This started out as an anti-microwave post. I have never cooked anything in our combination microwave oven and grill, and don’t like to use it even for defrosting (but I do, on occasion). So this morning when I began reading a recent study on loss of nutrients in Brassica vegetables (cabbage family), I was absolutely convinced that microwaving would turn out be the worst cooking method. I already had a catchy title for my post: Don’t Nuke Your Brassicas. Well, I stand corrected (or do I?).

According to a University of Warwick study (http://tinyurl.com/3dmcfh), published in the February 2007 issue of Food and Chemical Toxicology, the worst way to cook Brassica vegetables is to boil them. The study data shows that the boiling of Brassica vegetables for 5 minutes leads to losses of 20 – 30% and for 10 minutes losses of 40 – 50%. And, in fact, 90% of the precious glucosinates ended up in the cooking water. According to the news release on the study (http://tinyurl.com/2h4f57), steaming for up to 20 minutes yielded no significant loss of glucosinate content, nor did stir-frying for five minutes or cooking in the microwave for up to three minutes. Surprise!

Okay, but what about microwave cooking? I then read the abstract of a 2003 study (http://tinyurl.com/adko8) reporting that the worst cooking method for broccoli is microwaving, which involves a flavonoid loss of 97%. Okay, this is what I expected. I should note that a significant nutrient loss was seen also with boiling.

Final consideration: Although the results of these two studies differ in part (boiling versus microwaving), they both confirm that the best way to cook vegetables is to steam them. Well, that is nothing new, right?

A note on glucosinolates. Trust me to find funny-sounding names! Before reading the University of Warwick study, I had never heard of these compounds. According to Wikipedia, glucosinolates are a class of organic compounds that contain sulfur, nitrogen and a group derived from glucose, typical of the Brassicaceae. The cancer-preventive potential of glucosinolates are discussed in the above-mentioned University of Warwich news release and in another 2007 British study (http://tinyurl.com/2mb3jp). The latter study, by the way, confirms the findings of previous ones that raw Brassica vegetables have a higher glucosolinate content than cooked vegetables. Now, that makes sense!

Yesterday afternoon we went to visit our new kitten at our neighbours’ house. My husband picked it (still don’t know its gender) up, see photo. So far, I have received the following name suggestions from MM listserv friends:

If it’s a male: Pronto, Pablo or Pascale. If it’s a female: Paloma, Phaedra, Petra or Pernilla. The name contest is still open!

I’m off to watch a movie. Have a great Sunday!

A first-year medical student at the LSU Health Sciences Center at the Shreveport School of Medicine won the American Society of Hematology (ASH) Trainee Research Award for “excellence in cancer research.” His project at LSUHSC-S “will focus on chemoprevention of head and neck cancers with curcumin.” I found this titbit in the June 8 issue of the Shreveport Times: http://tinyurl.com/2a7nfp

Could the tide finally be turning?

From a close MM listserv friend (thanks!!!):

A cat dies and goes to Heaven. God meets him at the gate and says, “You have been a good cat all of these years. Anything you desire is yours, all you have to do is ask.”The cats says, “Well, I lived all my life with a poor family on a farm and had to sleep on hardwood floors.”

God says, “Say no more.” And instantly, a fluffy pillow appears.

A few days later, 6 mice are killed in a tragic accident and they go to Heaven. God meets them at the gate with the same offer that He made the cat. The mice said, “All our lives we’ve had to run. Cats, dogs and even women with brooms have chased us. If we could only have a pair of roller skates, we wouldn’t have to run anymore.”

God says, “Say no more.” And instantly, each mouse is fitted with a beautiful pair of tiny roller skates.

About a week later, God decides to check and see how the cat is doing. The cat is sound asleep on his new pillow. God gently wakes him and asks, “How are you doing? Are you happy here?”

The cat yawns and stretches and says, “Oh, I’ve never been happier in my life. And those Meals on Wheels you’ve been sending over are the best!”

I borrowed the first part of this post title from a CBS report (http://tinyurl.com/2crn7b) on the cholesterol-lowering effect of guggulsterone, extracted from the guggul tree’s gum resin. But cholesterol-lowering is perhaps the least important property of guggulsterone.

