Health A-Z

Testosterone-heart disease link explained

In recent months, there has been a great deal of contradictory information regarding testosterone. So much so that it is hard for any man to decipher what level is right, and whether seeking an “optimal” level is the preferred course of action.

In 2011, 5.3 million prescriptions for testosterone were written in the United States. The rate of prescriptions has tripled since 2000, and sales reached $1.6 billion in 2011. There has obviously been a lot of marketing for testosterone and low-T syndrome, but what exactly is testosterone is and what would are the benefits of treatment?

Testosterone is a hormone which helps regulate heart function and plays a part in sperm production, bone health, energy levels, concentration and muscle mass. This essential hormone does much more than just fuel a man’s sex drive. The problem is, most men experience a natural decline in testosterone as they age starting at 30, and testosterone supplementation is commonly prescribed to help these men regulate their hormone levels. The benefits and risks of the long-term use of testosterone therapy however, are not well known.

In a new study, the University of Texas looked at 9,000 male veterans who had undergone coronary angiography between 2005 and 2011, a procedure for testing the arteries when people have symptoms such as chest pain or are at high risk for heart problems.

The study found that men with signs of heart problems who take injections of testosterone or use gel containing the hormone had a 30 percent increased risk of heart attack, stroke or dying, compared with men who didn’t use the hormone. The study was stopped early due to higher rates of heart problems in the group receiving the hormone.

It is important to note that all of the men in the study more severe medical conditions including coronary artery disease, diabetes and previous heart attacks, than men in the general population. These risk factors may have been part of the reason testosterone treatments were harmful to them, but more research is needed to know for sure.

It is not hard to see why medical professionals would also be divided when it comes to testosterone treatment. Some side effects include acne, enlarged breasts, prostate problems, testicle shrinkage and limited sperm production. Similarly, once you start on it, you suppress your own production of testosterone and injections become a lifetime commitment.

As is the case with most hormones, testosterone needs to be kept in balance, and your physician can decide what level is right for you since this, too, can vary from man to man, and from lab to lab. A treatment program should be frequently monitored through lab tests, paying attention to potential side effects.

Men with prostate cancer should not receive testosterone as it could speed up cancer growth. Testosterone is not thought to cause prostate cancer, but may speed up the severity of the disease.

Source news.nom

Patients who came into direct contact with cobalt-60 likely to die

Six people have reportedly been admitted to a hospital in Mexico for radiation exposure after they came into contact with, or were in the vicinity of, stolen containers of highly radioactive cobalt-60.

Earlier reports indicated that the stolen containers had been broken open, and if this is the case, one expert said any patient who came into direct contact with the radioactive material may be vulnerable to central nervous system failure – a condition that results in the swelling of the brain and paralysis, and can lead to death in a matter of hours.

“All you can do is supportive care, perhaps steroids and IV fluids and monitoring and doing what you can,” Dr. James O’Donnell, division chief of nuclear medicine at the University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, told FoxNews.com. “If you know someone is exposed above (a certain) point, if they do experience central nervous system collapse, our experience in [the] medical world is there’s not an awful lot you can do, it’s not likely to be successful and they’re likely to die.”

Cobalt-60 is an isotope typically only used in machinery, or in radiation therapy for cancer patients, according to O’Donnell. The health effects of exposure to cobalt-60 depend upon the length of time a person is exposed, their distance from the radioactive material, and whether or not any type of shielding was present – for example, if the radioactive material was stored in a container.

While any patients who experienced direct contact with cobalt-60 may be at risk of death, O’Donnell said that others who were simply in the vicinity of the material may experience lesser side effects, such as skin burns or blisters, or gastrointestinal problems.

“With the kinds of exposures they were getting, I would guess it isn’t going to be really hyper-acute, like a bomb, but more gastrointestinal, which means they could get cramping, nausea, vomiting, bleeding that would be hard to control,” O’Donnell said.

Reports indicate that one patient admitted was experiencing dizziness and vomiting, according to FoxNews.com.

