Maintaining high levels of vitamin D this winter may enhance protection against the H1N1 flu, according to an analysis of deaths and complications from the 1918-1919 flu pandemic.
William B. Grant, PhD, of the Sunlight, Nutrition and Health Research Center in San Francisco, and Edward Giovannucci, MD, ScD, of the Harvard University School of Public Health, investigated the number of deaths and incidence of pneumonia associated with the deadly flu 90 years ago.
They found that the fewest deaths and cases of pneumonia occurred in two southern American cities included in the data analysis. Residents of those cities would have had the highest sunlight exposure and vitamin D production during the previous summer. The greatest number of deaths and pneumonia cases occurred in northern cities – those with less sun exposure.
Grant and Giovannucci noted that the fatal complications of flu result in part from a secondary bacterial infection, such as pneumonia.
Vitamin D is needed for the body’s production of cathelicidin, an antibacterial peptide that has been shown to fight tuberculosis and septicemia. Vitamin D also protects against endotoxins, which are released by bacteria when they are destroyed.
Reference: Grant WB, Giovannucci E. The possible roles of solar ultraviolet-B radiation and vitamin D in reducing case-fatality rates from the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic in the United States. Dermato-Endocrinology, 2009;1:1-5.
Friday, October 16, 2009
The Downside of Multitasking
Multitasking – doing two or more activities at once – has become part of the way of doing things.
There’s no way to completely avoid multitasking, but I have often argued against excessive multitasking. My reason is simple: it’s difficult for a person to do two things at the same time equally well. If you doubt me, just think about all the times that slow drivers were yacking on their cell phones in front of you. Their driving suffered because their phone call dominated their attention. You’re no better if you try to multitask.
Recently, researchers at Stanford University in California compared college students who did a lot of multitasking with those who did very little. The researchers figured that students who did the most multitasking would be better at it. They were wrong. It turned out that the students who did the most multitasking weren’t very good at it. The more they multitasked, the worse they were in terms of being easily distracted and filtering out irrelevant information, according to an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Why the surge in multitasking, including texting while driving, in recent years?
I believe there are two reasons. One, many new technologies, such as email, cell phones, and texting have encouraged distracting, impulsive-addictive behavior. Two, poorer eating habits, including excessive amounts of caffeine and junk foods low in B vitamins and omega-3 fats, have altered the biochemistry of millions of brains, leaving many people more susceptible to distractions and uncomfortable simply being alone with their thoughts. The solution? Healthier foods, perhaps some supplements, and learning to be mindful and in the moment.
There’s no way to completely avoid multitasking, but I have often argued against excessive multitasking. My reason is simple: it’s difficult for a person to do two things at the same time equally well. If you doubt me, just think about all the times that slow drivers were yacking on their cell phones in front of you. Their driving suffered because their phone call dominated their attention. You’re no better if you try to multitask.
Recently, researchers at Stanford University in California compared college students who did a lot of multitasking with those who did very little. The researchers figured that students who did the most multitasking would be better at it. They were wrong. It turned out that the students who did the most multitasking weren’t very good at it. The more they multitasked, the worse they were in terms of being easily distracted and filtering out irrelevant information, according to an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Why the surge in multitasking, including texting while driving, in recent years?
I believe there are two reasons. One, many new technologies, such as email, cell phones, and texting have encouraged distracting, impulsive-addictive behavior. Two, poorer eating habits, including excessive amounts of caffeine and junk foods low in B vitamins and omega-3 fats, have altered the biochemistry of millions of brains, leaving many people more susceptible to distractions and uncomfortable simply being alone with their thoughts. The solution? Healthier foods, perhaps some supplements, and learning to be mindful and in the moment.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
More Thoughts on Health-Care Reform
Whatever your political thinking happens to be, you can’t deny that the American health-care system is dysfunctional and in serious need of improvement. The late Emanuel Cheraskin, MD, DMD, once said it best: Medicine is America’s fastest growing failing business. His thinking applies to the entire health-care system, not just medicine.
