Is Video Game Really Bad For Children?

Video game, together with other screen-based entertainments like TV and DVD watching, as well as leisure time computer use, has long been accused as one of the culprits that cause children obesity.

Does this mean that children should be totally banned from playing video games? Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine might have a different perspective, as they believed video games could be used to encourage kids to eat healthier foods.

Their study, which was conducted in the United States, found that children who played certain video games increased the amount of fruit and vegetables they ate each day by around one serving. In the United States, nearly one in five 6- to 19-year-olds is obese. The findings were published on December 7, 2010 in the ‘American Journal of Preventive Medicine’.

The 2 video games used in the study were "Escape from Diab” and “Nanoswarm" designed by Archimage to change diet and physical activity behaviors to reduce the risk of becoming obese and diabetic. Archimage is a Houston-based visual arts studio using its experience in computer-based architecture to specialize in serious video game development for the medial research community.

“Escape from Diab” and “Nanoswarm” were designed as epic video game adventures that are comparable to commercial quality video games. A broad diversity of behavior change procedures was incorporated into the games, which can really motivate players to substantially improve diet behaviors.

Obese children are more likely to grow up to be obese adults, to suffer from many chronic diseases including diabetes, heart disease, hypertension (high blood pressure), stroke and fatty liver disease, and to die prematurely of any cause, as shown by numerous studies.

The finding is definitely a useful step towards fighting childhood obesity because increasing intake of fruit and vegetables could reduce the risk of obesity.

But, researchers also pointed out that while there was increased intake of health foods, children still failed to consume the minimum daily amount of fruit and vegetables recommended by doctors. What worrying them most is that children did not get enough physical exercise. According to health professionals, children should eat 5 servings a day of fruit or vegetables and get an hour of moderate to vigorous exercise.

Though serious video games hold promise, the researchers still felt that their effectiveness and mechanisms of change among youth need to be more thoroughly investigated.

How To Help Women Quit Smoking?

Smoking is definitely not a good habit for health. Smokers are at a higher risk of getting not only lung cancer but also other diseases including heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). More importantly, smokers can pose health risk to people around them through secondhand smoke.

While smokers are aware of the risk they face, many of them especially females are reluctant to quit because they afraid they could gain weight after they stop smoking. In fact, most smokers who quit smoking will eventually gain 5 to 15 pounds.

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center reported that a combination of specialized counseling and the anti-smoking drug Zyban might boost, at least for a while, chances of quitting smoking for female smokers.

Zyban is a prescription drug used to help smokers give up their habit. It comes in a pill form, and it does not contain nicotine. Hence, it is not a nicotine replacement therapy product. Zyban is the trade name of the drug called “bupropion” and it was approved in 1997 as a stop smoking aid.

The findings, appeared on March 22, 2010 in the ‘Archives of Internal Medicine’, showed that over a period of 6 months of treatment, women who received the combo therapy were more successful at quitting than those who received weight counseling only, and more successful than those who received standard smoking-cessation counseling plus Zyban.

Over the period of 6 months, 34 percent of women in the group that received weight counseling and Zyban consistently abstained, comparing to 21 percent of women who received standard counseling and Zyban, 11 percent of those who received weight counseling and placebo (inactive pills) and 10 percent of those who had standard counseling and placebo.

However, the positive effect faded after treatment ended. At the 1-year mark, 24 percent of women in the group that received weight counseling and Zyban had still remained abstinent, as compared with those in the group that received standard therapy/Zyban. Yet, researchers still insisted that cognitive behavioral therapy, which was developed by them, aimed at smokers' weight-gain issues could give certain women an extra push to quit.

If You Quit Smoking, Others Will Just Follow!

Smoking is not a desirable habit since it will not only put smokers but also place non-smokers through second smoke at higher risk of getting many diseases including cancer, heart disease, hypertension (high blood pressure), and stroke. That is why many countries around the world including China have banned smoking in the public areas.

The influence among the social network could, however, also help smokers give up smoking immediately.

According to a paper published in the May 22, 2008 edition of the ‘New England Journal of Medicine’, if a person quit smoking, then this person’s spouse, best friends, colleagues and even the surrounding people who are not known very well to this person will just follow suit.

