TresSugar

"Fit Not Fat" Report Highlights Stats on World Obesity

FitSugar — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 03:00:18 PDT

Last week, the OECD, an international economic organization of 33 countries (including the US, Canada, and much of Europe), released its stats on obesity around the world. The "Fit Not Fat" report gives some depressing figures on the current trends in obesity, which the organization says is the result of many factors, including increased food supply, fewer home-cooked meals, less physical activity at work, and more sophisticated tactics from food advertisers. The result of all of this means that while in 1980 only about 10 percent of us were obese, the figure is now at 50 percent or more in most countries are overweight or obese, and that could rise to more than 66 percent if we continue to live the way we do. The stats from the report are pretty interesting. To see some that really stood out for me, just

A WHO Report Says Cell Phone Use Leads to Brain Tumors

GeekSugar — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:05:10 PST

Cell phone use causing cancer - certainly not something we haven't heard before and not something that is going away anytime soon. First we learn that the electromagnetic radiation from cell phones doesn't cause cancer and when I asked you if you were worried about your cell phone increasing your risk of getting cancer, most of you said no.

The latest news? Well it doesn't get more legit than the World Health Organization, who have been working on a ten-year investigation called Interphone to see if there were any correlations between prolonged cell phone use and brain tumors. According to CNN the study will be published by the end of the year, and did reveal that those who had cell phones for 10 years or longer had the strongest risk of tumors.

And another recent study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology supports the link between cell phone use and tumors as well. The CNN article states:

Studies that looked at people who had used cell phones 10 years or longer tended to find the strongest risk of tumors. Researchers found that cell phone users had a 10 percent to 30 percent higher risk than people who barely, if ever, used this technology.

They also touch on Bluetooth devices, which aren't as harmful, but could cause tumors if worn on your ear all day. I don't know about you, but whenever I know I'm going to have a long cell phone conversation, I make sure to pop in my ear piece (not a Bluetooth) so that my phone isn't glued to my head for a couple of hours.

What do you think? Would you consider changing your cell phone habits after learning about these findings?

HIV Is the Top Killer of Women Worldwide

TresSugar — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:00:00 PST

According to the World Health Organization, HIV is the number one killer of women age 15-49. Heart disease kills older women, especially in rich countries, but of the 30.8 million HIV-positive adults in 2007, 15.5 million were women.

A staggering 26.1 percent of the population in Swaziland are infected with HIV - and half of women age 25-29 there are HIV positive.

Women are especially vulnerable to HIV, WHO says, because of biology and gender inequality. WHO Director General Dr. Margaret Chan said, "It's time to pay girls and women back, to make sure that they get the care and support they need to enjoy a fundamental human right at every moment of their lives, that is their right to health."

More Than 200 Million People Are Hungry in India

CitizenSugar — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 11:00:54 PDT

There's no sugar coating this: India has more people suffering from hunger than any other country in the world. More than 200 million don't get enough to eat, and according to the 2008 Global Hunger Index just released, not one of India's 17 states rank in the low- or moderate-hunger categories - and 12 states have rank "alarming." India is 66th out of 88 countries surveyed (a stat in itself that makes you think of those 22 other countries that are worse.)

Kids bear a lot of the brunt of the hunger crisis - numbers released two years ago showed that even then, more than half of the children in India were malnourished. The rise in global food prices not mirrored in rising incomes has made the problem worse. As grim as this news sounds, there are people doing work to help. To find out which former presidential candidates just won an award for their work on hunger,

read more. Former candidates Bob Dole and George McGovern have just been awarded the World Food Prize for their work to alleviate global hunger. The Republican/Democrat duo created the George McGovern-Robert Dole International Food For Education and Nutrition Program. The prize president says, "There's a significant message that's included by having them both honored, one Democrat, one Republican." Despite efforts, more work is needed. The World Health Organization just warned that the life expectancy between rich and poor countries varies by as much as 40 years. Let's hope increased bipartisan efforts will do the world some more good. Source

Risk of Heterosexual Global AIDS Pandemic Decreased

LibertySugar — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:00:52 PDT

The World Health Organization (WHO) has determined that the risk of a global AIDS pandemic among heterosexuals has decreased. Of course this assessment does not apply to Africa.

