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Drinking green tea may help prevent heart disease and stroke, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Athens Medical School in Greece and published in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention. "A couple of cups a day would probably be a good dose for people," researcher Charalambos Vlachopoulos said. "This is the first study to show these effects for green tea." Prior research has indicated that black tea can improve cardiovascular health, leading researchers suspect that green tea might even more effective. Many of the beneficial health effects of tea are attributed to its high content of antioxidant...

A drug based on a chemical found in garlic can treat diabetes types I and II when taken as a tablet, a study in the new Royal Society of Chemistry journal Metallomics say. When Hiromu Sakurai and colleagues from the Suzuka University of Medical Science, Japan, gave the drug orally to type I diabetic mice, they found it reduced blood glucose levels. The drug is based on vanadium and allixin, a compound found in garlic, and its action described in an Advance Article from Metallomics available free online from today. The first issue of the new journal will be published...

There's a new reason, and a big one, to think that we benefit from free-radical-inhibiting antioxidants. We've long thought that by reducing free radicals, antioxidants can help prevent cancer, of course. But a recent experiment at Johns Hopkins and published in the March 14 issue of Science shows how antioxidants may be doing much more: interfering with the growth of cancers that are already established, and potentially, even reversing them once established, by knocking out communications signals between cancer cells that encourage cells to grow and divide. Those communications signals turn out to be... free radicals, which the cancer cells...

Eating broccoli could reverse the damage caused by diabetes to heart blood vessels, research suggests.A University of Warwick team believe the key is a compound found in the vegetable, called sulforaphane. It encourages production of enzymes which protect the blood vessels, and a reduction in high levels of molecules which cause significant cell damage. Brassica vegetables such as broccoli have previously been linked to a lower risk of heart attacks and strokes. People with diabetes are up to five times more likely to develop cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and strokes; both are linked to damaged blood vessels. The...

Best-selling author Kevin Trudeau violated a 2004 court order by making "patently false" claims in one of his books about a weight-loss regimen, a federal court said in a ruling released Monday. The ruling found Trudeau in contempt of a 2004 court order that barred him from using infomercials to sell any product or service other than books and required that he not misrepresent the content of those books. Trudeau made the claims in several infomercials promoting his book "The Weight Loss Cure 'They' Don't Want You to Know About," the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois...

Amid growing concern over drug-resistant superbugs and nonhealing wounds that endanger diabetes patients, nature's original antibiotic — honey — is making a comeback.< >He said the Medihoney dressing can also prevent the dangerous drug-resistant staph infection known as MRSA from infecting open wounds. "It's been used on wounds where nothing else will work," said biochemist Peter Molan, a professor at the University of Waikato in New Zealand who has researched honey and other natural antibiotics for 25 years.He's found manuka honey can kill the toughest bacteria even when diluted 10 times and recommends it especially for people with weak immune...

Scientists have discovered the key to the ability of spicy foods to kill cancer cells. They found capsaicin, an ingredient of jalapeno peppers, triggers cancer cell death by attacking mitochondria - the cells' energy-generating boiler rooms. The research raises the possibility that other cancer drugs could be developed to target mitochondria. The Nottingham University study features in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. The study showed that the family of molecules to which capsaicin belongs, the vanilloids, bind to proteins in the cancer cell mitochondria to trigger apoptosis, or cell death, without harming surrounding healthy cells. Capsaicin was tested on cultures...

High doses of vitamin C injected into the bloodstream may be effective at combating cancer, new research suggests. Scientists found that vitamin C in the form of ascorbate killed cancer cells in the laboratory. But the effective dose was so high it could only be delivered to patients by infusion into the bloodstream. The findings appear to contradict earlier studies showing no cancer benefit from vitamin C. However the researchers point out that those trials only investigated orally taken vitamins. Vitamin C kills cancer cells but leaves normal cells intact In the latest study a US team led by Dr...