Healthy Me - At Home and Away: Professor

Showing posts with label Professor. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

Food May Be Too Clean For Our Gut’s Good Health

Color-enhanced scanning electron micrograph showing Salmonella typhimurium (red) invading cultured human cells (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

BY KATE MURPHY

With the recent recalls of millions of liters of ice cream as well as several tons of hummus, pine nuts, frozen vegetables and various meat products, you might think the American food supply is an unholy mess. It’s not. It’s arguably the safest in the world.

Yet despite continually improving processing methods and quality controls, the number of cases of food-borne illness has remained high since the 1990s, with the incidence of people getting sick from some pathogens increasing.

Some experts wonder if we’ve reached a point of diminishing returns in food safety-whether our food could perhaps be too clean.

Industrial food sanitation practices – along with home cooks’ antibacterial veggie washes, chlorine bleach kitchen cleaners and sterilization cycle dishwashers – kill off so-called good bacteria naturally found in foods that bolster our health. Moreover, eliminating bad or pathogenic bacteria means we may not be exposed to the small doses that could inoculate us against intestinal crises.

“No one is saying you need to eat a peck of dirt before you die to be healthy,” said Jeffrey T. Le Jeune, a professor and head of the food animal research program at Ohio State University in Wooster. “But there is a line somewhere when it comes to cleanliness. We just don’t know where it is.”

The theory that there might be such a thing as “too clean” food stems from the hygiene hypothesis, which has been gaining traction over the last decade. It holds that our modern germaphobic ways may be making us sick by harming our microbiome, which is the system made up of all the microbes-bacteria, viruses, fungi, mites-that live in and on human bodies.

A result of a diminished microbiome is an immune system that gets bored, spoiling for a fight and apt to react to harmless substances ad even attack the body’s own tissues. This could explain the increasing incidence of allergies and autoimmune disorders such as asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease.

There is also the suggestion that a diminished microbiome disrupts hormones that regulate hunger, which can cause obesity.

When it comes to food-borne illness, the idea is that fewer good bacteria in your gut means there is less competition to prevent colonization of the bad microbes, leading to more frequent and severe bouts of illness. Moreover, an underutilized immune system may lose its ability to discriminate between friend and foe, so it may marshal its defenses inappropriately (against gluten, for example) or not at all.

Animal experiments have lent some credence to the theory. Researchers at Texas Tech University in Lubbock have found that guinea pigs fed less virulent strains of listeria are less likely to get sick or die when later fed a more pathogenic strain. And anyone who has visited a country with less than rigorous sanitation knows the locals don’t get sick from foods that can cause tourists days of toilet-bound torment.

“We have these tantalizing bits of evidence that to my mind provide pretty good support for the hygiene hypothesis, in terms of food-borne illness,” said Guy Loneragan, a professor of food safety and public health at Texas Tech.

This is not to say we’d be better off if chicken producers eased up on the salmonella inspections, we ate recalled ice cream sandwiches and didn’t rinse our produce. But it raises questions about whether it might be advisable to eradicate microbes more selectively.

Taken from TODAY Saturday Edition, The New York Times International Weekly, May 23, 2015

Monday, March 21, 2011

Overweight - but healthy!

Picture of an Obese Teenager (146kg/322lb) wit...

Image via WikipediaI came across this article, and it seems promising. I mean, it goes against the current mentality that being healthy is measured by the appearance of being lean. This article says NO! (or at least, not all the time).

Read on...
------

CARLY WEEKS
From Friday's Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Mar. 10, 2011

Conventional wisdom about body weight used to be simple: If you carried around extra bulk, you’d be more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, joint problems and a host of other ailments. It was the kind of thinking that pushed overweight Canadians to jump on the treadmill and inspired weight-loss reality shows featuring the morbidly obese.

But a growing number of leading experts in obesity research say that that logic is in drastic need of a makeover, and may need to be thrown out altogether.

The problem, they say, is that the body mass index – the most common method of defining “ideal weight” – is flawed.

