10 Best Things We Learned About Our Health in 2011
From the truth about cholesterol to natural anti-aging tips for beautiful skin, here are the top lessons we uncovered at Prevention while reporting on 2011's health, fitness, nutrition, beauty, and weight-loss news. Read on for ideas on how to live your healthiest, happiest life.
8 New Year's Resolutions You'll Stick with in 2012
Lesson #1: Fat-free products are so-o-o over.
You need some fat in your diet, even if you're trying to lose weight. The Institute of Medicine recommends that it make up 20 to 35% of your calories. It's the kind of fat that counts. Limit saturated fats, and avoid trans fats in your diet (both kinds can cause health problems), but find a spot for some monounsaturated fats--MUFAs (pronounced MOO-fahs), for short. MUFAs come from the healthy oils found in plant foods such as olives, nuts, and avocados, and may boost metabolism. A report published in the British Journal of Nutrition found that a MUFA-rich diet helped people lose small amounts of weight and body fat without changing their calorie intakes. Another report found that a breakfast high in MUFAs could boost calorie burn for 5 hours after the meal, particularly in people with higher amounts of belly fat.
Check out these belly-fat fighting superstars to help melt your spare tire.
Lesson #2: Statins aren't a magic bullet for good heart health.
About 30 million Americans are prescribed statins, a class of drugs that block a liver enzyme that helps create cholesterol. Many of them believe taking statins are extra insurance against a heart attack. However, approximately 7 million Americans taking statins don't need their LDL lowered to begin with. They have normal cholesterol levels but are given a statin because they have other risk factors, says Michael Blaha, MD, a fellow in cardiology at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease.
Blaha recently led a 6-year study that looked at 2,100 adults who had normal cholesterol levels but were being considered for statin therapy. The results showed that only those with significant calcium buildup in their arteries--a sign that heart disease is already in progress--could be expected to benefit from the drug.
Additional tests--the calcium scoring test, as well as the carotid ultrasound (CIMT), genetic tests, and advanced blood tests that show the size of your cholesterol particles--provide more information that can help determine who should be on a statin.
See 15 Surprising Ways to Improve Your Cholesterol
Lesson #3: You get more than just a little help from your friends.
You get good health, too, if you have the right ones, finds a new Brigham Young University study. A strong social network, especially if it's stacked with healthy pals, improves your chance of living longer by 50%. It doubles your odds of surviving cancer and wards off colds. Friends may even reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease, says lead study author Julianne Holt-Lunstad, PhD. And not having close bonds can be as bad for you as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. Be sure to make spending time with the friends who lift you up a priority: It's good for your mood and your health.
Quiz: How Healthy Are Your Friendships?
Lesson #4: Pumping iron beats a diet any day.
Lifting weights could make you lighter-without making any changes to your diet! It's important to incorporate strength training into your routine so you burn calories at an optimal rate all day long, and using heavier weights could help maximize your efforts. Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that working out with heavy weights even for as few as 3 to 6 repetitions increased exercisers' sleeping metabolic rate--the number of calories burned overnight--by nearly 8%. That's enough to lose about 5 pounds in a year, even if you did nothing else!
Rev Fat Burn with This Downloadable Workout
Lesson #5: Your commute could be aging your skin.
You probably know that spending time in the car leaves you vulnerable to skin-aging sun exposure-but it turns out the air on the highway could also be a culprit. Women exposed to higher concentrations of traffic-related particulate matter--such as the invisible carbon particles that are found in exhaust--had 20% more age spots, according to a new study in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, which suggested these particles may ramp up melanin production. If you live near traffic-or spend a lot of time in it commuting-use lotion with ingredients that inhibit melanin, such as licorice root extract, kojic acid, and niacinamide. Try PCA Skin Perfection Protection SPF 30 ($24; 877-722-7546 for locations) or Neutrogena Tone Correcting Daily Moisture SPF 30 from Ageless Intensives ($19; drugstores).
Get More Anti-Aging Beauty Tips
Lesson #6: Fight memory loss with your feet.
