The fast food giant KFC has started marketing “Kentucky Grilled Chicken” as a “better-for-you” alternative to their famous fried meals. The meals are billed as having fewer calories, fewer fat grams, and they also contain the cancer-causing chemical PhIP, according to Good Medicine magazine. In fact, all chicken and other meats will produce this chemical when cooked at high temperatures. That’s why the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), the company that publishes Good Medicine, is suing KFC, McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Chili’s, Applebee’s, and others in an attempt to warn customers about the cancer-linked chemical. PCRM president Neal Barnard is quoted saying, “Grilled Chicken Contains carcinogens, and consumers deserve to know about it.”

Of course, PCRM isn’t too happy about the Double Down “sandwich”—which replaces bread with pieces of fried chicken—either.

Source: Good Medicine  

Hershey’s chocolates, for the most part, aren’t really chocolate. They’re “the terrible bastard children of chocolate and corporate frugality,” according to Meg Favreau, writing for The Smart Set. Hershey’s, and other industrial chocolate makers, mix their real coco butter with other vegetable oils. This makes it cheaper, but it also makes it something other than chocolate. For now, the FDA requires Hershey’s to call its industrial byproducts “chocolate flavored” instead of real chocolate, according to Favreau, though the website refers to the candies as “chocolate bars” and “milk chocolate.” That may change, however, as industry groups lobby the FDA to relax its definition of “chocolate” to include other vegetable oils.

Source:  The Smart Set  

Religions often have strict rules regarding treatment of the dead, which can be problematic when local authorities need to perform autopsies. Writing for The Tablet, Sarah Weinman points out that Orthodox Jews often object to autopsies, citing Jewish laws that say people must be buried within 24 hours of death, and that the body must not be disfigured in any way during that time. Autopsies, according to some, violate those rules.

 It’s not just Jews either. According to Weinman, “the Amish, Hmong, and many Muslims also try to avoid the procedure.” In response, forensic pathologists have been working hard to respect religious laws where possible and to come up with alternatives. Some pathologists now perform “virtual autopsies” that use CT scans and MRIs to get the information they need without the invasiveness of a traditional autopsy. The scans aren’t as comprehensive as a full autopsy, but they’re becoming increasingly accepted by religious communities, and they’re far less expensive, too.

Source: The Tablet

It’s home canning season, and by some indications a lot more Americans are joining in on the pickle-packing fun. If you’re one of them, you ought to know that your plastic-lined canning lids probably contain bisphenol A, the endocrine-disrupting chemical that’s been suspected in a host of health problems and is under intensive scrutiny by the slow-moving FDA.

“Canning jar lids from the brands Ball, Kerr, Golden Harvest, and Bernardin are coated with bisphenol A,” writes Organic Gardening magazine in its Winter 2009-2010 issue.

The magazine asks an endocrine-disruptor expert about the potential health hazards. “If the lid doesn’t contact the food, it’s not a problem,” says Frederick vom Saal, a biological sciences professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia. But that’s unlikely to be the case, so he recommends using a BPA-free product. Organic Gardening suggests Weck brand canning jars, which have glass lids.

It’s too bad that the legions of Americans who are growing and preserving their own produce—often because they’re trying to avoid the mega-food system and eat locally and heathily—have to deal with yet another potential toxin in their diet. And while I don’t know how serious the canning-jar-lid threat is, I agree with Treehugger that Jarden Home Brands, the manufacturer of all four BPA-containing brands mentioned above, is not exactly setting a high ethical standard with its website FAQ statement falling back on highly questionable FDA studies. “Weasely words,” Treehugger calls them.

The FDA, as Utne Reader reported in August, expects to rule by November 30 on whether BPA is safe for food and beverage containers.

It’s enough work learning how to blanch and shock our vegetables and avoid the dreaded botulism. Shouldn’t we at least be able to declare our canning jars poison-free with confidence?

Sources: Reuters, Houston Chronicle, Organic Gardening, Mother Earth News, Treehugger, Jarden Home Brands

UPDATE 10/26/09: Lloyd Alter at Treehugger, who wrote about this issue in July, is conducting a test to compare BPA levels in two jars of home-canned pickles: one that's been sloshing around in the trunk of his car and another that's been kept upright. We’ll follow the results here on Utne.com.

Image by TheBittenWord.com, licensed under Creative Commons.

If people knew how bad fast food is, they’d eat less, right? Not according to a new study highlighted by Kevin Drum in Mother Jones. New York City recently enacted a law that forces chain restaurants to post the calorie counts on menus. Data published in Health Affairs journal found that about half of the people they interviewed hadn’t noticed the calorie counts (pdf), and only 15 percent took the labels into consideration when making choices. What’s worse, after inspecting the respondents food receipts, the researchers found that overall, people were actually buying more calories than before the law was put into place. Drum reports, “The results aren't statistically significant, though, so basically all the researchers can really say is that the law (so far) hasn't had any effect.” For advocates fighting obesity and fast food, the study seems to say activists should find different tack.

Source: Mother Jones 

José Gómez-Márquez builds strange-looking medical equipment: pregnancy tests that look like Lego kits, inhalers inspired by plastic toy helicopters, and centrifuges made from toilet plungers. His inventions aren’t destined for high-tech hospitals——they’re headed to poor countries where electricity, high-tech medical materials, and health personnel are often scarce.

