Low Vitamin B Increases Hip Fracture Risk - Reuters Health

NEW YORK—Older adults who are low in B vitamins or have elevated levels of a blood protein called homocysteine may be at increased risk of suffering a hip fracture, new study findings suggest.

The body’s homocysteine levels are known to go up when B vitamin levels are depleted. However, in the new study, researchers found that homocysteine and certain B vitamins were each independently linked to hip fracture risk.

Among more than 1,000 elderly men and women, those who were deficient in vitamin B12 were 60 percent more likely than those with normal levels to sustain a hip fracture over four years. A similar risk was seen among those deficient in vitamin B6.

When the researchers looked at homocysteine levels, they found that men and women with high levels were 50 percent to 70 percent more likely to suffer a hip fracture—even when their B vitamin levels were taken into account.

“We’ve seen evidence in the past that high homocysteine is associated with elevated risk of hip fractures,” lead investigator Dr. Robert R. McLean said in an interview. However, he added, it has been “hard to disentangle whether low vitamin B status is a causal mechanism or whether high homocysteine is a causal mechanism.”

He and his colleagues report these latest findings in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Lab research suggests that B vitamins play a role in maintaining bone density, and studies have linked low blood levels of the vitamins with low bone mass.

Consistent with this, McLean and his colleagues found that as study participants’ B6 levels declined, their bone loss accelerated, on average.

In contrast, although homocysteine was related to hip fracture risk, it was not related to bone loss. For now, it’s not clear why the protein is linked to hip fractures, the researchers say.

Diet changes and vitamin supplements are “easy and effective methods” for controlling B vitamin and homocysteine levels, McLean and his colleagues note. The current findings, they say, suggest that such measures should be studied as “potential novel measures” for preventing bone fractures.

However, McLean said, “I think that it’s still too early to tell people to start taking their B vitamins to prevent fractures. We need clinical trial evidence to give us a better picture of what’s really going on.”

Vitamin B6 is found in foods like potatoes, bananas, beans, and fortified cereals; vitamin B12 is found mainly in meat, fish, and poultry.

Source: Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, June 2008

Last Updated
Jul 8, 2008

Green Tea Protects Against Heart Disease - Reuters

A few cups of green tea each day may help prevent heart disease, Greek researchers said this month.

A study published in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation showed further evidence of the potential health benefits from a brew already linked to a reduced risk of a range of cancers and other conditions.

The study showed that green tea improves blood flow and the ability of arteries to relax, said Charalambos Vlachopoulos, a cardiologist at the Athens Medical School in Greece who worked on the study.

Other studies have shown that black tea also has benefits for cardiovascular health.

The Greek team said they believed green tea might be even better because it had higher quantities of beneficial compounds called flavonoids—some of which are lost in the oxidation process that black tea undergoes.

Flavonoids are also found in cocoa, tomatoes, and grapes.

“A couple of cups a day would probably be a good dose for people,” Vlachopoulos said. “This is the first study to show these effects for green tea.”

The researchers gave 14 healthy volunteers either green tea, diluted caffeine, or hot water on three separate occasions and then measured the function of endothelial cells lining the circulatory system.

These cells help relax arteries and ease blood flow.

“What is important is these effects are evident fairly rapidly, within 30 minutes,” Vlachopoulos said.

The measurements taken 30, 90, and 120 minutes following consumption showed an almost immediate benefit among people who had drunk green tea, he said.

Heart disease is the world’s leading cause of death. It is caused by fatty deposits that harden and block arteries, high blood pressure, which damages blood vessels, and other factors.

While the researchers looked only at a short-term impact, Vlachopolous said the team’s not-yet-published studies suggest the protection is long-lasting.

“Green tea is consumed less in the Western world than black tea, but it could be more beneficial because of the way it seems to improve [circulatory] function,” he said.

Last Updated
Jul 12, 2008

The ‘Overweight’ Are Not Risking Their Lives

The body mass index (BMI) has for a long time been the standard measurement used to determine whether someone’s weight is “healthy” or not. A BMI of 25 or more is generally regarded as “unhealthy.” (BMI is calculated by dividing weight in kg by the square of someone’s height in meters.)

