Think again about keeping little ones so squeaky clean

Research suggests that everyday germs may prevent diseases in adulthood

EVANSTON, Ill. — A new Northwestern University study suggests that American parents should ease up on antibacterial soap and perhaps allow their little ones a romp or two in the mud — or at least a much better acquaintance with everyday germs.

The study is the first to look at how microbial exposures early in life affect inflammatory processes related to diseases associated with aging in adulthood.

Most provocatively, the Northwestern study suggests that exposure to infectious microbes early in life may actually protect individuals from cardiovascular diseases that can lead to death as an adult.

“Contrary to assumptions related to earlier studies, our research suggests that ultra-clean, ultra-hygienic environments early in life may contribute to higher levels of inflammation as an adult, which in turn increases risks for a wide range of diseases,” said Thomas McDade, lead author of the study, associate professor of anthropology in Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research.

Relatively speaking, humans only recently have lived in such hyper-hygienic environments, he stressed.

The research suggests that inflammatory systems may need a higher level of exposure to common everyday bacteria and microbes to guide their development. “In other words, inflammatory networks may need the same type of microbial exposures early in life that have been part of the human environment for all of our evolutionary history to function optimally in adulthood,” said McDade, also a member of Northwestern’s Cells to Society (C2S).

The Northwestern study is the first research on microbial effects on inflammatory systems in infancy that relate in later life to diseases associated with aging. Advancing the scientific literature on the developmental origins of disease, the study arguably is the most significant research on long-term effects of early environments on human physiological function and health in adulthood.

The research took advantage of a longitudinal study of Filipinos, following participants in utero through 22 years of age, to get a better understanding of how environments early in life affect production of C-reactive protein (CRP) production in adulthood.

Levels of the protein rise in the blood due to inflammation, an integral part of the immune system’s fight against infection. CRP research mostly has centered on the protein as a predictor of heart disease, independent of lipids, cholesterol and blood pressure, though researchers still dispute that association. Researchers have been looking at excess body fat as a primary source of pro-inflammatory cytokines that produce CRP and behavioral factors related to diet, exercise and smoking. And the CRP research largely has been conducted in relatively affluent settings, such as in the United States, with low levels of infectious diseases.

The Northwestern researchers were interested in what CRP production looks like in the Philippines, a population with a high level of infectious diseases in early childhood compared to Western countries. Relative to Western countries, the Philippines also has relatively low rates of obesity and cardiovascular diseases, consistent with the Northwestern research findings.

Blood tests showed that C-reactive protein was at least 80 percent lower for study participants in the Philippines when they reached young adulthood, relative to their American counterparts, though the Filipinos suffered from many more infectious diseases as infants and toddlers. Filipino participants in their early 20s had average CRP concentrations of .2 milligrams per liter — five to seven times lower than average CRP levels for Americans. CRP concentrations for Americans in their early 20s were on average around 1 to 1.5 milligram per liter.

“Early Origins of Inflammation: Microbial Exposures in Infancy Predict Lower Levels of C-reactive Protein in Adulthood,” will be published online December 9 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Besides Northwestern’s McDade, the co-authors are Julienne Rutherford, University of Illinois at Chicago; Linda Adair, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and Christopher Kuzawa, associate professor of anthropology in Weinberg at Northwestern.

The Northwestern study drew its data from a longitudinal study that began in the early 1980s with 3,327 Filipino mothers in the third trimester of pregnancy. The mothers were interviewed for behaviors related to care giving, and breast feedings were recorded. The household environment was assessed in terms of socioeconomic resources, hygiene (whether domestic animals, such as pigs and dogs, roamed freely) and density of inhabitants.

Researchers visited with the mothers at the delivery of their infants and subsequently every two months for the first two years of the children’s lives. Thereafter, the researchers followed up with the children every four or five years until they reached their early 20s. The records they kept on the children include data on infectious diseases, growth in height and weight.

“In the U.S we have this idea that we need to protect infants and children from microbes and pathogens at all possible costs,” McDade concluded.

“But we may be depriving developing immune networks of important environmental input needed to guide their function throughout childhood and into adulthood. Without this input, our research suggests, inflammation may be more likely to be poorly regulated and result in inflammatory responses that are overblown or more difficult to turn off once things get started.”

