Germany says sprouts source of killer bacteria outbreak

BERLIN: Germany blamed vegetable sprouts for a bacteria outbreak that has killed at least 33, left some 3,000 ill and cost farmers across Europe hundreds of millions of euros in lost sales.
After a weeks-long hunt for the elusive source of the contamination, German officials said they were confident they had found the origin.
"It's the sprouts," Reinhard Burger, the president of the Robert Koch Institute, the national disease centre, told a news conference on the outbreak of enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) in northern Germany.
"People who ate sprouts were found to be nine times more likely to have bloody diarrhoea or other signs of EHEC infection than those who did not," he said, citing a study of more than 100 people who fell ill after dining in restaurants.
Test results on a packet of vegetable sprouts recovered from the rubbish bin of two sick people living in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia later provided the first direct trail evidence for the virulent bacteria.
The sprouts, which showed traces of the EHEC strain 0104, were grown at a farm in the northern village of Bienenbuettel on which suspicion had fallen last weekend. The farm has been closed and all its products recalled.
The government had earlier lifted a warning against eating raw tomatoes, lettuce and cucumbers which had dealt a stinging blow to farmers at the peak of the fresh produce season in Europe.
All 33 confirmed fatalities, three of which were reported Friday, have been in Germany except for one woman who died in Sweden after visiting Germany.
The warning against raw salad vegetables, first issued two weeks ago, has cost growers in Europe hundreds of millions of euros (dollars) in lost sales and sparked diplomatic spats across Europe.
The Netherlands welcomed the development as "excellent news".

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Why smokers gain weight when they quit

WASHINGTON: Scientists say they've finally discovered why smokers tend to gain some weight when they kick the habit.
It turns out that nicotine can rev up brain cells that normally signal people to stop eating when they're full, researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
The weight connection isn't huge: On average, quitters gain less than 10 pounds. Still, it's a worry that many smokers cite when asked why they don't try to quit. Now the question is whether the discovery might lead to better treatments to help them quit without worrying about weight.
Yale University associate research scientist Yann Mineur stumbled onto the connection while studying a nicotine-related substance in mice - and the animals suddenly started eating less.
Nicotine hooks onto a variety of receptors, or docking sites, on the surface of cells. That's how it triggers addiction in one part of the brain.
But when it comes to weight, the Yale research found that both nicotine and the related drug cytisine were activating a different receptor than the one involved in addiction. This one is located on a small set of neurons in the hypothalamus, a region that regulates appetite.
When they gave nicotine to mice without that cellular pathway, it didn't help them lose weight like it did normal mice.
Smoking causes cancer, heart attacks and a host of other ailments so worry about modest weight gain shouldn't deter someone from quitting. But smokers who do have that concern should try nicotine-based smoking-cessation treatments, said study senior author Marina Picciotto, a Yale professor of psychiatry and neurobiology.
The other drug used in the mouse experiments, cytisine, is sold in Eastern Europe for smoking cessation but not in the U.S., and she'd like to see if there's data on the weight of smokers abroad who've used it.
Developing a drug to target only these specific receptors would be difficult, she cautions, because they're also involved in the body's stress responses in ways that could lead to such side effects as high blood pressure.

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7 Worst Summer Drinks

What if you could turn this ongoing heatwave into an opportunity to lose weight without exercising or changing what you eat?
Here's all you have to do: Think before you drink. A lot of what's offered at the supermarket and the corner convenience store is likely to make this summer only more miserable by adding inches to your waistline.

#1: WORST MILKSHAKE
Cold Stone Creamery Oh Fudge! Shake (Like It size, 16 oz)
1,250 calories
70 g fat (45 g saturated)
127 g sugars

At Cold Stone, "Like It" is the small size. If you upgrade to "Gotta Have It," which denotes a large, you're facing 1,920 calories—nearly a full day's energy in one cup. The truth is, milkshakes represent some of the most concentrated calories that will ever cross your lips, so when you find a good one, you should take notice. Outside of what you might make in your own kitchen, the shake below from Baskin-Robbins is about as good as you're going to find. Order it with Premium Churned Chocolate Milk Ice Cream and it floats in at just 500 calories. That's a lot, to be sure, but it's better than the alternatives. Just save it for an occasional treat, and always offer to split with a friend.

