19. May 2009 by admin.

    Some vegetable cooking methods may be better than others when it comes to maintaining beneficial antioxidant levels, according to a new study in the Journal of Food Science, published by the Institute of Food Technologists. Results showed that, depending on the vegetable, cooking on a flat metal surface with no oil (griddling) and microwave cooking maintained the highest antioxidant levels.

    Fruits and vegetables are considered to be the major contributors of nutritional antioxidants, which may prevent cancer and other diseases. Because of their high antioxidant levels and low-calorie content, consumers are encouraged to eat several servings of fruits and vegetables daily.

    Researchers examined how various cooking methods affected antioxidant activity by analyzing six cooking methods with 20 vegetables. The six cooking methods were boiling, pressure-cooking, baking, microwaving, griddling and frying. Their findings showed the following:

    • The highest antioxidant loss was observed in cauliflower after boiling and microwaving, peas after boiling, and zucchini after boiling and frying.
    • Green beans, beets, and garlic were found to keep their antioxidant levels after most cooking treatments.
    • The vegetables that increased their antioxidant levels after all cooking methods were green beans (except green beans after boiling), celery and carrots.
    • Artichoke was the only vegetable that kept its high antioxidant level during all the cooking methods.

    Griddle-and microwave-cooking helped maintain the highest levels of antioxidants, produced the lowest losses while pressure-cooking and boiling led to the greatest losses.  In short, water is not the cook’s best friend when it comes to preparing vegetables.
 

    According to a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), most Americans consume more than double the amount of their daily recommended level of sodium. In fact, the study shows that 69.2% of the adult population should consume no more than 1,500 mg/day of sodium, and yet, during 2005–2006, the estimated average intake of sodium for persons in the U.S. was 3,436 mg/day. The 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that adults in general should consume less than 2,300 mg (approximately one teaspoon of salt) of sodium per day. A diet high in sodium increases the risk of having higher blood pressure, a major cause for heart disease and stroke. These diseases are the first and third leading causes of death in the U.S.

    At the American Heart Association’s 49th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention, which took place March 10–14, researchers said that for every gram of salt that Americans reduce in their daily diets, 250,000 fewer new heart disease cases and more than 200,000 fewer deaths could occur over a decade. To estimate the benefit of making small reductions in salt intake, the researchers used the Coronary Heart Disease Policy Model, a computer simulation of heart disease in the U.S. adult population. The researchers used the model to estimate the impact of an immediate reduction of daily salt intake by 0–6 g on the incidence of cardiovascular disease and deaths between 2010–19. In that period, the model suggests that more than 800,000 life-years could be saved for each gram of salt lowered. The researchers found that a 3 g/day reduction in salt intake (about 1,200 mg of sodium) would result in 6% fewer cases of new heart disease, 8% fewer heart attacks, and 3% fewer deaths. Even larger health benefits are projected for African Americans, who are more likely to have high blood pressure and whose blood pressure may be more sensitive to salt. Among African Americans, new heart disease cases would be reduced by 10%, heart attacks by 13%, and deaths by 6%.

    Nationwide, 16 million men and women have heart disease and 5.8 million are estimated to have had a stroke. People who reduce their sodium consumption benefit from improved blood pressure and reduce their risk for developing other serious health problems. Choosing foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, when eating out, asking that foods be prepared without added salt, and reading the nutrition label of foods before purchasing can improve health for all adults.

    Studies suggest that the food industry and those who regulate it could contribute substantially to the health of the nation by achieving even small reductions in the amount of salt in their processed foods.   

    The CDC has commissioned an Institute of Medicine (IOM) study that will outline strategies to reduce sodium consumption to levels recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. This study is expected to be completed by Feb. 2010.
   

    The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said Monday it wants to tap top scientific minds to help improve the plight of small farmers in the developing world.

    The Seattle-based philanthropy announced a $48 million collaboration with the National Science Foundation to fund cutting-edge research on ways to make crops resistant to drought, disease and pests, improve soil quality and tackle a wide range of problems that limit agricultural productivity in Africa and other poor corners of the world.

    Each organization will provide $24 million over five years.

    No kind of science is being held back from being considered in these projects, including genetic engineering.

    Unlike most Gates Foundation programs, those who get grants under the new collaboration will be selected largely through the NSF’s well-established peer review process. The process enlists experts in various fields to review the relative merits of the thousands of grant applications the federal science organization receives every year. The Gates Foundation, which has committed $1.2 billion to programs to help small farmers, also will have a say in grant selection.

