Vitamins, minerals & supplements Archive

Are dairy foods healthy, or is it best to reduce or even avoid them in your diet? Here is what the science says.

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Dairy is one of the most controversial food groups. Is it healthy — or a health risk? It really depends on what you need.

"Dairy isn't necessary in the diet for optimal health, but for many people, it is the easiest way to get the calcium, vitamin D, and protein they need to keep their heart, muscles, and bones healthy and functioning properly," says Vasanti Malik, nutrition research scientist with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

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In the journals

Adults who sleep only six hours per night may have a higher chance of being dehydrated, compared with those who sleep longer, according to recent research published online Nov. 5, 2018, by the journal Sleep. The findings suggest that some of the symptoms of inadequate sleep, such as fatigue, fuzzy thinking, and headache in the morning, may be due to dehydration.

Researchers looked at the risk of dehydration in approximately 20,000 U.S. and Chinese adults. In both populations, people who reported sleeping six or fewer hours had up to a 59% higher risk of dehydration compared with those who slept seven to eight hours on a regular basis. The researchers speculated that the finding may reflect the nightly rhythm of a hormone called vasopressin. During sleep, the pituitary gland in the brain uses vasopressin to signal the kidneys to retain fluid in the body rather than excreting it through urine.

In the journals

Eating extra protein may protect older adults from becoming disabled and help them maintain independent lives, according to a study published online Nov. 1, 2018, by the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

The recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for protein is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight per day. In the study, scientists recruited 722 85-year-olds and examined their medical data, including information like physical activity, what they ate each day, their body weight, and overall health status. Disability was measured from self-reported questionnaires in which the people described how much difficulty they had performing 17 activities of daily living, such as getting in and out of bed, dressing, bathing, doing household chores, and going up and down stairs.

A healthy diet should go heavy on vegetables and skip alcohol, sugary drinks, and processed foods.

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Most of the time when someone gets cancer, it's because of bad genes or bad luck. But as many as four in 10 cancers may be preventable. And diet likely plays an important role in reducing (or increasing) your risk.

It's no surprise that vegetables and fruits are thought to reduce cancer risk, according to Teresa Fung, adjunct professor in the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and faculty editor of Healthy Eating, a Special Health Report from Harvard Health Publishing (available at www.health.harvard.edu/special-health-reports). It probably also won't shock you to learn that bacon, fast food, and sugary drinks fall into the opposite category. But how can you know for sure which foods to eat and which to avoid?

Because addiction to pain pills often starts with an operation, surgeons are shifting to non-opioid approaches for pain control.

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Many people who are struggling with opioid addiction didn't start taking the drugs at a party or at a friend's house. They were introduced to these painkilling medications by their doctor after a surgical procedure.

In the 1990s, the number of opioid prescriptions written for people undergoing surgery or experiencing pain conditions grew — and so did related problems. As a result, "we are in a current opioid epidemic, with 91 substance-related deaths each day, according to the CDC," says Dr. Elizabeth Matzkin, an orthopedic surgeon and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.

Occasionally these heart rhythm disruptions signal a more serious condition.

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Lately you've felt like a flipping fish is stuck inside your chest. You feel fine otherwise, but there it is again — flip, flop. It's gone as fast as it appears. But you're starting to worry: is it a sign of a serious heart problem?

Chances are what you're feeling is a condition called heart palpitations, which are usually harmless blips in the heart rhythm, explains Dr. Peter Zimetbaum, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at Harvard Medical School. Only occasionally are these rhythm disturbances the sign of a more serious heart problem that should be checked out.

Research we're watching

A long-used vaccine is showing promise in helping to restore near-normal blood sugar levels in people with advanced type 1 diabetes. Researchers from Harvard Medical School injected adults who had type 1 diabetes with two doses of the bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine, which is traditionally used to prevent tuberculosis.

Participants in the study, all of whom had type 1 diabetes for many years, all showed significant improvements in their average blood sugar levels after the vaccination. The improvements lasted for the next five years. Researchers said that it appears the vaccine affected a metabolic mechanism that increases consumption of glucose by cells.