Aged rats ate chow containing 2, 6 or 9 percent walnuts, or none, for eight weeks before motor and memory testing; a moderate amount, but not a high one, helped performance. The 6 percent diet matches about an ounce, or 7 to 9 walnuts, a day for a person.
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Nutrition
Vitamins, minerals, supplements, herbs and diet: the research on how what we eat shapes our health.
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Diet
"Alkali Load" May Help Conserve Bone and Muscle
An ARS-funded study put 19 healthy adults over 50 on controlled high- and low-protein diets, with nine taking potassium bicarbonate to mimic about 14 daily servings of fruit and vegetables. Researchers measured blood, urine, calcium absorption and bone and muscle markers after each diet period.
Food
Benefits of Compound in Turmeric Spice Studied
Over 12 weeks, 18 mice ate control, high-fat or curcumin-supplemented high-fat diets. Adding curcumin reduced body-weight gain and total body fat without changing food intake, and those mice grew fewer blood vessels in fat tissue, a team led by Mohsen Meydani found.
Vitamins
Depression linked to low levels of vitamin D in the blood
A study of 527 Japanese municipal employees found that in November, people whose serum vitamin D fell in the highest quartile were 49 percent less likely to report depressive symptoms, with the strongest link for severe depression. No association appeared for July.
Food
Who Knew? Popcorn helps fight cancer
Joe Vinson of the University of Scranton told the American Chemical Society that popcorn carries the highest levels of polyphenol antioxidants among whole grain snacks. Antioxidants are believed to help fight cancer; researchers had previously credited whole grains' fiber.
Vitamins
Vitamin D and schizophrenia
A reader asks Dr. Cannell whether vitamin D would help her imprisoned son's schizophrenia, and he replies that in his hospital experience it does not reduce hallucinations, paranoia or psychosis but may improve mood, reduce tremors and help prevent antipsychotic side effects.
Vitamins
How to use vitamin D to fight swine flu
John Cannell notes an Emory meta-analysis of randomized trials concluding there is enough evidence to justify further research on vitamin D for treating infections. He advises keeping 50,000 IU capsules on hand for winter, while conceding no trial shows high doses help against flu.
Vitamins
Vitamin D helps prevent HIV transmission from mother to child
In a Harvard study of 884 HIV-infected pregnant women in Tanzania, infants of mothers with low vitamin D were 1.5 times more likely to acquire HIV during birth and twice as likely through breastfeeding by six weeks. By 24 months they were 61 percent more likely to have died.
Food
Nutrition Notes:Men Don’t Need to Fear Soy Foods
Karen Collins of the American Institute for Cancer Research writes that fears about soy feminizing men are not backed by sound research: men in their 50s and 60s who ate soy twice daily for three months showed no testosterone change but a 14 percent drop in PSA.
Food
Get to know what fish to eat
Reprints the 2004 EPA and FDA advice for women who may become pregnant, pregnant women, nursing mothers and young children: skip shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish, and choose lower-mercury fish and shellfish to keep the nutritional benefits while limiting exposure.
Supplements
Fish oil may not help prevent swine flu
A Clinical Nutrition study fed mice fish oil or corn oil for two weeks before influenza infection. The fish oil group showed less lung inflammation but an impaired immune response, with higher illness and death rates, suggesting fish oil may not help prevent swine flu.
Vitamins
Vitamin D may help prevent swine flu
The Globe and Mail reported that the Public Health Agency of Canada intends to test vitamin D levels in people who contract H1N1 and see whether serum levels track with severity. The piece reprints Dr. John Cannell's argument that flu season coincides with vitamin D deficiency season.
Food
Eat chocolate to avoid dying from second heart attack?
Swedish researchers followed 1,169 heart attack survivors for eight years and found those who ate more chocolate were less likely to die of a heart attack. The piece cautions this was not a trial: diets were recorded only at the start, and sicker patients may have stopped eating chocolate.
Food
Fish and omega-3 don't reduce dementia risk
Researchers followed 5,395 Dutch adults aged 55 and over for 9.6 years, during which 465 developed dementia. Those eating the most fish or fatty fish had a risk similar to those eating none, and omega-3 intake showed no link to dementia either.
Vitamins
Low levels of blood choline means high risk for neural tube defects
Comparing blood from 80 women who bore children with anencephaly or spina bifida to 409 who did not, Stanford researchers found women with the lowest choline levels were 2.4 times more likely to have a child with a neural tube defect. The highest levels carried the lowest risk.
Food
Drinking wine may help protect against skin damage by radiation therapy
Among 348 Italian women having radiation for breast cancer, 13.6 percent of those who drank wine on treatment days had grade 2 or higher skin toxicity, against 38.4 percent of those who did not. Researchers credit antioxidants in wine.
Food
High fat diet impairs memory and physical performance
Rats fed a high-fat diet for nine days did worse on maze and treadmill tests than rats on a low-fat diet, a British study published by FASEB found. Cambridge physiologist Andrew Murray was cited as finding similar effects in people, but those results are unpublished.
Vitamins
Vitamin D Theory of Autism
John Cannell of the Vitamin D Council sets out his theory that vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy or childhood causes autism, arguing it fits identical-twin concordance, the rise in cases alongside sun avoidance, the male predominance and higher rates among blacks.
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