Wellness-uptodate

Jan. 28, 2022 -- What if you could lower your cholesterol by eating foods that you like? A new study shows that when people were asked to eat “hedonically acceptable” snacks that contained ingredients known to lower cholesterol, nearly all of them did. In contrast, only about half of people asked to change their diets substantially to lower cholesterol followed the diet in a previous study.   Continue reading

 In a perfect world, we’d all have access to a balanced, nutrient-dense diet that’s chock-full of healthy fats, fruits, vegetables, adequate protein and fiber — and theoretically, shouldn’t have to take additional vitamin supplements in order to strengthen our immune system However, not only do most of us fail to hit these daily nutrition goals, but we may have situations — like physical stress or inflammatory health issues — when we need more of certain nutrients than what we’re getting from food. Continue reading

 Squats are a simple exercise that anyone can do inside or outside your home. They work the muscles in the legs and can help increase your overall strength, balance and flexibility. You might not notice that people actually squat whilst doing everyday activities such as playing with children or lifting boxes Continue reading

 New research published in Human Brain Mapping provides evidence of a shared neural mechanism that underlies sleep disturbance and mental disorders in preadolescents. The findings indicate that sleep disturbance and mental health problems are both related to the connectivity between and within two important brain networks. “I noticed the importance of sleep years ago when I read several papers about the immediate amyloid protein deposition in the brain after short-term sleep deprivation. Amyloid is neurotoxic waste in the brain and needs to be transported out by cerebrospinal fluid,” said study author Ze Wang, an associate professor of diagnostic radiology and nuclear medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.  Continue reading

 Close your eyes and imagine a narcissist. Try to picture what you think a narcissist looks like in your mind. It looks like a man, right? While, yes, there are many men in the world with the narcissistic personality disorder, too often, we associate the qualities of narcissism only with men. We think of unrelenting ego and a smug sense of self-satisfaction and, for whatever reason, we identify those as male qualities. It’s one of the most common stereotypes about narcissism. But here’s the thing — narcissism knows no gender boundaries. Women can be narcissists too. Continue reading

Losing belly fat can be a long, hard process. While losing weight in other areas of the body may easily come off, belly fat is harder to budge. So it's important to understand why. "There are three types of fat: triglycerides, the fat that circulates in your blood, subcutaneous fat, the layer directly below the skin's surface, and visceral fat (also known as abdominal fat or belly fat)," explains Colette Heimowitz, MS, Vice President of Nutrition & Education at Simply Good Foods Company. "Visceral fat is located beneath the muscles in your stomach and poses risks to your health when there is too much of it." Continue Reading  

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) offers hope for antidepressant-resistant disorders January 26, 2022  |  Corey Levitan A device shaped like a ping-pong paddle delicately brushes the left side of Teresa Lindhardt’s forehead. Her psychiatrist reaches over to flip a switch. Several bursts of what sound like soft bug zaps ensue for three minutes. After six weeks of daily treatments with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), Lindhardt, 55, says she’s completely free of the symptoms of depression that disrupted, and twice nearly ended, her life. Continue reading

The green smoothie: glowing with vibrant, verdant health and filled with more vegetables than most people eat in a day, it’s almost a noble breakfast. Unfortunately, it typically tastes chalky from protein powder or stringy from spinach. Can you tell I’m not a fan? But a smoothie is also an easy and quick way to get a healthy breakfast or snack full of vitamins, fiber and protein. HuffPost spoke with a nutritionist and a recipe developer to explore how to create the best of both worlds — a smoothie that’s delicious and satiating to start your day off right. Continue reading

 (CNN)Three large new studies from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlight the importance of getting a booster shot to provide the best protection against the Omicron coronavirus variant. This is the first real-life data to examine the effect of boosters against Omicron, which now accounts for more than 99% of coronavirus cases in the United States. The studies, released Friday, raise the question of whether people with just two vaccine doses should still be considered fully vaccinated. Continue reading

Are your knees grumpy and pretty vocal about it? Knee pain is one of the most common physical ailments, with about 25 percent of adults being affected, according to a study published in the American Family Physician Journal. That same study reported that knee pain has increased by 65 percent over the past 20 years and that close to 4 million people visit their primary care doctors to address knee pain. But there's hope. By performing exercises to strengthen bad knees, you may be able to make them happy again -- the key is to do the right moves. Continue reading

  Taking daily vitamin D supplements — or a combination of vitamin D and omega-3 fish oil — appears to carry a lower risk of developing autoimmune disease, with a more pronounced effect after two years, finds a trial of older US adults published by The BMJ today (January 26, 2022). Continue Reading, scitechdaily.com

