Stress really CAN cause heart attacks, say researchers

The journal article "Salivary cortisol responses to mental stress are associated with coronary artery calcification in healthy men and women" is here. It showed that people who got anxious (as measured by cortisol secretion) about doing a silly task had more signs of coronary artery problems -- but that anxiety in general (as measured by cortisol secretion) was not related to coronary artery problems. Figure that one out! I think that "more research is needed" is all that we can politely say

Getting stressed really is bad for your heart, according to new research. For years, stress has been linked to heart attacks and other heart complaints but with very little medical evidence to back it up. Now a major trial by doctors at University College London has proved for the first time that people who get stressed are also likely to have heart disease.

The study involved 514 men and women, with an average age of 62. None had signs of heart disease. Each underwent stress tests and then levels of cortisol - a chemical produced by the body at times of stress and which causes arteries to narrow - were measured. Their arteries were also scanned for any signs of furring and narrowing. Those people who were stressed by the tests were twice as likely to have furred arteries as those who remained calm, the study in the European Heart Journal found.

Cardiologist Professor Avijit Lahiri said: 'This study shows a clear-cut relationship between stress and silent coronary artery disease. This is the first clear proof.'

SOURCE






Benefits of breast screening 'are a myth'

Once again, medical "wisdom" is revealed as folly when properly tested

Thousands of women who attend routine breast screening checks are wrongly told that they have life-threatening cancer and undergo unnecessary treatment each year, researchers claim today.

An independent scientific review of the NHS breast screening programme accuses the Government of providing misleading propaganda to persuade women of the benefits of screening, without mentioning the drawbacks. Ministers, health charities and the majority of doctors encourage women to have regular mammograms in middle age on the basis of estimates that the checks save 1,400 lives each year.

However, the review by the Nordic Cochrane Centre, in Copenhagen, disputes the value of the checks, saying that there is “no convincing evidence” that screening has saved so many lives. Writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, the researchers say that improvements in breast cancer survival are more to do with improvements in treatment, rather than detection through screening. They add that many healthy women who attend screenings may have had benign conditions “overdiagnosed” by doctors and endured gruelling surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy.

Meanwhile, doctors warned that continuing disputes over the value of breast screening could cause confusion among women and could lead to dangerous diseases being missed. All women aged 50 to 70 are offered breast cancer screening in Britain. More than 1.7 million women take up the invitation every year. As well as detecting tumours developing in the breast, mammography also identifies women who have ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) — precancerous lesions contained in the milk ducts, which may develop into cancer. Up to half of women who receive a diagnosis of DCIS never go on to develop breast cancer but, as it is not possible to predict who will, all women with abnormalities are treated with surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy.

Professor Peter Gøtzsche, the lead author of the Cochrane review, said that more than 21,000 women aged 50 to 69 had breast cancer diagnosed in Britain in 2007. He added that one in three of the cancers diagnosed among the screened age group could be “unnecessary” diagnoses of benign DCIS. “Each year 7,000 women in the UK receive an unnecessary breast cancer diagnosis and unnecessary breast cancer treatment because of overdiagnosis in the NHS breast screening programme,” he said.

The Department of Health agreed to review the information leaflets that it publishes on breast screening after a previous study from the Cochrane researchers and a letter from 23 health professionals to The Times criticised their biased nature. The latest review directly criticises the official annual review of the breast screening programme, published by the Department of Health in 2008. “The review exaggerates the benefit, omits the harms, and looks like propaganda aimed at persuasion,” it says. “We arrive at a different conclusion than those who wrote the annual review. There is no convincing evidence that [screening] has saved lives.”

Julietta Patnick, the director of the NHS Cancer Screening Programmes, rejected Professor Gøtzsche’s conclusions. “Numerous independent studies have shown breast cancer screening reduces mortality,” she said. “A report from the World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer concluded that there is a 35 per cent reduction in mortality from breast cancer among regularly screened women aged 50 to 69 years.” [I'll trust a Cochrane review over the corrupt WHO any time]

SOURCE

Blonde women born to be warrior princesses?



There is no sign of this study that I can find in any recent edition of PNAS so I assume that the report below is based on an excerpt from an August 2009 study.

The research is psychologically naive. It purports to show that blondes are more prone to anger but the measures used seem to be the ones given here. They are one-way worded so you can get a high score just by agreeing with everything put to you. So the results may well simply show that blondes tend to agree with any statement put to them -- the "dumb blonde" theory. For background on the folly of using questionnaires where all the statements are worded in the same direction, see here

It really is a case of blonde ambition. Women with fair hair are more aggressive and determined to get their own way than brunettes or redheads, according to a study by the University of California. Researchers claim that blondes are more likely to display a “warlike” streak because they attract more attention than other women and are used to getting their own way — the so-called “princess effect”. Even those who dye their hair blonde quickly take on these attributes, experts found.

