The Oasis

Sugar High

Reaching for a sugary soft drink to combat that afternoon slump? Think again.

Researchers looked at the effects on afternoon alertness of some of the so-called energy drinks that were high in sugar but moderately low in caffeine. Turns out that the sugary drinks didn't boost energy with that mythical "sugar rush" but after a time, those who consumed the sugary beverages actually got sleepier and had decreases in alertness.

The researchers stated that it's the caffeine and not the sugar which has effects on alertness. Surprisingly, they suggested a jolt of caffeine combined with a short nap, to be the most effective strategy in combatting afternoon drowsiness. Caffeine takes about 30 minutes to work, so theoretically, you could get in your nap before your Starbucks kicks in.

What the researchers didn't say was that the effects of caffeine last a long time...as much as six to twelve hours in some people. So that cup of coffee or one of the higher caffeine energy drinks consumed in the afternoon could very well wreak havoc on your sleep that night...setting you up for a lethargic and uproductive afternoon the next day...which you could combat with a cup of coffee and another short nap.

In a very short while you could be on a health defeating rollercoaster ride.

Tip from your wellness coach: reduce or eliminate your sleep debt by consistently getting to bed earlier every evening.

Watermelon Dectective

If you've been keeping up with the latest in health news, you may have seen a few articles reporting that watermelon is more nutritious when served at room temperature. Personally, I prefer my watermelon ice cold, so I was a bit dismayed when I heard about this. After all, that's one of the joys of these sweltering summer days here in Georgia...a juicy, deep red, icy cold slice of my favorite fruit. The thought of eating watermelon at room temperature is well...a little less than appetizing.

I did a little sleuthing by taking a look at the study behind these headlines. Turns out that watermelons continue to produce more lycopene and beta-carotene even after they are picked, as long as they are stored at room temperature. Lycopene, as you may know, is a powerful anti-oxidant that gives watermelon (and tomatoes) that beautiful red color and also plays a role in preventing heart disease as well as some cancers. Beta-carotene is converted by the body into Vitamin A.

The study, completed by U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists and published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, showed that whole watermelons, when stored at 70 degrees, had substantially more of these nutrients than melons that had been freshly picked or that had been stored at 51 or 41 degrees Fahrenheit.

When compared to freshly picked melons, whole watermelons which had been stored at 70 degrees  (the temperature of an air-conditioned building) for 14 days, gained up to 40 percent more lycopene and a whopping 50 percent more beta-carotene.

Watermelon is a great summer food. True to its name, this favorite summer fruit is 92% water and two cups (a 1-inch half moon slice) contain only 80 calories. Watermelon is also loaded with potassium and is very low in sodium. Of course, watermelon contains no cholesterol or fat.

Tip from your Wellness Coach: store whole watermelons up to 2 weeks at room temperature, rather than your refrigerator, before eating. Chill just prior to serving, so you don't lose out on any of those great nutrients watermelon has to offer. Look for watermelons that are free of damage (cuts, bruises, cracks or dents). The yellow, flat  place on one side of the melon is perfectly normal, as this was the part of the melon that had contact with the ground as the melon was ripening on the vine. Rinse the melon well before cutting, as your knife could drag dirt and germs into the fruit.

Happy eating!

For more tips and tasty watermelon recipes, including Watermelon Fire and Ice Salsa, go on over to North Carolina's Department of Agriculture.

Rich Dad, Tired Dad

One reason the rich may live longer than people who are poor is that rich people get more sleep.

Researchers at the University of Chicago looked at nearly 700 adults in Chicago and compared sleep characteristics by sex and race. Blacks got less sleep than whites and women got less sleep than men.

The researchers initially thought that people with high income, high status jobs would report less sleep, but that turned out not to be true. This finding could help to explain why blacks suffer from more health problems than whites.

Not only did researchers rely on the study participants self-report, but they also monitored them with a wristwatch-like device, called an actigraph, that recorded their body movements while they were in bed. Study participants thought they were all getting about seven hours of sleep a night but they were really getting only about six hours. White women slept, on average, 6.7 hours a night, white men, 6.1 hours, black women, 5.9 and black men slep only 5.1 hours a night. These racial and sex differences remained even after the researchers took into account such things as socioeconomic status, lifestyle and  type of employment.

The study was published in the July 1st issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Rich Dad, Old Dad

Perhaps money can't buy happiness, but it does appear that extra cash can buy you a few years...perhaps as many as seven.

An intriguing new study from Britian looked at 1,552 women twins between the ages of 18 and 75, dividing them into five socio-economic groups. Even after adjusting for things such as obesity, exercise and smoking, which can also acclerate aging, researchers found chromosomal evidence of faster aging in the women who fell into the lower socio-economic groups.

