Medicalindustry Blog

High levels of salt in supermarket bread are putting up to 7,000 lives a year at risk, claims a damning study by health campaigners.Bread is the largest source of salt in the British diet and excessive consumption can lead to increased blood pressure and a greater risk of heart attack.

The pressure group behind the study, Consensus Action on Salt and Health, yesterday called on shoppers to boycott breads with the highest levels of salt.

Researchers from the group surveyed 138 widely available loaves. They found that more than one in three contained salt levels above the Government’s target of 1.1g per 100g.

The highest level was found in Morrison’s The Best Farmhouse Malted Bread, which had a level of 1.5g per 100g or 0.7g per slice.

Just over four slices would put a child of six over the maximum daily recommended salt intake of 3g. Nine slices would take someone over the adult threshold of 6g.

The second highest salt reading was found in several Asda loaves, which had a level of 0.6g per slice. Eating just five of these would put a child over the recommended limit.

A total of 15 out of 18 Warburton products had a salt content higher than the Government’s target, while all of the Sainsbury’s and Waitrose breads surveyed were below.

Professor Graham MacGregor, chairman of Cash and an expert on long-term damage to engines. There was a warning, however, that motorists who have had new oxygen sensors fitted but are still using the same petrol should have their tanks drained as soon as possible.

There is also concern that the problem could lead to motorists avoiding supermarket petrol stations - and that oil giants could cash in on the extra demand by putting up their prices. medicine, said: ‘Research has shown that a population cut of 1g of salt per day would equate to 7,000 lives saved each year from strokes and heart attacks, due to the drop in blood pressure that would occur.’

He called on the public to boycott bread which has more than 1.1g of salt per 100g.

A spokesman for the British Heart Foundation, Ruairi O’Connor, said: ‘This research shows that despite some progress in reducing salt levels in bread, there remain wide variations in how much is contained across similar products.

‘The BHF would like all breads to contain as little salt as possible, in order to reduce the nation’s salt intake.

‘People who are at risk of heart disease caused by high blood pressure need to reduce salt in their diets, and need to be able to quickly and accurately choose lower salt options when shopping.’

The charity is calling for the industry to adopt the traffic light labelling system developed by the Food Standards Agency. This uses red, amber and green logos to tell shoppers whether products are high, medium or low in salt, sugar and fat.

The Federation of Bakers said its members have made huge strides in reducing salt levels since 2005.

Its director, Gordon Polson, said the industry has agreed that bakers have until 2010 to reach the target of

1.1g of salt per 100g. He added: ‘There has already been a ten per cent reduction in the two years to the end of 2005, and further reductions will be made to meet the 2010 target.’

Popular painkillers such as aspirin, ibuprofen and acetaminophen can raise blood pressure and thus the risk of heart disease among men, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.Men who took such drugs for most days in a week were about one-third more likely to be diagnosed with high blood pressure than men not taking them, the researchers found.

Their findings, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, reinforce a study published in 2002 that these commonly used drugs raise blood pressure in women.

“This is a potentially preventable cause of high blood pressure,” Dr. John Forman of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who led the study, said in a statement.

Millions of people take the painkillers as pills every day to treat headaches, arthritis, muscle pulls and other aches and pains.

“These are the three most commonly used drugs in the United States,” Dr. Gary Curhan, who also worked on the study, said in a telephone interview.

For their study, the researchers looked at a continuing study of male health professionals. After they filtered out everyone who already had high blood pressure and other problems, they had 16,000 men whose records they checked for a 4 year period.

Men who took acetaminophen (paracetamol), sold generically and under the Tylenol brand name, six or seven days a week were 34 percent more likely to be diagnosed with high blood pressure than men who did not take analgesics.

Men who took aspirin that regularly were 26 percent more likely to have high blood pressure than non-users. For non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDS, which include ibuprofen and naproxen, the increased risk was 38 percent.

CHICAGO - Office nappers now have the perfect excuse: New research shows that a little midday snooze seems to reduce the risk of fatal heart problems, especially among men. In the largest study to date on the health effects of napping, researchers tracked 23,681 healthy Greek adults for an average of about six years. Those who napped for about half an hour at least three times weekly had a 37 percent lower risk of dying from heart attacks or other heart problems than those who did not nap.

