BPA Is Still Present in 60% of Cans in the U.S.: Study

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Non-profit campaigns and health-advocacy groups have devoted years to alerting the public about how the chemical Bisphenol A, known as BPA, may cause hormone disruption—which is of particular concern for young children and pregnant women. Now, thanks in large part to those campaigns, many food companies have said they will remove the chemical from their cans.

But a new report from a group of non-profits shows that many cans on U.S. grocery stores shelves still contain BPA. More than two thirds of cans tested, including products by some of America’s largest food companies, contain the chemical, according to the report. Even in cans where BPA has been removed, the report claims, food companies have provided little information about what they are using in their canned good instead.

“This is shocking to us because we’ve been hearing for years now that the canned food industry en masse was moving away from BPA,” says report co-author Janet Nudelman, director of program and policy at the advocacy group Breast Cancer Fund.

According to the report, all of the Campbell’s cans tested, 71% of those from Del Monte and 50% of sampled General Mills cans contained BPA. Amy’s Kitchen, Annie’s Homegrown, Hain Celestial Group and ConAgra have all transitioned away from BPA—and that was reflected in the test results in the report, as well; those tested in this study were free of BPA. The report says that some of the companies found to have BPA in their cans have previously made commitments to phase out the chemical.

On Monday, Campbell’s announced that it would “complete a transition to cans which do not use Bisphenol A (BPA) linings by the middle of 2017″—the completion of a promise first made back in 2012. Del Monte also announced this week that it would phase out BPA this year. Whole Foods was among the companies that have made commitments to eliminate BPA but which was found in this report to have some products that still contain it, has said that “buyers are not currently accepting any new canned items with BPA in the lining material.” Similarly, Alberstons says that it is transitioning away from the chemical in “as many products as possible.”

A body of research in recent years has suggested that BPA is an endocrine disruptor linked with infertility, obesity, diabetes and reproductive problems. A study published this week suggests that it may be associated with preterm birth. Some of this evidence, taken together, prompted the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to announce a ban of the chemical from some baby products like sippy cups in 2012. The agency maintains that the chemical is still safe for adults. (A spokesperson for the American Chemistry Council trade group did not return a request for comment on the safety of BPA.)

Complicating things is the fact that despite the outcry over BPA, scientists have yet to find a reliable alternative that can effectively serve the same purpose as BPA—keeping the can from corroding and affecting food—without many of the same concerns. Many of the alternatives that have been employed thus far, including Bisphenol S and F, exhibit the same properties in BPA, a recent study showed.

“The question is ‘What did they replace it with?’” says University of Calgary researcher Deborah Kurrasch, who has written on BPA alternatives.

The report was published by product-safety advocacy groups including the Breast Cancer Fund, Campaign for Healthier Solutions, Canada’s Environmental Defence and Safer Chemicals, among others.

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

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Ashley Graham Goes (Nearly) Naked for ‘Maxim’ and Completely Slays

Ashley Graham is Maxim Magazine’s April cover girl, and not only does she look stunning thanks to her own flawlessness + a little help from make up artist Leslie Lopez, she’s nearly naked.

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Graham is famous for her body positive attitude, and this spread is no exception. “We’ve been waiting to be praised for our bodies and not looked at because we didn’t have something specific,” she told MIMI. “I’m considered the other. I’m considered something that isn’t traditionally beautiful, and at the end of the day I’m letting everybody know, it doesn’t matter what you are, who you are, what you wanna be. You are beautiful. The thing is, you have to believe it.”

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By the way, Graham also had her husband, Justin Ervin, act as a faux bra during the shoot.

Best photo of the bunch, right?

This article originally appeared on MIMIchatter.com.

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Evening Snacking Might Raise Odds for Breast Cancer’s Return

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, March 31, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Breast cancer patients fond of midnight snacking may be at a higher risk of a breast cancer recurrence, according to new research.

