Staying Healthy Archive

Stress hormones increase appetites and a craving for high-fat, sugary food.

It's been another hectic day. On impulse, you grab an extra-large candy bar during your afternoon break. You plan to take just a few bites. But before you know it, you've polished off the whole thing — and, at least temporarily, you may feel better.

Results from the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study reported in 2011 show that high intake of fiber is associated with a lower risk of dying from a heart attack or stroke. That's a little ho-hum: other studies have come to the same conclusion. More novel was the finding that linked a high-fiber diet to a lower risk of dying from infectious and respiratory diseases. And fiber from grain sources was associated with a lower risk of dying from any cause during the study's nine years of follow-up.

A few years ago, fiber seemed like another false hope after it fizzled in some important clinical trials as a colon cancer preventive. The NIH-AARP study also came to an ambiguous conclusion about fiber and cancer: high intake was protective in men but not in women. But aside from the cancer findings, fiber has been on a bit of a roll lately.

Eating oatmeal is a great way to add fiber to your diet, and using a microwave oven is a convenient way to speed up the cooking time.

Q. I am overweight and need abdominal surgery. Does being overweight make the surgery more difficult and add to the complication rate?

A. We all have a fair amount of fatty tissue in our abdominal cavities that surgeons must deal with during abdominal operations. The more fat you have, the more difficult the operation is for the surgeon. Excessive fatty tissue impairs access to the surgical site. It can also make the surgery itself — the cutting of tissue — more complex. Operations on obese patients tend to take longer for these and other reasons.

Q. After smoking for over 15 years, I finally quit eight months ago, but I still miss my cigarettes. I recently heard about electronic cigarettes. Are they safe?

A. Whatever you do, don't give in to the lure of cigarettes, or all your hard work and health gains will go up in a puff of smoke.

Q. I read the column about dietary guidelines and caloric percentages, but I'm not a math guy. Any chance you could put it in English for me?

A. I feel your pain. The numbers are important, but they can be dull, even downright oppressive. And truth to tell, when I do the shopping, I bring my list but leave my calculator on my desk. But that doesn't mean choosing food at random. Instead, a few simple rules of the aisle will help you fill your pantry with healthful foods. Here is a list of the choices we make in our house:

With age come changes in the structure and quality of our sleep. After about age 60, we have less deep (slow-wave) sleep and more rapid sleep cycles, we awaken more often, and we sleep an average of two hours less at night than we did as young adults. It was once thought that older people didn’t need as much sleep as younger ones, but experts now agree that’s not the case. Regardless of age, we typically need seven-and-a-half to eight hours of sleep to function at our best. So if you’re not getting enough sleep at night, what about daytime naps? Or does napping disrupt the sleep cycle, ultimately yielding less sleep and more daytime drowsiness?

These questions were addressed in a study by researchers at the Weill Cornell Medical College in White Plains, N.Y., and published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (February 2011). The authors concluded that napping not only increases older individuals’ total sleep time — without producing daytime drowsiness — but also provides measurable cognitive benefits.

Some tips for keeping your vacation medically uneventful.

It's summer, a prime time for getting away. But even a minor health problem can spoil a vacation. And a major one — well, that can cause regret about ever leaving home.

Of course, there are no guarantees, but taking a few precautions can improve the odds for the medically uneventful vacation. International travelers should visit www.cdc.gov/travel for information about vaccinations, disease outbreaks, and the like, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Dr. David S. Ludwig is a nutrition and obesity researcher at Harvard-affiliated Children's Hospital Boston. His research has focused on the harmful health effects of high–glycemic load foods. He is author of Ending the Food Fight, a book about children's nutrition and weight.

What are glycemic index and glycemic load?

Glycemic index is a measure of how controlled amounts of food affect blood sugar and insulin. Glycemic load takes portion sizes into account, and tends to be a more practical guide. High–glycemic load foods raise blood sugar because they get digested far too quickly. The body responds with a massive outpouring of insulin, to keep blood sugar from going too high. But for many people there is an overshoot, and blood sugar crashes a few hours after the meal.

Moderation in all things — maybe that is the key to health and happiness. The proverb certainly seems true for alcohol consumption.

Study after study has shown that moderate alcohol consumption is associated with good health. The evidence is strongest for protection against heart attack and stroke: there's an abundance of epidemiological data, as well as results showing that alcohol increases "good" HDL cholesterol and reduces factors in the blood, such as fibrinogen, that cause clotting and therefore make heart attacks and strokes more likely. Researchers have reported correlations with a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, having gallstones, and experiencing steep cognitive decline in old age.