Health News - Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Food scientists at Ohio State University in Columbus have grown a special variety of orange tomatoes that may be healthier than garden-variety red tomatoes. The orange tomatoes contain a type of lycopene that is more readily used by the body than the type found in red tomatoes, they report. Lycopene -- an antioxidant thought to have a number of health benefits such as reducing the risk of cancer, heart disease and age-related eye problems -- is what gives red tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables their rich color.
Dr. Steven Schwartz and colleagues had 12 adult volunteers eat two spaghetti test meals on separate occasions. One meal was made with sauce from the orange tomatoes and the other with sauce from red tomatoes. For 13 days before the test meals, the volunteers avoided eating tomatoes or food made with them. Blood samples taken from each subject right before the spaghetti meals and every hour or two up to 10 hours after the meals were analyzed for lycopene content. Continue reading
Nursing home residents with Alzheimer's disease who participate in a moderate exercise program have a significantly slower deterioration than those who receive routine medical care, researchers have shown. Dr. Yves Rolland, of Hospital La Grave-Casselardit in Toulouse, France, and colleagues examined the effects of a program of exercise for one hour twice weekly on activities of daily living, physical performance, nutritional status, behavioral disturbance and depression among 134 Alzheimer's disease patients in nursing homes.
The patients were 83 years old on average. They were assigned to the exercise program, which focused on walking, strength, balance and flexibility training, or to routine medical care for 12 months. As reported in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 110 participants completed the study. Among the 56 subjects in the exercise group who completed the study, the rate of adherence to the program was about 33 percent on average. Continue reading