Researchers from Harvard Medical School analyzed relationships among some 12,000 people over 3 decades and found that a steady decrease in smoking over that period occurred in clusters. So if there is a change in the zeitgeist of this social network, the whole group of people who are connected but who might not know each other all quit together.

Zeitgeist means the spirit of the times or the spirit of the age. It is the general cultural, intellectual, ethical, spiritual within a specific group, along with the general ambiance, morals, socio-cultural direction, and mood associated with an era.

Researchers reconstructed the social networks of 12,067 individuals during a period between 1971 and 2003, recording major life changes such as marriage, death and divorce.

All the study participants also listed contact information for close friends, work colleagues and neighbors. Interestingly, many of those friends and colleagues had also joined the study. This enabled the researchers to observe a total of 53,228 families, social or professional relationships. Their findings showed that people quit smoking in clusters.

Over the 30-year period, the average size of each particular cluster of smokers within the entire network remains about the same but there are fewer and fewer of these clusters left as time goes on.

Can Smoking Relieve Stress?

Numerous studies have shown that smoking and secondhand smoke are linked to many medical disorders including cancer, heart disease, hypertension (high blood pressure), and stroke. So quitting smoking would certainly be beneficial to both smokers and people around them.

Interestingly, many smokers have claimed that lighting up a cigarette can actually help them reduce the stress they have. This is probably a fairly good reason for millions of smokers to light up their cigarettes again even after quitting.

But studies have found otherwise. In reality, smoking has the entirely different effect. Instead of reduced, the long-term stress levels will be raised among smokers. In fact, smokers can have their stress relieved only when they quit smoking.

In a paper published on June 7, 2010 in the journal “Addiction”, researchers from the London School of Medicine and Dentistry found that smokers who stopped lighting up cigarettes had a significant larger reduction in perceived stress.

A total of 469 people, who attempted to quit smoking after being hospitalized for heart disease, were examined. At the outset, the participants had similar stress levels and about 85 percent of these people generally believed that smoking helped them cope with the stress they had.

After a year, 41 percent of the participants managed to quit smoking completely and their perceived stress levels were reduced by about 20 percent, whereas patients who continue smoking showed little change in their perceived stress levels.

Obviously, the findings supported the theory that smoking can actually contribute to stress among some people. But why do smokers still think that lighting up a cigarette could help them relieve stress?

According to researchers, when smokers are refrained from smoking, they tend to feel more and more edgy, irritable and uncomfortable as the period lengthens. A cigarette would more or less help them get through the stressful state. This is probably the main reason smokers think that smoking help them reduce stress.

Therefore, smoking can relieve stress is actually a myth, at least in the long term.

What About Smoking Rate in United States?

Cigarette smoking is known to be a risk factor of causing breathing problems and lung cancer, and it is a major cause of heart disease for men and women, too. About 20 percent of all deaths from heart disease in the United States are directly linked to smoking. That is why cigarette smoking is named as the leading preventable cause of disease of deaths in the United States.

While authorities have been trying many means to curb the smoking rate, there are still more than 46 million American adults still smoke cigarettes, and it is estimated that smoking still kills 1,000 Americans a day.

According to a report released on September 7, 2010 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), smoking rate remains unchanged in 2009 with about 1 in 5 adults still smoke regularly. Meanwhile, teen smoking has also not been improving, and remains at nearly 20 percent.

Since 2004, smoking rate has been flat after falling dramatically since the 1960s through heavy tobacco taxes. Perhaps the health authorities have lost momentum because of reductions of anti-tobacco campaigns, or a lack of funding to support programs that help smokers quit. Meanwhile, cigarette producers have come up with brilliant marketing strategies to increase their sales.

It is the second report that indicated nearly all children (98 percent) who live with a smoker have measurable tobacco toxins in their body worried health experts.

Environmental tobacco smoke (passive smoke or more commonly known as secondhand smoke) can cause chronic respiratory conditions, cancer and heart disease. It is estimated that each year, around 35,000 nonsmokers who exposed to secondhand smoke die from heart disease.

In surveying a total of more than 30,000 nonsmokers between 1999 and 2008, it was found that the detectable levels of cotinine had dropped over the 10 years, from about 52 percent to 40 percent. The reduction could be due to more smoking bans in workplaces, restaurants and other public places.

