Advanced liver cirrhosis can push levels of ammonia in the blood to hazardous levels, but skipping meat at mealtime can help reverse that, new research shows. “It was exciting to see that even small changes in your diet, like having one meal without meat once in a while, could benefit your liver by lowering harmful ammonia levels in patients with cirrhosis,” said study lead author Dr. Jasmohan Bajaj, a gastroenterologist at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.  As the research team explained, bacteria in your gut automatically generate ammonia as they help the body digest food. In folks with healthy livers, the organ takes that ammonia and sends it to the kidneys, where its excreted harmlessly via urine.  However, cirrhosis impairs the organ’s ability to process ammonia so that it builds up in a toxic way.  Ammonia can even travel to the brain and trigger confusion or delirium, the researchers noted. That’s called hepatic encephalopathy, and without treatment it can lead to coma and death.  Diet can play a big role in these processes, because Western diets low in fiber and high in meat and carbohydrates boost levels of ammonia produced by the gut. So, what if a culprit like meat was cut out of the mix? The new study involved 30 meat-eating adults treated for cirrhosis at the Richmond VA Medical Center. Patients were asked…  read on >  read on >

Giving your kid a drink, snack or small bag of fast food on the way home from day care might distract them during a busy commute, but it’s not doing their daily diet any favors, a new study warns. The hour after kids are picked up from day care stands out as a high-calorie, less healthy part of their overall diet, researchers report April 27 in the journal Children’s Health Care. Chlidren ages 3 to 5 consume about 20% of their day’s entire calorie intake in the hour after leaving day care, researchers found. That’s 290 calories, on average, out of nearly 1,500 calories eaten daily, an amount on the high end of recommended daily limits. What’s more, that hour’s snacks and drinks account for more than one-fifth of the day’s added sugars and around one-third of a kid’s daily sweet and salty snack foods. “Every parent knows how busy that time of day can feel. Parents can feel stressed, the kids may be cranky, hungry or tired. There’s nothing wrong with treats once in a while,” said senior researcher Dr. Kristen Copeland, a pediatrician with Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. “But that car ride home also can be an opportunity to instill healthier habits instead of less healthy ones.” For the new study, researchers analyzed daily food journals kept by more than 300 families of children…  read on >  read on >

In yet another sign that bird flu is spreading widely among mammals, a new report finds more than half of cats at the first Texas dairy farm to have cows test positive for bird flu this spring died after drinking raw milk. Published Tuesday in the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, the report details the early stages of the investigation into the spread of bird flu among the country’s dairy farms. Cats at the Texas farm had been fed raw milk from cows that turned out to be infected with avian influenza, also known as H5N1. A day after the farm noticed cows were getting sick, the cats started getting sick. In the end, more than half of the cats perished. “The cats were found dead with no apparent signs of injury and were from a resident population of [approximately] 24 domestic cats that had been fed milk from sick cows,” the scientists wrote in their report. Tests of the samples collected from the brains and lungs of dead cats yielded results suggesting “high amounts of virus,” and autopsies revealed “microscopic lesions consistent with severe systemic virus infection,” in the eyes and brain, they said “Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has indicated the commercial milk supply remains safe, the detection of influenza virus in unpasteurized bovine milk is a concern because of potential cross-species transmission,” they added.…  read on >  read on >

Having a child with food allergies isn’t easy to manage, and now new research shows that most of these parents turn to social media for medical advice. When they do, some of the advice is good and some is not, researchers report.  In the study, published recently in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), 93% of surveyed parents of children with food allergies reported using online search engines. In general, online searches were conducted daily or multiple times a day. Facebook was the most used social media platform. The most common reasons for using social media were to access allergy tips for school/travel, signs and symptoms of allergic reactions, and how to find food allergy support groups.  “We know that patients increasingly use online resources for information, but unfortunately they cannot always evaluate whether the information is outdated, incorrect or simply out of context,” said lead study author Dr. Aikaterini Anagnostou, director of the Food Immunotherapy Program at Texas Children’s Hospital and vice chair of the ACAAI Food Allergy Committee. “The goal of our study was to characterize use of online resources by parents of children with food allergies regarding information and/or support for their child’s food allergy.” The researchers surveyed 145 parents of children with a diagnosis of food allergy.…  read on >  read on >

Live bird flu virus has not been found in any of the first batch of retail milk samples tested, federal health officials said Friday. Amid an ongoing outbreak of bird flu in U.S. dairy cows, the early findings should reassure the public that the milk sold in stores remains safe, officials added. In the online update, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said the initial test findings likely mean the pasteurization process is killing the virus. “These results reaffirm our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe,” the agency wrote, but testing efforts are continuing. “The FDA is further assessing retail samples from its study of 297 samples of retail dairy products from 38 states,” the agency added. “All samples with a PCR-positive result are going through egg inoculation tests, a gold standard for determining if infectious virus is present.” “These important efforts are ongoing, and we are committed to sharing additional testing results as soon as possible,” the FDA added. FDA officials also tested infant and toddler formulas, which used powdered milk, and did not find any evidence of the virus, the agency noted. The story is different when it comes to viral fragments of bird flu: genetic bits of the virus have been discovered in roughly 20% of retail milk samples tested in a national survey, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration…  read on >  read on >

Bits of bird flu virus have been discovered in roughly 20% of retail milk samples tested in a national survey, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Thursday. The finding suggests that bird flu has spread far more widely among dairy cows than officials first thought. Samples from parts of the country that have infected dairy herds were more likely to test positive, the agency noted, and regulators stressed there is no evidence yet that cow milk poses a danger to consumers or that live virus is present in milk on store shelves. Still, 33 herds across eight states have already been confirmed to have been infected with bird flu, also known as H5N1. “It suggests that there is a whole lot of this virus out there,” Richard Webby, a virologist and influenza expert at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, told the New York Times. While it is still possible to eradicate bird flu from the nation’s dairy farms, Webby noted it is hard to control the outbreak without knowing its full scope. To that end, the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday announced mandatory testing of dairy cows moving across state lines. Until now, testing of cows had been voluntary and focused on cows with obvious symptoms of illness. As of Wednesday, 23 people had been tested for the virus, while 44 people were being monitored…  read on >  read on >

Emulsifiers — substances that are essential ingredients in processed foods — appear to increase people’s risk of type 2 diabetes, a new study finds. In fact, the more emulsifiers that people eat as part of their food, the higher their risk of type 2 diabetes, researchers reported April 23 in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal. These results, if confirmed by follow-up studies, should add to “the debate on re-evaluating the regulations around the use of additives in the food industry, in order to better protect consumers,” lead author Mathilde Touvier, research director with the French Institute of Health and Medical Research. Emulsifiers are additives that help bind two substances that typically separate when they’re combined, like oil and water, according to the European Food Information Council. These commonly used food additives are often added to processed and packaged foods to improve their appearance, taste and texture, and to lengthen their shelf life, researchers said. Cakes, cookies, desserts, yogurts, ice cream, chocolate, breads, margarine and ready-to-eat or ready-to-heat meals all typically contain emulsifiers, researchers noted. The safety of emulsifiers has been evaluated by food safety and health agencies, as with all food additives, the researchers said. However, recent studies suggest that emulsifiers might disrupt healthy bacteria in the gut, increasing the risk of inflammation, insulin resistance and diabetes, researchers said. To evaluate this potential risk,…  read on >  read on >