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8 Foods Even The Experts Won’t Eat. By April McCarthy. Originally published on Preventdisease.com. Food scientists are shedding light on items loaded with toxins and chemicals–and simple swaps for a cleaner diet and supersized health. Experts from different areas of specialty explain why they won’t eat these eight foods. Clean eating means choosing fruits, vegetables, and meats that are raised, grown, and sold with minimal processing. Often they’re organic, and rarely (if ever) should they contain additives. But in some cases, the methods of today’s food producers are neither clean nor sustainable. The result is damage to our health, the environment, or both. So we decided to take a fresh look at food through the eyes of the people who spend their lives uncovering what’s safe–or not–to eat. Their answers don’t necessarily make up a “banned foods” list. 1.

Fredrick Vom Saal, is an endocrinologist at the University of Missouri who studies bisphenol-A. The problem: The solution: 2. Cattle evolved to eat grass, not grains. 3. 4. 5. Diet - Lifestyle - Disease - Health - Medicine - H.R.T. - Hormone-Replacement Therapy. EpiPens for All. EpiPens for All. Low-fat yogurt intake during pregnancy may heighten child allergy risk, study. Mothers who consume low-fat yogurt products during pregnancy may give birth to children with a higher risk of developing allergies such as asthma and hay fever, a study has found. A team led by Ekaterina Maslova, from the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, aimed to assess whether conjugated fatty acids (CLA) found in dairy products could offer children protection against development of allergies.

This followed the reporting of immune-modulating and protective effects for CLAs in animal studies. Presenting findings during a recent poster presentation at the 2011 European Respiratory Society (ERS) Annual Congress, Maslova et al said dairy products were an important source of micronutrients, fatty acids and probiotics that could “modify the risk of child asthma and allergy development”. Milk offers asthma protection Women were recruited between 1996 and 2002, and were interviewed twice – before and after pregnancy. Results explained Source: Unpublished. Pregnant? Some Foods May Raise Baby's Asthma, Allergy Risk. (Getty Images) By Denise Mann SUNDAY, Feb. 28, 2010 (Health.com) — As if mothers-to-be don’t have enough to worry about, new research suggests that eating certain foods during pregnancy or while breast-feeding may raise the baby’s risk of allergies and asthma later in life.

The good news is that if women—particularly those in allergy-prone families—avoid nuts, eggs, and milk during and after pregnancy, they may lower their child’s risk of developing food allergies or asthma, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology in New Orleans. Expectant women who consume little folic acid—a type of B vitamin recommended during pregnancy to prevent birth defects—may also be less likely than women who consume more to have children with asthma, according to a second study, also presented at the meeting. The studies come at a time when food allergies are on the rise among kids in the United States. Status and Stress. Maxwell Holyoke-Hirsch Although professionals may bemoan their long work hours and high-pressure careers, really, there’s stress, and then there’s Stress with a capital “S.” The former can be considered a manageable if unpleasant part of life; in the right amount, it may even strengthen one’s mettle.

The latter kills. What’s the difference? That sense of control tends to decline as one descends the socioeconomic ladder, with potentially grave consequences. Even those who later ascend economically may show persistent effects of early-life hardship. Even those who become rich are more likely to be ill if they suffered hardship early on.

The British epidemiologist Michael Marmot calls the phenomenon “status syndrome.” Dr. So the stress that kills, Dr. How they induce it is instructive. Biologists explain the particulars as a fight-or-flight response — adrenaline pumping, heart rate elevated, blood pressure increased — that continues indefinitely. All hope is not lost, however. Why Smokers Still Smoke. After a Sprain, Don't Just Walk It Off. Steps for More, and Better, Sleep. Christopher Silas Neal I regret that for most of my adult life, I treated sleep as more a luxury than a necessity. There was always something more to do before I crawled under the covers and turned out the light. I realize belatedly that I might have been more productive — and a lot nicer to live with — if I had given sleep its proper due.

By failing to acknowledge chronic sleep deprivation, I dozed during countless cultural events, and on two occasions I fell asleep while driving, barely escaping disaster. I have since reordered my priorities and learned to avoid distractions and activities that can keep me from getting the sleep my body and mind really need. About 70 million Americans sleep poorly or not nearly long enough to achieve the full physical, emotional and cognitive benefits sleep can bestow. How much sleep do you need? Given the opportunity to sleep as long as they want, most adults average about eight hours a night. Don’t Take Your Vitamins. Cheating Ourselves of Sleep. No Benefit in Sharply Restricting Salt, Panel Finds. In a report that undercuts years of public health warnings, a prestigious group convened by the government says there is no good reason based on health outcomes for many Americans to drive their sodium consumption down to the very low levels recommended in national dietary guidelines.

