New Hampshire Health News Digest

The Heart Scan Blog: Weight loss and vitamin D Weight loss and vitamin D At the start of her program, Penny's 25-hydroxy vitamin D blood level showed the usual deficiency at 22 ng/ml. She supplemented with 8000 units of vitamin D. Another 25-hydroxy vitamin D blood level several months later showed a level of 67.8 ng/ml, right on target. But Penny also began our diet, including the elimination of wheat, cornstarch, and sugars, and, over 6 months, lost 34 lbs. Now a much trimmer 146 lbs (still more to go!), another vitamin D blood level: 111 ng/ml. Penny's weight loss means that the vitamin D is distributed in a smaller total volume, particularly a lower volume of fat. This is a common phenomenon with substantial weight loss: lose weight and the need for vitamin D is reduced. The reduction in dose is roughly proportion to the weight lost. Vitamin D should therefore be reassessed with any substantial change in weight of, say, 10 lbs or more, either up or down, because of the infl...

Vitamin B12 deficiency is associated with coronary...[Clin Chem Lab Med. 2009] - PubMed Result BACKGROUND: The incidence of coronary artery disease (CAD) is increasing at an alarming rate, especially in developing countries, such as India. It is often advocated that a vegetarian lifestyle could reduce the burden of CAD. However, in spite of a majority of Indians being vegetarians, the incidence of CAD is highest in this population. This may be due to deficiency of vitamin B12, a micronutrient, sourced only from animal products. RESULTS: We found that vitamin B12 levels were significantly lower in coronary artery disease patients than in controls (p vegetarians were found to have significantly lower vitamin B12 concentrations (p=0.0001) and higher incidence of coronary artery disease (p=0.01). Interestingly, elevated homocysteine levels, a hallmark of vitamin B12 deficiency, was not associated with CAD. In contrast, cysteine levels were significantly higher in CAD patients than in con...

SpringerLink - Journal Article Conclusions/interpretation Maternal vitamin B12 deficiency is associated with increased adiposity and, in turn, with insulin resistance and GDM. Vitamin B12 deficiency may be an important factor underlying the high risk of ‘diabesity’ in south Asian Indians.

Slashdot Science Story | Depression May Provide Cognitive Advantages "Paul W. Andrews and J. Anderson Thomson, Jr. argue in Scientific American that although depression is considered a mental disorder, depression may in fact be a mental adaptation which provides real benefits. This is not to say that depression is not a problem. Depressed people often have trouble performing everyday activities, they can't concentrate on their work, they tend to socially isolate themselves, they are lethargic, and they often lose the ability to take pleasure from such activities such as eating and sex. So what could be so useful about depression? "Depressed people often think intensely about their problems," write the authors. "These thoughts are called ruminations; they are persistent and depressed people have difficulty thinking about anything else. Numerous studies have also shown that this thinking style is often highly analytical. They dwell on a complex problem, breaking i...

Half of healthcare workers say no to swine flu jab - Healthcare Republic News Most DR.s may reject swine flu vaccine (HEALTHCARE REPUBLIC) Up to 60% of GPs may choose not to be vaccinated against swine flu, with many concerned about the safety of the vaccine, a GP newspaper survey suggests. Of 216 GPs who responded to the survey, 29% said they would not opt to receive the swine flu vaccine and a further 29% said they were not sure whether they would or not. Of those who would refuse vaccination, 71% said they were concerned that the vaccine had not been through sufficient trials to guarantee its safety. Professor David Salisbury, DoH director of immunisation, toldHealthcare Republic, the website for GP newspaper, that frontline health workers have a duty to themselves regarding vaccination. ‘They have a duty to their patients not to infect their patients and they have a duty to their families,’ he said.

