Health ShortsJune 2004History of Use No Guarantee of Safety
A basic premise of the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act is that if a product has been used for many years, it's proven to be safe. An Institute of Medicine report found "significant scientific problems" with this premise and called for amendments to the act that would make it easier to protect consumers from unreasonable risk or injury. The expert panel recommended that manufacturers and distributors be required to report within 15 days any serious adverse effects, such as those leading to death, the risk of death, hospitalization, a significant disability or a birth defect.
The report also noted that lack of product uniformity "hampers the evaluation of safety." [SOURCE: Phil Wallace, "IOM Report Calls for Mandatory Reporting of Supplement AERs," Food Chemical News, April 12, 2004] The Dirty Dozen: Products To Avoid
Consumer Reports recently published a list of the "dirty dozen" dietary supplements-products that may cause cancer, kidney or liver damage or even the risk of death. The list includes aristolochic acid (birthwort), comfrey, germander, androstenedione, chaparral, kava, bitter orange, organ or gland extracts, lobelia, pennyroyal oil, scullcap and yohimbine.
[SOURCE: David Bjerklie, "Supplements: The Dirty Dozen," Time, April 12, 2004; Lisa Stein, "Poison-Pill Watch," U.S. News & World Rep0ort, April 12, 2004] Surgery Patients: Report Supplements
Patients scheduled for surgery should be sure to report to their doctors any supplements they are taking. To ensure safety, some supplements must be discontinued well in advance of the surgery date. Garlic, ginkgo and ginseng, for example, could promote unwanted bleeding; kava and valerian could have sedative effects.
[SOURCE: Norra MacReady, "Evidence Can Clarify Complementary Medicine Use: Assessing Dietary Supplements," Family Practice News, March 1, 2004] Controlling Hot Flashes without a Pill
As an alternative to hormone replacement therapy and supplements such as black cohosh, behavioral modification can be used to combat hot flashes and other menopausal symptoms: - Keep a symptom diary to try to find what triggers or relieves hot flashes. o
- Wear layered clothing that can be removed easily. o
- Open the window or turn on the air conditioner. o
- Avoid spicy food, alcohol and caffeine. o
Try deep abdominal breathing (six to eight breaths a minute)-found in one study to reduce hot flashes by about 40 percent. o
[SOURCE: Judi L. Chervenak, "When Your Menopausal Patient Chooses Alternative Therapy," Contemporary OB/GYN, May, 2003] Some Mice Become Running Junkies
All laboratory mice love to run on wheels, but researchers bred a strain of mice with a genetic predisposition to run longer and faster "to represent those few extreme individuals in the population with an intense desire or compulsion to run." When these mice-and other mice in a control group-were blocked from running, tests showed high levels of activity in areas of the brain associated with cravings for food, alcohol, sex and drugs. This activity was significantly higher in the high-running strain of mice, suggesting a craving for exercise that the other mice did not have.
[SOURCE: "Brain Study Shows Some Animals Crave Exercise," Obesity, Fitness & Wellness Week, December 27, 2003] Exercise + Music = Smart Workout
Studies show that exercise improves not only mood but ability to handle mental tasks involving memory and learning. Music has been found to have similar positive effects on the brain, and a combination of music and exercise offers more than double the benefit. In a study of 33 men and women undergoing cardiac rehabilitation, researchers found that subjects scored higher on a verbal fluency test after 30-minute sessions of exercise on a treadmill. After similar exercise sessions with classical music in the background (Vivaldi's The Four Seasons), their verbal fluency scores more than doubled. According to the authors: "Listening to music may influence cognitive function through different pathways in the brain. The combination of music and exercise may stimulate and increase cognitive arousal while helping to organize cognitive output."
[SOURCE: "A Little Music with Exercise Boosts Brain Power, Study Suggests," Obesity, Fitness & Wellness Week, April 17, 2004] High Blood Sugar Affects Memory
When an older person starts to exhibit memory loss and other symptoms of dementia, the cause could be uncontrolled blood sugar, rather than Alzheimer's disease. A recent study of nondiabetic middle aged and older subjects found that those with impaired glucose tolerance, often a precursor of diabetes, scored worse on tests of short-term memory and showed greater shrinkage of the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in memory and learning. According to the author, the study "demonstrated that impaired glucose regulation is associated with memory dysfunction,...and it raises the intriguing possibility that improving glucose tolerance could reverse some age-associated problems in cognition."
