Fast Foods May Be Responsible For Obesity in USA
Residents of the United States spend more on fast food a year than they do movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and records combined. Americans shelled out more than $110 billion on burgers, fried chicken, and the like in 2000, compared with $6 billion in 1970. That obsession with fast food is harming adults and children alike, said Eric Schlosser, a journalist who wrote Fast Food Nation, subtitled The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. The best seller, just out in paperback, contends that fast food has changed the way Americans eat, and is partly to blame for obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and deaths from E-coli bacteria. Its author proposes that people essentially boycott fast food until restaurants start preparing healthier food. “”People should know what they’re eating, and how it’s made; they should spend their money at places that make food well,”" Schlosser told Good Morning America. “”Nobody is forcing people to eat this stuff, and fast food places will change when customers demand changes.”" Even if 2 percent to 3 percent of customers complained, it would make a big drop in sales, Schlossberg said. The fast food companies aren’t out to harm us. But what is good for them in the short run, is not good for us in the long run. When Fast Food Nation first came out, McDonald’s gave this response: “”His [Schlosser's] opinion is outvoted 45 million to 1 every single day, because that’s how many customers around the world choose to come to McDonald’s for our menu of variety, value and quality,”" the statement said. Healthy, Happy Meals? U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher issued a “”call to action”" in mid-December, saying some 300,000 deaths a year are related to obesity, and calling for the removal of fast-food from schools. “”Fast food is really moving into schools, which is horrible, because eating habits are formed when you’re young, so if you get fat then, you’ve started a lifelong battle,”" Schlosser said. Fast food isn’t the only cause of obesity, but Schlosser says it is one of the factors that is making the United States the fattest country in the world, with huge costs in health care and mortality that go along with it. The typical can of soda contains the equivalent of 10 teaspoons of sugar. “”Fast food places lure in the kids with toys and movie tie-ins,”" Schlosser said. “”Parents have to be much more conscious of what their kids are eating. The first responsibility is for the parents, and then for the industry to alter their recipes. There’s no reason they can’t make a happy meal that’s healthy.”" He contends that unless the food is made healthy, fast-food chains should not be allowed to spend millions advertising fatty, unsafe food for children. Factory Conditions Unsafe Though he used to enjoy fast food hamburgers and fries as much as anyone, Schlosser said he doesn’t go to fast food joints anymore, because of what he has learned about the ground meat especially. One of the problems with fast food is that it has created a “”centralized, industrialized food system, which is very vulnerable to spreading pathogens,”" he said. Each day in the United States, about 200,000 people are sickened by food borne pathogens (often found in ground beef). Of those who get sick, 900 are hospitalized, and 14 die annually. Meat infected with E. coli and other pathogens are distributed far and wide because of industrialized production and inadequate government oversight, Schlosser said. Today’s food-processing methods, where parts of many animals go into one burger, may only increase the odds of infection. Schlosser cites a 1996 Agriculture Department study that found 78.6 percent of ground beef samples from processing plants around the country contained microbes that are spread primarily by fecal material. Another problem is that fast foodchains tend to hire unskilled immigrant laborers who end up working in unsafe conditions, but do not know to ask for improvements. The high demand from fast-food companies for meat has led injury rates in slaughterhouses to be three times higher than those in typical factories, Schlosser said. With his own kids, Schlosser takes his cue from Nancy Reagan’s advice about drugs: “”Just Say No.”" His children, who are 9 and 11, have stopped begging for fast food.
Superoxide Dismutase or SOD Subject of Paris Conferance
SOD Experts to Debate New Theory on Free Radical Damage June 2, 2004
An upcoming conference on the enzyme superoxide dismutase looks set to provoke a face-off between leading researchers on the role of antioxidants in disease.
SOD is an enzyme produced by the body and present in every cell. It is thought to play a major role in the protection of cells against oxidative damage and is also available as a nutritional supplement on some markets. However a new theory put forward by a team of UK scientists suggests that the oxygen free radicals produced by white blood cells, said to be responsible for numerous diseases ranging from cancer to arthritis, may not in fact be responsible for causing disease.
Dr Tony Segal and colleagues wrote in the journal Nature earlier this year that “”the basic theory underlying the toxicity of oxygen radicals is flawed”".
The researchers said they had discovered that it is not free radicals that give white blood cells their destructive power, but enzymes which effectively digest foreign invaders. Production of these enzymes is triggered by the flow of the mineral potassium within the cell.
When the scientists blocked this process, the cells were unable to fight pathogens, showing that free radicals may not be toxic as thought.
