Fructose Linked to Overeating, and Obesity, New Study shows.

Now more than ever, the importance of knowing what sweeteners and sweets you are eating, could play a role in your health. Maple Syrup is good, High Fructose Corn Syrup is bad. "This is your brain on sugar – for real. Scientists have used imaging tests to show for the first time that fructose, a sugar that saturates the American diet, can trigger brain changes that may lead to overeating." 

Suspicions about high fructose foods have been evident for the last decade, but now more acute study has shown this sugar's serious negative health side effects. 

For the study, scientists used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans to track blood flow in the brain in 20 young, normal-weight people before and after they had drinks containing glucose or fructose in two sessions several weeks apart.

Scans showed that drinking glucose "turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food," said one study leader, Yale University endocrinologist Dr. Robert Sherwin. With fructose, "we don't see those changes," he said. "As a result, the desire to eat continues – it isn't turned off."

What's convincing, said Dr. Jonathan Purnell, an endocrinologist at Oregon Health & Science University, is that the imaging results mirrored how hungry the people said they felt, as well as what earlier studies found in animals.

"It implies that fructose, at least with regards to promoting food intake and weight gain, is a bad actor compared to glucose," said Purnell. He wrote a commentary that appears with the federally funded study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers now are testing obese people to see if they react the same way to fructose and glucose as the normal-weight people in this study did.

Now more than ever, the evidence shows that to stay healthy, we indeed need to watch what we eat, and pass by the processed foods whenever possible. 

Baby Boomers: Increased risk of brain damage due to Anesthesia used in Surgeries.

The warnings given for decades by noted anesthesiologist Dr. Barry Friedberg about the risk of brain damage during major surgery have been validated by a recent study announced by the National Institutes of Health.

Study findings published in October 2012 provide clear and indisputable evidence that use of a brain monitor while a patient is anesthetized during surgery significantly reduces the risk of delirium and postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD).

The study in 921 elderly patients confirms the self-evident claims made by Dr. Friedberg about the dangers of over-medicating during surgery. Dr. Friedberg authored a book on the subject and formed the non-profit Goldilocks Anesthesia Foundation  to educate the public about avoiding the hidden dangers from anesthesia over-medication by the use of brain monitors during surgery.

Says Friedberg, "Over 2,000 years ago, the Greeks carved this concept into stone, 'All things in moderation, nothing in excess.'"

Written for the general public, Getting Over Going Under: 5 Things You MUST Know Before Anesthesia Dr. Friedberg explains that every time a patient has anesthesia for surgery there are dual risks of under-medication (anesthesia awareness) or over-medication (brain scrambled) - preventable risks when using a brain monitor.

This large clinical study in major, non-cardiac surgery also projected that for every 1,000 patients, brain monitoring would prevent delirium in 83 patients and POCD in another 23 within 30 days after surgery.

"Elderly patients' brains are more sensitive to anesthesia over medication. More boomers and their parents are aging and having surgery under anesthesia. Substantial financial costs caring for mentally damaged post-op patients could be averted by implementation of routine brain monitoring," according to Dr. Friedberg.

"The study findings validate my commitment to inform patients facing surgery that it is their right to insist upon brain monitoring to prevent the horrors of over-medication and under-medication," said Dr. Friedberg. "As I noted in my book, too many anesthesiologists still gauge anesthesia response using the classical but notoriously unreliable signs of heart rate and blood pressure changes. Most do not rely upon a brain monitor, the best technology available."

Read More: New Brain Study

Not all calories are equal: Low carbohydrate diets increase likelihood of lasting weight loss.

Not all calories are equal. New study finds that the low-glycemic index diet (or low carb diet) reduces likelyhood of weight gain and aids in a successful diet to manage excess weight. 

BOSTON, June 26, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association challenges the notion that "a calorie is a calorie." The study, led by Cara Ebbeling, Ph.D., associate director and David Ludwig, MD, director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center Boston Children's Hospital, finds diets that reduce the surge in blood sugar after a meal--either low-glycemic index or very-low carbohydrate-may be preferable to a low-fat diet for those trying to achieve lasting weight loss. Furthermore, the study finds that the low-glycemic index diet had similar metabolic benefits to the very low-carb diet without negative effects of stress and inflammation as seen by participants consuming the very low-carb diet.

