New Hampshire Health News Digest

New research appears to point to link between vitamin D and autism : New research has found that a vitamin D deficiency in pregnancy is linked to an increased risk of autism traits in children.

Scientists discover ‘fat-craving gene’ after hosting all-you-can eat chicken korma buffet. http://tiny.iavian.net/com6

Health Correlator: Niacin turbocharges the growth hormone response to anaerobic exercise: A delayed effect : Niacin is also known as vitamin B3, or nicotinic acid. It is an essential vitamin whose deficiency leads to pellagra. In large doses of 1 to 3 g per day it has several effects on blood lipids, including an increase in HDL cholesterol and a marked decreased in fasting triglycerides. Niacin is also a powerful antioxidant. Among niacin’s other effects, when taken in large doses�of 1 to 3 g per day, is an acute elevation in growth hormone secretion. This is a delayed effect, frequently occurring 3 to 5 hours after taking niacin. This effect is independent of exercise. It is important to note that large doses of 1 to 3 g of niacin are completely unnatural, and cannot be achieved by eating foods rich in niacin. For example, one would have to eat a toxic amount of beef liver (e.g., 15 lbs) to get even close to 1 g of niacin. Beef liver is one of the richest natural sources of nia...

Lowering the Bar on the Low-Fat Diet | JAMA | JAMA Network : David S. Ludwig, MD, PhD 1 The recent revelation that the sugar industry attempted to manipulate science in the 1960s1 has once again focused attention on the quality of the scientific evidence in the field of nutrition and how best to prevent diet-related chronic disease.  Beginning in the 1970s, the US government and major professional nutrition organizations recommended that individuals in the United States eat a low-fat/high-carbohydrate diet, launching arguably the largest public health experiment in history. Throughout the ensuing 40 years, the prevalence of obesity and diabetes increased several-fold, even as the proportion of fat in the US diet decreased by 25%. Recognizing new evidence that consumption of processed carbohydrates—white bread, white rice, chips, crackers, cookies, and sugary drinks—but not total fat has contributed importantly to these epidemics, the 2015 USDA Dietary Guidelines f...

Activity Trackers May Undermine Weight Loss Efforts. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/27/well/activity-trackers-may-undermine-weight-loss-efforts.html

We’re All Guinea Pigs in a Failed Decades-Long Diet Experiment | VICE | United States : Overseas, national health authorities followed America's lead on fat. The results have been similarly grim. Earlier this year, a UK nonprofit called the National Obesity Forum (NOF) published a blistering condemnation of its government's diet and nutrition policies. In its report, the NOF argues that advice to cut back on fat and cholesterol is "the root cause" of Britain's skyrocketing rates of obesity and diabetes. Speaking shortly after the report's publication, Aseem Malhotra, a British cardiologist who consulted on the NOF report, said, "The change in dietary advice to promote low-fat foods is perhaps the biggest mistake in modern medical history. Along with ripping its government's "failed policies," the NOF report called for a "complete overhaul of dietary advice and public health messaging." In a recent editorial appearing in the B...

50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists To Point Blame At Fat : The Two-Way : NPR : In the 1960s, the sugar industry funded research that downplayed the risks of sugar and highlighted the hazards of fat, according to a newly published article in JAMA Internal Medicine. The article draws on internal documents to show that an industry group called the Sugar Research Foundation wanted to "refute" concerns about sugar's possible role in heart disease. The SRF then sponsored research by Harvard scientists that did just that. The result was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1967, with no disclosure of the sugar industry funding. The sugar-funded project in question was a literature review, examining a variety of studies and experiments. It suggested there were major problems with all the studies that implicated sugar, and concluded that cutting fat out of American diets was the best way to address coronary heart disease.  The authors of th...

Aerobic exercise training increases brain volume in aging humans. - PubMed - NCBI : Significant increases in brain volume, in both gray and white matter regions, were found as a function of fitness training for the older adults who participated in the aerobic fitness training but not for the older adults who participated in the stretching and toning (nonaerobic) control group. As predicted, no significant changes in either gray or white matter volume were detected for our younger participants. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that cardiovascular fitness is associated with the sparing of brain tissue in aging humans. Furthermore, these results suggest a strong biological basis for the role of aerobic fitness in maintaining and enhancing central nervous system health and cognitive functioning in older adults.

