Last week we discussed on this blog the benefits of growing your own food. One of the reasons this is such a good idea is because of food safety. In a trend that has become all too familiar, the story below outlines yet another case of tainted food that has sickened many. The recall of various food products has been occurring at record highs over the last few years. If it is not meat or poultry, it has commonly involved fruits and vegetables, as is the case in this story about contaminated tomatoes.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to trust the safety of anything in the commercial food supply these days. If at all possible, it is best to either grow your own, or to buy locally from farmers and producers of dairy, meats, and poultry (if you choose to eat them) who you trust and with whom you are familiar as far as their practices. Of course, organic is best, but if you cannot go organic, be sure to choose produce that is grown using clean, non-toxic sources of soil, water, and fertilizer. It is also a good idea to wash your food before eating it. Some tips are given in today's article regarding safety in the consumption and preparation of tomatoes, information that can be applied to all types of produce. There is nothing more pleasing to the palate and nourishing to the body than fresh, delicious produce, especially if you can be confidant that it is not polluted by any unwanted substances that may lead to illness, either in the short-term or later in life.
CDC Warns of Tainted Tomatoes
Tomatoes Spread Salmonella Food Poisoning in 9 States So Far
By Daniel J. DeNoonWebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
June 3, 2008 -- Tomatoes tainted with salmonella have sickened dozens of people in nine states, the CDC and FDA warn.
Roma and red round tomatoes appear to be the source of salmonella food poisonings that have sickened 21 people in Texas and 19 people in New Mexico. All of these people ate raw tomatoes.
At least 30 other people have come down with the same salmonella strain in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, and Utah. The CDC is investigating whether these cases, too, are linked to tomatoes.
So far, no deaths have been reported.
People began falling ill on April 23. The CDC says the outbreak is ongoing.
The CDC warns consumers in New Mexico and Texas to avoid Roma or red round tomatoes if they want to lower their risk of salmonella infection. In these states, elderly people, infants, and people with impaired immune systems should avoid these tomatoes until the outbreak is over.
The FDA says cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, tomatoes sold with the vine attached, and homegrown tomatoes are not implicated in the outbreak.
The CDC also advises:
Don't buy bruised or damaged tomatoes.
Thoroughly wash all tomatoes under running water.
All cut, peeled, or cooked tomatoes should be refrigerated within two hours or thrown out.
Tomatoes should be kept separate from raw meats, raw seafood, and other produce.
Wash cutting boards, utensils, dishes, and countertops with hot water and soap when switching between food products.
People infected with salmonella usually get diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps 12 to 72 hours after consuming a tainted product. Illness usually lasts four to seven days. Diagnosis depends on culture of a stool sample.
Most people recover without treatment. However, some people may develop severe infections that can be life threatening. Antibiotic treatment is usually necessary for severe salmonella infection.
The CDC and the FDA will be providing updates as the outbreak continues.
http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/food-poisoning/news/20080603/cdc-warns-of-tainted-tomatoes?print=true
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
Can We Trust Medical Research?
There have been many conflicts of interest over the years when it comes to research involving drugs and other medical procedures. A story released last week is particularly alarming because it involves compromised research that has significantly fueled the practice of giving dangerous psychiatric drugs to our children, a phenomenon that has exploded over the last decade or so. Policies based on the findings of several prominent child psychiatrists have resulted in the use of these drugs on thousands of children, and it is now coming to light that these doctors were given funding by various drug companies that manufacture and sell these medications. To make matters even worse, many others in the field of child psychiatry are vehemently disagreeing with these policies, claiming that many of these children did not need these drugs, and were potentially harmed by their use.
It is scandalous that we cannot trust the advice given by many physicians, most with the best intentions of providing quality health care to their patients. Unfortunately, they are lied to just as blatantly as we the general public is regarding the safety and appropriate use of many medications. When the motive behind such propaganda is billions of dollars of potential profit, the health and welfare of the consumers using these products (drugs) is the least consideration. Please be aware of and consider information such as that disclosed in the following article before ever submitting to the use of medications or treatment for yourself or your family. We must become educated and monitor a system that has shown time and time again that it does not have the integrity to police itself.
June 8, 2008
Researchers Fail to Reveal Full Drug Pay
By GARDINER HARRIS and BENEDICT CAREY
A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007 but for years did not report much of this income to university officials, according to information given Congressional investigators.
By failing to report income, the psychiatrist, Dr. Joseph Biederman, and a colleague in the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Timothy E. Wilens, may have violated federal and university research rules designed to police potential conflicts of interest, according to Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. Some of their research is financed by government grants.
Like Dr. Biederman, Dr. Wilens belatedly reported earning at least $1.6 million from 2000 to 2007, and another Harvard colleague, Dr. Thomas Spencer, reported earning at least $1 million after being pressed by Mr. Grassley's investigators. But even these amended disclosures may understate the researchers' outside income because some entries contradict payment information from drug makers, Mr. Grassley found.
In one example, Dr. Biederman reported no income from Johnson & Johnson for 2001 in a disclosure report filed with the university. When asked to check again, he said he received $3,500. But Johnson & Johnson told Mr. Grassley that it paid him $58,169 in 2001, Mr. Grassley found.
The Harvard group's consulting arrangements with drug makers were already controversial because of the researchers' advocacy of unapproved uses of psychiatric medicines in children.
In an e-mailed statement, Dr. Biederman said, "My interests are solely in the advancement of medical treatment through rigorous and objective study," and he said he took conflict-of-interest policies "very seriously." Drs. Wilens and Spencer said in e-mailed statements that they thought they had complied with conflict-of-interest rules.
John Burklow, a spokesman for the National Institutes of Health, said: "If there have been violations of N.I.H. policy -- and if research integrity has been compromised --we will take all the appropriate action within our power to hold those responsible accountable. This would be completely unacceptable behavior, and N.I.H. will not tolerate it."
The federal grants received by Drs. Biederman and Wilens were administered by Massachusetts General Hospital, which in 2005 won $287 million in such grants. The health institutes could place restrictions on the hospital's grants or even suspend them altogether.
Alyssa Kneller, a Harvard spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement: "The information released by Senator Grassley suggests that, in certain instances, each doctor may have failed to disclose outside income from pharmaceutical companies and other entities that should have been disclosed."
Ms. Kneller said the doctors had been referred to a university conflict committee for review.
Mr. Grassley sent letters on Wednesday to Harvard and the health institutes outlining his investigators' findings, and he placed the letters along with his comments in The Congressional Record.
Dr. Biederman is one of the most influential researchers in child psychiatry and is widely admired for focusing the field's attention on its most troubled young patients. Although many of his studies are small and often financed by drug makers, his work helped to fuel a controversial 40-fold increase from 1994 to 2003 in the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder, which is characterized by severe mood swings, and a rapid rise in the use of antipsychotic medicines in children. The Grassley investigation did not address research quality.
Doctors have known for years that antipsychotic drugs, sometimes called major tranquilizers, can quickly subdue children. But youngsters appear to be especially susceptible to the weight gain and metabolic problems caused by the drugs, and it is far from clear that the medications improve children's lives over time, experts say.
In the last 25 years, drug and device makers have displaced the federal government as the primary source of research financing, and industry support is vital to many university research programs. But as corporate research executives recruit the brightest scientists, their brethren in marketing departments have discovered that some of these same scientists can be terrific pitchmen.
To protect research integrity, the National Institutes of Health require researchers to report to universities earnings of $10,000 or more per year, for instance, in consulting money from makers of drugs also studied by the researchers in federally financed trials. Universities manage financial conflicts by requiring that the money be disclosed to research subjects, among other measures.
The health institutes last year awarded more than $23 billion in grants to more than 325,000 researchers at over 3,000 universities, and auditing the potential conflicts of each grantee would be impossible, health institutes officials have long insisted. So the government relies on universities.
