Home Remedy when Kids have Sore Throat

Sore throat is a common health problem among children, but usually is left unattended so it progresses to more severe cases like cough, cold and even flu


Symptoms:


When your child complains of an itchy throat, that's the start
Hoarse voice,
Difficulty in speaking because the throat is sore,
Sometimes fever is present


Remedy:
Have your child drink lots of water, and freshly squeezed citrus juices, preferably with less sugar.
Gargle with lukewarm water mixed with vinegar

US Omega-6 and Omega-3 Fat Consumption over the Last Century

Omega-6 and omega-3 polyunsaturated fats (PUFA) are essential nutrients that play many important roles in the body. They are highly bioactive, and so any deviation from ancestral intake norms should probably be viewed with suspicion. I've expressed my opinion many times on this blog that omega-6 consumption is currently too high due to our high intake of refined seed oils (corn, soybean, sunflower, etc.) in industrial nations. Although it's clear that the quantity of omega-6 and omega-3 polyunsaturated fat have changed over the last century, no one had ever published a paper that attempted to systematically quantify it until last month (1).

Drs. Chris Ramsden and Joseph Hibbeln worked on this paper (the first author was Dr. Tanya Blasbalg and the senior author was Dr. Robert Rawlings)-- they were the first and second authors of a different review article I reviewed recently (2). Their new paper is a great reference that I'm sure I'll cite many times. I'm going to briefly review it and highlight a few key points.

1. The intake of omega-6 linoleic acid has increased quite a bit since 1909. It would have been roughly 2.3% of calories in 1909, while in 1999 it was 7.2%. That represents an increase of 213%. Linoleic acid is the form of omega-6 that predominates in seed oils.

2. The intake of omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid has also increased, for reasons that I'll explain below. It changed from 0.35% of calories to 0.72%, an increase of 109%.

3. The intake of long-chain omega-6 and omega-3 fats have decreased. These are the highly bioactive fats for which linoleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid are precursors. Arachidonic acid, DHA, DPA and EPA intakes have declined. This mostly has to do with changing husbandry practices and the replacement of animal fats with seed oils in the diet.

4. The ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats has increased. There is still quite a bit of debate over whether the ratios matter, or simply the absolute amount of each. I maintain that there is enough evidence from highly controlled animal studies and the basic biochemistry of PUFAs to tentatively conclude that the ratio is important. At a minimum, we know that excess linoleic acid inhibits omega-3 metabolism (3, 4, 5, 6). The omega-6:3 ratio increased from 5.4:1 to 9.6:1 between 1909 and 2009, a 78% increase.

5. The biggest factor in both linoleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid intake changes was the astonishing rise in soybean oil consumption. Soybean oil consumption increased from virtually nothing to 7.4% of total calories, eclipsing all sources of calories besides sugar, dairy and grains! That's because processed food is stuffed with it. It's essentially a byproduct of defatted soybean meal-- the second most important animal feed after corn. Check out this graph from the paper:

I think this paper is an important piece of the puzzle as we try to figure out what happened to nutrition and health in the US over the last century.

Welding And Parkinson's, Can Fumes Lead To The Disease?

Fumes produced by welding contain manganese. Manganese is a chemical element that, even at low levels, has been linked to neurologic problems, including Parkinson's disease-like symptoms. New research suggests that workers exposed to welding fumes may be at risk for developing brain damage in an area of the brain also affected inParkinson's disease.

Brad A. Racette, MD, with Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and a Fellow with the American Academy of Neurology stated:

"There are over one million workers who perform welding as part of their job functions in the United States. If a link between neurotoxic effects and these fumes were proven, it would have a substantial public health impact for the U.S. workforce and economy."

Almost everyone is exposed to small amounts of manganese, a naturally occurring substance in our air, soil, water and food, daily. If kept in check, the body is able to control manganese levels by expelling extra amounts, but if the intake becomes too great, it can become overwhelming and cause a variety of health problems, including permanent nervous system damage.

What makes manganese so dangerous is that the current safety levels may not be adequate, so people may be taking in dangerous levels of this compound that almost no one is aware of.

