Healthful Diet Helps to Prevent Colon Cancer
A study published this week shows that vegetarians who eat fish have a 43 percent reduced risk for developing colon cancer, compared to people who eat meat (JAMA Internal Medicine, March 9, 2015). Researchers analyzed the diets of nearly 78,000 men and women. During...
Aspirin to Prevent Colon Cancer?
People who take aspirin are at reduced risk for colon cancer, unless they are among the four percent of North Americans who have a genetic susceptibility for colon cancer (JAMA, March 17, 2015;313(11):1133-1142). Colon cancer is the second leading cause of cancer...
Added Sugars Linked to High Blood Pressure
A new review of studies on sugar-added foods shows that people who take in 10-25 percent of their calories from sugared beverages and foods suffer a 30 percent higher risk for heart attacks, compared with people who take less than ten percent of calories from added sugars.
Franz Kafka and Tuberculosis
Franz Kafka was one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, even though little of his work was published before his death at the young age of 40. He had tuberculosis in his esophagus, which prevented food from reaching his stomach, so he starved to...
Testosterone Warnings
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires makers of prescription testosterone products to have a label stating that taking testosterone may cause heart attacks, strokes and death, and it is approved only for men who have low testosterone levels due to disorders of the testicles, pituitary gland, or brain,
Emulsifiers May Disrupt Gut Bacteria
A study in mice showed that emulsifiers can disrupt intestinal bacteria to cause inflammation and weight gain (Nature, Feb 25, 2015). Emulsifiers are added to many foods, such as ice cream, salad dressing, pastas, bread and cookies, to prolong shelf life and keep ingredients from separating.
Take Vitamin D Pills Only If You Have a Deficiency
Doses of vitamin D greater than 4,000 IUs increase risk for kidney stones, calcification of blood vessels and even the very cardiovascular disease you were seeking to prevent. The dose of vitamin D recommended by the National Academy of Sciences is 600 international units daily for those up to 70 years of age , and 800 IU for those over 71.
Julian Schwinger and Pancreatic Cancer
Julian Seymour Schwinger (February 12, 1918 – July 16, 1994) was one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century. He shared a Nobel Prize in theoretical physics with another genius, Richard Feynman, for his re-normalization theory of quantum electrodynamics....
Sugar-Added Foods Increase Diabetes Risk
Sugar-added to foods, but not in whole fruits, increases risk for diabetes, heart attack and premature death, according to a new summary of animal and human studies, clinical trials in humans and epidemiological human population studies (Mayo Clinic Proceedings,...
Slow Runners Don’t Come Out Ahead
A Danish study agrees with most previous studies that regular joggers as a group live longer than sedentary non-joggers (Journal of the American College of Cardiology, February 2, 2015). However, most of the news media reported that this study showed that slow, low-intensity joggers are less likely to die than intense exercisers (“Slow Runners Come Out Ahead,” proclaimed the New York Times headline). The joggers who ran faster than 7 mph for more than four hours a week had the same death rate as the non-joggers.