Women on HRT Helped by Extra Calcium, Vitamin D?

Study found hip fracture rate was 57 percent lower in those also taking supplements

By Serena Gordon

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, June 26 (HealthDay News) -- Although there has been significant debate about whether calcium and vitamin D supplements are beneficial for older women, new research suggests that the answer may be yes for those who are taking hormone replacement therapy.

Women using HRT who also took daily supplements of calcium and vitamin D saw a 40 percent reduction in their rate of hip fractures compared to women who took placebo supplements, according to the study.

"We found that women who were on hormones had less hip fractures, and women who were on hormones and calcium and vitamin D supplements had even fewer hip fractures," said study author Dr. John Robbins, a professor of medicine at the University of California at Davis.

Results of the study were published online June 26 in the journal Menopause.

As many as half of all women over 50 will have an osteoporosis-related fracture in their lifetime, according to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). Osteoporosis is a condition caused by a loss of bone mass and density, which leaves bones fragile and more susceptible to fractures. Calcium is an important component in bone growth, and vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium.

What's not clear is if supplements of these nutrients are as helpful in keeping bones strong as they are from natural sources, such as diet. The USPSTF recently looked at the effect of 1,000 milligrams of daily calcium and 400 international units of vitamin D. In February, they concluded that women shouldn't take calcium and vitamin D supplements because the available evidence wasn't strong enough to show a significant benefit. They added that the benefits of higher doses are unknown.

The new study included data from the Women's Health Study on about 30,000 postmenopausal women between the ages of 50 and 79. Many of the women were taking hormone replacement therapy -- either estrogen alone or a combination of estrogen and progesterone.

Just over 16,000 women participated in the calcium and vitamin D portion of the study. They were randomly selected to receive either a placebo or 1,000 milligrams of calcium and 400 international units of vitamin D each day. The average follow-up time was about seven years.

The hormone therapy and the supplements together were the most effective treatment for reducing hip fracture risk. The researchers found that the combination reduced the risk of hip fracture by 57 percent.

Overall, the rate of hip fracture was 11 per 10,000 women per year for those who took both hormones and supplements. Women who took only hormones had a hip fracture rate of 18 per 10,000, while those who took only supplements had a hip fracture rate of 25 per 10,000. Women who received neither therapy had 22 hip fractures per 10,000 women.

View the original article here

Extra dimension eyes

Opalesse Extra Dimension Eye Shadow, £16.50, MAC Cosmetics http://www.maccosmetics.co.uk/

This eye shadow has quickly become our new MAC obsession. As part of MAC's new Extra Dimension collection, Opalesse is an ideal shimmer for summer. One sweep of the shadow gives lids a stunning combination of opalescent white and pink pearl with hints of subtle blue and green reflecting through. The Extra Dimension range is perfect for show-shopping, statement eyes. Opalesse in particular, is ideal for highlighting the brow bone or the inner corner of the eye; instantly brightening a daytime-to-night time look.

By Lisa JC

View the original article here

Should I take extra folic acid to boost my immune system?

Posted May 28, 2013, 2:00 am

I’m a healthy woman in my 40s. Should I take extra folic acid to boost my immune system?

Folic acid is, essentially, a vitamin. We all need vitamins. Indeed, the word “vitamin” was coined to refer to a substance that was essential to human life. The natural form of folic acid, folate, occurs in some foods, including vegetables, fruits, and dried beans and peas.

Each of us is a collection of about 13 trillion cells. If our cells get sick, we get sick. If our cells get old, we get old. Folate is essential for the production and maintenance of our cells. That’s especially true during rapid periods of growth, such as pregnancy and infancy. Folate is needed to make DNA and RNA, the genetic material that dictates how our cells function, and it helps prevent mutations to DNA that may lead to diseases, including cancer.

Our immune system cells, which are white blood cells, are always in a rapid period of growth. These cells don’t live very long, so they constantly need to be replaced. Folate deficiency can cause anemia — inadequate production of red blood cells. But it doesn’t weaken the immune system sufficiently to make us more vulnerable to infections, for example.

Over the past 30 years, many studies have found that people with high blood levels of a natural substance called homocysteine are at higher risk for heart disease. One easy way to reduce homocysteine levels is by taking folic acid supplements. Studies have not shown that taking folic acid supplements protects most people from heart disease. The exception is people born with a genetic defect that causes high homocysteine levels. I’m one of them; I take folic acid every day.

For most healthy adults, the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of folate is 400 micrograms (mcg) a day. Pregnant women should take more: 600 mcg a day. The extra folate helps to reduce the risk of neural tube defects, a serious malformation of the spine, skull or brain in the baby.

Experts advise against getting more than 1,000 mcg per day of folic acid from supplements or fortified foods. You’re unlikely to suffer any ill effects even if you exceed that limit, because your body excretes excess folic acid in the urine. Still, there might be long-term health effects that we don’t yet know about.

On the other hand, there’s no health risk associated with getting plenty of naturally occurring folate from foods. Get as much of your daily requirement as you can from a healthy diet. Good food sources of folate include spinach, asparagus, rice, green peas, broccoli and great northern beans. Many breads, cereals, flours, cornmeal, pastas, rice and other grains are enriched with folic acid.

