Sassafras Station Blog

Archive for February, 2010

Heart disease kills many men and women every year.  Even though it is proven to be very dangerous, it appears that there are many women who don’t know a lot about heart disease or don’t take it seriously enough.

In a fairly large study, women were surveyed to see how much they knew about the number one killer of women.  The survey uncovered some disturbing information including the fact that many women wouldn’t go to the hospital if they were having known heart attach symptoms.  Additionally, it was found that minority women were less likely to know a lot about heart attacks.

This article is definitely worth a few minutes to read, especially if you are a women.  Click the link below the excerpt to be taken to the original article.

Researchers at New York-Presbyterian Hospital surveyed 2,300 women 25 or older by phone and online to determine who knew that heart disease was the No. 1 killer of women, and what they would do if they might be having a heart attack.

Many Women Misinformed About Heart Disease

As people start to live longer lives – yes, there are people living longer healthier lives – more parents are having children at ages older than 40.  This does not come without problems though.  According to the study I read about today, mothers that are older than 40 are 50% more likely to have  a child with autism when compared to a mother in their 20’s.  There is also increased risk when the father is older, but it is not as high.

I really don’t have a lot to read into this article, but wanted to share it with you.  I included a couple paragraphs from the original article and a link at the bottom for the whole thing.  Check it out if you are interested in having children past the age of 40.

Mothers older than 40 were about 50 percent more likely to have a child with autism than those in their 20s; the risk for fathers older than 40 was 36 percent higher than for men in their 20s.

The study suggests the risk of a woman over 40 having an autistic child was still less than 4 in 1,000, one expert noted.

Parents’ ages tied to autism in new study | NewsOK.com

The dangers of smoking have been well established and are pretty much universally accepted.  The dangers of 2nd hand smoke, inhaling smoke from somebody else’s cigarette, has also been shown to be dangerous.  A new study indicates that smelling the smoke on somebody’s clothes could also be dangerous.

This latest potential danger, coined “third hand smoke”, is highly controversial and really isn’t well documented yet.  It is an interesting possibility, though, and should give everybody reason to think again about smoking and being around people who smoke.

Read the excerpt from the article below then click on the link at the bottom to be taken to the original article if you would like to read more about this controversial research.

In the tests, contaminated surface exposed to "high but reasonable" amounts of the pollutant nitrous acid – emitted by unvented gas appliances and in car exhaust – boosted levels of newly formed TSNAs 10-fold.

BBC News – ‘Third-hand smoke’ could damage health

I wrote about the Mediterranean diet last week and couldn’t help but bring you another article about the benefits of this low fat and low read meat diet.  In this study published in Science Daily, it is shown that the diet eaten by people in the Mediterranean may reduce the risk of  dead tissue areas in the brain that have a negative impact on mental capacity.

If you aren’t familiar with it, the Mediterranean diet is high in vegetables, fruits, legumes, and fish and low in saturated fat, red meat and poultry.  For this particular study, 712 people were studied in three groups.  Those that most closely followed the typical Mediterranean diet had the lowest incident rate of the brain damage being studied.

Below is an excerpt from the article with a link below that to the original article that is published on ScienceDaily.com

The study found that people who ate a Mediterranean-like diet were less likely to have brain infarcts, or small areas of dead tissue linked to thinking problems.

Mediterranean diet may lower risk of brain damage that causes thinking problems

One of the biggest problems with our diets is that portions have gotten completely out of control.  What used to be a large drink at McDonalds is now called a small.  A large is the equivalent of what used to be 2 large drinks.  Packaged food tricks you by putting 2 servings into a container that is obviously intended to serve one person.

In an unusually responsible move, the FDA is actually doing what is right for the consumer and creating standards for serving size that are realistic so people aren’t deceived into thinking they are eating healthy when they are not.

Below is a quick excerpt from the article with a link below that to the original article.  Check it out and see what you might be missing about portion control.

The FDA’s newfound enthusiasm for realistic portion sizes on packaged food is a long overdue acknowledgment of what Americans have known for years — nobody eats only six tortilla chips.

FDA’s Fight Against Portion Size Trickery: It’s About Time | BNET Food Blog | BNET