Drink This Instead!
Baskin-Robbins Chocolate Shake (with Premium Churned Milk Chocolate Ice Cream) (small, 16 oz)
500 calories
16 g fat (10 g saturated)
73 g sugars

#2: WORST SMOOTHIE
Smoothie King The Activator Strawberry (32 oz) 
834 calories
1.5 g fat (0 g saturated)
134 g sugars

Judging solely by name, you'd think this beverage were some sort of metabolism-boosting superfruit, but in reality it's a hyper-sweetened smoothie filled out with 550 calories of pure sugar. In Smoothie King's defense, it also delivers nearly 30 grams of protein, but that's not nearly enough to justify the caloric impact. Unless you you're a body builder looking to maximize your caloric intake, leave this blended beverage behind the counter where it belongs.

Drink This Instead!
Jamba Juice Strawberry Nirvana (Power size, 30 oz)
300 calories
0.5 g fat
58 g sugars

#3: WORST FROZEN COFFEE DRINK
Dairy Queen Caramel MooLatte (medium, 16 oz)
660 calories
19 g fat (15 g saturated, 0.5 g trans)
90 g sugars

How is it that such a simple, healthy beverage like coffee can be so mistreated by fast-food purveyors? Dairy Queen's MooLattes, for example, are essentially fat-bloated milkshakes with a little coffee blended in, and the caramel version has nearly as many calories as five White Castle sliders. Want a caffeinated indulgence? Switch to Starbucks' Coffee Frappuccino. It's plenty sweet but saves you more than 400 calories. But be warned: While the Coffee Frappuccino is safe, some of Starbucks' other Fraps aren't so forgiving.

Drink This Instead!
Starbucks Coffee Frappuccino with 2% milk (Grande size, 16 oz)
230 calories
2 g fat (1 g saturated)
49 g sugars

#4: WORST LEMONADE
Orange Julius Lemon Julius (medium, 20 oz) 
360 calories
0 g fat 
94 g sugars

If you were drinking straight lemon juice, you could tip back 15 cups, or 120 fluid ounces, and still not reach the sugar impact of this icy, lemon-esque beverage from Orange Julius. So save yourself from sugar's flabby impact by switching to Chick-fil-A's low-cal lemonade. It blunts the typical sugar tariff with a dose of sucralose, which eliminates a clean 340 calories of added sugars.

Drink This Instead!
Chick-fil-A Diet Lemonade (medium, 20 oz)
20 calories
0 g fat
2 g sugars

#5: WORST BOTTLED TEA
SoBe Energize Green Tea (1 bottle, 20 oz)
240 calories
0 g fat
61 g sugars

Leave it to an "edgy" American beverage company to corrupt green tea, a natural wonder of the nutritional world. SoBe's product is merely a saccharine simulation of green tea, with "natural flavor" preceding "green tea extract" on the nutrition label. Gulp down one of these bottles and you've taken in the sugar equivalent of seven Popsicles. Go with Honest Tea instead—it has more than 80 percent less sugar and uses organic, fair trade green tea.

Drink This Instead!
Honest Tea Community Green Tea (1 bottle, 16 oz)
34 calories
0 g fat
10 g sugars

#6: WORST SODA
Sunkist (1 can, 12 oz)
190 calories
0 g fat
50 g sugars

Soda is one of the more condemnable sources of calories in the American diet. It doesn't even bother with the pretense of nutrition—it's pure sugar, plain and simple. But among the throngs of terrible sodas, Sunkist is the worst. A better option: Izze. 70 percent of this bottle is filled with real fruit juice, completely eliminating the need for added sugars. It's still not as healthy as real fruit, but it's a sizeable upgrade from carbonated high fructose corn syrup.

Drink This Instead!
Izze Sparkling Clementine (1 bottle, 12 oz)
120 calories
0 g fat
27 g sugars

#7: WORST WATER
Vitaminwater Multi-V (1 bottle, 20 oz)
125 calories
0 g fat
33 g sugars

As long as companies continue to sell multivitamin pills and your sink's faucet keeps spitting out tap water, you have no excuse to ever uncap one of these faux health drinks. This bottle has more sugar than a Snickers bar, so if you must indulge, opt for something from Vitaminwater's calorie-free Zero line. Or better yet, try Smartwater. It contains electrolytes that can help keep you hydrated when you're sweating out in the sun.

