minn. –People with memory problems who are depressed are more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease compared to people who are not depressed, according to a study published in the June 16, 2009, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. However, the research also shows that the popular Alzheimer's drug donepezil may delay the progression to Alzheimer's disease for depressed people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or memory problems.
MCI is described as the period in-between normal aging and Alzheimer's disease. A person with MCI experiences memory problems that are greater than expected with normal aging but does not show other symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, such as difficulties in completing everyday activities.
For the study, researchers followed 756 people with MCI who were between the ages of 55 and 91 for three years. Of those, 208 were diagnosed with depression using a test that measures the severity and intensity of a person's depressive symptoms. For every one point increase on the test, a participant's risk of developing Alzheimer's disease went up by three percent.
"Our longer term findings add to the body of evidence that suggests depression is a major risk factor for Alzheimer's disease," said study author Po H. Lu, PsyD, assistant professor of neurology with the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA in Los Angeles. "Since the drug donepezil has been shown to improve the behavioral symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, our study also tested whether the drug would delay the progression to Alzheimer's disease in people with memory problems."
Participants were given either vitamin E, donepezil or a placebo pill. The study found that at 1.7 years, among depressed people with mild cognitive impairment, 11 percent of those taking donepezil developed Alzheimer’s disease compared to 25 percent of those who took vitamin E or placebo. At 2.2 years, 14 percent of those taking donepezil developed Alzheimer's compared to 29 percent of those who took vitamin E or placebo. Donepezil had little effect in the group of people who were not depressed.
"If we can delay the progression of this disease for even two years, it could significantly improve the quality of life for many people dealing with memory loss," said Lu.
Donepezil is not approved for use in mild cognitive impairment by the FDA. It is indicated for mild to moderate and severe Alzheimer's disease.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/aaon-dmi060909.php

Farmed fish may pose risk for mad cow disease
IOS Press, June 15, 2009
LOUISVILLE, Ky. –University of Louisville neurologist Robert P. Friedland, M.D., questions the safety of eating farmed fish in the June issue of theJournal of Alzheimer's Disease, adding a new worry to concerns about the nation's food supply.
Friedland and his co-authors suggest farmed fish could transmit Creutzfeldt Jakob disease--commonly known as mad cow disease--if they are fed byproducts rendered from cows. The scientists urge government regulators to ban feeding cow meat or bone meal to fish until the safety of this common practice can be confirmed.
"We have not proven that it's possible for fish to transmit the disease to humans. Still, we believe that out of reasonable caution for public health, the practice of feeding rendered cows to fish should be prohibited," Friedland said. "Fish do very well in the seas without eating cows," he added.
Creutzfeldt Jakob disease is an untreatable, universally-fatal disease that can be contracted by eating parts of an animal infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease). An outbreak in England attributed to infected beef prompted most countries to outlaw feeding rendered cow material to other cattle because the disease is so easily spread within the same species.
The risk of transmission of BSE to humans who eat farmed fish would appear to be low because of perceived barriers between species. But, according to the authors, it is possible for a disease to be spread by eating a carrier that is not infected itself. It's also possible that eating diseased cow parts could cause fish to experience a pathological change that allows the infection to be passed between the two species.
"The fact that no cases of Creutzfeldt Jakob disease have been linked to eating farmed fish does not assure that feeding rendered cow parts to fish is safe. The incubation period of these diseases may last for decades, which makes the association between feeding practices and infection difficult. Enhanced safeguards need to be put in place to protect the public," Friedland said.
There have been 163 deaths from Creutzfeldt Jakob disease in the United Kingdom attributed to eating infected beef. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy has been identified in nine Canadian and three U.S. cattle.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/ip-ffm061509.php

Watch Out for Flying Syringes, GMO Food Vaccines, and Forced Vaccinations
NaturalNews.com  June 14, 2009

(NaturalNews) A Japanese Research team is working on genetically engineering mosquitoes to deliver vaccines. These are the flying vaccines of the future. Far fetched? Bill Gates doesn't think so. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2008 allotted a $100,000 grant to this research team for just that project. This is from the Association of Fund Raising Professionals, Washington Chapter website.

GMO's Enable Trojan Horse Vaccinations

Edible vaccines, as GMO foods, are in the future as well. Meat and Poultry, a business journal for meat and poultry processors, reports in a May 5, 2009 article , by Bryan Salvage, that researchers at Iowa State University are working on creating a method to install vaccines into corn crops.

"We're trying to figure out which genes from the swine influenza virus to incorporate into corn", stated Hank Harris, a researcher on the project. "If a swine flu virus breaks out, the corn could be shipped to the location to try to vaccinate animals and humans in the area quickly. . . . there is no need for extensive vaccine purification, which can be an expensive process."

This way even corn products, including corn chips and corn syrup, which is ubiquitous in processed foods, can serve as vaccination vehicles for humans while the corn itself is fed to hogs. Starting in 1996, bananas have been considered as a vaccination vehicle for developing countries. Keep in mind that this will be genetically engineered, or GMO (genetically modified organisms), so you won't know where and when it will show up on the foodshelves.

That's simply because the GMO firms managed to lobby for exemption from labeling GMO foods with the previous administration in the USA. Some nations are better off with labeling and tend to be GMO resistive, especially in the EU. But basically, here and in most other nations, there will be a method to sneak in vaccinations while you eat.

Maybe you want the immunity that you think exists from vaccines anyway, and eating food for vaccinations beats needles! It's cheaper too. But who's to know which foods contain what vaccines since GMO's are not labeled. How much of a vaccine is not enough and how much is too much? Are the GE food vaccines tainted? These questions linger. Since foods as vaccine Trojan Horses are genetically engineered, there are the GMO healthramifications in addition to the vaccination hazards.

Police State Vaccinations

So let's switch the time machine from near future to now. Currently, the Obama administration has the power to enforce vaccinations in an epidemicor pandemic flu breakout, or even the threat of such. This was a measure provided within the Patriot Act.

In addition, there is The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act, which will have federal funding for each state that adopts a similar model. So far 38 states and the District of Columbia are on board to receive federal funding and enforce vaccinations with absolute police power, which includes detention and seizure of private property.

Currently, the Obama administration is also considering a program to ensure everyone gets three vaccinations a year as a preventative measure, in other words in lieu of an actual epidemic, starting perhaps this fall. Obama has already appropriated 1.5 billion dollars toward emergency swine fluvaccine production, and more funds are in the works.

From a Washington Post article of May 6, 2009, "The Obama administration is considering an unprecedented fall vaccination campaign that could entail giving Americans three flu shots -- one to combat annual seasonal influenza and two targeted at the new swine flu virus spreading across the globe. If enacted, the multibillion-dollar effort would represent the first time that top federal health officials have asked Americans to get more than one flu vaccine in a year, raising serious challenges . . . (with) the ability to track potentially severe side effects."

President Calderon of Mexico received dictatorial emergency powers from the Mexican congress during the recently exaggerated swine flu flap this past May. So he now has Mexico on board for the The North American Plan for Avian & Pandemic Influenza, which was finalized at the SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America) summit of August 2007 in Montebello, Quebec.

This plan involves Canada, the USA, and Mexico. The language involved with all these measures leaves the call to emergency action open for interpretation by a sole authority. That sole authority, currently within North America, is destined to be under the U.N.'s Dr. David Nabarro, the U.N. Influenza System Coordinator. This provides for the full police action of whatever military groups are available to enforce vaccinations, and it is top down from afar. So who makes your health decisions?

In Europe, the government of France is considering a plan of enforcing flu shots on all of its population. They are planning on allocating one billion euros for 100 million doses from three different pharmaceutical companies. Anne Laude, co-director of the Institute of Health at the Universite Paris Descartes, said, ". . . nobody would have the right, except in the case of a medical counter-indication, to refuse a vaccination".

You may think that all this is beneficial. That at least the consequences of any epidemic or pandemic would be ameliorated. Actually, mass inoculations have a history of disaster, not publicized in the mass media, that you can read about if you go to some of the source links or urls after this article. A major one was the so called "Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918 when military personnel were required to be vaccinated for the first time.

Even the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons opposes enforced vaccinations because it violates the ethics of mutual consent. Congressman and former presidential primary candidate Ron Paul, who is also a physician, made this comment. "When we give government the power to make medical decisions for us, we, in essence, accept that the state owns our bodies."

Psoriasis associated with cardiovascular disease, increased mortality
Xinhua News Agency 06-16-09
WASHINGTON, Jun 15, 2009 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- The skin disease psoriasis is associated with atherosclerosis, a buildup of plaque in the arteries, characterized by an increased prevalence of ischemic heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, peripheral artery disease and an increased risk of death, according to a report in the June issue of Archives of Dermatology.
Psoriasis affects nearly 2 percent to 3 percent of the world's population, including 7 million Americans, according to background information in the article. In addition to its effects on the skin, psoriasis is associated with arthritis, depression and a lower quality of life.
"More recently, psoriasis has also been shown to be a systemic inflammatory condition, with similarities to other inflammatory immune disorders," the authors write. "Since the risk of myocardial infarction is increased in rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus, which are both inflammatory conditions, attention has been focused on the association between psoriasis, cardiovascular risk factors and myocardial infarction."
Srjdan Prodanovich, M.D., of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, and colleagues analyzed the computerized records of 3,236 patients with psoriasis and 2,500 individuals without psoriasis who were seen at the same Veterans Administration facility. Patients in the psoriasis group were slightly older than those in the control group without psoriasis ( average age 67.9 vs. 65.1) and were more likely to be men (95.5 percent vs. 88.2 percent).
"After age, sex and history of hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia (abnormal cholesterol levels) and smoking status were controlled for, patients with psoriasis were significantly more likely than controls to carry a diagnosis of atherosclerosis," the authors write. Patients with psoriasis were also more likely to have an additional diagnosis of another blood vessel disease, including ischemic heart disease (affecting vessels leading to the heart), cerebral vascular disease (vessels leading to the brain) or peripheral arterial disease (vessels outside the heart and brain).
"This result is not surprising, given the systemic nature of atherosclerosis," the authors write. "It has tremendous and far- reaching clinical implications, as all of these vascular conditions represent a major financial cost to the health care system as well as a major cause of disability and death. The latter finding was corroborated by our analysis, whereby we concluded that psoriasis is an independent risk factor for mortality; i.e., we found a higher percentage of deaths among patients with psoriasis than among patients without psoriasis (19. 6 percent vs. 9.9 percent)."
Future studies should investigate whether aggressive treatment of either cardiovascular risk factors or psoriasis will lead to an improvement in atherosclerosis in these patients, the authors conclude.
"In the meantime, we recommend that health care providers who are caring for patients with psoriasis be vigilant with respect to traditional risk factor screenings," they write. "It would be prudent for dermatologists to be familiar with suggested screening for cardiovascular risk factors and recommendations for aspirin use. If not, it is imperative that they work in collaboration with a primary care provider or another internal medicine specialist, who also needs to be aware of our findings."
http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=8391&Section=Disease

CANCER IMMUNOTHERAPY CAN USE SMALL NUMBERS OF STEM-LIKE IMMUNE CELLS TO DESTROY LARGE TUMORS IN MICE

Content Works 06-16-09
Jun 15, 2009 (National Institutes of Health Documents and Publications/ContentWorks via COMTEX) -- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH NIH News
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Sunday, June 14, 2009, 1:00 p.m. EDT
CANCER IMMUNOTHERAPY CAN USE SMALL NUMBERS OF STEM-LIKE IMMUNE CELLS TO DESTROY LARGE TUMORS IN MICE
A new approach to stimulating immune cells enhances their anticancer activity, resulting in a powerful anti-tumor response in mice, according to a study by researchers at the National Cancer Institute, a part of the National Institutes of Health. This work represents an important advance in the development of immunotherapy for cancer and appears online June 14, 2009 in Nature Medicine.
Researchers found that a subset of immune cells, T lymphocytes called CD8+ memory stem cells, were capable of mediating strong anti-tumor immune response. These potent cells were generated in the laboratory by stimulating anti-tumor T cells in the presence of drugs designed to mimic an important signaling pathway called Wnt, which describes a complex network of proteins whose interactions are essential during development and stem cell maintenance. Under the influence of Wnt, T lymphocytes acquired stem cell-like properties of multipotency and self renewal; that is, they generated differentiating daughter cells while regenerating themselves when transferred back to mice from the lab. These stem cell-like qualities enabled tiny numbers of T cells (about 40,000 cells) to trigger the destruction of large melanoma tumors (containing about one billion malignant cells).
This therapy, in which mice received CD8+ T memory stem cells together with a tumor vaccine and an immune system stimulant known as interleukin 2, improved the survival of treated mice compared with similar treatment using other types of memory T cells.
"This new category of lymphocytes is superior to T cells used in earlier experiments because they have the enhanced ability to renew themselves, to proliferate, to differentiate and ultimately to kill tumor cells," said NCI lead author Nicholas P. Restifo, M.D., an investigator in the Surgery Branch at the Center for Cancer Research.
Current clinical immunotherapies based on the transfer of tumor-specific T cells generated and expanded in the laboratory rely on the use of large numbers of tumor-specific T cells and have had beneficial but sometimes limited success.
If confirmed in humans, the use of tumor-reactive CD8+ memory stem cells could reduce the numbers of tumor-specific T cells needed for successful immunotherapy, thus making this type of therapy easier to develop so that more patients could benefit.
These findings mark the latest advance in the field of cancer immunotherapy using tumor-specific T cells, which is moving from proof-of-concept to a promising treatment for patients with metastatic cancer.
http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=8390&Section=Disease

Red yeast rice reduces cholesterol without statin side effect

LIFE EXTENSIONS  June 16, 2009
In an article published in the June 16 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine report that red yeast rice lowers low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol but does not cause the muscle pain (myalgias) associated with statins, the number one drug treatment for high LDL.
David J. Becker and colleagues randomized 62 patients with elevated LDL and statin intolerance to receive 3 capsules containing 600 milligrams red yeast rice or a placebo twice daily for 24 weeks. Participants were additionally provided with weekly educational meetings over a 12 week period on the subjects of cardiovascular disease, nutrition, exercise and relaxation techniques. Total, HDL and LDL cholesterol and other blood values were measured at the beginning of the study, at 12 weeks, and at the study’s conclusion.
By 12 weeks, LDL cholesterol had decreased by 43 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) in the group that received red rice yeast and by 11 mg/dL in the placebo group. At the end of the 24 week treatment period, LDL cholesterol was 35 mg/dL lower than values measured at the beginning of the study in the red yeast rice group, and 15 mg/dL lower in the placebo group. Total cholesterol was also lower at both time points for those that received red yeast rice.
“To our knowledge, ours is the first randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial to evaluate red yeast rice in patients with a history of SAM [statin-associated myalgias],” the authors announce. “Red yeast rice significantly decreased LDL and total cholesterol levels compared with placebo and did not increase the incidence of myalgias over a 24-week period. The regimen of red yeast rice and therapeutic lifestyle change may offer a lipid lowering option for patients with a history of intolerance to statin therapy.”
http://www.lef.org/whatshot/2009_06.htm#red-yeast-rice-reduces-cholesterol-without-statin-side-effect

