The “New & Interesting” series is a biweekly compilation of select research findings, news articles, and random tidbits in bullet-point format. The entries are highly abbreviated, but provide links to the original articles or abstracts if you desire to read further.

General Articles

• Telaprevir leads to 75% cure rate in hepatitis C virus (HCV) infected individuals, as shown in late-stage Phase III drug trial. This is a significant improvement over the 40-50% cure rate of the current HCV therapies: interferon and ribavirin. The side effect profile of telaprevir is also much more tolerable than with interferon and ribavirin. If approved by the FDA, telaprevir may also lead to a multi-billion dollar boon for its developer, Vertex Pharmaceuticals. (Reuters)

• Researchers at Ulm University in Germany discovered that children who ate three or more hamburgers a week had a 40% greater risk of developing asthma than those who ate less hamburgers. The group hypothesizes that saturated fats promote asthma by causing inflammation in the airways. This does not apply to all fats, such as omega-3, which may instead have a protective effect. (WebMD)

Technical Articles

• Bilateral necrosis of earlobes and cheeks may be another complication of cocaine. There has been an increasing percentage of cocaine cut with the antihelmintic agent levimasole. Levimasole is an immunomodulating agent that has neutropenia and vasculitis as adverse effects. Physicians from the University of Rochester report two cases of cocaine abusers who developed these yet unknown consequences of cocaine use. (Ann Intern Med)

• Inactive hepatitis B still carries risk for hepatocellular carcinoma and liver-related death. The REVEAL-HBV (Risk Evaluation of Viral Load Elevation and Associated Liver Disease/Cancer in HBV) Study Group found that the annual incidence rates of hepatocellular carcinoma and liver-related death was higher in inactive HBV carriers when compared to uninfected controls. (Gastroenterology)

The marketing labels “organic”, “all natural”, and “whole grain” typically bear a positive connotation with broad appeal to health-conscious consumers. Do these foods truly have any health benefits? While “organic” and “all natural” properties of food may have unclear effects, there is mounting evidence that “whole grains” do. Harvard researchers recently compared whole-grain brown rice with refined white rice and evaluated their relative risks for developing type 2 diabetes.

The study analyzed prospective data from 39,765 men and 15,7463 women who participated in 3 separate cohort studies: the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS) and the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) I and II. Relevant to this research study, the individual cohort studies had required periodic completion of questionnaires about lifestyle practices and occurrences of chronic diseases.

Individuals who did not complete over 50% of the food items on the food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) were excluded from this study’s analysis. In addition, the researchers excluded those with a pre-existing diagnosis of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.

Adjusting for age alone, consumption of >4 servings/week of white rice was associated with a greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes, relative to those who eat <1 serving/month. There was a smaller but similar trend after adjusting for other potential confounders, such as ethnicity, body mass index, smoking status, alcohol intake, multivitamin use, physical activity, and family history of diabetes.

In contrast, consumption of >1 serving/week of brown rice was associated with a lower relative risk of type 2 diabetes, compared to those who eat <1 serving/month. When replacing 50 g/day of white rice with brown rice, there was a 16% decreased risk of diabetes. This risk was 36% lower when white rice was instead substituted with whole grains.

The authors hypothesize that the refinery process that converts brown rice to white rice leads to loss of some protective effects of bran, fiber, vitamins, minerals, lignans, phytoestrogens, and phytic acid.

The findings of this study reinforce that “substitution of whole grains, including brown rice, for white rice may lower risk of type 2 diabetes.” While physicians may counsel their diabetic patients to practice strict carbohydrate control, pre-diabetics should also consider the nutritional impact of their food choices. I will however admit that it is much easier said than done. My acquired taste for white rice is much stronger than for brown rice, and I fear my taste buds may revolt if I were to someday defect to the brown side.

• Source
• Sun Q, Spiegelman D, van Dam RM, Holmes MD, Malik VS, Willett WC, Hu FB. White rice, brown rice, and risk of type 2 diabetes in US men and women. Arch Intern Med 2010;170:961-9.

The “New & Interesting” series is a biweekly compilation of select research findings, news articles, and random tidbits in bullet-point format. The entries are highly abbreviated, but provide links to the original articles or abstracts if you desire to read further.

General Articles

• Telaprevir leads to 75% cure rate in hepatitis C virus (HCV) infected individuals, as shown in late-stage Phase III drug trial. This is a significant improvement over the 40-50% cure rate of the current HCV therapies: interferon and ribavirin. The side effect profile of telaprevir is also much more tolerable than with interferon and ribavirin. If approved by the FDA, telaprevir may also lead to a multi-billion dollar boon for its developer, Vertex Pharmaceuticals. (Reuters)

• Researchers at Ulm University in Germany discovered that children who ate three or more hamburgers a week had a 40% greater risk of developing asthma than those who ate less hamburgers. The group hypothesizes that saturated fats promote asthma by causing inflammation in the airways. This does not apply to all fats, such as omega-3, which may instead have a protective effect. (WebMD)

Technical Articles

• Bilateral necrosis of earlobes and cheeks may be another complication of cocaine. There has been an increasing percentage of cocaine cut with the antihelmintic agent levimasole. Levimasole is an immunomodulating agent that has neutropenia and vasculitis as adverse effects. Physicians from the University of Rochester report two cases of cocaine abusers who developed these yet unknown consequences of cocaine use. (Ann Intern Med)

• Inactive hepatitis B still carries risk for hepatocellular carcinoma and liver-related death. The REVEAL-HBV (Risk Evaluation of Viral Load Elevation and Associated Liver Disease/Cancer in HBV) Study Group found that the annual incidence rates of hepatocellular carcinoma and liver-related death was higher in inactive HBV carriers when compared to uninfected controls. (Gastroenterology)

The “New & Interesting” series is a biweekly compilation of select research findings, news articles, and random tidbits in bullet-point format. The entries are highly abbreviated, but provide links to the original articles or abstracts if you desire to read further.

General Articles

• The recommended daily intake of salt is 2000 mg, but the average amount ingested by Americans is over twice that amount. Sometimes we may not be aware of how much salt there is in processed food. This infographic reveals how much salt is contained in different types of food. (Next Generation Food)

• Dr. Hank Chien, a New York-based plastic surgeon, set the world record in the classic arcade game Donkey Kong with 1,061,700 points in 2 hours and 35 minutes. (American Medical News)

Technical Articles

• Use of cotrimoxazole (trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole) and warfarin has been associated with a nearly four-fold increased risk of upper GI tract hemorrhage. (Arch Intern Med)

• Green tea extracts decreased glucose, triglyceride, and insulin levels in animal models of insulin resistance. Oxidative stress was also reduced, as suggested by lower plasma lipid peroxidation, sulfhydryl (SH) group oxidation, and DNA oxidative damage. (J Am Coll Nutr)

Low-carbohydrate diets were initially popularized by the late Dr. Robert Atkins, who published the fundamentals of this diet in his book Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution. He also founded Atkins Nutritional to commercialize and further evangelize the low-carbohydrate diet. Following Dr. Atkins’s death, however, the popularity of the diet subsided and his company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2005.

Despite its controversial nature, the low-carbohydrate diet may still have health benefits. A group at the Center for Health Services Research in Primary Care, Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center (Durham, North Carolina), recently published their findings in the Archives of Internal Medicine, where they compared the low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet (LCKD) with a low-fat diet (combined with the weight-loss medication orlistat) regarding their effects on several health parameters: weight loss, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and glycemic parameters.
Read more … »