Diet and Cognition

 

A study completed earlier this year concluded that people who eat a Mediterranean-style diet -- particularly one rich in green leafy vegetables and low in meat -- are more likely to stay mentally sharp in later life. Nutritionists have long touted the benefits of the diet on various facets of health, including cardiovascular health. But a team of researchers in Scotland, led by Janie Corley, PhD, at the University of Edinburgh, tested the cognitive ability of over 500 people averaging 79 years of age, none of whom showed any signs of dementia. The tests focused on problem solving, thinking speed, memory and word knowledge, and the researchers also obtained MRI brain scans of over 350 of the participants.

In their initial test, people who adhered most closely to the Mediterranean diet tended to score better, the study found. While the study couldn’t prove cause and effect, the diet was positively associated with improved performance in specific brain functions, such as memory, verbal ability and visuospatial ability. Even after adjusting for childhood IQ and other health and education factors, the results still showed a significant benefit to the brain for folks adhering to a Mediterranean diet compared to those who didn’t.

Other studies have linked cognition and "brain fog" with inflammation in the brain. Much research has identified the Mediterranean diet as the closest thing to an "anti-inflammatory diet" because of its emphasis on including plenty of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean protein sources, herbs and spices, and healthy fat sources in the diet every day. These healthy whole foods deliver vitamins, minerals and antioxidants that help strengthen your immune system and ward off inflammation. According to Lona Sandon, a registered dietician nutritionist and professor of nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas, “We could hypothesize that it has something to do with inflammation for one, as well as with other nutrients like magnesium or folate that are found in the leafy greens.”

Less healthy diets — dominated by processed foods — could have the opposite effect, the Scottish researchers warned. That’s because these types of diets tend to be high in red meat, potatoes, and sugary and fried foods. Of these, Sandon noted, red meat appears to be particularly unhealthy for the brain, probably because of red meat’s high level of saturated fat. She added that processed foods are also packed with excessive salt, sugar and other components that can make them both cheap and addictive.

So now you have yet another reason to look at making a Mediterranean-style diet a core part of your wellness lifestyle.

Artificial Sweeteners and Pregnancy

A recent animal study published in the journal Gut suggests that consuming low calorie artificial sweeteners while pregnant or breast feeding could lead to higher body fat levels in infants and an increased risk for obesity later in life.

The animal study aimed to examine the impact of the maternal consumption of sweeteners on the body weight, glucose tolerance and gut microbiota of offspring. Researchers analyzed 150 female Sprague-Dawley rats during pregnancy and lactation and their offspring up to 18 weeks after birth. Findings suggested that regular consumption of artificial sweeteners while pregnant increased body fat in offspring at weaning and body weight long-term. The researchers also believe that these sweeteners could be responsible for disrupting the gut microbiome of offspring.

“The results of our study assessing maternal consumption of aspartame and stevia are consistent with emerging human evidence from observational studies that low calorie sweetners intake is associated with increased body mass index (BMI) and cardiometabolic risk,” the study reads.

More research is needed to confirm the impact on humans but for now the safest course is to limit or, better, avoid artificial sweeteners while pregnant or nursing.

Cold Brew vs Hot Brew Coffee

 

 

Specialty lattes and other coffee drinks are generally not healthy options because they tend to be loaded with fat and sugar. But what about black coffee? Does the way that it is brewed have any impact on its nutritional quality? A 2018 study done by Megan Fuller, Ph.D., assistant professor of chemistry, and Niny Rao, Ph.D., associate professor of chemistry at Thomas Jefferson University in Philladelphia, suggests that it does.

Cold brew coffee is made by steeping ground coffee in room temperature water for a long while - 8 to 24 hours. Hot brews are made by passing very hot water through the ground beans in various ways. The study compared the acidity and antioxidant levels of hot and cold brewed coffees to determine if one brewing method produced any significant advantage of the other.

