With the latest news from JAMA that neither vitamin C or E reduce the risk of prostate or total cancer in men, everyone is now asking, ‘what good are they then’?

“vitamins E and C are important as part of our antioxidant defenses, even if we have not yet documented specific preventive effects.” – Dr. Weill

According to WebMD, vitamin C is great for fighting against:

• cardiovascular disease,
• eye disease,
• immune system deficiencies,
• prenatal health problems, and even
• skin wrinkling.

With vitamin E, early lab studies are promising, but studies have been disappointing. The only established benefits are for people who have an actual deficiency, something rare for most of us, unless you have certain diseases like cystic fibrosis or digestive problems, or you’re on a very low-fat diet.

It’s true. Happiness is contagious – out to three degrees of separation no doubt – according to Harvard researcher just published in the British Medical Journal.

So apparently the flip side of ‘hanging out with the wrong crowd’ is ‘be happy by hanging out with happy people’.

Next time you’re feeling a little ‘under the weather’, check out Google Flu Trends for a possible flare up in your area. Google matches their search results up against the CDC’s historical data and we get a visual of the comparison.

“We have found a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms. Of course, not every person who searches for “flu” is actually sick, but a pattern emerges when all the flu-related search queries from each state and region are added together. We compared our query counts with data from a surveillance system managed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and discovered that some search queries tend to be popular exactly when flu season is happening. By counting how often we see these search queries, we can estimate how much flu is circulating in various regions of the United States.”

Using the only phrase Sarah Palin will probably be remembered for 12 days from now seemed like an appropriate title for this article. After all, it’s Joe-Six-Pack’s 13-year-old kids across the country that may become the first age group of cancer-fighting beer drinkers 5 years from now if students from Rice Univ. have their way.

The genetically engineered beer (GE beer) they are creating contains resveratrol, the same chemical previously noticed in red wine that has anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory, blood-sugar-lowering, and other beneficial cardiovascular effects in laboratory tests.

You may have heard of the French paradox effect – that’s where the young students got their idea from originally. They figure, if it works with wine, it must work with beer too.