When people with this disorder consume foods that contain gluten, their immune system reacts violently and this leads to the destruction of the villi, small microscopic projections that line the small intestine and aid in the process of digestion.

As is the case with many other disorders of the immune system, the exact cause behind celiac disease is still unknown. It is surmised that the origins of this disease are genetic in nature, so if someone in your family has this disease, there is a five to ten percent risk that you may have it as well.

The best treatment for celiac disease is to strictly follow a gluten-free diet. Fortunately, with the increase in awareness about this disease, it is now easier to obtain gluten free sources of food from most major markets.

Diet for Celiac Disease

Gluten is not an essential vegetable protein, so you can safely replace sources of gluten such as wheat, rye, and barley with other food items such as corn, and rice. There is no restriction on eating vegetables or meat products. However, it is advisable that you go easy on high fat meat and spicy food items to allow your digestive system to heal. You should include plenty of fresh yogurt in your daily meals as this will help to speed up the healing process.

You should also consume foods that are rich in vitamins and minerals. This will enable your digestive tract to heal faster. Since most gluten-free food is low in fiber, make sure that you get adequate fiber from other sources such as fresh fibrous vegetables. If you regularly follow a gluten-free diet and eat nutritious meals that are full of vitamins and minerals, the symptoms of the disease will eventually subside as your digestive system heals itself. However, once the symptoms have gone, it is essential to continue on a gluten-free diet.

Other Suggestions for Celiac Disease

If you are eating out or buying ready made meals from a supermarket, do ensure that they are marked as gluten free. You should also avoid consuming alcohol that is made from grains that contain gluten, such as beer and whiskey.

Other names: lipoic acid, thioctic acid, ALA

Alpha lipoic acid is a fatty acid found naturally inside every cell in the body. It’s needed by the body to produce the energy for our body’s normal functions. Alpha lipoic acid converts glucose (blood sugar) into energy.

Alpha lipoic acid is also an antioxidant, a substance that neutralizes potentially harmful chemicals called free radicals. What makes alpha lipoic acid unique is that it functions in water and fat, unlike the more common antioxidants vitamins C and E, and it appears to be able to recycle antioxidants such as vitamin C and glutathione after they have been used up. Glutathione is an important antioxidant that helps the body eliminate potentially harmful substances. Alpha lipoic acid increases the formation of glutathione.

Alpha lipoic acid is made by the body and can be found in very small amounts in foods such as spinach, broccoli, peas, Brewer’s yeast, brussel sprouts, rice bran, and organ meats. Alpha lipoic acid supplements are available in capsule form at health food stores, some drugstores, and online. For maximum absorption, the supplements should be taken on an empty stomach.

Why People Use Alpha Lipoic Acid

  Peripheral Neuropathy

Peripheral neuropathy can be caused by injury, nutritional deficiencies, chemotherapy or by conditions such as diabetes, Lyme disease, alcoholism, shingles, thyroid disease, and kidney failure. Symptoms can include pain, burning, numbness, tingling, weakness, and itching.

Alpha lipoic acid is thought to work as an antioxidant in both water and fatty tissue, enabling it to enter all parts of the nerve cell and protect it from damage.

Preliminary studies suggest that alpha lipoic acid may help. In one of the largest studies on the use of alpha lipoic acid, 181 people took 600 mg, 1200 mg or 1800 mg of alpha lipoic acid a day or a placebo. After 5 weeks, alpha lipoic acid improved symptoms. The dose that was best tolerated while still providing benefit was 600 mg once daily.

  Brain Function

Alpha lipoic acid can cross the blood-brain barrier, a wall of tiny vessels and structural cells, and pass easily into the brain. It is thought to protect brain and nerve tissue by preventing free radical damage.

  Age-Related Conditions

As an antioxidant, alpha lipoic acid can neutralize free radicals which can damage cells. Free radical damage is thought to contribute to aging and chronic illness.

  Other Conditions

Alpha lipoic acid has also been suggested for cataracts, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, burning mouth syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease and stroke, but large, well-designed studies are needed to see if it’s effective for these conditions.

Side Effects

Side effects of alpha lipoic acid may include headache, tingling or a “pins and needles” sensation, skin rash, or muscle cramps.

There have been a few reports in Japan of a rare condition called insulin autoimmune syndrome in people using alpha lipoic acid. The condition causes hypoglycemia and antibodies directed against the body’s own insulin without previous insulin therapy.

The safety of alpha lipoic acid in pregnant or nursing women, children, or people with kidney or liver disease is unknown.

