FDA cracks down on caffeinated gum, increasingly buzzing food and drink market

Src: Wrigley Company

With increasingly more food products coming onto the market boasting energy boosts with added caffeine, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Monday its intention to investigate the safety of added caffeine and its effect on children and adolescents.

Sparking the investigation was Wrigley’s introduction of a new caffeinated product on Monday. Alert Energy Caffeine Gum contains 40 milligrams of caffeine per piece, marketed as having as much caffeine as a half a cup of coffee.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a non-profit watchdog group, believes that Wrigley’s website, vividly interactive with strong social media content, is indication that the product will be marketed to young people.

While companies claim to market these products solely to adults, critics say that adding caffeine to items like candy that are attractive to children is still irresponsible. The American Academy of Pediatrics says caffeine has been linked to harmful effects on young people’s developing neurologic and cardiovascular systems.

In a statement, the FDA noted that it was taking a fresh look at the potential impact that “the totality of new and easy sources of caffeine” may have on health, particularly children and younger consumers.

According to Rocky Hill resident Gary Wuerth, 36, this isn’t the first time caffeinated gum has been available to young people. He remembers about 15 years ago when caffeinated gum and the flavorless caffeinated water, Krank2O, was available on military bases. With military personnel working 36-48 hours straight, friends told Wuerth, “This is how we do it.”

“I had some friends in the air force at the time, and they brought me [to the base] to get some,” he said. “The gum was like $1 for a huge pack, and the water was like $5 for a 24-bottle case.”

Both the gum and water “got you jacked up,” he said. “I remember I threw the gum away immediately, and only drank like three of the waters, because there was so much caffeine in them I couldn’t stand it—I thought I was going to have a heart attack.”

Long before the mint and fruit flavors of Alert Energy, Wuerth said the white gum was “incredibly awful tasting,” and was like chewing a tire.

Src: Original Juan Specialty Foods

Caffeine is currently an added ingredient to trail mix, potato chips, waffles, and jelly beans. Jelly Belly Extreme Sport Beans contain 50 mg of caffeine per 100-calorie pack, while ARMA Energy is a energy snack line that boasts delivering the same amount of energy as an energy drink, with chips and trail mix. There are Wired Waffles, also with an “energy blend equal to an energy drink,” if not more, which one can serve with caffeinated maple syrup. Frito Lay’s Cracker Jack’D Power Bites are coffee flavored coated wafers that include two tablespoons of ground coffee, approximate 100 mg of caffeine.

“The only time that FDA explicitly approved the added use of caffeine in a food was for cola and that was in the 1950s,” Michael Taylor, FDA deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, said in a statement on its website on Monday. The current proliferation of caffeine being added to foods is “beyond anything FDA envisioned,” Taylor said.

With the FDA’s investigation, legal authorities are strengthening their assault on energy drinks, for its potential health dangers in young people. According to a 2012 New York Times article, the FDA disclosed that 13 deaths over the previous four years were linked to the consumption of the heavily-caffeinated energy shot, 5-Hour Energy, as well as more than 17 other serious or life-threatening health incidents, such as convulsions and heart attacks. A 2-ounce bottle of 5-Hour Energy is thought to contain approximately 215 mg of caffeine.

This February, FDA officials said they would take action if they could link the deaths to consumption of the energy drinks, even going so as to force companies to take these products off the market. Companies were forced to stop making alcoholic caffeinated beverages in 2010 because the cocktail of alcohol and caffeine could lead to an alert drunken state resulting in car accidents, assaults and alcohol poisoning.

In October, the FDA also disclosed that it had received five fatality filings associated with the highly popular energy drink Monster. Last year, Monster Beverage Corp., a Calif.-based company, also was slapped with a subpoena from a state attorney general’s office regarding its ingredient and advertising claims.

On Tuesday, Monster announced it was suing San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who asked Monster to provide “adequate warning labels,” cease marketing to minors, and reduce the amount of caffeine in its energy drinks.

The content of most Monster Energy drinks is approximately 160 mg per 16 oz. can, which is nearly five times the recommended max for adolescents and more than 400 mg per day the FDA has indicated is safe for adults, CBS San Francisco reports. Herrera noted in a letter to the company that Energy Drinks are specifically targeted to youth, who are encouraged to “pound down” drinks in large quantities. Coffee, which may contain more caffeine, are served hot and typically consumed slowly, on the other hand.

