Encouraging Health

From www.msnbc.com:

It’s been said that you can get a glimpse of your future face by taking a look at your mother. But today, an array of anti-aging options proves that the adage is no longer true — or at least that it doesn’t have to be. Cutting-edge skin care and dermatologist-office procedures are allowing us to anti-age on a daily basis, granting tighter, more even-toned skin not only weeks from now, but decades down the road.

Once the only way to turn back the clock, surgical procedures are decreasing, the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery in Los Alamitos, California, notes. And nonsurgical alternatives are up. (Use of Botox has increased 283 percent since 2002, with docs now doling out 3.8 million injections a year.) That’s no surprise, given the upside: less pain, recovery time and cost, plus noticeable results. Beyond professional treatments, over-the-counter options get more sophisticated by the season.

SELF talked to experts and scoured the skin-care industry to bring you the best at-home options and their counterparts in the doc’s office. Pinpoint your issue, choose the right solution, and get ready for decades more of gorgeous skin.

Click the above link to read the tips!

at home facial tips

at home facial tips

From www.WebMD.com:

Men who often eat broccoli and cauliflower may be less likely to develop aggressive prostate cancer than men who skimp on those vegetables.

That news appears in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The finding comes from a study of more than 29,000 U.S. men aged 55-74 who were followed for an average of four years.

When the study started, the men didn’t have prostate cancer. They completed surveys about the foods they typically ate.

During the study, the men were regularly screened for prostate cancer. A total of 1,338 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer, including 520 men with aggressive prostate cancer.

The men who reported frequently eating cruciferous vegetables — which include broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, mustard greens, and turnip greens — were 40% less likely to be diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer during the study than men who rarely ate those vegetables.

Cauliflower vs. Prostate Cancer?
Overall, the men’s reported consumption of fruits and vegetables didn’t appear to affect their chances of developing aggressive prostate cancer or less-aggressive prostate cancer.

But cruciferous vegetables were an exception.

Eating lots of cruciferous vegetables was linked to a lesser likelihood of being diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer. Broccoli and cauliflower were the standout vegetables.

Read the rest by clicking above.

prostrate cancer, broccoli, cauliflower

prostrate cancer, broccoli, cauliflower

From www.webmd.com/heart-disease:

The odds of getting heart disease may lie, in part, in six genes identified today by European researchers.

Variations in those six genes appear to be more common in people who have heart attacks or heart disease before age 66, according to the scientists.

But that doesn’t mean that people with those gene variations are doomed to develop heart disease or suffer a heart attack at a young age.

“Even if a person carries one or more of these risk variants, they can still do a lot to reduce their risk by adopting a healthy lifestyle, not smoking, and, if they have high blood pressure or raised cholesterol levels, to have these treated,” Nilesh Samani, FMedSci, says in a news release.

Samani works at England’s University of Leicester and was involved in the heart disease gene study, which appears in today’s online edition of The New England Journal of Medicine.

Heart Disease Genetics
Heart disease is the leading cause of death for U.S. men and women.

Heart disease risk may be handed down from generation to generation through genes. But genetics are only part of the story.

For instance, it’s well known that smoking makes heart disease (and many other health problems) more likely. So do obesity and inactive lifestyles.

Read More by clicking above.

heart disease, genetics

heart disease, genetics

From www.msn.com/dietfitness:

The Six Greatest Ab Exercises of All-Time

——————————————————————————–

Sculpt rock-hard abs with these new takes on a few, old classics.
By the Editors of Men’s Health

Long-Arm Weighted Crunch

This exercise targets your upper abs. Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. Hold a light dumbbell in each hand and extend your arms straight back beyond your head. Now crunch your rib cage toward your pelvis, keeping your shoulders still and your arms straight. Don’t generate momentum with your arms. Perform 12 to 15 repetitions.

Seated Ab Crunch

Sit on the edge of a bench. Grip the edge of the pad and lean back slightly, extending your legs down and away and keeping your heels 4 to 6 inches off the floor. Bend your knees and slowly raise your legs toward your chest. At the same time, lean forward with your upper body, allowing your chest to approach your thighs. Return to the starting position. Perform three sets of 12 repetitions.

