One of the health newsletters that I find very credible and useful is the Health & Nutrition Letter from Tufts University. You have to subscribe to it ($24/year) but it is well worth it.
Click here for the 291 articles published by the Health & Nutrition Letter that can help you reduce your cancer risk.
Americans spend an average of more than 65% of their time in their own home or others’ homes, the health impacts of indoor air pollution has remained elusive.
Jennifer Logue, from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (California, USA), and colleagues combined disease incidence and Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs)-based health impact models to estimate the population average health costs related to chronic inhalation of air pollutants in U.S. residences.
The team used disease impact models and incidence to identify those indoor air pollutants with the greatest impacts on health.
Acrolein, formaldehyde, and small particles of particulates accounted for most of the negative effects from indoor air pollutants. Formaldehyde and acrolein had the largest estimated number of annual DALYs lost per 100,000 people of all the various indoor pollutants considered, at 46 and 47, respectively.
While the DALY losses associated with hospitalization were low for each pollutant, the estimated DALYs lost because of incidents of stroke, chronic bronchitis, and premature death related to PM(2.5) (fine particles in ambient air 2.5 micrometers or less in size) also was a contributor to the annual health impact, with the central estimate for disability adjusted life years lost due to all indoor air pollutants as 1,100 per 100,000 people.
There have been many studies showing the correlation between a healthy brain and high levels of omega-3 fatty acids. Your grandma probably told you, “eat your fish, it is good for your brain.”
A new study published in the December 28 issue of Neurology is unique, however, because researchers measure nutrient biomarkers in the blood….testing for omega-3 and other vitamin levels including B, C, D and E.
Previous studies have used data from diet questionnaires.
The paper’s first author is Dr Gene Bowman from the Departments of Neurology and Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. He and his colleagues describe three sets of findings:
For the study, Bowman and colleagues recruited 104 elderly people of average age 87 who had few risk factors for impaired memory and thinking. From participants’ blood tests the researchers measured 30 different nutrient biomarkers. All the participants also completed tests of memory and thinking, while 42 of them also underwent MRI scans that measured their brain volume.
The results showed that overall the participants’ diets were healthy, but 25% were lacking in vitamin D and 7% were deficient in vitamin B12.
Bowman told the press that their results showed a significant amount of the variation in brain volume and scores on the thinking and memory tests were tied to levels of nutrients biomarkers.
On the thinking and memory tests, the nutrient levels accounted for 17% of the variation in the scores, while 46% of the variation was tied to other factors such as age, number of years of education and blood pressure.
For brain volume, the nutrient levels accounted for 37% of the variation.
Scanning the Science section of Today’s paper, I read the above headline. My god, I thought, how could this be happening already and how could I not know about it?
Looking closer, I spotted a small “eyebrow line” (old newspaper lingo) above the headline that said in light bold type “MALARIA.” Thus, instead of getting excited I felt a bit depressed. I suppose a decline of 25% in malaria deaths is a good thing, but for me the glass is half empty.
I would have thought by now Malaria had been virtually eradicated, yet in 2010 some 655,000 people, mostly children, died from this mosquito-borne infection. The problem comes down to money, of course. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria raises $2 billion a year, but it really needs $6 billion.
$6 billion may seem like a lot of money. But to put this in perspective, $6 billion is what is costs to fight the war in Afghanistan for 3 weeks!
If you want to do something about Malaria, you can! Just make a donation to Nothing But Nets. For $10 they will send an insecticide-treated mosquito net to an endangered adult or child and they will provide instructions on proper use.
Mosquito nets are good for about three years and then they need to be replaced so make a habit of donating on a regular basis. You can make a difference!
Related: Insect and Disinfectant Fogger
One of the health newsletters that I find very credible and useful is the Health & Nutrition Letter from Tufts University. You have to subscribe to it ($24/year) but it is well worth it. Click here for the 291 articles published by the Health & Nutrition Letter that can help you reduce your cancer risk.
Americans spend an average of more than 65% of their time in their own home or others’ homes, the health impacts of indoor air pollution has remained elusive. Jennifer Logue, from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (California, USA), and colleagues combined disease incidence and Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYs)-based health impact models to estimate the population …
There have been many studies showing the correlation between a healthy brain and high levels of omega-3 fatty acids. Your grandma probably told you, “eat your fish, it is good for your brain.” A new study published in the December 28 issue of Neurology is unique, however, because researchers measure nutrient biomarkers in the blood….testing …
Continue reading “Study validates correlation between brain health & nutrients including omega-3”
This poster was originally published in Eldr magazine. You can download a pdf version here.
Scanning the Science section of Today’s paper, I read the above headline. My god, I thought, how could this be happening already and how could I not know about it? Looking closer, I spotted a small “eyebrow line” (old newspaper lingo) above the headline that said in light bold type “MALARIA.” Thus, instead of getting …
Continue reading “The New York Times: Deaths Have Dropped 25 Percent in Last Decade”