Nevertheless, the findings also highlighted some bad news. For example, most of the decline in smoking rate came about 10 years ago, and more than half of the children aged between 3 and 11 living in United States are exposed to secondhand smoke with no safe level of exposure. And more importantly, there has been virtually no improvement for children who live with a smoker.

Why You Should Eat Less Meat?

Most people, especially ladies, do not like to be overweight or obese. The reason is simple.

The extra pound gained would in some way make the person’s appearance look not so nice, at least this is the thought that most people have. But more importantly, the extra pounds gained could possibly lead this person to many medical disorders including hypertension (high blood pressure), diabetes, stroke, heart disease and even certain type of cancer.

There could be many reasons why people gain weight, but improper diet and sedentary lifestyle are considered to be the 2 most important one that have been confirmed by many studies. Results of a recent European study can be another confirmation that stressed the importance of proper diet.

Researchers from Imperial College London reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition that meat lovers gained more weight over 5 years than those who ate less meat but with the same amount of calories.

More than 100,000 men and 270,000 women from 10 European countries were involved in a study that examined cancer and nutrition and other lifestyle factors. Over a period of 5 years, both men and women on average gained about a pound a year, with women gained a little less.

The interesting part is that the more meat a person ate, the more weight this person gained. For every additional 250 grams of meat (equivalent to a half-pound, 450-calorie steak) a person ate daily, this person would gain 4.4 pounds over a period of 5 years. Among different types of meats, researchers found the strongest association with weight gain was poultry, followed by processed meats and red meat.

Therefore, researchers urged people to eat less meat so as to improve weight management. By cutting the consumption of meat by 250 grams a day could reduce a person’s weight by 4 pounds. While this figure is not very large for a particular individual, it could have a profound effect on the population as a whole.

Is Vegetable Really Good for Diabetics?

According to World Health Organization (WHO), diabetes affects more than 285 millions people worldwide, of which 4 million people of them will die every year by 2010. The number could rise up to 438 millions by 2030 with the increasing obesity rate.

Type 2 diabetes, being the commonest form of diabetes, has swiftly spread from wealthy to the fast-developing countries because of the fatty, sugary diets and sedentary lifestyles.

While nutrition and exercise are important in the prevention of such disease, the dispute on ‘which foods work best and why’ continues. This is because only few good quality studies were carried out to explore such issue.

Recently, researchers from the University of Leicester, central England found that eating more spinach and other green leafy vegetables could actually reduce the risk of Type-2 diabetes. Their findings were published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on August 20, 2010.

6 studies involving 220,000 people were reviewed to explore the link between fruit and vegetable consumption and Type-2 diabetes. The results showed that eating one and a half extra servings (106 gm) of green leafy vegetables reduce the risk of diabetes by 14 percent, while eating more fruit and vegetables combined had negligible impact.

Researchers could not explain why leafy vegetables have such protective effect, though they suspected it is probably because of the high antioxidants such as Vitamin C and magnesium found in green leafy vegetables.

As such, they suggested more investigation should be carried out to confirm their findings. Other health experts also felt that it was too early to isolate green leafy vegetables and regard them alone as a way to reduce the risk of getting Type-2 diabetes.

Meanwhile, the researchers as well as other experts in the field urged people to continue consuming 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day, which would benefit people in the prevention heart disease, stroke, some cancers and obesity as well as Type-2 diabetes.

The National Diet Nutrition Survey showed that, although fruit and vegetable intake has increased over the past decade, only a third of men and women eat the recommended five-a-day in 2008/09.

Can Stop Smoking Really Save Life?

Smoking is bad for the health. It is a risk factor for many diseases including lung and other cancers, cardiovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), stroke, sexual problems, ageing and many more.

Cardiovascular disease is a general term for disease involving narrowed or blocked blood vessels that can lead to heart attack, chest pain (angina) or stroke. It is often used interchangeably with heart disease.

A study appeared in the May 7, 2008 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) revealed that women who stop smoking greatly cut their risk of early death and cardiovascular disease just 5 years after they quit. Researchers from Harvard School of Public Health, Boston also reported that the risk of death from smoking-linked cancers was also reduced by about 20 percent over the same period.

