Keep warm, keep costs down

Lowering the thermostat will help your bills, but you don’t want to get cold. If you want to increase your temperature generally, exercise can make a difference as it gives you a better blood flow to hands and feet. What you perceive as cold also depends on what you are used to. If you heat your home to a higher temperature than your neighbour you are always going to feel colder in their house, even though to them it may seem perfectly warm. A Canadian study found recently that mood can influence how hot or cold we feel and depression and loneliness make us more aware of the temperature. To stay warm, exercise, be more social and get enough sleep – and a big enough share of the duvet.

Here’s a few ideas to get you started:

** That big yeti like jumper may feel cosy, but you would do better with several thin layers, not one thick one.

** Bedsocks and a nightcap may seem like something from an old movie, but keeping your head and feet warm will pay dividends. Invest in a red santa hat and pretend Christmas has come early.

** Hot food, eaten regularly keeps your system stoked up and make sure you have plenty of carbohydrates as they provide long lasting heat sustenance. There is a reason stews and soups are so popular in winter, it’s not just their psychological effect, but the slow breakdown of those potatoes and pulses keep you warmer longer.

** Check your central heating thermostat and if it’s over 21C-24C then try reducing it to that optimum level.

** Alcohol and caffeine may seem like a good idea but they both increase blood flow to the skin, so you are actually losing heat.

** Keep moving as even small amounts of exercise will help. Don’t have the remote next to your chair, get up and walk a little – and make a cup of tea while you are up. to Avoid drinking too much of either if you’re trying to stay warm. Both

** Use your mind to make you warmer. If you are somewhere cold that you can’t control the temperature, just visualise somewhere hot and you will actually feel warmer. It works equally in reverse, so in summer imagine rubbing your feet on a nice cold ice floe – if there’s still one left.

Men – Relinquish that duvet!

The nightly battle of the duvet is an unreported phenomena of sharing a bed – and women seem to come off worse. No one has yet shelled out research money to find out why even the smallest and slightest of men has the grip of a stevedore when it comes to holding onto the duvet and hauling it over to their side of the bed – and I am sure someone will manage to get a grant after I have mentioned it! Well, appealing to your better nature chaps, although there is a lot of variation in how individuals feel the cold depending on a number of factors such as age, fitness, diet and sleep pattern there is one factor that is constant. Women tend to feel the cold more than men do – although I would say menopausal women are exempt from this as hot flushes can heat an entire room never mind a double bed.

Happily there is an expert to tell us why, and according to Mike Tipton, Professor of Human Physiology at the University of Portsmouth, it’s because we evolved on the Equator which makes us creatures of the Tropics. Since we all moved out to explore the world with our cooking pots and mammoths on a string, we have learned to reproduce our hot homeland by learning how to build fires and inventing central heating.

Although we feel hot and cold throughout the day, our core body temperature – that of our vital organs – is always kept at about 37C and we must maintain that level for survival. Just a 2C drop can cause hypothermia, a 12C drop results in death. If you want to keep, and feel, warm this winter you need to concentrate on your hands and feet. This is particularly important for women as research shows that they are better at conserving heat than men because they have a more evenly distributed fat layer and can pull all their blood back to their core organs. It’s thought that women do this because they carry less fat and muscle mass than men, and so need a more efficient technique of protecting their core body temperature. Next time someone suggests you are a bit overweight try blaming your core organs, it’s much more effective that saying you just can’t resist an extra biscuit.

BUT, because women operate in this way it means that less blood flows to their hands and feet, and as a result they feel cold – certainly colder than men usually do.

There are a number of factors that can affect how cold women feel, menopause obviously is one and so are various points of the menstrual cycle where the core body temperature can often vary by more than 1C. Most of us recognise that when we are tired we are also more sensitive to changes in temperature and feel the cold more, and as our body temperature falls at night, that’s when we women feel it most as they reach their minimum body temperature quicker than men.

Exercise? Pop a pill

Athletics and drugs have sadly often gone hand in hand, and now a new research breakthrough which is intended to help people who cannot exercise much or at all, due to incapacity or illness, could be high on the list for cheating athletes.

