Certain spices are rich in phytochemicals -- colorful compounds believed to protect the body's cells and decrease inflammation. Adding these spices to flavor your food protects your health and allows you to use less salt when seasoning, an added benefit for those who are watching their sodium intake, according to the American Institute for Cancer Research.

Mediterranean Diet Works Well in Study

New York Times Syndicate

07-17-08

Low-carbohydrate and so-called Mediterranean diets may be more effective than low-fat diets, according to a major new study published in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers studied 322 moderately obese employees of a research center in Israel, randomly assigning them to three diet groups and providing them with encouragement and instruction over a two-year period.

Members of the low-fat group lost an average of 6.4 pounds, while those in the low-carb and Mediterranean groups lost about 10, said Dr. Meir Stampfer, nutrition professor at the Harvard School of Public Health and the paper's senior author.

While there has been concern that low-carb diets can be harmful to cardiovascular health, Stampfer said that the participants who followed the low-carb and Mediterranean diets actually had better cardiovascular health than those in the low-fat group. For people with cholesterol problems, the low-carb diet seemed best; for those at risk for diabetes, the Mediterranean diet provided more health benefits.

"The take-home message should be that we should abandon the idea that low-fat diets are the number one way for people to lose weight," he said.

"It wasn't the best diet. It can be helpful for some people, but overall I think the first choice should be the Mediterranean or the low carb."

Study participants generally ate lunch at the same cafeteria, where foods were color-coded with stickers to correspond to the different diets; they also met with dietitians periodically over the two years. People in the low-fat group were advised to eat low-fat grains, vegetables, fruits, and legumes and were told to avoid sweets. In the low-carb group, participants were advised to choose vegetarian sources of fat and protein and to limit carbohydrate intake. Those on the Mediterranean regimen were advised to eat a diet high in fish and poultry, as well as olive oil and nuts.

Participants, 86 percent of whom were men, were encouraged to continue the eating patterns at home. Calories were not limited in the low-carb group, but in the other groups, women were expected to eat 1,500 calories a day and men, 1,800.

One of the study's great strengths, Stampfer said, was that after one year, 95 percent of participants were still following the diet, and 85 percent stayed on after 2 years. Most people have trouble sticking with regimens for that long.

This suggests that diets connected to the workplace may be particularly effective, according to Susan Roberts, a Tufts University nutrition professor.

"Whether Americans would want this is another story of course," she said in an e-mail. "It seems fairly invasive to have overweight people in your company selected out for dietary instruction and monthly weigh-ins."

Business groups agree that workplace diets pose ethical problems. "We would never ever say we're putting our employees on a diet," said LuAnn Heinen, vice president of the nonprofit National Business Group on Health.

"But companies have really connected the dots: We're paying for healthcare costs, our employees are paying for healthcare costs, and we're serving them Krispy Kremes every morning."

Instead of diets, she said, businesses are now taking steps to write caloric limits or nutritional guidelines into their contracts with food service providers.

Roberts said it's not clear from the research whether an individual, dieting without the workplace support provided by the study, would have the same success.

A 52-year-old man with advanced melanoma, the lethal form of skin cancer, has been successfully treated using just his own blood.

The development has been hailed by British experts as an "exciting advance" in the use of cancer immunotherapy, which harnesses the body's immune system to fight the disease.

The Worst Artery Cloggers in America

Natural Insecticides
You sit down to an attractive green salad. All the ingredients were purchased at an organic farmers co-op, so you're sure that every bite must be free of any toxic chemical. Well, not quite. Your salad is indeed safe and healthy, but it does contain tiny amounts of natural toxic substances. Here's a sampling of the chemicals that may be in your salad.

Neochlorogenic acid: broccoli, brussels sprouts, kale
Estragole: basil
Caffeic acid: lettuce, carrots, apples, celery, eggplants, cherries
p-Hydrazinobenzoate: mushrooms
Sinigrin: cabbage, collard greens, cauliflower, horseradish

These chemicals are natural insecticides. Plants produce these chemicals to discourage insects from eating them. At very high doses, much higher than humans would eat in a normal diet, these natural insecticides have caused cancers in rodents. Fortunately many plant-eating animals, including humans, produce enzymes to protect themselves against natural pesticides.