Risk to hospital workers

Depending on whether or not the admitted patients experienced direct contact with cobalt-60, other patients or hospital workers may be at some risk for exposure to the radioactive material, O’Donnell noted.

“If someone is (externally) exposed to gamma rays, the treatment of the patient is external and there’s no real hazard to any health care personnel or anyone taking care of them. You’re not going to catch someone else’s sunburn,” O’Donnell said. “But if they broke into the container and scraped it, or got it on them, now they’re contaminated and if someone else were to get it on them, now they could be exposed because the actual source of the radiation is there.”

However, he noted that most hospitals are equipped to deal with radiation exposure and are well-versed on techniques that can limit the exposure of hospital workers, or other patients.

“Everything stops, you try to put down absorbent paper, cover things up, cover things with a lead apron, try to isolate the contamination away from people. Then clean up the patient, wash them up, hose them off,” O’Donnell said. “And that’s where the radiation safety people at the hospital get involved with radiation detectors, and try to get (the radiation) back down to the background level.”

Any hospital with a radiology department would have access to dosimeters, which track exposure to radiated energy, according to O’Donnell. As a result, they would be able to ensure that hospital workers limit their exposure. Long-term exposure to radiation has been associated with an increased risk for certain cancers like lymphoma or leukeumia.

“You can never say the risk of anything is zero, but the foreseeable risk would be low enough for occupation workers,” O’Donnell said. “It’s based on our experience that for people who get no more (a certain amount of exposure), there’s no increase in cancers.”

Source: healcon

6 tips for eating healthy during Menopause

Menopause is a frightening word for women. This transition is a consequence of biological aging and accompanying signs and effects that can occur during the menopause years can significantly disrupt their daily activities and sense of well-being. The most common symptoms include hot flushes, sweating, insomnia, anxiety, impairment of memory and fatigue. Long term consequences can include a decline in libido, osteoporosis, heart disease, even dementia – all linked to reduced oestrogen levels. During menopause, many women experience increased anxiety and stress. During such time, only good nutrition and effective handling of stress can reduce certain conditions that may develop during and after menopause.

So eat your way to a happier and healthier menopause. Here’s how:

Eat foods that are high in phytoestrogens: During menopause, a woman’s estrogen production considerably decreases, so eating foods that are high in phytoestrogens, like soy products and flaxseeds, can act like estrogen. Drinking soymilk, eating soybeans, tempeh, and roasted soy nuts might help. You can also go for Flaxseeds as they contain lignans, another type of phytoestrogens that may help with hot flashes.

Calcium is a must: According to a report,it is recommended that women over age 50 should consume 1,200 mg of calcium per day. Calcium will increase your bone density and prevent osteoporosis. So include yogurts, cheese, broccoli, salmon in your diet and drink milk regularly.

Include carbohydrates in your diet: Eating carbohydrates can release tryptophan that helps produce serotonin, a neurotransmitter in the brain that calms and relaxes people. Go for turkey, milk, eggs and fish. You can also try out cherries as it has melatonin which gives you a good night’s sleep.

Go for Vitamin-B: B-vitamins are known to stabilize moods, generate calmness and improve metabolism. Whole, unprocessed foods like lean meat and poultry, liver, whole grains and lentils are all rich in B vitamins. Other foods that have vitamin B are spinach, Brussels sprouts, kale, asparagus and beets.

Have legumes, nuts and seeds: The nutrients and the oils in nuts and seeds may help prevent dry skin and normalise hormone levels. Foods such as pumpkin, sunflower, almonds contain these essential nutrients.

Switch to a fibre rich diet: Due to the fluctuating hormones, the digestive system slows down, so bloating becomes a common problem. Foods that can get rid of the bloat are asparagus, celery, watermelon, and berries. A diet that is high in fibre, such as lentils, legumes, fruits and whole cereals, pasta, rice, fresh fruits, and vegetables can improve digestion and decrease bloating.

