But what about food producers in this country? What fraudulent foods do U.S. consumers have to fear from American companies?

Experts say dangerous U.S.-produced foods are comparatively few, but producers have been known to practice “economic adulteration” — adding a little to their bottom line by padding, thinning or substituting something cheap for something expensive.

So in a caveat emptor world, what should consumers look out for?

Fish is the most frequently faked food Americans buy. In the business, it’s called “species adulteration” — selling a cheaper fish such as pen-raised Atlantic salmon as wild Alaska salmon.

When Consumer Reports tested 23 supposedly wild-caught salmon fillets bought nationwide in 2005-2006, only 10 were wild salmon. The rest were farmed. In 2004, University of North Carolina scientists found 77% of fish labeled red snapper was actually something else. Last year, the Chicago Sun-Times tested fish at 17 sushi restaurants and found that fish being sold as red snapper actually was mostly tilapia.

“It’s really just fraud, plain and simple,” says Gavin Gibbons of the National Fisheries Institute, an industry group.

One thing consumers don’t need to worry about is scallops. Tales of skate wings cut into circles and sold as scallops are common. But Randolph says the FDA has never found an actual case of it.

Salmon is tricky. Randolph does have one tip, though. Farmed salmon gets its coloring from dyes added to food pellets the fish are fed, while wild salmon gets it from the plankton they eat.

Olive oil

This luxury oil, touted for its heart-health properties and taste, has become a gourmet must-have. Americans consumed about 575 million pounds of the silky stuff last year, according to the North American Olive Oil Association. Sixty-three percent was the higher-grade extra virgin, which comes from the first pressing of the olives.

There are no national figures on olive-oil fakery. But after complaints, Connecticut began testing two years ago. “We were coming across a lot of products labeled as extra-virgin olive oil that contained up to 90% soybean oil,” says Jerry Farrell Jr., Connecticut’s commissioner of consumer protection.

Most name brands were fine, Farrell says. It was often off-brands sold in discount stores that were the problem.

Connecticut was so concerned that in November, it became the first state in the nation to set standards for olive oil, enabling officials there to levy fines and pull adulterated products off store shelves. California is set to create its own standards this year. Reports from panels of testers have found as much as 60% to 70% of the olive oil sold as extra virgin in the state is a lower-quality olive oil, says Dan Flynn of the Olive Center at the University of California-Davis.

The easiest thing is for fakers to add 10% vegetable oil in extra virgin, says Stutsman. “It will still smell as it should, but you’ve saved 10% of the cost.”

Bob Bauer, president of the North American Olive Oil Association, says it’s more of a problem in restaurants than in supermarkets.

Honey

An expensive natural product that’s mostly sugar, honey is easily faked. It used to be that cane sugar or high-fructose corn syrup was mostly used to thin out honey. But chemically, that was easy to spot.

So counterfeiters got wily and started using beet sugar. Its profile is similar to honey.

Maple syrup

Maple syrup is another high-value item that can be adulterated. In these tough economic times, Vermont, the USA’s largest supplier to flapjacks everywhere, may up its testing programs.

The boiled-down sap of the sugar maple tree can be diluted with water or sugar by sellers “trying to get more bang for the buck,” says Kristin Haas, food safety director in the state’s Agency for Agriculture, Food and Markets.

Vermont’s testing program has found fraud only three times in the past 17 years, says Haas, but it’s not taken lightly. “A couple of years back, there was a gentleman who actually went to prison because of this issue.”

When times get tight, the incentive to cheat can rise like sap in the spring, so the state may have to work harder to keep its premier product pure.

Vanilla

A product of the tropics, vanilla pods can be soaked in milk or stored in sugar to impart a delicate vanilla scent to foods. More commonly, they’re soaked in alcohol that is then used as a flavoring.

But vanillin (pronounced VAN-ah-lynn), a chemical copy of the richly organic vanilla flavor, was created in the laboratory in the 19th century. When used in foods, it’s supposed to be labeled as an artificial flavor and usually is.

One “too good to be true” product to watch out for is really inexpensive vanilla extract sometimes sold in Mexico and Latin America. It’s often made with coumarin, a toxic substance that has been banned in U.S. foods since 1954.

Coumarin is chemically related to warfarin, a blood thinner, and can be dangerous.

