Compound in Mediterranean Diet Makes Cancer Cells "Mortal"
COLUMBUS, OH; May 20, 2013 —New research suggests that a compound abundant in the Mediterranean diet takes away cancer cells' "superpower" to escape death.
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Soy and Tomato Combo May Be Effective
in Preventing Prostate Cancer
URBANA; May 8, 2013—Tomatoes and soy foods may be more effective in preventing prostate cancer when they are eaten together than when either is eaten alone, said a University of Illinois study.
“It’s better to eat a whole tomato than to take a lycopene supplement. It’s better to drink soy milk than to take soy isoflavones. When you eat whole foods, you expose yourself to the entire array of cancer-fighting, bioactive components in these foods,” Erdman said. The researcher’s whole-food recommendation is bolstered by the way soy germ performed in this study. He noted that soy germ has a very different isoflavone profile than the rest of the soybean.
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Teen Girls Who Exercise
Are Less Likely
to Be Violent
WASHINGTON, DC; May 6, 2013—Regular exercise is touted as an antidote for many ills, including stress, depression and obesity. Physical activity also may help decrease violent behavior among adolescent girls, according to new research to be presented Monday, May 6, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Washington, DC.
Researchers from Columbia University analyzed results of a 2008 survey completed by 1,312 students at four inner-city high schools in New York to determine if there was an association between regular exercise and violence-related behaviors.
"Violence in neighborhoods spans the entire length of this country and disproportionately affects the poor and racial and ethnic minorities. It results in significant losses to victims, perpetrators, families and communities and costs our country billions of dollars," said lead author Noe D. Romo, MD, primary care research fellow in community health in the Department of Child and Adolescent Health at Columbia University, New York. "There is a need for innovative methods to identify potential interventions to address this issue and lessen the burden it is having on our society."
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Preordering Lunch Increases Healthy Entree Selection
in Elementary Schools
New York; May 3, 2013—We all know that buying food when we are hungry is a recipe for disaster. When we are hungry, we can be especially sensitive to sights and smells of foods that will satiate, but may lack in nutrient content. What if we could make our meal choices when we are full, and not anticipating the feeling of satiation we all enjoy? Would we make healthier choices?
Researchers at the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs (B.E.N. Center) set out to test whether or not preordering lunch would nudge students make healthier entrée choices.
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Forty Percent of Parents Give Young Children
Medicines that They Shouldn't
ANN ARBOR, MI; April 22, 2013—Children can get five to 10 colds each year, so it's not surprising that adults often turn to over-the-counter cough and cold medicines to relieve their little ones' symptoms. But a new University of Michigan poll shows that many are giving young kids medicines that they should not use.
More than 40 percent of parents reported giving their children under age 4 cough medicine or multi-symptom cough and cold medicine, according to the latest University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health. Twenty-five percent gave those children decongestants.
In 2008, the federal Food and Drug Administration issued an advisory that these over-the-counter medicines not be used in infants and children under age 2. They have not been proven effective for young children and may cause serious side effects, says Matthew M. Davis, M.D., M.A.P.P., director of the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health.
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First Objective Measure of Pain Discovered in Brain Scan Patterns
CU, Boulder; April 10, 2013—For the first time, scientists have been able to predict how much pain people are feeling by looking at images of their brains, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.
The findings, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, may lead to the development of reliable methods doctors can use to objectively quantify a patient’s pain. Currently, pain intensity can only be measured based on a patient’s own description, which often includes rating the pain on a scale of one to 10. Objective measures of pain could confirm these pain reports and provide new clues into how the brain generates different types of pain.
The new research results also may set the stage for the development of methods using brain scans to objectively measure anxiety, depression, anger or other emotional states.
“Right now, there’s no clinically acceptable way to measure pain and other emotions other than to ask a person how they feel,” said Tor Wager, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at CU-Boulder and lead author of the paper.
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Study: Probiotics Reduce Stress-Induced Intestinal Flare-Ups
ANN ARBOR, MI; March 13, 2013—For those with irritable bowel syndrome who wonder if stress aggravates their intestinal disorder, a new University of Michigan Health System study shows it’s not all in their head.
While stress does not cause IBS, the study revealed it does alter brain-gut interactions and induces the intestinal inflammation that often leads to severe or chronic belly pain, loss of appetite and diarrhea.
