Is a Vitamin Supplement Necessary For your Kids? Spoonful of dietary supplements

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When it comes to your kids and vitamin supplements, you should know that most children do not need extra or supplemental vitamins or minerals. If you base your children’s diet on the food guide pyramid, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, you shouldn’t need to give your child vitamin supplements.

However, it is important to know that of all the age groups, children can be the one that is the hardest to control when it comes to diet. Children don’t understand what it means when something is essential for their bodies, and they are much more prone to being picky eaters or having poor diets. If you child is eating a special diet, they might need more vitamins or minerals. These can include vegetarians, children with allergies, or children that have religions which state certain foods shouldn’t be eaten.

The most important thing for you to keep in mind when it comes to making sure that your child has a healthy diet is to ensure that they are getting the proper amounts of the right kinds of vitamins and minerals. If this isn’t happening because of what they are eating, you either need to change what they are eating, or make sure that they are getting the vitamins in another way. Vitamin supplements can be purchased in kid-friendly shapes and flavors, so it shouldn’t be a problem to have your child take them.

There are several vitamins and minerals that are going to be important for your child to have enough of. These include, especially, iron, which is needed in children to prevent anemia. This usually happens if children aren’t given enough extra iron after they are six months old, which happens often if a baby drinks cow or goat milk instead of formula. Young and adolescent girls are also at a risk of having an iron deficiency.

Another important thing that children need is calcium. This is something that is completely necessary for healthy bones and teeth. If children are drinking milk and eating dairy products, they are probably getting enough calcium, but if they aren’t, you might need to supplement this in their diets.

It is also important that children are getting fluoride. This helps to build healthy teeth. However, it is important that they only get enough fluoride, and not too much, so don’t add to their intake unless your dentist or doctor thinks that you should.

If you don’t think that your child is getting enough vitamins or minerals, you should consult with your doctor to make sure that you can find a good balance and a good children’s multivitamin for them to be taking. However, it is crucial that you realize that a vitamin is not a replacement for food and is not a substitute for a varied diet.

Do you think vitamins are necessary for kids?

Healthy Forever & Ever

Swine Flu-Bound Mexicans Turn to Web

Thank You, Alexandra Olson

Churchgoers celebrate Mass via television. Congressional candidates campaign with real-time speeches on the Web. A magazine promises Internet tours through the real Mexico -- the one with open museums and pyramids. And rock bands plan online concerts.

Swine flu is creating a virtual Mexico.

With school canceled nationwide and many parents forbidding their kids to party, teenagers are logging a lot more time chatting on Facebook, Twittering and downloading music and movies from the Internet. So are many adults, especially after most business and government offices in Mexico City shut down Friday for five days.

Two rock bands are making a go at reaching shut-in fans, announcing a virtual concert for Tuesday. Los Estramboticos, a Mexico City group, and Pastilla, a Latino band from the United States, will perform in a studio and broadcast it online. At least they can get exposure while Mexico's ban on concerts lasts.

"Entrance is free and you can come without a surgical mask or fear of getting diseases," the bands proclaimed in a Web advertisement.

The problem is that even teenagers -- gasp! -- are starting to get bored of the virtual life

"I'm like, sick of it," said Bibiana Perez, 16, a Mexico City high schooler whose daily routine has consisted of morning Facebook chats with her friends, watching movies in the afternoon, and evening Facebook chats with her friends.

"I've started to cook and do things I don't I normally do," she said. "I've never made brownies, so I made brownies. I tried lasagna, but it didn't turn out so good."

Alex Pradillo, 17, has reached his limit, too. Rugby practices that normally take up two hours of his day have been suspended. He tried to invite a few friends over but their parents forbade them to go. So he finds himself spending six to eight hours a day downloading music from the Web or chatting with friends.

"It's definitely getting boring," he said. "It's tedious sitting around all day and the computer is starting to annoy me."

But boredom was still not enough to lure many Mexican City residents from their homes Sunday, 10 days into a flu outbreak that killed at least 22 people and sickened more than 560 in the country, most of them in the capital region.

Normally packed churches were all but empty. Priests in surgical masks offered Mass before a handful of faithful -- also wearing masks. Cardinal Norberto Rivera held a televised service from the Metropolitan Cathedral for those staying home.

Sunday also marked the official start of campaigning for the July 5 congressional elections -- but the government urged candidates not to hold rallies where the virus could spread. So candidates turned to the Internet to reach a population afraid join screaming crowds, shake hands or hold out babies for kisses.

Gabriela Cuevas Barron, a candidate for the conservative National Action Party, giddily claimed she was launching Mexico's first virtual campaign, promising in a Webcast to work for a cleaner and safer Mexico City -- for now, through Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

"Nothing is more important than health," the smiling candidate chirped on her Web site Sunday morning. "I can listen to you from here through this page."