Source: Zee News

9 Evidence-Based Medicinal Properties of Oranges

Orange is one such food-medicine marvel, containing a broad range of compounds increasingly being recognized to be essential for human health. We consider it a sweet treat, its juice a refreshing beverage, but do we ever really reflect on its medicinal properties? GreenMedInfo.com has indexed no less than 37 distinct health benefits its use may confer, all of which can be explored on our Orange Medicinal Properties research page. What follows are some of its most well-established therapeutic applications, divided into three parts: the juice, the peel and the aroma:

The Juice of the Orange
Many of us mistakenly look to orange juice today as a dangerous source of highly concentrated fructose – simple “carbs” – without recognizing its profound medicinal properties. We sometimes think we can get the vitamin C activity oranges contain through the semi-synthetic ‘nutrient’ ascorbic acid, without realizing that an orange embodies (as do all whole foods) a complex orchestra of chemistries, the handiwork of millions of years of evolution, which is to say a process of intelligent biological design. The ‘monochemical nutrient’ – ascorbic acid – is merely a shadow of the vitamin C activity that is carried and expressed through only living foods. The orange, after all, looks like a miniature sun, is formed as a condensation of energy and information from sunlight, and therefore is capable of storing and after being eaten irradiating us with life-giving packets of information-dense gene-regulating nutrition, by a mechanism that will never be fully reducible to or intelligible by the chemical skeleton we know of as ascorbic acid.

Orange Juice Improves “Good” Cholesterol: While it is debatable that lowering so-called “LDL” cholesterol is nearly as good for heart health as statin drug manufacturers would like for us to believe, raising “HDL” cholesterol does seem to have real health benefits. This is, however, quite hard to do with diet and nutrition, and impossible through medication. Other than taking high-dose fish oil, few things have been studied to be effective. Except, that is, orange juice. A 2000 study found that the consumption of 750 mL of orange juice a day, over a 4 weeks, improved blood lipid profiles by decreasing the LDL-HDL cholesterol ratio by 16% in patients with elevated cholesterol.

Orange Juice Boosts Bone Health: A 2006 animal study in male rats found that orange juice positively influenced antioxidant status and bone strength.

Orange Juice (mixed with Blackcurrant Juice) Reduces Inflammation: A 2009 study in patients with peripheral artery disease found that orange and blackcurrant juice reduced C-reactive protein (11%) and fibrinogen levels (3%), two concrete measures of systemic inflammation.[3] A 2010 study found that Orange juice neutralizes the proinflammatory effect of a high-fat, high-carbohydrate meal and prevents endotoxin induced toxicity.

Orange Juice Boosts Weight Loss: A 2011 study found that children who regularly drank orange juice consumed an average of 523 calories a day more than children who did not drink orange juice regularly. Yet surprisingly, there was no difference in the weight levels between the orange juice consumers and the non-orange juice consumers.

Orange Juice May Dissolve Kidney Stones: A 2006 study found that orange juice consumption was associated with lower calculated calcium oxalate supersaturation and lower calculated undissociated uric acid, two indices of lowered urinary calcium stone formation.

Orange Juice Extract Suppresses Prostate Proliferation: Despite the fructose content, a 2006 study found a standardized extract of red orange juice inhibited the proliferation of human prostate cells in vitro.

The Peel of the Orange

The peel of the orange contains a broad range of potent, potentially therapeutic compounds. These include pectin and flavonoid

constituents, such as hersperiden, naringin, polymethoxyflavones, quercetin and rutin, various carotenoids, and a major odor constituent known as d-limonene, which makes up 90% of the citrus peel oil content, and is a compound that gets its name from the rind of the lemon, which contains a significant quantity of it. It is listed in the US Code of Federal Regulations as generally recognized as safe (GRAS), and is commonly used as a flavoring agent. D-limonene has been studied to have potent anti-cancer properties, including against metastatic melanoma.

