health is wealth

Overweight Kids Prone to Iron Deficiency

Overweight toddlers, especially those of Hispanic origin, seem to be more prone to iron deficiency, new research concludes.

Twenty percent of children ages 1 to 3 years are iron deficient, compared with 7 percent of toddlers of normal weight, scientists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center said. Low blood iron levels reduce the amount of oxygen carried through the body, leading to mental and behavioral delays, the Associated Press reported.

Experts advised that toddlers should eat iron-rich foods including meats, beans, eggs, spinach, and fortified breads, the wire service said. Those who are still fed from bottles tend to drink low-iron milk and juice at the expense of eating sold foods, said study co-author Jane Brotanek.

"What you put in your baby's bottle can affect your child's future," she said.

Hispanic toddlers are more likely than those who are white or black to be obese, which could explain their increased tendency to be iron deficient, Brotanek said. Twelve percent of Hispanic toddlers were iron deficient, compared to 6 percent of whites and 6 percent of blacks, the AP reported.

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Childhood TV viewing can cause teenage problems .
) Two men chat in front of flat screens at an exhibition stand of the IFA 2007 consumer electronics fair in Berlin August 30, 2007. Manufacturers at Europe's biggest consumer electronics touted their green credentials in vain to customers more interested in bigger and brighter screens. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke CHICAGO (Reuters) - Watching television more than two hours a day early in life can lead to attention problems later in adolescence, according to a study released on Tuesday. The roughly 40 percent increase in attention problems among heavy TV viewers was observed in both boys and girls, and was independent of whether a diagnosis of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder was made prior to adolescence. The link was established by a long-term study of the habits and behaviors of more than 1,000 children born in Dunedin, New Zealand, between April 1972 and March

Genes Permanently Turned On by Smoking

A study, which was published in BMC Genomics, an on-line open-access journal, was able to explain why those people who used to smoke still have a higher risk for lung cancer development than those who never had the bad habit.

NO SMOKING PLEASE.

Greens Could Reduce Breast Cancer
How eating your greens now could keep you disease-free.

It's no secret that salads made with mixed leafy greens are good for you. But preliminary research on a class of flavonoids called flavones may provide yet one more compelling reason to eat your greens (and other veggies, too). A collaborative study from Tufts University's Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Harvard School of Public Health, the University of Athens in Greece, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows that these substances may decrease breast cancer risk.

Researchers looked at the diets of 2,000 Greek women and noted that for every .5 milligram of flavones—the amount in a cup and a half of raw spinach or about 2 cups of shredded iceberg lettuce—consumed per day, their risk of breast cancer dropped by 13 percent. You can also up your flavone intake by munching on a celery stick or sweet red or green peppers.

Further studies are being conducted to see if the results stand up. Even if they don't, you can't go wrong: Eat a bowl of leafy greens, and you'll still get a healthy dose of calcium, cancer-fighting antioxidants, and vitamin K.

Have A Green food$BE healthy $ BE wealthy.

Top 5 Foods for Women
Make these five superfoods part of your diet at any age.

Cranberries
They earn super status for their ability to help fight off nasty urinary tract infections. About 10 ounces of juice a day does the trick. Plus, recent research shows that cranberries might also help fend off colds and fight stomach bugs, gum disease, and certain types of cancer. Add a little unsweetened cranberry juice to smoothies, and sprinkle some dried berries into cereal and muffin mix.

Walnuts
These nuts are rich in omega-3s, which help reduce inflam-mation and increase good cholesterol. They may even help with depression and reduce your risk of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Top your salad with 1/4 cup or try them in pesto.

Beans
The humble legume may prevent heart disease and help head ?off colon cancer. Rich in two heart-friendly phytochemicals, beans are packed with magnesium, potassium, folate, and fiber. Get a 1/2 cup five to six times per week by adding canned kidney and garbanzo beans (rinse and drain first) to salads, burritos, and dips.

Fish
Studies show that eating seafood rich in omega-3s at least twice a week could reduce your risk of heart disease. And the reports say women of childbearing age and nursing mothers can safely eat as much as 12 ounces of seafood a week if they avoid high-mercury swordfish, shark, tilefish, and king mackerel; albacore tuna should be limited to 6 ounces a week.

