Heart Treatments for Diabetes Causing Harm
March 16, 2010
The New York Times
By Gina Kolata
Three aggressive treatment strategies doctors had expected would prevent heart attacks among people with Type 2 diabetes and some who are the verge of developing it have proved to be ineffective or even harmful, new studies show.
The results are surprising and disappointing, heart and diabetes experts say. An estimated 21 million Americans have Type 2 diabetes, the kind once known as adult-onset, and they are at enormous risk for heart disease. The only measures proved to reduce their chances — avoiding cigarettes and taking medication to lower bad cholesterol and blood pressure — still leave diabetics with a heart attack risk equivalent to that of a nondiabetic who has already had a heart attack.
So doctors began trying other strategies they hoped would help: getting blood pressure to a normal range; raising levels of good cholesterol and lowering levels of dangerous triglycerides; or modulating sharp upswings in blood sugar after a meal.
It is not known how many doctors have been encouraging patients to take these measures, but medical specialists say it seemed reasonable and tempting to do so.
“Doctors always want to improve the lives of their patients, and that often leads to pressure to treat more and more,” said Dr. Henry N. Ginsberg, director of the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research at Columbia University. The new studies, he says, could save a lot of people from taking drugs that will not help them.
The papers were presented at an American College of Cardiology meeting on Sunday and are being published online by The New England Journal of Medicine.
In Type 2 diabetes, the body is resistant to the hormone insulin, leading to abnormally high blood sugar levels that can cause eye, kidney and nerve disease. But heart disease is what kills most patients. A quarter to a third of heart attack patients have diabetes, even though diabetics constitute just 9 percent of the population. And 25 percent of heart attack patients are on the verge of diabetes, with abnormally high blood sugar levels.
High blood sugar levels themselves increase the risk of heart disease, but researchers found two years ago that rigorously controlling blood sugar did not prevent heart disease or deaths in people with Type 2 diabetes. Researchers said the failure was probably because most of those patients also had other problems that made their odds of heart disease soar, like high levels of LDL cholesterol, low levels of HDL cholesterol, high levels of triglycerides and high blood pressure. And most were older and overweight.
Type 2 diabetes “captures all these risk factors in one patient,” said Dr. David Nathan, director of the diabetes center at Massachusetts General Hospital.
It seemed logical to look at the other risk factors. One large federal study asked if getting high blood pressure down to a level considered normal, a systolic pressure of no more than 120, would help protect diabetics from heart disease and save lives.
This hypothesis was promising because studies that observed populations found that heart disease and stroke risk increase continuously as systolic blood pressure rises from 115 on up, said Dr. William C. Cushman, a study investigator and chief of the preventive medicine section at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Memphis.
To put the idea of a normal blood pressure to the test, half of the study’s 4,773 participants took drugs to get their systolic blood pressure to 120 or below. The rest had a blood pressure goal of less than 140.
But lower blood pressure did not prevent heart attacks or cardiovascular deaths, and those with lower blood pressure were more likely to suffer severe side effects from the drugs, like high potassium levels or dangerously low blood pressures. They also took an average of 3.4 drugs to lower blood pressure, compared with an average of 2 drugs for those with the higher pressure.
A second, less rigorous study, involving 6,400 patients with Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, asked whether getting systolic blood pressure lower than 130 was any better than getting it to 130 to 140. It found that patients actually were worse off: those with the lower blood pressure ended up with a 50 percent greater risk of strokes, heart attacks or deaths.
National blood pressure treatment guidelines call for a systolic pressure of 130 or lower. That was based on expert opinion and observational studies, Dr. Cushman said. Now, he said, it is likely to be reconsidered when the group that sets the guidelines prepares a report this year.
People with diabetes also tend to have low levels of HDL cholesterol and high levels of triglycerides, a combination known to increase the risk of heart disease. And in some studies, treating that combination with a type of drug called a fibrate reduced risk in diabetics and nondiabetics who were not taking statins. So it made sense to see if fibrates also helped Type 2 diabetics who were taking statins.
It did not, concluded another arm of the federal study involving 5,518 people with Type 2 diabetes.
“It’s a disappointment,” said Dr. Ginsberg, a lead study investigator. “But it’s very, very important,” because it says most people will not be helped by taking the additional drug.
