Lifeline
Too much steak isn’t good
Steak may taste good but it’s not doing you many favors. Eating large amounts of red and processed meats seems to shorten your life.
Both types of meat have been linked to cancer and heart disease, but Rashmi Sinha and colleagues at the U. S. National Cancer Institute, Rockville, Md., wanted to know their effect on overall death rates. They asked 545,000 volunteers ages 50 to 71 about their diet over the past year, and used this to estimate their meat intake. The researchers then monitored the volunteers for 10 years.
During that time, more than 71,000 of the group died. After controlling for numerous factors, including age, weight, smoking history and total food intake, the researchers found that women who consumed the most red meat—66 grams per 1,000 calories—were 36 percent more likely to have died than women who ate the least—9.1 grams. Men who ate large amounts of red meat were 31 percent more likely to have died (Archives of Internal Medicine).
Consumption of processed meats, such as sausage, salami and hot dogs, was lower but still had a significant effect on the rate of deaths.
“This is probably the biggest and most carefully done study on the relationship between diet and mortality,” says Barry Popkin, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
‘Baby butter’ heals wounds
An artificial version of the buttery coating that protects and nurtures a fetus’ developing skin could find a use outside the womb, in speeding up wound healing and treating eczema.
Natural vernix caseosa contains a mixture of fatty compounds that waterproof the fetus. Crucially, it also contains dead cells called corneocytes, which store large amounts of water and ensure that the fetus does not get dehydrated. Vernix may also act as a barrier to infections.
To mimic this versatile substance, Joke Bouwstra and Robert Rissman at Leiden University in the Netherlands mixed a range of fatty compounds including lanolin, fatty acids, ceramides and cholesterol with particles made of a water-storing hydrogel (International Journal of Pharmaceutics). When they rubbed this white cream on mice missing a patch of their outer skin, the mice healed three times faster than untreated ones, Bouwstra says.
As well as aiding wound healing, the cream could treat eczema, she says, or be loaded with drugs to fight skin infections.
Polypill brings benefits
An all-in-one protective pill for seemingly healthy people was once seen as a wild fantasy. Now a five-drug “polypill” has produced promising results.
Polypills are designed to prevent and treat multiple components of cardiovascular disease all at once. They are also a lot less hassle than taking lots of pills, so people are more likely to comply. Salim Yusuf at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., and his colleagues tested Polycap, which contains three drugs to lower blood pressure, a statin and aspirin, for three months in people without cardiovascular disease but with one risk factor for it, such as being overweight or smoking in the last five years.
Polycap seemed just as good at lowering blood pressure, heart rate and blood clotting as giving the blood pressure drugs and aspirin separately (The Lancet). The pill also cut cholesterol, though by less than a statin on its own.
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