by Carole Jackson Bottom Line Health

My friend likes to have a drink before bed—a real drink.

It’s usually a beer.

He likes the fact that the alcohol seems to help him get to sleep.

What he doesn’t like is that he tends to wake up a few hours later and then has trouble falling back to sleep, leaving him groggy the next morning!

In fact, most experts agree that alcoholic beverages (along with caffeinated beverages and energy drinks) are among the worst drinks to have before bed. So what should we all be sipping on instead that might help us get to sleep and stay asleep??

A new study points to an unusual choice—nonalcoholic beer.

SNOOZE NEWS

Before reading this study, I never thought that nonalcoholic beer might convey health benefits, but these findings are making me reconsider.

For the study, Spanish researchers evaluated subjects’ sleep amount and quality using actigraphy, a wrist sensor that detects motion during sleep/wake cycles. During the first week of the study (the control week), subjects drank whatever they normally drank at dinner (but keep in mind, in Spain, dinner is around 10:00 pm or 10:30 pm). These subjects usually drank a glass of milk because they were all teetotalers (and none drank nonalcoholic beer). During the next two weeks, subjects stopped drinking whatever they normally drank at dinner and instead each drank one 12-ounce bottle of nonalcoholic beer (San Miguel, a Spanish brand).

Results: The subjects slept better during the weeks that they drank alcohol-free beer. Not only did they fall asleep an average of 12 minutes faster, but they experienced 27% fewer movements while sleeping—meaning less tossing and turning. As a bonus, they also reported feeling less anxious during those weeks—probably because they were sleeping better.

THE SLEEPY-TIME SECRET

Researchers believe that it’s the bitter resins in hop compounds, botanical ingredients (they’re from a flower, actually) used in brewing for their aroma, that do the trick. Hop compounds have sedative properties, soothing the central nervous system by raising levels of the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). This helps explain why nonalcoholic beer may help you not only get to sleep but sleep soundly and stay asleep—it has the hop compounds that make you drowsy, but not the alcohol that wakes you up later. (Technically speaking, nonalcoholic beers do have a tiny bit of alcohol in them—a bottle of O’Douls, for example, has 0.4%—but since a bottle of regular beer, such as Budweiser, has about 5%, it’s not much.)

Lead author and graduate researcher Lourdes Franco said that Americans would be best off drinking a nonalcoholic beer roughly an hour before bed to get the most effect, though she noted that hop compounds remain in your system all night.

She was surprised that it took only one nonalcoholic beer per night to impact sleep—and she’d recommend this habit to almost anyone needing help falling and/or staying asleep.

WHO SHOULD AVOID NONALCOHOLIC BEER?

There are a few groups of people that may want to stay away from nonalcoholic beer, Franco noted.

People with celiac disease—those who can’t properly digest gluten (the protein that is found in wheat, barley, and rye)—should keep their distance, since most nonalcoholic (and alcoholic) beers contain gluten. Until Spain’s Ambar Green beer becomes widely available in the US, celiacs will have trouble finding a beer that’s both nonalcoholic and almost entirely gluten-free, unfortunately.

If you have type 1 or type 2 diabetes and you’re limiting carbs to keep your blood sugar in a healthy range, be aware that nonalcoholic beer has roughly 13 grams of carbs, which is about the same amount that you’d get in a regular (nonlight) beer. (For comparison, a 12-ounce can of Coke has about 41 grams of carbs and an eight-ounce glass of apple juice has about 29 grams of carbs.)

BREWING BENEFITS

For people who can safely drink nonalcoholic beer, there are lots of choices. Since it’s the hop compounds in the beer that you’re after, you’ll want to know which brands have the most—but when I called Keith Lemcke, vice president of Siebel Institute of Technology and marketing director of World Brewing Academy in Chicago, a school for the brewing sciences that’s been around for 130 years, he said that all nonalcoholic beers have approximately the same level of hop compounds. In other words, it doesn’t matter which brand you choose—any is likely to help you get to dreamland!

Sources: Lourdes Franco, graduate researcher, laboratory of chrononutrition, department of physiology, University of Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain. Her study was published in PLoS ONE.

Keith Lemcke, vice president, Siebel Institute of Technology, and marketing director, World Brewing Academy, both in Chicago.

by Carole Jackson, Bottom Line Health

If an apple a day can keep the doctor away, what can a kiwifruit — or several — do? Well, if one of your medical issues is high blood pressure, a new study finds that eating these fuzzy tropical fruits may do you some real good.

Does that make kiwi the new fruit phenom for heart health? I called Mette Svendsen, PhD, the study’s lead researcher, who works as a registered dietician at Oslo University Hospital in Norway. She told me that she had been intrigued by an earlier study performed by her research group that found that kiwi had a promising health effect in men who smoke (a group at higher risk for hypertension) — so they decided to put the fruit to the test among nonsmokers with blood pressure issues as well. Dr. Svendsen presented the study at the American Heart Association’s annual meeting in November 2011.

