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HOLISTIC HOPE & NEWS

 

Holistic Hope and Well Being News.

When we started Well Being News we thought it would contain a lot of articles about GOOD things. But there are so many articles in it now about things we should look out for or be aware of, that the good things may be lost. So we are going to continue to post things to watch out for in Well Being News. In Holistic Hope we will post items that offer HOPE. Holistic Hope will deal with things that can and will help us. In this section we may post items that can also offer hope and help, but are harder to explain. Sometimes it is not important to know the reason why, but just KNOW.

 

From USA Today

 

03/19/2004  6D

 

Physical enlightenment has gone to the dogs Canine yoga is a workout for their humans, too

SAN FRANCISCO -- Stretched out on a yoga mat in this city's Dolores Park, I'm trying to get my chakras flowing.

Nothing doing -- my energy centers are as locked up as the water behind Hoover Dam. Maybe it's because I'm a yoga newbie, or perhaps it's the fact that I'm also trying to get my dog, Jaco, into a Downward Facing Dog pose.

Nothing doing there, either -- Jaco looks as comfortable as a nudist in a swarm of bees, which about describes my state-of-queasiness.

When doing yoga doggie-style, you have to be prepared to flex some very particular muscles. Namely those controlling the mouth and eyes, depending on your devotion to the canine kind.

Adore your dog? Then the notion of spending 30 minutes working through Iyengar positions with Fido may bring on an isn't-that-adorable grin.

But if you think Rover's humanoid activities should be limited to lounging on the sofa and eating leftovers, well, your eyes long ago rolled skyward.

No better proof exists that many folks have taken a whimsical bumper sticker -- ''Dog is my co-pilot'' -- to heart than the spate of books and classes dedicated to making sure that dogs aren't left out of their owners' full-body quests for physical enlightenment.

''Yoga offers time to slow down and connect with yourself, but some people just find that easier to do with a loyal pet nearby,'' says New York yoga instructor Jennifer Brilliant, co-author of Doga: Yoga for Dogs. ''Dogs actually are naturals at yoga. We can learn a lot from them.''

Helping forge this human-dog yoga bond is Crunch Fitness, whose free doggie-and-me sessions -- called Ruff Yoga -- are offered at locations from Los Angeles to New York. Now, its San Francisco gym is joining the pack, a natural fit considering this city's slavish devotion to yoga and to dogs.

Thank, or blame, Suzi Teitelman for Ruff Yoga. As Crunch's New York-based director of yoga, she had her epiphany when her devoted cocker spaniel, Coali, began hovering by her yoga mat during at-home sessions.

''Pretty soon I was getting Coali into positions, and I could just feel him getting happier,'' says Teitelman, who wears her dog-love proudly. ''This is a partner class, where you and your dog get closer by working through poses together.''

Dogs feeling happier. Bonds growing stronger. Perfect goals for me and Jaco, a 3-year-old rescue mutt with the deafening bark of a beagle and the nuclear energy of a Brittany spaniel.

The class is serious as Crunch instructor Pete Chandonnet asks us to put hands together and bow. Then, just when he asks us to contemplate what we hope to gain from the half-hour, Tahoe, his MGM lion of a chow mix, promptly attends to his privates.

So much for serious.

As the class unfolds, human students are put through a variety of basic yoga poses with Zen-sounding names like Sun Salute and Reverse Warrior, essentially linked stretches that emphasize fluidity and balance.

Dogs have both in abundance. They also like to chase anything animate. Which makes it difficult to keep the dogs in their next pose, in which the dogs are lifted onto their hindquarters while we stretch out their front paws.

Nose to muzzle, it doesn't seem all that strange. But then I picture the scene from 20 yards away -- five humans waltzing with their four-legged friends -- and instantly feel like disappearing into the next area code.

Jaco seems zoned out. He's not barking and even seems uninterested in a marauding shepherd who taunts the crew.

Maybe he is happier? Or maybe he's just thinking, ''Why do you want me to stand like a kangaroo?''

Just as I'm almost convinced this peaceful interlude could benefit man and beast, Chandonnet pushes me over my limit and commands us to massage our dogs' stomachs. I do it, but feel like a white-suited masseur at some doggie Canyon Ranch.

I look around, hoping others are sharing my embarrassment. No such luck. The other dogs are far less interested than Jaco in spa pampering: Tahoe is chasing the shepherd, while a pit bull pup named Gem is busy frantically digging a tunnel to Oakland.

We owners run through a few more poses and finish by hugging the dogs. A moment later, Jaco, never making eye contact, walks off. His way of saying, ''Hey, this never happened, all right, pal?''

I'm down with that. He'll bark. I'll plug my ears. And all will be right in my human-dog cosmos.

03/18/2004

Can 14 'super foods' rescue our health? Heroic notion put forth in new book, but many say the claims overreach

A California physician has ventured into the field of nutrition to propose to a nation of dieters that certain ''super foods'' are the keys to health and weight control.

Steven Pratt recommends eating a diet rich in spinach, tomatoes, blueberries, broccoli, oats, wild salmon, turkey, soy and walnuts in his new best-selling book SuperFoods Rx: Fourteen Foods That Will Change Your Life (William Morrow, $24.95), written with Kathy Matthews. It's No. 64 on the USA TODAY Best-Selling Books List.

Not everyone agrees with Pratt's ideas. Several leading nutrition scientists question the evidence on some of his claims about foods, and, in fact, the entire concept of super foods.