Cold brewed coffee is often believed to be less acidic than a hot brew, but the study found no evidence that this was so. The pH values in each brew were found to be essentially the same (pH of around 5, which is just slightly acidic). So despite the marketing, cold brew coffee is no "easier on the stomach" than hot brew.

Hot brew coffee turned out to have have an advantage though, in that it
has higher antioxidant levels than cold brew coffee. Antioxidants are responsible for most of the beneficial health effects of moderate coffee consumption.
“Coffee has a lot of antioxidants and, if you drink it in moderation, research shows it can be pretty good for you,” Fuller said. “We found the hot brew has more antioxidant capacity.”

None of this is to say that if you enjoy cold brew coffee you should avoid it. Just don't expect it to be any particular benefit over a hot brew.

Natural vs Added Sugar: Is there a difference?

While the processed white sugar on your table and the sugar in an orange are chemically quite similar, the way that your body processes them differs quite a bit. 

The sugar in the orange is contained within the cells of the fruit, so your body actually has to expend more energy to process and digest it than it does digesting added sugar. The fiber in the orange also slows down the digestive process. As a result, you do not experience the rapid spike in blood sugar that added sugars cause. Also, a similar weight of orange simply contains much less sugar than say, an orange sherbet with a lot of sugar added to it. The fruit is also packed with other nutrients which added sugar completely lacks.

“If we eat a peach or if we eat an apple, we are also eating all the other nutrients encompassed in that food, including water, fats and proteins,” says Dana Hunnes, a registered dietitian and adjunct assistant professor in the department of community health sciences at UCLA . “When we take the sugar out of context, that sugar is devoid of all the heath-enhancing properties of the original food it was sourced from, losing all of its nutrient properties except for the sweetness and the calories.” Many types of sugar, like rice sugar and agave nectar, are technically natural sugars, but they’re extracted and processed in very high concentrations and then added to foods where they’re very easy to digest and absorb. The natural sugars in fruits and vegetables never exist in such a high concentration as added sugars, and they’re always accompanied by healthy components like fiber, which slows the absorption of natural sugars into the blood.

The Department of Agriculture’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans suggest consuming less than 10% of your daily calories from added sugars, which would fall somewhere around 50 grams of added sugars per day for a 2,000 calorie diet.

The Real Price of Sugar

 

"Sugar is a completely nonessential part of our diets," says Kimberly Stanhope, a research nutritional biologist at the University of California, Davis. On the other hand, the health risks of getting too much sugar are fairly well established. So here we have a "food" that does us no good at all and causes us a long list of harms, and yet we can't seem to put it aside.

For starters, sugar offers us nothing but nutrition-free calories. The weight gain from these useless calories increases the risk for type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke and several types of cancer. Even if sugar did not pile on the pounds, it is an important factor in fatty liver disease, tooth decay, cellular inflammation, anxiety and depression, age-related cognitive decline, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

Starting in January, 2020, food nutrition labels were required to list added sugar in grams. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends that added sugars make up no more than 10% of your total daily calories. That comes to 50g for a 2,000 calorie diet. The American Heart Association recommends that added sugars be no more than about 30g. But seriously, why should an utterly worthless food make up any of our diet?

Artificial sweeteners come with their own problems. There is very little evidence that replacing sugar with artificial sweeteners results in much if any sustained weight loss. "The goal is not to get people to switch from sugar to diet drinks," says Vasanti Malik, a researcher at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. "Its to get them to switch from sugar to water." Sweeteners may be useful as a temporary bridge while making that transition, but they are not a permanent solution.

Cutting back on added sugar and artificial sweeteners is your best bet to avoid the ill health effects of this utterly worthless "food".

A Need for Speed?

 

 

When it comes to losing weight, does it make any difference if the pounds come off quickly rather than slowly? Usually, individuals are recommended to lose weight at one or two pounds per week, as faster weight loss is related to a slightly higher risk for gallstones. However, there are reasons to believe that faster weight loss may have better effects for cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk factors.

