Health TO YOUR
April 2013
Mid-Valley Newspapers Mid-V M
A gui guide ide to wel wellness llness and healthy living in the Mid-Willamette Valley
STAT Quick reads about health topics in the news
Shoes shape stride
School salad bars, like this one at Memorial Middle School in Albany, feature an array of vegetables, but a recent study in Boston found that 73 percent of veggies taken by students wound up in the garbage can. MARY YLEN | TO YOUR HEALTH, FILE
The style of your running shoes isn’t just making a fashion statement. It may be controlling the way you run and setting you up for injuries down the road. That’s what researchers at the University of Kansas Hospital found when they put a dozen high school athletes through their paces on a treadmill. When the teens ran barefoot or in flat-soled racing shoes, they generally landed on the front halves of their feet, the researchers say. But when the young athletes put on standardissue running shoes with thick, cushioned heels, they instantly switched to a radically different gait, striking the treadmills with their heels. Although there is no direct evidence that landing on your heels when you run leads to long-term injury, some experts say that running this way may over time increases wear and tear to knees and hips. — Kansas City Star (April 5)
End-of-life choices
NUTRITIONAL POVERTY Study finds that even well-off Corvallis kids don’t eat enough good foods By MIKE MCINALLY
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he idea behind the study was relatively simple. While there have been studies examining dietary deficiencies among children with relatively low socioeconomic statuses, Simone Frei noted that there have been few similar studies done in more prosperous and well-educated communities. And Frei, the manager of the Healthy Youth Program at Oregon State University’s Linus Pauling Institute, was familiar with one such community: Corvallis. So Frei, working with Gerd Bobe, a principal investigator with the institute and an assistant professor of animal sciences at OSU, launched a study to look at children in four Corvallis elementary schools. The results were surprising, and a little discouraging, in that they suggest that so-called “hidden hunger” — a term describing people suffering from deficiencies in key nutrients — is not limited to any particular socioeconomic group. “I was very surprised,” said Bobe. Even in health-conscious and relatively prosperous Corvallis, the study showed that “still, kids are not consuming diets that are sufficient to meet their dietary needs.” In the study, 175 children, ages 5 to 11, were asked to record their dietary intake during the
What can parents do? Simone Frei and Gerd Bobe of the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University offer hints for parents who want their children to eat better: • Be a role model. If kids don’t see you eating vegetables, they won’t either. • Don’t neglect the social side of mealtime: “I think eating together is a very nurturing process,” Frei said. • Talk to your pediatrician about the possibility of adding a multivitamin to your children’s nutritional regimen. • If your child decides to bring a lunch to school, make sure it has some nutritional value. “Sometimes, it’s really unhealthy what they bring,” Frei said. previous week on a two-page questionnaire developed specifically for elementary students. In addition, blood samples were taken from 71 of the children to measure vitamin D levels. (The level of vitamin D in the blood is the best indicator for that nutrient because only some is derived from diet; most vitamin D is synthesized in the body upon exposure to the sun.) Among the results: Sixty percent of the children aged 5 to 8 and 78 percent of the children aged 9 to 11 didn’t get enough fiber. More than 80 percent of the children ate diets too high in saturated fat and sodium. Some 45 percent of the older children didn’t get enough calcium; this result wasn’t particularly surprising, because milk consumption
tends to decline as children get older. Only 16 percent of the younger children weren’t getting enough calcium. On the vitamin D front, 61 percent of the children had insufficient levels and 8 percent were considered deficient, a finding that jibes with national studies. It’s easy to blame school lunch programs for some of these problems, but Frei and Bobe aren’t convinced that the criticism is justified: “It’s part of a larger problem,” Frei said. “We just don’t value good-quality food enough.” Besides, school lunch programs have been working hard over the last few years to include healthier options in their menus. That doesn’t mean, however, that students are going to eat those healthier choices. Bobe pointed to a recent study in Boston that suggested the scope of the problem: Some 73 percent of vegetables were discarded by students, the study found, and extrapolated that could mean the national loss from discarded food in school lunch programs could top $1 billion. “The cheap foods are eaten,” he said. “The expensive foods go in the garbage can.” But Frei said some evidence suggests that students involved in school gardens are more likely to eat vegetables — but she added that there’s a need for additional research on this and related points. Others suggest students will eat healthy foods if they see their teachers eating those. Still other studies found that rearranging the lunchroom displays could increase consumption.
