Nutrition & Fitness

Can a Mediterranean-Type Diet Prevent Parkinson’s Disease?

Patients with Parkinson’s disease were less likely to adhere to a Mediterranean-type diet, compared with people without Parkinson’s disease, according to research presented at the 136th Annual Meeting of the American Neurological Association.

The Mediterranean diet—characterized by a high intake of fruits, vegetables, legumes, and olive oil and a low intake of saturated fatty acids—has been linked to a lower risk for other diseases as well. In 2009, Nikolaos Scarmeas, MD, lead investigator of the current study, published research demonstrating that higher adherence to the Mediterranean diet, along with more frequent physical activity, were independently associated with a reduced risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

In the current study, Dr. Scarmeas and a team of investigators led by Roy N. Alcalay, MD, Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Movement Disorders Division of the Department of Neurology at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, also found that poorer adherence to the diet was associated with a younger age of Parkinson’s disease onset.

“The interesting question of whether adherence to a Mediterranean-type diet may reduce one’s risk for Parkinson’s disease is unknown,” Dr. Alcalay told Neurology Reviews. “There are many ongoing studies that approach populations at risk for Parkinson’s disease. Considering whether Mediterranean diet adherence reduces their risk for Parkinson’s disease can be very helpful.”

Comparing Patients and Healthy Controls
Dr. Alcalay and colleagues recruited 257 patients (115 women) with Parkinson’s disease and 198 healthy controls (96 women) from three Columbia University and community-based study populations for their case–control study. “Parkinson’s disease participants were younger (68 vs 72) and more educated (14 years vs 12 years) than controls,” the researchers noted.
All participants completed the Willett semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire. A Mediterranean-type diet adherence score was calculated using a 9-point scale, with higher scores representing stricter adherence to the diet.

“The Mediterranean diet is characterized by a high intake of vegetables, legumes, fruits, and cereal; a high intake of unsaturated fatty acids (mostly in the form of olive oil) compared with saturated fatty acids; a moderately high intake of fish; a low-to-moderate intake of dairy products, meat, and poultry; and a regular but moderate amount of ethanol, primarily in the form of wine and generally consumed during meals,” Dr. Alcalay noted. Total daily caloric intake for patients with Parkinson’s disease was slightly higher than for controls, and patients’ mean Mediterranean diet score was lower (4.3 vs 4.7).

Source: neurology reviews

6 cholesterol-lowering foods you didn’t know about

Certain foods have been shown to decrease heart disease risk by lowering LDL (bad) cholesterol levels and raising HDL (good) cholesterol. And while you probably know about the cholesterol-busting powers of fish, oatmeal, red wine, beans, and olive oil, if you’re looking for something new to keep you ticker healthy, here are six foods that might surprise you.

Indian Gooseberry
Indian gooseberry, also known as amla, is a round, green fruit that is sour, bitter, and quite fibrous. A tree that grows in India, the Middle East, and some southeast Asian countries, Indian gooseberry has been used in Ayurvedic medicine for thousands of years.

Barley
Many doctors and commercials have lauded the benefits of oatmeal to help lower blood cholesterol levels, but rarely do we hear about another heart-healthy grain called barley. Like oatmeal, barley is high in soluble fiber, the type of fiber that helps to reduce the amount of bad cholesterol in the blood. Barley is also extremely versatile so you’re not just limited to eating it at breakfast time.

Avocado
One high-fat food you might want to include on your cholesterol-lowering menu is avocado. To see if there’s something special about avocados for your heart, researchers at Penn State University put participants on different diets where they controlled their fat intake—and one of those groups was given one avocado a day.

Strawberries
Possibly one of the sweetest things you can eat to improve your diet: strawberries. A study published in Journal Nutrition using freeze-dried strawberries stirred into a drink found that women who had the drink (equal to about three and a half cups of fresh strawberries) three times a week showed a significant reduction in cholesterol levels by week four of the study. While berry season is in the summer, frozen berries are picked at their peek of freshness and are an affordable substitute that can be enjoyed all year long.

