KCHealth.info | Longevity, Health, & Wellness in the 21st Century

People who follow a healthy diet and regularly exercise tend to have less abdominal fat, including the deep layers of belly fat that are especially unhealthy.

A new study has found that among nearly 3,000 middle-aged adults, those who maintained a healthy diet generally had less abdominal fat than those with less-desirable diets. The same was true of men and women who regularly exercised.

Like healthy eaters, exercisers had less abdominal fat just below the skin, and also less visceral fat -- deep layers of fat that surround the abdominal organs and are especially likely to contribute to diseases like diabetes and heart disease.

Cadbury and Mars have attracted severe criticism from food watchdog groups who say the confectioners have not fulfilled promises to remove certain artificial food colors from their products.

Last year, the companies both pledged to reformulate products containing the so-called “Southampton Six” colors, which have been linked to hyperactivity in children. Mars set the deadline of the end of 2007 and Cadbury said it would take out the colors by end of last 2008.

However the Food Commission’s Action on Additives campaign has identified some products that still contain the additives, including popular Easter products like Cadbury’s Creme Egg and Mini Eggs.

The artificial colors implicated in a Southampton study are Tartrazine (E102), Quinoline Yellow (E104), Sunset Yellow (E110), Carmoisine (E122), Ponceau 4R (E124) and Allura Red (E129).

Regularity is important for your health -- here's how to achieve it without dangerous drugs.  One important factor to check is whether or not you have hypothyroidism.

Sugar, long reviled by dentists and dietitians have long reviled, is now being dressed up as a natural, healthful ingredient. Some of the biggest players in the American food business have started replacing high-fructose corn syrup with old-fashioned sugar, and using this as a selling point.

ConAgra uses only sugar or honey in its new Healthy Choice All Natural frozen entrees, and Kraft Foods recently removed HFCS from its salad dressings.

The change comes after three decades during which HFCS had been gaining on sugar in the American diet. Per capita, American adults ate about 44 pounds of sugar in 2007, compared with about 40 pounds of HFCS.

With sugar sales up, the Sugar Association last year ended its Sweet by Nature campaign, which pointed out that sugar is found in fruits and vegetables.

Though research is still under way, many nutrition and obesity experts say sugar and high-fructose corn syrup are equally bad in excess.

The daughters of women who eat fish laced with the toxic remnants of DDT are at greater risk of becoming obese, according to a new study.

Researchers have discovered that prenatal exposure to a derivative of DDT (an insecticide banned in the 1970’s) may play a role in the obesity epidemic. Scientists studied the adult daughters of 250 West Michigan mothers who ate Lake Michigan fish.

The study found that women with intermediate levels of DDE, a breakdown product of DDT, gained an average of 13 pounds of excess weight. Women with higher levels of DDE gained more than 20 pounds of excess weight.

Human clinical studies confirm that a new yogurt fights the bacteria that cause gastritis and stomach ulcers -- with what researchers describe as almost vaccine-like effects.

Some brands of yogurt are now made with "probiotics" -- certain types of bacteria intended to improve health. The new yogurt represents a unique approach to fighting stomach ulcers, and is part of a growing "functional food" market.

The new yogurt is already on store shelves in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. However, people who are allergic to milk or eggs should avoid the product -- the yogurt contains egg yolk, which tends to have lower allergen levels than egg white, but an allergy risk still exists.

Last week the Fed decided to inject ANOTHER trillion to buy treasury bonds and mortgage securities. In another words they simply decided to print another trillion dollars. So I thought you would really enjoy this graphic illustration to help you put that number into perspective.

$100

Start with a simple $100 bill.

$10,000

A packet of $100 bills worth $10,000 is less than 1/2 inch thick.

$1,000,000

This little pile of cash can easily fit into any backpack and weighs just about 22 lbs.

$100,000,000

$100 million fits neatly on any standard pallet, weighing in at a little over one ton.

$1,000,000,000

$1 billion is ten pallets worth of cold, hard cash.

