What's The Deadliest Type of Food Poisoning?

-- Posted by kmyers001 on Thursday, November 24 2005

According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), Vibrio vulnificus is the deadliest type of food poisoning.

"Despite a risk management plan adopted in 2001, deaths and illnesses caused by raw oysters contaminated with the dangerous Vibrio vulnificus bacteria have remained relatively constant."

In 2003, one state, California, reduced its Vibrio deaths to zero by banning the sale of the riskiest unprocessed Gulf Coast oysters, however "No matter how much cocktail sauce the industry dumps on the data, in 2004 20 people died unnecessary and painful deaths after eating contaminated oysters," states CSPI food safety director Caroline Smith DeWaal.

Virtually all oysters carry the bacteria, which are particularly deadly for people who have liver disease, diabetes, AIDS, or other immune deficiencies. Half of the victims who develop a blood infection from Vibrio vulnificus will die from it, making it one of the deadliest types of food poisoning.

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Author: K. Myers (aka kmyers001)
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Latest Health Watch News

-- Posted by kmyers001 on Thursday, November 24 2005

In case you haven't been checking our BLV Health Watch blog, here are a few of the latest items:

Salmonella on the Rise in USA Fresh Produce Owing to Livestock Manure -- "Last week a University of Minnesota study showed that antibiotics given to livestock can end up in vegetables and pose a health threat to consumers."

Need for Further Study in Genetically Modified Seeds - "After the failure of a stringent risk assessment this month regarding research to create genetically modified peas that resist insect attack and reduce the use of chemical sprays, it proves once again that extreme care and thorough research should be conducted BEFORE GM seeds flow into the agricultural process."

Nestlé baby milk recall in 4 European countries - "Two million litres of baby milk in four European countries were recalled by Nestlé due to a packaging problem."

Important New USA Health Legislation - "The `Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act of 2005' presented to the House earlier this year highlights the dangers large livestock operations have brought into our world, and the increasing danger they pose for our health and overall food safety."

Tainted Meat / Factory Farming - "Although I live in 'farm country' even I was blissfully unaware of how the process of rearing farm animals in the US has changed dramatically from the family farms of yesteryear. You see, I live in an area where some cattle is actually still grazed, like 'the old days' ... where beef is actually beef ...and where I thought pork was actually pork. Imagine my surprise..."

Click here to read these stories and more!

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Author: K. Myers (aka kmyers001)
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Eat Your Fruits and Vegetables

-- Posted by kmyers001 on Thursday, November 24 2005

A Reuters News item from London Fri Nov 18, 2005 indicates that in a report in The Lancet medical journal, researchers estimated how many deaths from 12 types of cancer were caused by exposure to nine preventable risk factors. They calculated that smoking, alcohol, obesity, poor diet, unsafe sex, lack of exercise and other factors contributed to 2.43 million cancer deaths worldwide in 2001.

"A third of cancer deaths could have been avoided had those risks been reduced," said Dr Majid Ezzati of the Harvard School of Public Health in the United States. "Prevention is probably still our best bet for reducing cancer deaths. It is by far larger than what we may be able to achieve using medical technology."

Smoking, which is linked to lung, mouth, stomach, pancreatic and bladder cancers, is the biggest avoidable risk factor, followed by alcohol and not eating enough fruits and vegetables.

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Author: K. Myers (aka kmyers001)
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The Fifth Most Frequent Contaminant in USA Waters

-- Posted by kmyers001 on Thursday, November 24 2005

A new study suggests many rivers and streams in the United States are believed to contain a toxic antimicrobial chemical whose environmental fate was never thoroughly scrutinized despite large-scale production and usage for almost half a century, according to an analysis conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

"The chemical, triclocarban, has been widely used for decades in hand soaps and other cleaning products, but rarely was monitored for or detected in the environment. The new findings suggest that triclocarban contamination is greatly underreported."

The study is published in the current online edition of Environmental Science & Technology, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, and indicates that "the antimicrobial contaminant is present in 60 percent of the U.S. water resources investigated, thereby making it the fifth most frequent contaminant among 96 pharmaceuticals, personal care products and organic wastewater contaminants evaluated."

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Author: K. Myers (aka kmyers001)
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New Study Suggests Eat Less Meat

-- Posted by kmyers001 on Thursday, November 24 2005

The high level of meat and saturated fat consumption in the USA and other high-income countries exceeds nutritional needs and contributes to high rates of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus and some cancers.

Affluent citizens in middle- and low-income countries are adopting similar high-meat diets and experiencing increased rates of these same chronic diseases.

The industrial agricultural system, now the predominant form of agriculture in the USA and increasingly world-wide, has consequences for public health owing to its extensive use of fertilisers and pesticides, unsustainable use of resources and environmental pollution.

In industrial animal production there are public health concerns surrounding feed formulations that include animal tissues, arsenic and antibiotics as well as occupational health risks and risks for nearby communities. It is of paramount importance for public health professionals to become aware of and involved in how our food is produced.