Steroids boost muscle power so are misused by those needing strength in their events, but so far a drug that can build the endurance needed to run a marathon or take part in the Tour de France has not been available. Now, it could be. We have two types of muscle that move our body: bulky, fast-twitch muscles for power and speed, and slender slow-twitch muscles for endurance. Fast-twitch muscles burn sugar that must be stored in the muscle itself, while slow-twitch muscle burns fat.

A new study on mice at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California suggests that there is a drug that can trick the body into “believing” it has exercised. A drug that has been developed for the treatment of metabolic disease, when taken in combination with exercise, gives mice the ability to run farther than exercise alone can and a separate chemical gave them greater endurance, even without the exercise.

Earlier studies had found that a red wine ingredient called resveratrol could build endurance, but only at enormous doses and by uncertain means. The natural route’s success, however limited, as usual set up a search for a pharmaceutical substitute. The chemicals tested in the new study are thought to work by specifically tapping into the molecular mechanisms that normally re-programme our muscle genes in response to exercise.

Of course it might not work on people, but the research team had previously found they could genetically engineer mice to produce more of the fat-burning slow-twitch muscle fibres, giving them nearly twice the running endurance of untrained adults. The key was boosting the activity of a gene in muscle called PPARd, known to control other genes important to muscle metabolism.

The researchers gave mice an experimental drug, known only as GW1516, that increases PPARd activity and is currently being tested for the treatment of metabolic disease in humans. However, the drug had no effect on the muscles and so they tried giving it to mice who were undergoing exercise training. I have a cute but entirely unfounded vision of a Stuart Little character with mini barbells in satin running shorts – or is that just me? The same dose and duration of GW1516 that had previously failed to alter performance, when paired with four weeks of exercise training, increased the animals’ running time by 68% and their running distance by 70%. The muscles of those mice also showed a unique “endurance gene signature,” including patterns of gene activity not seen with either the drug or exercise alone, according to the investigators. They then decided to try one more thing: a chemical known as AICAR that was known to act on a protein in the body called AMPK. The results are impressive, even in sedentary mice, four weeks of AICAR treatment alone induced metabolic genes and enhanced running endurance by 44%.

THE BENEFIT?
When developed and trialled fully, this has therapeutic potential in treating certain muscle diseases such as wasting and frailty as well as cases of obesity where exercise is known to be beneficial but not physically possible. We also appear to be training mice for the 2012 Olympics, or at least increasing their fitness to levels which should help them run from the fastest cat in your home.

Lower blood pressure with grapes

Ever wondered why grapes are the most popular fruit to take to hospital? Or why the visitor ends up eating them as well as the patient? It could be because visiting someone in hospital – or being a patient – is a stressful time and it seems that grapes help lower blood pressure and improve heart function.

High blood pressure can lead to heart attack, heart failure, stroke and kidney failure and admittedly this study was sponsored in part by Californian grape producers, but we already know that flavonoids, the beneficial chemicals found in grapes, green tea, cocoa and tomatoes, have an effect on blood pressure and this seems to confirm that.

So buy an extra large bunch next time you are visiting, or treat yourself to one at home. Oh, and drinking a herb tea containing hibiscus may also lower blood pressure according to Diane L. McKay, Ph.D., of Tufts University in Boston, who reported the good results to the American Heart Association. Hibiscus is rich in Vitamin C and could help in reducing cholesterol. If you have difficulty finding it, Hambledon Herbs do an excellent organic one. www.hambledenherbs.com

Arthritis pain relief

Damp, cold days can set off arthritic aches and pains, and we have certainly had more than a few of those recently. Taking non steroidal anti inflammatories such as Nurofen is the conventional route, but if you want a natural solution pop down to Boots or your health store and get some Arnica cream from the Natural Remedies section. You simply rub it onto the affected area to relieve the pain, but don’t use it if your skin is raw or cut in any way.

Whatever Is Tigger Doing?

At this time of year parents and grandparents are under constant bombardment to buy for Christmas and the marketing is ruthless and clever – often using favourite cartoon and tv characters. However, I did think there was one that was safe from this persuasion by well-loved characters and that was in the drug industry. Well, not any more. Pharmaceutical reps working for the drug company AstraZeneca, have been urged to used popular Disney characters to promote psychiatric drugs to children.

