Walnuts good for women

Ladies, if you want to be more active, independent, and vigorous in your old age – eat a handful of walnuts each day.

A study over 30 years of more than 50,000 nurses (from the Nurses Health Study) found that those who ate about a dozen walnut halves a couple of time a week reduces their risk of becoming frail or needing care when elderly.

Scientists at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, say the walnut has more protective anti-oxidants than peanuts or brazil nuts and one of a few superfoods associated with a better quality of life.

The head of the research, Francine Grodstein, said “there is a lot of research that looks at specific health conditions in ageing … but less attention to research on quality of life and ability to maintain independence with ageing”

She said the simple message from this study is that eating an overall healthy diet, including certain foods such as walnuts and other whole foods “may help women with the ability to do key everyday tasks as they age, like carrying groceries or dressing themselves”

The study, funded by the California Walnut Commission, found that women who ate lots of nuts, fruit and vegetables and avoided cakes, biscuits and takeaway food were more physically independent as they aged.

OK so it’s not just the walnuts is it! The other healthy food involved included oranges, apples, pears and leaf lettuce.

To be fair to walnuts (the ones that look like brains) there was earlier research at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania that found a handful of walnuts contained twice as many free radical fighting anti-oxidants than a handful of another commonly eaten nut. So if you eat nuts make sure they’re walnuts.

They have also been linked to a lower risk of heart attacks and diabetes. A University of California study  found that eating them cut levels of a hormone implicated in prostate and breast cancer.

And a study at New York State Institute for Basic Research in Development Disabilities concluded that eating a daily handful could have a major impact on Alzheimer’s disease, reducing the risk, delaying its onset, and slowing its progression.

There is also some evidence that they can ease stress and boost your sex drive. So well worth a nibble.

Original story in The Times

Burnley, Macmillan Nurses and “Two Shades of Grey”………………..

Kindadukish's Blog - I am not a number, I am a free man (The Prisoner)

So it was off to deepest, darkest Lancashire this morning heading for the illustrious (?) town of Burnley (or West Islamabad as it is known to the locals) for a performance by my friend and colleague who forms one half of the group “Two Shades of Grey.” (www.2shadesofgrey.net).

The gig was being held at the “notorious” venue of Costa Coffee within the confines of the giant Tesco store in the town centre and was in aid of the Macmillan Cancer Support Charity (something I know is very dear to my friend).

The concert was in full flow when I arrived to an audience made up of both old and young, many of whom appeared to be regulars, as they all seemed to know each other.

During the three sessions they did a variety of numbers by such artists as Bobby Vee, Ray Charles, Joan Baez, The Drifters and a host…

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Once you’re obese it seems you’re stuck with it

Obese men only have a 1 in 20 chance of returning to a normal weight and for women it’s even worse news. They only have a 1 in 124 chance.

Research at Kings College, London,on 280,000 people over ten years,  confirms early theories that our evolutionary heritage provides a set point which helps us stay at our maximum weight. Useful for survival maybe but these days a serious health concern with obesity linked to diabetes, cancer, and heart disease.

“These findings highlight how difficult it is for people with obesity to achieve and maintain even small amounts of weight loss. The main treatment options offered to obese patients in the UK are weight-maagement programmes accessed via their GP.This evidence suggests the current system is not working for the vast majority of obese patients” said Alison Fields at Kings College.

Jude Oben, director of Obesity Action Campaign said “Obesity is far worse than smoking and the HIV epidemic – we need to be far more aggressive than we were with both. Why aren’t we spending more money on preventing people developing diabetes, heart disease, cancer, liver disease (through obesity)”

Nick Finer at the National Centre for Cardiovascular Prevention and Outcomes said the findings showed that the NHS should start considering drug treatment for obesity as it did with high blood pressure or diabetes.

Studies have shown that some people can lose weight; 1 in 12 men and 1 in 10 women achieve a 5% weight reduction in 1 year (I’ve previously posted about research that shows that diets only work for 10% of dieters).

Just over half put the weight back on within 2 years and three-quarters within 5 years. However Professor Finer says that weight loss, even if regained, still has health benefits in preventing diabetes.

The study, reported in The Times, was published in the American Journal of Public Health

Other recent posts on obesity here, here and here

Fat teenagers don’t get it

They watch TV programmes about obesity – which usually feature clinically obese people – and think they are OK, even though they are overweight and probably in danger of becoming obese.

