Currently, the life expectancy of Americans is 78 years. However, before the year 1900, it was only 47 years. The reason why our ancestors had shorter lives was mainly due to poor medical care, infectious diseases such as pneumonia, tuberculosis and cholera, and the high percentage of fatal accidents.
Science and modern medicine have provided a significant advance in the prevention and treatment of diseases, which has allowed prolonging the life expectancy of the human population.
By having a longer life expectancy, the next challenge is to maintain a useful and healthy life for as many years as possible. Nobody wants 20 additional years of pain, weakness and mental confusion.
To enjoy a long life, you should eat healthily, avoid risks such as driving at high speed, avoid smoking and alcohol consumption, learn to cope with stress and especially exercise regularly.
According to the publications made by the World Health Organization (WHO), 40% of Americans have a sedentary lifestyle.
The relationship between exercise and life expectancy is not easy to understand. Poor countries such as Uganda and Lesotho have a high range of exercise, but poor health care and high rates of HIV / AIDS devastate the population. The Chinese population is very active. However, they have an overwhelming pollution that could significantly reduce their life expectancy.
Excluding other variables, there is no doubt that there is a positive relationship between exercise and longer and healthier life. In Europe, where access to medicine is similar in most countries, the populations that perform the most physical activity (Sweden, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands and Spain) have a longer life expectancy than the less active populations (Ireland, the United Kingdom, and Germany). Canadians with high rates of physical activity also have four more years of life expectancy than their US neighbors.
When WHO evaluated the problem of a sedentary lifestyle, it also established guidelines on how much exercise is needed to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Actually, it's simple.
All you need to start is a little more than 20 minutes a day of moderate aerobic activity, balance exercises to help prevent falls, and some exercises to strengthen your muscles.
Next, the guidelines:
150 minutes of moderate/intense aerobic activity per week
Among the activities you can do to accomplish this goal are jogging, swimming, heavy cleaning, cycling from 10 to 12 mph, mowing the lawn, or playing sports such as volleyball, badminton, or table tennis.
Try increasing this to 300 minutes a week to get even more benefits
Balance exercises
Do this at least three days a week.
Muscle strengthening
It is recommended to perform resistance exercises 2 or more days a week. Depending on your physical condition you can use resistance bands, weights, or body weight. If you do not know what to do, look for a coach or a class to start.
Do you often feel irritated and sluggish for no reason after having woken up, instead of being refreshed and rested? If so, you may be one of 30% of Americans who have mild insomnia.
We often blame not being able to sleep well at night on work stress, technology use late at night, or a disturbance that prevents us from falling asleep. If you don’t drink enough water or don’t drink water at the correct times throughout the day, it may be the cause of not getting a good night’s rest.
The National Sleep Foundation has found your sleep can be disrupted if you go to bed while you are slightly dehydrated and it can even cause grogginess when you wake up and snoring. Experts have fortunately identified the ideal hydration program that should be followed to ensure you drink enough water through the day to help you sleep well at night. The following guidelines should be followed to maintain the optimum hydration level through the day.
1. Make sure you drink water with each meal
An old myth says that if you drink water with meals, it will dilute the stomach acid and make it more difficult for nutrients to be absorbed by the body. This is false. Drinking water at meals will help your body to digest food as it helps the stomach absorb nutrients and soften food. If you consume water with food, it will also avoid constipation by lubricating the digestive tract. Another advantage of drinking water while eating is that it will prevent overeating as it allows you to take a break from eating, and this will give you time to determine if your stomach wants more food.
2. Wait for 2 to 3 hours before drinking coffee after waking up
For the ideal level of hydration, experts recommend waiting 2 to 3 hours after waking before drinking coffee. Coffee is slightly diuretic, and drinking coffee may force you to urinate more often. Drinking coffee straight after waking up when you are already dehydrated as you’ve gone for about eight hours without liquids, will further dehydrate you. If you exercise in the morning, drink water rather than coffee, after you’ve woken up and while you’re in the gym. Only drink caffeine after you have worked out. The rush of endorphins you get from exercise should be enough to get you wide awake in no time at all.
3. Don’t drink caffeine 6 hours before bedtime
Even if you feel very sleepy in the late afternoon, try to resist grabbing a cup of coffee or any other caffeinated drink to give you energy. Research has shown that if you drink caffeine during the 6 hours before bedtime, it will be more challenging to fall asleep. If the craving for the taste of coffee is too much to handle, instead drink decaffeinated coffee. There are other methods you could use to stay awake, like doing some high-energy squats or taking a fast walk. This will help recharge your batteries.
4. Eat food containing lots of water
If you don’t like drinking water or don’t manage to do so enough every day and your daily intake of fluids is mainly fruit juices and caffeinated beverages, eating foods that contain lots of water is crucial to maintain the correct hydration level. Many fruits and veggies have a high water content, including cantaloupe, spinach, oranges, celery, cucumbers, strawberries, and watermelon. All these foods also have high nutrition levels and will give you a good dose of daily vitamins while keeping your hydration levels up. Although consuming these foods will help those that don’t like water to increase their water intake, the healthiest and most effective way to keep hydrated is still drinking water.
5. Drink some water before bedtime
You might believe that drinking water before going to sleep will result in you having to urinate through the night, which means it’s better avoided. Although guzzling a large volume of water before going to bed is not a good idea, drinking a small quantity will not harm you. Hydrating before hitting the sack will help you not waking up because of dehydration causing leg cramps, or being thirsty through the night.
Bacteria and viruses caused many of the infectious diseases plaguing humans. Scientists recently used viruses to eradicate a bacterium that was potentially life-threatening in a 15-year-old girl suffering from cystic fibrosis.
A new paper suggests that this age-old approach to fighting bacterial infections might be worth looking at, especially with modern bacteria that resist antibiotics.
Researchers in the new study report, viruses that first infect and then destroy bacteria (genetically engineered bacteriophages) were successfully used to clear up a serious bacterial infection in the sick teenager. The bacteria were resistant to antibiotics.
Graham Hatfull, a professor of biotechnology at the University of Pittsburgh and study co-author, said this was the first time 'phages' were used to treat infections with this type of bacteria. It is also the first time that genetically engineered 'phages' were more effective.
Bacteriophages have been used to battle human disease for close to a century. The BioTherapeutics Education & Research Foundation reports that with the discovery of antibiotics, including penicillin in the 1940s, the old method fell out of favor.
The idea of using bacteriophage is being looked at again as various dangerous bacteria are developing resistance to antibiotics that are used widely.
The young girl had been plagued by an infection of Mycobacterium abscessus for eight years which was wiped out by a cocktail of three phages.
A senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore, Dr. Amesh Adalja, said there is a desperate need of effective therapies against Mycobacterium abscessus as this bacterium is extremely difficult to treat.
Although Adalja was not involved in the study, he noted that the patient’s response to intravenous phage therapies was very positive, and this is an important milestone. He was hopeful that it would lead to using more phages for this and other types of infection.
Adalja added that the pipeline for an antibiotic was running dry and using bacteriophages is proving to be an important solution to the infectious disease crisis facing the world.
The patient had undergone a lung transplant occurred without problems, but immunosuppressive drugs used after the procedure to assist the body in adapting to the new lung had allowed the bacterial infection to become widespread.
Multiple intravenous antibiotic treatments did not help, and the surgical wound site was infected, sores flared up on more than 20 places on her buttocks, arms, and legs, and her liver became inflamed.
Hatfull said that as she was not responding to antibiotics, and they were experienced with bacteriophages. The team tried to find phages in their collection to infect and kill this specific bacterial strain.
Three different phages were identified that might kill off the bacteria effectively. These were genetically improved to enable them to better fight the infection.
The phages were administered topically to the infected skin areas and intravenously. The skin lesions and the surgical wound healed within six months, and there were no adverse effects.
Hatfull thinks that bacteriophage therapy holds huge promises as it only attacks specific bacteria. This is decidedly different from antibiotics, which often simply attack all bacteria in the body.
The specificity does, however, also have drawbacks as they are often so specific that although they may infect a strain that infects one patient, it may not be effective against a similar bacteria in other patients.
Hatfull added that genetic research into bacteriophage therapy and how it selects its targets might help improve phages as alternatives to antibiotics.
Breakthrough medical, scientific research at Stanford University identifies the gene in mice that codes that trigger the production of the proteins responsible for age-related cognitive decline. By learning to suppress these genes using special antibodies, the researchers were able to rejuvenate the brains of the mice and improve their cognitive functions.
Neuroscientists at Stanford University conducted fantastic research in which they identified the gene that codes for the protein responsible for age-related cognitive decline. By suppressing this gene by special antibodies, the researchers were able to rejuvenate the brains of the mice and improve their cognitive functions.
To go deeper into the subject, we must start talking about microglia, cells responsible for carrying out immune functions in the nervous system. One of the main functions of microglia is to eliminate protein deposits and cell debris that result from normal brain activity.