Energy drinks have more than three times the caffeine of a soda like Coca-Cola. Michael Jacobson, director of CSPI, said that this is problematic because younger people may guzzle energy drinks without realizing how much caffeine they’re consuming.

“Could caffeinated macaroni and cheese or breakfast cereal be next?” said Jacobson. “One serving of any of these foods isn’t likely to harm anyone. The concern is that it will be increasingly easy to consume caffeine throughout the day, sometimes unwittingly, as companies add caffeine to candies, nuts, snacks and other foods.” CSPI wrote the FDA a letter concerned about the number of foods with added caffeine last November.

Taylor said the agency would look at accumulative effect of caffeine on the market. While one product might not cause adverse effects, the rising number of caffeinated products on the market could lead to more adverse health effects for children.

New study questions Gingko biloba’s safety, Chinese herbalist touts its benefits

Gingko / Src: Herbalisl.com

On Thursday, The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) advised consumers to avoid Ginkgo biloba, based on a new government study that showed evidence of the extract causing liver cancer in mice and thyroid cancer in rats. On its Chemical Cuisine guide to food additives, CSPI downgraded ginkgo from “safe” to “avoid.”

While extracts from the leaves of the Ginkgo biloba tree are legally used as an herbal remedy to improve memory and brain function, the Food and Drug Administration has sent warning labels to companies using Gingko in energy drinks, such as Rockstar, stating that the extract is not generally recognized as safe as a food product.

“Ginkgo has been used in recent years to let companies pretend that supplements or energy drinks or supplements with it confer some sort of benefit for memory or concentration,” said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson.  “The evidence for those claims has been dubious, at best.  The pretend benefits are now outweighed by the real risk of harm.”

“I always prescribe Chinese herbs exclusively in the manner in which they have been used safely and traditionally for over 3,000 years,” Lisl Meredith Huebner, Dipl.CH, RH, a nationally board certified Chinese Herbalist and Registered Clinical Herbalist in the Greater Hartford area, said in an interview on Thursday. “I wish that the Western mind would take heed of the tried and true methodology.”

The government’s National Toxicology Program (NTP) used a special formulation of a Chinese Ginkgo extract given to certain strains of rats and mice five times a week for two years in a series of animal toxicology studies.

The NTP researchers stated, “We conclude that Ginkgo biloba extract caused cancers of the thyroid gland in male and female rats and male mice and cancers of the liver in male and female mice.”

According to the nonprofit American Botanical Council (ABC), clinically tested Ginkgo extracts sold as dietary supplements in the United States are safe for most consumers.

“The ginkgo extract used in this study is different from the high-quality ginkgo extracts used in published clinical trials showing safety and various beneficial activities of ginkgo,” said Mark Blumenthal, founder and executive director of ABC, in a statement released on Thursday. “That is, the Shanghai ginkgo extract used by NTP does not represent the quality of German ginkgo extract that is the world standard for ginkgo. It is highly unfortunate that NTP chose to use this ginkgo extract as it means that the results of the NTP’s studies are not applicable to the standard-setting ginkgo extracts.”

Additionally, the NTP studies contain dosage levels equivalent to 50 to 100 times higher than what would normally be ingested by consumers, ABC’s consulting toxicologist calculated.

“Almost anything will create cancer in rats and mice when it’s fed to them at high doses for two years,” said Bill J. Gurley, PhD, professor of pharmaceutical sciences in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Arkansas School for Medical Sciences, Little Rock.

“Even the reviewers voiced adamant proclamations that the results in this animal research were not intended for direct extrapolation to humans,” said Rick Kingston, PharmD, president of regulatory and scientific affairs at SafetyCall International in Minneapolis, MN, and professor of pharmacy at the University of Minnesota College of Pharmacy.

While Ginkgo has gained recent popularity as a treatment for dementia and Alzheimer’s, China (and later Japan and Korea) has long recognized the more extensive medicinal benefits of Gingko. According to Huebner, its leaves of contain a unique, allergy-controlling compound, a Platelet Activating Factor, which inhibits blood cells from sticking to each other, improving circulation. Improved micro-circulation and circulation to the head not only increases cognition, memory, senility and focus; it also affects hearing, mood and eye disease.

Huebner writes that various studies have shown that the increased blood flow effect of Gingko leaves improve the conditions of peripheral blood circulation, varicose veins, arthritis and rheumatism, as well as disperse clots and increase coronary and capillary circulation. It helps lower cholesterol, treat arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and relieve chest pressure and pain. Gingko is also a powerful antioxidant.

