Thursday, June 30, 2011

Adding Soluble Fiber to the Diet May Reduce Abdominal Fat

Increased soluble fibre consumption may reduce the amount of deep belly fat that we accumulate, according to new research.
The study, published in Nature’s journal Obesity, found that for every 10-gram increase in soluble fiber eaten per day, deep belly visceral fat, known to be more dangerous than subcutaneous fat found near the skin, was reduced by 3.7 per cent over five years.

In addition, the authors reported that increased moderate activity resulted in a 7.4 per cent decrease in the rate of visceral fat accumulation over the same time.

“Our study is valuable because it provides specific information on how dietary fiber, especially soluble fiber, may affect weight accumulation through abdominal fat deposits,” said Dr Kristen Hairston, assistant professor of internal medicine at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.

In the longitudinal study, Hairston and her team examined whether lifestyle factors, including diet and frequency of exercise, were associated with a five-year change in abdominal fat of African Americans and Hispanic Americans – populations who are at a disproportionally higher risk for developing high blood pressure and diabetes and accumulating visceral fat.

Central obesity has been associated with hypertension, blood lipid imbalances, insulin resistance, fatty liver disease, and type-2 diabetes.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

The growing culprit behind liver disease

By Elizabeth Cohen, CNN Senior Medical Producer
June 17, 2011 6:22 a.m. EDT

(CNN) -- The first time Wilson Alvarado got lost on the way to a neighborhood park, he told his wife, Patricia, not to worry about it -- he was 62, he told her, and just getting a little forgetful.

Patricia thought it was strange, considering the park was only a half-mile away, and he'd driven there every week for more than 30 years. Then Wilson got lost again on the way to the park. A few months later, he called Patricia from the supermarket, asking why he was there.

"I thought, well, maybe he really is just getting old," Patricia recalls. "My mother has Alzheimer's, and I thought maybe that was it."

It was easy to overlook the little memory lapses until several years later when the situation reached a head. While her husband was visiting relatives in Puerto Rico, Patricia received a phone call from his cousin saying they'd taken Wilson to the hospital because he "wasn't making any sense" and was acting so aggressive the hospital put him in restraints.

"It was really horrifying," she says.

Patricia had him put back on a plane to Buffalo, near their home in Cheektowaga, New York. His doctors explained that liver disease was behind Wilson's memory lapses and erratic behavior.

"When you think about this kind of thing, you think about dementia or Alzheimer's," she says. "You don't think about the liver."

Wilson had cirrhosis, just like alcoholics get, but in his case, fat, not alcohol, was the culprit. At 5 feet 8 inches and 185 pounds, Wilson is overweight, and too much fat in his liver eventually caused it to malfunction.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a third of Americans are either overweight or obese, and doctors say they're seeing more and more patients like Wilson Alvarado.

"It's overwhelming how many patients we're seeing with this problem," says Dr. Naim Alkhouri, a hepatologist at the Cleveland Clinic.

Dr. William Carey, also a hepatologist at the Cleveland Clinic, adds, "This is huge. We didn't even know this disease existed 30 years ago. Now it's the most common liver disease in America."

'We won't have the ability to treat all these patients'

About a third of the U.S. population has nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, according to Dr. Michael Curry, a hepatologist at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

Curry said most of those people -- about 80% -- will not develop significant liver disease. The other 20% will develop a disease called nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH. Of those, about 20-30% will go on to develop cirrhosis and end-stage liver disease, where the only real treatment is a liver transplant.

"That's about 6 million people. We won't have the ability to treat all those patients," Curry says. "If we even have a fraction of that number of patients, it will overwhelm liver transplant programs."

Laundry in the refrigerator

NASH is often silent, according to the National Institutes of Health. While some people have pain in the right side of their abdomen, most do not. Liver enzyme tests are sometimes normal, and even ultrasounds and CT scans don't always pick up on the disease.

"Symptoms are few and far between," the Cleveland Clinic's Carey says.

"It can sneak up on you," says Dr. Kevin Mullen, a hepatologist at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. "Even your doctor might miss it."