Cannabis might treat diabetes, says top researcher
Last Updated: 2009-06-16 8:49:20 -0400 (Reuters Health)
LONDON (Reuters) - Cannabis plant extracts could potentially form the basic ingredients for a market-leading diabetes drug, the scientist who developed a former world-beating treatment for the condition believes.
Professor Mike Cawthorne led the team that developed GlaxoSmithKline's Avandia, which became the company's second-biggest selling drug until sales plunged in 2007 after a study linked it to a higher risk of heart attacks.
"I sincerely believe it is possible to improve on it (Avandia), and plant-based medicines could be one way to do that," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Cawthorne is collaborating with GW Pharma, a specialist developer of cannabis-based medicines, at a new laboratory dedicated to looking for plant-based treatments for diabetes.
The GW Metabolic Research Laboratory will look the different cannabinoid molecules that have been found within the cannabis plant, as well as range of other plants extracts.
There are 60-70 cannabinoid extracts, though only one of those -- THC -- has the psychoactive properties traditionally associated with the plant.
The reseachers will conduct preclinical studies to evaluate them all as possible treatments for diabetes, with a view to getting licensing deals if they strike it lucky.
Cawthorne said that the cannabinoid CBD, used along with THC in GW Pharma's Sativex drug, has been seen to raise levels of 'good' cholesterol in animals.
While 'bad' cholesterol can build up in the blood vessels and cause strokes or heart attacks, 'good' cholesterol is thought to protect against heart attacks.
CHEQUERED HISTORY
Cannabis-related diabetes treatments have a chequered history, with Sanofi-Aventis discontinuing development of its Acomplia obesity drug after European authorities requested that it was withdrawn from sale over fears of psychiatric side effects.
It had been seen as Sanofi's biggest new drug hope, and the withdrawal dealt a blow to CB1 receptor antagonists -- the class of medicines to which Acomplia belonged -- in general.
Cawthorne says he is working with actual cannabis extract rather than its synthetic equivalent, giving the basic ingredients of his potential treatments very different pharmaceutical properties.
The centre would look to treat specific symptoms of diabetes, such as non-alcoholic fatty liver or increased energy expenditure, rather than focusing on specific molecules, which is the route the pharmaceutical industry has taken to date.
"One needs to... not worry too much about the individual targets, but look and see what individual plant-based materials can do to (treat) the whole disease," he said.
"There really have been relatively few developments in finding new diabetes drug treatments... This new approach might be more productive in answering the unmet clinical need."
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2009/06/16/eline/links/20090616elin008.html

Common medicines may harm seniors' mental ability
Last Updated: 2009-06-15 11:00:49 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Drugs frequently taken by older people can cause confusion, dementia and other cognitive problems, a new analysis of 27 studies confirms.
Many doctors prescribe these medications, known as anticholinergics, to their older patients, Dr. Malaz Boustani of the Regenstrief Institute in Indianapolis, one of the authors of the research review, told Reuters Health. "Unfortunately their use is very, very high in our health care system ... especially among those who are 65 and older."
Drugs with anticholinergic effects range from over-the-counter antihistamines like Benadryl to prescription medications used to treat urinary incontinence (oxybutinin, sold as Ditropan) and antidepressant medications such as paroxetine (Paxil), Boustani explained. These drugs, he said, have one thing in common: they can impair the function of the cholinergic system, which is essential for attention, concentration, and memory.
While it's long been suspected that anticholinergic medications impair cognitive function in older people, Boustani told Reuters Health, "there wasn't any systematic, standardized way of looking at the evidence."
To fill this gap in knowledge, he and his colleagues identified 27 studies in which researchers measured anticholinergic activity of medications that patients were taking and the effect on cognitive performance.
All but two of the studies showed an association between use of anticholinergic medications and cognitive problems such as delirium soon after use, or mild cognitive impairment with continued use, the researchers report online in the Journal of Clinical Interventions in Aging.
However, their analysis wasn't able to clarify the long-term effects of using these drugs, Boustani said, nor could it show if these cognitive impairments were reversible.
Patients who develop delirium in the hospital face a "cascade of bad events," he added, including spending more time in the hospital, a greater likelihood of being transferred to a nursing home for care rather than being sent home, and an increased risk of dying. "Developing dementia is really bad for the patients, for the health system, for the payer, for the caregiver, and these med have a strong relationship with the development of delirium," Boustani said.
There are drug and non-drug alternatives to practically all of the medications that have anticholinergic effects, the researcher said. He and his colleagues are working on reducing the use of these drugs in hospitals and by doctors and patients. Also, Boustani said, there is enough evidence for the Food and Drug Administration to at least look into putting warning labels on over-the-counter medications and prescription drugs with anticholinergic effects.
In the meantime, Boustani advised, every older person should take a careful look at all the medications they use, both prescription and over the counter, and ask their physician if any have the potential to cause cognitive impairment due to their anticholinergic activity. And if their doctor doesn't have the expertise or time to help, he added, a person should ask for a referral to a geriatrician, who will be able to identify problems and suggest alternatives.
SOURCE: Journal of Clinical Interventions in Aging, online June 1, 2009

Obama to lobby U.S. doctors on healthcare reforms
Last Updated: 2009-06-15 11:13:43 -0400 (Reuters Health)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With Congress working to flesh out controversial elements of his healthcare reform plan, U.S. President Barack Obama will make his case to the nation's doctors on Monday for a new public insurance program, seeking to overcome their resistance.
Obama, in a speech to the American Medical Association, will "lay out his vision for a system that replicates best practices, incentivizes excellence and closes cost disparities -- and he'll ask for our medical professionals' help in getting the job done," an administration official said.
Speaking to the doctors' group's annual meeting in Chicago, Obama will make his case for "a health insurance exchange where private plans compete with a public option that drives down costs and expands choice," the official said.
In a move that could appeal to doctors and Republican skeptics of his healthcare overhaul ideas, Obama privately has been making the case for taking action to help protect doctors from malpractice lawsuits, the New York Times reported on Monday.
The Times quoted an unnamed Democrat described as close to the president as saying Obama views addressing medical liability issues as a "credibility builder" and an issue that might keep the nation's doctors as well as Republicans at the negotiating table over his broader healthcare overhaul goals.
The Times reported that Obama likely would refer to the lawsuit reform issue in his speech to the AMA but would not offer any specific proposal. The doctors' group and many Republicans want to limit malpractice jury awards.
The newspaper noted that doctors complain that "defensive medicine" -- ordering tests and procedures out of fear of being sued if they do not -- drives up health costs.
DEBATE SHARPENS
The president's speech to the AMA comes as debate sharpens over elements of the sweeping healthcare overhaul being drafted by Congress, including how to pay for the plan and whether it should include a public insurance program to compete with private insurers.
The U.S. healthcare industry costs about $2.5 trillion annually but leaves 46 million Americans uninsured and with little access to medical care. Despite the cost, the U.S. system consistently ranks worse than other developed countries on many key measures.
Obama says a public insurance plan is needed to compete with private insurers to drive down costs, but some Republicans say a public plan would have competitive advantages that would ultimately drive private insurers out of the market.
The AMA has expressed skepticism about any public insurance plan that would be similar to the Medicare program for the elderly. But the group said last week it was willing to consider other public options being considered by Congress, including member-owned cooperatives.
"Health reform that covers the uninsured is AMA's top priority this year," AMA President Nancy Nielsen said in a statement. "Every American deserves affordable, high-quality healthcare coverage."
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, in a television news show appearances on Sunday, defended the president's push for a public insurance option.
"The president feels that having a 'public option' side by side -- same playing field, same rules -- will give Americans choice and will help lower costs for everybody. And that's a good thing," Sebelius told CNN.
"The president does not want to dismantle privately owned plans," she added. "He doesn't want the 180 million people who have employer coverage to lose that coverage. He wants to strengthen the marketplace."
But many Republicans oppose a public plan and say there is not enough support in Congress to approve approve. The idea of a system of federally chartered insurance cooperatives has emerged as an alternative to a public plan.
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2009/06/15/eline/links/20090615elin004.html

Companies urged to plan for H1N1 flu
Last Updated: 2009-06-15 12:16:13 -0400 (Reuters Health)
LONDON (Reuters) - Many multinational companies do not have workable plans in place for when a pandemic hits, including the possibility that H1N1 flu may change into a much more dangerous virus, health experts warned on Friday.
Dr. Myles Druckman, disease outbreak expert at International SOS, also said working out how to respond to potential outbreaks that may hit offices of a multinational company in some locations but not others was something firms needed to contend with.
"A gap for many is how can companies develop a more proportional response," said Druckman, whose organisation has helped more than 100 Fortune 500 companies develop pandemic plans.
"For the most part outbreaks are going to be a local phenomenon. That is going to be the challenge going forward."
About two in five employers do not have a human resources policy in place for health-related emergencies -- even those with workers in areas affected by the H1N1 virus -- a survey by consulting firm Mercer showed.
The survey of more than 400 mid-size and large organisations worldwide suggested that while many are starting to implement protection measures, gaps in preparedness remain.
"Business continuity plans should be standardized and employers must be able to communicate in a streamlined, swift and decisive fashion," said Danielle Dorling, a consultant in Mercer's HR effectiveness consulting business.
"Ad-hoc reaction can lead to confusion, unnecessary panic and expensive global inconsistencies that can expose the organisation to significant financial risk."
The World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the first 21st century flu pandemic on Thursday and advised governments to prepare for a long-term battle against the new H1N1 flu virus.
The new flu has spread widely after emerging last April in Mexico and the United States. WHO warned the pandemic could last a year or two.
To date, 29,669 cases of H1N1 have been officially reported in 74 countries, including 145 deaths, most of them in Mexico, but the true number of infections is probably many times more.
Because the flu has been relatively mild in the first wave, Druckman said, some companies may become complacent and put their employees and business at risk in a potentially more deadly second wave of infections.
"A lot of companies did not think what is going to happen if it is mild," he said in a telephone interview. "Some companies have scaled back their interventions."
One move some companies have taken as a safety measure is to contract with drugmakers for future orders of GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza and Roche AG's Tamiflu, antivirals shown to have an effect on the H1N1 virus.
Roche spokeswoman Martina Rupp said the company was ramping up Tamiflu production but in a pandemic government and WHO orders will take priority.
"We have had company orders... but at the moment government and WHO orders obviously take priority," Rupp said, declining to name which firms had placed orders.
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2009/06/15/eline/links/20090615elin014.html

Personality and smarts may impact longevity
Last Updated: 2009-06-15 12:28:43 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Emotionally stable, intelligent men may live longer than neurotic, less intelligent men, a new study hints.
In the study, researchers found that men with neurotic traits -- a tendency to worry and to experience emotional ups and downs -- and lower cognitive ability were at greater risk of dying over a decade or so than men without these traits.
It's known, the researchers point out in a report in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, that people who are neurotic tend to be tense, anxious, and prone to depression and are more likely to smoke and be in poorer health than people who are not neurotic. However, the effects of these traits may be lessened among more intelligent people, who may be more likely to have the smarts and economic resources to deal with health problems as they arise.
"We found that neuroticism and intelligence interact to predict mortality among Vietnam era veterans," Dr. Alexander Weiss from The University of Edinburgh, UK, told Reuters Health.
The findings are based on 4200 men who were tracked for more than 15 years. A total of 234 men died during follow up.
After accounting for the influence of age and other factors, high neuroticism and low cognitive ability were both linked to the likelihood of dying, the researchers found.
"The risk posed by lower intelligence was via its association with poorer health, less education, and lower income," Weiss noted. Higher "socioeconomic status" and greater physical health blunted the effect of low intelligence but not high neuroticism on mortality.
"I think the most important message from our study is that psychological factors may interact to impact health," Weiss said.
The current study findings support past studies that have linked personality traits to life span. For example, not having a tendency to be neurotic, being outgoing or extraverted, agreeable and conscientious have all been tied to longer life, as has being smart.
SOURCE: Psychosomatic Medicine, May 2009.
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2009/06/15/eline/links/20090615elin017.html

Common Spices Work Better than Aspirin to Stop Blood Clots
Barbara Minton, NaturalNews.com  June 16, 2009

(NaturalNews) Spices do a whole lot more than liven up food. New research has found that the active ingredients in several common spices prevent platelet aggregation and blood clot formation up to 29 times better than aspirin, and without the side effects.

Scientists in India have done extensive testing to determine the health benefits of spices traditionally used in Indian cuisine. In the latest research to come from the Central Food Technological Research Institute, they evaluated the effect of the principle spice active compounds eugenol, capsaicin, piperine, quercetin, curcumin, cinnamaldehyde, and allyl sulphide on human platelet aggregation. They demonstrated that each compound evaluated was able to significantly inhibit blood clotting. Furthermore, the compounds performed their anti-platelet aggregation activity against several different factors that promote the clotting of blood.

Eugenol and capsaicin were found to be the most potent inhibitors of arachidonic acid induced platelet aggregation. This ability was shown by the other tested compounds in the declining order of curcumin, cinnamaldehyde, piperine, allyl sulphide, and quercetin. Eugenol was found to be 29-fold more potent than aspirin in inhibiting ararachidonic acid induced human platelet aggregation. Both eugenol and capsaicin inhibited production of clotting factors in a dose-dependent manner. Eugenol-mediated inhibition of platelet aggregation was further confirmed by dose-dependent decrease in malondialdehyde in platelets. Platelet formation induced by collagen and calcium were also inhibited by eugenol and capsaicin, although to a lesser degree. (Prostaglandins Leukotrienes, and Essential Fatty Acids, June 4)

Cardiovascular disease and inflammation often go hand in hand. Earlier research by this team of scientists found that eugenol was highly effective at inhibiting inflammatory conditions in humans. (Prostaglandins, Leukotrienes and Essential Fatty Acids, January, 2006)

Spices are powerful medicines

Eugenol is the active compound that gives cloves their aroma. It can also be extracted from cinnamon, nutmeg and lemon balm. Eugenol appears as a clear or pale yellow oily liquid that is slightly water soluble. It is used medicinally as a local antiseptic and analgesic. It has antioxidant properties and is often used in lotions and perfumes, as well as in artificial vanilla flavoring.

Spicing up food with cloves is one way to get this active compound. Eugenol is also available as essential oil for use in lotion and massage oil, or as aromatherapy in diffusers. Some clove oil products for internal use are also available. Drops are generally placed under the tongue.

It is possible to consume too much eugenol with serious consequences. The suggested amount on the bottle should not be exceeded.

Capsaicin is the active compound in hot peppers and the one that creates the heat. It is found in hot sauce, chili peppers, or as cayenne pepper. Aside from reducing platelet aggregation, capsaicin has a distinguished history as a cancer fighter through its ability to make cancer cells die. It is particularly effective against prostate and other hormone dependent cancers. Capsaicin sooths the digestive tract and may be a cure for inflammatory bowel disease. Eating chili peppers has been shown to protect against the effects of aspirin on the stomach.

Capsaicin protects the heart through other mechanisms besides inhibition of platelet aggregation. It reduces cholesterol and triglycerides, and has been shown able to dissolve fibrin, another action through which it can protect against blood clots. Cultures around the world that use hot peppers liberally have significantly lower rates of heart attack and stroke than cultures that do not.

Getting red pepper into the diet is easy. It is often kept on kitchen tables in the form of hot sauce, and sprinkled on meat, fish, side dishes, and snacks. Hot sauce is a natural accompaniment to Mexican foods. Chili made with fresh tomatoes and hot peppers offers the two major players against prostate cancer in one meal. Even a simple bowl of beans gets up to dance when hot sauce is added.

For anyone wanting a quantifiable amount of capsaicin, there are capsules available.

Curcumin is one of the best known herbal healers. It is the active ingredient in turmeric, one of the staples of Indian cooking. Turmeric has been used for centuries to help treat health conditions and is also a tradition in Chinese medicine. It has recently been shown to strengthen and order cell membranes, making cells more resistant to infection and malignancy. Turmeric treats digestive issues, arthritis, menstrual problems, and liver and gallbladder issues. It is one of the best natural pain relievers and has shown to be more effective at relieving pain that NSAIDS such as ibuprofen, without side effects. Turmeric also offers strong defense against colitis.

While curcumin is preventing blood clot formation, it is also preventing the oxidation of cholesterol, offering protection against blood vessel damage and plaque build up that can lead to heart attack and cancer. There is even mounting evidence that curcumin can keep away neurogenerative disease through its ability to cross the blood-brain barrier and act as an antioxidant.

