SPRAY TANNING: DHA HEALTH RISK - POTENTIAL LUNG COMPLICATIONS

The active chemical used in spray tans, dihydroxyacetone (DHA), has the potential to cause genetic alterations and DNA damage, according to a panel of medical experts who reviewed 10 of the most-current publicly available scientific studies on DHA for ABC News, including a federal report ABC News obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

Six medical experts in areas ranging across the fields of dermatology, toxicology and pulmonary medicine said they "have concerns" after reviewing the literature and reports about DHA, the main chemical in the popular "spray-on" tan, which has conventionally been referred to as the "safe" alternative to tanning under ultraviolet lights.

None of the reviewed studies tested on actual human subjects, but some found DHA altered genes of multiple types of cells and organisms when tested in different labs by different scientists after the chemical was approved for use in the consumer market.

Click here to view a web extra video: "DHA Health Risk: Potential Lung Complications"

"I have concerns," said Dr. Rey Panettieri, a toxicologist and lung specialist at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine. "The reason I'm concerned is the deposition of the tanning agents into the lungs could really facilitate or aid systemic absorption -- that is, getting into the bloodstream."
Panettieri, like all the experts ABC News consulted with, said more studies should be done. He emphasized the available scientific literature is limited. Still, he said, he has seen enough to say the warning signs of serious health concerns exist.

"These compounds in some cells could actually promote the development of cancers or malignancies," he said, "and if that's the case then we need to be wary of them."

The FDA originally approved DHA for "external" use back in 1977, when it was popular in tanning lotions. Those lotions, previously famous for turning skin orange, were never as popular as current products that produce better tans. In recent years, the use of DHA has exploded in the newer "spray" application of the product, which provides a more even tan for consumers.

SUGAR IS TOXIC

Walt Disney announced that it's going to stop advertising junk food to kids on its TV channels, radio station and website by 2015. It's eliminating ads for sugar-laden fruit drinks, candy and snack cakes.Recently, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg outlined a plan to ban large-size sugary beverages sold at the city's restaurants, movie theaters, sports venues and street carts. Some states and cities are working on "soda taxes" on sugary drinks. And in recent years, major health groups have discouraged the consumption of large amounts of added sugars.

The motivation is clear: The US is in a full-fledged state of hand-wringing about overweight Americans who are among the most obese in the world and are heavier than they've ever been before.

Increasingly, the focus is being placed on sugar, the sweetener with a history that goes back 8,000 years. The American Heart Association says in a statement that research has tied a high intake of added sugars to many poor health conditions, including obesity, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and other risk factors for heart disease and stroke. Diabetes educators often advise people with diabetes and pre-diabetes to watch their sugar intake, especially their consumption of sugary beverages. Nutritionists have said for years that sugar represents empty calories with no nutritional value.

The consumption of added sugars, especially from sugar-sweetened beverages, among some people in the country "is out of control," says Rachel Johnson, a spokeswoman for the American Heart Association and a nutrition professor at the University of Vermont.
Americans adults consume an average of 22 teaspoons a day, or about 355 calories, from added sugars, Johnson says. Every teaspoon has 15 to 16 calories.

You don't remember adding 22 teaspoons of sugar to your coffee or cereal? People are downing table sugar, brown sugar, high-fructose corn syrup (in soda), maple syrup, honey, molasses and other caloric sweeteners. Added sugars make their way into many prepared and processed foods and beverages, from soda, sweet tea and lemonade to energy drinks and sports drinks.

One 16-ounce serving of regular soda, the proposed NYC cap, contains the equivalent of at least 12 teaspoons of sugar, says Cynthia Sass, a registered dietitia . "Many of my clients don't realize how much hidden sugar creeps into their diet, even in foods that don't seem sweet, like salad dressing, soups and crackers."

Sugar is "toxic" in the amount it's consumed by Americans, says pediatric endocrinologist Rob Lustig, a professor of pediatrics at the University of California-San Francisco and one of the country's most vocal critics of added sugars. A little bit is OK, but it's the quantity that people are consuming that's harmful, Lustig says. "Everyone knows the dose determines the poison. I agree with that. There is a threshold, and right now we are way above that threshold."