“Women whose usual nightly fast was less than 13 hours had a 36 percent increased risk of having a recurrence of the breast cancer over about seven years [of follow-up],” said study co-author Ruth Patterson, of the University of California, San Diego.

“We considered recurrence either [cancer] at the same site or a new primary [cancer],” said Patterson, associate director of population sciences at the university’s Moores Cancer Center.

Previous research done on rats found that prolonged nighttime fasting can be protective against high blood sugar (glucose) levels, inflammation and weight gain, all of which are linked with poor outcomes for cancer, the researchers said.

So Patterson’s team looked at data from more than 2,400 women enrolled in the Women’s Healthy Eating and Living study, between 1995 and 2007. The women, aged 27 to 70, had been diagnosed with early stage breast cancer. The aim of the study was to look at whether a diet very high in fruits and vegetables could reduce the risk of cancer recurrence, Patterson said. No differences were found, but researchers continue to draw data from the study to look at other outcomes and associations.

Using self-reported dietary data, the researchers found that, overall, the women had an average fasting duration of 12.5 hours nightly. An eating episode was termed as consuming anything totaling at least 25 calories after 8 p.m.

The researchers found only a link, or association, to the lower fasting time and cancer recurrence, Patterson said, so it’s too early to make a recommendation. She can only speculate as to why the link was there. The association does not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

“Circulating sugar levels can be fuel for tumors,” Patterson said. “We have a lot of data suggesting that when people have bad sleep or shorter sleep duration, they may have a higher cancer risk.”

In addition, the investigators found that those who fasted longer had lower hemoglobin A1C levels — a measure of blood glucose levels over the past three months — and also had a longer sleep duration.

The length of nighttime fasting, however, did not affect the risk of death from breast cancer or any cause during the follow-up period, according to the study, published online March 31 in JAMA Oncology.

“Evolutionary-wise, we developed to eat when it is light, when we were out hunting and gathering,” Patterson said. “You should be eating when you are moving. When we go against these natural rhythms, it appears that your body clock is out of sync, and this can lead to poor metabolic health.”

That poor health, in turn, could raise the risk of cancer returning, experts believe.

The study finding is “provocative,” said Dr. Joanne Mortimer, director of the Women’s Cancer Program at City of Hope in Duarte, Calif. She reviewed the study and agreed that it’s too early to make a broad recommendation for cancer patients. “It’s an interesting observation and it needs to be studied more,” she said.

“I think sleep, diet and weight control are all kind of related,” Mortimer added. Many of her breast cancer patients report sleep problems, she said. Those who fast and get better sleep may be less likely to develop metabolic syndrome, a clustering of conditions (such as high blood pressure, high blood glucose, low “good” cholesterol) that raise risks for heart disease and other problems, she suggested.

More information

To learn more about sleep and cancer risk, visit the National Sleep Foundation.

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Experimental Drug for Rheumatoid Arthritis Shows Promise

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, March 31, 2016 (HealthDay News) — An experimental drug to treat rheumatoid arthritis showed promise in a new six-month trial.

Baricitinib substantially reduced symptoms and improved daily physical functioning among people who failed other treatments for the autoimmune disease, researchers found.

“If you have active disease and you’ve failed existing treatment options, you should have hope,” said lead researcher Dr. Mark Genovese. He is a professor of immunology and rheumatology at Stanford University School of Medicine in California. “There is another therapy, which will hopefully become available, that has demonstrated it can work in that situation.”

The report was published March 31 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The trial was sponsored by Eli Lilly and Co., the manufacturer of baricitinib. Lilly is currently seeking approval of the drug from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

For the phase 3 trial, Genovese, who is a consultant to Lilly, and colleagues randomly assigned more than 500 patients at 178 centers in 24 countries to one of three groups. One group received 4 milligrams of baricitinib a day, the second group got 2 milligrams, and the third group received a placebo for 24 weeks.

The researchers found that about 55 percent of the patients taking the higher dose of baricitinib experienced a reduction of at least 20 percent in the number of affected joints at week 12 of the study.

