Category Archives: Diet And Food

A major source of toxic mercury exposure, fish consumption appears somewhat protective against a widespread neurologic disorder in children

Web edition : Monday, October 8th, 2012

For pregnant women, diets rich in fish can offer their babies protection against developing behaviors associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, a new study finds. Yet for most Americans, fish consumption is the leading source of exposure to mercury a potent neurotoxic pollutant that has been linked to a host of health problems, including delays in neural development.

Data from the new study, published online October 8 in Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, demonstrate that low-mercury diets and regular fish consumption are not mutually exclusive, says epidemiologist and study leader Susan Korrick of Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston. It really depends on the type of fish that youre eating, she says. In fact, some study participants had been eating more than two servings of fish weekly yet accumulated relatively little mercury.

As part of a long-running study of children born during the 1990s in New Bedford, Mass., 515 women who had just given birth completed a dietary survey. About 420 also provided samples of their hair for mercury testing. About eight years later, Korricks team administered a battery of IQ and other tests to assess behaviors associated with ADHD in the children.

The children spanned a continuum running from almost no ADHD-related behaviors to those with outright clinical disease. A moms hair-mercury level tended to be associated with where her child fell along this spectrum.

Although this study did not collect data on the species of fish eaten, Korrick points to work by others showing that tuna, swordfish and shark can be quite high in mercury, while salmon and cod tend to pick up relatively little of the toxic metal from their environment.

Among women with less than 1 microgram of mercury per gram of hair, fish consumption was associated with a lower risk of ADHD-type behaviors in their children. Over that threshold, increasing mercury levels were associated with an increased risk of ADHD-type behaviors in the kids, regardless of how much fish their moms ate.

Children of women with hair mercury levels in the top 20 percent of the study population showed a 50 to 60 percent increased risk of ADHD-related behaviors, Korrick says which is not trivial. However, she adds, most children showing ADHD-related traits were still considered to be within the normal range and not maladaptive.

On some tests, boys showed a greater sensitivity to mercury than girls. These tests included components of the IQ assessment related to attention and one computer test of attentiveness (where children had to press a button as quickly as they could when they saw the silhouette of a cat but not other animals).

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Fish in mom's diet may alter kids' behavior

A healthy non-smoking man, consuming a normal western diet (meat, vegetables, bread and alcohol) collected five consecutive complete bowel movements. He then added an extra 150 g of fat (from butter, cheese, milk, chocolate, peanuts, bacon and eggs) to his daily diet for 2 weeks, and collected four further consecutive bowel movements in the second week. After 6 months on his normal diet, he added 30 g of wheat bran to his daily diet for 3 weeks, and collected four complete stool samples in the third week. Aqueous faecal extracts were prepared and assayed for auxotrophic growth-enhancement and bacterial mutagenicity (using fluctuation tests with Salmonella typhimurium TA100 and Escherichia coli WP2uvrApKM101). There was no significant difference in faecal wet weight between normal and high-fat collections, but addition of 30 g bran was associated with a 1.8-fold increase in stool weight, in good agreement with published data. Fluctuation tests showed that normal and high-fat samples were mutagenic to S. typhimurium TA100 and to E. coli WP2uvrApKM101. There was considerable variation in mutagenic activity between consecutive bowel movements. However, there was no significant difference in mutagenicity between normal and high-fat samples. Faecal samples collected during the course of the high-fibre diet were significantly less mutagenic to both bacterial strains. Changes in auxotrophic growth-enhancing activity could not account for these changes in mutagenicity, since the pattern of change in growth-enhancement was very different from that seen for mutagenicity.

Photo: flickr/timtak

Related content: Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: The fecal odor of sick hedgehogs mediates olfactory attraction of the tick Ixodes hexagonus. Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: At least my experiments dont require fresh slug feces Discoblog: NCBI ROFL: Jeez people, enough with the cockroaches in your colons already.

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NCBI ROFL: Pilot study of the effect of diet on the mutagenicity of human faeces.

LONDON, Oct 7 Scientists are debunking the myth that the rise in allergies is due to a modern preoccupation with cleanliness, suggesting rather that weve lost touch with microbial old friends.

A report from the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene released this week challenges the claim that the epidemic rise in allergies is due to overzealous housecleaning and a fondness for bleach cleaners.

Co-author of the report and honorary professor at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Sally Bloomfield says: The underlying idea that microbial exposure is crucial to regulating the immune system is right. But the idea that children who have fewer infections, because of more hygienic homes, are then more likely to develop asthma and other allergies does not hold up.

Rather than being too clean, humans have undergone radical lifestyle changes in the past century, including to their diets and work and home environments, as well as in environmental stress factors, such as physical inactivity in the workplace, which can hinder immunity, noted the scientists. Additionally, they note that even the cleanest houses in modern times are teeming with bacteria, dust mites, viruses, and fungi.

Still, while there is no shortage of microbes in our lives, we are in touch with a smaller diversity of friendly microbes than we have been through the course of human history, noted the scientists.

The rise in allergies and inflammatory diseases seems at least partly due to gradually losing contact with the range of microbes our immune systems evolved with, way back in the Stone Age, writes co-author Dr. Graham Rook. Only now are we seeing the consequences of this, doubtless also driven by genetic predisposition and a range of factors in our modern lifestyle from different diets and pollution to stress and inactivity. It seems that some people now have inadequately regulated immune systems that are less able to cope with these other factors.

Bloomfield hopes this approach will lead to a solution: One important thing we can do is to stop talking about being too clean and get people thinking about how we can safely reconnect with the right kind of dirt. AFP/Relaxnews

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Rise in allergies not due to humans being ‘too clean,’ scientists say

Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2012

Although both the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and the No. 1 opposition Liberal Democratic Party have chosen their new party leaders, the ruling and opposition forces still cannot agree on when to start an extraordinary Diet session. The primary responsibility rests on Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. He must fulfill his promise to then LDP chief Mr. Sadakazu Tanigaki to dissolve the Lower House "in the near future" by clearly showing when he will do so. If he does so, the ruling and opposition forces will easily agree on when to start the Diet session. A delay in the start of the session will have a great negative impact on the people's lives.

Two months have already passed since Mr. Noda made his promise on Aug. 8 to Mr. Tanigaki. New LDP leader Mr. Shinzo Abe pointed out that Mr. Noda's promise is one with the people. Komeito chief Mr. Natsuo Yamaguchi said that voting in the next Lower House election must come on or before Dec. 9.

If the Diet session fails to start early, the government's execution of the fiscal 2012 budget will become difficult because the last Diet session failed to enact a bill to float bonds to cover about 40 percent of the budget funds. The government has already started to cut back on budget spending. The Finance Ministry says that the budget funds will run out at the end of November. The Diet must start deliberations as soon as possible.

Because the next Lower House election must be held within a year, the Diet should immediately enact a bill to rectify the disparity in the value of a vote between depopulated rural areas and populated urban areas. If the next Lower House election is held without a rectification of the vote-value disparity, the Supreme Court may find the next election results to be unconstitutional and nullify them.

A bill submitted by the DPJ to rectify the vote-value disparity is too complicated. The ruling and opposition forces should quickly agree to pass a bill to reduce the number of single-seat constituencies by one each in five prefectures as this would be the easiest way to rectify the disparity.

For the sake of smooth Diet deliberations, the opposition, which controls the Upper House, should refrain from the practice of trying to force the ruling camp to accept its demands by refusing to deliberate on important bills, including one on social welfare reform.

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Diet must get to work

Oct. 3, 2012 Drop 30 pounds in two months!

Weve all seen ads for miracle diets that promise to help us shed weight in days, weeks, or months.

But what happens next?

Do people stay the course and maintain the loss, or regain the weight with a vengeance?

A team of Israeli researchers followed participants for four years after an initial two-year workplace-based study to try and answer these questions. Participants followed one of three weight loss plans: a low-fat, low-calorie diet; a Mediterranean-style, low-calorie diet; or a low-carb eating plan without calorie restrictions.

Overall, the Mediterranean diet led to the most dramatic changes, but people on the other diets also did pretty well. A Mediterranean diet is rich in fruits, vegetables, fish, whole grains, legumes, healthy fats like olive oil, and moderate amounts of alcohol. It is also low in sweets, meats, and saturated fats like butter.

Eighty-six percent of the participants were men, and most were considered moderately obese when the study began. Researchers also educated their spouses about the diet so changes could be made at home, too.

At two years, 85% of the participants were still following their diet programs. Participants on the Mediterranean diet and low-carb diet lost more weight than those on the low-fat diet.

Four years after the study officially ended, 67% of participants were still on their eating plan, 11% had switched to another a type of diet, and 22% were not dieting at all.

