The Plain Truth's: Your Health Today ONLINE

Beef Can Help Lower Cholesterol

Despite commonly held beliefs, beef can play a role in lowering bad cholesterol, according to a new study conducted at Pennsylvania State College.

The study published in the January issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that diets including daily consumption of lean beef “are as effective in lowering total and LDL ‘bad’ cholesterol as the ‘gold standard’ of heart-healthy diets” known as DASH, or Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension.

“This research sheds new light on evidence supporting lean beef’s role in a heart-healthy diet. Study participants ate lean beef every day and still met targets for saturated fat intake,” nutrition professor Penny Kris-Etherton, the study’s chief investigator, said in a statement about the findings. “This study shows that nutrient-rich lean beef can be included as part of a heart-healthy diet that improves risk factors for cardiovascular disease.”

The study focused on 36 participants ranging in ages from 30 to 65 with moderately elevated cholesterol. All consumed a total of four diets for five weeks each, with the optimal beef diets consisting of 4 to 5.4 ounce daily servings. At the end of the study, the participants showed a 10 percent decrease in LDL cholesterol on the beef diets.

The researchers said the improvements in heart health risk factors seen from optimal beef diets “were as effective” as those from the DASH and other diets, some which emphasize plant proteins.

The study’s conclusions were welcomed by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, which issued a statement saying, “Americans now have more scientific evidence for including lean beef in a heart-healthy diet.”

Read more: Study: Beef Can Help Lower Cholesterol
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A glass of water has DNA traces of EVERY living thing in a whole lake - and it could change the way we monitor animals forever

Lets biologists 'count' animals - not just number of species
Works on anything from an otter to a dragonfly
Biologists still currently use 'manual' head counts
DNA method is as reliable as manual
In future, could even be used for fish quotas

By Rob Waugh

The DNA traces in a single shot glass are enough to identify not only the species living around a lake - but how many of each animal there are. It works for anything from otters to dragonflies

Up until now, 'monitoring' animals has relied on fairly low-tech methods - finding the creatures and counting them.

It's a method that's changed little in the last hundred years, even if biologists have added GPS tagging and computer monitoring once they've found the beasts.

But a Danish research team has found an incredible short-cut – a lake water sample the size of a shot-glass can contain evidence of an entire lake fauna.

It's so effective in counting not only which creatures are present, but how many, that the researchers think that in future it may even be used to count fishing quotas.

Researchers at the Natural History Museum of Denmark found that rare and threatened animal species could be monitored simply by taking note of the DNA traces in fresh water environments.

'In the water samples we found DNA from animals as different as an otter and a dragonfly,' says Philip Francis Thomsen.

'We have shown that the DNA detection method works on a wide range of different rare species living in fresh water - they all leave DNA traces in their environment which can be detected in even very small water samples from their habitat.

'In the water samples we found DNA from animals as different as an otter and a dragonfly,' says Philip Francis Thomsen

By studying the fauna of one hundred different lakes and streams in Europe with both conventional methods - counting individuals - and the new DNA-based method the research team documents that DNA detection is effective even in populations where the animals are extremely rare.

The study also shows that there is a clear correlation between the amount of DNA in the environment and the density of individuals meaning that the DNA detection method can even be used to estimate population sizes.

Pregnant women and new mothers are 70 times more likely to get tuberculosis

Pregnant women are at much higher risk of tuberculosis, researchers claim.

A major study has found that expectant mothers or those who have given birth within the past six months are 69 per cent more likely to get the illness.

The researchers from the Health Protection Agency warned midwives and GPs to look out for the symptoms of TB because it can be fatal if not treated.

Their study – published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine – examined the medical records of more than 190,000 women over 12 years.

They found the rate of TB among pregnant women or those who had given birth within the past six months was 15.4 per 100,000 compared with 9.1 per 100,000 among the general population.

They believe pregnancy may weaken a woman’s immune system, making her more susceptible to respiratory illnesses.

Cutting carbs for two days 'better than calorie counting all week'

Following a strict diet for just two days of the week is a far more effective way to lose weight than trying to calorie count all the time, researchers claim.

They found that women who stuck to fruit, vegetables and lean meat for two days a week while being allowed to eat as much as they liked on the other days lost nearly twice as much weight than those who were dieting constantly.

Researchers at the University Hospital in South Manchester put 115 women volunteers on one of three diets.

The first involved sticking to just 650 calories a day for two days of the week, including cutting out carbohydrates such as pasta, bread and potatoes and all fatty foods.

For the other five days they could eat as much as they liked, although they were encouraged to stick to healthy foods.

Women on the second diet were also banned from carbohydrates for two days of the week but they did not have a specific calorie limit.

They could also eat as much as they wanted the rest of the week.

The third group followed a standard weight-loss diet which involved sticking to about 1,500 calories every day and avoiding high-fat foods and alcohol.

After three months the women on either of the two-day diets had lost an average of nine pounds (four kilos) – nearly twice as much as those on the full-time diet, who lost just five pounds (2.4 kilos).

Dr Michelle Harvie, of the Genesis Breast Cancer Prevention Centre at the hospital, said there seemed to be a ‘carry over effect’ on the two-day diet, meaning the benefits continued on the days when the women ate normally.

