New Hampshire Health News Digest

Magnesium Supplements May Help Lower High Blood Pressure : "Magnesium supplements have a small but significant effect on lowering blood pressure, according to a study in this month's Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association."

Romantic comedies mar love lives-Health/Sci-The Times of India LONDON: Romantic comedies may have fired love lives of many for long. Yet, a new study has claimed that watching the popular flicks could spoil relationships as they create unrealistic expectations. Researchers in Edinburgh have carried out the study and found that people who watch romantic comedies are more likely to believe in predestined love than those who prefer to see other genres of movie. According to them, unlikely happy endings, improbable plots and faux philosophy are to blame -- in fact, seeing even a single romantic comedy is enough to sway people's attitudes to romantic love. "Marriage counsellors often see couples who believe that sex should always be perfect, and if someone is meant to be with you then they will know what you want without you needing to communicate it. "We now have some emerging evidence that suggests popular media play a role in perpetuating these ideas in people's minds. ...

Low Carbohydrate Diet Did Not Increase Bone Loss, Study Finds : "A strict low-carbohydrate diet had no effect on bone loss for adults following an Adkins-type diet for weight loss, a three-month study by rheumatologists at the University of South Florida found. The clinical study was published this week in the online issue of the journal Osteoporosis International. Low carbohydrate diets have become popular as a weight loss technique; however, critics contend such diets may have harmful side effects. One concern has been that low carbohydrate diets, which replace calories from carbohydrates with more consumption of high-protein foods like meat and eggs, alter the body's acid balance. This imbalance could lead to increased bone turnover (more rapid depletion than formation of bone) -- increasing the risk for osteoporosis. "That's not what our study found," said lead author John D. Carter, assistant professor in the Division of Rheumatology, USF College of Medicine...

The Dana Foundation - The Prefrontal Cortex and Frontal Lobe Disorders : An Interview with Jordan Grafman, Ph.D. My research indicates that the human prefrontal cortex is especially designed to store in long-term memory the features that are unique to large structured sets of sequential events such as themes, morals, and plans. This enables us to put off immediate gratification, and allows us to out-think faster and stronger competitors. These observations form the foundation for the notion that the human prefrontal cortex is a crowning achievement of the human brain and that, like the rest of the brain, is a work in progress. Q: You consider the prefrontal cortex to be the seat of “social cognition” and possibly “moral cognition” as well. What do these terms mean and what leads you to these conclusions? A: Social cognition refers to the long-term memories we access when we interact socially with others, and that guide our social behaviors in routine and novel situations. These long-te...

Sugar Can Be Addictive: Animal Studies Show Sugar Dependence : "A Princeton University scientist will present new evidence today demonstrating that sugar can be an addictive substance, wielding its power over the brains of lab animals in a manner similar to many drugs of abuse. Professor Bart Hoebel and his team in the Department of Psychology and the Princeton Neuroscience Institute have been studying signs of sugar addiction in rats for years. Until now, the rats under study have met two of the three elements of addiction. They have demonstrated a behavioral pattern of increased intake and then showed signs of withdrawal. His current experiments captured craving and relapse to complete the picture. "If bingeing on sugar is really a form of addiction, there should be long-lasting effects in the brains of sugar addicts," Hoebel said. "Craving and relapse are critical components of addiction, and we have been able to demonstrate these behaviors in sugar-bingeing rats...

Fructose Sets Table For Weight Gain Without Warning : "Eating too much fructose can induce leptin resistance, a condition that can easily lead to becoming overweight when combined with a high-fat, high-calorie diet, according to a new study with rats. Although previous studies have shown that being leptin resistant can lead to rapid weight gain on a high-fat, high-calorie diet, this is the first study to show that leptin resistance can develop as a result of high fructose consumption. The study also showed for the first time that leptin resistance can develop silently, that is, with little indication that it is happening. Leptin is a hormone that plays a role in helping the body to balance food intake with energy expenditure. When leptin isn’t working -- that is, when the body no longer responds to the leptin it produces -- it’s called leptin resistance. Leptin resistance is associated with weight gain and obesity in the face of a high-fat, high-calorie diet. Obesity has been a gr...

