oSkope - A pretty cool website

When searching for Web sites, we’re accustomed to seeing textual search results and having a fairly small amount of flexibility with them. When searching for media, the process gets a little more visual, but the flexibility to organize and browse through the results in still rather limited most of the time. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to interact with pictures, movies, and other items as if they were actually objects instead of just items set in digital concrete on a screen? A service called oSkope enables you to do just that through its visual browser.

Amazon, eBay, Flickr, and YouTube are the services that are supported here, and search any one of them through oSkope to see the results for yourself. As you’ll see, the requested items are dumped onto the screen in a way that enables you to zoom in and out, drag them around, click on them for more details, and organize them in a variety of specified ways. Add what you like to your personal folder so that you can quickly retrieve it in the future. It would be nice to see this method of visual searching catch on as an additional search option in a bigger way than it already has.

by Brandon Watts on September 24, 2007

Health Tips 7

High Blood Pressure

Burning the midnight oil night after night is not only bad for your psyche -- it's also bad for your blood pressure. So when it's time to get out of there, log off that computer, douse the lights, and get the heck out of there -- both physically and mentally. Your heart will be better off for it.

When researchers compared the hours people worked to their blood pressure, they found an interesting relationship: People who worked 41 to 50 hours a week were more likely to have high blood pressure than those who put in fewer than 40 hours a week. When time on the job jumped to more than 51 hours, hypertension was practically commonplace -- almost a third of the men and women had it.

Anyway you slice it, long work hours mean less sleep, family time, and activities that your body needs to stay strong and healthy. Because -- unless you've pulled a Michael Keaton and figured out how to clone yourself -- the extra time at your desk cuts into the time you could spend doing good things for yourself, like exercising, cooking healthy meals, and relaxing with friends and family. All things you really need to do to keep your heart and arteries young.

So regardless of the kind of work you do or how much you love it (or don't), be sure to balance it with other good-life priorities. You'll feel better, do a better job, and add years to your life.

Shake That Cinnamon Shaker

Cinnamon and cloves are irresistible flavorings, but they aren't just treats for your tastebuds. They also provide powerful health benefits, like helping the body process blood glucose -- essential to avoiding diabetes. Keep both spices handy for baking, hot drinks, and savory dishes. Cooking with them is as easy as apple pie.

Cinnamon is well known as a stellar antioxidant and a potent germ-killer, and there's a growing body of evidence that shows that a substance in the spice turns on insulin receptors to help the body use glucose. Which is a good thing, because too much glucose in the bloodstream is tough on your organs and a marker of diabetes. Cloves appear to have a similar effect.

So don't save these spices for holiday cooking. You can use cinnamon liberally, but cloves -- ground or whole -- really pack a flavor punch and take a lighter hand. For ways to get more of these good-for-you spices into your everyday life, try these tips:

Sprinkle both on fresh apple slices and poached pears. Add cinnamon and cloves to crockpot dishes for an Indian-inspired flavor twist. Add ground cloves to stuffing recipes. Use a cinnamon stick to stir your tea, hot chocolate, or warm soymilk. Sprinkle both spices into muffin batters and on whole-wheat toast. Keep a cinnamon shaker next to the salt and pepper on the table and experiment. Push whole cloves into an onion and place it in turkey or chicken cavities for flavorful roasting.

Cram in More Cranberries

Bursting with flavor, dripping with color, and abounding in cancer-fighters -- the tiny cranberry has it all.

The bright red of the cranberry is a clue that it is jam-packed with flavonoids, including ones that appear to defend against cancer cell growth. So spread your turkey sandwiches with lots of tasty, fresh cranberry relish. It's great on fish, in muffins, and as a salad topping, too!

Researchers testing a unique group of flavonoids -- anthocyanins, proanthocyanidins, and flavonol glycosides -- found that individually, each one prevented liver and breast cancer cells from multiplying. When the three are combined, as they are in a cranberry, they may be even more effective in squelching cancer cell growth. In the lab, it's called synergy. In your mouth, it's called divine.