In order to examine the relationship between cigarette smoking and stopping smoking on the total and cause-specific mortality in women, the researchers reviewed the data from the Nurses' Health Study of 104,519 female participants during the period between 1980 and 2004.

Among a total of 12, 483 deaths found, 4,485 (35.9 percent) were never smoked, 3,602 (28.9 percent) were current smokers, and 4,396 (35.2 percent) were those smoked in the past but quit.

It was found that a 13 percent reduction of all causes of mortality within the first 5 years of quitting smoking, compared with women who continued smoking. Meanwhile, the study also discovered that 20 years after quitting, the excess risk fell to the level of a person who never smoked, and people who started smoking at early age faced an increased mortality risk.

According to the researchers, a good public health program should be able to effectively communicate risks to smokers and help them quit successfully. As such, they recommended preventive strategies that involve implementing and maintaining school tobacco prevention program, in addition to enforcing youth access laws.

What Is the Life Expectancy in United States?

Babies born in Japan and Singapore have a life expectancy of 82 years. Babies in France will live to an average of 80.9 while those in Sweden, Italy, Australia and Canada can live beyond 80.

What about the life expectancy in United States? According to a statistics released by CDC (the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) on August 19, 2009, Americans can live till 77.9 years, which is the highest it has ever been. Both men and women tend to live longer but women still live on average more than 5 years longer than men.

The life expectancy of Americans is no doubt lower than comparable developed countries, as illustrated above. However, it is still higher than that in countries like Tunisia and Guatemala, which have life expectancies of 75 and 70 respectively.

CDC reported that there were 2,423,995 people died in the United States in 2007, which were 2,269 fewer than in 2006. The life expectancy in 2006 was 77.7 indicating there is a continuation of a trend. In fact, the life expectancy has increased 1.4 years from 76.5 years in 1997 to 77.9 in 2007.

It is expected that the newborn baby boys can live till 75 on average and girls can live till 80. CDC also pointed out that for the first time, life expectancy for black males reached 70 years.

Americans who die of heart disease or cancer accounted for 48.5 percent of all deaths in 2007. There was a slight decline in the death rate for influenza and pneumonia, murder and accidents.

Nevertheless, the death rate for the fourth leading cause of death, chronic lower respiratory diseases like emphysema, was found to rise by 1.7 percent. The number of people died of AIDS was estimated to be 11,061. On the other hand, the infant mortality rate remained statistically unchanged at 6.77 infant deaths per 1,000 live births.

Can Chocolate Really Prevent Heart Disease?

If you were a chocolate lover, you would definitely be very happy to know that “chocolate could help you prevent heart disease”. But many of you will probably ask: “ Are you sure?”

This is understandable because many studies have already linked eating chocolate to overweight, obesity, diabetes, and many medical disorders. And most importantly, all of these disorders are known risk factors for heart disease.

On the other hand, there were also studies that reported chocolate is good for the health. For example, earlier research had shown a strong link between cocoa-based confections and lowered blood pressure or improvement in blood flow. Others had found that chocolate reduced heart disease related death rate in healthy older men and post-menopausal women.

In the September 2009’s issue of the Journal of Internal Medicine, scientists from both the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston reported that heart attack survivors who eat chocolate 2 or more times a week cut their risk of dying from heart disease by about 3 times than those who have never tasted chocolate. They also pointed out that smaller quantities of chocolate consumption would have lesser protection but are still better than none.

This new study is believed to be the first to show that consumption of chocolate could help cut the risk of death for a person who has suffered acute myocardial infarction (or what is commonly known as a heart attack). The results held true for men and women, and across all the age groups included in the study, after taking into account of other factors such as alcohol consumption, obesity, and smoking that might have affected the outcome.

In the study, the scientists followed up with 1,169 non-diabetic men and women, who were between 45 and 70 years old, in Stockholm County during the early 1990s from the time they were hospitalized with their first heart attack. Before leaving the hospital, the participants were asked on their eating habits over the previous year, including how much chocolate they ate on a regular basis.

The scientists stressed that the benefit was solely due to antioxidants in cocoa (material that produces chocolate) but not sweets in general. It has been known that antioxidants are compounds that can protect against free radicals. Free radicals, which are molecules accumulating in the human body over time, could damage cells and are believed to be responsible to cause heart disease, cancer and the ageing process.

