Anti-Aging – Look & Function Years 12 years Younger
The idea we can live forever is still a fantasy, but living with reduced rates of mortality and morbidity are very achievable and represent perfectly reasonable aims. Outside of aesthetic objectives remaining a viable member of society and family through continued avoidance of disease and management of overall productive energy are perfectly fair aims.
The Journal Archives of Internal Medicine published a compelling study in April, looking at the effects of lifestyle habits on the risks for future mortality in the British population.[1]
The key elements – smoking, exercise, diet and alcohol were tracked in a prospective cohort study design. Just under 5000 people with an average age of 44 were followed for 20 years.
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Lifestyle Changes Better Than Drugs for Diabetes Prevention
A series of papers out in the New England Journal of medicine on March the 14th 2010 have failed to add any substantive weight to the use of medication in the prevention of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. [1],[2],[3]
The continued expansion of the western global waistline and incidence of diabetes has provided fertile opportunity for a wide range of clinical trials designed to uncover strategies for incidence of diabetes reduction.[4] There is no surprise in the discovery that making significant changes to people’s lifestyles, eating less and being more active, the primary causes of weight gain, also have a consistent reduction in type II diabetes risk. The real success has also been in the associated benefits in reduction of related cardiovascular disease risk[5] and raising of mood.[6]
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Soft Drink Intake Linked to Pancreatic Cancer Risk
The February issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention published a paper showing a staggering 87% increase in the risk of developing pancreatic cancer associated with an intake of 2 or more sugary soft drinks per week. The group of scientists were careful to exclude other lifestyle risks such as smoking, caloric intake and type II diabetes to extrapolate this risk association.
The proposed mechanism is related to the increased surge of insulin – a known pancreatic cancer promoter after the consumption of sugar laden soft drinks. Fruit juice, another sweet beverage was also tested but the researchers did not find any link with increased risk for pancreatic cancer.
This may be due to the small group looked at for the study, additional nutrients found in juice as opposed to the sugary beverage and the fact that fruit juice is often consumed by people who follow a healthier lifestyle.
However, the study group are confident that the ingestion of the high sugar soft drinks play an independent role in the development of pancreatic cancer, one of the most aggressive and difficult to manage of all cancers.
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Lifestyle Link to Stroke Risk
Making just small changes to your lifestyle could make a big difference to your risk for stroke. Researchers in Cambridge followed 20,000 men and women in Norfolk for four positive behaviour attributes: Currently non smoking, physically active, eating at least five servings of fruit and veg per day, consuming only a moderate amount of alcohol. People who displayed none of the behaviours were over twice as likely to suffer a stroke than those compliant with all four.
Myint PK, Luben RN, Wareham NJ, Bingham SA, Khaw KT. Combined effect of health behaviours and risk of first ever stroke in 20,040 men and women over 11 years’ follow-up in Norfolk cohort of European Prospective Investigation of Cancer (EPIC Norfolk): prospective population study.BMJ. 2009 Feb 19;338:b349. doi: 10.1136/bmj.b349. View Abstract View Full Paper
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.