“The ginkgo nut has been used medicinally in China for thousands of years for the treatment of lung disorders and “Damp” conditions (as classified in Traditional Chinese Medicine),” wrote Huebner.  Used as an expectorant, Ginkgo can dilate the bronchia and blood vessels to treat coughs, asthma and wheezing. Damp conditions include urinary problems, such as incontinence.

Huebner wrote, “Ginkgo nuts are antifungal and antibacterial, considered to be somewhat astringent, slightly sedative and are a frequent addition to TCM formulas treating urinary and bronchial ailments as well as diseases of the reproductive organs.”

Strolling of the Heifers releases second annual Locavore Index

On Monday, Strolling of the Heifers released its second annual Locavore Index, which ranks the 50 states and the District of Columbia for their commitment to local foods, rating them for the availability and consumption of locally produced foods in their state.

Strolling of the Heifers, the Vermont-based advocacy group, assesses the number of farmers markets, consumer-supported agriculture programs (CSAs) and food hubs in its per-capita comparison of consumers’ interest in eating locally-sourced foods—also known as locavorism.

Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Iowa were the top five states in the 2013 index. California, on the other hand, which has more than 800 markets—the most in the country—came in 42nd.

Index coordinator Martin Langeveld explained to TakePart, “A state that is significantly urbanized will be at somewhat of a disadvantage.” There is a rural-state bias that results when considering local food systems in relationship to population.

Langeveld said that the real reason the locavore ranking is done is to let everyone compare the local food systems that exist around the country, and to “provide a little incentive to get people thinking about it.”

“Right now, reliable state-by-state data about local food consumption is pretty scarce,” said Langeveld in a press release. He told TakePart, “There just aren’t good, consistent metrics that are comparable across all 50 states.”

Last year, the ranking system was based primarily on United Sates Department of Agriculture (USDA) data from 2007. With the upcoming release of the 2012 Census of Agriculture, conducted every five years, 2014 will include plenty new data from which to draw. This year, in addition to using data from the USDA and the U.S. Census Bureau (July 2012 estimates of population, Strolling of the Heifers had to turn to the website Local Harvest for CSA numbers. Data on food hubs was also used for the first time.

Food hubs are either non-profit or for-profit networks that allow regional growers to collaborate on local food aggregation, marketing and distribution.  This allows individual farmers and food producers to benefit from better efficiencies in getting their products into the hands of consumers. Buying local food encourages the development of local food processing and distribution networks, while encouraging strong community connections between people and the food producers and farmers providing fresh, local food.

“Without food hubs, marketing and distribution of local foods can be challenging to small and midsized farms which lack the infrastructure to handle those function,” said Langeveld. “So the presence of food hubs is an indication that a state or region has tackled this problem and that more locally-sourced food products are being made available.”

Buying locally grown food has a number of other advantages for a community. Getting food from local sources cuts down on the need to ship food long distances, which decreases the use of fuel. The average food item sold in a supermarket travels more 1,500 miles from a farm to the kitchen. Consequently, fruits and vegetables in grocery stores are picked up to a week before they reach markets. Local foods thus have less spoilage, lose fewer nutrients and are more flavorful. A thriving local food market also encourages more consumption of organic foods, reducing the reliance on artificial fertilizers and pesticides.

“A strong local food system creates economic opportunities, preserves the working landscape, serves the nutritional needs of a region, and provides a point of connection for the community,” said Vermont Secretary of Agriculture Chuck Ross in a press release.

See how your state measured up in the Locavore Index here.

For a list of CSAs, farmers markets and food hubs in your area, visit LocalHarvest.org and Food Hub Center.

Salt and processed foods linked with autoimmune disease and early mortality

Last week, researchers from three different studies reported in the journal Nature identified an association between dietary salt and the development of autoimmune disease. This precedes a study published yesterday that links the consumption of processed foods with an increased risk of early death due to cardiovascular disease and cancer.

According to the Voice of America, researchers were studying the gut bacteria of 100 human subjects and found that those who ate at fast food restaurants had high levels of inflammatory T-cells. The protective, “fighter” T-cells are usually mobilized by a healthy immune system to respond to injury or pathogens. In autoimmune diseases, however, the body’s normally protective immune system, including the T-cells, begins to attack and destroy healthy tissue and organs. Previous research suggests that a subset of these cells, Th17, also play a critical role in the development of autoimmune diseases.

