Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that we all need to help us absorb calcium and adhere it to our bones so they are healthy and strong, and keep up that bone density.  The problem with Vitamin D is that it is present in very few foods, but we can take it in supplement form, and it is activated through Ultraviolet (UV) rays.  I know there is always this internal fight I go through whether I should forgo sunblock for a few hours to get in my Vitamin D or slap on the sunblock, pop a supplement, and hope for the best!  The good news is that a new study form Harvard has just come out and it gives an alternative!

What’s the Deal?
It has been long since known that people who run, jog, play sports, bike, etc all have a lower risk of cardiac disease, and they decrease their risk of heart attack by 22%, as long as they keep up that exercise for 3 or more hours per week.  These people that have such great exercise regimens have been found to have higher levels of the “good” cholesterol and also higher levels of Vitamin D.  Three hours of vigorous exercise a week leads to a 38% increase in HDL (good cholesterol), and they also showed increased levels of Vitamin D and lower levels of Hemoglobin a1c (a predictor for diabetes).

But Why?
It ends up, that people who tend to work out a lot, spend a lot of time outside, and regardless of sunblock use, these people are spending at least three or more hours out in the environment, getting UV rays, absorbing them, and activating it faster due to increased metabolism (from running/biking/whatever your little butt off!)  They found through their study that most people who vigorously exercise, tend to spend their time exercising outdoors, and it is better for your cardiac health!  I knew there was a reason that winter, spring, summer, fall, in these crazy New England weather patterns I was outside running like crazy…and now instead of saying that my ADHD makes me go bonkers on the treadmill, I can just claim that I knew all along how much more Vitamin D I was absorbing and how much healthier my heart is for it!

I am not telling everyone to go crazy like me and run outside regardless of what the weather is doing, but I always do encourage people to go outside and walk to do errands when possible, park far away, and just take some time outside of the four walls of your gym to exercise.  We now know that Vitamin D is cardiac protective, and taking a supplement, along with UV ray absorption can help to boost your cardiac health and being outside will boost the activation and help strengthen your bones and muscles!

So go outside to get your exercise, you may not “see” the benefits but your heart will!

Yours in Good Health
B

I must say that as hard as I try to eat my six meals a day, sometimes I am so busy at work that I really don’t have time to space them out properly and especially at the end of the day when I have had a rough day and eating my snack will keep me at work an extra 15 minutes?  Sorry to say I usually chug some water to subside my hunger and walk home to get some puppy love and make all right with the world once again!  And usually after my 15 minute walk home, getting the dogs out of their crates, getting some love time in, and then feeding them….I am starving!! And when I am starving, I want quick and easy, not to cook up (or even chop up) and amazing meal.

What can I do?
A new study from Cornell University found that people are more likely to eat the first thing we see in our fridge, cabinet, or on the counter than the 5th item we see.   Which really makes people the reason that we fail at dieting or being healthy: if we have a bowl full of cookies or snack food out, we are going to reach for them first, but if there is a bowl of fruit on the counter, you will reach for that instead.  Not only will grabbing into a fresh fruit bowl get you great vitamins, filled up with something good for you, and you will feel better about yourself by doing something healthy. And put all the healthy stuff at the front of your fridge, so when you open the door, you see healthy foods and grab them first.

How did they actually perform this study?
100 people had pictures of their cabinets taken, and described their diets.  Then the researchers went into their homes, moved items in their cabinets/pantries and had the participants, again, submit a food journal. They also concluded that our environments have an effect on how much you eat as well; for example if you have a pantry stocked full of oreos, and you start eating one package, you are more likely to eat more if you have another package in your home.  If you only have one package, you may eat fewer; having on overabundance of your favorite foods can encourage you to overeat.

What does this mean?
Well, this is bad news for people like me who have very little time for grocery shopping and tend to go when they are starving and buy a whole bunch of crap at one time…But you should try to shop for the week and load up on good, healthy stuff.  And if you are someone who is really busy, take Sunday (or whatever day you have free) and make a bunch of meals and refrigerate or freeze them, then you can quickly heat them up as soon as you get home from work.  That way, you don;t have to search for what to eat, it’s all ready to go!

