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"COLLEGE STATION - Mango. If you know little about this fruit, understand this: It's been found to prevent or stop certain colon and breast cancer cells in the lab. That's according to a new study by Texas AgriLife Research food scientists, who examined the five varieties most common in the U.S.: Kent, Francine, Ataulfo, Tommy/Atkins and Haden. Though the mango is an ancient fruit heavily consumed in many parts of the world, little has been known about its health aspects. The National Mango Board commissioned a variety of studies with several U.S. researchers to help determine its nutritional value. "If you look at what people currently perceive as a superfood, people think of high antioxidant capacity, and mango is not quite there," said Dr. Susanne Talcott, who with her husband, Dr. Steve Talcott, conducted the study on cancer cells. "In comparison with antioxidants in blueberry, acai and pomegranate, it's not even close." But the team checked mango against cancer cells anyway, and found it prevented or stopped cancer growth in certain breast and colon cell lines, Susanne Talcott noted. "It has about four to five times less antioxidant capacity than an average wine grape, and it still holds up fairly well in anticancer activity. If you look at it from the physiological and nutritional standpoint, taking everything together, it would be a high-ranking super food," she said. "It would be good to include mangoes as part of the regular diet." The Talcotts tested mango polyphenol extracts in vitro on colon, breast, lung, leukemia and prostate cancers. Polyphenols are natural substances in plants and are associated with a variety of compounds known to promote good health."

People with viral diseases can benefit from a diet high in lysine and low in arginine. In the following chart, the foods at the top of the list have higher lysine to arginine ratios. Diet and vitamin supplements may influence viral replication. A total approach to nutrition should be used. Use this chart as a guide or a reference only, and see what happens. Look at the absolute figures for lysine and arginine content. There is no reason to avoid a food if it has a low lysine/arginine ratio and only a few mg of arginine in it. Ratio of Lysine to Arginine in Certain Foods, by James M. Scutero Transcribed and calculated using data from Agricultural Handbook, 1-23, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"The results of the uniquely-constructed ERA JUMP Study were just released, a fascinating study of the relationship of omega-3 fatty acids to coronary and carotid plaque. The study adds insight into why the Japanese experience only one third of the heart attacks of Americans, and why Japan occupies the bottom of the list for least heart attacks among all developed countries. The Electron-Beam Tomography, Risk Factor Assessment Among Japanese and U.S. Men in the Post-World War II Birth Cohort Study (ERA JUMP), a collaborative U.S.-Japanese effort, compared three groups of men: -- 281 Japanese men living in Japan -- 306 non-Japanese men living in the U.S. (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) -- 303 Japanese Americans (having both parents Japanese without "ethnic admixture") living in Hawaii. The last group represents a group that is genetically similar to the group in Japan, but exposed to an American diet and lifestyle. Three main measures were compared: -- Blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA) -- Carotid intimal-medial thickness (CIMT, the thickness of the carotid artery lining that can serve as an index of body-wide atherosclerosis) -- Coronary calcium (heart scan) scores."

Fatty acid intake and the risk of community-acquired pneumonia in U.S. women. Alperovich M, Neuman MI, Willett WC, Curhan GC. Nutrition. 2007 Mar;23(3):196-202. Epub 2007 Jan 22. PMID: 17236748 doi: 10.1016/j.nut.2006.11.007. Conclusions Fatty acid intake may affect the risk of community-acquired pneumonia in young and middle-aged women. Higher dietary intake of palmitic acid and possibly DHA and EPA may increase the risk of community-acquired pneumonia in women while higher oleic acid intake may decrease the risk.

With the still rising obesity rates, the same thing should be done in the U.S. The FDA should start doing its job and heed Michelle Obama's crusade...

"As far as I can tell, MK-4 is capable of performing all the functions of vitamin K. MK-4 can even activate blood clotting factors, which is a role traditionally ascribed to vitamin K1. Babies are often born clotting deficient, which is why we give newborns vitamin K1 injections in the U.S. to prevent hemorrhaging. In Japan, they give children MK-4 to prevent hemorrhage, an intervention that is very effective. Could that have to do with the fact that Japan has half the infant mortality rate of the U.S.? Today, I found another difference between MK-4 and MK-7. I was reading a paper about SXR-independent effects of vitamin K2 on gene expression. The investigators found that MK-4 strongly activates transcription of two specific genes in osteoblast cells. Osteoblasts are cells that create bone tissue. The genes are GDF15 and STC2 and they're involved in bone and cartilage formation. They tested K1 and MK-7, and in contrast to MK-4, they did not activate transcription of the genes in the slightest. This shows that MK-4 has effects on gene expression in bone tissue that MK-7 doesn't have. That being said, MK-7 may still have a place in a healthy diet. Just because it can't do everything MK-4 can, doesn't mean it has no role. It may be able to fill in for MK-4 in some functions, or reduce the dietary need for MK-4. But no one really knows at this point. Hunter-gatherers would have had a source of longer menaquinones, including MK-7, from livers. So it's possible that we're adapted to a modest MK-7 intake on top of MK-4. "

