A company in Ecuador that processed the cinnamon used in flavored applesauce pouches destined for the American market is the likely source of lead contamination in those products, U.S. investigators said. In an update to its investigation into recalled WanaBana, Weis and Schnucks brand cinnamon-flavored applesauce pouches, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said a now-defunct Ecuadorian company called Carlos Aguilera is to blame for high amounts of lead in the product. Carlos Aguilera processed raw cinnamon sticks originating in Sri Lanka, the FDA explained. However, Ecuadorian officials analyzed the unprocessed cinnamon sticks, which were “found to have no lead contamination” before being processed. Lead contamination appears to have been introduced during processing at Carlos Aguilera, according to the FDA. Carlos Aguilera then sent the cinnamon to another company, Negasmart, which in turn sold it to Austrofoods, the manufacturer of the recalled applesauce pouches. The investigation reveals the complex international web of food suppliers, processors and manufacturers which makes FDA oversight of imported products sold in American supermarkets very tough, the agency said. Legally, the FDA’s hands are tied. “The FDA has limited authority over foreign ingredient suppliers who do not directly ship product to the U.S.,” the agency explained in its statement. “This is because their food undergoes further manufacturing/processing prior to export. Thus, the FDA cannot take direct action with Negasmart or Carlos Aguilera.”…  read on >  read on >

A U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel on Friday addressed a continuing issue with pulse oximeters — that they give less accurate readings for folks with darker skin. The devices are designed to measure oxygen levels in the blood, so correct readings are critical, experts say. During its daylong meeting, the FDA’s Anesthesiology and Respiratory Therapy Devices Panel reviewed ways to better evaluate the accuracy of pulse oximeters in patients with darker skin. Although there is more work to be done when it comes to making pulse oximeters more accurate, panel member Dr. Jeffrey Feldman said the devices’ benefits of these devices still outweigh their limitations. “This technology has and continues to save lives on a daily basis in this country. … It needs to be improved. We need to look at health disparities, and we need to do better,” he said after the meeting, CNN reported. “But we also need to recognize how valuable this technology is for patients every day, at home and in the hospital.” Precisely because the general public can use these devices at home to check their oxygen levels, the panel honed in on how to ensure the accuracy of pulse oximeters for all skin tones before they reach drugstore shelves. So, the panel focused on the structure of company trials testing the products. Back in 2013, the FDA issued premarket guidance for…  read on >  read on >

Black American women have much higher rates of high blood pressure than white women, and it’s especially deadly if hypertension sets in before the age of 35, new research shows. Black women diagnosed with high blood pressure before the age of 35 had triple the odds of suffering a stroke, compared to Black women without hypertension, the study found. “This research was motivated by the glaring disparity I have seen in my own practice. Strokes are occurring at younger ages among my patients who identify as Black and among women,” study lead author Dr. Hugo Aparicio said in an American Heart Association (AHA) news release. “Early-onset stroke, particularly at midlife, is even more tragic because these patients often have families or are caretakers for sick family members,” noted Aparicio, a professor of neurology at Boston University’s School of Medicine. Aparicio’s team plans to present its findings at next week’s International Stroke Conference in Phoenix. Findings presented at medical meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. Already, high blood pressure is a much bigger threat to Black American women compared to other patients. According to the AHA, about 58% of Black women have high blood pressure, compared to 43% of white women, 38% of Asian women and 35% of Hispanic women. That makes the rate of hypertension among Black American women “among…  read on >  read on >

Many swear that trendy fasting diets are keeping them slimmer and healthier. They may now have some science to back that up. British researchers at the University of Cambridge believe they’ve uncovered the processes that cause fasting to lower bodily inflammation. Long hours without eating appears to trigger a rise in a blood chemical called arachidonic acid, which has anti-inflammatory properties, reports a team led by Clare Bryant of Cambridge’s department of medicine. “We’re very interested in trying to understand the causes of chronic inflammation in the context of many human diseases,” she noted in a university news release. The new findings were published Jan. 23 in the journal Cell Reports. Bryant’s team are focused on what scientists are now calling the “inflammasome” — the cellular “alarm” system by which the body defends itself from injury or illness, triggering inflammation. Inflammatory processes can go awry, however, helping to foster illness on their own. “What’s become apparent over recent years is that one inflammasome in particular — the NLRP3 inflammasome — is very important in a number of major diseases such as obesity and atherosclerosis, but also in diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, many of the diseases of older age people, particularly in the Western world,” Bryant explained. It’s long been known that fasting appears to dampen inflammation, although it’s not been known why. In…  read on >  read on >

Toddlers are famously picky eaters, but parents may be doing their young child’s future gut a huge favor if they insist on a healthy diet. New research shows that toddlers who eat plenty of fish and vegetables, and precious few sugary drinks, are less likely to develop inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) by the time they are teenagers. IBD includes conditions such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. “These novel findings are consistent with the hypothesis that early-life diet, possibly mediated through changes in the gut microbiome, may affect the risk of developing IBD,” concluded the researchers led by Annie Guo, a pediatric nutritionist with the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. For the study, researchers analyzed diet and health data on more than 81,000 children who participated in two large-scale studies in Sweden and Norway. Parents filled out detailed questionnaires about their children’s diet at ages 12 to 18 months, and again at 30 to 36 months. Using that info, researchers estimated each child’s diet quality using measurements of meat, fish, fruit, vegetable, dairy, sweets, snacks and drinks consumption. A higher-quality diet had more veggies, fruit and fish, and less meat, sweets, snacks and drinks. Researchers then tracked each child for an average of 15 to 21 years, to see whether their diet influenced their risk of inflammatory bowel disease. During that period, 131 kids were…  read on >  read on >

The bacteria behind typhoid, a major killer of children in the developing world, could be vulnerable to something as simple as tomato juice, new research suggests. Typhoid is caused by the Salmonella Typhi bacterium, and is usually contracted from contaminated food or beverages. Its symptoms include nausea, fever and abdominal pain. Left untreated, the disease can prove fatal. Over 9 million cases of typhoid are recorded worldwide each year. Researchers at Cornell University wanted to investigate the purported antibacterial qualities of tomatoes and tomato juice. “Our main goal in this study was to find out if tomato and tomato juice can kill enteric pathogens, including Salmonella Typhi, and if so, what qualities they have that make them work,” study lead author Jeongmin Song said in a news release from the American Society for Microbiology. She’s an associate professor of microbiology & immunology at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. After conducting a variety of experiments in the laboratory, “our research shows that tomato and tomato juice can get rid of enteric bacteria like Salmonella” in the human digestive tract, Song said. To find out how it does so, the Cornell team looked closer at the tomato genome. They honed in on what are known as antimicrobial peptides — protein particles that disrupt a bacterium’s protective membrane. The tomato genome was found to produce at least two…  read on >  read on >