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This is part 2 of today's post. This past week I came across two amazing and very different stories, but in both Lyme disease appears. So read with an open mind - because they may or may not work out. But I will say that living in the NY metro area, tick diseases are a big deal, and we all know people who have gotten diseases from ticks. Most get successfully treated with antibiotics, but then there are those people who are suffering years later with all sorts of symptoms .

The following article may be considered speculative by many in raising a Lyme disease and Morgellons disease link, but it is nonetheless very interesting with a famous personality (Joni Mitchell) involved. The mysterious disease has been the subject of much debate, but many doctors and the CDC  think Morgellons disease is actually a delusional infestation or delusions of parasitosis (DOP) - a psychiatric condition in which people falsely believe themselves to be infested. Finally, I give a link to recent research showing a Morgellons disease and Lyme disease link. From MNN:

The mystery surrounding Morgellons disease

Earlier this week, legendary singer Joni Mitchell was rushed to the hospital after fainting at her home in Bel Air, California. While still under observation by doctors, an update provided to fans said the 71-year-old is resting comfortably and that "she continues to improve and get stronger each day." What was not disclosed was the exact illness Mitchell is suffering from, leading to speculation that  Morgellons disease, a health condition she's spoken about in the past, might be responsible. "I have this weird, incurable disease that seems like it's from outer space," she told the LA Times in 2010. "Fibers in a variety of colors protrude out of my skin like mushrooms after a rainstorm: they cannot be forensically identified as animal, vegetable or mineral. Morgellons is a slow, unpredictable killer — a terrorist disease: it will blow up one of your organs, leaving you in bed for a year."  ...continue reading "A Morgellons Disease and Lyme Disease Link?"

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This past week I came across two amazing and very different stories, but in both Lyme disease appears. So read with an open mind - because they may or may not work out. But I will say that living in the NY metro area, tick diseases are a big deal, and we all know people who have gotten diseases from ticks. Most get successfully treated with antibiotics, but then there are those people who are suffering years later. The first article is by Dr. Christie Wilcox (a freelance science writer and postdoctoral researcher). Do go read the whole article for her fascinating account of venoms. From Digg:

Poison As Medicine: How A Bee Sting Saved My Life

“I moved to California to die.” Ellie Lobel was 27 when she was bitten by a tick and contracted Lyme disease. And she was not yet 45 when she decided to give up fighting for survival. Caused by corkscrew-shaped bacteria called Borrelia burgdorferi, which enter the body through the bite of a tick, Lyme disease is diagnosed in around 300,000 people every year in the United States. It kills almost none of these people, and is by and large curable – if caught in time. If doctors correctly identify the cause of the illness early on, antibiotics can wipe out the bacteria quickly before they spread through the heart, joints and nervous system.

But back in the spring of 1996, Ellie didn’t know to look for the characteristic bull’s-eye rash when she was bitten – she thought it was just a weird spider bite. Then came three months with flu-like symptoms and horrible pains that moved around the body. Ellie was a fit, active woman with three kids, but her body did not know how to handle this new invader. She was incapacitated. “It was all I could do to get my head up off the pillow,” Ellie remembers.

As time wore on, Ellie went to doctor after doctor, each giving her a different diagnosis. Multiple sclerosis. Lupus. Rheumatoid arthritis. Fibromyalgia. None of them realised she was infected with Borrelia until more than a year after she contracted the disease – and by then, it was far too late. Lyme bacteria are exceptionally good at adapting, with some evidence that they may be capable of dodging both the immune system and the arsenal of antibiotics currently available. Borrelia are able to live all over the body, including the brain, leading to neurological symptoms. And even with antibiotic treatment, 10–20 per cent of patients don’t get better right away. There are testimonies of symptoms persisting – sometimes even resurfacing decades after the initial infection – though the exact cause of such post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome is a topic of debate among Lyme scientists.

