In recent years, antioxidants have been touted as a secret to healthy living: The molecules bind to reactive oxygen compounds called “free radicals” that are known to damage the body’s tissues. The amount of oxidative damage increases with age, and according to one theory of aging it is a major cause of the body’s decline [The New York Times]. But a new study examined the effects of the antioxidant vitamins C and E when combined with an exercise regimen, and found a considerably more complicated story. The researchers found that free radicals may be beneficial in small doses, and may even help protect against diabetes. And mopping them up with antioxidants may do more harm than good [BBC News].
During a workout, the muscles metabolize glucose to create energy, but in the process some free radicals are released. The body has a natural defense mechanism to combat these free radicals, but many researchers had theorized that the body can’t catch all of the harmful compounds, which makes antioxidant supplements sound like a logical solution.
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In another sign of Europe’s resistance to the genetically modified crops that have been widely accepted in the United States, Germany outlawed the cultivation of a genetically modified strain of corn produced by the U.S. company Monsanto. Germany joins five other countries — France, Austria, Greece, Hungary and Luxembourg — that have banned the pest-resistant maize despite its approval under a legally-binding EU directive [Nature News].
The strain of corn, known as Mon810, is the only transgenic crop approved in the European Union. Kari Matalone, a spokeswoman for Monsanto, said the corn — which is engineered to resist pests — had been approved for cultivation in Europe more than a decade ago and that no ill effects had been detected since then. “We don’t really understand where this decision is coming from,” Ms. Matalone said [The New York Times]. Monsanto also said it’s considering legal action against Germany.
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The rate at which infants gain weight in the first six months of their lives is linked to those babies’ risk of becoming obese by age three, a new study has found. Researchers determined that sudden weight gain in early infancy was more important than how much a baby weighed at birth, the weight of the infant’s parents, or the number of pounds put on by the mother during pregnancy. “The perception has been that a chubby baby and a baby that grows fast early in life is healthier and all the baby fat will disappear,” said the paper’s lead author, Dr. Elsie Taveras…. “But [that] is not the case” [Chicago Tribune].
While the researchers note that early childhood obesity does not necessarily lead to obesity later in life, they say it does raise the risks. Obesity rates among U.S. children have doubled in the last 20 years, and almost a third of American children are either overweight or obese. The epidemic of obesity is linked to a host of health problems such as higher risks for heart disease, diabetes and cancer [Reuters].
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A migrating bird has found a quick and effective way to boost its endurance for a grueling task, according to a new study, and it’s a tactic that would make human marathon runners jealous–provided they like seafood.
Like all migrating birds, the tiny sandpiper instinctively heads to warmer climates for the winter. The [1,900-mile] trek from the birds’ summer home in the Canadian Arctic to the South American coast includes 3 days of nonstop flight over open water. The journey is so arduous it can kill younger or weaker members of the flock [ScienceNOW Daily News]. Sandpipers prepare for the flight in a number of ways: Autumn’s shorter days and cooler weather trigger hormonal changes in the birds, causing their stomachs to stretch to hold more food. The birds also start flying more, as if exercising for their upcoming ordeal.
But the final, and arguably most important step seems to be a stop at the Bay of Fundy, where sandpipers spend two weeks gorging on mud shrimp, which have some of the highest levels of omega-3 fatty acids of any marine animal. Researchers say the feast drastically increases the birds’ endurance by making their muscles use oxygen more efficiently. These omega-3 fatty acids are the same fats shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and lower blood pressure in humans [CBC].
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The hearts of African-American adults are apparently under extraordinary stress. A broad, long-term study has found that African-Americans are developing heart failure at a rate 20 times higher than whites, and some are dying of the disease decades before the condition typically proves fatal in whites. “Blacks in our study who were in their 30s and 40s had the same rate of heart failure as whites in their 50s and 60s,” said [lead researcher] Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo…. “These are people who are in the prime of their life and should be contributing in all kinds of ways,” Dr. Bibbins-Domingo added, “so this disease has a devastating effect, not just on the individual patient but on the family, the community and society in general” [The New York Times].
Researchers say the findings show that narrowly focused research in the past has left striking gaps in our understanding of heart disease, which is the top cause of death for Americans. Says Bibbins-Domingo: “We usually thought of heart failure as a disease of older people, but that’s based on studies by mostly white participants.” … Researchers and cardiology specialists called the findings alarming and a call to action. The scientific community should step up its research on the risk factors and design clinical trials to study specialized treatment for black patients, they said [Baltimore Sun]. They also urge young African-Americans to take the threat seriously, and hedge against it with a healthy diet and exercise.