Most participants were in their 50s, and the strongest evidence was in working men, according to the study, which appears in Monday’s issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

The researchers said naps might benefit the heart by reducing stress, and jobs are a common source of stress.

It’s likely that women reap similar benefits from napping, but not enough of them died during the study to be sure, said Dr. Dimitrios Trichopoulos, the study’s senior author and a researcher at Harvard University and the University of Athens Medical School.

Heart problems killed 48 women who were studied, six of them working women, compared with 85 men, including 28 working men.

A daytime siesta has long been part of many cultures, especially those in warmer climates. Mediterranean-style eating habits featuring fruits, vegetables, beans and olive oil have been credited with contributing to relatively low rates of heart disease in those countries, but the researchers wanted to see if napping also plays a role.

“My advice is if you can (nap), do it. If you have a sofa in your office, if you can relax, do it,” Trichopoulos said.

Exactly how stress is related to heart disease is uncertain. Some researchers think it might be directly involved, through unhealthy effects of stress hormones, or indirectly by causing people to exercise less, overeat or smoke.

The researchers in the latest study factored in diet, exercise, smoking and other habits that affect the heart but still found napping seemed to help.

Previous studies have had conflicting results. Some suggested napping might increase risk of death, but those mostly involved elderly people whose daytime sleepiness reflected poor health, Trichopoulos said.

His research team studied a broader range of people, ages 20 to 86, who were generally healthy when the study began.

Still, it’s possible that study participants who napped “are just people who take better care of themselves,” which could also benefit the heart, said Dr. Marvin Wooten, a sleep specialist at Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital in Milwaukee.

“The guy … who doesn’t take time out for a siesta in their culture is probably the guy who is extremely driven and under a lot of pressure,” which could increase heart risks, he said.

Siestas aren’t ingrained in U.S. culture, and napping usually is equated with laziness in the high-charging corporate world, said Bill Anthony, a Boston University psychologist and co-author of “The Art of Napping at Work.”

Still, some offices allow on-the-job naps, and many workers say it makes them more, not less, productive.

Yarde Metals, a metals distributing firm, built a nap room at its Southington, Conn., headquarters as part of an employee wellness program. With two leather sofas, fluffy pillows, soft lighting and an alarm clock, it’s the perfect place for a quick snooze, engineer Mark Ekenbarger said.

Ekenbarger, 56, has an enlarged heart artery and said he frequently takes half-hour naps on the advice of his doctor to reduce stress.

“It really does energize me for the rest of the day,” Ekenbarger said.

“It would be really encouraging if employers across the country really embraced that philosophy that napping is a good thing. It makes a big difference in my life.”

Grape juice seems to have the same protective effect against heart disease as red wine, French scientists said on Wednesday. Researchers at the Universite Louis Pasteur de Strasbourg were examining the effect on the heart of Concord grape juice.

“Grape juice can have a similar effect (against heart disease) as red wine but without the alcohol. That is a very important message,” said Dr Valerie Schini-Kerth, lead author of the study published in the journal Cardiovascular Research.

Red wine and certain types of grape juice have high levels of polyphenols, which block the production of a protein linked to cardiovascular disease — the number one killer in many Western countries.

Heart and vascular problems develop when endothelial cells that make up blood vessels do not work properly.

Schini-Kerth and her team found that polyphenols in Concord grape juice activate endothelial cells to produce nitric oxide which helps to protect against cardiovascular disease and to maintain healthy blood vessels and blood pressure.

Polyphenols work the same way in red wine and in grape juice.

“But not every grape juice has the beneficial effect. It has to have a high level of polyphenols,” Schini-Kerth said.

The amount of polyphenols in grape juice, as in red wine, depends on the type of grape used and how it is processed.

“We have information on more than 100 different kinds of wine and the amount of polyphenols. What we know is that the most protective ones have the highest levels of polyphenols. That is established,” she said.

But Schini-Kerth, whose research was partly funded by Welch Foods Inc which is a leading producer of grape juice, said little information is available on the levels of polyphenols in grape juice.

The scientists were studying cells from pigs, which provide a good model for studying human cells.

They were looking at healthy blood vessels and are planning a further study to see whether grape juice has a similar impact on blood vessels that show signs of cardiovascular disease.

Pregnant women can safely drink coffee as caffeine does not affect their unborn baby, according to a new study. Researchers found no evidence of a link between prematurity, birth weight and the amount of caffeine consumed by motherstobe.