Probiotics
Live microorganisms (naturally occurring bacteria in the gut) are called probiotics and these “good” bacteria are thought to have beneficial effects on gut health, and more recently cholesterol levels. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that women who consumed a yogurt with probiotic properties showed a greater reduction in blood cholesterol levels than those who consumed a regular low fat yogurt over a 12-week period.

Grapes
You’ve probably heard red wine is good for the heart, well how about grapes? The heart-healthy polyphenol found in red wine, resveratrol, is also found in grapes of all colors. In addition, fresh grapes provide other heart-protective nutrients including vitamin C, vitamin B6, potassium, and flavonoids.

Source: foxnews

How healthy foods could lead to overeating

Is your New Year’s resolution to eat more healthily? If so, watch out: foods portrayed as healthy may lead to overeating and contribute to weight gain, according to new research.

In the cookie experiment, researchers found that participants who consumed the “healthy” cookie reported greater hunger after eating than those who consumed the cookie portrayed as unhealthy.

What is more, in the real world experiment, the team found that participants ordered larger portion sizes before watching the film and ate more food during the film when food was portrayed as healthy, compared with when food was portrayed as unhealthy.

Interestingly, even individuals who did not believe in the theory that unhealthy foods are less filling – as determined by the Implicit Association Test – reported greater hunger after consuming the “healthy” cookie and ordered and consumed more food when it was portrayed as healthy.

In the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, investigators found that if we perceive a certain food to be healthy, we are likely to consume more of it.

According to study coauthor Jacob Suher and colleagues, from the University of Texas-Austin, their findings support the “healthy equals less filling” theory – the idea that we consume healthy foods in larger amounts because we consider them less filling than unhealthy foods.

The researchers conducted three experiments on three groups of participants to reach their findings.

Firstly, the team enrolled 50 undergraduate students to complete the Implicit Association Test, which was used to assess whether they believed healthy foods to be less filling than unhealthy foods.

Next, the researchers asked 40 graduate students to consume a cookie; one cookie was presented to them in packaging with nutritional information that represented it as unhealthy, while the other cookie was portrayed as healthy.

After consuming the cookie, participants were asked to report their hunger levels.

In a third “real world” experiment involving 72 undergraduate students, the team assessed how health portrayals of food affected the amount of food participants ordered prior to watching a short film, and how such portrayals impacted the amount of food consumed during the film.

Source: medical news today

Exercise boosts tumour-fighting ability of chemotherapy

Study after study has proven it true: exercise is good for you. But new research from University of Pennsylvania scientists suggests that exercise may have an added benefit for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.

Exercise boosts tumour-fighting ability of chemotherapy

Their work, performed in a mouse model of melanoma, found that combining exercise with chemotherapy shrunk tumors more than chemotherapy alone.
Joseph Libonati, an associate professor in the School of Nursing and director of the Laboratory of Innovative and Translational Nursing Research, was the senior author on the study, which appears in the American Journal of Physiology. His collaborators included Penn Nursing’s Geetha Muthukumaran, Dennis Ding and Akinyemi Bajulaiye plus Kathleen Sturgeon, Keri Schadler, Nicholas J. Thomas, Victor Ferrari and Sandra Ryeom of Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine.

Exercise has long been recommended to cancer patients for its physical and psychological benefits. Libonati and colleagues were particularly interested in testing whether exercise could protect against the negative cardiac-related side effects of the common cancer drug doxorubicin. Though effective at treating a variety of types of cancer, doxorubicin has is known to damage heart cells, which could lead to heart failure in the long-term.

“The immediate concern for these patients is, of course, the cancer, and they’ll do whatever it takes to get rid of it,” Libonati said. “But then when you get over that hump you have to deal with the long-term elevated risk of cardiovascular disease.”

Previous studies had shown that an exercise regime prior to receiving chemotherapy could protect heart cells from the toxic effects of doxorubicin, but few had looked to see whether an exercise regimen during chemotherapy could be beneficial.