For patients on the lower dose, 49 percent experienced a similar reduction. Among patients on placebo, only 27 percent saw this effect, the researchers said.

In addition, patients taking either dose of baricitinib had improved physical function and reductions in inflammation. These benefits remained after 24 weeks, according to the report.

The most common side effect of baricitinib was mild upper-respiratory infections among as many as 77 percent of patients taking the drug, compared with 64 percent of those taking the placebo, the investigators found.

Also, after 12 weeks, about 2 percent of patients in the high-dose group, versus 1 percent and 0.5 percent in the low-dose and placebo groups, respectively, developed shingles. Shingles is a painful skin rash caused by a dormant chickenpox virus.

Baricitinib also raised both high-density (“good”) and low-density (“bad”) cholesterol, the findings showed.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a progressive, inflammatory, autoimmune disease affecting about 1.5 percent of the worldwide population. It causes pain, stiffness, swelling and eventual destruction of joints, typically in the hands and feet. About three of every four people with the disease are women, the researchers said.

Baricitinib is in a new category of small-molecule drugs, available in pill form, called Janus-kinase inhibitors. These drugs work by interfering with enzymes necessary for various inflammatory substances in the body to function, Genovese explained.

Although many new drugs have been developed to treat rheumatoid arthritis, long-term use makes these drugs less effective for some patients, researchers have found.

As a result, 15 percent to 20 percent of rheumatoid arthritis patients find themselves having used up the available drugs, Genovese said.

Dr. Waseem Mir is a rheumatologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. He said that “a new drug to treat rheumatoid arthritis patients is always welcome, because when you get to treat many patients, you see that most of the drugs stop being effective.”

The study shows that baricitinib can help rheumatoid patients who have failed other drugs, he added.

“However, I do not want the rheumatoid arthritis patients to get too excited, as the study shows only a 20 percent improvement. But in combination with other rheumatoid drugs, it could be effective in helping patients,” Mir said.

More information

For more on rheumatoid arthritis, visit the American College of Rheumatology.

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Right Brain Scan Could Aid in Stroke Recovery: Study

THURSDAY, March 31, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Examining the right side of the brain might help predict speech and language recovery in people who suffer a stroke on the left side of the brain, researchers say.

The left side of the brain is dominant in language and speech. And, stroke damage on that side often results in difficulty speaking, naming, repeating and understanding language — a condition called aphasia, explained the authors of the study, published March 30 in the journal Neurology.

“Aphasia is a common and devastating symptom for people who have strokes on the left side of the brain,” said study author Dr. Gottfried Schlaug of Harvard Medical School, in Boston. “Although many people recover to some degree, many people never make a full recovery, even after intense speech therapy,” he said in a journal news release.

Schlaug and his colleagues used MRI brain scans and speech-fluency tests to assess 33 people, average age 58, who had suffered a stroke on the left side of the brain and still had different levels of aphasia despite receiving speech therapy. On average, the patients’ strokes occurred 2.5 years before the tests.

The researchers found that patients who did better on the speech-fluency tests were more likely to have higher structural integrity on the right side of the brain. Higher structural integrity may mean better connections among areas of the brain.

The findings suggest that the right side of the brain may reorganize itself to assist language/speech recovery in people who suffer a stroke on the left side of the brain. But it’s also possible that the patients with greater speech/language recovery already had higher structural integrity and more connectivity on the right side of the brain before their stroke, the researchers said.

Dr. A.M. Barrett, a neurologist from the Kessler Foundation, in West Orange, N.J., wrote an accompanying editorial in the journal. “This study suggests that a well-wired right brain actively supports recovery from aphasia,” she said in the release.

“More research is needed to determine if the differences in structural integrity in the right brain are there before a stroke, develop after a stroke or are influenced by some other factor. Eventually, it may be possible to develop new targets in the right brain for people with aphasia to be treated with new therapies, such as brain stimulation,” Barrett noted.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has more on stroke rehabilitation.

