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Healthy Living Newsletter - Volume 2, No. 9
Issue Date: May 20, 2005
Publisher: Mellanie True Hills, The Health & Productivity Revitalizer®
Escape the hype. The Healthy Living News cuts through the health clutter to bring you reliable news to optimize your life, your health, and your work.
Do you want to be the best that you can be? Our goal, with the Healthy Living News, is to provide you information that makes it easy to know how to take the best care of yourself that you can.
In this issue we'll explore:
- Breaking News: Therapeutic Cloning
- Health Findings for Men, and Those Who Love Them
- Health Findings for Women, and Those Who Love Them
- Health Findings for All of Us
- Mellanie's Opinions
1. Breaking News: Therapeutic Cloning
The ability to grow your own replacement tissue to treat disease just got a step closer today. South Korean researchers announced that they have used 11 patients' own
DNA
to grow stem cells that were an exact match to the patient's cells, and therefore won't be rejected by the body. This, of course, raises ethical concerns. To learn more, see the following stories:
2. Health Findings for Men, and Those Who Love Them
a) Low-Fat Dairy Cuts Diabetes Risk in Men
You've probably seen the reports—Dairy Cuts Diabetes Risk in Men—but what seems to have gotten lost from most of the headlines is that it is Low-Fat dairy that makes the primary difference. Low-fat versions of milk, yogurt, ice-cream, and cheese were found to slightly lower (by 9%) the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes in a
Harvard
study. These findings did not apply equally to whole milk, sour cream, or cream cheese. Just a reminder, diabetes is the #2 risk factor for heart disease and stroke, and more than 40% of Americans are currently at risk for diabetes, so low-fat dairy sounds like a very good thing. Source: Archives of Internal Medicine
Other research has noted that milk also appears to lower blood pressure and reduce colon cancer risk, though it has been correlated with increased risk of prostate cancer.
b) If You Have Prostate Cancer, Should You Have Surgery?
Speaking of prostate cancer, the second most common cancer in men, doctors often recommend watching and waiting rather than surgery. A new Swedish study addressed this question, finding that those under age 65 may find it beneficial to have surgery—after 10 years, those who had surgery had a 44% lower death rate from prostate cancer. More research is needed to determine if these findings apply in other countries, such as in the
US
, where the
PSA
test is common.
Source: New England Journal of Medicine
3. Health Findings for Women, and Those Who Love Them
a) Colonoscopy is a Better Choice for Women
For colon cancer screening, colonoscopy has been found to be a much better choice for women. A new study found that flexible sigmoidoscopy (generally done in the doctor's office) misses tumors in women two-thirds of the time, a failure rate twice as high as for men. Previous studies had found that sigmoidoscopy detected 66% of tumors in men, whereas for women, only 35% of tumors were detected.
Colonoscopy is more expensive, and is generally an outpatient procedure, but for women, it will likely now be considered the preferred test. Following American Cancer Society guidelines, if you have average risk (no family history), you should start having colon cancer screening at age 50.
These findings remind us, yet again, that testing results from men don't always apply to women.
Source: New England Journal of Medicine
b) Low-Fat Diets May Keep Breast Cancer from Recurring
Researchers at UCLA worked with breast cancer survivors whose diets contained just 30% fat (in contrast to the typical American diet of 40-45% fat). Part of that group was lowered to 20% fat, which increased their odds of staying cancer-free by 24% when compared to the 30% fat control group. Researchers don't know why, but surmise that the weight lost by the 20% group may have been a factor, or perhaps it was related to getting a higher percentage of fruits and vegetables in the diet. These findings were just presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
While we don't know if this applies to healthy women, it's a good idea to pay very close attention to the percentage of fat in your diet, decreasing or eliminating the "bad fats" (saturated) and the "ugly fats" (trans fats), but continuing to eat the "good fats" (unsaturated). Discuss this with your doctor.
4. Health Findings for All of Us
a) May is High Blood Pressure Month—Have you had your blood pressure checked lately?
b) Salt is Healthy?
A surprising new study, reported recently at American Heart Association meetings, questions our beliefs about salt. This new study projects that eating LESS salt could put you more at risk of dying. Pretty shocking!
The authors believe that some people can't tolerate high levels of salt, but that others can—before you go overboard in adding back salt, you might want to wait for further studies to validate, or clarify, this data.
c) At Risk for Fast-Food Lifestyle?
The more fast-food restaurants there are in your area, the more at risk you may be for heart disease, or even death. In this study, which appeared in the Canadian Journal of Public Health, each additional fast-food outlet near you can translate into one more death per 100,000 people. The study authors defined a fast-food lifestyle as being characterized by inactivity, gluttony, and doing everything—even eating—too fast.
5) Mellanie's Opinions
See what Mellanie is saying:
a) She replied to the recent Fast Company magazine cover story, Extreme Jobs (and the people who love them), and her Letter to the Editor of Fast Company was published in the latest issue
b) Her thoughts regarding a RetailWire article, Americans Give Lip Service to Eating Better (currently at the bottom of the page).
In your quest to be the healthiest YOU possible, check out our Gift to You, What Every Woman Needs to Know About Weight and Stress to Save Her Life, or get yourself a copy of A Woman's Guide to Saving Her Own Life.
Be the best possible you!
Wishing you a wonderful weekend, and lots of health and happiness,
Mellanie
Mellanie True Hills
The Health & Productivity Revitalizer®...improving lives & productivity
Speaker and Author of A Woman's Guide to Saving Her Own Life
Read the first two chapters
PS. Invite Mellanie to speak to your company, organization, or association. Her latest speaking topic is Getting More Done Without Killing Yourself. See some organizations for whom she has spoken or with whom she has worked at and view comments from attendees at her speeches.
PPS. Feel free to reprint this or any of my articles in your publication, company newsletter, or on your intranet. Please include attribution, copyright, and contact information (http://www.saveherlife.com and http://www.mellaniehills.com) and please send us a copy. Thanks.
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