Securing insurance for one's self is necessary. This should also be the case with pregnant women. They need it most due to their delicate state. A pregnant woman who is not insured is putting her life and that of her child in danger. This is because anything can happen during pregnancy and the lack of knowledge about the growth and progress of your child is bad. Over 40 million Americans are not insured and about 14% of them are pregnant women. It has been statistically shown that the women who their babies are found with the low weight issues or the high death rate are mostly the uninsured women.
One of the oldest foods known, olives were first cultivated in Crete some five to seven thousand years ago. While olives have a high fat content, almost three-fourths of their fat is the healthy monounsaturated type, which offers cholesterol-lowering properties. Olives are also a good source of vitamin E (which helps to neutralize free radicals), iron, copper and dietary fiber.
Unfortunately, landfills aren't usually equipped to handle this type of toxic trash.
Thoughtless dumping can lead to mercury, lead and other substances leaching into the ground - and into groundwater.
Just turn off the television and take a walk. I recommend walking 30-45 minutes a day as a way to maintain a healthy body and weight. I also recommend taking a break from television.
Local news focuses on crime, violence and death, and its images and message can lead to feelings of fear and depression. Start by swapping out 30 minutes of television-watching a week for a walk, and work your way up to making it a daily activity. You will soon feel better in body, mind and spirit!
You may not know you're consuming MSG on a regular basis, but this flavor enhancer is everywhere - not just in Chinese food but in all kinds of processed foods, from chips to canned soup.
And this common food additive may be responsible for weight gain. A new study from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, suggests that the more MSG you consume, the more likely you are to be overweight or obese. This holds true even if your intake of calories and exercise habits are the same as those who don't consume MSG.
Researchers followed more than 10,000 adults in China for about 5.5 years, measuring their MSG intake and asking them to estimate how much they consumed over three 24-hour periods. Results showed that individuals whose daily MSG intake was highest (about five grams) were about 30 percent more likely to become overweight by the end of the study than those who consumed the least MSG (less than half a gram daily). After excluding study participants who were overweight at the study's start, the risk was 33 percent. The study was published in the June, 2011, issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
A good source of vitamins K and C, potassium and folate, asparagus is a perennial with 20 edible varieties. A springtime favorite, it may help support heart health, healthy fluid balance and prevent birth defects. Asparagus is prized worldwide as a gourmet vegetable, yet it is easy to grow, fairly inexpensive to buy and simple to cook. Look for:
While I believe that attempts to halt or deny the aging process can be roadblocks to aging gracefully, there may be an acceptable alternative to some current "turn back the clock" trends: facial acupuncture.
This therapy is far less invasive than a surgical procedure and does not carry the dangers associated with a traditional facelift (not to mention being less expensive). Facial acupuncture is also free of the side effects of therapies such as Botox injections, and it offers psychological benefits - patients may feel relaxed as a result of the therapy.
With or without acupuncture, a healthy diet, exercise and stress reduction techniques are still my top recommendations for a healthy lifestyle, and the keys to aging gracefully.
This vegetable-platter classic - along with other cruciferous vegetables - is tasty both raw and cooked, and is a standout in soups, casseroles and salads. I have long recommended broccoli as part of a healthful diet. This versatile vegetable:
Don’t give up on meditation, relaxation and yoga just yet - you’ll still need them to help deal with stress in the foreseeable future, but a Stanford University researcher is at work on a vaccine to counteract some of the most damaging effects of stress, particularly the chronic type associated with cardiovascular disease, cancer and a depressed immune system.
The vaccine works on rats, but remains years away from human studies. The idea is to neutralize the glucocorticoid hormones our bodies produce when we're stressed before they can cause their damaging effects.
These hormones are part of the immune system and also help us fight off cancer and inflammation, but because we can’t turn them on and off selectively, they can become harmful to the brain and the immune system following simple stress. The investigator, Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D., a professor of neuroscience, has adapted a herpes virus to carry engineered neuroprotective genes into the brain to neutralize stress hormones and leave you feeling fresh and prepared for the next threat.
At least that's what Danish researchers concluded after testing 1,800 pairs of twins over the age of 70.
The investigators performed physical and cognitive tests on the twins and also took their photos. Then three separate groups of people who didn't know the twins' year of birth looked at photos of the twins' faces and guessed their ages. The researchers tracked the twins for the next seven years and found that the ones who had looked younger than their actual age were much more likely to still be living, even after adjusting for such factors as gender and environment. The researchers also found that the bigger the difference in perceived age within any set of twins, the more likely it was that the older looking sibling died first. The only biological explanation advanced was that the individuals who looked younger also tended to have longer telomeres (repeating DNA sequences at the ends of chromosomes) that are linked to aging. Individuals with shorter telomeres are thought to age faster - in this study, the more fresh-faced individuals had longer telomeres. The findings were published online on December 14 in the British medical journal BMJ.
A delicious and versatile meal option for the colder months, winter squash comes in many varieties, all with plenty of healthful nutrients: winter squash is an excellent source of vitamins A and C, and provides good amounts of potassium, dietary fiber and folate. They also provide antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits, and have been associated with the prevention of variety of diseases, including benign prostatic hyperplasia, lung cancer, atherosclerosis, diabetes-related health issues, and inflammatory disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, and osteoarthritis.
suboptimal immune function. The older you get, the greater the risk of running low on zinc. An estimated 12 percent of the U.S. population is probably at risk of zinc deficiency, and up to 40 percent of seniors may be deficient because absorption of zinc slows with age and because dietary intake may not meet your nutritional needs, according to experts at the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University. One recent study found that even a minor zinc deficiency can result in increased DNA damage. Zinc deficiencies have been linked to prostate cancer and to esophageal, breast and head and neck cancers and may contribute to infections and to autoimmune diseases. Unfortunately, tests for zinc status aren't very good. The best dietary sources are beef and poultry; zinc is poorly absorbed from plants. The recommended daily allowance is 8 mg for women and 11 mg for men, but I generally recommend taking 15 mg of zinc daily - or up to 30 mg daily if you don't eat many foods of animal origin.
