Encouraging Health

Oatmeal at breakfast, brown rice at lunch, and a slice of whole-wheat bread at dinner.

If these items made your menu today, you’re well on your way to a reduced risk of dying from an inflammatory disease. Three servings of whole grains per day can slash your risk by more than 35 percent. What’s an inflammatory disease, you ask?

The Common Thread
Inflammation. It’s something that heart disease (know your risk), diabetes, colitis, rheumatoid arthritis , and many other conditions have in common. But researchers suspect that the phenols, beneficial plant substances, and vitamins in good-for-you whole grains may thwart the disease-causing oxidative stress that results from inflammation.

Also, Fabulous Fiber
Yet another reason to eat more whole grains: They’re full of fiber, which can help you feel full longer (so you’ll eat less) and can help keep your blood sugar levels steady and your digestive system on track. Are you getting enough?

whole grains, fiber, inflammatory disease

whole grains, fiber, inflammatory disease

An expert on sexuality explains the contributing factors, and possible cures

By Dr. Laura Berman
Updated: 2 hours, 55 minutes ago
‘Not tonight, I have a headache.’

Low libido is a common and troubling problem for many women. In a recent survey, 43% of women reported suffering from some form of sexual dissatisfaction, and 33% of these women complained specifically of low sexual desire.

Low libido is generally a multifaceted issue and is caused by a combination of physical, emotional, and relationship issues. The best treatment usually includes addressing all the contributing factors at the same time

Medical causes for low libido:
The most common medical culprits might be found in your own medicine cabinet. For instance, low libido and difficulty with sexual response are common side effects of SSRI’s like Prozac and Zoloft, most commonly used to treat depression. If you are experiencing this, talk to your prescribing physician about ways you may adjust or switch the medications you are taking.

In addition, many women don’t realize that their birth control may be wreaking havoc on their libidos. Hormonal contraceptives like birth control pills or patches can cause low libido because they increase a protein in the blood called sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), which results in a decrease of free circulating testosterone in your body. Testosterone is the hormone of desire for men and women, so anything that affects your levels may affect your sex life. If you fit into this category, you might consider a hormonal option called NuvaRing, as that is locally delivered to your reproductive organs and is believed to have fewer sexual side effects because the hormones are minimally absorbed into the bloodstream.

Read the rest by clicking above.

low libido, low testosterone

low libido, low testosterone

Burger King pledged Wednesday to offer healthier fast-food items for children under 12, with plans to sell and market flame-broiled Chicken Tenders and apples cut to resemble thick-cut french fries.

Burger King Holdings Inc., the world’s second largest hamburger chain, said it has set nutritional guidelines to follow when targeting children under 12 in advertising, including limiting ads to Kids Meals that contain no more than 560 calories, less than 30 percent of calories from fat and no more than 10 percent of calories from added sugars.

In that vein, Burger King is building a Kids Meal that will contain the flame-broiled Tenders, organic unsweetened applesauce and low-fat milk, for a total of 305 calories and 8.5 grams of fat. It will be available in restaurants sometime in 2008, the company said.

The fast-food chain is also developing what it calls BK Fresh Apple Fries. The red apples are cut to resemble french fries and are served in the same containers as fries, but they are not fried and are served skinless and cold.

Read more by clicking above.

Burger King, childrens meals, healthy alternative

Burger King, childrens meals, healthy alternative

Diet and exercise can reduce need for hormone that regulates glucose

Good, old-fashioned diet and exercise might keep you young by reducing the action of insulin in the brain, researchers reported on Thursday.

They created mutant mice that over-ate, got fat and even had symptoms of diabetes, and yet lived 18 percent longer than normal lab mice. The secret: they lacked a certain key gene that affects insulin, the hormone that regulates glucose.

The genetic engineering mimicked the effects of eating less and exercising, the researchers report in the journal Science.

“This study provides a new explanation of why it’s good to exercise and not eat too much,� said Dr. Morris White, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Children’s Hospital in Boston who led the study.

The findings also raise questions about how desirable it is to use insulin to treat type 2 diabetes, said the researchers.

Doctors know that people who exercise regularly live longer on average. Researchers have also learned that putting animals on a strict diet makes them live longer, although this has not yet been shown to work in people.

Read more of this interesting study by clicking above.

diet, exercise, lower insulin in brain

diet, exercise, lower insulin in brain

Everybody knows that smoking isn’t good for you.

But if you’re a woman? “Hands down, smoking is the absolute worst thing you can do to your body,” says Phyllis Greenberger, president and CEO of the Society for Women’s Health Research in Washington, D.C.

In fact, new research shows that the carcinogens in cigarettes, while harmful to everyone, are more dangerous for women, who are three times as likely as men to get aggressive forms of lung cancer and more likely to develop it at an earlier age. They’re also more likely to die of lung cancer than breast cancer.

So why, oh, why do 20 million American women still light up?

Because quitting, as we also know, is really, really hard — so hard that, while roughly two-thirds of all current smokers want to quit, only 5 percent actually succeeded last year, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And women, it turns out, have an even harder time quitting than men: They seem to experience stronger withdrawal symptoms, perhaps because of hormones or the bigger nicotine dose delivered to smaller female bodies.

Read the rest of this study by clicking above.

women, smoking

women, smoking

Two nutrients protect against age-related loss of eyesight, study finds:

Two nutrients found in eggs, spinach and other leafy green vegetables offer some protection against the most common cause of blindness among the elderly, researchers said on Monday.

