Grill Safety: 15 BBQ Hazards That Could Spoil Your Memorial Day Holiday

by Dr Alex Jimenez | Diets, Fitness

It’s time to bring out the outdoor grill, clean it up, and start preparing memorable meals this weekend. But experts warn that grilling can be dangerous to your health if you don’t take some basic precautions.

“I love how food tastes when it’s prepared on a grill,” says renowned chef Gerard Viverito, an associate professor in culinary arts at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY.

“It’s so much fun to create a meal outdoors with family and friends nearby. But while outdoor cooking is an American tradition, common mistakes, such as marinating with the wrong oil, and improper preparation and storing of food, can lead to disaster.”

Gerard, a well-known radio and television figure whose culinary emphasis is using nutritional ingredients to gain healthful results, tells Newsmax Health the key to a happy, and healthy holiday meal, involves careful planning. Here are his tips:

Before you grill:

• Thaw meat in the refrigerator. Defrosting food on the counter encourages the growth of disease causing pathogens such as listeria and salmonella.
• Thaw proteins completely before grilling. “That’s the best way to ensure your food cooks evenly,” says Gerard. “Use a meat thermometer in the thicket part to ensure doneness.” Healthy internal temperatures are: poultry, 180 degrees; burgers, 160 degrees; pork 160 degrees; and steaks, 145 for medium rare and 160 degrees for medium.
• If you are marinating, avoid using olive oil which can break down at high temperatures into dangerous carcinogens. Gerard prefers using Malaysian sustainable palm oil that can stand up to high heat.
• Wash your hands thoroughly before transferring food to the grill.

Cooking with charcoal or propane:

• To avoid inhaling smoke and help prevent accidental fire, position the grill away from your house, and out from under eaves and tree branches. Each year, home grilling is responsible for thousands of home fires and burns that require hospital care.
• Start with a clean grill. A buildup of extra grease and fat can cause a flash fire, in addition to contaminating your food with potential carcinogens.
• Only use charcoal starter fluid with a charcoal grill. Stay safe by never adding flammable fluid once a fire has started. And if your grill does catch fire, the safest way to extinguish the flame is to close the top of the grill and turn off the gas.
• Keep meat and vegetables separate on a grill. You want to keep meat drippings from falling on your vegetables. “That’s because vegetables don’t cook long enough to destroy any bacteria present in the drippings,” says Gerard.

Serving your food:

• Always transfer cooked food onto a clean latter. Don’t use the same plate that you just used for the raw food.
• Keep food hot until it’s served. Move it off the fire but keep it on the warm grill or use a hot plate. Hot Logic hotlogicmini.com/collections/buy-now, a Michigan-based company, produces a series of low-cost covered hot plates and mini ovens that can keep food warm until it’s ready to be eaten. “Very hot food and very cold food is the safest, but since most people like to eat foods somewhere in the middle, this can be a problem,” says Gerard. “We call it the temperature danger zone where bacteria multiply exponentially.”
• Throw away any burned or charred portions before eating. The char and soot may contain dangerous chemicals or carcinogens.
• Keep flies away from food. Use food covers to keep insects from sharing your meal and spreading germs.

Treat leftovers with care:

• Refrigerate leftovers as soon as possible to reduce the risk of food spoilage and poisoning.
• Discard food that’s been sitting out for two hours or more. “I go crazy when I see people eating potato salad made with mayonnaise that’s been left outside for hours,” says Dr. Kevin Rodgers, president of the American Academy of Emergency Medicine. “Don’t take a chance if food safety is questionable. Food poisoning can cause serious dehydration through vomiting and diarrhea.”
• Don’t eat unwashed fruits or veggies. “It’s also important to wash all produce, like those tasty tomatoes you are serving over the burgers or the salad greens,” warns Gerard. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals that salad greens caused 8,838 cases of food borne illness between 1998 and 2008, so always be diligent in washing lettuce, escarole, spinach, cabbage, kale and arugula before serving.”

“Grilling is fun and delicious,” says Gerard. “With a few precautions, you can keep food-borne pathogens, fires, and exposure to carcinogens from spoiling one of best warm weather pastimes.”

