Facts and News

Facts About Healthy Living

• Over the past 30 years, the number of overweight children has doubled and the number of overweight teenagers has tripled.

• Studies show that individuals who are 20% or more overweight run a greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, arthritis, and some forms of cancer.
• The prevalence of diabetes increased by 33% in the past 20 years, due primarily to the increased number of overweight people.
• It takes approximately 20 minutes for your brain to know that your stomach is full.

• The majority of items in existing vending machines contribute to a variety of health issues including obesity, diabetes and heart disease, as well as behavioral issues such as hyperactivity, fatigue and aggression.
• Over 300,000 deaths per year are caused by poor nutrition and a lack of physical activity.
• One out of every three children born today will develop diabetes at some point in their lifetime if dietary trends continue as they are today.
• A can of soda contains 10 teaspoons of sugar.

• In the US, the average adult drinks about 500 cans of soda a year.
• In the United States, obesity is second only to smoking as a cause of death.

• According to the Canadian Pediatric Society, most food advertising on children's TV shows is for fast foods, soft drinks, candy and pre-sweetened cereals.

News and Articles

1.

Get your children away from the TV - Physical fitness makes smarter brains Tuesday, October 12, 2010 by: S. L. Baker, features writer

Want to raise healthy and smart children? Then don't allow them to be couch potatoes. Exercise, it turns out, does more than benefit the body and overall health -- physical fitness builds smarter brains in youngsters, too.
That's the news from a study just published in the journal Brain Research. Scientists used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure the relative size of specific structures in the brains of 49 children, all of whom were 9 or 10 years old. The research team discovered that the hippocampus (part of the brain inside the temporal lobe that plays an important part in memory and learning) tended to be significantly larger in the kids who were physically fit. What's more, the fit children performed better on a memory test than youngsters the same age who were out of shape.
"This is the first study I know of that has used MRI measures to look at differences in brains between kids who are fit and kids who aren't fit.

For the new study, the University of Illinois scientists measured the children's physical fitness levels by seeing how efficiently the youngsters used oxygen while running on a treadmill. "The physically fit children were much more efficient than the less-fit children at utilizing oxygen," Dr. Kramer noted.

In fact, this part of the physical fit kids' brains was a whopping 12 percent bigger, relative to total brain size, than the hippocampus in out-of-shape youngsters. What's more, the children who were in better physical condition also scored higher on tests of relational memory (the ability to remember and integrate various types of information) than their less-fit peers

"Higher fit children had higher performance on the relational memory task, higher fit children had larger hippocampal volumes, and in general, children with larger hippocampal volumes had better relational memory," Dr. Chaddock concluded in the media statement.

2.

Lack of Sleep Greatly Increases Breast Cancer Risk

Sunday, December 07, 2008 by: Reuben Chow

A study on almost 24,000 Japanese women recently published in the British Journal of Cancer has found that lack of sleep can greatly increase the risk of breast cancer, with women who slept 6 hours or less every night having a significantly higher risk.
 Breast Cancer Statistics

Breast cancer is the most common cancer to hit women worldwide. In Japan, when age-standardized to the world population, the incidence rate was 28.3 per 100,000 in 1991, and rose to 39.5 in 2001.
In the United States in 2004, the disease hit more than 185,000 women and over 1,800 men, with almost 41,000 women and 362 men dying from it that year. In that year, after non-melanoma skin cancer, breast cancer was the next highest cancer killer of American women. It was also their fifth highest killer overall.

With such grim statistics, every little thing which can be done to prevent and combat the disease becomes all the more critical.

The Sleep Duration – Breast Cancer Link

Why is breast cancer risk linked to sleep duration? The answer could lie in melatonin, which is secreted during night sleep. When a person sleeps fewer hours, less melatonin is secreted, and lower levels of the chemical had previously been associated with increased breast cancer risk.
In addition, melatonin may possess an inhibitory effect on gonadal function, which includes synthetizing and secreting sex hormones. It had also been found to have an antiproliferative effect on breast cancer cells.

 

3.

Eating seasonally - one of your best health allies

Sunday, April 15, 2012 by: Christina Luisa

Imagine a vegetable garden in the dead of winter, then imagine that same garden on a sunny summer day. Part of the beauty of nature's bounties comes from how vastly different they are during the various seasons of the year. The seasons are a source of natural diversity, and this is why changes in growing conditions from spring to summer or fall to winter are considered essential for balance for both the earth's resources and its life forms.

Just because technology makes it possible for us to have oranges in winter, however, doesn't mean we should eat all foods whenever we please. The disadvantages of living in a technologically advanced period with modern day food practices have revealed themselves among us in the form of an increasing number of food intolerances and allergies, higher levels of obesity, modern chronic diseases like type-2 diabetes and much more

Research supporting seasonal eating

In a research study conducted in 1997 by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in London, England, notable differences were found in the nutrient content of milk in summer versus winter. Iodine content was higher in the winter and beta-carotene was higher in the summer. The Ministry discovered that these differences in milk composition were primarily due to differences in the diets of the cows. With more salt-preserved foods in winter and more fresh plants in the summer, cows ended up producing nutritionally different milks during the two seasons. Similarly, researchers in Japan found tremendous differences in the vitamin C content of spinach harvested in summer versus winter.

What are the benefits of eating seasonally?

• Better nutritional content and overall health
• Sustainable and environmental benefits
• Economical benefits

4.

How Vitamin D Inhibits Inflammation

ScienceDaily (Feb. 23, 2012) — Researchers at National Jewish Health have discovered specific molecular and signaling events by which vitamin D inhibits inflammation. In their experiments, they showed that low levels of Vitamin D, comparable to levels found in millions of people, failed to inhibit the inflammatory cascade, while levels considered adequate did inhibit inflammatory signaling. They reported their results in the March 1, 2012, issue of The Journal of Immunology.

Current national guidelines suggest that people should maintain a minimum blood serum level of 20 ng/ml, although there is much scientific debate about optimum levels. Vitamin D has long been known to contribute to bone health by promoting the absorption of calcium. In recent years, much attention has been paid to its possible immune and inflammatory benefits. Low vitamin D levels have been associated with several diseases including asthma, cancer, diabetes, and arthritis.

In the current study researchers examined the specific mechanisms by which vitamin D might act on immune and inflammatory pathways. They incubated human white blood cells with varying levels of vitamin D, then exposed them to lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a molecule associated with bacterial cell walls that is known to promote intense inflammatory responses.

"This newly identified DNA-binding site for the vitamin-D receptor, and the specific pathways inhibited by higher levels of vitamin D provide a plausible mechanism for many of the benefits that have been associated with vitamin D," said Dr. Goleva. 'The fact that we showed a dose-dependent and varying response to levels commonly found in humans also adds weight to the argument for vitamin D's role in immune and inflammatory conditions."