What’s that white coating on your tongue? How to tell if you’re healthy or not

When it comes to oral health, most people don’t go beyond brushing and flossing their teeth. But it may be a good idea to, once in a while, take a good look at your tongue.

Other than giving you an idea why your breath stinks (if it does), in some rare cases, changes in your tongue’s appearance may be telling you something about your health – such as mouth or tongue cancer, or syphilis.

The tongue's appearance can tell a lot about one's health. Does it look like raw meat or have “hair”? Experts tell CNA Lifestyle what these all mean. Fair warning: Graphic images ahead.

For starters, a healthy tongue is pink and covered with small, short, bristly nodules known as papillae, according to Cleveland Clinic, a non-profit academic medical centre in the US. Any deviation from this appearance or any pain may be a cause for concern.

IS IT NORMAL TO HAVE A WHITE COATING ON THE TONGUE?

What about the thin white coating on the tongue? Does that count as a deviation? In most cases, they are harmless and transient, said Dr Lim Keng Hua, an ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist at Mount Elizabeth Hospital’s Dr Lim Keng Hua Ear Nose Throat Head & Neck Surgery.

“The white coating is caused by the accumulation of debris, bacteria and dead cells between the enlarged and sometimes, inflamed papillae on the surface of the tongue,” he said, adding that bleeding is rare but if it does occur, you’ll need to see a doctor to rule out cancerous growths.

The coating “may be removed by brushing your tongue with a soft toothbrush or using a scraper,” said Dr Lim, who also advised keeping yourself hydrated.

Other ways of lessening the coating is to simply avoid tobacco and alcohol, added Dr Anna See, an associate consultant in otorhinolaryngology with Singapore General Hospital’s Head & Neck Surgery department.

She also pointed out that a thick coating is “not normal.” The causes can include fungal infection, syphilis infection, lichen planus, the early stages of mouth and/or tongue cancer, or HIV. “A thick white coat, which is sometimes associated with chronic ulcers, mouth bleeding and odorous breath, should be investigated by a specialist doctor to rule out underlying causes,” said Dr See.

OTHER APPEARANCES OF THE TONGUE

Other than the usual white coating, your tongue can also take on other appearances. Here’s a look at the various ways it may present itself, and whether you need to seek medical attention.

• My tongue looks like it has grown hair

The build-up of food debris and dead cells – along with poor oral hygiene – can create these brown or black hair-like protrusions on the surface of your tongue, said Dr See.

Dr Lim added: “Other than its appearance, it may result in a metallic taste, bad breath or a tingling sensation”.

A toothbrush or tongue scraper would remove the “hairs”. However, oral hairy leukoplakia, a condition where the brown or black patches cannot be scraped off, is due to Epstein Barr viral infection, which is commonly associated with HIV infection, said Dr See. If the hairiness cannot be eliminated or keep recurring, see a doctor.

• My tongue looks like raw meat

If your tongue feels tender, and looks red and swollen, you may have glossitis. It’s an inflammation of the tongue that causes the papillae to disappear, making your tongue look like raw beef, said Dr See, who associates it with nutritional deficiencies in Vitamin B12 and iron.

According to Healthline, certain hypertension medications, eating spicy food and even toothpaste may also bring about this allergic reaction. 

Topping up on iron and Vitamin B12, as well as avoiding the triggers that cause the reaction should help. But if the swelling and tenderness don’t improve or they keep recurring, see a doctor.

• There are bumps/sores/ulcers on my tongue

Bumps on the tongue can be caused by general inflammation, said Dr See, which can be due to medication use, nutritional deficiencies or constant irritation of the mouth.

But a small, painless sore on the tongue may be a sign of syphilis, said Dr Lim. “When untreated, it becomes syphilitic leukoplakia. Other symptoms may include headache, joint pain and fever.”

When it comes to sores and ulcers, these can be painful or painless. “Painful sores may be due to viral infections. They should resolve in a couple of weeks. If ulcers or sores persist beyond two weeks, medical attention should be sought,” said Dr See.

• White patches on my tongue look strangely like the world map

You have geographic tongue, said Dr Lim. Yes, that’s what it’s called. The appearance is caused by the tongue’s patchy cell turnover. “No treatment is needed and there is no cancer risk,” he said. Just avoid food and drinks that cause discomfort, he added.

• My tongue is cracked but there’s no pain

There may be a single or multiple painless cracks in your tongue. Should you worry? “This is a benign condition where deep grooves or fissures form on the tongue’s surface,” said Dr See. “It is usually painless and harmless.”

Dr Lim noted that no treatment is needed but beef up your oral hygiene to remove food debris trapped within the furrows.

• My tongue looks like it's covered in cottage cheese

These creamy, white and slightly raised lesions on the tongue or inner cheeks can be a sign of oral thrush, which is an infection caused by candida yeast, said Dr Lim.

“The overgrowth of yeast occurs from the overuse of antibiotics, diabetes, iron and Vitamin B12 deficiencies, poor oral hygiene, weak immune system, smoking, hypothyroidism and cancer treatment.”

Although oral thrush is a common condition, it is less likely to occur in adults than in babies, according to Mayo Clinic. Adults who are infected do not report major problems in most instances. But if you have a weakened immune system, it is best that you see a doctor about the oral thrush.


Taken from this article:
What’s that white coating on your tongue? How to tell if you’re healthy or not

Weight-loss expert: 'We advocate moderation, we’re anti-dieting'

Many people who have struggled for years with excess weight know that the hardest and often the most frustrating job is not getting it off but keeping it off.

Recent decades have seen countless popular diet schemes that promised to help people shed unwanted pounds, and as each of these diets failed in the long run, they spawned their successors.

New research identifies the keys to success for long-term weight management.

A diet, after all, is something people go on to go off. Most people think of a diet as a means to an end, and few who go on a food-restricted diet to lose weight expect to have to eat that way indefinitely. And therein lies the rub, with the current unchecked epidemic of obesity as the sorry result.

We live in a land of incredible excess. Rich or poor, most of us are surrounded by calorie-rich vittles, many of them tasty but deficient in ingredients that nourish healthy bodies. “We can’t go two minutes without being assaulted by a food cue,” said Suzanne Phelan, lead author of an encouraging new study in the journal Obesity.

Even the most diligent dieters can find it hard to constantly resist temptation. And once people fall off the diet wagon, they often stay off, and their hard-lost pounds reappear a lot faster than it took to shed them.

But these facts need not discourage anyone from achieving lasting weight loss. Researchers have identified the strategies and thought processes that have enabled many thousands of people to lose a significant amount of weight and keep it off for many years, myself among them.

The new study led by Phelan, professor of kinesiology and public health at California Polytechnic State University, identified habits and strategies that can be keys to success for millions. Yes, like most sensible weight-loss plans, they involve healthful eating and regular physical activity. But they also include important self-monitoring practices and non-punitive coping measures that can be the crucial to long-term weight management.

The study, supported by a grant from WW, the current name for Weight Watchers, was conducted among nearly 5,000 of its members who reported losing an average of about 50 pounds and keeping all or nearly all the weight off for more than three years. Their habits and thought processes were compared with a control group of more than 500 obese people who reported neither gaining nor losing more than 5 pounds over more than five years.

Healthy choices become more automatic the longer people continue to make them.

Phelan recognizes the emotional challenges involved with achieving lasting weight loss. She said, “Weight loss itself is a very rewarding process. People notice and offer encouragement. But that all goes away with maintenance.”

However, she quickly added, “Maintaining weight loss can get easier over time. Over time, less intentional effort, though not no effort, is needed to be successful. After about two years, healthy eating habits become part of the routine. Healthy choices become more automatic the longer people continue to make them. They feel weird when they don’t.”

On the other hand, perfection is not realistic and can be self-defeating, Phelan said. “Successful maintainers know there will be lapses. But they also know they can recover from lapses and how to get back on track. They accept slips and don’t engage in black-and-white thinking like ‘I was bad,’ an attitude that is self-defeating. Rather, they know there will be ups and downs, and they have a plan for coping with lapses that’s empowering.”

Rather than constant deprivation and self-denial, I practice moderation.

A personal example from one who lost a third of her body weight and kept it off for half a century: I anticipate and plan for the times when I expect to be confronted with culinary largesse. I’m a little more abstemious beforehand, enjoy the indulgence and get back to normal the next day.

Rather than constant deprivation and self-denial, I practice moderation. The study’s co-author, Gary Foster, who is chief scientific officer for WW, explained that in the WW program, “Everything is on the menu. Fad diets are overly restrictive, which dooms them from the onset. We advocate moderation, we’re anti-dieting. People have to find habits and routines that make long-term weight loss sustainable.”

And as many of the successful weight maintainers in the study reported, time and practice have permanently modified what I find appealing, so I rarely feel deprived and have less need to exercise self-denial all the time. I do admit, though, that I’m less good at ignoring cravings than many in the new study are. I’m more likely to give in but control the amount I consume.

What’s on your mind is as important as what’s on your plate.

What I may be best at is monitoring my weight. I weigh myself every day and keep within a range of 2 or 3 pounds. Nearly all the successful maintainers in the study weigh themselves weekly or more often, which makes it easier to self-correct before the numbers on the scale rise significantly.

Foster said, “What’s on your mind is as important as what’s on your plate. Weight management is something you do for yourself because you’re valuable, you’re worth taking care of.”

People must abandon the notion that “they can’t like themselves until they lose weight,” he said. “Rather, they have to start with a sense of self-worth and compassion. Weight management is a positive process, not a punitive one. Beating yourself up is not helpful, it’s de-motivating.”