The research grew out of the authors’ interest in providing scientifically sound health promotion programs at more than 200 senior centers across Georgia that help prevent malnutrition and provide nutritionally-balanced meals to low-income elderly. Published in the Journal of Nutrition for the Elderly, the study notes that nutrient deficiencies make the elderly more vulnerable to chronic health problems such as osteoporosis, anemia and cognitive impairment.

“We always say ‘food first’ because eating a wide variety of foods provides the best source of minerals, vitamins and other nutrients,” said Mary Ann Johnson, professor of foods and nutrition in the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences and coauthor of the study. “But people don’t always eat a balanced diet, and vitamin supplements are convenient, relatively inexpensive and some have shown definite benefits in preventing or reducing the risks of chronic disease.”

Johnson and study coauthors Joan Fischer, associate professor of nutrition, and research assistant Sohyun Park, said that among those surveyed, more than 60 percent of adults aged 60 or older take some type of dietary supplement; 40 percent take multivitamin and mineral supplements. Yet many were also confused about which vitamin supplements are beneficial.

That’s understandable, they said, given conflicting research studies. While the use of multi-vitamin and mineral supplements do increase the blood concentration of nutrients, researchers often can’t demonstrate specific health benefits from their use.

In fact, several recent vitamin studies only muddy the waters about the benefits of supplements. In November 2008, scientists released findings of a large clinical trial of nearly 15,000 male doctors who took vitamins C and E for a decade, showing no benefits in reducing cancer rates. Another recent study found that vitamins C and E don’t lower heart disease rates. And last October, a third major clinical trial–looking at whether vitamin E and selenium protect men against prostate cancer–ended early when it was clear that neither nutrient would reduce cancer risks.

But the UGA researchers say the benefits of taking certain supplements, especially calcium and vitamin D, are well-documented. Vitamin D, a fat-soluble vitamin, helps the body absorb calcium. It is present in significant amounts in fish and fortified milk, but very few other foods. Vitamin D is also known as the “sunshine vitamin” because it can be manufactured by the body when exposed to sunshine. However, as people age their skin starts to lose this ability to make vitamin D.

“We found that milk consumption varies widely in older adults,” said Fischer, “and some elderly people avoid dairy products altogether because of the fat in whole fat products –or because they have trouble digesting milk products. But there is strong evidence that vitamin D and calcium supplements improve overall bone health and prevent bone fractures.”

Calcium, essential for strong bones, is also important for normal heart and muscle function–and it helps the blood clot normally. The body uses and loses calcium every day through sweat, urine, feces, hair, nails and skin. It’s replaced by calcium-rich foods in the diet, including milk and dairy products, kale, collard greens and foods fortified with calcium, such as some brands of orange juice. But when the body doesn’t get enough, it pulls calcium from skeletal bones to carry out the more critical demands of the heart, nerves and major muscles.

B12, a water soluble vitamin, promotes the normal functioning of the brain and nervous system –and facilitates the formation of blood and new cells throughout the body. Good dietary sources include milk products, meat, poultry, fish and fortified breakfast cereals. After age 50, people don’t absorb vitamin B12 as efficiently and must guard against a deficiency.

“By the time people reach their elder years, the cumulative effects of lifestyle really start to show, good or bad,” said Johnson. “Part of the problem is that we need research that demonstrates the costs of poor nutrition and poor lifestyle. For example, many cases of diabetes and its complications are preventable. Nutrition is a science, but it doesn’t get the attention it deserves. We’re making progress, but we have a long way to go.”

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Dr Sekikawa’s team found that although total fatty acid levels were similar among all subjects, the percentage of fish-based omega-3 fatty acids was twice as high among Japanese men compared with Americans of both European and Japanese descent. Japanese men had significantly less atherosclerosis, as indicated by lower average intima-media thickness and coronary artery calcification. Among Japanese men, intima-media thickness values declined with rising omega-3 fatty acid levels, a phenomenon that was not observed in either American group.

“The death rate from coronary heart disease in Japan has always been puzzlingly low,” Dr Sekikawa observed. “Our study suggests that the very low rates of coronary heart disease among Japanese living in Japan may be due to their lifelong high consumption of fish. Our study clearly demonstrated that whites and Japanese-Americans have similar levels of atherosclerosis, which are much higher than in the Japanese in Japan. This indicates that much lower death rates from coronary heart disease in the Japanese in Japan is very unlikely due to genetic factors.”

