- Seafood (oysters, clams, sardines, crab, saltwater fish and freshwater fish)
- Nuts and seeds (particularly Brazil nuts)
- Lean meat (lean pork and beef, skinless chicken and turkey)
- Whole grains (whole-grain pasta, brown rice, oatmeal, etc.)
- Low-fat dairy products
BY NATASJA SHERIFF, REUTERS
People who keep their teeth and gums healthy with regular brushing may have a lower risk of developing dementia later in life, according to a new study.
Researchers who followed close to 5,500 elderly people over an 18-year period, found those who reported brushing their teeth less than once a day were up to 65 per cent more likely to develop dementia than those who brushed daily.
“Not only does the state of your mind predict what kind of oral health habits you practice, it may be that your oral health habits influence whether or not you get dementia,” said Annlia Paganini-Hill, who led the study at the University of California.
Inflammation stoked by gum disease-related bacteria is implicated in a host of conditions including heart disease, stroke and diabetes.
And some studies have found that people with Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, have more gum disease-related bacteria in their brains than a person without Alzheimer’s, said Paganini-Hill.
It’s thought that gum disease bacteria might get into the brain causing inflammation and brain damage, she told Reuters Health.
So she and her team wanted to look at whether good dental health practices over the long term would predict better cognitive function in later life.
The researchers followed 5,468 residents of a Californian retirement community from 1992 to 2010. Most people in the study were white, well-educated, and relatively affluent. When the study began, participants ranged in age from 52 to 105, with an average age of 81.
All were free of dementia at the outset, when they answered questions about their dental health habits, the condition of their teeth and whether they wore dentures.
When the researchers followed-up 18 years later, they used interviews, medical records and in some cases death certificates to determine that 1,145 of the original group had been diagnosed with dementia.
Of 78 women who said they brushed their teeth less than once a day in 1992, 21 had dementia by 2010, or about one case per 3.7 women. In comparison, among those who brushed their teeth at least once a day, closer to one in every 4.5 women developed dementia. That translates to a 65-per cent greater likelihood of dementia among those who brushed less than daily.
Among the men, the effect was less pronounced, with about one in six irregular brushers developing the disease – making them 22 per cent more likely to have dementia than those who did brush daily. Statistically, however, the effect was so small it could have been due to chance, the researchers said.
There was a significant difference seen between men who had all, or at least most, of their teeth, or who wore dentures, and those who didn’t – the latter group were almost twice as likely to develop dementia.
That effect was not seen in women, though.
Paginini-Hill could only speculate on the reasons for the different outcomes among men and women. Perhaps women wear their dentures more often than men, and they visit the dentist more frequently, she suggested.
The new findings, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, cannot prove that poor dental health can cause dementia.
Neglecting one’s teeth might be an early sign of vulnerability to dementia, for instance, or some other factor could be influencing both conditions.
Still, this report “is really the first to look at the effect of actions like brushing and flossing your teeth,” said Dr. Amber Watts, who studies the causes of dementia at the University of Kansas and was not involved in the research.
The new study does have some limitations. Paganini-Hill and her team looked at behavior and tooth count as a kind of proxy for oral health and gum disease. They didn’t carry out any dental exams so they couldn’t determine if people had gum disease or not.
And tooth loss isn’t always related to gum disease, Watts noted. Head injury and malnutrition are also important causes of tooth loss in adults, and any of those might increase risk for dementia, she said.
“I would be reluctant to draw the conclusion that brushing your teeth would definitely prevent you from getting Alzheimer’s disease,” Watts said.
Yet despite the limitations, Watts said the study is an important step toward understanding how behavior might be linked to dementia.
“It’s nice if this relationship holds true as there’s something people can do (to reduce their chances of developing dementia),” said Paganini-Hill. “First, practice good oral health habits to prevent tooth loss and oral diseases. And second, if you do lose your teeth, wear dentures.”
According to a new consumer report, children’s back-to -school supplies have chemicals that have been linked to asthma and birth defects.
BY AMBER MOORE | AUG 27, 2012
According to a new consumer report, children’s back-to -school supplies have chemicals that have been linked to asthma and birth defects.High levels of phthalates were found in vinyl backpacks, rain boots, raincoats, lunch boxes and 3-ring binders. Popular branded school supplies including Disney, Dora and Spiderman had elevated levels of phthalates.
One product, the Amazing Spiderman Lunchbox, contained an estimated 27,900 parts per million (ppm) of the phthalate DEHP which is 27 times more phthalate than what is allowed in toys.
