Exercise Reverses Skin’s Aging Process, Study Finds

by | Apr 23, 2014 | Exercise | 0 comments

Fitness Almost everyone obsesses about wrinkles, but what can you do short of staying out of the sun or pumping your face full of chemicals? The answer may be as simple as a jog around the park.

In a small study, researchers at McMaster University in Ontario found that exercise may not only keep skin younger, but may also reverse skin aging, even in people who take up exercise later in life, according to The New York Times.

Earlier studies at McMaster examined the affect of exercise on mice. Researchers split mice into two groups, giving one group access to exercise wheels. The mice that didn’t exercise quickly became weak, bald and ill while the mice that exercised regularly enjoyed healthy brains, hearts, muscles and reproductive organs. In addition, they kept their fur longer — and it didn’t even go gray.

The researchers wondered if exercise could have the same impact on people, so they performed a second test, presented this month at The American Medical Society for Sports Medicine, that involved 29 male and female volunteers ages 20 to 84.

About half of the participants completed at least three hours of moderate or vigorous physical activity every week, while the others were mostly sedentary, exercising for less than an hour a week. Then the researchers asked each volunteer to uncover a buttock because they wanted to look at skin that’s rarely exposed to the sun.

The researchers found that, after age 40, those who had been active had visibly younger looking skin, similar to that of someone in their 20s or 30s, even if the participant was over the age of 65.

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Sugary Drinks May Increase Stroke Risk

by | Apr 22, 2014 | Sugars | 0 comments

Softdrink A new study from researchers at the prestigious Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden looked at whether sugary drinks increase the risk of a stroke. For those not familiar with the institute, Karolinska is currently ranked among the top 10 medical universities in world.

Previous studies have shown that consumption of sugary beverages increases the risk of Type 2 diabetes and heart disease by about 20 percent. Given the close relationship between diabetes, heart disease and stroke, the researchers hypothesized that sugary drinks would increase stroke risk. They were right.

Nearly 70,000 healthy Swedish men and women were followed for over 10 years. Those who drank two servings of sugary drinks a day had a 20 percent increase in risk of suffering a stroke.

The study was published on April 9, 2014 the same day that the Health Committee of the California State Senate passed Senate Bill 1000, the Soda Warning Label Bill by a vote of 5-2.

I was present at the Health Committee hearing and heard the testimony of Mr. Bob Ackermann of the California and Nevada Soft Drink Association and Ms. Lisa Katic, a registered dietician testifying on behalf of the soft drink association. They both maintained that sugary drinks had no special link to chronic diseases despite overwhelming medical evidence to the contrary. Now we need to add stroke to the list of diseases linked to sugary beverage consumption.

That list now includes: Type 2 diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, hypertension, fatty liver disease, cancer, obesity, and deaths from heart disease.

If an infectious agent was responsible for such a widespread national epidemic, the Centers for Disease Control would be working overtime on a vaccine.

We need no new research, no new vaccines, nor quarantines to control this epidemic. We simply need to drastically reduce the amount of sugar in our diets, and the very worst culprit is the liquid sugar found in sodas and other sugary beverages.

The science is slowly making its way into the mainstream, and soda sales are beginning to fall. Big Soda is responding by increasing their misleading advertising.

Health activists, and all people who care about their own personal health and that of their families, have a vital role to play in curbing this epidemic of chronic illness related to sugar consumption.

Here are some simple things we all can do: Read more

Interview with Tina Turbin

by | Apr 21, 2014 | Diet, How Your Body Works, Nutrition | 0 comments

2014-04-21_1001I had the pleasure to chat with author Tina Turbin the other day. She’s an author and campaigner and her main area of interest is in the treatment of celiac disease using dietary changes. Lowcarb and Paleo type diets could well make a good starting point for many.

MM: How did you get to know about paleo and what was it that attracted you to it in the first place?

TT: Okay for me those are two different questions so as far as the first question is concerned, I am celiac and I could not have gluten. There’s just no question about it.

MM: Right!

TT: I’m a very sensitive celiac and also two of my three children have been diagnosed with celiac and one of them has the gene. You have to have the gene to even be able to have celiac. If you don’t have the gene you’ll never have celiac disease so for anybody without the gene – you know – all the better for them.

MM: Okay.

TT: It doesn’t mean you can’t be sensitive or have allergies or react to gluten but you will never have the autoimmune disease,
celiac disease. I had this after close to seven years of being misdiagnosed and once I was diagnosed I went into the field aggressively to
raise awareness as an advocate working with over 200 of the gluten free companies, many of the surgeons, the doctors, the research scientists at the university, the restaurants, the gluten free groups, the celiac groups, the various chapters around, radio shows, you name it I was out there full fledge because I’m a children author as well. So, I really wanted to make this known. There’s an issue here. There’s a real issue and I wanted to really make it known, I wanted to be supportive in raising awareness to getting people properly tested and have doctors know what those indicators are because they’re not taught that in the university well enough. If they’re taught it at all – it might be just a one day or half a day crash course you know, as part of their program over years of study. You know it’s just not right and over I felt that it needed more. So here I am out here promoting that the diet, working with all these people and I went on the standard gluten free diet and did I make improvements?