Tomatoes
Loaded with the antioxidant lycopene, tomatoes and ?cooked tomato products pack a big health punch (at 32 milligrams, 1 cup of spaghetti sauce serves up the day’s recommended intake). Studies show that women with lycopene-rich diets can have as much as a 50 percent lower risk of developing breast cancer. The antioxidant can also lower your blood pressure and bad cholesterol, and may even reduce your risk of getting macular degeneration and a host of cancers.

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Laughter is the best medicine! - A sense of humour reduces mortality

Take a Good Look at Yourself
by Arianne Cohen
How accurately do you see yourself? A basic litmus test tells you if you’re seeing yourself as the world sees you.

Write down 20 sentences that start with the phrase “I am,” such as “I am outgoing” or “I am a good mother,” self-awareness expert Stephen Franzoi, PhD, suggests. Have a trusted friend make her own “You are” list. Then compare.

Your “I am” and “You are” results probably won’t match perfectly (most people overlap on less than one-fifth of the descriptions). But if you see yourself as refined and sophisticated and your friends think you’re goofy and boisterous, you may need to do some self-reflection and start paying more attention to others’ reactions to you.

Yoga and Meditation Proven Beneficial in Treating High Blood Pressure

According to an Aug. 22 press release, the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP) announced the presentation of a study to determine how effective mind-body therapies (MBT) are in reducing high blood pressure or hypertension.

About 30 percent of adults in America currently have high blood pressure, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Further, nearly a third of those with high blood pressure don't know they have it. High blood pressure is known to be a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke, congestive heart failure, and kidney disease, and it's a leading cause of doctor visits in the country. According to the CDC, it was estimated that the direct and indirect costs of high blood pressure in the U.S. in 2006 would be $63.5 billion.

The CDC says that high blood pressure can be prevented or controlled through lifestyle changes and with medications when needed. However, the AANP asserts that approximately 50 million Americans are believed to have hypertension and that control of it is terribly inadequate, especially in light of hypertension's prevalence and the medical conditions associated with the disease.

According to the AANP, about 42 percent of the population have used complementary and alternative medicine to treat their health care problems, including approximately 3 million people who have tried mind-body techniques to treat their hypertension.

The team of researchers systematically studied the efficacy of mind-body therapies versus placebo or active control therapies. The main focus was on changes in systolic and diastolic blood pressure, both before and after intervention. They compared mind-body techniques, including meditation, yoga, and guided imagery, (alone or in combination with conventional medical treatment), to conventional treatment alone and to no intervention while on a wait list.

Of the three mind-body therapies analyzed (yoga, meditation, and guided imagery), yoga demonstrated the most significant results, although meditation also demonstrated positive results in lowering high blood pressure.

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Lose Weight with Negative Calorie Foods
We all know that the key to losing weight is burning off the calories that we consume. Getting fat is as easy as eating a few meals and never getting rid of the excess calories you take in. But what if you could keep eating and lose weight with no special exercises?

Like all food, "negative calorie" foods actually do have calories. The difference between these foods and the rest is that these "negative calorie" ones burn up more calories during the process of digestion than they actually have in themselves. These foods force our bodies to work harder to break down the nutrients in the food.

For example, a medium apple is about 90 calories. But your body might burn 110 calories just to digest it. The result you get is a net loss of 20 calories just by eating alone.

A 25-calorie piece of broccoli requires 80 calories to digest. That's 55 calories burned just by eating one piece of broccoli!

If you are looking to lose some weight and it seems overwhelming, try putting more of these negative calorie foods in your diet. You can shed some pounds without starving or having to exercise.A vegetarian diet consisting mostly of fruits and vegetables, was adhered to by research subjects as an experimental study on the reversal of heart disease. As a result each of the research subjects (all suffering from heart disease), lost an average of 20 pounds without cutting calories or limiting serving sizes.

Some Negative Calorie Fruits

Apples,
Blueberries,
Cranberries,
Grapefruit,
Lemons,
Mangos,
Oranges,
Pineapple,
Papayas,
Raspberries,
Strawberries,
Tangerines

Some Negative Calorie Vegetables

Asparagus,
Beets,
Broccoli,
Cabbage (green),
Carrots,
Cauliflower,
Celery (one of the best)
Chicory,
Chili Peppers,
Cucumbers,
Endive,
Fennel,
Gourd,
Garlic,
Leek,
Lettuce,
Onions,
Prunes,
Radishes,
Rhubarb (great source when stewed)
Spinach,
Tomato,
Turnip,
Zucchini

Just remember, if you are going to incorporate negative calorie foods into your diet be sure not to over-do yourself. Eating only these types of foods can weaken the muscles through a lack of protein. Also, if you're trying to lose weight you should know that by eating these foods you must be careful to not use their benefits as an excuse to eat way too much. Remember to eat in moderation and not just gorge because you think you can't get fat. You might not put on the extra pounds but you are doing yourself a disservice by letting your mind think it is okay to overeat constantly.
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Heartburn Can Be a Sign of Serious Disease
Left untreated, acid reflux symptoms can cause throat strictures, cancer, group warns

Heartburn occurs when stomach contents and gastric acid are regurgitated into the esophagus, the tube that connects the mouth and the stomach.