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Childhood Obesity and Learning Disabilities May Be Linked
URBANA, February 19, 2013—A University of Illinois study has established a possible link between high-fat diets and such childhood brain-based conditions as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and memory-dependent learning disabilities.
“We found that a high-fat diet rapidly affected dopamine metabolism in the brains of juvenile mice, triggering anxious behaviors and learning deficiencies. Interestingly, when methylphenidate (Ritalin) was administered, the learning and memory problems went away,” said Gregory Freund, a professor in the U of I College of Medicine and a member of the university’s Division of Nutritional Sciences.
Freund said that altered dopamine signaling in the brain is common to both ADHD and the overweight or obese state. “And an increase in the number of dopamine metabolites is associated with anxiety behaviors in children,” he added.
Intrigued by the recent upsurge in both child obesity and adverse childhood psychological conditions, including impulsivity, depression, and ADHD, Freund’s team examined the short-term effects of a high-fat (60% calories from fat) versus a low-fat (10% calories from fat) diet on the behavior of two groups of four-week-old mice. A typical Western diet contains from 35 to 45 percent fat, he said.
“After only one week of the high-fat diet, even before we were able to see any weight gain, the behavior of the mice in the first group began to change,” he said.
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Like Mother, Like Child: New Research on Parents, Preschoolers and Obesity
February 7, 2013, PULLMAN, WA—While sugary drinks, lack of exercise and genetics contribute to a growing number of overweight American children, new research from Washington State University reveals how a mom’s eating habits and behavior at the dinner table can influence her preschooler’s obesity risk. The findings come from WSU alumna Halley Morrison’s undergraduate honors thesis, which recently was published in the journal Appetite.
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Green Tea and Red Wine Extracts Disrupt Alzheimer's
Natural chemicals found in green tea and red wine may disrupt a key step of the Alzheimer’s disease pathway, according to new research from the University of Leeds.
Dr Simon Ridley, Head of Research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, the UK’s leading dementia research charity, which part-funded the study, said: “Understanding the causes of Alzheimer’s is vital if we are to find a way of stopping the disease in its tracks.
In the U.K., Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia, costing the economy there about £23 billion per year. One in three people aged over 65 are expected to die with a form of dementia and 163,000 new cases are diagnosed in England and Wales each year. The U.S. estimates that as many as 5.1 million Americans may currently suffer from Alzheimer's. Worldwide, more than 35 million people are estimated to have dementia.
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In Minutes a Day, Low-Income Families
Can Improve Their Kids' Health
Childhood obesity in low-income families is a complex problem with many contributing factors. Some of these may include being part of a single-parent family, having a mother who has little education, and living in a poor neighborhood without easy access to healthy foods. But a recent study from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign finds that— even as these risk factors accumulate—low-income families who ensure their children participate in regular high-quality family mealtimes featuring positive interaction between family members showed a difference in their weight status.
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Nutrition Basics
Nutrition has become a tricky subject. It shouldn't be so hard to figure out what to eat; after all, the birds and bees hardly seem to give any thought at all to their diet. But then, they haven't had the foresight to invent politics or financial interests—both of which intrude too often in the interpretation of research results on the human side of things. This spawns so many different and even opposing ideas about nutrition that we begin to feel like Dr. Doolittle's two-headed llama, the "push-me-pull-you."
It's true that food—the right kinds of food—can nourish the brain as well as the body. But what is the "right" kind of food?
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In Vino Veritas: A Drink to Your Health
Archaeologists have found evidence of wine and winemaking dating back to the earliest civilizations of mankind. The natural yeast in grape skins would have made the accidental fermentation of grapes almost a sure thing from the very beginning. It is speculated that even beer-drinking civilizations used "winemaking technology" to produce their drink of choice, since the addition of split grapes would have jump-started the process when added to barley. Throughout history, the wine trade could also be said to have jump-started many an economy, and contributed to the health and well-being of many people in many nations. Indeed, for centuries, wine has been considered an important part of a healthy diet.
In our own time, research is confirming the opinion expressed by Petronius in his first-century work, the Satyricon: "Ah me, so wine lives longer than miserable man. So let us be merry. Wine is life."
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