Vitamin D looks like a life-extender
Vitamin D supplements could prolong your life, a new European study suggests.
“The intake of usual doses of vitamin D seems to decrease mortality from any cause of death,” said lead researcher Dr. Philippe Autier of the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France.
The new finding, published in the Sept. 10 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, is a bit of an anomaly, because the benefits of vitamin supplements remain uncertain at best.
Although they often are touted as a means of reducing risks for cancer and heart disease, some studies have found supplements have no effect on these conditions.
For example, other studies have shown that vitamin E has no effect on cancer, Autier said. And prior research suggests that multivitamin supplements do nothing to reduce cancer risk, he added.
But vitamin D may be the exception, according to the results of this new study, which showed a 7 percent difference in the death rate.
“This is the first study that shows that taking one vitamin has an impact on mortality,” Autier said. “If you want to increase your vitamin D intake by taking supplements, it looks like a great idea.”
Autier believes people should take vitamin D supplements in the range of 400 to 600 IUs daily but no more.
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College athletes exercise into asthma
One out of three college athletes has exercise-induced asthma, even though they may have no history of the illness, a new study shows.
Previous research in Olympic athletes also has shown high rates of exercise-induced asthma.
“We targeted varsity athletes in this study, because many of the reported severe episodes of asthma provoked by exercise have occurred among competitive athletes under the age of 21,” said Dr. Jonathan Parsons, associate director of the Ohio State University Medical Center’s Asthma Center, said in a statement.
“Now that we’ve demonstrated how common this problem can be, more research is needed to determine the best way to monitor and manage athletes at the highest risk of developing symptoms while participating in their sports.”
Exercise-induced asthma typically occurs between 5 and 20 minutes after intense physical exertion. Symptoms include wheezing, chest tightness, coughing, shortness of breath and chest pain, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.
Writing in the September issue of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, the researchers called for the development of routine asthma diagnosis and management among athletes.
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When cigarettes changed, so did cancer
The introduction of filtered and low-tar cigarettes touted as safer in the 1950s coincided with a steady rise in a once-rare type of lung cancer that’s now the most common form of the disease, a new study finds.
Decades ago, squamous cell carcinoma was the most common form of lung cancer. But between 1950 and 2007, adenocarcinoma became the most frequently diagnosed lung malignancy, as the market share of filtered cigarettes soared from just 1 percent to almost 100 percent, the study authors said.
Described as a “correlation of evidence,” the apparent link was uncovered by study author Dr. Gary M. Strauss, medical director of the lung cancer program at Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston.
Strauss and his colleagues suggest that the impact of filtered cigarettes on adenocarcinoma rates is due to the introduction of filter vents in filtered cigarettes, making it easier to draw in smoke. These vents allow smokers to take bigger and deeper puffs, thereby inhaling carcinogens further into the bronchial passages and lungs.
“The rise of adenocarcinoma is consistent with changes in cigarette design and composition — which the cigarette industry indicated were safer — that they introduced in response to mounting evidence that smoking causes other forms of lung cancer,” Strauss said.
“And so the point is that the tobacco industry, through how they changed the cigarette over time and deceived the public for decades about its safety, has created an epidemic,” he added.
Philip Morris USA’s media affairs manager, David Sutton, said he could not comment on the findings.
“We cannot comment on a study we have not had a chance to review,” he said.
“Smoking is addictive and causes serious diseases. There is no such thing as a safe cigarette.”
The data illustrate a sharp rise in adenocarcinoma cases beginning in the 1960s. And from the 1975-79 period to the 1995-99 period, adenocarcinoma cases skyrocketed 62 percent.
Adenocarcinoma surpassed squamous cell carcinoma as the most common form of lung cancer among women in the 1975-79 period and among men during the 1980-84 period.