For several years it has been known that the functioning of microglia diminishes with aging. Tony Wyss-Coray, Ph.D., professor of neurology and neurological sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine, proposed that the diminished function of microglia could be linked to the cognitive decline experienced by the elderly. It is important to mention that various neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease are associated with abnormal activity of the microglia.
The hunt for a cognitive decline gene
Wyss-Coray and his team undertook two concurrent research lines. In a set of experiments, the team chose approximately 3,000 genes related to microglia that could be inhibited with drugs. The mouse microglia cells were cultured and blocked 3000 genes one by one to evaluate, which allowed improving the function of these cells.
In another group of experiments, the team took the same 3,000 genes and evaluated the activity of each in young and old mice, to determine which genes modified their activity levels with age.
When they compared the results of the two studies, they found a gene that modifies the ability of cells to eliminate cellular waste and whose activity decreases significantly with age. The gene is known as CD22 and is found in both mice and humans. In a subsequent analysis, the researchers determined that the concentrations of the CD22 protein encoded by this gene were three times more frequent in the microglia of older mice than in young mice.
Blocking the effects of CD22
Once the gene was identified, the researchers decided to block CD22 proteins using special antibodies that only acted on these proteins, and did not affect the functioning of nerve cells. The antibodies were administered on one side of the mice's brain, and to establish control they administered a different antibody that did not modify the activity of the CD22 protein on the other side of the brain.
To evaluate the activity of the microglia in the elimination of cellular debris, they used fluorescence-labeled bits of myelin. Myelin is one of the main targets of microglia elimination, and it also tends to accumulate in aged brains. After 48 hours, the scientists observed that there were far fewer myelin fragments left on the side of the brain where the CD22 proteins were blocked.
The team conducted this experiment again to determine if the rejuvenated microglia were able to eliminate the beta-amyloids related to Alzheimer's and the residues of the alpha-synuclein protein related to Parkinson's. The results were positive.
With this experiment, the researchers showed that it is possible to block this gene and improve the ability of old brains to eliminate a large variety of waste proteins related to serious cognitive diseases.
Turning back the hands of time
After a month of continuous infusion of CD22 antibodies on both sides of the mice's brain, the researchers managed to improve the learning and memory of these mice to the point where they significantly outperformed control mice of the same age.
However, we must bear in mind that it is still too early to be excited about the possibility that this research will produce a drug that will rejuvenate the mental acuity of the elderly. But the fact that CD22 is found in both the human and mouse genome certainly makes this a promising research area to keep an eye on.
Two long-term clinical studies reveal that Tylenol eliminates not only the pain but also human empathy, which adds to its long list of adverse effects.
Over the past decades, we have observed that synthetic chemicals produce a wide variety of adverse effects that are recognized many years after populations were exposed to these drugs.
The risks inherent in these pharmaceutical products tend to be higher than their natural alternatives. A clear example of this is the over-the-counter painkillers. Aspirin is no longer considered safe for use in the primary prevention of cardiovascular diseases. Recently it was shown that ibuprofen has a negative effect on cardiac function. Moreover, the psychological deterioration caused by Tylenol is confirmed, which adds to its well-established liver toxicity.
A scientific study conducted in 2015 revealed that Tylenol, whose active compound is paracetamol, causes severe side effects that affect the social behavior of people, such as blunting both positive and negative emotional stimuli, known clinically as "affect flattening."
A new study published in the journal Frontiers of Psychology confirms these findings. The researchers showed that paracetamol, one of the most widely used analgesics worldwide, affects the human empathic connection; specifically, reducing empathy for the suffering of others.
The study included 114 university students, who randomly received 1000 mg of paracetamol or a placebo. One hour after the administration, the subjects read scenarios about the edifying experiences of other people (different protagonists within the stories), and their responses were evaluated in order to determine their capacity for empathy.
The results showed that paracetamol reduces personal pleasure and other-directed empathic feelings, which suggests that the experience of physical pain and positive empathy may have a similar neurochemical basis. It is important to keep in mind that positive empathy is related to prosocial behavior so that excessive consumption of acetaminophen can have a negative long-term impact on society.
These findings have important practical implications. Positive empathy provides part of the "social glue" from which interpersonal links are built and strengthened. Enjoying the good fortune of others favors the interpersonal connection, promotes trust, which provides great social benefits.
A large part of Americans consumes paracetamol-containing medicines every day. Therefore, it is possible that these benefits are substantially diminished in the American population.
After the publication of these studies, the general population and the medical community should bear in mind that the administration of drugs to relieve physical pain, instead of addressing the root causes of suffering, can lead to behaviors that demonstrate a total lack of compassion and consideration for others.
Learn how to gauge the danger of your risk for heart disease.
Predicting with certainty if a person will develop a heart disease throughout their life is an almost impossible task. However, certain factors lead to a significant increase in the risk of developing heart disease.
Recently, a scientific study was published that details seven "key" prediction metrics for the development of cardiovascular diseases. The team of researchers, made up of three professors from the University of Pennsylvania (Penn State), in the United States, identified seven health indicators that directly influence the cardiovascular health and condition the development of future heart disease.
1. Body weight
2. Smoking status
3. Diet
4. Levels of physical activity
5. Blood pressure
6. Cholesterol
7. Blood sugar
The study explains that each metric has a possible score, "poor" (0 points), "intermediate" (1 point) or "ideal" (2 points), for example, smoking regularly is considered "poor", smoking in the past 12 months would be "intermediate", and never having smoked or stopped smoking more than a year ago is considered "ideal". The sum of the 7 metrics results in an overall cardiovascular health score (CHS), which allows establishing the risk of developing some heart disease in the future.
During the study, 74,701 participants were included, who completed questionnaires about their health and underwent clinical examinations and laboratory tests on three occasions over a period of 4 years. The authors followed the participants and analyzed the data obtained to determine how the CHS was linked to the development of cardiovascular diseases in these patients.
The researchers identified five patterns that patients followed during the study. These patterns included maintaining high, intermediate, or low CHS, as well as increasing and decreasing CHS over time.
During the study, the researchers found that people who scored high in all seven categories had lower risks of developing cardiovascular disease compared to people with lower scores. It was found that people who improved their scores over time had similar decreases in cardiovascular disease risk.
As a worrying fact, the researchers observed that approximately 2% of people reach the "ideal" rating in the seven indicators.
The research team also undertook the task of determining if any of these health measures were more important than the others. To evaluate this, they did repeated tests, eliminating a different, single health measure each time. They found that even then the scores predicted the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases in the future.
This suggests that overall cardiovascular health is the most important and that one factor is not more important than the others. In addition, it helps to confirm that these seven metrics are valid and constitute a useful tool to develop strategies for the prevention of these diseases.
Society is accustomed to taking medications to relieve a headache, muscle pain, an upset stomach, and even a nervous breakdown.
The problem is that, after this rapid and effective solution, the adverse effects of entering an agent external to the human body usually appear.
In this context, there is a group of drugs that many users consume on a regular basis and that are capable of significantly increasing the risk of premature death: proton pump inhibitors (PPI).
These medications are frequently used for the treatment of heartburn, gastroesophageal reflux, and gastroduodenal ulcers. PPIs, which are sold under brand names such as Prevacid, Prilosec, Nexium, and Protonix, are among the most widely used drugs in the United States. It is estimated that more than 20 million Americans consume these medications indefinitely.
A study recently published in the BMJ links the prolonged use of proton pump inhibitors with an increased risk of premature death. In addition, it was evidenced that the longer these drugs are taken, even in low doses, the greater the risk of early death.
"There was a relationship between the duration of use, and the risk of death, a more prolonged use (months or years) was associated with an even higher risk. of long-term PPI, "said lead researcher Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, a kidney specialist and assistant professor of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Previous research conducted at the University of Washington School of Medicine has linked PPI consumption to health problems such as kidney failure, fractures, pneumonia, dementia, vascular diseases; among others.
Thousands of deaths
For the study, the researchers reviewed the medical records of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. In assessing the medical data acquired between July 2002 and June 2004, the researchers identified 157,625 people, mostly white men over 65, who took PPIs, and 56,842 people taking another class of antacids such as H2 blockers. A follow-up of these patients (214,467 in total) was maintained for ten years.
The researchers showed that patients taking PPIs had a 17 percent increase in the risk of death compared to the H2 blocker group. Mortality rates for PPIs were 387 per 1,000 people, and death rates for H2 blockers were 342 per 1,000. This shows an excess of deaths (45) in patients taking PPIs. The most common causes of death among those who took these medications were heart disease, kidney disease, and gastric cancer. These results take on greater significance if we take into account the millions of people who consume PPIs, which translates into thousands of deaths each year that could be avoided.
Excessive use of proton pump inhibitors
An interesting finding of the researchers was that half of the people included in the study took PPI without any proven medical reason. In this group of patients, deaths related to PPIs were more frequent.
