Low Potassium Linked to High Blood Pressure

As a risk factor for high blood pressure, low levels of potassium in the diet may be as important as high levels of sodium—especially among African Americans, according to research being presented at the American Society of Nephrology's 41st Annual Meeting and Scientific Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

"There has been a lot of publicity about lowering salt or sodium in the diet in order to lower blood pressure, but not enough on increasing dietary potassium," comments lead author Susan Hedayati, MD, of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, and the Dallas VA Medical Center. The new study suggests that low potassium may be a particularly important contributor to high blood pressure among African Americans, and also identifies a gene that may influence potassium's effects on blood pressure.

The researchers analyzed data on approximately 3,300 subjects from the Dallas Heart Study, about half of whom were African American. The results showed that the amount of potassium in urine samples was strongly related to blood pressure. "The lower the potassium in the urine, hence the lower the potassium in the diet, the higher the blood pressure," says Dr. Hedayati. "This effect was even stronger than the effect of sodium on blood pressure."

The relationship between low potassium and high blood pressure remained significant even when age, race, and other cardiovascular risk factors—including high cholesterol, diabetes, and smoking—were taken into account.

Previous studies, including the landmark “Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension” study (DASH), have linked potassium deficiency to high blood pressure. The new results support this conclusion, and provide important new data on the relationship between potassium and blood pressure in a sample that was 50% African American. "Our study included a high percentage of African-Americans, who are known to consume the lowest amounts of potassium in the diet," according to Dr. Hedayati.

Research performed in the laboratory of Dr. Chou-Long Huang, a co-author of this study, has found evidence that a specific gene, called WNK1, may be responsible for potassium's effects on blood pressure. "We are currently doing more research to test how low potassium in the diet affects blood pressure through the activity of this gene," adds Dr. Hedayati.

The conclusions are limited by the fact that people in the Dallas Heart Study weren't following any specific diet. The researchers are currently performing a study in which participants are on fixed potassium diets while measuring the activity of the WNK1 gene to see if WNK1 is responsible for this phenomenon.

Meanwhile, they urge efforts to increase the amount of potassium in the diet, as well as lowering sodium. "High-potassium foods include fruits such as bananas and citrus fruits and vegetables," says Dr, Hedayati. "Consuming a larger amount of these foods in the diet may lower blood pressure."

Green Tea Compound May Prevent Diabetes

A compound found in green tea could slow or even prevent the development of type 1 diabetes, new research in mice suggests.

Green tea contains several antioxidants that have been shown to curb inflammation, prevent cell death, and possibly even ward off cancer.

In the current study, Dr. Stephen D. Hsu of the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta and colleagues tested the effects of green tea's predominate antioxidant known as EGCG in laboratory mice with type 1 diabetes and Sjogren's syndrome, which damages moisture-producing glands causing dry mouth and eyes.

They fed the mice plain water or water spiked with 0.2 percent EGCG.

EGCG, the investigators found, reduced the severity and delayed the onset of salivary gland damage associated with Sjogren's syndrome -- a condition with no known cure.

EGCG also dramatically slowed the development of type 1 diabetes in the rodents. At 16 weeks, they found, 25 percent of the mice given the green tea compound had developed diabetes, compared to 67 percent of the mice given water. At 22 weeks, 45 percent of the EGCG group had diabetes, while 78 percent of the control group did.

"Our study focused on Sjogren's syndrome, so learning that EGCG also can prevent and delay insulin-dependent type 1 diabetes was a big surprise," Hsu said in a statement.

Both type 1 diabetes and Sjogren's syndrome are autoimmune diseases, which cause the body to attack itself.

Hsu and his team also found that the salivary gland cells that were under autoimmune attack were actually multiplying, but EGCG slowed this proliferation. Such rapid cell division has also been shown to occur in psoriasis.

The current study supports earlier research showing EGCG's impact on helping prevent autoimmune disease, the researchers conclude.

SOURCE: Life Sciences, October 24, 2008.

Metabolic Syndrome Affects One-Fourth US Workers

The combination of health risks known as metabolic syndrome affects slightly less than a quarter of the U.S. workforce and is linked to increased absenteeism and poorer health status, reports a study in the October Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).

