Lower your heart disease risk by 35%
According to new research published in Circulation, people who eat a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and fish lower their risk of dying from a heart attack or stroke by 35 per cent.
Researchers tracked the eating habits of 31,546 people with a history of heart disease, stroke, or type 2 diabetes over five years, and found those who ate the heart-healthy diet had the lowest chances of having a repeat stroke or heart attack. What's more, the healthy eaters were 28 per cent less likely to develop congestive heart failure.
The reason for the boost is more of a mystery to researchers. Those behind the study can't point to a single cause, but believe your gut microbiome - the bacteria living within your body - might be responsible.
According to researchers at Imperial College London, good bacteria may lower your blood pressure and risk of a heart attack by tricking your body into absorbing less salt. Sticking to a vegetable-heavy diet takes work, but even small changes can make a big difference.
Vegetarians may live longer
In one of the largest studies to date, researchers from Loma Linda University in California, United States report that vegetarians outlast meat eaters.
Among a group of 70,000 participants, researchers determined that vegetarians had a 12 per cent lower risk of death compared with non-vegetarians. The effect held true for other specific vegetarian diets, according to the study, which is published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. For instance, vegans also had a lower risk of death compared to non-vegetarians.
Interestingly, the investigators also found that the association between vegetarian diets and lower mortality was greater in men than in women. Men had a lower rate of cardiovascular disease and death from heart-related conditions. Women did not have the same measurable reductions.
Figuring out what drives the link is complex, and it could be different for various groups and individuals. For example, a British study the vegetarian diet in over 47,250 participants and did not find the same mortality results. The fact that American vegetarians consume more fiber and vitamin C could be thereason, and this underscores the need for better understanding of how diet impacts longevity.
Sunscreen slows skin ageing, if used often enough
New research provides some of the strongest evidence to date that near-daily sunscreen use can slow the ageing of your skin. Researchers in sunny Australia used a unique study to measure whether sunscreens really help amid that onslaught. Participants had casts made of the top of their hands to measure fine lines and wrinkles that signal sun-caused ageing.
The study of 900 people under 55 compared those randomly assigned to use sunscreen daily to those who used it when they deemed itnecessary. Daily sunscreen use was tough - participants did cheat alittle. But after four and a half years, those who used sunscreen regularly had younger-looking hands, with 24 per cent less skin ageing than those who usedsunscreen only some of the time.
Both young adults and the middle-aged experienced skin-saving effects, concluded the study, financed by Australia's government andpublished last week in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
"These are meaningful cosmetic benefits," lead scientist Dr Adele Green of the Queensland Institute of Medical Research said. More importantly, she added, less sun-caused ageing decreases the risk of skin cancer in the long term.
- AP
Mom's obesity surgery may help break cycle in kids
Obese mothers tend to have kids who become obese. Now provocative research suggests weight-loss surgery may help break that unhealthy cycle in an unexpected way - by affecting how their children's genes behave.
In a first-of-a-kind study, Canadian researchers testedchildren born to obese women, plus their brothers and sisters who were conceived after the mother had obesity surgery. Youngsters born after mom lost lots of weight were slimmer than their siblings. They also had fewer risk factors for diabetes or heart disease later in life.
More intriguing, the researchers discovered that numerous genes linked to obesity-related health problems worked differently in the younger siblings than in their older brothers and sisters.
Clearly diet and exercise play a huge role in how fit the younger siblings will continue to be, and it's a small study. But the findingssuggest children born after mom's surgery might have an advantage.
- AP