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Item Source: Telegraph
The effects of Alzheimer's disease could be reversed by drinking just a few cups of coffee a day, new research suggests.
Published: 11:00PM BST 05 Jul 2009
Dr Gary Arendash, an American neuroscientist, claims to have uncovered evidence that caffeine not only helps to stave off the disease but can treat it.
A key aspect of Alzheimer's is sticky clumps of an abnormal protein in the brain called beta amyloid plaques.
Mice with a rodent equivalent of the disease showed a 50 per cent reduction in levels of amyloid protein in their brains after the scientists added caffeine to their drinking water.
At the end of the two-month study, the caffeine-drinking mice performed far better on tests of memory and thinking than mice given only water. Their memories were as sharp as those of healthy older mice without dementia.
Humans receiving an equivalent dose for their body weight would be consuming 500 milligrams of caffeine a day, equivalent to five cups of ordinary coffee.
The same amount of caffeine can be obtained by drinking two cups of strong coffee, 14 cups of tea, or 20 cola drinks.
Dr Arendash, who led the study at the Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Centre (ADRC) in Tampa, said: "The new findings provide evidence that caffeine could be a viable 'treatment' for established Alzheimer's disease, and not simply a protective strategy.
"That's important because caffeine is a safe drug for most people. It easily enters the brain, and it appears to directly affect the disease process."
Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia, which affects around 700,000 people in the UK. That figure is expected to double by 2025.
It has been estimated that dementia costs the UK a total of £17 billion a year.
Rebecca Wood, chief executive of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, said: "It is too early to say whether drinking coffee or taking caffeine supplements will help people with Alzheimer's.
"With no cure yet, research into treatments that could help people with Alzheimer's is vital."
Neil Hunt, chief executive of the Alzheimer's Society, said: "Much more research is needed to determine whether drinking coffee has the same impact in people."
Item Source: Reuters (London)
The anti-cancer properties of carrots are enhanced 25 percent if they are cooked whole rather than chopped up beforehand, a study has found.
They taste better too, according to scientists at Newcastle University, because more of their sugar is retained.
"Chopping up your carrots increases the surface area so more of the nutrients leach out into the water while they are cooked," said lead researcher Dr Kirsten Brandt.
"By cooking them whole and chopping them up afterwards, you are locking in both taste and nutrients."
Brandt, along with colleagues at the University of Denmark, discovered the health benefits of the anti-cancer substance falcarinol in carrots four years ago.
A blind taste test they conducted among 100 people also found 80 percent preferred the taste of whole-cooked carrots.
(Reporting by Mandalena Munkonge; Editing by Steve Addison)
Item Source: The Independant
We spend millions on them, yet mounting scientific evidence says they offer few benefits – and may even shorten our lives. So are any worth taking? Rob Sharp reports
Capsules of concern: far from being healthy, many vitamin supplements may actually be dangerous to health
Next time you visit your local chemist, pause in the aisle containing vitamin supplements, and take in the quantities and varieties of pills and potions on offer. Tiny boxes and bottles stretch as far as the eye can see, affirming that even in these cash-strapped times, the gorging of such "miracle cures" continues to be big business.
But as the UK population continues to shell out millions annually on vitamin supplements, the scientific evidence supporting their efficacy is waning. Earlier this month, US scientists discovered that taking vitamins A and E does not lower your risk of cancer, one of the supposed major benefits of taking them.
"There have been a number of previous studies that have suggested that vitamin E and vitamin C might be important in the prevention of cancer," says Dr Howard Sesso, one of those involved in the recent research. "The lack of an effect that we observe for vitamin E or C on cancer does convince us that these particular doses that we tested really have no role for recommendation for cancer prevention," continues the academic. The clinical trials he oversaw involved nearly 15,000 American men.
Another recent study, part-funded by German chemicals firm BASF, whose products include vitamins, working in association with Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, discovered that there were no significant effects on rates of heart disease after taking vitamins E and C. Two months ago, a major trial studying whether vitamin E and selenium (which, among other things, helps regulate hormone metabolism in the thyroid) could lower a man's risk of prostate cancer ended amid worries that such treatments may do more harm than good. As if that were not enough, doctors at New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre have warned that vitamin C seems to protect not only healthy cells, but cancer cells, too.
So should we be taking vitamin supplements at all? "We say that people don't need to take vitamin supplements to have a healthy balanced diet. The only situation in which you should have to take vitamin supplements is if you are elderly or suffering from a long-term illness. People should address whether they have a healthy diet rather than seeing vitamins as a complete solution," says Heather Caswell, nutrition scientist at the British Nutrition Foundation.
"People get a lot of vitamins from food," adds health expert and author Oliver Gillie. "The exception is, of course, if you have too many things in your diet that are vitamin-depleted because they are totally refined. This includes cake and biscuits, which have large amounts of refined starches in them. On the other hand, if you are eating brown bread and you are consuming lots of vegetables, and a certain amount of meat and eggs, you will be OK."
If the evidence against supplements is rapidly becoming insurmountable, why do people keep taking them? Well, some supplements still have proven advantages for people's health. Vitamins such as B12 – that are good for facilitating normal functioning of the brain and nervous system – are still believed by some to have benefits for women of child-bearing age and the elderly. Furthermore, calcium and vitamin D in women over 65 appear to protect the health of the bones of those taking them.
People seem to experience the placebo effect more than ever with vitamins – thinking that the more they spend, the more they are able to stave off the worst effects of disease and age. The general belief is that they boost the body's ability to mop up cancer-and-heart-disease-causing free radicals.
