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Tubs Of Ice Cream Help Women Make Babies

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Having trouble getting pregnant? Maybe you  are not eating enough ice cream, say researchers who found that a low-fat dairy diet can cause infertility, by preventing ovulation.

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This type of infertility, known as anovulatory infertility, was far more common in women who ate low-fat dairy products such as skimmed milk and low-fat yoghurt, the study found.

Jorge Chavarro at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts, US, and colleagues tracked more than 18,000 women aged between 24 and 42 with no history of infertility. Every two years over an eight-year period, the women were asked if they had tried to become pregnant, whether they had been trying for more than a year without success, and the medical reasons for any fertility problems. The women also supplied detailed information about what they consumed during this time.

Women who ate two or more servings of low-fat dairy foods a day increased their risk of ovulation-related infertility by 85% compared with those who ate less than one serving of low-fat dairy food a week. Conversely, women who ate at least one serving of high-fat dairy food a day, such as ice cream or full-fat milk, reduced their risk of anovulatory infertility by more than 25% compared with women who consumed up to one serving a week.

Temporary indulgence
Women trying to conceive should adjust their diet, if only temporarily, Chavarro says. “They should consider changing low-fat dairy foods for high-fat dairy foods,” he says, noting that the rest of the diet could be adjusted to achieve the same overall calorific intake. “Once you are pregnant, you can always switch back.”

Chavarro does not know why dairy fat affects fertility in this way. Other types of fat that he and others have studied do not have the same effect. “It’s either something specific to dairy fat, or a fat-soluble substance present in dairy foods that reduces the risks of infertility,” Chavarro says.

Processing whole milk into low-fat milk may not only strip away the fertility benefits of dairy fat, but may also raise levels of hormones that interfere with female sex organs. To turn whole-fat milk into skimmed milk, whey protein is often added back for taste and colouring. The protein has been found to produce testosterone-like effects in mice, Chavarro says.

It may simply be the over-processing of low-fat foods that is causing increased infertility, says Nanette Santoro, director of the reproductive endocrinology division at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, US.

But Santoro adds that the most important factor of all may be maintaining a healthy body weight. There is a clear relationship between increasing weight and infertility,   she says, pointing out that women with very low body fat risk infertility.   One of the best self-help things women can do is maintaining an optimal body weight   neither too thin nor too large.

Journal reference: Human Reproduction doi:10.1093/humrep/dem019

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Ailmemts & Remedies

Ketoacidosis

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Medical defenition of Ketoacidosis:
Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) and hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state (HHS) are two of the most serious complications of diabetes. These hyperglycemic emergencies continue to be important causes of morbid mortality among persons with diabetes in spite of all of the advances in understanding diabetes. The annual incidence rate of DKA estimated from population-based studies ranges from 4.8.to 8 episodes per 1,000 patients with diabetes. Unfortunately, in the US incidents of hospitalization due to DKA have increased. Currently 4-9% of all hospital discharge summaries among patients with diabetes include DKA. The incidence of HHS is more difficult to determine because of lack of population studies but it is still high at ~15%. The prognosis of both conditions is substantially worsened at the extremes of age, and in the presence of coma and hypertension.....click & see

The pathogenesis of DKA is more understood than HHS but both relate to the basic underlying reduction in the net effective action of circulating insulin coupled with a concomitant elevation of counter regulatory hormones such as glucagons, catecholamines, cortisol, and growth hormone. These hormonal alterations in both DKA and HHS lead to increased hepatic and renal glucose production and impaired use of glucose in peripheral tissues, which results in hyperglycemia and parallel changes in osmolality in extracellular space. This same combination also leads to release of free fatty acids into the circulation from adipose tissue and to unrestrained hepatic fatty acid oxidation to ketone bodies.

Ketoacidosis is BAD. It is when diabetics have too much sugar floating around in their blood and keytones spill into the kidneys. It causes kidney damage and generally wreaks havoc on the body.

To get ketoacidosis, you need to have no insulin in your blood. This causes blood sugar to rise to extemely high levels because the body cannot take the sugar into its cells without the help of insulin. You can get ketoacidosis if you’re an alcoholic. Diabetec, alcoholic can get ketoacidosis. For others no.

As long as you are not a Type 1 diabetic (and missjudge your insulin injections), you do not have to worry about ketoacidosis. Protein consumption has nothing to do with it.