I just kept doing this treatment and that treatment,” says Ellie. Her condition was constantly worsening....So she packed up everything and moved to California to die. And she almost did. Less than a week after moving, Ellie was attacked by a swarm of Africanised bees....Bees – and some other species in the order Hymenoptera, such as ants and wasps – are armed with a potent sting that many of us are all too aware of. This is their venom, and it’s a mixture of many compounds. Perhaps the most important is a tiny 26-amino-acid peptide called melittin, which constitutes more than half of the venom of honey bees and is found in a number of other bees and wasps. 

“I just went limp. I put my hands up and covered my face because I didn’t want them stinging me in the eyes… The next thing I know, the bees are gone.” When the bees finally dissipated, her caregiver tried to take her to the hospital, but Ellie refused to go... But Ellie didn’t die. Not that day, and not three to four months later...She believes the bees, and their venom, saved her life.

The idea that the same venom toxins that cause harm may also be used to heal is not new. Bee venom has been used as a treatment in East Asia since at least the second century BCE...Despite the wealth of history, the practical application of venoms in modern therapeutics has been minimal....Over the course of the 20th century, suggested venom treatments for a range of diseases have appeared in scientific and medical literature. Venoms have been shown to fight cancer, kill bacteria, and even serve as potent painkillers – though many have only gone as far as animal tests. 

The more we learn about the venoms that cause such awful damage, the more we realise, medically speaking, how useful they can be. Like the melittin in bee venom. Melittin does not only cause pain. In the right doses, it punches holes in cells’ protective membranes, causing the cells to explode. At low doses, melittin associates with the membranes, activating lipid-cutting enzymes that mimic the inflammation caused by heat. But at higher concentrations, and under the right conditions, melittin molecules group together into rings creating large pores in membranes, weakening a cell’s protective barrier and causing the entire cell to swell and pop like a balloon.Because of this, melittin is a potent antimicrobial, fighting off a variety of bacteria and fungi with ease. 

After the attack, Ellie watched the clock, waiting for anaphylaxis to set in, but it didn’t. Instead, three hours later, her body was racked with pains. A scientist by education before Lyme took its toll, Ellie thinks that these weren’t a part of an allergic response, but instead indicated a Jarisch–Herxheimer reaction – her body was being flooded with toxins from dying bacteria. The same kind of thing can happen when a person is cured from a bad case of syphilis. A theory is that certain bacterial species go down swinging, releasing nasty compounds that cause fever, rash and other symptoms. For three days, she was in pain. Then, she wasn’t.“I had been living in this… I call it a brown-out because it’s like you’re walking around in a half-coma all the time with the inflammation of your brain from the Lyme. My brain just came right out of that fog. I thought: I can actually think clearly for the first time in years.”

With a now-clear head, Ellie started wondering what had happened. So she did what anyone else would do: Google it. Disappointingly, her searches turned up very little. But she did find one small 1997 study by scientists at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana, who’d found that melittin killed Borrelia. Exposing cell cultures to purified melittin, they reported that the compound completely inhibited Borrelia growth. When they looked more closely, they saw that shortly after melittin was added, the bacteria were effectively paralysed, unable to move as their outer membranes were under attack. Soon after, those membranes began to fall apart, killing the bacteria.

Convinced by her experience and the limited research she found, Ellie decided to try apitherapy, the therapeutic use of materials derived from bees...She started on a regimen of ten stings a day, three days a week: Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Three years and several thousand stings later, Ellie seems to have recovered miraculously. Slowly, she has reduced the number of stings and their frequency – just three stings in the past eight months, she tells me (and one of those she tried in response to swelling from a broken bone, rather than Lyme-related symptoms). 

Since the 1997 study, no one had looked further into bee venom as a potential cure for Lyme disease, until Ellie. Ellie now runs a business selling bee-derived beauty products called BeeVinity, inspired after, she says, noticing how good her skin looked as she underwent apitherapy.....In addition, she sends some of the venom she purchases – which, due to the cost of the no-harm extraction method she uses, she says is “more expensive than gold” – to Eva Sapi, Associate Professor of Biology and Environmental Science at the University of New Haven, who studies Lyme disease.