QUICK KIWI CURE?

Dr. Svendsen’s research randomly assigned 118 men and women with slightly elevated blood pressure or “prehypertension” to eat three kiwis or one apple a day for eight weeks. She and her colleagues chose to study three kiwis, in particular, to try to better match the calories in one apple. Measuring the participants’ blood pressure at the beginning of the study and at the end of the study with 24-hour automatic ambulatory blood pressure monitors, researchers observed that, after the eight-week study was over, the average systolic blood pressure reading for those who ate kiwis was 3.6 mm Hg lower than for those eating apples. And the average diastolic blood pressure reading for those who ate kiwis was 1.9 mm Hg lower than for the apple-eaters.

A drop of fewer than four systolic points may not seem like a big difference, but Dr. Svendsen said that it’s large enough to be “clinically significant” — meaning that it’s enough to make a small but tangible difference in people’s cardiovascular health. And since participants didn’t change anything else in their diets — and weren’t on blood pressure medications, which is why researchers chose to study those with only mildly raised blood pressure — Dr. Svendsen told me that she feels confident that kiwis can be a frontline defense in the battle to control blood pressure. But this study is only a start, she added, so more research on the topic needs to be done to confirm kiwi’s beneficial effects on heart health.

WHAT’S THE SECRET?

Kiwis are high in potassium, which is known to be helpful in controlling blood pressure, but Dr. Svendsen told me that her team believes the potent antioxidant lutein that is found in kiwis is probably what should get the credit in this case. She explained that lutein reduces free radicals by increasing nitric oxide, which may help keep blood vessels relaxed. Compared with apples, she said, kiwis have 10 times more antioxidants.

Kiwis may be considered a somewhat exotic fruit by many Americans, but they’re actually pretty inexpensive and easy to find, even in regular supermarkets. Buy them on the firm side (they last a while when stored at room temperature), and eat them when they begin to soften just a bit. You can peel them just as you would a cucumber or carrot — or some people prefer to cut them in half and scoop out the fruit with a spoon. Dr. Svendsen said that it doesn’t matter what time of day you eat your kiwis or whether you eat them on their own, sliced in a salad or smashed into a smoothie or juicer — the results are the same.

I asked whether taking a lutein supplement could work as a stand-in for eating kiwis for those who don’t like the fruits. Dr. Svendsen said probably not — “We haven’t studied the effect of taking a supplement, but other studies on antioxidant supplements have not been promising. It seems like the fruit itself is best.”

Source:

Mette Svendsen, PhD, RD, section for preventive cardiology, department of endocrinology, obesity and preventive medicine, Oslo University Hospital, Norway.

by Carole Jackson, Bottom Line Health

We Americans love our grilled meat, fish and poultry, whether from the backyard or in a restaurant — especially those blackened morsels on the edges of, say, a sizzling burger or barbecued ribs. In fact, we continue to eat our grilled meat even though it was discovered over the past two decades that charring meat produces distinctive chemicals that may raise our risk for colon, prostate or breast cancer. That’s love, folks! But now a study shows that this cancer risk may be even higher than we thought… maybe high enough to finally take the sizzle out of our grilling habit. Let’s see…

WHAT THE NEW GRILLING STUDY FOUND

Researchers from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health were concerned that previous studies on charred foods could be misleading because the kind of mice used in the studies do not metabolize the potentially dangerous substances in the same way that humans do. To correct this problem, researchers genetically engineered a group of mice to more closely mimic a human’s metabolism. (In particular, these mice were bred to have enzymes called sulfotransferases spread more widely within the digestive system, like humans have.)

Next, researchers injected a group of engineered mice and a control group of typical mice with a carcinogenic chemical called PhIP, which is formed in charred meats cooked at high temperatures — and the findings were dismaying. After 16 weeks, 31% of the typical mice had cancerous intestinal tumors — but in the engineered set, a whopping 80% did! In other words, the study concluded, humans may be more sensitive to the carcinogens found in charred meat than we previously thought.

AN EXPERT WEIGHS IN

To get perspective on the study, which was published in the October 17, 2011 issue of Molecular Carcinogenesis, I called molecular toxicologist Robert J. Turesky, PhD, research investigator at the Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health, in Albany. Dr. Turesky said that the study was interesting, but he thought that it is tenuous at best to extrapolate its findings to human risk. Among his reasons…

• The dosage of PhIP given to the animals was massive. Dr. Turesky said that it was “a million-fold, if not more” than humans would ever ingest per day.

• The mice received a PhIP compound that was not the natural form present in charred meat, but rather a synthetic chemical that is based on it.

