Alternative Health Blog

Breakfast is a healthy idea based on a stack of research higher than an oversized pile of your favorite buttermilk pancakes. Some scientific bites: One study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology shows people who skip breakfast are more than four to five times likely to gain unwanted weight compared to morning eaters. A University of Colorado study found people who keep a regular breakfast habit are significantly more able to maintain weight loss.

Other research squarely connects eating in the morning to increased mental alertness and improved test performance among students. Those studies are consistent on the cognitive value of breaking the overnight fast before lunchtime at the cafeteria.

OK, so, great, breakfast is good for you, especially if skip the donuts or soda (about 10 to 12 percent of Americans drink a pop at breakfast or as breakfast). But, hey, hello, breakfast is supposed to be consumed in the morning. For many people, that’s the time to rush through a shower, try for the fourth time to wake up your teenager or squeeze in the last minutes of blissful sleep.

“Most people are intimidated time-wise about breakfast,” said Kimberly Mathai, a Seattle-based registered dietitian. “I have noticed in my practice that lots of my clients eat breakfast on the weekends. They like the idea of breakfast, but it is often that the only time people feel they get the best sleep, in those precious 15 minutes before the alarm rings and they have to jump in the shower.”

Mathai said she persuades her clients to “try the nibble thing” if they don’t routinely eat breakfast.

“I keep it simple for people,” she explained. “A handful of nuts [she recommends almonds and walnuts as the best choices for the healthy omega-3 fats], enough to fit in the palm of your hand, that’s a stand-alone breakfast. Or you can combine half a handful with a piece of fruit, then save the rest of the nuts for a mid-morning snack.”

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. 

While bee-sting venom treatment is the most publicized component of apitherapy (see the previous entry in this blog), there is a growing number of studies confirming the healing quality of honey when used for wounds. Propolis, manufactured by bees starting with the resins of new or damaged plants and then mixed with pollen, enzymes and wax, has been found in laboratory tests to contain anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-viral properties. 

The first two we can get from drugs (if so inclined) but the anti-viral effect is much harder for science to replicate. Practitioners like Theo Cherbuliez, an East Coast psychiatrist and one of the country’s leading bee-sting therapist, and Vetaley Stashenko, a Florida-based naturopathic physician have published research about the use of propolis for specific conditions. Both practitioners contend it is not coincidence that bee products have been used in a country like China for more than 2,000 years. 

Both men have European roots in beekeeping, Swiss and Ukranian, respectively, with hopes that American researchers will take up the cause of why bee products contain strong doses of medicinal substance. It might seem far-fetched but consider that a growing number of U.S. scientists have committed to studying the medicinal qualities of frogs and toads, especially in South America. Bees in hives are readily available.

Some of the most impressive scientific studies have been conducted in Australia and New Zealand (especially manuka honey in the latter country). Many hospitals on that continent routinely stock honey as a topical application for wounds and burns.

Bob Condor blogs every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. 

No matter what you might first think about apitherapy or the use of honeybee products for medicinal products, there is one distinct “element of reality,” said Dr. Theo Cherbuliez.

“With few exceptions, every bee sting hurts, period,” said Cherbuliez, who is an East Coast psychiatrist and one of the country’s leading apitherapists during the last 20 years.

Bee-sting therapy has been hailed as a remedy for pain relief, multiple sclerosis or MS treatment and even allergic reactions among other conditions.

“You can grow accustomed to bee stings,” said Cherbuliez, who is past president of the American Apitherapy Society and currently involved with international organizations involved in all things bees and healing. “We have techniques to make it easier for people.”

Cherbuliez draws upon his psychiatry practice for those techniques. He said “a certain mental attitude” and “the proper state of mind” can be achieved so bee venom can work its curative powers. Honeybee venom features melittin, a potent anti-inflammatory substance.

Let me guess what you are thinking. There are two levels of reaction. One is, who would agree to get stung by bees? Two is, can’t they just extract the stuff and let patients take it as capsules or maybe a tincture?

First question: Bee venum therapy and its required live stinging is popular in Eastern Europe (especially Romania, Bulgaria and Russia), Japan and China. Germany, a nation of patients and researchers that is undeniably scientific about natural remedies,  has embraced apitherapy in the last decade. 

Ferris Apiaries, a Maryland-based mail order company, has shipped more than three million bees to customers throughout the U.S. who await their arrival like the prescription drugs they might also be taking (or maybe hope to stop taking)>

“You can receive a box of 60 bees every two weeks or whatever you need,” said Cherbuliez, who keeps his own bees and now splits his time and medical practices between the New York City suburbs and Maine. He long kept bees at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx.

Of course, not even the most avid supporter of apitherapy recommends using bee venom without the supervision of a health practitioner and an initial test for allergic reaction. On its website, the American Apitherapy Society maintains “a sensitive person can be de-sensitized to bee venom” to allow a course of apitherapy.