Corkscrew

This exercise targets both the lower abs and the obliques. Lie on your back, with your legs raised directly over your hips. Your knees should be slightly bent. Place your hands at your sides with the palms down. Use your lower abs to raise your hips off the floor and toward your rib cage, elevating your feet straight up. Simultaneously twist your hips to the right. Hold, then return to the starting position. Repeat, twisting to the left. Do 10 repetitions to each side.

Weighted One-Sided Crunch

This exercise targets both the upper abs and the obliques. Lie with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor, and hold a dumbbell with both hands by your right shoulder. Curl your torso up and rotate to the left. Lower yourself, finish the set on that side, then switch directions and repeat, holding the dumbbell next to your left shoulder. Perform three sets of eight repetitions to each side.

Kneeling Cable Crunch

Kneel facing the pulley and hold the ends of a rope attached to the high cable along the sides of your face. Bend forward, aiming your chest at your pelvis. Return to the starting position, then repeat the movement, this time aiming your chest toward your left knee. Return, then repeat to your right. That’s one repetition. Perform three sets of eight repetitions.

Crunch/Side-Bend Combo

This exercise targets both the upper abs and the obliques. Lie on your back with your knees bent, feet on the floor, and hands behind your ears. Curl up so your shoulder blades are off the floor. Bend at the waist to your left, aiming your left armpit toward your left hip. Straighten, then bend to your right. Lower yourself to the starting position and repeat. Perform three sets of eight repetitions to each side.

llustrations by Kagan McLeod, Workout Photographs by Beth Bischoff
______________________________________________________________________

Any or all of my readers are welcome to follow the exercises in this blog, I’ve started (again) and will share my progress with you, if you do the same.

abs workout, abdominal muscles, core muscles

abs workout, abdominal muscles, core muscles

From www.webmd.com

Looking to burn fat through exercise? Resting during your workout may help, Japanese researchers report.

Here’s the fat-burning fitness plan they tested: Exercise for 30 minutes, take a 20 minute break, and finish with another 30 minutes of exercise.

That revs up fat metabolism even more than a solid hour of exercise, note the researchers, who included Kazushige Goto, PhD, of the life sciences department at Japan’s University of Tokyo.

Goto’s team studied seven healthy, physically active men who were 25 years old, on average.

At the researchers’ lab, the men pedaled stationary bikes for an hour without taking any breaks.

On another day, they rode the stationary bike for half an hour, sat in a chair and rested for 20 minutes, and then pedaled for 30 more minutes.

For comparison, the men visited the researchers’ lab one more time just to rest for an hour, without exercising at all.

The researchers monitored the men’s fat metabolism and hormone levels before, during, and after each session. As expected, an hour of pure rest was a dud when it came to fat metabolism, compared with the fat-burning effects of exercise.

But resting during exercise revved up fat metabolism during and after exercise, compared with a solid hour of exercise with no breaks.

The findings, published recently in the Journal of Applied Physiology, may mean that to burn fat, you’re better off budgeting a breather into long workouts.

But the study was small, and the men weren’t new to exercise, so the researchers plan to test the theory in other groups of people.

Meanwhile, if you’re ready to start exercising, check in with your doctor first.

workout, rest, burn fat

workout, rest, burn fat

From www.WebMD.com

A high school student with a desire to pursue a medical career has produced an interesting study in which it was determined that when an iPod is placed in close proximity to a pacemaker, it can cause the pacemaker to malfunction.

It has long been known that electrical devices, such as microwave ovens, cell phones, and other electronic appliances, can cause pacemaker malfunction. Medical providers typically recommend to pacemaker patients that they not place hand held electronic devices directly over the pacemaker, and that they not stand within 2-3 inches of appliances such as a microwave oven.

Jay Thaker, a Michigan high school student reported that his study involved holding an iPod within two inches of a the pacemaker in 83 patients for a range of 5-10 seconds. His results indicated that “telemetry interference” occurred in 29% of the study participants, and “over sensing” occurred in another 20% of the patients.

Telemetry interference could cause a pacemaker to record what appears to be an abnormal heart rhythm when one doesn’t really exist. This is important because the history of heart rhythm disturbances is stored in the pacemaker for the medical provider to read at some future date; this interference could cause the provider to treat an abnormal rhythm that didn’t really occur, but seemed to be present on the recorded data.

