Feed Your Mind

Are Chemicals Making You Fat?

2011-08-25T14:46:00.001-07:00

Many people say the obesity epidemic could be solved if we just got off our butt to hit the gym and stopped eating so many Big Macs. Diet and exercise do play a huge role in what we weigh, of course, but there’s one glitch with this theory: Over the past quarter century, the incidence of obesity has risen most markedly—by a whopping 74 percent—not in adults or children, but in infants.

In fact, six-month-olds today are fatter than they were in 1980, despite the fact that birth weights overall have been decreasing—a finding that makes some scientists wonder whether environmental chemicals could be causing babies to rapidly gain weight after birth. Bruce Blumberg, Ph.D., a biologist at the University of California-Irvine, is so concerned that these chemicals play a significant role in the rise in obesity that he considers them “obesogens.” “Not too long ago, no one would’ve believed there was such a thing as an obesogen and that anything except eating too much could make you fat,” he says. But in Blumberg’s research, TBT, a common chemical used to make PVC plastic (of the sort found in some shower curtains), caused mice to develop extra fat cells. And when Blumberg exposed pregnant mice to the chemical, their pups grew to be up to 15 percent fatter than mice that hadn’t been exposed.

Now, this is animal research, and no one knows just how widely humans are exposed to TBT, which hasn’t been tested extensively in humans. But last year researchers at the University at Albany in New York found traces of the chemical in every single sample of house dust they analyzed.

BPA and phthalates, chemicals used to make plastic flexible, may also impact your weight. Boston University research found that teen girls with greater levels of a certain phthalate in their urine were at higher BMIs than those without. Another study found that Americans who were most exposed to both chemicals were more at risk of developing diabetes. As a double whammy, BPA and some pesticides may even disrupt our body’s ability to regulate blood sugar and hunger—two key factors in losing weight. “For me, there’s no doubt common chemicals are playing a role in obesity and related diseases,” says Richard Stahlhut, M.D., an environmental health scientist at the University of Rochester in New York. “Some overweight people have been taking a beating for diseases that are not their fault.”

The good news, some researchers say, is that we may be able to lose weight not by starving ourselves but by avoiding obesogens. While researching his book The New American Diet, journalist Stephen Perrine asked 400 people to cut their obesogen exposure for six weeks. “We had them swap out foods that tended to be high in obesogens, such as canned foods and grain-fed meats, for versions of these foods with lower chemical loads,” Perrine says. They were still allowed to eat burgers and pork chops, just ones that were free-range and hormone-free. After six weeks, the subjects had lost, on average, 15 pounds. Filling your plate with (organic) green leafy vegetables like spinach and kale, which are high in folate, also helps.

Ginger and Lentil Soup

2011-08-23T20:31:00.000-07:00

This anti-inflammatory, healing soup is perfect for a cool fall day. As we transition from summer to fall, try adding warming foods to your diet.

Healing Ginger and Lentil Soup

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, chopped small
3 to 6 cloves garlic, minced
3 to 4 tablespoons ginger, grated or
nely diced
3 cups water
3 to 4 carrots, sliced
1 pound French lentils
6 cups vegetable or chicken broth
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or to
taste)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
grated Gruyere cheese for serving
(optional)
cooked quinoa for serving

Sift through the lentils for rocks and pebbles. Place in a colander and rinse with cool water. Set aside.
Chop onions and garlic, grate ginger, and chop carrots.
Place a large pot over medium heat. Add oil. When oil is hot, add onions. Cook until transparent and slightly browned. Add garlic, ginger, carrots and cook, while stirring,for 1 minute.
Add cumin and cayenne pepper and cook for 30 seconds.
Add the water to the hot pot and scrape the browned bits off the bottom of the pot as the liquid sizzles.
Add lentils and broth and simmer for about 45 minutes, until
lentils have softened.
Taste and season with salt and pepper. Finish with lemon.
Serve with grated cheese and/or quinoa.
The soup will last in an airtight container in the fridge for about a week. It’s also great to keep in the freezer.

10 ways to help your child grow their best brain

2011-08-18T20:10:00.000-07:00

1. Help your child learn to sing or play music or learn a second language.
2. Make sure he or she has plenty of physical activity; whenever possible, outdoors is best.
3. Cut down on sugar, especially soda and diet soda.
4. Make sure they get plenty of protein.
5. Be consistent about hours for eating, sleeping and waking.
6. Help your child set goals and respect limits.
7. Feed various ways of learning. Take them to a science fair one weekend and an art fair the next. Take them to a sports competition another week and a play the next.
8. Provide opportunities for social interaction with people of all ages.
9. Remember that one-third of the brain is set up to execute and two-thirds, to receive information. Make room for quiet time.
10. If your child studies or reads all the time, plays computer games all the time, or plays sports all the time, know that too much of anything is too much. The brain needs balance and harmony.

Lee Gerdes
Author of Limitless You:
The Infinite Possibilities of a Balanced Brain

More muscle mass can protect against insulin resistance and prediabetes.

2011-08-16T17:23:00.000-07:00

In a cross-sectional study, every 10% increase in the ratio of skeletal muscle mass to total body weight was associated with an 11% reduction in risk of insulin resistance and a 12% drop in risk of transitional, prediabetes, or overt diabetes. Over 13,000 people were studied via an analysis of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) III data. The findings point to the importance of gauging muscle mass, in addition to body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference, when assessing a patient's metabolic health, the researchers said.

Foods for Colon Health

2011-08-12T20:04:00.001-07:00

A new study from a California research team suggests that eating more legumes (dried beans, dried peas and lentils) at least three times a week can cut the risk of developing colon polyps (which can lead to cancer) by 33 percent. Brown rice reduces the risk, too, by 40 percent. Researchers at Loma Linda University also found that eating cooked green vegetables at least once a day, and dried fruit at least three times a week offers additional protection. The researchers analyzed data from more than 2,800 adults in the Adventist Health Study-1 performed in 1976-77, including information on participants who responded to a follow up study 26 years later. The first study asked participants how often they consumed specific foods. The investigators also considered other factors that could influence colon cancer risk, including family history of the disease, education, physical activity level, and constipation. They also checked alcohol intake, how often the participants ate sweets, used pain medication and took multivitamins. The study was published in the May 2011 issue of Nutrition and Cancer.

Vitamin D Reduces Diabetes Risk

2011-07-26T19:53:00.001-07:00

Higher levels of vitamin D in the blood appear to be associated with a reduced risk of diabetes among people at high risk for the disease, according to a new report. In a study of over 2,000 people with prediabetes, it was seen that the higher the level of vitamin D in the blood, the lower the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Dr. Pittas of Tuft's University says that vitamin D might play a role in diabetes by improving insulin secretion and insulin sensitivity. Though this has been seen over the years in a few other studies, this is the first one that reflects the benefit of a long-term vitamin D status.

The research showed that for every 5 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL) increase in vitamin D levels, the risk of developing diabetes dropped by 8%.

Thyroid Health Affected by Nutritional Status and Stress Hormones

2011-07-26T19:48:00.000-07:00

I recently had the privilege of hearing Dr. Chris Meletis at an Advanced Hormone Module sponsored by the Institute for Functional Medicine, According to Dr. Meletis, "the clinical evidence is clear that prior to offering thyroid replacement, identifying underlying triggers for thyroid dysfunction is a must. The First Approach ideally incorporates ensuring that the adrenal function is sufficient as defined by adequate cortisol levels, along with DHEA sulfate and pregnenolone levels. Relative to specific nutritional supplements ensuring that there are sufficient ferritin levels of at least 70 to 100 is a must, along with adequate serum selenium of at least 90 mcg/L. In addition making sure that zinc status is optimal is foundational, as low zinc can also lower both T4/T3 levels. Iodine is certainly a must as well, with a minimum of 150 mcg daily, with at least 1000 mcg per day a common initial therapeutic dosing. It has also been noted that 40% of hypothyroid patients are B12 deficient."

It is essential to ask the clinical question of why a tissue or gland has become insufficient. Optimizing nutritional status is always the first step, while making sure that an acute or chronic adrenal stress response has not down-regulated the TSH and Free T4 and Free T3 is an absolute consideration. In addition, thyroid hormone levels are dynamic as reflected in the 2007 survey published in the Archives of Internal Medicine,which showed that values spontaneously returned to normal in more than 50% of patients with abnormal TSH levels when the test was repeated at a later date.

So the bottom line is have your physician check adrenal functioning and nutritional status first before putting you on thyroid replacement hormone. Once on a replacement hormone, such as Synthroid, the thyroid may shut down, which necessitates being on thyroid replacement therapy for life.

What's the Best Way to Do a Dietary Cleanse?

2011-07-20T19:23:00.000-07:00

Faddish juice fasts can shed pounds speedily … but experts agree that a slower, whole-foods approach to cleansing is healthier and more sustainable

One thing’s for certain. The juice cleanse has gone mainstream.

Celebrities like Julia Roberts and Beyoncé have gone public with their affection for juice delivery services like NYC’s Blueprint Cleanse and that old dieting stalwart, the Master Cleanse.

But are they effective? Depends on the goal.

“The motivation for these cleanses is typically weight loss,” says Bonnie Taub-Dix, a NYC-based nutritionist and author of Read It Before You Eat It, who points out that most people who lose weight on trendy cleanses tend to gain it back.

For those looking for more of a digestive tune-up – following, say, an overindulgent summer barbecue – the experts are split when it comes to endorsing the recent spate of pricey juice and raw-food cleanses to get back on track.

But they’re all in agreement that easy lifestyle fixes (read: inexpensive) can be just as effective. Here are 5 simple expert-endorsed tips to cleansing and getting your systems back on track.

1) Find the right time to do it.
Timing is everything, and that applies to cleansing as well. Don’t pick the week a big work project is due to focus on detoxing.

Dr. Ron Stram, Director at the Center for Integrative Health and Healing, cites a low-stress environment as being necessary for optimal results. “Activity level should be moderate and you should feel relaxed,” he says.

And let’s not forget sleep. Pamela Salzman, a holistic health counselor based in Los Angeles, states that sleep is when detoxification and physical restoration occurs. Plus, “people who are under-rested are more susceptible to illness and tend to make poor dietary choices,” says Monica Reinagel, nutritionist and author of Nutrition Diva’s Secrets for a Healthy Diet.

Taub-Dix agrees, saying, “You end up reaching for a cookie instead of a nap.” She also says sustained wellness comes from practicing the trifecta of exercise, healthy diet, and sleep: “Think of a 3-legged stool. Take away one of those legs and the stool won’t be stable.”

2) Create a sustainable cleanse.
Most experts who aren’t fans of juice cleanses point out it’s not feasible to sustain them and their effects for a prolonged period of time.

“Healthful cleansing has just as much to do with moderation as overeating,” says Taub-Dix, who suggests taking an overall look at your diet and eating habits to assess what’s missing and what you really need to add for good health.

Set goals that can be integrated into your life, such as planning, shopping for, and eating a well-balanced breakfast for a week to combat the mid-morning slump. “The reality is that fad diets are based on some sort of truth that go off the deep end,” she says.

Apply common-sense principles, such as eliminating processed foods and caffeine or eating more raw food. Avoid extremes and look for sustainable change.

Reinagel also says that a 24-hour fast may be useful for people who are overly dependent on food and need to “break the cycle,” adding that a fast has “little to do with resting the digestive organs, but can reduce inflammation and improve immune response.”

No matter what, fasting for a prolonged period of time or drastically reducing your caloric intake aren’t good ideas. “Your body actually needs food to cleanse and won’t be able to function properly while fasting,” says Salzman.

3) Up your intake of fruits and vegetables.
Certain powerhouse fruits and veggies will offer more benefits on a cleanse than others. Salzman favors dark green, leafy vegetables, like kale and parsley, as they’re “rich in chlorophyll, one of nature’s natural detoxifiers.” She also recommends adding lemon juice to your water and food, as it “breaks up and draws out stagnant mucus in the body.”

Dr. Stram advocates consuming cruciferous vegetables such as cabbage, cauliflower, and bok choy, all of which contain compounds that help the liver detoxify. “Fruits and vegetables promote healthy colon function,” adds Reinagel, meaning that they help flush out toxins.

4) Chug more water.
The easiest, fastest way to jumpstart a cleanse is to properly hydrate. “Water hydrates the cells and helps flush your circulatory and lymph systems,” says Dr. Stram.

Translation: Your internal system of checks and balances won’t function at its best unless you’re drinking enough water.

Plus, “cleansing is about eliminating toxins,” says Salzman. “Once your body releases toxins, you must up your intake of water to dilute them and flush them out.”

5) Give it time to kick in.
Most people find the first few days the most challenging. “Sometimes you feel worse before you feel better,” says Salzman. “Many people experience symptoms of withdrawal from sugar, caffeine or chemicals in foods. Headaches and irritability are very common as toxins enter the bloodstream.”

Dr. Stram will advise patients combating caffeine withdrawal to switch to green tea for a few days.

If you’re sticking to healthful, “clean” foods, drinking lots of water, aiming for adequate sleep, and still feeling rotten, give your body the time needed to expel the toxins first, before turning to more drastic, less balanced fad cleanses.

Written by by Teri Tsang Barrett for Vital Choice Newsletter

Does Menu Diversity Lead to Overeating?

2011-07-20T13:31:00.000-07:00

Repeatedly being offered the same foods may lead to food ‘boredom’ and decrease energy intakes in women, but variety may actually increase caloric intake, suggests a new study.

A study with obese and non-obese women showed that, when macaroni and cheese was offered daily, the energy consumed decreased by about 100 calories a day. When the mean was provided only weekly, caloric intake increased by about 30 calories per day.

Researchers from the University at Buffalo and the University of Vermont report their findings in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition .

The findings support dietary advice for people to try to eat the same food every day, “in which case habituation may develop that would reduce the likelihood of overeating and subsequent obesity”, according to the researachers.

Led by Buffalo’s Leonard Epstein, the researchers note that monotony is known to reduce food acceptability and consumption, but their study “provide[s] the ﬁrst evidence in humans that habituation may provide a theoretical explanation for why repeatedly consuming the same food will lead to reduced consumption.

“Long-term habituation, in terms of a faster rate of habituation and reduced energy intake, was observed for the daily group but not for the weekly group.

“Repeated presentations once a day compared with once a week provide a reference point for the interval between food presentations that could lead to long-term habituation,” added Epstein and his co-workers.

Results showed that women in the daily group consumed less calories per day, whereas the weekly food exposure increased the caloric intake, and the results were the same for both obese and non-obese women.

“It is of interest that obese subjects and non-obese subjects showed similar long-term habituation to daily presentations of the same food
“These results suggest that repeated presentations of the same [main meal] over days would equally effective for obese and non-obese women,” wrote the researchers.Commenting on the study, Avena and Gold said the work was “very important” but limited due to only including women.

“Thus, it will be important to further explore whether the findings obtained in the present study extend to men.”

Source: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Volume 94, Pages 371-376
“Long-term habituation to food in obese and nonobese women”
Authors: L.H. Epstein, K.A. Carr, M.D. Cavanaugh, R.A. Paluch, M.E. Bouton

Editorial: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Volume 94, Pages 367-368
“Variety and hyperpalatability: are they promoting addictive overeating?”
Authors: N.M. Avena, M.S. Gold

Now tell me what you think? Does diversity in food choices lead to overeating? Maybe it depends upon what's being served. I could eat dark chocolate 365 days a year.

Deficiency in D major: Did vitamin deficiency led to Mozart’s untimely death?

2011-07-19T19:47:00.000-07:00

A lack of exposure to sun and the resulting deficiency in vitamin D may have been behind the early demise of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, suggests a new analysis.

All work and no play (outside), made Wolfgang a sick boy
Mozart passed away at the tender age of 35 having suffered from a list of infectious diseases throughout his lifetime, including pneumonia and sepsis, heart disease, and kidney disease, all of which have a link to vitamin D deficiency, according to a letter to the journal Medical Problems of Performing Artists.

William Grant, PhD, from the Sunlight, Nutrition, and Health Research Center (SUNARC) in San Francisco and Stefan Pilz, MD, from the Medical University of Graz in Austria report that weak sunlight for six months of the year in Salzburg and Vienna would have made it impossible for a person to make vitamin D from sun exposure.

Add to this that Mozart did the majority of his composing at night – and therefore slept during the day – and you have a new hypothesis to explain Mozart’s death.

“While understanding the causes of Mozart’s death cannot bring him back,” wrote Grant and Pilz, “it does have an important lesson for those living at higher latitudes in Europe and elsewhere regarding the importance of vitamin D.

“Emerging science indicates that the serum 25(OH)D level [the storage form of vitamin D in the body] for optimal health is 75 to 100 nmol/L or slightly higher. Mainly attributable to reduced sunlight-induced vitamin D synthesis in the skin, the population mean value for those living at mid-to-high latitudes is between 40 and 65 nmol/L.

“To increase serum 25(OH)D levels to over 100 nmol/L could take 2500 to 5000 IU of vitamin D per day.”

Source: Medical Problems of Performing Artists
June 2011, Volume 26, Number 2, Page 117
“Vitamin D deficiency contributed to Mozart's death”
Authors: W.B. Grant, S. Pilz

"Chemical Calories" May Be Making Us Fat

2011-07-11T20:10:00.000-07:00

Hair-raising theory: Scientists say chemicals in beauty products can make us put on weight by altering our hormone balance

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2013283/Is-shampoo-making-FAT-The-truth-chemical-calories-beauty-products.html#ixzz1RqpBRWQE

By Peta Bee

When it comes to losing weight, most of us are aware of the three factors at play: genetics, the number of calories we consume and the energy we are prepared to expend sweating our way into shape.

We can’t choose our parents but, according to the dieting mantra, eat healthily, exercise regularly and the pounds will eventually drop off.

But what if your body stubbornly refuses to remove excess fat, despite concerted efforts to shift it? Emerging evidence suggests that a more sinister reason than food and activity could be contributing to weight problems and that so-called ‘chemical calories’ lurking in everyday beauty products such as shampoo, body lotions and soap could be to blame.

Doctors at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York claim that phthalates, chemical ingredients in 70 per cent of cosmetics as well as many household cleaning products, have been shown to throw the body’s natural weight control system, a delicate balance of hormones, off kilter.

They suggest that exposure to phthalates through daily use may be linked to childhood obesity and weight problems in adults.

In their long-term study on girls living in the inner city area of East Harlem, the Mount Sinai team measured exposure to phthalates by analysing the children’s urine.

‘The heaviest girls have the highest levels of phthalates in their urine,’ says Professor Philip Landrigan, a paediatrician and the study author. ‘It goes up as the children get heavier, but it’s most evident in the heaviest kids.’

Phthalates have been widely used as gelling agents in cosmetics, cleaning products and to make plastic bottles for more than half a century, but it has only just come to light that there may be possible health risks.
Another substance, Bisphenol-A (BPA), also present in containers and bottles, has also been found to provide ‘chemical calories’.

It’s the fact they are absorbed into the body that causes most concern. Billed as ‘endocrine disruptors’, they are known to affect the glands and hormones that regulate numerous bodily functions.

Studies on animals have shown consistently that the chemicals depress testosterone levels, known to be a risk factor for weight gain. They have also been found to mimic the effects of oestrogen, which have been linked to weight gain and early puberty.

Further research on humans linked phthalates with poor semen quality in men and with subtle alterations in the reproductive organs of male babies. And now come the latest revelations that they may also influence weight.

In numerous studies, mice exposed to such ‘endocrine disruptors’ became obese. But could the same effect occur in people?

Zoe Harcombe, nutritionist and author of the Obesity Epidemic, says that even the slightest disruption to hormone levels ‘is very bad news’ for someone trying to lose weight.

‘In men, phthalates and other chemicals have an anti-testosterone capacity that has been linked to obesity,’ she says. ‘In women they mess up our basic genetic hormone balance so that you get disruptions similar to those that might occur during the menopause or at puberty.’

Using phthalate-containing cosmetics when you are dieting could make matters worse. ‘Women who follow a low-fat diet are likely to suffer the most from adverse side-effects to these chemicals,’ says Harcombe:
‘By reducing the fat they consume, they also reduce the fat-soluble vitamins in their body. That often leaves them with dry skin. They slather on moisturisers to rectify that problem without realising they are unwittingly causing another by supplying chemical calories through the skin.’

Among those at the forefront of tackling obesity, the influence of chemicals is a hot topic.

Tam Fry, a spokesperson for the National Obesity Forum, says many obesity doctors accept that the hormonal disruption caused by exposure to chemicals does play a part in weight problems. While under-activity and over-eating remain the major causes of obesity, Fry says more work needs to be done to confirm the links.

‘There is particular concern about whether these chemicals with an oestrogenic effect are contributing to earlier puberty in girls,’ Fry says.

‘Girls reach puberty when they are at a weight that can support the reproductive cycle and this is getting earlier and earlier. Whether that’s a result of straightforward over-eating by a generation of young girls or whether there is an additional chemical effect, we don’t yet know.’

It’s not just girls who seem susceptible to the phthalate effect. In 2007, researchers at the University of Rochester school of medicine in New York found the same class of chemicals were contributing to abdominal obesity and insulin resistance, a precursor to diabetes, in men.

Adding Soluble Fiber to the Diet May Reduce Abdominal Fat

2011-06-30T21:07:00.000-07:00

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.

Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

2011-06-19T15:35:00.000-07:00

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.

Olive Oil Consumption May Lower Risk of Stroke

2011-06-16T20:43:00.000-07:00

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

2011-06-16T08:49:00.001-07:00

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.

Broccoli Extract can Selectively Target Cancer Cells

2011-06-15T18:12:00.000-07:00

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.

Moderate to Intense Exercise May Protect the Brain

2011-06-14T18:16:00.000-07:00

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.

The Healthy Mind Platter

2011-06-11T18:12:00.000-07:00

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.

Social Connections Influence Our Genes

2011-05-23T19:17:00.000-07:00

Scientists are discovering that the environment plays a powerful role in biology, including influencing gene expression. For example, researchers found that social circumstances influenced gene expression in cancer cells. More than 220 genes were turned on in the cancer cells of women with low levels of social support and high levels of depression. These genes were not active in women with good social support. Some of the genes that were turned on were associated with higher rates of cancer spreading from one organ to another. These and other studies are showing that at a molecular level, social and emotional factors relate to physical health. These scientists are studying "the psychology of cells" and proving that genes and the environment are linked. Your genetic capacity can be compared to a sandbox of possibilities, but what kind of castle you build depends upon your experiences.

Carrageenan May Be Carcinogenic

2011-05-19T11:04:00.000-07:00

Carrageenan, a common and food additive that comes from red seaweed, is used as a thickener and emulsifier in many processed foods, such as ice cream, yogurt, cottage cheese, soy milk and other processed food products. Many of these products may be so-called health foods. Based on results of animal studies, it has been tagged by some as an unsafe product that may cause ulcerations and cancers of the gastrointestinal tract. According to Dr Andrew Weil, the evidence is compelling enough to avoid carrageenan in any product, especially if you have GI disorders such as irritable bowel disease.

Omega-3s May Reduce Symptoms of Depression in the Elderly

2011-05-18T16:15:00.000-07:00

According to findings published in The Journal of Nutrition, Health & Aging, depressed women who received daily supplements containing 2.5 grams of omega-3 experienced significant reductions in their symptoms.

In addition, researchers from the University of Pavia also report that omega-3 supplements providing a daily EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) dose of 1.67 grams and a daily DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) dose of 0.83 grams reported improvements in the ‘quality of life’.

“This [quality of life] observation has never been achieved before and it appears of great value from the clinical point of view, due to the importance of these aspects in the elderly population,” wrote the researchers.

“The concept of quality of life is defined as a perceived global satisfaction and satisfaction within a number of key domains, with special emphasis on well-being.

“Therefore, the amelioration of quality of life in depressed elderly patients after supplementation with omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids is an important finding,” they added.

Jury’s still out?

The link between omega-3 and mood is complex and data to date is contradictory. For example, in researchers from Norway reported that regular and long-term intake of omega-3 fatty acid-rich cod liver oil may protect people from symptoms of depression (Journal of Affective Disorders).

Moreover, a joint Anglo-Iranian study reported that depression ratings were cut by 50 per cent following daily one gram supplements of EPA, an effect similar to that obtained by the antidepressant drug fluoxetine, according to findings published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry.

Despite this growing number of studies, the science overall is unsufficient to support a link between omega-3 and depression, said the British Medical Journal's Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin (DTB) in February 2007.

"Despite observational evidence linking depression with reduced intake of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, there is no convincing basis for using these nutrients as a [means of alleviating] the condition," stated the DTB.

Commenting on the findings, Harry Rice, PhD, VP regulatory & scientific affairs for the Global Organization for EPA and DHA Omega-3s (GOED) welcomed the findings and said that they were not only statistically significant, “but clinically significant in that long-chain omega-3 intake improved quality of life while decreasing the severity of depression in elderly females not taking any antidepressant medication”.

“The logical next question is ‘Do the results hold up in elderly men not taking antidepressant medication?’

“While the results are exciting with potential clinical utility, it’s a stretch to conclude that the results support the theory that depression is a manifestation of a decrease in the omega-3 to omega-6 ratio caused by excessive omega-6 intake.

“For now, what can be concluded is that long-chain omega-3 supplementation reduced depressive symptoms, while improving quality of life, in elderly women. The public health implications of such findings are widespread,” added Dr Rice.

L-theanine May Increase Concentration and Promote Relaxation

2011-05-11T10:37:00.000-07:00

Daily supplements of L-theanine, an amino acid found in tea, may help people with anxiety focus on their daily activities, suggests a new study from Japan.
On the other hand, people with minimal anxiety levels did not experience any benefits from supplementation, according to findings published in the Journal of Functional Foods.

“Given that L-theanine is a relaxant, it is directly or indirectly involved at the neurochemical level and thus it is impacted by a number of neurotransmitter systems,” wrote the scientists from the University of Shiga Prefecture and Taiyo Kagaku.

“Therefore, 200 mg of L-theanine intake may help normal people with high anxiety propensity to concentrate on their daily activities.”

The study used Taiyo Kagaku’s Suntheanine-branded L-theanine ingredient, and the Japanese company funded the study.

L-theanine, an amino acid found in tea leaves, is thought to help reduce stress, promote relaxation and improve the quality of sleep. L-theanine is found in tea leaves in low concentrations (less than 2 percent), which means that effective dosage levels (of 100 – 200mg/day) cannot be delivered from drinking tea.

Various health effects have been associated with L-theanine, including relaxation, neuroprotective effects, and improved attention.

During rest, L-theanine increases alpha activity in EEG models - suggesting greater relaxation. Whilst the amino acid is known to induce changes in alpha activity that indicates increased attentional processing during tasks that require attention.

The new study confirmed the dose of 200 mg for “enhanced performance in visual attention task, and reaction time response, among the subjects with higher anxiety propensity symptoms”.

Blueberries May Help Reduce Fat Cells

2011-05-05T18:50:00.001-07:00

The benefits of blueberry consumption have been demonstrated in several nutrition studies, more specifically the cardio-protective benefits derived from their high polyphenol content. Blueberries have shown potential to have a positive effect on everything from aging to metabolic syndrome. Recently, a researcher from Texas Woman's University (TWU) in Denton, TX, examined whether blueberries could play a role in reducing one of the world's greatest health challenges: obesity. Shiwani Moghe, MS, a graduate student at TWU, decided to evaluate whether blueberry polyphenols play a role in adipocyte differentiation, the process in which a relatively unspecialized cell acquires specialized features of an adipocyte, an animal connective tissue cell specialized for the synthesis and storage of fat. Plant polyphenols have been shown to fight adipogenesis, which is the development of fat cells, and induce lipolysis, which is the breakdown of lipids/fat.

Green Tea May Help Memory

2011-05-04T12:03:00.000-07:00

Daily supplements of a green tea extract may boost mental alertness and enhance memory, according to a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study from Korea.