By the site also cautions:  “AAS recommends that any one that uses or administers bee venom have readily available an Epinephrine kit to be used in case of anaphylactic response and know how to use it. Erroneously, many people consider swelling after a sting to be an allergic reaction. Swelling is a normal response of the body as are localized redness, swelling and itching.”

The most dramatic use of apitherapy—and anecdotal evidence of therapeutic success—involves MS. Some patients have enjoyed significant relief from symptoms, enough to return to their previous active lifestyle. There is a belief in the apitherapy community of practitioners and beekeepers that venom can similarly help others with autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis.

“There is no cure for MS and apitherapy is not a cure,” said Cherbuliez. “But there are people who have enjoyed excellent results.”

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. 

What are friends for?

Good health, if you believe the positive studies. Or a not-so-good health effect body and mind considering other research.

On the plus side, researchers have found that staying connected to friends is equal in benefit to maintaining a healthy body weight or not smoking. Australian scientists link friends—not family members--in older years to living longer. 

Research published in the medical journal Cancer showed that women with advanced cases of ovarian cancer who said they felt more social attachment and support had lower levels of harmful interleuken-6 protein in their bodies than patients who reported no such support. An interesting note: Feeling more depressed or anxious didn’t change interleuken-6 levels in either set of women.

Then there are the minuses casting an unhealthy shadow on friends. While connection to pals might be as healthful as staying in good shape, Harvard physician  Nicholas Christakis and University of California-San Diego political science professor James Fowler published a New England Journal of Medicine study in July that countered the argument.  The study offered evidence that friends who become obese can influence close friends to follow in their overweight footsteps. Media outlets jumped on the study and went hard for the “friends will make you fat” headlines.

Christakis himself has answered more than 1,000 emails to say, no, you don't have to drop friends to drop pounds. Fowler, an expert in social networks, has been busy messaging too. Probably because the two researchers used the term “socially contagious” to describe the phenomenon of friends gaining weight together, even if they live thousands of miles apart. In a recent Alternative Health Blog post, we considered an even more recent study by the two researchers showing that even happiness can be “socially contagious.”

To the less appealing point: If a person you consider a close friend become obese (generally described as at least 20 percent over healthy body weight), your chances of becoming obese rise by 57 percent. If the friendship is mutual, the outcome of obesity is even more likely, increasing your chances or risk by 171 percent.

What’s more, the friends effect was even more statistically significant than weight gain among people in the same household or sharing the same genes.

“It’s not that obese or non-obese people simply find other similar people to hang out with,” said Christakis. “Rather, there is a direct, causal relationship.”

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. 

Some pivotal lines on the get healthy checklist: Eat better, fruits, vegetables and whole grains? Check. Exercise more,  do some cardiovascular workouts, lift weights, stretch? Check. Get more sleep, eight hours a night.

Uh, not so fast. Most of us over look get enough sleep.

“Sleep is a necessity, but we treat it as a luxury,” said Jim Maas, a sleep researcher and professor at Cornell University in upstate New York. “Seventy-five percent of Americans experience some form of insomnia two to three times per week. Either they can’t fall asleep or can’t stay asleep.”

Moss made an important to the Alternative Health Blog.

“It’s not unusual to wake up several times per night,” explained Maas. “The trouble comes in not falling back asleep within 10 minutes.”

If you either can’t fall asleep at bedtime or can’t get back to sleep within the 10 minutes, that’s what researchers like Maas define as insomnia. It’s transient insomnia if the sleep pattern lasts a few nights or maybe a week or two. If the sleeplessness lasts more than three weeks, then it is categorized as chronic insomnia.

Plus, new research shows it is easier to lose unwanted pounds if you get your eight hours per night. That might be just the motivation some of us need to put sleep in a higher category of health goals for 2009.

But resolving to sleep more or sounder does not always translate to action.

Maas said your first step is to consider daytime habits, which are “the root” of most insomnia problems. If you drink coffee in the afternoon, or at least past 2 p.m., that could be tripping you up. Smokers are at higher risks to be insomniacs. Exercising within three hours of bedtime can disrupt your night (morning workouts are ideal for inducing nighttime sleep). The same three-hour alert zone applies to alcohol.

“People say they need a nightcap or even to drink themselves into oblivion to fall asleep,” said Maas. “But alcohol is not a sedative. It’s actually a stimulant. You might fall asleep and get through a 90-minute cycle [our nights of rest come in 90-minute segments of deep and lighter sleep]. The second half of your sleep is most affected by alcohol.”

Maas said there are sleep strategies that have been tested and confirmed by sleep researchers. One is keep your bedroom cool, 57 degrees F is best. Strive for a quiet sleeping environment with either constant or minimal noise. Darkness is essential; the light the better. Don’t eat too much before bed and don’t go to bed starving, either.

“If you can’t fall asleep or fall back asleep within 10 minutes, then I recommend getting out of bed,” said Maas, who has worked with hundreds of insomniacs at Cornell’s sleep lab. “You can do some light housework or read. But keep the lights low.”

