Eat your fiber, boys and girls

Eat rope, live forever.

Dietary fiber may be associated with a reduced risk of death from cardiovascular, infectious and respiratory diseases, as well as a reduced risk of death from any cause, a new study says.

In the study involving 219,123 men and 168,999 women, fiber intake was associated with a significantly decreased risk of total death in both men and women -- the one-fifth of men and women consuming the most fiber (29.4 grams per day for men and 25.8 grams for women) were 22 percent less likely to die than those consuming the least (12.6 grams per day for men and 10.8 grams for women).

The risk of cardiovascular, infectious and respiratory diseases was reduced by 24 percent to 56 percent in men and 34 percent to 59 percent in women with high fiber intakes. Dietary fiber from grains, but not from other sources such as fruits, was associated with reduced risks of total, cardiovascular, cancer and respiratory disease deaths in men and women.

You can see a list of foods with lots of fiber here. Potato skins are included.

Miracles and wonders: cancer-smart phones, tic-tac size pacemakers

Cancer detection system.

Everyday something amazing comes out of the medical labs and research centers.

Scientists at the Massachusetts General Hospital that have integrated a microNMR device that accurately detects cancer cells to a smartphone. Though just a prototype, this device enables a clinician to extract small amounts of cells from a mass inside of a patient, analyze the sample on the spot, acquire the results in an hour, and pass the results to other clinicians and into medical records rapidly. How much does the device cost to make? $200.

Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have become the first in the world to use patients’ own cells to build tailor-made urinary tubes and successfully replace damaged tissue. They replaced damaged segments of urinary tubes (urethras) in five boys. Tests to measure urine flow and tube diameter showed that the engineered tissue remained functional throughout the six-year follow-up period.

Medtronic, the world's largest medical-device maker, is using microelectronics and chip manufacturing to shrink pacemakers — implanted devices that regulate the heart's rhythm. Whereas current pacemakers are about as big as a silver dollar, Medtronic's device would be smaller than a tic tac. At that size, the device would be small enough to be inserted via catheter, rather than invasive surgery.

Scientists from the Russian city of Chelyabinsk have developed “a bio-artificial liver” which not only cleans the blood, but is also capable of “jumpstarting” a sick body. Several successful operations have already been conducted at a local hospital.

A joint team of Indian and Australian scientists claims to have achieved a breakthrough by creating an antibody which could be used for developing a "medical smart bomb" that would help seek out and eradicate the root of cancer — the stem cells. 

The promising results of a gene-therapy trial have offered new hope to people with Parkinson's disease. The controversial approach uses virus particles to infuse new genes into a patient's own cells. The goal of the therapy is to provide patients' cells with the blueprints to make proteins that have a therapeutic effect. In this case, the blueprint encoded an enzyme called GAD that would act like a chemical form of deep-brain stimulation, avoiding the need for electrodes, wires and battery packs.

Should you be taking potassium iodide?

With fears that radiation from Japan could reach the West Coast of the United States, sales of potassium iodide (KI) have soared. This chemical will protect the thyroid from radiation, but whether you need to buy it or take it is a real question.

In California, U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin said it would not be an overreaction to buy it. On the other hand, Kelly Huston of the California Emergency Management Agency. Huston said state officials, along with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the California Energy Commission, were monitoring the situation and people don't need to buy the pills.

What should you do? The one thing you shouldn't do is to start taking the stuff because of what you read in the news. Here is some guidance from the Centers for Disease Control. The fact sheet at the link describes who should take it and the proper doses. It also warns about side effects. So don't take it without instructions to do so from public health officials and/or advice from your doctor.

Here's more about potassium iodide at Wikipedia.

I learned that kelp is a natural source of KI, although the iodide content can range from 89 µg/g to 8165 µg/g in Asian varieties, making prepared foods content difficult to estimate.

The secret to a long life

Don't worry, be happy ain't it. Neither is the proper proportion of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids in your diet.