Can Foods Rich in Magnesium Reduce Stroke Risk?

Being the leading cause of heart disease and cancer, cigarette smoking is also strongly linked to stroke.

A study that was published on March 10, 2008 in the Archives of Internal Medicine reported that diets rich in magnesium could help smokers reduce their stroke risk. Carried out by researchers from Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, the study was aim originally to look at possible lung cancer therapies.

Researchers have not figured out the mechanism behind the finding, but suspected that it might be the magnesium that helps reduce high blood pressure. High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is a disorder that can lead to stroke if it is not treated in time.

About 26,556 Finnish male smokers were followed for more than 13 years. The study found that those who consumed an average of 589 milligrams of magnesium each day in their diets had a 15 percent lower risk for cerebral infarction than those who consumed less magnesium. Cerebral infarction is a kind of stroke that occurs when blood flow to the brain is blocked.

The effect was found to be stronger for men younger than 60 years old. Meanwhile, the study also showed that the intake of calcium, potassium and sodium was not associated with risk for any type of stroke.

Magnesium can not only lower blood pressure but also influence the cholesterol level or the use of insulin that turns glucose into energy. Any of these 2 mechanisms would affect the risk for cerebral infarction but not hemorrhagic stroke. Hemorrhagic stroke is another type of stroke that occurs when the vessel ruptures, causing blood to leak into the brain.

Foods rich in magnesium can be found in whole grains, black beans, broccoli, halibut, oysters, peanuts, rockfish and spinach. However, the researchers are not sure if taking magnesium dietary supplements would also produce the same result.

Why Did Obese Individuals Tend To Eat More?

Modern lifestyle and unhealthy diet have made obesity to fast becoming an epidemic that worries many health professionals. This is because obesity will eventually lead to many undesired medical disorders like heart disease, diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), and even certain types of cancer.

Meanwhile, it seems that obese individuals tend to take in more food to the contrary that they are supposed to eat less to cut down their weight. Such phenomenon has aroused the curiosity of scientists and prompted them to find out the cause behind that.

Researchers from the University of Texas (UT), the Oregon Research Institute, and the Yale University School of Medicine, Connecticut, jointly found that obese persons may have fewer pleasure receptors in their brains, which require them to feed themselves with more of a rewarding substance like food or drugs so that they could experience the same level of pleasure as other people.

The findings of the study, which is one of the first to positively identify factors that increase people's weight gain risk in the future, were published in the month of October 2008 in the journal Science.

According to the researchers, human brain releases the so-called pleasure chemical dopamine, which is believed to be a reward to the body for consuming life-sustaining nutrition. They suspected weak reward centers in the brain prompt obese people to eat more, and they believed obese people might have fewer dopamine receptors causing them to overeat so as to compensate for this reward deficit.

A technique known as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) was used to examine the extent to which pleasure receptors in individuals were activated in response to a taste of chocolate milkshake versus tasteless solution. The participants were then tested for the presence of a genetic variation that was linked to a lower number of the dopamine receptors. Changes in the participants’ BMI (body mass index) were tracked over a one-year period.

The researchers believed the results from the study are key for understanding weight gain and to helping at-risk obese individuals. By identifying changes in behavior or pharmacological options, it is hoped that the reward deficit could be corrected to prevent and treat obesity.

Tobacco Can Be Useful, Are You Sure?

Smoking and tobacco have always been linked to unhealthy news. Smokers not only have the higher chance of getting heart disease, lung cancers, and other ailments, the secondhand smoke originated from them could also cause harmful effects to the people around them. Many studies have confirmed the claim.

However, an interesting finding by researchers from the University of Verona have found a healthy use for tobacco after they genetically bled modified plants containing a medicine that could stop Type-1 diabetes.

They published their findings on March 19, 2009 in the journal BMC Biotechnology and indicated out that they had produced tobacco plants containing a potent anti-inflammatory protein known as interleukin-10 (IL-10), which could help patients with insulin-dependent Type-1 diabetes and other autoimmune diseases.

Agrochemical companies such as Bayer and Syngenta have been searching ways to produce complex protein drugs in plants but the progress has been slow.