The heart association recommends that most American women consume no more than 6 teaspoons a day, about 100 calories, from added sugars, Johnson says. For men, it's 9 teaspoons or about 150 calories. Kids should limit their intake to about the same amount, she says.

BACK-ROOM DEALS HURT THE AMERICAN PUBLIC

WASHINGTON — It would seem a business executive’s dream: legally pay a competitor to keep its product off the market for years.

Congress has failed to stop it, and for more than a decade generic drug makers and big-name pharmaceutical companies have been winning court rulings that allowed it.

Until this month. On July 16, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia issued a decision that the arrangement is anticompetitive on its face. It potentially sets up a confrontation before the United States Supreme Court. If it were to accept the case, the outcome could profoundly affect drug prices and health care costs.

The Philadelphia ruling by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals conflicted with decisions from at least three other federal circuit courts, giving the Supreme Court a strong reason to hear the case within the next few years.

“The Third Circuit has rebalanced the issue and teed it up for the Supreme Court,” said Eleanor M. Fox, an antitrust expert and professor at the New York University Law School. The agreements between generic and branded drug manufacturers “are cases of competitor collaboration, which the Supreme Court has called ‘the supreme evil of antitrust.’ ”

The stakes are enormous for brand-name drug makers, which would face lower profits, and for pharmacies, insurance companies and patients, who could benefit from the savings.

In the case of Cipro, a powerful antibiotic with annual sales exceeding $1 billion, Bayer paid $400 million to a generic drug maker, Barr Laboratories, and other companies. In exchange, the generic makers said they would withhold their own lower-priced generic versions of the drug until 2003, when Bayer’s patent on the brand-name drug expired.

Last year, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that a Senate bill to outlaw such payments would save the federal government $4.8 billion over 10 years and would lower drug costs in the United States by $11 billion. The legislation remains stalled in the Senate. The federal government is a major buyer of drugs through Medicare and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, which has greatly increased its scrutiny of what it calls “pay-for-delay settlements” between generic and branded drug companies, said that the appeals court decision “puts us one step — and a very important one — closer to solving this very real problem.”

Mr. Neas said that through 2010, generic drugs had reduced drug costs for Americans by $931 billion, a third of that resulting from patent settlements between big-name drug makers and generic manufacturers.

The agreements are the result of a 1984 law that made it easier for generic drugs to gain Food and Drug Administration approval and a 2003 amendment, which required branded and generic drug makers that entered into patent settlements to file their agreements for review to the F.T.C. and the Justice Department.

The agreements generally work like this: A generic-drug maker comes up with a chemical equivalent to a large-selling, patented drug and applies to the F.D.A. to sell it, arguing that the patent is invalid.

Rather than spend years and millions of dollars defending its patent, the branded company often offers a settlement: it pays the generic company to keep its drug off the market for a time period, perhaps also offering to let the generic company market an “authorized” generic version later on.

Pharmaceutical makers say that the agreements are a cost-effective way of settling patent litigation.

If the courts do not settle the issue, the pending Senate bill, supported by Senator Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat, and Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican, would do away with the payments between branded- and generic-drug makers. When the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the bill one year ago, Mr. Kohl said the deals undermined basic capitalism.“There’s no room in a competitive marketplace,” he said, “for these kinds of back-room deals.”

EATING DISORDERS IN OLDER WOMEN

A first-of-a-kind study looking at older women finds damaging eating disorders are common — and 62% of those surveyed say their weight or shape has a negative impact on their lives.

Historically, eating disorder research has focused on teens and young women, but the study out Thursday in the International Journal of Eating Disorders shows 13% of women ages 50 and older struggle with the problem — some for the first time in their lives. Eating disorders are more common in women than men and include purging, binge eating, excessive dieting and excessive exercising.

The researchers surveyed 1,849 women online from across the nation in attempt to find out how older women feel about their bodies and to estimate the prevalence of eating disorders. There are 53 million women in the USA older than age 50, the authors write, noting previous studies have reported a lower risk for eating disorders as women mature...Read more.

WHAT CAUSES HIGH CHOLESTEROL?

