Scientific Evidence Shows Secondhand Smoke Is No Danger

Amazing EPA malpractice throws all their work into doubt. They are a political, not a scientific body

Exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS) is an unpleasant experience for many nonsmokers, and for decades was considered a nuisance. But the idea that it might actually cause disease in nonsmokers has been around only since the 1970s. Recent surveys show more than 80 percent of Americans now believe secondhand smoke is harmful to nonsmokers.

A 1972 U.S. surgeon general's report first addressed passive smoking as a possible threat to nonsmokers and called for an anti-smoking movement. The issue was addressed again in surgeon generals' reports in 1979, 1982, and 1984. A 1986 surgeon general's report concluded involuntary smoking caused lung cancer, but it offered only weak epidemiological evidence to support the claim. In 1989 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was charged with further evaluating the evidence for health effects of SHS. In 1992 EPA published its report, "Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking," claiming SHS is a serious public health problem, that it kills approximately 3,000 nonsmoking Americans each year from lung cancer, and that it is a Group A carcinogen (like benzene, asbestos, and radon).

The report has been used by the tobacco-control movement and government agencies, including public health departments, to justify the imposition of thousands of indoor smoking bans in public places.

EPA's 1992 conclusions are not supported by reliable scientific evidence. The report has been largely discredited and, in 1998, was legally vacated by a federal judge. Even so, the EPA report was cited in the surgeon general's 2006 report on SHS, where then-Surgeon General Richard Carmona made the absurd claim that there is no risk-free level of exposure to SHS. For its 1992 report, EPA arbitrarily chose to equate SHS with mainstream (or firsthand) smoke. One of the agency's stated assumptions was that because there is an association between active smoking and lung cancer, there also must be a similar association between SHS and lung cancer.

But the problem posed by SHS is entirely different from that found with mainstream smoke. A well-recognized toxicological principle states, "The dose makes the poison." Accordingly, we physicians record direct exposure to cigarette smoke by smokers in the medical record as "pack-years smoked" (packs smoked per day times the number of years smoked). A smoking history of around 10 pack-years alerts the physician to search for cigarette-caused illness. But even those nonsmokers with the greatest exposure to SHS probably inhale the equivalent of only a small fraction (around 0.03) of one cigarette per day, which is equivalent to smoking around 10 cigarettes per year.

Another major problem is that the epidemiological studies on which the EPA report is based are statistical studies that can show only correlation and cannot prove causation. One statistical method used to compare the rates of a disease in two populations is relative risk (RR). It is the rate of disease found in the exposed population divided by the rate found in the unexposed population. An RR of 1.0 represents zero increased risk. Because confounding and other factors can obscure a weak association, in order even to suggest causation a very strong association must be found, on the order of at least 300 percent to 400 percent, which is an RR of 3.0 to 4.0. For example, the studies linking direct cigarette smoking with lung cancer found an incidence in smokers of 20 to around 40 times that in nonsmokers, an association of 2000 percent to 4000 percent, or an RR of 20.0 to 40.0.

An even greater problem is the agency's lowering of the confidence interval (CI) used in its report. Epidemiologists calculate confidence intervals to express the likelihood a result could happen just by chance. A CI of 95 percent allows a 5 percent possibility that the results occurred only by chance. Before its 1992 report, EPA had always used epidemiology's gold standard CI of 95 percent to measure statistical significance. But because the U.S. studies chosen for the report were not statistically significant within a 95 percent CI, for the first time in its history EPA changed the rules and used a 90 percent CI, which doubled the chance of being wrong.

This allowed it to report a statistically significant 19 percent increase of lung cancer cases in the nonsmoking spouses of smokers over those cases found in nonsmoking spouses of nonsmokers. Even though the RR was only 1.19--an amount far short of what is normally required to demonstrate correlation or causality--the agency concluded this was proof SHS increased the risk of U.S. nonsmokers developing lung cancer by 19 percent.

In November 1995 after a 20-month study, the Congressional Research Service released a detailed analysis of the EPA report that was highly critical of EPA's methods and conclusions. In 1998, in a devastating 92-page opinion, Federal Judge William Osteen vacated the EPA study, declaring it null and void. He found a culture of arrogance, deception, and cover-up at the agency. Osteen noted, "First, there is evidence in the record supporting the accusation that EPA 'cherry picked' its data. ... In order to confirm its hypothesis, EPA maintained its standard significance level but lowered the confidence interval to 90 percent. This allowed EPA to confirm its hypothesis by finding a relative risk of 1.19, albeit a very weak association. ... EPA cannot show a statistically significant association between [SHS] and lung cancer."

The judge added, "EPA publicly committed to a conclusion before the research had begun; adjusted established procedure and scientific norms to validate its conclusion; and aggressively utilized its authority to disseminate findings to establish a de facto regulatory scheme to influence public opinion."

In 2003 a definitive paper on SHS and lung cancer mortality was published in the British Medical Journal. It is the largest and most detailed study ever reported. The authors studied more than 35,000 California never-smokers over a 39-year period and found no statistically significant association between exposure to SHS and lung cancer mortality.

Propaganda Trumps Science

The 1992 EPA report is an example of the use of epidemiology to promote belief in an epidemic instead of to investigate one. It has damaged the credibility of EPA and has tainted the fields of epidemiology and public health.

In addition, influential anti-tobacco activists, including prominent academics, have unethically attacked the research of eminent scientists in order to further their ideological and political agendas.

The abuse of scientific integrity and the generation of faulty "scientific" outcomes (through the use of pseudoscience) have led to the deception of the American public on a grand scale and to draconian government overregulation and the squandering of public money.

Millions of dollars have been spent promoting belief in SHS as a killer, and more millions of dollars have been spent by businesses in order to comply with thousands of highly restrictive bans, while personal choice and freedom have been denied to millions of smokers. Finally, and perhaps most tragically, all this has diverted resources away from discovering the true cause(s) of lung cancer in nonsmokers.

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Brain shrinks faster with less stimulation

Brain scans have revealed that people who do not engage in complex mental activity have twice the shrinkage in a key part of the brain in old age. The finding sheds more light on the link between lifestyle and dementia, and adds strength to the evidence that mental gymnastics, like puzzles and new languages, stave off ageing diseases.

"We've got strong evidence here that people who use their brains more have less brain shrinkage," said Dr Michael Valenzuela, from the school of psychiatry at the University of NSW. "I hope people take this as a further call to arms to get out there and use their brains, get engaged in anything from tai chi to world travel, in the knowledge that it may help delay or prevent the onset of dementia."

Mental activity has been found to delay the onset of the degenerative brain diseases, such as Huntington's, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, in large population studies.

Dr Valenzuela and his team were investigating the reasons behind this "use it or lose it" principle by studying the brains of 60-year-olds over three years and testing their lifetime mental agility with questionnaires. Of the 50 people studied, those who had been more mentally active over their lives had a larger hippocampus, an important memory centre in the brain. Critically, over the three-year period the area shrank at half the rate of those who had lower mental activity.

"This is a significant finding because a small hippocampus is a specific risk factor for developing Alzheimer's disease," said Dr Valenzuela, whose work is published in the journal PLoS ONE. He said while many drug companies were trying to find a pharmaceutical target to prevent the shrinkage of the hippocampus, the good news is that people can help themselves. "Our prior research shows the risk for dementia is quite malleable, even into late life," the researcher said. "It is vital that everyone is involved in cognitive, social and physical activities in late life such as dancing, tai chi, sailing, travelling and learning a new language, for example."

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Acupuncture useless

Infertile women who spend hundreds of pounds on acupuncture during IVF treatment are doing nothing to improve their chances of having a baby, the most extensive review of the evidence yet conducted has found. Acupuncture has no effect at all on pregnancy rates following IVF, according to a study that has examined all the high-quality trials to investigate its use by fertility clinics.

The findings, from a team at Guy's and St Thomas's Hospital in London, will dismay thousands of infertility patients, among whom acupuncture has become the most popular complementary therapy. While no official figures on its use are kept, demand is so great that several fertility clinics, such as Hammersmith Hospital in London, have set up on-site acupuncture services for their patients. Costs vary, but the Hammersmith unit charges $480 for an "IVF package" of four acupuncture sessions.

The new research, led by Sesh Sunkara, is a meta-analysis, in which the results of many high-quality randomised controlled trials are pooled to provide a more complete picture of a medical procedure's effectiveness. She said that while she had been open-minded about acupuncture before starting the investigation, she felt that she could not recommend it to patients. "If women come to me and ask if they should have acupuncture, I have to say there is no evidence that it helps," she told the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference in Barcelona. "Women are investing hope, energy and time in something that has not shown a definite benefit.