It means, said Dr. Denise Simons-Morton of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the project officer for the federal study, that “doctors and patients now know that the inclination to do intensive treatment that people seemed to think would be better for cardiovascular risk reduction wasn’t better.”
A final studyinvestigated the popular hypothesis that rapid rises in blood glucose after a meal were dangerous and could lead to heart disease. Many doctors were giving drugs assuming the hypothesis was correct, Dr. Nathan said.
“Every meeting you go to, some academic is talking about how postprandial hyperglycemia is really bad and that you should aim specifically to get it lower,” Dr. Nathan said. The study, he said, “is a direct test of that.”
The study, which involved 9,300 patients at high risk for diabetes because their blood sugar was high, tested the drug nateglinide, which enhances insulin secretion. It also tested a blood pressure drug. Neither decreased heart disease risk.
“Neither drug should be used in people with impaired glucose tolerance but not diabetes in order to prevent cardiovascular events unless there is another indication, like significant hypertension,” said Dr. Robert M. Califf, vice chancellor for clinical research at Duke University School of Medicine and chairman of the study.
Dr. Nathan, who wrote an accompanying editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine, agreed. “It is a negative study,” he said.
Some, like Dr. Daniel Einhorn, president-elect of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, say the results of that study and the others would not necessarily dissuade him from taking such intensive measures with individual patients.
“It’s hard to make a case for a public health recommendation,” Dr. Einhorn said. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a benefit in an individual case.”
But no benefit has been shown, Dr. Nathan noted. The lesson, he said, is that while making logical leaps to aggressively treat patients with Type 2 diabetes was “totally understandable,” it was also dangerous.
“Lower is not necessarily better,” Dr. Nathan said.
Click here for the full report.
Doctors Calling for Trans Fat Ban
March 16, 2010
Natural News
By E. Huff
The Faculty of Public Health (FPH) in the U.K. is urging British lawmakers to ban trans-fats from the British food supply because the artificial fats are causing heart attacks, strokes, and other serious diseases. Comprised of 3,300 doctors and health specialists, FPH hopes to follow in the footsteps of places like Denmark, Austria, and Switzerland which have all banned trans-fats from their food supplies.
Trans-fats are derived from vegetable oils that have been chemically modified. They bear no nutritional value but are used by food manufacturers to bulk up foods and extend their shelf life. Typically labeled as hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated, these artificial fats are commonly found in processed baked goods and desserts, pastries, and fast foods as well as in margarine and shortening.
Experts recognize that trans-fats increase levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol which can lead to serious health problems like heart disease, diabetes and stroke. Because heart disease rates are already very high in the U.K., FPH and others hope to see trans-fats eradicated in order to improve overall public health.
The Royal Society for Public Health, the Royal College of General Practitioners, and the National Health Forum all agree with FPH about the dangers of trans-fats and are urging their removal. Since data shows that over 250,000 Britons suffer from a heart attack or stroke every year and almost 140,000 of them die as a result, these groups believe it is crucial that government officials reevaluate their position on trans-fats.
Alan Johnson, former British health secretary, requested back in 2007 that the Food Standards Agency perform an investigation into trans-fats. When the agency declared that all was well and that people were consuming on average far less than the government-established maximums for trans-fats, no action was taken. Citing this previous find, the Department of Health continues to oppose banning trans-fats.
Many British food producers are voluntarily removing trans-fats from their products to meet consumer demand, including all the members of the British Retail Consortium who pledged in 2006 to remove trans-fats from their products. These reduction efforts and others have led to an overall drop in trans-fat consumption to one percent of the total energy being derived from foods.
As it stands, there is no law mandating that manufacturers even have to list trans-fats on their ingredient labels, a transparency failure that many hope will be addressed by government officials. At the very least, people should know whether or not the foods they buy contain trans-fats so they can make informed purchasing decisions.
Click here for the full report.
Breaking Down Cholesterol
March 16, 2010
Natural News
By Dr. Julian Whitaker
I’d like to shine the spotlight on one of medicine’s sacred cows- the belief that lowering cholesterol with drugs protects against heart attacks and premature death. Our obsession with cholesterol began in the 1950s when studies linked high consumption of animal fat with high rates of heart disease. This opened the door for clinical trials that laid the foundation of a new paradigm: the cholesterol theory of cardiovascular disease.