“Our study suggests that very high levels of omega-3 fatty acids have strong properties that may help prevent the buildup of cholesterol in the arteries,” Dr Sekikawa stated. “Increasing fish intake to two times a week for healthy people is currently recommended in the U.S. Our study shows much higher intake of fish observed in the Japanese [approximately 3 ounces daily] may have strong anti-atherogenic effect.”

“While we don’t recommend Americans change their diets to eat fish at these quantities because of concerns about mercury levels in some fish, increasing intake of omega-3 fatty acids in the U.S. could have a very substantial impact on heart disease,” he added.

 A new study from the University of Colorado Denver’s School of Pharmacy has found that a simple educational intervention provided by a pharmacist can make a significant impact in the amount of vitamin D intake in geriatric outpatients, resulting in increased serum, or blood levels of this key nutrient. Surprisingly, the study also found that the overall increase in serum levels in the patients who received the intervention were still not in the target range, indicating that current national recommendations for vitamin D intake may be insufficient. The study is published this month in the July/August issue of the Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association.“The educational intervention was simple to administer and can be reproduced by pharmacists in a variety of settings, including a community pharmacy or a clinical practice site,” said Joseph Vande Griend, PharmD, assistant professor in the Department of Clinical Pharmacy at the UC Denver School of Pharmacy and lead author of the paper. “Geriatric patients are at risk of medical complications from vitamin D insufficiency, including osteoporosis, and pharmacists, physicians, and other point-of-contact health care representatives can make a difference by recognizing vitamin deficiencies in their patients and taking the time to talk about the importance of key nutrients like vitamin D.”The Pharmacist’s Findings and an Educational Intervention Vitamin D concentrations were studied in older adults, ages 65 to 89 years, during clinic visits to the University of Colorado Hospital from December 2005 to January 2006. Eighty patients completed the study and 59 of them, 74 percent, were found to have vitamin D insufficiency. The majority of patients who were vitamin D insufficient consumed more than the recommended 400 to 600 IU per day of vitamin D.

The UC Denver pharmacists practicing in geriatric medicine then created a vitamin D informational sheet that was given to those geriatric outpatients who had insufficient vitamin D intake. A pharmacist reviewed the sheet with the participant during a 15-minute, one-on-one educational session about vitamin D, in which it was recommended the participant consume a total of 1,200 IU per day of vitamin D. A recommendation of 1,200 IU was chosen because the amount was estimated to increase patient serum levels to the study-defined sufficient vitamin D concentration of 32 ng/mL. The 1200 IU per day of vitamin D is also easy to obtain from over-the-counter resources; it is higher than the current Institute of Medicine recommendation (400 IU/day under age 70 and 600 IU/day over age 70) but below the upper daily intake limit (2,000 IU/day).

The handout covered the importance of vitamin D in maintaining good health, provided a listing of food sources with vitamin D, and a listing of over-the-counter supplements containing vitamin D3 along with their general cost. The handout is available online at http://www.japha.org/ .

At the conclusion of the educational session, the clinical pharmacist helped the participant choose which foods and/or supplements to use to increase daily vitamin D intake and provided the participant with a written, personalized plan to consume 1,200 IU per day of vitamin D. No supplements were provided to the study participants.

Two weeks after the educational session, the pharmacist followed-up with participants via telephone. During the call, the importance of vitamin D in maintaining optimal health and the details of the personalized vitamin D plan were reiterated. Participants were then asked whether they had obtained the agreed upon vitamin D product(s) and whether they were actually using the products. If not, the recommendation was reviewed and the participant was encouraged to obtain the product(s) and try to increase vitamin D intake.

The Outcome of the Educational Intervention After 12 weeks, a higher proportion of participants in the educational intervention group (55 percent) achieved the desired vitamin D blood level concentration of 32 ng/mL compared with the nonintervention group (24 percent). The change in dietary and over-the-counter vitamin D intake was also evaluated. Self-reported total vitamin D intake increased by a mean of 647 IU/day in educational intervention participants and 67 IU/day in the nonintervention group. Participants in the educational intervention group reported consuming an average of more than 1,400 IU/day vitamin D.

“This supplement highlights many of the new frontiers being investigated regarding black and green tea’s potential public health benefits,” said Tea Symposium co-chair, Jeffrey Blumberg, Ph.D., Professor, Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and Director, Antioxidants Research Laboratory, Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, Boston. Lenore Arab, Ph.D., Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles and Blumberg’s partner as Tea Symposium co-chair adds that, “There are tremendous advancements to better understand the mechanisms by which tea may reduce risk for heart disease, certain cancers, type II diabetes, and help maintain neurological function.”

