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Processed Meat Is Carcinogenic – World Health Organization

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Salami, sausage, ham and bacon — the latest study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has found a strong link between processed meat and bowel cancer, as well as evidence for probability of such a link also between red meat and bowel cancer.

IARC, which is the World Health Organisation’s cancer research body, classifies compounds’ carcinogenic properties on a scale of decreasing certainty. In group 1 are agents that are definitely carcinogenic to humans; in 2A those that are probably carcinogenic to humans; 2B includes those that are possibly carcinogenic to humans; 3, includes not classifiable agents; and in group 4, those that are probably not carcinogenic to humans.

Processed meat “refers to meat that has been transformed through salting, curing, fermentation, smoking, or other processes to enhance flavour or improve preservation”, includes things like salami, sausage, ham and bacon, and has been ranked in group 1 by IARC, in the same category as tobacco and alcohol.

According to the study, for every 50 grams of processed meat consumed daily, the risk of colorectal cancer increases by 18 per cent.

In their press release Dr Kurt Straif, Head of the IARC Monographs Programme, said: “For an individual, the risk of developing colorectal cancer because of their consumption of processed meat remains small, but this risk increases with the amount of meat consumed. In view of the large number of people who consume processed meat, the global impact on cancer incidence is of public health importance.”

Although the study scores red meat better than processed meat, its 2A classification means it is now on par with glyphosate, a herbicide contained in products such as Monsanto’s Round-Up, the probably carcinogenic properties of which made headlines earlier in the year. However according to IARC, eating red meat is not just linked to bowel but to pancreatic and prostate cancer too.

Meat industry groups and the research institutes they fund reject that eating meat is on par with smoking or other lifestyle causes to cancer, such as alcohol consumption, obesity and lack of exercise. Nutritionists also argue that the benefits of eating red meat regularly, in combination with plenty of fruit, fibre and exercise, counteract the risk to colorectal cancer.

Yet the debate on the health effects of processed and red meat is nothing new, and neither are the recommendations by health practitioners to limit the amounts consumed to reduce the risk of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease – although the IARC study falls short of setting a safe recommended amount for red meat.

Environmentalists  have too been highlighting for sometime how an increasingly intensive meat industry – responsible for much deforestation, carbon emissions, reliant on fossil fuels and addicted to antibiotics,  is not a sustainable source of food for people and planet.

Even if one doesn’t accept the latest findings by IARC, it seems there are many reasons to limit our processed and red meat intake. Whether a healthy heart or a healthy planet is your thing, good old moderation may well just do the trick.

By Annalisa Dorigo

Plant-Based Diet For First Time Ever Recommended In US Federal Guidelines

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Nutritional experts of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee recommend a predominantly plant-based diet for health and environmental reasons.

As was recently shared in the article, “8 Nations Going Vegetarian, Proving To The World Less Is More,” a massive shift in health mentality is inspiring people everywhere to invest in their health. In 2010, the UN released a report urging citizens to adopt a plant-based diet for health and environmental reasons. Who knew that earlier this year, the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee would outline similar recommendations for American citizens?

The report, released earlier this year, includes recommendations by the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee on what Americans should be eating. This is the first time the committee has concluded a diet higher in plant-based foods and low in animal-based foods to not only be both healthier for the body, but better for the environment.

The report details their official recommendations for a “healthy dietary pattern,” which has vegetables, fruits, and whole grains at the very top of the list and red meat and processed meats at the very bottom.

“The overall body of evidence examined by the 2015 DGAC identifies that a healthy dietary pattern is higher in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, low- or non-fat dairy, seafood, legumes, and nuts; moderate in alcohol (among adults); lower in red and processed meats; and low in sugar-sweetened foods and drinks and refined grains.”

The 571-page report gives an in-depth look at what Americans are presently eating. “The quality of the diets currently consumed by the U.S. population is suboptimal overall and has major adverse health consequences,” it states.

Most notable is the large gap between a healthy diet and the standard American diet: “On average, the U.S. diet is low in vegetables, fruit, and whole grains, and high in sodium, calories, saturated fat, refined grains, and added sugars.”

Earlier this year it was reported that only 9% of American adults manage to consume the recommended amount of daily fruits and vegetables. Despite the bounty of healthy living resources and information available, America’s greatest challenge may be overcoming the idea of ‘quick fixes’ and short-term solutions.