Universities ask professors to report their conflicts but do almost nothing to verify the accuracy of these voluntary disclosures.
"It's really been an honor system thing," said Dr. Robert Alpern, dean of Yale School of Medicine. "If somebody tells us that a pharmaceutical company pays them $80,000 a year, I don't even know how to check on that."
Some states have laws requiring drug makers to disclose payments made to doctors, and Mr. Grassley and others have sponsored legislation to create a national registry.
Lawmakers have been concerned in recent years about the use of unapproved medications in children and the influence of industry money.
Mr. Grassley asked Harvard for the three researchers' financial disclosure reports from 2000 through 2007 and asked some drug makers to list payments made to them.
"Basically, these forms were a mess," Mr. Grassley said in comments he entered into The Congressional Record on Wednesday. "Over the last seven years, it looked like they had taken a couple hundred thousand dollars."
Prompted by Mr. Grassley's interest, Harvard asked the researchers to re-examine their disclosure reports.
In the new disclosures, the trio's outside consulting income jumped but was still contradicted by reports sent to Mr. Grassley from some of the companies. In some cases, the income seems to have put the researchers in violation of university and federal rules.
In 2000, for instance, Dr. Biederman received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to study in children Strattera, an Eli Lilly drug for attention deficit disorder. Dr. Biederman reported to Harvard that he received less than $10,000 from Lilly that year, but the company told Mr. Grassley that it paid Dr. Biederman more than $14,000 in 2000, Mr. Grassley's letter stated.
At the time, Harvard forbade professors from conducting clinical trials if they received payments over $10,000 from the company whose product was being studied, and federal rules required such conflicts to be managed.
Mr. Grassley said these discrepancies demonstrated profound flaws in the oversight of researchers' financial conflicts and the need for a national registry. But the disclosures may also cloud the work of one of the most prominent group of child psychiatrists in the world.
In the past decade, Dr. Biederman and his colleagues have promoted the aggressive diagnosis and drug treatment of childhood bipolar disorder, a mood problem once thought confined to adults. They have maintained that the disorder was underdiagnosed in children and could be treated with antipsychotic drugs, medications invented to treat schizophrenia.
Other researchers have made similar assertions. As a result, pediatric bipolar diagnoses and antipsychotic drug use in children have soared. Some 500,000 children and teenagers were given at least one prescription for an antipsychotic in 2007, including 20,500 under 6 years of age, according to Medco Health Solutions, a pharmacy benefit manager.
Few psychiatrists today doubt that bipolar disorder can strike in the early teenage years, or that many of the children being given the diagnosis are deeply distressed.
"I consider Dr. Biederman a true visionary in recognizing this illness in children," said Susan Resko, director of the Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation, "and he's not only saved many lives but restored hope to thousands of families across the country."
Longtime critics of the group see its influence differently. "They have given the Harvard imprimatur to this commercial experimentation on children," said Vera Sharav, president and founder of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, a patient advocacy group.
Many researchers strongly disagree over what bipolar looks like in youngsters, and some now fear the definition has been expanded unnecessarily, due in part to the Harvard group.
The group published the results of a string of drug trials from 2001 to 2006, but the studies were so small and loosely designed that they were largely inconclusive, experts say. In some studies testing antipsychotic drugs, the group defined improvement as a decline of 30 percent or more on a scale called the Young Mania Rating Scale -- well below the 50 percent change that most researchers now use as the standard.
Controlling for bias is especially important in such work, given that the scale is subjective, and raters often depend on reports from parents and children, several top psychiatrists said.
More broadly, they said, revelations of undisclosed payments from drug makers to leading researchers are especially damaging for psychiatry.
"The price we pay for these kinds of revelations is credibility, and we just can't afford to lose any more of that in this field," said Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, executive director of the Stanley Medical Research Institute, which finances psychiatric studies. "In the area of child psychiatry in particular, we know much less than we should, and we desperately need research that is not influenced by industry money."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/us/08conflict.html?ei=5087&em=&en=9971013dfd33290a&ex=1213070400&pagewanted=print
It is scandalous that we cannot trust the advice given by many physicians, most with the best intentions of providing quality health care to their patients. Unfortunately, they are lied to just as blatantly as we the general public is regarding the safety and appropriate use of many medications. When the motive behind such propaganda is billions of dollars of potential profit, the health and welfare of the consumers using these products (drugs) is the least consideration. Please be aware of and consider information such as that disclosed in the following article before ever submitting to the use of medications or treatment for yourself or your family. We must become educated and monitor a system that has shown time and time again that it does not have the integrity to police itself.
June 8, 2008
Researchers Fail to Reveal Full Drug Pay
By GARDINER HARRIS and BENEDICT CAREY
A world-renowned Harvard child psychiatrist whose work has helped fuel an explosion in the use of powerful antipsychotic medicines in children earned at least $1.6 million in consulting fees from drug makers from 2000 to 2007 but for years did not report much of this income to university officials, according to information given Congressional investigators.
By failing to report income, the psychiatrist, Dr. Joseph Biederman, and a colleague in the psychiatry department at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Timothy E. Wilens, may have violated federal and university research rules designed to police potential conflicts of interest, according to Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa. Some of their research is financed by government grants.
Like Dr. Biederman, Dr. Wilens belatedly reported earning at least $1.6 million from 2000 to 2007, and another Harvard colleague, Dr. Thomas Spencer, reported earning at least $1 million after being pressed by Mr. Grassley's investigators. But even these amended disclosures may understate the researchers' outside income because some entries contradict payment information from drug makers, Mr. Grassley found.
In one example, Dr. Biederman reported no income from Johnson & Johnson for 2001 in a disclosure report filed with the university. When asked to check again, he said he received $3,500. But Johnson & Johnson told Mr. Grassley that it paid him $58,169 in 2001, Mr. Grassley found.
The Harvard group's consulting arrangements with drug makers were already controversial because of the researchers' advocacy of unapproved uses of psychiatric medicines in children.
In an e-mailed statement, Dr. Biederman said, "My interests are solely in the advancement of medical treatment through rigorous and objective study," and he said he took conflict-of-interest policies "very seriously." Drs. Wilens and Spencer said in e-mailed statements that they thought they had complied with conflict-of-interest rules.
John Burklow, a spokesman for the National Institutes of Health, said: "If there have been violations of N.I.H. policy -- and if research integrity has been compromised --we will take all the appropriate action within our power to hold those responsible accountable. This would be completely unacceptable behavior, and N.I.H. will not tolerate it."
The federal grants received by Drs. Biederman and Wilens were administered by Massachusetts General Hospital, which in 2005 won $287 million in such grants. The health institutes could place restrictions on the hospital's grants or even suspend them altogether.
Alyssa Kneller, a Harvard spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement: "The information released by Senator Grassley suggests that, in certain instances, each doctor may have failed to disclose outside income from pharmaceutical companies and other entities that should have been disclosed."
Ms. Kneller said the doctors had been referred to a university conflict committee for review.
Mr. Grassley sent letters on Wednesday to Harvard and the health institutes outlining his investigators' findings, and he placed the letters along with his comments in The Congressional Record.
Dr. Biederman is one of the most influential researchers in child psychiatry and is widely admired for focusing the field's attention on its most troubled young patients. Although many of his studies are small and often financed by drug makers, his work helped to fuel a controversial 40-fold increase from 1994 to 2003 in the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder, which is characterized by severe mood swings, and a rapid rise in the use of antipsychotic medicines in children. The Grassley investigation did not address research quality.
Doctors have known for years that antipsychotic drugs, sometimes called major tranquilizers, can quickly subdue children. But youngsters appear to be especially susceptible to the weight gain and metabolic problems caused by the drugs, and it is far from clear that the medications improve children's lives over time, experts say.