The suggestion is that there are somehow mortal dangers from having a BMI in this range. However, good, hard measures of health (like risk of death) show that individuals who are labeled “overweight” according to the BMI enjoy at least as good health, if not better, than those traditionally labeled as “healthy” (that is, having a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9).

The largest body of evidence regarding the non-hazards of being overweight come from the United States. Do they translate to other parts of the world?

In a study published recently in the International Journal of Epidemiology, the association between BMI and overall risk of death was assessed in a group of almost 76,000 individuals from a rural Indian population (Kerala state, South India). These individuals were monitored over nearly a decade.

Here are the results for men, using a body-mass index of 18.5 to 22.9 as a reference point:

BMI of less than 16: Risk of mortality increased by 26 percent
BMI 16 to 18.4: No statistically significant relationship with risk of death
BMI 23.0 to 24.9: No statistically significant relationship with risk of death
BMI 25 to 27.4: No statistically significant relationship with risk of death
BMI greater than 27.5: No statistically significant relationship with risk of death

Results for women were similar.

Low body weight is associated with an increased risk of death. But, here again, it seems that being “overweight” does not put individuals at heightened risk of death.

Better measures of health status and risk of death appear to be waist circumference and the waist-to-hip ratio.

References:

Sauvaget C, et al. Body mass index, weight change, and mortality risk in a prospective study in India. International Journal of Epidemiology 2008 37: 990–1004
Dr. John Briffa is a London-based physician and author with an interest in nutrition and natural medicine.
Dr. Briffa's Web site

Last Updated
Nov 13, 2008

Good Habit of the Week - Homemade food By Tysan Lerner

There has been a recent trend that suggests healthy lunch ideas you can get at a fast-food chain. Although fast-food chains are making a great effort to appeal to more people by incorporating so called healthy options into their menus, their understanding of the existing healthy guidelines is perhaps a bit too superficial.

For one point of view, breaking up the energy and chemical makeup of our dietary needs makes perfect sense, but in such a highly polluted world, where we have traveled far from nature and into the land of scientifically “improving” our food products, it is time for us to really think before eating. Think about where the food was produced, how it was produced, what has been added to it, and how far it is from its natural state. Otherwise, we will continue killing ourselves slowly.

For example, you can get lower fat, lower calorie, and a variety of food groups at those fast-food restaurants, but are they healthy? If you have dairy filled with residues of growth hormones, antibiotics, sugar, preservatives, and dyes, is it still good for you? If you have all wheat-based carbohydrates that are highly processed and stripped of their nutrients, and preserved for unlimited “freshness,” will it still feed your body’s nutritional needs? If you have meat or poultry that has been fed food it’s not supposed to eat, and held in toxic environments making it prone to illness and psychosis, is that meat product still healthy because it is grilled instead of fried?

The Epoch Times has been investigating the poisoning of our food products imported from China. Upon reading that babies have been hospitalized or killed by tainted infant formula, and a number of snacks have been recalled because they’ve been tainted with melamine, one must think twice before deciding what to eat.

This poisoned food is a dramatic and immediate threat to our health, but over the years, we have greatly incorporated a slew of poisons into our bodies. This week, try eating homemade, non-processed foods that are preservative free, organic, free-range, growth hormone, and antibiotic free. Despite the higher cost for meats and dairy, you may find yourself ultimately spending less and eating less.


Last Updated
Nov 17, 2008

Music for Your Heart

WASHINGTON—Songs that make our hearts soar can make them stronger too, U.S. researchers reported last week.

They found that when people listened to their favorite music, their blood vessels dilated in much the same way as when laughing or taking blood-pressure medications.

“We have a pretty impressive effect,” said Dr. Michael Miller, director of preventive cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.

“Blood vessel diameter improved,” he said in a telephone interview. “The vessel opened up pretty significantly. You can see the vessels opening up with other activities such as exercise.”

When blood vessels open more, blood flows more smoothly and is less likely to form the blood clots that cause heart attacks and strokes. Elastic vessels also resist the hardening activity of atherosclerosis.