To do so, Libonati’s team set up an experiment with four groups of mice. All were given an injection of melanoma cells in the scruffs of their neck. During the next two weeks, two of the groups received doxorubicin in two doses while the other two groups received placebo injections. Mice in one of the treated groups and one of the placebo groups were put on exercise regimens, walking 45 minutes five days a week on mouse-sized treadmills, while the rest of the mice remained sedentary.

After the two-week trial, the researchers examined the animals’ hearts using echocardiogram and tissue analysis. As expected, doxorubicin was found to reduce the heart’s function and size and increased fibrosis — a damaging thickening of tissue. Mice that exercised were not protected from this damage.

“We looked, and the exercise didn’t do anything to the heart — it didn’t worsen it, it didn’t help it,” Libonati said. “But the tumor data — I find them actually amazing.”

The “amazing” result was that the mice that both received chemotherapy and exercised had significantly smaller tumors after two weeks than mice that only received doxorubicin.

Further studies will investigate exactly how exercise enhances the effect of doxorubicin, but the Penn team believes it could be in part because exercise increases blood flow to the tumor, bringing with it more of the drug in the bloodstream.

“If exercise helps in this way, you could potentially use a smaller dose of the drug and get fewer side effects,” Libonati said.

Gaining a clearer understanding of the many ways that exercise affects various systems of the body could also pave the way for developing drugs that mimic the effects of exercise.

“People don’t take a drug and then sit down all day,” Libonati says. “Something as simple as moving affects how drugs are metabolized. We’re only just beginning to understand the complexities.”

Source: science daily

Food That Helps In Weight Loss

There is no single eating regimen food that serves as the ideal weight loss diet regardless of what you may hear on TV or read in magazines, but if you know the distinction between which food that helps in weight loss, and which food makes you overweight, you will begin on working for the perfect weight that you always wanted.

Food That Helps In Weight Loss

The challenge is discovering and setting up the right collection and share size of food that helps in weight loss, particularly if you are on the go often. or have a busy lifestyle.

No-calories or Low beverages:

When you are having dessert or cold beverage, it offers you a smooth and moderate impact that continuously catches your level of satisfaction; then again, it offers a radical expand in your body mass.

It is constantly prudent that you ought to drink liquids as much as you could . For that, you might basically rely on having plentiful measure of water. Separated from that you may take a few health drinks that never makes you gain weight .these may include tart lemon pom spritzer, white wine spritzer, root beer and many others, For the most part these drinks are make by lemon juice, and drinking water. If there should be an occurrence of white wine spritzer, you have to include white wine. To have a tart lemon pom spritzer, everything you need to blend ice sprinkle and pomegranate juice in the mixture.

Fruit Desserts

The majority of us feel that without eating a Desserts at the end of meals, the meals appears incomplete. But desserts may have a high risk for increasing fat and cholesterol in our body.you can add, food that helps in weight loss, just by making them with natural fruits, for example honey mixed with grilled white peaches and blackberries, it will unquestionably add no additional calories to your eating regimen and offer you a very healthy natural Fruit dessert.

Eat Water-Rich, High-Fiber Foods :

Consuming healthy food that helps in weight loss, high in fiber and water substance fills your tummy without increasing the calories that’s mean a few pounds less. Fiber not just controls hunger by making your stomach feel full, it has numerous healthy qualities like bringing down cholesterol and keeping bowel movements steady. dried fruit, Whole grains and many vegetables also contain dietary fiber.

food that helps in weight loss with high water content are important because it will keep you hydrated and fill the tummy, makes you to consume less food. if you want to read more about : food that helps you lose weight

Source: top weight loss tricks

Healthy breakfast for losing weight

Eat melon for breakfast to lose weight!!!

In the eternal struggle against excess pounds we have a new ally! Take advantage of melon season and add this fruit in your morning ritual. But it’s important that melon to be completely ripe, soft and juicy, instead than hard and dry

Healthy breakfast for losing weight.

Here’s why this summer fruit will help you lose weight if you eat breakfast. It contains few calories. A medium-sized melon contains 275 calories. Thus, for breakfast you can eat without fear even 2 melons!

