Your Facebook Friends Are Wrong

 

Scientific studies can be difficult for a lay person to interpret, so it is not surprising that we rely on intermediaries - news outlets, social media, well meaning friends - to help us understand them. Every field has its own specialized technical jargon and the design and execution of the studies themselves can be complex. Unfortunately this leaves a lot of room for misinterpretation, both accidental and intentional. News media cherry pick studies and misrepresent their meaning, typically through ignorance. Organizations will search for studies and data that support their agenda and ignore any that don't. Critical context is often lost in the rush to post a great story. And the technicalities of statistical significance and study design are often just ignored.

Would you like to get better at interpreting the news of medical studies and new developments? Would you prefer to be a more critical and informed consumer of social media without having to get a medical degree?

Here is an option. A free course that explains how study design works and what questions to ask to intelligently interpret the results. "Understanding Medical Research: Your Facebook Friend is Wrong" will give you the basics you need to sort through all the noise and separate fact from wishful thinking, or worse. The instructor is from Yale University and knows his stuff.

Four Lifestyle Tips to Lower Cholesterol

 

 

Healthy cholesterol levels are pretty much the same for all adults. These are a Total Cholesterol under 200mg/dL, LDL (Bad) Cholesterol under 100mg/dL and HDL (Good) Choesterol at or above 40mg/dL (50mg/dL for women). The LDL and HDL numbers are the more significant ones for assessing your hearth health, along with keeping Tiglyceride levels under 150mg/dL. Do you know your numbers?

Whatever your levels, the following four lifestyle factors, taken together, will improve your cholesterol levels and lower your overall risk for heart disease.

Eat Smarter. Limit your consumption of red and processed meats, fried foods, sodium and added sugar. Focus on whole grains, poultry, fish and healthy fats.

Get Off Your Butt. Move more. Exercise like brisk walking is ideal but at least get on your feet and move. Aerobic exercise can help raise your HDL levels and resistance/strength training helps lower LDL.

Lose the Extra Weight. If you are overweight even a little - and 70% of us are - lose the excess. What is a healthy weight for you? It's less than you think it is. While it is complex and different for everyone, here is a calculator that will get you in the ballpark.

Stop Smoking. Seriously. Do you still need to be told this? And don't delude yourself that vaping isn't smoking.

There are effective medications for optimizing your cholesterol levels but they all come with unpleasant and potentially serious side effects. So why not try these things first?

Happy Thanksgiving

 

For me Thanksgiving is a day to take a deep breath and remind myself of all the things I have, the ways in which I am fortunate and everything that there is in my life to be grateful for. 

I do an exercise each Thanksgiving Day of sitting down in a quiet place and making a list - with pen and paper - of 100 things that I am thankful for. It is a great thing to have at hand throughout the year for whenever I am feeling sorry for myself or get caught up in thinking about all the things I don't have.

It is also the perfect day to pause to give some thought to those people who are no longer with me to celebrate it - more and more of them every year. 

Whatever your family traditions may be, however you celebrate Thanksgiving Day, I want to wish you a happy, healthy and special holiday. Be well, do good works.

 

Rolling the Dice on Social Media

 

Long gone are the days of people getting most of their news from a local TV station, their local newspaper or the national newscast from one of the networks. Increasingly, people turn to social media for news and information. Facebook leads with 36% of social media consumers using the social media giant for consuming news. Instagram news consumers were 11% of the social media population. Twitter was statistically tied at 12%. YouTube had 21% of social media users looking at news on the popular video site. WhatsApp had 16%. This is so even though, according to reports from Gallup and the Knight Foundation,  Americans believe that 65 percent of news on social media is made up or can’t be verified as accurate.

So increasing numbers of people are relying for their news and information on sources that they view as increasingly unreliable. Besides being just goofy, this has serious implications for our health and wellness too.

A recent study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute looked at the quality of cancer treatment information available on social media and the results were not encouraging. The researchers found that 32% of articles on Facebook, Pinterest, Reddit and Twitter giving advice on cancer treatment contained "misinformation and potential for harm". Generally the errors prompted readers to postpone therapy or try ineffective or inappropriate remedies. 

This is not simply being misinformed. It is potentially life threatening.

There is nothing on the horizon to suggest that the information you glean from social media is becoming any more reliable. Perhaps it is time to restrict your social media time to cat photos and catching up with family and friends and find your news and information elsewhere.

 

The Food Labeling Wars Continue

 

 

One has to wonder why every time food labels are enhanced to include more accurate and complete information about what is in it, the food industry shrieks as though bitten in a tender place by a very angry dog. You might almost think they oppose pretty much any change in labeling regulations because they are hiding something.

The Food Labeling Modernization Act (HR4917) was recently introduced by Congressman Frank Pallone, Jr. of New Jersey and is presently in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The proposed bill would mandate several changes to required food labels including nutrition summary labels on the front of food packages and warnings of excessive amounts of substances such as added sugar and sodium. If a food package highlights a specific ingredient, say, "whole grains", "fiber" or "real" fruits or vegetables, it would be required to list how much of it the product actually contains. Finally, food manufacturers would be required to list complete nutrition and ingredient information for their products on their web sites.

Food manufacturers are not amused and are fighting hard to spare us the "confusion" that the new labeling requirements would cause.