What A A Milne would think is anyone’s guess, but some of Winnie the Pooh’s best-loved friends have been rebranded to promote sales of Seroquel, an antipsychotic. Tigger apparently is now described as “bipolar” and poor old Eeyore – who has quite enough to worry about – is apparently described as suffering from “depression”. Presumably the Hundred Acre Wood has also been stripped of all plant life to make new and better drugs.

Cancer risk and stress

The International Journal of Oncology has been looking at whether the stress in your life can cause you to develop cancer, and the answer lies in your diet. Particularly in vegetables such as that Christmas favourite, the brussel sprout.

These are very stressful times, so anything we can do to help our bodies deal with it will also help us avoid diseases like cancer. We know that stress impacts our immune systems and ability to fight off invading organisms so that we become more vulnerable to all kinds of diseases and illnesses. This current study goes a long way toward documenting the link between stress and cancer and stressing the importance of our own role in preventing illness.

Chronic high levels of stress result in chronic high levels of norepinephrine and adrenaline. Norepinephrine is a neurotransmitter that is similar to adrenaline and these hormones act together to produce increased heart rate and blood pressure – the precursor to our ‘fight or flight’ mode. So how do you inhibit the production of norepinephrine in this stress-filled times? You increase the amount of sulforaphane in your diet. This is a compound that you get from eating cruciferous vegetables such as Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, bok choy, kale, kohlrabi, mustard, turnip, radish, rocket, and watercress.

Sulforaphane has potent anticancer activity that triggers the production of enzymes that help detoxify cancer-causing chemicals and is particularly abundant in broccoli sprouts. A concentrated extract from broccoli sprouts may cut the development of bladder cancer by more than 50% and researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have found that eating just one ounce of broccoli sprouts provides as much sulforaphane as more than a pound of cooked broccoli. The have devised a product, called Brocco Sprouts, that is on sale in supermarkets in the USA but in the UK your choice is a bit more limited.

The healthiest option is to grow your own sprouting seeds and you can get broccoli sprouts from here www.nickys-nursery.co.uk and apparently they are good in sandwiches, mild rather like alfalfa. Personally, as a total non-broccoli fan I get my cruciferous boost by juicing with the addition of a sweet apple and carrot which is the only way I can deal with them!

If eating healthy amounts of cruciferous vegetables does not appeal to you, try adding broccoli sprouts to a sandwich or salad. Broccoli sprouts don’t have to be eaten daily to provide their full effect. A one ounce serving is good for three days worth of full spectrum antioxidant protection from sulforaphane comparable to the best antioxidant supplements on the market. A box of sprouts contains four of these servings and retails for about 4 dollars.

Juicing is another good way to consume cruciferous vegetables, particularly if you have digestive difficulties. You can add cruciferous vegetables to your vegetable juice recipes. One large stalk of broccoli makes only about an inch of power packed juice in a glass, so it doesn’t have a huge impact on the taste of the recipe.

Supplements of broccoli sprouts are available at health food stores and online health retailers such as Vitacost or Lucky Vitamin. The best known is called Broccoliv. Vitacost has a less costly house brand.

Blood test to detect early Alzheimer’s

There is no doubt that the fear of Alzheimer’s is a major concern for many people as they get older. A natural, and normal slight memory loss – those ‘senior moments’ – can develop into a genuine worry about the development of the disease. Part of the problem has been that there is no foolproof way of predicting who is vulnerable, no reliable test, or how to spot the disease in its very early stages. Now there may be a way to overcome this through a simple blood test.

Scientists at a California biotech company claim that the test is about 90% accurate and can detect Alzheimer’s two to six years before the onset of symptoms. It works through the signals the brain sends to the body’s immune system. These signals pick up changes in the blood proteins in the brain and certain changes in these proteins produce a pattern that’s characteristic to Alzheimer’s.

There are more than 100 different types of dementia, but Alzheimer’s is the most common and there are 417,000 people diagnosed with it in the UK – predicted to rise to over 1 million by 2025.