In some cases, in the UK at least, there is increasing evidence that some vitamins do have benefits. "Vitamin D is different," adds Gillie. "A healthy person normally gets 90 per cent of the vitamin D they need from the sun. Unless you are an Eskimo or a Scottish fisherman living 100 years ago where you ate fish every day, then you can't get enough from your diet." A lack of vitamin D has been linked to increased rates of cancer, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, depression and schizophrenia.
Today, top Scottish doctors are meeting to discuss how to deal with the fact that, due to the country's northerly location and consequent lack of sunlight, large swathes of its population are not getting enough of the vitamin, which is believed to support the healthy operation of organs.
"I am going to a conference in Edinburgh called by Scotland's chief medical officer, Dr Harry Burns, who is concerned with the low levels of vitamin D in the Scottish population. It is an extreme case in the industrial world. In places like Glasgow there is so little ultraviolet light that people are in drastic need of vitamins. They are in an extreme situation because of their maritime climate. Scotland has got more cases of multiple sclerosis [which is believed to be naturally inhibited by vitamin D] than any other country in the world."
But there's now increasing evidence that taking too much of some vitamins can cause harm to people's health. Recent studies – one by the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine – have shown that taking large amounts of vitamin E with other vitamins results in a 6 per cent higher risk of premature death. Another study, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, of 540 patients showed that cancer recurrence rates were higher among vitamin users than among non-users. There seems to be increasing evidence that the death knell for certain vitamin supplements has now well and truly been sounded. Could it be time to step out of the chemist's and back into the kitchen?
Complete meals: How to get your daily dose
Vitamin A
Liver, full-fat dairy products, spinach, broccoli, tomato juice, peppers and watercress. Orange things, such as mango, dried apricots, butternut squash, carrots, sweet potatoes and pumpkin tend to be good sources of this vitamin.
Vitamin D
Oily fish (salmon, sardines, pilchards, tuna, mackerel, trout or herring), dairy products and eggs. Also exposure to sunlight.
Vitamin E
Broccoli, nuts, soya beans, brussels sprouts, spinach and eggs. Some believe vitamin E is destroyed by heat, so try to eat your vegetables raw or lightly cooked.
Vitamin C
Citrus fruits and juices, kiwi fruit, strawberries, blueberries, tomatoes and peppers.
Vitamin B
Vitamin B1 is found in whole grains, flour and bread and green leafy vegetables; Vitamin B2 is found in eggs, liver, milk, and cheese; B3 is in protein-rich foods like meat, liver and peanuts; B5 is in chicken, eggs, beef and broccoli;
B6 is in fish, chicken and wholegrain cereals; B9 is in raw fruit as well as yeast and liver and B12 is in fish, dairy produce, meat and yeast extract.
Item Source: ITN
Having a curry once or twice a week could stave off Alzheimer's disease, it has been claimed. Curcumin, an ingredient in turmeric, which is used widely in Indian cuisine, is believed to prevent changes in the brain by blocking the spread of amyloid plaques - toxic protein deposits thought to play a key role in Alzheimer's.
Members of the Royal College of Psychiatrists were told at their annual meeting in Liverpool that laboratory and animal studies have already produced strong evidence that curry combats dementia. A clinical trial is now under way in California to test the effects of curcumin on a group of Alzheimer's patients.
Indian-born American expert Professor Murali Doraiswamy said: "You can modify a mouse so that at about 12 months its brain is riddled with plaques. If you feed it a curcumin-rich diet it dissolves these plaques. The same diet prevented younger mice from forming new plaques. "The next step is to test curcumin on human amyloid plaque formation using newer brain scans and there are plans for that."
Prof Doraiswarmy said rates of Alzheimer's are known to be low in Asian communities with turmeric-rich diets. One study in Singapore showed that regular curry eaters were at least half as likely to develop the disease as people who avoided curry.
Curries from southern India are richest in the spice, with it mostly found in Indian dishes with a "gravy" - not necessarily the hottest ones - including chicken and lamb tikkas.
"If you're not a fan of curry you can try putting mustard on your food," said Prof Doraiswamy. "I'm not a big fan of supplements in general but if they're from a responsible store then that might be another way to go."
He continued: "Studies looking at populations show that people who eat a curry meal two or three times a week seem to have a lower risk for dementia. "Those studies seem to show that you need only consume what is part of the normal diet - but the research studies are testing higher doses to see if they can maximise the effect. It would be equivalent of going on a curry spree for a week."
Curcumin's effects are not well understood but it is believed to reduce inflammation - an immune reaction thought to play a key role in Alzheimer's - in a number of different ways, he said. It is thought to inhibit an enzyme called cox-2 which is also the target of anti-inflammatory drugs.
In an attempt to reduce some of the annual food waste, currently in excess of 6 million tonnes, the ‘Best before’ and “Sell by” dates could be a thing of the past.
There are plans being considered to reduce the confusion around food labelling so that people do not throw away edible food. One option is to phase out "best before", "sell by" and "display until" labels in favour of "use by" which is an actual safety requirement.
Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, said the UK was needlessly throwing away millions of tonnes of packaging and food every year.
Mr Benn said people throw away food after the "best before" date even though it can be eaten.
"Too many of us are putting things in the bin simply because we're not sure, we're confused by the label, or we're just playing safe," he said.
Sell-by dates are used by retailers for stock control - but can end up confusing customers into throwing away perfectly good food."We want to see food waste minimised but we also need to ensure people do not take unnecessary risks with food safety."
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