But Pratt, 58, an ophthalmologist and plastic surgeon in private practice in La Jolla, Calif., and assistant clinical professor of ophthalmology at the University of California-San Diego, says his ideas are based on science.

He says that as he treated patients over the years, he came to believe that many of their chronic diseases could be prevented if they ate healthier and exercised faithfully.

He studied the scientific literature to come up with his list of super foods, which are really 14 classes of foods that add up to more than 105 choices. For example, under the blueberry heading, he lists purple grapes, cranberries, raspberries and other fruits.

He narrowed his list to 14 because ''when you are trying to make people aware of something and change their habits, you need to give them something they can grasp.''

Under each category, Pratt describes studies done on that food. He writes about research suggesting that the lycopene found in tomatoes may reduce the risk of prostate cancer. The section on blueberries includes studies in which research showed the fruit helped improve brain function and motor movement in aging rats.

Several national nutrition experts who reviewed Pratt's super foods list for USA TODAY say his recommendations are generally good, but they say some of the health claims he makes for individual foods are overstated.

''These are healthy foods that are good to include in our diet. However, some of this is overly hyped, and some of the claims are really hypotheses not supported by any direct evidence,'' says Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health and author of Eat, Drink and Be Healthy. ''Depicting some foods as super foods could lead to overconsumption and an imbalance in diets.''

Jeffrey Blumberg, nutrition professor at Tufts University in Boston, agrees. He says that although ''the scientific evidence he (Pratt) presents is not exactly wrong, it tends to be a little misleading because he doesn't differentiate between definitive evidence and stuff that is pretty speculative.''

''For instance, while the research on blueberries (and brain function) is very exciting, to date this work has only been conducted in rats and there are no data that comparable results are found in people.''

Colleen Doyle, director of nutrition and physical activity for the American Cancer Society, says the foods on Pratt's list ''have to be part of an overall healthy diet. If you eat these foods and the rest of your diet is Twinkies and Big Macs, it's not going to work.''

No food is a miracle bullet, she says. ''It's a good idea to eat tomatoes because they are full of nutrients, but we can't guarantee that people who eat them are not going to get prostate cancer.''

Pratt says his book provides ''timeless advice.'' No one will be harmed, he says, by eating these foods ''in reasonable amounts.''

He believes that if people eat the foods on his list they'll be better able to control their weight. ''How much oatmeal and brown rice can you eat at one time?'' he says. ''You are going to get full long before you eat too many calories.''

 

03/11/2004  6D

Egg research lays big surprise

Stunning research out Thursday appears to overturn the long-held scientific belief that the number of eggs in the ovaries of mammals is determined at birth.
Scientists at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital discovered that the ovaries of female mice contain stem cells that produce new eggs well into adulthood. Although not yet proven, scientists say the findings likely apply to humans.
"We have no reason not to believe this would not be the same in humans," says Jonathan L. Tilly, leader of the team reporting findings in today's Nature.
If confirmed, the research re-writes the books on reproductive biology and poses far-reaching implications for the treatment of infertility, reproduction and menopause.
"Everything has to be re-examined if this turns out to be true," says Frank Bellino with the National Institute on Aging, which funded the research.
The findings are "a total surprise," says Roger G. Gosden, scientific director of the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, where the USA's first test-tube baby was created. "We thought that this issue had been settled 50 years ago."
In all lower types of animals, both genders produce sex cells and remain fertile throughout life. But in mammals, it was believed only males continued to produce sperm through adulthood. In females, the ovaries contained at birth all the eggs needed for a lifetime.
"It's only the mammalian female that seems to be different than everything else," Bellino explains.
It's known that mammalian ovaries stop releasing eggs at some point and eventually diminish function to result in menopause.
Women who are pregnant in their 30s and 40s have a higher risk of births with genetic defects such as Down syndrome. It has been thought that this higher risk is because the eggs were older and therefore had more time to acquire mutations.
Although the mice in this study are producing new eggs well into adulthood, it doesn't mean they are fertile until old age. But the finding that ovaries make new eggs will force scientists to re-think concepts of infertility and reproduction.
"The observations are still true — older women have a higher incidence of births with genetic abnormalities — but the reasoning to explain and understand it would certainly change," Bellino says.
Tilly says that the latest discovery, if confirmed in humans, could one day lead to new therapies, such as transplanting ovarian stem cells for infertility.

03/10/2004  1A

Obesity on track as No. 1 killer Inactivity, poor diet may overtake tobacco

Poor diet and lack of exercise might end up killing more people than tobacco use and become the leading cause of preventable deaths in the USA by as early as next year, a new study says.

Diet and physical inactivity accounted for 400,000 deaths in 2000, or about 16.6% of total deaths. Tobacco, with 435,000 deaths, was 18.1% of the total, says research in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.

''This is really a tragedy,'' says Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and one of the authors of the study. ''Obesity is the overt manifestation'' of poor diet and sedentary lifestyle, and it's a ''preventable risk factor,'' she says.

Smoking rates are dropping, but Americans are increasingly overweight. That's why obesity probably will overtake smoking as the leading preventable cause of death by 2005, says CDC epidemiologist Ali Mokdad, another study author. Almost 65% of Americans weigh too much, increasing their risk of heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

On Tuesday, the government announced two ways it intends to help: by running public service ads on the importance of controlling weight and by paying for new obesity research.

For the latest study, CDC researchers reviewed about 1,000 studies linking certain behaviors and death, and they came up with an equation that determines the actual risk from those behaviors. Often, more than one cause or condition contributes to a single death. The top killers are heart disease, cancer and stroke. The researchers say poor diet and inactivity are considered ''modifiable'' behaviors that give those killers ammunition.

