Gary‘s Daily Health News - Vol. 16

Clinical Trial: Vegetable Extract may Treat Autism Better than Drugs

Harvard Medical School, September 24, 2021

 

A recent clinical trial has shown that one vegetable extract may have astounding positive effects on those with autism – broccoli extract.

 

The US Centers for Disease Control tells the world that there is no treatment for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). But now that one in every 68 children is showing symptoms of the disorder (a huge spike since the year 2000), you would think that a clinical trial involving a simple, natural food-based supplement would be front page news. This, however, is not the world we live in, so you likely haven’t heard about a possible solution for autism that doesn’t rely on pharmaceutical medication – until now.

 

Along with an extensive Autism Spectrum Disease research database at GMI, there is evidence suggesting that broccoli extract (along with avoiding heavy metals, minimizing glyphosate exposure, and eradicating the diet of gluten) shows promise in improving ASD.

 

The active ingredient in broccoli that seems to help is called sulforaphane, a molecule found in cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts.

 

A groundbreaking study published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA titled, “Sulforaphane treatment of autism spectrum disorder (ASD),” found that a broccoli sprout extract significantly improved the behavior of boys and men (those who most often suffer from autism). Sulforaphane was selected, in part, because its physiological effects are well characterized and ideal for those with ASD:

 

“Dietary sulforaphane, of recognized low toxicity, was selected for its capacity to reverse abnormalities that have been associated with ASD, including oxidative stress and lower antioxidant capacity, depressed glutathione synthesis, reduced mitochondrial function and oxidative phosphorylation, increased lipid peroxidation, and neuroinflammmation.”

 

The placebo-controlled, randomized pilot study of 44 males, ages 13-27, showed that after 18 weeks of treatment with a sulforaphane-rich broccoli sprout extract, 46% had noticeable improvements in social interactions and 42% has improvements in verbal communication. More than half of all participants also showed a decrease in irritability, hyperactivity, and repetitive movements.

 

Of note, once treatment with broccoli extract stopped, most of the behaviors associated with autism returned. For more details on the study, read a Medscape report, including an interview with the study’s lead researcher.

 

The dosing schedule was determined by body weight:

• 100 lbs or less: one capsule containing 50 µmol (232 mg) of sulforaphane-rich broccoli extract was given daily
• 101–199 lbs, 100 µmol (two capsules of 232 mg each) of sulforaphane-rich broccoli extract was given daily
• More than 200 lbs: 150 µmol (three capsules of 232 mg each) of sulforaphane-rich broccoli extract was given daily

 

Sulforaphane happens to be one of the most extensively studied and promising natural substances in existence.

Consider that sulforaphane concentrations are several hundred times higher in the broccoli sprouts versus mature broccoli.  This may very well be why the extract is therapeutic.

 

 

Small but mighty: Microgreens go from trendy vegetables to functional food

Study suggests ‘gourmet’ sprouts have potential to help provide global nutrition security

Penn State University, September 28, 2021

Starting decades ago as fashionable, high-value gourmet greens, today microgreens have gained popularity among consumers for their nutritional profile and high content of antioxidant compounds. Now, a new study suggests that the tiny plants have the potential to help provide global nutrition security.

As part of a project titled, "Food Resilience in the Face of Catastrophic Global Events," an international team of researchers has found that these vegetables can be grown in a variety of soilless production systems in small spaces indoors, with or without artificial lighting. The findings are especially relevant amid a pandemic that has disrupted food supply chains.

With microgreens, people can produce fresh and nutritious vegetables even in areas that are considered food deserts, according to team leader Francesco Di Gioia, assistant professor of vegetable crop science, College of Agricultural Sciences, Penn State.

“The current COVID-19 pandemic revealed the vulnerability of our food system and the need to address malnutrition issues and nutrition-security inequality, which could be exacerbated by potential future emergencies or catastrophes,” he said. “Nutrient-dense microgreens have great potential as an efficient food-resilience resource.”

Microgreens’ nutritional profile is associated with the rich variety of colors, shapes, textural properties and flavors obtained from sprouting a multitude of edible vegetable species, including herbs, herbaceous crops and wild edible species.

With a short growth cycle requiring only minimal inputs of fertilizer, microgreens have great potential to provide essential nutrients and antioxidants, Di Gioia noted. Using simple agronomic techniques, it is possible to produce microvegetables that could address specific dietary needs or micronutrient deficiencies, as well as nutrition-security issues in emergency situations or in challenging environmental conditions.

Consumers could produce microgreens at home using simple tools available in a kitchen, Di Gioia pointed out. A grower also would need seeds, growing trays and a growth medium — which could consist of a common peat or peat and perlite growth mix.