An MD Anderson research team has just published a study on this remarkable sap extract, see the June 2007 issue of Biochemical Pharmacology (the abstract can be read at: http://tinyurl.com/38jlon). Thanks to a close MM Italian friend (grazie, e ci vediamo domani, speriamo non piova!), I was able to read the full study. Guggulsterone is a plant polyphenol obtained from the gum resin of the Commiphora mukul tree (more familiarly known as the guggul tree, don’t you love that name? My original post title was “Google Guggul”! 😉 ). As with many other substances on my research list, this is not a new discovery. Guggulsterone has been used by Chinese and Ayurveda (ancient Indian healthcare system) medicine for centuries to treat a variety of disorders, including obesity, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, atherosclerosis, and osteoarthritis

As always, my favourite part of a scientific study is the conclusion: Guggulsterone inhibited the proliferation of human leukemia, head and neck carcinoma, multiple myeloma, lung carcinoma, melanoma, breast carcinoma, and ovarian cancer cell lines in a dose-dependent manner. It also blocked the proliferation of dexamethasone-resistant MM1 cells and doxorubicin-resistant breast cancer cells, and inhibited the villainous COX-2. I could dance with joy! But there is more good news.

The study also indicates that, because of lack of any known toxicity, guggulsterone should be further explored for its anticancer potential. Whether the concentrations used in our studies can be achieved in vivo, is unclear at present. [ ] Overall, our results indicate that guggulsterone inhibits the growth of wide variety of cells and induces apoptosis through downregulation of antiapoptotic gene products, modulation of cell cycle proteins, activation of caspases, inhibition of Akt and activation of JNK. As usual, the big problems are bioavailability and dosage, and, of course, testing in clinical trials.

A 2004 study (MD Anderson, again!) shows that guggulsterone suppresses NF-kB and NF-kB-regulated gene products, which may explain its anti-inflammatory activities. See: http://tinyurl.com/2w4buj And remember my post on curcumin, osteoclasts and bone resorption? Well, a 2006 study (http://tinyurl.com/2oa8zk) by the fabulous MD Anderson researchers confirms that guggulsterone is another substance that suppresses RANKL and tumor cell €”induced osteoclastogenesis by suppressing the activation of NF-kB. Ayurvedic medicine, by the way, has used guggulsterone for centuries to treat bone fractures and ostheoarthritis. So it comes as no surprise that this particular study shows that guggulsterone suppressed osteoclastogenesis induced by MM. More dancing!

So, let’s see: here we have a non toxic substance that has been used in traditional medicine for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years and that has been shown to work against MM, osteoclastogenesis, COX-2, NF-kB, etc. Well, it certainly doesn’t take a genius to figure out that more research needs to be conducted on this and many other non toxic substances.

Let’s get the research ball rolling!

Well, it’s official. Last night I called my parents and told them we had decided to adopt another cat. I figured I would get a lecture on how we have too many cats already, how I am allergic to cats (true!), etc. But Mom just laughed and said Sweetheart, we already KNEW you were going to adopt one of those kittens! They know me well. 😉 She surprised me even more by adding Why don’t you adopt TWO of the kittens, so it won’t be so traumatic for them to be separated from their mother? She wasn’t kidding, either. I wish we could take them all!

Now that the adoption is official, I can post a photo of our baby. The kitten, the cream-coloured one in the photo (currently about the size of my boy Piccolo’s head!), will be joining our family once it is weaned, the first week or so of July. Perhaps with a sibling 😉 We don’t yet know if it’s a boy or a girl, but it doesn’t matter. We wish to continue the P name tradition (Puzzola, Piccolo and Priscilla), so if you can think of any good P-starting cat names, please let me know. If it’s a boy, I would like to call it Pronto, which is the Italian equivalent of hello? when answering the phone. It has other meanings, too: ready, prompt, quick, etc. After visiting Italy, a MM listserv friend called one of her cats Pronto, and I just loved the name! If it’s a girl well, we don’t have a name, yet. My brother in law suggested Paloma, which I like a lot. But we are still open to suggestions.

This is turning into a cat blog (!), but I AM also doing some serious research and will post about that soon!

I watched the most amazing (beautiful, in my opinion) video the other day. I don’t even remember how I found it, but here is the link (make sure the volume on your computer is turned on):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUDIoN-_Hxs

Enjoy!

Yesterday I came upon a recent study on curcumin and immune disorders. Published in the June 2007 edition of the “Journal of Biological Chemistry” (http://tinyurl.com/3yqzc6), it is titled Curcumin Prevents Tumor-induced T Cell Apoptosis through Stat-5a-mediated Bcl-2 Induction. Yes, I know, the second part of the title sounds nonsensical to non-scientific minds like mine. But when you read the abstract (and I am hoping to get my hands on the full text), it becomes clear that curcumin protects our T-cells. Indeed, this study shows that it restores T-cells from tumour-induced apoptosis: Administration of curcumin to tumor-bearing animals resulted in restoration of progenitor, effecter, and circulating T cells. In other words, curcumin can REVERSE the damage, or some of the damage at least, done to our T-cells by cancer. Now, isn’t that fantastic news? The study concludes: Thus, these results raise the possibility of inclusion of curcumin in successful therapeutic regimens against cancer. No kidding!