  Rob Whitley, Ph.D. Talking About Men An exploration of male mid-life mental health, and the need for better supports. Posted January 26, 2022. There are many psychiatric subspecialties focused on specific age categories. These includechild psychiatry, youth mental health, and geriatric psychiatry. But there is no subspecialty known as "mid-life mental health" or "middle-aged psychiatry." This is concerning, as statistics indicate that this can be an especially vulnerable period. For example, suicides in Western countries are particularly pronounced in the 40-60 age group, with especially high rates in middle-aged men. Continue reading

Usually “mental-health tech” means an app with some screen-based features such as messaging, games or journaling. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/01/26/anxiety-stress-tech-meditation/

  If everyone between 40 and 85 years of age were active just 10 minutes more a day, it could save more than 110,000 U.S. lives a year, a large study reports. "Our projections are based on an additional 10 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity," said lead researcher Pedro Saint-Maurice of the Metabolic Epidemiology Branch at the U.S. National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md. "If the walk is brisk, it counts." Continue reading

  May 10, 2021 By Kelly Bilodeau, Executive Editor, Harvard Women's Health Watch Inflammation: if you follow health news, you probably hear about it often. When is inflammation helpful? How can it be harmful? What steps can you take to tone it down? What is inflammation and how does it affect your body? If you’re not familiar with the term, inflammation refers to an immune system reaction to an infection or injury. In those instances, inflammation is a beneficial sign that your body is fighting to repair itself by sending in an army of healing white blood cells. As the injury heals or the illness is brought under control, inflammation subsides. You’ve probably seen this happen with a minor ankle sprain: the initial swelling disappears within days as the injury heals. Continue reading

Teresa Farney, the gazette A glass of lemon water at room temperature has been a morning ritual for me for years. I’m not sure why I started this habit, but it’s something I cannot start my day without. I’m so hooked that when I travel, I take a bottle of Minute Maid 100% lemon juice with me. On travel day, I pack it frozen in a checked bag. When I get to my destination, I store it in the mini refrigerator and enjoy my elixir mixed in a water bottle before breakfast. (Continue reading)  

 JACINTA BOWLER24 JANUARY 2022 Antibiotic resistance is often seen as a 'future problem', but newly published data have revealed it's affecting far, far more lives than you might imagine. In fact, the new estimates show that in 2019, there were 4.95 million deaths associated with bacterial antimicrobial resistance, making it the third leading cause of death worldwide. (Continue reading)

 (CNN)Could you find 10 minutes in your day to increase your physical activity? It might be lifesaving, according to a new study. More than 110,000 US deaths could be prevented each year if adults over 40 added 10 minutes of daily moderate to vigorous physical activity to their normal routines, according to the study published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine (Continue reading)

 Weight loss is basically about achieving a ‘calorie deficit’- which basically involves burning more calories than you consume. A calorie deficit is the first and foremost step towards weight loss and only when one achieves a calorie deficit can one hope to lose weight. This clearly means that exercising is the one factor that should be indispensable for losing weight because it is only physical activity through which one can burn a lot of calories at a given time. However, there is another way through which one can burn calories, in amounts that can actually help achieve a calorie deficit and aid weight loss. Foods called ‘negative calories’ are food items that burn a lot of calories while being digested, much more than they contribute to the body. They thus speed up the process that helps achieve calorie deficit and weight loss. Including these food items in your diet can help you to lose weight by burning calories rapidly. Here are five negative calorie foods that you can includ...

 Most people are familiar with the five senses (touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste), but not everyone knows that we have an additional sense called interoception. This is the sense of our body's internal state. It helps us feel and interpret internal signals that regulate vital functions in our body, like hunger, thirst, body temperature, and heart rate. (Continue reading)

 Whether stress-induced or genetic, headaches are a common condition that can affect anyone. This includes neurologists — AKA the specialists who treat headache disorders. “Headache is any pain affecting the head, upper face or upper neck. Headaches are called ‘primary’ when they arise from biological changes within the brain itself,” Robert Kaniecki, the director of the UPMC Headache Center in Pittsburgh, told Huff post. “These include migraine headaches, tension-type headaches, and cluster headaches.” (Continue reading)

  NEW YORK (AP) — A new study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that people who were both vaccinated and had survived a prior bout of COVID-19 were best protected from infection. The study, that examined infections in New York and California last year, found that unvaccinated people with a past infection were a close second. By fall, when the more contagious delta variant had taken over but boosters weren’t yet widespread, that group had a lower case rate than vaccinated people who had no past infection. (Continue reading)

The quality and quantity of sleep we get impacts all corners of life. From day-to-day functioning, to mood, to our heart health, sleep plays a critical role in our wellness. (Continue reading)

  The discovery could lead to a routine screening tool for a host of life-threatening illnesses – including Alzheimer’s disease. By screening the eyes, doctors may one day be able to predict a person's risk of early death. (See more)