How to do I prevent this?
So, interestingly, I used to buy a lot of really healthy stuff, because I always start in the fruit and veg aisles first, and I felt like I was so super healthy, that I could load up on ice cream, candy, etc but my cart looked overall healthy.  Well, I wasn’t. So, now I go backwards, and I try to keep around the perimeter of the store as much as possible, because it is where the healthiest items are kept, and I feel too guilty to put the crappy stuff in my cart first, so I tend to buy less (if any at all) and then stock up on all of my healthy foods, and feel so much better leaving the store. And plus, now that we have learned that our environment dictates how and what we eat, keeping lots of healthy stuff around, increases the rate of me eating a healthy snack instead of gorging on crap….which I would do!

So, make your environment dictate a healthy lifestyle and you will be able to live one; try the backwards trip around the grocery store, and putting healthy foods in the most visible spots in your home, it seems silly but it works 😉

Yours in Good Health
B

I feel like I have been talking a ton about depression and about coffee lately, so I apologize to those who don’t drink coffee and who don’t care about depression…I promise this will be my last for a while on these two subjects. BUT with every change of season, especially into the colder, shorter, days people who are susceptible to getting Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), the rates of depression do increase, and I think that it is important that people know the symptoms of depression, and ways to combat it.

What are the symptoms of SAD?
Well, when the weather changes to winter, longer days that are darker, and you have these symptoms, you may be experiencing seasonal affective disorder:
-Loss of energy
-Hopelessness
-Anxiety
-Loss of energy
-Social withdrawal
-Difficulty concentrating
-Loss of interest in activities you usually like
-Appetite changes
-Weight gain

Can Coffee Help Fight Depression?
A 10 year observational study looking at over 50,000 older women found that women who drank 2 to 3 cups of coffee per day had a 15% lower rate of depression than those who only drank coffee sparingly ( a few cups a week).  And, women who drank 4 cups or more per day had a 20% lower rate of depression.  Other studies have shown that if people drink more than 7-8 cups of coffee per day they have an increased risk of suicide (that is, people suffering from depression).  So I think that the take away point is that if you are depressed or suffer from SAD, increasing your coffee consumption a bit to offset some of the symptoms of depression (low energy, exhaustion, etc)is helpful, but limit the coffee intake to 4 cups or less per day.  Honestly, that seems like a lot of caffeine to me, but I am a minimalist with caffeine, and it is safe to use to ease your symptoms.  With that much caffeine, I would be hopped up all day!

There is nothing that will prevent SAD, or depression in general, but anything that you can do to keep yourself on a regular schedule and keep you motivated to do things that interest you, get you socializing with with your friends, and get your energy up can help.  So, you can try to offset the symptoms with coffee and pure self will, but if that doesn’t keep you inspired, or you still feel that you are falling into depression, see your HCP and they can help you with a medication regimen OR get you set with some alternative therapies (Omega 3’s, SAMe, and or Melatonin supplements) along with yoga, mediation, and UV therapy.  The further you are from the equator, your higher risk of SAD, so be prepared, drink caffeine to help you feel peppier, and be cognizant of the symptoms of depression, and get help when you need it!

Yours in Good Health
B

I get a LOT of emails from people telling me that their diet is pretty good and they exercise, but they aren’t losing weight. They want to know what exactly to eat so that they can lose weight and get back into shape.  I have done numerous blogs about various healthy foods, different foods that can speed up your metabolism, and I really do stand by the fact that the best diet is a healthy diet and exercise. We all know that to keep your metabolism revved up throughout the day,you need to get at least 30 minutes of cardio in (daily) and eat a small meal/snack every 3-4 hours throughout the day.

Anything else you ask me about: the grapefruit diet, no carb diets, paleo diets…I think they are all unhealthy because they limit you from eating food that can be nutritious and what your body needs to run efficiently. Also, these diets aren’t sustainable over long periods of time. You will see many people “yo-yo” with their weight because they will go on these fad diets, lose weight, then think they look fabulous, and go back to their normal diets and gain all that weight back.