Enjoy plenty of fresh cranberries this season by making sauces, cobblers, muffins, and breads with them. When they are out of season, stock up on dried cranberries and add them to cereal, salads, and trail mix. And cranberry juice with a splash of sparkling water is a terrific refresher. With every bite or sip, you'll be doing something positive for your health, and positively delicious.

Computer Program Traces Ancestry Using Anonymous DNA Samples

A group of computer scientists, mathematicians, and biologists from around the world have developed a computer algorithm that can help trace the genetic ancestry of thousands of individuals in minutes, without any prior knowledge of their background. The team’s findings will be published in the September 2007 edition of the journal PLoS Genetics.

Unlike previous computer programs of its kind that require prior knowledge of an individual’s ancestry and background, this new algorithm looks for specific DNA markers known as single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs (pronounced snips), and needs nothing more than a DNA sample in the form of a simple cheek swab. The researchers used genetic data from previous studies to perform and confirm their research, including the new HapMap database, which is working to uncover and map variations in the human genome.

"Now that we have found that the program works well, we hope to implement it on a much larger scale, using hundreds of thousands of SNPs and thousands of individuals," said Petros Drineas, the senior author of the study and assistant professor of computer science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. "The program will be a valuable tool for understanding our genetic ancestry and targeting drugs and other medical treatments because it might be possible that these can affect people of different ancestry in very different ways."

Understanding our unique genetic makeup is a crucial step to unraveling the genetic basis for complex diseases, according to the paper. Although the human genome is 99 percent the same from human to human, it is that 1 percent that can have a major impact on our response to diseases, viruses, medications, and toxins. If researchers can uncover the minute genetic details that set each of us apart, biomedical research and treatments can be better customized for each individual, Drineas said.

This program will help people understand their unique backgrounds and aid historians and anthropologists in their study of where different populations originated and how humans became such a hugely diverse, global society.

Their program was more than 99 percent accurate and correctly identified the ancestry of hundreds of individuals. This included people from genetically similar populations (such as Chinese and Japanese) and complex genetic populations like Puerto Ricans who can come from a variety of backgrounds including Native American, European, and African.

"When we compared our findings to the existing datasets, only one individual was incorrectly identified and his background was almost equally close between Chinese and Japanese," Drineas said.

In addition to Drineas, the algorithm was developed by scientists from California, Puerto Rico, and Greece. The researchers involved include lead author Peristera Paschou from the Democritus University of Thrace in Greece; Elad Ziv, Esteban G. Burchard, and Shweta Choudhry from the University of California, San Francisco; William Rodriguez-Cintron from the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine in San Juan; and Michael W. Mahoney from Yahoo! Research in California.

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The Science Of Collective Decision-Making

Why do some juries take weeks to reach a verdict, while others take just hours? How do judges pick the perfect beauty queen from a sea of very similar candidates? We have all wondered exactly why we did not win a certain award. Now, new psychological research explains how groups come to a collective decision.

Jean-Francois Bonnefon, a University of Toulouse psychologist, conducted the first empirical investigation of the “doctrinal paradox.” This occurs when judges, say a hiring committee or a jury, must evaluate several factors about a candidate, (e.g. a possible employee or a defendant in a trial) and come to a majority decision. When different opinions arise, the way they conduct the majority vote can be more important than the opinions themselves.

For example, a seven-judge committee must decide whether to promote a candidate to a position requiring a young, trilingual person. Each judge estimates whether the candidate is young, and whether she is trilingual. In the end, 4 out of 7 judges think she is young and 4 out of 7 think that she is trilingual, but only two of the judges think she is both. How should the committee proceed” They can all vote on the profile, and reject the candidate, or they can vote separately on each criterion and promote the candidate.

Bonnefon investigated which voting procedure was preferred by judges, and how this preference could change in different contexts. He presented the aforementioned situation to over 1.000 participants. Their responses, which are outlined in the September issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, showed that profile-voting was preferred for simplicity reasons. The preference declined when the criteria were not likely to be simultaneously met by the candidate and the judges were then more likely to adopt criteria-voting.

