While some nutritionists believe that nutritional supplements such as vitamin D and calcium could be good for bone strength, researchers are examining a tissue culture that grows human bones.

Researchers from the University of Houston department of health have discovered a growing process similar to how bones grow in humans.

“We have manufactured a structure that has no synthetic components,” said Mark Clarke, the lead researcher. “It’s all made by the two cell types bones start with inside the body.”

One of their main goals behind this endeavor is to determine how bones are formed, in hopes of getting a better understanding what’s good for them, and what causes fractures. The researchers are primarily investigating the cause of weakened bones for post-menopausal women and spinal cord patients.

Clarke has had previous experience with studying bones, having worked with NASA studying the effects of calcium on bone loss.

In addition to vaccines for immunity, eating healthy like an alkaline diet plan may help prolong your immunity to certain illnesses.

According to a study found in PLoS Pathogens, it was previously believed that once vaccinated, immunity to whooping cough would last between four and 20 years. It has now been discovered that when properly vaccinated, an individual can be immune for up to 30 years.

The researchers believe that this error was because some individuals’ immunity in the 1980’s had waned over time, causing the illness to spread. It is believed that this was due to the fact that the vaccines were still relatively new at the time.

“It’s worth pointing out that in the past 20 years or so, the nature of the vaccines that have been used has changed quite fundamentally,” researcher Pejman Rohani pointed out.

In one study, results showed that men who retained healthy levels of cholesterol in the range below 200 actually cut their risk of developing high-risk prostate tumors by more than 50 percent in comparison to men with high ranging cholesterol levels.

In the second study, findings showed that men with high levels of good (HDL) cholesterol were slightly less likely to develop prostate cancer in any form, compared to men with very low HDL cholesterol levels.

The studies were recently published in the journal of the American Association for Cancer Research called Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention. Both studies support prior research indicating that by limiting fats in the bloodstream, the risk of cancer can be lowered.

According to Elizabeth Platz of Johns Hopkins University who led the first study, “There might be this added benefit to keeping cholesterol low.” For the study, Platz’s team analyzed data of 5,586 men aged 55 and older that came from the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial conducted back in the 1990s. All of these men had been a part of the placebo group during the trial.

Among the group, a total of 60 of the men developed high-risk, aggressive tumors that are known to grow and spread quickly. By comparing cholesterol levels of all the men in the group, it was revealed that those men with cholesterol levels under 200 had a 59 percent less chance of developing one of these high-risk tumors than those men having high levels of cholesterol.

Platz acknowledged that cholesterol levels had no significant effect on the overall incidence of prostate cancer in the study. However, she pointed out that the association between low cholesterol levels and a reduced incidence of aggressive disease “is a notable reduction which is not often seen for prostate cancer.”

Although the decrease in risk is highly significant, it must be noted that the researchers could not account for the number of men in the study who were taking cholesterol-lowering medications such as statin drugs, which include such name brands as Lipitor, Zocor, and Crestor. Therefore, some of the reduction in risk may have been due to the use of such drugs rather than from generally having low cholesterol levels.

The results of the second study are based on data gathered over 18 years from following more than 29,000 Finnish men who were taking various vitamins and nutrients to test whether or not they could lower their risk for cancer. All of the participants in the study were smokers. According to study leader Dr. Demetrius Albanes of the National Cancer Institute, findings showed that those men having the highest levels of HDL cholesterol were 11 percent less likely to develop prostate cancer than those with lowest levels.

In a statement, Albanes said, “Our study affirms that lower total cholesterol may be caused by undiagnosed cancer.” He then added, “In terms of a public health message, we found that higher levels of good cholesterol seem to be protective for all cancers.”

Researchers from both studies agree that further research is necessary to confirm findings, as well as to identify the molecular mechanisms behind the association.

In the United States, prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men. It is estimated that over 192,000 new cases will develop this year alone, and of those, the disease will claim 27,360 lives.

A study done from researchers in the UK found that an overall healthy diet comprising a high proportion of fruits, fish and vegetables, protected middle aged people against depression compared to a processed food diet containing a high proportion of high fat dairy food, processed meat, fried food, refined grains and sugar-laden desserts.

The study was the work of researchers based at the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London (UCL), UK and the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM), University of Montpellier, France, and is published in the November issue of the The British Journal of Psychiatry which is available online.

