In the 1950s, cholesterol emerged as a chief player. Later, research revealed that LDL, or “bad” cholesterol, clung to artery walls, contributing to the formation of artery-clogging plaque.

But over the years, research has revealed that cholesterol is just one of many factors that can lead to a heart attack — including diabetes, adipose fat, kidney dysfunction, obesity and lack of exercise, to name just a few.

Then there’s research that uncovers a whole new pathway through which heart disease develops, such as bacteria from the mouth.

Keep that in mind as you read how bacteria, hidden for years in artery plaque, can trigger heart attack, and why this knowledge may make them easier to prevent…

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Infectious processes can trigger heart attack cascade

Scientists from Finland and the United Kingdom have uncovered previously unknown evidence that heart attacks may be triggered by infectious processes, rather than just by cholesterol and other lifestyle factors.

Biofilms are sticky, protective layers that shield bacteria from immune responses and antibiotics. In this recent research, such biofilms have been discovered inside atherosclerotic plaque, where they likely formed over and protected bacteria for years, even decades.

These bacteria can remain dormant for years, but can be activated by external forces, such as a viral infection.

Scientists observed that when this happened, the person’s immune system responded, triggering inflammation, which ruptured arterial plaque and caused blockages that led to heart attack.

“Bacterial involvement in coronary artery disease has long been suspected, but direct and convincing evidence has been lacking. Our study demonstrated the presence of genetic material — DNA — from several oral bacteria inside atherosclerotic plaques,” explains Professor Pekka Karhunen, who led the study.

These findings pave the way for the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies to prevent or treat heart attacks — including, the researchers say, the possibility of preventing coronary artery disease and heart attack by vaccination.

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A missing step for heart protection

As odd as it seems, this isn’t the first time I’ve encountered research linking immune response and inflammation to heart attacks.

In 2020, researchers from Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the German Centre for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK) discovered that in approximately 25% of heart attack patients, the trigger was activated immune cells — specifically, T-lymphocytes (T cells).

According to that research, a “misguided adaptive immune response” activated T cells to accumulate on the inner lining of the artery wall, where they damaged the lining and contributed to the formation of a blood clot. Following an inflammation cascade, the plaques erode, resulting in debris in the bloodstream and artery-blocking clots that trigger a heart attack.

That research, like this newest one, was significant for demonstrating that heart attacks can have different pathophysiological origins — including an immune-mediated mechanism.

So, in addition to doing all the right things to promote heart health, it may be time to add “promoting a healthy and balanced immune system” to that long list.

 A balanced immune response activates T cells in a measured response to pathogens without creating so much inflammation that it harms the body’s own tissue.

The opposite of this is what we see in autoimmune conditions, where the immune response becomes overly active and goes rogue. Specific nutrients have been found effective at dialing it back, including one that strengthens the immune system and one that reduces inflammation: Vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids.

Plus, both of those are also known to support heart health. Are you starting to see how it all comes together?

Sources:

Heart attacks may actually be infectious — Science Daily

Viridans Streptococcal Biofilm Evades Immune Detection and Contributes to Inflammation and Rupture of Atherosclerotic Plaques — Journal of the American Heart Association

The post Newly discovered cause of heart attack hides in plaque appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

But there’s another significant reason to manage it, better yet, help it go into remission…

And that’s cancer.

Men with diabetes are 19 percent more likely to develop cancer. For women, the risk is 27 percent. If that weren’t bad enough, research has shown a link between diabetes and metastatic cancer. High concentrations of sugar in the blood encourages cancer cells to spread.

Researchers looking into the diabetes-cancer connection know how you can take both of these dangerous conditions down…

Can losing weight control diabetes AND cancer?

The Diabetes Remission Clinical Trial (DiRECT), a structured weight management program for people with diabetes, produced some amazing results…

Under the supervision of a dietitian, participants replaced their habitual diets with a prescribed diet. Foods not on the prescribed diet were slowly reintroduced.

After two years of this trial, 68 men and 53 women saw their type 2 diabetes go into remission, compared with only six men and five women in the control group.

When Emma Hazelwood of Bristol Medical School in England read these results, a bell went off…

She knew that people with type 2 diabetes also had an increased risk of developing certain cancers — including pancreatic cancer.

Had the trial participants who successfully lost weight and controlled their diabetes also reduced their cancer risk?

Nine cancer-related proteins reduced with weight loss

Previous studies have found that having increased body weight changed the level of certain proteins with a known link to cancer.

So, along with a team of researchers from Bristol Medical School, Hazelwood used data from 261 people with diabetes who were enrolled in the DiRECT trial.

The team analyzed blood samples from before and after weight loss and found that nine cancer-related proteins were reduced, compared with none in the control group, who had received standard diabetes care but not the prescribed diet.

“Results from this study help us gain insight into potential mechanisms linking type 2 diabetes and body fatness with cancer development.

“These findings offer encouraging evidence that the increased cancer risk seen in people with diabetes might be reduced with weight loss interventions. This has important implications for both diabetes treatment and cancer prevention.”

Do-it-yourself weight loss and disease prevention

Of course, not all of us can enroll in a trial that supervises our weight loss.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t proven ways to do it yourself.

The Mediterranean diet is favored among people who are trying to lose weight and eat more healthfully. In fact, one study showed that people lost more weight and stuck to this diet more easily than either the Paleo or intermittent fasting diets.

Then there’s something known as mindful eating. It may sound like a New-age fad, but on the contrary, eating mindfully is a powerful way to control blood sugar.

But if you need a little guidance on your weight loss journey, consider Weight Watchers. The organization has been a leader in the weight loss industry for more than 50 years — and recognizing that weight loss is key for preventing type 2 diabetes, they’ve become a pioneer in helping people stop the disease progression in its tracks.

They’ve also got a reputation for helping people keep the weight off.

Sources:

Weight loss intervention in people with type 2 diabetes influences cancer-associated proteins — Eureka Alert

Impact of weight loss on cancer-related proteins in serum: results from a cluster randomised controlled trial of individuals with type 2 diabetes — eBioMedicine

Direct Clinical Outcomes at 24 Months — Diabetes Remission Clinical Trial

The post The diabetes-cancer connection and how to take both down appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Now, there are some organs we can continue on without. But the liver is not one of them.

The liver performs hundreds of vital functions, including regulating blood sugar and controlling blood clotting, metabolizing nutrients, and, of course, removing toxins and waste from the bloodstream.

We know that alcohol’s harm to the liver is a direct punch. However, new research has revealed that it’s actually a one-two punch…

What I mean is that, while alcohol is directly attacking the liver, it’s also opening the door to invaders that also play an active role in wreaking havoc on the liver.

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Alcohol lets bacteria into the liver

Let’s start with a primer on what alcohol does to the liver…

• Alcohol harms the liver by triggering inflammation and the buildup of fat, kickstarting fatty liver disease (not to be confused with NAFLD or MAFLD).
• The chemical acetaldehyde, which is produced when the liver metabolizes alcohol, accelerates this harmful process. It’s also considered a carcinogen.
• Continued drinking can lead to alcoholic hepatitis, characterized by inflamed and damaged liver cells.
• The most severe stage, irreversible cirrhosis, involves the formation of scar tissue that disrupts liver function and can end in liver failure. 

However, a study at UC San Diego has uncovered a previously unobserved series of events that causes even more damage to the liver…  

When scientists examined human liver biopsies, they found that chronic alcohol use impaired the production of a cellular signaling protein in the small intestine known as mAChR4.

When levels of this protein are lower, it interferes with the formation of cells known as goblet cell-associated antigen passages, or GAPs. These GAPs play a key role in teaching the immune system to respond to microbes that escape the gut.

Without this layer of protection, gut bacteria escape and enter vital organs, including the liver, where they compound the damage already being done by alcohol.

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Added protection for your liver

So when it comes to the liver, the best thing to do it avoid alcohol. But the researchers know that advice is not always easy for everyone.

They hope that by developing drugs that boost levels of mACHR, it may be possible to reverse the series of events that do so much harm to the liver and afford some level of protection.

But ultimately, alcohol is a toxin that directly damages the cells responsible for the tight junctures in the lining of the gut. Alcohol-induced inflammation makes the damage to the lining worse — increasing permeability.

Together, that creates a condition known as leaky gut, which allows bacteria of all sorts to not only reach the liver but also other organs.

The U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans suggest limiting alcohol to one drink per day for women and up to two drinks per day for men.

But it’s important to note that even low amounts are still associated with serious health risks, and for some individuals, especially those over 65, the recommended limit should be even lower. 

Sources:

Vicious Cycle Revealed: How Alcohol Helps Gut Bacteria Attack Your Liver — Science Alert

Alcohol Opens the Floodgates for Bad Bacteria — UC San Diego

The post Alcohol’s hidden partner in the attack on your liver appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

For one thing, it may take us longer to prepare our meals. We may also develop health issues that interfere with our eating habits.

Both of these factors can influence when we eat, making it more likely that our meals will be delayed.

Our sleep patterns may change, too. Becoming something of a “night owl” can increase the likelihood of having a late breakfast.

Why does any of this matter?

Eating breakfast later and later can have a cascading effect on aging adults, leading to an earlier death…

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Breakfast timing provides clues about health status

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have found that breakfast timing may be a valuable tool in monitoring the health of older adults.

Led by Dr. Hassan Dashti, a nutrition scientist and circadian biologist at Massachusetts General, the research team analyzed data from 2,945 adults in the UK ages 42 to 94. They then followed these subjects for more than 20 years.

They found that as older adults age, there is a tendency to eat breakfast and dinner at later times, narrowing the overall time window in which they eat each day and having a significant impact on their health and well-being.

Eating breakfast later was consistently associated with having physical and mental health conditions, including depression, fatigue, sleep problems and oral health problems.

But most alarming, a later breakfast was also associated with an increased risk of death during the follow-up period.

“Up until now, we had a limited insight into how the timing of meals evolves later in life and how this shift relates to overall health and longevity,” says Dr. Dashti.

“Our findings help fill that gap by showing that later meal timing, especially delayed breakfast, is tied to both health challenges and increased mortality risk in older adults. These results add new meaning to the saying that ‘breakfast is the most important meal of the day,’ especially for older individuals.”

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The most important thing: Consistency

Dr. Dashti suggested that encouraging older adults to have consistent meal schedules could become part of broader strategies to promote healthy aging and longevity.

So if you tend to be a night owl and a late breakfast eater, take some steps to turn those habits around.

According to research from Harvard and MIT, pushing back your bedtime and wake time by just one hour can lower your depression risk by 23%.

And you’ll be doing yourself a favor in other ways, too. You’ll be reducing your risk of diabetes, heart disease and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

No matter what time you head off to bed, sticking to a regular sleep schedule is crucial — as well as aiming for 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night.

Duke University researchers found that going to bed and getting up at about the same time each day lowers your risk for obesity, hypertension, and stroke — even if your total sleep time is less than optimal.

Specifically, disrupted sleep has been shown to increase the number of white blood cells, known as monocytes and neutrophils, in the blood. These cells are known to contribute to the development of plaque inside the arteries and put individuals at risk for heart problems and strokes.

To improve your chances of being ready for bed in the evening…

• Try moving around during the day, taking short walks, preferably with friends or neighbors.
• Turn off electronics or TVs to reduce blue light, which can interfere with sleep.
• Aim for a consistent bedtime.
• Practice good sleep hygiene by avoiding falling asleep in a chair or on the couch.
• Stop drinking caffeine at least 6 hours before bed. Try some chamomile tea instead — but do so about 2 hours before bedtime to keep your bladder from waking you up.
• If needed, a bedtime snack of walnuts and cherries is a good source of natural sleep-promoting melatonin.
• Don’t forget to brush your teeth before bed.

Sweet dreams!

Sources:

Scientists reveal how breakfast timing may predict how long you live — Science Daily

Meal timing trajectories in older adults and their associations with morbidity, genetic profiles, and mortality — Communications Medicine

The post The clues breakfast timing holds about your longevity appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Aspartame was touted as both sweeter and safer than saccharine, which was a possible carcinogen. But it didn’t take long for scientists to link aspartame to cancer as well as to anxiety.

And unbelievably, aspartame actually makes your body store more belly fat.

Every time a new sweetener comes on the market, it’s hundreds of times sweeter than the previous one. That’s to convince you to try it and get hooked on it.

But any artificial sweetener you can name turns healthy gut bacteria rogue, making you a sitting duck for disease and deadly infections.

Now the next generation of sweeteners is here. But proceed with caution. This one is not only toxic, you may never even know it’s there…

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Neotame: a clear and present danger to your gut

A study at Anglia Ruskin University in England found that neotame attacks the human gut in a one-two punch.

“Our studies indicate that neotame causes an increase in stress signaling in our human cells which reduces the amount of junctions that hold our cells together in a tight barrier,” Havovi Chichger, PhD, BSC, associate professor in biomedical science at Anglia Ruskin University, said in an interview with Medical News Today. 

Weakening the gut barrier causes the leaking of materials from the gut into the blood. This describes a condition known as leaky gut.

The damage to the gut can lead to irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and because the gut lining becomes permeable, bad bacteria can move into the bloodstream and lead to sepsis.

Not only that, but the disruption it causes in the microbiome could lead to metabolic disease including insulin resistance.

Shockingly, Dr. Chichger stressed that even in concentrations 10 times lower than the acceptable daily intake her team saw the breakdown of the gut barrier and bacteria shift to damaging behavior.

This new research into neotame builds on previous work by Dr. Chichger which discovered that saccharin, sucralose, and aspartame could cause similar damage in the gut.

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Quick and disturbing facts and safer alternatives

You’re probably pretty convinced this sweetener is something you should avoid. But it may not be so easy.

It is sold under the brand name Newtame®. But since it is about 8,000 times sweeter than sugar, such a small amount is used in products that it may not be required to be listed on ingredient labels.

Here are more quick facts about Neotame that may help you…

• It’s found in sugar-free drinks and chewing gum as well as some foods, including yogurts and especially baked goods. It’s also used as a table-top sweetener for hot drinks, like coffee and tea.
• Neotame enhances or extends the sweetening and flavoring properties of some flavors, especially mint — so steer clear of mint-flavored gums, lozenges or candies.
• It often has a mild aftertaste similar to licorice.
• To avoid it, you need to avoid anything advertised as sugar-free.
• Monsanto (yes, that Monsanto!) was behind the discovery and development of neotame.

Instead of reaching for artificial sweeteners that are devoid of nutrition and directly cause damage to your body, lean towards naturally healthier choices…

Stevia. Not only is this plant-derived sweetener 200 times sweeter than sugar (so you don’t need much), it also has been shown to benefit obesity, diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol — all conditions associated with metabolic syndrome. It’s considered safe for diabetics. Just read your label to be sure the brand you buy contains no added erythritol.

Raw honey is honey that’s been taken from the hive, strained to remove beeswax, then bottled and sold. It hasn’t been pasteurized or processed, so it still has all its natural vitamins, enzymes and phytonutrients.

Yacon syrup is derived from a root vegetable similar to a sweet potato. It’s considered good for people with diabetes because is contains fructooligosaccharides (FOS) — a type of starch (inulin) that isn’t digested, so it shouldn’t raise blood sugar. However, people who are on a FODMAP diet should avoid it. It may also cause upset stomach, gas and nausea in some.

Coconut palm sugar has a low glycemic index but should be treated like sugar because it contains the same amount of calories and carbs.

Blackstrap molasses. Perhaps the most nutritious sugar substitute of all, organic blackstrap molasses is rich in copper, calcium, iron, potassium, manganese, selenium, and vitamin B6. It is low glycemic but people with diabetes should only use in moderation. Make your own brown sugar substitute for baking by using 2 tablespoons for each ½ cup of coconut sugar in a food processor.

Bananas, figs, dates, raisins and no-sugar added apple sauce are also great ways to naturally sweeten a recipe, get a little extra fiber and plant nutrition.

Sources:

Artificial sweetener has potential to damage gut — Eureka Alert

The artificial sweetener neotame negatively regulates the intestinal epithelium directly through T1R3-signaling and indirectly through pathogenic changes to model gut bacteria — Frontiers in Nutrition

Artificial sweetener neotame may have potential to damage gut, lead to IBS — Medical News Today

The post The hidden sweetener tied to IBS, sepsis and insulin resistance appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Naturally, I’m conscientious about salt in my diet. I don’t even own a saltshaker! And I take a daily pill that keeps my blood pressure under control.

I’m one of the lucky ones. For many people with hypertension, medication is not effective. And until now, the reason for this was a mystery.

Science has always believed that hypertension begins in the kidneys, and medications are based on this assumption.

However, new brain imaging techniques are now proving that we’ve got it all wrong…

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Too much salt may inflame the brain

It’s commonly thought that hypertension begins in the kidneys, which filter blood to regulate the amount of sodium and water in the body.

When blood pressure rises, the kidneys excrete more sodium and water to reduce blood volume and lower pressure.

High blood pressure also damages the delicate blood vessels in the kidneys, triggering the release of the hormone renin, which in turn causes hypertension. Thus, a vicious cycle occurs.

But now we’re learning that when high blood pressure is resistant to treatment, it may be that the drugs are aimed at the wrong organ and the wrong hormone.

Researchers at McGill University in Montreal have discovered that cases of drug-resistant hypertension may originate not in the kidneys but in the brain.

They gave rats a solution of water and two percent salt. This is comparable to a daily diet high in fast food and processed foods like bacon.

The high-salt diet activated immune cells in a specific brain region, leading to inflammation and a surge in another hormone, vasopressin, which also increases blood pressure.

