Science-Based Slim-Downs

The benefits of weight loss go well beyond fitting back into skinny jeans. That’s why a number of big-name researchers, hospitals, and health organizations have launched their own diets to help strengthen the fight against a number of health conditions, including heart disease, high blood pressure, and obesity. These lab-tested plans have been around for a while, 

DASH Diet

What It Is: Originally created as a meal plan to lower blood pressure and cholesterol, the DASH diet can help you lose weight and improve other health factors too, like your risk of diabetes or certain cancers. 

How It Works: You’ll cut salt intake and eat mostly whole foods, which will lower blood pressure levels and reduce risk of heart disease and even kidney stones. The most recent iteration of this program, The DASH Diet Action Plan: Proven to Lower Blood Pressure and Cholesterol Without Medication (Marla Heller, $15.63), features a 28-day diet plan complete with recipes. 

What You’ll Eat: Between 1,200 and 2,000 calories a day, depending on your weight loss goals. Expect lots of veggies, fruits, protein, and whole grains but very little sodium. Sample meals might include a sandwich with soup and veggies on the side, or a large salad topped with chicken, followed by a frozen yogurt sundae. 

Bottom Line: The main focus of this plan is improving cholesterol and blood pressure levels; weight loss is secondary, although it should occur for most people, particularly if you follow one of the reduced-calorie plans. Because this book includes 4-weeks’ worth of recipes it’s best suited for people who have the time to cook and are interested in trying completely new meals. 

Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC) Diet

What It Is: This diet plan, which was crafted by the National Institutes of Health, is the gold standard for the American Heart Association. By lowering fat and cholesterol consumption and increasing fiber intake you’ll improve your heart health and lose weight, too. 

How It Works: The three-part program is designed to help lower blood cholesterol levels through diet, exercise, and weight management. The 81-page plan is free to download online. The booklet contains information about managing cholesterol and heart risk, in addition to healthy eating guidelines and several meal plan recommendations, although recipes are not included. The plan also suggests 30 minutes of exercise most days. 

What You’ll Eat: Between 1,200 and 2,500 calories a day, depending on your sex and your weight loss goals. You’ll be eating a lot less fat, particularly saturated fat, which is limited to 7% of daily calories. But you’ll be able to enjoy plenty of fruits, veggies, nonfat or low-fat dairy, fish, and skinless chicken. 

Bottom Line: The plan can be tailored not only to help improve cholesterol scores but also aid in weight loss, depending on your needs. Recipes and shopping lists are primarily up to you, so this plan might be a good fit for an experienced cook who wants to modify favorite meals. 

Mayo Clinic Diet

What It Is: This phase-based plan is part diet, part lifestyle changes, all geared to accelerate weight loss. In phase 1 of the plan you spend 2 weeks stringently monitoring what you eat and learning new health habits. By the third week the rules ease up, making the program easier to maintain long-term, but still effective for aiding weight loss. 

How It Works: For the complete guide, pick up The Mayo Clinic Diet: Eat Well, Enjoy Life, Lose Weight (by the weight loss experts of the Mayo Clinic, $14.63). Some recipes are included in the book, but if you want a true meal plan pick up the Fix-It and Enjoy-It Healthy Cookbook. Regular exercise—from walking for fitness to walking around the grocery store—is encouraged, as is eliminating bad habits such as eating in front of the TV. 

What You’ll Eat: Between 1,200 to 1,800 calories, depending on your sex and weight. You’ll fill your plate with lots of fruits and veggies, plus a moderate amount of carbs, fiber, and protein. This diet focuses on moderation more than absolute restriction. 

Bottom Line: This program focuses on food as well as lifestyle, which can help make the results stick. After 2 weeks of intense dieting you’ll be guided to make your own sensible choices, which should add up to a loss of 1 to 2 pounds each week.

source: msn.health.com

Cut-price test that 'can dramatically boost IVF chances' will be available in 18 months

 

A cut-price test that could dramatically increase the chances of having a healthy baby through IVF could be available within 18 months.

Oxford University researchers say their test could ‘revolutionise’ the treatment as it is half the price of existing tests and may be just as effective.

It may be cheap enough for use by the Health Service. And, unlike existing tests, it does not involve the potentially risky step of taking a sample of cells from the egg or fledgling embryo, making it safer and more ethically acceptable.