"The most alarming thing for me is that the people most affected by the use of PPIs do not require these medications," Al-Aly said.
The study also found that more than 80 percent of PPI users took low doses of these medications. This suggests that the risk of death is not dose-dependent and that even the use of low doses has deleterious effects on the health of people in the long term.
The Food and Drug Administration of the United States has expressed special concern about this situation and urges commercial companies to have a clearer warning about the risk involved in using PPIs in the long term, as well as to recommend the use of these medications for a period no longer than 14 days.
The Al-Aly research team will continue to study the adverse health effects related to PPIs, particularly concerning those at higher risk.
"People who are taking PPIs unnecessarily are exposed to potential harm when it is unlikely that the drugs are benefiting their health. Our study suggests the need to avoid PPIs when they are not medically necessary. For those who have a medical need, the use of PPI should be limited to the lowest effective dose and the shortest possible duration, "said Al-Aly.
Breakthrough blood test – High Sensitivity Troponin I will help save countless lives!
This blood test was implemented as part of an Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study designed to determine the causes and clinical implications of arterial obstruction due to fat deposits.
The study included more than 8,000 American men and women aged 54 to 74 years who underwent blood tests to determine troponin levels. The results showed that people who did not show signs of heart disease and had high levels of troponin I was more likely to experience cardiac events such as heart attack, stroke, and heart failure.
The enzyme that indicates heart damage
Enzymes are proteins synthesized in the body, which are responsible for accelerating various chemical reactions.
After the heart cells are damaged, enzymes inside are released into the bloodstream. This allows doctors to identify the presence of heart damage with a blood test.
The most reliable enzymes for the determination of cardiac damage are troponin T (TnT) and troponin I (TnI). Troponin levels are usually so low that they cannot be detected, so a positive troponin test usually means heart damage.
The determination of the two types of troponin allows to obtain additional information and to establish more accurately the cardiovascular risk of the patient.
The realization of this test is already approved in Europe to assess the risk of future cardiovascular events. In the U.S., it has not yet been approved, but very important advances have been made, especially with regard to its application in the prevention of heart failure prevention.
The study also showed that this test is even more effective in predicting future heart problems when it is included with the results of a cardiovascular risk calculator, which is often used to calculate 10-year risk of having a heart attack or stroke.
Other health problems
According to a study recently published in The BMJ, high levels of troponin not only indicate heart problems. This study included 1,080 patients and showed that 20 percent of people who had high troponin levels did not have signs of cardiovascular disease. However, they had other health problems, such as kidney failure, liver failure, and even acute infections.
Many clinical conditions cause elevated troponins, so in some cases, this test can yield false positives.
However, the new, very sensitive tests that can detect very small elevations of this marker in patients who are otherwise considered healthy may be useful to establish early treatment and prevent the development of myocardial infarction or stroke in several years.
Changes in lifestyle make the difference
Although there are non-modifiable risk factors for the development of cardiovascular diseases, such as sex, age, and family history, there are several measures we can take to reduce the risk of suffering from these diseases. Diet, exercise, and weight loss are the most effective methods. Not smoking is also an important factor.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the adult population. It is estimated that three of every ten deaths that occur worldwide are directly related to cardiovascular diseases, the most prevalent being stroke, coronary heart disease, and heart failure.
The concern is growing in the scientific and medical community that deaths from heart disease are increasing significantly among people who are younger than 75 years of age. This spike in cardiac has been observed for the first time in the last 50 years and is being attributed to in large extent to the increase in the incidence of diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, and obesity.
In 2017, 42,384 people died of cardiovascular disease in the United Kingdom before age 75, an increase of just over three percent compared to 41,042 in 2014. Among those under 65, there were 18,668 deaths in 2017, almost 4% more than in 17,982 five years earlier.
Glucosamine is a popular dietary supplement used to relieve osteoarthritis and joint pain. Although its efficacy on joint pain continues to be the subject of debate, the latest scientific evidence suggests that glucosamine could play an important role in the prevention of cardiovascular diseases and, consequently, in the reduction of mortality.
This is stated by a team of experts from the University of Tulane in New Orleans, LA led by Professor Lu Qi who, to further explore this possible association, collected data about the use of supplements, including glucosamine, in almost half a million British men and women without cardiovascular disease. In general, nearly one in five (19.3%) participants confirmed the use of glucosamine at the beginning of the study.
Death certificates and hospital records were used to monitor the incidence of cardiovascular disease over a seven-year period.
The results of the research, published in the British Medical Journal, indicated that the use of glucosamine supplements was associated with a 15 percent lower risk of heart attacks and strokes, and a 22 percent lower risk of death from such problems.
The results were equally promising after weighing the traditional risk factors, such as age, sex, weight (BMI), lifestyle, or diet. In fact, the association between the use of glucosamine and coronary heart disease was also stronger in smokers (a 37% lower risk) compared to those who never smoked (12%) and ex-smokers (18%).
These results could be explained by the fact that glucosamine can reduce inflammation and oxidative stress in the body, which is very beneficial in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases.
It has also been shown that glucosamine is able to mimic the benefits of a low-carbohydrate diet, which has been linked to lower cardiovascular risk.
Limitations: an observational study
However, the researchers warn that, despite the large sample size, this is an observational study, and as such, cannot prove that supplements were the reason for the best cardiovascular health among those who took them. Also, there are other limitations, such as lack of information about the dose, duration of treatment, and side effects.
"Our study provides evidence to show that the usual use of glucosamine is related to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, taking into account the observational nature of the analysis, additional research is needed to validate the findings further and explore the mechanisms," concludes the professor Qi.
A new study carried out by researchers at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Research Center in Tampa, suggests that Low-dose chemotherapy may be more effective than standard chemotherapy in the treatment of some cancers.
Standard chemotherapy is based on the elimination of as many cancer cells as possible through the administration of high doses of drugs. However, there are resistant tumor cells that survive chemotherapy. Therefore conventional therapy eliminates drug-sensitive cells, leaving space and energy resources for the replication of resistant tumor cells.
Researchers at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Research Center demonstrated that if a sufficient population of drug-sensitive cells is maintained in the tumor, they will compete with the resistant cells for the energy sources (glucose) necessary for their survival and replication.
Resistant cancer cells require a greater amount of energy resources to maintain their cellular structure. Therefore, these cells are outcompeted by drug-sensitive cells, which need fewer resources to survive. This leads to a considerable reduction of the resistant tumor cells.
Low-dose chemotherapy, also known as adaptive therapy, represents a paradigm shift in oncology research since it involves the administration of minimal doses of drugs to keep tumor growth under control. It does not seek to eliminate tumor cells completely but to keep them at bay.
The researchers tested this method in 11 patients with prostate cancer. Men who received conventional chemotherapy had a median of 16.5 months before cancer became resistant to treatment and spread through the body. In comparison, the median time to progression for men who received adaptive therapy (high initial drug dose followed by progressively lower doses) was at least 27 months.
The results reveal that adaptive therapy is more effective in controlling tumor growth than conventional therapy. In addition, patients could live longer, receiving fewer medications, which allowed reducing the presence of adverse effects and improving the quality of life of patients.
The researchers propose to consider cancer as a chronic disease and suggest that we could tolerate the existence of cancer cells in our body as long as the tumor growth is controlled by adaptive therapy.
However, experts urge caution since the studies carried out on this subject are very small and, it does not have a control group assigned at random. Therefore the results are not 100% reliable. Adaptive therapy is an approach that needs to be carefully studied in prospective clinical trials before it is adopted in clinical practice.
More trials at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Research Center are in the planning stages or underway for cancers affecting the breast, skin, and thyroid, in addition to a new, bigger trial in prostate cancer patients.
An Italian study has found that among the eldest of us, mortality rate stops rising. According to this finding, we still have not reached the very limit of how long we can live.
Worldwide, life expectancy has more than doubled since the turn of the 20th century. This is largely due to improvements in sanitation, public health, and access to food. However, new research into elderly Italians suggests our life span could be longer than has previously been recorded.
Lead author of the study, demographer Dr. Elisabetta Barbi of the University of Rome, and her colleagues published the study in Science on Thursday. Discussing the work, Dr. Barbi stated, “If there’s a fixed biological limit, we are not close to it.”
At present, the longest known life span of a human was of French woman, Jeanne Calment, who lived to the extremely advanced age of 122 and died 22 years ago. No one is recorded as having lived longer since Ms. Calment’s death in 1997.
In fact, scientists from the Bronx’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine made the resolute assertion in 2016 that human beings have reached the limits of their life span, estimated at 115 years of age, and thus argued that Ms. Calment was an even greater outlier than previously assumed.
However, this research was heavily criticized with biologist Dr. Siegfried Hekimi of McGill University stating, “The data set was very poor, and the statistics were profoundly flawed.”