The new finding is believed to mark the latest advance in the emerging field of molecular farming that might offer an alternative way of producing biotech drugs and vaccines at a cost cheaper than traditional factory systems do.

The European researchers believe the antibody medicines and vaccines, which are produced in cell cultures inside stainless steel fermenters, could eventually be grown more efficiently in fields. This is because plants are the world's most cost-effective protein producers. They have studied several different plants around the world, but tobacco is their firm favorite.

The researchers’ work has drawn the attention from tobacco giant Philip Morris, which is supporting a conference on plant-based medicine in Verona in June 2009.

Meanwhile, Swedish biotech company Diamyd has already been testing a conventionally produced GAD65 vaccine against diabetes in clinical trials. On the other hand, Protalix plans to submit its drug for regulatory approval in the United States and Israel in the 4th quarter of 2009.

Obesity Cannot Be Blamed for Bad Health?

Obesity or overweight has long been linked to medical disorders like diabetes that could eventually lead to heart disease, hypertension (high blood pressure), stroke, or kidney disease. Evidence also showed that certain types of cancer are associated with weight gain.

The evidence linking obesity to diabetes and cardiovascular disease is very strong and it is known that Type-2 diabetes seldom occurs in people who are not obese or overweight.

Based on the standard set by the World Health Organization (WHO), a person who has a body mass index (BMI) of above 25 is considered overweight and those with BMI exceeding 30 are obese. BMI is defined as weight in kilos divided by the square of height in meters.

However, not all health experts agree on the arguments mentioned above. Instead, a minority of health experts, who are termed as the obesity contrarians, argue that there is no data proving why being fat would be dangerous. To them, being obese is not as severe a threat as is thought. They felt that the obesity epidemic has been absolutely been exaggerated.

A political science professor even claimed that there is no good causal connection between obesity and bad health. According to his opinion, blaming obesity for diabetes and heart attacks is like blaming lung cancer on bad health rather than on smoking. He explained that since other factors such as diet, exercise or genetic predispositions towards diseases are harder to measure than weight.

Other skeptics also criticize the over-projection on the rise in obesity. For example, the British government warns that nearly half of the Britain’s population will be obese by 2050. The skeptics believe that these projections are not based on good evidence because those who are obese are often lumped together with those who are overweight. To them, people, who are overweight, may be perfectly healthy.

It is true that people, who are thin, can get diabetes, hypertension, stroke and even heart disease while people, who are fat, are apparently healthy. Nevertheless, until health experts could derive sound evidence to prove that obesity is definitely bad for health, there will still be some obesity contrarians out there to advocate otherwise.

What do you think?

Can Calories Reduction Lead to Weight Loss?

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that 66 percent of adults in Untied States are overweight and of those, 32 percent are obese.

People are aware of the fact that overweight or obese could increase the chance of developing medical disorders like diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), and even heart disease. Scientists also link obesity to certain types of cancer. Recently, several death cases of H1N1 also involved victims who were overweight. As such, overweight or obese people should try their utmost to lose weight.

A study, funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), found that eating heart-healthy, low-calorie foods and exercising is the key to losing weight regardless of levels of carbohydrates, fat or protein. The findings were published on February 27, 2009 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

811 volunteers participated in the NIH study. 38 percent of them were men and 62 percent were women, who aged between 30 and 70, and either overweight or obese. The study examined the diets that have been popular in the United States in recent years.

The so-called "Preventing Overweight Using Novel Dietary Strategies (POUNDS LOST) study found similar weight loss after 6 months and 2 years among participants assigned to 4 diets that were different in the proportions of carbohydrates, fat or protein.

Diets used were low or high in total fat (20 or 40 percent of calories) with average or high protein (15 or 25 percent of calories). Carbohydrate content ranged from 35 to 65 percent of calories. All these diets employed the same calorie reduction goals and were heart-healthy with low in saturated fat and cholesterol while high in dietary fiber.

Participants lost an average 13 pounds (5.9 kilos) at 6 months and maintained a pound (4-kilo) loss at 2 years.

This new research advocated that as long as people follow a heart-healthy, reduced calorie diet, there is more than one nutritional approach to achieving and maintaining a healthy weight. In fact, people who are required to lose weight are provided with flexibility to choose one that they feel most comfortable and most likely to sustain. In other words, the one approach that is most suited to their personal preferences and health needs..