This theory has had profound ramifications. It changed the way we eat (fats bad, carbohydrates good) and contributed to our problems with obesity and diabetes. It wormed its way into “clinical practice guidelines”- cholesterol management has become a “standard of care” that doctors are expected to follow. It spawned the invasive heart surgery industry, based on the presumption that cholesterol-laden blockages must be bypassed or propped open. And it led to the creation of the best-selling class of medications in history: cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, which generate more than $15 billion in worldwide sales every year.
But it’s all a house of cards. No matter what you’ve been led to believe, a high cholesterol level is not a reliable sign of an impending heart attack. In fact, growing numbers of experts question whether cholesterol matters at all. As for statin drugs, for most of the 40-plus million Americans recommended to take them for the rest of their lives, they’re an ineffective, expensive, side effect- riddled fraud.
Statin-Free Zone
When a patient taking Lipitor, Zocor, or another statin drug comes to Whitaker Wellness, we discontinue it at once. “But my cholesterol level is 240.” “My doctor told me I’ll have a heart attack if I don’t take this drug.”My father died of heart disease, so I have to take it.” I’ve heard all these justifications and more, and I still recommend that my patients get off statins. Here’s why.
First, they’re not very effective. These drugs do lower cholesterol, but so what? We’re not treating lab numbers. We’re treating patients, and the ultimate goal in cholesterol management is to reduce risk of cardiovascular disease. Except for a very limited number of people, there is absolutely no evidence that statins protect against heart attack or premature death.
Are you over age 65? Not a single study suggests you’ll receive any benefits, even if your cholesterol goes down substantially. A woman of any age? Same story. A man younger than 65 who has never had a heart attack? Ditto, no help at all. For middle-aged men who have had a heart attack, statins may lower risk of a repeat heart attack, but that’s the extent of it.
I know this is hard to buy in light of the multiple drug advertisements and glowing endorsements from doctors. But keep in mind that pharmaceutical companies do a superb job of pulling the wool over the eyes of consumers and physicians alike by withholding unfavorable study results and making false, misleading, and often deceptive claims.
A Statistic We Can Understand
That’s why I want to step around confusing statistics and tell you about an easy-to-understand measure that you’ll never hear about in drug ads. It’s called “number needed to treat,” or NNT, and it describes the number of patients who would need to be treated with a medical therapy in order to prevent one bad outcome. Experts consider an NNT over 50 to be “worse than a lottery ticket.”
Lipitor ads claim that it reduces risk of heart attack by 36 percent. Sounds pretty good until you look at the fine print, do the math (which John Carey did in a great article in Business Week), and figure out that the drug’s NNT is 100. This means that 100 people must be treated with Lipitor in order for just one heart attack to be prevented. The other 99 people taking the drug receive no benefit.
To put this into perspective, the NNT of antibiotics for treating H. pylori, the underlying cause of stomach ulcers, is 1.1. These drugs knock out the bacteria in 10 out of 11 people who take it, making them a reliable, cost-effective therapy. At the other end of the spectrum are statins, which as a class have an NNT of 250, 500, or higher depending on the study you look at. What a deal for drugs that can cost more than a thousand bucks a year and are almost guaranteed to cause problems.
Goodbye Drugs, So Long Symptoms
Statins lower cholesterol by suppressing the activity of an enzyme in the liver involved in the production of cholesterol. But this enzyme has multiple functions, including the synthesis of coenzyme Q10. CoQ10 is a key player in the metabolic processes that energize our cells. No wonder statin users often suffer from fatigue, muscle pain and weakness, and even heart failure- the cells are simply running out of juice.
The second most frequent adverse effects of statins are problems with memory, mood, suicidal behavior, and neurological issues. Other common complaints include sexual dysfunction, and liver and digestive problems. Symptoms range from minor (achiness, forgetfulness) to serious (complete but temporary amnesia, permanent memory loss) to lethal (congestive heart failure, rhabdomyolysis or complete muscle breakdown). One statin drug, Baycol, was taken off the market a few years ago after it caused dozens of deaths from rhabdomyolysis. Several studies have also linked statin drugs with an increased risk of cancer.