Possible Drug Interactions

Alpha lipoic acid may improve blood sugar control, so people with diabetes who are taking medication to lower blood sugar, such as metformin (Glucophage), glyburide (DiaBeta, Glynase), should only take alpha lipoic acid under the supervision of a qualified health professional and have their blood sugar levels carefully monitored.

Animal studies indicate that alpha lipoic acid may alter thyroid hormone levels, so it could theoretically have the same effect in humans. People taking thyroid medications such as levothyroxine should be monitored by their healthcare provider.

BEVERLY HILLS - Doctors are worried that as the New Year begins, many Americans will resolve to be thinner in 2010 by using over-the-counter supplements.

According to a survey conducted by ADSAM and SenseUS polling companies, about 60 percent of physicians feel troubled about the safety of taking diet pills. Not surprisingly, while physicians feel negatively about the safety of over-the-counter diet pills, they are much more comfortable about the use of injections like Botox and Restylane or even breast implants.

The results were surprising, considering America’s obsession with remaining fit and youthful.

Additionally, the same survey showed that feelings about having breast augmentation or facial injections and using over-the-counter diet pills or Human Growth Hormone for anti-aging created fear and stress among the large majority of consumers.

Although consumers were apprehensive about over-the-counter solutions, the survey results discovered that they were more comfortable with diet pills than cosmetic procedures.

“These survey results can have a significant impact on the plastic-surgery industry,” said Jon D. Morris, CEO of ADSAM. “What they show us is that a large number of Americans have a negative feeling towards cosmetic procedures despite physicians feeling good about them.”

While over-the-counter diet pills may seem like a fairly harmless supplement, the safety of these products create more negativity, concern and stress with the physicians than do breast implants and facial injections like Botox and Restylane.

NEW YORK -  Scientists at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York City have found out why some women suffer relapses years after beating breast cancer.

Leading oncologist Dr. Larry Norton has revealed that breast cancer cells have the unique ability to lie dormant for years, even after the original tumor has been removed.

In a novel study, the researchers have found a genetic switch, called Src, that triggers dormant breast cancer cells.

“Wandering cells might relocate to the primary site just as they could - by using the same biological toolbox - locate to a distant site,” the Daily Express quoted Norton as saying.

“It’s just as a weed-bed overgrows and destroys a garden and then scatters its tiny seeds to invade neighboring gardens.

“Our results should encourage cancer specialists to think about further study of Src inhibitor drugs that attack reservoirs of these ‘wandering’ latent cancer cells and prevent spread of the disease in breast cancer patients after the tumour has been removed,” he added.

Dr. Helen George, Cancer Research UK’s head of science information, said: “This research is important because it offers an explanation of why some breast cancers can spread and return.

NOTE: CANCER CANNOT SURVIVE IN AN OXYGENATED AND ALKALINE ENVIRONMENT.   SEE POSTS FOR BI-CARBONATE AND L-ARGININE AND THE BUDWIG PROTOCOL

SOUTHAHMPTON - Infant intelligence is more likely to be shaped by family environment than by the amount of omega 3 fatty acids, called DHA, fed in breast milk or fortified formula, according to new research funded by the Medical Research Council and the Food Standards Agency.

Omega 3 fatty acids, particularly docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), are found in high concentrations in the brain and accumulate during the spurt in brain growth that occurs between the last trimester of pregnancy and the first year of life. Studies in animals have shown that a lack of DHA during periods of rapid brain growth may lead to problems in brain development but trials of the effect of DHA-fortified formula on brain function in babies have produced conflicting results.

In this study, MRC scientists followed 241 children from birth until they reached four years of age to investigate the relationship between breastfeeding and the use of DHA-fortified formula in infancy and performance in tests of intelligence and other aspects of brain function.

Dr Catharine Gale, from the MRC Epidemiology Resource Centre at the University of Southampton, who led the study said:

“This study helps to dispel some of the myths surrounding DHA. We do know that there are clear health benefits to breast feeding but DHA, which is naturally present in breast milk and added into some formulas, is not the secret ingredient that will turn your child into an Einstein. Children’s IQ bears no relation to the levels of DHA they receive as babies. Factors in the home, such as the mother’s intelligence and what mental stimulation children receive, were the most important influences on their IQ.”

- This study is one part of a wider Food Standards Agency project which was commissioned to look at the effect of diet in early childhood on intelligence and physical well being in later life. These results provide a useful addition to the evidence base in this area of research. It does not alter government advice that babies up to 6 months should be exclusively breastfed.

