Every cell in the body needs various ingredients to work correctly. Cells don’t allow just anything within the protective layer of their “shells”.  They take up what they need, and expel what they don’t. Glucose is one of the ingredients that the cells need. The cell can take glucose — a combination of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen — and break it apart. The act of breaking the glucose produces carbon dioxide, water and energy.

Illustration by Wikimedia user XcepticZP

Glucose floating around in the blood is pretty much useless to the rest of the body. That’s where insulin comes in. Insulin is made in the pancreas, a feather-shaped organ that nestles just under the stomach. (The pancreas does far more than just make insulin, but those tasks are for another day.)  The pancreas stores insulin until glucose levels in the blood start to rise, for example as the body digests a double-scoop ice cream from Byrne Dairy. The higher glucose levels trigger the pancreas to release stored insulin into the blood.

Insulin circulates through the body and attaches to the outer shell of muscle and fat cells.  This acts like a Thruway EZPass — the cell opens a gate to glucose which then enters the cell.  Without insulin, those EZPass lanes might as well have a concrete barrier in front of them; glucose may not pass into the cell.

National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse

Type II diabetes develops when something in this process breaks down and the glucose can’t get into the cells. Diabetes can cause blindness, liver failure, nerve damage and heart disease. It’s the third-leading cause of death in the US after heart disease and cancer, and costs the US up to 98 billion dollars annually. Over 23 million people in the United States have diabetes, most of them type II.

The Southern Tier region has some of the highest diabetes rates in the state, according to 2010 research conducted by BlueCross BlueShield.  Over 11 percent of Southern Tier residents have been diagnosed with diabetes.  Which means that about 5,000 Binghamton residents probably have been diagnosed. Based on National Institute of Health statistics, it’s likely that another 1,000 of you have diabetes, but don’t know it yet.

Two recent research papers present new insights to diabetes and glucose mechanisms, from the tasty to the bone-tired.

Cashews

Home remedies have suggested that eating cashews helps diabetes sufferers control their glucose.  Research from Canada, published in Molecular Nutrition and Food Research, says that anacardic acid in the cashew nut encourages rat muscle cells to take in glucose.  It may either opens up EZPass lanes in the cell’s shell, or create new lanes for the glucose to enter.  Does this mean that you can gnosh on cashews and lower your blood glucose?  Not necessarily – the “cashew nut extract” mentioned in the research may not be the part of the cashew you actually eat. I hope to clarify that in the next few days, once I talk to one of the the paper’s authors.

© Image provided by Columbia University Medical Center.

Bone degeneration

It turns out that the skeleton may tie into the glucose-insulin cycle as well. Bones have their own cycle of growth, breakdown and regrowth. A team from Columbia University Medical Center presented research in the journal Cell that explains how this regeneration cycle influences glucose and insulin.  As old bone cells degrade, this process stimulates a hormone that tells the pancreas to make more insulin. The insulin, in turn, stimulates more bone regrowth and, incidentally, glucose absorption in muscle and fat cells.  This research suggest two important ties to diabetes:

1. It might be possible to stimulate insulin production with a hormone similar to what the bone releases;
2. People suffering from osteoporosis sometimes take drugs that inhibit the bone regrowth process (bisphosphonates), which may then lead to problems with the normal insulin cycle.  Dr. Karsenty, one of the researchers, suggests that such drugs may cause a borderline diabetic to become a full-fledged diabetic.

• National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse (National Institutes of Health)
• New York State Department of Health on diabetes
• Diabetes center at Lourdes (169 Riverside Drive, Binghamton)
• American Diabetes Association

Related articles

Diet pills: not a quick fix for losing weight

July 29, 2010

Binghamton residents struggling to keep weight off will be interested in a new study published on July 27 by Kaiser Permanente in Portland Oregon, especially if your favorite tool is your web browser. They found that if you use an interactive web site to regularly log your weight, you will probably keep more weight off than if you don’t track your weight at all.

The study enlisted the aid of 1,600 overweight or obese volunteers in the US. After six months of traditional weight loss support (food diaries, nutrition education, exercise information), 348 people were selected to use an internet-based weight management system to maintain the weight they lost.  They then spent the next two years participating in the study.  (You can see PDF’s of the web site here.)

