Review shows coffee is a real health booster
GOOD TO THE LAST DROP: COFFEE DEFINITELY IS A HEALTH-BOOSTER
Coffee, legend has it, was first discovered in 9th-century Ethiopia when a goatherd noticed his flock was behaving oddly after eating some reddish tree berries. When he took the berries to the local monastery, religious leaders deemed the beans unworthy and threw them on a fire. But, wouldn’t you know it, the roasting beans smelled so good that they decided to give them another chance. They put the toasty seeds into a pot of warm water, and the first cuppa Joe was brewed!
Today Americans down around 146 billion cups of coffee annually! Good thing it turns out to have a lot of health benefits.
A new review published in The BMJ looks at the current data on coffee and health, and finds that it has many health benefits. You do, however, encounter some serious negatives with overconsumption of coffee: pregnancy loss, low birth weight and preterm birth, as well as an increased risk of bone fracture in women, but not men.
Your daily dose: If caffeine doesn’t give you a headache, upset tummy or other side effects, enjoy three or four cups of decaf or regular (filtered through paper, no added sugar or high-fat milk) daily. You’ll lower your risk of Type 2 diabetes and reduce your risk of all-cause mortality over a set period of time by more than 17 per cent, compared with folks who don’t drink any coffee. In addition, caffeinated coffee lowers your risk for cardiovascular disease and stroke, as well as nine cancers and liver problems.
STRESS IS AS DAMAGING AS BAD FATS WHEN IT COMES TO YOUR HEALTH
In the 1959 Peter Sellers movie “The Mouse that Roared,” the British funny man plays three roles in a story about how an inconsequential European Duchy attacks and defeats America. Sellers’ roles as Grand Duchess Gloriana, Prime Minister Count Rupert Mountjoy and game warden Tully Bascombe all contribute to the same result — a riotous sendup of global politics.
Well, in a recent ChineseAmerican experiment published in Scientific Reports, several groups of mice roared loud and clear when researchers examined the effects of a highfat diet, obesity and stress on their gut biome and their mood. Researchers found: • High-fat diets dramatically altered the gut biome, and not for the better.
• Male mice that ate a high-fat diet became obese and sedentary, had altered gut biomes and were more likely to develop anxiety disorders than females.
• Thin female mice exposed to stress had changes in their gut biome that made the mix of bacteria resemble the gut biome of obese female mice. That meant thin, stressed females were vulnerable to obesityrelated diseases, such as depression, fatty liver disease, insulin resistance and diabetes, bodywide inflammation and heart disease.
So, if you’re female and dealing with chronic stress and/or obesity, protect your gut. Take up meditation, walk 10,000 steps daily and eliminate saturated and trans fats from your diet. If you’re male and overweight, get evaluated for a mood disorder. Make a plan to get happier and healthier by shedding four pounds a month and making sure to get those 10,000 steps a day.
SPICE DOWN YOUR CRAVINGS
He’s eaten smoking-hot wings with actor Bob Saget, who began hiccupping uncontrollably; astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson sneezed while talking about black holes with him; and comedian Ricky Gervais yelled into his napkin. His name is Sean Evans, and his YouTube series “Hot Ones” has more than two million subscribers. Seems watching people eat super-spicy foods is highly entertaining. But that’s not all. According to the results of a new study, eating capsaicin — the main hot and spicy component of chili peppers — might help you reduce your sodium intake.
For the study, researchers looked at brain scans of over 600 people and discovered that the areas that responded to spicy and salty foods overlap, and eating spicy foods reduces salt cravings. This comes on the heels of info that capsaicin is a vasodilator, which help lower blood pressure.
These findings are especially helpful given recent guidelines that lowered the threshold for high blood pressure to 130/80, making it clear that even this degree of high blood pressure increases your risk of heart attack and stroke.
Anyone with HBP, heart disease, diabetes or kidney problems should have only 1,500 mg of sodium daily. If you have salt-sensitive HBP (that’s fewer than 0.5 percent of you), excess sodium is deadly. To find out if that’s you, measure your BP; then go off all salt for five days, and measure again. Your BP should dip more than 20/10. The rest of you? Aim for around 2,300 mg daily.
So, substituting peppers for salt makes sense for everyone, and you don’t have to use superhot ghost peppers!
BIKE TO WORK
One of Denmark’s most famous sons was storyteller Hans Christian Andersen. He authored “The Little Mermaid,” “The Ugly Duckling” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” His tales always delight children and adults alike, probably because they make everyone feel smart and empowered.
Not far from Mr. Andersen’s old haunts, researchers at the University of Copenhagen recently conducted a study that’ll help you feel smart and empowered.
Published in the International Journal of Obesity, it reveals that if you struggle to find time to exercise, bicycling to work can effectively reduce stress and trim you down. In the study, previously inactive people who biked to work (an average of 8.6 miles per day) reduced their fat mass by about 10 pounds, compared to inactive folks. The biking group also showed significantly lower levels of stress.
It helps to live in a place like Copenhagen, where bicycling is a respected part of the culture. But if you can’t bike to work, we suggest biking at work. Dr. Mike has long been an advocate of his treadmill desk, and now there are a slew of pedal-at-your-desk products available. Google “desk bike” and see what pops up!
If you don’t think those bike rides will do the trick, the study also found that overweight people can trim down and lose fat just as effectively as biking to work by doing other moderate exercise during leisure time. So be assured, at your desk or to and from work, you can pedal your way to a younger RealAge.
DIVERSIFY YOUR SPORTS
What do football Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown, baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax and NBA championship player and coach Pat Riley have in common? They all played multiple sports. Jim Brown played lacrosse, basketball and ran track at Syracuse University; Sandy Koufax played basketball and baseball at the University of Cincinnati; and basketballer Pat Riley was drafted as a wide receiver by the Dallas Cowboys. These elite athletes are living proof that playing multiple sports in your youth can keep you in your chosen game longer and in better health.
And that’s confirmed by a recent study titled “The Effects of Playing Multiple High School Sports on National Basketball Association Players’ Propensity for Injury and Athletic Performance,” which focused on 237 athletes. Researchers from University of California San Francisco found that those players who participated in several sports before turning pro were less likely to have major injuries (25 percent vs 43 percent) and were able to play more years than even the best of their single-sport peers.
For parents of high-school athletes, the message is loud and clear:
• Encourage your child to play multiple sports.
• Follow the advice of the American Academy of Pediatrics and avoid single-sport specialization until your teen is 15 to 16.