Benefits of regular aerobic exercise for executive functioning in healthy populations. - PubMed - NCBI : Research suggests that regular aerobic exercise has the potential to improve executive functioning, even in healthy populations. The purpose of this review is to elucidate which components of executive functioning benefit from such exercise in healthy populations. In light of the developmental time course of executive functions, we consider separately children, young adults, and older adults. Data to date from studies of aging provide strong evidence of exercise-linked benefits related to task switching, selective attention, inhibition of prepotent responses, and working memory capacity; furthermore, cross-sectional fitness data suggest that working memory updating could potentially benefit as well. In young adults, working memory updating is the main executive function shown to benefit from regular exercise, but cross-sectional data further suggest that task-switching and post erro...

Impact of aerobic exercise training on cognitive functions and affect associated to the COMT polymorphism in young adults : Physical fitness can serve as a means to enhance cognitive functioning by modulating particular aspects of brain functioning. However, mechanisms underlying this modulating effect remain widely unresolved. To examine the impact and to clarify the mechanisms of physical fitness training in a young and healthy population, it was investigated whether an increase in fitness would result in improvements in executive control processes and positive and negative affect. Moreover, genotype of the Val158Met polymorphism in catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) as an index of relative central dopamine bioavailability was determined to elucidate dopamine tuning efficiency and its association with performance in the applied cognitive tasks. Seventy-five individuals participated and underwent an incremental fitness test to assess physical fitness. An exercising group subsequently...

The sugar conspiracy | Ian Leslie | Society | The Guardian : Although Keys had shown a correlation between heart disease and saturated fat, he had not excluded the possibility that heart disease was being caused by something else. Years later, the Seven Countries study’s lead Italian researcher, Alessandro Menotti, went back to the data, and found that the food that correlated most closely with deaths from heart disease was not saturated fat, but sugar.

The Science of Smart: A Surprising Way To Improve Executive Function - Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers — Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers | PBS :  There is one surprising but well-supported way to improve executive function in both children and adults, however: aerobic exercise. A just-published review of the relevant research, appearing in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, concludes that “ample evidence indicates that regular engagement in aerobic exercise can provide a simple means for healthy people to optimize a range of executive functions.”

NY Times. How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat The sugar industry paid scientists in the 1960s to play down the link between sugar and heart disease and promote saturated fat as the culprit instead, newly released historical documents show. The internal sugar industry documents, recently discovered by a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, and published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, suggest that five decades of research into the role of nutrit ion and heart disease, including many of today’s dietary recommendations, may have been largely shaped by the sugar industry. “They were able to derail the discussion about sugar for decades,” said Stanton Glantz, a professor of medicine at U.C.S.F. and an author of the JAMA paper. The documents show that a trade group called the Sugar Research Foundation, known today as the Sugar Association, paid three Harvard scientists the equivalent of about $50,000 in today’s dollars to publish a 1967 review of rese...

 Reversing impaired kidney function in diabetics may be possible with the ketogenic diet. The researchers at Mount Sinai Medical School found that the ketogenic diet, a style of eating based on high-fat and low-carbohydrate intake, may be beneficial in reversing kidney function. The researchers studied mice that were genetically predisposed to have type 1 or type 2 diabetes. The mice went on to develop diabetic kidney damage. Half of the mice were put on the ketogenic diet and the other half served as controls. After eight weeks, molecular indicators of kidney damage were reversed in the mice on the ketogenic diet, along with kidney pathology in mice with type 2 diabetes. http://www.belmarrahealth.com/reversing-impaired-kidney-function-diabetics-may-possible-ketogenic-diet/

 Reversing impaired kidney function in diabetics may be possible with the ketogenic diet. The researchers at Mount Sinai Medical School found that the ketogenic diet, a style of eating based on high-fat and low-carbohydrate intake, may be beneficial in reversing kidney function. The researchers studied mice that were genetically predisposed to have type 1 or type 2 diabetes. The mice went on to develop diabetic kidney damage. Half of the mice were put on the ketogenic diet and the other half served as controls. After eight weeks, molecular indicators of kidney damage were reversed in the mice on the ketogenic diet, along with kidney pathology in mice with type 2 diabetes. http://www.belmarrahealth.com/reversing-impaired-kidney-function-diabetics-may-possible-ketogenic-diet/

