Why flu vaccine is rarely effective
By Sue Mueller Apr 20, 2008
SUNDAY April 20, 2008 (foodconsumer.org) -- If you got flu shot and still came down with the flu symptoms like fever, cough and running nose, you should not be alone. A study released last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the effectiveness of this year's vaccine was estimated at only 44 percent, The New York Times reported.
What’s gone wrong with the vaccine then? According to the times, what makes it so hard for a vaccine to effectively prevent the flu is that the virus changes from year to year and experts would have to GUESS what forms of virus will be circulating for the next flu season based on the current year. Based on the guesstimation, experts formulate a vaccine to protect against those targeted strains.
The newspaper goes on to explain usually the experts' guess work is pretty good and make the vaccine's efficacy at 70 to 90 percent in healthy adults. But this year they guessed it wrong and made many recipients miserable.
This year's vaccine was designed to protect against two strains of influenza A and one strain of influenza B. This is probably true for the vaccines made for previous years, according to some source. Based on data collected from central Wisconsin, the vaccine was said to be 58 percent effective against the predominant strain of influenza A, but ineffective against the B strain.
East and Southeast Asia have been blamed as the original sources of flu viruses. The times reported that an international team led by Britain researchers claimed based molecular and genetic analysis that they have figured out how seasonal flu strains evolve and sweep around the world.
According to the theory proposed by the researchers, new flu strains emerge in several countries in East and Southeast Asia and spread through travelers to Europe and North America after as short as six to nine months, and then continue their journey until they reach South America where they die out.
Although the sources of viruses could provide some opportunities for researchers to study the strains of flu viruses so that a potentially effective flu vaccine may be possibly made for the next flu season, the story reported by the times does not explain in sufficient detail why the vaccine is so ineffective.
The official explanation by the CDC may be only part of the story. In an article published in 2004 by the Center for Medical Consumers, which is a not-for-profit organization that does not accept any funding from the drug industry, Maryann Napoli, the staff writer for the Center, explains why flu vaccine is rarely effective.
It is commonly known that flu viruses change from year to year and researchers have to do some guesswork to make a choice as to how to construct the flu vaccine for the next season. The choice is based, according to Napoli, on a combination of guesswork, flu outbreaks in Asia, and the recommendations of the world Health Organization.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
Dr. Napoli is quite correct about mutating viruses. Maybe instead of vaccinating we ought to be thinking about how we can bolster intrinsic immune mechanisms. The immune system is the only system specifically designed to deal with current viral threats. And there are a host of herbs that will increase the immune response and increase the surveillance level of the immune system; such as ramping up the activity of NK cells and phagocytes.
But what is not as commonly known is that the vaccine is more likely to be effective against the type that causes fewer than 15 percent of all flu cases. This is the one caused by influenza A or B. And researchers refer to all other forms of flu as influenza-like illness. But both types, influenza or influenza-like produce exactly the same symptoms - headache, fever, muscle aches, cough and runny nose. That probably explains why the official estimate on the vaccine efficacy is always higher than 15 percent.
Vaccine researcher Tom Jefferson, MD, was quoted in Napoli's article as saying "The flu is not caused by a single 'bug'-about one-third of all influenza is caused by an unknown agent; about one-third are caused by rhinoviruses, the same viruses that cause the common cold; and the remainder are a mixed bag of other agents including influenza A and B viruses and members of the coronavirus family."
The difficulty with making an effective flu vaccine is that they all appear to the same illness and one cannot forecast how much of the influenza viruses in the upcoming flu season will be influenza A or B, according to Dr. Jefferson who was cited as saying "yet the public is never told this."
In an editorial published in the British Medical Journal, Dr. Jefferson said vaccination successes are largely confined to influenza A and B, the type that accounts only for a small percentage of all influenza cases.
Flu vaccine has proved to be a controversial issue. Critics said that the recommendation for the vaccine is not justified based on both the severity of the flu and the efficacy of the vaccine. Official reports project that deaths from the flu can be as many as 36,000 a year. But critics said that the death toll includes both deaths from the flu and pneumonia. The actual number of death for any given year may not exceed 300.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
If 300 people are going to die with our without the vaccine - why are we spending millions of dollars annually on doctor visits and vaccines that don't work? Wouldn't that money be better spent on better sanitation and nutrition to support immunity?
Drugs In US Drinking Water
Mar 10 2008
A five month investigation by the Associated Press has discovered that small quantities of drugs, including antibiotics, sex hormones, and anti-seizure compounds, have been found in public drinking water supplied to over 40 million Americans across the US.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
What does this mean?
- First, you're being involuntarily drugged. That in itself should be a major cause for concern.
- Second, if the body if excreting these compounds then it means they are not being metabolized and they are being treated as xenobiotics; that is foreign compounds the body cannot deal with via regular pathways of excretion -- read TOXIC COMPOUNDS!
While the concentrations are so small they have to be measured in parts per billion or even parts per trillion, and water companies insist these levels are within safety limits, the AP said the long term effects on people's health of so many prescription drugs and over the counter medicines such as acetaminophen (paracetamol) and ibuprofen, even in tiny amounts, are starting to worry scientists.
Drugs and their derivatives get into the drinking water supply because when people on medication go to the toilet they excrete whatever the body does not absorb and any metabolized byproducts. Water companies treat the waste before discharging it into rivers, lakes and reservoirs, and then treat it again before it enters the drinking water system. However, the various treatments don't remove all traces of drugs.
For five months, the AP National Investigative Team visited treatment plants, interviewed over 200 scientists, officials and academics, analyzed federal databases and reviewed hundreds of scientific reports.
Among their enquiries the AP investigators came across research studies that have "gone virtually unnoticed by the general public" where scientists were alarmed at the effect of the drinking water contaminants on human cells and wildlife.
The investigators also found that water companies don't like to publish the results of drug screening tests because they think the public would not know how to interpret them and would become unduly alarmed. However, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assistant administrator for water, Benjamin H Grumbles told AP that:
"We recognize it is a growing concern and we're taking it very seriously."
The AP investigators discovered that drugs have been found in the drinking water of 24 major metropolitan areas across the country. Here are some of the key findings:
* Southern California: a portion of drinking water that supplies 18.5 million people contained traces of anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety drugs.
* Philadelphia: treated drinking water contained 56 drugs or byproducts, including pharmaceuticals for pain, infection, cholesterol control, heart conditions, asthma.
* San Francisco: a sex hormone was detected in the drinking water.
* Washington DC: six drugs were found in the drinking water supply of the capital and surrounding area.
* Tucson, Arizona: an antibiotic and two other medications were found in the drinking water.
* Northern New Jersey: drinking water for 850,000 residents was found to contain carbamazepine, a mood stabilizer, and a metabolized byproduct of angina medication. This was found by US Geological Survey researchers who analyzed a treatment plant.
The AP report paints a rather chaotic and inconsistent picture of what is happening nationwide, with some water companies testing for a vast range of pharmaceutical compounds and others only testing for two. This is not surprising, since the AP team found that the "federal government doesn't require any testing and hasn't set safety limits for drugs in water".
It is not just waste water that is contaminated. The AP report says that watersheds, the natural source of most of the country's drinking water, are also affected. The AP investigators said tests were carried out in the watersheds of 35 of the 62 major water utilities they surveyed and drugs were found in 28 of them. Six of the 28, when contacted by the AP, said they did not test their drinking water, despite the watersheds being contaminated.
It would seem that no source of drinking water is entirely free of drugs. People who drink water from their own wells may not realize where the water comes from. It could come from a contaminated watershed, like one part of New York City's upstate watershed that tested positive for caffeine, often a marker of other drugs being present. One possible source of contamination for watersheds could be leaky septic tanks, according to one researcher interviewed by the AP team.
Bottled water and home filtration systems are also affected. According to the industry's main trade group, bottlers do not test or treat for pharmaceuticals (and some of these just repackage tap water said the AP).
Even aquifers, deep underground water systems that supply 40 per cent of the US water demand, are affected. The AP report mentions scientists examined aquifers located near landfill and other potential sources of contamination in in 24 states and found traces of hormones, antibiotics and other drugs.
As more and more people in the world take more and more drugs, and flush them, either unused or after metabolizing them, the concentrations entering the water system goes up. This problem is not confined to the US and the AP report cites evidence from other countries, including lakes in Switzerland and Canada. And it is not just human waste that puts drugs into the water system, but animal waste too, ranging from drugs used to treat domestic pets, to steroids used to treat cattle.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
This is a major environmental disaster. Hormones and other drugs not only affect plants and other mammalian wildlife they also affect little girls. These hormones and steroids are cancer causing agents and should not be consumed by children.
In my opinion, this is another reason to put a stop to the free-for-all int he drug industry. There is too little regulation, too little liability and way too much money sloshing around.
There is already evidence that drugs in the waterways is damaging wildlife, a prime example being male fish that are starting to create egg yolk proteins, a characteristic of female fish.
A large problem appears to be lack of funding to investigate the long term effects of trace amounts of pharmaceuticals, or the disproportionate way that limited funds are being used. The AP team interviewed Shane Snyder, research and development project manager at the Southern Nevada Water Authority, who said:
"I think it's a shame that so much money is going into monitoring to figure out if these things are out there, and so little is being spent on human health."
" It's time for the EPA to step up to the plate and make a statement about the need to study effects, both human and environmental," added Snyder.
Perhaps it is time, suggests the AP, for the focus that is currently maitained on regulated contaminants like pesticides, lead and PCBs, which are present in larger quantities and therefore pose a greater health risk, be extended to include medicines.
Drugs are a unique case because unlike other pollutants, they were designed to act on the human body. The AP team talked to a specialist who has studied trace hormones, heart medicine and other drugs, zoologist John Sumpter of Brunel University, London, who pointed out:
"These are chemicals that are designed to have very specific effects at very low concentrations. That's what pharmaceuticals do. So when they get out to the environment, it should not be a shock to people that they have effects."
