World’s Oldest Cooked Cereal Was Instant

November 26, 2008

European diners around 8,000 years ago could enjoy a bowl of instant wheat cereal that, aside from uneven cooking and maybe a few extra lumps, wasn’t very different from hot wheat cereals served today, suggests a new study that describes the world’s oldest known cooked cereal.

Dating from between 5920 to 5730 B.C., the ancient cereal consisted of parboiled bulgur wheat that Early Neolithic Bulgarians could refresh in minutes with hot water.

"People boiled the grain, dried it, removed the bran and ground it into coarse particles," lead author Soultana-Maria Valamoti told Discovery News.

Read the complete article by Jennifer Viegas at Discovery.com…

Keywords: cereal, wheat, instant

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Cranberry marinade makes turkeys safer

November 26, 2008

Study finds cooking with the juice kills common foodborne pathogens

Roast turkey and cranberry sauce is a classic combination, but home chefs would do well to also cook their turkey with cranberry juice, which a new study has just determined kills common food-borne pathogens.

The study is the first ever to document the antibacterial effects of the American cranberry against the pathogens Escherichia coli, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella and Staphylococcus aureus. All can cause illnesses that may lead to death, such as the deadly outbreak of E.coli-tainted spinach a few years ago.

Turkey and other poultry, if not cooked properly, can sometimes carry such stomach-churning pathogens that can bring unwanted bacterial guests to holiday dinner tables.

Lead author Vivian Chi-Hua Wu told Discovery News that it’s "recommended to cook turkey to an internal temperature of 180 degrees Fahrenheit (if the turkey is stuffed, the temperature of the stuffing should be 165 degrees Fahrenheit) to ensure the elimination of possible pathogen contamination."

Read the complete article by Jennifer Viegas at Discovery.com…

Keywords: food poisoning, e coli, listeria, salmonella, staph

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Patient-led drug trials defy medical bureaucracy

November 26, 2008

ALS sufferers share health details in hopes of finding their own treatment

Until last year, Alan Felzer was an energetic engineering professor who took the stairs to his classes two steps at a time. Now the 64-year-old grandfather sits strapped to a wheelchair, able to move little but his left hand, his voice a near-whisper.

Felzer suffers from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The fatal neurological disorder steals the body’s ability to move, speak and ultimately to breathe. But rather than succumb to despair along with his illness, Felzer turned to the Web to become his own medical researcher — and his own guinea pig.

Dozens of ALS patients are testing treatments on their own without waiting on the slow pace of medical research. They are part of an emerging group of patients willing to share intimate health details on the Web in hopes of making their own medical discoveries.

Read the complete article at MSNBC.com…

Keywords: ALS, Lou Gehrig’s, lithium, drug trial, clinical trial

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Fish Shellfish Top CSPI Outbreak List

November 25, 2008

b>As Thanksgiving Approaches, Group Urges Obama Administration to Make Food Safety Top Priority/b>br/>WASHINGTON—Outbreaks involving produce, including E. coli on spinach, and Salmonella on jalapeno peppers and fresh tomatoes grabbed headlines this year and last. But when you look at relative rates of outbreak-related illnesses caused by various foods, fish and shellfish turn out to cause more sicknesses per bite than any other category. Turkey is linked to three times as many illnesses as chicken—no doubt in part because many harried home cooks might not as be as familiar with how to safely thaw and cook a whole big bird, or to store the leftovers

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Mind over Matters Through Meditation

November 20, 2008

Setting aside as little as three minutes a day can help you stay cool when everyone around you is losing it.

For years the research results have been pouring in: Anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, and heart disease respond to meditation. The latest study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that a practice that incorporates mindfulness meditation can boost attentiveness and improve mood while lowering stress in less than a week. After just five days of 20-minute sessions, students who meditated outscored their peers (who were practicing a form of guided relaxation) on tests of attention—and reported feeling less angry, anxious, and depressed. Plus, when put in a grueling academic testing situation, the newly minted meditators kept their cool while the others watched their stress levels soar.