 Reversing impaired kidney function in diabetics may be possible with the ketogenic diet. The researchers at Mount Sinai Medical School found that the ketogenic diet, a style of eating based on high-fat and low-carbohydrate intake, may be beneficial in reversing kidney function. The researchers studied mice that were genetically predisposed to have type 1 or type 2 diabetes. The mice went on to develop diabetic kidney damage. Half of the mice were put on the ketogenic diet and the other half served as controls. After eight weeks, molecular indicators of kidney damage were reversed in the mice on the ketogenic diet, along with kidney pathology in mice with type 2 diabetes. http://www.belmarrahealth.com/reversing-impaired-kidney-function-diabetics-may-possible-ketogenic-diet/

PLOS ONE: The Ketogenic Diet and Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Prolong Survival in Mice with Systemic Metastatic Cancer : Ketogenic Diet alone significantly decreased blood glucose, slowed tumor growth, and increased mean survival time by 56.7% in mice with systemic metastatic cancer.

PLOS ONE: The Ketogenic Diet and Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy Prolong Survival in Mice with Systemic Metastatic Cancer : Ketogenic Diet alone significantly decreased blood glucose, slowed tumor growth, and increased mean survival time by 56.7% in mice with systemic metastatic cancer.

High Carbohydrate Intake Worse than High Fat for Blood Lipids : Recent data presented at the World Heart Federation’s World Congress of Cardiology & Cardiovascular Health 2016 (WCC 2016) in Mexico City last month may radically change our perspective on how carbohydrates and different types of fats affect blood cholesterol and other lipid biomarkers. The presentation was based on data from the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiological (PURE) study. The data have not been published yet, and the results are only available in an abstract [...] In the above study, the only benefit of a high carbohydrate diet was a lowering of TC and LDL-C. However, the effect on other lipid biomarkers such as HDL-C, TG, and ApoB/ApoA ratio may be harmful. A diet rich in SFAs raised TC and LDL-C but lowered TG while a diet rich in MUFAs improved all lipid biomarkers. A diet high in PUFAs had a mixed effect on lipid biomarkers. The study suggests that placing carbohydrates at the bottom of the foo...

Strong statin-diabetes link seen in large study -- ScienceDaily : Veterans Affairs Research Communications Summary: In a study of nearly 26,000 beneficiaries of Tricare, the military health system, those taking statin drugs to control their cholesterol were 87 percent more likely to develop diabetes. The research confirms past findings on the link between the widely prescribed drugs and diabetes risk. But it is among the first to show the connection in a relatively healthy group of people. The study included only people who at baseline were free of heart disease, diabetes, and other severe chronic disease.

Contradictions and Cognitive Dissonance: The (Kevin) Hall Effect - The Blog of Michael R. Eades, M.D. : Have you seen the guy on the smart phone video popping up all over the internet saying he has disproven the carbohydrate-insulin hypothesis of obesity? His name is Kevin Hall and he must be experiencing some real cognitive dissonance. Or I certainly am, given the sharp contrast between what his study results actually show and what he’s saying they show on the video. As we all know, cognitive dissonance occurs when we try to hold two opposing views in our mind at the same time, when we experience a disconnect between what we believe and what reality serves us up. And Hall certainly appears to have a disconnect.

The sugar conspiracy | Ian Leslie | Society | The Guardian : The sugar conspiracy In 1972, a British scientist sounded the alarm that sugar – and not fat – was the greatest danger to our health. But his findings were ridiculed and his reputation ruined. How did the world’s top nutrition scientists get it so wrong for so long?

Romans ate bread, had terrible health and weak bones. Why the average ancient Roman worker was dead by 30 - The Local : Indeed, historical evidence and tooth enamel analysis suggest that the lower echelons of Roman society subsisted on an extremely limited diet of poor quality, often rotting grains and stale bread. 

