A newly released study gives encouraging evidence that the diet of potential fathers is a critical factor in the production of healthy sperm, leading to a reduction in birth defects and miscarriages. It seems a no-brainer for those of us who are informed about natural health and wellness, but it is always good to see such common sense nutritional information put forth in the mainstream media. We need all the help we can get in order to spread the word and combat the forces of Big Pharma, and many of those in conventional medicine, who worship drugs and other invasive therapies to the exclusion of nutrition.
I was also glad to see the author of this article mention the clinically proven negative effects of eating meat laced with hormones, preservatives, and other toxins. What we put in our bodies has an enormous effect on our own health and that of succeeding generations as well. Eating a diet rich in whole, organic foods is the best way to get plenty of folate and other needed nutrients. If supplementation is necessary, be sure to choose a high-quality, natural vitamin and mineral product that is produced in a form that is bio-available available to the body.
Low Folate Levels May Harm Sperm
By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
Wednesday, March 19, 2008; 12:00 AM
WEDNESDAY, March 19 (HealthDay News) -- The benefits of folate for women in preventing birth defects are well known, but new research suggests the nutrient also boosts sperm health.
Men with relatively low levels of folate had increased risks for sperm containing either too few or too many chromosomes, according to researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. These types of deficiencies can cause birth defects and miscarriages, the experts noted.
Folate is one of the B vitamins and is found in leafy green vegetables, fruit and beans, chickpeas and lentils. By law, breads and grains sold in the United States are also now specially fortified with added folate to help ward off birth defects.
"We looked at sperm to find different kinds of genetic abnormalities," said lead researcher Brenda Eskenazi, a professor of maternal and child health and epidemiology and director of the Center for Children's Environmental Health at Berkeley's School of Public Health. "The abnormalities we looked at here were having too few or too many chromosomes," she said.
Normally, human sperm have 23 pairs of chromosomes. "In sperm you normally have one of each, but sometimes there are two and sometimes there are none of a particular chromosome," Eskenazi said.
If a normal egg was fertilized with one of these abnormal sperm, it could result in a birth defect, such as Down's syndrome, Eskenazi said. "This can also result in an increase in miscarriage," she said.
The researchers looked at three specific chromosomes: X, Y and 21. "We saw an association between [male] folate intake and how many abnormal sperm there were, in terms of the chromosome number for these three different chromosomes," Eskenazi said.
The study findings are published in the March 20 issue of the journalHuman Reproduction.
In the study, Eskenazi's group analyzed sperm from 89 healthy men. In addition, the researchers asked the men about their daily consumption of zinc, folate, vitamin C, vitamin E and beta-carotene.
The researchers found that men who had the highest intake of folate had the lowest incidence of sperm abnormalities. In fact, men who had the highest intake of folate -- 722 to 1,150 micrograms a day -- had a 20 percent to 30 percent lower frequency of several types of sperm abnormalities, compared with men who consumed less folate.
Up till now, birth-defect researchers have typically focused on women's diet in the period around conception, Eskenazi said. "Based on these data, maybe men, too, need to consider their diet when they are considering fathering a child," she said.
Although this study doesn't conclusively prove a link between folate and chromosomal abnormality, Eskenazi advises men who are thinking of becoming fathers to increase their folate intake, perhaps with a supplement or a multivitamin containing folate.
This isn't the first study to find a link between diet and sperm health. A report published last year in Human Reproduction found that women who ate beef seven or more times per week tended to produce sons with lowered sperm counts, perhaps due to the effects of hormones or pesticides on developing testes.
One expert agrees that healthy eating is linked to having healthy babies -- even for men.
"This is another common-sense article that says good nutrition is associated with a better reproductive outcome," said Dr. Jamie Grifo, director of reproductive endocrinology at New York University Medical Center.
Grifo noted that rates of abnormal sperm seen in the Berkeley study were four to six per 1,000, which means that men with poor nutrition still had more than 99 percent normal sperm.
"Even though this may be the case, don't smoke, drink modestly, eat healthy unprocessed food and take your vitamins," Grifo advised prospective fathers.
SOURCES: Brenda Eskenazi, Ph.D., professor, maternal and child health and epidemiology, director of the Center for Children's Environmental Health, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley; Jamie Grifo, M.D., Ph.D., director of reproductive endocrinology, New York University Medical Center, New York City; March 20, 2008,Human Reproduction
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/19/AR2008031903065_pf.html
Friday, March 21, 2008
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Dangerous Plans to Medicate Pregnant Women
Just when I thought I had seen it all, Big Pharma and the United States Government have stooped to a new low. There is legislation currently before Congress that, if passed, would authorize the use of antidepressants on mothers-to-be in an attempt to control postpartum depression. The insanity of exposing mothers and unborn children to these toxic and very dangerous drugs is almost beyond belief.
In essence, in the twisted eyes of the drug companies and other sponsors of this legislation, pregnancy has now become a mental illness. The only explanation for this kind of pretzel logic is the profits that stand to be made by the massively increased sales of these drugs, along with a mentality that seeks to control and manipulate the people for the sake of the greater worth, at least according to those who subscribe to this philosophy. There is still time to stop this madness before it becomes law, and the article below gives some practical ways that you can make your voice heard. Have we not lost enough of our health freedoms already?
MOTHERS Act Seeks to Drug Expectant Mothers with Antidepressants to "Treat" Postpartum Depression
by Mike Adams
Originally published March 6 2008
(NaturalNews) A new law being considered in the U.S. Congress would attempt to prevent postpartum depression in new moms by drugging them with SSRI antidepressant drugs while they're still pregnant. This legislation is being aggressively pushed by pro-pharma front groups in an effort to expand the customer base for SSRI drugs by targeting pregnant women as new "customers" for the chemicals. It's an example of the latest insanity from Big Pharma, whose drugs are already killing over 100,000 Americans each year while inciting violence and suicides in teens. Every single shooting massacre we've seen in the last ten years has been carried out by a person taking SSRI antidepressant drugs. The mainstream media pays no attention to this link, and the FDA ignores the reports in order to keep these drugs on the market.
SSRI drugs have never been approved for use on newborns, yet this new MOTHERS Act will effectively drug unborn babies and newborns with drugs like Prozac. This will certainly have an impact on their developing brains, and the bulk of the research available today shows that the impact will be negative. Will these children be more prone to violent thoughts and behavior? Will they contemplate suicide at younger ages? And what will be the impact of the drugs on the mother?
For one mother who was drugged with antidepressants -- Amy Philo -- the drugs caused her to experience thoughts of violence against her own newborn babies. After taking antidepressants prescribed by her doctor, she had visions of killing them (and herself). Upon returning to her doctor, Amy was told to increase the dosage! Eventually, Amy realized the drugs were wrecking her own brain chemistry, and she stopped taking the pills entirely, causing the thoughts of violence and suicide to subside.
Now, Amy is leading a campaign to stop the MOTHERS Act. She's posted a heart-wrenching 5-minute video on YouTube that tells her story (with pictures of her babies, too!):http://youtube.com/watch?v=LQW23XCmOCw
A local news station also covered her story, and that report can be viewed here:http://youtube.com/watch?v=W4B8I_8wz6I
An article explaining more about the effort to stop the MOTHERS Act is found here:http://birthfriend.wordpress.com/2008/0
As you'll learn from these videos and articles, the real purpose of the MOTHERS Act is to drug the mothers. Thus, it should really be called the Drug the MOTHERS Act! It's being pushed by drug companies, of course, and backed by psychiatrists and corrupt government officials who have close ties to the pharmaceutical industry. The whole point of this act is not to protect mothers from depression, but to recruit mothers as patients and, by doing so, also expose newborns to psychiatric drugs that will destroy their normal brain function and turn them into lifelong customers requiring ongoing chemical treatment.
We must stop the MOTHERS Act. It is a dangerous law created for marketing purposes, not medical purposes. Treating pregnant women with antidepressant drugs (and thereby exposing their unborn babies to those drugs) is one of the most outrageous pro-pharma ideas to come along in many years. It's not enough to drug the teenagers and children with these dangerous pharmaceuticals, now Big Pharma wants to start drugging children before they're even born!
If this law is passed and implemented, I fear for the future of our babies. Imbalanced by these dangerous pharmaceuticals, mothers are likely to commit acts of extreme violence against their children. Then they will be thrown into the prison system, of course, where they will be drugged with yet more psychiatric drugs (generating yet more profits for Big Pharma). Their children, meanwhile, will be taken away by Child Protective Services and treated with psychiatric drugs under the care of a "psychiatric doctors" who, of course, will poison that child's brain with a never-ending regimen of Big Pharma's chemicals. Do you see the scam here? By "screening" pregnant women for depression, they can create TWO new patients for psychiatric drugs, even though a family is destroyed in the process.
This is precisely the aim of Big Pharma: Sell more drugs, create more markets, and earn more profits regardless of the cost in human suffering. Big Pharma has zero concern for families and zero compassion for human beings. It only seeks to poison the minds of the people through television advertising and psychiatric drugs, all while maximizing its own profits.
What you can do to stop the MOTHERS Act
We must work together to stop this dangerous act that would recruit mothers to be treated with dangerous psychiatric drugs (while exposing their unborn babies to those same drugs).
Sign the petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-t...
Also, see Unite For Life at:http://uniteforlife.org/MOTHERSact.htm#...
By the way, this is not an article about pro-life vs. pro-choice on the issue of unborn babies, and I use the term "unborn babies" in a purely humanitarian sense, because a child that's in the womb and about to be born is clearly an "unborn baby" whose health must be protected. I am opposed to the drugging of mothers during any trimester. Pharmaceuticals simply do not belong in expectant mothers. Those pharmaceuticals pass straight through to the blood of the fetus. Regardless of whether you're pro-life or pro-choice on the issue of abortion, I hope you agree that pregnant women should not be drugged with antidepressants!