Of these 348 people:

• Each person had lost an average of 19 pounds during the first six months;
• Those people that logged on and recorded their weight at least once a month for 24 months kept off an average of 9 pounds each;
• Those that logged on and recorded their weight once a month for 14 months kept off an average of 5 pounds each;
• Those who logged on less frequently kept off an average of 3 pounds each.

When you read the full publication, you may notice a distinct trend.  Those who used the website consistently also attended more counseling sessions during the first six months before the start of the web site period.  They began the study with a higher level of participation offline.

The report also notes that Internet users who use web site features that require person-to-person contact (e-counseling or interactive forums for example) consistently do better at losing weight and keeping the weight off.

Commitment, accountability and support may provide the best positive ingredient for someone struggling with weight issues.

• Recent news about weight loss (from Google news)
• Weight Watchers in Binghamton
• Interactive weight loss web sites (Google search)
• Weight loss clinics near Binghamton (Google search)

Originally published at Examiner.com

Bob Anderson, one of the collaborators who discovered

the culprits behind celiac disease.

July 23, 2010

Under normal circumstances, our bodies have built-in protection against microscopic things that could kill us.  If a virus or bacteria breaks through the outer defenses of the skin, specialized cells trigger a cascade of events that tell white blood cells to destroy the potentially harmful pathogen. Occasionally this well-tuned system backfires and the immune cells attack the body instead — what’s called an autoimmune response.

Celiac disease, which affects nearly 2 million Americans, is one such malady.  Researchers in Australia now believe they have identified three tiny compounds responsible for the majority of the disease’s problem.

When you take a bite of food, a B.L.T. from Cortese’s for example, you begin the process of replenishing the nutrients your body needs to survive.  The body can’t apply a bread slice directly to a muscle and make a stronger muscle, you need to break the bread down into its individual components first. This starts in the mouth, where the teeth take the bite and physically break the food into small pieces.  After you swallow the food, various chemicals go to work on the smaller pieces, breaking down the bread and peanut butter into the vitamins, carbohydrates, fats and proteins the body can use.

Your body absorbs the nutrients through structures called villi in the small intestine.  Think of them like the tentacles of a coral; the digested food slurry wafts over the tentacles, and special gates in the tentacles move the stuff of life into your blood.

If you have celiac disease, that B.L.T. becomes a problem.  The wheat component of the bread contains the protein gluten. Gluten is made up of smaller pieces called amino acids – the body uses these amino acids for growth and repair.  When wheat proteins reach the small intestine of a celiac sufferer, the proteins enter the bloodstream.  The immune system mistakes these proteins for foreign invaders and ends up damaging the intestine’s villi. After enough time, a celiac sufferer’s small intestine looks like the inside of a pipe instead of a coral.  This means that the small intestine can’t absorb enough nutrients for the body, which starts to suffer from nutrient deprivation.  Fortunately, the damage is reversible; the small intestine can repair itself in the absence of gluten.

Currently the only remedy to this problem is for the celiac sufferer to remove gluten entirely from her diet.  This can be challenging, however.  Gluten shows up in a huge variety of places like soy sauce, white pepper, vitamins, toothpaste, curry powders and some cosmetics. Going out for dinner can turn into an exercise in giving the third degree to the serving staff about ingredients.

Research conducted over nine years, two continents and with more than 200 patients pinpoints three tiny gluten fragments that trigger the celiac’s body to destroy the intestine’s villi. Identifying this “toxic trio” helps the medical community develop a true cure. A company in Australia is already working on a desensitization protocol, and three drugs are under development.

It will take time for any remedy to pass rigorous testing, but researchers can now envision ways to safely dampen the body’s immune response, or even create a pill to eat with a meal that will trap or destroy the dangerous gluten segments, while leaving the rest of the gluten proteins available for the body to use.

in the meantime, the gluten-free options continue to grow for the approximately 300 Binghamton residents with celiac diesase.  Wegmans offers a a gluten-free shopping guide, Weis Markets offers an “Ask the Dietician” resource, Despina’s Mediterranean Taste, Nirchi’s Pizza and Crepe Heaven are listed as gluten-friendly, and Binghamton has several doctors who specialize in intestinal maladies.  You can also join a local Celiac Self Help Group (contact Nancy Dorfman at 607-722-3848 or ndorfman@stny.rr.com).

