A Cup of Hot Tea Is Good for You — Or Is It?
May 6, 2011 by admin
Filed under Cancer, Coffee, Health & Fitness, Healthy Eating, Tea
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Farhad Islami, MD, PhD, research fellow, International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France.
The Right Way to Drink Wine
April 16, 2011 by admin
Filed under Food, General Health, Health & Fitness, Home & Garden
Pros vs. cons. Consuming moderate amounts of alcohol may lower a woman’s risk for heart disease by 20% to 40%, primarily by raising HDL “good” cholesterol, reducing clotting and decreasing inflammation. But: Drinking increases the risk for cancers of the breast, larynx and digestive tract and for hemorrhagic (bleeding) stroke. What tips the scale: For women below age 50, who are more likely to get breast cancer than heart disease, alcohol carries a net risk. For women in their 50s and beyond, who are at higher risk for heart disease than for breast cancer, there may be a net benefit to drinking alcohol in moderation.
Red wine and resveratrol. Some research suggests that red wine delivers greater health benefits than other alcoholic beverages — possibly due to its high levels of antioxidants called polyphenols. In studies with mice, the polyphenol resveratrol extended life span and slowed signs of aging by turning on normally inactive longevity and vitality genes called sirtuins. However, you would need to consume 1,000 bottles of red wine per day to get a resveratrol dose equal to the amount tested in mice! What’s more, other studies suggest that health benefits derive from alcohol itself, not from red wine specifically. My opinion: If you do drink, choose whichever type of beverage you prefer.
Heavy metal warning. A recent study found potentially toxic levels of heavy metals in some wines. Heavy metals have been linked to cancer and neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease. Though more research is needed, it may be prudent to limit consumption of wines from Austria, Eastern Europe, France, Germany, Greece, Portugal and Spain. Wines from Argentina, Brazil and Italy were found to have safe levels of heavy metals. No US wines were studied.
What moderation means. Due to metabolic differences, women generally can tolerate only half as much alcohol as men before becoming intoxicated. Moderate drinking for women means no more than one drink — five ounces of wine, 12 ounces of beer or 1.5 ounces of liquor — per day. But: Even this amount can boost cancer risk, so I recommend a limit of one drink three to four times per week or half a drink per day.
The case for abstinence. If you don’t drink, there’s no reason to start. There are safer ways — exercising, watching your weight, eating healthfully, not smoking — to protect your heart. Avoid alcohol if you have a personal or family history of alcoholism or a type of cancer linked to alcohol… have liver disease or ulcers… take a blood thinner, such as warfarin (Coumadin)… or are pregnant.
Bottom Line/Women’s Health interviewed JoAnn E. Manson, MD, DrPH, professor of medicine and women’s health at Harvard Medical School and chief of the division of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, both in Boston. She is one of the lead investigators for two highly influential studies on women’s health — the Harvard Nurses’ Health Study and the Women’s Health Initiative. Dr. Manson is the author, with Shari Bassuk, ScD, of Hot Flashes, Hormones & Your Health (McGraw-Hill).
When Not to Clean Your Oven
April 16, 2011 by admin
Filed under Home & Garden
How long your appliances last isn’t just a matter of how well they’re built. How you treat them matters, too. Here are some simple tricks to keep your major appliances running as long as possible and avoid expensive repairs…
Use less detergent. People tend to fill dishwasher soap cups to the brim and use the amount of clothes detergent recommended on the bottle or box. That’s way too much. Modern dishwashers and washing machines use less water than those of decades past, so less detergent is needed. Also, more powerful and concentrated detergents are available today. Using excessive amounts of detergent creates a soapy residue inside the machine that results in a buildup of mold and mildew, which smells and eats away at the rubber parts, shortening the appliance’s life.
If you have used too much detergent in the past, also use a dishwasher cleaner, available in most supermarkets, to remove soap residue. Leading brands include Glisten and Finish.
Alternative: Use solid tablets that include premeasured amounts of detergent. If you have soft water, split the tablets in half. Don’t use liquid gel packs, because they contain too much detergent and are too sudsy.
If you have hard water and/or your clothes washer is not a modern front-load or high-efficiency top-load machine, use one-quarter of the amount of detergent recommended on the detergent label.