The researchers used rats instead of the more commonly studied mice because rats regulate salt and water more like humans. That makes the findings more likely to apply to people, noted lead author Prof. Masha Prager-Khoutorsky.

“This is new evidence that high blood pressure can originate in the brain, opening the door for developing treatments that act on the brain,” says Prof. Prager-Khoutorsky.

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Avoid triggers that raise blood pressure

Giving up salt can be difficult, but an alternative that most people don’t know about is potassium-enriched salt.

It looks the same as traditional salt (sodium chloride), except some of the sodium chloride has been replaced with potassium chloride.

Not only does this salt help reduce your sodium intake, but potassium also works to strengthen your heart muscles.

But in light of this new connection between the brain and inflammation, lowering inflammation should be addressed.

A safe and easy way to do that is by adding omega-3s to your diet by eating fatty fish weekly or supplementing.

An analysis published in the Journal of the American Heart Association has identified the optimal daily amount of omega-3s needed to lower blood pressure.

However, hidden sources of sodium can sabotage all of these efforts. Be sure to check labels, especially on condiments and processed foods.

Finally, another one that most people don’t know: not all hypertension triggers are edible. Other proven hypertension triggers include:

• Loneliness
• Sleep apnea
• Thyroid problems
• Antidepressants
• Holding on to a full bladder
• Cold and migraine medications

I hope the information I’ve given you here has provided some good ammunition against hypertension.

Sources:

Too much salt can hijack your brain — Science Daily

Microglia regulate neuronal activity via structural remodeling of astrocytes — Neuron

The post Resistant blood pressure linked to surprising cause of brain inflammation appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Not only do they increase your risk of developing heart disease and 30 other health conditions and diseases, but they’re also behind the obesity epidemic.

In fact, I wrote about the research that confirmed it’s these foods, not lack of exercise — as previously thought — that’s fueling rising rates of obesity.

But what’s truly disturbing is their impact on reproductive and metabolic health…

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Weight gain is just the beginning

A 2025 study at the University of Copenhagen has confirmed that no matter how little of them you eat, ultra-processed foods lead to weight gain.

Researchers compared the health effects of an unprocessed vs. an ultra-processed diet on the same person, in order to get the most accurate results.

Forty-three men spent three weeks eating each of the two diets, with a cleansing period in between.

The unprocessed and ultra-processed diets had the same amount of calories, protein, carbs, and fats. But half the men were given an extra 500 calories per day.

Regardless of whether those extra 500 calories were involved, men on the ultra-processed diet gained about 1 kg (just over 2 pounds) more fat mass than those on the unprocessed diet.

But it doesn’t end there…

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“Our results prove that ultra-processed foods harm our reproductive and metabolic health, even if they’re not eaten in excess. This indicates that it is the processed nature of these foods that makes them harmful,” says Jessica Preston, lead author of the study.

Men on the ultra-processed diet showed:

• An increase in levels of phthalate cxxMINP, a hormone-disrupting chemical typically found in plastics.
• A decrease in testosterone and follicle-stimulating hormone, both essential for sperm production. In addition to affecting fertility, low sperm count impacts a man’s sex drive and can be a cause of erectile dysfunction.
• An increase in LDL (“bad” cholesterol) levels.
• Altered thyroid hormones.
• Altered markers of systemic inflammation and oxidative stress.

And in case you’ve forgotten, chronic inflammation causes the cellular damage behind a range of diseases from cancer to Parkinson’s disease to diabetes, not to mention an accelerated aging process that makes your body old before its time.

“We were shocked by how many body functions were disrupted by ultra-processed foods, even in healthy young men. The long-term implications are alarming and highlight the need to revise nutritional guidelines to better protect against chronic disease,” says the study’s senior author, Professor Romain Barrès.

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The choice is clear

I hope you don’t need any more convincing.

Whole foods are the best alternatives to ultra-processed foods. But for success, ease into eating more of them and fewer ultra-processed foods.

Ultra-processed foods are made to “hook” you, so don’t blame yourself if it’s hard to let them go. That being said, see about ditching the two ultra-processed foods considered the worst ASAP.

According to Heartfoundation.org, whole foods and minimally processed foods, like these, are what we all should be eating:

• Fresh, frozen and canned vegetables and fruit
• Dried, canned and frozen beans and legumes like lentils and chickpeas
• Whole grains like oats, brown rice, barley and quinoa
• Fresh and frozen poultry and meat
• Fresh, frozen and canned fish and seafood
• Milk and plain yoghurt (try sweetening with honey)
• Eggs
• Nuts and seeds.

An easy way to identify ultra-processed foods is that they are quick, easy, and require little to no preparation — the very definition of “convenience foods.”

They include foods like sweetened cereals, soda and white bread; frozen French fries, chicken nuggets and pizza; processed meats, like hot dogs and bacon; pre-packaged baked goods, like cookies and cakes; and microwaveable meals.

Make the choice today and start taking back your health and your longevity.

Sources:

Why ultra-processed diets make you gain fat even without extra calories — Science Daily

Effect of ultra-processed food consumption on male reproductive and metabolic health — Cell Metabolism

Here’s What Eating Processed Foods for Two Weeks Does to Your Body — Time

Five ways to eat less processed food — Heart Foundation

The post Ultra-processed foods: A metabolic and hormonal disaster for men appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Sounds perfect, right?

Not exactly.

What good is losing weight and looking trim if your memories are slowly being erased?

Take a look at the newest research on artificial sweeteners and what they do to your cognitive abilities…

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Artificial sweeteners steal your brain power

A large Brazilian study has found that the most common artificial sweeteners — those found in diet sodas, flavored waters, and processed snacks — are strongly associated with a decline in memory and loss of cognitive skills.

The study looked at seven low- and no-calorie sweeteners. You’ve probably seen some of these on your soda, chewing gum, or snack labels:

• aspartame
• saccharine
• acesulfame-K
• erythritol
• xylitol
• sorbitol
• tagatose

The study followed 12,772 adults for an average of eight years. At the start, participants completed questionnaires about what they ate and drank during the past year. They were then broken up into three groups based on the total amount of artificial sweeteners they’d consumed.

All participants were given cognitive tests at the start, middle, and end of the study to track memory, language, and thinking skills over time. These tests looked at things like verbal fluency, working memory, word recall, and processing speed.

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People who consumed the highest amount of these sweeteners showed a 62 percent faster decline in overall thinking and memory skills than those who consumed the lowest amount — the equivalent of 1.6 years of extra brain aging.

Just to give you some perspective, for aspartame, a common sweetener, the highest amount was equal to drinking just one can of soda per day!

Other findings:

• People under the age of 60 who consumed the highest amounts of sweeteners showed faster declines in verbal fluency and overall cognition.
• The link to faster cognitive decline was stronger in participants with diabetes than in those without diabetes.

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Alternatives to artificial sweeteners

This isn’t the first time the alarm has sounded about the impact of artificial sweeteners on cognition.

In 2017, a study at Boston University found that people who drank diet soda daily were almost three times as likely to develop stroke and dementia when compared to those who did not.

In case you’re not already convinced to give up those diet sodas, here are some other scary things that artificial sweeteners can do to you:

• Xylitol (used in sugar-free chewing gum) and erythritol (found in sweeteners like Splenda) have been strongly associated with “sticky” blood that leads to stroke.
• The World Health Organization lists aspartame (found in everything from bread to hot cocoa to jam to vitamins) as “possibly carcinogenic to humans.”

Fortunately, there are healthier alternatives to sweetening your food and drink. And if you don’t overdo it, there’s no need to worry about the calories.

• Honey – known for its antioxidant and antibacterial properties
• Maple syrup – contains manganese and potassium, and has a lower glycemic index
• Coconut sugar – made from the sap of the coconut palm
• Stevia – a plant-based sweetener with no calories and no effect on blood sugar
• Monk fruit – a natural sweetener with a sweetness level 300 times higher than sugar, and no calories or carbohydrates

So if you’re looking to stay healthy by losing those extra pounds, make sure you don’t lose your mind power, too.

Sources:

Sweeteners in diet drinks may steal years from the brain — Science Daily

Association Between Consumption of Low- and No-Calorie Artificial Sweeteners and Cognitive Decline — Neurology

The post Why diet drinks can prematurely age your brain appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

The main reason it’s top of mind is that at least one-third of all American adults have it.

If you’re one of them, you face an elevated risk of stroke, kidney disease and dementia, just to name a few dangerous conditions it can lead to.

Recently, researchers have uncovered another neurological condition they believe is strongly associated with MetS — one that steals both your body and your mind.

Here’s more about that discovery, and how you can keep MetS from wrecking your life

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Components of MetS linked to Parkinson’s symptoms

In a large-scale study, an international group of researchers has determined that having metabolic syndrome was tied to a greater risk of Parkinson’s disease.

The study followed 467,200 subjects over a period of almost 15 years. In participants with MetS, there were 5.21 new cases of Parkinson’s per 10,000 person-years; in those without MetS, only 4.87 new cases.

While the researchers acknowledge that some of these people may have had a genetic predisposition toward Parkinson’s, they still identify several potential mechanisms by which MetS may lead to Parkinson’s.

First, the individual components of MetS, including hypertension, high blood triglycerides and high blood sugar, may each contribute to insulin resistance, oxidative stress and chronic inflammation. All of these, in turn, may lead to changes in neuroinflammation, but insulin resistance especially has a long history of harming the brain.

Second, hypertension and high fat in the blood can lead to white matter lesions in the brain, which may further contribute to the development of Parkinson’s symptoms.

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How to avoid MetS

It’s clear that MetS is a lot more than just being overweight and having high blood sugar.

But there are clues you can follow even before you measure your waist or take your blood pressure:

• You crave carbs and sweets
• You’re tired and sluggish, no matter how much sleep you get
• You put on weight easily, but have a hard time losing it
• You feel sluggish after eating
• Your blood pressure is rising steadily over time
• Your LDL (“bad”) cholesterol keeps climbing

Anything you can do to keep from developing this syndrome will lower your risk of any number of life-threatening conditions.

So where do you start?

Maintain a healthy weight through your diet and physical activity. You may want to consider a Mediterranean diet or its first cousin, the MIND diet. Both diets have been shown to delay the onset of Parkinson’s and prevent MetS.

Control blood sugar. If you have prediabetes or type 2 diabetes, follow your doctor’s recommendations for managing blood sugar levels.

Manage cholesterol. Maintain healthy cholesterol levels by eating a heart-healthy diet and, if needed, taking cholesterol-lowering medications.

Limit alcohol intake: Excessive alcohol consumption can contribute to metabolic syndrome.

Get regular sleep: Aim for 7-9 hours of quality sleep each night.

Talk to your doctor. If you have a family history of MetS or any of its components, or if you are at high risk, talk to your doctor about preventive measures.

Sources:

Parkinson’s Risk Rises With Metabolic Syndrome  — Medpage Today

Metabolic Syndrome and Incidence of Parkinson Disease — Neurology

The post The surprisingly common syndrome linked to Parkinson’s appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

But they’re also poisoning us.

Because their use is so widespread, they’re practically impossible to avoid, and even harder to eliminate — hence their nickname, “forever chemicals.”

According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, PFAS molecules have a chain of linked carbon and fluorine atoms. Because the carbon-fluorine bond is one of the strongest, these chemicals do not degrade easily in the environment, your home or your body.

“Every person in the United States, essentially, is walking around with PFAS in their body,” says Dr. Jennifer Schlezinger, a Boston University School of Public Health professor of environmental health.

Except now, purely by happenstance, Dr. Schlezinger may have found a ridiculously easy way to start ridding our bodies of these chemicals…

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Lowering cholesterol and cleansing PFAS

Perfluoroalkyl substances, better known as PFAS, are used to make coats waterproof, pans nonstick and furniture stain-resistant.

You’ll also find PFAS in food wrap and containers, cosmetics and personal care products, increasing the ways we are exposed.

Some research shows PFAS are excreted in urine, but it takes nearly four years for levels to drop by half. So, they build up in concentration. Continuous exposure ensures a cycle in which they are never entirely removed from your body.

The damage they do to our health is linked to breast and testicular cancer, the death of our brain cells and the destruction of our immune systems.

Dr. Schlezinger has long studied the role of environmental toxins in disease development and adverse health effects. But it was a personal quest to lower her cholesterol levels that inadvertently led to a solution to remove forever chemicals from our bodies — and it’s something anyone can do.

Taking a drug-free approach, Dr. Schlezinger discovered that cholestyramine, a gel-forming dietary fiber, could help reduce her cholesterol.  

When taken with meals, cholestyramine binds to bile acids, eliminating them from the body through normal digestive processes. The body has to replace the lost bile acid, so it draws cholesterol from the blood to do so, thus reducing cholesterol levels.

Bile acid and PFAS are both surfactants. They are built to stick to fiber. Dr. Schlezinger wondered if gel-forming fibers could help expel PFAS just as they do with bile acids.

In clinical trials using an oat beta-glucan supplement (a gel-forming fiber), Dr. Schlezinger indeed found a statistically significant effect on PFAS levels.

She is continuing her work to find the optimal gel-forming fiber to decrease PFAS levels.

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A healthy step in the right direction

Despite the success of her initial trials, Dr Schlezinger wants to be clear about a few things…

One, she is not recommending a high-fiber diet to lower cholesterol or to remove PFAS. A supplement is much more accessible. For example, she’s testing a fiber known as psyllium, the key ingredient in Metamucil.

Second, she’s not implying that taking a fiber supplement for a few months will eliminate PFAS from your body. It’s unclear how long it could take.

But it appears to be a step in the right direction. The vast majority of Americans consume nowhere near the recommended daily fiber intake.

Dr. Schlezinger has been taking a scoop of oat beta-glucan in pomegranate juice before meals, and her cholesterol is back to normal.

But if gelled fiber is not appealing to you, there is another option that holds promise…

Probiotics. Research has shown that some gut bacteria have a remarkably high capacity to soak up PFAS from the gut environment at a range of concentrations and store these in clumps inside their cells.

Mice with these bacteria had more PFAS in their stool, meaning they were able to help it exit their bodies.

Staying regular may also reduce the amount of time PFAS spend in the gut, where they can leak through the gut barrier into the bloodstream.

Regardless of how effective these methods are, they also offer other health benefits and may be our best chance to reduce our PFAS exposure somewhat.

Sources:

Supplement could help remove forever chemicals from the body — Futurity

An oat fiber intervention for reducing PFAS body burden: A pilot study in male C57Bl/6 J mice — Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology

The post The cholesterol fix that sweeps forever chemicals away appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

I’ve written about it often, including how to know if your immune system isn’t working properly, how to slow immune system aging and how inflammation can turn your immune system harmful.

And when it comes to the involvement of blood cells, I’m quite familiar with the immune system’s first line of defense: white blood cells that help fight infection and disease, including “killer T cells” that help fight cancer.

However, there are more kinds of white blood cells than I’d known about. And not all of them are “good guys.”

In fact, some of them support the growth of cancer — but you’re not helpless to take them down…

Just 30 minutes can destroy cancer-causing cells

Tiia Koivula is a doctoral researcher at the University of Turku in Finland. She is the lead author of a study that alerted me to the fact that, while some white blood cells support our immune system and fight disease, just as many are busy promoting disease.

Including cancer.

“The balance of different types of white blood cells determines whether the immune system works to destroy cancer or to support it. If there are more cancer-destroying cells than cancer-promoting cells in the tumor area, the body is more capable of fighting cancer.”

Her study looked at twenty newly diagnosed breast cancer patients who had not yet started treatments.

During the study, these patients pedaled a stationary bicycle for 30 minutes. Three different blood samples were taken: before they started pedaling, during the exercise, and after they’d finished the exercise.

The blood samples showed that cancer-killing cytotoxic T cells and natural killer cells increased the most. On the other hand, the number of cancer-promoting regulatory T cells and myeloid-derived suppressor cells did not change.

The researchers also looked at the proportion of different types of white blood cells relative to the total white blood cell count. The proportion of natural killer cells increased significantly, while the proportion of myeloid-derived suppressor cells decreased.

But you might be wondering: do those new cancer-killing cells stick around?

“In this study, it was seen that the number of almost all white blood cell types decreased back to resting values one hour after the exercise,” says Koivula.

“With the current knowledge, we cannot say where the white blood cells go after the exercise, but in preclinical studies, cancer-destroying cells have been seen to migrate into the tumor area.”

The evidence for cancer-slaying exercise piles up

Exercise fighting cancer? It’s not nearly as farfetched as it seems…

Edith Cowan University showed that men with advanced prostate cancer could increase levels of proteins called myokines by engaging in six months of exercise training. Myokines suppress tumor growth and fight the growth of new cancer cells.

Even better, in a follow-up study of a similar group of men, those same anti-cancer molecules increased in a single bout of vigorous exercise.

But exercise shouldn’t be something we only turn to after a cancer diagnosis…

When researchers in Tel Aviv found high-intensity exercise starves cancer cells of glucose preventing spread or metastasis, they suggested regular exercise could provide permanent cancer protection because it changes the tissue of internal organs to become similar to muscle tissue.

That means exercise will make your organs burn glucose like muscles do leaving less fuel for glucose-loving cancer cells.

And it doesn’t end there…

A team of scientists from The MD Anderson Cancer Center pitted exercise against a genetic cancer predisposition known as Lynch Syndrome — and found it resulted in statistically significant changes in gene expression. That’s epigenetics at work!

So the Finnish study isn’t really that much of a leap.

It’s just the latest in a growing collection of data pointing to the importance of regular exercise to avoid or beat cancer.