The theory would not only have a major impact on research into SOD, thought to neutralize the free radical substance superoxide, but also on much of the nutraceutical industry, which has aimed to prevent disease by fighting the build-up of free radicals with antioxidants, such as vitamin C or E.
However Professor Joe McCord from the University of Colorado, credited with the co-discovery of SOD in 1969, which prompted an explosion in the study of the role of antioxidants, will take up the other side of the debate at a round table organized by the Societe Francaise des Antioxydants at its third conference on SOD next Friday.
Other research to be presented at the conference offers new evidence surrounding SOD’s role in the ageing process. A study on Drosophila flies by John P. Phillips from the University of Guelph in Canada looks at SOD’s ability to protect mitochondria and how this process may be linked to the benefits of dietary restriction on extending lifespan.
The conference, taking place at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, will also look at the bioavailability of SOD and its protection when passing through the stomach.
Two companies, Bionov and Ninapharm have recently developed SOD dietary supplements derived from watermelon, said to be the richest plant source of the enzyme. Prior to this, the enzyme was produced from red blood cells but this was stopped in 1992 because of fears of contamination with disease.
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Diabetes Drug Avandia Significantly Increases Heart Failure Risk
Diabetes drugs Avandia and Actos Signiciantly Raise Risk of Heart Failure July 27, 2007
Drugs prescribed to 100,000 patients in Britain to treat diabetes double the risk of heart failure, a study has suggested. The finding is a blow to GlaxoSmithKline, whose drug Avandia is one of the drugs involved. The new analysis, which pools data from 78,000 patients, finds that one in fifty patients treated with either Avandia or a similar drug, Actos, for two and a half years would be admitted to hospital with heart failure. The two drugs reviewed in the new analysis in Diabetes Care are prescribed to millions of patients to treat type 2 diabetes. They are approved by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) for use on the NHS. Both are also approved by the US FDA and used widely in the USA and Canada. The drugs already carry a warning that they are not suitable for patients suffering from, or at risk of, heart failure. But the new study suggests an increased risk even for those who have never suffered the condition. Two advisory panels for the US Food and Drug Administration are now reexamining both drugs. A study in The New England Journal of Medicine in May linked Avandia to a 43 per cent increased risk of heart attacks. The European Medicines Agency (EMEA) said that its Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) is carrying out a reevaluation of both drugs. The new research was carried out at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Wake Forest University in North Carolina, in the US. It was led by Yoon Loke, a clinical pharmacologist at UEA. The experts suspect that the drugs cause fluid retention, which could trigger heart failure. Alastair Benbow, the European medical director of GlaxoSmithKline, said: “Long-term studies have not shown an overall increase in heart deaths between patients taking Avandia and other diabetes drugs. “Heart failure can be well managed by using diuretics, and we have to remember that type 2 diabetes itself has devastating consequences, including stroke, blindness, amputation and kidney failure.”
Breastfeeding
Breast Milk Tied to Higher IQ in Adulthood. Babies nursed longer scored several points better on tests. By Adam Marcus, HealthScoutNews Reporter
SDAY, May 7 (HealthScoutNews) — Breast-feeding strengthens the infant immune system and forges strong emotional ties between mother and baby, but the practice could also mean a few more points on intelligence tests.
Danish and American researchers have found that babies who nurse longer tend to score slightly but significantly higher on IQ exams as adults. The effect is strongest for those who breast-feed for between seven and nine months; after that it appears to fade.
“”It’s not the difference between Einstein and a mentally handicapped child, but it could make quite a difference,”" says June Machover Reinisch, director emerita of Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute and co-author of the study. The work appears in tomorrow?s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Breast milk is known to help babies build defenses against infections and allergies, and even fend off chronic diseases like diabetes and cancers later in life. Human milk is stocked with antibodies — immune system proteins — that infant formula doesn’t have.
It’s also rich in cholesterol and fatty acids, especially two molecules, docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and arachidonic acid (AA), key players in healthy brain and eye development.
Two of the nation’s largest formula makers, Ross Products and Mead Johnson Nutritionals, acknowledging the advantages of these compounds, announced recently they would begin adding them to select brands.
In the latest work, scientists in Copenhagen and at the Kinsey Institute compared duration of breast-feeding with scores on two standardized adult intelligence tests in 973 men and women and another 2,280 men. All of the subjects were born in Denmark between 1959 and 1961, putting them in their early 40s now.
One of the IQ tests was a one-on-one exam measuring a wide range of aptitudes. The other was a more brute force exam taken by all new recruits in the Danish armed forces.
Duration of breast-feeding was assessed for a year after birth, and broken into five categories: less than a month; two to three months; four to six months; seven to nine months; and longer than nine months.