Turmeric can spice up anything from baked potatoes to elaborate curries. It is a highly tasty addition to lentils. Both turmeric and curcumin are widely available in capsule form.

Cinnamaldehyde comes from cinnamon and provides that heavenly fragrance and spicy taste loved by almost everyone from childhood on. Cinnamon has been a popular healer for more than 2000 years, and is a powerful regulator of blood sugar levels. Taking one half teaspoon a day can completely normalize blood sugar for many people. Cinnamon has a beneficial impact on cholesterol, lowering LDL levels. It is a digestive aid and antibacterial.

Piperine is what gives black pepper its kick. It provides an overall health boost and is effective against colon cancer and inflammation. Sprinkling black pepper on food increases the bioavailability of its nutrients. Piperine can be ordered in capsule or tablet form from online retailers, and is a great addition to other supplements, increasing their bioavailability.

Allyl sulfide is found in the oil of garlic and is one of the compounds that gives it such a unique odor. The health benefits of garlic are legendary. Allyl sulfide is not available as a supplement and must be obtained by eating garlic or buying garlic supplements. Crush a clove of fresh organic garlic just before eating and add it to your food. The taste will be sensational, and you will get all the benefits garlic has to offer. Many of these benefits are lost if garlic is added to food while it is cooking.
http://www.naturalnews.com/z026454_blood_spices_garlic.html

Global Food Production Plummets in 2009 (with chart)
David Gutierrez, NaturalNews.com  June 15, 2009 

(NaturalNews) Global food production is expected to plummet between 20 and 40 percent in 2009, due to widespread drought and other stresses on agricultural production

Two-thirds of the world's food is produced in countries currently in the grip of droughts. The extent of this crisis can easily be seen by a chart on the Web site of the Center for Research on Globalization:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index....

Much media attention has focused on a severe drought in Northern China, one of the wheat producing capitals of the world. There, the worst drought in 50 years has already resulted in damage to 161 million mu (26.5 million acres) of crops. In Australia, suffering its worst drought in 117 years, 41 percent of crops have been harmed, farmers have begun abandoning land, rivers have run dry and lakes have evaporated to such an extent that they have turned toxic.

In the United States, Texas and the Southeast remains in the throes of a severe drought. California's drought is the worst in recorded history, with thousands of acres already fallow and worse likely to come -- the Northern Sierra snowpack, which provides much of the state's water as it melts, only reached 49 percent of its average thickness this winter.

Less well-publicized but equally devastating droughts have also gripped other agricultural areas of the world. In Latin America, agricultural emergencies have been declared in six countries, including soy-, corn- and cattle-producing giants Argentina and Brazil. The La Nina weather pattern is expected to make the situation worse in both Pacific South America and the southern United States.

Eastern and southern Africa, and western and central Asia are also facing severe droughts. The wheat harvest in eastern South Africa is expected to be the lowest in 30 years. In Central Asia and the Middle East, wheat harvests have dropped an average of 22 percent, reaching as high as 98 percent in northern Iraq.

Farmers have also been hurt by a lack of credit due to the financial crisis, making it harder to buy fertilizer or seed. Even in Europe, which has been relatively untouched by drought, unusual climate conditions and degraded soil have led to a projected 10 to 15 percent drop in crop output.
http://www.naturalnews.com/z026453_drought_food_food_production.html

Bird Populations Plummet Due to Disappearing Habitat
David Gutierrez, NaturalNews.com  June 15, 2009

(NaturalNews) Populations of many species of birds have plunged over the past 40 years, primarily due to habitat loss, according to a report issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

"Just as they were when Rachel Carson published 'Silent Spring' nearly 50 years ago, birds today are a bellwether of the health of land, water and ecosystems," said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. "From shorebirds in New England to warblers in Michigan to songbirds in Hawaii, we are seeing disturbing downward population trends that should set off environmental alarm bells." 

The largest threats to bird populations are habitat destruction, climate change, disease and invasive species, the report says. Other factors leading to large numbers of bird deaths include collisions with buildings and radio or cell phone towers, and attacks by feral or domestic cats.

Among the most threatened birds are those living in Hawaii -- home to more than a third of the birds listed under the endangered species act -- and mainland birds living along coasts or in grasslands and deserts. Populations of birds that breed exclusively in grasslands have dropped 40 percent since 1969.

According to Michael J. Bean of Environmental Defense Fund, more threats to grassland birds are on the horizon. The highly successful Conservation Reserve Program, in which farmers are paid to leave critical bird habitat fallow, is set to expire in September. The loss of these areas "could be the tipping point that makes an endangered species designation for the lesser prairie chicken unavoidable," he said.

The report notes that populations of many wetland birds have increased dramatically, however, with all 39 species of hunted waterfowl that are federally monitored doubling in number over the past 40 years. Scientists attribute this to large sums put toward conservation by politically influential sport hunter groups.

"When we try, we can do it," said John Fitzpatrick of Cornell University. "There are now populations and habitats across the country begging for us to do it." 
http://www.naturalnews.com/z026449_Hawaii_endangered_species_water.html

Low Vitamin D May Be Root Cause of Cancer
S. L. Baker, NaturalNews.com  June 15, 2009 

(NaturalNews) What initially causes cancer to develop? The current scientific model assumes that a genetic mutation begins the genesis of a malignancy. But what if that assumption is wrong and there's another key to the start of cancer? Scientists at the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California (UC) in San Diego have raised that possibility. And they've come up with another, brand new model of how cancer develops.

Reporting online in the current Annals of Epidemiology, they point to a host of research that suggests cancer develops when cells lose the ability to stick together in a healthy, normal way -- and the key factor to this initial triggering of a malignancy could well be a lack of vitamin D.

In the article, Cedric Garland, DrPH, professor of family and preventive medicine at the UC San Diego School of Medicine, and his research team explain that previous theories associating vitamin D with many cancers have been tested and confirmed in over 200 epidemiological studies. In addition, more than 2,500 laboratory studies have been conducted that provide an understanding of the physiological basis of vitamin D's link to cancer.

According to Dr. Garland, researchers have documented that with enough vitamin D present, cells adhere to one another in tissue and act as normal, mature epithelial cells. But if there is a deficiency of vitamin D, cells can lose this stick-to-each other quality, as well as their identity as differentiated cells. The result? They may revert to a dangerous stem cell-like state and become cancerous.

In a statement to the media, Dr. Garland suggested that much of the process that starts cancer in the first place could be stopped at the outset by maintaining enough vitamin D in the body. "Vitamin D may halt the first stage of the cancer process by re-establishing intercellular junctions in malignancies having an intact vitamin D receptor," he said. And, he added, that if diet and supplements restore appropriate levels of vitamin D, the development of cancer might be prevented. According to Dr. Garland, vitamin D levels can be easily increased, if needed, by modest supplementation with vitamin D3 in the range of 2000 IU/day.
The "cure" for cancer already exists

This new model of cancer's cause has been dubbed DINOMIT by Dr. Garland and his colleagues. Each letter stands for a different phase of cancer development: "D" refers to disjunction, or loss of communication between cells; "I" is for initiation, where genetic mutations begin to play a role; "N" refers to natural selection of the fastest-reproducing cancer cells; "O" is a for overgrowth of cells; "M" stands for metastasis, the spread of a malignancy to other tissues; "I" refers to involution and "T" for transition, both dormant states that may occur in cancer and can potentially be altered by increasing vitamin D.

"Competition and natural selection among disjoined cells within a tissue compartment, such as might occur in the breast's terminal ductal lobular unit, for example, are the engine of cancer," Dr.Garland said in the press statement. "The DINOMIT model provides new avenues for preventing and improving the success of cancer treatment."

In their Annals of Epidemiology report, the UC scientists point to a host of studies that show an apparent beneficial effect of vitamin D (and, to some extent, calcium) on cancer risk and survival of patients with breast, colorectal and prostate cancer. In fact, Dr. Garland and his team have published epidemiological studies about the potential preventive effects of vitamin D for some twenty years.

In 2008, Dr. Garland and his colleagues found an association between a lack of sunlight exposure, low vitamin D and breast cancer. In earlier work, they showed linkages between increased levels of vitamin D3 or markers of vitamin D and a lower risk for breast, colon, ovarian and kidney cancers, too.

As reported earlier in Natural News, clues about a possible cause-and-effect association between a lack of vitamin D and cancer's development have rapidly accumulated over the past few years. For example, researchers have found that women who are deficient in vitamin D at the time they are diagnosed with breast cancer are nearly 75 percent more likely to die from the disease than women with sufficient vitamin D levels. Moreover, their cancer is twice as likely to metastasize to other parts of the body (http://www.naturalnews.com/024324.html).

Healthy levels of vitamin D have been found to slash the risk of numerous cancers by 77 percent
http://www.naturalnews.com/z026447_Vitamin_D_cancer_NaturalNews.html

ADHD Drugs Linked to Sudden Death

Some Parents Believe New Study Reinforces Link Between Stimulants, Cardiac Death

By DAN CHILDS and TODD NEALE
ABC News Medical Unit in Collaboration with MedPage Today

June 15, 2009—
For Ann Hohmann, Oct. 21, 2004, began just about like any other day.
On that morning, the 54-year-old mother of two living in McAllen, Texas, was preparing to take her eldest son to school. She had an early appointment, so her husband, Rick Hohmann, would be dropping off younger son, 14-year-old Matthew, at his school that day.
About a month earlier, Matthew had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. And like an estimated 2.5 million other children in the United States, he was taking medication for the condition.
It was Ann Hohmann who gave Matthew his Adderall XR pill that morning with a glass of water. But it was her husband who later found him after he had collapsed on the bathroom floor.
"To me, he seemed fine," she recalled. "My husband had seen him walking around, brushing his teeth. Then he walked in and found him flat down on the floor in the bathroom.
"When he turned him over, his lips were blue," Hohmann said.
She said that her husband called her first, and then he called 911. He performed CPR until the ambulance arrived. But it was too late.
"They worked on him for a while, but he was dead," she said.
Ann Hohmann is one of a handful of parents across the country who believes that their children's sudden death was due to the use of drugs to control ADHD. And she said she hopes a new study released this morning, which suggests that the use of stimulants is tied to an increased risk of sudden unexplained death among children and teens, will open the eyes of the public to what she sees as the cause of her son's demise.
"When my doctor gave this to my son, I thought it was a light dose," she said. "I had no idea that it was going to kill him. It ruined our lives. ... There was no warning."

Findings May Add Fuel to ADHD Drug Debate

In the study of 564 children and teens who died suddenly, researchers led by Madelyn Gould of the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University in New York City found that that those who died suddenly were 7.4 times more likely than not to have been taking the stimulant medications. The results of the study are reported online in The American Journal of Psychiatry.
"Although sudden unexplained death is a rare event," the researchers said, "this finding should be considered in the context of other data about the risk and benefit of stimulants in medical treatment."

ADHD Medication Concerns Have Arisen in Past

Reports of cases of sudden unexplained death among children taking stimulants for ADHD have raised concerns over use of the medications in the past. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's adverse event reporting system identified 11 sudden deaths in pediatric patients taking methylphenidate -- the active ingredient in Ritalin and other ADHD drugs -- from January 1995 to February 2005.
While this rate of sudden death appears very low, the researchers there may be more cases that go unreported.
In 2006, the issue saw two FDA advisory committees come to opposite conclusions regarding the need to include a boxed warning of the risk of sudden death on the labels of stimulants. Later that year, information was added to the regular warnings section of the medication labels noting the association between sudden death and stimulant use at standard doses in children with serious heart problems.
Currently, however, it appears unlikely that this new study will have an effect on the FDA's approach to these drugs.
"Given the limitations of this study's methodology, the FDA is unable to conclude that these data affect the overall risk and benefit profile of stimulant medications used to treat ADHD in children," the FDA said in a statement released this morning. "Therefore, the FDA believes that this study should not serve as a basis for parents to stop a child's stimulant medication. Parents should discuss concerns about the use of these medicines with the prescribing healthcare professional."
The companies that manufacture these medicines maintain that these products are safe and that their risks are properly disclosed.
"Based on several reviews of these reports, the frequency of sudden cardiac death in children and adolescents taking a stimulant medication at the time of their death has not been shown to be higher than the incidence seen in the general population," Shire Pharmaceuticals, which produces Adderall XR, said in a statement issued Friday before the study's release.
A spokesperson for Novartis, the company that manufactures the ADHD drug Ritalin, said that a review of the company's safety data "failed to detect an increased risk in sudden cardiac death associated with [Ritalin] use." McNeil Pediatrics, the company that manufactures the ADHD drug Concerta, had no comment when contacted by ABC News.
Still, the findings will likely reignite a debate within the medical community over the safety and proper use of the popular medications.
"It is astonishing that these drugs are used so widely with children -- 5 percent of the school-aged population on a daily basis," said William Pelham, professor of psychology, pediatrics and psychiatry at the State University of New York at Buffalo. "When this study is published, I suspect that the professional and advocacy groups that continue to ignore the accumulating evidence showing absence of benefit on long-term outcomes will have a more difficult time defending the widespread practice of using stimulants as first line and sole treatment for ADHD in children."

Controversy Remains Over Stimulant Drugs for ADHD

Other medical professionals said more research is necessary before making any conclusions. "As far as the study design goes, I'm reminded of the old adage that 'correlation is not causation,'" said Jay Reeve, chief executive officer of the mental health services organization Apalachee Center Inc. in Tallahassee, Fla. "The downside of this study may be a wholesale rejection of the use of stimulants for children, which would be terrible.
"While caution is an excellent practice in child psychiatry, too many children are helped by the use of these meds ... to abandon prescribing these meds entirely," he said.
Daniel Cox, professor of psychiatry and neurosciences at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, agreed, adding that he fears the study will have an overall negative effect on the health of these young patients if the public misinterprets its findings.
"This article cannot address a possible large question: How many lives are saved because of stimulant medications," he said. "How many children do not impulsively run out in the street, are inattentive to a car turning into their lane of traffic, don't climb out on a roof and fall because they are appropriately medicated and less impulsive and inattentive because of the therapeutic effects?"
Still, Ann Hohmann said that the circumstances behind her son's death are hard to ignore.
"We didn't know anything until we saw the death certificate, which said 'sudden cardiac death, myocarditis,'" she said. "When I saw that, it blew me away. How can a healthy 9-year-old have a heart attack?"
And while Shire noted that it provides warning language about the use of these medicines by patients with serious heart problems, Ann Hohmann said that her son had no such history.
"He had seen doctors several times prior to that, and he had a physical a year before that. The last time he saw a doctor, they listened to his heart."

Keeping Kids With ADHD Safe

Last year, the American Heart Association recommended considering routine heart screening tests known as electrocardiograms, or ECGs, prior to starting children with ADHD on stimulant drugs and called for future studies to assess the risk of sudden death.
Reeve said that he feels such testing could go a long way in determining which children should not be taking the medications.

