The NetNutritionist Blog

By Serena Gordon
HealthDay Reporter
SATURDAY, April 26 (HealthDay News) — While enjoying a cola or two every day might seem harmless enough, recent research suggests that those tasty drinks could be compromising your bone health.

"There is enough evidence that high consumption of soda and carbonated beverages is associated with somewhat lower bone mass in children, and that's a real concern and people should be aware of it," said Dr. Lawrence Raisz, director of the University of Connecticut Center for Osteoporosis.

The exact mechanism behind the problem isn't clear, but experts believe that drinking soda — particularly colas — affects bone density in several ways. One reason may be that people who drink colas are simply less likely to get enough calcium and vitamin D in their diets, because the soda is replacing more nutritious beverages, such as milk or calcium-fortified juice.

Or, it could be related to the caffeine in colas, because caffeine has been linked to a higher risk of osteoporosis.

The third possible explanation focuses on one of the ingredients found in colas: phosphoric acid. Phosphoric acid can cause an imbalance in the body as the body seeks to neutralize the acid with calcium. If there isn't enough calcium in the diet, the body will take calcium from the bones.

"Phosphate is in milk, but milk also contains calcium and vitamin D. In soft drinks, there is just phosphoric acid and no calcium. Extra overzealous drinking may lead to a phosphoric acid imbalance, and if there's not enough calcium, the body goes to the bones to restore the balance," explained Dr. Primal Kaur, director of the Osteoporosis Center at Temple University Health Sciences Center in Philadelphia.

Low levels of calcium are associated with the development of osteoporosis, a disease that thins the bones so much that they're at risk of fracture. More than half of Americans, especially postmenopausal women, have an increased risk of developing osteoporosis, according to the National Osteoporosis Foundation.

In a study that included more than 2,500 people with an average age of about 60, researchers from Tufts University found that cola consumption by women was associated with lower bone mineral density at three hip sites, regardless of age, menopause, total calcium and vitamin D intake. The women reported drinking an average of five carbonated drinks a week, four of which were colas.

There was less of a problem with decaffeinated cola, but the findings were similar for diet soft drinks. The researchers didn't find an association between cola drinking and lower bone mass in men.

Results of the study were published recently in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

"Moderation is really important. If you really like soft drinks, you don't need to take them out of your diet completely, but limit yourself to one or two glasses" a week, Kaur said.

And, she added, make sure you're getting enough calcium and vitamin D to protect your bone health. Vitamin D needs vary by age, and where you live, so check with your doctor to find out how much vitamin D you should be consuming each day. Kaur said that if you're not getting at least 1,000 to 1,200 milligrams of calcium daily from your diet, you should take a calcium supplement to ensure you're getting adequate amounts of the mineral.

Another important way to prevent osteoporosis, according to Raisz, is to exercise.

"The standard recommendation is a half an hour a day for adults and an hour a day for kids, but anything is better than nothing," he said. "Try to walk at least a half a mile a day, and engage in a weight-bearing exercise of some sort."

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NaturalNews) There is new concern over evidence that growth and sex hormones in beef can cause genital abnormalities in boys, and early onset of puberty in girls.
British Veterinary Products Committee (VPC) member and chemical expert John Verall was appointed to the government's VPC to represent consumer interests. He recently defied a government gag order, revealing evidence from the study which showed a rise in the rates of breast and prostate cancer in the United States, where two-thirds of all cattle are pumped full of hormones.

Of special concern to Verall are the hormones melegestrol acetate, progesterone, testosterone, trenbolone and zeranol. These hormones are known to disrupt the body's natural balance, causing a number of biological effects. "There is clear evidence of the risk to human health posed by these hormones," Verall said, citing research that showed oestradiol is considered to be a cancer risk. Studies show that 97 of every 100,000 U.S. women have breast cancer, whereas only 67 of every 100,000 European women are afflicted.

Verall added that according to recent studies, children are particularly sensitive to these hormones, which can cause "sudden growth or breast development, even at levels which are difficult to detect in the laboratory."

