The best solution for triglycerides and pms problems

Triglycerides are a form of fat that’s both developed in your body and as well taken into the body by means of the fatty acids in the food we consume. The causes of large triglycerides are pretty well recognized and are mainly life style related, such as weight problems, consuming a diet low in fresh vegetables and fruits and also high in animal products and not enough physical exercise. And alcohol habit and also have a role in growing triglycerides amounts inside the blood.
It would seem very clear that any person struggling with high amounts of triglycerides and/or cholesterol in the blood need to take several important steps to control triglycerides and levels of cholesterol. There isn’t any doubt that most people would take advantage of lowering our risk for heart attack, and also managing triglycerides and cholesterol levels
may also produce other health advantages. Improving our consumption of Omega3 essential fatty acids, either through consuming more fish or more typically by taking good quality omega-3 fatty acids dietary supplements may have an array of good health impacts, which includes in helping to manage triglycerides.
Premenstrual syndrome or pms is well-known and often times debilitating conditions that a lot of women endure. Knowing PMS has become the most significant things you can do to control your symptoms. Hormonal changes following ovulation trigger a group of bothersome signs and symptoms that seem around fourteen days before to your period. When you have PMS, you may feel so anxious, depressed, or maybe not comfortable that you cannot deal at home or at your workplace. Most women can frequently control the signs and symptoms of premenstrual syndrome or pms by making differences in the way they , exercise, and also approach their every day lifestyles.

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No link seen between high-carb diet, colon cancer

– Wed Nov 3, 3:14 pm ET

 

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Chinese women who eat a traditional diet rich in white rice and other starchy foods that spur a surge in blood sugar do not seem to have an elevated risk of colon cancer, a new study suggests.
The findings, reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, add to the conflicting body of evidence as to whether foods with a high "glycemic index" are related to an increased risk of colon cancer.
Glycemic index, or GI, refers to how rapidly a carbohydrate causes blood sugar to rise. High-GI foods, like white bread, white rice and potatoes, tend to make blood sugar levels rise quickly. With low-GI foods, such as lentils, soybeans, yogurt and many high-fiber grains, blood sugar levels also rise, but not as fast and not as high.
A related concept, called the glycemic load, refers to both the GI and the amount of carbohydrates in a given food: a low-calorie piece of fruit, for instance, may have a relatively high GI, but still provide only a small glycemic load.
The idea that a diet with a high glycemic load might contribute to colon cancer risk is based on human physiology: High blood sugar levels trigger release of the blood-sugar-controlling hormone insulin, which -- along with a related hormone called insulin-like growth factor 1 -- may stimulate the growth and spread of cancer cells.
In line with that, a number of studies have found that people with type 2 diabetes, who have abnormally high blood sugar and insulin levels, get colon cancer more often than do people without diabetes.
So in theory, a diet heavy in high-GI foods could be a risk factor for colon cancer. But studies on the question have so far come to conflicting conclusions.
For the new study, researchers followed 73,000 middle-aged and older Chinese women over a decade, looking at the association between reported diet habits and the risk of developing colon cancer.
The women, who were cancer-free and between the ages of 40 and 70 at the study's start, completed detailed diet questionnaires that allowed the researchers to estimate the total glycemic load of their diets.
Overall, 475 women were diagnosed with colon or rectal cancer during the 10 years the researchers studied them. When the researchers divided the study participants into five groups based on dietary glycemic load, they found no evidence that the women's risk of colorectal cancer increased along with glycemic load.
Because rice was by far the greatest contributor to the women's glycemic load, the researchers also looked at the relationship between the number of rice servings a woman ate per day and her risk of colorectal cancer.
Again, there was no apparent link, according to the investigators, led by Dr. Hong-Lan Li of the Shanghai Cancer Institute in China.
The study has its limitations. Like any study that relies on diet questionnaires, it is prone to erroneous measurements. And while there was no association between glycemic load and colorectal cancer in this study group, the findings cannot disprove a possible role of high-GI diets in colon cancer development.
However, the researchers point out that many of the studies that have found a GI-colon cancer link have been so-called case-control studies, where patients with colon cancer reported on past diet habits and were compared with a group of healthy individuals.
Only limited conclusions can be drawn from that type of research. Prospective studies such as the current one, which follow initially healthy people over time, are considered a stronger design.
And, Li's team notes, most similar studies from the U.S. and Europe have also found no association between high-GI diets and colon cancer. A majority of studies focused on women, but a couple included men as well.
Still, the researchers write, further studies are warranted, including ones focusing on men and different types of carbohydrates.
Some of the established risk factors for colorectal cancer include older age (most cases arise after age 50), having first-degree relatives who developed the cancer, and a personal history of ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease. Studies have also consistently linked smoking, obesity and diets high in red and processed meats to an increased risk.
SOURCE: http://link.reuters.com/xes63q American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, online October 20, 2010.