Nutrition experts say Americans must take this news seriously. ''Obesity and unhealthy lifestyles are now the most important public health problems of this century,'' says Samuel Klein, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

''It's not just the increase in premature deaths that's a problem, but also the illness, disability, suffering and economic costs that go with it,'' he says.

Roland Sturm, a senior economist with Rand Corp., a research think tank, says Americans have been getting healthier and living longer. But he says that if the obesity rate continues to rise, ''it will reverse that trend.'' People now in their 40s will develop conditions such as diabetes, arthritis and back pain that will reduce their quality of life, he says.

In a study in the March issue of Health Affairs, Sturm predicts that by 2020, one in five health-care dollars spent on people ages 50 to 69 could be for medical problems related to excess weight.

''People need to get off the train of overeating, gaining weight and being sedentary,'' says George Blackburn, associate director of the division of nutrition at Harvard Medical School. ''These are 400,000 avoidable, premature deaths that wouldn't occur if we didn't overeat and weren't coach potatoes.''

Gerberding says she would like to see Americans take small steps to a healthier lifestyle, and those steps would ''add up to a more fit body. That means eating healthy foods in healthy portion sizes and finding ways to incorporate exercise into their everyday lives.''

 

03/08/2004  6D

Milk might help keep children slim

Youngsters who skimp on milk and other dairy food to avoid calories actually appear to increase their risk of becoming overweight, a new study has found. Lynn Moore, an epidemiologist at Boston University, found that just two servings of dairy food a day are linked to a substantial reduction in adolescent fatness. Childhood dairy intake has been falling for 20 years as youngsters' preferences have switched from milk to soft drinks. Moore speculated that calcium or some other nutrient in milk might help influence the way the body stores energy in fat cells.

03/08/2004  7D

 Hugs can do a heart good Especially for women, who get more of a protective hormone, study finds

Good times with a mate improve health for both sexes, but a ''nesting'' hormone might give women's hearts even more benefit during brief episodes of warm contact with loved ones, a psychologist reported over the weekend.

Dubbed the ''tend and befriend'' hormone, oxytocin has attracted great interest since scientists found a few years ago that women under stress churn out more of it than men do, and oxytocin might prompt them to seek to comfort and nurture others. Testosterone appears to blunt the social bonding effect of oxytocin, which is a calming hormone. It stimulates milk release during breast feeding and is released in men and women during orgasm.

In the new study of 76 adults, all married or in long-term live-in relationships, partners who were happy together had significantly higher levels of oxytocin than unhappy couples, says psychologist Karen Grewen of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. She reported her findings with colleague Kathleen Light at the American Psychosomatic Society meeting.

They asked each couple to talk privately for five minutes about a situation that brought them closer, then to view a romantic video and hug each other. During these warm exchanges, women's bodies reacted differently from men's, regardless of how happy they were with partners: Their oxytocin levels rose significantly more than men's and their blood pressure dropped. Women's surge in oxytocin also correlated with lower levels of the stress hormone norepinephrine. Oxytocin may trigger changes that protect women's hearts, Grewen says.

''It makes sense in evolution. Yes, you needed the testosterone -- someone to go out and kill the animals. But you needed a healthy person to stay and care for the kids too.'' She says more studies will be needed to confirm the findings.

There's evidence women suffer more stress than men from marital conflicts, ''so this perhaps shows the positive side, that they're buffered more by happy contacts,'' says University of Toronto psychiatrist Brian Baker, who studies how marriage affects men's hearts.

Male heart patients with good marriages stay healthier than do those living with conflict, he says. ''There are definite gender differences, but gender doesn't tell the whole story.''

03/05/2004  1D

TIME Spas now smooth frown lines about aging

ST. GEORGE, Utah -- As a Pepsi Generation baby boomer, I've always thought young.

But when you've passed the half-century mark, you're forced to face the fact that you're not as young as you feel. So a vacation that promises rejuvenation -- without plastic surgery or weird injections, both of which scare me -- is too tantalizing to pass up.

That's why I'm here in a white examining room at Red Mountain Spa, gazing out the window at the sun rising over towering rose-colored desert rock formations. The folds of my upper arm, thigh and waist are being gently pinched with electronic calipers, then a nose clip and scuba-like breathing device are attached to me.

I feel like the subject of a science project, but it's for a good cause. The pinches, part of the spa's ''actual age assessment,'' will determine my percentage of body fat. The composition of the air I exhale will indicate my metabolism rate and the daily calories I need.

The tests are the starting point of my three-day stay at Red Mountain, one of the growing number of U.S. spas, resorts and hotels that are helping vacationers put a little Dorian Gray in their getaways. In addition to having my body's age and general condition assessed, I've signed up for an ''anti-aging facial,'' instruction in Pilates and yoga and a seminar on the rejuvenating powers of living joyfully.

I have plenty of company: Holding back the years is becoming a leisure-travel mantra nationwide.

Elsewhere, fountain-of-youth offerings range from the complimentary jars of Kiehl's new, hot ''Abyssine'' restorative face cream (Demi Moore is a fan) to be placed in rooms of Manhattan's The Carlyle hotel starting in April, to the doctor-supervised, $5,000 Optimal Aging program at Canyon Ranch health resort in Tucson.

