Encouraging Health

You brush, you floss, you rinse, you spit — all for the sake of your pearly whites. But do you eat yogurt?

Might want to consider it. Research shows that yogurt eaters are less likely to suffer from b leeding gums, gum disease and tooth loss.

A Little Healthy Bacteria
It only took a couple of ounces of yogurt daily for people’s mouths to benefit. Researchers speculate that there’s something about the healthy bacteria in yogurt that helps protect teeth and gums. They may help balance out the bad bacteria in your mouth, just the way they do in your gut.

Beneficial Bugs

Yogurt fortified with healthy bacteria may help you ward off certain illnesses.

In a recent study, researchers gave workers a daily dose of either Lactobacillus reuteri, a type of beneficial bacteria, or a placebo for 80 days. Only about 10 percent of workers who took L. reuteri came down with a respiratory or gastrointestinal infection that caused them to miss work; more than 26 percent of the workers who took the placebo fell ill.

Beneficial bacteria inhabit your intestines, preventing infection by harmful bacteria and aiding in digestion. Antibiotic use or bouts of diarrhea or vomiting can disrupt the balance of intestinal bacteria, leaving you more vulnerable to illnesses. Lactobacillus reuteri, a type of beneficial bacteria, may help prevent harmful bacteria from colonizing in the gastrointestinal tract and enhance the function of immune cells that combat viral infections. Not all kinds of yogurt contain L. reuteri. Read yogurt labels carefully.

For more articles on healthy foods, browse Encouraging Health.

Are you at the mercy of the bread basket whenever it comes your way?

Here’s a tip that will get you eating less of the wheaty treat.

Instead of slapping butter on your slice, dip it in a little bit of olive oil drizzled on a plate with a smidge of balsamic vinegar. People who opt for the oil instead of the spread eat less bread, studies show.

More on Olive Oil
Another bonus with this trick: The fats in the olive oil will help boost absorption of the nutrients in your meal. Plus, unsaturated fats, like the kind found in olive oil, help sate your appetite better than saturated fats do. A little at the beginning of a meal will help you eat less overall.

More Ways to Eat Less — and Not Miss Anything!
Eating less sounds like deprivation. But it doesn’t have to be. You’ll eat less — and feel just as satisfied — if you follow these tips:
Load up on beans, nuts, apples, pears, and other fiber-rich foods.

This is one way you can use your body chemistry, not willpower, to curb cravings and get to your ideal body size. Learn other science-based strategies like this from Roizen and Oz’s YOU: On a Diet plan.

Believe it or not, enjoying a fiberful diet — especially at breakfast — can reduce your calorie intake for up to 18 hours a day. And it helps control blood sugar and lower insulin levels. Although you should aim for 25 to 30 grams of fiber a day, avoid adding it all at once or you’ll produce more gas than a Saudi oil field, say the doctors. Start with an additional 1 to 2 grams of dietary fiber — the amount in a slice of whole-grain bread or 1/2 cup of green beans — at and between meals and slowly increase from there.

Focus on the water content in your foods.

Cure your portion distortion.

For more articles on Healthy Eating, browse Encouraging Health.

If you think something you’re eating is terrorizing your tummy, try this food-elimination test.

1. Eliminate the suspect — be it dairy products, wheat items, or processed sugars — for 3 days in a row.

2. Keep a diary of how you feel during those days. Here are important clues to note.

Diary of a Digestive
If your digestion habits changed, your tummy felt more comfortable, or your energy levels jumped, those are sure signs that you may have a food-triggered irritability. If adding the food back in makes you feel like you have a touch of the flu, that would be another really strong sign.

Food Diaries

The information you record in your food diary will help you and your family doctor design an eating program to meet your special needs. These instructions will help you get the most out of your food diary. Generally, food diaries are meant to be used for a whole week, but studies have shown that keeping track of what you eat for even 1 day can help you make changes in your diet.

How much:
In this space indicate the amount of the particular food item you ate. Estimate the size (2″ x 1″ x 1″), the volume (1/2 cup), the weight (2 ounces) and/or the number of items (12) of that type of food.

What kind:
In this column, write down the type of food you ate. Be as specific as you can. Include sauces and gravies. Don’t forget to write down “extras,” such as soda, salad dressing, mayonnaise, butter, sour cream, sugar and ketchup.