Gómez-Márquez’s innovative work earned him a spot in Technology Review’s TR35, the magazine’s annual list of innovators under 35: He’s their 2009 humanitarian of the year.

His designs are practical, functional, and innovative, and one of his new projects aims to spread that spirit around. “He is now creating development kits for medical technolog­y—sort of like Erector sets for medical professionals—which will initially be used in Nicaragua,” writes Technology Review. “The kits will enable doctors and medical students to devise diagnostics, drug delivery devices, microfluidic chips, and more.”

Read more about Gómez-Márquez’s incredible story, which involves lots of childhood visits to doctors’ offices in his home country of Honduras, and watch him demonstrate some of his inventions in this short video.

Source: Technology Review

The lumbering Food and Drug Administration is finally showing signs that it may take action on bisphenol A, better known as BPA. The FDA announced yesterday that it is reviewing new studies of the chemical and expects to rule by November 30 on whether BPA is safe for food and beverage containers, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

That’s too slow for some activists, such as scientist Olga Naidenko of the Environmental Working Group, which has long fought for a BPA ban. The FDA is “working to stall science rather than advance it,” she tells the newspaper.

But other observers such as Liz Hitchcock, a lobbyist with the Public Interest Research Group, “were heartened that the FDA was taking another look,” writes the Journal Sentinel.

The Milwaukee paper has been on top of the story for a while, having published an investigative series about BPA and other pervasive household chemicals. Among other angles, the stories have called out the FDA for relying on studies financed by the plastics industry and dug up e-mails showing collusion between FDA scientists and lobbyists for BPA makers in writing safety guidelines. This is the kind of invaluable investigative journalism that’s fast disappearing.

The FDA’s review will include more than 100 new studies.

Sources: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Environmental Working Group, Public Interest Research Group

Check your plastic water bottle and cut down your canned-food consumption: The chemical bisphenol A, better known as BPA, may be even more pervasive and dangerous than scientists thought. Science News reports on several new studies that point to further harmful health effects. Here’s a rundown of the findings:

Pregnant mice exposed to BPA suffered an irreversible change in one of the “master regulatory genes” of fertility, suggesting the same may happen to humans.

Rat hearts exposed to BPA along with estrogen were more prone to life-threatening arrhythmia, pointing to an elevated danger for premenopausal women.

A study of Harvard undergraduates found that students drinking out of polycarbonate bottles showed a much more immediate rise in BPA than expected.

Another study indicated that there are likely major sources of BPA contamination in our environment other than food, and that BPA may temporarily collect in body fat and slowly empty into the blood.

All in all, the new research makes a case for avoiding BPA whenever possible—and gives you some convincing talking points if you know anyone who still scoffs when you point out that they’re drinking from a BPA-laced water bottle. I hope the FDA, which still remarkably claims that BPA is safe, catches up with the science soon.

For tips on how to avoid BPA, see this post on Treehugger—but be aware, as the Winnipeg Free Press recently reported, that even bottles marketed as “BPA-free” sometimes contain the chemical.

(Thanks, Yahoo! Green.)

Source: Science News

UPDATE 8/18/09: Ask and you shall receive: The FDA just announced a new review of BPA research and expects to rule on its findings by November 30.

Image by  pasukaru76 , licensed under  Creative Commons .

My friend Pete has lymphoma, and it’s been inspirational to watch him as he works methodically and systematically to kick the cancer’s ass. Pete is doing everything his treatment team recommends— foremost chemotherapy and radiation—and then some: He’s gone beyond the realm of the typical hospital dietitian as he eats an all-organic, mostly vegetarian diet packed with suspected and known cancer-fighting compounds like antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids.

Writing for Diner Journal, fellow lymphoma sufferer Danny Bloomberg goes down a similar road and finds, like Pete, that he’s caught between two worlds: the old-school, cautious approach of the typical hospital dietitian and the more open-ended but sometimes slightly woo-woo ideas of the alternative dietitian.

Bloomberg visits “Dietitian A” at the hospital first and tells her about all the cancer-fighting diets he’s read about online. She’s suspicious of “wacky theories” and non-FDA-approved diet choices, and is more interested in discussing basics like the four food groups and recommended daily percentages:

She scolded me and tapped the desk gently yet firmly. Then she brought out the silicone molds. She flopped the rubbery faux-foodstuffs onto the desk: A serving of broccoli, a serving of green beans, a serving of potatoes. The molds were fleshy and their flat bottoms slapped happily against the desk, jiggling proudly to attention. The colors were wrong and faded. She demonstrated how many vegetables were recommended to eat daily by organizing different combinations of molds on the desk. … Could all that I had Googled and read have been dangerous propaganda perpetrated by evil hippies?... Clearly, Dietitian A wasn’t for me. She was meant for the guy who thinks vegetables are what’s between the burger and the bun.

Casting about for an alternative, Bloomberg visits “Dietitian B” in the Alternative Medicine building and has a wholly different experience:

Dietitian B knew what kombucha was, the Budwig diet and the possible benefits of turmeric and shiitake mushrooms. We discussed supplements and vitamins, and he was curious and enthusiastic. … He drew me goofy diagrams on ruled paper. He advised me to take only one multivitamin with 100% daily values of all the important stuff. He discouraged supplements … but encouraged the use of medicinal plants, fungi, and spices in cooking, as well as moderate juicing. … He encouraged a leaning toward veganism but expressed concern that too strict a diet would lead to slight deficiencies, which could compromise my fragile system. … The difference between the two dietitians couldn’t have been greater. While they both preached from the same doctrine—of moderation—they had completely different styles at the pulpit.

