Salmonella Found in Food Additive Sparks Recall
March 8, 2010
Wall Street Journal
By Jared A. Favole and Alicia Mundy
The Food and Drug Administration has asked a variety of food companies to recall more than 30 products, from vegetable dips to soups, that contain a commonly used food additive that has tested positive for salmonella.
There have been no reports of people getting sick from eating foods with the ingredient, a flavor enhancer called hydrolyzed vegetable protein, or HVP. Some batches of the ingredient that tested positive were shipped from a Las Vegas-based company.
FDA officials couldn’t determine how many products might need to be recalled but noted that HVP is used in thousands of products across the U.S. Products being recalled include some prepackaged foods made by Earth Island, tortilla soup mix made by Homemade Gourmet and chicken soup base made by Castella Imports.
Jeffrey Farrar, associate commissioner for food protection, said the risk to consumers of getting sick is “very low.” HVP generally represents just 1% of the total ingredients in a product.
Some products that received HVP from the Las Vegas company, Basic Food Flavors Inc., won’t need to be recalled. These include most foods that are cooked. Cooking generally kills salmonella. Basic Food Flavors didn’t immediately respond to comment.
The recall comes as the FDA and consumer groups are urging Congress to pass food safety legislation that would give the regulatory agency more power to police the industry.
In a conference call with reporters, FDA officials said multiple times that the recall underscores the need for lawmakers to pass a food safety bill that has stalled in the Senate.
The legislation would also allow the FDA to force companies to recall products, require better record keeping and boost inspections of food facilities, especially those handling risky foods.
Joshua Sharfstein, the deputy commissioner at the FDA, said “we would like not to have episodes like this in the future.” He said the legislation would help shift the focus “towards prevention.”
In recent weeks, the FDA has announced several initiatives related to food safety, and on Wednesday slapped more than a dozen companies with warnings for how they market their foods and beverages.
Trader Joe’s, a grocery store, posted a statement on its Web site about one recalled product, its Organic Creamy Ranch Dressing Dip. It noted that products with a use-by-date of June 13, 2010, in their stores in the southwestern U.S. may contain an ingredient contaminated with salmonella. As a precaution all of the product has been removed from store shelves and has been destroyed, the company said. Trader Joe’s hasn’t received any reports of illness related to that salad dressing and dip.
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FDA Warns Food Manufacturers Over Misleading Labels
March 4, 2010
ABC News
By Lee Ferran
The countdown is on for 17 food manufacturers to correct labels on popular food products that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says misrepresents the products’ health benefits — or else.
The FDA said Wednesday that its commissioner, Dr. Margaret Hamburg, had sent letters to each company in question Feb. 22, along with an open letter to the food manufacturing industry demanding they take action against “false or misleading” labels.
Among the complaints is that “misleading ‘healthy’ claims continue to appear on foods that do not meet the long- and well-established definition for use of that term,” Hamburg said in the letter.
If companies such as Nestle and Beech-Nut do not comply, the FDA warned, the products could be removed from the shelves.
“FDA is notifying a number of manufacturers that their labels are in violation of the law and subject to legal proceedings to remove misbranded products from the marketplace,” Hamburg said in the letter, which is posted on the FDA Web site.
Bruce Silverglade of the Center for Science in the Public Interest told “Good Morning America, “We hope this is the start of a battle that will lead to a war that will end deceptive food labeling.”
Hamburg, citing the desire of industry leaders to provide safe, healthy products, said in the letter that the FDA’s measure is an attempt to clarify “what is expected of them.”
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Weight Watchers Endorsement of McDonalds
March 3, 2010
guardian.co.uk
McDonald’s is hardly an ideal dining location for anyone struggling to stay slim. But the fast food chain scored a PR coup today when Weight Watchers agreed to endorse some of its products in New Zealand – a move met with outrage by nutritionists and obesity experts.
As part of the deal, which the company says is the first of its kind in the world, McDonald’s will use the Weight Watchers logo on its menu boards and Weight Watchers will promote McDonald’s to dieters.
The link-up is the fast-food chain’s latest attempt to improve its reputation by securing endorsements. In January, to the horror of gastronomes, Italy’s agriculture minister, Luca Zaia, helped launch the McItaly range of burgers. For a representative of one of the world’s greatest culinary nations to do such a thing was “a sign of the moral bankruptcy of Silvio Berlusconi’s government”, wrote Matthew Fort in the Guardian.