Dr. Kevin de Cock, the head of the WHO's department of HIV/Aids said:

It is very unlikely there will be a heterosexual epidemic in other countries. Ten years ago a lot of people were saying there would be a generalized epidemic in Asia – China was the big worry with its huge population. That doesn't look likely. But we have to be careful.

Certain areas are still at risk. In Russia, in 2006, 1 percent of the population was infected, the same number as South Africa in 1991, whose infection rate has now risen to 25 percent of the population. Yet, experts doubt that Russia will see the same dramatic rise.

Recent research claims that significant funding is being wasted in Africa on condom distribution, HIV testing, and vaccine research. Instead, some say, money should be spent on male circumcision, reducing the number of sexual partners, and improving health systems. Is it time to reassess the global AIDS initiative? Should we concentrate funds on high-risk locations, or continue a broad education campaign, which appears to be working in many places?

Source

What's the Deal With: The Mediterranean Diet

FitSugar — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 04:00:00 PDT

Folks are often out pimping their new diet books, trying to make a buck with a fad diet based on the bottom line rather than decreasing your waist size or helping you get healthy. Well, have you heard of the Mediterranean Diet?

Introduced in 1993 by the "nutrition meets gastronomy" group Oldways, Harvard School of Public Health, and the World Health Organization, the Med Diet is a not-for-profit diet. The diet was created in reaction to the non-fat food craze of the early 90s and incorporates good fats, namely olive oil, into meals.

Oldways promotes satisfaction over deprivation and believes eating should not be about denying foods, but instead about enjoying them. Take pleasure in the foods you eat. Notice the foods you put into your body, enjoy and savor them, share a meal with friends, and realize that eating healthy is about management, not banishment.

Here are the basic guidelines of the diet:

Make olive oil your primary source of dietary fat
Incorporate an abundance of food from plant sources, including fruits and vegetables, breads, grains, beans, nuts, and seeds
Eat low to moderate amounts of fish and poultry weekly
Eat low to moderate amounts of cheese and yogurt daily
Drink a moderate amount of wine (one to two glasses per day for men, one glass per day for women)

Here are a few tips for following the Med Diet:

Substitute olive oil for butter.
Snack on almonds instead of fat-free cookies.
Spread avocado on a sandwich to replace the mayonnaise.

This diet is considered
a healthful diet for heart patients to follow. If it is good enough for folks with heart conditions it is good enough for me.

Curious to see their version of the food pyramid? Then

Oldways

The Essential Habits of a Healthy Home Cook

Michele Foley — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 03:05:00 PST

Unless you know what you're doing, cooking at home can be as detrimental to your health as eating out. As far as your body is concerned, cooking with processed ingredients high in saturated fat, sugar, and sodium might as well be like eating McDonald's. But becoming a healthy cook isn't as hard as you think. Here are some essential habits for healthy home cooks, starting from the moment you set foot in the grocery store to the second you put dinner on the table.

Shop the Right Way
Healthy cooking starts with strategic grocery shopping. Create a meal plan for the week and stock your cart with whole, fresh, and organic foods, lean proteins, and unrefined grains: an easy way to do this is to shop the perimeter of the grocery store. When you do have to buy prepared foods, choose products with the fewest and simplest ingredients. Healthy grocery options can be expensive, but here are six ways to save money when shopping organic.

Fill Your Toolbox
If cooking from scratch seems daunting, arm yourself with a few healthy kitchen gadgets. From steamers to kitchen scales, these tools will help cut back on prep and cook time, reduce the amount of fat in your dishes, and even make calorie counting and portion control easier. Here are a few of our favorite healthy cooking gadgets.

Learn how to cook healthy at home after the break!