Sapi’s research into the venom’s effects on Lyme bacteria is ongoing and as yet unpublished, though she told me the results from preliminary work done by one of her students look “very promising”. Borrelia bacteria can shift between different forms in the body, which is part of what makes them so hard to kill. Sapi has found that other antibiotics don’t actually kill the bacteria but just push them into another form that is more dormant. As soon as you stop the antibiotics, the Borrelia bounce back. Her lab is testing different bee venoms on all forms of the bacteria, and so far, the melittin venom seems effective...And they still don’t really know why the venom works for Ellie, not least because the exact cause of post-treatment Lyme disease symptoms remains unknown. “Is it effective for her because it’s killing Borrelia, or is it effective because it stimulates the immune system?” asks Sapi. It’s still a mystery.

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Another excellent reason to exercise - for better erectile and sexual function in men! The researchers say that their research supports the idea that "that exercise might one day be prescribed as a treatment for erectile dysfunction".

And they're not talking about that much exercise: the highly active men in the study did a moderately intense activity such as brisk walking, cycling, or tennis at least an hour 3 to 4 times a week. Other research has suggested that erectile dysfunction can be reversed naturally by changing lifestyle factors see October 27, 2014 post Reversing Erectile Dysfunction Naturally). From Reuters:

Older men who exercise more have better erectile function

Men who exercise more have better erectile and sexual function, suggests a small study of older overweight men. The authors say their results support the idea that exercise might one day be prescribed as a treatment for erectile dysfunction.

Vidal and colleagues examined exercise habits and sexual function in 295 healthy men who were part of a research project evaluating prostate cancer risk at the Durham Veterans Affairs Medical Center in North Carolina. On average, the men were about 62 years old, and they were all overweight or obese. Roughly one third had diabetes or a history of chest pain or heart attacks. About three quarters were current or former smokers. Ninety-three men, or about a third of the group, were African-American.

Men were scored based on a measure known as metabolic equivalent of task (MET) hours per week and placed in four categories ranging from sedentary, with three or fewer MET hours/week, to highly active, with at least 18 MET hours/week. Most often, the men were sedentary, with 44 percent reporting little activity. But a substantial proportion, 26 percent, were highly active.Researchers also questioned the men about their sexual function, focusing on their ability to get erections and have orgasms, as well as the quality and frequency of their erections...Added up, responses could lead to a total score from 0 to 100....Men who reported more frequent exercise also reported higher sexual function scores. Half of the highly active men reported sexual function scores of at least 70, compared with a median score of about 33 for sedentary men.

SOURCE: bit.ly/1NilZYI The Journal of Sexual Medicine, online March 20, 2015.

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People have asked me if it is healthy to exercise or ride a bicycle in the congested and polluted New York metro area. According to this much quoted in the past week study from the University of Copenhagen - it is better to exercise than not in polluted cities when looking at death rates. But is their air pollution even comparable to ours? What does it do to our lungs to bicycle daily behind smoke belching buses?

Even the researcher said:"It is also important to note that these results pertain to Denmark and sites with similar air pollution levels, and may not necessary be true in cities with several fold higher air pollution levels, as seen in other parts of the world." They also stated: "...we would still advise people to exercise and cycle in green areas, parks, woods, with low air pollution and away from busy roads, when possible." From Science Daily:

Exercise can outweigh harmful effects of air pollution

The beneficial effects of exercise are more important for our health than the negative effects of air pollution, in relation to the risk of premature mortality, new research shows. In other words, benefits of exercise outweigh the harmful effects of air pollution.The study shows that despite the adverse effects of air pollution on health, air pollution should be not perceived as a barrier to exercise in urban areas. "Even for those living in the most polluted areas of Copenhagen, it is healthier to go for a run, a walk or to cycle to work than it is to stay inactive," says Associate Professor Zorana Jovanovic Andersen from the Centre for Epidemiology and Screening at the University of Copenhagen.