The researchers theorize that poor people are under increased psychological stress, which has been shown to have a biological impact on the body. The study is to be published in the October issue of the journal Aging Cell.

The No Diet

Now here's an interesting thought...cutting calories does not have to mean going on a "diet."

Most people who want to lose weight think that they have to go on a proven and well-thought out program prescribed by their doctor. Or they purchase the latest diet book to hit the bookstore shelves. After several frustrating weeks of attempting to follow the latest in diet codes or shopping for complicated beach recipes, they give up and go back to their old habits.

Here's the deal...for those of us who don't suffer some sort of thyroid problem or other metabolic imbalance (and that's most of us!), we put on fat when we eat more calories (in food and drink) than we burn up. To lose weight, we have to reverse this by burning up more calories than we take in. We can do that in one of three ways:

1. eat less (thereby consuming fewer calories)

2. burn more (by exercising)

3. or both

Cutting down on calories adds up much quicker than trying to lose weight by exercising alone. Let's say you are trying to cut your daily calorie consumption by 500 calories and that you determine that you will walk daily for exercise. Depending on your weight, at a speed of 15 minutes per mile, you would burn between a whopping 44 and 70 calories for 10 minutes of effort. At that rate, you might never lose weight!

So what's the solution? The conventional wisdom is of course, a combination of diet and exercise, the old "eat less and exercise" more advice. And that's still good advice...up to a point.

A new study from the University of Minnesota showed that when women and men reduced the fat in their diets (moderately to substantially), their weight dropped, regardless of how much they changed their pattern of exercise! Now here's the interesting thing...in women, even a substantial increase in exercise was not enough to produce weight loss if they did not reduce fat consumption. Men, on the other hand, were able to lose weight through exercise alone.

A combination strategy is still the best advice, but for women there must also be a decrease in dietary fat for the weight to come off.

Now back to the "no diet" plan.

You really don't need a book to begin to avoid or limit one or more foods which are high in fat (such as high fat meat, full fat cheese or high fat snacks). Sweetened beverages, although they contain no fat, are a source of a lot of "hidden" calories in many peoples' diets. A simple reduction in portion sizes can also go a long way to make cutting calories easier.

To sum up, avoid high calorie beverages (switch to water or unsweetened tea). Be cautious about consuming artificial sweeteners. Cut portion sizes...a little less food at each meal can add up to a lot of calories in a day. Look for lower fat protein choices...skim or 1% milk, low fat yogurt or cottage cheese, lean meat and fish. Get plenty of whole fresh fruits and vegetables and when you do eat bread products, make them whole grain. Go for a brisk walk for 30 minutes four to five times a week.

This plan isn't really too glamorous is it? No mysterious Codes, and no Beach recipes.

Maybe I should write a book called the "No Diet"...coming soon to a bookstore near you!

Women and Overtime: Behaving Badly

A new study conducted by researchers at England's University of Leeds suggests that the effects of long work hours are worse for women than men.

The women who worked long hours tended to eat more high fat, high sugar snacks than their male colleagues, and if they smoked, to smoke more as well. The women also exercised less and used more caffeine than the men in the study.

The researchers can't really say why the women behaved as they did.

**Tip from your Wellness Coach: If you have to work long hours, be aware that you can make healthy choices, even under stress. Choose low fat, high fiber snacks (even if you have to bring them from home) and when you do take a break, consider going for a walk or taking a few minutes to relax and meditate instead of heading for the coffee machine.

Excuse me, did you say Wal-Mart?

Well, just after I posted that somewhat depressing call to action on global warming, I head about Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott's call for the discount giant to become...er...umm...well...green.

For most folks in the environmental movement, the name Wal-Mart conjures up images of suburban sprawl, piles of packaging waste, massive oil use via its supply chain, water pollution from construction site runoff and so on. Could this be Wally World's latest ploy to detract attention from what's really going on?

Last October, Mr. Scott called for no less a goal than to have his company run on 100% renewble energy and to produce zero waste! Surely this is preposterous.

But Mr. Scott put his money where his mouth had been...by outlining specific and detailed commitments to cut his company's greenhouse gas emissions by 20% over the next seven years, double the fuel efficiency of Wal-Mart's truck fleet in ten years and downsize solid waste production from Wal-Mart stores by 25% in the next three years and double the offerings of organic foods this year.

Last time I was in Wal-Mart, I was amazed at the number of new organic products that Wal-Mart is now carrying...everything from vegetables to the plant based sweetener, stevia.

Of course, Mr. Scott admits that the technology does not yet exist for any company to be 100% green but he wants U.S. consumers to know that he is serious about where Wal-Mart is heading.