Theanine in Tea Increases Attention and Focus

The results of a new human, placebo-controlled, trial published in the Proceedings of the Fourth International Scientific Symposium on Tea and Human Health found that theanine, an amino acid present almost exclusively in the tea plant, including black, green, and oolong varieties, actively alters the attention networks of the brain. “Our results show that after having theanine, individuals had significant improvements in tests for attention, and that activity in cortical regions responsible for attention functions was enhanced,” said author John Foxe, Ph.D., Professor of Neuroscience, Biology and Psychology at City College of the City University of New York. “What’s more, we have seen that just 20 minutes after consuming theanine, the blood concentrations increase and the brain’s alpha waves are impacted. It lasts about three to four hours, which we have speculated may be why people tend to drink a cup of tea every three-to-four hours during the day,” added Dr. Foxe.

The new research from Dr. Foxe and his team used electrophysiological measures to monitor brain activity after individuals drank solutions containing a placebo, 50 mg caffeine, an amount of theanine equivalent to five to six cups of tea, or a combined treatment. The subjects were asked to complete a variety of attention-related computerized tasks.

The results from Dr. Foxe’s laboratory, the Cognitive Neurophysiology Laboratory at the Nathan S. Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research in Orangeburg, New York, supported by the Lipton Institute of Tea, suggest that the effects of theanine in combination with caffeine are even greater than with either one alone in improving attention. Theanine may work synergistically with caffeine to help induce a more calming, relaxed state, but one that allows the mind to focus and concentrate better at tasks Theanine is known to be absorbed by the small intestine and cross the blood-brain barrier where it affects the brain’s neurotransmitters, and increases alpha brain-wave activity. This alpha brain rhythm is known to induce a calmer, yet more alert, state of mind. A cup of brewed tea typically contains between 10 and 20 mg of theanine.

Tea May Protect Aging Brains from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases

Newly published study by Sylvia Mandel, Ph.D., of the Eve Topf Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Israel, show that the active flavonoids in tea may have multiple mechanisms of action on a cellular level on maintaining neurological health. Mandel, who has been studying the effects of tea on brain functions in laboratory and animal models for over a decade, looked at animal models of neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. An amount of purified EGCG equal to about two to four cups of green tea per day was provided to animals with induced Parkinsonism as part of their diet to evaluate how their symptoms improved or progressed. They found that when the animals are fed green tea EGCG, the polyphenol appeared to prevent brain cells from dying, and showed improvements in reducing compounds that lead to lesions in the brains of animals with Alzheimer’s disease.

“In the past, it was thought that once brain cells were damaged, there was no way to repair them. Not only may the EGCG help prevent brain cells from dying, it appears that the polyphenol may even rescue the neurons, once they have been damaged, to help them repair,” says Dr. Mandel.

While numerous studies have concluded that diets rich in fruits and vegetables support the body in fighting neurological decline through antioxidant mechanisms associated with their high flavonoid content, the importance of tea’s polyphenolic flavonoids in supporting healthy brain cells appears to go beyond the simple oxygen species scavenging, involving pleiotropic effects on numerous biological pathways to help keep human brain cells from dying and even help repair them when they are subjected to insults that damage the cells’ DNA.

Human epidemiological and new animal data from around the world suggests that drinking tea — especially those rich in flavonoids named catechins — may help support the brain as we age. Recent publications from earlier this year also contribute to the growing body of research on the potential neuroprotective benefits of tea polyphenols. Tan et al found an inverse association between black tea and Parkinson’s disease, based on a 12 year prospective study of over 63,000 men and women, that was due to black tea ingredients separate from its caffeine content. A retrospective study, by Kandinov et al, of nearly 300 patients with Parkinson’s disease found that drinking three or more cups of tea per day delayed motor symptoms by 7.7 years. In addition to epidemiological data, results from recent animal studies showed that tea polyphenols may improve memory in Alzheimer’s disease (Rezai-Zadeh et al), and be neuroprotective against oxidative stress (Hague et al).

