At a picnic this weekend, I listened as an extended family member nagged at kids to stay away from the cola and other types of soda pop being served. “They rot your teeth,” one grandmother admonished her grandkids. But she herself was drinking a big glass of Diet Pepsi, and didn’t seem aware of the irony of her pronouncement: It’s actually older women who are most at risk of health problems from drinking cola and other fizzy soft drinks.
Every six months or so, it seems, a new warning comes out about the dangers of drinking too much soda. And you may feel you’ve heard it all. But a couple of new studies have led experts to begin calling for a public health campaign to warn women about cola consumption.
Women are at greater risk of osteoporosis, or bone thinning, as they get older. Most of us already know that. But many people don’t realize that drinking a lot of cola and other soft drinks increases osteoporosis risk — or causes the disease to progress faster. The phosphoric acid that makes fizzy drinks fizz actually eats away at bone, making it more porous.
This news, while worrying, has been known for a while. But now scientists are sounding the alarm that soft drinks weaken muscles as well as bones. According to a new study, drinking large amounts of cola (the study focused on people who drank two quarts or more a day) causes potassium levels in the blood to fall, which can lead to a severe deficiency. And potassium deficiency, as athletes know, makes you feel weak and dizzy, and causes muscles to atrophy.
Researchers aren’t sure yet exactly how soft drinks are causing the potassium deficiency; they theorize that flooding the kidneys with caffeine and sugar causes them to filter out too much potassium from cells. This is a dangerous double whammy for older women, who have a higher risk of falling and hip fracture than men do.
Of course, the real message health and nutrition experts are trying to convey is that we need more calcium and other bone- and muscle-building nutrients in our bodies, and fewer empty calories.
So what to do when soda’s out but you’re thirsty and milk just won’t cut it? Try water, lemonade, or iced tea.
www.perfectbeautyinsidout.com
www.youngliving.org/stephaniewalcot
www.shoptoearn.net/stepharitshops
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
Dr Oz says: The Nose Knows
The Nose Knows
By the end of the 2-week study, the people who had sniffed peppermint every couple of hours during the day had also consumed fewer calories and eaten less fat, less saturated fat, and less sugar than the nonsniffers did. Bonus: Peppermint also reduces feelings of hunger. Here's another scent that may help curb your appetite.
Get yours at:www.youngliving.org/stephaniewalcot
By the end of the 2-week study, the people who had sniffed peppermint every couple of hours during the day had also consumed fewer calories and eaten less fat, less saturated fat, and less sugar than the nonsniffers did. Bonus: Peppermint also reduces feelings of hunger. Here's another scent that may help curb your appetite.
Get yours at:www.youngliving.org/stephaniewalcot
Protect yourself and the earth, choose to use a water filter, they're safer and surer
Get Off the Bottle and on the Filter
posted by Megan, selected from Positively Green Sep 17, 2009
Last year Americans spent 15 billion dollars on bottled water and the sales estimate for 2007 is 16 billion dollars. One can argue that it’s money down the drain because the truth has been watered down by some of the largest bottlers. About 24% of bottled water is just filtered tap water; like Aquafina and Dasani.
You can achieve exactly the same quality of water by installing a filter on your faucet at home. If the cost ($100 or less) of purchasing a filter for your home causes you to hesitate, consider this; you can buy a half-liter of bottled water for $1.35. If you filled this same bottle with filtered tap water once a day, it would take roughly 10 years before you spent that $1.35. However, if you purchased one bottle of water every day, after 10 years you will have spent $4,927.50.
GET OFF THE BOTTLE
Besides the incredible savings that you get with filtered tap water, there are environmental and socially responsible reasons that just strengthen the case for the tap.
Environmental Reasons - Plastic is a petroleum based product. The pollutants associated with the manufacture and transportation of these plastic bottles is unnecessarily damaging to the environment. Of the 50 billion plastic water bottles used last year, about 38 billion went straight to landfills. The plastic in those landfilled bottles is worth around $1 billion. 12 billion bottles were recycled, but remember that plastic doesn’t recycle into the same quality plastic. It can only be recycled a finite number of times before it can no longer be recycled.
Socially Responsible Reasons - Like other water from pristine ecosystems, Fiji bottled water is collected from natural sources and shipped halfway across the earth to the US where we already have clean drinking water in every home. Unfortunately, Figi doesn’t have a great public water system and last year Figians fell ill with typhoid casued by contaminated drinking water. When over 1 billion people in the world don’t have access to safe drinking water, buying bottled water with all its associated financial, environmental and social costs seems irresponsible – especially when a home filter gives you the same or better quality water than bottled water.
Water Filters by Aquasana are great.
Check them out at: www.shoptoearn.net/stepharitshops
posted by Megan, selected from Positively Green Sep 17, 2009
Last year Americans spent 15 billion dollars on bottled water and the sales estimate for 2007 is 16 billion dollars. One can argue that it’s money down the drain because the truth has been watered down by some of the largest bottlers. About 24% of bottled water is just filtered tap water; like Aquafina and Dasani.