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Smoking During Pregnancy Seems to Alter Fetal DNA, Study Finds

THURSDAY, March 31, 2016 (HealthDay News) — When a pregnant woman smokes, the fetus’ DNA is altered in ways also seen in adult smokers, researchers say.

The researchers were also able to pinpoint new development-related genes that were affected by a mother-to-be’s smoking.

The findings may help improve understanding about the connection between smoking during pregnancy and children’s health problems, the study authors said.

For the study, researchers collected blood samples from newborns, mainly from the umbilical cord. Compared to babies of nonsmokers, those born to regular smokers had over 6,000 spots where DNA was chemically modified.

About half of those locations could be linked to specific genes, including those involved in lung and nervous system development, birth defects such as cleft lip and palate, and smoking-related cancers.

The investigators also found that many of these DNA changes were still present in older children whose mothers had smoked during pregnancy.

The study was published March 31 in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Smaller studies have found links between smoking during pregnancy and chemical changes in fetal DNA, the authors of the new study noted. But this large study, which included over 6,000 mothers and their children, improved the researchers’ ability to detect patterns.

“I find it kind of amazing when we see these epigenetic signals in newborns, from in utero exposure, lighting up the same genes as an adult’s own cigarette smoking. There’s a lot of overlap,” study co-senior author Stephanie London said in a journal news release. She is an epidemiologist and physician at the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

“This is a blood-borne exposure to smoking — the fetus isn’t breathing it, but many of the same things are going to be passing through the placenta,” London explained.

More information

The March of Dimes has more about smoking during pregnancy.

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Gene May Explain Higher Rates of Some Cancers in Black People

THURSDAY, March 31, 2016 (HealthDay News) — A single gene variant may explain why black Americans with common cancers have shorter survival times and higher death rates than other races, a new study suggests.

While some researchers have examined possible socioeconomic factors to explain these differences, others have focused on genetics.

“We may finally have a truly genetic explanation for why African-Americans are more prone to a variety of cancers,” said study senior author Maureen Murphy. She is a professor and program leader in the Molecular and Cellular Oncogenesis program at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia.

“This is a variant that has never been observed in Caucasian populations, so identifying people who have this variant may be crucial for providing improved prognosis and personalized treatment that will lead to better outcomes,” she said in an institute news release.

In this study, researchers zeroed in on a specific variant in a tumor suppressor gene that is mutated and activated in most cancers. This variant occurs only in people of African descent. It’s present in about 2 percent of African-Americans and up to 8 percent of Africans, the study authors said.

The researchers then created a mouse model to study the effects of this particular variant. In mice, 80 percent of those with the variant developed cancer. The most common types of cancers in mice with the variant were liver cancer, colon cancer and lymphoma, the study found.

It’s important to note that findings in mice don’t always translate to humans.

However, liver cancer is more common in African-Americans than in other racial/ethnic groups, the researchers said. And colon cancer accounts for about 9 percent of all newly diagnosed cancer cases among African-Americans, the researchers noted.

The study’s findings need to be validated in humans, Murphy said. To do that, researchers said they would need a large population of people to see this gene variant’s effects.

“However, we now have some of the strongest evidence ever obtained for a genetic basis for this disparity and a larger, population-based study is warranted,” Murphy said.

Results of the study were published in the journal Genes and Development.

More information

The American Cancer Society has more about cancer.

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Great American Smokeout Stands Out Among ‘Awareness Days’

THURSDAY, March 31, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Health-focused awareness days dot the calendar each year. There’s World Health Day, World Dolphin Day, World Lupus Day and hundreds more.

Whether they actually boost action on specific health issues isn’t clear, however.

But a new study reports that one event — the Great American Smokeout — does have a significant impact. This is held each year on the third Thursday of November in an effort to get more people to quit smoking.

Researchers analyzed news reports and tweets since 2009 to determine whether the Great American Smokeout’s message was being heard and shared. They also checked online searches for information about quitting smoking, as well as calls to hotlines that offer counseling on how to stop smoking.