Some Support Heart Screenings for Kids on ADHD Drugs

"I think that the AHA recommendations on ECG screening made a lot of good sense and go along with the idea that caution should be the first standard in medicating children," he said.
Not all doctors agreed, however. "There is no evidence that suggests doing [ECGs] on all children taking stimulant medication will decrease incidences of sudden death," noted Dr. Francisco Xavier Castellanos, professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the New York University's Langone Medical Center in New York City. "What we need is to move from spasmodic concern -- 'let's do something fast' -- to an urgency to get targeted research going that will provide crucially needed knowledge about who is at risk."
As for Hohmann, she said that she has started telling her friends to make sure that they do not put their children on stimulant ADHD medications. She added that she would advise any parents who had children who were taking an ADHD medication to have their children's hearts checked on a regular basis, both prior to beginning treatment with the drug and while they are taking it.
"When you lose a child, it's the most devastating thing you could ever, ever go through," she said. "Something needs to be done."
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=7829005

Lilly Sold Drug for Dementia Knowing It Didn’t Help, Files Show 

Bloomberg, June 12, 2009
June 12 (Bloomberg) -- Eli Lilly & Co. urged doctors to prescribe Zyprexa for elderly patients with dementia, an unapproved use for the antipsychotic, even though the drugmaker had evidence the medicine didn’t work for such patients, according to unsealed internal company documents.
In 1999, four years after Lilly sent study results to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration showing Zyprexa didn’t alleviate dementia symptoms in older patients, it began marketing the drug to those very people, according to documents unsealed in insurer suits against the company for overpayment.
Regulators required Lilly and other antipsychotic drug- makers in April 2005 to warn that the products posed an increased risk to elderly patients with dementia. The documents show the health dangers in marketing a drug for an unapproved use, called off-label promotion, said Sidney Wolfe, head of the health research group at Public Citizen in Washington.
“By definition, off-label means there is no clear evidence that the benefits of a drug outweigh the risks,” Wolfe said. “The reason why off-label promotion is illegal is that you can greatly magnify the number of people who will be harmed.”
In 1999, when Lilly began its marketing push, Zyprexa’s only approved use was for patients suffering from schizophrenia, according to the FDA. In 2008, Zyprexa was Lilly’s best-selling drug, with $4.7 billion in sales, while antipsychotics as a group topped U.S. drug sales last year, with $14.6 billion.
Seven Studies
In a request for a December 2003 meeting over a proposed label change, Lilly told the FDA that data from seven studies showed Zyprexa didn’t alleviate symptoms of Alzheimer’s or other dementia.
The studies found death rates among older dementia patients taking Zyprexa were “significantly greater” than those who didn’t get the medicine, the company said, according to the unsealed documents.
“Plaintiffs are releasing one-sided, cherry-picked documents obtained in discovery to selected news media in an effort to try their cases in the media,” said Lilly spokeswoman Marni Lemons, who added that the company will fight the lawsuit. She declined to answer specific questions about the studies.
Lilly pleaded guilty in January to a federal misdemeanor charge of illegally marketing Zyprexa for off-label uses to elderly consumers. The company admitted illegal promotions from September 1999 through March 2001, while denying such practices beyond that date.
Medical Journals
The documents also revealed Lilly officials wrote medical journal studies about Zyprexa and then asked doctors to put their names on the articles, a practice called “ghostwriting.”
Lilly employees compiled a guide to hiring scientists to write favorable articles, complained to journal editors when publication was delayed and submitted rejected articles to other outlets, according to the documents.
Lilly’s internal documents, which number about 10,000 pages, were unsealed as part of suits against the drugmaker by health insurers and pension plans seeking to recoup monies spent on Zyprexa. The insurance plans contend the papers indicate that Lilly promoted the antipsychotic to doctors treating elderly patients even after March 2001.
The plaintiffs cite documents including a 2002 business plan calling for expanding prescriptions in off-label use. They also point to notes from Lilly sales representatives through 2003 recording efforts to press doctors to prescribe elderly patients Zyprexa for mood symptoms, irritability and insomnia.
$6.8 Billion in Damages
Insurers and other so-called third-party payers contend Lilly should pay as much as $6.8 billion in damages for downplaying Zyprexa’s health risks, including excessive weight gain and the risk of contracting diabetes, and marketing the drug for unapproved uses to pump up profits.
Bloomberg News obtained copies of the documents after U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein in Brooklyn, New York, ordered their release on May 1. In September, Weinstein allowed insurers and other payers to sue Lilly as a group after finding “sufficient evidence of fraud” to let the case go to trial. Lilly appealed that ruling.
The Indianapolis-based drugmaker agreed in January to pay $1.42 billion to the U.S. government and more than 30 states to settle off-label marketing allegations over Zyprexa. The agreement included a $615 million penalty for the federal criminal charge.
Lilly has paid $1.2 billion so far to settle more than 32,000 individual claims by patients, the company said in an April 30 securities filing. About 140 claims remain, Lilly reported.
12 States
The company also faces suits from 12 states over its Zyprexa marketing practices. Cases brought by South Carolina and Connecticut officials are set for trial later this year.
The unsealed documents support the claims of the insurers suing Lilly, said lawyerThomas Sobol, of Seattle-based Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP. His firm represents the plaintiffs suing the drugmaker for overcharging on Zyprexa and provided Bloomberg News with copies of the documents.
Bloomberg News filed a letter brief asking the court to unseal the documents.
Zyprexa was initially approved in 1996 for use with schizophrenia sufferers. In 2000, Lilly received the FDA’s approval to sell it to those dealing with the mania stage of bipolar disorder.
The drug has never been approved for use with dementia patients, according to theFDA’s Web site.
Even before the drug was on the market, Lilly researchers were eyeing whether elderly dementia patients could benefit from taking the antipsychotic, according to the unsealed documents.
Company Study
A 1995 company study of users taking between 1 to 8 milligrams of Zyprexa “did not show efficacy in alleviating the psychotic symptoms and behavioral disturbances in elderly” patients suffering from “primary degenerative dementia of the Alzheimer’s type,” according to a study summary that was unsealed.
The company also noted that three patients taking Zyprexa died during a study or within 30 days of its completion, while only one control-group patient expired, according to the unsealed documents.
J. Alan Webber, a Lilly executive, acknowledged in a Feb. 16, 1995, note that FDA official Paul Leber wasn’t impressed with study results in connection with Zyprexa’s effectiveness in treating older dementia patients.
“Dr. Leber was not enthusiastic about study HGAO (psychotic demented elderly) with respect to the indication for use, and extensive discussion did not resolve the disagreement,” Webber said, according to the documents.
Back to the FDA
In 1998, Lilly went back to the FDA seeking approval to market Zyprexa to those battling Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia, the company said in its 2003 request for a meeting on a proposed label change. Lilly withdrew its bid to promote Zyprexa for Alzheimer’s cases in 1999, according to the document.
In a November 2000 memo to Lilly salespeople, company executives said the dementia marketing initiative was abandoned because the FDA questioned Zyprexa’s effectiveness in treating the ailment.
“It was withdrawn due to vagueness on the FDA’s part regarding a definition of efficacy,” Lilly officials said in the document.
In a 2003 memo to FDA regulators citing the clinical studies, Lilly researchers acknowledged the death rates among older dementia patients on Zyprexa in the reviews were two times higher than their counterparts taking placebos.
Patient Deaths
Deaths among the patients taking Zyprexa in the studies were “significantly greater than placebo-treated patients (3.5 percent v. 1.5 percent, respectively),” Lilly officials said, according to the unsealed documents.
The studies didn’t find Zyprexa was effective in treating dementia, the company acknowledged in this document.
Lilly recognized this earlier, according to a 2002 document entitled “Zyprexa in serious mental illness (65 plus years) -- A Strategy Review.”
“The treatment of serious mental illness for people over the age of 65 has been identified as a growing opportunity for Zyprexa,” the authors wrote. “Unfortunately, attempts to gain the data to support an application for an indication in the treatment of dementia have to date been unsuccessful.”
Lilly, which first marketed Zyprexa to psychiatrists, sought to expand its customer base in 1999 by focusing on long term-care facilities, particularly nursing homes, according to the unsealed documents.
Primary Care Physicians
It later began targeting primary care physicians, known as PCPs, as another potentially lucrative Zyprexa market. Such physicians frequently deal with dementia patients, according to the unsealed files.
Another benefit to the strategy was that many of those practitioners were “unaware of Zyprexa weight gain issue,” according to a December 1999 Lilly sales memo, referring to one of the drug’s possible side-effects.
Lilly viewed dementia as the “key” to the elderly and PCP markets, according to an undated document, “Elderly - PCP Sales Aid.” In that paper, executives urged salespeople to “utilize dementia and symptoms as entry.”
Lilly marketing executives envisioned expanding “Zyprexa’s market by redefining how primary care physicians treat mood, thought and behavioral disturbances,” according to the December 1999 memo. The strategy included: “Focus message patients; symptoms and behaviors (rather than diagnoses),” according to the unsealed internal company documents.
Zyprexa Sales
Lilly officials in 2002 reported Zyprexa sales grew due to “an expanding prescriber base in primary care, off-label use including PTSD and sleep,” according to a document called “Zyprexa Business Summary,” referring to post-traumatic stress disorder. The company’s goal was to reach $6 billion in sales by 2006, according to a July 2002 Zyprexa marketing plan.
Lilly’s long-term care unit also saw Zyprexa sales rise 2.9 percent in the second quarter of 2002 as sales of Risperdal, Johnson & Johnson’s rival antipsychotic, fell, according to the 2002 marketing plan.
At that time, long-term care sales made up about 20 percent of Zyprexa prescriptions, according to the summary. Of that number, 65 percent were written for nursing-home patients.
Overall, prescriptions for older patients were the “2nd biggest money-producing segment” for Zyprexa in the U.S., according to a Feb. 15, 2002, e-mail from Lilly researcher Peter Feldman to Denice Torres, the company’s global marketing director.
Internal Memos
In that e-mail, Feldman said company officials were saying in internal memos that they were going to stop studying Zyprexa’s potential health benefits for elderly consumers.
That would risk “killing the goose that lays the golden eggs to save on poultry feed costs,” Feldman said in the unsealed messages.
Torres assured him older consumers would continue to be a prime target for Zyprexa sales, according to the e-mail.
“Elderly remains an important aspect of target PT and affiliate focus,” she said in the message.
Increased Zyprexa sales to elderly patients also won Lilly’s long-term care unit praise in a 2003 newsletter unsealed as part of the documents.
“For two consecutive years, you have been on top and have turned in above-plan performance,” Grady Grant, Lilly’s national sales director, wrote in the newsletter. “I look forward to working with you as we set our sights on overtaking Risperdal as the number one antipsychotic in the marketplace!”
‘Driving Force’
“Once again you have all shown that LTC is a driving force for Zyprexa in the US affiliate in 2002,” Mike Murray, another Lilly executive, wrote in the newsletter. “We must continue to accelerate the growth of Zyprexa.”
Unsealed documents also showed Lilly salespeople prodded doctors to prescribe the drug for off-label uses, according to “call notes” Lilly turned over in lawsuits against the drugmaker. Portions of some call notes, which record sales visits to doctors, are cited in a recently unsealed June 15, 2007, filing by the insurance plans.
One sales representative wrote in a March 7, 2003, note she’d persuaded a doctor to write Zyprexa prescriptions for use in “elderly pts, help sleep and irritability.” Another asked a doctor to try Zyprexa “in elderly who are not thinking clearly and are suspicious and hostile,” according to an Aug. 31, 2001, note.
Common Adverse Effects
In June 2004, Paula Rochon, a senior scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto, published a literature review in the British Medical Journal showing there were only five trials available analyzing antipsychotics’ effect on the elderly, and that in those trials, adverse effects were common.
In May 2008, Rochon found that atypical antipsychotics triple the risk of a patient’s death or hospitalization within a month of starting therapy, according to research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. About 17 percent of nursing home patients suffering from dementia are prescribed an antipsychotic within 100 days of their admission, according to her study.
The insurance plans, states and former Zyprexa patients suing Lilly also claim company officials hid the drug’s health risks and failed to properly warn patients they could develop diabetes by taking the medicine. Former users contend the drug leads to increased weight gain, which can spark the disease.
In 2001, marketing executives advised salespeople not to duck questions about whether Zyprexa caused some users to gain weight, according to an internal memo.
“Acknowledge weight gain but present it as a manageable side effect,” Lilly advised its sales force, according to the documents. “With most customers, we will continue to address the diabetes concern only when it arises,” the December 2001 document said. “Get back to selling!”
The case is UFCW Local 1776 and Participating Employers Health and Welfare Fund v. Eli Lilly and Co., No. 05-CV-04115, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn).
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aTLcF3zT1Pdo#

Newborn Weights Affected By Environmental Contaminants
ScienceDaily (June 16, 2009) — Recent epidemiological studies have revealed an increase in the frequency of genital malformations in male newborns (e.g., un-descended testes) and a decrease in male fertility.
The role played by the growing presence in our environment of contaminants that reduce male hormone action could explain this phenomenon.
It is known that the birth weight of males is higher than that of females due to the action of male hormones on the male fetus.If the exposure of pregnant women to environmental contaminants that diminish the action of male hormones has increased over the years, one would expect to see a decrease in the sex difference in birth weight.
This is exactly what a new study published in the July 2009 issue of Epidemiology shows. Investigators analyzed the Public Health Agency of Canada's database on the birth weights of more than five million children born in Canada between 1981 and 2003.
Using statistical methods that control for changes over time of mother's age and parity, the investigators effectively show a sustained decrease in birth weight differences between boys and girls, which supports the hypothesis of growing endocrine disruption related to environmental contaminants. Contaminants found in plastic materials represent plausible candidates, since they are known to diminish the action of male hormones.
"Our study underlines the importance of probing the impact of environmental contaminants on the health of mothers and fetuses and on the reproductive potential of future generations," says lead researcher Dr. Guy Van Vliet, a pediatric endocrinologist and investigator at the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Research Center and a professor at the Department of Pediatrics of the Université de Montréal.
The study was carried out under the auspices of the Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System (CPSS).
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090615144211.htm

Tai Chi Benefits For Arthritis Shown
ScienceDaily (June 16, 2009) — A new study by The George Institute for International Health has found Tai Chi to have positive health benefits for musculoskeletal pain. The results of the first comprehensive analysis of Tai Chi suggest that it produces positive effects for improving pain and disability among arthritis sufferers.
The researchers are now embarking on a new trial to establish if similar benefits can be seen among people with chronic low back pain.
"This is the first robust evidence to support the beneficial effects of Tai Chi. Our study proves that Tai Chi relieves pain and disability among people with arthritis and shows a positive trend towards effects for overall physical health. We now want to see if these benefits are the same for people suffering from low back pain", said author Dr Chris Maher at The George Institute.
Musculoskeletal pain, such as that experienced by people with arthritis, places a severe burden on the patient and community and is recognised as an international health priority. Arthritis is the major cause of disability and chronic pain in Australia, with 3.85million Australians affected. Low back pain is the most prevalent and costly musculoskeletal condition in Australia, estimated to cost up to $1billion per annum with indirect costs exceeding $8billion.
"This research should reassure people with musculoskeletal conditions such as arthritis to seek exercise to relieve the pain. The fact that Tai Chi is inexpensive, convenient, enjoyable and conveys other psychological and social benefits supports the use this type of intervention for pain conditions", added Ms Amanda Hall, The George Institute.
Tai Chi is a form of exercise that is regularly practiced in China for general health purposes and has gained increasing popularity in North America and Australia and thus a growing body of research aimed at investigating its health benefits has emerged.
Tai Chi is a versatile activity that can be easily incorporated into people's daily activities. Usually preformed in a group, Tai Chi can also be practiced individually, which differs from traditional exercise therapy approaches in clinic.
Amanda M Hall, Chris G Mahe, Jane Latimer, Manuela L Ferreira and Paul Lam. A randomized controlled trial of tai chi for long-term low back pain (TAI CHI): Study rationale, design, and methods.. BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, 2009; 10 (1): 55 DOI: 10.1186/1471-2474-10-55
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090616103213.htm