$1,000,000,000,000

Finally, here’s one trillion dollars:

New research suggests that excess belly fat, combined with high stress levels, could boost the risk of type 2 diabetes in black women -- a group already disproportionately affected by the disease.

Researchers determined the amount of fat in the abdomen of 62 healthy, nondiabetic African-American women and had them take an emotional stress test. As the women recalled stressful life events, the researchers measured their blood sugar and levels of epinephrine, a hormone released in reaction to stress.

Women with both a high amount belly fat and high epinephrine levels also had high blood sugar during the stress test and while fasting. However, women with a low amount of belly fat and high stress, as well as women with a lot of belly fat and low stress, did not have high blood sugar.

This indicates that stress and obesity interact to raise blood sugar. Most likely, epinephrine stimulates the breakdown of fat, which leads to the production of free fatty acids. Free fatty acids compete with glucose as a fuel and raise blood sugar.

The United States has seen an increase in both nonmedical use of painkillers and prescription drug-related deaths. Researchers say that "doctor shopping" bears some of the blame.

A recent study found that 5.2 million people reported using prescription painkillers for nonmedical purposes in the past month. Meanwhile, the nationwide number of accidental drug poisoning deaths has risen 68 percent.

Researchers studying the deaths from those overdoses found that more than half of the people who died did not have legal prescriptions for the drugs, and more than 20 percent had engaged in "doctor shopping" -- they had 5 or more different physicians prescribing them medications over the last year of their life.

Installing ultraviolet lights could reduce the spread of tuberculosis (TB) in hospital wards and waiting rooms by as much as 70 percent. The move could potentially save many lives globally, particularly where hospital patients are crowded together.

TB kills nearly two million people a year world-wide, and drug resistant strains are becoming more widespread.  When a TB patient coughs, bacteria are sprayed into the air in tiny droplets; in a hospital setting, this means patients can infect other patients, visitors and healthcare staff.

A new study has shown that these bacteria can be killed by hanging a shielded short-wave ultraviolet-C (UVC) light from the ceiling with a fan to mix the air. UVC light kills tuberculosis bacteria, including drug-resistant strains, by damaging their DNA so they cannot infect people, grow or divide.

UVC light is already used at high intensity to disinfect empty ambulances and operating rooms.

According to researchers with the Baylor Research Institute, tart cherries could be a promising pain-reliever for osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis, the most common type of arthritis, is a degenerative illness typically affecting the hands, feet, spine, and large weight-bearing joints, such as the hips and knees.

More than half of the patients enrolled in a pilot study experienced a significant improvement in pain and function after taking tart cherry pills for eight weeks.

Montmorency tart cherries are among the best studied natural products, and they have often been anecdotally linked to beneficial effects on osteoarthritis and other types of arthritis as well.

Young people are increasingly interested in getting their serve of fruit in a processed form, and are turning away from whole fruits, according to author and editor Julian Mellentin.

The New Zealand-based New Nutrition Business editor said the “superfruit” craze was allowing businesses to cash in on changing consumer preferences, particularly among young people who seek convenience and so choose an acai juice over eating an apple of a pear.

Convenience was a major factor in the rise of superfruits. Juices present fruits in their most convenient form, a fact that allows hefty price premiums to be charged due to the appeal to increasingly time-starved consumers.

Superfruit extract-based food supplements such as bilberry, cranberry, acerola and pomegranate are all selling well; bilberry has become the world’s most expensive fruit.

Regardless of your situation, getting motivated and on-track isn’t difficult. It’s staying that way that’s the trick. And when you’re struggling to “make it,” sometimes it’s even harder.

If you want to end the cycle of struggle, master these tips and you’ll be virtually unstoppable:

First, know that this is a temporary state. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been where you are. All that you need to know is that nothing is permanent. The universe is constantly moving, evolving, and changing, and so are you. So instead of seeing this as a never-ending path into darkness, know that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.