Studying the human life span is a challenging task and researchers must face two key difficulties. First, very few people live to an advanced age, and second, many very elderly people cannot recall exactly how long they have lived.
Dr. Barbi acknowledges these challenges and the importance of ensuring that the age claimed by elderly people is their true age. In her and her colleagues’ study, the researchers looked through Italian records for the years 2009 to 2015 to identify every individual that had achieved the age of 105 in that time. In all cases, birth certificates were also found to verify ages.
From their survey, the researchers compiled a database consisting of 3,836 elderly Italian citizens. Death certificates were then found for those who passed away during the research period, and the mortality rate of the different age groups was determined.
Previous research has confirmed that the death rate is high in infancy and then drops in early life before increasing again when people hit their thirties. Then, when people reach their seventies and their eighties, the mortality rate shoots up dramatically and keeps rising.
However, the new research by Dr. Barbi and her colleagues suggests something different. The mortality rate among very old Italians was found to flatten out and stop increasing. Moreover, those born a bit later were found to have a marginally lower mortality rate when they hit 105 than those born earlier.
Co-author of the study, demographer Kenneth W. Wachter of the University of California, Berkeley, states that “The [mortality rate] plateau is sinking over time…Improvements in mortality extend even to these extreme ages.” According to Wachter, “We’re not approaching any maximum life span for humans yet.”
The findings of this study have been questioned by the co-author of the Bronx study asserting a 115-year limit to human life, Dr. Brandon Milholland.
Dr. Milholland points out that the Italian study included data from a single country over just seven years, which he argues constitutes a “very narrow slice of humanity.”
In addition, Dr. Milholland raises questions about the data analysis process used in the study, in that the researchers examined juts two options: 1) the mortality rate continues to climb exponentially in old age or 2) it flattens.
Dr. Milholland argues that the reality may be in between these two hypotheses: “It seems rather far-fetched that after increasing exponentially, the chance of dying should suddenly stop in its tracks.”
In contrast, Dr. Hekimi was impressed by Dr. Barbi and her colleagues’ study and the quality of the data, finding it “very interesting and surprising.”
This latest study offers no insight into why the mortality rate should plateau in extremely old individuals. It may be that some individuals have genes that make them frailer and thus more likely to die sooner, resulting in a cohort of resilient senior citizens.
According to Dr. Hekimi, however, there may be more to it than that.
Given that our cells become damaged through our lives and we cannot fully repair them, leaving our bodies increasingly weak.
Dr. Hekimi posits that extremely elderly people simply live more slowly on a cellular level. Thus, their cells are subject to less damage and can be more easily repaired.
Dr. Hekimi states that “This is a reasonable theory for which there is no proof…But we can find out if there is.”
It’s important to remember that those of us who reach our hundreds have not necessarily found the secret to living forever. Dr. Barbi and her colleagues’ study still finds that centenarians have a much higher likelihood of dying year after year than someone in their nineties.
How much longer you live once you hit 100 may largely be a matter of chance.
Nonetheless, Newcastle University’s Associate Dean for Aging, Dr. Tom Kirkwood, who was not part of the Italian research, affirms that it won’t be easy to break the record set by Jeanne Calment: “The higher the ceiling gets set as records are successively broken, the harder it gets to break it.”
Recent research has shown that a five-minute neck scan can predict a person's risk of developing dementia a decade in advance.
According to a study conducted by scientists at the University College London (UCL), the evaluation of the pulse of the blood vessels in the neck could become an essential tool for the analysis of cognitive deterioration.
During this study, 3200 patients aged between 58 and 74 years old underwent a neck ultrasound in 2002, 14 years before their cognitive functions were evaluated.
The researchers showed that people who had intense and irregular pulses were 50% more likely to suffer cognitive disorders.
The indemnity of the arteries surrounding the heart allows the blood flow to be maintained at a constant speed and power. The deterioration of the arteries causes the blood to flow more aggressively and irregularly to the brain, which can damage the network of blood vessels of the brain and neurons. The researchers believe that over time this condition led to a greater cognitive decline in the people studied.
An unhealthy lifestyle (poor diet, use of drugs or smoking) causes the walls of the arteries to weaken and can no longer dampen the flow of blood from the heart, which causes the pulses to be increasingly intense.
"Dementia is not an inevitable cause of aging; lifestyle has a considerable impact on people's cognitive decline." Dr. Scott Chiesa, a post-doctoral researcher at UCL, commented.
"Maintaining adequate cardiac function and stable blood pressure is associated with a lower risk of developing dementia," said Carol Routledge, Research Director of Alzheimer's Research UK, who was not involved in the research.
Multiple studies confirm that the reduction of cerebral blood flow plays an essential role in the development of vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disease. These two conditions are the main cause of cognitive impairment worldwide.
Dementia is a general term used to describe symptoms related to loss of brain function. There is currently no cure for dementia, although medications can be used to temporarily treat the symptoms associated with this disease.
According to the World Health Organization, around 50 million people suffer from dementia worldwide, and the figures are expected to increase to 152 million by 2050.
In the United States, dementia is the sixth leading cause of death in adults, according to data published by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States, while in the United Kingdom this condition has overcome heart disease as the leading cause of death, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Promising results
The findings of the study have caused cautious optimism on the part of the organizations responsible for the diagnosis and treatment of dementia.
"In many cases, the diagnosis of dementia can be very time consuming and frustrating for patients, so it is very helpful to carry out research to determine the conditions that contribute to cognitive decline," said Paul Edwards, Director of Clinical Services of Dementia UK.
Although the findings of this research are promising, more research is needed to determine if neck scans should be part of routine tests for the diagnosis of dementia.
Medical researchers are thrilled over the results of a newly completed study into how Alzheimer’s takes hold in the human body. Marc Diamond, a primary collaborator on this new Alzheimer’s study describes the results of this study as…
"This is perhaps the biggest finding we have made to date even though effective clinicals may not materialize for several years. The study has been a big win because it changes much of how we think about the disease and as a result, how to beat it.”
Most research into Alzheimer's focuses on a specific protein called amyloid beta. A clumping of that protein is suspected as being the primary pathological cause of the disease's symptoms. But after many different clinical trial failures in drugs designed to target those amyloid beta plaques, some scientists have turned their attention and research towards alternative approaches including new research on a completely different protein.
The different protein, called tau, has been found to form abnormal clumps in the brain, called neurofibrillary tangles, which can accumulate and kill neurons. More and more researchers are beginning to hypothesize that this is actually the primary causative source of Alzheimer's disease.
When and how Alzheimer's disease develops has been a mystery. So the new study on these tau proteins and how they begin to accumulate into tangles in the brain is starting to catch the attention of the medical community.
America's blood pressure is way too high. In fact, nearly one in four men between the ages of 35 and 44 has hypertension, as well as 12% of men between 20 and 34, according to the American Heart Association. It's so bad that the Institute of Medicine is urging the government to start trying to shake salt out of our diet since too much of this key taste enhancer can cause you to retain water in your blood, which adds volume and boosts blood pressure. This, in turn, exposes you to a greater risk of heart attack, stroke, and even erectile dysfunction.
But sodium isn't the only culprit. Smoking, excessive drinking, inactivity, and bad food choices can also make your arteries burst at the seams. Worse, you may never know what hit you. "Many men don't pay attention to their blood pressure until they're older," says nephrologist George Bakris, M.D., president of the American Society of Hypertension. "But you don't experience symptoms until it's very high."
But there's good news amid the gloom: Keeping your blood pressure out of the danger zone doesn't have to be just about restraint. Use our expert advice to find your perfect—and perfectly fun—pressure-release valves.
Keep your blood flowing by hopping into the sack two or more times a week. Men who do are 65% less likely to develop cardiovascular disease, compared with those who have sex less than once a month on average, according to a recent New England Research Institute study. In a 2006 study, people who had sex at least once over a 2-week period had lower blood pressure than those who engaged in no sexual activity, and their blood vessels responded better to stress.
Listening to 30 minutes a day of "rhythmically homogeneous" music (that is, anything with a steady beat), combined with breathing exercises, can lower your systolic blood pressure by more than 4 points after 3 months, according to a 2008 Italian study.
The key is to cue up the right type of music, says Michael Miller, M.D., who coauthored a different music study in 2008. That study found that when people relaxed and breathed steadily while listening to music they found pleasurable—whether it was Mozart or Maroon 5—the linings of their blood vessels dilated by 26%. Those who listened to music that made them anxious experienced a 6% narrowing of their blood vessels.
Pumping 23,000 rounds of ammo into space aliens should do wonders for your stress and, by extension, your blood pressure. But sorry, you need to stand up from the couch to make video games count. The American Heart Association officially stamped its seal of approval on Nintendo's motion-sensor-based Wii Fit Plus and Wii Sports Resort games, recommending them as legitimate ways to stay active.
Danish researchers who analyzed data from 75,000 men found that those who had only two drinks a day were 31% less likely to develop coronary heart disease. That's because alcohol, in modest amounts, makes your arteries larger and more pliable, which in turn lowers your blood pressure.