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Asthma Linked to Lung Cancer Risk in Study

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter by Steven Reinberg
healthday Reporter – Wed Nov 3, 11:48 pm ET

 

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 3 (HealthDay News) -- University of Missouri researchers believe they have found a correlation between asthma and lung cancer in a small study.
Previous research has shown a correlation between chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and lung cancer, but this is the first time such a link has been shown for asthma and lung cancer, the researchers said.
However, based on the available data, people with asthma should not worry that they are at an increased risk for developing lung cancer, said Dr. Marilyn Glassberg, an associate professor of clinical medicine, pulmonary and critical care medicine at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
"This is a correlation study," she said. "The problem with correlation studies is you never get cause-and-effect." Still, "it's of interest," she added.
The findings were to be presented Tuesday by lead researcher Dr. Vamsi Guntur at the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians in Vancouver.
For the study, Guntur's team examined the medical records of 759 lung cancer patients and similar patients without lung cancer.
The researchers found that 46.2 percent of those with asthma also had lung cancer, compared with 22.5 percent of those without asthma.
The researchers speculate that "chronic repeated inflammatory insults from asthma" could trigger lung cancer, but exactly how that might happen remains unclear, they said in a news release from the college.
The authors say their study "underscores the importance of more aggressive management of inflammatory airway disease, development of diagnostics for early and ideally noninvasive screening and risk stratification, and promotion of additional research on the mechanisms of carcinogenesis induced by inflammation."
Glassberg took issue with the findings, noting that while asthma and COPD scar the lungs, lung cancer is not caused by scarring of lung tissue. Also, she said it doesn't appear that the researchers took into account smoking, which is a major cause of lung cancer.
"This is not going to change how we take care of people, or [cause us] to screen asthmatics for lung cancer," she said.

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Hemophilia Drug Used Off-Label Raises Clot Risk

Those without blood disorder who were given it were twice as likely to have trouble, review found

