USDA scientists tested six potato varieties and found cubing or shredding before boiling cut mineral content by as much as 75 percent, while overnight soaking did not reduce potassium as conventional wisdom holds. Boiling potatoes whole preserves the most nutrients.
Food Consumer
Drug
Certain anti-cancer agents could be harmful to patients with heart disease
Hedgehog antagonists, experimental anticancer drugs, worsened cardiac function and ultimately killed mice with heart disease, Washington University researchers report in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. Senior author David Ornitz urges monitoring patients' hearts.
Cooking
Healthy Recipes: Quinoa and Black Bean Salad
Rinsed and simmered quinoa tosses with black beans, corn, red bell pepper, scallions, garlic, cayenne and cilantro under a lime, cumin and olive oil dressing. Makes 6 main-dish servings and can be made a day ahead and refrigerated.
Food
More than two-thirds of consumers not aware HFCS is similar to sugar
The Corn Refiners Association announced a multi-media campaign to change the conversation about high fructose corn syrup, citing a survey in which more than two-thirds of shoppers did not know it has the same calories as table sugar and only 19% knew the two are equally sweet.
Drug
Certain cancer drugs damage the heart and may cause death
Washington University researchers gave hedgehog antagonists, experimental anticancer drugs, to mice with heart disease. The drugs blocked hedgehog signaling in the heart, made small coronary vessels vanish and led to heart failure and death. Ornitz urges monitoring patients' hearts.
Legal Actions
Milk on Trial as Cornell Expert Testifies at Fired Teacher's Hearing
T. Colin Campbell testified at the Illinois dismissal hearing of art teacher Dave Warwak, fired for turning his classroom into a forum on veganism. Campbell backed the claim that animal foods shorten lives, citing NFL players' life expectancy.
Government
Group sues FDA for inaction over its petition to ban risky painkiller
Public Citizen sued the FDA for failing to rule within six months on its petition to pull propoxyphene, sold as Darvon and Darvocet, from the market. The group says the painkiller has caused more than 2,000 accidental deaths since 1981 and that ibuprofen works better for most pain.
Advisories
USDA CONSUMER ALERT: Keeping Food Safe During an Emergency
The USDA offers food safety steps for those hit by Midwest flooding: keep appliance thermometers in the refrigerator and freezer, hold them at 40 and 0 degrees F, freeze water and perishables ahead of an outage, move food above possible flood water, and have coolers ready.
Phytochemicals
New Study: Pycnogenol® Significantly Reduces Menstrual Pain
A multi-center field study in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine reports women with dysmenorrhea who took Pycnogenol, a French maritime pine bark extract, had less pain and needed less pain medication. Lead researcher Nobutaka Suzuki notes NSAIDs often cause gastric problems.
Obesity
Eating a carb-rich breakfast helps lose more weight
In a study of 94 obese, inactive women, those who ate a big high-carb breakfast lost more weight over eight months than strict low-carb dieters, who regained 18 pounds. Lead author Daniela Jakubowicz says very low-carb diets worsen carb cravings and slow metabolism.
Disease
What's behind the link between type 2 diabetes and depression?
Among 6,814 adults followed three years in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, people with elevated depressive symptoms were 42 percent more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes, and diabetics taking medication had a raised risk of depression.
Drug
Prescription drugs kill more people than illicit drugs
Florida's Medical Examiners Commission found prescription drugs caused three times as many deaths as all illicit drugs combined, based on 168,900 autopsies performed in 2007. Cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines accounted for 989 deaths; legal opioids such as Vicodin and OxyContin for 2,328.
Watch-List
Drinking 'Flat' Carbonated Drinks Does Not Help Children With Gastroenteritis
Reviewing dozens of articles, Watford General's Ashley Reece found no evidence that flat carbonated drinks help children with gastroenteritis. Compared with oral rehydration solution, the drinks hold too little sodium and potassium and far too much sugar for a dehydrated child.
Advisories
Beware of Online Cancer Fraud
FDA health fraud coordinator Gary Coody warns that bogus cancer cures sold as pills, tonics and creams, often labeled natural treatments or dietary supplements, prey on desperate patients. Even harmless-seeming products can do damage by delaying proven treatment.
Vitamins
Effective oral vitamin B12 soon available
Emisphere Technologies says its Eligen oral formulation raised vitamin B12 absorption to 7-30 percent, against roughly 1 percent for existing oral forms that leave doctors relying on shots. The animal results go to an AAPS conference; human studies are reportedly under way.
Food
Coffee may reduce risk of death from heart disease in women
Following 84,214 women and 41,736 men for up to two decades, researchers reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine that drinking up to six cups of coffee a day was not tied to higher mortality, and was linked to a slightly lower rate of death from heart disease.
Cancer
What you need to do to reduce cancer risk
The list runs to ten steps, among them losing excess weight, exercising 30 minutes a day, drinking green tea or coffee, and eating plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, with the supporting research cited for each.
Legal Actions
FDA probes raw milk operator
CNN reports the FDA is investigating cross-state raw milk sales by Organic Pastures, California's largest raw milk dairy, and even asked a farm worker to secretly gather evidence. Twenty-two states ban raw milk sales; the CDC counted about 1,000 illnesses and two deaths from 1998 to 2005.
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