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Gut Bacteria Reflect Dietary Differences

Gwyneth Dickey
Science News
Mon, 02 Aug 2010 15:00 UTC
High-fiber, low-fat diets cultivate healthier intestinal microbes, study suggests

A termite a day may keep the doctor away. African children who eat a high-fiber diet (and the occasional wood-digesting insect) have gut bacteria that help them digest plant fibers and protect them from diarrhea and inflammatory disease, a new study finds. The research may lead to new probiotics that improve the digestive health of Westerners, who were found to have a less diverse assemblage of intestinal microbes.

"This discovery is very important because it bears on how we should feed our children to make them healthy," says study coauthor Duccio Cavalieri, a microbiologist at the University of Florence in Italy. "We should move our habits toward a diet more heavy in fiber, with the same amount of calories."

Animals have bacteria in their guts to help digest their food, train their immune systems and protect them from harmful bacteria. Different types of food encourage different abundances and diversity of bacteria to grow in the gut.
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Health

Study Raises Questions About Industry Funded Trials


CNN
Mon, 02 Aug 2010 21:40 UTC
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© Dave Rust/CNN
Drug trials funded by the pharmaceutical industry usually have positive outcomes according to a new study in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Researchers from the United States and Canada looked at 546 drug trials registered in ClinicalTrials.gov, a registry of both federal and private trials in the United States and abroad. 346 of them, or 63 percen, were funded by the drug industry. The remaining 200 were paid for by government or non-profit organizations. Study authors found that more than 85 percent of industry-funded trials in their sample posted favorable outcomes and were 4 times more likely to report findings that favored their drug.

"We did this study in order to determine whether there is an inherent bias because pharmaceutical companies fund trials on products in which they have a financial interest," said study co-author Dr. Kenneth Mandl of Children's Hospital, Boston. "The most reassuring result would have been that the rate of favorable outcomes would be the same regardless of funding sources. In a very dramatic way that was not the case and what we need to ascertain is if the cause of this shift toward favorable findings among trials funded by pharmaceutical companies is related to the details of the protocols and study design."
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Health

International Doctors in U.S. Perform Better Than Home-Grown Physicians

Pat Wechsler
Bloomberg.com
Mon, 02 Aug 2010 03:56 UTC
U.S. patients of doctors who went to medical school outside the country and weren't American citizens had a 9 percent lower death rate on average than those whose doctors trained at home, a study showed.

The report, published today in the August issue of Health Affairs, tracked the performance of primary-care doctors, internists and cardiologists in 244,153 hospitalizations involving congestive heart failure or heart attacks.

Economics may help explain the gap in patient outcomes, said John Norcini, co-author of the study. Internal medicine and primary care have failed to attract the best U.S. students because of lower pay, relative to other specialties, he said.

"Primary care may not be getting the best and the brightest from U.S. medical schools," said Norcini, chief executive officer of the Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research, a Philadelphia- based nonprofit. "Foreign students see primary care as a gap that they can fill and a way to practice medicine here."
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Health

Processed Meat Linked to Increased Risk for Bladder Cancer

Laurie Barclay, MD
Medscape.com
Mon, 02 Aug 2010 03:37 UTC
Intake of processed meat and its components is linked to increased risk for bladder cancer, according to the results of the large, prospective National Institutes of Health - AARP Diet and Health Study reported online August 2 in Cancer.

"Meat could be involved in bladder carcinogenesis via multiple potentially carcinogenic meat-related compounds related to cooking and processing, including nitrate, nitrite, heterocyclic amines (HCAs), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)," write Leah M. Ferrucci, PhD, from the National Cancer Institute in Rockville, Maryland, and colleagues. "The authors comprehensively investigated the association between meat and meat components and bladder cancer."

Among 300,933 men and women who completed a validated food-frequency questionnaire, there were 854 cases of transitional cell bladder cancer identified during 7 years of follow-up. Using quantitative databases of measured values, the investigators estimated intake of nitrate and nitrite from processed meat and HCAs and PAHs from cooked meat, and they calculated total dietary nitrate and nitrite based on literature values.
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Red Flag

Spray Cleaners Pose Poison Hazard to Babies, Toddlers

Liz Szabo
USA TODAY
Mon, 02 Aug 2010 17:38 UTC
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© Tamara Ensign
Spray cleaners send thousands of babies and toddlers to the emergency room each year, a new study shows.