The researchers tried to account for more than a dozen factors known to influence intelligence. These included parental behaviors and traits such as a mother’s age at delivery, her social status, her history of smoking, and the education level of the family breadwinner. They also considered variables specific to the babies themselves: their length and weight at birth and whether they were premature.
Yet even after controlling for these factors, nursing longer clearly predicted higher IQ in early adulthood. The difference was greatest on the civilian test — considered a more sensitive and inclusive tool — reaching nearly six points, on average, for those who nursed seven to nine months compared with the briefest nursers (99.4 versus 105). It was consistent across both exams.
“”The trend is very clear and linear. The more [breast milk] the better, up to nine months,”" Reinisch says. “”At that point, what’s probably the case is that whatever the factor is that is enhancing neural development has done its work.”"
In addition to containing nutrients critical for brain growth, breast-feeding could boost intelligence in other ways, too. Women who nurse may interact more with their babies during the first year of life. Similarly, mothers who prolong breast-feeding may be more intensely invested in their children throughout their childhood and beyond, the researchers suggest. Some evidence ties family environment to intellectual development, though studies are mixed, the researchers say.
The U.S. Surgeon General would like to see that 75 percent of women start breast-feeding upon giving birth, and that 50 percent continue to do so six months later.
However, Carol Huotari, manager of the center for breast-feeding information at La Leche League, says formula industry figures show that about 68 percent began breast-feeding at childbirth, and only 31 percent of women stuck with nursing six months later.
Huotari says $3.6 billion in health-care costs could be saved each year — largely through the prevention of ear infections and stomach ailments — if the government’s guidelines could be achieved.
What’s more, she says, breast-feeding carries both emotional and health benefits for mothers, providing not only a sense of fulfillment and achievement but some protection against osteoporosis and certain cancers.
“”It’s not just a matter of benefit to the baby,”" she says. “”It’s a benefit to the mother; it’s a benefit to the whole family.”"
Smoking
Soy Isoflavones Boost Insulin and Bone Density
SOY ISOFLAVONES BOOST INSULIN AND BONE DENSITY mARCH 3, 2008 Supplements of soy isoflavones may lead to improvements in bone health and blood sugar metabolism, according to new research from Japan. The results of the study, published in the journal Geriatrics & Gerontology International, supports the benefits of soy isoflavones in the aglycone form against osteoporosis and diabetes. The study adds to the ongoing debate about the efficacy of soy isoflavones and bone health, with previous studies having reported conflicting results. Earlier studies from China have linked soy isoflavones to increases in bone mineral density (BMD), while a recent large study in the Archives of Internal Medicine (2005, Vol. 165, pp. 1890-1895) reported that high soy consumption was linked with a 48 per cent decrease in fractures for women who had been menopausal for less than 10 years. “”Our results suggest that 4-week intake of fermented soybean soup containing 24 mg of isoflavone aglycone improves bone metabolism by inhibiting the excessive enhancement of bone resorption and promoting bone formation in post-menopausal women,”" wrote lead author Mari Mori from Mukogawa Women’s University Institute for World Health Development. “”This intervention study was conducted under other soybean-based food restriction. In the present Japanese society, in which traditional soybean product intakes are decreasing, the continuous dietary intake of fermented soybeans may reduce the risks of osteoporosis, metabolic syndrome and diabetes.”" The new randomized, test diet-placebo, independent parallel double-blind study involved 56 healthy post-menopausal women aged between 47 and 70. The women were randomly assigned to receive an aglycone-rich fermented soybean soup, providing a daily isoflavone aglycone dose of 24 milligrams, or placebo soup for weeks. The subjects did not eat any other soybean-based foods and isoflavone supplements for five week prior to the start and for the duration of the study. It has been reported that the aglycone form of isoflavones is more bioavailable since they are smaller molecules and are more hydrophobic, and so do not dissolve as easily in water and thus rapidly excreted. Key findings Mori and co-workers report that isoflavone levels significantly increase in the urine after four weeks of supplementation, compared to placebo. These increase occurred in combination with an increase in the excretion of deoxypyridinoline, a marker of bone resorption (weakening). Moreover, levels of osteocalcin, a marker of bone formation (strengthening) were significantly increased after four weeks, they added. “”Those results indicate that four-week intake of fermented soybeans improves bone metabolism in post-menopausal women by attenuating the excessive enhancement of bone resorption as well as by promoting bone formation,”" wrote the researchers. “”In this study, we did not measure bone mineral density, as the ingestion period was relatively short. However, such a daily intake of fermented soybean, if