Staying Healthy Archive

Remember to take care of your hearing, like any other aspect of your health.

When you plan your next series of maintenance health tests, don't forget your ears. An ear and hearing exam is not something that needs to be done every year, but you should be aware of changes that could signal serious problems.

"At the very least, a baseline evaluation can help, so you can monitor changes if your hearing declines," says Dr. Stephen W. Hill, an audiologist at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts Eye & Ear.

In the journals

Choosing better sources of fat can go a long way toward preventing heart disease, according to research recently presented at the American Heart Association's Epidemiology and Prevention — Lifestyle and Cardiometabolic Health Scientific Sessions 2018.

The research team analyzed data from 63,412 women from the Nurses' Health Study and 29,966 men from the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Both studies used detailed food-frequency questionnaires administered every four years to evaluate the participants' diets. During an average 22 years of follow-up, there were 20,672 deaths among participants — 4,588 of them from heart disease.

Ask the doctors

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Q. My sister insists that I will automatically lose weight if I become a vegetarian. Is this true?

A. While switching to a vegetarian diet can bring health benefits, including weight loss, it doesn't always. After all, cupcakes, cookies, and candy are technically vegetarian foods — but not necessarily ones that will improve your health or help you shed pounds. That said, a well-constructed and healthy plant-based vegetarian diet can help you lose weight over time, provided you make good food choices and reduce the number of calories you normally eat. The USDA notes that a healthy vegetarian eating plan includes a variety of nutrients, including protein sources to make up for meat options you are cutting out. Some good substitutions are beans, nuts, and soy products. Beyond making sure you get the right combination of nutrients, also focus on portion size and calories if you are looking to lose weight. Ultimately, keep in mind that a vegetarian diet, like any other, may help you lose weight, but it can also result in weight gain if you take in more calories than you burn off on a regular basis.

Research we're watching

 Image: © RoBeDeRo/Getty Images

Good news for people who struggle to find time for exercise: every little bit matters, even if your "workout" is broken up throughout the day. To come to this conclusion, researchers who published their results March 23 in the Journal of the American Heart Association looked at data from 4,840 people ages 40 and older who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2003 to 2006. People who spent the shortest amount of time in moderate or vigorous activity — 20 minutes or less daily — had the highest risk of dying during the roughly six-year follow-up period. But those who got at least an hour of moderate or vigorous activity cut that risk in half, and those who got at least 100 minutes a day cut their death risk by 76%. And they didn't have to get those 100 minutes all at once. Even short bursts of activity at different points in the day added up to reduced risk.

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Newer medications, which may be safer than earlier drugs, have expanded the options for treating obesity.

Obesity is now considered more than a risk factor for other conditions; it's a disease itself. It has been the subject of intense scientific and medical research to develop effective treatments. But the quest has been elusive.

One of the most dangerous and distressing symptoms of Alzheimer's is wandering. It may seem unfathomable that a person might suddenly get up at night to go to the post office or leave home at any hour for no apparent reason. But wandering may be prompted by deep-seated memories of work, chores, or hobbies, or a longing to return to a former home.

The inability to control wandering is what often drives families to decide to place a loved one in a nursing home. However, there are some simple measures to prevent wandering that often work well for a time and can even help postpone that difficult decision.

Understanding and treating anxiety can often improve the outcome of chronic disease, such as GI tract problems and heart disease.

With headlines warning us of international terrorism, global warming, and economic uncertainty, we're all likely to be a little more anxious these days. As an everyday emotion, anxiety — the "fight or flight" response — can be a good thing, prompting us to take extra precautions. But when anxiety persists in the absence of a need to fight or flee, it can not only interfere with our daily lives but also undermine our physical health. Evidence suggests that people with anxiety disorders are at greater risk for developing a number of chronic medical conditions. They may also have more severe symptoms and a greater risk of death when they become ill.

The anatomy of anxiety

Anxiety is a reaction to stress that has both psychological and physical features. The feeling is thought to arise in the amygdala, a brain region that governs many intense emotional responses. As neurotransmitters carry the impulse to the sympathetic nervous system, heart and breathing rates increase, muscles tense, and blood flow is diverted from the abdominal organs to the brain. In the short term, anxiety prepares us to confront a crisis by putting the body on alert. But its physical effects can be counterproductive, causing light-headedness, nausea, diarrhea, and frequent urination. And when it persists, anxiety can take a toll on our mental and physical health.

Why sleep is important to your health and how to repair sleep deprivation effects.

If sleep were a credit card company, many of us would be in deep trouble.

Medical evidence suggests that for optimum health and function, the average adult should get seven to nine hours of sleep daily. But more than 60% of women regularly fall short of that goal. Although each hour of lost slumber goes into the health debit column, we don't get any monthly reminders that we've fallen in arrears.

Your core muscles are the sturdy link between your lower body and upper body. Every move you make starts in your core or transfers through it. So, a weak or tight core can translate into less power from your arms and legs.

It's well worth including core work in your exercise plan. The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommend the following well-rounded plan:

The practice of yoga incorporates many separate breathing techniques (above and beyond the coordinated breathing you do during yoga routines) that can help relax you and release tension. And many of these techniques can be done anytime, anywhere — not just during yoga class.

If you'd like to reap the benefits of these breathing techniques, start with the abdominal breathing technique described below. Once you've mastered abdominal breathing, you can then try others based on the unique benefits that each technique offers.