Nearly 12,000 children under age 5 go to the emergency room each year because of injuries caused by household cleaning products, according to a study in today's Pediatrics. About 40% of those injuries - or nearly 4,800 cases - are caused by spray bottles, which typically don't have child-resistant caps, according to the study of 267,269 children.

Although some spray nozzles can be turned to an "off" position, parents often leave them in spraying mode, says study author Lara McKenzie of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. And nimble children can turn the nozzles themselves.
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Attention

U.S. Regulators Lack Data on Health Risks of Most Chemicals

Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post
Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:48 UTC
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© Gene J. Puskar/associated PressKellogg recalled nearly 28 million boxes of cereal in June after reports of a strange taste and odor.
This summer, when Kellogg recalled 28 million boxes of Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, Corn Pops and Honey Smacks, the company blamed elevated levels of a chemical in the packaging.

Dozens of consumers reported a strange taste and odor, and some complained of nausea and diarrhea. But Kellogg said a team of experts it hired determined that there was "no harmful material" in the products.

Federal regulators, who are charged with ensuring the safety of food and consumer products, are in the dark about the suspected chemical, 2-methylnaphthalene. The Food and Drug Administration has no scientific data on its impact on human health. The Environmental Protection Agency also lacks basic health and safety data for 2-methylnaphthalene - even though the EPA has been seeking that information from the chemical industry for 16 years.
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Fish

The Gulf Oil Spill and Seafood Safety

Gina Solomon
NRDC Switchboard
Sat, 31 Jul 2010 13:23 UTC
Some of the fishing areas in the Gulf of Mexico are reopening. In fact, this week Louisiana reopened commercial fishing in areas East of the Mississippi. In the coming weeks, we can expect that many more areas will reopen to recreational and commercial fishing.

I'd love to see the Gulf open to fishing, since I think it's important for the economy and culture of the region to have a healthy fishing industry. But fishing shouldn't reopen until it's safe. One of my colleagues in the Gulf reported from a boat this week, showing dispersed oil lurking below the surface. A piece in the Huffington Post cited studies finding dispersed oil under the shells of crab larvae. I keep getting calls from reporters asking "is it safe to eat the fish?"
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Family

BP Executive: I Would Serve Gulf Fish to My Family


YouTube
Sun, 01 Aug 2010 11:55 UTC
BP's chief operating officer says he would eat fish from the Gulf of Mexico and would let his family eat it, too. Doug Suttles took reporters on a boat tour of beaches and marshes Sunday about 25 miles south of Venice, Louisiana.

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Cow

Illegal Cloned Cow's Milk On Sale In UK


Daily Mail
Mon, 02 Aug 2010 11:41 UTC
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Milk from the offspring of cloned cows is secretly - and illegally - going into high street shops.

Despite deep unease among consumers, the milk is not being labelled or identified in any way, leaving shoppers in the dark about what they are drinking.

The dairy farmer involved said he wanted to remain anonymous because the British public regards cloning as so distasteful that buyers would stop taking his milk.

Comment: Two years ago, the American FDA approved the sale of milk and meat from cloned cows for the U.S. market.

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Butterfly

Meditative Breathing Enhances Pain Relief and May Help in Fibromyalgia


The Environmental Illness Resource
Fri, 07 May 2010 09:00 UTC
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© Fibromyalgia News
Breathing techniques such as those used in various forms of meditation may aid pain relief both directly and by enhancing the effectiveness of drugs according to the lead researcher of a new study.

Mind-body techniques such as meditation and focusing attention on the breath are becoming increasingly popular as medical research results continue to break down the supposed barriers between the functioning and health of mind and body.

It is now well established that the mind and body are not two separate entities that function independently of one another but are in fact in constant bidirectional communication and each is dependent on the other. Research has shown for example that our state of mind can have a significant impact on how effectively our immune systems function.

Now researchers at Arizona State University (ASU) in cooperation with the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix are looking at how breathing techniques influence pain perception and are interested in finding out if such interventions which are easy to learn and essentially free may help those struggling with fibromyalgia.

Comment: The Éiriú Eolas Breathing and Meditation Program is one of the most effective breathing techniques to achieve these results by helping you to:

* Relax from the stresses of everyday life

* Gently work your way through past emotional and psychological trauma

* Release repressed emotions and mental blockages

* Detoxify your body and mind

It is available for free here

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