Read the rest of this important story here

iPod, pacemaker

iPod, pacemaker

From www.realage.com:

Good Vibrations

Is that glass half empty or half full? Your answer may affect your blood pressure.
Older people who have a sense of self-worth, feel happy and hopeful, and enjoy life have lower blood pressure compared to their more pessimistic peers. Here’s how good feelings can reach all the way into your blood vessels.

Good feelings can help reduce levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that’s related to high blood pressure. So the benefits of good feelings don’t stop at just feeling good. Researchers speculate that the chemical and neural reactions people have to positive thoughts and feelings may help keep all of the body’s various systems in balance. So your heart, your arteries — even your immune system — benefit.

Have you harnessed the power of positive thinking? Here’s how to cope, adapt, and react to life’s trials and tribulations in more positive ways:

Try to look on the bright side during times of change.
Make a list of the possibilities and opportunities that could come out of any obstacles you face.
Surround yourself with happy, positive people. They may rub off on you! And strong social ties help you power through the tough times in life.
Cultivating positive emotions is one good thing you can do for your blood pressure.

positive thinking, health

positive thinking, health

From www.RealAge.com:

For boosting heart health, this nut’s got one up on olive oil.
That’s right. Walnuts are better than olive oil at combating the harmful effects that saturated fats have on arteries, which may make walnuts the mightiest nuts of all. Here’s what makes them special.

When you eat a meal high in saturated fats, it causes your arteries to narrow and stiffen. And although you may have the best intentions of shunning nacho cheese and bacon-wrapped hamburgers, everyone slips a little now and then.
So here are a few things you can do to minimize the impact of the nasty fats on your arteries.

*Eat a handful of walnuts. In a study, arteries stayed more relaxed when walnuts were added to a high-fat meal. They did an even better job than olive oil of helping blood to flow unrestricted. Researchers credit the alpha-linolenic acid in the nuts with helping keep arteries flexible.
*Take a 45-minute walk a couple of hours after you indulge. Physical activity partly offsets the blood vessel dysfunction caused by eating a high-fat meal.
*Top off your meal with a tiny piece of dark chocolate, some hot tea, or a bit of pomegranate juice. These items are rich in compounds that help your arteries relax.

walnuts, alpha-linolenic acid

walnuts, alpha-linolenic acid

From www.realage.com:

What’s your ideal body shape and size? Pull out the family photo album.
Pictures of your parents or you between the ages of 18 and 21 (when your metabolism operated at its prime) can help clue you in to what your size and shape should look like in order to ward off weight-related illness. Have you strayed too far from the family tree? Here’s how to get back to your “factory settings.”

The closer your weight is to when you were 18 (for women) or 21 (for men), the better for your health. That’s assuming you weren’t already struggling with weight issues at that age. If so, check out pictures of your parents or grandparents at that age. Most people gain weight between the ages of 21 and 60, and being overweight or obese significantly ups your risk of diabetes, heart disease, and certain types of cancer.
But weight gain isn’t the only problem. Has your shape changed since you were younger? Starting as a pencil or a pear and growing into an apple isn’t good. Fat around your middle is associated with health risks, even if you’re at a normal weight.

body image, ancestors, diet, exercise

body image, ancestors, diet, exercise

From www.realge.com:

What do picky eaters and fast eaters have in common?
Both groups of kids may be at risk for suffering body-image issues down the road, according to a recent study. Researchers looked at kids’ food diaries and parent questionnaires at intervals from birth to age 11 and identified factors that increased the likelihood a child would be preoccupied with being thin as a teen. Regularly having tantrums over food and being a fast eater were two behaviors shown to boost that likelihood.

RealAge Projection: Getting into the habit of eating a diverse diet and being physically active will help kids maintain a healthy weight. If they maintain their weight and body mass index at desirable levels as adults, their RealAge could be more like 34 when they’re really 40.

Although body dissatisfaction is often blamed on models and superheroes, it can start much closer to home. There’s a strong link between parents’ attitudes about eating and body image and their child’s attitudes about those issues. In fact, this study also found that one of the most significant contributors to a child’s weight concerns was dad’s dissatisfaction with his own body. So be a good role model. Don’t put yourself down. Don’t try to enforce a rigid diet. If you need to control your own weight, do it in a safe, positive manner. Show your child that eating more fruits and vegetables and decreasing fats and sugars is healthier and more effective than the fad-diet-of-the-week.

kids, regular eating habits

kids, regular eating habits