The study involved 20 welders with no symptoms of Parkinson's disease, 20 people with Parkinson's disease who were not welders and 20 people who were not welders and did not have Parkinson's.

The welders were recruited from two Midwest shipyards and one metal fabrication company. All participants were given brain PET and MRI scans, motor skills tests and examined by a neurologist who specializes in movement disorders. The welders had an average of 30,000 hours of lifetime welding exposure. Their average manganese levels were found to be two times the upper limits of normal.

Scientists found that welders had an average 11.7% reduction in a marker of dopamine in one area of the brain on PET scans as compared to people who did not weld. Dopamine is a chemical messenger that helps nerve cells communicate and is decreased in specific brain regions in people with Parkinson's disease. The welders' motor skills test scores also showed mild movement difficulties that were about half of that found in the early Parkinson's disease patients.

Racette continues:

"While these changes in the brain and dopamine dysfunction may be an early marker of neuron death related to welding exposure, the damage appeared to be different from those of people with full-fledged Parkinson's disease. MRI scans also revealed brain changes in welders that were consistent with manganese deposits in the brain."

Perhaps most concerning is that permanent damage to the nervous system may occur after exposure to manganese levels that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has noted as safe.

W. R. Wayne Martin, MD from University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and also a member of the American Academy of Neurology adds:

"Although this study shows that these workers had dopamine dysfunction in the brain, the study authors could not determine whether this was specifically related to manganese. Will these individuals develop full-fledged Parkinson's disease? We can't answer that question based on the study but more research should be done to explore this possibility."

What to do when your child has a flu.

Flu

Flu is not as simple as we thought. It is caused by a virus and it is transferred from one person to another through coughing, sneezing, sharing of eating utensils and having a direct contact with people sick from it. Recovery can be expected in 1-2 weeks time, but there are instances when the infection may develop to life-threatening complications.

Children are mostly at risk because their immune system is not yet as developed as to that of the adults although, it affects all ages.

Symptoms:

• Headache
• Dizziness
• Nausea
• Vomiting
• Weakness or feelings of fatigue
• Muscle aches
• Joint aches
• Sore throat
• Cough
• Cold
• Irritated, watery eyes
• Fever and chills 

What to do when your child is down with fl?

• Give paracetamol to relieve the fever and pain.
• Rest and plenty of water are necessary.
• Monitor the temperature.
• If fever persists and your child is shivering or is having chills, better consult a doctor. 

Caution: 

• Don’t give aspirin to your children.
• Flu is caused by a virus so don’t give your child antibiotics unless your pedia instructs you to. (antibiotics are for bacteria caused diseases)

Prevention:

• Prevention is better than cure. Have your child vaccinated against flu.
• Teach your child to practice good personal hygiene, like proper hand washing. Hand sanitizers are also a great help when hand washing can’t be possible.
• Teach your child to avoid touching his eyes, nose mouth and to cover her mouth and nose when someone sneezes or coughs near or in front of him.

Fat-ten-u

I recently bought the book Food in the United States, 1820s-1890. I came across an ad for an interesting product that was sold in the late 1800s called Fat-ten-u. Check your calendars, it's not April fools day anymore; this is for real. Fat-ten-u was a dietary supplement guaranteed to "make the thin plump and rosy with honest fleshiness of form." I found several more ads for it online, and they feature drawings of despondent, lean women and drawings of happy overweight women accompanied by enthusiastic testimonials such as this:

"FAT-TEN-U FOODS increased my weight 39 pounds, gave me new womanly vigor and developed me finely. My two sisters also use FAT-TEN-U and because of our newly found vigor we have taken up Grecian dancing and have roles in all local productions."

I'm dying to know what was in this stuff, but I can't find the ingredients anywhere.

I find this rather extraordinary, for two reasons:

• Social norms have clearly changed since the late 1800s. Today, leanness is typically considered more attractive than plumpness.
• Women had to make an effort to become overweight in the late 1800s. In 2011, roughly two-thirds of US women are considered overweight or obese, despite the fact that most of them would rather be lean.