Press release from UNITE / CHAADA
UNITE / CHAADA / ICFDA / COPES Foundation Objection to the Proposed MOTHERS Act - Bill before Senate Puts Young Children and Mothers in Serious Danger
To the HELP Committee of the United States Senate:
For years, the March of Dimes has warned not to use meds while pregnant. Why now encourage mothers to take drugs?
Please register this extreme objection to the proposed MOTHERS Act (S. 1375) which is now before you in committee. It is my earnest hope that you will immediately defeat this bill in committee. The bill has been brought to you under the guise of ensuring safety or support for new mothers; however, nothing could be further from the truth.
The bill was originally proposed in response to the death by suicide of Melanie Stokes, a pharmaceutical rep. who took her own life by leaping from a balcony several stories off of the ground. Contrary to popular understanding it was not post-partum depression that killed Melanie, but the numerous antidepressant drugs she was taking, which the FDA confirmed double the suicide risk.
Nobody is suggesting that new moms do not ever experience mood swings, depression, or even psychotic episodes. The more important issue is what the effect of this bill will be and why nobody is addressing potential methods of prevention. Everyone knows how many young moms experience gestational diabetes, but who is addressing the even higher rate of gestational hypoglycemia, which often initially manifests as depression? This is a physical condition that is treated with diet and is exacerbated by antidepressants (which list hypoglycemia as a side effect).
To simply screen women for post-partum mood disorders and ensure that they get "treatment," we would be setting families up for the expectation of tragedy and increasing the chances of that actually happening when we refer them to medical "professionals" who are oblivious to the negative mind-altering effects of psychiatric drugs. A popular opinion among medical caregivers these days is that "post-partum mood disorders" must be a sign of an underlying biochemical imbalance and would be corrected with drugs.
Current drugs used on post-partum women include SSRIs, atypical antidepressants, and even antipsychotic drugs. These pose a significant risk to the immediate safety and health of women as well as their children and families. SSRIs carry a black box warning for suicide and the most popular one, Effexor (the same medication Andrea Yates was taking when she drowned her 5 children), has the words “homicidal ideation” listed as a side effect. Nearly every recent case of infanticide which has made news can be clearly linked back to a psychiatric drug. These drugs endanger babies and mothers.
Additionally, the drugs can be extremely addictive and also pose a risk to nurslings or babies exposed in subsequent pregnancies. Some babies have died from SIDS linked to exposure from pregnancy or nursing; others have experienced coma, seizures, GI bleeding, heart defects, lung problems, and many babies died before reaching full term or soon after birth.
The bill does not address the fact that studies show that biological agents (antidepressants for example) cited in the bill and already prescribed to pregnant women can cause congenital heart birth defects where children have had to undergo open-heart surgeries to correct this. Also, some babies are being born with organs outside their bodies, requiring immediate surgery.
In closing I want to re-emphasize the total lack of any real answer to post-partum depression posed by this bill. If we can prevent post-partum depression or support moms through it, or offer proven SAFE and EFFECTIVE natural alternatives to dangerous drugs, then we should. However we should never, ever become party to a pharmaceutical campaign to push drugs on the public. We will set ourselves up for disaster if we allow an invasion into the privacy of every family in the country and suggest to our most vulnerable citizens that they might be mentally ill.
We must do everything in our power to protect innocent children, and giving their mothers addictive drugs which pose a significant risk of causing suicide and violence does not protect anyone. It does cause the child to become addicted while still in the womb and sets up drug dependence which can be lifelong.
We still have no idea what effect most drugs have on developing brains. It might take decades for the impact on the developing brain to become apparent.
For information on the research pertaining to the risks of antidepressants and other treatments for new moms and their babies, details about the Melanie Stokes case (or you can read the letter by Dr. Ann Blake Tracy at http://uniteforlife.org/MOTHERSact.htm#...), as well as information on prevention strategies and safe, effective treatments for post-partum mood disorders, please contact us.
Sincerely,
Amy PhiloFounder, www.uniteforlife.orgCo-Founder, www.chaada.org
Camille MilkeFounder, www.copesfoundation.comNew Mexico State Director of the ICFDA http://www.drugawareness.org/home.html
Mother of a victim of psychiatric drug-induced suicide and grandmother to a now motherless child
Dr. Ann Blake TracyExecutive Director of the ICFDA
http://www.drugawareness.org/home.html
Author of Prozac: Pancaea or Pandora? Our Serotonin Nightmare
URL: http://www.naturalnews.com/z022789.html
In essence, in the twisted eyes of the drug companies and other sponsors of this legislation, pregnancy has now become a mental illness. The only explanation for this kind of pretzel logic is the profits that stand to be made by the massively increased sales of these drugs, along with a mentality that seeks to control and manipulate the people for the sake of the greater worth, at least according to those who subscribe to this philosophy. There is still time to stop this madness before it becomes law, and the article below gives some practical ways that you can make your voice heard. Have we not lost enough of our health freedoms already?
MOTHERS Act Seeks to Drug Expectant Mothers with Antidepressants to "Treat" Postpartum Depression
by Mike Adams
Originally published March 6 2008
(NaturalNews) A new law being considered in the U.S. Congress would attempt to prevent postpartum depression in new moms by drugging them with SSRI antidepressant drugs while they're still pregnant. This legislation is being aggressively pushed by pro-pharma front groups in an effort to expand the customer base for SSRI drugs by targeting pregnant women as new "customers" for the chemicals. It's an example of the latest insanity from Big Pharma, whose drugs are already killing over 100,000 Americans each year while inciting violence and suicides in teens. Every single shooting massacre we've seen in the last ten years has been carried out by a person taking SSRI antidepressant drugs. The mainstream media pays no attention to this link, and the FDA ignores the reports in order to keep these drugs on the market.
SSRI drugs have never been approved for use on newborns, yet this new MOTHERS Act will effectively drug unborn babies and newborns with drugs like Prozac. This will certainly have an impact on their developing brains, and the bulk of the research available today shows that the impact will be negative. Will these children be more prone to violent thoughts and behavior? Will they contemplate suicide at younger ages? And what will be the impact of the drugs on the mother?
For one mother who was drugged with antidepressants -- Amy Philo -- the drugs caused her to experience thoughts of violence against her own newborn babies. After taking antidepressants prescribed by her doctor, she had visions of killing them (and herself). Upon returning to her doctor, Amy was told to increase the dosage! Eventually, Amy realized the drugs were wrecking her own brain chemistry, and she stopped taking the pills entirely, causing the thoughts of violence and suicide to subside.
Now, Amy is leading a campaign to stop the MOTHERS Act. She's posted a heart-wrenching 5-minute video on YouTube that tells her story (with pictures of her babies, too!):http://youtube.com/watch?v=LQW23XCmOCw
A local news station also covered her story, and that report can be viewed here:http://youtube.com/watch?v=W4B8I_8wz6I
An article explaining more about the effort to stop the MOTHERS Act is found here:http://birthfriend.wordpress.com/2008/0
As you'll learn from these videos and articles, the real purpose of the MOTHERS Act is to drug the mothers. Thus, it should really be called the Drug the MOTHERS Act! It's being pushed by drug companies, of course, and backed by psychiatrists and corrupt government officials who have close ties to the pharmaceutical industry. The whole point of this act is not to protect mothers from depression, but to recruit mothers as patients and, by doing so, also expose newborns to psychiatric drugs that will destroy their normal brain function and turn them into lifelong customers requiring ongoing chemical treatment.
We must stop the MOTHERS Act. It is a dangerous law created for marketing purposes, not medical purposes. Treating pregnant women with antidepressant drugs (and thereby exposing their unborn babies to those drugs) is one of the most outrageous pro-pharma ideas to come along in many years. It's not enough to drug the teenagers and children with these dangerous pharmaceuticals, now Big Pharma wants to start drugging children before they're even born!
If this law is passed and implemented, I fear for the future of our babies. Imbalanced by these dangerous pharmaceuticals, mothers are likely to commit acts of extreme violence against their children. Then they will be thrown into the prison system, of course, where they will be drugged with yet more psychiatric drugs (generating yet more profits for Big Pharma). Their children, meanwhile, will be taken away by Child Protective Services and treated with psychiatric drugs under the care of a "psychiatric doctors" who, of course, will poison that child's brain with a never-ending regimen of Big Pharma's chemicals. Do you see the scam here? By "screening" pregnant women for depression, they can create TWO new patients for psychiatric drugs, even though a family is destroyed in the process.
This is precisely the aim of Big Pharma: Sell more drugs, create more markets, and earn more profits regardless of the cost in human suffering. Big Pharma has zero concern for families and zero compassion for human beings. It only seeks to poison the minds of the people through television advertising and psychiatric drugs, all while maximizing its own profits.
What you can do to stop the MOTHERS Act
We must work together to stop this dangerous act that would recruit mothers to be treated with dangerous psychiatric drugs (while exposing their unborn babies to those same drugs).
Sign the petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-t...
Also, see Unite For Life at:http://uniteforlife.org/MOTHERSact.htm#...
By the way, this is not an article about pro-life vs. pro-choice on the issue of unborn babies, and I use the term "unborn babies" in a purely humanitarian sense, because a child that's in the womb and about to be born is clearly an "unborn baby" whose health must be protected. I am opposed to the drugging of mothers during any trimester. Pharmaceuticals simply do not belong in expectant mothers. Those pharmaceuticals pass straight through to the blood of the fetus. Regardless of whether you're pro-life or pro-choice on the issue of abortion, I hope you agree that pregnant women should not be drugged with antidepressants!
Press release from UNITE / CHAADA
UNITE / CHAADA / ICFDA / COPES Foundation Objection to the Proposed MOTHERS Act - Bill before Senate Puts Young Children and Mothers in Serious Danger
To the HELP Committee of the United States Senate:
For years, the March of Dimes has warned not to use meds while pregnant. Why now encourage mothers to take drugs?