Marijuana Damages DNA And May Cause Cancer, New Test Reveals
ScienceDaily (June 15, 2009) — Using a highly sensitive new test, scientists in Europe are reporting "convincing evidence" that marijuana smoke damages the genetic material DNA in ways that could increase the risk of cancer.
Researchers note that toxic substances in tobacco smoke can damage DNA and increase the risk of lung and other cancers. However, there has been uncertainty over whether marijuana smoke has the same effect. Scientists are especially concerned about the toxicity of acetaldehyde, present in both tobacco and marijuana. However, it has been difficult to measure DNA damage from acetaldehyde with conventional tests.
The research was carried out by Rajinder Singh, Jatinderpal Sandhu, Balvinder Kaur, Tina Juren, William P. Steward, Dan Segerback and Peter B. Farmer from the Cancer Biomarkers and Prevention Group, Department of Cancer Studies and Molecular Medicine and Karolinska Institute, Sweden.
Raj Singh said: “Parts of the plant Cannabis sativa, also known as marijuana, ganja, and various street names, are commonly smoked as a recreational drug, although its use for such purposes is illegal in many countries.
The scientists describe development and use of a modified mass spectrometry method that showed clear indications that marijuana smoke damages DNA.
“There have been many studies on the toxicity of tobacco smoke. It is known that tobacco smoke contains 4000 chemicals of which 60 are classed as carcinogens. Cannabis in contrast has not been so well studied. It is less combustible than tobacco and is often mixed with tobacco in use. Cannabis smoke contains 400 compounds including 60 cannabinoids. However, because of its lower combustibility it contains 50% more carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons including naphthalene, benzanthracene, and benzopyrene, than tobacco smoke.”
The authors added: “It is well known that toxic substances in tobacco smoke can damage DNA and increase the risk of lung and other cancers. Scientists were unsure though whether cannabis smoke would have the same effect.  Our research has focused on the toxicity of acetaldehyde, which is present in both tobacco and cannabis.”
The researchers add that the ability of cannabis smoke to damage DNA has significant human health implications especially as users tend to inhale more deeply than cigarette smokers, which increases respiratory burden. "The smoking of 3-4 cannabis cigarettes a day is associated with the same degree of damage to bronchial mucus membranes as 20 or more tobacco cigarettes a day," the team adds.
"In conclusion, these results provide evidence for the DNA damaging potential of cannabis [marijuana] smoke, implying that the consumption of cannabis cigarettes may be detrimental to human health with the possibility to initiate cancer development," the article states. "The data obtained from this study suggesting the DNA damaging potential of cannabis smoke highlight the need for stringent regulation of the consumption of cannabis cigarettes, thus limiting the development of adverse health effects such as cancer."
Singh et al. Evaluation of the DNA Damaging Potential of Cannabis Cigarette Smoke by the Determination of Acetaldehyde Derived N2-Ethyl-2′-deoxyguanosine Adducts. Chemical Research in Toxicology, 2009; 22 (6): 1181 DOI: 10.1021/tx900106y
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090615095940.htm

Stress Makes Your Hair Go Gray
ScienceDaily (June 15, 2009) — Those pesky graying hairs that tend to crop up with age really are signs of stress, reveals a new report in the journal Cell.
Researchers have discovered that the kind of "genotoxic stress" that does damage to DNA depletes the melanocyte stem cells (MSCs) within hair follicles that are responsible for making those pigment-producing cells. Rather than dying off, when the going gets tough, those precious stem cells differentiate, forming fully mature melanocytes themselves. Anything that can limit the stress might stop the graying from happening, the researchers said.
"The DNA in cells is under constant attack by exogenously- and endogenously-arising DNA-damaging agents such as mutagenic chemicals, ultraviolet light and ionizing radiation," said Emi Nishimura of Tokyo Medical and Dental University. "It is estimated that a single cell in mammals can encounter approximately 100,000 DNA damaging events per day."
Consequently, she explained, cells have elaborate ways to repair damaged DNA and prevent the lesions from being passed on to their daughter cells.
"Once stem cells are damaged irreversibly, the damaged stem cells need to be eliminated to maintain the quality of the stem cell pools," Nishimura continued. "We found that excessive genotoxic stress triggers differentiation of melanocyte stem cells." She says that differentiation might be a more sophisticated way to get rid of those cells than stimulating their death.
Nishimura's group earlier traced the loss of hair color to the gradual dying off of the stem cells that maintain a continuous supply of new melanocytes, giving hair its youthful color. Those specialized stem cells are not only lost, they also turn into fully committed pigment cells and in the wrong place.
Now, they show in mice that irreparable DNA damage, as caused by ionizing radiation, is responsible. They further found that the "caretaker gene" known as ATM (for ataxia telangiectasia mutated) serves as a so-called stemness checkpoint, protecting against MSCs differentiation. That's why people with Ataxia-telangiectasia, an aging syndrome caused by a mutation in the ATM gene, go gray prematurely.
The findings lend support to the notion that genome instability is a significant factor underlying aging in general, the researchers said. They also support the "stem cell aging hypothesis," which proposes that DNA damage to long-lived stem cells can be a major cause for the symptoms that come with age. In addition to the aging-associated stem cell depletion typically seen in melanocyte stem cells, qualitative and quantitative changes to other body stem cells have been reported in blood stem cells, cardiac muscle, and skeletal muscle, the researchers said. Stresses on stem cell pools and genome maintenance failures have also been implicated in the decline of tissue renewal capacity and the accelerated appearance of aging-related characteristics.
"In this study, we discovered that hair graying, the most obvious aging phenotype, can be caused by the genomic damage response through stem cell differentiation, which suggests that physiological hair graying can be triggered by the accumulation of unavoidable DNA damage and DNA-damage response associated with aging through MSC differentiation," they wrote.
The researchers include Ken Inomata, Kanazawa University, Takaramachi, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan, KOSÉ Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine; Takahiro Aoto, Kanazawa University, Takaramachi, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan; Nguyen Thanh Binh, Kanazawa University, Takaramachi, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan; Natsuko Okamoto, Kanazawa University, Takaramachi, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan; Shintaro Tanimura, Kanazawa University, Takaramachi, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine; Tomohiko Wakayama, Kanazawa University, Ishikawa, Japan; Shoichi Iseki, Kanazawa University, Ishikawa, Japan; Eiji Hara, The Cancer Institute, Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research, Tokyo, Japan; Takuji Masunaga, KOSÉ Corporation, Tokyo, Japan; Hiroshi Shimizu, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine; and Emi K. Nishimura, Kanazawa University, Takaramachi, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan.
Inomata et al. Genotoxic Stress Abrogates Renewal of Melanocyte Stem Cells by Triggering Their Differentiation. Cell, June 12, 2009; 137, 1088-1099 DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2009.03.037
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090611120734.htm

Symptoms Of Depression In Obese Children Linked To Elevated Cortisol
ScienceDaily (June 15, 2009) — A new study connects abnormalities of the "stress" hormone cortisol with symptoms of depression in obese children, and confirms that obesity and depression often occur together, even in children. The results were presented at The Endocrine Society's 91st Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.
"There is evidence in adults that abnormal regulation of cortisol plays a role in both obesity and depression," said the study's lead author, Panagiota Pervanidou, MD, of Athens University Medical School in Athens, Greece. "Our study indicates that cortisol abnormalities may underlie obesity and depression starting in childhood."
Cortisol is a steroid hormone that helps the body respond to stress but also has other functions, including converting fat, protein and carbohydrates into energy. Normally, levels of this hormone peak in the early morning, start to drop in late morning and reach their low point at night.
However, depressed adults have slightly elevated cortisol levels at night—"the endocrine equivalent of chronic stress," Pervanidou said. This chronic elevation of cortisol contributes to development of the metabolic syndrome, which includes abdominal obesity and other risk factors for diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
In this new study, Pervanidou and colleagues measured cortisol five times a day in the saliva of 50 obese children and teenagers as well as in their blood in the morning. The 20 boys and 30 girls, ages 8 to 15 years, were patients in the Athens University pediatric obesity clinic and did not have a prior diagnosis of depression. All subjects completed the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI), a questionnaire that assesses self-reported symptoms of depression.
Cortisol levels in the saliva in the afternoon and evening correlated positively with symptoms of depression, the authors reported. The more depressive symptoms that subjects reported, the higher the cortisol levels at those times.
This finding indicates that obesity and depression may not only be related to behavior but also may have a hormonal link, according to Pervanidou. Because obesity and depression often co-occur, she said that prevention and screening should focus on both disorders and should start in childhood.
"We recommend that obese children be screened for depression and anxiety, especially female adolescents, who have the highest risk," she said. "In addition, children with a diagnosis of depression should be evaluated for disordered eating, because these patients frequently develop obesity or anorexia."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090611142520.htm

Having A Higher Purpose In Life Reduces Risk Of Death Among Older Adults
ScienceDaily (June 15, 2009) — Possessing a greater purpose in life is associated with lower mortality rates among older adults according to a new study by researchers at Rush University Medical Center.
Patricia A. Boyle, PhD, and her colleagues from the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center, studied 1,238 community-dwelling elderly participants from two ongoing research studies, the Rush Memory and Aging Project and the Minority Aging Research Study. None had dementia. Data from baseline evaluations of purpose in life and up to five years of follow-up were used to test the hypothesis that greater purpose in life is associated with a reduced risk of mortality among community-dwelling older persons.
Purpose in life reflects the tendency to derive meaning from life’s experiences and be focused and intentional, according to Boyle.
After adjusting for age, sex, education and race, a higher purpose of life was associated with a substantially reduced risk of mortality. Thus, a person with high purpose in life was about half as likely to die over the follow-up period compared to a person with low purpose. The association of purpose in life with mortality did not differ among men and women or whites and blacks, and the finding persisted even after controlling for depressive symptoms, disability, neuroticism, the number of medical conditions and income. During the study period, 151 participants died.
“The finding that purpose in life is related to longevity in older persons suggests that aspects of human flourishing—particularly the tendency to derive meaning from life’s experiences and possess a sense of intentionality and goal-directedness—contribute to successful aging,” said Boyle.
Significant associations with mortality were found with three specific items on the purpose of life questionnaire to determine the study participants’ agreement with the following statements: “I sometimes feel as if I’ve done all there is to do in life;” “I used to set goals for myself, but that now seems like a waste of time;” and “My daily activities often seem trivial and unimportant to me.”
“We are excited about these findings because they suggest that positive factors such as having a sense of purpose in life are important contributors to health,” said Boyle.
The researchers note that knowledge of the relationship of purpose of life with other demographic characteristics is limited and future studies are needed to examine whether the association of purpose of life with mortality might be modified by other variables not measured in this study, such as how religious a participant may be. In addition, researchers suggest that future studies should examine whether purpose in life can be enhanced in older persons with interventions.
“Although we think that having a sense of purpose in life is important across the lifespan, measurement of purpose in life in older persons in particular may reveal an enduring sense of meaningfulness and intentionality in life that somehow provides a buffer against negative health outcomes,” said Boyle.
The Rush Memory and Aging Project, which began in 1997, is a longitudinal clinical-pathological study of common chronic conditions of aging. Participants are older persons recruited from about 40 continuous care retirement communities and senior subsidized housing facilities in and around the Chicago Metropolitan area. More than 1,200 older persons are enrolled in the study.
The Minority Aging Research Study began in 2004 and is a study of risk factors for cognitive decline in older Blacks. Participants are recruited from community-based organizations, churches, and senior subsidized housing facilities in and around the Chicago Metropolitan Area. More than 350 older persons are enrolled in the study.
The study is published in Psychosomatic Medicine.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090615144207.htm

Prenatal vitamins improve birth weight

LIFE EXTENSIONS June 10, 2009
The results of a meta-analysis published online on June 9, 2009 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal revealed that supplementing pregnant women with multinutrient formulas is associated with a reduced risk of giving birth to low birth weight babies compared with the risk experienced by women who did not receive the extra nutrients. Low birth weight is significantly associated with increased infant mortality.
For their review, Prakesh S. Shah, MD and Arne Ohlsson, MD of the University of Toronto identified 13 trials that compared the effects of a micronutrient supplement with a placebo, or with iron and folic acid, which are currently recommended for pregnant women by the World Health Organization. The majority of the studies were conducted in developing countries in which nutritional deficiencies are common. Micronutrient supplements evaluated in the trials included vitamins A, B1, B6, folic acid, zinc, iron, and/or copper.
The risk of delivering a low birth weight infant was found to be 19 percent lower among women who received micronutrients compared with those who received a placebo, and 17 percent lower than those who received only iron and folic acid. Preterm birth risk and the risk of delivering infants who were small for their gestational age were approximately the same among treatment and control groups.
"Low birth weight and related complications are considered the most common cause of global infant mortality under the age of 5 years," the authors write. "With the possibility of reducing low birth weight rates by 17%, micronutrients supplementation to pregnant women, we believe, offers the highest possible return for the investment."
In an accompanying commentary, Zulfiquar A. Bhutta, MBBS, PhD, and Batool A. Haider, Mbbs, MSc conclude that “if proven effective and safe in representative health care systems, multimicronutrient supplementation should replace iron-folic acid supplementation in susceptible populations.”
http://www.lef.org/whatshot/2009_06.htm#prenatal-vitamins-improve-birth-weight

More Than 9 in 10 Primary Care Physicians Say U.S. Health Care System Should Place Greater Emphasis on Nutrition to Manage Chronic Disease---Survey Conducted with American Dietetic Association Shows Lack of Reimbursement for Nutrition Services Is Key Barrier

PR Newswire 06-11-09
WASHINGTON, June 10, 2009 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Ninety-six percent of primary care physicians believe the nation's health care system should place more emphasis on nutrition to treat and manage chronic disease, according to a new survey released today. However, only 12 percent believe physicians currently pay significant attention to nutrition in the context of chronic disease.
"The good news is physicians know nutrition therapy can improve health outcomes," said registered dietitian Jane V. White, PhD, LDN, RD, FADA, with the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine, who partnered with the American Dietetic Association on the survey. "Now, it's time to move nutrition services to the forefront in prevention and management of chronic disease."
In the survey, nutrition services were defined as referral to a registered dietitian or recommendation of specific nutrition products.
"Nutrition is more than just eating a healthy diet; for patients with chronic disease nutrition acts as therapy to help them heal faster, respond better to medical care and control their disease," White said.
One of the biggest reasons cited for physicians' failure to address nutrition more frequently as part of chronic disease prevention and management is the lack of direct reimbursement for nutrition services. More than 80 percent of physicians surveyed said lack of reimbursement is either a major reason or the single biggest reason that providing nutrition services is not routine, including one-third who cited it as the biggest factor.
"Registered dietitians and doctors have long known the intrinsic value of nutrition services for their patients," said registered dietitian Martin Yadrick, MS, MBA, RD, FADA, immediate past-president of the American Dietetic Association. "It is now important for lawmakers to recognize the benefits as well and include them as covered benefits in health care reform."
The national online survey of 400 primary care physicians was conducted by Hart Research Associates in association with the American Dietetic Association and the University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine. The results were presented June 10 at a briefing on Capitol Hill attended by nutrition advocates, physicians, researchers and chronic disease organizations.
The findings are especially significant as Congress addresses health care reform and increases the focus on preventive care. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), chronic disease accounts for 75 percent of the $2 trillion the U.S. spends annually on health care. Nutrition has been shown to be highly cost-effective in preventing and managing chronic disease, but nutrition services are not a routinely covered health care benefit. In the survey, almost half (46 percent) of physicians agreed the provision of routine nutrition services definitely would be cost effective, while another 44 percent said it would probably be cost effective.
Nearly half of all adults in the U.S. have at least one chronic disease. Primary care physicians are nearly unanimous in their belief that nutrition is a key element in chronic disease: An overwhelming 94 percent of the doctors surveyed believe that nutrition plays a major role in prevention, and 95 percent say nutrition plays a major role in chronic disease management and treatment. On average, they estimate that two in three of their adult patients who have chronic disease would benefit from nutrition services. If the costs were reimbursed by a third-party payer, almost all of the physicians (94 percent) say they would refer more of their patients with chronic ailments for nutrition services than they do now.
Former Senator George McGovern, who has been a prominent advocate for improving nutrition worldwide, encouraged policymakers to take the benefits of nutrition into account in health care reform.
"As Congress takes up health care reform, it is important that the benefits of nutrition therapy be fully recognized. Investments in nutrition research, nutrition programs and nutrition therapy would provide dividends to the taxpayer. Nutrition services should be included in the Medicare program, and in any basic benefit package developed as a result of health care reform," said Sen. McGovern.
The abstract of a new study conducted by researchers at the Ohio State University Center for Health Outcomes, Policy and Evaluation Studies (HOPES) was also released at the briefing. The study, which has been submitted for publication, examined the cost effectiveness of therapeutic nutritional supplements (TNS) in the treatment of pressure ulcers, wounds, and burns. The researchers conducted economic modeling comparing the costs of TNS treatment to the savings from forgoing treatments that would be necessary if TNS was not used. Preliminary results indicate savings from the use of TNS for these conditions could be nearly $1 billion annually in the U.S.
Both studies were conducted with support from Abbott Nutrition, a division of Abbott, the global health care company. The primary care survey and the medical abstract are available at the American Dietetic Association's Web site, www.eatright.org/2009policybriefing.
http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=8367&Section=Nutrition