• The researchers injected the chemical directly under the skin of the mice, which meant that the animals absorbed all of the chemical. When humans ingest PhIP, it is just one element in a complex mixture of many other chemicals, all of which influence how the body metabolizes and responds to compounds in foods — so humans don’t usually absorb 100% of PhIP.

• The injections were given to pregnant female mice just before they gave birth and then to those baby mice in the weeks shortly after their birth — times when the mice were particularly sensitive to carcinogenic chemicals.

SHOULD WE WORRY MORE?

You may be wondering why the researchers “stacked the deck” so much in the way they designed the study — but in fact, there was a good reason for what they did. Their goal was to see whether they were right to be concerned that the sort of laboratory mice commonly used for toxicological research (as opposed to their mice engineered to be more like humans) could have skewed the results of previous studies. In that goal, they seem to have succeeded — and now scientists are going to have to go back to their labs and design new studies with these and other animal models to see just how dangerous to us our beloved grilled meat really is.

Meanwhile, as Dr. Turesky noted, these results don’t mean that we should ignore the health issue altogether, because there is no doubt that charring meat can create human carcinogens. However, there are ways to minimize the formation of these chemicals in foods when you grill…

• Before grilling, marinate the food — even just 30 minutes is helpful — in marinades containing some combination of vinegar, lemon juice, tarragon, sage, mint and rosemary. There has been some evidence that this reduces the formation of carcinogens when grilling, though the data is still inconclusive, said Dr. Turesky.

• Flip meat on the grill frequently to minimize the burning of surfaces.

• Avoid eating well-done meat. The longer the meat is on the grill, the higher the possibility that PhIP will form.

• Eat lots of raw or lightly cooked vegetables with your meat. There is some evidence that cruciferous vegetables in particular (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and others) are protective. They may change the way the body metabolizes chemicals produced by grilling and therefore cancel out at least some of the negative health effects of ingesting PhIP from cooked meats.

Now that Dr. Turesky has pointed out some of the shortcomings of the most recent study, I admit that I feel a little relieved. I know that frequently eating grilled meat isn’t the best dietary choice, but I’m not going to stop having the occasional grilled steak or chicken… and we’ll see what future research tells us.

Source(s):

Robert J. Turesky, PhD, research investigator at the Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health, Albany, and associate professor, School of Public Health, University at Albany, University of New York.

by Carole Jackson Bottom Line Health

Standing in the summer sun on a gently rocking boat…riding in a car that’s snaking down a winding country road—these should be pleasurable parts of your vacation. They certainly shouldn’t make you feel sick!

But for many people who experience motion sickness, riding in just about any kind of vehicle—planes and trains, too—can ruin the entire trip, making them queasy, dizzy, anxious and/or cranky.

There are several popular drugs for motion sickness, but they all (of course) have side effects. Dramamine (dimenhydrinate), for example, often causes drowsiness.

Curious about alternative natural treatments that might relieve motion sickness, I contacted two experts in the field, and I am going to share their tips with you today.

SPICES THAT FIGHT MOTION SICKNESS

The first expert I called was Keith Zeitlin, ND, director of the 5-Elements Naturopathic Health Center in Wallingford, Connecticut. He told me that a couple of spices that might already be in your kitchen are great for preventing motion sickness…

• Ginger. A few minutes before traveling, do one of the following three things. Chew on a piece of raw gingerroot for three minutes and then spit it out…munch on one piece of candy called a Ginger Chew, which is made by The Ginger People and is available at many supermarkets and online…or take one gingerroot capsule. These capsules are available at health-food stores and online. (It’s important to check with your doctor before taking any supplement, because supplements may cause side effects and/or may interact negatively with drugs you’re taking.) Repeat any of these measures if motion sickness occurs while traveling.
• Cinnamon. If ginger doesn’t work, a few minutes before you travel, take a few sniffs of cinnamon essential oil (aura cacia) which is available at health-food stores and online. If you get motion sickness while traveling, sniff the cinnamon oil a few times again. But be careful not to sniff the oil too deeply, because it’s quite strong!

TRY ACUPRESSURE

The second expert I contacted was Lixing Lao, PhD, professor of family and community medicine at University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Pressing a certain part of the arm called the P6 Point, Dr. Lao said, often can relieve motion sickness. This particular spot is on the inner forearm about 1.5 inches (or two thumb widths) up the arm from the center of the wrist.

How to do it: About three hours before your trip and again a few minutes before you depart, apply pressure to the P6 Point, on one wrist—it doesn’t matter which one. You can do it yourself or have someone else apply the pressure. To do it yourself: With one hand, grasp your other arm and turn it palm up. Put your thumb on the P6 Point and put the rest of your fingers on the outside of your forearm. Apply sustained pressure with your thumb for about three minutes. The pressure should be firm—just below the level of pain. If you start to feel sick while traveling, apply pressure again.