Source; Green med info

Cancer: two in three patients will survive by end of decade

The chances of a patient dying from three of the most common cancers will soon be half what they were 20 years ago, figures show.

Earlier diagnosis and advances in surgery and treatment mean that by 2020 the total death rate from breast, prostate and bowel cancer will have dropped by 44 per cent since the early 1990s.

Estimates by Macmillan Cancer Research show that by the end of the decade, 64 per cent of women will survive breast cancer, 64 per cent of men prostate cancer and 61 per cent of sufferers will beat bowel cancer.

But campaigners remain concerned that survival rates for lung cancer – the second commonest form – are not increasing at the same pace.

Figures show that by 2020 the proportion of patients expect to live beyond five years after diagnosis will stll be less than one in four.

The illness is the second biggest killer after heart disease and is usually diagnosed only when it is too late to be treated.

And despite the advances in the other three cancers, survival rates in Britain still lag well behind those in other European countries. A major study of 29 countries found that the UK was on a par with Slovenia, Czech Republic and Estonia far below France, Germany and Scandinavia.

Campaigners say GPs need to be given more training to help them spot the warning signs – especially for lung cancer – so patients can be referred for tests.

Professor Jane Maher, chief medical officer at Macmillan Cancer Support, said: ‘People diagnosed with three of the four most common cancers are more likely to survive but GPs need more support to help them diagnose lung cancer earlier.

‘We’ve been working with the GP community to develop the tools that can help.’

Figures by Macmillan show that by 2020 the proportion of patients surviving breast and prostate cancer will have increased by two-thirds since 1992. Over the same period, the amount surviving bowel cancer will have risen by 50 per cent.

The charity said the advances are largely due to earlier diagnosis, with patients being more aware of the warning signs and improved scans.

There have also been major advances in surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and, more recently, new drugs to target certain genes, which have drastically boosted survival chances.

n 1992, only 39 per cent of those diagnosed with breast cancer lived for at least five years – the measure of survival. For prostate cancer patients the figure was 28 per cent and for bowel cancer 33 per cent.

Katherine Woods, research information manager at Breast Cancer Campaign said: ‘These figures look really encouraging.

‘We know that deaths from breast cancer are decreasing, and are on track to continue to do so. But it is not quick enough.’

And Drew Lindon, head of policy and campaigns at Prostate Cancer UK, said: ‘While prostate cancer survival rates have improved compared to other cancers, beneath the surface we see worrying indications that Britain is lagging behind the European average on survival rates.

‘One man dies every hour from prostate cancer and yet we still have no reliable way of being able to tell the killer forms from those which might never cause harm.

‘Men in Britain dese
rve better and that’s what we’re fighting for.’

Source: Daily Mail

Triplet Births Due to Fertility Treatments Are Declining

More than one-third of U.S. twins, and more than three-quarters of triplets and other multiple births, are now born as a result of fertility treatments, according to estimates from a new study.

In 2011, 36 percent of twin births and 77 percent of triplet and higher-order births (quadruplets, etc.) were aided by fertility treatments, which include both in vitro fertilization (IVF) and other treatments, such as the use of drugs to stimulate the ovaries and induce ovulation, the study found.

Between 1998 and 2011, the national rate of triplet and higher-order births decreased by nearly 30 percent — a trend that researchers called good news.

Part of that decline may be related to a 1998 change in guidelines that discouraged doctors from implanting three or more embryos during a single IVF cycle. After that, the proportion of triplet and higher-order births attributable to IVF declined by 33 percent (from 48 percent in 1998 to 32 percent in 2011).

However, there’s still a lot of work to be done to reduce the U.S. rate of multiple births, said study researcher Dr. Eli Y. Adashi, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Brown University. The percentage of twin births resulting from IVF and non-IVF fertility treatments is still on the rise.

Why a decline in multiple births is good

Twin and other multiple births increase the risk of complications for the mother and infant, including the risk of premature delivery. An unintended consequence of fertility treatment technology was an increase in the nation’s multiple-birth rate, Adashi said.