- Omega three fatty acids, often called long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPUFAs), which include DHA, are involved in cell signalling, regulation of gene expression and neuronal growth.

- The Southampton Women’s Survey (SWS), a study of a population sample of non-pregnant women aged 20 to 34 years in Southampton, is funded by the Medical Research Council and the Dunhill Medical Trust. Children born to SWS were used to provide the data for this study.

- The four year follow-up of the children was funded by a research contract with the Food Standards Agency.

SYDNEY - An Australian Government funded research group has developed a potential new material that can make early diagnosis of malignant melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer possible.

Writing about their work in the ACS’ Journal of the Medicinal Chemistry, the Cooperative Research Consortium for Biomedical Imaging Develop has revealed that the novel material is currently being tested in laboratory animals.

Ivan Greguric, a group member, notes that about 130,000 new cases of malignant melanoma occur each year worldwide.

Although patients do best with early diagnosis and prompt treatment, according to the researcher, the positron emission tomography (PET) scans sometimes used for diagnosis sometimes miss small cancers, delaying diagnosis and treatment.

While searching for better ways of diagnosis, the researchers identified a new group of radioactive imaging agents, known as fluoronicotinamides.

Testing it on laboratory mice that had melanoma, the researchers observed that the novel substance revealed skin cancer cells with greater accuracy than imaging agents currently in use.

Consequently, note the researchers, this substance may become a “superior” PET imaging agent for improving the diagnosis and monitoring the effectiveness of treatment of melanoma.

They have revealed that clinical trials with this new agent are scheduled for 2010.

For Very Obese, Gastric Bypass May Extend Life

CINCINNATI - Gastric bypass surgery could have life-extending benefits for most of the five percent of Americans who are very obese, a new study suggests.

The study, led by researchers at the University of Cincinnati, concluded that the benefits of this form of weight-loss surgery far outweigh the risks for most people who are morbidly obese, which is defined as having a body mass index of 40 or higher.

But individual decisions on the surgery rely on factors such as age, and a special program to help physicians and obese people balance the benefits and risks of weight-loss surgery is on the way, the researchers said.

“In the future, we plan on having a Web-based decision support tool,” said Dr. Daniel P. Schauer, assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center. “Hopefully, it will be available some time in the next year. It is in the development and testing phase.”

The program is based on a study reported by Schauer and his colleagues in the January issue of Archives of Surgery. They examined data on more than 23,000 people who underwent bariatric surgery. The study compared that data to the immediate risk of death from the procedure and the years of life expectancy added by having the surgery.

Obesity is a major risk factor for heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular problems. An increasing number of Americans who cannot control their weight by diet or behavioral changes have turned to bariatric surgery. Gastric bypass is one of several forms of bariatric surgery, which work by either preventing food from entering the stomach or diverting it past the stomach, thereby reducing food intake and absorption.

Current data indicate that a 42-year-old woman with a BMI of 45 would gain three years of life expectancy through gastric bypass, while a 44-year-old man with the same BMI would gain 2.6 years of life, according to the study. For reference, a 5-foot-9-inch man or woman weighing 305 pounds has a BMI of 45.

The 30-day mortality from the surgery has ranged from almost zero to as high as 2 percent in some studies, but it can be higher for some selected populations, the report said.

“The patients who benefit the most are younger patients who have a lower risk of dying from the surgery and a higher BMI,” Schauer said. “The patients who benefit the least are older patients with a higher surgical risk because of a combination of age and comorbidities [other illnesses].”

Their model does not calculate the risk added by specific comorbidities, such as coronary disease, he said. “We are working on that for the next generation of models,” Schauer said.

The most recent data used comes from 2007, and there is also reason to believe that the surgical risk has decreased since then, Schauer said. “That is something we are working on, updating the model as it becomes available,” he said.

Dr. T. Karl Byrne, professor of surgery and director of bariatric surgery at the Medical University of South Carolina, said he would like to see more information on the cost benefits and health improvements associated with gastric bypass.

Every diabetic costs the health care system $13,000 a year, Byrne said. If you are diabetic and have bariatric surgery, in six months your diabetes goes away. So there is more to it than just life years obtained. There is a huge cost issue that is not addressed in these studies, and bariatric surgery should cost the health care system less in the long term, he said.

A second report in the same issue of the journal reported a marked change in the sites doing bariatric surgery after the federal government approved Medicare and Medicaid payment for the procedure in February 2006.

That coverage required that surgery be done at a medical center certified by the American College of Surgeons or the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery. For approval, a center must perform at least 125 operations a year.

