Daily Archives: December 15, 2010

Osteoarthritis Knee Pain Relieved with Tai Chi

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BOSTON – A traditional Chinese martial art can help reduce pain and improve knee function among seniors with osteoarthritis, American researchers have found.

“Tai chi is a mind-body approach that appears to be an applicable treatment for older adults with knee osteoarthritis,” Dr. Chenchen Wang, co-author of a study published in The November issue of Arthritis Care & Research, said in a release.

Tai chi features slow, rhythmic movements designed to relax people and enhance balance, strength and flexibility.

In the study, researchers looked at 40 people with confirmed knee osteoarthritis from Boston who were in otherwise good health. They had an average age of 65.

Half the study participants took Yang-style tai chi sessions for one hour, twice a week for three months. The sessions included 10 minutes each of self-massage and review of principles, breathing techniques and relaxation, and 30 minutes of tai chi movements.

The rest took two 60-minute classes per week for three months to learn about diet and nutrition, and treatments for osteoarthritis. These participants also stretched for 20 minutes.

At the end of the 12-week period, people practising tai chi showed a significant decrease in knee pain on a standard pain scale compared with those in the control group.

The findings show the need to further evaluate the biological mechanisms of tai chi to extend its benefits to a wider population, Wang said.

No severe adverse events were reported.

Osteoarthritis affects an estimated 3,000,000 or one in 10 Canadians, according to the Arthritis Society

Health Risks Posed by Rating Raw Bean Sprouts

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OTTAWA – Cook those bean sprouts well, advises Health Canada, if you want to reduce the risk of exposure to food borne illness.

“Children, the elderly, pregnant women and those with weakened immune systems are particularly vulnerable to these bacteria and should not eat any raw sprouts at all,” Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said Wednesday.

“They should also avoid eating cooked sprouts unless they can be sure the sprouts have been thoroughly cooked.”

The agencies note that sprouts from alfalfa and mung beans are a popular choice for Canadians as a low-calorie, healthy ingredient for many meals. Onion, radish, mustard and broccoli sprouts, not to be confused with the actual plant or vegetable, are also options.

But they may carry harmful bacteria such as salmonella and E. coli, which can lead to serious illness.

The largest recent outbreak in Canada linked to sprouts was in the fall of 2005, when more than 648 cases of salmonella were reported in Ontario.

Healthy adults who choose to eat sprouts are urged to ensure they buy crisp ones that have been refrigerated and avoid those that appear dark or smell musty. They should also use tongs or a glove to place the sprouts in a plastic bag.

Symptoms from salmonella usually occur 12 to 36 hours after eating contaminated food, while symptoms from E. coli can occur within two to 10 days.

Symptoms can include nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, fever and stomach cramps. People who experience these symptoms should contact a doctor immediately. In extreme cases, E. coli can lead to acute kidney failure or even death.

Sleep Apnea Helped with Cannabis

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CHICAGO – Sleep apnea is a medical disorder characterized by frequent interruptions in breathing of up to ten seconds or more during sleep. The condition is associated with numerous physiological disorders, including fatigue, headaches, high blood pressure, irregular heartbeat, heart attack and stroke. Though sleep apnea often goes undiagnosed, it is estimated that approximately four percent of men and two percent of women ages 30 to 60 years old suffer from the disease.

One preclinical study is cited in the scientific literature investigating the role of cannabinoids on sleep-related apnea. Researchers at the University of Illinois (at Chicago) Department of Medicine reported “potent suppression” of sleep-related apnea in rats administered either exogenous or endogenous cannabinoids. Investigators reported that doses of delta-9-THC and the endocannabinoid oleamide each stabilized respiration during sleep, and blocked serotonin-induced exacerbation of sleep apnea in a statistically significant manner. No follow up investigations have taken place assessing the use of cannabinoids to treat this indication.

However, several recent preclinical and clinical trials have reported on the use of THC, natural cannabis extracts, and endocannabinoids to induce sleep and/or improve sleep quality.

Note: These studies were conducted in 2002

Lower Blood Pressure with Whole Grains

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Eating lots of whole grains could ward off high blood pressure, according to a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

In the study, men with the highest whole-grain consumption were 19 percent less likely to develop high blood pressure than men who ate the least amount of whole grains.

While refining grains removes their outer coating, whole grains retain their bran and germ, so they are richer in many nutrients, Dr. Alan J. Flint of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and his colleagues note in their report.

The most recent US guidelines recommend that people get at least 3 ounces, or 85 grams, of whole grains daily, and that they consume at least half of their grains as whole grains.

