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Nutrition: Vitamins
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Total 18 results found since Jan 2013.
Folic acid, a B vitamin, lowers stroke risk in people with high blood pressure
If you’re among the one in three American adults with high blood pressure, be sure you’re getting plenty of the B vitamin known as folate. Doing so may lower your odds of having a stroke, an often disabling or deadly event linked to high blood pressure, a new study suggests.
Folate occurs naturally in many foods, but especially green leafy vegetables, beans, and citrus fruits. Here in the United States, add to the list most grain products, including wheat flour, cornmeal, pasta, and rice. They are fortified with the synthetic version of folate, known as folic acid.
That’s not the case in many countries ar...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - March 18, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Julie Corliss Tags: Drugs and Supplements Hypertension and Stroke high blood pressure Source Type: news
Reversing the effects of the new anti-clotting drugs
The oral anticoagulant warfarin (Coumadin) became available for prescription in 1954. This anti-clotting drug commanded national attention when President Dwight Eisenhower received the drug as part of his treatment following a heart attack. No other oral anticoagulant was successfully developed and marketed in the United States until 2010.
Warfarin is a dangerous drug. Along with insulin, it is responsible for the most emergency hospitalizations due to adverse drug reactions. Whereas insulin causes low blood sugar, warfarin is notorious for the complication of major bleeding. Warfarin is plagued by hundreds of drug-drug an...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - December 9, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Samuel Z. Goldhaber, MD Tags: Drugs and Supplements Health Heart Health Hypertension and Stroke anti-clotting coumadin deep-vein-thrombosis DVT Source Type: news
Supplements: Six vitamins that could leave you exposed to cancer, stroke and nerve damage
DIETARY supplements are a mainstay of the wellness market but all too often the health benefits are based on shaky evidence. In fact, high doses of six vitamin supplements can leave you exposed to a range of serious health problems, including cancer and stroke, warns Harvard Health.
Source: Daily Express - Health - April 18, 2022 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
Five-a-day of fruit and veg is good, but '10 is better'
Conclusion
This research supports the idea that the more fruit and veg you eat the better – at least, up to 10 portions (800g) a day.
It also suggests the number of people who die early might be reduced if they were to eat more than the current recommended guideline daily amount.
However, before we take this at face value, there are some important considerations:
There are likely to be many confounding factors that may have affected the results. It might be that people who eat a lot of fruit and veg are also more likely to be physically active, consume less alcohol, not smoke and be a healthy weight, or other facto...
Source: NHS News Feed - February 23, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Heart/lungs Cancer Medical practice Source Type: news
10 Ways to Keep Your Heart Healthy
No one ever had fun visiting the cardiologist. Regardless of how good the doc might be, it’s always a little scary thinking about the health of something as fundamental as the heart. But there are ways to take greater control—to ensure that your own heart health is the best it can be—even if you have a family history of cardiovascular disease.
Although 50% of cardiovascular-disease risk is genetic, the other 50% can be modified by how you live your life, according to Dr. Eugenia Gianos, director of Women’s Heart Health at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. “This means you can greatly ...
Source: TIME: Health - October 17, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Lisa Lombardi and Jamie Ducharme Tags: Uncategorized Baby Boomer Health heart health Source Type: news
Fish Oil and Vitamin D Supplements May Not Help Prevent Heart Attacks and Cancer, Study Says
There’s good evidence that fish oil supplements may lower the risk of second heart events — like a heart attack or stroke — in people with heart disease, but few rigorous studies have investigated whether the supplement can help people to lower their risk of having a heart event in the first place. And while some data suggests that people with lower levels of vitamin D tend to have higher rates of heart disease and cancer, the evidence isn’t solid.
Now, a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the annual meeting of the American Heart Association offers more findi...
Source: TIME: Health - November 10, 2018 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Alice Park Tags: Uncategorized Drugs Source Type: news
Heart attack survivors 'gain from high-fibre diet'
Conclusion
This was a well-designed study. Although it was a cohort study and so cannot prove causation, attempts were made to analyse the results while taking multiple factors into account.
Its strengths include that it used data from a large number of people and measured dietary habits over the previous year, which may be a more accurate assessment than snap-shot 24-hour food questionnaires. However, there will still be room for bias in people's recall and estimates of portion size.
There were a few limitations to the study:
it was not able to take into account people who suffered from a heart attack and died before ...
Source: NHS News Feed - April 30, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Heart/lungs Food/diet Source Type: news
Study: Fish Oil Doesn ’ t Seem To Prevent Heart Problems
This study is consistent with earlier trials.
The US Food and Drug Administration approved the fish oil-based drug Vascepa for heart attack and stroke prevention in 2019.
Nissen hopes the FDA will take a look at these studies and reconsider that decision.
“But it’s hard to get something undone once the genie gets out of the bottle,” he said.