The study by physicians at the University of California at Irvine compared results of almost 3,200 operations done just before approval and almost 3,100 done just after approval. It found that the number of facilities doing such surgery decreased from 60 to 45, indicating a shift to certified, high-volume centers.

People who had surgery after approval had shorter hospital stays (3.5 days vs. 3.1 days) and lower rates of complications (12.2 percent vs. 10 percent). No significant difference was seen in the in-hospital mortality rate (0.28 percent vs. 0.2 percent).

“Although we only examined the Medicare beneficiaries population in this survey, we suspect that the improvement in outcomes will also be extrapolated to the population that is not eligible for Medicare,” the researchers wrote.

Bariatric surgeries have increased steadily in the United States — from 16,800 in 1992 to about 205,000 in 2007, according to the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.

Can Sweeteners Be Blamed For Rise In Obesity?

LOS ANGELES - Researchers have claimed that a cheap form of sugar used in thousands of food products and soft drinks can damage human metabolism and is fuelling the obesity crisis.

Dangerous growth of fat cells

The study by a team at the University of California claimed fructose, a sweetener derived from corn, can cause dangerous growths of fat cells around vital organs has increasingly been used as a substitute for more expensive types of sugar in yoghurts, cakes, salad dressing and cereals.

Over 10 weeks, 16 volunteers on a strictly controlled diet, including high levels of fructose, produced new fat cells around their heart, liver and other digestive organs. It was reported that they also showed signs of food-processing abnormalities linked to diabetes and heart disease. Another group of volunteers on the same diet, but with glucose sugar replacing fructose, did not have these problems.

People in both groups put on a similar amount of weight. However, the researchers said the levels of weight gain among the fructose consumers would be greater over the long term.

Fructose is not responsible for obesity

Dr. Iain Frame, Director of Research at Diabetes UK, however was dismissive of the study’s findings and said:

“The results reported from this study do not support the claim that high doses of fructose are responsible for childhood obesity or the increasing prevalence of Type 2 diabetes.

“This study used a small number of participants over a short period of time and the results are inconclusive. As the authors of the study say, further long-term and carefully controlled studies are needed to investigate the effects of fructose, sucrose, and high-fructose corn syrup.”

Antidepressant Found to be Just as Effective as Placebo in Child Pain Relief

WASHINGTON - A new study has shown that the antidepressant amitriptyline is just as effective as placebo in treating pain-predominant gastrointestinal disorders in children.

“Many pharmaceutical products are prescribed for off-label use in children due to the lack of clinical trials testing the efficacy of the drugs in children and adolescents. Therefore, the pediatric gastroenterologist frequently has to make treatment decisions without the evidence of how drugs work in children,” said Dr. Miguel Saps, of Children’s Memorial Hospital and lead author of the study.

“The high placebo effect we identified in this study suggests that further studies of the use of certain antidepressants in children with functional bowel disorders are needed. While several trials have demonstrated a beneficial effect of antidepressants, including amitriptyline, for the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) in adults, more research is needed to determine how effective this drug is, if at all, in children,” Dr. Saps added.

According to background information in an article on the study, published in the journal Gastroenterology, amitriptyline is used to treat symptoms of depression, but it is some times prescribed to children for pain relief from pain-predominant functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGIDs).

Pain-predominant FGIDs are among the most common causes for medical consultation in children. Such disorders include three common conditions: IBS, functional dyspepsia and functional abdominal pain.

For their study, the researchers designed a large prospective, multi-centre, randomised placebo-controlled trial in which children, ages eight to 17, with IBS, functional abdominal pain or functional dyspepsia were randomised to four weeks of placebo or amitriptyline.

Of the 83 children who completed the study, 63 percent of those who took amitriptyline reported feeling better, while 5 percent reported feeling worse.

Among those given a placebo, 57.5 percent felt better, while 2.5 percent felt worse.

Pain relief was excellent (7 percent), good (38 percent) in children on placebo and excellent (15 percent), good (35 percent) in children on amitriptyline.

The researchers observed that both amitriptyline and placebo were associated with excellent therapeutic response, although patients with mild to moderate intensity of pain responded better to treatment.

According to them, there was no significant difference between amitriptyline and placebo after four weeks of treatment.

In children, the use of drugs to treat pain-predominant FGIDs is mostly empirical and based on adult data.

There have been only a few small, randomized clinical trials evaluating the efficacy of drugs for the treatment of pain-predominant FGIDs in children.  