Read the complete article by Catherine Guthrie at Oprah.com …

A 3-Minute Dose of Mindfulness

1. In a quiet room, stand, sit upright, or lie on cushioned surface
2. Close your eyes and, for a minute or so, notice what’s happening in your body. Do you feel any heaviness? Register any movements you might be making.
3. Breathe slowly and deeply for another minute. As you exhale, remember that you’re not trying to change or do anything. Don’t worry about the various thoughts drifting through your mind.
4. Listen to the sounds around you. Rather than trying to identify each one, just listen. Notice the silences between each sound. Again, take notice of how your body feels, and then slowly open your eyes.

Download guided meditations from the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center website at www.marc.ucla.edu  (click on Mindful Meditations) or see the University of Massachusetts Medical School’s Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society web site at www.umassmed.edu/cfm

Keywords: meditation, mindfulness

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Longer Tests on Lab Animals Urged for Potential Carcinogens

November 17, 2008

b>/b>br/>WASHINGTON— Current government regulatory agencies typically require that industrial chemicals, including food additives and environmental pollutants, be administered to lab rodents beginning shortly after birth and ending after two years to test whether those substances might cause cancer in humans. But a new peer-reviewed paper published in Environmental Health Perspectives argues that those tests sometimes understate human risks and should start in utero and continue as long as three years, the approximate life spans of rats and mice. The longer, more sensitive tests would provide a more reliable picture of the risk that various chemicals pose to humans throughout their lifespan, the authors say. The authors charged that practically all rodent tests submitted to regulatory agencies are insufficiently sensitive.

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How to Meditate…The Easy Way (VIDEO)

November 15, 2008

Meditation can be intimidating. Sitting there, doing nothing, just breathing can be trickier than it sounds. It may feel strange, uncomfortable, or even put you to sleep. Distractions try their best to pester you. Thoughts of the weekend, family, work, finances, politics, what’s for dinner, all invade your aspiring-to-be-still mind. You start to fidget, adjusting your seat, clothes, and hair, anything to have something to do. Meditation can be like a battle with yourself, your thoughts, your body. But if you stick with the uncomfortable moments, they will start to fade away and cool things will happen.

Any Time, Any Place, Any Outfit. You can sit and breathe anywhere. You don’t have to be in your best yoga outfit sitting on your yoga mat to do it. Take a couple minutes first thing in the morning, at work, at home, before bed, whatever works for you.

Conscious Breathing. That’s all meditation is really, paying attention to your breath. Focus on watching your breath coming in and going out and you’ll be doing a whole lot of good.

No Pressure. Try sitting first for only a couple minutes and build slowly from there. There is no rush. This is something that you can do your whole life. Meditation will sharpen your senses and your awareness. Everything you ever wanted to know is right there waiting for you.

Read the complete article by Tara Stiles at huffingtonpost.com…

Keywords: meditation

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WHO Fracture Risk Assessment Tool

November 13, 2008

The FRAX^® tool has been developed by WHO to evaluate fracture risk of patients.  It is based on individual patient models that integrate the risks associated with clinical risk factors as well as bone mineral density (BMD) at the femoral neck.

The FRAX^® models have been developed from studying population-based cohorts from Europe, North America, Asia and Australia.  In their most sophisticated form, the FRAX^® tool is computer-driven and is available on this site.  Several simplified paper versions, based on the number of risk factors are also available, and can be downloaded for office use.

The FRAX^® algorithms give the 10-year probability of fracture.  The output is a 10-year probability of hip fracture and the 10-year probability of a major osteoporotic fracture (clinical spine, forearm, hip or shoulder fracture).

Read the complete article, use the assessment tool…

Keywords: osteoporosis, bone density

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A Leap of Faith

November 13, 2008

As a physician, Kent Sepkowitz is a rational man of science. But a question posed by a patient’s mother revealed that science isn’t everything.

I recently helped care for a child with leukemia. He was a sweet, thin-boned kid, hairless and pale from chemotherapy, with dark Lillian Gish eyelids. He and his family were Orthodox Jews and he wore a yarmulke, holding his neck perfectly still so the cap wouldn’t slide off his bald head.

Read the complete article by Kent Sepkowitz at oprah.com…

Keywords: leukemia, science, faith, orthodox, Jew, cancer, God

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