Eating Cruciferous Vegetables May Curb Inflammation

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In a study of more than 1,000 Chinese women, those who ate the most cruciferous vegetables had substantially less inflammation than those who ate the fewest.

Cruciferous vegetables include cabbage, broccoli, bok choy, Brussels sprouts, kale and cauliflower, and eating them is often encouraged as a way to lower risk for heart disease and cancer.

Based on their findings, the study authors say the health benefits of these vegetables may be at least partly a result of their anti-inflammatory effects.

"Our group and others have found that consumption of fruits and vegetables, particularly cruciferous vegetables, was associated with lower total mortality and cardiovascular disease mortality - however, the potential mechanisms behind this association are not well understood," Dr. Gong Yang told Reuters Health by email.

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Multivitamins: Is the Jury Still Out?

Hello. This is Dr. JoAnn Manson, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Today I want to talk about multivitamins. Is the jury still out? Should we be recommending multivitamins for our patients? Do we know who is a good candidate and who is not?

It would be an understatement to say that there is a lot of confusion out there about multivitamins. This is surprising given the high prevalence of use of multivitamins. In the United States among women overall, more than one third use multivitamins; and among mid-life and older women, more than 50% use multivitamins.^[1] Thus, it is very important that we understand the balance -- the benefits and risks -- of the use of multivitamins. It is surprising that in the year 2014, there has not been a single completed large-scale randomized trial of multivitamins that includes women. I am talking about the full comprehensive multivitamins that contain at least 20 vitamins and minerals in the usual doses that would be achievable through diet. I am not talking about megadoses of individual, isolated micronutrients.

The one randomized trial that has been completed was the US Physicians Health Study-II,^[2,3] which included only men but suggested some benefits. The Physicians Health Study-II showed a modest (about 8%) reduction in cancer with use of a daily multivitamin, which could translate into quite a few cases of cancer prevented.^[2] Among the men who were aged 70 years and older, there was a statistically significant 18% reduction in cancer.^[2] The study also found about a 10% reduction in cataract risk and 10% reduction in cardiovascular disease.^[3] Findings suggested that the older men might do better than the younger men with multivitamin use. Overall results favored multivitamin use in men, but it is important to understand whether women may also benefit.

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Mediterranean Diets Beat Low-Fat for CVD Prevention

Loma Linda, CA — A Mediterranean diet supplemented with either extra virgin olive oil or mixed nuts may cut the risk of cardiovascular events by as much as 30% in subjects at high risk of developing heart disease, as compared with people advised to eat a reduced-fat diet [1].

Those are the key findings from the randomized controlledPREDIMED primary-prevention trial presented here at theInternational Congress on Vegetarian Nutrition.

The Mediterranean diet already reigns supreme in secondary prevention of CV events. PREDIMED, which looked at diet effects on hard clinical end points, carves out an important role for this dietary eating pattern in primary prevention.

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Google Makes Nutrition Data Comparison a Cinch

Google Makes Nutrition Data Comparison a Cinch (via http://eatdrinkbetter.com)

Is there anything Google can’t or won’t do? I know. That’s a silly question. So, what if you want to know the nutrition data comparison, say, between kale and beef? Just go to Google and type it in: “compare kale beef.” Or “kale vs. beef…

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