Her opponents beat her to the punch. Political activist Oscar Romero, 34, launched a Facebook and Twitter page at the stroke of midnight Sunday for candidates of his leftist Democratic Revolution Party.

But Romero worries that voter turnout could be swine flu's next victim if the disruption to everyday life drags on much longer. The Web is no substitute for old-fashioned rallies and canvassing in a country full of sprawling shantytowns and remote villages.

Party members "are pretty worried, I have to tell you. Because, effectively, they really can't campaign right now," he said.

Mexico has shut all its museums, archaeological ruins and theaters, and even nightclubs and bars in the Pacific resort of Acapulco are closed. Mexico City residents are discouraged from leaving the city.

The local magazine Inside Mexico jumped at the chance to promise an alternative: virtual strolls through "cobblestone medieval-tinged streets," biking and hiking in spa towns and even jungle treks.

"Are you suffering from flu-overload and hankering for a break (even if it's a virtual escape) from it all?" a Web blurb from the magazine asks. "We thought you might like to pause and remember some of Mexico's beauty."

Still, the magazine catered to the swine flu obsession. One of its most popular online articles?

"How to make your own anti-flu protective mask: Part II."

Healthy Forever & Ever

Is Tobacco the Next Anti-HIV Weapon?

Thank You Eric Bland, Discovery News

The tobacco plant could soon redeem itself in the eyes of public health experts, say scientists who are producing huge amounts of a powerful but prohibitively expensive HIV drug inside modified tobacco leaves.

"This is very significant news," said Polly Harrison, Director of the Alliance for Microbicide Development, who was not involved with the research.

"So often it's difficult to make enough of a promising drug to even do laboratory studies, but here production is at a level that allows them to literally make tons of the drug," said Harrison.

Scientists have known for years that the drug, known as griffithsin, protects some people from HIV infection by stopping the virus from colonizing the vaginal lining.

What has prevented griffithsin from becoming a standard HIV preventive measure is the cost of producing it.

The only known naturally occurring source of griffithsin is a red algae found off the coast of New Zealand, which grows in amounts too small to be effectively harvested.

Scientists can produce larger amounts of griffithsin by genetically engineering E. coli bacteria to produce the drug, but maintaining the necessarily high temperatures, supplying the raw materials, and harvesting the drug is expensive.

Now scientists have turned to a virus, the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), that commonly infects tobacco plants.

TMV is rod-shaped, about 18 nanometers wide by 200 to 300 nanometers long. Once the virus enters a plant cell, it hijacks the cell's molecular machinery. Usually the hijacked plant cells are reprogrammed to produce more virus.

The scientists first mail-ordered a synthetic version of the red algae gene that produces griffithsin. They then injected that gene into the TMV, mixed it with water, and sprayed the virus over a greenhouse field of eight-inch-tall Nicotiana benthamiana, a close cousin of commercial tobacco plants that is especially susceptible to TMV.
After a few days the leaves of infected plants began to wilt. The scientists harvested the plants by hand and processed them to extract the griffithsin.

The research is published in this week's edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

The most effective way griffithsin can prevent HIV infection is in a vaginal cream applied before sex, said Kenneth Palmer, a researcher at Owensboro Cancer Research Program who was the corresponding author on the study.

A cigarette containing griffithsin hasn't been discounted either, said Palmer.

Tobacco-derived griffithsin in a gel has already been tested in both mice and in the cells of women who have had their cervix removed. In both cases the griffithsin stopped all HIV transmission without any toxic side effects and without any sign of inflammation or irritation.

The researchers hope to begin phase one FDA clinical trials of the microbicide gel within a year.

A next-generation Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine, also produced inside Nicotiana benthamiana, is already scheduled for clinical trials later this year.

Healthy Forever & Ever

Nano Ink 'Tattoo' Could Monitor Diabetes

Thank you Eric Bland, Discovery News

A special tattoo ink that changes color based on glucose levels inside the skin is under development by Massachusetts-based Draper Laboratories. The injectable nanotech ink could eventually free diabetics from painful blood glucose tests.

"It doesn't have to be a large, over-the-shoulder kind of tattoo," said Heather Clark, a scientist at Draper. "It would only have to be a few millimeters in size and wouldn't have to go as deep as a normal tattoo."

Clark and her colleagues didn't set out to create a glucose-detecting ink.

"At first I didn't even think it was possible," said Clark.

Originally the scientists developed a sodium-sensitive ink to monitor heart health, advancing basic knowledge of electrolytes in the body, or to ensure athletes are properly hydrated.



