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Smoking, Obesity Claiming More Lives In UAE

March 24, 2012 By

Non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer are killing more people in the UAE because of unhealthy lifestyle, smoking and fast economic transformation, a national health report said.

Deaths due to heart attacks were way ahead of deaths due to traffic accidents. The other killers were stress and high blood pressure, according to the annual report released by the Ministry of Health yesterday.

Dr Mahmoud Fikri, Assistant Undersecretary of Health Policies Affairs at the Ministry of Health and Chair of Higher National Committee for Diabetes, said: “What really worries us is the less physical activity among adolescents.” [Read more...]

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Losing Weight May Not Boost Self-Esteem In Teen Girls

March 23, 2012 By

Obese teenage girls, who lose weight, may benefit physically but it does not guarantee that they are going to feel better about themselves, a new study has claimed.

The study, conducted by Sarah A Mustillo from Purdue University, was based on data from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Growth and Health Study.

“We found that obese black and white teenage girls who transitioned out of obesity continued to see themselves as fat, despite changes in their relative body mass,” Mustillo said.

“Further, obese white girls had lower self-esteem than their normal-weight peers and their self-esteem remained flat even as they transitioned out of obesity,” she said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 17% of American children ages 2-19 are obese. [Read more...]

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Coffee Not Linked To Psoriasis

March 20, 2012 By

First it was beer, then it was cigarettes. Finally, researchers have found a vice that’s not tied to psoriasis: coffee.

In fact, when Dr. Abrar Qureshi and his team at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston first set out to study whether there was a link between the skin disease and java, they thought the anti-inflammatory properties of caffeine might actually protect against psoriasis.

That had been reported by a group of Irani researchers, who applied caffeine directly to the skin of volunteers with psoriasis and found an apparent benefit. [Read more...]

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Apples, Blueberries Lower Risk Of Diabetes

March 19, 2012 By

Eating more blueberries, apples and pears may be linked to lower risk of diabetes, according to a new US study.

These fruits are loaded with flavonoids, a natural compound present in certain fruits, vegetables and grains, which some research has tentatively tied to heath benefits such as a lower risk of heart disease or cancer.

“People who ate a higher amount of blueberries or apples, they tended to have a low risk of type 2 diabetes,” said An Pan, a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health who worked on the study.

The findings show an association, he added, but don’t prove the fruits, themselves, prevent diabetes.

The new work, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, parallels a study published in the same journal last year associating flavonoid-rich fruits with a reduced risk of high blood pressure. [Read more...]

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For Kids With Food Allergies, Disney Doesn’t Have To Be A Drag

March 18, 2012 By

Spring break is fast approaching, and many families will head to the theme parks of Orlando, Fla., to celebrate.

When you have children with food allergies, the best strategy is to plan months ahead. This is especially true if you plan to fly, want to dine at a particular restaurant or attend a character meal with princesses or mascots. These popular meals book up as early as six months in advance, so if you haven’t booked one already, you’re not likely to get in.

Still, as I learned last fall, it’s possible to plan a fantastic and safe trip with a few weeks notice. [Read more...]

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Study: Red meats Can Boost Risk Of Dying

March 17, 2012 By

A new study says eating red meat can boost your risk of dying young by up to 20 percent.

Harvard University researchers tracked more than 120,000 men and women for more than two decades.

They found that eating a small serving of unprocessed red meat daily, like hamburgers and roast beef, resulted in a 13 percent higher risk of premature death from heart disease and cancer.

If the meat was processed, like in a hot dog or slices of bacon, the risk jumped to 20 percent. [Read more...]

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Red Meat: What Makes It Unhealthy?

March 16, 2012 By

On Monday, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health released study results showing that red meat consumption was associated with a higher risk of early death. The more red meat — beef, pork or lamb, for the purposes of the research — study participants reported they ate, the more likely they were to die during the period of time that data collection took place (more than 20 years).

So what is it in red meat that might make it unhealthy?

No one is sure, exactly, but the authors of the Harvard study mention a few possible culprits in their paper in the Archives of Internal Medicine.  [Read more...]

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