Tyler Trovato loves his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with a glass of milk, but if he diverges from that and only a handful of other foods, the 6-year-old goes into a fit of vomiting and lethargy so severe that he has to go to the emergency room.

The St. James, N.Y., first-grader is allergic to just about everything else -- chicken, turkey, rice, sweet potatoes and bananas, among others. As an infant, he was even allergic to his mother's breast milk and she was a vegetarian.


Since he was 18 months old he has to be hospitalized before he can try a new food.

If he ingests a food he is allergic to, Tyler begins to have stomach pains about two to four hours after ingestion and then vomits, sometimes so violently he bleeds. Diarrhea follows and a then a shock-like response.

"He becomes pale, lethargic, doesn't talk and usually stumbles when he walks," said his mother, Jennifer Trovato, 37. "When he reacts he needs fluids. The hospital usually gives him saline, steroids and sometimes Benadryl. He doesn't require an epi-pen but his allergic reaction can be life threatening."

Fish oil rich in DHA and EPA is widely believed to help prevent disease by reducing inflammation, but until now, scientists were not entirely sure about its immune enhancing effects. A new report appearing in the April 2013 issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology, helps provide clarity on this by showing that DHA-rich fish oil enhances B cell activity, a white blood cell, challenging the notion that fish oil is only immunosuppressive. This discovery is important as it shows that fish oil does not necessarily reduce the overall immune response to lower inflammation, possibly opening the doors for the use of fish oil among those with compromised immune systems.

"Fish oil may have immune enhancing properties that could benefit immunocompromised individuals," said Jenifer Fenton, Ph.D., M.P.H., a researcher involved in the work from the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan.

Medications used to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD, are some of the most widely used medications in children less than one year old.

But in a new study, researchers from the University of Michigan and the University of Missouri concluded that physicians often label common symptoms in infants, such as crying and spitting up, as disease. Frequent use of the GERD label can lead to overuse of medication, according to study published today online ahead of print in the journal Pediatrics.

The study found that doctors' use of the label GERD prompted parents to request medication for their baby even when they had been advised that the medication would probably be ineffective.

For two decades, starting with the controversial introduction of Monsanto's recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) and Calgene's Flavr Savr tomato in 1994, polls have consistently shown that U.S. consumers are wary, indeed alarmed, about the new technology of genetic engineering (GE). Surveyed regularly, the overwhelming majority of Americans have repeatedly stated that they either want these "Frankenfoods" banned, or at least clearly labeled.

In a March 2012 national poll, conducted by the Mellman Group, 91% of Americans said they wanted GMO foods labeled. When asked whether gene-altered foods were safe, 34% of consumers said they believed that gene-altered foods were definitely unsafe; 41% said they were not sure; while 41% said genetically engineered foods should be banned.

Five counties and two cities in California and Washington have banned the growing of GE crops. In addition, given the near total absence of FDA regulation, 19 states have passed laws restricting Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).

Millions of consumers are purchasing over $30 billion of organic foods, and $60 billion worth of so-called "natural" foods, every year, in part because organic standards prohibit the use of gene-altered seeds or ingredients. But many consumers believe mistakenly that "natural" foods are GE-free as well.

President Barack Obama signed a spending bill, HR 933, into law, the "Monsanto Protection Act," that strips federal courts of the authority to immediately halt the planting and sale of genetically modified (GMO) seed crop regardless of any consumer health concerns.

"The provision would strip federal courts of the authority to halt the sale and planting of an illegal, potentially hazardous GE crop while the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) assesses those potential hazards," explains a letter to the House that has been signed by dozens of food businesses and retailers, as well as interest groups and agencies representing family farmers. "Further, it would compel USDA to allow continued planting of that same crop upon request, even if in the course of its assessment the Department finds that it poses previously unrecognized risks."

Why does Monsanto and other GMO companies need this protection? The corolary question is has there ever been a safe, healthy, non-complicated genetically modified organism?

Who would have guessed that second-hand cigarette smoke could have a surprising health benefit? Or that tobacco, long dismissed as unhealthy, might have some healing benefits, even playing a role in a new dietary supplement? Medicine and health technology are full of surprises sometimes.