As you might guess, Bloomberg ends up leaning toward Dietitian B, forced to be “a partisan” and choose between the two schools, even though it’s clear he doesn’t regard B as all-knowing or infallible. Maybe, one day in the not-so-distant future, the two dietitians could get together and talk—and learn something from each other.

Source: Diner Journal (article not available online)

  Image by Sami Keinanen, licensed under Creative Commons.

Type-2 diabetes has reached epidemic levels in the United States and is particularly destructive in low-income and immigrant communities where, according to a New American Media report, language and education barriers affect “the patient’s ability to read food labels, track blood sugar levels, assess insulin amounts, record meal schedules and communicate with clinicians.”

A new program in San Francisco helps low-income and immigrant patients manage their diabetes over the telephone. Participants who enroll in the project—Improving Diabetes Efforts Across Language and Literacy (IDEALL)—aim to better control the disease and its associated health problems by receiving weekly phone calls from an automated telephone support system. Each call is delivered in the patient’s native language (English, Spanish, or Cantonese), and depending on his or her responses, the system generates information “regarding issues ranging from symptoms and taking prescribed medications to diet, physical activity, and self-monitoring of blood sugar.” If necessary, a nurse calls back for a “live” chat.

Dr. Dean Schillinger, director of San Francisco General Hospital’s Center for Vulnerable Populations, which runs the project, told New America Media: “We were really impressed that diabetes patients with limited literacy and limited English proficiency, who many health care workers consider to be ‘hard to reach,’ were the most likely to use this communication tool. . . . We found that better communication between a public health care system and the vulnerable populations they serve yielded concrete benefits.”

It looks like San Francisco wants to expand the program, and not a moment too soon: The University of California at San Francisco estimates that 3 million Californians—about 1 in 10 of the state’s residents—have the disease.

Source: New America Media

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation are challenging the constitutionality of gene patents, reports Censorship News, the newsletter of the National Coalition Against Censorship. The groups recently filed a case, “Association for Molecular Pathology, et al. v. United States Patent and Trademark Office, et al.,” which concerns two patents held on mutations of the BRCA gene.

Mutations of this gene are linked to increased risk for breast and ovarian cancer, and the patents have been used to prevent other researchers from doing work involving the gene. “Like the ACLU, we think this violates the First Amendment,” Censorship News asserts, and promises to keep its readers updated on developments in the case.

Source: Censorship News

Image by mira66, licensed under Creative Commons.

“Sometimes the only thing worse than homeopathic products that have no effect are the ones that do,” Terry J. Allen writes for In These Times. Allen is referring to certain Zicam products, popular homeopathic cold remedies that contain “pharmaceutically significant” amounts of zinc. Zinc can cause anosmia—loss of the ability to smell—when taken intranasally, which is the case with Zicam.

Back in June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning for consumers to stop using the Zicam products in question. Allen says that the incident shines a bright light on “the giant regulatory loophole that is homeopathy.” While the FDA requires conventional prescription drugs and over-the-counter medicines go through testing to be proven safe and effective, these regulations do not apply to homeopathic solutions.

The FDA reserves the right to step in when necessary, which is what happened in June. Up until then, however, this loophole allowed Zicam-maker Matrixx “to slap on the label ‘homeopathic,’ slip under the regulatory wire, and sell 1 billion doses of untested Zicam,” Allen writes.

Source: In These Times

Most phones can take photos and send texts. Now, researchers have developed one that can diagnose disease. Technology Review reports that the new “Cellscope” works like a microscope that straps onto cell phones to analyze spit or blood samples on slides. The contraption can use specialized software to diagnose the samples on the spot, or it can send the images off to specialized centers for further study. Experts believe the technology could prove helpful in remote parts of the world—where health infrastructure is lacking but cell phone coverage is improving—in helping to treat common diseases like tuberculosis and malaria.

Source: Technology Review

Image by  David N. Breslauer et al. , from PLOS1.

Canadian lawmakers are looking ahead to a time when smoking bans will extend to all public sidewalks and outdoor places, reports Spacing. Canada has some of the toughest anti-smoking laws in North America, but the unintended (although perhaps foreseeable?) consequence of the bans has been a glut of smokers in open-air spaces.

What’s the harm of smoking in open air? Spacing points to secondhand-smoke research conducted in Finland that found air in outdoor cafes to be 20 times more polluted than the stuff people breathe on the sidewalks of traffic-heavy streets. Nasty. “I absolutely see a time in which there will not be any smoking in all public spaces,” Toronto city councilor Pam McConnell told the magazine.

South of the border, cities in various U.S. states, such as Minnesota and California, have already banned smoking at parks and beaches. Berkeley introduced a sidewalk smoking ban in 2008.

Source: Spacing (article not available online)

Fireworks: Who could hate them? Plenty of people, it turns out:

Chris Conway hates fireworks for their “toxic consequences to our personal and environmental health.”

Troy Patterson at Slate hates fireworks for their “pomposity, aggression, triumphalism, and hubris.”

The U.K. campaign Ban the Bang hates fireworks because “all kinds of wild and domestic animals, but also children, the elderly and those of a nervous disposition can be seriously affected by modern, excessive fireworks.”