EVERYTHING ABOUT KETOSIS …

What are ketones?…..click & see

Ketones are a normal and efficient source of fuel and energy for the human body. They are produced by the liver from fatty acids, which result from the breakdown of body fat in response to the absence of glucose/sugar. In a ketogenic diet, such as Atkins … or diets used for treating epilepsy in children, the tiny amounts of glucose required for some select functions can be met by consuming a minimum amount of carbs – or can be manufactured in the liver from PROTEIN. When your body is producing ketones, and using them for fuel, this is called “ketosis”.

How will ketosis help me to lose weight?

Most reducing diets restrict calorie intake, so you lose weight but some of that is fat and some of it is lean muscle tissue as well. Less muscle means slowed metabolism, which makes losing weight more difficult and gaining it back all too easy. Ketosis will help you to lose FAT.

Being in ketosis means that your body’s primary source of energy is fat (in the form of ketones). When you consume adequate protein as well, there’s no need for the body to break down its muscle tissue. Ketosis also tends to accelerate fat loss — once the liver converts fat to ketones, it can’t be converted back to fat, and so is excreted.

But, isn’t ketosis dangerous?

Being in ketosis by following a low carbohydrate diet is NOT dangerous. The human body was designed to use ketones very efficiently as fuel in the absence of glucose. However, the word ketosis is often confused with a similar word, ketoacidosis.

Ketoacidosis is a dangerous condition for diabetics, and the main element is ACID not ketones. The blood pH becomes dangerously acidic because of an extremely high blood SUGAR level (the diabetic has no insulin, or doesn’t respond to insulin …. so blood sugar rises … ketones are produced by the body to provide the fuel necessary for life, since the cells can’t use the sugar). It’s the high blood sugar, and the acid condition that is so dangerous. Ketones just happen to be a part of the picture, and are a RESULT of the condition, not the CAUSE. Diabetics can safely follow a ketogenic diet to lose fat weight … but they must be closely monitored by their health care provider, and blood sugars need to be kept low, and stable.

How do the ketone test strips work, and where can I get them?

Ketone urine-testing strips, also called Ketostix or just ketone sticks … are small plastic strips that have a little absorptive pad on the end. This contains a special chemical that will change colour in the presence of ketones in the urine. The strips may change varying shades of pink to purple, or may not change colour at all. The container will have a scale on the label, with blocks of colour for you to compare the strip after a certain time lapse, usually 15 seconds. Most folks simply hold a strip in the flow of urine. Other folks argue that the force of the flow can “wash” some of the chemical away, and advise that a sample of urine be obtained in a cup or other container, then the strip dipped into it.

The chemical reagent is very sensitive to moisture, including what’s in the air. It’s important to keep the lid of the container tightly closed at all times, except for when you’re getting a strip to take a reading. Make sure your fingers are dry before you go digging in! They also have an expiry date, so make note of this when you purchase the strips … that’s for the UNopened package. Once opened, they have a shelf-life of about 6 months — you may wish to write the date you opened on the label for future reference.

Ketone test strips can be purchased at any pharmacy, and are usually kept with the diabetic supplies. In some stores they’re kept behind the counter, so if you don’t see them on the shelf, just ask the pharmacist; you don’t need a prescription to buy them.

I’m following Induction strictly; why won’t my strips turn purple?

Ketones will spill into the urine ONLY when there is more in the blood than is being used as fuel by the body at that particular moment.

You may have exercised or worked a few hours previously, so your muscles would have used up the ketones as fuel, thus there will be no excess. You may have had a lot of liquids to drink, so the urine is more diluted. Perhaps the strips are not fresh, or the lid was not on tight and some moisture from the atmosphere got in.

Some low carbers NEVER show above trace or negative even … yet they burn fat and lose weight just fine. If you’re losing weight, and your clothes are getting looser, you’re feeling well and not hungry all the time .. then you are successfully in ketosis. Don’t get hung up on the strips; they’re just a guide, nothing more.


Will I lose weight faster if the strips show dark purple all the time?

No. Testing in the darkest purple range all the time is usually a sign of dehydration — the urine is too concentrated. You need to drink more water to dilute it, and keep the kidneys flushed.

The liver will make ketones from body fat, the fat you EAT, and from alcohol — the ketone strips have no way of distinguishing the source of the ketones. So, if you test every day after dinner, and dinner usually contains a lot of fat, then you may very well test for large amounts of ketones all the time. However this does not indicate that any BODY fat was burned.

The strips only indicate what’s happening in the urine. Ketosis happens in the blood and body tissues. If you’re showing even a small amount, then you are in ketosis, and fat-burning is taking place. Don’t get hung up on the ketone sticks.


Does caffeine affect ketosis?

