Alcohol drinking linked to breast cancer

Just because it offers cardiovascular benefit doesn't mean you can ignore its adverse effect.

http://www.dor.kaiser.org/dors/news/Sept2007_alcohol_breast_cancer.shtml
Cohort 70,000 people, time span more than 20 years. Quite convincing. "women who drank between one and two alcoholic drinks per day increased their risk of breast cancer by 10 percent compared with light drinkers who drank less than one drink a day. The risk of breast cancer increased by 30 percent in women who drank more than three drinks a day."

http://my.clevelandclinic.org/be_well/wine_health_benefits_qa_bewell0808.aspx
Practical advice. "If you want to drink wine, limit your intake to four glasses or fewer per week, and be sure to take a multivitamin every day." "increased risk could be somewhat offset by ingesting the recommended daily amount of folate or folic acid (400 mcg). Both are forms of Vitamin B9. Folate occurs naturally in green, leafy vegetables, citrus fruits and dried beans, while folic acid, which is better absorbed, is synthetic and mainly found in multivitamins."

Some researches show that it's alcohol in wine or champaigne that is responsible for the positive cardiovascular effect. But now you face a dilemma, especially if you're a woman of the age for breast cancer. The above articles didn't say, but you can still eat dark chocolate, or many other good things, and exercise, for the health of heart and blood circulation.

2009-07 update:
Moderate Alcohol Intake and Cancer Incidence in Women, Journal of the National Cancer Institute

Beijing Olympics: When do sports and health go together?

In China, teachers and parents often associate sports with health. No doubt if you want better health, regularly doing exercise is a must. On the other hand, pushing people to limits in sports often goes in the wrong direction of a healthy life. Not everyone in China agrees with that view, or immediately realizes it. Failing to realize this danger, thousands of parents send their kids, usually one per family, to sports schools known for Spartanic training. While we cheer for the Olympics to be held in Beijing next month, anticipate extraordinary influx of visitors and money, and the boost of national pride too tightly interwoven with sports, we should never forget the boys and girls, now men and women, that failed to achieve the absolute top, and all because of over-training and inhumane treatment, failed in health, and subsequently failed financially and in personal life. Read NPR's renowned reporter Louisa Lim's heart-breaking report Many Chinese Athletes Find No Glory In Retirement. These retired athletes' miserable life is not a hot topic in China, not among many parents and teachers, and particularly not hot during the frenzied cheers for the upcoming Olympics.

All we need is a sober mind. Be cool, be healthy. Tell your friends, those dads and moms, and teachers, that sports is not health unless moderation is practiced. Beijing Olympics is just an event. National pride comes from 1 out of 1 million. While you root for the 1-millionth, remind yourself of the 999,999 that may become another "Zhao Yonghua, 31, spent much of the past decade in bed". I believe only when the whole country stops treating gold medals as national pride this fanatically will sports and health be closer in concept.

(To have a balanced view, read all four of Ms Lim's reports at China: Glory For The Nation)

Gray Hairs: Causes and Correct Treatment

Words in some Webmd.com articles (highlight added by me):

http://www.webmd.com/skin-beauty/guide/abcs-premature-graying?page=2

"Premature graying has been associated with certain medical conditions such as thyroid disorders, vitiligo, vitamin B12 deficiency, and anemia. Vitiligo is an autoimmune condition in which the cells that make pigment (melanocytes) are destroyed, resulting in patches of hair and skin that become white."


http://men.webmd.com/guide/gray-anatomy

"Contrary to popular belief, having kids or a stressful job won’t turn hair gray. But oxidation, the damaging effect of unstable oxygen molecules — which have been linked to many aspects of aging — may be one of the causes of gray hair. ... the process of synthesizing melanin generates a slew of unstable oxygen molecules. When the Humboldt team exposed healthy and productive pigment-producing hair follicle cells to oxidation, the cells began to die off."

"Of course heredity plays some role, ... [and race]...
"

Both articles talk about dyeing the hair as a way to "treat" this problem. That sounds surprisingly silly! They already have strong suspicion, if not proved theory, about the cause. And yet the treatment is still so superficial. Why not recommend the gray hair guys and gals go see an endocrinologist for possible thyroid disorder, take vitamin supplement or B12 fortified cereal for B12 deficiency, (and take less bananas for possible reduced B12 absorption caused by potassium), and eat fruits such as apples strong in antioxidation? Individual causes warrant their own attention. I'm not a doctor or trained dietician. So I'll leave it to you and your doctors to make decisions. But even as a non-medical professional, I'm absolutely sure dyeing hairs is not a real solution, not to mention body's absorption of the foreign, non-natural, dye chemical molecules.

Health News Review website

A friend emailed me the URL to Health News Review web site. The site posts daily reviews of medical articles or news broadcast on popular news media, magazines, web sites, or TV, and rate the articles on a few critiria. The reviews and ratings are made by medical professionals. I think it's a near perfect solution to the general public's frequent complaint that medical advice on news media is often confusing and contradicting. It does not replace directly reading research articles, which give you the original source of how the control study was done and what the raw data looks like. But it's a great site for general reading and provokes critical thinking for all of us. The topic selection is also attractive; it highlights those that catch most people's eyes, weight loss, cardiovascular problems, etc. Rare diseases are, well, rarely selected.

Why fresh fruits and vegetables?

My last posting "fruit juices = increased hazard of diabetes" still bothers me. The researchers did not offer any explanation, not even a hypothesis. It reminds me of numerous health and medical science articles that recommend we eat fresh fruits and vegetables but none explain why fresh. We all know freshness means better taste and smell. But scientifically, it does not logically follow that they're healthier than not as fresh fruits and vegetables, although rotten ones, obviously, should be excluded for food poisoning.

So here's my theory, or hypothesis. Many fruits and vegetables have anti-oxidants, those that scavenge free radicals in our bodies. As a chemist, I know that if something is anti-oxidant, it must easily react with oxidant, most notably in our everyday life, oxygen. Have you ever asked yourself why a cut-open apple exposed to air for a few minutes has a layer of "rust"? If you must leave it open for a while, you can put food wrap on it tightly to avoid oxygen exposure, and the rust will not appear. Like apples, many fruits and vegetables have nutrients that chemically react with oxygen, depleting the health benefit due to decreased amount of the nutrient. If they were still on the plant, the nutrient would be continuously produced. But once harvested, time is running to gradually lose the oxygen sensitive nutrient. If you must, store them in a CO2 or nitrogen environment.

Well, here I'm assuming oxygen to be the only chemical that eats aways the good stuff. But it's likely that the nutrient may degrade anaerobically. In that case, eating fresh is the only way to make best use of the healthy plants.

Back to the "fruit juices = increased hazard of diabetes" topic. Science is making progress. But there's always a little gap to reveal the secrets of real nature. There got to be something fruit juice manufacturers are missing. Before the missing part is found, let's eat fresh fruits for the time being.