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People fighting off winter colds and bouts of the flu typically reach for a glass vitamin C-packed orange juice, but new research suggests that vitamin D may be a better protector. People with low levels of the vitamin, which is often called the sunshine vitamin because sun exposure triggers its production in the body, are more likely to catch colds, the flu, and even pneumonia, a broad new study reports. The effect was magnified in people with asthma or other lung diseases.
Vitamin D deficiency is quite common in the United States — particularly in winter…. “People think that if they have a good, balanced diet that they will get enough vitamin D, and that’s actually not true,” said Dr. Michal Melamed…. “Unless you eat a lot of fish and drink a lot of milk, you can’t get enough vitamin D from diet” [CNN].
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Elderly people who ate one-third fewer calories for three months showed marked improvements on memory tests, according to a small new study that’s just the latest evidence linking caloric restriction to good health. There is growing interest in the potential benefits of calorie restricted diets, after research in animals suggested they might be able to improve lifespan and delay the onset of age-related disease. However, it is still not certain whether this would be the case in humans - and the the levels of “caloric restriction” involved are severe [BBC News].
The study involved 50 elderly people who ranged from normal weight to overweight. Members of one group were asked to cut their daily calorie consumption by 30 percent, primarily by reducing their portions, another group kept their calorie intake the same but ate more of the healthy, unsaturated fats found in fish and olive oil, while a final group made no dietary changes. When the volunteers took memory tests after three months, only the calorie-restriction group showed improvement. Neuroscientist Mark Mattson comments that the study “adds to considerable evidence from animal and human studies that high calorie intake is not only bad for your heart, but it’s bad for your brain” [Technology Review].
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Spikes in blood sugar levels seem to be linked to memory problems, and may be a major factor in the normal memory and cognitive problems that crop up as people age, according to a new study. People’s ability to regulate blood sugar begins to deteriorate by their third or fourth decade and continues to decline, so older people are more prone to these sugar spikes. “This would suggest that anything to improve regulation of blood glucose would potentially be a way to ameliorate age-related memory decline,” said senior study author Dr. Scott Small…. The findings may also help explain why people who exercise don’t have as many cognitive problems as they age: Exercise helps stabilize blood glucose levels [HealthDay News].
The findings have important implications for the increasing number of overweight children who are at risk of diabetes, commented neuroscientist Bruce McEwen. “When we think about diabetes, we think about heart disease and all the consequences for the rest of the body, but we usually don’t think about the brain,” he said. “This is something we’ve got to be really worried about. We need to think about their ultimate risks not only for cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders, but also about their cognitive skills, and whether they will be able to keep up with the demands of education and a fast-paced complex society. That’s the part that scares the heck out of me” [The New York Times].
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The health benefits of eating more fish outweigh the risks of mercury poisoning, according to a new Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposal that would revise current federal seafood advisories. The proposal is drawing fire from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and environmental groups that accuse the FDA of pandering to the seafood industry. Richard Wiles, director of an environmental advocacy group, said, “This is an astonishing, irresponsible document…It’s a commentary on how low FDA has sunk as an agency. It was once a fierce protector of America’s health, and now it’s nothing more than a patsy for polluters” [Washington Post].
Currently, the government advises young children, pregnant women, and women of child-bearing age to restrict overall fish consumption to 12 ounces per week and to avoid shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish, which are known to have particularly high mercury levels. Mercury in the environment accumulates in fish and studies have linked the element to developmental problems in fetuses and young children as well as cardiovascular disease in adults. However, the new FDA report says recent studies suggest “a beneficial impact on fetal neurodevelopment from the mother’s consumption of fish, even though they contain methylmercury…The net effect is not necessarily adverse, and could in fact be beneficial” [AP]. The report argued that nutrients in fish, including omega-3 fatty acids, selenium and other minerals could boost a child’s IQ by three points [Washington Post]. The new analysis places ideal fish consumption—for optimal IQ-boosting—somewhere above 12 ounces per week.
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Researchers recently went to an Amish community in Pennsylvania with an odd request: Will you drink milkshakes for the sake of science? In a study about cardiovascular health and genetics that had more than 800 Amish people slurping high-fat shakes, researchers discovered that about five percent of their subjects had a genetic mutation that defends the heart against the effects of a high-fat diet—specifically, breaking down triglycerides, those fats that clog arteries like hair in your bathroom drain [Newsweek].
In the study, published in Science [subscription required], Amish men and women agreed to drink a rich milkshake that was made mostly of heavy cream. Over the next six hours, a group of investigators took samples of their blood, determining how much fat was churning through their bloodstreams. Most of the study participants responded as expected — their levels of triglycerides, a common form of fat in the blood, rose steadily for three to four hours and then declined. But about 5 percent had an extraordinary reaction: their triglyceride levels started out low and hardly budged [The New York Times].
