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BERWICK AREA HEART SUPPORT GROUP
OCTOBER 2009 NEWSLETTER
Berwick Heart Support Group's monthly meeting will be on Wednesday 7th October, 7.0pm – 9.00pm in the Day Hospital Room, Berwick Infirmary. The speaker will be Dr David R Woods MD MRCP Consultant in Diabetes and Endocrinology and also Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Newcastle.
Dr Woods talk will be ‘The Link between Diabetes and Heart Disease’
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THANKS to Andrew Stockdale for bringing his exhibits of wood-turning to our September meeting. Those of you who could not get to the meeting missed a treat. Andy also brought with him photos of his workshop and some of the items he has sold in the last few years and a record of his efforts in raising money for medical work. He has recently concentrated on equipment and other needs in the Cardiac Unit in Edinburgh, and locally in Coldstream Health Centre, in recognition of the treatment he has received. His use of unusual woods mostly obtained from local estates, makes for unique items. Andy keeps some of the items for future display rather than sell them, which disappointed one or two of our members. Sales all documented and accounted for, amount to more than £22 thousand, and still counting.
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Phil hoped to give a brief slide-show but forgot that the Berwick Infirmary projector has a previous history of not being able to link to speakers’ laptops.There were some good 1943 photos but they could be viewed only on his laptop, not projected on the full screen.
These notes to accompany the photos were borrowed from part of a technical presentation he gave recently at a conference in Italy about future resource problems.
Britain’s response to the Wartime Food Crisis in 1939.
Britain’s large cities are set in a comparatively small agricultural area, and in 1939 our farming was in poor shape. We had not ‘fed ourselves since the 1840s when England’s population was under 20 million and by 1939 England was nearly 40 million and the total for the UK over 48 million.
· Britain in 1939, imported 70% of food as calories: rationing was obvious strategy (e.g. meat, eggs and sugar)
During the war:
·Britain stopped importing vegetables and fruit
·Numbers of sheep, pigs and poultry fell substantially; although cattle numbers for milk production rose 10%
·50% more land was cultivated ‘under the plough’
·The farm workforce was increased 10%; “mostly land girls”.
·Farm mechanization went from 2 million to 5 million horsepower
·NPK fertilizer use was more than doubled
·Home production in calories doubled; imports halved
Britain in 1943: slogans ‘of the day’ – rationing, price control, ploughing up the land.
“Food for all at prices all can afford”
“Health is purchasable”
“Preferential supplies of certain essential foodstuffs for children.”
“Special restaurants cater for the needs of industrial workers.”
“75% of family purchases are for goods which are price controlled (by 1943)”.
“Regulations impose sentences of up to 12 years penal servitude for black market operators.”
“Science and state intervention combine.”
“[Local] farmers’ executive committees, with experts, have wide powers to bring land into cultivation.”
THANKS to our members who joined in the discussion about farming and dug into their memories.
Tommy told us that Grindon, the largest of the local farms had 20 pairs of Shire horses.
Terry remembered that his grandfather got up between 4 and 5 o-clock to bring his team of horses to the field by first light. (He also remembered his Granddad’s ‘bait’; typically a slice of strong porridge cut from a ‘loaf’ kept in the drawer at home and eaten as breakfast with tea from a ‘billy’ boiled by the side of the field, while the horses .chewed from their bags.)
Phil remembered ‘British Restaurants’ in the towns, and other members remembered the “tattiehowking” that the children were expected to join in with at harvest, and the Dig for Victory response and the valuable nutrition from vegetables that city and townsfolk helped provide for themselves. (Britain can grow some wonderfully nutritious vegetables, and though we grow very little fruit these days, many parts of the country are ideally suited for ‘soft-fruit’; all those berries. And the apples still grow in old orchards even here in the north.)
We agreed that the wartime achievement was astonishing, thanks to our previous generations.
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Broccoli Sprouts
As most of you know, I collated a lot of the research being carried out in the USA and the UK on broccoli, and in particular broccoli sprouts (not to be confused with sprouting broccoli) so it was with great interest that I read the latest BHF press release about the health benefits from broccoli and other members of the brassicafamily.I have included the press release in the newsletter.
For all you new readers I have done a short report on the previous research on broccoli
In 1992, Dr Paul Talalay MD from the JohnHopkinsStanfordUniversity found an antioxidant called sulforaphane, produced in the body from a compound in broccoli, triggered the production of enzymes that helped detoxify cancer-causing chemicals, the discovery was a major breakthrough in the understanding of the link between increased fresh vegetable consumption and the reduced risk of cancer. In 1993 Dr Talalay hired a plant physiologist ‘Jed Fahey’ to search for a “better” broccoli, and he discovered that the smaller the plant the more concentrated the source of sulforaphane Fahey’s team found that the compound was 20 times more concentrated in young three-day-old plants
At that time most of the research concentrated on cancer treatment. However in 2004, Dr Bernard Juurlink from the University of Saskatchewanpublished a paper on sulforaphane, a naturally-occurring compound found in sprouted in broccoli, which reduced the risk of high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and stroke.
