Don't Take a Vacation From Healthy Eating

(HealthDay News) -- Even though it's summertime, children shouldn't be allowed to take a vacation from healthy eating habits, advises Dr. Sarah Armstrong, a pediatrician at Duke University Medical Center.

"Routines go haywire, and with nothing to do after a few days in the pool, kids head straight for the refrigerator or snack bar, because they think they're hungry, when they're actually just bored," Armstrong said in a university news release.

Add in things like regular servings of ice cream to beat the heat, hot dogs at the ball park, and funnel cake at the fair, and you have a summer-long binge of bad eating that can lead to weight gain.

Armstrong offered parents a number of ways to prevent their children from packing on excess pounds this summer.

Make sure kids get enough sleep. Research shows that late nights and sleeping in are known risk factors for weight gain. "When kids stay up late, they are more likely to watch TV and snack on dense, low-nutrient foods," Armstrong said.

In addition, a shorter night's sleep limits the body's production of leptin, a hormone that promotes satiety. Lower levels of leptin mean children wake up feeling more hungry and are quicker to grab high-carbohydrate, calorie-rich foods.

When children wake up, encourage them to eat healthy breakfasts that include things such as fruit smoothies, high fiber cereal or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole wheat bread.

Take a holiday from fast foods. Instead of going to a burger joint, pack a picnic with healthy foods such as turkey sandwiches and salads and go to the park or beach. Armstrong said it's important to "incorporate protein in every meal. It releases relases insulin at a slower rate, and that keeps your blood sugars -- and your energy level -- constant throughout the day."

Parents should check out the menu at their child's summer camp. If the meals and snacks aren't acceptable, pack your child a healthy lunch that includes things such as lean lunch meats, raw vegetables and whole wheat crackers.

During the summer, parents also need to limit their children's consumption of sweets and make sure kids are active.

More information
The Nemours Foundation has more about children and healthy eating.

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All This Talk of Diabetes Mortality Is a Downer

By Sean Kelley

Last week I went to San Francisco for the American Diabetes Association’s Scientific Sessions, a huge annual gathering of endocrinologists, scientists, nurse educators, and pharmaceutical companies. The latest research on type 1 and type 2 diabetes was delivered, theories discussed, and news announced.

There was much discussion of uncomfortable subjects: neuropathy, nephropathy ,cardivascular disease, hypoglycemia , death. While not fatal itself, diabetes has lots of excellent ways to kill you through related conditions: stroke, heart disease, and kidney failure spring immediately to mind. Read More

Health Magazine Ranks the Healthiest Convenience Foods

By Ross Weale

The holy grail of healthy eating is a meal or snack that is tasty, easy to prepare, and good for you. As part of Health magazine’s crusade to find America’s healthiest products and places, our staff and team of experts tested more than 500 new foods found at your local grocer.
Health senior food and nutrition editor Frances Largeman-Roth went on NBC’s Weekend Today on May 31 to talk with Amy Robach about four foods that made the cut.




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Turning My Black Thumb Against Diabetes

Year 2 in my quest to use my organic garden as a tool for better health
by Sean Kelley When my wife and I bought our farm eight years ago, it seemed out of place for us. Despite growing up in rural Alabama, I know more about Gianni Versace than John Deere. Patti owns horses, but having livestock (or 1,200-pound lawn ornaments) does not make you a farmer. Neither does owning a farm.

In fact, most of the growth on our farm in recent years is due more to neglect than intervention on our part. Nature is reclaiming our eight-acre plot.

If owning a farm is out of character, gardening is anathema. Not only do I associate digging in the earth with constant adolescent battles with my father (whose idea of a father-son activity was often limited to early morning turns with a spade and hoe), but I have inherited my mother's black thumb.

(She once killed an entire household of Christmas cacti by feeding them what she thought was plant food, but was—in fact—bleach; I swear I heard plants screaming.)

Against these natures, I tilled up soil on the property last year to plant an organic garden. I had two goals: Make the farm work for us for a change and get more fresh vegetables into our diet. It wasn't a complete disaster, but our harvest of heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuces, and herbs was modest.

Now I'm back at it with renewed purpose. I'm still trying to stick to organic farming principles, but my primary goal is exercise. At the same time, that exercise will (hopefully) produce healthy fare for our table that's in line with my diabetic diet. The strategy has lots of benefits:

• A garden requires constant attention, meaning more exercises. Gardening can burn 300 calories an hour;
• Eating fruits and vegetables lowers diabetes risks and helps you lose weight
• A 2007 study by Saint Louis University found children eat more fruits and veggies when they're home grown—something we proved with our daughter (pictured with me above) last summer when she began to actually eat things we grew that she wouldn't eat from a store.

