General Health Tips:Nutrition for Healthier Eyes

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Health and Nutrition

HEALTH TIP:   Jenny Craig Weight Loss Plan

The Jenny Craig Weight Loss Plan started out in Australia

in 1983 and is now available in the U.S., Canada, Australia,

New Zealand, Puerto Rico and Guam. Currently owned by Nestle

Corporation and based out of Carlsbad, California, the

program is centered on three key components: Food, Body and

Mind. The program teaches portion control and healthy eating,

promotes physical activity personalized to each individual,

and provides consultants to keep you motivated and to make

key changes that will serve you for the rest of your life.

How does Jenny Craig work? This program takes an individual

approach to weight loss, and is dependent on a one-on-one

interaction with a Jenny Craig consultant, either in person

or over the phone. After evaluating your needs, a

personalized plan is presented, along with meal choices.

Jenny Craig provides the food you need to lose the weight,

along with supplemental items from the grocery store.

Exercise suggestions are tailored to your lifestyle, current

weight, and interests and weekly check-ins with your consultant

help to keep you on track. This continues until you have

reached your goal weight, at which time you should have made

the necessary changes to your diet and life to maintain that

goal. The Jenny Craig program does provide maintenance support

and access to online support tools, so you are not left to

your own devices, should you have any difficulties.

Probably the biggest expense and complaint amongst followers

is the purchase of prepared foods offered by Jenny Craig.

There are 17 breakfast choices, 21 lunch choices, 28 dinner

choices, and 25 desserts and snacks. The cost is upwards of

0 per week plus grocery items like produce. While the food

certainly looks tasty, you are paying for portion control,

calorie control and the simple convenience of not having to

cook. It can be a godsend to those with busy, crazy, hectic

lives or who hate to plan, shop and cook meals.

As to whether the program works, in a 2007 clinical trial,

supported by Jenny Craig, the Jenny Craig participants lost

over five times as much weight as those who dieted on their

own. (Rock CL, et al. Obesity. 2007; 15: 939-949.) This

appears to be the only research touted on the Jenny Craig

website as to the efficacy of the program, although there

are numerous success stories published on the site.

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Baboon study furthers diabetic research

SAN ANTONIO - Pancreatic cells that pump insulin also pro-

duce a destructive substance that can kill the cells that

produced it, U.S. scientists studying diabetes said. The

destructive protein creates a “perfect storm” for the develop-

ment of Type 2 diabetes, Dr. Franco Folli of the University

of Texas Health Science Center said. “You have a condition

in which the beta cells die and the alpha cells proliferate.

This is the balance that is basically necessary to have the

onset of Type 2 diabetes,” Folli said in the journal of the

National Academy of Sciences published online Monday. Folli

and his team studied autopsy results from 150 baboons that

had died of natural causes at the Southwest Foundation for

Biomedical Research. Baboons, like humans, can become obese

and develop Type 2 diabetes, The San Antonio Express-News

reported Tuesday. The results suggest the damaging substance

from the pancreas appears well before diabetes begins and

then rises along with blood sugar as the disease progresses,

Folli said.

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New diabetes, Alzheimer drug target found

NEW YORK - U.S. scientists say a cellular protein that might

prevent nerve cell death also helps improve insulin action

and lower blood glucose levels. Researchers at Yeshiva Uni-

versity’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine and at the

University of California-Los Angeles said their study, which

focused on diabetic rodents, is the first to show a role in

glucose metabolism for humanin, a small peptide that previous

studies suggest might protect nerve cells from death associ-

ated with Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases. “This new

role of humanin in glucose metabolism … is very intriguing

since scientists have long proposed a link between type 2

diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease,” said Professor Nir

Barzilai, a co-senior author of the study and director of

the Institute for Aging Research at Einstein. In the study,

the scientists infused humanin into the brains of diabetic

rats. The researchers said the infused humanin significantly

improved overall insulin sensitivity, and a single treatment

with a highly-potent form of humanin significantly lowered

blood-sugar levels in the diabetic rats. “The improvement in

insulin sensitivity caused by centrally administered humanin

may be one of the main mechanisms through which humanin

regulates cell survival,” Barzilai said. “This may provide

another potential mechanism by which humanin protects against

Alzheimer’s disease.” The research appears in the online

journal PLoS One.

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First human H1N1 vaccine trials begin

SYDNEY - The first human trials of the H1N1 flu vaccines be-

gan Wednesday in Australia, where the flu season is under

way. About 500 people turned out for the trials, various

media outlets reported. Drug companies CSL and Vaxine began

testing their products — CSL on 240 healthy adult volunteers

and Vaxine on 300, Nature.com reported.  CSL’s Research and

Development Director Andrew Cuthbertson told the Sydney

Morning Herald said the vaccine should be proven by late

September. “As soon as I have confirmation that the vaccine

is safe and effective, I will ensure it can be rolled out to

the community,” Australia’s Health Minister Nicola Roxon

said. Cuthbertson said H1N1 flu virus, formerly called swine

flu, hasn’t mutated yet. “So far at least it doesn’t appear

to have changed very much which I guess from the point of

view of preparing a vaccine is a good thing,” he said. “The

world will be watching to see the immunogenicity results of

this first clinical trial,” said Marie-Paule Kieny, director

of the World Health Organization’s initiative for vaccine

research. “It is likely to be indicative of how the other

vaccine candidates will perform.”

