The FDA issued a rule requiring producers with 3,000 or more laying hens to take preventive measures against Salmonella Enteritidis in poultry houses and to refrigerate eggs during storage and transport. The agency expects it to prevent about 79,000 illnesses and 30 deaths a year.
Food Consumer
Government
New Hampshire Medical Marijuana Bill Vetoed by Governor Lynch
New Hampshire Governor John Lynch vetoed a bill letting patients possess small amounts of marijuana for medical use, saying it still had too many defects and noting federal law bans possession. The bill's author, Rep. Evalyn Merrick, who has multiple myeloma, vowed to seek an override.
Miscellaneous
Women with Greater Language Skills in their Twenties Less Likely to Develop Alzheimer’s
A Johns Hopkins study in the ongoing Nun Study confirms a 1996 finding that nuns who wrote complex sentences in their twenties were less likely to develop dementia. One group carried the plaques and tangles of Alzheimer's without memory loss, suggesting a protective mechanism.
Disease
Obese people at risk of severe complications and death from H1N1 infection
An editor's note frames a verbatim CDC report on Michigan intensive-care patients with the novel H1N1 virus, predicting officials will urge obese people to get vaccinated and calling that good business for drug makers. The CDC counted 94,512 cases and 429 deaths worldwide as of July 6, 2009.
Lifestyle
Low intake of calories and or methionine extends lifespan
In a 20-year Science study of monkeys, 80 percent of those fed 30 percent fewer calories were still alive against 50 percent eating freely, and the restricted animals were half as likely to develop cancer or cardiovascular disease. Whether the same holds in humans is unknown.
Diet
Calorie Restricted Diet May Lead to Longevity, Better Quality of Life
In an NIH-funded study of 75 rhesus monkeys begun in 1989, 14 freely fed animals died of age-related disease against 5 on a calorie-restricted diet. The restricted group also had half the rate of cardiovascular problems and precancerous cells, and no diabetes.
Drug
Fentanyl Has a Long History of Abuse
A synthetic opiate thought to be 100 times stronger than morphine, fentanyl has drawn addicted medical staff since 1980 and killed 18 doctors nationwide by 1991. A surgical technician with hepatitis C swapped prepped syringes for saline; it is also sold on the street as heroin.
Vitamins
Study confirms that Vitamin D3 may prevent cancer
Spanish researchers reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation that the active form of vitamin D3 switches on CST5, the gene for the tumor suppressor protein cystatin D. They conclude CST5 may mediate the vitamin's anticancer effect and deserves study in colon cancer.
Food
Eating fruit, vegetables reduces risk of upper respiratory tract infection
Among more than 1,000 pregnant women, those eating the most fruit and vegetables were 26 percent less likely to have an upper respiratory tract infection than those eating the least. Fruit or vegetables alone showed no link; the benefit appeared near 6.7 servings a day.
Disease
Swine flu throws a curve ball
German researchers infected five pigs with the pandemic H1N1 strain and watched it spread to three others within four days, reporting in the Journal of General Virology. Thomas Vahlenkamp says preventing human-to-pig transmission should be a priority; pig vaccine tests are underway.
Diet
Caloric restriction leads to longer and healthier life
In Science, University of Wisconsin researchers report that monkeys fed 30 percent fewer calories had a third the risk of age-related disease, half the cancer and cardiovascular disease, and 80 percent survival over 20 years, against 50 percent among monkeys that ate freely.
Miscellaneous
Think You'll Marry After 40? Buy a Lottery Ticket
A humor column riffs on the odds that single women over 40 will marry, comparing the statistics to terrorism and plane crashes and poking at prenuptials, single motherhood and the lingering sting of the phrase old maid.
Cooking
Blueberry Marinade with Tarragon and Ginger
A recipe from the AICR test kitchen: blueberries, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, honey, tarragon, ginger, garlic and black pepper pureed into a one-cup marinade for poultry or fish, at 25 calories per tablespoon.
Cooking
Grill Smart This Season
AICR says what you grill matters more than how you grill it: evidence strongly links diets high in red and processed meat to colorectal cancer, so it advises capping cooked red meat at 18 ounces a week and avoiding processed meat. Evidence on HCAs is limited but suggestive.
Disease
Celiac Disease 4 Times More Prevalent than Fifty Years Ago
Mayo Clinic researchers compared more than 9,000 blood samples from 1948-54 with 12,000 recent samples from Olmsted County, Minnesota, and found the gluten antibody 4.5 times more common now, roughly 1 in 100 people. Why the rate climbed remains under debate.
Government
FDA Requires Makers of Darvon, Darvacet, to Issue Strong Warnings
Rather than ban Darvon and Darvocet as its own panel urged, the FDA will require a boxed warning on painkillers containing propoxyphene and ask makers to detail the drug's toxicity in overdose. Critics say it is so weak that patients may take extra doses.
Comments
American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology advertisement
An open letter from the Vitamin D Council to American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology editor Thomas Garite, responding to the journal's refusal to run the Council's vitamin D advertisement in April and May 2009.
Miscellaneous
Ice-free Arctic summer on the horizon?
NASA satellite data show Arctic sea ice thinned about 7 inches a year between the winters of 2004 and 2008, 2.2 feet in all, while the area of older, thicker ice shrank 42 percent. A separate report puts twice as much carbon in Arctic and boreal permafrost as in the atmosphere.
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