When Promoting Fruit Consumption Goes Sour
For many years, the Florida Department of Citrus has produced ads that exaggerate the value of citrus products. The most recent example, appearing both on television and on its Web site, suggests that drinking a single glass of orange juice per day can greatly reduce the odds of having a stroke. According to a press release on its Web site: A study published in the October 6 edition of the Journal of the American
Medical Association (JAMA) found that drinking a glass of orange or
grapefruit juice every day may lower the risk of stroke by 25 percent....
[The researchers] found that increasing overall vegetable consumption
reduced the risk of stroke by just four percent, but increased consumption
of cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, etc.)
cut the risk by 32 percent. As for fruit, increasing overall consumption
lowered stroke risk by 11 percent, but simply drinking a glass of orange
juice every day reduced the risk of stroke by 25 percent.
This study, which was well designed, was supported by grants from the U.S. Office of Dietary Supplements and by the Florida Department of Citrus. The researchers examined data on 75,596 women, ages 34 to 59, who were followed for a 14-year period, and on 38,683 men, ages 40 to 75, who were followed for eight years. All of the participants were free of cardiovascular disease when the studies began. The study found that those with the highest intake of fruits and vegetables--particularly cruciferous vegetables, green leafy vegetables, and citrus fruit and juice--had the lowest incidence of strokes caused by obstruction of blood supply to the brain. The researchers noted, however, that "the analyses of individual fruit and vegetable items did not show any single fruit or vegetable that was strikingly more protective than others" (JAMA 282:1233-1239, 1998).The Citrus Department's "25 percent reduction" figure was derived from a table showing that the people reporting consumption of one serving per day of citrus juice had 20% fewer ischemic strokes than the 20% of people who consumed the fewest number of servings of fruits and vegetables. The study provides strong support for the prevailing scientific recommendation to consume at least five servings of fruits and vegetables a day. But it cannot predict the effect of adding citrus juice to your current diet--as the ad suggests.
In 1986, the department advertised that people who exercised couldn't get enough potassium in their diet and that the potassium in grapefruit juice not only would provide enough, but would "balance sodium levels to regulate blood pressure and fight off fatigue." When the National Advertising Division (NAD) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus investigated, a department spokesperson said that the potassium deficiency claims were based on an opinion survey of athletes conducted by a nutrition consultant, plus a study of the effects of intense conditioning in young men undergoing basic military training. In addition, a literature survey was provided as substantiation of the roles of sodium and potassium as nutritional factors in controlling blood pressure. NAD's investigator replied that the data obtained from the studies could not support broadly stated claims and that the ad had overstated the benefits of drinking normal quantities of grapefruit juice. The spokesperson informed NAD that the claims had been discontinued and that a new campaign would promote grapefruit as a significant source of potassium when part of a healthy regimen, including proper diet and exercise. However, a subsequent ad stated that grapefruit juice was "high in potassium with no sodium: a combination that, along with proper diet and exercise, can help control blood pressure." This was still misleading because drinking normal quantities of grapefruit juice is unlikely to lower blood pressure.
In 1993, the department distributed a booklet containing several pages of misleading information about vitamin C. Among other things, the booklet suggested that vitamin C "may offer remarkable protection against heart disease" and "can help prevent tuberculosis." (The latter claim was attributed to "Dr. Irwin Stone," but did not indicate that Stone's doctoral credential was a Ph.D. from nonaccredited Donsbach University.) The booklet also claimed that vitamin C must be ingested daily because it cannot be stored in the body. This claim was false, because the body normally stores about a month's supply.