And finally, the blogger TexasLiberal hates fireworks because they’re dangerous, there’s a drought in his area (Houston), and you ought to be reading a book instead.

Or making fireworks out of yarn.

Happy Fourth of July. Kaboom!

Sources: Toxic Fireworks, Slate, Ban the Bang, TexasLiberal, Craft

Image courtesy of Chris Conway.

Can eating healthy become an eating disorder?

E Magazine reports on the disputed condition known as orthorexia nervosa, in which people become obsessed with healthy eating habits to the point of developing an eating disorder.

Orthorexia nervosa begins with a benign, even beneficial drive toward improving one’s diet. But over time, “even if physical and emotional health begin to falter, the sufferer continues a harsh dietary regime,” E reports. “Eventually, the all-consuming drive for nutritional purity can become a kind of spiritual quest.”

Not all doctors and nutritionists are convinced that orthorexia nervosa is a real condition. E cites Doctor Kelly Brownell, codirector of the Yale Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, who writes on WebMD that in 20 years of working in the field, no one has ever come into the clinic with orthorexia.

Other nutritional professionals disagree. Joshua Rosenthal, director of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, tells the environmental magazine that he counsels individuals to “look beyond” diet as the only font of health. “I encourage people who become overly obsessed with eating the ‘right’ food to see the impact on their life,” he says. “This condition can impede other important elements of life, including relationships, creativity, and just feeling part of a community.

“I call these elements of life primary food—the parts that fill our soul and satisfy our hunger for living. You can eat all the kale in the world, but if you feel disconnected, how healthy and happy can you be?”

Source: E Magazine

Image by riot jane, licensed under Creative Commons.

Here’s a lesson: Going to school (and especially graduating) does a body good. In the recent issue of Governing, Penelope Lemov reports that “the higher your degree, the healthier you are.” Statistics show that as people climb the academic ladder their reported level of health increases significantly. This assessment comes from research findings analyzed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which looked at education and health statistics in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. There are staggering health differences among those who do or don't graduate from high school and those who have dropped out or finished college—which is great news for those with college diplomas, but quite troubling for those without. Lemov writes:

The most discouraging part of the report is its implication for children. Undereducated parents tend to be poor and to rear their children in households with limited access to grocery stores that carry fresh fruits and vegetables; to live in less safe housing; to have insufficient access to safe places to exercise—all of which affect a family’s health. “For the first time in our history, we are raising a generation of children that may live shorter, sicker lives than their parents,” says Dennis Rivera, a commissioner of RWJF’s Commission to Build a Healthier America.

Sources: Governing, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Image by Herkie, licensed under Creative Commons.

Up to 30 percent of pharmaceutical drugs distributed in the developing world are counterfeit, according to the World Health Organization. To combat this medically dangerous uncertainty, a technology company in Ghana called mPedigree has created a service that allows users to send text messages and find out if their drug is genuine, reports Verge.

Here’s how Worldchanging breaks it down: “mPedigree provides pharmaceutical manufacturers with specially coded labels, which are affixed to individually packaged medicines. At the drugstore counter, the purchaser scratches off a label to reveal a unique code, which he or she texts to a four-digit number. An automated service looks up the code in a database. On the spot, the consumer gets a reply message indicating whether the drug is genuine or fake.”

Smart stuff. For more technological solutions to managing global medicines, check out my colleague Danielle Mastretti’s recent blog about an awesome database that the Indian government created to help battle biopirates. That’s right, biopirates.

Sources: Verge (article not available online), Worldchanging

Image by Lee Nachtigal, licensed under Creative Commons.

Add dermatitis to the list of diseases now connected to cell phone use. Recent studies reported by the Human Ecologist suggest a link between nickel used in the metallic areas of cell phones and a rise in unexplained facial and ear rashes. In October 2008, the British Association of Dermatologists (B.A.D.) first noted this condition, called “mobile phone dermatitis”, and advised doctors to ask patients with skin rashes about their cell phone use. B.A.D. also warned that rashes could occur on user’s fingers as a result of text messaging.

A study of 22 popular cell phones, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, found that roughly half contained nickel in areas such as menu buttons, decorative logos, and metallic frames around LCD screens. They recommended that consumers choose phones without metallic accents or materials.

Source: The Human Ecologist (article not available online)

Walking like a zombie on a treadmill to nowhere means you are self-obsessed and have no soul, according to Reid Buckley in The American Conservative. He compares excessive exercise to the ancient Hebrews in the desert, worshipping a golden calf.

Buckley’s proposed solution is to take a stand against the gym junkies’ soul-sucking ways by simply ignoring them. Oh, and then eat some chocolate cake. He writes:

The fitness craze is simply another escape from the consequences of metaphysical ignorance—an attempt to flee time and space and the inevitability of inexorable, unstoppable, uncamoflageable aging. One pities them: they are doomed to the disintegration of the mortal frame in which they take such pride and invest such complacent hope, doomed to the eventual rotting of their poor flesh—cold to the touch, loathsome to the sight, offensive to all the yet living: disgusting, putrid, worm-ridden, foul.

Source: The American Conservative

The Indian government recently finished a massive database that puts thousands of years’ worth of traditional Indian remedies, medicines, and practices in the public domain—and, hopefully, out of reach of Western biotech companies attempting to patent this knowledge. The Ecologist reports that this huge repository of information, dubbed the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, was completed by 200 researchers who spent 8 years transcribing and translating ancient texts on Ayurveda, Unani, and siddha. They’re also working to include yoga poses, which have come under patent-attack by many Western yoga instructors as the practice has grown more popular.