Those levels, 1,500 milligrams of sodium a day, or a little more than half a teaspoon of salt, were supposed to prevent heart attacks and strokes in people at risk, including anyone older than 50, blacks and people with high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney disease — groups that make up more than half of the American population. Some influential organizations, including the American Heart Association, have said that everyone, not just those at risk, should aim for that very low sodium level. The heart association reaffirmed that position in an interview with its spokesman on Monday, even in light of the new report. Photo There are physiological consequences of consuming little sodium, said Dr. The Scientific 7-Minute Workout. Diagnosing the Wrong Deficit. Though I treat a lot of adults for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, the presentation of this case was a violation of an important diagnostic criterion: symptoms must date back to childhood.

It turned out he first started having these problems the month he began his most recent job, one that required him to rise at 5 a.m., despite the fact that he was a night owl. The patient didn’t have A.D.H.D., I realized, but a chronic sleep deficit. I suggested some techniques to help him fall asleep at night, like relaxing for 90 minutes before getting in bed at 10 p.m. If necessary, he could take a small amount of melatonin. Many theories are thrown around to explain the rise in the diagnosis and treatment of A.D.H.D. in children and adults. For some people — especially children — sleep deprivation does not necessarily cause lethargy; instead they become hyperactive and unfocused.

We all get less sleep than we used to. But it’s also possible that A.D.H.D. When the Mango Bites Back, Surviving Traveler's Diarrhea. Photo NEW DELHI — Accepting a just-picked mango from a stranger in Lodi Gardens and then putting it directly into my mouth — skin and all — was stupid. I admit that. But why did my first horrible case of traveler’s diarrhea in India have to result from a mango? I love mangoes, and India’s vast array of deliciously different mango varieties has been one of the great delights of moving here. “You didn’t even wash it?” Dr. Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, asked me later. No. “Even by your standards, that was really stupid,” Dr.

But what about the local yogurt I had eaten and the probiotic pills I had taken — weren’t my gastrointestinal flora protecting me? “Yogurt probably won’t hurt you, unless it’s contaminated as well,” Dr. Despite decades of immunological research and a recent surge of interest in the bacterial garden of the human gut, diarrhea remains the most unpredictable travel-related illness. They did not. Oops. Dr. NYTimes: Too Young to Have a Stroke? Think Again - brothtran - Gmail. Sense of Taste Changes With Age. Portland Weighs Fluoride Years After Broad Acceptance. Where Cows Are Happy and Food Is Healthy. FOOD can be depressing. If it’s tasty, it’s carcinogenic. If it’s cheap, animals were tortured. But this, miraculously, is a happy column about food! It’s about a farmer who names all his 230 milk cows, along with his 200 heifers and calves, and loves them like children.

Let me introduce Bob Bansen, a high school buddy of mine who is a third-generation dairyman raising Jersey cows on lovely green pastures here in Oregon beside the Yamhill River. As long as I’ve known him, Bob has had names for every one of his “girls,” as he calls his cows. “I spend every day with these girls,” Bob explained. “This is Hosta,” he began, and then started pointing out the others nearby. I asked about Jill, and Bob rattled off her specs. When I pushed for Bob’s secret to tell the cows apart, he explained: “They have family resemblances. Oh, that helps. Yet all is not lost. For Bob, a crucial step came when he switched to organic production eight years ago. “Pasture does wonders for cow health,” Bob said. An Exam With Poor Results. Yvetta Fedorova In America, when a woman goes to her gynecologist, she is typically given a pelvic exam whether or not she has symptoms or concerns that might warrant one.

That’s one reason an estimated 63.4 million pelvic exams are performed annually in this country. Now a growing number of experts are asking whether it’s necessary to do so many. “This is not the case in other countries that get better results without doing routine pelvic exams,” Dr. Carolyn L. “I’m an American gynecologist, and that’s how we were trained. For most women, Pap smears are now recommended just once every three to five years — and for some, not at all.

A woman undergoing the exam is bare below the waist. It’s called a bimanual exam. These experts say that for women who are well, a routine bimanual exam is not supported by medical evidence, increases the costs of medical care and discourages some women, especially adolescents, from seeking needed care. Dr. Dr. Yet Ms. Dr. ‘An Epidemic of Absence’ Review - Seeing Hygiene as Driver of Disease. A New Tooth, Made to Order in Under an Hour. NYTimes: The Power of Concentration - brothtran - Gmail. Exercise and the Ever-Smarter Human Brain. Michael Poehlman/Getty images Anyone whose resolve to exercise in 2013 is a bit shaky might want to consider an emerging scientific view of human evolution. It suggests that we are clever today in part because a million years ago, we could outrun and outwalk most other mammals over long distances. Our brains were shaped and sharpened by movement, the idea goes, and we continue to require regular physical activity in order for our brains to function optimally.

