Coffee intake linked to reduced risk of MS

It is estimated that more than 2.3 million people worldwide have multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic disease of the central nervous system - the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves.
MS is thought to be an autoimmune disease, whereby immune-system induced inflammation damages the protective coating of nerve fibers, called myelin. Symptoms of MS vary but commonly include loss of balance and coordination, blurred vision, extreme fatigue, tremors and numbness.
Past studies have suggested that coffee consumption may protect against other neurological diseases, including Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. In this latest study, researchers say the beverage could also protect against MS.
To reach their findings, study author Dr. Ellen Mowry, of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD, and colleagues analyzed data from two separate population-based case-control studies that looked at the link between coffee consumption and MS.
The first study was a Swedish study involving 1,629 people with MS and 2,807 healthy controls, while the second study was a US study involving 1,159 people with MS and 1,172 healthy controls.
Both studies recorded coffee consumption among people with MS at 1 and 5 years prior to onset of symptoms, and the Swedish study also recorded coffee consumption among these participants 10 years before symptoms began. Coffee intake of those with MS was compared with the healthy controls at similar time points.

Consuming at least four cups of coffee a day linked to reduced risk of MS

The results of the Swedish study revealed that participants who did not drink coffee in the year prior to symptom onset were around 1.5 times more likely to develop MS, compared with those who consumed six or more cups of coffee each day.
The researchers also identified a protective effect against MS among participants who consumed large amounts of coffee at 5 and 10 years prior to onset of symptoms.
From the US study, the team also found that participants who did not drink coffee in the year prior to symptom onset were approximately 1.5 times more likely to develop MS, compared with those who consumed at least four cups of coffee a day.
The team says the protective effect of coffee consumption against MS may be down to the main ingredient of the beverage - caffeine. They explain:

"Caffeine has neuroprotective properties and seems to suppress the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, which may be mechanisms that explain the observed association."

Dr. Mowry says future research should investigate how coffee consumption affects long-term disability and symptom relapse in patients with MS.
The Swedish Medical Research Council, the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare, the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the National Institute of Environmental and Health Sciences and the National Institute on Aging were among the supporters of this research.

The health benefits and risks of coffee consumption

Past studies have associated coffee consumption with numerous health benefits. In April 2014, Medical News Today reported on a study claiming that increasing coffee intake could reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, while another study found the beverage may protect against tinnitus.
Last month, a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute claimed coffee consumption may reduce the risk of melanoma skin cancer by a fifth, while more recently, UK researchers found drinking three to four cups of coffee a day could reduce the risk of endometrial cancer in women by up to 19%.
Our Knowledge Center article - "What are the health benefits of coffee?" - looks at some of the other ways coffee may be good for us, while noting some of its risks to health.
Drinking too much coffee, for example, has been associated with increased risk of depression and anxiety, while some studies have indicated that coffee intake may interfere with a woman's reproductive system.

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Eating fish during pregnancy may boost baby's development, not impair it

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and international agencies are in the process of revising guidelines concerning fish consumption in an attempt to better reflect the nutritional benefits of fish.
Currently, the FDA recommend that pregnant women should eat fish no more than twice a week. The reason for limiting fish consumption is because much of the mercury in the environment ends up in the world's oceans, so fish contain small amounts of the chemical.
Although a link between consumption of fish and childhood developmental problems has never been conclusively proved, experts have previously been concerned about the consequences of elevated mercury levels in pregnant women.
However, fish contain many beneficial nutrients. For example, their fatty acids are essential for good brain development.
A partnership between the University of Rochester Medical Center, NY, Ulster University in Belfast, UK, and the Republic of Seychelles Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education yielded the Seychelles Child Development Study - one of the longest and largest population studies of its kind.
As the 89,000 residents of the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean consume approximately 10 times as much fish in their diet as people in the US or Europe, the region was considered to be an ideal location for measuring the public health impact of low-level mercury exposure over a long period.