Because physicians rarely warn of these side effects, few patients suspect their drugs may be the reason they begin feeling bad- and it’s often a revelation when they put two and two together. Simply discontinuing these medications can result in tremendous improvements in health and well-being. Texas cardiologist Peter Langsjoen, MD, published a study showing that when symptomatic patients got off their statins and started taking 240 mg of CoQ10 per day, they had significant decreases in fatigue, myalgias (muscle aches), dyspnea (shortness of breath), memory loss, and/or peripheral neuropathy.
Not a Drug But a Program
As you can see, we need to shift away from this myopic focus on statin drugs and lowering cholesterol, and take a more holistic view. Folks, you don’t need statins- you need a program that addresses all the known risk factors for heart attack, stroke, and other cardiovascular disorders.
Inflammation, not high cholesterol, is the primary cause of heart disease. Harvard researchers have discovered that a high blood level of C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation, is more predictive of heart disease than cholesterol. To get a handle on inflammation, lose weight- especially if you carry excess fat in the abdominal area. Exercise. Stop smoking. Eat plenty of vegetables and several weekly servings of salmon, sardines, and other omega-3 fatty acids, and avoid sugars and starches.
The beauty of this program is that it targets not only inflammation but other conditions that contribute to cardiovascular disease, including high blood pressure, diabetes, even cholesterol. Best of all, it’s a foundation for overall good health.
Necessary Nutrients
Your program should include a well-rounded nutritional supplement regimen, as well. My number-one suggestion for inflammation in all its guises is fish oil. This supplement also improves blood flow, discourages excess clotting, helps normalize heart rhythm, and saves lives by reducing risk of sudden cardiac death.
Folic acid and other B-complex vitamins are important because they lower levels of homocysteine, a toxic substance that damages the arteries. The mineral magnesium relaxes the arterial walls, which improves blood flow, lowers blood pressure, and helps prevent arrhythmias. And antioxidants, such as vitamins C and E, provide protection against damaging free radicals- another contributor to cardiovascular disease.
Supplements that boost the heart’s energy are recommended as well. One is coenzyme Q10. In addition to serving as a potent antioxidant, CoQ10 also increases the heart muscle’s efficiency and protects against the adverse effects of statin drugs. Another is D-ribose, a natural sugar that is the structural backbone of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the energy that fuels cellular function.
Click here for the full report.
Erectile Dysfunction May Predict Heart Risk
March 16, 2010
Los Angeles Times
By Thomas H. Maugh II
For the first time, researchers have shown that erectile dysfunction is a strong predictor of the likelihood that men will die of heart disease.
Men who suffer from the problem, which some consider more an emotional than a physical issue, are twice as likely to succumb to cardiovascular disease or heart attacks as those who do not have the problem, German researchers reported Monday in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Assn.
Researchers have known for years that there is a link between erectile dysfunction, commonly abbreviated as ED, and heart disease, said Dr. Sahil Parikh, an interventional cardiologist from University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland who was not involved in the study. “But now there is pretty clear evidence that there is a substantially increased risk of heart attack and death when patients have erectile dysfunction.”
The results are probably not too surprising, added Dr. Robert Kloner, a cardiologist at USC’s Keck School of Medicine, “because arteries in the penis are smaller, so atherosclerosis shows up there sooner,” perhaps three to four years before the onset of cardiovascular disease.
The take-home message, both experts said, is that when a patient seeks treatment for ED, typically from a general practitioner, he should be given a full physical work-up to look for heart disease and referred to a cardiologist.
“When they are treated aggressively early, we can prevent heart attacks and stroke and they can have many years added to their lives,” Parikh said.
Existing guidelines for treating men with ED from the Princeton Consensus Conference already state that “a man with ED and no cardiac symptoms is a cardiac (or vascular) patient until proven otherwise.” Kloner, a coauthor of those guidelines, said that when the guidelines are updated this year, they will probably carry a stronger recommendation that a patient presenting with ED get a cardiovascular examination.
Dr. Michael Bohm, a cardiologist at Germany’s Saarland University, and his colleagues studied 1,519 men from 13 countries who were involved in a study of two drugs to treat cardiovascular disease. The men were also queried about their ED at the beginning of the study, two years into it and at the end at five years. A full 55% of the men had ED at the beginning of the trial, nearly double the normal incidence of about 30% in the population at large.
The team reported that, in the five years of follow-up, men with ED were 1.9 times as likely to die from heart disease, twice as likely to have a heart attack, 1.2 times as likely to be hospitalized for heart failure and 1.1 times more likely to have a stroke. The risks increased with the severity of the ED.