Tea May Alter Cancer Genetics

Results from a tea intervention on the role of green tea on the prevention of cancer provided insights into the cutting-edge field of nutri-genomics, or how gene susceptibility toward chronic diseases can be altered through dietary interventions. Iman Hakim, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., Professor and Dean of the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health and Professor at the Arizona Cancer Center, University of Arizona, has conducted several human clinical trials over the past decade on the role both green and black tea may play in certain cancers. Her latest human clinical trial suggests that bioactive compounds in tea have a significant effect on genes that impact cancer susceptibility and repair from environmental insults.

“The good news is that we are seeing that green tea is impacting genes that play a role in cancer, but we cannot pinpoint who will be responders versus non-responders at this time,” noted Dr. Hakim. “In addition, our recent preliminary data show a beneficial effect of green tea on lipid profile among smokers and former smokers. Since there are no known negative effects of consuming tea, and it may be beneficial, there’s no reason not to recommend drinking it.” Dr. Hakim recommends at least four cups per day.

Growing Body of Evidence

The Proceedings of the Fourth International Scientific Symposium on Tea and Human Health provides the latest scientific update from key research scientists from top medical institutions in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, based on their clinical, laboratory, and epidemiological studies related to the role of tea in promoting healthfulness and reducing the risk of disease. The ongoing scientific exploration of the health benefits of drinking tea has led to a growing body of research that points to tea as an important contributor to overall health. The Proceedings extends the base of credible, published data supporting the health benefits of tea, encouraging the scientific community to continue exploring this exciting area.

John Whitcomb, a lanky, high-octane physician, scurries from exam room to exam room, keeping pace with an onslaught of people coming in with chest pain, ankle injuries, seizures and stomachaches. The ER at Aurora Sinai Medical Center in Milwaukee isn’t the most likely place to get a friendly lecture about vitamin D.

But Whitcomb, one of a small but growing number of physicians who think deficiency of the sunshine vitamin is its own public health emergency, preaches to anyone who will listen.

A growing body of research suggests that inadequate vitamin D can substantially increase the risk of a variety of diseases, including several cancers, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, depression and multiple sclerosis as well as the risk of falling and infections.

In northern regions like Wisconsin, where vitamin D levels are low, the concern is even more pronounced because of a lack of ultraviolet radiation during much of the year.

Now pockets of physicians here and around the country are making vitamin D a high priority.

Steve Trapp, 38, was on a bus from Chicago to Seattle last month when he began vomiting at the Milwaukee bus station. He was taken to the ER at Aurora Sinai. Whitcomb diagnosed the problem as a bout of stomach flu and dispensed nausea medicine — and an ample dose of vitamin D advice.

As Trapp lay in an exam room, Whitcomb rattled off a few recent research findings on how vitamin D can reduce the risk of various diseases. He told the couple how there really is no food source that can provide ample levels of the vitamin.

He said the sun’s angle drops in winter, and with that shift, vitamin D levels in the blood decrease from an average of about 40 nanograms per milliliter to less than 20 ng/ml.

“When the level drops below 32, many of the body’s functions don’t work right,” he said.

Only supplements or ultraviolet light can prevent that from happening.

Over the past two years, Whitcomb estimates that he has talked to more than 1,000 patients about vitamin D in the ER or other urgent care facilities in the area. He’s written about vitamin D in newsletters and given talks to other doctors.

He’s even tested the blood of ER patients to find out their vitamin D levels. Invariably, the levels are extremely low.

While there is not unanimous agreement on what is the optimal vitamin D blood level, many researchers say it should be at least 30 ng/ml and preferably between 40 and 60.

No large clinical trials

Exposure to intense sunlight was mostly a year-round occurrence for our prehistoric ancestors who, for thousands of years, existed naked near the equator.

It has been only in relatively recent human evolutionary history that people moved north, began wearing clothing and spent more time indoors, resulting in vitamin D deficiencies.

The vitamin actually is a hormone that plays a role in the regulation of more than 100 genes, many of which are involved in preventing diseases.

However, while that theory sounds attractive to vitamin D advocates, much of the research pointing to the vitamin’s disease-preventing ability is observational in nature. While most of those studies show a benefit, some do not.

Nevertheless, observational studies pointing to potential health benefits from the vitamin continue to pile up.

A study released late last month found higher rates of death from all causes and from cardiovascular disease among a group of 3,258 heart patients with low levels of vitamin D in their blood, compared with heart patients with higher levels of vitamin D.