Omega-3 may counteract the inflammatory effect of mercury

More than 1,500 mothers and children participated in the study. The development of the children was assessed using a variety of communication skills, behavior and motor skills tests. The tests started at 20 months after birth and the children were followed into their 20s. Hair samples were also collected from the mothers while they were pregnant so that the team could measure levels of prenatal mercury exposure.
Prenatal mercury exposure was not linked with lower test scores, the researchers found. As the children were followed into adulthood, it was established that there was no association between consumption of fish among pregnant mothers and impaired neurological development in their offspring.
Levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) were also measured in the women while pregnant. The researchers found that the children of mothers with higher levels of the omega-3 (n3) fatty acid found in fish performed better on some tests.
Another PUFA, n6, which comes from meats and cooking oils, is more prevalent in the US and Europe than it is in regions like the Seychelles. However, n6 is known to promote inflammation - unlike n3, which has anti-inflammatory properties.
In the study, the children of mothers with higher levels of n6 were found to perform less well on the motor skills tests than children with higher levels of n3. This finding supports a theory among some scientists that n3 counteracts the inflammatory effects of mercury.
Philip Davidson, PhD, the principal investigator of the Seychelles Child Development Study, a professor emeritus at the University of Rochester and senior author of the study, says:

"It appears that the relationship between fish nutrients and mercury may be far more complex than previously appreciated. These findings indicate that there may be an optimal balance between the different inflammatory properties of fatty acids that promote fetal development and that these mechanisms warrant further study."

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Antibiotic breakthrough may signal the end of drug-resistant superbugs

Kim Lewis, a microbiologist and professor at Northeastern University in Boston, MA, and colleagues report their discovery in the journal Nature.
Many of the antibiotics in use today were discovered decades ago, and since then, microbes have evolved into resistant strains that do not succumb to them.
For instance, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2012, there were about 450,000 new cases of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) worldwide. And extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) has been identified in 92 countries.
Bacteria that cause common infections such as urinary tract infections, pneumonia, bloodstream infections, are also becoming increasingly resistant and hard to treat. For instance, a high percentage of hospital-acquired infections are caused by a highly resistant form of Staph - methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA.
This alarming scenario - coupled with the fact there are hardly any new antibiotics in the pipeline - led the WHO recently to warn we are approaching a "post-antibiotic era" where people could die from ordinary infections and minor injuries.

Most antibiotics in use come from soil microbes

Most of the antibiotics used in human and animal medicine today come from soil microbes - for millions of years they have been producing toxic compounds to fight off other enemy microbes. For example penicillin, the first successful antibiotic, comes from the soil fungus Penicillium.
But there is a major problem with researching soil microbes - they are very difficult to culture in the lab. This means that as many as 99% of the microbes on our planet remain under-researched as sources of new antibiotics because they refuse to grow in lab cultures. That is until now.
Prof. Lewis and colleagues developed a way to culture bacteria in their natural environment. This uses a device that they call a "diffusion chamber" where the soil microbes they want to grow are separated into individual chambers sandwiched between two semi-permeable membranes. They then bury the device back in the soil.
Thus, through the semi-permeable membranes, the bacteria become exposed to the highly complex mix of other microbes and compounds of the soil, and grow readily as if they were in the soil. This way, the researchers produced bacterial colonies large enough to research back in the lab.

10,000 colonies yielded 25 potential new antibiotics, including one superbug-buster

By repeatedly using the diffusion chamber to culture different species of soil bacteria, the team tested about 10,000 bacterial colonies to see if any produced compounds that could stop the growth of S. aureus.
They found 25 potential antibiotics, of which one, teixobactin, appeared the most powerful.
In the lab, teixobactin, killed a broad range of pathogenic bacteria, including the drug-resistant superbugs MRSA and VRE (vancomycin resistant enterococci).
Further tests in mice showed promising results against bacteria that cause septicemia, skin and lung infections.
Teixobactin breaks down the bacterial cell wall - the pathogen's key defence against attack. The researchers believe this means the microbe can mutate all it likes, but its cell walls will always be its Achilles heel.
Prof. Lewis says, "Teixobactin's dual mode of action and binding to non-peptidic regions suggest that resistance will be very difficult to develop."
He and his colleagues found that repeated exposure to the drug did not produce any resistant mutations in Staphylococcus aureus or Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes most cases of TB.
They conclude: "The properties of this compound suggest a path towards developing antibiotics that are likely to avoid development of resistance."
Meanwhile, Medical News Today recently learned how another team has been tackling the drug-resistance problem from a different angle. They developed software that anticipates a superbug's next resistant mutation to a new drug.