Several items on the fast food giant’s menu – the Filet-O-Fish, Chicken McNuggets and Sweet Chilli Seared Chicken Wrap – have been approved for the Weight Watchers diet in McDonald’s 150 New Zealand restaurants. Each meal is worth 6.5 points on the programme, which assigns points to food items and allows dieters to consume 18 to 40 points each day to achieve their goal weight.
McDonald’s New Zealand managing director, Mark Hawthorne, said: “We were able to include some of our most popular items because of the many changes we have made over the years.
“For instance, the switch to a healthier canola blend cooking oil means items such as the Filet-O-Fish and Chicken McNuggets contain 60% less saturated fat than six years ago.
Chris Stirk, Weight Watchers’ director of business in Australia and New Zealand, said the partnership between the companies reflected “part of our philosophy that you can enjoy life … while still achieving your weight loss goals”.
But nutritionists and obesity experts said the menu items were a marketing ploy to lure customers into the restaurant. “It’s all about sales,” said Jane Martin, senior adviser of Australia’s Obesity Policy Coalition. “It implies this food is healthy … when often it is high in fat and salt. Chicken McNuggets are Chicken McNuggets whether it’s got Weight Watchers on it or not.”
Sian Porter, a dietician at the British Dietetic Association, said: “This sort of initiative should be applauded, but the danger is that someone will go in, choose one of the healthier options and then think: ‘Ooh good. Now I’ll have an ice cream’, which is not the right message.”
Weight Watchers and McDonald’s in Britain said they had no plans for a similar partnership in the UK.
The fast-food chain, widely criticised for selling a high-calorie, high-fat menu that includes super-size meals, was “making every best effort to generate a change in behaviour, to create an awareness in consumers about making healthy choices”, Hawthorne said.
For the past year in the UK, the chain has run a programme linking children’s football teams with their local McDonald’s restaurant and offering them free kit and equipment.
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New Gene Test May Help Pick A Diet Plan
March 3, 2010
Reuters
By Maggie Fox
Can’t lose weight on a low-fat diet? Maybe you need to cut carbs instead, and a new genetic test may point the way, maker Interleukin Genetics Inc reported on Wednesday.
The small study of about 140 overweight or obese women showed that those on diets “appropriate” for their genetic makeup lost more weight than those on less appropriate diets, researchers told an American Heart Association meeting.
“The potential of using genetic information to achieve this magnitude of weight loss without pharmaceutical intervention would be important in helping to solve the pervasive problem of excessive weight in our society,” Christopher Gardner at Stanford University in California, who worked on the study, said in a statement.
Massachusetts-based Interleukin’s $149 test looks for mutations in three genes, known as FABP2, PPARG and ADRB2.
The company says 39 percent of white Americans have the low-fat genotype, 45 percent have the type that responds best to a diet low in processed carbohydrates and an unlucky 16 percent have gene mutations that mean they have to watch both fat and processed carbohydrates.
The researchers randomly assigned around 140 women to one of four diets — the low-carb Atkins diet, the ultra low-fat Ornish diet, the very low-fat LEARN diet or the more balanced Zone diet.
Interleukin went back and tested about 100 of the women for their DNA by using a cheek swab and then looked to see if the women on the “right” diets lost more weight.
MOST EFFECTIVE MATCHES
Over a year, people on diets appropriate to their genetic makeup, as determined by the test, lost 5.3 percent of body weight. People on mismatched diets lost 2.3 percent, the Stanford researchers told the meeting.
Cholesterol levels improved in line with weight loss, they said.
The company said the test looks for genes that affect metabolism.
“One of the gene variations affects absorption of fats from the intestine,” Ken Kornman, chief scientific officer at Interleukin, said in a telephone interview. He said people with that particular mutation absorb more fat from their food and thus should avoid fat if they want to lose weight.
Another of the variations affects insulin response — the body’s production of insulin to metabolize sugar, he said. Simple carbohydrates such as sugar and processed flour stimulate people with that particular gene type to store more of the energy as fat.
Ten percent to 16 percent of people have both mutations, and must watch both carbs and fat, Kornman said.
“What we don’t know is if they are on the right diet for their genotype whether it affects satiety or feeling full,” he said. He said the company planned broader studies to ask these questions.
Interleukin markets the test under the brand name Inherent Health. It also can test who might best lose weight in response to exercise.