Age-related macular degeneration affects 1.2 million Americans, mostly after age 65, and the irreversible condition gets gradually worse, robbing victims of the center of their vision. Many people may be susceptible due to genetic factors, while smoking is known to heighten the risk.

The two nutrients, lutein and zeaxanthin, are both carotenoids — compounds that give many fruits and vegetables a yellow color.

They help ward off the condition, apparently by allowing the eyes to filter harmful short-wavelength light and by curtailing other damaging effects to the macula, or the center of the eye’s retina, the researchers said.

“No clear associations with other nutrients were seen,� including the vitamins C and E and beta-carotene, according to the researchers, led by John Paul SanGiovanni of the National Eye Institute, one of the National Institutes of Health in Maryland.

The 6-year study asked about the dietary habits of 4,519 people aged 60 to 80 when enrolled.

** Read the rest of this story by clicking above.

There’s a great recipe that I found, kind of a ’spinach marie’ for one:

butter (lightly smear) a ramekin or muffin pan

Lightly saute or microwave (on low) spinach with a dab of butter and a sprinkle of nutmeg until slightly wilted.

Line the ramekin or muffin pan with the spinach on the bottom and sides.

Crack 1-2 eggs in each ramekin/muffin pan and sprinkle pepper and mozzerella or parmesean on top.

Bake at 350 for 20-30 mins, depending on how you like your eggs.

blindness, spinach and eggs, recipe, spinach marie for one

blindness, spinach and eggs, recipe, spinach marie for one

Anxious, angry, depressed?

We all feel bad sometimes. But there’s one very vocal objector: your heart.

People who often get swallowed up by these and other negative moods may have a higher risk of heart disease — even if they’re otherwise healthy. But you can turn any mood around with a few simple steps.

Social Stress, Troubled Ticker
Social anxiety may have the greatest impact on heart health. In a study of healthy older men, those who scored highest on a negative-emotion scale — especially on social anxiety measures — had the greatest incidence of heart disease 3 years later.

Build Yourself Up
If stress and anxiety have taken hold of you and won’t let go, something really structured like cognitive-behavioral therapy — alone or coupled with medication — may help improve your sense of control and boost your confidence. Here are a couple more feel-good or feel-calm techniques:
Controlled breathing
Muscle relaxation

stress and anxiety, cognitive-behavioral therapy

stress and anxiety, cognitive-behavioral therapy

Eat to get younger!

Asking people to speak up — or feeling compelled to pretend you heard something you didn’t — is not the way most people want to spend their retirement years.

But there may be something you can do to help slow the kind of hearing loss that comes with an accumulation of birthday candles and gray hairs: Take folic acid. Just how much do you need?

The Wonderful World of Aging Ears
There are many wonderful things about growing older, but losing your hearing isn’t one of them. So it was good news when one study showed that a group of men and women between the ages of 50 and 70 helped put the brakes on hearing loss by taking 800 micrograms of folic acid daily for 3 years. But there are two important caveats for these findings: The research took place in a country where foods are not regularly fortified with folic acid, and the benefit to hearing was observed with only low frequency sounds.

Folic acid helps lower homocysteine, a possible culprit in some kinds of hearing loss. (Initially, all the men and women in the study had elevated homocysteine levels.) It could also be that folic acid helps boost blood circulation to key ear structures involved in age-related hearing loss.

How Much Do You Need?
Fortunately, many products in the U.S. are fortified with folic acid, from breads to cereals to pasta, so you probably get at least a few hundred micrograms from your diet. But it’s likely you’ll need a supplement to reach the RealAge Optimum dose of 700 micrograms per day. Just be sure to stay below 1,000 micrograms per day, especially if you’re over 65; as you get older, folic acid could mask a vitamin B12 deficiency.

folic acid, vitamin B12, hearing loss

folic acid, vitamin B12, hearing loss

Courtesy of www.realage.com

If you’re famished, eat a little fat before you sit down for a meal. Did we say fat?

Yes, but we’re talking about the good kind. Eating some healthy fat 20 minutes before a meal can keep you from stuffing yourself. It fools your brain into thinking you’re not as hungry as you thought. And your waist will reap the rewards. How does healthy fat do it?

Get the Message
About 70 calories of healthy fat just before you eat — that’s 6 walnuts, 12 almonds, or 20 peanuts — can trick you into thinking you’re full. Eating good fats stimulates the production of cholecystokinin (CCK), a hormone that tells your brain you’ve had enough to eat and then keeps you feeling full by slowing the emptying of your stomach.

So when you sit down for a meal, you’ll eat for pleasure, not for hunger, and you’ll be likely to eat less.

healthy fat, appetite suppressant

healthy fat, appetite suppressant

Help and Information for those with Fibromyalgia

Sheryl Sisk in our 451 Press family, over on http://bloggingpointers.com, asked me to take a look at her new Fibromyalgia site, www.fibrofollies.com.

Her innovative new site is surely to be a wealth of information for those with this typically undiagnosed illness (like my brother, who was diagnosed after years and years of suffering).

With topics, such as her most recent post, Mediterranean diet might help arthritis pain, maybe fibro too, she knows her audience, her facts and her subject.

As a reader of http://bloggingpointers.com, Sheryl has the experience necessary to hit the top of her respective fields.

Go take a look and tell her your story.

http://bloggingpointers.com, fibromyalgia, www.fibrofollies.com, Sheryl Sisk

http://bloggingpointers.com, fibromyalgia, www.fibrofollies.com, Sheryl Sisk