Wellness Weekly

Vitamin D: What did I tell you? This may be the wonder vitamin. Of course, be careful because sometimes adverse outcomes result from over the top supplementation. Still, a report this week indicates that men who have lower than normal levels of vitamin D in the blood were more likely to have heart attacks that were fatal then men with normal levels of vitamin D. Vitamin D is found especially in salmon and milk, even skim milk. Sun light also helps as it processes the vitamin D through our skin. You can have your level tested at the doctor’s office and in the meantime be sure that you are getting the recommended amount of Vitamin D. There have been calls to have the RDA increased so I do not know what current consensus is. For me, the addition of 400 IU seems appropriate. Very few foods contain vitamin D. Dr. Walter Willett is one of the health experts who advises upwards of 800 IU. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5503161

Memory: This and the blurb that follows is regarding cigarette smoking as reported this week. One report of a research study found that persons who smoke in middle age have cognitive impairment. In the study through the NIH in France, smokers also had impaired reasoning ability. This would be another reason for a company to not hire smokers. These persons are also more likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in the future. At the least we know that smoking, with carbon monoxide as a main culprit, inhibits blood flow to all cells, tissues and organs in the body. Other toxins in cigarette smoke will impair health as well. Quitting smoking can increase your chances of living longer better.

Early Death: That being said, persons who continue to smoke will age at greater rates than those who do not and also have greater risks of dying from disease as compared to nonsmokers. Here are the examples offered in a story from the AP regarding a study from the National Cancer Institute. Pretty much in keeping with the notion that smokers on average lose about ten years of life because they smoke, this research states that a 55 year old smokers risk of dying in the next ten years is the same as the risk of someone ten years older who has not smoked. That doesn’t seem as scary to me as the rate of certain diseases in smokers compared to non smokers. And this goes back to one of the first lessons I learned in my epidemiology class. For any illness, being a smoker significantly increases the risk you’ll get it. Smoking is synergistic with all other risk factors; it’s a sort of accelerator. So from the NCI study we learn that between the ages of 60 and 70, 7 of 1000 women die of breast cancer, but 14 of 1000 die of heart disease. If the women smoke, 31 of 1000 die of heart disease. The news story then says 41 of 1000 will die from lung cancer, but not how many smoking women die of breast cancer. Intuitively, it would be higher though. What I did find was a very thorough analysis of the literature and research to date in 2002, the scientist behind that study felt that there were too many intricacies involved with smoking to know if and how much it was related to breast cancer risk. In that report the risk factor most concerning for breast cancer was obesity because fat tissue and estrogen are rather synergistic themselves.

Obesity: Okay let’s wrap up this week’s news with a disturbing review of a story found in the Wall St Journal on June 10th regarding obesity in toddlers. Obesity prevention is my passion and it is what I intend to do as a career. Recently though I was struck by the craziness of it all and how wrong it seemed to focus on this health crisis of over nutrition when the under nutrition crisis was still very much alive in some parts of our world. More on that later. Here in America the rate of obesity in TODDLERS has risen from five percent to twelve. Some hospitals and obesity centers are creating programs that teach physical fitness to parents and children. This means nutrition and physical activity. The controversy over addressing the issue in this young group is mostly abated when you see that the message is not telling kids they are overweight but teaching kids and parents about food and activity. This is imperative and I only wonder how to get these types of lessons to all parents. In the story a mother is quoted as being concerned that if she addresses her child’s weight she will then become anorexic. This is not likely. Only one to three percent of Americans have the disease where as 66 percent of us are overweight/obese. Anorexia IS serious. Being negative about weight and appearance IS inappropriate. Role modeling fitness and serving healthy, proportioned foods is the proper course of action. All this being said, and all my passion for educating the public on how to achieve a healthy weight aside, I am struck numb by the state of affairs in Ethiopia. I am not referring to a Sally Struthers commercial, but a report from the BBC world news this week. The country is experiencing a severe famine and the children are wasting away before the lens of the camera. This is what I saw the night BEFORE the Wall St Journal article regarding obese toddlers. The same day I saw an Arby’s commercial advertising four sandwiches for five bucks. Just numb.

Sorry to end on a downer