• Symptoms of celiac disease (the Mayo Clinic)
• Celiac Disease Foundation
• Celiac Disease Awareness Campaign (the National Institute of Health)
• Participate in a clinical trial

Originally published at Examiner.com
Photo by Wikimedia user Böhringer

Whales sleep with half a brain at a time

Photo from the National Marine Mammal Lab

July 20, 2010

COME, Sleep; O Sleep! the certain knot of peace,

The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,

The poor man’s wealth, the prisoner’s release,

Th’ indifferent judge between the high and low.

- Sir Philip Sidney

When a body sleeps, it uses less energy, brain cell activity changes, muscles repair, tissues regrow… while the external body lies still, the parts beneath the skin take advantage of this down time to do some much-needed maintenance. Even the brain seems to focus inward as neurons cycle through active and inactive periods. Why a body needs sleep probably ties in to all of the activities that happen during sleep, or maybe we sleep to prevent the effects of sleep deprivation.  We certainly know more about how we sleep than why.

As people age their sleep needs change.  A newborn wants about 18 hours of sleep a day, while adults need about eight (and adults with newborns would rejoice over four in a row). Individuals have their own requirements; one sibling may do fine on six hour of down time every night, while the other sibling needs eight or more.  Some feel fine with far less, possibly due to genetics. If you feel awake and rested during the day after seven hours of sleep, then that is likely your optimal sleep duration.

In addition to needing a specific number of hours asleep, the human body tends to guide us into nocturnal sleep times.  The infant sleep clock doesn’t really kick in until about three months of age — no news flash there to parents of newborns — and eventually settles into a regular day/night wake/sleep pattern. This sleep pattern again varies from night owls to morning birds.

Teenagers tend to straddle the divide, sleeping through half the night and a good part of the morning, unless forced out of bed by a persistent parent or alarm clock. Their body chemistry simply promotes staying up later and sleeping later than they did at a younger age.

Puberty gets part of the credit for this sleep cycle change. Melatonin, a hormone which helps control how sleepy a person feels, starts to build up late in the day for teens, one of the reasons that teens generally don’t feel tired until later at night. Several studies consistently show that teens prefer to fall asleep between 11pm and midnight. Teens generally need up to nine hours of sleep in order to feel fully rested – their optimal sleep duration.

Unfortunately, their sleep biology comes in direct conflict with the school schedule. The homeroom bell at the Binghamton High School rings at 7:55, with first period starting at 8am. Binghamton students probably wake between 6:30 and 7am in order to get to school on time. This leaves most students walking in to school having slept only seven or eight hours, sometimes less.

This low-level sleep deprivation eventually takes its toll by impacting a student’s ability to learn, remember, and focus especially in the first two periods of class.  Their bodies are still in biological sleep mode, which simply doesn’t promote learning. Students tend toward depression, moodiness and a lack of motivation. It might even be a culprit behind ADHD-like behavior.

A new study, published in the July issue of Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine reaffirms what previous studies have shown.  Starting school just 30 minutes later (8:30 instead of 8am) dramatically improves this age group’s sleep, which then improves their mood, attentiveness and health.  A private school in Rhode Island agreed to shift their academic schedule for a period of two months.  (Rather than extend the length of the school day, the school shortened periods by 5 or 10 minutes.)  This school population included students who live on campus and those who commute from home.

Just under 78% of the students participated in the study, with a pretty even split between male and female students.  At the beginning of the study, 16% of the students managed to get at least eight hours of sleep – most got less than 7.  At end of the two months, over half of the students got eight or more hours of sleep.

By starting school 30 minutes later, more than half of the students started to get near-adequate amounts of sleep.

Students came to school on-time more often, took fewer naps, felt more rested, reported less depression and irritability, and felt more motivated.  The researchers also found that the later start time encouraged kids to get to sleep earlier. “Well for me,” they quote one student as saying, “ever since the 8:30 start, I have seen how much good 30 minutes of extra sleep does for me, so I have been inspired to…get an additional half hour on top of the 30 minutes.”

