February 2, 2012 at 11:23 am by Jonathan Kantrowitz
Sugar should be controlled like alcohol and tobacco to protect public health, according to a team of UCSF researchers, who maintain in a new report that sugar is fueling a global obesity pandemic, contributing to 35 million deaths annually worldwide from non-communicable diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
Non-communicable diseases now pose a greater health burden worldwide than infectious diseases, according to the United Nations. In the United States, 75 percent of health care dollars are spent treating these diseases and their associated disabilities.
In the Feb. 2 issue of Nature, Robert Lustig MD, Laura Schmidt PhD, MSW, MPH, and Claire Brindis, DPH, colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), argue that sugar’s potential for abuse, coupled with its toxicity and pervasiveness in the Western diet make it a primary culprit of this worldwide health crisis.
This partnership of scientists trained in endocrinology, sociology and public health took a new look at the accumulating scientific evidence on sugar. Such interdisciplinary liaisons underscore the power of academic health sciences institutions like UCSF.
Sugar, they argue, is far from just “empty calories” that make people fat. At the levels consumed by most Americans, sugar changes metabolism, raises blood pressure, critically alters the signaling of hormones and causes significant damage to the liver – the least understood of sugar’s damages. These health hazards largely mirror the effects of drinking too much alcohol, which they point out in their commentary is the distillation of sugar.
Worldwide consumption of sugar has tripled during the past 50 years and is viewed as a key cause of the obesity epidemic. But obesity, Lustig, Schmidt and Brindis argue, may just be a marker for the damage caused by the toxic effects of too much sugar. This would help explain why 40 percent of people with metabolic syndrome—the key metabolic changes that lead to diabetes, heart disease and cancer—are not clinically obese.
“As long as the public thinks that sugar is just ‘empty calories,’ we have no chance in solving this,” said Lustig, a professor of pediatrics, in the division of endocrinology at the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital and director of the Weight Assessment for Teen and Child Health (WATCH) Program at UCSF.
“There are good calories and bad calories, just as there are good fats and bad fats, good amino acids and bad amino acids, good carbohydrates and bad carbohydrates,” Lustig said. “But sugar is toxic beyond its calories.
Limiting the consumption of sugar has challenges beyond educating people about its potential toxicity. “We recognize that there are cultural and celebratory aspects of sugar,” said Brindis, director of UCSF’s Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies. “Changing these patterns is very complicated”
According to Brindis, effective interventions can’t rely solely on individual change, but instead on environmental and community-wide solutions, similar to what has occurred with alcohol and tobacco, that increase the likelihood of success.
The authors argue for society to shift away from high sugar consumption, the public must be better informed about the emerging science on sugar.
“There is an enormous gap between what we know from science and what we practice in reality,” said Schmidt, professor of health policy at UCSF’s Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies (IHPS) and co-chair of UCSF’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute’s (CTSI) Community Engagement and Health Policy Program, which focuses on alcohol and addiction research.
“In order to move the health needle, this issue needs to be recognized as a fundamental concern at the global level,” she said.
The paper was made possible with funding from UCSF’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute, UCSF’s National Institutes of Health-funded program that helps accelerate clinical and translational research through interdisciplinary, interprofessional and transdisciplinary work.
Many of the interventions that have reduced alcohol and tobacco consumption can be models for addressing the sugar problem, such as levying special sales taxes, controlling access, and tightening licensing requirements on vending machines and snack bars that sell high sugar products in schools and workplaces.
“We’re not talking prohibition,” Schmidt said. “We’re not advocating a major imposition of the government into people’s lives. We’re talking about gentle ways to make sugar consumption slightly less convenient, thereby moving people away from the concentrated dose. What we want is to actually increase people’s choices by making foods that aren’t loaded with sugar comparatively easier and cheaper to get.”
February 1, 2012 at 4:18 pm by Jonathan Kantrowitz
The Secretary of the State of Connecticut, Denise Merrill, and State Comptroller of Connecticut, Kevin Lembo, today announced their endorsement of Chris Donovan for the Fifth Congressional District seat.
“We need a proven leader like Chris Donovan to go to Washington and break the gridlock,” said Merrill. “Chris has a history of standing up for the issues that matter most to the hard-working families of Connecticut – issues like raising the minimum wage, paid sick leave, protecting our seniors, and expanding access to quality education and affordable health care. Chris has proven time and time again that he takes on the important fights – and wins.”
“We can trust Chris Donovan to go to Congress and fight for Connecticut’s middle class and working families,” said Lembo. “In Congress, I know Chris will fight to grow good jobs with strong benefits, to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and to ensure that every child has access to a world-class education, and every senior can afford to retire with dignity and respect.”