The new study also suggests that non-IVF fertility treatments deserve greater attention, as they now contribute to a greater proportion of multiple births than IVF does. The percentage of triplet and higher-order births resulting from non-IVF treatments increased from 36 percent in 1998 to 45 percent in 2011, the study found.

“When people hear ‘multiple,’ they intuitively point at IVF,” Adashi said. The study found “IVF is an actor,” he said, but “not the leading culprit when it comes to the genesis of multiples.”

But unlike multiple births from IVF, which result from the number of embryos that are intentionally implanted, multiple births from non-IVF fertility treatments are difficult to prevent, Adashi said. That’s because non-IVF treatments, including oral and injectable drugs, stimulate ovulation in ways that cannot be precisely controlled, Adashi said.

How to reduce multiple births

But there are a few steps doctors can take that may reduce the rate of multiple births from non-IVF fertility treatments, such as lowering the doses of the ovulation-stimulating drugs, Adashi said.

“Increased awareness of multiple births resulting from non-IVF fertility treatments may lead to improved medical practice patterns and a decrease in the rate of multiple births,” the researchers wrote in the Dec. 5 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

To come up with their estimates, the researchers analyzed information on birth rates between 1962 and 1966 — before the advent of fertility treatments — to get a measure of the natural rate of multiple births. They also used publicly available data on IVF births between 1997 and 2011.

Because no database tracks multiple births due to non-IVF treatment, the researchers estimated this number by factoring in the natural rate of multiple births and IVF births. The researchers also took into account maternal age, which increases the chance of giving birth to multiples, but were not able to account for other factors, like obesity, which some studies suggest increases the chances of giving birth to twins.

source: live science

5 Common Cold and Flu Facts, Fictions, and Surprising Half-Truths

No matter how many cold and flu seasons you’ve weathered in your years, chances are you’re still buying into some far-too-common illness myths. So before you waste another perfectly good sick day lying around in bed (instead of out playing hooky), we ran some of the most popular pieces of cold and flu wisdom past New York City physician Jennifer Collins, M.D., a diplomat of the American Board of Allergy and Immunology and Internal Medicine. Here’s how they held up.

You Shouldn’t Exercise With a Cold: Myth
Skip the gym and you’ll actually stay sick longer. “Light to moderate exercise when you’re sick can actually boost your immune system’s function,” Collins says. She recommends reducing your workout intensity by 75 to 80 percent to prevent overstressing your body. Also, make sure you wipe down your gym equipment—and your hands—both before and after use. One study in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine found the cold virus (a.k.a. rhinovirus) on 63 percent of fitness centers’ machines.

Chicken Soup Fends Off Colds: Fact
No wonder you still want your mom when you’re sick. Her chicken soup really does make you feel better. Research published in Chest found that chicken soup reduces the movement of certain white blood cells in the body to reduce cold symptoms. What’s more, typical chicken-soup ingredients like carrots, parsnips, celery, garlic, and onions are packed with vitamins A and D, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium to help your immune system work at its best, Collins says.

Cold Weather Can Make You Catch a Cold: Myth
Record lows don’t cause colds—viruses do. Rhinovirus just happens to be more prevalent in the U.S. during the winter, largely due to migration patterns from other countries. In fact, the biggest contributor to cold-weather colds is found in the warm indoors where people (and their germs) are confined together, she says. You could make like a bear and hibernate—or you can just be extra-generous with the Windex this season.

Dairy Can Worsen Your Symptoms: Half-Truth
A stuffy nose can turn you into a veritable mouth-breather. The result: a dry, itchy throat. While fluids are key to quelling the irritation, and milk is thick enough to coat your throat, that’ll only make it feel even more constrained, Collins says. That doesn’t mean you have to avoid it, though. Contrary to popular opinion, dairy is not a phlegm factory. Just take your milk, cheese, or yogurt with water or juice, she says.