It is true to say there is no clear evidence that trace amounts of drugs in the drinking supply are causing us harm, but this is because there have been no long term studies on the combined effects of so many drugs, albeit in trace amounts. Clinical trials of drugs concern themselves with a limited time period and use dosage amounts to test safety and side effects. They don't look at the lifetime effects of trace amounts of the drug, and certainly not in combination with a large number of others.
Diet products (artificial sweeteners) linked to weight gainMon Feb 11, 2008 By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Using an artificial, no-calorie sweetener rather than sugar may make it tougher, not easier, to lose weight, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.
Scientists at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, studied rats that were fed food with the artificial sweetener saccharin and rats fed food with glucose, a natural sugar.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
If you really want to lose weight both glucose and the toxic garbage have to be removed from the diet - the way to accomplish that is with the Detox Program
In comparison to rats given yogurt sweetened with glucose, those that ate yogurt sweetened with saccharin went on to consume more calories and put on more weight and body fat.
The researchers said sweet foods may prompt the body to get ready to take in a lot of calories, but when sweetness in the form of artificial sweeteners is not followed by a large amount of calories, the body gets confused, which may lead to eating more or expending less energy than normal.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
Let's see - feed the body garbage and it gets 'confused' - That sounds like a load of rubbish. Physiology can't get confused, but what it does do is seek out real nutrition by canceling the satiation reflex.
When you eat garbage you want more because your body is literally starving. Dr. Lee said this in the early 1950's when he wrote "we are a nation of people overfed, but starving for wholesome nutrition" The times change, but the story remains the same.
"The data clearly indicate that consuming a food sweetened with no-calorie saccharin can lead to greater body-weight gain and adiposity than would consuming the same food sweetened with high-calorie sugar," Purdue researchers Susan Swithers and Terry Davidson wrote in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience, published by the American Psychological Association.
"Such an outcome may seem counterintuitive, if not an anathema, to human clinical researchers and health care practitioners who have long recommended the use of low- and no-calorie sweeteners as a means of weight control."
Other artificial sweeteners such as aspartame that also taste sweet but do not lead to the delivery of calories may have similar effects, the researchers said.
"Animals may use sweet taste to predict the caloric contents of food. Eating sweet noncaloric substances may degrade this predictive relationship," the researchers wrote.
"With the growing use of noncaloric sweeteners in the current food environment, millions of people are being exposed to sweet tastes that are not associated with caloric or nutritive consequences," the researchers added.
The research was the latest to examine the question of whether artificial sweeteners -- used in many soft drinks and other foods -- help or thwart those trying to lose weight. Various studies have offered mixed results.
INDUSTRY RESPONDS
The new research drew criticism from the food industry.
"This study oversimplifies the causes of obesity," Beth Hubrich, a dietitian with the Calorie Control Council, an industry association representing companies that make low- and reduced-calorie foods and beverages, said in a statement.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
Who the hell is the Calorie Control Council? Translation: Well heeled Washington Lobbying Group.
The only thing that's oversimplified here is that this study may cut into the profits of the chemical industry that make the garbage that's making people fat.
If it were cyanide and people died quickly and there was a link to a clear and present danger this junk would be off the shelves immediately. But because it takes longer to do the damage - well, its a 'multifactorial problem' which translates to 'don't blame us.'
Saccharin causes cancer is lab animals. Aspartame degrades to formaldahyde, a cancer causing chemical, Splenda has no reliable clinical trials and was pushed onto the market without any valid testing in humans - so who knows? People are probably not getting enough chlorine in their diets anyway so who needs safety studies?
"The causes of obesity are multi-factorial. Although surveys have shown that there has been an increase in the use of 'sugar-free' foods over the years, portion sizes of foods have also increased, physical activity has decreased and overall calorie intake has increased," Hubrich added.
The council also said findings in animal studies may not be applicable to people, which the researchers acknowledged.
Davidson said by e-mail that the implication of the council's statement "that they, too, are interested in the health of the public seems insincere."
"If they were sincere, one might expect that they would be alarmed by findings from animal or human models suggesting that their products might be contributing to the obesity epidemic that continues to expand and do its damage," Davidson said.
Beetroot 'may cut blood pressure'
Root vegetable, and potential lifesaver? Drinking 500ml of beetroot juice a day can significantly reduce blood pressure, UK research suggests. The key beneficial ingredient appears to be nitrate, which is also found in green, leafy vegetables.
The researchers found that in healthy volunteers blood pressure was reduced within an hour of drinking the juice.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
The effect of nitrate is vasodilation. What may be more interesting is the effect of methyl donor groups found in beets. Hepatic portal hypertension caused by liver congestion can also have the unwanted effect of causing blood pressure problems on the venous side of circulation. In my practice, I strongly recommend patients eat both the beet root and beet tops. This plant is rich in many important nutrients and is a strong factor in bile production and bile flow as well as the liver detox mechanism known as methylation.
The study, by Barts and the London School of Medicine and the Peninsula Medical School, could suggest a low-cost way to treat hypertension.
"Drinking beetroot juice, or consuming other nitrate-rich vegetables, might be a simple way to maintain a healthy cardiovascular system"
~ Professor Amrita Ahluwalia, Barts and The London School of Medicine
Previously the protective effects of vegetable-rich diets have been attributed to their antioxidant vitamin content.
While it took less than an hour to note a reduction in blood pressure in the beetroot juice tests, it was more pronounced after three to four hours and a degree of reduction continued to be observed for up to 24 hours, the report published on the online journal Hypertension said.
Saliva breakdown
The researchers showed that nitrate in the juice is converted in saliva, by bacteria on the tongue, into nitrite.
This nitrite-containing saliva is swallowed, and in the acidic environment of the stomach is either converted into nitric oxide or re-enters the circulation as nitrite.
The peak time of reduction in blood pressure correlated with the appearance and peak levels of nitrite in the circulation.
No such drop in blood pressure was recorded in a second group of volunteers, who did not swallow their saliva while drinking beetroot juice, or for three hours afterwards.
More than 25% of the world's adult population are hypertensive, and it has been estimated that this figure will increase to 29% by 2025.
Hypertension causes around 50% of coronary heart disease, and approximately 75% of strokes.
In total, cardiovascular disease kills over 110,000 people in England every year.
Researcher Professor Amrita Ahluwalia said: "Our research suggests that drinking beetroot juice, or consuming other nitrate-rich vegetables, might be a simple way to maintain a healthy cardiovascular system, and might also be an additional approach that one could take in the modern day battle against rising blood pressure."
Professor Graham McGregor, of the British Hypertension Society, described the research as "interesting".
He said: "This shows that beetroot juice lowers blood pressure in the short term in volunteers with normal blood pressure.
"What we need now is research to see whether it has an effect on people with high blood pressure over a much longer period of time."
Professor McGregor said there was a growing body of work showing that a diet rich in fruit and vegetables had a beneficial impact on hypertension.
But he said previous research had suggested that potassium may be the key mineral.
Victoria Taylor, of the British Heart Foundation, said: "Whilst beetroot juice was used in this study, it is unlikely that people will be able to - or wish to - consume it in the quantities used in the research.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
The good news is that Standard Process has beet root and beet top available as a whole food supplement known as AF Betafood. Traditionally this product has been used to improve bile flow and production, but it would make sense to include it as part of a cardiovascular protocol to improve blood circulation and pressue.
"Although we know that eating a diet rich in fruit and vegetables as part of a well balanced diet is beneficial to heart health, we do not know yet whether there are certain fruits or vegetables that are more helpful than others and so for now, people should continue to choose a wide variety in achieving their five a day."
BBC News Service, Wed., Feb 5, 2008
WHO reports Tamiflu-resistant flu in U.S., Canada
Fri Feb 1, 2008 12:39pm EST By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA, Feb 1 (Reuters) - The main seasonal flu virus in the United States and Canada as well as parts of Europe shows higher resistance to the antiviral drug Tamiflu, raising questions about its potential effectiveness in a human bird flu pandemic.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
The names change but the story remains the same. You can't outsmart the bugs. It's evolution. It's survival Bacteria became antibiotic resistant and now viruses are becoming Tamiflu resistant.
There is one system that does have the capacity to evolve strategies for ever changing bacteria and viruses -- you guessed it; the human immune system. An amazing piece of biology that can actually recognize foreign proteins and generate a counter-measure for them.
Here's a novel idea -- why not support the human immune system instead of creating toxic compounds to inject into the body? There are many powerful and effective herbs that enhance immune function.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported the elevated resistance in North America on Friday, but said it was too early to know what the chances may be for increased Tamiflu resistance in the H5N1 strain of avian influenza.
It did not change its recommendation that Tamiflu be used to treat human cases of bird flu.
A number of governments have been stockpiling Tamiflu, made by Switzerland's Roche Holding AG (ROG.VX: Quote, Profile, Research) and Gilead Sciences Inc (GILD.O: Quote, Profile, Research) of the United States, for use as a first line of defence in case bird flu sparks a human influenza outbreak.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
The other thing about Tamiflu (google tamiflu and psychosis) is that it makes you want to jump off buildings. In Japan there have been verified reports of suicidal ideation and deaths.
Health experts fear that the virus, which now mainly affects poultry, could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people and trigger a deadly pandemic.
The WHO said it was investigating the extent of resistance worldwide to Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, in some seasonal H1N1 flu viruses that have a mutation making them "highly resistant".
"The frequency of oseltamivir resistance in H1N1 viruses in the current influenza season is unexpected and the reason why a higher percentage of these viruses are resistant is currently unknown," the WHO said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported a five percent prevalence of resistance to Tamiflu in samples of H1N1 virus tested. In Canada, 8 out of 128 samples showed resistance, roughly 6 percent, WHO spokeswoman Gregory Hartl said.
"These preliminary data indicate that oseltamivir resistance in H1N1 viruses is geographically variable but not limited to Europe," the WHO said in a statement.
