Daily Archives: February 8, 2011

How Much Can Vitamins and Supplements Help your Skin?

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Age takes its toll on our skin, just as it does on other parts of our bodies. Exposure to sunlight and oxygen throughout the years produces unstable molecules called free radicals, which cause inflammation, damage skin cells, and ultimately increase the risk of developing skin cancer.

Although no magic pill can make you look 20 years younger, you can help your skin look as young as possible in a variety of ways. You probably already know the three surest ways to ensure youthful skin: protect your skin from the sun, don’t smoke, and eat a healthy diet.

Vitamins and Antioxidants for Skin

In addition to lifestyle changes, a variety of vitamins and antioxidants may also improve the health and quality of your skin. Although some vitamin and antioxidant treatments work from the outside in, others work from the inside out, targeting the harmful effects of sun damage and free radicals under the skin’s surface.

Eileen Ross started taking antioxidants to improve her health but shifted the focus to her skin when she started reading up on their benefits. “I developed a cocktail of vitamins and supplements so that I got the ones that were most beneficial for me,” says the 46-year-old preschool director from Smyrna, Ga.

After she started taking her “cocktail,” which includes vitamins E, C, B-12, and selenium, Ross noticed that she was getting more compliments on her skin. “I’ve heard that my skin is flawless or it looks very beautiful, very smooth,” she says.

Research is finding that some vitamins and antioxidants can reduce the look of fine lines and wrinkles, improve the look of the skin, and protect against further sun damage. Here are a few of the most effective vitamins and antioxidants for the skin:

Vitamins C and E and Selenium for Your Skin

Research has found that vitamins C and E, as well as selenium, can help protect the skin against sun damage and skin cancer and can actually reverse some of the discoloration and wrinkles associated with aging and sun exposure. These antioxidants work by speeding up the skin’s natural repair systems and by directly inhibiting further damage, says Karen E. Burke, MD, PhD, of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s department of dermatology.

Although you can find these nutrients in skin creams, the challenge with applying vitamins E and C to the skin is that the concentration in most creams tends to be low, and they can lose their effectiveness when exposed to air and light.

Burke recommends taking supplements containing 1,000 to 3,000 milligrams of vitamin C, 400 international units of vitamin E (in the D-alpha-tocopherol form), and 100-200 micrograms of selenium (l-selenomethionine) to gain the most benefit. (Don’t give selenium to children until they have all of their adult teeth because it can interfere with the proper formation of tooth enamel).

If you do use a topical form of these antioxidants, the most potent products contain 15% to 20% of vitamin C (non-esterified), 2% to 5% of vitamin E (D-alpha-tocopherol), and .02% to .05% selenium (l-selenomethionine).

Coenzyme Q10 for Your Skin

Coenzyme Q10 is a natural antioxidant in the body that helps the cells grow and protects them from the ravages of cancer. A drop in natural levels of coenzyme Q10 that occurs in our later years is thought to contribute to the skin aging process. A study published in the journal Biofactors found that applying coenzyme Q10 to the skin helped minimize the appearance of wrinkles. Most studies conducted so far have used a 0.3% concentration of coenzyme Q10.

Alpha-lipoic Acid for Your Skin

This antioxidant, when applied topically, may help protect the skin from sun damage. Studies have looked at creams with 3%-5% concentration, applied every other day and building up slowly to once daily, and found some improvement in sun-induced changes in the skin.

When applied topically in higher concentrations, alpha-lipoic acid can cause adverse effects in some people.

Retinoic Acid for Your Skin

Retinoic acid is the active form of vitamin A in the skin, and the “gold standard” in anti-aging skin care, according to Burke. Topical retinoic acid (brand names Retin-A and Renova) treats fine wrinkles, age spots, and rough skin caused by sun exposure. In a study conducted at the Skin Research Institute in Korea and published in the Journal of Dermatological Science, researchers found that treatment with retinoic acid restored the elastic fibers that keep skin taut, and reduced the appearance of wrinkles.

Retinoic acid comes in gel and cream forms, which are typically used once a day. Although dermatologists used to believe that retinoic acid made the skin more sensitive to the sun, they now know that it actually protects against further sun damage. However, if you apply it in too high of a concentration and too often, retinoic acid can cause side effects — such as redness, extreme dryness, and peeling. Burke recommends starting with a low concentration (retinoic acid products range from 0.01% in gels to 0.1% in creams) and applying it once every second or third night to reverse photo damage more slowly.