In the last 25 years, drug and device makers have displaced the federal government as the primary source of research financing, and industry support is vital to many university research programs. But as corporate research executives recruit the brightest scientists, their brethren in marketing departments have discovered that some of these same scientists can be terrific pitchmen.
To protect research integrity, the National Institutes of Health require researchers to report to universities earnings of $10,000 or more per year, for instance, in consulting money from makers of drugs also studied by the researchers in federally financed trials. Universities manage financial conflicts by requiring that the money be disclosed to research subjects, among other measures.
The health institutes last year awarded more than $23 billion in grants to more than 325,000 researchers at over 3,000 universities, and auditing the potential conflicts of each grantee would be impossible, health institutes officials have long insisted. So the government relies on universities.
Universities ask professors to report their conflicts but do almost nothing to verify the accuracy of these voluntary disclosures.
"It's really been an honor system thing," said Dr. Robert Alpern, dean of Yale School of Medicine. "If somebody tells us that a pharmaceutical company pays them $80,000 a year, I don't even know how to check on that."
Some states have laws requiring drug makers to disclose payments made to doctors, and Mr. Grassley and others have sponsored legislation to create a national registry.
Lawmakers have been concerned in recent years about the use of unapproved medications in children and the influence of industry money.
Mr. Grassley asked Harvard for the three researchers' financial disclosure reports from 2000 through 2007 and asked some drug makers to list payments made to them.
"Basically, these forms were a mess," Mr. Grassley said in comments he entered into The Congressional Record on Wednesday. "Over the last seven years, it looked like they had taken a couple hundred thousand dollars."
Prompted by Mr. Grassley's interest, Harvard asked the researchers to re-examine their disclosure reports.
In the new disclosures, the trio's outside consulting income jumped but was still contradicted by reports sent to Mr. Grassley from some of the companies. In some cases, the income seems to have put the researchers in violation of university and federal rules.
In 2000, for instance, Dr. Biederman received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to study in children Strattera, an Eli Lilly drug for attention deficit disorder. Dr. Biederman reported to Harvard that he received less than $10,000 from Lilly that year, but the company told Mr. Grassley that it paid Dr. Biederman more than $14,000 in 2000, Mr. Grassley's letter stated.
At the time, Harvard forbade professors from conducting clinical trials if they received payments over $10,000 from the company whose product was being studied, and federal rules required such conflicts to be managed.
Mr. Grassley said these discrepancies demonstrated profound flaws in the oversight of researchers' financial conflicts and the need for a national registry. But the disclosures may also cloud the work of one of the most prominent group of child psychiatrists in the world.
In the past decade, Dr. Biederman and his colleagues have promoted the aggressive diagnosis and drug treatment of childhood bipolar disorder, a mood problem once thought confined to adults. They have maintained that the disorder was underdiagnosed in children and could be treated with antipsychotic drugs, medications invented to treat schizophrenia.
Other researchers have made similar assertions. As a result, pediatric bipolar diagnoses and antipsychotic drug use in children have soared. Some 500,000 children and teenagers were given at least one prescription for an antipsychotic in 2007, including 20,500 under 6 years of age, according to Medco Health Solutions, a pharmacy benefit manager.
Few psychiatrists today doubt that bipolar disorder can strike in the early teenage years, or that many of the children being given the diagnosis are deeply distressed.
"I consider Dr. Biederman a true visionary in recognizing this illness in children," said Susan Resko, director of the Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation, "and he's not only saved many lives but restored hope to thousands of families across the country."
Longtime critics of the group see its influence differently. "They have given the Harvard imprimatur to this commercial experimentation on children," said Vera Sharav, president and founder of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, a patient advocacy group.
Many researchers strongly disagree over what bipolar looks like in youngsters, and some now fear the definition has been expanded unnecessarily, due in part to the Harvard group.
The group published the results of a string of drug trials from 2001 to 2006, but the studies were so small and loosely designed that they were largely inconclusive, experts say. In some studies testing antipsychotic drugs, the group defined improvement as a decline of 30 percent or more on a scale called the Young Mania Rating Scale -- well below the 50 percent change that most researchers now use as the standard.
Controlling for bias is especially important in such work, given that the scale is subjective, and raters often depend on reports from parents and children, several top psychiatrists said.
More broadly, they said, revelations of undisclosed payments from drug makers to leading researchers are especially damaging for psychiatry.
"The price we pay for these kinds of revelations is credibility, and we just can't afford to lose any more of that in this field," said Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, executive director of the Stanley Medical Research Institute, which finances psychiatric studies. "In the area of child psychiatry in particular, we know much less than we should, and we desperately need research that is not influenced by industry money."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/us/08conflict.html?ei=5087&em=&en=9971013dfd33290a&ex=1213070400&pagewanted=print
Friday, June 6, 2008
Spinach and Other Veggies Battle Ovarian Cancer
I don't think we will ever discover all the wonderful healthful benefits of natural foods like organic fruits and vegetables. There seems to be an endless supply of good news when it comes to eating these foods, and a recent study has uncovered a link between flavonoids in certain vegetables and protection against one of the most common female cancers -- ovarian cancer.
Eating naturally has always been a necessary part of staying well, but it is even more crucial these days when despite our best efforts, we are all exposed to environmental toxins that increase our risk of cancer and other degenerative diseases. So eat lots of colorful salads and choose raw veggies to munch on. And as we discussed on the blog earlier this week, grow your own produce if at all possible. It is the best way to provide fresh, affordable, and nutritious foods to keep you and your family well and flourishing. In our increasingly toxic world, we need every advantage we can get.
Research Shows Spinach Can Help Prevent Ovarian Cancer
by Frank Mangano
(NaturalNews) It's no secret that fruits and vegetables provide the body with the essential vitamins, nutrients and minerals that help keep the body free of disease. But how great would it be if specific foods warded off specific illnesses? Well, based on some recent research, that could very well be a reality.
Published in the International Journal of Cancer, researchers have discovered that the compounds found in specific vegetables may prove as an effective deterrent to one of the most prevalent cancers among women today: ovarian cancer.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause in cancer-related deaths, preceded by lung, breast, colorectal and pancreatic. Though there hasn't been a significant rise in the number of ovarian cancer diagnoses over the past 20 years in the United States, in 2004 alone, nearly 15,000 women died from it, despite the estimated $2.2 billion annually spent on treating the disease.
Before I get to some of the salutiferous (i.e. healthful) cruciferous (some of them) vegetables cited in the research, you may be wondering what it is about these vegetables that make them cancer fighting. Researchers believe the flavonoids found in the vegetables are the likely purveyors of protection as they not only shield the body from disease upon consumption but ward off diseases from infecting the vegetable as well.
Researchers came to their conclusions after reviewing the diets of 67,000 women over 14 years and found that women who consumed the most flavonoids were 40 percent less likely to develop ovarian cancer. Though all flavonoids are considered good for you and disease fighting, kaempferol was singled out as the most effective in fighting ovarian cancer. This odd-sounding flavonoid is naturally-occurring and some studies suggest it has anti-depressant properties. But for ovarian cancer purposes, kaempferol is particularly dense in vegetables like broccoli, kale and spinach (I guess Popeye was on to something).
Another particularly effective flavonoid is luteolin. Frequently found in leaves and bark, this other odd-sounding flavonoid is found in salad vegetable faves like peppers, cabbage and carrots. Women who consumed these kinds of vegetables were 34 percent less likely to develop ovarian cancer than women who consumed the least amount of flavonoids.
Another food with ovarian cancer-protective qualities due to its flavonoid density is --you guessed it -- blueberries. The blue beauties have a flavonoid called myricetin, which is also found in grapes and walnuts.
