We know that soft drinks aren’t healthy for many reasons — one of which is triggering weight gain. However, a study conducted in Singapore has us even more concerned. According to the study, drinking two or more sodas a week increased the risk for pancreatic cancer by 85% compared to nondrinkers. Scientists discovered this after tracking more than 60,000 middle-aged people for 14 years. They looked at lifestyle, environmental factors, and diet. We should also note that the study was based in a country whose populace, like ours, tends to enjoy (at least) an occasional soft drink. Soft Drinks Cause Blood Sugar Spikes […]
Here’s another reason to fret over a flabby stomach. A new study suggests that adults who aren’t technically overweight but have a lot of fat around their guts run a higher death risk than people who are obese. Conducted by researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., the study looked at people with normal body mass index scores who also fit the definition for “central obesity” — meaning they had a high waist-to-hip ratio. Normal-weight patients with a lot of belly fat, it turned out, had the highest death risks from cardiovascular disease and other causes, according to a […]
Are the summer heat, long hours and daily stress in the workplace taking a toll on your skin? Women often struggle with looking their best in the face of a busy work environment that does little to support healthy, glowing skin. You have to take extra steps to pamper yourself if you want to look fabulous! Here are 20 easy tips that you can use throughout the day to maintain beautiful skin. Reevaluate Your Hand Hygiene Hand washing and glove use are the cornerstones of infection prevention in healthcare, some other job settings and even when cleaning at home. Lots […]
Author Jonathon Goldstein once said, “Everyone runs around trying to find a place where they still serve breakfast because eating breakfast, even if it’s 5 o’clock in the afternoon, is a sign that the day has just begun and good things can still happen. Having lunch is like throwing in the towel.” Maybe for many of us breakfast represents that “new day dawning” attitude, but is there really something more to it — physiologically speaking? There’s no doubt that one of the most popular statements ever made in nutrition and medicine is that breakfast is the most important meal of […]
Several of my patients have rheumatoid arthritis. Most of them also have a little extra poundage than I would like them to have. Many of them feel that it’s been their aching joints that have kept them from exercising more and so they have gained weight. However, looking back at their records, in many cases their overweight preceded the onset of their RA by a few years. It had always been my suspicion that, like other diseases, their obesity had somehow contributed to the development of their condition. Now, researchers at the Mayo Clinic have backed up my suspicions. I’d […]
Researchers at the University of Iowa have found a positive effect for ursolic acid, found in apple peel, on preventing weight gain in mice. The findings were reported online on June 20, 2012 in the journal PLoS ONE. Associate professor of internal medicine Christopher Adams, MD, PhD and his colleagues fed mice a high fat diet and gave half of the animals ursolic acid for six weeks. Although the mice that received ursolic acid consumed more food than those that did not receive the compound, they gained less weight by the end of the treatment period. They also had greater skeletal […]
The findings of research scheduled for presentation at the 244th American Chemical Society meeting, to be held August 19-23, 2012 in Philadelphia, reveal a protective effect for peaches, plums and nectarines against metabolic syndrome—a cluster of factors that predict obesity-related diabetes and/or cardiovascular disease. “In recent years obesity has become a major concern in society due to the health problems associated to it,” noted Texas AgriLife Research food scientist Dr Luis Cisneros-Zevallos. “In the U.S., statistics show that around 30 percent of the population is overweight or obese, and these cases are increasing every year in alarming numbers.” “The major concern about […]
The June, 2012 issue of Cell Metabolism reports the discovery of
An international coalition of researchers has proved in the laboratory that a comprehensive ‘cocktail’ of nutritional supplements significantly increased youthful life span. Since aging is a multifactorial process with overlapping causes, scientists formulated a 30-ingredient nutrient mixture with overlapping benefits designed to halt or slow the major causes of aging. The nutrient mixture, developed by a team of life scientists led by Dr. C. David Rollo of McMaster University in Canada, targets five key mechanisms of aging. Researchers postulated that by slowing or reversing these five universal processes, they could slow or reverse the major factors of aging. While this […]
Last week, a patient, Ted, came in saying he had been experiencing a funny, metallic taste in his mouth for a while and was worried that it may be serious. I explained to him that there were a number of possible reasons for him having this taste in his mouth but we’d do a complete exam and see what we come up with. If you experience a metallic taste in your mouth, you’ll want to know what I told Ted about his funny taste. When Something Tastes Funny Every now and then you might get a funny, metallic taste in […]