"The reason we chose to do this was that in our IVF clinic, every day we have patients who ask whether they should have acupuncture to improve their success rate. There have been all sorts of papers saying that sticking pins and needles increases the pregnancy rate, which have been widely reported in the media, and we are looking at women who are very vulnerable, who want to do everything possible to increase their pregnancy chances. "We wanted to look at this in an unbiased, open-minded way, to help us advise our patients. We wanted to know whether we should be doing acupuncture routinely and setting up a service in our clinic, or whether we should be advising people that there is no evidence that it works."

In the study, Dr Sunkara identified 83 trials in the medical literature, of which 13 were found to be of suitable quality to be included in the meta-analysis. The others were rejected either because they were commentary articles that did not include data, or because they were inappropriately designed.

Pregnancy rate and live birth rate were the only outcomes considered, and the results showed that acupuncture had no effect on either, whether it was used during embryo transfer or for pain relief while eggs were collected.

The research contradicts a similar meta-analysis that was published in the British Medical Journal in February, which suggested that acupuncture can improve pregnancy rates by as much as 65 per cent if performed when embryos are transferred to the womb.

Scientists behind the new work said that the BMJ study had overlooked a number of good studies that reached negative conclusions. Professor Peter Braude, who supervised the Guy's and St Thomas' team, said: "The BMJ paper didn't include all the studies, and if you include the negative ones there is no effect. We can't turn around and say it does not work, but there is no evidence it does and hand on heart we can't come out and recommend it."

Dr Sunkara said that more large randomised clinical trials of acupuncture in IVF were needed to settle the issue.

Paul Robin, the chairman of the Acupuncture Society, said: "I'm really surprised by these findings. I've been treating people for 20 years and in my experience treatment does seem to improve their chances of becoming pregnant. This study has shown that there's no proof that acupuncture can help - so that suggests that there should be lots more studies to examine the question. I'm convinced it can help."

Other studies that have claimed a benefit for acupuncture have hypothesised that it helps with relaxation during embryo transfer, which may boost the chances of a successful implantation and pregnancy. It has also been suggested that the therapy may increase blood flow to the womb.

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CA: Legislature approves bill banning trans fats

California is poised to become the first state in the nation to ban restaurants and other food facilities from using trans fats, which are known to increase the risk of heart disease, under a bill approved by the state Legislature Monday and sent to the governor. The measure, passed with a bare majority, comes two weeks after a similar ban in New York City became fully effective. California doctor and consumer groups support the law, while restaurant groups have offered a lukewarm response. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has not taken a position, a spokesman said.

Assemblyman Tony Mendoza, D-Artesia (Los Angeles County), who wrote AB97, said the measure is intended to promote the health of Californians. "When it comes to heart disease and diabetes, communities of color are leading the way," Mendoza said. "I figured that the use of trans fats in our restaurants is a leading contributor to that."

Mendoza's bill would require restaurants, hospitals and facilities with food-preparation areas to remove oils, shortenings and margarines with trans fats by Jan. 1, 2010, except for use in deep frying for dough and batter. Bakers would be given an extra year to figure out how to make goods free of partial hydrogenation. By Jan. 1, 2011, food preparation sites would have to be eliminate all ingredients with trans fats or face fines from $25 to $1,000. The bill exempts public school cafeterias, which must be trans fat free under a law that takes effect at the start of the coming year.

Mendoza's bill defines trans fat free as containing 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving, and the law would not apply to packaged goods, which cross state lines and are subject to FDA regulation. The bill also allows local governments to create trans fat ordinances, such as San Francisco's voluntary plan under which restaurants that pass a $250 inspection will be awarded a decal indicating that they are trans fat free. The city's law takes effect this month.

New York City's law has been a success, said Dr. Sonia Angell, director of the New York Health Department's Cardiovascular Disease Prevention and Control program. The department began phasing in a ban on artificial trans fats in December 2006, with the law fully in force on July 1. "At this point, all inspections have been going quite smoothly," Angell said. "Compliance has been at 98 percent. The evidence is very clear that trans fats are dangerous and very replaceable."

Dari Shamtoob, owner of the popular - and trans-fat-free - King Pin Donuts near the UC Berkeley campus, said he wonders why Berkeley has not implemented a law like New York City's. He fully supports a California ban. "I don't know what's stopped them, but these days they should," he said, "especially for the students. It's very important." Shamtoob began experimenting with oils free of trans fats in 2005 and perfected his recipes in 2006. He is waiting to buy a soybean oil that promises to be cholesterol free as well as trans fat free.

The switch increased King Pin's expenses, but the cost gap between the oils is closing. At first, Shamtoob said, trans-fat-free palm oil cost him 100 percent more than partially hydrogenated oil. Now the difference is 15 percent....

Meanwhile, California counties are worried that the bill contains no funding for implementation and enforcement, said Justin Malan, executive director of the California Conference of Directors of Environmental Health. "The thing in enforcement is that it's difficult to verify the absence of trans fat in hundreds of thousands of different products," Malan said. Adding requirements to the inspection process without financial support will result in cursory inspections, Malan said.

Legislators who voted against the bill said they prefer incentives rather than forced regulation. "The average population is mature enough to make their own decisions," said Sen. Sam Aanestad, R-Grass Valley (Nevada County). "I don't believe government was formed to tell citizens what they can and cannot do."

But attorney Stephen Joseph of Tiburon, a leader in the battle against trans fats, says now is the time for regulation. "The public has shown in survey after survey that they want this," he said. "I haven't heard a complaint from a company in years."

Joseph has sued McDonald's and Kraft Foods regarding trans fat information disclosure and use, and also led a successful, voluntary campaign in Tiburon to eliminate trans fats from restaurant kitchens. He views the elimination of trans fats as a form of consumer liberation rather than restriction. "Customers don't notice the difference. There's no loss of freedom of choice here. It's not freedom of choice for the customer when a restaurant owner puts something in the food and doesn't tell the customer," he said.

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Another blow to breast feelies

Breast self-examination has been questioned for some time now -- on the grounds that it does more harm than good

According to a review by the Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research, there’s no evidence that self-exams actually reduce breast cancer deaths. In fact, the often-recommended monthly chore may even do more harm than good, according to the group’s analysis of a pair of studies of nearly 400,000 Chinese and Russian women.

“Data from two large trials do not suggest a beneficial effect of screening by (BSE) but do suggest harm in terms of increased numbers of benign lesions identified and an increased number of biopsies performed,” concluded the authors in Tuesday’s issue of The Cochrane Library. “At present, screening by breast self-examination … cannot be recommended.”

“I guess it’s one less thing that I need to be doing, but it is a little confusing,” says Liz Lane, a 29-year-old public relations manager from New York City. “Now I’m not sure what I am supposed to do to check myself.”

The issue is complicated, acknowledges Dr. David B. Thomas, breast cancer epidemiologist at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington. “It’s important to separate out the public health implications from the implications for an individual woman,” says Thomas, who is also the author of the 2002 landmark study involving more than 250,000 Chinese women that was analyzed and affirmed by this latest review.

“If a woman is highly motivated — let’s say her mother or sister has been diagnosed with breast cancer — then of course she should practice breast self-exam. But that’s a different situation than trying to reach women on a mass scale. Our study shows that that’s probably a waste of time. You’re not going to get women sufficiently motivated to practice it well enough and frequently enough to make that big of a difference.”

What’s more, Thomas says BSEs can be problematic because the lumps and bumps women do report often turn out to be benign. “The price you pay for doing more thorough breast exams is you’re going to find more benign lesions and that will result in unnecessary surgical procedures,” he says.

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NYC inspectors know best

Especially enjoying all the freedoms of this fine country over the July 4th week end were all the immigrants and their descendants as they celebrated with glorious food from their ancestral homelands. And in New York City, with people from around the world, that could mean cannoli, cheesecake and croissants to name a few ethnic reats. Heaven, in other words, for me. But in over-bureaucratized, big brother New York City, a new insensitivity to the cultural food diversity of its citizens means that the local government is deciding that (grand)ma's recipes have too much trans fat so they're going to take it away from you. For your own good of course.

"How can that be when there is only butter in it [the croissant]?" asked Sarabeth Levine, owner of Sarabeth's on the upper West Side. Indeed, butter and other dairy products include trace amounts of natural trans fat. The tests cannot determine whether the trans fat found was man-made - like margarine - or natural.

Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden said the agency focus is on artificial trans-fat, but he noted, "Just because something doesn't have artificial trans-fat doesn't mean it's a health food. It means it doesn't have an artificial product in it that is going to make you more likely to have a heart attack."

Of course worrying about losing your livelihood because some city inspector grandly decrees your iconic products artificially violates city law does make it more likely you're going to have a heart attack. And not savoring your favorite food because a city commissioner, rather than mother, knows best will also increase your chances of having a heart attack. But

officials will not punish bakeries if they find more than .5 grams of trans fat, as long as it is natural trans fat, from sources such as butter.

Hey, thanks. Bon appetit in any language.