Several companies make devices called motion sickness bands (such as the brand called Sea Bands) that cost about $7 to $15 at drugstores and online. They’re wrist straps that contain buttons, and they’re tight and made with elastic. After you put them on properly (carefully following the instructions and placing the button over the P6 point), the button then continuously presses into the P6 point. They’re convenient, because you don’t have to press with your thumb, and you can wear one on each wrist simultaneously for as long as needed, so you might find that using the wristbands provides more relief than the trying this trick manually.

Sources: Keith Zeitlin, ND, medical director of the 5 Elements Naturopathic Health Center in Wallingford, Connecticut.

Lixiand Lao, PhD, professor, family and community medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, and senior researcher with The Center for Integrative Medicine, Kernan Hospital, both in Baltimore.

by Carole Jackson, Bottom Line Health

Some fashionistas won’t buy apparel made of polyester, and that may be shopping advice that the rest of us should follow, too, since scientists have recently found evidence that laundering this type of clothing — and perhaps other plastic textiles, as well — may be damaging the environment in some disturbing ways.

To understand the problem, think of pollution as particles that infiltrate our air, soil and water. (There are gaseous pollutants, too, of course, but let’s focus on particles.) You might not think that plastic is a “micro-pollutant,” but if you were to break down the fabric of polyester (or acrylic or nylon), you would get tiny plastic fibers smaller than grains of sand and thinner than a human hair. When plastic textiles are laundered, these fibers are so small that they exit the washing machine and go through the sewage system, but they aren’t caught by filters. Eventually they can end up accumulating in our oceans and on our seashores, which means that they can also end up in our food chain via the digestive systems of animals that we might eat someday. This is worrisome not only because we don’t want to be eating plastics themselves, but because they also absorb carcinogenic chemicals in the environment. In other words, certain plastics can become tiny, toxin-soaked sponges that may end up in our food supply.

STUDYING “MICROPLASTICS”

Prompted by previous studies showing that 65% of the plastic debris in our environment consists of “microplastics” (the name given to bits smaller than 1 mm in size), Mark Anthony Browne, PhD, an ecologist now at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, California, set out with a team of researchers to learn more about where they come from and how they are being dispersed. Their study was published in September 2011 in Environmental Science & Technology.

The research: Dr. Browne and his colleagues took sediment samples from 18 beaches, including the coastal US and sites in the UK, Australia, Portugal and the Philippines. They found three different categories of microplastics. One kind comes from plastic containers (like soda bottles) and other hard products that get beaten into small particles as a result of abrasion by waves and wind. A second type is granules that are used as abrasive scrubbers in cleaning products. The most interesting part was that they found a third type, too, that is made of fibers that are used in textiles and rope — and the most commonly found textile microplastic fiber was polyester. They also discovered that sediment from shores close to areas with dense populations of humans contained far more microplastic fibers.

THE HIGH PRICE OF DOING LAUNDRY

The researchers then traced the samples to wastewater from sewage treatment facilities where, they learned, the filters aren’t fine enough to trap these small, fiber-based microplastics. After testing a few theories to discover how they got into the wastewater, the researchers were able to conclude that the fibers were most likely the result of laundry. Through further tests, they found that when a single garment made of polyester is washed in a conventional residential type of machine, more than 1,900 of these fibers can be released.

Though microplastics from other types of fabrics (such as acrylic and polypropylene — a nylonlike material) were found, the only fabric that has been tested so far is polyester. And only new polyester clothing was tested. Future research needs to address whether the age of clothing and/or the number of washes affects how many fibers are released.

Dr. Browne described this finding as “incredible,” adding that he sees this as our strongest evidence yet that washing machines are a likely source of this hazardous type of pollutant. He told me that even the researchers were surprised to learn the extent to which washing one garment, just one time, can be so harmful to the environment and, presumably, to our health. And there are no laws that require companies to prove that plastic fibers are safe for the environment and human health, so the dispersal of microplastics into our environment is becoming more widespread.

Dr. Browne told me that he hopes that this study brings the issue to the attention of those who could provide funding for further research. More questions to be answered include whether all types of microplastic textiles lead to the same type and amount of pollution… whether certain types of washing machines end up creating more of this pollution… and whether natural fibers shed fewer toxic fibers than synthetic materials.

I’ll be following that important line of research, but this is a great opportunity for me to say to my readers what I’m always saying to my family at home — you don’t have to wash everything after wearing it just one time! Doing less laundry can make a difference — starting right now.

Source(s):

Mark A. Browne, PhD, ecologist, National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, California.

by Carole Jackson, Bottom Line Health

Make a list of your most intimate relationships and, in all probability, your hairdresser or barber should be on it. You’ve probably swapped many stories during washings and trimmings, and maybe you’ve even traded advice about life and love. (And, really, how many other people run their fingers through your hair?!)