There’s evidence, the investigators note, that women who eat more whole grains are less likely to develop high blood pressure, also called hypertension, but there is less information on how whole grains might affect men’s heart health.

To investigate, Flint and his team looked at data from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, which has followed 51,529 men since 1986, when the study participants were 40 to 75 years old. They looked at a subset of 31,684 men free of hypertension, cancer, stroke or heart disease at the study’s outset. During 18 years of follow-up, 9,227 of them developed hypertension.

The men in the top fifth of whole grain consumption, who averaged about 52 grams daily, were 19 percent less likely than the men in the bottom fifth, who ate an average of about 3 grams of whole grains daily, to develop hypertension during follow-up.

When the researchers looked at separate components of whole grains, only bran showed an independent relationship with hypertension risk, with men who consumed the most at 15 percent lower risk of hypertension than men who ate the least. However, the researchers note, the amount of bran in the men’s diet was relatively small compared to their total intake of whole grain and cereal fiber.

The relationship between whole grain intake and hypertension risk remained even after accounting for men’s fruit and vegetable intake, use of vitamins, amount of physical activity, and whether or not they were screened for high cholesterol.

This suggests that the association was independent of these markers of a healthy lifestyle behavior pattern. It’s possible, the researchers say, that the men who ate more whole grains gained less weight over time.

The current findings, Flint and colleagues conclude, “Have implications for future dietary guidelines and for the prevention of hypertension.”

SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, September 2009.

Better Prostate Cancer Survival Tied to Vitamin B6

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Men with earlier-stage prostate cancer may have better survival odds if they get a little more than the recommended amount of vitamin B6 every day, a new study suggests.

The findings, reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, do not prove that vitamin B6 improves prostate cancer survival. But they do point to an association between survival and amounts of the vitamin that are readily attainable through a balanced diet.

Researchers found that among 525 Swedish men with prostate cancer, the one-quarter with the highest B6 intakes were 29 percent less likely than those with the lowest intakes to die of the disease during the study period.

Men in the former group averaged 2.2 to 2.9 milligrams of vitamin B6 per day, while those in the latter group got 1.3 to 1.9 milligrams daily. The recommended vitamin B6 intake for men age 50 and younger is 1.3 mg per day, while older men are encouraged to get 1.7 mg.

The protective effect of B6 appeared confined to men whose tumors had not yet spread beyond the prostate at the time of diagnosis.

When the researchers considered only these men, they found that those who got the most B6 had only 5 percent of the risk of dying as their counterparts with the lowest intakes of the vitamin.

The results offer “exciting preliminary support” for dietary factors in long-term prostate cancer survival, according to lead researcher Dr. Julie L. Kasperzyk, a post-doctoral fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

However, she told Reuters Health, the findings “will need to be confirmed or refuted in additional, larger studies before recommendations can be made to the general public or to prostate cancer patients.”

Vitamin B6 is found in a range of foods, including beans, potatoes, bananas, meat, chicken, peanut butter and certain fish, like salmon and tuna. It serves a variety of functions in the body — one being its role, together with other B vitamins, in DNA synthesis and repair.

Cancer arises from the uncontrolled growth of genetically abnormal cells — which, in theory, means that the B vitamins could affect the development or spread of certain cancers.

For their study, Kasperzyk and her colleagues looked at the intakes of vitamins B6, B12, folate, riboflavin and methionine among 525 prostate cancer patients who were followed for up to 20 years. Few men took dietary supplements, Kasperzyk said, so the study focused on consumption from food.

Overall, 42 percent of the men died of prostate cancer during the study period. The odds were lower, however, among those with the highest vitamin B6 intakes — although there was no evidence of protection among men diagnosed with advanced cancer.

None of the other nutrients was linked to prostate cancer survival.

Kasperzyk said that vitamin B6 has a number of functions in the body that are not shared by the other nutrients her team studied.

“What is most relevant to prostate cancer,” she explained, “is the potential link between vitamin B6 and reduced responsiveness of the prostate to testosterone.”

Quality of Your Supplements

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Once it’s determined that the ingredients are likely to be safe and effective, the final step is to identify a high-quality product. This step in the process can be particularly challenging because of the disparate manufacturing standards used throughout the dietary supplement industry.
Some industry groups have attempted to resolve this issue through self-regulation and industry-developed GMPs. Some private organizations have also attempted to address these problems by conducting laboratory analysis on dietary supplements and identifying problematic products. But none of these efforts provides a comprehensive, independent program for assuring product quality.

In 2001, the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) launched a new program to address the issue of dietary supplement quality.

