Staying Healthy Archive

A few simple measures can help minimize the sleep disturbances and malaise that can occur when you cross several time zones.

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This month we perform the annual ritual of turning back our clocks as Daylight Savings Time ends. Most of us can handle the one-hour time change easily. However, when we travel long distances across several time zones, few of us can survive the trip without feeling a little out of whack. For holiday travelers flying from coast to coast or overseas, recovering from the symptoms of jet lag—fatigue, insomnia, digestive upsets, and headaches—can consume a day or two of precious vacation time. According to Dr. Charles A. Czeisler, director of the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, jet lag is due to a misalignment between the external environment and the internal clock in the brain that drives our daily performance, alertness, and the ability to sleep.

What happens during jet lag

Degree and duration of overweight were linked with an increased risk of several cancers among 74,000 participants in the Women’s Health Initiative.

Don't be intimidated about screening tests. The latest guidelines suggest you can choose from multiple strategies.

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Colon cancer continues to be the country's second leading cause of cancer-related deaths and the third most common cancer in men, according to the CDC.

It almost always develops from precancerous polyps (abnormal growths). Screening tests, which are recommended for men ages 50 to 75, help find and sometimes aid removal of polyps before they become cancer. (Men older than 75 may still benefit, depending on their health.)

Keep your feet strong and you'll stay more active.

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Socrates may have been the first to equate healthy feet with quality of life when he famously said, "When one's feet hurt, one hurts all over." His observation rings true even millennia later.

"As you age, healthy feet become even more important for staying mobile, active, and safe," says Dr. Kevin Reimer, a podiatrist with Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. "When it hurts to walk, you cut back on activities that you enjoy and that keep you healthy."

In the Journals

Here's a possible strategy to boost memory—exercise four hours after you learn something. In a study published in the July 11, 2016, Current Biology, researchers found that exercise after learning may improve your memory of the new information, but only if done in a specific time window.

A break from a medication is beneficial only in certain cases.

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When you think of a holiday, your medicine cabinet probably doesn't come to mind. But for people who take medications long-term, a drug holiday—a break from a medication for days or even years—may be helpful, for some medicines. "For some people, it gives the body a chance to recover the systems that have been suppressed by the drug," says Dr. Michael Craig Miller, assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Why take a break?

Ask the doctor

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Q. I love dried fruit and thought it was healthy. But I hear that you gain a lot of weight eating dried fruit, which is not healthy. What's the truth?

A. The truth is that the actress and comedian Mae West was wrong when she allegedly said "Too much of a good thing ... can be wonderful!" Food contains calories, and eating too many calories-even of healthy foods-leads to weight gain. But there are healthy calories and unhealthy ("empty") calories, and fruit is a healthy source of calories. That's as true of dried fruit as fresh fruit.

The new Nutrition Facts labels will list “added sugars” in a serving of food. Until the labels appear, one should look for sugars such as dextrose and sucrose on a label’s list of ingredients.

Strength training, weight-bearing exercise, a healthy diet, and medication can help.

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An estimated 10 million people in the United States are coping with the brittle, fragile bones of osteoporosis—a disorder that causes severe bone loss. It's most common in women, and the risk is higher in those who are thin, age 50 or older, or of Caucasian or Asian descent. It also occurs in men, who make up about 20% of osteoporosis cases. The condition puts a person at a high risk for bone fractures, disability, loss of independence, and even death. That's why it's important to make your bones as strong as possible. "There are many ways to build bone mass, and the people who do tell us they feel stronger and more capable on their feet," says Rachel Wilson, a physical therapist at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital.

There isn't one magic way to build bone mass. It takes a number of the following strategies.

Stick to fresh foods, and fill your salt allotment from healthy sources like whole-grain breads.

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As we reported in August 2016, the FDA is encouraging the food industry to cut back on added sodium in commercially processed and prepared food. It's a good reminder for all of us that too much salt in the diet is risky for health. How much is too much? "It's controversial, although I don't think anyone is in favor of unlimited salt intake," says Dr. Randall Zusman, a cardiologist with Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.

Salt risks

Common sources of sodium