Also in June, a study involving 18,225 men found that those with vitamin D levels below 15 ng/ml were 2.4 times more likely to have a heart attack than those with levels above 30 ng/ml.

Last year, an analysis involving 1,760 women found a 50% reduction in breast cancer risk in those whose vitamin D levels were more than 52 ng/ml, compared with levels of less than 13.

After reading a variety of vitamin D studies, Tara Rakowski, an east side family practice physician with Columbia St. Mary’s, began testing for the vitamin in her patients. In more than 60% of the approximately 500 patients, vitamin D levels were less than 20 ng/ml, she said. Now, “there isn’t a patient I don’t check it on,” she said.

Typically she will put patients with low vitamin D levels on a prescription regimen of 50,000 international units of vitamin D a week. After that, they usually take 2,000 IU a day in the form of vitamin D3, which is inexpensive. That’s the dose many vitamin D proponents now are recommending, although it is considerably more than the current recommended intake, which ranges from 200 IU in children to 600 IU in the elderly.

Rakowski said her patients often feel better after boosting their vitamin D levels.

Jaishree Hariharan, an internal medicine physician who practices at Froedtert Hospital, said she had checked vitamin D levels in about 200 patients in the past year. Most have levels below 20 ng/ml, she said.

“The big misnomer that most physicians are worried about is vitamin D toxicity,” said Hariharan, an associate professor of medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. However, with doses of 2,000 IU a day, “there is no downside,” she said.

Upping her dose

Alice Carter, a 63-year-old from Milwaukee, is lying on a bed with chest pain in the ER at Sinai Medical Center.

After Whitcomb determines the Milwaukee woman is having a bout of angina, he begins telling her about vitamin D.

He seems pleasantly surprised when she tells him that she started taking 1,000 IU a day about a year ago, but he says she should up the dose to 2,000.

“Your skin pigment protects you from sunburn, but it also means you need to get three to four times as much sunlight to make the same amount of vitamin D,” he tells Carter, who is African-American.

He tells her that many African-Americans he has tested have vitamin D levels of less than 10, but blacks living near the equator in Africa have levels near 60, he says.

“So are you saying I need to move down South?” she jokes.

Whitcomb says that won’t be necessary if she increases her summertime dose to 2,000 IU and her wintertime dose to 4,000.

07-14-08

The chiseled body of 41-year-old Olympic swimmer Dara Torres was all the talk of people watching the U.S. Olympic trials.

And it prompted some middle-aged people to think about their own physical condition and wonder whether mere mortals can achieve that high level of fitness and end up looking like Torres.

“Many people in their 40s could look like her, but they’d have to train a ridiculous number of hours, and most people in the U.S. would have to lose a lot of weight,” says Timothy Church, director of preventive medicine research at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge and co-author of the exercise book Move Yourself.

“It would have to be your mission in life. You’d have to do a minimum of two hours of hard, hard training a day, but probably more like four hours a day. And you’d have to really reduce how much you’d eat. You can build muscle, but if it’s covered in fat, you can’t see it.”

That would be hard for people who juggle a job, family and other responsibilities, he says.

Genetics and age play a big role in how difficult it would be to achieve a high level of fitness, he says. It’s much easier to attain if you have great genes, are in your 20s, naturally have a lot of muscle and have never gained extra weight.

That’s true, says Miriam Nelson, director of the John Hancock Center for Physical Activity and Nutrition at Tufts University in Boston and co-author of Strong Women Stay Young.

If you want to be a competitive athlete, you’ll be training most of the day, she says. And you have to make sure you are doing it correctly so you don’t hurt yourself.

Torres, who has a 2-year-old daughter, does one intense swim workout a day. She also does weight training and dry-land workouts. She has been fit for years, and she has a team that includes two “stretchers” who travel with her, a strength coach and a massage therapist.

Her head coach, Michael Lohberg, says most people may not be able to look like her, “but I really do think with proper nutrition and proper training, people can look very, very fit.”

Americans should be inspired by Torres to increase their strength, aerobic fitness and flexibility, says orthopedic surgeon Angela D. Smith, former president of the American College of Sports Medicine and a National Masters Figure Skating medalist.

Everyone, especially people who have never been very active, must give their bodies time to adapt to a fitness program, she says. “Bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons have to be strengthened gradually by slowly increasing the length and intensity of the workouts.”