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Losing just half an hour of sleep 'can impact body weight and metabolism'

For the study, researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College in Doha, Qatar, recruited 522 patients who had been recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
At the start of the study, the participants' height, weight and waist circumference were measured and samples of their blood were analyzed for insulin sensitivity.
The participants were required to keep sleep diaries, from which their weekday "sleep debt" was calculated.
The participants at the start of the study who had weekday sleep debt were found to be 72% more likely to be obese, compared with participants who had no weekday sleep debt. By follow-up at 6 months, the association between weekday sleep debt and obesity and insulin resistance was found to be significant.
At 12-month follow-up, the researchers calculated that for every 30 minutes of weekday sleep debt there was an associated 17% increased risk of obesity and 39% increased risk of insulin resistance.
"While previous studies have shown that short sleep duration is associated with obesity and diabetes, we found that as little as 30 minutes a day sleep debt can have significant effects on obesity and insulin resistance at follow-up," says lead study author Prof. Shahrad Taheri.
The authors suggest in a statement that future interventions designed to combat metabolic disease should also consider sleep and other factors affecting metabolic function. Sleep hygiene and education may be a key component of future trials studying metabolic control, they add.

People often miss out on sleep during the week and try to catch up at weekends

People often accumulate sleep debt during weekdays as a consequence of social and work commitments, making up for the lost sleep at the weekend. However, Prof. Taheri explains that the results reinforce the notion that sleep loss is additive and has metabolic consequences:

"Sleep loss is widespread in modern society, but only in the last decade have we realized its metabolic consequences. Our findings suggest that avoiding sleep debt could have positive benefits for waistlines and metabolism and that incorporating sleep into lifestyle interventions for weight loss and diabetes might improve their success."

In February, researchers from the University of Chicago, MI, published the results of their study into the associations between sleep loss and diabetes in the journal Diabetologia.
The Chicago team found that after 3 nights of getting only 4 hours sleep, blood levels of fatty acids remain elevated, rather than peaking and receding overnight as they would normally. This elevated level of fatty acids between 4 am and 9 am reduces the ability of insulin to regulate blood sugars, the researchers explained.
Last December, Medical News Today reported on a study published in The Journal of Pediatrics that found chronic lack of sleep and sleep-related breathing problems each double the risk of a child being obese by the age of 15.
Lead author of that study, Prof. Karen Bonuck, from Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York, NY, commented:
"If impaired sleep in childhood is conclusively shown to cause future obesity, it may be vital for parents and physicians to identify sleep problems early, so that corrective action can be taken and obesity prevented. With childhood obesity hovering at 17% in the US, we're hopeful that efforts to address both of these risk factors could have a tremendous public health impact."

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Drinking beetroot juice reduces high blood pressure, trial shows

One glass of beetroot juice a day is enough to significantly reduce blood pressure in patients with high blood pressure, conclude researchers who conducted a placebo-controlled trial in dozens of patients. beetroot juice Beetroot contains high levels of inorganic nitrate. Other leafy vegetables - such as lettuce and cabbage - also have high levels of the compound, which they take up from the soil through their roots. The trial, conducted at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) in the UK, was funded by the British Heart Foundation, whose senior research advisor Dr. Shannon Amoils remarks: "This interesting study builds on previous research by this team and finds that a daily glass of beetroot juice can lower blood pressure in people with hypertension - even those whose high blood pressure was not controlled by drug treatment.

" The researchers publish their findings in the journal Hypertension. Beetroot contains high levels of inorganic nitrate. Other leafy vegetables - such as lettuce and cabbage - also have high levels of the compound, which they take up from the soil through their roots. In the human body, inorganic nitrate converts to nitric oxide, which relaxes and dilates blood vessels. For the trial, Amrita Ahluwalia, a vascular pharmacology professor at QMUL, and colleagues recruited 64 patients aged 18-85. Half of the patients were taking prescribed medication for high blood pressure but were not managing to reach their target blood pressure, and the rest had been diagnosed with high blood pressure but were not yet taking medication for it. The patients were randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group consumed a daily glass (250 ml or around 8.5 oz) of beetroot juice, and the other group had the same except their beetroot juice was nitrate-free (the placebo). The patients consumed the juice every day for 4 weeks. They were also monitored for 2 weeks before and after the study, bringing the total trial period to 8 weeks. The trial was double-blind, which means neither the administering clinicians nor the patients knew whether the beetroot juice they were given was the placebo or the active supplement. First study to show lasting reduction in blood pressure from dietary nitrate During the 4 weeks they were taking the juice, patients in the active supplement group (whose beetroot juice contained inorganic nitrate) experienced a reduction in blood pressure of 8/4 mmHg (millimeters of mercury). 

