| Don't miss any of Bottom Line's Daily Health News. Add our address, dailyhealthnews@edhn.bottomlinesecrets.com, to your Address Book or Safe List. Learn how here. February 10, 2011  In This Issue...
 The Great Extra Virgin Olive Oil Hoax CONSUMER ALERT: If you use olive oil as part of a healthy diet, this is shocking news... Independent tests at the University of California, Davis, discovered that 69% of all imported extra virgin olive oils tested were fake! What’s worse, this revelation comes on the heels of other media reports of rampant fraud in the sale of extra virgin olive oil. The good news -- there are a few olive oils independently certified to be 100% pure extra virgin (the highest quality). By special arrangement, Daily Health News readers are entitled to receive a free full-size sample bottle of one of the world’s healthiest and most flavorful extra virgin oils. Only 480 free sample bottles to give away, so if you’d like one... Does Candy Make Life Better? Valentine’s Day is coming, and an extravagant box of high-end chocolates is a romantic and easy gift... impressively expensive, sensual and luxurious... but is it a loving one? After all, even if all the pieces in the heart-shaped box are made of dark chocolate with high cacao content, candy is still candy -- highly caloric, loaded with sugar and fat, and nearly devoid of other nutrients. Is this really a "gift" to choose for someone you love? Sweets for Your Sweet For all the delight that it brings to our lives, many of us have very complicated relationships with candy -- so much so that Samira Kawash, PhD, a professor emerita of women’s and gender studies at Rutgers University, has left her initial, more serious field of study to instead devote herself to learning more about how and why Americans have demonized candy. As The Candy Professor (www.CandyProfessor.com), Dr. Kawash blogs about our sweet obsessions and, she told me, she’s working on a book-length study of candy in 20th-century America. She pointed out that even high-quality candy is a relatively inexpensive treat, adding that "there’s undeniably something comforting about the sweetness." Interestingly, there’s an inverse correlation between the health of our economy and candy consumption -- candy sales rise in hard times and, in fact, many of our most popular brands, including Snickers (1930) and Three Musketeers (1932), were launched during the Great Depression. Dr. Kawash pointed out that for many adults, candy evokes nostalgia and a connection to a simpler time. Anyone old enough to remember the corner candy store will recall the delight in looking over the rows of colorful candies and trying to decide which were worthy of our pennies (and most of us remember a time when candy did indeed cost just pennies). Not Such a Sweet Obsession It’s not candy that is so unhealthy, Dr. Kawash told me, but rather our relationship with it. By way of explaining, she gave me a few examples from her own life. "My mother didn’t allow candy in the house, and I spent my childhood trying to get it from friends," she said, noting that being deprived of candy only made her want it all the more. Her professional interest in sweets as a social issue was stoked, she told me, when, as an adult, she offered some jelly beans to her daughter’s playmate. The child’s parents recoiled -- and the father compared the candy to cocaine. Dr. Kawash told me that she thought this was a very strange reaction from parents whose kitchen was stocked with plenty of sugar-loaded juices, snack bars and other sweet "foods." Candy, at least, is straightforward, she said. "It’s sugar and it doesn’t pretend to be anything but what it is -- a tasty treat -- and there’s nothing wrong with that." Dr. Kawash believes that the real evil, in terms of our health, is all those other sugar-laden products on supermarket shelves that masquerade as healthy choices. It’s Not So Bad... Candy has been made the scapegoat for a host of diet-related health problems, said Dr. Kawash, but she believes this is simplistic. It’s true that candy contains sugar... and excessive sugar is unhealthy. But, said Dr. Kawash, "sugar is in a lot of things we eat -- cereals, juices, breads, processed foods, soft drinks and energy bars. It’s easy to say, 'Get rid of candy,' without looking at where else sugar is coming from." In examining why we see candy as being so harmful, Dr. Kawash told me that she often hears people make several incorrect or unsubstantiated claims -- for instance... It’s addictive. "The science of a link between sugar and addiction is murky," she told me, noting that "cravings for sugar are not the same as cravings for nicotine or alcohol, which lead to a biochemical addiction." A bit of sugar in a diet filled with nutritious foods will not lead to an "addiction." It rots your teeth. Yes, sugar can be bad for dental health, Dr. Kawash agreed, but so can a lot of other foods. She noted that the real problem is how long the food remains in your mouth -- rinsing your mouth with warm water immediately after eating, or better yet, brushing your teeth within an hour or so is an obvious and easy solution. It makes people hyper. There’s a lot of talk about how sugar makes people temporarily jittery and even makes children hyperactive, but not all scientists agree that there is