Among the useful strategies identified in the new study is to keep lower calorie foods like fruits and vegetables more accessible. “We eat what we see,” Phelan noted. The corollary is equally important: Keep high-calorie, less nourishing foods relatively inaccessible and out of sight if not out of the house entirely.

A good friend who struggles with his weight gets furious with his wife for bringing cookies into the house. “She knows I can’t resist them, and I’ve asked her repeatedly not to buy them.”

Foster’s suggestion: “Be very clear about what you want the person to do and not do. Say, ‘I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t bring cookies home. I want to live a long life with you and that’s not helping,’ and be sure to thank the person for following through.”

Other helpful tactics used by the successful maintainers in the study are setting daily calorie goals and keeping a food diary, recording everything eaten each day. This has helped another friend of mine sustain a loss of about 30 pounds for decades. “It keeps me honest,” she told me.

Although physical activity is not by itself very helpful with weight loss, adopting an exercise routine can give weight maintainers more leeway and help to keep lost pounds from creeping back. As Foster told me, “Calories in must balance calories out if you don’t want to gain.”

By Jane E. Brody © The New York Times


Taken from this article:
Weight-loss expert: 'We advocate moderation, we’re anti-dieting'

Hangry people listen up, here are the benefits of intermittent fasting

I’ve long thought the human body was not meant to run on empty, that fasting was done primarily for religious reasons or political protest. Otherwise we needed a reliably renewed source of fuel to function optimally, mentally and emotionally as well as physically.

Personal experience reinforced that concept; I’m not pleasant to be around when I’m hungry. There’s even an official name for that state of mind, confirmed by research: Hangry!

I was skeptical, but it turns out there is something to be said for a daily fast, preferably one lasting at least 16 hours.

But prompted by recent enthusiasm for fasting among people concerned about their health, weight or longevity, I looked into the evidence for possible benefits – and risks – of what researchers call intermittent fasting. Popular regimens range from ingesting few if any calories all day every other day or several times a week to fasting for 16 hours or more every day.

A man I know in his early 50s said he had lost 12 pounds in about two months on what he calls the 7-11 diet: He eats nothing from 7 pm until 11 am the next morning, every day.

I was skeptical, but it turns out there is something to be said for practicing a rather prolonged diurnal fast, preferably one lasting at least 16 hours. Mark P. Mattson, neuroscientist at the National Institute on Ageing and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, explained that the liver stores glucose, which the body uses preferentially for energy before it turns to burning body fat.

The 7-11 diet: He eats nothing from 7 pm until 11 am the next morning, every day.

“It takes 10 to 12 hours to use up the calories in the liver before a metabolic shift occurs to using stored fat,” Mattson told me. After meals, glucose is used for energy and fat is stored in fat tissue, but during fasts, once glucose is depleted, fat is broken down and used for energy.

Most people trying to lose weight should strive for 16 calorie-free hours, he said, adding that “the easiest way to do this is to stop eating by 8 pm, skip breakfast the next morning and then eat again at noon the next day.” (Caffeine-dependent people can have sugar-free black coffee or tea before lunch.) But don’t expect to see results immediately; it can take up to four weeks to notice an effect, he said.

Mattson and his colleague Rafael de Cabo at the ageing institute recently reviewed the effects of intermittent fasting on health, aging and disease in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Their article was prompted by frequent questions patients are asking their doctors about the health effects of fasting. Given their limited knowledge of nutrition, doctors are often unable to advise their patients, Mattson said.

Although there have been a number of recent studies assessing the effects of intermittent fasting on people, none are long-term, and the vast majority of disease-related findings stem from research on laboratory animals. For example, in an animal model of stroke, those fed only intermittently suffered less brain damage because they were better able to resist the stress of oxygen and energy deprivation.

Other animal studies have shown a “robust disease-modifying” benefit of intermittent fasting on “a wide range of chronic disorders, including obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancers and neurodegenerative brain diseases,” the researchers reported. Their review of both animal and human studies found improvements in a variety of health indicators and a slowing or reversing of aging and disease processes.

For example, human studies of intermittent fasting found that it improved such disease indicators as insulin resistance, blood fat abnormalities, high blood pressure and inflammation, even independently of weight loss. In patients with multiple sclerosis, intermittent fasting reduced symptoms in just two months, a research team in Baltimore reported in 2018.

If you think evolutionarily, Mattson said, predators in the wild fight for prey in the fasting state and are better at recovering from inevitable injuries. The human counterpart – people who evolved in feast-or-famine environments – would not have survived unless somehow protected by fasting.

Human studies of intermittent fasting found that it improved such disease indicators as insulin resistance, blood fat abnormalities, high blood pressure and inflammation, even independently of weight loss.

“Our human ancestors did not consume three regularly spaced large meals, plus snacks, every day, nor did they live a sedentary life,” the researchers wrote. The studies they analyzed showed that “most if not all organ systems respond to intermittent fasting in ways that enable the organism to tolerate or overcome the challenge” and then return to normal.

Mattson explained that during a fast, the body produces few new proteins, prompting cells to take protein from non-essential sources, break them down and use the amino acids to make new proteins that are essential for survival. Then, after eating, a lot of new proteins are produced in the brain and elsewhere.

A reasonable question might be “How safe is intermittent fasting?” When fats are used for energy, they produce substances called ketone bodies that “regulate the expression and activity of many proteins and molecules that are known to influence health and aging,” the researchers reported. Ketosis, a buildup of acidic ketones in the blood, is a state that the Atkins diet, the ketogenic diet and other carbohydrate-restricted diets aim to achieve. Taken to extremes, however, ketosis can damage the liver, kidneys and brain and is especially dangerous to people with various chronic disorders like diabetes and heart disease.

Another important question: “How practical is intermittent fasting?” Not very, especially in its early weeks or for people with limited control over their mealtimes.

“Many people will experience hunger, irritability and a reduced ability to concentrate during periods of food restrictions,” the researchers wrote. They added, however, that these side effects usually disappear within a month.

Socially, eating restrictions like intermittent fasting can be very limiting. How do you respond to a 7 pm dinner invitation if that’s the start of your fasting window?

For people with a known or hidden tendency to develop an eating disorder, fasting can be the perfect trigger, which I discovered in my early 20s. In trying to control my weight, I consumed little or nothing all day, but once I ate in the evening, I couldn’t stop and ended up with a binge eating disorder.

How well this diet might work for you may depend largely on your usual pre-diet snacking and drinking habits and the kinds and amounts of foods you consume during the non-fasting hours. Knowing you cannot eat at all for a prescribed period may prompt some people to cram in whatever they want during the eating window, regardless of its nutritional value.

Mattson cautioned that intermittent dieters should “eat healthy foods, including whole grains, healthy fats and protein, limit saturated fats and avoid sugar and refined carbohydrates. And on fasting days, be sure to stay well-hydrated.” He also suggested a gradual decrease over a period of four months in the hours and days of restricted eating and in the amount of calories consumed on fasting days.

By Jane Brody © The New York Times


Taken from this article:
Hangry people listen up, here are the benefits of intermittent fasting

Why diets don't work: The reason that weight you lost comes back with a vengeance

Hands up, if you’re on a diet. Hands up, too, if you have tried everything, from slimming centres to the Ketogenic Diet, and haven’t nudged a gram. Nope, the 2kg loss from losing water doesn’t count. And neither does the 5kg drop that comes back a year later as an 8kg gain.

The Ketogenic Diet, intermittent fasting and the various forms of high-protein, low-carb diets may be the rage now but experts say don't get your hopes up.

The comfort you can take from this is, you’re not alone. There’s always someone in the office who is dieting. Even in your circle of friends, there’s bound to be one or two individuals who have bandied around the D word from time to time.

On average, Singaporeans go through at least two diets in their lifetimes, said Pamela Er, senior dietitian at National University Hospital. Other experts such as dietitian Jaclyn Reutens from Aptima Nutrition And Sports Consultants say it could be at least three diets. “They try one diet, they fail. Then, they try again. The third failure could be the final try,” said Reutens.

DIET AND THE CITY

In fact, according to Er, the local diet scene has hit its peak scene right about now. “It’s been gradually building up over the last five years and gaining more traction in the last two years,” she said. The surge could, in part, be caused by technology. “Food is now easily accessible with just an app,” she said.

The weight can come back as quickly as two days. A 3kg weight gain in two days is not unheard of if someone just binges for a few meals.

While food-ordering apps create the supply, social media platforms create the demand. “Instagram and Facebook often push food content to users. They can be surfing these platforms in the middle of the night and they see such content, which triggers ghrelin, the hunger hormone that controls both eating behaviour and the physical processes involved in food metabolism,” said Er.

The proof is in the amount of calories Singaporeans consume daily: Six in 10 Singaporeans ate more than the recommended 2,200 calories for men and more than 1,800 calories for women a day, according to the Health Promotion Board. As of 2017, 32.8 per cent of our population is overweight, making Singapore the second-fattest kid in the Southeast Asian class. 

There’s also the pressure to be seen as trendy, noted Er. Health food companies have been increasingly using marketing and advertising tools on social media to cash in on the health trend, and promote products such as juices or ketogenic diet meal plans, she said.

On the other hand, Reutens believed that the number of Singaporeans who diet isn’t as high as we think it is. “I believe that the number of people who are on a diet make up a small percentage,” said Reutens.

“And of these people, the majority is on a fad diet, which means that there are no results or the results are not lasting. The weight rebound effect is even greater. You can lose 3kg in two months but put on 4kg in a month.”