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ATHENS, GA—Air quality in homes, offices, and other indoor spaces is becoming a major health concern, particularly in developed countries where people often spend more than 90% of their time indoors. Surprisingly, indoor air has been reported to be as much as 12 times more polluted than outdoor air in some areas. Indoor air pollutants emanate from paints, varnishes, adhesives, furnishings, clothing, solvents, building materials, and even tap water. A long list of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs [including benzene, xylene, hexane, heptane, octane, decane, trichloroethylene (TCE), and methylene chloride], have been shown to cause illnesses in people who are exposed to the compounds in indoor spaces. Acute illnesses like asthma and nausea and chronic diseases including cancer, neurologic, reproductive, developmental, and respiratory disorders are all linked to exposure to VOCs. Harmful indoor pollutants represent a serious health problem that is responsible for more than 1.6 million deaths each year, according to a 2002 World Health Organization report.

Stanley J. Kays, Department of Horticulture, University of Georgia, was the lead researcher of a study published in HortScience that tested ornamental indoor plants for their ability to remove harmful VOCs from indoor air. According to Kays, some indoor plants have the ability to effectively remove harmful VOCs from the air, and not only have the ability to improve our physical health, but also have been shown to enhance our psychological health. Adding these plants to indoor spaces can reduce stress, increase task performance, and reduce symptoms of ill health.

The ability of plants to remove VOCs is called “phytoremediation”. To better understand the phytoremediation capacity of ornamental plants, the research team tested 28 common indoor ornamentals for their ability to remove five volatile indoor pollutants. “The VOCs tested in this study can adversely affect indoor air quality and have a potential to seriously compromise the health of exposed individuals,” Kays explained. “Benzene and toluene are known to originate from petroleum-based indoor coatings, cleaning solutions, plastics, environmental tobacco smoke, and exterior exhaust fumes emanating into the building; octane from paint, adhesives, and building materials; TCE from tap water, cleaning agents, insecticides, and plastic products; and alpha-pinene from synthetic paints and odorants.”

During the research study, plants were grown in a shade house for eight weeks followed be acclimatization for twelve weeks under indoor conditions before being placed in gas-tight glass jars. The plants were exposed to benzene, TCE, toluene, octane, and alpha-pinene, and air samples were analyzed. The plants were then classified as superior, intermediate, and poor, according to their ability to remove VOCs.

Of the 28 species tested, Hemigraphis alternata (purple waffle plant), Hedera helix (English ivy), Hoya carnosa (variegated wax plant), and Asparagus densiflorus (Asparagus fern) had the highest removal rates for all of the VOCs introduced. Tradescantia pallida (Purple heart plant) was rated superior for its ability to remove four of the VOCs.

The study concluded that simply introducing common ornamental plants into indoor spaces has the potential to significantly improve the quality of indoor air. In addition to the obvious health benefits for consumers, the increased use of indoor plants in both ”green” and traditional buildings could have a tremendous positive impact on the ornamental plant industry by increasing customer demand and sales.

###

The complete study and abstract are available on the ASHS HortScience electronic journal web site: http://hortsci.ashspublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/44/5/1377

Founded in 1903, the American Society for Horticultural Science (ASHS) is the largest organization dedicated to advancing all facets of horticultural research, education, and application. More information at ashs.org

