Here is a valid reason for moms-to-be to make conscious, intentional choices about what they put in their mouth during pregnancy.

A new study delving into the link between mother-child nutritional connections found that a pregnant woman's diet choices are detrimental in the eating preferences of her child after birth.

According to researchers, the odor of a mother's diet in pregnancy may mold her offspring to the same smells and flavors.

In addition, a mother's diet not only alters the fetus perception of smell, but also brings about significant changes in the development of the sensory part of his brain.

New guidelines from an expert panel sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) aim to standardize the diagnosis and management of food allergy across clinical care settings.

The recommendations, published in the December issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, are meant to be easily understood and implemented by clinicians in varied specialties, according to Matthew Fenton, PhD, of the NIAID's Division of Allergy, Immunology, and Transplantation in Bethesda, Md. Fenton was one of the primary authors and led the guidelines development project for NIAID.

"We were very specifically looking to generate a document that was not written by allergists for allergists," he said on a conference call with reporters.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurobehavioral disorder characterized by pervasive inattention and/or hyperactivity with impulsivity. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates 4.4 million youth, ages 4-17, have been diagnosed with ADHD and, as of 2006, some 5 million youth, ages 4-17, are currently receiving medication for the disorder. ADHD is diagnosed approximately three times more often in boys than in girls.

Three types of ADHD have now been established:

Predominantly Inattentive Type: It is hard for the individual to organize or finish a task, to pay attention to details, or to follow instructions or conversations. The person is easily distracted or forgets details of daily routines.

Predominantly Hyperactive-Impulsive Type: The person fidgets and talks a lot. It is hard to sit still for long periods of time. Smaller children may run, jump or climb constantly. Someone who is impulsive may interrupt others a lot, grab things from people, or speak at inappropriate times. It is hard for the person to wait their turn or listen to directions.

Combined Type: Symptoms of the above two types are equally predominant in the person.

Vancouver - The children were far too small. It was 1973 and Dr. Kwadwo Asante, one of few pediatricians practising in British Columbia's far north, was seeing a pattern.

Throughout his rounds in northern B.C. and Yukon, the soft-spoken, congenial physician saw children who were not growing properly.

"Failure to thrive" was the medical term he wrote on the charts. What he didn't know was why.

Could it be genetic? Did they have kidney or heart problems? Was it a result of chronic diarrhea?

One preschool boy was so tiny for his age, Asante had him flown to BC Children's Hospital in Vancouver. And it was only then the mystery of the small children of the north was answered.

A Vancouver doctor called Asante to tell him the boy likely had fetal alcohol syndrome. It was one of the first times the term was used to describe the disability affecting children whose mothers drank alcohol during pregnancy. Similar to how paint stripper works on old furniture, the alcohol consumed by their mothers effectively bubbled away or dissolved their unborn child's brain cells. The result? Brain functions missing in children, leaving them with a lifelong, largely invisible physical disability.

The brain damage varied in the children. It depended on the severity, timing and duration of the mother's drinking as well as her age and genetics.

Babies born to mothers who drank in the first trimester, when the unborn child's face is formed, had physical signs, like cleft lips and palates.

On a more precise scale, if a woman drank between days 18 and 21, her children were born with the classic FAS facial characteristics, often referred to as the face of fetal alcohol syndrome.

A "light bulb" went off in Asante's mind. He had seen that face many times.

"They had small eye openings, thin upper lips and a flatness in the groove between the nose and lip," he said.

Asante connected the dots between what the doctor in Vancouver told him about the boy and an article he had just read in a medical journal from Seattle -- one of the first to report on this newly named syndrome.

As a patient, you have the right to any therapy that is not prohibitively expensive, established to be effective, and not prohibitively toxic.

Any physician, or panel of hospital-based physicians, claiming that vitamin C is experimental, unapproved, and/or posing unwarranted risks to the health of the patient, is really only demonstrating a complete and total ignorance or denial of the scientific literature. A serious question as to what the real motivations might be in the withholding of such a therapy then arises.

A doctor has the right to refuse to see you or treat you. A doctor does not have the right to deny you any therapy that is inexpensive and known to be effective and nontoxic; if there is toxicity involved, the patient can discharge his responsibility for such toxicity with proper informed consent. A doctor does not have the right to deny you consultation with another doctor that may have conflicting medical points of view.

Just as ignorance of the law is no sound defense to legal charges brought against you, ignorance of medical fact is ultimately no sound defense for a doctor withholding valid treatment, especially when that information can be easily accessed.