It will be a few years before this test is available for use by doctors and it would be offered first to those whose close relatives have the disease and who may be suffering memory loss themselves. It may be that you don’t want to know in advance if you have this disease, but an early diagnosis can give patients a chance to make changes to their diet and exercise more in an effort of slowing or staving off chances of getting the disease.

SELF HELP PROGRAMME
Despite common belief, heredity only plays a part in getting Alzheimer’s and it is more likely that environmental factors play a part – particularly the role of free radicals as they cause damage to cells. Cortisol, a stress hormone, may be a causative factor, particularly when produced over a long period of time and good nutrition and herbal treatments prevent and fight damage from free radicals and reduce stress. Toxins such as aluminium and mercury are also a problem since they can be taken into the body and remain in the tissues.

There are a number of things you can do to help lessen some of the symptoms, or the onset, of Alzheimer’s and these are just a few of the supplements that have been found to be effective in many cases:

*Ginkgo biloba for improved memory, attention and mood.

*B vitamins, particularly Folate, which is important to the nervous system and helps eliminate homocysteine from the blood.

*Vitamin E is a scavenger of free radicals and it is fat soluble so readily enters the brain where it is thought to slow cell damage.

*The Ayuredic herb Ashwagandha (Withania somniferum) is used as a brain tonic and reduces stress hormone levels

*DHEA is a hormone used to help cognitive function

*Chlorella aids in the detoxification process of heavy metals.

For more information on Alzheimer’s and dementia, visit www.alzheimers.org.uk

More sleep = Better health

As they get older, many people find they are sleeping less, but that could be a health risk. So to encourage you to try and improve your sleeping habits, if you are currently sleeping fewer than seven-and-a-half hours a night – and are over 60 – then you could be increasing your risk of heart disease.

If you don’t get a full 8 hours plus, then that is associated with a higher rise in overnight blood pressure which increases your risk. This is based on a Japanese study of older patients with hypertension, where they found that the combination of little sleep and elevated overnight blood pressure was associated with an increased risk as well.

Previous studies on the effect of lack of sleep have been done on younger patients and they showed a link to multiple health disorders, including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease so they are not exempt either. This is the first study on older patients and shows a particular link with increased risk of heart disease.

If you have trouble sleeping, try a late night drink of chamomile tea, a lavender oil warm bath, or the excellent Bach Rescue Sleep. This is a new formulation that I tried recently and it contains the original 5 effective ingredients of “Rescue Remedy®” plus White Chestnut which is effective against restless mind. I certainly found it to be very effective, though rather too sweet for my taste, and am waiting to hear from the Bach Centre what that ‘sweet’ ingredient is!

Music on the move may not be good for your heart

Music has great power to soothe and de-stress, and is very beneficial to those recovering from illness or surgery or just needing to relax, but a new study reported at an American Heart Association meeting may mean rethinking that. It seems that an mp3 player could potentially cause interference and affect heart devices like pacemakers or implanted defibrillators. Apparently it is not the player itself that is the problem, it’s the earphones as many makes have the magnetic substance neodymium, which helps with sound reproduction. It is this that may interfere with the devices if placed directly on your chest above heart level.

It’s not about the listening, but about where you store the headphones while carrying the mp3 player around with you. Dr.William H. Maisel, director of the Medical Device Safety Institute in Boston, USA ran extensive tests and found that the biggest concern was for defibrillator patients, because the magnet can temporarily deactivate it. However, pacemakers are not exempt from concern as they are designed to boost slow heart rhythms, and when exposed to magnets, they may deliver signals that tell the heart to beat faster, whether it needs to or not.

In the new study, the researchers attached eight types of headphones to iPods and mp3 players. These were either earbuds or clip-ons, not the larger noise-cancelling varieties favoured by business travellers to also exclude external noise. Around 23% of the participants experienced electromagnetic interferencewhen the headphones were placed on the chest – directly over the heart. However, there weren’t any problems if the headphones were 3 centimetres, or about 1.2 inches, or more above the skin’s surface.

This is not a conclusive study, but if you have a pacemaker or defibrillator it is sensible advice to not tuck the headphones into the front pocket of your jacket or let them trail over your shoulders near the heart area when they are not in use.

« Previous Page — Next Page »