“We are not saying … not to exercise but to add this to an overall program of heart health,” said Miller, who presented his findings to a meeting of the American Heart Association in New Orleans.

Miller’s team tested 10 healthy, non-smoking men and women, who were told to bring their favorite music.

They spent half an hour listening to the recordings and half an hour listening to music they said made them feel anxious while the researchers did ultrasound tests designed to show blood vessel function.

Compared to their normal baseline measurements, blood vessel diameter increased 26 percent on average when the volunteers heard their joyful music. Listening to music they disliked—in most cases in this group, heavy metal—narrowed blood vessels by 6 percent, Miller said.

Miller said he came up with the idea after discovering the laughter caused blood to literally flow more smoothly.

“I asked myself what other things make us feel real good, besides calories from dark chocolate, of course. Music came to mind. ... It makes me feel real good,” he said.

Most of the volunteers chose country music, but Miller said the style is not so important as what pleases each individual.

Reuters
Last Updated Nov 18, 2008

Honey Heals Burns

Honey can heal mild to moderate burns, a recent systematic review by Cochrane Researchers has concluded. It might be useful as an alternative to traditional wound dressings in treating burns.

“We’re treating these results with caution, but it looks like honey can help speed up healing in some burns,” says lead researcher Dr. Andrew Jull, of the Clinical Trials Research Unit at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in a statement.

Honey has been used in wound treatment since ancient times. But why honey has such a good effect and the underlying mechanisms are unknown.

While honey may help the body remove dead tissue and provide a favorable environment for the growth of new, healthy tissue, current interest in medicinal honey focuses mostly on its antibacterial effects.

In the Cochrane review, researchers brought together data from 19 clinical trials involving 2,554 patients with a range of different wounds. Honey was more effective in reducing healing time compared to some gauze and film dressings that are often used to treat moderate burns.

However, the researchers were unable to show any clear benefits for the healing of grazes, lacerations, surgical wounds, or leg ulcers. They don’t advise using honey to treat other types of wounds.

“Health services should invest in treatments that have been shown to work,” says Dr Jull.
“But we will keep monitoring new research to try and establish the effect of honey.”

Reference:
Jull AB, Rodgers A, Walker N Honey as a topical treatment for wounds. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2008, Issue 4.

Last Updated Nov 1, 2008

Workout for Brain Just a Few Clicks Away

CHICAGO—Searching the Internet may help middle-aged and older adults keep their memories sharp, U.S. researchers said Oct. 14.

Researchers at the University of California Los Angeles studied people doing Web searches while their brain activity was recorded with functional magnetic resonance imaging scans.

“What we saw was people who had Internet experience used more of their brain during the search,” Dr. Gary Small, a UCLA expert on aging, said in a telephone interview.

“This suggests that just searching on the Internet may train the brain—that it may keep it active and healthy,” said Small, whose research appears in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

Many studies have found that challenging mental activities such as puzzles can help preserve brain function, but few have looked at what role the Internet might play.

“This is the first time anyone has simulated an Internet search task while scanning the brain,” Small said.

His team studied 24 normal volunteers between the ages of 55 and 76. Half were experienced at searching the Internet and the other half had no Web experience. Otherwise, the groups were similar in age, gender, and education.

Both groups were asked to do Internet searches and book reading tasks while their brain activity was monitored.

“We found that in reading the book task, the visual cortex—the part of the brain that controls reading and language—was activated,” Small said.

“In doing the Internet search task, there was much greater activity, but only in the Internet-savvy group.”

He said it appears that people who are familiar with the Internet can engage in a much deeper level of brain activity.

“There is something about Internet searching where we can gauge it to a level that we find challenging,” Small said.

Activities that keep the brain engaged can preserve brain health and thinking ability.

Small thinks learning to do Internet searches may be one of those activities.

“It tells us we probably can teach an old brain new Internet tricks,” he said.

Last Updated Oct 22, 2008

Tai Chi Helps Cut Pain of Knee Arthritis

WASHINGTON—The traditional Chinese form of exercise known as tai chi can help reduce pain and physical impairment in people who have knee arthritis, researchers said on Saturday.

