Sakthi Foundation - Pancha Bhoota Healing

Researchers Discover How A High-fat Diet Causes Type 2 Diabetes
Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have discovered a molecular link between a high-fat, Western-style diet, and the onset of type 2 diabetes. In studies in mice, the scientists showed that a high-fat diet disrupts insulin production, resulting in the classic signs of type 2 diabetes.

Boys More Likely When Pregnancy Takes Longer
The longer it takes to get pregnant, the more chance there is of having a boy, finds a study in this week's British Medical Journal.

Dutch researchers analysed data for 5,283 women who gave birth to single babies between July 2001 and July 2003.

Among the 498 women who took longer than 12 months to get pregnant, the probability of male offspring was nearly 58%, whereas the proportion of male births among the 4,785 women with shorter times to pregnancy was 51%.

The authors calculate that, for couples conceiving naturally, each additional year of trying to get pregnant is associated with a nearly 4% higher expected probability of delivering a male baby, even after adjusting for factors such as age, smoking status, alcohol use, and variability of the menstrual cycle.

In contrast, sex of the offspring of couples who had received medical help in getting pregnant did not show any relation with time to pregnancy.

These findings support the idea that, in viscous fluids, sperms bearing the Y (male) chromosome swim faster than those bearing the X (female) chromosome, say the authors. Women whose cervical mucus is relatively viscous would not only have more difficulties conceiving naturally, but also have a higher probability of male offspring if they do get pregnant.

Furthermore, the findings may explain why, throughout the world, more boys than girls are born (105 boys to 100 girls in most countries), despite the fact that human semen holds equal amounts of X bearing and Y bearing sperms.

Cell phones and pagers, part of the technological revolution that was supposed to liberate everyone, is tethering people to their jobs to an unprecedented degree, to the point where family life is suffering.

The research, by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee sociologist Noelle Chesley, appears in the December issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family. The use of cell phones and pagers was linked to increased distress and a decrease in family satisfaction over time," said Chesley, an assistant professor of sociology. "There is clearly a link between using the technology and experiencing increased access."

A new University of Colorado at Boulder study involving laboratory rats that indicates low-intensity exercise may significantly delay the onset of congestive heart failure appears to have some promising implications for humans.

"When children watch a lot of TV, they tend to snack more frequently, particularly on foods that are high in fat and/or sugar," Palmer, also a professor at Tufts' Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, explains. "This not only increases their overall caloric intake, which we know can lead to obesity, but it also increases their risk of developing tooth decay because the amount of time food is in contact with the teeth increases."

Soft drinks and fruit juices, which are consumed in many households and are readily accessible in many school vending machines, represent another high sugar source that may contribute to the potential for tooth decay. Palmer cautions that even diet soft drinks, when consumed frequently, can pose a risk because the acid content of these beverages can damage tooth enamel, making teeth more vulnerable to decay.

A POPULAR over-the-counter painkiller is now the leading cause of acute liver failure in the US - and almost half of those cases are accidental overdoses.

Paracetamol (or acetaminophen as it is known in the US) is used by millions of Americans each year, and is commonly thought to be safe. Until 1980, paracetamol was not even listed as a cause of acute liver failure. But between 1998 and 2003, the proportion of cases of liver failure caused by the drug nearly doubled.

Sunflower Seeds, Pistachios Among Top Nuts For Lowering Cholesterol
Researchers have known for some time that nuts and seeds are rich sources of phytosterols, a class of plant chemicals that have been shown to reduce cholesterol levels and improve heart health. In what is believed to be the most comprehensive analysis to date of the phytosterol content of nuts and seeds, chemists at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va., analyzed some 27 nut and seed products and found that pistachios and sunflower kernels had the highest levels of phytosterols among the nuts and seeds that are most commonly consumed as snack foods in the United States. Their study appears in the Nov. 30 issue of the American Chemical Society's Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Sesame seed and wheat germ actually ranked highest but are not consumed as frequently as individual foods, the researchers say. Brazil nuts and walnuts ranked the lowest in phytosterols, they say. The chemists caution that phytosterols are not the only food component involved in lowering cholesterol and that other compounds may also play a role. A well-balanced diet and frequent exercise are important keys to good health, they stress.

Antioxidants in food.

Among the fruits, vegetables and nuts analyzed, each food was measured for antioxidant concentration as well as antioxidant capacity per serving size. Cranberries, blueberries, and blackberries ranked highest among the fruits studied. Beans, artichokes and Russet potatoes were tops among the vegetables. Pecans, walnuts and hazelnuts ranked highest in the nut category. Although spices are generally consumed in small amounts, many are high in antioxidants. On the basis of antioxidant concentration, ground cloves, ground cinnamon and oregano were the highest among spices.

The total phenolic content (TPC), total antioxidant status (TAS), free radical scavenging capacity, inhibition of low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and metal chelating capacity of extracts of whole black and whole white sesame seeds and their hull fractions were investigated. In all means black sesame seeds were far superior than white sesame seeds (Food Chemistry Oct-2005). The results indicated that the brown pigment of sesame seed possessed excellent antioxidant activity.

High levels of dialysable calcium (20–39%) were found in kale, celery, collard, pak-chee-lao (Anethum graveolens L.), Chinese cabbage and soybean sprouts. These vegetables contained low levels of dietary fiber, phytate and oxalate. Medium levels of dialysable calcium (11–18%) were found in Indian mulberry and sesbania leaves.

Cranberry chemicals inhibit bacterial adhesion to host cells as well as the co-aggregation of many oral bacteria.

The cumulative findings indicate that the inhibitory effect of cranberry on influenza virus adhesion and infectivity may have a therapeutic potential. Antiviral research-April 2005. Cranberry also decreases oxidized LDL in blood.

Glycemic index not for all.

Glycemic load may not be the 'be-all, end-all' of weight-loss diets for everyone," says Roberts, who is also a professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts, "but it significantly enhanced weight loss in our high-insulin-secreting subjects."

"Insulin is a hormone that is important in glucose (sugar) metabolism," explains senior author Andrew Greenberg, MD, director of the Obesity and Metabolism Laboratory at the Center. "The regulation of body weight is, at least in part, influenced by how much insulin a person secretes in response to a load of glucose, as well as by how sensitive that person is to insulin's glucose-lowering effects."

"In our study," says first author Anastassios Pittas, MD, assistant professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, "everyone lost some weight as a result of restricting calories, but people who had high levels of insulin secretion and ate a diet with a low glycemic load lost the most weight."

Arguments dramatically slow wound healing
21:00 05 December 2005

The stress a married couple experiences during a 30-minute argument can delay their bodies’ ability to heal a wound by at least a day, according to a new study.

And if the couples’ relationship endures routine hostility, the delay can be even longer. There could be important implications for people suffering from chronic wounds, such as skin ulcers.
“We knew that chronic stress causes reduced immunity, but to find that an argument of just half an hour has such a profound effect on wound healing is quite shocking,” says Patricia Price at the Wound Healing Research Unit at Cardiff University, Wales, who was not involved in the study. Researchers at Ohio State University College of Medicine in the US inflicted small wounds on 42 otherwise healthy married couples, whose ages ranged from 22 to 77.

Open sores
Each partner was wounded on the forearm with a punch biopsy device, which scrapes off eight patches of the skin's surface, each 8 millimetres in diameter, to leave small open sores. Before a blister could form, another device was used to create a protective bubble over each wound from which the researchers could extract the fluids that normally fill such blisters.

