Margarine makes you aggressive - and should not be fed to school pupils

What rubbish! It's just the class effect. Margarine is cheaper so poor people buy it and they are more prone to physical aggression

Margarine can actually make you angry - and should not be fed to school pupils, a new study has warned.

A chemical called 'trans fatty acids' - found in large quantities in margarine, and also in other fast foods - makes people aggressive and irritable.

Researchers studied 945 people with varying diets - and found those who ate large quantities of the chemical were consistently more aggressive.

The researchers warn that schools - and prisons - should look their menus to ensure diet isn’t playing a part in aggressive behaviour.

Dr Beatrice Golomb - a professor at the University of California and lead author of the paper for Plos ONE - said: ‘We found that greater trans fatty acids were associated with greater aggression.

'High levels of the trans fatty acids were more consistently predictive of aggression and irritability.

‘This adds further rationale to recommendations to avoid eating trans fats - the detrimental effects of trans fats may extend beyond the person who consumes them to affect others.’

The chemicals are already known to be bad for health - and can cause efffects such as high cholesterol levels, insulin resistance, oxidation, inflammation, and cardiac problems.

Fast food chain McDonalds switched oil to cut down trans fats after a lengthy campaign.

University of California researchers tested 945 men and women to test the relationship between dTFAs and aggression or irritability.

They questioned participants’ on life history of aggression, conflict tactics and self-rated impatience and irritabilty on an ‘overt aggression’ scale - tallying recent aggressive behaviour.

The results - adjusted for sex, age, education and use of alcohol or tobacco products - showed there was a link between those eating foods containing the chemicals, and heightened aggression.

SOURCE





Rainforest remedy to cure toothache: Amazonian plant is turned into painkilling gel

Good if it pans out but most of these wonder discoveries don't



The agony of toothache can leave you willing to go to the ends of the earth in search of a cure. But you may need to look no further than the depths of the rainforest.

A rare red and yellow plant from the Amazon could offer more effective pain relief than existing drugs and treatments, scientists have claimed.

The ancient herbal remedy is so potent that it might even replace uncomfortable anaesthetic injections for certain procedures – and provide a natural remedy for teething babies.

Cambridge University anthropologist Dr Francoise Barbira Freedman came across the budded plant more than 30 years ago when living with a secretive Peruvian tribe known for practising shamanism.

During her trip she suffered severe pain in her wisdom teeth. She was given the remedy by the tribe’s medicine men and the discomfort ‘went away immediately’.

The plant used by the tribal medicine men is set to revolutionise worldwide dental treatment

The plant used by the tribal medicine men is set to revolutionise worldwide dental treatment
Pugh on the amazing pain-relieving plant

Years later, she was asked to provide Cambridge with some examples of rainforest remedies, and added the Acmella oleracea plant to the list.

Describing the inclusion as an ‘afterthought’, she said: ‘It was added to the bottom of the list, but somehow the list got reversed, and it was the first one tested back in the UK. It was immediately successful and we’ve never looked back.’

Using extracts from the plant, the researchers have developed a gel which blocks the pain receptors found in nerve endings – and could be on the market in only two years’ time.

In early trials, it helped relieve pain during removal of teeth that were impacted, or stuck below the gum line.

The gel was also considered more efficient than the standard anaesthetic used when patients with gum disease need pain relief for scaling and polishing. The effects lasted longer, and patients were more likely to attend follow-up appointments.

In informal tests carried out by a Peruvian dentist, the plant extract also helped treat mouth ulcers and ease pain caused by dentures, braces, gum disease and having teeth removed. And to top it off, there are no known side-effects.

Dr Freedman, who plans to share any profits from the sale of the gel with the Keshwa Lamas community in Peru, said: ‘This treatment for toothache means we could be looking at the end of some injections in the dentist’s surgery.

‘We’ve had really clear results from tests so far, particularly for procedures such as scaling and polishing, and there are many other potential applications.’

These range from soothing the pain of teething in babies to relieving irritable bowel syndrome.

The researcher, who is about to make another visit to the rainforest community, went on: ‘We think people prefer to use natural products and this is particularly the case for baby teething, for which, to my knowledge, there is no clinically tested natural alternative.’

Researchers at Ampika, the company founded by Dr Freedman to commercialise the gel, plan to publish the trial results in an international dental journal and conduct further tests in several countries.

They also want to refine the formula to develop a higher strength and longer-lasting product.

SOURCE

Diabetes link to white rice

WTF? The whole of Asia has got diabetes? Most Asians have rice with every meal.

This is probably just another class effect. The Asian people who ate very little else but rice were probably the poor and the poor have worse health generally

HEALTH researchers say they have found a link between higher consumption of rice and Type 2 diabetes.

"What we've found is white rice is likely to increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes, especially at high consumption levels such as in Asian populations," says Qi Sun of the Harvard School of Public Health. "But at the same time people should pay close attention to the other things they eat. "It's very important to address not just a single food but the whole pattern of consumption."

Speaking to the British Medical Journal, the team said the link emerged from an analysis of four previously published studies, carried out in China, Japan, Australia and the US.

These studies followed 350,000 people over a timescale from four to 22 years. More than 13,000 people developed Type 2 diabetes.

In the studies carried out in China and Japan, those who ate most rice were 55 per cent more likely to develop the disease than those who ate least. In the US and Australia, where consumption of rice is far lower, the difference was 12 per cent.

Participants in the two Asian countries ate three or four servings of rice a day on average, compared to just one or two servings a week in the Western countries.

White rice is the dominant form of rice eaten in the world. Machines produce its polished look by hulling and milling, leaving a grain that is predominantly starch.

Brown rice, by contrast, has more fibre, magnesium and vitamins, and a lower "glycaemic index," a measurement of sugar content, than white rice.

Sun said the study did have limitations, including full details about what the volunteers ate in addition to rice. "I don't think I can put forward a 100-per cent confirmed case, given that this is a meta-analysis of four original studies," he said.

"But I see a consistency across these studies and there is biological plausibility that supports the association between white rice consumption and diabetes."

SOURCE






Britain's great heart attack mystery

An amusing exposition of disagreement among the "experts" -- showing how little they really know

Good news at last - deaths from heart attacks are down and falling fast, according to research from Oxford University published a few weeks ago. This showed the death rate has dropped by an extraordinary 50 per cent in just ten years. There were also fewer heart attacks.

The researchers said half the decline was because we’ve cut back on smoking and take statins to lower cholesterol. The other half they put down to better emergency care.

But this comes as something of a surprise because as a population we are actually getting unhealthier: our rates of diabetes and obesity are soaring and they push up heart disease risk. What’s more, even if we aren’t obese or have diabetes, 60 per cent of us don’t take nearly enough exercise and we are still eating too much heart-clogging fat and sugar. So could there be some other reason for the fall in deaths from heart attacks?

‘The Department of Health naturally wants to claim the drop in heart attacks shows their prevention strategies are working,’ says Edwin Gale, emeritus professor of clinical sciences at the University of Bristol. ‘But it does look as if the benefits of bringing down risk factors like high blood pressure, raised cholesterol and too much fat and sugar could be riding on an existing downward trend.’

Professor Gale is referring to the fact that deaths from heart attacks have been dropping for decades and some experts say they don’t really know why. When it comes to prevention, it’s widely agreed that bringing down blood pressure and stopping smoking have helped to lower risk, but there is disagreement about just how important cholesterol, obesity and exercise are.