Monday night I put in 20 tomato bushes, a variety of peppers, leeks, basil, and eggplant. Trailing clumps of soil back into the house, I thought about all the energy I expended fighting the tiller, breaking up clay, and clomping around the property. I still hate digging in the dirt, but the benefits I can harvest for my health have potential that may turn my black thumb green.

How I'm Battling Supermarket Sticker Shock

A health-conscious eater learns to trim the fat from her budget
by Julie Upton, RD

I don't believe in skimping on good food, but my supermarket bill yesterday has forced me to confront my inner cheapskate.

My weekly shopping bill is usually just over $130, with a few odds and ends picked up midweek and the occasional meal out. This week, however, the tab was almost $165—a 27% increase. I rechecked to see if we had bought something pricey like steak or wine. No and no. The escalation of food costs has made news virtually daily, and according to the Consumer Price Index, food costs have increased more in the first quarter of 2008 than they have since 1990—and there's no sign of them heading south anytime soon.

Some of my big-ticket items were cage-free eggs ($5), organic milk ($3.50), imported cheese ($4.50), artisan seven-grain bread ($5.50), and New Zealand apples ($6). And I don't want to give most of them up.

So I researched some ways of putting my grocery shopping on a diet without ruining my healthy diet. I refuse to either spend Sundays clipping coupons or head to big-box retailers, where you can easily save 30% or more on food items, so here is what I'm doing to trim some of the fat from my weekly shopping budget.

Make a List
According food marketing specialist Phil Lempert: "Surveys of supermarketguru.com readers show that list makers spend 40% less when grocery shopping." Now I hope I can stick to only what's on the list.

Brown Bag It
Unlike my mother, who loves to cook and prefers cooking to eating out, I am not much of a cook. However, the best way to s-t-r-e-t-c-h my food budget is to eat in more often. My takeout lunch is around $10, but I can make a sandwich or have soup and salad at home for around $2.

Shop Full
I'm usually pretty disciplined when I go food shopping, but when I'm hungry I wind up with a cart filled with foods that curb my carb cravings: snack bars, pretzels, and more crackers than I know what do to with. These convenience foods are among the most expensive in the supermarket and add little nutritional value to my diet. So next time I go shopping, I'll avoid temptation and go on a full stomach.

Eating Green to Save Green
I'm going to stick to my vegetarian ways even more so now, because the foods that cost the most per serving are high-quality proteins (aka beef, poultry, and seafood). Consider this: Salmon costs about $.62/ounce and beans cost .$04/ounce, making the salmon 15 times more expensive than the beans. And, when I do eat meat, I'll make it go further financially by adding in a lot more vegetables to the dish.

Head to the Farmer's Market
I'm going to try to kick my daily New Zealand apple and South American banana habit. Living in California means that I have great locally grown berries available right now, as well as plenty of veggies. Eating in season can save you $2/pound on many fruits and vegetables. Right now, I can get fresh California-grown strawberries for less than $1/pound, whereas imported blueberries from Chile were $20/pound at the supermarket! Since berries deliver similar nutritional benefits, I'll take the strawberries, thank you.

Compare Prices
Using the unit pricing system (shelf tags), I can do my own price checks on comparable items to see which offers the best deal. Unit pricing provides the price per standard unit, often one ounce. For example, I found Tropicana orange juice costs $.09/ounce but the exotic pomegranate-blueberry juice next to it was .25/ounce—more than twice the price. In the cereal aisle, most big brands were around $.30/ounce but store brands were about $.15/ounce, or half the price.

Let me know if you're feeling my pain in the pocketbook, too—and what you're doing to save some green when shopping.

Blackberries, Broccoli Sprouts Battle Cancer

(HealthDay News) -- Your local farmer's market might hold the key to cancer prevention, since new research shows that black raspberries, broccoli sprouts and some raw vegetables reduce the risk of esophageal and bladder cancers.

Data from three studies on the subject was presented Thursday at the American Association for Cancer Research's Sixth Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention, in Philadelphia.

Fruits and vegetables have long been known to help reduce the risk of certain cancers. Based on prior research, the American Cancer Society recommends eating five servings of fruits and vegetables daily.

In the first study, Ohio State University researchers found black raspberries may protect against esophageal cancer by reducing the oxidative stress that results from Barrett's esophagus, a precancerous condition usually caused by gastroesophageal reflux disease. The esophagus is a long tube that connects the throat to the stomach. Reflux disease causes stomach acid to continually splash back up into the esophagus.

"Specifically in the case of Barrett's patients, reflux of the stomach and bile acid contribute to ongoing oxidative damage. Thus, our hypothesis is that feeding a food that is high in potential protective constituents, such as antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and other phytochemicals, may help restore the oxidative balance," lead researcher Laura Kresty said.