The study could cast fresh light on the ability of Joanna Lumley, the actress and former model, to pummel ministers into giving all Gurkha veterans the right to settle in the UK. It may also help to explain the success of the lead character in Legally Blonde, the hit West End musical based on a film starring Reese Witherspoon, who forces her way to the top of law school despite being perceived as ditzy.

The findings about aggression are contained in research by the University of California, Santa Barbara, to discover whether women who are judged more attractive than others are also more likely to lose their tempers to get what they want. “We expected blondes to feel more entitled than other young women — this is southern California, the natural habitat of the privileged blonde,” said Aaron Sell, who led the study which has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. “What we did not expect to find was how much more warlike they are than their peers on campus.” The researchers believe this is a useful measure of how far women are prepared to fight for their own interests.

The study, which examined links between confidence and aggression, involved 156 female undergraduates. It showed that blondes were more likely to be treated better than other women and were more willing to “go to war”. However, they were less likely than brunettes or redheads to get into a fight themselves — possibly to ensure they preserved their looks.

The research did confirm one theory: when male students were asked to rate the attractiveness of their female counterparts, blondes gained the highest scores.

Sell suspects that blondes exist in a “bubble” where they have been treated better than other people for so long they do not realise that men, in particular, are more deferential towards them than other women. “They may not even realise they are treated like a princess,” Sell said.

His research indicated that the more “special” people feel, judged by physical strength for men and looks for women, the more likely they are to get angry to reach social goals. “I become more battling when I’m blonde,” said Vanessa Feltz, the broadcaster, who admits to dying her hair. “You’re noticed more.”

While more than 85% of the world’s population have black hair and brown eyes, Europe has been varied since the first blondes emerged 11,000 years ago because of a genetic mutation. There is even a “blond line” running from Suffolk to Liverpool. If you live south of the line you are 20%-49% likely to have fair hair; above it the odds leap to 50%-79% because of Scandinavian genes.

“Blondes are more confident in their abilities, although the results do not necessarily support their confidence,” said Catherine Salmon, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Redlands, California. “Maybe responding to their own stereotypes, brunettes tend to work harder and expect less special treatment. Women who go blonde quickly get used to the privileges of blondeness — usually male attentiveness.”

However, some blondes dispute the research. “As I’ve been every colour of hair under the sun and I’m not sure that my temperament has changed with my hair colour, I can’t verify this as true,” said the actress Emilia Fox, the star of Silent Witness. “My ambition comes from enjoying working hard, rather than being blonde.”

SOURCE

Update:

An emailed comment from Prof. Sell follows:

"Please distinguish between the research itself and journalists' interpretations of such research. The word "blonde" does not appear anywhere in my paper (you correctly cite my 2009 paper in PNAS) which had nothing to do with hair. The words attributed to me in the piece you are commenting on are inaccurate. I've never referred to blondes as "princesses" for example."






Dairy rabbits!

SCIENTISTS are creating herds of dairy rabbits to exploit the medical benefits of their milk. The first commercial milking of rabbits, using specially adapted eight-teat machines, is already taking place at a farm in Holland.

The rabbits have been genetically modified to include a human gene, which means their milk contains a protein called C1 inhibitor. C1 helps control inflammation in the body, and a lack of it can be highly damaging.

The milk protein is intended to prevent the rejection of transplant organs and tissue damage in survivors of strokes and heart attacks, as well as helping car crash victims who have suffered traumatic bruising to internal organs.

C1 can be harvested from human blood and other animal sources, but is expensive to obtain and carries the risk of contamination and infection with viruses such as Aids or CJD, the human version of “mad cow disease”. Such issues do not arise with milk from the high-tech rabbit farm.

The milk could also help to treat the hereditary immune disorder angioedema. The condition, partly caused by a lack of C1, affects 2,000 people in Britain. So far 200 patients have taken part in trials for Rhucin, a treatment derived from the rabbit milk. It is awaiting approval from European drug regulators and will be launched in the UK later this year.

Hilary Longhurst, an immunologist at Barts hospital in London, said: “I am really excited. This therapy will transform the lives of sufferers.”

Further farms are expected to open to meet demand. Sijmen de Vries, the chief executive of Pharming, the biotech company behind the project, said: “There is a great unmet need for this product. We have the capacity to produce it cheaply in unlimited quantities.” A contented New Zealand white rabbit can produce 140ml a day. “The rabbits are highly productive and reproductive,” added de Vries.

SOURCE

US rate of obesity high but not rising

No "epidemic" after all, it would seem. That many Americans are too fat by someone else's arbitrary definition means nothing other than showing a currently acceptable form of bigotry

Raise a glass of diet soda: The nation's obesity rate appears to have stalled. But the latest numbers still show that more than two-thirds of adults and almost a third of kids are overweight, with no sign of improvement. According to government data from the years 2007-08 published Wednesday, the obesity rate has held steady for about five years, reflecting earlier signs it had stalled after steadily climbing.

