Nutrition News

Low levels of vitamin D are known to nearly double the risk of cardiovascular disease in patients with diabetes, and researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis now think they know why. They have found that diabetics deficient in vitamin D can’t process cholesterol normally, so it builds up in their blood vessels, ...

A slow, chronic starvation of the brain as we age appears to be one of the major triggers of a biochemical process that causes some forms of Alzheimer’s disease. A new study from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine has found when the brain doesn’t get enough sugar glucose — as might occur when cardiovascular disease ...

Fingerprints move over. Scientists are reporting evidence that people have another defining trait that may distinguish each of the 6.7 billion humans on Earth from one another almost as surely as the arches, loops, and whorls on their fingertips. They report evidence from studies in humans for the existence of unique patterns in metabolism. Metabolism is ...

Patients suffering from nocturia, the need to urinate at least twice during the night, may have a significantly increased risk for mortality. Researchers presented a study at the 104th Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA) showing that there was a significantly increased mortality rate in elderly patients living in a Japanese assisted-living ...

An exploration of the molecular links between insulin resistance and inflammation may have revealed a novel target for diabetes treatment, say scientists at the John G. Rangos Sr. Research Center, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC. Their findings were published earlier this month in the online version of Diabetes, one of the journals of the ...

Kudzu, the nuisance vine that has overgrown almost 10 million acres in the southeastern United States, may sprout into a dietary supplement. Scientists in Alabama and Iowa are reporting the first evidence that root extracts from kudzu show promise as a dietary supplement for a high-risk condition — the metabolic syndrome — that affects almost ...

A new study has concluded that low carb-high protein diet leads to more atherosclerosis in mice, findings that could have implications for diet strategies if they also hold true for humans. The low carb approach to dieting had its heyday in the 1990s, with the marketing of popular commercial diets such as the Atkins Diet. ...

With all the focus on LDL (bad) cholesterol, a ‘virtually unknown’ form called oxycholesterol may pose the biggest heart health threat, say Chinese scientists. Scientists from the Chinese University of Hong Kong identified fried and processed food as the main sources of oxycholesterol in the diet, statements that may lead to louder calls to reformulate ...

An analysis of four studies involving more than 14,000 patients found that long-term use of the diabetes drug rosiglitazone (Avandia®) increased the risk of heart attack by 42 percent and doubled the risk of heart failure, according to a new report from researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and colleagues. There was no ...

Americans with diabetes nearly doubled their spending on drugs for the disease in just six years, with the bill last year climbing to an eye-popping $12.5 billion. Newer, more costly drugs are driving the increase, said researchers, despite a lack of strong evidence for the new drugs’ greater benefits and safety. And there are more ...

Aging yeast cells accumulate damage over time, but they do so by following a pattern laid down earlier in their life by diet as well as the genes that control metabolism and the dynamics of cell structures such as mitochondria, the power plants of cells. These research findings, presented at the American Society for Cell Biology ...

Study highlights: * Measuring blood flow in the ankle may identify stroke survivors at risk of subsequent events. * This test, the ankle brachial index, compares blood flow in the ankle to blood flow in the arm to detect poor circulation caused by fatty plaque buildup in the lower ...