Being obese puts people at increased risk of diabetes and increasingly of cancer (an estimated 18,000 cases a year).

When researchers from Cancer Research UK asked teenagers aged 13 to 15 if they were overweight or OK, 40% of those who were overweight or obese thought they were OK.

Obesity, which accounts for about a fifth of cancer deaths, is set to overtake smoking as the main cause of cancer.

The study, published in the International Journal of Obesity, said “Programmes about overweight people tend to show very obese people. Some teenagers who see these images probably think that is what an overweight person looks like so they might not realise if they are slightly overweight”. 

Sarah Jackson, who led the study, said that parents often underestimate the problem putting it down to “Puppy fat“.  Also growing levels of obesity are normalising overweight people as “normal”.

In the study only three-quarters of the teenagers had a bmi within the normal weight range (NB bmi is not the best measure). 20% were overweight and 7% obese.

80% thought they were the right weight, 7% that they were too heavy, and 10% that they were too light. Girls were more likely than boys to think they were too heavy.

Professor Jane Wardle from the Cancer Research UK Health BehaviourResearch Centre at UCL said “Young people who think they’re overweight when they’re not can sometimes develop devastating eating disorders, so we’re delighted that most of the normal-weight teenagers had a realistic view of their body size. But we need to find effective ways of helping too-heavy teenagers slim down and maintain a healthier weight”

Other posts about obesity

Get off your a**e to stay healthy!

Biz Psycho

Public Health England has said office workers should spend 4 hours of their working day standing up to avoid serious health problems.

A report in the British Journal of Sports Medicine said employers should encourage the workforce to break up their day by getting away from their desks with standing work or breaks for at least 2 hours a day.

They suggest that we should use more “standing” desks to move away from a sedentary life-style and move towards one where we spend half the working day on our feet.

“Unlike purposeful exercises, standing is something that the vast majority of individuals can do without too much effort and it doesn’t detract from time at work“.

At present the researchers believe that office workers spend between 65% and 75% of their time in periods of prolonged sitting. In Scandinavia 90% of office workers have access to standing…

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60 is the new middle age

At least as afar as illness is concerned which has halved in the over-60s in the past ten years.

Only about 8% of people aged 60-64 have dementia, cancer or Parkinson’s disease or have survived a stroke or heart attack, down from about 14% in 2002.

Among 65 to 69-year olds about 12% have at least one serious illness down from 18%.

Ros Altman (the appropriately named tsar for older workers) said “It’s fantastic news. Most people in their sixties will not be old in the conventional sense any more”

The finding s were part of a report,“Serious Illness in the Over-50s”  by the International Longevity Centre (ILC-UK) which shows that the onset of serious illness is occurring later in life for most people. So fewer people aged 55-80 have at least one serious illness, the proportion affected has increased in the over-80s.

David Sinclair, the Director of the ILC-UK, believes it gives the NHS a temporary reprieve as the research shows a potentially healthier population in the under-70 age groups.

There are 3.1 million people in the UK living with a serious illness and its predicted that this will rise. However the drop in the 60-64 age group, mainly through a drop in strokes and heart attacks, better diets and a reduction in smoking, is good news as that is the age at which most serious illnesses strike.

Sadly there are more people over 80 living with cancer. It seems to be a disease of old age and only last week the predicted proportion of people who will get cancer was increased from 1 in 3 people to 50%.

 

 

 

 

Future-proofing your health

Scientists have found that making behavioural changes now can significantly improve your health in 20 years time.

They reached these conclusions after following thousands of people over a twenty year period to see what impact diet, exercise, and lifestyle choices made.

Exercise

Gentle and sustained exercise every day is good for your brain and can cut the risk of developing dementia by 40% according to a study that tracked people in a community in Framingham, Massachusetts since 1948.

A 20 year study into female nurses found that those who walked  30 minutes a day scored significantly better on mental-health tests.

However three years down the line the advice for a healthy heart is that it’s not good enough just to exercise – it  has to be intense.

Danish researchers recently reported a study of 10,000 adults in the BMJ which showed that a daily power walk or jog could cut the risk of heart disease by 50% whereas a slow amble made no difference.

The fast walking halved the risk of metabolic syndrome – a collection of factors such as a bulging midriff, high blood pressure, and abnormal blood fat levels – and jogging reduced it by 50%.