Interestingly, a new study looked at what is the most important reason that keeps people sticking to their healthy lifestyle changes.  They studied commitment to health, confidence in ability to make healthy behavior choices, and belief of importance of healthy lifestyle change, to find out what helped people keep their healthy behavior choices over long periods of time.  The study was performed on 499 manufacture workers, that were surveyed before making a healthy lifestyle/behavior change (such as a low fat diet) and then re-surveyed at certain lengths of time after making the change.  And the study also looked at the length of time that the workers consistently kept to their healthy lifestyle change.

Commitment to a healthy lifestyle change was the most profound reason that people kept to their change and helped them to make the change and stay with it for the longest period of time (some indefinitely).  To some of the participants the importance of the lifestyle and healthy behavior change was able to keep them on track for a lesser amount of time. And the participants that originally made the change that were confident that they could make the change easily, had the highest failure rate.

Which goes right along with the idea that fad diets DON’T WORK!  You won’t have the commitment or feel that it is an important healthy lifestyle change because it isn’t.  Making sure that you are eating a well balanced diet, lay off the fats and processed foods, you can treat yourself every now and again (like once a week) with a special treat, but stick to fruits, veggies, and lean proteins.  Make sure that you are getting in exercise: skip the elevator and take the stairs, take a walk/run with a friend either before or after work, try to get up and walk to talk to someone (at work) instead of an email, and join a gym or just make a commitment with a friend to get more exercise, that way you can’t just skip out, you’ll be letting someone down!  There are so many ways that you can get healthiness into your life, and you know what they are, so stop looking for these quick ways to drop weight fast, because you know it will come right back and make you feel horrible.

Make a commitment to being healthy, and a commitment to a better you!

Yours in Good Health,
B

I know that there is always that scene in a horror or Sci-Fi movie where someone is getting their flesh eaten off, and every now and again we hear about flesh eating bacteria in the news, and everyone always thinks that is could never happen to them. The reality is that it CAN happen to you, and it is rare, but the way it occurs is pretty innocuous; it doesn’t always occur because people are in the middle of a rain forest and bitten by a random bug, it occurs to people all over the US and all over the world.

What is necrotizing fasciitis?
It is, in fact, a bacteria that destroys the skin, muscle, and surrounding tissues.  It is usually an infection caused by Streptococcus pyogenes, and the reaction is fast and can be deadly. The bacteria enters your skin through any form of cut, scrape, wound, or any other opening in the skin, and it begins to spread and release harmful toxins as it grows, which kill your flesh.  So as it grows, it is killing you.  Literally! The toxins kill your tissues, impede blood flow to the area, and spread rapidly.

What are the symptoms?
You may just have a small red colored bump on your skin, that may be painful when you touch it.  It will quickly grow larger and turn to more of a purple color, then turn black and appear to die. It may become fluid filled and start to weep (or ooze) fluids.  All of these changes will happen in about an hour after becoming infected, and you will just feel crappy, have a fever, chills, nausea, dizziness, weakness, and you can go into shock very quickly.

Are there any tests? How do I know I have it?
If you have any of the symptoms, go see your HCP, and they usually will diagnose necrotizing fasciitis (nec fasc) using CT Scans and form your symptoms.  Because it is so fast spreading and can quickly cause death, most likely, they may take a fluid sample to send to the lab for testing, but if nec fasc is suspected, you will be taken to the OR quickly, and the lab may not even have the results yet.


Is there anything I can do to prevent it?
Clean all cuts and scrapes thoroughly, use an antibacterial ointment, and hope for the best.  Really, there is nothing else to do.

The recovery can be very tough, a some people will make it through the surgery, in which the infected tissues are removed, but their body is so damaged from the infection they cannot fight it off, despite lots of IV fluids, antibiotics (broad coverage), and sometimes limbs need to be amputated (removed). If you are ever worried that you have nec fasc, get to an Emergency Department immediately and seek treatment, it is a medical emergency and it occurs quickly and it is deadly.  So please learn the signs, and know that any small cut or scrape can be an entrance for a killer bacteria.