Anti-aging facials using ingredients such as vitamin C, oxygen and glycolic acid are now on many a spa menu. The Spa at Camelback Inn in Scottsdale, Ariz., for instance, offers one created by de

 

From USA Today

07/22/2003   8D

Does pizza cut risk of some cancer?

     Pizza might reduce the risk of certain types of cancer, Italian scientists report.  Too good to be true?  Not according to researchers at a Milan pharmacology center who found that eating one or more pizzas a week significantly reduced the occurrence of some forms of cancer.  After monitoring 8,000 Italians, scientists discovered that regular pizza-eaters were 59% less likely to contract of the esophagus and 26% less likely to develop colon cancer.  "We knew that tomato sauce was protective against certain tumors, but we certainly didn't expect that pizza as a whole would provide such strong protection," researcher Silvano Gallus told Sunday's La Repubblica newspaper.

 

A Tomato a Day Keeps Heart Disease Away

Risk drops by 30 percent for those who eat pizza, tomato sauce and the like

MONDAY, July 21, 2003 (HealthDayNews)

Just one serving a day of tomato-based foods such as pizza or tomato sauce could lower your risk for heart disease by as much as 30 percent, contends a new Harvard study.

"The results are pretty enticing," says study author Howard Sesso, an assistant professor at the Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "They're encouraging enough for us to do more studies."

Sesso and his colleagues reviewed the diets of approximately 40,000 women from the ongoing Women's Health Study, which was begun 11 years ago to follow women who, at the time, were free from cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Controlling for factors such as age, family history, smoking status and other health indicators, they found that women who consumed seven or more servings of tomato-based foods a week -- including tomato juice, tomatoes, tomato sauce or pizza -- had a nearly 30 percent reduction in risk for cardiovascular disease compared with women who ate less than one and one-half servings a week.

The study was sparked by research that has shown a connection between an increase in the diet of the antioxidant lycopene and a reduction in risk for prostate cancer, Sesso says. Since tomatoes are a rich source of lycopene, he and his colleagues were interested to learn if the same antioxidant qualities, when eaten in tomatoes, might also lower heart disease risk.

Interestingly, however, when the researchers tabulated the result, the lycopene intake itself was not significantly associated with reduced heart disease risk. However, when they looked at food intake, as measured by self-reported servings, there was a clear cardiovascular benefit for those who consumed the tomato-based products on a regular basis.

This could be due to errors in measuring lycopene, Sesso says, because of the limited information available in the questionnaire. Or, another substance in the tomato-based foods could be providing the heart benefit, he says.

Whatever the cause, he says, "our study suggests preliminary evidence that consuming a number of servings of tomato-based foods per week may lower the risk of cardiovascular disease." The finding appears in the July issue of the American Society for Nutritional Sciences.

Connie Diekman, director of university nutrition for Washington University in St. Louis, finds the study promising, both because the large number of women surveyed make the results significant and because the findings concur with other work on the topic.

"The results may still be inconclusive, but the indication that lycopene/tomatoes may aid in the prevention of disease continues to evolve," she says. "I would encourage people to take these results and add them to the growing list of studies that point to the benefits of more fruits, vegetables and whole grains."

Sesso points out that those people who showed the benefit from eating the tomato foods might just have an overall healthier diet than those who had fewer servings of tomatoes.

"It could be the diet itself, one that includes more fruits and vegetables," he says. "Those people would have a better cardiovascular profile."

"It's hard to be specific," he says of the findings, "but there's a potential that regular servings of tomatoes can have a dramatic effect on cardiovascular risk."

From USA Today

07/21/2003

Omega-3 gets another boost

Fish and other foods rich in a type of beneficial fat may help prevent Alzheimer's disease, says a study out Tuesday.

The new finding fits in with a growing body of scientific evidence that suggests Americans could reduce their risk of developing all sorts of killer diseases, such as heart disease, cancer and now Alzheimer's, if they were to eat a healthier diet — one rich in fish, fruits and vegetables and low in saturated fats from red meat.

Everyone would benefit by adopting that diet, but boomers and younger people might gain a bigger health edge. Researchers believe that Alzheimer's takes years to develop. About 4 million Americans now suffer from the incurable disease, and that number is expected to grow to 14 million by the end of this century, according to the Alzheimer's Association.

Martha Clare Morris of Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago and her colleagues recruited 815 people between the ages of 65 and 95. At the start of the study, recruits showed no sign of Alzheimer's disease, which causes memory loss, confusion and the inability to perform routine daily tasks.

The researchers asked about their diet and kept track of the volunteers for four years. They found that 131 people developed Alzheimer's.

A statistical analysis in today's Archives of Neurology revealed that people who ate fish once a week or more had a 60% lower risk of Alzheimer's disease than those who rarely or never ate fish. Oily fish such as salmon contain omega-3 fatty acids that already have been shown to reduce the risk of dying from heart disease. Other foods such as nuts and oil-based salad dressing also contain these helpful fats, Morris says.

Animal research suggests these fats help nerve cells fire more efficiently and thus might help boost memory abilities, she says. Or it may be that people who eat more fish also choose fruits and veggies, a diet that could reduce heart disease and perhaps stave off Alzheimer's as well, says Robert Friedland, a neurologist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

This association between fish and a reduced risk of Alzheimer's must be confirmed with additional research, says Bill Thies of the Alzheimer's Association.

But consumers don't necessarily need to wait for a final verdict from science. "There are lots of good reasons to eat more fish," Thies says.

