Yet another reason to get fit: fewer achoos

A terrific study published recently in the British Journal of Sports Medicine offers a great reason to get fit and stay fit: you will end up with fewer colds, and even when you do get a cold, you will likely have fewer harsh symptoms.

In this study, researchers tracked 1000 people over 12 weeks during the fall and winter.

People who got at least 20 minutes of exercise 5 or more days a week (ad hey, that’s not a lot; it can easily be done in two 10-minute breaks a day) had 40 % fewer sick days than people who didn’t get that level of exercise, and if you spread that over a full cold season, that really is much less time spent warming the chicken soup and making the tea.

Not only that but the most-fit people also complained much less about being sick (that is, their symptoms were likely more manageable) than did the least-fit, and although that may be due in part to a macho attitude on the part of those who are most fit, that is, very fit people do not want to admit that they’re sick, it’s also likely that if you’re fit, you can handle symptoms from a cold much more easily.

Hey, get fit: it raises your immunity, you’re less sick as a consequence, and that will make you – and anyone who has to deal with you – much happier, too.

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A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition studied 1078 HIV-positive expectant African mothers, some whom were supplemented with varying extra doses of vitamin A and/or beta carotene (vitamin A is a very standard supplementation among nursing moms in underdeveloped countries) .

According to these researchers’ findings, expectant women who got the extra beta carotene had an increased level of HIV in their breast milk (the researchers were unable to fully determine the effect of the vitamin A on breast milk HIV levels, although they are presuming that vitamin A supplements also may have raised HIV levels).

Now, clearly, since vitamin A is such an important supplement, it would be vital to re-do this research to determine that there were no other factors to account for these disturbing findings, but if it pans out in further studies, it would be just another indication that yes, there can be downsides and negative consequences, at least for some sub-groups, of using even so-called “natural” therapies, such as vitamins, and that we really need to study these therapies much, much more, especially among sub-groups before issuing recommendations for their use in wider populations (vitamin D supplements for cancer prevention, anyone?)

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Yet another study has linked the ingestion of moderate amounts of alcohol on a regular basis with longer life.

In this study (that’s going to be published in an upcoming issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research but which was made available on-line in an early version), researchers assessed over 1800 current and former alcohol drinkers (this excluded people who had never drunk at all, presumably because some of those chose to be teetotallers because they were already ill, which would have biased the results) for 20 years, and found that moderate drinkers (in this study, those who drank less than 3 glasses of wine a day) lived the longest, that is, moderate alcohol drinkers lived longer than either teetotallers or heavy drinkers.

Which fits in with lots of other research, namely that regular intake of moderate amounts of alcohol is linked to better health.

Caveats include the necessary precaution that a lot is not better than a little, that for some people (10-20 % of the population) alcohol is so toxic that these small benefits do not come even close to outweighing the risks these people run from any alcohol intake, that alcohol is a known carcinogen, and the one that I always stress: moderate alcohol intake is but a small part of an overall healthy lifestyle, and does not for even a moment replace the other vital elements of healthy living.

That said, l’chaim.

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Women who go through menopause early – which for this study was defined as 46-years-old or younger - have an increased risk (roughly double) of suffering a heart attack or stroke compared to their sisters who go through a later menopause.

This conclusion comes from a study of 2500 women, followed for about 8 years, that was presented at a recent meeting of the Endocrine Society.

So what can a woman do about that increased risk?

Well, she shouldn’t take hormone therapy, because hormones did not alter the risk in that study (and as everyone should know by now, in some women, the use of hormone therapy paradoxically raises the risk of heart attack and stroke).

So that leaves the same old, same old: if a woman goes through early menopause, she should be especially careful to modify her other risk factors for heart attack and stroke by not smoking, doing exercise, eating well, and maintaining a healthy weight.

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So the news, according to a widely-hyped study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, is that the condition commonly referred to as “male menopause” does exist, and that’s something that might comfort a lot of people who, for some reason want to believe that there is a male equivalent to that drastic drop in hormones that hits women in midlife.

The bad news for those “male menopause” believers, though, is that this research also claims the condition is quite rare, affecting perhaps 2-3 % of men.

That’s because these researchers took a very narrow view of what would make up a male menopause, namely 3 defined sexual symptoms (erectile dysfunction, reduced sex drive, and decreased frequency of morning erection), and all that accompanied by a marked drop in testosterone levels.