For Healthier Arteries, Eat More Fruits and Veggies

by Dr Alex Jimenez | Diets, Fitness

Eating more fruits and vegetables may reduce the risk of peripheral artery disease, according to a study of more than 3.6 million individuals in the U.S.

“We hope that studies like this can be an important reminder of the role we as consumers have on heart disease and stroke,” Dr. Jeffrey S. Berger from New York University School of Medicine told Reuters Health. “We often remember to take our medication, yet studies like this should remind us to eat our fruits and veggies every day. Moreover, we should continue reminding our young generation of this importance now before disease develops.”

Past research has linked fruit and vegetable consumption to a lower risk of coronary heart disease and stroke, but there has been little research into the effects of fruits and vegetables on arteries in the legs and arms, Berger’s team writes in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology.

Peripheral artery disease, or PAD, usually arises as a narrowing of arteries to the legs that causes cramping, pain or tiredness in the muscles while walking or climbing stairs. It affects at least 8 to 12 million Americans.

Risk for PAD increases with age, and with a history of smoking, diabetes or high blood pressure.

To investigate whether fruit and vegetable consumption influences risk for PAD, Berger’s team analyzed dietary data on 3,696,778 men and women with an average age of about 65, around 234,000 of whom had PAD.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture/U.S. Health and Human Services Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend at least two servings of fruit and at least three servings of vegetables each day, but only 29 percent of participants in the study said they ate even three servings of fruits and vegetables daily.

Nearly half said they consumed at least three servings of fruit and vegetables on fewer than half the days of the week.

Older white women were most likely to consume fruits and vegetables regularly, and younger black men were least likely to eat at least three servings daily.

Fruit and vegetable consumption also varied by region, with those living in the Pacific states reporting the most regular consumption and those living in the South Central states reporting the least regular consumption.

After adjusting for age, sex, race and other risk factors, the more fruits and vegetables the participants ate, the lower their likelihood of having PAD.

When researchers divided participants according to their smoking status, they found the relationship between fruit and vegetable intake and PAD was strongest among current smokers, less significant among former smokers and not significant among people who never smoked.

“Unfortunately, fruit and vegetable intake is quite low across the entire United States,” Berger said by email.

“Something as simple as eating fruits and vegetables could have a major impact on the prevalence of a life-altering disease, such as peripheral artery disease,” he said.

“Watch what you eat,” Berger advised. “And pay careful attention to eat fruits and vegetables every single day.”

“Increasing fruit and vegetable intake is important and can have far reaching health benefits,” said Dr. Michelle L. Redmond from University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita, who wasn’t involved in the study.

To get people to up their intake of greens, she said by email, “First, one must take into consideration factors that influence behaviors such as access and affordability of fresh fruits and vegetables (how do you change or lessen certain barriers to fruit/vegetable intake). Then design interventions or campaigns that are tailored to specific audiences to motivate and increase fruit/vegetable consumption. Finally, there is also a need to increase nutrition literacy.”

Getting people to eat more fruits and vegetables is a challenge in other countries, too, noted Dr. Miguel A. Martinez-Gonzalez from University of Navarra Medical School in Spain, who wasn’t involved in the study. He acknowledged the special importance of fruit and vegetable consumption for smokers but, he told Reuters Health, “This advice should be given to everybody.”

With Mental Health Problems, Fitness Is Tied to Reduced Risk of Death

by Dr Alex Jimenez | Diets, Fitness

For men experiencing emotional distress like depression, anxiety or thoughts of suicide, having high cardiorespiratory fitness may cut the risk of death in half compared to those in poor condition, researchers say.

“The prevalence of mental health issues is growing in the U.S. and globally,” said lead study author Mei Sui of the University of South Carolina in Columbia. “People are facing many stressors in their daily lives linked to depression, anxiety and other mental disorders.

“Medication to treat these mental problems is not only expensive but also comes with significant side effects such as weight gain,” she told Reuters Health. “Identifying modifiable factors that are beneficial to those with emotional distress has important clinical and public health applications.”