    Some people question whether science can solve the problems of famine and poverty among poor farmers until the underlying social and economic conditions responsible for poverty are addressed, say the likelihood is that the NSF/Gates program will make some folks here feel good but not feed many folks over there. 

    JA 
 

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10. May 2009 by admin.

    The terms associated with global warming and climate change turn a lot of people off, as you (regardless of your stance on the issue) probably already knew. Frankly put, global warming prompts many people to think of gay rights and long-haired liberals, neither of which those people are fond of.

    Despite broad agreement among scientists, and even many in the fossil fuels industry, that the planet is warming and that it poses real threats to the land in coastal areas, a recent Pew Research Center survey put it 20th on the list of concerns for Americans (the economy, jobs and terrorism top the list).

    The reason presented in The New York Times recently based on an EcoAmerica poll was when someone thinks of global warming, they think of a politicized, polarized argument. When you say ‘global warming,’ a certain group of Americans think that’s a code word for progressive liberals, gay marriage and other such issues. 

    These people undoubtedly are oblivious to the fact that the ozone layer over the far northern hemisphere — once relatively robust compared to the Antarctic concentrations — would have developed a similar ozone hole by the 2020s if the Montreal Protocol had not limited ozone-depleting substances.

    If 193 nations hadn’t agreed in 1989 to ban the chemicals that eat up the Earth’s protective ozone layer, the world would have been a much different place later this century, with nearly two-thirds of the ozone layer gone and the ozone hole a permanentfixture over Antarctica, a new simulation shows. Sunburns would occur in a matter of minutes and skin cancer-causing radiation would soar.

    Ozone is the Earth’s natural sunscreen, absorbing and blocking most of the incoming ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun and protecting life from the DNA-damaging rays. The gas is naturally created and replenished by a photochemical reaction in the upper atmosphere where UV rays break oxygen molecules (O2) into individual atoms that then recombine into three-part molecules of ozone (O3).

    As it is moved around the globe by upper level winds, ozone is slowly depleted by naturally occurring atmospheric gases. It is a system in natural balance. But chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) — invented in 1928 as refrigerants and as inert, or non-reacting, carriers for chemical sprays — upset that balance.

    Researchers discovered in the 1970s and 1980s that while CFCs are inert at Earth’s surface, they are quite reactive in the stratosphere (6 to 31 miles altitude, or 10 to 50 kilometers), where roughly 90 percent of the planet’s ozone accumulates.

    UV radiation causes CFCs and similar bromine compounds in the stratosphere to break up into elemental chlorine and bromine that readily destroy ozone molecules. Worst of all, such ozone depleting substances can reside for several decades in the stratosphere before breaking down.

    In the 1980s, ozone-depleting substances opened a wintertime “hole” over Antarctica, which served as the impetus for the 1989 Montreal Protocol, which banned CFCs. The United States signed on to the original Montreal Protocol agreement, as did many other countries, including China, India, Iran and Brazil.

    NASA stated the regulation pre-supposed that a lack of action would lead to severe ozone depletion, with consequent severe increases of solar UV radiation levels at the Earth’s surface. A team of NASA scientists used computer simulations to show ‘what might have been’ if Montreal Protocol had never been put in place.

    The team used a computer model that simulates the circulation of the Earth’s atmosphere and takes into account how changing levels of ozone affect that circulation. They increased the emission of CFCs and similar compounds by 3 percent per year, a rate about half the growth rate for the early 1970s. Then they let the simulated world evolve from 1975 to 2065.

    By the simulated year 2020, 17 percent of all ozone is depleted globally, as assessed by a drop in Dobson Units (DU), the unit of measurement used to quantify a given concentration of ozone. An ozone hole starts to form each year over the Arctic, which was once a place of prodigious ozone levels.

    By 2040, in the scenario that is not actually happening, global ozone concentrations fall below 220 DU, the same levels that currently comprise the “hole” over Antarctica. (In 1974, globally averaged ozone was 315 DU.) The UV index in mid-latitude cities reaches 15 around noon on a clear summer day (a UV index of 10 is considered extreme today), giving a perceptible sunburn in about 10 minutes. Over Antarctica, the ozone hole becomes a year-round fixture.

    There very well could be three major migrations in the U.S. this century: out of the Southwest because of drought; away from the coasts, as the sea level rises; and, into the central states, because the jobs created as the new Green infrastructure is developed. Neither of which many of those people will be particularly fond of.

    JA

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1. May 2009 by admin.