Now, according to the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, there’s even more that your hairdresser can and should do — alert you about possible skin cancer.

Since the only thing that my hairdresser has ever alerted me about has been which shampoo would add the most volume to my hair, I called Alan Geller, MPH, RN, senior lecturer in the school’s department of society, human development and health, because he recently led a study on the topic.

A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW

Who else sees — really sees — your scalp and the back of your neck? Understanding that unique view, Geller and his colleagues wondered if hair professionals use, or could use, that perspective to help look for skin cancers. If so, it could save lives, because while melanomas of the scalp and neck represent only about 6% of all melanomas in the US, they account for about 10% of all melanoma deaths. Geller told me that one reason scalp and neck cancers are such high-risk cancers is that we can’t easily see those areas of the body, so cancers there tend to elude early detection — and the later a cancer is detected, the greater the risk for death.

HOW IN-THE-KNOW ARE HAIRDRESSERS?

The researchers analyzed surveys completed by 203 male and female hairdressers and barbers from 17 salons in the Houston area. There were 43 questions total, including questions about knowledge of the ABCD rule of detecting cancerous lesions (asymmetry-border-color-diameter), personal practices in caring for their own skin (such as wearing sunscreen and hats) and health communication practices.

What researchers discovered: Although fewer than one-third of these professionals had had any formal training in skin cancer detection, many of them seemed to understand the essential elements — 90% agreed that a customer should see a doctor for a mole that’s changing in size or that bleeds… 89% for a mole that’s changing color… and 78% for a mole that itches. More than one-third (37%) said that they had actually inspected the scalps of more than half of their customers in the past month, and 29% said that they had examined the necks of more than half of their customers in the past month. Researchers were also happily surprised to find that 58% of the hairdressers had already recommended that a customer see a doctor about an abnormal mole that they had found. In addition, Geller was encouraged by the fact that most respondents recognized the importance of their role — half said that they would like to receive formal skin cancer education, and 69% said that they would give customers a skin cancer pamphlet if they had one.

WHY TALKING TO YOUR HAIRDRESSER IS KEY

Most people see their physician about twice a year, and only 15% of people see a dermatologist annually. But most people see hairdressers or barbers much more often, so their observations could be extremely valuable, said Geller. Right now, there are no cosmetology rules or incentives that encourage hair professionals across the US to perform skin cancer screenings on customers, but Geller envisions a future where hair professionals are on the front line of skin cancer sightings, alerting customers about suspicious skin lesions and recommending that they see their doctors.

The Harvard group isn’t stopping there. Geller’s colleague, researcher Elizabeth Bailey, MD, is working with the Melanoma Foundation of New England on a 20-minute pilot program to educate hair professionals about checking customers for scalp and neck skin cancers. I asked the foundation’s executive director, Deb Girard, whether Daily Health News could see the brochure that she and Dr. Bailey have developed. She was delighted to share it — you can see it at http://www.mfne.org/prevent-melanoma/the-skinny-on-skin. You’re welcome to download it for free and share it with your own hair professional.

Next on the agenda: Massage therapists, whose work gives them the chance to look closely at other parts of their customers’ skin. Geller reminded me that skin cancer is the only visible cancer and repeated a saying that he loves, “Melanoma writes its message on the skin for all of us to see.” He wants more people to be able to read that message.

Source(s):

Alan C. Geller, MPH, RN, senior lecturer, department of society, human development, and health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston.

Deb Girard, executive director, Melanoma Foundation of New England, Concord, Massachusetts.

by Carole Jackson, Bottom Line Health

Depending on your age, you may have grown up thinking that red meat was either great for your health or horrible for your health.

When I was a kid, my parents always told me to avoid it whenever possible.

More recently, when friends have asked me for a “bottom line” on red meat based on all the studies that I’ve read, I’ve told them that it’s probably best to limit their intake to very small amounts.

Now, a new Australian study shows that eating a moderate amount—not a small amount—of red meat may be good for our mental health. But it needs to be a certain type of red meat…

EAT TO BEAT DEPRESSION & ANXIETY

Interestingly, researchers found that women who consumed the equivalent of one to two ounces of red meat—beef or lamb—per day were about half as likely to be diagnosed with anxiety or depression as women who ate more or less red meat. The association was found only when they ate unprocessed red meat—which knocks out cold cuts, hot dogs and many fast-food burgers. (The researchers aren’t sure whether the same would hold true for men, but they will be testing that next.)

Did you notice the eyebrow-raiser in there? Eating little meat, which is what many people do to stay healthy, was associated with increased anxiety and depression, compared with eating some (but not a lot of) red meat. To put the amount of meat in everyday terms, a burger patty is typically about four ounces, so eating one to two ounces a day, the “sweet spot” in the study, is the equivalent of eating about two or three modestly-sized burgers a week.