It is well known that physical activity reduces, while air pollution increases the risk of premature mortality. Physical activity amplifies respiratory intake and accumulation of air pollutants in our lungs, which may increase the harmful effects of air pollution during exercise."However, we would still advise people to exercise and cycle in green areas, parks, woods, with low air pollution and away from busy roads, when possible," she adds.

The Danish study includes 52,061 subjects, aged 50-65 years, from the two main cities Aarhus and Copenhagen, who participated in the cohort study Diet, Cancer and Health..,5,500 participants died before 2010, and the researchers observed about 20% fewer deaths among those who exercised than among those who didn't exercise, even for those who lived in the most polluted areas, in central Copenhagen and Aarhus, or close to busy roads and highways.

"It is also important to note that these results pertain to Denmark and sites with similar air pollution levels, and may not necessary be true in cities with several fold higher air pollution levels, as seen in other parts of the world," concludes Andersen.

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Note that both eggs and high-fat dairy products were basically considered evil by the medical establishment for many years. Remember egg white omelettes?And now both are thought to have health benefits, especially reducing the risk of diabetes. From Science Daily:

Eating eggs reduces risk of type 2 diabetes, study indicates

Egg consumption may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, according to new research...Research has shown that lifestyle habits, such as exercise and nutrition, play a crucial role in the development of the disease. A new study has found that egg consumption was associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes as well as with lower blood glucose levels. Men who ate approximately four eggs per week had a 37 per cent lower risk of type 2 diabetes than men who only ate approximately one egg per week. This association persisted even after possible confounding factors such as physical activity, body mass index, smoking and consumption of fruits and vegetables were taken into consideration. The consumption of more than four eggs did not bring any significant additional benefits.

The dietary habits of 2,332 men aged between 42 and 60 years were assessed at the baseline of the Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study, KIHD, at the University of Eastern Finland in 1984-1989. During a follow-up of 19.3 years, 432 men were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

Also note that high meat consumption is linked to higher risk of diabetes. From Science Daily:

High-fat dairy products linked to reduced type 2 diabetes risk

Consumption of high-fat yoghurt and cheese are linked to a reduction in the risk of type 2 diabetes by as much as a fifth, according to new research. High meat consumption, on the other hand, is linked to a higher risk.

However, the new study indicates that it is high-fat dairy products specifically that are associated with reduced risk."Those who ate the most high-fat dairy products had a 23 per cent lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those who ate the least. High meat consumption was linked to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes regardless of the fat content of the meat," said Ulrika Ericson, who conducted the study.

The researchers studied the eating habits of 27,000 individuals aged 45 to 74. The participants took part in the Malmö Diet and Cancer study in the early 1990s, in which they provided details of their eating habits. Twenty years on, over ten per cent -- 2 860 people -- had developed type 2 diabetes.

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After reading this article, I looked over my last year's posts and realized that the recent studies posted all found that eating fish showed health benefits (and they did not look at supplements). Once again, a food shows benefits while the supplement is debatable. Current advice: try to eat fish at least twice a week. From the NY Times:

Fish Oil Claims Not Supported by Research

Fish oil is now the third most widely used dietary supplement in the United States, after vitamins and minerals, according to a recent report from the National Institutes of Health. At least 10 percent of Americans take fish oil regularly, most believing that the omega-3 fatty acids in the supplements will protect their cardiovascular health. But there is one big problem: The vast majority of clinical trials involving fish oil have found no evidence that it lowers the risk of heart attack and stroke.

From 2005 to 2012, at least two dozen rigorous studies of fish oil were published in leading medical journals, most of which looked at whether fish oil could prevent cardiovascular events in high-risk populations. These were people who had a history of heart disease or strong risk factors for it, like high cholesterol, hypertension or Type 2 diabetes. All but two of these studies found that compared with a placebo, fish oil showed no benefit.