You can achieve exactly the same quality of water by installing a filter on your faucet at home. If the cost ($100 or less) of purchasing a filter for your home causes you to hesitate, consider this; you can buy a half-liter of bottled water for $1.35. If you filled this same bottle with filtered tap water once a day, it would take roughly 10 years before you spent that $1.35. However, if you purchased one bottle of water every day, after 10 years you will have spent $4,927.50.
GET OFF THE BOTTLE
Besides the incredible savings that you get with filtered tap water, there are environmental and socially responsible reasons that just strengthen the case for the tap.
Environmental Reasons - Plastic is a petroleum based product. The pollutants associated with the manufacture and transportation of these plastic bottles is unnecessarily damaging to the environment. Of the 50 billion plastic water bottles used last year, about 38 billion went straight to landfills. The plastic in those landfilled bottles is worth around $1 billion. 12 billion bottles were recycled, but remember that plastic doesn’t recycle into the same quality plastic. It can only be recycled a finite number of times before it can no longer be recycled.
Socially Responsible Reasons - Like other water from pristine ecosystems, Fiji bottled water is collected from natural sources and shipped halfway across the earth to the US where we already have clean drinking water in every home. Unfortunately, Figi doesn’t have a great public water system and last year Figians fell ill with typhoid casued by contaminated drinking water. When over 1 billion people in the world don’t have access to safe drinking water, buying bottled water with all its associated financial, environmental and social costs seems irresponsible – especially when a home filter gives you the same or better quality water than bottled water.
Water Filters by Aquasana are great.
Check them out at: www.shoptoearn.net/stepharitshops
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Showerheads a Breeding Ground for Dangerous Bacteria
From one of my favorite health informing websites: LEF.org
Study: Showerheads a Breeding Ground for Dangerous Bacteria
Chicago Tribune
09-15-09
CHICAGO - If your morning shower doesn't wake you up, this sure might: Dangerous bacteria may be spraying out of your showerhead, right into your face, according to a new study.
Healthy people probably don't need to worry. But the opportunistic microbes, which thrive in the most, dark and wet environment of a showerhead, might cause problems if you're pregnant, a substance abuser or otherwise immune compromised with cystic fibrosis, cancer, AIDS or a recent organ transplant, the researchers said in the findings published in this month's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The main culprit is an organism called Mycobacterium avium, a relative of the bacteria that causes tuberculosis. M. avium infections are increasingly common, perhaps because we take more showers than baths. Unlike baths, showerheads deliver the microorganisms as aerosolized particles that are small enough to be inhaled into the lungs.
The research team from the University of Colorado, which previously warned us that M. avium was lurking in the soap scum on vinyl shower curtains, sampled 45 showerheads in homes, apartments and public places around the country. They found that the showerheads don't just harbor the potentially infectious microbes; they enrich their growth.
Unfortunately, showerheads have nooks and crannies that make them hard to clean. Products with bleach can temporarily remove many microbes, but they just grow back. An all-metal showerhead, which microbes have a hard time grabbing, might be a good option if you're immune compromised, the researchers said.
Filtered showerheads could be replaced weekly. Or try bathing, which won't splash microbes into the air as much as showers.
Look for earth friendly and health friendly products such as water filters for showers and drinking water at:
www.shoptoearn.net/stepharitshops
---
Study: Showerheads a Breeding Ground for Dangerous Bacteria
Chicago Tribune
09-15-09
CHICAGO - If your morning shower doesn't wake you up, this sure might: Dangerous bacteria may be spraying out of your showerhead, right into your face, according to a new study.
Healthy people probably don't need to worry. But the opportunistic microbes, which thrive in the most, dark and wet environment of a showerhead, might cause problems if you're pregnant, a substance abuser or otherwise immune compromised with cystic fibrosis, cancer, AIDS or a recent organ transplant, the researchers said in the findings published in this month's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The main culprit is an organism called Mycobacterium avium, a relative of the bacteria that causes tuberculosis. M. avium infections are increasingly common, perhaps because we take more showers than baths. Unlike baths, showerheads deliver the microorganisms as aerosolized particles that are small enough to be inhaled into the lungs.
The research team from the University of Colorado, which previously warned us that M. avium was lurking in the soap scum on vinyl shower curtains, sampled 45 showerheads in homes, apartments and public places around the country. They found that the showerheads don't just harbor the potentially infectious microbes; they enrich their growth.
Unfortunately, showerheads have nooks and crannies that make them hard to clean. Products with bleach can temporarily remove many microbes, but they just grow back. An all-metal showerhead, which microbes have a hard time grabbing, might be a good option if you're immune compromised, the researchers said.
Filtered showerheads could be replaced weekly. Or try bathing, which won't splash microbes into the air as much as showers.
Look for earth friendly and health friendly products such as water filters for showers and drinking water at:
www.shoptoearn.net/stepharitshops
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