Whether you're ROFLing or just LOLing, you're doing your arteries good. Laughing at a funny movie causes blood vessels to dilate by 22%, according to a 2006 study from the University of Maryland. The physical act of laughing causes the tissue forming the inner lining of your blood vessels to expand, allowing for an increase in blood flow and reducing blood pressure, says Dr. Miller.
October was National Depression Awareness Month. Mental Health Awareness Week is in March.
The existence of such calendar events bespeaks a lot of progress. It wasn’t very long ago that mental health was the problem no one talked about.
We’re more forthcoming now, but there’s still a long way to go. And it is important that we talk about depression in particular.
It is the second most common mental health issue in the US, touching nearly 7% of Americans each year, some 16 million of us. Only anxiety disorders afflict more people.
Depression is a disease that calls on the people around the affected person to do the right thing as well. Not one single, depressed person has ever been helped by a family member or friend telling them to snap out of it.
If you believe someone you care about is depressed, there are limited things you can do to help. But they might help a lot.
You will probably be at a loss to know what to do sometimes. But these things will make a difference.
First, be clear in your mind before you offer any opinion or advice that depression is not a character flaw. That’s crucial. Critical. Vital. All-important. This is a point we cannot overemphasize.
Depression is not a weakness that a “strong” person would shrug off.
Nor does it spring from a lack of proper gratitude or appreciation. A depressed person may know quite well that he has a beautiful family, a good job, and a fortunate lifestyle… and still be depressed. Because it is a disease, not a decision. John Lennon and Mark Twain suffered from depression, and they had all that… plus enormous talent and the adulation of millions.
The reason that realizing depression is a disease is the first step in dealing with a depressed friend is that your attitude matters. There’s honesty in confessing that a depressed person’s behavior frustrates you. But pretending to be sympathetic if a corner of your mind is thinking, “he/she could get over this if he wanted to” will undo any help you would like to offer.
In fact, when depressed, a person is often acutely sensitive to criticism, and worse, tends to believe he deserves it. It is hard to convince someone in the throes of severe depression to accept a compliment. Criticism sinks right in.
If your friend broaches the subject of medicine or counseling, be completely supportive. That’s a hurdle that is hard for many to jump. Depression is a medical condition. A medical advisor is completely sensible. So is counseling. Please don’t tell anyone who is depressed your opinion on “Prozac Nation,” the overmedicating of America, how people didn’t use to have these kinds of problems back in grandpa’s day, or any other ill-informed and mean-spirited declamation.
If your friend wants to talk, let them know you will listen. Then listen.
Hold back on offering solutions instead of your ear. If you really have the answer to a problem, that’s fine. But resist the urge to fix everything. It’s abysmally hard to do that at times. There is nothing finer in life than being able to help someone you love, and it can be acutely uncomfortable to know you cannot solve another person’s problems for them.
Reach out, too. When someone is depressed, inactivity and isolation are extremely likely coping tactics, even if they aren’t good ones. Your friend may have a reason why dinner on Friday doesn’t work this week, or a movie doesn’t interest them today. Keep reaching out. Make it easy for your friend to stay in touch (and harder to hide). When you do arrange a meeting, you may have to opt for less time than usual to avoid overdoing it, but you will have helped your friend nonetheless by keeping him engaged with life.
If you are very close and have a long history, you may come to know the signs of oncoming depression. Depression tends to be cyclic. Contrary to the usual image, the depressed person is not always a sad, crying mess. For many, the first sign of depression may be high irritability, anger, or tiredness. If you are close to someone, this is when you can ask how they are feeling and mention what you see happening.
And finally (for today, although this is a big topic) if you are in a relationship that ties you to the depressed person, take care of yourself. As the wife/ husband, son/daughter, or lifelong best friend you won’t want to walk away. Yet at times, you will feel like running as far and fast in the opposite direction as you can go. If you are in one of these relationships that means you are strongly tied to the depressed person, take yourself to a psychologist or counselor if you need the support. Do it without recriminations and blame. And then give yourself all the attention you need. Get counseling, not for the other person, for you.
If you’re not a runner now, but you’ve thought about it, science just gave you another reason.
Running lowers the risk of premature death by 27%. And if you’re short on time in your daily routine (or a burning urge to run) the good news is that this benefit is yours even if you only run once a week.
This finding comes from a large-scale study of studies—a meta-analysis. It pulled together results from 14 separate studies that involved 232,149 people and tracked them from 5.5 to 35 years.
When all the data was melded and crunched, runners had an edge too significant to dismiss.
Runners not only tended to live longer, but they also had a 30% lower incidence of cardiovascular disease and 22% lower rates of cancer.
The true benefits of running have been argued hotly over the years. What makes this study so significant is the number of people analyzed and how long they were tracked. In addition to that, this meta-analysis covered a wide spectrum of people defined as runners, not just marathoners and dedicated road warriors. Some ran regularly and long, some ran more infrequently and for shorter times.
It didn’t matter. The health effects of running did not seem to depend on the dose. Any amount of running will probably be good for you as long as you maintain sanity.
In fact, it’s only when runners log more than 250 minutes a week that running seems to be bad for them.
Apart from knees, shins, and feet, that is. While running does not call for extreme training or elite equipment, a good pair of well-fitting shoes and a safe place to practice are necessary.
It’s also a good idea to begin slowly. Don’t run too long, and don’t try to set a new land for speed right away.
But if the whole idea of running seems as daunting as climbing the Himalayas, relax. Learning to run is something you can approach in steps. You can begin by walking faster and adding some arm pumping.
But the best way to get into real running is with intervals. Walk, then add a short spurt of running. For instance, you might begin with 30 seconds of running and then walking until your heart rate slows down again. Keep increasing your run time until you get to 2 minutes interspersed with 4 minutes of walking. Keep adding a minute of running each week. When you can run for 5 minutes, cut the walking down to 3 minutes.
And so it goes… Within weeks you should be able to run for 15-30 minutes. You’ll be healthier, possibly thinner, and you’ll be doing what you can to live long and well.
You already know that wearing sunscreen can prevent a nasty burn.
Now it turns out that blocking ultraviolet light has an additional benefit you probably don’t know about.
Sunscreen may protect your blood vessels.
As with many biological functions, nitric oxide (NO) is a key player in what happens. NO is a powerful vasodilator—it helps blood vessels open wider.
Vasodilation of the tiny vessels near the surface of your skin is critical to your survival because it helps regulate your body temperature, which protects you from heat stress.
When sunlight hits the skin, the ultraviolet rays disrupt NO production on your skin.
In theory, scientists felt that because more sun leads to less NO, sunlight might be bad for your blood vessels.
A recent study at the University of Pennsylvania tested the idea and found what happens to blood vessels near the surface when skin is exposed to ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Test subjects had one arm left bare—no sunscreen. The other arm was treated with sunscreen; then the two arms received the same sun exposure.
On the bare arms, vasodilation was impaired. Vasodilation worked efficiently on the arms that were covered with sunscreen.
In addition to sunscreen, some subjects’ arms were doused with moisture to mimic sweat. The results were the same. But the interesting thing was when no sunscreen was present, sweat alone had some protective properties. Not as much as sunscreen, however.
Researchers used an SPF 50 sunscreen in the experiment and considered that was the bare minimum needed to protect vasodilation. SPF’s over 50 probably do not have any greater ability to block ultraviolet rays.
Dr. S. Tony Wolf, who led the study, says, “People who experience repeated and/or prolonged exposure to the sun -- those who work or exercise outdoors, tourists, etc. -- should consider using sunscreen, not only to protect against skin cancer but also against reductions in skin vascular function."
Now you have at least four good reasons for sunscreen—you won’t burn, your skin will stay younger looking, you will lower your chances of skin cancer, and you will protect your blood vessels.
Christy Brinkley broke her arm on Dancing with the Stars. Chrissy Teigen fell down the stairs at home. Daniel Craig had the distinction of falling and hurting himself on two different James Bond movies.
They’re proof that you don’t have to be over 65 to suffer a fall. But the odds sure do get higher.
The Center for Disease Control estimates that every year about one-third of people over age 64 who live in the community (that is, not in nursing homes) will fall.
By age 70, the fall rate rises above 40% per year.
The reasons for this are multiple. Alcohol is certainly a factor in some cases. So are medicines that cause sluggishness or disorientation. Poor balance is a culprit. So are some foot and ankle afflictions like gout or neuromas. But how you walk and stand can also affect your chance of falling. About one in five falls can be attributed to gait or posture.
That’s something you can work on—better standing by sitting…
In other words, you need the exercise with the world’s least glamorous name: squats.
For those who cannot perform a true squat without props, there’s a variation that’s quite safe—the “chair sit to stand.”