In theory at least, there are good reasons that fish oil should improve cardiovascular health. Most fish oil supplements are rich in two omega-3 fatty acids — eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) — that can have a blood-thinning effect, much like aspirin, that may reduce the likelihood of clots. Omega-3s can also reduce inflammation, which plays a role in atherosclerosis. And the Food and Drug Administration has approved at least three prescription types of fish oil — Vascepa, Lovaza and a generic form — for the treatment of very high triglycerides, a risk factor for heart disease. But these properties of omega-3 fatty acids have not translated into notable benefits in most large clinical trials.

Like many cardiologists, Dr. Stein encourages his patients to avoid fish oil supplements and focus instead on eating fatty fish at least twice a week, in line with federal guidelines on safe fish intake, because fish contains a variety of healthful nutrients other than just EPA and DHA. “We don’t recommend fish oil unless someone gets absolutely no fish in their diets,” Dr. Stein said.

But some experts say the case for fish oil remains open. Dr. JoAnn Manson, the chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said the large clinical trials of fish oil focused only on people who already had heart disease or were at very high risk. Fish oil has also been promoted for the prevention of a variety of other conditions, including cancer, Alzheimer’s and depression. Dr. Manson is leading a five-year clinical trial, called the Vital study, of 26,000 people who are more representative of the general population. Set to be completed next year, it will determine whether fish oil and vitamin D, separately or combined, have any effect on the long-term prevention of heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, and other diseases in people who do not have many strong risk factors.

Dr. Manson says that although she recommends eating fatty fish first, she usually does not stop people from taking fish oil, in part because it does not seem to have major side effects in generally healthy people. “But I do think people should realize that the jury is still out,” she said, “and that they may be spending a lot of money on these supplements without getting any benefit.”

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The research finding that eating fruits and vegetables with high pesticide residues has a negative effect on sperm is disturbing. It wasn't the amount of fruits and vegetables eaten, it was eating fruits and vegetables with high levels of pesticide residues. Yes, the study does have some limitations (for example, a one time analysis, looked at men at a fertility clinic and not the general population), but...even with these limitations, the results are disturbing.

Earlier studies of children showed that switching to an organic diet has almost immediate results of reducing pesticide residues in the body (OP Pesticides in Children’s Bodies: The Effects of a Conventional versus Organic Diet). So the advice here is try to increase the amounts of organic fruits and vegetables in the diet, especially those with high pesticide residue levels.

Fruit or vegetables that were low in pesticide residues included peas, beans, grapefruit and onions. Those that had highest pesticide residues included peppers, spinach, strawberries, celery,blueberries, potatoes, peaches, plums, apples and pears.

From Time: A Diet High in Pesticides Is Linked to a Lower Sperm Count

The troubling link between pesticide exposure and fertility isn’t new; scientists have already established that people who work with pesticides tend to have lower fertility than people who don’t. But for the majority of us who don’t work with chemicals, diet is the biggest source of exposure, says Jorge Chavarro, MD, assistant professor of nutrition and epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health and senior author of a new study published in the journal Human Reproduction.

Chavarro and his colleagues wanted to see if pesticide residues left on fruits and vegetables might have a similar effect on sperm—and their findings suggest that they did. Men who ate fruits and vegetables with a lot of pesticides had lower sperm counts and more oddly shaped sperm than those who had lower levels of dietary pesticide exposure.

Over an 18-month period, the researchers used data from the Environment and Reproductive Health (EARTH) study, including semen samples from 155 men who were being treated at a Boston fertility clinic and a food frequency questionnaire they completed. The researchers determined pesticide exposure by comparing the questionnaire answers with government data about produce pesticide levels in the USDA’s Pesticide Data Program.

