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Tanning Link to Higher Vitamin D Levels

Posted on: Tuesday, 8 February 2005, 00:00 CST

PEOPLE who try to stay bronze with the help of a tanning bed tend to have higher blood levels of vitamin D than those who shun the salon, a new study says. The findings suggest that a regular appointment at the tanning salon may have health benefits, though researchers don't recommend that people start tanning to boost their vitamin D levels.

The study of 156 adults found those who regularly soaked up the artificial rays had a 90 per cent higher average vitamin D concentration in their blood. The tanners also had greater bone density in the hips.

The senior author on the study, Dr Michael F. Holick of Boston University School of Medicine in the United States, said people should spend a short amount of time outside, without sunscreen, several days a week. "I'm not an advocate of tanning," Holick said, "however, the new findings indicate that there is a "health benefit above and beyond feeling good" from tanning beds that emit UVB light, the form of UV radiation that triggers vitamin D production."

* THE pigment that gives curry spice its yellow hue may also be able to break up the "plaques" that mark the brains of Alzheimer's disease patients, early research suggests. Scientists found that curcumin, a component of the yellow curry spice turmeric, was able to reduce deposits of beta-amyloid proteins in the brains of elderly lab mice that ate curcumin as part of their diet.

"The big question is how high the doses we need to fight Alzheimer's should be and, are they really safe in elderly patients?" he said. The current findings, published online recently by the Journal of Biological Chemistry, add to the body of research pointing to curcumin's medicinal value. Long used as part of traditional Indian medicine, curcumin is now under study as a potential cancer therapy, and animal research has suggested the compound might serve as a treatment for multiple sclerosis and cystic fibrosis.

* A COMMON type of disease that involves the back of the eye, known as retinopathy, is a risk factor for heart failure, high blood pressure or diabetes, according to a new report.

Retinopathy is a known marker for blood vessel disease throughout the body, which is thought to play a role in the development of heart failure.

To investigate, Dr Tien Y. Wong, from the University of Melbourne in Australia, and colleagues analysed data from 11,612 subjects. Photographs of the retina were taken between 1993 and 1995 and evaluated for retinopathy. Heart failure was determined through hospital and death records.

The rate of heart failure among subjects with retinopathy was much higher than that seen among subjects without retinopathy, at 15.1 and 4.8 per cent, respectively. After adjusting for various factors that may have influenced the association, retinopathy remained a strong predictor of heart failure, nearly doubling the risk.

Moreover, in subjects without pre-existing heart disease, high blood pressure or diabetes, the presence of retinopathy almost tripled the risk of heart failure.

* PREGNANT women who live in areas with high levels of air pollution may give birth to slightly smaller babies, researchers say. A new study of more than 18,000 full-term infants born in California found that a mother's exposure to fineparticle air pollution seemed to make a difference in her baby's birth weight.

Fine particulate matter, called PM2.5 by scientists, is composed of microscopic substances like acids, metals and organic chemicals, and can be seen in the form of a hazy sky. In the study, babies born to women who lived in areas with the highest levels of PM2.5 were 26 per cent more likely to be small for their gestational age compared with infants born to women from low-pollution areas.

According to the study, PM2.5 levels may influence birth weight either indirectly through effects on the mother's health or by directly affecting fetal development.

* WOMEN who are exposed to second-hand smoke may be at greater risk for cervical tumours, a new study suggests. The study, conducted by researchers from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in the United States, was in part supported by a grant from the Maryland Cigarette Restitution Fund, created with money from a settlement of a suit that states brought against tobacco companies to recover the cost of care for people whose health had been damaged by smoking.

The researchers acknowledged one large caveat. Because cervical cancer is caused by a sexually transmitted virus, it is possible that smoking patterns tend to reflect differences in sexual habits that raise the risk of infection.

* INFANTS given formula containing probiotics - the bacteria that aid healthy digestion - had roughly half as many bouts of fever and diarrhoea as babies given regular formula, a new study reports. Lead author Dr Zvi Weizman of Ben-Gurion University in Israel, said breast-feeding was still the best choice, since a mother passed even more beneficial bacteria directly to a child through her milk.

The study raised new possibilities for the use of probiotics: instead of merely treating stomach ailments and other illnesses, it said perhaps probiotic products could be used to prevent them.

In the new study, 201 infants four to 10 months old, all attending childcare centres, were randomly assigned to be given regular formula or formula supplemented with one of two probiotics, Bifidobacterium lactis and Lactobacillus reuteri.

Over the next three months, the infants who drank either form of probiotic formula had less diarrhoea and fever. The ones drinking Lactobacillus reuteri had fewer days spent ill at home, fewer trips to the doctor and fewer prescriptions for antibiotics, the study said.

But neither probiotic appeared to make any difference in the rates of respiratory infections.

* MANY large-scale epidemiological studies have found that vegetarians are less likely than meat eaters to have high blood pressure. But moving from that observation to proof of cause and effect can be difficult, because the findings may reflect an unknown third factor. For example, a tendency by vegetarians to do other healthy things as well.

An article in last month's issue of the journal Nutrition Reviews examined a number of studies that found ways around that difficulty, in some cases by comparing two groups who led similar lives except for diet. One set of researchers, for instance, turned to monks. Trappists are strict vegetarians, and Benedictines are not, and blood pressure, they found, was lower in Trappist monasteries.

One such study, of people with normal blood pressure, found that six weeks without meat led to an average drop of five points in systolic pressure, the upper number, and a two or three point drop in diastolic pressure.

Source: New Straits Times

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