Researchers at Yale and colleagues at University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany sought to find out whether high salt content in one’s diet might induce the destructive immune system response that marks autoimmune disease. They found that mice fed a diet high in refined salts saw a dramatic increase in the number of Th17 cells in their nervous systems that promoted inflammation. These mice developed a more severe form of an MS animal model, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.

“Animals on the high salt were basically paralyzed and couldn’t move around the cage,” said David Hafler, chair of the Department of Neurology at Yale and senior author of the Yale paper, in Voice of America. “So, [it was] a very dramatic difference in the extent of the disease.”

In the same issue of Nature, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard identified the key molecular pathway involved in the response to salt, and the Broad Institute outlined the regulatory network of genes that runs this autoimmune response.
“The question we wanted to pursue was: How does this highly pathogenic, pro-inflammatory T cell develop? Once we have a more nuanced understanding of the development of the pathogenic Th17 cells, we may be able to pursue ways to regulate them or their function.” said Vijay Kuchroo, a senior scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a Broad Institute associate member, in Yale News.

“Humans were genetically selected for conditions in sub-Saharan Africa, where there was no salt,” Hafler said. “Today, Western diets all have high salt content and that has led to increase in hypertension and perhaps autoimmune disease as well.”

Hafler noted that all test-tube cell biology is performed based on the salt levels found in blood and not in the tissues where immune cell ultimately travel to fight infections. That may have been a reason salt’s role in autoimmunity has gone undetected.

“Nature did not want immune cells to become turned on in the pipeline, so perhaps blood salt levels are inhibitory,” said Hefler.

Scientists have previously identified other environmental triggers that cause the gene mutations responsible for autoimmune diseases, including multiple sclerosis and lupus. Vitamin D deficiency, obesity, smoking, as well as prior infection, are considered potential triggers.

“And what the study really has demonstrated is that salt is likely or may be one of the environmental factors that was previously unknown,” said Hafler.

Hefler already recommends his patients be on a low-salt, low-fat diet.

According to True Activist, the Yale study is the first to indicate that excess refined and processed salt may be one of the environmental factors driving the increased incidence of autoimmune diseases.

Dr Barbara Hendel, researcher and co-author of Water & Salt, The Essence of Life, believes too few minerals, rather than too much salt, may be the true cause of illness. Our bodies are not designed to refined, processed and bleached salts as it has no nutritional value. Mineral salts, like Himalayan rock salt or Celtic salt, she says, are healthy because they give your body the variety of mineral ions needed to balance its functions, remain healthy and heal.

David McCarron, of Oregon Health Sciences University, agrees, saying salt has always been part of the human diet, but the mineral content of our food is what has changed. Instead of eating food high in minerals, such as vegetables, nuts and fruit, people are filling up on “mineral empty” processed food and carbonated drinks.

A study published March 12 in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that consumption of meat is associated with a significant increased risk of all-cause death, as well as death from cardiovascular disease and from cancer.

“I think the overall message is that we should reduce our meat consumption and for processed meats we should definitely try to avoid or eliminate these from the diet,” lead investigator Dr An Pan, of Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, told heartwire2.

In general, and women who ate more red meat were less likely to be physically active and more likely to be current smokers, to drink alcohol and have a higher body-mass index (BMI). They also tended to consume lower amounts of vegetables, fruits and grains, as well as fish and poultry.

A study published March 7 in BMC Medicine, the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study, which surveyed almost half a million men and women across 10 countries, also addressed the association between meat consumption and mortality.

In contrast to the American study, the EPIC study found a stronger association between processed meats and cancer deaths. A very high consumption of red meat was non-significantly associated with increased cancer mortality, but not with deaths caused by cardiovascular or respiratory diseases, diseases of the digestive tract, or any other disease.

Over a mean of 12 years, high consumption of processed meat was associated with a near doubling of the risk for all-cause mortality in adults. The risk for cancer death was 43 percent higher and the risk for cardiovascular death was 70 percent higher in people eating more than 160 g/day of processed meats than in those eating 10.0 to 19.9 g/day.

While researchers pointed to the increased saturated fat and cholesterol, as well as additives (some of which are believed to be carcinogenic) in processed meats, there is something else also at play. “Another factor is the salt in processed meat products, which is linked to hypertension — a CVD risk factor,” lead author Sabine Rohrmann, PhD, MPH, head of the Department of Epidemiology and Prevention at the University of Zurich in Switzerland told Medscape.

