Your World and You: Tips to Improve Your Family’s Health – Issue 38 (Premium)
Environmental and Nutritional Tips to Improve Your Family’s Health
This feature highlights reports, studies, and feedback on efforts that can make a positive impact in our quest for health. Topics we cover in this issue are included below. We invite you to share material with us that you think would be of interest to our readers.
Articles in this issue:
- New: Exposure to acetaminophen prenatally increases risk of behavioral difficulties
- Banned PCB chemicals tied to autism
- American Academy of Pediatrics warns: No more codeine for kids!
- Dr. Houston on Stress and the Gut
- Gluten-free lunch and snack ideas; Allergy-free recipes
- AMA: Reduce the harmful effects of LED street lighting
- Antipsychotic meds linked to pneumonia in Alzheimer’s disease
- Research review of acupuncture for Tourette syndrome
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New study: Prenatal exposure to Tylenol increases risk of behavioral difficulties
Children exposed to acetaminophen prenatally are at increased risk of multiple behavioral difficulties based on research published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics, August 15, 2016.
CNN reported that the researchers looked at other prenatal factors that might contribute to attention issues in a child, including smoking, alcohol use, socioeconomics and genetics. Factoring these into their analysis, they discovered that a mother using acetaminophen at 18 weeks of pregnancy was associated with a greater chance of her child becoming hyperactive or developing conduct problems. At 32 weeks into pregnancy, a mother’s use of acetaminophen was linked to higher odds of her child having emotional symptoms, conduct problems and hyperactivity symptoms.
Strengths of the study included the fact that it drew on a large population and that the authors examined some genetic factors, which could not explain the behavior problems, Marcus noted. This left the authors to hypothesize prenatal brain development may have been influenced by hormones that had been disrupted by the drug.” Full abstract
See our Advisory Board member’s article on this topic—Dr. William Shaw: Tylenol a Major Culprit in the Autism and Asthma Epidemic.
Banned PCB chemicals tied to autism
PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are chemicals once used in a many products, like electrical appliances, fire retardants, insulators, plastics, flooring and fluorescent lighting. Produced primarily by Monsanto, they were banned in 1979 once their potential for causing cancer was well recognized. Unfortunately, they are very persistent in the environment and remain in the food chain.
PCBs are also neurotoxins, and linked to infertility and endocrine damage. A new study shows an association with the development of autism. Newsday reports that researchers found that when pregnant women had relatively high levels of certain PCBs in their blood, their children were about 80 percent more likely to be diagnosed with autism versus other kids.
Those children also had a roughly twofold higher risk of intellectual disabilities unrelated to autism, the researchers said. “Autism is a complex condition with many different causes, and those causes vary among individuals,” said Kristen Lyall, lead researcher on the study.
A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article by David Templeton explained:
In 2014, a University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health study showed an association between chromium and styrene pollution and autism, while also noting previously discovered links with cyanide, methylene chloride, methanol and arsenic.
Reducing such exposure is not easy. “These chemicals stick around in the environment,” she said. “And the primary source of exposure for most people today is from fat in foods we eat, including consumption of meat, dairy and fish products.”
Free full pre-publication research article for Environmental Health Perspectives
American Academy of Pediatrics warns: No more codeine for kids!
A common painkiller has deadly effects on some children, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. The association released a report this week, saying it’s time to stop prescribing codeine to kids (who metabolize the drug differently than adults), because it can slow breathing to the point of death. Codeine is in pain medications, cough syrups, and medications used to treat diarrhea.
The study’s authors say using medications with non-opioid agents, like Ibuprofen, are the best options among medications for children who need pain relief. Scroll down on this page for a list of medications that contain codeine (scroll down on page): List
Full report from the American Academy of Pediatrics
Dr. Houston on stress and the gut
Dr. Devin Houston: A recent review of the medical literature turned up an interesting paper on stress and its effects on the gut1. Stress can affect gastric secretion, gut motility, and mucosal permeability (“leaky gut”). Now we find that the bacteria in our gut also respond to stress.
When we encounter stress we often feel it in our guts.
Chemicals produced by the adrenals in response to stress can cause the gut to spasm producing a real physical pain. Our bowels may urgently decide to evacuate, or we feel nauseous and vomit. Compounds such as norepinephrine can affect the microbiome by increasing levels of proinflammatory cytokines; which in turn increase the pathogenic effects of E. coli or other bad bugs.
Chronic stress is associated with prolonged activation of the stress response areas in the brain, especially those areas involved in perception of gut pain. The disrupted brain-gut connection can lead to reflux, peptic ulcers, irritable bowel disease and food allergies. The paper then focused primarily on how stress exacerbates irritable bowel syndrome.
While mainstream medical therapies were mentioned, I was happy to see that diet, probiotics, behavioral therapy and stress management were particularly emphasized.
Stress is not going away. It does not matter who you are or what you deal with on a daily basis, we all have something to worry about. It is important to understand that taking care of our digestive system involves much more than just what we eat or don’t eat. A holistic approach to health also includes mental health. Source article
Konturek PC, Brzozowsi T, and Konturek SJ. Stress and the gut: pathophysiology, clinical consequences, diagnostic approach and treatment options. J. Phys. Pharmacol. 62(6):591-599, 2011.
Gluten-free lunch and snack ideas
On the creative website Adventures of a Gluten-Free Mom, you’ll find tips and ideas to make school lunch preparation easier and more creative.
AMA: Reduce Harmful Effects of LED Street Lighting
Strong arguments exist for overhauling the lighting systems on U.S. roadways with LED lighting, but conversions to improper LED technology can have adverse consequences. In response, physicians at the AMA meeting adopted guidance on LED lighting options to minimize harmful human and environmental effects.
High-intensity LED lighting designs emit a large amount of blue light that appears white to the naked eye and create worse nighttime glare than conventional lighting. Discomfort and disability from intense, blue-rich LED lighting can decrease visual acuity and safety, resulting in concerns and creating a road hazard.
In addition to its impact on drivers, blue-rich LED streetlights operate at a wavelength that most adversely suppresses melatonin during night. It is estimated that white LED lamps have five times greater impact on circadian sleep rhythms than conventional street lamps. Recent large surveys found that brighter residential nighttime lighting is associated with reduced sleep times, dissatisfaction with sleep quality, excessive sleepiness, impaired daytime functioning and obesity.
The detrimental effects of high-intensity LED lighting are not limited to humans. Many species are also affected. Read more.
Antipsychotic meds linked to pneumonia in Alzheimer’s disease
Science Daily reports that antipsychotic medications are associated with an increased risk of pneumonia in persons with Alzheimer’s disease. Almost one third of people in Finland who have a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease use antipsychotic medication. They point out that the risk was at the highest at the beginning of the antipsychotic treatment. See article.
Unfortunately, pneumonia is just one of many dangerous potential side effects of this class of drugs.
Research review of acupuncture for Tourette syndrome
Readers often write asking about acupuncture for Tourette’s or tics. The research is quite limited for the West, although it is often used as a treatment in China. In this study, a review of research was conducted: “The combined results showed that acupuncture may have better short-term effect than Western medicine for Tourette syndrome and that acupuncture may be an effective adjuvant therapy in improving the effect of Western medicine on Tourette’s, but the evidence is limited because of existing biases.”
It was also suggested in the article that the use of traditional acupuncture can lead to compliance challenges if treating children, because maintaining a fixed position during treatment is difficult for children and there is some pain with the procedure. Instead they suggest using “plum-blossom needle therapy.” Read full PDF version of article here.
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