Disappointingly, the two drugs tested in the study, ramipril and telmisartan, did not improve the course of the ED.
That’s not surprising, said Dr. Peter Pelikan, a cardiologist at Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, “because it takes years and years and years to get any resorption of cholesterol” that would reduce blockage of the penile arteries. “The study was too small and too short to see that.”
Many men with ED see a general practitioner or a urologist to get treatment and are prescribed drugs like Viagra or Cialis, Bohm said in a statement. “The drug works and the patient doesn’t show up any more. These men are being treated for ED, but not the underlying cardiovascular disease. A whole segment of men is being placed at risk.”
Click here for the full report.
Diabetes Heart Treatments May Cause Harm
March 15, 2010
The New York Times
By Gina Kolata
Three aggressive treatment strategies doctors had expected would prevent heart attacks among people with Type 2 diabetes and some who are the verge of developing it have proved to be ineffective or even harmful, new studies show.
The results are surprising and disappointing, heart and diabetes experts say. An estimated 21 million Americans have Type 2 diabetes, the kind once known as adult-onset, and they are at enormous risk for heart disease. The only measures proved to reduce their chances — avoiding cigarettes and taking medication to lower bad cholesterol and blood pressure — still leave diabetics with a heart attack risk equivalent to that of a nondiabetic who has already had a heart attack.
So doctors began trying other strategies they hoped would help: getting blood pressure to a normal range; raising levels of good cholesterol and lowering levels of dangerous triglycerides; or modulating sharp upswings in blood sugar after a meal.
It is not known how many doctors have been encouraging patients to take these measures, but medical specialists say it seemed reasonable and tempting to do so.
“Doctors always want to improve the lives of their patients, and that often leads to pressure to treat more and more,” said Dr. Henry N. Ginsberg, director of the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research at Columbia University. The new studies, he says, could save a lot of people from taking drugs that will not help them.
The papers were presented at an American College of Cardiology meeting on Sunday and are being published online by The New England Journal of Medicine.
In Type 2 diabetes, the body is resistant to the hormone insulin, leading to abnormally high blood sugar levels that can cause eye, kidney and nerve disease. But heart disease is what kills most patients. A quarter to a third of heart attack patients have diabetes, even though diabetics constitute just 9 percent of the population. And 25 percent of heart attack patients are on the verge of diabetes, with abnormally high blood sugar levels.
High blood sugar levels themselves increase the risk of heart disease, but researchers found two years ago that rigorously controlling blood sugar did not prevent heart disease or deaths in people with Type 2 diabetes. Researchers said the failure was probably because most of those patients also had other problems that made their odds of heart disease soar, like high levels of LDL cholesterol, low levels of HDL cholesterol, high levels of triglycerides and high blood pressure. And most were older and overweight.
Type 2 diabetes “captures all these risk factors in one patient,” said Dr. David Nathan, director of the diabetes center at Massachusetts General Hospital.
It seemed logical to look at the other risk factors. One large federal study asked if getting high blood pressure down to a level considered normal, a systolic pressure of no more than 120, would help protect diabetics from heart disease and save lives.
This hypothesis was promising because studies that observed populations found that heart disease and stroke risk increase continuously as systolic blood pressure rises from 115 on up, said Dr. William C. Cushman, a study investigator and chief of the preventive medicine section at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Memphis.
To put the idea of a normal blood pressure to the test, half of the study’s 4,773 participants took drugs to get their systolic blood pressure to 120 or below. The rest had a blood pressure goal of less than 140.
But lower blood pressure did not prevent heart attacks or cardiovascular deaths, and those with lower blood pressure were more likely to suffer severe side effects from the drugs, like high potassium levels or dangerously low blood pressures. They also took an average of 3.4 drugs to lower blood pressure, compared with an average of 2 drugs for those with the higher pressure.
A second, less rigorous study, involving 6,400 patients with Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, asked whether getting systolic blood pressure lower than 130 was any better than getting it to 130 to 140. It found that patients actually were worse off: those with the lower blood pressure ended up with a 50 percent greater risk of strokes, heart attacks or deaths.
National blood pressure treatment guidelines call for a systolic pressure of 130 or lower. That was based on expert opinion and observational studies, Dr. Cushman said. Now, he said, it is likely to be reconsidered when the group that sets the guidelines prepares a report this year.