Maas has another idea that has worked well for individuals who tend to magnify insomnia by focusing on life’s problems as they are staring at the ceiling.

“I recommend that we all have a ‘worry time’ before bed,” he said. “Write down all of your problems on a list, and then put them to rest on the nightstand.” 

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

The perfect smoothie?

“If someone can hand you a smoothie as you walk in the door from a workout, that’s the ideal smoothie,” said Aimee Gallo, a Bastyr University-trained nutritionist and certified personal trainer who operates the Vibrance Nutrition counseling service in Seattle.

Gallo advises her clients to make their smoothies at home, mostly because you can’t find the perfectly healthy smoothie at the local or franchise stands.

“You have to ask your smoothie maker a lot of questions,” said Gallo. “You might find out he or she uses flavored syrup. That does not advocate health.”

At home, Gallo said you start with organic frozen fruit and a fruit juice diluted with 50 percent water.

“Cherry juice is great because it is high in anti-inflammatory agents to help you recover from a workout,” said Gallo. “Cranberry juice is good too. It’s high in antioxidants and less sweet—some people really, really like a less sweet smoothie.”

Next add a protein scoop giving you 18 to 25 grams. Gallo said, all things equal, she recommends organic, hormone-free whey protein. She explained it is easier on the digestive system compared to soy or rice proteins.

A smoothie serves as a “carrier of extra nutrition,” said Gallo, so finish off that perfect homemade smoothie with flax oil, plus maybe a calcium or fiber supplement. The flax oil is potent with anti-inflammatory agents, said Gallo. That jump-starts tissue repair

Along with tissue repair, which includes muscle rebuilding, the perfect smoothie stabilizes blood sugar and encourages the body to lose weight because “you are encouraging to use calories by feeding it at the right time.”

“There is what’s called a glycogen window after a workout,” said Gallo. “It is an optimal time for the cells to receive nutrition. I tell people the cells are like hungry baby birds who need food and now.”

Other benefits of the post-workout smoothie: Less muscle soreness the next day and more energy during the rest of your day or evening.

“Try to drink your smoothie within 45 minutes of your workout for the best results,” said Gallo. "That can make a big difference in how you feel all day."

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  

Maybe your 2009 resolutions include beginning or restarting a yoga practice. Good idea. The ideal strategy for yoga novices is a one-on-one session with an instructor. It will cost about the same as an appointment with your massage therapist.

Or you can certainly get an energy boost from a beginner’s class at your local yoga studio (look for one in which the teacher offers different versions of the same posture depending upon experience and fitness level).

Better yet, start your resolution today with the “downward-facing dog” pose, which is one of the “inversion” postures in yoga that pretty much instantly can energize the body.

The downward dog is a more accessible version of the handstand or headstand, which likely most American adults have not done since, oh, fifth grade. Yet maybe there is more to those childhood handstands than just playing or showing off.

“I have teacher who calls headstands and handstand the ‘yogi’s coffee,’ ” said one yoga instructor based in the Seattle area.

The downward dog pose looks, not surprisingly, a lot like a dog stretching its paws in front and the rear high in the air. For us humans, it starts with putting your hands in alignment with your shoulders and hips as you move to hands and feet on the floor. Novices often spread the hands too far apart and the feet too close together.

Next, as you come into all fours, place your knees under your hips and gently extend your spine. As you put your hands on the mats, spread the fingers a bit with the middle finger straight ahead.

Lift your pelvis toward the ceiling and pull the hips back. Your eyes look to the feet. The feet are even with the hips and resist moving them closer to the hands just put the heels down. If your heels don’t touch, they will if you do the downward dog regularly.

A good practice is to hold the downward dog posture for five slow, purposeful breaths.

What keeps yoga regulars coming back is, to be sure, a combination of results. But one of the most satisfying is increased energy, not just after class but the rest of the day or week. You feel more clear-headed. You stand more upright. There is less tiredness midday. Who can resist that in today’s world, especially during what can be stressful holidays. 

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. 

Another positive about green tea in Anderson’s view: It contains amino acid molecules called thiamine that “can be quite calming to the brain.” This relaxing effect seems to run counter to the fact that green tea’s active ingredients include caffeine. The caffeine is less the typical cup of coffee or soda, but it is still, well, caffeine.

“The caffeine effect is immediate while thiamine needs to build up over time,” said Anderson. “Only regular green tea drinkers will get the calming effect, and the thiamine sort of balances out the caffeine.”

The research on the health benefits of green tea is burgeoning. Earlier this year, researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington reported that women who drank one or more cups per day of green tea reduced ovarian cancer risk by 54 percent.  Even women who drank green tea occasionally enjoyed decreased risk. This protectiveness is even more significant considering the difficulty of detecting ovarian cancer until it is advanced and less treatable.

The Hutch Center scientists noted green tea has high levels of epigallocatechin-3-gallate or EGCG, a powerful antioxidant shown in lab studies to inhibit ovarian cancer growth. Additional studies connect green tea’s EGCG level and reduced risk for several other cancers, including breast cancer (in mice experiments at the University of Mississippi) and colorectal cancer (according to a large study of Chinese women).