By Jenifer GoodwinHealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 3 (HealthDay News) -- A drug approved to help staunch bleeding in people with hemophilia raises the risk of heart attacks and stroke when it's used to stop life-threatening bleeding due to other conditions, such as trauma or surgery, a new study finds.
Despite the nearly twofold rise in risk of dangerous clots that form inside blood vessels and cause heart attacks and stroke in those without hemophilia, researchers said doctors should use the information to carefully weigh the risks and benefits of using the drug, called recombinant activated factor VII (rFVIIa), for any "off-label" use.
"If you are a physician confronted with a patient with excessive blood loss, and you have done everything you can and this patient is almost dying because of the bleeding, it's quite acceptable to give the drug even if it's associated with a risk of thrombosis [clotting]," said study author Dr. Marcel Levi, a professor of Medicine at University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. "On the other hand, if you are confronted with a patient who has less than excessive blood loss and you can try other things, then the twofold increased risk of thrombosis is considerable and I would not give the drug."
The study is published in the Nov. 4 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
What makes the study so unusual is that the drug maker, Novo Nordisk, gave researchers access to unpublished data on the drug and its potential side effects, said Dr. Louis Aledort, a professor of medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, who wrote an accompanying editorial.
"The company is to be congratulated," Aledort said. "It would be really great if other companies would do the same so that clinicians thinking about using it a drug in an off-label setting would have all the information at hand so they could make the right decision, which is benefit vs. risk."
rFVIIa was approved about 10 years ago by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for use in people with hemophilia. Hemophilia is a group of blood disorders in which the blood doesn't clot properly, raising the risk of prolonged bleeding, internal bleeding and bleeding into the joints.
Increasingly, the drug has also been used for so-called "off-label" use, or to treat conditions not expressly licensed by the FDA, Aledort said. While it is legal for physicians to use a drug in this way, a drug's maker cannot promote its use for anything but the condition for which it is approved.
Such "off-label" uses include stopping brain bleeds and staunching bleeding during surgery due to trauma or advanced liver disease, according to the study.
Despite it's effectiveness in stopping bleeding and promoting beneficial clotting, there have been reports of complications, including heart attacks and stroke.
In the study, researchers looked at 35 published and unpublished studies on off-label usage of rFVIIa to treat or prevent bleeding. The studies involved more than 4,100 people who experienced excessive bleeding, some of whom were given rFVIIa and some who weren't. Overall, about 11 percent experienced arterial thrombosis, most often a heart attack, unstable angina (a precursor to a heart attack) or stroke.
About 5.5 percent of those who received rFVIIa experienced arterial thrombosis, compared to 3.2 percent of those who were given a placebo.
About 2.9 percent of those who received rFVIIa had a heart attack compared to about 1.1 percent given a placebo.
The risk of dangerous clots rose with age. Among those 65 and older, 9 percent of those given rFVIIa experienced arterial thrombosis compared to 3.8 percent given a placebo. For those 75 and up, rates rose to 10.8 percent and 4.1 percent, respectively.
There was no increased risk of venous thrombosis, such as clots in the legs or lungs (pulmonary embolism).
"The company helped us. They opened their files. They showed us unpublished data on complications. It's exemplary that the company did this," Levi said. "Usually companies keep that information a little bit obscure."
Aledort said this type of research should serve as a template for the rest of the pharmaceutical industry to follow. "It was very brave of the company," he said.

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Omega-3 pills fail to work in Alzheimer's patients

By LINDSEY TANNER, AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner, Ap Medical Writer – Tue Nov 2, 10:09 am ET

 

CHICAGO – Omega-3 pills promoted as boosting memory didn't slow mental and physical decline in older patients with Alzheimer's disease, a big disappointment in a multimillion-dollar government-funded study.
"We had high hopes that we'd see some efficacy but we did not," said Dr. Joseph Quinn, an author of the $10 million study and a researcher at Oregon Health and Science University.
The results with pills containing DHA, an omega-3 fatty acid, highlight "the continued frustration over lack of effective interventions" for the memory-robbing disease, an editorial said, published with the study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
DHA occurs naturally in the brain and is found in reduced amounts in people with Alzheimer's disease.
Some smaller, less rigorous studies suggested that mental decline could be slowed or prevented by eating fish, the main dietary source for omega-3 fatty acids, or supplements like fish oil pills that contain fatty acids including DHA. The study used capsules of DHA oil derived from algae.
Omega-3 fatty acids in fish or supplements have been shown to help protect against heart disease and are being studied for possible effects on a range of other illnesses including cancer and depression.
The new research involved nearly 300 men and women aged 76 on average with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease. They were randomly assigned to take either DHA pills or dummy pills daily for 18 months.
Results were similar in both groups; DHA provided no benefits in slowing Alzheimer's symptoms. The pills also didn't work even in a subgroup of participants with the mildest Alzheimer's symptoms.
"There is no basis for recommending DHA supplementation for patients with Alzheimer disease," the authors concluded.
Given evidence that the underlying process that causes Alzheimer's begins years, if not decades, before diagnosis, starting treatment after symptoms appear may be too late, said editorial author Dr. Kristine Yaffe, a dementia researcher at University of California at San Francisco.
The National Institute on Aging paid for most of the research. The rest came from Martek Biosciences, maker of the DHA pills used in the study. Two co-authors are Martek employees and Quinn is an unpaid consultant to the company. Quinn and two other study authors are also inventors of a patent for using DHA pills to treat Alzheimer with a certain genetic variation.
Laurie Ryan, program director of Alzheimer's studies at the Institute on Aging, called the results discouraging. But she noted that the institute is spending millions of dollars on research into other possible treatments including lifestyle changes, drugs and biomarkers that might lead to more targeted drug treatment.
William Thies, scientific director of the Alzheimer's Association, said the results fit with new recommendations advocating starting treatment in the disease's earliest stages.
"It seems clear that either we have to have more powerful drugs or they have to be used earlier in the course of the disease," Thies said.

