Food & Nutrition
Certain meat components may increase bladder cancer risk
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A new study suggests that consuming specific compounds in meat related to processing methods may be associated with an increased risk of developing bladder cancer. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings may be relevant for understanding the role of dietary exposures in cancer risk.
Eating red and processed meats has been linked to an increased risk of developing several different types of cancer. Animal studies have identified a number of compounds in meat that might account for this association. These include heterocyclic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and N-nitroso compounds. Nitrate and nitrite are added to processed meats and are known precursors to N-nitroso compounds.
Amanda J. Cross, PhD, of the National Cancer Institute in Rockville and colleagues conducted one of the first prospective studies – the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study—to assess the relationship between intake of these meat-related compounds and the risk of developing bladder cancer. They used information gathered through questionnaires to assess the types of meat consumed as well as how meat was prepared and cooked to estimate the intake of these meat-related compounds.
Pass child nutrition bill: Michelle Obama
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First Lady Michelle Obama is calling on the Congress to pass legislation to improve nutritional standards and help fight childhood obesity in American schools.
“We owe it to the children who aren’t reaching their potential because they’re not getting the nutrition they need during the day,” she wrote in the Monday edition of the Washington Post.
“And we owe it to our country - because our prosperity depends on the health and vitality of the next generation.”
Gender-bending fish on the rise in southern Alberta
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Chemicals present in two rivers in southern Alberta are likely the cause of the feminization of fish say researchers at the University of Calgary who have published results of their study in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.
“What is unique about our study is the huge geographical area we covered. We found that chemicals – man-made and naturally occurring – that have the potential to harm fish were present along approximately 600 km of river,” says paper co-author Lee Jackson, executive director of Advancing Canadian Wastewater Assets, a research facility that develops and tests new approaches for treating wastewater which will be located at the City of Calgary’s new Pine Creek Wastewater Treatment Centre. “The situation for native fish will likely get worse as the concentration of organic contaminants will become more concentrated as a response to climate change and the increase in human and animal populations,” adds Jackson.
The study focused on two rivers in the South Saskatchewan River Basin: The Red Deer and Oldman rivers, located in southern Alberta, Canada.
Where the wild veggies are
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Sites of origin and regions of domestication of many of our most important cultivated plants are still unknown. The botanical genus Cucumis, to which both the cucumber (Cucumis sativus) and the honeydew melon (C. melo) belong, was long thought to have originated and diversified in Africa, because many wild species of Cucumis are found there. “A molecular genetic analysis has now shown that the wild populations that gave rise to melons and cucumbers originated in Asia”, says LMU botanist Professor Susanne Renner. “In addition, we have found that 25 related species which have never been formally described are found in Asia, Australia and regions around the Indian Ocean.” Future genetic studies on The family Cucurbitaceae includes crop plants, such cucumbers, melons, loofah, and pumpkins. In terms of its economic importance, the cucumber is among the top ten crop plants cultivated worldwide, and the related honeydew melon is also of considerable agronomic significance.
Food body sets rules for bagged salad, melamine use
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An international food safety body set new rules on Tuesday on preparing bagged salads and said the chemical melamine that tainted Chinese milk is acceptable only in tiny amounts in infant formula and food.
The Codex Alimentarius Commission decided at its meeting in Geneva that animal manure should not be used to fertilize lettuce and other fresh vegetables sold “ready to eat” to avoid dangerous diseases.
Contaminated water must also be kept away from bagged produce that is not heat-treated, the Codex experts said, fixing new benchmarks that could change production and harvesting norms across the world.
Coffee may protect against head and neck cancers
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Data on the effects of coffee on cancer risk have been mixed. However, results of a recent study add to the brewing evidence that drinking coffee protects against cancer, this time against head and neck cancer.
Full study results are published online first in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Using information from a pooled-analysis of nine studies collected by the International Head and Neck Cancer Epidemiology (INHANCE) consortium, participants who were regular coffee drinkers, that is, those who drank an estimated four or more cups a day, compared with those who were non-drinkers, had a 39 percent decreased risk of oral cavity and pharynx cancers combined.
Video Study Finds Risky Food-Safety Behavior More Common Than Thought
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How safe is the food we get from restaurants, cafeterias and other food-service providers? A new study from North Carolina State University — the first study to place video cameras in commercial kitchens to see how precisely food handlers followed food-safety guidelines – discovered that risky practices can happen more often than previously thought.
“Meals prepared outside the home have been implicated in up to 70 percent of food poisoning outbreaks, making them a vital focus area for food safety professionals,” says Dr. Ben Chapman, assistant professor and food safety specialist in the department of family and consumer sciences at NC State and lead author of the paper. “We set out to see how closely food handlers were complying with food safety guidance, so that we can determine how effective training efforts are.”
In order to get firsthand data on these food-safety practices, researchers placed small video cameras in unobtrusive spots around eight food-service kitchens that volunteered to participate in the study.
After a point, more omega-3s don’t help the heart
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Memo to adults with heart disease: If you’re already eating a fair amount of fish and taking omega-3 fatty acid supplements, the extra boost may not be doing much to help your heart.