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Cot death risk 'higher for babies with imbalance of mood chemical'

Only in mice so far

The key to cot death may be a brain-signalling chemical that is better known for regulating mood, research has suggested. Scientists have discovered the first direct evidence that an imbalance of serotonin in the brainstem can kill infant animals, offering insights into the origins of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), the leading killer of children aged under 12 months.

The findings, from experiments with genetically modified mice, add to a belief that serotonin is involved in many if not most human cot deaths. They build on the results of a study in 2006 that identified serotonin deficits in the brainstems of cot death victims, and show that a similar abnormality regularly kills mice of a similar age. The new study, published in the journal Science, has also isolated a possible genetic cause of this imbalance. The abnormalities, however, could also be a result of environmental factors known to raise the risk of cot death, particularly parental smoking. If the genetic link is confirmed, the research could lead to ways of identifying babies at risk, and to interventions that could reduce the danger. In Britain there were 380 unexplained deaths among infants aged under 2 in 2004. Cot death occurs in about one in 2,000 babies.

Enrica Audero, who led the research at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Monterotondo, Italy, said of the mouse model: "Ultimately, we hope it will give new ideas to doctors about how to diagnose babies at risk for SIDS."

The 2006 research at Children's Hospital, Boston, compared postmortem brain samples from 31 cot death victims with tissue taken from 10 infants who had died of other causes. The cot death babies had a reduced ability to use and recycle serotonin in the brainstem, which controls critical unconscious functions, such as breathing, heart rate and temperature.

The discovery led scientists to suggest that a serotonin imbalance in the brainstem could cause death by preventing the detection of falling oxygen levels or rising body temperature. Babies might fail to wake as they normally would in response to such cues, causing them to suffocate. The danger would be particularly high among babies sleeping on their fronts - a known cot death risk factor.

Dr Audero's team engineered genetically modified mice to overproduce a serotonin regulator called Htrla, of which excessive levels have been found in some cot death victims.

Cornelius Gross, head of the laboratory's mouse biology unit, said the mice seemed normal at first, "but then they suffered sporadic and unpredictable drops in heart rate and body temperature. More than half of the mice eventually died of these crises during a restricted period of early life. It was at that point that we thought it might have something to do with SIDS."

Most of the transgenic mice died before reaching three months. Only 30per cent survived beyond four months. Those that survived, however, had a normal lifespan, suggesting that there is a critical period for risk. Further study showed that the mice were unable to regulate temperature, breathing or heart rate properly when subjected to certain kinds of stress. This is thought likely to influence their high risk of death in infancy.

George Haycock, of Evelina Children's Hospital in London and scientific advisor to the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths, said that more work was needed to establish the cause of the serotonin imbalance in cot death victims. Dr Audero said that the team would examine whether it was possible to determine which of the serotonindefective mice were most likely to die.

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Life-saving cold

Australia:



Nearly four years ago to the day, Felicity van Elst glanced out at the courtyard where her 20-month-old son, Jasper, had been playing. With a double-take she registered that he wasn't to be seen. Mrs van Elst found Jasper lying face down in the backyard fishpond. He had climbed a barrier around the pond and when she pulled him from the water he wasn't breathing. A trained nurse, Mrs van Elst knew she had to start CPR on him.

She ran, carrying him, to the front of their Bondi home, and screamed for help as she lay his limp body on the median strip, then started CPR. "A neighbour heard me screaming. I had the phone in my hand and he called the ambulance," she said.

By all accounts Jasper should have died, or suffered extreme brain damage. What saved him was a record cold July day - the pond water was near freezing. That and his treatment by a trauma specialist with an interest in the use of cold for brain injury. Cold is being used in the treatment of heart attacks, head and spinal cord injuries, stroke and near drownings.

Andrew Numa leads the intensive care unit at Sydney Children's Hospital and was in charge the day Jasper was rushed in. "If you fall into a body of very cold water, the brain cools rapidly, either before or around the same time as the heart stops," he said. "The heart will keep going for maybe a couple of minutes. If you get your brain cold fast, it's probably protected."

Jasper took his first breath in the resuscitation room more than 100 minutes after his heart had stopped. He had been stripped down and placed on a cooling blanket to keep his body in a state of mild hypothermia.

Two weeks later, he walked out of the hospital to go home. Today, Jasper is a smart, strong and sensitive boy, with a busy mind. "For being underwater for three minutes, he's very good," says Dr Numa. "When, really, the normal outcome when it's not cold water is dying or being severely brain damaged."

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Don't laugh: Global warming is going to increase kidney stones

The "reasoning" below is that kidney stones are more prevalent in warmer areas of the USA and that they are therefore caused by warmth. That's just epidemiological speculation, however. People in some warmer parts of the USA do get more kidney stones but is that BECAUSE OF the warmth? Bacteria are being increasingly implicated in kidney stone formation so it could (for instance) be due to differing prevalence of bacteria in the areas concerned. Note also that kidney stone prevalence is high in the Great Lakes area, which is not exactly the warmest part of the USA

More Americans are likely to suffer from kidney stones in the coming years as a result of global warming, according to researchers at the University of Texas.

Kidney stones, which are formed from dissolved minerals in the urine and can be extremely painful, are often caused by caused by dehydration, either by not drinking enough liquid or losing too much due to high heat conditions. If global warming trends continue as projected by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007, the United States can expect as much as a 30 percent growth in kidney stone disease in some of its driest areas, said the findings published in Monday's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The increased incidence of disease would represent between 1.6 million and 2.2 million cases by 2050, costing the US economy as much as one billion dollars in treatment costs.

"This study is one of the first examples of global warming causing a direct medical consequence for humans," said Margaret Pearle, professor of urology at University of Texas Southwestern and senior author of the paper. "When people relocate from areas of moderate temperature to areas with warmer climates, a rapid increase in stone risk has been observed. This has been shown in military deployments to the Middle East for instance."

The lead author of the research, Tom Brikowski, compared kidney stone rates with UN forecasts of temperature increases and created two mathematical models to predict the impact on future populations. One formula showed an increase in the southern half of the country, including the already existing "kidney stone belt" of the southeastern states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.

The other showed that the increase would be concentrated in the upper Midwest. "Similar climate-related changes in the prevalence of kidney-stone disease can be expected in other stone belts worldwide," the study said.

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Jewish obesity under attack in Australia

Having seen the snacking ladies at Rose Bay, I think I know what this is all about

Kosher food can stack on the kilos. So says the rabbi who has launched a diet challenge to Australian Jews: lose 1000 kilograms in 12 weeks. Rabbi Mendel Kastel is publishing a diet online this month that comes with kosher recipes, a kosher conversion guide, personalised menus, exercise plans and tools to set goals and track weight. "Bagels, chopped liver, matzo balls, schmaltz herrings - there are things in a kosher diet that make us put on weight," he said. "Rather than a white bagel, try a wholemeal one."

As head of the Rabbinical Council of NSW, Rabbi Kastel has sent a message out to rabbis across Australia to challenge their communities. Corporate sponsorship in the form of a dollar for every kilogram lost will be directed to the Jewish House, a crisis housing agency. "We aim to lose about a kilo a week. So we're looking for 100 people to lose 10 kilos each. And the more, the better," he said.

Rabbi Kastel said he did not know if Jews were fatter than other Australians, but he said they needed to be aware of the importance of eating well, drinking moderately and getting regular exercise. The rabbi has been road-testing the program for the past five weeks and said he has shed six kilograms. "Just 20 kilograms to go."

Under Jewish law people should eat only kosher food. Meat, for instance, must come only from animals that chew the cud and have cloven hoofs, such as cows. And they must be killed in a particular way, removing as much blood as possible.

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Low IQ Linked To Dementia

Which means that high IQ people are LESS likely to become demented

Children with lower IQs are more likely decades later to develop vascular dementia than children with high IQs, according to research published in the June 25, 2008, online issue of Neurology. The most common type of dementia after Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia occurs when blood flow to the brain is impaired.

The study examined 173 people in Scotland who took a test of their mental ability in 1932 when they were about 11 years old and later developed dementia. This group was compared to one set of control participants of the same age and gender. For another group of controls, the researchers made sure that the cases and controls came from families where the fathers had similar types of occupations.

The people with vascular dementia were 40 percent more likely to have low test scores when they were children than the people who did not develop dementia. This difference was not true for those with Alzheimer's disease.

"These results point to the importance of reducing the vascular risk factors that can lead to strokes and dementia," said study author John M. Starr, FRCPEd, of the University of Edinburgh. "Risk factors include high blood pressure, high cholesterol and smoking."

Starr said the findings support the hypothesis that low childhood IQ acts as a risk factor for dementia through vascular risks rather than the "cognitive reserve" theory. This theory speculates that greater IQ and education create a buffer against the effects of dementia in the brain, allowing people with greater cognitive reserve to stay free of signs of dementia longer, even though the disease has started affecting their brains.

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Lesbianism linked to obesity

Heh!