Many health experts agree, but they also warn that people, particularly pregnant women and young children, should steer clear of fish high in methylmercury, a toxic metal that contaminates some fish. Swordfish, shark, tuna and other large predatory fish can contain lots of mercury, while salmon, flounder and cod generally don't have as much.

Fish oil supplements, which were not considered in the Chicago study, also can be a good source of omega-3 fatty acids, Friedland says

07/10/2003  1D

Walk the healthy walk

If Americans would watch their steps, their weight might stop climbing the scales. That's the thinking behind several major efforts to inspire Americans to walk more.

The latest, America on the Move, is a national initiative launching Monday with a straightforward goal: Get millions of people to wear inexpensive step counters and walk an additional 2,000 steps (about 1 mile) a day, or cut out 100 calories.

"If people start making small changes, great things will happen," says obesity researcher James Hill, co-founder of the program, which has the support of government and private industry — including some food giants that sell soft drinks, fruit juices and fast food. That alliance with companies already is drawing criticism from some nutrition experts. And others contend that taking a few extra steps a day will not put a dent in the nation's obesity epidemic.

Almost 65% of Americans are overweight or obese, which is linked to an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and most types of cancer. Inactivity is considered a major cause of excess weight, and experts behind these walking initiatives believe that it may be easier to get people to move more than to change their eating habits. Among the other recent efforts to encourage more activity:

• Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans, the largest network of insurers, recently launched WalkingWorks, a program to encourage its nearly 89 million subscribers to add brisk walks to their daily routines. They don't get a break on premiums, but they get a free or discounted pedometer.

• Researchers at West Virginia University are encouraging sedentary people ages 50 to 65 to move more through the program Wheeling Walks. The result: About 32% of sedentary middle-aged residents are walking at least 30 minutes a day.

• Colorado on the Move, an initiative unveiled last year by Hill and others, is the pilot program for America on the Move. More than 200,000 Colorado residents have signed on. Like that program, America on the Move (www.americaonthemove.org) includes educational material and discounted step counters.

Many other states and cities have walking programs, and lots of community leaders are adding sidewalks, walking trails and parks to make it easier for people to be physically active.

Reaching a goal

For years, the government and obesity experts have been urging Americans to be more active. Federal guidelines advise getting at least 30 minutes of moderate activity most days of the week, but more than 60% of American adults don't get enough exercise. Last fall, the National Academies' Institute of Medicine raised the bar, recommending at least an hour of daily moderate activity to control weight.

Experts have struggled with ways to help people meet these goals. For years, some researchers and public health officials have encouraged people to walk 10,000 steps a day, roughly five miles.

On average, people walk about 5,310 steps in a day, according to a Harris Interactive online poll conducted for America on the Move.

Getting up to 10,000 steps may seem like a big leap to most people, which is why America on the Move participants are encouraged to begin by adding 2,000 steps a day to what they already are doing, then increasing activity, says Hill, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver.

Adults are gaining about one to three pounds a year, he says. Walking an extra 2,000 steps or cutting out 100 calories a day "won't help most people lose much, but these changes should keep them from gaining more," Hill says.

Still, not everyone is sold on pedometers. Rather than focusing on step counters, some people would be better off aiming for 30 minutes of activity most days of the week, says Rich Killingsworth, director of the Active Living by Design project for the non-profit Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He's selecting 25 communities to be redesigned with more sidewalks, bike paths, trails and parks.

"The pedometers are nice little tools and great gift-bag stuffers, but do they really translate into populationwide behavior change? I'm not convinced they do.

"You pass these things out, and you come back a week or two later, and the vast majority of people are not wearing them," he says. "Plus, they don't capture the activity you get when you bike, swim, row, garden. I lift weights, cycle and try to walk when I can, but I don't come close to 10,000 steps."

John Peters, co-founder of America on the Move and director of Procter & Gamble's Nutrition Science Institute, believes that participants in the program will be more likely to stick with the program if they have incentives, and the founders are working to implement some of those. For instance, he says, they would like stores to offer discounts to walkers. That would mean when you go into a store, a clerk would give you a step counter. If you take 2,000 steps while shopping, a clerk would give you a 5% discount.

The founders also are working with several corporate sponsors, including PepsiCo, which owns Pepsi, Frito-Lay, Tropicana and Quaker Oats, and Yum! Brands, the parent company for Pizza Hut, KFC, Taco Bell and other chain restaurants. Details on how the companies will be involved are still being worked out.

"We are at an awesome point where private industry is going to help solve the (obesity) problem," Hill says.

Others aren't convinced. "This is wishful thinking," says Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. "Corporations have to put the bottom line first. Experts are deluding themselves if they think corporations care more about health than profits."

Nestle is in favor of extra walking, but she doesn't believe 2,000 steps will have much impact on weight control. "It's so easy to overeat by 100 calories."

Walking as enjoyment

Some people have recently learned the joy of walking. Paula Allen, 55, of Indianapolis, considered herself an "occasional walker" and was taking about 4,500 steps a day when in January she got a step counter and instructions from Colorado on the Move.

Allen, who works as a youth volunteer program director, began walking 30 minutes every morning, and sometimes she added a second walk in the afternoon. On the weekends, she walked 1½ to two hours each day with a friend. She also added more steps to her day by parking far away from the grocery store entrance and going into the bank instead of using the drive-through. She kept track of her steps in a logbook.

Then she began Latin dancing. "Even if I only danced for an hour, my steps would skyrocket." Before long, her steps tallied 10,000 and sometimes climbed up to 15,000.

Allen wasn't overweight, she says, but she has dropped three or four pounds. "I have clothes that are too big for me now. I am in better aerobic shape, and my muscles are stronger."