Dr. William Dietz, an obesity expert with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cautiously called the results promising. "We're at the corner; we haven't turned the corner," he said.

Not only are the vast majority of adults overweight, 34 percent are obese (roughly 30 or more pounds over a healthy weight); and 17 percent of children are obese. Even the youngest Americans are affected - 10 percent of babies and toddlers are precariously heavy.

The CDC data were contained in two reports published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association. "Even though this finding is certainly good news, the statistics are still staggering," said Dr. J. Michael Gaziano, a contributing editor at the journal.

The new data are based on health surveys involving height and weight measurements of 5,700 adults and 4,000 children, surveys the CDC does every two years. The results in adults, showing 68 percent are too heavy, have been virtually the same in the last three surveys.

In most age groups, black adults had the highest rates of obesity, followed by Mexican-Americans and whites. Among children and young people ages 2 to 19, 32 percent were too heavy - a rate that was mostly unchanged. But disturbingly, most obese kids were extremely obese. And the percentage of extremely obese boys ages 6 to 19 has steadily increased, to 15 percent from about 9 percent in 1999-2000.

CDC researcher and study author Cynthia Ogden said it was disappointing to see no decline and troubling that the heaviest boys seem to be getting even heavier. The study didn't examine the causes, but Ogden cited the usual reasons - soft drinks, video games and inactivity - as possible explanations. "We shouldn't be complacent. We still have a problem," Ogden said.

Gaziano, a cardiologist at Boston's Veterans Affairs Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital, said getting the nation to turn the corner and reduce obesity requires changing many unhealthful behaviors, and getting restaurants, schools, food manufacturers and communities to support the fight. That's starting to happen, from efforts to pull soda from school vending machines to campaigns by groups like the NFL to encourage physical activity, Gaziano said.

SOURCE






Breast cancer chemotherapy can be cut to six weeks -- in mice

A new drug course could beat breast cancer in six weeks and eliminate the need for months of chemotherapy. Scientists have found that a combination of drugs regularly given to breast cancer patients destroyed tumours in a shorter period of time. Researchers at the University of Sheffield found a combination of treatments given over a period of six weeks was as effective as six months of treatment.

Around 45,000 women in Britain each year are diagnosed with breast cancer. Less exposure to chemotherapy would reduce the risk of side-effects, such as hair loss, nausea and, in some cases, permanent infertility.

The research team had already proven the effectiveness of using doxorubicin, a chemotherapy drug commonly given to stop tumour growth, and zoledronic acid, a well-tolerated treatment given to protect bone in advanced breast cancer. Senior lecturer Dr Ingunn Holen and her team treated a group of mice with the combination every week for six months and another group for six weeks.

The International Journal of Cancer said that in both groups tumours shrank from their original size and became barely detectable. Dr Holen said: 'These findings are very promising. Clinical studies in patients are now needed.'

SOURCE

Isn't the aim of the lunchbox to make sure that children eat?

British mother Anna Maxted on the research that shows that most parents fail to comply with nutritional standards when they make their children's lunchboxes

Every morning I sling the same four items into the seven-year old's lunchbox and feel like a rotten mother. From Monday to Friday throughout term, my son eats the same boring, nutritionally suspect lunch: Marmite sandwich, yoghurt drink, carton of juice, Shape bar.

I am in bad company, as it turns out that ninety nine per cent of British mothers are equally slack in regard to their darlings' diet. Research at Leeds University – out this week in an associate publication of the British Medical Journal – finds that if nutritional standards were applied to packed lunches, only one per cent would comply. Of the 1,300 seven and eight-year olds surveyed, more than a quarter had a lunchbox containing sweets, crisps and a sugary drink. Only one in ten had a portion of vegetables.

The nanny state is, of course, alert to the fact that we slipshod parents will feed our kids any cheap fatty rubbish. The School Food Trust (slogan: Eat Better, Do Better), established by the Department of Education and Skills in 2005, actually provides "menus to help parents" who are seemingly incapable of filling a lunchbox without adding Haribos. This term, my sons' school newsletter issues a stern reminder that "children should not bring sweets or chocolates in their packed lunch".

The truth: we slapdash mothers have begged, then forced, our children to trot to school with a flask of home-made broccoli soup, tomatoes, a banana, an organic flapjack, a peanut butter sandwich on granary bread, dried chopped apricots and a peach smoothie.

The following morning, we retrieve the lunchboxes from the hallway floor to find: a bruised yet untouched banana, squashed tomatoes, spat-out apricot. The soup flask has been opened and promptly shut, but not fully, and has leaked. The flapjack, lovingly baked at midnight, is crumbled into a thousand pieces. Even the peanut butter sandwich has failed. "We're not allowed nuts," the seven-year old informs me crossly. "I got told off."