Time:
Write the time of day you ate the food.

Where:
Write what room or part of the house you were in when you ate. If you ate in a restaurant, fast-food chain or your car, write that location down.

Alone or with whom:
If you ate by yourself, write “alone.” If you were with friends or family members, list them.

Activity:
In this column, list any activities you were doing while you were eating (for example, working, watching TV or ironing).

Some basic rules to remember:
Write everything down:
Keep your form with you all day, and write down everything you eat or drink. A piece of candy, a handful of pretzels, a can of soda pop or a small donut may not seem like much at the time, but over a week these calories add up!

Do it now:
Don’t depend on your memory at the end of the day. Record your eating as you go.

Be specific:
Make sure you include “extras,” such as gravy on your meat or cheese on your vegetables. Do not generalize. For example, record french fries as french fries, not as potatoes.

Estimate amounts:
If you had a piece of cake, estimate the size (2″ x 1″ x 2″) or the weight (3 ounces). If you had a vegetable, record how much you ate (1/4 cup). When eating meat, remember that a 3-ounce cooked portion is about the size of a deck of cards.

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You’ve got a ripe banana and a juicy plum. Which one’s antioxidants will hold up best after a couple of days in your fruit bowl?

The answer: Eat the banana now. Turns out bananas may lose their antioxidant qualities quickly. Dark plums, on the other hand? They could actually get a tiny antioxidant boost with short storage. Here’s how other fruit holds up.

Time on My Side
The antioxidants in black grapes, apples, oranges, and tomatoes (yes, tomatoes are fruit!) also seem to hold up well during storage. But not so much when it comes to apricots and cherries.

Fun with Polyphenols
Researchers are busy finding the best way to measure the antioxidant power of individual pieces of fruit. Not an easy task, because the content can vary from piece to piece within the same variety of fruit, depending on the fruit’s genes, the environment in which it grew, when it was harvested, and how it was stored. But you don’t have to wait for the final results.

Red
Make these fruits and vegetables a regular part of your diet:
tomatoes, watermelon, cherries, cranberries, pomegranates, beets, red peppers, radishes, radicchio, red potatoes, rhubarb

These foods contain the important phytochemicals, lycopene and anthocyanins, which help promote: • heart health
• memory function
• urinary tract health

Blue-Purple
Make these fruits and vegetables a regular part of your diet:
blackberries, blueberries, black currants, dried plums, elderberries, purple figs, red grapes, plums, raisins, red cabbage, eggplant, purple peppers

These foods contain the important phytochemicals, anthocyanins and phenolics, which help promote: • urinary tract health
• memory function

Yellow-Orange
Make these fruits and vegetables a regular part of your diet:
apricots, cantaloupe, grapefruit, lemons, mangoes, nectarines, oranges, papayas, peaches, persimmons, pineapple, tangerines, squash, carrots, yellow peppers, pumpkin, rutabagas, sweet potatoes

These foods contain the important phytochemicals, carotenoids and flavonoids, which help promote: • heart health
• vision health
• a healthy immune system

Yellow-Green
Make these fruits and vegetables a regular part of your diet:
avocados, green apples, green grapes, honeydew melon, kiwifruit, limes, green pears, artichokes, arugula, asparagus, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, celery, cucumbers, endive, leafy greens, green onions, okra, peas, green peppers, snow peas, sugar snap peas, spinach, watercress, zucchini

These foods contain the important phytochemicals, lutein and indoles, which help promote: • vision health
• strong bones and teeth

White-Green
Make these fruits and vegetables a regular part of your diet:
leeks, garlic, onions, chives, bananas, brown pears, dates, cauliflower, ginger, mushrooms, parsnips, shallots, turnips

These foods contain the important phytochemicals, allyl sulfides and allicin, which help promote: • heart health
• healthy cholesterol levels

In addition, vegetables and fruits reduce your risk of cancers. For more information, browse EncouragingHealth.com

Having a big belly in your 40s can boost your risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease or other dementia decades later, a new study suggests.

It’s not just about your weight. While previous research has found evidence that obesity in middle age raises the chances of developing dementia later, the new work found a separate risk from storing a lot of fat in the abdomen. Even people who weren’t overweight were susceptible.

That abdominal fat, sometimes described as making people apple-shaped rather than pear-shaped, has already been linked to higher risk of developing diabetes, stroke and heart disease.