Other changes are needed

Mark Fenton, one of the nation's leading walking experts and host of the PBS show America's Walking, says that to make the most of a pedometer, people need to record their steps daily.

"If you don't keep a record of the steps you take, the novelty of the pedometer wears off, and you stop wearing it," he says. "But if you keep a record and you increase your steps over time, then you see what you're doing that helps you get the additional 2,000 to 4,000 steps a day."

Most experts agree that walking more is only one piece of solving the complex problem of obesity.

"Physical activity in and of itself is not going to be enough," says Bill Reger, the mastermind behind the Wheeling Walks program and an associate professor of community medicine at West Virginia University in Morgantown.

People are going to have to eat more fruits and vegetables, reduce portion sizes and watch the junk food, he says. "Eating one Cinnabon at the mall can wipe out several days of physical activity."

06/12/2003   4D

Progesterone helps prevent early births

Weekly injections of a naturally occurring hormone reduced pregnant women's risk of delivering too soon by a third, says research published today.

Premature birth — more than three weeks before the due date — has been a growing problem in the USA. Factors include a jump in multiple births because of the wider use of fertility treatments, says co-author Catherine Spong of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Today, nearly 12% of all U.S. births are premature, according to the March of Dimes. And the earlier babies are born, the more likely they are to experience complications such as bleeding in the brain or respiratory distress.

Doctors have been stymied in predicting who might deliver prematurely. The goal is to develop a formula that would calculate each woman's risk, just as cardiologists calculate patients' risk of having a heart attack to aid in treatment decisions, says study co-author Jay Iams, president of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.

The study followed only pregnant women who had previously given birth early, a known risk factor for subsequent premature deliveries.

The shots proved to be so effective that the researchers decided they didn't need to enroll as many women in the study as planned. "For once, we have something to offer these women to prevent a premature delivery," says Spong, chief of the institute's pregnancy and perinatology branch.

Scientists at 19 research centers randomly assigned 463 women to receive weekly shots of either a progesterone or castor oil, which served as a placebo.

Researchers settled on a particular form of progesterone because previous, smaller trials had found it to be effective. It also has been used early in pregnancy to prevent miscarriage in women who have undergone fertility treatments, although data to support that approach are lacking, Spong says.

The women began getting shots 16 to 20 weeks into their pregnancies and continued until week 36 or delivery, whichever came first. None of the women, their caregivers or the researchers knew who was getting which shot until the study ended.

Among the 153 women who received placebo shots, 54.9% delivered prematurely. But only 36.3% of the 310 women who received the progesterone shots did, the researchers report in The New England Journal of Medicine. The shots worked equally well in white women and black women.

Earlier studies had suggested that 37% of pregnant women who've had one premature birth will have another. Spong says the rate was higher in her study because participants had previously delivered extremely early, at only 30 weeks on average.

Lead author Paul Meis, of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., says he currently has four patients on the progesterone, available only through pharmacies that prepare it themselves. The shots cost $12 or $13 apiece, according to one pharmacy, and sometimes are covered by insurance.

From USA Today

05/21/2003  7D

Study: Smallpox immunity remains in body for years after vaccination

     People vaccinated against smallpox as long as 75 years ago may still retain some immunity to the disease, a new study finds.  That means as many as 150 million Americans could already be significantly protected , researchers say.

     Antibodies to vaccinia, the live virus used in the smallpox vacine, were present in more than 90% of the 306 people tested, and remained fairly constant whether the participants were vaccinated a year ago or as far back as 1928, says researcher Mark K. Slifka of the Oregon Health and Science University.  "From one to 75 years out, the levels were in the same range," he says.

 

From ALTERNATIVES

Dr. David G. Williams

February 2003   158-160

Consider This Before Getting Stuck (with the Smallpox Vaccine)

   I never thought there would be a time that I would be discussing smallpox in Alternatives.  But times have changed...to say the least.

   In the next several months there will reportedly be enough smallpox vaccine available to vaccinate everyone in the United States.  As I'm sure you know, the president has already had his shot and has stated that the members of the armed forces will get theirs next.

   This will probably become an emotionally charged issue and ultimately a personal decision each of us may have to make.  It's a serious decision because the smallpox vaccine is undoubtedly the most dangerous of all vaccines.  As such, we should have all the facts, but they haven't been forthcoming.  Instead we've been grossly misinformed about smallpox and the vaccine.

   First, there has been no threat of any attack involving smallpox.

   Second, there hasn't been any evidence that any terrorist groups or governments even have supplies of the smallpox virus or any means to spread it.

   The public also hasn't been told that the dangers of general inoculation far outweigh the benefits.  It's been said that only one or two people maight die from the vaccine for every million inoculated.  The truth of the matter is that no one knows exactly how many people would die from the vaccine, but you can be sure it would be much greater than one lor two per million.

From New York Times  06/11/2003

As Monkeypox Rises, Smallpox Vaccines to Be Offered

ederal health officials are expected to announce today that smallpox vaccinations will be made available to certain people who have been exposed to prairie dogs and other animals infected with monkeypox in recent days.

Smallpox vaccine is considered the most dangerous of human immunizations, but it can protect against monkeypox.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to make the vaccinations available as an option to highly selected groups like health workers who care for patients with monkeypox, people who have been exposed to animals sick with monkeypox, veterinarians who care for animals suspected of having it and scientists investigating monkeypox.