Sources:

Already 30 minutes of exercise increases the proportion of tumor-killing white blood cells in blood — Eureka Alert

The effect of exercise and disease status on mobilization of anti-tumorigenic and pro-tumorigenic immune cells in women with breast cancer — Frontiers

The post Boost your cancer-killing white blood cells in 30 minutes appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

You might feel fatigued after a long day of activities or a long night of poor sleep.

But if daily fatigue is your constant companion, the cause may be a condition that’s zapping your energy or a vitamin deficiency — or both.

There’s a large amount of research on the connection between vitamin D and fatigue — particularly, how low vitamin D levels can bring on the debilitating fatigue that is part of a range of conditions — including aging.

For that reason, a group of Italian researchers decided to dig into it and shed light on the mechanisms behind vitamin D’s connections to fatigue…

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The energy vitamin

Vitamin D is not a cure. But a growing body of evidence has emerged indicating the vitamin’s involvement in various processes in the body.

So it’s not surprising that hypovitaminosis D — a deficiency or insufficiency of vitamin D — has been previously linked to heart trouble, neurodegeneration, rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes.

The Italian researchers accessed scientific studies in the databases of PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science and reviewed factors that play a role in the genesis of fatigue, where the influence of vitamin D has also been demonstrated. 

Here are some of their findings…

Fibromyalgia. There’s no proof of a causal link between low vitamin D levels and the debilitating fatigue of fibromyalgia. Conversely, though, studies have shown a significant improvement in fatigue with higher vitamin D levels.

Autoimmune disorders. Studies offer mixed results regarding whether vitamin D improves fatigue in autoimmune disorders. However, researchers advocate testing their vitamin D levels since low blood levels are frequent among them, and treatment has resulted in a significant decrease in fatigue severity.

Most of the studies on vitamin D and autoimmune conditions have been on reducing the occurrence of autoimmune diseases.

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). Most of the research for review on CFS focused on reducing pain and that presented a challenge during the review. However, a meta-analysis revealed low blood levels of vitamin D present in patients with fibromyalgia, and another study clearly demonstrated that correcting the deficiency improved the fatigue symptom.

Multiple Sclerosis (MS). The researchers noted that a good response against fatigue in multiple sclerosis patients when supplemented with vitamin D has been documented.

Aging. This review uncovered a significant body of research supporting a correlation between correcting low levels of vitamin D and the improvement of fatigue in elderly patients. In fact, this correlation was greater than in any of the other conditions examined.

That may be due in part to vitamin D’s role in regulating the development of an anti-aging protein known as klotho. When we’re young, our kidneys produce lots of this protein. But as we age, that production slows.

Klotho exerts anti-aging effects by increasing oxidative stress tolerance and preventing ROS overproduction.

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Can vitamin D help your fatigue?

To sum up the review’s findings, Vitamin D affects fatigue through three main methods:

• it reduces the oxidative stress that’s associated with conditions like chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and even aging.
• it regulates fatigue-related neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine.
• it reduces levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines (small proteins that signal the immune system to produce inflammation)

Could vitamin D help fight fatigue levels if you’re relatively healthy? That’s an easy one…

Apparently, a lot of us complain about feelings of fatigue when we see our primary care physicians. So one such group was put to the test.

One hundred and seventy-four adult patients, who presented in a primary care office with fatigue and stable chronic medical conditions completed fatigue assessment questionnaires.

Low vitamin D levels were discovered in 77.2 percent of the patients who complained of fatigue. Those patients received supplement therapy for 5 weeks.

After their levels were normalized, their fatigue symptoms improved significantly!

Your doctor can check your levels if you’re unsure of your D status, but you should know that insufficiency is prevalent in about 45 percent of the adult population. Supplementing vitamin D, or vitamins in general, is effective and safe as long as you don’t take more than directed.

Sources:

Association between vitamin D supplementation and fatigue — News Medical Life Sciences

Vitamin D and Its Role on the Fatigue Mitigation: A Narrative Review — Nutrients

Effect of vitamin D3 on self-perceived fatigue — Pub Med Central

Correction of Low Vitamin D Improves Fatigue: Effect of Correction of Low Vitamin D in Fatigue Study (EViDiF Study) — National Library of Medicine

The post Vitamin D’s ties to autoimmune and age-related fatigue appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Your heart? Your lungs?

Nope. It’s your brain.

Your brain accounts for only 2 percent of your body’s weight, but it uses 20 percent of your body’s total energy.

The energy that fuels the brain is produced by mitochondria, organelles located inside every cell in the body, commonly known as “the powerhouse of the cell.”

Unfortunately, quite a few things can mess with our mitochondria and keep them from producing the energy the brain needs, like environmental toxins, physical inactivity, poor nutrition and aging — all of which lead to oxidative stress.

When this happens, the result can be neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia.

These conditions have always been considered irreversible — they only get worse with time.

But for the first time, thanks to a groundbreaking study, there’s hope of reversing memory loss.

And it all comes back to that “powerhouse of the cell” — the mitochondria.

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Boosting mitochondria can restore memory

A group of Canadian researchers has found that mitochondrial dysfunction can cause the cognitive symptoms of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s.

This is a really big deal. Using a new tool, these researchers have shown that not only are dysfunctional mitochondria associated with these diseases — they’ve established a “causal link,” a term you rarely hear in research.

The tool is an artificial receptor that activates specific proteins within the mitochondria, which stimulates mitochondrial activity.

In the Canadian research, the activation of these proteins in the brain cells of mouse models of neurodegenerative diseases successfully increased their mitochondrial activity.

More importantly, it restored their memory performance. In other words, the study linked impaired mitochondria to dementia symptoms and showed that boosting mitochondrial activity can restore memory in animals.

“This work is the first to establish a cause-and-effect link between mitochondrial dysfunction and symptoms related to neurodegenerative diseases, suggesting that impaired mitochondrial activity could be at the origin of the onset of neuronal degeneration,” explains Dr. Giovanni Marsicano, co-senior author of the study.

And according to Dr. Étienne Hébert Chatelain, another co-senior author of the study, “Ultimately, the tool we developed could help us identify the molecular and cellular mechanisms responsible for dementia and facilitate the development of effective therapeutic targets.”

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How to support your mitochondria

These findings confirm older research that links impaired mitochondrial activity with Alzheimer’s.

A 2017 study found that by stimulating the natural self-protective mechanisms of mitochondria, amyloid plaque (a hallmark of Alzheimer’s) was reduced and cognitive decline reversed in mice.

So, it’s pretty clear that we should support our mitochondria… but how do we do that?

CoQ10 (Coenzyme Q10) is a vitamin-like compound produced by the body. PQQ (pyrroloquinoline quinone) is a natural enzyme similar to CoQ10 and found in tofu, green tea, and spinach. Both of these have been shown to support and even replenish mitochondria, which naturally decrease in production after age 40.

It isn’t easy to get a therapeutic dose of PQQ from food. The best thing is to supplement with at least 5 to 20 mg per day of PQQ, and/or 50 to 100 mg of CoQ10.

An anti-inflammatory diet rich in probiotics goes a long way toward protecting your mitochondria. Eating probiotic-rich foods like yogurt (or taking a supplement) as well as adding green leafy veggies, blueberries, salmon and avocado to your diet will help.

Aside from your diet, the usual candidates for promoting wellness will also help strengthen your mitochondria…

Avoid stress. Chronic stress leads to chronic inflammation. Meditation, massage, aromatherapy, or a hot bath… find the relaxation technique that works for you.

Get enough sleep. Getting less than six hours of restful sleep a night has been linked to markers of chronic inflammation.

Exercise. No need to join a gym. A brisk walk every day will do the trick and help you slash your risk of inflammation.

Sources:

Scientists reversed memory loss by powering the brain’s tiny engines — Science Daily

Potentiation of mitochondrial function by mitoDREADD-Gs reverses pharmacological and neurodegenerative cognitive impairment in mice — Nature Neuroscience

Healthy mitochondria could stop Alzheimer’s — Science Daily

The post Reviving the brain’s energy can reverse memory loss appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Some people seem more prone to them, while others, like me, eat well and brush and floss, but still have a collection of teeth that have fillings.

Well, I’ve recently read about an astounding discovery that could reverse the deterioration of tooth enamel that leaves our teeth open to decay.

There aren’t many bodily processes that are truly reversible, so this is pretty amazing.

And what’s more, this discovery could be translated into products that will help prevent tooth decay — within just a few years!

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Keratin could save tooth enamel

Researchers from King’s College London say keratin, a protein found in hair, skin and wool, can repair tooth enamel and stop the early stages of decay.

Unlike hair or bones, tooth enamel does not regenerate.

“Once it’s lost, it’s gone forever,” notes Dr. Sherif Elsharkawy, senior author of the study.

Right now, the best we can do to protect our tooth enamel is to use fluoride toothpaste that may slow the loss of enamel.

But Dr. Elsharkawy and his colleagues had a different idea…

They extracted keratin from wool fibers and mixed the keratin with water, where it formed a thin film.

They applied this film to a tooth sample, and when it came in contact with the minerals in saliva, it formed a strong, crystal-like coating similar in structure to natural tooth enamel.

What’s more, the longer it remained there, the more it attracted calcium and phosphate ions, forming a hard, protective layer over the tooth.

“Keratin offers a transformative alternative to current dental treatments,” says first author Dr. Sara Gamea.

“Not only is it sustainably sourced from biological waste materials like hair and skin, it also eliminates the need for traditional plastic resins, commonly used in restorative dentistry, which are toxic and less durable.

“Keratin also looks much more natural than these treatments, as it can more closely match the color of the original tooth.”

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Protect your smile for years to come

Keratin toothpastes for daily use or professional coatings applied at a dentist’s office could be available within the next few years.

But until then, there are plenty of things you can do to protect your tooth enamel and prevent tooth decay.

Avoid eating and drinking acidic foods and drinks between meals. Even “healthy” drinks like fruit tea with lemon is a “double whammy” – the acid and the heat are both destructive to tooth enamel.

Additionally, some fermented foods can also cause harm, such as kombucha or the hot apple cider vinegar you take for a cold.

But there’s a way around that…

Avoid sipping, swishing, holding, or rinsing drinks in your mouth before swallowing to decrease the amount of time those acids are touching your teeth. Wine tasters who swish acidic wines around in their mouths before swallowing, for example, have a high risk of enamel erosion.

Drink acidic drinks cold. Again, heat and acid are a bad combination. If you can drink your fruit tea iced, you’ll protect your enamel. Or try using a straw to keep it from touching your teeth.

Choose green tea. Studies show that green tea can actually protect you from losing tooth enamel — even if you are a fan of sugary drinks!

Sources:

Keratin extracted from sheep’s wool repairs teeth in breakthrough — Live Science

Biomimetic Mineralization of Keratin Scaffolds for Enamel Regeneration — Advanced Healthcare Materials

Toothpaste made from hair provides natural root to repair teeth — Eureka Alert

The post Weird toothpaste ingredient regenerates tooth enamel appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

“Good fat” is found in foods like olive oil and avocados (monounsaturated fats) as well as in fatty fish and walnuts (polyunsaturated fats). Eating these foods will actually help lower your risk of heart disease.

“Bad” fats, or triglycerides, are found in processed foods, fatty meats and fried foods.

The scientific community has considered having a high level of triglycerides to be a biomarker of risk for vascular disease and stroke.

But new research is sounding an alarm, finding that, in fact, high triglycerides play a direct role in causing a serious and potentially life-threatening condition…

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High triglycerides promote abdominal aortic aneurysm

A University of Michigan study has shown that high levels of triglycerides play a direct and pathogenic role in the development, growth, and rupture of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs).

An AAA is a bulge in the part of the aorta that travels through the abdomen. The bulge forms in an area where the aorta’s wall has grown weak, putting it at risk of bursting under the constant pressure of blood flow.

Signs of an AAA include abdominal pain, back pain, groin pain, and a pulsating feeling in the abdomen. If the aneurysm ruptures, massive bleeding can cause death within minutes.

The research at Michigan Medicine using three different mouse models demonstrated a triglyceride dose-dependent effect on AAA severity:

• Moderate elevations in triglycerides accelerated aneurysm formation, while higher levels led to aortic dissection.
• Mice with severely elevated triglyceride concentrations developed more severe complications consistent with aortic rupture.

The investigation also revealed that elevated triglycerides and related fatty acids, particularly palmitate, impaired the maturation and activity of lysyl oxidase. This critical enzyme maintains the structure and integrity of the aortic wall. The dysfunction caused by palmitate helped to weaken connective tissue and promote aneurysm progression.

Palmitate is the most common saturated fatty acid, found in both animals and plants, and is abundant in foods such as meat, milk, cheese, and particularly palm oil. It has some beneficial roles in cellular processes but is known to contribute to inflammation and insulin resistance.

Palm oil is a cheap substitute for butter or other refined vegetable oils, making it especially common in pastry dough and baked goods. These, along with other ultra-processed foods, have already been identified as drivers of disease.

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Lowering triglycerides could save your life

Abdominal aortic aneurysms are more common in men and among people age 65 and older — and are usually caused by atherosclerosis.

And if you haven’t guessed, high triglycerides are linked to the increased risk for atherosclerosis — or hardening of the arteries.

Of course, we know the best way to keep your arteries clear is to eat healthily. Start with avoiding ultraprocessed foods, like:

• Sweets and baked goods
• Refined grains
• Fried foods
• Unhealthy oils, including palm oil
• Fatty and processed meats, including bacon and sausage
• High-fat dairy
• Processed snacks like chips and crackers
• Alcohol

Instead, reach for:

• Leafy greens like kale and cruciferous veggies (broccoli and cauliflower)
• Black beans
• Fresh fruit on pancakes instead of syrup
• White meat chicken and fish, like salmon and cod
• Oils like olive oil, flaxseed oil and fish oil (canola oil can be a healthy substitution as well)
• Avocados, berries, citrus, apples, bananas and kiwi contain fiber and antioxidants that help lower triglycerides (avoid fruit juices high in sugar)

For more tips, see what cardiologist Dr. Elizabeth Klodas recommends for lowering triglycerides and how to know when high triglyceride levels are genetically driven.

Sources:

High triglycerides drive life-threatening aortic aneurysms, study in mice finds — Eureka Alert

Hypertriglyceridemia as a Key Contributor to Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Development and Rupture: Insights From Genetic and Experimental Models — Circulation

Lifestyle changes to reduce triglycerides — National Lipid Association

Foods to Avoid If You Have High Triglycerides — Web MD

The post High triglycerides linked to abdominal aortic aneurysm appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

They were a huge part of the drug culture of the 1960s and were especially known for psychedelic or hallucinogenic effects.

Who would have thought that the same chemical that produced powerful hallucinations might one day be found to help you live a longer and healthier life?

Not me, that’s for sure.

But ongoing research is showing this to be the case.

“Magic mushrooms” might just be the next weapon in the ongoing effort not just to live longer but to ensure those extra years are healthy ones…

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Psilocybin reduces oxidative stress and slows aging

“This study provides strong preclinical evidence that psilocybin may contribute to healthier aging — not just a longer lifespan, but a better quality of life in later years,” says Dr. Ali John Zarrabi, co-investigator of a study at Emory University in Atlanta.

Psilocybin is the active compound found in psychedelic mushrooms. When it is consumed, it forms a metabolite called psilocin.

Emory University researchers dosed 19-month-old mice — an age that in human years would correspond to between 60 and 65 — with psilocybin doses that ranged from 5mg to 15 mg over a 10-month period.

The treated mice lived 30% longer than untreated mice and also experienced better aging — including healthier physical traits like better fur condition and hair regrowth.

Psilocybin is known for its psychological effects, especially in regard to relieving depression and boosting the feel-good hormone, serotonin. But this research indicates that it also targets several key biological markers of aging, including reducing oxidative stress, enhancing DNA mechanisms and maintaining telomere length.

According to the researchers, these underlying cellular processes play a critical role in both aging and disease onset.

How do we explain this?

“Most cells in the body express serotonin receptors, and this study opens a new frontier for how psilocybin could influence systemic aging processes, particularly when administered later in life,” says Louise Hecker, PhD, senior author of the study and former associate professor at Emory University, where the work began and was funded.

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Not a fan of shrooms? You have choices

Dr. Zarrabi emphasized the importance of further research in older adults, as well as the well-documented overlap between physical and mental health.

“My hope is also that if psilocybin-assisted therapy is approved as an intervention for depression by the FDA in 2027, then having a better quality of life would also translate into a longer, healthier life.”

But until then, how do we increase our chances of living a long and healthy life?

For starters, just move. Switching to an active lifestyle at any point in adulthood has been shown to extend lifespan. And you control the dial on effort and benefits. The plan you’ll stick to is the one that will bring you results.

Eat the rainbow. This term was coined for a good reason: Colorful foods are rich in flavonoids that are linked to a disease-free, longer life.

Avoid foods that send aging into overdrive. Certain foods accelerate aging. You’ll find which ones here.

Take advantage of shortcuts that research shows can have a powerful effect on aging, including:

• Coffee: the healthy aging secret under our noses
• The vitamin that slowed biological aging 3 years
• Conquer inflammation, the link between unhealthy aging and a shorter lifespan

Lastly, just in case you need more convincing about the importance of movement, here’s a list of 40 things that can go wrong with your body and health if you don’t exercise at all.

Dr. Jesus Peteiro, the author of a 2019 Spanish study on exercise capacity (how long and how hard you can work out), sums it up for us: “Exercise as much as you can. Fitness protects against death from any cause.”