Often symptoms don't show up until the disease has progressed. Sometimes, the first sign is a swollen stomach or ankles, or vomiting blood.

Some patients, such as Wilson Alvarado, develop brain changes called hepatic encephalopathy. As the disease progresses, the liver has a hard time filtering out toxins, which can go to the brain and cause problems such as memory lapses, trouble sleeping at night and lack of coordination.

"It might start out with minimal changes, like a few more dents in the car," Curry says.

Later, the changes can become more disturbing.

"I had a patient who put his laundry in the refrigerator," Carey says. "Another one couldn't remember the family party that had just happened that very day."

Curry adds, "One of my patients got into the shower and turned on boiling hot water and couldn't figure out how to switch it off."

Mullen says, "It really can be bizarre. They might try to sell their house for $100 or walking around the neighborhood unclothed."

Preventing nonalcoholic fatty liver disease

If a patient loses weight, eats better and exercises, he or she can often reverse the disease in its earlier stages.

"That's why we like to find these people early," says Alkhouri of the Cleveland Clinic.

However, by the time the disease has advanced to the point of cirrhosis, it's usually irreversible, he adds.

Alvarado had to have a liver transplant last month at the Cleveland Clinic, and his wife says his thinking has become more clear.

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is associated with sugar intake, not fat.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Olive Oil Consumption May Lower Risk of Stroke

A diet high in olive oil may help protect older people against strokes, which are the third leading cause of death in the United States after heart disease and cancer. The findings are in a study published in the journal Neurology.

A stroke occurs when an artery within the brain, or leading to the brain, becomes blocked by a clot or bursts. The brain becomes deprived of blood and oxygen carried in the arteries and begins to die. Strokes become more common as we age – stroke risk doubles for each decade of life after age 55, according to the American Heart Association.

University of Bordeaux researchers examined the medical records and olive oil consumption of 7,625 study participants, which included people age 65 and older from the French cities of Bordeaux, Dijon and Montpellier. None of the participants had any history of stroke when the study began. Olive oil use was classified as “no use”, “moderate use” – meaning using olive oil for cooking or as dressing or with bread, or “intensive use” which means olive oil was used for cooking and as dressing or with bread.

Participants had follow-up exams at 2, 4, and six years and stroke incidents were recorded and verified. 148 stokes occurred after slightly more than five years. Compared to those who didn’t use olive oil, people who had “intensive use” of olive oil had a 41% lower risk for stroke.

Many previous studies have reported health benefits from eating a Mediterranean-type of diet. "Olive oil is a component of the Mediterranean Diet which has been shown to have beneficial effects on cardiovascular disease and stroke. It can be included in a healthy eating plan as one of the oils that contains the least amount of saturated or bad fat,“ according to Dr. Ralph Sacco, President of the American Heart Association.

However, while numerous studies have linked the eating pattern to health benefits including lower rates of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson disease, Dr. Larry B. Goldstein of the Duke [University] Stroke Center, and a spokesman for the American Heart Association, is quick to note that the findings of the Neurology study show only an association between lower stroke risk and eating a diet high in olive oil, not proof that a diet high in olive oil will lower stroke risk. “There’s no reason you shouldn’t use olive oil paired with other heathy lifestyle behaviors including a diet high in fruits and vegetables, maintaining a healthy weight, regular exercise, and not smoking cigarettes,” which Goldstein says are known to reduce stroke risk by 80%.

Mindfulness Meditation Helps Hot Flashesl

It takes some training, but practicing mindfulness meditation does seem to help ease hot flashes, night sweats and insomnia in menopausal women, according to study results from the University of Massachusetts. Researchers there taught mindfulness meditation to 55 women between the ages of 47 and 69. A comparable group of 55 women of the same age who had the same symptoms were placed on a "waiting list" for training. The women in the first group attended classes once a week for eight weeks and also had a full day of training in mindfulness meditation, which involves focusing on the present. When the study began, the women reported five or more moderate to severe hot flashes or night sweats daily. After nearly two years of practice, the meditating women reported their symptoms bothered them about 15 percent less than they had at the outset, compared to a decrease of only 7 percent in the women who were on the waiting list. The study was published in the June 2011 issue of Menopause.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Broccoli Extract can Selectively Target Cancer Cells

The safety, and cancer-targeting ability of the broccoli extract sulforaphane, has been backed by a new study finding that it can selectively target cancer cells.