Anderson said some cancer patients drink green tea to help offset the intended ravages (killing some normal cells as a byproduct of destroying cancer cells) of chemotherapy and radiation.

A major Japanese study concluded that individuals who drink at least at pint of green tea per day appear to significantly decrease their risk of death from heart disease, especially from cardiac episodes earlier than life expectancy would predict. The 2006 research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, offered that the common green tea habit among Japanese adults might go a long way in explaining why the mortality rate from heart disease and stroke is about 30 percent lower in Japan than the United States.

EGCG is considered a substance that prevents cells from damage and premature aging, which is no doubt why it has become a favorite of beauty and cosmetics manufacturers. But there is no research to show whether topical application of green tea extracts have the same effect as consuming the tea.

Anderson said one of the first things a naturopathic physician determines about medicinal plants and herbs is whether there is a toxicity level for the substance. He said green tea presents no such dangers, especially as a brewed tea. He acknowledged that someone would have to take “extremely large” amounts of green tea extract to cause any toxic effect. He did include a few cautions: The caffeine in green tea might still adversely affect someone with uncontrolled high blood pressure, similar to coffee. And he said some people become nauseated when they drink green tea.

But, for most of us, going green will be a healthy move.

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Many Americans have obsessed about abdominal fat for, oh, decades. But it wasn’t until this year that scientists connected extra pounds around the middle to loss of brain function. New research shows people who have large waistlines in their 40sare more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia conditions in their 70s.

The 2008 study from the Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente Division of Research revealed that individuals with the biggest bellies had two times the risk of the leanest people. And belly fat was deemed a more significant risk factor than family history, even if both parents suffered from Alzheimer’s.

“If [baby boomers] are not frightened enough about heart disease, maybe they will worry about losing their mental function,” said Dr. Sam Gandy, a spokesman for the Alzheimer’s Association (not involved in the study), in a wire service story.

Well, there’s even more than heart disease and Alzheimer’s/dementia for the belly fat worry list. In one of those findings covered by media outlets but not getting large point-size headlines or much air time, a University of Southern California study presented at a medical conference in February connected excess abdominal fat among women 35 to 54 to a fast-rising rate of stroke among females in that age group. The rate has tripled in recent years, said USC neurologist Dr. Amytis Towfighi at the International Stroke Conference in New Orleans. Strokes are considered “brain attacks” of sorts.

Female waistlines, on average, are two inches bigger than a decade ago. Plus, the USC study showed the percentage of women with “abdominal obesity” rose from 47 to 59 percent. Towfighi and other researchers commenting on the study generally agree that this abdominal fat and a continuing rise in obesity are at the root cause of causing more strokes.

A couple of points that got the attention of scientists and public health officials if not the media: One is the stroke rate among middle-aged men stayed about the same during the time period of federal data examined, which was 1999 to 2004. The other fact is that stroke is generally considered to be a disease among the elderly. While that is still the case, the sudden spike in middle-age female stroke and belly fat numbers (men’s statistics stayed the same in both categories) alarms health care professionals.

There’s more. Doctors have long considered men to be more susceptible to strokes in middle age, with women have strokes at more equal rates once they are five to 10 years into menopause. It’s clearly time to rethink the probabilities—and maybe even consider that women with excess abdominal fat are even more at risk for stroke than men with expanded waistlines.

Parents of teenagers are likely to celebrate this news: Research shows delaying the typical early start—like, way early, dude—of middle school and high school until 8:30 or even 9 a.m. can significantly improve students’ ability to stay awake in class. Plus, no small thing, teens who drive to school will stay more alert while operating the car.

Lots of head nodding out there, no doubt, among parents who struggle to wake up their sons and daughters. Funny thing, research clearly shows adolescents have higher levels of a hormone that physiologically prevents them from falling asleep early when compared to their lower-grade years.

It’s a biological fact, upturned by sleep researchers at Northwestern University and University of Minnesota among others, that has been largely ignored by most school districts. One notable exception in the research literature is the Duluth, Minn., school district, which has incorporated later start times to help scientists explore the potential benefits.

The newest study involves a school district in Kansas observed by researchers Barbara Phillips and Fred Danner at the University of Kentucky. Before altering start times, they found just more than a third of middle and high school students in the district (which serves a single and entire county in Kansas) logged at least eight hours of sleep. The start times were 7:30 a.m. for the high school and 8 a.m. at the middle school.

When start times were delayed by one hour, respectively, the percentage of kids getting at least eight hours rose to 50 percent. The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, additionally documented a significant decrease in motor vehicle accidents and crashes among 17- and 18-year-old drivers in the county. More than 10,000 students were part of the study.

While some observers might challenge that kids simply need to retire earlier at night, the hormonal research points to a certain biological futility to that effort. Laying in bed awake doesn’t count as sleep. Another important finding is the students in the study needed less catch-up sleep on weekends, indicating that you can better regulate a child’s sleep habits with a bit later start in the morning.