a connection between sugar and hyperactivity. In fact, Dr. Kawash says, some scientific studies show that sugar may actually have the opposite effect, making you feel drowsy after the initial and brief sugar rush. Guilty Pleasures As adults, when we indulge ourselves in something pleasurable, our enjoyment often is tinged with guilt -- but when it comes to enjoying candy in moderation, that guilt is neither necessary nor healthful, Dr. Kawash believes. In her opinion, we would do well to divest ourselves of the notion that certain foods are "good" while others are simply "bad." Candy is meant to be savored, not to be gorged upon. If you want candy, go ahead and have some -- just a bit, not a lot. Make it good candy -- something that’s your favorite and is made of high-quality ingredients. Candy is one of life’s pleasures and, as such, it may be a delightful and entirely appropriate gift to offer your valentine! Source(s): Samira Kawash, PhD, a professor emerita of women’s and gender studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. www.CandyProfessor.com.  The 10 Biggest and Deadliest Heart Myths The number of heart attacks has increased by 27 percent over the past 20 years, in spite of all the supposed advances of modern medicine. What's going on here? Could we be mistaken about some things? Perhaps we're under some major misconceptions about heart disease. Like... Myth #1 -- Heart disease and heart attacks are an inevitable part of aging. Myth #2 -- Cholesterol is the main cause of heart disease and heart attacks. Myth #3 -- Blood pressure drugs help you avoid heart problems and live longer. Myth #4 -- Aggressive, "type A" behavior increases your risk of a heart attack. Myth #5 -- Low-fat, low cholesterol diets are good for you and your heart. Refractory Celiac -- New Solutions Did you know that some people with celiac disease (the condition that makes people unable to digest the gluten found naturally in wheat, rye and barley) are unable to control their symptoms even with faithful adherence to a gluten-free diet? The reason why that’s so is a puzzle doctors and researchers are working to solve. While they’re not ruling out the possibility that some or even all of these patients are unknowingly consuming gluten, even though they think they are adhering to a strict gluten-free diet, many doctors believe that another factor is at work as well. (For more on the topic of gluten contamination in supposedly "safe" foods, see Daily Health News October 5, 2010, "Gluten-Tainted Foods".) It appears that the damage done to the digestive systems of these patients doesn’t heal when they stop consuming gluten -- unlike most people with celiac disease, these unlucky folks continue to experience symptoms, and ultimately a higher risk for other serious illnesses, including cancer. This condition is called refractory celiac disease. The good news is that this problem is rare, affecting only about 1% of people with celiac disease. Not only that, but inroads are being made in treating this unusual condition. Specifically, researchers have identified a new class of drugs to treat refractory celiac disease that is showing great promise -- I will tell you all about it in a minute, but let’s first talk about how this happens, because few people are aware that this problem even exists. Blame the Patient? When patients with celiac disease continue to suffer their miserable symptoms (including frequent bouts of diarrhea and flatulence) even after changing their diets, doctors tend to assume that they are still ingesting gluten from somewhere. As Daniel Leffler, MD, MS, founding member of the Celiac Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, and coauthor of the book Real Life with Celiac Disease, told me, sticking to the diet can be "really, really hard." That’s not to say that these folks are giving in to temptation and eating pastries, pasta and bread, but rather because gluten lurks in many surprising foods including, as I mentioned above, some foods that are labeled to be free from gluten. It’s a serious issue that goes far beyond the discomfort and inconvenience of the symptoms -- refractory celiac disease is associated with lymphoma and any number of other potentially deadly illnesses. Since the condition remains unusual, there’s still much to be learned about diagnosing and treating this problem, Dr. Leffler told me. Treatment options focus on controlling inflammation:
Natural Treatments I asked Daily Health News contributing medical editor Andrew L. Rubman, ND, about this problem, and he told me that some physicians have had success treating patients with refractory celiac disease with willow bark extract, which contains salicin, the compound upon which aspirin and mesalamine are based. Individuals who have, or suspect that they have, refractory celiac disease should seek out an experienced celiac team whenever possible, according to Dr. Leffler. A list of celiac centers can be found at www.bidmc.org/celiaccenter. And meanwhile, you can be sure that I’ll continue to follow this story -- it’s an important one. Source(s): Daniel Leffler, MD, MS, founding member of the Celiac Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, coauthor of Real Life with Celiac Disease (AGA). Be well,
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