When the U.S. Surgeon General's Office set off in 1988 to write the definitive report on the dangers of dietary fat, the scientific task appeared straightforward. Four years earlier, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had begun advising every American old enough to walk to restrict fat intake, and the president of the American Heart Association (AHA) had told Time magazine that if everyone went along, "we will have [atherosclerosis] conquered" by the year 2000. The Surgeon General's Office itself had just published its 700-page landmark "Report on Nutrition and Health," declaring fat the single most unwholesome component of the American diet.

All of this was apparently based on sound science. So the task before the project officer was merely to gather that science together in one volume, have it reviewed by a committee of experts, which had been promptly established, and publish it. The project did not go smoothly, however. Four project officers came and went over the next decade. "It consumed project officers," says Marion Nestle, who helped launch the project and now runs the nutrition and food studies department at New York University (NYU). Members of the oversight committee saw drafts of an early chapter or two, criticized them vigorously, and then saw little else.

Finally, in June 1999, 11 years after the project began, the Surgeon General's Office circulated a letter, authored by the last of the project officers, explaining that the report would be killed. There was no other public announcement and no press release. The letter explained that the relevant administrators "did not anticipate fully the magnitude of the additional external expertise and staff resources that would be needed." In other words, says Nestle, the subject matter "was too complicated." Bill Harlan, a member of the oversight committee and associate director of the Office of Disease Prevention at NIH, says "the report was initiated with a preconceived opinion of the conclusions," but the science behind those opinions was not holding up. "Clearly the thoughts of yesterday were not going to serve us very well."

During the past 30 years, the concept of eating healthy in America has become synonymous with avoiding dietary fat. The creation and marketing of reduced-fat food products has become big business; over 15,000 have appeared on supermarket shelves. Indeed, an entire research industry has arisen to create palatable nonfat fat substitutes, and the food industry now spends billions of dollars yearly selling the less-fat-is-good-health message. The government weighs in as well, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) booklet on dietary guidelines, published every 5 years, and its ubiquitous Food Guide Pyramid, which recommends that fats and oils be eaten "sparingly." The low-fat gospel spreads farther by a kind of societal osmosis, continuously reinforced by physicians, nutritionists, journalists, health organizations, and consumer advocacy groups such as the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which refers to fat as this "greasy killer." "In America, we no longer fear God or the communists, but we fear fat," says David Kritchevsky of the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, who in 1958 wrote the first textbook on cholesterol.

As the Surgeon General's Office discovered, however, the science of dietary fat is not nearly as simple as it once appeared. The proposition, now 50 years old, that dietary fat is a bane to health is based chiefly on the fact that fat, specifically the hard, saturated fat found primarily in meat and dairy products, elevates blood cholesterol levels. This in turn raises the likelihood that cholesterol will clog arteries, a condition known as atherosclerosis, which then increases risk of coronary artery disease, heart attack, and untimely death. By the 1970s, each individual step of this chain from fat to cholesterol to heart disease had been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt, but the veracity of the chain as a whole has never been proven. In other words, despite decades of research, it is still a debatable proposition whether the consumption of saturated fats above recommended levels (step one in the chain) by anyone who's not already at high risk of heart disease will increase the likelihood of untimely death (outcome three). Nor have hundreds of millions of dollars in trials managed to generate compelling evidence that healthy individuals can extend their lives by more than a few weeks, if that, by eating less fat (see sidebar on p. 2538). To put it simply, the data remain ambiguous as to whether low-fat diets will benefit healthy Americans. Worse, the ubiquitous admonishments to reduce total fat intake have encouraged a shift to high-carbohydrate diets, which may be no better--and may even be worse--than high-fat diets.

Canadian researchers have identified what appears to be the first domestically acquired case of an NDM-1 superbug.

An 86-year-old Ontario man was found to be carrying bacteria resistant to most antibiotics because of NDM-1, or New Delhi metallo-1, an enzyme that alters the DNA of various types of bacteria. NDM-1 is endemic in India and Pakistan and has spread worldwide due to global travel.

But the patient, who was admitted to hospital and then a rehabilitation centre after suffering a stroke last October, had not travelled outside southwestern Ontario for the last decade. None of the man's family members or other close contacts were carrying the superbug, nor had any been to parts of the world where NDM-1 is widespread.

"So it's really unfortunately a mystery in terms of his source, and it certainly suggests that he acquired it here in the southwestern Ontario region," said Dr. Susan Poutanen, an infectious disease physician at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto.

"So whether it was in Toronto, whether it was outside of Toronto, whether it was in hospital or whether it was in the community, at this point we really can't say," added Poutanen, principal investigator of a study describing the case.

She said the case is not cause for public alarm but is meant to alert hospitals and laboratories not to dismiss NDM-1 as a cause of drug-resistant bacteria in patients merely because they have not travelled outside Canada.

University of Montreal researchers say that the drug metyrapone reduces the brain's ability to re-record the negative emotions associated with painful memories. In other words, bad memories are effectively blocked from being recalled or remembered.

The team's study challenges the theory that memories cannot be modified once they are stored in the brain.

"Metyrapone is a drug that significantly decreases the levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that is involved in memory recall," explained lead author Marie-France Marin, a doctoral student.

