Fish Oil and Cod Liver Oil Pills Not Shown to Prevent Heart Attacks
A review of 79 randomized and controlled studies of more than 110,000 men and women, with or without heart disease, shows that omega-3 fats in fish oil or in cod liver oil pills, taken for one to six years, do not prevent heart attacks, strokes or deaths in general. Fish oil pills did lower triglycerides which may be healthful, but they also lowered blood levels of the good HDL cholesterol, which may be harmful.
Lynn Anderson: Alcohol and Heart Attacks
Lynn Anderson was one of America’s most popular country music singers in the 1960s and 70s, best known for her “I Never Promised You a Rose Garden.” She died from a heart attack at the very young age of 67, most likely caused by her excessive intake of alcohol. Alcohol can damage cells throughout your body.
How Inactivity Can Cause Heart Failure
People who lie in bed without moving day after day suffer progressive weakening of their heart muscle. Eventually the heart becomes too weak to pump enough oxygen to the brain, they stop breathing and die from heart failure. A recent study on mice shows how this is likely to happen.
Vitamin and Mineral Pills Cannot Protect You from an Unhealthful Diet
Nobody can correct a faulty diet just by taking pills. A review of 18 studies, following more than two million men and women for an average of 12 years, shows that vitamin and mineral pills do not reduce risk for dying from heart disease or strokes, or even getting a stroke, regardless of age.
Tab Hunter, 1950s Heart Throb
Blond, blue-eyed Tab Hunter was so good-looking that he became a leading Hollywood movie star of the 1950s and 1960s. He was very athletic as a competitive figure skater in his youth and a lifelong accomplished horseman, so he was featured in roles such as the baseball player in the 1958 musical film Damn Yankees. He was also a popular singer whose 1957 hit record, “Young Love,” sold more than a million copies and was number one on the Hit Parade for six weeks.
Skin Cancer Treatments
Injections of HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) vaccine into the multiple squamous and basal cell skin cancers of a 90-year-old lady got rid of all the cancers in 11 months. This is just one of many studies showing that some skin cancers can be cured by boosting a person’s immunity against the HPV viruses. At one time or other, more than 70 percent of North Americans are infected with HPV, a class of more than 200 different viruses.
Vegetarian Diet Helps to Control Diabetes
A review of nine separate trials showed that diabetics who switched to vegetarian diets had significantly lower HbA1c (a measure of cell damage from high blood sugar levels), fasting blood sugar, LDL (bad) cholesterol, body weight and waist circumference. The studies included 664 diabetics who were taking oral sugar-lowering drugs, insulin, cholesterol-lowering drugs and/or blood pressure medications.
Liz Taylor’s Eyelashes: Clue to Rare Genetic Disorder
Elizabeth Taylor was a British-American actress who was famous for more than 50 movies, two Oscars, eight marriages, countless lovers and a net worth at death of more than $600 million. Instead of the normal single row of eyelashes, she had a thick, dark fringe of extra eyelashes that helped to make her one of the most beautiful women in the world. Unfortunately, extra eyelashes are also part of a terrible disease called lymphedema-distichiasis syndrome that is inherited and is caused by a mutation of the FOXC2 gene.
What You Eat, Not Your Genes, Determines Your Microbiome
The hottest area of medical research today may well be on the bacteria that live in your gut to affect how much you weigh, how long you live, and your susceptibility to many diseases. In the largest and most complete study of its kind ever, researchers analyzed genes of colon bacteria from 1,046 healthy Israelis and found that the bacterial composition of your colon is determined primarily by your lifestyle and what you eat, and has less than a two percent association with your genes.
Lack of Vitamin D May Harm Exercisers
A study in mice suggests that having low levels of vitamin D may harm athletes and exercisers by limiting how long they can exercise. Many exercisers and competitive athletes are vitamin D deficient even if they live in the sunbelt.