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Parents Better than TV at Teaching Babies to Speak
March 2, 2010
dailymail.co.uk
By Fiona Macrae
Parents who buy educational DVDs to give their toddlers a head start may be doing more harm than good.
A study of almost 100 boys and girls aged between one and two found that regularly watching a DVD from the Baby Einstein range did nothing to boost their vocabulary.
In fact, the younger the children were when they began to watch the programmes, the worse their word power.
Researchers tested the children over six weeks. Half were given a Baby Wordsworth DVD, which their parents were told to play 15 times over six weeks.
The 35-minute disc, costing around £18, is part of the Baby Einstein range – popular with parents keen to boost toddlers’ IQs before starting school.
It uses puppets and people to introduce 30 words for rooms and household appliances, including ‘fridge’ and ‘phone’.
The remaining children’s parents were told to ‘go about life as normal’.
Not surprisingly, older children picked up more new words than younger ones, the California University team found.
However, those who watched the DVD did no better than the others, and in fact appeared to learn little or nothing, their parents told Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, an American journal.
Researchers also asked parents if they had used the DVDs before and found the younger a child was on starting to watch Baby Einstein, the worse their word ability was.
This may be because parents are more likely to use them as aids if children are struggling to learn to speak, said researcher Rebekah Richert.
It is also possible that watching TV means youngsters miss out on playing with their parents, other children and toys. In addition, some experts say the flashing lights and quick scene changes in the Baby Einstein programmes over-simulate the developing brain.
Dr Richert said: ‘Given that infantdirected media are nearly ubiquitous aspects of many infants’ lives, research should continue to examine whether and how parents can use the DVDs effectively.’
Last night, no one at Disney was available for comment.
The Baby Einstein DVDs avoid any suggestion they will make children brainier, and merely claim the series is a must for parents who simply want the best for their children.
‘Our products provide fun and stimulating ways for parents and carers to interact with their children,’ the blurb on the DVD says.
A previous study found children between seven and 16 months who watched the DVDs knew fewer words than their peers. Each hour they watched per day equated to six fewer words in their vocabulary.
Following threatened legal action last year, Disney offered refunds to dissatisfied parents – but only in North America.
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Low-Fat Diets Beat Low-Carb Regimen Long Term
March 2, 2010
WebMD.com
By Jennifer Warner
A low-carb diet may offer quick results, but a new study suggests that a low-fat diet may be best for long-term weight loss and maintaining a healthy weight.
Researchers found obese people who followed a low-fat diet may be more likely to keep the weight off three years later after starting the diet than those who followed a low-carbohydrate diet.
“Although participants in the low-carbohydrate group lost more weight at 12 months, they regained more weight during the next 24 months,” write researcher Marion L. Vetter, MD, RD of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues in the Annals of Internal Medicine. “In contrast, participants in the low-fat group maintained their weight loss.”
In the study, researchers started with a group of 132 obese people who weighed an average of 289 pounds before starting either a low-fat diet, a calorie- restricted diet with less than 30% of daily calories from fat, or a low-carb diet with fewer than 30 grams of fat per day for 12 months.
After six months on the diets, the group on the low-carb diet experienced the greatest weight loss, but by 12 months there was no significant difference in weight loss between the two groups.
Three years after the study began and two years after the diets ended, researchers followed up with 40 people in the low-carb diet group and 48 in the low-fat diet group.
They found people in the low-carb diet group weighed an average of 4.9 pounds less than before they started dieting while those in the low-fat diet group weighed an average of 9.5 pounds less than they did at the start of the study.
Researchers say while both diets appear to offer weight loss benefits, the pattern of weight change was different between the low-carb and low-fat diet groups.
“The differences in weight regain between the two groups probably reflects initial weight loss,” write the researchers. “Participants who lost more weight during the first 12 months tended to regain more weight by month 36.”
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Snacks Make Up 27% of Kids Calories
March 2, 2010
Reuters
Children snack so often that they are “moving toward constant eating,” Carmen Piernas and Barry Popkin of the University of North Carolina reported.
More than 27 percent of calories that American kids take in come from snacks, Piernas and Popkin reported in the journal Health Affairs. The researchers defined snacks as food eaten outside regular meals.
The studies will help fuel President Barack Obama’s initiative to fight obesity in childhood, something Obama’s wife, first lady Michelle Obama, notes could drive up already soaring U.S. healthcare costs.
Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wrote a commentary calling for taxes on sugary drinks and junk food, zoning restrictions on fast-food outlets around schools and bans on advertising unhealthy food to children.