The research is mixed on whether shifting the school day subsequently improves school grades.  It will probably take time to show a significant correlation between the two.  However, if students feel better, are more alert, healthier (thus missing less school), and find themselves more motivated then it makes sense that some of that extra health an energy should bleed into their grades.

Starting school at the crack of dawn has deep roots in our culture, and perhaps just a little bit of the “well back in my day” and “kids these days don’t appreciate” may color opinion about starting school later.  At the start of the Rhode Island study, the researchers faced “considerable resistance” to the adjustment by faculty and athletic coaches.  By the end of the study, students and faculty overwhelmingly opted to stay with the new 8:30 time.  They quote a faculty member as saying “I have found the 8:30 start to be the single most positive impact to my general quality of life at [the school] since I started 12 years ago.”

Despite the clear advantages of a small time shift, parents should not assume that school administrators will champion changing the school start times for their kids. The Archives’ editorial notes (emphasis mine) that political fear trumps research and biology:

In the 14 years since the research findings on the outcomes for a later start time were first published, many superintendents and school board members across the United States have lost their jobs as a result of contentious public meetings where people who were against the change took action to replace those in leadership positions supporting the change.”

• Help your teens understand their sleep patterns and adjust accordingly with these tips from the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine and Stanford University.
• E-mail PTSA President Pam Hatchett-Rogers about what it would take to change Binghamton High’s start time
• Voice your support to the Board of Education.
• Encourage your teens to champion a change. (Four-minute video from one such student.)

Photo by Ragesoss via Wikimedia commons

July 12, 2010

On July 5, researchers at the International Congress on Obesity announced the results of a two-month study, which concluded that nine popular slimming supplements worked just as effectively as a placebo for the 189 study participants.

The researchers evaluated the effects of L-Carnitine, polyglucosamine, cabbage powder, guarana seed powder, bean extract, Konjac extract, fiber pill, sodium alginate and plant extracts. Participants taking the pills lost an average 2 to 4 pounds (depending on the supplement), while the placebo group lost an average of 2.6 pounds over eight weeks.

Another finding from the conference comes from a review of previously published research on weight loss supplements.  Again researchers found that supplements did not increase weight loss.

Americans spend over $1.6 billion on weight loss supplements annually, but the number of obese Americans continues to rise; approximately 24,000 Binghamton residents are currently overweight. At the very core of the biology for most people, it boils down to calories in versus calories out.  The body needs a certain amount of energy to respond to your everyday activities.  If you eat extra calories, the body then stores it for times when you don’t have enough food. If you continue to take in more calories than you burn, your body continues to make fat and you continue to gain weight.

Shedding excess weight isn’t simply a matter of body image, it’s about long-term health.  An increasing amount of research suggests links between obesity and many health problems such as heart disease and diabetes in both children and adults.

“Eat less, exercise more” doesn’t always work with the demands on your time or wallet. Understanding your lifestyle and your personality is the second step to finding your own successfully weight loss program.

The first step is to commit yourself to lose weight in the first place.

A review of over-the-counter weight loss pills (by the Mayo Clinic)

FDA weight loss product consumer alerts

For more info: If you feel that you are overweight or obese, talk to your health care provider.  He or she can review your options given your health, weight and lifestyle.

Originally published at Examiner.com

If you have a specific type of lower back pain, taking glucosamine may not help alleviate your pain, according to a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

The study was conducted in Norway, using 250 volunteers who experienced chronic lower back pain due to osteoarthritis for at least six months. Half of the volunteers, all over 25 years of age, were given glucosamine sulfate (1500 mg daily). Half were given a placebo comprised mainly of cellulose.  Using a standardized pain index, the researchers measured the patients’ pain levels at six months, and again at one year.

The researchers found those taking glucosamine reported the same amount of improvement compared to those taking the cellulose pills.  Based on the results, the researchers recommended the following:

It seems unwise to recommend glucosamine to all patients with chronic lower back pain and degenerative lumbar osteoarthritis.

Don’t toss your glucosamine bottle just yet.  The patients who participated in the study did report a reduction in their pain levels (from just over 9 down to 5 on a 24-point disability scale) over the trial period.  While glucosamine can’t take the credit, it is possible that the patients benefited from simply taking a pill in the first place.

