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A Skinny Pill?

Hoping to shed a few pounds before heading for that beach vacation? You may be interested in the over-the-counter diet pill alli, recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). GlaxoSmithKline, producers of the drug, planned to have it available at the end of June. Unlike many diet supplements on the market that claim to aid weight loss, alli is the first medicine for weight loss that has been approved for sale without a prescription. Generically known as orlistat, it is still sold in higher doses by prescription, as Xenical.

Alli works by reducing the amount of fat the body absorbs—about 150 to 200 calories worth per dose—and ferrying it out of the body. It comes in capsule form and can be taken up to three times daily. The most common side effects are gastrointestinal, including gas, oily spotting, loose stools, and bowel movements that are difficult to control. Sounds pretty gross, eh? Well, it's also not an effortless miracle cure. Recommendations that accompany the dosage directions say that it works best if used in conjunction with exercise and a low-fat, reduced-calorie diet, familiar advice with regard to weight loss.

Ward Off Lyme Disease

Summer is prime time for Lyme disease and the mid-Atlantic is a hotbed of infection. The best way to avoid this bacterial infection is to avoid deer ticks, the carrier organisms that transmit the microbe to humans and other mammals. Deer ticks are poppy seed–sized critters that you can easily mistake for a speck of dirt or a freckle. Here are some tips from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) on protecting yourself from ticks:

• To help prevent contact with ticks, walk in the center of trails to avoid picking up ticks from overhanging grass and brush.

• To minimize skin exposure to ticks, wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts that fit tightly at the ankles and wrists. As a further safeguard, wear a hat, tuck your pants legs into your socks, and wear shoes that leave no part of your feet exposed.

• To make it easy to find ticks on clothes, wear light-colored clothing.

• To keep ticks away, spray clothing with the insecticide permethrin, commonly found in lawn and garden stores, or spray clothing or skin with insect repellents that contain a chemical called DEET (N, N-diethyl-M-toluamide).

• Once indoors, check for ticks, particularly in the hairy regions of your body, and wash all clothing.

• Check pets for ticks before letting them in the house. Pets can carry ticks into the house. These ticks can fall off without biting the animal and then attach to and bite people. In addition, pets can develop symptoms of Lyme disease.

• If a tick is attached to your skin, pull it out gently with tweezers, taking care not to squeeze the tick's body, then apply an antiseptic to the bite. Studies by NIH-supported researchers suggest that a tick must be attached for at least 48 hours to transmit Lyme disease bacteria. Promptly removing the tick could keep you from becoming infected.

Let Them Eat Dirt

Parents, you can cut yourselves a little slack in the housekeeping department. Environmental health scientists at the University of Cincinnati (UC) say that early-life exposure to components of microbes can help build stronger immune systems and may protect against future allergies. While many new parents scurry around the house with antibacterial soaps and cleaners to protect their crawling infants from all germs, these products may harm more than they help. Scientists say early-life exposure to common microbial components—like bacterial endotoxins and fungal glucans—can stimulate the body's immune system to produce infection- and allergy-fighting substances. Therefore, the lead author of the study, Yulia Iossifova, says, people should avoid overusing antibacterial sprays and soaps to clean their bodies and homes. “Certain microbes can have helpful effects in the body,” she explains, “but antibacterial disinfectants can't discriminate between helpful and harmful microbes—they destroy them all. This eliminates the natural competition among bacteria and fungi, so the surviving microbes are often the infectious ones that can develop resistance to drugs designed to eliminate them.” The UC team found that infants who were exposed to high levels of indoor fungal components—known as fungal glucans—were nearly three times less likely to wheeze than infants exposed to low levels and seemed to be more resistant to environmental allergies.

A Cherry on Top for Heart Disease

In a study involving rats, researchers at the University of Michigan Health System (UM) found that consumption of tart cherries led to a decrease in metabolic syndrome, a collection of risk factors linked to heart disease and type 2 diabetes . The researchers say the correlation between cherry intake and significant changes in metabolic measurements suggests a positive effect from the high concentrations of antioxidant compounds called anthocyanins that are found in tart cherries. It's not yet known whether cherry-rich diets might have a similar effect in humans, but a UM team will soon launch a small clinical trial to start to find out. Maybe a slice of cherry pie in the meantime wouldn't hurt.