Genetic testing is beginning to emerge as a viable medical option, and the opposing teams are lining up. On one side stands the medical community, all a-flush with new possibilities for diagnosing and heading off illness--not to mention a myriad of new things to bill for. On the opposite side stand all those who believe that genetic testing presents yet another opportunity for big brother to insert himself into our lives -- and in the process, to use the resulting information against us.
And here's a study supporting what I've been telling people for years -- that not only are artificial sweeteners unhealthy, they make you fat. Yes, that's what I said. They make you fat!
If you think you're on your way to a new, svelte look because you drink diet soda, you might want to reconsider. A study out of the Ingestive Behavior Research Center at Purdue University, published in the February 2008 issue of Behavioral Neuroscience, proves what many of us in the alternative health community have been saying for years, that artificial sweeteners may throw off your body's natural calorie-counting response, leaving you more likely to overindulge in other foods. In experiments on rats, the researchers found that those fed yogurt sweetened with sugar substitutes, "consumed more calories, put on more weight, gained more body fat, and did not cut back on their calorie consumption in the longer term," when compared to rats eating yogurt sweetened with regular sugar.
The pharmaceutical industry may soon have another way to boost profits, thanks to a proposed loosening of "off-label" marketing regulations by the FDA. Off-label use means prescribing a medication for a purpose other than as originally approved by the FDA. For instance, the FDA approved Prozac for use in treating depression, and yet many doctors prescribe Prozac to treat other conditions such as menopausal symptoms, insomnia, and pain. Likewise, Botox has approval for use in beautifying patients, but it's often prescribed to treat migraines. And the drug Adderall, approved only for use in controlling hyperactivity, has been widely prescribed to control childhood obesity.
A study just reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association reveals 26 percent of Americans have back or neck problems that limit their ability to function. That's one in every four people -- a huge segment of the population -- and that huge segment spends a huge amount of money trying to get some relief. According to the report, authored by a medical team at the University of Washington, "spending on [medical] spine treatments in the United States totaled nearly $86 billion in 2005, a rise of 65 percent from 1997." The report studied large numbers of patients seeing medical doctors between the years 1997 and 2005, but it did not include chiropractic care in its findings.
Here's yet another disturbing story about meat, right on the heels of last week's post on a related topic. According to the Los Angeles Times, several members of Congress last week called for an independent investigation into the safety of beef supplied to public schools, responding to concerns raised by a horrifying video showing sick cows being tortured enroute to the slaughterhouse. The video, filmed at one of the nation's largest meat suppliers, shows weak and sick cows unable to stand and being subjected to torture in order to force them to walk. Regulations require that cows walk from one pen to the next to prove that they are healthy enough to slaughter. According to ABC News, Hallmark/Westland Meat Company, where the footage was shot, "is the No. 2 supplier of beef to a USDA program that distributes the beef to needy families, the elderly, and also to schools, through the National School Lunch Program."
Carnivores now have something to worry about beyond cholesterol and saturated fats. It seems that the juicy red appearance of meat at your grocery store may, in fact, be a lie. When left in a butcher's case without packaging, meat retains its red color only a few days before starting to go rancid and turning gray-brown. That's just not long enough to allow for distribution and warehousing -- let alone end sales at the supermarket. So how is it that the meat at the grocery store retains its fresh rosy glow for weeks on end? According to a recent article in USA Today, the secret lies in infusing the packaging with carbon monoxide -- a widely used practice. It seems that dosing the meat with carbon monoxide keeps it looking good for at least 20 days -- double the amount of time achieved by other packaging methods. That's also about nine times the number of days beyond when it goes rancid naturally.
Like a mosquito that keeps circling the ear, the issue of plastic toxicity seems to keep buzzing its way into the news. A few months ago (12/14/2007), I wrote a blog about the dangers of plastic, after several major sports retailers in the United States and Canada pulled polycarbonate plastic bottles from their shelves in response to concerns about toxic leaching. The issue resurfaced again last week when ABC News broke a story about the efforts of environmental and parent groups to contain the use of polycarbonate in baby bottles, sippy cups, and food containers. The story came on the heels of a new report entitled Baby's Toxic Bottle: Bisphenol-A Leaching from Popular Baby Bottles, authored by a coalition of 15 public health and environmental groups.
Researchers in Australia are jumping up and down like kangaroos in excitement over new data that suggests that obesity surgery can eliminate diabetes far more effectively than other treatments. Dr. John Dixon of Monash University Medical School in Melbourne led a study that found that those Type 2 diabetes patients who had stomach-reducing operations were five times more likely to be diabetes free within two years than those who merely maintained a regimen of standard diabetes care. Of the 55 patients in the study, 29 underwent obesity surgery, and of those, 22 tested negative for diabetes two years later. Of the 26 patients who didn't have the surgery, only four achieved similar remission.
A new British study out of King's College in London makes clear that people who stay physically active in their free time also stay younger biologically. The research team, led by Lynn F. Cherkos, examined the DNA of 2,401 twins, observing the length of "telomeres-repeated sequences" at the end of the chromosomes in their white blood cells (leukocytes). These sequences tend to shorten with age. The study found that those who exercised heavily -- 199 minutes a week -- had, on average, 200 more nucleotides than those who exercised a mere 16 minutes a week, meaning that the exercisers were "biologically" 10 years younger than the non-exercisers. These results remained consistent even after adjusting other factors such as smoking, amount of physical activity at work, socioeconomic status, and body-mass index.
There's some bad news for those hoping that the anti-viral drug Tamiflu will save them should they get sick this winter. It seems that a significant percentage of seasonal flu cases have become Tamiflu-resistant, according to a study completed by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). The ECDC tested 148 samples of the most common seasonal flu, Influenza A H1N1, and found that 13 percent of the samples did not respond to the anti-viral agent. These findings raised concerns, since Tamiflu currently is the frontrunner antiviral drug worldwide, and many nations have been stockpiling it in case of a bird-flu pandemic. Tamiflu is not a vaccine and doesn't prevent the flu, but rather, works to lessen symptoms and to shorten the duration of the illness.
You go to the bathroom at the bookstore, wash your hands, then lift your purse off the shelf where you had it resting and continue into the store where you purchase a book. Do you think you're safe from germs because you washed your hands with soap? Think again, because according to studies, the toilet seat has fewer bacteria than the bottom of the purse you just handled, and it's cleaner than the money you receive as change from the store clerk.
A new study has just hit the news. According to the results of an Argentinian study released just hours ago, "the levels of thimerosal [in childhood vaccinations] don't go very high and they go down right away. By the time it's time for the next dose of vaccine, the levels are right back to where they were at the beginning." The study found that the half-life of ethyl mercury in the blood -- the time it takes for the body to get rid of half the mercury, and then another half, and so on -- was 3.7 days. That's significantly less than the half-life of methyl mercury, the kind found in fish, at 44 days. Bottom line: according to the study's authors, the study showed that the controversial mercury-containing preservative thimerosal is rapidly excreted from babies' bodies and can't build up to toxic levels.
