Don’t ruin that cup of coffee with fat or sugar
Michael Roizen, M.D. and Mehmet Oz, M.D.
In the 1998 film, “You’ve Got Mail,” chain-store owning, hard-driving businessman Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) rants about personalized coffee orders. “Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, lowfat, non-fat, etc. … people who don’t know what the hell they’re doing or who on Earth they are, can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee, but an absolutely defining sense of self.”
Joe was a bit off-base. We get why people are picky about their coffee: You want that cuppa Joe (ironic?) to be primo. But what’s worth ranting about is the impulse to take a good-for-you beverage and turn it into a drink that is anything but healthy.
In a study published in the journal Public Health, researchers found a full two-thirds of coffee drinkers add high-calorie, inflammation-triggering, heart-clogging substances like sugar, cream and flavored syrups to their franchised cup of java, adding 60 to 140 extra calories per drink.
By itself, coffee is loaded with disease-preventing compounds. In fact, the scientific report of the U.S. dietary guidelines advisory committee says: “Consistent evidence indicates that coffee consumption is associated with reduced risk of Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease in adults. Moreover, moderate evidence shows a protective association between caffeine intake and risk of Parkinson’s disease.”
So, if black coffee isn’t for you, use nonfat milk; add cinnamon or nutmeg, but use the real deal, not anything with high fructose, corn-syrupy additives. Then when you walk up to the counter you’ll hand over your bucks, but not your health.
Move your mood to happy
The classic 2005 animated movie “Madagascar” ends with a funny rendition of the song “Move It,” in which all the zoo animals bust out their dance moves. Most of the moves involve little more than hip shaking or shuffling. But they make you laugh and send you out of the theater feeling happy.
The next time you see this movie (or a promo for it), we hope it’ll remind you of what a new study found: Movement, no matter how little or silly, helps improve your mood.
To track how mood was connected to moving, researchers created a special app that 10,000 Android users downloaded. For 17 months, the app regularly asked the folks if they’d been sitting, standing, walking, running, lying down or doing something else in the past 15 minutes and how they were feeling. It also periodically checked overall life satisfaction.
The scientists found that the more people moved throughout the day, even if it was just standing or fidgeting, the happier they were. (If you’re doing your 10,000 steps a day, you’re ahead of this curve.)
The lesson: If you can’t exercise (you’re stuck at a desk or busy at home), make sure you move around.
It’s vitally important not just for your physical health, but your emotional well-being, too.
Question: I’ve been reading about a possible link between air pollution and Alzheimer’s disease. Is that true? — Fritz K., Pittsburgh
Answer: Yes, it’s true, but not just Alzheimer’s. A study in Translational Psychiatry examined data from the Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study and found that exposure to particulate matter exceeding Environmental Protection Agency standards “increased the risks for global cognitive decline and all-cause dementia respectively by 81 and 92 percent.” That’s HUGE!
Particulate matter 2.5 microns or less in diameter is called PM2.5; it causes damage deep in the lungs, body-wide inflammation and cognitive deficits.
The EPA’s acceptable limit for PM2.5 and smaller is 35 mcg per cubic meter of air. The day this article was written, Los Angeles had an average of 74 and New York City, 38. (Beijing’s has gone over 800 PM2.5s.)
Our history: In 1970, Richard Nixon, with congressional approval, cre- ated the EPA. At the time, the U.S. had bad pollution problems (Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River caught fire in 1969) and air pollution from leaded gasoline was found to cause brain damage. The EPA’s efforts to clean up water and air immediately started saving lives. Then in 1990, George H.W. Bush signed the Clean Air Act so that, in his words, “cancer risk, respiratory disease, heart ailments and reproductive disorders will be reduced.”
Your best bet: Support continued efforts to clean up polluted air (and water) and use high-efficiency particulate air filters (HEPA) to clean indoor air down to .01 and .03 microns! Ahhh!