High Vitamin-D Bread Could Help Solve Widespread Insufficiency Problem

Scientists are suggesting that a new vitamin D-fortified food - bread made with high-vitamin D yeast - could help those who couldn't get enough vitamin-D from sunlight or foods. The work is published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Vitamin D insufficiency has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease, cancer, allergy in children, and other conditions. Connie Weaver and colleagues did experiments with laboratory rats, a stand-in for humans in such research, that ease doubts over whether bread baked with high vitamin D yeast could be a solution. Yeast produces one form of the vitamin, termed vitamin D2, which has been thought to be not as biologically active as the form produced by sun, vitamin D3. They showed bread made with vitamin D2-rich yeast, fed to the laboratory rats, had effects that seemed just as beneficial as vitamin D3. "Our results suggest that bread made with high vitamin D yeast could be a valuable new source of vitamin D in the diet," they concluded.

More from here:http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110223122425.htm

Dry Copper Kills Bacteria on Contact

Metallic copper surfaces kill microbes on contact, decimating their populations, according to a paper in the February 2011 issue of the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. They do so literally in minutes, by causing massive membrane damage after about a minute's exposure, says the study's corresponding author, Gregor Grass of the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This is the first study to demonstrate this mechanism of bacteriocide.

"When microbes were exposed to copper surfaces, we observed contact killing to take place at the rate of tens to hundreds of millions of bacterial cells within minutes," says Grass. "This means that usually no live microorganisms can be recovered from copper surfaces after exposure."

Thus, such surfaces could provide a critical passive defense against pathogens in hospitals, where hospital-acquired infections are becoming increasingly common and costly.

It is important to note that only dry copper surfaces are amazingly lethal to bacteria. The difference between dry and wet surfaces, such as copper pipes, is that only dry surfaces are inhospitable environments for bacterial growth. Bacteria can easily grow and reproduce in wet environments, and in so doing, they can develop resistance to copper. Resistance has not been observed to develop on dry copper surfaces.

Lead Exposure May Affect Blood Pressure During Pregnancy

Even minute amounts of lead may take a toll on pregnant women, according to a study published by Lynn Goldman, M.D., M.S., M.P.H., Dean of George Washington University's School of Public Health and Health Services in D.C., and colleagues, in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. "We didn't expect to see effects at such low levels of lead exposure," says Goldman, "but in fact we found a strong effect." If confirmed, this would indicate that pregnant women may be as sensitive to lead toxicity as young children.

Blood pressure is slightly higher during pregnancy, child labor, and delivery as the heart pumps harder. But prolonged high blood pressure during pregnancy (pregnancy-induced hypertension) can lead to complications called preeclampsia and then eclampsia. This potentially lethal condition also can predispose women to a heart attack in their future. While any increase in blood pressure during pregnancy is worrisome, the study did not find an association between lead and pregnancy-induced hypertension or preeclampsia.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises to take action to reduce exposures when pregnant women or children have a blood lead level of 5 micrograms (µg) per deciliter (dL) or higher. Goldman feels that the recent study suggests that there are cardiovascular effects of lead in pregnant women at levels well below 5 µg/dL.

More from here:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110205142846.htm