Yours in Good Health
B

I sure that you have heard about the antibiotic resistant “super bugs” that are always touted about in the news, well more people than you realize are affected (around 2.5 million carriers in the US alone in 2004).  MRSA (Methecillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus) is one of the most well known “super bugs”.  All it means is that this form of staph is resistant to most common treatments like the cephalosporins and penicillin-family drugs.  There are drugs that can treat these bacteria, it is just a case of finding the correct one, and making sure that you take the drug for the FULL length of time that it is prescribed, to make sure we kill it all off and there is no further infection.  BUT just because you have MRSA living on your body doesn’t mean that you have an active infection, you could just be colonized with it.

What is infection vs. colonization?
An infection means that the bacteria has entered your body somehow and causes a reaction within your body, such as pus in a wound, or a skin rash,  a blood infection leading to fevers and generalized malaise, which can quickly become worse if not treated.  An active infection requires treatment early on to prevent spreading it to other people and to prevent serious long term effects of the infection and death.  Colonization merely means that you have the bacteria either living in (your blood) or on (in your nose or on skin) your body and you have no reaction; you have no active infection and no idea that you even have the bacteria present.

How do I know if I have MRSA?
MRSA bacteria likes to hang out in the tip of the nares (your nose), so if you are colonized you might not know that you even have the bacteria present in your body.  You probably wouldn’t know that you were colonized unless your HCP did a nasal swab to test for it, or if you were admitted to the hospital (many hospitals will swab you on admission to see if you have the infection, so that you couldn’t transmit it to others).  If you have and infected wound that won’t get better despite treatment with antibiotics, or if you have a skin rash that will not go away, a generalized illness that keeps getting worse, you may have to have blood cultures (a blood sample) or swabs of your wounds/base of rashes, and the results will show MRSA.

What is the treatment?
If you do have an MRSA infection, the cultures from swabs of the infection or from the blood, will then be tested to what antibiotics the infection is reactive to.  That will help to guide your treatment, and depending on the infection, your HCP will decide if you need oral or intravenous antibiotics and the length of time necessary to treat the infection.

How do Coffee and Tea come into play???
Coffee and tea have been long know to have some antimicrobial properties, in that it inhibits the growth  of various microorganisms (can be bacteria, fungus, or other little bugs).  And they were studied to see if drinking hot tea and hot coffee helped to prevent MRSA bacteria from living in peoples nares. They did a rather large study of people that didn’t live in group places (prisons, barracks, boarding schools, college dorms, etc) where they could get reinfected from others easily.  They found that there was a 50% reduction in nasal carriers of MRSA when they drank hot coffee and tea!  The exact reason is unknown (perhaps it is due to hot steam in the nasal passages or due to the ingestion of these substances with antimicrobial properties).  They also looked at soda drinkers; people who drank soda had no change in rates of carrying MRSA in their nose.

So, coffee and tea drinkers, keep it up, you are decreasing your risk of carrying MRSA!  But to prevent infections, make sure to wash your hands, clean cuts and wounds, and keep them wrapped or covered while they still have not scabbed over, and make sure that you clean gym equipment before and after using it (it loves warm moist environments- so gym/sports equipment is a great place for MRSA to lurk!)  Make sure you go to your HCP with any skin rashes that don’t clear, or with any wounds that aren’t healing….it is better to go sooner rather than later!  And keep sipping your hot teas and coffee, to try and prevent that pesky MRSA form hanging out!

Yours in Good Health
B

The old adage, an apple a day keeps the doctor away, may actually be true! There has been such a push in the past few years to encourage people to fill their diets with lots of colorful fruits and veggies and to stay away from those white fleshed fruits and veg. I have always been a huge proponent of people eating apples and pears, mostly because they are easily accessible almost everywhere and they are a staple of my diet!  Portable, yummy, and they fill you up with all of the fiber they have in them…a perfect snack!  A new study just finished that also shows how helpful they can be to prevent health issues, such as stroke, too!

