Exposures to Drug-Resistant Brucellosis Linked to Raw Milk

/0 Comments/in /by

CDC and state health officials are investigating potential exposure to drug-resistant Brucella in 19 states, connected to consuming raw (unpasteurized) milk from Miller’s Biodiversity Farm in Quarryville, Pa.

If you’re thinking about drinking raw milk because you believe it has health benefits, consider other options. Raw milk can contain harmful germs, such as bacteria, viruses, and parasites that can make you or your loved ones very sick.

Developing a healthy lifestyle involves many decisions about what you eat and drink. Raw milk is milk from any animal that has not been pasteurized (heated to a specific temperature for a set amount of time) to kill harmful germs that may be in it. Because these germs usually don’t change the look, taste, or smell of milk, pasteurization is the best way to make sure your milk is safe.

Questions and Answers about Raw Milk

Can raw milk hurt me or my family?

Yes. Raw milk can make you very sick or even kill you. That’s because it can contain harmful germs, such as Brucella, Campylobacter, Cryptosporidium, E. coli, Listeria, and Salmonella.

Drinking raw milk can lead to many days of diarrhea, stomach cramping, and vomiting. Less commonly, it may result in severe or even life-threatening illness, including Guillain-Barré syndrome, which can cause paralysis, and hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can result in kidney failure, stroke, and even death.

 

Read more

All About the Green Tea

/0 Comments/in , /by

Soveet Gupta, CEO of Udyan Tea, an e-commerce specialty tea store from Darjeeling (India) shared with Healthy Lombard that whether you drink it as a hot refreshment to avert old man winter or iced to frosted to chill on a sweltering summer day, tea is an empowering drink that people around the world devour in abundant amounts. Each person drinks around some 155 cups of tea every year! Also, as specialists find more medical advantages from those little leaves, tea deals keep on climbing. But we’re not simply drinking tea, its extracts are getting to be well-known supplements and enhancements to other foods and beverages.

Green tea is less prepared and is not fermented like black tea is. These tea leaves in this way hold their green color and fragile flavor. Udyantea has shown the benefits of green tea positively to recognize why you should begin drinking this green tea.

Health Benefits of Green Tea

A wide range of tea, with the exception of herbal tea, is fermented from the dried leaves of the Camellia sinensis bush. The level of oxidation of the leaves decides the sort of tea. Drinking a glass or two of green tea may not enable the pounds to liquefy away, however, the supplements in the tea, including catechins and flavonoids, may offer other medical advantages. The catechins and flavonoids are antioxidants that may shield your cells from free radicals and reduce your danger of certain chronic ailments, for example, cancer and heart disease.

Green tea and cancer prevention

Research indicates it might be useful against lung cancer. In an investigation published in Cancer Prevention Research, EGCG was found to smother lung cancer cell growth. In various different investigations, EGCG seems to repress colorectal cancers. Read more

March is National Nutrition Month

/0 Comments/in /by

Action for Healthy Kids would like to share some food for thought (pun intended).

This is a great time to set nutrition goals for your family. In addition to choosing what to eat more of or less of, think about your goals around food acquisition or preparation. Some examples might be including your kids in the menu planning or starting an herb garden together. Visit Parents for Healthy Kids for more ideas.

At school, nutrition can be incorporated into almost every part of the learning experience and school environment. From teaching how to understand nutrition facts labels to creating cooking clubs to updating your food and beverage marketing, there are a number of options for celebrating National Nutrition Month. Check out the Game On blueprint to see dozens of more activities for promoting healthy eating at school.

Read more

Eggs and Breast Cancer

/0 Comments/in /by

9 Questions to Ask Before Doing a Fasting Diet

/0 Comments/in /by

Jae Berman wrote for the Washington Post that fasting is an ancient practice sparking new interest in both pop and scientific culture. Entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and a variety of celebrities have extolled its virtues in helping them lose weight, while medical experts are intrigued by the possibility that it may enhance cognitive functioning and longevity and help treat and prevent some diseases.

As researchers study the different fasting mechanisms to try to determine the ideal protocol for a variety of outcomes in a variety of populations, however, the general public must proceed by trial and error. That leaves dietitians such as myself concerned that the hype around fasting could encourage people to follow harmful plans that severely restrict nutrients, cause stress or unsuccessfully treat serious conditions.

And there are many plans because there are many schools of thought about what’s considered fasting, what food or drink should be consumed during eating windows, and how long these windows should last. Here are a few of the most common methods: Intermittent fasting means eating normally four or five days a week and consuming minimal calories on two or three nonconsecutive days. Time-restricted eating requires setting a window for consuming food, such as 7 a.m. to 7 p.m, and having nothing but noncaloric liquids the rest of the time. The “fasting mimicking diet” involves eating a small number of calories daily for a specific period of time — say five consecutive days every other month. These protocols all have benefits and drawbacks. One approach may work well for some while being entirely unsustainable for others. Read more

Healthy food swaps you’ll barely notice

/0 Comments/in , /by

Alanna Elliott, RD, LDNDietitian an outpatient dietitian for Edwards-Elmhurst Health shared in their Healthy Driven Blog that there’s no more comforting food on a winter day than a big helping of creamy mashed potatoes or a plate piled with steaming hot pasta.

Comfort food is a go-to dinner on a cold night. I get that. The only problem is that most comfort food will leave you feeling uncomfortably stuffed full of high-calorie sugar or fat.