Leslie R. Martin, a psychology professor at La Sierra University in Riverside, who participated in a 20-year study, says:

"One of the findings that really astounds people, including us, is that the Longevity Project participants who were the most cheerful and had the best sense of humor as kids lived shorter lives, on average, than those who were less cheerful and joking. It was the most prudent and persistent individuals who stayed healthiest and lived the longest."

Part of the explanation lies in health behaviors – the cheerful, happy-go-lucky kids tended to take more risks with their health across the years, said Howard S. Friedman, distinguished professor of psychology at the University of California - Riverside, who led the study.

While an optimistic approach can be helpful in a crisis, "we found that as a general life-orientation, too much of a sense that 'everything will be just fine' can be dangerous because it can lead one to be careless about things that are important to health and long life. Prudence and persistence, however, led to a lot of important benefits for many years. It turns out that happiness is not a root cause of good health. Instead, happiness and health go together because they have common roots."

"Some of the minutiae of what people think will help us lead long, healthy lives, such as worrying about the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids in the foods we eat, actually are red herrings, distracting us from the major pathways," Friedman said. "When we recognize the long-term healthy and unhealthy patterns in ourselves, we can begin to maximize the healthy patterns."

"Thinking of making changes as taking 'steps' is a great strategy," Martin says. "You can't change major things about yourself overnight. But making small changes, and repeating those steps, can eventually create that path to longer life." 

The first step, Friedman and Martin say, is to throw away the lists and stop worrying about worrying.

I'm going to put that on my to-do list, right after eating more cabbage.

What's up, Doc?

Bad idea, pops.

News from the world of medicine:

Researchers have demonstrated that listening to loud music through earphones for extended periods in noisy surroundings can cause neurophysiological changes related to clear discrimination of sounds, even if the hearing threshold is normal. This auditory abnormality concerns "the vividness of sounds" and cannot be recognized by the usual hearing test.

Closely contested major sporting events are followed by a significant increase in traffic fatalities for fans of the winning team, according to new research from North Carolina State University.

In a major breakthrough in the battle against Parkinson's disease, researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine have discovered a drug that stops the progression of the degenerative illness in mice and is now being tested in humans.

Higher levels of HDL “good” cholesterol just may protect against colon cancer, findings from a large European study suggest.

The Mediterranean diet is known to help prevent heart disease. Now new research extends these benefits to metabolic syndrome, a cluster of risk factors that includes high blood pressure, abdominal obesity, high cholesterol levels, and insulin resistance that increase risk for diabetes and heart disease.

Fever may be beneficial when it comes to fighting infection, according to new advice from pediatricians. New guidelines from the American Academy of Pediatrics urge parents to recognize fever as a sign that the body is working to fight infection and not something to be feared.

A research team from J Thomas Jefferson University has been able to quantify a relationship between physicians' empathy and their patients' positive clinical outcomes, suggesting that a physician's empathy is an important factor associated with clinical competence.

Are we all half awake all of the time? Violinists aren't.

This way to Carnegie Hall.

I know. One more article on getting enough sleep and you'll just doze off. Fine. I don't get enough, so this is for me.

Tony Schwartz, president and CEO of The Energy Project and author of The Way We're Working Isn't Working, made me think of this. His thoughts.

We continue to live by a remarkably durable myth: sleeping one hour less will give us one more hour of productivity. In reality, the research suggests that even small amounts of sleep deprivation take a significant toll on our health, our mood, our cognitive capacity and our productivity. Insufficient sleep, for example, wreaks havoc on our memory.

So how much sleep do you need?

When researchers put test subjects in environments without clocks or windows and ask them to sleep any time they feel tired, 95 percent sleep between seven and eight hours out of every 24. Another 2.5 percent sleep more than eight hours. That means just 2.5 percent of us require less than 7 hours of night a sleep to feel fully rested. That's 1 out of every 40 people.

And what's the deal with violinists?

Typically, they sleep significantly more than the rest of us. In Anders Ericcson's famous study of violinists, the top performers slept an average of 8 ½ hours out of every 24, including a 20 to 30 minute midafternoon nap some 2 hours a day more than the average American. The top violinists also reported that except for practice itself, sleep was second most important factor in improving as violinists.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

Nap, nap.