People with diabetes also tend to have low levels of HDL cholesterol and high levels of triglycerides, a combination known to increase the risk of heart disease. And in some studies, treating that combination with a type of drug called a fibrate reduced risk in diabetics and nondiabetics who were not taking statins. So it made sense to see if fibrates also helped Type 2 diabetics who were taking statins.
It did not, concluded another arm of the federal study involving 5,518 people with Type 2 diabetes.
“It’s a disappointment,” said Dr. Ginsberg, a lead study investigator. “But it’s very, very important,” because it says most people will not be helped by taking the additional drug.
It means, said Dr. Denise Simons-Morton of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the project officer for the federal study, that “doctors and patients now know that the inclination to do intensive treatment that people seemed to think would be better for cardiovascular risk reduction wasn’t better.”
A final studyinvestigated the popular hypothesis that rapid rises in blood glucose after a meal were dangerous and could lead to heart disease. Many doctors were giving drugs assuming the hypothesis was correct, Dr. Nathan said.
“Every meeting you go to, some academic is talking about how postprandial hyperglycemia is really bad and that you should aim specifically to get it lower,” Dr. Nathan said. The study, he said, “is a direct test of that.”
The study, which involved 9,300 patients at high risk for diabetes because their blood sugar was high, tested the drug nateglinide, which enhances insulin secretion. It also tested a blood pressure drug. Neither decreased heart disease risk.
Click here for the full report
The Positive Effects of Bitter Melon Against Breast Cancer
February 26, 2010
Natural News
By S.L. Baker
A vegetable commonly eaten in India and China called bitter melon (also known by the botanical name Momordica charantia), has been shown in previous studies to have a beneficial impact on blood sugar and cholesterol levels. It turns out that’s not all the health benefits bitter melon offers. A new study by Saint Louis University scientists provides evidence the vegetable triggers a chain of events on a cellular level that stops breast cancer cells from multiplying and also kills them.
Lead researcher Ratna Ray, Ph.D., a professor in the department of pathology at Saint Louis University, noted in a statement to the media that she personally uses bitter melon when she cooks stir fry dishes. She decided to investigate the health effects of bitter melon extract after other researchers discovered how it can lower blood sugar and regulate cholesterol levels. In fact, bitter melon extract has been used by traditional healers in China and India for centuries as a natural treatment for diabetes. But Dr. Ray was surprised to find this vegetable was a powerful inhibitor of breast cancer growth, too.
“To our knowledge, this is the first report describing the effect of bitter melon extract on cancer cells,” Dr. Ray stated. “Our result was encouraging. We have shown that bitter melon extract significantly induced death in breast cancer cells and decreased their growth and spread.”
The research, published in the March 1 edition of Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, involved human breast cancer cells exposed to bitter melon extract in the lab. Dr. Ray cautioned that it is too early to jump to conclusions that the extract could help breast cancer patients — but her findings are promising.
“Cancer prevention by the use of naturally occurring dietary substances is considered a practical approach to reduce the ever-increasing incidence of cancer. Studying a high risk breast cancer population where bitter melon is taken as a dietary product will be an important area of future research,” Dr. Ray said in the press statement.
Dr. Ray and colleagues are currently conducting follow-up studies. They are looking at a number of different cancer cell lines in order to investigate how bitter melon halts cancer cell growth. They are also planning to test the vegetable extract in animals to see if it will delay or kill breast cancer cells. If that research goes well, clinical trials in human breast cancer patients could soon follow.
“Breast cancer is a major killer among women around the world, and in that perspective, results from this study are quite significant,” Rajesh Agarwal, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Colorado, Denver School of Pharmacy, and the Cancer Research associate editor for this study, commented in a media release. “This study may provide us with one more agent as an extract that could be used against breast cancer if additional studies hold true.”
Bitter melon is widely grown in Asia, Africa and South America. Extracts of this vegetable are currently included in some dietary supplements in Western countries because bitter melon is known to contain healthful phytochemicals such as carotenoids, flavanoids and polyphenols, as well as vitamin C.
Click here for the full report
Happiness Helps Stop Heart Disease
February 22, 2010
BBC News
US researchers monitored the health of 1,700 people over 10 years, finding the most anxious and depressed were at the highest risk of the disease.