Milk and sugar? Let me think about it...
A combination of a green tea extract with L-theanine was associated with improvements in immediate and delayed recall, and general memory, according to findings published in the Journal of Medicinal Foods.

“As a natural ingredient with a long history of consumption, LGNC-07 [ – a combination of green tea extract and L-theanine - ] should be considered as a potential nutraceutical candidate for enhancing cognitive performance,” according to the researchers.

The majority of science on tea has looked at green tea, with benefits reported for reducing the risk of Alzheimer's and certain cancers, improving cardiovascular and oral health, as well as aiding in weight management.

Green tea contains between 30 and 40 per cent of water-extractable polyphenols, while black tea (green tea that has been oxidized by fermentation) contains between 3 and 10 per cent. Oolong tea is semi-fermented tea and is somewhere between green and black tea. The four primary polyphenols found in fresh tea leaves are epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), epigallocatechin, epicatechin gallate, and epicatechin.

Sugar and Fatty Foods as Addictive as Drugs

2011-05-03T19:15:00.000-07:00

The brain's response to the tempting appeal of a sugary, fatty milkshake or to a bag of salty, greasy snack chips appears to be the same response a drug addict's brain exhibits when anticipating the next "hit," suggests a new study published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry. Ashley Gearhardt of Yale University and her colleagues found that the addictive nature of many junk foods is literally the same as the addictive nature of drugs.

The team analyzed the brains of a group of 48 young women, who were tempted with either a chocolate milkshake or a tasteless beverage solution. Based on data gathered using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the team discovered that the women's anterior cingulate cortex and the medial orbitofrontal cortex -- two areas of the brain known to respond to drug addiction -- both responded to sensory cravings for the milkshake, regardless of the women's weight.

Gluten Intolerance: The Hidden Epidemic

2011-05-01T20:22:00.000-07:00

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(NaturalNews) Gluten is the common protein found in wheat, barley, oats, spelt, kamut, & rye. Gluten is a sticky, storage protein that when combined with water becomes sort of `gluey.` Inside of the digestive tract, this reaction can lead to gluten binding to the small intestinal wall where it can cause digestive and immune system disorders. Gluten sensitivity is an epidemic that is a major contributing factor with many of today`s health problems.

Gliadins are the glycoprotein portion of the gluten molecule that is responsible for the negative effects. Researchers have found that certain gliadin compounds can bind to a chemo attractant receptor and increase a certain factor that destroys tight junctions. These junctions tie the small intestinal cells together and prevent leakage of food particles into the body. This gliadin reaction has been linked to increased intestinal permeability and leaky gut syndrome.

When the gut is permeable and food particles are able to cross into the blood stream it creates a stress response in the body. As a result of this, the body very often forms an immune response to the circulating molecules as well as to the toxic culprits causing havoc in the gut.

This immune reaction begins with the body forming T-lymphocyte recognition of gluten peptides in circulation and gluten peptides that are bound to tissue. Once this recognition is formed the second immune interaction results in the production of Anti-Gliadin anti-bodies (AGA). Over time this process creates a dramatic increase in gut inflammation and finally toxic destruction to the villi of the small intestine as seen in Celiac disease.

Experts now believe that celiac disease represents just one extreme of a broad spectrum of gluten intolerance that includes millions of people with less severe -- but nevertheless problematic -- reactions to the protein. While celiac disease affects about 1% of the U.S. population, certain experts believe that 3-15% of the population have elevated AGA levels and may or may not have any diagnosed symptoms. This is a syndrome entitled non-celiac gluten intolerance (NCGI). There are many others who have negative AGA levels but may still have gluten sensitive reactions.

When it comes to celiac disease and gluten intolerance, scientists look at HLA DQ genes. According to gluten researcher Dr. Kenneth Fine, 90% of people with celiac have the DQ2 gene. This gene is mostly found in individuals with Northern European background. 9% have the DQ8 gene which is more common among those of European/Mediterranean descent. The DQ 1 & DQ3 genes are associated more with gluten intolerance than celiac disease.

"This is something that we're just beginning to get our heads around," says Daniel Leffler, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a gastroenterologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in Boston. "There is a tight definition of celiac disease, but gluten intolerance has been a moving target."

Dr. Kenneth Fine`s research estimates that Americans are genetically susceptible to celiac disease by 43% while 81% are predisposed to gluten intolerances. While some may have digestive discomfort, most do not. Many may instead experience inflammation in the skin (eczema & psoriasis), joints (arthritis), respiratory tract (asthma, allergies) and brain (brain fog, poor memory, dizziness, etc.).

"Gluten is fairly indigestible in all people," Leffler says. "There's probably some kind of gluten intolerance in all of us." Untreated or undiagnosed individuals with elevated AGA are at an increased risk for lymphoid cancers and other auto-immune disorders such as Sjogren`s syndrome & Hashimoto`s Thyroiditis. Anyone with chronic inflammatory conditions should immediately consider removing gluten from their diet. Brown rice and quinoa are much better choices.

(Many of my patients with depression improve significantly when they remove gluten from their diet.)

This article was recently featured in NaturalNewsTV.com

Low Vitamin D Linked to Moew Aggressive Breast Cancers

2011-05-01T08:03:00.001-07:00

Breast cancer patients with suboptimal vitamin D levels were more likely to have tumors with more aggressive tumor profiles, worse prognostic markers (ER- and triple-negative tumors), and higher recurrence risk (Oncotype scores), lending support to previous research that found decreased breast cancer survival among vitamin D deficient individuals."

Losing Weight Improves Cognitive Functioning

2011-04-21T19:41:00.001-07:00

A study at Kent State University found that overweight patients who had gastric bypass surgery scored much better on tests of memory and cognitive function after shedding about 50 pounds in the months following the operations. The investigation included 150 patients all of whom were tested initially to assess their mental abilities; then 109 participants underwent the surgery.

Green Tea Consumption May Reduce Belly Fat

2011-04-21T09:17:00.000-07:00

Compelling evidence presented in the journal Nutrition Research makes the irrefutable connection among green tea consumption, lowered body weight and reduced levels of dangerous belly fat. Drinking between 5 and 8 cups of green tea each day was shown to lower body weight by 5.6% and to decrease abdominal fat stores by 17.8% over a period of 8 weeks. Green tea consumption has long been associated with lowered risk of cancer, metabolic syndrome and heart disease. This research provides compelling evidence that green tea boosts metabolism to target fat stores and assists weight loss efforts.

Green tea extracts have been researched extensively over the past decade and are shown to dramatically lower the risk of Alzheimer`s disease and dementia, cardiovascular disease and many forms of cancer. Additional studies have shown that the polyphenols in green tea are a significant factor in improved oral health and can provide necessary support for weight management and control. Green tea is composed of four primary polyphenols (epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), epigallocatechin, epicatechin gallate, and epicatechin) that are shown to influence genetic signaling and metabolic rate.

Vitamin D May Lower Blood Sugar Levels

2011-04-18T20:14:00.000-07:00

Researchers from the National Nutrition and Food Technology Research Institute in Iran discovered recently that when given extra vitamin D as part of their daily diets for several months, diabetics' blood sugar levels decreased.

Tirang Neyestani and colleagues divided 90 adult participants with diabetes into three test groups. The first group received plain yogurt with no added vitamin D, the second group received a vitamin D-fortified yogurt, and the final group received a vitamin D-fortified yogurt with added calcium. The vitamin D yogurt in the two latter groups contained a moderate 500 international units (IU) of the vitamin.

At the end of three months, the plain yogurt group experienced a nine percent average increase in blood sugar levels, while the two vitamin D groups actually experienced a seven percent decrease in blood sugar levels. And at the end of the entire 12-week study, Neyestani told Reuters that the vitamin D groups experienced a "relatively remarkable improvement" in their conditions.

(I typically recommend 1000 IUs of vitamin D3 in the summer and 2000 IUs during the winter months)

Fish Oil Supplementation Reduces Postpartum Depression

2011-04-15T17:06:00.000-07:00

Eating fatty fish or other foods rich in healthy omega-3 fatty acids during pregnancy may help lower your risk of developing symptoms commonly seen in postpartum depression, a study suggested at the Experimental Biology 2011 annual meeting. The pregnant women took either a corn oil placebo pill or a fish oil capsule containing 300 milligrams of DHA for five days a week during the 24th to 40th weeks of their pregnancy. The amount of DHA contained in each capsule is the equivalent of about one-half serving of salmon. The researchers used a postpartum depression screening scale to determine if the women were showing any signs or symptoms of postpartum depression two weeks, six weeks, three months, and six months after delivery. Women who received the fish oil supplements scored lower on the scale and had significantly fewer postpartum depression symptoms than those who received the placebo. Women in the fish oil group were also less likely to report anxiety symptoms.

Is Sugar Toxic?

2011-04-13T17:15:00.000-07:00

Is Sugar Toxic?

By GARY TAUBES

On May 26, 2009, Robert Lustig gave a lecture called “Sugar: The Bitter Truth,” which was posted on YouTube the following July. Since then, it has been viewed well over 800,000 times, gaining new viewers at a rate of about 50,000 per month, fairly remarkable numbers for a 90-minute discussion of the nuances of fructose biochemistry and human physiology.

Lustig is a specialist on pediatric hormone disorders and the leading expert in childhood obesity at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, which is one of the best medical schools in the country. He published his first paper on childhood obesity a dozen years ago, and he has been treating patients and doing research on the disorder ever since.

The viral success of his lecture, though, has little to do with Lustig’s impressive credentials and far more with the persuasive case he makes that sugar is a “toxin” or a “poison,” terms he uses together 13 times through the course of the lecture, in addition to the five references to sugar as merely “evil.” And by “sugar,” Lustig means not only the white granulated stuff that we put in coffee and sprinkle on cereal — technically known as sucrose — but also high-fructose corn syrup, which has already become without Lustig’s help what he calls “the most demonized additive known to man.”

It doesn’t hurt Lustig’s cause that he is a compelling public speaker. His critics argue that what makes him compelling is his practice of taking suggestive evidence and insisting that it’s incontrovertible. Lustig certainly doesn’t dabble in shades of gray. Sugar is not just an empty calorie, he says; its effect on us is much more insidious. “It’s not about the calories,” he says. “It has nothing to do with the calories. It’s a poison by itself.”

If Lustig is right, then our excessive consumption of sugar is the primary reason that the numbers of obese and diabetic Americans have skyrocketed in the past 30 years. But his argument implies more than that. If Lustig is right, it would mean that sugar is also the likely dietary cause of several other chronic ailments widely considered to be diseases of Western lifestyles — heart disease, hypertension and many common cancers among them.

The number of viewers Lustig has attracted suggests that people are paying attention to his argument. When I set out to interview public health authorities and researchers for this article, they would often initiate the interview with some variation of the comment “surely you’ve spoken to Robert Lustig,” not because Lustig has done any of the key research on sugar himself, which he hasn’t, but because he’s willing to insist publicly and unambiguously, when most researchers are not, that sugar is a toxic substance that people abuse. In Lustig’s view, sugar should be thought of, like cigarettes and alcohol, as something that’s killing us.

This brings us to the salient question: Can sugar possibly be as bad as Lustig says it is?

It’s one thing to suggest, as most nutritionists will, that a healthful diet includes more fruits and vegetables, and maybe less fat, red meat and salt, or less of everything. It’s entirely different to claim that one particularly cherished aspect of our diet might not just be an unhealthful indulgence but actually be toxic, that when you bake your children a birthday cake or give them lemonade on a hot summer day, you may be doing them more harm than good, despite all the love that goes with it. Suggesting that sugar might kill us is what zealots do. But Lustig, who has genuine expertise, has accumulated and synthesized a mass of evidence, which he finds compelling enough to convict sugar. His critics consider that evidence insufficient, but there’s no way to know who might be right, or what must be done to find out, without discussing it.

If I didn’t buy this argument myself, I wouldn’t be writing about it here. And I also have a disclaimer to acknowledge. I’ve spent much of the last decade doing journalistic research on diet and chronic disease — some of the more contrarian findings, on dietary fat, appeared in this magazine —– and I have come to conclusions similar to Lustig’s.

The history of the debate over the health effects of sugar has gone on far longer than you might imagine. It is littered with erroneous statements and conclusions because even the supposed authorities had no true understanding of what they were talking about. They didn’t know, quite literally, what they meant by the word “sugar” and therefore what the implications were.

So let’s start by clarifying a few issues, beginning with Lustig’s use of the word “sugar” to mean both sucrose — beet and cane sugar, whether white or brown — and high-fructose corn syrup. This is a critical point, particularly because high-fructose corn syrup has indeed become “the flashpoint for everybody’s distrust of processed foods,” says Marion Nestle, a New York University nutritionist and the author of “Food Politics.”

This development is recent and borders on humorous. In the early 1980s, high-fructose corn syrup replaced sugar in sodas and other products in part because refined sugar then had the reputation as a generally noxious nutrient. (“Villain in Disguise?” asked a headline in this paper in 1977, before answering in the affirmative.) High-fructose corn syrup was portrayed by the food industry as a healthful alternative, and that’s how the public perceived it. It was also cheaper than sugar, which didn’t hurt its commercial prospects. Now the tide is rolling the other way, and refined sugar is making a commercial comeback as the supposedly healthful alternative to this noxious corn-syrup stuff. “Industry after industry is replacing their product with sucrose and advertising it as such — ‘No High-Fructose Corn Syrup,’ ” Nestle notes.

But marketing aside, the two sweeteners are effectively identical in their biological effects. “High-fructose corn syrup, sugar — no difference,” is how Lustig put it in a lecture that I attended in San Francisco last December. “The point is they’re each bad — equally bad, equally poisonous.”

Refined sugar (that is, sucrose) is made up of a molecule of the carbohydrate glucose, bonded to a molecule of the carbohydrate fructose — a 50-50 mixture of the two. The fructose, which is almost twice as sweet as glucose, is what distinguishes sugar from other carbohydrate-rich foods like bread or potatoes that break down upon digestion to glucose alone. The more fructose in a substance, the sweeter it will be. High-fructose corn syrup, as it is most commonly consumed, is 55 percent fructose, and the remaining 45 percent is nearly all glucose. It was first marketed in the late 1970s and was created to be indistinguishable from refined sugar when used in soft drinks. Because each of these sugars ends up as glucose and fructose in our guts, our bodies react the same way to both, and the physiological effects are identical. In a 2010 review of the relevant science, Luc Tappy, a researcher at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland who is considered by biochemists who study fructose to be the world’s foremost authority on the subject, said there was “not the single hint” that H.F.C.S. was more deleterious than other sources of sugar.

The question, then, isn’t whether high-fructose corn syrup is worse than sugar; it’s what do they do to us, and how do they do it? The conventional wisdom has long been that the worst that can be said about sugars of any kind is that they cause tooth decay and represent “empty calories” that we eat in excess because they taste so good.

By this logic, sugar-sweetened beverages (or H.F.C.S.-sweetened beverages, as the Sugar Association prefers they are called) are bad for us not because there’s anything particularly toxic about the sugar they contain but just because people consume too many of them.

Those organizations that now advise us to cut down on our sugar consumption — the Department of Agriculture, for instance, in its recent Dietary Guidelines for Americans, or the American Heart Association in guidelines released in September 2009 (of which Lustig was a co-author) — do so for this reason. Refined sugar and H.F.C.S. don’t come with any protein, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants or fiber, and so they either displace other more nutritious elements of our diet or are eaten over and above what we need to sustain our weight, and this is why we get fatter.

Whether the empty-calories argument is true, it’s certainly convenient. It allows everyone to assign blame for obesity and, by extension, diabetes — two conditions so intimately linked that some authorities have taken to calling them “diabesity” — to overeating of all foods, or underexercising, because a calorie is a calorie. “This isn’t about demonizing any industry,” as Michelle Obama said about her Let’s Move program to combat the epidemic of childhood obesity. Instead it’s about getting us — or our children — to move more and eat less, reduce our portion sizes, cut back on snacks.

Lustig’s argument, however, is not about the consumption of empty calories — and biochemists have made the same case previously, though not so publicly. It is that sugar has unique characteristics, specifically in the way the human body metabolizes the fructose in it, that may make it singularly harmful, at least if consumed in sufficient quantities.

The phrase Lustig uses when he describes this concept is “isocaloric but not isometabolic.” This means we can eat 100 calories of glucose (from a potato or bread or other starch) or 100 calories of sugar (half glucose and half fructose), and they will be metabolized differently and have a different effect on the body. The calories are the same, but the metabolic consequences are quite different.

The fructose component of sugar and H.F.C.S. is metabolized primarily by the liver, while the glucose from sugar and starches is metabolized by every cell in the body. Consuming sugar (fructose and glucose) means more work for the liver than if you consumed the same number of calories of starch (glucose). And if you take that sugar in liquid form — soda or fruit juices — the fructose and glucose will hit the liver more quickly than if you consume them, say, in an apple (or several apples, to get what researchers would call the equivalent dose of sugar). The speed with which the liver has to do its work will also affect how it metabolizes the fructose and glucose.

In animals, or at least in laboratory rats and mice, it’s clear that if the fructose hits the liver in sufficient quantity and with sufficient speed, the liver will convert much of it to fat. This apparently induces a condition known as insulin resistance, which is now considered the fundamental problem in obesity, and the underlying defect in heart disease and in the type of diabetes, type 2, that is common to obese and overweight individuals. It might also be the underlying defect in many cancers.

If what happens in laboratory rodents also happens in humans, and if we are eating enough sugar to make it happen, then we are in trouble.

The last time an agency of the federal government looked into the question of sugar and health in any detail was in 2005, in a report by the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academies. The authors of the report acknowledged that plenty of evidence suggested that sugar could increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes — even raising LDL cholesterol, known as the “bad cholesterol”—– but did not consider the research to be definitive. There was enough ambiguity, they concluded, that they couldn’t even set an upper limit on how much sugar constitutes too much. Referring back to the 2005 report, an Institute of Medicine report released last fall reiterated, “There is a lack of scientific agreement about the amount of sugars that can be consumed in a healthy diet.” This was the same conclusion that the Food and Drug Administration came to when it last assessed the sugar question, back in 1986. The F.D.A. report was perceived as an exoneration of sugar, and that perception influenced the treatment of sugar in the landmark reports on diet and health that came after.

The Sugar Association and the Corn Refiners Association have also portrayed the 1986 F.D.A. report as clearing sugar of nutritional crimes, but what it concluded was actually something else entirely. To be precise, the F.D.A. reviewers said that other than its contribution to calories, “no conclusive evidence on sugars demonstrates a hazard to the general public when sugars are consumed at the levels that are now current.” This is another way of saying that the evidence by no means refuted the kinds of claims that Lustig is making now and other researchers were making then, just that it wasn’t definitive or unambiguous.

What we have to keep in mind, says Walter Glinsmann, the F.D.A. administrator who was the primary author on the 1986 report and who now is an adviser to the Corn Refiners Association, is that sugar and high-fructose corn syrup might be toxic, as Lustig argues, but so might any substance if it’s consumed in ways or in quantities that are unnatural for humans. The question is always at what dose does a substance go from being harmless to harmful? How much do we have to consume before this happens?

When Glinsmann and his F.D.A. co-authors decided no conclusive evidence demonstrated harm at the levels of sugar then being consumed, they estimated those levels at 40 pounds per person per year beyond what we might get naturally in fruits and vegetables — 40 pounds per person per year of “added sugars” as nutritionists now call them. This is 200 calories per day of sugar, which is less than the amount in a can and a half of Coca-Cola or two cups of apple juice. If that’s indeed all we consume, most nutritionists today would be delighted, including Lustig.

But 40 pounds per year happened to be 35 pounds less than what Department of Agriculture analysts said we were consuming at the time — 75 pounds per person per year — and the U.S.D.A. estimates are typically considered to be the most reliable. By the early 2000s, according to the U.S.D.A., we had increased our consumption to more than 90 pounds per person per year.

That this increase happened to coincide with the current epidemics of obesity and diabetes is one reason that it’s tempting to blame sugars — sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup — for the problem. In 1980, roughly one in seven Americans was obese, and almost six million were diabetic, and the obesity rates, at least, hadn’t changed significantly in the 20 years previously. By the early 2000s, when sugar consumption peaked, one in every three Americans was obese, and 14 million were diabetic.

This correlation between sugar consumption and diabetes is what defense attorneys call circumstantial evidence. It’s more compelling than it otherwise might be, though, because the last time sugar consumption jumped markedly in this country, it was also associated with a diabetes epidemic.

In the early 20th century, many of the leading authorities on diabetes in North America and Europe (including Frederick Banting, who shared the 1923 Nobel Prize for the discovery of insulin) suspected that sugar causes diabetes based on the observation that the disease was rare in populations that didn’t consume refined sugar and widespread in those that did. In 1924, Haven Emerson, director of the institute of public health at Columbia University, reported that diabetes deaths in New York City had increased as much as 15-fold since the Civil War years, and that deaths increased as much as fourfold in some U.S. cities between 1900 and 1920 alone. This coincided, he noted, with an equally significant increase in sugar consumption — almost doubling from 1890 to the early 1920s — with the birth and subsequent growth of the candy and soft-drink industries.

Emerson’s argument was countered by Elliott Joslin, a leading authority on diabetes, and Joslin won out. But his argument was fundamentally flawed. Simply put, it went like this: The Japanese eat lots of rice, and Japanese diabetics are few and far between; rice is mostly carbohydrate, which suggests that sugar, also a carbohydrate, does not cause diabetes. But sugar and rice are not identical merely because they’re both carbohydrates. Joslin could not know at the time that the fructose content of sugar affects how we metabolize it.

Joslin was also unaware that the Japanese ate little sugar. In the early 1960s, the Japanese were eating as little sugar as Americans were a century earlier, maybe less, which means that the Japanese experience could have been used to support the idea that sugar causes diabetes. Still, with Joslin arguing in edition after edition of his seminal textbook that sugar played no role in diabetes, it eventually took on the aura of undisputed truth.

Until Lustig came along, the last time an academic forcefully put forward the sugar-as-toxin thesis was in the 1970s, when John Yudkin, a leading authority on nutrition in the United Kingdom, published a polemic on sugar called “Sweet and Dangerous.” Through the 1960s Yudkin did a series of experiments feeding sugar and starch to rodents, chickens, rabbits, pigs and college students. He found that the sugar invariably raised blood levels of triglycerides (a technical term for fat), which was then, as now, considered a risk factor for heart disease. Sugar also raised insulin levels in Yudkin’s experiments, which linked sugar directly to type 2 diabetes. Few in the medical community took Yudkin’s ideas seriously, largely because he was also arguing that dietary fat and saturated fat were harmless. This set Yudkin’s sugar hypothesis directly against the growing acceptance of the idea, prominent to this day, that dietary fat was the cause of heart disease, a notion championed by the University of Minnesota nutritionist Ancel Keys.

A common assumption at the time was that if one hypothesis was right, then the other was most likely wrong. Either fat caused heart disease by raising cholesterol, or sugar did by raising triglycerides. “The theory that diets high in sugar are an important cause of atherosclerosis and heart disease does not have wide support among experts in the field, who say that fats and cholesterol are the more likely culprits,” as Jane E. Brody wrote in The Times in 1977.

At the time, many of the key observations cited to argue that dietary fat caused heart disease actually support the sugar theory as well. During the Korean War, pathologists doing autopsies on American soldiers killed in battle noticed that many had significant plaques in their arteries, even those who were still teenagers, while the Koreans killed in battle did not. The atherosclerotic plaques in the Americans were attributed to the fact that they ate high-fat diets and the Koreans ate low-fat. But the Americans were also eating high-sugar diets, while the Koreans, like the Japanese, were not.

In 1970, Keys published the results of a landmark study in nutrition known as the Seven Countries Study. Its results were perceived by the medical community and the wider public as compelling evidence that saturated-fat consumption is the best dietary predictor of heart disease. But sugar consumption in the seven countries studied was almost equally predictive. So it was possible that Yudkin was right, and Keys was wrong, or that they could both be right. The evidence has always been able to go either way.

European clinicians tended to side with Yudkin; Americans with Keys. The situation wasn’t helped, as one of Yudkin’s colleagues later told me, by the fact that “there was quite a bit of loathing” between the two nutritionists themselves. In 1971, Keys published an article attacking Yudkin and describing his evidence against sugar as “flimsy indeed.” He treated Yudkin as a figure of scorn, and Yudkin never managed to shake the portrayal.

By the end of the 1970s, any scientist who studied the potentially deleterious effects of sugar in the diet, according to Sheldon Reiser, who did just that at the U.S.D.A.’s Carbohydrate Nutrition Laboratory in Beltsville, Md., and talked about it publicly, was endangering his reputation. “Yudkin was so discredited,” Reiser said to me. “He was ridiculed in a way. And anybody else who said something bad about sucrose, they’d say, ‘He’s just like Yudkin.’ ”

What has changed since then, other than Americans getting fatter and more diabetic? It wasn’t so much that researchers learned anything particularly new about the effects of sugar or high-fructose corn syrup in the human body. Rather the context of the science changed: physicians and medical authorities came to accept the idea that a condition known as metabolic syndrome is a major, if not the major, risk factor for heart disease and diabetes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimate that some 75 million Americans have metabolic syndrome. For those who have heart attacks, metabolic syndrome will very likely be the reason.

The first symptom doctors are told to look for in diagnosing metabolic syndrome is an expanding waistline. This means that if you’re overweight, there’s a good chance you have metabolic syndrome, and this is why you’re more likely to have a heart attack or become diabetic (or both) than someone who’s not. Although lean individuals, too, can have metabolic syndrome, and they are at greater risk of heart disease and diabetes than lean individuals without it.

Having metabolic syndrome is another way of saying that the cells in your body are actively ignoring the action of the hormone insulin — a condition known technically as being insulin-resistant. Because insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome still get remarkably little attention in the press (certainly compared with cholesterol), let me explain the basics.

You secrete insulin in response to the foods you eat — particularly the carbohydrates — to keep blood sugar in control after a meal. When your cells are resistant to insulin, your body (your pancreas, to be precise) responds to rising blood sugar by pumping out more and more insulin. Eventually the pancreas can no longer keep up with the demand or it gives in to what diabetologists call “pancreatic exhaustion.” Now your blood sugar will rise out of control, and you’ve got diabetes.

Not everyone with insulin resistance becomes diabetic; some continue to secrete enough insulin to overcome their cells’ resistance to the hormone. But having chronically elevated insulin levels has harmful effects of its own — heart disease, for one. A result is higher triglyceride levels and blood pressure, lower levels of HDL cholesterol (the “good cholesterol”), further worsening the insulin resistance — this is metabolic syndrome.

When physicians assess your risk of heart disease these days, they will take into consideration your LDL cholesterol (the bad kind), but also these symptoms of metabolic syndrome. The idea, according to Scott Grundy, a University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center nutritionist and the chairman of the panel that produced the last edition of the National Cholesterol Education Program guidelines, is that heart attacks 50 years ago might have been caused by high cholesterol — particularly high LDL cholesterol — but since then we’ve all gotten fatter and more diabetic, and now it’s metabolic syndrome that’s the more conspicuous problem.

This raises two obvious questions. The first is what sets off metabolic syndrome to begin with, which is another way of asking, What causes the initial insulin resistance? There are several hypotheses, but researchers who study the mechanisms of insulin resistance now think that a likely cause is the accumulation of fat in the liver. When studies have been done trying to answer this question in humans, says Varman Samuel, who studies insulin resistance at Yale School of Medicine, the correlation between liver fat and insulin resistance in patients, lean or obese, is “remarkably strong.” What it looks like, Samuel says, is that “when you deposit fat in the liver, that’s when you become insulin-resistant.”