An editorial in the journal that accompanies the study written by Dr. Gregory Curfman, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, also suggested the FDA should require a postmarketing clinical trial of a high-dose of fish oil, such as Vascepa, vs. corn...
Source: WBZ-TV - Breaking News, Weather and Sports for Boston, Worcester and New Hampshire - November 16, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: CBS Boston Tags: Boston News Health Syndicated CBSN Boston CNN fish oil Source Type: news
Eating your 5 A DAY 'could make you more optimistic'
Conclusion
This is well-conducted research which has used a validated measure to assess the optimism of a sample of middle-aged American citizens and measure their blood antioxidant levels.
The researchers found a link between higher carotenoid levels and higher optimism, but as the researchers rightly conclude, their findings do not prove cause and effect and it isn’t possible to say in which direction the relationship is going.
It is possible that having higher levels of antioxidants in the body leads to better physical health and this in turn enhances optimism, but then it is equally possible that people who are in be...
Source: NHS News Feed - January 18, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Mental health Source Type: news
Eggs can be part of a healthy diet
For years, men have gotten the message that they should go
easy on the eggs-over-easy. But the evidence doesn't support banning eggs from the
diet. In most studies so far, "an egg a day does not have a negative
impact on health," says Eric Rimm, professor of epidemiology and nutrition
at the Harvard School of Public Health, in the January 2015 issue of the Harvard
Men's Health Watch.
Eggs contain a
number of healthy nutrients, including B vitamins and protein. The main
concern about eating eggs has always been their cholesterol content. The
cholesterol comes from the yolk, so many people choose to eat only the egg
white.
...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - December 24, 2014 Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news
New brain diet 'slows mental decline'
ConclusionThis observational study aimed to investigate the relationship between the MIND diet and its protective properties for mental decline in an older population. The study has several strengths, including the large sample size, long observational period of up to nine years, regular annual assessment of cognitive functions, and comprehensive assessment of diet. However, one of the main limitations is that this type of study cannot show cause and effect – it can only show an association between the diet and slower mental decline. There may be other unmeasured factors that account for the results, such as genetics, ...
Source: NHS News Feed - August 6, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Neurology Source Type: news
How well does calcium intake really protect your bones?
This study was a randomized controlled trial conducted among 3,800 elderly French women (average age 84) in assisted living. The women initially had a low calcium intake (around 500 mg a day), low vitamin D levels, and low bone density. Those who received 1,200 mg of calcium and 800 international units (IU) of vitamin D supplements daily for three years had a 23% lower risk of hip fracture, and a 17% lower risk of fractures over all, than those taking placebos. The women who took calcium also built bone, while those on placebos continued to lose it. Those results — reported in 1992 and 1994 — are often cited by experts...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - September 30, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Beverly Merz Tags: Drugs and Supplements Osteoporosis calcium Source Type: news
Gout: Sleep apnea may raise your risk
Gout is the most common type of inflammatory arthritis and affects more than 8 million adults. Men are at a higher risk than women. And according to a new study, your risk for gout also climbs if you suffer from sleep apnea, a condition where your breathing repeatedly pauses while you sleep.
What exactly is gout?
Gout is triggered by the crystallization of uric acid within the joints. It happens like this: Your body produces uric acid from breaking down purines, a natural waste product of living cells. Normally, uric acid is dissolved in your blood and passes through your kidneys into your urine.
However, sometimes your bo...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - November 17, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Matthew Solan Tags: Arthritis Health Sleep gout sleep apnea Source Type: news
FDA warns parents about arsenic in rice cereal
Follow me at @drClaire
For years, rice cereal has been a go-to for parents when they start their babies on solid foods.
It’s time to change that.
In 2012, the Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a report warning about high levels of inorganic arsenic in rice and rice products. Rice plants are particularly good at absorbing arsenic from the soil, in particular because they grow in a lot of water. Inorganic arsenic is a common ingredient in pesticides and other products used in farming, and can linger in the soil for a long time after it is used. It can be poisonous. In high doses it is lethal, but even small...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - April 5, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Claire McCarthy, MD Tags: Children's Health Parenting Safety Source Type: news
3 reasons your child shouldn’t go “gluten-free” (unless your doctor says so)
Follow me at @drClaire
There is a puzzling and worrisome new phenomenon that I am seeing as a pediatrician: parents who are putting their children on gluten-free diets.
It’s puzzling because in the vast majority of cases it isn’t necessary — and it’s worrisome because, although parents are doing it because they think it’s healthy, a gluten-free diet can be very unhealthy for children.
Gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye, barley, and some other grains. It’s in bread and other baked goods, cereals, pastas — and in many other foods in small amounts. For people with celiac disease, even those small amounts ca...
Source: New Harvard Health Information - June 7, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Claire McCarthy, MD Tags: Children's Health Healthy Eating Parenting Source Type: news