Obesity is an epidemic, and lesbians are nearly twice as likely to be overweight than heterosexual women. Sarah Fogel, Ph.D., R.N., associate professor of Nursing at Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, is using an extraordinarily successful, predominately lesbian weight loss group in Atlanta, as a model system for discovering how to target obesity in a lesbian population. Fogel is studying the group, and her findings are giving her a different view on weight loss. “All weight loss groups offer an environment of like-bodied people (overweight or obese), but this is the first group, to my knowledge, that has been developed around other personal and social issues,” said Fogel.

Adherence to a new lifestyle is often the most difficult barrier to overcome in weight loss. The Atlanta group, however, has had remarkable success in developing long-term change in its member’s lifestyles. “Perhaps the best representation of the group is to say that there are still several women in the group who were ‘founding members.’ They have been attending since October 2006 and continue to come even though a couple of them have reached their weight loss goals. The other side of this is that even the women who have not been able to lose what they want to lose keep coming . . . this is unheard of,” said Fogel. “It says volumes about the group.”

Fogel is trying to answer a difficult question: how do we understand obesity in different social contexts? Being overweight or obese can lead to a number of health problems, namely cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, so understanding how obesity develops in different populations is a pressing concern.

Fogel will study the group over a six-month period, both empirically and qualitatively. Using body mass index (BMI) and relative weight loss, she will put a number on the group’s success. She has already held focus groups in order to lend a deeper, more personal aspect to the study, and therefore weight loss.

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Frozen embryos 'make healthier babies than fresh ones'

LOL. This is at least believable. It would have to be a pretty tough little embryo to survive freezing

IVF babies born from embryos that are frozen and thawed are less likely to be underweight or premature than those conceived during fresh treatment cycles, research has shown. The findings show that the use of frozen embryos could soon be accepted as completely safe, doctors said.

Another team of researchers told the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference in Barcelona that IVF success rates could be improved by as much as 15 per cent with a "viability index" for selecting embryos with the best chance of a healthy pregnancy.

The Danish study into frozen embryos found that the average birth weight of those babies was 200g more than in fresh-embryo IVF. The findings, from a team led by Anja Pinborg, of the Copenhagen University Hospital, are important because women are increasingly encouraged to use one fresh embryo - to avoid multiple births - and to freeze any others produced in the process for later use. Dr Pinborg said it was highly unlikely that freezing improved the health of embryos. The figures could be explained because patients who froze embryos were generally young women with a good prognosis. Poor quality embryos were also more likely to die during the thawing process.

"These findings are reassuring," she told the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference in Barcelona. "If our results continue to be positive, frozen embryo replacement can be accepted as a completely safe procedure, which can be used even more frequently."

Scientists from Yale University told the conference that overall IVF success rates could be improved by as much as 15 per cent by a new "fitness test" that can predict which IVF embryos will implant into the womb up to 70 per cent of the time. The non-invasive procedure examines chemical fingerprints in the culture media in which they grow in the laboratory. Scientists said the technology, known as metabolomics, should be ready for widespread use within two to three years, and predicted that the viability index could become a routine part of fertility treatment.

Denny Sakkas, who is leading the research, said: "The other side of IVF is that we probably fail to get patients pregnant about two thirds of the time we do an embryo transfer. One of the reasons is we're not that good at picking the best embryo we have available. "In the clinic, we would probably be looking at a 10 to 15 per cent improvement in pregnancy rates. "It's not going to make a bad embryo good, but it should help us to tell them apart. This definitely could make the difference between people getting pregnant or not."

The average success rate for IVF in Britain is 21.6 per cent across women of all ages, and 29.6 per cent for women under 35.

Source




Patients to grow spare body parts

HEART disease patients could grow "spare body parts" with a radical technique being developed by Melbourne engineers. Swinburne University scientists are poised to put on trial world-first technology that may see entire organs cultivated from just a few human cells. First on the agenda are heart valves that Prof Yosry Morsi believes his team can grow - and have transplanted into humans - within five years. The breakthrough may help up to 6000 Australians a year, revolutionising the surgery that repaired Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's heart about 15 years ago.

Prof Morsi said he believed that the technique might make artificial valves and "tissue" versions from humans, pigs and cows redundant. "We are trying to copy nature," he said. "We'd be using a patient's own cells, so their body is not going to react it."

The key to the technique, which could be tested on animals within a year, is "scaffolding" modelled on a patient's real heart. A cell from the patient's heart is put into the scaffolding, which is left in a machine that simulates human heart conditions. Cells multiply, growing into a replica of the original within 12 weeks. "While we are creating this living tissue, we are subjecting it to exactly the sort of pressures it will be under (in the body), like the pressure of blood flow," Prof Morsi said.

Though other scientists around the world are also in the race to successfully "grow" human organs, it is Swinburne's techniques that put it on track for the big breakthrough.

Prof Frank Rosenfeldt, head of The Alfred's cardiac surgical research unit, said Prof Morsi's work could revolutionise the common but complicated operation. "If a human heart valve can be grown using the patient's tissues, this would be a great advantage," he said. "It would be a living tissue, which might even regenerate and repair itself."

Like Mr Rudd, Melbourne grandfather Bill Wade was given a tissue valve and is enjoying a new lease on life. He was transplanted with a pig's valve - Mr Rudd had a human donor - at The Alfred in February. "I'm happy with this, and they've said it will last 10 to 15 years before I need a replacement, maybe longer," said Mr Wade, from Sandringham. "But if I had the choice (to grow) my own valve, that would just be amazing."

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The dreadful peril of salty sausages

What utter nonsense. Our blood is roughly as salty as seawater so any idea that salt is a problem for us is just do-gooder claptrap. If we can't handle salt, we can't handle anything. People on salt restricted diets in fact die SOONER!

The iconic Aussie sausage sanger has been hauled over the coals for its "extreme salt content" in a new review showing the bread and everything inside it blows sodium guidelines. The product review found that one single sausage sandwich at a barbecue contains an adult's daily recommended dose of salt, and double that suggested for a child.

Researchers reviewed almost 200 sausage, bread and sauce products found on supermarket shelves and found the vast majority exceed acceptable salt levels set in the UK. Just two per cent of 44 sausage and hotdog brands and 16 per cent of the 43 white bread products met the guidelines. There were huge content variations across products, with some sausages containing over three times as much salt as others, the researchers said. Dozens of tomato and barbecue sauce brands also were checked, with more than half failing to make the cut.

"That's an incredible salt overload on its own, let alone with everything else you eat in a day," said Dr Bruce Neal, research director at The George Institute for International Health in Sydney. "I know it's an icon of the Australian diet but if people knew what they were eating and what it's doing to their health they might well think twice about it."

Anecdotal evidence suggests the average Australian adult consumes about nine grams of salt a day, well above the six grams recommended for good health. The new review suggests the six-gram threshold would be met by one sandwich, bringing with it increased health risks. "There's very clear evidence that eating more salt pushes your blood pressure up and that increases your risk of stroke and heart attack," Dr Neal said. "You're obviously not going to fall dead as you bite into the sausage but you're going to pay for it down the track."

The study was released today as part of a national campaign to cut salt levels in food at home and in restaurants and supermarkets by 25 per cent over five years. The Australian Food and Grocery Council has lent support to the campaign, and several big brands like Coles, Kellogg and Unilever have begun efforts to reduce salt content in products. "The government now needs to make salt a national health priority and lead negotiations on maximum salt targets for different products," said Dr Neal, who chairs the Australian Division of World Action on Salt and Health.

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Horse drug ketamine to get wider use

HORSE tranquilliser ketamine, sometimes used as an illicit drug for people, will be given to patients in Queensland as pain relief from July 14. While other Australian ambulance services are still trying the drug, Queensland paramedics will be the first to use it as standard therapy.

QAS medical director Steve Rashford said that in small doses the fast-acting intravenous anaesthetic provided profound relief for severe pain, particularly in car crash victims. "It has mind-blowing improvements in complex orthopaedic injuries and severe burns that morphine alone doesn't provide," he said. "It will improve the paramedics' ability to provide extra support to a trapped patient and it will speed up their extrication time."

Ketamine has been around for many years but has been administered only by doctors and veterinarians.

Source

Comment on the above two articles from a medical correspondent:

Ketamine has been all but abandoned by anesthesiologists because it produces an LSD like "dysphoria" - quite unpleasant, and the patients REMEMBER EVERYTHING. It's the only drug a patient said that, if I used it, he would kill me; he had had a bad reaction. Some of this is dose related, so small doses given by paramedics is likely safe. On the other hand, it has been used as a "street drug" so may boe "controlled" in some places.

Salt : Some patients with high blood pressure and heart failure ARE sensitive to salt; it's genetic. Others can eat all the salt they want. But diuretic drugs have greatly reduced fear of salt; you simply urinate a lot. But these food police have ignored an important use of salt - it keeps the bacteria count of food down. (Ancients used salt as a preservative long before refrigeration).