Study Suggests A Possible Link Between High-Starch Diet And Pancreatic Cancer : "A diet high in starchy foods such as potatoes, rice and white bread may increase the risk of pancreatic cancer in women who are overweight and sedentary, according to a new study by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard School of Public Health researchers. Published in the Sept. 4 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the study suggests that excess insulin – a substance used by the body to process the sugar in foods – can promote the development of pancreatic cancer. Nearly 30,000 men and women in the United States are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer each year, and an equal number die from it. Pancreatic cancer typically is highly aggressive and is one of the least-curable malignancies. Only four percent of the people with pancreatic cancer are alive five years after diagnosis. "Our findings add to the growing body of evidence that suggests t...

Too Much Fructose Could Leave Dieters Sugar Shocked Dieters should focus on limiting the amount of fructose they eat instead of cutting out starchy foods such as bread, rice and potatoes, report the researchers, who propose using new dietary guidelines based on fructose to gauge how healthy foods are. "There's a fair amount of evidence that starch-based foods don't cause weight gain like sugar-based foods and don't cause the metabolic syndrome like sugar-based foods," said Dr. Richard Johnson, the senior author of the report, which reviewed several recent studies on fructose and obesity. "Potatoes, pasta, rice may be relatively safe compared to table sugar. A fructose index may be a better way to assess the risk of carbohydrates related to obesity." Many diets -- including the low-carb variety -- are based on the glycemic index, which measures how foods affect blood glucose levels. Because starches convert to glucose in the body, these diets tend to limi...

Cutting Caffeine May Help Control Diabetes : "Daily consumption of caffeine in coffee, tea or soft drinks increases blood sugar levels for people with type 2 diabetes and may undermine efforts to control their disease, say scientists at Duke University Medical Center. The researchers found that when the participants consumed caffeine, their average daily sugar levels went up 8 per cent. Caffeine also exaggerated the rise in glucose after meals: increasing by 9 percent after breakfast, 15 percent after lunch and 26 per cent after dinner. "We're not sure what it is about caffeine that drives glucose levels up, but we have a couple of theories," says Lane, who is the lead author of the study. "It could be that caffeine interferes with the process that moves glucose from the blood and into muscle and other cells in the body where it is used for fuel. It may also be that caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline -- the 'fight or flight" hormone that we kno...

Type 1 Diabetes And Celiac Disease Linked : "Type 1 (juvenile) diabetes and celiac disease appear to share a common genetic origin, scientists at the University of Cambridge and Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, have confirmed."

Can Amphetamines Help Cure Cocaine and Meth Addiction? - TIME Proponents of stimulant maintenance treatment also note this significant detail: Many stimulant abusers suffer from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). While ADHD affects about 1% of the general population, according to Rush, it shows up in about 30% of cocaine and amphetamine addicts. Psychiatrists often hesitate to give hyperactivity drugs to patients with a history of addiction, but some studies suggest that maintenance may be exactly what this group needs — and that their drug abuse is an attempt to self-medicate. The studies that have included ADHD patients (many studies exclude them to avoid confounding) showed positive results. In one pilot study, conducted at Columbia University, maintenance treatment reduced cocaine use and craving in 12 cocaine addicts with ADHD.

Obesity And Metabolism: Weight Gain And The Growing Risk Of Cancer : "COLON CANCER ' Colorectal cancer and type II diabetes share a number of common factors , including obesity, so it is interesting to see the direct line between these two conditions,' said Andrew Flood, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and the University of Minnesota Cancer Center 'In general, the idea is that if elevated insulin levels create a biochemical environment conducive to cancer growth, it provides one mechanism by which diet and lifestyle can really influence cancer risk.' According to Flood, it is not exactly clear what aspect of diabetes is the underlying cause for this increased risk, but one hypothesis centers on the elevated concentration of insulin typically seen in people with type II diabetes. "In the early stages of the disease process, people become insulin resistant, mea...