Please register this extreme objection to the proposed MOTHERS Act (S. 1375) which is now before you in committee. It is my earnest hope that you will immediately defeat this bill in committee. The bill has been brought to you under the guise of ensuring safety or support for new mothers; however, nothing could be further from the truth.
The bill was originally proposed in response to the death by suicide of Melanie Stokes, a pharmaceutical rep. who took her own life by leaping from a balcony several stories off of the ground. Contrary to popular understanding it was not post-partum depression that killed Melanie, but the numerous antidepressant drugs she was taking, which the FDA confirmed double the suicide risk.
Nobody is suggesting that new moms do not ever experience mood swings, depression, or even psychotic episodes. The more important issue is what the effect of this bill will be and why nobody is addressing potential methods of prevention. Everyone knows how many young moms experience gestational diabetes, but who is addressing the even higher rate of gestational hypoglycemia, which often initially manifests as depression? This is a physical condition that is treated with diet and is exacerbated by antidepressants (which list hypoglycemia as a side effect).
To simply screen women for post-partum mood disorders and ensure that they get "treatment," we would be setting families up for the expectation of tragedy and increasing the chances of that actually happening when we refer them to medical "professionals" who are oblivious to the negative mind-altering effects of psychiatric drugs. A popular opinion among medical caregivers these days is that "post-partum mood disorders" must be a sign of an underlying biochemical imbalance and would be corrected with drugs.
Current drugs used on post-partum women include SSRIs, atypical antidepressants, and even antipsychotic drugs. These pose a significant risk to the immediate safety and health of women as well as their children and families. SSRIs carry a black box warning for suicide and the most popular one, Effexor (the same medication Andrea Yates was taking when she drowned her 5 children), has the words “homicidal ideation” listed as a side effect. Nearly every recent case of infanticide which has made news can be clearly linked back to a psychiatric drug. These drugs endanger babies and mothers.
Additionally, the drugs can be extremely addictive and also pose a risk to nurslings or babies exposed in subsequent pregnancies. Some babies have died from SIDS linked to exposure from pregnancy or nursing; others have experienced coma, seizures, GI bleeding, heart defects, lung problems, and many babies died before reaching full term or soon after birth.
The bill does not address the fact that studies show that biological agents (antidepressants for example) cited in the bill and already prescribed to pregnant women can cause congenital heart birth defects where children have had to undergo open-heart surgeries to correct this. Also, some babies are being born with organs outside their bodies, requiring immediate surgery.
In closing I want to re-emphasize the total lack of any real answer to post-partum depression posed by this bill. If we can prevent post-partum depression or support moms through it, or offer proven SAFE and EFFECTIVE natural alternatives to dangerous drugs, then we should. However we should never, ever become party to a pharmaceutical campaign to push drugs on the public. We will set ourselves up for disaster if we allow an invasion into the privacy of every family in the country and suggest to our most vulnerable citizens that they might be mentally ill.
We must do everything in our power to protect innocent children, and giving their mothers addictive drugs which pose a significant risk of causing suicide and violence does not protect anyone. It does cause the child to become addicted while still in the womb and sets up drug dependence which can be lifelong.
We still have no idea what effect most drugs have on developing brains. It might take decades for the impact on the developing brain to become apparent.
For information on the research pertaining to the risks of antidepressants and other treatments for new moms and their babies, details about the Melanie Stokes case (or you can read the letter by Dr. Ann Blake Tracy at http://uniteforlife.org/MOTHERSact.htm#...), as well as information on prevention strategies and safe, effective treatments for post-partum mood disorders, please contact us.
Sincerely,
Amy PhiloFounder, www.uniteforlife.orgCo-Founder, www.chaada.org
Camille MilkeFounder, www.copesfoundation.comNew Mexico State Director of the ICFDA http://www.drugawareness.org/home.html
Mother of a victim of psychiatric drug-induced suicide and grandmother to a now motherless child
Dr. Ann Blake TracyExecutive Director of the ICFDA
http://www.drugawareness.org/home.html
Author of Prozac: Pancaea or Pandora? Our Serotonin Nightmare
URL: http://www.naturalnews.com/z022789.html
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Alternative Treatments for Pain
The number of people experiencing chronic pain is on the rise. The effects of a poor diet, lack of exercise, and the consequences of obesity, along with an increase in such illnesses as fibromyalgia, are producing an epidemic of chronic pain sufferers.
The article below references some therapies that many patients are finding success with that are also enabling them to avoid the toxic consequences of pain medications. Not many of us can afford $20,000 to attend a pain clinic, but many of these noninvasive therapies can be instituted on our own, such as stretching and therapeutic exercise. It is also refreshing to see insurance companies taking a closer look at the advantages of providing coverage for these alternatives to surgery and drugs. Natural remedies such as those mentioned in this piece, along with a lifestyle that pursues wellness, is and always will be the best way to prevent or treat disease of all types.
'Boot camps' treat pain sufferers
By CARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 29 minutes ago
Ballet teacher Gayle Parseghian thought she might never dance again after a back injury while moving heavy furniture left her with unrelenting pain.
But an intensive, four-week "boot camp" got the 55-year-old dancer from Toledo, Ohio, back to the barre. The program at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago taught her to manage the chronic pain that had tormented her for more than a year.
"It affects your relationship with your spouse, your family, your friends, your boss," she said. "It's like you're trapped in your body and you can't get out. It's a feeling of being completely out of control."
New research suggests chronic pain affects the brain's ability to rest, disrupting a system that normally charges up some brain regions and powers down others when a person relaxes.
"I ask a patient who has had chronic pain for 10 years to put the mind blank, don't think about anything," says Dr. Dante Chialvo, a researcher at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine who is not involved with the boot camp.
MRI images show the pain sufferer's brain lighting up, but not as a normal brain at rest would, he said. "There is an objective biological difference in the brain."
The early findings could explain the sleep disturbances, decision-making problems and mood changes that often accompany chronic pain, he said.
And they could explain why the boot camp approach worked for Parseghian.
The Chicago program, affiliated with Northwestern's medical school, attacks pain on three fronts - biological, psychological and social. It doesn't claim to cure chronic pain, but instead gives patients tools to lessen its hold on their lives.
Patients spend Monday through Friday stretching, exercising and moving in new ways. They meet with a physician, an occupational therapist, a physical therapist, a biofeedback therapist, a clinical psychologist and a movement specialist.
They may address depression or sleep problems or adjust their medications. And they learn from the other patients in the program.
Getting all of these things under one roof differs from most approaches to treating chronic pain, said Dr. Steven Stanos, the program's medical director.
Patients know the drill. In the fragmented world of health care, they bounce from internist to chiropractor to massage therapist to surgeon — with none of the experts sharing information.
"You will try anything and everything to get out of the pain," Parseghian said. "You discover all of your efforts are fruitless and you have spent monumental amounts of money."
She tried herbal patches, vitamins, injections, prescription narcotics and a battery-operated device that uses electrical impulses to block pain. Nothing worked.
Surgery would have been next. She was in a surgeon's waiting room when she read an article about the boot camp.
If acute pain is the body's alarm system, alerting to injury-causing dangers, then chronic pain is an alarm going haywire, screaming a warning long after the danger has passed.
The American Pain Society estimates millions of Americans are in chronic pain from backaches, jaw pain, headaches and fibromyalgia, a mysterious syndrome marked by muscle pain and fatigue. Sore spines alone cost billions of dollars each year.
In 2005, Americans with aching backs and necks spent $20 billion on prescription drugs and another $31 billion for outpatient doctor visits, according to a recent study in the Journal of the
American Medical Association. Total spending on spine treatments increased 65 percent from 1997, adjusted for inflation. But rising alongside that was the proportion of people with spine problems who reported limited function.
Such spending with such poor results gets insurance companies' attention.
Chronic pain patients' medical and pharmacy bills "show up on our radar," said Dr. James Cross, Aetna's national medical policy chief. The patients are "frustrated and clearly suffering" and "looking for an answer," he said.
Although boot camp-style programs cost up to $20,000, Cross said that's cost-effective compared to the procedure and pill merry-go-round. The company cites studies showing patients who have completed boot camp programs experience lasting pain reduction and lower stress. Aetna also believes patients completing the programs are more likely to return to work and less likely to seek other expensive treatments.
Other insurers also cover the programs, but convincing more companies will take more evidence, said Dennis Turk, a pain researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle and a believer in the approach.
It's unclear what combination of therapies works best for which patients and whether four weeks are needed for everyone, Turk said. Patients should be cautious because quality varies, he said.
"Anybody out there can put up a sign and say, 'I'm a comprehensive pain rehabilitation program,'" Turk said. He recommended programs affiliated with university medical centers and the nearly 100 interdisciplinary programs accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities.
Two weeks into the boot camp, Parseghian's husband visited her in Chicago for the weekend. They toured an art museum and went shopping together. Later, he phoned her with an observation.
"You didn't say one thing about your pain or the back. That used to monopolize our conversations," her husband told her.
That impressed Parseghian. "I guess I hadn't realized just how much my back issue had really manifested itself into our relationship," she said.
Two weeks later, she headed home with a detailed schedule for her first week back, including plenty of time to relax. She knew the staff would check with her in another four weeks to see how she was doing.
And she was armed with breathing techniques and phrases to repeat when she suffered a flare-up: "This has happened before and I have survived it. I'm going to be OK."
During her second week home, she reported, "I took my first ballet class last week."
"I thought that day would never come," she said. "Little by little, I'm regaining the control in my life that I thought the injury had robbed me of."