While these findings suggest women eat some vegetables over others, researchers are reluctant in advising this because there is still some question as to the exact source of the cancer-fighting properties. Hopefully, women (and men) have the means and desire to eat a wide variety of vegetables, as just about all of them have carved out their own niche in the disease-fighting department.
http://www.naturalnews.com/z023009.html
Eating naturally has always been a necessary part of staying well, but it is even more crucial these days when despite our best efforts, we are all exposed to environmental toxins that increase our risk of cancer and other degenerative diseases. So eat lots of colorful salads and choose raw veggies to munch on. And as we discussed on the blog earlier this week, grow your own produce if at all possible. It is the best way to provide fresh, affordable, and nutritious foods to keep you and your family well and flourishing. In our increasingly toxic world, we need every advantage we can get.
Research Shows Spinach Can Help Prevent Ovarian Cancer
by Frank Mangano
(NaturalNews) It's no secret that fruits and vegetables provide the body with the essential vitamins, nutrients and minerals that help keep the body free of disease. But how great would it be if specific foods warded off specific illnesses? Well, based on some recent research, that could very well be a reality.
Published in the International Journal of Cancer, researchers have discovered that the compounds found in specific vegetables may prove as an effective deterrent to one of the most prevalent cancers among women today: ovarian cancer.
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause in cancer-related deaths, preceded by lung, breast, colorectal and pancreatic. Though there hasn't been a significant rise in the number of ovarian cancer diagnoses over the past 20 years in the United States, in 2004 alone, nearly 15,000 women died from it, despite the estimated $2.2 billion annually spent on treating the disease.
Before I get to some of the salutiferous (i.e. healthful) cruciferous (some of them) vegetables cited in the research, you may be wondering what it is about these vegetables that make them cancer fighting. Researchers believe the flavonoids found in the vegetables are the likely purveyors of protection as they not only shield the body from disease upon consumption but ward off diseases from infecting the vegetable as well.
Researchers came to their conclusions after reviewing the diets of 67,000 women over 14 years and found that women who consumed the most flavonoids were 40 percent less likely to develop ovarian cancer. Though all flavonoids are considered good for you and disease fighting, kaempferol was singled out as the most effective in fighting ovarian cancer. This odd-sounding flavonoid is naturally-occurring and some studies suggest it has anti-depressant properties. But for ovarian cancer purposes, kaempferol is particularly dense in vegetables like broccoli, kale and spinach (I guess Popeye was on to something).
Another particularly effective flavonoid is luteolin. Frequently found in leaves and bark, this other odd-sounding flavonoid is found in salad vegetable faves like peppers, cabbage and carrots. Women who consumed these kinds of vegetables were 34 percent less likely to develop ovarian cancer than women who consumed the least amount of flavonoids.
Another food with ovarian cancer-protective qualities due to its flavonoid density is --you guessed it -- blueberries. The blue beauties have a flavonoid called myricetin, which is also found in grapes and walnuts.
While these findings suggest women eat some vegetables over others, researchers are reluctant in advising this because there is still some question as to the exact source of the cancer-fighting properties. Hopefully, women (and men) have the means and desire to eat a wide variety of vegetables, as just about all of them have carved out their own niche in the disease-fighting department.
http://www.naturalnews.com/z023009.html
Thursday, June 5, 2008
CDC Not Satisfied With Vaccine Compliance Rates
It appears the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is not happy about the growing number of sensible, informed parents who are opting out of some or all vaccines for their children. Despite the very high percentage of kids who are vaccinated according to the recommended schedule, this government agency and other voices in conventional medicine and the media are expressing their disapproval, and some are calling for legislative changes that would lessen the freedom of parents to choose even further.
Let's face it everyone: There are agendas and enormous amounts of money at stake here. Just think of the dollar value on the sales associated with an average of 48 doses of vaccine for every child in America. As far as threatened agendas go, many of those in power do not want Americans to be allowed to think and choose too freely, as this might upset the boat and make it more difficult to control the opinions and actions of the public at large. Vaccines are not hard to justify. All the public relations people have to do is point to the low rate of infectious diseases. What they don't like to bring up is the growing amount of evidence that links the toxins in these vaccines to serious health concerns in our children. Perhaps if they can make everyone fall in line with vaccines, it won't be so hard to sell other controversial ideas such as euthanasia or population growth control measures, as has happened in China and other countries of the world. Expect the heat to be turned up regarding this issue in the near future. The best thing we can do is to stay informed and be ready to speak up against those who will seek to trample on our rights as thinking Americans to exercise our health care freedoms.
For more information on vaccinations go to the OAW Health Knowledge Base: http://www.oasisadvancedwellness.com/learning/vaccinations-articles.html
Tracking & Forcing Vaccines: Parents Want Choices
by Barbara Loe Fisher
This week, CDC researchers sent out a warning that one in four children under age three in America is "not in compliance" with the CDC vaccine "recommendations" and that "missed doses" or "mistimed" doses is the cause. Some are calling for more vaccine tracking registries that will track children and their parents down to make sure every single one of the 48 doses of 14 vaccines that the CDC says kids must get has been given to every single child. The Los Angeles Times points the finger at "anti-vaccine parents" and urges the California legislature to put an end to the "personal belief" exemption so only doctors adhering to very narrow CDC guidelines for what constitutes a vaccine exemption are allowed to exempt children from vaccination.
The U.S. uses more vaccines than any other country in the world and has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world for young children: 70 to 80 percent of pre-schoolers have been injected with 26 doses of 10 vaccines. That high vaccination rate rises with age to 95 percent or more for six year old children entering kindergarten.
The CDC report lamenting that public health officials have been calculating the vaccine uptake among young children incorrectly comes at a time when the rate of infectious disease is way down but the rate of chronic disease and disability among highly vaccinated children is increasing: 1 in 6 child is learning disabled; 1 in 9 is asthmatic; 1 in 150 develops autism; 1 in 450 has diabetes.
Today, a Gallup poll reveals that half of all Americans report they are "stuck in a cycle of chronic disease" with two thirds of U.S. workers reporting one or more chronic diseases or recurring conditions. Some want to point to "stress" and "overweight" and "smoking" as the cause for the catastrophic high rate of chronic illness among Americans of all ages.
But the public health officials and medical doctors of this country have a lot to answer for and the question everyone should be asking is: Why is the most highly vaccinated population in the world so sick?
Educated health consumers, including informed parents, are taking matters into their own hands. They are choosing healthy lifestyles and wise health care alternatives that do not rely on constant pharmaceutical product use, including using too many vaccines.
Source: National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) News Letter of April 30, 2008.
http://www.909shot.com/
Let's face it everyone: There are agendas and enormous amounts of money at stake here. Just think of the dollar value on the sales associated with an average of 48 doses of vaccine for every child in America. As far as threatened agendas go, many of those in power do not want Americans to be allowed to think and choose too freely, as this might upset the boat and make it more difficult to control the opinions and actions of the public at large. Vaccines are not hard to justify. All the public relations people have to do is point to the low rate of infectious diseases. What they don't like to bring up is the growing amount of evidence that links the toxins in these vaccines to serious health concerns in our children. Perhaps if they can make everyone fall in line with vaccines, it won't be so hard to sell other controversial ideas such as euthanasia or population growth control measures, as has happened in China and other countries of the world. Expect the heat to be turned up regarding this issue in the near future. The best thing we can do is to stay informed and be ready to speak up against those who will seek to trample on our rights as thinking Americans to exercise our health care freedoms.
For more information on vaccinations go to the OAW Health Knowledge Base: http://www.oasisadvancedwellness.com/learning/vaccinations-articles.html
Tracking & Forcing Vaccines: Parents Want Choices
by Barbara Loe Fisher
This week, CDC researchers sent out a warning that one in four children under age three in America is "not in compliance" with the CDC vaccine "recommendations" and that "missed doses" or "mistimed" doses is the cause. Some are calling for more vaccine tracking registries that will track children and their parents down to make sure every single one of the 48 doses of 14 vaccines that the CDC says kids must get has been given to every single child. The Los Angeles Times points the finger at "anti-vaccine parents" and urges the California legislature to put an end to the "personal belief" exemption so only doctors adhering to very narrow CDC guidelines for what constitutes a vaccine exemption are allowed to exempt children from vaccination.
