H1N1

Too Many Sweets Will Impair Your Immunity

Filed under: Dining

It doesn't matter what time of year it is, sugar and sweets always seem to be in abundance. Cookies, cakes, pies, candy, ice cream -- it's a never-ending temptation that we all fight (and all too often lose) on a daily basis. But in this time of concern over illness and viruses like H1N1, you might want to rethink your sugar habit and get your sweet tooth under control.

Sugar is not necessarily evil, however. In small amounts sugars (in the form of carbohydrates) are necessary for life. The problem comes when refined, processed sugars are eaten in large quantities. Too much sugar can affect your weight, your mood, your energy level, and perhaps most worrying of all: your immunity.

According to Dr. Sears ingesting 8 tbsp of sugar (or the equivalent of just two and a half 12 oz sodas) can impair the effectiveness of your body's white blood cells by as much as 40%. Sadly, most of us probably do ingest that much sugar at least a few times a week (if not daily) in the form of a soda habit, donuts, chocolate, or eating too many non-sweet processed foods that have high fructose corn syrup hiding in them (like ketchup, peanut butter, and even wheat bread). All those little sugar doses add up.

So next time you're about to reach for another bear claw or find yourself heading to the vending machine for a Mt Dew stop and think: is it worth the risk of getting sick?

Tags: flu, germs, h1n1, health, immunity, sugar, sweets, sweets-pedia

Pharmaceutical Stocks Get Boost from Swine Flu?

by Laura Malesich (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Wealth

Pandemic spells profit for pharmaceutical giants like Sanofi-Aventis (SNY), GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Merck who represent the top three producers of vaccines to treat H1N1 or swine flu. A couple weeks ago the World Health Organization prepared to declare the first worldwide pandemic in four decades and with that news the aforementioned pharmaceutical stocks began to rise 1%-2.2% on the board. At that time 27,737 H1N1 infections had been reported across seventy-four countries including 141 deaths. Countries across the globe will be inclined to increase flu-vaccine stockpiles in the hopes of controlling the potential pandemic within their borders.

When the bird flu, H5N1, was a pandemic threat a few years ago the mere production of an effective bird-flu vaccine paired with a successful clinical trial by GlaxoSmithKline impacted their second quarter positively with a 14% rise in net profits and an 11% rise in sales. At the time it was estimated that the H5N1 vaccine could potentially garner $2 million in annual sales for Glaxo. Impressive!

This just goes to show that not all stocks are in peril -- the human population may be, but that's another story.

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Tags: glaxosmithkline, H1N1, H1n1 virus, H1n1Virus, H5N1, merck, pharmaceutical stocks, pharmaceuticals, PharmaceuticalStocks, sanofi-aventis, swine flu, SwineFlu