15% of Women Struggle With Pregnancy-Related Depression

One in seven women suffers from depression before, during or after pregnancy, a new study finds.
The consequences of depression can be devastating to the mother, her baby and her entire family, according to the report in the October issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry.
"The prevalence of women diagnosed with depression before, during and after pregnancy was pretty similar," said lead author Patricia Dietz, an epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Reproductive Health.
"There are a lot of women who are becoming pregnant with depression, and that's really important for people providing prenatal care to be aware of," she said.
Screening for depression needs to occur during pregnancy and right afterward, Dietz said.
The consequences of postpartum depression, which affects 400,000 women in the United States, can be significant. It can inhibit a woman's ability to bond with her baby, relate to the child's father, and perform daily activities, according to background information for the study.
For the study, sponsored by Kaiser Permanente, Dietz's team collected data on 4,398 women who gave birth between 1998 and 2001. They found that 8.7 percent of the women experienced depression in the nine months before pregnancy, 6.9 percent during pregnancy, and 10.4 percent in the nine months following childbirth.
Some 15.4 percent of the women were depressed during at least one of these periods. Almost 75 percent of women with postpartum depression also suffered from depression before pregnancy. And more than 50 percent of women who were depressed before pregnancy were depressed during pregnancy, Dietz said.
"For many women, it's a chronic condition," she said.
In addition, 93.4 percent of the women who were diagnosed with depression before, during or after pregnancy had seen a mental health professional or were taking antidepressants.
Among women with depression, 75 percent had taken antidepressants -- 77 percent before pregnancy, 67 percent during pregnancy and 82 percent after delivery, the researchers found.
Women should report any signs of depression to their doctor, Dietz said.
"There is effective treatment out there for women. You are supposed to be elated when you've had a baby. It is sometimes difficult to even bring depression up," she said. "But doctors should ask."
Dr. David L. Katz, director of Yale University School of Medicine's Prevention Research Center, said the finding that depression is very common before and after, as well as during, pregnancy is of clear importance.
"There are two potential explanations. Either the challenges of pregnancy -- from hormonal changes to psychological adjustment -- induce depression, or the medical monitoring that occurs around the time of pregnancy identifies depression that otherwise would have gone undiagnosed. Of course, both factors may be in play," he said.
There are opportunities for prevention if pregnancy is causing depression, Katz said. "If pregnancy is merely unmasking depression in the population at large, it highlights the need to screen more effectively. Finding depression is prerequisite to treating it," he said.
Dietz thinks that before a woman starts a program of antidepressants, she should discuss the risks and benefits with her doctor.
According to the March of Dimes, a woman who is depressed feels sad or "blue" for two weeks or longer. Other symptoms of depression include:
Trouble sleeping.
Sleeping too much.
Lack of interest.
Feelings of guilt.
Loss of energy.
Difficulty concentrating.
Changes in appetite.
Restlessness, agitation or slowed movement.
Thoughts or ideas about suicide.

Trouble at Home Boosts Kids' Asthma

Poor family support and bad neighborhoods can aggravate asthma symptoms in kids, Canadian research suggests.
Edith Chen and colleagues at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver examined the degree of support that 78 children with asthma received from family and peers. They also looked at social problems, such as crime and violence, in the children's neighborhoods.
They then assessed the children's lung function, asthma symptoms, and certain behaviors that can affect asthma.
The results indicated a correlation between social environment and asthma symptoms and lung function. Children who reported less family support and lived in worse neighborhoods experienced greater asthma symptoms, the team said. Those who reported less family support had poorer lung function.
Further analysis revealed that low levels of family support were associated with greater lung inflammation which, in turn, was associated with poorer asthma outcomes. Family support did not appear to influence behaviors that can affect asthma.
The researchers also concluded that living in worse neighborhoods was associated with higher rates of child smoking and exposure to smoke, which is associated with poorer asthma outcomes.
"Poor family relations may foster psychological experiences with direct physiologic consequences, whereas problematic neighborhoods may operate by providing the role models for maladaptive behaviors," the study authors wrote.
Peer group support had no significant effect on asthma symptoms or lung function. The study was published in the first issue for October of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Kids' TV Viewing Tied to Behavioral Problems
But the 'off' switch may reverse the chance of trouble down the road, study says
-- If your toddler is watching a lot of TV, turn it off now and save yourself a lot of trouble later.
That's the conclusion of a new study that suggests that the negative effects of lots of early TV viewing on children can be overcome by limiting viewing before the age of 6.
The study doesn't confirm that television is actually bad for young kids. Nor does it show exactly how much of a cutback would help children exposed to lots of TV early in life. Still, lead author Kamila Mistry, a doctoral candidate at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said it makes a strong case for a "significant" difference in behavioral problems in kids depending on their viewing.
"It's never too late," Mistry said. "That's an important message for parents as well as pediatricians, encouraging parents to turn off the TV and think about alternative activities for kids."
Television, of course, has long been blamed for a variety of ills among children, from lethargy and obesity to shortened attention spans. The American Academy of Pediatrics discourages kids under 2 from watching any TV at all, and it says older kids shouldn't watch more than two hours a day.
Why take another look at TV and children? According to Mistry, the new study is unusual, because it followed kids over time -- from 2.5 years to 5.5 years -- and measured the effects of changing levels of TV watching.
The researchers looked at the results of surveys of 2,702 families who enrolled in a national study between 1996 and 1998. The kids were followed from birth to age 5.5.
Twenty percent of parents said their kids watched at least two hours of TV a day at both 2.5 and 5.5 years. Four in 10 children had TVs in their bedrooms at age 5.5.
Even when the researchers adjusted the study results to account for factors such as income and "parental involvement," they found that kids who watched two or more hours of TV daily at both ages were more likely to suffer from sleep, attention and aggressive behavior problems, and "externalizing of problem behaviors." Also, those who watched more TV over time had greater problems dealing with others.
But those children who reduced TV watching between the two ages didn't have a greater likelihood of either social or behavioral problems.
The researchers also found that kids with TVs in their bedrooms were more likely to have sleeping problems.
The findings are published in the October issue of Pediatrics.
The structure of the study didn't allow the researchers to say how much more likely kids were to have problems depending on their viewing habits, Mistry said. She added that it's not a cause-and-effect study. It's possible that behavioral and social problems may contribute to TV viewing, not the other way around, she said.
The study also didn't look at whether the children were watching educational programming, like "Sesame Street," or other programs, such as those geared toward adults.
"I hesitate to say TV is horrible," Mistry said, "but excessive amounts of any activity is probably not good."
Madeline A. Dalton, director of the Hood Center for Families and Children at Dartmouth Medical School, said she's not sure that reducing heavy early exposure to TV will eliminate the risk of problems. She thinks more research is needed to determine that and to figure out if it's possible that "parents may be more likely to sit their children in front of the TV if they have behavioral problems."
However, "time spent watching TV is likely to reduce the amount of time children spend interacting with adults and other children," Dalton said. "Therefore, it is not surprising that this may have an impact on ability to interact socially."
She added: "We are raising our children in a media-saturated world. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but our knowledge of how media affects children -- both in terms of behavior and health -- has clearly lagged behind its use."

