samedi 14 novembre 2009

Is diet of good help for asthma?

Asthme et régime alimentaire
Mainly diet can interfer with asthma through the intake of essential fatty acids. To be clearer I will give precise advices as the agrobusiness is very opaque about that issue of essential fatty acids and the labels still more.
W3 are natural anti-inflammatory nutrients, especially the long chain Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA in the literature) present in fatty fisches (tuna, salmon, macquerel, herring, sardine and anchoys...) but also the medium chain W3 fatty acid linolenic acid which is present in LEAVES, salad, roquette dandelion, and so on or in linseed (oil) and also canola (oil), and eventually in meat or milk of GRASSFED animals only (mammals).
OK? If you don't eat fish which I highly recommend, you can supplement your diet with good krill oil. As an asthmatic I suggest that you try a daily supplementation of krill oil (two capsules) during six months in order to check the specific effect of W3 PUFA on your production of eicosanoids the molecules responsable of inflammation. Good krill oil mean for instance Neptune krill oil or Aker biomarine krill oil.
Nevertheless you have to choose these foods when you play the modern hunter gatherer role in "wild" supermarkets! All other stuffs are made of W6 (corn, soy , wheat...) or worst of trans fats which you have to avoid completely as these trans fats are very proinflammatory and atherogenic.
Same for eggs, poultry which is raised in fields choose herbs, some grains, and lombrics... Not corn or cereal granules human made by transforming all sort of grains and legumes (soy is a legume), especially by heating, extruding and adding pure chemical vitamins. These eggs are labelised outdoor keeping or outdoor rearing hens.
So you can understand that organic can be misleading.
If the poultry is kept outdoor on sufficient surfaces of grass, if the cattle is grassfed all is OK. Organic is probably better on the long run because of a higher content in minerals, oligoelements, phytochemicals and quasi-absence of biocides.
If the organic farmer feeds all his animals with organic corn you will have a severe desequilibrium of your intake of essential fatty acids. Obviously an organic desequilibrium! I should add that it is difficult to find this kind of information in the jungle of the food products but it is possible, more today than ten years ago as the demand is growing with proper information of the consumers.
And remember one thing which is essential: linoleic (parent W6 fatty acid) and linolenic (parent W3 fatty acid) are like vitamins you are unable to synthetise them. So the ratio of these two fatty acids in your intake is the ratio of your body (cell membranes of the brain, heart, muscles, synthesis of derived molecules etc). The ratio W6/W3 of paleo diet is between 3 and 1, our "modern" diet made of food products and grain fed animals is above 15 and for people who don't eat leaves above 25! All changes were made in the last 50 years! For instance the so popular med diet is beneficial partly because of a favorable W6/W3 ratio around 7 to 10.
In the same approach in order to modify substantially the W6/W3 ratio you have to decrease the intake of W6. One major source is oil. Sunflower and other oils (sesame, safflower) are very rich in linoleic acid the first W6 fatty acid. So choose olive oil which is neutral (W9) or wallnut oil (delicious), canola oil or linseed oil. These oils are fragile and you should keep them in the frig and use them in the same year, so don't buy big bottles unless you have several children.
This diet is supposed to decrease the severity of asthma crisis not their frequence. So the answer to my initial question is definitely yes. But this diet will also dramatically decrease the probability of cardiovascular diseases, cancers and arthrosis! A major step toward good health.

mardi 10 novembre 2009

Thé vert: une source de polyphénols

Green tea an important source of polyphenols
Green tea extracts may protect against oral cancer: Study
By Stephen Daniells, 06-Nov-2009

Related topics: Research, Antioxidants, carotenoids, Phytochemicals, plant extracts, Cancer risk reduction

Extracts from green tea may prevent the formation of mouth cancers in people with risk signs of the disease, according to a new study from Texas.

Over 50 per cent of participants in the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center study experienced a clinical response to the green tea extracts, according to findings published in Cancer Prevention Research.

“While still very early, and not definitive proof that green tea is an effective preventive agent, these results certainly encourage more study for patients at highest risk for oral cancer,” lead researcher Vassiliki Papadimitrakopoulou, MD.

“The extract's lack of toxicity is attractive - in prevention trials, it's very important to remember that these are otherwise healthy individuals and we need to ensure that agents studied produce no harm,” he added.

The study was funded by Ito En and using the company’s green tea extract.

Green tea contains between 30 and 40 per cent of water-extractable polyphenols, while black tea (green tea that has been oxidized by fermentation) contains between 3 and 10 per cent. Oolong tea is semi-fermented tea and is somewhere between green and black tea.

The four primary polyphenols found in fresh tealeaves are epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), epigallocatechin (EGC), epicatechin gallate (ECG), and epicatechin (EC).

Phase II stats

The study, a phase II dose-finding trial, followed 41 people with oral leukoplakia, a condition is a sign of oral cancer risk. The participants were assigned to receive either placebo or green tea extract at one of three doses, including 500 milligrams per metre squared of body mass (mg/m2), 750 mg/m2, or 1,000 mg/m2 three times a day.

The researchers collected oral tissue biopsies, which they say was “essential in that it allowed us to learn that not only did the green tea extract appear to have benefit for some patients, but we pointed to anti-angiogenic effects as a potential mechanism of action,” explained co-researcher Anne Tsao, MD.

Almost 60 per cent of people taking the two highest doses of the green tea extracts had a clinical response. Just over 36 per cent of people in the lowest extract dose group had a clinical response, compared to 18 per cent in the placebo group, said the researchers.

At an extended follow-up with a mean of 27.5 months, 15 participants had developed oral cancer, with a median time to disease development of 46.4 months.

Commenting on the safety, the researchers noted that side effects such as insomnia and nervousness were mostly only recorded in the high-dose group. None of these produced no significant toxicity, they added.

“While these are encouraging findings, much more research must be done before we can conclude that green tea may prevent oral or any other type of cancer. It's also important to remind people that this trial enrolled very few participants who, at the highest dose levels took the equivalent of eight cups of green tea three times a day,” cautioned Papadimitrakopoulo.

“We need to further understand if green tea offers longer-term prevention effects for patients,” he added.

Next stage of study

Future studies with such high-risk people investigate the effects of longer supplementation periods, said the researchers.

According to the American Cancer Society, more than 35,720 are expected to be diagnosed with oral and/or pharynx cancer and the five year survival rate is less than 50 per cent.

Source: Cancer Prevention Research
Volume 2, 931, doi: 10.1158/1940-6207.CAPR-09-0121
"Phase II Randomized, Placebo-controlled Trial of Green Tea Extract in Patients with High-risk Oral Premalignant Lesions"
Authors: A.S. Tsao, D. Liu, J. Martin, X. Tang, et al.

lundi 9 novembre 2009

Toujours la vitamine D!


Le consensus est total concernant le besoin de supplémentation en vitamine D surtout chez les personnes âgées. Pourtant il n'y a pas de bataillons de visiteurs médicaux qui assaillent les médecins ni de spots télé! La vitamine D ne coûte pas cher!
Référence
Consensus des médecins européens sur http://www.cpme.be/index.php

lundi 2 novembre 2009

Grippe porcine dite A H1N1: données épidémiologiques

http://flutracker.rhizalabs.com/
Vous souhaitez avoir des données en voici. Je note que les cas confirmés sont très loin des suspicions de grippe A H1N1! En France je crains que nous ne sachions jamais!