Drink This Instead!
Glaceau Smartwater (1 bottle, 24 oz)
0 calories
0 g fat
0 g sugars

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Seven ways to lose fat faster than ever

Tired of plugging away at the gym without seeing the pounds disappear? We found simple tricks that will transform your usual regimen into the ultimate fat-blasting routine. Whether you use just two of these strategies or all seven, our insider tips will help you get the calorie-burn you deserve.

1. Know this: “You’ll be able to comfortably work out longer and harder if you’re cool,” says Len Kravitz, PhD, coordinator of exercise science at the University of New Mexico. “Being too hot stresses your body out, so you don’t perform as well.” Translation: You burn less fat.

Do this: When exercising at home, put a fan in front of your workout area. Hitting the gym? Wait to use the treadmill that has a fan built into the console.

2. Know this: “Wearing a heart-rate monitor makes it easier to burn more body fat by showing just how hard you’re really working,” Kravitz says. “Keeping your heart rate in the right zone prevents you from slacking off, so you make the most of every minute.”

Do this: Invest in a heart-rate monitor and wear it every time you exercise. We love Life Fitness’s new Dual Watch and Heart Rate Monitor ($60; at CVS stores nationwide). It’s simple to program and use. It doesn’t require an uncomfortable chest strap—just touch the face with your fingertips. And it comes in a variety of sizes too.

3. Know this: “Warming up for five minutes before each workout helps you lose more weight,” says Heather Dillinger, an IDEA Health and Fitness Association elite-level personal-fitness trainer. “It not only makes your muscles more pliable but also increases their range of motion, so you end up using more muscle fibers as you exercise.”

Do this: Choose a warm-up routine that hits all of your muscles, not just your legs. The easiest option: Do three to five minutes of low-intensity walking while pumping your arms back and forth.

4. Know this: “Saving your energy for the end of your cardio workout may prevent you from losing as much weight as you can,” says metabolism expert Dixie Stanforth, of the department of kinesiology and health education at the University of Texas at Austin.

Do this: Instead of starting out slow and then finishing up strong, do your high-intensity cardio early in your workout. After doing your warm-up, try exercising at a high intensity for 15 minutes before slowing down to a more moderate pace for the last 15 minutes.

5. Know this: “Two smaller workouts can be more effective than one,” Stanforth reveals. That’s because every time you do high-intensity exercise, your metabolism stays revved for an hour or more afterward. Splitting up your workout boosts your metabolism twice, giving you additional calorie-burning time from the exact same routine.

Do this: Divide your workout into two smaller, high-intensity sessions preferably, doing one in the morning and one at night.

6. Know this: If you’re convinced that you’re melting fat while exercising, you’ll make a mind-body connection that will actually help you lose fat faster, Dillinger explains. In a 2007 Harvard study, participants who believed they were getting a good workout showed greater reductions in body fat than subjects who performed the same activities but didn’t feel like they were really exercising.

Do this: The next time you do anything active, remind yourself every few minutes that you’re giving it your all. This little mental move may motivate you to push yourself harder, leading to even greater fat loss.

7. Know this: “The less time you rest between sets when strength training, the more calories you’re likely to burn,” Dillinger notes. “Keeping rest periods short keeps your heart rate at a higher rate, which naturally increases the number of calories you’re using.”

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Health Benefits of Coconut Water

Coconut water is one of the best natural drinks Mother Nature has packed for us within the kernel of coconut, this natural water is not only tasteful refreshing drink but can be considered as one of the best natural health drinks from herbal world. Here are some health benefits of coconut water:-

Health Benefits of Coconut Water

Drinking coconut water keeps the body cool and at the proper temperature.

Coconut Water is an Antibacterial. Coconut water contains monolaurin, an antiviral, antibacterial and antiprozoal monoglyceride that is used to kill lipid-coated viruses such as HIV, Herpes, cytomegalovirus, flu and various pathogenic bacteria.

Coconut water is great at reducing vomiting. People who have typhoid, malaria, fevers or other ailments that are known to induce vomiting drink coconut water to settle the stomach. As such, coconut water is also a good thing to drink during a hangover.

Coconut helps in keeping check over urinary infections. It is very effective in treating kidney and urethral stones.