___
On the Net:
Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities: http://www.carf.org/
Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago: http://www.ric.org/
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080317/ap_on_he_me/chronic_pain_boot_camp&printer=1
The article below references some therapies that many patients are finding success with that are also enabling them to avoid the toxic consequences of pain medications. Not many of us can afford $20,000 to attend a pain clinic, but many of these noninvasive therapies can be instituted on our own, such as stretching and therapeutic exercise. It is also refreshing to see insurance companies taking a closer look at the advantages of providing coverage for these alternatives to surgery and drugs. Natural remedies such as those mentioned in this piece, along with a lifestyle that pursues wellness, is and always will be the best way to prevent or treat disease of all types.
'Boot camps' treat pain sufferers
By CARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 29 minutes ago
Ballet teacher Gayle Parseghian thought she might never dance again after a back injury while moving heavy furniture left her with unrelenting pain.
But an intensive, four-week "boot camp" got the 55-year-old dancer from Toledo, Ohio, back to the barre. The program at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago taught her to manage the chronic pain that had tormented her for more than a year.
"It affects your relationship with your spouse, your family, your friends, your boss," she said. "It's like you're trapped in your body and you can't get out. It's a feeling of being completely out of control."
New research suggests chronic pain affects the brain's ability to rest, disrupting a system that normally charges up some brain regions and powers down others when a person relaxes.
"I ask a patient who has had chronic pain for 10 years to put the mind blank, don't think about anything," says Dr. Dante Chialvo, a researcher at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine who is not involved with the boot camp.
MRI images show the pain sufferer's brain lighting up, but not as a normal brain at rest would, he said. "There is an objective biological difference in the brain."
The early findings could explain the sleep disturbances, decision-making problems and mood changes that often accompany chronic pain, he said.
And they could explain why the boot camp approach worked for Parseghian.
The Chicago program, affiliated with Northwestern's medical school, attacks pain on three fronts - biological, psychological and social. It doesn't claim to cure chronic pain, but instead gives patients tools to lessen its hold on their lives.
Patients spend Monday through Friday stretching, exercising and moving in new ways. They meet with a physician, an occupational therapist, a physical therapist, a biofeedback therapist, a clinical psychologist and a movement specialist.
They may address depression or sleep problems or adjust their medications. And they learn from the other patients in the program.
Getting all of these things under one roof differs from most approaches to treating chronic pain, said Dr. Steven Stanos, the program's medical director.
Patients know the drill. In the fragmented world of health care, they bounce from internist to chiropractor to massage therapist to surgeon — with none of the experts sharing information.
"You will try anything and everything to get out of the pain," Parseghian said. "You discover all of your efforts are fruitless and you have spent monumental amounts of money."
She tried herbal patches, vitamins, injections, prescription narcotics and a battery-operated device that uses electrical impulses to block pain. Nothing worked.
Surgery would have been next. She was in a surgeon's waiting room when she read an article about the boot camp.
If acute pain is the body's alarm system, alerting to injury-causing dangers, then chronic pain is an alarm going haywire, screaming a warning long after the danger has passed.
The American Pain Society estimates millions of Americans are in chronic pain from backaches, jaw pain, headaches and fibromyalgia, a mysterious syndrome marked by muscle pain and fatigue. Sore spines alone cost billions of dollars each year.
In 2005, Americans with aching backs and necks spent $20 billion on prescription drugs and another $31 billion for outpatient doctor visits, according to a recent study in the Journal of the
American Medical Association. Total spending on spine treatments increased 65 percent from 1997, adjusted for inflation. But rising alongside that was the proportion of people with spine problems who reported limited function.
Such spending with such poor results gets insurance companies' attention.
Chronic pain patients' medical and pharmacy bills "show up on our radar," said Dr. James Cross, Aetna's national medical policy chief. The patients are "frustrated and clearly suffering" and "looking for an answer," he said.
Although boot camp-style programs cost up to $20,000, Cross said that's cost-effective compared to the procedure and pill merry-go-round. The company cites studies showing patients who have completed boot camp programs experience lasting pain reduction and lower stress. Aetna also believes patients completing the programs are more likely to return to work and less likely to seek other expensive treatments.
Other insurers also cover the programs, but convincing more companies will take more evidence, said Dennis Turk, a pain researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle and a believer in the approach.
It's unclear what combination of therapies works best for which patients and whether four weeks are needed for everyone, Turk said. Patients should be cautious because quality varies, he said.
"Anybody out there can put up a sign and say, 'I'm a comprehensive pain rehabilitation program,'" Turk said. He recommended programs affiliated with university medical centers and the nearly 100 interdisciplinary programs accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities.
Two weeks into the boot camp, Parseghian's husband visited her in Chicago for the weekend. They toured an art museum and went shopping together. Later, he phoned her with an observation.
"You didn't say one thing about your pain or the back. That used to monopolize our conversations," her husband told her.
That impressed Parseghian. "I guess I hadn't realized just how much my back issue had really manifested itself into our relationship," she said.
Two weeks later, she headed home with a detailed schedule for her first week back, including plenty of time to relax. She knew the staff would check with her in another four weeks to see how she was doing.
And she was armed with breathing techniques and phrases to repeat when she suffered a flare-up: "This has happened before and I have survived it. I'm going to be OK."
During her second week home, she reported, "I took my first ballet class last week."
"I thought that day would never come," she said. "Little by little, I'm regaining the control in my life that I thought the injury had robbed me of."
___
On the Net:
Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities: http://www.carf.org/
Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago: http://www.ric.org/
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080317/ap_on_he_me/chronic_pain_boot_camp&printer=1
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Cancer Prevention
More good news! It is encouraging to see another story in the mainstream media that discusses disease prevention based on healthy dietary choices. We in the natural health field have been preaching this for years, and it seems that finally our message is beginning to be heard. This article focuses on research that points towards prevention of ovarian cancer by the consumption of two particular flavonoids found in tea and certain vegetables.
I found it especially hopeful that the author of this article points out that eating whole foods is preferred over supplementing with specific substances, as the pathways of prevention are not fully understood, and may be connected to the interrelationship between compounds within a natural food such as a vegetable. While it is necessary to supplement at times to receive enough of certain vitamins and minerals, it is impossible to improve on nature providing we feed on organic foods that have the maximum amount of nutrients and minimal toxins.
Could foods prevent ovarian cancer?
Flavonoids found in tea, veggies, fruits and beans could lower risk
By Karen Collins, R.D.
updated 7:15 a.m. CT, Fri., March. 14, 2008
Cancer prevention is important, but it is particularly crucial for those types of cancer not easily detected early. Ovarian cancer, for example, often has no symptoms in early stages and is frequently diagnosed at a more advanced stage, resulting in poorer survival rates than other cancers.
But could natural compounds in plant-based foods help to prevent ovarian cancer?
A new study suggests that diets high in certain flavonoid compounds found in vegetables, fruits, beans and tea may significantly lower a womans risk of developing ovarian cancer.
Flavonoids are a large family of antioxidant compounds known as phytochemicals. They are part of a plants natural defense system that helps the plant fight off disease and infection.
Lowered disease risk
Research suggests these compounds could help prevent a variety of diseases in humans - including cancer - by protecting cells from DNA damage. Scientists believe some flavonoids may also deter cancer development by helping to regulate cell growth and fight inflammation or by changing hormone levels.
A new study, published in the International Journal of Cancer in 2007, involved almost 67,000 women in the Nurses Health Study and looked at flavonoid consumption over 14 years. Although total flavonoid consumption was not shown as related to the risk of developing ovarian cancer, two particular flavonoids were.
Kaempferol - a flavonoid found in tea, broccoli, kale and spinach - and luteolin - which is provided by peppers, carrots, cabbage and celery - were both identified as cancer protective. Women who consumed the most of these two flavonoids were 40 percent and 34 percent less likely, respectively, to develop ovarian cancer compared to women who consumed the least. Participants who consumed high levels of a third phytochemical, myricetin (found in tea, dried beans, raisins and blueberries), also seemed somewhat protected.
Flavonoid compounds found in vegetables may be part of what is behind an apparent link between vegetable consumption and lower risk of ovarian cancer. A landmark report on diet and cancer risk published by the American Institute for Cancer Research in 2007 noted that some evidence suggests that non-starchy vegetables may offer protection against ovarian cancer. The report emphasizes that protection could come from any of several families of phytochemicals, as well as dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals.
Keep eating those veggies
Researchers note that determining the relative importance of one individual constituent in a food is difficult. A protective effect is likely the result of a combination of influences on several pathways involved in cancer development.
Evidence that supports phytochemicals role in fighting ovarian cancer is growing. A 2007 study published in the British Journal of Nutrition linked greater consumption of carotenoid phytochemicals with a 67 percent lower risk of ovarian cancer. This included not only beta-carotene, the oft-cited carotenoid in deep-orange vegetables and fruits, but also alpha-carotene, beta-cryptoxanthin, lutein and zeaxanthin - carotenoids found in a wide range of red, orange, yellow and green vegetables. This research echoed an earlier study, which showed a reduction in ovarian cancer risk of greater than 50 percent among top vegetable consumers.
Although the research is promising, for now women are best advised not to focus on a single potential link highlighted in one or two studies, but to follow current guidelines to lower overall cancer risk. General recommendations include following a diet that provides a wide variety of vegetables and other plant-based foods, exercising regularly and controlling weight.
Copyright 2008 MSNBC Interactive
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23578106/
I found it especially hopeful that the author of this article points out that eating whole foods is preferred over supplementing with specific substances, as the pathways of prevention are not fully understood, and may be connected to the interrelationship between compounds within a natural food such as a vegetable. While it is necessary to supplement at times to receive enough of certain vitamins and minerals, it is impossible to improve on nature providing we feed on organic foods that have the maximum amount of nutrients and minimal toxins.
Could foods prevent ovarian cancer?
Flavonoids found in tea, veggies, fruits and beans could lower risk
By Karen Collins, R.D.
updated 7:15 a.m. CT, Fri., March. 14, 2008
Cancer prevention is important, but it is particularly crucial for those types of cancer not easily detected early. Ovarian cancer, for example, often has no symptoms in early stages and is frequently diagnosed at a more advanced stage, resulting in poorer survival rates than other cancers.