“India has effectively made its store of wisdom public property,” the Ecologist notes, “which can now be accessed and used by anyone, but patented by no one.”

Sources: The Ecologist, Traditional Knowledge Digital Library 

Image by zoyachubby, licensed under Creative Commons.

Back in 2006, we raised a collective eyebrow when we read in now-defunct Plenty that a San Diego company had plans to breed cats with a modified Fel d 1 gene that would render them hypoallergenic. These cats were slated to cost allergy-beset consumers nearly $4,000, and while the company was taking orders, kittens were still a year out, so cat lovers had some waiting to do.

The Scientist now reports that one of the first of these cats to be delivered hasn’t turned out to be all that hypoallergenic. Murray, a gray tabby, caused an early allergic reaction in one of his owners (which eventually tapered off), but guests still can’t tolerate the feline. Allerca, the company that sells the genetically modified cats and dogs, stands behind its claims, and says it warns customers that Fel d 1 is not the only allergen cats produce. Still, here’s the hitch: To get a refund, you have to return your pet. (Murray’s owners have decided they’d rather live with him, allergens and all.)

Sources: The Scientist, Plenty (as archived on Mother Nature Network)

Image by a tai, licensed under Creative Commons.

How we think about memory is about to change. Psychologist Alain Brunet, who works at McGill University and the Douglas Institute in Montreal, is conducting clinical trials in which participants take propranolol, a blood-pressure drug, after writing about a traumatic experience, reports Technology Review. This exercise seems to “weaken” the emotional strength of the memory, without disturbing any details. Six months after participating in a trial, one Canadian soldier suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) no longer qualified for the diagnosis.

Brunet’s research has to do with unlocking the secrets of how memories are stored, specifically proving the concept of memory reconsolidation. If Brunet is correct, when we recall a memory, it has to be packed away into the brain anew—and during that process the memory is malleable. If this is true, it opens up a bevy of possibilities for the treatment of PTSD, as well as other anxiety disorders and addiction.

There are some concerns that Brunet could be opening the proverbial Pandora’s box, but the psychologist isn’t fazed. “Brunet points out that he is trying to bring PTSD patients’ memories into a normal emotional range, not blunt their power altogether,” Technology Review senior editor Emily Singer writes. “He doesn’t think that using propranolol to render these memories bearable would create any unique potential for abuse as a way to dull the regrets, fears, and embarrassments of everyday life; people already use alcohol and drugs for such purposes.”

Source: Technology Review 

Pseudoscience runs rampant throughout the claims of many nutrition experts who extol the virtues of vitamin supplements, Reynold Spector writes for the Skeptical Inquirer. “There is no rigorous scientific evidence for the utility of dietary supplements,” according to Spector, and there’s some evidence that pumping large amounts of vitamins E, C, or A into people’s bodies may actually increase mortality.

The multibillion dollar industry that hawks vitamin supplements may be one of the driving forces behind the proliferation of bad science, according to Spector. And he accuses established journals including the New England Journal of Medicine of proliferating the erroneous research.

It is true, Spector admits, that vitamin supplements can be helpful for certain people, including pregnant women and the elderly. He does, however, encourage moderation.

Image by Ragesoss, licensed under Creative Commons.

Americans need to get away from their computers and get some sun. Three out of every four American teens and adults aren’t getting enough vitamin D, the nutrient you can get from standing in the sunshine. And the problem is getting worse, according to research published in Archives of Internal Medicine and reported by Scientific American: From 1988 to 1994, 45 percent of people tested had sufficient vitamin D. One decade later, that number had dropped to 23 percent. Among African Americans, 12 percent had sufficient vitamin D a decade ago, while just 3 percent of people had the recommended levels more recently.

Vitamin D deficiencies, “are increasingly blamed for everything from cancer and heart disease to diabetes,” according to the Scientific American. The study’s co-author Adit Ginde blames the lack of vitamin D in part on the proliferation of sunscreen and other efforts to prevent skin cancer. A lack of vitamins in regular diets also may play a role.

Some of the study’s critics claim the results inflate the problem, but still admit that vitamin D deficiencies are hugely prevalent and problematic.

Image by  Brian Moore , licensed under  Creative Commons . 

Source: Scientific American 

“Obesity and numerous chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes are more prevalent in low-income than higher income neighborhoods,” Shannon N. Zenk told Health Day. One reason could be that poor neighborhoods lack access to healthy foods. Even in a big city like Baltimore, research reported by Health Day has found a wide disparity in access to health foods between rich and poor neighborhoods, and between predominantly black and predominantly white areas.

The author of the study Dr. Manuel Franco told Health Day, “If you live in a neighborhood with no healthy options, it'll be tough for you to change your diet.”

Every year, pharmaceutical companies spend some $23 billion trying to convince doctors to prescribe their drugs. The industry employs about 90,000 drug reps, also known as “detailers,” to make friends with the doctors, dole out gifts, and make the case for drugs personally. Some drug companies even engage in data-mining to target specific doctors who might be susceptible to marketing efforts. 

To combat drug company bias, states have begun employing “academic detailers,” according to John Buntin in Governing, providing “independent, evidence-based information on how best to treat complex medical conditions.” Pennsylvania, a state that spent $2.5 billion last year filling prescriptions, hired the first academic detailers, and South Carolina, Massachusetts, and Washington D.C. quickly followed suit. 