The no-nut policy also rules out the organic Bombay mix I discovered while frantically scouring the health food store for non-harmful, government approved ingredients. I don't want to give my seven-year old a Shape bar (7g of sugars in 21g), but the Granola bar was rejected by the food police on no-nut grounds too – "Mrs Kent said I had to eat it at home time." Furiously, I checked the packet. The Granola contains "traces" of almond and hazelnut. The Shape bar only contains fructose, dextrose, sugar, sorbitol and glycerol, so it's permitted.

I surrendered to the Cheese String – but that fad ran its course. Organic yoghurt tubes are rejected as "babyish". The five-year-old is just as picky. The only way I can sneak fruit into his lunchbox is via the extortionate Innocent "Squeezie" – £2.19 for a few squirts of mango puree – and an Ella's Kitchen "squished organic fruit" pouch. If I chance a satsuma, it remains uneaten, desperate fingernail marks in its peel telling a sad tale of failure and frustration.

It was all so different, of course, when the first child started reception. We parents were half-crazed with optimism. One Japanese mother I know would rise at dawn to make fresh sushi. Another friend had her four-year-old schlep in daily with half an avocado plus bottle of vinegarette. This regime lasts until the child claps eyes on a Hula-Hoop.

Last week, in desperation, I scanned the online list of lunchbox ideas by children's cook Annabel Karmel, and wanted to cry; Spanish omelette? Chicken Caesar salad? Sign on back saying "kick me"? And before anyone mentions hummus, know this: unless you want your children to be bullied, don't send them to school with food that smells.

Dietician Dr Sarah Schenker, of the British Nutrition Foundation, knows, despite the alleged evidence, that most parents yearn to trick their angels into eating the nutritionally perfect lunch – even pouring Cornflakes into a plastic bag and trying to pass them off as crisps – but that we inevitably have to compromise. "You can make a packed lunch super healthy but if it's coming back untouched, that is more serious than if something has been eaten that is not your ideal choice," she says.

This morning, staring dolefully at its meagre contents, I ask Oscar, "is there anything I can add to your lunchbox?" and he replies no, thank you, that he is "the fastest" at eating his lunch.

The government is perhaps unaware that when you are seven, it is less important to be full than to be finished. They may also be ignorant of the fact that when our poor, malnourished children return home, they gorge on grapes, carrots, cucumber and apples all evening, without a squeak of protest.

SOURCE






Farmed windpipe transplanted in crash victim

A very interesting new procedure



A WOMAN whose windpipe was crushed in a car crash has had it replaced with an implant that was farmed in her arm. For more than 25 years Linda De Croock lived with the constant pain of having two metal stents propping open her windpipe, Sky News reports. That was until the Belgian found a doctor, Pierre Delaere, on the internet who was willing to try something new. "I had always wondered, so many things are possible, why not a new windpipe?" Ms De Crook said.

Dr Delaere and his colleagues, who had performed similar procedures on a smaller scale for cancer patients, agreed to carry out the operation. Once the doctors had a suitable donor windpipe they wrapped it in Ms De Croock's own tissue and implanted it into her lower left arm. There they connected it to a large artery to re-establish the blood flow.

Ms De Croock said having a windpipe in her arm felt strange and uncomfortable. "It was packed in with gauze and my whole arm was in plaster." About 10 months later, when enough tissue had grown around it, the windpipe was transferred to its proper place. Dr Delaere was delighted with the result. "This is a major step forward for trachea transplantation," he said.

Ms De Croock said the operation had transformed her life. "Life before my transplant was becoming less livable all the time, with continual pain and jabbing and pricking in my throat and windpipe," she explained, adding that she no longer even needs to take anti-rejection drugs.

The way doctors at Belgium's University Hospital trained her body to accept donor tissue could yield new methods of growing or nurturing organs within patients, experts say.

Patrick Warnke, a tissue-engineering expert at Bond University in Australia, said it was the first time a donor organ as large as the trachea was nurtured inside the recipient's own body before being transplanted. "This shows us that we may one day be able to use patients' own bodies as bioreactors to grow their own tissue," he said.

SOURCE

Statins may cut risk of cataracts by 40%

Groan! More nonsense. OF COURSE people who took statins were healthier in general. Statins have such severe side-effects that you HAVE to be robust to stay on them

Statins could cut the chances of developing cataracts by nearly 40 per cent, research shows. Men aged between 45 and 54 who took the cholesterol-lowering pills virtually every day reduced their risk of cataracts later in life by 38 per cent compared with those who took them rarely, according to a study in the journal Annals of Epidemiology. In women of the same age, the risk was reduced by about 18 per cent.