Organic Gardening 101 -- How to Start an Organic Garden

Anthony Gucciardi
Activist Post

One great way to avoid the threat of genetically modified foods, pesticides, and toxic additives is to start your own organic garden.

While the garden can be as large or small as you’d like, the benefit of knowing exactly how your food was prepared, and therefore what is in it, is worth the time and effort.

As you will soon find, it is actually relatively simple to begin your first organic garden.

Breast Cancer Screening May Do More Harm than Good

Screening for breast cancer may cause more harm than good because it leads to unnecessary surgery, British researchers said.

Screening may lead to abnormal results that turn out to be normal and treatment of harmless cancers that would never have caused symptoms or death, according to research led by James Raftery, a professor of health-technology assessment at the University of Southampton. The study, published in the British Medical Journal, analyzed 100,000 women ages 50 and over and found that the inclusion of false positives and unnecessary surgery reduced the benefits of screening by half.

The study follows the Forrest report of 1986, which measured costs and benefits from screening in quality-adjusted life years. That study omitted harmful effects from screening, the researchers said.

“Harms largely offset the gains up to 10 years, after which the gains accumulate at an increasing rate,” Raftery wrote in the published paper. “The meaning and implications of overdiagnosis and overtreatment need to be much better explained and communicated to any woman considering screening.”

More research is required on the extent of unnecessary treatment and the impact on quality of life, the researchers said.

Read more: Breast Cancer Screening May Do More Harm than Good
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Big Differences in How Men and Women Cope with Type 2 Diabetes

Women are better at coping with problems than men, right? Not when it comes to being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. According to a new survey, that diagnosis had a greater negative impact on women's emotional outlook and adherence to diet and exercise than the same diagnosis given to men. The survey was conducted in September 2011, and included 831 completed responses from 458 women and 373 men.

"These findings make sense," says Dr. Carolyn Daitch, Director of the Center for the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Dr. Daitch is a psychologist with 30 years of experience treating anxiety in patients with chronic medical conditions such as diabetes. "So many women are caretakers, and this makes it harder for them to carve out time to care for themselves."

Half of the women surveyed said they felt "overwhelmed" when it comes to living with diabetes, while less than one third of men reported similar feelings. And just over half of the women respondents admitted to feeling in control of their diabetes, compared to more than two thirds of men.

"Feeling ‘overwhelmed' may be because diabetes impacts so many body systems and so many behaviors at home and at the workplace," adds Sarah Matunis, RPh, a pharmacist and corporate clinical coordinator for Rite-Aid who collaborated on the study with WebMD.

According to the survey, gender also plays a role in maintaining healthy lifestyle behaviors. Just over one third of women respondents said they exercise 30 minutes or more daily, while nearly half of the men reported that they do. Women also are less likely to say they eat well, with just 45 percent avoiding sweet and salty snacks, compared to 56 percent of men.

"Anecdotally, women overeat when they are under stress, while men tend to overeat because food tastes good," points out Dr. Daitch. "Learning you have diabetes is certainly an added stressor. Women tend to put themselves last, so it's harder for them to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Furthermore, women are more prone to anxiety and depression, which leads to pessimism."

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Patients Get More Unnecessary Medical Scans from Doctors Who Own Equipment, Study Finds

By Katherine Harmon
(Click here for the original article)

More and more physicians are investing in their own imaging equipment. But when a doctor stands to make money on each MRI he or she orders, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that they might be inclined to order too many scans.

Patients with back problems whose orthopedic surgeons referred them for an MRI were much more likely to have their spinal lumbar scan come back clean—indicating that the test might not have been necessary—if their doc had a financial stake in the equipment being used, than if he or she didn’t, according to new findings that were presented this week at the Radiological Society of North America’s annual meeting in Chicago.

“It is important for patients to be aware of the problem of self-referral and to understand the conflict of interest that exists when their doctor orders an imaging exam and then collects money on that imaging exam,” said Ben Paxton, a radiology resident who led the study at Duke University Medical Center in a prepared statement.

Of 250 spine lumbar MRIs ordered by orthopedic surgeons who had financial interest in the imaging equipment, 106 scans came back negative—that is, without serious abnormalities. Of the 250 lumbar MRIs ordered by orthopedic surgeons in the same area who would not see an extra penny from the scans, 57 came back negative.

Video Games Alter Brain Function

Playing violent video games for only one week can change the brain in regions associated with cognitive function and emotional control.

The topic of whether or not violent video games are potentially harmful for users has been debated for years, but there was little scientific evidence that the games had a long-term effect on the brain. But a new study, which was conducted at Indiana University School of Medicine, found the first hard evidence of the effects of video games using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Read more: Video Games Alter Brain Function
Important: At Risk For A Heart Attack? Find Out Now.

Eating Eggs, Chicken May Boost Memory

A new long-term study announced last week found that eggs and chicken may sharpen your memory.

Senior researcher Rhoda Au and her team from Boston University School of Medicine performed the long-term health study on 1,400 adults, spanning 10 years. Those participants who ate diets packed with plenty of choline performed better in memory tests and were less likely to acquire brain changes associated with dementia than those who consumed less choline in their diets.

Read more: Eating Eggs, Chicken May Boost Memory
Important: At Risk For A Heart Attack? Find Out Now.