“Now we can add dementia to that,” said study author Rachel Whitmer of the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, Calif.

She and others report the findings in Wednesday’s online issue of the journal Neurology.

The study involved 6,583 men and women who were ages 40 to 45 when they had checkups between 1964 and 1973. As part of the exam, their belly size was measured by using a caliper to find the distance between their backs and the surface of their upper abdomens. For the study, a distance of about 10 inches or more was considered high.

The researchers checked medical records to see who had developed Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia by an average of 36 years later. At that point the participants were ages 73 to 87. There were 1,049 cases.

Analysis found that compared to people in the study with normal body weight and a low belly measurement:

Participants with normal body weight and high belly measurements were 89 percent more likely to have dementia.

Overweight people were 82 percent more likely if they had a low belly measurement, but more than twice as likely if they had a high belly measurement.

Obese people were 81 percent more likely if they had a low belly measurement, but more than three times as likely if they had a high measurement.

Whitmer said there’s no precise way to translate belly measurements into waist circumference. But most people have a sense of whether they have a big belly, she said. And if they do, the new study suggests they should get rid of it, she said.

It’s not clear why abdominal fat would promote dementia, but it may pump out substances that harm the brain, she said.

Dr. Jose Luchsinger of the Columbia University Medical Center in New York, who studies the connection between obesity and Alzheimer’s disease but didn’t participate in the new work, cautioned that such a study cannot prove abdominal fat promotes dementia.

But the study results are “highly plausible” and “I’m not surprised at all,” he said. High insulin levels might help explain them, he said.

Dr. Samuel Gandy, who chairs the medical and scientific advisory council of the Alzheimer’s Association, said the results fit in with previous work that indicates a person’s characteristics in middle age can affect the risk of dementia in later life.

And it’s another example of how traits associated with the risk of developing heart disease are also linked to later dementia, he said.

Browse Encouraging Health for more health tips.

It’s a given: Life is going to hand you a certain number of days so crazed that high-speed takeout seems like the only dinner option.

The hitch? The only people who know less than restaurant chefs when it comes to portion control are the stressed-out and starving. (You know the feeling: You deserve to supersize something after the day you’ve had.)

The fix? Stock your freezer with healthy versions of your fave takeout treats — ones that are delicious enough to keep you driving right past the fast-food palace. Honest, they exist. Just check this list, tested by a bunch of tough-to-please tasters.

PIZZA: Lean Cuisine Brick Oven Style Roasted Garlic Chicken Pizza
Here’s a great way to soothe pizza cravings without worrying about the two-slice cutoff! The flatbread crust is topped with creamy garlic sauce, chicken, and cheese. And it crisps up perfectly in the microwave.

ENCHILADAS: Amy’s Light in Sodium Black Bean and Vegetable Enchiladas
Dig into two corn tortillas filled with black beans, corn, zucchini, tofu, and bell peppers, all covered in mild enchilada sauce. Note that there’s a low-sodium version of this meal: 380 milligrams versus 780 milligrams in the regular version. Smart. High-salt hits are hard to avoid in most frozen food, so take advantage.

BURRITO: Cedarlane Low Fat Beans, Rice & Cheese Style Burrito
This almost sounds too healthful to be fun, but even our burrito junkies loved this dish of pinto beans, soy cheddar cheese, tomatoes, and organic brown rice wrapped in a warm wheat tortilla. For extra zing, top it off with your favorite salsa.

PANINI: Lean Cuisine Chicken, Spinach & Mushroom Panini
Okay, it’s not quite the same as the corner bistro’s, but a little perspective here: Eating just half of Panera Bread’s Frontega Chicken Panini would cost you 400 calories, 16 grams of fat, and 1080 milligrams of sodium! This is faster, cheaper, much healthier, and surprisingly satisfying.

THAI NOODLES: Seeds of Change Spicy Thai Peanut Noodles
You don’t have to be a nutritionist to figure out that large servings of noodles drenched in peanut sauce are hazardous to your waist. Not these. The linguini is made with healthy semolina wheat flour, and there’s plenty of zippy ginger-peanut sauce flavoring the noodles, veggies, and tofu (done just right — nice and firm).