Bonnefon also points out that “Just as jurors tend to eschew conviction when they lack a clear majority, judges showed some tendency to adopt whichever of the voting procedures that yielded the most lenient decision.”

Bonnefon writes that the doctrinal paradox is a “shadowy aspect of the majority rule,” and that while the majority rule may be appealing to reach a quick decision, it is also critical to investigate its potential for inconsistencies.

London’s Emissions Targets For 2030 Will Only Be Reached By Banning Cars

London Authority (GLA) takes radical steps, one of which could be the removal of all cars from both inner and outer London, according to a report published today.

The GLA is committed to reducing London’s carbon dioxide emissions by 60% by 20251, but most climate scientists argue that even more rapid reductions will be needed if we are to avoid dangerous climate change2. A team of experts from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the Transport Studies Unit (Oxford University Centre for the Environment) will today reveal that London is on course to reduce land transport emissions by only 10%-23%3,4.

They do, however, offer a radical vision which could achieve a 72% drop in emissions by 2030 - a figure that is 83% lower than the current UK average. The solution involves combining a car-free London with high levels of active transport (for example walking and cycling) and realistic but challenging energy-efficient improvements.

Their findings will be released today at a press event taking place at LSHTM to launch the Lancet Series on Energy and Health, which looks at access to electricity and energy poverty, transport, agriculture, nuclear and renewable power, and a range of other energy issues, and the effect each has on health. The Series calls for action to be taken at personal, national and global level to address these issues.

Land transport emissions in London have remained stable since 1990 and are now responsible for about 14% of total emissions. Although cycling is gaining popularity, with an 83% increase in the capital since 2000, more than seven out of ten (72%) car journeys in London cover a distance shorter than 8 kilometres.

There is evidence of substantial negative health effects from motorised transport in London5. Replacing car trips with active transport such as walking or cycling would lower emissions and offer greater health gains than other options. In 2003, only 32% of men and 26% of women in London achieved minimum activity recommendations5.

Calculations show that a car-free inner London scenario equates to a 49% reduction in emissions7. Because most London car trips are within outer London, changes in inner London boroughs alone were not found to be sufficient to meet the GLA emissions target. The car-free inner and outer London model was found to bring about a 72% reduction in emissions, with active transport making up 53% of all trips. Given the lower starting point, this means 83% lower emissions than the UK average for 2000.

The authors highlight the many benefits, in terms of public health and safety, that the adoption of the car-free scenario would achieve. Not only would the former car users benefit in terms of improved health as a result of greater physical activity, but as active transport in the form of walking or cycling increased, more people would be willing and able to comfortably walk or cycle longer distances.

They also point to the strong link between pedestrian injury and deprivation, with rates in the most deprived London areas over twice those in the least deprived. In London, as in virtually all locations, walking is the main transport mode of the poor. With fewer cars, people would be exposed to less traffic danger. Although pedestrians and cyclists are exposed to greater risk than car drivers, previous studies have shown that as the number of pedestrians and cyclists increase, so the danger per km walked or cycled falls.

James Woodcock, who led a team of researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical medicine, comments: ‘Only the car-free greater London scenario is close to achieving the emission reductions required by 2030. Even then we need to reduce carbon fuel use on our public transport. Car-free streets could transform the quality of our urban environment, while improving health. Although London has made small improvements, achieving a car-free city would require a dramatic move in favour of walking and cycling’.

A separate paper uses London travel data to identify four archetypal car using groups in London: Claire, a 10 year old girl; Lucy, a 40 year old mother; Tom, a 50 year old man living and working in outer London; and Derek, a 78 year old man. It calculates the increases in physical activity and energy expenditure that would result if they transferred their car journeys to walking, cycling and public transport, with occasional trips by taxi. By doing so, they would expend an average of 139,300 kJ of energy a year, equivalent to an average of 4.5 kg of fat. Lucy would reduce her risk of breast cancer by 25% and increase her life expectancy by between 1 and 2 years, while Tom would enjoy a 20-40% reduction in the risk of premature mortality and around a 30% reduction in risk of type 2 diabetes.