In the first experiment, each of the partners in turn was asked to talk about an aspect of themselves that they wanted to change, while the other was instructed to contribute with encouraging comments. The discussions were designed to be conflict-free. In a second session, a couple of months later, each partner was asked to raise a contentious issue within their relationship, such as money or in-laws. Their stress was measured using blood tests and questionnaires. Most of the couples’ wounds had healed within five days of the first session. But the 30-minute arguments in the second session caused a day’s delay in healing.

Argumentative couples
Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, who led the research with her husband, also found that couples who had higher levels of hostility towards each other took an average of six days to heal after the first session, and seven days after the second. “Wounds on the hostile couples healed at only 60% of the rate of couples considered to have low hostility,” she said. Hostility was measured using video analysis and questionnaires.

The fluid samples showed differences too. Those in hostile relationships had marked differences in levels of a key immune chemical called interleukin-6 (IL-6), a cytokine that helps balance the immune response. Increased levels stimulate the healing process, but too much appears to overwhelm it. High-hostility couples had an overly sensitised IL-6 response, the researchers found. Their normal IL-6 levels were generally too low, but following conflict they produced an exaggerated response.

Price comments: “This study was carried out on healthy people – a lot of them young. So imagine the effect on people who are elderly or already immunosuppressed. Some wounds, such as leg ulceration associated with diabetic foot disease, can take months to heal and the implications of stress for these people could be enormous,” she told New Scientist, adding that a psychological component may be required for the treatment of wounds. Kiecolt-Glaser points out that marital fights that occur in private will be more extreme than those studied in the lab, so the consequences for wound healing could be even greater.

Journal reference: Archives of General Psychiatry (vol 62, p 1377)

Psychoneuroimmunology at Ohio State University College of Medicine
Wound Healing Research Unit at Cardiff University, Wales, UK
Archives of General Psychiatry

'Survival' Genes Hold Key To Healthy Brains In Babies And The Elderly

Brain study links negative emotions and lowered immunity

Brain activity linking negative emotions to a lower immune response against disease has been revealed for the first time, claim researchers.

Many previous studies have shown that emotions and stress can adversely affect the immune system. But this effect had not been directly correlated with activity in the brain, says study leader Richard Davidson, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in the US.

The part of the brain the team studied, the prefrontal cortex (PFC), is associated with depression. People who had the greatest activity in the right PFC when asked to dwell on distressing episodes in their life had a markedly lower antibody levels after an influenza vaccination. In contrast, those showing exceptional activity in the left PFC when recalling happy times developed high antibody levels.

Davidson says emotions play an important role in regulating systems in the body that influence health. "This study establishes that people with a pattern of brain activity that has been associated with positive [emotions] are also the ones to show the best response to the flu vaccine."

"It begins to suggest a mechanism for why subjects with a more positive emotional disposition may be healthier," he says. Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, an expert on stress and immunity at Ohio State University, told the New York Times that the study represents "some of the best evidence we've seen to date."

Intense sadness
Davidson, with colleagues at Wisconsin and Princeton University, New Jersey, asked 52 men and women who graduated from Wisconsin in 1957 to recount both the best and worst events in their lives on paper.

For their best experiences, the subjects were asked to write about an event where they experienced "intense happiness or joy". And for their worst experience they were asked to remember an event causing "the most intense sadness, fear, or anger".

During this autobiographical task, the electrical activity of the brain was measured. The subjects were then given flu shots and their antibody levels were measured after two weeks, four weeks and six months. The researcher found a clear link between strong activity in the left PFC and a large rise in antibodies, and vice versa. (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1534743100).

However, the study could not explain exactly how having a positive attitude boosts the immune system. The researchers say some evidence exists to suggest a link between the PFC and the immune system via a complex hormonal system governed by the hypothalamic, pituitary and adrenal glands.

Another study by Italian and UK researchers, also published on Monday, reveals that depressed elderly people have fewer lymphocytes and T-cells - white blood cells crucial for fighting disease. This study is published in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics (vol 72, p 253)

4th December 2005
Obesity Before Pregnancy Linked To Childhood Weight Problems
A child's weight may be influenced by his mother even before he is actually born, according to new research.

Results of the study, which included more than 3,000 children, suggest that a child is far more likely to be overweight at a very young age – at 2 or 3 years old – if his mother was overweight or obese before she became pregnant. A child is also at greater risk of becoming overweight if he is born to a black or Hispanic mother, or to a mother who smoked during her pregnancy.

And there's a good chance that an overweight child will stay overweight for the rest of his or her life.

Labor Takes Longer For Overweight And Obese Women, Study Finds (November 5, 2004) -- Pregnant women who are overweight or obese progress through labor more slowly than do normal weight women, according to a study by researchers at the University of North Carolina.

Sydney Researchers Explain How Stress Can Make You Sick
Garvan Institute scientists have discovered how a hormone, known as neuropeptide Y (NPY), can prevent our immune system functioning properly, paving the way for two new major opportunities for therapeutic intervention.

"Most of us expect to come down with a cold or other illness when we are under pressure, but until now we have mostly had circumstantial evidence for a link between the brain and the immune system", says lead Garvan researcher Associate Professor Fabienne Mackay.

"During periods of stress, nerves release a lot of NPY and it gets into the bloodstream, where it directly impacts on the cells in the immune system that look out for and destroy pathogens (bacteria and viruses) in the body," explains Mackay.

This significant discovery, which was carried out in mice, came about through a collaboration between Mackay's immunology group and scientists in the Neurobiology programme at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Sydney, Australia.

Associate Professor Herbert Herzog who heads the Neurobiology programme says, "Elite athletes are particularly prone to illness, possibly because of the extreme physical and emotional stressors associated with competition. But our research is relevant to everyone because there is no escaping stress -- be it in the workplace or at home. Employment surveys show many workers feel there is more job-related stress today than even a couple of years ago".

The Garvan Institute study centres on two key events that enable our bodies to recognise foreign substances and control invaders. When we encounter a pathogen (bacteria and viruses), the immune 'sentry' cells that are on guard duty retain and interrogate the suspects. Their activation is made possible by NPY. These cells then return to the lymph nodes, which are found all over the body, with information about the foreign invaders. The lymph nodes are where decisions about defense are made.

In the case of bacteria and viruses, TH1 cells are part of the attack team that is sent out on the 'search and destroy' mission. But when their job is done they need to be turned 'off' and the immune system reset. The same hormone, NPY, that activates the sentry cells now prompts the TH1 cells to slow down and die.

Mackay adds that: "Under normal conditions, circulating immune cells produce small amounts of NPY, which enables the immune cells on sentry duty and the TH1 immune cells to operate -- it's a yin and yang kind of situation. But too much NPY means that the TH1 attack is prevented despite the foreign invaders being identified -- and this is what happens during stress",

Professor Loses Weight With No-Diet Diet

When Steven Hawks is tempted by ice cream bars, M&Ms and toffee-covered almonds at the grocery store, he doesn't pass them by. He fills up his shopping cart. It's the no-diet diet, an approach the Brigham Young University health science professor used to lose 50 pounds and to keep it off for more than five years.Hawks calls his plan "intuitive eating" and thinks the rest of the country would be better off if people stopped counting calories, started paying attention to hunger pangs and ate whatever they wanted.