But those aged 75 or more when they started on statins saw very little reduction in risk. Scientists who carried out the study of 180,000 people at Tel Aviv University in Israel said there was evidence that statins protect the eyes by reducing inflammation and protecting cells against a harmful process called oxidation.

About 200,000 people are year are treated for cataracts in Britain, a figure that is expected to rise significantly due to the ageing population.

SOURCE





Breastfed babies less aggressive -- but why?

The usual abuse of correlations. How do we know that mothers who breastfeed are not themselves less aggressive and simply pass on their temperament genetically? Maybe it helps to be a bit bovine to breastfeed

BABIES breastfed for six months or longer are less likely to be aggressive, anxious or depressed during childhood and into adolescence, a study has found. But more research is needed for scientists to understand why.

The study by Perth's Telethon Institute for Child Health Research tracked children born to more than 2300 mothers between 1989 and 1992, assessing their mental health at regular intervals from age two to 14. Eleven per cent were never breastfed, 38 per cent received breast milk for less than six months and just over half were breastfed for six months or more.

Nutritional epidemiologist Wendy Oddy, the lead researcher, speculated the biological components of breast milk might be involved in improved mental health outcomes. "There's a mass of literature showing the benefits of human milk over formula," she said.

But the ability of breastfeeding to enhance the mother-baby bond may also play a role. "It's most likely a combination," Professor Oddy said. "We're not able to say from this study whether it was the specific nutrients in breast milk, the bonding aspects, or both."

SOURCE

For healthy mental aging, brain games can fill in for schooling?

More epidemiological stupidity -- confusing cause and effect

It's well documented that people lacking college degrees are more likely to develop memory problems or even Alzheimer's disease later in life. [Which means what? That people with poor memories to start with cannot handle college?]

But people can significantly compensate for poorer education by engaging often in mental exercises such as word games, puzzles, reading, and lectures, a large national study has found. "Among individuals with low education, those who engaged in reading, writing, attending lectures, doing word games or puzzles once or week [i.e. those who were naturally smart to start with] or more had memory scores similar to people with more education," said psychologist Margie Lachman of Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., lead author of the study published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

"The lifelong benefits of higher education for memory in later life are quite impressive, but we do not clearly understand how and why these effects last so long," she noted. It could be because higher education promotes lifelong interest in cognitive endeavors, she added. By contrast, people with less education may engage less often in mental exercises that help keep the memory agile.

The study assessed 3,343 men and women between the ages of 32 and 84 with an average age of 56. Almost 40 percent of the participants had at least a four-year college degree. Lachman and colleagues evaluated how the participants performed in two cognitive areas, verbal memory and executive functionbrain processes involved in planning, abstract thinking and cognitive flexibility. Participants were given a battery of tests, including tests of verbal fluency, word recall, and backward counting.

"The findings are promising because they suggest there may be ways to level the playing field for those with lower educational achievement, and protect those at greatest risk for memory declines," said Lachman. "Although we can not rule out the possibility that those who have better memories are the ones who take on more activities, the evidence is consistent with cognitive plasticity, and suggests some degree of personal control over cognitive functioning in adulthood by adopting an intellectuly active lifestyle."

SOURCE





NYC: Restaurant chefs boiling over Bloomberg’s latest really stupid idea

Mayor Bloomberg yesterday defended his latest nanny initiative — a controversial crackdown on salt — by comparing the simple seasoning to killer asbestos in the classroom. "If we know there's asbestos in a school room what do you expect us to do?" Bloomberg shot back at reporters questioning his new initiative. "Say it's not our business? I don't think so. The same thing is true with food and smoking and a lot of things.

"Salt and asbestos, clearly both are bad for you," Bloomberg continued. "Modern medicine thinks you shouldn't be smoking if you want to live longer. Modern medicine thinks you shouldn't be eating salt, or sodium." [There is no such thing as a monolithic "modern medicine" -- only a range of ideas]

Bloomberg is pushing a plan to cut the amount of salt in packaged and restaurant foods by 25 percent over the next five years. He says the initiative is voluntary.

Never mind that salt has important properties that preserve and stabilize food, and its sodium ions help maintain the fluid in human blood cells. Forget that the body does not manufacture its own sodium ions so there has to be some salt in everyone's diet.

Restaurant owners have a less scientific reason for disliking the crackdown: salt makes food taste good. Some of the city's top chefs and restaurant owners yesterday had a spicy message for City Hall: Simmer down and stay out of our kitchens. "I'm all for trying to make New Yorkers healthier people," said acclaimed chef Ed Brown, owner of the restaurant eighty one on the Upper West Side. "But when it comes to him telling me how much salt to put in food, I have a problem with it."

