The Telangana Science Journal, September 2004, Issue 81

Contents

Diet and Exercise	Women's Health	Men's Health	Miscellaneous	Recipes
Flaxseed Walking Hibiscus Mediterranean Diet Egg Related Salmonella Infections Diabetes and Heart Disease Exercise Waistline and Cancer	Motherhood Reproductive Helathcare Women are from Venus	Walking	Breastfeeding Adenotonsillectomy Drinking, Smoking and Impotency Secondhand Smoke Abuse in Childhood Dog Sniffs Cancer	Hot flax sauce Berry Pudding Cake Sweet Potato Soup Carrot Nibblers

Diet and Exercise

Flaxseed
Omega-3 fatty acids, found in soy, flax and other vegetable and fish oils, and known to provide a range of health benefits, may help protect against Alzheimer's disease, U.S. researchers reported in the journal Neuron. Tests on mice showed that a diet high in one particular omega-3 fatty acid called DHA helped protect the brain against the memory loss and cell damage caused by Alzheimer's disease. People are already advised to eat omega-3 fatty acids to protect the heart. DHA and a related fatty acid called AHA are also added to some infant formulas and milks to promote brain development. They are found naturally in human breast milk.

Flaxseed is also known as Linseed. The botanical name of flax is Linum usiatissimum of family linaceae. The seed is flat and oval with a pointed tip and measures approximating 2.5 x 5.0 x 1.5 mm. The traditional flaxseed is a shiny reddish brown with crisp chewy texture. Flaxseed has been used for a very long time in India. Flax is commonly known as alsi (Gujrati, Hindi, Punjabi), Jawas (Marathi), Tishi (Bengali), agasi (Kannada), cheruchana (Malayalam), pesi (Oriya), ali (Tamil) and seema avise or agise (Telugu). See below
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Walking
Older men who walked the least in a comparison group had nearly twice the risk for dementia compared to men who walked the most. Elderly people who take regular walks are less likely to suffer dementia than those who take little exercise. Keeping active has already been proven to lessen the risk of heart disease, cancer and diabetes. Now moderate daily exercise such as long strolls has been found to keep elderly minds healthier, said the authors of studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Back to the top

Hibiscus
Hibiscus sabdariffa L , which is grown in China, India and Taiwan is used as a traditional remedy to treat high blood pressure and liver disorders. Hibiscus flowers are used in Ayurveda for various diseases. An extract from the hibiscus flower could have the same heart health benefits as red wine and tea, researchers suggest in a study is published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. A team from the Chung Shan Medical University in Taiwan says the flower contains antioxidants that help control cholesterol levels. Animal studies showed the extract could reduce cholesterol in animals.
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Mediterranean Diet
Although experts say there is no single Mediterranean diet, food from these regions favors olive oil rather than butter and include lots of legumes, nuts, seeds, grains, fish, vegetables and potatoes but little meat and dairy. In a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, mortality rates were 65% lower among elderly people who combined a so-called Mediterranean diet with 30 minutes of daily exercise, and no tobacco use. In a separate study in the same journal, researchers from the Second University of Naples in Italy found that Mediterranean-style diets helped patients with "metabolic syndrome," which increases the risk of heart disease and diabetes and affects 1 in 4 American adults. These studies confirm the results of earlier studies.
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Egg Related Salmonella Infections
The Food and Drug Administration estimates that 118,000 people each year are sickened by eating improperly cooked eggs contaminated with salmonella. Illnesses range from mild stomach upset and arthritis to death. The Food and Drug Administration recommended changes aimed at reducing by one-third the salmonella infections caused each year by tainted eggs. People can be infected with salmonella by eating raw or partially cooked food that's tainted, including Roma tomatoes and cantaloupes imported from Mexico. Eggs can be contaminated inside the shell by passing through an infected laying hen's reproductive tract.
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Diabetes and Heart Disease
Diabetes triples the likelihood that postmenopausal women with coronary heart disease will develop heart failure, according to a study in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation. The nine predictor of heart failure were diabetes, atrial fibrillation, heart attack, impaired kidney function, high blood pressure, current smoking, obesity, conduction disturbances and left-sided heart enlargement.
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Exercise
Without enough exercise, even those impossible bodies on display at the Olympics are in danger of rapidly morphing into the shape of a couch potato, a study shows in Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, July 2004. Researchers in France found that among 20 highly trained rowers, those who stopped training saw their weight, fat mass and cholesterol levels reach that of the average sedentary person within a year.
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Waistline and Cancer
Expanding waistlines increase the risk for at least nine types of cancer, too. And with the obesity epidemic showing no signs of waning, specialists say they need to better understand how fat cells fuels cancer growth so they might fight back.