Limiting Fructose May Boost Weight Loss, Researcher Reports : "One of the reasons people on low-carbohydrate diets may lose weight is that they reduce their intake of fructose, a type of sugar that can be made into body fat quickly, according to a researcher at UT Southwestern Medical Center. [...] "Our study shows for the first time the surprising speed with which humans make body fat from fructose," Dr. Parks said. Fructose, glucose and sucrose, which is a mixture of fructose and glucose, are all forms of sugar but are metabolized differently. "All three can be made into triglycerides, a form of body fat; however, once you start the process of fat synthesis from fructose, it's hard to slow it down," she said. In humans, triglycerides are predominantly formed in the liver, which acts like a traffic cop to coordinate the use of dietary sugars. It is the liver's job, when it encounters glucose, to decide whether the body needs to store the glucose as gly...

Lack Of Vitamin D Could Spell Heart Trouble : "Vitamin D deficiency—which is traditionally associated with bone and muscle weakness—may also increase the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). A growing body of evidence links low 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels to common CVD risk factors such as hypertension, obesity and diabetes, as well as major cardiovascular events including stroke and congestive heart failure. "Vitamin D deficiency is an unrecognized, emerging cardiovascular risk factor, which should be screened for and treated," said James H. O'Keefe, M.D., cardiologist and director of Preventive Cardiology at the Mid America Heart Institute, Kansas City, MO. "Vitamin D is easy to assess, and supplementation is simple, safe and inexpensive." It is estimated that up to half of U.S. adults and 30 percent of children and teenagers have vitamin D deficiency, which is defined as a 25(OH)D level of Recent data from the Framingham Heart Study suggest patients with...

Body Shape and Heart Disease Risk: Apple Or Pear Shape Is Not Main Culprit To Heart Woes -- It's Liver Fat : "For years, pear-shaped people who carry weight in the thighs and backside have been told they are at lower risk for high blood pressure and heart disease than apple-shaped people who carry fat in the abdomen. But new findings from nutrition researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggest body-shape comparisons don't completely explain risk. In two studies, they report excess liver fat appears to be the real key to insulin resistance, cholesterol abnormalities and other problems that contribute to diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Having too much fat stored in the liver is known as nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. "Since obesity is so much more common now, both in adults and in children, we are seeing a corresponding increase in the incidence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease," says senior investigator Samuel Klein, M.D.,...

95-174 (Attention Deficit Disorder) The study also showed that ADD teens had more trouble than the learning disabled group with social skills such as dating and getting along with peers. ADD teens also had lower levels of communication abilities such as writing a letter or addressing an envelope. Those who fared worst in social skill levels were the 18 ADD teens with conduct disorders. They had the lowest abilities to get along with others and the greatest behavioral and emotional difficulties.

Low-carb Diets Alter Glucose Formation By The Liver In contrast to previous reports, the present study showed similar hepatic glucose production among the dietary groups. The low-carbohydrate group was able to maintain hepatic glucose production at the levels observed for the weight-stable and low-calorie groups by increasing glucose formation using lactate or amino acids to match the reduction in glucose formation from glycerol. "This observation is reminiscent of 'hepatic autoregulation' by which endogenous glucose production remains unchanged in the setting of altered gluconeogenesis or glycogenolysis because the two pathways tend to compensate for each other," the authors report. They noted it was interesting that the increased glucose formation using lactate or amino acids in the low-carbohydrate group was not associated with increased TCA cycle flux (i.e. energy production.) However, they did not measure absolute rates of fatty acid delivery to the liver or keto...