Noted chef David Chang, owner of the Momofuku Noodle Bar, said cooks have been using salt with food almost as long as they have been using fire. "You need salt to draw flavor out of food," Chang said. "It's a skill that you teach cooks. For that to be regulated by the government is just stupid and foolish."

Too much sodium contributes to high blood pressure, which can cause heart attacks and stroke, health officials say.

SOURCE

The golden oldie gene: One in five has age-defying 'centenarian gene' that greatly increases odds of living to 100

What! It's not a diet low in fat and salt that does it?? How pesky! Seriously, though, this is a small and limited study and is mostly of interest for opening up a line of inquiry

In the genetic lottery of life expectancy, you might think 100 is a pretty lucky number. Now it's just got luckier. Scientists have discovered that a gene already known to treble your odds of living to 100 may also ward off Alzheimer's disease. One in five of us is dealt this genetic hand that promises to extend our lives without the loss of mental agility.

The gene is the first to be identified that actually cuts the odds of Alzheimer's disease rather than raising them. Its discovery could pave the way for new drug treatments to combat the devastating illness. More than 700,000 Britons have Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia and the number of cases is expected to double within a generation. There is no cure and existing drugs, which raise levels of key brain chemicals, do not work for everyone and their effects wear off over time.

Researchers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York tracked the health of more than 500 elderly men and women for four-and-a-half years. All were free of dementia at the start of the study but 40 had developed it by the end. Blood samples showed that the CETP gene, already known to treble-the odds of living to 100, also cut the odds of dementia by 70 per cent.

Genes come in pairs - and it was those with two copies of the 'centenarian' version who benefited, both from the added longevity and the Alzheimer's protection. They also suffered less age-related memory decline, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported.

Researcher Dr Amy Sanders said: 'We found that people with two copies of the longevity variant had slower memory decline and lower risk for developing dementia and Alzheimer's disease. More specifically-those who carried two copies of the favourable variant had a 70 per cent reduction in their risk for developing Alzheimer's disease compared with those who didn't.' Around one in five of those studied had the required pair of ' centenarian' genes.

Researcher Dr Richard Lipton said: 'Most work on the genetics of Alzheimer's disease has focused on factors that increase the danger. 'We reversed this approach and instead focused on a genetic factor that protects against age-related illness, including both memory decline and Alzheimer's disease.' The CETP gene affects levels of artery-clogging cholesterol in the body. The 'centenarian' version raises levels of 'good' cholesterol, cutting the risk of heart disease and, it appears, dementia. A pill that acts in same way could help people live longer, healthier lives.

Separate research has suggested that drugs widely used to treat high blood pressure may also be of use in dementia. Those taking ACE inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker pills had half the risk of the disease, according to a report in the British Medical Journal.

The global population of centenarians is expected to rise from 340,000 today to almost 6 million by the middle of the century. The UK share will rise from just over 10,000 today to 280,000.

SOURCE




Good show: Only one in 100 British pupils' packed lunches conform to food faddist dreams

The drive to improve nutrition in schools is failing to reach the country’s children, with only one in 100 packed lunches meeting basic dietary standards, research suggests. High-profile school campaigns by the Government and Jamie Oliver to improve children’s packed lunches have made little impact, with crisps, sweets, and sugary drinks taking precedence over vegetables, fruit, and milk-based products.

Research published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health suggests that only 1 per cent of primary school children’s packed lunches meet the nutritional standards set for school meals in England. One in three children was given a sandwich with a low-protein filling, and only one in ten children had sandwiches containing vegetables [A sandwich containing vegetables! What a horrible thought!]. A further one in ten was given a separate portion of vegetables. The foodstuff least likely to be eaten when provided was fruit, while confectionery was most commonly consumed.

About half of British schoolchildren eat a packed lunch brought from home — equating to 5.5 billion packed lunches eaten every year.

New standards setting out the required healthy food groups for prepared meals came into force for all local authority schools in England in 2006, prompted by concerns that school lunches were not providing sufficiently healthy food choices. These specify that school lunches must contain protein rich and low-fat starchy foods, vegetables, fruit and dairy products. Meals cannot include sweets (confectionery), savoury snacks or artificially sweetened drinks. These were followed in 2008 by further government standards on the energy, fat, salt, vitamin and nutrient content for school meals.

All the children took a packed lunch to school on at least one day of the week, and almost nine out of ten ate a packed lunch every day. The type and quantity of foods for each child’s lunch box were recorded and weighed before and after lunch on one day and compared with the Government’s school meal standards. Permitted savoury or sweet foods, vegetables, and permitted drinks (natural juice, milk, pure water) were the least likely to be provided. Sandwiches, sweets, savoury snacks and artificially sweetened drinks were the most common items.

More than one in four children had a packed lunch containing sweets, savoury snacks, and sugary drinks; a further four out of ten had sweets and snacks, but no sugary drink. Fewer than one in ten had none of these foodstuffs in their lunchbox.