 

Learn Which Risk Factors You Can Control

Elevated cholesterol levels aren't caused by a high-cholesterol diet alone. The fact is, a combination of factors affect your cholesterol levels. There are two main categories of risks that contribute to high cholesterol—those that you can't change (uncontrollable risks), and those that you can (controllable risks).

Uncontrollable Risk Factors
These variables are out of your control. Although you can't do anything to change them, it's important to know whether you fall into any of these higher-risk categories. How many of these risk factors do you exhibit?

• Your age. Your risk of developing high cholesterol increases as you age. Men over age 45 and women over 55 are at higher risk than their younger counterparts.
• Your gender. Overall, men are more prone to high cholesterol than women—until women reach 50 to 55 years of age, that is. Naturally-occurring cholesterol levels in women increase around this age.
• Your family history. Your family has given you more than your eye color. They've also partly determined your risk for several conditions and diseases. Some people have a genetic predisposition to high cholesterol. Your risk is higher if an immediate family member had high cholesterol and/or its associated problems (like heart disease), especially at a young age (under 55).
• Your race. Somewhat related to family history, your race can also predetermine part of your cholesterol risk. In the U.S., African Americans, for example, are more likely to develop high cholesterol than Caucasians.

Controllable Risk Factors
Factors that you can control are related to your lifestyle—the choices you make each day about what to eat and whether or not to exercise. These are areas of your life where you can take control to improve your cholesterol levels and enhance your overall health.

• Your diet. Since your body makes about 80% of its cholesterol, the other 20% comes from the foods you eat. If your diet is high in cholesterol-promoting foods (saturated fat, cholesterol, trans fat) and low in heart-healthy foods (healthy fats, whole grains, fish, fruits and veggies), then your diet is probably contributing to your high cholesterol levels.
• Your activity level. Inactive people are an increased risk for high cholesterol. Regular exercise naturally decreases the LDL (bad) cholesterol levels in your blood while increasing your HDL (good) cholesterol levels. Exercise does not have to be strenuous to offer benefits.
• Your weight. Being overweight increases your blood cholesterol levels since your body stores the extra calories you eat as triglycerides. When these triglyceride levels are high, HDL (good) cholesterol levels tend to be low. Losing just 10% of your body weight (if you are overweight), can improve your cholesterol levels.
• Smoking. Did you know that smoking is the leading preventable cause of heart disease, due to its effects on your arteries, heart, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels? Smoking damages the walls of your arteries and lowers your HDL (good) cholesterol levels. Quitting can stop (and potentially reverse) a lot of the existing damage to your body, and improve your cholesterol.

When you have other existing health conditions, you are compounding your risk of serious complications and disease if you don't lower your cholesterol. Add high risk factors into the picture (family history, age, race) and your risk is compounded even more. The good thing is that you can break that chain of progressive disease at any point by changing what you can control.

Lowering your cholesterol can help improve your health by reducing your risk of heart attack, stroke, and other serious health problems. You should work closely with your doctor to develop a cholesterol-lowering plan that is safe and effective for you. These plans usually involve some combination of dietary changes, regular exercise, medication, and weight loss.

By Nicole Nichols

POMEGRANATE AND BREAST and PROSTATE CANCER

Have you heard?  The pomegranate has been linked to prevent breast cancer!

That’s right, in a report from the Cancer Prevention Research, a team from the City of Hope Cancer Center at Duarte in California, stated, “Estrogen stimulates the proliferation of breast cancer cells and the growth of estrogen-responsive tumours. The aromatase enzyme, which converts androgen to estrogen, plays a key role in breast carcinogenesis.” That adds the pomegranate to our list of fruit fighting cancer!

So in other words, some forms of breast cancer are links to estrogen.  It’s a wonder how a hormone that does so much good, could also do so much bad.  These researchers discovered that pomegranate has several phytochemical compounds that block androgen from becoming estrogen.

Any fruit that is rich in color is loaded with antioxidants, therefore it is no wonder that the pomegranate is a rich source of antioxidants, like the ellagitannins. The research team commented that, “Ten ellagitannins-derived compounds including ellagic acid, gallagic acid (etc) were examined for their ability to inhibit aromatase activity and testosterone-induced breast cancer cell proliferation. We identified six with antiaromatase activity.”