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Women's Health
Motherhood Beyond Menopause
The first baby conceived after an ovarian tissue transplant was born in Belgium in a procedure that could one day allow women to delay motherhood beyond menopause, announced by The Lancet medical journal. The birth marks the first time fertility has been restored to a woman after doctors cut out and froze some of her ovarian tissue and transplanted it back into her body years later.

Reproductive Helathcare
Progress toward boosting the status of women and providing reproductive health care to all has been steady over the past decade, but billions more dollars are needed to reach goals set 10 years ago, the United Nations said. Sixty-one percent of couples worldwide now use modern forms of contraception, up from 55 percent in 1994, the UN report said. But 200 million women in poor countries who don't want another child within two years are not using birth control, it found.
One woman dies every minute from complications of pregnancy and childbirth (529,000 deaths a year) and the vast majority are in poor countries, the report said. The number has not changed significantly since 1994, but most of those deaths could be prevented if all mothers had access to decent health care, the report said. There is now widespread acceptance of an idea endorsed by 171 countries in Cairo that the best way to control population growth and reduce poverty is to boost women's rights. That includes improving access to health care, education and economic opportunity. However, President Bush has blocked $34 million in congressionally approved annual assistance to the agency. Donor countries' support for condoms and other forms of contraception have decreased over the past decade, while demand is expected to increase by 40 percent by 2015.

Women are from Venus
Recent discoveries suggest that genes, hormones and lifestyle may be behind many of the differences between men and women. For example:

-Heart attacks in women frequently don't involve chest pain and may involve more vague, flu-like symptoms.

-Women appear to be more susceptible to lung cancer than men. Women also tend to get lung cancer at younger ages than men, and they appear to metabolize cancer-causing substances differently than men.

-Women are less likely than men to get oral cancer.

-Women are more prone to autoimmune diseases, including lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis, in which disease-fighting mechanisms mistakenly attack the body's own tissues.

-Some AIDS-fighting medicines appear to metabolize more quickly in men than in women, who may require gender-specific doses.

-Women's symptoms for ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, debilitating intestinal diseases that affect men and women, vary considerably each month, requiring frequent medication adjustments.

Mens Health
Walking

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Miscellaneous
Breastfeeding
Exclusive breastfeeding from birth to four months reduces the risk of asthma during the first four years of life, according to a study in the October 2004 Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology (JACI). Exclusive breastfeeding was defined as the period when the infants were given only breast milk, and no cow's milk or solid foods had been introduced. The researchers had previously showed the same results in children at 2 years of age. This study expands on those findings, showing that a more prolonged period of breastfeeding not only reduces the risk of asthma during the first four years of life, but it also appears to reduce the severity of the disease as well.
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Adenotonsillectomy
Adenotonsillectomy is a common procedure in children in western countries, yet evidence of its benefits in children with milder symptoms is lacking. Surgical removal of the tonsils and adenoids (adenotonsillectomy) in children with mild symptoms of throat infections or enlarged tonsils and adenoids has no major benefits over watchful waiting, finds a new study published on bmj.com.
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Drinking, Smoking and Impotency
A group of investigators from Argentina found that men who both drank alcohol and smoked cigarettes were more likely to have a smaller amount of semen, a lower concentration of sperm, and a lower percentage of active sperm than abstainers, presented in the journal Fertility and Sterility. Smoking and drinking together may exert "additive" or "synergistic" effects.
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Secondhand Smoke
A smoke-filled room may be worse for your lungs than a traffic-clogged highway. A study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine found that the air in smoky bars and casinos had 50 times more carcinogenic particles than the air on highways and city streets, putting the people who work there at risk.