The research team, from the Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Leeds, collected information on the packed lunch content for just under 1,300 children between the ages of 8 and 9. It focused on 89 primary schools across Britain — 76 in England, four in Scotland, six in Wales and three in Northern Ireland.

SOURCE

Extra hour of TV a day can kill, say medical witch doctors

Lord love us! More epidemiological "wisdom". They found, unsuprisingly, that people in poor health watched slightly more TV but in their wisdom from on high they interpreted it the other way around! It must be wonderful to have God-given insight that dispenses with the need for evidence! I personally watch TV about once a year but have no time for fraudulent scares. Scares that simply lead to needlessly upset children are particularly obnoxious

VIDEO killed the radio star, according to the famous Buggles song, but new research suggests television is killing the rest of us too. An additional hour in front of the box each day increases the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease by 18 per cent, according to Australian research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Each extra hour increases by 11 per cent the overall likelihood of dying from all causes, including cancer.

"The human body was designed to move, not sit for extended periods of time," the study's lead author, David Dunstan, said. "But technological, social and economic changes mean that people don't move their muscles as much as they used to. "For many people, on a daily basis they simply shift from one chair to another."

Prof Dunstan, from the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, said sitting for long periods was bad for blood sugar and fats - even if you were healthy. The link between television viewing and increased mortality held true regardless of other risk factors such as smoking, poor diet, high cholesterol and obesity.

The average Australian watched three hours of television every day. The researchers monitored the viewing habits of 8800 adults over six years before publishing the alarming results. They found someone who watched four hours of TV each day had an 80 per cent higher risk of death from heart disease compared to someone who watched less than two hours.

They were 46 per cent more likely to die from all causes. Prof Dunstan said the findings suggested any prolonged sedentary behaviour, such as sitting at a desk or computer for work, could be risky. The answer? "Move more, more often." "In addition to doing regular exercise, avoid sitting for prolonged periods," he said. "Too much sitting is bad for health."

SOURCE






Broccoli really is good for you

Even though George Bush senior refuses to eat it! But in the study below it was shown to be helpful only if you have stomach ulcers and if you eat a lot of salt. Unclear how important the finding is. The action seems to be bacteriocidal but existing antibiotics are also effective against the bug that causes stomach ulcers. Also unclear is generalizability. The sample is small and the Japanese are unusually prone to stomach ulcers, possibly because they eat very large amounts of salt (in soy sauce, for instance)

Dietary Sulforaphane-Rich Broccoli Sprouts Reduce Colonization and Attenuate Gastritis in Helicobacter pylori–Infected Mice and Humans

By Akinori Yanaka1 et al.

Abstract

The isothiocyanate sulforaphane [SF; 1-isothiocyanato-4(R)-methylsulfinylbutane] is abundant in broccoli sprouts in the form of its glucosinolate precursor (glucoraphanin). SF is powerfully bactericidal against Helicobacter pylori infections, which are strongly associated with the worldwide pandemic of gastric cancer. Oral treatment with SF-rich broccoli sprouts of C57BL/6 female mice infected with H. pylori Sydney strain 1 and maintained on a high-salt (7.5% NaCl) diet reduced gastric bacterial colonization, attenuated mucosal expression of tumor necrosis factor-{alpha} and interleukin-1β, mitigated corpus inflammation, and prevented expression of high salt-induced gastric corpus atrophy. This therapeutic effect was not observed in mice in which the nrf2 gene was deleted, strongly implicating the important role of Nrf2-dependent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory proteins in SF-dependent protection. Forty-eight H. pylori–infected patients were randomly assigned to feeding of broccoli sprouts (70 g/d; containing 420 µmol of SF precursor) for 8 weeks or to consumption of an equal weight of alfalfa sprouts (not containing SF) as placebo. Intervention with broccoli sprouts, but not with placebo, decreased the levels of urease measured by the urea breath test and H. pylori stool antigen (both biomarkers of H. pylori colonization) and serum pepsinogens I and II (biomarkers of gastric inflammation). Values recovered to their original levels 2 months after treatment was discontinued. Daily intake of sulforaphane-rich broccoli sprouts for 2 months reduces H. pylori colonization in mice and improves the sequelae of infection in infected mice and in humans. This treatment seems to enhance chemoprotection of the gastric mucosa against H. pylori–induced oxidative stress.

Cancer Prevention Research 2, 353, April 1, 2009

Loony bisphenol phobia still not dead

Scare claim: Bisphenol A in plastic bottles 'harms babies'. Like most things, BPA can be harmful. So can common salt. The toxicity is in the dose. Any release of BPA from baby bottles would be at the rate of something like one molecule at a time and there is neither probability nor evidence of toxicity at that rate. And we all in fact have BPA in us with no apparent ill effects. Anti-business alarmists have been trying for years to demonize this stuff. There is some evidence that industrial exposure to BPA is harmful, but that shows only that many things (even water) can be harmful if you ingest huge amounts of them. It does not follow that something ingested in huge amounts is harmful in tiny amounts. The opposite can be true. Check hormesis. The report below is from Australia but there is an article debunking similar scares in the USA here

FEDERAL health authorities are to come under increasing pressure to ban the sale of baby bottles made with Bisphenol A (BPA) after new evidence it can harm health. Widely used in plastics, particularly food and drink containers, BPA leaches when heated, leading it to being withdrawn elsewhere in the world.

It had been thought the chemical posed no real health threat in tiny doses, but scientists in the UK now say they have found compelling evidence the chemical is linked to breast cancer and sex hormone imbalances, and is particularly linked to adverse health risks to babies. [Reference?]

A team of European scientists will this month begin a campaign to lobby their governments to remove baby bottles containing BPA from shelves. Last year, baby bottle manufacturers in the US removed BPA from their products, reacting to widespread consumer concern.

Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon said yesterday it was the responsibility of the Therapeutic Goods Administration to declare BPA unsafe or otherwise. The TGA in turn said it was an issue for the federal Health Department, which passed the buck and declared it an issue for Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ). FSANZ confirmed it had no regulatory authority over baby bottles and had never commissioned its own study on the issue, though it was monitoring the overseas BPA debate and that the most up-to-date science indicated there was a maximum daily safe limit.

Queensland-based anti-BPA campaigner Nadia Duensing has written to the Health Minister in light of the new research. "I can't understand why the Australian Government is not following the lead from elsewhere," she said. Ms Duensing, a grandmother, was so concerned about the possible health effects of BPA she launched a website campaigning against the chemical and selling BPA-free baby products.

Some of the biggest-selling baby bottle brands in Australia still sell bottles with BPA in them, including Avent, which is owned by Philips. A Philips spokeswoman said yesterday that the company was acting responsibly and within guidelines set out by FSANZ, which concluded that levels of exposure (in infants) were very low and did not pose a significant health risk.

Ms Duensing said most mums did not realise the differences between different types of plastic bottles. "Mothers go into a shop and see a polycarbonate bottle for about $10 and a BPA-free one for $18 and they don't know the difference – they just get the cheaper one thinking plastic is plastic," she said.

Source




Having sex twice a week can reduce heart disease in men by half, study reveals

The usual epidemiological nonsense that "intuits" the direction of the cause. The findings show shows that healthier men have more sex, which is no surprise for a variety of reasons

Men don't usually need an excuse to indulge in a spot of passion. But if they did, here's one that sounds more convincing than most - making love is good for their hearts, it seems. Men who have sex at least twice a week can almost halve their risk of heart disease, according to research. Those who make love regularly are apparently up to 45 per cent less likely to develop life-threatening heart conditions than men whose sexual encounters are limited to just once a month or less.

The study, of more than 1,000 men, shows sex appears to have a protective effect on the male heart but did not examine whether women benefit too. Now the American researchers are calling for doctors to 'screen' men for sexual activity when assessing their risk of heart disease. The benefits of love-making could be due to both the physical and emotional effects on the body, they said. 'Men with the desire for frequent sexual activity and who are able to engage in it are likely to be healthier,' the scientists told the American Journal of Cardiology.

'But sex in some forms has a physical activity component that might directly serve to protect cardiovascular health. 'Also, men who have frequent sex might be more likely to be in a supportive intimate relationship. 'This might improve health through stress reduction and social support.'

The scientists at the New England Research Institute, based in Massachusetts, spent 16 years tracking the sexual activity of men aged between 40 and 70. Each of the volunteers was quizzed at regular intervals about how often they had sex. They were then checked for signs of heart disease. Other risk factors, such as age, weight, blood pressure and cholesterol levels, were also taken into account.

Although sex has long been regarded as good for both physical and mental health, there has been little scientific evidence of benefits on major illnesses such as heart disease until now. An earlier study at the National Cancer Institute in the U.S. showed men who ejaculated through sex or masturbation at least five times a week are much less likely to develop prostate cancer.

And having sex once or twice a week during the winter months can boost the immune system and reduce the chances of catching colds and flu, according to scientists at Wilkes University, Pennsylvania. It boosts levels of a chemical called immunoglobulin A 6, which binds to organisms that invade the body and then activates the immune system to destroy them.

Regular intercourse can even boost a woman's sense of smell by triggering the release of a hormone called prolactin, researchers at Canada's Calgary University found. This may be a mechanism to help mothers bond with their new babies.

Every year, around 270,000 people in Britain suffer a heart attack, and coronary disease remains the nation's biggest killer.

SOURCE