What’s the scoop?
A large study consisting of around 20,000 people from the ages of 20 to 65 that had no previous cardiac (heart) issues, had their diets studied for one year.  A 10 year follow-up was then performed on all patients, and it was found that of the people studied, 233 patients had strokes.  They were able to figure out that people who ate white fleshed fruits (apples, bananas, and pears) and veggies (cauliflower, chicory, and cucumber) had a 52% lower risk of stroke, compared to those who didn’t eat the white fleshed fruits.  A 25-gram increase in white fleshed fruits decreased the risk by 9%; an apple (medium sized) is approximately 120-grams, thus a 43.2% decrease risk of stroke that day!

What does this mean?
Every apple, pear, serving of cucumbers, etc can have a huge impact on your health and decrease your risk of stroke.  Trying to encompass white flesh fruits and veggies each day can have significant health effects! Of course, I am not telling you to ditch the other fruits and veggies of various colors, they are so important in your diet, as they contain antioxidants, that have free radical fighting abilities and are thought to decrease risk of cancer. Really, the more colorful and pretty looking your plate of food is, usually the better it is for you; you are getting in a wide variety of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and food sources! I always think that the more colorful meals are, the more I get excited for them…just because they look nice (I’m not THAT nerdy that I get excited for vitamins!)

If you are at risk for stroke due to family history, smoking, obesity, diabetes, etc then you might want to try to increase the amount of white fruits and vegetables because it may help to offset your other risk factors.  Plus, it is so easy to grab an apple or a pear as a snack in the afternoon, and when you drink them with a glass of water, their high amount of pectin (their natural fiber) will keep you filled up until dinner!  And, what a better way to spend a fall day than to go apple picking and know that when you eat them, you will be doing some disease prevention!

Yours in Good Health
B

Sometimes there are viruses that “normally” people get as children or young adolescents, but for some reason adults haven’t been exposed and then get a childhood virus as adults.  For many reasons this can seem a little creepy, and mainly because you may all of a sudden have symptoms from something that isn’t a big deal, but because you are an adult, you might think you have some horrible form of advanced cancer….or maybe that’s just me?

One virus that I actually got when I was in my early 20’s was pityriasis rosea, and there have been a few cases of people I know getting diagnosed within the past year or so, as adults, and it can be kind of creepy.  It is a virus with a skin rash component, but some of the lesions can look like secondary syphilis, which can really throw your HCP for a loop!

What is Pityriasis rosea?
It is a virus that can last for about 6 weeks, and for most people it starts with an upper respiratory infection (like a little irritating cough that lasts 7-10 days).  After the cough goes away, you can get a “herald” patch (one large area of scaly skin- the first patch) on your abdomen, that can be hidden in a skin fold, armpit, or somewhere else where it may be difficult to see; it can come and go with no other symptoms.  Approximately 10 days after the herald lesion leaves, there is a rash of small lesions that are usually found on the back and travel along the rib bones, in a Christmas tree shape.  The rash can be really itchy, or not at all.  It can also cause headaches, exhaustion, and a general sense of feeling crappy.  Technically, it isn’t contagious but, it has been known to infect people who spend a lot of time together (i.e. dorms, daycare, military barracks, etc.)

How is it diagnosed?
Usually it is diagnosed on clinical presentation (if you have had an upper respiratory infection recently, and based on the presentation of the rash).  If your symptoms are more generalized or you don’t remember having a cough/cold recently, your HCP may take a scraping of the rash to rule out psoriasis and ringworm, take some blood to rule out syphilis, and if the rash is really severe they make take a biopsy (which would be VERY aggressive.)  If you have recently started a new medication, you also need to rule out that it is an allergic reaction.