Computer Poetry Pushes The Genre Envelope

What happens to poetry in the Digital Age? In one of the first academic works in the field, Swedish researcher Maria Engberg has studied how the ability of the computer to combine words, images, movement, and sounds is impacting both writing and reading.

The dissertation, to be publicly defended on September 14, has been jointly submitted at Uppsala University and the Blekinge Institute of Technology.

"The way digital poetry experiments with language raises questions and challenges conceptions of literature that were formed by printed books," says Maria Engberg, who has examined what this entails for literary scholarship.

She has analyzed works by English-speaking poets such as John Cayley, Stephanie Strickland, and Thomas Swiss. The focus is on space, time, movement, and word and image constructions. The poems were written, or rather created, with the help of computer technology and published on the Internet or CDs, for instance. Some of the works can be experienced as three-dimensional installations, created in space using so-called vr-cubes and augmented-reality environments. Maria Engberg examines how the forms of the poems construct different reader roles that challenge traditional views of poetry and reading, formed by the visual conventions of the printed page.

"Reading becomes one way to use the poem, and the reader becomes an active co-player. But the poems can also eliminate that possibility, leaving the reader to be a viewer looking at the digital poem, which, like a poetic film, blends words, images, sounds, and movements into a whole," she explains.

In recent years literary research has come to focus more and more on visual forms, and digital poetry brings to a head this concern with the visual. How should we examine, analyze, and interpret literature that violates the boundaries between genres" In relation to this issue Maria Engberg also discusses the materiality of literature, that is, its medium, visual appearance, and cultural context. This can involve questions regarding the importance of the appearance and placement of letters, or how music and words interact.

"For instance, how do we read a poem whose verses are obscured by images of stars and constellations?"

Progress Made In Research On Mysteriously Disappearing Honeybees

Researchers identify virus possibly responsible for declining honeybee population using 454 Life Sciences’ sequencing technology; findings published in Science implicate virus in deaths of tens of billions of bees

454 Life Sciences, a Roche company, today announced that researchers at Columbia University have identified a virus implicated in the deaths of 2.4 million honeybee colonies — tens of billions of bees — using the company’s Genome Sequencer system.

The findings explain how foreign organisms living in and among the bees were identified by reading sequences of DNA isolated from the bee colonies. The study, entitled "A metagenomic survey of microbes in honey bee colony collapse disorder," appears online (ahead of print) today in the journal Science. Using 454 Sequencing technology, Dr. Ian Lipkin, Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, and colleagues sequenced DNA and RNA samples that were extracted from collapsing and healthy bee colonies in search of any pathogen responsible for the collapse.

The research identified five major bacterial groups, four lineages of fungi and seven types of viruses. While most of the foreign organisms were found in both the collapsed and healthy bee colonies, one virus, Israeli Acute paralysis Paralysis Virus (IAPV), was found only in the collapsed colonies. As discussed today in Science: "Although we have not proven a causal relationship between infection and CCD, the prevalence of viral sequences in CCD operations — make IAPV a leading candidate."

"Unbiased 454 Sequencing technology enabled us to rapidly assemble a comprehensive inventory of microflora in Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and non-CCD populations and provided the sequence information needed to identify candidate pathogens," stated Dr. Lipkin. "CCD is a model for investigating epidemics of unexplained infectious disease."

Bees play an integral role in the world food supply and are essential for the pollination of more than 90 fruit and vegetable crops worldwide. The economic value of these agricultural products is placed at more than $14.6 billion in the United States alone. In CCD, honeybee colonies inexplicably lose all of their worker bees. CCD has resulted in a loss of 50% to 90% of colonies in beekeeping operations across the United States. The observation that irradiated honeycombs from affected colonies could be repopulated with healthy bees, while non-sterilized combs could not, suggested an infectious basis for CCD. Suspected pathogens were screened for association with CCD by examination of samples collected from several sites over a period of three years.