The U.S. uses more vaccines than any other country in the world and has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world for young children: 70 to 80 percent of pre-schoolers have been injected with 26 doses of 10 vaccines. That high vaccination rate rises with age to 95 percent or more for six year old children entering kindergarten.
The CDC report lamenting that public health officials have been calculating the vaccine uptake among young children incorrectly comes at a time when the rate of infectious disease is way down but the rate of chronic disease and disability among highly vaccinated children is increasing: 1 in 6 child is learning disabled; 1 in 9 is asthmatic; 1 in 150 develops autism; 1 in 450 has diabetes.
Today, a Gallup poll reveals that half of all Americans report they are "stuck in a cycle of chronic disease" with two thirds of U.S. workers reporting one or more chronic diseases or recurring conditions. Some want to point to "stress" and "overweight" and "smoking" as the cause for the catastrophic high rate of chronic illness among Americans of all ages.
But the public health officials and medical doctors of this country have a lot to answer for and the question everyone should be asking is: Why is the most highly vaccinated population in the world so sick?
Educated health consumers, including informed parents, are taking matters into their own hands. They are choosing healthy lifestyles and wise health care alternatives that do not rely on constant pharmaceutical product use, including using too many vaccines.
Source: National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) News Letter of April 30, 2008.
http://www.909shot.com/
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Obesity in Kids Plateaus, but Crisis is Far From Over
There are indicators, according to the study referenced below, that the spike in childhood obesity in this country may have ceased for now, but our youngsters remain in great danger, and the cultural factors that have caused this epidemic must still be addressed. We are an overweight nation -- both kids and adults -- and it is these excess pounds, along with a poor diet and sedentary lifestyle, which have resulted in an onslaught of debilitating disease. Unfortunately, many of these negative cultural values are now spreading to other parts of the world.
Here's a thought: Want to save on those ever-growing grocery bills? Try eating less. If we could train ourselves and our children to cut calorie consumption significantly by learning to eat only as much as we need and not as much as we want, obesity would soon vanish in the vast majority of cases. Combined with choosing whole, natural foods and regular exercise, this routine could put a huge dent in obesity and go a long ways towards redirecting the average American on the path to wellness instead of disease.
Childhood Obesity May Be Leveling Off
By Serena GordonHealthDay Reporter
Tue May 27, 11:46 PM ET
TUESDAY, May 27 (HealthDay News) -- In what may be the first good news in the battle against obesity among America's children, federal researchers report that the latest data suggest that the number of overweight kids may be leveling off.
However, experts caution there's still much to be done to improve the health of American children because the number of youngsters who are overweight today is still triple what it was in the 1960s and 1970s.
"The rates are still very high. But this study suggests there may be some cause for optimism as the rate appears fairly level over eight years," said study author Cynthia Ogden, an epidemiologist at the National Center for Health Statistics, whose findings are published in the May 28 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Others agreed with Ogden's assessment.
"After 25 years of extraordinarily bad news about childhood obesity, there is a glimmer of hope. But it's much too soon to know whether rates have truly leveled off," said the author of an accompanying editorial in the same issue of the journal, Dr. David Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children's Hospital Boston.
"Even if they have leveled off, the prevalence is at such high levels that unless we do something, unless we redouble our efforts, this generation is in store for a shorter and less healthful life than their parents," Ludwig said.
Using height and weight data from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the researchers calculated the body-mass index (BMI) for 8,165 American children between the ages of 2 and 19. The data used for the study was collected in 2003-04 and again in 2005-06.
The researchers found no statistical difference between the two time periods, and so combined them into one. Between 2003 and 2006, 31.9 percent of American children had a BMI higher than the 85th percentile for their gender and age. A BMI above the 85th percentile means a child is at risk of being overweight.
Slightly more than 16 percent of the children had a BMI at or above the 95th percentile, indicating they were overweight. And 11.3 percent had a BMI at or above the 97th percentile, indicating these kids were significantly overweight.
When the researchers compared this data to data from as far back as 1999, they found no statistically significant differences in the prevalence of overweight children.
The researchers did find that Mexican-American girls and boys, as well as non-Hispanic black girls, were more likely to have a high BMI than non-Hispanic whites. But Ogden said that, although these levels still remained high, they also appeared to have leveled off.
The study didn't look at factors that might be contributing to the trend, according to Ogden.
Ludwig said the numbers may have something to do with all the attention that has been paid to the problem of childhood obesity. But, he added, there still needs to be much more focus given to the problem at a national level.
"We need a comprehensive national strategy. We need to regulate junk food ads to kids, we need better school lunch funding, better funding for regular physical education in schools and after-school activities, and we need improved insurance reimbursement for obesity prevention and treatment services," he said.
"It's much too soon to tell if there's a true plateau or if this is just a temporary lull. Without major declines in prevalence, the health toll will continue to mount," Ludwig said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20080528/hl_hsn/childhoodobesitymaybelevelingoff&printer=1;_ylt=ArDwU0u6d27eclWBpH58j_K9j7AB
Here's a thought: Want to save on those ever-growing grocery bills? Try eating less. If we could train ourselves and our children to cut calorie consumption significantly by learning to eat only as much as we need and not as much as we want, obesity would soon vanish in the vast majority of cases. Combined with choosing whole, natural foods and regular exercise, this routine could put a huge dent in obesity and go a long ways towards redirecting the average American on the path to wellness instead of disease.
Childhood Obesity May Be Leveling Off
By Serena GordonHealthDay Reporter
Tue May 27, 11:46 PM ET
TUESDAY, May 27 (HealthDay News) -- In what may be the first good news in the battle against obesity among America's children, federal researchers report that the latest data suggest that the number of overweight kids may be leveling off.
However, experts caution there's still much to be done to improve the health of American children because the number of youngsters who are overweight today is still triple what it was in the 1960s and 1970s.
"The rates are still very high. But this study suggests there may be some cause for optimism as the rate appears fairly level over eight years," said study author Cynthia Ogden, an epidemiologist at the National Center for Health Statistics, whose findings are published in the May 28 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Others agreed with Ogden's assessment.
"After 25 years of extraordinarily bad news about childhood obesity, there is a glimmer of hope. But it's much too soon to know whether rates have truly leveled off," said the author of an accompanying editorial in the same issue of the journal, Dr. David Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children's Hospital Boston.
"Even if they have leveled off, the prevalence is at such high levels that unless we do something, unless we redouble our efforts, this generation is in store for a shorter and less healthful life than their parents," Ludwig said.
Using height and weight data from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the researchers calculated the body-mass index (BMI) for 8,165 American children between the ages of 2 and 19. The data used for the study was collected in 2003-04 and again in 2005-06.
The researchers found no statistical difference between the two time periods, and so combined them into one. Between 2003 and 2006, 31.9 percent of American children had a BMI higher than the 85th percentile for their gender and age. A BMI above the 85th percentile means a child is at risk of being overweight.
Slightly more than 16 percent of the children had a BMI at or above the 95th percentile, indicating they were overweight. And 11.3 percent had a BMI at or above the 97th percentile, indicating these kids were significantly overweight.
When the researchers compared this data to data from as far back as 1999, they found no statistically significant differences in the prevalence of overweight children.
The researchers did find that Mexican-American girls and boys, as well as non-Hispanic black girls, were more likely to have a high BMI than non-Hispanic whites. But Ogden said that, although these levels still remained high, they also appeared to have leveled off.
The study didn't look at factors that might be contributing to the trend, according to Ogden.