A preliminary survey issued by the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC) this week said that of 148 samples of influenza A virus isolated from 10 European countries during November and December, 19 showed signs of resistance to Tamiflu.
The mutated H1N1 is a sub-type of influenza A.
Of 16 samples from Norway, 12 tested positive for resistance against Tamiflu, according to the ECDC study.
The new "elevated resistance to oseltamivir" appears limited to seasonal H1N1 viruses, and does not involve H3N2 or influenza B viruses which are also circulating, the WHO said.
"This means that oseltamivir would most likely be ineffective for treating or preventing infections caused by these resistant H1N1 strains, although the drug will be effective against other influenza virus infections," it added.
The WHO said it was contacting national health authorities to determine the extent of resistance to the drug. Neither Japan -- where Tamiflu is widely prescribed for seasonal flu -- nor Hong Kong had seen increased resistance to date, it said.
"It is still early in the (seasonal flu) season, we don't have a full picture yet," Hartl said.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
They never have a clear picture and they'll never be able to develop a clear picture because as a virus moves from host to host it changes in subtle ways. Sometimes those changes are more virulent sometimes less virulent.
The past can teach us something about this ... at the end of his life Pasteur wrote that he'd made a mistake putting all the emphasis on the bugs. He wrote "It's the terrain" and what he was referring to was internal conditions of the host organism as the main factor in disease formation. In French what's called the "Milieu Interior."
Past studies had found Tamiflu resistance rates ranging from zero to 0.5 percent, according to the U.N. agency. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Caroline Drees)
Cold Drugs Put 7,000 Children A Year in ERsStudy Cites Access, Dosage in Ages 2-5
By Rob Stein, Washington Post Staff Writer, Tuesday, January 29, 2008
More than 7,000 children get rushed to emergency rooms each year after suffering adverse reactions to cough and cold medicines, according to the first national estimate of the risks posed by the widely used remedies.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
As a chiropractor and a father of two children, I can tell you with certainty that we have never needed cough and cold medicines because my wife and I have always made sure the children always took nutrition to support their immune system. Echinacea and the whole food vitamin C complex have been a staple in their diets. If a cough does appear we prefer to use Marshmallow Root as a demulcent herb to manage dry coughs. If it is a productive cough we employ anti-catarrahal herbs. All these plants are perfectly safe with children and get results.
Most of the problems occur in children ages 2 to 5 who get into the medications on their own, researchers said. They based their conclusions on an analysis of data from a nationally representative sample of 63 emergency rooms in 2004 and 2005.
"Anytime a child ends up in the emergency department because they had access to a bottle of medication, that is a problem that could be prevented," said Daniel S. Budnitz of the federal
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which conducted the research.
The report comes as the Food and Drug Administration considers whether to further restrict the use of the products because of concern about their risks and questions about their effectiveness. Critics and supporters of the products seized on the new report to support their positions.
"This is a lot of trips to the emergency room for products that have no known benefit," said Joshua M. Sharfstein, Baltimore's public health commissioner and the leader of a coalition of pediatricians that petitioned the FDA to restrict promotion of the products for use by children. "It's time to pull the plug on the marketing of these products."
But Linda A. Suydam of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, an industry group, said the report shows that the problem stemmed primarily from parents giving the wrong dose or failing to make sure the products were out of the reach of children.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
Consumer Healthcare Products Association is lobbying group that, among other things, made sure that Merck made a 40% profit on its products in 2007 through favorable laws toward Big Pharma.
Are you indignant? You should be!
"These really are situations where parents were perhaps confused and gave the wrong dosage or inadvertently left out their medication in a way that children could get into them," she said. She defended the effectiveness of the products and their safety when used properly, saying parents want continued access to them.
Last fall, the industry voluntarily withdrew all products marketed for children younger than 2 but said the products were safe and effective for older children.
An FDA advisory panel, however, voted that there was no evidence that the products were effective and recommended against their use in children younger than 6.
On Jan. 16, the FDA formally urged parents not to use the products in children younger than 2, citing recent surveys showing that many parents continue to use them. Agency officials said they had not determined what to do about older children.
Sharfstein filed his petition after four children in Baltimore who had ingested the remedies died.
The CDC said last year that at least 1,500 children younger than 2 had complications in 2004 and 2005 from the products, and an FDA review noted dozens of cases of convulsions, heart problems, trouble breathing, neurological complications and other reactions, including at least 123 deaths.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
What a lot of parents do not realize is that the FDA is a revolving door for private sector pharmaceutical executives. Many people do not know that over the last 40 years the FDA has been manned by employees of Monsanto, Dow, Searle, Genentech, and many others.
The new report, published online yesterday by the journal Pediatrics, is the first attempt to get a nationwide estimate of the extent of the problems.
Researchers analyzed data collected by a nationwide drug safety surveillance system that gathers information from 63 emergency rooms to provide a representative sampling of adverse drug events. The researchers identified 301 cases between Jan. 1, 2004, and Dec. 31, 2005. Extrapolated nationwide, that works out to 7,091 cases a year. Cold and cough drugs account for 5.7 percent of all medicine-related visits to the emergency room by children younger than 12, the researchers found.
In most of the cases, the researchers were unable to determine what symptoms the children experienced. But in those cases where that information was available, 19 percent had allergic reactions, and 13 percent had neurological symptoms such as sleepiness or problems walking.
Although the cases included prescription and over-the-counter products, the researchers said most of them involved nonprescription products.
Children ages 2 to 5 accounted for 64 percent of the cases, and nearly 80 percent of the cases in this age group involved situations where children got into the products without their parents' knowledge. But in the remaining cases, either the parents gave the wrong dose or a correct dose produced an adverse reaction.
Ninety-three percent of the cases did not require the children to be hospitalized, but about 7 percent required additional treatment. The researchers did not know whether any children died.
Based on the findings, the researchers recommended a number of steps to reduce the risk, such as encouraging parents to make sure products are kept capped and out of reach, designing better child-proof containers and avoiding colors that make the products look appealing to children.
"We have a wide range of options that we can do today and implement in the future," Budnitz said.
Sesame Chicken Edamame Bowl
2 teaspoon EVOO
1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger
2 teaspoons minced peeled fresh lemon grass
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 lb. skinless, boneless chicken breast cut into bit sized pieces
2 cups green soybeans shelled
2 cups green, yellow, or red bell pepper
2 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon sweet rice wine (mirin)
1 tablespoon dark sesame seed oil
1/4 teaspoon arrowroot powder
1/2 cup diagonally cut green onion
2 teaspoon dark sesame seeds
2 cups hot cooked wild rice
Heat EVOO in a large skillet over medium heat. Add ginger, lemongrass, , and garlic; saute 1 minute or just until mixture begins to brown. Add chicken; saute 2 minutes. Add edamame and stir-fry mix; saute 3 minutes. Combine soy sauce, mirin, sesame seel oil, and arrowroot powder while stirring with a whisk. Add to pan; cook 1 minute. Remove from heat. Stir in onions, sesame seeds, and salt. Serve over wild rice. Yields six servings.
"If truth be your goal, it must be your method."
National Study Finds
High Levels of Mercury in Tuna
January 24, 2008, 2:40 pm
By MARIAN BURROS
The international conservation group Oceana has issued a report that found levels of mercury in fresh tuna in stores and restaurants across the United States that were as high as those reported yesterday in a New York Times article on tuna sushi sold in Manhattan.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
Mercury is a neurotoxin that in electron micrograph studies at the University of Winnipeg was shown to damage the dendrite sheathing - the part of the nerve that covers the axon allowing for proper nerve transmission.
The use of herbs to orally chelate and eliminate mercury and lead has been in use for some time. Compared to other heavy metals (such as cadmium found in cigarette smoke) mercury and lead are easier for the body to eliminate if given the right conditions.
Like those samples tested by The Times, many of the Oceana samples had levels of mercury exceeding those that would allow the Food and Drug Administration to take legal action to remove it from the market.
Mercury is believed to affect neurological development of fetuses and young children. Some studies have suggested it may cause health problems in adults, too. Since 2004, the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency have recommended that women of child-bearing age and young children eat no more than 12 ounces of fish a week, including no more than 6 ounces of canned albacore tuna, and avoid swordfish, tilefish, king mackerel and shark because they are high in mercury.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
The thing to do is eat the little fish because as the big fish eat the little ones biomagnification occurs. The type of fish can also make a difference. Blue Fin Tuna is high in mercury whereas Ahi Tuna (aka yellow fin tuna) is not because it is a much smaller fish.
Oceana tested samples of fresh tuna, swordfish and tilapia, as well as tuna and mackerel sushi bought in 26 cities and found that the average mercury concentration of tuna steaks in 23 grocery stores was 0.68 parts per million, even higher than the 0.57 parts per million that was the average for tuna sushi that The Times bought in stores. Swordfish levels were even higher; tilapia and mackerel were very low.
The mercury content of tuna sushi from the 24 restaurants in the Oceana study was 0.86 parts per million, quite similar to the average of 0.88 parts per million that The Times found in tuna sushi in restaurants. One third of the tuna sushi in the Oceana study had more than one part per million of mercury, the level that would allow F.D.A. to remove the fish from the market, something it rarely does.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
The combination of herbs in ChelaCo effectively removes lead and mercury from the body safely over a three month period.
In 2005 Oceana launched a campaign to make major grocery chains post at their fish counters government warnings about tuna. Since then several chains, including Whole Foods, Vons, Dominick’s, Safeway and Trader Joe’s, have agreed to post some information.
But Oceana said that when seafood counter attendants were asked what the FDA advice is for
those women and children, they found that 87 percent either gave an incorrect answer or incomplete information or simply said they did not know.
Oceana is asking the FDA to require warnings at seafood counters, to add fresh tuna to its “do not eat” list and to increase the frequency of its testing of fish.