Why does health care keep getting more expensive? One reason is that the current hodge-podge system is based on earning money through interventions – e.g., physician visits, tests, hospitalizations, surgeries, and prescriptions. I’m not against making money, but the incentive is for every part of the system to encourage more and more interventions, and the costlier the better. Money is made off illness; no illness means no profit.
As a consequence, there is little desire by anyone in health care to reduce the number of interventions or their cost. Nor is there much interest in saving money, because saving a few billion dollars translates to a company losing a few billion dollars in profits, and no company wants to lose money.
I do believe there is a need for some type of universal coverage. Indeed, my European associates are aghast at the thought that one of every six Americans does not have any insurance coverage to defray the cost of needed medical care. And those who do have insurance often have to haggle with their insurers about what procedures are covered and what are not. Quite simply, universal coverage is the ethical and moral way to treat our brethren.
But providing some type of universal insurance of medical coverage is not a solution in itself. Costs will eventually increase, and there will eventually be more pressures to cut services or ration care to rein in costs.
Real improvement in health care must come from a concerted effort to prevent disease and to reduce the need for medical care. I believe this would be best done through improved eating habits, greater physical activity, and other positive lifestyle changes. Without a genuine program geared toward prevention -- perhaps something along the lines of government efforts to curb smoking -- the costs of a health-care system (regardless of who pays) will eventually lead to its collapse.
Maybe someone will figure out that the health-care system could profit big time from prevention-oriented interventions. At least that's my hope.
Why does health care keep getting more expensive? One reason is that the current hodge-podge system is based on earning money through interventions – e.g., physician visits, tests, hospitalizations, surgeries, and prescriptions. I’m not against making money, but the incentive is for every part of the system to encourage more and more interventions, and the costlier the better. Money is made off illness; no illness means no profit.
As a consequence, there is little desire by anyone in health care to reduce the number of interventions or their cost. Nor is there much interest in saving money, because saving a few billion dollars translates to a company losing a few billion dollars in profits, and no company wants to lose money.
I do believe there is a need for some type of universal coverage. Indeed, my European associates are aghast at the thought that one of every six Americans does not have any insurance coverage to defray the cost of needed medical care. And those who do have insurance often have to haggle with their insurers about what procedures are covered and what are not. Quite simply, universal coverage is the ethical and moral way to treat our brethren.
But providing some type of universal insurance of medical coverage is not a solution in itself. Costs will eventually increase, and there will eventually be more pressures to cut services or ration care to rein in costs.
Real improvement in health care must come from a concerted effort to prevent disease and to reduce the need for medical care. I believe this would be best done through improved eating habits, greater physical activity, and other positive lifestyle changes. Without a genuine program geared toward prevention -- perhaps something along the lines of government efforts to curb smoking -- the costs of a health-care system (regardless of who pays) will eventually lead to its collapse.
Maybe someone will figure out that the health-care system could profit big time from prevention-oriented interventions. At least that's my hope.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
The Swine Flu -- How Serious and Some Ways to Enhance Your Resistance
The swine flu, or H1N1 influenza virus, emerged in Mexico this past spring. The timing was uncharacteristic of most flu viruses, and so was its genetic makeup. H1N1 bore an uncanny resemblance to the 1918 flu virus, which killed an estimated 50 to 100 million people worldwide. The 1918 virus initially appeared mild, seemed to disappear during the summer, then reemerged with deadly virulence in the fall and winter. Unlike most types of influenza, it tended to affect healthy people in their 20s, triggering a self-destructive immune reaction in people with the most robust immune systems.
Will this year’s H1N1 virus follow the same pattern as the 1918 flu? At this point, there is certainly the potential, but no one knows for sure. It’s too soon to panic, but it would be smart to prepare. I’m stocking up on some supplements, just in case.