Soluble Fiber Effective in Treating Irritable Bowel Syndrome

UTRECHT - A new study by researchers from Utrecht University in the Netherlands has suggested that a soluble fiber supplement called psyllium should be the first line of attack in treating irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

In the study, researchers compared adding bran, psyllium and a dummy supplement to sufferers’ diets.

They found psyllium was the most effective, warning that bran may even worsen the symptoms of the condition.

IBS is characterized by abdominal pain and an irregular bowel habit.

Its exact cause is unknown and recommendations for treatment include dietary advice, antidepressants and drug treatments.

Many relying on dietary adjustments still turn to bran in a bid to help improve the way the intestines work.

However, the new study of 275 patients questions the wisdom of this approach.

The researchers gave patients 10g of either psyllium, bran or rice flour twice a day for 12 weeks.

At the end of the study, those on psyllium, a naturally occurring vegetable fibre, reported symptom severity had been reduced by 90 points using a standard scale of rating problems.

For bran it was 58 points and for the placebo group, 49.

The study also showed that patients seemed less tolerant of bran, with more than half of the group dropping out during the trial, mostly because their symptoms worsened.

Soluble fiber can also be found in fruit such as apples and strawberries, as well as barley and oats.

“I think adding psyllium to the diet is the best treatment option to start with. In the study, people did this by adding it to things such as yoghurt and it had a real effect,” the BBC quoted Dr Niek de Wit, one of the researchers, as saying.

The study has been described in the British Medical Journal.

STILL TRYING TO BURN OFF HOLIDAY WEIGHT? 

BEVERLY HILLS - Try ‘interval exercise’ – which purportedly burns fat up to “nine times higher” than aerobic exercise “with effects continued for 24 hours,” according to studies reported in Metabolism Journal.

A program of “two minutes at 97% of maximum heart rate followed by a recovery period of three minutes at low intensity… is also better for conditioning the heart and improving overall circulation than lower-intensity, long-duration exercise like walking and jogging… because with interval training you transition back and forth between aerobic and anaerobic states, using fuel… As muscles require more oxygen than is available, muscle cells must rely on other reactions to continue contractions.” Then, because interval training also “helps reset your body’s temperature thermostat higher, it continues to burn more fuel even after you stop the exercise.”                                                                                                                                     

BEVERLY HILLS - Weight loss diet tip - it’s hard to have lasting weight loss without taking steps to increase your healthy habits and reduce unhealthy ones. Losing weight is about burning energy - more than what is taken in.

This is how the low-carb/Atkins diets work… a low-carbohydrate diet reduces food intake, since the ketones produced by fat-burning really do curb ones appetite! It’s really not complicated - if you burn up your fat stored in the body - you WILL lose weight!

One of the most important and effective ways for losing weight and getting healthier is to avoid two kinds of foods.

Both of these foods have been linked to deteriorating health, and specifically weight gain and obesity.

The unhealthy ingredients in these foods have quietly and steadily been used in greater amounts over the last two decades in the USA…and most of us don’t know it!

Partially hydrogenated oils and trans fatty acids…

One group of the foods to avoid are those that contain “Trans Fatty Acids”. These fats are found in partially hydrogenated oils - manufactured and unhealthy fats. These are oils that have had hydrogen added to them to prolong their shelflife.

They are a quiet killer hidden in food and they have been directly linked to the escalating rates of obesity in both adults and children all over the world.

There is a clear statistical increase in obesity over the last 20 years as these types of hydrogenated oils have become an increasing part of the typical American diet.

The U.S. government states that manufactured hydrogenated oils have no safe level for human consumption! There is no safe level of consumption, but it’s still in most of the products Americans eat every day.

In the USA, most of our food dollars is spent on processed foods. Government reports say that over 40% of foods found in an average grocery store contain these kinds of hydrogenated oils.

Most fast foods contain hydrogenated oils. Snacks, chips, candy bars, cookies, crackers, commercial baked goods, pastries and cakes…almost all of these processed foods contain hydrogenated oil.

How can you avoid hydrogenated oil and its effect on your health? What do you look out for?

• 1 - The first thing to do is to read the labels. Read the labels of foods you buy and look for partially hydrogenated oils. If you see those words, avoid that food. Any food that contains partially hydrogenated oils is unhealthy and will affect your weight loss program in a negative way.

Here are examples of foods that contain partially hydrogenated oils:

• cereals • cookies • cake mixes • candy bars • chips, pretzels • snacks • commercial pastries • processed foods • fast foods

What is known for sure is - you can’t lose weight and regularly eat foods containing partially hydrogenated oils.

• 2 - Ask questions. When eating out, ask if the foods you are ordering contain partially hydrogenated oils.

