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A Healthy Diet May Trim Breast Cancer Risk

Lynne Peeples
Reuters
Thu, 25 Mar 2010 23:07 UTC
New York - A woman may not be able to change her family history of breast cancer, but she can typically control what she eats and drinks. And consuming more vegetables and whole grains - and less alcohol - just might trim her chances of getting the disease, according to an analysis of published studies.

"As the incidence of breast cancer continues to rise, with many of the risk factors for the disease non-modifiable, potentially modifiable risk factors such as diet are of interest," Dr. Sarah Brennan of Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland, who led the analysis, noted in an email to Reuters Health.

It's estimated that more than 120 out of every 100,000 American women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year, yielding a lifetime risk of about 1 in 8. The idea that diet might influence these numbers is not new; yet solid evidence for such a link has remained elusive.
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Family

Grieving mothers blame baby slings for infant deaths

Eliott C. McLaughlin
CNN
Thu, 25 Mar 2010 22:47 UTC
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Lisa Cochran, left, and fiancé, Jerrid Fowler, pose with newborn Derrik in May 2009

It wasn't a long walk to Lisa Cochran's car in the Costco parking lot, but by the time she got there her infant son was near death.

Cochran and her grandmother had just enjoyed a hot dog at the Salem, Oregon, wholesale outlet.

She had 7-day-old Derrik out of his baby carrier as she ate and people at nearby tables asked about the infant's age and expressed amazement that Cochran was already out and about after the pregnancy.
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Econundrum: 12 Most Pesticide - Laden Fruits and Veggies

Kiera Butler
Mother Jones
Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:47 UTC
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© Wikimedia Commons
At my local farmer's market, organic avocados cost as much as $2 a pop. Yet I can sometimes find the conventional version at the supermarket for half that (and some of the cheap ones are even grown right here in California). Considering my homemade guacamole addiction, I'd quickly bankrupt myself buying only organic avocados, so I usually go for the cheapos at the grocery store. My reasoning: You don't even eat the skin of the avocado, so presumably, for avocados and other peeled produce, pesticides aren't a problem. Right?

Not always. Some fruits' and vegetables' thick skins do protect the edible part from chemicals. But not all. The Environmental Working Group recently analyzed samples of 47 common produce items in the state that they're usually eaten (i.e., avocados were peeled, apples washed with water, etc.) then ranked them according to the amount and variety of pesticides the researchers found. Good news for my guac addiction: As I suspected, peeled avocados contain a small amount of pesticides, ranking 46th on the list. But bananas come in at a surprisingly high 27, and cucumbers at 19. "It's really hard to use your intuition to figure out what's going to have high pesticide loads," says EWG spokesperson Amy Rosenthal. "Skin is something to take into account, but it doesn't always make a huge difference."
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Info

Study Urges Vitamin D Supplement for Infants

Liz Szabo
USA Today
Mon, 22 Mar 2010 20:36 UTC
Most babies should take a daily vitamin D supplement, a new study shows.

That will be a big change for most parents - and even many pediatricians.

Only 1% to 13% of infants under 1 year now get a vitamin D supplement, available in inexpensive drops, according to a study published online today in Pediatrics.

Those drops are needed, the study says, because only 5% to 37% of American infants met the standard for vitamin D set by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2008: 400 international units a day.

Vitamin D strengthens bone and the immune system and also appears to prevent type 1 diabetes, heart disease and cancer, the paper says.
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Health

Doctors Are Warning: Avoid Genetically Modified Food

Jeffrey M. Smith
Dr. Mercola
Thu, 25 Mar 2010 19:58 UTC
The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) has called on all physicians to prescribe diets without genetically modified (GM) foods to all patients.[1] They called for a moratorium on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), long-term independent studies, and labeling, stating,
"Several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food, including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system.