Generally the more effort you put into your exercise the better. Some experts say two 60-second workouts a week can reduce the risk of heart disease from middle-age onwards. The participants in one study did all-out 6 second sprints 6 times increasing to 10 times.

They lost 1kg without changing their diet or other activities but more importantly their cardiovascular function was improved after just 8 weeks. It suggests that HIT can have a significant impact on obesity and heart disease.

On the other hand yoga is an excellent way of reducing tension, reduces bmi, blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

Research at Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam shows that regular yoga can be as effective as strenuous forms of exercise when it comes to heart health. For patients with existing heart disease taking medication the benefits were even greater.

So if you can’t do high intensity training (HIT)or have a pre-existing heart condition yoga sounds like the ideal solution.

Eating meat

Eating even small amounts of processed meat like bacon, sausages, or salami, can increase your likelihood of  dying prematurely by 20% according to research at Harvard based on 100,000 people over 28 years.

Unprocessed red meat also carries a health risk. Daily servings of red meat (85g) over the length of the study brought an 18% increased risk of dying from heart disease, a 10% increased risk of dying from cancer and eating 100g a day increased the risk of diabetes by 19%.

Red meat is considered dangerous because steak often contains high amounts of saturated fat and salami and bacon contain high amounts of salt.

The BHF is reviewing its guidance on fat however and suggests you eat a healthy range of fats including the saturated type you find in lean meat and some dairy; along with fats from nuts, avocados, oily fish and seeds.

Replacing red meat with poultry, fish, vegetables, whole grains and other healthy foods could cut your risk of dying prematurely by 20%.

Eating naturally occurring fats rather than that in biscuits, cakes and snacks is the best advice.

Friends

Feeling isolated at work or under threat from colleagues is not just upsetting but is a long-term risk to your health and can more than double the risk of serious illness or early death.

A 20-year study at Tel Aviv university tracked more than 800 white-collar workers. Those who were surrounded by bullies and backstabbers were 2.4 more likely to die during the study.

On the other hand feeling supported and welcomed by co-workers seems to protect your health and well-being. Considering how much time we spend at work it’s important that it is a positive experience and somewhere you can get emotional support if you need it.

But it’s not just at work. Living alone in middle age can double your chances of developing Altzheimer’s especially if you are widowed or divorced according to the findings of a 20-year study of 2,000 people published in 2011.

Vitamin supplements

Some supplements may do more harm than good. German research published in Heart in 2012 found that calcium supplements taken to fend off osteoporosis can double the risk of heart attacks.

Research published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that men with prostate cancer who take more than 7  multi-vitamins a week are 30% more likely to get advanced and fatal forms of the disease.

Defenders of supplements argue that people who take them are more likely to be ill in the first place. But if you have a healthy diet and aren’t vegan why would you need to take supplements anyway?

Conscientiousness

Being conscientious i.e. doing what you say you will do, and paying attention to detail has significant health benefits according to the results of an 80-year study of American children from the age of eight called the Longevity Project.

Conscientious people live significantly longer. Being conscientious means having a prudent nature, being persistent and well-organised, somewhat obsessive and not generally carefree, say the authors of the study..

“Taking life seriously makes people want to live more meaningful, committed lives.  They also take fewer risks and look after their well-being everyday; they achieved much for their families and nurtured close relationships. They were persistent and successful and dedicated to things and people other than themselves.”

Holidays 

A quarter of us don’t take all our holidays in the UK (an average of 5 weeks). The US isn’t so generous with paid leave but data from the earlier mentioned Framingham study shows that women who don’t often take holidays are eight times more likely to develop coronary heart disease or have a heart attack than those who took two holidays a year.

Our bodies fact to our lifestyles and if that involves being stressed it’s not good for us.

Sex

Having sex is particularly important for middle-aged men. Those who have intercourse several times a week significantly reduce their risk of suffering a fatal stroke.

The University of Bristol monitored the cardiac health and sexual activity over over 900 men in Wales from a former mining village. The men were aged 45-59 when first studied in the early 1980s.

20% reported having sex once a month or less, 25% had sex twice a week or more often. The rest of the group were somewhere between these two extremes.

The 25% who enjoyed the most sex suffered the fewest fatal strokes according to the report in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.

 Eating & Drinking

Studies in Japan show that stopping eating when you feel 80% full can reduce your calories intake by around 20%. Restricted calorie intake has been linked to longevity.