Phys Ed Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness. The role of physical endurance in shaping humankind has intrigued anthropologists and gripped the popular imagination for some time. Endurance produced meals, which provided energy for mating, which meant that adept early joggers passed along their genes. But simultaneously, in a development that until recently many scientists viewed as unrelated, humans were becoming smarter.

What all of this means, says David A. And there is scientific support for that idea. Getting Into Your Exercise Groove. Finding Your Ideal Running Form. David De Lossy/Getty Images Phys Ed Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness. Can people become better, more efficient runners on their own, merely by running? That question, seemingly so innocuous, is remarkably divisive at the moment, with running experts on one side suggesting that runners should be taught a specific, idealized running form, while opponents counter that the best way to run is whatever way feels right to you. Little published science, however, has been available on the subject of whether runners need technical instruction or naturally intuit the skill.

Now a timely new study suggests that new runners eventually settle into better running form — just by running more. For the study, which will be published in the September issue of the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, researchers with the Bioenergetics and Human Performance Research Group at the University of Exeter in England turned to a group of adult women who’d recently joined a running group. Debunking the Hunter-Gatherer Workout. For Weight Loss, Less Exercise May Be More. Thomas Barwick/Getty Images Most people who start working out in hopes of shedding pounds wind up disappointed, a lamentable circumstance familiar to both exercisers and scientists. Multiple studies, many of them covered in this column, have found that without major changes to diet, exercise typically results in only modest weight loss at best (although it generally makes people much healthier). Quite a few exercisers lose no weight. Some gain. But there is encouraging news about physical activity and weight loss in a new study by researchers at the University of Copenhagen.

It found that exercise does seem to contribute to waist-tightening, provided that the amount of exercise is neither too little nor, more strikingly, too much. To reach that conclusion, the Danish scientists rounded up a group of pudgy and sedentary young men, a segment of the population increasingly common in Denmark, as elsewhere in the world. The men were then randomly assigned to exercise or not. Auvi-Q Challenges EpiPen With a New Shape and Size. Can a Radical New Treatment Save Children With Severe Food Allergies? Chicken Farms Try Oregano as Antibiotic Substitute. Oregano lies loose in trays and tied into bunches on tabletops and counters, and a big, blue drum that held oregano oil stands in the corner. “Have you ever tried oregano tea?” Mr. Sechler asked, mashing leaves between his broad fingers. Off and on over the last three years or so, his chickens have been eating a specially milled laced with oregano oil and a touch of cinnamon. But Mr. “I have worried a bit about how I’m going to sound talking about this,” he said.

Skeptics of herbal medicines abound, as any quick Internet search demonstrates. Nonetheless, Mr. At the same time, consumers are growing increasingly sophisticated about the content of the foods that they eat. Data on sales of antibiotic-free meat is hard to come by, but the sales are a tiny fraction of the overall meat market. Still, retailers like Costco, Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s, as well as some restaurant chains, complain that they cannot get enough antibiotic-free meat. Mr. The oregano oil product Mr. Dr. Dr. Mr. Another Look at a Drink Ingredient, Brominated Vegetable Oil. James Edward Bates for The New York Times Sarah Kavanagh, 15, of Hattiesburg, Miss., started an online petition asking PepsiCo to change Gatorade’s formula.

But before she took a sip, Sarah, a dedicated vegetarian, did what she often does and checked the label to make sure no animal products were in the drink. One ingredient, brominated vegetable oil, caught her eye. “I knew it probably wasn’t from an animal because it had vegetable in the name, but I still wanted to know what it was, so I Googled it,” Ms. She threw the product away and started a petition on Change.org, an online petition platform, that has almost 200,000 signatures.

Jeff Dahncke, a spokesman for PepsiCo, noted that brominated vegetable oil had been deemed safe for consumption by federal regulators. The ingredient is added often to citrus drinks to help keep the fruit flavoring evenly distributed; without it, the flavoring would separate. Daily Multivitamin May Reduce Cancer Risk, Clinical Trial Finds. Can Foods Affect Colon Cancer Survival?

Really?: Adding Milk to Tea Destroys its Antioxidants. Popular Antibiotics May Carry Serious Side Effects. Grapefruit and Drugs Often Don't Mix. The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food. Red Meat Linked to Cancer and Heart Disease. The Island Where People Forget to Die. It's the Sugar, Folks. Fill Your Days With Nuts, Olive Oil, Chocolate and Wine.