That raises the other obvious question: What causes the liver to accumulate fat in humans? A common assumption is that simply getting fatter leads to a fatty liver, but this does not explain fatty liver in lean people. Some of it could be attributed to genetic predisposition. But harking back to Lustig, there’s also the very real possibility that it is caused by sugar.

As it happens, metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance are the reasons that many of the researchers today studying fructose became interested in the subject to begin with. If you want to cause insulin resistance in laboratory rats, says Gerald Reaven, the Stanford University diabetologist who did much of the pioneering work on the subject, feeding them diets that are mostly fructose is an easy way to do it. It’s a “very obvious, very dramatic” effect, Reaven says.

By the early 2000s, researchers studying fructose metabolism had established certain findings unambiguously and had well-established biochemical explanations for what was happening. Feed animals enough pure fructose or enough sugar, and their livers convert the fructose into fat — the saturated fatty acid, palmitate, to be precise, that supposedly gives us heart disease when we eat it, by raising LDL cholesterol. The fat accumulates in the liver, and insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome follow.

Michael Pagliassotti, a Colorado State University biochemist who did many of the relevant animal studies in the late 1990s, says these changes can happen in as little as a week if the animals are fed sugar or fructose in huge amounts — 60 or 70 percent of the calories in their diets. They can take several months if the animals are fed something closer to what humans (in America) actually consume — around 20 percent of the calories in their diet. Stop feeding them the sugar, in either case, and the fatty liver promptly goes away, and with it the insulin resistance.

Similar effects can be shown in humans, although the researchers doing this work typically did the studies with only fructose — as Luc Tappy did in Switzerland or Peter Havel and Kimber Stanhope did at the University of California, Davis — and pure fructose is not the same thing as sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. When Tappy fed his human subjects the equivalent of the fructose in 8 to 10 cans of Coke or Pepsi a day — a “pretty high dose,” he says —– their livers would start to become insulin-resistant, and their triglycerides would go up in just a few days. With lower doses, Tappy says, just as in the animal research, the same effects would appear, but it would take longer, a month or more.

Despite the steady accumulation of research, the evidence can still be criticized as falling far short of conclusive. The studies in rodents aren’t necessarily applicable to humans. And the kinds of studies that Tappy, Havel and Stanhope did — having real people drink beverages sweetened with fructose and comparing the effect with what happens when the same people or others drink beverages sweetened with glucose — aren’t applicable to real human experience, because we never naturally consume pure fructose. We always take it with glucose, in the nearly 50-50 combinations of sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. And then the amount of fructose or sucrose being fed in these studies, to the rodents or the human subjects, has typically been enormous.

This is why the research reviews on the subject invariably conclude that more research is necessary to establish at what dose sugar and high-fructose corn syrup start becoming what Lustig calls toxic. “There is clearly a need for intervention studies,” as Tappy recently phrased it in the technical jargon of the field, “in which the fructose intake of high-fructose consumers is reduced to better delineate the possible pathogenic role of fructose. At present, short-term-intervention studies, however, suggest that a high-fructose intake consisting of soft drinks, sweetened juices or bakery products can increase the risk of metabolic and cardiovascular diseases.”

In simpler language, how much of this stuff do we have to eat or drink, and for how long, before it does to us what it does to laboratory rats? And is that amount more than we’re already consuming?

Unfortunately, we’re unlikely to learn anything conclusive in the near future. As Lustig points out, sugar and high-fructose corn syrup are certainly not “acute toxins” of the kind the F.D.A. typically regulates and the effects of which can be studied over the course of days or months. The question is whether they’re “chronic toxins,” which means “not toxic after one meal, but after 1,000 meals.” This means that what Tappy calls “intervention studies” have to go on for significantly longer than 1,000 meals to be meaningful.

At the moment, the National Institutes of Health are supporting surprisingly few clinical trials related to sugar and high-fructose corn syrup in the U.S. All are small, and none will last more than a few months. Lustig and his colleagues at U.C.S.F. — including Jean-Marc Schwarz, whom Tappy describes as one of the three best fructose biochemists in the world — are doing one of these studies. It will look at what happens when obese teenagers consume no sugar other than what they might get in fruits and vegetables. Another study will do the same with pregnant women to see if their babies are born healthier and leaner.

Only one study in this country, by Havel and Stanhope at the University of California, Davis, is directly addressing the question of how much sugar is required to trigger the symptoms of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. Havel and Stanhope are having healthy people drink three sugar- or H.F.C.S.-sweetened beverages a day and then seeing what happens. The catch is that their study subjects go through this three-beverage-a-day routine for only two weeks. That doesn’t seem like a very long time — only 42 meals, not 1,000 — but Havel and Stanhope have been studying fructose since the mid-1990s, and they seem confident that two weeks is sufficient to see if these sugars cause at least some of the symptoms of metabolic syndrome.

So the answer to the question of whether sugar is as bad as Lustig claims is that it certainly could be. It very well may be true that sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, because of the unique way in which we metabolize fructose and at the levels we now consume it, cause fat to accumulate in our livers followed by insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome, and so trigger the process that leads to heart disease, diabetes and obesity. They could indeed be toxic, but they take years to do their damage. It doesn’t happen overnight. Until long-term studies are done, we won’t know for sure.

One more question still needs to be asked, and this is what my wife, who has had to live with my journalistic obsession on this subject, calls the Grinch-trying-to-steal-Christmas problem. What are the chances that sugar is actually worse than Lustig says it is?

One of the diseases that increases in incidence with obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome is cancer. This is why I said earlier that insulin resistance may be a fundamental underlying defect in many cancers, as it is in type 2 diabetes and heart disease. The connection between obesity, diabetes and cancer was first reported in 2004 in large population studies by researchers from the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer. It is not controversial. What it means is that you are more likely to get cancer if you’re obese or diabetic than if you’re not, and you’re more likely to get cancer if you have metabolic syndrome than if you don’t.

This goes along with two other observations that have led to the well-accepted idea that some large percentage of cancers are caused by our Western diets and lifestyles. This means they could actually be prevented if we could pinpoint exactly what the problem is and prevent or avoid that.

One observation is that death rates from cancer, like those from diabetes, increased significantly in the second half of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th. As with diabetes, this observation was accompanied by a vigorous debate about whether those increases could be explained solely by the aging of the population and the use of new diagnostic techniques or whether it was really the incidence of cancer itself that was increasing. “By the 1930s,” as a 1997 report by the World Cancer Research Fund International and the American Institute for Cancer Research explained, “it was apparent that age-adjusted death rates from cancer were rising in the U.S.A.,” which meant that the likelihood of any particular 60-year-old, for instance, dying from cancer was increasing, even if there were indeed more 60-years-olds with each passing year.

The second observation was that malignant cancer, like diabetes, was a relatively rare disease in populations that didn’t eat Western diets, and in some of these populations it appeared to be virtually nonexistent. In the 1950s, malignant cancer among the Inuit, for instance, was still deemed sufficiently rare that physicians working in northern Canada would publish case reports in medical journals when they did diagnose a case.

In 1984, Canadian physicians published an analysis of 30 years of cancer incidence among Inuit in the western and central Arctic. While there had been a “striking increase in the incidence of cancers of modern societies” including lung and cervical cancer, they reported, there were still “conspicuous deficits” in breast-cancer rates. They could not find a single case in an Inuit patient before 1966; they could find only two cases between 1967 and 1980. Since then, as their diet became more like ours, breast cancer incidence has steadily increased among the Inuit, although it’s still significantly lower than it is in other North American ethnic groups. Diabetes rates in the Inuit have also gone from vanishingly low in the mid-20th century to high today.

Now most researchers will agree that the link between Western diet or lifestyle and cancer manifests itself through this association with obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome — i.e., insulin resistance. This was the conclusion, for instance, of a 2007 report published by the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research — “Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity and the Prevention of Cancer.”

So how does it work? Cancer researchers now consider that the problem with insulin resistance is that it leads us to secrete more insulin, and insulin (as well as a related hormone known as insulin-like growth factor) actually promotes tumor growth.

As it was explained to me by Craig Thompson, who has done much of this research and is now president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, the cells of many human cancers come to depend on insulin to provide the fuel (blood sugar) and materials they need to grow and multiply. Insulin and insulin-like growth factor (and related growth factors) also provide the signal, in effect, to do it. The more insulin, the better they do. Some cancers develop mutations that serve the purpose of increasing the influence of insulin on the cell; others take advantage of the elevated insulin levels that are common to metabolic syndrome, obesity and type 2 diabetes. Some do both. Thompson believes that many pre-cancerous cells would never acquire the mutations that turn them into malignant tumors if they weren’t being driven by insulin to take up more and more blood sugar and metabolize it.

What these researchers call elevated insulin (or insulin-like growth factor) signaling appears to be a necessary step in many human cancers, particularly cancers like breast and colon cancer. Lewis Cantley, director of the Cancer Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Harvard Medical School, says that up to 80 percent of all human cancers are driven by either mutations or environmental factors that work to enhance or mimic the effect of insulin on the incipient tumor cells. Cantley is now the leader of one of five scientific “dream teams,” financed by a national coalition called Stand Up to Cancer, to study, in the case of Cantley’s team, precisely this link between a specific insulin-signaling gene (known technically as PI3K) and tumor development in breast and other cancers common to women.

Most of the researchers studying this insulin/cancer link seem concerned primarily with finding a drug that might work to suppress insulin signaling in incipient cancer cells and so, they hope, inhibit or prevent their growth entirely. Many of the experts writing about the insulin/cancer link from a public health perspective — as in the 2007 report from the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research — work from the assumption that chronically elevated insulin levels and insulin resistance are both caused by being fat or by getting fatter. They recommend, as the 2007 report did, that we should all work to be lean and more physically active, and that in turn will help us prevent cancer.

But some researchers will make the case, as Cantley and Thompson do, that if something other than just being fatter is causing insulin resistance to begin with, that’s quite likely the dietary cause of many cancers. If it’s sugar that causes insulin resistance, they say, then the conclusion is hard to avoid that sugar causes cancer — some cancers, at least — radical as this may seem and despite the fact that this suggestion has rarely if ever been voiced before publicly. For just this reason, neither of these men will eat sugar or high-fructose corn syrup, if they can avoid it.

“I have eliminated refined sugar from my diet and eat as little as I possibly can,” Thompson told me, “because I believe ultimately it’s something I can do to decrease my risk of cancer.” Cantley put it this way: “Sugar scares me.”

Sugar scares me too, obviously. I’d like to eat it in moderation. I’d certainly like my two sons to be able to eat it in moderation, to not overconsume it, but I don’t actually know what that means, and I’ve been reporting on this subject and studying it for more than a decade. If sugar just makes us fatter, that’s one thing. We start gaining weight, we eat less of it. But we are also talking about things we can’t see — fatty liver, insulin resistance and all that follows. Officially I’m not supposed to worry because the evidence isn’t conclusive, but I do.

Gary Taubes (gataubes@gmail.com) is a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation independent investigator in health policy and the author of “Why We Get Fat.” Editor: Vera Titunik (v.titunik-MagGroup@nytimes.com).

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Switching to Fresh Foods from Canned and Plastic-Wrapped Foods Lowers Toxic Exposure

2011-04-12T20:08:00.000-07:00

Families who gave up canned foods and food and beverages prepared and packaged using plastic containers saw their levels of a hormone-disrupting chemical fall by 66%, according to a new journal Environmental Health Perspectives. For three days of eating they consumed only freshly prepared, organic foods. The chemical bisphenol A (BPA) is found in many kinds of plastic food packaging, such as some water bottles, food storage containers, and sealing wrap. It is also used to line the inside of food cans. BPA is an endocrine-disrupting chemical that has been associated with a host of health problems, including heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, and infertility in adults, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children. The researchers comment that food packaging is the major source of people’s exposure to bisphenol A and the phthalate known as DEHP.

Researchers took urine samples from each family member before, during, and after the study to check for levels of BPA and other chemicals found in plastics. For three days, a caterer who had been coached to avoid preparing food exposed to chemicals from plastics delivered meals prepared from fresh and organic fruits, vegetables, grains, and meats. The cooks were instructed to avoid contact with plastic utensils, and nonstick cookware and foods had to be stored in glass containers with BPA-free plastic lids. Researchers even told food preparers not to overfill the containers so the food wouldn’t touch the plastic lid. Microwaving in plastic was out; so was using coffee makers with plastic parts. Coffee drinkers got their morning coffee from French presses or ceramic drip models. Participating families gave up water in plastic bottles in favor of stainless steel. Eating out was also avoided since other studies have shown some restaurant meals to be high in BPA. By the end of the study, urine tests showed the average BPA level dropped 66%, from 3.7 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL) to 1.2 ng/mL. Levels of DEHP metabolites dropped by about half, from 57 ng/mL to 25 ng/ML. People who started the study with the highest BPA levels saw even bigger reductions -- 76% for BPA and about 95% for DEHP metabolites.

Fish Oils Helps Depression and Hot Flashes

2011-04-11T08:15:00.000-07:00

A study in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition reports that supplementation with fish oil is efficacious in the amelioration of depressive symptoms and quality of life. The study suggests that use of omega-3 fatty acids for major depressive disorder and hot flashes in women during the menopausal transition is worth pursuing further.

In the study, patients received three open-label omega-3 fatty acid capsules daily (two grams total of EPA and DHA). Their Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) score fell from 24.2 at baseline to 10.7. In all, 70% of women showed a MADRS score reduction of at least 50%. In total, 45% were deemed to be in remission with a final MADRS score of 7 or less.

75% of the women had experienced hot flashes at baseline. Their 24-hour hot flash scores fell from a mean of 9.0 to 2.5 at the end of treatment. Women who showed an improvement in depression were more likely to experience hot flash reduction.

Vitamin C May Improve Mood

2011-04-11T08:12:00.000-07:00

Supplementation with vitamin C could improve the emotional state of hospitalized patients by 34 percent, according to research in Nutrition. "About one in five acute-care patients in hospitals have vitamin C levels so low as to be compatible with scurvy," said the lead researcher. "The treatment is safe, simple, cheap, and will have major clinical practice implications."

Why We Crave Salty Foods Under Stress

2011-04-11T08:02:00.000-07:00

Why French Fries Are Such Good Comfort Food
By Maia Szalavitz

Ever wonder why French fries, potato chips and Cheetos are so appealing when you're feeling stressed? A new study suggests that elevated levels of salt in the body lower stress hormones and raise levels of oxytocin, a hormone involved in love and other social connections.The research, which was conducted in rats, was published in the Journal of Neuroscience. It found that rats' response to a stressful situation — being tied down — depended on how much salt they had in their bodies. When restrained, rats with high salt levels showed less activity in their brain's stress systems, compared with rats with normal salt levels.

Having high salt levels is technically called hypernatremia (geeky fact: the word suggests high levels of NA, the chemical abbreviation for the element sodium, which is an important part of salt), and rats in this state also recovered faster from being stressed.

Moreover, the hypernatremic rats had elevated levels of oxytocin — a compound known as the "love hormone" for its role in helping to create social bonds, between friends, lovers or parents and children. Oxytocin is crucial to the processes that allow love and social contact to reduce stress. Not surprisingly, rats with lots of oxytocin showed less anxiety in social interactions. (The effects of oxytocin are complicated, however — it doesn't always produce love and trust — but it is a significant player in those emotions.

Bartenders often provide salty snacks to capitalize on what having hypernatremia is most likely to make you feel: thirst. And indeed, drinking behavior may provide a clue as to why salt may be stress-relieving.

"We're calling this the Watering Hole Effect," said lead author Eric Krause, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati, in a press release. "When you're thirsty, you have to overcome some amount of fear and anxiety to approach a communal water source. And you want to facilitate those interactions — that way everyone can get to the water source."

No matter what they happen to be serving...

Find this article at:
http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/07/why-french-fries-are-good-comfort-food/

Eating Beans Helps Control Weight and Blood Sugar

2011-04-07T19:39:00.000-07:00

Beans Aid Weight and Blood Sugar Control
by Craig Weatherby

Want to help yourself avoid extra pounds and deter diabetes? Eat your beans!

A new review of the evidence supports prior indications that the humble legumes aid weight and blood sugar control.

The review, co-authored by UCLA School of Medicine professor Jay Udani, focused on bean-extract supplements that block digestion of sugars and starches (Barrett ML, Udani JK 2011).

But rather than taking bean-extract supplements – which contain just one of their metabolically beneficial components – it makes sense to simply shift your starch intake from grains to beans.

Whole beans, not supplements
Whole beans provide weight control and blood sugar benefits for two reasons:
The high proportion of so-called “resistant” starch in beans, which make you feel full faster and delay absorption of carbs for many hours after a meal.
Beans – especially white and kidney beans – contain phaseolamin (faze-ahl-uh-min) … a protein that inhibits a key enzyme (amylase) needed to digest starches and sugars.
For more on the basics – including grains that supply resistant starch – see “Beans Seen to Discourage Weight Gain and Diabetes” and “Beans and Lentils May Deter Diabetes”.

In addition, most beans are rich in the polyphenol antioxidants found in fruits, tea, cocoa, and whole grains, which provide myriad health benefits via their “nutrigenomic” influence on gene expression in human cells.

A number of “starch blocker” supplements consisting of phaseolamin extracts from white beans have been sold as weight control aids … with inconsistent support from clinical trials.

According to the review authors, weight control effects of bean extracts have been studied in ten clinical trials, with three studies demonstrating efficacy compared to placebo.

Two of these positive clinical trials were conducted by researchers from UCLA’s School of Medicine, but were short term (one month).

A third study, by famed anti-aging pioneer Nicholas Perricone, M.D., and scientists from Georgetown University and Italy’s dell'Università Cattolica di Roma, was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study (Celleno L et al. 2007).

Study by Dr. Perricone and colleagues boosted beans
Sixty slightly overweight volunteers were divided into two groups, matched for age, gender, and body weight.

The two groups were assigned to take either bean extract or placebo pills for 30 consecutive days, just before a main meal rich in carbohydrates.

After 30 days, subjects receiving white bean extract with a carbohydrate-rich, 2000- to 2200-calorie diet showed greater reductions in body weight, BMI, fat mass, adipose tissue thickness, and waist/hip/ thigh circumferences … while maintaining the same amount of lean body mass (muscle) as the control group.

Eat beans for sugar and weight control
These and other studies also show that beans and phaseolamin-rich bean extracts alike reduce the spike in blood sugar levels after a meal.

Persuasive evidence indicates the value of reducing the glycemic index (GI) of foods for both weight management and controlling blood sugar in diabetes.

And as the review authors noted, reducing the spike in blood sugar following a high-GI meal – and thereby preventing a resulting spike in insulin levels – also reduces the risks of developing insulin resistance, which can lead to diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

So eat your beans, already!

Sources
Barrett ML, Udani JK. A proprietary alpha-amylase inhibitor from white bean (Phaseolus vulgaris): A review of clinical studies on weight loss and glycemic control. Nutr J. 2011 Mar 17;10(1):24. [Epub ahead of print]
Boivin M, Flourie B, Rizza RA, et al. Gastrointestinal and metabolic effects of amylase inhibition in diabetics. Gastroenterology 1988;94:387–94.
Boivin M, Zinsmeister AR, Go VL, DiMagno EP. Effect of a purified amylase inhibitor on carbohydrate metabolism after a mixed meal in healthy humans. Mayo Clin Proc 1987;62:249–55.
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Useful Resources for Alternatives to Toxic Chemicals in Everyday Products

2011-04-04T19:27:00.000-07:00

There’s been a lot of talk about living green. As more information is coming out about what’s in the products we consume like parabens, BPAs and phthalates found in everyday items like plastic storage containers, shampoo, and baby bottles, we as consumers are becoming savvier about what we are putting in and on our bodies. With many of these items being tagged as carcinogens, neurotoxins and endocrine disruptors who knows what effects they are having on us. The Story of Cosmetics is a short video that talks about some of the toxins that are in the cosmetics and body care products that we use. Considering that the body care products we use have so much toxicity, add to that pesticides in food, formaldehyde in household materials and furniture, and chemicals in our cleaners, it’s no wonder we feel tired and rundown so much of the time.

Making the choice to live cleaner and greener can be overwhelming. There is so much information out there, it can make you a little crazy trying to decipher it all. Not to mention the concern over cost. It’s true that living cleaner and greener can cost a bit more. There are some great sites out there with money saving tips like Green Mama’s Pad (check out this tip on making your Swiffer Wet Jet into a green cleaning machine). Another idea is to choose your battles, meaning pick one area, whether it is food, cleaning products, or body care, and gradually wean away from the more toxic products into the cleaner products. It’s not something you need to do all at once, and making small changes can make big differences. Living clean and green does not have to be an all or none proposition.

Here are some Fab 5 sites to help you live a little cleaner and a little greener. Making even just one change will not only help you and your family, but also you’ll help the planet.

1.Environmental Working Group (EWG): With a goal to bring information to the public about what’s in the products we eat and use, EWG combs through scientific studies, legal issues, government data, and conducts their own research so that consumers are well informed about their choices. A couple of fantastic resources that the EWG has put together are the Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides, which lists the “dirty dozen” and the “clean 15” foods so you know what’s important to buy organically grown; the National Drinking Water Database, which rates the best and worst tap water in the nation, gives tips for safer water, and provides info on water filtration; and the Sunscreen Guide, which rates sunscreens, helps you find cleaner ones, and talks about the shady business of sun protection.
2.National Resources Defense Council (NRDC): Dedicated to protecting the earth’s natural resources, the NRDC is an incredible tool to learn news, issues and policies surrounding the planet and the way we live. The Smarter Living section provides a wealth of information on cleaner and greener choices from home to work and everything in between. You can look up those long-sounding names like perchloroethylene in the Chemical Index, understand those supermarket labels with Label Lookup tool, or figure out what fish is safe to eat with the guide to Mercury Contamination in Fish (calling all pregnant moms—download a wallet card that rates the levels of mercury in different types of fish, a handy tool when you are out to lunch!)
3.Skin Deep Cosmetics Safety Database: Although this is a project of the EWG, it’s so immense and handy that we felt it deserved a spot of its own on this Fab 5 list. After visiting this site you will probably never buy another body care or cosmetic product before running it through this database. This site rates over 65,000 personal care products based on their toxicity levels. Each gets a rating from zero to ten, with zero being the least toxic, taking into consideration ingredients that might be carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, reproductive toxins, and allergens. The site even breaks down each individual ingredient in a product and rates it. Before you allow your daughter to slather on her new makeup, check out the Teen Cosmetics Study. It’s not all doom and gloom, though. You can do an advanced search for products that exclude certain ingredients and find something that works for you.
4.Safe Mama: For the mom who wants to keep her kids safe from toxins and pesticides in things like toys, this site is a welcome resource and a huge time saver. This blog site is incredibly easy to use and it’s run by a mom who knows her stuff. Her Cheat Sheets are a huge time saver, listing products that she’s already reviewed and cover everything from baby wipes to lunch gear. Often, after she reviews various products, you’ll find a recipe for a homemade version, which is clean and often saves money, such as the Cheat Sheet for dishwashing detergents. Another great resource on this site is the Glossary, which breaks down some of the most commonly used chemical ingredients and the type of products in which they are used.
5.Green Depot: Move over Home Depot; there’s a cleaner and greener kid on the block. From building materials to area rugs, this site has pretty much anything you need for home improvements but from a green perspective. Unfortunately many new home products and home improvements materials off gas formaldehyde, which is considered a carcinogen. Whatever your home improvement project, this site has what you need to help reduce the risk of toxic exposure. So, if you are remodeling the kitchen, or redecorating your daughter’s room, stop by Green Depot to see if you can make at least one change like choosing a low VOC paint or a bamboo plywood.

Stress Reduces Good Bacteria in the Gut

2011-03-28T17:00:00.001-07:00

Stress can change the balance of bacteria that naturally live in the gut, according to research published this month in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity. Bacteria affect immune function, and may help explain why stress dysregulates the immune response. Researchers found that exposure to stress led to changes in composition, diversity and number of gut microorganisms. The bacterial communities in the intestine became less diverse, and had greater numbers of potentially harmful bacteria, such as Clostridium.

This was the first evidence that the gut microorganisms may play a role in innate immunological stress responses. The study reveals the dynamic interactions between multiple physiological systems including the intestinal microbiota and the immune system. Because gut bacteria have been linked to diseases like inflammatory bowel disease, and even to asthma, a future goal of the study is to determine whether alterations of gut bacteria is the reason why these diseases tend to be worse during periods of pressure.

New Ways to Use Olive Oil

2011-03-22T21:10:00.000-07:00

Olive oil has been a shining star in the natural health community for years; it has far more uses than salad dressings and pizza crust. But olive oil can be used in a variety of ways on the body and around the home too. Check out ten new ways to use olive oil below:
1. Deep Moisture for Dry Skin
Olive oil is one of the best kept secrets for supple skin. Apply in place of conventional lotion as a moisturizer, add a few tablespoons to a hot bath, or exfoliate with a mixture of olive oil and sugar.
2. Repair Damaged Hair
If your hair has been exposed to chlorinated water, perms, highlights, or daily heat exposure (from straighteners, curling irons or blow dryers), you might be noticing some unwanted frizziness and tangles galore. Saturate dry hair with warm olive oil and then wrap in a towel. Leave for 20 to 30 minutes and then shower as usual. Hair will be glossy and smooth when you`re all done. Recommended at least once per week for dry hair.
3. Soothe an Earache
Though it sounds unusual, olive oil is a great natural remedy for earaches. A dab of olive oil on a cotton swab is just right for dabbing outside of the ear cavity. Some alternative health professionals recommend a few drops of olive oil in the ear, but this should be done with great care.
4. Ease Nighttime Snoring and Coughing
A small sip of olive oil just before bed is the perfect trick for quelling any nighttime snoring or coughing. Olive oil acts as a natural lubricant and will ease a scratchy throat while you sleep.
5. Polish Your Furniture
Think olive oil is good for your skin? Well, it`s also good for natural wood furniture. Mix two parts olive oil to one part lemon juice for a simple and effective furniture polish. But keep in mind: a little of this polish goes a long way.
6. Polish Stainless Steel
Olive oil isn`t just for wood. A light layer can also buff stainless steel to a natural shine without resorting to chemical cleaners.
7. Quiet Those Squeaky Doors
Looking for a natural alternative to chemical lubricating sprays? Olive oil is the answer. Simply dab a cloth in olive oil, and coat all sides of the squeaky hinge. You may need to repeat this two or three times to completely get rid of the squeak.
8. Oil Pulling
Oil pulling is the practice of slowly swishing oil in the mouth for at least several minutes. It`s known for improving dental health and aiding detoxification through the tissues in the mouth.
9. A Natural Shaving Cream
A little olive oil on the skin makes for an extra smooth shave without any of the chemical preservatives and fragrances in commercial shaving cream.
10. Oil Cleansing and Make Up Removal
Did you know you can cleanse the skin with nothing more than natural oil? Olive oil offers remarkable cleansing properties, removing dirt from deep down in the pores. Simply massage oil into your skin and then remove with a very warm washcloth. The oil will also remove any make-up (including eye make up!). Learn more about oil cleansing below:

http://www.naturalnews.com/031221_o...

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/031774_olive_oil_body.html#ixzz1HOO3MNAP

Tai Chi Helps Ease Depression in the Elderly

2011-03-18T18:52:00.001-07:00

Tai Chi Eases Depression in Elderly
By TARA PARKER-POPE
Robert Spencer for The New York Times A tai chi group practicing in Pawtucket, R.I.
The ancient Chinese practice of tai chi appears to relieve symptoms of depression in older people, a new study shows.

The findings, published this month in The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, are the latest to suggest that the slow movement, breathing and meditation of tai chi results in meaningful benefits to patients with chronic health problems. Other recent studies have shown that practicing tai chi may provide benefits for patients with arthritis and fibromyalgia. But the newest research is important because depression is notoriously difficult to treat in older people, many of whom are already coping with other health problems and are less likely to respond to drug treatment.

Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, studied 112 older adults in whom major depression had been diagnosed, including many who had been struggling with the illness for years. Their average age was about 70. Everyone was first treated with Lexapro, and 73 exhibited a partial improvement but still scored high on depression scales. The rest of the patients dropped out of the study, including just one patient who had a full remission after drug treatment.

The remaining depressed patients were randomly assigned to either a 10-week course of tai chi or a health education class, which included 10 minutes of simple stretching exercises. Both courses were given for two hours once a week.

After 10 weeks of tai chi, 94 percent of depressed older adults showed marked improvement on depression scales, compared with 77 percent in the health education group. And 65 percent of the people in the tai chi group experienced remission, compared with 51 percent in the education group.

The tai chi group also showed marked improvement in measures of physical function, cognitive tests and blood tests measuring levels of inflammation.

“Altogether the effects were pretty dramatic,’’ said Dr. Helen Lavretsky, lead author and professor of psychiatry at U.C.L.A. “If a psychiatrist were to add exercise like tai chi, which is very nondemanding and easy to access, that would be a very beneficial thing instead of adding another drug.”

Dr. Lavretsky said one reason both study groups showed improvement was that all the patients probably benefited from spending time with other people, whether it was in the practice of tai chi or the group education class. “I’m sure the social aspect contributed to the improvement in both groups,’’ she said. “In the control group we see improvement, and that was purely because of the social interaction and bonding that occurred.”

But the marked improvement in the tai chi group suggests an additional benefit from tai chi. Research has shown tai chi can improve physical function and quality of life, relieve stress and anxiety and lead to improved sleep quality, the study authors noted.

The study used a form of tai chi called T’ai Chi Chih that uses 20 simple exercises that are nonstrenuous and easy enough to be performed by older adults.

Dr. Lavretsky said the findings are exciting because depression is so difficult to treat in older people, two-thirds of whom don’t respond to initial drug therapy. Often when a patient doesn’t respond to the first drug, an additional drug is given, but that’s not always practical for patients who are already taking 10 or 15 drugs for other health problems. A study this month found that more than 60 percent of patients over 65 experience moderate or major side effects the first time they are prescribed an antidepressant.

“This is very easily translatable into community care,’’ she said. “As their health improves, they may be able to reduce the other drugs they are taking for pain or other problems.”

Pearls of Wisdom about Bone Health from Jeralyn C. Prior, M.D.

2011-03-02T19:52:00.001-08:00

•Hip bone loss begins earlier than we had expected, in both men and women. Large population-based Canadian studies in which she participated show that bone loss in the hip begins in the early 20’s for both women and men, while bone loss in the spine doesn’t begin until the mid 30’s.
•Ovulatory disturbances — meaning that there was less progesterone produced than normal — commonly occur but go unrecognized because they are silent within regular menstrual cycles.
•Women are silently losing bone if they experience more than the average proportion of ovulatory disturbances, despite normal estrogen levels and regular menstruation.
•Women who learn to track their cycles and ovulation seem more likely to recover normal cycles and ovulation and even recover from infertility.
•Of all the stressors that can affect bone health — poor nutrition, environmental challenges, and emotional disturbances — emotional stress is “the big driver” of ovulatory disturbances and bone loss. So feeling good about your life and the choices you’ve made is important for healthy bones.

(Courtesy of Better Body, Better Bones)

Recipe for Dehydrated Kale Chips

2011-02-26T17:50:00.001-08:00

These chips are very hard to resist and you can't eat just one! You may need to double the recipe because they won't last very long. I sometimes eat a large bowl full as a meal and am completely satisfied.

This works best with Lacinato or Dinosaur Kale.

Chrissy's Goddess Chips

2 bunches kale, broken into large pieces by hand

Dressing:
3/4 c sesame tahini
1/2 c apple cider vinegar
1/2 c water ~ more if needed
1/4 cup fresh parsley
1/4 cup nama shoyu
2 scallions
1 clove garlic
1 lemon, juiced
1/4 t. sea salt

Place kale in a large mixing bowl. Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth to get a thick consistency. You may have to add more water. Pour over kale and mix thoroughly with your hands to coat the kale. You want this mixture to be really glued onto the kale.

Place kale onto a Teflex sheet, on top of a mesh dehydrator screen, and dehydrate for 4 hours @ 110 degrees. You'll need to use two trays. Rotate kale occasionally to dry uniformly.

The first time I made these I stood over the dehydrator and ate the chips right from the Teflex sheet. Enjoy!

Help for the Winter Blues

2011-02-08T18:27:00.000-08:00

Unraveling The Mystery of Mid-Winter BluesPsychologist, holistic specialist provides uplifting advice.
As if the Bears’ NFC Championship loss, hike in income taxes and impending snowstorm weren’t enough to leave Lake Forest and Lake Bluff residents feeling a little down these days; Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum, a psychologist and holistic medicine specialist with Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital (NLFH), said residents may be suffering from “winter blues,” or – if symptoms are more persistent – from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

Scheinbaum said the phenomenon of winter doldrums is nothing new, having been noted in sixth century historical documents describing lifestyle patterns in Nordic countries.

“Winter blues is a normal experience,” Scheinbaum commented. “Winter is a period of contracting and turning inward. It’s a part of the natural rhythm of our lives.”

Scheinbaum explained the experience of turning inward is typically characterized by eating greater quantities of food; eating heavier foods; sleeping more; and generally feeling sluggish.

Other symptoms include craving carbohydrates; withdrawing from family and friends; experiencing profound fatigue; and having difficulty concentrating, Dr. Scheinbaum added.

The onset of symptoms from winter blues/SAD is generally late fall or early winter, according to Scheinbaum.

Winter blues is distinguished from SAD “when symptoms become more intense and more frequent,” Scheinbaum said. “A patient’s symptoms may start out mild, but then they become more severe.”

Scheinbaum said patients suffering from SAD typically experience effects at the same time annually. “People notice a pattern, year after year,” she commented. “And the natural feeling of turning inward turns to hopelessness.”

The good news is there are many ways to prevent and treat the symptoms of both winter blues and SAD.

Let There Be Light

According to Scheinbaum, light – or lack thereof – is a key contributing factor to winter blues/SAD.

“It’s not very energy conscious, but turn on every light and make the house bright,” she recommended.

Other suggestions include raising the blinds and opening the drapes for more light; dressing up in layers and walking outside for five minutes; or even sitting by a window to expose yourself to the light.

Scheinbaum also suggested creating areas of heat, warmth and light in the home by striking up the fireplace and burning candles.

Light box therapy is another successful way to help curb some of the ill effects of reduced light in winter, according to Scheinbaum. Under this treatment, patients sit close to a light box – which mimics natural sunlight by producing a full spectrum of light – for 30 minutes to an hour a day. Scheinbaum advised patients interested in light box therapy to work with a health professional for guidance on proper use.

Scheinbaum said another effective light treatment is a dawn simulator. This device turns on in the morning with a dim light and mimics the sunrise by gradually getting brighter.

Breathe Deeply and Think Tropical Thoughts

Another way to ward off that winter funk, Scheinbaum said, is to warm up some essential oils. “Breathe in the essence,” she said. “Ginger, turmeric and cinnamon are spices we tend to crave during this time.”

Scheinbaum said she often uses visual therapy with her clients. She said it can be helpful to think of the positive images associated with winter, such as children sledding; going skiing or ice skating; or playing in the snow. “Find the joy in winter,” Scheinbaum said.

Alternatively, Scheinbaum said, imagine yourself in a beautiful, warm place. And for a more hands-on experience, plant seeds for the spring; add flowers and tropical plants to your home and workplace; or wear bright colors instead of the dark clothes typically worn in winter.

Something as simple as taking long, hot baths can do wonders to boost mood, said Scheinbaum. A sauna is wonderful if you have access to it, she added, as is hot yoga – a yoga class conducted in a room that is heated to 95-100°F. “You sweat,” Scheinbaum stated. “It’s great!”

Vitamin D, Melatonin, Omega-3 Essential

One of the best preventive measures people can take to avoid winter blues and SAD is to have their vitamin D levels checked by a health professional and, if necessary, increase their intake of the nutrient.

“Most people go into winter with low levels of vitamin D,” Scheinbaum commented. “Proper levels can create a dramatic decrease in the symptoms of SAD and increase overall immunity,” she said.

Vitamin D increases the level of serotonin, a brain chemical that impacts mood.

Dr. Scheinbaum said with the increased darkness, there also is a shift in the body’s circadian rhythms and, for some people, the biological clock can get out of step. Melatonin capsules, usually taken in the afternoon, can help. Melatonin is a naturally-occurring hormone that influences sleep patterns.

Also important are adequate levels of omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in large amounts in fish. Scheinbaum explained although the habitants of many cold weather climates suffer from SAD symptoms, in Iceland the prevalence is very low. Researchers believe this may be the result of the Icelanders’ diet, which consists mainly of fish.

Dr. Scheinbaum recommended fish oil supplements to her clients, and said that patients should consult with a health care professional to determine the amount of melatonin or fish oil supplementation that’s right for them.

Exercise, Eat Right, Get More Sleep

Scheinbaum said other ways to boost mood and metabolism during the winter months include increasing exercise and movement, while decreasing intake of refined carbohydrates.

“During these months, the body is craving carbs, but we need whole grain carbohydrates,” she said.

Scheinbaum advises eating whole grains such as brown rice, quinoa and oats; and focusing on real [unprocessed] foods such as soups and stews filled with vegetables.

“Our society has changed. We exercise less and watch TV more. We lead very busy lives, work long hours and go to bed late,” Scheinbaum commented, all of which can exacerbate the symptoms of winter blues.

Even small changes, such as going to bed a little earlier, can be a big help. “Go to bed by 10 p.m. From about 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. the body does its repair work,” Scheinbaum explained. Going to bed a little earlier in the winter helps to regulate the body’s biological clock and harmonize with its natural tendencies.

Change With The Seasons

Patients experiencing persistent SAD symptoms will want to obtain a referral to a psychologist, who may recommend cognitive therapy to help the patient work through the seasonal challenges, Dr. Scheinbaum added.

Serious cases of SAD, in which the patient is unable to function or is experiencing symptoms that are disrupting life, may require a trial of anti-depressant medication, though Scheinbaum said, “From my perspective, medication is a last resort.”

“Health professionals sometimes try to medicalize what is otherwise a normal experience,” Scheinbaum said. “Most people [experiencing seasonal challenges] make changes that are effective without resorting to medication.”

Scheinbaum added that SAD is not strictly a winter phenomenon: A more unusual form of the disorder is spring/summer SAD. These symptoms are nearly opposite their winter counterparts, Scheinbaum said, and include the inability to fall asleep; decreased appetite; and feeling jumpy, jittery and anxious.

How do you combat the winter blues? Tell us in the comments.

Cognitive Behavior Therapy Benefits Patients with Heart Disease

2011-02-07T18:41:00.000-08:00

In patients with coronary heart disease, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) appears to be associated with lower rates of recurrent acute myocardial infarctions (AMIs) and coronary heart disease events, according to new research in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Psychosocial factors have been shown to account for approximately 30% of the attributable risk of acute myocardial infarction. Emotional factors include anxiety, depression, anger, and hostility, whereas chronic stressors include social support, work or marital stressors, and socioeconomic status. Of the patients, the reference group received traditional care, whereas the intervention group received traditional care and CBT. CBT consisted of 20 two-hour sessions during a year's time where participants learned different methods to manage and reduce stress. Mean follow-up time was 94 months. Use of CBT was associated with lower rates of recurrent and nonfatal and fatal recurrent coronary heart disease events.

Elimination Diet Helps Children with ADHD

2011-02-04T15:33:00.000-08:00

Children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) should be fed a special diet to help their carers determine whether certain foods are making their condition worse. In a study of 100 children with ADHD -- one of the world's most common child mental disorders -- scientists from Radboud University and the ADHD Research Center in the Netherlands found that a restricted diet led to significant improvements in the symptoms of some ADHD sufferers. "Dietary intervention should be considered in all children with ADHD, provided parents are willing to follow a diagnostic restricted elimination diet for a five-week period, and provided expert supervision is available," the scientists said in their study in The Lancet medical journal.ADHD is estimated to affect around 3 to 5 percent of children worldwide.

Previous studies have suggested that in some children, ADHD might be an allergic or hypersensitivity disorder that could be triggered by any type of food that can cause allergic reactions. In this study, children aged four to eight years diagnosed with ADHD were divided into two groups and given either an elimination diet or a general healthy diet for five weeks. Jan Buitelaar of Radboud University, who led the study, said that the elimination diet was restricted to rice, water, white meat such as turkey, and some fruits and vegetables that are generally considered as unlikely to cause allergies. Foods such as wheat, tomatoes, oranges, eggs and dairy products were kept out of the diet as they are often linked with allergies or food intolerances.

After five weeks, children who reacted well to the restricted diet went into a second phase in which different groups of foods were gradually added to their diet and their symptoms monitored to see if they worsened. The foods were different for each child, based on blood results.In the first phase, 64 percent of children in the diet group had significant improvements in their ADHD symptoms, Buitelaar said, and showed a decrease in "oppositional defiant disorder symptoms" such as challenging behavior.

Fish Oils Linked to Better Mood

2011-02-04T14:31:00.000-08:00

Encouraging animal research from France supports evidence that omega-3 fatty acids play a key role in mood health … and expands our grasp on how they work in the brain.

French scientists tested the effects of feeding mice a diet that was relatively low in omega-3 fatty acids and high in the omega-6 fatty acids that predominate in most vegetable oils (Lafourcade M et al. 2011).

As they said in a press release, this imbalanced fat intake “had deleterious consequences on synaptic functions and emotional behaviors.” (INSERM 2011)

In other words, it messed with brain systems and chemicals that maintain mood.

The average American’s diet suffers from the same kind of “omega-imbalance”, which is associated with major health conditions from cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis to depression and dementia.

Magnesium and Type 2 Diabetes

2011-02-04T14:09:00.000-08:00

Low magnesium status may exacerbate the symptoms of type 2 diabetes by further influencing insulin status, according to new research.
The study, published in Clinical Nutrition, finds that long-term hyperglycemia (a condition that leads to excess levels of magnesium in the urine) in patients with type-2 diabetes increases the risk of chronic complications such as nephropathy and may exacerbate and aggravate other clinical conditions associated with diabetes.

The authors said that an adequate magnesium intake is essential for subjects with type-2 diabetes, noting that magnesium intake was inadequate in most (82 percent) of the diabetic subjects studied.

“The results presented here show that magnesium intake by the study population was inadequate and that a high percentage of individuals presented alterations in the status of this mineral,” said the authors, led by Cristiane Hermes Sales from the Department of Food and Experimental Nutrition at the University of São Paulo, Brazil.

Magnesium

Magnesium is an essential in the regulation of many cellular processes and functions as a cofactor in a wide range of metabolic reactions.

Variations in the distribution of magnesium within the body are associated with several disease states, especially diabetes – a disorder which represents a global public health concern.

Sales and colleagues explained that the function of insulin is dependent on magnesium, as it is responsible for the activation of insulin receptors and for stimulation of proteins and substrates involved in insulin signaling.

Previous research has suggested the magnesium intake of patients with diabetes to often be below recommended levels. The researchers noted that there is also evidence that the magnesium status of patients with diabetes tends to alter, and that low levels may influence the evolution of the disease by generating further complications.

“Although some epidemiological studies have suggested that adequate magnesium intake reduces the risk of development of type 2 diabetes, there are still contradictions with respect to the role of low magnesium intake as a predictor factor for this disease,” said Sales and co workers.

Taking Care of Your Bones

2011-01-28T21:28:00.000-08:00

Better Bones Basics
Capturing the innate healing process

by Dr. Susan E. Brown, PhD

How the study of bone health around the world led to a surprising new path to bone health
Capturing the innate healing process
In a perfect world, the bones can manage wear and tear quite efficiently but when they are bombarded daily by large concentrations of toxins, chemicals, or even prescription drugs, it becomes impossible to maintain homeostasis. The bones literally can’t keep up with the demand placed on them and the orderly ebb and flow between bone breakdown and rebuilding goes haywire.

Over the course of studying bones, their structure, and function, I’ve learned that, if we would just listen, our bones will tell us how to keep them healthy. When we understand and respect the complex and dynamic nature of osteoporosis, we are given the tools to naturally improve the condition of our bones. We can put the magical nature of our bones to work for us by using methods which are logical and easy to comprehend. Harnessing this innate intuition for healing and protection is one of the “secrets” of healthy bones and it is within our grasp to do.

A note about prescription drugs for osteoporosis:

Today, medications known as bisphosphonates are commonly prescribed for women who are at risk for or diagnosed with osteoporosis. Bone mineral density may increase after taking these drugs, but this change alone is not enough to recover bone health or structural integrity. In addition, new evidence suggests that long-term use of bisphosphonates may harm the bone, with some women even reporting strange fractures. I don’t recommend these drugs and instead advocate the safer, more effective approach of using nutrition and environmental management to return your bones to a healthy state.

The weight of our world

Just what sorts of things could jeopardize the health of our bones to such a great extent that osteoporosis has become so common in American women? In a word: lifestyle. Inadequate nutrition, dieting, smoking, hormonal imbalance, lack of exercise, and a long list of other factors, have a negative impact on the state of our bones. Ideally, there is a balance between the processes of bone depletion and bone regeneration. This equilibrium is maintained through proper nutrition and other factors, but it is quickly reordered when the bones do not get what they need. Bones require certain elements to stay healthy: the right nutrients in steady supply, appropriate exercise, protection from toxins and poisons, etc., and when these elements are delivered regularly, the bones respond by growing stronger and more resilient.

While our bones might be able to tolerate the effects of a few damaging practices, the hazard grows exponentially in relation to the total number of the “burdens” we might be carrying. One look at our overloaded camel will give you an idea of how easy it is for our bones to collapse under the weight of the typical American lifestyle. Adding to or taking away just one or two burdens can have a significant effect on your bone health, one way or the other. The journey towards healthier bones starts by taking one step away from your own personal tipping point.

Total load model of bone-depleting factors ©2009.
Please click here for a printable version.

How heavy is your burden?

If you are living a hectic lifestyle, you may feel as if you have no control over anything that happens to you or your body during your day. But the fact is, only 20 percent of our total burden is beyond our reach — things like gender, genetic makeup, and age. In actuality, we have a tremendous amount of power over the elements which affect bone health. Some of us may indulge in addictive habits, or eat too much sugar, or not get enough sleep. Many women allow stress to balloon out of control for days or weeks until they get so used to having chronic stress that it becomes “normal.” But all of these issues — and more — can be reduced or eliminated and that can dramatically lighten our overall burden.

The American way of life often exposes us to a wide spectrum of environmental toxins which accelerate the process of bone loss, usually without us even knowing. The body has several means for naturally ridding itself of poisons, but it can only handle so many “emergency calls.” Removing or neutralizing the effects of toxins is possible using a variety of natural methods for detoxification.

Suggestions include:

Drinking purified or filtered water, or teas, to help dilute toxins and move them out of the body
Eating natural, organic foods which are nutrient-rich and free of antibiotics and hormones
Washing fruits and vegetables to remove pesticides and contaminants
Inflammation and stress

Reducing the burden that inflammation places on our bodies is absolutely critical to maintaining optimal bone health. An overactive inflammation response can push the bone breakdown mechanism into overdrive and cause actual bone loss. If you have certain chronic health conditions, such as asthma, diabetes, or fibromyalgia, these are signposts that inflammation could be a particular problem for your individual bone health.

De-stressing our lives and learning to relax is as important to our bones as it is to overall wellness. Stress, negative emotions, and depression can all figure prominently in the deterioration of bone health. If we are in stressful states for long periods, it can end up harming the bones through the effects that “stress chemicals” such as cortisol and adrenaline have on the metabolism. So take this as another reminder to focus on finding ways to remove some of the emotional stressors from your life and invite more relaxation in.

It’s never too late to turn your attention to improving bone health. Even long-term patterns and habits can be changed or moderated so you can reduce the weight of your personal burdens and restore the internal balance required for good bone health.

A new way to live each day

Recovering bone health starts with a new understanding of osteoporosis. Osteoporosis in itself is not something that has gone wrong. Instead, osteoporosis is a natural process of bone breakdown and regeneration that is intended to be used as a short-term measure. For many women, though, it has become an enduring pattern that damages the bones and has an unhealthy impact on general wellness. For so long, American women have been taught to ignore what their bodies tell them about how to live well and stay healthy. Finding an appreciation for the natural processes which allow us to function, and listening to the messages our bodies send, helps us get in touch with the instinctive intelligence we all have within.

So often, the treatment methods women encounter in traditional medicine, especially those for osteoporosis, actually work against the body’s normal biology and upset the balance even more. Knowing — and accepting — how your particular lifestyle is affecting your bone health makes it even easier to adopt a healthier new lifestyle which harmonizes with the natural way your body works. The Women to Women Personal Program for Better Bones is a comprehensive plan for attaining bone health which helps guide you away from the heavy burdens of a harmful lifestyle, and offers you a wholesome new blueprint to follow. When you incorporate the natural components of our Program into your daily life, you can prevent, halt, or even reverse, the effects of osteoporosis.

It’s not too late — so don’t wait

The sneaky thing about osteoporosis is that you won’t notice any symptoms and probably won’t have any outward indication that your bone health is at risk. That’s why it’s important to take action now so your bones can stay healthy and strong for life. And because of the magical healing nature of our bones, it genuinely doesn’t matter how old you are, you just need to make the commitment. When you make that pledge, it sends a signal to your body to prepare for the positive changes you are about to embrace. so your new behaviors become part of a fresh, healthy lifestyle.

Behavioral Therapy Prevents Recurrences of Cardiovascular Events in Trial

2011-01-25T20:37:00.001-08:00

Cognitive-behavioral therapy, with a focus on stress management, is associated with fewer recurrent cardiovascular events in patients with coronary heart disease, according to an Archives of Internal Medicine study.

Some 350 adults who had recently had a coronary heart disease event were randomized to either usual care alone or usual care plus cognitive-behavioral therapy. Psychologists and nurses led 20 2-hour group sessions over 1 year. The therapy emphasized ways to reduce daily stress, time urgency, and hostility.

Over 8 years' follow-up, the intervention group experienced 41% fewer first recurrent cardiovascular events and 45% fewer recurrent myocardial infarctions, compared with the control group. All-cause mortality did not differ significantly between groups.

The authors speculate that the CBT group may have reduced their behavioral and emotional reactivity, "which would lead to less psychophysiologic burden on the cardiovascular system." They estimate that roughly 10 people would need to be treated in order to prevent one cardiovascular event.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids May Reduce PMS Symptoms

2011-01-17T15:44:00.001-08:00

A new study suggests essential fatty acids may help ease the symptoms of PMS
The report found significant reductions in symptoms among women studied.

The Dangers of Being a Couch Potato

2011-01-14T20:02:00.000-08:00

Many of us sit in front of a computer for eight hours a day, and then go home and head for the couch to surf the Web or watch television, exchanging one seat and screen for another. Even if we try to squeeze in an hour at the gym, is it enough to counteract all that motionless sitting?

Increasingly, research is focusing not on how much exercise people get, but how much of their time is spent in sedentary activity, and the harm that does.

The latest findings, published this week in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology, indicate that the amount of leisure time spent sitting in front of a screen can have such an overwhelming, seemingly irreparable impact on one’s health that physical activity doesn’t produce much benefit.

The study followed 4,512 middle-aged Scottish men for a little more than four years on average. It found that those who said they spent two or more leisure hours a day sitting in front of a screen were at double the risk of a heart attack or other cardiac event compared with those who watched less. Those who spent four or more hours of recreational time in front of a screen were 50 percent more likely to die of any cause. It didn’t matter whether the men were physically active for several hours a week — exercise didn’t mitigate the risk associated with the high amount of sedentary screen time.

The study is not the first to suggest that sedentary activities like television viewing may be harmful. A study last year found that men who spent more than 23 hours a week watching TV and sitting in their cars were more likely to die of heart disease than those who sat for 11 hours a week or less, even if they exercised. And a 2009 study reported that young children who watch one and a half to five and a half hours of TV a day have higher blood pressure readings than those who watch less than half an hour, even if they are thin and physically active.

Another small study found that when overweight adults cut their TV time in half, they burned more calories than those who watched five hours or more a day. Children whose TV time is cut tended to eat less, but that wasn’t true for adults. And the light activities adults filled their time with, like reading and playing board games, actually burned more calories than watching TV.

In both the United States and Britain, people are spending three to four hours a day on average watching television, said the study’s author, Emmanuel Stamatakis, of the department of epidemiology and public health at University College London.

“This is excessive,” he said. “It is more than 20 percent of total waking time for most people.” And, he added, “it’s 100 percent discretionary.”

During the study’s follow-up period, from 2003 to 2007, 325 men died of various causes, and 215 suffered a heart attack or other cardiac event. Even after adjusting for differences in weight, smoking, occupational physical activity and risk factors like diabetes, high blood pressure and other longstanding illnesses, as well as marital status and social class, those who spent four hours or more of their leisure time in front of a screen each day were 50 percent more likely to have died. Those who spent two hours a day in front of a screen for entertainment were 2.2 times more likely to have had a cardiovascular event.

Recreational screen time has an “independent, deleterious relationship” with cardiovascular events and death of all causes, the paper concluded, possibly because it induces metabolic changes.

One possible mechanism, demonstrated in animal studies, is that being sedentary may affect lipid metabolism. Prolonged inactivity appears to sharply reduce the activity of an important enzyme called lipoprotein lipase, which is responsible for breaking down circulating blood lipids and making them available to muscles for energy, Dr. Stamatakis said. Lowered enzyme activity leads to higher levels of fats and triglycerides in the blood, and to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease. Exercise has very little impact on the enzyme’s activity, he said.

Extended sitting may also lead to high levels of low-grade inflammation, which can also lead to heart disease, Dr. Stamatakis said. A marker of low-grade inflammation called C reactive protein was about three times higher in the study participants who spent the most time slouched in front of a screen.

The study focused on recreational screen time because it’s the easiest to curtail, Dr. Stamatakis said. But he encouraged employees who work at computers all day to get up and take breaks and short walks periodically.

Berries and Other Fruits May Help with Blood Sugar Control

2011-01-04T18:33:00.000-08:00

Diabetes may be the biggest threat to Americans’ collective health over the next few decades, with rates rising at an alarming pace.

According to the National Diabetes Fact Sheet, 23.6 million children and adults in the United States – 7.8% of the population – have diabetes.
Out of this estimated total, about 5.7 million people with diabetes don’t even know they have it, as their cases are undiagnosed. Worse, some 57 million people have the cluster of metabolic signs called pre-diabetes, and 1.6 million new cases of diabetes are diagnosed in adults annually.
The UN’s World Health Organization estimates that the number of cases worldwide may double by the year 2025, due to aging, unhealthy diets, obesity, and sedentary lifestyles.

The main problem is excessive intake of sugars and starches from sodas, sweets, and white-flour breads and pastries. Repeated “spikes” in blood sugar levels increase the risk of developing metabolic syndrome (pre-diabetes) and diabetes. Conversely, blunting of blood sugar spikes in response to meals is believed to reduce the risk of developing diabetes.

Legumes and other foods high in so-called “resistant’ starches possess the power to curb spikes in blood sugar, and their effects can last for many hours following a meal.

But by no means are all sweet foods undesirable from a blood-sugar standpoint. In fact, recent studies suggested that apples produce a net positive impact on blood sugar levels, as can coffee, even when it is sweetened.

Sorting foods by blood-sugar impact
The most common measure of a food’s ability to raise blood sugar levels is its Glycemic Index, or GI. But a more accurate measure is its Glycemic Load, or GL, which ranks a food based both on the GI of its particular sugars and starches, and on the amounts it contains.