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Less toxic cancer treatment studied

PHOENIX - An Arizona medical research company says it has

verified an effective cancer research treatment that lacks

the toxicity of current regimens. The anti-cancer material

is a biological agent that boosts the immune system by par-

ticularly enhancing Beta cells, allowing them to strengthen

specific anti-cancer antibodies, the CHAI Foundation for

Medical Research & Life Extension Inc. said in a news re-

lease Tuesday. The anti-neoplastic material is created by

injecting an animal with an antigen. That animal’s system

creates antibodies that are then injected into test animals,

and ultimately into humans, the non-profit cancer research

center said. CHAI researchers tested the anti-cancer material

on 35 patients exhibiting lesions on various parts of their

bodies, including the breast, skin, liver, lung, spine, pan-

creas, prostate, ovary, and stomach. “The material acts as

an immunological charge against nature, and could become a

preventative with future work,” the release said. Dr. Eric -

R. Brown, CHAI Foundation’s research director and microbio-

logist, died in an accident after the tests were performed.

Because of his death, the CHAI Foundation is looking for

corroboration of its findings by another cancer research

organization, or funding to hire its own outside research

laboratory.

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Chimps with SIV show AIDS-like symptoms

CHICAGO - Wild chimpanzees infected with Simian Immunodefic-

iency Viruses can contract AIDS-like symptoms and die, U.S.

researchers said Wednesday. SIV has many forms and was

thought to be harmless to apes, researchers from the Univer-

sity of Illinois who participated in the global study said

in a news release. SIV is the precursor virus for AIDS and

HIV-1, which first entered human populations after trans-

mission from chimpanzees. “Chimpanzees and humans are very

similar genetically, so perhaps we should not be surprised

that these closely related viruses cause disease in both

hosts,” said Dr. Beatrice Hahn, a professor of medicine at

the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who led an inter-

national consortium. Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo and Univer-

sity of Illinois researchers established a chimpanzee

health-monitoring program at Gombe National Park in Tanzania,

providing laboratories and expertise for post-mortem analyses

of chimpanzees that died during the course of the study.

For the last nine years, the consortium has monitored SIV

infections of the Gombe chimpanzees. Researchers said they

found chimpanzees infected with SIV were 10 to16 times more

likely to die in any year than those who remained uninfected.

“When I first looked at these samples I was taken aback,”

said U-I veterinary pathologist Karen Terio, a primary author

on the paper. “Slides from one of the chimps showed extreme

lymphatic tissue destruction, and looked just like a sample

from a human patient who has died of AIDS.”

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Chinese herbs safe for breast cancer patients?

Over the years, many medical experts have advised those

receiving chemotherapy to steer clear of traditional

Chinese medicine, a range of traditional medical practices

that developed over thousands of years in China. Traditional

Chinese medicine uses medicinal herbs and herbal mixtures

that modern doctors have feared may cause adverse reactions

or interfere negatively with cancer treatment.

Recently, researchers in Chengdu, China, performed seven

different studies by analyzing data from over 500 breast

cancer patients. The study found no evidence that traditional

Chinese herbs cause harm. Conversely, the study may have

found evidence that certain Chinese herbal remedies could

protect the bone marrow in breast cancer patients, while

strengthening the immune system and increasing overall health.

The studies were performed at the Chinese Cochrane Centre,

part of the Cochrane Collaboration Centre, a nonprofit

organization dedicated to producing and disseminating

systematic reviews of healthcare interventions. The reviews

are prepared by volunteer healthcare professionals.

This could be a vital new development to the sixty percent

of women who experience many side effects from breast cancer

chemotherapy, including a decline of blood platelets,

inflammation of the stomach lining, and diminishing numbers

of red and white blood cells.

Chinese herbal remedies may also reduce side effects

associated with chemotherapy, including fatigue, nausea

and vomiting. However, the study was small and inconclusive

and further trials and research are needed to determine

unconditional safety and effectiveness.

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Nutrition for Healthier Eyes

Eating properly can help to maintain excellent vision and

even improve weak vision. An article at newstarget, in fact,

outlines several different ways one can eat properly for

vision and claims that a healthy diet is the foundation for

excellent vision. If this is true, it may point to why so

many Americans have failing vision, since our diets are

noticeably lacking in vitamins, minerals, whole foods and

superfoods.

The article, which does not advocate one certain diet for

everyone, points out many ways one can use nutrition to

improve their vision. The basic message is to eat more fruits

and vegetables, such as dark leafy greens, colorful veggies

full of phytonutrients like beets, carrots and squash, and

fruits high in antioxidants, such as blackberries and

strawberries. The article also advocates taking vitamin

supplements, drinking fresh vegetable juices and adding

superfoods, such as chlorella, spirulina, nutritional yeast

to one’s diet.

In addition to eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, they

also recommend reducing dietary sugars, which can diminish

nutrients in the body and play a role in cross-linking of

collagen fibers in the eye.

Other recommendations include getting enough essential fats,

using herbal eye washes and resting your eyes by taking off

your glasses.