In 2004, Dr. Paul Ladenson, Director of the Division of Endocrinology at Johns Hopkins, conducted a study among a group of flight attendants and found reduction of thyroiditis/Hashimoto's Disease related to inhalation of second hand cigarette smoke. That discovery started the ball rolling toward the development of a anti-inflammatory supplement called Anatabloc, the key ingredient of which is the anatabine compound, one of the 4,000 chemical components of tobacco. Anatabine is a naturally-occuring alkaloid also found in eggplants, peppers, green tomatoes, potatoes, and a variety of other plants in the Solanaceae (nightshade) family, including Nicotiana, the Latin term for tobacco.

Armed with this information, entrepreneur Jonnie Williams was motivated to formulate Anatabloc, a dietary supplement that works by inhibiting pro-inflammatory pathways to help the body maintain lower levels of inflammation. Anatabloc combines one milligram of anatabine with 500 units of Vitamin A and 40 units of Vitamin D3; pre-clinical studies have shown that this combination may inhibit pro-inflammatory pathways to help maintain lower levels of inflammation and promote a healthy anti-inflammatory response.
The thinking behind the formulation of Anatabloc is that chronic low-level inflammation contributes to many disorders such as coronary artery disease, diabetes, asthma, autoimmune thyroid disease, and rheumatoid arthritis, so Anatabloc is marketed as a potential preventative treatment for these diseases. Anatabloc requires no prescription; the recommended dosage is two tablets or lozenges taken sublingually three times daily for best results. (The manufacturer also markets Anatabloc skin care products).

Studies have shown that autoimmune thyroid disease can appear - or even worsen - in the period after someone quits smoking (remember, though, the benefits of quitting smoking always outweigh any side effects of quitting, especially for patients with Graves' disease and thyroid eye disease). Theoretically, it could be the absence of the anatabine in the cigarettes that may be the key factor in this mystery.

An impossibly long string of DNA letters floats inside each of our trillions of cells. Somehow, incredibly, that one string produces a huge variety of tiny biological machines, from red blood cells that carry oxygen, to brown fat cells that generate heat, to neurons that fire electrical messages. How does one* fixed code manage all that?

The answer is, it's not fixed. There's epigenetics: In response to changes in the environment, stuff (chemicals and proteins) interacts with the DNA and affects how the code is interpreted. For example, a methyl group (one carbon and three hydrogen atoms) can latch on to the genome and help switch on or off the expression of the genes below. So in fat cells, say, some suite of genes is methylated, but in brain cells, it's a different group of genes.

Until fairly recently, research on this so-called DNA methylation focused on places in the DNA code where a G immediately follows a C - CpG sites - which are known hotspots of methylation. When hundreds or thousands of CpG sites appear in a row, it's called a CpG island, and this intense methylation usually silences the underlying gene. But in the past few years, DNA sequencing technology has allowed researchers to look at methylation patterns not just at the glittering islands, but across the entire genome.

There are ideas about what constitutes "good nutritional habits" in mainstream America, but a lot of them are simply premised on distortions or outright falsehoods. Here are some of the most common, based on current data and research:

Stay away from eggs - they aren't good for you: In a word, false.

Nutrition professionals have managed to demonize a number of healthy foods, and the egg is one such food item that has gotten a bad rap. Eggs do contain a large amount of cholesterol and for that reason it's been easy to paint them as detrimental contributors to heart disease.

However, the most recent research has shown that cholesterol in the diet doesn't really raise cholesterol in the blood. Also, eggs raise "good" cholesterol levels and are not associated with an increased risk of heart disease.

Researchers in Toulouse are testing the use of a new drug on soldiers that could help tackle post-traumatic stress disorder.

Pascal Roullet, a researcher at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), discovered that propanolol could be used to suppress certain bad memories.

Tests began in January. Mr Roullet said: "The study has only just begun and we will need about a year and a half to be certain it is effective."

Post-traumatic stress is an anxiety disorder frequently found in soldiers, which develops after they have been exposed to a traumatic event in combat.