[News article] Vitamins: Potential Damage to Body’s Defences

From the 28 November 2013 ScienceDaily report

Vitamin supplements are a billion-dollar industry. We want to stay healthy and fit and help our bodies with this. But perhaps we are achieving precisely the opposite?

“We believe that antioxidants are good for us, since they protect the cells from oxidative stress that may harm our genes. However, our bodies have an enormous inherent ability to handle stress. Recent research results show that the body’s responses to stress in fact are important in preventing our DNA from eroding. I fear that the fragile balance in our cells can be upset when we supplement our diet with vitamin pills, says Hilde Nilsen to the research magazine Apollon. Nilsen is heading a research group at the Biotechnology Centre, University of Oslo.

Maintenance of genes

Our DNA – the genetic code that makes us who we are – is constantly exposed to damage.

In each of the hundred trillion cells in our body, up to two hundred thousand instances of damage to the DNA take place every day. These may stem from environmental causes such as smoking, stress, environmental pathogens or UV radiation, but the natural and life-sustaining processes in the organism are the primary sources of damage to our DNA.

How can the repair of damage to our DNA help us stay healthy and live long lives?

A small worm provides the answer

To answer this question, Hilde Nilsen and her group of researchers have allied themselves with a small organism – a one millimetre-long nematode called Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans). This roundworm, which lives for only 25 days, is surprisingly sophisticated with its 20,000 genes; we humans only have a couple of thousand more.

C. elegans is a fantastically powerful tool, because we can change its hereditary properties. We can increase its ability to repair DNA damage, or we can remove it altogether. We can also monitor what happens when damage to DNA is not repaired in several hundred specimens and through their entire lifespan. Different “repair proteins” take care of various types of damage to the DNA. The most common ones are repaired by “cutting out” and replacing a single damaged base by itself or as part of a larger fragment.

Affecting lifespan with the aid of genes

In some specimens that do not have the ability to repair the damage, the researchers observe that the aging process proceeds far faster than normal. Is it because the damage accumulates in the DNA and prevents the cells from producing the proteins they need for their normal operation? Most researchers have thought so, but Hilde Nilsen doubts it.

One of the genes studied by the researchers has a somewhat shortened lifespan: on average, this mutant lives three days less than normal. Translated into human terms, this means dying at the age of 60 rather than at 70. -“We were surprised when we saw that these mutants do not in fact accumulate the DNA damage that would cause aging. On the contrary: they have less DNA damage. This happens because the little nematode changes its metabolism into low gear and releases its own antioxidant defences. Nature uses this strategy to minimize the negative consequences of its inability to repair the DNA. So why is this not the normal state? Most likely because it comes at a cost: these organisms have less ability to respond to further stress ‒ they are quite fragile.

Hilde Nilsen and her colleagues have now -for the very first time -“shown that this response is under active genetic control and is not caused by passive accumulation of damage to the DNA, as has been widely believed.

…

Can do great harm

The balance between oxidants and antioxidants is crucial to our physiology, but exactly where this equilibrium is situated varies from one person to the next.

“This is where I start worrying about the synthetic antioxidants. The cells in our body use this fragile balance to establish the best possible conditions for themselves, and it is specially adapted for each of us. When we take supplements of antioxidants, such as C and E vitamins, we may upset this balance,” the researcher warns.

“It sounds intuitively correct that intake of a substance that may prevent accumulation of damage would benefit us, and that’s why so many of us supplement our diet with vitamins. Our research results indicate that at the same time, we may also cause a lot of harm. The health authorities recommend that instead, we should seek to have an appropriate diet. I’m all in favour of that. It’s far safer for us to take our vitamins through the food that we eat, rather than through pills,” Hilde Nilsen states emphatically.

 

Read the entire article here

Related articles

• DNA repair- Why should you care? (antisensescienceblog.wordpress.com)

 

[Press Release] The Human Health Costs of Losing Natural Systems: Quantifying Earth’s Worth to Public Health

From the 19 November press release posted at Natural History Wanderings

Scientists Urge Focus on New Branch of Environmental Health

NEW YORK (November 19, 2013) — A new paper from members of the HEAL (Health & Ecosystems: Analysis of Linkages) consortium delineates a new branch of environmental health that focuses on the public health risks of human-caused changes to Earth’s natural systems.

Looking comprehensively at available research to date, the paper’s authors highlight repeated correlations between changes in natural systems and existing and potential human health outcomes, including:

Forest fires used to clear land in Indonesia generate airborne particulates that are linked to cardiopulmonary disease in downwind population centers like Singapore.

Risk of human exposure to Chagas disease in Panama and the Brazilian Amazon, and to Lyme disease in the United States, is positively correlated with reduced mammalian diversity.

 http://www.wcs.org/files/pdfs/PNAS-2013-Human-health-impacts-of-ecosystem-alteration.pdf

When households in rural Madagascar are unable to harvest wild meat for consumption, their children can experience a 30% higher risk of iron deficiency anemia—a condition that increases the risk for sickness and death from infectious disease, and reduces IQ and the lifelong capacity for physical activity.