Only if you are washing extremely dirty clothes should you use the amount of detergent recommended on the label.
Clothes dryers:
Clean out your dryer’s exhaust line at least once each year. If the plastic or flexible-metal ductwork that your electric dryer uses to vent hot air is clogged with lint, the dryer’s heating element will overheat and might fail. Clogged lines can cause serious mechanical problems for gas dryers, too. And with either electric or gas, a clogged vent can double or triple the amount of energy required to dry a load of clothing. On a gas dryer, the lint that builds up also can cause carbon monoxide to vent into the home and possibly start a fire.
If your dryer’s exhaust line is too long to clear out by hand, purchase a dryer-vent cleaning kit with a flexible extension rod long enough to reach the full length of your dryer’s exhaust line. These are available at home-improvement stores for less than $50. Remember to clean both the portion of the exhaust line that leads from the dryer to the wall and the part inside the wall.
Refrigerators:
If your older refrigerator’s rubber-door seal gaskets are becoming brittle, apply a layer of Vaseline to keep them supple. Reapply whenever the gasket feels dry to the touch.
It’s probably time to replace the gasket if it has cracked or split. Replacing door gaskets on older machines with screw-on gaskets is a labor-intensive job that usually costs $200 to $300 per door.
Also: On most refrigerators, you need to clean the coil — the metal piping typically located behind a removable panel at the base of or behind the refrigerator — at least once a year. Clean it at least twice a year if a dog or cat that sheds lives in the home. A refrigerator’s compressor is forced to work much harder when the coil is coated with dust or pet hair. That can cause overheating and compressor failure. Having a new compressor installed is likely to cost more than $400 in parts and labor.
Your refrigerator’s manual should include directions for cleaning the coil. Even if the owner’s manual says that the coil is self-cleaning, it still needs to be cleaned at least once a year. I have never seen a clean “self-clean” coil on a refrigerator after two years of use.
Ovens:
There isn’t much you can do to extend the life of an oven, but there is something you can do to reduce the odds that it will fail at a particularly inconvenient moment. Best: Wait until after the November/December holidays to run the self-cleaning cycle.
People tend to run oven self-cleaning cycles immediately before big cooking days, such as Christmas, Thanksgiving and important dinner parties. Unfortunately, ovens are most likely to fail during or soon after these self-cleaning cycles because of the very high temperatures involved. It isn’t easy to get a broken oven fixed around the holidays, either — appliance repair shops and parts distributors often are closed.
Resource(s):
Bottom Line/Personal interviewed Vernon Schmidt, who has more than 35 years of experience in appliance repair. Currently he is service operations manager for Clark Appliance in Indianapolis. He also answers appliance questions through his RefrigDoc.com Web site and is author of The Appliance Handbook for Women: Simple Enough Even Men Can Understand (AuthorHouse), available through Amazon.com and http://RefrigDoc.com.
6 Foods You Didn’t Think Were Good for You… But Are
February 27, 2011 by admin
Filed under Diets, Food, Health & Fitness
Many foods that we perceive as nutritional lightweights actually are just as healthy as — and, for many people, more enjoyable than — the so-called superfoods, such as broccoli and spinach. Here, some of the best…
Iceberg Lettuce
The light green color of iceberg lettuce suggests that it isn’t rich in nutrients.
Fact: Iceberg contains lutein and zeaxanthin, carotenoids that reduce the risk for cataracts and age-related macular degeneration, the leading causes of blindness in older adults.
Bonus: Eat a salad at the beginning of a meal. It is low in calories and, like any food, stimulates the release of cholecystokinin (CCK), a satiety hormone that reduces appetite and causes people to consume fewer calories overall.
Watermelon
It contains more water than most fruits. The high liquid content, along with the sugars and fiber, make watermelon the perfect snack before workouts. But it’s more than a snack food.
Fact: Watermelon contains 40% more lycopene than fresh (uncooked) tomatoes. Lycopene is a potent antioxidant that strengthens the immune system and may lower the risk for breast and prostate cancers.
Helpful: When you take a watermelon home, keep it on the counter even after cutting it open. Room-temperature watermelon continues to produce antioxidants for about two weeks. It will contain up to 40% more lycopene and up to 139% more beta-carotene than cold watermelon.