Instead, it works by analysing a ‘cloud’ of cells that nurture and feed the egg. These are normally thrown away in IVF treatment but fertility doctors Dagan Wells and Elpida Fragouli believe they hold important clues to the health of the egg.

Keeping and analysing these cells could help clinics select the best eggs for fertility treatment. It should also spare would-be parents the emotional and financial heartache of going through repeated unsuccessful IVF treatments.

Analysing these ‘cloud’, or cumulous, cells is also likely to be much cheaper at £1,000 or less compared with the £2,000 cost of other techniques, bringing the technology within range of many more couples.

Despite IVF’s reputation as an insurance policy, the treatment works in less than a quarter of cases, and many of the failures are because of problems with the eggs’ chromosomes.

There are already several ways of checking the chromosomes, but they require a small sample from the egg or embryo and so are not completely without risk to the unborn child.

The cumulous cells, however, can be studied without harming the egg. These cells grow and mature with the egg and so any problems that damage the egg, such as a poor blood supply, should also show up in the cells.

The doctors have carried out a small-scale study that has shown that certain genes being over or under-active in the cumulous cells is a sign of abnormal eggs.

Calculations suggest that using the technique to pick out the healthiest eggs would boost a woman’s odds of having a baby. Existing tests can double or triple the odds of IVF success, and it is hoped the new test will be just as good.

Dr Wells said: ‘The number of patients we looked at is very small. This is very much a work in progress, but there is good reason for optimism at this point.’

A larger-scale study is planned, and if that goes well the technique could be trialled on women for the first time in the summer of 2012. If it proves to be safe and effective, it could be in widespread use early in 2013.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health

My man's anxiety for our love life to be perfect is ruining it for me

I have been with my partner for three years and we have, in my view, a very good and active sex life. However, he’s become obsessed with the idea with we should have simultaneous orgasms. 

Now I feel that every time we’re in bed, he’s trying to get us synchronised — and the more I feel under pressure to time my orgasm to his, the harder I find it to take pleasure in what we’re doing. 

I’ve even faked an orgasm once to try to keep him happy. How on earth can I get him to relax?

Hollywood has a lot to answer for, doesn’t it? All too often in films you see two people panting away to some tightly choreographed peak of ecstasy, as if this were the normal state of things. 

You never see any blockbuster heroine say to her beloved: ‘Hang on a minute, you may have popped your cork, but I haven’t — don’t you dare roll over and go to sleep!’ 

It’s no wonder that back here in the real world, many people feel insecure if they don’t experience coordinated climaxes.

A straw poll of 12 women I know suggests that simultaneous orgasms — while not quite as rare as unicorns — aren’t all that common (and often get less frequent with age). 

Only two of my respondents said they experienced the phenomenon with any frequency.

Another said she had found it quite easy to time her orgasm to her partner’s in her early 30s, when she says she felt ‘at my sexual peak’, but almost impossible since having children. A couple of the women said they had found it easier to coordinate peaks with particular partners and not with others, but it didn’t always mean the sex was better. 

One friend had found herself in a similar situation to yours. She said one man she dated in her 20s viewed sex as a failure if they didn’t reach orgasm at the same time. 

The problem was that they had experienced simultaneous climaxes in the early weeks of dating and, when the pattern didn’t continue, he thought something was wrong. 

Their time together was dogged by his quest for movie-perfect sex. 

She says: ‘We would be making love and he’d keep staring at me and asking me how close I was to coming. It made me really tense — I felt like a failure for not meeting his expectations. 

‘Eventually, I started faking my orgasms. He was happier and I felt miserable.’ 

She says her romantic confidence was dented until she met her husband, who had ‘no hang-ups whatsoever about that sort of thing’. Interestingly, once there was no pressure about timing she did sometimes experience the elusive twinned sexual peak.

It’s clear you need to talk to your partner outside the bedroom, when emotions aren’t running so high. The question here is what has made him feel that synchronised climaxes are so vital? Perhaps they were a feature of a previous relationship and he’s come to believe that they’re vital for good sex? 

No two women peak in the same way (some don’t have orgasms at all, so much as a pleasurable plateau  of sensation) and he needs to understand that. 

It’s also quite possible he has been influenced by pornography. Rare is the man who has never seen a blue movie, and some develop unrealistic expectations from scenes where trigger-happy porn stars climax on cue. Why? Because they’re faking it and the whole thing’s a fraud. 