But like I said above, this meat wasn’t just any old meat. It was a specific kind…

ALL BEEF IS NOT CREATED EQUAL

To learn more about which red meat is best, I phoned Felice Jacka, PhD, associate professor at the Deakin University School of Medicine in Australia, who led the research.

In Australia, they feed their cows and sheep grass—and that is the first thing that Dr. Jacka pointed out. Here in the US, the vast majority of cattle and sheep are fed mostly grains, mainly because a grain-fed cow or sheep can reach “slaughter weight” faster than one that is grass-fed. But what animals eat affects what we eat when we eat them.

Here are the nutritional benefits of grass-fed meat…

• Compared with grain-fed meat, grass-fed meat is leaner, containing less saturated fat and fewer calories. This is beneficial because a diet high in saturated fat may activate the body’s stress response system, and that has been shown to trigger anxiety and depression.
• Grass-fed meat also contains a smaller amount of omega-6 fatty acids and a greater amount of omega-3 fatty acids. Eating a lot of omega-6s stops omega-3s from performing their anti-inflammatory responsibilities. And inflammation may be a cause of anxiety and depression, said Dr. Jacka, just like it contributes to so many other disorders. This may be one reason why the Australian women who ate little red meat had higher rates of anxiety and depression than those who ate a moderate amount.
• Grass-fed meat contains more conjugated linoleic acid (which is good for you because it may reduce body fat and improve immunity), more of vitamins A and E, more antioxidants and more beta-carotene than grain-fed beef. Dr. Jacka isn’t sure if those factors also helped decrease the risk for depression and anxiety, but it’s possible.

GO FOR GRASS-FED

It’s critical to point out that Dr. Jacka’s study does not prove that red meat prevents or cures depression or anxiety—what it shows is an association, but not necessarily causation.

Still, if depression or anxiety runs in your family, or if you suffer from one of the disorders, eating a moderate amount of unprocessed red meat (seven to 14 ounces a week) might be a good idea, said Dr. Jacka. Of course, it’s important not to go overboard, because other studies have linked large amounts of red meat to increased risk for health problems such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer. One recent study from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston linked eating one serving a day (or 21 ounces a week) of unprocessed red meat with a 13% increased risk for premature death.

If you’re basing your diet decision on the evidence, then you’ll have to eat only grass-fed meat. Look for the word “grass-fed” or, ideally, “grass-finished” (meaning grass all the way to slaughter) on the package—you can find this type of meat at many markets now. Be prepared to pay more than you would for grain-fed meat…but if it’s better for your health, it may be worthwhile to “pay the price” now as opposed to later!

Source: Felice Jacka, PhD, research fellow and associate professor, Barwon Psychiatric Research Unit, Deakin University, School of Medicine, Geelong, Australia.

by Carole Jackson, Bottom Line Health

Would you let a friend get behind the wheel of a car if he’d just been drinking and wasn’t steady on his feet? The answer is certainly “No.” But if you’re like most people in the US, you wouldn’t hesitate to let a friend drive when he’s incapacitated for another reason — drowsiness. It’s time to wake up to a danger that causes nearly 5,500 deaths a year.

Surprisingly, drowsy driving has gotten little attention compared with other driving dangers, including speeding, drinking alcohol, failing to fasten seat belts or being distracted by cell phones and other devices. That’s why the AAA’s recent campaign against drowsy driving caught my attention.

I phoned J. Peter Kissinger, head of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, who told me that, in his opinion, drowsy driving is the largest unrecognized problem on the highways. In a recent AAA survey of 2,000 drivers age 16 and older, 32% said that they had driven while on the verge of falling asleep at some point in their lives, and 41% admitted to actually falling asleep at the wheel at some point in their lives. And that’s despite the opinion of 96% that it’s unacceptable to drive while drowsy! So why don’t we practice what we preach?

BELTS, BOOZE AND SPEED

The 96% have it right. According to the National Sleep Foundation (NSF), drowsiness is very similar in its effects to drunkenness. It causes slower reaction times, vision impairment, lapses in judgment and delays in processing information. In fact, NSF, which has joined AAA in publicizing the problem, says that being awake for more than 20 consecutive hours results in impairment equal to that caused by a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08%, which is the legal limit for driving in all states. And if you’ve undergone stress or slept poorly the night before, you don’t have to be awake for even that long to experience this level of impairment.

So why are we just now learning about this? As Kissinger put it, traffic safety experts have focused on “belts, booze and speed” and more recently on distractions by cell phones and other electronic devices. Also, statistics, he said, have downplayed the role of drowsiness in fatal crashes because it’s often difficult for investigators to determine if the cause of a crash was drowsiness, drunkenness, distraction or a combination of factors — in other words, there’s no breathalyzer or blood test for drowsy driving. If a driver veers off the road and hits a tree, for instance, there’s often not any way to tell whether he fell asleep or instead was distracted when he tried to change the station on the radio.

