Health Newsletter

Health in the News #2

Organic food 'better' for heart

Organic fruit and vegetables may be better for you than conventionally grown crops, US research suggests. A ten-year study comparing organic tomatoes with standard produce found almost double the level of flavonoids - a type of antioxidant – in the organic tomatoes. Flavonoids have been shown to reduce high blood pressure, lowering the risk of heart disease and stroke.

Writing in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, Dr Alyson Mitchell and colleagues measured the amount of two flavonoids - quercetin and kaempferol - in dried tomato samples that had been collected as part of a long-term study on agricultural methods.
These findings also confirm recent European research, which showed that organic tomatoes, peaches and processed apples all have higher nutritional quality than non-organic. They found that on average they were 79% and 97% higher respectively in the organic tomatoes than in the conventionally grown fruit.

New Scientist magazine reported that the different levels of flavonoids in tomatoes are probably due to the absence of fertilizers in organic farming, and that the lower levels of flavonoids in conventionally grown foods are probably caused by over-fertilization.

Stress Linked to Memory Decline

If you want your mind to stay healthy into your golden years, don't worry: be happy. That could be the message of new research published in June 12, 2007 ‘Neurology’ that shows those prone to worry, anxiety or depression are more likely to develop mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a condition often considered a precursor to the more-debilitating Alzheimer's disease.

"MCI is now recognized as a very early sign of incipient Alzheimer's disease," said Robert S. Wilson, M.D. "We found that among healthy elderly people without evidence of cognitive dysfunction at the beginning of the study, chronic distress predicted the development of MCI."

"This is consistent with 20 years of literature on the subject," added Dr. Sam Gandy, chairman of the Alzheimer's Association's medical and scientific advisory. Participants were evaluated every year for 12 years. Those who most often experienced negative emotions were more than 40 percent more likely to develop mild cognitive impairment than those who were least prone to these emotions. This suggests that chronic psychological distress is a risk factor for mild cognitive impairment, the researchers said.

Americans Eating Fewer Vegetables

Five-a-day for Fruits and Vegetables? No Way. A new report in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine shows Americans are actually getting worse at eating their vegetables. This is hardly the first study to document dismal diet habits. Recently, the CDC gave U.S. adults poor marks for fruit and vegetable consumption. Now, researchers from Johns Hopkins University confirm that Americans aren't getting any better at eating fruits and vegetables.

The study shows that among U.S. adults, fruit consumption is holding steady, but vegetable consumption is headed down -- even when they counted French-fries as vegetables (which you shouldn’t). 28% of participants met the fruit consumption goal But the percentage meeting the vegetable consumption goal fell from 35% in the earlier survey to 32% in the one started a decade later. Only 11% met both goals!

Antibiotics Over-Prescribed for Sinus Ills>

Sinus problems are often caused by viruses, and not bacteria, according to a new University of Nebraska study. U.S. doctors may be over-prescribing antibiotics for sinus infections, which are often caused by viruses and not bacteria, according to the study.

A review of two national surveys of visits to doctors and recommended treatments found antibiotics prescribed for about 82 percent of acute sinus infections and nearly 70 percent of chronic sinus infections. That “far outweighs the predicted incidence of bacterial causes. The literature repeatedly shows that viruses are by far the most frequent cause of acute rhino-sinusitis.”

Overuse of antibiotics, which are useless against viruses, is causing the evolution of drug-resistant bacteria that must be treated with the most expensive new antibiotics. Unfortunately, many patients with sinus infections demand an antibiotic, Dr. Hadley Sharp and colleagues said. Up to one-fifth of antibiotic prescriptions for adults, are written for a drug to treat sinusitis.

Back Pain Often Ends Without Surgery

For two specific kinds of back and leg pain, surgery sometimes offers the fastest relief -- but those who choose non-surgical treatments get better, too.

Two separate studies reported in the New England Journal of Medicine show that while surgery is the fastest route to pain relief for severe sciatica and spondylolisthesis, these conditions do not worsen if surgery is delayed -- and that non-surgical treatments can relieve some of the pain.

According to back pain researcher Richard A. Deyo, MD, MPH, "The people who truly need back surgery are those who need it to preserve their ability to function." "But short of that, most back surgery is an elective procedure. It is not urgent. Patients face real choices that are quite reasonable: either surgical or no surgery."

Neurosurgeon Wilco C. Peul, MD, head of the spine intervention study group at Leiden University Medical Center, led a study of 283 patients with confirmed cases of severe sciatica. All of these patients' symptoms had lasted for six to 12 weeks. Even with pain medication, they could barely walk and were not able to work around the house or at their normal jobs.

Half the patients underwent early surgery, most within two weeks of study entry. The other patients were assigned to "conservative treatment," which included pain management and physical therapy. As expected, early surgery meant quicker recovery. But Peul and colleagues were surprised by what happened in the conservative-treatment group.

"The most important result is that what we did not expect -- that in the conservative-treatment group, most of them also had a quick recovery. It was slower than the early-surgery group…. But at one year, the results for the two groups are nearly equal. Even at three and six months, the outcomes were not that much different."