When allowed on weekends to sleep in, there was less of it because the body wasn’t demanding it. Kids were waking up at roughly the same time each day, which is rated the best sleep habit any of us can follow.

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. 

It might sound like a catch-phrase for an optimists club, but new science shows that happiness can be contagious. Harvard Medical School researchers recently reported that the more happy people you know, the greater the chance you will be happy yourself.

The study, published in the British Medical Journal, was conducted by Nicholas Christakis, a Harvard professor of medical sociology who has previously revealed that both a smoking habit and obesity are similarly contagious. If you know a lot of smokers, you are more likely to smoke yourself. Same for obesity: If you have family members, neighbors, friends and others in your community who are overweight, the likelihood rises significantly that you will be at an unhealthful weight too.

Think of it as sort of a networking or clustering effect. In the latest results on happiness, Christakis decided to turn contagious into a positive. He called a sort of “emotional stampede.” The Harvard prof has partnered with University of California-San Diego political scientist on all three studies.

"Each additional happy person makes you happier," Christakis says. "Imagine people live in patches and that these patches are happy and unhappy patches. Your happiness depends on what is going on in the patch around you.”

For his part, Fowler was willing to quantify the happiness effect of social clusters.

"If a social contact is happy, it increases the likelihood that you are happy by 15 percent," Fowler says. "A friend of a friend, or the friend of a spouse or a sibling, if they are happy, increases your chances by 10 percent."

There is a downside: "Every extra unhappy friend increases the likelihood that you'll be unhappy by seven percent.”

Picking your friends and associates can no doubt affect your health. Next up for Christakis and Fowler will considering how social clusters affect the onset and possible contagious behavior related to depression, loneliness and drinking behavor.

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

With a couple of four-day holiday weekends approach, many sleep-deprived adults are likely harboring a secret desire: To take a nap during the day.

As it turns out, new research scores another one for such nappers as Winston Churchill. A City University of New York study presented this fall at the Society of Neuroscience annual meeting revealed that a well-placed nap can help boost a sophisticated type of memory that allows you to see the big picture and be more creative.

Sounds good, where’s my pillow? “Not only do we need to remember to sleep, but most certainly we sleep to remember,” said Dr. William Fishbein, the lead author of the study.

One of the most important sleep phases for memory and retaining your lessons from the day is what researchers call “slow-wave sleep” that comes earlier in a 90-minute cycle than the rapid-eye movement or REM sleep that produces a dream state. When sleep gets fragmented from aging, stress/worry or sleep apena (the worst case in which breath stops for 30 seconds or so), it can wreak havoc with our ability to think analytically the next day.  

In fact, sleep researchers are focusing more on sleep quality than duration, which is in part why a nap can be so effective. If you sleep soundly during a nap—very easy if you have a lazy day-holiday at hand—you can go a long way toward being refreshed and restored. Other research shows that our body’s biorhythmic cycle leads us to feel the most tired during the day at roughly 3 to 4 p.m. That makes anytime between 2 and 3 as a prime nap time. If you wake up earlier than most, then 1 to 1:30 range might be most effective. In any case, if you need to nap within less than 7 to 8 hours upon waking, that likely means you are sleep-deprived and need to get more quality sleep at night.

Don’t underestimate the power of sound sleep (OK, I am guilty too of staying up too late and getting up early, all in the same short night). It can power-boost your memory and creativity, plus a growing body of research shows that fragmented and disrupted sleep can suppress the birth of new brain cells in adults for weeks, even after a person returns to a normal sleep pattern.

Yikes, I mean it this time…where’s my pillow?

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. 

Common sense can be convincing in everyday life. Turns out it can make for strong evidence in scientific experiments too. Studies show that families who eat meals together tend to be closer emotionally and eat more nutritionally.

What’s more, other research from the University of Cincinnati indicates that pre-teens and teens who partake of as little as five meals per week with parents or other adult family members can significantly reduce risk for juvenile delinquency. The additional good news here is a 2007 Columbia University survey of more than 1,500 teens and parents showed six of every 10 teens eat dinner with their families. That number might surprise some of us, but other studies and surveys are confirming that adolescents eat about two-thirds of their meals at home, and Americans are following a trend of cooking more meals at home.

The nutrition factor of families eating together is clearly documented. A Harvard Medical School study of more than 16,000 children nine to 14 years showed who ate regularly with their families consumed more fruits and vegetable and less fried foods, saturated fats and trans fats. Plus, those adolescents were getting more calcium, iron, folate, fiber and vitamins (especially C, E, B6 and B12). Better yet, University of Minnesota research indicates that kids who ate a majority of their meals with their families continued to eat more produce and drink less soda as young adults. Another health indicator: Those young adults made it a point to eat breakfast.

One of the best resources for how to develop nutritious and emotionally satisfying family meals is “Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family,” a book by Madison, Wisc., nutritionist Ellyn Satter. It is much more than a nutrition book. Satter takes great care to explain how mealtime conversations can be more rich and offers that even eating out at a quick-food restaurant can be rewarding.