The idea behind the “chair sit” is simple. First, you find a safe armchair. One that is heavy, sturdy, has two arms, and won’t slide. That will probably be in your living room. Stand in front of it and slowly sit down using your leg muscles as much as possible to control your descent.
Don’t fall or plop. Go down slowly. You can use your arms for support. Relax a moment, then stand slowly. Again, use your legs to power yourself as much as possible.
As you get better, try doing it with only one arm for support. And when you get very good, see if you can do it with no arm support at all. Practice several sits every day.
If (or when) you are so strong you don’t need an armchair, just practice a regular squat. You can even challenge yourself by holding weights.
The squat makes your legs stronger. Those stronger legs hold you up better. They also increase your ability to catch yourself if you trip.
Strong legs also play an important role in walking with good posture instead of leaning forward and leading the way with your head. The muscle at the front of your thigh, the quadriceps femoris, is the largest in your body. It is essential for correct leg movement and support. Strong quads also support your trunk to counteract the tendency to lean forward while walking. A forward lean is associated with a higher risk of falls.
When your sitting practice is over, treat yourself to a nice long walk. You might be surprised how much easier it is to walk uphill after all that squat practice with your new strong quads in play.
At times, mind power alone can cause healing that surpasses the effects of drugs. Scientists see it all the time when they run clinical trials on drugs that use placebos for control.
Traditionally, a placebo is a “sugar pill” that has no medicine in it. It could also be a cream, a tonic, an inhalant or a make-believe laser treatment. Whatever the form, thousands of experiments have proved that when people are told something works, a fair number of them may get better. Even if it’s just a sugar pill.
A related phenomenon that fewer people know about is the “nocebo.” In that case, a person who hears or reads about a list of symptoms comes to believe they also have them and fears they have the disease that those symptoms imply. Medical students are famous for this.
Your mind power is obviously part of why you can help yourself feel better or calm down with meditation or visualization.
It can also help you help someone else, and that’s good news for those of us who are caregivers. Whether it’s your aging parents, your patients, or your children, your “vibe” matters.
Stanford professor Alia Crum has made a specialty of studying the effect of the mind on medical and athletic outcomes. She was inspired by the idea of the placebo. And she discovered that caregivers could not only offer some patients placebos that would help them but could also affect whether or not the placebo worked and how well.
In one experiment, Crum and her colleagues tested how doctors’ personalities affected healing with a placebo. They gave patients a skin prick that caused an itchy allergic reaction. Then they “treated” the area with a placebo skin cream.
The twist was that the physicians acted out different characteristics. Some were warm, some were aloof. Some conveyed a high sense of competence, others did not.
The placebo’s results were much stronger among patients who received treatment from a caregiver who was both “warm” and seemingly competent.
The patient can’t be manipulated too easily by an outside force, however. Although both warmth and competence made the placebo more effective, they worked MUCH better for patients who had a positive expectation to start.
Unlike research scientists, caregivers can talk up what they are doing to help condition their patients to expect good results. Then add a dose of warmth and competence for the full effect.
If you aren’t using a placebo, though, that’s a combination that may work even better with real drugs.
Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year’s, and Kwanza converge in midwinter when skies are dark and much of the world is cold. It’s no wonder we celebrate these seasons with lights, evergreens, and sweets.
Take a moment, though, in planning your festivities to remember the dog and cat. Also ferrets, mice, rabbits or any other critters that share your house.
Start with greenery. Rover probably doesn’t need a mistletoe lure to give you a big sloppy kiss. But if he eats it, that’s trouble.
Quite a few traditional holiday greens need watching. Christmas trees, typically a variety of pine or fir, are mildly toxic. If the dog chews one branch or the cat swipes at them and rolls around in pine-needle litter, there’s probably no harm done.
Other evergreens are not so benign. Holly, like mistletoe, is toxic. So is the sap from poinsettias.
And that beautiful amaryllis is also known as belladonna. It’s so deadly it’s not even a good idea to have it indoors if you have an inquisitive pet.
Even if your critters don’t chew the greenery, there’s a less obvious threat they are likely to encounter. That’s the water in the base of your live tree. The trees are often treated with pesticides and preservatives that can leach into the water.
Symptoms of poisoning from these plants include vomiting and diarrhea, which you will surely notice. But also pay attention if your pets are suddenly licking themselves more than usual or drinking more water than they normally do.
If they’re not eating the greens, the next spot to watch is the table. Most people know that chocolate is poisonous to dogs. But there’s an even worse threat that many people miss—artificial sweeteners. Xylitol is the greatest threat.
If a dog gets hold of sugar-free chewing gum, breath mints, even candy canes hanging from your tree that are sweetened with xylitol, it could prove fatal. A severe reaction could come within 10-60 minutes, but can also be delayed for as long as a day. Xylitol has a different effect on canines than it does on humans. For humans, it does not affect insulin levels. For dogs, it causes a flood of insulin to hit the bloodstream, leading to hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). Cats are adversely affected by xylitol as well, but they tend not to react as strongly as dogs.
While you are guarding the sweets, watch out for anything with raisins, nuts or nutmeg. No eggnog or mincemeat for your four-footed friends either.
Of course holiday lights, Christmas trees, and Hanukkah bushes can render a shock to any animal that bites through a cord. But inert garlands can be a problem, too, especially for cats that like to swat pretty sparkly things and roll around until they are thoroughly tangled. Pets can also chew the tinsel, which can cause blockages in their digestive systems.
With all these threats to avoid, rewards are in order. Give the good dog a rawhide bone and throw kitty a catnip mouse. Enjoy the season.
“Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat” is a best-selling cookbook. Those four elements are chef-attested keys to good cooking. But two of them may be culprits in cooking that’s TOO good. Along with certain carbohydrates and sugar, salt and fat go into foods that scientists call “hyperpalatable.”
In plain words, that means food we can’t resist. Once we start, we overeat with them. Think buttered popcorn, pizza, Oreos, Ritz crackers, potato chips, M&M’s. You think you can just avoid those and solve the problem…. Not so fast!
Two University of Kansas researchers who specialize in addiction tackled the problem of obesity to see how much addictive temptations could be a factor in the crisis of the expanding American waistline. They searched the US Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrient database of 7,757 foods for ones that were hyperpalatable.
Hyperpalatable foods come in three profiles:
It may seem from those examples that we only need to watch out for snack foods and treats, but that’s not the case. Unless you are cooking from scratch for every meal, relying mostly on vegetables and a little fruit, hyperpalatable foods are lurking everywhere. Barbecue sauce on baked chicken, olives, macaroni and cheese, and glazed carrots are likely to turn up for dinner.
What researchers Tera Fazzino and Kaitlyn Rohde found when they looked at the USDA database was the 60% of the foods it listed were hyperpalatable. The most abundant combination was foods in the fat/salt cluster, which includes omelets, bacon, hot dogs, cheeseburgers, nachos, potato chips, pepperoni pizza, and cream style soups and chowders.
One of the problems we face when we decide to lose weight is that food companies have a very good idea of what makes us crave more. So if we choose low-fat foods, they are likely to be extremely high in salt to keep us gobbling. Salt is sneaky enough, but sugar is a whole different prospect. A cup of that low-fat yogurt you have virtuously made yourself eat may have the equal of 12 teaspoons of sugar in it. A whole Snickers bar doesn’t have that much sugar.
The cure for food entrapment if you are trying to keep your waistline in check comes to two defenses. You can cook from scratch if you have the time and inclination. Or you can read labels. You might even realize that you can afford a treat like an occasional candy bar if you learn to avoid sneaky hyperpalatable foods.
You’re reading this. You’re awake. And this morning you could have said, “I got up because….
Complete “today I got up because…” any way you like. But look at that last choice.
It’s about purpose.
You may think of purpose as a grand idea—the whole meaning of life, for instance.
This is not about that. Because when it comes down to your health, it is “purpose” on a smaller-scale, in a more personal sense that matters. This everyday purpose is simply your reason to get up gladly and get through a day with satisfaction.
A study of more than 9,000 people aged 65 or older that was published in Lancet a few years ago proved that point well. The researchers discovered that a sense of purpose and meaningfulness in life were two of the critical elements to a sense of wellbeing. In turn, people with a strong sense of wellbeing were likely to live longer.
Now, what about you? You’ve probably enjoyed a sense of purpose many times throughout your life. A high school student studies to get into a good college. That’s purpose. Young parents have purpose in spades when they are raising and guiding children.
But feeling your sense of purpose can be more elusive when you’re between goals. The infamous “empty-nest syndrome” isn’t just about missing the children’s company; it’s also about losing a life focus that drives every day and makes it feel meaningful.
At those other stages of life—when your work years are over or the job has begun to feel routine, or when the children are gone, or you’ve accomplished the big goal you worked for—that’s when thinking about small-scale purpose is good for your mental health and your longevity.
