Posts Tagged ‘healthy’
Surveys reveal low folic acid awareness
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
Awareness of the benefits of folic acid in preventing birth defects remains low among American women, according to two new reports.
Conducted by The Gallup Organization and Schulman, Ronca & Bucuvalas Inc (SRBI), the recent surveys indicate there is still room for education efforts and continued promotion of folic acid consumption.
The findings were highlighted this week as part of the Folic Acid Awareness Week, which runs from January 7 to 13, 2008.
Folate, which is found in foods such as green leafy vegetables, chick peas and lentils, has been linked by an overwhelming body of evidence to a reduced rate of a specific birth defect that affected the development of the spinal cord and central nervous system.
This connection led to the 1998 introduction of public health measures in the US and Canada, where all grain products are fortified with folic acid - the synthetic, bioavailable form of folate.
Preliminary evidence indicates that the measure is having an effect with a reported reduction in the incidence of neural tube defects (NTD) in the US of 26 percent.
Gallup: low supplement intake
Nevertheless, when it comes to actually seeking out folic acid supplementation, the majority of women report taking no action.
According to the 2007 Gullup Organization survey, which was funded by the government body Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 40 percent of women reported taking daily supplements containing folic acid in 2007.
This percentage is equal to that observed in 2004, and is an increase from 33 percent in 2005 and 32 percent in 2003, said Gullup, which has been conducting the survey annually since 2003.
Based on telephone interviews with around 2,000 women in June last year, the survey results also revealed that folic acid consumption varied greatly according to age.
Approximately 61 percent of women aged 18-24 reported being aware of
folic acid, compared with 87 percent of women aged 25-34 and 89 percent of women aged 35-45 years.
Additionally, women aged 18-24 years were less knowledgeable about the need for folic acid consumption before pregnancy (6 percent), compared with women aged 35-45 years (16 percent).
“These findings warrant the continued promotion of folic acid consumption among all women of childbearing age and especially among women aged 18-24 years,” said CDC last week.
SRBI: women don’t understand what’s in bread
According to the SRBI survey, which was based on telephone interviews with 600 women in October 2007, most women have misleading perceptions of the folic acid content of bread.
The survey found that two-thirds of women believe that whole wheat and multigrain breads contain the most folic acid.
Only 12 percent perceive enriched white bread as having high levels of folic acid, despite the fact that it actually has twice as much folic acid as whole grain or whole wheat bread.
According to Judi Adams, president of the Grain Foods Foundation, which commissioned the survey, the results demonstrate the need for women to better understand how to get specific nutrients through their diet.
Study supports pomegranate extract’s safety
Sunday, May 18th, 2008An ellagitannin-rich pomegranate extract is safe and effective in enhancing the antioxidant profile in humans, scientists have reported.
Two studies, both in overweight subjects, confirmed the safety of the ellagitannin-rich pomegranate extract, with no adverse effects reports, and showed a significant reduction in thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) in the blood linked with cardiovascular disease risk.
The findings were published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
According to the authors, formulations containing pomegranate extracts are commercially available in dietary supplements, but, until now, no studies have reported the safety of such extracts in human subjects.
Pomegranate, a rich source of antioxidants, has been linked to improved heart health, but a growing body of science indicates the fruit protect against prostate cancer and slowing cartilage loss in arthritis.
It is these antioxidants, and particularly ellagitannin compounds like punicalagins and punicalins, which accounts for about half of the fruit’s antioxidant ability, that are reportedly behind the proposed health benefits.
Lead author David Heber from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in collaboration with researchers from the University of Colorado and Pom Wonderful, recruited 64 overweight individuals with increased waist size to take part in the safety study, and a further 22 overweight subjects for the study to measure the effects on TBARS.
Overweight, but otherwise healthy, subjects were chosen because excess abdominal fat has been associated with increased inflammation and oxidative stress, said the researchers.
The first of the two pilot clinical studies assigned the 64 to receive either one or two capsules per day giving daily extract doses of 710 mg (435 mg of gallic acid equivalents, GAEs) or 1420 mg (870 mg of GAEs), respectively, and placebo. The commercially available POMx supplement was used (Pom Wonderful, California).
No major adverse effects were reported during the 30 days. Some minor adverse events were reported but none deemed related to the supplement. Moreover, no significant changes occurred in measures of complete blood count (CBC), chemistry, and urinalysis.
In the second trial, 22 subjects received two POMx capsules providing 1000 mg of extracts per day (610 mg of GAEs). Heber and co-workers report
The researchers did note an increase in body weight among the subjects, however. This could be attributed to the timing of the study, which coincided with end of autumn and several important US holidays.
A significant decrease of 0.13 micromoles in TBARS was observed in these subjects, they report. TBARS is considered an important biomarker for oxidative stress, and is strongly linked to cardiovascular events.
“Further studies are underway to document the effects of this supplement in subjects with type 2 diabetes, known to have a more marked increase in oxidant stress,” wrote the authors.
“This research was part of POMx’s new dietary ingredient (NDI) safety submission, which to the best of our knowledge is currently the only pomegranate dietary supplement to be submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA),” They added.
Source: Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
Green tea extracts may stop Parkinson’s: study says
Sunday, May 18th, 2008
The antioxidant effects of green tea polyphenols may protect neurons against the detrimental effects of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and nitric oxide (NO), thereby offering potential benefits for Parkinson’s, says new research from China.
The study, conducted in rats, looked at the effects of green tea polyphenols (GTP) on inhibiting the death of neurons induced by the neurotoxin 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA).
The results are published in the journal Biological Psychiatry.
Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative condition affecting movement and balance in more than one million Americans each year, a figure expected to rise due to ageing populations.
According to background information in the article, the disease is caused by an unrelenting process of cell death affecting the neurons containing pigmented dopamine (DA).
Researchers, led by Baolu Zhao from the Institute of Biophysics, Academia Sinica, Beijing, randomly assigned male Sprague-Dawley rats to one of six groups: control-fed only; control-fed plus 6-OHDA; GTP (150 mg/kg/day) plus 6-OHDA; GTP (450 mg/kg/day) plus 6-OHDA; GTP (150 mg/kg/day) only; GTP (450 mg/kg/day) only.
Green tea contains between 30 and 40 per cent of water-extractable polyphenols, while black tea (green tea that has been oxidized by fermentation) contains between 3 and 10 per cent. Oolong tea is semi-fermented tea and is somewhere between green and black tea.
The four primary polyphenols found in fresh tealeaves are epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), epigallocatechin (EGC), epicatechin gallate (ECG), and epicatechin (EC).
The mix used in this new study contained 50 per cent EGCG, 22 per cent ECG, 18 per cent EGC, and 10 per cent EC (Sichuan Full-green Biology Technology).
Zhao and co-workers report that the green tea polyphenols protected against the toxic effects of 6-OHDA, with the higher dose producing a higher protective effect. Most notable, were the inhibition of increases in ROS and NO levels, and subsequent lipid peroxidation.
“This study shows that, in vivo, GTP partially protected dopaminergic neurons (3.7 times more remaining neuron in GTP-treated than vehicle-treated animals) from 6-OHDA-induced cell death through ROS-NO pathway,” wrote the researchers.
Commenting independently on the study, John Krystal, editor of Biological Psychiatry and affiliated with both Yale University School of Medicine and the VA Connecticut Healthcare System said: “If green tea consumption can be shown to have meaningful neuroprotective actions in patients, this would be an extremely important advance.”
He added a note of caution however, saying that many health-related benefits have been reported for a wide variety of naturally-occurring substances with many being contradicted by subsequent clinical trials. This is the case with St. John’s Wort and Ginko Biloba, he said.