Sauerkraut
Fresh, minimally processed vegetables are presumed to be the healthiest. Not always.
Fact: One study found that women who ate at least four weekly servings of fermented cabbage, better known as sauerkraut, were 72% less likely to develop breast cancer than those who ate less.
Eating fermented cabbage changes gut metabolism and may help to protect the intestinal tract. Isothiocyanates, which are naturally present in all the cruciferous vegetables, appear to inhibit the proliferation of cancer cells and accelerate the death of these cells.
Korean kimchi, a spicy form of fermented cabbage, appears to have similar effects.
Onions
Most people use onions mainly as a seasoning ingredient in soups and stews and on burgers and salads. For good health, use a lot of them.
Fact: Onions are high in vitamin C, fiber, vitamin B-6 and folate. They also are rich in quercetin, a flavonoid with powerful anticancer effects, and allyl sulfides, the same protective compounds that are present in garlic.
Studies have found that people who eat between 14 and 22 servings of onions a week can reduce their risk for oral cancer by 84%. They have a 56% reduced risk for colon cancer, a 25% reduced risk for breast cancer and a 71% reduced risk for prostate cancer.
Red onions have the most quercetin. However, pink shallots contain the richest mix of chemical compounds and more antioxidants than other onions.
Artichokes
They’re work to eat, but the payoff can be better digestive health.
Fact: One study found that people who took an artichoke leaf extract had a 26.4% reduction in symptoms from irritable bowel syndrome. One of the chemical compounds in artichokes, silymarin, is reputed to improve liver health in patients with hepatitis, but this hasn’t been proved.
I advise patients to eat whole, natural foods rather than depending solely on supplements. Artichokes contain a mix of antioxidants, including narirutin and apigenin-7-rutinoside, that aren’t necessarily included in supplements.
Helpful: Look for artichokes with long stems. When cooked, the stems are almost as tasty as the hearts. Peel the stems to make them more tender. Canned, frozen and jarred artichoke hearts are good, too.
Avocados
Avocados have the distinction of being higher in fat than any other fruit or vegetable. One medium Hass avocado, for example, has about 29 grams of fat and about 320 calories.
Fact: Nearly all of the fat in avocados is the healthful, monounsaturated form. In a study of patients with high cholesterol, those who included avocado in their daily diet had a decrease in total cholesterol, along with an 11% increase in beneficial HDL cholesterol.
As a source of healthy fat, avocado is better than butter and is delicious when spread on toast or a sandwich.
Source(s):
Bottom Line/Personal interviewed John La Puma, MD, an internist at Santa Barbara Institute for Medical Nutrition and Healthy Weight in Santa Barbara, California. A professionally trained chef, he hosts the Lifetime television series What’s Cookin’ with ChefMD? He is author of ChefMD’s Big Book of Culinary Medicine: A Food Lover’s Road Map to Losing Weight, Preventing Disease and Getting Really Healthy (Three Rivers). He writes the blog “Paging Dr. La Puma” at www.DrJohnLaPuma.com.
Foods That Lower Blood Pressure (Part 2)
February 12, 2011 by admin
Filed under Food, General Health, Health & Fitness
Celery is a centuries-old traditional Chinese medicine treatment for high blood pressure, and various contemporary research studies affirm its benefit. Besides being rich in potassium, celery also contains 3-n-butyl phthalide, a compound that allows better blood flow by relaxing muscles in the walls of blood vessels.
A review article in the Journal of Clinical Hypertension called garlic “an agent with some evidence of benefit” in reducing high blood pressure, with some estimates saying that it can reduce blood pressure by 2%. Garlic contains the vasodilator and muscle-relaxing compound adenosine.
Beets contain abundant nitrates, helpful in controlling blood pressure. Research from the Queen Mary University of London found that high blood pressure returned to normal levels when subjects were given two cups of beet juice per day.
Recent research has shown that compounds in brown rice protect against hypertension by blocking an enzyme (angiotensin II) that increases blood pressure.
Source(s):
Mark Houston, MD, MS, associate clinical professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and director of the Hypertension Institute, Vascular Biology and the Life Extension Institute at Saint Thomas Hospital in Nashville. He is author of What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Hypertension (Grand Central) and the upcoming book, What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Heart Disease (Grand Central).