In the first study of its kind to look specifically at whether the speed of weight loss was related to health outcomes, researchers concluded that it probably was not. "With the same pound for pound weight loss, there is no difference in terms of health benefits if you lose weight fast or slow," says Jennifer Kuk, associate professor in York University's Faculty of Health and the lead researcher in the study. 

What did matter? The amount of weight lost and whether or not the loss was sustainable over time. "The results show that we really need to look at interventions that focus on long-term weight management that can achieve sustained weight loss at the recommended one to two pounds per week," says Kuk.

The study looked at 11,283 patients who attended the Wharton Medical Clinic Weight Management Program between July 2008 and July 2017.

It seems to me there may be a trade-off here. Losing weight rapidly may prove motivating and inspire individuals to continue on with their program. But losing it gradually allows one to make the kind of permanent lifestyle changes that make sustaining the lost weight more likely as then there then is no program to "go off".

Which is right for you? Whichever works. And whichever you can sustain for the rest of your life.

 

2019 Food Porn Awards

 

More than two out of three American adults are either overweight or obese. There is no mystery to this. We simply eat too much and do too little. And the restaurant industry is right there to support us by supersizing their menu offerings right along with our waistlines. In the 1960s, the average fast food meal of a burger, fries and a 12oz drink was 590 calories. The same meal today would clock in at over 1,500 calories. And nearly all of the increase comes from more fat, carbs and sugar.

I came across Nutrition Action newsletter's Extreme Eating Awards for 2019. To put all this in perspective, let's remind ourselves what we really should be eating over an entire day.

         Calories - about 2,000                                Sodium - 2,300mg

Saturated Fat - about 20g                           Added Sugar - 50g

With that as a yardstick, lets take a look at the winners from two years ago, keeping in mind that the numbers have grown a bit since.

Gold Medalist - Dave & Buster's Chicken and Waffle Sliders

2,340 calories of white flour, sugar and starchy carbohydrates. It is the equivalent of eating 8 Eggo waffles with 8 Jimmy Dean sausage patties slathered in half a cup of maple syrup. In addition to 1.3 days worth of calories, you'll waddle away with almost 2 days worth of saturated fat, a day and half's worth of sodium and about 2 days worth of added sugar. Well played, Dave and Buster! Well played.

Silver Medalist - Jimmy John's 16" Gargantuan

"The only thing better than a sandwich is a sandwich twice as large!" Enter the 16-inch Giant Gargantuan, loaded with nitrates, saturated fat, white flour and sugar. It clocks in at 2,190 calories but it puts Dave and Buster to shame with 29g of saturated fat and 7,720mg of sodium (I'll save you crunching the numbers, that's over three days worth). Rumor is their next innovation will be a triple. Triple bypass that is. You'd have to eat three Subway foot long coldcut subs to match it.

Bronze Medalist -  The Cheesecake Factory's Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

Perennial medalist The Cheescake Factory take a bronze in 2019 by figuring out how to squeeze 2,040 calories into just three pancakes. Combining all that white flour, brown sugar, butter and syrup into just 3 pancakes is a culinary marvel indeed. Complete with 51g of saturated fat, 2,950mg of sodium and 137g of added sugar. Don't care for pancakes? Eating 11 Krispy Kreme Original glazes doughnuts will give you about the same "nutrition".

Runner Up - Chili's The Boss Burger

So what if 70% of us are already overweight or obese, Chili's has burgers to sell. This one contains 5 meats, cheese and ranch dressing and, just in case its not enough for you, it also comes with fries. At 2,020 calories it was just barely edged out by Cheesecake Factory. But its 47g of saturated fat and 3,900g of sodium is nothing to feel ashamed of. No Chili's near you? You can get the same "nutrition" from 3 McDonald's Triple Cheese burgers with a large fries.

 

I don't even know what to say.

Cutting Back on Plastic

 

Plastics are important materials, and there is essentially no chance that we can get along without it. Everything from our food packaging to our clothes to our electronics depends on them. However, if they are not properly disposed of or recycled, they can persist for long periods in the environment and can also degrade into small pieces that are of concern – microplastics.