As part of intuitive eating, Hawks surrounds himself with unhealthy foods he especially craves. He says having an overabundance of what's taboo helps him lose his desire to gorge.
There is a catch to this no-diet diet, however: Intuitive eaters only eat when they're hungry and stop when they're full.

That means not eating a box of chocolates when you're feeling blue or digging into a big plate of nachos just because everyone else at the table is.
The trade-off is the opportunity to eat whatever your heart desires when you are actually hungry.
"One of the advantages of intuitive eating is you're always eating things that are most appealing to you, not out of emotional reasons, not because it's there and tastes good," he said. "Whenever you feel the physical urge to eat something, accept it and eat it. The cravings tend to subside. I don't have anywhere near the cravings I would as a 'restrained eater.'"

Hawks should know. In 1989, the Utah native had a job at North Carolina State University in Raleigh and wanted to return to his home state. But at 210 pounds, he didn't think a fat person could get a job teaching students how to be healthy, so his calorie-counting began.

Study Demonstrates Role Of Exercise In Modifying Melatonin Levels; Increase Believed To Offer Breast Cancer Protection

Moderate physical activity, which is believed to help reduce the risk of breast cancer, may do so because it increases production of a hormone believed to have protective effects against the disease, a Canadian research team has learned.

Researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital's Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute in Toronto have completed a study of how light and other factors, such as physical activity, influence the production of melatonin -- a hormone released mainly at night in the absence of light and believed to protect against breast cancer. The findings of the study have been published in the December 1, 2005 edition of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Fruits and Veggies Limit Inflammatory Protein

Over the past few years, many studies have linked an increased risk of debilitating illness—such as heart disease or diabetes—with chronically elevated blood concentrations of a protein typically associated with inflammation. In many cases, people with the indicated illnesses didn't even have a particularly level of inflammation. The good news: A new trial finds that eating plenty of fruits and vegetables reduces concentrations of the worrisome protein.

INFLAMATION QUENCHER? The fresh veggies are among those strongly associated with decreasing the body's production of a protein known as CRP. Because this protein usually connotes inflammation, the new findings suggest that carrots might offer a dietary route to moderating potentially harmful, chronic inflammation.

The new findings, however, suggest a different potential explanation, involving inflammation, for why people who eat the most fruits and vegetables typically have the lowest incidence of cancers of the breast, lung, and gastrointestinal tract.

for each pound of peeled and grated carrots, mix in at least:

1/2 cup dried parsley
1/2 cup dried or fresh mint (mince fresh leaves and keep the stems out)
6 tbs. garlic powder (or to taste)
6 tbs. powdered cumin (or to taste)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
Then blend in olive or canola oil (canola has less saturated fat), about 1/3 cup. Also add at least 1/4 cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice. Stir thoroughly.

Expectations Can Help Healing

WASHINGTON - Your medicine really could work better if your doctor talks it up before handing over the prescription. Research is showing the power of expectations, that they have physical — not just psychological — effects on your health.

Scientists can measure the resulting changes in the brain, from the release of natural painkilling chemicals to alterations in how neurons fire.

Among the most provocative findings: New research suggests that once Alzheimer's disease robs someone of the ability to expect that a proven painkiller will help them, it doesn't work nearly as well.

It's a new spin on the so-called placebo effect — and it begs the question of how to harness this power and thus enhance treatment benefits for patients.

"Your expectations can have profound impacts on your brain and your health," says Columbia University neuroscientist Tor Wager.

"There is not a single placebo effect, but many placebo effects," that differ by illness, adds Dr. Fabrizio Benedetti of Italy's University of Torino Medical School, who is studying those effects in patients with Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and pain.

The placebo effect is infamous from studies of new medications: Scientists often given either an experimental drug or a dummy pill to patients and see how they fare. Frequently, those taking the fake feel better, too, for a while, making it more difficult to tease out the medication's true effects.

Doctors have long thought the placebo effect was psychological.

Now scientists are amassing the first direct evidence that the placebo effect actually is physical, and that expecting benefit can trigger the same neurological pathways of healing as real medication does. Among them:

_University of Michigan scientists injected the jaws of healthy young men with salt water to cause painful pressure, while PET scans measured the impact in their brains. During one scan, the men were told they were getting a pain reliever, actually a placebo.

Their brains immediately released more endorphins — chemicals that act as natural painkillers by blocking the transmission of pain signals between nerve cells — and the men felt better. To return to pre-placebo pain levels, scientists had to increase the salt-water pressure.

"Our brain really is on drugs when we get a placebo," says co-researcher Christian Stohler, now at the University of Maryland. More remarkable, some especially strong placebo responders suggest "many brains can actually stimulate that (pain-relief) system more."

_Italy's Benedetti gave Parkinson's patients a placebo and measured the electrical activity of individual nerve cells in a movement-controlling part of the brain. Those neurons quieted down, a decrease in firing of about 40 percent that correlated with a reduction in patients' muscle rigidity — they moved more easily.

_To further prove the power of belief, Benedetti hooked pain patients to a computerized morphine injection system. Sometimes the computer administered a dose without them knowing it; sometimes a nurse pretended to give it. The morphine was up to 50 percent more effective when patients knew it was coming.

Likewise, Parkinson's patients moved much better when they were told that doctors had turned on a pacemaker-like implant in their brains, which blocks tremors, than when it was turned on covertly.

But in a similar experiment with Alzheimer's patients suffering pain, Benedetti found no difference between covert or expected dosing. The results are preliminary, he cautioned a meeting of the Society for Neuroscience last month. But it appears that because Alzheimer's robs patients of the cognitive ability to expect a benefit, they need higher doses of painkillers to get as much relief as non-demented patients.

Placebos aren't a substitute for real medicine. But the research suggests maybe doctors should try to manipulate patients' treatment expectations, for at least some hard-to-treat conditions.

"The bigger question is how do we capitalize on the placebo effect," said Dr. Helen Mayberg of Emory University, whose studies suggest some antidepressants have a "placebo-plus" activity in the brain. "There may be a phenomenon we all have access to."

U.S. Farmers Continue to Use Pesticide

WATSONVILLE, Calif. - Shoppers rifle through store shelves brimming with succulent tomatoes and plump strawberries, hoping to enjoy one last round of fresh fruit before the Western growing season ends. There is no hint of a dark side to the blaze of red.

Strawberries are a painful subject for Guillermo Ruiz. The farm worker believes his headaches, confusion and vision trouble stem from a decade working in the fields with methyl bromide, a pesticide that protects the berries with stunning efficiency. Cheri Alderman, a teacher whose classroom borders a farm, fears her students could inhale a dangerous whiff of the fumigant as it drifts from the adjacent strawberry field. "A little dribble of poison is still poison," she says.

Other nations watch as the United States keeps permitting wide use of methyl bromide for tomatoes, strawberries, peppers, Christmas trees and other crops, even though the U.S. signed an international treaty banning all but the most critical uses by 2005.

The chemical depletes the earth's protective ozone layer and can harm the human neurological system, an increasing concern as people settle further into what was once just farm country. The reason is that farmers who each year grow Florida tomatoes, California strawberries, Georgia peppers and North Carolina Christmas trees worth billions of dollars are struggling to find a suitable replacement. Alternative organic techniques are too costly and substitute chemicals are not as effective, growers say.