Coconut water is very effective in treating intestinal disturbances in infants. It kills intestinal worms.

Making coconut a part of the daily diet is recommended for those who have been troubled by kidney stones. When taken along with mediation, it helps break up the stones, making it easier for the body to push them out.

For all those people who are trying to lose weight, drinking coconut water would prove quite useful. This is because the drink increases the rate of metabolism, thus aiding weight loss.

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The real reason water helps you lose weight

Water was a very hot topic indeed last week when the results of a study linked water drinking to weight loss. The research showed that adults who drank two cups of water before each meal consumed fewer calories and lost more weight than those who didn't have the water. But it's not because there's a magic ingredient in water that sheds pounds or flushes away fat. There's more to the story on how water may ease girth control.

First a quick recap of the study: The scientists divided overweight and obese individuals into two groups. Both were given low-calorie diets but one group had to drink two eight-ounce glasses of water before each meal. At the end of the 12-week study, while both groups lost weight, the water drinking subjects lost an average of about five pounds more than their non-water drinking counterparts.

Some of the clues as to how the water may have helped the weight loss came from the study subjects who reported feeling more alert and less tired than usual. So what does that mean? If drinking water makes you feel more alert, then chances are that you're mildly dehydrated.

While this mild dehydration isn't dangerous, being slightly dehydrated can have consequences when it comes to how much you eat. It can interfere with hunger signals and leave you confused as to whether you are hungry or thirsty. Just think of how good having a juicy peach or two sounds if you're thirsty. But drink a glass or two of water and they may not seem as appealing.

Now think of this concept as it applies to meals. If you drink water when you're mildly dehydrated then chances are that you'll eat a little less - maybe just a little - but still less. In the study, the calorie difference between the two groups was less than 100 calories - nothing earth shattering but significant enough to impact weight loss.

In other words, it's not that drinking water flushes fat out of your body or offers some miracle way to lose weight - even if some bottled water companies would like you to believe it. After all, the water drinking dieters in this study were on a calorie-controlled eating regime. And in fact, other studies have shown that drinking water alone as a way to eat less doesn't aid in weight loss.

But water incorporated into a food can have much more of an impact on how much you eat. Think of high water content fruits and vegetables and how full you feel after eating them. It's one of the reasons that meeting your quota of these foods is linked to being at a healthier weight.

In a study at the University of Pennsylvania, researchers tested three different appetizers on subjects to determine the effect of water on calorie consumption - a chicken rice casserole, a chicken rice casserole with a glass of water alongside and then the same chicken rice casserole with the water incorporated into the casserole to make it a soup. When the subjects ate the casserole with or without drinking the water, they consumed the same number of calories at lunch. But when they had the soup, they ate less at lunch and didn't make up the calories at dinner.

Loading up on high water content produce will not only offer you the assorted disease-fighting benefits of fruits and vegetables, but, as with the chicken soup, they will also help to make you feel fuller. What's behind this is a term called caloric density. It refers to the number of calories in a gram or ounce of a particular food. A high caloric density food will supply many calories in a small serving compared to a low-density food, which offers plenty of bulk but at a lower caloric cost. Think one tablespoon of peanut butter at 94 calories versus one half cup cooked cauliflower at 15 calories. Eating 2.5 cups of cauliflower would still be fewer calories but it would definitely be more filling. As there is only so much room in your stomach, eating more foods with a lower caloric density can help you to take in fewer calories overall. Simply put, you will feel less hungry, making waist management an easier task.

But one instance where water alone can offer some real weight control perks is when it replaces calorie-containing beverages. Obviously if you have water instead of a sugar-containing soft drink or fruit juice, you will consume fewer calories. Switch to water over one can of regular pop on a daily basis and you'll save the caloric equivalent of about 15 pounds a year.

Here's a nifty trick, though, to help you save calories if you are a wine drinker. Always be sure to have a glass of water alongside your glass of wine. While years ago, spritzers, where the wine and water was combined, were popular, nowadays, wine drinkers tend to enjoy their vintages and would never dilute them with water. But if you make it a practice to have water to drink to quench your thirst and sip your wine for taste, then you will consume much less wine and consequently fewer calories. Just how often have you finished a glass of wine off too quickly because you were thirsty?