Meanwhile, Brian Ronholm, Director of Food Policy for Consumer Reports, points out that under present rules "claims about healthy ingredients are sometimes used even if the product has only a very small amount." For example, in a recent Consumer Reports review of 56 breads touting "whole grain" and "multi grain" content nearly all contained little else than refined wheat flour. "The bill would make labels simpler, clearer and more informative," Ronholm says, "and reduce the chance that consumers will perceive food as being more nutritious than it really is." Sounds confusing to me!

This would be an excellent time to let your Representative know that you want his or her support on this bill.

Foods Better Frozen Than Fresh

 

It may seem counterintuitive to use frozen ingredients instead of fresh. In fact, in some situations frozen can be better than the fresh alternative. This can be true for a number of reasons. 

There is essentially no nutritional difference between frozen and fresh fruits and vegetables, and frozen fruits/vegetables retain their nutritional value while fresh ones have decreased levels of nutrients after being stored for a few days.

Frozen foods will not spoil for months and with vegetables and fruits that are prewashed and cut, you can reduce your meal prep time and add more healthy foods to your meals.

Frozen foods are often less expensive than fresh ones, especially if you’re thinking about fresh organic foods. Frozen vegetables give you the option to pull some out only when you want them and then put them back until later. With fresh fruits and vegetables, you typically need to consume them all soon after purchase. So frozen reduces waste.

One study looking at the impact of fruit and vegetable storage options discovered that frozen fruits and vegetables can have more antioxidants than their refrigerator-stored counterparts. It turns out that freezing them preserves the antioxidants, and letting the fruit sit in a refrigerator causes some of that free radical fighting power to be leached away.

Finally, frozen can actually be "fresher than fresh". Modern ‘harvest-to-freeze’ technology has evolved so much that fresh fruits and vegetables are picked when they’re ripe, full of flavor and nutritional value, and then quickly frozen. Whereas the fruits and vegetables you buy in the grocery store that are purported to be fresh have actually been picked prematurely and spent days or even weeks in transit.

Here are five foods that you should consider buying frozen rather than fresh.

Shelled Peas.

Peas taste amazing in the spring, when they’re fresh and filled with nutrients, and not so great anytime after that. You can capture that healthy flavor all year long by cooking with frozen peas. As a bonus, they’re already shelled so they’re easier to cook with, too!

Berries.

When berries are in season, you should definitely seek them out at the farmers market. The rest of the year, choose frozen berries. They’re picked and packed at the peak of freshness, and they won’t lose their antioxidant-rich properties in the freezer either.

Spinach.

If you are making a salad by all means stick to the fresh stuff, but use frozen spinach for any cooked dish. Frozen spinach lasts longer and is typically less expensive than the fresh stuff. Plus, freezing spinach actually makes it more nutritious, increasing its concentration of thiamine and beta-carotene.

Corn.

(Yes, I know corn is a grain. Humor me.) Corn is not only expensive when it’s out-of-season, but it also doesn’t taste that great. Frozen corn, on the other hand, is packed at the peak of the season, so it’ll taste sweet and delicious any time of year.

Bell Peppers.

Bell peppers lose their nutrients super fast. In fact, the vitamin C found in peppers starts to oxidize as soon as the peppers are chopped! Freezing the peppers stops the process, preserving the nutrients more efficiently. Plus, you won’t have to worry about de-seeding the peppers if you buy them frozen.

If, like me, you get tired of throwing away produce that has gone bad while waiting for you to use it, frozen provides a healthy, convenient and less expensive alternative for you to try.

It's Not Dead Yet!

 

I don't really talk much about Covid-19 because conversations usually become arguments where little information is exchanged and no minds are changed. But I recently read an article in the Bottom Line Health newsletter about what is likely ahead for us regarding Covid. Bottom Line publications are not always rigorous but they do provide timely information free of political bias and backed up by verifiable references, so I thought I would share the key points. Take them or leave them, I'm not looking for an argument.

The article was written by Dr. Joseph Feuerstein, a professor of clinical medicine at Columbia University and the director of integrative medicine at Stamford Hospital. Here is his take on what we can expect over the coming weeks and months.

Expect more variants. There are now more than a dozen variants of the original virus and we should expect more, possibly many more. Viruses always mutate and new strains continually develop when they are not held on check. Most variants are harmless but some will be more contagious or cause more severe symptoms.

Vaccines are safe. There is no question that vaccines were approved conditionally and rushed into production. Concerns about their safety were overblown but not unreasonable. But now there is a peer reviewed study of nearly 2 million people published in the New England Journal of Medicine that has concluded that the mRNA vaccines are both effective and extremely safe. 

Herd immunity is out of reach. At least any time soon. It was hoped that when enough people had been vaccinated that Covid would effectively run out of opportunities to spread. For better or worse, not enough people are getting vaccinated and it does not look like enough ever will. So the virus will continue to mutate and spread.

Get used to booster shots. The effectiveness of the existing vaccines appears to lessen after 9 to 12 months. So expect to be taking regular booster shots that will maintain your immunity as well as address the threats posed by new variants.

Keep your vaccination card safe and handy. The time is coming when you will need it to gain entry to many public places and events. This will vary State by State unless the Federal government establishes a national standard. You will certainly need it for any foreign travel so keep it with your passport.

Schools will continue to struggle with infections. The politicization of mask mandates and vaccinations mean that we will continue to see increasing infection rates among school-age children. There is no appetite for a return to virtual learning so the arguing will continue until mounting transmissions and outbreaks force localities to change, probably after the worst damage has already been done.

Effective treatments for the virus are on the way. Two new drugs for treating Covid are in clinical trials and may start to be available as soon as the end of 2021. More are sure to follow.