Health News - Thursday, April 5, 2007
Bottled water is not necessarily healthier or safer than tap water, Tampa, Florida-based sports nutritionist Cynthia Sass told the American College of Sports Medicine 11th annual Health & Fitness Summit in Dallas. Twenty-five percent of all bottled water is actually repackaged tap water, according to Sass.
"Bottled water doesn't deserve the nutritional halo that most people give it for being pure," she says. "If you're not an exclusive bottled water drinker, you may find it worthwhile to check into filtering your tap water to save money." In a recent Gallop survey, most consumers said they drink bottled water because they perceive it to be purer than tap water. Taste and convenience are also factors. Because bottled water is considered a food, it is regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration. Tap water is regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Both types of water are subject to testing for contaminates. Continue reading
While past research has shown a link between menopause and high blood pressure, a new study suggests there is a relationship between hot flashes and high blood pressure, independent of menopausal status. In the study, reported in the journal Menopause, ambulatory blood pressure monitors worn for 24 hours recorded awake and sleep blood pressure of 154 women, ranging in age from 18 to 65 years (with an average age of 46), no previous cardiovascular disease and either mildly elevated or normal blood pressure.
One third of the women reported having hot flashes within the past 2 weeks, note Dr. Linda Gerber of Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, and colleagues. The average values for systolic blood pressure (the top number of the blood pressure reading), while awake and asleep were significantly higher in the women who had experienced hot flashes compared with women who did not. In women with hot flashes, average systolic awake and sleep blood pressure was 141 and 129 mm Hg, respectively - this compared with 132 and 119 mm Hg, respectively, for women not reporting hot flashes. Continue reading
"You know carbs make you fat." "Avoid eating eggs." -- People always believe these nutrition myths and follow them. But are they accurate? Rescently, in an American College of Sports Medicine-sponsored health and fitness summit held in Dallas, Wendy Repovich, an exercise physiologist at the Eastern Washington University in Cheyenne, Wahington, rebuked several common nutrition misconceptions.
"Drink eight glasses of water a day." Repovich said people need to replace water lost through breathing, urinating, sweating each day -- but that doesn't necessarily total 64 ounces of water (1.2 kg). "It's hard to measure the exact amount of water you have consumed daily in food and drink, but if your urine is pale yellow, you're doing a good job. If it's a darker yellow, drink more water," Repovich added. Continue reading
A study published in this month's issue of the Journal of Periodontology found that subjects with periodontitis who were exposed to secondhand smoke were more likely to develop bone loss, the number one cause of tooth loss.
Researchers studied rats that were induced with periodontal disease. One group was not exposed to cigarette smoke while the other two groups were exposed to either 30 days of smoke inhalation produced by non-light cigarettes (cigarettes containing higher tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide levels) or light cigarettes. Results showed that bone loss was greater in the subjects exposed to secondhand smoke regardless of if it was smoke from light or non-light cigarettes than those who were exposed to no smoke at all. Continue reading
Poor sleep can raise risks for pain in women, a new study suggests. "This study finds that fragmented sleep profiles, akin to individuals suffering from middle of the night insomnia, health care workers on call, and parents caring for infants, alter natural systems that regulate and control pain, and can lead to spontaneous painful symptoms," researcher Michael T. Smith, of Johns Hopkins University, said in a prepared statement.
The findings are published in the April 1 issue of the journal Sleep. The study included 32 healthy women who were studied for seven nights. For the first two nights, the women slept undisturbed for eight hours. For the next few nights, the women were then assigned to one of three groups: a control group that continued to sleep undisturbed; a forced awakening (FA) group awakened once an hour (eight times) through the night; and a restricted sleep opportunity (RSO) group subjected to partial sleep deprivation by delaying their bedtime. Continue reading
Overweight and obese individuals are 50 percent more likely to develop asthma than normal-weight men and women, new research suggests. Public health efforts to control asthma should therefore emphasize the importance of healthy weight management, the researchers argue in the April issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
"The bottom-line is that being overweight appears to significantly increase the risk of asthma," said study co-author Dr. E. Rand Sutherland, of the National Jewish Medical and Research Center (NJMRC) in Denver. "But the caveat is, that until further studies are done, it won't be clear exactly what type or severity of asthma is present in obese people." According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, asthma is an incurable but usually controllable chronic disease involving inflammation and narrowing of the airways that carry oxygen into and out of the lungs. Continue reading
Canadian researchers have discovered a gene mutation that actually improves long-term memory and could eventually lead to a memory-enhancing pill. Working with mice, lead researcher Mauro Costa-Mattioli, a postgraduate fellow at McGill University in Montreal, and colleagues found that rodents that had a defective version of a gene that produces a memory-blocking protein could learn and remember tasks faster than normal mice.
"We discovered a protein that is called eIF2a that, when mutated, mice have an enhanced memory," Mattioli said. "We hope that this could be a good target to develop a compound that will mimic this mutation, and we can enhance memory in humans," he said. In one experiment, the mice were trained to swim to a hidden platform. After several days of training, the mice with the gene mutation were able to find the platform significantly faster than normal mice, Mattioli said. Continue reading