Risks of IVF twins exaggerated

Infertile couples who want more than one child should be encouraged to try for IVF twins in spite of the medical consensus that multiple pregnancies should be avoided, a senior American doctor said. The health risks of conceiving twins by IVF have been exaggerated by the medical profession, and a British initiative to cut the number of such pregnancies is "categorically wrong", according to Norbert Gleicher, of the Centre for Human Reproduction in New York.

He told the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology conference in Barcelona that for many women who need IVF to conceive, the birth of twins is a "favourable and ethical" result. Such pregnancies provide complete families at a stroke, and may often be safer than having two singleton IVF pregnancies, he said. Moves to persuade more women to use one embryo at a time during fertility treatment, as recommended by a UK national strategy launched last week, are thus misguided.

Professor Gleicher's comments were fiercely disputed by other senior doctors, who said that his opinions were based on a flawed analysis of the risks of multiple pregnancies to both babies and mothers. Professor Peter Braude, of King's College, London, said that IVF twin pregnancies are well-established to be more hazardous than singleton conceptions, with dangers that include prematurity, stillbirth, low birth weight, cerebral palsy, pre-eclampsia, haemorrhage and maternal death. "Couples should be extra cautious about interpreting this advice because it flies in the face of all other published data about the risks of multiple births," he said.

The conference executive, which is encouraging IVF clinics across Europe to move to single embryo transfer to guard against multiple births, said in a statement: "There are significant risks to multiple pregnancies, and we should not be generating them deliberately. IVF babies also deserve the best start in life."

A Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) expert panel, chaired by Professor Braude, found in 2006 that twins have five times the usual risk of death in the first year of life and six times the risk of cerebral palsy. More than half are born prematurely, and 40 to 60 per cent require intensive care. Each twin costs the NHS 16 times as much as a singleton birth in the first year of life, and it is estimated that 126 deaths would have been avoided had all IVF twins born in Britain in 2003 been singleton births.

Multiple pregnancies are also dangerous for mothers. A quarter are complicated by problems such as high blood pressure, and the death rate is doubled for women expecting twins.

These dangers have led the HFEA and the British Fertility Society to launch a national strategy to reduce Britain's IVF twin rate from 24 per cent to 10 per cent by 2012. This is likely to require single embryo transfer in about 50 per cent of IVF cycles, compared to about 10 per cent at present.

Professor Gleicher, however, claimed that some of these risks had been over-estimated, because they have been calculated by comparing twin births with just one singleton pregnancy, not two. "When you ask infertile patients having treatment, a very large majority want more than one child," he said. "The question is how you get two children, not one. When you add the risks of two singleton pregnancies together, many risks of twins disappear.

"For infertile patients, desirous of more than one child, twin deliveries represent a favourable, cost-effective and ethical treatment outcome, which in contrast to medical consensus, should be encouraged.

"Because the alleged excessive risks and costs of twin deliveries have been the primary motivation behind the recently increasingly popular concept of single embryo transfer, the clinical, ethical and economic validity of single embryo transfer should be seriously questioned."

He added that much of the medical literature is based on comparisons between naturally conceived singletons and twins. This may be misleading because IVF twins have a lower risk than spontaneous twins of dying at or soon after birth.

In a paper published in the journal Fertility and Sterility, Professor Gleicher has suggested that when these factors are taken into account, IVF twin pregnancies are less risky than two singleton conceptions for complications including stillbirth, neonatal death and major birth defects.

Professor Braude and the conference doctors pointed out that even Professor Gleicher's adjusted figures show substantially raised risks of maternal death, low birth weight and pre-eclampsia, a life-threatening blood pressure disorder.

They added that for many risks, it is statistically misleading to compare twin pregnancies with two singleton pregnancies. Professor Mark Hamilton, the chairman of the British Fertility Society, said: "It is misleading, as he has done, to combine the risks of two single live births which are two independent events, each with a lower risk than that of a twin pregnancy. "With singleton pregnancies, the chance of having a stillborn baby, or one that dies soon after, is about five per 1,000. In a twin pregnancy it's four to five times that. If your first singleton pregnancy was uncomplicated, your chance of a problem the second time round is even lower, probably less than one in a thousand. Multiple pregnancies unquestionably expose mothers and babies to increased hazards."

Professor Gleicher's study has also ignored the long-term health risks of the low birth weights suffered by twins, and the psychological impact of multiple births on parents.

A separate study presented at the conference, from Helsinki University Central Hospital in Finland, has found that the mothers and fathers of twins suffer significantly more mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety and sleep disorders, than the parents of singletons.

Source






Britain: Food fanaticism hits school meals

School meals will soar in price or vanish without a significant injection of government funds, parents are to be told today. Sandra Russell, chairwoman of the Local Authority Caterers Association, told The Times that school meal provision was not sustainable because of the credit crunch, rising food prices and declining numbers of children eating school meals.

Hundreds of millions of pounds is said to be needed from the Government to prop up the system, or meals could rise by 30p a day – costing more than o100 extra each year for a family with two children. Parents already pay between o1.50 and o2 for each meal, but some catering companies are running at a deficit.

New nutrition regulations that come into force this year will make the situation even more untenable, Ms Russell said. Kitchen staff will have to provide details of the calories, fat and nutrients in each dish, restricting the choice that catering firms can offer and putting off even more children. Numbers dropped after Jamie Oliver, the television chef, campaigned in 2005 to improve the standards of school lunches.

Many schools now serve only healthy meals and almost half a million fewer pupils ate school lunches last year than two years earlier. The latest take-up of school meals will be announced this week at the association's annual conference.

Ms Russell will challenge schools and the Government at the event, saying that head teachers need to put nutrition at the heart of the curriculum, and that ministers from different departments should work together to tackle childhood obesity.

Detailed nutrition targets must be implemented at secondary schools from September, such as meals not containing more than 11 per cent fat or less than 40 per cent of the recommended daily intake of vitamin C.

Ms Russell said: "Our regulations are the most stringent in Europe. I do have concerns about how secondary school catering is going to stay sustainable when the nutrition standards are introduced. Some children don't recognise the food served in schools because they haven't eaten it at home. We have generations of young mums who can't actually cook."

Ms Russell said that catering firms would have to buy nutritional analysis software to meet the new standards. If schools experience low take-up of school meals, then they will lose funding, Ms Russell said. She added: "There is the impact of rising food prices and distribution charges. I think it will be a case of putting school meal prices up or asking for additional government funding."

Kevin Brennan, the Education Minister, said that children should have to stay on school premises at lunchtime in order to prevent them eating junk food. The restriction could help to tackle obesity and prevent tensions with those who live near by, he said. The proposal was condemned by head teachers as unworkable.

Source

British government minister calls for children to be locked in school to stop them buying junk food

Children should be locked inside school grounds to stop them buying unhealthy food from shops and takeaways, a minister said yesterday. The proposal comes amid new evidence that the Jamie Oliver-inspired drive to make school kitchens offer more nutritious meals is being shunned by pupils in favour of junk food. The number of secondary school children eating school meals has plunged by 400,000 to barely a third.

Children's minister Kevin Brennan said secondary pupils should be barred from leaving the premises during breaks after research found they were spending their money on snacks with high levels of salt, sugar or fat.

Backing a plea by the renowned cook Prue Leith, who chairs the School Food Trust, Mr Brennan said: 'Some schools have a stay-on-site policy for 11 to 16-year-olds but let the sixth form go off- site. I'm very strongly supportive of that approach.

'I would like to see more schools operating some sort of stay-on-site policy because its advantages are shown not just in improved uptake of school meals, but also improved behaviour and community relationships.'

Yesterday's research underlined quite how unhealthy the snacks being bought by children during breaks in the school day are. Some of those who buy their own food during breaks are consuming their entire daily allowance of fat and sugar in one sitting.

A team from London Metropolitan University studied pupils at two large comprehensives - one in a deprived urban setting and another in a well-off suburban area.

The inner-city school allowed all pupils to leave the premises at lunchtime, while the suburban school allowed only sixth-formers the same privilege.

Children's Minister Kevin Brennan has called for secondary school children to be locked inside school grounds during breaks to stop them buying unhealthy food

In the school where pupils were allowed out, just 15 per used their canteen. Even in the school which kept them inside the grounds, less than half (44 per cent) bought food from the canteen, usually sandwiches or wraps, with many buying food on the way to school.

Virtually all the children who were allowed out bought food from local shops, mainly fizzy drinks, chocolate, sweets, crisps, cakes, biscuits and chips.

The researchers found it was not the healthy menus in school canteens that were deterring the pupils so much as long queues, poor facilities and high prices.

They said schools considering keeping children on the premises ought to address these issues first, a finding backed by Oliver last night. 'If you look at what's going on in schools where the catering staff have got the right support and where a "dining culture" is developing, that's where it's working,' he said. 'But there's a big divide between these schools and the many where there are still problems.'