Here’s how diabetes-savvy health reporter David Mendosa explains the difference between a food’s GI and GL:
“The carbohydrate in watermelon, for example, has a high GI. But there isn't a lot of it, so watermelon's glycemic load [GL] is relatively low.” (Mendosa D 2008)

And as David says, “A GL of 20 or more is high, a GL of 11 to 19 inclusive is medium, and a GL of 10 or less is low.”

Fruits may taste sweet, but most contain relatively little sugar compared with their other major constituents … mostly fiber, with small amounts of protein.

For example, wild blueberries have a low GL of just 5, while strawberries and apples have even lower GLs, ranking at 1 and 2 respectively.

By comparison, oranges’ GL ranking ranges from 3 to 6, grapes range from 7 to 9, bananas range from 11 to 16, and raisins come in at a whopping 28.

And three studies published last year suggest that the polyphenols in apples and berries may actually help blunt blood sugar rises caused by other foods in a meal.

A Daily Walk May Ward Off Mental Decline

2011-01-03T15:19:00.000-08:00

Taking a regular, daily walk is great for physical health, and now it seems that it may slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease and ward off mental decline as well. Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh concluded that to guard against cognitive decline, it's necessary to average at least five miles of walking a week, every week, for about 10 years. The investigators analyzed data from an ongoing 20-year study looking at the weekly walking patterns among 426 seniors. At the start of the study, 44 of the participants already had Alzheimer's and another 83 had mild cognitive impairment (in half of all cases, this disorder eventually progresses to Alzheimer's).

Dark Chocolate May Promote Gut Health

2010-12-31T08:15:00.001-08:00

Want to help ensure that the good bugs outnumber the bad in your belly?

New findings suggest it makes sense to cozy up with some cocoa, or enjoy a bit of extra dark chocolate.

In a preliminary clinical trial, people who drank a beverage rich in cocoa-derived antioxidants enjoyed a significant increase in their gut levels of beneficial bacteria.

Better yet, this increase was accompanied by reductions in a microbe associated with diarrhea and constipation (clostridia), and in blood levels of cholesterol, triglycerides, and C-reactive protein (CRP) … a marker of inflammation linked to heart risks.

The study, which was conducted by researchers from the UK’s Reading University and chocolate giant Mars, Inc., is the first to demonstrate that cocoa flavanols can boost the numbers of beneficial bacteria in people’s guts.

Do flavanols act as antioxidants, gene-tweakers ... or both?
Most research into the potential cardiovascular benefits of cocoa and dark chocolate relates to presumed antioxidant effects of the flavanol-type polyphenols that abound in both.

And recent evidence reviews agree there's ample preliminary evidence that cocoa flavanols support vascular health in several ways (Corti R et al. 2009; Mulvihill EE et al. 2010; Ostertag LM et al. 2010; Rimbach G et al. 2009).

The flavanols in cocoa, tea, and berries are commonly referred to as “antioxidants”, because they display potent free-radical-squelching effects in test-tube experiments.

However, like other polyphenol compounds in plant foods, it’s increasingly apparent that flavanols exert their beneficial effects through “nutrigenomic” influences on gene switches in our cells … rather than through direct, substantial antioxidant effects in the body (Scheid L et al. 2010)

The most promising cocoa flavanols are procyanidins – which are also found in berries and grapes – and catechins (flavan-3-ols), which occur in green tea.
Before we delve into the details, let’s review the research on the role of intestinal microbe colonies in human health.

Probiotics and prebiotics: A quick primer
People’s gastrointestinal tracts play host to many millions of microbes, most of which are either neutral or beneficial.

Some, such as lactobacilli and bifidobacteria, seem virtually essential to immunity and overall health.

A healthy gut ecosystem is one in which beneficial micro-organisms greatly outnumber potentially harmful bugs. The opposite, unhealthful balance is referred to as “dysbiosis”.

The most critical microbial colonies occur in the colon, where, as the authors of a recent evidence review wrote, “… a true symbiosis [between probiotic microbes and] the host [person] exists that is a key for well-being and health.” (Roberfroid M et al. 2010)

Thanks to many human studies, it’s clear that certain foods or food factors can change the microbial composition of the gut in significant, beneficial ways.

“Probiotic” foods such as yogurt and fermented vegetables with active cultures contain the same beneficial microbes found in the human gut – mostly lactobacilli and bifidobacteria – and eating these cultured foods appears to support immune health by keeping gut-based pathogens in check.

(Doctors often prescribe lactobacilli supplements to patients taking antibiotic drugs, which kill these beneficial bacteria along with pathogenic microbes.)

In contrast, “prebiotic” food factors bring intestinal benefits indirectly, by serving as food for lactobacilli and other beneficial bacteria.

Prebiotics are defined as “non-digestible (by the host) food ingredients that have a beneficial effect through their selective metabolism in the intestinal tract.” (Gibson GR et al. 2004).

As the authors of the same evidence review put it, “… the prebiotic effect [of certain food factors] is now a well-established scientific fact.” (Roberfroid M et al. 2010)

The chief prebiotic supplements are three plant fibers called inulin, galactooligosaccharides (GOS), and fructooligosaccharides (FOS), which are found in or derived from Jerusalem artichoke root, chicory root, burdock root, and beets.

Clinical study detects prebiotic potential from cocoa compound
Last year, the authors of a Nestle-funded human study reported that daily consumption of 40 grams (1.4 ounces) of dark chocolate lowered levels of stress-related hormones (cortisol) and neurotransmitters in participants diagnosed with anxiety.

Those changes were linked to changes the composition of their microbial gut colonies.

As they described the implications of their findings, “… subtle changes in dietary habits, such as eating dark chocolate, can benefit both host and microflora metabolism with potential long term health benefits”. (Rezzi S 2010).

Now, findings from the UK-Mars study suggest that cocoa flavanols may rival the prebiotic effects produced by fructooligosaccharides (FOS), which serve as popular prebiotic supplements.

The small but rigorously designed new study was a randomized, double-blind, crossover, controlled clinical trial, led by the University of Reading’s Jeremy Spencer, Ph.D., and sponsored by Mars, Inc. (Tzounis X et al. 2010)

For the trial, 21 healthy adults were divided into two groups, with each group assigned to consume a different flavanol-supplemented beverage daily:
Low-flavanol beverage providing 23mg of cocoa flavanols
High-flavanol beverage providing 494mg of cocoa flavanols
The trial began with both groups drinking their assigned beverage daily for four weeks, followed by a four-week “wash-out” period during which they drank neither flavanol-supplemented beverage.

The two groups then switched beverages for a further four weeks of daily consumption.

Compared with the low-flavanol drink, participants showed significant increases in their gut levels of beneficial bifidobacteria and lactobacilli when they were drinking the high-flavanol beverage.

These increases in beneficial microbes were accompanied by reductions in blood levels of cholesterol, triglycerides, and CRP … a marker of inflammation linked to heart health.

As the authors wrote, “The increase in the growth of Lactobacillus spp. in response to cocoa flavanols is of note because this bacterial group is associated with beneficial effects in the gut, including an ability to prevent the growth of pathogenic organisms, and most currently accepted prebiotics [e.g., FOS] do not elicit changes [increases] in lactobacilli.” (Tzounis X et al. 2010)

The researchers noted that higher gut levels of bifidobacteria are “strongly associated with positive effects in the large intestine, thanks to the ability of bifidobacteria to inhibit the growth of pathogens, drive the synthesis of certain vitamins (e.g., vitamin B-9), and reduce plasma [blood] cholesterol levels.” (Tzounis X et al. 2010)

And the researchers noted that, in comparison with two prebiotic food fibers – fructooligosaccharides (FOS) and galactooligosaccharides (GOS) – the cocoa flavanols produced similarly substantial effects at a much lower dose.

While encouraging, these findings will need to be repeated in a larger trial and do not justify eating copious amounts of dark chocolate in an attempt to correct medically diagnosed dysbiosis.

Passion Flower: A Helpful Botanical for Relaxation

2010-12-21T21:05:00.000-08:00

Passion flower (Passiflora incarnata) can be used to combat the effects of stress. The dried above-ground parts of the plant can be found in tincture and extract form - look for standardized whole-plant extracts or capsules containing no less than 0.8 percent flavonoids or isovitexin. Use passion flower for stress reduction, calming without sedation and relief from insomnia (usually combined with other sedative herbs). One dropperful of the tincture in a little warm water, or two capsules of extract, up to four times a day as needed is the adult dosage; children should take half that amount. Use caution if you're also taking MAO-inhibiting antidepressant drugs, and do not take passion flower when pregnant - active compounds may be uterine stimulants.

Eating Blueberries Can Slow Mental Decline

2010-12-21T18:10:00.000-08:00

Supplementing the diet with blueberries for one month may slow and even reverse the decline in mental function associated with age, suggest results of a new study with lab rats.

Cognitive performance declines naturally with age, but new results published in Nutrition indicate that one month's supplementation of elderly rats with blueberries was associated with an improvement in the memory scores, as measured in a maze.

In addition, data showed that two months of consuming the bluer-enriched diet was associated with a prolongation of the benefits after the diet was stopped, and the performance of the aging rats was similar to that of younger rats.

“Therefore, 1-, 2-, and 4-months diets substantially reversed the age-related object memory impairment found in 19-month-old rats,” wrote researchers from the University of Houston and Tufts University U.S. Department of Agriculture Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging.

“This illustrates a surprisingly prompt and powerful effect of an antioxidant dietary intervention,” they added.

The berries are booming

Blueberry consumption has previously been linked to reduced risk of Alzheimer’s, and the beneficial effects of the blueberries are thought to be linked to their flavonoid content - in particular anthocyanins and flavanols. The exact way in which flavonoids affect the brain are unknown, but they have previously been shown to cross the blood brain barrier after dietary intake.

It is believed that they may exert their effects on learning and memory by enhancing existing neuronal connections, improving cellular communications and stimulating neuronal regeneration.

Benefits for four legs, benefits for two legs

Earlier this year, researchers from the University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center reported that 12 weeks of consuming a daily drink of about 500 mL of blueberry juice was associated with improved learning and word list recall, as well as a suggestion of reduced depressive symptoms (Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2010, Vol. 58, pp 3996–4000).

The study was said to be the first human trial to assess the potential benefits of blueberries on brain function in older adults with increased risk for dementia and Alzheimer’s.

The new study, led by Houston’s David Malin PhD, examined the effects of one or two months of consuming a blueberry-enriched diet in aging Fischer-344 rats.

Results showed that animals receiving the blueberry diet performed better than animals not receiving a berry-enriched diet, and that two months of supplementation resulted in a maintenance of the improved performance after the supplementation period ended. No such effects were observed in the one month group, said the researchers.

“One possible explanation [for this observation] is a ‘threshold hypothesis’,” said the researchers. “This hypothesis assumes there is a threshold concentration of antioxidants, particularly longer-lasting fat-soluble antioxidants, needed to maintain alleviation of memory impairment.

“The 2-month diet might have produced a larger surplus of antioxidant nutrients over the threshold, whereas the 1-month diet might have produced only a scant surplus above the threshold. Then, as the antioxidant nutrients are metabolized, the 1-month diet might soon lose its ability to prevent memory impairment, whereas this loss of effectiveness might hypothetically take much longer after the 2-month diet,” they added.

Furthermore, rats on the blueberry diet increased their memory scores, while the control animals displayed a decline in memory scores.

“The present study is encouraging in terms of potential human application,” wrote Dr Malin and his co-workers. “First, the present results suggest that even a relatively brief blueberry diet might produce measurable benefits. Second, the benefits of several months of the diet might be maintained for a considerable period after the diet is interrupted. Third, blueberry supplementation might possibly reverse some degree of memory impairment that has already developed.

“This raises the possibility that this sort of nutritional intervention might still be beneficial even after certain memory deficiencies have become evident,” they added.

Source: Nutrition
Published online ahead of print, doi: 10.1016/j.nut.2010.05.001
“Short-term blueberry-enriched diet prevents and reverses object recognition memory loss in aging rats “
Authors: D.H. Malin, D.R. Lee, P. Goyarzu, Y-H. Chang, L.J. Ennis, E. Beckett, B. Shukitt-Hale, J.A. Joseph

Omega 3 Oils May Lower Cortisol and Help Reduce Body Fat

2010-12-13T21:05:00.000-08:00

Cortisol is a vital hormone that’s key to regulating blood sugar and inflammation … and standing up to acute stresses such as fear, injury, and extreme exertion.

Chronically low cortisol levels – a condition known as Addison’s disease – were fatal before this hormone was discovered.

But chronically high cortisol levels – which can result from continual stress – is the more common problem, and produces several undesirable outcomes:
Thinning of the skin.
Decreased muscle mass.
Weakened immunity to infections.
Reduced bone formation, increased risk of osteoporosis.
Damage to the brain’s hippocampus and losses to learning and memory.
Chronically high cortisol levels kill brain cells (neurons) … which is the chief reason for the brain shrinkage seen in patients suffering from Alzheimer’s and other forms of senility.

A few years ago, UCLA research in patients with mild cognitive impairment found that those who had a smaller-than-average hippocampus were more likely to develop full-blown dementia (Apostolova LG et al. 2006).

Cortisol levels rise rapidly in young people placed under stress, but fall back to normal within a few hours after the source of stress is removed.

In contrast, cortisol levels remain high for days in older people, even after the source of stress is gone.

Blood cortisol levels increase with age, and someone aged 65 will have higher average blood levels of cortisol compared with a 25-year-old.

Some anti-aging researchers call cortisol the “death hormone”, because it is associated with old age and disease.

Black tea is shown to rapidly normalize cortisol levels after stress, while euphoric experiences – including music, massage, sexual intercourse, and laughing – can lower and stabilize cortisol levels (see “Black Tea May Confer Memory-Saving, Anti-Stress Benefits”).

Some studies indicate that fish oils moderate levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines and/or the neurotransmitter norepinephrine, which is a key player in the body’s “flight or fight” response to stress.

Five years ago, a small, controlled clinical trial provided the first evidence that fish oil supplements may actually make people feel less stressed (see “Eat Seafood to Ease Stress?”).

Fish oil has also been found to improve body composition in preliminary clinical studies … an outcome attributed to various physiological effects of omega-3s.

(See “Omega-3s Linked to Healthier Weight and Body Composition”.)

Now, the outcomes of two small, controlled clinical trials support the hypothesis that omega-3s possess cortisol-lowering and body-fat-reducing powers.

Gettysburg trial finds improved body composition and cuts in cortisol
Researchers at Pennsylvania’s Gettysburg College recruited 44 adults for a six-week trial designed to test the effects of safflower oil and fish oil on people’s body composition, metabolic rate, and cortisol levels.

The volunteers were divided in two groups, and each took a daily oil supplement:
Safflower oil – four grams, mostly omega-6 fatty acids
Fish oil – four grams, including 2400mg of omega-3 fatty acids (1600mg EPA + 800mg DHA).

In tests performed at the end of the six-week study, members of the fish oil group showed significantly lower cortisol levels.

In addition, the fish oil group shed body fat and gained lean muscle.

There was also a tendency for lower cortisol levels in the fish oil group … as well as a significant correlation between cuts in cortisol and gains in muscle mass … that is, the less cortisol people in the fish oil group had, the more muscle they gained.

As the authors wrote, “… [six] weeks of supplementation with FO [fish oil] significantly increased lean mass and decreased fat mass. These changes were significantly correlated with a reduction in salivary cortisol …” (Noreen EE et al. 2010)

Interestingly, while the results showed beneficial changes in body composition among the fish oil group, there was no difference in total body weight between the safflower and fish oil groups.

Nor were there any rises in resting metabolic rate – which would indicate increased calorie-burning – in either group.

Anglo-Iranian team reports that fish oil lowered cortisol
This study comes from the Anglo-Iranian collaboration that found omega-3 EPA equal to the anti-depressant drug fluoxetine (Prozac) among patients diagnosed with major depression … and that combining them provided results superior to either alone (Jazayeri S et al. 2008; see “Omega-3s Affirmed as Mood Lighteners”).

For their new study, they analyzed blood taken from the 42 patients who’d participated in the prior eight-week trial of EPA and fluoxetine, both before the trial began and after it ended.

The new analysis of the participants’ blood showed that cortisol levels dropped in both the omega-3 EPA group and the group that took both EPA and fluoxetine (Prozac).

Some scientists hypothesize that omega-3s might exert anti-depression effects in part by lowering levels of certain pro-inflammatory immune-system proteins (cytokines) associated with depression (IL-1beta and IL-6).

But the volunteers showed no changes in their blood levels of either chemical.

This led the Iranian team to an intriguing conclusion: “These findings suggest that EPA may exert its therapeutic [anti-depression] effects through reduction of cortisol.”

These studies provide good reasons to favor fishy diets … a lighter mood, a healthier body compositions, and healthier aging overall.

Benefit of Fish Oil for Depression Confirmed

2010-12-13T21:01:00.000-08:00

About 21 million American adults suffer from mood disorders, including depression, the world's fourth leading cause of morbidity and death.

And a new review of the best clinical evidence strongly supports the conclusions of a prior review, which also found that omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil can enhance treatment of depression.

(See “Top Psych Panel Says Omega-3s Deter Depression”.)

Our bodies can make the two omega-3s essential to human life and health – EPA and DHA – from the short-chain omega-3 called ALA, which is found in a certain plant foods (leafy greens, walnuts, flax, canola oil).

But humans do this very inefficiently, converting only two to 10 percent of dietary ALA into DHA and EPA.

Pre-formed EPA and DHA are only found in seafood, with fatty fish having more than lean fish or shellfish. (Omega-3 supplements made from algae only contain DHA.)

The authors of a “meta-analysis” of 15 randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies presented their results last week at the annual meeting of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

The study – funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and conducted by researchers from UCLA and the University of Illinois at Chicago – combined the results of 15 prior clinical trials to arrive at an overall conclusion.

The UCLA/UI team, led by John M. Davis, M.D., wrote that their analysis of the evidence showed that “… patients taking omega-3 with either EPA or a combination of EPA and DHA experienced clear antidepressant benefits”. (ACN 2010)

However, patients taking only omega-3 DHA showed no anti-depression benefits.

As Dr. Davis said, “Our analysis clarifies the precise type of omega-3 fatty acid that is effective for people with depression and explains why previous findings have been contradictory.” (ACN 2010)

While omega-3 EPA produces beneficial effects in patients with depression, neither EPA nor DHA appears to improve mood in people who are not depressed.

Davis and his team said their analysis suggests that women who consumed few omega-3s were more likely to experience depression during and after pregnancy than women with adequate omega-3s in their diets.

“The findings are unambiguous,” said Davis. “Omega-3 fatty acids have antidepressant properties, and this effect is ready to be tested in a large study to establish the dose range and to pave the way for FDA approval.” (ACN 2010)

And he made two key points: “In the meantime, omega-3 fatty acids containing EPA could be useful to augment effects of antidepressant medications … [but] patients should always talk with their mental health professional before taking omega-3 fatty acids to alleviate symptoms of depression.” (ACN 2010)

Curb Sugar Cravings and Kick the Addiction

2010-11-14T13:28:00.000-08:00

This is a wonderful article by Dr. Frank Lipman, an integrative physician:

As a serious sugar addict still struggling with my "addiction" I know first hand how difficult it is to get off sugar, and to stay off it. Part of the reason it's so hard to kick the habit is that over time our brains actually become addicted to the natural opioids that are triggered by sugar consumption. Much like the classic drugs of abuse such as cocaine, alcohol and nicotine, a diet loaded with sugar can generate excessive reward signals in the brain which can override one's self-control and lead to addiction.

One study out of France, presented at the 2007 annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, showed that when rats (who metabolize sugar much like we do) were given the choice between water sweetened with saccharin and intravenous cocaine, 94 percent chose the saccharin water. When the water was sweetened with sucrose (sugar), the same preference was observed -- the rats overwhelmingly chose the sugar water. When the rats were offered larger doses of cocaine, it did not alter their preference for the saccharin or sugar water. Even rats addicted to cocaine, switched to sweetened water when given the choice. In other words, intense sweetness was more rewarding to the brain than cocaine.

The American Psychiatric Association defines addiction to include three stages: bingeing, withdrawal and craving. Until recently, the rats had only met two of the elements of addiction, bingeing and withdrawal. But recent experiments by Princeton University scientist, Professor Bart Hoebel and his team showed craving and relapse as well. By showing that excess sugar led not only to bingeing and withdrawal, but to cravings for sweets as well, the final critical component of addiction fell into place and completed the picture of sugar as a highly addictive substance.

In stark contrast to this clinical assessment is the fact that for most of us, "something sweet" is a symbol of love and nurturance. As infants, our first food is lactose, or milk sugar. Later on, well-intended parents (me included) reward children with sugary snacks, giving them a "treat," turning a biochemically harmful substance into a comfort food. We become conditioned to need something sweet to feel complete or satisfied and continue to self-medicate with sugar as adults, using it to temporarily boost our mood or energy. But as any addict knows, one quick fix soon leaves you looking for another -- each hit of momentary satisfaction comes with a long term price.

The bottom line is that sugar works the addiction and reward pathways in the brain in much the same way as many illegal drugs. And, like other drugs, it can destroy your health and lead to all sorts of ailments including heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, weight gain, and premature aging. Sugar is basically a socially acceptable, legal, recreational drug, with deadly consequences -- and like with any drug addiction, you have to have a flexible but structured plan to beat it.

Here are some tips to help you cope with sugar cravings:

• Eat regularly. Eat three meals and two snacks or five small meals a day. For many people, if they don't eat regularly, their blood sugar levels drop, they feel hungry and are more likely to crave sweet sugary snacks.

• Choose whole foods. The closer a food is to its original form, the less processed sugar it will contain. Food in its natural form, including fruits and vegetables, usually presents no metabolic problems for a normal body, especially when consumed in variety.

• Have a breakfast of protein, fat and phytonutrients to start your day off right. Breakfast smoothies are ideal for this. The typical breakfast full of carbs and sugary or starchy foods is the worst option since you'll have cravings all day. Eating a good breakfast is essential to prevent sugar cravings

• Try incorporate protein and/or fat with each meal. This helps control blood sugar levels. Make sure they are healthy sources of each.

• Add spices. Coriander, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and cardamom will naturally sweeten your foods and reduce cravings.

• Take a good quality multivitamin and mineral supplement, omega 3 fatty acids and vitamin D3. Nutrient deficiencies can make cravings worse and the fewer nutrient deficiencies, the fewer cravings. Certain nutrients seem to improve blood sugar control including chromium, vitamin B3 and magnesium

• Move your body. Exercise, dance or do some yoga. Whatever movement you enjoy will help reduce tension, boost your energy and decrease your need for a sugar lift.

• Get enough sleep. When we are tired we often use sugar for energy to counteract the exhaustion.

• Do a detox. My experience has been that when people do a detox, not only does it reset their appetites but it often decreases their sugar cravings. After the initial sugar cravings, which can be overwhelming, our bodies adjust and we won't even want the sugar anymore and the desire will disappear.

• Be open to explore the emotional issues around your sugar addiction. Many times our craving for sugar is more for an emotional need that isn't being met.

• Keep sugary snacks out of your house and office. It's difficult to snack on things that aren't there!

• Don't substitute artificial sweeteners for sugar. This will do little to alter your desire for sweets. If you do need a sweetener, try tevia, it's the healthiest.

• Learn to read labels. Although I would encourage you to eat as few foods as possible that have labels, educate yourself about what you're putting into your body. The longer the list of ingredients, the more likely sugar is going to be included on that list. So check the grams of sugar, and choose products with the least sugar per serving.

• Become familiar with sugar terminology. Recognize that all of these are sweeteners: corn syrup, corn sugar, high fructose corn syrup, sucrose, dextrose, honey, molasses, turbinado sugar and brown sugar.

• Sugar in disguise. Remember that most of the "complex" carbohydrates we consume like bread, bagels and pasta aren't really complex at all. They are usually highly refined and act just like sugars in the body and are to be avoided.

And here's how to handle an acute sugar craving:

• Take L-Glutamine, 1000-2000mg every couple of hours as necessary. It often relieves sugar cravings as the brain uses it for fuel.

• Take a "breathing break." Find a quiet spot, get comfortable and sit for a few minutes and focus on your breath. After a few minutes of this, the craving will pass.

• Distract yourself. Go for a walk, if possible, in nature. Cravings usually last for 10-20 minutes maximum. If you can distract yourself with something else, it often passes. The more you do this, the easier it gets and the cravings get easier to deal with.

• Drink lots of water. Sometimes drinking water or seltzer water can help with the sugar cravings. Also sometimes what we perceive as a food craving is really thirst.

• Have a piece of fruit. If you give in to your cravings, have a piece of fruit, it should satisfy a sweet craving and is much healthier.

If you follow these guidelines, perhaps you'll be able to have an occasional 'treat'. Be realistic with yourself and remember that a slip is not a failure. Don't get down on yourself if you slip, just dust yourself off and get back in the saddle. However, if even just a little causes you to lose control, then it's best to stay away from it completely. And my ultimate tip for sugar-free bliss is to remind ourselves to find and pursue "sweet satisfaction" in nourishing experiences other than food.

Frank Lipman, M.D., is the founder and director of the Eleven Eleven Wellness Center in NYC and the author of "REVIVE; Stop Feeling Spent and Start Living Again" (2009) (previously called SPENT) and "TOTAL RENEWAL; 7 key steps to Resilience, Vitality and Long-Term Health" (2003). He is the creator of Eleven Eleven Wellness, Guided Health Solutions, leading edge integrative health programs to help you feel better than ever.

UltraMeal Plus 360 Medical Food Shown to Help Metabolic Syndrome in Clinical Trial

2010-11-04T17:14:00.000-07:00

The American Heart Association estimated that 50 million people in the U.S. have metabolic syndrome—a condition diagnosed in patients who present with a combination of risk factors such as high blood pressure, high blood sugar, abdominal obesity, low HDL cholesterol and high triglycerides. Although the Mayo Clinic asserted that while not all experts agree on the definition of metabolic syndrome or whether it even exists as a distinct medical condition, what’s certain is its ability to increases one’s risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and a host of other serious illnesses.

The first line of defense against the condition is a healthy diet and exercise. To that end, San Clemente, CA-based life sciences company, Metagenics, Inc. developed UltraMeal Plus and UltraMeal Plus 3600, a line of phytochemical-rich “medical food” powders that are to be mixed with water and consumed as a beverage.

According to Metagenics, each of the UltraMeal Plus incarnations are formulated to provide “specialized, multi-mechanistic nutritional support for patients with metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease by supplying a combination of acacia extract, reduced iso-alpha acids (RIAA), plant sterols and heart-healthy soy protein and isoflavones.”

“UltraMeal Plus and UltraMeal Plus 3600 have the same macronutrient profile,” explained Dr. Robert Lerman, MD, PhD, the company’s director of medicine and extramural clinical research. “UltraMeal Plus 3600 has additional plant sterols (2 grams per serving) and the proprietary Selective Kinase Response Modulators in the form of rho iso-alpha acids and acacia proanthocyanidins (150 mg and 30 mg, respectively).”

UltraMeal Plus 3600 has been the subject of ongoing research conducted by three major universities charged with determining if the product’s condition-specific nutrients could favorably address metabolic syndrome. Early results have been favorable.

In a press release, Metagenics stated that UltraMeal Plus 3600 formulation, which contains soy protein and phytosterols, has demonstrated cholesterol-lowering effects. “These components may help modify cardiovascular risk factors such as total- and LDL-cholesterol and apolipoprotein B which often coexist in patients with metabolic syndrome. Nutrients in its vitamin core are associated with prevention of elevation of another CVD risk factor, homocysteine. It also contains a proprietary blend of rho iso-alpha acids from hops and proanthocyanidins from the acacia plant. These phytochemical compounds have been shown to possess anti-inflammatory activity and demonstrated favorable modulations of the activity of protein kinases implicated in insulin signaling. Animal studies have documented reductions in both serum glucose and insulin.”