A Snapshot of USP
  • Founded in 1820
  • Independent, nongovernmental, not-for-profit company
  • Three governing bodies made up entirely of volunteers
    • Convention membership (policy body)
    • Board of Trustees (fiduciary body)
    • Council of Experts and Expert Committees (scientific body)
  • Official standards-setting authority in the US
  • Sets quality standards for Rx and OTC drugs and dietary supplements

The USP program is the most rigorous and comprehensive dietary supplement quality program available. USP conducts a rigorous process of tests and reviews before awarding the USP-Verified Mark to a brand name dietary supplement. Manufacturers voluntarily apply for verification. The process ensures that the supplements meet USP’s high standards for integrity, purity, and potency:

  • Experienced USP scientists direct the testing of supplement samples in well-equipped laboratories. They test these supplements against the official, FDA-recognized public standards that USP itself establishes.
  • USP audits the supplement manufacturer’s facilities, practices, records, and quality control measures.
  • USP tests marketplace samples of verified products to ensure that they continue to retain ingredient strength and stability over their shelf life.
  • Where needed, USP helps manufacturers improve their quality systems or reformulate their products to deliver the intended ingredients.
  • USP reviews supplement labels to ensure that the ingredients are properly listed and that appropriate dosage information and warnings/cautions/contraindications are featured.
USP Verified Supplements
  • Reliably contain the ingredients listed on the product label in declared strengths and amounts.
  • Will break down and release ingredients in the body within a specified amount of time.
  • Do not contain harmful levels of contaminants.
  • Have been manufactured using Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) as defined by USP.

As of February 2007, over 800 dietary supplement products have received the USP-Verified Mark.

Stay Healthy With Dietary Fiber

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SYDNEY – Insoluble dietary fiber or roughage plays a vital role in the immune system, keeping certain diseases at bay, according to researchers.

The indigestible part of all plant-based foods pushes its way through most of the digestive tract unchanged, acting as a kind of internal broom. When it arrives in the colon, bacteria convert it to energy and compounds known as ’short chain fatty acids. These are already known to alleviate the symptoms of colitis, an inflammatory gut condition.

Similarly, probiotics and prebiotics, food supplements that affect the balance of gut bacteria, reduce the symptoms of asthma and rheumatoid arthritis, also inflammatory diseases. Until now no-one has understood why.

Breakthrough research by a Sydney-based team makes new sense of such known facts by describing a mechanism that links diet, gut bacteria and the immune system, the website Science Alert reported.

PhD student Kendle Maslowski and professor Charles Mackay from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, in collaboration with the Co-operative Research Centre for Asthma and Airways, have demonstrated that GPR43, a molecule expressed by immune cells and previously shown to bind short chain fatty acids, functions as an anti-inflammatory receptor.

The notion that diet might have profound effects on immune responses or inflammatory diseases has never been taken that seriously, said Professor Mackay. We believe that changes in diet, associated with western lifestyles, contribute to the increasing incidences of asthma, Type 1 diabetes and other autoimmune diseases. Now we have a new molecular mechanism that might explain how diet is affecting our immune systems.

Were also now beginning to understand that from the moment you’re born, its incredibly important to be colonized by the right kinds of gut bacteria, added Kendle.

The kinds of foods you eat directly determine the levels of certain bacteria in your gut.

Changing diets are changing the kinds of gut bacteria we have, as well as their by-products, particularly short chain fatty acids. If we have low amounts of dietary fiber, then were going to have low levels of short chain fatty acids, which we have demonstrated are very important in the immune systems of mice.

Mice that lack the GPR43 gene have increased inflammation, and poor ability to resolve inflammation, because their immune cells can’t bind to short chain fatty acids.

The role of nutrition and gut intestinal bacteria in immune responses is an exciting new topic in immunology, and recent findings including our own open up new possibilities to explore causes as well as new treatments for inflammatory diseases such as asthma, said Mackay.

The results were published Oct 29 in the journal Nature.

Happiness Understands the Application of No Pain, No Gain

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SAN FRANCISCO – ‘No pain, no gain’ adage applies to happiness too, according to new research.

People who work hard at improving a skill or ability, such as mastering a math problem or learning to drive, may experience stress in the moment, but experience greater happiness on a daily basis and longer term, a study suggests.

“No pain, no gain is the rule when it comes to gaining happiness from increasing our competence at something,” said Ryan Howell, professor of psychology at San Francisco State University.

“People often give up their goals because they are stressful, but we found that there is benefit at the end of the day from learning to do something well. And what’s striking is that you don’t have to reach your goal to see the benefits to your happiness and well-being.”