Exercise and weight loss are two lifestyle measures that are known to improve blood sugar control. [SOURCE: "Sustained High Blood Sugar Levels May Damage Brain's Key Memory Center," Pain & Central Nervous System Week, February 24, 2003] Acne: Fact and Fiction
About 90 percent of adolescents are affected by acne, characterized by blackheads, pimples and red bumps on the face, neck and shoulders. Caused by an overactivity of oil glands in the skin associated with changing hormone levels, acne can persist until age 20 or even 25 but rarely leaves any after-effects. Contrary to popular belief, the skin problems are unrelated to eating of fried foods, chocolate or any other food; sexual activity or personal hygiene.
[SOURCE: B.D. Schmitt, "Acne (for Teenagers)," Clinical Reference Systems, Annual 2001] Isotretinoin: Monitoring Concerns
For severe cases of acne, doctors often prescribe isotretinoin. Because of safety concerns, however, primary care physicians often refer these patients to dermatologists who are generally more familiar with monitoring requirements. Major birth defects occur in 25 to 30 percent of fetuses exposed to isotretinoin. The drug is also associated at times with psychiatric problems and suicide.
[SOURCE: Sarah Evans and Heather McNeill, "Quantum Sufficit: Just Enough," American Family Physician, November 1, 2003] Study Casts Doubts on Guggulipid
A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association [August 13, 2003] cast doubt on the cholesterol-lowering effectiveness of guggulipid, a popular herbal supplement. Derived from the resin of the mukul myrrh tree, guggulipid has been used in India and studies there have found it effective. In the recent study of 103 otherwise healthy American adults with high cholesterol, those taking guggulipid showed no improvement and actually had slightly higher levels of LDL cholesterol than subjects taking a placebo.
[SOURCE: "Guggulipid Supplements for High Cholesterol Questionable," Mayo Clinic Health Letter, June, 2004] New Benefit for Moderate Drinking
Another health benefit of moderate drinking was reported in a recent study published in Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. Moderate alcohol consumption was associated with increased levels of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEAS), a sex hormone that is believed to keep blood vessels healthy and declines in most individuals with aging. Middle-aged men and postmenopausal women had 17 percent higher levels of DHEAS and 12 percent higher HDL (good) cholesterol levels after three weeks of drinking regular beer with dinner every night compared to their levels after three weeks of drinking non-alcoholic beer. The increases for both DHEAS and HDL were similar in men and women.
[SOURCE: Merritt McKinney, Moderate Drinking May Raise Healthy Hormone Levels," Reuters Health, May 14, 2004] New Guidelines for HIV/AIDS Online
Newly revised guidelines for treating adults and adolescents with HIV and AIDS are now online at http://aidsinfo.nih.gov. Prepared by the Panel on Clinical Practices for Treatment of HIV infection, the guidelines include lists of "preferred" and "alternative" regimens plus those that should never be offered.
[SOURCE: Robert Finn, "Revised Guidelines Simplify HIV/AIDS Regimens; 'Preferred' and 'Alternative' Regimens'," Family Practice News, February 1, 2004] Save 3 Million Lives by 2005
The "3 by 5" initiative is an emergency effort by the World Health Organization to dramatically improve AIDS treatment in the hardest-hit countries of the world, with the goal of saving 3 million lives by the end of 2005. Dr. Jim Yong Kim of Harvard University initiated the project with the help of a MacArthur Foundation grant.
[SOURCE: Geoffrey Cowley, "A New Assault on AIDS," Newsweek International, December 29, 2003] HIV Infections in Infants Down 80%
HIV infections among American infants declined by 80 percent over the past decade, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The decline is attributed largely to the breakthrough discovery in 1994 that AZT given to infected mothers during pregnancy and to their infants at birth reduced transmission by more than 60 percent.
[SOURCE: Margaret C. Heagarty, "AIDS: The Battle Rages On," Issues in Science and Technology, Summer, 2003] | 
