Obesity Epidemic Threatens To Cut Life Expectancy

Obesity Epidemic Threatens To Cut Life Expectancy: "Researchers report that the current obesity epidemic will have a negative impact on life expectancy in the United States.
University of Illinois at Chicago researchers report in the New England Journal of Medicine that obesity will cut between two to five years off life expectancy in the next 50 years."

While it is of course not a shock, 5 years is quite a bit to take off of life expectancy!

Good news, bad news on green tea

the Mail online | Mail - news, sport, showbiz, health and more | Green tea danger for pregnant mums

Good news and bad news on Green tea.

The good news is that researchers have identified how green tea helps fight cancer. "Scientists found that polyphenol EGCG binds to the enzyme dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) which is already an established target for chemotherapy drugs...

The green tea compound stops DHFR promoting DNA synthesis in tumour cells. It appears to work in the same way as the cancer drug methotrexate, but in practice would probably have fewer side effects."

The bad news? The same DHFR is associated with increased birth defects if the pregnant mother drinks much green tea! :(


From news-medical.net:
The research was conducted by a team of scientists at the University of Murcia (UMU), Spain , in collaboration with the John Innes Centre (JIC) Norwich, UK .

Yahoo! News - Study Raises Doubts About Vitamin E Supplements

More evidence that vitamin pills, especially Vitamin E may not be the answer.

Yahoo! News - Study Raises Doubts About Vitamin E Supplements: "Daily vitamin E supplements do not prevent cancer, strokes or heart attacks in older people with vascular disease or diabetes, and may increase their risk of heart failure, a study said on Tuesday."

" The study's chief author, Dr. Eva Lonn, said: "In high risk people vitamin E does not prevent cardiovascular disease, namely heart attack and stroke, and it does not prevent cancer. Furthermore, we noticed an increased risk of heart failure, so there is a potential for harm in people receiving vitamin E."

Cornell researcher show food is better than pills

This one should come as no suprise to regular readers of this blog.

From WEB MD:

"Antioxidants in foods work together and their combined effect is greatest, they explain."No single antioxidant can replace the combination of natural phytochemicals in fruits and vegetables in achieving ultimate health benefits," write the researchers.

"The pure compounds either lose their bioactivities in isolation or may not behave the same way as the compound in complex whole foods.

"Our findings suggest that consumers may gain more significant health benefits from including whole foods in their balanced diet than from more expensive dietary supplements, which do not contain the same array of balanced, complex components."

The study looked at rats and the consumption of apples (Red Delicious). The finding? Apples helped fight cancer!

Again from Web MD:

The extracts "effectively inhibited" breast cancer in rats, write food science professor Rui Hai Liu, PhD, MD, MS, and colleagues. "Thus, consumption of apples may be an effective strategy for cancer protection," says their study.

The study will appear in the March 23 edition of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

BBC NEWS | Health | Oily fish helps cut inflammation

We now have the "why", not just the "what" :)

BBC NEWS | Health | Oily fish helps cut inflammation: "identified a new class of fats in the human body, called resolvins, which they showed can control inflammation.

They do this both by stopping the migration of inflammatory cells to sites of inflammation, and the turning on of other inflammatory cells.

Resolvins are made from the omega-3 fatty acids, found in high concentration in oily fish."

"They have found a key anti-inflammatory fat in humans is derived from a fatty acid found in fish oil."

So eat your fish!


Interestingly, the researchers may also have stumbled upon why COX-2 inhibitors have been shown to increase heart problems:
"The study also reveals a potential pitfall of COX-2 inhibitors, drugs designed to block inflammation, which have been shown to have negative cardiovascular side effects.

The enzyme COX-2 is involved in making resolvin E1, and the researchers suspect that taking the drugs may disrupt the body's ability to synthesise the fat.

Thus, while the drugs are designed to reduce inflammation, it is possible that they actually undermine one of the body's most important methods for achieving the same effect.

However, the researchers stress the experiment to prove this idea has yet to be done with humans."