The emotional dividends of family meals might represent the biggest attraction, especially for parents and other adults in position to positively influence kids. A 2004 study published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine showed that college students who reported regular family meals growing up were more likely than students without that family meal history to feel they could turn to their parents to discuss problems. Those students who ate regular family meals also scored higher on an index measuring how much they thought their parents cared about them.

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. 

When a baby is born appears to matter in whether the child develops asthma. A new study from Vanderbilt University’s center for asthma research reveals that infants born in autumn four months before the peak cold and flu season have a 30 percent higher risk of developing asthma than babies born in other seasons.

It appears common infections might trigger asthma, says Dr. Tina Herbert, lead researcher on the study. The paper appeared recently in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Interestingly, research has previously showed babies from the Northern Hemisphere are more likely to develop asthma. But this is the first study go delineate asthma to a particular birth date. Herbert and colleagues evaluated 95,000 records of infant births in Tennessee.

"What we were able to show was the timing of birth and the risk of developing asthma moves in time almost to the day with the peak of these viral infections each winter," Herbert said.

Of course, this doesn’t mean all kids born in the fall will become asthmatic. Scientists are clear that some children are genetically predisposed to asthma. Herbert’s point is environmental factors, such as the typically torrid cold and flu in the U.S. each winter, can flip the unfortunate switch.  As it turns out, almost all kids between three and six months old are infected with lung infections. But the infections are most virulent during the winter.

The challenge for parents with autumn babies is to avoid exposure to infections when and where possible. Washing hands is a good step, of course, so is avoiding exposure during a child’s early months. Awareness is an important and effective step.

Herbert says vaccines are another possible solution and that researchers are working on that breakthrough. But she cautions that asthma vaccines are still years in development. For now, common sense is the best approach for parents.

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Acupuncture has become a regular component for couples undergoing fertility treatments using in-vitro fertilization. There is no downside to trying the ancient Chinese therapy, and a new study affirms that idea and then some.

Recent research following 370 women undergoing in-vitro fertilization or IVF showed that acupuncture was unexpectedly linked to a higher rate of pregnancy in the control group (the placebo involves using needles but not in the correct energy or “chi” meridian locations and not actually entering the skin) than the women undergoing acupuncture. Both groups increased pregnancy rate: The control group improved success by 55 percent while the acupuncture group attained 43 percent success.

On the plus side, acupuncture has been documented in studies to reduce both nausea and back strain in pregnant women. But the new study once again points to an emotional element to becoming pregnant that suggests thinking positively has important effect.

More news for expectant couples: A new study from Brazilian researchers shows that women who take water aerobics class during their pregnancy (hey, future dads, feel free to take the class with your wives for support and keeping connected during anxious times) experience less pain during delivery than women who pass on aquatics.

Only about a quarter of expectant moms taking water aerobics asked for pain medications during delivery compared to two-thirds of women who did not take similar classes. The results, published in the journal Reproductive Health, makes it clear that exercise in the pool is a positive thing for women with uncomplicated pregnancies. 

"We've shown that the regular practice of moderate water aerobics during pregnancy is not detrimental to the health of the mother or the child," co-author Rosa Pereira, lead researcher at the University of Campinas in Sao Paolo.

Pereira and colleagues suggested that regular water exercise for expectant mothers can ease swelling and help prevent becoming overheated. Water aerobics appears to be a safe strategy for expectant mothers, they added, since

Physical activity that is rigorous either in its intensity, duration or frequency is associated with low neonatal birthweight."

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Spotting small problems in life can lead to huge breakthroughs in health and happiness. The Kaizen technique emphasizes asking small, basic questions and taking doable, small actions. It follows that Kaizen finishes the picture with small, achievable solutions to your daily problems.

Easier said than done. The capability to spot small problems is flat-out hard. It’s human nature to ignore small problems—run through knee pain, ignore discomfort between co-workers, tolerate digestive upset rather than keep a food diary—and then hope the Big Problem never develops. Of course, too often it does.

Kaizen is all about putting your emotional ear to the ground and seeking what’s might be about to derail your status quo. We all know how it feels to think back and realize where we went wrong by not seeing the small problem. Kaizen offers ways to forget the regret, solve the small stuff and avoid the Big Proble

In his book “One Small Step Can Change Your Life,” author and psychologist Robert Maurer provides some tips on how to spot small problems that can change your health and wellness to the positive.

One method is to recall a major mistake you made at some point in your life. Take some time to consider whether there were small steps along the way indicating things were off-track. Did you ignore the problem? Become familiar with that situation and you will learn from the mistake.

Another idea: Identify a small mistake you have made today. Don’t be angry about it. This single act, performed daily, will raise awareness of small mistakes. Next, ask yourself if that small problem of the day might turn into a larger problem. Maurer suggests that misplacing your car keys—sound familiar?—might translate to trying to juggle too many things in your life, which can lead to a bigger mistake. Ask yourself, what is a small step I can take to solve the problem? In this case of the misplaced keys, it might be committing to always leaving the keys in one place.