Flavonoids (Green Tea and and Chocolate) for Your Skin

Green tea and yes, even chocolate, just might help improve your skin. Research suggests that the flavonoids in green tea might protect the skin from cancer and inflammation. A German study in the Journal of Nutrition found that women who drank hot cocoa with a high flavonoid concentration for three months had softer, smoother skin than women who drank hot cocoa with a lower flavonoid concentration.

Another study, this one in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, found that women whose skin was treated with green tea extract were more protected against the adverse effects of sunlight exposure. Although the results look promising so far, more research is needed to prove that flavonoids work and to determine the best dose, according to Burke.

B Vitamins for Your Skin

The B vitamins are essential for cells throughout the body, including skin cells. It’s important to get enough of foods rich in B vitamins, such as chicken, eggs, and fortified grain products because a B vitamin deficiency can lead to dry, itchy skin.

Research is showing that some B vitamins are beneficial when applied to the skin.

For example, in one study of hairless mice, researchers in Kawasaki, Japan, found topical application of an antioxidant derived from vitamin B-6 protected against sun-induced skin damage and decreased wrinkles.

Other Antioxidants

There are many other plant-based extracts being studied for their positive effects on the skin, either when ingested or applied topically. Examples are rosemary, tomato paste (lycopene), coenzyme Q10, grape seed extract, pomegranate, and soy. Some experts feel that a blend of many different antioxidants and extracts might be more effective than individual products. The final answer about the best doses and extracts remains to be determined by researchers.

Cardiac Imaging May Raise Cancer Risk

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Study Shows Potential Long-Term Risks of Scans Performed After Heart Attacks

Cardiac imaging procedures such as cardiac catheterization and nuclear scans that are frequently performed after heart attacks are increasing the radiation exposure of patients as well as their long-term cancer risk, new research indicates.

The study by scientists at McGill University Health Center and the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal examined data on 82,861 patients who had suffered a heart attack between April 1996 and March 2006 but who had no history of cancer.

Of all the patients, 77% underwent at least one heart procedure with low-dose radiation within a year of the heart attack.

Researchers say 12,020 cancers were detected in follow-up research and that two-thirds of the cancers affected the abdomen, pelvis, and chest areas. The median age of patients was 63, and 32% were women.

Louise Pilote, MD, PhD, MPH, of McGill University, says in a news release that researchers found “a relation between the cumulative exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation from cardiac imaging and therapeutic procedures after acute myocardial infarction and the risk of incident cancer.”

The researchers write that their findings “call into question whether our current enthusiasm for imaging and therapeutic procedures after acute myocardial infarction should be tempered.”

They say doctors “should at least consider putting into place a system of prospectively documenting the imaging tests and procedures that each patient undergoes and estimating his or her cumulative exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation.”

Benefits vs. Risks

Study researcher Mark Eisenberg, MD, tells WebMD that the increased cancer risk caused by imaging tests may be outweighed by the immediate benefits of imaging procedures in preventing heart attacks.

He says the “chances of having a heart attack are higher than getting cancer” for most patients with heart disease symptoms whose doctors call for low-dose radiation procedures such as cardiac catheterization and nuclear scans.

Still, he says, the issue needs further study because a link between radiation exposure and increased cancer risk has been established by past research.

The researchers write that “little is known about the relation between exposure to low-dose radiation from medical procedures and the risk of cancer.” Nevertheless, an increase in recent years in the use of low-dose radiation tests “has led to a growing concern that individual patients may be at increased risk of cancer.”

The results of the study, the researchers write, “suggest that exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation directly affects the likelihood of cancer.”

Cardiac Images for Younger Patients

Heart patients are more likely to die of heart-related problems than of cancer, Eisenberg says, but still, the study found that exposure to radiation from heart imaging was associated with an increased risk of cancer.

“The message from our study is, there are small but finite risks associated with the radiation exposure,” he tells WebMD. “But because the imaging procedures are occurring more and more in North America, we should think more” about using the techniques.

“We have started to image people at younger and younger ages,” he says. “They have decades in which they can develop cancer.”