The committee’s findings on the Standard American Diet include:

  • Roughly half of American adults have one or more chronic diseases related to poor diet and inactivity
  • Preventable diseases include cardiovascular disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and some cancers
  • More than two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese
  • Nearly one-third of children are overweight or obese
  • Chronic diseases disproportionately affect low-income communities
  • Focus on disease treatment rather than prevention increases and strains health care costs and reduces overall health

Amazingly, this is also the first time the committee has included environmental sustainability in its recommendations. It is mentioned that a diet lower in animal foods is not only healthier for the body, it’s better for the environment:

“Quantitative modeling research showed how healthy dietary patterns relate to positive environmental outcomes that improve population food security. Moderate to strong evidence demonstrates that healthy dietary patterns that are higher in plant-based foods, such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds, and lower in calories and animal-based foods are associated with more favorable environmental outcomes (lower greenhouse gas emissions and more favorable land, water, and energy use) than are current U.S. dietary patterns.”

The federally appointed panel is comprised of nutritional experts, and their recommendations help to put policies in place to ensure American eat healthier. Their task is to help set standards for school lunches, food stamp programs, and other programs for children and pregnant women.

By at Amanda Froelich at True Activist 

Non-Egg “Mayo” May Need New Name After FDA Warning Letter

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued a warning to the makers an eggless mayonnaise-like spread called Just Mayo, telling the food company that they cannot call eggless mayo mayo.

The FDA noted that mayonnaise must contain eggs according to its food standard of identity.

Although the food company, Hampton Creek, uses the word “mayo” rather than “mayonnaise,” the FDA wrote in its warning that, “The term ‘mayo’ has long been used and understood as shorthand or slang for mayonnaise.”

Hampton Creek was also sued last year over a similar issue. The maker of popular mayonnaise brand Hellmann’s sued Hampton Creek because its spread did not contain eggs, but the plaintiff dropped the lawsuit after a strong response from Just Mayo supporters.

By Cheryl Bretton

Liquid Can Be Made To Jump Off Fibers

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A Duke University team has created fibers that cause liquid to jump off their surface as it accumulates, leading to new possibilities in water purification, atmospheric moisture harvesting, and various drop collecting industrial material applications.

“Self-removal is essentially inevitable as long as the surface is reasonably hydrophobic,” said Chuan-Hua Chen of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, a lead researcher of the study. High degrees of hydrophobia are not necessary to create self-removing droplets. Self-removal is based largely on a small surface area for liquid to bead upon.

Liquids jump off the fibers as they accumulated due to the composition and width of the fibers. So long as merged droplets are above a certain size, when they coalesce into almost-spheres to reduce surface area, some of the energy released turns into mechanical energy sufficient to detach the bead and propel it away from the surface.

[youtube id=”pW4bfdOdstY” align=”center” mode=”normal” autoplay=”no” maxwidth=”500″]

The speed at which a droplet launches from a surface is based on the degree to which the ratio radius of the droplet trying to reduce contact with the surface exceeds the critical value of attachment to the surface.

It is the first time self-removing droplets have been demonstrated on curved surface such as fibers, and the team believes the technology should be applicable to emulsions so long as the emulsion is not too vicious.

The report, “Self-Propelled Droplet Removal from Hydrophobic Fiber-Based Coalescers,” was completed by Drs. Kungang Zhang, Fangjie Liu, Adam J. Williams, Xiaopeng Qu, James J. Feng, and Chuan-Hua Chen, and was published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

By Andy Stern

Girls Who Have Sex Lose Both Female And Male Friendships, Study Finds; For Males, It’s The Opposite

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Early adolescent males gain friends when they have sex while females lose them, a new study has found. Not only that, males who make out without having sex lose popularity, while females who do the same gain.

The findings of the study will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

“In our sample of early adolescents, girls’ friendship networks shrink significantly after they have sex, whereas boys’ friendship networks expand significantly,” said Derek A. Kreager, the lead author of the study and an associate professor of sociology and criminology at Pennsylvania State University.

“But what really surprised us was that ‘making out’ showed a pattern consistent with a strong reverse sexual double standard, such that girls who ‘make out’ without having sex see significant increases in friendships, and boys who engage in the same behavior see significant decreases in friendships.”

The study was based on information gathered from 921 students in 28 rural communities in Iowa and Pennsylvania states. Data was gathered from students over grades six through nine.