I believe it’s important to take some key supple-ments daily for general protection, and then to ramp up the dosages on the first day of symptoms, before virus concentrations increase and the immune system overreacts. My flu-protection plan consists of the following:
N-acetylcysteine (NAC). This potent antioxidant is unsurpassed for suppressing flu symptoms. I take 500 mg daily, doubling this over the fall and winter. I’ve taken up to 5 to 6 grams daily to suppress flu and cold symptoms.
Vitamin D. I take 5,000 IU daily, but will briefly go up to 25,000 to counter flu or cold symptoms.
Vitamin C. Bowel tolerance increases during sickness, so take at least 2,000 mg daily and increase this to 10,000 mg or more to fight infections.
Selenium. This mineral helps prevent the creation of viral mutations that can damage the heart. Take 200 mcg daily, but increase it to 400 mcg if you’re fighting a flu or cold.
L-lysine. This amino acid inhibits the growth of viruses. I take it only when fighting an infection, 500 to 1,000 mg daily.
Zinc lozenges. These also help suppress cold and flu symptoms. Follow label instructions.
Oscillococcinum. This homeopathic remedy also seems to help. Follow label instructions.
Don’t forget: The office, family gatherings, and air travel are great opportunities to share infections. Wash your hands frequently, and if you’re sick, please stay home.
Will this year’s H1N1 virus follow the same pattern as the 1918 flu? At this point, there is certainly the potential, but no one knows for sure. It’s too soon to panic, but it would be smart to prepare. I’m stocking up on some supplements, just in case.
I believe it’s important to take some key supple-ments daily for general protection, and then to ramp up the dosages on the first day of symptoms, before virus concentrations increase and the immune system overreacts. My flu-protection plan consists of the following:
N-acetylcysteine (NAC). This potent antioxidant is unsurpassed for suppressing flu symptoms. I take 500 mg daily, doubling this over the fall and winter. I’ve taken up to 5 to 6 grams daily to suppress flu and cold symptoms.
Vitamin D. I take 5,000 IU daily, but will briefly go up to 25,000 to counter flu or cold symptoms.
Vitamin C. Bowel tolerance increases during sickness, so take at least 2,000 mg daily and increase this to 10,000 mg or more to fight infections.
Selenium. This mineral helps prevent the creation of viral mutations that can damage the heart. Take 200 mcg daily, but increase it to 400 mcg if you’re fighting a flu or cold.
L-lysine. This amino acid inhibits the growth of viruses. I take it only when fighting an infection, 500 to 1,000 mg daily.
Zinc lozenges. These also help suppress cold and flu symptoms. Follow label instructions.
Oscillococcinum. This homeopathic remedy also seems to help. Follow label instructions.
Don’t forget: The office, family gatherings, and air travel are great opportunities to share infections. Wash your hands frequently, and if you’re sick, please stay home.
The “Single Cause” Fallacy
One of the foundations of modern medicine is that each disease has a single cause – identify the cause and a drug treatment will follow. The idea certainly helps with the marketing and sales of drugs, but it denies the complexity of most disease processes.
In 1971, President Richard Nixon declared that cancer would be cured by 1976. Over the years, we’ve read hundreds (if not thousands) of promising news releases and scientific papers suggesting that the “latest” discovery could very well lead to a cure, or at least to effective treatments, for cancer. Despite all of the research – hundreds of billion dollars of funding – the death rate from cancer between 1950 and 2005 has decreased by only 5 percent. In contrast, deaths from heart disease decreased by 64 percent during this time.
Although all types of cancer share many features, such as the proliferation of abnormal cells, cancers can have many different causes. Alterations in gene function are at the root of cancer, but they can result from any number of factors, including poor nutrition, elevated hormone levels, and environmental toxins. Damage to some individual genes, such as the p53 and BRCA, certainly increase the risk of cancer.
But the research increasingly shows that cancers don’t develop because of one or two genes that go bad. Rather, cancers are the consequence of a lot going wrong and going out of control. An analogy: instead of one musician hitting a bad note, cancer is more like all of the musicians in an orchestra repeatedly hitting the wrong notes.