Anxiety - What is an Anxiety Symptom?

Am I having a heart attack? Am I dying? Or is it anxiety? Many symptoms of anxiety mirror symptoms of other illnesses. This is because the “fight or flight” response is triggered in anxiety attacks and the body will respond as if it is threatened. The heart will race; the breathing will become shallow, sweats will breakout over the body to keep it cool in preparation for flight, these are all signs of anxiety, or an anxiety attack. Attacking anxiety back and regaining control over your reflex responses will help reduce the number, frequency and severity of your anxiety symptoms.When an Anxiety Symptoms is Harmful and When it Isn'tThere is a wide range of anxiety symptoms that may be no more than a mild feeling of uneasiness and as intense as extreme fear. In some cases, a little amount of anxiety is good and normal and it may even help to improve a person’s performance. There are features like having heart palpitations or a racing heart as well as a lot of sweating that point in the direction of being an anxiety symptom. Symptoms such as irritability and lack of concentration as well as having strange thoughts and having extreme mood changes are psychological symptoms.Treating Anxiety Stress SymptomsOne may wonder as to what the causes of anxiety symptoms are and who the people at greatest risk are. The answer lies in the fact that anxiety symptoms are a result of anxiety disorders which may occur due to a change in the way amygdale, which is a small organ in the subconscious brain, reacts. This is also known as anxiety switch. For treatment to be effective, there is a need for concentrating directly on these symptoms and the treatment should be aimed at the root causes of any anxiety disorders, which in other words, is an inappropriate reaction of the amygdale.It may be noted that everybody may have experienced anxiety symptoms at some point of time in their lives and most are able to effectively deal with such situations. When there is a lot of unusual rise in the adrenaline levels in the blood it sets off a chain reaction of normal but wrong reactions which results in powerful anxiety symptoms that greatly affect the person afflicted.There are also instances of some people experiencing symptoms when there is no obvious cause and these are known as free-floating symptoms that can be discontinuous in nature or may continue over a longer period of time. Some even have situational anxiety wherein the anxiety symptoms can be correlated with particular situations.One may also wonder whether anxiety symptoms are harmful and the answer is certainly not. They do not cause harm to the person even though they elicit a sense of horror and scare the person but in effect anxiety symptoms are not harmful, being exaggerations of normal body sensations and reactions. It bears repeating that to treat anxiety symptoms, one has to address the root cause, which lies in the amygdale, where anxiety is created and stored as well as sustained.