People with Barrett's esophagus typically are 30 to 40 times more likely to develop esophageal cancer, which has a poor five-year survival rate of 15 percent.

The team gave 32 grams to 45 grams of black raspberries daily for six months to 20 patients with Barrett's esophagus. They analyzed changes in blood, urine and tissue before, during and after the treatment, and found lower levels of some of the chemical markers of oxidative stress in both urine and tissue samples.

Black raspberries previously have been shown to reduce the risk of oral, esophageal and colon cancer in animal models, according to the researchers, who called for further study in humans.

Dietitian Wendy Demark-Wahnefried, a professor of behavioral science at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas in Houston, said she would feel comfortable advising people with Barrett's to eat black raspberries. "It couldn't hurt," she said, but added that further studies need to find out if the berries really do prevent cancer.

In other research presented at the meeting, broccoli sprouts and cruciferous vegetables both showed promise in the fight against bladder cancer, according to two separate teams from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y.

Using a rat model, a team lead by Dr. Yuesheng Zhang, a professor of oncology, demonstrated that a broccoli sprout extract reduced bladder cancer in rats by 70 percent.

"Our present study shows that broccoli sprout extracts fed to rats in the diet inhibits bladder cancer development induced by a carcinogen. We don't yet know if the extracts inhibit the growth of a existing bladder cancer," said Zhang, who explained that broccoli sprouts are a rich source of a well-known cancer preventive agent known as sulforaphane.

"We next plan to find out if broccoli sprout extracts can fight bladder cancer in humans," Zhang noted.

A second team at the institute found that people who ate three or more servings of raw, cruciferous vegetables per month reduced their risk of bladder cancer by 40 percent.

Cruciferous vegetables include broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower.

The team analyzed the dietary habits of 275 people with early bladder cancer and 825 people who were cancer-free. The researchers specifically asked how many servings of raw or cooked cruciferous vegetables they ate before their diagnosis and whether they smoked.

Analysis of the data showed that the more raw, cruciferous vegetables people ate, the lower their risk of bladder cancer. In comparison to people who smoked and ate fewer than three servings of raw vegetables a day, nonsmokers eating at least three servings of cruciferous vegetables daily were 73 percent less likely to develop bladder cancer.

"In our study, we do find intake of raw cruciferous vegetables showed risk reduction of bladder cancer in smokers, and even the heavier smokers," said lead researcher Li Tang.

The researchers stressed that the benefits are derived from raw cruciferous vegetables, giving cole slaw the edge over cabbage soup when it comes to cancer prevention.

"This confirms that there are a variety of compounds within fruits and vegetables that contribute to reducing the risk of cancer. Research like these studies contribute to our knowledge about what the impact of specific nutrients may be on specific types of cancer," said Colleen Doyle, director of nutrition and physical activity for the American Cancer Society.

"Cooking leaches out some nutrients but makes others more absorbable. Until we know more in this regard, the bottom-line message for consumers is eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables each day, raw and/or lightly cooked. Focus on those with the most color, since, in general, fruit and vegetables with the most color have the most cancer-fighting antioxidants and phytochemicals."

"Surveys we've done indicate many people don't think they have control over their cancer risk, but studies clearly indicate they do. For the majority of people who don't smoke, watching their weight, being more active and eating a healthy diet are the most important ways to reduce cancer risk," Doyle said.

More information
To learn how diet and physical activity can help prevent cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.

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Experts Publish New Lung Disease Guidelines

(HealthDay News) -- Experts have devised new standards for the diagnosis, management and prevention of a widespread, deadly lung ailment -- chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

COPD affects 15 percent to 25 percent of adults over the age of 40 and is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. It's expected to become the fifth leading cause of death worldwide by 2020.

Cigarette smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke are among the most common risk factors for COPD in the developed world. In developing countries, major risk factors include long-term exposure to smoke from indoor cooking and heating fires.

Now, a report released Sept. 14 by the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease is setting the standard for caring for COPD patients.

The new guidelines -- published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine -- emphasize the importance of proper diagnosis, assessment of disease severity, and the need for a better understanding of co-existing conditions in order to improve treatment of COPD.

"This is an absolutely up-to-date summary of all the available evidence on the diagnosis, management and prevention of COPD," report lead author Dr. Klaus Rabe, of the department of pulmonology at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, said in a prepared statement.

"One of the most important points is that we now say COPD is preventable and treatable," Rabe said. "There are steps we can take to prevent it, and it is no longer viewed with therapeutic nihilism."

More information
The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about COPD.