“Denise and Kevin are devoted public servants who work hard for the people of Connecticut, and I am honored to have their support and endorsement,” said Donovan. “I will work closely with Secretary of the State Merrill and Comptroller Lembo and other state leaders to fight for the families of the towns and cities of the Fifth Congressional District, for well-paying jobs with solid benefits, and against Republican attacks on Medicare and Social Security.”
January 31, 2012 at 4:54 pm by Jonathan Kantrowitz
More Than $200,000 Raised From More Than 1,800 Donors in Fourth Quarter; Average Contribution of Just $66
Total Raised From More Than 4,500 Individual Contributors in Just Over 2 Quarters in 2011
Democratic candidate for the 5th congressional district seat Chris Donovan announced today that he raised more than $200,000 in the fourth quarter of 2011. In roughly seven months of fundraising, Donovan has raised more than $700,000 from more than 4,500 individual donors.
In the fourth quarter, Donovan again displayed the grassroots enthusiasm of his campaign by collecting donations from more than 1,800 individual donors. With an average individual donation of just $66, Donovan’s campaign is powered by small-dollar grassroots donors. More than 80% of the money raised this quarter was raised in Connecticut.
“People across Connecticut continue to join this grassroots campaign for the future of the middle-class,” said Donovan campaign manager Josh Nassi. “Working people know that Chris Donovan is the one fighting to give them a fair shake, standing with them in an effort to bring new jobs and economic fairness to Connecticut. Their broad support demonstrates that Chris is the best candidate to ensure the 5th district seat remains Democratic in November.”
January 29, 2012 at 2:22 pm by Jonathan Kantrowitz
A View from the Classroom: Proven Ideas for Student Achievement is a comprehensive education reform plan developed by teachers that includes changing the teacher evaluation process and replacing tenure with a streamlined dismissal process for underperforming teachers.
Without question, there’s no greater asset to improving public schools than high-quality teachers. Teachers are in the classroom every day; they know what is needed to prepare students for the economic challenges ahead. Prepared by teachers, A View from the Classroom: Proven Ideas for Student Achievement proposes specific ideas that can make a real difference to improve education for Connecticut students.
The plan focuses on shared accountability including teachers and the larger community to close the achievement gap by
* Preparing Students to Achieve
* Reforming Teacher Accountability through Development and Evaluation
* Creating a Positive Learning Environment
* Encouraging Parental and Community Participation
* Ensuring the Fair Distribution of Resources
Connecticut cannot build a strong local economy unless it provides high-quality education, and the state cannot have high-quality schools without adequate funding, small class sizes, and the involvement of parents and communities to transform local schools that need help. Teachers will do their part, as this plan proposes creating an evaluation system for educators that uses multiple indicators of quality teaching and developing a streamlined dismissal process to remove underperforming teachers.
Teachers lead classrooms, and their voice is necessary to ensure meaningful education reform. Please read this document carefully as educators look forward to engaging in a positive, collaborative dialogue with lawmakers, parents, and everyone who’s interested in improving the quality of our public schools and preparing our students for tomorrow’s challenges.
Limiting certain essential nutrients for several days before surgery—either protein or amino acids—may reduce the risk of serious surgical complications such as heart attack or stroke, according to a new Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) study.
The results are significant because they pinpoint protein as an important substance to eliminate from the diet before surgery to avoid complications. Stroke risk related to cardiovascular surgery ranges from 0.8% to 9.7%, depending on the procedure. Heart attack risk is 3% to 4%.
In numerous animal studies over the past few decades, scientists have found that long-term dietary restriction can improve health and lengthen life. Benefits include increased stress resistance, reduced inflammation, improved blood sugar regulation, and better cardiovascular health—and many of these benefits extend to humans.
I really, really don’t know what to do about Vitamin D
Osteoporosis is a common condition in postmenopausal women leading to bone fractures. However, there is now evidence that vitamin D deficiency is also associated with other medical conditions important in older women. These include cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, infections and neurodegenerative disease. Regular sunlight exposure (without sunscreens) for 15 minutes, 3-4 times a week, in the middle of the day in summer can generate healthy levels. Supplements of vitamin D are recommended for those women who cannot obtain the required quantity through sun exposure and diet. The recommended daily allowance is 600 IU/day increasing to 800IU/day for those aged 71 years and older.
New research by Johns Hopkins scientists suggests that vitamin D, long known to be important for bone health and in recent years also for heart protection, may stop conferring cardiovascular benefits and could actually cause harm as levels in the blood rise above the low end of what is considered normal.