Don’t despair! You can still enjoy your favorite foods without as many calories or unhealthy fat. By replacing some of the ingredients with healthier options, you get the same meal with much better nutrition.

Take a look at some of these easy swaps:

  • Cauliflower. Cauliflower is full of fiber and vitamin C is low in calories and carbs and tastes very similar to potatoes. It’s a great substitute for mashed potatoes, which are high in carbohydrates and can raise your blood sugars quickly. You could also use mashed cauliflower instead of cream in cream-based soups, sub it for rice, or mash it into a pizza crust! When you use mashed cauliflower instead of mashed potatoes and use low-fat milk instead of cream and butter, you save over 150 calories and about 35 grams of carbs per cup.

Read more

How to keep your New Year’s resolutions

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Ginny Grimsley shared in a Daily Herald article that if you’re one of the millions of Americans who will make a promise to improve yourself this New Year, there’s bad news: You’re 92 percent likely to fail in sticking to your resolutions, says a recent study from the University of Scranton’s Journal of Clinical Psychology.

About 45 percent of Americans make resolutions. Ranking at the top is losing weight and staying fit and healthy ranks No. 5.

“Of course, those statistics represent the average – you don’t have to be average,” says Dr. Virender Sodhi, founder of the Ayurvedic and Naturopathic Medical Clinic. “There are plenty of things individuals can do to improve their odds of success if they resolve to become healthier and fitter.”

Dr. Sodhi, author of the new guide, “Ayurvedic Herbs: The Comprehensive Resource for Ayurvedic Healing Solutions,” believes we can move much closer to a world of disease-free societies by following the laws of Mother Nature. Individual commitment to health via New Year’s resolutions is one path to take us there. Dr. Sodhi offers five tips for staying true to your goals.

• Get away from the instant-gratification mentality and avoid unrealistic goals. Don’t expect to go from zero to 60 — 60 being your ideal body image — in just a few months, especially if you have little background in training. Unfortunately, most who have resolutions like losing plenty of weight and quitting smoking are used to easy snack foods and quick rewards. Health is long-term labor of love; commit to the love and wait for results.

Read more

The healthiest diet?

/0 Comments/in , /by

LINDSAY MOYER shared in The Nutrition Action Newsletter that if you want to protect your heart, eat more fruits and veggies, and cut unhealthy carbs, one of the healthiest diets—it’s endorsed by the American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, and other health authorities—is DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension).

That’s because a DASH-style diet is low in saturated fat, sugar, and salt, and rich in fruits and vegetables. It’s also rich in nutrients like potassium, magnesium, calcium, and fiber.

In 1997, a landmark study found that a DASH diet could lower blood pressure as well as some prescription drugs. That news was a bombshell because high blood pressure (hypertension) is a major risk factor for heart attacks and strokes.

The OmniHeart study diets

Then, in 2005, came another news flash. The OmniHeart study reported that two variations of the DASH diet were even better for your heart than the original:

The higher-protein variation replaced some of DASH’s carbs with protein—half from plant sources (like beans, peas, and nuts) and a half from animal foods (like fish, lean poultry, and low-fat dairy). Read more

Key To Good Weight Management

/0 Comments/in , /by

Aileen Waldschmidt, LDN, RD, a licensed, registered dietitian and Bariatric Program Coordinator with Edward-Elmhurst Health shared in their blog that most of us know that what we eat matters if we want to keep our hearts healthy. As a result, we try to make healthy choices, like passing up the salt shaker or ordering a fruit salad instead of those greasy fries.For many, the most difficult part of keeping a heart-healthy relationship with food is getting to a healthy weight and staying there. People may try one of the latest fad diets or one of the impossible-sounding crash diets that celebrities often promote.

The challenge is separating facts from the hype about what’s effective and safe for weight management and heart health. That’s when consulting a weight management professional can help.

The key to any good weight management program is tailoring the approach to the individual. Some people who consult a dietitian may just need to tweak their food choices and exercise habits, while others may need a lifestyle overhaul which includes smoking cessation and stress management.

Read more

The latest on reducing belly fat

/0 Comments/in , /by

 

Overweight and obesity

CAITLIN DOW wrote that packing on pounds around your midsection is easy. Losing them takes a lot more work. Here’s the latest evidence on what (and what not) to do.

Sitting & belly fat

The time you spend in a chair, on the sofa, or in a car may affect the size of your belly.

Scientists did MRI scans of 124 people at risk for type 2 diabetes.1

Eachwore an accelerometer for a week.

Among those who were inactive (they averaged 13 minutes a day of at least moderate-intensity exercise), each hour of sedentary time per day was linked to an extra 1.9 quarts of abdominal fat. But sedentary time wasn’t linked to belly fat in people who were active (they averaged 40 minutes a day).

This type of study, on its own, can’t prove that sitting on the couch boosts belly fat, but it’s one more reason to get out of your seat.

How to trim bad belly fat

Israeli researchers randomly assigned 278 sedentary adults (mostly men) with oversized waists or high triglycerides and low HDL (“good”) cholesterol to one of two diets with equal calories—low-carb Mediter­ranean or low-fat—for 1½ years.2

For the last year, half were also assigned to an exercise program (45 minutes of aerobic plus 15 minutes of strength training) three days a week.

The low-carb Mediterranean group was told to eat more vegetables, beans, poultry, and fish instead of beef and lamb. And they were given an ounce of walnuts to eat each day. Their carb limit was 40 grams a day for two months, and up to 70 grams a day thereafter. Read more