The investigation of human monkeypox cases expanded to a fourth state, northern New Jersey, yesterday as the number of suspected monkeypox cases rose to 50: 23 in Indiana, 20 in Wisconsin, 6 in Illinois and 1 in New Jersey. No one has died.

The total is more than double the 23 cases reported in three states when the disease centers urgently announced the outbreak over the weekend. The increase in cases under investigation has resulted largely from widespread publicity that led people to report rashes and illness to health officials, officials of the centers in Atlanta said.

The monkeypox cases are the first detected in the Americas. Most suspected cases had direct contact with prairie dogs or at work in veterinarian offices and pet shops.

Monkeypox patients typically fall ill with signs and symptoms like fever, headaches, dry cough, swollen lymph nodes, chills and drenching sweats.

One to 10 days later, patients develop rashes consisting of blisterlike pimples that filled with pus, broke open and produced scabs.

The rash often erupts in different stages, or crops, as it appeared on the head, trunk and arms and legs.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is also expected today to announce a definition of human monkeypox, which would be critical in determining who would be eligible for smallpox vaccinations as well as investigating the outbreak.

United States officials stopped routine smallpox vaccinations in 1970, about a decade before eradication of smallpox from the world.

On Monday, a subgroup of a national panel of immunization experts appointed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to serve on its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices began discussions on whether and how the smallpox vaccine might be used.

Discussions focused on the benefits and risks of smallpox vaccine for monkeypox, a viral disease that can be fatal in 10 percent of human cases. The death rate for smallpox was about 30 percent.

But smallpox vaccination can also be fatal. Studies from the 1960's, when smallpox vaccinations were routine, found that for every million people older than 1 year old who were vaccinated, 1 or 2 died, 9 suffered from brain infection and more than 100 developed eczema vaccinatum, a severe illness and skin rash that can leave deep scars and can occasionally be life-threatening.

The government owns all the smallpox vaccine in the United States. This year, the government began offering it to health care workers to protect against any cases that might result from an attack in which terrorists released the virus.

The only known stocks of smallpox virus are kept at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and in Russia, both with the approval of the World Health Organization.

But the Bush administration has warned that Iraq as well as other countries and rogue groups might have obtained smallpox virus from the official stores in Russia and begun a program to vaccinate health care workers before the war began against Iraq.

The number of people for whom smallpox vaccine might be offered to protect against monkeypox would be small, the panel's chairman, Dr. John F. Modlin, said in an interview before the panel's meeting.

From TRUE HEALTH

May 2003  Page 4

New Vegetarian Diet Lowers Cholesterol

     Eating a new vegetarian diet may lower cholesterol levels by one-third.  These findings were reported at a recent meeting of the American Heart Association by Canadian researchers.  Called the Portfolio diet, this approach seems to work about as well as the older station drugs that are still the primary medicine for people with high cholesterol.  Although it is widely recognized that diet can help to reduce cholesterol, typically most people can only affect cholesterol levels by about 10 percent with diet.  The difference is that the new diet relies heavily on foods (such as oats, barley, okra, almonds, cauliflower, and eggplant) that are known to be especially effective at reducing cholesterol.  Researcher Cyril Kendall of the University of Toronto said tht volunteers found the diet extremely filling, and several stayed on it after the experiment ended.

From Health & Healing

By Dr. julian Whitaker

July 2003  Pages  3-4-6-7

CHELATION THERAPY

Get the Lead Out

  Abut 20 years ago, I began administering EDTA chelation therapy to my patients with cardiovascular disease.  i had been using vitamins, minerals,and nutrition as my primary therapies since I first opened the Whitaker Wellness Institute five years prior to that, but I steered clear of chelation for political reasons.  No other therapy generates as much hostility among conventional physicians.  It's an "us vs. them" situation, and a physician who uses chelation has crossed the line.

Since I Crossed the Line

     In the intervening years, I have seen remarkable results with chelation therapy in hundreds of patients.  Twelve years ago, jerome, plaqued by a nonhealing diabetic ulcer, literally walked away from leg amputation hours before surgery.  He checked himself out of the hospital and came to the clinic for chelation and wound care.  Today, he is walking around on his own two feet.

     Richard, hospitalized with severe chest pain, was told that if he didn't have bypass surgery he would die.  He left the hospital against medical advice to try a course of chelation, and three years later he remains pain-free on no medications.

     Before his course of chelation, john could barely walk a block without severe chest pain: six months later, he climbed to the top of the Statue of Liberty.

     Two years ago, Lou had a 70-75 percent blockage in his left carotid artery, which supplies blood to the brain.  His doctor recommended surgery.  Instead Lou began EDTA chelation therapy.  Much to the surprise of his cardiologist, repeat ultrasound a year later showed regression of the blockage to 45 percent.

     These are not isolated cases.  Virtually all doctors who use chelation in their practices report similar successes.  Yet even those of us who know from years of clinical experience that EDTA chelation is a dependable, effective therapy honestly don't know exactly how it works.

What Is EDTA Chelation Therapy?

     EDTA is a chelating agent.  Administered intravenously in a slow infusion, this synthetic amino acid binds to minerals and toxic heavy metals, primarily lead, and carries them out of the body via the urine.

     One theory as to why chelation helps patients with cardiovascular disease is that it removes calcium from arterial plaque.  Another theory is that because EDTA ia a potent antioxidant, it reduces free radical damage to the blood vessels and improves their function.  Yet the most plausible explanation for chelation's  benefits is also the simplest and most obvious.