Enzymes are proteins that can break large molecules into smaller, simpler forms that our cells can use or discard. Certain types of biotransformation enzymes protect our bodies from chemicals in the environment, such as natural pesticides. Genetic variations in these biotransformation enzymes are of special interest to researchers at the Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health. These researchers study complex relationships between genetics, disease, and exposure to toxic chemicals.

For example, the relationship between humans and chemicals found in plants (also called phytochemicals) is quite complicated. Substances that are toxic at high doses can actually be beneficial at low doses. One such substance is sulfurophane, a chemical found in broccoli, cabbage, and brussel sprouts. At low doses, such as the levels you’d be exposed to by eating broccoli for dinner, sulfurophane functions as an antioxidant, triggering activity by biotransformation enzymes to battle chemical reactions that can damage human cells.

Opening the Enzyme Tool Box
Most biotransformation enzymes are multi-purpose, like an adjustable wrench or a Swiss Army knife. Therefore a relatively small number of enzymes can tackle the multitude of substances we encounter every day. For example, a single cup of coffee contains over 1,000 different chemicals, including natural insecticides, and the average person has enzymes that can handle all of them. Because biotransformation enzymes are so versatile, they can de-toxify man-made insecticides as well as natural ones. (To detoxify a chemical is to make it less toxic or harmful.)

Although biotransformation enzymes can de-toxify a broad array of chemicals, they can be stumped. For example, they may not be able to detoxify certain poisons, such as strychnine (originally extracted from a tropical tree). Or they may be overwhelmed by large amounts of less toxic substances. This may occur if a person spills pesticide on their skin.

Some animals have special biotransformation enzymes that allow them to eat foods that are poisonous to other species. For example, the larva of the black swallowtail butterfly produces an enzyme that detoxifies the natural insecticide xanthotoxin, found in plants in the carrot, parsley, and citrus families. Most insects can't eat these plants so the black swallowtail larva has few competitors for its favorite foods.

Toxic Chemicals and the Environment:
Who Gets Sick?
The amount and types of toxic substances humans can detoxify is also affected by genetics, because each of us is born with slightly different biotransformation genes. Basic research into the biotransformation of xenobiotic chemicals may also help scientists develop antidotes to poisons and better ways to adjust doses of prescription medicines.

For example, CEEH researchers have found that persons with a certain variation in a liver enzyme have trouble processing the drug warfarin. Warfarin is a powerful drug that helps prevent blood from coagulating, or clotting. Warfarin is also used in rodent poisons. CEEH researchers are also studying variations in the way that individuals react to toxic substances in the environment, including pesticides, solvents, and methyl mercury.

Genetic Differences and Disease Risk
CEEH researchers are also trying to determine why people who are genetically susceptible to a disease only get symptoms when exposed to a specific chemical. For example, aflatoxin is a natural toxin produced by a mold that grows on damp peanuts and grains. It can cause liver cancer, especially in people who already suffer from liver damage caused by the hepatitis B virus.

Differences in the way people biotransform aflatoxin affect their risk of getting liver cancer. Like most molecules, aflatoxin is biotransformed in stages by a series of enzymes. These enzymes trim and rebuild the molecule until it reaches a final form that can be safely excreted. During one of these stages, enzymes in the liver briefly activate the aflatoxin, making it more toxic. Additional enzymes then de-activate most of the aflatoxin, making it less harmful. The speed of these chemical reactions are important because activated aflatoxin can mutate, or change, cell DNA. If concentrations of activated aflatoxin builds up in the liver, the resulting mutations can cause liver cancer.

Center researchers are studying genetic differences in the enzymes that activate and de-activate aflatoxin and whether these differences affect cancer risk. This research may help guide cancer prevention efforts, particularly in developing nations where aflatoxin exposure is a serious problem. Many of these nations also have high rates of hepatitis B infection, which makes their populations even more susceptible to aflatoxin-caused cancer.

Fortunately in the United States, aflatoxin exposure is limited, due to careful food processing and inspection. When aflatoxin is present, levels are low enough that the body can handle them easily, as it does the natural insecticides in broccoli and carrots. So feel free to eat a peanut butter sandwich. Your biotransformation enzymes are on duty.

introWeed Trees Vs. Diabetes!

Mediterranean Diet Works Well in Study

The Worst Artery Cloggers in America

How men can outsmart the top 5 causes of death

03:04 PM CDT on Monday, June 2, 2008