Other states have gone further, forcing drug companies to disclose gifts to doctors. Others have tried to ban data-mining, and some doctors aren't happy. “The government is saying that you can have a license to prescribe narcotics, but we can’t trust you with gifts of pens and paper,” Dr. David Stein of Primary Care Associates told Governing. “That’s the way we’re being treated. The best term I can use is we’re being treated like whores.”

In November the Oprah show introduced millions of viewers to Time magazine's "Invention of the Year", the 23andMe DNA test kit. This direct-to-consumer test promises buyers that, with one easy spit into a tube, they can unlock the mysteries of their genetic history by mailing saliva to be matched against 23andMe's DNA databases. 

DNA tests aren't the gold standard of accuracy and truth, though, as Sue Friedman, founder of the nonprofit Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowerment (FORCE), illuminates in a special issue of GeneWatch. Potential problems include the invisible hand of biotech companies involved in unregulated marketing of these tests to consumers, as well as the possibility of incorrect interpretation without the benefit of expert analysis. 

Consumers need to understand that a DNA test is not a silver bullet for health forecasting, and the companies that sell these tests need to comprehend the responsibilities inherent in their business. As Friedman states, "people are making real-life, real-moment decisions based on test results."

A new report from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine finds that the U.S. Military’s use of animals for medical training violates the Department of Defense animal welfare regulation.

“For the soldiers of the 25th Infantry Division, it must have been a gruesome experience,” the report begins. “Earlier this year, instructors with the division’s 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team shot a group of pigs at Hawaii’s Schofield Barracks. They then instructed soldiers to practice treating the animals’ wounds. In other combat trauma training courses, pigs are set on fire while still alive. The trainees’ task is to keep the wounded pigs alive for as long as possible.”

 Read the entire report here.

American households are increasingly ditching their landlines in favor of cell phones, and that’s creating public health problems. The National Center for Health Statistics estimates that 17.5 percent of Americans own only cell phones, while another 13 percent rely on cell phones for most calls. The Washington Post reports that this shift complicates health research, making it harder to collect data that reflects the entire U.S. population, and, consequently, to accurately define public health problems and craft appropriate responses.

There are several reasons for this difficulty. For one thing, it takes more time to reach cell phone users, since federal law forbids researchers from using automatic dialers, the method used to connect with most landlines. People on cells are also less willing to cooperate with polls, perhaps because they have to pay for every minute they spend talking. In the end, researchers get fewer completed surveys from cell phone users. According to Scott Keeter at the Pew Research group, they finish one survey for every 9 cell calls, as opposed to one for every 5 calls to landlines.

Researchers are worried about this gap in information, because certain demographics are overrepresented in cell phone-only households—according to a Q&A chat accompanying the article, these include renters, young people, and Latinos. Researchers are testing different strategies to gather information from these groups, including reimbursing people for minutes spent answering questions and supplementing surveys with mail-in components. Some software developers are also addressing the problem, developing data-gathering tools meant specifically for wireless phones. One good example is EpiSurveyor, which was piloted late last year.

Image courtesy of Eric__I_E, licensed under Creative Commons.

(Thanks, American Journal of Bioethics.)

Just about every episode of the hit medical drama House MD follows a pattern, as the humor magazine Cracked points out: A patient presents weird symptoms that escalate into a life-or-death situation, House and his team take ridiculous risks to save the patient, and then the patient is saved.

What many viewers don’t know is that the National Institutes of Health has its very own House-like team called the Undiagnosed Diseases Program (UDP). The main idea of the TV show echoes the UDP’s work, but the two don’t have much else in common. The New Scientist interviewed program head William Gahl, who, unlike the TV show's protagonist, seems to be a humble, caring man with a sincere interest in his patients. Plus, real patients usually show up with slow-developing conditions, not the dramatic collapses seen on the show.

The UDP began in May of 2008 and in those seven short months has received over 1000 doctors’ inquiries. The program, according to Gahl, serves two purposes: Not only do the physicians work to diagnose and help patients, they also try to identify new medical conditions in the hopes of making future diagnoses easier for everyone.

In a bid to help reverse Europe’s serious population decline, Swedish medical student Anders Svensson recently wrote an academic thesis on the financial benefits of state-subsidized in vitro fertilization, Science Daily reports. The idea may seem odd, but Svensson isn’t the first to make the connection between IVF and the economy. Last year the Rand Corporation published a study calculating the costs and benefits of such an initiative and found that the government would theoretically turn a significant profit on its investment in the form of taxes paid by the individual throughout his or her lifetime.

Europe’s dwindling population is currently threatening many state-maintained support programs like Social Security and health care. If the birth rate doesn’t increase soon, children may be increasingly forced to support the aging European population, which by 2050 will have an estimated one in three people over the age of 65. With that responsibility looming, Svensson and others believe that investing government money in IVF programs and technology could help spur future economic growth, as well as improve the morale of thousands of couples who are involuntarily childless.

The new website Intent.com is like the Huffington Post of the metaphysical realm, offering an online repository of mindful living writing. Started by Mallika Chopra, an entrepreneur and Deepak Chopra’s daughter, the site’s brand represents an amorphous mélange of business motivation, self-help, and Eastern spirituality. The site breaks down into the squishy categories of Health, Relationships, Success, Balance, Causes, Planet, and Spirit.