Microplastics are very small particles of plastic material. They can be unintentionally formed through the wear and tear of larger pieces of plastic. They can also be deliberately manufactured and intentionally added to products for a specific purpose, for example, as exfoliating beads in facial or body scrubs or as glitter in make-up. Once released to the environment, they may be accumulated by animals, including fish and shellfish and consequently eaten as food by us.

The problem is that we have no way to dispose of much of it. Over 80% of all the plastic that has ever been produced is sitting in landfills or making its way back into the natural environment. As it finds its way into the oceans it is consumed by marine life and, eventually, by people. But the problem of microplastics is not so much that plastic continues to be produced and is so widely used as it is the single-use lifestyle we have gotten used to.

Want some ideas for ways in which you can help? Here are a few from Nutrition Action, the health and nutrition newsletter from the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

The biggest impact you can make is to try to avoid single use plastic products as much as possible. This doesn't mean doing without, just actively looking for alternatives and for ways to reuse plastic products meant for single use and disposal. For example, consider your grocery and produce bags. Could you use a reusable bag instead?  When you buy in bulk, can you get products packaged in metal, glass or cardboard instead of plastic? How about reusing those plastic water bottles?

Instead of plastic bags, try using glass containers to store food. Or, when that isn't practical, reusable plastic storage containers instead of bags. Sandwiches? Wrap them up in waxed paper.

Plastic straws are one of the worst problem plastics. Use paper ones. Or just go without.

One place you are not likely to consider when trying to cut back on plastic disposal is your laundry. Each load of laundry you do can release hundreds of thousands of plastic microfibers. The filter on your washer can prevent 70% to 80% of the particles from going down the drain but you still have to dispose of them when you clean the filter. As you replace your clothing, buy natural fibers. And maybe wash less often.

Take a day and just make a conscious effort to notice all of the single use plastics that you cross paths with. Do you really need it all? Is there something you can do to use less?

When I was a child, and dinosaurs roamed the earth, we managed to bring groceries home in paper bags. Soda came in glass bottles. Meals were cooked in ceramic or glass dishes. We as consumers can have a much bigger impact on resolving this problem than we realize. If we demand materials other than plastic, and we make our buying choices accordingly, industry will respond with more options. We need plastic. But we can do without a lot of it too.

Covid Vaccines and Bad Reactions - The Record So Far

Given the speed with which the three Covid vaccines available in the US were developed and approved it is not at all unreasonable to have concerns about their safety. But what do the actual numbers tell us so far? What are the odds that a vaccination could cause a serious adverse reaction like anaphylaxis?

After 9.9 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, 7.6 million doses of the Moderna vaccine and 7 million of the Johnson and Johnson variety, the CDC reports 66 cases of anaphylaxis (Pfizer and Moderna) and 6 reports of serious blood clotting (Johnson and Johnson). There has been one death (Johnson and Johnson). Most people reacting to the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines had a history of allergic reactions to drugs, foods, etc. As of now, the FDA has recommended pausing the use of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine while they evaluate the situation.

This makes your odds of having a serious adverse reaction to the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines about 1/8th the chance of dying in an auto accident. For the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, your odds of experiencing a blood clotting issue are roughly the same as the odds of being struck by lightning.

Of course, no one but you can evaluate the risk/reward calculation of your being vaccinated. But the riskiest part my be the drive to the clinic.

CBD and Antibiotic Resistance

 

According to the World Health Organization, antibiotic resistant bacteria are one of the greatest threats to global health. Bacteria will gradually become resistant to treatment with antibiotics naturally, but the industrial scale misuse of antibiotics in farming and livestock production has rapidly accelerated the process. A growing number of infections including pneumonia, tuberculosis, gonorrhoea, and salmonellosis are becoming harder to treat as the antibiotics used to treat them become less effective. Ultimately, the potential for infection by antibiotic resistant bacteria could make virtually any surgery too risky to perform.