So besides having a direct impact on the environment, Wal-Mart could become a global change leader. Because Wal-Mart is so large, they naturally wield great power and have much influence on other market leaders. If the Wal-Mart CEO thinks these changes are good for Wal-Mart, other companies are likely to follow.

Is it hot in here? Global warm up.

Is it just me? Or is it hot in here?

Turns out that this summer is the hottest first half of the year on record in the United States. Not to mention the headlines about melting glaciers and flooding of islands.

Our current government administration has shown little inclination to address the increasingly alarming news regarding global warming. The predictions are not pretty: more severe weather in the form of monster hurricaines, tornadoes, wildfires and floods is on the way.

What was that saying about Nero, who fiddled while Rome burned?

I really don't believe it matters whether you are a Republican, a Democrat, a conservative or a liberal. Red state or blue state. We cannot wait any longer. We simply must have immediate and mandatory cuts in emissions, funding of renewable energy sources, energy conservation and an end to deforestation.

Our children are depending on us to act. Call your senators and representatives and ask what they intend to do about this problem.

Interdependence Day!

July 4th is right around the corner and here in the U.S. we're gearing up to eat watermelon and barbecue, perhaps take our kids to a downtown parade and end the day with fireworks at dusk. After all, Independence Day is our greatest national holiday.

Perhaps we should be thinking about Interdependence Day as well!

In spite of all the signs to the contrary, we Americans (and I suspect a lot of people in other industrialized countries as well) act as if we as individuals aren't connected to each other or the Earth in any way. Look at our housing choices for example. Many of us choose to live in sub-divisions, suburban collections of homes that were built, at least here in Georgia, on what was once rural rolling Piedmont land...with its tall fragrant pines and stands of oak and sweetgum. Everywhere I look, more and more land is being invaded by giant earth moving machines, scraping and grading the red clay hills into a flat unimaginative tract to make room for yet another industrial park or housing development. Once beautiful, green, rural farmland now has signs designating the property as Zoned Commercial. There is no "master plan" to make sure that open spaces and rolling rural property is preserved for future generations.

Why don't I see signs that say Zoned Rural?

Because we, as postmodern individuals, have absolutely no sense of interdependence. No clue that our very lives depend not only upon one another, but also on the fragile Earth herself.

There are some bright spots here and there...take for example the sustainable community of Serenbe that's located here just south of Atlanta. Serenbe is located on almost a thousand acres of rural Piedmont land, with wooded hills, open pastures, and flowing creeks set in the Chattahoochee Hill Country. Make no mistake, there is a lot of development going on at Serenbe, but it's development of a very different kind. Housing and businesses are clustered in communities within the acreage, with plans to leave 70 to 80% of the land as greenspace, complete with interconnected walking trails, pastures and an organic farm that supplies the community through a buy in of shares. Serenbe has no "rugged living" arrangements...the houses are an eclectic mix of contemporary and traditional and the community has attracted writers, artists and business people as well.

Driving along the graveled dirt road that leads through the property, I came upon a tall, rust colored sign with a quote from Andrew Jackson Downing...the famous young horticulturist who long ago conceived the idea of New York City's Central Park. The sign, sculptural in its presence, is surrounded by oats growing in the fields, bordered on all sides by wooded land. Birds call in the trees and the blue sky arches overhead, not a single cloud disturbing its late afternoon meditation. Just down the road, I catch a glimpse of a few of Serenbe's houses, nestled among the sheltering presence of the trees. Downing's words speak to me as I breathe in the country air:

"All beauty is an outward expression of inward good, and so closely are the beautiful and the true allied, that we shall find, if we become sincere loves of the grace, the harmony and the loveliness with which rural homes and rural life are capable of being invested, that we are silently opening our hearts to an influence which is higher and deeper than the mere symbol."

Perhaps there is hope left in the world after all...hope for our children and for our own futures. So as we celebrate this Independence Day, let us not forget our Inter-dependence on all things and on each other.

   

Puppy Love Can Backfire: Pet Treats and Salmonella

Next time you, or your children, give that beloved pet a treat made with fish or meat, be sure to thoroughly wash your hands. The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta has been investigating a handful of cases in Canada and Washington state in which people became ill with a salmonella infection after handling pet treats made with meat or fish. The CDC believes that many more cases may have occured but were just not reported.

Salmonella infections can cause serious illness and in susceptible people, such as the very young or elderly, the effects can be deadly.

Some tips:

-- always wash your hands with soap and water after handling pet treats made with animal products

-- people with weak immune systems, children under age 5 and older adults (who are at greater risk of complications from an infection) should avoid handling these pet treats altogether.

So next time your pet begs for a treat, do yourself a favor afterward and wash your hands. Don't treat yourself to a potentially deadly illness.