Sources:

Natural Compound Found in Mushrooms Delays Aging and Extends Lifespan, Study Suggests — SciTech Daily

Psilocybin treatment extends cellular lifespan and improves survival of aged mice — Nature Partner Journals’ Aging

The post The magic mushroom secret for slower aging, longer life appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

It includes recommended amounts of fat, saturated fat, protein, carbohydrates, salt, and fiber, as well as recommendations on the intake of fruits, vegetables, grains, and protein sources.

In the United Kingdom, My Plate’s counterpart is known as The Eatwell Guide.

But there’s a catch with guides like these: they leave it up to us to decide where we get these dietary building blocks from. And the choices run the gamut, from processed, ultra-processed or minimally processed foods to whole foods.

This choice is significant if you’re trying to lose weight.

A British study has proven that one option is twice as effective as the other when it comes to meeting that goal. I’ll give you one guess…

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The foods that won’t help with weight loss

A clinical trial led by researchers at University College London and UCL Hospital found that people eating minimally processed foods lost twice as much weight as those on diets eating ultra-processed foods.

This real-world study is the longest experimental study of an ultra-processed diet to date.

In it, 55 adults were split into two groups. One group started with an eight-week diet of MPF, such as overnight oats or homemade spaghetti Bolognese. After a four-week ‘washout’ period during which participants went back to their regular diet, they switched to a diet of UPF, such as breakfast oat bars or a lasagna ready meal. The other group completed the diets in the opposite order. 

Both diets adhered to the Eatwell Guide in terms of intake of fat, protein, salt, fiber, etc., and both groups could eat as much as they wanted of fruits and vegetables.

At the end of the eight weeks, the MPF group lost twice as much body weight (2.06%) as the UPF group (1.05%).

And in case you’re thinking, “Oh, they probably lost muscle, not fat,” think again. The greater weight loss experienced on the MPF diet came from reductions in fat mass and total body water, with no changes in muscle mass.

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Minimally processed foods for the win

Before I get into how to help you determine the differences between UPF and MPF, I want to share some other interesting findings from this study…

If you’ve ever dieted to lose weight, you know cravings alone can sabotage your best efforts. But MPF actually squashed cravings.

The participants completed several questionnaires during the study. When all the results were tallied, there were significantly greater improvements in the number of cravings and ability to resist them (craving control) on the MPF diet than on the UPF diet.

Specifically, on the MPF diet, participants reported:

• A two-fold greater improvement in overall craving control;
• A four-fold greater improvement in craving control for savory food;
• And an almost two-fold greater improvement in resisting whichever food they most craved.

If you read my recent article on The Food That Won’t Let You Outrun Obesity, you may already know that UPF has the opposite effect. Researchers surmise that the energy density, nutrient composition and appearance of UPF disrupt hunger hormone signals and actually encourage over-eating.

But that’s not all…

UPF calories are absorbed into the body quickly, where they can be stored as fat. These foods lack fiber and contain additives that may disrupt the normal digestive processes. They also have an obesogenic effect: obesogens are chemicals that disrupt the endocrine system and lead to weight gain.

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Identifying MPF and UPF: Which is which

Food experts are still trying to classify the level of processing in foods so we can have an easier time understanding what we’re eating.

I have seen MPF described as foods that are cut, washed, peeled, shredded and packaged. That would describe a bag of salad, apple slices or chopped nuts.

I’ve also read that frozen or canned fruits and vegetables are considered minimally processed — as long as when you open the package, you recognize the food. Canned fruit should be packaged in natural juices, though, not syrup. And no breading on those vegetables.

The easiest way to recognize a UPF is to simply read the label. If you see ingredients listed that are hard to pronounce or require a Google search to know what they are, that’s a UPF. They also bear very little resemblance to real food.

The best rule of thumb? Include as many whole foods as possible. That means consuming foods that look like the real thing, versus a stick of fish. Following an eating plan like the Mediterranean diet is a great way to ensure your diet consists mainly of whole, unprocessed or minimally processed foods.

Sources:

This diet helped people lose twice as much weight, without eating less — Science Daily

Ultraprocessed or minimally processed diets following healthy dietary guidelines on weight and cardiometabolic health: a randomized, crossover trial — Nature Medicine

Effect of a high-fat Mediterranean diet on bodyweight and waist circumference: a prespecified secondary outcomes analysis of the PREDIMED randomised controlled trial — The Lancet

The post How to lose twice as much without eating less appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Like the way gum disease is tied to cancer and diabetes.

Well now, researchers have confirmed a new connection…

It comes from a type of drug known for helping get things “up” — but has been found to take down long-term blood sugar in type 2 diabetics…

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It’s all about nitric oxide

Before you read about this amazing connection, you need to know a little about nitric oxide (NO).

Nitric oxide is a gas that our bodies produce naturally. It acts as a signaling molecule, telling blood vessels to relax, for one very important purpose: to allow healthy blood flow to every nook and cranny of the body.

One arena where this is crucial is in the treatment of erectile dysfunction.

NO is what makes drugs for erectile dysfunction, like Viagra and others, effective.

You see, erectile dysfunction is a vascular (blood vessel) and hormonal problem.

When NO helps the muscles in the penis to relax, the chambers inside the penis can fill with blood and an erection can be achieved.

Erectile dysfunction is not only a sign of trouble in the bedroom. It can be a sign of a serious heart problem or an indication of high blood sugar that is moving quickly toward full-blown diabetes.

And here’s where the connection comes in…

ED drugs promote effects of NO on blood sugar

Drugs like Viagra, known as PDE5 inhibitors, harness nitric oxide and its ability to open blood vessels.

That’s why, in previous research, investigators tested a theory that providing a sustained supply of NO may be an efficient way of treating cardiometabolic syndrome. Reduced NO absorption is a hallmark of the disorder.

And they were right. In experiments using mice, those that had their NO levels boosted had better glucose tolerance and lower fasting insulin levels. And compared to a control group that was not supplemented with NO, the NO mice gained 17 percent less body weight.

More recently, research at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden set out to investigate whether the drug tadalafil (Cialis), might have a similar effect in people…

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Potency drug reduced long-term blood sugar in small group of people

In their research, eighteen participants were randomly assigned to receive either a high daily dose of tadalafil or a placebo for a period of six weeks. The groups then switched for another six weeks.

Because tadalafil has several unpleasant side effects, including headache, heartburn, diarrhea, muscle and back pain, low blood pressure, nasal congestion, tinnitus and blurred vision, the participants were closely monitored. 

How did things pan out?

There was no significant difference in insulin sensitivity. But surprisingly, tadalafil caused a clear improvement in metabolic control, based on a test that shows how much sugar is in your blood known as the A1C test.

For people taking tadalafil, the level of A1C fell by an average of 2.50 mmol/mol (millimoles/mole).

“That’s a very distinct improvement in the long-term sugar levels, which we couldn’t have dreamed of after only six weeks of supplementary treatment in patients with well-controlled type 2 diabetes,” said Prof. Per-Anders Jansson who led the research.

But he also had a warning: “Self-medication with PDE5 inhibitors must never take place because, at worst, it can be life-threatening in combination with certain other drugs. These medicines are available on prescription only and must always be prescribed by the attending physician.”

His team is looking at repeating this pilot study with a larger group for a longer period to see if the results are similar.

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How the body produces NO

Our bodies produce NO in a couple of ways — no drugs needed — with the right foods.

The most direct way is via the nitrate–nitrite–nitric oxide pathway. Research claims it’s the most bioavailable, sustainable and quickest route for raising NO levels. And it works like this…

When we eat foods containing dietary nitrates (not to be confused with the food preservatives sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate), like beets or spinach, a chemical reaction occurs with bacteria in the mouth. This converts nitrates to nitrites and then NO in the gut, bloodstream and various organs.

The amino acids l-arginine and l-citrulline are also building blocks of NO and are found in a range of foods, including:

• Lobster
• Turkey
• Chicken
• Watermelon
• Squash
• Chickpeas
• Pumpkin
• Cucumber

So, whether you are a meat eater, a vegetarian or a vegan, there are foods available to you that will help generate healthy levels of nitric oxide naturally. That’s a relief considering the side effects — and the cost of drugs like Cialis…

To quote Dr. John Morley, director of endocrinology at Saint Louis University in Missouri, providing his opinion on a similar study, “Clearly, there is a potential, but these are among the most expensive drugs there are.”

Sources:

Potency drug reduced long-term blood sugar in type 2 diabetes — Eureka Alert

Feasibility of high-dose tadalafil and effects on insulin resistance in well-controlled patients with type 2 diabetes (MAKROTAD): a single-centre, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled, cross-over phase 2 trial — The Lancet

All About Your A1C — Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

The post The ED drug that brings long-term blood sugar down appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Meat? Alcohol? Salt? Sweets?

That’s what we’ve been told over the years. I don’t know about you, but I’d like a little more proof before I restrict myself further — and we just may have it…

If you want to improve your heart health in as little as eight weeks, there’s one diet that you should be following.

But according to a Stanford professor, even taking a shot at it can have significant benefits.

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Twin study puts food on the line

Although mounting evidence appears to indicate that meat can wreak havoc on your ventricles, arteries and heart function and that eating less meat improves cardiovascular health, scientists working to prove this have had a hard time accounting for differences in genetics, upbringing and lifestyle choices in their subjects.

But in a study with 22 pairs of identical twins, Stanford researchers have eliminated these obstacles and have proven that a vegan diet improves heart health in an incredibly short amount of time…

An eight-week trial was conducted in the spring of 2022. The participants were 22 pairs of healthy identical twins selected from the Stanford Twin Registry, a database of twins who have agreed to participate in research studies.

One twin from each pair was assigned either a vegan diet or an omnivore diet.

Both diets were healthy. Both were full of vegetables and fruits, legumes and whole grains and free of sugars and refined starches. While the vegan diet was entirely plant-based, the omnivore diet included chicken, fish, eggs, cheese and dairy products.

Anyone can follow this diet for a healthier heart

During the first four weeks, a meal service delivered 21 meals per week — seven breakfasts, lunches and dinners. For the remaining four weeks, the participants prepared their own meals.

During the first four weeks, participants with a vegan diet had significantly lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels, insulin and body weight — all of which are associated with improved cardiovascular health — than the omnivore participants.

“Our study used a generalizable diet that is accessible to anyone because 21 out of the 22 vegans followed through with the diet [in the second four weeks],” says Dr. Christopher Gardner, a professor at the Stanford Prevention Research Center.

“This suggests that anyone who chooses a vegan diet can improve their long-term health in two months, with the most change seen in the first month.”

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The important thing: more plant-based foods

According to Dr. Gardner, the vegan participants did the three most important things to improve cardiovascular health: they cut back on saturated fats, increased dietary fiber and lost weight.

“A vegan diet can confer additional benefits such as increased gut bacteria and the reduction of telomere loss, which slows aging in the body,” he says.

Dr. Gardner himself has been “mostly vegan” for the last 40 years.

But while most people will probably not go totally vegan, Dr. Gardner says that even a small move in the direction of a plant-based diet can improve their health.

“What’s more important than going strictly vegan is including more plant-based foods into your diet.”

Just adding one cup of vegetables a day can lower the risk of heart problems between 12 to 26 percent, according to research.

Tomatoes have been found to lower blood pressure by 36 percent.

And don’t forget fruit. Blueberries contain a heart-protective antioxidant called pterostilbene that has powerful effects on blood pressure.

But if you do want to eat much less meat, the “green” Mediterranean diet is a great start. This version of the traditional Mediterranean diet includes more plant-based foods and lesser amounts of red meat and poultry.

In previous research, the “green” Mediterranean diet helped study participants lose more weight, lower cholesterol and blood pressure and beat insulin resistance in just six months.

If it gets confusing, just follow the advice that cardiologist Dr. Elizabeth Klodas often shares: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Sources:

Twin research indicates that a vegan diet improves cardiovascular health — Science Daily

Cardiometabolic Effects of Omnivorous vs Vegan Diets in Identical Twins — JAMA

Blurb: Yes, we know that a vegan diet can make you healthier. But not all of us can stick to it. Not to worry, says a Stanford doctor. Just make a move in that direction, and you can have a stronger heart in as little as 8 weeks!

The post The diet that improved heart health in just 8 weeks appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Most people know that when they’ve been eating poorly, there’s a good chance they’ll put on some weight.

No big deal. To outrun the effects of a bad diet and lose those extra pounds, just ramp up the exercise.

Burn those extra calories, and you can avoid gaining or take off any extra weight that may have come from your “cheat days,” as we used to call them.

But in reality, that turns out to be almost impossible. Here’s the reason for that..

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Lack of exercise is not the cause of obesity

Over the last century, obesity has become as common as the common cold and lots of research has looked in potential causes. For decades it’s centered around taking calories in and the expenditure of energy to burn those calories.

So it makes sense that physicians and fitness experts alike blame weight gain and obesity on our increasingly sedentary lifestyles. But that’s just not the case…

An international team of researchers compared the daily amount of calories burned by people from 34 different countries and cultures worldwide, including hunter-gatherers and farming populations with low obesity rates, as well as people in sedentary jobs in places like Europe and the U.S., where obesity is widespread.

Dr. Herman Pontzer, a professor of evolutionary biology and global health at Duke University, led the research. And he and his team have debunked the idea that living a sedentary lifestyle leads to obesity.

Participants in the worldwide study included more than 4,200 adult men and women who drank a special water containing isotopes. These isotopes, tracked in participants’ urine, allowed the scientists to get an exact read on how much energy the subjects used.

They measured energy expenditures not just from movement and exercise but from vital processes and functions the body performs — including the energy it takes to keep the heart beating or the nervous system functioning — just to stay alive.

Surprisingly, they found that people from populations with high obesity rates burned only slightly less energy than those from populations without an obesity problem.

Dr. Pontzer says that this fits with what we already know about how the body burns calories.

“Surprisingly, what we find is that actually, the total calories burned per day is really similar across these populations, even though the lifestyle and the activity levels are really different,” he says.

In other words, someone foraging for berries all day may burn the same amount of calories as someone at a desk all day. But why?

“So if we burn more of our energy every day on physical activity, on exercise, after a while our bodies will adjust and spend less energy on the other tasks that we sort of don’t notice going on in the background.”

This finding is strong evidence that obesity doesn’t occur from lack of physical activity. It’s because of food… one kind in particular.

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Ultra-processed foods are the culprit

“It’s 100% diet,” says Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, director of the Food is Medicine Institute at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. “And I think then the question is, what is it about the diet?”

Dr. Mozaffarian was not involved in the research, but has shared insights pointing out that the modern diet has become dominated by ultra-processed foods (UPF), and that these are the drivers of weight gain.

“For decades, we’ve been telling Americans that you’re lazy, it’s your fault, you’re not moving enough, you’re eating too much,” he says. “And I think what this study shows is that there’s a really complicated biology happening and that our food is driving this.”

The researchers of the study listed several ways, in addition to long shelf lives and increased availability, that UPF contributes to obesity, including:

• The hyperpalatability, energy density, nutrient composition and appearance of UPF might disrupt satiety signaling and encourage overconsumption. (Remember the adage, “you can eat just one”? UPF, from snacks to quick breakfast foods, to frozen pizzas and more, are designed to hook you and make you crave more.)
• Processing has also been shown to increase the percentage of calories consumed that are absorbed into the body rather than excreted. (UPF has low fiber content, is absorbed by the body quickly and has additives that potentially disrupt normal digestive processes.)
• They also found data that supports the obesogenic effects of UPF. (Obesogens are chemicals, often involved in ultra-processing and packaging, that can disrupt the endocrine system and lead to weight gain and obesity.)

Avoiding obesity isn’t the only reason to avoid UPF…

The more UPF in your diet, the higher your risk of dementia, colorectal cancer, and at least 30 other health conditions, ranging from diabetes to Crohn’s disease to asthma.

Make every effort to stick to a healthy, whole foods diet that includes plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables, and you’re well on your way to keeping control of your weight.

Of course, there are other good reasons to get regular exercise — but if losing weight is among your reasons, you’ve got to examine your diet and move away from UPF.

Sources:

You can’t outrun a bad diet. Food — not lack of exercise — fuels obesity, study finds — NPR

Energy expenditure and obesity across the economic spectrum — Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)

The post The food that won’t let you ‘outrun’ obesity appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Most hotels with hot tubs also have saunas, but I prefer the hot, bubbling water of the tub. The combination of heat and water soothes my body and relaxes my mind like nothing else can.

As it turns out, the time I’ve spent in hot tubs has provided me with more than just an hour or so of relaxation. Research shows that the heat of a hot tub or sauna stimulates all sorts of beneficial health effects.

And just in case you’re considering installing one or the other in your home, research also shows that the tub wins out hands down in terms of therapeutic value, especially when it comes to blood pressure and immune system response.

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Hot tubs beat saunas for lasting benefits

Both hot tubs and saunas are great for soothing aching muscles and providing welcome warmth, but hot tubs might offer greater health benefits.

That’s what researchers at the Bowerman Sports Science Center at the University of Oregon found in a study involving ten men and ten women who exercised regularly, ranging in age from 20 to 28 years old.

The researchers monitored their body temperature, blood pressure, heart rate, cardiac output (the amount of blood the heart pumps per minute) and immune cell populations, as well as blood biomarkers of inflammation.

This data was collected before, during, and after subjects soaked in a hot tub and sat in both a dry heat and infrared sauna.

Their findings showed that hot water immersion raised core body temperature more than dry sauna, which in turn caused an increase in blood flow and immune system response.