THE HISTORY OF DIETING

If you think dieting to look good and be healthier is a modern concept, it actually goes a long way back. All the way to 1863, to be exact. Back in the 1800s, an obese English undertaker by the name of William Banting was frustrated that he was losing the battle of the bulge. At 165cm tall, the 64-year-old weighed 91kg and had to go down the stairs backwards to avoid hurting his knees. He was also losing his hearing.

And of these people, the majority is on a fad diet, which means that there are no results or the results are not lasting.

Nothing budged the weighing scale’s needle for Banting despite walking, horse riding and boat rowing for a few hours each day as well as undergoing numerous slimming treatments, consuming weight-loss drinks and being put through low-calorie diets (Sounds familiar?).

He was almost at wits’ end when his ear, nose and throat specialist, whom he saw for his hearing loss, wrote him a diet plan: No potatoes, bread, sugar, milk and beer. Instead, eat four meals a day consisting of meat, vegetables and wine at almost every meal. And it worked. So elated was Banting with the results – he apparently lost 16kg in nine-and-a-half months – that he wrote and published Letter On Corpulence, Addressed To The Public to share his diet plan.

It was the genesis of the world’s first diet plan – and probably the beginning of the many forms of low-carb diets that you see today. In fact, Banting’s diet became so popular that people used to ask, “Are you banting?” instead of, “Are you dieting?”. And his book was still being published as recently as 2007.

The word “diet” isn’t a modern construct, either. It was invented in ancient Greece but it didn’t mean eating less of certain foods to lose weight. In its original context, “diaita” represented a way of life that encompasses food, drink, lifestyle, and exercise. “They didn’t get everything right but they did know that a healthy mind and a healthy body made for a healthy society,” said Louise Foxcroft, author of Calories And Corsets: A History Of Dieting Over 2,000 Years.

HOW DIETING HAS EVOLVED

If “diet” was already a word in your lexicon in the 90s, you’d already have swung from associating fat as the ultimate diet saboteur to a delicious weight-loss ally. You’d have heard of names such as Atkins Diet (thanks to Jennifer Aniston), Zone Diet, South Beach Diet and macrobiotic diet (that would be Gwyneth Paltrow).

“The first few diets that really stood out were the Atkins Diet, Hay Diet, Blood-type Diet, Cabbage Soup Diet, and the grapefruit diet,” said Reutens. However, those diets focused on single nutrients, single foods or some unsubstantiated theory on how your body works, she said.

Then, the new millennium came and with it, the age of reality TV. Nothing was private anymore, much less the sweaty, unglamorous and very real struggles of obese people trying to lose weight on TV shows such as The Biggest Loser.

In Singapore, the more popular diets used to be the vegan, Atkins and Mediterranean Diets, whereas in the last two years, it’s becoming the Ketogenic Diet, Paleolithic Diet, intermittent fasting and juicing detox diet.

While such shows might have motivated those with weight issues to get off the couch, critics have argued that the quick and sudden weight loss – as much as 15kg in a week – isn’t healthy. The biggest gripe though: Contestants often regained the weight they’d lost, according to the medical journal Obesity Biology And Integrated Physiological, which followed 14 The Biggest Loser contestants for six years after completing the show.

The early 2000s saw a revival in meal replacement products such as shakes, food packs and bars. “Some people found this easier than having to think about purchasing or preparing low-caloric, healthy meals,” said Er. However, Reutens said that you still needed to be monitored by a dietitian to ensure you are using them correctly to see the best results.

In Singapore, “the more popular diets used to be the vegan, Atkins and Mediterranean Diets, whereas in the last two years, it’s becoming the Ketogenic Diet, Paleolithic Diet, intermittent fasting and juicing detox diet,” said Reutens.

Another trend in dieting that she sees is not so much to lose weight but to improve health. “Juice-cleanse diet, vegan diet, gluten-free diet ... eating organic food is not really a diet per se but the demand for it has surged,” she said.

WHY DIETS DON’T WORK – LARGELY

While the diets of today have generally moved away from severely limiting the number of calories you consume, they still require willpower to keep to them. And therein lies the problem. “As the saying goes, old habits die hard. Any weight management diet plan can achieve some sort of weight loss if you’re able to stick to it. However, people get tired of being on the same plan daily,” said Er.

It’s not surprising that the one thing that has consistently stood out in the various dieting methods over the years is that of keeping the weight off for good. The number on the weighing scale’s counter just doesn’t seem to stay down in the long run. “Typically, 5 per cent and up to 20 per cent of body weight loss can be achieved over six to 12 months, depending on their compliance levels, physical activity and consistency in keeping to a diet,” said Er.

She added: “Most, like intermittent fasting, may be able to yield weight loss within days of commencement, but this is usually from the loss of fluids. Research has shown that 70 per cent to 80 per cent of people who have lost weight almost regain them all or even more after two years. The real work starts when you’re trying to maintain the weight you’ve lost”.

Dieters often find themselves being socially distant because they are unable to find the foods they are supposed to consume when they eat out.

Reutens noted that the lost kilos can be regained even quicker. “The weight can come back as quickly as two days. A 3kg weight gain in two days is not unheard of if someone just binges for a few meals.”

And there’s the rub – you have to keep at your diet. There’s no day off, no weekends, no holidays. “As weight-loss programmes, diets don't work,” said Meg Selig, author of Changepower! 37 Secrets To Habit Change Success on Psychology Today. “Yes, you lose weight, but about 95 per cent of people who lose weight by dieting will regain it in one to five years. Since dieting, by definition, is a temporary food plan, it won't work in the long run.”

That aside, diets also “fail from a practical point of view,” said Reutens. “Dieters often find themselves being socially distant because they are unable to find the foods they are supposed to consume when they eat out,” she said. “Imagine you are on an intermittent fasting diet and your 4/8 hours end at 6pm; you will be unable to go for a dinner gathering at 8pm.”

It doesn’t help that your body is constantly conspiring against you. Those on a high-protein, low-carb diet would be familiar with the mood swings that come with it. “It is common for those on such a diet to be angsty, grumpy and short-tempered. This is because of the lack of serotonin being produced,” said Reutens. “Other side effects include hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar), constipation, nausea and headaches.”

Furthermore, your body goes into compensatory mode when it senses that it’s not getting the amount of fuel it used to. You feel lethargic. Your metabolic rate gets tuned down, so that your body doesn’t burn as many calories as it used to when it’s at rest, said Er. And when that happens, the weight loss plateaus. 

A heightened sensitivity to insulin is another way your body is telling you that it wants to go back to its original weight. “This means the uptake of glucose back into the cells for fat storage leaves you vulnerable to weight regain,” said Er.

WHY DO YOU STILL DIET IF IT DOESN’T WORK?

A big part of the answer lies in our love for novelty and the need to be seen as “in”, said Reutens. “It seems almost trendy to say you are on this or that diet,” she said. “I have numerous queries on the latest ones such as keto and intermittent fasting.”

If weight loss sounds like an impossibility, there is hope yet. “Weight loss is not difficult once you understand the logic,” said Reutens. “It’s a misconception that all diets are difficult to follow. Yes, the fad diets are but a well-planned, sensible diet with a wide variety of foods is actually easy and enjoyable to follow. Going on a diet is not about eating or limiting one food; it is about having a healthier attitude toward food.”

So, forget gimmicky diets. They are a waste of not just your money but your time and more so, psychological well-being, said Reutens.


Taken from this article:
Why diets don't work: The reason that weight you lost comes back with a vengeance

Scientists reveal 'ideal diet' for peoples' and planet's health

LONDON: Scientists have unveiled what they say is an ideal diet for the health of the planet and its populations: including a doubling of consumption of nuts, fruits, vegetables and legumes, and a halving of meat and sugar intake.

Scientists have unveiled what they say is an ideal diet for the health of the planet and its people - including a doubling of consumption of nuts, fruits, vegetables and legumes, and a halving of meat and sugar intake.

If the world followed the "Planetary Health" diet, the researchers said, more than 11 million premature deaths could be prevented each year, while greenhouse gas emissions would be cut and more land, water and biodiversity would be preserved.

"The food we eat and how we produce it determines the health of people and the planet, and we are currently getting this seriously wrong," said Tim Lang, a professor at Britain's University of London who co-led the research.

Feeding a growing population of 10 billion people by 2050 with a healthy, sustainable diet will be impossible without transforming eating habits, improving food production and reducing food waste, he said. "We need a significant overhaul, changing the global food system on a scale not seen before."

Many life-threatening chronic diseases are linked to poor diets, including obesity, diabetes, malnutrition and several types of cancer. The researchers said unhealthy diets currently cause more death and disease worldwide than unsafe sex, alcohol, drug and tobacco use combined.

The proposed planetary diet is the result of a three-year project commissioned by The Lancet health journal and involving 37 specialists from 16 countries.

(For a graphic, click here)

It says global average consumption of foods such as red meat and sugar should be cut by 50 percent, while consumption of nuts, fruits, vegetables and legumes should double.

For individual regions, this could mean even more dramatic changes: People in North America, for example, eat almost 6.5 times the recommended amount of red meat, while people in South Asia eat only half the amount suggested by the planetary diet.

Meeting the targets for starchy vegetables such as potatoes and cassava would need big changes in sub-Saharan Africa, where people on average eat 7.5 times the suggested amount.

Presenting the diet at a briefing on Wednesday, the researchers said they acknowledged it was very ambitious to hope to get everyone in the world to adopt it, not least because there is vast global inequality of access to food.