Dense breasts a factor for more young women with advanced breast cancers

Src: e-radiography.net

A recent study published this Tuesday, Jan. 26, in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that number of women ages 25 to 39 developing metastatic breast cancer, the most advanced stage of cancer when it spreads to vital organs and threatens life, has tripled between 1976 and 2009. While the number of cases were still relatively small, these women had cancer that spread before they were even diagnosed, which can happen when doctors are dismissive of a breast lump concern due to the patient’s age and especially when mammograms are the only course of screening used.

In 2009, Connecticut passed legislation that requires radiologists to inform patients about the density of breast tissue.  If the report states that you have greater than 50 percent breast tissue, you “have the opportunity” to receive additional testing, usually through ultrasound screening of both breasts, but may also include a breast MRI.

Because younger women have more circulating hormones, they are more likely to have dense breast tissue. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, women with dense breast tissue also have a higher risk of developing breast cancer than women their age without dense tissue. The reason for this is that dense breast tissue can hide tumors on a mammogram.

Forty percent of women have dense breast tissue. Dense breast tissue, made up of more breast and connective tissue than fat, can look white or gray on a mammogram. Tumors also are white, which makes it especially hard to completely identify healthy breast in women with denser breast tissue.

Most of the advanced cancer increases involve tumors sensitive to the hormone estrogen. In addition to more naturally hormones, rising rates of obesity could be contributing to this surge, as estrogen is attracted to increased fat stores in the breast. Toxic chemicals, such as estrogen-mimickers like BPA in plastics and parabens in make up and skincare products, are causing pre-menopausal women to ingest even more estrogen from the environment.

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld of the American Cancer Society told NPR on Wednesday  that a defining characteristic of women of this generation is that they also have been delaying childbirth. Estrogen levels soar during pregnancy.

“There is some thinking on our part that this is related to perhaps delay in childbirth or to the actual effects of pregnancy itself in this age group,” he says. “That may have something to do with the hormonal relationship.”

Women of any age should make sure they do monthly self-examinations and report any new and unusual lumps to their physicians.

In 2009, Connecticut became the first state to require that women be told if they have dense breasts and to demand insurance companies cover ultrasound scans for those women. A woman from Woodbury, Nancy Cappello, PhD, is credited for getting the notification bill into motion. She was 51 when a doctor felt a lump in her breast, six weeks after she had a normal mammogram. A second mammogram still returned normal do to Cappello’s dense breast tissue.

By the time she was diagnosed, her cancer had spread to 13 lymph nodes and she need a mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation and hormone treatment. Her breast surgeon estimated that the cancer had been growing for four to five years, despite 11 years of normal mammogram screenings, Cappello told Parade magazine.

In addition to launching a nonprofit, Are You DENSE, to educate women about breast density and its significance in the early detection of breast cancer, Cappello and her husband, Joe, worked to initiate state legislation requiring doctors to make sure patients are informed of their breast density risk. In addition to Connecticut, notification laws have been passed in New York, California, Texas and Virginia. A bill calling for a federal law has been introduced in the House.

“I want to help other women,” Cappello, formerly the state’s chief of special education, told The New York Times last October. “I can’t help myself. My cancer should have been detected at a much earlier stage.”

Yale Identifies Where Fat Comes From, With Big Ramifications for Future

src: health-news-blog.com

Focusing on nutrition and lifestyle, we know that the causes of the rise in obesity include the overconsumption of processed foods and sugar, too few nutrient-dense foods and too-large portion sizes, as well as stress, a sedentary lifestyle, sleep disturbances, not getting enough exercise, metabolic factors, and even environmental toxins. Now, a new study by researchers from Yale University School of Medicine has taken on the challenge to answer the question from a biological standpoint: Where does all that fat come from?

The results were published online in the journal Nature Cell Biology on Feb. 24. The National Institutes of Health funded the study.

Our body stores fat in adipose cells, which collect the fat from the foods we eat, making them available when we need energy. Surrounding our internal organs and found under the skin, adipose cells help cushion the body and keep it warm. When we consume more energy than we burn, adipose cells accumulate excess fat and increase in size.

“Since lipid-laden mature adipocytes cannot divide, the increase in cell number in obesity must come from differentiation of precursor cells in the tissue,” theorized Matthew Rodeheffer, PhD, Assistant Professor of Comparative Medicine and of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale.

Using a process called differentiation, co-authors Rodeheffer and Ryan Berry isolated cells from fat and studied which ones could turn into fat cells. The researchers identified cells in mice with certain types of receptors on their surface that eventually transformed into white adipocytes, what most people recognize as fat.