There is a high correlation between pain reduction due to a placebo effect; people feel better because they expect to feel better. The Norwegian study did not follow patients who received no pills, so it is not clear if the participants benefited from this placebo effect. If you believe that by taking glucosamine you will lessen your lower back pain, then it’s very possible that you will feel better by using the supplement. But as with any health issues, talk to your health care provider first.

This spring’s USDA/AIA-initiated honey bee survey, which reported that over a third of the nation’s honey bee colonies died over the winter, beekeepers attributed 10% of the colony losses to “poor queens.”  The term “poor queen” has no single definition among beekeepers, but is one of those qualities that “you know it when you see it.”  If that’s the case, then what does the queen bee do, and what qualities make one “poor”?

As titular regent of the hive, the queen serves two major purposes.  She lays eggs, and her presence reassures the colony that all is right.  The queen moves around the hive, laying eggs in empty honeycomb cells built by the workers. The queen will lay either male (drones) or female (workers) eggs.

As the queen moves through the hive the workers tend to her, and in doing so they pick up her particular scent.  As those workers then move around the hive, they carry this chemical message to the rest of the colony.  A strong queen scent means business as usual; raise more bees, and collect more pollen and honey.

If this scent changes, or disappears (if the queen dies or leaves to start a new colony), the workers know to make a new queen.  The workers will feed very young bee larvae a special diet, and raise a new matriarch.  Once she hatches out, the queen will fly to a drone congregation area, mate, then return to the hive to complete her role in the honey bee colony’s life cycle.

A queen bee, unlike her offspring, has about three years’ worth of egg-laying ability.  In comparison, drones die in the fall, and workers may live up to four months if they’re lucky enough to live during the winter months of the hive.

A recent informal survey of beekeepers revealed that the queen’s two roles play directly into a beekeeper’s analysis of the queen’s ability.  Among the traits of a “poor queen”, beekeepers identified:

• a queen who doesn’t lay eggs in a nice, compact pattern (“loose brood pattern”)
• a lazy, poor layer (she doesn’t lay enough eggs)
• she lays too many drones and not enough workers
• the queen doesn’t have a strong enough scent and the hive is disorganized
• a queen who produces too aggressive or too submissive bees
• any older queen (two or more years old)
• a queen who’s skittish, and tends to run on the frames or hide
• any queen who underperforms compared to the rest of the apiary

Why are poor queens blamed for winter die-off?  If she’s a poor layer, her colony might not be large enough to collect enough honey to survive the winter.  She will also not lay enough eggs in the very early spring to build up the colony for the spring flowers.  Weaker colonies are also more susceptible to predation and disease.

If a beekeeper feels that a hive has a poor queen — whatever the beekeeper’s standards — then the beekeeper can replace the queen.  Many beekeepers structure some of their hives to breed dozens of queens for sale.  They sell the unmated or mated queens, often trying to select for specific traits, such as disease resistance.  The beekeeper locates the poor queen, kills her, then inserts the new queen or queen cell into the hive.

The beekeeper can also let the hive breed its own queen.  Again, the beekeeper needs to kill the existing queen.  When the hive senses her absence, they will use the existing larvae to raise a new queen.  It will take about a month before the beekeeper knows if the hive successfully raised a queen.  Depending on the time of year, this could be a risky approach, since the hive needs time to build stores and numbers for winter survival.

Thanks to the BeeSource beekeepers who contributed their appraisals of poor queens.

Originally published at Examiner.com

On June 23, the White House communications office introduced a nice video about the White House bee hive.  "The Secret Life of White House Bees" runs for just about two and a half minutes. Here are some things about bees and beekeeping to note as you watch the video.  You can view the video below, or click here to open a new window and watch the movie side-by-side to this article.

Minute 1:02

Beekeeper Charlie Brandts is getting his "smoker" ready.  The smoker creates a controlled, smoldering fire that produces copious amounts of smoke, but little flame. Beekeepers use various fuel sources in their smokers: commercial smoker fuel, wood pellets, dried sumac berries, untreated bailing twine or – as it looks like here – pine needles.

The smoke accomplishes two very important things for the beekeepers.  The smoke masks the scents bees use to alert the hive of potential predators (and let’s face it – Charlie is robbing the honey!).  By masking this scent, the bees don’t get worked up into a defend-the-hive mode. 