Currently, the European Union prohibits the use of growth or sex hormones to speed the maturity of cattle and fatten them up, but there are doubts as to whether the ban has been enforced, because there is no testing for hormone residue in beef imported to the EU. The U.S. government has attempted to have the ban lifted, a move supported by Prime Minister Tony Blair and his administration.
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Long known for its role in preventing anemia in expectant mothers and spinal birth defects in newborns, the B vitamin folate, found in leafy green vegetables, beans and nuts has now been shown to blunt the damaging effects of heart attack when given in short-term, high doses to test animals. In a new study, an international team of heart experts at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere report that rats fed 10 milligrams daily of folate, also known as folic acid or vitamin B9, for a week prior to heart attack had smaller infarcts than rats who took no supplements. On average, researchers say, the amount of muscle tissue exposed to damage and scarred by the arterial blockage was shrunk to less than a tenth.

The team’s findings, set for publication in the April 8 edition of the journal Circulation, come just weeks after other international studies in humans suggested that low-dose folic acid supplements may prevent dementia in the elderly and premature births.
“We want to emphasize that it is premature for people to begin taking high doses of folic acid,” says senior study investigator David Kass, M.D., a professor at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Heart Institute.

“But if human studies prove equally effective, then high-dose folate could be given to high-risk groups to guard against possible heart attack or to people while they are having one,” says Kass.

The more likely and most practical advantage to ingesting supplements, he says, lies in folic acid’s potential to act as a short-term buffer for people who may be having a heart attack and who rush to their local emergency room complaining of chest pain.

Clinical trials are expected in the near future, although Kass says a major challenge in testing is that a high dose of folic acid for humans comparable to that given the rats would require an average-size adult to swallow more than 200 one-milligram pills per day, “an impractical and unrealistic regimen, even if the body excretes the excess.”

In addition, he cautions, “we do not yet know if folate is safe to consume in this high a dose, or how much or how little of it is needed to be effective,” citing 25 milligrams per day as the highest dose previously tested safe to consume in adults as.

Kass says that such large amount of folate may also yield unpredictable side effects. Some studies have linked the nutrient supplement to increased rates of colon and prostate cancer.

Each year, an estimated 565,000 first-time heart attacks occur in the United States, with an additional 300,000 recurrent heart attacks.

Results from the new study, conducted in rats - dozens were fed supplements and dozens more did not receive any - showed that overall pumping function during heart attack remained strong in vitamin B9-fortified animals.

The amount of blood pumped by the treated hearts during a 30-minute window when blood flow to the heart was restricted to simulate a heart attack stayed near normal for rodents, at an average ejection fraction of 73 percent. Meanwhile, it fell in the untreated group to 27 percent.

Similarly, the muscle wall at the front of the heart kept contracting during heartbeats, thickening by 37 percent in the supplement-fed group, but the muscle could barely compress, thickening by 5 percent, in the untreated group. (Sixty percent would be the normal amount of thickening in a healthy rat heart.)

Moreover, researchers found that an injection of folic acid into the bloodstream of rats that had never before taken supplements, within the first 10 minutes of a heart attack, was almost equally as effective as preventive therapy in reversing muscle damage, and in lowering infarct size by a factor of 10.

“Folic acid is already well known to be safe to consume in high doses in the short term, and it is very inexpensive, costing pennies per milligram, so its prospects look promising,” says Kass.

Researchers plan further tests to determine precisely why folate protects the heart, and to determine how effective it is in not-as-high doses. But they point out that it has long been known for its role in the normal workings of the cell’s principal energy source, the mitochondria, whose function is essential to maintaining healthy blood vessels.

It was this evidence that led to the latest study, which, says lead investigator An Moens, M.D., suggests that folate acts as an energy reserve in the heart, “providing much needed energy for muscle contraction, in the form of ATP, at the same time the heart is being starved for oxygen-carrying blood by a blocked artery.”

According to Moens, a postdoctoral cardiology research fellow at Johns Hopkins, study results showed that high-energy phosphate levels went down 43 percent in the blood of treated rats, but levels dropped by one-third more (by 66 percent) in untreated rats.

“With more fuel, the heart kept pumping even though its blood flow was reduced,” says Moens, now a cardiologist at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. “The smaller heart attacks seemed related to this better energy balance in the heart produced by the folate.”

In the study, heart function was monitored by more than two dozen key tests, such as echocardiogram and magnetic resonance imaging, as well as by blood analysis before, during and after the heart attack, when blood flow was allowed to resume in the coronary artery that had been blocked.

Among the team’s other findings that backed up the protective effects of folate on the heart were mild, slight dips in systolic blood pressure during heart attack in treated rats, while pressure fell in untreated animals by 25 percent. Similarly, blood flow was stable in the treated group, but dropped by 40 percent in untreated animals. Post-heart attack buildup of dangerous chemicals, known as reactive oxygen species, was halved in treated rats. And fatal arrhythmias, unstable heartbeats that can immediately follow a heart attack, also went down from 36.7 percent to 8.3 percent in the supplement-fed group.