Odorless and colorless, methyl bromide is a gas that usually is injected by tractor into soil before planting, then covered with plastic sheeting to slow its release into the air. It wipes out plant parasites, disease and weeds. It results in a spectacular yield, reduced weeding costs and a longer growing season.

Workers who inhale enough of the chemical can suffer convulsions, coma and neuromuscular and cognitive problems. In rare cases, they can die. Ruiz and Jorge Fernandez, two California farmworkers, say they saw plenty wrong in the strawberry fields they worked, starting with the dogs, birds and deer that lay lifeless when the workers arrived to remove plastic sheeting from fumigated fields. "That's how we knew this was a dangerous chemical," Ruiz said. His own symptoms added concern. "My eyes watered. I threw up. It gave me headaches," he said.

Ruiz and Jorge Fernandez say they developed nervousness and depression by the time they stopped working in 2003. They saw the plastic come loose in high winds or leak when animals punctured it. Other workers had symptoms, they said, but kept silent because they feared for their jobs.

In her Southern California neighborhood of Ventura, people thought they had the flu a few years back. Then they noticed that their illness coincided with fumigation of a nearby field. They settled a suit with the strawberry grower. Now Uvari wonders about methyl bromide's legacy, even whether it could be linked to her son's endocrine problems.

Vitamin D Boosts Calcium Potency
Women whose diets are rich in vitamin D appear to need less calcium to preserve their bones' health. Indeed, the new study finds that in a country where vitamin D intakes are high, women can reduce their daily calcium intake to about one-third of the officially recommended daily amount without compromising their bones' health, says Gunnar Sigurdsson, an endocrinologist at University Hospital in Reykjavik, Iceland, and a study coauthor.

15th October 2005
A review of 24 studies published online by the British Medical Journal on Friday showed that size early in life has a life-long impact.

"In the majority of studies the infants who were heaviest or those with the highest body mass index (BMI), and those who gained weight more rapidly in the first two years of life were more at risk of obesity," Dr Janis Baird, of the University of Southampton, in southern England, told Reuters.

Rates of obesity around the globe have been rising at an astounding rate. An estimated 155 million school-age children worldwide are overweight and about 35-40 million of that figure are obese, according to the International Obesity Task Force

5th October 2005

Studies show how going organic can shield children from pesticides
Source: Los Angeles Times

Switching to organic foods provides children "dramatic and immediate" protection from pesticides that are widely used on a variety of crops, according to a study by a team of federally funded [U.S.] scientists. Concentrations of two organophosphate pesticides - malathion and chlorpyrifos - declined substantially in the bodies of elementary school-age children during a 5-day period when organic foods were substituted for conventional foods.

The health effects of exposure to minute amounts of pesticides found in food are largely unknown, especially for children. Some research, however, suggests that the residue may harm the developing nervous system. For 15 days, a team of environmental health scientists from the University of Washington, Emory University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tested the urine of 23 elementary school-age children in the Seattle area. "In conclusion," the researchers wrote, "we were able to demonstrate that an organic diet provides a dramatic and immediate protective effect against exposure to organophosphorus pesticides that are commonly used in agricultural production."

Los Angeles Times - 09/03/05

DALLAS - As toddlers begin eating "grown-up" food, they may also develop grown-up eating habits — like too much junk food and too few vegetables, warn doctors who want parents to change their ways.

Within the childhood obesity outbreak is an increasing number of overweight 2-year-olds, according to pediatrics experts. In an effort to address the problem, the American Heart Association is offering this advice to parents: Children 2 and older should eat mostly fruits and vegetables, whole grains, low-fat and non-fat dairy products, beans, fish and lean meat.

"These guidelines are not that different from what you as a parent should be following," said Lona Sandon, a dietitian and assistant professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. "Kids will follow the example of their parents if the example is there." Of course, in a nation where dinner often comes from a takeout window, keeping kids healthy may require a change by adults.

"We've gotten away from preparing foods at home," Sandon said. "We are eating foods that are much higher in fat and calories and larger portion sizes. We've gotten away from physical activity."

Dr. Barbara Dennison, who helped draw up the guidelines and is associate professor of clinical pediatrics at Columbia University, said that 10 percent of 2-year-olds are overweight, doubling the rate from the mid-1970s.

He said that 30 to 50 years ago, foods that were nutritional were considered "kids' foods." Now, he said, kids' foods are viewed as sweets, snacks or so-called comfort foods.

The heart association notes that by the time kids are 19 to 24 months, french fries are the most commonly eaten vegetable. Experts say that as jars of baby food packed with fruits and vegetables give way to solid foods, nutritious food is often bypassed for whatever is easiest.

LONDON (Reuters) - Eating a diet rich in beans, nuts and whole grain cereals could help to prevent cancer because the foods contain a natural compound that inhibits the growth of tumors. Scientists at University College London (UCL) said on Thursday that the substance called inositol pentakisphosphate, which is also found in lentils and peas, could also help researchers develop new therapies against the disease. "Our study suggests the importance of a diet enriched in foods such as beans, nuts and cereals which could help prevent cancer," said Dr Marco Falasca, of UCL's Sackler Institute, who reported the finding in the journal Cancer Research. He and his team discovered that the compound inhibits an enzyme called phosphoinositde 3-kinase which promotes tumour growth. Scientists have been trying to develop drugs to inhibit the cancer-promoting enzyme but have had difficulty so far. When the researchers tested inositol pentakisphosphate in mice and cancer cells in the laboratory, it killed the animal tumors and enhanced the effect of drugs used against ovarian and lung cancer cells.
The researchers believe the compound, which was non-toxic even at high concentrations, could also be used to increase the effectiveness of chemotherapy drugs.

SUNDAY, Sept. 11 Americans aiming to lower their blood pressure don't always need to hit the gym: According to a new study, cleaning the house, doing some yard work or washing the car may help do the trick. These types of everyday, around-the-house activities have been shown to significantly lower blood pressure in people with hypertension and pre-hypertension, according to a study in the August issue of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. Researchers found that four hours of accumulated daily "lifestyle physical activity" cut blood pressure for an average of six to eight hours. In hypertensive individuals -- people with systolic blood pressure readings of 140 mm Hg or above -- this type of routine housework was linked to a decline in that number of nearly 13 mm Hg over eight hours, according to the study. "The findings indicate that physical activity should be considered as an essential component in the management of blood pressure," said one of the researchers, Jaume Padilla, a doctoral student at Indiana University Bloomington.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most studies done on violence and video games support the conclusion that violent video games can increase aggressive behavior in children and adolescents, especially boys, researchers said on Friday. Teachers of 600 8th and 9th graders, aged 13 to 15, said children who spent more time playing violent video games were more hostile than other children and more likely to argue with authority figures and other students.

The findings, presented at an annual meeting of American Psychological Association, prompted the group to adopt a resolution recommending that all violence be reduced in video games and interactive media marketed to children and youth.

"Additionally, the APA also encourages parents, educators and health care providers to help youth make more informed choices about which games to play," the Association said in a statement. Parents can sit with children and explain cartoons or television shows to them -- something the APA and other groups recommend doing. But this is more difficult to do with video games, Ferreira said.

"You are part of the thing," he said. "You get involved in the violence because you are doing it."

