May 2006 Newsletter

 

by Beth Ley, Ph.D.
www.blpublications.com
NHL Ministries
 

IN THE NEWS

Nocturnal Sleep Eating, Sleep Driving, etc. - Side Effects of Commonly Prescribed Sleep Medication Ambien

A newly described side effect of Ambien can cause you to engage in some very bizarre behaviors. Nocturnal eating -- literally eating while still asleep -- could be a side effect of the sleep medication Ambien.

One man was pulled over and arrested for "drunk" driving, as he drove to the store in the middle of the night, bought cookies and was driving home when he was pulled over for iradic driving - Maybe it was because he WAS ASLEEP - He woke up about the time they were handcuffing him. He hadn't had a drop of alcohol. Ambien, which is made by Sanofi-Aventis, made over $2 billion last year, with more than 26 million prescriptions written for it.

Salt Sandwiches
The sleep eating can include bizarre foods such as buttered cigarettes, salt sandwiches, and raw bacon. It can also cause people to gain weight; one woman gained over 100 pounds while on Ambien. Others have cut themselves while trying to chop up food in their sleep.

Signs of Sleep Eating
The percentage of people who suffer from the sleep eating side effect is unknown. Signs of sleep eating can include empty food wrappers by the bed, missing food, unexplained weight gain, and the taste of food in your mouth upon waking.

CBS News Reported the following:
SAN FRANCISCO and NEW YORK, March 15, 2006

Quote:
"I would wake up in the morning and there would be candy wrappers all around the bed. There would be crumbs in the bed. There would be all kinds of evidence that someone had been eating in the bed. But I had absolutely no recollection of it."
said Brenda Pobre, who says Ambien caused her to eat while sleeping. She says she gained more than 100 pounds as a result.
(CBS) Some people don't just walk in their sleep, they eat as well. As sleep disorders go, it's one of the more bizarre, observes CBS News Correspondent John Blackstone. He says Dr. Mark Mahowald and other sleep researchers have discovered that nocturnal eating may be a side effect of the popular sleep medication, Ambien.
That comes on the heels of reports that some Ambien users may drive while sleeping.

Mahowald, who's medical director of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center in Minneapolis, tells Blackstone, "We've had people eat very inappropriate things that they would never eat while awake.
Some example would be buttered cigarettes, salt sandwiches, raw bacon."
And sleep-binging could leave its mark – on waistlines. "I put on over 100 pounds since I've been on Ambien," says Brenda Pobre, who couldn't figure out why she was gaining so much weight. "I would wake up in the morning and there would be candy wrappers all around the bed," she says. "There would be crumbs in the bed. There would be all kinds of evidence that someone had been eating in the bed. But I had absolutely no recollection of it." Her sons stayed up to watch her, afraid she would injure herself.

"We have had people, infrequently, cut themselves as they're trying to chop up food to eat in the middle of the night," notes Mahowold.

Pobre adds, "There would be a big mess in the kitchen. There would be wrappers on the floor, popsicle sticks on the floor. I would accuse my sons of making the mess and they would say they didn't, and they would say they had seen me doing it and, of course, I thought they were lying."

Mahowald points out that, "Sleep and wakefulness can occur simultaneously. Everybody thinks the brain is either all awake or all asleep, and that's not true. The brain can be literally half awake and half asleep."

Ambien's maker issued a statement saying the side effect is known but rare, and that "when taken as prescribed, Ambien is a safe and effective treatment for insomnia." The side effect is disclosed in the product's labeling material. And Pobre still takes it, saying, "I have chronic insomnia. And I've tried everything, behavior modification, everything. And nothing works except Ambien." But now, says Blackstone, she also takes another medication that helps defeat her urge to eat in her sleep.

Beth's comments:
Americans are taking more sleeping pills than ever. Those that are using Ambien or other type of "sleeping pill" may be asleep, but may be driving, eating and who knows what else in their sleep thanks to this potentially harmful drug. This is way beyond sleep walking... what the drug does is prolong the time spent in the stage of sleep where sleep walking (and obviously these other behaviors as well) commonly occurs.

I believe the primary reason most people have trouble sleeping at night is STRESS! Stress causes cortisol levels to rise and serotonin levels to lower. The combination of this interferes with your ability to get a good night's sleep. It interferes with your ability to enter into deep sleep (REM) so you may sleep for 7, 8, 9 hours night, but never feel like you slept - as you did not actually enter into deep sleep, possibly waking up often, tossing and turning.

The best supplements I know of for this problem are:
PS PLUS (Lowers the stress hormone, cortisol, which allows serotonin to naturally rise).
GABA (slows down overactive nuerotransmitter activity - great for racing thoughts (thinking too much when trying to sleep), and anxiety) also,
5-HTP - a botanical extract that boosts serotonin production - good for depression, anxiety and sleep problems. A natural (and safer) alternative to SSRI medications like Paxil, Prozac, Lexipro, etc.
They can also safely be used together.

