A new study has suggested that sticking to a vegetarian diet can help kidney disease patients avoid accumulating toxic levels of phosphorous in their bodies. Kidney disease patients must limit their phosphorous intake as high levels of the mineral can lead to heart disease and death. While medical guidelines recommend low phosphorus diets for patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), phosphorus content is not listed on food labels.
Sharon Moe (Indiana University School of Medicine and Roudebush Veterans’ Affairs Medical Centre) and her colleagues studied the effects of vegetarian and meat-based diets on phosphorous levels in nine patients with CKD.
Patients followed a vegetarian or meat-based diet for one week, followed by the opposite diet two-to four- weeks later. Blood and urine tests were performed at the end of each week on both diets. Despite equivalent protein and phosphorus concentrations in the two diets, patients had lower blood phosphorus levels and decreased phosphorus excretion in the urine when they were on the vegetarian diet compared with the meat-based diet. The authors concluded that their study demonstrates that the source of protein in the diet has a significant effect on phosphorus levels in patients with CKD.
Computer games can help kids fight obesity: While parents usually worry over the negative influences of computer games on their children, scientists in New Zealand have found such games are actually beneficial for children.
In a two-year study of 300 children, conducted by the University of Auckland, scientists have been looking at how sustained use of games, which have an active element like dance mats or motion sensors, can be good for overweight children.
The study’s results have shown a positive effect on the body mass index of the active gamers aged between 10 and 14, compared to the control group of children who were not regularly playing the games, TVNZ reported Tuesday.
According to principal investigator Ralph Maddison, the effects were small but showed gaming could play a role in enabling kids to remain active.
“The study findings show that this technology has the potential to be a useful addition to a raft of health interventions. It could have significant implications for how health professionals to combat the obesity epidemic or develop rehabilitation programmes,” he said.
“Also because of the appeal of traditional video games, at an individual level, parents may have more success encouraging the substitution of sedentary video games with more active ones rather than trying to stop children and young people from gaming altogether.”
No evidence that mouse virus causes chronic fatigue: A major study in 2009 that claimed a mouse virus was the cause of chronic fatigue syndrome was wrong and its findings were likely based on contaminated lab samples, US researchers said Wednesday.
“There is no evidence of this mouse virus in human blood,” said Jay Levy, senior author of the study of the University of California, San Francisco, to be published this week in the journal Science.
Instead, the mouse virus XMRV that was picked up in samples from chronic fatigue patients probably got there because chemical reagents and cell lines used in the laboratory where it was identified were contaminated with the virus, the university said in a statement.
The 2009 study was hailed as a breakthrough for the estimated one to four million Americans who suffer from the elusive but debilitating illness, and led to many being treated with antiretroviral drugs used against HIV/AIDS.
The study authors said experts need to keep searching for the cause of the disease, which can last for years and cause memory loss, muscle pain, extreme tiredness and possibly insomnia.
“Individuals with chronic fatigue syndrome need to know that taking antiretroviral therapies will not benefit them, and may do them serious harm,” said co-author Konstance Knox of the Wisconsin Virus Research Group in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