SOURCE: EurekAlert

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Within our body resides an innate wisdom. This wisdom created us from one tiny cell, it inspires our smile at playing children, it brings our tears of joy and our tears of sadness, it heals our wounds when we fall and it is the driving force that allows us to succeed against all odds. It is perfect and ever-present. In our body this innate intelligence utilizes our nervous system (N.S.) as a vital means of communication. The nervous system is also the perceptual, and conceptual system of our body, meaning that all we experience from the outside and inside world is perceived through the N.S. Throughout our normal daily lives we have hundreds of different experiences and interactions, basically our bodies are bombarded with information from the world around us and within us. Whenever the N.S. receives more information than it can handle and digest, it is stored for later use in our development and evolution. It is stored as a pattern of tension or subluxation, an interference to the N.S. Which in turn interferes with our experience of full life expression, this interference is the root cause of dis-ease. As these subluxation patterns build up over time the N.S. becomes more rigid and inflexible, less able to adapt to and digest our world. Our ability to handle the stresses of life diminishes, and our natural health and well-being suffers. We become a creature of the past; our experiences are colored by the perceptual lenses stored in our N.S. as subluxations. Even with many years of subluxations clouding our well-being, the body can continue to function, symptom free even. Truly, one of the most amazing things our body is capable of, is functioning with severely compromised health, I mean some people eat fat-free, sugar-free food from a box and make new eyeball, and brain, and muscle out of it, and it isn’t even food. Now the really good news. Chiropractic adjustments help to release the many layers of interference, allowing for a fuller expression of life. Just as the subluxations build up slowly over time, so too will regular chiropractic adjustments, over time, help the body to become better able to handle all that life has to offer. With each adjustment your system becomes better able to adapt, better able to heal and self-correct. As the Innate Intelligence is allowed it’s full expression we begin to experience life in present time. Imagine if you could flow with, and adapt to all life’s challenges instead of being hit head on. Imagine living each moment through the perceptual lens of now instead of colored by past experience. Imagine having full access to the immeasurable wisdom of your body, life lived to its fullest. My purpose is simply to remove interference to your full expression of life. I trust you and the universe to handle the rest.

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A study that tracked genetic mutations through the human equivalent of about 5,000 years has demonstrated for the first time that oxidative DNA damage is a primary cause of the process of mutation – the fuel for evolution but also a leading cause of aging, cancer and other diseases.

The research, just published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also indicated that natural selection is affecting the parts of the genome that don’t contain genes – supposedly “junk” DNA that increasingly appears to have important roles in life processes that are very poorly understood.

The analysis was done by scientists at Oregon State University, Indiana University, the University of Florida and University of New Hampshire, in studies supported by the National Institutes of Health.

“Most life on Earth depends in some form on oxygen, which is great at the production of energy,” Denver said. “But we pay a high price for our dependence on oxygen, because the process of using it is not 100 percent efficient, and it can result in free oxygen radicals that can damage proteins, fats and DNA. And this process gets worse with age, as free radicals accumulate and begin to cause disease.”

This is one of the first studies, Denver said, that is clearly demonstrating the effects of oxidative damage at a genome-wide scale.

“The research showed that the majority of all DNA mutations bear the signature of oxidative stress,” Denver said. “That’s exactly what you would expect if you believe that oxidative stress is an underlying cause of aging and disease.”

Beyond that, however, the study also found that mutation and natural selection is also operating in the “junk DNA” parts of the roundworm, which actually comprises about 75 percent of its genome but traditionally was not thought to play any major role in life and genetic processes. This suggests that these poorly-understood and little appreciated parts of the genome may have important biological roles that are not yet known, Denver said.

Oxidative stress for decades has been suspected as a mechanism for some of the processes that lead to aging and disease, and it has been studied extensively for that reason. This research provides a better fundamental understanding of the genetic impacts of oxidative stress and its role in both genetic disease and evolution, researchers say.

Source: Eureka Alert

More evidence of the free-radical theory of aging.  I agree that the evidence shows that free-radical damage is one of the major factors in all of the symptoms of aging.  This underscores the importance of limiting free -radical formation and adopting healthy habits that protect your body form the oxidative damage.

The authors of this study make a point to explain that breathing oxygen is a potent producer of free radicals.  The second most potent generator is inflammation and therefore any strategy to maitain health as we age must include reducing inflammation. 

There are dietary steps to take such as including plenty of fresh, colorful fruits and vegetables to your diet.  Omega-3 fatty acids available in fatty fish such as salmon, as well as in supplement form have many benficail properties, reducing inflammation chief among them. 

Alternative healing modalities such as chiropractic care, massage, and accupuncture can assist the body to reduce its inflammatory load.