“Government at national, state, and local levels, spearheaded by public health agencies, must take action,” he wrote.
Piernas and Popkin looked at data on 31,337 children aged 2 to 18 from four different federal surveys on food and eating.
“Childhood snacking trends are moving toward three snacks per day, and more than 27 percent of children’s daily calories are coming from snacks. The largest increases have been in salty snacks and candy. Desserts and sweetened beverages remain the major sources of calories from snacks,” they wrote.
“Children increased their caloric intake by 113 calories per day from 1977 to 2006,” they added.
CONSTANT EATING
“This raises the question of whether the physiological basis for eating is becoming deregulated, as our children are moving toward constant eating.”
In a second study in the journal, Christina Bethell of the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland and colleagues analyzed data from the 2007 National Survey of Children’s Health to find the rate of obesity for children 10 to 17 rose from 14.8 percent in 2003 to 16.4 percent in 2007.
The percentage of children who are overweight stayed at around 15 percent, they found.
“While combined overweight and obesity rates appear to be leveling off, our findings suggest a possible increase in the severity of the national childhood obesity epidemic,” Bethell said in a statement.
Parents, educators and policymakers all hold responsibility for this, Michelle Obama told the School Nutrition Association conference in Washington on Monday.
“Our kids didn’t do this to themselves,” Obama said.
“From fast food, to vending machines packed with chips and candy, to a la carte lines, we tempt our kids with all kinds of unhealthy choices every day.”
Other studies have shown that obese children are more likely to stay obese as adults, and they develop chronic conditions at younger ages, burdening the healthcare system.
“You see kids who are at higher risk of conditions like diabetes, and cancer, and heart disease — conditions that cost billions of dollars a year to treat,” Michelle Obama said.
The administration has launched an initiative to tackle the issue by improving nutritional standards, getting food companies to voluntarily improve nutrition standards, help kids exercise more and educating parents.
The effects extend beyond health. Bethell’s study found that overweight or obese children were 32 percent more likely to have to repeat a grade in school and 59 percent more likely than normal weight kids to have missed more than two weeks of school.
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A Purposeful Life May Stave Off Alzheimer’s
March 2, 2010
ABC News
By Kristina Fiore
Patients who maintain a greater sense of purpose in life as they age may have greater protection against Alzheimer’s disease, researchers have found.
Those with a purpose had more than a 50 percent reduced risk of the disease, Dr. Patricia A. Boyle of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago and colleagues reported in the March issue of the journal Archives of General Psychiatry.
“The tendency to derive meaning from life’s experiences and to possess a sense of intentionality and goal directedness are associated with a substantially reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease and a less rapid rate of cognitive decline in older age,” the researchers wrote.
Some data have suggested that psychological factors such as extraversion and neuroticism, as well as experiential factors including social networks, are associated with risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
Purpose — which the researchers define as a “psychological tendency to derive meaning from life’s experiences and to possess a sense of intentionality and goal directedness that guides behavior” — has long been thought to protect against adverse health outcomes. For example, it was recently reported to be associated with longevity, they noted.
But there was little information on the association of purpose with Alzheimer’s disease.
So the researchers conducted a study of 951 community-dwelling older patients without dementia who participated in the Rush Memory and Aging Project.
Each had a baseline evaluation about purpose in life, which incorporated a 10-item scale that included agree/don’t-agree statements such as “I feel good when I think of what I have done in the past and what I hope to do in the future” and “I enjoy making plans for the future and working them to a reality.”
Patients were followed for up to seven years, with an average follow-up of about four years. During that time, 155 patients developed Alzheimer’s disease.
The researchers found that those who developed the disease were older and reported lower purpose in life than those who did not.
Greater purpose in life was associated with a 52 percent reduced risk of Alzheimer’s, and those with a high score on the purpose-in-life measurement were 2.4 times more likely to remain disease-free than low-scorers.
The association persisted after controlling for several factors, including depressive symptoms, neuroticism, social network size, and number of chronic medical conditions, the researchers found.
Similarly, those who developed mild cognitive impairment (MCI) were older and reported lower purpose in life scores than those who were not impaired. They also had a higher number of depressive symptoms.
There were other benefits as well. Having a greater sense of purpose was associated with reduced heart attack risk of almost 30 percent, as well as a 1.5-fold increased likelihood of remaining heart attack-free, compared to low scorers.
