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Gum Disease May Raise Cancer Risk

Gum disease may increase the risk of developing cancer, researchers said on Tuesday.

Male health professionals with a history of gum disease in a long-running study had a 14 percent higher overall risk of developing cancer, they said.

"After controlling for smoking and other risk factors, periodontal disease was significantly associated with an increased risk of lung, kidney, pancreatic and hematological (blood) cancers," Dr. Dominique Michaud of the Imperial College London and colleagues wrote in the journal Lancet Oncology.

RESEARCH

Dehydrated Tomatoes May Prevent Prostate Cancer

New research suggests that one specific form of tomatoes — tomato paste made from dehydrated tomatoes — may have the ability to prevent prostate cancer. When mice were fed tomato paste plus FruHis, an organic carbohydrate found in dehydrated tomato products, and then injected with chemicals that cause prostate cancer, the tomato products stopped the development of cancer 90 percent of the time.

“Processing of many edible plants through heating, grinding, mixing, or drying dramatically increases their nutritional value, including their cancer prevention potential,” said Valeri Mossine, Ph.D, research assistant professor of biochemistry at the University of Missouri. “It appears that the greatest protective effect from tomatoes comes by rehydrating tomato powder into tomato paste.”

When researchers added lycopene to FruHis and tested the mixture on cells in virto, cancer growth stopped more than 98 percent of the time!

“Experiments like this suggest that a combination of FruHis and lycopene should be investigated as a potential therapeutic anti-tumor agent, not just a prevention strategy,” said Mossine.

Natural Options for Allergy Sufferers

The drugstore isn’t the only place to turn for allergy help this season. Studies show that natural options can get you back in the sunshine without the side effects.

Seasonal allergies are sensitivities to tree, flower, grass, and other plant pollens, affecting 40 million Americans each year. They leave many in a fog of wheezing, sneezing, runny nose, and itchy, watery eyes; or worse — feeling imprisoned by mood altering headaches, and congestion, and fatigue. Those who dislike the drowsiness, dry-mouth, and “spacey” feeling of traditional medications have natural alternatives.

Butterbur. This European herb effectively controls symptoms of hay fever and grass allergy, according to a recent study in the British Medical Journal, and a 2003 study presented at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology (AAAAI). Swiss researchers revealed one tablet of butterbur four times per day had the effectiveness of a popular antihistamine drug, minus the side effects, according to WebMD.
Acupuncture. This ancient Chinese medical practice stimulates biologically significant points on the body’s surface. It has long been used for preventing and treating disease, injury, or pain by allowing the body to heal naturally and improve function. A study published in the American Journal of Chinese Medicine showed that of 26 hay fever patients, acupuncture reduced symptoms in all 26. A study of 72 people showed symptoms eliminated in more that half after 2 treatments, with no side effects.
Yoga. Yoga postures, pranayama (breath control), relaxation and meditation are powerful tools in stimulating or calming the immune system response, according to Jeff Midgow, M.D. at www.yogasite.com. He explains, “increased allergy symptoms indicate your immune system working overtime. Through relaxation, the nervous system tells the immune system to settle down and stop attacking foreign bodies. When the immune system backs off, inflammation and mucus decrease and symptoms diminish.”
Hypnotherapy. A Swiss study of 40 patients over 2 years showed interesting results. The researchers found that simply focusing one’s thoughts on an allergen-free environment through self-hypnosis reduced symptoms of hay fever by one-third.
Diet. Experts say eating and avoiding certain foods can bring relief. Dishes with cayenne pepper, onion, garlic, hot ginger, and fenugreek, can thin mucous secretions and clear nasal passages. If you have ragweed or other weed pollen allergies, Clifford Bassett, MD, told WebMD, “avoid eating melon, banana, cucumber, sunflower seeds, chamomile, and Echinacea,” which exacerbates symptoms.