Food Poisoning Can Be Long-Term Problem
By LAURAN NEERGAARD – 1/20/08
WASHINGTON (AP) — It's a dirty little secret of food poisoning: E. coli and certain other foodborne illnesses can sometimes trigger serious health problems months or years after patients survived that initial bout.
Scientists only now are unraveling a legacy that has largely gone unnoticed. What they've spotted so far is troubling. In interviews with The Associated Press, they described high blood pressure, kidney damage, even full kidney failure striking 10 to 20 years later in people who survived severe E. coli infection as children, arthritis after a bout of salmonella or shigella, and a mysterious paralysis that can attack people who just had mild symptoms of campylobacter.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
The basic problem with symptomatic treatment (i.e. antibiotic therapy for gut infection) is that the focus is only on killing the bug and no attention is paid to the health of the gut lining, pre-biotics and pro-biotics, and immune upregulation.
What people need to realize is that half of their immune system is in their gut and when the gut gets damaged (i.e. leaky gut syndrome) the body cannot determine self from non-self and starts attacking itself with auto-immune diseases such as arthritis.
"Folks often assume once you're over the acute illness, that's it, you're back to normal and that's the end of it," said Dr. Robert Tauxe of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The long-term consequences are "an important but relatively poorly documented, poorly studied area of foodborne illness."
These late effects are believed to make up a very small fraction of the nation's 76 million annual food poisonings, although no one knows just how many people are at risk. A bigger question is what other illnesses have yet to be scientifically linked to food poisoning. And with a rash of food recalls — including more than 30 million pounds of ground beef pulled off the market last year alone — these are questions are taking on new urgency.
"We're drastically underestimating the burden on society that foodborne illnesses represent," contends Donna Rosenbaum of the consumer advocacy group STOP, Safe Tables Our Priority.
Every week, her group hears from patients with health complaints that they suspect or have been told are related to food poisoning years earlier, like a woman who survived severe E. coli at 8 only to have her colon removed in her 20s. Or people who develop diabetes after food poisoning inflamed the pancreas. Or parents who wonder if a child's learning problems stem from food poisoning-caused dialysis as a toddler.
"There's nobody to refer them to for an answer," says Rosenbaum.
So STOP this month is beginning the first national registry of food-poisoning survivors with long-term health problems — people willing to share their medical histories with scientists in hopes of boosting much-needed research.
Consider Alyssa Chrobuck of Seattle, who at age 5 was hospitalized as part of the Jack-in-the-Box hamburger outbreak that 15 years ago this month made a deadly E. coli strain notorious.
She's now a successful college student but ticks off a list of health problems unusual for a 20-year-old: High blood pressure, recurring hospitalizations for colon inflammation, a hiatal hernia, thyroid removal, endometriosis.
"I can't eat fatty foods. I can't eat things that are fried, never been able to eat ice cream or milkshakes," says Chrobuck. "Would I have this many medical problems if I hadn't had the E. coli? Definitely not. But there's no way to tie it definitely back."
The CDC says foodborne illnesses cause 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths a year. Among survivors, some long-term consequences are obvious from the outset. Some required kidney transplants. They may have scarred intestines that promise lasting digestive difficulty.
But when people appear to recover, it is difficult to prove that later problems really are a food-poisoning legacy and not some unfortunate coincidence. It may be that people prone to certain gastrointestinal conditions, for instance, also are genetically more vulnerable to germs that cause foodborne illness.
For now, some of the best evidence comes from the University of Utah, which has long tracked children with E. coli. About 10 percent of E. coli sufferers develop a life-threatening complication called hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, where their kidneys and other organs fail.
Ten to 20 years after they recover, between 30 percent and half of HUS survivors will have some kidney-caused problem, says Dr. Andrew Pavia, the university's pediatric infectious diseases chief. That includes high blood pressure caused by scarred kidneys, slowly failing kidneys, even end-stage kidney failure that requires dialysis.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
The real challenge in the treatment of patients is not the either/or approach but the and/both approach. I honestly feel that unless a regimen of therapeutic nutrition is placed along side of pharmacologic treatment; then the patient is not well served. It's like half a treatment. Using antibiotics on bacteria is like dropping an atomic bomb, but never bothering to rebuild. Healthy gut flora is part and parcel to a healthy immune system.
"I don't want to leave the message that everyone who had symptoms ... is in trouble," stresses Pavia.
Miserable as E. coli is, it doesn't seem to trigger long-term problems unless it started shutting down the kidneys the first time around, he says. "People with uncomplicated diarrhea, by and large we don't have evidence yet that they have complications."
Other proven long-term consequences:
_About 1 in 1,000 sufferers of campylobacter, a diarrhea-causing infection spread by raw poultry, develop far more serious Guillain-Barre syndrome a month or so later. Their body attacks their nerves, causing paralysis that usually requires intensive care and a ventilator to breathe. About a third of the nation's Guillain-Barre cases have been linked to previous campylobacter, even if the diarrhea was very mild, and they typically suffer a more severe case than patients who never had food poisoning.
While they eventually recover, "We don't know a great deal about what happens to those people five years later. What does 'normal' look like?" Tauxe says.
A small number of people develop what's called reactive arthritis six months or longer after a bout of salmonella. It causes joint pain, eye inflammation, sometimes painful urination, and can lead to chronic arthritis. Certain strains of shigella and yersinia bacteria, far more common abroad than in the U.S., trigger this reactive arthritis, too, Tauxe says.
What about other patient complaints?
A variety of other organ problems might be triggered by HUS, that severe E. coli — because it causes blood clots all over the body that could leave a trail of damage, says Utah's Pavia. Among his hottest questions: HUS patients often suffer pancreatitis. Does that increase risk for diabetes later in life?
But proving a connection will require tracking a lot of patients who can provide very good medical records documenting their initial foodborne illness, he cautions.
Eternal Truth
"Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen, and thinking what no one else has thought!"
~Albert Szent-Giorgyi, 1937
Nobel Prize for discovery of Vitamin C
FDA says alternative hormone claims unsupportedWed Jan 9, 2008 6:31pm EST
By Lisa Richwine
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. health officials said on Wednesday they had warned seven pharmacies selling "bio-identical" hormones over the Internet that they were breaking the law with false and misleading claims about the benefits for menopausal women.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
I think it was PT Barnum who said: "there's a sucker born every minute!" I've been telling my patients for years that these Bio-Identical Hormones are mostly marketing and short of identical compounds. Who in their right mind would accept compounds from yams and soy to be identical to estrogen. Why would you need these compounds when your body knows how to make them already.
Here's how it works: Menopause is a relative estrogen deficiency. Relative to the normal ratio of estrogen to progesterone in the pre-menopausal woman. As the ovaries wind down the adrenal glands normally pick up the slack with estrone production. If the adrenals are shot due to stress and poor diet this relative estrogen deficiency becomes very pronounced with problems like concentration difficulties, hot flashes, and lack of desire. It would be better to call this problem Adreno-pause.
The other important factor in this process is the elimination by the liver of conjugated (spent) estrogen. The 4 and 16 hydroxyestrone are the most problematic because when not eliminated lead to breast and uterine cancer. We can upregulate the liver detox mechanism with nutrition.
The Food and Drug Administration sent letters ordering the pharmacies to stop claiming their hormones were better than approved menopause therapies and could prevent and treat serious conditions such as Alzheimer's, strokes and cancer.
FDA officials said there was no reliable scientific evidence to support the assertions.
"Claims like these mislead consumers and health-care providers with inaccurate information," said Deborah Autor, director of compliance in the FDA's drugs center.
Interest in the products grew after a 2002 finding that FDA-approved hormone products raised the risk of heart disease, blood clots and certain cancers.
Drugmaker Wyeth, which sells FDA-approved hormone replacement therapy, had petitioned the agency to take action against makers of bio-identical hormones.
FDA officials said there was no evidence the bio-identical hormones were any safer than approved versions of the hormones estrogen and progesterone. The alternative versions are made in so-called compounding pharmacies that are allowed to produce custom-made medicines for patients with a doctor's prescription.
The agency said some products contained the unapproved hormone estriol and it was prepared to take action to halt sales of those products.
The pharmacies warned by the FDA were: Panorama Compounding Pharmacy, Saint John's Medical Plaza Pharmacy, Murray Avenue Apothecary, Pharmacy Compounding Specialties, Reed's Compounding Pharmacy and Pacifica Pharmacy.
Other pharmacies also sell bio-identical hormones, but FDA officials said they could not say how many.
The FDA objected to the term "bio-identical," saying it wrongly implied the hormones are natural or the same as ones made by the body, and therefore safer. Companies say the compounded hormones are derived from plants such as soy and yams.
The agency said it did not want to discourage legitimate compounding in the absence of unsupported claims. Officials advised women to talk with a doctor to determine if compounded drugs are their best option.
Compounded drugs are not reviewed by the FDA for safety and effectiveness, and the agency said it encouraged patients to use agency-approved medicines whenever possible.
The International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists said the FDA action would deny many women access to products that may help them when approved therapies do not or cause side effects.
"Thousands of doctors are making patient-by-patient decisions that compounded hormones are medically appropriate ... This is a decision that should be left to doctors," L.D. King, executive director of the pharmacists' group, said in a statement.
"We intend to fight this," King added in an interview.
Phil Pylant, owner of Village Compounding Pharmacy, said his company simply followed doctors' instructions when providing the hormones and did not make any health claims. He said the company would comply with legal obligations.
"We don't break the law here," he said.
Officials at the other pharmacies could not immediately be reached or referred questions to the compounding pharmacists' group.
The Case for Real FoodMore than just vitamins? (Tony Cenicola/The New York Times)
Is there more to a carrot than beta carotene? Is lycopene the best we get from tomatoes? And when we heap our plates with salmon, are we serving up something other than omega-3s?
For years the scientific community has viewed individual vitamins and nutrients as the best that food has to offer. Nutrition studies have isolated beta carotene, calcium, vitamin E and lycopene, among other nutrients, in order to study their health benefits in the body.