They could not categorically prove happiness was protective, but said people should try to enjoy themselves.
But experts suggested the findings may be of limited use as an individual’s approach to life was often ingrained.
At the start of the study, which was published in the European Heart Journal, participants were assessed for emotions ranging from hostility and anxiousness to joy, enthusiasm and contentment.
They were given a rating on a five-point scale to score their level of positive emotions.
By the end of the analysis, some 145 had developed heart disease – fewer than one in 10.
But for each rise in the happiness scale there was a 22% lower risk of developing heart disease.
The team believes happier people may have better sleeping patterns, be less liable to suffer stress and be more able to move on from upsetting experiences – all of which can put physical strain on the body.
Lead researcher Dr Karina Davidson admitted more research was needed into the link, but said she would still recommend that people try to develop a more positive outlook.
She said all too often people just waited for their “two weeks of vacation to have fun” when instead they should seek enjoyment each day.
“If you enjoy reading novels, but never get around to it, commit to getting 15 minutes or so of reading in.
“If walking or listening to music improves your mood, get those activities in your schedule.
“Essentially spending a few minutes each day truly relaxed and enjoying yourself is certainly good for your mental health and may improve your physical health as well.”
It is not the first study to suggest there is a link between happiness and health.
But Ellen Mason, of the British Heart Foundation, suggested such an association may be of limited value anyway.
“We know that improving your mood isn’t always easy – so we don’t know if it’s possible to change our natural levels of positivity.”
Cardiologist Iain Simpson, of the British Cardiovascular Society, added: “Things like reducing cholesterol and diabetes are more important when it comes to reducing heart disease.
“But at the end of the day it heart disease is still the biggest killer in the UK so anything you can do to help should not be ignored.”
Click here for the full report
Exercise Fights Aging Process
February 15, 2010
Natural News
By Ethan A. Huff
A recent study conducted by researchers from Saarland University in Germany has found that engaging in long-term physical activity results in an anti-aging effect. Telomeres, the protective caps found on the ends of cell chromosomes that gradually shorten with age, were found to shorten more slowly in athletes who exercise regularly.
Every time a cell divides, its telomeres get a little bit shorter and the cell becomes slightly more susceptible to dying. Telomeres have been compared to the plastic ends on shoelaces that prevent them from unraveling. Recent telomere research has discovered that the shortening of telomeres is directly correlated to the aging process as cell integrity slowly degrades over time.
In the study, researchers evaluated two groups of healthy, non-smoking people and two groups of professional athletes. The one athletic group was composed of athletes averaging 20 years old who were members of the German national track and field team while the other athletic group was composed of middle-aged runners who had been training since they were young.
Researchers found that in both groups of athletes, physical exercise had led to the activation of the telomerase enzyme which is responsible for producing and stabilizing telomeres. Telomerase activation led to a reduced shortening of telomeres in the athletes’ leukocytes, white blood cells that protects the body against infection and disease. The most visible effect was noticed in the middle-aged participants who had been engaging in regular endurance training for several decades.
Other scientists believe that even moderate levels of exercise are responsible for slowing down the aging process and even reversing it. Many studies have shown that engaging in regular physical activity helps to prevent the onset of chronic disease and can help to lower cholesterol and reduce blood pressure. By slowing down the aging process, other diseases like cancer, stroke, and diabetes can also be prevented.
A similar study conducted in Sweden found that regular exercise also contributes to increased intelligence and boosted learning ability. More than 1.2 million 18-year-old Swedish men who enlisted for military service were evaluated. Researchers found that their intense physical training resulted in increased IQ and improved learning abilities.
Regular exercise increases blood flow to the brain which many believe helps to improve nerve function. Exercising also produces sweat which works to cleanse the body of toxic buildup and improve overall well being. A whole array of benefits can be achieved by regularly exercising.
Click here for the full report
Premature Death Could Await Obese Kids
February 10th, 2010
NY Times
Roni Caryn Rabin
A rare study that tracked thousands of children through adulthood found the heaviest youngsters were more than twice as likely as the thinnest to die prematurely, before age 55, of illness or a self-inflicted injury.
Youngsters with a condition called pre-diabetes were at almost double the risk of dying before 55, and those with high blood pressure were at some increased risk. But obesity was the factor most closely associated with an early death, researchers said.