Ludwig said the numbers may have something to do with all the attention that has been paid to the problem of childhood obesity. But, he added, there still needs to be much more focus given to the problem at a national level.
"We need a comprehensive national strategy. We need to regulate junk food ads to kids, we need better school lunch funding, better funding for regular physical education in schools and after-school activities, and we need improved insurance reimbursement for obesity prevention and treatment services," he said.
"It's much too soon to tell if there's a true plateau or if this is just a temporary lull. Without major declines in prevalence, the health toll will continue to mount," Ludwig said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20080528/hl_hsn/childhoodobesitymaybelevelingoff&printer=1;_ylt=ArDwU0u6d27eclWBpH58j_K9j7AB
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Home Gardening on the Rise
The popularity of private and community vegetable gardens is surging here in the US, as many people are now discovering that growing their own food is a wonderful way to beat the high cost of groceries and to ensure the quality of the produce they and their families consume. There is no better way to have a steady supply of fresh organic fruits and vegetables that are harvested at the peak of nutritional value than to grow your own.
Besides the obvious health advantages, home and community gardening can also provide other benefits. Strictly from a financial viewpoint, it has been estimated that at today's grocery prices, a 20 by 20 foot plot can yield up to $500 dollars worth of produce during the growing season. Savings can be even greater if the gardening is done indoors and year round. Sharing the experience with others is a great way to socialize, and for you beginners out there it is also a fabulous resource for learning about the craft. Having a home or group garden is also an excellent way to introduce the next generation to the joys of gardening. Perhaps there is a silver lining in the current cloud of tough economic times and poor access to quality, affordable food. If Americans are motivated to get back to the basics of home-grown foods, both our bodies and our pocketbooks will benefit.
In addition, how exciting it would be for natural medicine healthcare professionals, chiropractors, etc. that have access to land or garden area to actually grow vegetables and then send each client home with several home-grown vegetables. A very inspiring idea, indeed!
Victory Gardens for 21st century: Interest in home produce grows
Interest grows in both home and community produce plots
By Rachel Forrest
news@seacoastonline.com
May 25, 2008 6:00 AM
Those who lived it still talk about the Victory Garden they had in the back yard. If it wasn't their own, it was mom and dad's or the neighbor who raised fruits and vegetables in whatever free space of land they could find to help out during World War I and especially World War II.
Home gardeners could contribute to the war effort with their home gardens. Indeed, nearly 20 million Americans had Victory Gardens, producing up to 40 percent of the produce consumed in the country.
Now, there's a new type of Victory Garden -- home and community gardens growing produce.
FoodShed Planet, with its drive to draw 2 million new organic gardens in 2008, says the goal is "(to) declare victory against lack of control over the quality of your food."
And with efforts to eat local and reduce the carbon footprint by avoiding foods brought from thousands of miles away, what could be better, and less costly, than picking your own tomatoes by walking just a few feet from your kitchen?
All over the Seacoast, home and community produce gardens are cropping up.
In her spare time, Alison Magill is a co-founder of the Slow Food Seacoast convivium, a group dedicated to fostering an appreciation of "good, clean and fair" food. She also has her own home vegetable garden in Barrington.
"I try to do my part. I've been talking to Wendy Berry at Lasting Legacy Farm (in Barrington). She said, 'I think everyone is going to have to grow their own food, to help out in the food system,' so that helped me to get my own garden going."
Magill has a 20- by 40-foot plot.
"I'm growing garlic, tomatoes. I used to grow a lot of stuff -- onions, peas. I also have a lot of perennial stuff, medicinal herbs, and I'm also taking over a chiropractor's office garden."
Magill is working with the Piscataqua Garden Club to hold a home vegetable garden tour sometime in August.
"It's similar to the successful model of the Pocket Garden Tour in Portsmouth. ... At each garden, we'll have a demo or take-away, some sort of educational piece --how to build a cucumber trellis -- something like that. And, of course, people will have something to eat out of the garden.
Beth Hume is the Conservation Committee chairwoman of the Piscataqua Garden Club. Her garden is in New Castle.
"Most of us in the group are middle-aged and we've been eating the same way all our lives. From everything I read -- the recession, food prices -- it's impacting everybody. Plus, there's the pleasure we all get from eating like this. I'm certainly a foodie, and there's nothing like the pleasure of eating food you grow."
Hume says there are several people in New Castle who have little vegetable gardens.
"I like mixing the vegetables with the flowers. My zucchini comes up with my lilies. Here at the Wentworth, we have tri-color sage, beets or kale for color. I have two raised beds, one 4-by-5 and one 6-by-3 tucked where I can find sun. I enjoy it, especially the tomatoes."
Young families certainly benefit from home gardens, which not only supplement the food on the table, but teach children about how to eat right.
Audrey Gerkin has a home garden in Brentwood, where the family grows vegetables for their children ages 6, 4 and 1.
"I've been gardening for many years. My dad used to have a garden, and even in college if we had grass, I'd put a garden in. Right now, we have less than four acres. We put fruit trees out back and our vegetable garden is 60-by-25."
Gerkin says there's a great deal of satisfaction in growing her own food. "I love to cook and I love to pick the food I'm going to make for that night. This is the first year we're going to preserve some. We're going to try canning and freeze a lot more. And we're going to try to build a root cellar."
Gerkin's children help in the garden and get the experience of learning where their food comes from. She says the asparagus is coming up now.
"We're also growing potatoes for the first time. We planted enough for 100 pounds, but we're splitting it with my friend who also has a garden. We're helping each other and sharing the vegetables. My friend has a totally different eco-system. Ours is an open field with a lot of sun, and hers is at the bottom of a hill with lots of water but not a lot of sun. Her tomatoes are gorgeous. When you garden with a friend, you weed a little more."
That community garden experience is something Jenny Isler knows much about; she's the coordinator for the community garden at Strawbery Banke.
"As far as the 'community garden efforts in the area,' the most striking thing I have noticed since I started the community garden at Strawbery Banke five years ago is we were the only one around then --now there are at least five well-organized ones just in the Seacoast area that I know of, and probably many more that are 'unofficial' -- groups of neighbors or friends growing together, that I am unaware of. Seems like everyone is talking about it.
"But there isn't an overriding authority or organization that connects community gardens. It's pretty much independent initiatives. Peter Britz at Town Hall showed me a map once of all the available land owned by the city that could potentially be community garden space, and I don't think anyone has done anything there."
Isler says it's simple to start a community garden, but offers some tips for starting one in your own community:
1. Have a mission. Appoint a leader or leaders, and convene a planning group (who may or may not all be prospective gardeners).
2. Find usable space. It should include a water source, and ideally be fenced or enclosed. Test the soil for contaminants. If it is public space, get all the relevant authorities' written support for the garden, including any resolutions or required paperwork to be filed by the community garden. If it is private space, ensure that the property owner is protected. Ensure that the space is dedicated to gardening purposes for a set period.
3. Enlist the support and buy-in of all adjacent property owners, businesses and residential neighbors. Get their buy-in for the garden, if not their direct participation in the garden. Neighbors can act as a protective force once enlisted, and the garden can be a source of neighborhood pride.
4. Write bylaws, including liability disclaimer, and get all prospective gardeners to understand and support the bylaws and mission. Encourage the development of community through the bylaws, discouraging "casual" gardeners. Schedule regular meetings or information exchanges in the bylaws or create a schedule.
5. Seek funding sources if needed. There are lots of small grant opportunities (some require an established organizational structure). Community members should be encouraged to contribute time, materials or funding; often, this is all that is needed. Seek informational and support sources, like garden clubs, farmers, cooperative extension. Nice to have someone to call for help and advice.
And lastly, dig in!
To learn more, visit: http://www.victorygardendrive.blogspot.com/
http://slowfoodseacoast.blogspot.com/2008/02/victory-garden-revival.html
www.communitygarden.org.