“We saw that hot water immersion was the most impactful in increasing core body temperature, which is the main stimulus for these subsequent responses,” Atencio said. “Increasing body temperature causes an increase in blood flow, and just the force of blood moving across your vessels is beneficial for your vascular health,” says lead study author Jessica Atencio

Need more good news? They say the benefits can last beyond the minutes spent directly in the hot tub.

This isn’t the first study to imply the benefits of hot water on heart health, either. And how to get them without a hot tub.

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A safe option for those who can’t exercise

“We always say that exercise is the primary nonpharmacological treatment that people should be doing to promote health, but some people can’t or just won’t exercise,” says Atencio. “Heat therapy is good supplementation.”

In other words, for those people who can’t or won’t exercise, time spent in a hot tub can provide some of the same benefits.

But just as with exercise, hot tub time must be done in moderation.

“We want people to be smart and safe about it,” says Prof. Christopher Minson, in whose lab the study was conducted.

“We need to make sure that they are cleared by their physicians or others for heat therapy or for exercise, whether it’s mild to moderate walking or jogging or strength training. Then they’ll be fine to do heat therapy.”

Some general hot tub safety rules:

Always check the temperature before entering the hot tub. The maximum safe temperature for a hot tub is 104°F (40°C).

Limit soaking time to 15-20 minutes, especially at higher temperatures.

Hydrate adequately to prevent dehydration and overheating.

Avoid alcohol and drugs before or during hot tub use, as they can increase the risk of drowning and other accidents.

Shower before and after using the hot tub to remove sweat, dirt, and personal hygiene products.

Sources:

Hot tubs outperform saunas in boosting blood flow and immune power — Science Daily

Comparison of thermoregulatory, cardiovascular, and immune responses to different passive heat therapy modalities — American Journal of Physiology

The post Hot tub time improves blood pressure and immune response appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Maybe it’s because women cross a proverbial threshold — menstruation — that eventually opens a door for young women to begin regular gynecological checkups. Along with those yearly visits come screenings for female-specific cancers.

This kickstarts a habit of regular preventive care that becomes ingrained. But for men, it’s a different story…

Our culture gives men the message that they need to “be strong” and “handle things.”

This message makes a lot of men — especially young men — reluctant to take care of their health, and it’s a habit that’s slow to change.

A new study shows just how big an impact this is having on the health of men, and the news isn’t good…

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An ounce of prevention = a pound of cure

It’s not just a saying. Preventing disease really is a much easier route than curing one. But it’s not a message men have gotten — and it shows…

Last year, Harvard researchers shared that the life expectancy gap between men and women had grown to as much as six years. Sadly, experts say it’s due in part to preventable deaths.

“When you’re in your 20s, 30s, you’re indestructible, you’re Superman,” says Scott Stephens, a 62-year-old who never thought about his health care until he was in his 40s and his father developed prostate cancer.

“It’s also a badge of courage; why should I go? I don’t need to call my doctor.”

A new survey by the Cleveland Clinic looked at members of Gen Z (born 1997-2005), Millennials (born 1981-1996), Gen X (born 1965-1980) and Boomers+ (born before 1965).

They grouped Gen X and Boomers together and Millennials and Gen Z together. Then they compared their survey answers to some specific questions:

• Get a yearly physical (61% Gen X and Boomers+ vs. 32% Millennials and Gen Z men)
• Avoid smoking/vaping (60% Gen X and Boomers+ vs. 43% Millennials and Gen Z men)
• Address mental health (53% Gen X and Boomers+ 59% Millennials and Gen Z men)

Additional revelations from the survey were:

• Most men fear getting cancer (74%), but rates of screenings and cancer awareness remain low.
• One-third of Gen X and Boomers+ who are eligible for colorectal cancer screening have not been screened or are not sure if they’ve been screened.
• A quarter of men with an average risk of prostate cancer (50+) have not been screened or are not sure if they’ve been screened.

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What men should do to protect their health

There’s a clear generational divide in how men approach health. But if we jumped back in time 30 years or so, we’d likely find the exact same habits playing out.

In other words, Gen Z isn’t the first generation of young men to place a low priority on their health. It seems that it’s just a matter of getting older before men begin to take health seriously — when symptoms crop up that require attention.

But regardless of age, there are steps men should be taking at each stage of life to safeguard their health:

In your 20s or 30s. Stop relying on the Internet. Make an appointment and get a handle on how healthy (or unhealthy) you are.

“Men should first come around age 21 for general health maintenance,” says Dr. Messmer. It’s also a good time to start measuring cholesterol, especially if there’s a family history of heart disease.

In your 40s. Colon cancer screening should start when men are in their 40s and then repeat every 10 years. If you have a family history, screening should start five years earlier than the age at which the relative was diagnosed and be repeated every five years.

Prostate, bladder, and kidney cancer screening should also begin in a man’s 40s.

In your 50s or 60s. This is the time when urologic issues tend to crop up. Many men come in with erectile dysfunction but discover they have a more serious prostate problem. Besides the standard PSA test, doctors now have other ways to gauge a man’s risk.

Finally, Dr. Ryon McDermott of the University of South Alabama points out, “The brain and the body are obviously very connected.” It’s never too late to start taking care of your mental health.

Sources:

National Cleveland Clinic Survey Examines Generational Divide in Men’s Health — Cleveland Clinic

It’s Time to Man Up and See a Doctor — Web MD

Widening Gender Gap in Life Expectancy in the US, 2010-2021 — JAMA Internal Medicine

Mars vs. Venus: The gender gap in health — Harvard Medical School

The post The unnecessary reason for men’s increasingly shorter lifespans appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

If you said, “My skin,” good for you!

Most people don’t think of their skin as an “organ,” like their heart, liver or kidneys — but it absolutely is. What’s more, it’s the most vulnerable.

Think about it: your skin is like a shield between you and the pollutants, ultraviolet radiation, pathogens and toxins you encounter daily. But that’s not all…

When you sweat, that’s your skin regulating your body temperature and excreting waste products. Your skin also synthesizes vitamin D from exposure to sunlight — and that’s the only way to get this essential vitamin other than supplementing.

And what do you do for your skin in return? You might moisturize it during the winter and protect it from the sun during the summer — paying most of that attention to your face or exposed areas.

But if you had a serious skin problem, would you recognize it or know what to do? Here are seven unusual but significant skin symptoms that dermatologists say always warrant a visit to your doctor…

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7 skin changes that require attention

A pimple that bleeds and won’t go away

You’ve had a small bump on your face for several months. It looks like a pimple, only without a head, and it bleeds without being touched. Never let something like this linger for months. It should be biopsied to make sure it’s not skin cancer.

If it is cancerous, Mohs micrographic surgery only removes a layer at a time, so you don’t end up looking disfigured. Each section removed is examined under a special microscope. A dermatologist will stop removing skin when the last piece excised shows no sign of “roots.”

But be warned: if it is a skin cancer, the longer you wait, the deeper the “roots” can go. It’s crucial to remove every bit of it, and if it’s been allowed to grow unchecked, that could definitely leave a scar.

Veins you can see

Factors like hot weather, tight clothing and strenuous exercise can make your veins more noticeable. But if you previously couldn’t see your veins and now they’re prominently noticeable, have your doctor take a look. It could be a sign of deep vein thrombosis. Other key signs include pain, swelling and warmth in the affected body part.

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Strange marks on your nails

Believe it or not, your fingernails are often the best indicators that something is going wrong in your body. Here are three examples:

• Splinter hemorrhages. These crooked red lines resemble splinters under the nail bed and may indicate endocarditis (an often misdiagnosed heart infection that inflames the heart). Splinter hemorrhages occur when tiny blood clots associated with endocarditis damage the small blood vessels under the nail.
• Small red spots under the nail bed. These can be a sign of the autoimmune disease lupus.  
• Also, a dark line running from top to bottom of the nail could be a sign of melanoma of the nail. Check the thumb, index finger, or big toe for this, and get a biopsy if you see any changes.

Skin changes that feel like velvet

Dark, velvety patches of skin might be a condition called acanthosis nigricans, which is often caused by insulin resistance that can lead to type 2 diabetes if left unchanged.

It often shows up in skin creases and folds on the neck, in the armpits, inside the elbows, behind the knees, and on knuckles–and is evidence that elevated insulin levels are speeding up skin cell reproduction.

Skin that glows or shines

A sudden, unnatural sheen to the skin could indicate hormonal changes, skin infections, or even skin cancer. Basal cell carcinoma usually appears in areas exposed to sunlight. It appears as a tiny translucent bump with blood vessels on the surface that may bleed. Basal cell carcinoma is highly curable if detected early. An Australian study found that supplementing niacinamide reduced basal and squamous cell carcinoma risk.

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Itchy palms

If not due to dry winter skin, and if they flare up at night and are not accompanied by a rash, your itchy palms could signal gallbladder issues. To rule this out, it’s important to get blood work done to check your liver function and bile acids. Sometimes itchy palms may be a warning sign of pancreatic cancer.

Skin changes that feel like sandpaper

If your skin is so dry that it’s full of small, rough bumps like sandpaper, you could have a condition called keratosis pilaris, also called “chicken skin.”

The condition is not dangerous and can be treated with moisturizers and prescription creams. However, it could be an indication that you’re predisposed to atopic dermatitis, asthma, and seasonal allergies, so it’s good to identify it early.

Other conditions to watch out for include slow-healing wounds and new sensitivities to products that didn’t cause problems before.

When in doubt, always go to your doctor. “Better safe than sorry” is the rule of thumb here.

Sources: 

12 Weird Symptoms Dermatologists Say You Should Never Ignore — Time

The post 7 skin changes that should never go unchecked appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

But I can tell you from personal experience that this same term can describe Parkinson’s disease.

My father died of Parkinson’s when he was 83. We spent ten long years watching him slip away from us, first physically, then mentally.

There is no cure for Parkinson’s. But early detection allows for treatments that may slow the progression of the disease and interventions that can dramatically improve quality of life.

But right now, Parkinson’s is detected by using either clinical rating scales, which can be far from objective, or through neural imaging, which is extremely costly. And, on average, it takes close to three years to get a diagnosis.

I have a particular interest in any new developments that might save other people from what I went through, so I’d like to tell you about a recent study that may seem kind of strange at first, but that holds great promise.

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Using ear wax to detect Parkinson’s

Strange as it sounds, a person’s ear wax might reveal that they have Parkinson’s disease, even before any symptoms show up.

What, you may ask, could ear wax possibly have to do with detecting a neurological disease?

It all comes down to two things: volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, and sebum.

Sebum is a waxy, oily substance produced by the sebaceous glands in the skin. It’s what gives you oily skin, but it also hydrates the skin and forms a protective barrier.

Previous research has revealed that sebum from people with Parkinson’s may have a characteristic smell because VOCs released by sebum are altered by disease progression, including neurodegeneration, systemic inflammation and oxidative stress.

Sebum on the skin is exposed to the environment, making it unreliable. But the ear canal is one place where the skin is kept away from the elements — and could produce an accurate diagnosis.

So Chinese researchers Hao Dong, Danhua Zhu and colleagues focused their efforts at screening for Parkinson’s on the sebum in ear wax, which is also easier to sample than sebum elsewhere on the body.  

They collected samples from 209 subjects (108 of whom were already diagnosed with Parkinson’s) and analyzed the samples looking for VOCs unique to the Parkinson’s patients.

Sure enough, they found four VOCs that were only present in the ear wax of subjects with Parkinson’s: ethylbenzene, 4-ethyltoluene, pentanal, and 2-pentadecyl-1,3-dioxolane.

They concluded that the presence of these four VOCs is a potential biomarker for Parkinson’s disease.

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Catching Parkinson’s early: know the warning signs

More work needs to be done before the artificial intelligence olfactory (AIO) system developed by Dong and Zhu becomes a reliable and efficient tool for early prediction of Parkinson’s.

But there are early warning signs that people often ignore since they resemble signs of aging that we’ve been trained to accept as normal:

Loss of sense of smell. Years before any motor or neurological symptoms show up, sense of smell may begin to diminish. It’s the first sign of dopamine dying off, which happens in later stages of the disease.

Excessive sweating. Parkinson’s causes changes to the sweat glands. Women may mistake this for hot flashes. If your skin and hair are oily when they’ve never been before, it could be a sign.

Changes in handwriting. The slowing down and loss of spontaneous, routine movement is known as bradykinesia. In a person with Parkinson’s, their handwriting is often the first place this shows itself.

Stiff arm. Range of motion is decreased; you can’t swing your arm as much as before when you walk.

Orthostatic hypotension. Dizziness upon getting up too quickly. Again, take note if this is new for you.

Persistent neck pain. Women in particular have reported this as the third-most common warning sign they remember when asked how they first knew they had Parkinson’s.

If you suspect Parkinson’s, talk to your doctor. And don’t be tempted to grab a Q-tip to view your ear wax. You can’t tell anything from its appearance, and you could push ear wax further into your ear canal, causing impaction and potentially damaging the eardrum.

Sources:

Ear wax as a possible screening medium for Parkinson’s disease — Eureka Alert

An Artificial Intelligence Olfactory-Based Diagnostic Model for Parkinson’s Disease Using Volatile Organic Compounds from Ear Canal Secretions — Analytical Chemistry

10 Lesser-Known Parkinson’s Disease Symptoms — Michael J. Fox Foundation

The post The Parkinson’s clues found in ear wax appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

But for the person with ADHD, who may experience frequent nights of insomnia, it can affect life in a more dramatic and ongoing way.

It turns out that it may be insomnia that’s dragging their mood and quality of life down, compounding the struggles associated with attention deficit and the challenges of emotional regulation when living with ADHD.

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Insomnia has a significant impact on people with ADHD

Adults with ADHD are at higher risk of depression and lower quality of life (QoL) and research has revealed that sleep problems associated with ADHD may be why.

Specifically, insomnia could be the “missing link” that connects ADHD with depression and poor life quality.

Dr. Sarah Chellappa is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Southampton in England. She is also the senior author of a recently published study.

“We know that sleep disruption can impact neurobehavioral and cognitive systems, including attention and emotional regulation. At the same time, sleep disruption may arise from ADHD-related impulsivity and hyperactivity, suggesting a reinforcing cycle between sleep disorders and ADHD,” says Dr Sarah Chellappa.

Researchers from the University of Southampton and the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience looked at data from the Netherlands Sleep Registry.

They singled out responses from 1,364 of the over ten thousand participants in the Registry, looking at answers to questions about ADHD traits, insomnia, circadian factors, depression and quality of life.

Their findings made it clear that ADHD traits were associated with worse depression and more severe insomnia — and that insomnia and other sleep disorders were the potential link between ADHD, depression and lower quality of life.

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Hope for better interventions… and what to do until then

Professor Samuele Cortese, a co-author of the study, is also from the University of Southampton.

“There needs to be more research to understand this complex interplay. By improving our understanding, we could uncover treatment options that improve the quality of life of people with ADHD,” he says.

“For instance, targeting insomnia complaints in individuals with higher ADHD traits, with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia or Sleep Restriction therapy may help improve their quality of life.”

But there are simple, safe ways for people with ADHD to help themselves right now.

Melatonin is a hormone your brain produces to regulate your sleep and wake cycles. People with ADHD tend to have inhibited melatonin release and more difficulty preparing their bodies for rest. A French study found that melatonin helps adults with sleep disorders and ADHD.

Phosphatidylserine (PS) is a phospholipid that’s normally abundant in the brain and nervous system. It stimulates dopamine, a neurotransmitter that plays a role in sleep and emotional regulation. An imbalance of dopamine can lead to depression.

Omega-3s. Besides being good for heart health, omega-3 fatty acids may improve symptoms of ADHD, including behavior, cognitive skills and focus.

Other supplements that research has linked with improvement in ADHD symptoms include zinc, iron, magnesium, ginkgo and ginseng.

Always talk with your doctor before adding a new supplement to your daily regimen, particularly if you are taking medications for ADHD or other conditions.

Sources:

Can’t sleep, can’t focus, can’t thrive? ADHD and insomnia may be a vicious cycle — Science Daily

Associations of ADHD traits, sleep/circadian factors, depression and quality of life — BMJ Mental Health

Melatonin, Omega 3 & Dietary Supplements: ADHD Hype or Help? — ADDitude

6 Natural Supplements That Benefit Most Brains — ADDitude

The post The vicious cycle of adult ADHD and insomnia appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

The slow and graceful movements were beautiful to watch. But it was the mindful concentration and peaceful expressions on the faces of those participating that really pulled me in.

I remember yearning for that kind of community and connection. I found it in my love for choir, but I’ve had tai chi in the back of my mind ever since.

And with evidence-based benefits like these, why not give it a try…

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What is tai chi?

“One of the biggest advantages of tai chi from a health perspective is that anyone can practice it, which includes those who have health issues, injuries, or limited mobility,” says Andrea Felix, a Certified Expert Instructor who has been practicing tai chi since 2006.

Tai chi is a practice that involves a series of slow, gentle movements and physical postures, a meditative state of mind, and controlled breathing. Although it originated as an ancient martial art in China, it has become known for promoting physical and mental well-being.

What the research says about tai chi

Dr. Peter Wayne, author of The Harvard Medical School Guide to Tai Chi, maps out eight characteristics that are central to tai chi practice:

• Awareness
• Intention
• Structural integration
• Active relaxation
• Strengthening and flexibility
• Natural, freer breathing
• Social support
• Embodied spirituality

In 2024 alone, many studies have confirmed Dr. Wayne’s belief that these factors work together to deliver the following physical and mental health benefits:

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Balance. Did you know that poor balance is a sure sign of a shorter life?Three studies have confirmed the fact that tai chi improves balance. One of these was a meta-analysis of 17 randomized clinical trials.