"We are very pleased to see our technology applied to solve real-world problems. There were a lot of examples during the last months, from cancer research, infectious diseases research, drug discovery, marine biology, anthropology, paleontology, and many more. We are hopeful this latest research will help eliminate the threat of CCD to global agriculture" said Christopher McLeod, president of 454 Life Sciences. "The chief advantage of 454 Sequencing technology is how it enables researchers to identify the organisms present in complex environments without any advance knowledge of the sample."

CCD was first reported in the fall of 2006 in the Unites States. Since then, CCD has been reported in Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. A recent survey of 13 states by the Apiary Inspectors of America showed that over a quarter of U.S. beekeepers have lost, on average, half of their bee colonies between September 2006 and March 2007.

Coffee & Antioxidants

ANTIOXIDANTS IN COFFEE

Plant phenols are a large and diverse group of compounds including cinnamic acids, benzoic acids, flavonoids, proanthocyanidins, stilbenes, coumarins, lignans and lignins. It has been shown that plant phenols have strong antioxidant activity in vitro (1). As a result it has been hypothesised that plant phenols might protect cellular DNA, lipids and proteins from free radical- mediated damage in vivo. Since free radicals are believed to play a role in the development of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and cancer then the consumption of plant phenols may protect against these diseases. As reviewed recently, five out of seven published observational epidemiological studies have shown that flavonols protect against cardiovascular disease but only one out of four studies showed that they protect against cancer (2). Hence the available evidence for a protective effect of flavonols against cardiovascular disease and cancer is far from conclusive and other categories of plant phenols have yet to be investigated.

Chlorogenic acids are a family of esters formed between trans-cinnamic acids and quinic acid. The commonest individual chlorogenic acid is formed between caffeic acid and quinic acid. It has been shown that both chlorogenic acid and caffeic acid are strong antioxidants in vitro (1). Coffee beans are one of the richest dietary sources of chlorogenic acid and for many consumers this will be their major dietary source (3). It has been reported that a 200 ml cup of arabica coffee contains between 70 and 200 mg chlorogenic acid whereas a cup of robusta coffee contains between 70 and 350 mg (3). It has been estimated that coffee drinkers might ingest as much as 1 g per day cinnamate esters (mostly chlorogenic acid) and 500 mg per day cinnamates (mostly caffeic acid). Coffee could supply as much as 70% of the total making it far and away the most important dietary source of this group of antioxidants (3).

The amount of chlorogenic acid or caffeic acid available to act as an antioxidant in vivo will depend on absorption from the gut which may be incomplete and any subsequent metabolism which may be extensive. It has recently been demonstrated that humans absorb about 33% of ingested chlorogenic acid and about 95% of ingested caffeic acid (4). A study of human chlorogenic acid metabolism showed that the unabsorbed chlorogenic acid which reaches the colon is hydrolysed to caffeic acid and quinic acid by the colonic microflora (5). Following dehydroxylation by the colonic microflora, absorption and further metabolism in the liver and kidney, benzoic acid is formed and conjugated to glycine to form hippuric acid. About half the ingested chlorogenic acid appears as urinary hippuric acid (5). This metabolism can be expected to considerably diminish the antioxidant activity of chlorogenic acid in vivo as hippuric acid has no antioxidant activity.

The roasting of coffee beans dramatically increases their total antioxidant activity. A roasting time of 10 minutes (medium-dark roast) was found to produce coffee with optimal oxygen scavenging and chain breaking activities in vitro (6). A study of robusta and arabica coffees from six different countries showed that robusta samples contained significantly more reducing substances than arabica samples and that protective activity measured ex vivo was significantly greater in roasted samples than in green coffee (7). Using the ABTS•+ method (the gold standard), it was confirmed that light roast or medium roast coffee has a significantly higher antioxidant activity in vitro than green coffee (8). This difference was observed despite a 19% and 45% decrease in the chlorogenic acid content of light and medium roast coffee respectively implying that other compounds make significant contributions to the total antioxidant activity of roasted coffee. Melanoidins are brown polymers formed by the Maillard reaction during the roasting of coffee beans and account for up to 25% of the dry matter. It has recently been shown by the ABTS•+ method that coffee melanoidins have significant antioxidant activity in vitro (9).