But now, after several vitamin studies have produced disappointing results, there’s a growing belief that food is more than just a sum of its nutrient parts. In a recent commentary for the journal Nutrition Reviews, University of Minnesota professor of epidemiology David R. Jacobs argues that nutrition researchers should focus on whole foods rather than only on single nutrients. “We argue for a need to return to food as the source of nutrition knowledge,'’ writes Dr. Jacobs with co-author Linda C. Tapsell, a nutrition researcher at the University of Wollongong in Australia.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
This may be news to Dr. Jacobs, but Dr. Royal Lee, the founder of Standard Process Labs was a proponent of real foods since 1929. Dr. Lee felt that the only thing a food manufacturer could do to food was reduce its value.
Dr. Jacobs believes that nutrition science needs to consider the effects of “food synergy,'’ the notion that the health benefits of certain foods aren’t likely to come from a single nutrient but rather combinations of compounds that work better together than apart. “Every food is much more complicated than any drug,’’ said Dr. Jacobs. “It makes sense to want to break it down. But you get a lot of people talking in the popular press about carbohydrates and fats in particular as if they were unified entities. They’re not. They’re extremely complicated.’’
The narrow focus on the health effects of single nutrients stems from the earliest days of nutrition research. In 1937, two scientists won a Nobel Prize for identifying vitamin C as the essential component in citrus fruit that prevents scurvy. The finding spurred interest by the scientific community to study other biologically active nutrients in foods.
For as long as observational studies have shown that diets rich in fruits and vegetables, unsaturated fat and fish, among other things, are associated with better health, nutrition researchers have been busily deconstructing these foods to identify the most potent nutrients. For example, vitamin E has been widely studied as a heart protector.
But attributing the broad health benefits of a diet to a single compound has proven to be misguided. Several studies have suggested an association between diets rich in beta carotene and vitamin A, for instance, and lower risk for many types of cancer. But in a well-known 1994 Finnish study, smokers who took beta carotene were found to have an 18 percent higher incidence of lung cancer. In 1996, researchers gave beta carotene and vitamin A to smokers and workers exposed to asbestos. But the trial had to be stopped because the people taking the combined therapy showed markedly higher risks for lung cancer and heart attacks.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
Synthetic nutrients will always cause damage to human biology, because by definition they are a foreign compound. The most arrogant and astoundingly stupid assumption of the 20th century was that Man was smarter or could somehow dominate Nature. Humans may have a cerebral cortex, but that is no guarantee that the consequences that flow from the decisions of Mans' cortex can in any way be predicted. Nature has done the trial and error on food and humans for about 100,000 years. I think a lot of the bugs have been worked out. Let's just try "keeping it simple" eh?
Since then, studies of other vitamins, notably vitamins E and B, have also failed to show a benefit. Manufacturers say the problem is that vitamins are too often examined in sick people while the real benefit may be in preventing disease. But Dr. Jacobs notes that the better explanation may simply be that food synergy, rather than the biological activity of a few key nutrients, is the real reason that certain diets, like those consumed in the parts of the Mediterranean and Japan, appear to lower the risks of heart disease and other health problems.
“People ask me what vitamins they should take,’’ said Dr. Jacobs. “I say ‘Don’t take any. Just make sure you have a nutrient-rich diet.’ ’’
New York Times -- November 5, 2007, 9:31 am
Fitness trumps fatness in longevity study
Tue Dec 4, 2007 4:36pm EST/ By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When it comes to living longer, fitness may trump fatness, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
Men and women who were fit, as judged by a treadmill test, but were overweight or obese had a lower mortality risk than those of normal weight but low fitness levels, the study in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed.
Exercise expert Steven Blair of the University of South Carolina and colleagues tracked about 2,600 people age 60 and up, examining how physical fitness and body fat affected their death rates over 12 years.
Those in the lowest fifth in terms of fitness had a death rate four times higher than participants ranked in the top fifth for fitness.
"Being fit provides protection against mortality in these men and women 60 and older, whether they're normal weight, overweight or obese," Blair said in a telephone interview.
The findings are particularly relevant as people in the United States and many other countries live increasingly sedentary lifestyles and obesity rates remain high. At the same time, the populations are aging in many nations.
"I believe we have an obesity epidemic. It's a bad sign. We should not ignore obesity," Blair said. "But what happens all too often is we focus nearly exclusively on obesity and forget the activity and fitness part."
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
I couldn't agree more. These two phenomena are paired. It really gets down to lifestyle and integrating a time for fitness into your life. The key is finding a type of exercise and a time that works. That is going to be a little different for everyone. For me it is yoga and swimming at the local "Y" but it could be almost any form of exercise.
For seniors the key is low impact. Joints that may have OA (osteoarthritis) often do much better on a bike or in a pool. Running is not the best due to the harsh impacts the knees, hips and lumbar spine gets.
MODEST EFFORT HELPS
The researchers assessed the fitness of the participants using a treadmill test, seeing how long they could walk while the treadmill's incline increased. They measured body mass index -- calculated from a person's weight and height -- as well as waist circumference and body fat percentage.
The study showed that even a modest effort to improve physical activity can provide health benefits, the researchers said. Those in the bottom fifth in terms of fitness were about twice as likely to die than those in the next fifth.
"You shouldn't be scared and think, 'Oh, I'm overweight, I'm obese, it's useless for me to be physically active,'" Dr. Xuemei Sui, another University of South Carolina researcher who worked on the study, said in a telephone interview.
Drastic steps may not be needed, the researchers said.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
Better words were never spoken. Its not about drastic, but gradual. Integrate a little then expand as it feels good, better and best. The key is to get started and break free of the inertia of doing nothing.
All too often people think about the action step, but then don't follow through. GET INTO ACTION!
"If you're overweight or obese and you're sedentary and unfit and you start taking three 10-minute walks a day and you do that at least five days a week, you're not going to lose an enormous amount of weight," Blair said.
"You're going to still be heavy. But you're going to be much healthier if you do that," Blair said.
Blair also stressed the importance of a healthful diet including lots of fruit, vegetables and whole grains.
More than a third of U.S. adults are obese, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Obesity is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, certain types of cancer and the most common form of diabetes, the CDC said.
The CDC also has found that more than half of adults do not engage in regular physical exercise. Exercise cuts the chances of dying of coronary heart disease, as well as lowering the risk for stroke, colon cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure, the CDC said.
Week of Dec 31 2007 - Jan 4th 2008
Malnutrition 'a widespread risk'
A quarter of all adults admitted to hospital and care homes in the UK are at risk of malnutrition, a major survey has found.
The British Association for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (Bapen) collected data on 11,665 new admissions to 372 institutions over three days.
The association is calling for nutrition screening on admission as standard for all patients.
Ministers said an action plan had been launched to improve services.
HOSPITAL PATIENTS' RISK
Under 20 years old: 30%
20-29: 27%
30-39: 27%
40-49: 24%
50-59: 22%
60-69: 26%
70-79: 28%
80-89: 33%
Over 90: 38%
DR. OLEJAK’S COMMENTARY:
If you’ve ever visited the British Isles you’ll know that the diet of our friends across the pond is abysmal. However, I’d venture that if hospital admissions were looked at across the USA over a given period we’d find a similar picture. One only has to look at a cross section of what’s in shoppers carts to prove this out. It’s mostly dead food (processed garbage - that is soda, chips, cookies, frozen dinners, canned food, and hydrogenated baked products) and it does not take a brain surgeon to figure out that if you want a live body - you’ve got to eat live food.
The Bapen survey found that it was not just older patients who were at risk of malnutrition.
Patients under the age of 30 had a 27% risk of malnutrition, compared with a 34% for those over 80.
Health impact
Malnourished people stay in hospital longer, succumb to infection more often and visit their GP more frequently.
They also require longer-term care and more intensive nursing care.
However, the symptoms may not be immediately obvious.
DR. OLEJAK’S COMMENTARY:
If fact, many of the symptoms of under-nutrition do not show up for 20 to 25 years. It takes about that long to damage organs fed on macro-nutrients alone. The body needs more than empty carbs, low quality fats, and denatured protein to build healthy tissue. It requires whole foods rich in live phytonutrients that are only found in raw organic foods and herbs. Cooking, canning, processing and freezing all damages these fragile, yet vital, nutrients.
Professor Marinos Elia, Bapen chair, said: "This finding establishes - if there was any doubt - that malnutrition is a major public health issue in the community that must be addressed both at source and when individuals are admitted into care.
"All hospitals and care homes should implement nutrition screening on admission to ensure that all those at risk - no matter their age or physical appearance - are identified and an appropriate and individual nutritional care plan is provided."
MALNUTRITION EFFECTS
Impaired immune responses
Reduced muscle strength and fatigue
Increased difficulties in breathing
Impaired thermoregulation
Impaired wound healing
Apathy, depression and self-neglect
Poor libido
DR. OLEJAK’S COMMENTARY:
As you consider the items on this list how many of these problems are people taking expensive, side-effect laden drugs for? Dr. Lee, a pioneer in nutrition, said this: “you can’t treat the disease of starvation with the substitution of poisons.” No truer words have been spoken, yet a populus fed on the pablum of drug ads does not see this simple truth -- yet!
In 2004, the Department of Health issued core standards for the NHS which commit trusts to providing patients with a balanced and nutritional diet.
Two years later, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence issued guidelines recommending that all new patients be routinely screened on admission and offered specialist nutritional support if necessary.
But charities such as Age Concern complain malnutrition remains prevalent because policy is not necessarily being put into practice.
Nurses, it is often argued, simply do not have the time to ensure patients are eating properly.
The problem is an expensive one, thought to cost the NHS more than £7bn every year.
The Bapen survey found that 89% of hospitals and 82% of care homes who took already have screening policies in place.
Ivan Lewis, Care Services Minister, said the government had launched a nutrition action plan to improve monitoring and care of patients.