Weight re-gain is often attributed to a decline in motivation or adherence to diet and exercise, but biology also plays an important role. After weight loss, the rate at which people burn calories (known as energy expenditure) decreases, reflecting slower metabolism. Lower energy expenditure adds to the difficulty of weight maintenance and helps explain why people tend to re-gain lost weight.

The study suggests that a low-glycemic load diet is more effective than conventional approaches at burning calories (and keeping energy expenditure) at a higher rate after weight loss. "We've found that, contrary to nutritional dogma, all calories are not created equal," says Ludwig, also director of the Optimal Weight for Life Clinic at Boston Children's Hospital. "Total calories burned plummeted by 300 calories on the low fat diet compared to the low carbohydrate diet, which would equal the number of calories typically burned in an hour of moderate-intensity physical activity," he says.

Each of the study's 21 adult participants (ages 18-40) first had to lose 10 to 15 percent of their body weight, and after weight stabilization, completed all three of the following diets in random order, each for four weeks at a time. 

Strawberries as a "Sunscreen" ? Not exactly, but new studies show a UV Light blocking effect.

New study from European research scientists have shown a link between chemical compounds in strawberries and protection from dangerous UV rays in daylight, the same sort of light spectrum linked to sunburns and skin cancer. 

The researchers speculated that the protective powers may lie in strawberries' anthocyanins (previously linked with adecreased diabetes risk), which are what make strawberries red.

"These compounds have important anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and anti-tumour properties and are capable of modulating enzymatic processes," study researcher Sara Tulipani of the University of Barcelona, said in a statement. However, "we have not yet found a direct relationship between their presence and photoprotective properties."

"At the moment the results act as the basis for future studies evaluating the 'bioavailability' and 'bioactivity' of anthocyanins in the dermis and epidermis layers of the human skin, whether by adding them to formulations for external use or by ingesting the fruit itself," Tulipani added.

In the Journal of Agricultural Food Chemistry study, researchers added strawberry extract in different doses -- 0.05 milligrams per milliliter, 0.25 milligrams per milliliter and 0.5 milligrams per milliliter -- to skin cell cultures. They also had a control extract added to the skin cell cultures.

Then, the researchers exposed those skin cell cultures to ultraviolet light that is equivalent to 90 minutes of mid-day sun in the summertime.

New Study: Cannabidiol, a non- THC compound derived from Marijuana effectively treats schizophrenia.

A certain marijuana compound known as cannabidiol (CBD) can treat schizophrenia as well as antipsychotic drugs, with far fewer side effects, according to a preliminary clinical trial. Cannabidiol differs from THC which is the much publicized intoxicating chemical in THC. 

The research team, led by Markus Leweke of the University of Cologne in Germany, studied 39 people with schizophrenia who were hospitalized for a psychotic episode. Nineteen patients were treated with amisulpride, an antipsychotic medication that is not approved in the U.S., but is similar to other approved drugs.

The remaining 20 patients were given CBD, a substance found in marijuana that is considered responsible for the mellowing or anxiety-reducing effects. Unlike the main ingredient in marijuana, THC, which can trigger psychotic episodes and worsen schizophrenia, CBD has antipsychotic effects, according to prior research in both animals and humans.

Neither the patients nor the scientists knew who was receiving which drug. At the end of the four-week trial, both groups made significant clinical improvements in their schizophrenic symptoms, and there was no difference between those getting CBD or amisulpride.

“The results were amazing,” said Daniel Piomelli, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology at the University of California-Irvine and a co-author of the study. “Not only was [CBD] as effective as standard antipsychotics, but it was also essentially free of the typical side effects seen with antipsychotic drugs.”