...There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation..."
Former AAEM President Dr. Jennifer Armstrong says,
"Physicians are probably seeing the effects in their patients, but need to know how to ask the right questions."
Renowned biologist Pushpa M. Bhargava also believes that GMOs are a major contributor to the deteriorating health in America.
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People

Experts: One-third of breast cancer is avoidable

Maria Cheng
Associated Press
Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:31 UTC
Up to a third of breast cancer cases in Western countries could be avoided if women ate less and exercised more, researchers at a breast cancer conference said Thursday, renewing debate on a sensitive topic.

While better treatments, early diagnosis and mammogram screenings have dramatically slowed the disease, experts said the focus should now shift to changing behaviors like diet and physical activity. The comments added to a series of findings that lifestyle changes in areas such as smoking, eating, exercise and sun exposure can have a significant effect on all sorts of cancer rates.

"What can be achieved with screening has been achieved. We can't do much more," Carlo La Vecchia, head of epidemiology at the University of Milan, told The Associated Press. "It's time to move onto other things."
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Scientists Find How Relaxed Minds Remember Better

Kate Kelland
Reuters
Wed, 24 Mar 2010 17:12 UTC
Image
© ReutersA woman meditates.
Stronger and more lasting memories are likely to be formed when a person is relaxed and the memory-related neurons in the brain fire in sync with certain brain waves, scientists said on Wednesday.

Researchers from the United States said their findings could help develop new therapies for people with learning disabilities and some types of dementia.

"This study establishes a direct relationship between events at the circuit level of the brain...and their effects on human behavior," said Ueli Rutishauser of the California Institute of Technology, who worked on the study.

Synchronization in the brain is influenced by "theta waves" which are associated with relaxation, daydreaming and drowsiness, but also with learning and memory formation, the scientists explained in the study in the journal Nature.
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Memory Decline Linked to an Inability to Ignore Distractions


ScienceDaily
Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:00 UTC
One of the most common complaints among healthy older adults relates to a decline in memory performance. This decline has been linked to an inability to ignore irrelevant information when forming memories. In order to ignore distracting information, the brain should act to suppress its responses to distractions, but it has been shown that in older adults there is in fact an increase in brain activity at those times.

In a new study published in the April 2010 issue of Elsevier's Cortex researchers at the University of California San Francisco have shown that even prior knowledge of an impending distraction does not help to improve the working memory performance of older adults.

Drs. Theodore Zanto and Adam Gazzaley studied 21 adults aged between 60 and 80 years while they performed a working memory task in which they were shown random sequences of pictures containing faces and scenes. From a given sequence, participants were asked to remember either only the faces (ignoring scenes) or only the scenes (ignoring faces). In a second round of testing, the participants were given prior information about which specific pictures in the sequence would be relevant and which to ignore. The participants' brain activity during the tasks was recorded using electroencephalograms (EEGs).
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How to Painlessly and Safely Remove Pesky Splinters

Tony Isaacs
NaturalNews
Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:00 UTC
Most of us are familiar with the pain and aggravation that can come from splinters, which are usually small slivers of wood, metal or glass.

Splinters can be difficult to remove and sometimes painful as well. If the splinter is not removed and removed cleanly, infection can result and sometimes the infection can become a serious one.
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Omega-3s Linked to Longevity

Ethan Huff
NaturalNews
Thu, 25 Mar 2010 00:00 UTC
Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, have found that omega-3 fatty acids have another beneficial effect besides maintaining a healthy heart. Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the study found that patients with high levels of omega-3 fatty acids in their blood experienced a slowing of the shortening of their telomeres, indicating that the fatty acids help to slow the aging process.

The study of telomeres and their role in the aging process has been a popular subject in recent years. Scientists have found that telomeres, which act as protective end caps on cells, gradually shorten over time as cells divide and repair themselves, causing a person to age. Researchers, however, have been studying various compounds, including omega-3s, that appear to slow the shortening process and even reverse it.

Ramin Farzaneh-Far, a clinical cardiologist and lead author of the study, evaluated 608 patients who had prior heart problems and coronary-artery blockage. Over a five-year period, those with the highest levels of omega-3s in their blood experienced far less telomere shortening than those with the lowest levels.
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