In their study, one group of people in their 60s with severe knee osteoarthritis performed tai chi for an hour twice a week for 12 weeks while a similar group did the same amount of conventional stretching exercises over the same period.

Those who did tai chi experienced greater pain reduction, less depression, and improvements in physical function and overall health, researchers led by Dr. Chenchen Wang of Tufts Medical Center in Boston reported at a meeting of the American College of Rheumatology in San Francisco.

"Tai chi mind-body exercise appears to provide an important approach for self-care and self-management for knee (osteoarthritis)," Wang said in a statement.

The study provided the latest evidence that tai chi may offer benefits for people with arthritis. The Arthritis Foundation advocacy group recommends it for improving the quality of life of people with arthritis.

Tai chi is a form of exercise developed in China centuries ago. With tai chi, a person slowly performs a series of postures or movements that are low impact and put little stress on the muscles and joints. It can improve muscle function, balance, and flexibility.

Osteoarthritis, the most common type of arthritis, develops when cartilage in the joints of the body wears down over time. It is incurable and worsens over time. Osteoarthritis in the knee can cause chronic pain when a person stands or walks.

Forty people took part in the study, and Wang said the findings should be confirmed in a larger study. Those who took part in the study had knee osteoarthritis for about a decade.

Last Updated Oct 26, 2008

Some Cereals More Than Half Sugar

WASHINGTON—Some breakfast cereals marketed to U.S. children are more than half sugar by weight and many get only fair scores on nutritional value, Consumer Reports said on Oct. 1.

A serving of 11 popular cereals, including Kellogg’s Honey Smacks, carries as much sugar as a glazed doughnut, the consumer group found.

And some brands have more sugar when formulated for the U.S. market than the same brands have when sold in other countries.

Post Golden Crisp, made by Kraft Foods Inc., and Kellogg’s Honey Smacks are more than 50 percent sugar by weight, the group said, while nine brands are at least 40 percent sugar.

The most healthful brands are Cheerios, with three grams of fiber per serving and one gram of sugar, Kix, and Honey Nut Cheerios, all made by General Mills; and Life, made by PepsiCo Inc.’s Quaker Oats unit.

“Be sure to read the product labels, and choose cereals that are high in fiber and low in sugar. …” Gayle Williams, deputy editor of Consumer Reports Health, said in a statement.

Honey Smacks has 15 grams of sugar and just one gram of fiber per serving while Kellogg’s Corn Pops has 12 grams of sugar and no fiber.

Consumer Reports studied how 91 children aged 6 to 16 poured their cereal and found they served themselves about 50 to 65 percent more on average than the suggested serving size for three of the four tested cereals.

Consumers International, which publishes Consumer Reports, said it would ask the World Health Organization to develop international guidelines restricting advertising and marketing of foods high in sugar to children.

However, the group noted that breakfast cereal can be a healthful meal and said adults and children alike who eat breakfast have better overall nutrition, fewer weight problems, and better cognitive performance throughout the day.

Kellogg said it was working to make its food more nutritious. Last Updated
Oct 4, 2008

Low-Carb Diet Lowers Insulin Levels

While not all dietary approaches are applicable or beneficial to everyone, there are some, I think, that generally hold true. Here’s one: If you want a long, healthy life, do what you can to ensure stability of blood sugar and insulin levels.

What this usually means in practice is the regular eating of foods that tend not to disrupt blood sugar (and therefore insulin) levels, such as meat, fish, eggs, green vegetables, certain fruits (for example, apples, berries), beans, lentils, nuts, and seeds.

What this diet is generally devoid of, you may notice, is foods containing refined sugar and starchy carbs such as bread, potatoes, rice, pasta, and breakfast cereals. The primal diet above is often dubbed a low-carb diet on the basis that it contains considerably less carbohydrate compared to the starch-rich diet so often advocated (and eaten) these days. Some people even recommend such a starch-rich diet for diabetics, even though carbohydrate is the specific dietary element that diabetics have difficulty handling.