As a result, US traffic statistics typically show that drowsiness is involved in only about 3.6% of fatal crashes, compared with more than 30% for alcohol. AAA has now recalculated the statistics by extrapolating data from accident reports and adjusting for unknown or missing data (like drowsiness). New calculations, Kissinger said, show that nearly 17% of fatal car crashes result from drowsy driving — that’s on a par with distracted driving, which is thought to account for 16% of crashes. Plus, he added, 60% of people who “nod off” at the wheel do so when driving for less than one hour. “Drowsy driving doesn’t just occur on a long trip,” he said. “It can also happen on a shorter trip, such as driving home after a date night with your significant other.”

YOUR STRATEGY FOR SAFETY

To prevent an accident caused by drowsiness, Kissinger urges us to…

• Take a 30-minute break from driving every two hours or 100 miles to drink coffee or another caffeinated beverage. It takes about 30 minutes for caffeine to enter the bloodstream.

• Sleep at least seven hours the night before a long trip.

• If possible, travel with an alert and well-rested passenger who will help keep you awake.

• Stay somewhere overnight instead of extending your drive time beyond the length of your typical day.

In addition, he said, besides the obvious case where you have trouble keeping your eyes open or your head up, you are too sleepy to drive when you…

• Can’t remember how far you’ve traveled or what you’ve recently passed.

• Find yourself tailgating or drifting out of your lane.

• Daydream or have disconnected thoughts.

• Often yawn or rub your eyes.

• Miss signs or drive past your exit.

• Veer off the road and hit the rumble strips on the shoulder.

• Have to blast the radio and/or roll down the windows in an attempt to stay alert.

What can you say to friends who insist on driving drowsy? Try to talk them out of driving, and if possible, offer to drive them where they’re going. If that fails, take away their keys, and don’t be afraid if they become angry. They’ll likely thank you later on, Kissinger said, especially after you mention the statistics on fatalities caused by drowsy driving. A look at the stats will tell them that you may have saved their lives.

Source:
 J. Peter Kissinger, president and chief executive officer of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety in Washington, DC.

by Carole Jackson, Bottom Line Health

A large group of people now get another whack at having a healthier heart, according to findings from a new study. If you are between the ages of 31 and 64 and are currently overweight or obese — perhaps you’ve even been heavy for decades — you might think, if someone suggests that you lose weight, “What’s the point? The damage has been done.” But it turns out that, when it comes to cardiovascular risk, the number of years that you’ve been carrying excess pounds isn’t as important as whether you are overweight or obese during middle age. In fact, what we have just learned is that shedding extra weight in middle age can actually cancel out your increased risk for heart disease. If you’ve ever wished for a second chance — a real second chance — at good health, this is it.

Now, it’s important to note that being overweight or obese at any point in your life is still not advisable. Beyond raising your risk for heart disease, it raises your risk for a myriad of other health problems, such as osteoarthritis, breast and colon cancers and type 2 diabetes — many of which you may not be able to “cancel out” later. But since heart disease is the number-one cause of death in the US, getting rid of your risk for that particular health problem in middle age is still a big deal. And, believe it or not, no study until now had followed subjects over decades to explore whether losing weight in middle age would have this effect. To find out more about the study, which was published in the October 24, 2011 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, I called the author, I-Min Lee, MD, MPH, ScD, an associate professor in the department of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health.

A WEIGHTY TOPIC

For this analysis, nearly 19,000 male Harvard alumni were studied. The men were first measured with a college physical exam around age 18 and then were given a follow-up medical questionnaire when their ages ranged from 31 to 64. Researchers gathered health measurements that included body mass index (BMI) — a ratio of body weight to height that determines whether you’re “underweight,” “normal weight,” “overweight” or “obese” — and death certificates that recorded the causes of mortality for any alumni who died through 1998.

Results: Those who were overweight or obese teens but managed to attain a normal weight during middle age were not at any higher risk of dying from heart disease compared with those of normal weight in middle age who were a normal weight as students. Like I said, a second chance at good health!

THE SKINNY ON WHY DROPPING POUNDS HELPS

I asked Dr. Lee why this amazing benefit occurs even as late as middle age. The reason, she said, is that being overweight or obese negatively affects all sorts of physiological processes in our bodies, including blood pressure, cholesterol and the ability to process glucose and insulin. “But if you lose weight, no matter when you lose it,” Dr. Lee said, “all of those parameters improve, because your body doesn’t have to work as hard.” The surprise is that the potentially cumulative effects of gaining weight over time before losing it doesn’t appear to leave behind any lingering effects — at least when it comes to cardiovascular risk. In other words, if you’re healthy in middle age — that’s what matters most. Talk about a myth buster! If you thought that it was too late to start eating healthier and exercising more because you are “over the hill,” then think again.

