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Five Ways to Keep Bisphenol A (BPA) Out of Your Food

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With new studies linking bisphenol A, a chemical found in the linings of food and beverage cans, to diabetes and heart disease, you may be wondering what you can do to minimize your exposure. Here are some good rules of thumb for reducing your intake of BPA:

1. Buy your tomato sauce in glass jars

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Canned tomato sauce is likely to have higher levels of BPA, because the high acidity of the tomatoes causes more of the chemical to leach from the lining of the can.

 

2. Consume fresh fruits and vegetables instead of canned

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In addition to their BPA-free benefit, fresh produce usually has more nutrients, which often get lost in the process of canning.

3. Purchase beverages in plastic or glass bottles

Canned soda and juice often contain some BPA.

4. Use powdered infant formula instead of ready-to-serve liquid

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An assessment from the Environmental Working Group found that liquid formulas contain more BPA than powdered brands.

5. Think in terms of moderation

Follow a sensible approach, eating less of those foods that are higher in BPA………..

Sources:
U.S. News & World Report September 17, 2008
Journal of the American Medical Association September 16, 2008; 300(11):1353-5
Journal of the American Medical Association September 16, 2008; 300(11):1303-10

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Overeating Sends Brain Haywire

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Overeating makes the brain go haywire, prompting a cascade of damage that may cause diabetes, heart disease and other ills, US researchers said.

Eating too much appears to activate a usually dormant immune system pathway in the brain, sending out immune cells to attack and destroy invaders that are not there, Dongsheng Cai of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues found.

The finding, reported in the journal Cell, could help explain why obesity causes so many different diseases. It might also offer a way to prevent obesity itself. “This pathway is usually present but inactive in the brain,” Cai said in a statement.

Obesity is a growing global problem, with 1.8 billion people estimated to be overweight or obese in 2007.

Cai’s team worked in mice, seeking to explain studies that have shown that obesity causes chronic inflammation throughout the body. This inflammation is found in a range of diseases related to obesity, including heart disease and diabetes.

They homed in on a compound known as IKKbeta/NK-kappaB. Immune cells such as macrophages and leukocytes use it but Cai’s team found it in the hypothalamus, a part of the brain linked with metabolism in mice and humans alike.

“The hypothalamus is the ‘headquarters’ for regulating energy,” they wrote.

They found high levels of the compound there but it was normally inactive.

When they fed mice a high-fat diet, it became extremely active. And when it was active, the body ignored signals from leptin, a hormone that normally helps regulate appetite, and insulin, which helps convert food into energy.

Stimulating IKKbeta/NK-kappaB made the mice eat more, while suppressing it made them eat less. Cai believes his team has discovered a master switch for the diseases caused by overeating.

“Hypothalamic IKKb/NF-kB could underlie the entire family of modern diseases induced by overnutrition and obesity,” his team wrote.

Cai does not know why this compound would be in the brain and in the immune system but suspects it evolved long ago in primitive animals that do not have the same sophisticated immune system as modern animals, including mice and humans.

“Knocking out” the gene using genetic engineering kept mice eating normally and prevented obesity. This cannot be done in people but Cai believes a drug, or even gene therapy, might work.

Sources: The Times Of India

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Oral Vitamin D for Skin Infections

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Use of oral Vitamin D supplements may help prevent some skin infections, a new study in the US suggests.

Vitamin D deficiency has already been linked to several diseases including increased rates of multiple cancers and diabetes.

In the new study scientists examined a small number of patients with moderate to severe atopic dermatitis, a chronic skin disease that affects 10 to 20 per cent of children and one to three per cent of adults.

Atopic dermatitis is characterised by areas of severe itching, redness and scaling. Over time, chronic changes can occur due to constant scratching and rubbing.

The condition puts patients at increased risk for skin infections by the herpes and small pox viruses.

The study led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine found that supplementation with oral vitamin D dramatically bolsters production of a protective chemical in the skin of patients that they say may protect from infection.

The researchers led by Richard Gallo however caution that this was a small study and require further research, reported science portal EurekAlert.

“Further research is needed to evaluate the long-term effects of vitamin D supplementation, and to determine if this may be an adequate way to prevent infections in patients with atopic dermatitis”, the researchers said.

Sources: The Times Of India

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That Tired Feeling

Tired? Uninterested in life? No energy to set about your daily activities? Feel a strange uncontrollable urge to eat bizarre non-food items like chalk, clay, bricks, dirt or even ice? You just may be part of the 220 million Indians who are anaemic.

…………………………………..

Anaemia is defined as a haemoglobin (Hb) level less than 12 grams/decilitre (gms/dl) in women and 14gms/dl in men. Close to 70 per cent of the population in India has a Hb value around 10-11gms/dl. Although anaemia can be due to many causes, genetic or acquired, most often it is due to a deficiency of iron.