How Sleep Duration Affected Blood Pressure?

According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, adults normally need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep. However, the sleep duration of many adults is far less than the recommended.

In fact, several studies have reported the negative health consequences of short sleep duration. Studies have shown lack of sleep would raise rates of obesity, depression and high blood pressure in children, and it would increase the risk of falls for older adults. For the middle-aged persons, lack of sleep would increase the risk of infections, heart disease, stroke and cancer.

It is widely believed that high blood pressure, if not treated in time with medications, could cause stroke and eventually lead to partial or total disability. Some serious cases could even result in death. In the meantime, one should not forget that high blood pressure has long been regarded as a known risk factor of heart disease.

A paper published on June 8, 2009 in the Archives of Internal Medicine by researchers from the University of Chicago revealed that middle-aged adults who sleep too little are more likely to develop hypertension (high blood pressure).

The new study is believed to be among the first to directly measure sleep duration for middle-aged adults. The findings showed that a person who misses an average of 1 hour of sleep over a period of 5 years would raise the risk of getting high blood pressure by 37 percent. Meanwhile, the study also suggested that poor sleep might well explain in part why black men have higher blood pressure risks.

In the study, 578 adults with an average age of 40 were examined. The researchers took blood pressure readings and measured sleep duration for each of these adults. It was noted that only 1 percent slept 8 hours or more.

On average, the volunteers slept only 6 hours. For those who slept less, chances they would develop high blood pressure over 5 years would be much higher. The result also showed that every hour of lost sleep raised the risk. Meanwhile, the researchers found that men, and particularly black men, had much shorter sleep duration than white women in the study, who were least likely to develop high blood pressure.

Why Does Obesity Epidemic Prevail in United States?

In general, people gain weight because of over-eating or a lack of exercise or both. At an International obesity conference in Amsterdam held on March 8, 2009, researchers from the health faculty of Australia's Deakin University cited over-eating as the main cause for the American obesity epidemic. This is simply because physical activity could not fully compensate for the intake of excess calories.

When a person is overweight or obese, advice from his or her family doctor on losing weight would surely emerge as numerous medical disorders like diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), stroke and certain types of cancer will most likely be developed. This also means that the risk of having heart disease is much higher.

As revealed by the study, American children had grown on average of 4 kilos heavier over the past 3 decades with adults putting on an extra weight of 8 kilos.

What Americans should weigh today based on their current, higher food intake was calculated and compared to their actual weight. When the weight was found to be more than projected would imply a drop in physical activity.

The findings suggested the American adults had been increasing their physical activity. Same deduction also applied to American children leading the researchers to conclude that changes in physical activity had had no impact on American children growing fatter. The researchers also believe similar findings would probably apply for other developed countries.

In order for the Americans to return to their leaner bodies in the 1970s, children would have to reduce their intake by about 350 calories a day (equivalent to 1 can of fizzy drink and a small portion of French fries) and adults would need to cut theirs by about 500 calories a day (equivalent to a Big Mac burger). The alternative way is to walk for an extra of 2-and-half hours a day for children and nearly 2 hours for adults.

Nevertheless, the extra walking of nearly 2 hours a day is not a feasible option for people to counter the obesity epidemic, according to the researchers. Instead, they suggest people should pay more attention on the energy intake side rather than on the physical activity. In other words, Americans must eat less.

The findings, however, did not mean to dispute the value of physical activity for weight management and overall health.

Worrisome Obesity Rate Among American Preschoolers!

The health professionals and experts have been expressing their concerns on the climbing of obesity rate among teenagers and young children. Their concerns are inevitable because obesity could be the cause of developing many health problems, such as diabetes, heart disease, hypertension (high blood pressure) and even certain types of cancer, for these youngsters later in their life. Meanwhile, this phenomenon could lead to economic disadvantages not only for these youngsters but also for their countries, if not managed appropriately.

In order to find out if a person is of a healthy weight, body mass index (BMI) is usually used. BMI is calculated by dividing a person’s weight (in kilos) by the square of his or her height (in meter). The higher the BMI, the greater is the risk for obesity and health problems. Children were considered obese once their BMI falls within the 95th percentile or higher based on government BMI growth charts.

