health

9Oct

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

Pumpkin Seeds And Their Health Benefits

Pumpkins were one of the foods the Spanish and Portuguese explorers of the 15th century discovered in the Americas, which they transported back to Europe. The pumpkin fared better than the tomato and potato as regards the suspicions of the Europeans and it was widely cultivated. Most people are unaware of the health benefits of pumpkin seeds and generally remove them and throw them away. However they can be used in soups and sauces as well as a healthy snack. You can roast them yourself after drying them with or without salt and in their shells. Some pumpkin seeds are not surrounded by a husk but mostly you have to take off the ivory-coloured outer husk to get at the dark-green seed inside. In Greece people eat these as snacks and they are called passé tempo. They contain monounsaturated ...

Top Ways To Improve Heart Health According To An Interventional Cardiologist

27Jul

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS, TOP FOUR

Top Ways To Improve Heart Health According To An Interventional Cardiologist

(BPT) - Most of us know that maintaining optimal heart health is essential to living a long, healthy life. Yet still, in the United States, heart disease is the leading cause of death, and we are not putting adequate attention toward prevention. Fortunately, cardiologists, heart health experts, and new research have made it easier to take care of our health by providing simple guidelines on how to maintain optimal heart health even as we age. Renowned Interventional Cardiologist and author Dr. Heather Shenkman emphasizes the importance of "making small, easy adjustments to your daily lifestyle that add up to transformative health benefits." 1) Go for daily walks Yes, just going on one walk a day is enough exercise to do your body good. Considering how busy our lives can be, it ...

Heat Waves Plus Air Pollution Can Be A Deadly Combination: The Health Risk Together Is Worse Than Either Alone

30Aug

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT

Heat Waves Plus Air Pollution Can Be A Deadly Combination: The Health Risk Together Is Worse Than Either Alone

On the morning news, you see the weather forecast is for high heat, and there is an “excessive heat watch” for later in the week. You were hoping the weather would cool down, but yet another heat wave is threatening human health and increasing the chance of wildfires. On top of these warm days and nights, air quality data has been showing unhealthy levels of pollution. Sound familiar? This scenario is increasingly the new normal in many parts of the world. High heat and air pollution are each problematic for human health, particularly for vulnerable populations such as older adults. But what happens when they hit at the same time? We examined over 1.5 million deaths from 2014 to 2020 registered in California – a state prone to summer heat waves and air pollution from wildfires – to find...

Alcohol’s Harms Are Easy To Document, But Health Benefits Hard To Prove

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS, Journalism, TOP FOUR

Alcohol’s Harms Are Easy To Document, But Health Benefits Hard To Prove

Alcohol is the most widely used drug in the world, including in the United States. About 70 percent of adults in the United States report past-year alcohol consumption, with over 37 million drinkers reporting binge drinking (defined for women as four or more drinks per occasion, and five or more drinks per occasion for men) at least once a week. The prevalence of past-year drinking has increased in the past two decades, from 65.4 percent in 2001 to 2002 to 72.7 percent in 2012 to 2013. Partially because it is such a commonly used substance, heavily marketed and glamorized in pop culture, Americans’ comfort with and acceptance of alcohol is high. Should it be? I research alcohol use and the associations between drinking and a wide range of problems. While the rising opioid epidemic has ...

Why Aren’t More Companies Reducing Methane, It’s Crucial For Protecting Climate And Health, And It Can Pay For Itself

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

ENVIRONMENT, VIDEO REELS

Why Aren’t More Companies Reducing Methane, It’s Crucial For Protecting Climate And Health, And It Can Pay For Itself

Methane, the main ingredient in natural gas, is a larger climate problem than the world anticipates, and cutting its emissions will be crucial to slow global warming, a new United Nations report warns. The greenhouse gas is many times more powerful than carbon dioxide at warming the planet, and its concentration in the atmosphere is increasing faster than at any time since record keeping began in the 1980s. Methane is much more than a climate problem, though, and this is where the report gets interesting. As methane emissions are reduced, the world reaps several benefits quickly, for health as well as the climate. In most cases, the benefits of taking action far outweigh the cost – in fact many of them make money. The report’s lead author Drew Shindell, a climate scientist and physicist,...