When asked to select their best or closest friend in their grade, students showed a high degree of preference for males who had sex but didn’t just make out and for females who made out but didn’t have sex.

Girls who had sex experienced a 45 percent decrease in peer acceptance. Boys who had sex had an 88 percent increase. Girls who just made out, however, had a 25 percent increase in peer acceptance while boys experienced a 29 percent decrease.

“Our results are consistent with traditional gender scripts,” Kreager said. “Men and boys are expected to act on innate or strong sex drives to initiate heterosexual contacts for the purpose of sex rather than romance and pursue multiple sexual partnerships.

“In contrast, women and girls are expected to desire romance over sex, value monogamy, and ‘gatekeep’ male sexual advances within committed relationships. A sexual double standard then arises because women and girls who violate traditional sexual scripts and have casual and/or multiple sexual partnerships are socially stigmatized, whereas men and boys performing similar behaviors are rewarded for achieving masculine ideals.”

Kreager thinks boys and girls reinforce traditional gender scripts at school.

“[The] pattern suggests that other boys are the peers that police social norms when it comes to masculinity, whereas girls receive strong messages about gender-appropriate sexual behavior from boys and girls,” Kreager explained. “It is not surprising that girls do not punish boys for ‘making out,’ as this behavior is rewarding for girls both socially and physically.

“However, there is somewhat of a paradox for boys stigmatizing girls who have sex because these boys are punishing girls for behavior that benefits boys both socially and sexually. We believe one reason for this is that only a small minority of boys have such sexual access, so those who do not have sex negatively define the girls who are having sex.”

“During early adolescence,” Kreager noted, “peer evaluations of initial sexual behaviors and virginity loss are likely to have large and lasting impacts on later sexual adjustment.”

By Cheryl Bretton

“Female Viagra” Flibanserin Is Completely Different From Male Viagra

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Flibanserin requires a whole new understanding of “Viagra” for those who are familiar with the male Viagra sildenafil. While sildenafil acts specifically on the penis, and only acts when a man is aroused — it does nothing to arouse the man itself — flibanserin is completely different.

The “pink pill” does not work on the groin. Although not completely understood, it is thought to work on the brain, increasing desire rather than allowing body parts to function optimally.

Some scientists believe that some individuals who have little or no feelings of sexual desire may have an imbalance of excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmitters, and so neural activity is not controlled in ways that promote sexual arousal.

Flibanserin increases certain chemicals in the brain while blocking others. This effects an increase in mood chemicals that are considered to be associated with sexual desire.

Another difference between the two drugs is that sildenafil can be taken when needed and lasts 2-4 hours. Flibanserin needs to be taken every day to work.

A third difference is efficacy: men with erectile dysfunction achieve erections 67 – 89 percent of the time with Viagra compared to 27 – 35 percent when taking placebos, and the chance of a man who has taken sildenafil achieving successful sexual intercourse roughly doubles from 35 percent to 69 percent.

The efficacy of flibanserin is only known from tests in which women were found to have an average of one extra sexually satisfying experience every 28 to 56 days (yes, one extra every month or two).

Both drugs have undesirable side effects.

The side-effects of sildenifil can include dizziness, headache, flushing and upset stomach. Also, some men experience increased sensitivity to light, blurred vision, and color blindness to blue and green.

Flibanserin also has several undesirable side-effects: marked sedation, sleepiness and fatigue, which side-effects are made worse if a woman drinks alcohol or takes medication that alters the metabolism of the drug.

By Cheryl Bretton

Herpes Test For $9 Approved By FDA

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The FDA has fast-tracked a new inexpensive finger-stick test for herpes, as well as a processing system for the test.

The FDA cleared the test under its expedited 510(s) regulatory pathway for low- to moderate-risk devices that are similar to products already on the market.

The $9 test was developed by Theranos, a Palo Alto, California company that has a history of making tests at prices lower that Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates, but the herpes test is Theranos’ first FDA cleared device.

Tests of this kind do not generally require FDA approval before being sold, but Theranos submitted its test for premarket review because it “wanted to remain deeply committed to ensuring that [its] systems and … laboratory-developed tests are of the highest quality …” according to Theranos’ CEO Elizabeth Holmes.

Theranos was criticized earlier this year for carrying out “stealth research” — keeping its data under wraps and unavailable for peer-review by journals.