Some suggest our current obsession with these means we’re in danger of ignoring the part played by other factors such as stress and microbial infection. The mystery of the falling heart attack figures has been investigated by Dr James Le Fanu, a leading GP and author.

‘People generally assume heart attacks have been around for ever,’ he says. ‘In fact, they haven’t. They first appeared on the medical radar in the 1930s and by the end of the war the number of deaths they caused had shot up ten times.’ They kept on rising until the end of the 1960s when, just as mysteriously, they started to decline. ‘Low-fat diet became the big explanation by the 1970s,’ says Le Fanu. ‘But it’s not convincing.’

As he shows in his book, The Rise And Fall Of Modern Medicine, fat consumption in various countries stayed at around 40g daily between 1960 and 1980, while deaths from heart attacks fell. It is only slightly lower in the UK now.

So what caused the rise in the first place? Le Fanu suggests it could be due to a microbial infection. ‘The pattern of a fast rise in deaths and then a decline is typical of an infectious epidemic,’ he says. One possible culprit is the bacteria in the mouth that normally cause gum decay (known as periodontal bacteria). Inflammation is a feature of heart disease and the body responds to infection with inflammation.

Just last month the American Heart Journal reported that Japanese scientists had found periodontal bacteria in blood clots of patients who had suffered a heart attack. ‘These bacteria might have a role in plaque inflammation and instability,’ commented the lead researcher. Other studies have found similar links, although exactly how the process works is unclear.

‘It is tempting to speculate that the rise and fall in heart attacks may be due to differences in the rates of infection,’ says Dr Yoon Loke, senior lecturer in clinical pharmacology at the University of East Anglia medical school. Another more controversial theory is that the decline in deaths since the Sixties is linked to stress: as the very high stress levels caused by the Great Depression and then World War II dropped away, so did heart attack deaths, goes the thinking.

There is little denying that stress can be dangerous. Several years ago, a large study of more than 24,000 people published in The Lancet recorded: ‘Persistent severe stress makes it two-and-a-half times more likely that an individual will have a heart attack compared with someone who is not stressed.’

Dr Malcolm Kendrick, a GP and author of The Great Cholesterol Con, argues that stress is an ignored factor in heart disease. ‘We are not talking about a stressful day at the sales,’ he says. ‘But you see a fast rise in deaths from heart disease in war zones and places where there has been major social breakdown, like the Soviet Union after the Berlin Wall came down. Compared to that, social conditions in Europe and the U.S., where heart attack rates are falling, have been pretty stable.’
You see a fast rise in deaths from heart disease in war zones and places where there has been major social breakdown

The British Heart Foundation (BHF) denies there is anything mysterious going on. It concurs with the Oxford researchers, saying that half the decline in deaths is down to improved emergency treatment and that the rest is due to people following the standard advice for cutting heart risk.

More recently, that includes taking statins, the drugs that lower cholesterol. Indeed, the BHF suggests statins might have saved us from the effects of rising obesity and diabetes. ‘The late 1980s was also the time that obesity and type 2 diabetes rates began to rise,’ says a spokesman. ‘It’s a plausible hypothesis that, without the introduction of statins, we could now be looking at an increasing rise in heart attack deaths rather than a fall.’

Remarkably, in fact, the BHF claims certain lifestyle changes such as eating a low-fat diet, keeping your weight down and exercising have never had much effect. This may come as a shock to anyone who’s been watching what they eat, taking measures such as removing the skin from roast chicken.

‘Compared with cutting smoking, and lowering hypertension (high blood pressure) and cholesterol levels, obesity, fat consumption and exercise have a relatively weak influence on the risk of coronary heart disease,’ says the BHF.

Other experts don’t agree that statins have been that successful, or that relying on drugs is the best way to keep us healthy. Two major recent studies have found that as many as 1,000 otherwise healthy people have to take them for just one person to avoid dying from a heart attack.

‘Drugs can be beneficial if you’re ill or have a seriously raised risk, but many people are being over-diagnosed and over-medicalised,’ says Professor Gale. ‘The best advice for staying healthy is to remain slim and eat sparingly but well, take exercise and swallow as few pills as you can.’

This means there still seems to room for debate about what exactly has been cutting deaths from heart attacks. So apart from taking steps to handle stress better and maybe being more aware of the risks of gum disease, what else should you be doing?

If a low-fat diet isn’t the solution, maybe a low-carbohydrate one will turn out to be more effective. It certainly seems to be better for keeping blood sugar down. High blood sugar is one of the factors fuelling the rapid rise in diabetes. Finding how best to avoid developing heart disease in the first place is still important because even if you don’t die from a heart attack thanks to excellent emergency care, you may be at risk of other things, says Dr Loke.

‘Heart attack survivors are much more likely to die from a nasty debilitating condition called heart failure.’ This causes extreme tiredness and weakness, breathlessness and swelling in the legs, ankles and feet. Dr Loke warns: ‘Over two million people are living with heart failure in the UK and the number is rising.’

SOURCE

Do diet supplements help you lose weight? Fat chance!

Study found few 'wonder pills' had randomised clinical trials to back up dietary claims

Diet supplements are often advertised as `extreme fat burners' or `craving quashers'. But evidence used to support these claims simply doesn't add up, a leading U.S nutrition expert has warned.

Professor Melinda Manore from Oregon State University analysed the research used to support hundreds of diet pill claims. She found no evidence that any single product was a 'wonder pill' causing significant weight loss and found some even had detrimental health effects.

'What people want is to lose weight and maintain or increase lean tissue mass,' Prof Manore said. 'There is no evidence that any one supplement does this. And some have side effects ranging from the unpleasant, such as bloating and gas, to very serious issues such as strokes and heart problems.'

Prof Manore looked at supplements that fell into four categories: products such as chitosan (found in shellfish) that block absorption of fat or carbohydrates, stimulants such as caffeine that increase metabolism, products like conjugated linoleic acid that claim to change the body composition and appetite suppressants such as soluble fibres.

She found that many products had no randomised clinical trials examining their effectiveness, and most showed less than a two-pound weight loss benefit compared to the placebo groups.

She added that most research studies did not include exercise. 'I don't know how you eliminate exercise from the equation. 'The data is very strong that exercise is crucial to not only losing weight and preserving muscle mass, but keeping the weight off.'

A few products, including green tea and low-fat dairy supplements were found to have a modest weight loss benefit of 3-4 pounds but most of these supplements were tested as part of a reduced calorie diet.

'For most people, unless you alter your diet and get daily exercise, no supplement is going to have a big impact', Professor Manore said.

As a dietician and researcher, the professor said the key to weight loss is to eat whole grains, fruits, vegetables and lean meats, reduce calorie intake of high-fat foods, and to keep moving.

'Adding fibre, calcium, protein and drinking green tea can help,' she said. 'But none of these will have much effect unless you exercise and eat fruits and vegetables.'

The study is online in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism.

SOURCE





Another demolition of the recent red meat scare

I pointed out the basic holes in it but another writer has really gone to town on the garbage. Just an excerpt:

Food Frequency Questionnaires: A Test of Superhuman Memory and Saint-like Honesty

To kick this analysis off, let’s take a look at how the study was actually conducted. As the researchers explain, all of the diet data came from a series of food frequency questionnaires (FFQs) that the study participants filled out once every four years, starting in the 1980s and ending in 2006. (If you’re feeling brave, you can read the questionnaire yourself (PDF) and try imagining how terribly the average, non-diet-conscious person might botch their responses.) The lifestyle and medical data came from additional questionnaires administered every two years.