Low back pain. An analysis of ten randomized controlled trials found that the practice of tai chi helps relieve chronic low back pain. Maybe that’s why the American College of Physicians, who suggest drugs should be a last resort for back pain, includes Tai Chi in their top 3 recommendations to relieve this common complaint.

Blood pressure. A randomized clinical trial found that tai chi was more effective than aerobic exercise in reducing blood pressure.

Parkinson’s disease. A 3.5-year cohort study showed that tai chi helped ease both motor and non-motor symptoms in patients with Parkinson’s, with these benefits lasting several years.

Sleep. Another study found that tai chi improved cognition and sleep. It also suppressed inflammation and enhanced metabolism.

Another study of breast cancer survivors with insomnia found that tai chi not only helped the insomnia, but also reduced markers of inflammation, thus making a relapse less likely.

Mental health. A review of 20 studies concluded that tai chi helps reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression in older adults and improves their social connections.

Finally, tai chi has been shown to increase functional connectivity in the brain, which may help prevent age-related decline.

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How to get started with tai chi

Tai chi is a meditative exercise that combines deep breathing with slow, focused movements. It’s perfect for those with limited mobility who need to increase their activity level gradually.

The quickest way to get started is by watching a video like this one. Or this one.

But taking a tai chi class at your local senior or community center will connect you with others who are trying to learn. The socialization that comes along with this is an added bonus!

Sources:

A Growing Amount of New Research Confirms the Many and Diverse Health Benefits of Tai Chi — Integrative Practitioner

Tai Chi: What You Need To Know — National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health

The effects of different types of Tai Chi exercise on anxiety and depression in older adults: a systematic review and network meta-analysis — Frontiers in Public Health

Effect of Tai Chi vs Aerobic Exercise on Blood Pressure in Patients With Prehypertension: A Randomized Clinical Trial — JAMA Network Open

Effect of long-term Tai Chi training on Parkinson’s disease: a 3.5-year follow-up cohort study — Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry

The post 7+ reasons tai chi is the movement your body needs appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

This is due to a combination of factors, including decreased digestive enzyme production, slower muscle contractions in the digestive tract and lifestyle choices that have left their mark.

The result: nutrient deficiencies, acid reflux and constipation.

But there’s one outcome of this slowdown in digestion that can be extraordinarily painful and even land you in the hospital.

Luckily, there are five things you can do to prevent this painful and potentially life-threatening condition…

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5 ways to reduce risk for diverticulitis

Diverticulitis is a condition where small pouches, or diverticula, in the wall of the colon become inflamed or infected. Most of the time, diverticulitis resolves without any treatment.

Age is a risk factor you can’t control. Age-related deterioration in the walls of the colon means that by the time you’re 50, you have a 50/50 chance of developing diverticulitis.

But a decades-long observational study by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital has identified five factors you can control that can dramatically reduce your risk.

After assessing the health records of 179,564 people from the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS), the NHS II and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS), the researchers developed a “Healthy Lifestyle Score” (HLS) linked to diverticulitis risk over around 20 years.

Five factors were linked to a lower risk of diverticulitis:

• Healthy body mass index (BMI)
• Being physically active
• Not smoking
• High fiber intake (Women, aim for 25 grams daily; men, 38 grams)
• Low or no red meat intake

One point was given for each of these five factors, and every one-point increase in HLS meant a 12 percent lower risk of diverticulitis.

Those with a “full house” – a point given for all five factors – were 50 percent less likely to be diagnosed than those with zero points.

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Prevention tips, and when to seek medical attention

Of course, scoring a point for all five factors will also make you less of a target for heart disease, stroke and diabetes.

But aiming for three or four will lower your risk dramatically. You can do that by:

• Staying away from red meat
• Eating plenty of high-fiber fruits and vegetables
• Moving your body daily (even a daily walk counts!)
• Don’t smoke, or get help with quitting
• Keep your weight within healthy limits

But doing these things isn’t an iron-clad guarantee, so it’s crucial that you know the symptoms of diverticulitis. If you don’t seek help, complications can be life-threatening and require immediate medical attention.

If you experience severe abdominal pain (usually on the left side), fever, chills, nausea, vomiting, or difficulty passing stool, you should seek emergency medical care.

Left untreated, an attack of diverticulitis can lead to life-threatening complications:

• Peritonitis – an infection of the abdominal lining
• Abscess – a collection of pus in the abdomen
• Bowel obstruction – a blockage in the colon
• Colon perforation – a tear in the wall of the colon

But don’t let this scare you. Even if you’re 50 or beyond, if you follow these guidelines, you stand a good chance of never developing diverticulitis.

Unfortunately, some chronic conditions are associated with an increased risk for diverticulitis. Those include:

• Polycystic kidney disease
• Hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid)
• Irritable bowel syndrome
• Inflammatory bowel disease

Omega-3 supplements are sometimes suggested to reduce inflammation, flare-ups and improve the intestinal barrier in people with diverticulitis. In addition, probiotics, vitamin D and glutamine may also be beneficial.

If you’re on medication for the condition, let your doctor know if you take supplements.

Sources:

These five things halve your risk of common age-related gut pain — New Atlas

Lifestyle factors, genetic susceptibility and risk of incident diverticulitis: an integrated analysis of four prospective cohort studies and electronic health records-linked biobank — Gut

The post 5 ways to slash risks for painful diverticulitis appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

But what if I told you that you could, well, have your salt and eat it, too?

That’s right — there’s another kind of salt out there that you probably haven’t heard of. And if you have, well, you may have to search for it, but it’s well worth the reward.

Here’s everything you need to know…

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What is potassium-enriched salt?

Potassium-enriched salts look the same as traditional salts (sodium chloride). Only some of the sodium chloride has been replaced with potassium chloride.

And there’s good evidence this simple change could make a huge difference for many people suffering from high blood pressure…

In a randomized trial, 20,995 people with a history of stroke — or who were 60 years of age or older and had high blood pressure — switched to potassium-enriched salt. Researchers saw lower blood pressure and reduced risks of stroke, heart attacks and early death.

That’s just one reason a group of researchers are strongly encouraging clinical guideline bodies to review their recommendations about the use of potassium-enriched salt substitutes.

Potassium-enriched salt works to lower blood pressure because it reduces sodium intake and because of potassium’s role in heart health…

Potassium not only helps keep your heart muscles strong and beating regularly — but a deficiency in the mineral can lead to bone-hard arteries.

Most of our potassium comes from fruits and vegetables that many of us just don’t eat enough of. And that’s a problem.

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Why aren’t more of us using potassium-enriched salt?

Potassium-enriched salts are also called low-sodium salt, potassium salt, heart salt, mineral salt or reduced-sodium salt.

But many people simply don’t know it’s an option — or that a simple switch to potassium-enriched salt could help lower their blood pressure and reduce the risk of stroke and heart attack.

Marketing is another issue. Where it is sold, there’s often only one brand, and it is relegated to the bottom shelf, or only found in a specialty food aisle, which most shoppers ignore.

And it’s generally more expensive than traditional salt, so people on a budget also tend to bypass it in favor of plain old salt.

Should you be concerned about potassium deficiency?

There are a few reasons, besides skimping on fruits and vegetables, that someone could be potassium deficient:

• Diuretics (“water pills”) that increase urination and loss of too much potassium
• Diarrhea, vomiting or excess sweating
• Some antibiotics
• Excessive alcohol consumption

Would you recognize a deficiency? Some of the signs are:

• weakness
• muscle cramps
• tingling
• fatigue
• nausea
• bloating
• frequent urination
• constipation
• irregular heartbeat
• acne

If you experience any of these symptoms consistently, it’s wise to make an appointment with your doctor to determine if a potassium deficiency is the cause.

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Why you should still reach for fresh sources of potassium

When you think of high-potassium foods, a banana probably tops your list. But here are some foods that pack more potassium than a banana:

• avocado
• sweet potato
• spinach
• potatoes
• butternut squash
• dried apricots
• watermelon
• fish

One reason it’s important to keep reaching for fresh food sources of potassium is that some have additional benefits for your arteries and blood pressure…

Citrulline, found in watermelon, is a precursor to L arginine, which helps produce nitric oxide (NO), a signaling molecule that plays a role in blood pressure regulation, lipid reduction and glucose control.

The rich levels of polyphenols and carotenoids in watermelon, particularly lycopene, also provide additional support to help maintain normal cardio-metabolic health.

Spinach also helps produce nitric oxide, but more efficiently. Foods like spinach and beets contain naturally occurring organic nitrates, and help the body produce NO via the nitrate–nitrite–nitric oxide pathway. Research claims it’s the most bioavailable, sustainable and fastest route for raising NO levels that support artery health and blood pressure.

Sources:

Research Shows One Easy Diet Swap Can Reduce Blood Pressure And Heart Attacks — Science Alert

Potassium-Enriched Salt Substitutes: A Review of Recommendations in Clinical Management Guidelines — Hypertension

Effect of Salt Substitution on Cardiovascular Events and Death — New England Journal of Medicine

Potassium-Enriched Salt Substitutes as a Means to Lower Blood Pressure — Hypertension

Low potassium (hypokalemia) — Mayo Clinic

The post The salt that doesn’t raise your blood pressure appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

An analysis of 21 years of data presented late last year at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2024 paints a grim picture…

The analysis found that there was a significant and consistent increase in deaths from obesity-related ischemic heart disease from 1999 to 2020 in the U.S.

Ischemic heart disease is a condition that occurs when the heart’s blood supply is reduced due to narrowed coronary arteries.

Specifically, the analysis revealed an increase of 243% annually in deaths among men and 131% in women.

The highest rates of deaths from ischemic heart disease related to obesity were among middle-aged men ages 55-64, Black adults and people who live in the Midwestern states and non-metropolitan areas in the U.S.

With numbers like that, and on the climb, let’s talk about why obesity drives heart problems, the type of fat that does the most harm and what to do about it…

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How obesity contributes to heart disease

Three factors make obesity a driving force behind heart disease:

Cholesterol levels. Being obese can cause your LDL (“bad” cholesterol) levels to rise. It also elevates triglyceride levels. Not only that, it actually can lower HDL (“good” cholesterol) levels at the same time.

Blood pressure. A person who is obese requires more blood to supply oxygen and nutrients to their body, which can lead to increased blood pressure. And high blood pressure is a common cause of heart attacks.

Diabetes. Obesity puts you at high risk for developing diabetes. And according to the American Heart Association, at least 68 percent of people aged 65 and older with diabetes also have heart disease.

These conditions are also three of the five markers for Metabolic Syndrome (MetS) — and three is all you need for a diagnosis. Another marker is having a large waist circumference — in other words, visceral belly fat.

How visceral fat fuels heart disease

If you are obese and carry a lot of fat around your midsection, you are pretty much a heart attack waiting to happen.

So why is merely carrying fat around the mid-section so dangerous?

According to Dr. Elizabeth Klodas, cardiologist and EHO contributor, visceral fat is like an organ that is “biochemically active.” That means it’s not just “passive fat.”

It can disrupt the healthy function of various hormones, like insulin, impact metabolism, inflammation and organs… leading to an increased risk of heart disease.

Visceral fat also produces chemicals called cytokines that have negative effects on blood pressure and blood clotting. Visceral fat is directly linked with higher LDL (bad) cholesterol and lower HDL (good) cholesterol levels.

All of this increases the risk for ischemic heart disease.

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How to lose the fat that contributes to heart disease

You won’t be surprised to hear that diet and exercise are necessary to lose visceral fat. However, I do have a simple tip to help you start chipping away at it…

According to researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, start by eating an avocado a day.

Their study followed 105 overweight or obese adults for a full 12 weeks.

Half were asked to eat an avocado at one meal a day, while the other half ate meals with the same number of calories and nearly identical ingredients, just without the avocado.

And the results showed:

• Women who consumed an avocado as part of a daily meal had a reduction in deeper visceral abdominal fat.
• They also experienced a reduction in the ratio of visceral fat to subcutaneous fat, indicating a redistribution of fat away from their organs.

The researchers say that together, these two findings demonstrate the power of avocados to not only reduce visceral fat but also to ward off the diseases it can cause.

However, fat distribution in males did not change. That doesn’t mean the guys are out of luck. Consider the Green Mediterranean diet…

It’s similar to the traditional Mediterranean diet, but ramps up the green factor by requiring three daily components: green tea, walnuts, and a shake made with duckweed (an aquatic green plant high in protein, iron, vitamin B12, and polyphenols).

In one study, this green diet version lowered blood pressure, insulin resistance, and inflammation, and improved the ratio of good to bad cholesterol.

Another found it doubles the belly fat loss of people following the traditional form of the diet. In this particular study 88% of the participants were men.

Don’t forget, exercise is an important part of weight loss but can be hard to jump into for someone who’s obese. Consider consulting a doctor or a weight loss trainer for additional support.

In addition to doing the right things to lose weight, be wary of these 12 habits that pack on dangerous belly fat.

Sources:

Obesity-related heart disease deaths increased in the U.S. over the past two decades — Eureka Alert

Three ways obesity contributes to heart disease — Penn Medicine

Significant gaps between the science of obesity and the care patients receive — heart.org

Avocados change belly fat distribution in women, controlled study finds — Science Daily

The post What makes obesity-related heart disease so deadly appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

One reason is because it’s easy to stick to. In fact, it’s not really a “diet” at all, but more like a lifestyle choice that‘s more about choosing the right foods than restricting what you eat.

But in all of this, there’s more talk about the food and very little about the spices that are typical of Mediterranean cooking, like black cumin, garlic, rosemary, cinnamon, ginger, and fennel.

Rosemary is my personal favorite. But it’s not one of the three that have recently been found to play a powerful role in the fight against diabetes…

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Free radicals 101

You’ve probably heard of free radicals (also known as reactive oxygen species, or ROS), those pesky, unstable molecules that a lot of us carry around due to exposure to cigarette smoke, air pollutants and other toxins.

Free radicals are also an unavoidable result of certain metabolic processes, like those involved in energy production.

That’s why a balance between free radicals and antioxidants is necessary. If free radicals overwhelm the body’s ability to regulate them, a condition known as oxidative stress occurs.

Many diseases can result, or become worse if oxidative stress goes uncontrolled.

Type 2 diabetes is one of them.

Antioxidant spices win at managing blood sugar and A1C

A group of Spanish researchers conducted a meta-analysis (an examination of 77 existing studies) to determine which Mediterranean spices are most beneficial for people with type 2 diabetes in terms of their glycemic profile.

A glycemic profile is like a “snapshot” of a person’s blood glucose fluctuations throughout the day. It shows how well (or poorly) their insulin is working to control their blood sugar.

Reactive oxygen species can compromise a glycemic profile in two ways: they can lead to insulin resistance (insulin is produced but the body does not respond to it as it should), as well as to β-cell dysfunction (insulin secretion is impaired).

“As far as we are aware, this is the first systematic review and meta-analysis aiming to evaluate the effect of aromatic herbs and spices included in the Mediterranean Diet, such as black cumin, clove [and others], on the glycemic profile of individuals with type 2 diabetes,” the study noted.

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The analysis focused on cinnamon, curcumin, ginger, black cumin, saffron, and rosemary.

But three stood out for their powerful effects on different aspects important for blood sugar management:

• Only ginger and black cumin were associated with a significant improvement in A1c (a blood test that measures your average blood sugar levels over the past three months)
• Only cinnamon and ginger were associated with a significant decrease in insulin values (cinnamon is already well-known for keeping blood sugar in check).
• Ginger was the only spice associated with a significant decrease in fasting glucose, A1c, and insulin.

What’s behind these spice benefits?

Spices are at the top of the ORAC (oxygen radical absorbance capacity) scale. The NIH’s National Institute on Aging developed ORAC to quantify a food’s total antioxidant capacity (TAC) — which equates to it strength in fighting off free radicals.

So there you have it. Spice things up and reap the benefits!

Sources:

Ginger, Cinnamon, Cumin Improve Glycemic Control — Medscape

Effect of Aromatic Herbs and Spices Present in the Mediterranean Diet on the Glycemic Profile in Type 2 Diabetes Subjects: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis — Nutrients

Free radicals, antioxidants and functional foods: Impact on human health — Pharmacognosy Reviews

The post 3 spices that tackled A1C, fasting glucose, insulin and won appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Sometimes, an observational study is convincing enough to be considered a valid source of evidence.

And while it may not offer “cause and effect” proof, an observational study, when done well, gives us enough information to convince us that changing our behavior could benefit our health.

This is especially true when it comes to what we eat.

I’ve often said here that “food is medicine.” Well, here’s an observational study that has convinced me eating a little differently will add some years to my life…

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Women need more vitamin K1 to keep arteries flexible

A study at Australia’s Edith Cowan University has shown that eating just an extra cup of leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables each day could save your life.

These vegetables, including spinach, kale, and broccoli, are rich in vitamin K1.

The researchers investigated whether eating more vitamin K1 was linked to better heart and blood vessel health in older women.

Older women were chosen as subjects because they have a unique risk for atherosclerotic vascular disease (ASVD), a type of cardiovascular disease where plaque builds up inside your arteries, narrowing them and restricting blood flow.

This is one reason that women are known to be at greater risk of heart attack and stroke than men. Hormonal factors also contribute to this increased risk level.

The study participants were 1,436 women, who averaged 75 years of age. A food questionnaire assessed their vitamin K1 levels at the start of the study.

Then, the researchers followed them for 14.5 years using hospital and death records.