So if cancer does not have a single cause, what’s the best way to tackle the disease? The only sensible approach is to emphasize prevention – eating better diets, taking some nutritional supplements, exercising, and creating an environment with fewer environmental toxins.
I don’t think we’ll ever eliminate cancer or identify a “cure,” but through mindful living we can certainly reduce the risk of cancer and the number of people who must undergo surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation – treatments that often produce as much suffering as the disease itself.
In 1971, President Richard Nixon declared that cancer would be cured by 1976. Over the years, we’ve read hundreds (if not thousands) of promising news releases and scientific papers suggesting that the “latest” discovery could very well lead to a cure, or at least to effective treatments, for cancer. Despite all of the research – hundreds of billion dollars of funding – the death rate from cancer between 1950 and 2005 has decreased by only 5 percent. In contrast, deaths from heart disease decreased by 64 percent during this time.
Although all types of cancer share many features, such as the proliferation of abnormal cells, cancers can have many different causes. Alterations in gene function are at the root of cancer, but they can result from any number of factors, including poor nutrition, elevated hormone levels, and environmental toxins. Damage to some individual genes, such as the p53 and BRCA, certainly increase the risk of cancer.
But the research increasingly shows that cancers don’t develop because of one or two genes that go bad. Rather, cancers are the consequence of a lot going wrong and going out of control. An analogy: instead of one musician hitting a bad note, cancer is more like all of the musicians in an orchestra repeatedly hitting the wrong notes.
So if cancer does not have a single cause, what’s the best way to tackle the disease? The only sensible approach is to emphasize prevention – eating better diets, taking some nutritional supplements, exercising, and creating an environment with fewer environmental toxins.
I don’t think we’ll ever eliminate cancer or identify a “cure,” but through mindful living we can certainly reduce the risk of cancer and the number of people who must undergo surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation – treatments that often produce as much suffering as the disease itself.
Sugar Wars – Nothing Natural About Them
Despite the worldwide economic recession, one type of business seems to be profiting: candy shops.
Most of us have our comfort foods. It may be chicken soup, a slice of pizza, or a chunk of chocolate. A recent article in the New York Times reported that business in candy shops is booming. Business is especially good for inexpensive sweets, such as Hershey Kisses, compared with more expensive indulgences.
Interestingly, this sweet-tooth trend coincides with another trend, a shift from high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) back to old-fashion sugar (sucrose). Begin-ning in the 1980s, HFCS became the sweetener of choice in processed foods, soft drinks, and candies. It was sweeter than sucrose, had a longer shelf life, and less expensive. Consumption of HFCS skyrocketed, while sucrose consumption plummeted – though the average American’s consumption of all added sugars has continued to climb to about 160 pounds per year.
Sucrose is a chemical compound, whereas HFCS is a blend of fructose and glucose, which leads to different metabolic effects. HFCS does a better job of raising triglycerides (a marker of diabetes and heart disease risk), and is more likely to lead to weight gain (in comparison to sucrose).
A lot of people (including me) complained about HFCS, and the giant junk food companies apparently listened. They’ve started returning to sucrose as a sweetener in frozen dinners, tomato sauces, salad dressings, and other products. With incredible audacity, companies are now describing sucrose as natural and healthy.
Natural and healthy? While HFCS does appear worse than sucrose, that doesn’t make sucrose a healthy alternative. The ideal dietary solution is to emphasis fresh foods and to avoid packaged foods, especially those with any type of added sugar.
Most of us have our comfort foods. It may be chicken soup, a slice of pizza, or a chunk of chocolate. A recent article in the New York Times reported that business in candy shops is booming. Business is especially good for inexpensive sweets, such as Hershey Kisses, compared with more expensive indulgences.