The pitfalls of 'lock-ins' were illustrated at the height of the Jamie Oliver campaign in 2006 when two mothers of children at Rawmarsh Comprehensive in Rotherham started their own takeaway delivery service in response to curbs on pupils' trips to local shops.

John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: 'Much as schools would like to keep children on site at lunchtime, the number of exits in some - as many as 20 - make this almost impossible.'

Source




Eating slowly can help you slim, study finds

There could be something in this

YOUR mother was right when she told you to take the time to chew your food. Eating slowly, research suggests, can encourage people to eat less, and enjoy the meal more. Researchers found that when they had 30 young women eat a lunch of pasta, tomatoes and cheese, the diners consumed an average of 70 fewer calories when they ate the meal slowly and chewed the food thoroughly.

The findings give scientific support to a long recommended weight-control tactic, the researchers report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The theory has been that a leisurely dining pace allows time for the body's natural fullness signals to kick in, explain Ana M. Andrade and colleagues of the University of Rhode Island in Kingston.

Stomach distension and changes in several appetite-related hormones, for example, alert the body that it's time to stop eating. But these processes take time, so a rushed meal could theoretically cause overeating.

But there has been little evidence as to whether slow eating really does trim calorie intake.

Ms Andrade's team tested the idea by having 30 women eat the same pasta meal on two separate occasions. On one day, the women were told to eat the meal as fast as they comfortably could, with no pauses between bites.

On the other day, they were instructed to take small bites, put their spoons down between bites and chew each mouthful 20 to 30 times.

On average, the researchers found, the women ate nearly 70 fewer calories when they slowed down. They also felt fuller and more satisfied after the meal.

There are several potential reasons for the findings, according to Andrade and her colleagues. Besides allowing more time for the body's fullness signals to start working, savoring a meal's flavors, textures and aromas may help people feel more satisfied with fewer calories.

Similar studies are needed in men and obese adults to see if the current findings hold true for them as well, the researchers note.

Source






Splurging Is Good for Your Health



Buying overpriced indulgences may feel good in the short term, but you pay the price later. Or at least that's the conventional wisdom. But a study by a couple of business-school professors says splurging now makes you happier later. Even more surprising: Not splurging now gives you pangs of regret later. Anat Keinan, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School, and Ran Kivetz, a professor of marketing at Columbia Business School, make their case for the vice lifestyle in an article in the Harvard Business Review.

One of their studies polled college students and alumni on the subject of spring breaks. Regret about not having spent more money or traveling during breaks increased with time, whereas regret about not having worked, studied, or saved money during breaks decreased with time. The authors write: "We saw a similar pattern in a study of how businesspeople perceived past choices between work and pleasure. Over time, those who had indulged felt less and less guilty about their choices, whereas those who had been dutiful experienced a growing sense of having missed out on the pleasures of life." (As the old saying goes, nobody dies saying "I wish I'd spent more time at the office.")

The authors also did a study of mall shoppers, asking about their regret about buying an expensive item of clothing. Those who anticipated short-term regret bought less-expensive items, while those who anticipated long-term regret splurged. "Thinking about short-term regret drives consumers to be virtuous, while thinking about long-term regret leads them to be extravagant," the authors write.

Luxury-goods makers, of course, will eat this up. I can see the slogan now: "Luxury: It's Good for Life." Or "Cartier: You'll be sorry you didn't." Whether luxury is good for your finances is another matter. (Nobody goes bankrupt saying "I wish I'd spent more on Gucci bags).

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Use it or lose it?

One sometimes wonders if medical researchers have ever heard of the chicken and egg conundrum. They certainly show little sign of it. They mostly seem to think that they can just intuit the direction of the causal arrow. I think I can leave it to readers to fill in the blanks regarding the nonsensical conclusions below

There's new advice for older men who want to preserve their sexual function: have sex, and have it often, researchers say. In a study that followed nearly 1,000 older Finnish men for five years, researchers found that those who were regularly having sex at the start of the study were at lower risk of developing erectile dysfunction (ED) by the study's end. In fact, the more often the men had sex, the lower their ED risk. The implication, say the researchers, is that men should be encouraged to stay sexually active into their golden years.

Dr. Juha Koskimaki and colleagues at the University of Tampere in Finland report the findings in the American Journal of Medicine. The study included 989 men who were between the ages of 55 and 75 at the outset.

Overall, those who said they had sex less than once per week were twice as likely to develop ED over the next five years as men who had sex at least once a week. Furthermore, compared with men who had sex three or more times per week, their ED risk was increased nearly four-fold.

A number of factors contribute to ED development, many of which could also affect a man's sexually activity -- such as age, diabetes and heart disease. However, after taking account of those factors, sexual activity itself remained linked to ED risk, Koskimaki's team found.

It may be a matter of "use it or lose it," according to the researchers. Just as exercise boosts physical fitness, they note, regular sexual activity may help a man preserve his erectile function. ED occurs when there are problems with blood flow to the penis. Regular sexual activity, Koskimaki's team writes, may help maintain healthy blood vessel function in the erectile tissue.

Source

Journal abstract follows:

Regular Intercourse Protects Against Erectile Dysfunction: Tampere Aging Male Urologic Study

By Juha Koskimaki et al.

Background

Erectile dysfunction is common among men aged more than 60 years. Its cause involves both physiologic and psychosocial factors.

Methods

To evaluate the effects of coital frequency on subsequent risk of erectile dysfunction, data were analyzed from a population-based 5-year follow-up study that was conducted in Pirkanmaa, Finland, using postal questionnaires. Assessment was based on the 5-item version of the validated International Index of Erectile Function. Men with erectile dysfunction at entry were excluded from the analysis. The study sample consisted of 989 men aged 55 to 75 years (mean 59.2 years). The most common comorbidities were hypertension (32%), heart disease (12%), depression (7%), diabetes (4%,) and cerebrovascular disorder (4%).

Results

The overall incidence of moderate or complete erectile dysfunction was 32 cases per 1000 person-years (95% confidence interval [CI], 27-38). After adjustment for comorbidity and other major risk factors, men reporting intercourse less than once per week at baseline had twice the incidence of erectile dysfunction compared with those reporting intercourse once per week (79 vs 33/1000, incidence rate ratio 2.2, 95% CI, 1.3-3.8). The risk of erectile dysfunction was inversely related to the frequency of intercourse. No relationship between morning erections and incidence of moderate or severe erectile dysfunction was found.

Conclusion

Regular intercourse protects against the development of erectile dysfunction among men aged 55 to 75 years. This may have an impact on general health and quality of life; therefore, doctors should support patients' sexual activity.

American Journal of Medicine. Volume 121, Issue 7, Pages 592-596 (July 2008)







The coffee merry-go-round again

Good for you, bad for you, Good for you, bad for you. It is of course just the usual epidemiological twaddle. Maybe women who are less vigorous drink more coffee to perk themselves up and it is the lesser vigour that leads to their pregnancy problems, not the coffee. It's all speculation but these epidemiological simpletons seem to feel that they "just know" what the causal path is. The fact that alcohol, an entirely different substance from caffeine, had similar effects, also points to a social explanation

FOUR cups of coffee a day seriously damage a woman's chances of having a baby or damage the unborn baby's health, Dutch research suggests. The Daily Mail reports that women drinking that much caffeine were 26 per cent less likely to have a baby adding to evidence that it can harm fertility and the health of an unborn baby. There is also caffeine in chocolate and some soft-drinks.Coffee has also been found to increase the risk of stillbirth and is linked to birth defects. Research has shown fit, young, healthy women take longer to get pregnant if they have lots of caffeinated drinks.

The Dutch researchers followed the health and habits of 9000 women with fertility problems for up to 13 years after they finished IVF treatment. Some of the women had a baby through IVF, others had not. Almost 1350 had babies after treatment ended, with most pregnancies occurring in the first year.

When the researchers from Radbout University in Nijmegen looked at why some women conceived naturally and others did not, they found lifestyle played a critical role. Having three or more alcoholic drinks a week had the same effect, while being slightly overweight cut the chances of getting pregnant.

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British menus to list carbon footprint of dishes. Chinese and Indian food both bad

And French food too, no doubt. The nonsense is coming thick and fast today

BRITISH restaurants may have to identify the ''carbon footprint' of their dishes, possibly listing those items that are airfreighted to the country. The plans were outlined on Monday in the Cabinet Office report on the food strategy Britain should adopt for the 21st century. The document examines rising obesity rates, spiralling prices and the problem of millions of tonnes of good food going to waste.

Backed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, it outlines far-reaching plans to improve the nation's diet. Fast food outlets, curry houses, kebab shops and even Michelin-starred restaurants will be given guidelines on how to deliver healthy food. They will come under pressure to list the amount of fat, saturated fat, salt and sugar included in items on the menu.