The device, which tests for herpes simplex virus 1, works like most finger-stick tests. The user pricks their finger with a pin attached to a processor which provides a positive or negative reading. The main health benefit of Theranos’ test is one of accessibility: low cost.

Herpes simplex virus 1 is carried by 40 – 60 percent of high socioeconomic populations and 70 – 80 percent of low socioeconomic populations. The most common symptom is blisters that develop on or around the mouth or, less commonly, other areas of the body, which form ulcers when they rupture, during which time the “cold sore” is contagious.

By Cheryl Bretton

Seniors Get A Free Checkup Every Year Under Obamacare, And It Includes Tests For Several Conditions

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Obamacare has several provisions that effect seniors specifically, including free annual visits and lower prescription costs, as well as special services to keep seniors from being cheated in fraudulent health care scams. What seniors need to know about their free yearly checkup and the free tests that come with it was recently explained by AARP.

The area of health care reform that covers seniors is Medicare, and it provides for Americans aged 65 and older.

Under Medicare, seniors are entitled to a yearly wellness visit free. This free visit is intended so that older Americans can consult their doctor and develop and maintain a plan just for them to stay healthy.

To use this service, seniors are advised to call their doctor’s office and say, “I would like to schedule my free annual wellness benefit,” according to the American Association of Retired Persons’s (AARP) vice president for health, education and outreach Nicole Duritz.

The yearly visit includes free screenings for cholesterol and diabetes, as well as consultation about the patient’s diet.

During this visit, seniors can expect to have their blood pressure checked and be asked questions about their medications, as well as how they have been feeling. Doctors may recommend changes to dosages, flu or tetanus shots, a mammography or colonoscopy (both of which are free under Obamacare), or another procedure.

Seniors are still advised to ask and make sure about who is covering the costs for anything done at the clinic or hospital, according to Duritz, who warned that it may make a difference if the tests are conducted during the free yearly visit or are scheduled for a later visit. The receptionist who handles the scheduling can also answer these types of questions, Duritz noted.

There are other considerations about medical costs as well, Duritz said. For example, if something is discovered during a colonoscopy, during which procedure the patient is sedated, how will the doctor proceed? If the doctor will remove the polyp during that procedure, there will be bill for that removal. These are things seniors are advised to consider and ask their doctors about before anything is undertaken.

Blog by Cheryl Bretton

25 US States Have Lice Resistant To Over-The-Counter Treatments

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According to researchers who tested 30 US states, head lice populations in the majority are now resistant to over-the-counter pesticides commonly recommended by doctors and schools.

“If you use a chemical over and over, these little creatures will eventually develop resistance,” said Dr. Kyong Yoon, a lead researcher on the study. “So we have to think before we use a treatment.”

Wide use of the main ingredient in many head lice treatments, pyrethoids, has caused a genetic change in many US lice populations, the researchers found.

“We are the first group to collect lice samples from a large number of populations across the U.S.,” Yoon said.

“What we found was that 104 out of the 109 lice populations we tested had high levels of gene mutations, which have been linked to resistance to pyrethroids.”

The mutations took place in a trio of genes linked together under the term “knock-down resistence,” or kdr, which have been known to scientists for decades from crop insecticide research. When kdr mutations take place, the nervous system, which is targeted by insecticides, is desensitized.

“The good news is head lice don’t carry disease. They’re more a nuisance than anything else.”

California, Texas, Maine, and Florida head lice have the highest degree of pyrethroid-resistence — they had all three genetic mutations. There was only one state of the 30 tested where pyrethoid-based treatments would still be highly effective: Michigan.

Why Michigan’s head lice had not developed resistance will be the matter of future research.

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Kdr resistant lice were found in the states colored pink

In light of the discovery, Yoon and his colleagues recommend using other treatment options for dealing with head lice. Currently though, many of those options are only available by prescription.

The research will be presented along with 9,000 other developments at the upcoming American Chemical Society meeting in Boston.

By Cheryl Bretton

Know Your Fats: Trans Linked To Death And Heart Disease, Saturated Not

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Not all fats are equal, according to research by a McMaster University team. Some fats are linked to death, heart disease, stroke, and Type 2 diabetes, while other fats are not associated with these health conditions at all. The issue is not as simple as a line between healthy and unhealthy fats, however, as lead author Dr. Russel de Souza explained.

“Fats should not be considered as one entire group of food,” de Souza told The Speaker.