A Silent Epidemic among Children

Every year, millions of students come face to face with a recurring problem that seems to haunt them more than the proverbial “monster under the bed.” This persistent challenge has been called by academicians and behavioral experts as ---- test anxiety.This form of school-related stress hounds the kindergarten pupil as much as the Ivy League scholar. Test anxiety is when a student becomes so nervous about taking an examination that he can no longer perform well. This is actually a type of performance anxiety that prevents a student from reading and writing the right answers to a test. Sometimes, a little anxiety can serve as a motivation for a student to prepare and study harder for an upcoming examination. But if it already creates a paralyzing effect and disrupts daily routine, it may already be a case that must be referred to the academic supervisor or to the school psychologist.How do our children get test anxiety in the first place? Among the most common reasons for getting “school stress” is the student's lack of discipline and preparation. Knowing that insufficient or no preparation was made to satisfactorily hurdle an examination, a student would naturally feel nervous about taking the test. Another cause of test anxiety is the inappropriate content or level of difficulty of a test. Using the principles of learning, a teacher cannot force a student to learn a specific body of knowledge or learning content that is usually reserved for higher academic levels. The frustration and difficulty of learning a specific lesson may end up discouraging the student. Sometimes, the high expectations of parents can also lead to stress in children. Being young, children also need to play and have fun. An exaggerated emphasis on academics may leave your child feeling left out of games other children play. Too much study may also drive children to eventually disdain the tough of going to school and taking exams. So what can parents do to help their children cope with test anxiety?First, parents should set regular study periods so that their children do not “cram” for the exams. Second, parents must monitor the test results without nagging their children about the scores. The act of questioning them about how well they did in the exam may only cause more test anxiety.Third, it is best for parents to regularly meet with teachers to find out the real score on how their children perform in school. Indeed, school should be fun and it must be the last place for our children to have fear. It should be a place of adventure where they can express themselves without nervousness...where every test would be a chance to show their knowledge, skills, talents --- without any concern except to do their very best.

The Use Of Modern Air Purifiers In Today's Home

Air purifiers are an important part in today’s modern home. Air purifiers will help rid you of awful odours such as pet and stale cigarette smoke. Your rooms will be agreeably aromatic. Additionally, air purifiers scrub the air clean and therefore they are highly recommended for fellow sufferers of Asthma or other allergic conditionsThere are quite a few types of air purifiers on the market. as a general rule, the distinction comes from the way the air is filtered. You can have an air purifier with mechanical filters made of fibres, or filters containing filtering and air purifying substances, for example charcoal. Of late, there are also Air Ionisers that use electrostatic charges to help clean the air.What is important for air purifiers is the type of the fibres it uses. They should meet certain standards in order to “capture” all dust, bacteria, or any other air borne particles. HEPA filtration systems are the best filters you can get however they come with a higher price tag.A charcoal air purifier as its name suggests, contains charcoal filters. In essence, charcoal is a substance that can suck up and deactivate dangerous particles. Charcoal was often used in gas masks during World War II. And in fact, my Grandmother made gas masks for children during that war, they were in the image of Disney’s’ Mickey Mouse to make them easier to get used to.Ionisers enrich the home with oxygen and produces ozone. The oxygen particles practically burn any other particle they meet. For that reason ionisers are very good for people who have pet allergy, dust allergy, pollen allergy. Ozone is the reason that I benefited from spending a few years at the coast… my Asthma improved considerably.There are a huge variety of air purifiers obtainable on today’s market. When thinking about purchasing one, you should consider the cost of the air purifier, and the running costs of replacement filters. Some air purifiers are really cheap to buy outright, but their filters are costly – sometimes filters can cost the same as the purifying device itself. There are filters that can be re-used several times – you can wash or clean them in another way, I have a similar system in my vacuum cleaner – this is a great cost cutter. Air purifiers are not silent; they contain a small motor and fan to move the air through the filters. You should consider in which room of your home you want to place an air purifier, consider if it is noiseless enough for this room. For instance, if you are thinking about an air purifier for your bedroom, it is vital that you pick one that works silently. For shared areas such as the lounge or the kitchen you can afford to have a noisier one. It is also important to consider that some rooms create more air borne particles than others. If buying a filter for your kitchen, you need to make sure it will cope well in this environment.Some air purifiers utilise timers – you can leave them working when you need them too. This is a vital feature to consider when you’re buying an ioniser. Although ozone is harmless, it can be harmful if it reaches certain levels.Ultimately, regardless of the type of air purifier you use, it is vitally important to ventilate your rooms well. When you have let in the fresh air, you can close your windows and turn on your air purifier. This is the best way to keep your homes air fresh, clean and nicely scented.