    More people live behind bars in the United States than in any other country. One out of every one hundred adults in the United States is incarcerated and more than three times as many African Americans and Latinos live in jails or prisons than college dorms. And it takes a toll on the health of friends and loved ones left behind.

    In the first known study of its kind, University of Michigan researchers found that people with a family member or friend in prison or jail suffer worse physical and mental health and more stress and depressive symptoms than those without a loved one behind bars. Moreover, these symptoms worsen the closer the relationship to the person incarcerated.

    The study results could help explain health disparities between minorities and cacasions, said the U of M School of Public Health, as African Americans are more likely to know someone in prison and to feel closer to the person incarcerated than cacasions do.

    Forty-nine percent of African Americans in the study report having a friend or relative in prison during the past five years, compared to twenty percent of caucasions, and accordingly, those who knew someone in prison had 40 percent more days where poor physical health interfered with their usual activities, including work, and 54 percent more days where poor mental or emotional health interfered with these activities.

    Others have examined the health effects of incarceration on inmates and a few studies have investigated the health of children whose mothers are in prison, but those studies focused on people already in the system. This study took a representative sample of people in the community and asked them whether they had a friend or relative incarcerated in the last five years. 

    Using an array of known health predictors as control variables, the researchers considered whether a person smoked tobacco, drank alcohol heavily, was overweight or obese, or had adequate nutrition and physical exercise. 

    The study consisted of 1,288 adults from Flint, Mich., an urban area with high unemployment and crime rates, and surrounding areas of Genesee County. In the study, 67 percent of respondents were caucasion and 26 percent were African American.

    The study demonstrated that incarceration is not only enormously expensive economically, it also has public health costs that should be taken into consideration. In the last 30 years or so, the country has seen a more and more punitive system, one where judges no longer have discretion for sentencing.

    Many hundreds of current and former police officers and other criminal justice practitioners have witnessed firsthand the futility and manifold injustices of the drug war, and their professional experiences have led them to believe it is the prohibition of drugs that leads inexorably to high rates of death, disease, crime, and addiction.

    Booze vs. pot. How do the effects of these two drugs stack up against specific health and public safety factors?

    Alcohol-related traffic accidents claim approximately 14,000 lives each year, down significantly from 20 or 30 years ago (attributed to improved education and enforcement). Figures for THC-related traffic fatalities are elusive, especially since alcohol is almost always present in the blood as well, and since the numbers of “marijuana-only” traffic fatalities are so small. But evidence from studies, including laboratory simulations, feeds the stereotype that those under the influence of canniboids tend to (1) be more aware of their impaired psychomotor skills, and (2) drive well below the speed limit. Those under the influence of alcohol are much more likely to be clueless or defiant about their condition, and to speed up and drive recklessly.

    Hundreds of alcohol overdose deaths occur annually. There has never been a single recorded marijuana OD fatality.

    According to the American Public Health Association, excessive alcohol consumption is the third leading cause of death in this country. APHA pegs the negative economic impact of extreme drinking at $150 billion a year. There have been no documented cases of lung cancer in a marijuana-only smoker, nor has pot been scientifically linked to any type of cancer. Alcohol abuse contributes to a multitude of long-term negative health consequences, notably cirrhosis of the liver and a variety of cancers.

    While a small quantity, taken daily, is being touted for its salutary health effects, alcohol is one of the worst drugs one can take for pain management, marijuana one of the best.

    Alcohol contributes to acts of violence; marijuana reduces aggression. In approximately three million cases of reported violent crimes last year, the offender had been drinking. This is particularly true in cases of domestic violence, sexual assault, and date rape. Marijuana use, in and of itself, is absent from both crime reports and the scientific literature. There is simply no link to be made.
                   

     Over the past four years police officers throughout the U.S. (and in Canada)  were asked two questions. When’s the last time you had to fight someone under the influence of marijuana? The officers paused and reflected. Then their eyes widen as they realized that in their five or fifteen or thirty years on the job they have never had to fight a marijuana user. Then they were asked: When’s the last time you had to fight a drunk? They look at their watches.

    All of which begs the question. If one of these two drugs is implicated in dire health effects, high mortality rates, and physical violence–and the other is not–what are we to make of our nation’s marijuana laws? Or alcohol laws, for that matter.

    Anybody out there want to launch a campaign for the re-prohibition of alcohol? Didn’t think so. The answer, of course, is responsible drinking. Marijuana smokers, for their part, have already shown (apart from that little matter known as the law) greater responsibility in their choice of drugs than those who choose alcohol.

    JA

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