Compared to other days of the year, news reports about quitting smoking typically rose 61 percent on the day of the Great American Smokeout and tweets about quitting smoking were 13 percent higher. Researchers also found that Google searches for information about quitting smoking rose 25 percent, visits to Wikipedia on quitting smoking increased 22 percent, and calls to smoking hotlines rose 42 percent.

That translated into about 61,000 more smoking cessation-related Google searches, Wikipedia visits and calls to hotlines each year, according to the study. The findings were published March 31 in the journal JMIR Public Health and Surveillance.

“The Great American Smokeout is having a significant impact that far eclipsed our expectations for awareness days,” study leader John Ayers, a research professor at San Diego State University Graduate School of Public Health, said in a university news release.

He added that assessing the impact of awareness days has been difficult, but the method used in this study “shows how we can rapidly and efficiently evaluate hundreds of awareness days, many for the first time.”

More information

The American Cancer Society offers a guide to quitting smoking.

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Racial Gaps in Homicide Victim Rates Changing

THURSDAY, March 31, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Overall homicide victim rates in the United States fell between 1990 and 2010, but the decrease was much larger among blacks and Hispanics than among whites, a new study finds.

During that time, homicide victim rates fell 47 percent among Hispanics (calculated by the number of homicide victims per 100,000 Hispanics), 40 percent for blacks, and 35 percent for whites, the study showed.

The findings were published in the April issue of the journal American Sociological Review.

“Because criminologists have long viewed group disparities in criminal violence as important indicators of broader patterns of racial/ethnic inequality, these appear to be promising trends,” said lead author Michael Light, an assistant professor of sociology at Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Ind.

Although there’s been a great deal of attention from the public and the media focused on race, crime and justice, there wasn’t a lot of evidence available about trends in violence, crime and race, Light explained.

“Our study is the first to show the trends in homicide victimization rates for these three groups from 1990 through 2010 in the U.S., as well as the first to show the racial and ethnic gaps in these rates,” Light said in a journal news release.

A major reason for the greater decreases in homicide victim rates among blacks and Hispanics than whites is a decline in segregated neighborhoods and racial differences in poverty and unemployment, the researchers said.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers resources on violence prevention.

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Flu Shot Might Cut Stillbirth Risk

THURSDAY, March 31, 2016 (HealthDay News) — A seasonal flu shot may reduce a pregnant woman’s risk of stillbirth, according to a new study.

Australian researchers examined nearly 58,000 births to mothers in the western part of the country during the 2012 and 2013 flu seasons. More than 5,000 births were to women who received a flu shot during pregnancy.

Women who received the flu vaccine had a 51 percent lower risk of stillbirth than those who did not receive the vaccine, the study found.

The researchers also found that stillbirth rates rose after flu season and fell in the months prior to flu season, but said these seasonal differences were not statistically significant.

The study was published March 31 in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

“During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, we saw a similar reduction in stillbirths following vaccination,” study author Annette Regan, of the Western Australia Department of Health, said in a journal news release.

“Our results are particularly exciting since they show we can get the same protection during seasonal epidemics, which occur every winter. Unfortunately, we know that about 40 percent of pregnant women go unvaccinated, missing out on these benefits,” she added.

Further research is needed to confirm the possible association between stillbirth, seasonal flu and flu vaccination, according to the study authors. But the researchers said they are hopeful that expectant mothers and their health care providers will take note of these findings.

“I’m hoping results like these can convince more pregnant women to get vaccinated each year,” Regan said.

Everyone 6 months of age and older, including pregnant women during any trimester, should get an annual flu shot, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Pregnant women are at increased risk of serious flu-related complications, and having the flu during pregnancy has been linked to fetal death and premature birth. However, many pregnant women don’t get a flu shot because of concerns for the safety of the fetus.

There are more than 3 million stillbirths worldwide each year. If a link between flu season and stillbirth is found, it could have a major impact on infant deaths, according to the study authors.

More information

The March of Dimes has more about stillbirth.

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