The study didn’t tease out individual foods, but the researchers classified produce according to whether it had high or low-to-moderate levels of pesticides. Men who ate the most high-pesticide fruits and vegetables had a 49% lower total sperm count and 32% fewer sperm that were shaped normally, compared to men who ate the least amount of the high-pesticide produce.

Researchers gave each piece of produce a score based on its level of detectable pesticides, its level of pesticides that exceeded the tolerance level established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and whether the produce had three or more types of detectable pesticides. (The bigger the score, the more it hit all three measures.) Ranked from highest pesticide contamination to lowest, here were the top fruits and vegetables: Green, yellow and red peppers (6), Spinach (6), Strawberries (6), Celery (6), Blueberries (5), Potatoes (5), Peaches and plums (5), Apples or pears (5), Winter squash (4), Kale, mustard greens and chard greens (4), Grapes and raisins (4).

The team didn’t tease out associations with individual pesticides. But they believe that a mixture of pesticides—not just one particular pesticide—is responsible for the link. The strongest variable in their analysis were the proportion of fruits and vegetables consumed that use three or more pesticides. “The more pesticides are applied on any particular crop, that seems to be having a bigger impact,” Chavarro says...But for people who are concerned about their dietary exposure to pesticides, there are ways to lower it, he says, like eating organic and choosing produce not listed on the Environmental Working Group’s dirty dozen list.

From Science  Daily: Pesticides in fruit and vegetables linked to semen quality

Assistant Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston (USA), Jorge Chavarro, said: "These findings should not discourage the consumption of fruit and vegetables in general. In fact, we found that total intake of fruit and vegetables was completely unrelated to semen quality. This suggests that implementing strategies specifically targeted at avoiding pesticide residues, such as consuming organically-grown produce or avoiding produce known to have large amounts of residues, may be the way to go."

There were no differences seen between men in the four groups who consumed fruit and vegetables with low-to-moderate pesticide residues. In fact, there was a significant trend towards having a higher percentage of normally shaped sperm among men who consumed the most fruit and vegetables with low pesticide residues -- a relative increase of 37% from 5.7% to 7.8%...Note:Pesticide use varies from country to country, but in the USA those used on fruit and vegetables include Atrazine, Malathion, Chlorpyrifos and Carbendazim. 

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More research showing health benefits of peanuts, including when eating them with a high fat meal. From Science Daily:

Adding peanuts to a meal benefits vascular health

A study of peanut consumption showed that including them as a part of a high fat meal improved the post-meal triglyceride response and preserved endothelial function.The purpose of this research was to evaluate vascular function after a high fat meal challenge.

Fifteen overweight males were randomized to either a peanut meal containing 3 oz. of ground peanuts (as a shake) or a control meal (a shake without peanuts) that were matched for energy and macronutrients...Flow-mediated dilatation (FMD) was measured to assess vascular function... The control meal decreased FMD by 1.2 percent compared to baseline. In contrast, there was no decrease in FMD after the peanut meal. These results demonstrate that the peanut meal maintained normal vascular function whereas the high fat-matched control meal impaired vascular function acutely.

Vascular dysfunction plays a major role in the development of atherosclerosis and the formation of coronary plaques and lesions that lead to coronary artery disease. Typically after a high fat meal, vascular function is reduced, albeit temporarily, until the fat that is in the blood (from the meal) is cleared. Strategies that can blunt this response to both dietary fat and its effect on vascular dysfunction may decrease the risk of coronary disease. Our finding demonstrated that that peanut consumption was shown to be atheroprotective as a part of high fat meal.

"Previous studies have shown that individuals who consume peanuts more than two times a week have a lower risk of coronary heart disease," said Liu. "This study indicates that the protective effect of peanut consumption could be due, in part, to its beneficial effect on artery health."