Honey bees, when they sense smoke, also instinctively prepare to abandon a potentially doomed hive location.  The workers gorge themselves on any open honey, which diverts their focus to food and not the meddling beekeeper.

Minute 1:07

Notice how close Charlie stands to the hive, without a shred of concern?  Honey bees generally focus on food, not stinging people.  Charlie also stands to the side of the hive, out of the way of bees flying in and out of the entrance, which prevents bee-human collisions (and accidental stings).

Charlie can also use his proximity to get an idea of what’s going on inside the hive.  If the bees harass him, he knows that something has them upset; they lost their queen or perhaps predators have bothered them.  Aggressive bees can also indicate the hive has been "Africanized", meaning that the bees have bred with  Africanized bees (also known as "killer bees").  Beekeepers sometimes use the term "hot" to describe an overly aggressive hive.

Minute 1:28

Do you see the cargo straps holding the hive together?  That keeps the wash from the propellers of the White House helicopter from toppling the hive.

 Minute 1:36

When beekeepers take the honey boxes off of the hive, they need to clear out the bees.  Charlie uses a blower, literally blowing the bees away.  They will then find their way back to the hive and continue making honey.  Other beekeepers might sweep the bees away with a very soft "bee brush" or use chemical scents to harmlessly drive the bees out of the honey.

Minute 1:42

This gives a good picture of a "frame", one of the key innovations to modern-day beekeeping. The wood part of the frame fits around a wax foundation.  The bees make honeycomb on this foundation, fill it with flower nectar, then let the nectar evaporate.  When enough water evaporates out, the bees put a wax cap on the honeycomb.  The bees now have honey.

The movable frames, invented in the late 19th century by Reverend Lorenzo Langstroth, allow beekeepers to manage honey crops without destroying the entire hive.  Prior to movable frames, the beekeeper often had to sacrifice the entire colony in order to collect honey.

Minute 1:54

You can see the cappings well as Charlie uses a knife to slice them off, exposing the honey. This honey is a beautiful pale yellow, which reflects the flowers from which the bees found nectar.  Honey can range from nearly brown to almost clear, and the honey flavor ranges just as much.

Recent research from Taiwan about high dioxin contents in eggs created a flutter of excitement in several media outlets.  Dioxins are chemicals which can cause a variety of ailments, including cancer, in humans.  Dioxins accumulate in the fats of animals or animal products (like egg yolks). The Taiwanese research found that free-ranged chicken eggs have a higher concentration of dioxins than eggs laid by caged hens, and issued the dire proclomation that “the issue of contamination in free range eggs could be a global issue”.

This is not new information.

In 2001, the International Persistent Organic Pollutants Elimination Network surveyed free-range eggs at 17 different locations worldwide.  They found high dioxin contamination in free-range eggs from hens that live near dioxin-emitting plants.  (In the US, the site chosen was in Louisiana, near a chlorine plant.)  In 2004, California issued a similar report about high dioxin content of free-range eggs from chickens raised near known dioxin-emitting industries.

In the Taiwanese study, the eggs that contained the highest dioxin levels were from farms located near industrial areas. Taiwan has a highly industrialized infrastructure which contains many municipal waste incinerators.  The incinerators emit – you guessed it – dioxins. The free-range eggs taken from less populated areas of Taiwan contained dioxide levels much closer to caged eggs.

So where does this research leave Binghamton residents? Should you buy vitamin-rich, lower fat free-range eggs, or stick with the safer, less nutritious, caged variety?

What the studies consistently show is that the hens can pick up chemicals from their environment, some of which end up in their eggs. If you raise chickens in your back yard, look around your neighborhood. Do you live near an incinerator or chemical plant? Do your neighbors still use a burning barrel?  (This practice, now banned in New York, is a major source of dioxide pollution in the state, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.) If you purchase free-range eggs, talk to your supplier in the Farmer’s Market, or read the label of your egg carton and find out where the hens live.

You can then use the Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry’s Environmental Health WebMap to find an initial report of toxins based on your zip code.  (This site works best with the Internet Explorer or Chrome browsers.)  If you find that your egg source may be near an area of potentially high dioxins, you may consider limiting your egg (or egg yolk) intake, or changing egg sources.