Mental health conditions cost the U.S. about $2.5 trillion in 2010 and are projected to cost the country $6 trillion by 2030, the authors write in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

To see how cardiovascular fitness might affect healthcare costs and outcomes for people with mental health disorders, Sui and colleagues analyzed data from the Aerobics Center Longitudinal Study at the Cooper Clinic in Dallas, Texas, which conducted preventive health exams on more than 43,000 men between 1987 and 2002.

The researchers focused on 5,240 participants who reported a history of emotional distress, including 2,229 who reported more than one emotional distress condition. To measure cardiorespiratory fitness, participants ran on a treadmill until they were exhausted.

Among men who experienced emotional distress, 46 percent reported depression, 58 percent had anxiety, 51 percent had a history of mental counseling, and 8 percent reported ever having thoughts of suicide.

By the end of the follow up period, there were 128 deaths from any cause.

The researchers found that men with the lowest cardiovascular fitness tended to have higher weight, blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels and were more likely to smoke and to be sedentary.

In addition, men who reported more than one type of emotional distress were more common in the low-fitness group.

Compared to the lowest-fitness group, men with moderate cardiovascular fitness were 46 percent less likely to die of any cause during the study, and those in the high fitness group were 53 percent less likely to die.

“This significant strong inverse association between high levels of fitness and longevity in men with emotional distress is particularly interesting,” Sui said. “Clearly lifestyle behavior interventions to increase fitness levels could help those with emotional distress.”

Even moderate levels of fitness were associated with a 46 percent lower risk of dying, she noted. This moderate level of fitness means 30 minutes per day of activity such as swimming, jogging or biking, and is the current level recommended under American sports medicine guidelines.

The study mostly included non-Hispanic whites, and Sui would like to see more research about fitness in women and minority groups.

“This was the missing piece of the puzzle. We know now that assessing fitness and treating it should be at the center of mental health care,” said Davy Vancampfort of the University of Leuven Psychiatric Center in Belgium. He wasn’t involved in the current study but recently published an analysis that found people with severe mental illness are at heightened risk for heart disease

“This adds to our call to include assessment of physical activity and treatment to the standard mental health care package,” he told Reuters Health by email. “Mental health care settings and primary care settings should work closely together on this.”

Future research could also look at older populations, follow people for a longer period of time and account for medication such as psychotropic prescriptions in particular, said Brandon Stubbs of King’s College London in the UK.

“One in four of us will at some point experience a common mental illness in our lives,” Stubbs, who wasn’t involved in the study, told Reuters Health by email. “We can no longer view mental health and physical health separately given that they are so inextricably linked.”

Low Dairy Consumption Tied to Early Menopause

by Dr Alex Jimenez | Diets, Fitness

Women in their early 40s with the highest intake of vitamin D and calcium from food sources may have a lower than average risk of starting menopause before age 45, a recent study suggests.

Taking vitamin D or calcium in supplement form had no benefit in the large study of U.S. nurses, the study team writes in American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, and there may be other substances in dairy foods that also contribute to their apparent protective effect.

“Early menopause can have substantial health impacts for women. It increases their risk of cardiovascular disease and early cognitive decline and osteoporosis,” lead author Alexandra Purdue-Smithe told Reuters Health.

In addition, as women are delaying having kids into their later reproductive years, having early menopause can have a substantial impact on their ability to conceive as they wish, which can have psychological and financial consequences, said Purdue-Smithe, an epidemiologist with the School of Public Health and Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

“Given that (early menopause) affects roughly 10 percent of women in the U.S. and other Western populations, it felt like a worthwhile problem to start investigating and seeing if there are any potentially modifiable risk factors for it,” she said.

Menopause, when a woman stops menstruating and her levels of hormones like estrogen decline, typically happens between the ages of 45 and 55. Menopause before age 45 is considered “early.”

Vitamin D may be involved in some of the hormonal mechanisms of early menopause, but little is known about how dietary vitamin D and calcium affect the risk, Purdue-Smithe and her colleagues write.

