American mayapple, a common weed, may supply podophyllotoxin now taken from the near-extinct Indian mayapple and used to make the cancer drugs etoposide, teniposide and etopophos. Mississippi researchers set out to find American plants richest in the compound.
Food Consumer
Diet
Genetic mutations raise Alzheimer's risk, healthy lifestyle cuts the risk
Scanning more than 600,000 DNA markers in over 19,000 older Europeans and Americans, 7,000 of them with Alzheimer's, an international team tied two more genes to the disease: clusterin on chromosome 8 and PICALM on chromosome 11. Their effects look smaller than APOE4's.
Disease
Largest ever Alzheimer’s gene study unveils dementia mysteries
A genome-wide study of 16,000 people, published in Nature Genetics, links two genes, CLU and PICALM, to common Alzheimer's disease, while French researchers found a third. They are the first such genes identified since APOE4 in 1993.
Others
Eat, Pray, Dine on Veal
Eat, Pray, Love jokes about dining on lamb intestines and disappointing veal, and this critique argues Elizabeth Gilbert's spiritual travelogue never acknowledges the sequestered calves and slaughtered lambs behind the meals she extols.
Lifestyle
Yoga Study Proves Efficacy for Chronic Pain Sufferers
In a West Virginia University study, 43 chronic back pain sufferers took 90-minute yoga classes for 24 weeks while 47 received standard care. The yoga group reported less functional disability, less pain and fewer depressive symptoms, and many cut their pain medication.
Vitamins
The Vitamin D Newsletter: Vitamin D Studies of Interest
The Vitamin D Council's newsletter rounds up recent studies, opening with H1N1. The author notes 36 US children had died that season and argues CDC data hint at vitamin D deficiency, since nearly two-thirds of them had epilepsy, cerebral palsy or similar conditions.
Others
FDA: What’s found in a Pepsi cola can is a frog or toad
FDA testing confirmed that the animal a Florida man found in his Diet Pepsi can was a frog or toad, though the agency's inspection of the local bottling plant concluded nothing like it could enter during bottling. The family is seeking legal advice.
Miscellaneous
New bills may give you medical freedom
Citing supplement company Daniel Chapter One, this piece urges readers to press Congress to pass three Ron Paul bills: the Freedom of Health Speech Act, the Health Freedom Act and the Congressional Responsibility and Accountability Act. One would end FDA prior restraint of nutrient-disease claims.
Legal Actions
Dietary supplements help defeat leukemia, one patient says
An FTC administrative law judge acknowledged that Daniel Chapter One is a ministry but ruled the agency still has jurisdiction over it. The rest is Tracey Kulikowski's first-person account of the 1996 illness and abnormal blood work that sent her to an oncologist.
Vitamins
Vitamin C deficiency may impair brain development
Newborn guinea pigs with moderate vitamin C deficiency had 30 percent fewer hippocampal neurons and markedly worse spatial memory than those fed enough, a University of Copenhagen study found. The authors suggest deficiency in pregnant women may similarly affect infant brain development.
Minerals
Magnesium: What you need to know
A primer on magnesium: the body holds about 35 grams, over 60 percent of it in the skeleton, and the mineral figures in hundreds of metabolic reactions. Deficiency is rare in healthy people but more likely with gut or kidney disorders, chronic alcoholism or older age.
Supplements
Aloe vera: What you need to know
A primer on aloe vera: its recorded use back to early Egypt, traditional use on wounds and as a laxative, and present-day use for burns, diabetes, asthma and arthritis. Scientific evidence for the cosmetic and therapeutic claims is described as limited and often contradictory.
Environment
Avoid This if You Want to Keep Your Thyroid Healthy
Mercola argues that bromide, a halide competing with iodine for the same receptors, can suppress thyroid hormone production. He points to methyl bromide used on strawberries, brominated vegetable oil in citrus drinks and potassium bromate in commercial baked goods and some flours.
Drug
Why You Should Get Off Prescription Acid-Reducing Drugs ASAP
In a study of healthy volunteers who had never had heartburn, more than 40 percent developed heartburn, acid regurgitation or dyspepsia in the weeks after eight weeks of proton pump inhibitors were stopped, a rebound in acid secretion that can lead to dependence on the drugs.
Biotech
Chickens Not Fooled by GM Crops
Dr. Mercola relays a report that Strilli Oppenheimer's chickens refused the maize in their feed, and testing confirmed it had been engineered to produce proteins toxic to insects and weeds. He cites earlier claims that animals avoid GM feed and an Austrian study of mice fed GM corn.
Government
Updated Guidance for Child Care and Early Childhood Programs
CDC's guidance for early childhood programs in the 2009-2010 flu season recommends children and providers with influenza-like illness stay home until 24 hours after fever resolves without medication, and offers a menu of tools to escalate if flu grows more severe.
Environment
Mercury level in women increases - study
Dan Laks of UCLA examined NHANES data on 6,174 women aged 18 to 49 and found inorganic mercury in 30 percent of those tested in 2005-2006, against 2 percent in 1999-2000. Average levels rose from 0.33 to 0.39 u/L over the same period.
Miscellaneous
WHO Admits to Releasing Pandemic Virus into Population via 'Mock-Up' Vaccines
Mercola points to WHO's own site describing European manufacturers' 'mock-up' vaccines, which carry a flu strain absent from recent human circulation to mimic a pandemic virus and speed regulatory approval. He reads that practice as releasing pandemic viruses into the population.
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