A study conducted at the University of Queensland in Australia and published in January 2021 in Nature Communications Biology suggests that cannabidiol (CBD), the nonpsychoactive ingredient in marijuana and hemp, may be effective in treating infections by many types of antibiotic resistant bacteria. The results indicated that the cannabinoid is able to penetrate and kill a much wider range of bacteria than previously thought. These include antibiotic resistant strains which have proved difficult to treat in humans. In addition, there is no indication that CBD induces resistance.

The study applied CBD topically to infected pig skin. However, while topical CBD showed great promise, the compound was found to be ineffective when it was injected into mice that had been infected with various bacteria. This is due to the fact that the cannabinoid has a very high tendency to bind to compounds in blood plasma, and is therefore largely unavailable at the systemic level to fight off infections. Fortunately, numerous CBD analogs proved to be equally potent at killing bacteria, leading to renewed hope that it may be possible to create a slightly altered version of the compound with increased systemic availability.

“This is particularly exciting because there have been no new molecular classes of antibiotics discovered and approved since the 1960s, and we can now consider designing new analogs of CBD with improved properties,” explained study author Mark Blaskovich. 

A separate study recently showed that treating strawberries with CBD increases their shelf-life by inhibiting the growth of mold and yeast, further highlighting the compound’s antimicrobial potential.

Further research is needed before CBD can be effectively used to treat bacterial infections but these initial results offer hope that we may be able to develop whole new classes of antibacterial compounds to replace increasingly ineffective antibiotics.

 

Covid and Vitamins

 

Two very recent studies published in JAMA have concluded that high doses of zinc, Vitamin C or Vitamin D failed to help reduce Covid symptoms in patients already having the virus.

In one study, 520 non-hospitalized patients with an active Covid infection were randomly assigned to take either 50mg of zing gluconate per day, 8,000mg of Vitamin C, both or neither for 10 days. After examining the data it was clear that "treatment with high-dose zinc gluconate, ascorbic acid, or a combination of the 2 supplements did not significantly decrease the duration of symptoms compared with standard of care". The study was terminated early because the supplement groups showed no advantage.

The second study followed over 200 hospitalized Covid patients. Those who were treated with a very high dose (200,000IU) of Vitamin D recovered no faster and were no less likely to die or require a ventilator than those given a placebo.

The bottom line: By all means continue any program you are using to support a strong immune system but don't count on zinc or vitamins C or D to fight off Covid.

Keeping Your Balance

When you exercise you may focus on how certain routines will improve your strength, help you lose weight, or even make you more flexible. But for many of us, balance is an overlooked component of our workout plan. It is an important part of overall fitness though, especially for those of us over 50. "Improving balance is important for overall fitness and everyday activities simply because it increases overall movement function," Robbie Ann Darby a certified personal trainer in New York City. Age related muscle loss is a factor. In addition, falls are a major cause of injury or even death in older adults. Improving balance can lower your risk of a painful fall.

Incorporating some basic balance exercises into your normal workout routine is neither difficult nor time consuming. Balance is something many of us take for granted, but everyone can benefit from improving it. Balance training exercises strengthen core muscles and improve stability, making you lighter on your feet. 

Here are seven basic balance exercises that you can add to your routine. They require no special equipment and can be done by people of all ages.

 

Autoimmune Diseases Are on the Rise

 

Nearly 16% of Americans now test positive for antinuclear antibodies, a biomarker for autoimmune disease. According to the National Institutes for Health, that is up from 11% just a few decades ago. Autoimmune diseases occur when an overstimulated immune system begins to attack cells within the body that it is supposed to be defending. The result is a long list of illnesses that seem to be growing more common with each passing year. The list includes rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Celiac disease, lupus, Hashimoto’s disease, various allergies and many more.

Much research suggests that the increasing incidence of autoimmune diseases can be attributed to a small handful of factors: a diet of processed and ultraprocessed foods, chronic stress, disruption of the gut microbiome and common environmental toxins. If there is any good news in this, it is that all of these factors can be addressed directly by us as individuals. A good program for reducing your risk of developing an autoimmune disease, or helping to get it under control if you already have one is not complicated.

Move toward a Mediterranean diet. Emphasize fruits and vegetables, beans, nuts, fatty fish, lean poultry and healthy fats like olive oil. Reduce or eliminate white sugar, white flour and as much processed and ultraprocessed foods as you can. Some people may also want to eliminate gluten, a protein that is found in wheat, barley and rye.

Take a Breath. Stress and autoimmune disease are strongly associated. Teach yourself to recognize when you are stressed, and develop techniques to deal with it. Take a walk. Practice breathing exercises or make some time in your day for meditation. Take a music break or have a cup of tea.

Support your gut. Recent research indicates that as much of 70% of your immune response originates in your gut. Following step one will support a healthy gut, but you can also take a probiotic supplement to help balance the microboita that inhabit it. Look for gluten and dairy free supplements that provide 25 to 50 billion “colony forming units” of lactobacillus and bifidus strains. It will also help to consume fermented foods and beverages which provide a more hospitable environment for the bacteria to thrive.

Detox your environment. Everything from cleaning products to toothpaste has the potential to expose you to toxic chemicals and pollutants. First, become aware of the products that you use in your home. Then take steps to replace worrisome ones with less problematic alternatives. Two of the most important steps you can take are to use natural cleaning supplies and filter the air you breath at home. Cosmetics and personal grooming supplies are also potential sources of toxic ingredients. Don't forget about pesticides on your food. And recently we are learning about the real dangers of microplastic particles.

Most of these steps can be gradually incorporated into you life without major disruption or inconvenience. And the benefits to your health may be significant. The point is, you have a lot of control over your health, if you will just exercise it. 

Eating for Lower Blood Pressure

 

High blood pressure, or hypertension, is perhaps the one condition where the effects of diet have been most extensively studied. "There are many different diets with purported benefits for high blood pressure," says, Dr. Stephen Juraschek, a cardiovascular disease specialist at Harvard Medical School, "but the DASH diet has the strongest base of evidence." DASH emphasizes fruits and vegetables, whole grains, low fat dairy, poultry, fish and healthy (mono and poly unsaturated) fats.

Rather than searching out specific foods with specific benefits, experts suggest looking at your whole pattern of eating (aka, your diet). Still, the evidence in support of including some foods in a low blood pressure diet is pretty strong. The following six foods should have a place in anyone's healthy blood pressure regimen.

Beans, Peas and Lentils. High in both fiber and potassium, two important nutrients for blood pressure control. One study found that increasing fiber from 5g per day to 25g reduced the risk of hypertension by over 50%.

Berries. All berries are good but blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and strawberries in particular. They seem to improve blood vessel function, lowering pressure.

Olive Oil. The healthy fat in olive oil  is linked by many studies to lower systolic blood pressure (that's the first, higher number). Because it is a very "calorie dense" food, you should use it sparingly to replace butter or other oils that are high in saturated fats.

Spinach. One of the delights of getting older is that you can admit to liking spinach. The nitrates in spinach help blood vessels to relax (beets are also high in nitrates) and the potassium helps purge sodium from your body.

Bananas. Bananas are a potassium powerhouse. They are also high in fiber, calcium and magnesium. 

Yogurt. In addition to being a good source of calcium, the active bacteria cultures in yogurt help encourage a healthy microbiome. Gut health is being linked to more and more other conditions, high blood pressure among them.

Even if you are not ready to DASH to the grocery store, adding any of these foods to your regular shopping list can only help.

Perfect Sweet Potatoes

Ok, I know this is going to sound a little weird, but I tried it out myself and its true. To make the best tasting baked sweet potatoes, freeze them first.

According to Lucas Sin, the head chef at Junzi in New York City, speaking with Eater, baked sweet potatoes are a hugely popular street food in China. The secret to their deliciousness, he says, is that they had been stored outside in the cold before baking. Tiny ice crystals break up the hard flesh of the potato. Then, after being cooked, it has a texture similar to ordinary mashed potatoes. 