Everyday Tips for Living With Hypertension

10 Delicious Ways to Lower High Blood Pressure

The DASH eating plan (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) has been shown to prevent and reduce high blood pressure. It's rich in fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products; moderate in total fat; and low in saturated fat and cholesterol. It's even more effective if you also reduce your salt and sodium intake. If losing weight is a concern in addition to lowering your blood pressure, you can benefit from DASH — especially if you stick to low-fat foods.

Be spicy instead of salty. In cooking and at the table, flavor foods with herbs, spices, lemon, lime, vinegar, or salt-free seasoning blends.
Use fresh poultry, fish, and lean meat, rather than canned, smoked, or processed types.
Eat moderate portions, and when snacking, eat fruit, vegetable sticks, unbuttered and unsalted popcorn, or bread sticks.

Choose "convenience" foods that are lower in sodium. Cut back on frozen dinners, pizza, packaged mixes, canned soups or broths, and salad dressings that are high in sodium.
Start your day with breakfast cereals that are lower in salt and sodium.
Cook rice, pasta, and hot cereals without salt; cut back on instant or flavored rice, pasta, and cereal mixes, which usually have added salt.
Buy fresh, plain frozen, or canned with "no-salt-added" vegetables.
Drink water or club soda instead of soft drinks high in sugar.
When eating out, move the saltshaker away — limit condiments, such as catsup, pickles, and sauces with high salt-containing ingredients.
Cut back on processed and fast foods that are high in salt and sodium.

Source: The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). The NHLBI does not recommend or endorse any company advertised on this site.

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In laboratory studies, the researchers found that compounds in ginkgo biloba

In laboratory studies, the researchers found that compounds in ginkgo biloba -- ginkgolide A and B -- were the most active components contributing to this protective effect.

"We found that the proliferation rates in certain types of cancer cells was inhibited by 80 percent," Ye says. "This combination of population and laboratory studies suggests that ginkgo biloba may have value for the prevention of cancer."

In the final study, researchers found that garlic may help ward off carcinogens produced by meat cooked at high temperatures.

Cooking meats and eggs at high temperatures releases a chemical called PhIP, which may be a carcinogen.

Studies have shown that breast cancer is higher among women who eat large amounts of meat, although fat and caloric intake and hormone exposure may contribute to this increased risk, the researchers report.However, diallyl sulfide, a flavor component of garlic, appears to inhibit the effects of PhIP that can cause DNA damage or transform substances in the body into carcinogens."

We treated human breast epithelial cells with equal amounts of PhIP and diallyl sulfide separately, and the two together, for periods ranging from three to 24 hours," said Ronald D. Thomas, associate professor of basic sciences at Florida A&M University, in a statement. "

PhIP induced expression of the cancer-causing enzyme at every stage, up to 40-fold, while diallyl sulfide completely inhibited the PhIP enzyme from becoming carcinogenic."
(The HealthDay Web site) 2005 HealthDay News

Cinnamon for Cholesterol, Blood Sugar Control?

Provided by: DrWeil.com

Q: I have been reading that several studies have shown that a daily dose of cinnamon may delay the onset of type II diabetes and help regulate blood sugar levels of existing type II diabetics. I've also heard that taking a half-teaspoon of cinnamon a day can help to lower cholesterol. -- Besty B.

A: Some recent research does suggest that cinnamon may have a beneficial effect on blood sugar and may also help lower cholesterol, but the study in question was small and its findings need to be confirmed before we can start recommending cinnamon to patients.

The news about cinnamon's effect on blood sugar and cholesterol came from a small study in Pakistan. Results were published in the December 2003 issue of Diabetes Care. The study ran for only 40 days and included 60 patients with type 2 diabetes. It showed that one, three or six grams of cinnamon daily, divided into two doses (that amounts to between a quarter of a teaspoon to 1 teaspoon a day), lowered fasting glucose by 18 to 29 percent, triglycerides by 23 to 30 percent, LDL cholesterol by 7 to 27 percent, and total cholesterol by 12 to 26 percent.

Cinnamon's effect on blood sugar is believed to be due to a proanthocyanidin, an active ingredient that increases sensitivity of receptors to insulin.

A word of caution: cinnamon in large doses may be toxic, so don't assume that if the relatively small amounts used in the study help, larger amounts will work better. There's also the possibility that adding cinnamon to your diet will change the dose of medication you need, so you should monitor your blood sugar carefully.

As for cholesterol control, the effects seen in the Pakistani study don't equal those of better-studied statin drugs. So if your cholesterol is high and you're taking a statin, don't assume that you can substitute cinnamon. The results of the Pakistani study are very interesting, but we need to know more. In the meantime, there's no harm in sprinkling cinnamon on your oatmeal or using it in cooking.
Andrew Weil, MD