Stopping or reducing dietary fiber intake reduces constipation and its associated symptoms: CONCLUSION: Idiopathic constipation and its associated symptoms can be effectively reduced by stopping or even lowering the intake of dietary fiber. Background It is a widely accepted view that dietary fiber is essential for gut health and to promote bowel movements. However, most patients with chronic constipation seen by the authors were already taking high fiber diet with no improvement in their symptoms. Research frontiers The role of dietary fiber in patients with chronic constip is reevaluated. Innovations and breakthroughs The authors showed that reducing dietary fiber intake may actually improve symptoms of chronic constipation. Applications This could bring relief to millions of people suffering from chronic constipation in that reducing their dietary fiber intake may relieve their symptoms and suffering.

Eat more FAT to stay HEALTHY: Food experts at war over new advice on nation’s diet Leading doctors and scientists said popular 'low fat' and 'proven to lower cholesterol' messages have had a disastrous impact on public health.  The National  Obesity  Forum said it was time to 'bring back the fat' with 'real  food' , like steak, eggs, butter and full-fat milk. They were essential for maintaining health and preventing diseases which cost the  NHS  tens of billions of pounds to treat. 

Strong statin-diabetes link seen in large study -- ScienceDaily : In a database study of nearly 26,000 beneficiaries of Tricare, the military health system, those taking statin drugs to control their cholesterol were 87 percent more likely to develop diabetes. The study, reported online April 28, 2015, in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, confirms past findings on the link between the widely prescribed drugs and diabetes risk. But it is among the first to show the connection in a relatively healthy group of people. The study included only people who at baseline were free of heart disease, diabetes, and other severe chronic disease. "In our study, statin use was associated with a significantly higher risk of new-onset diabetes, even in a very healthy population," says lead author Dr. Ishak Mansi. "The risk of diabetes with statins has been known, but up until now it was thought that this might be due to the fact that people who were prescribed statins had gr...

Heart attacks could be caused by too LITTLE salt new study shows | Daily Mail Online : Their findings showed that regardless of whether people have high blood pressure, low-salt intake is linked to a greater incidence of heart attacks, stroke, and deaths compared to average intake.

Gluten-free diet could damage health of people without coeliac disease, expert claims. http://tiny.iavian.net/a9vp But writing in the Journal of Pediatrics, Dr Norelle Reilly, of Columbia University Medical Centre,  in New York, warned that gluten-free alternatives were often loaded with fat and sugar and lacked nutrients. “There is no evidence that processed gluten free foods are healthier nor have there been proven health or nutritional benefits of a gluten free diet. There are no data to support the theory of intrinsically toxic properties of gluten in otherwise healthy adults and children. “Gluten free packaged foods frequently contain a greater density of fat and sugar than their gluten-containing counterparts. “Obesity, overweight and new-onset insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome have been identified after initiation of a gluten-free diet. “It also may lead to deficiencies in B vitamins, folate, and iron, given a lack of nutri...

Eating junk food is like having diabetes. http://tiny.iavian.net/a80o

Children with ADHD may benefit from following healthy behaviors, new study suggests | EurekAlert! Science News : Recommendations include getting no more than 1 to 2 hours of total screen time daily; getting at least 1 hour of physical activity daily; limiting consumption of sugar sweetened beverages; getting 9 to 11 hours of sleep per night; and consuming 7 to 10 cups of water daily, depending on age. Holton and Nigg created a lifestyle index to summarize the total number of healthy lifestyle behaviors adhered to by 184 children with ADHD as compared to a control group of 104 non-ADHD youth. So kids with ADD don't have healthy behaviors, but I don't know if that necessarily means that the healthy behaviors improve ADD symptoms. 

Schizophrenia Not One Disease, New Genetic Evidence Shows : Fifteen of the 48 patients (31.25%) carried rare or novel variants in one or more of the four genes, and these subgroups of patients had significantly different symptoms. One gene is PTPRG (receptor-type tyrosine-protein phosphatase gamma), which encodes a protein that allows nerve cells to connect as they form nerve networks. Patients with rare variants in this gene experienced earlier onset of relatively severe psychosis and had a history of learning disabilities. Despite high intelligence in some, they showed cognitive deficits in working memory, the researchers say. Another influential gene is SLC39A13 (zinc transporter family 39 member 13). Patients with mutations in this gene also experienced early onset of schizophrenia, but they showed globally disrupted cognition and the most severe psychopathology, including negative symptoms and severe suicide attempts. They had the lowest intelligence and the least educational ...