Interestingly, this sweet-tooth trend coincides with another trend, a shift from high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) back to old-fashion sugar (sucrose). Begin-ning in the 1980s, HFCS became the sweetener of choice in processed foods, soft drinks, and candies. It was sweeter than sucrose, had a longer shelf life, and less expensive. Consumption of HFCS skyrocketed, while sucrose consumption plummeted – though the average American’s consumption of all added sugars has continued to climb to about 160 pounds per year.
Sucrose is a chemical compound, whereas HFCS is a blend of fructose and glucose, which leads to different metabolic effects. HFCS does a better job of raising triglycerides (a marker of diabetes and heart disease risk), and is more likely to lead to weight gain (in comparison to sucrose).
A lot of people (including me) complained about HFCS, and the giant junk food companies apparently listened. They’ve started returning to sucrose as a sweetener in frozen dinners, tomato sauces, salad dressings, and other products. With incredible audacity, companies are now describing sucrose as natural and healthy.
Natural and healthy? While HFCS does appear worse than sucrose, that doesn’t make sucrose a healthy alternative. The ideal dietary solution is to emphasis fresh foods and to avoid packaged foods, especially those with any type of added sugar.
The Mind-Body Connection
Many people remain skeptical of a clear body-mind connection – that our life experiences and emotions can have a profound effect on our hard-wired biology. While animal studies have clearly shown that a mother’s style of nurturing can affect her offspring’s lifelong behavior and physical health, scientific studies showing a clear mind-body link in people have been limited.
Now, researchers have clearly shown that the behavior of some genes can be permanently changed by psychological factors during childhood.
Researchers from McGill University in Montreal compared two groups of brain cells. Some cells were obtained from people who had been abused as children and later committed suicide, and other brain cells came from people who had committed suicide but who had not been abused as children.
The researchers, writing in Nature Neuroscience (2009; doi 10.1038/nn.2270), explained how they investigated specific stress-response genes and cell receptors for cortisol on brain cells. When people are stressed – as in the case of children who are being abused – their levels of cortisol, a key stress hormone, swell.
In most people, the brain increases the activity of stress-response genes and the number of cell receptors involved in clearing cortisol from the brain. However, these genes were roughly 40 percent less active in cells from people who had been abused as children. In other words, being abused permanently changed the activity genes that would have helped buffer the effects of stress later in life.
The biological explanation for this mind-body connection lies in the science of “epigenetics.” Every one of our bodies’ cells contains about 20,000 genes, which can be considered our “hardware.” Epigenetics is more like our modifiable genetic “software.” Nutrition, stress, and toxins are among the key modifiers of our epigenetic programming, which turns genes on and off. Amazingly, epigenetic changes caused by nutrition and experience can be passed from one generation to the next.
Now, researchers have clearly shown that the behavior of some genes can be permanently changed by psychological factors during childhood.
Researchers from McGill University in Montreal compared two groups of brain cells. Some cells were obtained from people who had been abused as children and later committed suicide, and other brain cells came from people who had committed suicide but who had not been abused as children.
The researchers, writing in Nature Neuroscience (2009; doi 10.1038/nn.2270), explained how they investigated specific stress-response genes and cell receptors for cortisol on brain cells. When people are stressed – as in the case of children who are being abused – their levels of cortisol, a key stress hormone, swell.
In most people, the brain increases the activity of stress-response genes and the number of cell receptors involved in clearing cortisol from the brain. However, these genes were roughly 40 percent less active in cells from people who had been abused as children. In other words, being abused permanently changed the activity genes that would have helped buffer the effects of stress later in life.
The biological explanation for this mind-body connection lies in the science of “epigenetics.” Every one of our bodies’ cells contains about 20,000 genes, which can be considered our “hardware.” Epigenetics is more like our modifiable genetic “software.” Nutrition, stress, and toxins are among the key modifiers of our epigenetic programming, which turns genes on and off. Amazingly, epigenetic changes caused by nutrition and experience can be passed from one generation to the next.
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