Given all the characteristics of microgreens, scientists at NASA and the European Space Agency also have proposed them as a source of fresh food and essential nutrients for astronauts engaged in long-term space missions. And because microgreens may be used as functional food to enhance nutrition security under current conditions and during future emergencies or catastrophes, Di Gioia suggested that microgreen production kits including seeds could be prepared and stored, then made available when needed.

“Under such circumstances, a variety of fresh and nutrient-rich microgreens could be grown providing a source of minerals, vitamins and antioxidants in a relatively short time,” he said. “Or alternatively, kits could be distributed to vulnerable segments of the population as a short-term nutrition-security resource.”

 

 

How high-fat diets allow cancer cells to go unnoticed

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, September 28, 2021

A high-fat diet increases the incidence of colorectal cancer. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Fellow Semir Beyaz and collaborators from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered that in mice, fat disrupts the relationship between intestinal cells and the immune cells that patrol them looking for emerging tumors. Reconfiguring the gut microbiome may be a way to heal the relationship.

The immune system patrols tissues looking for and eliminating threats. Certain immune cells look for tags that distinguish between normal and abnormal cells. One tag, called MHC-II, helps target cells for destruction. Cell-surface MHC-II activates the immune system to destroy that cell, whether it is just worn out or about to become cancerous. Beyaz and his colleagues found that when mice ate diets high in fat, MHC-II levels were suppressed in intestinal cells. Cells with reduced levels of these tags were not recognized as abnormal and thus could grow into tumors. Charlie Chung, a Stony Brook University graduate student-in-residence in Beyaz's lab, says, "If we alter the level of these immune recognition molecules in a positive way, then the tumor will more likely be recognized by the immune cell. We hope this can be coupled with the existing strategies, such as immunotherapy, to eradicate tumors."

The researchers found that a high-fat diet changed the mouse's intestinal microbiome (the mixture of microbes in the gut). Several bacteria, including ones called Helicobacter, increase MHC-II, which may help immune cells locate abnormal cells. The team did a "dirty roommate" experiment where mice without these bacteria were housed with ones that had it. The "clean" mice became infected with the Helicobacter bacteria and produced more of the MHC-II tag.

The scientists' findings suggest a new way to boost current immunotherapy treatments against cancer. Increasing the production of this MHC-II tag, either by diet, drugs, or changing the microbes in the body, can help the immune system recognize and eliminate cancer cells. Beyaz says:

"This interaction between diet, microbes, and immune recognition has the potential to help us explain how lifestyle factors can contribute to tumor initiation, progression, or response to therapy."

Cancer cells use many tricks to avoid being recognized as abnormal by the immune system, but Beyaz hopes he's found several ways to outwit them.

The research was published in Cell Stem Cell.

 

 

Do people who supplement with vitamin C have greater mental vitality?

Seoul National University (South Korea), September 24 2021. 

A trial that evaluated the effects of vitamin C supplementation in healthy young adults found increased aspects of mental vitality and improved performance among those who received the vitamin. The research was reported on September 2, 2021 in the European Journal of Nutrition.

Minju Sim of Seoul National University and colleagues team conducted a cross-sectional study that examined the association of serum vitamin C levels with aspects of mood and vitality among 214 young adults. Higher levels of the vitamin were found to be associated with improved attention. 

Acting on these results, the researchers conducted a randomized, double-blind trial in which 46 healthy men and women between the ages of 20 and 39 years with inadequate levels of vitamin C received 500 milligrams of the vitamin twice daily or a placebo for four weeks. Fatigue, attention, work engagement, and self-control resources were evaluated as indicators of vitality at the beginning and end of the study. A test that evaluated sustained attention and processing speed after mental stress was administered to both groups at the end of the study.

After four weeks, participants who received vitamin C had greater increases in attention and work absorption scores than the placebo group, with trends toward decreased fatigue and greater comprehensive work engagement. Processing speed was increased in the vitamin C group compared to the placebo group at the end of the study.

“This study is the first, to our knowledge, to show the link between vitamin C status with mental functions in healthy young adults using both population-based observational studies and randomized clinical trials,” the authors announced. 

They concluded that “Vitamin C supplementation effectively increased work motivation and attentional focus and contributed to better performance on cognitive tasks requiring sustained attention.”

 

 

 

Happiness in early adulthood may protect against dementia

University of California San Francisco, September 28, 2021

While research has shown that poor cardiovascular health can damage blood flow to the brain increasing the risk for dementia, a new study led by UC San Francisco indicates that poor mental health may also take its toll on cognition.

The research adds to a body of evidence that links depression with dementia, but while most studies have pointed to its association in later life, the UCSF study shows that depression in early adulthood may lead to lower cognition 10 years later and to cognitive decline in old age. 