Got Vegetables? Cooking Them for Health and Taste

Everyone knows vegetables are good for you, having the ability to stave off everything from heart disease to diabetes to cancer. But the way they’re prepared — or not prepared — has a bearing on how many nutrients can actually be used by our bodies. And there’s always the problem, of course, of getting them down our gullets in the first place. Here’s the skinny on how to cook them and consume them, and perhaps persuade our loved ones to eat them, too.

Cooked or Raw: The popular conception is that raw is always best, but this is often not true. “For fruits and vegetables, a lot of times a little bit of cooking and a little bit of processing actually can be helpful,” said Dr. Steven Clinton, a nutrition researcher in the medical oncology division of Ohio State University. For instance, in the case of the potent antioxidant lycopene, which is a carotenoid present in tomatoes and other red vegetables, cooking breaks down cell walls in tomatoes, releasing the lycopene. Further, cooking tomatoes in olive oil may help the body absorb the lycopene more easily.

However, at the same time that cooking tomatoes releases lycopene, it destroys much of the vitamin C. Another example of a nutritional trade-off is carrots — cooked carrots provide more vitamin A than raw, but raw carrots provide more fiber. The simple answer to these two vegetable nutritional dilemmas and others like them is to eat vegetables both cooked and raw.

How Much is Enough: It’s a lot, especially if you don’t like vegetables, but more on that in a moment. Current guidelines recommend 5 to 13 servings of vegetables a day, which translates to somewhere between about two cups and six cups a day. For someone who consumes about 2,000 calories a day, this means eating nine servings or about four and a half cups a day.

How to Get Everyone, Including Yourself, to Eat Vegetables: Remember George H.W Bush’s comment about broccoli? “I do not like broccoli,” he famously said. “And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I'm President of the United States and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli.” While it may be too late to change the former President’s tastes, it’s never too early to interest your own children in vegetables, according to Julie Menella, a researcher at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. She believes that moms need to eat foods such as broccoli during pregnancy, or barring that, eat them while breast-feeding, since flavors from the mother’s diet are transmitted through amniotic fluid and mother’s milk.

For those of us who have already been weaned, there may still be some hope. While the answer certainly does not lie in French fried potatoes and deep-fried dill pickles, it lies at least in part in adding some perhaps not-so-healthy fats to vegetables, and also in cooking with organic vegetables. Conventional broccoli, for instance, often has an off-taste that is slightly fishy, while fresh organic broccoli that is steamed and served with a little melted butter drizzled over it with a dash of lemon juice can be, if not outrageously delicious, at least palatable to most tastes. According to Dr. Clinton, “Putting on things that make it taste better — spices, a little salt — can enhance your eating experience and make the food taste better, so you’re more likely to eat vegetables more often.”

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Miracle Leaves May Protect Against Liver Damage

Sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) berries are well known for their cholesterol busting properties, but scientists in India say that its leaves are also rich in anti-oxidants and may help ward off liver disease, according to new research due to be published in the Society of Chemical Industry’s (SCI) Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.

Indigineous to the mountainous regions of China and Russia, sea buckthorn has been shown to be rich in vitamin C, vitamin E, flavonoids and essential fatty acids. The leaves are also used to make a tea.

In a clinically controlled study, scientists looked at whether the leaves had any protective effects by testing a group of rats, some of whom were given the leaf extract before being administered with a liver damage agent, carbon tetrachloride (CCI4).

Six groups were looked at in all – group 1 was given a daily dose of saline for 5 days; group 2 received saline for 4 days and on the 5th day was given CCI4; group 3 was given a daily dose of silymarin for 5 days followed by a single dose of CCI4; groups 4, 5 and 6 were given 50, 100 and 200mg of sea buckthorn leaf extract respectively for five days followed by a single dose of CCI4 on the 5th day.

The results showed that the leaf extract appeared to confer a protective mechanism on the liver — the rats given CCI4 minus the leaf extract had sustained significant liver damage compared to the control group that did not receive CCI4. In comparison, liver damage was severely restricted in the rats given leaf extract at 100mg and 200mg and CCI4.

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