A watchdop group has called on the US Food and Drug Administration to shed some light on sunscreens. The government agency has failed to finalize standards for testing and labeling sunscreens, says a report by the Washington, DC-based nonprofit Environmental Working Group. The report also concludes that 85% of sunscreens on the market either contain potentially toxic ingredients or fail to provide enough protection from both UVB and UVA radiation. Most products shield the skin from UVB rays, which cause sunburn as well as DNA damage associated with skin cancer.

A study published yesterday in the journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), provides details to support the idea that UVB rays are more likely to cause cancer. However, research published in May suggests that the deeper-penetrating UVA rays that cause skin aging also suppress the immune system, compromising the body’s ability to protect itself against the development and spread of skin cancer.

The FDA is currently considering sunscreen labeling changes to help consumers make better choices, but in the meantime, the American Academy of Dermatology offers this advice: Use broad spectrum sunscreen products of SPF 15 that protect against UVA and UVB rays. Lather it on everyday and wear protective clothing.

Image by Daquella manera

Last week, a Texas woman named Michelle Kimzey made headlines when she suggested that Gardasil, the Merck vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV), had caused her 14-year-old daughter to develop epilepsy. Kimzey claimed that she found some 5,000 other reports of adverse side effects in the federal government’s vaccine safety surveillance database, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).

This is not the first time VAERS has been invoked in news stories about the safety of the HPV vaccine. Last year, the National Vaccine Information Center published an analysis of VAERS data suggesting that Gardasil could cause serious side-effects including the development of an autoimmune disorder, Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS). While VAERS is a valuable tool for monitoring vaccine safety—both the Centers for Disease control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) analyze information in the database—the reports can cause alarm when taken out of context.

The public should know that VAERS collects only unverified reports of health events. The CDC and FDA encourage parents, vaccine manufactures, health care providers and others to report all adverse events following vaccinations, regardless of whether the vaccination is the suspected cause. Thus some of the purported vaccine side-effects actually reflect underlying diseases or conditions completely unrelated to the vaccination. VAERS does not keep tabs on groups who have not received vaccinations, so there are no control groups to compare incidence rates of various health events.

Given these issues perhaps the government should revamp the database to prevent the VAERS reports from being misconstrued as verified cases of vaccine deaths and complications. What do you think?

They say that knowledge is power, and some 15 US states are poised to apply that philosophy in tackling the obesity epidemic. These states are considering legislation that would require fast food chains and certain restaurants to provide consumers with nutritional information such as calorie, fat and sodium content of food items. New York and California may be the first to pass laws mandating statewide menu labeling, which could set the trend for other states to follow. The public seems to be embracing the idea, particularly in New York, where a recent poll found that 80 percent of people want nutritional tables posted in fast food eateries. The point of these laws is to encourage consumers to make informed – and thus presumably healthier – decisions about what they are eating. Ultimately, the new laws aim to curb America’s obesity epidemic – which is at an all-time high (34% of adults are obese, and 32% of school-aged children are overweight or obese) – and lower the rate of diseases associated with obesity, such as diabetes, hypertension, and certain types of cancer.

But will people actually use the information to modify their eating habits? Perhaps the best place to inquire is New York City, where a menu-labeling rule is already in place (ahead of the possible statewide regulations). In January, the city’s Board of Health voted in favor of a regulation requiring restaurant chains (businesses with more than 15 units nationally) to prominently list calories on menus and menu boards. The industry group New York State Restaurant Association has challenged the regulation, and the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals will probably deliberate the case for another few weeks, according to a Restaurant Association representative. Meanwhile, the FDA has sided with New York City.

I conducted an informal survey in lower Manhattan and found that, although people seem to be noticing these calorie counts, they way it drives their behavior is variable.

“For me personally, it doesn’t change what I do,” said a man I met in a fast food chain, noting that he is not concerned about his weight. “But I think with other people it does.”

“I don’t pay attention to it,” said a woman sitting nearby. “I don’t believe that a plain bagel has 300 calories,” she added, referring to the posted calorie content.

But according to the employee working behind the register, the nutritional tables are deterring customers from buying high-calorie foods—to the detriment of business. "The people, when they ask about the muffins’ calories, they don’t buy them,” said the employee, pointing at the 400-calorie ‘reduced fat’ item. “It’s affecting my sales.”

A few blocks away at a fast-food restaurant where king-sized chocolate milkshakes pack over 840 calories, patrons stopped to scan the nutrition table on the wall before approaching the register. One young woman studied the information but claimed that it would not influence her decision; she would have that bacon-double-cheeseburger no matter what. But a traffic policeman said he would chosse menu items based on caloric and fat content. “It’s very important to know the nutritional value of the food,” he told me. A couple from Argentina agreed; they used the nutritional tables to avoid the excessive amount of carbohydrates that characterizes the North American diet.

I could not help but notice that the people who said they used nutritional tables to make decisions appeared lean and fit. All this made me wonder whether menu-labeling will simply reinforce good eating habits in those who already have healthy lifestyles, rather than reform those who most need it. Critics of menu labeling have pointed out that Americans have continued to get more obese despite two decades of nutritional labeling on packaged food. Perhaps better calorie labeling will not change things. What do you think?

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Not unexpectedly, the news media embraced and eagerly reported the latest revelation about the health benefits of red wine. The study, published in the online journal PLoS One this week, hinted that resveratrol, an antioxidant compound found in the skins and seeds of wine grapes, can boost cardiovascular health and slow aging in mice at lower doses than previously thought. Earlier studies have suggested that resveratrol helped mice run farther, stay slender, and stave off diabetes and cancer.

This buzz about red wine reminds me of the media’s enthusiastic coverage of dark chocolate’s effects. Several studies have suggested the antioxidant flavanols in dark chocolate can improve blood vessel function and reduce blood pressure.

Any story about red wine or dark chocolate, especially one that gives people an excuse to indulge, is going to be well-received. As I write this, the New York Times article on the recent red wine study has been hovering near the top of the newspaper’s list of most popular online stories.

But as we swash down red wine and gobble bon bons, we may be inclined to forget that, along with all those antioxidants comes a good dose of alcohol and saturated fat. Excessive alcohol consumption (more than two daily drinks for men or more than one daily for women) can lead to liver disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And recent studies suggest that one or two drinks a day may increase the risk of breast cancer.

And don’t forget the caveats associated with some of these studies. In most of the resveratrol studies (a notable exception being the recent PLoS study) mice were given massive quantities of compound. A human would have to guzzle at least several bottles of red wine a day to obtain a similar amount. And to reap the benefits of cocoa, you have to eat dark chocolate (preferably containing 70 percent cocoa), which tends to be bitter. With creamier chocolate the milk binds to the antioxidant compounds, making them unavailable to the body.

Finally, it is worth noting that the recent red wine study was partially financed by the Swiss DSM Nutritional Products, “the world’s leading supplier of vitamins, carotenoids and other fine chemicals to the feed, food, pharmaceutical and personal care industries,” according to the company’s website. Similarly, several studies on cocoa flavanols have been funded by Mars Inc., the maker of chocolate products. So while it’s tempting to toast to the promising results from these studies, the bottom line is more bittersweet.

By Coco Ballantyne

Photo by miss karen