The total antioxidant activities of different plant phenol- containing beverages have been compared. Using a method based on the ex vivo oxidation of low density lipoprotein (LDL), it has been shown that coffee has significantly more total antioxidant activity than either cocoa, green tea, black tea or herbal tea (10). Using the ABTS•+ method, it has been confirmed that coffee has a significantly greater total antioxidant activity in vitro than cola, beer, a variety of fruit juices, lemon ice tea or black tea (11). A study conducted in 2004 looked at dietary sources of antioxidants and found that the single greatest contributor to total antioxidant intake was coffee (12). A further study in 2006 (13) set out to determine the content of phenolic acids in the most consumed fruits and beverages. Coffee, as wel as black and green teas were the best source among beverages with coffee containing 97mg/100 g whilst teas contained 30-36 mg/100 g

It can be concluded that coffee possesses greater in-vitro antioxidant activity than other beverages, due in part to intrinsic compounds such as chlorogenic acid, in part to compounds formed during roasting such as melanoidins and in part to as yet unidentified compounds. Authors of a study published in 2002 (14) suggested that uric acid was the main component responsible for plasma antioxidant capacity increase after tea drinking, whereas molecules other than uric acid (probably phenolic compounds) are likely to be responsible for the increase in plasma antioxidant capacity after coffee drinking. Whether the antioxidants characteristic of coffee are protective against chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and cancer remains to be determined. Research continues, and the conclusion of a study published in 2006 (15) consisting of a cohort of 41,836 postmenopausal women, was that 'Consumption of coffee, a major source of dietary antioxidants, may inhibit inflammation and thereby reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease and other inflammatory diseases in postmenopausal women'.
It should be noted that these results of course refer to a specific sub group and it would not, at this stage, be appropriate to extrapolate them across to the general population before further research clarifies these conclusions.

References:

1. Rice-Evans, C.A. et al. Free Radical Biology and Medicine, 20, 933-956, 1996.

2. Hollman, P.C.H. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 81, 842-852, 2001.

3. Clifford, M.N. et al. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 79, 362-372, 1999.

4. Olthof, M.R. et al. Journal of Nutrition, 131, 66-71, 2001.

5. Olthof, M.R. et al. Journal of Nutrition, 133, 1806-1814, 2003.

6. Nicoli, M.C. et al. Lebensmittel, Wissenschaft und Technologie, 30, 292-297, 1997.

7. Daglia, M. et al. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 48, 1449-1454, 2000.

8. Del Castillo, M.D. et al. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 50, 3698-3703, 2002.

9. Borrelli, R.C. et al. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 50, 6527-6533, 2002.

10. Richelle, M. et al. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 49, 3438-3442, 2001.

11. Pellegrini, N. et al. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry,51, 260-264,2003.

12. Svilaas, A. et al. Journal of Nutrition, 134, 562-567, 2004.

13.Mattila P et al,

14. Natelle, F. et al. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 50, 6211-6216, 2002.


15. Frost Andersen, L. et al. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 83, 2006.

Some Coffee Info

COFFEE AND ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE

Interest in the possibility that the consumption of coffee or caffeine might protect against the development of Alzheimer’s disease is growing. A retrospective Portuguese study of 54 cases of Alzheimer’s disease and 54 controls recently demonstrated that caffeine intake over the preceding 20 years was inversely and significantly associated with risk of Alzheimer’s disease (1). A prospective Canadian cohort study of 4,615 elderly subjects diagnosed 194 cases of Alzheimer’s disease and showed that coffee consumption was inversely associated with disease risk (2). More prospective cohort studies of the relationship between coffee and caffeine intake and Alzheimer’s disease risk are needed.