The full text of our study offers some additional details

In each FFQ, we asked the participants how often, on average, they consumed each food of a standard portion size. There were 9 possible responses, ranging from “never or less than once per month” to “6 or more times per day.” Questionnaire items about unprocessed red meat consumption included “beef, pork, or lamb as main dish” (pork was queried separately beginning in 1990), “hamburger,” and “beef, pork, or lamb as a sandwich or mixed dish.” … Processed red meat included “bacon” (2 slices, 13 g), “hot dogs” (one, 45 g), and “sausage, salami, bologna, and other processed red meats” (1 piece, 28 g).

Notice that one of the foods listed under “unprocessed red meat”—and likely a major contributor to that category—is hamburger, the stuff fast-food dreams are made of. Although this study tracked whole grain intake, it didn’t track refined grain intake, so we know right away we can’t totally account for the white-flour buns wrapped around those burgers (or many of the other barely-qualifying-as-food components of a McDonald’s meal). And unless these cohorts were chock full of folks who deliberately sought out decent organic meat, it’s also worth noting that the unprocessed ground beef they were eating probably contained that delightful ammonia-treated pink slime that’s had conventional meat consumers in an uproar lately.

Next, we arrive at this little gem:

The reproducibility and validity of these FFQs have been described in detail elsewhere.

Ding ding, Important Thing alert! As anyone who’s spent much time on earth should know, expecting people to be honest about what they eat is like expecting one of those “Lose 10 pounds of belly fat” banners to take you somewhere other than popup-ad purgatory: the idealism is sweet and all, but reality has other plans.

And so it is with food frequency questionnaires. Ever since these questionnaires were first birthed unto the world, scientists have lamented their most glaring flaw: people tend to report what they think they should be eating instead of what actually goes into their mouth. And that’s on top of the fact that most folks can barely remember what they ate yesterday, much less what they’ve eaten over the past month or even the past year.

As a result, researchers compare the results of food frequency questionnaires with more accurate “diet records”—where folks meticulously weigh and record everything they eat for a straight week or two—to see how the data matches up. If we follow that last quote to the links it references, we end up at one of the validation reports for the food frequency questionnaire used with the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Here’s where it gets interesting:

Foods underestimated by the FFQs compared with the diet records (ie, the gold standard) included processed meats, eggs, butter, high-fat dairy products, mayonnaise and creamy salad dressings, refined grains, and sweets and desserts, whereas most of the vegetable and fruit groups, nuts, high-energy and low-energy drinks, and condiments were overestimated by the FFQs.

This shouldn’t come as a shocker if we consider human psychology. Unless we literally live in a cave, most of us are constantly inundated with messages about how high-fat dairy, meat, sweets, desserts, and anything delicious and creamy is going to either make us fat or give us a heart attack—while it’s more like hallowed be thy name for fruits and veggies. Is it any wonder that folks tend to under-report their intake of “bad” foods and over-report their intake of the good ones? Who wants to admit—in the terrifying permanency of a food questionnaire—that yes, they do bury their salad in half a cup of Hidden Valley Ranch, and they do choose white bread because 12-Grain Oroweat tastes like lightly sweetened wood chippings, and sometimes they even go a full three days where their only vegetable is ketchup? If food frequency questionnaires were hooked up to a polygraph, we might see some much different data (and some mysteriously disappearing respondents).

Another reference in our study du jour takes us to a validation report for the Nurses’ Health Study questionnaire. And here we find the same trend:

Mean daily amounts of each food calculated by the questionnaire and by the dietary record were also compared; the observed differences suggested that responses to the questionnaire tended to over-represent socially desirable foods.

Of course, if everyone over-reported or under-reported their food intake with the same magnitude of inaccuracy, we could still find some reliable associations between food questionnaires and health outcomes. But it turns out that how much someone fudges their food reporting—especially for specific menu items—varies wildly based on their personal characteristics. Using an Aussie-modified version of the Nurses’ Health Study questionnaire, a study from Australia measured how accurately people reported their food intake based on their gender, age, medical status, BMI, occupation, school-leaving age, and use of dietary supplements. Like with the other validation studies, it compared the results of the food frequency survey with the Almighty Weighed Food Record.

The surprising results? Folks with a “diagnosed medical condition”—including high cholesterol, high triglycerides, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, cancer, and heart disease—were much more likely to mis-report their meat consumption than folks without a diagnosed medical condition, generally overestimating their true intake on food frequency questionnaires compared to the weighed food record. Why this occurred is one of life’s great mysteries, but it might have something to do with the fact that people who develop diet- and lifestyle-related diseases pay less conscious attention to what they eat. (In this study, women were also more likely to inaccurately report their intake for a wide variety of foods—a phenomenon that’s been examined in greater depth by other researchers.)

So what does this mean for studies based on food frequency questionnaires, like the one currently hijacking the news outlets? Unfortunately for lovers of scientific accuracy, it means that meat consumption and modern diseases might be statistically more likely to show up hand-in-hand by mere fluke. If sick folks have a tendency—for whatever reason—to say they’re eating more meat than they really are, that’ll have profound effects on any diet-disease associations that turn up in observational studies, where correlations hinge so heavily on the accuracy of the data. And if the results of that Australian study are applicable not only in the Land Down Under but also in the Land Up Over, it could mean that meat is pretty much doomed to look guilty by association with disease whenever food frequency questionnaires are involved. Woe is meat!

Red-Meatophiles: A Species of Their Own

Now that our confidence in food frequency questionnaires should be thoroughly and disturbingly shattered, let’s hop back to the study in question. To gauge the effects of red meat consumption on mortality, the researchers for our Red Meat Consumption and Mortality study divided folks up into five quintiles based on their red meat intake. The first quintile represents the people who reported the fewest servings per day, while the fifth quintile represents the shameless red-meat gluttons who indulged in the most (or rather, reported indulging in the most). Luckily for us, the researchers provided a magical table of marvels comparing various diet and lifestyle variables between the quintiles. Please take a minute to look at it yourself and, if you feel so compelled, bask in its glory.

If you secretly suspected that this was a “people who eat red meat do a lot of unhealthy things that make them die sooner” study, you can now gloat.

Here are a few lifestyle variables I graph-ified for greater visual impact. (“Red Meat Intake” is measured in servings per day, and “Physical Activity” is measured in hours of metabolic equivalent tasks.)

As you can see, the folks eating the most red meat were also the least physically active, the most likely to smoke, and the least likely to take a multivitamin (among many other things you can spot directly in the table, including higher BMIs, higher alcohol intake, and a trend towards less healthy non-red-meat food choices). Although the researchers tried their darnedest to adjust for these confounders, not even fancy-pants math tricks can compensate for the immeasurable details involved in unhealthy living, the tendency for folks to misreport their diet and exercise habits, and whatever mild insanity emerges from trying to remember every food that hit your tongue during the past year.

And in case you didn’t spot them yet, our magical table has two particularly ogle-worthy things. The first one’s this:

If you had any doubt that people fib on food questionnaires, this should put your mind at ease. Take a look at the average (reported) calorie intake for the women in the first quintile of red meat consumption. Yes, that does say “1200 calories.” Yes, that is low enough to make most people wake themselves up at night as they unconsciously gnaw on their own arm in a quest for nourishment. And the red-meat-avoiding men aren’t much better, clocking in at a bit over 1600 calories for fully-grown adults. If there really is an 800-calorie gap between the folks with the lowest and highest red meat consumption, there’s obviously something much more significant going on in their diets than the color of their chosen animal foods. And if—in a much more likely scenario—there’s some major mis-reporting going on, that only bolsters the notion that we shouldn’t trust food frequency questionnaires any farther than we could throw ‘em.