A comparison of egg consumption with other modifiable coronary heart disease lifestyle risk factors: a relative risk apportionment study. Barraj L, Tran N, Mink P. Risk Anal. 2009 Mar;29(3):401-15. Epub 2008 Nov 4. PMID: 19000074 DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2008.01149.x Guidelines from the American Heart Association (AHA) recommend that healthy adults limit their intake of dietary cholesterol to less than 300 mg per day. Since a large egg contains about 71% of that amount, the AHA recommends restricting egg consumption unless dietary cholesterol intakes from other sources are limited. We applied a risk apportionment approach to estimate the contribution of egg consumption and other modifiable lifestyle risk factors (e.g., smoking, poor diet, minimal exercise, and alcohol intake) to coronary heart disease (CHD) risk at the population level. Specifically, we categorized the U.S. adult population ages 25+ into distinct risk groups based on the prevalence of modifiable lifestyle risk factors and applied an apportionment model, typically used to assess risk contribution at the individual level, to estimate the contribution of egg intake to CHD risk. Our analysis shows that the combination of modifiable lifestyle risk factors accounts for less than 40% of the population CHD mortality. For the majority of U.S. adults age 25+, consuming one egg a day accounts for <1% of CHD risk. Hence, focusing on decreasing egg intake as an approach to modify CHD risk would be expected to yield minimal results relative to changing other behaviors such as smoking and other dietary habits.

"Friday Oct 16, 2009 (foodconsumer.org) -- Results of a new trial presented at an international research conference in Bruges suggest that vitamin D supplementation can reduce the risk of premature births and boost the health of newborn babies, the Times reported Oct 10. Vitamin D deficiency, which is common everywhere, has been linked in many previous studies to a variety of illnesses from heart disease, cancers, multiple sclerosis and many others. In the trial, Dr. Bruce Hollis and Dr. Carol Wagner of the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, gave one group of pregnant women 4,000 IUs per day of vitamin D at about three months of pregnancy. They gave a second group 400 IUs per day, amounts recommended by U.S. and UK"

"Cancer mortality rates and multiple sclerosis prevalence rates for U.S. states compared to UVB doses for July"

ScienceDaily (Aug. 3, 2009) - Seven out of ten U.S. children have low levels of vitamin D, raising their risk of bone and heart disease, according to a study of over 6,000 children by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. The striking findings suggest that vitamin D deficiency could place millions of children at risk for high blood pressure and other risk factors for heart disease.

Prospective Study of Serum 25-Hydroxyvitamin D Level, Cardiovascular Disease Mortality, and All-Cause Mortality in Older U.S. Adults. Ginde AA, Scragg R, Schwartz RS, Camargo CA Jr. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2009 Jun 22. [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 19549021 DOI: 10.1111/j.1532-5415.2009.02359.x CONCLUSION: In noninstitutionalized older adults, a group at high risk for all-cause mortality, serum 25(OH)D levels had an independent, inverse association with CVD and all-cause mortality. Randomized controlled trials of vitamin D supplementation in older adults are warranted to determine whether this association is causal and reversible.

Clinical Implications of JUPITER (Justification for the Use of statins in Prevention: an Intervention Trial Evaluating Rosuvastatin) in a U.S. Population Insights From the ARIC (Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities) Study Yang EY et al. J Am Coll Cardiol, 2009; 54:2388-2395, doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2009.10.006 Conclusions: ARIC participants with elevated hs-CRP and low LDL-C had a CVD event rate of 1.57% per year over 6.9 years, similar to the CVD event rate noted in the JUPITER study placebo group (1.36% per year over 1.9 years). The association of hs-CRP ≥2.0 mg/l with increased CVD risk and mortality regardless of LDL-C provides us a simple method of using age and hs-CRP level for identifying higher risk individuals. (Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study; NCT00005131)