     There is no doubt that EDTA chelation therapy dramatically lowers the burden of lead and other toxic heavy metals in the body.  In fact, it is the FDA approved treatment of choice for lead poisoning.  New findings confirm that lead is toxic to the kidneys, nervous system, and cardiovascular system at much lower levels than previously believed.  This suggests that chelation's primary benefit for heart disease may be lead removal.

The Heavy Burden of Lead

     We are constantly exposed to toxic heavy metals, and chief among them is lead.  From automobile and industrial emissions, contaminated soils, lead-based paints, lead crystal, and waste dumps, lead finds its way into our bodies.  Children are especially vulnerable, as this neurotoxin causes significant reductions in IQ, behavior problems, and impaired growth.  In adults, it harms the kidneys and nervous system, causes anemia and miscarriage, increases the risk of high blood pressure, and accelerates free radical damage.

     We've made strides in recent years in reducing lead exposure by lowering the amount of lead in gasoline and banning lead-based paint.  However, even if your current exposure is minimal, you're still carrying some of the lead that you were exposed to in the past, most of it stored in your bones.  The average bone level of lead today is hundreds of times higher than before the industrial revolution 200 years ago. And we're just now beginning to understand the long-term repercussions of this heavy metal burden.

High Lead Levels Increase Risk of Death

     To assess the impact of lead on health, researchers from Johns Hopkins University examined blood levels and mortality data of 4,292 men and women.  After adjusting for age, smoking history, body mass index, and other factors, they found that people whose blood levels measured 20-29 mcg/dL and a 39 percent increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease and other circulatory diseases, compared to those with lead levels below 10 mcg/dL.  They also had a 68 percent increased risk of death from cancer and a 46 percent increase in death from all causes.

     To put these levels into perspective, consider that the current acceptable blood lead level for occupational exposure is 40 mcg/dL, and blood levels as low as 10 mcg/dL are linked to adverse effects in children.  Yet according to new research,  there is no safe level of this toxic element -- even minute levels in the body have adverse effects on health.

Can Chelation Lower Blood Pressure

     For several years now, the case for lead as a hidden cause of hypertension has been growing.  The kidneys are a key player in blood pressure regulation, and ample research supports the link between elevated levels of lead, kidney damage, and hypertension.

     The most recent study supporting this relationship was published in March 2003.  Researchers measured the blood lead levels in more than 2,000 women, ages 40 to 59, and correlated them with bolld pressure levels.  They found that blood lead levels "well below the current US occupational exposure limit guidelines (40 mcg/dL)" were positively associated with the risk of hypertension.

     "Well below" the current exposure limit is an understatement!  The average lead level ws 2.9 mcg/dL.  The lead levels in the group of women at highest risk averaged 6.4 mcg/dL.  These women were 3.4 times more likely to have high blood pressure than those whose lead levels were less than 1.6 mcg/dL -- a huge increase in risk for a relatively small increase in blood levels.  To set the level of safe occupational exposure at 40 mcg/dL and the level of concern for children at 10 mcg/dL is absurd.

Lead Is Mobilized From Bone

     An interesting finding of this study is that those at greates risk were postmenopausal women.  It is well known that these women lose a significiant amount of bone mass, most of it in the early years of menopause.  As bone breaks down, it releases stored lead into the bloodstream, elevating lead levels and increasing risk fo hypertension and other health problems.

     The authors concluded, "These results provide support for continued efforts to reduce lead levels in the general population, especially women."  But they failed to mention that an extremely safe, reliable, and predictable way to eliminate the lead burden already exists, and that is EDTA chelation therapy.  A better recommendation might have been for all women to undergo a course of chelation at menopause to lower lead levels and protect against disease.

New Hope for Kidney Disease

     In another study published earlier this year, researchers not only uncovered lead as a culprit in kidney disease, but they also did something about it -- with astounding results.

     Taiwanese researchers followed 202 patients with chronic kidney disease for two years and found that even low levels of lead accelerated the progression of the disease.  They then randomly divided the patients with the highest lead levels into two groups and administered a course of EDTA chelation or placebo infusions, followed by regular maintenance treatments.  When the patients were reevaluated after two years, there was significant improvement in the kidney function of patients who received chelation, compared with those who had the placebo.  ( I found this study particularly provocative because one of the major criticisms in the battle cry of conventional physicians against chelation therapy is its potential for causing kidney disease.)

     This study virtually screams for EDTA chelation to be used for the treatment of kidney disease.  The authors estimated it could delay the need for dialysis by years, saving millions of dollars in treatment costs and preventing untold amounts of human suffering.

     It also has enormous implications for hypertension and cardiovascular disease.  As I mentioned above, the kidneys play an important role in blood pressure, and even subtle declines in kidney function can cause hypertension.

Will Chelation Finally Be Accepted?

     When the cardiovascular benefits of EDTA chelation were serendipitously discovered in the 1950s, the therapy was met with enthusiasm, and for a time, even conventional physicians embraced it.  however, as drugs and surgical procedures for the treatment of heart disease gained popularity, chelation fell out of favor, and there it has remained.  Neither the findings of well-conducted studies such as those discussed above, nor the clinical experience of millions of patients are likely to break the bias of conventional physicians.  ( My patients routinely tell me that their cardiologists simply refuse to acknowledge tht EDTA chelation therapy could have contributed to their remarkable improvements.)

     What may change things is a $30 million government-funded study on the efficacy of EDTA chelation therapy for the treatment of coronary artery disease that is about to begin.

     You could wait for the results of this study five or six