As the cornerstone of Intent.com, bloggers state their intent (“To laugh out loud every day!”, “Not to over indulge in candy or booze tonight!”, “To recognize and share the presence of life’s magic”) and users can register to add their own intents or to affirm others.

The site isn’t simply an unmitigated orgy of loving-kindness, however. Yesterday, Deepak Chopar posted an overtly political video blog about John McCain entitled, “War Hero or War Criminal, Who Decides?” In fact, there’s a generous dose of political content, most of it pro-Obama and against California’s Prop-8. There are also the sorts of diverting anecdotal pieces that wouldn’t be out of place at Slate, Salon, or, well, HuffPo.

During a speech in Pittsburgh last week, Salon.com reports that Sarah Palin took another swing at earmarked spending, giving a specific wink towards "fruit fly research in Paris, France!"

Palin was referring to money secured by California congressman Mike Thompson for the study of the olive fruit fly, according to Salon. The Alaska Governor opted not to tell the audience that the flies have been infesting olive groves for decades in Mediterranean climates (hence research in France) and more recently have started affecting crops in California. Thompson was adamant about his decision to fund studies of the pest, which he called "the single largest threat to the U.S. olive and olive oil industries.”

Palin may attack the program as frivolous, but fruit fly testing has proven indispensable in genetic research (it was through fruit flies that we discovered how chromosomes determine sex, for example), and it’s also helped scientists better understand autism, an issue in which Palin has repeatedly shown interest.

It's also worth noting that just a few months ago, Palin herself had pushed for earmarked money to study, among other things, the mating habits of crabs. That study seems less ridiculous when revealed that the money would be used to research "Bering Sea crab productivity and sustainability as necessary to restore crab stocks."

Attacking fruit fly and crab studies could make for a cheap political point in front of audiences, but a little more information shows that kind of research deserves respect.

Image courtesy of  shioshvili , licensed under  Creative Commons .

Engineers at MIT have developed a way to produce smell receptors in a lab, reports ScienceDaily. This might not seem like big news, but scientists have been trying to develop this kind of technology for years. Developing artificial smell sensors could help law enforcement officials replace drug- and bomb-sniffing dogs, which take extensive time and money to train, with artificial noses. Also, considering that diseases including diabetes, asthma, and certain types of cancer have a particular smell, the technology could be used to make early, potentially life-saving diagnoses.

Image courtesy of tuexperto_com3, license under  Creative Commons.

Many gardeners feel that digging in the dirt and planting seeds helps them relax. Now researchers have found that gardening can have real physical and psychological health benefits. According to an article in Psychology Today (article not available online), gardening exposes people to soil-borne microbes called Mycobacterium vaccae that can stimulate their immune systems. The same microbes also boost the levels serotonin in mice, much like prozac and other antidepressants. Some researchers think that depriving children from playing in the dirt may have led to the recent rise in immune disorders, including asthma. Daniel Marano writes for Psychology Today that “the components of the soil itself might be as critical to human heath as the finest fruits and veggies grown in it.”

The American Medical Association is under fire for its recent decision (word document) to advise against home births. Doctors, midwives, feminists, natural family planning proponents, and even Ricki Lake are all upset with the intrusion. 

Childbirth is a natural part of life, writes Dr. Vijay Goel for The Health Care Blog. It’s been around longer than hospitals have. So why is the AMA advocating against home birth, a practice that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics, only one percent of women choose? The AMA’s resolution “appears to be based more on turf management than evidence,” writes Goel, “...especially when evidence exists that the process is safe for low-risk mothers.” Condemning home birth is another medical attack in the battle between women and doctors over childbirth in the United States.

Restricting all women to hospital or birthing center delivery, like encouraging unnecessary cesarean sections, is prompted by “junk science and further reduces the credibility of our once proud profession,” writes Goel. Doctors elsewhere would disagree with the AMA’s decision, points out Jennifer Block, author of Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care, writing for the Los Angeles Times. Block quotes a British National Health Service handout, which states: “There is no evidence to support the common assertion that home birth is a less safe option for women experiencing uncomplicated pregnancies.” 

For more on the ideas and issues surrounding home births, read “Drugs, Knives, and Midwives” and “A Tale of Two Births” from the March/April 2007 issue of Utne Reader.

Image by Big Ben(Gaijin Bikers), licensed under Creative Commons.

The chances of a disastrous misdiagnosis run high when doctors use race to prescribe treatments. Drugs designed for specific races, like the highly publicized drug BiDil, work on the assumption that some races require different treatments from other races because of genetics. Science Central News reports that medical experts are questioning that assumption, saying that doctors should focus on individual—rather than racial—genetic variations.

The first drug designed specifically for one racial group and approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was BiDil, a medication designed for African Americans to combat congestive heart failure (CHF). Beta-blockers are commonly used to treat CHF, but studies have shown that BiDil is a more effective treatment for many African Americans.

The problem, according to Science Central News, is that “those studies were based on people’s self-described race, rather than their actual genetic makeup.” When doctors put too much faith in those studies, ignoring genetic variations inside the African American community, there’s a strong chance that patients wouldn’t get the medications they need to combat the potentially fatal disease.

The motivation behind racially specific prescriptions may have more to do with business than health, according to Utne Reader’s November-December 2007 issue. The article points out that FDA approval of BiDil gave the drug’s producer, NitroMed, a 20-year patent on the medication, giving them a monopoly over the drug’s market. So whether or not the drug works better for African Americans, NitroMed will retain their monopolistic control until the year 2020.