Another recent pilot study, from the Tokyo University of Agriculture and The Japan Institute for the Control of Aging, revealed that individuals who ate 3 1/2 ounces of broccoli sprouts daily for just one week reduced their overall cholesterol level and increased their levels of HDL or "good" cholesterol. The consumption of broccoli sprouts, containing SGS, also reduced the amount of oxidative stress or cell destruction caused by free radicals
All the research papers I refer to and the original report I wrote can be found on our webpage ‘Healthy Eating / broccoli sprouts’
Terry
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British Heart Foundation News Release For immediate release Friday 4 September 2009
New British Heart Foundation (BHF) research from ImperialCollegeLondon may have revealed why vegetables are good for the heart. The findings suggest that a chemical found in vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower, can boost a natural defence mechanism to protect arteries from disease.
Arteries don’t clog up in a uniform way. Bends and branches of blood vessels – where blood flow is disrupted and can be sluggish – are much more prone to the build-up of fatty plaques known as atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis can lead to angina, heart attack and stroke.
BHF-funded researchers from Imperial College London have discovered that a normally-protective protein called Nrf2 is inactive in areas of arteries that are susceptible to disease. But, they also found that treatment with a chemical found in certain vegetables – known to gardeners as ‘brassicas’ – can activate Nrf2 in these disease-prone regions.
Dr Paul Evans, from the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London, who led the research team, said: “We found that the innermost layer of cells at branches and bends of arteries lack the active form of Nrf2, which may explain why they are prone to inflammation and disease. Treatment with the natural compound sulforaphane reduced inflammation at the high-risk areas by 'switching on' Nrf2.
“Sulforaphane is found naturally in broccoli, so our next steps include testing whether simply eating broccoli, or other vegetables in their ‘family’, has the same protective effect. We also need to see if the compound can reduce the progression of disease in affected arteries.”
Brassicas – also called ‘cruciferous’ vegetables – include broccoli (which has the highest levels of sulforaphane), cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, bokchoy and rocket.
The new research suggests a way vegetables may help prevent heart disease
Professor Peter Weissberg, Medical Director at the BHF, said: “These fascinating findings provide a possible mechanism by which eating vegetables protects against heart disease.
“As well as adding evidence to support the importance of eating ‘five-a-day’, the biochemistry revealed in this research could lead to more targeted dietary or medical approaches to prevent or lessen disease that leads to heart attacks and strokes.”
Using normal mice, and mice engineered to lack the Nrf2 protein, the research found that in straight sections of arteries Nrf2 was present in the endothelial ‘lining’ cells. Through its action on other proteins, it prevented the cells from becoming inflamed, which is an early stage in the development of atherosclerosis.
In the lining cells of disease-prone sites – such as bending or branched arteries – Nrf2 was attached to a protein that made it inactive. This stifled its protective properties.
The addition of sulforaphane re-activated Nrf2 in the disease-prone regions of the artery, restoring the cells’ ability to protect themselves from becoming inflamed. The researchers believe that this will enable these artery regions to remain healthy for longer, or even reduce the progression of existing disease. This will be tested in their next phase of research.
The research is published in the Journal Arteriosclerosis Thrombosis and Vascular Biology
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Wally’s Yarn
The sharing of marriage....
The old man placed an order for one fish n chips and a drink.
He unwrapped the fish and carefully cut it in half, placing one half in front of his wife.
He then carefully counted out the chips, dividing them into two piles and neatly placed one pile in front of his wife.
He took a sip of the drink, his wife took a sip and then set the cup down between them ... As he began to eat his few bites of fish, the people around them were looking over and whispering.
Obviously they were thinking, 'That poor old couple - all they can afford is one meal for the two of them.'
As the man began to eat his chips a young man came to the table and politely offered to buy another meal for the old couple. The old man said, they were just fine - they were used to sharing everything
People closer to the table noticed the little old lady hadn't eaten a bite. She sat there watching her husband eat and occasionally taking turns sipping the drink..
Again, the young man came over and begged them to let him buy another meal for them. This time the old woman said 'No, thank you, we are used to sharing everything.
Finally, as the old man finished and was wiping his face neatly with the napkin, the young man again came over to the little old lady who had yet to eat a single bite of food and asked 'What is it you are waiting for?'
She answered
'THE TEETH.'
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This is a copy of an e-mail received through the website. We have been in contact with the journalist and checked the website out. And every thing seems ok. The website is not live at present so cannot be viewed, but we were given the passwords to access it.
If anyone wishes to assist Pial you can either e mail him at pganguli@hotmail.com or phone Terry for his contact num
Hi,
I am a freelance journalist and was hoping that you might be able to help me with a project I am working on for a new website called sixpartswater.
Yet to be officially launched, it is a registered charity and was started by a prostate cancer sufferer who was felt that he was unable to find updated information that was pitched at the right level about his condition on the internet. In addition to providing information about various disease conditions, the website will provide patient stories on these conditions.
For my current task, I have been asked by the managing editor to find heart attack patients who would be willing to share their experiences. We hope to have written stories from seven patients and of these patients we hope three or so would also be willing to tell their stories on video clips. As such, I am requesting your help in finding willing patients.
I need to get going on the (telephone) interviews for the written stories as soon as possible and we hope to get patients lined up for the video session by the end of October.
Please could you email mepganguli@hotmail.com so we can discuss further.
thanks and best wishes,
PialGanguli
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