He said: "We know that good nutrition is central to people's good health and ability to recover from illness.
"It is important that every older person is given a nutritional screening which is reviewed on a regular basis."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/7112742.stm
Published: 2007/11/27 02:07:23 GMT
Quinoa & Feta Salad Recipe3/4 cup Quinoa
1/2 cup raw cashews
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
2 stalk celery, finely sliced
1 cup seedless grapes, halved
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 lime, juiced
Sea salt and fresh ground black pepper
Directions: bring a large pan of lightly salted water to a boil. Add quinoa and simmer for 12-15 minutes or until the grains are tender. Drain, rinse, and drain again thoroughly. Spread quinoa on a baking pan to dry.
In a dry, heavy frying pan, roast the cashews over moderate to low heat, stirring frequently until they are golden yellow. Be careful not to burn. Allow to cool and chop lightly.
In a large bowl, combine dried quinoa, nuts, herbs, celery, grapes and feta. Squeeze lime juice over all, add olive oil and season. Adjust seasonings to taste. Let stand one hour before serving.
Nutrition Info: 349 calories, 19g of fat, 10g protein, 37g carbs, 4g fiber, and 162g sodium
'Burned foods' linked to cancers
12/03/07
Women who eat crisps or chips every day may double their chances of ovarian or womb cancer, say scientists.
The fears surround acrylamides, chemicals produced when you fry, grill or roast a wide range of foods.
Dutch researchers quizzed 120,000 people on their eating habits, and found that women who ate more acrylamide appeared more at risk.
UK experts say other factors could be to blame, and urged women there was not need to panic.
General advice, resulting from this project, is to avoid overcooking when baking, frying or toasting carbohydrate-rich foods
EU spokesman
Laboratory tests highlighted as a possible danger five years ago, but the University of Maastricht study, published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, is the first to find a link between acrylamides in the diet and cancer risk.
Food which has been coloured or burned by cooking is far more likely to contain acrylamides.
Food experts say it is virtually impossible to eliminate them from our diets altogether.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
Since the Paleolithic Era early humans have burned food. I'm certain early humanoids charred the odd antelope. The problem is that those same humans ate a diet that was also about 55% raw foods (roots, tubers, berries, fruits and no cultivated grains). Modern man eats the browned foods with acrylamides plus we eat a whole lot of processed dead food. The raw and live foods is what's missing for the detox function. Foods like Brocolli that is rich is I-3-C (indole - 3 - carbinol a powerful liver detoxifying agent)
The Dutch study followed the 120,000 volunteers - 62,000 of whom were women - for 11 years after their initial questionnaire, during which time 327 of them developed endometrial (womb) cancer, and 300 developed ovarian cancer.
Analysis of these findings suggested that those who ate 40 micrograms of acrylamide a day - equivalent to half a pack of biscuits, a portion of chips or a single packet of crisps - were twice as likely to fall prey to these cancers compared with those who ate much less acrylamide.
Despite the size of the study, the researchers said that the results needed to be confirmed by other research.
Golden brown
In the UK, there are approximately 6,400 cases of womb cancer, and 7,000 cases of ovarian cancer a year.
Women shouldn't be unduly worried by this news
Lesley Walker
Cancer Research UK
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
I disagree. I think women need to consider acrylamide consumption in the context of all the other toxic stuff they are ingesting; such as medication, processed food, cosmetics (via the skin), alcohol, tobacco, and of course there is all the pollution in the air and water. It is not one thing that can be the trigger for cancer, it is one thing along with a lot of other things that creates a tipping point.
A spokesman for the Food Standards Agency urged people to try a balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables.
"This new study supports our current advice, which already assumes that acrylamide has the potential to be a human carcinogen.
"Since acrylamide forms naturally in a wide variety of cooked foods, it is not possible to have a healthy, balanced diet that avoids it."
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
No one is going to stop eating toast, but there are a great many foods that you can avoid that will vastly reduce the concentration of acrylamides in the diet; such as chips, French fries, and blackened foods.
Experts at the EU said that food should not be overcooked.
An EU spokesman said: "General advice, resulting from this project, is to avoid overcooking when baking, frying or toasting carbohydrate-rich foods.
"French fries and roast potatoes should be cooked to a golden yellow rather than golden brown colour."
However, Dr Lesley Walker, from Cancer Research UK said that it was hard to be sure that the extra cancers were due to just acrylamides, rather than some other unhealthy component of the women's diets.
"Women shouldn't be unduly worried by this news. It's not easy to separate out one component of the diet from all the others when studying the complex diets of ordinary people."
The food industry says it has made efforts to reduce the acrylamides within processed foods in recent years.
A study published in 2005 found no evidence that acrylamide increased the risk of breast cancer.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/7124501.stm
Natural Products in the Clinical Treatment of Mental Illness
A Profile of Dr. James Greenblatt, MD By Joe Leonard
Inositol
Inositol is a naturally occurring isomer of glucose and a key intermediate molecule of second messenger signal transduction pathways used by serotonergic, cholinergic, and noradrenergic neurons. Inositol is believed to play an important role in the intracellular phosphatidyl inositol second messenger system to which several key serotonin receptor subtypes are linked. As such, compounds containing inositol may represent novel therapeutic agents in treating some psychiatric disorders.
Dr. James Greenblatt of McLean Hospital, a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital, is currently using inositol supplementation as part of the treatment of patients with mental illnesses, particularly depression, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
A considerable body of research is accumulating that inositol plays an important role in treating these mental illnesses. Inositol is likely involved in signal transduction pathways involving serotonin, a neurotransmitter that becomes out of balance in several of these illnesses. Inositol’s efficacy in the absence of side effects makes it an attractive addition to treatment plans for specific mood disorders.
DR. OLEJAK’S COMMENTARY:
We have yet to understand fully the importance of complex food nutrients in the management of mental illness, however, it stands to reason that by providing the building blocks for neurological function the body stands a much better chance of repairing itself. Dr. Lee, one of the pioneers of whole food nutrition, always said: "you can't cure the disease of starvation with drug therapy."
Depressive patients show decreased levels of inositol in their cerebrospinal fluid (Levine et al., 1997) and inositol has a similar therapeutic profile to pharmaceutical selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) often used to treat depression (Mishori et al., 1999).
Serotonin plays a definitive role in OCD as well and Fux et al. (1996) brought about significant improvement in OCD patients by administration of 18 grams/day of inositol in a random, double-blind, placebo-controlled study (p=0.04 relative to control).
Treatment with 12 grams of inositol per day (vs. placebo) has also been shown to significantly reduce the severity and frequency of panic attacks in patients with panic disorder (Benjamin et al., 1995) in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover experiment. The average number of panic attacks per week fell from 10 to 3.5 in patients receiving inositol.
Recently, Palatnik et al. (2001) completed a double-blind, controlled, crossover trial of inositol vs. fluvoxamine (Luvox®, Faverin®) in the treatment of panic disorder that reinforces previous research that inositol is effective in treating this serious illness. Fluvoxamine is an effective drug for treating panic disorder in the short term, though its side effects of nausea and tiredness often cause patients to stop taking it.
In this study, 20 patients taking inositol (up to 18 grams/day) showed improvements on the Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety, agoraphobia scores, and the Clinical Global Impressions scale, that were comparable with fluvoxamine. In the first month of treatment, inositol reduced the number of panic attacks per week by 4 compared with a reduction of 2.4 per week with fluvoxamine, a significantly improved outcome (p=0.049). Side effects were considerably less with inositol than with fluvoxamine. This is the first comparison of inositol with an established drug for treatment of panic disorder and suggests inositol may be just as effective as some drugs in the treatment of this disorder, with fewer side effects.
The side effects of inositol are minimal. It is speculated that inositol’s regulation of serotonin may enhance sleep and help patients with insomnia, though there are not currently any valid clinical studies to back this up.
The action of inositol in treating psychological disorders is largely theoretical. Inositol is known to act as a second messenger for a number of neurotransmitters in the brain. Antidepressant medications, such as SSRIs, increase the amount of neurotransmitter in neuronal synapses within 24 hours by blocking the receptors that sequester them. However, Greenblatt points out that the psychological effects of this inhibition can take 2-4 weeks to manifest, suggesting that second messengers in the biochemical pathways of neurotransmission, such as inositol, are likely to be involved.
Inositol is not considered an essential dietary nutrient, because it is made in the body and is shuttled around to various tissues as needed. Overconsumption of sugar, however, may disrupt the inositol shuttle system and associated second messenger pathways, essentially leading to deficiency.
Often, the patients that Greenblatt treats are not able to make positive dietary changes, but he has shown that supranutritional doses of inositol are effective in treating illnesses even when the diet is lacking in some way. He has also used inositol in conjunction with SSRIs, particularly where high doses of SSRIs cause sleep disturbances. Inositol can be taken with the medication to alleviate these disturbances.
Greenblatt has used inositol effectively in treating obsessive-compulsive disorder in both children and adults. He has been able to use inositol to treat children with OCD without requiring any other medical intervention. In adults he has used it alone to treat sleep disturbances.
In most clinical research trials, 10-18 grams of inositol are used in treatment. Greenblatt reports that he rarely uses more than 10 grams and in children he successfully uses much lower amounts, approaching physiological doses (2 grams or less per day).
Greenblatt is excited about current research on inositol for treating mental illnesses in children because it seems it sometimes can be used alone without the need for pharmaceutical drugs. He is anxious to get the word out to other psychiatrists who are reluctant to use a new and purely nutritional product without the research to back it up. The body of published literature on inositol in treating mental illness is significant, but it still has not been incorporated into mainstream clinical thinking because of the difficulty in getting past the heavy drug company influence in mental health. A major academic question Greenblatt asks is, why?
“There is scientific literature in peer reviewed psychiatric journals demonstrating that inositol appears to work as effectively as SSRIs (Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil),” Greenblatt said. “Studies show consistent improvement in symptoms, significantly better than placebo.”