Fructose But Not Glucose-Sweetened Beverages Increased Insulin Resistance And Belly Fat In Overweight And Obese People, Study We all know that too much sugar is not good for us, but researchers from the US have discovered that drinks sweetened with fructose as opposed to glucose were significantly more likely to increase insulin resistance and belly fat in obese and overweight people, leading to medical conditions that increased their risk of heart attack and stroke. The study was the work of Dr Peter Havel, a researcher in the Department of Nutrition at the University of California at Davis, and colleagues, and was published in the April 20 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Over the twelve months of 2005, the average American consumed about 64 kg of extra sugar from drinking sweetened soft drinks: this is approximately the weight of an average height, slim American woman. But although studies in animals have shown that compared with glucose, dietary fructose leads to inc...

Omega-3 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Cardiovascular Diseases -- Lavie et al. 54 (7): 585 -- Journal of the American College of Cardiology : "Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid ({omega}-3 PUFA) therapy continues to show great promise in primary and, particularly in secondary prevention of cardiovascular (CV) diseases. The most compelling evidence for CV benefits of {omega}-3 PUFA comes from 4 controlled trials of nearly 40,000 participants randomized to receive eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) with or without docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) in studies of patients in primary prevention, after myocardial infarction, and most recently, with heart failure (HF). We discuss the evidence from retrospective epidemiologic studies and from large randomized controlled trials showing the benefits of {omega}-3 PUFA, specifically EPA and DHA, in primary and secondary CV prevention and provide insight into potential mechanisms of these observed benefits. The target EPA DHA consumption should be at lea...

Low vitamin D levels linked to metabolic syndrome Increasing blood levels of vitamin D are linked to a lower prevalence of the metabolic syndrome, as well as improved ‘good’ cholesterol levels, says a new study. According to findings published in the Journal of Clinical Lipidology, the lowest levels of the sunshine vitamin were associated with a 31 per cent prevalence of metabolic syndrome, compared to only 10 per cent for people wit the highest average levels. The researchers noted that the results do not prove that low vitamin D levels contributes or causes metabolic syndrome, and called for more studies to “assess whether increasing vitamin D intake will improve the metabolic cardiovascular risk factor profile”. “Although previous surveys have also reported associations between low 25(OH)D concentration and metabolic syndrome components, to our knowledge, the present investigation is the first to report this finding in a sample with a high prevalence of vitamin D dietary supplement ...

Canada examines vitamin D for swine flu protection : The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has confirmed that it will be investigating the role of vitamin D in protection against swine flu, NutraIngredients-USA.com has learned. The agency started a study last year on the role of vitamin D in severe seasonal influenza, which it said it will now adapt to the H1N1 swine flu virus. Part of the researchers’ goal is to understand if vitamin D levels are in any way responsible for the fact that most people with seasonal influenza develop a mild illness but a small minority go on to develop severe symptoms. According to PHAC, results from its study will indicate the extent and nature of the role of vitamin D in sever seasonal influenza. The agency said it would most likely take at least three influenza seasons to be able to recruit a sufficient sample size of individuals with severe disease and controls before the results can be “meaningfully” analyzed. In addition, PHAC said that epidemio...

Review: Insulin Resistance May Link Metabolic And Cognitive Disorders Insulin resistance, when tissues in the body lose sensitivity to the hormone that regulates glucose, may underlie both dementia and metabolic disorders such as obesity and diabetes. In a review article, Suzanne Craft, Ph.D., of Veterans Administration Puget Sound Health Care System and University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, writes that "considerable progress has been made in establishing relationships among metabolic disorders and late-life dementing illnesses," including through the common foundation of insulin resistance. "A number of challenges must be addressed as we move forward to determine the key mechanisms underlying these associations," Dr. Craft concludes, including establishing clear definitions of both metabolic and neurological conditions. "Future research aimed at identifying mechanisms that underlie comorbid associations will not only provide important insights ...