• 3 - Find alternative foods.The good news is - because of more media exposure about the dangers of hydrogenated oils, companies are starting to replace partially hydrogenated oils with other healthier ingredients and creating healthier versions of some of your favorite products.

McDonalds has had legal actions taken against it by concerned consumers attempting to force McDonalds to reduce or eliminate hydrogenated oils in its products. Restaurants are starting to add more natural oils and are removing partially hydrogenated oils from their kitchens.

Try to get as many organic whole foods included in your daily diet as possible. Fruits and vegetables, whole grains, healthy fats and organic meats and dairy products will mean you won’t be filling your body with hydrogenated oils, growth hormones and antibiotics. Try to avoid processed and fast foods as much as possible.

Avoiding these hidden oils in the food you eat every day will make an important impact on your health, and will help you in reaching your weight loss goals. Add some lifestyle changes and imagine where you will be on your trip towards better health in the future!

Refined white flour products.

The other common weight loss ingredient is refined white flour. Refined white flour products stimulate the highest production of insulin.

When we consume these kinds of products, our blood sugar levels spike upward dramatically at first within the hour, then plummet downward an hour or so after…creating mood swings, hunger cravings, and pushing us toward diabetes and obesity.

Did you know that refined white flour converts into glucose in the body FASTER than white sugar? It’s true! Once you understand how the body functions in weight gain and weight loss, you can then understand what to do to have lasting weight loss without dieting.

GRAND FORKS — Running a marathon, grab a carbohydrate bar. Lifting weights, gulp a protein shake. But climbing into a fighter jet? Butter-soaked lobster might help.

That was the surprising finding of a new military-funded study that sought to figure out what types of foods were best for pilots when missions restricted when or what they could eat. University of North Dakota researchers found that pilots who ate the fattiest foods such as butter or gravy had the quickest response times in mental tests and made fewer mistakes when flying in tricky cloud conditions.

High-carb diets trumped high-protein in performance tests.

“We wound up analyzing the data every which way but upside down. It came out consistent every time,” said psychology professor Tom Petros, who conducted and reviewed the tests.

Fat has been considered a villain by some nutritionists. Earlier research in humans and animals has linked diets high in saturated fats to mental decline and shorter-term problems with memory and learning.

Athletes and others with physically demanding jobs generally focus on a high-carbohydrate diet for improved performance. The study’s researchers aren’t saying people should now load up on biscuits and gravy, in fact researchers said it’s hard to draw conclusions from their study because more tests are needed to figure out what’s behind the results. Follow-up studies begin this spring.

Researchers said the study is not aimed at weight control and noted that because the pilots are young, they’re able to absorb a high amount of fatty acids for brain development.

Military experts hope the research will eventually help improve pilots’ performance. National Transportation Safety Board statistics show 80 percent of civil and military accidents are caused by human error.

The study tracked 45 student pilots to assess how different foods affect a pilot’s performance. Every three weeks, each pilot spent one week on four different diets: high-fat, high-carbohydrate, high-protein and a control diet.

The menus were similar so the type of diet wouldn’t become obvious to participants. In some cases, the difference was in the drinks, condiments, gravy, salad, vegetables and desserts.

“They loved the day they got brownies,” said Glenda Lindseth, who helped lead the project. “They all got them, but some of them were a little smaller and some of them didn’t have frosting.”

One typical meal was thin crusted extra meat and cheese pizza for the fat diet, a thin crusted chicken supreme pizza for the carbohydrate diet, and a grilled chicken breast with mixed salad greens, fat-free salad dressing and fat-free shredded cheese for the protein diet.

The study used a flight simulator that required students to descend in cloudy weather when the runway wasn’t visible and using only the plane’s computers. The pilots then had to climb into a holding pattern. They also took tests that required memorizing and repeating numbers and comparing shapes.

“I could tell the difference on how well I was doing on the different diets,” said Jeremy Ternes, who participated in the study. “There were times I thought, ‘Wow, I was a lot more on today as compared to last week.’”

He added: “I think a lot of people felt they did better when they got the lobster and the good stuff.”

Based on their test scores, pilots on the high-fat and high-carb diets performed substantially better than the high-protein eaters. The high-fat dieters did slightly better than the high-carb dieters.

“With additional research, these findings may help decrease the number of aviation accidents due to pilot error, which is especially important for the war fighter,” Lindseth said.

More study is needed to determine whether the findings will have a lasting effect.

“Most of the studies indicate that a diet of saturated fats like those found in junk food reduces cognitive performance,” said Fernando Gomez-Pinilla, a physiological science professor at UCLA who was not involved in the study. “I will be more interested to see what they find when they monitor the composition of the diet.”