Everyone regained some of the weight they had lost in the original study, but all were thinner than when the study first began. The weight loss was highest in the Mediterranean and low-carb groups for the entire six-year period: about 7 pounds and close to 4 pounds, respectively. All participants also showed improvements in their total cholesterol levels.

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Mediterranean Diet Tops List Of ‘Livable’ Diets

Scientists are debunking the myth that the rise in allergies is due to a modern preoccupation with cleanliness, suggesting rather that we've lost touch with microbial "old friends."

A report from the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene released this week challenges the claim that the epidemic rise in allergies is due to overzealous housecleaning and a fondness for bleach cleaners.

Co-author of the report and honorary professor at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine Sally Bloomfield says: "The underlying idea that microbial exposure is crucial to regulating the immune system is right. But the idea that children who have fewer infections, because of more hygienic homes, are then more likely to develop asthma and other allergies does not hold up."

Rather than being "too clean," humans have undergone radical lifestyle changes in the past century, including to their diets and work and home environments, as well as in environmental stress factors, such as physical inactivity in the workplace, which can hinder immunity, noted the scientists. Additionally, they note that even the cleanest houses in modern times are teeming with bacteria, dust mites, viruses, and fungi.

Still, while there is no shortage of microbes in our lives, we are in touch with a smaller diversity of "friendly" microbes than we have been through the course of human history, noted the scientists.

"The rise in allergies and inflammatory diseases seems at least partly due to gradually losing contact with the range of microbes our immune systems evolved with, way back in the Stone Age," writes co-author Dr. Graham Rook. "Only now are we seeing the consequences of this, doubtless also driven by genetic predisposition and a range of factors in our modern lifestyle -- from different diets and pollution to stress and inactivity. It seems that some people now have inadequately regulated immune systems that are less able to cope with these other factors."

Bloomfield hopes this approach will lead to a solution: "One important thing we can do is to stop talking about being too clean' and get people thinking about how we can safely reconnect with the right kind of dirt."

http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2012/allergy_rises_not_down_to_being_too_clean__just_losing_touch_with__old_friends_.html

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Rise in allergies is not due to humans being 'too clean,' scientists say

Removing unseemly fat from the body should be strictly carried out under the expert hands of doctors.

WHILE definitely not a replacement for a healthy diet and regular exercise, modern-day liposuction surgery (sometimes referred to as liposculpturing) can safely address those hard-to-lose fatty deposits that simply dont respond to diet and exercise, creating big improvements in body contour and shape.

For some of us, certain areas of the body are immune to the effects of exercise. No matter how many miles we run, sit-ups we do, weights we lift, or laps we swim, the fat remains, unless it is removed with liposuction.

Liposuction is appropriate for large, disproportionate hips, buttocks, thighs, the abdomen and love handles, as well as fat deposits on arms, back, knees, sides, and under the chin.

Very often, many different areas can be treated during a single operation.

Is liposuction safe?

Liposuction is a relatively safe surgery when performed within safety limits. Even large volume liposuctions have been performed safely without complications.

Liposuction should be safely performed in a hospital setting by an experienced plastic surgeon.

Surgery begins with a tiny incision inconspicuously located in a natural skin fold or crease in an area to be treated.

Next, a salt water/anaesthetic solution is injected through a micro-cannula.

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Sucking out fat

Late last year, while on a tour of CaliforniasAo Neuvo State Park, I saw a shark attack victim lying on the beach. She was a Northern elephant seal, and looked quite placid despite the gaping, crescent-shaped hole in her neck. She bore the traumatic hallmark of the great white shark.

Years of watching Discoverys Shark Week taught me that seals and sea lions are the preferred prey of Carcharodon carcharias. Nothing like blubber to fuel the body of a constantly-swimming predator with a physiology that runs hotter than that of the average shark. I remember one researcher likened baby elephant seals, in particular, to hot dogs the bread of the snack corresponds to the fat content of the young pinnipeds, making the weener seals easy-to-catch and energy-rich mouthfuls for the sharks.

When the sensational documentaries werent showing awful re-enactments of great white shark attacks on humans, they brought their cameras in close to seal kills. The programs took a philosophy similar to the fictional marine biologist Matt Hooper in JAWS all great white sharks do is swim and eat. (Yes, yes, and make little baby sharks, but I have yet to see that on basic cable.) If they arent chomping people, then they strip the fat from seals. We think of them in the typological way that we approach many species. Great white sharks eat seals and sea lions. Thats all that there is to it.