New research reveals sun benefits that AREN'T linked to vitamin D | Daily Mail Online : Even taking skin-cancer risk into account, scientists say the sun is healthy Research indicates it protects us against a wide range of lethal conditions. Specifically, sun exposure prompts our bodies to produce nitric oxide that helps defend our cardiovascular system

The sugar conspiracy | Ian Leslie | Society | The Guardian : In 1972, a British scientist sounded the alarm that sugar – and not fat – was the greatest danger to our health. But his findings were ridiculed and his reputation ruined. How did the world’s top nutrition scientists get it so wrong for so long?

White bread, bagels and corn flakes 'increase the risk of lung cancer by 49%' | Daily Mail Online : Are CARBS the new cigarettes? White bread, bagels and rice 'increase the risk of lung cancer by 49%', experts warn Foods with high glycemic index are linked to lung cancer, scientists found Such foods include white bread, bagels, corn flakes and puffed rice Study found a 49% higher risk of lung cancer in people with high GI diets  Scientists recommends people cut high GI foods out of their diet

Catalyst: Ancient Teeth - ABC TV Science : Scientists at the University of Adelaide have found this by analysing hundreds of skeletons dating back thousands of years. Our teeth went bad when farming began, 10,000 years ago.

ScienceDaily: Watch What You Put In That Sippy Cup, Experts Warn Science Daily — Juice boxes look harmless enough, with those kid-size, bendable straws and promises of 100 percent vitamin C. As healthy as juice seems, parents need to be wary of doling out too much to children, especially during the summer when kids need plenty of fluids to stay safe, a University of Florida expert says. Unlike water and low-fat milk, fruit juices and sodas are laden with fructose, a type of naturally occurring sugar that could trigger obesity in humans. As healthy as juice seems, parents need to be wary of doling out too much to children, especially during the summer when kids need plenty of fluids to stay safe, a University of Florida expert says. Unlike water and low-fat milk, fruit juices and sodas are laden with fructose, a type of naturally occurring sugar that could trigger obesity in humans, said Richard Johnson, MD., the J. Robert Cade professor of nephrology in the UF College of Medicine. “Stu...

The scourge of loneliness has been with us since time immemorial, but only in recent years has its toll on human health gained appreciation. New research shows that feeling lonely or socially isolated bumps up a person's average risk for coronary heart disease and stroke -- two of the developed world's most prolific killers -- by 50%. As a risk factor for heart attack, clogged arteries or stroke, those statistics put loneliness on a par with light smoking, anxiety and occupational stress. And they make social isolation a more powerful predictor of such vascular diseases than are either high blood pressure or obesity. Moreover, the study found, the toxic effects of loneliness strike men and women equally, researchers found. Added to research linking loneliness to higher rates of cognitive decline and poor immune system function, loneliness begins to look like a blight not just on society but on our collective well-being. http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-lo...

http://tiny.iavian.net/9x1l Living closer to nature is better for your health, new research suggests — and may even extend your life. A  study  just published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives found that people who live in “greener” areas, with more vegetation around, have a lower risk of mortality. The health benefits are likely thanks to factors such as improved mental health, social engagement and physical activity that come with living near green spaces.

"Reminder: Facebook can take down your 4.4 million-like page anytime it wants without explanation," Nieman Lab's Joshua Benton  tweeted  on Monday. Benton's colleague, Laura Hazard Owen, suggested that "the takedown of such a large and popular page could add fuel to concerns that publishers are giving Facebook too much power." . http://tiny.iavian.net/9x5m

Lizzy Kelly, a history student at Sheffield added: “Students might be more inclined to read what academics want them to if our curricula weren’t overwhelmingly white, male and indicative of a society and structures we fundamentally disagree with because they don't work for us.” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/university-students-are-struggling-to-read-entire-books-a6986361.html

Scientists have discovered drugs used to treat nicotine addiction could be used to treat sugar addiction. In the study carried out by Australia's Queensland University (QUT), it compared the effects of sugar to those of cocaine and likened the symptoms of coming off it to going 'cold turkey'. “Like other drugs of abuse, withdrawal from chronic sucrose exposure can result in an imbalance in dopamine levels and be as difficult as going ‘cold turkey’ from them.” Masroor Shariff Neuroscientist Professor Selena http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/13/sugar-addiction-like-drug-abuse-study-reveals/