Three questions on improving heart health TO YOUR HEALTH Q: At the seminar, you’ll Dr.Sridhar Vijayasekaran, be talking about how peoa cardiologist with ple can lower their risk of Samaritan Heart & Vascular heart disease. What are Institute, will help you the top things people can understand diseases do right away to that affect the heart, lower that risk? as well as what you A: The first can do to help prething is, stop vent them, at a free smoking. Smoking seminar scheduled harms nearly every for tonight. organ in the body, The seminar will and is a major risk run from 6 to 7:30 factor in heart p.m. in Conference Sridhar disease. Try to Rooms A and B at Vijayasekaran include moderate Good Samaritan exercise in your Regional Medical Center, routine, at least 30 min3600 N.W. Samaritan utes per day most days of Drive in Corvallis. the week. Start slow and Heart-healthy refresh- gradually i n c rea s e t h e ments will be provided. amount, and remember Registration is encouraged, — any exercise is better as space is limited. To regis- than no exercise. ter, visit samhealth.org/ Eat a heart-healthy BeHealthy, call 541-768- diet. The focus is no 4887, or call toll-free at longer on a strict fat-free 855-873-0647. diet, but on what is To help start the con- known as the versation, To Your Health Mediterranean diet, fired off three quick ques- which emphasizes lots of tions for Vijayasekaran. fruits and vegetables, fish Here are his answers: and seafood and healthy
fats, such as olive oil. I also advise people to know their numbers. By this I mean blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar and body weight. These are indicators of heart health and predictors for disease. Finally, get your numbers on track. Losing weight, controlling hypertension, lowering your cholesterol and blood sugar — these efforts will go a long way toward maintaining heart health. Q: What reasons do you hear people giving you for NOT doing those things? A: There is a big list of excuses I hear, but the excuse I hear most often is “I don’t have the time.” One reason it can be hard to make better lifestyle choices is that we always want to see immediate benefits for our efforts. Some lifestyle choices do provide immediate gratification. When you start
exercising, you feel better, your energy is better, and you are able to enjoy life more. But even more importantly, and harder to see, are the things you are able to avoid by making healthy choices. Long-term benefits such as avoiding heart attacks, reducing your risk for stroke, reducing your risk for cancer. You will live a longer, healthier life because of these choices. So when you find yourself saying “I don’t have time,” remind yourself, you will have less time, and poorer health in the long run, if you do not find the time now. Q: What’s the best advice you can give people to encourage them to keep making the lifestyle and nutritional changes that will benefit their heart in the long run? A: The most important thing is to get started. Start with small steps and simple, attainable goals
for incorporating exercise and losing weight. Then you can slowly work up to a proper routine. It’s good to have the support of a friend or partner to make positive lifestyle changes with you. Work out with a friend. If you want to stop smoking, take this big step with a close friend or your spouse. Simple changes around the house can also be very powerful. Try getting rid of the salt shaker, using smaller plates at mealtimes, drinking water and not soda.
Of the countless painful decisions surrounding a loved one’s end-of-life care, among the trickiest is how to provide physical comfort in a way that also provides a dignified ending. “For end of life, the opioids are very important for pain management, but they do leave people very sedated,” says researcher and physician Josephine Briggs, who heads the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.“Some people are looking for adjuncts to help with that.” Increasingly, those adjuncts include acupuncture, massage and other complementary therapies. A comprehensive survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2007 found that 41 percent of hospice care centers offered complementary and alternative therapies (CAT), had a CAT provider on staff or under contract, or both. Those numbers have likely gone up, experts say. — Chicago Tribune (April 5)
Schizophrenia clues Changes in brain function may foreshadow schizophrenia as early as puberty, nearly a decade before most patients begin showing obvious symptoms, new research from the University of North Carolina shows. Researchers in Chapel Hill looked at brain scans of 42 children, some as young as 9, who had close relatives with schizophrenia.They saw that many of the children already had areas of the brain that were “hyper-activated”in response to emotional stimulation and tasks that required decision-making, said Aysenil Belger, associate professor of psychiatry at the UNC School of Medicine and lead author of the study. Belger said her team’s findings could help establish an earlier diagnosis of the brain disease and ultimately point to techniques for offsetting or minimizing disease progression. — The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.) (April 4)
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Tuesday, April 8, 2013
To Your Health