Abuse in Childhood Causes Heart Disease in Adults
A study suggests that ischemic heart disease in adulthood may be a possible long-term consequence of childhood trauma. An abused or neglected child is much more likely to develop ischemic heart disease as an adult, according to a study published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. Adults who reported that they experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse, emotional or physical neglect, or household dysfunction included incarceration, substance abuse, mental illness, or domestic violence had a 30 percent to 70 percent higher risk of developing ischemic heart disease than people who did not report these adverse childhood experiences (ACE).
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Dog Sniffs Cancer
Bladder cancer is a particular risk to people over the age of 65, and men have three times the risk of women. It is detected using cystoscopy – inserting a fibre-optic instrument into the bladder via the urethra. Since it commonly recurs, patients who survive the cancer must undergo regular cystoscopy as a form of screening. In a novel experiment, a team of scientists and dog trainers have put traditional canine behavior to good use – sniffing human urine to detect bladder cancer sufferers, reports British Medical Journal. The study using six trained dogs, a labrador, three cocker spaniels, a papillon and a mongrel, found that their ability to detect a sample of urine from a patient with bladder cancer was well above chance.
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Recipes

Hot flax sauce
Grind flaxseeds into a powder after roasting them. You could make it like dry chutney by grinding it with 2 cloves of garlic, green chilies and some salt. You could have this regularly with your food. Apart from being rich in fiber, it is also very rich in Omega-3 fats.

Indian recipes with flaxseed: http://www.bhj.org/journal/2003_4502_april/ethnic_334.htm
More on flax at: http://botanical.com/site/column_poudhia/106_alsi.html

Berry Pudding Cake
Ingredients: 1-1/2 cups blueberries, 1-1/2 cups raspberries, 1-cup flour, 1-teaspoon baking powder, 1/4-teaspoon salt, 1-1/2 cups sugar, 1/2-cup skim milk, 3 tablespoons non/lowfat margarine, melted, 1-teaspoon vanilla extract, 1-tablespoon cornstarch, 1-cup boiling water.
Directions: Place fruit in the bottom of a 9-inch square baking dish coated with nonstick cooking spray (nonfat). Combine the next three ingredients and half the sugar in a mixing bowl. Add milk, butter and vanilla and beat with an electric mixer until smooth. Pour batter over fruit. Mix remaining sugar and cornstarch in a bowl and sprinkle over batter. Pour boiling water over mixture. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45 minutes.

Sweet Potato Soup
Ingredients: 4 cups sweet potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch slices, 1-1/2 cups green onion, sliced, 3-3/4 cups vegetable stock, 1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons evaporated skim milk 1-1/2 cups croutons.
Directions: Peel potatoes and steam 15-20 minutes or until tender. Set aside.
Combine green onions and half the stock in saucepan over medium
heat for 10 minutes. Transfer stock mixture to a blender. Add cooked sweet potatoes
and blend until smooth. Return potato mixture and remaining stock to saucepan and bring
to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer
5 minutes. Serve soup warm.

CARROT NIBBLERS
Ingredients: 6 medium Carrot, 1 medium, 1-1/2 Tablespoons Vegetable oil, 1-1/2 medium Garlic clove minced, 1 medium, 1/2 cup onion, 1/8 cup Vinegar, cider, 1/2 Tablespoon Pickling spice, 3/4 teaspoons salt.
1/4 teaspoon Mustard dried Directions: Cut carrots diagonally into thin slices. In a 10-inch skillet over medium heat, in hot salad oil, cook garlic and onion until tender. Add carrots, vinegar, pickling spice, salt, and dry mustard to skillet. Reduce heat to low; simmer, covered, about 7 minutes or until carrots are tender-crisp, stirring occasionally. Spoon mixture into a medium bowl; cover and refrigerate, tossing occasionally. Serve with cocktail picks. Womenfitness.net
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Source: The primary sources cited above, New York Times (NYT), Washington Post (WP), Mercury News, Bayarea.com, USA Today, Intellihealthnews, Deccan Chronicle (DC), the Hindu, Hindustan Times, Times of India, AP, Reuters, AFP, womenfitness.net etc.

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