Low-fat yogurt intake during pregnancy may heighten child allergy risk, study Mothers who consume low-fat yogurt products during pregnancy may give birth to children with a higher risk of developing allergies such as asthma and hay fever, a study has found. A team led by Ekaterina Maslova, from the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, aimed to assess whether conjugated fatty acids (CLA) found in dairy products could offer children protection against development of allergies. This followed the reporting of immune-modulating and protective effects for CLAs in animal studies. Presenting findings during a recent poster presentation at the 2011 European Respiratory Society (ERS) Annual Congress, Maslova et al said dairy products were an important source of micronutrients, fatty acids and probiotics that could “modify the risk of child asthma and allergy development”. Milk offers asthma protection Women were recruited between 1996 and 2002, and were interviewed twice – before and after pregnancy. Results explained Source: Unpublished.
Pregnant? Some Foods May Raise Baby's Asthma, Allergy Risk (Getty Images) By Denise Mann SUNDAY, Feb. 28, 2010 (Health.com) — As if mothers-to-be don’t have enough to worry about, new research suggests that eating certain foods during pregnancy or while breast-feeding may raise the baby’s risk of allergies and asthma later in life. The good news is that if women—particularly those in allergy-prone families—avoid nuts, eggs, and milk during and after pregnancy, they may lower their child’s risk of developing food allergies or asthma, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology in New Orleans. Expectant women who consume little folic acid—a type of B vitamin recommended during pregnancy to prevent birth defects—may also be less likely than women who consume more to have children with asthma, according to a second study, also presented at the meeting. The studies come at a time when food allergies are on the rise among kids in the United States.
Status and Stress Maxwell Holyoke-Hirsch Although professionals may bemoan their long work hours and high-pressure careers, really, there’s stress, and then there’s Stress with a capital “S.” The former can be considered a manageable if unpleasant part of life; in the right amount, it may even strengthen one’s mettle. What’s the difference? That sense of control tends to decline as one descends the socioeconomic ladder, with potentially grave consequences. Even those who later ascend economically may show persistent effects of early-life hardship. Even those who become rich are more likely to be ill if they suffered hardship early on. The British epidemiologist Michael Marmot calls the phenomenon “status syndrome.” Dr. So the stress that kills, Dr. How they induce it is instructive. Biologists explain the particulars as a fight-or-flight response — adrenaline pumping, heart rate elevated, blood pressure increased — that continues indefinitely. All hope is not lost, however.
Steps for More, and Better, Sleep Christopher Silas Neal I regret that for most of my adult life, I treated sleep as more a luxury than a necessity. There was always something more to do before I crawled under the covers and turned out the light. I realize belatedly that I might have been more productive — and a lot nicer to live with — if I had given sleep its proper due. By failing to acknowledge chronic sleep deprivation, I dozed during countless cultural events, and on two occasions I fell asleep while driving, barely escaping disaster. About 70 million Americans sleep poorly or not nearly long enough to achieve the full physical, emotional and cognitive benefits sleep can bestow. How much sleep do you need? Given the opportunity to sleep as long as they want, most adults average about eight hours a night. Age also affects the quality of sleep and the amount of time spent in the various stages of sleep. But with age, the time spent in deep sleep diminishes and any number of disturbances can cause awakenings.
No Benefit in Sharply Restricting Salt, Panel Finds In a report that undercuts years of public health warnings, a prestigious group convened by the government says there is no good reason based on health outcomes for many Americans to drive their sodium consumption down to the very low levels recommended in national dietary guidelines. Those levels, 1,500 milligrams of sodium a day, or a little more than half a teaspoon of salt, were supposed to prevent heart attacks and strokes in people at risk, including anyone older than 50, blacks and people with high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney disease — groups that make up more than half of the American population. Some influential organizations, including the American Heart Association, have said that everyone, not just those at risk, should aim for that very low sodium level. The heart association reaffirmed that position in an interview with its spokesman on Monday, even in light of the new report. Photo There are physiological consequences of consuming little sodium, said Dr.
An Exam With Poor Results Yvetta Fedorova In America, when a woman goes to her gynecologist, she is typically given a pelvic exam whether or not she has symptoms or concerns that might warrant one. That’s one reason an estimated 63.4 million pelvic exams are performed annually in this country. Now a growing number of experts are asking whether it’s necessary to do so many. “This is not the case in other countries that get better results without doing routine pelvic exams,” Dr. “I’m an American gynecologist, and that’s how we were trained. For most women, Pap smears are now recommended just once every three to five years — and for some, not at all. A woman undergoing the exam is bare below the waist. It’s called a bimanual exam. These experts say that for women who are well, a routine bimanual exam is not supported by medical evidence, increases the costs of medical care and discourages some women, especially adolescents, from seeking needed care. Dr. Dr. Yet Ms. Dr. That is likely to be an uphill battle.
Diagnosing the Wrong Deficit Though I treat a lot of adults for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, the presentation of this case was a violation of an important diagnostic criterion: symptoms must date back to childhood. It turned out he first started having these problems the month he began his most recent job, one that required him to rise at 5 a.m., despite the fact that he was a night owl. The patient didn’t have A.D.H.D., I realized, but a chronic sleep deficit. Many theories are thrown around to explain the rise in the diagnosis and treatment of A.D.H.D. in children and adults. For some people — especially children — sleep deprivation does not necessarily cause lethargy; instead they become hyperactive and unfocused. We all get less sleep than we used to. A number of studies have shown that a huge proportion of children with an A.D.H.D. diagnosis also have sleep-disordered breathing like apnea or snoring, restless leg syndrome or non-restorative sleep, in which delta sleep is frequently interrupted.
