Vitamin D Linked to Lower Rates of Tooth Decay

A new review of existing studies points toward a potential role for vitamin D in helping to prevent dental caries, or tooth decay. These trials showed that vitamin D was associated with an approximately 50 percent reduction in the incidence of tooth decay.

According to Dr. Michael Holick, professor of medicine at the Boston University Medical Center, "the findings from the University of Washington reaffirm the importance of vitamin D for dental health." He said that "children who are vitamin D deficient have poor and delayed teeth eruption and are prone to dental caries."

The vitamin D question takes on greater importance in the light of current public health trends. Vitamin D levels in many populations are decreasing while dental caries incidence is increasing.

Parents may increase vitamin D levels in children through the use of supplemental cod-liver oil or other products containing the vitamin.

Folate and Vitamin B-12 Linked to Depression

A low intake of folate and vitamin B12 is linked to a greater risk of melancholic depressive symptoms. Typical depressive symptoms are associated with melancholic depression, such as a depressed mood. Folate helps produce chemicals that control brain functions, such as sleep, mood, and appetite, and can be found in foods like green vegetables. Vitamin B12 is also a water soluble vitamin and it plays a crucial role in the function of the brain, nervous system, and formation of red blood cells.

The results from the study showed the subjects with the highest folate intake had a 50% lower risk for melancholic depressive symptoms, compared to those with the lowest intake. And the people who had the highest vitamin B12 levels had a 3 times lower risk for melancholic depressive symptoms than those with the lowest levels.

Journal of Affective Disorders 2012

Foods high in rutin can help prevent blood clots.

Research by investigators at Harvard’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and published in online in The Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI) has led to a strategy for preventing thrombosis (blood clotting) — feeding rutin to patients.

“It’s not always fully appreciated that the majority of Americans will die as the result of a blood clot in either their heart or their brain,” says senior author Robert Flaumenhaft, MD, PhD, an investigator in the Division of Hemostasis and Thrombosis at BIDMC and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “Approximately half of all morbidity and mortality in the United States can be attributed to heart attack or stroke.”

Foods high in rutin can help prevent blood clots
Among the more than 5,000 compounds that were screened by researchers,, quercetin-3-rutinoside (rutin) emerged as the most potent agent to prevent blood clots.

“Rutin proved to be the most potently anti-thrombotic compound that we ever tested in this model,” said Flaumenhaft. Rutin was shown to inhibit both platelet accumulation and fibrin generation during thrombus formation.

Foods that are high in rutin include buckwheat, apples and asparagus.

6000 Steps May Save Your Life

Habitual physical activity that adds up to moving 6,000 or more steps a day may protect women's health in midlife, because, whether through formal exercises or just the activities of daily life, this level of activity is linked to a lower risk for developing diabetes and metabolic syndrome in midlife women.

For most people, that is the equivalent of walking for about an hour a day.

Studies suggest that people who set themselves goals with a pedometer are more likely to increase their levels of physical activity, lose weight and lower their blood pressure. 

But setting yourself a goal of walking for an hour a day can be rather daunting if you are just starting out. It might be easier to achieve such a goal if you break it down and find ways to add in extra steps to what you already do: ten minutes here, and ten minutes there, for instance. 

People who have used pedometers successfully to increase their daily activity do things like:

• Park further away from entrances, eg at the supermarket or workplace,
• Use the stairs rather than the elevator,
• Take a walk at break times, and
• Enjoy a stroll in the evening, for instance after dinner, with family or friends.

Grapefruit Juice Mixed With Prescription Drugs Can Be Deadly

Many prescription drugs have severe side effects when they are mixed with grapefruit juice, and the number of these medications is rapidly growing, however, doctors are often unaware of the side effects, according to a new study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ).

Serious side effects of mixing grapefruit juice with certain prescription drugs include:

• respiratory failure
• gastrointestinal bleeding
• bone marrow suppression in patients with weak immune systems
• renal toxicity
• acute kidney failure
• sudden death
• According to the new findings, over 85 different medications may have interactions with grapefruit, and 43 can have harmful effects. Seville oranges, which is found in marmalade, as well as limes and pomelos have the active ingredients, or furanocoumarins - substances which naturally occur in grapefruit. They irreversibly inhibit the drug metabolizing CYP3A4 enzyme that inactivates the effects of approximately half of all medications.
  
  Medications that mix with these substances have three traits:
  • They are given as oral drugs.
  • They possess very low to middle bioavailability (the percentage of the oral dose of the medication which is soaked into the blood circulation unaltered).
  • They go through drug metabolism in the gastrointestinal tract by CYP3A4.
  For low bioavailability drugs, consuming just one grapefruit can multiply the dosage effect of that medication several times, and this interaction can take place regardless of whether the grapefruit was eaten hours before the drug was taken. Therefore, a moderate amount of grapefruit can impact interacting medications which are taken only once a day at any hour during when the dose is taken.
  
  Taking regular amounts of medications on a daily basis can increase side effects. For example, when Simvastin, a popular statin, is mixed with one 200-mL glass of grapefruit juice for 3 days, it results in a 330% systematic concentration of the medication in comparison with water.
  
  Adults over the age of 45 are the most common buyers of grapefruit and also tend to be prescribed the most medications. The population of adults over 45 is extremely large, therefore, many of these interactions are likely to occur. The report notes that older adults are more likely to have decreased capability to endure extreme systematic drug concentrations, making them more likely to experience these adverse effects. 

Newly Discovered Effects Of Vitamin D On Cancer

Vitamin D slows the progression of cells from premalignant to malignant states, keeping their proliferation in check. 

The sunshine vitamin acts by several mechanisms to inhibit both the production and function of the protein cMYC. cMYC drives cell division and is active at elevated levels in more than half of all cancers.

lthough vitamin D can be obtained from limited dietary sources and directly from exposure to the sun during the spring and summer months, the combination of poor dietary intake and sun avoidance has created vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency in large proportions of many populations worldwide. It is known that vitamin D has a wide range of physiological effects and that correlations exist between insufficient amounts of vitamin D and an increased incidence of a number of cancers. These correlations are particularly strong for cancers of the digestive tract, including colon cancer.

Source: McGill University