News Coverage
Chicken Soup for the Heart
Published December 5, 2008
Chicken legs — a soup staple in certain cultures — may be packed with proteins that help ease high blood pressure, according to new research from the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Working with rats, scientists found that collagen sourced from chicken legs had effects similar to ACE inhibitors (medications commonly used to treat hypertension) and delivered a significant, prolonged reduction in blood pressure.
Bottled Water Woes
Your bottled water might be brimming with bacteria and cancer-causing chemicals, a new report from the Environmental Working Group reveals. Testing 10 popular bottled water brands, researchers found that every product contained contaminants at levels no different from what’s typically detected in tap water. In Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Choice bottled water, the EWG even discovered disinfection byproducts at levels that surpass the legal limit. Known as trihalomethanes, such byproducts have been linked to cancer and reproductive problems in a number of studies.
“For years the bottled water industry has marketed their product with the message that it is somehow safer or purer than tap water,” notes Wenonah Hauter, executive director of consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch. “This new report provides even more evidence that the purity of bottled water is nothing more than a myth propagated to trick consumers into paying thousands of times more for a product than what it is actually worth.”
