UnSymmetrical

It was news when it was first revealed three years ago – and it was news again last week: antioxidant vitamins can speed up the development of cancer. But the researcher who first published the study has now admitted that she got it wrong.

The original study – which made headlines around the world – found that cancer patients who took either vitamin A (beta-carotene) or E (alpha tocopherol) supplements were 40 per cent more likely to suffer a recurrence of their cancer than those who didn’t take any supplements.

Ever since, nutritionists and alternative therapists have been on the back foot, and have tried to defend the antioxidants. But their task was made even tougher last week when the prestigious Cochrane Collaborative released a meta-analysis that suggested that antioxidants may even shorten our life.

But the researchers, led by Isabelle Bairati from the Quebec Research Centre, who published the 2005 study, have re-analysed their original data, and have discovered they got it wrong. The only people in the study who were seeing their cancer return were smokers who refused to kick the habit while they were receiving radiation therapy or chemotherapy.

Strangely, not a single newspaper has run with the story.

(Source: International Journal of Cancer, 2008; 122: 1679-83).

Posted by Vitamin Z at 11:23 AM | Permalink

Shoppers have long been willing to pay a premium for organic food. But how much is too much?

Rising prices for organic groceries are prompting some consumers to question their devotion to food produced without pesticides, chemical fertilizers or antibiotics. In some parts of the country, a loaf of organic bread can cost $4.50, a pound of pasta has hit $3, and organic milk is closing in on $7 a gallon.

“The prices have gotten ridiculous,” said Brenda Czarnik, who was shopping recently at a food cooperative in St. Paul.

Food prices in general have been rising, but organic food lagged somewhat behind last year because of a temporary glut of organic milk and other factors. Some grocery chains adopted private-label organic products, which are cheaper than brand products, while others hesitated to raise already high organic prices.

In recent months, however, these factors have been giving way to cost pressures in the industry. On grocery shelves across the nation, sharp price increases are taking hold.

“It’s probably the most dynamic and volatile time I’ve seen in 25 years,” said Gary Hirshberg, chief executive of Stonyfield Farm, an organic dairy business. “It’s extremely difficult to predict where it’s going.”

Continue reading "Sticker Shock in the Organic Aisles" »

Posted by Vitamin Z at 01:23 AM | Permalink

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday ordering Tyson Foods to withdraw advertisements claiming its chickens are “raised without antibiotics that impact antibiotic resistance in humans.”

Tyson said it would appeal the decision.

The ruling was made by Judge Richard D. Bennett in the United States District Court in Baltimore.

Two competitors, Sanderson Farms and Perdue Farms, had objected to the ads by Tyson and said Tyson had injected its eggs with antibiotics and used antibiotic molecules in its feed.

Sanderson Farms said it was not saying the use of the treatments “is bad, because we do that also, but we’re saying to use those products in your hatchery and your feed and to label that as raised without antibiotics is just not truthful,” said Lampkin Butts, president of Sanderson.

On Tuesday, Tyson maintained that its claim was truthful.

Continue reading "Tyson Told to End an Antibiotic Claim" »

Posted by Vitamin Z at 12:31 PM | Permalink

Researchers can gather all the hard-nosed evidence they want about the effectiveness of a particular drug or treatment. But there's one figure doctors don't much talk about despite its importance. It's called number needed to treat, or NNT, a new measure developed in the past 20 years that's one of the best-kept statistical secrets in medicine.

The idea of NNT is simple enough. Most, if not all clinical trials look at how much better people do on a particular medicine compared with how they would do without it or whether they should be on a different medicine. Take statins, drugs that aim to reduce bad cholesterol. A typical trial might give one group of men a statin for, say, five years and give a second group a placebo, or fake pill.

Generally, you will see fewer heart attacks in the statin group (about 30% fewer in one real-world trial). Reducing the risk by a third sounds like a lot, which is one reason many hundreds of thousands of men with no sign of heart disease take statins. But that number is meaningless unless you take into account the percentage of men in both groups who have heart attacks in the first place. If those people represent only a tiny fraction of the two populations, an improvement of 30% isn't much--maybe one heart attack fewer in a group of thousands.

Continue reading "Medicine's Secret Stat" »

Posted by Vitamin Z at 12:18 PM | Permalink

Cases of a life-threatening form of pneumonia that affects the young are rising rapidly in Britain. It now affects around 1,000 children a year. The cause of the increase is unknown but experts fear a vaccine in the immunisation programme could be contributing.

This severe pneumonia infects the lining of the lungs called the pleura, making it hard to breathe. It requires hospital admission to drain the chest cavity. The children affected are frightened and in pain and many und-ergo surgery to scrape out the contents of the pleura – a process called surgical debridement.

Child health specialists say cases of the pneumonia, known as serotype 1, have risen tenfold in a dec-ade. They warn that a vaccine against pneumococcal disease called Prevenar, introduced in 2006, could be fuelling the rise.

The vaccine is given at two, four and 13 months and provides protection against seven of the commonest types of pneumonia. It is safe and highly effective – cases of invasive pneumococcal disease caused by the serotypes covered by the vaccine have fallen by 90 per cent in two years. But there are more than 90 known strains of the bacterium that causes pneumonia. When one is eliminated, it creates an opportunity for another to take its place. In the US, where Prevenar was introduced in 2000, researchers have reported an emergence of "sero-replacement" disease – types of pneumonia not covered by the vaccine.

Continue reading "Increase in Severe Pneumonia in Children may be Caused by Vaccine" »

Posted by Vitamin Z at 11:59 AM | Permalink

Major new study shows that modified soya produces 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent

Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.

The study – carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt – has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.

Professor Barney Gordon, of the university's department of agronomy, said he started the research – reported in the journal Better Crops – because many farmers who had changed over to the GM crop had "noticed that yields are not as high as expected even under optimal conditions". He added: "People were asking the question 'how come I don't get as high a yield as I used to?'"

He grew a Monsanto GM soybean and an almost identical conventional variety in the same field. The modified crop produced only 70 bushels of grain per acre, compared with 77 bushels from the non-GM one.

Continue reading "Exposed: the Great GM Crops Myth" »

Posted by Vitamin Z at 09:50 PM | Permalink