Mathew Mercuri, MSc, of McMaster University, says in a commentary published with the study that “the frequency with which such tests are performed may pose a population risk” and that doctors should consider using procedures with lower or no radiation if indicated.

“The benefits of such procedures tend to be evident,” he writes. “The risks, on the other hand, are not so apparent.”

Neotame, The Newest Dangerous Sweetener to Hit your Food Shelves

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Since 2002 an artificial sweetener called neotame has been approved for use in food and drink products around the world, although so far its use appears to be very limited.

Neotame is a chemical derivative of aspartame, and judging by the chemicals used in its manufacturing, it appears even more toxic than aspartame, although the proponents of neotame claim that increased toxicity is not a concern, because less of it is needed to achieve the desired effect.

Neotame is bad science brought to you by the Monsanto Company.

If Monsano truly had nothing to fear with either of these artificial chemical sweeteners, they would have funded rigorous independent testing for safety. To date they have not, and they won’t, because virtually every independent analysis of aspartame not conducted by Monsanto partners has revealed a long list of disturbing side effects, mostly neurological in nature.

Monsanto also has now sold the NutraSweet Company to someone else, but the approval of neotame came under Monsanto’s ownership, and was most likely a result of Monsanto’s cozy relationship with the FDA.

My recommendation for neotame is the same as that for aspartame, which is: it should be avoided if you care about your health.

Why is Neotame Dangerous?

Hopefully by now you are aware of the dangers of aspartame, if you aren’t, please review this previous article.

But as if aspartame wasn’t bad enough, NutraSweet (a Monsanto subsidiary at the time of neotame’s approval) “improved” the aspartame formula, making neotame 7,000-13,000 times sweeter than sugar (sucrose) and 30-60 times sweeter than aspartame.

How did they do this?

In 1998, Monsanto applied for FDA approval for neotame, “based on the aspartame formula” with one critical addition: 3-dimethylbutyl, which just happens to be listed on the EPA’s most hazardous chemical list.

So not only is neotame potentially more devastating to your health than aspartame, it is also approved for use in a wider array of food products, including baked goods, because it is more stable at higher temperatures.

What is 3-Dimethylbutyl?

Neotame is manufactured by combining aspartame with 3,3-dimethylbutyraldehyd, which was added to block enzymes that break the peptide bond between aspartic acid and phenylalanine, thereby reducing the availability of phenylalanine.

This eliminates the need for a warning on labels directed at people who cannot properly metabolize phenylalanine.

However, 3,3-Dimethylbutyraldehyde is categorized as both highly flammable and an irritant, and carries risk statements for handling including irritating to skin, eyes and respiratory system.

In other words, the NutraSweet company assures you that neotame is perfectly safe, while at the same time they manufacture neotame through a chemical reaction between aspartame and a substance that is highly flammable and a skin, eye and respiratory irritant (that must be handled with extreme caution by anyone involved in the manufacturing process).

Does this sound like something you want to put into your body?

Why are These Chemicals Approved for Human Consumption?

Many people actually consider the FDA to be a “subsidiary” of the Monsanto Company. It sounds impossible, but when you look at all the Monsanto executives who have gone through the revolving door between private industry and government oversight, a truly disturbing picture emerges of the foxes guarding the henhouse..

The FDA is packed by pro-business, pro-corporation advocates who often have massive conflicts of interest when it comes to protecting the health of the public.

In fact, the revolving door between private industry and government oversight agencies is so well established these days, it has become business as usual to read about scandal, conflicts of interest and blatant pro-industry bias, even when it flies in the face of science or the law.

A few examples include:

* FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, a former dental amalgam company executive, helped subvert a federal judge’s order to label mercury fillings as a hazard to children and pregnant women.

* The FDA’s top medical-device regulator, Daniel Schultz, resigned following internal dissent over decisions that his critics said were too friendly to industry.

* Janet Woodcock, the director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, was accused of a massive conflict of interest stemming from an ethics complaint filed by Amphastar Pharmaceuticals Inc.

* The agency’s list of corruptions and collusions is now a mile long. And each piece of new legislation aimed to improve its function seems to do just the opposite—making the FDA even more dependent upon financial support by Big Pharma.