Britain could follow the example of New York, which has brought in laws to require chain restaurants in the city to list the calorie count of dishes. Restaurants may even be asked to follow the "traffic light" system of red, amber and green logos on dishes, used on supermarket ready-meals. The report recommends that food served by public bodies, from prisons to army barracks and hospitals, meets minimum nutrition standards. The Food Standards Agency would ensure restaurants deliver healthier dishes.

Recent studies have warned that single takeaway curries or Chinese dishes can contain more saturated fat than an adult should consume in a day.

Source

Australians unhappy?

I don't suppose many people take seriously reports such as the one below but in case they do, perhaps I should say that I don't believe the results at all. All the Australians I meet seem to be cheerful and friendly folk whereas the British are a chronically gloomy lot. Yet the survey below would have you believe the opposite. I suspect poor sampling. It was probably phone polling. With Australia's benign climate and strong outdoors orientation, maybe it was mainly gloomy losers who were at home to answer the phone in Australia. And maybe it was only rich and happy people who could afford a phone in Puerto Rico and Columbia

AUSTRALIA is 22nd in a survey of the world's happiest nations - one place below Britain and seven behind New Zealand. Denmark, with its strong welfare system and social equality, was the happiest country, University of Michigan researchers found.

Zimbabwe, torn by political and social strife, was the least happy, while the world's richest nation, the US, ranked 16th. Puerto Rico and Colombia came after Denmark, followed by Northern Ireland, Iceland and Switzerland.

Overall, the world was getting happier, the survey found. Increased happiness from 1981 to last year was detected in 45 of 52 countries analysed.

Source







Tofu 'may raise risk of dementia'

I am not going to criticize this one. I enjoy the conclusion too much! Though I suspect that tofu eaters in the Western world are not too good mentally to start with

Eating high levels of some soy products - including tofu - may raise the risk of memory loss, research suggests. The study focused on 719 elderly Indonesians living in urban and rural regions of Java. The researchers found high tofu consumption - at least once a day - was associated with worse memory, particularly among the over-68s. The Loughborough University-led study features in the journal Dementias and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders.

Soy products are a major alternative protein source to meat for many people in the developing world. But soy consumption is also on the increase in the west, where it is often promoted as a "superfood". Soy products are rich in micronutrients called phytoestrogens, which mimic the impact of the female sex hormone oestrogen.

There is some evidence that they may protect the brains of younger and middle-aged people from damage - but their effect on the ageing brain is less clear. The latest study suggests phytoestrogens - in high quantity - may actually heighten the risk of dementia.

Lead researcher Professor Eef Hogervorst said previous research had linked oestrogen therapy to a doubling of dementia risk in the over-65s. She said oestrogens - and probably phytoestrogens - tended to promote growth among cells, not necessarily a good thing in the ageing brain. Alternatively, high doses of oestrogens might promote the damage caused to cells by particles known as free radicals. A third theory is that damage is caused not by the tofu, but by formaldehyde, which is sometimes used in Indonesia as a preservative.

The researchers admit that more research is required to ascertain whether the same effects are found in other ethnic groups. However, previous research has also linked high tofu consumption to an increased risk of dementia in older Japanese American men.

Professor David Smith, of the University of Oxford, said tofu was a complex food with many ingredients which might have an impact. However, he said: "There seems to be something happening in the brain as we age which makes it react to oestrogens in the opposite way to what we would expect."

The latest study also found that eating tempe, a fermented soy product made from the whole soy bean, was associated with better memory. Professor Hogervorst said the beneficial effect of tempe might be related to the fact that it contains high levels of the vitamin folate, which is known to reduce dementia risk. "It may be that that the interaction between high levels of both folate and phytoestrogens protects against cognitive impairment." She also stressed that there was no suggestion that eating tofu in moderation posed a problem.

Rebecca Wood, of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, which funded the study, said more research was needed to pin down the potential risks and benefits of so-called superfoods. However, she said: "This kind of research into the causes of Alzheimer's could lead scientists to new ways of preventing this devastating disease. "As over half a million people have Alzheimer's in the UK today, there is a desperate need to find a new prevention or cure."

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New vitamin pill 'doubles' pregnancy rates

Utter crap

QUEENSLAND doctors are backing a new male fertility pill that claims to double pregnancy rates in infertile couples. The over-the-counter supplement Menevit contains seven anti-oxidants and minerals that experts believe can help boost sperm quality. Keith Harrison, Associate Professor of Queensland Fertility Group which carries out the majority of the state's fertility treatments, recommends all couples trying to conceive take the treatment. "The evidence is clear to us that the pill is beneficial to patients in getting pregnant and staying pregnant," Dr Harrison said.

The tablet, which costs $29.95 for a packet of 30, was developed by Australian scientist Kelton Tremellen from the University of Adelaide. It contains anti-oxidant vitamins C and E, and zinc, and works by neutralising free radicals in the body - caused by drinking and smoking - which lead to the breakdown of sperm.

One in six couples has trouble conceiving and male infertility is to blame in 30 per cent of cases. Brisbane obstetrician Gino Pecoraro, a spokesman for the Australian Medical Association, said the Menevit treatment looked promising. "We know that zinc has been shown to be useful in fertility and anti-oxidants play a big role in improving the production of quality sperm," Dr Pecoraro said.

But University of Melbourne fertility expert Hugh Baker and Melbourne in-vitro fertilisation specialist David Edgar criticised the trial in a letter to the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. They wrote: "The trial provided no evidence that Menevit treatment improved embryo quality. "Large multi-centre double-blind placebo trials should be performed to confirm if this agent is beneficial before it is sold to patients." Scientists are now working to extend the trial.

Gold Coast couple Paul and Ros Jones tried for seven years to have a baby and are now pregnant after taking Menevit. "We tried IVF unsuccessfully for five years, so I think the supplement may have assisted us," Mr Jones said.

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Men over 40 less fertile?

The article this is based on is not in print yet but it sounds pretty simple-minded. That couples who seek fertility treatment late in life might be dissimilar from those who seek it early in life seems not to have been thought of. For a start, the older men in this study would in many cases be married to women at the very tail-end of their fertility so it seems likely that a severe drop off in pregnancies among that group could be entirely accounted for by factors in the woman. The fact that miscarriages are also high in the group concerned would also point to problems in the woman rather than the man

Women's pregnancy rates drop and miscarriages increase when the baby's father is over 40 years old, according to a study. It has long been known that a woman's chance of reproducing declines with age once she is in her mid-thirties, but the new findings provide the strongest evidence to date that being an older father poses a risk as well.

Researchers in France monitored 21,239 cases of intrauterine insemination (IUI) - a particularly effective type of artificial insemination - in more than 12,000 couples. As expected, they found that women over 35 showed significantly decreased pregnancy rates compared to younger women, as well as higher rates of miscarriage.

"But we also demonstrated that the age of the father was important in the rate of pregnancy, with a negative effect for men over 40," said Stephanie Belloc, a researcher at the Eylau Centre for Assisted Reproduction in Paris, and lead author of the study. "And even more surprising, the proportion of miscarriages went up as well," she said.

Ms Belloc is to present her research tomorrow at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Barcelona. It will be published in the British journal Reproductive Biomedicine.

In IUI treatment, sperm are separated from seminal fluid in a centrifuge. The "washed" sperm are then inserted directly into the uterus in order to enhance the chances of conception. In most of the cases examined, the couples were being treated because of the husband's infertility, but the findings also apply to men without such problems, the researchers said. "There is no doubt that we can extrapolate from the study to men in general," said co-author Yves Menezo, also a researcher at the Eylau Centre. [WHY?]

Although previous research has shown an overall decline in sperm count and quality as men age decade by decade, this is the first clinical proof that simply being an older man has a direct effect on a couple's fertility, he said. "We already believed that couples where the man was older took longer to conceive," said Ms Belloc. "But how DNA damage in older men translates into clinical practice has not been shown up to now." The impact of paternal age on artificial insemination outcomes "should be considered by both doctors and patients in assisted reproduction", she said.

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Diets? Don't bother

They won't work and can even make you fatter, says author Geoffrey Cannon, the scourge of the slimming industry

Take a stroll into any bookshop and you won’t suspect a thing: the shelves are heaving with summer-diet tomes, from Crash Diet — Lose 7lbs in 7 Days to Bikini Bootcamp: Two Weeks to Your Ultimate Beach Body and, perhaps most optimistic of all, The Revenge Diet: Make Him Sorry He Dumped You! Lose 15lbs in a Month. Yet, despite appearances, the diet industry is in the throes of a backlash. It started with The Diet Delusion and Rethinking Thin, both of which challenged conventional wisdom about weight loss. Now comes something even more revolutionary, the splendidly titled Dieting Makes You Fat. Its author, Geoffrey Cannon, is unequivocal in his belief that dieting causes the very condition it is meant to cure.

