New Hampshire Health News Digest

Excerpt: 'Good Calories, Bad Calories' Read an Excerpt: 'Good Calories, Bad Calories' Author Challenges What We Thought We Knew About Nutrition Sept. 27, 2007 — What if everything you think you know about diet and exercise, even disease, turned out to be wrong? A new book called "Good Calories, Bad Calories" suggests just that. And it's causing a storm of controversy-- think saturated fats are bad for you? Think again. Think exercise will slim you down? Not true. At least that's what Gary Taubes thinks -- he says he's reviewed the research and interviewed over 600 experts and has the evidence to prove it. Read an excerpt from his book, "Good Calories, Bad Calories," below. Good Calories, Bad Calories I have spent much of the last fifteen years reporting and writing about issues of public health, nutrition, and diet. I have spent five years on the research for and writing of this book alone. To a great extent, the conclusions I've reac...

New findings support theory on Alzheimer's as a form of diabetes - Science News - QJ.NET New findings have revealed that the memory-losing disease, Alzheimer's, is actually a form of diabetes. Northwestern University scientists have discovered that the toxic protein "amyloid ß-derived diffusible ligand" - or ADDL - takes away the insulin receptors from the nerve cells, thereby making them insulin resistant. Hampering insulin and its receptors to the brain results to memory loss as the two are key components in memory formation. Now having determined that Alzheimer's may be caused in part by this insulin resistance, thanks to the attack of ADDL, the next question to confront then would be how this attack is triggered. Weinberg College's William L. Klein, leader of the research, explains: We think this is a major factor in the memory deficiencies caused by ADDLs in Alzheimer's brains. We're dealing with a fundamental new connection between two fields, di...

The Role of Insulin in Human Brain Glucose Metabolism: An 18Fluoro-Deoxyglucose Positron Emission Tomography Study -- Bingham et al. 51 (12): 3384 -- Diabetes Our study results challenge the accepted view that human brain glucose uptake is an entirely insulin-independent process. Instead, our data suggest that there is a significant element of brain glucose uptake that is insulin sensitive, with a dose-response curve that is shifted well to the left of dose-response curves for other insulin-sensitive tissues, such as muscle or liver. Previous studies have demonstrated no change in rate of brain glucose metabolism in response to elevations of circulating insulin above the basal (fasting) range (19,22). Our data, examining the effect of basal insulin replacement during somatostatin infusion, show that brain glucose uptake is however partially insulin sensitive, as there was a significant reduction in global brain glucose uptake when circulating insulin levels were reduced below this. Co...

ScienceDaily: Gene That May Influence Alcoholism And Addiction Identified Riley explained that genetic research can often be guided by additional non-genetic information. "We know that certain regions of the brain are particularly important in processing reward," he said. "Neurons which use dopamine as their neurotransmitter connect these regions, and some research suggests that there may be dopamine imbalances in these regions among alcoholics. Although these differences might be the result of chronic heavy drinking rather than its cause ... variation in genes coding for the various proteins that mediate dopamine neurotransmission might also be involved in alcoholism. The DRD2 gene, which codes for one of the five dopamine receptors, has been heavily studied for possible links to alcoholism, but with mixed results. Hence the current study." Using data collected as part of the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA), a long-term project with multipl...

Jimmy Moore's Livin' La Vida Low-Carb™ Blog In the article entitled "Can A High-Fat Diet Beat Cancer?" (although I'm not sure what that big double cheeseburger at the top of this story has ANYTHING at all to do with a high-fat, low-carb diet--that bad boy is MUCH higher in carbs from that big ole bun!), researchers Dr. Melanie Schmidt and Ulrike Kammerer, both from the University of Wurzburg in Germany, have been implementing the use of a high-fat, low-carb ketogenic diet on the most dire of cancer patients who have run out of treatment options since the beginning of the year. Without the use of any medications, they simply require the participants to slash their carbs and eat more fat. By getting rid of virtually all the carbs in their diet, especially sugar which feeds cancer cells, the researchers replace that energy with healthy fat sources including hempseed and linseed oils, soy-based proteins, and animal fats and proteins. It's a supercharged version of...

Food and Behaviour Research: Murphy & Burnham 2006 - The ketogenic diet causes a reversible decrease in activity level in Long-Evans rats The ketogenic diet causes a reversible decrease in activity level in Long-Evans rats Murphy P, Burnham WM. (2006) Exp Neurol. 201(1) 84-9. Epub 2006 Jun 5 Web URL: View this and related abstracts via Pubmed here Abstract: Individuals with epilepsy also often exhibit symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The ketogenic diet, which is a high fat, low protein, and low carbohydrate diet used in the treatment of intractable epilepsy, also appears to improve symptoms of ADHD in individuals with both disorders. Previous research suggests that the diet decreases the activity level of rats. The purpose of the present research was to further investigate the effects of the ketogenic diet on activity level, using an animal model. Two experiments were conducted. The first experiment examined the time frame and reversibility of the effec...