What is the treatment?
The treatment is pretty simple actually, because it is a virus, so no medications will make it go away.  You can take oral antihistamines if the itching is bothering you, or use antihistamine creams/gels to prevent the itching symptoms.  For headaches and discomfort, you can take acetaminophen (paracetamol), or ibuprofen.  However, direct sunlight has been shown shorten the time that the lesions are apparent, you still may feel unwell, but the skin rash will leave sooner.  This is one of the only times that I will ever tell you that UV therapy in a tanning bed might actually be good for you, but one session in a tanning bed usually clears up the rash completely!

I am always really in tune to skin rashes, I tend to freak out with rashes (all other symptoms of viruses never seem to bother me) and I am not sure why, but if you do have a cold that seems to linger, and a rash directly after, especially if it has that christmas tree shape, most likely you have Pityriasis rosea and OTC medication and a trip to the tanning bed (just ONE!) should clear up your rash and start to make you feel better!  But, it is best to go see your HCP in case you have one of the other viruses/processes that mimic Pityriasis rosea.

Yours in Good Health,
B

Potentially life threatening food allergies affect around 3% of the US populations children.  This is HUGE because many of these children are exposed to their food allergens early in life, completely by accident, and can cause major damage to their heart, lungs, and cause psychological damage, if not lead to death. There are eight major foods that cause 90% of allergic reactions in children: milk, soy, fish, peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish, wheat, and eggs. Some are easier to avoid than others, but eggs, milk, soy, and wheat are in many commercial foods.

Why is this important?
Research has been ongoing to try to pinpoint what causes these extreme allergies and if certain populations are more at risk than others.  So far, nothing has really been found as definitive reasons for the increase of anaphylactic reactions to foods, but there have been plenty of suggestions made by pediatricians to try to decrease the risk, such as not introducing foods like tree nuts, peanuts, and shellfish before the age of 3 and breastfeeding for 4-6 months minimum.  A study from 6 months ago showed that there was a decrease in allergic food allergies when children were introduced to solid foods before 6 months old, and closer to 4 months.  Although, these tips also do not completely prevent food allergies.

What is New?
A recent study looking at 1104 children with an average age of 2.7 and from lower socio-economic status populations of African and Hispanic ancestry, looked at the rates of food allergies within this population.  What they found was pretty interesting; 35.5% of the children studied had a food allergy.  And of these children, the children of African Ancestry had much higher rates of multiple food allergies and had much higher rates of peanut allergies; in many of the children that had allergies, peanuts were what their body reacted most to.
Now, they are not sure if there are genetic factors that may affect these outcomes or if there are any environmental factors that also could increase these rates of allergen sensitivity, so further studies need to be performed, but it is an interesting alternative theory that these rates of allergic reactions in kids may be more genetic, as opposed to what foods children are exposed to at different ages.

How does this affect me?
Really, it is just something to be aware of.  Clearly, this topic needs further studies but it is an interesting idea, and because the risk of an allergic reaction from food at an early age can be so devastating physically and mentally to children, if there is a genetic/ancestral link, it is a way to be aware of possible food allergies.   If you have food allergies, and many people in your family do, you might be more apt to assume that your child has the same allergies, and if it is linked to your heritage, then you would do the same!

Always try to eat healthy and feed the same to your children, limit the amount of preservatives and fast foods, and hope for the best!  If you do feed your child something and they start having a skin reaction, wheezing, vomiting, and/or diarrhea then you should assume they have a food allergy, and with any form of wheezing or breathing difficulties you should call your HCP immediately and if they have increased breathing trouble, call emergency services in case your child is having a life threatening reaction.

Yours in Good Health
B

There is this item that I always saw in the fruit/veg section of the super market and I never knew what it was, and usually I’ll buy one of something, try it and if I like it; if I like it great, if not, no big deal!  So I had been eyeing these fruits (I was assuming they were fruit as they were in the fruit section) that had thin paper-like leaves over them, but for some reason was really gun shy in buying them.  Honestly, I felt kind of weird not having any idea what they were, and then when I got home, what to do with them?  Well, I finally took the plunge and bought these Goldenberries, and I am one happy girl.  Not only are they delicious, but they are really good for you too!!

the golden berry!