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Exposure Of Humans To Cosmetic UV Filters Is Widespread - Endocrine Disrupters Found In Human Milk

An investigation conducted in the context of the Swiss National Research Programme (NRP50), Endocrine Disrupters: Relevance to Humans, Animals and Ecosystems, demonstrates for the first time that internal exposure of humans to cosmetic UV filters is widespread.

In the course of the Summer and Fall 2004, 2005 and 2006 (3 cohorts), human milk was sampled by mothers who had given birth at the University Women's Hospital in Basel. The participants filled out a detailed questionnaire with general questions and, as special feature, in depth questions on use of different types of cosmetic products.

Chemicals out of a large range of products including "modern" chemicals and classical persistent organic pollutants (POPs) were analyzed in the same human milk sample by analytical laboratories in Freiburg, Erlangen and Baden. The list comprised cosmetic UV filters, synthetic musk fragrances, pesticides, phthalates, parabens, flame retardants (polybrominated diphenylethers), and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs); in total 89 analyses per milk sample. The chemical analytical data of milk samples of individual mothers were then compared with the information obtained through the questionnaire.

The investigation revealed that one and the same human milk sample contained a large range of chemical contaminants, most of which are known to interact with endocrine systems. Individual exposure patterns differed between different types of chemicals. The study demonstrates for the first time that internal exposure of humans to cosmetic UV filters is widespread. Cosmetic UV filters were present in 85% of human milk samples, at concentrations comparable to PCBs. Synthetic musk fragrances were also present in the milk samples. The presence of UV filters in human milk was significantly correlated with the use of cosmetic products containing these UV filters. As a result, exposure patterns differed between individuals.

It seems plausible that exposure to other cosmetic constituents such as synthetic fragrances is also linked to the use of the corresponding products. However, this could not be investigated because musk fragrances are not declared. In contrast, classical contaminants such as PCBs, DDT and metabolites of DDT as well as some other persistent organochlor pesticides represented a rather uniform background exposure. Their levels were in part correlated with each other and also with fat-rich nutrition.

A total daily intake of each individual chemical was calculated for each individual infant from their individual levels in human milk. Calculation included fat content of individual milk samples, total daily milk intake per infant and body weight of the infant. Some infants exhibited values of daily intake of PCBs and several organochlor pesticides that were above US EPA reference dose values.

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Margret Schlumpf and Walter Lichtensteiger, who lead the research said, "Research on the effects of endocrine disrupters (chemicals interfering with hormone actions) has shown that it is of utmost importance to obtain information on simultaneous exposure of humans to different types of chemicals because endocrine active chemicals can act in concert. Information on exposure is particularly important for the developing organism at its most sensitive early life stages. Human milk was chosen because it provides direct information on exposure of the suckling infant and indirect information on exposure of the mother during pregnancy."

An important question during the research was: To what extent lifestyle can influence the presence of chemicals in breast milk? This question was the foundation for the preparation of the questionnaire. The questions were focused particularly on the use of cosmetic products; information on the relationship between the exposure of human populations to constituents of cosmetics and the presence of these constituents in the human body was limited and, in the case of UV filters, absent.

Gert-Jan Geraeds, Executive Publisher of Chemosphere commented, "This study once again emphasizes the importance of global research on the impact of contaminants in the human environment and the need for continuous critical assessment of our priorities in environmental health and consumer habits. I am sure that this investigation will also spark debate at the upcoming first Environmental Health conference in Brazil, February 2011".