"More than 800 million people have insufficient food, while many more consume an unhealthy diet that contributes to premature death and disease," said Walter Willett of Harvard University in the United States.

"If we can't quite make it, it's better to try and get as close as we can," he said.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Hugh Lawson)


Taken from this article:
Scientists reveal 'ideal diet' for peoples' and planet's health

How cutting carbs – not fat – might be key to maintaining a healthy weight

It has been a fundamental tenet of nutrition: When it comes to weight loss, all calories are created equal. Regardless of what you eat, the key is to track your calories and burn more than you consume.

A new US study shows that adults who cut carbohydrates from their diets and replaced them with fat sharply increased their metabolisms.

But a large new study published on Nov 14 in the journal BMJ challenges the conventional wisdom. It found that overweight adults who cut carbohydrates from their diets and replaced them with fat sharply increased their metabolisms.

After five months on the diet, their bodies burned roughly 250 calories more per day than people who ate a high-carb, low-fat diet, suggesting that restricting carb intake could help people maintain their weight loss more easily.

The new research is unlikely to end the decades-long debate over the best diet for weight loss. But it provides strong new evidence that all calories are not metabolically alike to the body. And it suggests that the popular advice on weight loss promoted by health authorities – count calories, reduce portion sizes and lower your fat intake – might be outdated.

“This study confirms that, remarkably, diets higher in starch and sugar change the body’s burn rate after weight loss, lowering metabolism,” said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, the dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, who was not involved in the research. “The observed metabolic difference was large, more than enough to explain the yo-yo effect so often experienced by people trying to lose weight.”

Mozaffarian called the findings “profound” and said they contradicted the conventional wisdom on calorie counting. “It’s time to shift guidelines, government policy and industry priorities away from calories and low-fat and toward better diet quality.”

The new study is unique in part because of its size and rigour. It is among the largest and most expensive feeding trials ever conducted on the subject. The researchers recruited 164 adults and fed them all of their daily meals and snacks for 20 weeks, while closely tracking their body weight and a number of biological measures.

The trial cost US$12 million (S$16.5 million) and was supported largely by a grant from the Nutrition Science Initiative, a nonprofit research group co-founded by Gary Taubes, a science and health journalist and proponent of low-carbohydrate diets. The study was also supported by funding from the New Balance Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and others.

The new study is unique in part because of its size and rigour. It is among the largest and most expensive feeding trials ever conducted on the subject.

While some experts praised the findings, others were more cautious. Dr Kevin Hall, a scientist and obesity expert at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, said the new study was ambitious and very well-run. But he said the researchers used methods that raise questions about the results. One method they used to track metabolism, called doubly labelled water, has not been shown to be reliable in people on low-carb diets and it may have exaggerated the amount of calories the subjects burned, he said.

Dr David Ludwig, an endocrinologist at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital and one of the study authors, disagreed, saying: “We used a gold standard method that has been validated across a wide range of experimental conditions and universally adopted in the field.”

Hall added, “I would love it to be true that there was a diet combination of carbs and fats that led to large increases in energy expenditure – and I really hope it is true. But I think there are reasons to question whether or not it is.”

The idea that counting calories is the key to weight loss has long been embedded in the government’s dietary guidelines. It is the driving force behind public health policies like mandatory calorie counts on restaurant menus and food labels. Many experts say that the underlying cause of the obesity epidemic is that Americans eat too many calories of all kinds, prompted by easy access to cheap and highly palatable foods, and that they need to exercise portion control.

On its website, for example, the National Institutes of Health encourages people to count calories and warns that dietary fat has more calories per gram than protein or carbs: “You need to limit fats to avoid extra calories,” it states.

But experts like Ludwig argue that the obesity epidemic is driven by refined carbohydrates such as sugar, juices, bagels, white bread, pasta and heavily processed cereals. These foods tend to spike blood sugar and insulin, a hormone that promotes fat storage, and they can increase appetite.

Ludwig and his colleague Dr Cara Ebbeling have published studies suggesting that diets with different ratios of carbs and fat but identical amounts of calories have very different effects on hormones, hunger and metabolism. He has also written a best-selling book on lower-carb diets.

Hall and others disagree. They have published studies disputing the notion that carb-restricted diets accelerate metabolism and fat loss. Hall said that low-carb diets have many benefits: They can help people with Type 2 diabetes manage their blood sugar levels, for example. But he argues that the carb and insulin explanation for obesity is too simplistic and has been “experimentally falsified” in rigorous studies.

Hall published a meta-analysis of feeding studies last year that suggested that energy expenditure was actually slightly greater on low-fat diets. But Ludwig pointed out that those studies were very short, with none lasting longer than a month and most lasting a week or less. He said the process of adapting to a low-carb diet can take a month or longer.

“A few days, or a couple weeks, is not enough time to make any meaningful conclusion about how diets affect metabolism over the long term,” he added.

To do the new study, Ludwig and his colleagues collaborated with Framingham State University, about 20 miles (46.6 km) outside Boston, where they recruited overweight students, staff members and faculty members. Each participant went through two phases of the study. First, they were put on strict diets that lowered their body weight by about 12 per cent, which was designed to stress their metabolisms.

“At that point their bodies are trying to regain the weight,” Ludwig said. “It pushes the body and predisposes to weight regain.”

The process of adapting to a low-carb diet can take a month or longer.

In the second phase of the study, the subjects were assigned to one of three diets with 20 per cent, 40 per cent or 60 per cent of their calories from carbohydrates. Protein was kept steady at 20 per cent of calories in each diet.

Over the next five months, the researchers tracked the subjects meticulously and provided them with enough daily meals and snacks to keep them from losing or gaining any weight. This was so the researchers could determine precisely how the subjects’ metabolisms responded to the different diets while their body weight remained stable.

The researchers tracked biomarkers that helped them ensure that the participants stuck to their diets. They also worked with a large food service company, Sodexo, to prepare thousands of generally healthful meals that the subjects could eat in cafeterias or take home with them.

A typical meal for the high-carb group might consist of a chicken burrito bowl with rice and vegetables, for example, or roasted turkey with green beans and mashed potatoes. The low-carb group would get a similar meal with fewer carbohydrates, like a chicken burrito lettuce wrap or roasted turkey with green beans and mashed cauliflower.

What the researchers found was striking. The roughly 250 extra calories that the subjects in the low-carb group burned each day could potentially produce a 20-pound (9kg) weight loss after three years on the diet, Ludwig said. People who tended to secrete higher levels of insulin did the best on the low-carb diet, burning about 400 extra calories a day.

The subjects on the low-carb diet also had the sharpest declines in a hormone called ghrelin, which is produced in the stomach. Ghrelin promotes hunger and body fat, and it lowers energy expenditure. Suppressing ghrelin may be one reason the low-carb diet increased metabolism, the authors noted.

Ludwig emphasised that the results need to be replicated by other investigators and he stressed that the findings do not impugn whole fruits, beans and other unprocessed carbohydrates. Rather, he said, the study suggests that reducing foods with added sugar, flour and other refined carbohydrates could help people maintain weight loss by increasing their metabolisms at a lower body weight.

"These foods seem to undermine your metabolism,” he said. “They slow metabolism in a way that may work against long-term weight loss maintenance.”

Anahad O’Connor © 2018 The New York Times


Taken from this article:
How cutting carbs – not fat – might be key to maintaining a healthy weight

Can eating organic food lower cancer risks?

People who buy organic food are usually convinced it’s better for their health, and they’re willing to pay dearly for it. But until now, evidence of the benefits of eating organic has been lacking.

Now, a new French study that followed 70,000 adults, most of them women, for five years has reported that the most frequent consumers of organic food had 25 per cent fewer cancers overall than those who never ate organic. Those who ate the most organic fruits, vegetables, dairy products, meat and other foods had a particularly steep drop in the incidence of lymphomas, and a significant reduction in postmenopausal breast cancers.

In a study, those who ate more organic produce, dairy, meat and other products had 25 per cent fewer cancer diagnoses overall, especially lymphoma and breast cancer.

The magnitude of protection surprised the study authors. “We did expect to find a reduction, but the extent of the reduction is quite important,” said Julia Baudry, the study’s lead author and a researcher with the Center of Research in Epidemiology and Statistics Sorbonne Paris Cite of the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research. She noted the study does not prove an organic diet causes a reduction in cancers, but strongly suggests “that an organic-based diet could contribute to reducing cancer risk”.

The study, published Oct 22 in JAMA Internal Medicine, was paid for entirely by public and government funds.

'MORE IMPORTANT TO SIMPLY EAT MORE FRUITS AND VEGETABLES'

Nutrition experts from Harvard University, who wrote a commentary accompanying the study, expressed caution, however, criticising the researchers’ failure to test pesticide residue levels in participants in order to validate exposure levels. They called for more long-term government-funded studies to confirm the results.

“From a practical point of view, the results are still preliminary, and not sufficient to change dietary recommendations about cancer prevention,” said Dr Frank B. Hu, one of the authors of the commentary and the chairman of the department of nutrition at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

He said it was more important for people to simply eat more fruits and vegetables, whether the produce is organic or not, if they want to prevent cancer. The American Cancer Society recommends consuming a healthy diet with lots of fruits and vegetables, whole grains instead of refined grains, and limited amounts of red meat, processed meat and added sugars.

Dr Hu called for government bodies like the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Agriculture to fund research to evaluate the effects of an organic diet, saying there is “strong enough scientific rationale, and a high need from the public health point of view”.

