Category — Knee

photo by digimist

There are usually four ways I react to scientific studies.

The first, is what I call No Duh. That’s what I felt when I read about researchers who actually spent money to learn high heels can cause heel and ankle pain. Obviously these were men.

The second is what I call No Way! As in: Really? I never in a million years would have guessed that and yet it’s right here on my computer screen. It’s usually accompanied by wide eyes and a dropped jaw.

The third, I like to call Not Again… These are the studies that deem a formerly evil thing (a food, action, habit, you name it) really, really, ridiculously good for your health. You can spot these by the key words “surprise,” “astonishingly,” and “changes everything we thought about…”

The fourth is called Errr? That’s the sound I make when I read one of these studies that doesn’t make any logical sense. That’s the type of study I read about on the New York Times today.

The study involved 19,220 women age 39 and older. The researchers followed their drinking habits for 13 years then categorized the women as light or regular drinkers. Ready for the Errr? moment? The nondrinkers in the group gained more weight (nine pounds) over the years than those who imbibed (three pounds). The chances of being overweight were 30 percent lower for drinkers than teetotalers.

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photo by just luh.

You all had some great insight into yesterday’s discussion about kids’ chronic snacking. If you didn’t get a chance to read it, check it out here and leave your thoughts. I think going forward with the rising rates of obesity, the topic of emotional eating versus eating for hunger is going to continue being a big issue.

A couple people mentioned the fact that kids today are also moving less. That’s a whole other problem, but they go hand in hand, right? Well today I read about a study on our lack of movement. (Nope, this trial didn’t involve kids, but you can see how it could apply to the video game generation, too.)

I understand the irony of what I’m about to say seeing as I’m hooked on five—count ’em: five—TV shows. (If you’re curious, they’re Lost, 24, Fringe, Bones, and Heroes in that order.) Anyhow, turns out twenty- and thirtysomethings who watch more TV are more likely to develop risk factors for heart disease by the time they hit their 40s.

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photo by wynlok

So it seems the consensus is that The Man should get his butt to the personal training table and sign up for a couple sessions. That’s what he plans to do and, after that, he’ll decide whether he’s ready to go forth on his own or stick with a trainer until a list of exercises is burned into his brain. Or until we go broke. Thanks for all of your feedback. Did I ever tell you that you guys rock?

Today during lunch (at which time I ate a heavenly turkey bacon BLT and wondered why I don’t pack those more often) I read a great article on the New York Times Well blog. In it, the writer explained how over the past 30 years American kids are getting more and more calories from snacks. What she didn’t mean was that kids are eating six small, snack-like meals a day consisting of yogurt, fruit, nuts, veggies, and whole grains. What she did mean is that kids are supplementing three full meals with the kind of crap you find at 7-Eleven: chips, cookies, and sugary drinks, probably including those mysteriously bright-colored Slurpies. The kids are eating pretty much ’round the clock, according to research.

“My underlying fear is that we’re moving away from being hungry and eating for satiation to just eating,” said Barry M. Popkin, co-author of the study and director of nutrition epidemiology at the University of North Carolina. “Food is there, and we eat.”

What with the current obesity epidemic—thanks to which most kids will live shorter lives than their parents and end up with diseases like type 2 diabetes—the nonstop snacking sounds about right. I guess eating packaged foods will do that to you.

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photo by joe thorn
That’s not our new bookcase. I wish. Ours is a sliver of an Ikea one.

Welcome back to the workweek, all.

I had one of those weekends where I simultaneously felt like I got a lot done and did nothing at all. (With a little failure and guilt thrown in for a good measure.) Don’t ask me how that works.

We got a lot done…
While I plugged away at some editing for work, The Man put together a bookcase and two nightstands from Ikea. He’s pretty awesome at deciphering those instructions, which is a talent seeing as they’re drawn by 5-year-old Swedes.

Of course, buying new furniture never stops at construction. So I took a break from work to rearrange our bedroom. Sounds easy, right? Well, it would have been except one of our walls is slanted. (Someone must have thought, “Wouldn’t it be fancy and special if the far wall was tilted?” They were wrong. It’s just annoying.) Since I like symmetry and parallel walls, it took about forever to find a setup where I didn’t feel like all my furniture was askew.

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photo by d sharon pruitt

You guys rock. No, really. I’ve been reading all of the awesome comments you’ve left this week and it makes me so happy. There: Another thing that makes me happy. Add that to yesterday’s list.

Anyhow, just thought you should know.

This week has been dragging along as always—I think I have a chronic case of the Wednesdays—and despite our better judgment The Man and I put off grocery shopping for yet another day. Well, really, we made him put off grocery shopping since I don’t go. Yeah, he’s swell. So it looks like another painfully boring peanut butter and jelly sandwich for me today. (That’s only fun in a nostalgic kind of way when you don’t eat them for a week straight. Trust me.)

So I want to preface this post by telling you that I love kids. I think they’re great. I think they’re cute, especially when they say crazy things like, “You have really yellow teeth.” (Not that my sister did that or anything when she was three.) I have three insanely adorable nephews who make me laugh and smile every time I see them.

But…

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photo from cute overload
This makes me happy. Very happy.

By now you know that eating healthy foods—think whole grains, fruits, and veggies—exercising, and not smoking can keep your ticker tocking. Well, scientists say there’s another way you can lower your chances of getting heart disease: Be happy.

In a 10-year study of 1,739 men and women, researchers learned that happier folks were less likely to develop heart disease. They measured participants’ joy on a five-point scale and learned that for every point that measured happiness, excitement, enthusiasm, or contentment the risk of heart disease dropped by 22 percent. So unhappy people had a 22 percent higher risk of heart disease or chest pain than people who were somewhat happy. And those so-so people had a 22 percent higher risk for heart disease than moderately happy people.