Although BMI is widely used by medical professionals to determine whether people are normal, overweight or obese, it is criticized because it can’t differentiate between muscle mass and fat, and can’t easily be applied to different ethic groups with varying body types. BMI also doesn’t account for genetic variations or other differences that help determine a person’s risk of health problems.

In other words, an individual can be overweight or obese on the BMI scale for decades, but never develop cardiovascular disease, sleep apnea or other ailments linked to excess weight. On the other hand, a person who is normal weight and gains a couple pounds could develop Type 2 diabetes.

As awareness grows that the one-size-fits-all approach to weight and health isn’t working, obesity researchers are looking for ways to identify those most at risk for serious problems. But so far there is no consensus on how that should be accomplished.

Some say it will depend on improving BMI so it can be used as a health predictor rather than simply dictating which weight category a person is in.

A study published last week in the journal Obesity argues for a new measurement, the body adiposity index, which is based on hip circumference and height. The researchers, led by Richard Bergman at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, say it can measure body fat more accurately and be applied across ethnicities.

The study has received widespread attention, partly because BAI seems to be better than BMI at determining how much body fat a person has. A BAI measurement is also more easily obtained, because it doesn’t require exact weight as part of the calculation. The study follows previous research that suggested using hip and waist measurements to determine a person’s body fat.

But Robert Ross, a professor at the School of Kinesiology and Health Studies at Queen’s University, noted it’s unclear whether the new measure trumps BMI in the most important area: “The question is, does it predict [health] risk factors better than BMI?” he said. “Time will tell.”

Combining BMI with waist measurement is a better way to predict weight-related health problems, says Prof. Ross, who helped create the BMI and waist-circumference tool that’s well recognized by the medical community.
Evidence is growing that people with larger waists are at greater risk of heart disease, stroke and other serious problems. (The general rule for white, sub-Saharan African, Middle Eastern and eastern Mediterranean populations is men whose waists measure more than 102 centimetres, or 40 inches, face increased health risks, while for women the healthy cutoff is 88 centimetres, or 35 inches. Among Asian, south Asian, Malaysian, Chinese, Japanese, South and Central American ethnicities, the cutoff is 90 centimetres, or 35 inches, for adult males and 80 centimetres, or 32 inches, for adult females).

“If that waistline is expanding, and more fat is in the waist, you’re at a greater health risk. It’s not that complicated,” said Prof. Ross, who is also director of the Centre for Obesity Research and Education at Queen’s.
But the BMI and waist-circumference model still doesn’t reconcile the fact that some people who are overweight won’t develop related health problems, while some who are considered to have a healthy weight will.
What seems to unite many researchers is that it’s no longer accurate to say a high BMI score translates into future health problems.

“I think amongst medical clinical experts, this discussion is getting louder and louder,” said medical professor Arya Sharma, chair of obesity research and management at the University of Alberta. “You can find people with BMIs below what is medically defined as obesity who become diabetic. … There’s not just the weight that’s making you sick. It’s also, very often, genetic factors.”

Instead of simply relying on BMI or other measurements, Dr. Sharma said, people who are heavier than average should be monitored for ailments they have or are at risk of developing. That’s an effective way to see who may need medical intervention without telling everyone who is overweight they need to shed the excess pounds, Dr. Sharma said.

It might also be safer. Dr. Sharma noted that many people who lose weight gain it all back, and that the rapidchanges put stress on the body.

To some, the idea that overweight or obese people should be left alone unless they are at clear risk of health issues may sound drastic. But Dr. Sharma’s position reflects the extent to which common thinking about defining “healthy weight” is shifting.

“If you’re healthy, it doesn’t really matter what your weight is,” Dr. Sharma said.

Taken from The Globe and Mail; source article is below:
Excess weight doesn't always equal health risks: experts

Monday, April 26, 2010

More studies, longer life

I thought that this was a joke. After all, when a student stays in school longer, we’d already be teasing them as stockholders in the school, so they linger on.

That may not be the case nowadays.

There was a study done, and it was found that more studies is proportional to living longer.

I know why, and this study confirms it.

Interested already? Read on…

To live longer, go back to school: study

WASHINGTON - If you have been contemplating going back to school to get a degree, this might convince you: a study by the Harvard School of Medicine has shown people with a better education live longer.

