Encouraging Health

Health officials are investigating the first human case of West Nile virus this year in Washoe County.

The Washoe District Health Department says a resident younger than 50 has been hospitalized with a milder form of the virus.

Earlier this month, Nevada’s first human case of West Nile this year was reported in Lyon County, and officials reported they were investigating the first “probable” human case of the virus this year in the Las Vegas area.

Twelve human cases were reported in Nevada in 2007.

West Nile is transmitted by mosquito bites, and authorities have encouraged residents to use insect repellent and eliminate areas of standing water.

Most people who are infected have no symptoms or what appears to be a mild flu.

West Nile Virus

The West Nile virus (WNV) was first detected in the Western Hemisphere in 1999 and has since rapidly spread across the North Americcan continent into all 48 continental states, seven Canadian provinces, and throughout Mexico. In addition, WNV activity has been detected in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Guadeloupe and El Salvador.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 15,000 people in the U.S. have tested positive for WNV infection since 1999, including over 500 deaths. Many more people have likely been infected with WNV, but have experienced mild or no symptoms.

Statistically, a person’s risk of contracting West Nile is low, and less than 1% of those infected develop serious illness from the virus. Those at highest risk for serious illness are the elderly and those with lowered immune systems. However, people of all ages can develop serious illness, so it is important for everyone to protect themselves from mosquito bites to minimize the risk of infection.

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Sufferers of the common sleep disorder are more likely to suffer a premature death from other causes than those without the disease, according to new research.

Two new studies published in the August issue of the journal Sleep find that sleep apnea increases the risk of death from any cause, especially if untreated.

Adults with severe sleep apnea, or sleep-disordered breathing, are up to three times more likely to die prematurely from any cause, according to a Wisconsin study that analyzed 1,500 adults over an 18-year period. The study found that 19 percent of adults with a severe form of the condition died during follow-up, compared with only 4 percent of those who did not have the disease.

In another study, Australian researchers looked at data from an ongoing survey of 380 men and women and found that during a 14-year period, about 33 percent of the subjects who had moderate to severe sleep apnea died, compared with 6.5 percent who had a mild form of the disease, and 7.7 percent without the condition.

“Our findings … remove any reasonable doubt that sleep apnea is a fatal disease,” said Nathanial Marshall, a postdoctoral fellow at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, in an American Academy of Sleep Medicine news release. “People who have, or suspect that they have, sleep apnea should consult their physicians about diagnosis and treatment options.”

Sleep apnea causes a person to suffer shallow or paused breathing for about 10–20 seconds for up to 20 or 30 times an hour, according to the National Library of Medicine. About 6 percent of American adults have a moderate to severe form of the condition, and 17 percent suffer from milder forms, according to WebMD.

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A sponge is like the back row in study hall — it attracts all the bad elements. So here’s what you should do with it:

Duy 10 cheap dishcloths and 2 buckets. Put the clean cloths in one bucket and the dirty cloths in the other bucket along with some diluted bleach. Wash all the cloths once a week.

More Sanitary Solutions
Sponges actually grow bacteria. But if you simply can’t part with your sponges, run them through the dishwasher once a week. You can also microwave damp sponges for a minute to kill germs. But use extreme caution: Wet the sponge thoroughly, and use tongs to take it out of the microwave.

Keeping a Safer Kitchen
Here are a few more simple steps for keeping yourself safe from common illness-causing bacteria:
Get a meat thermometer.
Add extra cilantro.
Toss the “3-second rule.”

The Green That Protects Your Tummy

Any fan of Mexican food is familiar with cilantro. But here’s something you may not know about it: The pungent green could fend off gut-cramping illness.

Potent compounds in cilantro appear to be quite a match against a strain of salmonella common in food poisoning.

Bacteria Busters
When salmonella invades your gastrointestinal
tract . . . well, we won’t go into graphic detail. Suffice it to say that it can quickly spoil a summer outing! But chopping some cilantro into your pool-party salsa just might keep the dip safer, thanks to the strong antibacterial action of substances in the green. And add extra onions to your salsa for good measure. They help battle salmonella, too.