Analyzing health risk appraisal data on 5,512 employees of a large financial services corporation, the researchers found that 22.6 percent of the workers had metabolic syndrome. The lead author was Dr. Wayne N. Burton of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Metabolic syndrome is defined as having at least three of five disease risk factors: large waist circumference (more than 40 inches for men and 35 inches for women), high triglyceride levels, reduced levels of high-density cholesterol (HDL, or "good" cholesterol), high blood pressure, and high glucose levels. People with metabolic syndrome are at high risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

In the workplace sample, men and women had similar rates of metabolic syndrome, although men had a higher average number of risk factors. As the number of risk factors increased, so did the rate of lifestyle health risks such as obesity, low physical activity, high stress, and smoking. Workers with metabolic syndrome were also more likely to rate their own health as fair to poor, compared to workers with fewer risk factors.

Workers with more risk factors missed more work days because of illness. The percentage of workers with three or more sick days in the previous year increased from 25 percent for those with no risk factors to 39 percent for those with all five risk factors.

Metabolic syndrome was not linked to increased "presenteeism"—days the employee was at work but performing at less than full capacity because of health reasons. There was a trend toward higher rates of short-term disability, but this was not significant.

Affecting approximately 69 million U.S. adults, metabolic syndrome has major health and economic consequences. The new study is one of the first to examine the effects of metabolic syndrome in the working population.

The results draw attention to the high rate and impact of metabolic syndrome among U.S. workers. Dr. Burton and colleagues call for further studies to assess the impact of metabolic syndrome in the workforce, as well as to evaluate programs to identify and treat these high-risk workers.

The researchers were surprised to find that metabolic syndrome did not affect on-the-job productivity or short-term disability. They speculate that the major consequences of metabolic syndrome have not yet been realized in their relatively young study sample (average age 41 years). Dr. Burton and colleagues write, "This is encouraging in that employers may still have time to provide employees with the education and tools they need to improve their health risks before experiencing the consequences of diabetes or heart disease."

Female sexual dysfunction a distressing problem

Boston, October 31: A study assessing the prevalence of female sexual problems shows that about 40 percent of the women have sex dysfunction and 12 percent are significantly distressed by it.

A survey of more than 32,000 women aged 18 and more, published in Obstetrics and Gynecology (The Green Journal), showed that one in ten experienced diminished feelings of sexual desire.

Sexual problems persisted in high numbers in women over 65 but this group displayed the lowest levels of distress. The rate of depressiondefine was highest in the mid-age bracket of 45-65 years. The lowest distress symptoms were found among the young ladies.

Sexually related personal distress, medically termed Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD), is closely associated with female sex problem. Unfortunately, the condition is largely under-diagnosed and under-recognized.

The study failed to clarify why older women who had the maximum sex related problems were the least affected by them. Conditions like diabetes, blood pressure and cardiacdefine arrests that plummet a man’s sexual appetite, displayed no evidence of suppressing the female carnal needs.

Women prone to depression were more vulnerable to sex dysfunction. Feelings of guilt, frustration, stress, anger, embarrassment and unhappiness were some reasons cited for lack of desire. Also poor self assessed health, anxiety, thyroid and urinary incontinence could be responsible for the predicament.

Study leader, Dr Jan Shifren, of Vincent Obstetrics and Gynecology Service of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, said that inspite of sex dysfunctional problem being quite rampant in women, “for sexual concern to be considered a medical problem it must be associated with distress, so it is important to assess this in both research studies and patient care.”

Dr Shifren felt that physicians should evaluate the patient’s level of distress in relation to the problem. “As distressing sexual problems were identified in approximately one in eight women, health care providers need to ask the patients about sexual concern, and whether they are causing unhappiness, frustration or other distressing feeling that may be impacting their quality of life,” Shifren said.

Sheryl Kingsberg, chief of behavioral medicine at McDonald Women’s Hospital, Cleveland, believed it to be a ‘wake up call’ for physicians. She elaborated that, “48 percent of patients have sex concerns and 12 percent have enough of a concern that it is a significant dysfunction in life. This needs to be addressed.”