Misplacing your keys more than usual these days? Take more walks. Just 40 minutes 3 days a week can help prevent and even reverse memory loss and other effects of aging. That's because moderate exercise increases BDNF, a protein associated with improved memory and learning. Plus, exercise can actually increase brain volume, while non-exercisers experience shrinking-a contributing factor in memory loss and Alzheimer's disease. In fact, 21% of Alzheimer's cases are linked to too little physical activity.
Give Your Brain a Workout with These Fun Games
Lesson #7: A new vaccine could hunt down breast cancer.
Researchers are working on ways to recruit the body's defenses to be an ally in the fight against breast cancer. These so-called cancer vaccines will be unlike traditional vaccines in that they are designed not to ward off disease but to ward off its return by training the immune system to seek out cancer cells that have survived chemotherapy. The vaccines will program the immune cells with precise directions, almost as if they had an address and a GPS, to find the rogue cells. William Gillanders, MD, professor of surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is part of a team working on this. He says that in theory, once chemotherapy is over and the cancer is inactive, a vaccine might spur an immune response robust enough to attack any leftover malignancy. Breast cancer vaccines are in the earliest stages of testing, so their effectiveness in humans is not yet known.
See Which Foods Can Help Cure Cancer
Lesson #8: Don't get surgery in July
Apart from interfering with your beach vacation, there's another, more serious reason to steer clear of summer surgery if you can: there's a 10% spike in fatalities at teaching hospitals in July, according to a new Journal of General Internal Medicine study. David Phillips, PhD, the study's lead author and professor of sociology at the University of California, San Diego, speculates that the "July effect" may occur because that's the month when new doctors-in-training begin their residencies.
The fatalities aren't the fault of poor knife skills botching operations, though--rather, they're due to mistakes made prescribing and administering patient medications, both surgery-related and not.
All told, as many as 98,000 deaths occur each year due to all kinds of medical mistakes-the equivalent of a fully packed 747 crashing every other day. According to a congressionally mandated study on Medicare recipients, during 2008, 1 in 7 hospital patients experienced at least one unintended harm that prolonged his or her stay, caused permanent injury, required life-sustaining treatment, or resulted in death.
There are plenty of things you can do to make sure this doesn't happen to you or someone you love. For starters, when you're scheduling surgery, know that the time of day matters: Ask for the second or third slot of the morning. "Any kinks in the team's coordination or machinery are worked out, and the staff's still well rested," explains Matthew Buchanan, MD an orthopedic surgeon in Falls Church, VA.
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Lesson #9: Happiness could be the fountain of youth
"Although medicine is becoming increasingly high-tech and our ability to prevent, diagnose and treat illness continues to grow, there remains a huge mystery around longevity," says contributing editor Holly Phillips, MD. "What is that intangible 'it factor' that makes some people live to 101, and other seemingly healthy people pass away much earlier?"
Dr. Phillips points to new research that helps us quantify an important but illusive contributor to our overall health: happiness. In a study of 3,853 people ages 52 to 79 years old, those who were the most upbeat were 35% less likely to die in the next five years-even when taking into account socioeconomic status and pre-existing health conditions, according to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Experts aren't exactly sure how happiness can help extend your life exactly, but speculate one reason may be that positive mood lowers the overall level of stress hormones in your body (stress hormones such as cortisol have been linked with speeding the aging process).
Learn 10 Secrets of Happy Women
Lesson #10: Green tea may protect against skin cancer.
Green tea is already known as a wonder drink that prevents heart disease and possibly amps up metabolism, but now you can add "beauty booster" to its list of benefits. Studies have shown that drinking green tea prior to going out in the sun may help decrease damage from UV rays, and its potent antioxidants may also provide protection against skin cancer.
Mixing in blueberries also increases the antioxidant power of this smoothie. A recent study found that ellagic acid in blueberries may actually prevent skin damage.
Get the Green Tea, Blueberry and Banana Smoothie Recipe
TELL US: What's the best health tip you learned this year?
--By: The editors of Prevention
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