Vitamin C Shrinks Tumors

By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor

New research suggesting that vitamin C can be effective in curing cancer will renew interest in the "alternative" treatment for the terminal disease. Three cancer patients who were given large intravenous doses over a period of several months had their lives extended and their tumors shrunk.

A 49-year-old man diagnosed with terminal bladder cancer in 1996 was still alive and cancer-free nine years later, having declined chemotherapy and radiotherapy in favour of regular infusions of vitamin C.

A 66-year-old woman with an aggressive lymphoma who had a "dismal prognosis" in 1995 was similarly treated and is still alive 10 years later. A 51-year-old woman with kidney cancer that spread to her lungs diagnosed in 1995 had a normal chest X-ray two years later. The findings were confirmed by pathologists. Although they do not prove the vitamin cured the cancer they do increase the "clinical plausibility" of the idea, the researchers say.

Vitamin C therapy was first promoted by Linus Pauling, the Nobel prize winner, 30 years ago. Dr Pauling's claims sparked the continuing boom in sales of vitamin C, but attempts to confirm his findings failed and high-dose vitamin C became an "alternative" therapy. The latest study, published in the Canadian Association's Medical Journal, could trigger renewed interest in Dr Pauling's claims. Studies show that vitamin C is toxic to some cancer cells but not to normal cells. The problem has been delivering a high enough dose.

The researchers say attempts to replicate Dr Pauling's work failed because they used oral doses of the drug which is rapidly excreted. However, injections achieve blood levels 25 times higher that persist for longer. At these very high doses, the blood level of vitamin C is high enough to selectively kill cancer cells. Several clinical trials of vitamin C therapy are about to start, including one at McGill University, Montreal, the authors say.
Health Supreme - Sepp Hasslberger on 3/28/2006

Strawberries Curb Cancer Cell Growth; Organic Berries Called Best

Vitamin D May Diminish Breast Cancer Risk Drastically Two new studies show potent anti-cancer power of vitamin D

Vitamin D is emerging as the body's premier anti-cancer agent. Research suggests that vitamin D-which the body produces in response to sun exposure, and which occurs at high levels only in certain fish-protects strongly against breast cancer.

Study #1: Higher vitamin D levels reduce breast cancer risk
Brothers Cedric Garland, DPH and Frank Garland, PhD., both from the University of California at San Diego, have been at the forefront of vitamin D and sun exposure research for 25 years. Their published research began with an influential paper titled "Do sunlight and vitamin D reduce the likelihood of colon cancer?".

The answer to that question was "yes", and this finding led them to probe this topic more thoroughly than any other group of scientists. The Garland brothers' University of California team presented the encouraging results of their latest research at the recent American Association for Cancer Research meeting (Garland CF, 2006). They conducted a statistical analysis of data collected from 1,760 women who'd participated in prior studies at Harvard University and Saint George's Hospital Medical School in London, including blood levels of vitamin D and the women's overall incidence of breast cancer. And, the results indicate that a woman's risk of breast cancer falls as her vitamin D levels rise. Specifically, they found a vitamin D blood level of 52 nanograms per milliliter cut women's breast cancer risk in half.

The researchers noted that a woman would need to consume about 1,000 International Units (IU) of vitamin D per day to attain this protective level, which is more than double the current recommended daily intake of 400 IU.

As Professor Cedric Garland said, "There is a strong inverse dose-response relationship between the serum concentration [blood level] of 25-hydroxyvitamin D [the form used as a measure of vitamin D status] and the risk of breast cancer."

Consequently, his San Diego team repeated calls by other researchers to increase the daily recommended intake of vitamin D3- from fish, fortified foods, and supplements -from 400 IU to 1000 IU. Sadly, the average vitamin D intake in the US is only 320 IU per day, or about one-tenth the amount required to achieve a significant reduction in breast cancer risk, to judge by the results of the San Diego team's study. And sunshine levels in far northern regions-such as Canada, Scandinavia, and the most northern areas of Russia and the U.S.-are so weak during the winter months that the body makes virtually no vitamin D. It is estimated that more than half of the people in northern population centers suffer from insufficient or even deficient levels of this anti-cancer nutrient.

Study #2: Higher Vitamin D intake and sun exposure in young women yields lower breast cancer risk later in life
The second paper on vitamin D and breast cancer risk was presented at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting, this time by Canadian researchers working at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital (Knight JA, 2006).

A team led by Julie Knight, Ph.D. interviewed 576 breast cancer patients and 1,135 healthy women. The found that the women who consumed the most vitamin D between the ages of 10 and 29-the normal age range in which breasts develop fully-reduced their risk of breast cancer by a whopping 40 percent.

The Toronto team also reported that women who met any of three criteria during this age range enjoyed significantly lower risks of getting breast cancer. The three protective factors were these:

1 . Working or simply being outdoors frequently appeared to cut the average woman's breast cancer risk by 28 to 45 percent. (The body produces vitamin D in response to sunlight hitting the skin.)
2 . Consuming cod liver oil appeared to cut the average woman's breast cancer risk by 25 percent. This benefit was seen despite the fact that cod liver oil is also high in vitamin A, which reduces bsorption of vitamin D.
3 . Drinking ample amounts of milk appeared to cut the average woman's breast cancer risk by more than one-third.

