Public Health

Eggs are sexy. They can be safer to eat according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). What was announced on 7 July 2009 is the final rule requiring specific preventive measures against the bacterium Salmonella Enteritidis contamination during production of shell eggs in poultry houses, and refrigeration of the eggs during subsequent storage and transportation. FDA estimates that this new regulation will prevent about 79,000 illnesses and 30 deaths each year.     The rule requires adoption of preventive measures by all egg producers with 3,000…

The evidence is in. The scientific community has reached a clear consensus that vaccines don’t cause autism. There is no controversy.” So begins an in-depth discussion of the vaccines-cause-autism nonsense penned by “SkepDoc” Harriet Hall in a recent issue of eSkeptic. It is a must read for any thinking person who has been baffled by the likes of Jenny McCarthy and her unconscionable sponsors, boyfriend Jim Carrey (who bankrolls McCarthy’s dangerous ignorance) and Oprah Winfrey (who provides McCarthy with television time so that she can endanger the lives of even more children). The…

With the increasing popularity of whitening teeth, and some studies showing negative effects of teeth whitening, researchers at the Eastman Institute for Oral Health at the University of Rochester Medical Center set out to learn if there are negative effects on the tooth from using whitening products. Eastman Institute's YanFang Ren, DDS, PhD, and his team determined that the effects of 6 percent hydrogen peroxide, the common ingredient in professional and over-the-counter whitening products, are insignificant compared to acidic fruit juices. Orange juice markedly decreased hardness and…

The man who stopped smoking is the title of a video from the British Medical Journal (BMJ).  The blurb says: Richard Doll was a luminary of clinical research whose case control study, published in the BMJ in 1950, first identified smoking as an important cause of cancer and other diseases. The paper's findings were received with apathy, anger and disbelief. This 10 minute film to promote the BMJ archive now being fully searchable back to 1840 charts Doll's remarkable life and the impact of both of this paper, and his follow-up British Doctors' Study. Watch it here     …

Research links smog to devastating effects not just on lungs but on hearts, brains and fetal development. By Greg CritserJune 23, 2009 Not long ago, Jesus Araujo, a cardiology researcher at UCLA, parked a cage full of transgenic mice alongside the 110 Freeway. As a control, he placed another group in a less-polluted space on the Westside. Araujo was interested in learning more about how smog affects the heart and whether bad air could help explain the persistence of heart disease after 25 years of cholesterol management, statins and endless lifestyle advice. On collecting the mice several…

Now there's a new reason for the weight-conscious to drink fat free milk at breakfast time, suggests a new study published in the July issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Researchers in Australia found that drinking fat free milk in the morning helped increase satiety, or a feeling of fullness, and led to decreased calorie intake at the next meal, as compared with a fruit drink. The milk drinkers ate about 50 fewer calories (or nearly 9% less food) at lunch. In the study, 34 overweight but otherwise healthy men and women participated in two testing sessions – one in which…

As some of you already know, I've been sharpening my sports nutrition skills.  With that, I figured I would share with you guys some tips that I think would help you guys out.   This first one is protein needs.  As rowers and/or cyclists we would consider ourselves endurance athletes.  FYI:  These numbers apply for both men and women b/c they are based on body weight - not gender. The current standard for the avg (i.e. sedentary person) is 0.4g per lb of body weight. For example, 0.4g x 150 pound person = 60g -Recreational exerciser:  0.5 - 0.7g per lb…

Living in an area with more fast food outlets and convenience stores than supermarkets and grocers has been associated with obesity in a Canadian study published by BMC Public Health. Correlation/causation misfire?   Sure, unless you want to believe that the government should put up a fresh food stand within a half mile of your house to keep you from becoming obese.  John Spence from the University of Alberta, Canada, worked with a team of researchers to study associations between the 'Retail Food Environment Index' (RFEI) and levels of obesity. He said, "The RFEI is based upon a…

University of Louisville neurologist Robert P. Friedland, M.D., questions the safety of eating farmed fish in the June issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.  A legitimate worry about the nation's food supply or a case of an anti-farmed fish agenda?  Friedland and co-authors suggest, despite any evidence or anything outside their own speculation, that farmed fish byproducts rendered from cows, like bone meal, could transmit Creutzfeldt Jakob disease, commonly known as mad cow disease, to humans.   Despite the lack of evidence, they are urging government regulators to…

Newborn babies have immature immune systems, making them highly vulnerable to severe infections and unable to mount an effective immune response to most vaccines, thereby frustrating efforts to protect them. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 2 million newborns and infants less than 6 months of age die each year due to infection. Now, researchers at Children's Hospital Boston believe they have found a way to enhance the immune system at birth and boost newborns' vaccine responses, making infections like respiratory syncytial virus, pneumococcus and rotavirus much less of a…