RAVIOLI: Lean Cuisine Butternut Squash Ravioli
This indulgent-tasting dish features pillowy squash ravioli with a creamy pumpkin-like filling, surrounded by yellow and orange carrots, snap peas, and chopped walnuts, all covered with a light cream sauce. Bonus: It gives you almost all the vitamin A you need for the whole day.

MAC ‘N’ CHEESE: Smart Ones Three Cheese Macaroni
Every now and then, you need a taste of your favorite childhood dish. If mac and cheese is yours, this one will soothe your inner 5-year-old’s needs for just 300 warm, creamy calories.

SOMETHING DIFFERENT: Kashi Lemongrass Coconut Chicken
A delicious bowl of tender snow peas, carrots, broccoli, and grilled chicken breast on a bed of seven whole grains that are flavored with a lemongrass-coconut sauce — this meal smells almost as good as it tastes.

Encouraging Health has more weight loss tips and hints.

Been a while since you went for your walk? You might not be so quick to skip it when you hear this:

Walking every day could slash your risk of an early death by 50 percent to 70 percent. Here’s what we mean by that . . .

Fitness Breakdown
Walking is one of the cheapest and easiest ways to get — and stay — fit. And few things affect your longevity as much as your fitness level does. Case in point: In a recent study involving a group of veterans, mortality rates were anywhere from 50 percent to 70 percent lower in the ones who were
fittest — regardless of whether they had underlying heart disease.

Walk Boosters
The fitter you are, the better. So here are some tips to help you get more out of your walks:

Clock your baseline fitness levels for comparison.

Be opportunistic. Seek out every chance to walk more.

Try it in reverse.

Take a break at your midpoint.

Work on improving your speed.

Ready, Set, Go
Your gait speed is the speed at which you walk when you’re really trying. Faster walkers may be more resilient and able to bounce back better from a health crisis. Which may explain why the zippy over-65 walkers in a recent study enjoyed lower mortality rates. The magic speed for staying young? At least 2.25 miles per hour for people 65 and older. So time yourself on a treadmill or around the track.

Contingency Plan for Slow Walkers
If you don’t hit the 2-mile-per-hour mark, don’t despair. Improving your gait speed boosts your longevity, too. Start by doing some interval training, where you intermittently pick up the pace for a short distance. Some strength training can help you walk better and stronger, too.

For more great health tips, browse through Encouraging Health.

Like your poached egg and whole-wheat toast in the morning? Your brain might enjoy it, too.

Eating selenium-rich foods — like eggs — could help keep your memory sharp and your brain speed on high as you age.

Your Brain on Selenium
In rural China, researchers found that elderly people who got at least the U.S. recommended daily value of selenium (about 55 micrograms per day) had cognitive test scores that put them in a league with people 10 years younger.

Super Sources
You can get your daily dose of selenium by eating whole-wheat bread (10 micrograms per slice), eggs (14 micrograms per egg), tuna (63 micrograms per 3-ounces), Brazil nuts (270 micrograms per half ounce), and many other foods. In other words, you don’t have to go overboard with eggs — and probably shouldn’t — to get your fill.

Memory-Making Mnemonic
Suppose you’re preparing for a picnic, and you want to remember a list of items to bring: napkins, plastic cups, paper plates, chairs, soda, and a potato salad.

First, choose a favorite and familiar place, such as a bedroom, backyard, or neighborhood park, and create a mental map of that place. Imagine the surroundings in as much detail as you can, noticing colors, sounds, smells, and feelings associated with the setting. Can you visualize 5 to 10 objects in this space? These objects are the foundation for your memory device, or mnemonic; once you fix them in your mind, you can use them to help you remember almost anything.

Let’s say your favorite place is your backyard, and you easily visualize a rose bush, tree, cobblestone path, doghouse, garden hose, and patio table.

Create an association between each item on your picnic list and one of the objects in this backyard.

For example, you might imagine napkins covering your rose bush, with the thorns sticking through the paper. See plastic cup ornaments hanging from the tree and paper plates lining the cobblestone path. Visualize a stack of chairs sitting on top of the doghouse, soda streaming from the garden hose, and a potato salad spread all over the patio table. The crazier and sillier your associations, the better the memory device will work.

When it’s time to get your picnic items together, close your eyes and take a mental walk around your decorated backyard. You’ll be sure to remember everything!

For more articles on health and nutrution, browse Encouraging Health.