Shiuan Chen, the lead author of the research team, mentioned, “We previously found other fruits, such as grapes, to be capable of the inhibition of aromatase”.

So it seems that many antioxidant fruits are capable of preventing cancer, however the researchers warn that these fruit shouldn’t be a substitute for medicine for those that already have the malignant disease.

Other Ways to Prevent Breast Cancer:

•     Get regular mammograms

•     Keep alcohol consumption low

•     Eat well

•     Maintain a healthy weight

•     Exercise

Other Health Benefits of the Pomegranate:

•     Prevents cardiovascular diseases

•     Lowers blood pressure

Pomegranates Stops Prostate Cancer Cells

Currently, there’s no cure for prostate cancer. Treatment for it involves surgery, suppression of testosterone and radiation. However, recent studies from the University of California reveals how the juice from pomegranates may have what it takes to stop the prostate cancer cells.

The testing procedure had researchers inject pomegranate juice on laboratory-cultured prostate cancer cells. The result was a significant cell adhesion, making the cells stick to each other and decreases the chance of spreading.

Pomegranate juice has conjugated fatty acids, flavones, hydrobenzoic acids and phenylpropanoids. These four ingredients are crucial in fighting the migration of the cancer cells. Proponent for the study, Professor Manuela Martins-Green said, “Because the genes and proteins involved in the movement of prostate cancer cells are essentially the same as those involved in the movement of other types of cancer cells, the same modified components of the juice could have a much broader impact in cancer treatment.”

As expected, further studies will begin on how pomegranate juice affects cancer patients. This could be a breakthrough in curing cancer.

Add Pomegranate Seeds to Salad, Stews and More

There are many recipes where pomegranate seeds are being used. To name a few, recipes, such as pomegranate stew with chicken, salad recipes, pomegranate granita and a lot more. Same with salads, there are many varieties of it and you just have to learn how to prepare it and simply choose a recipe that you like most.

Pomegranate is known to be a staple in the cuisine of Persian style. In fact its juice is popular and is most widely present in U.S. It is also not just widely known as the “super food” in nutritional aspects, but because making a juice out of pomegranate is very taxing and lots of fruits are needed. It is advised also to use the seeds or remove pomegranate while it is still fresh. It can stand up for a short time while baking and also keeps their color garnet.

 

In some preparations, you will need to know how to get pomegranate seeds out. It is actually not that difficult to remove pomegranate seeds. Simply keep it tidy first, utilize a large mixing bowl, and fill with water to half-full. Next, cut the pomegranate by half, and submerge it in water by halves. Using your hands, separate its seeds from its inner membrane. Remember, membranes are fragile and usually floats on the surface. Remove membrane and its outer rind while removing the seeds. Lastly, skim its surface for the tiny bits to be eliminated. Drain in colander, and there you go, seeds are all set to use.

6 Tips to Beat Colds and Flu This Year

How Can You Stay Healthy? Here are some Tips:

1. Hands Off: 80% of colds are spread by direct contact with people who are already sick. It is the number one way germs are transmitted. So keep your distance when possible.

2. Keep it Clean: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that hand-washing is the single-most important prevention step for reducing disease transmission. Make sure you lather your hands up frequently.
3. Drink More Water: Drinking eight, 8-ounce glasses of water should already be part of your daily routine, but especially during cold and flu season. Water is used by every cell in your body and essential for flushing out toxins and germs.
4. Drink Green Tea: Canadian researchers added green tea to lab samples of the adenovirus (one of the bugs responsible for colds), and found that it stopped the virus from replicating. All the credit goes to EGCG, a chemical compound found in certain kinds of tea, but in the highest concentrations in green tea. Each serving of our Kerisma Xtreme Tea contains the nutritional equivalent to 20 cups of green tea!
5. Exercise: Quite simply, people who exercise regularly are less likely to get sick. Exercise keeps your immune system strong and also reduces stress levels. The more stressed you are, the more likely you are to catch the cold or flu.
6. Sleep On It: Getting a good night’s rest is essential to a healthy immune system. Resting allows the body to recuperate, so it is ready to fight another day. Adults should get at least 7-9 hours, more for younger teens and children.

More than 1 billion colds plague Americans from October through March every year. Take some simple steps to put up your best fight this year.