Less toxic drug prolongs survival in metastatic breast cancer

NewsRx.com 06-10-09
Research from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine has found that a less toxic, solvent-free chemotherapy drug more effectively prevents the progression of metastatic breast cancer and has fewer side effects than a commonly used solvent-based drug (see also Northwestern University).
A national study led by William Gradishar, M.D., director of breast medical oncology at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, found that the drug Abraxane prolonged progression-free survival by almost seven months compared with Taxotere, which is part of a class of solvent-based drugs called taxanes.
"It nearly doubled progression-free survival," said Gradishar, who also is a professor of medicine at Northwestern's Feinberg School and a physician at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
The study will be published May 26 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Chemotherapy drugs need to be dissolved in a chemical, called the "delivery system", before they can be injected into the blood stream. Abraxane uses albumin, a human protein, to deliver the chemotherapy. It does not contain chemical solvents. The generic name for Abraxane is nab-paclitaxel.
The study showed Abraxane also was much less toxic to patients. Gradishar said solvents are responsible for many of the side effects of chemotherapy including a drop in the white blood cell count and numbness or tingling in the fingertips.
In the study, the Abraxane was administered on a weekly schedule compared to injections every three weeks of Taxotere.
"This is a win-win finding," Gradishar said. "The weekly schedule of Abraxane has more anti-tumor effects and is better tolerated than Taxotere. There is also evidence that Abraxane is able to deliver the chemotherapy drug more effectively to the tumor."
"These results suggest that weekly nab-paclitaxel may be an appropriate alternative to docetaxel (Taxotere) in the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic breast cancer," Gradishar said.
The Phase II, open-label, randomized clinical study involved 300 patients with previously untreated metastatic, stage 4 breast cancer. The results were assessed by an independent radiology company and study investigators. The study was designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of three doses of Abraxane versus the highest standard dose of Taxotere.
Metastatic breast cancer is characterized by the spread of a malignant tumor from the breast to other parts of the body. It is estimated that nearly 155,000 women in the U.S. are currently living with metastatic breast cancer.
http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=8365&Section=Disease

WHO may be poised to declare flu pandemic
Last Updated: 2009-06-10 17:04:57 -0400 (Reuters Health)
GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization has called an emergency meeting of experts on Thursday to discuss the spreading h1N1 flu outbreak, in a sign the U.N. agency may be poised to declare a pandemic.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, who consulted health officials in affected countries on Wednesday, was drawing up her own evaluation ahead of the meeting set to begin at midday (1000 GMT), a spokesman said.
"She is looking for some detailed epidemiological explanation for what is going on," WHO spokesman Dick Thompson told Reuters. "She is making her own assessment based on information gathered today and running it by the Emergency Committee tomorrow."
Thompson declined to say whether the WHO would declare a full-blown pandemic after the closed-door talks, saying he did not want to prejudge the experts' recommendations.
Chan had sought further information from some countries to clarify news reports that they were detecting sustained transmission of the new virus in the community, and not just imported cases, he said.
WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said the expert committee would consult "on the state of the outbreak." The strain, which emerged in April in Mexico and the United States, has spread widely in places including Australia, Britain, Chile and Japan. The agency said on Tuesday it was on the verge of declaring the first influenza pandemic in more than 40 years, but wanted to ensure countries were well prepared to prevent a panic over the disease, widely known as swine flu.
Chan, a former health director in Hong Kong, has previously consulted the group of international experts before raising the alert level. Confirmed community spread in a second region beyond North America would trigger moving to phase 6 -- signifying a full-blown pandemic -- from the current phase 5 on the WHO's 6-level pandemic alert scale.
There have been 27,737 cases reported in 74 countries to date, including 141 deaths, according to the WHO's latest tally.
Keiji Fukuda, acting WHO assistant director-general, told reporters late on Tuesday that a move to phase 6 would reflect the geographic spread of the new disease.
"One of the critical issues is that we do not want people to 'over-panic' if they hear that we are in a pandemic situation," Fukuda told reporters at the time.
The WHO wants to avoid causing undue alarm over a virus that has been largely mild in most countries, while warning it could still mutate into a more virulent form.
Members such as Britain have called on the WHO to revise its scale to reflect severity in future.
The WHO and its 193 member states were working hard to prepare for a pandemic, for instance developing vaccines and building up supplies of anti-viral drugs, Fukuda said.
Drug makers are on track to have a vaccine against the new strain ready for the northern hemisphere autumn after receiving seed virus samples, company officials said.
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2009/06/10/eline/links/20090610elin012.html

Film aims to expose dangers in U.S. food industry
Last Updated: 2009-06-10 11:29:25 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bigger-breasted chickens fattened artificially -- new strains of deadly E. coli bacteria -- a food supply controlled by a handful of corporations.
The documentary "Food, Inc." opens in the United States on Friday and portrays these purported dangers and changes in the U.S. food industry, asserting harmful effects on public health, the environment, and worker and animal rights.
Big corporations such as biotech food producer Monsanto Co., U.S. meat companies Tyson Food Inc. and Smithfield Foods, and poultry producer Perdue Farms all declined to be interviewed for the film.
But the industry has not stood silent. Trade associations across the $142-billion-a-year U.S. meat industry have banded together to counter the claims. Led by the American Meat Institute, they have created a number of websites, including one called SafeFoodInc.com.
"Each sector of the industry that's named is doing its part to counter a lot of the misinformation in the movie," said Lisa Katic, a dietitian and consultant with an unnamed coalition of trade associations representing the food industry.
Their campaign promotes the U.S. food supply as safe, abundant and affordable, whereas the film asserts that images of animals grazing on grassy farms emblazoned on U.S. food product labels are misleading.
"Food, Inc." explores the argument that food comes not from friendly farms but from industrial factories that put profit ahead of human health.
"The film pulls back the curtain on the way food is produced," said Michael Pollan, who appears in the film and is the best-selling author of several books including "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto.
"Products with farm labels attached -- this stuff comes from factories now," he said.
But an industry spokesman said 98 percent of U.S. farms were family owned and operated and they accounted for 82 percent of farm production.
Mace Thornton of the American Farm Bureau, the nation's largest farm group, said the industry was interested in the well-being of farm animals.
"If a farmer or rancher is not the kind of person to take care of their animals, they're not going to be in business long," he said.
A PEEK INSIDE
The film shows footage inside cattle, pork and chicken production plants, some secretly recorded by immigrant workers under cramped conditions for both workers and the animals.
Maryland farmer Carole Morison let cameras in to show chickens collapsing and dying before they are put on the market because, she said, of fast weight gain caused in part by antibiotics in the feed. Morison said she lost her contract with Perdue.
The film says U.S. food corporations now widely use industrial techniques linked to growing problems like obesity, diabetes, salmonella, toxic strains of common E. coli bacteria and environmental pollution.
"Confined animal agriculture is so unsustainable in so many ways. It depends on using antibiotics in the feed that lead to antibiotic-resistant diseases. It produces more pollution than any other industry," Pollan said.
"It costs treasury, costs the public health system," he said. "The film vividly shows it costs the people who do the work and of course it is brutal to the animal."
Barbara Kowalcyk, whose 2-year-old son Kevin died from an infection of E. coli, appears in the film trying to persuade Congress to pass "Kevin's law," which would give the U.S. Department of Agriculture the power to shut down plants that produce contaminated meats. It has not passed.
Consumers can effect change, the film says, pointing to Stonyfield Farm's Gary Hirshberg, who now offers his line of organic products at giant chain Wal-Mart due to demand.
"You vote for what you eat by what you buy at the supermarket," Pollan said.
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2009/06/10/eline/links/20090610elin013.html

Ignored cholesterol blamed for heart attacks
Last Updated: 2009-06-10 11:30:25 -0400 (Reuters Health)
LONDON (Reuters) - Danish researchers said on Tuesday they have found the strongest evidence yet that an often ignored form of cholesterol can cause heart attacks.
They said people with higher levels of a little-understood form of cholesterol called lipoprotein (a), which varies up to a thousand fold from one person to another, were also more likely to have heart attacks.
Statins -- taken by millions to cut heart attack and stroke risk -- do not affect lipoprotein (a) but the findings may encourage the development of new cholesterol-lowering drugs, said Borge Nordestgaard of Copenhagen University Hospital, who led the study.
The research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that people with the highest lipoprotein (a) levels were two to three times more likely to have a heart attack than those with the lowest levels.
"We have shown that lipoprotein (a) is causing heart attacks," Nordestgaard said in a telephone interview.
Lipoprotein (a) is one of several forms of cholesterol found in the blood, with levels determined almost entirely by genetics.
Statins lower levels of low-density lipoprotein, commonly known as "bad" cholesterol. Top-selling statins include Pfizer's Lipitor, known chemically as atorvastatin, and AstraZeneca's Crestor, or rosuvastatin.
"This study may explain why statins don't work for some people," Nordestgaard said.
To show the role of lipoprotein (a) role in heart attacks, the Danish team analyzed the genes of 45,000 men and women who gave blood samples for a large national survey starting in 1976, tested their lipoprotein (a) levels and then followed them until 2007.
People with the highest levels of this cholesterol had the most heart attacks, the study found. One certain genetic variation accounted for about a quarter of the cases of high lipoprotein (a).
"Lipoprotein (a) has been around for a long time as a risk factor but people hadn't taken it too seriously because they didn't think it caused heart attacks," Nordestgaard said. "Now we show that, like LDL, it is causing heart attacks."
One problem is that people have little control over the cholesterol, whose levels can vary up to a thousand-fold among individuals, Nordestgaard added.
Niacin, a vitamin often prescribed generically to lower cholesterol, also lowers lipoprotein (a) levels. It can cause uncomfortable flushing, however. Aspirin can also lower lipoprotein (a) levels.
Merck & Co markets a drug called Tredaptive in Europe that combines niacin with an anti-flushing agent but the drug has been rejected by U.S. health regulators.
Nordestgaard said he hopes the study will spur drugmakers to begin work on a new drug specifically aimed at lipoprotein (a) levels.
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2009/06/10/eline/links/20090610elin019.html
Breathing training may help Parkinson's patients
Last Updated: 2009-06-10 16:53:57 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Strength training of the muscles involved in breathing, coughing, swallowing, and speech may help patients with Parkinson's disease stave off pneumonia, new research suggests.
During swallowing, patients with Parkinson's disease may accidentally bring saliva and food material into the lungs, a problem known as aspiration. This foreign material can then give rise to pneumonia, a leading cause of death in this patient population, Dr. Teresa Pitts, of the University of Florida, Gainesville, and colleagues point out in the journal Chest.
The researchers examined whether a 4-week course of breathing muscle training, also known as expiratory muscle strength training, improves cough and swallowing in 10 men with Parkinson's disease who had X-ray evidence of aspiration.
Following training, the patients were better able to move air out of their lungs, which is important in preventing aspiration. The maximum pressure of each patient's exhaled breath was increased as was the forcefulness of each cough.
These results, the study team concludes, demonstrate that breathing muscle training is an effective treatment option for Parkinson's disease patients at risk for aspiration.
SOURC: Chest, May 2009.
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2009/06/10/eline/links/20090610elin026.html

Acupuncture soothes heartburn in pregnant women
Last Updated: 2009-06-09 15:20:18 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Acupuncture can help ease symptoms in pregnant women with upset stomachs, a small new study from Brazil shows.
Pregnancy can cause a host of gastrointestinal woes, including heartburn, reflux, and bloating, Dr. Joao Bosco Guerreiro da Silva of Rio Preto Medical College in Sao Jose do Rio Preto and his colleagues note in their report. While many studies have looked at acupuncture for treating vomiting and nausea in pregnancy, they add, there has been no research on whether it is helpful for other pregnancy-related stomach symptoms.
To investigate, the researchers randomly assigned 42 pregnant women with dyspepsia to undergo acupuncture or standard treatment for 8 weeks.
Every 2 weeks, the researchers interviewed the women about their heartburn symptoms, how many antacid tablets they used, and how their symptoms affected their eating and sleeping.
Six women dropped out of the study, including five in the control group. Heartburn symptom intensity fell by at least half in 75 percent of the acupuncture patients and 44 percent of those in the control group. Seven women in each group used antacids; for those in the acupuncture group, average use fell by 6.3 doses, compared to an increase of 4.4 doses in the control group.
At the end of the study, 15 of the 20 women (75 percent) in the acupuncture group said they had at least a 50 percent improvement in eating, and 14 (70 percent) had this degree of improvement in sleeping. Among the control group women, 31 percent and 25 percent showed 50 percent improvement in their eating and sleeping, respectively.
There were no side effects of the treatment, and no differences between the infants born to the women in the acupuncture and control groups. The researchers caution against using acupuncture points in the lower back or lower abdomen in pregnant women, due to possible concerns that needling could trigger contractions.
"This technique should be further studied in prospective randomized studies of large populations to confirm our findings in effectiveness and the absence of adverse effects," da Silva and his team write. "It is simple to apply and if used in an appropriate manner can reduce the need for medication."
SOURCE: Acupuncture in Medicine, June 2009.
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2009/06/09/eline/links/20090609elin004.html