URL: http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080525/NEWS/805250326/-1/PUBLICRECORDS05
Besides the obvious health advantages, home and community gardening can also provide other benefits. Strictly from a financial viewpoint, it has been estimated that at today's grocery prices, a 20 by 20 foot plot can yield up to $500 dollars worth of produce during the growing season. Savings can be even greater if the gardening is done indoors and year round. Sharing the experience with others is a great way to socialize, and for you beginners out there it is also a fabulous resource for learning about the craft. Having a home or group garden is also an excellent way to introduce the next generation to the joys of gardening. Perhaps there is a silver lining in the current cloud of tough economic times and poor access to quality, affordable food. If Americans are motivated to get back to the basics of home-grown foods, both our bodies and our pocketbooks will benefit.
In addition, how exciting it would be for natural medicine healthcare professionals, chiropractors, etc. that have access to land or garden area to actually grow vegetables and then send each client home with several home-grown vegetables. A very inspiring idea, indeed!
Victory Gardens for 21st century: Interest in home produce grows
Interest grows in both home and community produce plots
By Rachel Forrest
news@seacoastonline.com
May 25, 2008 6:00 AM
Those who lived it still talk about the Victory Garden they had in the back yard. If it wasn't their own, it was mom and dad's or the neighbor who raised fruits and vegetables in whatever free space of land they could find to help out during World War I and especially World War II.
Home gardeners could contribute to the war effort with their home gardens. Indeed, nearly 20 million Americans had Victory Gardens, producing up to 40 percent of the produce consumed in the country.
Now, there's a new type of Victory Garden -- home and community gardens growing produce.
FoodShed Planet, with its drive to draw 2 million new organic gardens in 2008, says the goal is "(to) declare victory against lack of control over the quality of your food."
And with efforts to eat local and reduce the carbon footprint by avoiding foods brought from thousands of miles away, what could be better, and less costly, than picking your own tomatoes by walking just a few feet from your kitchen?
All over the Seacoast, home and community produce gardens are cropping up.
In her spare time, Alison Magill is a co-founder of the Slow Food Seacoast convivium, a group dedicated to fostering an appreciation of "good, clean and fair" food. She also has her own home vegetable garden in Barrington.
"I try to do my part. I've been talking to Wendy Berry at Lasting Legacy Farm (in Barrington). She said, 'I think everyone is going to have to grow their own food, to help out in the food system,' so that helped me to get my own garden going."
Magill has a 20- by 40-foot plot.
"I'm growing garlic, tomatoes. I used to grow a lot of stuff -- onions, peas. I also have a lot of perennial stuff, medicinal herbs, and I'm also taking over a chiropractor's office garden."
Magill is working with the Piscataqua Garden Club to hold a home vegetable garden tour sometime in August.
"It's similar to the successful model of the Pocket Garden Tour in Portsmouth. ... At each garden, we'll have a demo or take-away, some sort of educational piece --how to build a cucumber trellis -- something like that. And, of course, people will have something to eat out of the garden.
Beth Hume is the Conservation Committee chairwoman of the Piscataqua Garden Club. Her garden is in New Castle.
"Most of us in the group are middle-aged and we've been eating the same way all our lives. From everything I read -- the recession, food prices -- it's impacting everybody. Plus, there's the pleasure we all get from eating like this. I'm certainly a foodie, and there's nothing like the pleasure of eating food you grow."
Hume says there are several people in New Castle who have little vegetable gardens.
"I like mixing the vegetables with the flowers. My zucchini comes up with my lilies. Here at the Wentworth, we have tri-color sage, beets or kale for color. I have two raised beds, one 4-by-5 and one 6-by-3 tucked where I can find sun. I enjoy it, especially the tomatoes."
Young families certainly benefit from home gardens, which not only supplement the food on the table, but teach children about how to eat right.
Audrey Gerkin has a home garden in Brentwood, where the family grows vegetables for their children ages 6, 4 and 1.
"I've been gardening for many years. My dad used to have a garden, and even in college if we had grass, I'd put a garden in. Right now, we have less than four acres. We put fruit trees out back and our vegetable garden is 60-by-25."
Gerkin says there's a great deal of satisfaction in growing her own food. "I love to cook and I love to pick the food I'm going to make for that night. This is the first year we're going to preserve some. We're going to try canning and freeze a lot more. And we're going to try to build a root cellar."
Gerkin's children help in the garden and get the experience of learning where their food comes from. She says the asparagus is coming up now.
"We're also growing potatoes for the first time. We planted enough for 100 pounds, but we're splitting it with my friend who also has a garden. We're helping each other and sharing the vegetables. My friend has a totally different eco-system. Ours is an open field with a lot of sun, and hers is at the bottom of a hill with lots of water but not a lot of sun. Her tomatoes are gorgeous. When you garden with a friend, you weed a little more."
That community garden experience is something Jenny Isler knows much about; she's the coordinator for the community garden at Strawbery Banke.
"As far as the 'community garden efforts in the area,' the most striking thing I have noticed since I started the community garden at Strawbery Banke five years ago is we were the only one around then --now there are at least five well-organized ones just in the Seacoast area that I know of, and probably many more that are 'unofficial' -- groups of neighbors or friends growing together, that I am unaware of. Seems like everyone is talking about it.
"But there isn't an overriding authority or organization that connects community gardens. It's pretty much independent initiatives. Peter Britz at Town Hall showed me a map once of all the available land owned by the city that could potentially be community garden space, and I don't think anyone has done anything there."
Isler says it's simple to start a community garden, but offers some tips for starting one in your own community:
1. Have a mission. Appoint a leader or leaders, and convene a planning group (who may or may not all be prospective gardeners).
2. Find usable space. It should include a water source, and ideally be fenced or enclosed. Test the soil for contaminants. If it is public space, get all the relevant authorities' written support for the garden, including any resolutions or required paperwork to be filed by the community garden. If it is private space, ensure that the property owner is protected. Ensure that the space is dedicated to gardening purposes for a set period.
3. Enlist the support and buy-in of all adjacent property owners, businesses and residential neighbors. Get their buy-in for the garden, if not their direct participation in the garden. Neighbors can act as a protective force once enlisted, and the garden can be a source of neighborhood pride.
4. Write bylaws, including liability disclaimer, and get all prospective gardeners to understand and support the bylaws and mission. Encourage the development of community through the bylaws, discouraging "casual" gardeners. Schedule regular meetings or information exchanges in the bylaws or create a schedule.
5. Seek funding sources if needed. There are lots of small grant opportunities (some require an established organizational structure). Community members should be encouraged to contribute time, materials or funding; often, this is all that is needed. Seek informational and support sources, like garden clubs, farmers, cooperative extension. Nice to have someone to call for help and advice.
And lastly, dig in!
To learn more, visit: http://www.victorygardendrive.blogspot.com/
http://slowfoodseacoast.blogspot.com/2008/02/victory-garden-revival.html
www.communitygarden.org.
URL: http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080525/NEWS/805250326/-1/PUBLICRECORDS05
Monday, June 2, 2008
Mental, Social, and Physical Activity Keeps Memory Sharp
The study highlighted in the following article discusses some very interesting conclusions drawn from research that tracks the memory skills of senior citizens. Results indicate that older individuals who are active -- especially mentally -- have a significant advantage at deterring memory loss over those who are not socially involved. It appears that just as exercise of the body is vital, mental and social activity also play key roles in keeping us young as we age. The bottom line is that we were created as social beings who thrive on interaction. Isolation and a mentally sedentary lifestyle can have a serious negative impact on the length and quality of our lives.