Heartburn can be more than just uncomfortable, it can be a sign of a serious problem called gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Symptoms of GERD include burning chest pain, regurgitation of bitter or sour liquid, difficulty swallowing, and excessive clearing of the throat.
Left untreated, persistent heartburn/GERD symptoms can lead to severe complications such as esophageal strictures or a precancerous condition called Barrett's Esophagus. In rare cases, people with persistent heartburn/GERD develop esophageal cancer.
Eating smaller meals, controlling your weight, avoiding tight-fitting clothes, and avoiding heavy lifting/straining are all ways of reducing heartburn. Don't lie down after meals, because that makes it easier for stomach contents (including acid) to back up into the esophagus. Do not eat for three to four hours before you go to bed.
Avoid common heartburn triggers such as smoking, caffeine, chocolate, peppermint, fatty and spicy foods, and tomato sauces.
Pregnancy may increase the risk of GERD symptoms.
Infrequent heartburn can be controlled with antacids, H2 blockers or proton pump inhibitors.
See a doctor if you: have heartburn two or more times a week; don't get lasting relief from medication; have difficulty swallowing, especially solid foods; have choking, wheezing, hoarseness or unexplained weight loss; experience chronic or recurrent GERD symptoms that last for more than a year.
TAKECARE ABOUT ur HEALTH.HEALTH is more than WEALTH.

AVOID TEENS CELL TALK AT NIGHTS
SATURDAY, Sept. 1 (HealthDay News) -- If your kids are falling asleep in their morning cereal, check their cell phones -- even a tiny bit of nighttime chatting might be robbing them of needed sleep.

A new study found that teens who reported using their cell phones after bedtime just once a month nearly doubled their odds of being very tired a year later. Those who gabbed away after lights out once a week were more than three times as likely to be tired.

The study only looked at students in Flanders, Belgium. But one U.S. pediatrician said the findings probably hold true for American kids, too.

"You have a population that's always tired to begin with," said Dr. Irwin Benuck, an attending physician at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Add nighttime cell-phone use to the mix, and the findings are "very predictable and not surprising," added Benuck, who's familiar with the study.

Study author Jan Van den Bulck, a researcher at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, surveyed 1,656 secondary school students; the average age in one group was 13.7 years and 16.9 years in the other.

Only 38 percent of the teens surveyed said they never used their cell phones after bedtime. Using the phone right after lights out increased the risk of being "very tired" a year later by 2.2 times; those who talked or text messaged between midnight and 3 a.m. raised their risk nearly fourfold.

Van den Bulck blamed cell phone use for tiredness in about one-third of all the children. "There is no safe dose and no safe time for using the mobile phone for text messaging or for calling after lights out," Van den Bulck wrote in the study.

In an interview, the author said parents may be in the dark about the nighttime activities of their kids. "It is a very typical phenomenon -- kids grow up with new technologies that adults discovered at a much later age, and, as a result, they use these technologies in ways adults can't even imagine," Van den Bulck said. "Concerned parents often think they know what their kids are up to, but often they don't."

Why would using a cell phone just once a month raise the risk of tiredness? "Possibly kids who say they don't use their phone underestimate the real frequency of the behaviors. Or maybe once you've started considering using the phone, you remain 'switched on,' " Van den Bulck said. "After all, don't forget that cell phone use requires at least two people. People who call may expect to be called as well -- even if you don't call much, you may still end up being awake, awaiting a potential call."

So what's a parent to do? Simple, Van den Bulck said: Restrict or forbid cell phone use after bedtime. "To teenagers, I would say: Be strong! You may feel that you need to stay connected with your friends all night, but you gain nothing by tiring yourself out, which is what you would be doing."
DO U WANT 'HEALTH or WEALTH'?
HEALTH is MORE ABOVE ALL.BE HEALTHY..BE WEALTHY.