Public Health

I’m an addict in recovery. I speak freely about it and without shame. I’m not the man I was before treatment. I am the self I was always meant to be. A huge part of my change was due to my kids. What happens when an alcoholic parent gets treatment? In this parenting season, in the days between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, a new study published in the journal Addictive Behaviors looked at family conflict before and after a father’s treatment for alcohol addiction. And it shows there is hope. First the bad news that you already know: alcohol addiction may start at the point of contact between…

There are several different reasons people are willing to pay more for organic produce, but many consumers do so believing that it is a way avoid pesticide residues.  That widely held belief is unfounded.  Here is why: There are definitely pesticides used in the growing of organic crops.  There are residues of those materials on the harvested products. Residues of synthetic pesticides are also frequently found on organic produce, even though they are not materials that are approved for use on organic. The reason I feel the need to challenge the "avoid…

Please spare me the anti-biotech crowd’s Argumentum ad Monsantum (the “Appeal to Monsanto” argument) over Genetically Engineered (GE) foods. I’m speaking, of course, of the anti-GMO push back to my “Golden rice, golden opportunity” column. Golden Rice is a genetically engineered crop created by borrowing the carotene-making gene from corn and placing that gene into rice, which does not produce carotene (at least not in the parts of the rice plant that we eat). Our bodies convert carotene into vitamin A and then use that vitamin A in the development of bones and eyesight. Golden Rice will…

In Europe, there is a rush to ban and label things regardless of information. In America, there is a movement to do the same. In Asia, it is open season on the public regarding bizarre supplements, alternative medicine and natural therapies. Yet in many ways, Asians are healthier. That shows that everyone can be right in their claims when the data is so scattered and people who insist their idea will be a one-size-fits-all solution are not being evidence-based. So, claims that more labels and symbols will improve public health may be true -  they haven't shown to be true in America but…

Type-2 diabetes has dramatically spread in the last decade and is most often associated with being overweight and suffering from obesity. Moreover, nutritionists believe that inactive and sedentary lifestyles together with bad eating habits are the basis for weight gain.    Obesity puts people at risk of type-2 diabetes and while no program can be one-size-fits all, surely there must some combination of diet and exercise that can save people individual trial and error. A new EU-funded project, Preview, which is running until 2018, is looking at a combination of specific diets and…

A comparison of the genomes of polar bears and brown bears reveals that the polar bear is a much younger species than previously believed, having diverged from brown bears less than 500,000 years ago. That's interesting, but incremental, like discovering Earth is 10 million years older than we thought. What is more interesting is the discovery of genes that have allowed them to live in a high-fat diet. Literal high-fat, as in blubber. With no heart disease. People who talk about going back to our ancient diet are always endorsing artisan meats or ornate vegetarian cuisine. In reality, man's…

Patients whose lost red blood cells are recycled and given back to them during heart surgery have healthier blood cells compared to those who get transfusions of blood stored in a blood bank, according to the results of a small study at Johns Hopkins. To recycle the blood, a machine known as a cell saver is used to collect what a patient loses during surgery, rinse away unneeded fat and tissue and then centrifuge and separate the red cells, which are then returned to the patient if thy need it. Disposable parts of the cell saver, which can be used to process multiple units of blood, cost…

In California, Hawaii and Washington, the percentage of fatally injured drivers with cannabis in their systems grew an average 6.6 percent after medical marijuana laws increased access to the drug. Now with the legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado and Washington, the question of how cannabis impacts driving is even more immediate. Opinion and evidence have been mixed. For example, in what it calls a review of the scientific evidence, the marijuana advocacy website Norml writes that, “Marijuana has a measurable yet relatively mild effect on psychomotor skills, yet it does not…

If you are obese when you are young, it's likely to get worse when you are older. A recent paper examined the relationship between BMI at age 25, obesity later in life, and biological indicators of health and found that people who were obese by age 25 had a higher chance of more severe obesity later in life, but that current weight, rather than the duration of obesity, was a better indicator of cardiovascular and metabolic risk.   Investigators looked at data from the 1999-2010 U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) and found that men who were obese at age 25…

Cigarette smoking, overuse of screen media and even poor diet have been significantly associated with weekly consumption of sports drinks and energy drinks by adolescents.  Data for the study were gathered from 20 public middle schools and high schools in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area of Minnesota as part of the population-based study, Eating and Activity in Teens (EAT 2010). Surveys and anthropometric measures were completed by 2,793 adolescents during the 2009–2010 school year. Mean age of the participants was 14.4 years, participants were equally divided by gender, and…