Alzheimer's May Be Tied To High Blood Sugar - washingtonpost.com People with elevated blood sugar levels may have an increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, researchers reported yesterday at an international conference. Scientists already have linked Type 2 diabetes with Alzheimer's, which afflicts 4.5 million Americans. But researchers from Stockholm's Karolinska Institute said the link to Alzheimer's disease may take hold earlier, in people who have higher-than-normal blood sugar levels but not in the diabetic range -- a condition known as pre-diabetes. Pre-diabetes affects 41 million Americans between the ages of 40 and 74, according to the American Diabetes Association, while diabetes has been diagnosed in 14.6 million Americans. The Karolinska researchers presented their nine-year study of more than 1,100 people on the opening day of the 10th International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders in Madrid. Alzheimer's disease ...

Jimmy Moore's Livin' La Vida Low-Carb™ Blog: McCleary: Ketone Bodies Produced By A Low-Carb Diet Are High-Octane Brain Food    McCleary: Ketone Bodies Produced By A Low-Carb Diet Are High-Octane Brain Food Listen to this article. Powered by Odiogo.com Dr. Larry McCleary says sharpen your brain by livin' la vida low-carb It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that the low-carb lifestyle is one of the healthiest nutritional plans out there to battle obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and so many other health ailments that plague modern society. But what about that actual gray matter between our ears? Can a low-carb diet do anything to improve brain function, memory, and even diseases like Alzheimer's? One of America's top neurosurgeons says YES! His name is Dr. Larry McCleary and his brand new book about this subject entitled The Brain Trust Program: A Scientifically Based Three-Part Plan to Improve Memory, Elevate Mood, Enhance Attention, Alleviate Migr...

Jimmy Moore's Livin' La Vida Low-Carb™ Blog: High Blood Sugar Likely Induces Alzheimer's New research highlights the role sugar plays in Alzheimer's disease This Washington Post column about a newfound connection between blood sugar and the onset of Alzheimer's disease should give give the 73 million Americans currently diagnosed with diabetes or pre-diabetes reason enough to start livin' la vida low-carb to prevent this from happening to them. Researchers from the Stockholm, Sweden-based Karolinska Institute presented their 9-year study of over 1,100 people at the 10th International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders in Madrid, Spain on Monday. What they found during their research is that people with high blood sugar levels are at a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. Previous studies have already shown a link between Type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer's, but this new research now reveals that even pre-diabetics who have ...

Study: High-Carb, Low-Fat Or Low-Carb, High Fat Diet Equally Lower Weight, Improve Mood And Memory Think a low-carb diet will destroy your brain? Think again! It was a head-to-head match-up that ended in a tie. Just wait until you see the stunning results of a new study comparing the traditional high-carb, low-fat diet with the increasingly popular low-carb, high-fat diet as it relates not just to weight loss, but also brain function. Now this oughta be interesting! I recently interviewed one of the premier neurologists in the world named Dr. Larry McCleary who promotes carbohydrate-restriction as a means for improving brain health in his recently released book entitled The Brain Trust Program. He said something in that interview that should make anyone who advocates a high-carb diet for brain health to stop and think. "If you want to age your brain just eat the typical [high-carb] diet most Americans consume. That will lead to memory, attention and mood difficulties and will hast...

Can a High-Fat Diet Beat Cancer? - TIME Since early 2007, Dr. Melanie Schmidt and biologist Ulrike Kammerer, both at the Wurzburg hospital, have been enrolling cancer patients in a Phase I clinical study of a most unexpected medication: fat. Their trial puts patients on a so-called ketogenic diet, which eliminates almost all carbohydrates, including sugar, and provides energy only from high-quality plant oils, such as hempseed and linseed oil, and protein from soy and animal products. What sounds like yet another version of the Atkins craze is actually based on scientific evidence that dates back nearly 80 years. In 1924, the German Nobel laureate Otto Warburg first published his observations of a common feature he saw in fast-growing tumors: unlike healthy cells, which generate energy by metabolizing sugar in their mitochondria, cancer cells appeared to fuel themselves exclusively through glycolysis, a less-efficient means of creating energy through the fermentation of sugar in the cy...