Study leader Muhammad Amer, M.D., an assistant professor in the division of general internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, says his findings show that increasing levels of vitamin D in the blood are linked with lower levels of a popular marker for cardiovascular inflammation — c-reactive protein (also known as CRP).
Amer and his colleague Rehan Qayyum, M.D., M.H.S., examined data from more than 15,000 adult participants in the continuous National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a nationally representative sample, from 2001 and 2006. They found an inverse relationship between vitamin D and CRP in adults without cardiovascular symptoms but with relatively low vitamin D levels. Healthier, lower levels of inflammation were found in people with normal or close to normal vitamin D levels. But beyond blood levels of 21 nanograms per milliliter of 25-Hydroxyvitamin D — considered the low end of the normal range for vitamin D — any additional increase in vitamin D was associated with an increase in CRP, a factor linked to stiffening of the blood vessels and an increased risk of cardiovascular problems.
“The inflammation that was curtailed by vitamin D does not appear to be curtailed at higher levels of vitamin D,” says Amer, whose newest finding appears in the Jan. 15 issue of the American Journal of Cardiology. “Clearly vitamin D is important for your heart health, especially if you have low blood levels of vitamin D. It reduces cardiovascular inflammation and atherosclerosis, and may reduce mortality, but it appears that at some point it can be too much of a good thing.”
Amer says consumers should exercise caution before taking supplements and physicians should know the potential risks. Each 100 international unit of vitamin D ingested daily produces about a one nanogram per milliliter increase 25-Hydroxyvitamin D levels in the blood. “People taking vitamin D supplements need to be sure the supplements are necessary,” Amer says. “Those pills could have unforeseen consequences to health even if they are not technically toxic.”
Amer and Qayyum, also an assistant professor in the division of general internal medicine at Hopkins, say the biological and molecular mechanisms that account for the loss of cardiovascular benefits are unclear.
Vitamin D is often called the “sunshine vitamin” because its primary source is the sun. It is found in very few foods, though commercially sold milk is usually fortified with it. As people spend more and more time indoors and slather their bodies with sunscreen, concern is rising that many are vitamin D-deficient, Amer notes.
As a result, Amer says, many doctors prescribe vitamin D supplements, and many consumers, after reading news stories about the vitamin’s benefits, dose themselves. Older women often take large doses to fight and prevent osteoporosis.
Well this is good news: (McDonalds fish sandwich is fried in a combination of sunflower and canola oil. Read more:) Wendy’s fired items, on the other hand are cooked in soy, corn, cottonseed, and hydrogenated soy oil. Read more
In a Mediterranean country where olive and sunflower oils are the most commonly used fats for frying, and where large amounts of fried foods are consumed both at and away from home, no association was observed between fried food consumption and the risk of coronary heart disease or death.
I’ve been good about eating a bit of dark chocolate every day (2 squares):
The growing interest amongst the scientific community to identify those foods capable of preventing diseases has now categorized cocoa as a ‘superfood’. It has been recognised as an excellent source of phytochemical compounds, which offer potential health benefits.
Headed by scientists from the Institute of Food Science and Technology and Nutrition (ICTAN) and recently published in the Molecular Nutrition & Food Research journal, the new study supports this idea and upholds that cacao consumption helps to prevent intestinal complaints linked to oxidative stress, such as the onset of chemically induced colon carcinogenesis.
Although more research is required to determine what bioactive compounds in cocoa are responsible for such effects, the authors conclude that a cocoa-rich diet seems capable of reducing induced oxidative stress. It could also have protection properties in the initial stages of colon cancer as it reduces premalignant neoplastic lesion formation.
Luteolin is a flavonoid commonly found in fruit and vegetables. Dietary sources include celery, green pepper, thyme, perilla, chamomile tea, carrots, olive oil, peppermint, rosemary, navel oranges, and oregano. This compound has been shown in laboratory conditions to have anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant and anti-cancer properties but results from epidemiological studies have been less certain. New research published in BioMed Central’s open access journal BMC Gastroenterology shows that luteolin is able to inhibit the activity of cell signaling pathways (IGF and PI3K) important for the growth of cancer in colon cancer cells. Colon cancer is the second most frequent cause of cancer-related death in the Western World.
I do get a lot of fiber in my diet – that’s good, right?
We should all be eating more dietary fiber to improve our health — that’s the message from a health review by scientists in India. The team has looked at research conducted into dietary fiber during the last few decades across the globe and now suggests that to avoid initial problems, such as intestinal gas and loose stool, it is best to increase intake gradually and to spread high-fiber foods out throughout the day, at meals and snacks. Writing in the International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health, the team offers fruit, vegetables, whole-grain foods, such as muesli and porridge, beans and pulses, as readily available foods rich in dietary fiber.
