mmking's blog

About 80 to 90% of women suffer nausea at some point during their pregnancy.  Although it's called "morning sickness" it can strike at any time.  While it usually persists only during the early weeks, up to 30% of women can suffer with nausea beyond 20 weeks or even up to delivery. 

It can be a serious problem for both mother and baby.  Health conscious women do not want to take the risk of pharmaceutical drugs.  They can cross the placenta barrier and have harmful effects on the child.  But extended bouts of nausea can leave an expectant mother malnourished.  That can lead to low birth weight or a preterm birth. 

With the outbreak of the H1N1 virus or Swine Flu in April 2009, the worldwide use of Tamiflu skyrocketed.  Drug companies and public health agencies claimed it would relieve symptoms and reduce hospital admissions and flu complications like pneumonia, bronchitis, sinusitis, or ear infections. 

As fears of an influenza pandemic mounted, the U.S. spent over $1.3 billion to stockpile Tamiflu and Relenza (another antiviral) for use against seasonal and pandemic influenza.  The UK government spent almost £424 million to stockpile about 40 million doses of the drugs. 

According to a new study, they would have been better off stockpiling a placebo. 

For more than 50 years many dermatologists have been denying the link between diet and acne. They insist on prescribing gut-destroying antibiotics, pharmaceuticals, and birth control pills with real long-term adverse side effects.  They laugh at the notion that diet has anything to do with this teenage nightmare.

Once again science has proven that the best health prescription is an apple a day. Researchers at the University of Oxford say eating one apple every day matches the vascular benefits of modern statin drugs without the harmful side effects.

In a study published in the British Medical Journal, the researchers constructed a theoretical model of the effects of prescribing either a statin drug or a daily apple to all adults in the UK over 50 years old.

Controversy continues to rage over the artificial sweetener aspartame. Since it was first approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1981, aspartame has made its way into more than 6,000 food items.

The FDA claims aspartame is safe but has set an acceptable daily intake of no more than 50 mg per kilogram of body weight. In other words, an adult weighing 165 pounds should consume no more than 3,750 mg of aspartame a day. A can of diet soda typically contains about 180 mg of the chemical. That means the FDA's "safe" limit equates to about 21 cans of diet soda per day.

But is any level of aspartame really safe?

Are you a night owl? Do you work the night shift? Do you have trouble getting to sleep or sleeping through the night? If so, your biggest worry isn't dragging yourself through the next day. You may also be at significantly higher risk of gaining weight, and developing metabolic syndrome and diabetes

Age-related cataracts are the leading cause of low vision and blindness throughout the world.  Up to 30% of people over the age of 50 will develop them.  By age 75, about 70% will have cataracts.  Surgery to remove cataracts has become almost routine.  

Cataracts develop when proteins build up in the lens of the eye making it cloudy.  It happens with age and is primarily due to oxidative damage.  Age-related cataracts are the result of a lifetime of molecular damage to the lens proteins by free radicals. 

Obesity is developing at an alarming rate even in developing countries.  Maybe the global obesity epidemic has nothing to do with eating too much food.  Research suggests the problem may be rooted in your food's packaging.   

A Kaiser Permanente study has found that girls between 9 and 12 years of age with higher-than-average levels of bisphenol-A (BPA) in their urine had DOUBLE the risk of being obese compared to girls with lower levels of BPA.

Lots of studies have looked at the question of whether coffee drinkers are less likely to develop diabetes.  The short answer is yes they are. 

But the question remains, why does coffee seem to lower diabetes risk?  Is it the caffeine? 

Researchers from Harvard wanted to know the answer.  They conducted a meta-analysis of 28 prospective studies of coffee with 1,109,272 participants.  Follow-up ranged from 10 months to 20 years.

Attention chocolate lovers.  Here's another good reason to indulge your chocolate addiction every day WITHOUT the guilt.  Researchers have found that long-term consumption of chocolate is associated with a reduced diabetes risk. 

Using data from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Cohort study, researchers followed 7,802 participants for more than 13 years.  ARIC is conducted and supported by the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute.  Participants aged 45–64 years are drawn from households in North Carolina, Minnesota, Maryland, and Mississippi.

Participants were examined every three years and completed food frequency questions on their chocolate consumption.