The Telangana Science Journal, July 2006, Issue 103

Contents

Diet and Exercise	Miscellaneous	Recipes
Daily Activity Keeps You Alive City that needs Dieting and Exercise Omega-3 Fatty Acids	Yoga to Help US Military Smoking Statistics Bogus Natural Alternatives to Viagra Tanning Risks Implantable Contraceptive Liver Killer	Raspberry Passion Fruit Swirls

Diet and Exercise

Daily Activity Keeps You Alive
Everybody- from young to old- should exercise and control eating, if health is important. When exercising and eating healthy low-calorie and low-fat food becomes as habitual as brushing your teeth, lasting change will occur.

About two-thirds of adults in the USA are overweight or obese. According to a Harris phone survey from March 1998, a whopping 76 percent of adults older than age 25 were found to be heavier than the recommended weight for their height and body frame. The percentage of the population in the "obese" category (weighing 20 percent or more above recommended weight) was 28 percent. Two societal shifts one in employment and one in eating habits are responsible for increased national girth. Today, more people than ever work at sedentary jobs. Rows of office cubicles filled with immobile bodies have replaced rows of soil with people digging and planting and fertilizing as they till the fields. Even activity-intense manufacturing jobs, which once amounted to eight-hour workouts, have largely left our shores. The second shift is the country's ever-increasing reliance on high calories and/or high fatty convenience foods, which have all but swept traditional well-balanced meals off the family dinner table. Even dinners prepared at home contain high amounts of fat and high calories when prople rely on prepared packaged foods.

Half of Americans say they're trying to control their weight, but many are sabotaging themselves, a study shows in July's American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Weight-loss experts have long said calorie control and physical activity are both necessary for weight control. To prevent weight gain, experts suggest 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity most days. There are a thousand reasons why this obesity epidemic is so out of control, and one of them is no one wants to talk about it. Telling a child that it is obese might make it and the family angry, but it addresses a serious issue head-on, according to experts. The diplomatic approach adopted by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and used by many doctors avoids the word "obese" because of the stigma. The CDC also calls overweight kids "at risk of overweight." Experts say the current terms encourage denial of a problem affecting increasing numbers of U.S. youngsters, and propose changes. Obese "sounds mean and it doesn't sound good," said an obese teenager who thinks the proposed change is a bad idea.

A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that older people who spent time on everyday activities such as gardening and household chores had a significantly lower risk of mortality than sedentary seniors. During about eight years of follow-up, the researchers found that the participants who were most active had an almost 50% lower risk of mortality compared to the least active, even though the most active subjects did not do much traditional exercise.

Several studies presented at the 10th International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders in Spain in July add to the evidence suggesting that lifestyle factors might help maintain the brain's mental edge and might protect against Alzheimer's. Middle-aged people who eat a diet low in saturated fat and engage in vigorous exercise could avoid developing Alzheimer's later in life. Middle-age people with prediabetes, high blood pressure and other factors that might increase their risk of Alzheimer's should just say no to that chocolate milkshake and go for a walk instead!

For women, excess pounds in early adulthood could mean a higher risk of death in middle age. The heavier a woman is at 18, the greater her risk of dying prematurely, according to a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Researchers at Columbia University in New York found that overweight and obese women spend an average of three more years in ill health than normal-weight women. Heavy men, on average, are sicker one more year than their thinner counterparts. Heavy people are more likely to suffer from pain, arthritis, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and other illnesses that may affect their ability to perform daily tasks such as bathing and getting dressed, the research shows.

A study to be published in the journal Cancer found that prostate cancer patients who are moderately to severely obese are more likely to see their cancer return after radiation treatment than slimmer men.

European and international health experts say a new study reported in Lancet makes the most convincing case yet for the benefits of children being active. They say the research may lead to new guidelines saying youngsters between ages 5 and 16 need to be active up to 1 1/2 hours a day. Just making sure children play outside will double the amount of physical activity they get. The more active children had healthier numbers for blood pressure, cholesterol and insulin.

Dance to Health! For many couples looking to get fit, the dance floor offers an exhilarating alternative to the drudgery of the gym, and experts say sticking to an exercise regime is easier when it's not a chore. Depending on the step, ballroom dancing can burn anywhere from 250 calories to 400 calories an hour -- about the same as a brisk half-hour walk on a treadmill, and the more demanding dances like the salsa, samba and cha-cha can be comparable to an intense session at the gym. Dancing works muscles in different parts of the body and sharpens balance and coordination. Memorizing steps, kicks and twirls also flexes the mind

City that needs Dieting and Exercise
When a city’s culinary strengths are hot dogs, greasy deep-dish pizzas and Italian meat sandwiches, naturally obesity and diabetes are serious problems. Not so surprisingly, Men’s Fitness magazine named Chicago America’s fattest city in its annual survey, published in January.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids
The omega-3 fatty acids found in flax-seeds, urad and fish are already known to help the heart and brain stay healthy. The new studies, appearing in the Archives of Ophthalmology, add to evidence omega-3 fats also protect the eyes.

Miscellaneous
Yoga to Help US Military
The August edition of Fit Yoga, the nation's second-largest yoga magazine with a circulation of 100,000, features a photo of two Naval aviators doing yoga poses in full combat gear aboard an aircraft carrier. Yoga is becoming popular with military. The popular classes, based on ancient Hindu practices of meditation through controlled breathing, balancing and stretching, are catching on in military circles as a way to improve flexibility, balance and concentration. Yoga breathing exercises can help SEALs with their diving, and learning to control the body by remaining in unusual positions can help members stay in confined spaces for long periods.

Smoking Statistics
About 12 percent of women worldwide smoke, and that figure is expected to rise to 20 percent by 2025, according to a report by the International Network of Women Against Tobacco. About 48 percent of men smoke, but that number is expected to decline, according to the report released in July at a conference sponsored by the American Cancer Society. A California study cited a causal link between second hand smoke and breast cancer.

Bogus Natural Alternatives to Viagra
Some products touted on the Internet as natural alternatives to impotence drugs like Viagra illegally contain the same active ingredients as the prescription medicines; the Food and Drug Administration warned consumers not to buy or use seven of the so-called dietary supplements, sold online to treat impotence and enhance sexual performance. The products named by the FDA are: Zimaxx, Libidus, Neophase, Nasutra, Vigor-25, Actra-Rx and 4Everon. Chemical analyses showed the products contain either chemical ingredients that are similar to sildenafil or a second drug called vardenafil, the FDA said. Vardenafil is the active ingredient in Levitra, an impotence drug sold by GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Schering-Plough Corp. FDA testing of Zimaxx showed that it contains sildenafil, the same active ingredient in Viagra, made by Pfizer Inc., and sold only by prescription in the United States.

Tanning Risks
European Union experts warned sunbeds and tanning lamps may increase the risk of skin cancer, and advised against their use by children and other people at high risk. Sunbeds and tanning lamps are not a harmless alternative to natural sunlight, said the 43-page report of the EU's Scientific committee on Consumer Products.

Implantable Contraceptive
Women in the United States got a new long-term birth control option which has already been used for the past eight years in other countries. The Food and Drug Administration has approved the eight-year old implantable contraceptive that can prevent pregnancy for up to three years. Implanon is an inch-and-a-half-long rod designed to be implanted beneath the skin of a woman's upper arm. The rod releases a steady dose of progestin. Implanon must be removed after three years.

Acetaminophen
A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that people taking the maximum dose of acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, daily for a short period had abnormal liver test results.

Health and Nutrition

Issue 103