The first figure is the reduction in systolic pressure (when the heart is pushing) and the second figure is reduction in diastolic pressure (when the heart is relaxing). For many patients, the 8/4 mmHg reduction brought their blood pressure back into the normal range. In the 2 weeks after they stopped taking the juice, the patients' blood pressure returned to their previous high levels. The team notes that this is first study to show evidence of a long-lasting reduction in blood pressure due to dietary nitrate supplementation in a group of patients with high blood pressure. The patients in the active supplement group also experienced a 20% or so improvement in blood vessel dilation capacity and their artery stiffness reduced by around 10%. Studies show such changes are linked to reduced risk of heart disease. There were no changes to blood pressure, blood vessel function or artery stiffness in the placebo group (whose beetroot juice did not contain nitrate) during the period of the study. The authors note that the reduction achieved in the active supplement group is comparable to that of medication; the average reduction in blood pressure that a single anti-hypertension drug brings is 9/5 mmHg. The study concludes: "These findings suggest a role for dietary nitrate as an affordable, readily-available, adjunctive treatment in the management of patients with hypertension." 

To put the importance of these findings in context, the authors note that large-scale observational studies show that for every 2 mmHg increase in blood pressure, the risk of death from heart disease goes up 7% and from stroke by 10%. Natural products to lower blood pressure are 'more appealing' than pills woman having BP checked One glass of beetroot juice a day significantly lowered blood pressure in people with high blood pressure. Commenting on the findings, Prof. Ahluwalia says: "This research has proven that a daily inorganic nitrate dose can be as effective as medical intervention in reducing blood pressure and the best part is we can get it from beetroot and other leafy green vegetables." She says one reason the findings are exciting is because increasing dietary nitrate is something patients can easily work into their daily lives and see a positive benefit. "It is hugely beneficial for people to be able to take steps in controlling their blood pressure through non-clinical means such as eating vegetables," Prof. Ahluwalia adds. "We know many people don't like taking drugs life-long when they feel ok, and because of this, medication compliance is a big issue." 

"The possibility of using a natural product, rather than another pill, to help lower blood pressure, is very appealing," adds Dr. Amoils. Prof. Ahluwalia advises people looking to increase their daily nitrate intake not to boil vegetables because the nitrate dissolves in water. Instead, "steaming, roasting or drinking in a juice all has a positive effect," she notes. As for the next step, she says this was a small trial, and now what is needed is a larger study that tries to replicate the findings over a longer period with a much larger group of people with high blood pressure. High blood pressure increases the risk of more dangerous health conditions. For instance, about 70% of people who have a first heart attack, about 80% of those who have a first stroke, and 70% of those with chronic heart failure have high blood pressure. Kidney disease is also a major risk factor for people with high blood pressure. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), high blood pressure is either the primary cause of or contributes to 1,000 American deaths every day. In December 2014, Medical News Today reported research published in the journal Open Heart that concluded added sugars probably contribute more to hypertension than dietary sodium.

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Chocolate could prevent obesity and diabetes, study suggests

More than a third of US adults are obese and are, therefore, at higher risk of type 2 diabetes. But new research suggests a surprising prevention strategy for both conditions - eating chocolate.
In a mouse study, led by Andrew P. Neilson of the Department of Food Science and Technology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, researchers discovered that a certain antioxidant in cocoa - the main ingredient in chocolate - prevented mice from gaining weight and lowered their blood sugar levels.
This is not the only study to suggest that consuming chocolate can prevent such health conditions.
Earlier this year, Medical News Today reported on a study claiming that chocolate, as well as wine and berries, protects against type 2 diabetes, while other research found that teens who eat lots of chocolate tend to be slimmer.
Such studies claim that the reason chocolate may have these health benefits is because of the flavanols it contains. These are types of antioxidants.
But the researchers of this most recent study say that not all flavanols are the same. In fact, cocoa has several different types.

Good news for chocolate lovers: a certain flavanol in cocoa may help prevent obesity and type 2 diabetes.

In their study, published in the Journal of Agricultural Food and Chemistry, the investigators set out to determine exactly which flavanol may be responsible for preventing weight gain and lowering blood glucose levels.
For the research, the investigators assigned mice to one of six different diets for 12 weeks.
These consisted of high- and low-fat diets, and high-fat diets supplemented with either monomeric, oligomeric or polymeric procyandins (PCs) - types of flavanols. Mice were given 25 milligrams of these flavanols each day for every kilogram of their body weight (25 mg/kg).