Source: Public health implications of meat production and consumption

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Author: K. Myers (aka kmyers001)
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Even Worms Can "Learn" How To Avoid Bad Food

-- Posted by kmyers001 on Thursday, November 10 2005

Worms quickly learn to avoid smells associated with foods that have made them ill, according to a new study, led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator Cornelia I. Bargmann and Yun Zhang, a postdoctoral fellow in Bargmann's laboratory at The Rockefeller University.

Their work suggests that the cellular mechanisms underlying this type of learning have been maintained through evolution, and opens the way for more in depth studies of how learning occurs. The study will be published in the November 10, 2005, issue of the journal Nature.

One of C. elegans' [the type of worm used in the study] fundamental behaviors is movement toward food based on its sense of smell. In the laboratory, this often means wriggling across a plate full of agar toward a cluster of E. coli. But in its natural environment, the soil, C. elegans encounters an astounding variety of bacteria. As it writhes through its world, the worm might meet up with hundreds of different species of bacteria in as little as five minutes. But while some bacteria make ideal worm food, others are toxic.

"The worm swallows them and then they establish an infection inside the worm's gut and they proliferate there. It's exactly like food poisoning," Bargmann explained. If the worm has ingested enough of the bacteria, it can die quickly, but milder cases allow the worm to live for several days -- and head off in search of better food. So, the researchers surmised, knowing whether or not certain bacteria are toxic is something "worth learning" for the worm.

To find out whether worms learn from experience to avoid or seek out certain types of bacteria, the researchers compared the behavior of three sets of worms. The first group had been exposed only to a harmless strain of E. coli for their entire lives. The other two groups had been raised since hatching in the presence of both E. coli and a second, pathogenic type of bacteria -- Pseudomonas aeruginosa for one group and Serratia marcescens for the other. These bacteria are not only toxic to C. elegans, but also common causes of hospital-acquired infections in humans.

When the worms that had been grown only on E. coli were later introduced to pathogenic bacteria (either P. aeruginosa or S. marcescens), they were just as likely to select the new, toxic food source as they were to stick with the safer choice. In fact, when the choice was between E. coli and S. marcescens, they migrated towards the latter, despite the likelihood that this would result in a toxic infection. The worms that grew up exposed to a toxic variety of bacteria, however, showed a clear preference for E. coli over the pathogen they were familiar with.

The researchers went on to show that it did not take a lifetime of exposure to a toxic food source for the worms to learn to avoid it. In fact, just four hours in the presence of P. aeruginosa was enough for the worms to choose E. coli instead.

From these experiments, it was clear that the worms modified their olfactory preferences to avoid toxic bacteria -- but it was not yet clear whether they were actively avoiding food that might lead to ill effects, or, conversely, developing a stronger attraction toward food they had found to be safe. With the traditional experimental set-up, where worms migrate toward either of two types of bacteria growing on opposite sides of a lab dish, this was impossible to discern, Bargmann said.

Hang Lu, a postdoctoral fellow in Bargmann's lab, used her engineering expertise to design a more complex maze for the worms to navigate through, allowing them to choose from several varieties of bacteria. "Now we could do things like compare the good bacteria they know and the bad bacteria they know to two completely unfamiliar bacteria that they've never seen before," Bargmann explained. "Those experiments let us figure out that they learn both, actually -- they learn that the good bacteria are safe and they learn that the bad bacteria are bad."

The worms' avoidance of food that has made them sick in the past is analogous to the strongest form of learning known in humans, Bargmann said. "If you eat something and it gives you food poisoning -- especially if it's a flavor that you haven't experienced before, and especially if it's associated with vomiting, you form a very robust memory of that flavor and won't eat food with that flavor in the future. The smell elicits an instant wave of nausea." That aversion is triggered by signals that the olfactory system sends to the brain. Similar forms of learning have been observed in a broad range of animals, including invertebrates such as snails and fish. "We don't know if they feel nauseous," Bargmann said, "but we do know that they will learn to reject the food that's made them ill."

The group carried out further experiments to explore how worms learn to avoid toxic foods. The results, Bargmann said, suggest "what it is to the worm to be nauseous." The group found that when an infection occurs, a particular set of neurons starts producing massive amounts of the neurotransmitter serotonin, and that this response is required for learning. "We think that this is the signal the worm is using to say 'I've gotten sick,'" Bargmann said.

The role of serotonin suggests that this type of learning may be a particularly fundamental aspect of biology, as it has been carried across species even at the molecular level, Bargmann said. In humans, the vast majority of serotonin is produced by cells in the intestine, where its release can generate nausea such as that associated with chemotherapy. Patients' receiving chemotherapy experience intestinal damage, which sends a serotonin signal to the brain that triggers nausea. "People who are getting chemotherapy are told 'eat only bland foods -- don't eat foods you really like because you won't be able to eat them again,' because you'll have this learning experience," Bargmann said.

Source: Worms Know Bad Food When They Smell It

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Author: K. Myers (aka kmyers001)
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Running Out of Flu Shots Again

-- Posted by kmyers001 on Thursday, November 10 2005

Here we go again... running out of flu shots.

