_ Healthy Diet & Nutrition Mental & Emotional Health Stress Management Stress-Free Living Chronic Stress Makes Junk Food Even Worse for You By article File this under “That’s not fair!” People who are not dealing with chronic stress can get away with eating a lot of high-fat, high-sugar food without upping their risk of metabolic syndrome, but stressed out people can’t. That’s the finding of research done at the University of Califorina, San Francisco.
_ Resveratrol's Secrets Revealed! By article Unless you’ve been living in another solar system, you’ve repeatedly heard the news that resveratrol, a component of red wine and grapes, is associated with reducing LDL (bad) cholesterol, heart disease, and some types of cancer. Also found in blueberries, cranberries, mulberries, peanuts, and pistachios, resveratrol is associated with beneficial health effects in aging, inflammation and metabolism. Yet researchers have not been able to explain how and why resveratrol works its magic.
_ Heart Health Statin Users Eating More Fat By Jane Farrell article Many Americans who take statins don’t have a healthy diet because the drugs give them a false sense of security, according to a new study. And the number of statin users with unhealthy diets appears to have increased. The research by investigators from UCLA indicates that patients who took statins in 2009-2010 were eating more calories and fat than those who used statins earlier. Among people who didn’t use statins, there was no similar increased.
_ Ground-Breaking ΓÇ£Brown FatΓÇ¥ MRI Scan By Jane Farrell article The first MRI scan to show “brown fat” in a living adult could prove to be an essential step towards a new wave of therapies to aid the fight against diabetes and obesity. Researchers from Warwick Medical School and University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust in the UK used a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) based method to identify and confirm the presence of brown adipose tissue in a living adult. The study was published on April 17th 2014 in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
_ Mental & Emotional Health Understanding Bipolar Disorder By Jane Farrell article Editor’s Note: Bipolar disorder is often talked about, but sometimes misunderstood. The story of days-long manic episodes followed by prolonged depressed periods is a familiar one. But that isn’t the only form this disorder takes. And if someone you love has a variation on classic bipolar disorder, it’s important to recognize the condition and seek diagnosis and treatment. The experts at the National Institute of Mental Health offer the distinctions between the different types of bipolar disorder:
_ The Screen-Time Diet By Jane Farrell article To help manage your body weight, you need to reduce the amount of time you spend being sedentary. For many of us, that includes time (lots of it) spent in front of a screen, whether you’re watching TV, playing video games or using the computer. A sedentary lifestyle can easily lead to excess weight and even obesity, with its myriad health risks.
_ Heartburn/GERD GERD: Help For Heartburn And Other Woes By Jane Farrell article Ugh…heartburn again? If that’s your mantra after meals or as you fall asleep, you may have gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). In GERD, the valve between your lower esophagus and stomach weakens. This sometimes lets food and stomach acids back up into your esophagus. The result is usually a burning sensation behind the breastbone, or heartburn. But GERD can also cause other symptoms: hoarseness, chest pain, a dry cough, the sensation that food is caught in your throat. A Problem For All Ages
_ Medicare's Flawed Adjustment Methodology By article The methodology Medicare uses to adjust the billions of dollars it pays health plans and hospitals to account for how sick their patients are is flawed and should be replaced, according to study by Dartmouth Atlas Project investigators published in the journal BMJ in April 2014.
_ DonΓÇÖt It Make My Brown Fat White By Jane Farrell article What causes “good” brown fat to turn into “bad” white fat? Boston University researchers say the unfortunate transformation happen when you eat too many high calorie foods. They found that this habit not only leads to an increase in white fat cells (the type prominent in obesity) but that it also makes brown fat cells (the type that generate heat and burn energy) “whiten”. The results were published in April 2014 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
_ Extra Pounds Even Worse Than We Thought By article Mortality risks of being overweight or obese are underestimated, according to University of Pennsylvania researchers who published their study in the March 2014 issue of the open-access journal Population Health Metrics. A release from the university quotes lead researcher Andrew Stokes as saying, "The scholarly community is divided over a large meta-analysis that found that overweight is the optimal BMI category and that there are no increased risks associated with obese class 1."
_ Why Newly Proposed Nutrition Labels are (Mostly) Good By article By Michael (Dr. Mike) S. Fenster M.D. Nutritional labeling hasn’t been overhauled in 20 years but proposed update, which could take a year or more to appear on store shelves, is being driven by first lady Michelle Obama as part of her “Let’s Move” campaign. Our current nutrition labeling is the same as that implemented in the 1990s, except for the 2006 addition of trans fats information. It’s based on nutrition data and eating habits from the 1970s and 1980s.
_ Does a Junk Food Diet Make You Lazy? By article A University of California, Los Angeles psychology study provides evidence that being overweight makes people tired and sedentary — not the other way around, according to a UCLA release written by Stuart Wolpert. The research is online and will be published April 10th 2014 in the print edition of the journal Physiology and Behavior.
_ Weight Loss Can Sun Exposure Help You Lose Weight? By Jane Farrell article Exposure to light in the morning rather than later in the day may be a good way to manage weight, new research shows. The study, from Northwestern Medicine, found that the timing, intensity and duration of light exposure is linked to Body Mass Index (BMI).
_ Six Surprising Facts About You and Your Microbes By article By Bill Miller M.D. “I'm so nervous, my stomach is all in a knot.”
Men's Health Statins Help With Erectile Function By Jane Farrell article In addition to lowering blood cholesterol, statin drugs also appear to help with erectile dysfunction. Researchers said they hope that conclusion will encourage men who need statins to take them. The finding is to be presented at the American College of Cardiology's 63rd Annual Scientific Session.
_ Gratitude Trumps Willpower for Resisting Temptation By article Having trouble resisting the urge to eat an unhealthy snack or charge something you don’t really need? Instead of trying to summon your willpower, ramp up your gratitude quotient and you’ll be better able to walk away from temptation. That’s the finding of a study done by researchers at Northwestern University, the University of California, Riverside, and Harvard Kennedy School. The paper will be published in the journal Psychological Science.
Marriage Marriage Not as Heart-Healthy at 50+ By article People who are married have lower rates of several cardiovascular diseases compared with those who are single, divorced or widowed, according to research presented at the American College of Cardiology's 63rd Annual Scientific Session in March 2014 in Washington D.C. However, Boomers and Beyond take note: The relationship between marriage and lower odds of vascular diseases is especially pronounced before age 50. For people aged 50 and younger, marriage is associated with 12 percent lower odds of any vascular disease.