References:

1. Maia, L. and De Mendonca, A. European Journal of Neurology, 9, 377-382, 2002.

2. Lindsay, J. et al. American Journal of Epidemiology, 156, 445-453, 2002.

COFFEE, CAFFEINE AND ASTHMA

Two large cross-sectional studies have examined the relationship between the intake of coffee and tea and the prevalence of asthma. A study of 72,284 Italians showed that there was an inverse association between intake of coffee and prevalence of asthma (1). Risk of asthma fell by 28% when three or more cups of coffee were drunk every day. The Second National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES II) studied 20,322 Americans and found that risk of current asthma fell significantly by 29% and risk of wheeze fell insignificantly by 13% when regular coffee drinkers were compared with non-coffee drinkers (2). There was also a significant dose response relationship with current asthma.

Intervention trials of effects of caffeine intake on asthma have recently been critically reviewed (3). Nine intervention trials of effects of caffeine on pulmonary function were identified although three of them were excluded from the analysis due to a variety of design faults (4, 5, 6). A randomised controlled trial on 7 adult asthmatics was unable to show any difference between 6 mg caffeine/kg body weight and placebo on airway responsiveness to methacholine (7). By contrast, a double-blind randomised crossover study of 9 adult asthmatics using four doses of caffeine up to 7.2 mg/kg body weight showed a dose response effect of caffeine on forced expiratory volume (FEV), forced expiratory flow (FEF) and specific airway conductance (Gaw/VL) (8). This suggests that caffeine is an effective bronchodilator. The effect of caffeine on FEV was confirmed in a second trial on 8 adult asthmatics using a dose of 5 mg/kg body weight (9). However, in 10 mild asthmatics 5 mg caffeine/kg body weight had little if any effect on histamine provoked bronchoconstriction (10). By contrast, the higher of two doses of caffeine (3.5 and 7 mg/kg body weight) prevented exercise- induced bronchoconstriction in 10 asthmatics (11). In a subsequent double-blind, placebo controlled randomised crossover trial, it was shown that 10 but not 5 mg caffeine/kg body weight reduced bronchoconstriction induced by eucapnic voluntary hyperventilation in 11 asthmatics (12).

The beneficial effects of caffeine on asthma have been appreciated for over 100 years. In Scotland, caffeine has been used to treat asthma since at least 1859 (13). Marcel Proust, an asthmatic, wrote in A l’Ombre de Jeunes Filles en Fleur that he used caffeine as a child which “was prescribed to help me breathe”. He was born in 1871. As reviewed above, modern research has confirmed that caffeine and hence caffeine-containing beverages have a role to play in the management of asthma.

References:

1. Pagano, R et al. Chest, 94, 386-389, 1988.

2. Schwartz, J. and Weiss, S.T. Annals of Epidemiology, 2, 627-635, 1992.

3. Bara, A.I. and Barley, E.A. Caffeine for asthma (Cochrane Review). In: The Cochrane Library, Issue 2, 2003. Oxford: Update Software.

4. Becker, A.B. et al. New England Journal of Medicine, 310, 743-746, 1984.

5. Henderson, J.C. et al. Thorax, 48, 824-826, 1993.

6. Simmons, M. et al. Chest, 84, 332, 1983.

7. Crivelli, M. et al. Respiration, 50, 258-264, 1986.

8. Gong, H. et al. Chest, 89, 335-342, 1986.

9. Bukowskj, M. and Nakatsu, K. American Review of Respiratory Disease, 135, 173-175, 1987.

10. Colacone, A. et al. Thorax, 45, 630-632, 1990.

11. Kivity, S. et al. Chest, 97, 1083-1085, 1990.

12. Duffy, P. et al. Chest, 99, 1374-1377, 1991.

13. Salter, H. Edinburgh Medical Journal, 4, 1109-1115, 1859.

Gretchen Witt Teaser