Because inositol is a natural substance that is safe and effective, without significant side effects, Greenblatt believes it may be particularly effective for use in the treatment of geriatric and pediatric populations before addressing their illnesses with pharmaceutical medications.
Greenblatt has been interested in nutritional medicine since the early 1980s in medical school. He completed traditional training in adult psychiatry and child psychiatry and believes medications play an important role in mental health. However, he does not believe this role should be primary to effective nutritional and dietary approaches to treating illness.
One of Greenblatt’s main goals is to educate mental health professionals in the use of nutrition and dietary supplements as alternatives to pharmaceuticals. Since the mid 1980s, he has treated thousands of children with both therapy and medication, but during the past 10 years he has become primarily interested in helping people find alternative therapies for treating psychiatric disorders.
“Patients are looking for alternatives,” he said. “They are going to alternative practitioners and coming home with a list of perhaps 30 synthetic supplements to take for depression. There is little scientific research to support the use of many of these supplements, and more importantly, they are not getting better.”
Greenblatt did an internship with allergist Marshal Mandel in the 1970s. His introduction to using alternative medicine in mental illness was observing the behavioral responses of people to food allergies. “I saw tapes of very sick patients, be it ADHD, schizophrenia, or depression, before and after eliminating certain foods that they were allergic to,” Greenblatt said. “The differences were dramatic!”
The future of inositol in mental health
In spite of the evidence that inositol is effective in treating mental illness, the medical community is slow to adopt its use. In order to get the word out, Greenblatt wants to examine inositol in a host of pediatric disorders that are responsive to SSRIs: depression, panic disorder, and OCD. He intends to repeat previous successful adult studies on children. Inositol in pediatric OCD will be the first study he plans to conduct. It may take a year or more to complete and two years before appearing in a peer-reviewed journal.
“It is important to wait for scientific research,” he said. “But it is also OK to begin to utilize nutritional interventions that are not harmful and appear to be therapeutic. Inositol is often a third line treatment for OCD. Medications are used first, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense that inositol is not used first, particularly in children and geriatric populations [on whom drugs may have the most adverse effects].
“What does it take for the medical community to accept inositol when the research has been done? I don’t know of any other nutrient in the psychiatric literature that has undergone the kind of scientific study that inositol has.
Many medications that we use in children are not approved for use in children. Most have only been studied in adults, with not a single study on children. Yet, we use them every day in children. We have no idea how they affect brain development or if they even work when we use them in children. Yet professionals are reluctant to use a safe herbal or nutritional supplement just because they say, ‘There is no research on it.’
“Up until a few years ago, all the antidepressants and neuroleptics (antipsychotics) had never been studied in children,” he said. “Now a few studies are coming out like the use of Luvox for OCD in children. These studies are funded by the drug companies. They are very short and they do show some benefit, but we just don’t know what their effects are over time. In addition, whenever you treat these disorders, particularly OCD, you always get a subset, sometimes 30% or 40%, that does not respond to medication. That is a whole other segment of the population that could benefit from nutritional intervention.”
Greenblatt recommends emphasizing nutrition with whole foods and whole food concentrates with higher-dose supplementation in certain cases.
“The difficult concept is that what we want to recommend to our patients is to stop eating sugar, junk food, and white flour, which is going to help a large majority of our child patients,” Greenblatt said. “When you look at even the adult mentally ill patients, they are just living on junk food. To address these lifestyle issues is clearly the first goal. But, if they are not able to change their diet right away, are there other alternatives that we can use? Clearly the food we are feeding our children as a culture is destroying brain cells and having an adverse effect on growth and development. The kids who are biologically vulnerable to mental illnesses are going to develop them at much earlier ages and I think in much more severe forms.”
OPC
Dr. Greenblatt is also interested in the use of oligoproanthocyanidins (OPCs) in the treatment of mental disorders, particularly for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). OPCs have been used for many years in Europe for vascular complaints such as hemorrhoids and varicose veins. Greenblatt has seen improvements in the electroencephalograms (EEGs) of patients with ADHD and improved handwriting, attention, and behavior in children with ADHD, an effect also observed with stimulant drugs used to treat ADHD.
“We have found that people respond to OPC whether or not they have a diagnosis of ADHD,” Greenblatt said. “They are generally more focused and more attentive. Depressed patients show an improvement of mood and energy level. PMS is a common complaint for which we have used OPC with good success.”
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
The use of Vitex is also a very helpful herb. Very often a wide variety of PMS complaints can be helped using Vitex alone or in combination with other nutrients that support endocrine function.
In treating ADHD with OPC, Greenblatt sees about a 60% success rate in adults and slightly less than that in children. “It is not that every patient gets better,” Greenblatt said. “But for a non-medical intervention it has been quite successful.”
As a consequence of administering OPC to treat psychiatric illnesses, Greenblatt is also hearing qualitative reports from patients of very rapid improvements in joint pain that are noticeable within a couple weeks of starting OPC. “Older patients will often report that the joint pain they have had for 20 years is better,” Greenblatt said. “Then they will suggest it to their relatives. Joint pain has really been probably the most dramatic improvement I have seen with the OPC.”
The effect on joint pain may be because OPC prevents the breakdown of collagen, a structural molecule in joints and blood vessels. This may also explain why OPC is reported to improve varicose veins.
Diet is a major component of Greenblatt’s supplement protocol. Adults and children who can make positive dietary changes have a much higher likelihood of success. “OPC sometimes can work without significant dietary interventions and lifestyle changes, but clearly it works better with those changes.”
OPC is found in pine bark, grape seed, Ginkgo biloba, and other plant sources and a question arises as to what is the best source of OPC to use therapeutically. Clinically, Greenblatt has observed that some people respond to one source of OPC better than another, but in general patients do better taking a mixed source of OPC, such as OPC Synergy™ (Standard Process Inc.).
References
Benjamin, J. et al. 1995. Double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover trial of inositol treatment of panic disorder. Am J Psychiatry 52: 1084-1086.
Fux, M. et al. 1996. Inositol treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Am J Psychiatry 153(9): 1219-1221.
Levine, J et al. 1997. Controlled trials of inositol in psychiatry. Eur Neuropsychopharmacol 7(2): 147-155.
Mishori, et al. 1999. Combination of inositol and serotonin reuptake inhibitors in the treatment of depression. Biol Psychiatry 45: 270-273.
Palatnik, A. et al. 2001. Double-blind, controlled, crossover trial of inositol versus fluvoxamine for the treatment of panic disorder. J Clin Psychopharmacol 21(3): 335-339.
Dietary supplement use widespread among U.S. youth
Mon Oct 1, 2007 4:35pm EDT
By Megan Rauscher
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A study published Monday suggests that more than 30 percent of American children take dietary supplements daily -- most often multivitamins and multiminerals.
DR. OLEJAK’S COMMENTARY:
What is a vitamin? What is a mineral? What is bioavailable? What can be assimilated? What is treated as foreign by the human body? All important questions to ask before putting potentially toxic compounds into a developing body; don’t you think?
"Dietary supplements provide a consistent daily source of nutrients for nearly one-third of U.S. children, yet individual and national-level estimates of nutrient intake rarely account for them," researchers note in a report in the October issue of Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.
"Given such extensive use, nutrient intakes from dietary supplements must be included to obtain accurate estimates of overall nutrient intake in children," Dr. Mary Frances Picciano, of the Office of Dietary Supplements at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues conclude.
DR. OLEJAK’S COMMENTARY:
Dr. Picciano is wrong! Before one can ask about ‘accurate estimates of nutrient intake in children’ -- one must first ask ‘what is a nutrient?” A nutrient is descernbable and has certain properties. For starters, nutrients are part of whole food complexes. They cease to be nutrients when they are isolated from the co-factors and synergists that are required for their assimilation and utilization. Taking a Flintstone vitamin is about as close to a nutrient as eating coal tar. Sound outrageous? Not so, consider the following: Flintstone vitamins are colored with artificial colors like FD&C Yellow and Red, they have preservatives to maintain their freshness (how something dead can remain fresh is beyond comprehension), and they are all made in a laboratory from the same starting material - you guessed it - coal tar; a cheap source of carbon. Now consider a ripe apple ready to be plucked from the branch.
In an analysis of data on 10,136 children aged 18 or younger participating in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1999-2002), they discovered that 31.8 percent had used dietary supplements in the past month.
This included 11.9 percent of infants younger than 1 year, 38.4 percent of children age 1 to 3 years, 40.6 percent of 4- to 8-year-olds, 28.9 percent of 9- to 13-year-olds, and 25.7 percent of 14- to 18-year olds.
DR. OLEJAK’S COMMENTARY:
Why are 11.9% of infants younger than a year on supplements? These children should be on breast milk and the mothers should be eating an organic whole foods diet. Any supplementation a child might need can be fed to the mother. The sad “missing” in this statistic is that if they are not on mothers milk then they are on synthetic milk, Formula, a scary concoction of isolated neutraceuticals that some panel of Ph.D’s felt would approximate what the human body needs. This is the height of educational arrogance. It is based on assumptions of knowing what nature has intended without understanding all the facts. Take just one micronutrient, proanthocyanadins, found richly in fresh berries. The nutrients found in one bowl of organic blueberries fed to a breast-feeding mom and ultimately ending up in breast milk will never be found in any bottle of formula no matter how scientifically formulated. One simple observation will prove this fact: create a blade of grass in a laboratory from a collection of dead chemicals. Can’t be done!
Multivitamin and multimineral supplements were by far the most common dietary supplement used (18.3 percent), followed by single vitamins (4.2 percent), single minerals (2.4 percent) and botanicals (0.8 percent).
Picciano and colleagues also found that children who reported having taken supplements in the previous month took them regularly, with more than half having taken a supplement 30 times in the past month and more than 60 percent having taken supplements for at least 1 year.
Children who were on the thin side were more apt to take dietary supplements regularly than were children who were heavier. Children from "higher" income families were also more apt to pop a multivitamin or multimineral daily.
