Eat Your Nuts

A new study shows that eating walnuts at the end of a meal may help to reduce the damage to the arteries caused by fatty foods.

The study, reported by the BBC, was conducted at Barcelona's Hospital Clinico. The results of the study imply that eating around eight walnuts a day is sufficient to reduce the hardening of the arteries and keep them flexible.

Walnuts are even more beneficial than olive oil, according to the study.

It is well documented that walnuts contain arginine, which is an amino acid used by the body to produce nitric oxide. In addition, they contain helpful antioxidants and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), an omega-3 fatty acid.

Remember, you cannot just eat whatever you want and then follow it by eating walnuts. This would be similar to the old saying: "I ate a Snickers bar and cancelled it out by drinking a Diet Coke." To the contrary, eating walnuts will not "cancel out" your bad food choices. Better instead to make walnuts a part of an otherwise generally healthy diet, limiting your intake of life-damaging saturated fats.

FDA Approves Additional Vaccine for Upcoming Flu Season

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has now approved FluLaval, an influenza vaccine to immunize people 18 years of age and older against the disease caused by strains of influenza virus judged likely to cause seasonal flu in the Northern Hemisphere in 2006-2007. With the addition of FluLaval, there are now five FDA-licensed vaccines for the United States for the upcoming influenza season.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the manufacturers will make about 115 million doses of influenza vaccine for the 2006–2007 season, but these projections could change as manufacturing continues.

FluLaval was approved using FDA's accelerated approval pathway, which allows the agency to approve products for serious or life-threatening diseases based on early evidence of a product's effectiveness, reducing the time it takes for needed medical products to become available to the public. In this case, the manufacturer demonstrated that the vaccine induced levels of antibodies in the blood likely to be effective in preventing seasonal influenza. As part of the accelerated approval process, the manufacturer will conduct further studies to verify that the vaccine will decrease seasonal influenza disease after vaccination.

It is best to be immunized in October or November, but getting the vaccine in the winter months when flu season often peaks is also recommended. People who are allergic to eggs, chicken proteins, or any other components of the vaccine should not receive FluLaval. FluLaval has not been studied in children and pregnant women.

According to CDC, every year in the United States, on average: 5 to 20 percent of the population gets seasonal flu; more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from its complications; and about 36,000 people die.

FluLaval is the second seasonal influenza vaccine approved using the accelerated approval process; GlaxoSmithKline's Fluarix received approval in 2005.