A recent study carried out by public health researchers from Ohio State University reported in April 2009 that almost 1 in 5 American 4-year-olds is obese and the rate is alarmingly higher among Americans Indian children, with nearly a third of them are obese.

Seeing differences by race at such an early age was rather shock to the researchers. In the meantime, they also found that more than half a million 4-year-olds are obese.

As indicated in the findings, obesity is more common in Hispanic and black youngsters too. However, the disparity is most startling in American Indians, whose rate is almost double of whites.

The magnitude of these differences was indeed larger than what the researchers expected. Moreover, the researchers were also surprising to see the differences by racial groups occurred at so early in childhood.

In terms of percentage, almost 13 percent of Asian children were obese, along with 16 percent of whites, almost 21 percent of blacks, 22 percent of Hispanics, and 31 percent of American Indians.

Would Higher Intake of Vitamin-D Reduce Mortality Rate?

There is no doubt that Vitamin-D is good for our health. Recent research (February 2009) from Johns Hopkins University even suggested that the likelihood of dying could well be reduced by consuming higher amounts of Vitamin-D!

Studies have found that people who had a deficiency in Vitamin-D would have a 26 percent higher chance of dying, and Vitamin-D would reduce the mortality rate from almost every type of cancer including breast, colon and prostate. Meanwhile, research also indicated that Vitamin-D would help prevent heart disease, cardiovascular disease and kidney disease.

In fact, a doctor of internal medicine in United States did find 80 percent of his patients lacked Vitamin-D to maintain normal blood levels of calcium and phosphorus in their body. He regularly screened his patients during examinations by a simple blood test, which could check for levels that should remain at 30 nanograms per milliliter or more.

In general, people with insufficient amount of Vitamin-D may have muscle pain or a feeling of achiness. Those who have severe and long-term deficiency of Vitamin-D would eventually lead to rickets, which refers to softening or weakening of the bones.

Although sunlight does help our body produce Vitamin-D, long hours of exposure in direct sunlight would actually raise the risk of skin cancer. As such, doctors usually recommend people who are short for Vitamin-D to take food and supplements to make up the deficiency.

The recommended amount by the United States Department of Agriculture is 200 International Units (IU) per day for people up to the age of 50. Nevertheless, most health experts felt that the correct amount should be at least 400 IU.

People are advised to take supplements and eat more foods rich in Vitamin-D. For example, an 8-ounce glass of fortified milk contains about 100 IUs of Vitamin-D. Other foods like salmon and tuna, fortified cereals, nuts, orange juice and dairy products are all rich in Vitamin-D. Meanwhile, people can also take supplements that are rich in Vitamin-D3 such as cholecalciferol.

Is Risk of Death Raised by Eating More Red Meat?

Is eating red meat bad for health? This highly controversial question has been debated between various groups of people for years.

Eating too much meat would probably cause people to put on weight. Being overweight or obese, one will have a much higher chance of getting many medical complications like heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke and even certain types of cancer.

In order to find out answer pertaining to this question, the National Cancer Institute in United States carried out one of the largest study.

The researchers reported that people who eat the most red meat as well as processed meat have the highest overall risk of death from all causes, including heart disease and cancer. Their findings appeared in the Archives of Internal Medicine on March 23, 2009.

More than 500,000 people aged between 50 and 71 were involved in the study. They filled out questionnaires on their diet and other health habits. Their records were later examined by the researchers.

It was found that people who ate meat heavily were more likely to die over the next 10 years than those who ate the least amount of meat, even when other factors such as eating fresh fruits and vegetables, exercise, obesity and smoking were accounted for.

The researchers found that the consumption of red and processed meat were associated with modest increases in total mortality, cancer mortality, and cardiovascular mortality.

The volunteers participated in the study were divided into 5 groups, called quintiles. There were 47,976 men and 23,276 women died during the period between 1995 and 2005.

People in the quintile that ate the most red meat had a higher risk for overall death, death from heart disease and cancer than the men and women who ate the least red meat.

If people could eat less meat, thousands of deaths could just be prevented. For overall mortality, 11 percent of deaths in men and 16 percent of deaths in women could be prevented should people reduced their red meat intake to the level in the first quintile.