The two-arm, randomized trial involved 89 women from three study sites (University of Florida, Jacksonville, University of Connecticut, Storrs and University of California, Irvine). Each subject experienced 12 weeks of lifestyle therapy including a low glycemic load Mediterranean-style diet and regular, moderate exercise. Half of the women were randomly selected to consume two servings per day of UltraMeal Plus 3600—not as a meal replacement but in addition to regular meals. The beverage provided a total of 30 grams of soy protein, 4 grams of phytosterols, 300 mg rho iso-alpha acids, and 60 mg acacia proanthocyanidins.

Dr Lerman, one of the principle investigators of this clinical trial, said that while all subjects appear to show improvement in metabolic syndrome and risk factors for heart disease, those who additionally consumed UltraMeal Plus 3600 appeared to show even greater improvements, particularly in LDL-C, non-HDL-C, apolipoprotein B and Apo B/A-1 ratio.

“Even though there was no caloric restriction during the study, participants on average lost one pound per week over the 12 weeks,” stated Dr. Lerman. “We found that at the end of the study, 31.8% of the women in the control arm (consuming only the Mediterranean-style low-glycemic-load diet) had net resolution of metabolic syndrome. On the other hand, 44.4% of the women in the medical food arm (consuming the diet and UltraMeal Plus 3600) had net resolution of metabolic syndrome. In addition, there were statistically significant reductions in serum total cholesterol, LDL, non-HDL cholesterol, apolipoprotein B, apo B/apo A-1 and homocysteine levels in women in the medical food arm compared to those in the control arm.”

Dr. Lerman said the clinical trial has positive, far-reaching implications. “Lifestyle modification is recommended as the first line of treatment for metabolic syndrome. This study provides evidence that UltraMeal Plus 3600 medical food can enhance the effects of a lifestyle modification program not only for those with metabolic syndrome but also for those exposed to other cardiovascular risk factors,” he said. “Approximately one-third of the adult population in the United States is afflicted with metabolic syndrome, a risk factor for diabetes mellitus as well as cardiovascular disease, the number one killer in the US. Ameliorating and preventing the development of this metabolic disorder will have significant public health impact.

“The multi-center clinical trial results further support the use of Metagenics’ UltraMeal Plus 3600 medical food as part of lifestyle therapy addressing metabolic syndrome and other chronic illnesses that may stem from it,” he continued. “We believe these results are solid evidence that our unique combination of lifestyle and targeted nutrition offers a powerful approach for naturopathic physicians in managing their patients’ suffering from this all-too-common condition.”

Dr. Lerman said that the research team at the University of Connecticut is finalizing the research manuscript for submission to a peer reviewed journal. In the meantime, he noted that Metagenics is continuing its active research program focusing on ameliorating effects of chronic illness.

Metagenics formulas are not sold in health food stores and are only available through licensed healthcare practitioners.

Leave Your Children Alone

2010-11-04T13:08:00.000-07:00

This is a wonderful article written by Steve Nelson...

Ah, autumn in New York. Brisk breezes, the New York City Marathon, Central Park ablaze with color... and neurotic parents interfering in their children's lives.

A few years ago an overly conscientious parent in my school took a month off work to help his son with the college application process. After mailing several applications he noticed that in the section calling for "names of parents" he had written his own parents' names. Little can top that except, perhaps, the mother who applied to a college on behalf of her daughter. Several months later the daughter was rather surprised to be accepted by this college, to which she had not applied.

While the nation gnashes its teeth waiting for Superman to visit failing schools we may be doing a more grave disservice to the kids who seem to be succeeding. Soccer moms and dads schlep their "travel team" kids hundreds of miles every weekend. Children in disposable diapers are in gymnastics camp, Suzuki violin lessons and Mandarin classes. High school students do six or seven hours of homework after chess club, volleyball, leading the film society and performing mandatory community service (isn't that an oxymoron?). All this to get a leg up on admission to an Ivy League school their parents chose for them.

Psychologist Wendy Mogel, author of Blessing of a Skinned Knee: Using Jewish Teachings to Raise Self-Reliant Children, reminisces fondly of childhood nights when she and her friends stuffed pillows into their nightgowns, slid them under the covers, and climbed naked onto the roof to feel cool breezes on bare bottoms and gaze with wonder at the night sky. In childhood I played baseball or football, climbed trees, or sneaked puffs from contraband cigarettes (disclaimer: we didn't know then what we know now!) with my friends from school dismissal until nightfall. My parents had no idea where I was until I arrived, invariably filthy and late, for dinner. These days the neighbors would call child welfare.

Too many children in this generation are overprotected, over-programmed, and destined for safe, joyless lives. In our success-obsessed competitive society there is less and less time for children to be children. This is no accident, as there seems a similar decline in time or inclination for adults to be children.

Such children remind me of high-strung show dogs: immaculately groomed, fastidiously trained and at risk for all kinds of problems. Ever seen the Westminster Kennel Club dog show, with vibrating thoroughbreds so eager to please, prancing nervously at handlers' sides, waiting for approval in the form of a small treat? The dogs in my family would pee on the judging stand, chase squirrels and sniff each other's bottoms. I think that's the way dogs are supposed to behave. Not that a little training is bad, but what's the good of a dog if you train all the dog out of him? And what's the good of a child if you train all the human out of her?

The irony is that these diligent efforts to ensure success and happiness are likely to do neither. The most interesting people I know have failed miserably at one time or another. To avoid flirtation with danger is to avoid falling in love with life. Human development requires unreasonable fits of passion, bad mistakes, stupid choices, daydreaming, utter panic, swaths of boredom, flights of fancy, fractured bones and broken hearts. Ask anyone you know to recount a few of the experiences that brought him or her the greatest joy or growth. I'll bet you won't hear anything of Advanced Placement courses, after-school Japanese lessons, organized soccer drills or test-prep for kindergarten.

If we adults are grim and studious, if we seemed scared about our children's futures, if we have no fun whatsoever as we rush from one highly structured activity to another, what on Earth would make our children want to become adults? Instead of pushing children to be what we wish (for them or for us?), we should heed Mogel's delightful metaphor: Think of your child as a wildflower seed in an unlabeled package. Sow the seed, occasionally water, and expose to lots of sunshine. Children, like unlabeled wildflowers, will blossom early or late in myriad brilliant and subtle colors if we just give them time and support. All the pushing and worry in the world won't change a sky-blue aster into a meadow rose.

If you want your children to be happy and successful, show them what happiness and success are. We adults should know that success isn't money, status or constant work. So go skiing on a Tuesday. Call in sick to work, go somewhere and come home filthy and late to dinner, take a chance, write a note to the teacher saying the family was having too much fun to do homework.

While you're at it, take the dog out to chase squirrels and stick his nose in strange places. After the children are in bed, climb naked on the roof and wonder at the moon. Then snuggle in bed with whomever you love and rest well, knowing that you have been a very, very good parent.

Fish Oil May Help Patients With Lung Cancer

2010-10-11T19:31:00.000-07:00

EPA and DHA from fish oil have immune-modulating effects and may improve nutritional status in cancer. This study investigated the effects of an oral nutritional supplement containing (n-3) fatty acids on nutritional status and inflammatory markers in patients with non-small cell lung cancer undergoing multimodality treatment. In a double-blind experiment, 40 patients with stage III NSCLC were randomly assigned to receive 2 cans/d of a protein- and energy-dense oral nutritional supplement containing (n-3) fatty acids (2.0 g EPA + 0.9 g DHA/d) or an isocaloric control supplement.

The intervention group had a better weight maintenance than the control group after 2 and 4 wk, a better fat free mass maintenance after 3 and 5 wk, a reduced resting energy expenditure after 3 wk, and a trend for a greater mid-upper arm circumference and lower interleukin-6 production after 5 wk. After 4 wk, the intervention group had a higher energy and protein intake than the C group. In conclusion, a protein- and energy-dense oral nutritional supplement containing (n-3) fatty acids beneficially affects nutritional status during multimodality treatment in patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

Exercise for Bone Health

2010-09-29T19:17:00.000-07:00

Exercise and lifestyle
by Dr. Susan E. Brown, PhD

Exercise and bone health — use them or lose them

I recently read a great quote by the Founding Director of the National Institute on Aging, Robert Butler, MD. He wrote, “If doctors could prescribe exercise in a pill form, it would be the single most widely prescribed drug in the world.” It’s interesting because almost all of us who are invested in our health already know that exercise is one of the most important factors in living a long and healthy life, but many of us are too busy to make time for it.

Exercising for your bones — simple ideas to get you started

Go dancing with a friend or partner.
Take a walk each night after dinner or try wearing a pedometer during the day to track how much you walk.
Ride your bike to friends’ houses, stores, and work.
Run up and down your stairs a few times a day.
Purchase or borrow a Nintendo Wii Fit program (includes dance parties, yoga, tennis games, boxing, and more).
Jump rope or simply hop on one leg, then the other — or on both.
Try the OsteoBall, Bosu Ball, or rubber flex bands (e.g., Thera-Band).
Rent or borrow a yoga, t’ai chi, or other exercise DVD, from the local library, a friend, or Netflix. (Several of the videos we recommend can be found in our store.)
Try bursting several times during your regular exercise routine.
Use an X-iser step machine for a few minutes a day. Use steppers, free weights, and other strength training devices at your local gym, or wear a weight vest or belt during your workout.
In my mission to explore and teach a natural, life-supporting approach to bone health maintenance and regeneration, nothing else I’ve found tells bone to build and rebuild itself quite like exercise. And with more exercise, you can not only improve the strength of your bones, but you can increase your overall health and longevity on all levels, just as Dr. Butler suggests.

If you’re serious about maintaining strong and healthy bones throughout your life — and despite the wide prevalence of osteoporosis and osteopenia, it is entirely possible — exercise should move up on your list of priorities. But what type of exercise is best for bones? You may have heard that certain forms of exercise are good for bone-building, while others, like swimming or biking, aren’t as helpful. Let’s take a closer look at exercise and help you determine what’s best for your bone — and your life.

If your bones could talk...

If your bones could talk, they would say, “Show me you really need me!” Though it feels and looks solid, living bone is dynamic tissue that is constantly altered in response to motion and movement. The more your bones are called upon to carry weight, the more your body puts its resources into building them to support that weight. Bone and muscle are part of the same unit, and as you build muscle, you build bone by default. Here’s why: muscles are attached to bones by tendons. When muscles contract, the tendons tug on your bones, stimulating them to grow. The stronger the muscle, the more powerful the stimulation on the bone.

The best news is that everyone, from a young athlete to an elderly person confined to a wheelchair, can build bone mass with a combination of exercise, an alkaline diet, and bone-healthy nutritional supplements. And there are many options out there for you to explore (see the box above). From hopping on one or both legs during the commercial breaks of your favorite TV show to biking back and forth to work, there’s a way for you to make exercise a part of your life, and once your bones are called upon, their mass will increase.

What and how much exercise helps build bone?

Mix it up!

Your bones respond best to unusual, unexpected bursts and varying combinations of forces, rather than routine workouts. Here are some ideas to help you achieve this:

Jump, skip or break into a jog when you wouldn’t normally.
Vary your weight-lifting repetitions, mixing heavier weights than you’re used to with lighter ones.
Include several bursts in your workout, where you increase your heart rate for a minute or so.
If you always use the treadmill, try dancing or yoga exercises every other work-out.
Try a whole body vibration platform if there’s one in your area
As I have written in my book, Better Bones, Better Body, regular lifelong exercise is best for bone, but it’s never too late to begin building bone density with exercise. Your age, gender, current bone mass, and training history are all factors that will influence your choice of exercise for bone health. (Curious about your bones? Take our Bone health profile.)

The optimal exercise routines for men’s and women’s bone health is unknown and subject to much debate. But we do know that different forms of exercise benefit bone mineralization and the mechanical properties of bone in different ways for men and women of different age groups.

The standard party line is that exercise that requires high forces or generates high impact on the body (such as gymnastics, dance, or weight-lifting) is necessary to improve bone density. Generally speaking, the greater the force or impact, the more bone-growth stimulation. Scientific evidence does suggest we most efficiently build bone mass with a combination of high-impact exercise (such as jumping) and weight-lifting (which can include push-ups, yogic arm balances, using a weighted vest, etc.).

But other properties of bone besides mass make it resilient, such as its water content and cross-sectional geometry. That’s why non-weight-bearing or resistance exercise such as swimming, biking, and isometric exercise (like using the OsteoBall®) also have value, in that they can increase your bones’ flexibility and compression strength. Resistance exercise also decreases your risk of falling and fractures by enhancing balance, coordination, and muscle strength.

One way to increase the forces of resistance on your bones is with Eastern forms of exercise such as yoga, t’ai chi, or qi gong, and other alternative systems such as Pilates. We’re just now beginning to understand that the benefits we gain from such mind–body disciplines extend much further than simply strength and flexibility.

Practices like yoga and t’ai chi can improve balance, coordination, and focus — not to mention providing a boost in confidence! As we age, many of us become less confident when moving about, and while it’s good to be careful, hesitancy can make us more likely to fall and possibly fracture. And whether you’ve been diagnosed with osteoporosis or osteopenia or not, falling puts you at risk of fracture.

Several recent scientific studies document the positive effects of yoga on bone health in women of all ages. Results showed increased bone density in the spine and hips as measured by DEXA scans, as well as reduced markers of bone turnover.

In addition to the physical effects, there’s often a psychological benefit to Eastern practices. This can help enhance our natural mind-body connection and calm the autonomic nervous system, lowering adrenaline and cortisol, our primary stress hormones. These actions ultimately help bone and whole-body health. As Dr. Paul Lam notes on his Tai Chi for Osteoporosis DVD, “Practicing Tai Chi strengthens from the inside out.” When beginning from our hearts and minds, we are capable of great things in the whole body.

If it seems overwhelming to join a class to learn exercises, you might try familiarizing yourself first with the concepts with a DVD like the ones we offer on our website or take a look at a YouTube video on-line. You may find you prefer practicing in the comfort of your own home, or that you’re ready to find a local class. What I like about attending a class is that most instructors lead the class to move in different ways each session, rather than sticking with the same routine. And variety is great for bone.

Exercise: one way to stem menopausal bone loss

While both men and women can develop osteoporosis, women are far more likely than men to experience bone loss, and the critical time in their lives for bone health is the menopause transition. For years we’ve been told that women can lose up to one-fifth of their bone mass during the menopause transition, and that estrogen is the crucial player. But there is actually much more to the story — waning estrogen doesn’t make it impossible to build bone in perimenopause and menopause. Women’s bodies maintain bone best when our hormones are balanced, not just when they’re present at certain premenopausal levels. It also helps to exercise, eat an alkalizing diet, and take a quality multivitamin designed for bone building, like the ones we offer in our Personal Program for Better Bones.

I always tell women, the bone you’ve got is good. Let’s keep it! Exercise is an excellent way to maintain the bone you already have during this crucial transition time, and more rigorous strength training can make a big difference to bone mineral density during the early postmenopausal years.

If you want to build bone during the menopause transition, it may take a more intensive exercise plan. In the case of early post menopausal women with osteopenia, some research indicates that the isolated effect of simply increasing habitual physical activity does little to increase muscle strength. But don’t be discouraged by that — it just tells us that women with a diagnosis of osteopenia or who are otherwise at higher risk need a more deliberate exercise program than simply increasing habitual physical activity.

Exercise for those with osteoporosis or osteopenia

Some exercise “don’ts” in osteoporosis

Some exercises aren’t recommended for those who have fractured or who have severe osteoporosis. Flexion exercises where you bend your spine significantly forward can increase the risk of vertebral fractures by putting excessive pressure on the vertebral bodies. Such exercises may include crunches where you round your back, touching your toes from a standing position, pulling your knees into your chest and lifting your chin and neck while on your back, or rounding your back over and downward while in a seated position. Extension exercises where you stretch up and flex backwards are generally safe for everyone.

Caption: Exercise “don’ts” for those with osteoporosis and osteoporotic fractures of the spine. Exercises that curve or bend the spine increase your chances of vertebral fracture.

It’s common for people diagnosed with osteoporosis or osteopenia to be a little afraid of exercise, because they are worried their bones might fracture with any unusual activity. Such caution is warranted in some situations, such as if your bone density is very low compared to other women your age, or if your body is in a very deconditioned state. But in the vast majority, this is not the case. Almost everyone can start with a program of walking, and most can safely undertake a significant bone-building exercise program with great success. But it’s important to work with your healthcare practitioner and take care not to put excessive stress on weakened bones.

Take a look at our Better Bones Exercise Plan to begin your process, and make sure you discuss your goals with your practitioner.

How to get results — a Better Bones approach

For most of us, almost any exercise — as long it’s regular and not so intensive it causes damage — is good bone exercise. Your bones are designed to naturally break down and rebuild themselves to support the demands you place on them. But truly amazing changes come about when all the body’s systems are working synergistically. Here are the three core elements of our integrative bone health approach:

Create an exercise plan. Because everyone is starting from a different place, we put together a guide to help you design Your Better Bones Exercise Plan in a way that fits your unique needs and lifestyle.

Eat a plant-based, alkalizing diet. Just by living and breathing, we create an internal acid load, and because our bones are the body’s great buffers, an overly acidifying diet leaches buffering minerals from the bones to alkalize the blood. In contrast, fruits and vegetables provide alkalizing mineral reserves to counterbalance acid-forming metabolic processes. (See our articles on acid-alkaline balance).

Boost your bone-building vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, and amino acids. Because even the healthiest diet doesn’t necessarily supply all that you need, I recommend taking high-quality nutritional supplements to ensure that you’re getting all 20 essential bone-building nutrients, such as vitamin D, vitamin K, calcium, potassium, and magnesium.

Combining these three elements — regular exercise, an alkalizing diet, and high-quality supplements — will make it much more likely for you to get the results you’re looking for. Adopting this approach can also give you a surprising bonus: improved energy and whole-body wellness, well into old age.

Exercise that replenishes you in every way

Tips for safe exercise

Exercise within your comfort zone.
Avoid movements that cause pain.
Maintain good posture and avoid rounding your back.
Be sure to warm up and stretch your muscles.
Work with a physical therapist if you have experienced an osteoporotic fracture.
As a mother and busy practitioner myself, I know how tough it can be to find the time and inspiration to exercise regularly. But it’s so important for your bones, and I promise, when you find something you love doing, it will become second nature.

Be creative, explore, and be willing to try something new or combine different forms of exercise. Avoid anything that feels like one more chore. When you exercise in a way that replenishes you it triggers the reward cascade in your brain — you’ll know it when you experience it!

There is so much out there. Fully embracing your exercise routine will not only help you to maintain and build new bone, but will enhance your outlook, longevity, and whole-body health.

Low Vitamin D Associatwd with Depression in Older Adulta

2010-09-13T13:21:00.000-07:00

A new study in London investigated the association between vitamin D deficiency and depressive symptoms in a national community sample of older people. Vitamin D deficiency is common in older people with potential effects on mood.

Methods: Data were analyzed from 2070 participants aged 65 years who had participated in the 2005 Health Survey for England. Serum 25-hydroxy vitamin D (25(OH)D) levels and depressive symptoms (Geriatric Depression Scale) had been measured. Covariates included age, sex, social class, season of examination, and physical health status.

Results: Depressive symptoms were associated with clinical vitamin D deficiency (25(OH)D levels <10 ng/mL; present in 9.8%) independent of other covariates but not with broader deficiency states. This association was not modified by season of examination.

Conclusion: Vitamin D deficiency is associated with late-life depression in older adults.

SAMe May Be Beneficial for Depression

2010-09-12T13:28:00.000-07:00

Study Shows SAMe May Ease Depression

By TARA PARKER-POPE
A popular dietary supplement called SAMe may help depressed patients who don’t respond to prescription antidepressant treatment, a new study shows.

SAMe stands for S-adenosyl methionine, a naturally occurring molecule that is widely used in Europe for depression, arthritis and other ailments. It is found throughout the human body, with high concentrations in the liver, adrenal glands and brain.

The latest research, conducted by investigators at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, is important not only because it suggests another treatment option for patients with depression, but because it also offers news clues into the physical pathways of depression that could ultimately lead to more effective treatments.

“There are many directions in research that this opens up,” said Dr. George I. Papakostas, director of treatment resistant depression studies at Mass General and the study’s lead author. “It provides clues to new treatments, and it provides clues to understanding what causes depression as well as what goes on biochemically when people get better from depression.”

The researchers studied the use of SAMe or a placebo in 73 adults with depression who were not responding to prescription antidepressant treatment. All of the study subjects continued to take the prescription antidepressant, but 39 of them were randomly assigned to receive SAMe for six weeks. The remaining 34 patients received a placebo in addition to their regular prescription treatment.

After six weeks of treatment, 36 percent of the patients taking a combination of SAMe and an antidepressant showed improvement, compared to just 18 percent of those taking the antidepressant and placebo. And about 26 percent of patients in the SAMe group experienced a complete remission of symptoms, compared to just 12 percent in the placebo group, according to a report published in The American Journal of Psychiatry.

The research offers hope to patients who haven’t been helped by traditional antidepressant treatment. Studies suggest that for more than half of depressed patients, antidepressants alone don’t eliminate symptoms. As a result, doctors are looking for additional treatments to help these patients, referred to as “nonresponders.”

Modern antidepressants essentially work by building up concentrations of neurotransmitters, which amplifies their effect on the brain. It’s not clear exactly how SAMe works to curb depression, but researchers have several theories. SAMe may influence the expression of genes involved in depression or alter the function of different receptors and structures that transport neurotransmitters in the brain. The molecule also may be directly involved in the creation of neurotransmitters.

“Most antidepressants we use are acting on neurotransmitters in the brain,” said Dr. J. Craig Nelson, professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, and author of an editorial accompanying the study. “It may be that SAMe is facilitating the synthesis of the neurotransmitters that the drugs then act on. That’s probably the best hypothesis.”

Other studies have suggested that SAMe can relieve symptoms of depression. A 2002 analysis of depression trials conducted by the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality found that SAMe use resulted in clinically meaningful benefits to depressed patients compared to placebo, and that the supplement worked as well as tricyclic antidepressants, a category of prescription drugs.

In his editorial, Dr. Nelson notes that SAMe is typically not covered by insurance companies, and that although the cost is relatively low, it is still more than the drug co-payments required by most health plans. A monthly supply of the same brand of supplement studied would be about $143, the editorial notes.

Dr. Nelson, who was not involved in the Harvard study, said the results need to be replicated in a larger study, and that more information is needed on dosing, side effects and long-term treatment with SAMe, among other things. Dr. Papakostas agrees the study “needs replication” but said he is hopeful about the potential for future research.

“It’s a huge advancement in terms of expanding the types of medications we have to treat depression,” Dr. Papakostas said. “In the last 60 years of depression research, all the treatments have focused on similar mechanisms of action. This is one of the first few studies that suggests a different mechanism. It’s a medication that works differently than everything else.”

The study was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Mental Health, but the SAMe pills and placebo pills were provided by the dietary supplement maker Pharmavite. Dr. Papkostas, Dr. Nelson and other researchers involved in the study all disclosed several financial relationships with makers of prescription antidepressants.

New Study Links Osteoporosis Drugs to Cancer

2010-09-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

New Study Links Oral Bisphosphonates to Esophageal Cancer

A case-control study in BMJ finds that oral bisphosphonates are associated with increased risk for esophageal cancer, thus contradicting a recent JAMA study finding no such link.

In the current study, British researchers used a national database to identify nearly 16,000 adults diagnosed with esophageal, stomach, or colorectal cancer over a 10-year period, and matched them with some 78,000 controls without cancer. Prescriptions for bisphosphonates were then assessed for the 7.5 years before diagnosis.

Bisphosphonate prescriptions were associated with a 30% increase in risk for esophageal cancer, with the elevated risk largely limited to patients with 10 or more prescriptions. The drugs did not appear to increase risk for stomach or colorectal cancer.

The researchers, noting that the contradictory JAMA study used the same database, say the disparate result may be due, in part, to the longer follow-up and greater number of controls in the current study.

Drinking Water Before Meals Can Lead to Weight Loss

2010-09-04T18:08:00.000-07:00

Last week, scientists reported results of a three-month clinical trial, whose results confirm that drinking two eight-ounce glasses of water before meals leads to substantial weight loss. The weight-loss findings were presented at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), and the study was funded by The Institute for Public Health and Water Research.

“We are presenting results of the first randomized controlled intervention trial demonstrating that increased water consumption is an effective weight loss strategy,” said senior author Brenda Davy, Ph.D., of Virginia Tech. Dr. Davy went on to say, “…we found that over the course of 12 weeks, dieters who drank water before meals, three times per day, lost about 5 pounds more than dieters who did not increase their water intake.” She pointed out that folklore and everyday experience long have suggested that water can help promote weight loss. But there has been surprisingly little scientific information on the topic.

Dr. Davy cited an earlier study by her group, which showed that middle aged and older people who drank two cups of water right before eating a meal consumed 75 to 90 fewer calories during it (Van Walleghen EL et al. 2007). The current study involved 48 adults aged 55-75 years, divided into two groups: One group drank 2 cups of water prior to their meals and the other did not. All of the subjects ate a low-calorie diet during the study. Over the course of 12 weeks, water drinkers lost about 15.5 pounds, while the non-water drinkers lost about 11 pounds.

As the authors concluded, “Thus, when combined with a hypocaloric [low calorie] diet, consuming 500 ml [16 ounces of] water prior to each main meal leads to greater weight loss than a hypocaloric diet alone in middle-aged and older adults.” (Dennis EA et al. 2010)

Davy said drinking ample water before a meal may work simply because people feel fuller and eat less calorie-containing food during the meal. Increased water consumption may also help people lose weight if they drink it in place of sweetened calorie-containing beverages, said Davy.

Sources
American Chemical Society (ACS). Clinical trial confirms effectiveness of simple appetite control method. August 23, 2010. Accessed at http://portal.acs.org/portal/acs/corg/content?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=PP_ARTICLEMAIN&node_id=222&content_id=CNBP_025391
Davy BM, Dennis EA, Dengo AL, Wilson KL, Davy KP. Water consumption reduces energy intake at a breakfast meal in obese older adults. J Am Diet Assoc. 2008 Jul;108(7):1236-9.
Dennis EA, Dengo AL, Comber DL, Flack KD, Savla J, Davy KP, Davy BM. Water consumption increases weight loss during a hypocaloric diet intervention in middle-aged and older adults. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2010 Feb;18(2):300-7. Epub 2009 Aug 6.
Dennis EA, Flack KD, Davy BM. Beverage consumption and adult weight management: A review. Eat Behav. 2009 Dec;10(4):237-46. Epub 2009 Jul 16. Review.
Van Walleghen EL, Orr JS, Gentile CL, Davy BM. Pre-meal water consumption reduces meal energy intake in older but not younger subjects. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2007 Jan;15(1):93-9.

Write Off Weight

2010-08-13T21:04:00.000-07:00

Keeping a journal has a hidden health benefit: A recent study indicates that keeping track of your eating habits in a diary or journal can help to double your weight loss. The study, published in the August 2008 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine followed almost 1,700 overweight or obese men and women with an average weight of 212 pounds.

After 20 weeks of study participation (which included weekly group meetings, recommended daily reduction of 500 calories, 30 or more minutes of daily moderate intensity exercise, and daily journal entries of food intake and exercise minutes) the total average loss was about 13 pounds. But the more that the participants wrote in their journals, the more weight they lost - on average, about twice as much as those who did not maintain records.
By keeping a simple food diary, you can more objectively determine how much you are eating and become accountable for your food intake. Try to enter the portions eaten after each meal, and use whatever method works best for you - pen and paper, a smartphone application (such as the iPhone's "Notes"), or a spreadsheet on a personal computer - to help keep the process consistent.