"Between the 1980s and 2000, life expectancy increases occurred nearly exclusively among high-education groups," the study said.

While life expectancy for people with a high school degree or less did not change between 1990 and 2000, the better-educated gained more than 1.5 years over the same period, the study showed.

"A 25-year-old with a high school degree in 1990 could expect to live another 50 years, or for about 75 years," lead author Ellen Meara told AFP.

"Looking at a similarly educated 25-year-old in 2000, you have the same expected life span," said Meara, assistant professor of healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School.

"For the better educated, you have an expected life span of 80 years in 1990, but it's 81.6 by the year 2000. So it's quite a big gain."

The reasons for such longevity appear to be that more educated people have better access to both information about disease and medical advances.

"Quite literally, why are the better educated living longer? They're less likely to die of diseases," said Meara.

"As information about how to live longer, healthier lives becomes available and technologies become available to help you do things like quit smoking or lead a less sedentary lifestyle, we have to some extent figured out successful ways to do this," Meara said.

"But we've only brought it to certain parts of the population."

Life expectancy grew across the board for all races and genders between 1990 and 2000, showed the study, which looked only at non-Hispanic blacks and whites to "limit the impact of immigration on estimates."

But, during that 10-year span, the longevity gap between the well-educated and poorly-educated widened.

A well educated white man lived, on average, 5.8 years longer than a white man with less education in 1990. By 2000, that difference had grown to 7.9 years.

Data for black men, and women of both races, showed similar tendencies, except in the cases of poorly educated black and white women, whose life expectancy went down by 0.9 years and 0.2 years over 10 years, due in large part to lung diseases.

"The 1980s and 1990s were periods of rapidly rising life expectancy, but the mortality declines that yielded these gains did not occur evenly by education group," the study says.

"The diseases contributing most to the growing education gap in mortality include diseases of the heart, lung and other cancers, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, all of which share tobacco use as a major risk factor," the study said.

"Beyond the differential change in smoking, there is the national trend toward increased obesity," it said.

"As with smoking, obesity is more common among the less-educated than among the better-educated. Further, recent research suggests that obesity might contribute to nearly as many deaths as tobacco does."

Meara said researchers also wanted to "remind people: if you hear that life-expectancy is lengthening and it's getting better, it's important to remember that isn't the case for everyone."

The researchers used census population estimates and death certificate data covering 1990 to 2000, and information from the National Longitudinal Mortality Study (NLMS), which included statistics spanning 1981 to 1998. - AFP/fa

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Words and Music, Together in the Brain

English: music therapy (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

BRAIN LINKS WORDS, MUSIC ABILITY
--------------------------------

SAN DIEGO - Words and music are such natural partners that it seems obvious they go together. Now science is confirming that those abilities are linked in the brain, a finding that might even lead to better stroke treatments.

Studies have found overlap in the brain's processing of language and instrumental music, and new research suggests that intensive musical therapy may help improve speech in stroke patients, researchers said on Saturday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

In addition, researchers said, music education can help children with developmental dyslexia or autism more accurately use speech.

People who have suffered a severe stroke on the left side of the brain and cannot speak can sometimes learn to communicate through singing, Mr Gottfried Schlaug, associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School told the meeting. He showed a video of a patient who could only make meaningless sounds learning to say "I am thirsty," by singing the words. Another was able to sing "happy birthday".

As long as a century ago there were reports of stroke victims who couldn't talk but who could sing, he said. Now, they are doing trials to see if music can be used as a therapy. But, he cautioned, the work is geared toward people who have had a severe stroke on the left side of the brain and the therapy can take a long time.

Dr Nina Kraus, director of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University, reported that new studies show that musical training enhances the brain's ability to do other things.

For example, she said, the trained brain gets better at detecting patterns in sounds, so that musicians are better at picking out the voice of a friend in a noisy restaurant.

Dr Aniruddh D Patel of The Neurosciences Institute in San Diego said new studies show that music doesn't involve just hot spots in the brain, but large swaths on both sides of the brain. AP

From TODAY, Monday, 22-Feb-2010
----------