But great white sharks dont live on a strict diet of marine mammals. Study sites situated near pinniped colonies, as well as nature films, have restricted our view of what great white sharks feed on. In actuality, great white sharks consume different prey based upon age, size, and location. When they are just pups, for example, the leviathans-to-be seek out a wide variety of smaller fare before graduating to more difficult menu options. And, as a new paper indicates, many sharks retain their cosmopolitan tastes as they age.

In a PLoS One study published this week, University of Wyoming researcher Sora Kim and colleagues used chemical clues in great white shark vertebrae to track feeding preferences among fifteen individuals collected between 1957 and 2000. The logic behind their technique is simple, and has been used on a variety of other creatures living and extinct to outline diet. As an animal feeds, chemical tracers in the form of carbon and nitrogen isotopes become incorporated into their teeth and bones. There is a correspondence between certain carbon isotope ratios and particular food sources. Match the chemical signature in the consumer in with the isotopic profile of whats being consumed, and you can reconstruct an animals diet.

Even better, shark vertebrae contain long-running records of these isotopes. As great white sharks grow, their vertebrae accrete new rings on a yearly schedule. Each ring, therefore, holds a chemical snapshot from a year in the sharks life. By comparing the isotope ratios in different vertebral bands, Kim and collaborators were able to follow how the diets of individual sharks shifted during their lives.

Contrary to assertions that pinnipeds are a great white shark staple, the fish sampled in the study were highly variable. Both age and individual variation were at play in their diets. For example, five sharks in the sample showed the expected shift from a diet of fish and small prey to marine mammals and other more substantial fare at about age four. But this wasnt true of all sharks. Five other sharks in the same sample showed no difference between juvenile and adult diet. These sharks may have scavenged pinniped carcasses or fed on large squid while young, giving them an adult feeding profile at a young age. There are some possible confounding factors with this hypothesis such as young sharks inheriting an adult isotope signal from their mothers but the researchers appear to favor the idea that some sharks were more precocious in their prey choices than others of their kind. Not all great white sharks follow the same life history.

While Kim and colleagues point out that some sharks followed the expected dietary switch, the change was not the dominant signal in their results. Many of the Pacific great white sharks they sampled were generalists who took different prey in varying locations. Some sharks were nearshore marine mammal specialists, but others had more flexible foraging approaches. And even though the isotopic data are not refined enough to tell us exactly what species the sharks were eating, the cataloged chemical traces are enough to detect distinct dietary patterns.

The study raises new questions about great white shark biology. For one thing, why did the sharks have such individualistic diets? Competition may be the key, Kim and co-authors hypothesize. Imagine if all adult great white sharks were seal specialists who congregated at the same beaches. There may not be enough food for all, and swimming in the same waters as bigger, more experienced sharks would be risky for smaller novices who could wind up as meals themselves. By being flexible able to tackle elephant seals as well as squid, tuna, and other food sources great white sharks may lessen competition with their own kind.

As the researchers behind the new study state, further isotopic studies and satellite tracking programs may help marine biologists better understand the ecology of their prodigious fish. For now, though, one thing is clear. The sharks werent all cruising near shore, looking up for seal silhouettes. Great white sharks have much more varied tastes than blood-spattered basic cable shows would have you believe.

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Great White Shark Diet Is More Than Seals

India, Oct. 6 -- Ritu Dalmia, one of India's best known chefs admits that she's the queen of snacking. At midnight. "All through the day I tend to take small bites here and there - I can't avoid it in my job, though I can still control it. But come night, I really snack. I just have to," she says. Dalmia is trying to clamp down on the midnight munchies, but it's hard. Even the dietician's suggestion of going to bed earlier hasn't worked. What has helped, though, is choosing what to snack on. "If earlier it was Camembert with crackers and fig chutney, or worse slivers of fatty ham and sausages, now I dig into sunflower seeds, nuts, or a dip like tzatziki, hummus or baba ghanoush with vegetable sticks. And I am loving it. So is my body," Dalmia says.

The restaurateur clearly is on the right track. The urge to snack strikes us all at some point of our lives (and of most of us, at some point of the day!). But mindless snacking, specially the 11 am, 5 pm and post-midnight tummy rumblings can undo even the strongest of wills and defeat all well meaning diets. Still, snacks aren't the devils they're made out to be. In fact, in-between pockets of nourishment have shown to make you less cranky, keep your weight under control, and provide essential nutrients. So long as you graze on the right stuff.