Maxim Health Systems, which vaccinates more than 2 million people each year, announced they did not have any more vaccines.

While Maxim vaccinates only a small percentage of the millions of people inoculated each year in the United States, the company is perhaps one of the most visible flu-shot providers because it performs the task in grocery and drug stores.

Maxim said it completed the bulk of its scheduled vaccine clinics and only 10 percent of the remaining dates had to be canceled. "We know the demand for vaccination is higher this year and currently there is simply not enough vaccine available to continue our retail programs," said Steve Wright, national director of wellness services for Maxim.

"This year's flu-shot clinic cancellations by Maxim came almost one month later than last year, but we were told earlier in the fall there would not be a shortage of flu vaccine this year because 20 million more doses were to be made available," according to ScienceDaily.

However, just because some doctors and agencies may have run out of flu shorts doesn't mean it's impossible to get a flu shot this year or that it's too late to get a vaccine in December. There are still many public influenza clinics being scheduled, and physicians are getting their orders filled every day. Many county health departments offer flu vaccines until the end of December. Although it takes two weeks for the flu short to be effective, most years the bad flu months are February and March.

Plus, there are several ways you can boost your immune system through diet and lifestyle changes.

Stay safe and be well.

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Author: K. Myers (aka kmyers001)
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Do You Know A False Berry When You See One?

-- Posted by kmyers001 on Thursday, November 10 2005

A false berry or epigynous berry is an accessory fruit created in certain plant species with an inferior ovary. In these species the floral tube (including the basal parts of the sepals, petals, and stamens) can ripen along with the ovary, forming the false berry.

Examples of plants which produce false berries include:

- banana
- family Cucurbitaceae Cucumis, like cucumber and canteloupe
- watermelon
- Cucurbita (gourds), like squash and pumpkin
- family Ribes, such as gooseberry and the currants (including redcurrant and blackcurrant)
- cranberry, blueberry, and other members of Vaccinium

Imagine that... you learn something new everyday.

Source: Wikipedia.com

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Author: K. Myers (aka kmyers001)
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Fun Facts - Nutrition Is The Study Of...

-- Posted by kmyers001 on Thursday, November 10 2005

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Nutrition is the study of the relationship between diet and states of health and disease. It is defined as the study of food. Absence of adequate nutrients can cause certain diseases to take hold that can potentially result in death.

Between the extremes of optimal health and death from starvation or malnutrition, there is an array of disease states that can be caused or alleviated by changes in diet. Deficiencies, excesses and imbalances in the diet can produce negative impacts on health, which may result in diseases such as scurvy, obesity or osteoporosis. Also, excess ingestion of elements that have no apparent role in health (e.g. lead, mercury, PCBs, dioxins) may have toxic and potentially lethal effects depending on dose.

The science of nutrition attempts to understand how and why specific aspects of diet have specific influences on health.

The human body comprises chemical compounds such as water, amino acids (proteins), fatty acids (lipids), nucleic acids (DNA/RNA), and carbohydrates (e.g. sugars). These compounds in turn consist of elements such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus, and may or may not contain minerals such as calcium, iron, and zinc. Minerals also ubiquitously occur in the form of salts and electrolytes.

All of these chemical compounds and elements occur in various forms and combinations (e.g. hormones/vitamins, phospholipids, hydroxyapatite), both in the human body and in organisms (e.g. plants, animals) that humans eat.

Read more on this subject at Wikipedia.com

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Author: K. Myers (aka kmyers001)
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Healthy Compounds Lost In Processing of Fruits and Vegetables

-- Posted by kmyers001 on Thursday, November 10 2005

This article bears quoting because I've been saying it for years now:

"Fruit and vegetable compounds shown to protect against cancer in epidemiological studies could be much more powerful if processors and breeders paid closer attention to their preservation, say Dutch researchers."

The research team from Wageningen University that has assessed the damage done to phytochemicals in a variety of differently processed fruit and vegetables for several years has found that almost all stages of the 'farm-to-fork' chain reduce the level of healthy compounds.

No kidding!

Even those who are into juicing at home, using recipe mixes of fresh fruits and vegetables and a good electric home juicer, aren't getting the same value today as they once did.

Think back to the days when you used to be able to buy tomatoes in the store that were a deep rich red color, and were soft in their ripened state. Now, think about how hard tomatoes are in the produce section ...many bear a color closer to pink than red these days.

And how "fresh" is the so-called "fresh produce" these days?

Now, lets take that produce and:
- boil it to pasteurize it
- or cook it to can it
- or bake it then freeze-dry it
- and sprinkle on some preserving chemicals

Not even taking into consideration the age of the produce BEFORE manufacturing, nor its condition or quality ...once it's gone through all the phases to reach your dinner table, how many phytonutrients have survived the tortures they've gone through?

Look. It's simple... a good manufacturer takes the time to do things right and PRESERVE as many active nutrients as possible in the process. (See here for one example of a good manufacturer who cares about this issue more than most.)

Manufacturers - wake up! Save our phytochemicals -- PLEASE!

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Author: K. Myers (aka kmyers001)
Click Here To Visit Website

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