You need to explain gently to your partner that you feel you’re being held up to some golden standard that doesn’t exist. 

He needs to understand his expectations are making you tense and unhappy in bed. You would be wise to confess to having faked an orgasm, even if the knowledge hurts him in the short term. He needs to know you truly are under duress, and it will be salutary for him to consider that previous girlfriends might have faked climaxes, too. 

The biggest downside of faking orgasms is that men think they have pushed some kind of magic button when they haven’t. They then become perplexed when they try to repeat the process to no effect.

If any of what you say makes your partner cross, point out the only problem here is that you are both striving far too hard to make each other happy. 

Give him credit for being an old‑fashioned romantic, who passionately wants you to find twinned rapture. 

There are plenty of people in this world who selfishly take their own pleasure in bed and don’t give a fig about their lover’s satisfaction. 

Thank heavens he isn’t one of them. He just needs to relinquish his goals and relax; then he’ll recognise that’s the only way of stumbling into sexual serendipity. Erotic love can’t work to a plan. 

Remind him that the great virtue of the ‘your turn, my turn’ model of sex is that one lover can give their entire concentration to the other’s climax. Nor should partners worry if just one lover (or neither) has an orgasm. 

There are no rules when it comes to sex — we just need to unshackle ourselves from a couple of myths.

source: www.dailymail.co.uk

Uric Acid Symptoms - 5 Simple Tips to Ditch Your Uric Acid Symptoms of Gout

Your uric acid symptoms of gout - inflammation, swelling, redness, heat and agonising pain - are caused by uric acid crystals in your joints, tendons and surrounding tissues. The most common joints are the big toe, ankle and knee, but, almost any joint can be affected. Here, you'll discover how to ditch your uric acid symptoms by using 5 simple tips.

Uric acid is produced when 'purines' breakdown in our bodies after carrying out the vital work of converting our food to energy and genes to proteins. Purines are chemical compounds that appear naturally in our body cells and in much of our foods. So any remedy for gout has to take your diet into consideration.

Here are 5 simple ways to reduce your uric acid symptoms of gout, starting with your diet:-

1. You must avoid foods with high levels of purines. These are foods such as, red meats, offal, game, gravy, broth, poultry, shellfish, fish roe, sardines, mackerel, legumes, lentils, yeast extracts, etc. Also alcohol. Avoid alcohol, especially beer!

2. Eating 5 portions of fresh vegetables and fruit every day helps to flush uric acid out of your system. But avoid cauliflower, asparagus and mushrooms because they are relatively high in purines.

3. It is very important to flush excess acid out of your system by drinking at least 2 litres of water every day.

4. Eat plenty of cherries: a cupful at each meal. They have antioxident and anti-inflammatory powers and are known as a very effective natural remedy for gout.

5. Take Alfalfa to reduce acid levels. It also acts as an anti-inflammatory agent. You can take it in seed form, capsules or liquid extracts.

These are just some of the many natural treatments for relieving uric acid symptoms of gout.

But what you need to consider now is how to prevent your gout returning again and again. If all you do is get rid of the symptoms each time you suffer an attack, without doing anything to prevent further gout attacks, you run the risk of possible permanent joint damage due to these recurring bouts of gout. Ideally, you need to relieve the pain of gout symptoms now, and, prevent your gout returning in the future.

You can find out exactly how to do this with an easy, step-by-step natural gout remedy report that thousands of ex-gout victims around the world have successfully used. And it doesn't matter if you have gout toe, ankle or knee etc., this report has everything covered.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2901736

The Happiness Diet: How a new weight-loss plan promises to tackle your mood as well as your waistline

We all know that a diet high in fat, sugar and processed food is bad for our waistlines.

But according to a new book, it is also making us depressed.

Authors of The Happiness Diet believe that what we eat can affect mood as much as it does weight.

Brain food: Authors of The Happiness Diet believe that what we eat can affect our mood as much
as it does our weight
Drew Ramsey, a clinical psychiatrist at Columbia University, and health writer Tyler Graham say that eating the right food is 'the foundation of good mental health'.

They point out that rates of both obesity and depression have doubled in the last decade, and blame the rise on the Standard American Diet, or the SAD Diet.

'Your brain is made of food, and the right foods are the foundation of good mental health'

A weight-loss plan that simply cuts fat and calories is a recipe for failure, they say, and without natural mood-boosters such as magnesium, vitamin B12 and conjugated linoleic acid, we are less likely to feel happy and therefore successful.

Instead, a diet rich in 'good' fats, like olive oil, whole grains, vegetables and quality meat can benefit both out minds and our waistlines because, by feeling more satisfied, one will lose weight effortlessly.

Dr Ramsey told Today.com: 'Focusing on getting skinny by eating a low-fat, low-calorie diet, fails for most people.

The Happiness Diet: You can't feel your best if you starve the brain, say Tyler Graham and Drew Ramsey

'Your brain is made of food, and the right foods are the foundation of good mental health. You can't feel your best if you starve the brain.'

They also counter the argument that the food they recommend is too expensive for those on a budget.

'The biggest myth out there is that eating right is expensive,' Dr Ramsey said, explaining that ordering a weekly seasonal box of produce from community-supported agriculture programmes can actually cut your weekly grocery spend.

But there's nothing wrong in investing in your health if you do need to spend more, Mr Graham added.

A century ago, people spent far more on food than they do now, because they had different priorities.

'Your brain is made out of food,' he said, echoing his co-author. 'What's more important, having 200 cable channels or feeding your brain the nutrients it needs?'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Stress during second and third month of pregnancy raises risk of premature birth and losing baby boys

• First time stress has been shown to affect the balance between the sexes
• Findings based on stress caused by the 2005 Tarapaca earthquake in Chile

It is the first time stress has been shown to affect the balance between the sexes, known as the sex ratio, which normally favours an excess in the number of boys being born.

Mothers-to-be who are highly stressed during the second and third month of pregnancy are more at risk of giving birth prematurely and losing boy babies, say researchers.

A new study shows exposure to stress can shorten the length of pregnancy, making it more likely that babies will be born early and for boys to be miscarried.

It has been described as nature's way of balancing an increased risk of premature death in young men, starting in infancy.

The latest findings suggest the extra risk to boys starts even earlier – in the womb.

The results come from a study investigating the effect on pregnant women of the stress caused by the 2005 Tarapaca earthquake in Chile.

But US researchers claim there could be implications for pregnant women in more normally stressful situations, because the effects are independent of poverty, bad housing and poor diet.

Professors Florencia Torche  and Karine Kleinhaus, of New York University, analysed birth certificates of all babies born between 2004-2006 in Chile, where there are 200,000 births a year. The magnitude of the earthquake was measured at 7.9, which is classified as ‘disastrous’.

The researchers found that women who lived closest to the quake during their second and third months of pregnancy had shorter pregnancies and were at higher risk of delivering pre-term, before 37 weeks gestation. 

The pregnancies of women exposed to the earthquake in the second month of pregnancy were on average 1.3 days shorter than those in the unaffected areas of Chile. The pregnancies of those exposed in the third month were almost two days shorter. 

Normally, about six in 100 women had a pre-term birth, but among women exposed to the earthquake in the third month of pregnancy, this rose by 3.4 per cent, meaning more than nine women in 100 delivered their babies early.

The researchers found a decline in the sex ratio among those exposed to the earthquake in the third month of 5.8 per cent, meaning fewer boy babies survived to delivery.

The study is published online in the leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction. Prof Kleinhaus, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, and Environmental Medicine, said ‘Generally, there are more male than female live births. 

‘The ratio of male to female births is approximately 51:49 – in other words, out of every 100 births, 51 will be boys. 

‘Our findings indicate a 5.8 per cent decline in this proportion, which would translate into a ratio of 45 male births per 100 births, so that there are now more female than male births. This is a significant change for this type of measure.’

Previous research has suggested in times of stress women are more likely to miscarry boys because they grow larger than girls and require more sustenance from the mother, and they may also be less robust than females and not adapt their development to a stressful environment in the womb. 

Prof Torche said ‘Our findings on a decreased sex ratio support this hypothesis and suggest that stress may affect the viability of male births.

She said the study provided strong evidence that stress independently affected the outcome of pregnancies, rather than being a side-effect of poor housing, poverty and bad diet.

‘In terms of implications, it is clearly unrealistic to recommend avoiding natural disasters. However, this research suggests the need to improve access to healthcare for women from the onset of pregnancy and even before conception. 

‘Obviously this will not reduce the exposure to stress, but it may provide care, advice, and tools that would allow women to cope with stressful circumstances’ she added.

source:dailymail

Forget a warm cup of cocoa! Drinking cherry juice twice a day will give you 39minutes of extra rest

• Researchers say the juice could help athletes recover from injury as well as people with insomnia or jet lag

Lavender pillows, warm cups of cocoa and a relaxing going-to-bed routine, are all popular ways to reach the land of nod.

Now researchers have found a fruity solution for those who struggle to get to sleep or find themselves waking too early in the morning.

An international team found that when healthy adults had two daily glasses of tart cherry juice, they rested an average 39 minutes longer.

This broke down as around 25 minutes of extra sleep and 14 more minutes spent relaxing in bed.

They also found they woke less often when in bed compared to when they drank a non-cherry fruit cocktail.

The study was conducted at Northumbria University and has now appeared in the European Journal of Nutrition.

Participants were given two servings of Montmorency cherry juice concentrate diluted with half a pint of water, or an alternative fruit drink for seven consecutive days - once when they woke up and another before bed. 

They were also asked to abstain from eating a list of foods, known to contain or influence melatonin - a powerful antioxidant that is key to regulating our sleep-wake cycles.

The researchers then tracked their sleeping habits using actigraphs (watches that sense movement) and questionnaires. Urine samples were taken to measure the levels of melatonin in the system.

They found the cherry drink led to longer sleep time, less daytime napping and better sleep efficiency (the ratio of time spent in bed to time spent sleeping) among the 20 participants. 

The researchers attribute the sleep benefits to the melatonin content of the red fruit.

Each serving of the tart cherry juice concentrate was estimated to contain the equivalent of 90 – 100 tart cherries, which 'significantly elevated' the level of melatonin in the bodies of the participants.

Dr Glyn Howatson, an exercise physiologist, said: 'We were initially interested in the application of tart cherries in recovery from strenuous exercise.

'Sleep forms a critical component in that recovery process, which is often forgotten.

'These results show that tart cherry juice concentrate can be used to facilitate sleep in healthy adults and, excitingly, has the potential to be applied as a natural intervention, not only to athletes, but to other populations with insomnia and general disturbed sleep from shift work or jet lag.'

It is thought that a third of people in the UK will experience bouts of insomnia during their lives. The condition, which is classed as being unable to get to sleep or stay asleep long enough to feel refreshed the next day, is more common among women and older people.

While more research is necessary before medical professionals turn to cherries as a sole treatment for sleep disorders, the scientists conclude that tart cherry juice concentrate could be a viable 'adjunct intervention for disturbed sleep across a number of scenarios.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health

'Smoking can make your nipples fall off': Plastic surgeon warns of gangrene following breast lift

Smoking can make your nipples fall off - this is the astonishing claim by Dr Anthony Youn, one of American's top plastic surgeons.

The practitioner from Detroit, Michigan, was quick to point out this applied to patients who underwent breast lifts to perk up their chests.

He said the nicotine and carbon monoxide taken in during smoking can disrupt blood flow to different parts of the body and so disrupts the healing process following surgery.

The toxins can act as a 'virtual tourniquet' and effectively kill a body part by stopping blood from reaching it.

Speaking to CNN Health, Dr Youn said: 'I cringe every time I see a patient for a breast lift who is a smoker.

'I’m deathly afraid that despite my warnings, she will smoke before or after surgery and cause her nipples to turn black and fall off.

'I've seen it before,' he claimed.

Dr Youn said he treated one female smoker whose nipples had turned purple after smoking caused the tiny veins in the breast to fail, leading to a backup of old blood.

Left untreated they could have turned black and fallen off.

He had to resort to using leeches over several days to suck out the old blood and so restore the woman's nipples to a healthy pink.

He told CNN he now made sure all of his patients understood the dire outcomes that could result from smoking following a cosmetic operation.

'If you are having a breast lift or reduction and you smoke, your nipples could turn black and fall off. 

'If you are having a tummy tuck and you smoke, you may get an infection resulting in a big gross open wound that will take three months to heal. 

'If you are having a facelift and you smoke, the skin of your cheek could turn black and slough off, leaving exposed fat.'

Those applying for cosmetic surgery such as tummy tucks or breast surgery on the NHS must be non-smokers.

According to the NHS: Research has shown smokers have more

problems with wound healing than non-smokers.

'This means they are likely to have to stay in hospital for longer and may require treatment for infections. 

'Procedures are more likely to be successful in those who do not smoke.'

source: Dailymail.co.uk