Tanning Beds Cause More Than One Type of Skin Cancer

Allure — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 02:01:06 PST

We're excited to present this story from our friends at Allure:

A new Yale study has found that tanning beds cause increased rates of early-onset basal cell carcinoma, the most common skin cancer. Tanning bed use increased the rates of BCC by 69 percent. This follows a University of Minnesota study that found that tanning bed users were 74 percent more likely to develop melanoma, the most deadly skin cancer. So it's not really a matter of whether you'll get cancer from using a tanning bed, but more like, "Which cancer will you get?"

Now, the results of these studies come as no surprise to anyone who has read beauty news in the last decade. So what I find shocking is that scientists are able to find people who still use a tanning bed. Seriously, who is STILL DOING THIS? Being pale is not that bad (trust me, I know first hand). And with self-tanners and spray-tans, there are better ways to get the glow. Yet, the World Health Organization estimates that 30 million Americans still use indoor tanning beds.

Have you ever used indoor tanning? And if you still go tanning, I'd love to hear why.

The Best Time Investments You Can Make

LearnVest — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:15:57 PST

We're thrilled to present this smart LearnVest story here on Savvy!

We all agree that time is more valuable than money.

At least, that’s what we say.

Then we turn around and spend hours watching bad TV we’re not even that interested in. Or 45 minutes on the phone with customer service fighting a $5 charge. Or years in a relationship or friendship we stopped feeling fulfilled by long ago.

But I’m convinced it’s not for a lack of good intent that we often end up treating time as our most fungible asset. (Hey, there’s plenty more where that came from, right? Well, not really . . . ) I think we simply get too busy to think about it, or don’t think we have the resources to make more time in our lives. We do have the resources, though. All it takes is a fresh look at how we really spend our days, hours and moments.

I’ve been thinking about time as a tangible asset not unlike money in many ways, and about ways to invest our time to yield higher returns - better memories, more hours well spent, even minutes that nourish us instead of fly by. After much research, experience and reflection, below are what I found to be the seven best investments you can make with your time. Think of these as blue-chip time investments that can’t go wrong - and that will yield high dividends for a more fulfilled life.

1. Invest in “Life-Extending” Time

Investing time in caring for your health is an obvious one that will certainly yield you more time, literally - in days, months, if not years tacked on to your life. Yet we often take our health for granted until we experience a wake-up call. Proactively invest your time in your health by eating well, exercising regularly, getting plenty of sleep and regularly seeing your doctors. Invest heartily in those non-physical markers of well-being as well: emotional, mental and spiritual health - you will reap many hours of well-lived life from them. Learn the habits of the Blue Zone people, from the regions in the world where people live the longest. Some common lifestyle traits they share? Building in natural movement and activity, lowering stress and being part of a faith-based community.

Read on for more great time investments.

The Truth About the Health Benefits of Tea

Health — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 04:13:17 PST

We are pumped to share one of our favorite stories from Health.com here on our site.

Tea - does it really fight cancer? Lower cholesterol? We filter the research to find out which health claims actually hold water.
By Kate Lowenstein

The way scientific studies and health gurus alike have touted the perks of tea over the past few years, you'd think the stuff was some kind of all-powerful magical elixir. Improving heart health, reducing cancer risk, warding off dementia and diabetes - there's barely a health benefit that hasn't been credited to tea. It's true that the brew has disease-fighting antioxidants, and, as far as anyone can tell, should be great for us.

"The science is certainly promising," says David L. Katz, MD, director of Yale University's Prevention Research Center. "But the hype goes beyond it and tends to make promises which the science can't yet deliver." (No, tea probably will not cure depression, eliminate allergies, or boost your fertility!) We talked to the experts and weighed the studies to separate the truth from the hype.

Health.com: Drink This Tea to Lose That Belly

Why tea is so hot
First, a definition: When scientists talk about tea, they mean black, green, white, or oolong teas - all of which are made from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant. Herbal brews, like chamomile and peppermint, are not technically considered tea; they're infusions of other plants with different nutritional characteristics. If you're not sure what kind you're drinking, check the ingredients for the word "tea."

Keep reading to learn even more about tea.