Absolutely!

There’s no question about it but I was still not thriving healthwise and even though my kitchen had been a dedicated a gluten free kitchen – so I no longer had the toasters, the old pots and pans in fact, every-thing was thrown out and it was deep cleaned. Yet, I would still come home having
eaten and say “Gosh! Maybe that (meal) had some cross contami-nation in it and I’d look at the packages – and you know they had the gluten
free certification. But I was still reacting. The answer came from the fact that I had done a review and worked with Dr. Lefler who wrote a
book – which is phenomenal by the way – and in one of his chapters he ended up discussing refractory celiac disease or what you could call nonresponsive celiac.

So, once again I find myself doing my own homework… I was like okay, here are the various reasons of why somebody with celiac disease might
not be responding to this diet favorably so I called Dr. Lefler and I said you know I am not getting cross contamination, I’m out here on big fronts making big strikes but I feel like I’m kind of in a little corner all by myself and that I maybe one of these people who are not responding. I was basically told “you know Tina there’s many,many like you”.

So I started talking to people on my own and finding out that – I would say – one out of three people I was speaking to who are celiacs were in the same boat as me but they had never said anything. Those are my own statistics, one out of three people I was speaking to.

And as a result of that I started looking at what could it be. I narrowed it down to “I think I am still responding to grains”. Then what happened was that I was doing another review for a diet called the Specific Carbohydrate Diet which eliminate the grains, but does allow some legumes and does allow at some point of the healing some dairy. Well my husband was gone for a week and I thought well instead of just reviewing this – I’m going to put it to a test.

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The 5 Worst Stretching Mistakes You’re Probably Making

by | Apr 16, 2014 | Exercise | 0 comments

Exercise Stretching feels great and increases flexibility — when done the right way. But not preparing properly or doing the stretch incorrectly can lead to injuries and inflexibility, the exact opposite of the results you want. Avoid these common mistakes for a safe, pain-free and effective stretching routine.

1. You bounce.
Bouncing at the end of your stretch (when done vigorously enough) can cause the muscle and tendon to tear, says Luga Podesta, M.D., sports medicine physician and rehabilitation specialist at Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Los Angeles. This “ballistic” stretching triggers a reaction within the muscle that prevents it from relaxing and ends up defeating the purpose of the action. Instead, Podesta recommends gradually elongating and holding the stretch for 10 to 15 seconds, then release and repeat several times.

2. You’re in the wrong position.
If you don’t feel the stretch where you’re expecting to feel it, you may be doing it wrong, says Phil Oliveri, a physical therapist with Rockford Spine Center in Rockford, Illinois. “Poor body positioning can cause you to miss the muscle you’re aiming to stretch. Use a free hand to feel the muscle you are stretching. It should feel tight and then loosen after the stretch.”

3. You stretch an injured muscle.
Stretching an injured muscle can make the damage even worse by worsening a tear, says Podesta. As a general rule, if muscle pain doesn’t go away within several days, it’s a good idea to get it checked by a physician. Once it’s healed, gradually introduce low-intensity stretching according to your doctor’s advice.

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5 Smart Reasons To Eat Eggs

by | Apr 15, 2014 | Fats, High Fat Diet, High Protein Diet | 0 comments

Eggs Eggs are beautiful. They are a picture-perfect example of what nature is able to accomplish. They help make us more beautiful by helping both the inside of our body, like our hearts, as well as the outside of our body, like our hair.

While eggs have gotten a bad reputation for a long time due to cholesterol fears, evidence in the British Medical Journal showed that moderate egg consumption may not have any effect on heart disease or stroke.

Here are five reasons why eggs fit well into a beautiful diet:

Eggs can help make beautiful babies. They’re a must for pregnant women. Why? Because eggs are full of choline, a B vitamin that growing babies need for essentialdevelopment of the brain. Choline supplementation has also been linked to a lower risk of mental disorders in babies, as well as well as a reduced risk for both Down syndrome and dementia.

Eggs can help curb your evening snack cravings. Eating a high-protein breakfast helps ward off cravings later in the day, according to a 2013 study. The high quality protein in eggs helped create greater satiety in individuals, which lasted all day long. So if you’re trying to lose a few pounds and just can’t shake your cravings for chips or sweets after 7 p.m., eggs may be something you’ll want to consider earlier in the day.

Eggs may improve your reflexes. A 2014 study found that tyrosine, an amino acid found in eggs, helped individuals with making quick, knee-jerk responses more than a placebo. Researchers noted that the tyrosine effect may actually help in situations such as driving where an instant decision can mean the difference between an accident and just a normal day on the road.

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