If you’re not getting enough folate from foods, take a multivitamin that contains 400 mcg of folic acid.

window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({appId: "199616670120169", status: true, cookie: true, xfbml: true});}; (function() { var e = document.createElement("script"); e.async = true; e.src = document.location.protocol + "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js"; document.getElementById("fb-root").appendChild(e);}());

View the original article here

Extra Vitamin D May Ease Crohn's Symptoms, Study Finds

Improvements reported in muscle strength, fatigue and quality of life

By Kathleen Doheny

HealthDay Reporter

SATURDAY, May 18 (HealthDay News) -- Vitamin D supplements may help those with Crohn's disease overcome the fatigue and decreased muscle strength associated with the inflammatory bowel disease, according to new research.

Extra vitamin D "was associated with significantly less physical, emotional and general fatigue, greater quality of life and the ability to perform activities of daily living," said Tara Raftery, a research dietitian and doctoral candidate at Trinity College Dublin. She is scheduled to present the findings Saturday at the Digestive Disease Week meeting in Orlando, Fla.

Raftery and her colleagues evaluated 27 patients who had Crohn's in remission. (Even in remission, fatigue and quality of life can be problematic.) The patients were assigned to take either 2,000 IUs (international units) of vitamin D a day or a dummy vitamin for three months.

Before and after the study, the researchers measured hand-grip strength, fatigue, quality of life and blood levels of vitamin D.

"Hand-grip strength is a proxy measure of muscle function," Raftery said. "Muscle function has been known to be reduced in Crohn's disease."

Besides boosting bone growth and remodeling, vitamin D is thought to improve neuromuscular and immune function, reduce inflammation and help with other bodily tasks. Children and adults aged 1 year to 70 are advised to get 600 IUs a day; older adults, 800, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Vitamin D is found in fatty fish such as salmon, in smaller amounts in cheese, egg yolks and beef liver, and in fortified foods such as milk.

Sometimes called the sunshine vitamin, vitamin D is also produced when the sun's rays strike the skin.

Crohn's can affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract, but most commonly affects the end of the small bowel and the beginning of the colon. Symptoms vary, but may include persistent diarrhea, rectal bleeding, abdominal cramps, and pain and constipation. About 700,000 Americans are affected, according to the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America.

Its cause is not well understood, but Crohn's is thought to involve heredity and environmental factors. Experts believe that in those with Crohn's, the immune system attacks harmless intestinal bacteria, triggering chronic inflammation and, eventually, the disease symptoms.

The daily vitamin D supplement benefitted participants in many ways, Raftery found. "When levels of vitamin D peaked at 30 ng/mL (75 nmol/L) or more [a level considered healthy], muscle function in both the dominant and non-dominant hands were significantly higher than in those who had levels less than 30 ng/mL," she said.

Quality of life improved more for the D-supplement group, too. Using a standard measure to evaluate quality of life, the researchers found those who achieved a healthy blood level of the vitamin scored 24 points higher than those not on supplements. A 20-point difference is considered meaningful from a "real-world" perspective, Raftery said.

View the original article here

Harry Styles requests extra security amid safety concerns

One Direction star Harry Styles has requested extra security ahead of the US leg of the band’s tour, amid concerns over his safety.

Continue reading...

View the original article here

A Few Extra Pounds Linked to a Longer Life

Jan. 1, 2013 -- Overall, people who carry a few extra pounds tended to live longer than those who are either normal weight or very obese, new research shows.

The review, of 97 studies that included a combined 2.88 million people, questions the notion that people of normal weight live longest.  

“It is possible that under certain circumstances, being a little overweight is good as opposed to bad,” says Steven B. Heymsfield, MD, executive director of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La. Heymsfield wrote an editorial on the review but was not involved in the research.

About 30% of women and 40% of men in the U.S. are overweight based on their body mass index (BMI), a measure of size that takes into account a person’s height and weight.

While they may not be able to wear their favorite clothing size, Heymsfield says it doesn’t necessarily mean they are sicker than people who are at so-called normal BMIs.

“You have to separate out the cosmetic part from the health part,” he says.

The review, which is published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, takes a fresh look at nearly two decades of research into the relationship between body weight and death risk.

“We have a huge amount of data because we collected almost 100 studies,” says researcher Katherine Flegal, PhD, a distinguished consultant with the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics in Bethesda, Md.

People with BMIs under 30 but above normal were less likely to die during the studies compared to people with normal BMIs.

A reduction in the risk of death from all causes was about 6% lower for people who were overweight, and it was remarkably consistent from study to study, Flegal says.

Those people considered obese based on BMI, however, were worse off. They were about 18% more likely to die of any cause compared to those of normal weights.

Though the findings are provocative, they come with some important caveats.

The study only looked at the association between death and body size. It didn’t include other measures of health that may be related to weight.

“Total mortality [death from all causes] is important, but it doesn’t tell you much about quality of life,” says Heymsfield. “It’s not whether you’re at risk of developing diabetes. It’s not whether you’re at risk for developing joint problems."

The study also just shows an association; it doesn’t prove that body weight is the reason that some bigger people tended to live longer than those at normal weights.

For that reason, Flegal says, people shouldn’t give up on their goals to eat right and exercise.

“We’re not trying to make any recommendations,” she says. “It’s not intended as a call to any kind of action.”

But the findings may be reassuring to people who carry some extra weight but are otherwise healthy.

“Maybe a few extra pounds is not as lethal as we’ve been led to believe,” Heymsfield says.

View the original article here