Debbie Mandel's Wellness Newsletter

In a first-of-its-kind-study led by Dr. David Suskind in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, diet alone was shown to bring pediatric patients with active Crohn’s and UC into clinical remission. In the small, prospective study, patients were put on a special diet called the specific carbohydrate diet (SCD) for 12 weeks as the sole intervention to treat their Crohn’s or UC. SCD is a nutritionally balanced diet that removes grains, dairy, processed foods and sugars, except for honey. The diet promotes only natural, nutrient-rich foods, which includes vegetables, fruits, meats and nuts.

ICUs are being used too often for patients who don’t need that level of care according to new research in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In a landmark trial conducted at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh researchers have demonstrated that when treating children between 9 and 23 months of age with antibiotics for ear infections, a shortened course has worse clinical outcomes without reducing the risk of antibiotic resistance or adverse event. This means 10 days are better than 5 for treating otitis media.

According to Dr. James Richardson in the Journal of Medicine and Rehabilitation it’s not just limb strength and balance, but the faster your brain can oscillate between various external stimuli, or events, and your own internal thinking clutter, the better off you are. When an elderly person falls, it seems likely that their brain is not keeping up with what is happening and so it is not able to quickly, and selectively, attend to a particular stimulus, such as hitting a curb.

Regular use of aspirin by people living in Shanghai, China, was associated with decreased risk for developing pancreatic cancer, according to data published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

A Penn study confirms the value of the sniff test in diagnosing Alzheimer’s. Tests that measure the sense of smell may soon become common in neurologists’ offices. Scientists have been finding increasing evidence that the sense of smell declines sharply in the early stages of Alzheimer’s.

Better alignment with today's food lifestyles—single-serve/on-the-go packaging, fresh snacks, health claims on fresh products, precooked/heat-and-eat meats and gourmet ingredients—will drive explosive incremental growth in the fresh food marketplace according to A. Elizabeth Sloan, Contributing Editor, Consumer Trends

From the Journal of Molecular Biology new research shows that getting too little sleep alters the balance of bacteria in the gut, a change that's linked to certain metabolic conditions, including obesity and type 2 diabetes.