SOURCE (See the original for graphics)

Another classic of untested medical "wisdom"

Heather Justice was just 25 when cervical cancer struck. To save her life, surgeons had to perform radical — and distressing — surgery to remove her womb and vagina, but unfortunately that wasn’t the end of her ordeal.

For Heather’s surgeon had been struck by the fact that hers was a particularly rare and aggressive type of cervical cancer only usually seen in post-menopausal women.

Further investigations led to the start of one of Britain’s longest-running and most shocking drug scandals. Heather, now 59, was the UK’s first confirmed case of DES-related injury.

DES, or diethylstilboestrol, was prescribed to pregnant women — including Heather’s mother Gladys — from the Fifties to the Seventies in the mistaken belief that it prevented miscarriage. Instead, it left behind a hidden legacy of damage to the foetus.

The drug is now making headlines in Britain because a leading American compensation lawyer, Aaron Levine, has announced that he plans to coordinate a UK-wide hunt for women like Heather Justice — ‘DES daughters’ — to launch a class-action claim.

Up to 300,000 Britons may have been exposed to the drug, but the vast majority will be unaware of this risk to their health. DES was discovered in 1938 by British researchers and developed as a cheap, super-strong form of the female hormone oestrogen.

It was given widely to women at risk of miscarrying, as it was thought to bolster their reproductive systems. But by the Fifties, studies showed DES did not improve the chance of a successful pregnancy. Then scientists found it could even be dangerous and might cause breast tumours.

However, GPs prescribed it until 1971, when the drug’s makers finally admitted it could have a profound impact on the health of those exposed to it in the womb — causing cancers and gynaecological abnormalities in women and testicular problems in men.

Heather’s mother, Gladys, was put on DES pills in the early Fifties because she had miscarried once, before becoming pregnant with Heather. No one thought any more of it until Heather was 25. She had just given birth to her second son and had a routine smear test.

‘They found something suspicious,’ she remembers. ‘Doctors did more tests and found I had a form of cervical cancer normally only seen in post-menopausal women.’

The cancer, called clear-cell adenocarcinoma, was so invasive that surgeons had to perform a hysterectomy and partial vaginectomy. Heather, a mother-of-two from Jarrow, Tyne & Wear, said: ‘I was only 25 — so young to be going through all of this. It was late December when the doctors discharged me, and my husband, David, wondered if they were letting me out to have one last Christmas.’

Instead, thanks to the doctors’ skill, Heather has been cancer-free for more than three decades. ‘The hysterectomy left me very ill and weak for three months,’ she says. ‘I felt lucky, however, that I’d had my two boys when I was so young. I needed a lot of help initially, but you can’t be ill for long with two under-fives around. If I hadn’t had my sons, I’d have been a lot more depressed.

‘My mother was quite upset about it, though. She did not want to have done anything to harm me. She was only doing what the doctor told her. Like me, she has always blamed the drug companies.’

It was only by chance that her surgeon, John Monahan, had worked with American experts who had discovered the link between her rare cervical cancer and maternal exposure to DES. Mr Monahan rang the hospital where Heather was born and got her mother’s case notes, which confirmed that Heather’s mother had been prescribed DES.

It was a rare find: NHS hospitals used to keep obstetric records for only 25 years before they were destroyed. The records of countless other DES victims’ mothers have been lost this way. But crucially — as is typical with the vast majority of surviving case notes — Gladys’s record does not say which company had made the drug she was prescribed.

DES was never patented in the UK. It was prescribed so casually that patients’ notes may record it only sketchily, if at all.

Since then, the results of this carefree attitude have become terribly evident. Studies show that DES daughters face a 40-times greater risk of cervical cancer. And up to a third have suffered some form of abnormality of the cervix, uterus or fallopian tubes, resulting in an increased risk of infertility, ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages and premature births.

Furthermore, DES daughters are 50 per cent more likely to start the menopause early and have an increased risk of auto-immune diseases such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. And DES was not only used on women as a ‘pregnancy wonder drug’. It was also given to pubescent girls who were predicted to grow ‘too tall’. It is estimated that tens of thousands in Europe, almost certainly including Britain, were treated this way from the Fifties to the beginning of the Seventies.

But again, medical note-keeping is too lax for anyone to be certain.

Many doctors at the time believed growing taller than 5ft 8in should be considered a medical malady in young women because their ‘gawky’ size would make it hard to find husbands.

The pills were supposed to propel girls through puberty faster, giving their bones less time to grow. In fact, no one knows if the drugs even had that effect because no proper follow-up studies were performed. Last year, Dr Emile Hendriks of the Erasmus Medical Centre, Rotterdam, studied 239 women in the Netherlands who had been left growth-stunted by DES.

Her research published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism found the women were 15 per cent less likely to have successfully become pregnant and around 20 per cent more likely to have stillborn babies than women not been given the drugs.

Tests showed women given DES as girls were almost three times as likely to have failing ovaries. And it is not just women who have been affected: boys whose mothers took the drug while pregnant are also likely to pay a heavy cost because it may also damage men’s fertility. It was used in 1944 as the first ‘chemical castration’ agent, forcibly given to rapists and other male sex offenders to kill their sex drives.

Studies in the U.S. show that the sons of women who took DES while carrying them have a higher risk of genital problems, such as undescended or underdeveloped testicles, cysts on the back of the testes and lowered sperm count. However, because of poor NHS record-keeping, thousands of potential victims may never know for sure that their problems with cancer and fertility were caused by DES.

But even when people in Britain have discovered their mothers took DES during pregnancy, they have not been able to seek compensation through UK courts. Under Britain’s legal system, each victim is required to sue the exact drug company that made their mother’s pills, even though their NHS notes do not identify them. Similar victims in the U.S. and Australia have won compensation because their countries’ legal systems do not demand this information.

SOURCE





Dying for a sausage? As yet another study says too much red meat could kill us, the truth is you needn't give up that juicy steak after all

I had Forfar Bridies (a meaty Scottish pasty) for dinner last night and cevapi (Yugoslav skinless sausage) for dinner the night before that. For tonight? Probably a Tandoori platter -- JR

Don't choke on your bacon buttie, but in the medical profession’s relentless quest to find ever more things that may kill us, health officials are turning up the heat on red meat — again.

A major new study of 120,000 people has shown that reducing the amount of beef, pork and lamb in our diet to 1½oz a day could prevent one in ten early deaths in men, and one in 13 premature deaths in women. The Harvard University findings are just the latest in a long line of studies suggesting that our love of juicy red meat is slowly killing us.

Some anti-cancer campaigners say the evidence is so damning we should avoid processed meat altogether. No crispy bacon for breakfast; no sausages on the barbecue; no ham sandwiches and no burgers topped with ketchup.

But other nutritionists say the risks are exaggerated and that cutting out red meat from our diets could do more harm than good.

So who’s right? And what is the confused cook supposed to eat?

The latest research found that eating one extra portion of steak, lamb or pork every day — about the size of a pack of cards — increased a person’s risk of dying from heart disease by 16 per cent, and raised their chance of developing a fatal cancer by 13 per cent.

Processed meats — such as hams, sausages and burgers — were more deadly. Adding two rashers of bacon or a sausage to breakfast increased the chance of premature death by 20 per cent. But how much red meat should we be eating?

