Immunity Health News

Over 200 Scientists met and made a rare international call to action: governments must do more to restrict common chemicals which alter development. Some of the prime culprits are found in plastics, pesticides, and cosmetics.

Recent animal research suggests that chemicals can alter gene expression — turning on or off genes that predispose people to disease. Although the DNA itself would not be altered, such genetic misfires in the womb may be permanent, and all subsequent generations could be at greater risk of diseases too.

Read about it here.

This short video about the immune system leaves you wanting more, but it’s a good place to start learning about how it works.

An interesting article reprinted by the Chicago Tribune on the myths and the real dangers of microwaving with plastic containers.

Better to go with ceramic or glass, if you can.

In case you missed The Corporation, or just forgot what you saw, a book has come out telling some of those same stories, in particular the one about the Fox News employees who were fired over their attempt to report about the Monsanto Company’s dangerous hormone, rBGH. Care to guess which company was a major sponsor of Fox news at the time?

Read more.

New research suggests that extracorporeal photopheresis, a process whereby a patient’s blood is passed through a machine similar to dialysis and has her white blood cells exposed to UVA light, may be effective in treating Crohn’s disease.

“The findings of our study suggest that Crohn’s disease patients who have not responded to other therapies may benefit from ECP,” concludes Dr. Maria Abreu, Associate Professor in The Henry D. Janowitz Division of Gastroenterology and in the Center for Immunobiology at The Mount Sinai Medical Center.

Read about the study here.

The following information is from a website advertising the book Why Good Things Happen to Good People, by Dr. Stephen Post, Senior Research Scholar in the Becket Institute at St. Hughs’ College, Oxford University.

Giving in high school predicts good physical and mental health in late adulthood, a time interval of over 50 years! Psychologist Paul Wink of Wellesley College studied nearly 200 individuals who have been followed closely since the 1920’s, when they were children, and found that giving protected longevity as well as mental health even half a century later.
Giving significantly reduces mortality in later life. In this new study from Doug Oman of the University of California at Berkeley, 2,000 individuals over age 55 were studied for five years. Those who volunteered for two or more organizations had an impressive 44% lower likelihood of dying. The only activity that had a slightly higher effect was to stop smoking. And sociologist Marc Musick of the University of Texas at Austin found that individuals over 65 who volunteer are significantly less likely to die over the next eight years than those who do no volunteer work.
Generous behavior reduces adolescent depression and suicide risk. The Institute sponsored four special studies on teens. Boys, in particular, benefit markedly from feelings of love and from generous behavior. Just as intriguing is a study from David Sloan Wilson and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, showing that teen girls are more giving than teen boys, and that teens who are giving, hopeful, and socially effective, are also happier, more active, involved, excited, challenged, and engaged than their teen counterparts.
Giving quells anxiety. Neal Krause of the University of Michigan followed 976 churchgoing adults over a period of three years. Offering social support to others reduced their anxiety over their own economic situation when they were under economic stress.
Late in life, giving to others helps facilitate self-forgiveness. Krause also found that giving is a potent trigger for forgiveness, and particularly for African-Americans. He studied nearly 1,000 older adults and found that providing emotional support to others enhanced the ease with which African-Americans forgave themselves for their own mistakes.
Giving to others increases your longevity, although receiving the same kind of help did not. Psychologist Stephanie Brown of the University of Michigan spent five years studying 423 older couples. After adjusting for age, gender, and physical and emotional health, Brown found that those who provided significant support to others were more than twice as likely to remain alive in that five year period. These surprising findings ruled out other factors like personality, health, mental health and marital relationship variables.
Giving is so powerful that sometimes even just ‘thinking’ charitable thoughts helps us. The simple act of praying for others, Neal Krause found, reduces the harmful impact of health difficulties in old age for those doing the praying. A new study from the National Institutes of Health shows that merely making a decision to donate to a charity increases activity in parts of the brain that release our feel-good chemicals, dopamine and serotonin. And a new Harvard University study showed that just watching a movie of helping activity boosts the immune system.