For more about this topic read: Free Radicals, Antioxidants and You

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Believe it or not these 4 factors have a huge impact on whether or not  you will have the most common deadly chronic diseases: Never smoking, having a body mass index lower than 30 (calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared), performing 3.5 h/wk or more of physical activity, and adhering to healthy dietary principles (high intake of fruits, vegetables, and whole-grain bread and low meat consumption).  A study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine (2009;169(15):1355-1362).  Adhering to 4 simple healthy lifestyle factors can have a strong impact on the prevention of chronic diseases.  The study followed 23,153 German participants aged 35 to 65 years over the course of almost 8 years.

The researchers looked at type 2 diabetes, myocardial infarction (heart attack), stroke and cancer.  They found a direct correlation between these 4 lifestyle habits and a decrease in the incidence of these four chronic deadly diseases.  For all 4 diseases, having a low BMI was the most effective in lower the incidence, especially with diabetes and stroke.  The following is a chart from the article:

The shorter the bar the less likely you are to get that disease.

The following table also shows the breakdown with all the possible combinations of the four habits and the overall likelihood of getting any of the diseases.

(click the image for a bigger view)

It seems as though the common sense habits that we all have heard, exercise, eat lots of fruits and vegetables, don’t smoke, and don’t be overweight, have a scientifically measurable effect on the length and quality of your life as you age.  So while you may know a guy down the street who had a great aunt that smoked and drank a liter of whiskey every day of her life yet lived to be 102, the reality is that simple healthy living is what really works most of the time.

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Alternatives to drugging our children…

 A recent article by Megan Johnson in U.S. News & World Report explored 9 natural, drug-free treatments for ADHD that have all shown to have promise and positive outcomes for the children involved.  Her list includes; positive parenting, treatment programs, neuro feedback, interactive metronome training, meditation, a natural environment, better sleep, diet, and exercise.

Positive Parenting:  Apparently there has been research that shows some similarities among the parents of ADHD kids.  A study published in Clinical Pediatrics, suggests that having a child with ADHD elicits high levels of parental stress and maladaptive parenting. The presence of parental psychopathology (mental difficulties in the parent) is common and influences the parent’s response to the child’s ADHD symptoms.  The implication being that whether the ADHD came first or the parenting challenges came first, an improvement in parent-child relationship can have a positive influence on the overall success of the child moving forward in life.  Sadly too often, due to social and medical pressure, lack of resources to make real change and simple lack of information, parents turn to medication to solve the difficulties the child has with mandated sitting still and focusing on often irrelevant information and exercises.  As a culture we all can share the responsibility for this reality, collectively we have become reliant upon drugs to fix our so called problems of daily life.  We have given the power of our own health away and bought the story that we are all frail, weak, broken, diseased, chemically imbalanced and simply deteriorating as we age, and that as a result we need medication to maintain life as we know it.  And perhaps that right there is the heart of the issue, life as we know it.  Rather than medicating our kids, medicating our elderly, medicating our pets, medicating ourselves, in order to fit into life as we know it, we need to examine life as we know it as perhaps the problem.

Treatment programs:  It might be a surprise to learn that some of the most effective treatment programs are in fact parent skills training programs.  Parent skills training has been used for years to improve the behavior of kids with ADHD. Consider for a moment here that this research is saying that improving the parenting skills helps to treat a medical condition called ADHD, I can’t think of another so-called medical condition that is successfully treated by changing  the behavior of the parent of the sick person.  These programs teach parents skills such as making clear, specific requests of children and using praise and rewards for good behavior far more often than punishment. 

The results have shown to be effective enough that last fall the British government mandated parent training as the first choice for treatment in many cases.  In England, parents of children with ADHD are offered free government-funded classes where they learn to set clear limits for the child, be consistent in enforcing those limits, and reward good behavior.

There are also skill building programs for children that focus on listening and following directions, homework, organizational skills, effective communication, and problem-solving.  These have shown a fairly good rate of success.  (And really what youngster wouldn’t benefit from some extra training in these areas, I know I would have)

Neuro feedback:  This is essentially training the brain and consciousness to gain conscious control, or at least influence, over the areas of the central nervous system that are typically only influenced sub-consciously.  There is a growing body of research supporting this as a possible palliative therapy for the symptoms of ADHD, though more research is needed to verify it in the eyes of the mainstream scientific community for ADHD treatment.