Oligomeric procyandins most effective

The research team found that a high-fat diet supplemented with oligomeric PCs was the most effective for maintaining weight of the mice and improving glucose tolerance - a factor that could help prevent type 2 diabetes.
Commenting on the findings, the researchers say:

"Oligomeric PCs appear to possess the greatest antiobesity and antidiabetic bioactivities of the flavanols in cocoa, particularly at the low doses employed for the present study.
Additional studies of prolonged feeding of flavanol fractions in vivo are needed to further identify the fractions with the highest bioactivities and, therefore, the greatest potential for translation to human clinical applications at reasonable doses."

The investigators point out that the doses of flavanols used in this study are significantly lower than doses used in past research and are more feasible when translated into flavanol levels for human consumption.
"Therefore, our data suggest that moderate doses of cocoa flavanols or cocoa powder have the potential to be more effective in human clinical trials than previously thought," they add.
According to previous research, the health benefits of chocolate may reach further than decreasing the likelihood of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Medical News Today recently reported on a study claiming that eating 70 g of dark chocolate every day could reduce the risk of atherosclerosis - the thickening and hardening of the arteries.
But interestingly, this study did not attribute this benefit to the flavanols that chocolate contains. Study participants ate either regular dark chocolate or chocolate with added flavanols. Both types of chocolate had the same effect.
"We provide a more complete picture of the impact of chocolate consumption in vascular health and show that increasing flavanol content has no added beneficial effect on vascular health," says study researcher Prof. Diederik Esser, of the Top Institute Food and Nutrition and the Division of Human Nutrition at Wageningen University, both in the Netherlands.
Other research claims that hot chocolate could help prevent memory decline. Again, the researchers say this finding was not down to flavanols.
Our article on the health benefits of chocolate reveals some of the other ways in which chocolate may be good for you.

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Alcohol does not benefit the heart, claims new study

A new BMJ study finds that even among people who drink only light to moderate amounts of alcohol, reducing consumption can improve heart health, reduce body mass index, and bring down blood pressure.

The large multi-center international study, which was co-led by the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, calls into question previous research that suggests light to moderate drinking may be good for the heart.

The researchers found that people with a particular gene consumed 17% less alcohol per week, were less likely to binge drink, and were more likely to abstain from alcohol altogether, than non-carriers.

The study defines light to moderate drinking as consuming 0.6 to 0.8 fluid ounces of alcohol a day, or 17 to 23 ml, which is roughly what a 175 ml glass of wine contains.
The 155 researchers - from the UK, continental Europe, North America, and Australia - pooled and analyzed data about links between drinking habits and heart health from 56 epidemiological studies covering more than 260,000 people of European descent.
They found that people with a particular gene consumed 17% less alcohol per week, were less likely to binge drink, and were more likely to abstain from alcohol altogether, than non- carriers.
These lower alcohol consumers typically had a 10% average reduced risk of coronary heart disease, lower blood pressure and a lower body mass index (BMI).
The researchers conclude that reducing alcohol consumption across all levels of consumption - even light to moderate drinking - is beneficial for heart health.
Co-lead author Michael Holmes, a research assistant professor in Perelman School of Medicine's department of Transplant Surgery, says, "Contrary to what earlier reports have shown, it now appears that any exposure to alcohol has a negative impact upon heart health."
He explains how for some time, observational studies have suggested only heavy drinking is bad for the heart, and that light drinking might even provide some benefit, and this has led some people to believe moderate consumption is good for their health, even lowering their risk of heart disease.

Even for light-to-moderate drinkers, reduced consumption may improve heart health

"However, what we're seeing with this new study, which uses an investigative approach similar to a randomized clinical trial, is that reduced consumption of alcohol, even for light-to-moderate drinkers, may lead to improved cardiovascular health," says Prof. Holmes.
The focus of the study was investigating the heart health of people who carry a particular version of the gene "alcohol dehydrogenase 1B" which codes for a protein that helps to break down alcohol more quickly than in non-carriers.
The rapid breakdown causes nausea, facial flushing, and other symptoms, and is linked to lower levels of alcohol consumption over time.
The team used the gene as an indicator of lower alcohol consumption, and from there found the links between lower consumption and improved heart health.
Funds from the British Heart Foundation and the Medical Research Council in the UK financed the study.
In April 2014, Medical News Today learned how neuroscientists at the University of Utah are investigating a region of the brain that regulates how sensitive we are to the negative effects of alcohol. Inactivating this region of the brain in rats led them to drink more alcohol, at a faster pace.

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