Healthy Tips from HealthyLife

Beth Cooney offers tips to keep you healthy
About Beth Cooney

Archive for 2011

Teens and Their Sleep

Monday, December 12, 2011 by:Jill Montag
Comment
Comments
|
|

Here’s another reason to encourage your teenagers to turn off their cell phones and get some shut-eye. According to a recent study, teenagers who go to bed early are much less likely to be obese and have a better chance of being physically fit compared to peers who go to sleep late. The authors of the study add that teenagers who go to bed later but sleep the same number of hours each day as those who put their heads down earlier have a higher risk of becoming overweight and unfit.

Researchers from the University of South Australia set out to determine whether bedtimes and waking up times might have an impact on the health and weight of 2,000 Australian children aged between 9 and 16 years. They also gathered data on their free time activities. They found that kids who went to bed late and got up late were 1.5 times more likely to become obese and 2.9 times more likely to be physically inactive. The kids who stayed up late spent their free time playing computer or video games, watching TV or engaged in other screen-based or sedentary activities. The investigators found that those who regularly went to bed earlier and got up early did approximately 27 minutes more of vigorous exercise than their counterparts who went to bed later and woke up later. The researchers found the night owls replaced 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity with sedentary pursuits every day.

The authors of the study found a link between the following circumstances and a higher percentage of teenage night owls: children with part-time jobs; children with the fewest siblings; children from lower socioeconomic households; and those who live in large cities.


Chocolate and Heart Disease

Thursday, December 8, 2011 by:Jill Montag
Comment
Comments
|
|

Here’s another reason to eat chocolate (as if you need an excuse): it could help protect you from heart disease. According to a recent study, consuming a lot of chocolate appears to reduce the risk of developing heart disease by one third.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge, England set out to review a number of scientific studies to determine what the impact of eating chocolate might be on cardiovascular events such as heart attack and stroke. They looked at the data in seven studies which included 114,009 people; some of them had existing heart problems while others did not. The investigators compared the people who ate the most chocolate with the people who ate the least chocolate in each study. They found that five studies showed evidence that eating a lot of chocolate reduced the risk of cardiovascular events; those who ate the most chocolate had a 37% lower risk of having a cardiovascular event compared to those who ate the least; the highest chocolate consumers had a 29% lower incidence of stroke compared to the lowest chocolate consumers; and the incidence of heart failure did not appear to be impacted by variations in chocolate consumption.

The studied included chocolate desserts, cookies, chocolate bars and drinks; none of them focused on either milk or dark chocolate.

The authors of the study say people must be careful when interpreting these findings because commercially available chocolate is high in calories and high consumption may lead to weight gain, which in turn raises the risk of developing heart disease and type 2 diabetes.

Curry Powder for Your Health

Tuesday, December 6, 2011 by:Jill Montag
Comment
Comments
|
|

If you’re interested in warding off chronic disease – and really, who isn’t? — you might want to learn how to cook Indian food. According to new research, adding Indian curry spices like turmeric and cinnamon to your dishes could help reduce oxidative stress and thus thwart the risk of chronic disease.

Researchers at Penn State prepared meals on two separate days for six men between the ages of 30 and 65 who were overweight, but otherwise healthy. They added two tablespoons of spices to each serving of the test meal, which consisted of chicken curry, Italian herb bread, and a cinnamon biscuit. The control meal was the same, except that spices were not included. The investigators drew blood from the participants every 30 minutes for three hours. They found that when the meal contained a blend of antioxidant spices, antioxidant activity in the blood increased by 13% and insulin response decreased about 20%. Adding curry spices reduced triglyceride response (the increase of triglycerides, a type of fat, in your blood when you eat a high fat serving of food) by about 30%, compared to a similar meal without the added spices.

The authors of the study say key ingredients to beat these triglycerides are oregano, rosemary, cinnamon, turmeric, black pepper, cloves, garlic powder and paprika because they have potent antioxidant activity as demonstrated in the lab. They say the power of curry powder is due to turmeric, a colorful spice bursting with curcumin, which apparently lowers cholesterol levels by reducing the amount of low-density lipoprotein in your blood.

Exercise and Alzheimer’s Disease

Monday, December 5, 2011 by:Jill Montag
Comment
Comments
|
|

Add another line to the long list of the benefits of exercise: it could help protect your brain. According to a recent study, regular exercise could help prevent brain damage associated with neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences used an experimental model of brain damage, in which mice are exposed to a chemical that destroys the hippocampus, an area of the brain which controls memory and learning. The researchers found that mice that were exercised regularly before exposure produced an immune messenger called interleukin-6 in the brain, which dampens the harmful inflammatory response to this damage, and prevents the loss of function that is usually observed.

The authors of the study say the finding that exercise apparently allows the brain to rapidly produce chemicals that prevent damaging inflammation could help scientists develop a therapeutic approach for early intervention in preventing damage to the brain.

Can Dogs Detect Lung Cancer?