The research was funded by Beohringer Ingelheim International, makers of flibanserin, a drug being tested for female dysfunction.

Earlier studies have also reported estimates of the problem at hand, but the most widely circulated figures are those of U.S. National Health and Social Life Survey. According to this report 43 percent of the respondents experienced some level of sexual dysfunction. Nearly 39 percent complained of low levels of desire, 26 percent problems of arousal and 21 percent had difficulty attaining orgasm.

This issue has been handled for years by clinical psychologists, mental health experts and sex therapists. It is only recently that flibanserin is considered a medical option to tackle the problem.

With more than a few researches in progress, Dr kingsberg sees a ray of hope to dispel this sexual dilemma. “Right now there is very limited option but I think it is coming up.”

Eating Fish Could Prevent Diabetic Kidney Disease

For adults with diabetes, eating fish twice a week may help prevent kidney disease -- one of the most serious complications of diabetes, according to British researchers.

Dr. Amanda Adler from Addenbrooke's Hospital, in Cambridge and associates studied the diets of more than 22,000 middle-aged and older men and women, 517 of whom had diabetes, primarily type 2 disease.

They found that people with diabetes who reported eating fish more than once per week were considerably less likely to have protein in the urine - an early sign of kidney disease.

The condition, known medically as macroalbuminuria, "can herald worse kidney damage and increase the risk even for heart attacks," Adler told Reuters Health.

A little more than 8 percent of those with diabetes had macroalbuminuria versus less than 1 percent of those without diabetes. And 18 percent of diabetics who did not eat fish regularly (less than once per week) had macroalbuminuria compared with just 4 percent of diabetics who ate fish more than once per week.

"This suggests, then, that eating fish may prevent this early sign of kidney problems, which patients with diabetes are more likely to develop," Adler said.

The study appears in the November issue of American Journal of Kidney Diseases, the official journal of the National Kidney Foundation.

Lead investigator Chee-Tin Christine Lee told Reuters Health: "It is possible that fish oil improves blood lipid profiles and decreases the risk of kidney disease. It could be other components of fish, such as protein or micronutrients, are protective against diabetic kidney disease. However, it is also possible that people who eat fish frequently have other lifestyle factors, which we could not account for."

The study could not answer whether one kind of fish was better than another. "Future studies may be able to test this question," Adler said.

SOURCE: American Journal of Kidney Diseases, November 2008.

Get This, US has Lowest Life Span in Western World - And we smoke LESS!

These are the surprising facts. Don't shoot me, I am just reporting what our government (The CIA) and the United Nations (WHO) statistics show! I am sorry that the facts don't support the what the government and leading scientist tell us (you know like Global Warming is REAL when the facts don't support the claim?) about the physical cost of smoking. Heck, I don't even smoke! I could not find a more recent report, but that would be meaningless, in that it is during these years that smoking was blamed for many of the deaths in the USA. Here is the report:

CLICK HERE

The 'Asian-Greek Paradox' and the 400,000 “Premature” Deaths

The 'Asian-Greek Paradox' and the 400,000 “Premature” Deaths
By Robert R Barney
Norfolk, Va --
Robert A. Levy, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute and Rosalind B. Marimont, a retired mathematician and scientist, formerly with the National Institutes of Health have published a paper examining the claim of 400,000 deaths attributed to cigarette smoking each year by the United States government. Their finding will shock probably everyone of you, even if you are convinced that cigarettes kill millions. The findings are amazing. For example are you aware that 45% of these deaths attributed to smoking are for people OVER 75? This means that according to our own government statistics, nearly 50% of the people who “die from smoking” do so after the average non-smoker dies! Are you aware that these same stats show that 60% of this 400,000 figure are over 70 years old? Now another shocker… Almost 20% of this death toll from smoking (80,000 deaths a year) occur to those over 85!
Do these statistics bother you? They bother me and I am a nonsmoker. They bother me because again, our government vilifies those that they want to tax and regulate. The horrible truth about why the United States went after big tobacco has more to do with President Johnson’s “Great Society” and the civil rights legislation than it did for our health. The same government that put cigarettes into soldiers C-rations to keep soldiers alert and awake in WWII, know was attacking the product by 1964. Why? As you will discover, it had more to do with Democrat politics than it did health.....Read More