In general, women who ate more vitamin K1 had thinner carotid artery walls, reflecting less early-stage atherosclerosis.

More specifically, women with the highest K1 intake (120mcg) had a 43% lower risk of dying from ASVD.

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Are you getting enough K1?

If you’re following the recommended daily guidelines, you’re probably not getting that 120mcg of K1 that lowered the risk of dying from ASVD.

The recommended daily intake of K1 in the U.S. is only 90mcg for adult females.

In Australia and New Zealand, it’s even lower: only 60mcg for females.

But you know what? It doesn’t take much to get to that 120mcg mark. Let me show you…

• A cup of raw kale provides 472mcg
• A cup of raw spinach offers 145mcg
• Just half a cup of cooked broccoli provides 110mcg
• A half-cup of cooked Brussels sprouts contains 109mcg.
• A half-cup of cooked cabbage provides 82mcg.

The point is, you won’t have to try too hard to get to that goal of eating 120mcg of K1 per day.

The study authors noted they did not investigate the other vitamin K component — vitamin K2 — even though it may impact heart health, only because estimating intake and availability of vitamin K2 is difficult to determine, since intestinal bacteria are involved in the synthesis of K2.

But if you’d like to know more about this form of vitamin K (found in much different food sources than K1), check out how vitamin K2 fights a common contributor of unhealthy aging — calcification.

Sources:

An extra cup of leafy greens each day reduces heart disease death risk — New Atlas

Higher vitamin K1 intakes are associated with lower subclinical atherosclerosis and lower risk for atherosclerotic vascular disease-related outcomes in older women — European Journal of Nutrition

The post The vitamin to help women avoid a fatal arterial disease appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

It’s a serious disease that can cause blindness, foot amputation, nerve damage and kidney problems, to name a few of the possible long-term effects.

And even though diabetes doesn’t just appear out of thin air, it can sneak up on you…

Approximately 1 in 3 American adults have prediabetes, a condition where blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but have not crossed the threshold for diabetes yet.

Unfortunately, most people in this stage don’t know the warning signs of prediabetes, that it carries a serious threat for heart damage or that it’s a critical point for stopping the trajectory to type 2 diabetes.

Physicians will advise keeping weight, blood sugar and cholesterol levels healthy through diet and exercise to avoid prediabetes.

But if you still find yourself in prediabetes limbo, you could benefit from extra help — like taking a common vitamin found to slash the risk of progression to full-blown diabetes…

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Vitamin D could save millions from a diabetes diagnosis

Vitamin D, known as the sunshine vitamin, is best known for powerful immune support. Few of us realize it also has important roles in insulin secretion and glucose metabolism. In fact, previous research has associated low blood levels of vitamin D with a higher risk of developing diabetes.

Researchers from Tufts Medical Center conducted a review and meta-analysis (they combined the statistical results) of three clinical trials comparing the impact of vitamin D supplements on diabetes risk for adults with prediabetes.

Over a three-year follow-up period, they saw that supplementing vitamin D was associated with a 15 percent decreased likelihood for developing type 2 diabetes in adults with prediabetes.

Given the fact that more than 374 million adults worldwide have prediabetes, the authors used their findings to deduce that vitamin D supplementation could delay the development of diabetes in more than ten million people.

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Vitamin D helps take down risk factors

If you know a little more about vitamin D’s association with other risk factors that are known to contribute to the development of diabetes, there’s no mystery about why D is the anti-diabetes vitamin…

Take obesity, considered one of the top risk factors. People who are low in vitamin D are also more likely to be obese. But worse, a study from Spain has shown that lacking vitamin D expands your chances of developing diabetes even more than being overweight.

Another study found that people with vitamin D blood levels of 50 ng/mL (considered adequate) were five times less likely to develop diabetes than those with 20ng/mL. The lead author of that study, Dr. Cedric Garland, believes rather than focusing solely on obesity and sugar and fat intake, we should be focusing on vitamin D levels.

Per the good folks at Harvard T. Chan School of Public Health, the RDA for vitamin D provides the daily amount needed to just maintain healthy bones and normal calcium metabolism in healthy people. That means 600 to 800 IU a day likely won’t turn prediabetes around.

The Institute of Medicine increased the upper limit of vitamin D to 4000 IU a day for adults, but other experts recommend a therapeutic daily dose of 5000 IU. Because of a growing body of research that’s finding vitamin D is not a one-size-fits-all vitamin, some have also suggested that dosage be based on BMI.

If you’re unsure what your vitamin D levels are, your doctor can test them. He’d also best know of any conditions or medications that could lower your levels or potential interactions.

Sources:

Vitamin D supplementation may lower diabetes risk for the more than 10 million adults with prediabetes — Eureka Alert

Vitamin D and Risk for Type 2 Diabetes in People With Prediabetes — Annals of Internal Medicine

Time out: should vitamin D dosing be based on patient’s body mass index (BMI): a prospective controlled study — Cambridge University Press

The post The vitamin that could turn prediabetes around appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Fortunately, it was nothing serious. However, that experience taught me a valuable lesson: when it comes to my health, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

It’s possible to experience symptoms like headache, fatigue, and nausea and have nothing seriously wrong. Or, it’s possible that these could each be a symptom of one of the ten major health problems listed below.

What you learn here could save you a lot of pain and trouble. It could also quite possibly save your life.

Frequently misdiagnosed conditions and their symptoms

1. Cancer. Fatigue, weight loss and pain are symptoms that often go part and parcel with cancer. But they are also found in so many other conditions.

• Breast cancer is often written off as benign fibroids.
• Lung cancer can be mistaken for COPD, especially in smokers.
• Colorectal cancer has the same abdominal discomfort and bowel changes as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).
• Prostate cancer can easily be mistaken for benign prostatic hyperplasia, a benign enlargement of the prostate.
• Bladder cancer shares symptoms with urinary tract infections, such as pain while urinating, frequent urination, and pelvic pain.

2. Heart attack. Age and gender play a huge role in the misdiagnosis of heart attacks. No one expects someone in their 30s or 40s to have a heart attack, and symptoms like chest pain, shortness of breath and indigestion are often attributed to other conditions.

A woman having a heart attack may not present with chest pain or arm pain. She may simply be nauseous, fatigued, and/or have jaw or back pain. These atypical symptoms are prevalent in women and are often easily attributed to other causes.

3. Stroke. Again, it’s the less-than-classic symptoms of a stroke that cause it to be dismissed as something else.

Rather than classic symptoms such as sudden numbness in one side of the body, slurred speech, and confusion, some stroke victims (women in particular) may look like they’re experiencing migraine, vertigo or an anxiety attack. They’ll have atypical symptoms, including dizziness, nausea and headache.

4. Thyroid conditions. Hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid) can cause fatigue, weight gain and feelings of sadness or apathy, while hyperthyroidism (overactive thyroid) may cause anxiety, irritability, and insomnia. Clearly, these symptoms occur in other disorders.

5. Carpal tunnel syndrome involves compression of the median nerve running through the wrist. Misdiagnosis of CPT as tendinitis or arthritis can cause a patient to delay surgery until it’s too late, leading to permanent nerve damage and irreversible weakness and numbness of the hand that affects its use.

6. Appendicitis. The abdominal pain of appendicitis is not always severe and can be mistaken for gastrointestinal discomfort. Some people experience nausea, vomiting and a mild fever, while others do not. A delay in diagnosis can quickly become a medical emergency if the appendix bursts.

7. Celiac disease. Both celiac disease and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) cause abdominal pain, bloating, and diarrhea. But a person with celiac disease must eliminate all gluten from their lives or risk damage to the lining of the small intestine, which ultimately leads to malnutrition.

8. Lyme disease. The bite of the tick that causes Lyme often produces a “bullseye” rash. If the rash isn’t present, Lyme is usually misdiagnosed as fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome, whose symptoms are similar (fatigue, joint pain, headaches and neurological issues).

9. Multiple sclerosis (MS) is often misdiagnosed as other conditions, including fibromyalgia, ALS, migraines and Vitamin B deficiency. If you are experiencing a combination of muscle weakness, fatigue, vision problems, and balance issues, make sure to have your doctor evaluate you for MS.

10. Depression is challenging to diagnose, as it looks different for different people. Symptoms such as fatigue, irritability, changes in sleep patterns, and alterations in appetite can mimic other physical conditions, including hypothyroidism or vitamin deficiencies.

Becoming a self-advocate

I hope that the information I’ve presented here will turn you into a fierce self-advocate. Doctors aren’t infallible, and being informed helps when you talk to them.

Never leave your doctor’s office until you’re satisfied with the answer you receive. If you have an unusual symptom or if you’re not feeling comfortable with the explanation you get, don’t let a doctor dismiss it as “nothing serious.”

Source:

Top Ten Health Conditions That Are Easily Misdiagnosed osmosis.org

The post The 10 most frequently misdiagnosed conditions appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

That was decades ago. So why am I thinking about this now?

Because it makes me susceptible to a painful condition that affects about ten percent of people who have had chickenpox — and you’ve probably guessed that I’m referring to shingles.

That may not sound like a big risk. But some research I’ve read lately has me thinking more and more about getting the vaccine, not only to prevent this condition, but also because of its fascinating connection to dementia…

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What is shingles?

Like me, you may have had chickenpox as a child. If so, you now have a virus lingering deep in the roots of your nerves that can be reactivated at any time.

If that virus wakes up, it can cause you to suffer painful blisters and searing nerve pain, possibly even long-term nerve damage.

This is shingles, also called herpes zoster, after the virus that causes it.

In mild cases, a band of fluid-filled blisters that itch intensely will appear, most commonly around the left or right side of the body.

In more severe cases, though, the pain of shingles can be so intense that even a slight breeze or pulling a sheet over the body can cause unbearable pain. This pain can last months or even years and is known as postherpetic neuralgia (PHN).

There are also several variations of shingles that have varying degrees of severity:

Ophthalmic shingles, or shingles of the eye, can cause complications including corneal ulcers, glaucoma and potential blindness.

Ramsey Hunt Syndrome is a form of shingles that can cause blisters in and around the ear and mouth on one side of the face. The virus attacks a central facial nerve and can result in loss of hearing, facial paralysis, ear pain and changes in the ability to taste.

Internal shingles happens when the virus affects the body but does not cause a rash. Symptoms may be mistaken for the flu: fever, headaches, muscle aches, chills, and swollen lymph nodes. If the virus attacks internal organs, pneumonia, hepatitis, or encephalitis can result. If you feel sick but have neurological symptoms, like numbness, tingling and burning under the skin, you need to get medical treatment immediately.

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Shingrix does more than we bargained for

Since 2006, a vaccine called Zostavax has been used to prevent shingles, and in 2018, a new shingles vaccine called Shingrix was approved.

Unlike Zostavax, it does not use live viruses and is considered safer for people with compromised immune systems. But here’s an interesting “bonus” to both these vaccines:

In July 2024, research published in Nature Medicine revealed that the original Zostavax vaccine was associated with reduced risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. At the time, the newly approved Shingrix vaccine, which became the treatment of choice for shingles, reduced that risk even more.

However, in these previous studies based on health records, researchers could not account for a significant source of bias: Vaccinated people tend to be more health-conscious. Behaviors such as diet and exercise, for instance, are known to influence dementia rates, but are not included in health records — so it was hard to truly narrow the reduced rates of dementia specifically to the vaccine.

Fast-forward to 2025, and the findings of a seven-year “accidental experiment” published in Nature in April 2025 appear to have strengthened the vaccination’s impact on dementia even more.

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An ‘accidental’ clinical trial

A fortuitous “natural experiment” in the rollout of the shingles vaccine in Wales that began in 2013 seemed to sidestep the bias. The vaccine used then contained a live-attenuated, or weakened, form of the virus.

How the vaccine rollout was designed — intended to ration the limited supply of the vaccine — meant that the slight difference in age between 79- and 80-year-olds made all the difference in who had access to the vaccine.

By comparing people who turned 80 just before Sept. 1, 2013, with people who turned 80 just after, the researchers could isolate the effect of being eligible for the vaccine.

The researchers compared the health outcomes of people closest in age who were eligible and ineligible to receive the vaccine, over seven years. By factoring in actual vaccination rates — about half of the eligible population received the vaccine, compared with almost none of the people who were ineligible — they could derive the vaccine’s effects.

By 2020, one in eight older adults, who were by then 86 and 87, had been diagnosed with dementia. But those who received the shingles vaccine were 20% less likely to develop dementia than the unvaccinated.

“It was a really striking finding,” said Pascal Geldsetzer, M.D., PhD., assistant professor of medicine and senior author of the recent study published in Nature in April 2025. “This huge protective signal was there, any which way you looked at the data.

“What makes the study so powerful is that it’s essentially like a randomized trial with a control group — those a little bit too old to be eligible for the vaccine — and an intervention group — those just young enough to be eligible.” 

They also found that protection against dementia was much more pronounced in women than men. This could be due to sex differences in immune response or in the way dementia develops, Geldsetzer said. On average, women have higher antibody responses to vaccination, and shingles is more common in women than in men. More women are also diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and dementia than men.

The circumstances, well-documented in the country’s health records, were about as close to a randomized controlled trial as you could get without conducting one.

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Over 60? You’re at higher risk

While it’s not entirely clear what the connection is between dementia and the shingles vaccine, scientists have two possible explanations.

Here’s one: When a baby is born, specific molecules that potentially could cause inflammation and accelerate aging are silenced. But viral infections like shingles can reactivate the production of these molecules, which could lead to dementia.

Another possibility is that certain viruses, like the one that causes shingles, have the potential to support the rogue form of Amyloid-β proteins that accelerate the onset of dementia.

It’s also unknown whether a newer version of the vaccine, which contains only certain proteins from the virus and is more effective at preventing shingles, may have a similar or even greater impact on dementia.

Geldsetzer looks forward to a large, randomized controlled trial, which would provide the most decisive proof of cause and effect. Participants would be randomly assigned to receive the live-attenuated vaccine or a placebo shot.

As effective as the vaccine seems to be at reducing the risk of developing shingles (and potentially reducing the risk of dementia), it’s not entirely risk-free…

It carries an FDA warning about Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS), a rare neurological disorder, considered an autoimmune disease, in which the immune system attacks the nerves. In some adults over 65, there was a slightly elevated risk for developing GBS within 42 days of receiving it. Researchers describe the risk as “about three excess GBS cases per million vaccinations.”

It’s a personal decision, and you may have many factors to weigh, including your family history or genetic risk for dementia.

Sources:

Study strengthens link between shingles vaccine and lower dementia risk — EurekAlert

New Shingles Vaccine Does Even Better Job of Delaying Onset of Dementia — Science Alert

The recombinant shingles vaccine is associated with a lower risk of dementia — Nature

Herpes Zoster Vaccination Reduces Risk of Dementia — nih.gov

Newer Shingles Vaccine Edges Out Its Predecessor — Jefferson Health

The post The connection between dementia and the shingles vaccine appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

A severe injury like a car accident or a burn, a heart attack or stroke, or pneumonia is just a few of the ways you could land in the ICU.

Even the need for observation and monitoring after a complicated surgery could make you an ICU patient.

And statistically, the moment that happens, the more likely you are to die.

That’s because addressing the life-threatening conditions that arise in ICU patients has been a challenge.

That may be changing…

A new way to predict which critically ill patients are more likely to face a higher risk of death within the coming 30 days is a tool that could improve treatment and turn those odds to a higher rate of survival.

But the real chance of survival is up to you and starts way before you ever find yourself in an ICU…

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A sign your ICU stay could end in 30 days

A team of doctors from the University of Chicago and the University of Amsterdam has created an index of markers in a patient’s feces that can help gauge their risk of mortality within 30 days.

Dr. Alexander de Porto and his team have named this index the Metabolic Dysbiosis Score, or MDS. It can potentially help ICU doctors work around a diagnostic challenge they often face.

You see, patients admitted to an ICU often develop sepsis.

Let’s say you’re fighting pneumonia, or a kidney infection. Sepsis happens when your immune system goes into overdrive and starts killing things it shouldn’t, triggering body-wide inflammation and a real risk of organ failure and death.

But not everyone who develops sepsis does so in the same way, which means that two patients with the same syndrome may respond to the same treatment very differently.

According to Dr. de Porto and his team of researchers, one approach is to target specific traits rather than treating “sepsis” as a whole.

Knowing that critically ill patients often have reduced diversity in their gut microbiota (bacteria in the gut), the trait they focused on was dysbiosis, an imbalance in the gut bacteria where harmful bacteria outnumber beneficial bacteria.

The researchers studied fecal samples collected from 196 patients exhibiting respiratory failure or shock, using them to develop the MDS, based on concentrations of 13 distinct fecal metabolites.

“The MDS performed well in predicting mortality in the training cohort of medical ICU patients, with 84 percent accuracy, 89 percent sensitivity, and 71 percent specificity,” the researchers said.

They also noted: “The metabolites comprising the score, such as short-chain fatty acids, bile acids, and tryptophan metabolites, point to biological pathways that might be targeted therapeutically …”

Potential interventions may include dietary modifications and the use of probiotics.

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What does all this mean for you?

First and foremost, this data underscores the importance of maintaining a healthy and balanced gut microbiome as a primary defense against serious illnesses.

For example, the MDS linked an underproduction of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) to a higher risk of mortality.

So where do you get SCFAs? SCFAs are produced by the “friendly” bacteria in your gut when you eat fiber — a critical nutrient that the majority of Americans do not get near enough of.