BREAST AND LYMPHOMA CANCERS

The only other large study that has asked participants about organic food consumption with reference to cancer was a large British study from 2014. While it found a significantly lower risk of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma among women who said they usually or always ate organic food, it also found a higher rate of breast cancers in the organic consumers – and no overall reduction in cancer risk.

The authors of that study, known as the Million Women study, said at the time that wealthier, more educated women in the study, who were more likely to purchase organic food, also had risk factors that increase the likelihood of having breast cancer, such as having fewer children and higher alcohol consumption.

The organic food market has been growing in recent years, both in Europe and the United States. Sales of organic food increased to US$45.2 billion last year in the United States, according to the Organic Trade Association’s 2018 survey.

For food to be certified organic by the Department of Agriculture, produce must be grown without the use of most synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, and may not contain genetically modified organisms. Meat must be produced by raising animals fed organic food without the use of hormones or antibiotics. Such items now represent 5.5 per cent of all food sold in retail outlets, according to the organic trade group.

LINK BETWEEN PESTICIDE AND CANCER?

A representative of the Alliance for Food and Farming, a group that seeks to allay public concerns about pesticides, said consumers should not worry about cancer risks from consuming conventionally grown fruits and vegetables.

“Decades of peer-reviewed nutritional studies largely conducted using conventionally grown produce have shown that eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables prevents diseases, like cancer, and leads to a longer life,” its executive director, Teresa Thorne, said in an emailed statement.

For the study, researchers recruited 68,946 volunteers who were 44, on average, when the study began. The vast majority, 78 per cent, were women.

Participants provided detailed information about how frequently they consumed 16 different types of organic foods. The researchers asked about a wide range of foods, including fruits, vegetables, dairy and soy products, meat, fish and eggs, as well as grains and legumes, bread and cereals, flour, oils and condiments, wine, coffee and teas, biscuits and chocolate and sugar, and even dietary supplements. Study volunteers provided three 24-hour records of their intake, including portion sizes, over a two-week period.

The information was far more detailed than that provided by participants in the British Million Women study, who responded to only a single question about how often they ate organic.

OTHER HEALTHY BEHAVIOURS MAY HAVE HELPED

Participants in the French study also provided information about their general health status, their occupation, education, income and other details, like whether they smoked. Since people who eat organic food tend to be health-conscious and may benefit from other healthful behaviours, and also tend to have higher incomes and more years of education than those who don’t eat organic, the researchers made adjustments to account for differences in these characteristics, as well as such factors as physical activity, smoking, use of alcohol, a family history of cancer and weight.

Even after these adjustments, the most frequent consumers of organic food had 76 per cent fewer lymphomas, with 86 per cent fewer non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas, and a 34 per cent reduction in breast cancers that develop after menopause.

The reductions in lymphomas may not be all that surprising. Epidemiological studies have consistently found a higher incidence of some lymphomas among people like farmers and farmworkers who are exposed to certain pesticides through their work.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified three pesticides commonly used in farming – glyphosate, malathion and diazinon – as probable human carcinogens, and linked all three to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

One reason an organic diet may reduce breast cancer risk is because many pesticides are endocrine disrupters that mimic oestrogen function, and hormones play a causal role in breast cancer.

By Roni Caryn Rabin © 2018 The New York Times


Taken from this article:
Can eating organic food lower cancer risks?

Fruits can be your diet ally or saboteur – depending on how you consume them, say dietitians

These are confusing times when it comes to sugar. While there is no grey area when it comes to the adverse effects of added sugar on your health – think diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and weight gain – you may not be so sure about the sugar found naturally in food like fruit.

Both fruits and soft drinks are sweet but why is one better for you than the other? Can fruits make you gain weight? CNA Lifestyle goes in search of diet answers.

But wait, how can fruit be bad for you when the Health Promotion Board (HPB) advises us to eat at least two servings of fruit a day? Should we be worried about the sugar in fruit? Are certain fruit better for you than others? Does fruit... make us fat?

DIFFERENTIATING THE SWEET STUFF

First, not all sugars are the same. “While all sugars give us energy, there are subtle differences in the way each type of sugar is absorbed and digested,” said Jaclyn Reutens, clinical dietitian and the founder of Aptima Nutrition & Sports Consultants.

What gives fruit their sweetness is fructose – a carbohydrate naturally found in them. “When you eat fruit, your blood sugar levels rise slowly,” said Reutens.

But in highly processed food, such as bubble tea, biscuits, cakes, sweets, and even savoury items like frozen dinners, sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) are added to improve their flavours. “When you eat these foods, your blood sugars levels soar,” said Reutens, referring to the potentially diabetes-causing situation you want to avoid.

Unfortunately, HFCS is used in many foods you see in the supermarket. Take boxed fruit juices, for example. Although juice is already naturally high in sugar, some food manufacturers sweeten it even further with HFCS, making the level of sugar comparable to the amount added to soft drinks – and in some cases, even more than soft drinks, according to the Healthline website.

Even a single serving of certain flavoured low-fat yoghurts – which you may think is healthy – could contain over 40g of sugar. The same can be said of other seemingly “healthy” foods, such as cereal and granola bars, which are heavily sweetened with HFCS, noted the website. These foods can easily bust the limit to your daily intake of added sugar, which is no more than 8 to 11 teaspoons, or 40g to 55g, according to the HPB.

SUGAR IN FRUIT

Fructose is what contributes to your calorie intake. Here’s a look at how some common fruits rank on the fructose meter, from the lowest to the highest.

A serving of fruit would give you 10g to 20g of fructose. Two servings a day, as recommended by HPB, would provide 20g to 40g, said Reutens.

"If we're consuming natural sugars within the healthy eating guidelines, for example, two servings of fruit per day, and adequate amounts of low glycaemic index carbohydrates, which do have some natural sugar in them, this is meeting the guidelines of what you're looking for," said dietitian Chloe McLeod on HuffPost Australia. "It's more about looking at added sugars. We want those added teaspoons in the day to be quite low."

If you’re thinking of clearing your fridge of fruit to help you lose weight – don’t. “Forget the notion that fruit makes you fat,” said Reutens. "It’s a fact that we do not eat enough fruit. One in four Singaporeans do not meet their recommended intake, so how can we attribute weight gain to fruit?” she said.

On the contrary, fruits are a must if you want to lose weight. “Fruits give you satiety, which enables you to control your appetite. Fruits are also naturally sweet, so they help to satisfy your sweet cravings with far fewer calories than cake or any sweets,” said Reutens. “Fruits are a source of dietary fibre in your diet. They also give you vitamins and minerals as well as phytochemicals that foods in other food groups cannot provide. Eat your two servings a day.”

But that doesn’t give you the licence to binge on fruit either. "It's not that fruit is unhealthy; it just means that if you're having (six or seven) pieces of fruit, it's unlikely you're going to meet your veggie requirements, daily nut intake, or dairy intake per day. It's about fitting it all together,” said McLeod.

Moreover, “we eat foods, not single nutrients,” said Reutens. If you avoid fruit to minimise your intake of fructose, you may run into nutrient deficiencies, she said. Take, for example, avocados. They rank high on calorie content but they are also packed with monounsaturated fats, which are good for improving the level of good cholesterol (HDL) in the body, she said.

Conversely, if you regularly eat energy-rich bananas and do not burn off the calories, you can potentially gain weight, said Reutens. But that doesn’t mean you should stay off bananas – they are also a fantastic source of potassium, which helps with muscle contractions and prevents cramps, she added.

BEST WAY TO JUICE UP

What about fruit juices then? It depends on how the juice is derived. “The majority of the nutritional value in fruits is found in the pulp and flesh, which provide fibre,” said Reutens. “If you remove them, you are left with very little nutritional value. You may get some Vitamins A and/or C, or whatever is left after oxidation.”

Should you still order a juice instead of a soft drink for lunch? “You are better off with fruit juice,” said Reutens. “The calories are much lower in fruit juices but there are no added sugars, and the juices also contain some, albeit, small amounts of vitamins and minerals. Bubble tea and blended drinks are also high in fat.”

For instance, a cup of watermelon juice has 95 calories and 20g of sugar. If you have a 330ml can of Coke, you’ll be consuming 133 calories and nearly 35g of sugar, said Reutens. Bubble tea with pearls and milk are worse at 232 calories and 24g of sugar.

The worst choice, in terms of calories and sugar intakes, are blended drinks, such as yoghurt drinks, smoothies and mixed fruit juices. Each cup can give you over 400 calories and nearly 40g of sugar if you don’t watch what you put into it.

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF FRUIT

It’s all about maximising the amount of nutrients when it comes to eating fruits. To that purpose, it is best that you eat the fruit as soon as you cut or prepare it.

“Fresh fruits have enzymes in their tissues. When a fruit is sliced, the enzymes get exposed to the oxygen in the air and oxidation occurs. That is why fruits turn brown. When oxidation occurs, Vitamin C gets lost,” explained Reutens. The longer the fruit is exposed, the less Vitamin C it will have.

However, if pre-cut, cellophane-wrapped fruit is all that you can find at the supermarket or convenience store, you will still reap the benefits of its dietary fibre, potassium and remaining vitamins,” she said. To supplement your vitamin intake, alternate pre-cut fruit with whole fruit, she advised.


Taken from this article:
Fruits can be your diet ally or saboteur – depending on how you consume them, say dietitians

Thinning eyebrows: It could be a medical issue, not just a sign of ageing

If you've been too enthusiastic with tweezers in the past resulting in sparse eyebrows or you're just not naturally blessed with Cara Delevigne level brows, well, you're not going to look forward to getting older.