Anything else, says these researchers, especially that nebulous constellation of a drop in energy, sleep problems, and mood alterations, which is the main reason that most aging men are given testosterone therapy (TRT) these days (and it’s a huge and growing market) is not really male menopause and should not, these researchers insist (and I agree with them) be treated with testosterone because we still don’t know the true long-term effects of testosterone therapy (especially its effects on prostate cancer) in men who don’t really need it.

But if anyone thinks that this kind of cool reasoning will have any cooling effect on the huge TRT market, they’re quite mistaken.

Men like going on testosterone and doctors like giving it to them, so this study is very unlikely to put even a sight dent into that huge market.

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Perhaps my greatest claim to fame - OK, OK - my only claim to fame - is my constant insistence that “coffee is a health drink”.

And despite the immense legions of detractors who seem to abhor anything that looks like brown water and which people enjoy consuming, and who conversely, nearly all tend to extol a nearly totally useless liquid like water, the facts are pretty clear, I’m afraid: there are way, way, way more studies showing that coffee has health benefits than studies showing that coffee is detrimental to health in any way.

And two more recent studies should come as body blows to the contra-coffee cranks, but because they refuse to listen (they would be better listeners if they drank coffee, I’m sure), these studies likely won’t do anything to change their minds.

First, a study of 37,000 people from the Netherlands followed for 13 years found that people who drank more than two, but no more than four, cups of coffee a day had a 20% lower risk of heart disease than people who drank no coffee at all (although in this study, people who drank more than 4 cups of Dutch coffee a day had roughly the same risk of heart disease as non-coffee drinkers).

And a second study published in the journal, Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, found that people who drink coffee have fewer head and neck cancers than people who don’t drink coffee, and as in most studies on coffee (although not the one mentioned above), the more coffee people drink, the lower their risk of these malignancies.

If you don’t already drink coffee, I am not about to convince you to start (although . . . )

This info is more for those people who love their regular java juice and are sick of being constantly hounded to give it up: no need to do that because you are in fact, indulging yourself in a health drink.

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I just can’t believe how much interest there is in celiac disease.

For example, when I mentioned this next report on one of my daily news bits on Global TV, I got more email on this than on any other topic I had ever dealt with: clearly, a great many people either are – or think they are – celiacs.

So here’s the report: researchers from Australia report finding the 3 protein fragments in gluten that are most toxic to people with celiac disease, a work that was like looking for a needle in the proverbial haystack, since gluten is known to contain at least 2700 protein fragments.

But, according to these researchers, these 3 fragments account for the majority of immune reactions that occurs in CD (although they actually found 90 fragments that could produce immune responses, but these 3 were most prevalent), and the reason that’s such terrific news, if it’s true, is that this could lead to several important advances.

First, it should be pretty easy to develop a good test for reaction to these fragments, which could then be used as a screening test, and likely a much better screening test than the one currently in use.

Second, and even more important, I think, especially to long-term celiacs like me, is that research can now speed ahead on ways to try to desensitize celiac to these particular fragments, that is, it could be that one day not too long away, a celiac who got desensitization treatment might be able to eat some gluten-rich pastries or bread or even drink some regular beer (made with barley hops, and not with yuck! Rice).

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A fascinating study recently published in the journal, Rheumatology, concluded that not only is alcohol a terrific preventive against rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a regular moderate intake of alcohol can also help ease RA symptoms effectively.

RA is an auto-immune disorder (the body “attacks” its own cells) and like other auto-immune conditions (e.g. Type 1 diabetes, MS, celiac disease), there is no known cause, although it’s thought that in many cases, the immune reaction is set off by some toxic element, such as an infection.

In this study, researchers interviewed 873 people with RA and compared them with 1004 healthy subjects, and they concluded that the more alcohol a person drinks (although it has to be within moderate levels), the lower their risk of developing RA, and in fact, in this study, teetotalers had roughly a 4 times greater risk of developing RA than did people who drank moderate amounts of alcohol regularly.

As well, in people who already had RA, a moderate intake of alcohol helped lessen the severity of their symptoms and inflammation, that is, they not only complained of less pain and swelling than did non-drinkers, but objective tests such as Xrays and blood tests revealed less joint damage and less joint inflammation.

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Not if you want them to minimize their risks of developing asthma, that is.

Read more: Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to eat burgers

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There is a great divide, I think, between doctors on this side of the Atlantic, particularly physicians in the US, and doctors in Europe (especially doctors in the UK), and that divide involves how - and where - we see disease.

Read more: A great warning from the British Thyroid Association

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