News
Vitamin Studies Spell Confusion for Patients
If it’s Monday, it must be bad news about multivitamin day — or was that Wednesday? No, Wednesday was good news about vitamin D, not so good news about vitamin E — if you’re confused, join the club.
A recent American Medical association paper suggested that vitamins are a threat rather than an advantage to peoples lives.[1]
The Alliance for Natural Health have undertaken a quick analysis of the paper and sum up the findings:
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Current Opinion from IOM on Autism and Vaccination
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Some parents and families of children with autism believe that the Measles/Mumps/ Rubella (MMR) vaccine caused their children’s autism. These parents report that their children were “normal” until they received the MMR vaccine. Then, after getting the vaccine, their children started showing symptoms of autism. Because the symptoms of autism (an increasingly common neurodevelopmental problem) begin to occur around the same time as the child’s MMR vaccination, parents and families see the vaccine as the cause of the autism. However, just because the events happen around the same time does not mean that one caused the other. Although children receive many other vaccines in addition to the MMR vaccine, these other vaccines have not been identified as possible causes of autism.
Cholesterol-Lowering Foods Beat Low-Saturated Fat Diet
Eating a predominantly vegetarian diet focused on lowering cholesterol — and getting advice on how to do so effectively — can drop LDL levels more than a diet focused only on reducing saturated fat, researchers found.[1]
A diet rich in cholesterol-lowering foods dropped LDL by 13% to 14% over six months, depending on the level of accompanying counselling, compared with a drop of just 3% for patients on a control diet.
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Proton Pump Inhibiters Promote Acid Rebound Effects
Diagram depicting the major determinants of gastric acid secretion, with inclusion of drug targets for peptic ulcer disease (PUD) and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).
Many millions of people are currently prescribed proton pump inhibitors (PPI’s) to manage excess acid production in the stomach. There are many disease and adverse health related outcomes linked to people taking PPI’s.
The associations of fractures of hip, wrist, forearm and other sites appear weak and only slightly higher than the risks in control populations matched for age. They may increase with drug exposure, but probably do so only in individuals in whom other risk factors are also operational (smoking, alcohol, poor nutrition, steroids, etc.).
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Metabolic Syndrome/Homeostasis Illustrated
Every now and again Nature, the eponymous journal of science and discovery – or one of its many offshoots delivers a real treat to their readers in the form of images and slides. This month (August 2011) Nature Medicine is offering a series of diagrams looking at metabolic homeostasis and metabolic syndrome.[1]
Thank you Nature – we appreciate your efforts – we really do!
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Exercise And The Heart – What Can We Gain?
Even the most entrenched couch potato will grudgingly agree that exercise confers some benefits in terms of heart health and other structures. Nutritional Therapists and virtually all health care providers include a few suggestions as to the need to exercise for multiple systems benefit and in particular to reduce cardiovascular disease.
A paper in the Journal Circulation based on a meta-analysis has made a valiant effort to attempt to quantify this for us.[1]
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Thyroid Health Requires Nutrient Sufficiency
When a patient or client presents with thyroid challenges, it is worth remembering that the thyroid is a dynamically affected tissue which means that it may spontaneously revert to normal. The natural history of sub-clinical hypothyroidism is variable; thyroid function normalises spontaneously in some subjects, whereas it progresses to overt hypothyroidism in others[1],[2]
The clinical evidence is clear that prior to offering thyroid replacement, identifying underlying triggers for thyroid dysfunction is a must.
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Chronic Fatigue – XMRV?
Back in In the issue of 23 October 2009, Science published a study by Lombardi et al. purporting to show that a retrovirus called XMRV (xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus) was present in the blood of 67% of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) compared with 3.7% of healthy controls.[1]
This as everyone will recall, attracted a great deal of scientific and patient derived interest, but there has been considerable lack of success in the replication of these findings by other investigative groups.
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Dietary supplement use by cardiologists, dermatologists and orthopaedistsents
A recent paper entitled ‘use of dietary supplements by (USA based) cardiologists, dermatologists and orthopaedists’: produced a report of a survey that found that 57% of cardiologists said they use dietary supplements at least occasionally, as did 75% of dermatologists and 73% of orthopaedists.[1]
Regular dietary supplement use was reported by 37% of cardiologists, 59% of dermatologists, and 50% of orthopaedists. In addition, 72% of cardiologists, 66% of dermatologists, and 91% of orthopaedists reported recommending dietary supplements to their patients. Should we be surprised, and is it the same in the UK and Europe?
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New Study Suggests UK is now Iodine-Deficient!
New research suggests the UK population is now iodine-deficient and a full review and evidence-based recommendations are needed to safeguard public health. The findings, presented on Tuesday the 12th April 2011 at the Society for Endocrinology annual conference, provide the only current data on the UK’s iodine status and demonstrate iodine-deficiency in a large sample population. Iodine-deficiency is the most common cause of preventable mental impairment worldwide.
In the study, which was funded by the Clinical Endocrinology Trust and is the first of its kind in the UK, Dr Mark Vanderpump (Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust) and colleagues on behalf of the British Thyroid Association measured urinary iodine levels in samples from 737 14-15 year old girls from nine UK centres. Factors that might skew the results (e.g. diet, ethnicity) were assessed using a questionnaire. Variations due to season and location were corrected for via measurements taken in Summer 2009 and Winter 2009/2010 and water samples from each area were measured for iodine content.
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The immune system is prone to the same grave misfortunes as any defense system handling weapons: collateral damage that comes with the destruction of the enemy on one’s own territory and friendly fire due to mistaken identity. Whereas the collateral damage is the price we pay for clearance of infections, autoimmunity is a pathological process. Nevertheless, the effector mechanisms involved in both processes are the same. Whether environment can be a cause, a trigger or an amplifier of an autoimmune disease are questions that are being intensively investigated.