Interactive metronome training:  “IM is a neuro-motor assessment & treatment tool used in therapy to improve the neurological processes of motor planning and sequencing.  The human brain’s efficiency and performance depend on the seamless transition of neuronetwork signals from one area of the brain to another. Findings in a recent study by Neal Alpiner, MD, “Functional MRI Study of the Effects of IM on Auditory-Motor Processing Networks”, suggest that IM works by augmenting internal processing speed within the neuroaxis. The key regions of the brain that are affected appear to include the cerebellum, prefrontal cortex, cingulate gyrus and basal ganglia. These parts of the brain are responsible for human timing as well as other day to day functions such as: sustained attention, language formulation, motor coordination and balance.” (From the website for Interactive Metronome therapy, http://www.interactivemetronome.com/IMPublic/Home.aspx)

Meditation:  There have been many studies linking regular mediation practice with greater mental clarity, sense of well-being, decreased stress and improved mental focus.  Recently there have been a few studies looking directly at the effects of mediation on ADHD symptoms and have shown some promising results in improving attention span, decreasing anxiety and improving organizational skills.  (http://cie.asu.edu/volume10/number2/index.html, http://jad.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/11/6/737)

A natural environment:  A study published in the American Journal of Public Health showed that outdoor activities reduced the symptoms of ADHD more than activities performed indoors.  This was true across all age ranges and other individual characteristics.  Other studies have shown that children who spend more time in the woods or other park settings have a greater improvement in ADHD symptoms than those that spend less regular time in these settings.  As humans, we are nature; we need regular interaction with nature to allow us to reconnect with the true essence of who we are.  We need time away from the many distractions of modern life; our phones, computers, TVs, the focus on others and outside problems and issues.  We require the nutrition of time spent in solitude in the natural world to live a balanced and fulfilling life. 

Better sleep, diet, and exercise:  These are the basic tenets of good health whether or not one has the symptoms of disease or not.  For our bodies to function properly we need proper amounts of sleep, a balanced health promoting diet, and regular exercise for our bodies and minds.  The benefit of these activities has been researched and proven ad nauseum.  For the purposes of this discussion let it be said that you can’t go wrong for any health and wellness concerns by getting a healthy dose of these three things.  And perhaps our overall dependence upon medications would be greatly reduced if everyone committed to these three basic tenants of good health living.

Why do we so often turn to drugs for our children?  This is a complex and multi-faceted issue.  Sometimes parents are pushed to their wits end and believe they have nowhere else to turn.  Often there are strong social and peer pressures to medicate an active child.  Unfortunately 2 primary reasons have to do with what I consider a breach of trust; Doctors and pharmaceutical companies.  Too often when a person turns to the expert for help in a challenging situation with a child they look to a psychiatrist for, and this almost always ends with a prescription for a psychotropic drug.  Since they are the “expert” why would a concerned parent question it?   Particularly when they are not fully informed of the potential deadly side-effects.  The other culprit here is the marketing and research branches of pharmaceutical companies.  If you watch TV or read mainstream magazines you are constantly bombarded with advertisements that suggest there is something wrong with you, that you need medication to help you, that you should “talk to your doctor” for help and that your doctor should put you on this drug to make everything better.  “Talk to your doctor” was one of the most brilliant and devious marketing ideas ever devised by the drug industry.  There was a time not too long ago when if you thought something was wrong with you, you would go to your doctor and ask them to figure out what was wrong and then advise you of the best treatment options.  Those days are gone, now the public is asked to self-diagnose and then go to their doctor as a dispensary of the latest drugs being pushed on TV.  In fact, the underlying suggestion that is often in practice is that if your doctor won’t prescribe the drug that you have seen on the commercial you can go to the doc down the street who will.  Therefore a doctor who conscientiously won’t overprescribe medications is risking their own livelihood. 

These are our children, one of our most precious resources.  When I look into my 2-year old daughter’s eyes and think of the over medicating of children in our society I feel sadness and then anger.  The anger is because the perpetration of this atrocity is being done purposefully and with full knowledge of the consequences, and yet still being done simply for money, for status and for power.