Keep in mind that staying well hydrated isn't just a warm weather issue. It certainly may be more pronounced when outdoor temperatures soar, but exercise and your environment can make it a year-round matter.

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The ugly truth about soft drinks

The perils of pop - both regular and sugar-free - have long been a hot topic in nutrition circles. But lately, the dialogue has reached a boiling point as scientific research has come up with some startling revelations- ones that should make you think twice before you reach for that can of pop.

A study, published in the October issue of the journal Obesity, assessed the types of sugars in a number of soft drinks and found that in those that contained high fructose corn syrup, fructose levels were far higher that what most people, including many nutrition experts, had previously believed.

We keep hearing from health researchers and soft drink companies alike that regular pop contains similar amounts of fructose and glucose. This means regardless of the type of sugar listed on the can, the health impact of regular pop would be the same. The study in Obesity blows that claim out of the water.

You may be wondering what the big deal is - sugar is sugar, right? High fructose intakes have been linked to an increase risk of developing insulin resistance and diabetes along with high blood pressure, fatty livers, high triglyceride levels in the blood and even easier weight gain - a pretty gruesome list.

In addition, fructose may boost the production of compounds called advanced glycation end products (AGEs) - substances that have a growing file of ill effects. One of their adverse effects is that they promote inflammation which may at the root of a host of diseases including heart disease, some cancers, diabetes and Alzheimer's. (The caramel colouring in both regular and diet colas also boosts AGEs production, according to research - how's that for a one-two punch?)

It's interesting to note that the makers of high fructose corn syrup recently changed the name to corn sugar as they said it was a more accurate reflection of what it is and to avoid all the implications of a high fructose ingredient. While there has been some criticism about the sample size used in the Obesity study, the new research showing that a number of brands contained as much as 65 per cent fructose - nearly 20 per cent more than was believed - you have to wonder about the health toll of consuming these soft drinks on a regular basis.

No matter what sugar is used, though, these sweetened beverages are not faring well under scientific scrutiny.

A new review study from the Harvard School of Public Health, which was published in the journal Diabetes Care, showed that drinking one to two sugary drinks per day increased the risk of type 2 diabetes by 26 per cent compared with those who consumed less than one sugary drink per month.

The risk of metabolic syndrome, a cluster of disease risks including high waist measures, high blood pressure, elevated levels of triglycerides, a potentially artery-clogging blood fat, low levels of the protective HDL-cholesterol, abnormal glucose tolerance and insulin resistance, also rose by 20 per cent in group that drank more pop.

Diet soft drinks haven't been given a clean bill of health either. But here it appears that the waters are muddier, as scientists try to separate the causes and effects of drinking diet beverages from the behaviours of people those who consume diet drinks in the highest amounts.

For example, diet pop drinkers may weigh more to start. After all, people who weigh too much may be more likely to be concerned with their calorie counts.

One comprehensive scientific paper, published in 2009, looked at the theory that arti?cial sweeteners may increase the desire for sweets and lead to greater consumption of food and weight gain. This research was based on animal studies, but when it comes to humans, results have been conflicting. What's needed are clinical studies where two groups of identical people either consume a certain number of diet drinks or have none at all. Then scientists can finally come up with a verdict.

When it comes to diet drinks, the concerns go beyond whether they can increase your propensity to gain weight. In Canada, acesulfame-K and aspartame are the two artificial sweeteners used by major soft drink makers. How safe are they, you may wonder?

The consumer advocacy group Centre for Science in the Public Interest calls the testing on acesulfame-K "mediocre" as they were not comprehensive enough. They also point to research that shows that large amounts of a breakdown product of acesulfame-K affects thyroid function in some animals. How this impacts humans in the doses present in diet soft drinks is unclear.

As for aspartame, they cite a number of studies that show possible links to cancer and as a result, suggest that people - especially young children - should avoid foods and beverages that contain the sweetener (they recommend switching to products sweetened with sucralose - Splenda - if they are consuming artificially sweetened foods).

And then there's the issue of your pearly whites. Because of their acidic content, soft drinks such as colas, lemon-lime and orange flavours have been linked to erosion of the enamel - not a prescription for maintaining a dazzling smile. The phosphoric acid in pop has also been the centre of investigations into the impact on bone health. However, the link to poor bone health may simply be due to the soft drinks replacing calcium-rich options like milk. Stay tuned for the verdict.

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