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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. | 