But could natural compounds in plant-based foods help to prevent ovarian cancer?
A new study suggests that diets high in certain flavonoid compounds found in vegetables, fruits, beans and tea may significantly lower a womans risk of developing ovarian cancer.
Flavonoids are a large family of antioxidant compounds known as phytochemicals. They are part of a plants natural defense system that helps the plant fight off disease and infection.
Lowered disease risk
Research suggests these compounds could help prevent a variety of diseases in humans - including cancer - by protecting cells from DNA damage. Scientists believe some flavonoids may also deter cancer development by helping to regulate cell growth and fight inflammation or by changing hormone levels.
A new study, published in the International Journal of Cancer in 2007, involved almost 67,000 women in the Nurses Health Study and looked at flavonoid consumption over 14 years. Although total flavonoid consumption was not shown as related to the risk of developing ovarian cancer, two particular flavonoids were.
Kaempferol - a flavonoid found in tea, broccoli, kale and spinach - and luteolin - which is provided by peppers, carrots, cabbage and celery - were both identified as cancer protective. Women who consumed the most of these two flavonoids were 40 percent and 34 percent less likely, respectively, to develop ovarian cancer compared to women who consumed the least. Participants who consumed high levels of a third phytochemical, myricetin (found in tea, dried beans, raisins and blueberries), also seemed somewhat protected.
Flavonoid compounds found in vegetables may be part of what is behind an apparent link between vegetable consumption and lower risk of ovarian cancer. A landmark report on diet and cancer risk published by the American Institute for Cancer Research in 2007 noted that some evidence suggests that non-starchy vegetables may offer protection against ovarian cancer. The report emphasizes that protection could come from any of several families of phytochemicals, as well as dietary fiber, vitamins and minerals.
Keep eating those veggies
Researchers note that determining the relative importance of one individual constituent in a food is difficult. A protective effect is likely the result of a combination of influences on several pathways involved in cancer development.
Evidence that supports phytochemicals role in fighting ovarian cancer is growing. A 2007 study published in the British Journal of Nutrition linked greater consumption of carotenoid phytochemicals with a 67 percent lower risk of ovarian cancer. This included not only beta-carotene, the oft-cited carotenoid in deep-orange vegetables and fruits, but also alpha-carotene, beta-cryptoxanthin, lutein and zeaxanthin - carotenoids found in a wide range of red, orange, yellow and green vegetables. This research echoed an earlier study, which showed a reduction in ovarian cancer risk of greater than 50 percent among top vegetable consumers.
Although the research is promising, for now women are best advised not to focus on a single potential link highlighted in one or two studies, but to follow current guidelines to lower overall cancer risk. General recommendations include following a diet that provides a wide variety of vegetables and other plant-based foods, exercising regularly and controlling weight.
Copyright 2008 MSNBC Interactive
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23578106/
Monday, March 17, 2008
Buyer Beware Concerning Personal Care Products
In this day and age when so many consumer products are labeled organic or natural, it is not a simple matter to ensure that you are using substances that are toxin-free. The article below highlights a recent study that tested many popular brands of personal care products that claim to be green and free of dangerous chemicals, and the results were surprising and quite alarming.
Certain corporations that manufacture and sell organic foods have learned how to get around regulations and make their products sound organic when they are not, and the situation is even worse when it comes to personal care products. Some companies list a chemical name and then in parenthesis indicate what plant source it is synthesized from, hoping that customers will think this somehow makes the ingredient natural. I have noticed that a few MLM companies do not provide a full ingredient list, choosing only to list the components that make them look clean and green. For instance, there are certain ingredients that must be used in order to formulate a cream, but when the label lists only herbs and essential oils, then the company is not being truthful with their customers. The restrictions on the labeling of such products are almost non-existent, relying solely on the ethics of the manufacturers themselves. It is important that you are very aware of the ingredients used in any substance that is applied to your skin. Whatever goes on your skin is absorbed directly into the bloodstream and quickly spreads throughout the body. The posting below includes a link to a listing of all the products tested, along with the results. Researching the products that you use on your self and your family is a much better tactic than relying on the Luck of the Irish!
Popular 'natural' personal products fail test
Consumers may have to rethink exactly how "natural" and "organic" their shampoo, body wash or lotion are.
In a newly released study, tests of about 100 "green" products found that nearly half contained detectable levels of a cancer-causing chemical that is a byproduct of petrochemicals used in manufacturing. Products that contained detectable levels include popular brands such as Kiss My Face, Alba, Seventh Generation and Nature's Gate.
The Organic Consumers Association, a consumer-advocacy group, hired a third-party lab to test for the presence of 1,4-dioxane. The Los Angeles Times says the Environmental Protection Agency has declared 1,4-dioxane a probable human carcinogen because it causes cancer in lab animals.
It "has no place in 'natural' or 'organic' branded personal care products," the OCA says in their statement.
Marla Cone of the L.A. Times explains:
The compound is not intentionally added to products; it is a byproduct of a process used to soften harsh detergents. It is formed when foaming agents, or surfactants, are processed with ethylene oxide or similar petrochemicals.No one knows exactly what amount of the compound may be unsafe. In scientific studies, lab animals that had been fed 1,4-dioxane for many weeks developed nasal, liver and gall bladder cancers. But scientists do not now know what, if any, cancer risk humans face from years-long use of products containing the chemical.
The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates cosmetics, has set no standards for 1,4-dioxane. The agency has occasionally tested products for the compound since the late 1970s and says levels of it have substantially declined since then. The FDA says the current levels "do not present a hazard to consumers," although it has advised the industry to reduce amounts in cosmetics as much as possible.
At least one company, Hain Celestial Group, which owns Jason and Alba, told the L.A. Times it would reevaluate all its products. Others, like Seventh Generation, told the paper that it works hard as it can "to keep the levels as low as possible and keep our products as safe as possible."
Here are some of the products found to contain 1,4-dioxane:
JASON Tea Tree Scalp Normalizing Shampoo
Giovanni Cleanse Body Wash
365* Everyday Value Shower Gel
Nature's Gate Moisturizing Liquid Soap
Kiss My Face Moisture Soap
Method Dish Naturally Derived Ultra Concentrate
Labels and claims of "organic" or "natural" can be misleading, so the OCA says your best bet is to go with products whose ingredients you can pronounce or are certified under the USDA National Organic Program.
All USDA-certified organic brands that were tested in the study were free of 1,4-dioxane including:
Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps 18-in-1 Hemp Almond Pure Castile Soap
Sensibility Soaps (Nourish brand)
TerrEssential Organic Baby Wash
For the full list of 100 products tested, click here (PDF, 2 pages).
Posted by Phuong Cat Le at March 14, 2008 10:44 a.m
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/consumersmarts/archives/134263.asp
Certain corporations that manufacture and sell organic foods have learned how to get around regulations and make their products sound organic when they are not, and the situation is even worse when it comes to personal care products. Some companies list a chemical name and then in parenthesis indicate what plant source it is synthesized from, hoping that customers will think this somehow makes the ingredient natural. I have noticed that a few MLM companies do not provide a full ingredient list, choosing only to list the components that make them look clean and green. For instance, there are certain ingredients that must be used in order to formulate a cream, but when the label lists only herbs and essential oils, then the company is not being truthful with their customers. The restrictions on the labeling of such products are almost non-existent, relying solely on the ethics of the manufacturers themselves. It is important that you are very aware of the ingredients used in any substance that is applied to your skin. Whatever goes on your skin is absorbed directly into the bloodstream and quickly spreads throughout the body. The posting below includes a link to a listing of all the products tested, along with the results. Researching the products that you use on your self and your family is a much better tactic than relying on the Luck of the Irish!
Popular 'natural' personal products fail test
Consumers may have to rethink exactly how "natural" and "organic" their shampoo, body wash or lotion are.
In a newly released study, tests of about 100 "green" products found that nearly half contained detectable levels of a cancer-causing chemical that is a byproduct of petrochemicals used in manufacturing. Products that contained detectable levels include popular brands such as Kiss My Face, Alba, Seventh Generation and Nature's Gate.
The Organic Consumers Association, a consumer-advocacy group, hired a third-party lab to test for the presence of 1,4-dioxane. The Los Angeles Times says the Environmental Protection Agency has declared 1,4-dioxane a probable human carcinogen because it causes cancer in lab animals.
It "has no place in 'natural' or 'organic' branded personal care products," the OCA says in their statement.
Marla Cone of the L.A. Times explains:
The compound is not intentionally added to products; it is a byproduct of a process used to soften harsh detergents. It is formed when foaming agents, or surfactants, are processed with ethylene oxide or similar petrochemicals.No one knows exactly what amount of the compound may be unsafe. In scientific studies, lab animals that had been fed 1,4-dioxane for many weeks developed nasal, liver and gall bladder cancers. But scientists do not now know what, if any, cancer risk humans face from years-long use of products containing the chemical.
The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates cosmetics, has set no standards for 1,4-dioxane. The agency has occasionally tested products for the compound since the late 1970s and says levels of it have substantially declined since then. The FDA says the current levels "do not present a hazard to consumers," although it has advised the industry to reduce amounts in cosmetics as much as possible.
At least one company, Hain Celestial Group, which owns Jason and Alba, told the L.A. Times it would reevaluate all its products. Others, like Seventh Generation, told the paper that it works hard as it can "to keep the levels as low as possible and keep our products as safe as possible."
Here are some of the products found to contain 1,4-dioxane:
JASON Tea Tree Scalp Normalizing Shampoo
Giovanni Cleanse Body Wash
365* Everyday Value Shower Gel
Nature's Gate Moisturizing Liquid Soap
Kiss My Face Moisture Soap
Method Dish Naturally Derived Ultra Concentrate
Labels and claims of "organic" or "natural" can be misleading, so the OCA says your best bet is to go with products whose ingredients you can pronounce or are certified under the USDA National Organic Program.