People can work with what they have and improve how they look and feel, Smith says. Researchers believe muscle mass plateaus in your mid-40s and then slowly declines unless you do something to preserve it.

Studies show that men ages 50 to 70 who are doing some weight training don’t lose any strength or muscle, Nelson says. And there is research that shows women 50 to 70 can gain muscle if they start lifting weights.

“We don’t have the full picture yet, but data are emerging that suggest that you can preserve much of your strength and fitness well into your 60s and beyond if you work hard enough at it,” Nelson says.

Church used to train more than 20 hours a week for Ironman triathlons, which involve swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles and running a marathon of 26.2 miles in one day.

“When you are super-fit, you just feel invincible. There is no way I could train like that now with a family, and quite frankly I really no longer want to,” says Church, who has two young children.

These days he jogs 30 to 35 minutes two to three days a week. On weekends, he and his wife put their children in a jogger and go out for a fast walk/jog for an hour or more.

If you don’t have the time or inclination to achieve a high fitness level, remember there are great health benefits with moderate amounts of activity, he says. “Thirty minutes a day of walking promotes healthier, happier aging.”

Androgen deficiency in men means the body has lower than normal amounts of male hormones, including testosterone, according to background information in the article. Although prescriptions for testosterone therapy for aging men have increased in recent years, treatment patterns for androgen deficiency are not clearly understood in community-dwelling U.S. males.

Susan A. Hall, Ph.D., of New England Research Institutes, Watertown, Mass., and colleagues examined data collected from 1,486 Boston-area men (average age 46.4) from April 2002 to June 2005 to estimate the number of men receiving treatment for androgen deficiency, to explain how treated and untreated men varied in seeking care and to understand potential barriers to health care. Specific symptoms of androgen deficiency include low libido, erectile dysfunction and osteoporosis and less-specific symptoms include sleep disturbance, depressed mood and tiredness.

A total of 97 men met the criteria for having androgen deficiency. Eighty-six men were symptomatic and untreated, and 11 were prescribed testosterone treatment. “Men were using the following: testosterone gel (n=1), testosterone patch (n=3), testosterone cream (n=1), testosterone cypionate [an injectable form of testosterone] (n=1) or unspecified formulations of testosterone (n=5),” the authors write. “All of the unspecified forms of testosterone used were self-reported as administered in intervals defined in weeks, which suggests that these were injectable formulations.”

“Men with untreated androgen deficiency were the most likely of the three groups to have low socioeconomic status, to have no health insurance and to receive primary care in an emergency department or hospital outpatient clinic,” the authors write. However, all men with treated and untreated androgen deficiency were more likely to report receiving regular care than those without the condition and reported visiting their doctor more often throughout the year (with averages of 15.1 visits for those with untreated androgen deficiency, 6.7 visits for those without the condition and 12 visits for those with treated androgen deficiency).

“Under our assumptions, a large majority (87.8 percent) of 97 men in our groups with androgen deficiency were not receiving treatment despite adequate access to care,” the authors conclude. “The reasons for this are unknown but could be due to unrecognized androgen deficiency or unwillingness to prescribe testosterone therapy.”

Canadian researchers measured vitamin D levels of 206 pregnant women and then examined their infants at a followup appointment. Ninety percent of all the mothers in this largely aboriginal group had inadequate vitamin D concentrations; various other studies have estimated that perhaps half of all Americans are deficient.

About a third of the 135 babies in the study had cavities when they were examined at an average 16 months of age. When the researchers looked back at pregnancy records, they found that the mothers of those infants were significantly more likely to have had lower levels of vitamin D.

Baby teeth begin developing as early as six weeks in utero, and vitamin D is known to be involved with the formation of protective tooth enamel, lead author Robert Schroth explained in a phone interview yesterday. And although that enamel disappears when adult teeth come in, there is evidence that poor dental health follows children into adulthood.

Cognizant of a huge run on vitamin D tests in Canada, Schroth, an assistant professor on the dentistry faculty at the University of Manitoba, does not automatically recommend screening. But he does advise pregnant women to raise the issue with their doctors, to take prenatal vitamins, drink milk fortified with vitamin D and get a “small amount” of sunlight. “I think mums should be aware that prenatal diets can go a long way toward improving [infants'] dental health,” Schroth said.

The study was presented at the recent International Association for Dental Research annual meeting in Toronto. It was funded by several government and medical organizations and the Dairy Farmers of Canada.