Part of the rationale for a carb-controlled diet in diabetics comes from the fact that the less carbohydrates one eats, the lower the blood sugar level will tend to be. And at the risk of stating the obvious, this is of clear merit for diabetics whose prime ambition might be to keep blood sugar levels under control.

However, another important part of the rationale for eating a low or lower carbohydrate diet is that it demands less insulin to be secreted by the body’s pancreas. Generally speaking, the less insulin someone secretes, the less likely they are to suffer from insulin resistance (when the body’s ability to respond to insulin’s blood sugar lowering effects is blunted). Also, less insulin means less likelihood that the cells in the pancreas responsible for secreting insulin—the beta cells—will become exhausted.

Basically, the more insulin someone secretes over time, the more likely they are to suffer from a lack of insulin or an inability to respond to it appropriately. This is a situation many type 2 diabetics can find themselves in, particularly, logic dictates, if they eat a diet replete with carbohydrates, including starchy ones.

Of course this concept of controlling carb intake is not just relevant for diabetics, but also for those who would prefer not to develop diabetes. I was therefore interested to read a recent study that tested the effects of low-carb and low fat (and higher-carb) diets in a group of obese adolescents aged 12 to 18. This 12-week long study showed that these diets performed similarly well with regard to changes in measures such as body mass index and body fat percentage.

On the other hand, the low carbohydrate diet out-performed the low fat one in two critical areas. Firstly, insulin levels were lower in those eating a lower-carb diet. The researchers also used an assessment known as the homeostatic model assessment (HOMA), which is used to measure the extent to which an individual is suffering from insulin resistance and beta-cell exhaustion. Here too, the low-carbers faired better.

In short, after just three months on a lower-carb diet, adolescents saw improvements in their biochemistry, which would, generally speaking, put them at reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes over time. This evidence is in line with other research that has found that the consumption of blood sugar-disruptive carbohydrate is associated with an increased risk of diabetes.

References:

Demol S, et al. Low-carbohydrate (low and high-fat) versus high-carbohydrate, low-fat diets in the treatment of obesity in adolescents. Acta Paediatrica. 2008 Sep 29. [Epub ahead of print]

Dr. John Briffa is a London-based physician and author with an interest in nutrition and natural medicine. Dr. Briffa's Web site

Last Updated Oct 29, 2008

Low GI Diet Protects Eyes

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most common cause of loss of vision in adults.

Last year, I wrote about a study that found a link between eating a diet relatively disruptive for blood sugar levels (a high-glycemic index diet) and increased risk of AMD. The authors of this study concluded that eating a low-glycemic index (GI) diet would perhaps eliminate 20 percent of cases of AMD.

I was interested to read a recent study that has replicated this finding. This particular research, conducted in Australia, assessed the relationship between dietary GI and risk of AMD over 10 years in a group of almost 2,000 people [1].

The results of this research showed that compared to individuals consuming lower-GI diets, those consuming the highest-GI diets were at a 77 percent increased risk of developing AMD. These findings are very much in line with those reported in the study from last year.

Eating a low-GI diet means eating a diet mainly of meat, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds, green vegetables, beans, lentils, and certain fruits such as apples and berries. My advice would be to limit grains, most bread, and many breakfast cereals. They are particularly disruptive to blood sugar and insulin levels when eaten in quantity.

This recent Australian research also looked at the relationship between cereal fiber intake and AMD risk. As the intake of these foodstuffs went up, risk of AMD generally went down. However, even in the individuals eating the most, the risk of AMD was not significantly lower statistically than those eating the least.

This should not be too surprising given that many grains can be quite disruptive to glucose and insulin levels, including some that are quite high in fiber (for example, whole-grain bread).

There are plenty of good reasons for eating a diet of relatively low-GI foods, including, most likely, a reduced risk of weight gain, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and maybe some forms of cancer too. We now have evidence that suggests a lower-GI diet may help to protect against AMD and preserve vision as we age.

References:

1. Kaushik S, et al. Dietary glycemic index and the risk of age-related macular degeneration. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2008; 88(4): 1104–1110

Dr. John Briffa is a London-based physician and author with an interest in nutrition and natural medicine. Dr. Briffa's Web site

Last Updated
Nov 6, 2008