The researchers say there are a few reasons people who wear rose-colored glasses may avoid heart problems. They may sleep more, have heart-healthy behaviors, have less stress or better handle stress, or they might just be physiologically different than their glum peers.

According to the researchers, people can significantly reduce their risk for heart disease if they do things that make them happy. So that’s the catch. See, making ourselves happier is easier said than done, isn’t it? I mean, when I’m down in the dumps, the last thing I want to do is purposefully make myself happier. (Yeah, that sounds depressing.)

So in case you’re feeling down but fear its ill effects on your heart, I’ve created a list of things that make me happy. You’ll probably have your own happy triggers (list ’em in the comments), but these always cheer me up…

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photo by thomas wanhoff

Ever read one of those articles promising a svelte body from sweat? You know, the ones that say soaking up heat in a sauna can cleanse your body of some horrible toxins? They talk about visiting a glamorous spa where everyone looks like Bar Refaeli, zoning out in a sauna, and buying a pair of skinny jeans on the way out. And if you don’t do it? You’ll be bloated, boring, and acne-ridden for the rest of your life.

Well, they fooled ya.

I read an article recently that said the idea of detoxing in a sauna is a whole lotta baloney. Rachel Vreeman, MD, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine and coauthor of Don’t Swallow Your Gum! Myths, Half-Truths, and Outright Lies About Your Body and Health, told HealthDay that our body has it’s own detox process. The crazy ways we get bad toxins out of our bodies are … through the liver, the kidneys, and the colon. All right, not so crazy. I thought I’d build a teensy bit of suspense.

Should your liver, kidneys, and colon stop doing their jobs, don’t look to your sweat glands. (Really, how would that work?) Vreeman says that’s not the way our body does its thing. Instead, we sweat to regulate body temperature. As in: hot → sweat → cool.

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photo by liminalmike

Remember the movie Pay it Forward? Little Haley Joel Osment played a 12-year-old boy with big dreams who launched a so-cute-you-can’t-help-smiling plan to make the world a better place. Osment’s character does good for three people under the condition they’ll pass a good deed on to another three strangers. And so on until everyone in the world has been helped out a bit—and has helped others. I won’t give away the ending in case you haven’t seen it, but let’s just say it requires a few Kleenex boxes.

The whole paying it forward idea was the topic of a recent Liberty Mutual commercial (thanks for the specifics, Google.) A man picks up a child’s toy from the road; the child’s mother stops a stranger’s coffee from spilling, and an onlooker sees her. That man helps a fallen stranger up off the ground. And so on. The basic idea is this: When you do something good, people notice—and take action.

Turns out that’s true. Researchers writing in an upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science learned that good deeds inspire other good deeds. In their study, people who had watched a program featuring musicians and their mentors were more likely to help a stranger out than those who watched a clip from a nature documentary.

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photo by dave lifson

Hope you all had a lovely Valentine’s Day weekend. The Man surprised me and took me to a lovely dinner on Saturday night (alas, it was all work no fun on Sunday). There wasn’t chocolate involved, but he made some cream cheese brownies later during the weekend. Dangerous.

I did make it to the gym Saturday afternoon which is a good thing considering how amazing his brownies are. I spent then entire gym trip concentrating on leg strengthening. I might have been yelping every time I sat down yesterday. And maybe I was walking like a cowboy.

Now that V Day is over, let’s move on to something a little less romantic … tuna. Yup, doesn’t that just scream date night? Really, though, I love tuna. For years, it was the only type of fish I’d eat. (Don’t ask me why. I know it’s one of the fishiest tasting. I guess it’s psychological.) And even still, it’s the only place I like mayo. On anything else, the white globby stuff makes me gag. In fact, I don’t even like to touch it. Or think about it. And now I’m doing just that. Ick.

Anyhow, I read an article today that said more than half of 300 tested samples of brand-name canned tuna had more mercury than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) deems safe. But the same report only found that 5 percent of the tuna contained more mercury than the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says is safe.

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photo by ulterior epicure
The box o’ chocolates is from Kee’s

I have a thing for chocolate. Let’s just say if you gave me a choice between never having dinner again and never having chocolate, I wouldn’t bat an eye before I grabbed a brownie and said, “I’ll never leave you.” It’s borderline sick.

I’ve dined at the chain restaurant Chili’s before and passed on a main course so I could fit more molten chocolate cake in my belly. (To be honest, it wasn’t a hard decision. If you’ve ever eaten at Chili’s you know their meals are usually too rubbery, too salty, too processed, or too stale—or all of the above.) But that microwaved mound of chocolatey sponge? The gooey chocolate insides? The giant scoop of vanilla ice cream to cool the warm cake? Heaven.

It reminds me of a Hallmark card I once read. The front had an illustration of a Cheesecake Factory-sized hunk of chocolate cake, and it said, “I ate a dessert called Death by Chocolate.” Flip to the inside, where the card continued: “But it didn’t kill me. It only made me stronger.”

That, friends, is how I feel.

Here’s where I insert news of a recent study that found an association between eating dark chocolate and having a lower risk of stroke and death after stroke. This is also the point where I tell you that the researchers only analyzed three studies, so the findings aren’t conclusive. Right here is the point where I wonder whether the researchers did this small study just so it would be published in time for Valentine’s Day?. No matter! Chocolate won’t kill you—I’ll make you stronger. And stroke-resistant. Just keep telling yourself that. I do.

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