'Tattoos' With a Purpose

Monitoring a single ion is easier than a complex molecule made of 24 atoms however. After speaking with a colleague, Clark decided to give glucose detection a try.

She started with the basic three-part system to detect sodium and modified to detect glucose. The nano ink particles are tiny, squishy spheres about 120 nanometers across. Inside the sphere are three parts: the glucose detecting molecule, a color-changing dye, and another molecule that mimics glucose. When the particles are dissolved in water they look like food coloring, says Clark.

The three parts continuously move around the inside the hydrophobic orb. When they approach the surface, the glucose detecting molecule either grabs a molecule of glucose or the mimicking molecule.

If the molecules mostly latch onto glucose, the ink appears yellow. If glucose levels are low, the molecule latches onto the glucose mimic, turning the ink purple. A healthy level of glucose has a "funny orangey," color, according to Clark. The sampling process repeats itself every few milliseconds.

Time measured in milliseconds is much faster than then most current blood testing systems, and certainly less painful. But is it as accurate?

Glucose levels in the skin, where the ink would be injected subcutaneously, might not necessarily reflect the more critical measurement of glucose levels in the blood. Some studies show that skin glucose levels can lag up to 20 minutes behind blood glucose levels, while other show a much faster change.

"It's an interesting question," said Clark. "It's one that we might even be able to help answer."

Even if there is a significant lag time between blood and skin glucose levels, a small tattoo, in the several square millimeter range, according to Clark, would let diabetics know if an abnormally high or low reading was either returning to a normal level or getting worse.

Initial tests of the sodium-detecting ink in mice have had "spectacular" results, according to Clark. Testing the glucose monitoring nanotech ink in mice could begin by the end of this month.

Consumers will have to wait. Clark estimates that it will be at least two years before the necessary human testing is complete to bring the ink to the market.

Robert Rubin, a professor at Harvard Medical School, is excited by Clark's work at Draper.

"This will give me a great short cut for understanding what is happening inside the body," said Rubin.

Healthy Forever & Ever

Brushing Teeth May Help Prevent Preterm Birth

Thank You Eric Bland, Discovery News

Previously undiscovered bacteria usually found in the mouth could be responsible for up to 80 percent of early preterm labors, estimate doctors from Case Western and Yale Universities in a new study published recently in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology.

The research could help doctors prevent preterm births by encouraging oral hygiene or stop early labor from developing by prescribing targeted antibiotics.

"The earlier the woman goes into preterm labor, the higher the chance that she will be infected," said Yiping Han, a doctor at Case Western University and the first author on the study.

Most human pregnancies last about 40 weeks. A birth prior to 37 weeks is classified as preterm. About 12 percent of all births in the United States are preterm, a number that has grown by more than 30 percent since 1981 for reasons unknown. Babies born preterm can face many hurdles: vision and hearing loss, cerebral palsy, mental retardation, even death.

Labor itself is still somewhat of a mystery to science, which makes puzzling out preterm labor even more difficult. Anything from socioeconomic status and race to bacterial infection and genetics have been linked to preterm births, but a definitive cause is still elusive.

Han and her colleagues think they have found a major cause, at least in mice. By infecting the rodents with Bergeyella, a previously unknown bacteria found in the mice, the researchers caused preterm births.

In humans, the scientists showed a strong correlation between infection and preterm births. Doctors removed amniotic fluid from 46 different women with potentially higher risk pregnancies. Of that group, 21 delivered an early preterm baby (32 weeks or earlier). Nineteen of those women, or about 85 percent, were positive for previously undetected bacteria.

The bacteria normally live in the mouth, but if a cut, cavity or other wound allows the bacteria to enter the blood stream, they can travel and eventually colonize the uterus. That triggers an immune response, which can inflame the uterus and eventually cause a mother to go into labor prematurely.

To identify bacteria behind preterm labor, doctors used polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a much more sensitive technique for finding and identifying bacteria than bacterial culturing, the current standard technique. Using PCR, the scientists identified the Bergeyella bacterium, as well as DNA belonging to 10 or 11 different strains of newly identified bacteria.

Now that doctors know about another link to preterm labor, the next step is to treat it. Antibiotics that specifically target these new bacteria are currently being tested.

"I thought it was a very interesting paper, and it seemed very sound," said Floyd Dewhirst, who is leading an effort to catalog the estimated 1,500 species of bacteria found in the human mouth at the Forsyth Institute in Boston.

"My recommendation is for women to keep their mouth as healthy as possible, and if they have periodontal disease, to get it treated before they become pregnant," said Dewhirst.

Healthy Forever & Ever