When the fiber you eat reaches your large intestine, it ferments and releases three types of short-chain fatty acids when broken down by gut microbes:

• Butyrate. A key energy source for cells lining the large intestine, butyrate may play a role in mitigating inflammation and supporting immune function.
• Propionate. Besides preventing constipation, propionate supports brain health and may protect against neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s.
• Acetate. Not to be confused with the plastic chemical found in products like paint and packaging, the presence or absence of the SCFA acetate affects gene expression, metabolic regulation and enzyme activity.

The following fiber types can help you produce these valuable SCFAs:

Inulin – found in onions, leeks, wheat and asparagus.

Fructooligosaccharides (FOS) – also found in onions and asparagus, as well as in many other fruits and vegetables, especially bananas.

Pectin – good sources of pectin include apples, apricots, carrots and oranges.

Arabinoxylan – found in cereal grains, especially in wheat bran, making up about 70% of the total fiber content.

Hopefully, you won’t ever end up in an ICU, but if you do, you’ll want plenty of those SCFAs to help you get through it.

Sources:

Something in Your Poop May Predict an Imminent Death — Science Alert

Fecal metabolite profiling identifies critically ill patients with increased 30-day mortality — Science Advances

The post Forget reading tea leaves: How poop predicts mortality appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

They’re also known as “forever chemicals,” and that’s no exaggeration.

PFAS are carbon atoms, surrounded by fluorine atoms. Because carbon plus fluorine is one of the strongest chemical bonds known in nature, they simply never break down.

It’s almost impossible to avoid these chemicals. They’re in your drinking water, non-stick cookware, carpeting — even in your dental floss.

Can’t finish that meal and ask for a takeout box? You’re bringing home toxic chemicals along with your leftovers.  

PFAS have been linked to kidney and testicular cancer, liver damage, thyroid disease, and infertility.

And now, we have proof that these forever chemicals attack the very mechanisms our body uses to protect us from diseases of all kinds: our immune system.

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PFAS attacks important immune system cells

Many epidemiological studies have shown an association between increased PFAS exposure and reduced immune responses in children, even after receiving their routine childhood vaccinations.

Environmental researchers in Germany and Italy teamed up to find out whether PFAS are affecting our adult immune systems as well, and if so, just how they’re doing it.

The team, led by Dr. Gunda Herberth of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, developed a special immunological measurement method known as multiparameter spectral flow cytometry.

Using this method, they determined that PFAS reduced the activity of two out of five types of immune cells in particular: MAIT cells (mucosa-associated invariant T cells) and T-helper cells. 

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The importance of MAIT and T-cells

Dr. Herberth explains for us in simple terms why these two types of cells are crucial to our wellness, and why their failure spells disease for us.

MAIT cells are found in our mucous membranes, for example, in the mucous in our nose. That means they’re our body’s first line of defense against pathogens.

“If the activity of MAIT cells is restricted,” she explains, it is much easier for pathogens to invade the body.”

T-cells play a different role. They “are involved in the production of antibodies. If they are inhibited by PFAS, it is likely that fewer antibodies are produced — which could explain the reduced immune response to vaccination.”

Looking at things on a deeper level, Dr. Herberth and her team found that genes that normally play a role in T-cell activation were down-regulated after PFAS exposure.

“Our study clearly shows that PFAS reduce the activity of immune cells. If a person is exposed to high levels of PFAS, this is likely to be reflected in their health. For example, through a higher susceptibility to infections.”

How to avoid PFAS in your daily life

So many conditions and diseases can be traced back to a dysregulated immune system, ranging from viruses to cancer.

Although you can’t eliminate PFAS in your world, there are ways to dramatically lower your risk of exposure:

• Drinking water – don’t assume that bottled water will solve the problem. There’s no guarantee that it’s free of PFAS. You can try filtering your tap water. Granular activated carbon absorption filters, ion exchange resin filters and reverse osmosis filters work the best.
• Look for dental floss that’s PFAS-free.
• Check the Environmental Working Group’s recommendations for safe cosmetics at EWG’s Skin Deep®.
• Replace non-stick or Teflon-coated cookware with cast iron pans or ceramic-coated cookware.

And don’t forget to use vitamin D3 to support your immune system. Unlike D2, there’s evidence that vitamin D3 had a “modifying effect” on the immune system that could fortify the body against viral and bacterial diseases.

Sources:

PFAS reduce the activity of immune cells, study suggests — Science Daily

Mixtures of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) reduce the in vitro activation of human T cells and basophils — Chemosphere

Health risks of widely used chemicals may be underestimated — Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

The post The indestructible toxin attacking your immune system appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Being low on magnesium can put you at risk for conditions ranging from low thyroid, asthma and migraines to diabetes, hypertension, and stroke.

But a magnesium deficiency is notoriously hard to detect… until you’ve got one.

Most of our magnesium is stored in our bones, undetectable by routine blood tests. However, it’s estimated that about half of adults in the U.S. are living with a magnesium deficiency.

That means, if you are generally healthy, you could have a magnesium deficiency and not even know it until things get serious.

Now, we can add yet another reason to make sure you have the magnesium your body — and your brain — need.

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More magnesium makes brains younger

Scientists at the College of Health and Medicine at the Australian National University are suggesting that increasing our magnesium intake through a balanced diet can help keep our brains younger and reduce the risk of dementia as we age.

Their study of more than 6,000 cognitively healthy adults aged 40 to 73 showed that those who consumed more than 550mg of magnesium daily had a brain age approximately one year younger than those who consumed only 350mg of magnesium per day (considered the normal intake).

In the younger subjects, this difference was evident by the time they reached age 55.

“Our study shows a 41 percent increase in magnesium intake could lead to less age-related brain shrinkage, which is associated with better cognitive function and lower risk … of dementia in later life,” says lead author Dr. Khawlah Alateeq.

Magnesium counts at every age, especially for women

Female subjects in this study seemed to benefit even more than males from the neuroprotective effects of additional magnesium in their diets.

Considering that women make up about two-thirds of dementia cases, that’s not surprising.

However, it’s clear that we should all be paying attention to the amount of magnesium in our diets.

The researchers say that a higher intake of magnesium in our diets from a younger age may safeguard against neurodegenerative diseases and cognitive decline by the time we reach our 40s.

It really is like an “insurance policy” against dementia.

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LOTS of ways to get more magnesium

There’s nothing wrong with taking a daily magnesium supplement if you’re not sure you’re getting enough.

But foods rich in this mineral are abundantly available. They include:

• Spinach
• Black beans
• Almonds
• Cashews
• Pumpkin seeds
• Avocado
• Bananas
• Broccoli
• Brussels sprouts
• Brown rice
• Low-fat yogurt
• Dried figs
• Dark chocolate

It’s easy to incorporate these magnesium-rich foods into your diet. Add some nuts and bananas to your yogurt. How about brown rice and spinach with your dinner? The possibilities are endless! (Just be sure to rinse your rice first to cut down on heavy metals.)

Also, elevate your snack game with almonds, cashews, dried figs and dark chocolate!

Make sure also to get enough vitamin D3, B6, and E, as well as thiamine and selenium. All of these support your body’s use of magnesium.

Sources:

A higher dose of magnesium each day keeps dementia at bay Science Daily

Dietary magnesium intake is related to larger brain volumes and lower white matter lesions with notable sex differences European Journal of Nutrition

The post The mineral that works like ‘insurance’ against dementia appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

But did you know that with obesity also comes an increased risk for cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease?

That’s right. All those fast-food meals can cause brain inflammation that leads to cognitive impairment and memory loss.

But is obesity the cause, or is it the food itself?

Well, it takes some time to become obese, no matter how bad a person’s diet. So, if obesity were the main factor, it stands to reason that it would take that same amount of time before cognitive deficits start to appear.

However, new research presents evidence that the effects of a high-fat diet on the brain show up in as little as three days.

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High-fat eating creates cognitive changes in just 3 days

A few years ago, researchers at Ohio State University showed that just one meal high in saturated fat (like the kind you’d get in a fast-food drive-thru) is enough to mess with your mental performance and focus.

These researchers didn’t investigate the “why” of this, but a more recent study has.

“We’re really looking for the effects of the diet directly on the brain. And we showed that within three days, long before obesity sets in, tremendous neuroinflammatory shifts are occurring,” says senior study author Dr. Ruth Barrientos.

Dr. Barrientos is an investigator in the Institute for Behavioral Medicine Research at Ohio State University.

This study investigated the impact of a high-fat diet in rats after three months (to model diet-induced obesity) as well as after just three days (to model the rapid changes that occur when we eat fatty foods).

After just three days, the rats showed negative inflammatory changes in the brain and two types of memory impairment common in older people with dementia:

• Contextual memory is the ability to remember emotional or social circumstances related to an event and is controlled by the hippocampus, the primary memory center of the brain.
• Cued-fear memory (recalling a stimulus that has signaled danger in the past) originates in the amygdala, the fear and danger center of the brain.

“The results dispel the idea that diet-related inflammation in the aging brain is driven by obesity,” says Dr. Barrientos.

“Unhealthy diets and obesity are linked, but they are not inseparable. We’re really looking for the effects of the diet directly on the brain. And we showed that within three days, long before obesity sets in, tremendous neuroinflammatory shifts are occurring.”

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Preserving your brain power

The MIND diet was created by researchers from Rush University Medical Center and is based on decades’ worth of brain health research.

In a 12-year study, people who ate a diet that resembled the MIND diet reduced their risk of being diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (the precursor to dementia) or dementia by 19 percent.

Another study indicated that, when it’s strictly adhered to, it can reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by 53%.

So, what can you eat on the MIND diet?

• Berries are emphasized over other fruits due to their high antioxidant content.
• Eating fish, a good source of omega-3 fatty acids, is recommended at least once a week.
• Leafy greens are especially emphasized. Compared to other vegetables, they are especially linked to reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and cognitive decline.
• A daily 5 oz. serving of red wine.

Are you surprised by the red wine? There’s certainly science there…

Barcelona-based researchers discovered that the antioxidant resveratrol, found in the skin of grapes, protected mice against memory loss induced by a high-fat diet and prevented memory loss in mice altered to have Alzheimer’s. The antioxidant also reduced amyloid plaques and tau neurofibrillary tangles, both of which are manifestations of Alzheimer’s disease.

Other foods allowed on the MIND diet include whole grains, poultry, beans, lentils, soybeans and olive oil.

The MIND diet does include a few “unhealthy” foods that you’ll need to limit. You can only eat ½ teaspoon of butter a day and not more than one serving of fried food or pastries per week.

If this sounds like a plan you can stick to and you want to save your brain, then give it a try.

Sources:

Memory is impaired in aged rats after 3 days of high-fat eating — Eureka Alert

Obesity-associated memory impairment and neuroinflammation precede widespread peripheral perturbations in aged rats — Immunity and Ageing

The MIND Diet — Barrow Neurological Institute

The post What a high-fat diet does to the brain in just 3 days appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

There are “good” and “bad” bacteria, and most of the time, the good bacteria are able to keep the bad ones in line.

But you may be surprised to know just how easily that perfect balance can go out the window…

You’re probably well aware that antibiotics can cause dysbiosis, but so can many common prescriptions.

Even if you have indigestion on occasion or eat contaminated food (hey, it happens) or suffer from inflammation (it’s way more common than you think) — you could be at risk of serious infection from harmful bacteria, including E.coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae.

Both E. coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae are known culprits in a variety of infections, including urinary tract infections, bloodstream infections and pneumonia. 

E. coli is also a common cause of gastrointestinal infections like diarrhea, while Klebsiella can lead to more severe infections like meningitis and liver abscesses.

These two nasty bacterial strains are usually present in the gut in low numbers, and as long as they stay that way, all is well. But you can see how easily things can go south.

If you’d like a little “insurance” to ensure that doesn’t happen, we’ve some encouraging news for you…

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How fiber can reduce your risk of infection

An international group of medical researchers has shown that dietary fiber plays a crucial role in preventing the overgrowth of harmful gut bacteria.

The researchers analyzed gut microbiome data from over 12,000 people across 45 countries, trying to identify patterns that predict the gut’s susceptibility to being overrun by harmful Enterobacteriaceae bacteria, including E. coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae.

The good news is that 135 microbial species commonly found in healthy guts seem to protect against “bad” bacteria.

One of these species, known as Faecalibacterium, stood out for its ability to protect the gut by producing short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) that play a critical role in making the gut inhospitable to harmful bacteria.

And how exactly do they produce SCFAs? By breaking down dietary fiber.

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Lots of doctors recommend probiotics to manage “bad” gut bacteria, but these researchers challenge that notion.

Their study revealed that 172 microbial species coexist with these pathogens, competing for the same nutrients.

“Taking probiotics that compete for the same nutrients with the bad bacteria to try and starve them out isn’t going to work,” explained Dr. Alexandre Almeida, senior author of the study.

Instead, he says that altering the gut environment through dietary adjustments offers a more effective strategy.

This is why getting a good amount of fiber in your daily diet is crucial. It’s not just to keep your bowels regular; it’s so that your gut can stay in balance and not be susceptible to E. coli and other bacteria that cause infection, inflammation and disease.

Too little fiber also can lead to a deadly case of sepsis. Sepsis occurs when your immune system releases chemicals into the bloodstream to fight an infection somewhere in your body, such as those mentioned above. However, the immune system goes into overdrive, triggering body-wide inflammation and a significant risk of organ failure and death.

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Fiber: No longer just for regularity

A diet rich in plant-based foods and fiber is crucial for supporting the gut bacteria that produce these beneficial SCFAs. But even if you eat well, the vast majority of Americans get woefully insufficient amounts of dietary fiber.

Here’s some research on how fiber fights heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, along with a comprehensive list of foods and amounts to add to your diet, gradually, so that you’re getting your ideal amount of fiber.

Inulin fiber is especially known for producing SCFAs. You can find a list of foods that provide inulin here.

And if you want to follow a well-rounded diet to up your fiber intake, there’s nothing better than the Mediterranean diet. Here’s the quick and easy version of why this diet is so good for your gut, and how to get started.

Believe me, your taste buds and your gut will thank me!

Sources:

Feeding Good Gut Bacteria Through Diet May Help Prevent Infections — Integrative Practitioner

Ecological dynamics of Enterobacteriaceae in the human gut microbiome across global populations — Nature Microbiology

The post From UTIs to sepsis: Eat this to reduce infection risk appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

But one factor related to cognitive decline, brain aging and dementia is quite physical…

It’s brain shrinkage — also known as brain atrophy.

People with brain atrophy experience a decrease in brain volume, brain cells and connections between brain cells. This leads to problems with thinking skills, memory and even performing daily activities.

But the right food may be the key to keeping plump brains…

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Does a Japanese diet protect your brain?

In a two-year study, scientists at Japan’s National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology monitored 589 adults ages 40 to 89 who followed a traditional Japanese diet, consisting largely of rice, fish and shellfish, and fruits (especially citrus fruits).

But it’s the traditional Japanese foods that make this diet unique: miso (fermented soybean paste), seaweed, pickles, green tea, soybeans, soybeans sprouts and mushrooms such as shiitake mushrooms.

People following this diet eat very little or no red meat or coffee.

Another 697 participants ate a typical Western diet consisting of a lot of refined carbs, high-fat foods, soft drinks and alcohol.

Information was collected on participants’ genetic disposition to dementia, their level of physical activity, and any pre-existing conditions, such as diabetes.

Finally, the researchers used MRI scans to analyze the progression of brain atrophy (shrinkage) in all participants over the course of the two-year study period.

Women’s brains shrank less

Women who followed the traditional Japanese diet had less brain shrinkage over the two-year study period compared with women who followed the Western diet.

Interestingly, this effect was only apparent in women. There was no difference in the amount of brain shrinkage seen in men who followed the traditional Japanese diet compared to those following other diets.

There are a few possible reasons for this. For one, it’s been found that, for some reason, certain nutrients, including magnesium and estrogens found in fish, shellfish, and mushrooms have a stronger protective effect on women’s brains.

Also, male participants were more likely to smoke, drink alcohol and eat refined carbs while on the trial.

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Not just good for your brain

The researchers note that “it will now be important for further research to be conducted – not only to confirm our findings, but to explore some of the reasons for the differences seen between men and women when it comes to their preferred diet and brain health.”

As far as the health effects of Japanese diet, one previous study held a clue: it had to do with a soy metabolite believed to support the brain by improving arterial stiffness — which improves blood flow to white matter in the brain — and increasing mitochondria function.

While research is ongoing, there’s nothing stopping any of us from including more of the elements of a traditional Japanese diet into our eating habits.

The Okinawan diet is eaten by natives of Okinawa, a small island off Japan’s coast. It’s not all that different from the diet we’ve been discussing.

The Okinawan diet leans on fermented foods like miso. It also includes tofu, colorful vegetables like sweet potatoes, and fish (mostly on special occasions).

The proof, as they say, is in the pudding: the rate of heart disease on Okinawa is one fifth the rate in the United States.

And brain health? Dementia is less than half as likely as it is among Americans of similar ages.

Take a cue from the Okinawans and try baking a sweet potato in the oven, remove the skin and add just a bit of maple syrup or brown sugar and cinnamon. Heaven!

Sources:

This Japanese Diet Is Linked to Less Brain Shrinkage in Women, Experts Say — Science Alert

Associations of dietary patterns and longitudinal brain-volume change in Japanese community-dwelling adults: results from the national institute for longevity sciences-longitudinal study of aging — Nutrition Journal

Dietary magnesium intake is related to larger brain volumes and lower white matter lesions with notable sex differences — European Journal of Nutrition

Brain Atrophy — Cleveland Clinic

The post The Japanese secret to avoid brain shrinkage appeared first on Easy Health Options®.