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The American diet with its emphasis on highly processed foods is linked to chronic diseases. It's also not healthy when you look at the microbiome (community of microbes living in your body). With all the health research out there showing health benefits of real whole foods (especially fruits, vegetables, whole grains, seeds, legumes), then the finding that highly processed foods dominate U.S. food purchases are just plain sad. But I'm not surprised. From Science Daily:

Highly processed foods dominate U. S. grocery purchases

A nation-wide analysis of U.S. grocery purchases reveals that highly processed foods make up more than 60 percent of the calories in food we buy, and these items tend to have more fat, sugar and salt than less-processed foods.

From 2000 to 2012, the researchers asked 157,142 households to use UPC barcode scanners to record all foods and beverages they purchased from grocery stores for at least 1 year. Although items without barcodes were not included, Poti points out that packaged produce such bagged lettuce or pints of berries can be scanned. Households participated in the study for an average of four years and collectively purchased 1.2 million items. The research team then linked each item to its nutrition information, product description and ingredient list, allowing them to rank each product's degree of food processing.

The researchers classified products as highly processed if they contained multi-ingredient, industrially formulated mixtures. They labeled foods such as soda, cookies, chips, white bread, candy and prepared meals as highly processed foods and categorized fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables, milk, eggs, dried beans and fresh meat as unprocessed or minimally processed. The investigators also examined convenience, distinguishing between foods that are ready to eat, ready to heat or require cooking and/or preparation. Candy and chips are examples of ready-to-eat foods, and frozen meals are a ready-to-heat food.

"Overall, we found that not only are highly processed foods a dominant, stable part of U.S. purchasing patterns, but also that the highly-processed foods that households are purchasing are higher in fat, sugar, and salt, on average, compared to the less-processed foods that they buy," said Poti, who will present these findings at the American Society for Nutrition (ASN) Annual Meeting during Experimental Biology 2015."

The analysis revealed that from 2000 to 2012, the proportion of calories in highly processed food and beverage purchases by U.S. households remained stable at 61.0 to 62.5 percent. The researchers noted a significant increase in the proportion of calories purchased in ready-to-heat foods, which reached 15.2 percent in 2012. More than 80 percent of calories were purchased in ready-to-eat or ready-to-heat form in 2012, and these tended to be higher in fat, sugar and salt than food purchases that required preparation.

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The researchers think that repeated courses of antibiotics destroy the gut bacteria resulting in gut bacteria imbalance. From Red Orbit:

Antibiotic overuse could up diabetes risk, study says

Repeated use of some antibiotics could increase a person’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to research published online Tuesday in the European Journal of Endocrinology. In the study, scientists from the University of Pennsylvania found that men and women who had ever been prescribed with at least two courses of specific types of antibiotics were more likely to eventually be diagnosed with type 2 diabetes than those who had taken no more than one.

The antibiotics used in the research came from one of four categories, according to LiveScience: penicillins, cephalosporins, quinolones and macrolides. The authors reviewed a database of UK patients, looking at the number of antibiotic prescriptions given to over 200,000 diabetic patients at least one year before those individuals were diagnosed with the condition...They found that the more courses of antibiotics that were prescribed to a person, the greater the risk that he or she would go on to develop the disease.

Patients who had been prescribed between two and five courses of penicillin increased their risk of diabetes by 8 percent, according to the Daily Mail, and the risk increased by 23 percent for those receiving more than five courses of the frequently used antibiotic versus the one- or no-course group.

Those who were given between two and five courses of quinolones, which are used to treat respiratory and urinary tract infections, had an increased diabetes risk of 15 percent, and those receiving more than five courses saw that risk shoot up by 37 percent. 

Those who were given just one course of antibiotics showed no such increase in diabetes risk, the researchers reported. Nor was there any link found between exposure to anti-virals and anti-fungals and diabetes risk. The reason for the association between frequent antibiotic use and the risk of diabetes is not clear, but may be related to a gut bacteria imbalance, they wrote.“Gut bacteria have been suggested to influence the mechanisms behind obesity, insulin resistance and diabetes in both animal and human models. Previous studies have shown that antibiotics can alter the digestive ecosystem,” added lead author Dr. Ben Boursi.