Flu Shots Can Give You the Flu: Myth
You finally gave in and got a flu shot, and the next day you’re in bed with a fever. Coincidence? Actually, yes. “The influenza virus infects you 48 hours before you have any symptoms, so if you get the vaccine during this time period, it will appear that the vaccine caused the flu, but you would’ve gotten sick anyway,” Collins says. Looks like you’re getting a flu shot this year

Source: Details

Risk of falls increases between cataract surgeries

Older adults with cataracts appear to double their risk of falling after surgery on their first eye and before surgery on the second, suggests a new study.

The finding that corrective eye surgery may – at least temporarily – be linked to an increase in falls comes after years of conflicting study results on the subject, researchers write in the journal Age and Ageing.

But the topic remains important as the global population ages and demand for cataract surgery increases. In Australia, where the study was conducted, cataract surgeries tripled over the past two decades.

“This study tells us that timing of cataract surgeries is very important,” Dr. Ediriweera Desapriya of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, told Reuters Health.

Desapriya has researched falls in older adults at the Center for Clinical Epidemiological and Evaluation Research, but wasn’t involved in the new study.

“In the past, you didn’t really want to get both eye surgeries done at the same time,” Desapriya said. That was in case of problems like infection or swelling. “But now the technology has improved and complications occur less often,” he said.

For their study, Lynn Meuleners of Curtin University and her team in Perth looked back through detailed electronic health records from Western Australia’s hospitals and its death registry.

Between 2001 and 2008, nearly 28,400 older adults in the region had cataract surgery on both eyes. The researchers found 1,094 of them also took a fall serious enough to warrant a hospital visit during that period.

People waited an average of 10 months between eye surgeries. Compared to the two-year period before any cataract surgery, their chance of falling doubled between procedures.

In the two years after surgery on their second eye, people’s fall risk was 34 percent higher than before their first surgery. The risk of falling also rose with age.

Most people who fell were older than 80, women, city dwellers and were not married.

“It’s a well-conducted study,” said Stephen Lord, a senior principal research fellow with Neuroscience Research Australia in Sydney. Lord was not involved with the current study, but researches balance and falls among older adults.

“In the intervening time between surgeries, you have a person with two eyes that are no longer equal and this can lead to various effects,” Lord said – like on visual sharpness and depth of field.

“For these things, we need two eyes working together,” he told Reuters Health.

However, at least one previous randomized controlled trial – medicine’s gold standard for research – found people had fewer falls after cataract surgery, Lord said.

Based on this study, doctors could warn patients to be extra cautious after having surgery on their first eye, Desapriya said.

“It is also important to encourage patients to have a second eye cataract surgery early,” Desapriya said. “Otherwise, eyes continue to function monocularly (with just one eye) and patients lose their depth perception.”

The new research cannot point to cataract surgery as the primary cause of the falls – it only suggests they are linked.

The researchers said a limitation of their study is a lack of knowledge about people’s lifestyles, including their living situations, and co-existing eye conditions, both of which could strongly influence fall risk.

They also did not look at falls among people who had not undergone cataract surgery. Such comparisons are helpful when considering changes in risk.

“The aging population is growing rapidly in the U.S. and Canada,” Desapriya said. “And this surgery is becoming a very common clinical procedure.”

According to the National Eye Institute, more than half of all Americans have a cataract or have had cataract surgery by the time they’re 80.

Lord compared cataract surgery to a major change in prescription eyeglasses: in both cases, the brain needs time to adjust to the changes in vision.

But patients and doctors should not shy away from cataract operations, Lord said.

“The last thing we want to have happen is to prevent people from receiving cataract surgery,” Lord said. “This surgery has many benefits, such as improving quality of life, increasing a person’s participation in the community and even preventing falls in the longer term.”

“It just seems that, in the short term, there may be a problem while people adjust to their new vision,” he said.