The research, published in Molecular Nutrition and Food Research, reports for the first time that sulforaphane – one of the primary phytochemicals in broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables – is able to selectively target and kill cancer cells, while leaving normal cells healthy and unaffected.

“It is well documented that sulforaphane can target cancer cells through multiple chemopreventive mechanisms," said the authors, led by Dr Emily Ho, associate professor at the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, USA.

“Here we show for the first time that sulforaphane selectively targets benign hyperplasia cells and cancerous prostate cells while leaving the normal prostate cells unaffected,” they added.

The tissue of cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage, contain high levels of the plant chemicals glucosinolates. These are metabolized by the body into isothiocyanates (such as sulforaphane), which have been suggested to be powerful anti-cancer agents.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Moderate to Intense Exercise May Protect the Brain

Older people who regularly exercise at a moderate to intense level may be less likely to develop the small brain lesions, sometimes referred to as “silent strokes,” that are the first sign of cerebrovascular disease, according to a new study published in the June 8, 2011, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN).

“These ‘silent strokes’ are more significant than the name implies, because they have been associated with an increased risk of falls and impaired mobility, memory problems and even dementia, as well as stroke,” said study author Joshua Z. Willey, MD, MS, of Columbia University in New York and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. The research was also completed at the Univerisy of Miami in Florida. “Encouraging older people to take part in moderate to intense exercise may be an important strategy for keeping their brains healthy.”

The study involved 1,238 people who had never had a stroke. Participants completed a questionnaire about how often and how intensely they exercised at the beginning of the study and then had MRI scans of their brains an average of six years later, when they were an average of 70 years old.

A total of 43 percent of the participants reported that they had no regular exercise; 36 percent engaged in regular light exercise, such as golf, walking, bowling or dancing; and 21 percent engaged in regular moderate to intense exercise, such as hiking, tennis, swimming, biking, jogging or racquetball.

The brain scans showed that 197 of the participants, or 16 percent, had small brain lesions, or infarcts, called silent strokes. People who engaged in moderate to intense exercise were 40 percent less likely to have the silent strokes than people who did no regular exercise. The results remained the same after the researchers took into account other vascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and smoking. There was no difference between those who engaged in light exercise and those who did not exercise.

“Of course, light exercise has many other beneficial effects, and these results should not discourage people from doing light exercise,” Willey said.

The study also showed that the benefit of moderate to intense exercise on brain health was not apparent for people with Medicaid or no health insurance. People who exercised regularly at a moderate to intense level who had Medicaid or no health insurance were no less likely to have silent infarcts than people who did no regular exercise. “It may be that the overall life difficulties for people with no insurance or on Medicaid lessens the protective effect of regular exercise,” Willey said.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

The Healthy Mind Platter

Just as we now have a Healthy Food Plate, which the government recently released to replace the Food Pyramid, why not also adopt a Healthy Mind Platter. (Courtesy of Dr. Dan Siegel)

Seven daily essential mental activities to optimize brain matter and create well-being:
Focus Time. When we closely focus on tasks in a goal-oriented way, we take on challenges that make deep connections in the brain.
Play Time. When we allow ourselves to be spontaneous or creative, playfully enjoying novel experiences, we help make new connections in the brain.
Connecting Time. When we connect with other people, ideally in person, and when we take time to appreciate our connection to the natural world around us, we activate and reinforce the brain's relational circuitry.
Physical Time. When we move our bodies, especially aerobically, we strengthen the brain in many ways.
Time In. When we quietly reflect internally, focusing on sensations, images, feelings and thoughts, we help to better integrate the brain.
Down Time. When we are non-focused, without any specific goal, and let our mind wander or simply relax, we help the brain recharge.
Sleep Time. When we give the brain the rest it needs, we consolidate learning and recover from the experiences of the day.