Fructose Metabolism By The Brain Increases Food Intake And Obesity Elsevier, will publish an important review this week online, by M. Daniel Lane and colleagues at Johns Hopkins, building on the suggested link between the consumption of fructose and increased food intake, which may contribute to a high incidence of obesity and Type 2 diabetes. [...] M. Daniel Lane and co-workers at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore have now pulled together work, largely in their laboratory (many papers beginning in 2000), dealing with the role of malonyl-CoA in the signaling system in the brain (specifically the hypothalamus) that has inputs into the higher brain centers that determine feeding behavior, most notably appetite. Two papers in the journal PNAS in 2007 and 2008 showed that glucose and fructose act quite differently in the brain (hypothalamus) - glucose decreasing food intake and fructose increasing food intake. Both of these sugars signal in the brain through the ...

Omega-3 linked to lower body weight: Study Increased blood levels of the omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA is linked to lower incidence of obesity, suggesting a role for fish oils in weight management. New findings reported in the British Journal of Nutrition indicate that overweight and obese people have blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids almost 1 per cent lower than people with a healthy weight. “Our findings suggest that n-3 PUFA may play an important role in weight status and abdominal adiposity,” wrote the researchers, led by Professor Monohar Garg from the University of Newcastle, and president elect of the Nutrition Society of Australia. Previous studies have implicated omega-3 in protective benefits against obesity, and the new study adds to this small but growing body of evidence. A considerable number of studies already support the benefits of the omega-3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, C20:5 n-3) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, C22:6 n-3) for cardiovascular health, an...

Insulin may be key to fighting Alzheimer's disease - Times Online : "Insulin, the hormone that regulates levels of sugar in the blood, may slow or prevent memory loss caused by Alzheimer’s disease, a study suggests. Researchers examining the effects of diabetes drugs on the brain have found that the medication appears to protect cells responsible for the formation of memory. The work offers further support for the theory that Alzheimer’s could be caused by a form of diabetes linked to the body’s failure to produce and process insulin effectively. [...] Cells in the hippocampus are susceptible to damage caused by amyloid beta-derived diffusible ligands (ADDLs), toxic proteins that build up in people with Alzheimer’s. ADDLs attack the synapses – the junctions between nerve cells through which impulses pass – which help form memory. After the proteins have attached, the synapses lose their capacity to respond to incoming information, resulting in memory loss. The researchers disc...

Being overweight does affect your libido. But small changes can jump-start your sex drive. How Too Much Weight Hampers Sex Drive According to a recent study conducted by Binks and his colleagues at Duke, up to 30% of obese people seeking help controlling their weight indicate problems with sex drive, desire, performance, or all three. Often, the latest research shows, these problems can be traced to physical conditions that co-exist with obesity. "Medical conditions such as high cholesterol and insulin resistance [an early indicator of type 2 diabetes] do have the ability to impact sexual performance, which in turn impacts desire, particularly in men," says Andrew McCollough, MD, director of sexual health and male infertility at NYU Medical Center in New York. Because both conditions can cause the tiny arteries in the penis to shut down, particularly when vessel-clogging fatty deposits begin to form, McCollough says impotence or erectile dysfunction is often the result. ...

Evidence that Low Carb Diets are Better for Diabetics - Second Opinions, UK Surender K Arora and Samy I McFarlane. The case for low carbohydrate diets in diabetes management. Nutrition & Metabolism 2005, 2:16 doi:10.1186/1743-7075-2-16 Abstract (provisional) A low fat, high carbohydrate diet in combination with regular exercise is the traditional recommendation for treating diabetes. Compliance with these lifestyle modifications is less than satisfactory, however, and a high carbohydrate diet raises postprandial plasma glucose and insulin secretion, thereby increasing risk of CVD, hypertension, dyslipidemia, obesity and diabetes. Moreover, the current epidemic of diabetes and obesity has been, over the past three decades, accompanied by a significant decrease in fat consumption and an increase in carbohydrate consumption. This apparent failure of the traditional diet, from a public health point of view, indicates that alternative dietary approaches are needed. Because carbohydrate ...