Health care less affordable for insured Americans
Last Updated: 2009-06-09 16:17:18 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - It's getting harder for working people with health insurance from their employer to afford health care, new research shows.
"In the United States, if you are sick and earn a modest income, then you are probably underinsured -- even if you have employer-based health coverage," Dr. Jon R. Gabel of the National Opinion Research Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and his colleagues say.
Gabel and his team reviewed data on medical claims and health care benefits to compare individuals' spending on out-of-pocket costs and health care premiums between 2004 and 2007. By every measure they looked at, Gabel told Reuters Health, paying for health care is getting tougher for working people.
He and his colleagues looked at underinsurance, affordability and total health care cost. They defined underinsurance as making 200 percent of the poverty level or greater--$41,300 for a family of four in 2007 -- and having to spend 5 percent of one's income on out-of-pocket health care costs like copays and deductibles, or making 400 percent of the poverty level ($82,600) and spending 10 percent of one's income on these costs. For affordability, the same thresholds were used, except the researchers included spending for health insurance premiums as well as out-of-pocket costs.
Overall, people spent $729 a year on average in 2007 for out-of-pocket costs, compared with $545 in 2004, the investigators report in the journal Health Affairs. According to Gabel, just a small fraction of that increase was due to health care plans forcing employees to share more of their health care costs; the majority was due to increases in overall health care spending.
There were also dramatic variations in spending; the 50 percent of people who spent the least on out-of-pocket health care costs averaged $85 annually. The top 1 percent of spenders averaged $8,703, while the average for the top-spending 10 percent was $3,364. Among people with incomes at 200 percent of the poverty level, 20.3 percent were spending more than 5 percent of their income on out-of-pocket costs, compared to 16.5 percent in 2004.
And while employers footed more of the bill for people who spent the most on health care -- up to 90 percent, compared to an average of about 80 percent -- for people with modest incomes, costs were still too high, Gabel said. Total medical costs for the top 1 percent of spenders were $100,000, including what employers covered, he added. "If you're a high income person you can handle 10 percent, but if you're making $20,000 a year...that's more than you can handle."
People with the highest health care spending may have been chronically ill, hospitalized, or taking expensive medications, the researcher noted.
For health care reform to be affordable, or even possible, Gabel said, it will be necessary to rein in health care costs. But he said he is hopeful that planned initiatives including provider payment reform, cost effective analysis and managed competition could make a difference.
"We're already rationing," Gabel said. "We're rationing based on ability to pay
What we need to do is ration on need and effectiveness."
SOURCE: Health Affairs, published online June 2, 2009.
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2009/06/09/eline/links/20090609elin005.html
Cholesterol drug may block nerve repair
Last Updated: 2009-06-09 16:28:49 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Zocor (simvastatin), a "statin" type of cholesterol-lowering drug, may block the body's ability to repair nerve tissue, according to a report in The American Journal of Pathology.
The results of an animal study suggest that use of Zocor impairs "remyelination," a process in which the fatty outer covering of nerve cells is reformed. Several neurologic disorders, most notably multiple sclerosis, involve the loss of this covering, which protects nerves and helps them transmit signals faster.
Statins are currently in clinical trials for the treatment of multiple sclerosis based on their ability to improve symptoms in animal models of the disease. However, there has also been evidence that statins may damage the cells responsible for remyelination.
Dr. Veronique E. Miron from McGill University, Montreal, Canada and colleagues investigated the effect of long-term Zocor therapy on an experimental form of multiple sclerosis in lab animals.
Treatment with Zocor for 5 weeks, but not for 3, impaired remyelination, the authors found. They believe that Zocor achieves this effect by blocking the development of cells responsible for remyelination.
The results highlight the importance of monitoring the long-term effects of drugs that can access and affect the brain and spinal cord, the researchers state.
SOURCE: The American Journal of Pathology, April 6, 2009.
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2009/06/09/eline/links/20090609elin024.html

Health Minded Consumers are Tricked into Eating More Processed Sugar
Barbara Minton, NaturalNews.com  June 11, 2009

(NaturalNews) Sugar and monosodium glutamate have one thing in common. People are more likely to buy products containing them if they are called something else. Consumers trying to avoid sugar have started reading food labels. Many have begun to think that sugar by another name is not really sugar. Manufacturers know that calling sugar evaporated cane juice for instance, fools people into thinking there is less sugar in the product. Many label readers have caught on to the fact that ingredients have to be listed in order, from the largest amount contained down to the smallest. By using different names for sugar, manufacturers can split the content among the different names, putting the idea of sugar further down on the label without actually reducing the amount of sugar in the product. But aside from a few minor differences, sugar by any other name is still sugar.

Sugary products in "health food" stores are a recent phenomenon

Once upon a time health food stores did not carry products containing sugar. Today what we think of as a "health food store" is often a type of hybrid resulting from the cross breeding of true health food stores with traditional grocery retailers. These new stores are trying to capitalize on having a healthy image, while their shelves are stocked with products containing processed sugar, often listed by one of its other names.

Evaporated cane juice is one of the other names showing up in many products on the shelves of both hybrid and conventional grocers. It is available in a variety of forms that vary in texture and flavor. Because it has not undergone the final processing step that removes the last bit of molasses, it is slightly darker in color than white sugar. However, both evaporated cane juice and white sugar are both sucrose, and both contain 400 calories in 100 grams.

Sugar by any other name is still processed

Both evaporated cane juice and white cane sugar have been heavily processed to remove the molasses content. During this processing the vitamins, minerals, fiber, amino acids, and trace elements that make molasses nutritious have been striped away, leaving one of the purest chemicals ever manufactured. Only tiny amounts of vitamin A and calcium remain in evaporated cane juice. Following processing, evaporated cane juice is 99.5 percent sucrose, and white sugar is 99.9 percent sucrose. Turbinado sugar, considered the least processed of any of the forms of sugar, is 99 percent sucrose.

Whether sugar is eaten in the form of white sugar, evaporated cane juice, turbinado, or any of the other names for it, its effect on the body is the same. When eaten in large amounts, or eaten without fat or protein, each of them will produce the same sort of insulin spike, weight gain, immune system suppression, and increased chance for diabetes.

The terms raw sugar and natural sugar are more words used by the manufacturers of today, but the terms are misnomers. True raw sugar is processed from sugar cane at a sugar mill and then shipped to a refinery for processing. In this stage, it is about 98% sucrose. Truly raw sugar that has not been processed is unfit for consumption and is not sold. The FDA notes that raw sugar is "unfit for direct use as food or as a food ingredient because of the impurities it ordinarily contains." These impurities include plant residues, bacteria, mold, and dirt. They make up the 1 percent difference between true raw sugar and turbinado.

All sugar is processed from the sugar cane or sugar beet plant, and the two types of plants are used interchangeably. High quality brown sugar is made by cutting short the refinement process and leaving a bit of molasses in the sugar for taste and color. Lower quality brown sugar sold in conventional grocery stores is usually made from processed white sugar with the addition of caramel for coloring. Some brown sugar is even made by processing white sugar through animal bone charcoal to add color.

The big difference between evaporated cane juice and granulated sugar is the price, which runs about 8 to 10 dollars a pound for evaporated cane juice compared to about 1 to 3 dollars a pound for white sugar. If manufacturers are willing to spend the extra money to put the words evaporated cane juice on their labels, it means they know the public is seriously trying to avoid eating sugar and needs to be tricked into eating it anyway.

Why eating sugar is so compelling

Our collective sweet tooth goes back to the days when we lived in caves and life was a physical event rather than a mental one, as it is now. We needed to eat foods high in nutrients in order to have energy to get through the physical challenges of the typical day. Sweets eaten back then were primarily berries and other fruits that contained beneficial nutrients, enzymes and many phytochemicals to keep us going strong. Back then, a sweet tooth was not a bad thing.

Today, sugar craving is not often answered by a piece of nutritious fruit, but instead by a processed concoction that tastes sweet but from which most nutrients have been removed. But sugar craving still exists for the purpose of compelling people to seek high energy nutrition. Until that nutrition is obtained, sugar craving continues, leaving today's people in that vicious circle where more nutrient depleted sweets are eaten, and more sugar craving signals are sent. For many people, sugar has almost completely replaced nutrient dense foods, with obesity and health issues as the results.

Buying products made with forms of sugar that sound like they offer significant nutrition and less processing is a way of eating sugar while sugarcoating the conscience. It is an excuse to eat sweets, made even better if the product is organic. But the best sounding form of sugar in an organic product is still just the sucrose that results from processing out all other compounds. It is not a whole food. The real difference between organic and non-organic sugar is the lack of pesticide in the one labeled organic, and a reduction in the possibility of eating sugar that has come from genetically modified plants.

Also in the minds of manufacturers is the realization that in addition to giving the product a more "healthy" connotation, the other names for sugar have appeal to green-minded customers because sugar that does not go through that final processing may require less fossil fuel to produce.

For genuine good health, give your sweet tooth some fruit

The bottom line is that we have been hardwired to have a sweet tooth. Nature has provided the means for satisfying our cravings through an abundance of fruits. Eating fruit breaks the vicious circle of consuming processed sugar and failing to provide the nutrients needed to quiet sugar craving. Fruit provides those necessary nutrients to energize the body and to keep it healthy and well. Fruit is a whole food, and as such has complete integrity. It is backed by nature.

People who engage in heavy consumption of processed sugar can break the habit by substituting fruits and vegetables. Once the body realizes it is getting all of its nutritional needs easily met, it will slowly turn down the volume on the signal to eat sugar. After a period of maximum nutrition with fruits and vegetables, processed sugar will taste abhorrently sweet.

When you make the decision to give up processed sugar in favor of full nutrition and good health, you break free of the manipulations and trickery used by manufacturers to get you to spend your hard earned money on products that are harmful to your health. Breaking away from such a situation is a personally empowering event that can highlight your inner strength and place you in control.
http://www.naturalnews.com/z026425_sugar_health_food.html

Doctors’ Group Opposes Public Insurance Plan
New York Times, June 11, 2009
Robert Pear
WASHINGTON — As the health care debate heats up, the American Medical Association is letting Congress know that it will oppose creation of a government-sponsored insurance plan, which President Obama and many other Democrats see as an essential element of legislation to remake the health care system.
The opposition, which comes as Mr. Obama prepares to address the powerful doctors’ group on Monday in Chicago, could be a major hurdle for advocates of a public insurance plan. The A.M.A., with about 250,000 members, is America’s largest physician organization.
While committed to the goal of affordable health insurance for all, the association had said in a general statement of principles that health services should be “provided through private markets, as they are currently.” It is now reacting, for the first time, to specific legislative proposals being drafted by Congress.
In the presidential campaign last year and in a letter to Congress last week, Mr. Obama called for a new “public health insurance option,” which he said would compete with private insurers and keep them honest.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said Wednesday that she supported that goal. “A bill will not come out of the House without a public option,” she said Wednesday on MSNBC.
But in comments submitted to the Senate Finance Committee, the American Medical Association said: “The A.M.A. does not believe that creating a public health insurance option for non-disabled individuals under age 65 is the best way to expand health insurance coverage and lower costs. The introduction of a new public plan threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers, which currently provide coverage for nearly 70 percent of Americans.”
If private insurers are pushed out of the market, the group said, “the corresponding surge in public plan participation would likely lead to an explosion of costs that would need to be absorbed by taxpayers.”
While not the political behemoth it once was, the association probably has more influence than any other group in the health care industry. Lawmakers seek its opinion and support whenever possible. It has repeatedly persuaded Congress to cancel or postpone cuts in Medicarepayments to doctors, though it has not secured a “permanent fix.”
If the doctors are too aggressive in fighting the public plan, they risk alienating Democrats whose support they need for legislation to increase their Medicare fees.
The group has historically had a strong lobbying operation, supplemented by generous campaign donations. Since the 2000 election cycle, its political action committee has contributed $9.8 million to Congressional candidates, according to data from the Federal Election Commissionand the Center for Responsive Politics. Republicans got more than Democrats in the four election cycles before 2008, when 56 percent went to Democrats.
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said that in his address to the group next week, Mr. Obama would “outline the case for health care reform and make clear why we can’t afford to wait another year, or another administration, to bring down costs that are crushing families, businesses and government.”
Mr. Gibbs did not say whether Mr. Obama would discuss a public insurance plan, the most contentious issue in the debate.
The A.M.A., an umbrella group for 180 medical societies, does not speak for all doctors. One group, Physicians for a National Health Program, supports a single-payer system of insurance, in which a single public agency would pay for health services, but most care would still be delivered by private doctors and hospitals. In recent years, some doctors have become so fed up with the administrative hassles of private insurance that they are looking for alternatives.
Until now, stakeholders in the health care industry have generally muted their criticism of Democratic proposals. But as details of the legislation have emerged, the criticism has become more pointed.
America’s Health Insurance Plans, a lobby for insurers, said Tuesday that the government plan proposed by some Senate Democrats could “dismantle employer-based coverage and significantly increase costs for those who remain in private coverage.”
Under a proposal favored by many Democrats, doctors who take Medicare patients would also have to participate in the new public plan. Democrats say that requirement is needed to make sure the public plan can go into business right away with a large network of doctors.
The medical association said it “cannot support any plan design that mandates physician participation.” For one thing, it said, “many physicians and providers may not have the capability to accept the influx of new patients that could result from such a mandate.”
“In addition,” the A.M.A. said, “federal programs traditionally have never required physician or other provider participation, but rather such participation has been on a voluntary basis.”
In an interview, Dr. Nancy H. Nielsen, president of the American Medical Association, said she was delighted by Mr. Obama’s plan to address the doctors.
“Health care reform is as important to us as it is to him,” Dr. Nielsen said. “We will be engaged in discussions in a constructive way. But we absolutely oppose government control of health care decisions or mandatory physician participation in any insurance plan.”
Mr. Obama’s trip recalls a speech to the A.M.A. in Chicago on June 13, 1993, by Hillary Rodham Clinton. She proposed “a new bargain” in which the White House would limit malpractice lawsuits and free doctors from onerous rules if doctors supported her effort to overhaul the health care system.
The association agrees with Mr. Obama on some points. It says that individuals and families who can afford coverage should be required to obtain it.
Like Mr. Obama, the association wants Congress to cut payments to private Medicare Advantage plans. The White House says Medicare pays the private plans 14 percent more than it would cost the government to care for the same people in traditional Medicare.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/us/politics/11health.html?_r=1

MORE TROUBLING NEWS ABOUT BPA

ScienceNews.org, June 10th, 2009
Heart arrhythmias in females and permanent, deleterious modifications of a gene that plays a pivotal role in reproduction are two new problems being linked to bisphenol A. Best known simply as BPA, this chemical is a building block of polycarbonate plastics — the hard, clear type used in kitchenware and baby bottles — and of resins used to line most U.S. food cans.
Data on BPA’s hormonal alter ego first emerged in 1938, when researchers reported the chemical could trigger biological changes normally seen with estrogen. That’s the primary female sex hormone. By the early 1990s, studies showing how strong this estrogen mimic is and how ubiquitous BPA has become began to trickle out — a flow that has since developed into a wholesale torrent.
At the Endocrine Society meeting in Washington D.C., this week, three different research teams will report new and troubling data from animals experimentally treated with BPA. The scientists shared their findings with reporters, late this morning. Formal presentations of their data are scheduled for later this week.
Reprogramming fertility gene
Decades ago, research showed that exposures in the womb to diethylstilbestrol, an estrogenic drug, could harm uterine development and, ultimately, the reproductive health of adult women. Now, researchers at Yale University are investigating how another synthetic estrogen — BPA — might affect reproduction. They’re focusing on genes associated with uterine development and the capacity of a female to support a full-term pregnancy.
Hugh Taylor and his colleagues exposed mice on days 9 to 16 of the animals’ pregnancies to 5 milligrams of BPA per kilogram body weight. Once the female offspring reached adulthood, the researchers analyzed uterine cells in these mice.
At the Endocrine Society meeting, these researchers will report finding permanent and irreversible alterations in a gene known as HOXA10. It plays an important role in uterine development and the fertility of many animals (including humans), Taylor says. Among fetally exposed mice, this gene had acquired a methyl-group appendage (a carbon bound to three hydrogen atoms). This methylation, known as an epigenetic change, rendered uterine tissue hypersensitive to the effects of estrogen.
Hormones orchestrate the activity of cells and organs. The most methylated segment of DNA, Taylor reports, was the patch where estrogen binds to the HOXA10 gene. Only rodents that had been exposed to BPA in the womb showed this inappropriate methylation. So what? The new study shows it takes far less estrogen to trigger hormone action in uterine cells hosting this methylated gene.
That’s probably not a good thing, Taylor says, because “many of the diseases we have as adults really have their origins in the fetal time period” — when genes or their action become inappropriately modified.
Toying with the female heart
A second study indicates that fetal development is far from the only period when animals — including people — may be vulnerable to BPA’s toxicity. When it comes to the female heart, premenopausal adult exposures may also wreak havoc. At least if one can extrapolate to humans from rodent data collected by Scott Belcher of the University of Cincinnati and his colleagues.
Although fewer premenopausal women experience heart attacks than do men their age, “women actually have a worse prognosis following a heart attack,” Belcher points out. Indeed, prior to menopause, “their mortality rate after a heart attack is more than double that of men.” And much of the reason, he says, “is due to arrhythmias.”
It’s seemed possible that estrogen might play a role in this, he says, since “there are unique sensitivities to arrhythmias during pregnancy.” Ones that he says “correlate with increasing concentrations of estrogen.”
In one new set of experiments, his team investigated contraction rates of heart-muscle cells living in a test tube. Both estrogen and BPA boosted contraction rates — and nearly identically, the researchers found. Very low doses of each triggered significant contractile changes, even at picomolar concentrations. (Pico, by the way, is a prefix meaning trillionth — as in very tiny). Peak changes, he reports, occurred at levels “present in human populations,” Belcher reports.
But expose the cells to both estrogen and BPA and contractile abnormalities skyrocketed — well beyond what would be expected from simply adding effects due to either hormone alone.
In another set of experiments, pacemakers controlled the rate of contractions in the muscle cells. When the pacemaker was turned off, Belcher reports, cells that had been exposed to estrogen or BPA suddenly experienced “pro-arrhythmic events.”
Whole hearts responded similarly to the isolated cells: Picomolar concentrations of BPA and estrogen triggered arrhythmic events that were far worse when the organ was exposed to both.
Interestingly, “the male heart does not respond in this way,” Belcher notes. His team found that a heart’s sensitivity to estrogens and/or BPA reflected the amount of a certain type of estrogen receptor in cells — the beta form. It’s present at higher concentrations in the female heart.
So at concentrations of estrogen typically found in premenopausal women, Belcher says, the addition of BPA would “likely” spike vulnerability to potentially deadly arrhythmias.
Human intakes: Greatly underestimated?
Finally, new data hint that people may face far larger BPA exposures than previously thought. That’s a conclusion that Frederick vom Saal of the University of Missouri-Columbia draws from his team’s new study with rhesus monkeys, an animal that he says models human responses to hormones and hormone mimics.
The Food and Drug Administration estimates typical daily human BPA consumption at roughly one microgram of BPA per kilogram of body weight. Vom Saal’s group administered 400 times that much to its 11 monkeys, then monitored how much this elevated the animals’ blood concentrations of BPA. The surprise, vom Saal says, is that blood residues in the spiked monkeys ended up being only one-eighth as high as measured in one German study of pregnant women.
That suggests, vom Saal says, that if these monkeys indeed metabolize BPA at rates comparable to people, “humans would have to be exposed to over 1,000 µg/kg/day in order to achieve the kind of [blood] levels that are seen in multiple studies, not just the [German] one.”
Keep in mind, vom Saal says, FDA and the Environmental Protection Agency have estimated that a safe upper limit for daily human consumption of BPA is only 50 µg/kg/day. And that value was set 20 years ago, he points out, before the publication of dozens of recent animal studies showing that BPA concentrations well below 50 µg/kg/day can cause harm.
Bottom line: BPA appears harmful even at concentrations present in the U.S. population, the researchers said. So people should do what they can to reduce their exposures.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/44577/title/More_troubling_news_about_BPA