Yes, eating omega-3-rich fish is a great way to reduce your risk of stroke. But not if you order the Friday fish fry!

In fact, eating fried fish actually raises your risk of stroke. So ask the kitchen for broiled or baked — and no butter. You’ll be glad you did, for these two reasons.

Tipping the Scales
One, fried foods are typically high in trans fats. The other reason to steer clear of the fryer? Fried fish can skew the balance of omega-6 and omega-3 fats in your diet — and that’s not good.

Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids
Although most foods contain a combination of the different types of fatty acids, it is helpful to know which foods are good sources of certain types of fat in order to include them in your diet.

Foods high in Omega 3 include:
flax seeds
English walnuts
cold-water fish (salmon, herring, mackerel)
sardines

Foods high in Omega 6 include:
sunflower seeds
vegetable oils (corn, sunflower, sesame, soybean, safflower)
margarine
pumpkin seeds

Fish Favorites
For high-omega-3, low-mercury fish, choose baked or broiled salmon, trout, or pollock, or try herring or sardines.

For most people, the healthy fats in fish provide a huge benefit to your heart and overall health — even with a little mercury. Skeptical? Get this: Eating one to two 6-ounce servings of omega-3-rich fish each week reduces your risk of dying from heart disease by 36 percent! And your all-cause mortality rate drops by 17 percent.

Unfortunately, most fish contain some mercury, thanks to industrial processing. But the less time fish spend simply living in a mercury-laden environment or eating other fish containing mercury, the lower the contamination levels will be. So for low-mercury fish, we’re talking small fish that don’t eat many other fish (or fish meal) and don’t have a long life span. Here are five good choices:

1. Salmon (wild): 1 gram of omega-3 fatty acids per 2 ounces of fish;* 0.014 parts per million mercury concentration
2. Herring: 1 gram of omega-3 fatty acids per 1 ounce of fish;* 0.044 parts per million mercury concentration
3. Sardines: 1 gram of omega-3 fatty acids per 2-3 ounces of fish;* 0.016 parts per million mercury concentration
4. Trout (freshwater): 1 gram of omega-3 fatty acids per 3-4 ounces of fish;* 0.072 parts per million mercury concentration
5. Pollock: 1 gram of omega-3 fatty acids per 6.5 ounces of fish;* 0.041 parts per million mercury concentration

For more articles on Omega-3 and Omega-6 fats, browse Encouraging Health.

Here’s a way to keep up with your favorite TV show and get healthy at the same time: Sit on an exercise ball while you watch the tube.

Research shows that lounging for long periods of time may actually switch off back muscles, setting people up for low-back pain down the road. But sitting on an exercise ball engages those muscles. Try it!

Muscle Meltdown
Couch potatoes beware: Prolonged sagging and slumping may be almost as bad for your back muscles as an injury. When muscles aren’t used, they can actually waste away in much the same way as they do after a back pull or sprain. So make TV time toning time by plopping your butt on a ball. Bonus: It will help you stay awake, so you won’t snooze through the cliffhanger ending.

How is it treated?
Most people with low back pain and sciatica get better no matter what they do.

Often nonprescription medicines for pain and inflammation, such as aspirin, ibuprofen, or naproxen, can ease the pain. Talk to your healthcare provider about whether you should take these medicines.

Your provider may prescribe stronger pain medicine or other types of medicines. Your provider may prescribe oral steroids or you may be given a steroid shot into your spine to control pain and inflammation.

Ice packs or a heating pad may help reduce pain. (Do not sleep on a heating pad because it could cause burns.) Your provider may also suggest physical therapy. A program of gentle exercise may speed your recovery.

If you continue to have symptoms, you may need to have surgery. However, most people who have herniated disks do not need an operation.

How long will the effects last?
People who have sciatica with back pain recover more slowly than people with other kinds of back pain. However, you will probably begin feeling better within a few days of a back strain or injury if you don’t strain your back again and if you take some medicine for pain and inflammation. Often the pain is gone in a week or two.

3 More Easy Back Boosters
Keep your back in tip-top shape with these simple tips:
Try the YOU2 Workout. It uses your own body weight to strengthen and tone your back, arms, shoulders, and legs. Walking and tai chi are other great options.

If you’ve pulled a back muscle, don’t stay in bed for more than 48 hours.

Stand up straight.

For more health tips, browse Encouraging Health.