When Food and Pills Clash

Fresh Concerns on How Diet and Medicines Interact, From Pepper to Pomegranate

Americans increasingly view the food they eat as medicine to help lower cholesterol, reduce high blood pressure and control blood sugar. But as with prescribed drugs, the health-improving qualities of foods such as olive oil, nuts and fruit can interact with other medications, causing possible problems.

Pharmacists often warn people not to mix anti-cholesterol drugs known as statins with grapefruit juice. Newer research suggests that other fruit juices, including cranberry and pomegranate, as well as olive oil may also interfere with how statins work in the body. Other laboratory studies show that certain popular teas can block the effect of some medications, including the flu drug Tamiflu. And switching to a low-fat diet, itself a healthy lifestyle change, could reduce the potency of some medications.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704256304575320743052254682.html?KEYWORDS=shirley+s+wang#articleTabs%3Darticle

WSJ, June 1, 2010

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When ingested, ginger can help to relieve muscle pain.

Pain Relief: Ginger appears to reduce exercise-induced muscle pain, according to a study in the Journal of Pain. Researchers randomly assigned 74 adults to consume two grams of either ginger (raw in one experiment and heat-treated in another) or a placebo for 11 consecutive days. On the eighth day, the participants performed series of bicep exercises tailored to mildly damage the muscle in their non-dominant arm. One day later, participants who had been given ginger reported feeling about 25% less pain, on a scale from "no pain" to the "most intense pain imaginable," than subjects in the placebo group. Though the precise pain-fighting mechanism is unknown, animal studies have shown that several chemicals in ginger reduce inflammation and the transmission of pain signals. The results also jibe with previous trials of smaller doses of ginger extract over a longer treatment period, which reportedly reduced joint pain in arthritis patients.

Caveat: By the second day after the exercise, the differences in pain between the test groups were statistically insignificant.

• Ginger (Zingiber officinale) Reduces Muscle Pain Caused by Eccentric Exercise

Excess Salt, and a Way to Avoid It

Opinion Excess Salt, and a Way to Avoid It null Published: June 4, 2010 Readers respond to a recent article on salt. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/opinion/l06salt.html

The Claim: Rosemary Helps Reduce Toxins in Grilled Meat

By ANAHAD O'CONNOR

THE FACTS

Cooking meat at high temperatures is known to create toxins called heterocyclic amines, which have been linked to some cancers. Marinating lowers the risk by preventing the formation of the toxins. But one ingredient that makes a big difference is rosemary. Studies show that adding it to ground beef and other types of muscle meat before grilling, frying, broiling or barbecuing significantly reduces heterocyclic amines.

In a study published in The Journal of Food Science in March, scientists tested extracts of rosemary on ground beef patties that were cooked at temperatures from 375 degrees to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. The extract was added to both sides of the meat before cooking. The higher the concentration, the greater the reduction in heterocyclic amines (in some cases by over 90 percent.

Scientists attribute this to specific antioxidants in rosemary: rosmarinic acid, carnosol and carnosic acid. Another study two years ago compared several marinades and found that the one that was most protective was a Caribbean mixture, which, they wrote, “contained considerable amounts” of the same three antioxidants.

If rosemary is not your thing, or you have an allergy, try marinades with garlic, onion and lemon juice. They have also been shown in studies to be effective (garlic and onion much more so than lemon juice).

THE BOTTOM LINE

Studies show that marinades with rosemary help eliminate some carcinogens in grilled meat.

scitimes@nytimes.com

Regimens: Eat Your Vegetables, but Not Too Many

By RONI CARYN RABIN

They say you can never be too rich or too thin. But is it possible to eat too many leafy green vegetables?

Last year, an 88-year-old woman was admitted to NYU Langone Medical Center in a nearly comatose state, unable to walk or swallow and barely able to breathe. Though she had no history of thyroid disease, she was given a diagnosis of myxedema coma a life-threatening condition caused by extreme hypothyroidism, or low thyroid function.

The culprit, it turned out, was raw bok choy. The patient had been eating two to three pounds of it every day for several months, in the belief it would help control her diabetes. Instead, the vegetables may have suppressed her thyroid, according to NYU physicians who described the case in a letter in the May 20 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

Bok choy contains compounds called glucosinolates that have been found to inhibit thyroid function in animals.

“I don’t want to say people shouldn’t be eating raw vegetables, but everything in moderation — even things that are good for us,” said Dr. Michael Chu, an NYU resident physician who was one of the letter’s authors. “This probably wouldn’t have happened if the vegetables were cooked.”