MONTREAL - The proximity of convenience stores to kids is connected to childhood obesity, according to a new study.

As part of the study 632 children and their families from Montreal in Canada were recruited in 2005.

The children belonged to family incomes ranging from 31,000 dollars to 141,000 dollars.

Of the underage participants, 42 percent were overweight and 22 percent were outright obese.

The researchers noted that access to green spaces may have little influence on the size of 8 to 10-year-olds.

However, proximity of parks can affect how much children walk, but impact on weight remains to be seen.

Families who took part in the quality study will continue to be monitored to verify if proximity to the park has an impact on the long-term weight of children.

Senior researcher Tracie Ann Barnett, a professor at the Université de Montréal Department of Social and Preventive Medicine and researcher at the Sainte Justine University Hospital Research Center, said: “Access to convenience stores seems more relevant in obesity than access to fast food restaurants.”

She further suggested that schools should establish zones that are free of convenience stores.

CHARLOTTE  - A new study has revealed that regular exercise can help keep prostate cancer at bay.

According to researchers at Duke University Medical Centre, those who were moderately active - anything equivalent to walking at a moderate pace for several hours a week - were significantly less likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer.

They analysed 190 men who had a prostate biopsy and found that 58 percent of the men exercised less than the equivalent of one hour per week of easy walking, reports chinaview.cn

The study also showed that exercise was associated with less aggressive disease in men who did develop prostate cancer.

“As the amount of exercise increased, the risk of cancer decreased,” said lead author Dr. Jodi Antonelli, a urology researcher at the centre.

ST. LOUIS - Researchers have discovered a way to block fatty diet consumption by deactivating a part of the brain that regulates emotion. But the blockade will not affect people who are hungry.

“It appears that two different brain circuits control the motivation to seek and consume,” said Matthew Will, assistant psychological science professor at the University of Missouri (U-M) College of Arts and Science.

“Understanding how this circuit in the brain works may provide insight into the exact networks and chemicals in our brain that determine the factors influencing our feeding habits,” he said.

The release of opioids, pleasure chemicals that can lead to euphoria, into the brain produces binge eating in non-hungry people. Will and his team of researchers determined that deactivating the basolateral amygdala - the brain region that regulates emotion - blocked this type of binge eating.

“A key to curbing the obesity epidemic in America is controlling the desire to binge eat,” Will said.

“Humans have more programming to start and continue eating than to stop eating, especially when they have a bowl of ice cream in front of them. Most of us would finish it even if we weren’t hungry.”

Researchers said deactivating the basolateral amygdala had no effect on feeding in rats that were simply deprived of food for 24 hours, said an U-M release.

This suggests that the basolateral amygdala is specifically involved in the overconsumption of food based on its palatability or pleasure driven by opioids rather than the level of hunger.

The study was published in Behavioural Neuroscience.

White willow bark is a tree native to Europe and Asia. The name “white willow” comes from the color of the leaves, which are covered with fine white hairs.

The use of white willow bark medicinally goes far back. Ancient Egyptians used white willow for inflammation. The Greek physician Hippocrates wrote about white willow’s medicinal uses in 5th century B.C.

In 1829, scientists in Europe identified what was believed to be the active ingredient in white willow bark—a compound called salicin. Public demand grew rapidly.

Extracting salicin from herbs was considered to be expensive and time-consuming, so a synthetic salicylic acid version was developed in Germany in 1852 and quickly became the treatment of choice (salicin is converted in the body to salicylic acid).

The problem was that it was harder on the stomach. At therapeutic doses, people using the synthetic salicyclic acid developed stomach ulcers and bleeding.

The German company Bayer eventually created a synthetic, less harsh derivative of salicylic acid, called acetylsalicylic acid (ASA), and mass-produced it under the name aspirin. Despite this, aspirin is still known for irritating the stomach lining.

Why do people use white willow bark?

White willow bark is used for conditions that cause pain, inflammation, or fever, such as:

    * Acute back pain

    * Fever

    * Flu

    * Joint pain

    * Osteoarthritis

    * Pain

People take white willow bark instead of aspirin because it does not appear to be as irritating to the stomach lining. It may be because the salicin found naturally in white willow bark is only converted to the acid form after it is absorbed by the stomach.

Researchers have also suggested that white willow bark is more effective than aspirin because of other active compounds that are found in the bark but not the drug. Animal research at Cairo University compared a willow bark extract to ASA and found that a willow bark extract was as effective as aspirin in reducing inflammation, even though the salicin content was lower than an equivalent dose of ASA.

