Public Health

Upon opening a shelf in the kitchen of a Splenda, or sucralose, addict it is certain one will find a treasure trove of regular foods that have been touched by the most popular sugar substitute in the U.S. Vitamin C drops, cookies and canned fruit—all with Splenda are a few examples of the extensive list of over 3,000 Splenda products. On the surface the zero-calorie Splenda, marketed with the catchy phrase “made from sugar so it tastes like sugar,” may seem like the sweetener of all sweeteners. However, similar to the mantra that getting a little requires giving a little, the consumption of…

Low maternal vitamin D levels during pregnancy may affect primary tooth calcification, leading to enamel defects, which are a risk factor for early-childhood tooth decay. Investigators from the University of Manitoba (Winnipeg and Victoria) presented the results of a study they conducted to determine the vitamin D status of pregnant women, the incidence of enamel defects and early-childhood tooth decay among their infants, and the relationship with pre-natal vitamin D levels. Two hundred six pregnant women in their second trimester participated in the study. Only 21 women (10.5%) were found…

New research findings say that if we get smart about diet, even our intelligence can improve. In an MIT study published in The FASEB Journal, gerbils were given various combinations of three compounds needed for healthy brain membranes: choline, found in eggs; uridine monophosphate (UMP) found in beets; and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), found in fish oils. Other gerbils were given none of these to serve as a baseline. They were checked for cognitive changes four weeks later and the scientists found that the gerbils given choline with UMP and/or DHA showed cognitive improvements in tasks…

If you're in one of those municipalities that would rather ban foods than learn science, you probably aren't allowed to have food with trans fats in a restaurant. That's because, they say, trans fat lowers “good” HDL cholesterol and raises the “bad” LDL variety - but that's not true for the kind normally present in meat and dairy products and those are not a big health concern, reports the July 2008 issue of the Harvard Health Letter. Hydrogenation, the process used to convert oil into solid trans fat by adding hydrogen, occurs in nature also. Bacteria in animals’ stomachs hydrogenate the…

Rates of sexually transmitted infections have doubled among the over 45 population in less than a decade, reveals research in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections. Sexual behavior studies tend to ignore older age groups and focus on young people, say the authors. The period of analysis spanned eight years between 1996 and 2003 inclusive. Researchers monitored the numbers of sexually transmitted infections (STI) diagnosed in 19 sexual health clinics and reported to the Health Protection Agency's Regional Surveillance Unit in the West Midlands. In total, 4445 STI episodes were…

Bassinet use in 2006 was nearly double what it was in 1992, and even though more than 45% of infants between the ages of 0-2 months use them, little is known about bassinet safety. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has guidelines regarding bassinet construction but there are no government safety standards for bassinets. In 2005, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) revised its recommendations for a safe infant sleep environment, suggesting a separate but nearby sleeping arrangement (i.e. roomsharing without bedsharing). Two studies in The Journal of Pediatrics evaluate the…

Individuals who are obese are at increased risk of many diseases, including type 2 diabetes and heart disease. As 75%-95% of previously obese individuals regain their lost weight, many researchers are interested in developing treatments to help individuals maintain their weight loss. A new study, by Michael Rosenbaum and colleagues, at Columbia University Medical Center, New York, has provided new insight into the critical interaction between the hormone leptin and the brain's response to weight loss. Leptin levels fall as obese individuals lose weight. So, the authors set out to see whether…

A few hundred years ago, the Germans played a practical joke on the rest of the world; they invented a medical field based on the idea that you could cure a disease by using something that caused similar symptoms. It is called homeopathy and some people still haven't caught on to the joke. Why do I say joke? It's medicine that relies on the "energetic imprint" of substances to provoke the symptoms they already have - they're often so diluted that not even a molecule of the original substance remains - and the more diluted, the more powerful the cure, they say. How has it lasted so long? It's…

A clinical study on patients who have suffered a heart attack found that a partially purified extract of Chinese red yeast rice, Xuezhikang (XZK), reduced the risk of repeat heart attacks by 45%, revascularization (bypass surgery/angioplasty), cardiovascular mortality and total mortality by one-third and cancer mortality by two-thirds. The multicenter, randomized, double-blind study, was conducted on almost 5,000 patients, ranging in age from 18-70 over a five-year period at over 60 hospitals in the People's Republic of China. Corresponding author David M. Capuzzi, M.D., Ph.D, director of…

Disinfectants are routinely used on hard surfaces in hospitals to kill bacteria, with antimicrobial containing wipes increasingly being employed for this purpose. A study by the University's Welsh School of Pharmacy looked into the ability of antimicrobial-surface wipes to remove, kill and prevent the spread of such infections as MRSA. They found that current protocols utilized by hospital staff have the potential to spread pathogens, particularly due to the ineffectiveness of wipes to actually kill bacteria. The team, led by microbiologist Dr Jean-Yves Maillard is now calling for a 'one…