The study publishes in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease on Sept. 28, 2021. 

The researchers used innovative statistical methods to predict average trajectories of depressive symptoms for approximately 15,000 participants ages 20 to 89, divided into three life stages: older, midlife and young adulthood. They then applied these predicted trajectories and found that in a group of approximately 6,000 older participants, the odds of cognitive impairment were 73 percent higher for those estimated to have elevated depressive symptoms in early adulthood, and 43 percent higher for those estimated to have elevated depressive symptoms in later life. 

These results were adjusted for depressive symptoms in other life stages and for differences in age, sex, race, educational attainment, body mass index, history of diabetes and smoking status. For depressive symptoms in midlife, the researchers found an association with cognitive impairment, but this was discounted when they adjusted for depression in other life stages.

Excess stress hormones may damage ability to make new memories

"Several mechanisms explain how depression might increase dementia risk," said first author Willa Brenowitz, Ph.D., MPH, of the UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Weill Institute for Neurosciences. "Among them is that hyperactivity of the central stress response system increases production of the stress hormones glucocorticoids, leading to damage of the hippocampus, the part of the brain essential for forming, organizing and storing new memories."

Other studies have linked depression with atrophy of the hippocampus, and one study has shown faster rates of volume loss in women, she said.

In estimating the depressive symptoms across each life stage, researchers pooled data from younger participants with data from the approximately 6,000 older participants and predicted average trajectories. These participants, whose average age was 72 at the start of the study and lived at home, had been enrolled by the Health Aging and Body Composition Study and the Cardiovascular Health Study. They were followed annually or semi-annually for up to 11 years.

U-shaped curve adds credence to predicted trajectories 

While assumed values were used, the authors stated, no longitudinal studies have been completed across the life course. "Imputed depressive symptom trajectories fit a U-shaped curve, similar to age-related trends in other research," they noted. 

Participants were screened for depression using a tool called the CESD-10, a 10-item questionnaire assessing symptoms in the past week. Moderate or high depressive symptoms were found in 13 percent of young adults, 26 percent of midlife adults and 34 percent of older participants. 

Some 1,277 participants were diagnosed with cognitive impairment following neuropsychological testing, evidence of global decline, documented use of a dementia medication or hospitalization with dementia as a primary or secondary diagnosis. 

"Generally, we found that the greater the depressive symptoms, the lower the cognition and the faster the rates of decline," said Brenowitz, who is also affiliated with the UCSF Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. "Older adults estimated to have moderate or high depressive symptoms in early adulthood were found to experience a drop in cognition over 10 years."

With up to 20 percent of the population suffering from depression during their lifetime, it's important to recognize its role in cognitive aging, said senior author Kristine Yaffe, MD, of the UCSF departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and Epidemiology and Biostatistics. "Future work will be needed to confirm these findings, but in the meantime, we should screen and treat depression for many reasons."

 

Novel mind-body program outperforms other forms of treatment for chronic back pain

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, September 28, 2021

Chronic back pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide. In the United States, patients spend up to $300 billion each year to treat the condition, according to a 2012 study published in the Journal of Pain. However, common therapies such as surgery and steroid injections intended to address physical origins of back pain have not been clearly proven to work in randomized clinical trials, and a growing body of evidence suggests that psychological factors may be associated with of some forms of back pain.

Physician-scientists from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) developed a 12-week mind-body program that takes a new approach to chronic back pain. The novel intervention—which is not yet available at BIDMC to the general public—is based on an idea pioneered by the late John Sarno, MD, a professor of rehabilitation medicine at the New York University School of Medicine. In a new publication appearing in journal PAIN, the team demonstrated that the mind-body intervention was highly beneficial for treating back pain when compared to standard care, with 64 percent of research volunteers reporting being 100 percent pain free six months later. 

"The current paradigm of pain management focuses mostly on treatment of a physical origin of pain, however, in many cases of chronic back pain a physical source of pain cannot be identified," said corresponding author Michael W. Donnino, MD, a physician in the Departments of Critical Care and Emergency Medicine at BIDMC. "Our group focused on the hypothesis that non-specific back pain is the symptomatic manifestation of a psychological process, substantively driven by stress, repressed emotions and other psychological processes. The exact mechanism remains unclear, but an analogy could be made to other known effects of acute emotional states on acute physiological changes, such as how the emotion of embarrassment may result in the capillary vasodilation we know as blushing." 

Donnino and colleagues' experimental program, termed Psychophysiologic Symptom Relief Therapy (PSRT), is designed to address underlying stressors and psychological contributors to persistent pain as well as conditioned pain responses and fear avoidant behaviors. Treatment strategies include educating patients about the links between stressors and pain, as well as the relationship with emotions. Armed with this knowledge, participants learn healthier ways to process stress and express emotions. The program also focuses on desensitization or reverse conditioning to help patients break the associations that often are formed with triggers of pain such as bending or sitting. 

