Chocolate Aids Chronic fatigue syndrome

This is a nice Monday morning story.

MAN FERTILITY found this for me on the BBC. I have suffered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which is called Myalgic Encephalopathy in the UK--which actually is a better descriptor because it has a lot more to do with the immune system, etc., than plain old "fatigue."

------------------------------------------------
Chocolate 'aids fatigue syndrome'

The reduction was small but "noteworthy", researchers say

A daily dose of specially-formulated dark chocolate may help cut chronic fatigue syndrome symptoms.

Patients in a pilot study found they had less fatigue when eating dark chocolate with a high cocoa content than with white chocolate dyed brown.

Researchers from Hull York Medical School said the results were surprising but dark chocolate may be having an effect on the brain chemical serotonin.

Experts said patients should consume chocolate in moderation.

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), also known as ME, is a condition with a diverse range of symptoms but particularly characterised by profound muscle fatigue after physical exertion.

If you derive benefit, then it's a no harm, no risk situation Professor Steve Atkin

Study leader Professor Steve Atkin, an expert in endocrinology, said the idea for the study came after a patient reported feeling much better after swapping her normal milk chocolate for dark chocolate with a high cocoa solid content.

He decided to see if other patients would benefit and carried out a trial of 10 patients who received a daily dose - 45g - of dark chocolate or white chocolate dyed to look like dark chocolate for two months.

The patients then had a month off before taking the other type of chocolate for two months.

Those taking dark chocolate reported significantly less fatigue and reported feeling more fatigue when they stopped eating it.

Polyphenols

Professor Atkin said he was very surprised at the strength of the results.

"Although it was a small study, two patients went back to work after being off for six months."

He explained: "Dark chocolate is high in polyphenols, which have been associated with health benefits such as a reduction in blood pressure.

"Also high polyphenols appear to improve levels of serotonin in the brain, which has been linked with chronic fatigue syndrome and that may be a mechanism."

Read More

Captive raised fishs' declining fertility

This study shows that when they raise fish in captivity and release the offspring into the wild, the offspring aren't as "fit" to reproduce. It's funny how it's all focused on genetics. Everyone knows farm raised salmon aren't as healthy and therefore as nutritious to eat as wild salmon in part because they are fed fish junkfood: corn (when's a fish going to eat corn in the wild?), antibiotics, dyes. Obviously, this happens to humans as well.

from Science Magazine:

----------------------------------------------

Genetic Effects of Captive Breeding Cause a Rapid, Cumulative Fitness Decline in the Wild

Hitoshi Araki,^* Becky Cooper, Michael S. Blouin

Captive breeding is used to supplement populations of many species that are declining in the wild. The suitability of and long-term species survival from such programs remain largely untested, however. We measured lifetime reproductive success of the first two generations of steelhead trout that were reared in captivity and bred in the wild after they were released. By reconstructing a three-generation pedigree with microsatellite markers, we show that genetic effects of domestication reduce subsequent reproductive capabilities by 40% per captive-reared generation when fish are moved to natural environments. These results suggest that even a few generations of domestication may have negative effects on natural reproduction in the wild and that the repeated use of captive-reared parents to supplement wild populations should be carefully reconsidered.

Department of Zoology, 3029 Cordley Hall, Oregon State University Corvallis, OR 97331, USA.

Read More

Starbucks Cups are NOT Recyclable

Besides the sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, pasteurized milk, Splenda, etc., Starbucks is ruining the environment!

Monday, September 17
By David Conrad THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH:

Starbucks goes through roughly 2.3 billion paper cups a year and touts its national award for using cups made of 10 percent recycled material. The sleeves on the cups even plead, 'Help us help the planet.' But don't be confused. Starbucks promotes recycling on its cups, but the cups themselves aren't recyclable here or in most other cities nationwide. 'Well, they tricked me,' said Nicole Mejias, 22, a self-described Starbucks freak. 'I immediately associate recycling with Starbucks because of their cups. That's so hypocritical. I would have never guessed' that the cups weren't easily recyclable. The reason: The plastic coating that keeps the cup from leaking also prevents it from being recycled with other paper products. That could be overcome, but it would cost more."*
------------------------------------
** the home of the $5 latte, etc., which is okay, but recycling, that's oppressive!

If you must, at least bring in your own cup!

MAN FERTILITY and I go to Blue State Coffee. Check it out!

read more here.

Read More

Alarming Early puberty in girls

From Grist (and Sandra Steingraber is one of my favorite environmental writers). This could have huge impacts on breast cancer (which i estrogen driven), fertility, etc.:

Over the course of just a few decades, the childhoods of U.S. girls have been significantly shortened. Girls get their first periods, on average, a few months earlier than did girls 40 years ago. But they get their breasts, on average, one to two years earlier. Recent studies show that the advent of breast budding -- one of the earliest visible signs of puberty -- appears to be arriving earlier and earlier in the lives of U.S. girls. We need to know why.

read more here

Read More

Organic, and Tastier: The Rat’s Nose Knows

From today's New York Times. Rats instinctively go for organic vs. non organic food. The writer is perplexed as to why rats can tell the diff and not humans.

