Dr. Chet’s Health Memos
If it’s in the health news today, I’ll be writing about it as soon as I read the research, both old and new. With my email Health Memos, you’ll know more about making lifestyle choices that will help you get and keep good health. These free, concise updates on health are emailed to subscribers twice a week. Subscribe today and get a free MP3, in English or Spanish, of Dr. Chet’s Top Ten Tips—Small Changes for a Healthier Life.
It’s Still Not Over
Here’s the update on the woman I talked about in Thursday’s message. Over the years, we’ve become email friends and so when I hear from her, it always makes me feel good, mostly because that means she’s still alive. This was no different. She’s had some challenges but more of the self-inflicted kind. I’m going to tell you a little more about her because of what she wrote in her email.
She has chronic kidney disease, and it was her . . .
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It Won’t Be Tomorrow
This is what I wrote over five years ago:
“I recently got an e-mail from a woman who was in shock. She has a family history of a very serious condition that left many of her relatives dead in their 40s and 50s. She’s in her mid-60s and feels good with some minor issues but none related to what affected her relatives. But when she went to see a specialist to discuss a specific test result, he said, “I’m sorry. It won’t be tomorrow...” She couldn’t really remember much . . .
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It’s Not Over…
Stunned silence. That’s what happened to almost 110,000 people Saturday night. Why? Because they witnessed the improbable, some would say close to the impossible. If you watch any news or read about it on the Internet, you know a University of Michigan player made only one mistake in the game against Michigan State. MSU took advantage of it and scored the winning touchdown with no time left on the clock.
I did not see it live; I was in the Detroit airport getting to my connecting flight. But even there, people simply did not believe what they saw . . .
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Exercise and Chemotherapy
The last study on exercise I’m going to look at this week examines the possibility of using exercise as training before chemotherapy.
Chemotherapy drugs are toxic to the body. The closer they can be designed for cancer cells without harming normal cells, the better, but we haven’t advanced to the point where that’s possible in every case. One chemotherapy, doxorubicin, is highly effective for some cancers, but it’s toxic to the heart. Researchers split a group of rats into three groups. One remained sedentary, one was allowed to run on a running wheel in their cage . . .
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Exercise and Breast Cancer Treatment
Cancer treatment isn’t for wimps. Surgery can be difficult as can radiation treatment. But of all the common treatments that really seem to knock people for a loop, chemotherapy is tops. Nausea. Fatigue. Hair loss. Fortunately, there are some medications that can help with those side effects, but one of the things that may help the most is exercise. Let’s take a look at a study published just this month.
Researchers in Germany put women undergoing chemotherapy on a weight-training program, an endurance program, or continued with standard care that included neither. They were interested in how . . .
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Start with Physical Therapy
I talked with hundreds of people in Cincinnati this past weekend, and many had issues with pain and discomfort. I can relate—I’ve got a shoulder that’s killing me. While everyone wants to know which supplements can help, it all begins with physical therapy.
The most-asked question was about lower back pain, which afflicts more people than any other joint or joints. Many people claim to have bulging discs. You know something? That’s nothing special; it’s the results of walking upright combined with carrying too much weight on the front side. If you can get . . .
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Trial and Answer for Your Health
We are alive today because our ancestors survived. That seems like stating the obvious, but think about it for a minute. They ate whatever gave them fuel to stay alive and didn’t kill them. It was trial and error, and I’m guessing many died from eating the wrong things. They experienced times of feast and times of famine. They ate what was available whether it was meat, roots, berries, greens, or whatever. They learned to grow food, both plants and animals. Their diets ranged from high-fat and protein like the Inuit to the plant-based diets of . . .
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We Adapt
In a recent paper in the magazine Nature, researchers compared the genes of a group of Inuit Indians, Europeans, and Chinese. As you might expect, there are many similarities. We’re all human, after all. But there were some specific differences, including an area in the genes related to the way the Inuit processed fat and the hormones they produce and how it contributes to height and weight.
The typical Inuit diet involves high amounts of fatty fish, rich in omega-3 fatty acids and protein; they don’t have access to many vegetables or fruit. We would expect this . . .
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What We Don’t Know
This past weekend, Paula and I along with our good friend Sharon went to the 100th Homecoming game of Michigan State University as they played Purdue; Sharon and I went to grad school together at MSU and Paula graduated from Purdue. Those pesky Boilermakers showed up in the second half and almost beat the Spartans. As you may suspect, that’s not the reason for this message.
When you sit in a single seat in a stadium as large as Spartan Stadium which holds just over 75,000 people, you can feel insignificant. In Dr. Chet World, it has a . . .
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The Bottom Line on the Saturated Fat Debate
Finishing up this look at saturated fat and the Dietary Guidelines, those who oppose the limit on saturated fat argue that saturated fat is not related to cardiovascular disease. They go on to argue that if fat is limited, carbohydrates will take their place—and high carbohydrate intake is the real cause of obesity, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes.
Before I go any further, if you’re reading this at home, write down three of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines that you remember. How about two? One? Exactly. Unless you’ve just taken a course in healthier eating, you don . . .
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