Calorific value of a melon is even as if you ate 2 boiled eggs and 2 slices of whole grain cereals toast. But this fruit will give you 3 more grams of fiber and less than 10 grams of fat.

Healthy breakfast for losing weight.3

Very nutritious.

Apart from just 275 calories that you will consume, that will satisfy 34% of the daily requirement of the body for omega 3 fatty acids. Melon contains protein – about 7 grams, the equivalent of an egg, but advantage of that is that you wont intake any cholesterol. It will provide even more than double of the recommended daily intake of vitamin A, and will satisfy the daily need for vitamin C.

Melon is excellent source of copper, magnesium, potassium, vitamin K, zinc and vitamins of group B. It will keep you satiated for a long time. 1 melon contains about 7.3 grams of fiber, which is a quarter of the recommended daily intake. But dietary fiber is not the only thing that will satiate you.

The human body is designed to ask for food until they meet the body’s need for essential nutrients. So, with consumption 1 melon you will easily satisfy that need.

Healthy breakfast for losing weight.2

Accelerates the digestion of food.

Melon disintegrates in your body in 15 to 30 min. To accelerate digestion and prevent constipation, eat a melon on an empty stomach along with some other fruit that slowly dissolves.

Excellent choice are nuts that require a period of up to 4 hours to decompose.

Perhaps you think that melon can cause bloating and gas occurrence, but that only happens if eaten in combination with the wrong foods. To check whether melon fits for your digestive system, eat it on an empty stomach without consuming anything with it.

source: secretly healthy

Hibiscus may enhance weight control

There is no end to the things people will try to control weight, and no end to claims of weight loss for products. And as obesity becomes an ever greater health concern globally, anything that may help to control weight attracts attention.

Hibiscus may enhance weight control

Once in a while, something comes along that actually does in fact demonstrate efficacy. Now, a specific variety of hibiscus, a common flower, appears to be such a bright star. Also known as roselle, Hibiscus sabdariffa is native to west Africa, yet is cultivated throughout many parts of the world, including southeast Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and throughout Latin America.

The bright red Hibiscus sabdariffa blossom has thick, leathery leaves and a pleasant astringent flavor. The flowers enjoy popularity as both a beverage and a food. Roselle calyses are typically prepared as an herbal tea, though in southeast Asia some juice drinks are also made with the flower. Jams are also made from the blossoms, and the blossoms are sometimes cooked with lentils or with fish and spices.

As a traditional medicine, Hibiscus sabdariffa demonstrates benefits for reducing high blood pressure. The flowers also show anti-diabetic and anti-cancer activity. Rich in the purple antioxidant pigments called anthocyanins, the hibiscus blossoms are also anti-inflammatory, due to their concentration of protocatechuic acid. Additionally, the presence of a sub group of anthocyanins called delphinidins may be key to the weight-controlling properties of the plant.

This gets us back to possible anti-obesity activity. A recent report in the April 2014 Food & Function Journal revealed the results of a human clinical study in which approximately half of obese participants were given tablets made from extracts of Hibiscus sabdariffa and half given a placebo. The study, which recruited obese patients between ages 18 – 65, was conducted in Taiwan at Chung Shan Medical University Hospital over the course of twelve weeks.

The placebo group of the study was given two sugar tablets three times daily, while the active group was given 450 milligrams of hibiscus extract in tablet form, two tablets three times daily. At the beginning and end of the study, various parameters were analyzed, including waist circumference, percent body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, serum lipase, blood glucose and more.

Results of the study were not spectacular, but they were encouraging. The patients who took the hibiscus supplements showed reduced waist circumference, reduced body fat percentage, and reduced hip-to-waist ratio over the course of the study. Actual weight loss itself was moderate, despite these changes.