Issues surrounding the drug also play into an ongoing argument over the role of genetics in modern racism. Nobel Prize winner James Watson, who helped discover the double helix, set off a firestorm of controversy last year when he claimed in the Sunday Times that black people might not be as genetically predisposed for intelligence as white people. In an interview for the Root, Henry Louis Gates Jr. sat down with Watson to express some of his fears about the role of genetic research in the future of racism.

Gates walked away from the conversation with an illuminating and frightening conclusion:

That the last great battle over racism will be fought not over access to a lunch counter, or a hotel room, or to the right to vote, or even the right to occupy the White House; it will be fought in a laboratory, in a test tube, under a microscope, in our genome, on the battleground of our DNA.  It is here where we, as a society, will rank and interpret our genetic difference. 

Image from the Library of Congress.

Pringles snacks may be many things—addictive, fattening, salt vessels—but a high court in Great Britain has decided that they’re not potato crisps. The Pringles manufacturer, Proctor & Gamble, successfully argued in court that the snack food has a "uniform colour" and a "regular shape" which "is not found in nature" and is also only 42 percent potato, and therefore is not a potato crisp, the BBC reports. Potato crisps are taxed at a higher rate in Great Britain, so the decision likely will save Proctor & Gamble millions of dollars. It could also make consumers think twice before consuming all that maltodextrin and dextrose that make up some of the other 58 percent of the crisp.

(Thanks, Inky Circus.)

Getting rid of glasses and contact lenses with Lasik surgery sounds enticing, but subjecting your eyes to a laser might, understandably, make you squeamish. Another alternative, reports the Hudson Valley Chronogram, is natural vision care, a treatment plan that incorporates acupuncture, behavioral changes, and nutritional counseling into eye care. 

The behavioral changes suggested by natural vision care can start simply: less monitor-gazing. “We do things like stare at a computer for six hours straight without looking up, and never blink,” says Nancy Neff, a natural vision educator who weaned herself from glasses. Wearing corrective lenses can also contribute to worsening vision, Neff suggests, since it lessens the work eye muscles do. “I run every day, and doing that without the glasses in the beginning was really challenging,” she says. “I used to say hello to the mailboxes! Slowly, you break that addiction, and go to weaker glasses for things that aren’t that challenging. Now, I do almost everything without my glasses.” 

Natural vision care is more than just extreme jogging, of course. It's a holistic health plan that includes changes in diet and habits. “Nothing replaces a nutritious diet overall,” Chronogram writes, “especially when it’s combined with a positive, healthy lifestyle that also includes regular exercise and daily relaxation such as meditation or a walk in nature.” (Glasses optional.)

Freelance writing can be detrimental to your health: “There were deadlines to be met, revisions to be made, clients to be satisfied,” explains John Schaidler in the May-June 2008 issue of A View from the Loft (article not available online). “And the only way to do that, as they say, was to apply ‘seat of the pants to seat of the chair.’ ”

After a stern warning from his doctor, however, Schaidler put on the old running shoes—and promptly discovered that exercise can be as beneficial to the creative process as it is to the body. “I turned and ran back home, my brain buzzing with ideas. I shot through the door, went straight to my desk, and wrote for an hour. It was bliss. At least, it was, until I tried to stand and immediately crumpled to the floor, my legs crippled by lactic acid.”

Schaidler doesn’t claim to be the first creative type to discover the mind-sharpening benefits of sweatin’ to the oldies, just an enthusiastic convert. “Evidence says even the most basic exercise program, even walking, will boost your creativity and provide direct benefits to your work,” he writes.

Image by  Scott Ableman , licensed under Creative Commons.

Further fueling suspicions that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals dreams up campaigns by asking conservatives, “What would tick you off the most?” Stratton Lawrence of the Charleston (South Carolina) City Paper reports that the group is lobbying for a 10-cents-a-pound federal meat tax.

PETA likens this “sin tax” to ones already “placed on tobacco, alcohol, and gasoline for their costly effect on the environment and public health,” Lawrence writes. Revenue from this proposed bill (that will never, ever pass) would fund education about the benefits of eating less meat.

“Even though the average American adult would only pay $20 more per year with this tax, it would encourage reduced meat consumption,” PETA’s Ashley Byrne tells Lawrence. “That could save a family thousands in health care costs.”

In pairing the word “meat,” considered icky by most vegetarians, with “tax,” perhaps the most hated word in the English language, PETA, in typical fashion, seems to be saying: Let’s see how polarized this thing can get. Supply-side might be a better place to start—by raising industry standards for environmental remediation or, as one small livestock farmer suggested to Lawrence, by rolling back the huge government subsidies being handed away to factory farms.

—Jason Ericson

Finally, news about a product from China that isn’t poisoning small children: Researchers have invented what’s being dubbed “super wine.” According to an article in the New Scientist, a new, genetically modified wine could help to increase lifespan. The wine is made from grapes containing six times the standard amount of resveratrol, a compound found in red wine that is thought to help stave off heart disease.

Consumers might not want to start buying super wine by the case, however. Some scientists doubt the benefits of resveratrol, David Biello writes for the Scientific American. Researchers maintain that humans would need to consume the compound in much higher doses than red wine, even the modified wine, can provide. And all health bets may disappear if the wine is paired with lead-based cheese.

—Morgan Winters