“Our investigation found elevated levels of toxic phthalates widespread in children’s school supplies, including Disney and Spider-Man lunchboxes and backpacks. These dangerous chemicals manufactured by Exxon Mobil have no place in our children’s school supplies,” said Mike Schade, Center for Health, Environment & Justice (CHEJ) author of the new report, Hidden Hazards: Toxic Chemicals Inside Children’s Vinyl Back-to-School Supplies.
Phthalates are used in a variety of things like soaps, shampoos, building materials plastic toys etc. Previous research has shown that exposure to phthalates is common in infants. Phthalates are also known to disrupt the human hormonal system and reproduction system. Polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, is used extensively because it is flexible and stable. This flexibility is achieved by the use of plasticizers like phthalates, diesters of phthalates and phthalic acids. Previous research has shown that exposure to phthalates can cause asthma.
In the present study, 20 back-to-school supplies available at various store in the New York City area were tested for the presence of phthalates. Researchers at Paradigm Environmental Services tested multiple components of the same products for the presence of 6 phthalates and heavy metals. The phthalates measured were Diethyl phthalate (DEP), Dimethyl phthalate (DMP), Di‐n‐butyl phthalate (DBP), Bis (2‐ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP), Butylbenzyl phthalate (BBP) and Di‐n‐octyl phthalate (DnOP).
The report recommends that parents must
- -> Always buy products that do not contain vinyl
- -> Check for universal recycling symbol. If the product has been labeled as V or PVC, then avoid the product.
- If you are unsure if the product has vinyl then email or call the 1-800 number of the manufacturer or the retailer and ask them about the material used in the product.
By Genevra Pittman
NEW YORK | Tue Aug 21, 2012
(Reuters Health) – For youngsters who turn up their noses at fruits and vegetables, slapping a cartoon face on a healthy snack could make those choices more appealing, a new study suggests.
Researchers found that when elementary school students were offered apples and cookies with lunch, kids were more likely to opt for an apple when it was branded with an Elmo sticker.
One researcher not involved in the new study said parents and school administrators can take a lesson from food companies: Elmo, Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob help sell snacks, healthy or unhealthy.
“There are so many foods that are of poor nutritional quality and they are being marketed to children,” said Christina Roberto, who studies food choices at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.
Kid-friendly characters used for marketing “aren’t popping up on the carrots and apples as much as they are on a wide range of foods that aren’t so good for kids,” Roberto told Reuters Health.
Those cartoon characters and other flashy advertising often don cookie and candy packaging, said David Just, co-director of the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs in Ithaca, New York.
For the new study, Just and his colleagues did the apple and cookie experiment with 208 eight- to 11-year-olds at suburban and rural schools every day at lunch for a week. Kids were allowed to choose an apple, a cookie or both snacks along with their normal meal.
Some of those days, the snacks were offered without cartoon stickers or other branding. On other days, either the cookie or the apple was branded with a familiar kids’ character.
When the snacks weren’t specially marked, 91 percent of kids took a cookie and just under one-quarter took an apple.
Putting an Elmo sticker on the apples led 37 percent of kids to take fruit, the researchers reported this week in a letter to the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
Stickers on cookies didn’t affect kids’ choice of the sweet snack – probably because the youngsters already knew they tasted good, according to Just.
Roberto said some experts want branding off of kids’ foods altogether, but others are willing to experiment with marketing strategies to encourage kids to make healthier choices.
Just advocated for the latter strategy.
“If we’re trying to promote healthier foods, we need to be as smart as the companies that are selling the less-healthy foods,” he told Reuters Health. “The message should be: fight fire with fire.”
Fire, in this case, being Elmo and other friendly faces, of course.
Using stickers on fruits and vegetables could be one cheap option to help improve students’ diets, Roberto said, as well as something parents can try at home.
“It’s not a bad idea to create those positive associations,” Roberto said, “especially if you’re struggling to get kids to eat healthy foods.”
Just added that parents can use fun names to encourage little kids especially to see fruits and vegetables as cool, such as “X-ray vision carrots” and “power peas.”
SOURCE: bit.ly/Rzn7zT Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, online August 20, 2012. reuters.com
If you started using reusable bags exclusively starting at age 25, you could save more than 21,000 plastic bags in your lifetime. Point being: sustainable eating doesn’t have to be hard, and it also doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing. A single change can make a difference
The sustainable food movement is sweeping the country. Farmer’s markets, organic produce, genetically modified foods, cage-free eggs — they’ve all become part of the cultural lingo. While a lot of this conversation focuses around whether organic foods are better for people’s health, let’s not forget that these trends are also good for the planet. Read on to learn about the 33 environmentally friendly eating habits that are making a difference for our bodies and our earth.
11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and
source: Life’s Little Instruction Book by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.