Aerobic, Weight Training Combo Best Against Diabetes - washingtonpost.com MONDAY, Sept. 17 (HealthDay News) -- Most people know that exercise can help beat type 2 diabetes, but one type of fitness regimen might work best, a new study shows. Specifically, workouts that combine aerobic and resistance training exercises appear better at controlling blood sugar than either type of activity alone, researchers say. The finding is new, because "most other studies have looked at just one kind of exercise, either aerobic or resistance," noted lead researcher Dr. Ronald J. Sigal, an associate professor of medicine and cardiac sciences at the University of Calgary, in Alberta, Canada.

globeandmail.com: Vitamin D can lower risk of death by 7 per cent Vitamin D can lower risk of death by 7 per cent MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT From Tuesday's Globe and Mail September 11, 2007 at 11:12 AM EDT Taking vitamin D has been found to have a new benefit: It appears to be a life extender, according to a new study. Researchers who pooled the results of 18 separate experiments conducted in several industrialized countries reported that people who were given a vitamin D supplement had a 7-per-cent lower risk of premature death than those who were not. The pooled results were from experiments conducted in the United States, Germany and Britain, among other countries, and included more than 57,000 participants. For reasons that are not yet fully understood, those who received vitamin D had a lower chance of dying prematurely than those given dummy pills, or placebos, in the experiments, said the study published yesterday in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Related Articles Recent Vitami...

reportonbusiness.com: How big is your manager's prefrontal cortex? How big is your manager's prefrontal cortex? VIRGINIA GALT AND WALLACE IMMEN September 14, 2007 You're confident you have the right stuff. You've risen through the ranks, aced every challenge. The Myers-Briggs personality assessment indicates you have great potential as a leader of men - and women. But hold on a sec, just one more test ... let's take a closer look at your brain, the prefrontal cortex to be precise. That's the part of the brain directly behind your forehead. Research on brain functions shows that it's a centre, not only of reasoning and problem solving, but also of personality, social interactions and planning. And if you've got a lot of activity there, you're more likely to get high marks in school as well as rise to a position of authority on the job, a team of Canadian and American psychologists have concluded. They say that a computer-based bank of tests that measu...

Test Your Vitamin D Knowledge Bet You Did Not Know This About Vitamin D Vitamin D is the most common nutritional deficiency in the United States, and most physicians are clueless about its importance. If you can answer the majority of these questions correctly you are doing better than the majority of physicians. Please remember that without question the best way to optimize your vitamin D level is with regular exposure of large portions of your skin to the sun. However, with Labor Day behind us it is time for most of us to consider switching our source of omega-3 fats from fish oil to cod liver oil, as that will supply the missing vitamin D that many of us will start lacking due to diminishing sun exposure. This test was developed by Dr. John Cannell. He is one of the leaders in the vitamin D education movement and has a very comprehensive Web site dedicated to vitamin D. You can also subscribe to his free newsletter there. 1. Vitamin D reverses inflammatory changes associated wi...

Leptin, low-carb and hunger | Health & Nutrition by Michael R. Eades, M.D. The fat mass - the stored fat on the body - produces leptin, which is secreted into the blood in the circulatory system. When leptin reaches the capillaries (the tiniest blood vessels) in the brain, leptin makes its way across the BBB and into the fluid around the brain cells where it binds to the leptin receptors on the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus. The arcuate nucleus then sends signals to decrease food consumption and increase metabolic rate. As the fat mass decreases in size -as it does when you don’t eat for a while and the stored fat is burned for energy - the amount of leptin in the circulation decreases as well. Less leptin crosses the BBB, less binds to the leptin receptors, and the arcuate nucleus sends out the ‘It’s time to eat’ signal. You eat and replenish the fat mass, leptin goes up, and the cycle starts again. So as leptin levels wax and wane, so does your sense of hunger and even, to ...

Technical Studies about Ketones and their Function in the Body Effects of unbalanced diets on cerebral glucose metabolism in the adult rat. al-Mudallal AS, Levin BE, Lust WD, Harik SI. Department of Neurology, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, OH, USA. Neurology 1995 Dec;45(12):2261-2265 We measured regional cerebral metabolic rates for glucose and selected cerebral metabolites in rats fed one of the following diets for 6 to 7 weeks: (1) regular laboratory chow; (2) high-fat, carbohydrate-free ketogenic diet deriving 10% of its caloric value from proteins and 90% from fat; and (3) high-carbohydrate diet deriving 10% of its caloric value from proteins, 78% from carbohydrates, and 12% from fat. In preliminary experiments, we found that moderate ketosis could not be achieved by diets deriving less than about 90% of their caloric value from fat. Rats maintained on the ketogenic diet had moderately elevated blood beta-hydroxybutyrate (O.4 mM) and acetoacetate (0...