If you don’t fancy that approach a mediterranean diet helps replacing processed foods with freshly prepared meals rich in olive oil, oily fish and nuts. A low carb diet rich in nuts, grains, oat cereals and barley can reduce the risk of heart disease by 10% over 10 years.

Drinking in moderation can help you long term. A study of almost 2,000 men and women published in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research showed that men and women who drink moderately tend to live longer than heavy drinkers or teetotallers.

Experts from the university of Texas found three drinks a day did no harm. Low-level alcohol consumption protects against coronary heart disease, the leading cause of death in developed countries. So the experts think the benefits outweigh any risks.

Drinking tea also helps. Four or five cups a day helps to protect your heart. A survey of 13,000 people found that those drinking tea (with or without milk) had a better cardiovascular profile than coffee drinkers or those who drank neither.

Tea has a positive effect on blood pressure and has anti-oxidants that have survival benefits.

Diet Drinks are a definite no-no. Drinking artificially sweetened drinks including water is definitely not good for you. The American College of Cardiology suggest that people drinking two or more of these drinks a day are 30% more likely to have a heart attack, stroke, or other cardiovascular problem than people who never drink them.

Prime sources: Times Body + Soul June 2012 “How to be healthy in 20 years time”; Times Body & Soul January 2015 “The midlife healthy heart guide: the rules for men and women”; plus various posts from this site.

 

Porridge is good for you

and helps you live longer.

Not just porridge but whole-grain foods in general.

Scientists at Harvard School for Public Health studied 100,000 people over 14 years. During that time almost a quarter died but those who ate the most whole grain, including brown rice, corn and quinoa, lived the longest.

For every ounce of whole grains consumed in a day – equivalent to a small bowl of porridge – there was a 5% drop in mortality. This was mainly accounted for  by a 9% fall in cardiovascular deaths.

The scientists couldn’t find a link between whole grains and cancer however.

The research was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

A spokesperson for the British Heart Foundation said that people who ate whole grains tended to have healthier life-style anyway but switching to high fibre foods was always a good idea.

Obese? No, not me..

It will probably come as no surprise to learn that the majority of obese people don’t think that they are.

Only 1 in 10 clinically obese people admit that they are; 11% of women and 7% of men.

A further 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 admitted that they were “very overweight” but the rest thought that they were either simply overweight or just right.

The research carried out by Cancer Research UK and published in BMJ Open found that only 10% of people knew that a body mass index (BMI) of 30 is the cut-off score for obesity.

Leaving aside the fact that the BMI has been discredited when used as a single measure of health and better methods have been discovered it perhaps reflects the fact that being overweight has become normalised in our society.

The director of the Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Centre at UCL said; “It’s a real worry that people don’t recognise that their weight places them in the obese category because it means that they aren’t aware of the increased risk of a number of health problems including cancer”.

She also thinks that the term obese is considered derogatory and rejected by overweight people, and this might have been worsened by campaigners using extreme images to get their message across, something most people won’t identify with.

It also seems that many GPs struggle to categorise patients as either overweight and obese and now that health care workers aren’t allowed to use the word “fat” just what can be done about it? Enforced boot camps?

The government would rather throw money at it by providing gastric bands for people with no will-power or motivation to stay healthy.

Soft Southerners?

According to an Atlas of Mental Health created by CentreForum think tank people living in the South of England re more likely to say they are unhappy despite having lower levels of mental illness including depression.

People living in London Bedford, Milton Keynes, Brighton, and parts of Kent claim to be the unhappiest in the country – yet they have some of the lowest levels of diagnosed mental health problems.

Five of Britain’s unhappiest 20 places were in London including the borough of Barking and Dagenham which came in the top five on two measures of unhappiness and yet had the 23rd lowest level of mental health problems.

In the league table of areas with the highest long-term mental health problems only Brighton & Hove (which came 3rd in the table) and Nottingham (7th) were outside the North and North West.  The other worst areas in descending order were: Middlesborough, Blackpool, Manchester, Stockton on Tees, Knowsley, Nottingham, Liverpool, Newcastle, and Salford

Northern areas tend to receive less support for mental health issues and in some areas people are 4 times more likely to die from a mental health problem.

Poor mental health often leads to a poor diet, heavy drinking and smoking, all of which can lead to cancer or heart disease.

One in six adults suffers from mental illness such as depression or anxiety at some time in their lives.