In Belize, nutrient enrichment from agricultural runoff hundreds of miles upstream causes a change in the vegetation pattern of lowland wetlands that favors more efficient malaria vectors, leading to increased malaria exposure among coastal populations.

Human health impacts of anthropogenic climate change include exposure to heat stress, air pollution, infectious disease, respiratory allergens, and natural hazards as well as increased water scarcity, food insecurity and population displacement.

“Human activity is affecting nearly all of Earth’s natural systems—altering the planet’s land cover, rivers and oceans, climate, and the full range of complex ecological relationships and biogeochemical cycles that have long sustained life on Earth,” said Dr. Samuel Myers of the Harvard School of Public Health and the study’s lead author. “Defining a new epoch, the Anthropocene, these changes and their effects put in question the ability of the planet to provide for a human population now exceeding 7 billion with an exponentially growing demand for goods and services.”

…

Read the entire press release here

Related articles

• Impacts Of Losing Natural Systems On Human Health (naturalhistorywanderings.com)
• The human health costs of losing natural systems: Quantifying Earth’s worth to public health (eurekalert.org)
• Quantifying earth’s worth to public health: scientists urge focus on new branch of environmental health (medicalnewstoday.com)
• Study: Ecosystem alterations leading to widespread human health impacts (summitcountyvoice.com)
• Human Health Depends On A Healthy Environment (freshwaddabrooks.com)
• Human Health Depends On A Healthy Environment (wonderfultips.wordpress.com)
• Human Health Depends On A Healthy Environment (huffingtonpost.com)
• Climate change effects on spread of disease (unmod360.wordpress.com)

[Reblog] Internet Use Associated with Better Decision Making in Older Adults

From the 25 November 2013 posting at HealthCetera – CHMP’s Blog
[Center for Health Media & Policy at Hunter College (CHMP): advancing public conversations about health & health policy]

Older adults face many important decisions about their health and financial well-being. Whether it’s making retirement savings last longer or authorizing a health proxy, the ability to make good choices has consequences for a senior’s quality of life, aging in place, and end of life care. According to a new study from Rush University, presented yesterday at the Gerontological Society of America Conference in New Orleans, Internet use is associated with better health and financial decision-making among older adults.

“The Internet has become the primary corridor for finding information and assisting in decision-making on finances and healthcare,” said Bryan James, Associate Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center in Chicago and lead author of the study. “The Internet is becoming what we call ‘proto-normative,’ meaning you have to have some ability or savvy to function online these days.”

Recent research from Pew’s Internet and American Life Project show that slightly more than half (53%) of all seniors are now online. However, James said there remains a significant portion of older adults who use the Internet infrequently, or not at all. This may have important implications for quality of life and independence, including the ability to age at home.

James pointed to the digital divide between older and younger people. In addition to the general anxiety expressed by older adults express about computers and the Internet,  there are also certain parts of the aging process that may may pose obstacles to Internet use, such as cognitive decline, as well as decline in hearing, vision, and motor skills.

……

Read the entire post here

Related Resources

Evaluating Health Information (from Health Resources for All, edited  by Janice Flahiff)

Anyone can publish information on the Internet. So it is up to the searcher to decide if the information found through search engines (as Google) is reliable or not. Search engines find Web sites but do not evaluate them for content. Sponsored links may or may not contain good information. A few universities and government agencies have published great guides on evaluating information. Here are a few The Penn State Medical Center Library has a great guide to evaluate health information on the Internet.The tips include Remember, anyone can publish information on the internet! If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If the Web site is primarily about selling a product, the information may be worth checking from another source. Look for who is publishing the information and their education, credentials, and if they are connected with a trusted coporation, university or agency. Check to see how current the information is. Check for accuracy. Does the Web site refer to specific studies or organizations? The Family Caregiver Alliance has a Web page entitled Evaluating Medical Research Findings and Clinical Trials Topics include General Guidelines for Evaluating Medical Research Getting Information from the Web Talking with your Health Care Provider Additional Resources Consumer’s Guide to Taking Charge of Health Information (Harvard Center for Risk Analysis) How to Evaluate Health Information on the Internet (US National Cancer Institute)9iiu9 Quackwatch (a private corporation operated by Stephen Barrett, MD)   …And a Rumor Control site of Note (in addition to Quackwatch)   National Council Against Health Fraud National Council Against Health Fraud is a nonprofit health agency focusing on health misinformation, fraud, and quackery as public health problems. Links to publications, position papers and more.

[Infographic] Why Health Care is So Expensive

From Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards 

Original infograhic  here

[Reblog] A field guide to The Diagnosis Difference (with a request from the the blogger, Ms. Fox for responses)

From the 26 November 2013 posting at Susannah Fox – Internet geologist**. Health care gadfly. Community colleague.

The Pew Research Center released a report today on people living with chronic conditions: The Diagnosis Difference.