All USDA-certified organic brands that were tested in the study were free of 1,4-dioxane including:
Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps 18-in-1 Hemp Almond Pure Castile Soap
Sensibility Soaps (Nourish brand)
TerrEssential Organic Baby Wash
For the full list of 100 products tested, click here (PDF, 2 pages).
Posted by Phuong Cat Le at March 14, 2008 10:44 a.m
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/consumersmarts/archives/134263.asp
Friday, March 14, 2008
The Acceptance of Legal Drugs in our Society
I found the article below in todays post to be extremely upsetting, as it indicates that our culture is increasingly justifying the use of chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs for just about any purpose imaginable. Issues such as the use of steroidal drugs in sports are grabbing the headlines lately, but this piece discusses the common use of stimulants and other drugs in the areas of academia, medicine, and business and how this practice is not only tolerated, but in some cases honored.
What kinds of messages are we giving our children? Kids today grow up with advertisers pushing high-energy drinks that look, taste, and smell like alcohol, and a culture that tells them popping a pill will make them more creative and successful. This makes the candy cigarettes of yesteryear look tame by comparison.
Fortunately, many health-minded individuals have had enough and are providing natural, organic foods for their families with the understanding that this is how we humans were created to flourish. Brain food is not an upper or a cup of strong coffee. These artificial chemicals only tear down the body in the long run, and open us up to future disease and deterioration of brain function. A lifestyle of wholesome eating and plenty of vigorous exercise will beat a chemical cocktail any day.
March 9, 2008
Smartening Up
Brain Enhancement Is Wrong, Right?
By BENEDICT CAREY
SO far no one is demanding that asterisks be attached to Nobels, Pulitzers or Lasker awards. Government agents have not been raiding anthropology departments, riffling book bags, testing professors urine. And if there are illicit trainers on campuses, shady tutors with wraparound sunglasses and ties to basement labs in Italy, no one has exposed them.
Yet an era of doping may be looming in academia, and it has ignited a debate about policy and ethics that in some ways echoes the national controversy over performance enhancement accusations against elite athletes like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.
In a recent commentary in the journal Nature, two Cambridge University researchers reported that about a dozen of their colleagues had admitted to regular use of prescription drugs like Adderall, a stimulant, and Provigil, which promotes wakefulness to improve their academic performance. The former is approved to treat attention deficit disorder, the latter narcolepsy, and both are considered more effective, and more widely available, than the drugs circulating in dorms a generation ago.
Letters flooded the journal, and an online debate immediately bubbled up. The journal has been conducting its own, more rigorous survey, and so far at least 20 respondents have said that they used the drugs for nonmedical purposes, according to Philip Campbell, the journals editor in chief. The debate has also caught fire on the Web site of The Chronicle of Higher Education, where academics and students are sniping at one another.
But is prescription tweaking to perform on exams, or prepare presentations and grants, really the same as injecting hormones to chase down a home run record, or win the Tour de France?
Some argue that such use could be worse, given the potentially deep impact on society. And the behavior of academics in particular, as intellectual leaders, could serve as an example to others.
In his book Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution, Francis Fukuyuma raises the broader issue of performance enhancement: The original purpose of medicine is to heal the sick, not turn healthy people into gods. He and others point out that increased use of such drugs could raise the standard of what is considered normal performance and widen the gap between those who have access to the medications and those who do not - and even erode the relationship between struggle and the building of character.
Even though stimulants and other cognitive enhancers are intended for legitimate clinical use, history predicts that greater availability will lead to an increase in diversion, misuse and abuse, wrote Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and James Swanson of the University of California at Irvine, in a letter to Nature. Among high school students, abuse of prescription medications is second only to cannabis use.
But others insist that the ethics are not so clear, and that academic performance is different in important ways from baseball, or cycling.
I think the analogy with sports doping is really misleading, because in sports it is all about competition, only about who is the best runner or home run hitter, said Martha Farah, director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. In academics, whether you are a student or a researcher, there is an element of competition, but it is secondary. The main purpose is to try to learn things, to get experience, to write papers, to do experiments. So in that case if you can do it better because you have got some drug on board, that would on the face of things seem like a plus.
She and other midcareer scientists interviewed said that, as far as they knew, very few of their colleagues used brain-boosting drugs regularly. Many have used Provigil for jet lag, or even to stay vertical for late events. But most agreed that the next generation of scientists, now in graduate school and college, were more likely to use the drugs as study aids and bring along those habits as they moved up the ladder.
Surveys of college students have found that from 4 percent to 16 percent say they have used stimulants or other prescription drugs to improve their academic performance - usually getting the pills from other students.
Suppose you are preparing for the SAT, or going for a job interview - in those situations where you have to perform on that day, these drugs will be very attractive, said Dr. Barbara Sahakian of Cambridge, a co-author with Sharon Morein-Zamir of the recent essay in Nature. The desire for cognitive enhancement is very strong, maybe stronger than for beauty, or athletic ability.
Jeffrey White, a graduate student in cell biology who has attended several institutions, said that those numbers sounded about right. You can usually tell who is using them because they can be angry, testy, hyperfocused, they do not want to be bothered, he said.
Mr. White said he did not use the drugs himself, considering them an artificial shortcut that could set people up for problems later on. What happens if you are in a fast-paced surgical situation and they are not available? he asked. Will you be able to function at the same level?
Yet such objections - and philosophical concerns - can vaporize when students and junior faculty members face other questions: What happens if I do not make the cut? What if I am derailed by a bad test score, or a mangled chemistry course?
One person who posted anonymously on the Chronicle of Higher Education Web site said that a daily regimen of three 20-milligram doses of Adderall transformed his career: I am not talking about being able to work longer hours without sleep (although that helps), the posting said. I am talking about being able to take on twice the responsibility, work twice as fast, write more effectively, manage better, be more attentive, devise better and more creative strategies.
Dr. Anjan Chatterjee, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania who foresaw this debate in a 2004 paper, argues that the history of cosmetic surgery - scorned initially as vain and unnatural but now mainstream as a form of self-improvement - is a guide to predicting the trajectory of cosmetic neurology, as he calls it.
We worship at the altar of progress, and to the demigod of choice, Dr. Chatterjee said. Both are very strong undercurrents in the culture and the way this is likely to be framed is: Look, we want smart people to be as productive as possible to make everybodys lives better. We want people performing at the max, and if that means using these medicines, then great, then we should be free to choose what we want as long as we are not harming someone. I am not taking that position, but we have this winner-take-all culture and that is the way it is likely to go.
People already use legal performance enhancers, he said, from high-octane cafe Americanos to the beta-blockers taken by musicians to ease stage fright, to antidepressants to improve mood. So the question with all of these things is, Is this enhancement, or a matter of removing the cloud over our better selves? he said.
The public backlash against brain-enhancement, if it comes, may hit home only after the practice becomes mainstream, Dr. Chatterjee suggested. You can imagine a scenario in the future, when you are applying for a job, and the employer says, Sure, you have the talent for this, but we require you to take Adderall. Now, maybe you do start to care about the ethical implications.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/weekinreview/09carey.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&ref=health&pagewanted=print
What kinds of messages are we giving our children? Kids today grow up with advertisers pushing high-energy drinks that look, taste, and smell like alcohol, and a culture that tells them popping a pill will make them more creative and successful. This makes the candy cigarettes of yesteryear look tame by comparison.
Fortunately, many health-minded individuals have had enough and are providing natural, organic foods for their families with the understanding that this is how we humans were created to flourish. Brain food is not an upper or a cup of strong coffee. These artificial chemicals only tear down the body in the long run, and open us up to future disease and deterioration of brain function. A lifestyle of wholesome eating and plenty of vigorous exercise will beat a chemical cocktail any day.
March 9, 2008
Smartening Up
Brain Enhancement Is Wrong, Right?
By BENEDICT CAREY
SO far no one is demanding that asterisks be attached to Nobels, Pulitzers or Lasker awards. Government agents have not been raiding anthropology departments, riffling book bags, testing professors urine. And if there are illicit trainers on campuses, shady tutors with wraparound sunglasses and ties to basement labs in Italy, no one has exposed them.
Yet an era of doping may be looming in academia, and it has ignited a debate about policy and ethics that in some ways echoes the national controversy over performance enhancement accusations against elite athletes like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.
In a recent commentary in the journal Nature, two Cambridge University researchers reported that about a dozen of their colleagues had admitted to regular use of prescription drugs like Adderall, a stimulant, and Provigil, which promotes wakefulness to improve their academic performance. The former is approved to treat attention deficit disorder, the latter narcolepsy, and both are considered more effective, and more widely available, than the drugs circulating in dorms a generation ago.
Letters flooded the journal, and an online debate immediately bubbled up. The journal has been conducting its own, more rigorous survey, and so far at least 20 respondents have said that they used the drugs for nonmedical purposes, according to Philip Campbell, the journals editor in chief. The debate has also caught fire on the Web site of The Chronicle of Higher Education, where academics and students are sniping at one another.
But is prescription tweaking to perform on exams, or prepare presentations and grants, really the same as injecting hormones to chase down a home run record, or win the Tour de France?
Some argue that such use could be worse, given the potentially deep impact on society. And the behavior of academics in particular, as intellectual leaders, could serve as an example to others.
In his book Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution, Francis Fukuyuma raises the broader issue of performance enhancement: The original purpose of medicine is to heal the sick, not turn healthy people into gods. He and others point out that increased use of such drugs could raise the standard of what is considered normal performance and widen the gap between those who have access to the medications and those who do not - and even erode the relationship between struggle and the building of character.