In fact, you might already have noticed your brows’ disappearing act in your 40s. One sign of that is, you are getting increasingly liberal with your eyebrow pencil or powder. Even if you don’t wear makeup, you might see bald patches, or your brow tails are getting shorter.

The rate of hair growth slows when you’re older, but certain health conditions could also be the cause of your brows looking worse for wear.

WHY BROWS THIN WITH AGE

So, what is going on? Just as the hair follicles on your scalp grow thinner and finer hair as you get older, so too, can the follicles above your eyes, said dermatologist Dr Sejal Shah, a fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology, on Self.

The rate of hair growth also slows when you’re older, said New York City-based dermatologist Joshua Zeichner on Allure. “Eyebrow hair grows actively for three to four months, followed by a resting phase, after which the hairs are released from the skin,” he said. But when the active phase shortens and the resting phase lengthens because of age, your brows will start to look patchy.

At the same time, your body starts to shut down its pigment factory, according to Medline Plus, meaning that the hairs produced won’t look so dark if you have black hair to begin with. The result? Brows start to look thinner and more sparse.

MEDICAL CAUSES OF THINNING BROWS

However, it's not just ageing that could be affecting the fullness of your eyebrows – it could be caused by certain health issues as well. Here are four reasons why thinning brows may warrant a trip to the doctor.

• Skin conditions

That itch on your face may be more than a mozzie bite if you’re losing brow hair. That’s because healthy hair needs healthy skin to grow, and if the affected area has become red and flaky, it could be a sign of eczema, psoriasis or other forms of skin conditions, noted Medical News Today. Unfortunately, the use of some medication to treat psoriasis, such as acitretin, can also cause hair loss, including the brows.

• Thyroid issues

The thyroid gland in the neck produces hormones to regulate metabolism. But when there is too little or too much of certain hormones, it disrupts many processes, including hair growth, according to Healthline. The loss of brow hair may be more pronounced in the outer third of the eyebrow in hypothyroidism (insufficient thyroid hormones), noted Medical News Today.

• Autoimmune diseases

Doctors don’t know what causes alopecia, an autoimmune disease, but it is when your immune system mistakenly identifies the hair follicles as the enemy and attacks them. Several kinds of alopecia exist, according to Healthline, including alopecia areata, which causes random spots of baldness; alopecia universalis, which causes all hair, including your brows, to completely disappear; and frontal fibrosing alopecia, which scars the scalp and also creates brow loss.

• Lack of sebum and Vitamin A

Sebum is every tropical dweller’s nightmare because it greases up everything, from the scalp to the face. But sebum has its purpose: To moisturise skin – and apparently, help hair grow. A 2011 study on Science Direct, a platform for peer-reviewed research, found that a lack of vitamin A can hinder the production of sebum, which is essential for moisturising hair and promoting its growth.


Taken from this article:
Thinning eyebrows: It could be a medical issue, not just a sign of ageing

Are you grinding your teeth? You could be stressed or have a sleeping disorder

We cope with stress – consciously and unconsciously – in various ways. Some of us reach for some comfort food to feel better while others hit the gym or head out for a jog to get into the Zen zone. Then, there are the unconscious manners in which we react to stress, such as the peculiar odour our bodies produce under duress.

Teeth grinding and jaw clenching – also known as bruxism – could manifest during sleep and even unconsciously in the day.

Or you may be clenching your jaw or gnashing your teeth unknowingly – a condition known as bruxism – especially when your boss is breathing down your neck for a report.

As high as 38 per cent of the patients seen here were significantly depressed, too, when they reported jaw joint symptoms, which are likely a result of the effects of bruxism.

It's not just stress causing you to do that, depressed individuals may also be prone to teeth-clenching, said Dr Chua Ee Kiam, a senior consultant with the Department of Restorative Dentistry’s Prosthodontic Unit at the National Dental Centre Singapore.

“I would look at the psychological states, as in some cases, depression may also activate bruxism. As high as 38 per cent of the patients seen here were significantly depressed, too, when they reported jaw joint symptoms, which are likely a result of the effects of bruxism,” said Dr Chua.

In fact, a PubMed article, in which 470 participants were surveyed, also noted that “individuals who grind their teeth tend to report more symptoms of anxiety and depression than non-bruxers”, with bruxism seemingly “more severe during periods of heightened stress and anxiety”.

Why some people develop bruxism when stressed or depressed while others don’t depends on how they perceive and manage the stimulus, said Dr Chua. During sleep, “the subconscious mind may be more active than usual”, he said. And as the mind attempts to solve some of the day’s issues, it may result in gnashing or clamping of the teeth for some individuals.

BRUXISM IN THE DAY AND AT NIGHT

Some experts term bruxism as the clenching or grinding of the teeth, while others group them together, noted The American Academy of Oral Medicine (AAOM). But no matter what the action is, bruxism can happen in your sleep – and even during your waking hours. In adults, awake bruxism is more prevalent (22 per cent to 30 per cent) than sleep bruxism (1 per cent to 15 per cent), said Dr Chua, because patients are “often aware of the habit in the day”.

Because of this awareness in the day, awake bruxism is not as insidious as sleep bruxism, according to Dr Yue Weng Cheu, the clinical director of DP Dental and DP Dental Orchard. The nocturnal version can be caused by sleep apnoea, which one third of our population is at moderate or severe risk of, he said.

A worrisome form of it is obstructive sleep apnoea when the throat muscles relax during sleep and block the airway to the extent of interrupting breathing. What happens next is, the body sends out a stress response to raise heart and respiratory rates to get in more oxygen, said Dr Yue. Sometimes, this stress response increases muscle activity in the jaw, which in turn, leads to clenching or grinding during sleep.

In adults, awake bruxism is more prevalent (22 per cent to 30 per cent) than sleep bruxism (1 per cent to 15 per cent).

Sleep bruxism could also be caused by the way you breathe. “Mouth breathers, for instance, condition their tongues to lay low in the mouth during the day and when they continue to mouth-breathe at night, they suffer the consequences of airway obstruction or resistance, resulting in snoring and sleep bruxism,” said Dr Yue.

Almost every patient who suffers from sleep bruxism is unaware of his or her habit unless the sleeping partner complains about the noise at night, said Dr Chua.

ARE YOU PRONE TO BRUXISM?

The prevalence of bruxism is higher in individuals from ages 30 to 49 than those older than 60 years old, said Dr Ho Kok Sen, a dental specialist in oral and maxillofacial surgery at Specialist Dental Group, Mount Elizabeth Hospital. "According to AAOM, the prevalence of bruxism tends to decrease with age, with the lowest in people over 65," he said.

So, how common is bruxism? Dr Chua sees about 10 to 20 cases every month, while Dr Yue handles about four cases a week on average. Age is not a factor as both doctors have patients of various ages.

HOW DO YOU TELL IF YOU HAVE BRUXISM AND WHAT’S THE DAMAGE?

Is there pain in your temporomandibular joint (a hinge-like joint that connects your jaw to the skull) – especially in the morning when you wake up? While brushing your teeth, take a look in the mirror: Are your teeth looking shorter than before?

Take note, too, when you’re eating; is there pain or sensitivity when you chew? Do you notice a change or misalignment in your bite, or you just can’t bite properly anymore? Or you can’t fully open your mouth? If you answered “yes” to any of the above, it’s time to check in with your dentist for bruxism.

Clenching typically cracks your pearly whites and causes muscle soreness, pain and damage to the jaw. On the other hand, grinding wears off the outermost protective enamel and exposes the nerve-rich dentin, which results in tooth sensitivity, noted AAOM.

“Sometimes, we don’t see the grind marks or facets clearly but we can detect craze lines (cracks in the enamel) in the teeth,” said Dr Yue. But by the time the craze line has developed into a crack (involving the enamel, dentin and pulp of the tooth) and has joined with the other cracks, the patient has already worn down his teeth to the point of breakage, he said.

The duration it takes to wear down your teeth depends on the thickness of your teeth's enamel, said Dr Ho. "People who have weaker tooth enamel will having a higher risk of teeth breakage if bruxism persists."

Dr Yue added that it is "hard to tell how long that takes but those with the habit of cracking open crab shells, nuts, ice cubes and chicken bones with their teeth run higher risks”.

WHAT TREATMENTS ARE THERE?

Save for the scenario when you can’t fully open your mouth and require surgery to “unlock” the jaw, you’ll likely need root-canal and crown treatments, said Dr Chua, and sometimes, extraction.

Meanwhile, wearing a mouth guard may help to minimise the wear and tear. But do not grab one off the shelf. “Using a mouth guard from the sports store is like using a pair of shoes you picked up on the street,” said Dr Yue, explaining that the dentist needs to customise the fit for you. “If the fit is not good, the muscles will suffer.”

In addition, "over-the-counter mouth guards are generally made of thinner materials, which may not be able to withstand the force if your clench or grind is extremely hard", said Dr Ho.

However, a mouth guard doesn’t directly address the root cause of bruxism, said Dr Yue, which can sometimes be traced to sleep-related breathing disorders. Moreover, an upper guard should not be used during sleep if the patient has breathing disorders. “This is because the upper guard will block the tongue from lifting to the palate and that can aggravate the obstruction of the airway, leading to a more disastrous outcome,” he explained.

Botox injections to reduce the muscular actions in the jaw may help temporarily, said Dr Chua. Other than those, he suggested keeping stress levels under control and leading a balanced lifestyle.