I asked Dr. Lee how this finding might apply to women, since only men were studied. She told me that she would expect the results to be very much the same for women because excess weight has essentially the same adverse physiological effects in women as it does in men.

My final question was whether this wonderful result was likely to hold true for people who wait until even later in life to achieve a normal weight — such in their 60s, 70s or even later. Dr. Lee said that it’s tough to predict, but prior studies have shown that taking up physical activity at any age is beneficial.

Again, keep in mind that this research looked only at the effect of weight loss in middle age on one aspect of overall health — cardiovascular risk — so it’s not a free pass to eat cheeseburgers and fries every day throughout your 20s and early 30s. Being overweight, even for just a few months or years, can still be detrimental to your health. But this sure is promising news for people who have made mistakes and are ready to correct them — don’t lose hope, lose pounds!

 Source(s):

I-Min Lee, MD, MPH, ScD, associate professor in the department of medicine at Harvard Medical School and in the department of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, both in Boston. She is also an associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston.

by Carole Jackson, Bottom Line Health

As you get older, you may be OK with the fact that your vision just isn’t what it used to be. But losing sight altogether is something that nobody — myself included — ever wants to imagine. That’s why I was pleased when I heard that there may be a simple new way to prevent glaucoma. Because it’s something that anybody can do — exercise!

The new study, published in the October issue of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, came from University College London Institute of Ophthalmology in England. To learn more, I called an expert who carefully examined the study, Harry A. Quigley, MD, an ophthalmologist, the director of the Glaucoma Center of Excellence at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore and author of Glaucoma: What Every Patient Should Know.

EYEING PREVENTION

Before we jumped into the research, Dr. Quigley gave me some background about how glaucoma develops. In glaucoma, there is slow, progressive damage to the optic nerve that can gradually lead to blindness if not treated. About 90% of glaucoma cases, he told me, are called open-angle. The scariest part about open-angle glaucoma is that there are no symptoms until irreversible damage happens, so if the person doesn’t get regular eye exams, then he won’t realize that he has glaucoma until blindness begins to set in. Some people who develop glaucoma (but not all) have what’s called high intraocular pressure (IOP), which is pressure in the eye.

This new study, Dr. Quigley told me, focused on a measurement of something called ophthalmic perfusion pressure (OPP), which is the difference between your blood pressure and your IOP. So if your IOP is low, as you want it to be, then your OPP is higher (better). That means that your eyes are probably receiving more nourishing blood. But when your OPP is low, it means that circulation to and in the eyes is slowing — which could raise your risk for glaucoma or worsen existing glaucoma. Keep in mind, said Dr. Quigley, that you can have a low OPP from either higher-than-normal IOP or lower-than-normal blood pressure (or both).

Researchers investigated the relationship between physical activity and OPP. They looked at self-reported information from 5,650 adult men and women from about 15 years ago. Participants were grouped into one of two categories — “active” or “less active.” Researchers cross-referenced each participant’s level of physical activity with a measurement of OPP that was taken from the same people between 2006 and 2010.

Results: Participants who had been “active” in the past had a 25% lower risk of having low OPP — suggesting that they also had a lower risk of later developing glaucoma. What is especially uplifting about this discovery is that unlike taking drugs or having surgery, there is little risk involved in being active and exercising — and it provides many other benefits that are well-documented!

IMPROVED CIRCULATION = IMPROVED EYE HEALTH

Now, of course, we all already know that exercise is, well, out of sight, but I found it intriguing that just someone’s general level of activity, as opposed to some fancy specific eye exercises, can have such a pronounced effect on your eye health. Dr. Quigley noted that exercise improves overall circulation, which brings better blood flow everywhere, including to the eyes. And, he added, this doesn’t mean that you have to hit the gym for vigorous workouts — moderate activity, such as brisk walking that raises your heart rate for 20 minutes, is sufficient as long as you do it most days of the week.

Besides moving around more, don’t forget to see an eye doctor regularly. Dr. Quigley advises everyone to start getting exams from an ophthalmologist (a medical doctor who can provide the full spectrum of eye care) at age 40, and depending on what your doctor advises, probably at least every one to two years after that. When you reach age 60, he said, you should get an eye exam annually, because age is a risk factor for glaucoma. And, he added, “It’s especially critical for those with a family history of glaucoma, those who are of certain ethnic origins (African American, Irish, Russian, Japanese, Hispanic, Inuit and Scandinavian) and/or those who are severely nearsighted, because these are also risk factors.”

 Source(s):

Harry A. Quigley, MD, director of the Glaucoma Center of Excellence at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore.