Tag: Health

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

If you’re looking for a vegetable that’s a great source of calcium, collard greens are a find. According to the Harvard School of Public Health, a cup of cooked collard greens has more calcium than a glass of skim milk. This is great news for those who don’t eat dairy, and it’s just one of the many health benefits collards have to offer. They’re high in the carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin, which are important for eye health; they’re very high in vitamins A and C, manganese, folate and dietary fiber; and they’re a good source of potassium and vitamins B2 and B6.

~Martha Rose Schulman

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

After the massive earthquake that struck Haiti on January 2010, the United Nations sent peace keeping troops from around the world to assist with keeping order during the recovery process, Unfortunately, some of those forces introduced a virulent strain of Cholera that was until October 2010 never seen in the Western Hemisphere. The faulty sanitation contaminated the Artibonite River, the longest and most important river in Haiti. The UN has refused to acknowledge its responsibility and has done little to help treat, prevent and control the disease.

The enormity of the epidemic is in the numbers that are increasing as this is written. Since October 2010, over 500,000 cases have been reported, including 7,000 deaths. In a New York Times Editorial on May 12, it was reported that this year’s toll could effect another 200,000 to 250,000 people:

Doctors Without Borders said this month that the country is unprepared for this spring’s expected resurgence of the disease. Nearly half the aid organizations that had been working in the rural Artibonite region, where this epidemic began and 20 percent of cases have been reported, have left, the organization said. “Additionally, health centers are short of drugs and some staff have not been paid since January.”

It gets worse: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report this month that cholera in Haiti was evolving into two strains, suggesting the disease would become much harder to uproot and that people who had already gotten sick and recovered would be vulnerable again.

From Doctors Without Borders press release:

While Haiti’s Ministry of Health and Populations claims to be in control of the situation, health facilities in many regions of the country remain incapable of responding to the seasonal fluctuations of the cholera epidemic. The surveillance system, which is supposed to monitor the situation and raise the alarm, is still dysfunctional, MSF said. The number of people treated by MSF alone in the capital, Port-au-Prince, has quadrupled in less than a month, reaching 1,600 cases in April. The organization has increased treatment capacity in the city and in the town of Léogâne, and is preparing to open additional treatment sites in the country. Nearly 200,000 cholera cases were reported during the rainy season last year, between May and October. [..]

An MSF study in the Artibonite region, where approximately 20 percent of cholera cases have been reported, has revealed a clear reduction of cholera prevention measures since 2011. More than half of the organizations working in the region last year are now gone. Additionally, health centers are short of drugs and some staff have not been paid since January. [..]

The majority of Haitians do not have access to latrines, and obtaining clean water is a daily challenge. Of the half-million survivors of the January, 2010 earthquake who continue to live in camps, less than one third are provided with clean drinking water and only one percent recently received soap, according to a April 2012 investigation by Haiti’s National Directorate of Water Supply and Sanitation.

The Center for Disease Control estimates that the cost of adequate water and sanitation systems will run from $800 million to $1.1 billion. That money is available from funds that were pledged from other nations.

Awareness needs to be raised. The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, a human rights group, has sued the United Nations on behalf of 5,000 cholera victims and there is a Congressional letter to US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice urging UN authorities to play a central role in addressing the epidemic.

Just Foreign Policy has set up a petition pressing the UN to take formal responsibility for the epidemic and do more to alleviate the cholera epidemic:

The United Nations bears heavy responsibility for the ongoing cholera epidemic in Haiti-it has become widely accepted that UN troops introduced the disease into the country via the UN’s faulty sanitation system. Even a UN panel has conceded this point. Yet, the UN has done little to treat, prevent, and control the disease. Rep. John Conyers’ office is circulating a letter to Amb. Rice urging UN authorities to play a central role in addressing the ongoing cholera crisis in Haiti.

The effort to contain this epidemic needs support. There are lives to be saved.

Note: The photo by Frederik Matte is from the Doctors Without Borders web site of patients affected by cholera receive treatment at an MSF cholera treatment center in Port-au-Prince.

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

   Green garlic has a window of about a month at farmers’ markets in Los Angeles, where I live, and I cannot resist buying it every time I go. At the beginning of the season the bulbs look more like leeks or spring onions than garlic, as they have not yet set cloves. To prepare them I just cut away the stalks as I would a spring onion, cut them in half and remove any tough stalk that might be running down the middle, remove the papery outer layers and chop like a scallion or leek.

   By now the green garlic I’m buying – actually, the bulbs are pink, but the stalks are green – has set cloves. The long green stalk must be cut away and the papery shells and the middle stalk removed. The cloves are juicy and mild, and I am using them in everything from stir-fries to omelets. Some farmers sell garlic scapes, the curly, green flowering end of the garlic plant. I have yet to find them at my market, but you can find recipes at several Web sites, including this one. They can be used in the same way you might use the green parts of scallions – in salads, omelets and pasta dishes, for example. Next year, when I’m ready to write my now-annual green garlic column, I’ll look hard for scapes so I can include some recipes.

~Martha Rose Schulman~

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

   I decided to devote most of the recipes this week to dishes that involve cooking lettuce. I couldn’t resist one simple romaine and radish salad, but the rest of the dishes are cooked. I used the tough outer leaves of romaine or leaf lettuce in blended sauces and entire heads in soups. I tested several classic French braised lettuce recipes, but as promising as these looked on paper, they didn’t appeal to me nearly as much as the more vibrant Chinese stir-fried lettuce dishes I tried, or the puréed soups. In the French braised dishes, the life seemed to be cooked out of the lettuces.

   I used sturdy lettuces like romaine and leaf lettuce for the cooked dishes, not tender spring mixes, which really should be dedicated to salads. Bitter lettuces with tough outer leaves, like curly endive (a k a escarole or chicory) and Batavia, stand up to cooking the same way greens like kale do. Use the recipes not only when you have a surfeit of lettuce in your C.S.A. basket, but also for the tough outer leaves of the one head of romaine in your fridge that you don’t want to include in your salads.

~Martha Rose Shulman~

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

   I always associated high omega-3 content with fatty cold-water fish like salmon, mackerel and tuna, but it turns out that there are 1,472 milligrams of omega-3s in 6 ounces of mussels (the approximate amount of meat you get from a pound in the shell), only 400 milligrams less than the same amount of salmon.

   Farmed mussels are a much more ocean-friendly seafood choice than farmed salmon…. Look for mussels that are shiny and black, and somewhat heavy for their size. When you get them home, take them out of the wrapping immediately, give them a quick rinse and put them in a big bowl. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and refrigerate until you’re ready to clean and cook them.

~Martha Rose Shulman~

Obesity has been on the rise in the United States for years and it has now become America’s costliest disease:

U.S. hospitals are ripping out wall-mounted toilets and replacing them with floor models to better support obese patients. The Federal Transit Administration wants buses to be tested for the impact of heavier riders on steering and braking. Cars are burning nearly a billion gallons of gasoline more a year than if passengers weighed what they did in 1960.

[..] The startling economic costs of obesity, often borne by the non-obese, could become the epidemic’s second-hand smoke. Only when scientists discovered that nonsmokers were developing lung cancer and other diseases from breathing smoke-filled air did policymakers get serious about fighting the habit, in particular by establishing nonsmoking zones. The costs that smoking added to Medicaid also spurred action. Now, as economists put a price tag on sky-high body mass indexes (BMIs), policymakers as well as the private sector are mobilizing to find solutions to the obesity epidemic.

[..] The U.S. health care reform law of 2010 allows employers to charge obese workers 30 percent to 50 percent more for health insurance if they decline to participate in a qualified wellness program. The law also includes carrots and celery sticks, so to speak, to persuade Medicare and Medicaid enrollees to see a primary care physician about losing weight, and funds community demonstration programs for weight loss.

[..] Because obesity raises the risk of a host of medical conditions, from heart disease to chronic pain, the obese are absent from work more often than people of healthy weight.

[..] The medical costs of obesity have long been the focus of health economists. A just-published analysis finds that it raises those costs more than thought.

[..] For years researchers suspected that the higher medical costs of obesity might be offset by the possibility that the obese would die young, and thus never rack up spending for nursing homes, Alzheimer’s care, and other pricey items.

There is a bright side to being obese:

An obese man is 64 percent less likely to be arrested for a crime than a healthy man. Researchers have yet to run the numbers on what that might save.

And it’s not just adults.

Today’s Kids May Be Destined for Adult Heart Disease

Solution lies in instilling healthy habits, not adding medication, experts say

An array of factors has been deemed key to a healthy heart by the American Heart Association, including maintaining a healthy weight, being physically active on a regular basis, eating a healthy diet, not smoking and keeping blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose levels normal.

But half of U.S. kids meet just four or fewer of these health criteria, according to a report, Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics — 2012 Update, which was published in Circulation.

And, among those in high school, 30 percent of girls and 17 percent of boys do not get the recommended 60 minutes a day of physical activity, the report noted.

In addition, a report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that one in five children had abnormal cholesterol levels, which prompted the American Academy of Pediatrics to issue new guidelines recommending that all children 9 to 11 years old be screened for high cholesterol levels.

h/t watertiger at Dependable Renegade

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

   I have made delicious classic beef pho using oxtail and short ribs to flavor the broth, but this time I just focused on the charred ginger and onion; the spice bag filled with star anise, peppercorns, cinnamon stick and cloves; and an abundance of sweet vegetables to obtain a light but highly aromatic broth. I achieved the flavor I wanted, and now had this beautiful vegan broth, with the option of fish sauce for nonvegetarians to add.

   This would be my canvas for the week’s recipes. I used classic wide rice noodles in some of my soups, untraditional soba in others and quinoa in one. Protein came in the form of tofu, and I mixed and matched seasonal vegetables. The herbs – cilantro, Thai basil, mint – are classic, and the chilies and lime, also classic, bump up the flavor. I served smaller portions as a starter at a dinner party, but mostly enjoyed my pho as dinner every night for a week, and I was sad to see it go.

~ Martha Rose Shulman ~

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

For home cooks with a sense of adventure, experimenting with aromatic and flavored oils can transform a dish. But deciding which type of oil to use isn’t always easy.

This week, Martha Rose Shulman explains all in a primer on the various oils that can be used in cooked dishes and baked goods and drizzled on salads, fish and vegetables. She also singles out a few new favorites, including rice bran and wasabi oils, as well as tried-and-true varieties, like canola and extra virgin olive oils. Here’s her report, followed by five new recipes using oils from walnuts, peanuts, rice bran, coconut, wasabi and sesame.

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

It’s hard for me to resist buying spinach at the farmers’ market this time of year. The bunches are plush, and the leaves and stems, pale pink at the base, are tender. I’d almost forgotten what mature spinach tastes like, since I’d gotten into the habit of buying the bagged baby spinach that you don’t have to stem; at my Iranian market they sell three-pound bags at a very good price. But fresh, locally grown bunch spinach is definitely worth revisiting, even if it does require more prep time. ~ Martha Rose Shulman

Welcome to the Health and Fitness News, a weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

Throughout the Mediterranean, springtime is the season for spinach and other greens, artichokes and fava beans, and these vegetables make delicious appearances at Passover meals. There’s much in the way of healthy produce to choose from, and olive oil is the only fat you’ll find.

Welcome to the Health and Fitness weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

It was just a coincidence that I had decided to broaden my repertory of vegetarian burgers for this week’s column and was busily testing recipes on the same day that a new Harvard School of Public Health study linking red meat consumption and early death was released. Then there was the news about pink slime in ground beef used in school lunches. The timing couldn’t have been better.

Martha Rose Shulman

Welcome to the Health and Fitness weekly diary which is cross-posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette. It is open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

   Last week I couldn’t believe the size and beauty of the cabbages one farmer was selling by the piece. I bought one for $2, took it home and weighed it: five pounds on the dot. It made five terrific meals, all with ingredients I had on hand.

   I’ve been covering a lot of brassicas lately – those healthy phytochemical-rich cruciferous vegetables like kale, kohlrabi, broccoli and cabbage. That’s what we have plenty of at this time of year, and there’s no reason to be bored with them. I stuffed the tough outside leaves of my big cabbage, quartered the rest and made a pizza, a pie, a stir-fry and the most wonderful baked beans I’ve ever eaten.

Martha Rose Shulman