Intima-media thickness of the carotid artery and the distribution of lipoprotein subclasses in men aged 40 to 49 years between whites in the United States and the Japanese in Japan for the ERA JUMP study. Sekikawa A, Ueshima H, Sutton-Tyrrell K, Kadowaki T, El-Saed A, Okamura T, Takamiya T, Ueno Y, Evans RW, Nakamura Y, Edmundowicz D, Kashiwagi A, Maegawa H, Kuller LH. Metabolism. 2008 Feb;57(2):177-82. PMID: 18191046 doi: 10.1016/j.metabol.2007.08.022. In men in the post World War II birth cohort, i.e., men aged 40-49, whites in the United States (U.S.) had significantly higher levels of intima-media thickness of the carotid arteries (IMT) than the Japanese in Japan. The whites had significantly higher levels of large very-low-density-lipoprotein particles and significantly lower levels of large high-density-lipoprotein particles than the Japanese, whereas the two populations had similar levels of small low-density-lipoprotein particles. The two populations had similar associations of IMT with NMR lipoproteins. Adjusting for NMR lipoproteins did not attenuate the significant difference in IMT between the two populations (0.671 ± 0.006 for the whites and 0.618 ± 0.006 mm for the Japanese, P=0.01, mean (standard error)). Differences in the distributions of NMR lipoproteins between the two populations did not explain the higher IMT in the whites.

If wheat is so bad, what about all the other grains? First of all, I demonize wheat because of its top-of-the-list role in triggering: --Appetite--Wheat increases hunger dramatically --Insulin --Blood sugar--Wheat is worse than table sugar in triggering a rapid, large rise in blood sugar --Triglycerides --Small LDL particles--the number one cause for heart disease in the U.S. --Reduced HDL --Diabetes --Autoimmune diseases--Most notably celiac disease and thyroiditis. Most other "healthy, whole grains" aren't quite as bad. It's a matter of degree.

Can including wheat in your diet create hell on earth? Was The Inferno nothing more than Danté's prediction for the state of the U.S. diet circa 2009? I'm kidding on The Inferno allusion, but the American diet nonetheless sure does create an inferno of unhealthy phenomena.

Many U.S. teenagers -- including half of African Americans -- would be considered vitamin D-deficient if the definition of deficiency were changed to what many experts recommend, a new study finds. Right now, people are considered to have an overt deficiency in vitamin D when blood levels drop below 11 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL), but there is debate over how the optimal vitamin D level should be define

Using a new, more sensitive-testing approach they developed for fungi, Penn State food scientists have found that mushrooms are a better natural source of the antioxidant ergothioneine than either of the two dietary sources previously believed to be best. The researchers found that white button mushrooms, the most commonly consumed kind in the U.S., have about 12 times more of the antioxidant than wheat germ and 4 times more than chicken liver, the previous top-rated ergothioneine sources based on available data. Until the Penn State researchers developed their testing approach, known as an assay, there was no method employing the most sensitive modern instrumentation and analytical techniques to quantify the amount of ergothioneine in fungi. The researchers say that their assay can be used for other plants, too, not just mushrooms.

What is VITAL? The VITamin D and OmegA-3 TriaL (VITAL) is a research study in 20,000 U.S. men and women investigating whether taking daily dietary supplements of vitamin D (about 2000 IU) or fish oil (about 1 gram of omega-3 fatty acids) reduces the risk of developing cancer, heart disease, and stroke in people who do not have a prior history of these illnesses. Recruitment for the study will begin in January 2010.

Comment: The strengths of this randomized study include its high level of adherence and its use of a vitamin D dose sufficient to cause a biologically meaningful increase in serum levels. The adult daily value for vitamin D is 400 IU, but many U.S. women are vitamin-D-deficient (N Engl J Med 2007; 357:266). The Institute of Medicine considers doses up to 2000 IU to be without significant risk for adverse health effects. In addition to consuming dietary sources of vitamin D (see Table 1), most women will need supplements to achieve adequate intake. Multivitamins usually contain 400 IU of vitamin D.

A comparison of egg consumption with other modifiable coronary heart disease lifestyle risk factors: a relative risk apportionment study. Barraj L, Tran N, Mink P. Risk Anal. 2009 Mar;29(3):401-15. Epub 2008 Nov 4. PMID: 19000074 DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2008.01149.x Our analysis shows that the combination of modifiable lifestyle risk factors accounts for less than 40% of the population CHD mortality. For the majority of U.S. adults age 25+, consuming one egg a day accounts for <1% of CHD risk. Hence, focusing on decreasing egg intake as an approach to modify CHD risk would be expected to yield minimal results relative to changing other behaviors such as smoking and other dietary habits.