Health & WellnessS


Attention

Never mind the sugar! Are our children being poisoned by their sweets?

Alex Renton
Mail Online
Thu, 01 Jan 2009 06:55 UTC
Image
Alex Renton's four-year-old daughter Lulu with her pile of banned sweets
My four-year-old daughter and I sit in front of a great heap of sweets. Her eyes are alight, like a pirate's with his treasure: Sweets are her greatest passion. Just back from a friend's party, she thinks she's hit the jackpot.

But I'm going to have to tell her she cannot have any of them. Not a wine gum, not a chewy snake, not one Roses chocolate. I've been sitting painstakingly going through the ingredients list on the back of each jazzy-coloured packet - occasionally with a magnifying glass. Amazingly, almost all of them contain some additives that I've had to decide are actively dangerous to her.

These are additives that are banned in many countries, ones that our government's Food Standards Agency (FSA) decided over a year ago should not be in our children's sweets. But they are still on sale in every supermarket and sweet shop across Britain.
Read More...
Stop

Be careful when considering vaccine

Nina Kenney
Daily Herald
Thu, 18 Dec 2008 03:54 UTC
Time magazine named Merck's HPV Vaccine, Gardasil, one of the top medical/science stories of 2008. But it's the vaccine's side-effects and not its cancer prevention claim that got it there.

According to VAERS (the nonprofit Vaccine Awareness Event Reporting System) October 2008 statistics, there have been over 14,000 reports of serious side effects from Gardasil since it became available in 2006. My daughter is included in that statistic as she developed epilepsy since being vaccinated. Other young women suffer with daily seizures, excruciating joint pain, debilitating fatigue, difficulty breathing and some are so ill they can no longer attend school.

Yet Merck, the CDC and FDA staunchly stand by the vaccine, attribute side effects to other factors and maintain its safety.
Read More...
Health

Grape-seed Extract Kills Laboratory Leukemia Cells, Proving Value Of Natural Compounds


Science Daily
Thu, 01 Jan 2009 21:14 UTC
An extract from grape seeds forces laboratory leukemia cells to commit cell suicide, according to researchers from the University of Kentucky. They found that within 24 hours, 76 percent of leukemia cells had died after being exposed to the extract.

The investigators, who report their findings in the January 1, 2009, issue of Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, also teased apart the cell signaling pathway associated with use of grape seed extract that led to cell death, or apoptosis. They found that the extract activates JNK, a protein that regulates the apoptotic pathway.

While grape seed extract has shown activity in a number of laboratory cancer cell lines, including skin, breast, colon, lung, stomach and prostate cancers, no one had tested the extract in hematological cancers nor had the precise mechanism for activity been revealed.
Read More...
Health

Link To Severe Staph Infections Found


Science Daily
Thu, 01 Jan 2009 21:23 UTC
Researchers at The University of Texas School of Public Health recently described studies that support the link between the severity of community-acquired antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA MRSA) infections and the Panton Valentine leukocidin (PVL).

The Panton Valentine leukocidin is made up of two components - LukF-PV and LukS-PV - and is typically produced by community-acquired methicillin-resistant S. aureus (CA MRSA). In the United States this strain is the most common CA MRSA isolate and can cause severe skin infections, pneumonia, bloodstream infections and surgical wound infections.

This work has identified using animal models that the PVL leukotoxin can be used as a vaccine against infections caused by CA MRSA. Results from the research will be published in the December issue of Clinical Microbiology and Infection.
Read More...
Health

Antioxidants Offer Pain Relief In Patients With Chronic Pancreatitis


Science Daily
Thu, 01 Jan 2009 21:21 UTC
Antioxidant supplementation was found to be effective in relieving pain and reducing levels of oxidative stress in patients with chronic pancreatitis (CP), reports a new study in Gastroenterology. CP is a progressive inflammatory disease of the pancreas in which patients experience abdominal pain (in early stage) and diabetes and maldigestion (in late stage).

Pain is the major problem in 90 percent of patients with CP and currently, there is no effective medical therapy for pain relief. Gastroenterology is the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute.

In this placebo-controlled, double blind trial, 127 patients, ages 30.5+/-10.5, were assigned to placebo or antioxidant groups. After six months, the reduction in the number of painful days/month was significantly higher in the antioxidant group, compared with the placebo group (7.4±6.8 versus 3.2±4, respectively). The reduction in the number of analgesic tablets/month was also higher in the antioxidant group (10.5±11.8 versus 4.4±5.8, respectively). Furthermore, 32 percent and 13 percent of patients became pain free in the antioxidant and placebo groups, respectively; the beneficial effect of antioxidants on pain relief was noted early at three months.
Read More...
Pills

Fosomax-type drugs linked to jaw necrosis

Angelica Urquijo
University of Southern California
Thu, 01 Jan 2009 20:48 UTC
Study is among first to link short term drug use for osteoporosis to bone death.