Does this mean that hibiscus is the new miracle weight loss agent? No. But it does mean that hibiscus can be part of a program that helps people to steadily reduce weight. We have seen in various studies that coffee (without the sugar and cream), green tea and hibiscus all help with various dimensions of weight control and blood sugar modification. Drinking these beverages on a daily basis can help with steady weight control. Switching from a high-fat to a low-fat diet is one of the most effective things you can do to reduce weight, and reducing overall caloric intake is key. Getting onto your feet and walking, running, bicycling, swimming, dancing, skipping rope or doing practically anything physically active, will help you to burn calories and reduce weight.

The recent study shows that hibiscus is a good aid, but just that, an aid. In and of itself, hibiscus tablets or teas will not take you from rotund to svelte. That will never happen. But as an additional safe, healthy, beneficial agent loaded with protective compounds, hibiscus in various forms can help you to achieve your weight target

Source: rtnz

The Same 10 Weight Loss Mistakes All Women Make

The biggest weight loss mistakes
by Alyssa ShafferDropping pounds boils down to a simple-sounding formula: burn more calories than you take in; eat less and move more. But anybody who has ever cut calories and ramped up an exercise plan in an effort to slim down knows it’s a lot harder than it sounds. All dieters inevitably make mistakes along the way—and most of the time they don’t even realize it. Here are the 10 flubs that everyone makes when they’re trying to shed fat.

The Same 10 Weight Loss Mistakes All Women Make

OD’ing on protein
“Protein is important, but if you have too much, the excess gets stored as fat,” says Felicia Stoler, RD. “And high-protein shakes and bars tend to be sugary and fatty.” Women need about 46 grams a day, per the CDC.

Skimping on veggies
Many of us fall short of the recommended 2.5 cups daily, Stoler says. A no-brainer: Work some into every meal, whether it’s sliced tomato on your morning toast or spinach on your turkey sandwich.

Having just a big glass of juice for breakfast
“Most juice raises blood sugar, so your body produces more insulin. You’ll get hungry and overeat later,” says Louis Aronne, MD. Get in protein and fiber, such as eggs and whole-grain toast.

Overestimating weight-loss rate
Most people shed a lot of pounds in the first couple of weeks of a program, a combo of carbs and water. It’s an artificially high drop, so don’t get discouraged when progress peters out.

Slacking on shut-eye
“Appetite and hunger hormones are greatly influenced by how much sleep you get,” says Pamela Peeke, MD. “Skimp and you’re more likely to eat everything that’s not tacked down.”

Considering workouts license to binge
One recent study in Marketing Letters found that people who were told a one-mile walk was for exercise ate about twice as much afterward as those informed the outing was for fun.

Underestimating how much time you have
Some weeks, finding that extra half hour to slip in a workout isn’t easy—why it’s good to have a backup plan. “Even a 10-minute cardio video on YouTube can keep you on track,” Stoler says

Always doing the same routine
“You can’t perform the same exercises over and over and expect the same benefits,” Stoler says. To get better results, follow the FIT principle: Vary the frequency, intensity or time.

Ignoring weights
Women who are getting started on an exercise program often think they should stick with just cardio, Stoler notes—but you need strength training to keep your metabolism revved up.

Giving in to your energy drain
A top excuse for not exercising: “I’m too tired.” Fake yourself out, urges Holly Wyatt, MD: “Say you’ll walk for only 10 minutes and you’ll likely go longer. Exercise energizes you!”

Source: Health

5 ways gain weight, Fast and Easy

MD002335Being skinny is not healthy, not when it starts to affect your personal and professional life. I was always on the healthier side of the weight and BMI index recommended for the people my age and height by doctors and medical studies across the globe. Suddenly, I pushed myself to lose weight and then was facing many health problems as I became scrawny, underweight and coupled with my tendency to not gain weight easily, it only added to my health troubles and woes. I then tried the following ways to gain weight in a healthy controlled and easy manner:

Firstly, eating wrong foods is not to gain weight, they add to bulk, cholesterol and only add to couple of health problems you already are troubled with. So, fast food, street food or too much eating is not the answer. Eat fruits like bananas, and healthy fat foods every 4 hours though out the day and don’t skip meals.