Men’s Mental Health Supported By Building Healthy Relationship Skills

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS, Journalism

Men’s Mental Health Supported By Building Healthy Relationship Skills

Healthy relationships positively influence men’s well-being. Men who are partnered or married live longer lives than single men, and they have better mental health than women and unpartnered men. Marriage appears to offer a protective influence on men’s health, reducing loneliness, depression and suicidality, and is associated with less substance and alcohol use. Despite these benefits, male suicide continues to be a global crisis. As men’s health researchers, our focus has been on men’s suicidality. Much of this work is motivated by the fact that men complete suicide at three to four times the rate of women, and are known to use more lethal methods (guns, asphyxiation) to end their life. While major depression is a contributing factor to suicidality, a recent review concluded that being...

In Health Care Addressing Racism Against Black Women Is Key To Ending The US HIV Epidemic

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

In Health Care Addressing Racism Against Black Women Is Key To Ending The US HIV Epidemic

Forty years into the HIV/AIDS epidemic, Black women continue to bear the highest burden of HIV among women. Although Black women represent only 13% of the female population, they accounted for over half of HIV diagnoses among all females in the U.S. in 2018, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. White women, who are 62% of the female population, accounted for 21% of HIV diagnoses. Black women are also less likely than white women to receive the antiretroviral therapies that are highly effective at preventing HIV infection and are more likely to die of causes related to HIV. This year’s World AIDS Day theme included ending inequalities in HIV and AIDS care. But in order to address the inequities, it will require examining the root causes of them. In ...

Can Churches Help African Americans In A Mental Health Crisis?

4Oct

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

Journalism

Can Churches Help African Americans In A Mental Health Crisis?

Brad R. Fulton, Indiana University Centuries of systemic racism and everyday discrimination in the U.S. have left a major mental health burden on African American communities, and the past few years have dealt especially heavy blows. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that Black Americans are twice as likely to die of COVID-19, compared with white Americans. Their communities have also been hit disproportionately by job losses, food insecurity and homelessness as a result of the pandemic. Meanwhile, racial injustice and high-profile police killings of Black men have amplified stress. During the summer of 2020, amid both the pandemic and Black Lives Matter protests, a CDC survey found that 15% of Black respondents had “seriously considered suicide in the pa...

Black Women Who Experience Racism Are At Higher Risk For Future Health Problems – Brain Scans Show Trauma-Like Effects

15Sep

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

Journalism

Black Women Who Experience Racism Are At Higher Risk For Future Health Problems – Brain Scans Show Trauma-Like Effects

Sierra Carter, Georgia State University The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea Black women who have experienced more racism throughout their lives have stronger brain responses to threat, which may hurt their long-term health, according to a new study I conducted with clinical neuropsychologist Negar Fani and other colleagues. I am part of a research team that for more than 15 years has studied the ways stress related to trauma exposure can affect the mind and body. In our recent study, we took a closer look at a stressor that Black Americans disproportionately face in the U.S.: racism. My colleagues and I completed research with 55 Black women who reported how much they’d been exposed to traumatic experiences, such as childhood abuse and physic...

The Affordable Care Act Is Under Attack And May Cost You Free Preventive Health Care

7Sep

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

POLITICS

The Affordable Care Act Is Under Attack And May Cost You Free Preventive Health Care

Paul Shafer, Boston University and Alex Hoagland, Boston University Many Americans breathed a sigh of relief when the Supreme Court left the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in place following its third major legal challenge in June 2021. This decision left widely supported policies in place, like ensuring coverage regardless of preexisting conditions, coverage for dependents up to age 26 on their parents’ plan and removal of annual and lifetime benefit limits. But the hits keep coming. One of the most popular benefits offered by the ACA, free preventive care through many employer-based and marketplace insurance plans, is under attack by another legal domino, Kelley v. Becerra. As University of Michigan law professor Nicholas Bagley sees it, “this time, the law’s opponents stand a good chance o...