Caffeine Blocks Insulin (Possible Increased Risk for Diabetics) Knights of the Pain Table Caffeine Blocks Insulin (Possible Increased Risk for Diabetics) A survey reported in JAMA showed that drinking coffee reduces risk for developing type II diabetes, but other studies suggest that once you have diabetes, drinking coffee may be unwise. A report from the Netherlands showed that caffeine in coffee raises blood sugar levels. Diabetics suffer blindness, deafness, heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure, burning foot syndrome and many other serious side effects, and all are caused by a high-rise in blood sugar after meals. Anything that raises blood sugar levels too high increases cell damage in diabetics. This study shows that caffeine raises blood sugar levels by causing the body to put out large amounts of adrenalin that makes cells less responsive to insulin. When caffeine was removed from the coffee, blood sugar levels did not rise higher than normal. On the basis of this study, diab...

Patients with type 2 diabetes show signs of vitamin D deficiency "Our findings," Giovanni Targher told Reuters Health, "confirm some previous evidence demonstrating that vitamin D deficiency is highly prevalent in people with type 2 diabetes." Because a lack of vitamin D can negatively affect bone health and have other adverse effects, he added, "widespread screening for vitamin D deficiency or routine vitamin D supplementation should be seriously considered" for people with diabetes. Targher, at Sacro Cuore Hospital, Negrar, and his colleagues studied blood levels of vitamin D in 459 individuals with type 2 diabetes and a comparison group of 459 matched non-diabetic "controls." The rate of vitamin D deficiency (61 percent) was significantly higher in the diabetics than in the controls (43 percent). Diabetics with vitamin D deficiency were more likely to be women, to have poorly controlled diabetes, and to be taking insulin and cholesterol-loweri...

Toledo Free Press - A tradition for Toledo's future Vitamin D is important for several reasons. A deficiency in vitamin D causes rickets and prevents children from reaching their peak bone mass. In adults, the lack of vitamin D contributes to osteoporosis and the painful bone disease osteomalacia. We have suspected for a long time that vitamin D deficiency might also cause heart disease. A New Zealand study reported in 1990 showed that heart attack victims had lower levels of vitamin D in their bodies than people who did not have heart attacks. A 1998 study showed that heart attacks increased by 53 percent during winter months when sunlight is less available. More recent studies have found that adequate levels of vitamin D helps reduce inflammation, lower blood pressure and improve insulin sensitivity. These variables all decrease the risk of heart disease. A study of Japanese dialysis patients indicates that returning the patients vitamin D to appropriate levels reduced heart atta...

Study: Vitamin D May Prevent Some Cancers, Sun-Related Vitamin Might Prevent Many Cases Of Colon And Breast Cancer - CBS News (CBS) A new study suggests the number of cases of colon and breast cancer could be cut dramatically if people got more vitamin D. University of California researchers estimate 250,000 cases of colon cancer and 350,000 cases of breast cancer could be prevented worldwide by increasing intake of vitamin D. Sunlight spurs production of vitamin D in the skin, and people who don't get much sun exposure tend to have lower levels of the vitamin. Past research indicated that vitamin D helps slow the growth and spread of cancer cells. "There's been a lot of evidence for a long time that vitamin D is very important, not just for bones, which everybody knows, but for all the organs in the body," Dr. Larry Norton, an oncologist at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, explained to Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith Thursday. "What's ...

Lean plate club: Science asks: Is food addictive? Lean plate club: Science asks: Is food addictive? Research is still scanty, but the evidence that exists "is extremely interesting and provocative." By Sally Squires, Washington Post Alcohol, nicotine and cocaine are just a few of the substances known to be addictive. Now some scientists wonder if food should be added to the list. "Are there certain things in food that act on the brain and set up a classic addictive process, like tolerance, withdrawal and craving?" asks psychologist Kelly Brownell, who organized a recent scientific meeting on food addiction at Yale University. While the research is still scanty, the evidence that exists "is extremely interesting and provocative and suggests to me that something is there," Brownell says. That's not news to many Lean Plate Club members who e-mailed me recently about their food struggles. Most asked not to be named, reflecting how they feel stigmatized by ...

Life Enhancement:: Skipping Meals Regularly May Be Good for Your Health Overweight and Obesity Are Epidemic We must eat to live. The problem is that many people live to eat. Our seemingly insatiable appetite has spawned an explosion of obesity, particularly in the United States, where the rate increased by 61% between 1991 and 2000.1 It’s now thought that 25–30% of all adults in the USA are obese. If we include overweight individuals (those with a body mass index greater than 25), then 56% of American adults are overweight or obese. Since many studies have shown that these conditions contribute significantly to such devastating diseases as cancer, cardiovascular disease, type 2 (adult-onset) diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease, our excessive food consumption, particularly of high-calorie foods, is a deadly addiction. Obesity Links Diabetes and Alzheimer’s At first glance, the notion that diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease could have a common cause might seem preposterous. After all, isn’t ...