The researchers also report that more non-Hispanic white and Mexican American children (38.3 percent and 22.4 percent, respectively) used supplements than non-Hispanic black children (18.8 percent).
SOURCE: Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, October 2007.
Exercise on par with drugs for aiding depression
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Regular exercise may work as well as medication in improving symptoms of major depression, researchers have found.
In a study of 202 depressed adults, investigators found that those who went through group-based exercise therapy did as well as those treated with an antidepressant drug. A third group that performed home-based exercise also improved, though to a lesser degree.
Importantly, the researchers found, all three groups did better than a fourth group given a placebo -- an inactive pill identical to the antidepressant.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY
What this shows, of course, is that it is all in the mind; the necessary chemicals that is. And the Pharmaceutical industry uses TV and radio ads to prey upon the fears and insecurities of people to sell their products.
Get some exercise! The answer is not in a pill, it's inside. Take the initiative and take the first step, then another, and another until you've integrated to action. Martin Luther King said: "you don't need to see the top of the staircase to take the first step." Take that step and unseen forces will come to your aid!
While past studies have suggested that exercise can ease depression symptoms, a criticism has been that the research failed to compare exercise with a placebo. This leaves a question as to whether the therapy, per se, was responsible for the benefit.
The new findings bolster evidence that exercise does have a real effect on depression, according to the researchers.
Doctors may not start widely prescribing exercise as a depression treatment just yet. But for patients who are motivated to try exercise, it could be a reasonable option, the study authors say.
"If exercise were a drug, I'm not sure that it would receive FDA approval at this time," noted study author Dr. James A. Blumenthal, a professor of medical psychology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.
"But," he told Reuters Health, "there is certainly growing evidence that exercise may be a viable alternative to medication, at least among those patients who are receptive to exercise as a potential treatment for their depression."
The study, published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, included 202 men and women age 40 and older who were diagnosed with major depression. They were randomly assigned to one of four groups: one that worked out in a supervised, group setting three times per week; one that exercised at home; one that took the antidepressant sertraline (Zoloft); and one that took placebo pills.
After 16 weeks, the patients completed standard measures of depression symptoms.
By the end of the study, Blumenthal's team found, 47 percent of patients on the antidepressant no longer met the criteria for major depression. The same was true of 45 percent of those in the supervised exercise group.
In the home-based exercise group, 40 percent had their symptoms go into remission. That compared with 31 percent of the placebo group.
There are several theories on why exercise might improve depression. For example, physical activity seems to affect some key nervous system chemicals -- norepinephrine and serotonin -- that are targets of antidepressant drugs, as well as brain neurotrophins, which help protect nerve cells from injury and transmit signals in brain regions related to mood.
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY
What they don't tell you in the ads when they say: "if diet and exercise arn't enough talk to your doctor about Celebrationex" is that the drugs permanently damage your brains ability to create and use those key chemicals; norepinepherine and serotonin. Brain physiology is tricky. The brain can become addicted to any substance. Look at something as benign as sugar. Now put a chemical in the brain that is designed to alter brain chemistry and you've got a highly addicted (and profitable) population hooked.
Exercise may also boost people's feelings of self-efficacy and promote positive thinking. Some experts speculate that group exercise, with its social aspect, may have added benefits.
Though the home exercise group in this study did better than the placebo group, it's not clear whether it's as good as supervised classes, according to Blumenthal. "Home exercise may be more convenient," he noted, "but patients not push themselves as hard on their own."
He added that supervised exercise may also be safer for some people, such as those with heart disease.
SOURCE: Psychosomatic Medicine, September 2007.
High GI Carbs Give Rise To Fatty Livers
24 Sep 2007
A new US study on mice suggests that a diet rich in carbohydrates with a high glycemic index (GI) not only expands waistlines but may also lead to fatty liver, a condition that results in liver failure and death.
The study is published in the September issue of the journal Obesity and is the work of Dr David Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children's Hospital Boston, and colleagues.
DR. OLEJAK’S COMMENTARY:
For a lot of people Glycemic Index (GI) is complicated and hard to understand. I like the terminology of this article because it puts carbs into two simple to understand categories: Rapidly Absorbed Carbs, so called RAC, and Slow Absorbed Carbs, SAC
Fatty liver is increasing in line with rising rates of obesity among Americans. The researchers hope to confirm their findings in a newly launched clinical trial with overweight children and to show that the trend can be reversed through changes in diet.
Fatty liver is becoming especially common among children, said Ludwig. Although many adult cases can be caused by alcoholism, that is not so in children, where between 1 in 4 and 1 in 2 overweight American children are thought to be affected by non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
That means millions of children are at elevated risk of getting full blown liver disease in adulthood, said Ludwig, who called it a "silent but dangerous epidemic".
DR. OLEJAK’S COMMENTARY:
If Baby Boomers are concerned about how their generation is going to break the bank of social security - this generation of obese children is going to bankrupt sickness care medicine. If your 25 and getting a heart attack, the only solution to this problem is prevention. The word is getting out slow; yet people are starting to take diet seriously enough to make a difference.
This problem is going to require a radical change in our thinking about food from something that fills our bellies to something that nourishes life and supports healthy cell division. The first thing that needs to done is create higher standards in the food industry. Most of the products that are sold today as food bear more resemblance to industrial chemicals than edible food. This is criminal. We don’t allow our children to buy dangerous drugs on the street corner yet we make an exception for toxic compounds in foods?
"Just as type 2 diabetes exploded into our consciousness in the 1990s, so we think fatty liver will in the coming decade," he added.
High GI foods include white bread, white rice, most processed grains such as breakfast cereals, and concentrated sugar. They raise blood sugar quickly because the starch is broken down into sugar quickly. These are also called rapidly absorbed carbohydrates (RAC).
Ludwig said the French delicacy "pâté de foie gras" (literally "pâté of fatty liver") was made by feeding ducks and geese on a diet rich in high GI grains.
Low GI foods include most vegetables, fruits, beans and unprocessed grains. The starch in them is digested slowly and therefore eating them raises blood sugar slowly. This is also called slowly absorbed carbohydrate (SAC).
DR. OLEJAK’S COMMENTARY:
The slowly absorbed carbs are found in whole grains in their natural form. Oatmeal is my favorite. Not the quick oats; that’s processed food, Yuk! Simple rolled oats is best. Oatmeal contains a special kind of fiber known as beta-glucan that regulates the flow of glucose into the blood stream.
Barley is another favorite. You can cook it like rice and serve it with just about any dish in place of rice.
Ludwig and colleagues carried out the study using two groups of laboratory mice. One group of mice were fed a high GI diet based on a type of cornstarch that is digested quickly, and the other a low GI diet, based on a more slowly digested cornstarch.
Both groups of mice consumed the same total number of calories, fat, protein and carbohydrate. The only difference was the GI value of the carbohydrate.
Both groups of mice weighed the same after 6 months. But there was a difference in fat deposits in the two groups.
The mice on the low GI diet had normal amounts of fat in their bodies, they were "lean", whereas the mice on the high GI diet had double the amount of fat throughout their bodies, in their blood and in their livers.
Ludwig explained that sugar released from high GI food ramps up insulin production, which tells the body to make and store fat. This is a burden to the liver because the pancreas produces the insulin and sends it straight to the liver, resulting in liver insulin levels way above the rest of the body.
Fatty liver usually has no symptoms, but it raises the risk of liver inflammation, which can lead to hepatitis, which is sometimes fatal.
DR. OLEJAK’S COMMENTARY:
Liver inflammation can be caught much earlier if the clinician knows what to look for. A simple test for c-reactive protien or an elevated erythrocyte sedimentation rate will raise the red flag of inflammation long before Hepatitis sets in.
A study on people living in Italy who ate high GI food showed they had fattier livers, but the study wasn't tightly controlled, whereas this study on mice shows that high GI carbohydrates can cause fatty liver in animals, regardless of other diet and lifestyle factors.
"Our experiment creates a very strong argument that a high-glycemic index diet causes, and a low-glycemic index diet prevents, fatty liver in humans," said Ludwig.
He and his team have just lauched a clinical trial involving overweight children aged from 8 to 17 who will be randomized to either a high GI or a low GI diet. They hope to show that a low GI diet can reverse fatty liver in overweight children.
Ludwig explained that the current standard treatment for being overweight involves putting children on low fat diets, but that doesn't work for many children with fatty liver:
"We think it's a misconception that the fat you're eating goes into the liver," he said.
Ludwig has a theory that obesity, sedentary lifestyles and eating too many refined carbohydrates are "synergistically" driving a fatty liver epidemic in children.
The irony, said Ludwig, is that low fat diets only make things worse, because they replace fat with sugar and starch (mostly high GI) that increases fat deposits in the body.
"Two low fat Twinkies, billed as a health food, contain the same amount of sugar as an oral glucose tolerance test, a test used to determine how much sugar someone can digest," said Ludwig.
Source: "Hepatic Steatosis and Increased Adiposity in Mice Consuming Rapidly vs. Slowly Absorbed Carbohydrate." Scribner, Kelly B., Pawlak, Dorota B., Ludwig, David S. Obesity 2007 15: 2190-2199.
'Proof still needed' for flu jab
There is not enough evidence to support the effectiveness of immunising older people against flu, fresh research in the US has concluded.
Researchers from George Washington University, Washington DC, say the benefits in reducing deaths among over 70s have been "greatly exaggerated".
DR. OLEJAK'S COMMENTARY:
I think many of us in the health field who've studied the issue have known for years that the flu shot is based on flawed science. Namely, that using an attenuated or killed virus from last years flu to protect against this years virus. If one gives a little thought to the basis of this assertion it can be proven wrong. Let's just examine one fact: viruses mutate as they move from host to host. Over the course of a year as much as 80% of a virus may have changed. This is a fact even the CDC acknowledges.
In addition to a flu shot not being able to protec