The study, published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine, analyzed data gathered from Pima and Tohono O’odham Indians, whose rates of obesity and Type 2 diabetes soared decades before weight problems became widespread among other Americans. It is one of the largest studies to have tracked children for several decades after detailed information on weight and risk factors like high cholesterol were gathered.
“This suggests,” said Helen C. Looker, senior author of the paper and assistant professor of medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City, “that obesity in children, even prepubescent children, may have very serious long-term health effects through midlife — that there is something serious being set in motion by obesity at early ages.” Dr. Looker added, “We all expect to get beyond 55 these days.”
Nearly one in three American children is now considered to be either overweight or obese, and this week, the first lady, Michelle Obama, kicked off a campaign intended to end childhood obesity.
The new study analyzed data gathered about 4,857 nondiabetic American Indian children born between 1945 and 1984, when the children were 11 years old on average, and assessed the extent to which body mass index, glucose tolerance, blood pressure and total cholesterol levels predicted premature death.
By 2003, 559 participants had died, including 166 who died of causes other than accidents and homicides, like cardiovascular disease, infections, cancer, diabetes, alcohol poisoning or drug overdose and a large number who died of alcoholic liver disease, which the study’s authors suggested might be exacerbated by diabetes.
Adults who had the highest body mass index scores as children were 2.3 times as likely to have died early as those with the lowest scores, and those with the highest glucose levels were 73 percent as likely to have died prematurely.
“This really points a finger at impaired glucose tolerance, or pre-diabetes, in ways we have not seen before,” said Edward W. Gregg, who is with the diabetes branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and wrote an editorial accompanying the article. “We’ve been aware that pre-diabetes in adults is related to a lot of adverse outcomes, but the relationship in youth has not been as clear. There are not as many long-term studies to document a risk factor like pre-diabetes in youth all the way to adult outcomes.”
The study found that high blood pressure in childhood was only a weak predictor of early death and high cholesterol was not associated with premature death, but experts suggested those factors were easier to control with medication.
And though the American Indian community is not representative of the nation’s population as a whole, Dr. Gregg said its experience was instructive because “they’ve tended to be just a decade or two ahead of the rest of the U.S. population” in obesity.
“The message here is that if you take your kid to the doctor and the doctor says, ‘Well, their blood pressure is O.K., their cholesterol is O.K. and their sugar’s O.K..,’ the kid who’s obese still warrants our attention,” said Dr. Peter F. Belamarich, chief of specialty medicine at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore in the Bronx.
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Control Body Fat and Diabetes with Chlorella
January 25, 2010
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
A superfood known as chlorella has caught on like wildfire in the United Kingdom, and studies continue to emerge linking the algae to improvement in symptoms of people with everything from diabetes and high blood pressure to digestive or immune problems.
Chlorella is a single-celled algae that naturally occurs in freshwater rivers and ponds in East Asia, tinting those bodies of water green. It is gathered from these natural sources, dried, crushed into a powder, and then packed into tablet form for sale as a dietary supplement. It has twice the protein density of spinach, 38 times that of soy beans and 55 times that of rice, providing nine essential amino acids along with a number of vitamins and minerals.
The algae has shown effectiveness at improving the symptoms of metabolic syndrome — a collection of symptoms linked with cardiovascular disease and diabetes, including high fasting blood sugar, high blood pressure and cholesterol, and central obesity. Studies have found chlorella supplements to reduce blood pressure in 50 percent of hypertension patients, as well as significantly reduce body fat, blood cholesterol and blood sugar levels.
“It seems that chlorella turns on the genes that control the way insulin is normally used by the cells in the body,” said researcher Randall Merchant of Virginia Commonwealth University. “This research shows that chlorella could in theory help correct the problems of metabolic syndrome. It is not a magic bullet, but taking it is one other preventive thing you can do, like exercise or watching your diet.”
Other studies have shown that chlorella encourages the growth of “good bacteria,” absorbs toxins from the intestines, improves digestion, and eases the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis and fibromyalgia. Chlorella supporters claim that it also increases energy levels and fights depression.
After studies showed that chlorella boosts the immune system, preventing secondary infections in people with brain tumors, some British doctors have started using it to complement cancer treatments.
Because chlorella is high in vitamin K1, it can interfere with the effects of blood thinning medications.
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