The Department of Health recommends we all have no more than 2½oz (70g) of red meat a day. For example, that would be three sausages on a Monday, three slices of lamb on Tuesday, a quarter-pounder on Wednesday, a small steak on Thursday and fish or poultry over the next three days. But the Harvard authors say even that is too much.

This anti-bacon backlash will have surprised many meat lovers. After all, human beings have been happily devouring red meat for millennia.

Marks found on fossilised animal bones in Ethiopia show that one of our ancestors — the ape-like Australopithecus afaransis — was butchering antelope and cattle 3.4 million years ago.

Meat is a rich source of fat and protein, and many anthropologists believe mankind needed to switch to meat-eating to give us the nutrition essential to evolve bigger, smarter brains.

However, we shouldn’t follow the example of our ancestors too closely.

For much of human history, most people would have died from infectious disease, childbirth, injuries or malnutrition long before they had to worry about cancer and heart disease — illnesses of middle and old age. So our forebears could have eaten slabs of bison to their hearts’ content — something else would have killed them by the age of 30.

So what is it in red meat — and particularly processed meat — that is so harmful? The evidence is far from conclusive.

All types of red meat, whether processed or unprocessed, contain a form of iron called haem — the pigment that gives red meat its colour. Iron is an essential nutrient.

However, haem can also trigger the formation of a class of harmful chemicals called ‘nitroso compounds’ (NOCs) in the body and some types of these chemicals have been linked to bowel cancer.

Barbecued or chargrilled meat is thought to be particularly bad for us. For, when meat is charred, compounds called Heterocyclic amines (HCAs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are formed. Again these are thought to increase the risk of bowel cancer.

The worst type of meat is that which has been cooked and processed. These contain cancer-causing haem, HCAs and PAHs as well as preservatives called nitrates and nitrites, which also increase the risk of bowl cancer. However, the links between red meats and heart disease are less clear.

Some nutritionists believe the high doses of salt in processed food may be to blame. Professor Frank Hu of Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, author of the new research, blames the saturated fats in all red meat for clogging up arteries.

But not all nutritionists are convinced. Many believe the benefits of red meat are too often overlooked.

Laura Wyness, of the British Nutrition Foundation, says: ‘The evidence for an association between red meat consumption and risk of cardiovascular disease is inconclusive.

‘Although red meat contains saturated fat, it also provides nutrients that can protect against cardiovascular disease such as omega 3 fatty acids, unsaturated fats, B vitamins and selenium.’

In fact, red meat contains many nutrients such as selenium and vitamins D, B3 and B12.

Wyness warns that some of these are already in worryingly short supply in the diets of some sections of the population. Too little iron in the diet causes anaemia while zinc is essential for growth in childhood and fighting off infections.

Richard Young, of the Soil Association, believes British consumers should be careful when drawing conclusions from U.S. studies.

‘Not all red meat is the same,’ he said. ‘In America, most cattle are fed large amounts of grain. In Britain, the majority are fed on grass and that makes a big difference to the quality of the meat.”

In studies, grass-fed cattle have been shown to have higher levels of beneficial omega 3 fatty acids compared to grain-fed livestock — nutrients that can protect against heart disease.

The most recent data suggest that in Britain, most of us meet the guidelines laid out by the Department of Health. Men consume an average 2½oz (70g) of red meat each day while women eat 2oz (52g). However, a third of the population are still red meat gluttons, devouring more than 3½oz or 100g a day.

Jessica Harris, health information manager at Cancer Research UK, said the risks should be put in context.

‘The risks of smoking massively outweigh these risks,’ she said. ‘Red meat isn’t as important as being overweight or drinking alcohol. But that’s not to say it isn’t making a significant contribution.

‘Eating less red meat and processed meat doesn’t guarantee that you don’t get cancer, but it makes sense to control the things we can control.

‘We don’t want to be kill-joys and eating meat a few times a week isn’t likely to cause any great problems. But if people are having lots of processed meat and red meat every day, they should think twice.’

As the anti-red meat movement grows stronger, carnivores will inevitably feel their lifestyles are under threat. The Department of Health is under pressure to reduce its recommended red meat intake even further. But for some health campaigners, that won’t be enough.

How long before health campaigners lobby for laws which would ban children from burger bars, or before workplace canteens are ‘encouraged’ to phase out traditional breakfast fry-ups?

Smokers have already been forced out on to the streets. How soon before they are joined on the pavement by office workers clutching illicit bacon butties?

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Huge study claims red meat boosts risk of dying young

Epidemiological nonsense. Food fads are probably much more common among middle class people and they are healthier anyway. So all we are seeing here is the usual class effect, not an effect of meat eating per se

Eating a portion of processed red meat daily can boost a person's risk of dying young by up to 20 per cent, says a long-running US study of more than 120,000 people.

While the research by Harvard University experts offers more evidence that eating red meat increases the risk of heart disease and cancer, it also counsels that substituting fish and poultry may lower early death risk.

"This study provides clear evidence that regular consumption of red meat, especially processed meat, contributes substantially to premature death," said Frank Hu, senior author of the study in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Researchers gleaned their data from a study of 37,698 men who were followed for 22 years and 83,644 women who were tracked for 28 years.

Subjects answered surveys about their eating habits every four years. Those who ate a card-deck-sized serving of unprocessed red meat each day on average saw a 13 per cent higher risk of dying than those who did not eat red meat as frequently. And if the red meat was processed, like in a hot dog or two slices of bacon, that risk jumped to 20 per cent.

However, substituting nuts for red meat lowered total mortality risk by 19 per cent, while poultry or whole grains lowered the risk by 14 per cent and fish did so by 7 per cent.

The authors said between 7 and 9 per cent of all deaths in the study "could be prevented if all the participants consumed fewer than 0.5 servings per day of total red meat".

Processed red meat has been shown to contain ingredients such as saturated fat, sodium, nitrites and some carcinogens that are linked to many chronic ailments including heart disease and cancer.

"More than 75 per cent of the $US2.6 trillion ($2.5 trillion) in annual US health care costs are from chronic disease," said an accompanying commentary by Dean Ornish, a physician and dietary expert at the University of California, San Francisco.

"Eating less red meat is likely to reduce morbidity from these illnesses, thereby reducing health care costs."

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One soft drink a day raises 'heart attack danger' by 20 per cent according to U.S study

This rubbish is from the same database as in the article above so the same comments apply

Drinking one sugar-laden soft drink every day could dramatically increase the odds of having a heart attack.

A study of more than 40,000 men suggested that a daily sugar-sweetened drink raised the chances of having a heart attack – including a deadly one – by 20 per cent.

In contrast, diet varieties that use artificial sweeteners were given a clean bill of health by the study’s authors.

Researcher Lawrence de Koning said the body may compensate for the sugar rush of soft drinks by making its own supply of fats, and some of these will be bad for the heart.

Tests on blood samples showed those who drank the sugary beverages tended to have higher levels of dangerous blood fats and of proteins linked to heart disease. Levels of ‘good’ cholesterol were lower, the journal Circulation reported.

The study also found that the more sugary drinks someone had, including still fruit squashes to which sugar is added during manufacturing, the more the risk rose.

Importantly, the link stood when other factors such as smoking, weight, alcohol and exercise were taken into account.

The U.S. research team made their link after analysing information provided by men who were asked every two years between 1986 and 2008 to provide detailed information about their diet.

Tallying the information showed that compared to never drinking sugary soft drinks, having 350ml a day – a standard can contains 330ml – raised the risk of a heart attack by 20 per cent.