Even though stimulants and other cognitive enhancers are intended for legitimate clinical use, history predicts that greater availability will lead to an increase in diversion, misuse and abuse, wrote Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and James Swanson of the University of California at Irvine, in a letter to Nature. Among high school students, abuse of prescription medications is second only to cannabis use.
But others insist that the ethics are not so clear, and that academic performance is different in important ways from baseball, or cycling.
I think the analogy with sports doping is really misleading, because in sports it is all about competition, only about who is the best runner or home run hitter, said Martha Farah, director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania. In academics, whether you are a student or a researcher, there is an element of competition, but it is secondary. The main purpose is to try to learn things, to get experience, to write papers, to do experiments. So in that case if you can do it better because you have got some drug on board, that would on the face of things seem like a plus.
She and other midcareer scientists interviewed said that, as far as they knew, very few of their colleagues used brain-boosting drugs regularly. Many have used Provigil for jet lag, or even to stay vertical for late events. But most agreed that the next generation of scientists, now in graduate school and college, were more likely to use the drugs as study aids and bring along those habits as they moved up the ladder.
Surveys of college students have found that from 4 percent to 16 percent say they have used stimulants or other prescription drugs to improve their academic performance - usually getting the pills from other students.
Suppose you are preparing for the SAT, or going for a job interview - in those situations where you have to perform on that day, these drugs will be very attractive, said Dr. Barbara Sahakian of Cambridge, a co-author with Sharon Morein-Zamir of the recent essay in Nature. The desire for cognitive enhancement is very strong, maybe stronger than for beauty, or athletic ability.
Jeffrey White, a graduate student in cell biology who has attended several institutions, said that those numbers sounded about right. You can usually tell who is using them because they can be angry, testy, hyperfocused, they do not want to be bothered, he said.
Mr. White said he did not use the drugs himself, considering them an artificial shortcut that could set people up for problems later on. What happens if you are in a fast-paced surgical situation and they are not available? he asked. Will you be able to function at the same level?
Yet such objections - and philosophical concerns - can vaporize when students and junior faculty members face other questions: What happens if I do not make the cut? What if I am derailed by a bad test score, or a mangled chemistry course?
One person who posted anonymously on the Chronicle of Higher Education Web site said that a daily regimen of three 20-milligram doses of Adderall transformed his career: I am not talking about being able to work longer hours without sleep (although that helps), the posting said. I am talking about being able to take on twice the responsibility, work twice as fast, write more effectively, manage better, be more attentive, devise better and more creative strategies.
Dr. Anjan Chatterjee, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania who foresaw this debate in a 2004 paper, argues that the history of cosmetic surgery - scorned initially as vain and unnatural but now mainstream as a form of self-improvement - is a guide to predicting the trajectory of cosmetic neurology, as he calls it.
We worship at the altar of progress, and to the demigod of choice, Dr. Chatterjee said. Both are very strong undercurrents in the culture and the way this is likely to be framed is: Look, we want smart people to be as productive as possible to make everybodys lives better. We want people performing at the max, and if that means using these medicines, then great, then we should be free to choose what we want as long as we are not harming someone. I am not taking that position, but we have this winner-take-all culture and that is the way it is likely to go.
People already use legal performance enhancers, he said, from high-octane cafe Americanos to the beta-blockers taken by musicians to ease stage fright, to antidepressants to improve mood. So the question with all of these things is, Is this enhancement, or a matter of removing the cloud over our better selves? he said.
The public backlash against brain-enhancement, if it comes, may hit home only after the practice becomes mainstream, Dr. Chatterjee suggested. You can imagine a scenario in the future, when you are applying for a job, and the employer says, Sure, you have the talent for this, but we require you to take Adderall. Now, maybe you do start to care about the ethical implications.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/weekinreview/09carey.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&ref=health&pagewanted=print
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Incidence of Strokes in Women On the Rise
It looks like the statisticians have finally caught up with another damaging effect of obesity and the Standard American Diet. Anybody who has an ounce of horse sense about wellness could have predicted this, but a report was just released indicating that the number of strokes in women, especially those younger than their mid-fifties, is significantly on the rise. Always a killer, strokes were once found mainly in men, and almost always in the elderly of both genders. However, it appears that even though the number of smokers, male and female, has dropped sharply, other factors such as a poor diet and a lack of regular physical exercise are taking up the slack and causing the incidence of strokes and other forms of cardiovascular disease to increase.
It is clear that the answer to restoring the health of Americans cannot be found in a pill bottle. Billions of dollars are spent on statin drugs to lower cholesterol, but it is only making people sicker. The marketing gurus in the drug companies would have us believe that we can eat anything we want, as long as we take our medicine faithfully. The truth that is being whitewashed is that our diets of fatty, artificial foods is creating an environment for disease in our bodies rather than making us well, as natural, organic foods are designed to do. The real cause behind the epidemic of national sickness is the increased inflammation in our bodies caused by eating junk that has minimal nutritional value, and actually does more harm than good. Brings to mind the old saying that does quite a good job at summing up SAD: Americans are digging their own graves with a knife and fork.
A Surge in Strokes
Rates among younger women have nearly tripled over the last decade.
Here's how to reduce your risk.
Pat Wingert and Barbara Kantrowitz
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 5:05 PM ET Mar 10, 2008
Her workday at a local school had just ended when 54-year-old Joanne Puopolo developed a headache so severe she had to pull her car off the road. The Duxbury, Mass., teacher's aide had been feeling sick all day and figured she'd caught "a bug" from one of her students. But soon after walking into her house, her left arm went stiff, and then her left hand suddenly flew up in the air. Her husband called 911, and by the time the ambulance arrived, Puopolo's entire left side was paralyzed. "I knew something was really wrong, but I wasn't thinking it could be a stroke," Puopolo says. After all, strokes only happen to elderly people, don't they? And men are much more vulnerable than women, right?
While the risk of stroke is still comparatively small before age 65, new trend data suggest that age and gender rates are starting to tip in the wrong direction for women. Not only are older women now as likely as older men to suffer a stroke, but recent health surveys indicate that the proportion of women between the ages of 35 and 54 having strokes has nearly tripled in the last decade, while the rate for men the same age has remained flat. While it's always possible that the number of strokes could have risen because of more accurate diagnoses, the fact that the same self-reporting survey was used repeatedly in a relatively brief period, gives Towfighi confidence that the rise is real.
The new incidence rates are still small - only 1.8 percent of women between the ages of 35 and 54 report having had a stroke. (About 80 percent of "brain attacks" are ischemic, caused by a blood clot or plaque that cuts off blood flow to the brain. The remainder are hemorrhagic and occur when a blood vessel in the brain leaks or ruptures.) But stroke researcher Amytis Towfighi, an assistant professor of neurology at the University of Southern California, was worried by the new numbers, a big increase from the .63 percent of women reporting strokes in this age group a decade ago. Towfighi also knew that researchers had actually expected incidence rates to fall, as the number of people taking medication to control their blood pressure and cholesterol levels rose.
This puzzling turn of events warranted more study, Towfighi decided. "I wanted to understand if this was a new phenomenon, and if so, why it was happening," she says. "Most [stroke] studies focus on individuals who are over 60. But there are now more than 1 million stroke survivors aged 25 to 59 in the United States."
After scrutinizing data from the National Health and Nutrition Surveys conducted between 1988 and 1994 and again between 1999 and 2004, Towfighi and her former colleagues at the UCLA Stroke Center were able to publish a series of studies. They confirmed that the spike in strokes among middle-aged women is new and real, and they were also able to hypothesize about the cause of the increase: the expanding waistlines and rising body mass index (or BMI, a measure of body fat based on weight and height) of midlife women.
"There was really no significant difference in women's risk factors like smoking, high blood pressure, cholesterol levels and diabetes," Towfighi says. "But when we looked at biomarkers we found that these women's BMIs and waist circumferences had increased significantly." Men had also gained weight and inches, but not as much as women. (Overall, 50 percent more women had moved into the worrisome zone with waist circumferences over 35 inches, while only one-third more men had passed 40 inches, the outer limit of normal for males.) This was a disturbing trend, Towfighi said, because abdominal fat increases the risk of stroke more than fat deposits in other places because it's "visceral" fat, meaning it wraps itself around vital internal organs.
But even women whose weight is within the normal range, like Puopolo, can be at increased risk. In the last few years Puopolo, a former smoker, had developed high blood pressure and started taking medication to control it. But side effects prompted her to stop, and she let months go by without making an appointment to get a different medicine. "I wasn't really aware how dangerous high blood pressure was," says Puopolo.
Towfighi says recent data seem to indicate that women's blood pressure is increasing at a faster rate - 8 to 10 points a decade, starting at age 35 - than men's, which is increasing by 4 or 5 points per decade. Taking medication helps reduce the risk, but it doesn't eliminate it. "Before most people started on their medication, damage was done to their blood vessels, and that increases their risk of stroke," says Towfighi.
High cholesterol, another risk factor, is also becoming a bigger problem for women. Studies indicate that before age 44 men's cholesterol tends to be higher than women's. But after age 44 women's total cholesterol begins to rise faster than men's, and by the time women are between 55 and 64 they typically have higher cholesterol levels than men.
Not surprisingly, having multiple risk factors (including smoking and using birth control pills or hormone therapy) increases the chance of stroke. So does having the constellation of conditions known as metabolic syndrome, which not only exponentially increases the overall risk of stroke but increases the risk of stroke more for women than for men, says Towfighi. Those with metabolic syndrome suffer from high blood pressure, insulin resistance, increased fat around the waist and abnormal cholesterol levels (specifically, elevated levels of triglycerides and reduced levels of high-density lipoprotein, known as HDL, or the good fats).
The lesson to be learned from this latest round of stroke research, says Towfighi, is that women should really make a point of eating a healthy diet. That means avoiding saturated fat and foods high in cholesterol, eating five servings a day of fruits and vegetables, and exercising at least a half an hour a day. Women should also know what their blood pressure is, and what normal is. The same is true of cholesterol. "We need to start curbing our risk factors early on," says Towfighi.