I highly recommend this article by The Guardian Observer about the prostitutes outside of Nairobi, Kenya, who have been found to be immune to HIV/AIDS.

I remember first hearing about these women while teaching in Uganda in 1997, but haven’t heard much about them since then.

The article is long, but riveting. It outlines the personal story of Agnes, and what brought her to prostitution, as well as the medical research clinics begun by Canadians that eventually picked up on the fact that, year after year, certain prostitutes in the study kept testing negative for HIV.

In a related article, The Manila Times is looking back at 25 years of the AIDS epidemic.

An entire generation has grown up with AIDS as part of their horizon. Let’s hope these women from Nairobi can help remove it again.

In December 2005, DARPA, the research wing of the US Department of Defense, awarded Appalachian State University 1.1 million dollars to fund a two-year study of the effects of quercetin . DARPA is seeking ways to maintain troop immune systems during times of physical and cognitive stress. Disease, of course, accounts for a significant number of deaths during war, but even non-fatal illnesses weaken troops.

The study finished in February, and concluded that it takes significant stress to bring out quercetin’s infection-fighting properties. This happened when the athletes being tested were under high oxidative stress, when stress hormones were high, and were undergoing muscle damage.

A follow-up study is set to determine whether or not quercetin has any benefits for people who are undergoing everyday mental stress. Read more.

John Geddes reports in this week’s Maclean’s magazine about the poor controls on natural health products, including vitamins, by the Natural Health Products Directorate (NHPD). The NHPD’s regulations come into effect on June 1, and it plans to have the whole industry under regulation by 2010. Look for the 8-digit number after the letters “NPN” on the label. Or don’t. According to Geddes, there isn’t much confidence that can be placed in the Government’s licencing.

He quotes David Bailey, professor of clinical pharmacology at the Universtiy of Western Ontario:

“Once these things are on the market — and this is what really astounds me and most people find hard to believe — you actually have to prove that there’s a problem. The manufacturer doesn’t have to prove that the herbal is safe or that it does anything.”

This, of course, makes it difficult for consumers to distinguish the efficacies of the nearly 40,000 natural products on the market.

For now, traditional claims seem to trump scientific testing for a manufacturer’s ability to get a licence and make unproven assertions, something the pharmaceutical industry would never get away with.

“There’s a huge misperception,” says Bailey, ” that because they come from a natural source they are safer and they are gentler.”

Bailey is known for his discovery that grapefruit juice can interfere dangerously with drugs ranging from blood-pressure medicine to Prozac.

The article is found in the print edition, and doesn’t appear to be online yet.

According to a study published in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, Scientists have identified a specific group of compounds in the apple peel that have potent anti-cancer effects, in addition to their earlier findings that the peel holds most of the health-enhancing phytochemicals (which contain natural antioxidants) that reduce the risk of chronic health problems like lung cancer, heart disease and stroke.

Specifically, 13 triterpenoids from the peels of Red Delicious apples were identified and confirmed to be highly effective against liver, breast and colon cancer. Exactly how and why these biochemicals seek-and-destroy cancer cells is still unknown, but the fact that apple peel has great, protective health benefits is clear.

When the body goes lacking in vital antioxidants your immune system starts taking a pounding, energy and stamina goes down and free radical damage starts to occur. Changing your diet to include higher levels of raw foods, in combination with proper exercise, can clearly and significantly reduce your chances of contracting cancer.

Red Delicious apples are the most common variety here in the United States and are easy to find. Just remember, fruit consumption is dependent on your unique nutritional type, and should be balanced with plenty of veggies — vegetables ranking higher on the list for sustaining overall health.

Be very careful to avoid consuming conventionally-grown apples, however, as they are among the Dirty Dozen fruits and vegetables cited by the Environmental Working Group as containing the most pesticides, and stick with organic apples, ideally bought from local growers living near you.

I know my own daughter loves to eat the peel — she calls them “apple strings.” Make it a treat for them, don’t throw it away!