A rhetorical question: did everyone count calories in the 1800s, or did their diet and lifestyle naturally promote leanness? The existence of Fat-ten-u is consistent with the idea that our bodies naturally "defended" a lean body composition more effectively in the late 1800s, when our diets were less industrialized. This is supported by the only reliable data on obesity prevalence in the 1890s I'm aware of: body height and weight measurements from over 35,000 Union civil war veterans aged 40-69 years old (1). In that group of Caucasian men, obesity was about 10% of what it is today in the same age group. Whether or not you believe that this sample was representative of the population at large, I can't imagine any demographic in the modern US with an obesity prevalence of 3 percent (certainly not 60 year old war veterans).

Here are two more ads for Fat-ten-u and "Corpula foods" for your viewing pleasure:

Dr. Kevin Patterson on Western Diets and Health

A few readers have pointed me to an interesting NPR interview with the Canadian physician Kevin Patterson (link). He describes his medical work in Afghanistan and the Canadian arctic treating cultures with various degrees of industrialization. He discusses the "epidemiological transition", the idea that cultures experience predictable changes in their health as they go from hunter-gatherer, to agricultural, to industrial. I think he has an uncommonly good perspective on the effects of industrialization on human health, which tends to be true of people who have witnessed the effects of the industrial diet and lifestyle on diverse cultures.

A central concept behind my thinking is that it's possible to benefit simultaneously from both:

• The sanitation, medical technology, safety technology, law enforcement and lower warfare-related mortality that have increased our life expectancy dramatically relative to our distant ancestors.


• The very low incidence of obesity, diabetes, coronary heart disease and other non-infectious chronic diseases afforded by a diet and lifestyle roughly consistent with our non-industrial heritage.

But it requires discipline, because going with the flow means becoming unhealthy.