Antipsychotic drugs may cause devastating and sometimes permanent movement disorders; they can also lower a patient’s motivation and pleasure. The new generation of these drugs can also lead to weight gain and increase the risk for diabetes. These side effects are well known as a major hindrance during treatment.

http://psychcentral.com/news/2012/06/07/marijuana-compound-may-beat-antipsychotics-at-treating-schizophrenia/39803.html

RoundUp Herbicide found to cause Cancer, new study says.

Breaking news has been cycling regarding the carcinogenic effects of RoundUp Pesticides as well as an apparent cover-up of it's side effects. 

As if the health hazards of genetically altered food crops weren't bad enough, glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, has also been deemed a major health hazard both to the environment, and to animal and human health. It is toxic to human cells, and according to a French research team, it is also carcinogenic. The team has studied the herbicide extensively, and published at least five articles on glysphosate's potential for wide-ranging environmental and human harmⁱ. Their research shows that glyphosate:

• Causes cell cycle dysregulation, which is a hallmark of tumor cells and human cancers
• Inhibits DNA synthesis in certain parts of the cell cycle—the process by which cells reproduce that underlies the growth and development of all living organisms

Impedes the hatchings of sea urchins. (Sea urchins were used because they constitute an appropriate model for the identification of undesirable cellular and molecular targets of pollutants.) The delay was found to be dose dependent on the concentration of Roundup. The surfactant polyoxyethylene amine (POEA), another major component of Roundup, was also found to be highly toxic to the embryos when tested alone, and could therefore be a contributing factor

for the entire article read here: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/06/09/monsanto-roundup-found-to-be-carcinogenic.aspx

Old Medicine is New Again: What Is Castor Oil's Benefit?

A new study on an old druggist's standard is yeilding new results and research. But hold off before you start force feeding a spoon fool of Castor Oil to the kids, like your Great-Grandma used to. 

“When you study classic, old drugs, you almost always learn something from them,” says first author of the new study Stefan Offermanns, a biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Germany. “The major surprise here was how specifically castor oil worked.”

Ricinoleic acid, the fatty acid that makes up about 90% of the oil, binds to one particular receptor in the intestines and uterus, the researchers discovered. The discovery explains how castor oil works and could lead to the development of less unpleasant drugs.

The knowledge that ricinoleic acid binds to EP3 could be used to design drugs that target the receptor, says Bennett. Such drugs could serve as laxatives or labor-inducers without the side effects, like nausea, of castor oil.

A daily dose of castor oil won’t keep the doctor away, and modern medicine and case study still hasn’t backed up claims that it also "treats skin conditions, eases pain, and cures infections". 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/21/castor-oils-health-benefits-ricinoleic-acid_n_1534787.html?ref=health-news&ir=Health%20News

Kudzu herbal pill may cure binge drinking?

For many suffering from alcohol additction, any option for help is one worth persuing. But what if a herbal supplement that could help those in binge drinking is literally growing all around? 

...kudzu may also prove helpful in cutting something else—alcohol consumption. Studies of the impact of kudzu on drinking alcohol have been conducted in the past, and this new study focused on puerarin, a specific component of the Chinese herb, to determine if it could reduce the amount of alcohol individuals consumed.

Ten twenty-something men and women participated in the study, which consisted of four 90-minute sessions. The sessions took place in simulated “apartments” which were equipped with a TV, DVD player, and a refrigerator stocked with the participant’s favorite beer and non-alcoholic beverages.

The participants were allowed to consume as many beers as they wanted (up to six) during the first session. After the session, they were each given either placebo or a pill containing puerarin and told to take it daily. They then returned for a second session.

Two weeks later, the subjects completed a third session, but after this occurrence they were given the pill they did not get the first time. After they took their assigned pills for one week, they returned for the fourth and final session.

When the subjects took puerarin, they drank significantly fewer beers (decline from 3.5 to 2.4). In addition, “we noted that their rate of consumption decreased, meaning they drank slower and took more sips to finish a beer,” explained lead author David Penetar, PhD, of the Behavioral Psychopharmacology Research Laboratory at McLean Hospital, which indicated an impact on binge drinking.

Read More: http://www.emaxhealth.com/1275/chinese-herb-kudzu-may-reduce-binge-drinking-alcoholism