Researchers at the University Of Southern California, School Of Dentistry release results of clinical data that links oral bisphosphonates to increased jaw necrosis. The study is among the first to acknowledge that even short-term use of common oral osteoporosis drugs may leave the jaw vulnerable to devastating necrosis, according to the report appearing in the January 1 Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA).
Read More...
Magnify

Bright Lights, Not-So-Big Pupils


PhysOrg
Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:03 UTC
A team of Johns Hopkins neuroscientists has worked out how some newly discovered light sensors in the eye detect light and communicate with the brain.

These light sensors are a small number of nerve cells in the retina that contain melanopsin molecules. Unlike conventional light-sensing cells in the retina - rods and cones - melanopsin-containing cells are not used for seeing images; instead, they monitor light levels to adjust the body's clock and control constriction of the pupils in the eye, among other functions.

"These melanopsin-containing cells are the only other known photoreceptor besides rods and cones in mammals, and the question is, 'How do they work?'" says Michael Do, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience at Hopkins. "We want to understand some fundamental information, like their sensitivity to light and their communication to the brain."
Read More...
Green Light

Why We Take Risks - It's the Dopamine

Alice Park
Time
Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:06 UTC
dopamine
© Ken Fisher / Stone / Getty
Risk-taking, by definition, defies logic. Reason can't explain why people do unpredictable things - like betting on blackjack or jumping out of planes - for little or, sometimes, no reward at all. There's the thrill, of course, but those brief moments of ecstasy aren't enough to keep most risk takers coming back for more - which they do, again and again, like addicts.

A new study by researchers at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City suggests a biological explanation for why certain people tend to live life on the edge - it involves the neurotransmitter dopamine, the brain's feel-good chemical.
Read More...
Health

Women Double Fruit, Veggie Intake With Switch To Mediterranean Diet Plan


Science Daily
Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:00 UTC
In a new study led by the University of Michigan Health System, women more than doubled their fruit and vegetable intakes and dramatically increased their consumption of "good" fats when they were counseled by registered dietitians and provided with a list of guidelines on the amount of certain foods they should eat each day.

The six-month study of 69 women divided the participants into two groups. In one group, registered dietitians used an "exchange list" of foods that are common in a Mediterranean diet to make a plan for each participant. The new plan maintained the caloric and total fat intakes that the participants consumed at the beginning of the study.

The list included suggested servings, or exchanges, of several categories of foods - such as dark green vegetables, such as spinach, or high-monounsaturated fats, such olive oil. The dietitians also provided counseling on the telephone to help the participants to make the dietary changes, as well as in-person sessions at the start of the study and three months later.

Women in the comparison group continued their usual diet and did not receive any dietary counseling, though they were offered one free dietary counseling session after they completed their part in the study. If their intake of any vitamin or mineral was less than two-thirds of the recommended levels, they were given a list of foods that are rich in that nutrient. They also were given the National Cancer Institute's "Action Guide to Healthy Eating."
Read More...
Health

Blood Sugar Linked To Normal Cognitive Aging


Science Daily
Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:51 UTC
Cerebral blood volume (CBV) maps
© Columbia University Medical CenterCerebral blood volume (CBV) maps are shown for a subject with diabetes. Maps are color-coded with warmer colors indicating greater CBV or activity.
Maintaining blood sugar levels, even in the absence of disease, may be an important strategy for preserving cognitive health, suggests a study published by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC).

Senior moments, also dubbed by New York Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks as being "hippocampically challenged," are a normal part of aging. Such lapses in memory, according to this new research, could be blamed, at least in part, on rising blood glucose levels as we age. The findings suggest that exercising to improve blood sugar levels could be a way for some people to stave off the normal cognitive decline that comes with age.

"This is news even for people without diabetes since blood glucose levels tend to rise as we grow older. Whether through physical exercise, diet or drugs, our research suggests that improving glucose metabolism could help some of us avert the cognitive slide that occurs in many of us as we age," reported lead investigator Scott A. Small, M.D., associate professor of neurology in the Sergievsky Center and in the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain at Columbia University Medical Center.
Read More...