PANCREATIC CANCER LINKED TO HERBICIDES
Some weed killers may need to be treated with more respect.
Science News.org , May 28th, 2009
A new study links two weed killers with pancreatic cancer in pesticide applicators and their spouses. The authors, most of whom work for the National Cancer Institute, note that they are the first to link this particular malignancy with the farm chemicals — pendimethalin and EPTC — and really don’t know how either would trigger cancer (although they do have a theory). But for now they are recommending that “these findings should be considered hypothesis generating and in need of confirmation.”
How’s that for not hyping your data?
Pancreatic cancer is a rare disease and nearly always fatal. Producing few early symptoms, the disease is usually diagnosed once the cancer is advanced. But even where the cancer is found fairly early and removed, only one in five patients survive five years. And there is basically no cure. Which explains why this malignancy is the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States.
With such a poor prognosis, there’s been a push to understand what might predispose someone to develop the disease. Cigarette smoking seems to double risk, and a host of other factors also up the odds that someone will get this cancer — such as obesity, chronic pancreatitis, diabetes, cirrhosis and chewing tobacco. Taken together, however, these risks still only explain about a quarter of cases.
A couple epidemiological studies had suggested that certain agricultural chemicals, principally weed killers, might spike someone’s risk. So Gabriella Andreotti of NCI’s division of cancer epidemiology and genetics, in Bethesda, Md., and her colleagues decided to probe risks of the disease among the 89,000 participants of a long-running federally funded Agricultural Health Study. Its participants include 57,000 private, licensed pesticide applicators (mostly white men) and some 32,000 wives of applicators. All lived in Iowa or North Carolina when they were recruited in the mid-1990s.
Throughout the first seven years of followup, 93 cases of pancreatic cancer developed — 64 in applicators, the rest in spouses. As in other studies, smoking, having diabetes, or tipping the scales at an undesirable weight all increased an individual’s odds of developing cancer. But after adjusting for these risk factors, two of some 50 pesticides showed a statistically significant correlation with the cancer.
Farmers treat their fields with pendimethalin (sold under such trade names as Accotab, Go-Go-San, Herbadox, Penoxalin, Prowl, Sipaxol, Stomp and Way-Up) to get rid of certain annual grasses and broadleaf weeds that threaten their corn, potatoes, rice, cotton, soybeans, tobacco, peanuts and sunflowers. The other herbicide, EPTC (also known as Eptam, Eradicane, Shortstop and Genep), targets grassy and broadleaf weeds in fields planted with beans, forage legumes, potatoes, corn and sweet potatoes.
These were the only two pesticides that seemed to increase pancreatic cancer risk in an exposure-dependent manner, Andreotti's group reports in the May 15International Journal of Cancer. That is, cancer risk increased 40 percent among people who had incurred moderate exposure to pendimethalin or had employed lots of protective gear when applying. Among mores highly exposed individuals, the pancreatic cancer risk was triple the rate seen among those applicators never exposed to this herbicide. Similarly, there was an 80 percent increased risk for relatively low-level exposures to EPTC. That risk jumped among the more heavily exposed individuals to two-and-a-half times the cancer risk in pesticide applicators who had never used this chemical.
Although Andreotti’s group acknowledges that the mechanisms by which either chemical might trigger pancreatic cancer remain unknown, they suspect it might have something to do with the fact that the one can harbor the carcinogennitrosamine as a trace impurity and both weed killers are able to form related N-nitroso compounds. Nitrosamines and related compounds are suspected human carcinogens affecting tissues including the pancreas.
I guess the lesson is that anything we broadcast into the environment at concentrations expected to kill something should be treated with respect.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/44163/title/Pancreatic_cancer_linked_to_herbicides_

Adolescent Obesity Linked To Reduced Sleep Caused By Technology Use And Caffeine

ScienceDaily (June 10, 2009) — According to a research abstract that will be presented on June 9, at Sleep 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, adolescent obesity is associated with having less sleep. Reduction in sleep could be related to a higher caffeine intake, more hours of technology use and increased symptoms of sleep disorders (such as snoring).
Results indicate that children who slept less consumed more caffeine and had more hours of screen time (use of television, Internet, computer and video games). A higher body mass index (BMI) was also associated with shorter sleep duration. More hours of screen time were also associated with higher caffeine consumption.
According to lead author Amy Drescher, PhD, research specialist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, there are many reasons that kids gain weight, and inadequate sleep is just one of them.
"Boys had significantly more vigorous exercise, recreational activity than girls," said Drescher. "The sleep and obesity connection is not always seen because factors such as exercise may keep weight in check."
The study gathered data from 320 children who completed detailed dietary and physical activity questionnaires. Correlation and regression analysis were used to study the relationships among diet, physical activity and self-reported sleep duration and screen time. Mean age of the sample group was 13.3 years; 51.8 percent of participants were male, 65 percent were Caucasian and 35 percent were Hispanic.
Inadequate sleep combined with increased electronic screen time and caffeine intake may have negative implications for adolescents' health, psychosocial well-being and academic performance.
Abstract Title: Associations Between Sleep, and Dietary, Exercise and Electronic Screen Habits of Adolescents in the Tucson Children's Assessment of Sleep Apnea (TuCASA) study
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090609072707.htm

Stopping Diabetes Damage With Vitamin C
ScienceDaily (June 10, 2009) — Researchers at the Harold Hamm Oklahoma Diabetes Center have found a way to stop the damage caused by Type 1 diabetes with the combination of insulin and a common vitamin found in most medicine cabinets.
While neither therapy produced desired results when used alone, the combination of insulin to control blood sugar together with the use of Vitamin C, stopped blood vessel damage caused by the disease in patients with poor glucose control. 
"We had tested this theory on research models, but this is the first time anyone has shown the therapy's effectiveness in people," said Michael Ihnat, Ph.D., principal investigator and a pharmacologist at the OU College of Medicine Department of Cell Biology.
Ihnat said they are now studying the therapy in patients with Type 2 diabetes.
The goal of the work being done by Ihnat and British scientists from the University of Warwick led by Dr. Antonio Ceriello is to find a way to stop the damage to blood vessels that is caused by diabetes. The damage, known as endothelial dysfunction, is associated with most forms of cardiovascular disease such as hypertension, coronary artery disease, chronic heart failure, peripheral artery disease, diabetes and chronic renal failure.
By reducing or stopping the damage, patients with diabetes could avoid some of the painful and fatal consequences of the disease that include heart disease, reduced circulation and amputation, kidney disease and diabetic retinopathy, which can lead to blindness.
Insulin and many other drugs have long been used to control blood sugar, but Ihnat – in an earlier project with scientists in Italy and Hungary – found that cells have a "memory" that causes damage to continue even when blood sugar is controlled. By adding antioxidants like Vitamin C, Ihnat found that cell "memory" disappeared and cell function and oxidation stress were normalized.
"We have speculated that this happens with endothelial dysfunction, but we did not know until now if it was effective in humans. We finally were able to test it and proved it to be true," Ihnat said. "For patients with diabetes, this means simply getting their glucose under control is not enough. An antioxidant-based therapy combined with glucose control will give patients more of an advantage and lessen the chance of complications with diabetes."
While researchers do suggest diabetic patients eat foods and take multivitamins rich in antioxidants like Vitamin C, they warn that additional study is needed. The Vitamin C utilized in their study was given at very high doses and administered directly into the blood stream, so it is unlikely someone would get similar results with an over-the-counter vitamin supplement.
The team is now working to determine how antioxidants work at the molecular level to halt the destructive chain reaction set in motion by high blood sugar levels. In addition, they are evaluating several other antioxidants with an ultimate hope that their work will translate into simple, effective and inexpensive treatments for the control of diabetes.
Ceriello et al. Long-term glycemic control influences the long-lasting effect of hyperglycemia on endothelial function in type 1 diabetes. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 2009; DOI: 10.1210/jc.2009-0762
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090609122232.htm

Dioxins in food chain linked to breastfeeding problems

Nutraingredients.com, 10-Jun-2009

Dioxin exposure through the food chain during pregnancy could explain why some women have trouble breastfeeding or produce too little milk, new research suggests.
A study from the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC), in the United States, has found that contact with the toxic chemical harms the cells in rapidly changing breast tissue that occurs during pregnancy.
While the results have only been demonstrated in mice so far, researchers believe their investigations may help to address an issue that affects between three and six million women worldwide.
Role of environmental contaminants
B. Paige Lawrence, Ph.D., associate professor of Environment Medicine and of Microbiology and Immunology at URMC, said: “The cause of this problem is unclear, though it has been suggested that environmental contaminants might play a role. We showed definitively that a known and abundant pollutant has an adverse effect on the way mammary glands develop during pregnancy."
The group said that most people are exposed to dioxins through diet. The majority of dioxins are generated by the incineration of municipal and medical waste – especially certain plastics – and these enter the food chain when air emissions settle on food crops and pastures where livestock graze.
Humans are said to ingest dioxins mostly through eating meat, dairy products and shellfish. The chemical settles in the fatty tissues where “natural elimination occurs very slowly”, said the URMC reseachers. The typical daily exposure is thought to be low but this has already been linked to health problems such as possible impairment of the immune system and developing organs, added a statement from the group.
New findings
In 2004, Lawrence’s laboratory discovered that dioxin hampers the normal development of mammary glands during pregnancy – but factors such as the underlying mechanisms for this and when exposure during pregnancy was most significant remained unclear.
However, findings reported in Toxicological Sciences this week demonstrated that dioxin “has a profound effect on breast tissue by causing mammary cells to stop their natural cycle of proliferation as early as six days into pregnancy, and lasting through mid-pregnancy”, said Lawrence. Tissue samples taken from mice showed a 50 percent decrease in new epithelial cells that help to protect or enclose organs, she added.
This is significant, said Lawrence, because mammary glands have a high rate of cell proliferation, especially during early to mid-pregnancy when their most rapid development occurs. Researchers also found that dioxin causes other problems with the breast such as altering the induction of milk-producing genes, which occurs around the ninth day of pregnancy.
Timing irrelevant for humans
The timing of dioxin exposure also seemed to be significant, the study noted. Results showed early exposure may give time for the cells to recover. But Lawrence stressed that while understanding of the timing of exposure was important for reseach purposes it was “irrelevant for humans, who cannot really control their exposure to dioxins".
She added: “Our goal is not to find a safe window of exposure for humans, but to better understand how dioxins affect our health. We hope this study raises awareness about how our food sources can increase the burden of pollutants in the body.”
http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/Dioxins-in-food-chain-linked-to-breastfeeding-problems

A big day for European health claims

Foodnavigator.com   08-Jun-2009

Next Monday, June 15, is a big day for the European healthy foods and food supplements industries. Let’s call it Big Monday. Or J15.
The Buddhists call them “turning around days” – destiny-altering days where things can never be the same again – and that is what J15 is shaping up to be for the health claims regime here in Europe.
Either things will be a lot clearer about how to gather and present health claim-backing data, or industry better start accepting that Europe is going to be a health claims wasteland come 2010. Is your company factoring in worst-case scenarios?
On J15, about 120 executives from some of the biggest food, supplements and ingredients companies in Europe will convene at a central Brussels hotel to"have a talk" with the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) about health claims.
Many in industry are pinning their hopes on EFSA showing them the light at the meeting, including the likes of Danone, which withdrew three probiotic immunity/digestive health article 13.5 claims in April, citing clarification it is expecting on Big Monday as the reason.
New process
When it pulled its claims, Danone, looking forward, said it “welcomed the new process” it is expecting from this meeting, but EFSA hasn’t said anything about a new process and its guidelines have provided little that hasn't been said before.
The congress was called by EFSA in response to growing industry concern, and in many cases dismay and anger, “to provide further guidance” the Parma-based science body has gathered, “in the light of the experience gained with the evaluation of health claims applications”.
EFSA pre-empted the agenda of the meeting with a Q&A published last month. The document contained information about appropriateness and relevance of science to claims, about claim wording and more, but drew a lacklustre response from industry for want of anything hinting at a “new process”. Or anything new at all.
Won’t go changin’?
And so the pressure only grows that Big Monday will produce answers, or at least “further guidance”, but many who have observed this process unfold in recent years, and in particular since claim opinions started rolling in in August last year, are sceptical about what revelations are likely at this stage in the game.
NutraIngredients.com will be there for the ‘media breakfast’ EFSA has organised on J15 but no media is allowed into the meeting itself. "Too distracting," EFSA said, perhaps not doing itself any favours in its intent to be viewed as a transparent organisation.
If the Q&A essentially reiterates previously issued guidelines, why should Big Monday be any different?
Claims hope
Maybe it won’t be but then just maybe there will be something more constructive for industry. An EFSA scientist told this publication recently that some rejected dossiers only marginally missed out on a thumbs up from the assessor; that a more careful selection of claim wording or slightly altered interpretation of the science could have got the dossier over the health claims line.
This kind of advice could be useful for industry.
If not, industry had better start actioning contingency plans because claims that have been taken for granted in many countries for many years may be heading to the great health claims hole in the sky.
Is your company prepared for that? If not, 2010 and beyond may be a most unpleasant odyssey in the European health claims space - for both you and for consumers.
Shane Starling is the editor of NutraIngredients.com and fears the European health claims space has made him very unwell. If you would like to comment on this article please feel free to get in touch at shane.starling'at'decisionnews.com.