In their background information the authors explained that much research on diet and depression tends to focus on individual nutrients so they thought they would look at links between overall dietary patterns and depression.

For the study they looked at data covering 3,486 participants of average age 57 years (nearly three quarters were men) who were part of the Whitehall II study.

The Whitehall II study was set up by co-author and UCL Professor Sir Michael Marmot to investigate links between disease and social class, psychosocial factors and life style. It began by looking at the health of working people, and is now also looking to answer questions about how previous and current circumstances affect health and quality of life in an ageing group of participants.

The data allowed the researchers to identify two dietary patters: a whole food diet and a processed food diet. The whole food diet comprised mainly fresh fruits and vegetables and fish, while the processed diet comprised mainly sweetened desserts, fried foods, high fat dairy foods, processed meat and refined grains.

To assess depression, the researchers used self-reported data that had been gathered five years after the dietary data using the CES-D scale.

CES-D, short for Center for Epidemiologic Studies – Depression scale, is a commonly used self-report questionnaire for assessing depression. It asks a series of multiple choice questions about how the participant has been feeling over the past week, covering topics such as concentration, loss of appetite, worry, how well they have been able to shake off depressive moods, quality of sleep, feelings of loneliness, self-worth, energy levels, and so on.

When they analysed the results and ruled out potential confounders such as age, gender, education, smoking, exercise, and chronic diseases, the researchers found that:

• Participants in the top 33 per cent (top tertile) of the whole food diet pattern, ie whose diet most closely matched the whole food diet, had a 26 per cent lower risk of receiving a CES-D depression assessment five years later (odds ratio 0.74, with 95 per cent probability of this being in the range 0.56 to 0.99) compared to the bottom 33 per cent (bottom tertile), ie whose diet least closely matched the whole food diet.
• In contrast, participants whose diet was high in processed foods had a 58 per cent higher risk of receiving a CES-D depression rating five years later.

The researchers concluded that:

“In middle-aged participants, a processed food dietary pattern is a risk factor for CES-D depression 5 years later, whereas a whole food pattern is protective.”

According to BBC News, co-author Dr Archana Singh-Manoux, who works at UCL and INSERM, suggested there was a possibility that the finding could be explained by a lifestyle factor they had not accounted for.

In other words the study does not prove that a processed food diet causes depression: it could be that people destined to become depressed become inclined to eat more processed foods, that there is a yet undiscovered factor behind both.

However, when results as strong as these emerge, and a consistent pattern linking diet and depression is found by several studies, it would tend to suggest that a healthy diet does protect against mental ill health.

The Chief Executive of the UK-based Mental Health Foundation, Dr Andrew McCulloch told the BBC that:

“This study adds to an existing body of solid research that shows the strong links between what we eat and our mental health.”

He said major studies like this were crucial in helping us understand more about how diet contributes to mental illness. He said people in the UK were increasingly adopting unhealthy diets, and eating less nutritious and fresh food and more saturated fats and sugars.

In a paper published in the journal Circulation, Tetsuo Shioi, lead researcher and assistant professor of medicine at Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine in Kyoto, and his team described how they managed to suppress a variety of the P13K gene in a group of elderly mice.

The gene regulates the lifespan of cells and plays a role in the aging of tissues. In previous studies, suppression of this gene extended the lifespan of the roundworm and kept the hearts of old fruit flies healthy.

Compared with another group of mice in which the gene was left intact, mice with the suppressed gene had improved cardiac function, less fibrosis (which makes the heart inflexible) and fewer biological markers of aging.

“This study showed that aging of the heart can be prevented by modifying the function of insulin and paves the way to preventing age-associated susceptibility to heart failure,” Shioi said.

Old age is a major risk factor for heart failure, a condition when the heart is unable to pump enough blood around to supply the oxygen the body needs, the World Health Organization says.

According to the American Heart Association, 5.7 million Americans have heart failure, and nearly 10 out of every 1,000 people over age 65 suffer heart failure every year.

Mariell Jessup, professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia, said older people experience a slow but gradual loss of heart cells and a host of other cellular abnormalities which make the remaining cells contract less efficiently.

“This early work in a mouse model, clarifying the role of PI3K in cardiac aging, could ultimately allow scientists to understand if human hearts are similarly influenced,” he said.

As mammals, mice are considered a good surrogate for studies of human diseases and conditions; their body plan, physiology and genome share many features with humans.