Taken from this article:
Are you grinding your teeth? You could be stressed or have a sleeping disorder

Weekly short walks can lower risk of dying from heart attack and cancer

A brisk stroll once or twice a week is enough to reduce the risk of dying from heart attack, stroke or cancer, according to a statistical study of nearly 90,000 people released Tuesday (Mar 19).

A brisk stroll once or twice a week is enough to reduce the risk of dying from heart attack, stroke or cancer, according to a statistical study of nearly 90,000 people.

People who walked or gardened 10 minutes to an hour each week had an 18-per cent lower risk of death from any cause compared to full-on couch potatoes, researchers reported in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

Two-and-a-half to five hours weekly of such "moderate physical activity" - broken into segments of no less than 10 minutes - resulted in a 31 per cent reduction in risk, they found.

And those who clocked up at least 25 hours almost halved the risk.

Not everyone, however, has that much time to spend on leisure-time exercise, the authors acknowledged.

Heart-pumping and pulse-quickening activities such as biking, running and competitive sports "are more time-efficient than moderate intensity activity", they said.

For cardiovascular disease alone, there was no additional benefit to be gained by graduating from five to 25 hours, they noted.

Researchers led by Bo Xi, a professor in the Department of Epidemiology at Shandong University in northern China, sifted through data collected annually on 88,140 people in the United States between 1997 and 2008 for the National Health Interview Surveys.

That data on excercise was then matched against registered deaths through 2011.

The authors cautioned that the study was observational, meaning that no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect. The fact that exercise data was self-reported was also a potential weakness.

But the large number of people covered by the research goes a long way to compensate for these methodological limitations, they added.


Taken from this article:
Weekly short walks can lower risk of dying from heart attack and cancer

How exercise might affect our food choices – and consequently our weight

Taking up exercise could alter our feelings about food in surprising and beneficial ways, according to a compelling new study of exercise and eating. The study finds that novice exercisers start to experience less desire for fattening foods, a change that could have long-term implications for weight control.

A study shows that men and women who started an exercise programme no longer found high-calorie, fatty foods quite so irresistible.

The study also shows, though, that different people respond quite differently to the same exercise routine and the same foods, underscoring the complexities of the relationship between exercise, eating and fat loss.

I frequently write about exercise and weight, in part because weight control is a pressing motivation for so many of us to work out, myself included. But the effects of physical activity on waistlines are not straightforward and coherent. They are, in fact, distressingly messy.

Both personal experience and extensive scientific studies tell us that a few people will lose considerable body fat when they start exercising; others will gain; and most will drop a few pounds, though much less than would be expected given how many calories they are burning during their workouts.

At the same time, physical activity seems to be essential for minimising weight gain as we age and maintaining weight loss if we do manage to shed pounds.

Precisely how exercise influences weight in this topsy-turvy fashion is uncertain. On the one hand, most types of exercise increase appetite in most people, studies show, tempting us to replace calories, blunting any potential fat loss and even initiating weight creep.

But other evidence suggests that physical fitness may affect people’s everyday responses to food, which could play a role in weight maintenance. In some past studies, active people of normal weight displayed less interest in high-fat, calorie-dense foods than inactive people who were obese.

Most of those studies examined the preferences of men and women who already were or were not fit, however. They did not look at whether altering people’s exercise habits might also transform their feelings about food.

So, for the new study, which was published in November in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, researchers at the University of Leeds in England and other institutions decided to ask a group of sedentary men and women about how they felt about food and to begin working out.

The researchers wound up recruiting 61 volunteers, most of them middle-aged and inactive; all were overweight or obese. The study participants completed detailed questionnaires and online tests of their food preferences and behaviours, picking, for instance, between rapid-fire, on-screen pictures of different foods and also answering questions about bingeing on food and whether they found it hard to not overeat.

Fifteen of the volunteers then were asked to continue with their normal lives as a control group, while the other 46 began exercising, working out on exercise machines at a university facility five times a week for about 45 to 60 minutes or until they had burned about 500 calories per session. They continued this training for 12 weeks, eating as they liked at home.

Then everyone returned to the lab for weigh-ins and to repeat the original tests. Most, but not all, of the exercisers had shed a few pounds, while some of those in the control group had gained weight.

The men and women in the control group also showed little alteration in their feelings about food. But the exercisers’ reactions to pictures of and questions about high-calorie, fatty foods were new. They no longer found them quite so irresistible. In psychological terms, they showed less “wanting” for the most fattening foods.

Interestingly, their scores on measures of “liking,” or how much they expected to enjoy those same foods, remained unchanged and strong. They still felt that they would enjoy a cookie but did not feel quite the same drive to seek one out. They also reported fewer instances of recent binge eating.

Taken as a whole, these results suggest that, in addition to making us healthier, “exercise might improve food reward and eating behaviour traits linked to the susceptibility to overconsume,” says Kristine Beaulieu, a research fellow and dietitian at the University of Leeds, who led the new study.

In other words, working out for a period of time could nudge us to rethink the kinds of foods we want to eat.

But the researchers did not monitor what their volunteers actually opted to eat at home, so they do not know if their eating habits shifted in real life. They also do not know if results would be different if people tried other types or amounts of exercise or how the exercise in this experiment affected food preferences, although they suspect it changed the workings of certain parts of the brain that regulate eating behaviour.

Perhaps most frustrating, they cannot explain why the final outcomes varied so much from one exerciser to another, with some developing far more disinterest in fatty foods than others. Genetics might be involved, or personality, lifestyle, body composition or other factors. The researchers hope to explore some of those issues in future studies.

But for now, the study reinforces the idea that exercise should be part of our efforts to manage our weight.

“People still liked high-fat foods to the same extent,” after four months of training, Beaulieu points out, “but they wanted to eat them less, which we view as a favourable outcome.”

Gretchen Reynolds © 2018 The New York Times


Taken from this article:
How exercise might affect our food choices – and consequently our weight

Ladies, here’s a 10-step guide to shaving your legs without getting nicks or razor burn

Wouldn’t you want legs that feel smooth to the touch? The good old fashion method of shaving is one way to get there.

But shaving isn’t a mindless job that only involves the simple act of putting a blade up against the skin. If done wrong, you’re likely to end up with unsightly nicks, a painful razor burn, ingrown hairs and bumpy skin that feels as dry as the Sahara desert.

Is there a right way to shave your legs? Yes – because if done wrong, you’ll end up with dry and bumpy skin, ingrown hair and more.

So how can we shave our legs the right way? Here’s CNA Lifestyle’s definitive, step-by-step guide to achieving hairless legs that feel smooth as silk.

1. GETTING STARTED FOR THE FIRST TIME

Have a vacuum cleaner handy before you begin. Use a hair trimmer to remove as much hair as possible – otherwise your poor razor blade will have to work doubly hard. Pick up the hair with the vacuum cleaner, instead of washing it down the shower drainage.

2. SHAVE AFTER, NOT BEFORE, YOU SHOWER

Never be so lazy and in such a rush as to dry shave as you’re more likely to nick yourself, and miss spots, if your skin isn’t wet. Take your time. Lather up your body, then rinse everything off. This time in the shower helps ensure your skin is thoroughly wet, and also helps soften up your hair. Softer hair and opened-up follicles allow for a closer, more comfortable shave, while helping your razor blades remain sharper longer. A 15-minute wait is best; any longer and your skin may wrinkle and swell, making it harder to get a close shave.

3. EXFOLIATE BEFORE SHAVING

This will help remove the layer of dead skin cells, so you get a cleaner, deeper shave. It also prevents those dead skin cells from clogging up your razor blade, which can cause razor burn. Use a body scrub and not a loofah as the latter tends to trap dirt and bacteria.

4. APPLY SHAVING CREAM

The foam helps condition your skin and soften hair, and allows the razor to glide smoothly over skin, reducing the chances of skin irritation and nicks. Squirt a dollop of shaving cream into your hand and spread a thin, even layer over your legs. If you really hate cluttering up your bathroom with too many different products, hair conditioner makes a good substitute. Try not to use soap or body wash as these can be too drying on the skin.

5. USE A CLEAN, SHARP, DRY MULTI-BLADE RAZOR​​​​​​​

Dull blades tend to lead to nicks and cuts; rusty blades may lead to tetanus; blades that have not been allowed to dry out properly in between uses can be a breeding ground for bacteria and fungus.

Your blade should be changed after five to 10 shaves. Once you get an idea of what the frequency for changing razors should be, put a recurring alarm in your phone’s calendar as a reminder.

It’s worth it to invest in a four- or five-blade razor as it provides the smoothest results, letting you navigate tricky areas like the knees and ankles. Single-blade razors are likelier to drag against the skin and get duller faster.

6. SHAVE AGAINST THE DIRECTION OF HAIR GROWTH

Begin at the ankle and carefully shave upwards. Don’t press too hard or you’ll get nicks and missed spots. It helps to have something to prop your foot up against for support.

7. RINSE YOUR RAZOR WHILE SHAVING

Rinse the blade after every few strokes to remove the shaving cream and hair that are clogging up your razor by running it under the faucet or swishing it in a tub of clean water. Don’t knock it against the bathtub or shower stall wall as you might cause the blade to lose its sharpness faster. Dry the blade before starting on a new spot.

8. DO A CHECK

Rinse your legs and run your hands all over to see if you’ve missed any spots. If there are any missed spots, reapply shaving cream to them, and repeat the shaving process. Then rinse your skin again.