New research suggests that only patients with very low daily intake of certain omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish and some plants and nuts, are likely to reduce their risk of heart attacks or death if they take more supplements rich in these fatty acids.
The study supports research which has shown that, after a certain point, omega-3 supplements may not do much for the heart. It also comes as a new U.S. Government Accountability Office urged more authority for the Food and Drug Administration to inspect the quality and safety of supplements, whose manufacturers often make claims not supported by data.
Coffee Break Physicals
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“Who has time?” is a frequent question in response to the suggestion of a medical check-up. Job demands aren’t becoming easier to meet in this challenging economy. And there is always a “to-do” list waiting at home. Naturally employees feel these pressures.
Still, personal health has to be a top priority for individuals and businesses facing global competition and rising medical costs. Health risks that are not addressed early can become big medical problems hampering job productivity and increasing health-related spending.
“Wellness is valuable. In the opposite case, when an employee is too sick to come in or not able to perform at a high level because of illness, their enterprise sees less of their contributions. As a result the employee has less job security and probably less income,” said Dr. Mary Capelli-Schellpfeffer, medical director Loyola University Health System Occupational Health Services.
How Nutrition Can Help Avoid a Mood Disorder B
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Good diet is key to anticipate all sorts of bloom issues, about it plays a analytical role in preventing abounding affection disorders including depression. It absolutely did not abruptness me if I would accept an amaranthine bulk of E:mails from my admirers on radio administration their acquaintance of abasement traveling abroad in a abbreviate time afterwards getting on 1,000 mg. of Omega 3’s daily. Diet is key. If you eat awful candy foods, amoroso or alcohol too abundant caffeine, your physique as able-bodied as your academician gets ‘aggravated’ arch to affection disorders or depression. Read on for my account of foods that advice you anticipate this from accident in the aboriginal place.
1. Omega 3’s (fish oil) – is a abundant abode to alpha so accomplish abiding you attending for a acceptable superior Omega 3 angle oil supplement that says enteric coated on the label. This will accomplish it easier to abstract and you will not burp up a ambiguous taste. Of course, cover angle in your diet at atomic alert a week.
Moderate drinking linked to lower diabetes risk
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Adults who have a drink or two per day may have a lower diabetes risk than teetotalers—and the link does not appear to be explained by moderate drinkers’ generally healthier lifestyle, a new study finds.
A number of studies have found an association between moderate drinking and a relatively lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. However, whether that reflects a benefit of alcohol has been unclear. A central issue is the fact that, compared with both non-drinkers and heavy drinkers, moderate drinkers tend to have a generally healthier lifestyle.
In the new study, researchers found that among more than 35,000 Dutch adults followed for a decade, those who averaged a drink or two per day were 45 percent less likely than teetotalers to develop type 2 diabetes.
Excessive dioxin in 8 pct of European food samples
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Illegal levels of cancer-causing dioxins showed up in 8 percent of food and feed samples taken in Europe between 1999 and 2008, a report from Europe’s food safety agency said on Wednesday.
Animal and fish liver products had the highest dioxin levels in food while fish oil showed the strongest concentrations in animal feed, the Italy-based European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) said.
“Long-term exposure to high levels of dioxins has been shown to cause a range of effects, including cancer,” EFSA said.
Food Makers and Obesity
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“From Mrs. Obama’s Garden” (editorial, March 25) highlights one of our nation’s serious challenges: childhood obesity. The first lady deserves great credit for uniting the country around this complex problem, and the food and beverage industry is answering her call to improve childhood nutrition and health.
Already, we have changed more than 10,000 product recipes to reduce calories, sugar, sodium and fat and are working with the Food and Drug Administration and the Agriculture Department to improve nutrition labels. We support child nutrition laws that feed more children and science-based nutrition standards for food sold to students during the school day.
Food Revolution & The Obesity Crisis in America
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I feel like it’s been eons since I wrote a blog post, but last night we caught Jamie Oliver on Campbell Brown on CNN, plugging his new show, Food Revolution and I was fully inspired to write.
Though we didn’t see the actual 2-hour premier (got home too late for that) we saw the segment with the mom from W. Va. who has her fridge/freezer unloaded by Jamie.
Staring at the disgusting-looking pile of junk food and frozen pizzas and chicken nuggets and lord knows what else … he basically tells the mom (who is overweight, if not obese) that eating this way is basically killing her and her children, cutting their lives short by 14 years or so.
The quality of the tomato depends more on temperature than on natural light
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A team from the Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development (Neiker-Tecnalia) has questioned the generally held belief that the quality of tomatoes depends primarily on their exposure to natural light and states that the most determining factor is temperature. The research was drawn up by the Institute’s Department of Agricultural Production and Protection and opens up great possibilities for starting new plantations in zones where light intensity is low due to weather conditions.
The findings are of particular interest in geographic zones such as the Cantabrian mountain range in the north of Spain, where there is frequent cloud cover and an average of 140 rainy days per year, and which could be suitable for growing greenhouse tomatoes, despite low levels of solar radiation.
The study evaluated the different indicators for organoleptic (taste and texture) quality and nutritional quality, such as acidity, soluble solids, phenolic compounds, pH and vitamin C content.