The article Exposure Patterns of UV Filters, Fragrances, Parabens, Phthalates,Organochlor Pesticides, PBDEs, and PCBs in Human Milk. Correlation of UV Filters with Use of Cosmetics by Margret Schlumpf et all will be published in Chemospehere, later this year. DOI:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2010.09.079

The three year study involved toxicologists from GREENTOX and collaboration from personnel of the University of Zürich, University Women's Hospital Basel, University in Lausanne, and analytical chemists from Freiburg, Erlangen (Germany) and from Baden bei Wien (Austria).

Source: Elsevier

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MIT Chemists Engineer Plants To Produce New Drugs

Humans have long taken advantage of the huge variety of medicinal compounds produced by plants. Now MIT chemists have found a new way to expand plants' pharmaceutical repertoire by genetically engineering them to produce unnatural variants of their usual products.

The researchers, led by Associate Professor Sarah O'Connor, have added bacterial genes to the periwinkle plant, enabling it to attach halogens such as chlorine or bromine to a class of compounds called alkaloids that the plant normally produces. Many alkaloids have pharmaceutical properties, and halogens, which are often added to antibiotics and other drugs, can make medicines more effective or last longer in the body.

The team's primary target, an alkaloid called vinblastine, is commonly used to treat cancers such as Hodgkin's lymphoma. O'Connor sees vinblastine and other drugs made by plants as scaffolds that she can modify in a variety of ways to enhance their effectiveness.

"We're trying to use plant biosynthetic mechanisms to easily make a whole range of different iterations of natural products," she said. "If you tweak the structure of natural products, very often you get different or improved biological and pharmacological activity."

O'Connor, graduate student Weerawat Runguphan and former postdoctoral associate Xudong Qu describe their engineered periwinkle plants in the Nov. 3 online edition of Nature. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the American Cancer Society.

Engineering new genes into plants has been done before: In the 1990s, scientists developed corn that could produce an insecticide called Bt, which comes from a bacterial gene. However, O'Connor's approach, known as metabolic engineering, goes beyond simply adding a gene that codes for a novel protein. Metabolic engineers tinker with the series of reactions that the host organisms use to build new molecules, adding genes for new enzymes that reshape these natural synthetic pathways. This can lead to a huge variety of end products.

Most metabolic engineers use bacteria as their host organism, in part because their genes are easier to manipulate. O'Connor's work with plants makes her a rare exception. She doesn't believe one approach is better than the other, but one factor that drew her to engineer plants is that most plant synthetic pathways have not been completely revealed. "You can't reconstitute a whole plant pathway in bacteria unless you have all the genes," she said.

In previous experiments, O'Connor and her students induced periwinkle root cells to create novel compounds by feeding them slightly altered versions of their usual starting materials. In the new study, they engineered the cells to express genes that code for enzymes that attach chlorine or bromine to vinblastine precursors and other alkaloids.

The two new genes came from bacteria that naturally produce halogenated compounds. It's much more rare for plants to generate such compounds on their own, said O'Connor. It is also possible, though very difficult, to synthesize halogenated alkaloids in a laboratory.

To make alkaloids, plants first convert an amino acid called tryptophan into tryptamine. After that initial step, about a dozen more reactions are required, and the plants can produce hundreds of different final products. In the new genetically engineered plants, a bacterial enzyme called halogenase attaches a chlorine (or bromine) atom to tryptamine. That halogen stays on the molecule throughout the synthesis.

In future work, the researchers hope to engineer full periwinkle plants to produce the novel compounds. They are also working on improving the overall yield of the synthesis, which is about 15 fold lower than the plant's yield of naturally occurring alkaloids. One way to do that is to introduce the halogen further along in the process, said O'Connor.

Source: "Integrating Carbon-Halogen Bond Formation into Medicinal Plan Metabolism," by Weerawat Runguphan, Xudong Qu, and Sarah E. O'Connor. Nature, 3 November, 2010

Source: MIT

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