Food That’s Fit to Eat
Keep your picnic and barbecue foods from turning on you later with these other tips:
Don’t go by looks. Ground beef can be undercooked even if it’s brown.
Wash, wash, and wash again. Wash your hands before you cook, wash fresh produce before preparing, and wash the food prep area when you’re done. And use plain soap and water.

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When your mind is in need of honing, head straight for the produce aisle. And give your brain a bowl of cherries.

This yummy summer fruit is chock-full of anthocyanins, potent compounds that may guard against brain-cell death, so you’ll stay tack sharp.

Neuron Armor
Cherry phenolics, particularly anthocyanins, appear to protect brain cells from neurodamaging oxidative stress — the kind seen in Alzheimer’s disease. Sour cherries may be particularly protective; it’s thought that they may have higher anthocyanin amounts than the sweet kind. But concentrations vary widely among different varieties. (Here’s another way cherries help you stay young.)

All in Your Head

No matter what your age, you can do plenty to keep your mind at peak performance. Start with these tips:

Give your synapses a good workout.

Test your brainpower.

Feed your mind.

Assess your risk.

Cheers for Cherries
Health-promoting compounds in cherries could one day help downplay diabetes.

Early research indicates that anthocyanins — compounds that give cherries their bright red hue — may help boost secretion of insulin, a hormone important for blood sugar control. Additional sources of anthocyanins include blueberries, raspberries, and other produce with red, blue, or purple hues.

More research is needed to confirm the link between anthocyanins in cherries and insulin secretion. In addition to potential implications for blood sugar control, anthocyanins also may help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. If you have diabetes or insulin resistance, keeping your blood sugar under control is a top health concern. Proven methods of controlling blood sugar include eating low-glycemic index foods and exercising regularly. Some people also need to take insulin regularly. Follow your healthcare provider’s advice.

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Who wouldn’t want to feel more energized and have a smile on their face all day?

But short of popping some “happy pills,” it seems there’s no easy way. Until now. Enter yoga.

Yep, some simple yoga-style stretches and poses could do the trick. People who did them for 5 weeks reported a lift in their moods and more spring in their steps.

Positive Poses
A type of yoga that focuses on mood-boosting poses seemed to be particularly helpful in raising spirits in a recent study. In fact, people’s moods not only generally improved about halfway through 5 weeks of doing Iyengar yoga, but posers also felt a bit better after class, too. Talk about instant gratification.

More Ways to Smile
If yoga doesn’t fit into your feel-good plans, try one of these better-mental-place lifestyle changes:

Put on your walking shoes. You could start to feel better after just 30 minutes of hoofing it.

Think fish, nuts, and flaxseeds.

Indulge in a snooze. Skimping on sleep opens the door to blue moods.

Don’t lose that loving feeling. Uh, huh.

Finding Your Place on the Mat

You don’t have to jump up and down like you’re on a pogo stick to get fit. There are kinder, gentler ways to exercise, and these methods hail from the East.

Many recent studies have shown that certain exercises originating in Eastern cultures can offer just as many physical and psychological health benefits as the more vigorous exercises that often dominate Western workouts. Even better, these Eastern exercises tend to be easier on the body. For example, the gentle art of t’ai chi exercise not only can help build muscle, but it has been shown to help reduce arthritis symptoms and improve your balance.

Whether your goal is to reduce stress, make your muscles strong and flexible, or boost your weight loss efforts with extra calorie burning, according to recent research you can find what you’re looking for in Eastern-influenced exercise disciplines, such as yoga, t’ai chi, or Qigong.

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We’ve all seen those hard-as-rock pears at the supermarket, picked well before their prime. Well, here’s a reason you might want to pass on them.

Or at least let them ripen on your kitchen counter before you bite. A pear (or an apple) at its peak offers something extra — a special kind of antioxidant that only develops once it’s ripe.