They analyzed data from the Nurses’ Health Study II, a long-term study of more than 100,000 U.S. registered nurses who were 25 to 42 years old in 1989 when they began answering health questionnaires every two years.

The questionnaires were designed to assess the nurses’ lifestyles, behaviors and overall health. Questions about diet were asked five times over 20 years. Researchers followed the participants until 2011, by which time 2,041 women experienced early menopause.

“The women who consumed the most vitamin D from food sources had a 17 percent lower risk of having early menopause as compared to women who consumed the least,” Purdue-Smithe said. The researchers found this association only with dairy sources of vitamin D, like milk, not with non-dairy sources like oily fish.

Women who consumed the most calcium from food sources were also about 13 percent less likely to experience early menopause compared to women who consumed the least calcium, and once again, only dairy foods seemed to provide a benefit.

“Our next direction is to look at actual individual dairy foods and see if there’s something else going on with dairy itself,” Purdue-Smithe said.

The study team also found that taking high doses of calcium in supplement form was associated with a higher risk of early menopause. But the researchers speculate that these women might have been diagnosed with osteoporosis or other conditions that are also risk factors for early menopause.

“Most of what is known about the relationship between calcium and Vitamin D and women’s issues is related to bone health,” said Sandra Arevalo, a dietitian and director of the Nutrition Services and Community Outreach for Community Pediatrics at Montefiore Medical Center in New York.

Lack of Vitamin D and calcium in a woman’s diet, mainly as age progresses, increases her risk of low bone mineral density, osteoporosis and bone fractures, said Arevalo, who wasn’t involved in the study.

The top 10 food sources of calcium are low-fat yogurt, low-fat cheese, sardines, calcium-fortified soy milk, calcium-fortified orange juice, salmon, calcium fortified ready-to-eat cereal, turnips, kale and bok choi, she noted in an email.

The top 10 sources of Vitamin D are cod liver oil, swordfish, salmon, tuna fish, vitamin D fortified orange juice, low-fat vitamin D-fortified milk, yogurt, fortified margarine, sardines and liver, Arevalo said.

Two Weeks On The Couch Can Trigger Body’s Decline

by Dr Alex Jimenez | Diets, Fitness

Taking a short break from an active lifestyle may do more harm than most people might think, a new study warns.

Just two weeks of sedentary behavior can cause healthy, young people to start losing muscle and develop fat around their organs. And this can increase their risk for conditions such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes that could eventually lead to a premature death, British researchers report.

“What’s alarming about this study is that it was done in healthy volunteers. They were not patients or overweight or had risks for type 2 diabetes,” said lead researcher Kelly Bowden-Davies, from the Institute of Aging and Chronic Disease at the University of Liverpool.

“In 14 days we see small, but significant, changes in markers that predispose people to risk,” she said.

In the study, people were asked to limit their physical activity for two weeks. This included taking the elevator instead of the stairs, taking a bus instead of walking and staying at home more than usual, Bowden-Davies said.

After two weeks of a sedentary life, participants lost nearly a pound of lean muscle mass and gained body fat. The increase in body fat tended to be in the belly, a major risk factor for developing chronic diseases.

In addition, fitness levels dropped sharply, and participants were not able to run for as long or at the same intensity as they had before, the researchers found.

Mitochondrial function, which is the ability of cells to regulate energy, also dropped, but the change was not statistically significant, the study authors noted.

“Globally, people are becoming more and more inactive due to technology, public transport, escalators and elevators, and machines that do what we used to do day to day,” Bowden-Davies said.

The good news is that after going back to an active lifestyle, all these changes were reversed and returned to normal within two weeks, she said.

“The negative effect of an inactive lifestyle can be reversed when we become active again,” Bowden-Davies said.

Going to the gym a couple of times a week, however, won’t reverse the trends of an otherwise sedentary life, she said. Exercise is good, but you need to be active all day, which includes being on your feet and taking walk breaks, Bowden-Davies said.

The problem is more severe in older people who have a sedentary lifestyle and are probably in worse shape than younger people, she said. But it’s never too late to change your lifestyle and see improvements in your health.