• High levels of phytic acid in soy reduce assimilation of calcium, magnesium, copper, iron and zinc. Phytic acid in soy is not neutralized by ordinary preparation methods such as soaking, sprouting and long, slow cooking. High phytate diets have caused growth problems in children.
• Trypsin inhibitors in soy interfere with protein digestion and may cause pancreatic disorders. In test animals soy containing trypsin inhibitors caused stunted growth.
• Soy phytoestrogens disrupt endocrine function and have the potential to cause infertility and to promote breast cancer in adult women.
• Soy phytoestrogens are potent antithyroid agents that cause hypothyroidism and may cause thyroid cancer. In infants, consumption of soy formula has been linked to autoimmune thyroid disease.
• Vitamin B12 analogs in soy are not absorbed and actually increase the body's requirement for B12.
• Soy foods increase the body's requirement for vitamin D.
• Fragile proteins are denatured during high temperature processing to make soy protein isolate and textured vegetable protein.
• Processing of soy protein results in the formation of toxic lysinoalanine and highly carcinogenic nitrosamines.
• Free glutamic acid or MSG, a potent neurotoxin, is formed during soy food processing and additional amounts are added to many soy foods.
• Soy foods contain high levels of aluminum which is toxic to the nervous system and the kidneys.

Paris - Long-term exposure to pesticides may increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia, according to a study released Thursday.

Workers "directly exposed" to bug and weed killers while toiling in the prestigious vineyards of Bordeaux, France were five times more likely to score less well on a battery of neurological tests than those with minimal or no exposure, the study found.

As revealing, this high-exposure group was twice as likely to register a significantly sharp drop in a key test - frequently used to diagnose dementia - repeated four years after the initial examination.

The drop "is particularly striking in view of the short duration of follow up and the relatively young age of the participants," mostly in their late 40s or 50s, the authors said.

People who are overweight or obese are more likely to die sooner from varying causes than those with healthy weight, according to the first government study to pinpoint risks from findings on 1.5 million white Americans.

Women who never smoked and were classified as merely overweight and not obese -- a 5-foot 5-inch female weighing 150 to 179 pounds -- had a 13 percent greater risk of dying sooner than normal weight peers, the research found. Women who were obese -- 5-foot 5-inches and more than 180 pounds -- had a 44 percent higher risk. The results for men were similar.

A study of ancient bodies has determined that cancer is a man-made disease, one fueled by the excesses. Tumors turn out to be extremely rare until very recent times, when pollution and poor diet became issues.

Researchers analyzed potential references to the disease in classical literature, and also searched for signs in the fossil record and in mummified bodies. But despite examining tissue from hundreds of Egyptian mummies, they confirmed only one case of cancer

According to the Daily Mail:

"Dismissing the argument that the ancient Egyptians didn't live long enough to develop cancer, the researchers pointed out that other age-related disease such as hardening of the arteries and brittle bones did occur ...

Fossil evidence of cancer is also sparse, with scientific literature providing a few dozen, mostly disputed, examples in animal fossil".

Sources:

Daily Mail October 15, 2010

Nature Reviews Cancer October 2010; 10: 728-733

Cancer September 1977; 40(3): 1358-1362

The California Department of Pesticide Regulation approved the use of methyl iodide for strawberry farmers this week. The pesticide is a fumigant that kills insects, weeds and bacteria. There is also research showing it causes cancer in rats and mice. The EPA's website says, "In rats that received subcutaneous injections, subcutaneous sarcomas and pulmonary metastases were reported. An increased incidence of lung tumors was reported in mice exposed to high levels of methyl iodide by intraperitoneal injection."

The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment published a document listing the type of toxicity for methyl iodide as "cancer." The 2008 document's title is Chemicals Known to the State to Cause Cancer or Reproductive Toxicity.

The EPA also says chronic inhalation of the pesticide may impact the human central nervous system. Skin contact for long periods can cause burns in animals and humans, though the length of time to cause burns is not specified. A material safety data sheet, which is a document used by people who handle chemicals regularly such as lab workers, states skin burns can occur on contact. If inhaled for longer periods, it can cause, "pallor, giddiness, dizziness, ataxia, sleepiness, irritability, drowsiness, incoordination, slurred speech, muscular twitching, and even death." Ingestion causes vomiting, abdominal pain, nausea, and diarrhea. It can also be fatal.