Our body needs energy to function. This is obtained by metabolising nutrients, a process requiring oxygen. Haemoglobin in the red blood cells binds oxygen and then supplies it all over the body. Iron is one of the main components of haemoglobin. If it is not available in sufficient quantities, the level of haemoglobin drops. This slows cell metabolism and functions. The person develops lethargy, sleepiness, tiredness, disinterest, inefficiency and ineffectiveness. This is eventually reflected in academic performance and earning capacity.

Iron for haemoglobin production is obtained from the diet. Absorption of iron is not very efficient even in ideal circumstances. A normal diet contains between 15 (vegetarian) and 75 (non-vegetarian) milligrams (mg) of iron. Only about 6 per cent is absorbed and the rest is excreted. Chemicals like tannates found in tea precipitate iron.

Seventy per cent of Indians are vegetarians. Vegetables contain phytates which interfere with efficient iron absorption. Non-vegetarian haem iron from meat and fish is best absorbed. Many non-vegetarians eat them only a few times in a week. Most Indian diets, therefore, barely meet the minimum daily requirement of iron of 15mg a day. This means that if there is decreased availability of iron, loss of blood or additional requirements, the person becomes anaemic.

The absorption of iron may be decreased by diseases of the stomach and intestines. Medicines which reduce stomach acidity (antacids, omeprazole, ranitidine, rabeprazole) also decrease the absorption of available iron.

Women are more prone to anaemia. They lose around 0.5mg of iron a day during menstruation — a loss that occurs every month from menarche to menopause. This is aggravated if the periods are prolonged or there is heavy bleeding. If the woman becomes pregnant, the baby requires 0.5-0.8mg of iron a day. The same amount is required during lactation. These extra losses from the body are often not replenished. This leads to a gradual fall in iron stores and anaemia.

Iron stores may become inadequate during periods of rapid growth like infancy. Infants triple their birth weight in the first year. They can become anaemic because they are not born with enough iron stores to cope with the requirements during this rapid growth. During the second growth spurt in adolescence, food faddism often makes the diet unsatisfactory from the caloric and nutrition point of view. This can eventually result in anaemia.

About 50 per cent of the population is infected with intestinal worms. There are several varieties which lay between 3,000 and 30,000 eggs a day. Each worm causes blood loss of 0.03ml a day. The anaemia can become severe, with the haemoglobin dropping to 3 gm/dl or less.

Unnoticed undiagnosed blood loss — from the stomach if there is a bleeding peptic ulcer, the intestines if there are polyps, the rectum if there are bleeding piles — can result in anaemia. If men or postmenopausal women on an adequate diet become anaemic, secondary unrecognised blood loss should be diligently searched for.

Anaemia produces a pale skin, a smooth tongue and fissuring at the angles of the mouth. The nails may become brittle. The person may complain of lethargy and difficulty in swallowing. This is because webs may form in the oesophagus. There may be a dull aching or pricking pain in the legs, relieved only by moving them rapidly, the “restless leg”.

Untreated anaemia can result in premature births. In children it may lead to growth retardation. It can eventually cause heart failure and even death.

Iron deficiency cannot be rectified by diet alone. It is necessary to take iron supplements. Iron is poorly absorbed but this can be helped by taking the tablet with an acidic drink like lemon or orange juice. If other metals, like zinc, are administered simultaneously, they compete for the same absorption sites in the intestines, decreasing availability.

So remember, if you are taking iron, zinc and calcium supplements, they need to be taken individually 12 hours apart to be effective, and not all together as a single capsule as unscientifically advertised in the media.

Sources: The Telegraph (kolkata, india)

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Does Thinking Make You Fatter?

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A research team has demonstrated that intellectual work induces a substantial increase in appetite and calorie intake. This discovery could help to explain, in part, the current obesity epidemic.

The team measured the spontaneous food intake of 14 students after each of three tasks: relaxing in a sitting position, reading and summarizing a text, and completing a series of memory, attention, and vigilance tests on the computer.

Each session of intellectual work required only three calories more than the rest period. However, despite the low energy cost of mental work, the students spontaneously consumed 203 more calories after summarizing a text and 253 more calories after the computer tests than they did after relaxing.

Blood samples taken before, during, and after each session revealed that intellectual work caused bigger fluctuations in glucose and insulin levels — two critical components in the body’s regulatory and energy machinery — than rest periods.

Jean-Philippe Chaput, the lead author of the study, said that mental work “destabilizes” the levels of insulin and glucose, thus stimulating the appetite, apparently in response to a need to restore the body’s energy balance.
Sources:
ABC News September 10, 2008
Psychosomatic Medicine September 2008 70:797-804

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