The findings were to be presented Wednesday at the European Congress on Obesity, in Porto, Portugal. Research presented at meetings is considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

According to Dr. Minisha Sood, an endocrinologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, “We’ve known all along that being sedentary will increase the risk of gaining fat and losing muscle, and overall poorer health.” Sood was not involved with the new study but is familiar with the findings.

“What’s novel about this study is that it emphasizes how little time it takes of a sedentary life to start to see those changes,” she added.

But Sood wasn’t sure that going back to an active lifestyle would reverse all of the damage a sedentary period causes. Some of these changes may be permanent, she said.

“If your goal is to be in optimal health, you shouldn’t have a sedentary lifestyle,” Sood said. “An active lifestyle is one where physical activity is built into the day, throughout the day.”

In addition, different types of exercise — like resistance training to counter the aging of muscle and cardio training to increase stamina — are important, Sood said.

“The point is not to hit the gym once or twice a week, but to build an active lifestyle where you are taking walks outside and not sitting all day,” she said.

For the study, Bowden-Davies and her colleagues collected data on 28 healthy, physically active people, average age 25, with a normal body weight. The participants walked an average of 10,000 steps per day and all wore an armband that kept track of their physical activity.

At the start of the study, participants were given a medical checkup that included measuring fat and muscle mass, mitochondrial function and physical fitness.

The exam was done two weeks later after the participants had reduced their physical activity by more than 80 percent, to around 1,500 steps per day.

In addition, the participants kept a journal of what and how much they ate to ensure there were no changes in diet throughout the study, Bowden-Davies said.

Swallowable Balloons Work to Curb Obesity: Study

by Dr Alex Jimenez | Diets, Fitness

Weight-loss balloons swallowed rather than surgically inserted in the stomach were shown to be safe and effective in preliminary trials, according to findings unveiled Thursday at a medical conference.

So-called intragastric balloons have been used for decades to help obese patients shed unwanted pounds. Inflated with water, the devices curb hunger and make it easier to diet by inducing a feeling of fullness.

Up to now, however, they could only be implanted in the stomach surgically, a costly procedure requiring general anesthesia or sedation.

In a small trial led by Roberta Ienca, a researcher in experimental medicine at Sapienza University in Rome, 42 obese patients — 29 men and 13 women — were fitted with balloons that were swallowed before being inflated with liquid.

“A catheter is attached to the balloon, which is folded into a capsule,” Ienca explained to AFP.

A doctor fills the balloon via the tiny tube, which is then removed via the mouth with a tug. “This process takes just a few seconds,” she added.

The body-mass index (BMI) of the volunteers varied between 30 and 45. The threshold for obesity is a BMI of 30.

The balloons remained in the stomach for 16 weeks, during which time patients were put on a low-carbohydrate, low-calorie diet.

At the end of that time, an internal release valve automatically opens and drains the balloon, which is then excreted.

On average, volunteers shed more than 33 pounds, which amounted to 31 percent of excess weight.

No serious side effects were reported.

After the trial, patients were transitioned to a Mediterranean diet, heavy on vegetables and olive oil, and light on protein and starch.

The new technique “appears to be a safe and effective weight-loss method,” Ienca commented in a statement.

Because the swallowable balloon “does not require endoscopy, surgery or anaesthesia, this may make it suitable for a larger population of obese patients not responding to diet or lifestyle treatment.”

It could also lead to significant cost savings, she added.

“In itself, gastric balloons are not a long-term solution for weight loss,” Simon Cork, a researcher in investigative medicine at Imperial College London who was not involved in the study, commented after reviewing the results.

“Nevertheless, gastric balloons are still useful for some patients, and the introduction of a device which doesn’t require surgery to implant is a positive step forward.”

Developed by US-based Allurion Technologies, the system is already marketed in Europe in France, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Greece. It is also available in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

The company intends to begin the FDA approval process in the United States soon, Ienca said.

The findings were presented at the European Congress on Obesity in Porto, Portugal, which runs through May 20.