Researchers aren’t sure of the biological mechanisms involved in the association, but other studies have found sense of purpose to be associated with lower levels of immune markers, including the stress hormone cortisol and inflammatory hormones.
Sense of purpose also has been positively associated with high-density lipoprotein — the type of cholesterol known as HDL or “good” cholesterol. Additionally, it has been negatively correlated with waist-hip ratios — in other words, high-purpose people look slimmer.
The findings may have important public health implications, the researchers added, as they potentially provide a new treatment target for interventions aimed at enhancing health and well-being in older adults.
“Purpose in life is a potentially modifiable factor that may be increased via specific behavioral strategies that can help older persons identify personally meaningful activities and engage in goal-directed behaviors,” they wrote.
“Even small behavioral modifications ultimately may translate into an increased sense of intentionality, usefulness, and relevance.”
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The Healthy Should Not Take Aspirin to Avoid Heart Attack
March 3, 2010
telegraph.co.uk
By Rebecca Smith
Millions of people take a low dose of aspirin daily, as it is known to reduce the risk of having a heart attack or stroke in people who have already had one attack.
It is seen as a ‘just in case’ measure and, because aspirin has been available for around 100 years, it is considered safe by the majority of people.
However, aspirin increases the likelihood of major bleeding, in the brain, stomach or elsewhere in the body, and experts warned that the beneficial effects must be weighed against the risk of harm.
Aspirin, which thins the blood, has been hailed as a wonder drug because it is wide range of uses including reducing the risk of a second heart attack or stroke, increasing evidence that it may prevent some cancers and may have an affect on dementia.
Research carried out in Scotland and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that aspirin taken by people who have no outward symptoms of heart disease did not reduce the risk of a heart attack when compared to those on a dummy pill.
Those on aspirin were at almost twice the risk of suffering a bleed, although the overall risk was small, the study found.
Professor Peter Weissberg, Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation, said: “We know that a small daily dose of aspirin can reduce the risk of a heart attack in people with angina and in those who’ve had a heart attack. In these cases, this potential benefit outweighs the risk of internal bleeding, which is a side effect of aspirin.
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Foodborne Illness Costs US $152 Bil Annually
March 3, 2010
Reuters
By Christopher Doering
Food safety advocates are hoping that the study will boost efforts in Congress to overhaul the nation’s antiquated food safety system.
Dozens of pathogens, many of them unknown, creep into the food supply each year, sickening millions. The price tag includes medical costs, lost productivity and quality-of-life, according to a study from the Produce Safety Project.
“This is significantly more than previous official estimates and it demonstrates the serious burden that foodborne illness places on society,” said Sandra Eskin, a spokeswoman with Make Our Food Safe Coalition, a group of consumer, public health and other groups pushing for stronger food safety laws.
The latest study to delve into foodborne illnesses comes as Congress works to craft legislation that would mark the first major overhaul of the food safety system in 50 years.
The House passed its bill last July and the Senate, which has been bogged down with healthcare and regulatory reform, is expected to act this year.
“My hope… is that the sobering numbers of this report will compel the Senate to act immediately on food safety legislation,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who has vigorously pushed for food safety reform. “We literally cannot afford to wait.”
Past official government estimates of health-related costs of foodborne illness have ranged from $7 billion to as much as $35 billion, but they considered only limited costs and pathogens, according to the report.
The new study, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts and Georgetown University, considered more pathogens and health-related costs, pushing the price tag to $152 billion. Overall, foodborne illness costs related to produce total $39 billion per year, the study estimated.
The U.S. food supply has been battered by a series of high-profile outbreaks, many involving produce, such as lettuce, spinach, peppers and peanuts, since 2006 led to a rash of illnesses for consumers and cost businesses millions.
Many firms including Kellogg Co, whose company lost nearly $70 million in products from the recent peanut recall, and ConAgra Foods have been among those affected.
An estimated 76 million people in the United States get sick each year with foodborne illness and 5,000 die, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The study found Kentucky had the lowest cost per foodborne case at $1,731. Alternatively, greater exposure to higher cost pathogens pushed the price tag to about $2,008 per case in Hawaii. The average cost in the United States was $1,851.
Typical medical costs from a case of foodborne illness range from $78 in Montana to $162 in New Jersey with much of the difference due physician and hospital charges. The average productivity loss from a case of foodborne illness is between $377 in Mississippi and $924 in Delaware.
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