Finding Your Ideal Running Form David De Lossy/Getty Images Phys Ed Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness. Can people become better, more efficient runners on their own, merely by running? That question, seemingly so innocuous, is remarkably divisive at the moment, with running experts on one side suggesting that runners should be taught a specific, idealized running form, while opponents counter that the best way to run is whatever way feels right to you. Little published science, however, has been available on the subject of whether runners need technical instruction or naturally intuit the skill. For the study, which will be published in the September issue of the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, researchers with the Bioenergetics and Human Performance Research Group at the University of Exeter in England turned to a group of adult women who’d recently joined a running group. The novice runners in the new study were not especially economical at first, as is typical of new runners.
When the Mango Bites Back, Surviving Traveler's Diarrhea Photo NEW DELHI — Accepting a just-picked mango from a stranger in Lodi Gardens and then putting it directly into my mouth — skin and all — was stupid. I admit that. But why did my first horrible case of traveler’s diarrhea in India have to result from a mango? I love mangoes, and India’s vast array of deliciously different mango varieties has been one of the great delights of moving here. “You didn’t even wash it?” No. “Even by your standards, that was really stupid,” Dr. But what about the local yogurt I had eaten and the probiotic pills I had taken — weren’t my gastrointestinal flora protecting me? “Yogurt probably won’t hurt you, unless it’s contaminated as well,” Dr. Despite decades of immunological research and a recent surge of interest in the bacterial garden of the human gut, diarrhea remains the most unpredictable travel-related illness. And there is a host of myths surrounding traveler’s diarrhea, many of which I have cheerfully perpetuated to family and friends. They did not.
Where Cows Are Happy and Food Is Healthy FOOD can be depressing. If it’s tasty, it’s carcinogenic. If it’s cheap, animals were tortured. But this, miraculously, is a happy column about food! Let me introduce Bob Bansen, a high school buddy of mine who is a third-generation dairyman raising Jersey cows on lovely green pastures here in Oregon beside the Yamhill River. As long as I’ve known him, Bob has had names for every one of his “girls,” as he calls his cows. “I spend every day with these girls,” Bob explained. “This is Hosta,” he began, and then started pointing out the others nearby. I asked about Jill, and Bob rattled off her specs. When I pushed for Bob’s secret to tell the cows apart, he explained: “They have family resemblances. Oh, that helps. As a farmkid myself, growing up with Bob here in the rolling green hills of Yamhill, where the Willamette Valley meets the coastal range, I’ve been saddened to see American farms turn into food factories. Yet all is not lost. “Pasture does wonders for cow health,” Bob said.
For Weight Loss, Less Exercise May Be More Thomas Barwick/Getty Images Most people who start working out in hopes of shedding pounds wind up disappointed, a lamentable circumstance familiar to both exercisers and scientists. Multiple studies, many of them covered in this column, have found that without major changes to diet, exercise typically results in only modest weight loss at best (although it generally makes people much healthier). Quite a few exercisers lose no weight. Some gain. But there is encouraging news about physical activity and weight loss in a new study by researchers at the University of Copenhagen. To reach that conclusion, the Danish scientists rounded up a group of pudgy and sedentary young men, a segment of the population increasingly common in Denmark, as elsewhere in the world. The men were then randomly assigned to exercise or not. A third group tackled a more strenuous routine of almost hourlong workouts, during which each man burned 600 calories. But there are hints, Mr.
The Island Where People Forget to Die Dr. Ioanna Chinou, a professor at the University of Athens School of Pharmacy, is one of Europe’s top experts on the bioactive properties of herbs and natural products. When I consulted her about Ikarians’ longevity, she told me that many of the teas they consume are traditional Greek remedies. Wild mint fights gingivitis and gastrointestinal disorders; rosemary is used as a remedy for gout; artemisia is thought to improve blood circulation. She invited me to give her samples and later tested seven of the most commonly used herbs on Ikaria. Photo Meanwhile, my colleagues Gianni Pes and Michel Poulain set out to track down the island’s 164 residents who were over 90 as of 1999, starting in the municipality of Raches. Pes and Poulain were joined in the field by Dr. Of course, it may not be only what they’re eating; it may also be what they’re not eating. Following the report by Pes and Poulain, Dr. When she and her family moved to Ikaria and opened the guesthouse, everything changed.
Can Foods Affect Colon Cancer Survival? Whole-grain foods and others with a low glycemic load may protect against colon cancer recurrence. A new study suggests that what you eat may affect your chances of surviving colon cancer. The research is among the first to look at the impact that specific nutrients have on the likelihood of disease recurrence in people with colon cancer, one of the leading causes of cancer death in the United States. The patients who consumed the most carbohydrates and foods with high glycemic loads — a measure of the extent to which a serving of food will raise blood sugar — had an 80 percent greater chance of dying or having a recurrence during the roughly seven-year study period than those who had the lowest levels. The study, however, was observational, meaning it could only highlight an association between carbohydrates and cancer outcomes without proving direct cause and effect. “It’s not simply that all carbs are bad or that you should avoid all sugar,” said Dr. Earlier research published by Dr.