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The fear surrounding nut allergies among children has gotten so out of control, one doctor says, that it could be considered an outbreak of mass psychogenic illness (MPI), more informally known as mass hysteria. Writing in the British Medical Journal, medical sociologist Nicholas Christakis argues that a tiny fraction of hospital admissions and deaths are due to allergic reactions to nuts yet ever more draconian measures are being brought in to prevent any child coming into contact with nuts [Telegraph]. Those draconian measures fuel parents’ anxieties, Christakis says, in what he calls a “cycle of over-reaction.”
Christakis cites the extreme example of when a potentially fatal peanut was “spotted on the floor of a school bus, whereupon the bus was evacuated and cleaned (I am tempted to say decontaminated), even though it was full of 10-year-olds who, unlike two-year-olds, could actually be told not to eat food off the floor” [The Register]. He also mentions some school policies of banning all nuts, peanut butter, and even baked goods that may have come into contact with nuts. While he acknowledges that nut allergies can be serious and even deadly, Christakis says that reasonable preventative measures could protect vulnerable children without scaring the bejesus out of everyone else.
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You may not want to think about what goes into your fast food, but a new study may at least put your overactive imagination to rest: It’s mostly corn. The researchers analyzed hamburgers, chicken sandwiches, and fries from McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s and determined that nearly all of them could be traced to the corn industry– in the form of corn feed or corn-based oil. “If you put any money into fast food, it all goes back to corn, everything. The first step to making hamburgers is making an ear of corn,” said Hope Jahren, lead author of the study [Des Moines Register].
The researchers traveled to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Denver, Detroit, Boston and Baltimore, purchasing feasts of fast food at multiple restaurants in each city. Samples of beef, chicken, and fries were then ground up and analyzed for levels of isotopes. Specifically, they were looking for carbon-13, which is a unique signature of corn, and nitrogen-15, which is found in fertilizers and animal excrement. Based on the high levels of carbon and nitrogen isotopes found in the meat products, the authors claim that the cattle and poultry were predominantly fed corn, which makes them as fat as possible in as short a time as possible, and were raised in extreme confinement [Forbes.com], keeping the animals in close contact with their own excrement. The high nitrogen-15 content also suggests the corn fields were heavily fertilized with nitrogen-based fertilizers.
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Eating red meat could make your body more vulnerable to a dangerous bacterial toxin, according to a new study. A sugar molecule, Neu5Gc, found in beef, lamb, pork, and unpasteurized milk can attach itself to the cells lining the human intestines and act as a magnet for toxins produced by certain strains of E. coli, often carried in the same meats. The result is bloody diarrhea and sometimes death. “This uncovered the first example of bacterium causing disease in humans by targeting a molecule which is incorporated into our bodies through what we eat,” [ABC Science] says researcher Travis Beddoe.
The study, published in Nature [subscription required], was conducted in petri dishes using mouse tissues and human cells. The scientists tested human gut and kidney cells steeped in these sugar molecules and discovered that the toxin was about seven times more likely to bind to these cells if the sugar was present. It is still “not clear how to extrapolate this precisely to the human body,” [Science News] says co-author Ajit Varki. That is, researchers don’t know exactly what it means for human health yet. (more…)
The toxic chemical melamine that has already contaminated Chinese milk and eggs may also have been widely used in animal feed, according to new reports from the Chinese state media. Chinese consumers were horrified when it was revealed in September that four babies had died and more than 50,000 were sickened due to tainted infant formula, and the outrage grew in October when eggs from four large companies were also found to be tainted. Since then, the widening scandal has caused companies across Asia to recall products made with Chinese milk or eggs, and the new reports suggest that there may be broader recalls to come.
Melamine can be used to make food products appear to have a higher protein content, and the new admission from the state-run media, which usually suppresses bad news, shows that the trick was commonly used. “The feed industry seems to have acquiesced to agree on using the chemical to reduce production costs while maintaining the protein count for quality inspections,” the state-run China Daily said in an editorial. “We cannot say for sure if the same chemical has made its way into other types of food,” the newspaper added [BBC News].
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Using a gene from a snapdragon flower, researchers have created a purple tomato rich in antioxidants, and a new study has shown that cancer-prone mice that were fed the altered tomatoes had significantly longer lifespans than those that dined on regular tomatoes. The tomatoes’ purple hue was a side effect of the type of antioxidants produced, called anthocyanins.
The tomatoes produce levels of anthocyanins about on par with blackberries, blueberries and currants, which recent research has touted as miracle fruits. But because of the high cost and infrequent availability of such berries, tomatoes might be a better source, says [lead researcher Cathie] Martin [USA Today].
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