Wartime diet of regular fasting slashes prostate cancer risk | Mail Online : "Rationing food intake every few weeks could slash men's risk of prostate cancer, scientists believe. Men who halve the amount they normally eat for a week or two once a month could markedly lower their chances of a tumour at a young age. In human terms, researchers said, it was the equivalent of men getting cancer in their seventies or eighties rather than their fifties. But the study showed going on a permanent low-calorie diet did not have the same powerful effect. Scientists think occasional rationing may ward off cancer by constantly adjusting the balance of certain fat hormones. High levels of leptin, a hormone released by fat cells, have been found to stimulate cancer cell growth, while high levels of another hormone, called adinopectin, appear to have a protective effect. The latest findings, published in the journal Prostate, suggest frequent rationing cuts leptin levels and boosts those of a...

Individuals With ADHD Inattention Subtype More Likely to Quit Smoking : Investigators at Columbia Medical Center, in New York, found individuals with ADHD who have the subtype of the disorder characterized by inattention alone are more likely to benefit from combination therapy with bupropion and nicotine patches than their counterparts who have ADHD with elevated symptoms of hyperactivity and impulsivity, with or without inattention. Greater understanding of the divergent associations that exist between the different kinds of ADHD have important public-health consequences for smoking cessation and decreased tobacco-related mortality in this population, principal investigator Lirio S. Covey, PhD, said in a statement. The study is published in the December issue of Nicotine & Tobacco Research. As shown in previous research, as a group, smokers with ADHD had greater difficulty quitting than smokers without ADHD. However, the researchers showed for the first time that individuals with...

Too Much Commitment May Be Unhealthy For Relationships, Professor Says : "Romantic relationships establish special bonds between partners. Oftentimes, passionate rapport leads to permanent partnerships, and ultimately, the start of families. Sometimes, however, one or both partners place too much emotional weight on their relationship. As a result, men or women may tend to evaluate their self-worth solely based on the outcomes of their romantic interactions. This is what psychologists term as relationship-contingent self-esteem (RCSE), and, according to University of Houston researcher Chip Knee, it's an unhealthy factor in romantic relationships. "Individuals with high levels of RCSE are very committed to their relationships, but they also find themselves at risk to become devastated when something goes wrong -- even a relatively minor event," said Knee, UH assistant professor of psychology and director of the university's Interpersonal Relations and Motivation ...

Waking up Teens -- Scientists Show Blue Light Can Help Reset Sleep Cycle : "Teenagers' morning drowsiness is often caused by out-of-tune body clocks, in a condition known as 'delayed sleep phase syndrome.' Scientists now say that timing exposure to blue light -- avoiding it during the first two hours of being wake, then getting a good dose of it -- can help restore the sleep cycle, so teens feel sleepy earlier at night and are more awake in the morning."

Antioxidants Are Unlikely To Prevent Aging, Study Suggests Diets and beauty products which claim to have anti-oxidant properties are unlikely to prevent aging, according to research funded by the Wellcome Trust. Researchers at the Institute of Healthy aging at UCL (University College London) say this is because a key fifty year old theory about the causes of aging is wrong. [...] In 1956, Denham Harman proposed the theory that aging is caused by an accumulation of molecular damage caused by "oxidative stress", the action of reactive forms of oxygen, such as superoxide, on cells. This theory has dominated the field of aging research for over fifty years. But now, a study published online today in the journal Genes & Development suggests that this theory is probably incorrect and that superoxide is not a major cause of aging. "The fact is that we don't understand much about the fundamental mechanisms of aging," says Dr David Gems from UCL. "The free radic...

Fasting intermittently reduces cell proliferation, a marker for cancer risk, Berkeley -- An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but could eating an apple every other day be better? A new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, raises such a possibility. It shows that healthy mice given only 5 percent fewer calories than mice allowed to eat freely experienced a significant reduction in cell proliferation in several tissues, considered an indicator for cancer risk. The key was that the mice eating 5 percent fewer calories were fed intermittently, or three days a week. What is encouraging about the findings is that the reduction in cell proliferation from that intermittent feeding regimen was only slightly less than that of a more severe 33 percent reduction in calories. Until now, scientists have been certain only of a link between a more substantial calorie reduction and a reduction in the rate of cell proliferation. The results of the study are scheduled to appea...