Manipulating cortisol close to the time of forming new memories can decrease the negative emotions that may be associated with them, the researchers said.

"The results show that when we decrease stress hormone levels at the time of recall of a negative event, we can impair the memory for this negative event with a long-lasting effect," said Sonia Lupien, Ph.D., who directed the research.

The WHO/International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B), based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer¹, associated with wireless phone use.

Background

Over the last few years, there has been mounting concern about the possibility of adverse health effects resulting from exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields, such as those emitted by wireless communication devices. The number of mobile phone subscriptions is estimated at 5 billion globally.

From May 24-31 2011, a Working Group of 31 scientists from 14 countries has been meeting at IARC in Lyon, France, to assess the potential carcinogenic hazards from exposure to radiofrequency electromagnetic fields. These assessments will be published as Volume 102 of the IARC Monographs, which will be the fifth volume in this series to focus on physical agents, after Volume 55 (Solar Radiation), Volume 75 and Volume 78 on ionizing radiation (X‐rays, gamma‐rays, neutrons, radio‐nuclides), and Volume 80 on non‐ionizing radiation (extremely low‐frequency electromagnetic fields).

As anyone who has done it knows, getting started on a low-carb diet can be a little rough. Not for everyone, but for some. All too often these little front-end bumps in the road - coupled with the spirit of the times in which the well-intentioned but ignorant friends and relatives of low-carb dieters tell them their diet is going to croak their kidneys, clog their arteries and weaken their bones - can be enough to make many people abandon the most sincere efforts. Drawing on my almost 30 years of experience treating patients using the low-carb diet, I can give some tips and tricks for dealing with these difficult early days.

New York - People with post-traumatic stress disorder may be at a higher risk for heart disease, according to researchers.

In a study of U.S. war veterans, they found that those with PTSD were more likely to have fatty buildup, or plaque, in the arteries leading to the heart, called coronary artery disease.

The disease had also progressed farther in the mentally troubled vets, and they were more likely to die of any cause over the next three and a half years than their peers.

Joseph Boscarino, an investigator at Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pennsylvania, told Reuters Health the new results confirm earlier findings.

Studies "keep showing this link between PTSD and various forms of cardiovascular disease," said Boscarino, who was not involved in the current work.

"Something needs to be done in terms of better interventions" for these individuals, he added.

While some see body weight as simply a function of the balance of the calories going into and out of the body, there is little doubt in my mind that this stance is becoming increasingly untenable. It is clear that body fat regulation is influenced by many factors, including levels of key hormones. A central player here is insulin - which encourages fat deposition. But other hormones worthy of mention include what are termed 'adipokines' (secreted by fat cells). One important adipokine is leptin. In March, I wrote a blog post dedicated to this substance which was inspired by the work of Dr Stephan Guyenet who writes the blog Whole Health Source.

Another adipokine that has received increasing attention in recent years is adiponectin. Like leptin, adiponectin has generally beneficial effects in the body. It, for instance, has anti-inflammatory effects and helps maintain 'insulin sensitivity'. Both of these effects would be expected to translate into a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease. The actions of adiponectin in the body are believed to offer protection again these conditions, as well as others including obesity, 'fatty liver' and metabolic syndrome. In short: adiponectin is a good thing.

When you're in constant pain, it can be hard to think of anything else. The pain clouds your thoughts like a fog, wearing away at your patience and your attention. New research, however, suggests that when relief does finally come, your brain can recover all the way down to a cellular level.

A report in the May 18 Journal of Neuroscience finds that relieving chronic lower back pain correlates with a return to normal brain function. Fourteen patients performed a cognitive task before and after one of two treatments, either spinal surgery or an injection of anesthesia between spinal joints. The cognitive task, which tested patients' ability to focus, involved picking out which of three numbers or letters didn't belong in a group.

"In the years leading up to Chernobyl, some dairy farmers in Austria were using remineralization as a part of their operations. They added rock dust to liquid manure as well as combining it with compost, thereby removing odors and greatly increasing soil biota. As a result, cows had twice the normal lifespan and produced much more milk. Amazingly enough, after Chernobyl, the cheeses that were remineralized (as well as biodynamic cheeses) measured no radioactivity whatsoever. Austrians would stand in long lines in order to buy these safe, remineralized products," writes Joanna Campe.

Iodine is obviously not the only substance that we should run to in the face of increasing radiation threats. Magnesium is a vital mineral whose lack leaves us open to not only radioactive damages but also those from heavy metals and thousands of chemicals, which we are commonly exposed to. Mercury and now a long list of radioactive particles are floating in the environment like invisible clouds that have spread out everywhere. They are raining down on us, damaging and damning our future. We can no longer be passive about building our defenses against the toxic onslaught.

Without sufficient magnesium, the body accumulates toxins and acid residues, degenerates rapidly, and ages prematurely.

The epidemic of the killer-bacterium Escherichia Coli (EHEC) is among the worst of its kind. It has already infected 270 persons and killed 10 and has revealed to be the worst ever recorded in Germany. The statement was made by the Health experts of the Stockholm-based European Center for Disease Prevention and Control.