What research has been done on white willow bark?

    * In a German study, the effectiveness of a willow bark extract providing 240 mg of salicin a day was compared to placebo in a 2-week randomized controlled trial in 78 people with osteoarthritis. After two weeks, the willow bark patients’ pain scores were reduced by 14% compared to the placebo group, which had a 2% increase in pain scores.

    * A randomized controlled trial published in the American Journal of Medicine examined the use of 120 mg or 240 mg salicin or placebo in 210 patients with an low back pain. In the fourth and final week of the study, 39% of the group taking 240 mg salicin were pain-free for at least 5 days, compared to 21% in the 120 mg group and only 6% in the placebo group.

    * Two randomized controlled 6-week trials investigated the effectiveness and safety of willow bark in 127 patients with hip and/or knee osteoarthritis and 26 patients with rheumatoid arthritis. In the osteoarthritis trial, patients received either willow bark providing 240 mg of salicin a day, 100 mg a day of the drug diclofenac, or a placebo. Patients in the rheumatoid arthritis trial received either willow bark or a placebo. The results found that the drug diclofenac was more effective than placebo in osteoarthritis patients but white willow bark was not. In rheumatoid arthritis patients, willow bark wasn’t found to be more effective than placebo.

Common Doses

Studies have used white willow bark extracts that provide 120 mg to 240 mg of salicin per day.

Safety

Because white willow bark contains salicylates, the same precautions as aspirin should be taken until research has shown otherwise. The following people should not take white willow bark:

    * People with an aspirin allergy or sensitivity. There has been a published report of a 25 year old woman who was admitted to emergency with anaphylaxis after taking 2 capsules of a weight loss supplement that contained willow bark. The patient had a history of allergy to acetylsalicylic acid. No other possible causes for anaphylaxis were identified in that patient.

    * People with peptic ulcer disease or kidney disease.

    * The herbs ginkgo, vitamin E, and garlic may increase the risk of bleeding if combined with white willow.

    * People with hyperuricemia, gout, and asthma.

    * Children and teenagers, especially with flu-like symptoms, chicken pox, or Reye’s syndrome.

    * Pregnant or nursing women.

White willow bark should be avoided two weeks before or after surgery.

Side effects

There have been few reported side effects. However, the same side effects as aspirin may theoretically occur, especially at higher doses: ringing in the ears, ulcers, stomach burning, pain, cramping, nausea, gastrointestinal bleeding and liver toxicity, rash, dizziness, and kidney impairment.

PORTLAND- Natural compounds present in plants and some vegetables may help treat cancer even more effectively, when used side-by-side with chemotherapy drugs, according to new research.

A study published in the International Journal of Cancer has found that chlorophyllin-a water-soluble derivative of chlorophyll that makes possible the process of photosynthesis and plant growth from the sun’s energy-is, on a dose-by-dose basis, 10 times more potent at causing death of colon cancer cells than the chemotherapeutic drug hydroxyurea.

Experts in the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University say that the study has also shown that chlorophyllin kills cancer cells by blocking the same phase of cellular division that hydroxyurea does, but by a different mechanism.

Based on that finding, the researchers suggest that it may be possible to developed to have a synergistic effect with conventional cancer drugs, helping them to work better or require less toxic dosages.

“We conclude that chlorophyllin has the potential to be effective in the clinical setting, when used alone or in combination with currently available cancer therapeutic agents,” the researchers wrote in their study report.

They, however, stressed the need for both in laboratory and animal studies, with combinations of chlorophyllin and existing cancer drugs, before it would be appropriate for human trials.

Other studies published in the journals Carcinogenesis and Cancer Prevention Research have explored the role of organic selenium compounds in killing human prostate and colon cancer cells.

During the studies, a form of organic selenium found naturally in garlic and Brazil nuts was converted in cancer cells to metabolites that acted as “HDAC inhibitors” - a promising field of research in which silenced tumor suppressor genes are re-activated, triggering cancer cell death.

Rod Dashwood, professor and director of the Cancer Chemoprotection Program in the Linus Pauling Institute, says that the concept of combining conventional or new cancer drugs with natural compounds, which have been shown to have anti-cancer properties, is very promising.

“Most chemotherapeutic approaches to cancer try to target cancer cells specifically and do something that slows or stops their cell growth process. We’re now identifying such mechanisms of action for natural compounds, including dietary agents. With further research we may be able to make the two approaches work together to enhance the effectiveness of cancer therapies,” Dashwood said.