It's also crucial that women learn the warning signs of a stroke and know what to do if one occurs. The American Stroke Association says that if someone has any of these "five suddens" she should be rushed to the hospital to determine if she has had some type of stroke:
1) Sudden numbness or weakness, typically on one side of the body
2) Sudden difficulty speaking
3) Sudden headache
4) Sudden blurry vision
5) Sudden dizziness, or difficulty with balance or coordination
Other signs of a possible stroke include an inability to form a smile or raise both arms above the head.
These symptoms should be taken seriously, even if they last only a short time and the person resumes full function within a few minutes. Many people don't realize that a transitory stroke often comes before a full-blown stroke by hours, days or months. (Studies indicate that 10 percent of people who have a transitory stroke will have a major stroke within a week, and 20 percent will have one within three months.) Quick diagnosis and treatment can save lives, prevent disability and, in the case of transitory stroke, lower the chance that a more severe stroke will soon follow.
It's also important to realize that the warning signs of stroke in women tend to be "more nonspecific, like feeling weak all over or having a headache," Towfighi says. As a result, some women hesitate to call an ambulance or even their doctor. That may help explain why a woman is more likely to die after having a stroke than a man.
"People need to take all strokes seriously," says Towfighi, who suggests that you call 911 immediately, because time is of the essence. "If you call your doctor or try to drive yourself to the hospital, it may take too long," she says. "You want to get treatment initiated within three hours."
Strokes kill about 200,000 Americans a year and are the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and cancer, and the leading cause of adult disability. Puopolo, the mother of two sons, was one of the lucky ones. She was flown via helicopter to Massachusetts General Hospital for emergency surgery. Once discharged, she spent weeks in a rehabilitation center. Three months later, she's now home, but she continues with occupational and physical therapy. She still doesn't have full use of her left hand. She can't drive, and a lot of everyday tasks remain difficult. "When this first happened, and people heard that I'd had a stroke, they would say, 'She's too young to have had a stroke'," says Puopolo. But as she found out, you're never too young to take steps to reduce the risk that it could happen to you.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/120369
It is clear that the answer to restoring the health of Americans cannot be found in a pill bottle. Billions of dollars are spent on statin drugs to lower cholesterol, but it is only making people sicker. The marketing gurus in the drug companies would have us believe that we can eat anything we want, as long as we take our medicine faithfully. The truth that is being whitewashed is that our diets of fatty, artificial foods is creating an environment for disease in our bodies rather than making us well, as natural, organic foods are designed to do. The real cause behind the epidemic of national sickness is the increased inflammation in our bodies caused by eating junk that has minimal nutritional value, and actually does more harm than good. Brings to mind the old saying that does quite a good job at summing up SAD: Americans are digging their own graves with a knife and fork.
A Surge in Strokes
Rates among younger women have nearly tripled over the last decade.
Here's how to reduce your risk.
Pat Wingert and Barbara Kantrowitz
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 5:05 PM ET Mar 10, 2008
Her workday at a local school had just ended when 54-year-old Joanne Puopolo developed a headache so severe she had to pull her car off the road. The Duxbury, Mass., teacher's aide had been feeling sick all day and figured she'd caught "a bug" from one of her students. But soon after walking into her house, her left arm went stiff, and then her left hand suddenly flew up in the air. Her husband called 911, and by the time the ambulance arrived, Puopolo's entire left side was paralyzed. "I knew something was really wrong, but I wasn't thinking it could be a stroke," Puopolo says. After all, strokes only happen to elderly people, don't they? And men are much more vulnerable than women, right?
While the risk of stroke is still comparatively small before age 65, new trend data suggest that age and gender rates are starting to tip in the wrong direction for women. Not only are older women now as likely as older men to suffer a stroke, but recent health surveys indicate that the proportion of women between the ages of 35 and 54 having strokes has nearly tripled in the last decade, while the rate for men the same age has remained flat. While it's always possible that the number of strokes could have risen because of more accurate diagnoses, the fact that the same self-reporting survey was used repeatedly in a relatively brief period, gives Towfighi confidence that the rise is real.
The new incidence rates are still small - only 1.8 percent of women between the ages of 35 and 54 report having had a stroke. (About 80 percent of "brain attacks" are ischemic, caused by a blood clot or plaque that cuts off blood flow to the brain. The remainder are hemorrhagic and occur when a blood vessel in the brain leaks or ruptures.) But stroke researcher Amytis Towfighi, an assistant professor of neurology at the University of Southern California, was worried by the new numbers, a big increase from the .63 percent of women reporting strokes in this age group a decade ago. Towfighi also knew that researchers had actually expected incidence rates to fall, as the number of people taking medication to control their blood pressure and cholesterol levels rose.
This puzzling turn of events warranted more study, Towfighi decided. "I wanted to understand if this was a new phenomenon, and if so, why it was happening," she says. "Most [stroke] studies focus on individuals who are over 60. But there are now more than 1 million stroke survivors aged 25 to 59 in the United States."
After scrutinizing data from the National Health and Nutrition Surveys conducted between 1988 and 1994 and again between 1999 and 2004, Towfighi and her former colleagues at the UCLA Stroke Center were able to publish a series of studies. They confirmed that the spike in strokes among middle-aged women is new and real, and they were also able to hypothesize about the cause of the increase: the expanding waistlines and rising body mass index (or BMI, a measure of body fat based on weight and height) of midlife women.
"There was really no significant difference in women's risk factors like smoking, high blood pressure, cholesterol levels and diabetes," Towfighi says. "But when we looked at biomarkers we found that these women's BMIs and waist circumferences had increased significantly." Men had also gained weight and inches, but not as much as women. (Overall, 50 percent more women had moved into the worrisome zone with waist circumferences over 35 inches, while only one-third more men had passed 40 inches, the outer limit of normal for males.) This was a disturbing trend, Towfighi said, because abdominal fat increases the risk of stroke more than fat deposits in other places because it's "visceral" fat, meaning it wraps itself around vital internal organs.
But even women whose weight is within the normal range, like Puopolo, can be at increased risk. In the last few years Puopolo, a former smoker, had developed high blood pressure and started taking medication to control it. But side effects prompted her to stop, and she let months go by without making an appointment to get a different medicine. "I wasn't really aware how dangerous high blood pressure was," says Puopolo.
Towfighi says recent data seem to indicate that women's blood pressure is increasing at a faster rate - 8 to 10 points a decade, starting at age 35 - than men's, which is increasing by 4 or 5 points per decade. Taking medication helps reduce the risk, but it doesn't eliminate it. "Before most people started on their medication, damage was done to their blood vessels, and that increases their risk of stroke," says Towfighi.
High cholesterol, another risk factor, is also becoming a bigger problem for women. Studies indicate that before age 44 men's cholesterol tends to be higher than women's. But after age 44 women's total cholesterol begins to rise faster than men's, and by the time women are between 55 and 64 they typically have higher cholesterol levels than men.
Not surprisingly, having multiple risk factors (including smoking and using birth control pills or hormone therapy) increases the chance of stroke. So does having the constellation of conditions known as metabolic syndrome, which not only exponentially increases the overall risk of stroke but increases the risk of stroke more for women than for men, says Towfighi. Those with metabolic syndrome suffer from high blood pressure, insulin resistance, increased fat around the waist and abnormal cholesterol levels (specifically, elevated levels of triglycerides and reduced levels of high-density lipoprotein, known as HDL, or the good fats).
The lesson to be learned from this latest round of stroke research, says Towfighi, is that women should really make a point of eating a healthy diet. That means avoiding saturated fat and foods high in cholesterol, eating five servings a day of fruits and vegetables, and exercising at least a half an hour a day. Women should also know what their blood pressure is, and what normal is. The same is true of cholesterol. "We need to start curbing our risk factors early on," says Towfighi.
It's also crucial that women learn the warning signs of a stroke and know what to do if one occurs. The American Stroke Association says that if someone has any of these "five suddens" she should be rushed to the hospital to determine if she has had some type of stroke:
1) Sudden numbness or weakness, typically on one side of the body
2) Sudden difficulty speaking
3) Sudden headache
4) Sudden blurry vision
5) Sudden dizziness, or difficulty with balance or coordination
Other signs of a possible stroke include an inability to form a smile or raise both arms above the head.
These symptoms should be taken seriously, even if they last only a short time and the person resumes full function within a few minutes. Many people don't realize that a transitory stroke often comes before a full-blown stroke by hours, days or months. (Studies indicate that 10 percent of people who have a transitory stroke will have a major stroke within a week, and 20 percent will have one within three months.) Quick diagnosis and treatment can save lives, prevent disability and, in the case of transitory stroke, lower the chance that a more severe stroke will soon follow.
It's also important to realize that the warning signs of stroke in women tend to be "more nonspecific, like feeling weak all over or having a headache," Towfighi says. As a result, some women hesitate to call an ambulance or even their doctor. That may help explain why a woman is more likely to die after having a stroke than a man.
"People need to take all strokes seriously," says Towfighi, who suggests that you call 911 immediately, because time is of the essence. "If you call your doctor or try to drive yourself to the hospital, it may take too long," she says. "You want to get treatment initiated within three hours."
Strokes kill about 200,000 Americans a year and are the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and cancer, and the leading cause of adult disability. Puopolo, the mother of two sons, was one of the lucky ones. She was flown via helicopter to Massachusetts General Hospital for emergency surgery. Once discharged, she spent weeks in a rehabilitation center. Three months later, she's now home, but she continues with occupational and physical therapy. She still doesn't have full use of her left hand. She can't drive, and a lot of everyday tasks remain difficult. "When this first happened, and people heard that I'd had a stroke, they would say, 'She's too young to have had a stroke'," says Puopolo. But as she found out, you're never too young to take steps to reduce the risk that it could happen to you.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/120369
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