NEOADJUVANT ANDROGEN DEPRIVATION THERAPY BEFORERADIOTHERAPY HALVES PROSTATE CANCER MORTALITY

New long-term results confirm the finding that neoadjuvant androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT), combined with radiotherapy, can significantly boost survival in men with locally advanced prostate cancer.
The updated results of the Trans-Tasman Radiation Oncology Group (TROG) 96.01 trial are published online March 25 in the Lancet Oncology.
They show that a large proportion of patients with locally advanced disease can be successfully treated with as little as 6 months of neoadjuvant ADT and a relatively low dose of radiation.
The authors note that at 10 years, neoadjuvant ADT cut the prostate-cancer-specific mortality rate in half, compared with radiation treatment alone (11% vs 22%).
All-cause mortality was also reduced, by about a third, among patients who received both therapies (29% vs 43%).
These results confirm the use of neoadjuvant ADT in this population of prostate cancer patients, explained lead author James W. Denham, MD, director of the Prostate Cancer Trials Group at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. "It also gives evidence that the treatment needs to be at least 6 months to have an effect on mortality."
"For men with intermediate-risk cancers, RTOG [Radiation Therapy Oncology Group] 9408 has shown that 4 months of neoadjuvant ADT can improve survival," he told Medscape Medical News.
Earlier Results Confirmed
Dr. Denham and colleagues previously reported 5-year results from this study. They suggested that 6 months of neoadjuvant ADT improved prostate-cancer-specific survival by reducing metastases (Lancet Oncol. 2005;6:841-850). At 10 years, they now find that, compared with radiotherapy alone, the addition of ADT improves event-free survival, decreases the cumulative incidence of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) progression, and decreases distant progression and all-cause and disease-specific mortality.
In this prostate cancer population, neoadjuvant ADT for at least 6 months is the already the standard of care in Australia and New Zealand and a number of centers in other parts of the world, explained Dr. Denham.
He also noted that although a longer duration of ADT after radiation might increase survival slightly, which has been seen in some trials from the RTOG and European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer, it comes at a cost — both financially and in terms of toxicity. "A point we make in the article is that the informed treatment-consent process is getting much more rigorous in many countries, and it is getting more difficult to 'persuade' men that the inconvenience and potential prolonged ill effects of long-term ADT are worth the possible additional gains," he said.
"Six months of neoadjuvant ADT and radiation is a very reasonable choice, particularly for men with coexisting medical problems that could be exacerbated by long-term ADT," Dr. Denham added.
Clear Messages for Clinical Practice
In an accompanying editorial, Chris Parker, MD, consultant clinical oncologist from the Royal Marsden Hospital, Sutton, United Kingdom, agrees that these findings strengthen the evidence and send "2 clear messages for current clinical practice."
First off, he writes, is that it offers confirmation that neoadjuvant ADT "significantly reduces mortality after radiotherapy for high-risk prostate cancer, and is a standard of care."
The second point is that it helps to" resolve the uncertainty" regarding the duration of this therapy, and strongly suggests that the duration should be at least 6 months, he notes.
Six Months Superior to 3 Months
The TROG 96.01 study compared radiotherapy alone with 3 or 6 months of neoadjuvant ADT, which was given before and during radiation therapy. In their paper, the authors report, from the 10-year data, the benefits derived from 3 months and 6 months of neoadjuvant ADT.
Their analysis involved 802 men with stage T2b, T2c, T3, and T4 N0M0 prostate cancers. They were randomly assigned to receive radiotherapy alone (n = 270), 3 months of neoadjuvant ADT plus radiotherapy (n = 265), or 6 months of neoadjuvant ADT plus radiotherapy (n = 267).
At 10 years, prostate-cancer-specific mortality was 22% for radiotherapy alone, 18.9% for 3 months of neoadjuvant therapy (hazard ratio [HR], 0.86; P = .398), and 11.4% for 6 months of neoadjuvant ADT (HR, 0.49; P = .0008).
For all-cause mortality at 10 years, the findings were similar: 42.5% for radiotherapy alone, 36.7% for 3 months of neoadjuvant ADT (HR, 0.84; P = .18), and 29.2% for 6 months of neoadjuvant ADT (HR, 0.63; P = .0008).
Conversely, the cumulative incidence of deaths at 10 years not related to prostate cancer were similar in all treatment groups: 20.4% for radiotherapy alone, 17.7% for 3 months of neoadjuvant ADT, and 17.8% for 6 months of neoadjuvant ADT (P > .40 for all paired comparisons).
During the course of the study, 16,562 PSA levels were obtained from the 802 men; the median number of PSA levels per patient was 21 (range, 1 to 43).
Progression of PSA was observed in 508 men. At 10 years, the cumulative incidence of PSA progression was 73.8% for radiotherapy alone, 60.4% for 3 months of neoadjuvant ADT (HR, 0.72; P = .003), and 52.3% for 6 months of neoadjuvant ADT (HR, 0.57; P < .0001).
Progression of the primary tumor was found in 179 men, and progression at distant sites was found in 226 men. The 10-year cumulative incidence of local progression as a first event was 28.2% for radiotherapy alone, 15.7% for 3 months of neoadjuvant ADT (HR, 0.49; P = .0005), and 13.3% for 6 months of neoadjuvant ADT (HR, 0.45; P < .0001).
More Data to Come
The authors note that data from the RTOG 92.02 study showed that patients with high Gleason scores received the most benefit from prolonged ADT, raising the possibility that "the morbidity of long-term androgen deprivation can be restricted to men with the highest risk of progression."
Although subgroup analyses of prostate-cancer-specific mortality data in TROG 96.01 did not support this hypothesis, the authors explain that the interpretation of the trial's pathology data is limited by lack of a centralized histopathologic review.
"We hope that this trial's successor, TROG 03.04 RADAR34 — which investigates adding 12 months of adjuvant ADT, with or without 18 months of zoledronate, to 6-month neoadjuvant ADT and radiotherapy — can help resolve this possibility," they write.
The study was funded by Australian Government National Health, the Medical Research Council, Hunter Medical Research Institute, AstraZeneca, and Schering-Plough. The authors and the editorialist have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.