If you would like to try this for yourself, its delightfully simple. 

Choose medium to small sweet potatoes and set them in the freezer for one to two hours (the larger the longer). After that, just roast them in a pre-heated 450 degree oven for about an hour (or until completely soft inside). You may want to line your baking sheet with parchment paper because the sugar inside will caramelize and ooze out. In this case, it is better to not pierce the skin so that the steam causes the flesh to separate from the skin.

For healthy toppings, consider a little honey, nuts or even a little guacamole.

Are You an Apple?

 

People who have metabolic syndrome typically have apple-shaped bodies, meaning they have larger waists and carry a lot of their weight around their abdomen. It's thought that having a pear-shaped body — that is, carrying more of your weight around your hips and having a narrower waist — doesn't increase your risk of diabetes, heart disease and other complications of metabolic syndrome. This extra belly weight is typically in the form of visceral fat, that is, fat located deep within the spaces between the abdominal organs.

Carrying too much belly fat increases insulin resistance, inflammation and cholesterol levels, and this is true even if you are at a normal weight for your height. In fact, a 2019 study published in JAMA Open Network concluded that this sort of "central fat" seems to be a key indicator of higher mortality risk among women who are otherwise considered of normal weight. The 24 year study included over 155,000 American women but there is no real reason for men to imagine that their risk is much different.

Normal-weight women with waistlines larger than 34 1/2 inches were 31% more likely to die than women with slimmer waists. The risk for fatal heart disease was about 40% higher, and the risk of fatal cancers was about 25% higher. And overweight and obese women faced similar elevated risk if they had wide waistlines.

From clinical and basic investigations, we know that aging, sex hormones, excess intake of sugar, and lack of physical exercise are factors influencing visceral fat accumulation. You can't do much about your age but you have near total control over your sugar intake and activity level. So even if you are at a healthy weight, keeping toned reduces your risk for numerous health conditions.

Skip the Birdbath

 

About 9 people in 10 clean off their chicken before cooking it, usually by rinsing it in the sink under water. But a recent study done by the Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service suggests that doing this may actually increase your chances of getting food poisoning. A second study done at Drexel University found that rinsing chicken only increased the chances of spreading bacteria around your sink and counter tops. From there it was easily transferred to other foods.

How can this be?

The DoA study observed 300 people as they prepared chicken thighs. They found that 60% of those who washed the chicken left bacteria in and around the sink after washing. Even after cleaning the sink, some bacteria remained. And more than 1 in 4 of the participants transferred the bacteria to other food as they prepared their meal. 

What to do?

First, prep any other raw food that will be part of your meal (e.g., a salad) before you handle the poultry. Wash your hands before starting to prepare your food, and wash them again immediately after handling any raw poultry. 

Cooking the poultry to an internal temperature of 165 deg F will kill any bacteria present and the DoA says that this is the only way to ensure that poultry is safe to eat. Don't guess. Use a meat thermometer.

So skip the bird bath.

Children and Screen Time

 

No matter how great a baby sitter they may seem to be, too much screen time for young children appears to slow normal brain development. (This might explain a lot of the people we find on Facebook.)

A 2019 study of 69 children ages three to five concluded that more "screen-based media use" was correlated with lower language, executive function, and emergent literacy abilities, controlling for child age and household income. Children who spent more time in front of screens consuming media had slower mental-processing skills and lower levels of literacy than those who spent less time with screens.

A child's first five years are crucial for brain development. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under 18 months of age should have no screen exposure other than video chatting, and that those ages two to five be limited to one hour of exposure per day.

Dr. John Hutton, MD, one of the study's authors said, "As mobile digital devices linked via wireless connectivity are increasingly used by ever-younger children, this is an important public health issue. The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement in 2016 based on research findings in rats, encouraging caution with mobile devices and that more research is needed."

Sounds like you can wait until more definitive research is in, or you can roll the dice with your children's future.