Thursday, December 1, 2011 by:Jill Montag
Comment
Comments
|
|

New research suggests Fido may have many more talents besides fetching and sitting. According to a recent study, super trained pups may be able to sniff out lung cancer in a human’s breath, making detection easier and earlier for doctors, which would allow them to treat the ailment earlier and save more lives.

German researchers found that four trained dogs (two German shepherds, a Labrador retriever and an Australian shepherd) correctly identified cancer in 71 of 100 samples from lung cancer patients. They also ruled out cancer in 372 out of 400 samples that were known not to have cancer, which gave them a very low rate of false positives.

220 volunteers took part in the study; 110 of them were healthy, 60 had lung cancer and 50 had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The study participants were asked to exhale into a glass tube filled with fleece. The tubes were mixed up so neither the dogs’ handlers nor two observers who placed the samples on the floor in front of the dogs knew the status of the person they were from, to avoid accidentally giving the dogs clues about what they should find. The dogs were shown five tubes at a time, one of which contained a sample from a person with cancer. The dogs were trained to lie down and put their nose to the tube if they detected lung cancer.

According to the authors of the study, the dogs appeared to be able to accurately identify the samples from cancer patients, even when they were in very early stages of the disease. The dogs were able to pick up the scent despite competing odors of food or cigarette smoke on a person’s breath.

Previous studies have found that dogs may be able to detect other types of deadly cancers; some dogs can even be trained to smell low blood sugar levels in people with diabetes.

The authors of the study think dogs and other animals are able to smell disease by picking up on minute changes in some of the 4.000 breath compounds called volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that comprise chemical signatures in the body.

The Stress of Commuting

Tuesday, November 29, 2011 by:Jill Montag
Comment
Comments
|
|

Stressed out by your commute? If so, you’re not alone – especially if you’re female. According to new research, women are more stressed than men by commuting to and from work, even though men spend more time every day on their daily commute.

Researchers from the London School of Economics and the University of Sheffield set out to determine what effects commuting time might have on the psychological health of adult males and females. They gathered data from the British Household Panel Survey — a yearly questionnaire of a nationally representative sample of UK households. The data includes details on health, well-being, economic and social factors, and employment. The investigators found that commuting appears to have a negative effect on females’ mental health, while men are generally unaffected by it. They say this may be because women spend more time on childcare, housework and other household tasks.

The researchers found that the mental toll is greater on mothers with pre-school age children — four times greater than for men with children of the same age. Interestingly, even childless females in long-term relationships appeared to be more affected than men. In fact, only single females without children, those who could work flexible hours, and women whose partners were responsible for the bulk of childcare were unaffected by the daily commute.

The authors of the study suggest the following tips to lower the stress of your daily commute: eat a healthy breakfast; keep healthy snacks such as dried fruit, unsalted nuts and a bottle of water in your car; try organizing a carpool with colleagues or friends so that fuel costs and driving can be shared; and, if you arrive home late, avoid caffeine and alcohol and eat a light and healthy meal rich in fruit and vegetables — this will help you sleep better.

Some Exercise Better Than None

Monday, November 28, 2011 by:Jill Montag
Comment
Comments
|
|

If you think you’re not exercising enough to improve your health, think again. According to new research, even small amounts of physical activity will help reduce heart disease risk, and the benefit increases as the amount of activity increases.

Researchers from the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health found that people who engaged in 150 minutes of moderate-intensity leisure activity had a 14 percent lower risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) compared to those who reported no exercise or physical activity. People with higher levels of activity had a progressively lower relative risk of CHD. The investigators found that that even people who got below the United States guidelines for physical activity, which recommend 2 hours and 30 minutes of moderate exercise per week, had a lower risk of CHD than those who had no activity. Interestingly, these results were stronger in women than in men.

The authors of the study say these findings corroborate federal guidelines — 150 minutes of exercise a week is definitely beneficial, but 300 minutes per week will give even more benefits.

Fat and Healthy?

Thursday, November 24, 2011 by:Jill Montag
Comment
Comments
|
|

Here’s some refreshing news for those of us carrying around some extra pounds: being fat can actually be good for you. According to a recent study, obese people who are otherwise healthy live just as long as their slim counterparts, and are less likely to die of cardiovascular causes.

Researchers at York University’s School of Kinesiology & Health Science looked at 6,000 obese Americans over a 16-year span, comparing their mortality risk with that of lean individuals. They found that obese people who had no (or only mild) physical, psychological or physiological impairments had a higher body weight in early adulthood, were happier with this higher body weight, and had attempted to lose weight frequently during their lives. However, these people were also more likely to consume a healthy diet and be physically active.

The investigators used a newly-developed grading tool, the Edmonton Obesity Staging System (EOSS), which has been found to be more accurate than body mass index (BMI) in identifying who should try to lose weight. This tool is modeled on staging systems that classify the extent and severity of other diseases like mental illness, heart disease and cancer. The authors of the study stress that in order to determine whether or not they should lose weight, people should see a doctor to be evaluated using the EOSS criteria.

Page 2 of 1912345...Last »