Originally published at Examiner.com

The Taiwanese study collected free-range eggs from six different locations.  Although the average dioxin levels of the free-range samples were twice as high as from caged samples, two of the locations sampled had extremely high levels of dioxin, driving that average number up.

Half of the free-range eggs tested contained dioxin levels only marginally higher than cage-laid eggs.

• Mad honey sex: what’s in honey besides honey?
• Why honey gets contaminated by antibiotics

On June 4, 2010, at the request of the Food and Drug Administration, federal marshals seized 64 drums of imported honey, worth about $32,000.  This honey, from Cheng Du Wai Yuan Bee Products Company Limited in China, was contaminated with the antibiotic chloramphenicol.

Chloramphenicol is a powerful and inexpensive drug used to treat a wide variety of bacterial infections, and particularly effective against meningitis and typhoid fever.  The antibiotic has a fatal side effect in some people; aplastic anemia, a disorder where the bone marrow becomes damaged and can’t make enough red blood cells, white blood cells or platelets.  An estimated 1 in 30,000 individuals in the US may develop aplastic anemia weeks or months after ingesting even small doses of chloramphenicol.  (In comparison, fatal reactions to penicillin affect approximately 1 in 177,000.)

Antibiotics can contaminate honey when beekeepers need to treat their hives against the crippling foulbrood disease, caused by the bacteria Paenibacillus larvae.  In a foulbrood infection, larval bees eat the spores of the bacteria, the spores germinate in the developing bee’s gut and reproduce until the larval bee dies.  The new bacteria form more spores, which adult bees inadvertently carry around the hive, exposing more larvae to the disease.  Left unchecked, foulbrood destroys the hive’s bee population and can annihilate an apiary.  Since the bacterial spores can lie dormant for up to 40 years, the only way to eradicate an infection is to kill the honey bee colony and incinerate all of the contaminated equipment – a costly remedy.

Foulbrood can be kept in check by antibiotics, which can only mitigate – not eliminate – the disease.  Infected hives must be treated constantly to prevent a foulbrood outbreak.  Beekeepers mix powdered antibiotic with powdered sugar and spread it within the hives.  Bees walk on the antibiotic-laced sugar, it adheres to their bodies and spreads through the hive as the bees travel, thus treating the disease.  If the bees walk through a honey-filled comb while coated with antibiotic, the antibiotic can then stick to the honey.  Antibiotic left on the hive can also fall into the honey during the extraction process. Good beekeeping practices dictate that beekeepers remove treatments from the hive at least six weeks before they plan to harvest honey to prevent such contamination.

In 1997, foulbrood ravaged the Chinese beekeeping industry, reducing its honey exports by two-thirds.  Beekeepers in China adopted chloramphenicol and streptomycin to save their hives and their industry.  But much Chinese honey – up to 80% according to a Canadian survey – still contains the drug.  (US beekeepers may use terramycin to prevent foulbrood infections from starting in the first place.)

Citing the ongoing investigation, the FDA declined to say why the honey was tested in Philadelphia and not California, where it was imported by Sweet Works, Inc. of Monterey.  The FDA also declined to note other potential buyers (if any) of this honey shipment.

Individuals concerned with the origin of their honey blends can purchase directly from local beekeepers, from US suppliers online, or contact the honey producer directly.  Sue Bee Honey, perhaps the most well-known honey brand in the US, replied promptly to such a request.  “Sioux Honey Association has never purchased any honey from Sweet Works Inc.,” David Allibone responded, and cited several safeguards the company employes to maintain the quality of its product including screening honey for adulterants.

Photo by Tanarus via Wikimedia Commons

Originally published at Examiner.com

Until the 1960’s, chloramphenicol was a best selling drug in the US.  It is still used to treat certain infections when other antibiotics fail.

The levels of chloramphenicol found in Chinese honey in Canada were miniscule (one thousandth to one millionth less than what the FDA considers a theraputic dose of the antibiotic), but researchers have been unable to identify a safe amount that will not cause aplastic anemia in susceptible people.

The FDA has also found chloramphenicol contamination in shrimp and crayfish imported from China and Vietnam.

According to the National Institutes of Health, aplastic anemia is 2 to 3 times more common in Asian countries.