Salmon and other fatty fish are superior sources of vitamin D
Among all of the natural, un-fortified food sources of vitamin D, fatty fish top the list. An independent lab measured the amounts of vitamin D in single 3.5 ounce servings of fresh fish:
Sockeye salmon (687 IU), albacore tuna steak (544 IU), silver salmon (430 IU), king salmon (400 IU)

Wild Blueberries Enhance Vascular Health (Circulation)

If you like blueberries-especially wild blueberries-you'll love the latest research news. Studies have already shown that blueberries contain a compound (pterostilbene) that gives the fruit the power to lower blood levels of LDL ("bad") cholesterol and triglycerides as effectively as the prescription drug ciprofibrate. Another study showed that wild blueberries rank number two on the USDA list of the top 20 antioxidant-rich foods, and that they outrank their cultivated cousins in terms of antioxidant capacity.

Recently, researchers from the University of Maine released the results of a study in rats, which demonstrate that wild blueberries can decrease the vulnerability of heart-supplying blood vessels to oxidative stress and inflammation (Kalea AZ, 2006).
• Blueberries protect key constituents of animals' arteries from inflammation-induced damage.
• Blueberries help keep animals' arteries relaxed in response to stress-related chemicals.
• Blueberries can lower cholesterol levels.

Inflammation impairs arterial health
When inflammation occurs in our blood and arteries, it promotes buildup of fatty plaque on artery walls and increases the "stickiness" of blood platelets. The result is a vicious circle in which the build up of arterial plaque induces yet more inflammation, which attracts more cholesterol and fat to artery walls. This inflammatory cycle ultimately causes the arterial plaque to rupture, releasing clots that cause heart attacks and stroke.

Inflammation usually occurs in a healthy response to injury or infection, but chronic, low-level inflammation can result from varying combinations and proportions of infections (some originating in the gums), poor diets, stress, predisposing genetic codes, and sedentary lifestyles.

How wild blueberries help keep arteries healthy

Since inflammation-induced alterations to GAGs and PGs are a major factor in the development of cardiovascular disease, anything that helps protect these vital bodily constituents is a big plus. The Maine team gave rats either a control (regular) or a blueberry-fortified version of the same diet for 13 weeks. At the end of the experiment, the blueberry-fed rats' arteries contained fewer damaged (over-sulfated) GAGs, and 13 percent more GAGs overall.

What's Cooking in Beth's Kitchen!!!

I love to watch the FoodNetwork Channel (and especially when I'm cooking!) I got this recipe from Reggie Sutherland, runnerup in the latest "New Network Food Star" show - It was very good! Served with a large green salad with herbs, veggies and honey mustard dressing.

Roasted Balsamic-Glazed Chicken
Recipe courtesy Reggie Southerland

Ingredients
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons herbes de Provence
(I used Italian Seasonings in exchange)
1 medium lemon, juiced and halves reserved
1 (5 to 6-pound) roasting chicken
4 sprigs rosemary
8 cloves garlic
1 thinly-sliced white onion
4 fennel bulbs
(I only used one large stalk of fennel, but I used the whole thing, not just the bulb - but I do wish I would have used two)

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine the vinegar, oil, salt, pepper, herbes de Provence (Italian Seasoning), and lemon juice in a bowl, whisking until emulsified.

Pour over the chicken, taking care to completely coat it. Insert the reserved squeezed lemons, plus the rosemary and garlic into the cavity. Layer the onions in a roasting pan and place the chicken on top. Slice the fennel and surround the chicken with it. (I saved some of the fine tops and added it to my salad)

Put the chicken in the oven and immediately reduce the temperature to 250 degrees F and roast for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, basting occasionally.

Mine took over 2 hours to cook.
Another suggestion: add some finely chopped carrots and a few potatoes (cut up small) and put them along side the chicken.
It was very good!

Fennel is a great digestive aid. Ever been to an Indian Restaurant where they place fennel seeds at the cashier counter? They are placed there as a natural digestive aid.
 

Anti-Cancer Fruit Salad
With all the research on fruit today we should definately have a recipe for fruit salad - so here's what I do:
Cut up fruit or place whole berries in large bowl. Squeeze juice of one lemon over top and sprinkle fresh chopped mint or anise leaves on top. Stir and serve. (great on top of yogurt too)

SCRIPTURE

Psalms 34:2-4
I will bless the LORD at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad. O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together. I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.

Did you know that fear, anxiety, stress and anger all lower your PH? (Which opens the door for candida, colds, flu, cancer and all sorts of other health problems?) We need to GAURD our thoughts - quit being so negative - and focus on God instead of our circumstances.

'We are all pencils in the hand of a writing God, who is sending love letters to the world.'
-- Mother Teresa