Complete diet
Researchers found that the correlations between the score for any one food component and the risk of disease or death was weak. This suggests there could be biological interactions among the diet's components that promote health, the researchers say, and they recommend using recipes that incorporate several healthful ingredients from the diet. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, says that the study is an important contribution, and agrees that complete diets, not ingredients, promote health: "You don't become Mediterranean by pouring olive oil on your steak."
Journal reference: New England Journal of Medicine (vol 348, p 2599) 2005

PORTLAND, Ore. - The path to better health and lower blood pressure may be paved with cobblestones. When people over 60 walked on smooth, rounded cobblestones for just a half-hour a day over four months, they significantly lowered their blood pressure and improved their balance, a study showed. The results were published recently in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Nearly all the 108 volunteers in the study said they felt better after the exercise. But only the half who walked the cobblestones showed significant improvement in balance, measures of mobility and blood pressure, Fisher said. He said the uneven surface of the stones stimulate "acupoints" on the soles of the feet. The theory is much like acupuncture, suggesting that distant and unrelated areas of the body are linked together at certain points and can be stimulated to improve physical and mental health.

Fay Horak, an Oregon Health & Science University neurophysiologist who specializes in balance, said the study is evidence that finding ways to maintain mobility and balance can delay and even prevent the effects of aging. The body relies on two complex methods to maintain balance — the vestibular system in the inner ear and the somatosensory system that connects skin and muscles, Horak said. Normally, people depend on the somatosensory system for about 70 percent of their balance control, and 30 percent on the inner ear.

But when the surface is uneven or unstable, the body switches reliance to the vestibular system and relies on it for about 70 percent of balance control, Horak said. It could be very helpful for people who are older because it's common as we age to lose receptors in the vestibular system," she said. "But by challenging people with an unstable surface, they use the remaining vestibular system and probably improve its function."

If a depressed individual receives a physical punishment, whipping that is, it will stir up endorphin receptors, activate the "production of happiness" and eventually remove depressive feelings.

Russian scientists recommend the following course of the whipping therapy: 30 sessions of 60 whips on the buttocks in every procedure. A group of drug addicts volunteered to test the new method of treatment: the results can be described as good and excellent.

The whipping therapy has not become a new discovery in the history of medicine. Tibetan monks widely used it for medical purposes too.

Older women who consume too much vitamin A in food or dietary supplements may be putting themselves at risk for hip fractures.The national study of more than 72,000 women aged 34 to 77 found that retinol, a potent vitamin A compound, was associated with hip fractures in postmenopausal women over nearly two decades.

While vitamin A is necessary for vision, growth, reproduction and a healthy immune system, too much vitamin A has been shown to inhibit the formation of new bone and increase the risk of sustaining fractures. The findings suggest that levels of retinol in foods that are fortified with vitamin A and in dietary supplements should be re-evaluated.The recommended dietary intake of vitamin A for women is 700 micrograms per day (mcg/d) with an upper limit set at 3,000 mcg/d, the report indicates.

The researchers reviewed dietary information and vitamin use among women enrolled in the Nurses' Health Study, most of whom were white, and divided them into five groups based on their vitamin A intake. Over the next 18 years, women who consumed at least 3,000 mcg/d were 48% more likely to suffer a hip fracture than those who consumed less than 1,250 mcg/d.

Women who took a vitamin A supplement were 40% more likely to experience a hip fracture than women who did not, while women who took multivitamins were 32% more likely to fracture a hip.

The findings provide further evidence that chronic intake of excessive vitamin A, particularly from retinol, may contribute to the development of osteoporotic hip fractures in women. The amounts of retinol in fortified foods and vitamin supplements may need to be reassessed since these add significantly to total retinol consumption in the United States.

Indeed, the study found that multivitamins were the primary source of retinol and that liver and fortified milk and breakfast cereals were the main food sources. About one third of women reported using multivitamins when the study began, compared with more than half of women by the end of the investigation 18 years later.

This study serves as a reminder that vitamins are potent, essential nutrients which have effects that can precipitate harm as well as provide benefit. The optimal source is from the foods in our diets, not the dietary supplements often taken to simplify our complex world.

An effective, documented alternative therapy using natural organic products has been discovered in Portugal. Dr. Josй Luis Sacadura Cabral, who adapted and improved the treatment, gave an exclusive interview to Pravda.Ru.

Dr. Sacadura Cabral’s treatment was discovered almost by accident and the history of this therapy is a string of happy coincidences. The treatment consists of natural organic products, the dosage depending on the result of these natural substances on the patient’s organism, checked through regular testing. The main products are tincture of Apium, a natural imunological response from the vegetable kingdom, a substance which plants produce to protect themselves; royal jelly and propolis, both produced by bees as a natural antibiotic for the hive; multi-vitamins and vitamin C. To this basic treatment are added garlic and Lisozium, the enzyme discovered by Fleming.

There are three phases to the treatment – initially, the patient receives the five basic substances and a massive dosage of garlic, some eight large cloves per day. Depending upon the patient’s reaction to this garlic therapy, the dosage is reduced after three months and finally, there is maintenance treatment using small, but constant, quantities of these natural medicines.

Having dry noodles for lunch on a regular basis will inevitably lead to digestive problems. In addition, such products may affect the liver and the pancreas. Specialists of the Institute for Nutrition of the Russian Academy of Sciences say that the daily consumption of instant products may result in stomach ulcer or gastritis. Furthermore, vacuum-dried food worsens the general condition of the human organism, inciting vascular and immunity problems, not to mention beriberi (vitamin deficiency disease) and shortage of minerals. Almost all instant products may lead to such lamentable consequences.

Ancient doctors used rose water to treat upset nerves, fumed patients suffering from lungs diseases with rose incense and gave extracts of rose petals to patients suffering from heart and kidney diseases.

Attar of roses is the basic medical component of roses; it stimulates and harmonizes people's immune and nervous systems. It also improves activity of endocrine glands, removes sclerous disorders in organs and revives cells. Attar of roses is good for digestive tract as it heals mucous membranes, fights disbacteriosis and fermentative deficiency in stomach and intestine.

Rose petals contain vitamin C, carotene, B group vitamins and vitamin K that is essential for haemopoesis. Almost all mineral substances of Mendeleyev's periodic table can be found in rose petals. They contain calcium that influences metabolism and assimilation of foodstuffs; also potassium which is important for normal heart activity, copper that participates in haemopoesis and improves activity of endocrine glands; iodine that is good for thyroid gland can be also found in rose petals.

Rock music can destroy the brain through the impact of ultra and infra sounds which are inaudible to the human ear. People took note of the medicinal properties of music a long time ago. A music theater for medical purposes was built in the Kingdom of Parthia in the 3rd century B.C. Doctors at the theater used specially selected melodies for treating patients with depression, nervous disorders and heart problems. Enough evidence was gathered over the last century to prove that electromagnetic waves produced by the sounds of music could make vibrate every cell of the human body. Music can change the blood pressure and heart rate, it can also dramatically change the rhythm and character of breathing.

Disagreeable sounds can cause nausea, stomach cramps, they can even dull the sharpness of sight and the sense of taste. A particular piece of music can have a deep soothing effect on some people, it can even put them in a coma and paralysis. Another piece of music can induce a panic attack. Even dogs are susceptible to music. For example, the blood pressure of Dandie Dinmonts can go up and down the mercury column by 70 millimeters depending on a piece of music the dogs are subjected to.

The beat of a shaman's drum has a mind-blowing effect on a patient. The beat reaches out for the inner structures of the brain. There are receptors located in the neck area, they react to the pulsation of air due to sound waves produced by the percussion. The levels of endogene ethanol, natural alcohol produced in small quantities by any organism, are reported to increase as a result. Such kind of "internal drunkenness" can relieve stress. There are many methods in today's psychotherapy based on the classical shamanism.

An experiment involving 120 breast-feeding mothers was conducted in Japan. Some women were listening to classical music while others were listening to jazz and pop. There was a 20% increase in the amount of milk produced by the first group of mothers. On the contrary, the milk of those who listened to modern music was reportedly halved. Rock music can destroy the brain through the impact of ultra and infra sounds which are inaudible to the human ear. However, all the organs of a human body can "hear" those sounds. According to Dmitry Azarov, a psychologist, rock music can enhance suicidal tendencies. The results of experiments show that listeners can suffer a faint should the synchronized beating of certain drums exceed the after-threshold level of100 decibels.

People are divided into two groups on the basis of their perception of background music. The impact of background music on the first group is akin to that produced by hallucinogenic drugs. There is a rush of adrenaline, people get rid of depression, loneliness, fears and uncertainty as the music plays at the background. People of the other group prefer silence to any kind of background music. On the other hand, humans can not exist in total silence for a long time because the acoustic background is a sign of life. Nature has always been a creaky cradle for the human race in terms of sounds and noises ranging from a thunderbolt to birds' singing to a murmur of a brook. A human being can stand only 40 hours of total isolation in an artificial environment. Isolation leads to a complete loss of the sense of reality and one's own body, central nervous system becomes fully exhausted, hallucinations start to develop, blood pressure and pulse decrease.

Doctor Schulman at the Moscow Health Center plays audio tapes with pre-recorded sounds of human internal organs e.g. heartbeats, stomach rumblings etc., to his patients for therapeutic purposes. He believes a patient will get better after listening to a harmonious melody produced by sound organs. Psychology professors issued tens of audio tapes for tackling irritation, creativity stimulation and the like. The tapes can also help achieve the highest degree of intellectual productivity by reaching balance between the left and right halves of the cerebrum. There are tapes with music for losing weight, others are designed to fight smoking and alcoholism. Music therapy is even used for treating alopecia.

Doctor Alexander Logan invented an abdominal support for expectant mothers. The device has a number of built-in mini stereo speakers and should be worn by pregnant women on their bellies. The support is wired to a Walkman playing specially selected musical tracks. More than 1,200 children who had listened to music while sitting in the womb were born so far. All the infants took standard tests (language and communication faculties etc.) and showed excellent results. On average, they scored 4 times greater than children who did not listen to music.

Spending lots of time in the sun seems to increase a man's vitamin D levels and lower his risk for prostate cancer, a new study finds. The findings appear in the June 15 issue of the journal Cancer Research. Researchers from three cancer centers compared 450 men with advanced prostate cancer with a control group of 455 men without the disease.

They found that the men with high sun exposure were at half the prostate cancer risk of men with low sun exposure. The risk of prostate cancer was as much as 65 percent lower in men with certain gene variants plus high sun exposure. "We believe that sunlight helps to reduce the risk of prostate cancer because the body manufactures the active form of vitamin D from exposure to sunlight," research team leader Esther John, of the Northern California Cancer Center, said in a prepared statement.

According to previous research, the prostate uses vitamin D to promote the normal growth of prostate cells and to impede the invasiveness and spread of prostate cancer cells to other areas of the body, the researchers said.

A new study finds that hearing and feeling different beats is an early step in a baby's appreciation and perception of music. "For the first time, we are able to show that this experience not only affects their emotional state, but also influences infants' sensory development," said Phillips-Silver. The study was done by Jessica Phillips-Silver and Laurel J. Trainor at McMaster University in Canada and is reported in today's issue of the journal Science.

If you're headed for surgery, take your iPod. A new study by the Yale School of Medicine confirms previous work showing that surgery patients listening to music require much less sedation.

A study earlier this year used brain scans to reveal that musical memories are stored in the brain's auditory cortex. It also showed that you continue to hear a familiar song in our head when the music stops playing.

"We played music in the scanner, and then we hit a virtual 'mute' button," explained David Kraemer, a graduate student in Dartmouth's Psychological and Brain Sciences Department. "We found that people couldn't help continuing the song in their heads, and when they did this, the auditory cortex remained active even though the music had stopped."

"It's fascinating that although the ear isn't actually hearing the song, the brain is perceptually hearing it," said co-author William Kelley, assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at Dartmouth.

The researchers were surprised to find a difference in how we recall songs with words versus instrumentals.

Turmeric, a yellow spice used widely in Indian cooking, may help stop the spread of cancer. Tests in mice showed that curcumin, an active compound found in turmeric, helped stop the spread of breast cancer tumor cells to the lungs. Tests have already started in people, too, said Bharat Aggarwal of the Department of Experimental Therapeutics at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who led the study.

"What's exciting about this agent is that it seems to have both chemopreventive and therapeutic properties. Earlier research showed that curcumin, which acts as an antioxidant, can help prevent tumors from forming in the laboratory. For their study, Aggarwal and colleagues injected mice with human breast cancer cells -- a batch of cells grown from a patient whose cancer had spread to the lungs. The resulting tumors were allowed to grow, and then surgically removed, to simulate a mastectomy, Aggarwal said. Then the mice either got no additional treatment; curcumin alone; the cancer drug paclitaxel, which is sold under the brand name Taxol; or curcumin plus Taxol.

Half the mice in the curcumin-only group and 22 percent of those in the curcumin plus Taxol group had evidence of breast cancer that had spread to the lungs, Aggarwal said in a study to be presented to a breast cancer research meeting in Philadelphia. But 75 percent of animals that got Taxol alone and 95 percent of those that got no treatment developed lung tumors. Aggarwal said earlier studies suggest that people who eat diets rich in turmeric have lower rates of breast cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer and colon cancer.

No drug company is likely to develop a natural product that cannot be patented, he said. "There are no companies behind it so our only source of funding is either the National Institutes of Health or the Department of Defense," he said.

An immune system defect may encourage the accumulation of amyloid-beta waste products in the brains of some Alzheimer's patients, according to a new study. This oversaturation of the brain with amyloid-beta protein could lead to the formation of amyloid plaques -- the definitive hallmark of Alzheimer's disease.The finding could lead to new ways of diagnosing and treating Alzheimer's by identifying and correcting this defect in the innate immune system, say researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles.

This is the first study to find that the innate -- the more primitive part -- of the immune system may be a factor in the development of Alzheimer's, the team adds.

Mothers who suffer from major depression or anxiety disorders are more likely to have children with asthma and other allergy-based conditions, according to a US study. The association was only found for biological children, supporting a “shared genetic liability” theory.

Ramin Mojtabai, a psychiatrist from Columbia University in New York, US, assessed the relationship between parental psychopathology and childhood allergy in more than 9000 parent-child pairs from the 1999 US National Health Interview Survey. Mojtabai says it is unclear why the children of mothers with depression had a higher risk of allergic disorders, but he speculates that it might be related to mitochondria – which are inherited through the maternal line – as mutations in mitochondrial DNA have been reported in both atopic and other skin disorders and in bipolar mood disorder. “Or it could be to do with genetic imprinting – how some genes are expressed when received from one gender, but not the other,” he says. Journal reference: Psychosomatic Medicine (vol 67, p 448) Kids’ asthma linked to mothers’ depression

Obesity accelerates the ageing process even more than smoking, according to the largest ever study of the “chromosomal clock” in human cells. Tim Spector of St Thomas’ Hospital in London, UK, measured the length of the ends of chromosomes, called telomeres, in the white blood cells of 1122 women aged 18 to 76. Each time a cell divides, its telomere loses a small chunk of DNA. When it becomes too short, cells can no longer divide. In effect, telomere shortening acts as a kind of chromosomal clock, counting down the cellular generations. “Fat smokers are at the highest risk of all. An obese smoker is on average at least 10 years older than a lean non-smoker,” says Spector. “It’s not just about heart disease or lung cancer, the whole chromosomal clock is going faster. And the effects appear to be permanent. Quitting smoking or losing weight reduces the rate of telomere loss but cannot restore them.

The damage to telomeres is probably done by free radicals. Smoking causes oxidative stress - a source of free radicals - as does obesity, says Abraham Aviv of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, US.

Meditating monks focus the mind Buddhists show clarity of attention in optical illusion tasks.

Meditation can focus the mind in a measurable way, according to a study of Buddhist monks. In a visual test designed to confuse the brain, the monks were able to stave off confusion more easily than those not trained in the contemplative arts.

Researchers studied 76 Tibetan Buddhist monks taking a test of 'perceptual rivalry', in which two conflicting images are presented, one to each eye. This usually causes the brain to switch back and forth between the images every few seconds as it struggles to make sense of what it is seeing.

Monks skilled in the art of 'one-point' meditation - which involves focusing all of one's attention on a single object or thought - were able to slow this switching down or even stop it completely, report Olivia Carter of the University of Queensland in St Lucia, Australia, and colleagues. In their study, published online by Current Biology1, they asked monks with training ranging from to 5 to 54 years to practise different forms of meditation and then don a set of goggles which displayed two different images: horizontal bars to one eye, and vertical bars to the other.

The most experienced one-point meditators, who had spent more than 20 years in isolated retreats, were able to resist visual switching for the whole five minutes of the experiment. According to the monks' self-reported assessment, they saw only a single stable image with one set of bars dominant. "This is something that the average person cannot do."

There was no noticeable improvement for monks who were practising 'compassion' meditation, which involves contemplating the suffering of others. The monks were also given another test, of 'motion-induced blindness' (an example can be found at http://www.uq.edu.au/nuq/jack/bonneh.html), which involves staring at a stationary dot in the midst of a pattern of swirling dots, until the other stationary dots in the picture seem to disappear. Monks maintained this 'blindness' state for an average of 4.1 seconds, compared to just 2.6 seconds for ordinary people. The most experienced meditator managed to uphold the optical illusion for more than 12 minutes.

The discovery supports that idea that meditation calms the mind and allows it to focus more clearly, says Carter. "Monks appear to be able to control the rate and content of thoughts flowing through their 'stream of consciousness'," she says. "It has long been claimed by practitioners of meditation that when faced with bad news or tragic events they are able to acknowledge the tragedy, but rather than dwell on the situation they have the capacity to redirect their thoughts to other, more positive directions," Carter says. "This is something that the average person cannot do."

Poor nutrition in the womb may remodel the brain circuitry of newborn babies and predispose them to become obese in later life, research in mice suggests. The findings may help doctors to prevent the onset of obesity in susceptible infants who are born undernourished, say the researchers.

“Nutritional restriction during fetal life is not uncommon even in modern Western society,” says Norimasa Sagawa at Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan, one of the researchers. “The important point is that after such nutritional stress during fetal life those (children) are exposed to high-calorie and high-fat diet during their later life.” A combination that may be a recipe for obesity

She adds that the results reinforce the importance of a balanced diet during pregnancy – not just the raw amount of calories. “You can have lots of food but still be starved in terms of a particular nutrient,” she says.

A recent study shows that, even among people who rarely experience heartburn, acid reflux — digestive juices moving backward from the stomach into the esophagus — is more common if meals are hastily eaten. The study, published in the September issue of The American Journal of Gastroenterology, followed 20 healthy volunteers who were fed a meal researchers thought was likely to trigger a little heartburn: a turkey burger, french fries and a Coke. "And we randomly assigned them to eat the meal in either five minutes or in 30 minutes." So, people who ate in five minutes one day, ate in 30 the next and vice versa, Castell explains.

If you eat too fast, your stomach fills up too quickly. When the upper part of the stomach stretches, it causes the vagus nerve to send a message to the brain, which then tells the lower esophageal sphincter (LES) to relax, Metz explains. The LES is a mostly one-way valve that allows food to pass from the esophagus into the stomach. When it opens the opposite way — from the stomach into the esophagus — acid can seep up, leading to that familiar burning sensation in the chest that we know as heartburn.

If you eat more slowly, the upper part of the stomach has more time to move the food along through the digestive tract, Metz says. The purpose of these transient relaxations of the LES is probably to allow people to belch when there's too much air in the stomach, Castell says.

Startling study on toxins' - WSU findings show that disorders can be passed on without genetic mutations - 3rd June 2005.

It's just a study involving a few rats with fertility problems in Pullman, but the findings could lead to fundamental changes in how we look at environmental toxins, cancer, heritable diseases, genetics and the basics of evolutionary biology.

If a pregnant woman is exposed to a pesticide at the wrong time, the study suggests, her children, grandchildren and the rest of her descendants could inherit the damage and diseases caused by the toxin -- even if it doesn't involve a genetic mutation.

Skinner's team at WSU and colleagues from several other universities report in today's Science magazine on what they believe is the first demonstration and explanation of how a toxin-induced disorder in a pregnant female can be passed on to children and succeeding generations without changes in her genetic code, or DNA.

The report in Science, entitled "Epigenetic Transgenerational Actions of Endocrine Disruptors and Male Fertility," also sounds like an attempt to avoid attention. That's unlikely to work. The findings prompt serious and, in some cases, disturbing questions about a number of basic assumptions in biology. The standard view of heritable disease is that for any disorder or disease to be inherited, a gene must go bad (mutate) and that gene must get passed on to the offspring.

What Skinner and his colleagues did is show that exposing a pregnant rat to high doses of a class of pesticides known as "endocrine disruptors" causes an inherited reproductive disorder in male rats that is passed on without any genetic mutation. It's not genetic change; it's an "epigenetic" change. Epigenetics is a relatively new field of science that refers to modifying DNA without mutations in the genes. "It's not a change in the DNA sequence," Skinner explained. "It's a chemical modification of the DNA." Scientists have known for years about these changes to DNA that can modify genes' behavior without directly altering them.

The experiment got its start four years ago by accident. His lab was studying testes development in fetal rats, using a fungicide used in vineyards (vinclozin) and a common pesticide (methoxychlor) to disrupt the process. A researcher inadvertently allowed two of the exposed rats to breed, so the scientists figured they'd just see what happened.

The male in the breeding pair was born with a low sperm count and other disorders because of the mother's exposure to toxins. No surprise. But the male offspring of the pair also had these problems, as did the next two generations of male rats.

"In human terms, this would mean if your great grandmother was exposed to an environmental toxin at a critical point in her pregnancy, you may have inherited the disease," Skinner said. While the study was focused on a heritable disorder of reproduction in rats, he said there's every reason to believe this can happen for other diseases -- such as cancer.

The WSU study, Skinner said, suggests the possibility that environmental factors such as toxins may also directly cause heritable changes in creatures.

MOTHERS can give their babies a head start in life simply by understanding their feelings. A study of 200 mothers and their infants has found that in the first two years of life, the most important factor in a child's development is not its mother's education or wealth, but how well she interprets her baby's moods. New Scientist 04 June 2005

America's most common apple also may be its most potent. Just don't skimp on the skin. A Canadian government study that measured the levels of antioxidants in eight varieties of apples found that Red Delicious contain the highest concentrations of the health enhancing chemicals. And to get the most bang for your bite, be sure to eat the peel.

The skin of Red Delicious apples — the most common variety grown in the United States — contains over six times more antioxidant activity than the flesh, according to researchers at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Dieters looking for another edge might want to consider exercising their sense of humor — scientists have found that a good laugh is a calorie burner not to be ignored. American researchers have found that 10-15 minutes of genuine giggling can burn off the number of calories found in a medium square of chocolate.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, recruited 45 pairs of friends, shut them in a room decorated like a cheap hotel — scientifically known as a metabolic chamber — played them comedy clips on a TV screen and measured how many calories they burned when they laughed.

"First it was half an hour of something boring — an English landscape," Buchowski said. "During that time we measured the baseline, the resting metabolic rate."Five different comedy clips, starting with a take-out from the Cosby show — minus the canned laughter _were then shown for 10 minutes each, interspersed with five minute intervals of sheep wandering around fields in England.

"They burned 20 percent more calories when laughing, compared to not laughing," Buchowski said."Then we calculated what would happen if somebody laughed for 10 or 15 minutes a day and we found that it was up to 50 calories, depending on your body size and the intensity of the laughter."That means that if you laugh for 10-15 minutes a day, you'd burn enough calories to lose two kilograms (4.4 pounds) in a year, Buchowski said. Physiology experts say it's not exactly an effective way to shed extra weight — but the idea is worth a laugh or two.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050604/ap_on_he_me/laughing_the_fat_off/ap/20050604/ap_on_he_me/laughing_the_fat_off

Baby boys are far more likely to have smaller, less developed genitals if their mothers had high levels of chemicals commonly found in cosmetics, detergents, medicines and plastics, a study released Friday said. The higher the levels of the chemical compound phthalates in the mothers during the final months of pregnancy, the less masculine their boys were when examined by pediatricians, said the study's lead author, Shanna Swan, a professor of reproductive epidemiology at the University of Rochester.

The infant sons of the high phthalate-level moms had more instances of smaller penises and scrotums and not properly descended testicles, according to the peer-review study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. "If I were pregnant, I would try to keep my phthalate levels low," said study co-author Christine Ternand, a professor of pediatric endocrinology at the University of Minnesota. "How I would do that would be a tricky thing." Phthalates are used as plasticizers, solvents, coatings and perfume fixatives. They are in hundreds of products, including food packaging, coatings on time-released medicines, soap, shampoo, nail polish, hair sprays, detergents, and vinyl floor coverings.

http://www.ctfa.org/Template.cfm?template(equals)/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID(equals)3025

Scientists are excited about a vitamin again. But unlike fads that sizzled and fizzled, the evidence this time is strong and keeps growing. If it bears out, it will challenge one of medicine's most fundamental beliefs: that people need to coat themselves with sunscreen whenever they're in the sun. Doing that may actually contribute to far more cancer deaths than it prevents, some researchers think. In the last three months alone, four separate studies found it helped protect against lymphoma and cancers of the prostate, lung and, ironically, the skin. The strongest evidence is for colon cancer.

Many people aren't getting enough vitamin D. It's hard to do from food and fortified milk alone, and supplements are problematic.

But many scientists believe that "safe sun" — 15 minutes or so a few times a week without sunscreen — is not only possible but helpful to health.Supplements contain the nutrient, but most use an old form — D-2 — that is far less potent than the more desirable D-3. Multivitamins typically contain only small amounts of D-2 and include vitamin A, which offsets many of D's benefits.As a result, pills might not raise vitamin D levels much at all. But too much of the pill variety can cause a dangerous buildup of calcium in the body. The government says 2,000 IUs is the upper daily limit for anyone over a year old.

"I am advocating common sense," not prolonged sunbathing or tanning salons, Holick said. "The problem has been that the American Academy of Dermatology has been unchallenged for 20 years," he says. "They have brainwashed the public at every level."

Some wonder if vitamin D may turn out to be like another vitamin, folate. High intake of it was once thought to be important mostly for pregnant women, to prevent birth defects. However, since food makers began adding extra folate to flour in 1998, heart disease, stroke, blood pressure, colon cancer and osteoporosis have all fallen, suggesting the general public may have been folate-deficient after all.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050523/ap_on_he_me/sunshine___cancer

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two out of three Americans with type-2 diabetes do not have their disease under control and risk early deaths from stroke, heart attack or kidney failure as well as blindness and limb loss, according to a report published on Wednesday.

Type-2 diabetes can be prevented with improved diet and exercise. It can also be controlled with diet and exercise but many people also need medications to control it and some may eventually need insulin.

Blood sugar should be below 110 before eating and no higher than 140 after eating.

A separate, Harris Interactive survey of 501 adults with diabetes showed that more than 60 percent did not know what A1C was. And 84 percent believed they were doing a good job of controlling their blood sugar.

When glucose levels are too high, they can damage the insides of the blood vessels, leading to heart attacks and stroke. They can damage the tiny capillaries inside the eyes and kidneys, causing blindness and kidney failure.

She said people need to do more to make sure they are screened for diabetes, and to take care of themselves if they have it. "The doctors mean well but they are not going to be with you 24 hours a day," Reese told the news conference.

Surgeon-General Dr. Richard Carmona said 40 percent of Americans aged 40 to 74 now have pre-diabetes. They still have a chance to prevent diabetes itself if they begin to exercise and eat more healthily. "We must do something about this now," Carmona said.

VILLAGERS in India should not swap the brass "mutka" pots traditionally used to collect and store water for more modern alternatives. True to rumour, water stored in mutkas for a day or two really is safer to drink.

After hearing anecdotal reports that water stored in mutkas is safer, Rob Reed and Puja Tandon at Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, decided to investigate. When they added E. coli to water in various containers, the bacteria were all dead within 48 hours in mutkas, but survived in earthenware or plastic containers. Joint research with Sanjay Chhibber of Panjab University in Chandigarh, using water from contaminated sources in Indian villages, confirmed the finding.

When the researchers analysed the water, they found that the bugs were killed by copper leaching into the water from the brass. "The levels are vanishingly low and safe, a fraction of recommended copper intake," says Reed. Unfortunately, the bacteria die only after one or two days, and most villagers do not leave water in mutkas that long. However, longer storage could now be encouraged.

'Survival' Genes Hold Key To Healthy Brains In Babies And The Elderly

Study Demonstrates Role Of Exercise In Modifying Melatonin Levels; Increase Believed To Offer Breast Cancer Protection

New Scientist Breaking News - 21 November 2005

GM pea causes allergic damage in mice

Completely resistant

Hypersensitive skin

Human consumption