continued, is expected to improve bone metabolism and to contribute to the primary prevention of osteoporosis,”" they added. The researcher also add that blood levels of insulin were significantly lower after four weeks of supplementation, compared to placebo, while blood sugar (glucose) levels were similar between the groups. “”These results suggest that four-week intake of fermented soybeans improves insulin resistance in post-menopausal women whose isoflavone intake was restricted,”" they stated. Isoflavones are well known phytoestrogens - active substances derived from plants that have a weak estrogen-like action. In addition to their potential benefits for heart and bone health in post-menopausal women, the compounds also been studied for their role in cancer prevention and slowing down the ageing process in peri-menopausal women, and have proved to be a popular alternative to hormone replacement therapy for those wishing to control menopause symptoms without resorting to drugs. Source: Geriatrics & Gerontology International Volume 8, Supplement 1, Pages S8-S15, doi:10.1111/j.1447-0594.2007.00399.x “”Isoflavones as Putative Anti-aging Food Factors in Asia and Effects of Isoflavone Aglycone-rich Fermented Soybeans on Bone and Glucose Metabolisms in Post-menopausal Women”" Authors: M. Mori, Y. Okabe, H. Tanimoto, T. Shimazu, H. Mori, Y. Yamori For Further Information Follow The Links Below
Soy Isoflavones Proved to Prevent Prostate Cancer
Soy Isoflavones Proved to Prevent Prostate Cancer
A recent study by the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH) establishes that soy isoflavones may prevent prostate cancers and aid in patient recovery where cancer of the prostate has already been diagnosed. A summary of the study is presented below.
If you have not already added soy isoflavones to your list of preventative supplements, you can do so now by visiting SupplementSpot Nutrients. We offer here an excellently priced and powerful soy isoflavone together with the other supplements known to protect the prostate. Soy isoflavones are also proven to help lower cholesterol levels. Genistein
Genistein is a phytochemical found in soybeans. Soybeans contain a variety of phytochemicals, and in particular they are the only source with nutritionally significant amounts of one type of phytochemical called isoflavones. Foods that contain large amounts of soy are tofu, soy milk, and miso. In soy consuming populations, the concentrations of genistein average 0.28, which is ten-fold higher than that seen in non-soy consuming populations. Much interest has been shown recently in genistein as a chemopreventive agent in prostate cancer. Both epidemiological and migrant studies have demonstrated a correlation between increased isoflavone levels in the serum and urine of Asian men with decreased levels of prostate cancer.
Also, in a cross-national study for which data was available from 42 countries, soy products were identified as having a significant protective effect against prostate cancer.
Genistein is a potent inhibitor of protein-tyrosine kinase and topoisomerase II, enzymes which are crucial to cellular proliferation. Genistein is also an inhibitor of angiogenesis and several steroid metabolizing enzymes, such as aromatase and 5 alpha-reductase. A NCI-sponsored placebo-controlled clinical trial, Phase I Randomized Study of Genistein in Patients with Stage III or IV Prostate Cancer, has been underway since December 1999 to determine the safety and pharmacokinetics of genistein.
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Choline Reduces Risk of Breast Cancer
Choline Reduces Risk of Breast Cancer April 4, 2008
Choline, an essential nutrient found in foods such as eggs, is associated with a 24 percent reduced risk of breast cancer, according to a study supported by a grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), to be published in The FASEB Journal
Milk Thistle Extract Reduces LDL Cholesterol Oxidation 86%
Milk thistle’s heart health benefits Demonstrated in New Study June 11, 2008
A crude extract from milk thistle reduced the oxidation of LDL cholesterol by up to 86 per cent, indicating significant potential to boost heart health, says a new study. The in vitro study found that the milk thistle extract protected LDL cholesterol against oxidation in a dose-dependent manner, a result with potentially important implications since the oxidative modification of LDL has been reported to be a major part of the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis, and subsequently cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular disease (CVD), the cause of almost 50 per cent of deaths in Europe, and reported to cost the EU economy an estimated
CLA Reduces Body Fat in New Study
Good Fat Fights Bad Found in red meat and dairy, conjugated linoleic acid drops body fat by up to 9% in a year MAY 21, 2004 CLA, a fatty acid in red meat and dairy products, can help healthy but overweight people lose as much as 9% of their body fat in a year.
The fatty acid, conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), is important to human health and has now been confirmed in a relatively large study by Scandinavian Clinical Research scientists in Kjeller, Norway to help people lose weight.
“”Supplementation for one year reduces body fat mass in healthy, overweight humans,”" say the researchers. Battling the bulge
Obesity describes a condition in which a person’s natural energy reserve, which is stored in fat, reaches a point where it’s unhealthy