Contrary to previous research, the study found that people who engage in behaviors that increase competency, for example at work, school or the gym, experience decreased happiness in the moment, lower levels of enjoyment and higher levels of momentary stress.

Despite the negative effects felt on an hourly basis, participants reported that these same activities made them feel happy and satisfied when they looked back on their day as a whole. This surprising finding suggests that in the process of becoming proficient at something, individuals may need to endure temporary stress to reap the happiness benefits associated with increased competency.

The study examined whether people who spend time on activities that fulfill certain psychological needs, believed to be necessary for growth and well-being, experience greater happiness.

In addition to the need to be competent, the study focused on the need to feel connected to others and to be autonomous or self-directed, and it examined how fulfilling these three needs affect a person’s happiness moment by moment within a day.

For two days, participants reported how they spent each hour, the enjoyment and stress experienced in that hour, and whether the activity met their need for competency, connectedness to others or autonomy. A second group of participants completed a similar survey, but reported on the day as a whole.

While behaviors that increase competency were associated with decreased happiness in the moment, people who spent time on activities that met the need for autonomy or feeling connected to others experienced increased happiness on both an hourly and daily basis. The greatest increase in momentary happiness was experienced by participants who engaged in something that met their need for autonomy — any behavior that a person feels they have chosen, rather than ought to do, and that helps them further their interests and goals.

The authors suggest that shifting the balance of needs met in a day could help people find ways to cope with short term stress in the workplace. “Our results suggest that you can decrease the momentary stress associated with improving your skill or ability by ensuring you are also meeting the need for autonomy and connectedness, for example performing the activity alongside other people or making sure it is something you have chosen to do and is true to who you are,” Howell said.

The study was published online in the Journal of Happiness Studies.

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UK Drug Expert Says LSD and Cannabis Less Harmful than Alcohol

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LONDON – In what could come as a rude shock to many alcoholics and smokers, the British government’s drug adviser has said that drugs like Ecstasy, LSD and cannabis are less harmful than alcohol and cigarettes.

Criticizing former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s decision to rate cannabis as a Class B drug, David Nutt, the chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, accused him of “distorting and devaluing” scientific research.

Prof Nutt pointed out that smoking cannabis carried a “relatively small risk” of psychotic illness, and called for the use of a “harm” index to rate all drugs including alcohol and tobacco.

According to him, alcohol was fifth behind cocaine, heroin, barbiturates and methadone in causing harm, while tobacco was ninth, ahead of cannabis, LSD and Ecstasy.

He blasts the “artificial” separation of alcohol and tobacco from the illegal drugs.

“No one is suggesting that drugs are not harmful. The critical question is one of scale and degree,” the Times Online quoted him, as saying.

“We need a full and open discussion of the evidence and a mature debate about what the drug laws are for – and whether they are doing their job,” he said.

Prof Nutt added: “I think we have to accept young people like to experiment – with drugs and other potentially harmful activities – and what we should be doing in all of this is to protect them from harm at this stage of their lives.

“We therefore have to provide more accurate and credible information. If you think that scaring kids will stop them using, you are probably wrong.”

However, James Brokenshire, the Conservative home affairs spokesman, disagreed with Prof Nutt.

He said: “Giving simple labels of levels of harm risk gives a false impression of the dangers, Drugs like GBL [a 'party' drug] can be lethal if taken in combination with alcohol. “Rather than providing clearer evidence on the harms linked to illicit drugs, Professor Nutt is making an overtly political pitch and that isn’t helpful.”

Beer and Wine May Ruin Appetite

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SYDNEY – Wine, developed as a substitute for water not fit for drinking, could have an unhealthy effect on your appetite.

“However, alcohol is a drug that is abused and the repercussion of alcohol abuse over a long time can seriously affect most of the major organs of the body,” says Anna Kokavec, psychologist at the La Trobe University.

Kokavec and colleague Simon Crowe, a professor, are finding out exactly how alcohol affects the body by focusing on the links between alcohol consumption and appetite.

Alcoholics often seek treatment in a highly malnourished condition, “an issue that can lead to health problems like Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (condition that can lead to forms of amnesia and hallucinations),” says Kokavec.

This malnourishment was often attributed to the ‘poor dietary habits’ of alcoholics, but now Kokavec has uncovered another reason to explain malnourishment in heavy drinkers and the results speak for themselves, according to a La Trobe release.

“We confirmed that certain biochemical processes associated with appetite regulation do change when alcohol was consumed,” says Kokavec.

“The research provides enough evidence to question whether malnutrition and poor dietary behavior of alcoholics is the fault of the individual or whether it’s the consequences of alcohol and the role it plays in suppressing appetite,” says Kokavec.