His argument is simple: in evolutionary terms, the human body cannot distinguish between dieting and famine. We are hard-wired to respond to the threat of an insecure food supply by retaining body fat rather than burning it off, just as camels are biologically designed to store fat in humps to survive forays in the desert. “The more we endure cycles of dieting, the more our bodies become trained to seek out food, slow down vital functions and conserve body fat,” he says. Apparently, it’s evolution, not lack of willpower, that causes us to seek out sweet foods. “In the forest, sweetness was nature’s way of telling early humans that fruit was safe to eat.”

For anyone who has ever tried to stick to a diet, some of Cannon’s advice might come as a shock. He says that restricting calories is the worst possible way to achieve the body of your dreams. “If you have more body fat than you want, don’t even think of going on a diet,” he warns. “Be more physically active instead, and be patient. You need to train your body to build up lean tissue, which works more efficiently than body fat.” He isn’t advocating that you go and binge on Krispy Kremes, but suggests that if you are active, then you can enjoy a balance of good food — even cake.

Cannon points out that there are huge misconceptions about the link between physical activity and weight loss. “Many people, including GPs, mistakenly believe that the amount of exercise you need to take is huge, and they’re still thinking in terms of energy balance — for example, playing two hours of squash to work off a cupcake.” Researchers at Stanford University, however, found that people who exercised regularly burnt off 500-700 more calories a day than their sedentary counterparts. Crucially, fit bodies burnt off this energy largely during the time they were resting, not just while they were pounding away on the treadmill.

Somewhat unusually for a writer in this field, Cannon has direct experience of the misery of being overweight. He battled through a childhood fuelled by comfort eating following his parents’ divorce — fish and chips with pickled cucumbers, washed down with Tizer — and he continued to struggle through his years at Oxford, where he discovered the delights of cucumber sandwiches layered with butter and salt. He writes movingly about how his emotional hunger for a true home led him to overeat through marriage break-ups and career changes, including a stint at The Sunday Times, before he became a nutrition writer and campaigner. Eventually, it was running, not dieting, that got him on the path to thin.

Nor is Cannon jumping on the anti-diet bandwagon: Dieting Makes You Fat was originally a bestseller in 1983. He decided to write a 21st-century version of the book to tackle issues such as the global obesity time bomb and phenomena such as Atkins, about which he is dismissive. “It’s quite tricky to know what he was going on about,” he says. “In as much as I understand, if you’re on 1,500 calories a day, and are not encouraged to take any physical activity, then it’s not going to work. I don’t care how many people say it does.” Fortuitously, research published by UCLA last year, while Cannon was working on the new edition, concluded that — guess what? — diets don’t work.

The lead author of the study, Traci Mann, noted: “You can initially lose 5%-10% of your weight on any number of diets, but then the weight comes back. We found that the majority of people regained all the weight, plus more.” The success rate for maintaining weight loss five years after a diet ends is estimated at only 5%.

“People make the mistake of judging the success of a diet at the point that it is stopped,” says Cannon, who points out that this is like assessing the state of your finances based on the one day in the month when your account is in the black. “It’s madness. Dieting triggers the body to go into reversal. When people come off a regime, it’s a form of the bulimic syndrome. They find they can’t stop eating. I’ve had that when coming off a diet, and it’s scary.”

Is this really true of every diet, even a teensy crash diet in the week before you hit the beach? Apparently, these are the worst: restricting calorie intake by anything more than 200 calories a day will trigger a rebound effect, and the more drastic and long-lasting the diet, the worse the rebound once it ends. In some studies, people coming off a diet were forced to eat up to 10,000 calories a day — and still reported feeling hungry.

“People often ask me, ‘If this is all true, why haven’t I heard it before?’ Well, my response is, ‘In whose interests is it to tell you?’ The diet industry sells its wares on the basis of repeat custom — if a diet doesn’t work, it’s your fault. It’s time for a paradigm shift. Much of what our bodies do is beyond the control of our minds.”

Cannon accepts that, to most people, the idea that we don’t have control over our appetites is not an attractive one. “That’s why there was such an outcry about Fern Britton’s gastric-band surgery. She knew all along that dieting wasn’t the reason she lost the weight. People don’t want to admit that. I’m sure she is by no means the only high-profile figure to have had one fitted secretly,” he observes, before speculating wildly on other — unprintable — likely candidates.

“Claims made by the diet industry appeal to our base desires, like the e-mail spam messages saying you have won 5 million or can enjoy multiple orgasms for ever,” Cannon says. “The dieting business is fabulous. It sells dreams. But dreams rarely come true.”

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DANGEROUS FAD! Water and workouts to become compulsory for some Australian toddlers

What a picnic for lawyers the first time a toddler gets seriously hurt as a result of this nonsense! It looks like the kids are to be given lots of water one way or another but THAT IS DANGEROUS EVEN IN ADULTS -- to the point of death. And quite small amounts of water given to children can lead to water intoxication, resulting in brain damage. See also here, where it speaks of an "epidemic" of water intoxication among U.S. children. Blasted know-nothing faddists!

Children as young as three will undergo compulsory exercise regimes of up to two hours every day in preschools. The New South Wales Government's anti-obesity program also phases out junkfood with kids now drinking watered down juices and low-fat milk and parents receiving a list of recommended foods for their children's lunchboxes. Star jumps, action-singing songs as well as catching, jumping and running are just some of the exercises included in the roll call of daily activities.

The Munch 'n' Move blueprint aims to bring down the rocketing rates of childhood obesity [Utter rubbish! Obesity peaked in the late 1990s] in NSW with one in five preschoolers now either overweight or obese.

Nearly 1000 preschools will implement the new healthy lifestyles policy within the next 18 months, with childhood teachers in 14 centres receiving their initial training this week. "We do music and movement every day but this program also encourages us to do more structured exercise outside where we are teaching children the finer points in jumping, running, hopping, galloping and fundamental movement skills," said educator Vicky Smith from Five Dock preschool, which is implementing the program.

NSW Health's Centre for Health Advancement director Liz Develin said once the preschools were completed the program would be rolled out in long-day care centres. She said that while some parents might question the need to force active three-year-olds into exercise, Ms Develin said recent research showed 89 per cent of children aged four to five spend more than two hours watching a screen every day. "A lot of three to five-year-olds have started these bad habits early," Ms Develin said. [PROVE that it's a bad habit!] "If children are well equipped in fundamental movement skills they are more likely to participate in physical activity and sport later - they'll have the basic skills of how to run, throw and jump rather than just running around erratically."

Early childhood teachers will receive a 188-page manual outlining the details of the new exercise and food program, which includes giving children water rather than fruit poppers and cordials so that kids don't develop a sweet tooth. It also recommends limiting giving juice to once a day and to the 100 per cent variety, which is then diluted by water by at least half, and suggests reduced-fat milk for children over two.

NSW Health Minister Reba Meagher said the program was devised to combat the growing number of overweight preschoolers as well as educate parents. "There is clear evidence that the number of people who are overweight or obese is increasing," she said. "By the time NSW children reach kindergarten nearly 18 per cent of them are either overweight or obese."

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Pesky finding: In mice, "youth" drug prolongs vigor but not life

Large doses of a red wine ingredient can ward off many of the negative effects of aging in mice who start taking it at midlife, according to a new report. But those benefits, from the chemical known as resveratrol, come without necessarily prolonging the rodents' lives -- the hoped-for result it achieved in simpler animals, scientists say.

The new findings, by David Sinclair at Harvard Medical School and more than two dozen colleagues, appear online July 3 in the research journal Cell Metabolism.

The scientists found cardiovascular benefits, greater motor co-ordination, reduced cataracts, and better bone density in mice taking resveratrol. The results show evidence that the substance mimics the documented beneficial effects of eating sparingly, the researchers said -- many tissues show very similar gene activity either way.

"The quality of life of these mice at the end of their days is much better," said Rafael de Cabo of the U.S. National Institute on Aging, one of the researchers. Resveratrol may "extend productive, independent life, rather than just extending life span."

"I was most surprised by how broad the effects were," added Sinclair. "Usually, you focus on slowing down or ameliorating one disease at a time. In this case, resveratrol influences a whole series of seemingly unrelated diseases associated with aging." Sinclair said he expects some of the effect seen in the mice would have even greater impact if they hold in humans. That's because, unlike people, mice usually don't die as a result of heart disease or suffer from weakening bones.

Earlier studies found that reducing calorie intake by 30 percent to 50 percent, or eating only every other day, can delay the onset of age-related diseases, improve stress resistance, and slow down functional decline. Although dietary restriction has beneficial effects in humans, such a diet is unlikely to be widely adopted and would pose a significant risk to the frail, critically ill or elderly, the researchers said.

Therefore, scientists hope to find compounds that provide the benefits without cutting calories. One contender has been substances like resveratrol that activate a g