Wines Contain Heavy Metal Hazard

Your glass of wine may not be as healthy as you think. Although touted for its heart-health benefits, a new study found that many wines contain potentially hazardous levels of at least seven heavy metal ions that could be a health hazard. An analysis of wines from sixteen countries found that only those produced in Argentina, Brazil and Italy did not have levels of metal high enough to be considered a possible health threat.

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Diabetes Rates Double

The nation's obesity epidemic is exacting a heavy toll: The rate of new diabetes cases nearly doubled in the United States in the past 10 years, the government said Thursday. The highest rates were in the South, according to the first state-by-state review of new diagnoses. The worst was in West Virginia, where about 13 in 1,000 adults were diagnosed with the disease in 2005-07. The lowest was in Minnesota, where the rate was 5 in 1,000.

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Consumers' taste for organic is tapering off

Whole Foods Market, a showcase for the natural and organic industries, is struggling through the toughest stretch in its history. And the organic industry is starting to show signs that a decadelong sales boom may be ending.

By ANDREW MARTIN

The New York Times

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JUSTIN SULLIVAN / GETTY IMAGES

As shoppers cut back on expenses, chains like Whole Foods suffer.

JODI HILTON / NYT

Robert Atallah, the owner of Cedarlane Foods, a maker of organic and natural frozen meals, at the Natural Products Expo in Boston last month. Atallah says that sales have slowed for the past 18 months.

Once upon a time, sales of organic and natural products were growing in double digits most years. Enthusiastic grocers and venture capitalists prowled the halls of trade shows looking for the next big thing. Grass-fed beef? Organic baby food? Gluten-free energy bars?

But now, shaky consumer spending is dampening the mood. It turns out that when times are tough, consumers may be less interested in what type of feed a cow ate before it was chopped up for dinner or whether carrots were grown without chemical fertilizers, particularly if those products cost twice as much as the conventional stuff.

Whole Foods Market, a showcase for the natural and organic industries, is struggling through the toughest stretch in its history. And the organic industry is starting to show signs that a decadelong sales boom may be ending.

The sales volume of organic products, which had been growing at 20 percent a year in recent years, slowed to a much lower growth rate in the past few months, according to Nielsen, a market-research firm. For the four weeks that ended Oct. 4, the volume of organic products sold rose just 4 percent compared with the same period a year earlier.

"Organics continue to grow and outpace many categories," Nielsen concluded in an October report. "However, recent weeks are showing slower growths, possibly a start of an organics growth plateau."

If the slowdown continues, it could have broad implications beyond the organic industry, whose success spawned a growing number of products with values-based marketing claims, from fair-trade coffee to hormone-free beef to humanely raised chickens. Nearly all command a premium price.

Still a priority for some

While a group of core customers considers organic or locally produced products a top priority, the growth of recent years was driven by a far larger group of less-committed customers. The weak economy is prompting many of them to choose which marketing claim, if any, is important to them.

Among organic products, those marketed to children will probably continue to thrive because they appeal to parents' concerns about health, said Laurie Demeritt, president and chief operating officer of the Hartman Group, a market-research firm for the health and wellness industry. But products that do not have as much perceived benefit, such as processed foods for adults, may struggle.

The economy has "crystallized the trade-offs that consumers are willing to make," she said. "Fair trade is nice, but fair trade may fall off the shopping list where organic milk may not."

Thomas Blischok, president of consulting and innovation for Information Resources, a market-research firm, said shoppers are not moving entirely away from organic products at the grocery. But they are becoming more selective, buying four or five products instead of seven or eight, he said.

Blischok surveyed 1,000 consumers in the first half of the year and found that nearly two-thirds said they were cutting back on nonessential groceries and nearly half said they were buying fewer organic products because they were too expensive. ...more