“We have known for many years that different types of fat have different health effects. Fats that are liquid at room temperature, like olive oil, or canola oil, or those hidden away in nuts — contain essential fats that the body needs for growth and development. Saturated fat, which is solid at room temperature, like butter, behaves differently. Trans fat, which is a liquid fat that has been made solid in a food lab, behaves differently still.

De Souza and his fellow researchers at McMaster University, where de Souza is an assistant professor in the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, analysed 50 studies, seeking for correlations between trans and saturated fats and health outcomes.

The team’s findings, which were published in the British Medical Journal, pointed to the danger of consuming trans fat. Trans fat, de Souza explained, has no health benefits but poses real heart health risks.

Trans fats is associated with a 34 percent increase in death overall, and more specifically a 28 percent increased risk of death from heart disease and a 21 percent increase heart disease risk.

The evidence for saturated fat is so far not conclusive enough for medical professionals to give a certain recommendation. A tentative one, though, was provided by de Souza, who advised that even though saturated fats were not associated with coronary heart disease, diabetes or stroke, many foods high is saturated fat, such as hamburgers, hot dogs, and higher-fat milks, have been shown by research to increase cancer risk.

Health guidelines for dangerous trans fat limit consumption to less than one percent of energy. For saturated fats, the current recommended limit is less than 10 percent.

De Souza pointed out that there were very healthy options to the unhealthy fats — as well as the white flour and sugar commonly used as fat substitutes — in the foods people buy. In particular, de Souza suggested nuts, seeds and olive oils as healthier choices when it came to fats. Some diets, he said, already comply with these recommendations.

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Dr. Russel de Souza

“The whole diet matters. Dietary patterns consistently associated with good health, such as Mediterranean diets, plant-based diets, or the DASH diet, tend to be low in saturated fat, but their healthfulness is not due solely to the fact that they are low in saturated fat — it’s likely because they combine a number of foods that are highly nutritious, such as whole grains, fruits, legumes, vegetable, and nuts; and avoid foods that contain refined starch and sugar and processed trans fats.”

The importance of the study, which confirmed five previous coronary heart disease studies, lies largely in the evidence that, contrary to what is commonly advised in popular dietary information, saturated fats are not the cause of increased death and heart disease, but trans fats definitely are.

“It’s important to remember that not all fats are equal,” stated de Souza. “And there may be important differences in the health effects of saturated fats from different foods.”

By Cheryl Bretton

Quasicrystal Growth Observed For First Time Under Microscope

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Quasicrystals in the act of growing have for the first time been recorded by Japanese researchers using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, answering a mechanical dilemma of chemistry with an “error-and-correction” observation.

“For the first time, we succeeded in observing the quasicrystal growth directly,” University of Tokyo’s Dr. Keiichi Edagawa told The Speaker. “By the direct observation, we obtained [a] picture of formation.”

The researchers heated a two-dimensional quasicrystal sample of aluminum, nickel, and cobalt (Al70.8Ni19.7Co9.5) at temperatures between 1123 and 1183 Kelvins.

Using HRTEM, the researchers put together a series of images of the sample as the quasicrystals transformed under heat.

The composite video illustrates the researchers’ main finding:
Quasicrystals, at least in the decagonal phase observed, grow according to an “error-and-correction” pattern.

The team observed a quasicrystal grain growing into the space left by another shrinking quasicrystal grain.

The action takes place in the middle of the growing and shrinking grains — a region known as the “growth front.” There, atomic clusters appear as a row of tiles being flipped, breaking the long-range quasiperiodic order of the lattice and resulting in disorder.

However, as more rearrangements take place over time, the disordered clusters correct, sometimes after several rows have grown incorrectly.

Dr. Keichi Edagawa
Dr. Keiichi Edagawa

“Quasicrystals grow with frequent error-and-repair, where the repair process corresponds to the relaxation of so-called phason strain,” Edagawa told us. “No strict local growth rules are at work, which is somewhat different from the ideal growth models previously proposed theoretically.”

What drives the errors and corrections during growth is still not known. Also unknown remains whether the phenomena observed also takes place in other quasicrystal phases.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brnrZv5o_A0

The report, “Experimental Observation of Quasicrystal Growth,” was completed by University of Tokyo and Tohoku University researchers Drs. Keisuke Nagao, Tomoaki Inuzuka, Kazue Nishimoto, and Keiichi Edagawa, and was published online in APS Physics.