Do It Ripe
We know fruits like apples and pears are chock-full of flavonoids. Now, research shows that when ripe, these fruits contain additional potent disease fighters: NCCs (short for nonfluorescent chlorophyll catabolites — say that three times). As fruit ripens, chlorophyll breaks down and forms NCCs. And it turns out NCCs pack quite the antioxidant wallop!

Fruit “To Do’s” for Your Health

Here are some other ways to get the most from your favorite fruits:

Give me some skin. The peel’s the place for antioxidants.

Opt for whole . . . especially when it comes to apples vs. apple juice.

Slice it yourself.

Shelf Life: How Long Does Fruit Stay Nutritious?

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.

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Despite a likely travel slowdown, millions take to the roads for Fourth

High gas prices and the hassles of air travel may put a damper on many vacations this summer, but don’t expect the Fourth of July weekend to fizzle out. Despite the likelihood of a long-term travel slowdown, millions of Americans are taking to the roads and skies over the holiday.

According to AAA’s annual forecast, 40.45 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more over the Fourth. That represents a 1.3 percent drop from last year and the first decline in 10 years.

The decline, however, may be muted because the Fourth falls on a Friday this year, making this a true holiday weekend. Instead of travel getting split between the weekend before and after a midweek Fourth, much of it will be concentrated in a single extended weekend.

Hitting the road — just not as hard
According to AAA, more than 34.2 million Americans (almost 85 percent of the total) intend to travel by automobile, a 1.2 percent decrease from last year. That follows on the heels of the organization’s Memorial Day forecast, which predicted that the number of Americans traveling by car during that holiday would drop by nearly one percent.

Meanwhile, gas prices have climbed only higher since then. On Thursday, the average retail price for regular gas was $4.10 per gallon, according to AAA. That’s not only up 16 cents from Memorial Day, but $1.13 higher than this time last year. The federal Energy Information Administration projects the price will peak at $4.15 in August — which is not to suggest that people won’t travel, but rather, that they’ll modify their plans to counter rising costs.

What are your plans for this weekend and today?

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My longtime readers will know I blog on a Tablet PC, specifically, a HP TC1100 and it has stood me well. There are several tech/electronic websites I enjoy reading, one being Gotta Be Mobile.

What’s this got to do with Encouraging Health? It makes me happy to be able to share with you they are having a sort of “Christmas in July” giveaway! The Web Administrators, Rob Bushway and Warner Crocker, are very generous in sharing, not only their talent and time, but also in this giveaway.

Head on over to say hello and drop a comment or two in the forums and articles.

Walking shoes — check. Pedometer — got it. But do you have a goal?

No goal? Better set one. It doesn’t even matter if you hit the mark. People who put a target on their radar — like walking 10,000 steps a day — walk a whole lot more than people who don’t have a goal. Studies prove it.

The End Game
Walking 10,000 steps a day is an ideal physical activity goal, according to new guidelines.

And in a large review of the research, scientists discovered that people with this goal — or a personalized step plan — literally walked the extra mile, logging about 2,000 extra steps a day. Plus, when people tracked their progress with a pedometer, they lost weight and improved their blood pressure.

A Few More Motivators

In addition to your comfy shoes, your daily-steps goal, and your pedometer, here are a few more tools to help you keep on keeping on:

Some tunes

Your furry friend

A buddy

Contingency Plans
Of course, if you’re not an animal lover, having a pet you don’t like isn’t a boon to your stress-less plans. But not to worry. There are plenty of other ways to motivate yourself to walk more: 1. Make a walking date with a friend (It’s much harder to talk yourself out of it once you’ve committed to someone else.)
2. Find a virtual exercise buddy and report your walking activities to him or her each day.
3. Splurge on a virtual trainer. They’ve now got wristwatch-sized GPS devices that do everything from measuring speed, distance, calories burned, and heart rate to letting you know when your pace has slacked off.
4. Register for a charity walk.
5. Remind yourself of the benefits.

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