"Often these triggers are assumed to be cause of pain, but they are perhaps better described as associations that can be unknowingly conditioned in a way that is similar to how Pavlov conditioned dogs to salivate to a bell by pairing the bell with food," Donnino noted. "Our program works to reverse these conditioned responses and thus improve pain and pain disability." 

The program's final eight weeks focus on mindfulness-based stress reduction, or MBSR, the goal of which is to provide the tools to better process current and future stressors, while allowing time to practice the techniques from the first portion of the program. 

To assess whether PSRT can reduce symptoms and pain-related anxiety in patients with non-specific chronic back pain, Donnino and colleagues enrolled 35 participants, 18 to 67 years old with chronic back pain that lacked a clear physical origin. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either the novel 12-week PSRT intervention, eight weeks of MBSR only, or usual care under the guidance of their physicians without influence from the study team. All participants filled out pain-related questionnaires prior to the interventions and periodically up to six months after the interventions to assess changes in functional limitations or disability, back pain bothersomeness and pain-related anxiety. 

After just four weeks, researchers saw an astonishing 83 percent decrease in reported pain disability in the PSRT group compared to 22 percent and 11 percent in the MBSR and usual care groups, respectively. With regard to pain bothersomeness over the same time period, the PSRT group had a 60 percent drop compared to 8 percent and 18 percent decreases in pain bothersomeness for the mindfulness and usual care groups, respectively. 

The PSRT group was superior to both usual care and MBSR for the primary endpoint of pain disability at every interval and at the end of the six-month monitoring period. Moreover, at the end of the six-month period, 64 percent of patients with chronic back pain in the PSRT group were completely pain free (reporting 0 out 10 on a pain scale) whereas only 25 percent and 17 percent reported being pain free in the mindfulness and usual care arms, respectively. 

"Within four weeks, differences between PSRT, MBSR, and usual care were apparent across multiple domains including the primary outcome measure of functional disability as well as pain bothersomeness," Donnino said. "When patients recognize the relationship between the mind and their physical pain, this orientation sheds new light and provides them a basis to engage with the multifaceted program that works interchangeably to improve pain and disability. This study shows that our program has the potential to be highly beneficial when compared to both usual care as well as usual care plus additional treatments such as MBSR."

 

Meditation keeps emotional brain in check

Michigan State University, September 29, 2021  

 

Meditation can help tame your emotions even if you're not a mindful person, suggests a new study from Michigan State University.

 

Reporting in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, psychology researchers recorded the brain activity of people looking at disturbing pictures immediately after meditating for the first time. These participants were able to tame their negative emotions just as well as participants who were naturally mindful.

 

"Our findings not only demonstrate that meditation improves emotional health, but that people can acquire these benefits regardless of their 'natural' ability to be mindful," said Yanli Lin, an MSU graduate student and lead investigator of the study. "It just takes some practice."

 

Mindfulness, a moment-by-moment awareness of one's thoughts, feelings and sensations, has gained worldwide popularity as a way to promote health and well-being. But what if someone isn't naturally mindful? Can they become so simply by trying to make mindfulness a "state of mind"? Or perhaps through a more focused, deliberate effort like meditation?

 

Researchers assessed 68 participants for mindfulness using a scientifically validated survey. The participants were then randomly assigned to engage in an 18-minute audio guided meditation or listen to a control presentation of how to learn a newlanguage, before viewing negative pictures (such as a bloody corpse) while their brain activity was recorded.

 

The participants who meditated – they had varying levels of natural mindfulness – showed similar levels of "emotion regulatory" brain activity as people with high levels of natural mindfulness. In other words their emotional brains recovered quickly after viewing the troubling photos, essentially keeping their negative emotions in check.

In addition, some of the participants were instructed to look at the gruesome photos "mindfully" (be in a mindful state of mind) while others received no such instruction. Interestingly, the people who viewed the photos "mindfully" showed no better ability to keep their negative emotions in check.

 

This suggests that for non-meditators, the emotional benefits of mindfulness might be better achieved through meditation, rather than "forcing it" as a state of mind, said Moser, MSU associate professor of clinical psychology and co-author of the study.

 

"If you're a naturally mindful person, and you're walking around very aware of things, you're good to go. You shed your emotions quickly," Moser said. "If you're not naturally mindful, then meditating can make you look like a person who walks around with a lot of mindfulness. But for people who are not naturally mindful and have never meditated, forcing oneself to be mindful 'in the moment' doesn't work. You'd be better off meditating for 20 minutes."