Second, remind yourself what you’re fighting for. When you’ve been trying to make something happen for awhile, you can start to lose sight of the end goal. Instead of focusing on the reason you started this journey in the first place, you begin to focus on smaller, more immediate outcomes. Sometimes it’s helpful to create tangible reminders -- a vision board may be useful, or just a statement, penned boldly and tacked to a bulletin board near your workspace.

Third, believe in yourself. One of the best ways to stay strong in your belief in yourself is to keep track of your successes, even the small ones. When you’re feeling down on yourself, go back to the list of successes and review them. Remind yourself that you are capable and you can make this work.

Finally, get help before you’re in crisis. If you aren’t making the leaps ahead that you want to be making, there’s obviously something going on. Before things go too far, before you get lost and become totally unmotivated, get help!

As you begin to master the ability to keep your motivation high, it will become easier to stay on-track. Moments of frustration will be fewer and farther between, and you’ll find that you actually achieve success and reach your targets faster.

Here are some exotic fruits and vegetables that may have never made it into your shopping cart:

Cherimoya

Also referred to as the custard apple, these heart-shaped fruits have an inedible green textured skin. Cherimoyas have a rich consistency despite having little dietary fat and also supply some vitamin C. They have a unique flavor described as a cross between a banana and a pineapple, with a hint of mango and papaya as well.

Sea Beans

Sea beans don't grow or live underwater. Instead the plant grows near salt marshes and in coastal regions. They have a very salty, citrusy flavor. Also called samphire, sea beans are slender green spindles with a crunchy texture to them. They can be eaten raw or placed on top of a salad or into a stir-fry.

Chayote Squash

This squash is also known as a vegetable pear, a christophine or a mirliton. It has a pear shape and smooth apple-green skin that you peel off. When you cut open a chayote squash, there's a pit inside that is edible. The vegetable has a mild taste similar to a cross between a zucchini and a cucumber. Used raw or cooked, the gourd is available year-round and can be grated over a salad or roasted, steamed, grilled, baked or stuffed.

Pummelo

The largest citrus fruit there is. It sometimes called the Chinese grapefruit and has also been referred to as the shaddock. Firm and round, pummelos are the size of cantaloupe or larger and sport a yellow-green skin. Their rind is thicker than a grapefruit and their juicy red or white flesh is even more segmented and sweeter.

Star Fruit

Also known as a carombola, the star fruit has a waxy, yellow-green skin and lots of interesting angles. These tropical wonders have long been cultivated throughout Southeast Asia and are now grown in south Florida and Hawaii.

Gai Lan

Also known as Chinese broccoli or Chinese kale, gai lan has dark green leaves, slender stalks and small white flowers. This Asian vegetable cooks quickly and can be steamed, stir-fried, sautéed or boiled. Gai lan is leafier, thinner and sharper in flavor than traditional green broccoli. It also boasts similar amounts of vitamins A and C and potassium.

Ugli Fruit

Beneath a mottled greenish-yellow skin and strange shape lies a surprisingly sweet and juicy orangey flesh with few seeds. The outside skin is thick, as are the membranes inside the fruit. But you can extract the fruit by cutting the sections with a knife, and then eating them as you would a grapefruit.

Dandelion Greens

Although gardeners may look on the yellow-flowered dandelion with disdain, cooks view its leaves with delight. Recognizable by the leaves' jagged edges, dandelion is a bitter-tasting green that's packed with beta-carotene (vitamin A).

According to a study from the Nestle Research Center, moderate consumption of instant coffee may boost the numbers of certain bacteria in the gut with reputed health benefits.

Consuming three cups of instant coffee a day for three weeks resulted in increased populations of Bifidobacterium, a healthy “probiotic” bacteria. The researchers stated that it is not currently known which of the components of coffee could be responsible for the effect, but they noted that both fiber and chlorogenic acids may be metabolized by the gut microbiota.

While this is an interesting result, it’s important to pay attention to the source. Until it’s confirmed or refuted by independent researchers, this study should probably be taken with a grain of salt.