Previous studies suggested caffeine might harm unborn babies as it stays in the system longer in pregnant women, passing easily to a growing baby.

Health officials have warned that a high caffeine intake could affect birth weight or the chance of having a miscarriage.

Pregnant women are advised against drinking more than four cups of coffee a day - or six cups of tea.

The study, by the University of Aarhus in Denmark, recruited more than 1,000 women before they were 20 weeks’ pregnant, who drank at least three cups of coffee a day.

The group was split into two, with 568 women drinking ordinary instant coffee and 629 drinking decaffeinated.

Each woman was regularly monitored to check her caffeine intake, including from drinks such as cola.

The authors then monitored the birth weight of 1,150 newborn babies and the length of pregnancy for 1,153 of the babies.

The study, published online today by the British Medical Journal, found ‘no significant differences’ between the two groups for birth weight or length of pregnancy.

The researchers concluded that a moderate reduction in caffeine intake in the second half of pregnancy had ‘no effect’ on the outcome.

The women were not told what type of coffee they were drinking, and the research was adjusted to take into account factors such as age, weight and whether the women smoked.

When the adjustments were made, the average weight of babies born to women in the decaffeinated group was a mere 16g higher than those born to women in the caffeinated group, the study said.

The average difference in the length of pregnancy was less than two days.

A spokesman for the British Coffee Association said: “This new study is very interesting and supports the consistent advice given that pregnant women should stick to a safe upper limit - in line with guidance issued by the Food Standards Agency. This equates to three cups of brewed, or four cups of instant coffee.

“Coffee is one of the most heavily researched commodities in the world today and this adds to the wealth of scientific evidence which suggests that moderate coffee consumption is perfectly safe.”

PARIS - Bad news for Britons: adding milk to tea ruins the health benefits of the drink, according to a Germany study. Tea has complex compounds called polyphenols which are believed to help the arteries to relax or dilate, thus enabling a smoother flow of blood.

Scientists led at the Charite Hospital in Berlin tested black Darjeeling tea on 16 healthy women volunteers aged more than 50, placing an ultrasound probe on their forearm to measure arterial response.

When the women drank half a litre (0.9 of a pint) of tea, their arteries relaxed significantly more than when they drank hot water or tea with milk — tea in which skimmed milk, comprising 10 percent of the drink’s volume, was added.

The results were confirmed in lab-dish tests on rat aorta.

The study, which appears online in the European Heart Journal, points the finger of blame at three casein proteins in the milk. These are thought to adhere to a kind of polyphenols known as catechins, preventing them from carrying out their health-making work.

This could explain why Britain, a nation passionate about tea-drinking but where almost everybody adds milk to their cup, fails to make headway against cardiovascular disease, said researcher Verena Stangl.

The study did not cover green tea, which is widely drunk in East Asia — without milk.

Munich - Stress and other psychological factors can cause chronic stomachaches and headaches in children, the Munich-based professional association of German paediatricians said. “Only seldom are organic causes the trigger of pain in children and youths,” said Thomas Fendel, a Munich-based paediatrician. Simple things like a less hectic calendar that leaves time for dreaming and playing could help reduce the level of pain, Fendel said.

More than one-quarter of all 12- to 13-year-olds suffer at least one headache a week, according to studies. About 10 per cent to 25 per cent of children between four and 16 years suffer regularly from stomachaches that are not due to any illness.

Parents with a child who complains of such pain are advised not to give him or her pain medication, including ones available over the counter, without first discussing the problem with a doctor.

“Taken the wrong way, pain medication can trigger a headache and set off a vicious circle,” Fendel warned. Every child needs his own individual therapy.

In minor cases small lifestyle changes can bring clear successes. This includes drinking enough liquids and eating a proper breakfast before school.

It’s also important to include short breaks during the day, maintain regular sleeping hours and limit the amount of time spent watching television and sitting at the computer.

A bruise occurs when an impact or injury causes blood to pool in tissue beneath the skin.

If you have a bruise, the U.S. National Library of Medicine recommends avoiding activities that could aggravate the area.

You should never try draining the bruise with a needle, and should be aware of extreme pain, swelling, or pressure that doesn’t go away. These may indicate a serious condition that requires immediate medical attention.

You should also contact your doctor if you tend to bruise very frequently or easily, or if there are signs of infection — including redness, discharge, or fever.

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