Omega 3s Essential for Mental Health

2010-08-13T18:33:00.000-07:00

Omega-3s and Mental Health: A Report from ISSFAL 2010
By Joyce A. Nettleton, D.Sc.

Folklore has long held that fish is brain food … a belief increasingly bolstered by scientific evidence.

Three years ago, experts appointed by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) found the evidence that omega-3s support mental health quite compelling, albeit inconclusive. [Editor’s note: See “Top Psych Panel Says Omega-3s Deter Depression, Bipolar Disorder”.]

The APA’s expert panel concluded that abundant intake of omega-3s from seafood (DHA and EPA) helps support mental health ... and that the evidence warrants urgent research designed to better define omega-3s’ potential to prevent or treat specific mental problems.

Their positive position was based on what’s already known about key brain structures and functions – which rely heavily on omega-3 DHA – and an emerging body of evidence concerning omega-3s and mental conditions.

Our brains are mostly fat, and more than half of that heady stuff is omega-3 DHA.

We must have omega-3 DHA and EPA to survive or thrive, and can only obtain them in two ways:
Easily and abundantly from fish (especially fatty fish like sardines, tuna, and salmon).
Make small amount in our bodies from plant-form omega-3 ALA, in a very inefficient conversion process that’s hindered further by the flood of competing omega-6 fats, which Americans consume in unhealthful excess. (ALA is most abundant in walnuts, flax or hemp seed, leafy greens, beans, and grass-fed livestock.)
The APA panel also relied on the evidence existing then (in 2007). This included cell and animal studies, some preliminary clinical trials … and a larger number of epidemiological studies, in which scientists survey or follow groups of people, looking for any associations between health and diet.

Large, well-controlled clinical trials are the evidentiary gold standard, but because omega-3s are practically un-patentable products, therefore holding little profit potential, they rarely get funded by drug firms.

And costly clinical trials won’t get government funding without a persuasive body of lab and epidemiological evidence … a tipping point the APA panel thought we’d passed three years ago.

Here’s my summary of new and recent evidence concerning omega-3s and three major mental conditions (depression, suicide, and schizophrenia) … including papers presented at ISSFAL by the researchers themselves.

Depression
Some, but not all, studies have detected significant symptomatic improvements in people diagnosed with major depression who consumed modest amounts of omega-3s from fish (EPA and DHA) … with or without medication.

There is some evidence suggesting that omega-3 EPA may be more effective than omega-3 DHA or both together, but this possibility requires additional research.

Last summer, French researchers reported the results of a clinical trial involving 432 patients with depression, half of whom also had anxiety disorder.
[Editor’s note: We covered this report in a prior issue of Vital Choices; see “Fish Oil Rivals Antidepressants in Clinical Trial”.]

The patients were given about 1 gram per day of EPA or placebo for 8 weeks (St-André E et al., 2010; Lesperance F et al. 2010).

At the end of the treatment there were no differences in assessment scores between the two groups.

However, when the analysis excluded patients with anxiety disorder, EPA was associated with a significant improvement in depressive symptoms.

And in a study of pregnant women diagnosed with anxiety and depression, researchers observed that having higher levels of anxiety, but not depression, was associated with lower blood levels of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids (Bartke N et al. 2010).

Women with lower blood levels of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids and anxiety or depression also had shorter gestation times, attributable in part to their low omega-3 and omega-6 status.

Suicide
One of the most intriguing ISSFAL presentations noted that suicide deaths in the US military now outnumber the deaths from combat in current US engagements. The military suicide rate overall recently exceeded the civilian rate, for the first time since records have been kept.

A team of investigators that included renowned research psychiatrist Joseph Hibbeln, M.D., – from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism – proposed that low omega-3 status might increase the risk of depression and suicide in the US military. [Editor’s note: For more about Dr. Hibbeln’s work, see “‘Captain of the Happier Meal’ Gets a Salute”.]

To test this idea, they measured the long-chain omega-3s in the blood of 800 active duty suicide individuals and matched their leading characteristics to 800 controls (Hibbeln J et al., 2010).

The team’s analysis indicated that those with the highest levels of DHA were significantly less likely to die by suicide than those with the lowest levels.

An important contributing factor to suicide was the experience of seeing a soldier wounded or killed.

These observations suggest that low DHA status may be a risk factor for suicide, but might be overturned by dietary intervention … a possibility these investigators hope to test.

Schizophrenia
The ISSFAL presentations included a report of research in Tunisian schizophrenics, which supported the prior observation that individuals with schizophrenia have significantly lower levels of omega-6 ARA and omega-3 DHA in their red blood cells compared with non-schizophrenic individuals (Feki M et al. 2010).

Both of these fatty acids are essential to brain function, and blood levels fell as the severity of the symptoms increased … adding yet more evidence that deficits in long-chain omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids occur in schizophrenic patients, and that disease severity increases as blood levels drop.

The Tunisian findings fit with a University of Cincinnati study, which showed that DHA levels in the orbito-frontal cortex brain region are lower in people with schizophrenia, compared with normal individuals (McNamara RK et al., 2007).

And evidence is growing that different psychiatric disorders may be related to DHA deficits in different regions of the brain.

For example, when researchers from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism measured omega-3 levels in the brain’s hippocampus region, they found no significant differences between mentally healthy people and patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder (Hamazaki H et al., 2010).

We may lack irrefutable proof that dietary omega-3s provide significant preventive or therapeutic benefits for the major mental health conditions.

But the scientists at ISSFAL certainly recommend urgent research into the effects of dietary fats on mental health … especially omega-3s and America’s badly skewed omega-3/omega-6 intake balance.

How to Feel Full with Smaller Portions

2010-08-12T10:52:00.000-07:00

How full would you feel if you thought you were eating a big portion, but the actual amount of food was smaller than it seemed? Or if you thought you were eating a small portion, but really received a large one? Research from England suggests that feeling satisfied depends on the amount you think you're eating, and not necessarily the amount you actually consume. In an experiment, half the participants were shown a small portion of fruit to be used for a smoothie while the other half was shown a large portion. Both groups were asked how satisfying they expected the smoothie to be. Three hours later, they were asked to rate how full they felt. Those who were shown the large portion reported feeling more full, even though the smoothies they received were actually made with the smaller amount of fruit. In another test, researchers rigged up a soup bowl so that the amount of soup could be increased or decreased without the eater's awareness. Afterward, "fullness" ratings proved to be related to the remembered amount of soup in the bowl, not the actual amount consumed. The research was reported at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior.

My take? Large portions - the "supersize" factor - play a central role in the current obesity epidemic. Other studies have shown how easily people fall into the habit of consuming oversized portions. In one clinical trial, researchers tracked the food consumption of nearly two dozen adults for 11 days. First, they gave their volunteers standard sized servings. Then they gave them portions that were 50 percent larger. The participants consistently ate more when they were provided with more to eat. In general, research has shown that people eat more when given large portions. We've got to get into the habit of cutting back on portion sizes, particularly in restaurants, where you can safely assume that the portions are too big (half is plenty).

Standard American Diet Linked to ADHD

2010-08-06T20:49:00.000-07:00

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is the subject of considerable controversy. Many observers decry the now-routine use of stimulant drugs like Ritalin to control symptoms. Meanwhile, others say that ADHD diagnoses represent the "medicalization" of behaviors that fall at one end of the normal scale ... which may be signs of an unusally creative, intelligent mind.

Claims that ADHD is an imaginary disease were undermined by a recent UC Davis study showing that two brain areas failed to connect when children with ADHD attempted a task that measures attention (Mazaheri A et al. 2010).

Now, a new study from Australia lends support to the idea that nutritionally inferior diets may play a role in elicting the disorder. The term “standard American diet” is used by nutrition researchers to describe the most common eating pattern in this country. And that semi-official appellation yields an acronym – SAD – that’s all too fitting in light of the clearly adverse health impacts of the nation’s dominant eating pattern.

The standard American diet is high in sugars, refined starches (white flour products), pro-inflammatory omega-6 fats, saturated fats, and sodium … but low in fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and fish. As it happens, the standard Australian diet closely resembles the standard American diet, and has equally adverse health effects. So Americans should be concerned by new research that links the standard Australian diet to increased risk of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) among adolescents.

The new findings suggests that risk of ADHD in Australian adolescents could be linked to Western diets, which tend to be high in total fat, saturated fat, refined sugar, and sodium.

Before we examine the Aussie study, let’s quickly review the evidence concerning diet and food additives as an ADHD risk factor.

ADHD risk factors: A look at the evidence
Some studies have found links between food additives and ADHD, but the evidence is mixed and points to greater susceptibility in some children than others.

Evidence of a link between sugar alone and higher ADHD risk or transitory behavior problems is considerably weaker.

On the prevention side, some research suggests a potential role for omega-3 fatty acids in reducing the risks of ADHD and improving behavior and learning among children with ADHD. And last year, a Spanish scientific team that reviewed all of the available evidence noted the factors most closely linked to ADHD risk or prevention, including a possible role of the omega-3/omega-6 fat intake imbalance characteristic of Western diets. “[ADHD] has been related to many factors such as diet, additives, toxic substances from the environment, low protein diets with a high carbohydrate content, unbalanced minerals intake, deficits in intake of essential fatty acids, phospholipids, and amino acids, thyroid disorders, and vitamin B complex disorders ...One of the changes that we want to emphasize is related to the omega-6-rich vegetable oils that dominate human consumption and the reduction in fatty acids from the omega-3 family. The effect of an omega-3 intake deficit is even worse when the amount of dietary omega-6 fat increases ...”

Eaten in excess, omega-6 fatty acids tend to promote inflammation and are associated with higher risk of depression and cancer, while omega-3s tend to have opposite effects.

Omega-6 fats compete with dietary omega-3s for absorption, and omega-6s abound in processed and prepared foods and the cheap vegetable oils most commonly used in them and in American kitchens (corn, soy, safflower, cottonseed, and sunflower).

The authors of the new study analyzed the dietary patterns of 1,799 adolescents and classified their diets as “Healthy” or “Western” (Howard AL et al. 2010).
The teens were participants in the Raine Study from Perth, Australia. Researchers have been tracking this group of children since their birth in 1989.

Young teens were defined as eating a “Healthy” diet pattern if they consumed relatively high amounts of fresh fruit and vegetables, whole grains, and fish. This diet pattern also tended to deliver more omega-3 fatty acids, folate (a B vitamin involved in brain health), and fiber.

The “Western” diet pattern was defined as one in which teens tended to eat more takeout foods, sweets, pastries, and processed, fried, or refined foods. This diet pattern delivered less omega-3s but more total fat, saturated fat, omega-6 fats, refined sugar, and sodium.

A team led by child nutrition specialist Wendy Oddy, Ph.D., compared the teens’ diet patterns to their health records, looking for any diagnoses of ADHD by the age of 14 years. Out of the total of 1,799 teens, 115 (91 boys and 24 girls) had been diagnosed with ADHD by age 14.

After adjusting the results to account for various known social and family influences on ADHD risk, the Aussie team found that, compared with kids eating the “Healthy” diet, the kids who ate a “Western” style diet were more than twice as likely to have received an ADHD diagnosis.

When they looked at specific foods, an ADHD diagnosis was associated with diets especially high in takeout foods, processed meats, red meat, high-fat dairy products, sweets, and pastries.

Scientists attribute some of “Healthy” diet’s protection to omega-3s
Professor Oddy attributed some of the risk reduction of the Health diet pattern to fish fats: “We suggest that a Western dietary pattern may indicate the adolescent has a less optimal fatty acid profile, whereas a diet higher in omega-3 fatty acids is thought to hold benefits for mental health and optimal brain function.” (TICHR 2010)

She also proposed that the Western dietary pattern doesn’t provide enough of certain other essential micronutrients needed for optimal attention and concentration.

The Aussies did not deny the possible influence of artificial additives, nor the possibility that kids susceptible to ADHD tend to make bad, impulsive eating choices: “… we cannot be sure whether a poor diet leads to ADHD or whether ADHD leads to poor dietary choices and cravings.” (TICHR 2010)

Needless to say, we need more studies to confirm the link seen in this study, and to pinpoint the food choices most responsible for raising the risk of ADHD.

Sources
Ambrosini GL, Oddy WH, Robinson M, O'Sullivan TA, Hands BP, de Klerk NH, Silburn SR, Zubrick SR, Kendall GE, Stanley FJ, Beilin LJ. Adolescent dietary patterns are associated with lifestyle and family psycho-social factors. Public Health Nutr. 2009 Oct;12(10):1807-15. Epub 2009 Jan 23.
Boris M, Mandel FS. Foods and additives are common causes of the attention deficit hyperactive disorder in children. Ann Allergy. 1994 May;72(5):462-8. Review.
Carter CM, Urbanowicz M, Hemsley R, Mantilla L, Strobel S, Graham PJ, Taylor E. Effects of a few food diet in attention deficit disorder. Arch Dis Child. 1993 Nov;69(5):564-8.PMID: 8257176
Cruz NV, Bahna SL. Do food or additives cause behavior disorders? Pediatr Ann. 2006 Oct;35(10):744-5, 748-54. Review.
Howard AL, Robinson M, Smith GJ, Ambrosini GL, Piek JP, Oddy WH. ADHD Is Associated With a 'Western' Dietary Pattern in Adolescents. J Atten Disord. 2010 Jul 14. [Epub ahead of print]
Krummel DA, Seligson FH, Guthrie HA. Hyperactivity: is candy causal? Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 1996 Jan;36(1-2):31-47. Review.
Mattes JA, Gittelman R. Effects of artificial food colorings in children with hyperactive symptoms. A critical review and results of a controlled study. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1981 Jun;38(6):714-8.
Mazaheri A, Coffey-Corina S, Mangun GR, Bekker EM, Berry AS, Corbett BA. Functional disconnection of frontal cortex and visual cortex in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Biol Psychiatry. 2010 Apr 1;67(7):617-23. Epub 2010 Jan 8.
Quintero J, Rodríguez-Quirós J, Correas-Lauffer J, Pérez-Templado J. [Nutritional aspects of attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder] Rev Neurol. 2009 Sep 16-30;49(6):307-12. Review. Spanish.
Rojas NL, Chan E. Old and new controversies in the alternative treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Ment Retard Dev Disabil Res Rev. 2005;11(2):116-30. Review.
Telethon Institute for Child Health Research (TICHR). Western diet link to ADHD. July 29, 2010. Accessed at http://www.ichr.uwa.edu.au/media/1185

Fish Oil Supplements May Lower Breast Cancer Risk

2010-07-08T17:15:00.000-07:00

Millions of Americans already take fish oil to keep their hearts healthy and to treat ailments ranging from arthritis to depression. Now, a new study suggests that the supplements may also help women lower their risk of breast cancer.

Postmenopausal women between the ages of 50 and 76 who took fish oil were 32 percent less likely to develop certain types of breast cancer than women who didn't, the study found.

The researchers looked at 14 other popular supplements (including gingko biloba, black cohosh, soy, and St. John's wort), but only fish oil -- which contains concentrated amounts of the omega-3 fatty acids found in salmon, tuna, and other fish -- had any connection to breast cancer risk.

Yoga Can Help Cancer Survivors

2010-06-23T19:51:00.000-07:00

Cancer survivors often feel fatigued and have trouble sleeping for months -- or even years -- after their last chemotherapy or radiation session. Now, a new study shows that yoga can help them sleep better, feel more energized, and cut back on sleeping medications.

"We really wanted to find something useful, because right now there are not a lot of good treatments out there for fatigue," says the lead author of the study, Karen Mustian, an assistant professor of radiation oncology at the University of Rochester Medical Center, in Rochester, New York.

Compared with sleep medication, yoga "can be really empowering," says Suzanne Danhauer, a professor of psychosocial oncology at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Sleep medications aren't always effective and can have side effects, and people who've just been through cancer treatment may not want to take any more drugs, adds Danhauer, who studies the benefits of yoga for cancer patients but didn't participate in the new study.

The study included 410 cancer survivors who had completed treatment in the previous two years and had been experiencing sleep problems for at least two months. All but 16 of the patients were women, and 75 percent were breast cancer survivors. In addition to the standard post-treatment care that everyone received, half of the study participants attended 75-minute yoga sessions twice a week for a month.

The sessions, which were based on two forms of low-intensity yoga known as Hatha yoga and restorative yoga, included breathing exercises, meditation, and 18 different poses. "This wasn't some kind of power Vinyasa yoga class," says Mustian. "It was gentle."

At the beginning of the study, just under 85 percent of the participants in both the yoga and control groups were experiencing sleep problems. By the end, 31 percent of the patients who'd done yoga were sleeping soundly, compared with just 16 percent of the control group. The yoga participants were also using about 20 percent less sleep medication, on average, while the people in the control group actually upped their intake of sleep drugs by 5 percent.

Additionally, the yoga participants had substantially lower levels of fatigue and daytime sleepiness compared with the control group.

The study, the largest of its kind to date, was funded by the National Cancer Institute and will be presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting in early June.

Danhauer says the findings are good news because yoga that's appropriate for recovering cancer patients is widely accessible and affordable.

"You will probably find someone in your community who has training in Hatha yoga or restorative yoga," Mustian says. She recommends classes that feature one (or both) of these approaches and an instructor who's certified by the Yoga Alliance. Ideally, she adds, the instructor will also be experienced in working with patients with health problems.

Many of the nation's top cancer centers, such as the Stanford Cancer Center at Stanford University, the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, have their own yoga programs.

At the Albert Einstein Cancer Center in the Bronx, New York, where researchers have been studying yoga in cancer survivors for the past 10 years, patients can continue practicing yoga at the center even if they're no longer participating in the study. "We have several patients who have been doing it for years," says Alyson Moadel, the director of the center's psychosocial oncology program.

B Vitamins Linked to Less Depression in Elderly

2010-06-14T21:07:00.000-07:00

Increased intakes of vitamins B6 and B12 may reduce the risk of seniors developing depressive symptoms, says a new study with 3,500 Chicagoans.

For every 10 milligram increase in the intake of vitamin B6 and for every 10 microgram increase in vitamin B12 the risk of developing symptoms of depression were decreased by 2 per cent per year, according to findings published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

The study adds to previous reports linking B vitamin intakes and a lower risk of depression. The World Health Organization (WHO) forecasts that within 20 years more people will be affected by depression than any other health problem; it ranks depression as the leading cause of disability worldwide, with around 120 million people affected.

Despite earlier reports on the potential anti-depressive benefits of the B vitamins, researchers from Rush University Medical Center in Illinois report that “very little prospective evidence from population-based studies of older adults”.

Led by Kimberly Skarupski, the researchers obtained data from 3,500 over 65 year-olds in Chicago. The volunteers were living in a normal community and were bi-racial with 59 per cent being African American. Dietary intakes were quantified using food frequency questionnaires and depressive symptoms were assessed using the 10-item version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression scale.

Over an average of 7.2 years of follow-up, the researchers noted that increased intakes of vitamins B6 and B12 were associated with a “decreased likelihood of incident depression”. The intakes of the vitamins came from both food and supplements, said the researchers.

Standard American Diet Linked to Depression in Women

2010-06-10T22:23:00.000-07:00

Two studies link diets high in processed foods, sugar, and omega-6 fats to depression in women and ties whole-food diets to a reduced risk

Earlier this year, British researchers reported that people who ate “junky” diets – such as the average American diet – were more likely to suffer from depression. The UK team analyzed diet and health data collected from 3,486 men and women (average age 55.6 years).
Based on how often the participants had eaten specific amounts of various foods during the previous year, researchers categorized them as falling into one of two dietary patterns. A “whole food” diet was defined as one dominated by vegetables, fruits and fish, while a “processed food” diet was marked by high intake of sweets, fried foods, processed meats, refined grains, and high-fat dairy products.

Women who ate a junky “Western” diet were 52 percent more likely to develop depression and 76 percent more likely to develop anxiety.
The risk of depression or anxiety disorders was about 34 percent lower among women eating a “Traditional” Australian diet.
Surprisingly, the risk of depression was 29 percent higher in women who ate a Modern (“spa” style) diet.
Compared with the Traditional Australian diet, the Western and Modern style diets were likely higher in omega-6 fats, excessive intake of which has been associated with depression.
Five years later, the volunteers completed a questionnaire designed to measure depression symptoms.

The researchers’ analysis indicated that diets dominated by processed foods produced a greater risk of being diagnosed with depression after five years. Conversely, the recruits whose self-reported diets were highest in whole foods were the least likely to develop signs of depression by the end of the half-decade study (Akbaraly TN et al. 2009).

Now the results of another study – this one involving only women – confirm those findings and strengthen the diet-depression connection in females.

Aussie study examines food-mood links in women
Researchers from the University of Melbourne conducted an epidemiological (diet-health) study in 1,046 female volunteers aged 20 to 93 (Jacka FN et al. 2010).

The women were followed for 10 years and answered a diet survey every other year.

Based on their responses to the surveys, the women were categorized as belonging to one of three diet groups:

“Traditional Australian” Diet – Dominated by vegetables, fruit, beef, lamb, fish, and whole-grain foods.
“Western” Diet – Dominated by meat pies, processed meats, pizza, chips, hamburgers, white bread, sugar, flavored milk drinks, and beer.
“Modern” Diet – Dominated by fruits and salads plus fish, tofu, beans, nuts, yogurt, and red wine.
The “Traditional Australian” diet resembles the tradtional diet of rural Americans in the 19th century, which is enjoying a comeback in the “slow food” movement, the “locavore” (local food) movement, and among folks aware of Weston A. Price, DDS, whose pioneering diet-health research was the first to link diverse traditional diets to better overall health.

The term “Western” diet is another name for what nutrition researchers have long called the “Standard American Diet” … an eating pattern whose acronym (SAD) says it all.

Likewise, the diet pattern the Aussie team called “Modern” is one most people would recognize as a typical “spa” or “South Beach” style diet.

New findings support traditional Aussie/American diets full of diverse whole foods
The Aussie team’s analysis showed that the women who ate a Western diet were 52 percent more likely than average to develop signs of a depression disorder … and they were 76 percent more likely to develop signs of an anxiety disorder.

In contrast, the risk of depression/anxiety disorders was about 34 percent lower than average among women who ate a Traditional Australian diet.

That finding supports the view of Weston A. Price, and it supports his view – now backed by substantial evidence and accepted by many biomedical researchers – that saturated fat from whole foods like lamb and beef is not unhealthful.

Surprisingly, the risk of depression was 29 percent higher than average in women who ate the “Modern”, spa-style diet characterized by fruits and salads plus fish, tofu, beans, nuts, yogurt, and red wine. However, their risk of anxiety was seven percent lower than average.

Importantly, the associations between the three diet styles and risk of depression/anxiety disorders persisted after the research team adjusted the results to account for a variety of factors known to influence the with risk of mood disorders: age, weight, socio-economic status, education, physical activity, smoking, and alcohol consumption.

Do omega-6 fats explain the depressing effects that ”modern” diets seem to share?
The researchers posed two explanations for why women eating a “Modern”, spa-style diet had a higher risk of depression, compared to women who fell into the Traditional diet category.

First, they thought it could be a consequence of “reverse causality”, wherein the younger, more educated women that dominated the Modern diet group were more likely to have mild depression and had turned to the diet in an attempt to improve their mood.

And the Aussies posed a second possible explanation for the mood advantage of the Traditional diet versus the Modern diet:

“[It could be that the key] … components of the traditional dietary pattern, such as vegetables, red meat, whole-grain foods, and high-fat dairy products, are particularly pertinent to the outcomes in question.”

In other words, they think that there may something about that particular mix of whole foods that does more do deter depression, compared to the mix of foods in the Modern, “spa” style diet.

However, they failed to address another likely explanation – excessive intake of omega-6 fats – for the higher depression risks seen in women eating the Western or Modern diets.

Judging from the limited lists of foods provided in their descriptions of the Western and Modern diet patterns, it seems safe to presume that those diets also included vegetable oils and packaged/frozen foods that are high in omega-6 fats.

So, compared with the Traditional Australian diet, the mix of foods in the Western and Modern style diets would probably deliver more omega-6 fats, excessive intake of which has been strongly associated with depression risk.

The association between excessive intake of omega-6 fats and greater depression risk holds true even when a diet contain reasonable amounts of omega-3s, as the Modern diet would, given that it included fish.

The bottom line seems clear: diets high in non-nutritious, processed foods put women (and men) at greater risk of developing anxiety and/or depression disorders.

Sources

Akbaraly TN, Brunner EJ, Ferrie JE, Marmot MG, Kivimaki M, Singh-Manoux A. Dietary pattern and depressive symptoms in middle age. Br J Psychiatry. 2009 Nov;195(5):408-13.
Jacka FN, Pasco JA, Mykletun A, Williams LJ, Hodge AM, O’Reilly SL, Nicholson GC, Kotowicz MA, Berk M. Association of Western and traditional diets with depression and anxiety in women. Am J Psychiatry. 2010 Mar;167(3):305-11. Epub 2010 Jan 4.
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Meditating can Decrease Pain Perception

2010-06-08T13:58:00.000-07:00

People who meditate regularly find pain less unpleasant because their brains anticipate the pain less. "Meditation is becoming increasingly popular as a way to treat chronic illness such as the pain caused by arthritis," said Dr Christopher Brown, who conducted the research. The study, to be published in the journal Pain, found that particular areas of the brain were less active as meditators anticipated pain, as induced by a laser device. Those with longer meditation experience (up to 35 years) showed the least anticipation of the laser pain.

Meditation trains the brain to be more present-focused and therefore to spend less time anticipating future negative events. This may be why meditation is effective at reducing the recurrence of depression, which makes chronic pain considerably worse.

The easiest way to begin meditating is simply to focus on the breath.

Chronic Stress Linked to Cancer

2010-04-19T20:07:00.000-07:00

Chronic stress triggers a chain of molecular events that protects breakaway ovarian cancer cells from destruction, a team of researchers reports in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. In preclinical research, the team found that heightened levels of the fight-or-flight stress hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine permit more malignant cells to safely leave the primary tumor, a necessary step in metastasis and cancer progression. They also found that ovarian cancer patients face earlier mortality when a crucial protein activated by the hormones is present at high levels in their tumors and that depressed patients have higher levels of the protein.

Using depression as an indicator of stress, the researchers found major depression was associated with increased levels of norepinephrine in the tumors.

Treat Depression if Diagnosed with Breast Cancer

2010-04-09T20:43:00.000-07:00

Many women consider depression a normal reaction to the shock of a breast cancer diagnosis, but treating the depression may be one of the best ways to battle the cancer. Researchers at Ohio State University found that breast cancer patients with depressive symptoms who treated the mood disorder with talk therapy, relaxation techniques, and exercise had lower levels of inflammation than those who had no psychological intervention. Curbing inflammation is key because breast cancer patients with higher levels of inflammation also have greater recurrence rates. A follow-up with all study participants 11 years later revealed that those who had undergone tretment for depression lived longer.

An Interesting Quote Pertaining to Toxic Load

2010-04-09T19:59:00.000-07:00

"Every cell in the body registers more than one million disturbances or alterations daily, all of which need to be corrected just to keep abreast and maintain the integrity of the system against these stresses. Multiplying that by 75 trillion (the number of cells in the body), that means that every second of every day the bodymind is performing close to 870 trillion corrections."

Apsley-II, J.W., Biogenic Medicine: Health Care for the Twentieth Century,
in The Advanced Guide to Longevity Medicine,
M.J. Ghen, Editor. 2001, Partners in Wellness: Landrum , SC.

The Brain's Response to Food

2010-04-01T19:37:00.000-07:00

Willpower plays a role in dieting. But keeping the weight off after you've lost it? This is where our physiology can get in the way. Research suggests that hormone shifts that follow weight loss play a role in changing the way the brain responds to food.