9. MOISTURISE, MOISTURISE, MOISTURISE

Rinse your razor under clean running water, and let it dry out properly before you put the blade protector on. Store it in a clean, dry place – not in the shower stall – to reduce the likelihood of rust or of any lingering bacteria or fungus on the blades.


Taken from this article:
Ladies, here’s a 10-step guide to shaving your legs without getting nicks or razor burn

Is there such a thing as a 'sugar high'? Or is it a popular misconception?

Is there a medical basis for the “sugar high,” which some parents claim their children get after eating sugar?

The theory of the “sugar high” has been debunked, yet the myth persists.

The notion that sugar might make children behave badly first appeared in the medical literature in 1922. But the idea did not capture the public’s imagination until Dr Ben Feingold’s bestselling book, Why Your Child Is Hyperactive,” was published in 1975.

Many parents blame sugar for their children's hyperactive behaviour. But the myth has been debunked.

In his book, Feingold describes the case of a boy who might well be “patient zero” for the putative connection between sugar and hyperactivity:

“[The mother’s] fair-haired, wiry son loved soft drinks, candy and cake – not exactly abnormal for any healthy child. He also seemed to go completely wild after birthday parties and during family gatherings around holidays.”

In the mid-’70s, stimulant drugs such as Ritalin and amphetamine were becoming popular for the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. For parents who were concerned about drug side effects, the possibility of controlling hyperactivity by eliminating sugar proved to be an enticing, almost irresistible, prospect.

Some studies supported the theory. They suggested that high sugar diets caused spikes in insulin secretion, which triggered adrenaline production and hyperactivity. But the data were weak and were soon questioned by other scientists.

An extraordinarily rigorous study settled the question in 1994. Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, a group of scientists tested normal preschoolers and children whose parents described them as being sensitive to sugar. Neither the parents, the children nor the research staff knew which of the children were getting sugary foods and which were getting a diet sweetened with aspartame and other artificial sweeteners. Urine was tested to verify compliance with the diets. Nine different measures of cognitive and behavioural performance were assessed, with measurements taken at five-second intervals.

The study concluded that sugar does not affect children’s behaviour or cognitive function. An editorial that accompanied the study put a fine point on that conclusion, stating “there is no evidence that sugar alone can turn a child with normal attention into a hyperactive child.” One year later, an analysis that gathered data from all published studies on the subject reached the same conclusion.

While thoroughly refuted, the theory of the sugar high endures as a topic of ongoing investigation. But the results of these investigations continue to show that sugar does not affect children’s behaviour.

Still, limiting your child’s sugar consumption is a good idea. Though cutting down on sugar will not affect children’s behaviour, it may help to protect them against obesity, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Richard Klasco, MD © 2018 The New York Times


Taken from this article:
Is there such a thing as a 'sugar high'? Or is it a popular misconception?

How to boost your immune system during COVID-19

As worries grow about the new coronavirus, online searches for ways to bolster the immune system have surged. Are there foods to boost your immune system? Will vitamins help?

Fears about coronavirus have prompted online searches and plenty of misinformation about how to strengthen the immune system. Here’s what works and what doesn’t.

The immune system is a complex network of cells, organs and tissues that work in tandem to protect the body from infection. While genetics play a role, we know from studies of twins that the strength of our immune system is largely determined by non-heritable factors. The germs we are exposed to over a lifetime, as well as lifestyle factors like stress, sleep, diet and exercise all play a role in the strength of our immune response.

The bottom line is that there is no magic pill or a specific food guaranteed to bolster your immune system and protect you from the new coronavirus. But there are real ways you can take care of yourself and give your immune system the best chance to do its job against a respiratory illness.

LOWER YOUR STRESS

Worries about the coronavirus, the stock market and the general disruption of life have added to our stress levels, but we know that stress also can make you more susceptible to respiratory illness.

In a series of remarkable studies over 20 years at Carnegie Mellon University, volunteers were exposed to the cold virus (using nose drops) and then quarantined for observation. The researchers found that people who reported less stress in their lives were less likely to develop cold symptoms. Another series of studies at Ohio State University found that marital conflict is especially taxing to the immune system. In a series of studies, the researchers inflicted small wounds on the arms of volunteers, and then asked couples to discuss topics both pleasant and stressful. When couples argued, their wounds took, on average, a full day longer to heal than after the sessions in which the couples discussed something pleasant. Among couples who exhibited especially high levels of hostility, the wounds took two days longer to heal.

The bottom line: Your body does a better job fighting off illness and healing wounds when it’s not under stress. Learning techniques for managing stress, like meditation, controlled breathing or talking to a therapist are all ways to help your immune system stay strong.

IMPROVE YOUR SLEEP HABITS

A healthy immune system can fight off infection. A sleep-deprived immune system doesn’t work as well. In one surprising study, researchers found 164 men and women willing to be exposed to the cold virus. Not everyone got sick. But short sleepers – those who regularly slept less than six hours a night – were 4.2 times more likely to catch the cold compared with those who got more than seven hours of sleep, researchers found. Risk was even higher when a person slept less than five hours a night.

The bottom line: Focusing on better sleep habits is a good way to strengthen your immune system. The sweet spot for sleep is six to seven hours a night. Stick to a regular bedtime and wake-up schedule. Avoid screens, night-eating and exercise right before bedtime.

CHECK YOUR VITAMIN D LEVEL

While more study is needed on the link between vitamin D and immune health, some promising research suggests that checking your vitamin D level – and taking a vitamin D supplement –could help your body fight off respiratory illness. In one study of 107 older patients, some patients took high doses of vitamin D while others were given standard doses. After a year, the researchers found that people in the high-dose group had 40 per cent fewer respiratory infections over the course of the year compared to those on the standard dose. A more recent analysis of 25 randomized controlled trials of 11,000 patients showed an overall protective effect of vitamin D supplementation against acute respiratory tract infections. The data aren’t conclusive, and some studies of vitamin D haven’t shown a benefit.

Why would vitamin D lower risk for respiratory illness? Our bodies need adequate vitamin D to produce the antimicrobial proteins that kill viruses and bacteria. “If you don’t have adequate vitamin D circulating, you are less effective at producing these proteins and more susceptible to infection,” says Dr. Adit Ginde, professor of emergency medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and the study’s lead author. “These proteins are particularly active in the respiratory tract.”

It’s important to note that there are no clinical recommendations to take vitamin D for immune health, although the standard recommendation for bone health is for 600 to 800 international units per day. (That is the level found in most multivitamins.) In the study of respiratory illness and vitamin D, the dose was equivalent to about 3,330 international units daily.

Vitamin D can be found in fatty fish, such as salmon, and in milk or foods fortified with vitamin D. In general, our vitamin D levels tend to be influenced by sun exposure, skin tone and latitude – people in northern areas who get less sun exposure in the winter typically have lower vitamin D. A blood test is required to check vitamin D levels. Less than 20 nanograms per millilitre is considered deficient. Above 30 is optimal.

The bottom line: If you are concerned about immune health, you may consider having your vitamin D level checked and talking to your doctor about whether to take a supplement.

AVOID EXCESSIVE ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION

Numerous studies have found a link between excessive alcohol consumption and immune function. Research shows people who drink in excess are more susceptible to respiratory illness and pneumonia and recover from infection and wounds more slowly. Alcohol alters the number of microbes in the gut microbiome, a community of microorganisms that affect the immune system. Excessive alcohol can damage the lungs, and impair the mucosal immune system, which is essential in helping the body recognize pathogens and fight infection. And it’s not just chronic drinking that does damage. Binge drinking can also impair the immune system.

The bottom line: A cocktail or glass of wine while you are sheltering in place during coronavirus is fine. But avoid drinking to excess. The current US Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that alcohol should be consumed only in moderation – up to one drink per day for women and two drinks per day for men.

EAT A BALANCED DIET AND SKIP UNPROVEN SUPPLEMENTS

A healthful diet and exercise are important to maintaining a strong immune system. However, no single food or natural remedy has been proven to bolster a person’s immune system or ward off disease. But that hasn’t stopped people from making specious claims. A recipe circulating on social media claims boiled garlic water helps. Other common foods touted for their immune-boosting properties are ginger, citrus fruits, turmeric, oregano oil and bone broth.

There are small studies that suggest a benefit to some of these foods, but strong evidence is lacking. For instance, the bone broth claim has been fuelled by a study published in 2000 that showed eating chicken soup seemed to reduce symptoms of an upper respiratory tract infection. A number of small studies have suggested garlic may enhance immune system function. Claims that elderberry products can prevent viral illness also are making the rounds on social media, but evidence is lacking.

Zinc supplements and lozenges are also a popular remedy for fighting off colds and respiratory illness. Some studies have found that zinc lozenges may reduce the duration of cold by about a day and, may reduce the number of upper respiratory infections in children. But the data on zinc are mixed. If you already have enough zinc from your diet, it’s not clear that taking a supplement can help. Zinc supplements also commonly cause nausea.

“There are a lot of products that tout immune boosting properties, but I don’t think any of these have been medically proven to work,” said Dr. Krystina Woods, hospital epidemiologist and medical director of infection prevention at Mount Sinai West. “There are people who anecdotally say ‘I felt great after I took’ whatever. That may be true, but there’s no science to support that.”

The bottom line: If you enjoy foods touted as immune boosters, there is no harm in eating them as part of a balanced diet. Just be sure that you don’t neglect proven health advice –like washing your hands and not touching your face – when it comes to protecting yourself from viral illness.

By Tara Parker-Pope © The New York Times


Taken from this article:
How to boost your immune system during COVID-19