Why Aspartame and Neotame are NOT a Dieters Best Friend

On of the biggest marketing and PR tactics for man-made chemical sweeteners has been the claim that they help in the battle against obesity. Folks, they don’t. They never have and they never will.

The research and the epidemiologic data suggest the opposite is true, and that artificial sweeteners such as aspartame and neotame tend to lead to weight gain. As I’ve often said, there’s more to weight gain or weight loss than mere calorie intake.

One reason for aspartame and neotame’s potential to cause weight gain is because phenylalanine and aspartic acid – the two amino acids that make up 90 percent of aspartame and are also present in neotame — are known to rapidly stimulate the release of insulin and leptin; two hormones that are intricately involved with satiety and fat storage.

Insulin and leptin are also the primary hormones that regulate your metabolism.

So although you’re not ingesting calories in the form of sugar, aspartame and neotame can still raise your insulin and leptin levels. Elevated insulin and leptin levels, in turn, are two of the driving forces behind obesity, diabetes, and a number of our current chronic disease epidemics.

Over time, if your body is exposed to too much leptin, it will become resistant to it, just as your body can become resistant to insulin, and once that happens, your body can no longer “hear” the hormonal messages instructing your body to stop eating, burn fat, and maintain good sensitivity to sweet tastes in your taste buds.

What happens then?

You remain hungry; you crave sweets, and your body stores more fat.

Leptin-resistance also causes an increase in visceral fat, sending you on a vicious cycle of hunger, fat storage and an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and more.

The Real Reason Artificial Sweetener Use Has Exploded

If you want some answers in scenarios like this it is typically useful to follow the money trail. Aspartame currently has the largest market share of all artificial sweeteners, and the people at NutraSweet would like to keep it that way.

Artificial sweeteners cost a great deal less than real sugar, corn syrup or molasses, so the processed food and beverage industry saves money by using LESS of these man-made chemicals to create MORE sweetness in their products.

Neotame is manufactured from aspartame, and builds on aspartame’s ability to provide more sweetness from less raw material, as it is 30-60 times sweeter than aspartame.

Unfortunately, one byproduct your body creates by breaking down aspartame is formaldehyde, which is extremely toxic to your health even in very small doses. The NutraSweet Company claims the addition of 3,3-Dimethylbutyraldehyde to aspartame makes it more stable at higher temperatures, and reduces the availability of phenylalanine. But nowhere do they discuss the formation of formaldehyde when your body breaks down aspartame, which is the main ingredient of neotame.

In a search of pubmed.gov, the U.S. National Library of Medicine, which has over 11 million medical citations, neotame returns zero double-blind scientific studies on toxicity in humans or animals.

If neotame was indeed completely safe to ingest, you would think the NutraSweet Company would have published at least one double-blind safety study in the public domain? They haven’t.

You have to ask yourself “why not?”

Have You Experienced a Bad Aspartame or Neotame Reaction? Be Heard!

Did you know that only a fraction of all adverse food reactions are ever reported to the FDA? This is a problem that only you as the consumer can have an impact upon.

In order to truly alert the FDA to a problem with a product they’ve approved, they must be notified – by as many people as possible who believe they have experienced a side effect. This mean you can take action against the manufacturers of these chemicals that continue to put your optimal health at risk, if you feel you have had a bad reaction to their product.

I urge you, if you believe you have experienced side effects from aspartame or neotame, let the FDA know about it!

Please go to the FDA Consumer Complaint Coordinator page, find the phone number listed for your state, and report your adverse reaction.

There’s no telling just how many reports they might need before considering taking another look at the safety of aspartame or neotame, but the only way to press them is by reporting any and all adverse effects!

And in the meantime, do your health and the health of your family a favor and treat all foods and drinks that contain aspartame or neotame as if they were deleterious to your optimal health. Because, in my opinion, they are.

Courtesy of Dr Mercola

Failed Autoimmune Suppression Mechanism New Clue to Lupus

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Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Cambridge, Mass., in collaboration with Jackson Laboratory scientists, have identified a regulatory defect that drives lupus.

Correcting the defect “may represent an effective therapeutic approach to systemic lupus erythematosus-like autoimmune disease,” the researchers state in their research paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research team was led by Harvey Cantor, M.D., chair of the department of cancer immunology and AIDS at Dana-Farber, in collaboration with the laboratory of Jackson Professor Derry Roopenian, Ph.D.