A final suggestion on solving the small problems before they expand is to be honest about how you might your irritate friends, family and other loved ones. If you identify a point of irritation, you are on your way to avoiding it next time. Do this regularly and your relationship or marriage will prosper. There are few wellness strategies bigger than that. 

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Small is beautiful in the kaizen method of continuous improvement that we are applying to better health all week on the Alternative Health Blog. That’s because small actions—really, really small actions—can lead to big change is just weeks and months. Goals such as losing weight, quitting smoking or righting a gone-wrong relationship (now that’s as healthy as it gets) can be accomplished after perhaps years of start-stop-restart-stop again.

Here are life and wellness goals with suggested kaizen small actions that author and psychologist Rober Maurer lays out in his book “One Small Step Can Change Your Life”:

Begin an exercise program: Stand—yes, just stand!—on a treadmill for a few minutes every morning.

Manage stress in your life: Once a day, note where your body is holding tension (your neck? lower back? shoulders?) Then take one deep breath.

Keep your home clean: Pick an area of your place, set a timer for five minutes and tidy up. Stop when the timer goes off. Do another five minutes the next day.

Get more sleep: Go to bed one minute earlier at night or stay in bed just one minute longer in the morning.

Stop overspending: Remove one object from the shopping cart before heading to the register.

Maurer readily admits these suggestions might sound “bizarre to the uninitiated.” But he has every suggestion with patients at the UCLA medical center to positive results. He says radical-change programs create more fear than success while kaizen sort of sneaks up on us. Standing on the treadmill leads to walking or running on it—that’s human nature. Same for noticing where stress hits you; you become aware of soreness and do something about it.

Julia Cameron is a writer and author who has gained acclaim as an inspirer of writers. She has two covenants she asks that you make in her “The Artist’s Way” series: One is to be an art date with yourself each week in which you spend time appreciating a creative work (music, paintings, outdoor sculpture, architecture, dance and more all apply). No multi-tasking allowed and try to do it by yourself for the full effect.

Her other covenant is to write what she calls morning pages. She asks readers to write three pages longhand every morning. She doesn’t care what topic you choose and even suggests that if you are stuck for what to write, just write, “I don’t have anything to write today” or “I don’t feel like writing today” to fill up the three pages. Of course, it’s human nature to grow bored with writing such nonsense, so we start writing something. More than a few readers have authored novels and other books with morning pages as the first draft. It’s the kaizen method meeting the page. What works so well is those morning pages don’t take more than about 15 minutes and wannabe-writers-turned-real-authors feel a sense of accomplishment before the rest of the day even unfolds.

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

There’s an old saying in golf that applies to any of us: Don’t overthink your swing. The Kaizen method of continuous improvement calls for not overthinking your life. As a reward, you can be healthier after just a few days of “small thoughts.”

Kaizen devotees know it as visualization or mind sculpture. You imagine yourself in a situation of wellness success—less junk-food eating, more exercise, sounder and longer sleep, increased time with loved ones. You put yourself in that scene by creating sensory experiences of what you might feel, taste, smell (breathe in that fresh air), see (a person you admire in the mirror) or hear (“you look great!”).

Visualization is a sort of purposeful daydream and quite powerful as a health habit changers. Mind sculpture, a term created by author and psychologist Ian Robertson who wrote a book by the same name, takes the visualization one step further. He calls for pretending to be fully engaged in the visualized activity. It might be feeling the muscles exerted during movement (maybe a dance class or that long run eluding you during the work week). Or it could be the happy surge when anticipating a great outing with friends or the quiet calm you experience after shared prayers.

What Robertson has found is research shows brain chemistry changes within minutes of “practicing” a task mentally. One study showed volunteers who practiced a one-handed piano exercise two hours a day over a short but intense period of weeks were no more skilled at the musical feat than subjects who only practiced the exercise mentally and without touching a single piano key.

An important point here: Put details into your visualizaton or mind sculpture. It will lead you to keep your thoughts small and vibrant, rather than huge and unwieldy. If you want imagine a better day with your child, see the smile on her face when you talk about a favorite topic of her choosing or enjoy just being in the same room with a teen son who has been distant lately.

Work stressing you out? Visualize what you and co-workers might say at a meeting that is short and productive. Write the dialogue in your mind. Sculpt the way you see as most pleasing. One technique is to mentally make the assumption you cannot fail or, say, lose your job. With that safety net, what would you do? It might very well be just what your co-workers are thinking too.

In his book, “One Small Step Can Change Your Life,” author and psychologist Robert Maurer places a sensible commitment in front of his reasons. It is a perfect example on kaizen and not overthinking: “Decide how many seconds you are willing to devote to mind sculpture each day. Make sure you allot seconds, not minutes or hours. The time commitment should be so low that you can easily fulfill its requirements every single day. Repetition is important.”

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. 