Policy makers, patient advocates, entrepreneurs, investors, clinicians — all health care stakeholders — can use the data to map the current landscape. There are still barren patches, where people remain offline and cut off from the resources and tools. But there are lush valleys, too, where engagement and change is happening.

I see e-patients as the guides to those valleys since unless you are living with chronic conditions — or love someone who is — you don’t see that side of the internet. So here’s my request: provide your evidence. Show what you have learned.

First, a quick summary of the report:

1. 45% of U.S. adults have a chronic condition (For some, that’s a revelation and there is still a considerable distance to go before that reality is widely known. For you, that’s not the news. That’s just proof that we have a sample that matches the CDC’s estimate and you can therefore trust the data.)

2. 72% of adults with chronic conditions have internet access, compared with 89% of U.S. adults who report no conditions. There are digital divide implications to this because having a chronic disease is an independent factor in predicting if someone has access — apart from things like age, income, and educational attainment.

3. Clinicians are central resources. People living with chronic conditions are more likely than other adults to consult a clinician when they need help or after they Google for a diagnosis.

4. Self-tracking is a massive activity, particularly for people living with 2 or more chronic conditions, and this group is more likely to use formal means, not just tracking in their heads as many “well” trackers do. For example, 41% of health trackers who report having one or more chronic conditions use pencil and paper and 14% of this group uses a medical device such as a glucometer.

5. Living with a chronic condition has an independent, significant effect on behaviors that are often described as signs of consumer health engagement, like reading up on drug safety, medical treatments, or delivery-of-care reviews. Internet users living with chronic conditions are more likely than others to read or watch someone else’s commentary or personal experience about health or medical issues online.

I want to stop a moment and give some examples of what that might look like.

• Someone living with cancer might follow Lisa Bonchek Adams’s blog, learning abouthow to prepare for having a port placed.
• Someone living with diabetes might check out Diabetes Mine to learn how other PWDs (people with diabetes) rank tech tools and quality of life measures.
• Someone living with a heart condition might read Carolyn Thomas’s blog to gain reassurance that their post-diagnosis PTSD is not in their head.
• Someone living with a lung condition might learn from Propeller Health about why they, in particular, should get a flu shot.
• Someone living with high blood pressure might search Inspire.com for insights on how to keep it under control.

And now we come to the category that personally means the most to me since I’ve spent time in rare disease communities: the 16% of U.S. adults who are living with “other conditions,” like rheumatoid arthritis, epilepsy, or fibromyalgia (to name a very few of thousands). They are hardly ever in the mainstream spotlight. They may have awareness days or weeks or months that their communities honor, but you won’t see the National Football League wearing their colors.

The internet is their spotlight. A blog, a hashtag, a YouTube channel, or a Facebook group can be their lifeline. Yes, they consult clinicians like everyone else, but those who are online know that the path to health — for them — is often found in the advice shared by someone like them or the person they are caring for. The feeding tip that will help their baby get the nutrients she needs to grow. The heating-pad tip that will ease their painsomnia.

As I wrote at the top, unless you are living with chronic conditions — or love someone who is — you don’t see that side of the internet. So let’s open up the landscape.

Please post in the comments what you have learned online from a fellow spoonie, from a fellow caregiver, from a fellow traveler along the path to health. What would you tell someone just diagnosed with your condition to do, especially in tapping into the resources available online? When someone asks you, maybe over Thanksgiving, about why you spend time online, what will you say?
Post it here [at Samantha Fox’s blog] . Links to blogs, videos, tweets — all are welcome.

Thank you.

** From Susannah Fox’s About Page (Internet Geologist definition)

I was at a cocktail party, struggling to describe in just a few sentences what I do for a living, when my friend Paul Tarini broke in and said, “You’re an internet geologist. You study the rocks, you don’t judge them.” Exactly. I study patterns in the online landscape and provide data so people can make better decisions about the social impact of the internet.

My other favorite description of the kind of research I do is “nowist” (meaning: instead of being a futurist, understand what people are doing now and be alert to changes).

“Health care gadfly” describes my role outside the fray, as an observer, hopefully contributing to the public conversation in a useful way.

Ted Eytan coined the phrase “community colleague” for people who collaborate by default. That’s me. My work is enriched by the health geek tribe. I can’t imagine doing the work I do without the help of my community.

Related articles

• How US adults with chronic health conditions share health information online? (gadgetrends.ro)
• Pew Report: Chronic Health Conditions Impact 45% Of American Adults, Contribute To 75% Of Health Care Costs (medicaldaily.com)
• The Diagnosis Difference: Those with Chronic Conditions Have Different Online Habits (drhiphop85.com)
• Increased frailty associated with childhood cancer survivorship (2minutemedicine.com)
• Chronic Conditions and Medical Complexity (rehabcare.com)
• What we see and what we cannot see. What we share and do not share. And why. (snideeffects.com)
• Ill workers ‘feared losing jobs’ (standard.co.uk)