Eat more foods that are packed with all nutrients, and add more kinds of food. Pick up full cream milk instead of a skimmed one, eat more salads, dairy products, fish, eggs, eat the soy, curd, pulses, lentils, and vegetables. Eat healthier and get all kinds of nutrients.

Eat foods that have more nutrients but come in small packaging like’s peanuts, all kinds of nuts, use desi ghee (clarified butter) instead of low fat oil for cooking food. Dress your salads with virgin olive oil to pack a punch and at the same time add extra nutrient to your diet to gain weight

Eat a heavy meal before you go to bed or get some sleep. Dinner is supposed to be light but heavy dinners right before sleep are a simple way to gain weight and add that extra spoon of butter. Heavy dinner followed by no or little activity will ensure that all nutrients and fats are simple stored in the body and not wasted or used in any physical activity.

Above all, stay hydrated and consume as much water as possible and other liquids. Above all, do some exercises in consultation with a trained and experienced trainer to focus on the right weight gain areas and ensure healthy weight gain.

Source: woeld factualy

A Recipe For Fat Flush Water (It Literally Flushes Fat)

A Recipe For Fat Flush Water (It Literally Flushes Fat)

You may have heard some of the hype about “Fat Flush Water.” But how exactly does water flush fat out of your system? Clearly, water is not some kind of magic diet supplement. Your body needs enough water everyday to keep hydrated and cleanse itself of unwanted materials. Fat deposits that form on the body can be tough to break down and eliminate, but proper nutrition and exercise can help greatly with this.

Fat is broken down when the body uses its fat deposits to produce energy, the triglycerides in the fat cells are removed. Then, these are broken down into fatty acids and glycerols and are then absorbed into your muscle tissue and internal organs where they are then broken down even further through various chemical processes. If the products leftover from these chemical processes are not used by the body as energy, they are then considered waste products and need to be removed from the body. This is where the role of water comes in.

The Role Of Water
Water is the vehicle used to remove these waste products from the body. The leftover materials from the fat breakdown are then filtered out of your organs by the water that you drink. The water carries the waste to your bladder where it is then expelled from your body through your urine! Our bodies truly are amazing! It is important to drink enough water each day to keep you hydrated and facilitate the breakdown and elimination of fat cells. Many sources claim that you should be consuming around 8 glasses of water per day, but this number can largely vary depending on your size, how often you are exercising and even how hot it is outside. Try and keep drinking water consistently throughout the day and consider water before soda, fruit juices or other sugary drinks as these can actually dehydrate your body even more. Often a lack of energy and even headaches throughout the day are simply caused by mild dehydration. It is a good idea to make a conscious effort to drink more water. A little extra is definitely better than not enough!

The Fat Flush Water Recipe -And How It Works

  • 2 Liters (64 oz.) Purified Water
  • 1 Tangerine, sectioned
  • 1/2 Grapefruit, sliced
  • 1 Cucumber, sliced
  • 4 Peppermint or Spearmint Leaves
  • Ice, (made from purified water) optional

Mix in a pitcher before bed and drink throughout the entire next day. Please consider using organic produce for this, if it is unavailable to you, thoroughly wash the produce before adding it to the water.

  • The tangerine increases your sensitivity to insulin, stabilizes blood sugar and because they are high in vitamin C, you increase the fat burning during exercise
  • The grapefruit will increase metabolic energy, burn fat and increase energy
  • The cucumber helps you to feel more full, and acts is a natural diuretic which means less bloating and water retention
  • The mint leaves aid in digestion

There you have it! Please be advised that drinking water alone or even this recipe for the water provided above is unlikely to burn fat on its own. This is considered a fat flush, meaning that you will still need to do the exercise that is required to break down the fat, so that it can then be eliminated by the body. Proper nutrition also plays a huge role, its not about restricting calories, but making sure to get enough calories for your body from healthy, lean, whole foods. At the very least, this tasty water recipe will give you some added nutrients throughout the day, and help to ensure that you are drinking enough water.

Source: Collective Evolution