Previous research has linked sugary drinks with diabetes and weight gain.

Dr de Koning, of Harvard University, said that although his study did not link diet soft drinks with heart problems, ‘better choices’ are available.

He said: ‘Water, coffee and tea are probably the best choices, after that would be low-fat milk. It is not clear whether fruit juice is a good replacement. There is a lot of sugar in it but it does have added benefits such as vitamins and fibre.’ Tea and coffee should be taken without sugar, he added.

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How giving your children five-a-day can actually damage their teeth

You can't win!

Children who are encouraged to drink large amounts of fruit juice as part of their 'five a day' could be damaging their teeth, dentists have warned. They are concerned that health- conscious parents who regularly give their children juices and smoothies bursting with fruit could be doing long-term damage.

Kathy Harley, dean of the dental faculty at the Royal College of Surgeons, warned that half of five-year-olds had signs of wear to their tooth enamel. She has called on schools to offer milk or water to pupils during breaks instead of fruit juice, which has a high acid content.

Dental erosion, which is irreversible, is caused by acid attacking the surface of teeth – and citrus fruit juices in particular are very acidic. While fruit juices contain a range of vitamins that are good for your health, they are also often high in natural sugars, which cause tooth decay.

Miss Harley suggested parents should give their children fruit juice as a treat once a week, for example on Saturdays. The NHS recommends only one 150ml glass of fruit juice per day, which counts as one of the recommended five daily portions of fruit and vegetables.

It suggests people drink the juice with a meal as this can help to reduce damage to the teeth.

Drinking more than one glass of juice a day does not count as more than one portion of fruit, as it does not contain the fibre found in the whole fruit. Juicing or blending fruit releases the sugars inside and is worse for the teeth if drunk frequently. Some researchers also say drinking juice slowly can cause more damage to teeth.

Dentists have previously warned that, while tooth decay is less common as more children and adults brush their teeth regularly than in the past, dental erosion is a growing problem due to acidic drinks.

Research published last year by King's College London Dental Institute, based on a study of 1,000 people aged between 18 and 30, suggested eating an apple could be worse for teeth than drinking a fizzy drink because of the acid it contains.

Experts recommend people continue to eat fruit but drink water afterwards to wash away the acid or eat something containing calcium, such as cheese, which neutralises acid.

Damien Walmsley, an adviser to the British Dental Association said: 'If you are having fruit, keep it to meal times. That [may] go against the [recommendation of] five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, but it is not a good idea snacking on it because of the continual drip, drip on to the tooth.'

The Department of Health said it had no plans to remove fruit juice from the five-a-day. A spokesman said: 'It contains nutrients, including vitamins which are important as part of a healthy, balanced diet.'

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Who needs Viagra? Scientists claim impotence can be cured permanently with sonic blasts

This sounds like very good news, pasrticularly for older men

It seems an unlikely treatment, but impotent men are being offered what is claimed to be the first permanent cure for their condition – sonic blasts applied to the affected area.

The sound-wave treatment is being hailed as an alternative to drugs such as Viagra and Cialis.

But while medication treats symptoms, the new sonic therapy is said to tackle the cause.

Erectile dysfunction, which affects up to a quarter of men over 40, is most commonly caused by the hardening of the arteries, restricting blood flow. But pioneers of the ED1000 treatment say the vibrations encourage new blood vessels to form.

Although the treatment sounds discomfiting – it involves directing pressurised sound waves directly on to the genitals – patients have been assured that it is pain-free.

Those undergoing the procedure – which involves 12 quarter-hour sessions over a nine-week period – are told to expect a tapping sensation as 100 blasts of sound waves are delivered each minute, followed by a tingling feeling afterwards.

Two years after the first trials, patients report that it has a long-lasting effect – although it is not understood why sound-waves have such an effect on the tissue that it begins producing new blood vessels.

Similar sonic waves are already used to destroy kidney stones, improve blood flow in heart muscle, and to ease the inflammation of joints.
Pioneers of the ED1000 treatment (pictured) say the vibrations encourage new blood vessels to form

Pioneers of the ED1000 treatment (pictured) say the vibrations encourage new blood vessels to form. It involves directing pressurised sound waves directly on to the genitals - but it is pain-free

Doctors in Israel used the same principles to pioneer the technique, but using lower-powered waves.

The treatment is now being offered in the UK for the first time at the private Spire Murrayfield hospital in Edinburgh. It charges £1,500, plus consultation fees, for the sessions.

Consultant urological surgeon Roland Donat, who began treating patients last month, said the procedure was a ‘revolution’ in the management of impotence. He said: ‘I read the pilot study and thought, if this works I really want it for my patients.

‘The ideal candidates are those who have a physical explanation for their impotence, such as hardened arteries or diabetes. It will not work if the problem is psychological or stress-related. But the results so far are really very encouraging. ‘Men can be very severely affected by impotence and it can lead to relationship or self-esteem problems.

‘The interesting thing is that the same device and technology is also being used to treat heart patients and those with leg ulcers.’

During initial trials in Israel, 20 men treated using sound-waves noted an improvement in their condition after around seven weeks.

Drugs such as Viagra can cost up to £8 a tablet, which adds up to a huge cost burden on the NHS.

The treatment will be offered at other clinics in Leeds and London’s Harley Street shortly.

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We're here! We're gluttons! Get used to it!

Over at Megan McArdle’s place, she’s on a leave of absence for some as-yet-unnamed project. In her stead, Katherine Mangu-Ward picks up one of Megan’s common refrains about Americans and obesity:

Fat people know they’re fat. They know why they’re fat. And they know that being fat kinda sucks.

This may seem obvious, but think about how many anti-obesity initiatives — federal, state, and local–are aimed at promoting the message that being obese or overweight has terrible consequences and/or warning grazers and gorgers off specific food choices.

Two new papers from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo economist Michael L. Marlow take on this weird gap between the problem government anti-obesity efforts seem to be trying to solve and problems that actually exist. Obesity is an expensive, sticky problem, no doubt about that. But Americans themselves aren’t deluded on that point. The fat=bad message has been sent and received, thank you very much.

Yet government interventions like menu labeling requirements, public awareness campaigns about the dangers of sugary soda, zoning regulations to limit the prevalence of fast food restaurants, programs to eliminate “food deserts” and bring supermarkets to poor neighborhoods are multiplying. They fail, writes Marlow in a Mercatus Center working paper out this month, because they are little more than taxpayer-funded sermons to the chubby, chubby choir.

One of Megan’s constant points is that for most people, weight is almost destined by genetics to stay within a certain range. Try to stay outside that range very long, and you have to rely on near-superhuman willpower. And it’s an argument that probably holds a certain amount of weight in an evolutionary biology world. If food is constantly scarce, there’s really no genetic basis to select for overeating or not, as everyone is forced by scarcity and constant activity to remain slim. But in the abundance of modern America, that external scarcity doesn’t exist. Calories are cheap and plentiful, to the point that obesity is a major problem for America’s poor — not something you see in most countries.

I’ve had to fight this battle personally for the last decade, as my weight has risen and fallen. Now, I’m unlucky in the sense that I think my “natural” weight puts me in the overweight category of BMI, but perhaps lucky in the fact that even when I’ve been in the obese category, I don’t look gargantuan. At 6’5″, my body can hide a lot of weight.