Source: Khaleej times

New candy eats ‘bad’ bacteria in the mouth, benefitting teeth

Our mouths are a delicate balance of good and bad bacteria. When we clean our teeth, the aim is to knock out cavity-causing bacteria, while allowing beneficial oral bacteria to thrive. Now, researchers have developed a sugar-free candy, which contains dead bacteria that bind to bad bacteria, potentially reducing cavities.

The importance of good oral health has been emphasized by doctors for years. Poor oral health has been linked to many conditions, from Alzheimer’s disease to pancreatic cancer, not to mention cardiovascular disease.

To promote better oral health, a team from the Berlin-based firm Organobalance GmbH, Germany, created a new candy, which they claim reduced levels of ‘bad’ bacteria in study subjects’ mouths.

Their research was published in Probiotics and Antimicrobial Proteins.

They note that after we eat, bacteria on the surface of the teeth release acid, which can dissolve the tooth enamel, leading to cavities.

The most common strain of this “bad” bacteria is called Mutans streptococci. However, the researchers say that in previous studies with rats, another bacteria called Lactobacillus paracasei has been shown to reduce levels of the cavity-causing bacteria, decreasing the number of cavities in the rodents.

The team, led by Christine Lang, believe that by binding with M. streptococci, the L. paracasei bacteria prevent this bad bacteria from reattaching to the teeth, causing it to get washed away by saliva.

Candy ‘significantly lowered’ bad oral bacteria levels
In a pilot trial involving 60 subjects, Lang and her team tested whether their sugar-free candy, which contained heat-killed samples of L. paracasei DSMZ16671, reduced levels of bad oral bacteria.

One-third of the subjects ate candies with 1 mg of L. paracasei, while another third ate candies with twice this amount (2 mg). The final third served as a control group and ate candies that were similar in taste but that contained no bacteria.

In total, all subjects ate five candies during the 1.5-day study. They were not allowed to perform any oral hygiene activities during this time, and they were also not allowed to consume coffee, tea, wine or probiotic foods.

Results showed that nearly 75% of the participants who ate candies with the good bacteria had “significantly lower” levels of Mutans streptococci in their saliva than before, compared with the control group.

Additionally, the subjects who ate candy with 2 mg of L. paracasei had a reduction in bad bacteria levels after eating only one piece of candy.

The researchers write:

“We think it remarkable that this effect was observed after exposure to only five pieces of candy containing 1 or 2 mg of dead L. paracasei DSMZ16671 consumed in 1.5 days.”

They say that by using dead bacteria, they avoided problems that live bacteria might have caused. They also note that the L. paracasei does not bind with beneficial oral bacteria, which is why this is a better cavity prevention method than other probiotics.

“Additionally,” they add, “sugar-free candies stimulate saliva flow, a benefit to oral health.”

Source: Medical News Today

Tummy `clock` tells us how much to eat

Scientists have found the first evidence that the nerves in the stomach act as a circadian clock, limiting food intake to specific times of the day. The discovery, by University of Adelaide researchers , could lead to new information about how the gut signals to our brains about when we’re full, and when to keep eating.

In the University’s Nerve-Gut Research Laboratory, Dr Stephen Kentish investigated how the nerves in the stomach respond to stretch, which occurs as a consequence of food intake, at three-hourly intervals across one day. “These nerves are responsible for letting the brain know how much food we have eaten and when to stop eating,” said Kentish, who is the lead author of the paper.

“What we’ve found is that the nerves in the gut are at their least sensitive at time periods associated with being awake. This means more food can be consumed before we feel full at times of high activity, when more energy is required,” Kentish added.

“However, with a change in the day-night cycle to a period associated with sleeping , the nerves in the stomach become more sensitive to stretch, signalling fullness to the brain quicker and thus limiting food intake.

“This variation repeats every 24 hours in a circadian manner, with the nerves acting as a clock to coordinate food intake with energy requirements ,” he said. So far this discovery has been made in lab studies, not in humans. “Our theory is that the same variations in nerve responses exist in human stomachs , with the gut nerves being less sensitive to fullness during the day and more sensitive at night,” he said.

Source: Deccan Chronicle