An article published in “Cancer Research” in January 2007 (http://tinyurl.com/2yng6z) also looks at curcumin and immunity. Concluding remarks: Thus, our results suggest that unlike many other anticancer agents, curcumin is not only devoid of immunosuppressive effects but also acts as immunorestorer in tumor-bearing host. I am all in favour of restoring my immune system!

Actually, this is not news to me, since a few months ago Prof. Aggarwal kindly sent me a study that he co-authored on this very topic (see my page on Curcumin and the Immune System). However, it is comforting to read a bit of updated research confirming curcumin’s strong pro-immune activities. This can only be good news for those of us who have compromised immune systems or autoimmune disorders.

A MM listserv member posted some amusing patient reports (real ones!) yesterday, and inspired me to look up some more. Here are some of the ones she listed (thank you!):

The patient refused an autopsy.

Patient has left white blood cells at another hospital.

She has no rigors or shaking chills, but her husband states she was very hot in bed last night.

Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year.

On the second day the knee was better, and on the third day it disappeared.

The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears to be depressed.

The patient has been depressed since she began seeing me in 1993.

Discharge status: Alive but without permission.

Healthy appearing decrepit 69-year old male, mentally alert but forgetful.

Patient had waffles for breakfast and anorexia for lunch.

She is numb from her toes down.

In Richard Lederer’s “Fractured English” and “More Anguished English,” I found a few more gems:

She is quite hard of hearing. In fact, she can’t hear at all in the left eye.

Sinuses run in the family.

He was eating his tray so I didn’t examine him.

He has an allergy to asthma.

The patient is a three-year-old who has been vomiting off and on for twelve years.

My personal favourite: the patient was bitten by a bat as he walked down the street on his thumb. Hehe.

This morning I went to visit my neighbours, who have three newborn kittens and three 1.5 month-old kittens (two different mothers, one of whom is my boy Piccolo’s mother). This is the cutest photo I took (of one of the 1.5 month-old kittens). Is cat number four on the way? 😉 My neighbours, of course, are urging me to take all their kittens! (They already have eight cats, two dogs and two turtles…)

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Puzzola showed up on our doorstep in September of 2001, almost as soon as we had moved into our home on the outskirts of Florence. She was skin and bones. Mostly bones. She was probably four or five months old at the time. Our cat-loving neighbours and I started feeding this affectionate little creature, who was clearly not a stray but had lived the first few months of her life with a family that had then abandoned her in our neighbourhood. Every time we went outside, there she was, our faithful little Puzzola, ready for some food, but also for love and caresses. Whenever we opened the front door, she would zoom inside, and we would have to rush after her and gently put her back outside. Until one day. She came inside and has stayed with us ever since. See, at the time we didn’t want another cat. We already had a cat, my Canadian cat, Keshé, whom I had gotten at a cat shelter in Toronto (unfortunately, she died of renal failure about six months after she arrived from the States, where she had been living with my parents until we got more settled here). But Puzzola was very insistent, and we had fallen in love with her, so it was just a matter of time.

Her name has a couple of meanings in Italian. In the beginning, the “aroma” emanating from her droppings in the litter box would send us scampering for shelter. I am not kidding. So the first meaning is: skunk (I happen to think skunks are gorgeous creatures, by the way). Puzzola is also the common Italian name for “marigold.” And our green-eyed Puzzola is most certainly a lovely flower, as well as the sweetest cat I have ever had.

One of the funniest and most remarkable things she does is to sit on our large farmhouse dining room table while we eat dinner. In the beginning, it was a bit disconcerting. Now we are used to it. As soon as I finish eating and push away my plate, I raise my hand, and that is her signal. She gets up, walks across the table and climbs into my lap, purring and kneading. But the amazing thing is, she won’t budge from her spot in the corner of the table until I let her know it’s okay. If Piccolo or Priscilla get on the table mamma mia, forget it. They MAY begin by sitting down at the end of the table, looking deceptively innocent, but they will begin inching closer and closer to our plates, trying to get their silly noses in our food. So they are not really allowed on the table. (Well ) [In this photo, by the way, Puzzola is pointing out the benefits of pure resveratrol 😉 ]

Even though Puzzola gets into my lap after dinner, she is definitely my husband’s cat. She worships him (perfectly understandable). Almost every evening, especially if he is late, she waits by the front door, listening. She gets very agitated when she hears his car approaching, starts meowing and stretching upwards, as though wanting to open the door for him. She doesn’t sleep with us. Our bed is too crowded for her, with the two youngest cats on it. She also doesn’t really play. I don’t think Puzzola played much as a kitten, unlike the other two. She had to scavenge for a living until she chose us as adoptive parents. So she just sits and watches Piccolo and Priscilla roll about on the floor. If they try to involve her in their fun, she runs up to the attic. She has dignity. She is our queen.