Could it be that most people on the Standard American Diet (i.e. ,SAD) have tongues that are so drugged by artificial flavors, MSG, etc. that they don't know what good, healthy food tastes like any more? An organic tomato beats a non-organic tomato any day of the week!
----------------------------

By HAROLD McGEE

Published: October 3, 2007

IN any controversy it can be helpful to consider the views of disinterested parties. So, on the subject of agricultural policy and practice, it’s worth noting that an unimpeachably neutral group has joined the ranks of those who prefer organic foods over foods produced with the help of synthetic chemicals. That group is 40 Swiss rats

A team of Swiss and Austrian scientists recently concluded a 21-year study of organic wheat production. As an “integrative method” for assessing quality, they gave lab animals a choice of biscuits made from organic or conventional wheat. The rats ate significantly more of the former. The authors call this result remarkable, because they found the two wheats to be very similar in chemical composition and baking performance.

In fact, the rats were better at telling the difference between organic and conventional foods than many humans have been. In the handful of carefully designed taste-offs reported in the last few years, people were often unable to identify the organic foods, and often didn’t prefer them.

This is puzzling, since organic produce generally does pack more antioxidants and other potentially healthful — and potentially flavorful — phytochemicals than conventional produce. Just last July, Professor Alyson Mitchell and colleagues at the University of California, Davis summarized 10 years of data from tomatoes grown in carefully controlled organic and conventional systems. The antioxidant contents varied from year to year, but were consistently higher in the organic tomatoes.

read more here.

Read More

Common Prostate Cancer Treatment May SPREAD Cancer

MAN FERTILITY stuff:

Newswise — A popular prostate cancer treatment called androgen deprivation therapy may encourage prostate cancer cells to produce a protein that makes them more likely to spread throughout the body, a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests.

Although the finding could eventually lead to changes in this standard treatment for a sometimes deadly disease, the Johns Hopkins researchers caution that their discovery is far too preliminary for prostate cancer patients or physicians to stop using it. The therapy is effective at slowing tumor growth, they emphasized.

David Berman, an assistant professor of pathology, urology and oncology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and his colleagues identified the unsuspected potential problem with treatments that suppress testosterone after discovering that the gene that codes for the protein, called nestin, was active in lab-grown human prostate cancer cells.

Curious about whether prostate cancer cells in people also produce nestin, the researchers looked for it in cells taken from men who had surgery to remove locally confined cancers of their prostates and found none. But when they looked for nestin in prostate cancer cells isolated from patients who had died of metastatic prostate cancer - in which cancer cells spread out from the prostate tumor - they found substantial evidence that the nestin gene was active.

What was different, Berman speculated, is that androgen deprivation therapy, a treatment that reduces testosterone in the body, is generally given only when prostate cancers become aggressive and likely to metastasize.

Because prostate cancer growth is typically stimulated by testosterone, the treatment is thought to slow tumor growth and weaken the disease. Patients who eventually die because their disease metastasizes are almost certain to have received this type of therapy, he says.

Speculating that depriving cells of androgens might also, however, affect nestin expression, the researchers experimented on a prostate cancer cell line that depends on androgens to grow. When they removed androgens from the chemical mixture that the cells live in, their production of nestin increased.

Aware that the nestin gene has long been suggested to play some role in cell growth and development, Berman and his colleagues used a bit of laboratory sabotage called RNA interference to decrease the genetic expression of nestin and found that these cells weren’t able to move around and through other cells nearly as well as cells with normal nestin levels.

Prostate cancer cells with hampered nestin expression were also less likely than normal prostate cancer cells to migrate to other parts of the body when transplanted into mice. However, while nestin expression seemed pivotal for metastasis in these experiments, it didn’t seem to make a difference in tumor growth.

“What all this suggests is that nestin levels increased when prostate cancer cells are deprived of androgens and may encourage the cells to metastasize,” says Berman.

Besides Berman, other Johns Hopkins researchers involved in this study were Wolfram Kleeberger, M.D., G. Steven Bova, M.D., Matthew E. Nielsen, M.D., Mehsati Herawi, M.D., Ph.D., Ai-Ying Chuang, M.D., and Jonathan I. Epstein, M.D.

The research, published in the Oct. 1 issue of Cancer Research, was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, Evensen Family Foundation, and German Cancer Aid Foundation.

Read More

Woman Gives Birth to Own Grandchildren

I know this headline sounds like something from the Onion, but it's true:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(AP) SAO PAULO, Brazil - A 51-year-old surrogate mother for her daughter has given birth to her own twin grandchildren in northeastern Brazil, the delivery hospital said.

Rosinete Palmeira Serrao, a government health worker, gave birth to twin boys by Caesarean section on Thursday at the Santa Joana Hospital in the city of Recife, the hospital said in a statement on its Web site.

Hospital officials were not available for comment on Sunday, but press reports said the grandmother and twins were discharged on Saturday in excellent health. The Caesarean section was performed about two weeks ahead of time because Serrao was having trouble sleeping, the statement said.

Serrao decided to serve as a surrogate mother after four years of failed attempts at pregnancy by her 27-year-old daughter, Claudia Michelle de Brito.

Brazilian law stipulates that only close relatives can serve as surrogate mothers. De Brito is an only child and none of her cousins volunteered, so Serrao agreed to receive four embryos from her daughter.

Read More