“In future, we might just pop in an I.V., and give people high-dose folate while they are waiting for their catheterization or CT scans to search for blockages,” says Moens.

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People with larger stomachs in their 40s are more likely to have dementia when they reach their 70s, according to a study published in the March 26, 2008, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study involved 6,583 people age 40 to 45 in northern California who had their abdominal fat measured. An average of 36 years later, 16 percent of the participants had been diagnosed with dementia. The study found that those with the highest amount of abdominal fat were nearly three times more likely to develop dementia than those with the lowest amount of abdominal fat. “Considering that 50 percent of adults in this country have an unhealthy amount of abdominal fat, this is a disturbing finding,” said study author Rachel A. Whitmer, PhD, a Research Scientist of the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, CA, and member of the American Academy of Neurology.

“Research needs to be done to determine what the mechanisms are that link abdominal obesity and dementia.”
Having a large abdomen increased the risk of dementia regardless of whether the participants were of normal weight overall, overweight, or obese, and regardless of existing health conditions, including diabetes, stroke and cardiovascular disease.

Those who were overweight and had a large belly were 2.3 times more likely to develop dementia than people with a normal weight and belly size. People who were both obese and had a large belly were 3.6 times more likely to develop dementia than those of normal weight and belly size. Those who were overweight or obese but did not have a large abdomen had an 80-percent increased risk of dementia.

A large belly in mid-life has also been shown to increase the risk of diabetes, stroke, and coronary heart disease, but this is the first time researchers have demonstrated that it also increases risk of dementia.

In the study, women were more likely than men to have abdominal obesity, along with non-whites, smokers, people with high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes, and those with less than a high school level of education.

As with all observational studies, it is possible that the association of the abdominal obesity and dementia is not driven by the abdominal obesity, but rather by a complex set of health-related behaviors, for which abdominal obesity is but one part.

“Autopsies have shown that changes in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s disease may start in young to middle adulthood, and another study showed that high abdominal fat in elderly adults was tied to greater brain atrophy,” Whitmer said. “These findings imply that the dangerous effects of abdominal obesity on the brain may start long before the signs of dementia appear.”

The American Academy of Neurology, an association of more than 21,000 neurologists and neuroscience professionals, is dedicated to improving patient care through education and research. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis.

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By Michael Kahn

LONDON (Reuters) - Doctors are overprescribing antibiotics for common sinus infections and related conditions, possibly in the false belief they may help in cases where symptoms are protracted, researchers reported on Friday.

Bacteria can cause rhinosinusitis -- an inflammation of the sinuses -- but a virus such as the common cold is often a more likely culprit so antibiotics seldom work, the researchers reported in the journal Lancet.

Yet doctors still dole out the drugs more than they should. In the United States, for instance, 80 percent of sinus patients are prescribed an antibiotic while the proportion ranges from 72 percent to 92 percent in Europe.

"What tends to happen in practice is when patients have had symptoms for a while and go see their family doctor, the doctor assumes they have a bacterial infection and gives them antibiotics," said James Young, a statistician at the University Hospital Basel, who led the study.

"Our results show that is not a very good strategy."

Moderating antibiotics, which are useless against viruses, is critical because overuse of drugs is contributing to the rapid rise of drug-resistant bacteria, he added.

"The underlying idea is the increasing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics," Young said in a telephone interview. "That is fundamentally the problem, which means we need to limit the use of antibiotics to when they are really needed."

Analysis of nine previous studies did not show why doctors are overpresribing, but a false belief that antibiotics may help if symptoms are long-lasting may be influencing doctors, he added.

"What we can show is that the length of symptoms reported by the patient does not reliably distinguish between viral and bacterial infection, Young said.

Instead doctors should watch and wait for longer to see if antibiotics are truly needed, because viral infections -- as well as bacterial ones -- can last for weeks, the researchers said.

In their analysis, the researchers looked at more than 2,500 people with sinus infection-type complaints who had been treated with an antibiotic or a placebo.

Then they set a statistical model using that data to show that doctors would have to give 15 people the drugs before an additional patient was cured. This showed the drugs were not likely to help fight sinus infection-type symptoms, Young said.

"Antibiotics are not justified even if a patient reports symptoms for longer than 7-10 days," the researchers said.

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