The proliferation in recent decades of obesity and other related health problems, like type II diabetes, in the U.S. and other developed countries emphasizes the importance of determining how the body normally regulates fat mass is and how the process changes in obesity. Rodeheffer says scientists will now be able study how these cells act under various conditions, such as during dieting, exercise or overeating.

“Despite the high incidence of obesity and the health risks associated with it, our understanding of the basic biology of fat tissue is limited,” Rodeheffer states on his website.

According to Yale News, the researchers “hope to discover what causes the precursors to make new fat cells in obesity — and one day potentially block their creation,” which, Rodeheffer says, will keep them busy for the next 20 years.

Lessons of Love, Loss and Finding Your Way Back To Self

I believe that every significant life experience has something to teach us—about life, ourselves, our relationships with others. For what is life if not for building meaningful connections with others, for learning about the world in which we live and for truly discovering our own true nature, boundless potential and sacred path?

I have learned so much from the relationships and love I’ve experienced in my life. In my most recent relationship, I have learned to be more open than I ever have before. I have revealed parts of myself that I feared would be misunderstood or never really accepted by others; they were both appreciated and embraced. One of the most thrilling things was learning that the man I loved found my brain as sexy as my looks. I felt accepted, respected, appreciated and loved for all the things that I was and could be. Finally, someone who fully appreciated the journey I had traveled to become who I am and how I came to stand where I stand.

Our relationships can feed and nourish our spirit. They can reinforce our feeling of belonging and acceptance. The healthiest relationships provide support and encouragement, as well as inspire us to be our best selves. Researchers from Cornell University also found that people who lived with loved ones experience greater happiness and self-esteem.

When we are in the love, the flooding of dopamine and norepinephrine, together producing bliss, excitement and intense energy. Endorphins, released during physical contact, create a sense of well-being and can help us feel more peaceful, comforted and secure. Oxytocin, also released through physical intimacy, is associated with bonding and feelings of attachment between two people. According to Dr. Helen Fisher, a physical anthropologist, oxytocin can also work to inhibit production of the hormone cortisol and stress response.

Love does not only feel wonderful for our emotional center—according to several different studies, love also has protective properties for our physical heart. In a Yale study, men and women who felt most loved and supported had substantially less blockage in their coronary arteries. A study of 10,000 married men found that a man who felt his wife showed her love had significantly less chest pain, or angina, than those who felt she didn’t. Duke University researchers found that single men and women with heart disease who lacked confidants were three times as like to die after five years than those with close friends and relationship partners.

Studies also show that loneliness and social isolation can weaken our immune system. How couples communicate with one another during conflict has an additional impact on immune health. Research suggests that couples that argue in a more positive and loving way have higher immediate immune function that couples displaying negative behavior during fights. Dr. Gian Gonzaga, senior director of research & development at eHarmony Labs told Women’s Day, “the key to positive conflict resolution is productively engaging in the conversation without retreating or “stonewalling” each other.”

Miscommunication is a common source of distress in relationships. It is, in fact, apparently the major reason why I found myself single again the day before this Valentine’s Day. We marveled at our ability to communicate openly and honestly about a vast array of both concrete and abstract ideas, thoughts and feelings conflict-free. Yet our inability to clearly convey and perceive intent during that 0.1 percent, the very rare arguments we had over the last year, was enough to drive what’s turned out to be an insurmountable wedge between us.

I always thought that once you found the person who held the key to unlock all the chambers of your heart, as you held the key to theirs, you would do anything it took to keep that sacred connection alive. I thought that when I finally believed in—could even catch glimpses of—a shared vision of a joined future together with a soulmate, there would be work, of course, but it would be done with love, patience and understanding. I believed that if anyone saw danger signs, they would be mentioned far before either party would say it was time to take their exit. I believed you gave the people you love a chance and even a little time for transformation once their eyes were truly opened to the splinters in them.

The biographer, novelist and author of the best-selling memoir, Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert writes, “People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.”

Sometimes after you have addressed your weaknesses, attacked your demons head on, the person who once held the mirror to your barriers is lost beyond the shadows of the past. You must hold yourself steady long enough to feel the arms reaching to support you as you move into to your future. You must learn to recognize and accept the help and love of the others in your life who will walk beside you until you once again come into your own strength.

 Annette Vaillancourt, Ph.D. writes, ‘For the resilience to return to the human spirit, the path it takes is grief.” When handled most healthfully, the journey from grief leads to personal growth, expanding of the spirit and a greater awareness of self and your relationship to others. As I wrote from the start, that’s what living is all about.