Tag: <span>research</span>

Exercise is as Good as Medicine for Several Ills a Study Finds

Exercise is as effective as drugs at preventing diabetes and repeat heart attacks. It is potentially better than medicine for averting additional strokes.

Read more at http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303643304579109240925822648

Researchers are discovering more ways obesity can damage one’s body

Researchers are discovering more ways obesity can  damage one’s body. These include an individual’s sense of smell, disrupting sleep and seual life and cancerous tumors can grow faster. Read more  at

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204598504578080683053072000.html

article about the New DSM- The Long Battle to Rethink Mental Illness in Children

………Scientists have been busy rewriting the bible of American mental illness.

It is the first revision of the nearly 1,000page tome in 15 years and on of the top priorities of the insular conclave is to rethink some children’s disorders……….

read the full article  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444273704577633412579112188.html

New View of Depression: An Ailment of the Entire Body

Scientists have worked out that the same changes to chromosomes that occur with aging also occur with severe stress and depression. This “accelerated aging” effect suggests depression is a body-wide illness, not just psychological Read full article http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304587704577333941351135910.html

Study: Eat More, Weigh Less

Study: Eat More, Weigh Less

Print|Comments (13)Posted by Joan Salge Blake  April 12, 2012

Timing is everything in life….especially when it comes to weight loss.  A timely study just released from the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics reminds us that the calorie density, or the amount of calories per bite of food that you eat, may make all the difference in helping you painlessly shed some of that extra winter weight.

Just ask Barbara Rolls, PhD, researcher, and author of the just released, The Ultimate Volumetrics Diet, an updated and expanded version of her bestseller book published in 2004.  According to research, much of which was conducted by Rolls, it is the volume of food rather than the calories that is the key to helping you feel satisfied or satiated when you eat.   Translation:  When it comes to weight loss, you need to outsmart your stomach by filling it up with a large volume of low calorie-dense foods to satisfy your hunger, which will enable you to cutback on daily calories.  In this case, size does matter.

For example, an apple that would fit in the palm of your hand (about 3 inches) is a mere 75 calories.  Because over 85 percent of its weight is from water (0 calories) and fiber (0 calories), it is considered a low-density food as it is low in calories per bite.  However, a slice of apple pie, which could also fit in the palm of your hand, has calorie-dense fat and sugar added, along with the apples, so will serve up about 300 calories a slice.  (That’s without the a la mode part.)  You would have to eat four apples to consume the equivalent of the calories in the pie slice.  Because of the apple’s volume, you would likely get “full” after chomping on an apple or two, and thus, consume less calories overall.

Compare these two meals:

Source: CDC

Volume-wise, the more colorful dinner plate of grilled chicken, which is loaded with tons of low calorie, high-volume veggies is going to fill you up for less calories compared to the higher fat, more caloric-dense fried chicken meal.   In fact, the puny portions in the fried chicken dinner may cause you to go back for seconds (adding more calories to your meal) in order to obtain the volume of foods you need to eat to feel full.

The same strategy goes for soups.   By ladling a low-calorie dense, veggie-based soup rather than a high calorie-dense fatty chowder in your bowl, you will end up consuming the same volume of soup but for less calories:

Source: CDC

This is actually part of the logic behind the new MyPlate.  By devoting half of your plate to low- calorie, high-volume fruits and veggies, you will crowd out the higher, calorie-dense items on your plate while feeling satisfied.

Need help in planning meals that are voluminous but not high in calories?   The Ultimate Volumetrics Diet also contains over 100 new recipes developed by registered dietitian and culinary wizard, Mindy Hermann, as well as advice for when you are food shopping and dining out.

You can eat more and weigh less.

Originally published on the blog Nutrition and You!.

1 in 5 Americans is extremely stressed: are you?

By Deborah Kotz, Globe Staff

Every year the American Psychological Association releases its “Stress in America” survey — the latest was released yesterday — warning us that we’re frazzled beyond belief, especially if we’ve got health problems or are caring for someone who does. No surprise there.

Yet I wonder just how much the survey of 1,200 reflects the national psyche of 300 million. Or whether it’s even relevant to try to summarize what the collective mass is feeling. Those who are unemployed, facing foreclosure or going through a divorce have a different set of stresses than a frazzled working mother who’s caring for a mother-in-law with back problems. (Okay, that last example was me.)

The stress survey found that more than 1 in 5 Americans report feeling chronic “extreme stress” but also found that, on average, our stress levels have dipped a smidgen since last year’s survey.

Oddly, the APA expressed alarm that only about 31 percent of the survey respondents thought that their stress level was having an impact on their health even though the vast majority said they knew that stress can contribute to major health problems like heart disease, depression, and obesity.

“When considered alongside the finding that only 29 percent of adults believe they are doing an excellent or very good job at managing or reducing stress,” the survey report stated, the “APA warns that this disconnect is cause for concern.”

I’m not really sure why it would be, if there was a lot of overlap among the 31 percent who reported that stress wasn’t affecting their health and the 29 percent who reported that they were managing their stress well.

Study Warns against Taking certain Painkillers with Antidepressants

New study reveals that taking certain painkillers like ibuprofen headache relief with antidepressants reduces the potency of SSRI serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

If you’re currently taking serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) for depression and also suffer from chronic pain, such as migraine headaches, then you might be compromising the effectiveness of your antidepressant medication. A new study reveals that certain over-the-counter (OTC) painkillers such as Advil ibuprofen have a negative impact on SSRI antidepressants, reducing their ability to fight depression and anxiety.

PainkillersThe study, conducted by the Fisher Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research, Rockefeller University, New York, focused on a class of chronic pain relief medications known as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Researchers concluded that OTC medications taken for headache relief like ibuprofen, aspirin and naproxen, when taken together with SSRIs, essentially reduce the antidepressants’ ability to manage serotonin levels, making them less effective. Popular SSRI antidepressants include Prozac, LexaproPaxil and Zoloft.

Research shows that breathing is so effective at reducing stress

Read about a breathing technique called SKY. It is a type of cyclical controlled breathing practice with roots in traditional …

How Being Bullied Affects Your Adulthood

Being bullied in school seems to have long term effects as teens become adults. being bullied can look similar to PTSD. Read …

American jobs are grueling, according to a newly published RAND survey.

For the first time in 2015, the nonprofit think tank asked its nationally representative survey panel about their attitudes …