Since high school, my weight has fluctuated anywhere from 210 to 275 pounds. I don’t put much stock in BMI, because the best shape I’ve been in my life — exiting high school after 7 years of regular martial arts training — I was 225 lbs. That’s a BMI of 26.7, squarely “overweight”… And I was nothing of the sort. I dropped through college as I shed muscle mass to about 210 leaving college (still at the BMI number of 25), and then got a job where I made enough money to afford a lot more food & beer. Since then, I’ve been up to 260+, down to 230, up to 275, and now down to 240 (and dropping).

How have I reached those weights? Well, it’s not because I didn’t know what I was ingesting. It’s because I didn’t care. I know some people (like my sister-in-law) for whom food isn’t really a driver of life. I don’t understand those people. I love food. I really love beer. And when I say food & beer, I’m not talking about mixed field green salads and Michelob Ultra… I’m talking about deep dish pizza and double IPA. I want to eat, and I want to eat a lot. My name is Brad, and I am a glutton.

Right now, I’m trying to take that weight off. And I’m doing so by the simplest method — counting calories. A few weeks back, I had out-of-town coworkers over for pizza & beer, and overindulged a bit. The next day, when getting into a political debate with one of my coworkers over the drug war, he mentioned that overeating was like an addiction, and how it must carry so much guilt along with it. I interrupted — the previous day I had basically skipped breakfast & lunch to prepare for the evening, and that pizza & beer (& wings & garlic knots… MMMMM!!!!) evening was 3400 calories, one meal being itself 1200 over my new daily allotment. And I had to tell him that there was no guilt involved. I can eat that much and feel normal, not guilty. In fact, it’s the calorie restriction that feels unnatural — every day I’m hungry and dreaming of food. It’s not a fun way to live!

I know I’ve been at unhealthy weights. When I’ve been at the upper end of the range, I haven’t needed government to tell me that I was trending towards unhealthy & disgusting; I have a wife. Government hasn’t done much to make me thinner, either. While I appreciate the fact that so many restaurants here in CA now have to post calorie counts on menus, it’s not like this information was hard to find before. And the calorie counts wouldn’t make any difference to my behavior _unless I already wanted to lose weight_. It’s purely convenience. My brother-in-law is roughly the size I was when I was at my heaviest, and has no desire to change right now — the fact that California mandates restaurants post this information doesn’t change his behavior at all (as it doesn’t change most peoples’ behavior).

Why are so many Americans fat? Because we like to eat — and we can afford to do so. Willpower is hard — we haven’t needed it for most of human history, when food was scarce. And food is delicious. I like salad, but few things are as satisfying as an italian beef sandwich and some nice salty french fries. On the “Right”, we often suggest that everything would be great about socialism except for the fact that it runs absolutely contrary to human nature. As a result, every government that’s tried socialism has failed in spectacular fashion. Well, everything’s great about dieting except that it runs absolutely contrary to human nature. Is it any wonder that government attempts to make us thin have failed?

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The real meaning of "Toxic Substances Control Act modernization"

The Shift from Science-Based Standards to Over-Precaution

Republicans, Democrats, industry representatives, and environmentalists all say they agree that it is time to “modernize” the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA—pronounced “tosca”), the federal law that regulates chemicals not covered under other federal laws. Some say the law needs an overhaul because it is too weak and has accomplished little, while others maintain that modest changes to facilitate greater data collection and chemical testing by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could improve implementation. Both views suggest that reforms should grant the EPA greater powers to advance public health.

In reality, changes to TSCA are highly unlikely to have any measurable positive effect on public health, given the scant evidence that the trace-level chemicals that TSCA regulates have any significant health impacts. Rather, a stronger TSCA law may harm human well being by leading to bans on many valuable products, undermining innovation, and diverting resources from valuable enterprises to meet burdensome regulatory mandates.

TSCA’s one commendable attribute is that it imposes a reasonable risk-based standard, one that applies many regulatory accountability standards, including some covered in President Obama’s executive order on regulatory reform. It allows the EPA to regulate when a chemical poses an “unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment.” If the EPA finds that a chemical does in fact pose such an unreasonable risk, it may prohibit its use, impose regulations limiting its use, mandate recordkeeping, set disposal regulations, require posted warnings related to its use, and other requirements. It states further that the agency must apply such restrictions “to the extent necessary to protect adequately against such risk using the least burdensome requirements.”

This is a rational and solid risk-based standard that is unique within U.S. environmental law. It directs the EPA to focus on scientifically robust, well-designed studies. It also demands that the agency consider both cost-benefit considerations and potentially adverse outcomes of its regulatory actions. Citizens should demand at least as much before any governmental body issues regulations that undermine the freedoms necessary for society to progress and innovate.

Yet TSCA reform proposals all strike at the heart of this standard, calling instead for a hazard-based, precautionary approach. Some would model the new rule after the “reasonable certainty of no harm” standard set in the Food Quality Protection Act, which has produced a host of unnecessary bans and regulations on valuable products that are used to help ensure affordable food production and control of dangerous pests.

Additional data mandates under TSCA are also unnecessary and dangerous. Contrary to many claims, the EPA has managed to use the law to impose thousands of regulations, collect substantial data under both mandatory and voluntary programs, and demand testing of chemicals. Still, the EPA and environmentalists would like greater power to collect “new” data on a number of chemicals that have already been studied extensively by private companies, government agencies, and research bodies around the world. The EPA is unlikely to discover damning information regarding chemicals that have been used for decades without indication of adverse health concerns. Instead, mandates for additional study will simply divert research dollars away from more valuable research and development efforts.

TSCA’s actual failures stem from cases where the EPA has succeeded in taking regulatory actions under the law. The agency has been able to use the law to impose some needless regulations related to lead-based paint, polychlorinated biphenyls, dioxin, and other substances. Obama administration efforts to revitalize the law indicate that the EPA can use the law to impose a host of new regulations as well as make symbolic statements about chemicals to adversely impact their use in the U.S. marketplace—even without congressional authorization.

“Modernization” will most likely empower the agency to take these programs in an even more arbitrary and capricious direction, undermining freedom, innovation, and economic growth in exchange for no measurable public health benefits.

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Paracetamol (Tylenol) should be prescription only

I agree entirely. I have long said that it is far more dangerous than aspirin yet aspirin seems to be out of fashion. In the pharmaceutical corridor at my local supermarket there is a great range of painkillers but you have to look hard to find the little corner where they have a small amount of aspirin for sale

The family of a young mother who died after taking too many paracetamol tablets to help cope with pain following routine surgery have called for the drug to be prescription only.
Paracetamol Tablets, health, pills

Single mum Desiree Phillips, 20, was buying the painkillers over the counter and had upped her dose to "a few extra tablets" a day, an inquest heard. The talented singer was found unconscious next to a pack of the tablets at the home where she lived with her 11-month-old son.

Desiree was rushed to hospital where doctors diagnosed liver failure due to paracetamol poisoning. She was transferred to a specialist hospital for a liver transplant operation but died when it failed.

Desiree had auditioned for X-Factor and was hoping for a career in showbusiness after recording an album of seven songs.

After the hearing her grandfather Desmond Phillips, a chef, said: "This shows that Paracetamol should be prescription only. "It can be a very dangerous drug. "If a painkiller is that dangerous, it should be prescribed. Cigarettes have a label saying "smoking kills" but paracetamol packets don't look dangerous. "Desiree was taking a staggered dose - only one or two a day but before we knew it she had done her self terrible liver damage."

Mr Phillips told the hearing: "Desiree's death was sudden, tragic and unexpected. "She's had routine surgery for lumps in her breasts which were not cancerous. "Afterwards she was in a lot of pain - we had to look after her baby because it hurt her too much to hold him. "She had taken paracetamol to ease the pian - she was taking a few too many over the daily dose but we never expected this to happen."

Blonde Desiree, of Llanelli, West Wales, was found passed out by her new boyfriend Andrew Laycock. Mr Laycock told the inquest: "I was concerned because I'd not had any texts from Desiree so I went around to the house. "She was curled up on the sofa and I could see she's been sick. There were packets of paracetamol there.

"I called an ambulance and she was rushed to hospital. "A doctor told me it was serious so I waited through the night with her."

The inquest, in Llanelli, heard Desiree died on August 26 last year after being transferred to Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth hospital.

The cause of death was liver failure caused by paracetamol toxicity and the inquest heard there were high levels of painkillers in her bloodstream.

Carmarthenshire Coroner Mark Leyton recorded a narrative verdict. He said: "Desiree was using paracetamol for pain relief and may have been exceeding the normal dose. "But it remains unclear whether it was a built up or whether she took a large single dose."

Desiree's 18-month-old son Jayden is being cared for by her family.

Desiree's mother Ayshea, 39, said: "Desiree was beautiful and had an infectious personality, she was always bubbly and we were always having a laugh. "She loved Jayden, she couldn't do enough for him. He doesn't deserve to be growing up without a mum because of this.'

A Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency spokesman said: 'Paracetamol is a safe and effective painkiller when used correctly and when dosage recommendations are followed. 'Every pack has a warning about overdose and instructions not to take more than eight tablets in any 24-hour period.'

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Food alarmists target Coke

The CSPI are just Leftist attention-seekers determined to make a nuisance of themselves. Their "science" is very biased and selective. Scares sell newspapers, however, so their influence is out of all proportion to their importance

Coca-Cola is changing its top secret recipe to avoid having to put cancer warning labels on their beverages. The move came amid mounting pressure from an American consumer watchdog group to ban an additive used in the caramel colouring of cola.

The compound under debate is called 4-MEI and the Center for Science in the Public Interest claims it causes cancer.

They launched a public campaign against the use of the additive, which led Californian authorities to add it to its list of carcinogens.

To avoid having to introduce risk labels on their products, Coca-Cola have agreed to make nationwide changes to the 125-year-old formula. Pepsi- which is the world's second favourite soft drink after Coke- will also make similar changes to their manufacturing process. It is unconfirmed whether the changes will be made to the soft drinks in Australia.

The advocacy group filed a petition against the colouring with the Food and Drug Administration in February. The appeal highlighted a study which found the chemical led to tumors in lab rats and mice.

The American Beverage Association (ABA) said the campaign against 4-MEI exaggerated the risks. In a statement, the ABA noted a person would need to drink more than 2,900 cans of cola every day for 70 years to reach the lowest dose levels the mice received.

“This is nothing more than CSPI scare tactics, and their claims are outrageous. The science simply does not show that 4-MEI in foods or beverages is a threat to human health,” the statement said.

Coca-Cola also denies the caramel colouring causes any public risk but agreed to alter the recipe to avoid having to conform to California's labelling conditions.

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Arthritis sufferers '40 per cent more likely to develop fatal heart problems'

The absolute numbers are however so low as to be trivial

Arthritis sufferers are far more likely to develop fatal heart problems and strokes, a major study reveals today. It shows that patients with rheumatoid arthritis have a 40 per cent higher risk of suffering from an irregular heartbeat which can lead to heart attacks and death.

They have also been found to be at 30 per cent greater risk from suffering strokes.

Danish researchers believe the inflammation of joints that occurs in arthritis may cause the heart to beat irregularly - a condition known as atrial fibrillation. This can lead to the formation of blood clots which in turn can trigger a stroke.

Around 400,000 people in England and Wales suffer from rheumatoid arthritis which causes debilitating pain and swelling in the joints.

Scientists from Copenhagen University studied more than 4 million people of whom 18,250 had rheumatoid arthritis over a period of five years. Those with rheumatoid arthritis were 40 per cent at higher risk of atrial fibrillation and 30 per cent higher risk of strokes than the general public.

Although this seems like a big increase, the overall risk still of having heart problems or strokes still remains low. In a group of 1,000 normal patients, six would likely suffer from atrial fibrillation in any given year while 5.7 would be likely to have a stroke.

But amongst a group of 1,000 rheumatoid arthritis sufferers, 8 would be expected to have atrial fibrillation while 7.6 would be likely to have a stroke.

However the researchers - whose findings are published on the website BMJ.com - point out that doctors need to be aware of these heightened risks amongst their patients.

Professor Michael Ehrenstein, of Arthritis Research UK said: ‘Inflammation plays a central role in rheumatoid arthritis and in the disease process of many other related conditions, so it’s not surprising that it may also play a role in the development of atrial fibrillation.’

Rheumatoid arthritis tends to strike between the ages of 40 and 70 and is more common amongst women than men. It happens when the body’s immune system attacks the cells lining the joints making them swollen, stiff and very painful. Experts believe that it may trigger inflammation of the blood vessels which in turn triggers heart problems.

In 2010 Swedish researchers who had looked at 400,000 people found the condition was also linked to heart attacks. They were found to be 60 per cent more at risk compared to other patients.

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Passing electric current through the brain 'lifts half of patients from depression'

This is not exactly new. Electroconvulsive therapy goes back many decades. So this finding has some precedent. What appears to be different is that a much weaker current is applied

Passing electric currents through the brain has been found to lift half of patients out of depression, according to a new study.

Stimulating the brain with a weak electrical current was even beneficial for patients who hadn't responded to other treatments such as anti-depressants.

The randomised controlled trial of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) by researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and the Black Dog Institute in Sydney Australia is the largest to have ever been carried out.

Patients remain awake and alert during the procedure, which involves a non-invasive form of brain stimulation by sending a depolarising electrical current into the front of the brain through electrodes on the scalp.

And the study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, showed the therapy was a successful treatment for many participants.

Trial leader Professor Colleen Loo, from UNSW's School of Psychiatry, said: 'We are excited about these results. 'This is the largest randomised controlled trial of transcranial direct current stimulation ever undertaken and, while the results need to be replicated, they confirm previous reports of significant antidepressant effects.

'The trial saw 64 depressed participants who had not benefited from at least two other depression treatments receive active or sham tDCS for 20 minutes every day for up to six weeks. 'Most of the people who went into this trial had tried at least two other antidepressant treatments and got nowhere. 'So the results are far more significant than they might initially appear — we weren't dealing with people who were easy to treat.'

Results after six weeks of treatment were better than those after just three weeks, suggesting the therapy works better over an extended period.

Participants who improved during the trial were offered follow up weekly 'booster' treatments - with about 85 percent showing no relapse into depression after three months.

Professor Loo continued: 'These results demonstrate that multiple tDCS sessions are safe and not associated with any adverse cognitive outcomes over time.' She added that tDCS is simple and cost effective to deliver and only requires a short visit to a clinic.

The study also turned up additional unexpected physical and mental benefits, including improved attention spans and information processing. One participant with a long-standing reading problem said his reading had improved after the trial and others commented that they were able to think more clearly.

Dr Loo continued: 'Another participant with chronic neck pain reported that the pain had disappeared during the trial. 'We think that is because tDCS actually changes the brain's perception of pain. We believe these cognitive benefits are another positive aspect of the treatment worthy of investigation.'

The researchers are now looking at an additional trial to include people with bipolar disorder, with early results from overseas suggesting tDCS is just as effective in this group.

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