Dietary fiber, also known as roughage, is the general term of the non-digestible parts of the fruit and vegetable products we eat. There are two forms soluble and insoluble. Soluble (prebiotic, viscous) fiber that is readily broken down or fermented in the colon into physiologically active byproducts and gases. The second form is insoluble fiber, which is metabolically inert, but absorbs water as it passes through the digestive system, providing bulk for the intestinal muscles to work against and easing defecation.
Given that dietary fiber has physiological actions such as reducing cholesterol and attenuating blood glucose, maintaining gastrointestinal health, and positively affecting calcium bioavailability and immune function, it is important for the current generation and future generations that this component of our diets be reasserted through education and information.
“Consuming adequate quantities of DF can lead to improvements in gastrointestinal health, and reduction in susceptibility to diseases such as diverticular disease, heart disease, colon cancer, and diabetes. Increased consumption has also been associated with increased satiety and weight loss,” the team concludes. Given the ready availability particularly in the West and in the relatively richer parts of the developing world of vegetables, fruit and other foods high in dietary fiber it is a matter of recommending that people eat more dietary fiber rather than consistently taking the unhealthy low-fiber option throughout their lives.
For more than 40 years, scientists and physicians have thought eating a high-fiber diet lowered a person’s risk of diverticulosis, a disease of the large intestine in which pouches develop in the colon wall. A new study of more than 2,000 people reveals the opposite may be true.
“We were surprised to find that a low-fiber diet was not associated with a higher prevalence of asymptomatic diverticulosis,” said Peery. In fact, the study found those with the lowest fiber intake were 30 percent less likely to develop diverticula than those with the highest fiber intake.
Diverticulosis affects about one-third of adults over age 60 in the United States. Although most cases are asymptomatic, when complications develop they can be severe, resulting in infections, bleeding, intestinal perforations and even death. Health care associated with such complications costs an estimated $2.5 billion per year.
Since the late 1960s, doctors have recommended a high-fiber diet to regulate bowel movements and reduce the risk of diverticulosis. This recommendation is based on the idea that a low fiber diet will cause constipation and in turn generate diverticula as a result of increased pressure in the colon. However, few studies have been conducted to back up that assumption. “Our findings dispute commonly-held beliefs because asymptomatic diverticulosis has never been rigorously studied,” said Peery.
The study also found constipation was not a risk factor and that having more frequent bowel movements actually increased a person’s risk. Compared to those with fewer than seven bowel movements per week, individuals with more than 15 bowel movements per week were 70 percent more likely to develop diverticulosis.
The study found no association between diverticulosis and physical inactivity, intake of fat, or intake of red meat. The disease’s causes remain unknown, but the researchers believe gut flora may play a role.
I don’t think I’m ready for virtual reality exercise yet, but if I did it I’d be more likely to be open to it:
A program designed to boost cognition in older adults also increased their openness to new experiences, researchers report, demonstrating for the first time that a non-drug intervention in older adults can change a personality trait once thought to be fixed throughout the lifespan.
Dozens of studies, many from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers, have shown that low-fat diets are no better for health than moderate- or high-fat diets—and for many people, may be worse. A regular blueberry muffin from a national coffee shop chain has 450 calories on average and most of those calories come from carbohydrates, primarily white flour and sugar. However, now that national chains have eliminated trans fats, a regular muffin does have heart-healthy fat, usually from soybean or canola oil. A low-fat muffin has about the same amount of calories, but contains more carbohydrates and sugar—and about 60% more sodium (700 milligrams)—than a regular muffin.
The ad, called “Greed,” says that “while Romney was a director at the Damon Corporation, the company was defrauding Medicare of millions,” and that “the company was fined $100 million, but Romney, himself, made a fortune.”
Some viewers could be misled by this ad. Fraud did occur while Romney was a member of the board of the Damon Corp., which pleaded guilty in 1996 to defrauding Medicare of $25 million between 1988 and 1993. But Romney was never accused of fraud personally.
Nevertheless, the company paid a then-record $119 million fine for billing the federal health insurance program for unnecessary blood tests, according to a 2002 Boston Globe report. Romney, who was on Damon’s board from 1990 to 1993, personally collected $473,000 when Bain Capital, which Romney once headed, sold the Damon Corp. to Corning Inc. in 1993.
The ad closes by morphing an image of Romney into one of Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott, and asks: “Corporate greed. Medicare fraud. Sound familiar?” And indeed, that scenario does sound familiar.
As we previously reported, Scott’s former hospital company, Columbia/HCA, paid $1.7 billion in fines for Medicare fraud for practices that took place while he was its chief executive officer. And when Scott left the company in 1997, he received $300 million in stocks and options.