"After you've lost weight, you have an increase in the emotional response to food," says Columbia University Medical Center researcher Michael Rosenbaum, who studies the body's response to weight loss. He says you also see "a decrease in the activity of brain systems that might be more involved in restraint."

And there's another factor making weight loss maintenance tough: a slower metabolism. When you lose weight, the body adapts to conserve energy, so it just doesn't need as many calories.

One of the hormones that play a role in controlling appetite in the body is leptin. After significant weight loss, leptin levels drop. This seems to signal to the brain a need to seek more food.

Rosenbaum and his colleague Joy Hirsch, a neuroscientist at Columbia University Medical Center, designed an experiment to better understand the relationship between the brain, leptin and weight-loss maintenance.

They recruited overweight volunteers who agreed to a calorie-restricted diet aimed at shedding 10 percent of body weight. Using fMRI scans, the researchers looked at how the volunteers' brain responses to seeing food changed after weight loss. They found some interesting patterns of neural activity in their volunteers after they'd lost weight.

For instance, there was more blood flow to areas of the brain known to be involved in the emotional control of food intake, such as the brainstem and parahippocampal gyrus.

But here's the fascinating part: When they restored leptin to these volunteers by giving them injections of the hormone, the brain response changed. When they saw food, there was more activity in brain areas associated with conscious decisions.

"It's a feedback mechanism," says Rexford Ahima of the University of Pennsylvania. Leptin signals the brain; when there's a deficiency of the hormone, the areas of the brain associated with reward-seeking become more active.

This evolutionary programming is out of sync with what's healthiest for our bodies. The signal evolved over thousands of years when food was scarce. It was the brain's way of telling the body to seek food and protect fat stores. Many people, particularly those who are prone to gain weight easily, retained more genes that program us to seek food.

This research is showing that our physiology tends to set the brain in one of two modes: the "regain" mode, which nudges us, emotionally, to seek food, or the "retain" mode, which helps us maintain a steady weight. Researchers are following up with more studies to see if people's eating behaviors mirror their brain response to food.

Does Cholesterol Really Matter?

2010-03-17T21:46:00.000-07:00

by Julian Whitaker, M.D.

I'd like to shine the spotlight on one of medicine's sacred cows- the belief that lowering cholesterol with drugs protects against heart attacks and premature death. Our obsession with cholesterol began in the 1950s when studies linked high consumption of animal fat with high rates of heart disease. This opened the door for clinical trials that laid the foundation of a new paradigm: the cholesterol theory of cardiovascular disease.

This theory has had profound ramifications. It changed the way we eat (fats bad, carbohydrates good) and contributed to our problems with obesity and diabetes. It wormed its way into "clinical practice guidelines"- cholesterol management has become a "standard of care" that doctors are expected to follow. It spawned the invasive heart surgery industry, based on the presumption that cholesterol-laden blockages must be bypassed or propped open. And it led to the creation of the best-selling class of medications in history: cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, which generate more than $15 billion in worldwide sales every year.

But it's all a house of cards. No matter what you've been led to believe, a high cholesterol level is not a reliable sign of an impending heart attack. In fact, growing numbers of experts question whether cholesterol matters at all. As for statin drugs, for most of the 40-plus million Americans recommended to take them for the rest of their lives, they're an ineffective, expensive, side effect- riddled fraud.

Statin-Free Zone

When a patient taking Lipitor, Zocor, or another statin drug comes to Whitaker Wellness, we discontinue it at once. "But my cholesterol level is 240." "My doctor told me I'll have a heart attack if I don't take this drug."My father died of heart disease, so I have to take it." I've heard all these justifications and more, and I still recommend that my patients get off statins. Here's why.

First, they're not very effective. These drugs do lower cholesterol, but so what? We're not treating lab numbers. We're treating patients, and the ultimate goal in cholesterol management is to reduce risk of cardiovascular disease. Except for a very limited number of people, there is absolutely no evidence that statins protect against heart attack or premature death.

Are you over age 65? Not a single study suggests you'll receive any benefits, even if your cholesterol goes down substantially. A woman of any age? Same story. A man younger than 65 who has never had a heart attack? Ditto, no help at all. For middle-aged men who have had a heart attack, statins may lower risk of a repeat heart attack, but that's the extent of it.

I know this is hard to buy in light of the multiple drug advertisements and glowing endorsements from doctors. But keep in mind that pharmaceutical companies do a superb job of pulling the wool over the eyes of consumers and physicians alike by withholding unfavorable study results and making false, misleading, and often deceptive claims.

A Statistic We Can Understand

That's why I want to step around confusing statistics and tell you about an easy-to-understand measure that you'll never hear about in drug ads. It's called "number needed to treat," or NNT, and it describes the number of patients who would need to be treated with a medical therapy in order to prevent one bad outcome. Experts consider an NNT over 50 to be "worse than a lottery ticket."

Lipitor ads claim that it reduces risk of heart attack by 36 percent. Sounds pretty good until you look at the fine print, do the math (which John Carey did in a great article in Business Week), and figure out that the drug's NNT is 100. This means that 100 people must be treated with Lipitor in order for just one heart attack to be prevented. The other 99 people taking the drug receive no benefit.

To put this into perspective, the NNT of antibiotics for treating H. pylori, the underlying cause of stomach ulcers, is 1.1. These drugs knock out the bacteria in 10 out of 11 people who take it, making them a reliable, cost-effective therapy. At the other end of the spectrum are statins, which as a class have an NNT of 250, 500, or higher depending on the study you look at. What a deal for drugs that can cost more than a thousand bucks a year and are almost guaranteed to cause problems.

Goodbye Drugs, So Long Symptoms

Statins lower cholesterol by suppressing the activity of an enzyme in the liver involved in the production of cholesterol. But this enzyme has multiple functions, including the synthesis of coenzyme Q10. CoQ10 is a key player in the metabolic processes that energize our cells. No wonder statin users often suffer from fatigue, muscle pain and weakness, and even heart failure- the cells are simply running out of juice.

The second most frequent adverse effects of statins are problems with memory, mood, suicidal behavior, and neurological issues. Other common complaints include sexual dysfunction, and liver and digestive problems. Symptoms range from minor (achiness, forgetfulness) to serious (complete but temporary amnesia, permanent memory loss) to lethal (congestive heart failure, rhabdomyolysis or complete muscle breakdown). One statin drug, Baycol, was taken off the market a few years ago after it caused dozens of deaths from rhabdomyolysis. Several studies have also linked statin drugs with an increased risk of cancer.

Because physicians rarely warn of these side effects, few patients suspect their drugs may be the reason they begin feeling bad- and it's often a revelation when they put two and two together. Simply discontinuing these medications can result in tremendous improvements in health and well-being. Texas cardiologist Peter Langsjoen, MD, published a study showing that when symptomatic patients got off their statins and started taking 240 mg of CoQ10 per day, they had significant decreases in fatigue, myalgias (muscle aches), dyspnea (shortness of breath), memory loss, and/or peripheral neuropathy.

Not a Drug But a Program

As you can see, we need to shift away from this myopic focus on statin drugs and lowering cholesterol, and take a more holistic view. Folks, you don't need statins- you need a program that addresses all the known risk factors for heart attack, stroke, and other cardiovascular disorders.

Inflammation, not high cholesterol, is the primary cause of heart disease. Harvard researchers have discovered that a high blood level of C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation, is more predictive of heart disease than cholesterol.

In short, do what you can to manage your cholesterol, but don't worry about it if your level is particularly stubborn. The average cholesterol of people who have heart disease isn't much higher than the level of those who don't. If high cholesterol runs in your family, concentrate on what you can control, and remember, numbers aren't everything.

Yoga May Help Seasonal Affective Disorder

2010-02-28T13:01:00.000-08:00

If you feel foggy, fatigued and depressed during the winter months, you may be among the 10 to 20 percent of adults who experience mild seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Symptoms include anxiety, weight gain, oversleeping, and social withdrawal. Although SAD is linked to lack of sunlight, in addition to supplementing with Vitamin D, try yoga. Yoga poses involving the crown chakra, or the top of the head, may stimulate the pineal gland, which produces the feel-good hormones serotonin and melatonin, and helps regulate circadian and seasonal rhythms.

Mediterranean Diet May Lower Risk of Developing Thinking and Memory Problems

2010-02-09T17:48:00.000-08:00

A Mediterranean diet may help people avoid the small areas of brain damage that can lead to problems with thinking and memory, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 62nd Annual Meeting in Toronto April 10 to April 17, 2010. The study found that people who ate a Mediterranean-like diet were less likely to have brain infarcts, or small areas of dead tissue linked to thinking problems.

The Mediterranean diet includes high intake of vegetables, legumes, fruits, fish, whole grains, and monounsaturated fatty acids such as olive oil; low intake of saturated fatty acids, dairy products, meat and poultry; and mild to moderate amounts of alcohol.

For the study, researchers assessed the diets of 712 people in New York and divided them into three groups based on how closely they were following the Mediterranean diet. Then they conducted MRI brain scans an average of six years later. A total of 238 people had at least one area of brain damage. Those who were most closely following a Mediterranean-like diet were 36 percent less likely to have areas of brain damage than those who were least following the diet. Those moderately following the diet were 21 percent less likely to have brain damage than the lowest group.

The relationship between this type of brain damage and the Mediterranean diet was comparable with that of high blood pressure. In other words, not eating a Mediterranean-like diet had about the same effect on the brain as having high blood pressure.

Previous research by Scarmeas and his colleagues showed that a Mediterranean-like diet may be associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer's disease and may lengthen survival in people with Alzheimer's disease. According to the present study, these associations may be partially explained by fewer brain infarcts.

Hostility Associated with Visceral Fat in Middle-Aged Women

2009-10-28T19:32:00.000-07:00

In a study conducted at the Yale University School of Medicine and recently published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine, researchers found that higher levels of hostility were associated with a greater amount of visceral fat in both African-American and white middle-aged women. This association remained significant after further adjustments for education and multiple coronary heart disease risk factors. Hostility was not associated with subcutaneous fat. They concluded that hostility may affect risk for coronary heart disease in women via the accumulation of visceral fat.

I think these findings are very significant and point once again to the link between stress (as hostility is a toxic emotion) and abdominal fat. Visceral fat, which hugs the internal organs, such as the kidneys, liver and pancreas, is considered to be more dangerous that subcutaneous fat, which is deposited just below the skin. My hunch is that hostility kept inside is even more dangerous than hostility that is outwardly expressed.

Maintaining Healthy Bones

2009-10-22T20:07:00.000-07:00

For many years I have been following the work of Annemarie Colbin, Ph.D., nutritional expert and author of the recent book, "The Whole Food Guide to Strong Bones." I recently received the following email from her:

"Fosamax and similar drugs interfere with bone metabolism, which in turn interferes with blood metabolism- preventing calcium and other minerals from being released into the blood to keep its ph steady. They make bones more brittle and contribute to heart palpitations."

To maintain strong bones, Annemarie recommends eating salad or greens every day (for the calcium and vitamin K), eating sufficient protein (for the collagen matrix), avoiding "low fat" anything, and eating enough butter or olive oil (to keep the fat-soluble vitamins in solution). Cook everything with stock or bone broth. If possible, eat bones-from sardines, soft shell crabs, and chew on chicken bones. This approach works very well, and it's fun, cheap and tasty.

For more information on Annemarie Colbin, go to www.foodandhealing.com.

Lower Depression Risk Linked to Mediterranean Diet

2009-10-16T21:41:00.000-07:00

Eating a Mediterranean-style diet packed with fruits, vegetables,legumes, nuts, olive oil and fish is good for your heart. Now scientists are suggesting the diet may be good for your mental health, too.

A study of over 10,000 Spaniards followed for almost four and half years found that those who reported eating a healthy Mediterranean diet at the beginning of the study were about half as likely to develop depression than those who said they did not stick to the diet.

All of the participants were free of depression when they were recruited to the study, and each filled out a 136-item food frequency questionnaire when they joined. Based on their self-reported dietary habits, they were assigned a score between 0 and 9, with the highest score reflecting the closest adherence to a Mediterranean diet. Over time, those who had scored between 5 and 9 on the Mediterranean diet were 42 to 51 percent less likely to develop depression than those who scored between 0 and 2.

Many scientists are convinced that the same damaging inflammatory and metabolic processes involved in cardiovascular disease may also play a role in mental health. Both cardiovascular disease and depression share common mechanisms related to endothelium function and inflammation, said Dr. Miguel Angel Martinez-Gonzalez, professor of preventive medicine at University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain, and senior author of the paper, published in the October issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.

The membranes of our neurons are composed of fat, so the quality of fat that you are eating definitely has an influence on the quality of the neuron membranes, and the body's synthesis of neurotransmitters is dependent on the vitamins you're eating, Dr. Martinez-Gonzalez added. We think those with lowest adherence to the Mediterranean dietary plan have a deficiency of essential nutrients.

The elements of the diet most closely linked to a lower risk of depression were fruits and nuts, legumes and a high ratio of monounsaturated to saturated fats.

Gratitude Exercise Reduces Depression

2009-09-28T13:33:00.000-07:00

A York University psychology professor, Myriam Mongrain, Ph.D., found that listing five things a day that one is grateful for can reduce depression symptoms. They found that this simple exercise especially increased well-being amongst people who tended to focus on the negative aspects of their lives.

Stress Management Training Helps Control Diabetes

2009-09-28T13:29:00.000-07:00

Good diabetic control minimizes the risk of complications. Stress affects control directly through the release of hormones and indirectly by disrupting self-management activities. There have been numerous studies examining the impact of stress management interventions on glycaemic control. Researchers at Monash University in Australia recently reviewed all such studies since 1980 using searches of Medline and PsycInfo databases. The general trend suggested that stress management interventions may be useful in management of diabetes. Further research will provide greater understanding of the particular benefits of various components of stress management training in relation to specific subgroups of the diabetic population.

The Relaxation Effect

2009-08-02T19:41:00.000-07:00

Achieving perfect health by just relaxing seems too simplistic. However, according to new evidence from researchers at Harvard Medical School, deep relaxation has a remarkable effect on a wide variety of medical conditions. This research illustrates that in long-term practitioners of relaxation techniques such as yoga and meditation, far more "disease-fighting genes" were found present and active in comparison to individuals who practiced no relaxation or stress-relief techniques.

Researchers found particular genes that protect from certain disorders and ailments "switched on," due to what they call "the relaxation effect," a phenomenon that is beginning to cause medical professionals to believe this relaxation effect is just as effective and powerful as any medical drug. The upside to natural relaxation techniques in comparison to medical drugs is that risks of negative side effects some of these drugs can cause are eliminated.

Dr. Herbert Benson, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School explains how the research is so critical because it signifies how a person's state of mind influences their body on a physical and even genetic level. Jake Toby, hypnotherapist at London's BodyMind Medicine Centre explains relaxation as an action the body takes when the "parasympathetic nervous system switches on,,which is linked to better digestion, memory, and immunity"

With scientific research showing that relaxation techniques can boost immunity, improve fertility, lessen irritable bowel syndrome symptoms, lower blood pressure, and prevent inflammation that is linked to heart disease, arthritis, and asthma as well as some skin conditions, it is no wonder that people who value their health or who have become frustrated with traditional medicine are looking deeper into finding ways to relax naturally and reduce their stress on a daily basis.

Meditation Reduces Symptoms of Depression

2009-04-28T19:09:00.000-07:00

In a preliminary study conducted by psychologists at Oxford University, subjects with severe and recurrent depression improved with a combination of meditation and cognitive behavior therapy. The results of a small-scale randomized trial of the approach, called mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), are published in the journal Behaviour Research and Therapy. 28 people currently suffering from depression, having also had previous episodes of depression and thoughts of suicide, were randomly assigned to two groups. One received MBCT in addition to treatment as usual, while the other just received treatment as usual. Treatment with MBCT resulted in reduced symptoms of major depression, while levels of depression remained the same in the control group.

I have used this approach in my practice for many years, combining relaxation and meditation techniques with cognitive behavior therapy.

Perfectionism Associated with Increased Mortality in Older Adults

2009-04-23T21:30:00.000-07:00

Perfectionism as a personality trait is strongly associated with mortality in late life. After baseline assessment of health and personality traits as predictors of mortality, 450 participants in a study in The Netherlands were followed over a period of 6.5 years. Findings demonstrated that risk of death was significantly greater for high scorers in perfectionism and neuroticism, compared to low scorers at the time of base line. Conversely, risk of death was significantly lower for high scorers in conscientiousness, extraversion and optimism. This study was reported in the latest issue of the Journal of Health Psychology.

As I have personally observed over the years with so many of my patients, perfectionism leads to the body being in a continual state of tension or hyperarousal, eventually resulting in physical exhaustion. Negative emotional states also result in metabolic changes and can create an inflammatory response.

Zinc May Enhance Effects of Anti-Depressant Medications

2009-03-28T18:24:00.000-07:00

In double blind placebo controlled study involving 60 patients with major depression (without any psychotic symptoms), treatment with zinc (25 mg/day) was added to standard anti-depressant drug therapy (imipramine, 140 mg/day). Addition of zinc significantly reduced depression scores and improved treatment outcomes in anti-depressant-resistant patients, as compared to supplementation with a placebo. These results support results from a preliminary clinical report suggesting that supplementation with zinc may augment the effects of anti-depressant drug therapy. The authors conclude, "Zinc supplementation augments the efficacy and speed of onset of therapeutic response to imipramine treatment, particularly in patients previously nonresponsive to antidepressant pharmacotherapies. These data suggest the participation of disturbed zinc/glutamatergic transmission in the pathophysiology of drug resistance."

Teenage Boys Who Eat Fish Achieve Higher IQ Scores

2009-03-15T21:35:00.000-07:00

Fifteen-year-old males who ate fish at least once a week displayed higher cognitive skills at the age of 18 than those who it ate it less frequently, according to a study of nearly 4,000 teenagers published in the March issue of Acta Paediatrica.

Eating fish once a week was enough to increase combined, verbal, and visual spatial intelligence scores by an average of six per cent, while eating fish more than once a week increased them by just under 11 percent.

"We found a clear link between frequent fish consumption and higher scores when the teenagers ate fish at least once a week" says Professor Kjell Torén from the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, one of the senior scientists involved in the study. "When they ate fish more than once a week the improvement almost doubled.

"A number of studies have already shown that fish can help neurodevelopment in infants, reduce the risk of impaired cognitive function from middle age onwards and benefit babies born to women who ate fish during pregnancy" says Professor Torén. "However we believe that this is the first large-scale study to explore the effect on adolescents."

"The most widely held theory is that it is the long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids found in fish that have positive effects on
cognitive performance" explains Professor Torén. Other theories highlight their vascular and anti-inflammatory properties and their role in suppressing cytokines, chemicals that can affect the immune system."

Friendships Among Women Counteract Stress

2009-03-02T13:03:00.000-08:00

UCLA STUDY ON FRIENDSHIP AMONG WOMEN
By Gale Berkowitz

A landmark UCLA study suggests friendships between women are special. They shape who we are and who we are yet to be. They soothe our tumultuous inner world, fill the emotional gaps in our marriage, and help us remember who we really are. By the way, they may do even more.

Scientists now suspect that hanging out with our friends can actually counteract the kind of stomach-quivering stress most of us experience on a daily basis. A landmark UCLA study suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with other women. It's a stunning find that has turned five decades of stress research---most of it on men---upside down. "Until this study was published, scientists generally believed that when people experience stress, they trigger a hormonal cascade that revs the body to either stand and fight or flee as fast as possible," explains Laura Cousino Klein, Ph.D., now an Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State University and one of the study's authors. "It's an ancient survival mechanism left over from the time we were chased across the planet by saber-toothed tigers.

Now the researchers suspect that women have a larger behavioral repertoire than just "fight or flight." "In fact," says Dr. Klein,"it seems that when the hormone oxytocin is released as part of the stress responses in a woman, it buffers the "fight or flight" response and encourages her to tend children and gather with other women instead. When she actually engages in this tending or befriending, studies suggest that more oxytocin is released, which further counters stress and produces a
calming effect. This calming response does not occur in men", says Dr. Klein, "because testosterone---which men produce in high levels when they're under stress---seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin. Estrogen", she adds, "seems to enhance it."

The discovery that women respond to stress differently than men was made in a classic "aha!" moment shared by two women scientists who were talking one day in a lab at UCLA. "There was this joke that when the women who worked in the lab were stressed, they came in, cleaned the lab, had coffee, and bonded", says Dr. Klein. "When the men were stressed,
they holed up somewhere on their own. I commented one day to fellow researcher Shelley Taylor that nearly 90% of the stress research is on males. I showed her the data from my lab, and the two of us knew instantly that we were onto something."

The women cleared their schedules and started meeting with one scientist after another from various research specialties. Very quickly, Drs. Klein and Taylor discovered that by not including women in stress research, scientists had made a huge mistake: The fact that women respond to stress differently than men has significant implications for our health.

It may take some time for new studies to reveal all the ways that oxytocin encourages us to care for children and hang out with other women, but the "tend and befriend" notion developed by Drs. Klein and Taylor may explain why women consistently outlive men. Study after study has found that social ties reduce our risk of disease by lowering blood pressure, heart rate, and cholesterol. "There's no doubt," says Dr. Klein, "that friends are helping us live." In one study, for example,
researchers found that people who had no friends increase d their risk of death over a 6-month period. In another study, those who had the most friends over a 9-year period cut their risk of death by more than 60%.

Friends are also helping us live better. The famed Nurses' Health Study from Harvard Medical School found that the more friends women had, the less likely they were to develop physical impairments as they aged, and the more likely they were to be leading a joyful life. In fact, the results were so significant, the researchers concluded, that not having close friends or confidantes was as detrimental to your health as smoking or carrying extra weight! And that's not all! When the researchers looked at how well the women functioned after the death of their spouse, they found that even in the face of this biggest stressor of all, those women who had a close friend confidante were more likely to survive the experience without any new physical impairments or permanent loss of vitality. Those without friends were not always so fortunate.

Yet if friends counter the stress that seems to swallow up so much of our life these days, if they keep us healthy and even add years to our life, why is it so hard to find time to be with them? That's a question that also troubles researcher Ruthellen Josselson, Ph.D., co-author of "Best Friends: The Pleasures and Perils of Girls' and Women's Friendships (Three Rivers Press, 1998). "Every time we get overly busy with work and family, the first thing we do is let go of friendships with other women,"
explains Dr. Josselson. "We push them right to the back burner. That's really a mistake because women are such a source of strength to each other. We nurture one another. And we need to have unpressured space in which we can do the special kind of talk that women do when they're with other women. It's a very healing experience."

Taylor, S. E., Klein, L.C., Lewis, B. P., Gruenewald, T. L., Gurung, R. A. R., & Updegraff, J. A. Female Responses to Stress: Tend and Befriend, Not Fight or Flight

Intake of Fish and Omega-3 Fatty Acids Linked to Reduced Depression in Women

2009-02-24T19:46:00.000-08:00

In a population-based study involving 3,317 subjects, dietary intakes of fish and long-chain omega-3 fatty acids were found to be inversely associated with depressive symptoms in women. Diet of the subjects was assessed in year 7, and depressive symptoms were assessed in years 10, 15, and 20. Intakes of EPA, DHA, and EPA+DHA were all associated with a lower risk of depressive symptoms at year 10, with more pronounced associations found in women. The authors conclude, "Our findings suggest that dietary intakes of fish and long-chain omega-3 fatty acids may be inversely associated with chronic depressive symptoms in women."

State May Ban Food Additives Linked to ADHD

2009-02-12T21:00:00.000-08:00

Maryland is poised to become the first state in the nation to require food packaging to include warning labels if the product is made with certain food coloring additives that have been linked to ADHD.

"Evidence linking Red 40, Yellow 5, & other synthetic food dyes to behavioral probs in children has been mounting for 30 yrs," said David Schardt, a nutritionist from the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

European regulation, according to CSPI, are already more strict: "For instance, the syrup in a strawberry sundae from a McDonald's in the U.K. gets its red color from strawberries; in the U.S., the red color comes from synthetic Red 40. In the U.S., synthetic food dyes are common in brightly colored foods popular with children, including candies, soft drinks, breakfast cereals, & snack foods. Sometimes the sunny synthetic colors are designed to simulate fruits or vegetables, as in the case of a "Guacamole Dip" produced by Kraft, which gets its green color not from avocados but from Yellow 5, Yellow 6, & Blue 1. The "artificially flavored blueberry bits" in Aunt Jemima Blueberry Waffles are blue thanks to Red 40 & Blue 2, not blueberries. "

Which food colorings should you look out for? If Maryland's food warning bill passes, these chemical additives would bear the following warning:

Warning: The color additives in this food may cause hyperactivity & behavior problems in some children.
•Blue 1
•Blue 2
•Green 3
•Orange B
•Red 3
•Red 40
•Yellow 5
•Yellow 6

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Dr. Mark Hyman's Practical Plan for Brain Health

2009-01-08T21:51:00.000-08:00

Why have brain problems ranging from depression, anxiety, ADD/ADHD, and autism to dementia, Alzheimer's, and Parkinson's reached epidemic proportions?

Are we all simply destined to lose our focus, concentration, and memory while becoming depressed, anxious, and tired?

The answer is no, according to the compelling new book, The UltraMind Solution from Mark Hyman, MD, the three-time NY Times bestselling author in the cutting-edge field of functional medicine.

Dr. Hyman's book drew fulsome praise from some of America's leading wellness-oriented doctors. You can learn more about The UltraMind Solution by going to The UltraMind Solution Web site.

Dr. Hyman says that seemingly separate brain/mind problems – poor memory, lack of focus, anxiety, depression, autism, Alzheimer's, dementia, ADD/ADHD and more – all stem from a common syndrome he calls “broken brain”.

Hyman says that the solution to broken brain syndrome lies in the underlying biology that runs cells, organs, and interlocked immune/hormone/nerve systems.

Dr. Hyman tested and refined his approach while he was co-medical director at Canyon Ranch for 10 years, and later in his own private medical practice in Lenox, Massachusetts.

You may have seen Mark Hyman on The Today Show, Good Morning America or on public television discussing this groundbreaking solution … the same one that he used to help cure himself of chronic fatigue syndrome over a decade ago.

Dr. Hyman describes how imbalances in the seven core systems of the body – nutrition, hormones, immune function, digestion, detoxification, energy metabolism and mind-body – explain all the symptoms and diseases we think are “brain” problems.

The heart of the plan is a comprehensive diet and lifestyle change that consists of four basic components that last for six weeks:
A healthy eating plan.
A basic brain-supplements regimen.
Lifestyle changes including exercise, relaxation, sleep, and mental exercises.
A clean and green lifestyle to reduce exposure to environmental toxins.

Eating Too Fast May Lead to Weight Gain

2008-12-17T20:15:00.000-08:00

People who tend to eat quickly could be tripling their risk of being overweight. Researchers questioned more than 3,000 men and women about their eating habits; those who ate rapidly and continued consuming until they felt full had a higher body mass index (BMI), consumed more calories, and were more likely to be overweight than participants who didn’t eat quickly and didn’t eat until they were full.

Try eating mindfully: turn off the television, put down the newspaper, and focus on appreciating the tastes and textures of food - you’ll discover that your eating pace slows markedly. Mindful eating is associated with successful weight loss and more importantly, promotes long-term maintenance of a healthy weight.

Red Dye linked to Behavior Problems in Children

2008-12-14T21:31:00.000-08:00

Red dye No. 40 is found in hundreds of foods, including Twizzlers, Doritos, Twinkies, chocolate cake mix, and vanilla frosting. A recent British study linked it to possible behavior problems in children.

For years, food dyes, additives and preservatives have been blamed for problems such as hyperactivity, inattentiveness and impulsivity. However, controlled studies were unable to substantiate these claims despite anecdotal evidence from parents.