I’ve seen it happen. After numerous major heart attacks and constant severe angina, my father was unquestionably handicapped. He could no longer work or pursue the active hobbies and sports he’d loved earlier in life. Yet he remained one of the most grateful and contented people I’ve ever known. For him, purpose became the vegetable garden and his goal to feed impeccable fresh vegetables to all his family and half the county. He sometimes had to go out to the garden, sit on a bucket, work for 10 minutes, and come back inside to recover several times a day to do that. But he continued. He not only lived happily, but he also lived 20 years longer than his cardiologist ever expected.
So, if you’re not studying for anything at the moment, trying for career advancement, or focused on some other big goal, think about it. What’s your daily purpose? Find one. It could be as simple as making two people smile every day or as ambitious as saving the planet.
In the Lancet study mentioned earlier, which followed those 9,000 people for 8 ½ years, only 9% of the most purposeful people had died by the end of the study. Among those with the lowest sense of wellbeing and purpose, 29% died.
Having a purpose sounds noble, but figuring out what yours is might be the best selfishly practical and wholesome thing you could do for yourself today.
Every doctor’s visit starts the same way in most practices. Someone takes your temperature, your blood pressure and your pulse. The vitals.
Obviously temperature will reveal whether you have a fever or not. Blood pressure reveals a lot, too. But what story does your pulse tell? It may advertise how fit you are.
On health sites all over the web, you will read that the “normal” pulse for adults is 60 to 80 beats per minute (bpm). Some sites extend that to 100 beats a minute, with women tending to have somewhat higher rates than men.
The higher range is questionable. A study published in the British Journal of Medicine found that the risk of heart disease among women was linked to a 26% higher risk for heart disease within several years for the women whose pulses were higher than 76 bpm.
Your “resting heart rate” measures your pulse when you are relaxed—not stressed, not unusually worried, not soon after you’ve exercised. Depending on how fast you recover, that could be two hours after strenuous exercise. The term “resting heart rate” is open to some confusion. Some people consider the real resting pulse to be your heart rate when you first wake up, before you have moved around at all. You might want to check that out of curiosity. It will probably be lower than your daytime resting when you are not as relaxed.
In general, the rules are these:
It’s not just women who need to keep an eye on their pulse, though. A 16-year-long study on 3,000 men found the chance of death was doubled for those men who had resting heart rates between 81 and 90. It was three times as high for those who had pulses over 90.
If your pulse falls under 60, you have bradycardia—which means slow pulse. If it’s over 100, it is medically defined as tachycardia. In both cases, you should ask your doctor to check that all is well. Well-conditioned athletes often have resting heart rates under 60 and it’s a good sign.
When researchers measured the subjects physical fitness by using VO2 Max, they found a regular, strong association between fitness and pulse. The higher the pulse, the lower the VO2Max. Lower VO2Max indicates less oxygen in the bloodstream and poorer physical condition.
Certain habits can raise your resting heart rate—drinking alcohol, worry, becoming dehydrated, and stimulants like caffeine. These are temporary effects.
For a longer-term and truly beneficial change, it is possible to change your resting rate for the better with exercise. If you can handle 150 minutes a week of aerobic exercise, you’re almost certain to make a difference unless something else, like a medicine you take, interferes. Yoga is also proven to be effective.
But if those sound daunting, you can begin easily. Harvard Health recommends regular brisk walks, swimming or bicycling as well.
Onions rank with celery as a workhorse vegetable that is rarely praised. The French have elevated them to star status in onion soup, but most of the time the stinky vegetable hides in the base of soups, stews, sauces, marinades, casseroles, stir fries, stuffings, and purees.
Onions deserve more respect, especially shallots. While all members of the allium family, which also includes leeks and garlic, are healthy because of their flavonoid content, the shallot excels.
The flavor of the shallot is a little less assertive than an onion and noticeably sweeter and silkier when cooked. Some people say the taste is between a mild onion and garlic. Professional chefs love them. They are the correct choice for classic French dishes like beurre blanc and Coq au Vin. But don’t stop there. You may find some of your own tried and true recipes step up a notch with shallots in place of onions.
Flavor and flavonoids are not the only reason to start using more shallots. Here are five more reasons shallots are good for you:
In one interesting study on the shallot’s microbial power, researchers tested a lip salve made of shallots on 60 volunteers with cold sores. Almost a third of them found their cold sores cleared within 6 hours. The rest got relief within 24 hours.
Some 40 million Americans are doing the right thing. They are taking their blood pressure medicine. But are they doing it right?
High blood pressure, or hypertension, has been a major medical challenge in the US for a long time. Over the years, you have probably heard it mentioned so many times, that there’s a chance you’ve tuned it out and haven’t noticed that the advice has changed greatly in the last year.
First up, there are new guidelines. In 2017 about 75 million Americans had high blood pressure. In 2018, that rose to 100 million. We didn’t get suddenly more unhealthy. The rules changed. High blood pressure is now defined as any reading higher than 120 mm Hg over 80. That’s the systolic reading over the diastolic reading, as measured in mm of mercury. We don’t see them around anymore, but older blood pressure machines used a column of mercury to measure pressure, hence the mm in Hg measure.
A combined reading that busts both of those numbers definitely puts you in the high bp class. You could also join the club if just one of those numbers is too high. The systolic reading is the one most closely watched because it tends to rise more as you age. At one time, doctors advised your systolic reading could be OK if it was “100 plus your age.”
Those days are over, but systolic pressures do still tend to rise with age. That’s normal, but it’s not good. For every 20 mm your systolic pressure rises, your risk of an ischemic stroke or heart attack doubles. Ischemia (i-SKEE-mee-uh) refers to low flow caused by clot or narrowed artery.
Your diastolic pressure also carries a similar warning, where the risk doubles with every 10 mg increase.
So, what about taking your meds right?
Thanks to 19,000 people in India, we now know what’s best. When researchers asked these volunteers with high bp to take their meds at specific times of day, they found the difference mattered. Half took their medicine in the morning. The other half took it in the evening. And in the years that researchers followed both groups they found a significant difference:
Taking bp medicine at bedtime reduced the risk for heart attacks and strokes by 45%
One reason this may happen is that high blood pressure at night is a sign of trouble even if blood pressure is normal in the daytime. Most people have lower readings at night, though, and taking the medication late may work with the body’s own biorhythms more effectively.
Another surprise in the Indian research was the prophylactic effect. The healthiest volunteers, those who had not yet had a stroke or cardiac event, saw the highest benefits.
It’s an easy change if you are currently taking bp medicine. Move your bottle from your medicine cabinet to your nightstand.
Most tricks to help us commit new information to memory are a lot of work. But there is a pleasantly uncomplicated way to remember new information better—rest on it.
Just a few minutes of calm rest, not sleep, after studying or learning something new can dramatically boost your ability to remember it.
That has obvious use to students, but the constant march of new technology and our busy lives mean that everyone needs strong memory capability. You have appointments to keep, passwords to recall, procedures to follow.
Then there’s the news. How can you decide which politician is right about the Middle East if you can’t remember whether Beirut is the capital of Lebanon or
Syria or whether the Iranian government is Shi’ite or Sunni?
The rest-after-studying method is simple and proven in human trials. The first test actually occurred in the early 1900s, but for some reason, the technique wasn’t embraced by memory specialists like fancier tricks such as mnemonics or linking sets of facts to mental maps.
Then in 2009, researchers studying amnesia discovered the technique worked dramatically well for people with serious mental challenges. Short-term memory (less than one minute) is usually fine with amnesia; it’s long-term memory that is impaired.
In the 2009 trial, researchers gave 24 people a list of words to remember. Twelve of those people had amnesia; the other 12 in the control group had normal memories and IQ levels.
Each group was split into “filled” and “unfilled” subgroups. The people whose time between tests was “filled” were asked to look at pictures with words superimposed on them. They were told to ignore the words and name what was in the pictures. The “unfilled” group rested in a darkened room without reading or any other task.
Participants with amnesia only remembered 10% to 20% of the words if they began the picture-naming task within six minutes after getting the word list. Patients whose time was unfilled, who rested before being asked to recall words a second time remembered 55% of the word list.
But what is interesting about this experiment is that the control group showed remarkable results, too. They remembered 50% to 60% of the words even when they were given the picture-naming task. But when their time was unfilled—so there was no interference while their brain encoded memories—they also showed a significant leap in what they recalled, about 80% of the word list.
You can easily incorporate this technique into your life, for anything you want to remember. Study, then rest. Or watch an informative TV show, then rest. Listen to a lecture on tape or podcast, then rest. Read a book until you come to something you want to remember, and then rest awhile. Simple, but effective.
This morning, the email deluge included a notice that yet another drug carried a potential risk of cancer.
If everything goes according to the usual script, by the end of the week, I expect to see headlines blaring “X Raises Cancer Risk!”
I’m not mentioning the drug in this case because (1) you probably aren’t taking it and (2) it’s the principle that counts. The principle of balancing risk and reward, that is.
