As more and more people discover the benefits of the healthy omega-3 fatty acids in fish and try to add fish to their diet, they may find that they are at a small (and theoretical) risk of “Mad Cow” disease from eating farm-raised fish.

The June 2009 issue of Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease had an article from the University of Louisville looking at the possible risk of developing “Mad Cow” disease or Creutzfeldt Jakob disease in people that eat farm-raised fish that had been fed fish food that contains infected cow parts.

The risk of developing Creutzfeldt Jakob disease may be negligible or nonexistent, but it may be one reason to pick the wild salmon over the farm-raised salmon on your next trip to the seafood department.
While I think the risk is small, especially with other issues such as mercury content in larger fish, the risk of developing “Mad Cow” disease could be an evolving concern.

One more reason to look closely at the type of fish that we eat – farm-raised salmon should be labeled either as “farm raised” or “color-added”. Fish caught in the wild is also usually labelled as such. Farm-raised salmon is also sometimes called “Atlantic” salmon, which I personally think is a marketing ploy to confuse the geographically-challenged fish shopper.

I’m sure more than one slightly-confused attempting-to-shop-healthy shopper thought ” ‘Alaskan’ or ‘Atlantic’ – heck they both begin with the letter ‘A’ and this ‘Atlantic’ one is on sale…”

It does appear that in more advanced cases of colon cancers, the Vitamin D receptors are already significantly down-regulated and reduced.

The authors of the study suggest that Vitamin D receptor concentrations may offer addition treatment options in early colon cancers where the amount of vitamin D receptors have not been significantly reduced.

Vitamin D supplementation may also be a way to reduce or limit the growth of early colon cancer tumors by decreasing the overall tumor load of the colon cancer.

Reference:
Larriba MJ, Ordóñez-Morán P, Chicote I, Martín-Fernández G, Puig I, et al. (2011) Vitamin D Receptor Deficiency Enhances Wnt/β-Catenin Signaling and Tumor Burden in Colon Cancer. PLoS ONE 6(8): e23524. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0023524

September 16th Google home page

Is Google entering the health food market?

Nope. ITs just Google’s way of bringing attention to the 118th birthday of Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, the Nobel prize winning Hungarian scientist credited with the discovery of Vitamin C.

Read more about Albert Szent-Gyorgyi at the Wall Street Journal and on Wikipedia

The study authors did not feel that the actual diagnosis of depression or similar mental illnesses had a significant impact on the development of autism spectrum disorders. A separate arm of the study compared women with depression that either took SSRI anti-depressants or did not take the SSRIs and still found a higher incidence of autism related illnesses in the group of women that were taking the SSRI anti-depressants.

Commentary:

There has been a continuing amount of research on autism and the possible reasons for its increase over the past forty years from 4 to 5 cases per 10,000 (or 0.04%) births in 1966 to approximately 100 cases per 10,000 births (or 1% of births) in 2006 based on the CDC published data.

While environment factors have been touted as one possibility, some studies have shown that the women that have the highest rate of autistic children tend to be somewhat older, highly educated and with a higher household income. A surprising finding since other disorders tend to have the opposite findings, with a higher prevelance in children born to women with less education and a lower economic status.

References:

Archives of General Psychiatry
Wisconsin Medical Journal

An earlier study found that patients with pre-existing heart disease had a high rate of cardiac events such as myocardial infarctions (heart attacks) while on Chantix. This new study now shifts the focus onto the potential increased risk of serious cardiac events to all patients, even those patients without a prior history of heart disease.

While the FDA has previously required Pfizer, the maker of Chantix (varenicline), to have a balck box warning on the medication regarding the possibility of patients having increased risk for suicidal thoughts whil on the medication, this new revelation may change how often physicians prescribe Chantix to their patients for smoking cessation.

What was interesting about the study is that the sexual dysfunction was found in younger men (age 21 to age 46) who were taking the medication for cosmetic reasons (prevention of hair loss). The sexual dysfunction may be due to blockage of the conversion of the male hormone testosterone to the more bio-active form of dihydrotestosterone by inhibiting the 5-alpha reductase enzyme

Watch some of the comments by Dr. Michael Irwig, the lead researcher from George Washington University discuss some of the study’s findings.

November is Prostate Cancer month and also Movember, where men (and women if they can) grow mustaches to raise awareness and money for prostate cancer research.

Why is prostate cancer research important? Why is cancer research important?

Here are the facts:

One out of every two men in the United States will be diagnosed with cancer at some stage of their life.

One out of every six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer

This is a cause that I feel passionately about and I’m asking you to support my efforts by making a donation to support the great work of the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the LIVESTRONG foundation. To help, you can either:

- Click this link http://us.movember.com/mospace/1123956/ and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account
- Write a check payable to Movember, referencing my name or Registration Number 1123956 and mailing it to: Movember, PO Box 2726, Venice, CA 90294-2726

The money raised will help make a tangible difference to the lives of others, through the world’s most promising prostate cancer research and LIVESTRONG’s programs that support young adults and their families battling and surviving cancer.

For more details on how the funds raised from previous campaigns have been used and the impact Movember is having please visit
http://us.movemberfoundation.com/research-and-programs/.

Please remember to donate to http://us.movember.com/mospace/1123956/