The local options

"Indians are notorious for their chai nashta and unfortunately almost all Indian snacks are lethal and totally unkind to waistlines," states Dalmia. "Chiwda, laccha, namkeens of all sorts, pakodas, samosas... no one can come close to Indians where snacking is concerned, except for maybe the Spanish." Aditya Bal, a foodie and a popular TV host agrees. "Across India, both in urban and rural areas, all I see people eat is deep-fried food, morning to night, and in between, they nibble on something sweet," he says. He adds that most Indian cultures simply don't have enough healthy alternatives to choose from. They don't, for example, have momos the way the people in the North East do. "I believe that Gujaratis have healthier snacks compared to others. Most of their stuff like dhokla, khandvi, etc is steamed. We can follow their example. But with fast food taking over so completely, coupled with their fabulous marketing, I am sure our next generation is in even deeper trouble compared to us," he explains.

All's not lost. Mumbai chef Vicky Ratnani, the man behind the Mumbai restaurant and lounge Aurus, lists several Indian snacks that won't keep your cardiologist busy. "Everyone can snack healthily, if they so desire,' he says. "Opt for steamed bhutta, which is one of the healthiest foods you can nibble on. I love bhel without sweet chutney, and lots of vegetables and sprouts like black beans, channa and masoor." Bal finds that nothing beats fresh, hot idlis with just a bit of sambar. "Steamed perfection," he says.

The global choices

The good news is: the whole world snacks. "Europeans usually snack as a rule," says Dalmia. "And while the French snack less than other cultures, they have street carts selling flat crusty cakes called galettes, which work as a between-meal snack. In Italy, shops sell pizzas by the slice or small paninis. They munch on olives or cheese with drinks before dinner, which really is snacking, isn't it? You'll also find office goers having an espresso between breakfast and lunch and eating a small piece of something. In Spain, tapas bars serve bite-size foods, and people go to nibble in these snack restaurants all the time. In fact when I was with friends in Barcelona, we were snacking all through the day. It was a way of life for them."

The Japanese, on the other hand, don't snack much. They see meals as almost a ritual. And when they do snack, it is usually on extremely healthy drinks and dairy that has body-boosting ingredients like probiotics. It's something we can learn from them for sure. Or make like the French and savour our snacks slowly to get maximum satisfaction out of them. "From the Spanish we can learn to have small portions," says Ratnani. Or snack smart - like they do in South East Asia. "Take Thailand's famous snack - sticky rice with dried prawns, or even their roadside grills," says Bal, referring to tiny controlled portions through the day. "In Singapore I see people eating round the clock, but everything is so cleverly cooked - steamed vegetables, soupy broths, and poached chicken." For Dalmia, Middle Eastern dips "are the most fabulous things to snack on" - she ensures that there's always some in the fridge to prevent her reaching out for the cheese and marmalade.

Nibbles for thought

Some rules for smart snacking: chuck the guilt: Snacking will not make you fat, but bad eating (whether at a snack or at a meal) will. A 100-to-200-calorie snack two to three hours before a meal can take the edge off your hunger and keep you from overeating. Studies show that people who have an afternoon snack score higher on memory and concentration tests than those who have, perhaps, a diet soda.

Read more from the original source:
Munch ado about nothing: How to snack right

Moderately obese people who ate the Mediterranean diet lost more weight than groups of people who followed either a low-fat or a low-carbohydrate diet, researchers reported.

The Mediterranean group weighed almost seven pounds less than they weighed six years earlier. In the low-carb group, the total was 3.7 pounds, and the low-fat group was 1.3 pounds. The Mediterranean diet is one based on the eating habits of people who live in that part of the world -- high in produce, and including olive oil and fish.

The researchers, in a letter published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, collected data from a two-year work-based program called the Dietary Intervention Randomized Controlled Trial. They randomly assigned 322 moderately obese people, most of them men, to the three diet categories. The participants were given education assistance about the diets.

After two years, the average weight loss was 6.4 pounds in the low-fat group, almost 10 pounds in the Mediterranean group and 10.3 in the low-carb group. At that point, 259 people remained in the study.

After six years, 67% had continued with their original diet, 11% had switched to another diet, and 22% were not dieting.

The researchers, led by Dr. Dan Schwartzfuchs of the Nuclear Research Center Negev in Israel, concluded that the workplace intervention had long-lasting, favorable postintervention effects, particularly among participants receiving the Mediterranean and low-carbohydrate diets, despite a partial regain of weight.

mary.macvean@latimes.com

twitter.com/mmacvean

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Mediterranean dieters kept weight off for six years