I find it fascinating as well that the researchers allude to the possibility that such beneficial activity may not only be a factor in the golden years, but that patterns established throughout life may also contribute. It seems that choosing a healthy lifestyle that leads to plenty of mental and physical energy, and spending time interacting with others, may produce a longer productive life that is not cut short by self-focused behaviors that often lead to poor health as well. Having lots of friends and being involved in their lives might just be one way to find that elusive "Fountain of Youth."
Socially Active Seniors Stay Sharp
By Crystal Phend, Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Published: May 29, 2008
Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
BOSTON, May 29 -- Frequent interaction with family and friends, volunteering, and other social activities may delay age-related memory loss, researchers found.Memory declined twice as fast among adults 50 and older who were least socially active as it did among those with the most social contact, Lisa F. Berkman, Ph.D., of the Harvard School of Public Health, and colleagues reported in online in the American Journal of Public Health.These results of a large observational study "suggest that increasing social integration may be an important component of efforts to protect older Americans from memory decline," they wrote.
Action Points
* Explain to interested patients that the study linked memory loss to lack of social contact in older age.
* Note that the study was unable to determine whether increasing social contact may help reverse or prevent memory loss.
But it's not clear whether this effect reflects a lifetime of mentally-stimulating interaction rather than current contact, which could be boosted to potentially reduce memory loss, noted Karen A. Ertel, Sc.D., of the Harvard School of Public Health and a co-author on the paper.
Because previous studies have linked social ties to incidence of dementia and Alzheimer's disease, Dr. Berkman's group looked at the effect on memory among 16,638 men and women 50 and older who were followed longitudinally in the nationally representative Health and Retirement Study.
Biennial interviews in the study included immediate- and delayed-recall memory tests used to monitor memory loss over six years in the study.
About half of the participants reported current social interaction in three or more areas, including marriage, volunteer activity, and at least weekly contact with children, parents, or neighbors.
Memory scores at baseline in 1998 were similar between highly socially active participants and those with lower levels of social activity.
Thereafter, though, memory declined faster among those with low social scores. Memory scores declined 0.32 points per year on average with an additional 0.04-point-per-year decrease for each decrease in number of types of social interaction reported (P0.01).
After adjustment for health status and other predictors of memory decline, older adults with the lowest levels of social interaction were predicted to average a 0.29-point decline in memory score per year compared with a 0.14-point per year decline for those with social contact in all five areas.
Each individual component of social integration showed the same significant pattern of slower memory decline for those with more social contact. Analysis by gender, education, and presence of a vascular disorder likewise showed a protective effect of socialization.
The effect of social integration "may be particularly important" for individuals with less than a high school education, who had "a particularly precipitous" decline in memory score of about one point every 3 years.
"These results suggest that low social integration puts people at risk of accelerated memory loss," the researchers said, "but it is also possible that our results were attributable to reverse causation (i.e., poor memory or memory decline causing social withdrawal)."
However, Dr. Berkman's group found no evidence of reverse causation. Exclusion of participants who may have already had some memory loss at baseline as indicated by a memory score below the 25th percentile yielded results similar to those of the overall cohort.
Likewise, memory scores among a subgroup of participants enrolled in the study in 1993 explained less than 1% of variability in social integration in 1998.
"Declines in cognitive function before baseline were unlikely to explain the observed longitudinal association," the researchers wrote.
Rather, the mechanisms may include an effect on physical health, particularly diabetes and other vascular conditions implicated in other studies in development of dementia, they speculated.
"Social ties may create pressure, either through explicit reminders or implicit behavioral norms, to take care of oneself."
Other possible mechanisms might be presenting complex cognitive and memory challenges that enhance cognitive reserve and resilience or through direct neurohormonal benefits by providing a sense of purpose and emotional validation, the investigators said.
They cautioned, though, that the study was limited by its nonrandomized design, lack of inclusion of all possible types of social connections and information on quality of social contacts, and low level of data on health status.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Geriatrics/GeneralGeriatrics/tb/9631
I find it fascinating as well that the researchers allude to the possibility that such beneficial activity may not only be a factor in the golden years, but that patterns established throughout life may also contribute. It seems that choosing a healthy lifestyle that leads to plenty of mental and physical energy, and spending time interacting with others, may produce a longer productive life that is not cut short by self-focused behaviors that often lead to poor health as well. Having lots of friends and being involved in their lives might just be one way to find that elusive "Fountain of Youth."
Socially Active Seniors Stay Sharp
By Crystal Phend, Staff Writer, MedPage Today
Published: May 29, 2008
Reviewed by Robert Jasmer, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco
BOSTON, May 29 -- Frequent interaction with family and friends, volunteering, and other social activities may delay age-related memory loss, researchers found.Memory declined twice as fast among adults 50 and older who were least socially active as it did among those with the most social contact, Lisa F. Berkman, Ph.D., of the Harvard School of Public Health, and colleagues reported in online in the American Journal of Public Health.These results of a large observational study "suggest that increasing social integration may be an important component of efforts to protect older Americans from memory decline," they wrote.
Action Points
* Explain to interested patients that the study linked memory loss to lack of social contact in older age.
* Note that the study was unable to determine whether increasing social contact may help reverse or prevent memory loss.
But it's not clear whether this effect reflects a lifetime of mentally-stimulating interaction rather than current contact, which could be boosted to potentially reduce memory loss, noted Karen A. Ertel, Sc.D., of the Harvard School of Public Health and a co-author on the paper.
Because previous studies have linked social ties to incidence of dementia and Alzheimer's disease, Dr. Berkman's group looked at the effect on memory among 16,638 men and women 50 and older who were followed longitudinally in the nationally representative Health and Retirement Study.
Biennial interviews in the study included immediate- and delayed-recall memory tests used to monitor memory loss over six years in the study.
About half of the participants reported current social interaction in three or more areas, including marriage, volunteer activity, and at least weekly contact with children, parents, or neighbors.
Memory scores at baseline in 1998 were similar between highly socially active participants and those with lower levels of social activity.
Thereafter, though, memory declined faster among those with low social scores. Memory scores declined 0.32 points per year on average with an additional 0.04-point-per-year decrease for each decrease in number of types of social interaction reported (P0.01).
After adjustment for health status and other predictors of memory decline, older adults with the lowest levels of social interaction were predicted to average a 0.29-point decline in memory score per year compared with a 0.14-point per year decline for those with social contact in all five areas.
Each individual component of social integration showed the same significant pattern of slower memory decline for those with more social contact. Analysis by gender, education, and presence of a vascular disorder likewise showed a protective effect of socialization.
The effect of social integration "may be particularly important" for individuals with less than a high school education, who had "a particularly precipitous" decline in memory score of about one point every 3 years.
"These results suggest that low social integration puts people at risk of accelerated memory loss," the researchers said, "but it is also possible that our results were attributable to reverse causation (i.e., poor memory or memory decline causing social withdrawal)."
However, Dr. Berkman's group found no evidence of reverse causation. Exclusion of participants who may have already had some memory loss at baseline as indicated by a memory score below the 25th percentile yielded results similar to those of the overall cohort.
Likewise, memory scores among a subgroup of participants enrolled in the study in 1993 explained less than 1% of variability in social integration in 1998.
"Declines in cognitive function before baseline were unlikely to explain the observed longitudinal association," the researchers wrote.
Rather, the mechanisms may include an effect on physical health, particularly diabetes and other vascular conditions implicated in other studies in development of dementia, they speculated.
"Social ties may create pressure, either through explicit reminders or implicit behavioral norms, to take care of oneself."
Other possible mechanisms might be presenting complex cognitive and memory challenges that enhance cognitive reserve and resilience or through direct neurohormonal benefits by providing a sense of purpose and emotional validation, the investigators said.
They cautioned, though, that the study was limited by its nonrandomized design, lack of inclusion of all possible types of social connections and information on quality of social contacts, and low level of data on health status.
http://www.medpagetoday.com/Geriatrics/GeneralGeriatrics/tb/9631
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