Researchers who sequenced Phytophthora infestans, the water mold behind the Irish potato famine, report an unusually large genome whose parts evolve at different rates, a two-speed structure they say drives its adaptability. It still threatens potato and tomato crops.
Food Consumer
Vitamins
IV Vitamin C Used to Recover Terminal Swine Flu Case
Mercola relays Thomas Levy's account of a New Zealand farmer with swine flu and undiagnosed leukemia who was on life support until his family pressed the hospital to give intravenous vitamin C. The hospital agreed reluctantly, and the patient began improving two days later.
Drug
Why Mammography is NOT an Effective Breast Cancer Screen
Dr. Len Saputo reviews the limits of mammography, clinical breast exams, ultrasound, MRI and PET scans, then makes the case for breast thermography. Early infrared scanners produced misdiagnoses, but he says modern versions rest on research covering more than 300,000 women.
Drug
Another Shocking Warning About Swine Flu Vaccine
German lung specialist Wolfgang Wodarg warned that the H1N1 vaccine's nutrient solution uses cancerous animal cells, raising fears about injecting them. Mercola adds that a BMJ study found more than half of public hospital doctors and nurses would refuse the vaccine.
Cooking
Healthy Recipes:French Baked Beets
A recipe for beets marinated in balsamic vinegar, garlic, herbes de Provence and rosemary, then baked covered for 35 to 40 minutes and drizzled with olive oil. Five servings at 80 calories each, with fibre, folate and potassium.
Government
CDC recommendations for use of antiviral drugs in flu treatment and prevention
CDC's updated interim guidance for the 2009-2010 season recommends oseltamivir or zanamivir for everyone hospitalized with suspected or confirmed influenza, and generally for people at higher risk of complications, including children under 5 and adults 65 and older.
Drug
Fish-Killing Toxin Could Kill Cancer Cells
ARS and NOAA researchers report in Toxicon that euglenophycin, the algal toxin blamed for killing more than 21,000 striped bass at a North Carolina fish farm in 2002, resembles a fire ant venom alkaloid known to inhibit tumours and may have cancer-killing properties.
Disease
Cognition Negatively Affected by High Blood Pressure
The Maine-Syracuse Longitudinal Study, running over 20 years in adults aged 18 to 83, ties higher blood pressure to worse cognition: every 10-point rise in diastolic pressure came with 7 percent greater risk of mental impairment. NIH plans a larger trial into why.
Disease
Retrovirus potential risk factor for prostate cancer
Utah and Columbia researchers found DNA from the retrovirus XMRV in 27 percent of more than 200 prostate cancers, against 6 percent of non-cancerous tissue, with viral proteins almost exclusively in malignant cells. If the link proves causal, tests and vaccines might follow.
Food
Keeping Kids Flu Free: The Importance of Healthy Foods
Veteran parents offer tactics for feeding children well through flu season: plan menus ahead, aim for a balanced week rather than a balanced day, treat the effort as a marathon, and hide shredded zucchini or carrots in sauces if you must.
Food
The Best Foods to Improve Your Immunity
Dr. Mercola lists foods he credits with supporting immunity and the compound behind each: live-culture yogurt, L-theanine in green tea, vitamin C in oranges and bell peppers, sulfur compounds in garlic and broccoli, beta carotene in carrots, beta glucans in mushrooms and barley.
Food
Eating garlic may help prevent Alzheimer's
A study by 80 scientists in Nature Genetics identified two more genes tied to Alzheimer's, clusterin on chromosome 8 and PICALM on chromosome 11. The piece pairs it with a 2009 in-vitro study in which garlic extract inhibited beta-amyloid fibril formation and broke up preformed fibrils.
Miscellaneous
September: National Addiction and Recovery Month
Marking the twentieth National Addiction and Recovery Month, this piece offers advice for the early days of sobriety: start slowly with a few non-negotiable habits, treat addiction as an illness that needs care rather than a choice, and rebuild order in neglected parts of life.
Diet
Dietary fiber cuts breast cancer risk in older women
In an NIH-AARP study of 185,598 postmenopausal women followed for seven years, those with the highest dietary fiber intakes were 13 percent less likely to develop breast cancer. The researchers suggest fiber may act by changing how the body handles estrogen.
Vitamins
Vitamin D: What you need to know
A primer on vitamin D3, or cholecalciferol, which the skin makes in sunlight and the body converts into the hormone calcitriol, said to affect some 2,000 genes. It recommends the 25-hydroxyvitamin D blood test and cites the Vitamin D Council's threshold of 50 for deficiency.
Environment
Tap Tops Flow round London (press release)
Thames Water is handing out 10,000 Tap Top carafes to London restaurants, MPs, businesses and community groups, and to the Houses of Parliament, as part of its London On Tap campaign promoting tap water over bottled brands. Each carafe sold sends 1 pound to WaterAid.
Chemical
Bottled water better than tap water?
After an 18-month survey, the Environmental Working Group found only two bottled waters disclose their source and treatment and post recent quality tests, and just 18 percent publish contaminant results. Municipal systems must disclose water safety data; bottlers need not.
Miscellaneous
U.S Prepares for Flu Hospitalizations
The CDC says it is preparing for 1.8 million flu hospitalizations and as many as 90,000 deaths in the coming months, with swine flu cases already surging in August. For Aug. 23-29 hospitalizations rose to 9,079, and H1N1 made up 97 percent of reported flu cases.
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