Please go here and spend some time watching and educating yourself further: http://www.cchr.org/#/home

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These days there has been a lot of attention placed on aging and along with that Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.  Emerging research has shown that the simple act of reading, playing crossword puzzles, or doing crafts can decrease your chances of mental decline as you age.  Some neuro-scientists have taken this a step further and have been developing specific, targeted exercises to not only stave off dementia, but to also improve mental sharpness, memory, attention, processing speed and cognitive control (decision making and planning).  I don’t know about you, but these are all areas in which I could use improvement. 

A new Mayo Clinic study found that reading books, playing games, participating in computer activities and crafting led to a 30 to 50 percent decrease in the risk of developing mild cognitive impairment. People who watched television for less than seven hours a day in later years were 50 percent less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment than those who watched more than seven hours of television per day. Additionally, individuals who participated in social activities and read magazines during middle age were about 40 percent less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment than those who did not participate in those activities.  This study was presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s Annual Meeting in Seattle, April 25-May 2, 2009.  (Source)

 In a recent study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine (N Engl J Med 2003;348:2508-16), scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in collaboration with Syracuse University studied 469 subjects older than 75 years of age who lived in the community setting. They recorded the frequency of participation in leisure activities for the subjects. They documented their thinking and physical abilities and recorded them in activity-days per week.  The researchers found that over an average period of 5.4 years, dementia developed in 124 subjects (Alzheimer’s disease in 61 subjects, vascular dementia in 30, mixed dementia in 25, and other types of dementia in 8). They also found that among leisure activities, reading, playing board games, playing musical instruments, and dancing were associated with a reduced risk of dementia.

In searching the web for information about this, as well as programs or exercises to help improve my mental sharpness, I came across a site called Lumosity.com.  Run by Lumos Labs, a cognitive neuroscience research and development company that builds software tools for improving brain health and performance, this site was created with fun in mind.  They have a large selection of Flash based online games that give your grey matter a good workout, while keeping you entertained.  Personally I feel like my brain muscle is getting stretched.   Check it out, you can get a free week of brain expending games by clicking here Free Trial of Lumosity

 Lumosity.com has even done their own research studies on the effects of their exercises.  The following are excerpts from their website. (http://www.lumosity.com/info/science/results)

-Research presented at the Bay Area Neuroscience Gathering in San Francisco, CA shows that the Lumosity brain games improve working memory.

 Working memory capacity of 23 individuals was tested before and after training.

Subjects who trained with several of the Lumosity brain exercises on a daily basis for 30 days improved on the memory exercises. More importantly, the trained subjects also improved on independent tests of working memory (p<.01, two-tailed t-Test), which were not part of the training, while the control group showed no change upon retesting.

For more details, download the white paper or view the scientific poster presentation.

-Lumosity brain exercises are designed to improve processing speed by challenging users to gradually increment the rate of other cognitive processes. For example, users who trained with our arithmetic exercise Raindrops for at least 10 sessions can solve math problems faster and more accurately (p<.001, two-tailed t-Test). Those that completed Word Bubbles at least 10 times improve at word-finding and are able to find more words in a given amount of time (p<.001, two-tailed t-Test).

-Lumosity includes exercises developed to enhance cognitive control. The effective outcomes of these exercises are currently being studied. Preliminary results include a 9-second (16 percent) improvement on Trail Making, Part B, a common test of executive function, in subjects who trained for 30 days with a subset of the Lumosity exercises (p<0.05, two-tailed t-Test).

More information about this research is available by downloading the poster that was presented at the Society for Neuroscience Conference in 2007.

-Brain training with Lumosity was demonstrated to improve visual attention in a study first presented at the 2006 Society for Neuroscience conference in Atlanta, GA.

 Visual attention was measured in intervention and control groups at the beginning and end of the experiment. Trained subjects completed an average of 33 five-minute sessions of Birdwatching, one of the Lumosity visual attention exercises.

Attention and perceptual accuracy improved significantly more in subjects who trained with Lumosity brain games than in those who did not train (p<0.01, two-tailed t-Test).

For more details, download the white paper or view the scientific poster.

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