Every decision you make carries a risk as well as a reward. Especially the choices that affect your health. You know that the next candy bar you eat won’t make your waist swell 5” immediately or bring on diabetes within 24 hours. But you also know that a pattern of eating lots of candy bars could accomplish both results. Most of us take the route of indulging in the occasional treat, but not making it a daily habit. It’s a reasonable balance.
You are used to handling such choices because you have an innate feel for how much risk is the proper balance for a given reward. Eating a candy bar is one thing, dashing between cars traveling 80 mph to grab a dollar bill on the highway is quite a different thing. You can make those decisions easily and competently.
The trouble comes with news releases like the one that landed in my inbox this morning. Cancer is a disease so frightening, we are apt to shun anything new that might lead to it. But in this case, the research only showed some correlation—people taking the drug had somewhat higher cancer rates. There was no controlled research trial that made the association clear and certain. What’s more, there was no causal link—if researchers can’t figure out the mechanism that causes something, the relationship is dubious. The famous case of the rooster who believed he made the sun come up every time he crowed is a good example.
In addition to those vagaries, the drug in question was for obesity and was only given to people with a BMI (body mass index) over 30. Because of their weight, those patients were already at high risk for heart disease, stroke, diabetes, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, breathing problems, gallbladder disease, gout, and –here’s the clinker—cancer, as well.
In other words, there might be a risk of cancer with the drug, and there’s certainly a risk of cancer without it or some other treatment to reverse obesity.
This is why reading such articles should not make us panic. But they should make us think.
The language drug companies and the media use can be confusing as well. If we are told that taking X cuts the risk of a certain disease by 50%, that seems huge. But if only two people in every 100 get the disease, it would mean that the rate falls to one per 100. That is called “relative risk.” It typically makes things sound bigger than they are.
“Absolute risk” is more informative. It takes those same numbers and reports the drug decreases the risk of the disease by 1%- an absolute drop from 2% to 1%. This same idea can be stated as “numbers needed to treat” (NNT). In this case, the drug needs to be given to 100 people to save one person from getting the disease.
When you have to confront risk and reward, your doctor can be your best friend in evaluating it where you stand realistically and what the wisest course might be.
It also helps to remember that everything has risk—including the risk of carrying on as usual and NOT taking a drug or undergoing treatment.
It’s the cold season. Flu is lurking. And now there’s a coronavirus to worry about.
Maybe you've already seen several people walking around in face masks and considered getting one yourself.
The irony is that a face mask on YOU won’t do you much good. But the face masks on THEM—meaning anyone else—might.
The usual paper face mask does a fairly good job of stopping contaminants like dust and tree pollen. So they are useful if you have seasonal allergies. Otherwise, not so much.
That’s because those standard loop-over-the-ear paper masks that cover your nose and mouth are moderately porous. They only block macroparticles—big ones that are 0.30 microns in diameter or larger. But viruses are microparticle, and they go right through the barrier. The recent coronavirus, first observed in Wuhan province, China, is only 0.12 microns in diameter.
There are two good things a paper mask accomplishes nonetheless. First of all, a mask may prevent you from touching your mouth and nose unthinkingly. Most often we don’t pick up cold and virus germs because someone sneezed right on us. We usually touch something with germs on it—like money, a chair back, or a countertop—then infect ourselves by touching our own mouth, nose, or eyes. Researchers who watched a group of volunteers discovered that people touch their faces 23 times per hour on average.
The other big benefit of paper masks is that they can block your sneezes and sniffles from exploding outward to infect others.
But even if you are using a face mask for allergies, chances are good you are using it wrong. The biggest mistake is using the same mask over and over again. The masks themselves pick up contaminants and you transmit them to your nose and mouth when you put a previously used mask on your face.
You may be wondering why, if these masks are so ineffective, you see doctors and surgeons wearing them. Simple hygiene. They are not protecting themselves, however. They are protecting patients. A surgeon wears a mask for the same reason he washes his hands before operating.
If you want to protect yourself from flu and virus germs there are other ways. You could order an N95 mask, called a respirator. It’s much more expensive and has to be fitted carefully to be sure it stays tightly in place with normal head movement and that there are no leaks around the edges.
A better way to avoid germs, though, is to wash hands frequently, change and launder clothes daily, and stay as far from people with colds as possible.
As for the latest coronavirus, there is some good news, even if a mask won’t help. This virus is not as contagious as measles or as dangerous as SARS. Wash your hands well and often. Stay away from sick people and if you are sick, stay home.
There’s no official registry of New Year’s resolutions, but “getting more exercise” is surely in the top five. You need at least 150 minutes per week of moderate heart-pumping exercise to stay fit according to the American Heart Association. That’s the rule for those of us who don’t go in for heavy aerobics like running or competitive swimming.
That’s 2 ½ hours, and it sounds like a lot if you’re just thinking about starting a program. You could choose a movie and watch it as you pound the miles on a treadmill.
Fortunately, it’s easier to get that much exercise than you might think. Begin with walking. A moderate pace will do it—meaning you have to cover at least 2.5 miles per hour. Mark off a mile course then walk it. If you finish in 24 minutes or less your pace is on track. A brisk walk for most people is actually faster than that. According to research, the average walking speed for adults is 3 miles per hour or slightly more. It begins to go lower as you age but tends to stay above that level until the late 60s unless you make it a habit to keep up the pace.
A half-hour a day will meet your quota, and the neighborhood is a lot more interesting than the wall in front of a treadmill.
Other ways to get moderate exercise are easy for homeowners or renters who take care of a yard. Regular gardening counts. Mowing the lawn (not on the tractor!) will also suffice. And if your activities include heavy work like digging and hoeing, then you have entered the vigorous exercise zone. You only need 75 minutes a week of that to make the doctors at AHA smile in approval.
What else? Jump rope. Hula hoop. Shooting baskets. Doubles tennis. Frisbee. Rock climbing. Hiking a hilly trail. Volleyball. Badminton. Energetic table tennis. You can even get it bowling if you go alone or with one other person and keep rolling the balls without sitting down for five minutes between turns.
There’s also dancing. It doesn’t need to be formal aerobics if you hate taking the time for a class. Just turn on the music and move.
It may surprise you, but housework can count, too. Heavy cleaning can improve the fitness of your house and yourself. Sweeping, mopping, and vacuuming count… but only if you work vigorously the whole time without taking breaks. So does energetically washing and waxing the car.
If you like to swim, good. If you like the water, but actually swimming not so much, you can meet your exercise quota by just walking back and forth through waist-high water. Tougher than it sounds!
This could be your excuse for an indulgence you would love to try—sailing? Horseback riding?
As you can see, those 150 minutes start to pile up with a little strategic planning. Sweep and mop the house end to end one day... .wash the car the next... rake leaves and weed the garden on the third day…
With any luck, you won’t have to get on a treadmill and everyone will think you are working out like a saint.
Every state is quirky. In some parts of Maryland, longtime natives shun the green bean casserole for Thanksgiving and put a big bowl of health food on the table.
If you’re smiling already, you guessed it. Sauerkraut.
Not that the holiday version dressed with a little bacon, brown sugar and grated apple is as perfect as the basic product, but sauerkraut is definitely up to some good. Because it starts with cabbage, it’s loaded with fiber, and vitamins C, K, and B6. Sauerkraut is also rich in iron and manganese. It contributes some copper to your diet, too.
Technically, sauerkraut is a processed food because it is fermented before eating. This is one time when processed is good.
When cabbage turns into sauerkraut, the magic of fermentation is what takes the lowly healthy cabbage to another plane. Then it becomes an impressive probiotic food.
A cup of sauerkraut contains about 3 billion colony-forming units (CFUs) of beneficial bacteria. That’s rich. But what is even more virtuous is the variety. Many low-priced probiotics contain only a strain or two of bacteria. Sauerkraut contains around 28 strains.
Sauerkraut is known to improve digestion because of those probiotics and enzymes. The effect, as with many good natural products, occurs slowly and gently. There is some quick benefit, though. As Marylanders know, on the holiday table with fatty, rich foods in abundance, the acid of sauerkraut helps settle the stomach.
Another reason to embrace sauerkraut is its potential in controlling weight. That happens for two reasons. Sauerkraut itself is low in calories, so eating more of it during a meal means eating less of high-calorie alternatives. But in one experiment where volunteers were required to overeat, sauerkraut had a surprising effect. The volunteers were split into two groups. Both groups overate the same amount. One group got a probiotic pill; the other a placebo. With the extra calories, both groups gained weight, but those who got the probiotic gained about half as much body fat.
To get the full benefits, though, there are some guidelines. Making your own is ideal, but most of us don’t. That means choosing the right version at the grocery store. The most important thing to look for is sauerkraut that is not pasteurized. The heat of pasteurization destroys the probiotic bacteria. Sauerkraut doesn’t really need the extra processing. At refrigerator or cellar temperatures, it stays good for months as long as it is covered to keep dust and any other contaminants out.