You've heard a lot about calcium to protect your bones. But what about the fats you eat and metabolize? Oxidation of fats may contribute to osteoporosis, and the adverse effects of oxidation on both arteries and bone cells may explain the parallel development of osteoporosis and atherosclerosis. Oxidized fats can inhibit the function of bone-forming cells as well as create inflammation that is a factor in bone loss. An "oxidized" fat is a fat...

Continue reading When Fats Go Bad, You May Get Osteoporosis

Forty-eight cans of tuna bought from Trader Joe's, Safeway, Whole Foods and other food chains (including name brands like Bumble Bee, Starkist and Chicken of the Sea) were tested for mercury. Mercury is a very toxic metal. Sixteen of the cans contained 0.5 parts per million of mercury, which is double the level the Environmental Protection Agency recommends as safe. Albacore or "white" tuna had more than 4 times the mercury on average than...

Continue reading Cut Down on Those Tuna Sandwiches!

Older women taking combination hormone therapy had twice the rate of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, compared with women who did not take the medication, according to new findings reported in the May 28, 2003 Journal of the American Medical Association. The study found the heightened risk of developing dementia in a study of women 65 and older taking Prempro, a particular form of estrogen plus progestin hormone therapy. "Because of possible harm in some...

Continue reading Rates of Dementia Increase Among Women on Hormone Therapy

Using combined hormone replacement therapy (HRT) to relieve symptoms of the menopause can double a woman's normal risk of developing breast cancer, according to a new study. Estrogen-only HRT has already been shown to raise the odds of breast cancer. New research by scientists at Britain's Cancer Research UK provides evidence that combined HRT -- estrogen and progestagen -- is even more dangerous. In the study of more than one million women in Britain...

Continue reading Combined HRT Doubles Breast Cancer Risk

Two recently released medical studies provided more damning evidence that giving female hormones to older women does little to improve their health and may in fact harm it. The studies found that the treatments do not protect women from heart disease, as doctors once believed, and one of the studies found that giving hormones to women actually increases their risk of heart attack. Both studies appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, which...

Continue reading More Doubts Cast on Hormone Therapy Benefits

Hormones are the body's "power players." They are so important that there may be no such thing as an "insignificant" hormone imbalance. "It is well established in clinical science that even mild hormonal imbalances can be associated with significant adverse health effects," observe the authors of a recent review study appearing in Environmental Health Perspectives. Hormone balances, as well as any forces that may potentially disrupt them - including chemicals in the environment -...

Continue reading No "Safe Threshold" for Hormone Imbalances