The kaizen method of continuous improvement, which the Alternative Health Blog is applying to wellness this week, starts with asking small questions. The point is not to command yourself to drink more water as a stepping stone to wellness, but to ask, “What is one way I can remind myself to drink more water?”

Small doesn’t mean inconsequential. Small means ask a question you can answer—without tons of research or even much hesitation. Small means doable. Small means you can not only identify a way to be healthier but believe you can do it.

Small means not going too big-picture on yourself. In his book, “One Small Step Can Change Your Life,” author and psychologist Robert Maurer reports that the brain, by way of the cortex, will shut down if your questions are too big or too all-encompassing. Maurer says we tend to fear the big questions and that is hard to deny. Even the person who successfully thinks globally is really just skilled at breaking down the Huge Question by asking and answering a lot of smaller ones.

As the winter holidays square up with the potential to overwhelm us—gifts, cards, family, work parties, the economy, feeling sad about separation from loved ones, relationship breakups, stresses, obligations, enough already—kaizen can keep the peace we all seek this time of year. One approach is to find one question to keep asking yourself over the next four weeks. Some examples:

What’s the one thing I can do everyday in less than one minute to feel more connected to others during the holidays?

-- Can I remind myself to breath deeply every time I hear a holiday song or spot some holiday decorations?

-- How about making sure I eat one healthy meal every day no matter what splurges might come up?

-- What small question can I ask others to make them feel valued and their voices heard by me?

-- And, if you tend to be negative about yourself, then here’s a small question that can change your holiday season and all of 2009: “What is the one thing I like about myself today?” You don’t have to spend more than 30 seconds on the answer, maybe less. Just write the answers down in one place so you can review them weekly or monthly. Do it  daily. The answers might surprise and delight you.

Here’s a variation on the daily small question that can bring strong and swift results this holiday season: Rather than write it down for only your eyes, share the notebook with a life partner or co-worker. You can even call a friend’s voice mail every day—and s/he can do the same. You will be amazed at what can happen by Jan. 1.

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

 

Small steps don’t seem too impressive—until they add up to big changes in your life. The power of small is supremely evident in the method of kaizen, a philosophy of tiny steps toward improvement introduced in Japan after World War II. What worked for post-war Japan can be equally effective for any of us setting health goals this holiday season—and beyond.

Kaizen is a Japanese term and methodology that, perhaps surprisingly so, originated in the United States. When France fell to Nazi Germany in 1940, American leaders realized how rapidly Allied Forces would need shipments of military equipment. As a plan of reaction, U.S. companies developed a number of training courses to teach how to make equipment faster yet with the same or even better quality.

One of the courses focused on “continuous improvement.” It was based on how managers can look for “hundreds of small things you can improve” in the manufacturing process. The idea was not to overhaul everything at once but look for ways to change things for the better given the present situation (in 1940, that case meant the same workers and the same factory machinery). The Continuous Improvement course urged managers to invite every employee to find little ways to improve the quality of both the product and the process to make it.

Kaizen worked wonders for pre-war America, which supplied the Allied Forces with military equipment to help win key battles. And kaizen’s pivotal role in boosting the post-war Japanese economy almost goes without saying, as the country is renowned for its superior manufacturing acumen and “quality circles” that involve all workers.

Here’s the thing: Kaizen can work for all of us too, especially in our individual health lives. Too often we set health goals to, say, lose 20 pounds in six weeks or only drink wine once a week. Maybe we are determined to never eat dessert again. These are all examples of what you might call the “fell swoop” method—a sort of mental makeover in which you decide on your ideal health habits without any consideration of real life. If you need to lose 20 pounds, it is likely and healthier to do it over four to five months. Cutting back on how much wine or dessert you enjoy rarely works as an all-or-nothing proposition.

In his valuable book, “One Small Step Can Change Your Life,” author and psychologist Robert Maurer explains he has used Kaizen to help all sort of patients at UCLA’s medical center. He urges patients to take small steps, such as marching in place for just one minute per day while watching television. While one minute seems inconsequential, Maurer has found that the minute leads to five minutes, which leads to 10 minutes and, not all that far off, regular participation in an exercise program.

As Maurer proposes, kaizen is about bypassing the fear of failing at a larger goal (losing 20 pounds) because you focus on a small step (eating one bowl of ice cream instead of two). He writes that the small step will engage your brain’s main control panel, the cortex, while fear associated larger health goals will short-circuit any connection to the cortex.

Kaizen is worthy stuff, so the Alternative Health Blog will stage Kaizen Week from today, Dec. 1 through Dec. 6.  We will cover what you need to know about how kaizen can change your health habits: Ask small questions  to dispel fear, think small thoughts to develop new habits and skills, take small actions to guarantee success, solve small problems (this is key) even when feeling overwhelmed, bestow small rewards to yourself to produce results and recognize the small but crucial moments we tend to ignore in the hurly-burly of everyday life.

It’s a week that can be a small step toward something big.

Bob Condor blogs for Alternative Health Journal every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.