Autoimmune diseases develop when the immune system, which is supposed to identify and vanquish potentially dangerous infectious agents, instead attacks the individual’s own body. Most autoimmune diseases strike specific organs, such as the pancreas in type 1 diabetes. Lupus, however, is a systemic disease in which abnormal antibodies are produced throughout the body, inflaming a variety of tissues and organs, including the skin, heart, lungs, kidneys and brain.

Follicular T helper (TFH) cells fuel B cells to produce antibodies, which can be useful in fighting infections. But in lupus, TFH fuel B cells that produce dangerous antibodies that attack normal tissues (autoantibodies). CD8+ T cells (“killer T cells”), on the other hand, normally attack and destroy only infected cells. Cantor and colleagues discovered that a small, but critically important, population of CD8+ T cells (less than 5 percent), plays a specialized role in protecting from lupus. These so-called CD8+ T regulatory, or Treg, cells are specially equipped to destroy TFH cells, and by doing so, prevent lupus from developing.

Using a mouse model for systemic lupus erythematosus in humans that were originally discovered at 30 years ago by Edwin Murphy at The Jackson Laboratory, the Dana-Farber researchers, working with Roopenian’s laboratory, found defects in CD8+ Treg activity.

The new paper, Roopenian explains, is the first to demonstrate the potential breakdown of this suppression mechanism in lupus. “Overcoming this defect,” he says, “offers a potential approach prevent lupus.”

The Jackson Laboratory is a nonprofit biomedical research institution based in Bar Harbor, Maine. Its mission is to discover the genetic basis for preventing, treating and curing human diseases, and to enable research and education for the global biomedical community.



Junk Food Diet Linked to Lower IQ – Study

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Toddlers who have a diet high in processed foods may have a slightly lower IQ in later life, according to a British study described as the biggest research of its kind.

Toddlers who have a diet high in processed foods may have a slightly lower IQ in later life, according to a British study described as the biggest research of its kind.

AFP – Toddlers who have a diet high in processed foods may have a slightly lower IQ in later life, according to a British study described as the biggest research of its kind.

The conclusion, published on Monday, comes from a long-term investigation into 14,000 people born in western England in 1991 and 1992 whose health and well-being were monitored at the ages of three, four, seven and eight and a half.

Parents of the children were asked to fill out questionnaires that, among other things, detailed the kind of food and drink their children consumed.

Three dietary patterns emerged: one was high in processed fats and sugar; then there was a “traditional” diet high in meat and vegetables; and finally a “health-conscious” diet with lots of salad, fruit and vegetables, pasta and rice.

When the children were eight and a half, their IQ was measured using a standard tool called the Wechsler Intelligence Scale.

Of the 4,000 children for which there were complete data, there was a significant difference in IQ among those who had had the “processed” as opposed to the “health-conscious” diets in early childhood.

The 20 percent of children who ate the most processed food had an average IQ of 101 points, compared with 106 for the 20 percent of children who ate the most “health-conscious” food.

“It’s a very small difference, it’s not a vast difference,” said one of the authors, Pauline Emmett of the School of Social and Community Medicine at the University of Bristol.

“But it does make them less able to cope with education, less able to cope with some of the things in life.”

The association between IQ and nutrition is a strongly debated issue because it can be skewed by many factors, including economic and social background.

A middle-class family, for instance, may arguably be more keen (or more financially able) to put a healthier meal on the table, or be pushier about stimulating their child, compared to a poorer household.

Emmett said the team took special care to filter out such confounders.

“We have controlled for maternal education, for maternal social class, age, whether they live in council housing, life events, anything going wrong, the home environment, with books and use of television and things like that,” she said.

The size of the study, too, was unprecedented.

“It’s a huge sample, it’s much much bigger than anything anyone else has done,” she said in an interview with AFP.

Emmett said further work was needed to see whether this apparent impact on IQ persisted as the children got older.

Asked why junk food had such an effect, she suggested a diet that was preponderantly processed could lack vital vitamins and elements for cerebral development at a key stage in early childhood.

“A junk food diet is not conducive to good brain development,” she said.

The paper appears in the peer-reviewed Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, published by the British Medical Association (BMA).