Researchers in Sweden surveyed 600 recent stroke victims on their perceptions of their stress levels prior to being admitted to the hospital. The patients were asked to choose between six different alternatives to indicate how stressed they had felt before their stroke, from “never been stressed” to “constantly stressed over the past five years”. Their responses were compared with a healthy control group who were asked the same question.

The study suggests there is a link to stress in cases where the stroke is caused by atherosclerosis or to blood clots that have developed locally in the smaller vessels of the brain. The link was also found for patients in whom it had not been possible to establish the cause of the stroke despite an extensive evaluation.

“We do not know why stress appears to play a greater role in particular types of stroke, but it is an important finding as it prompts further studies on what role stress plays in the development of stroke,” said researcher Katarina Jood.

Health resources for managing stress include identifying its cause, getting plenty of exercise and eating a healthy diet. Relaxation techniques like breathing exercises, yoga, meditation and aromatherapy have also been suggested by healthcare practitioners.

Stroke is the third leading cause of death in the U.S. and is a leading cause of serious long-term disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The virus, xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related-virus or XMRV, was found in approximately 67 percent of 101 patients that suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome by Vincent C. Lombardi, Ph.D. from the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Reno, Nevada, and his team.

The team also found the virus in nearly 4 percent of healthy comparison subjects, which suggests that millions of Americans could carry this mysterious virus that was first detected in prostate cancer.

Robert H. Silverman, Ph.D., from the Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute, said, “The discovery of XMRV in two major diseases, prostate cancer and now chronic fatigue syndrome, is very exciting. If cause and effect is established there would be a new opportunity for prevention and treatment of these diseases.” Silverman is part of the team of scientists that first discovered XMRV, and was among the researchers that linked the virus to prostate cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome. However, it is still not proven that XMRV actually causes either prostate cancer or chronic fatigue syndrome.

In patients that have prostate cancer, the virus is seen in the patients that carry a genetic mutation that disables a key virus-fighting immune response. This virus is also seen in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome with and without this mutation.

Where did this virus come from, you may ask? This virus is very closely related to a retrovirus that has become a part of the mouse genome. Oddly enough, XMRV cannot infect mouse cells, but it can easily infect human cells. It is unlikely that so many people have caught XMRV from mice. It is more likely that the virus is spread from person to person, but how that happens is still unknown.

An editorial that was written by John M. Coffin from Tufts University, Boston, and Jonathan P. Stoye from the Institute for Medical Research, London, accompanies the Lombardi report, which is in the current issue of the online journal Sciencexpress.

Stoye and Coffin note that if 4 percent of healthy people truly carry XMRV, it means that this virus is astonishingly widespread. They say, “If these figures are born out in larger studies, it would mean that perhaps 10 million people in the United States and hundreds of millions worldwide are infected with a virus whose pathogenic potential for humans is still unknown.”

What is known is that the viruses that are closely related to XMRV do cause many different diseases, which include cancer, in other warm-blooded animals. Further study could reveal that XMRV is a cause of more than one well-known “old disease.” This could lead to potentially important implications for prevention, diagnosis and therapy.

A study appearing in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition finds people who took one tablespoon of whole flaxseed everyday were able to reduce both their total cholesterol and their LDL, or bad, cholesterol levels. Flaxseed oil, in comparison, did not produce the same results.

Women, particularly post-menopausal women, had the greatest reduction in their cholesterol, compared to men and other people who previously had higher cholesterol levels, according to Reuters.

Flaxseed has been called a wonder food and previous studies have found it may help reduce the risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes, according to WebMD.

It contains omega-3 fatty acids, antioxidant-rich lignans and both soluble and insoluble fiber.

Taking one to two tablespoons of flaxseed every day is a simple health resource. Experts say whole and ground flaxseed are preferrable to flaxseed oil so you get all its healthy components.

It is available in packaged foods like crackers, waffles and cereals and can be easily added at home to muffins, cakes and even casseroles.

Most supermarkets, pharmacies, other specialty food and vitamin stores and online retailers sell flaxseed.

Registered dietician Andrea Garen says that a healthy diet is important all year round, but particularly during the flu season. “Adding flu-fighting foods like yogurt, garlic, citrus and chicken to your diet can boost your body’s immune system and help you to avoid getting sick,” she says.

Previous research has suggested that low levels of vitamin D, found in milk and other dairy products, is linked to a seasonal increase in cold and flu and a higher incidence of respiratory infections. Cultured milk products, like yogurt, also contain probiotics which are beneficial bacteria with immunity-boosting benefits.

A potent ingredient to some, garlic may also help boost the immune system and fight off sickness, Garen adds.

Citrus fruits, like oranges and lemons, contain vitamin C while chicken, meat and peanuts all contain zinc. Both are also considered to aid in immunity.

Frequent hand-washing is one of the best health resources to fight the flu. In addition, taking nutritional health supplements containing these flu-fighting vitamins and minerals is a good option.

While exercise can boost mood, its health benefits have been oversold.

Moderate exercise can reduce the risk of diabetes in people at risk. Exercise may reduce the risk of heart disease and breast and colon cancers.

Though the evidence is mixed, exercise may also provide benefits for people with osteoporosis.

Physical activity alone will not lead to sustained weight loss or reduce blood pressure or cholesterol.

Exercise has long been touted as the panacea for everything that ails you. For better health, simply walk for 20 or 30 minutes a day, boosters say — and you don’t even have to do it all at once. Count a few minutes here and a few there, and just add them up. Or wear a pedometer and keep track of your steps. However you manage it, you will lose weight, get your blood pressure under control and reduce your risk of osteoporosis.

If only it were so simple. While exercise has undeniable benefits, many, if not most, of its powers have been oversold. Sure, it can be fun. It can make you feel energized. And it may lift your mood. But before you turn to a fitness program as the solution to your particular health or weight concern, consider what science has found.

Moderate exercise, such as walking, can reduce the risk of diabetes in obese and sedentary people whose blood sugar is starting to rise. That outcome was shown in a large federal study in which participants were randomly assigned either to an exercise and diet program, to take a diabetes drug or to serve as controls. Despite trying hard, those who dieted and worked out lost very little weight. But they did manage to maintain a regular walking program, and fewer of them went on to develop diabetes.

Exercise also may reduce the risk of heart disease, though the evidence is surprisingly mixed. There seems to be a threshold effect: Most of the heart protection appears to be realized by people who go from being sedentary to being moderately active, usually by walking regularly. More intense exercise has been shown to provide only slightly greater benefits. Yet the data from several large studies have not always been clear, because those who exercise tend to be very different from those who do not.

Active people are much less likely to smoke; they’re thinner and they eat differently than their sedentary peers. They also tend to be more educated, and education is one of the strongest predictors of good health in general and a longer life. As a result, it is impossible to know with confidence whether exercise prevents heart disease or whether people who are less likely to get heart disease are also more likely to be exercising.

Scientists have much the same problem evaluating exercise and cancer. The same sort of studies that were done for heart disease find that people who exercised had lower rates of colon and breast cancer. But whether that result is cause or effect is not well established.

Exercise is often said to stave off osteoporosis. Yet even weight-bearing activities like walking, running or lifting weights has not been shown to have that effect. Still, in rigorous studies in which elderly people were randomly assigned either to exercise or maintain their normal routine, the exercisers were less likely to fall, perhaps because they got stronger or developed better balance. Since falls can lead to fractures in people with osteoporosis, exercise may prevent broken bones — but only indirectly.

And what about weight loss? Lifting weights builds muscles but will not make you burn more calories. The muscle you gain is minuscule compared with the total amount of skeletal muscle in the body. And muscle has a very low metabolic rate when it’s at rest. (You can’t flex your biceps all the time.)

Jack Wilmore, an exercise physiologist at Texas A & M University, calculated that the average amount of muscle that men gained after a serious 12-week weight-lifting program was 2 kilograms, or 4.4 pounds. That added muscle would increase the metabolic rate by only 24 calories a day.

Exercise alone, in the absence of weight loss, has not been shown to reduce blood pressure. Nor does it make much difference in cholesterol levels. Weight loss can lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, but if you want to lose weight, you have to diet as well as exercise. Exercise alone has not been shown to bring sustained weight loss.Just ask Steven Blair, an exercise researcher at the University of South Carolina. He runs every day and even runs marathons. But, he adds, “I was short, fat and bald when I started running, and I’m still short, fat and bald. Weight control is difficult for me. I fight the losing battle.”

The difficulty, Dr. Blair says, is that it’s much easier to eat 1,000 calories than to burn off 1,000 calories with exercise. As he relates, “An old football coach used to say, ‘I have all my assistants running five miles a day, but they eat 10 miles a day.’”