This is questionable. There ARE a few studies that suggest caffeine may cause blood sugar to rise, with consequent effect on insulin … The studies involve consuming 50 gm glucose orally, followed by a dose of caffeine. This is quite different from a low carber, who is consuming only 20 gm carbs, in the form of high-fiber vegetables, spread throughout the day.

Many low carbers continue to enjoy caffeine-containing beverages with no serious impact on their weight-loss efforts. However, there are some sensitive individuals … and persons who are extremely insulin resistant may need to restrict or even eliminate all caffeine. If you have been losing successfully then find your weight loss stalled for a month or two, and you are following your program to the letter, you might consider stopping all caffeine for a while, to see if that will get things started again.


Will drinking alcohol affect ketosis?

No and yes. The liver can make ketones out of alcohol, so technically, when you drink you’ll continue to produce ketones and so will remain in ketosis. The problem is … alcohol converts more easily to ketones than fatty acids, so your liver will use the alchol first, in preference to fat. Thus, when you drink, basically your FAT burning is put on hold until all the alcohol is out of your system.

This rapid breakdown of alcohol into ketones and acetaldehyde (the intoxicating by-product) … tends to put low carbers at risk for quicker intoxication … especially if no other food is consumed to slow absorption.

Disclaimer: This information is not meant to be a substitute for professional medical advise or help. It is always best to consult with a Physician about serious health concerns. This information is in no way intended to diagnose or prescribe remedies.This is purely for educational purpose.

Help taken from: forum.lowcarber.org and www.lowcarb.ca

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Midlife Weight Gain

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As you progress through mid-life you will find your metabolism does slow down. You will need fewer calories to maintain the same weight–about 400-500 less by the time you are eighty. This and the tendency to decrease physical activity in mid-life contributes to weight gain. In addition, weight gain will tend to be concentrated more in the lower body–the lower abdomen, hips, buttocks and thighs. The average woman will gain one to two pounds per year……....click & see

But, weight gain is not inevitable. You can maintain a constant weight with an appropriate plan of diet and exercise. This is important, especially for women, as one study found that increased weight between the ages of thirty and fifty was the single greatest risk factor for breast cancer, later on in life.
In mid-life, how and when you eat may be as important as how much. One study showed that mid-life women who consumed their calories in about six small meals had faster metabolisms and lower weights than their counterparts who ate three large meals. Eating earlier in the day as opposed to later also allows you to consume the same amount of calories with less stored as fat. And, as always, if less of your calories are from fat, then you will tend to be thinner.

Regular aerobic exercise or yoga under the guidance of an expart is a way to boost your metabolic rate and counteract the slowing due to aging. It lowers your risk of heart disease, breast cancer, and osteoporosis, as well. Even if you haven’t had an exercise program up to now, you can benefit. While cardiovascular fitness will improve with as little as twenty minutes of aerobic exercise or yoga three times a week, forty-five minutes per day is necessary to make an impact on weight.

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Pediatric

‘Good’ Bacteria Help Kids with Diarrhea

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Supplements containing two different strains of lactobacillus, a bacteria commonly found in yogurt, can help ease bouts of severe diarrhea in children and reduce their hospital stays.

Such treatments, with so-called “good bacteria,” are commonly referred to as probiotics. They are thought to work by altering the microbial ecology in the gut of the person who ingests them.

The probiotic treatment cut the amount of time children with diarrhea spent in the hospital. Probiotic-treated children spent 1.6 days in the hospital, on average, versus 2.6 days for the patients given placebo.

And children who received treatment within 60 hours of when their diarrhea began spent an average of 1.7 days in the hospital, versus 3.5 days for kids who received placebo within this time.

The research team also found that children given lactobacillus were less likely to show signs of infection with rotavirus, the leading cause of diarrhea in infants, than youngsters who did not receive the bacteria treatment.

From:The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal.

Dr. Mercola‘s Comment:

Although one less hospital day may not seem very significant, there clearly was a difference between the two groups. These are the types of studies that traditional doctors require before they adopt these simple measures more broadly.

It is likely that even more impressive results would have been achieved had the babies been put on the eating plan and eliminated wheat and dairy during their infection.

I have seen these probiotics work in many intractable diarrheas in a matter of hours. The trick is to use HIGH doses (which were not used in this study), which likely explains the small difference between the two groups.

Probiotics are the only supplement I advise nearly every patient to start. Once their food choices are cleaned up they can stop taking it. While it is not necessary to take them forever, I do believe it is wise to use one bottle of a good probiotic a year, as most of us are less than perfect with our food choices.

There are probably many other good brands in your local health food store. However, be careful because some brands do not contain what the label claims. A good probiotic will work very well most types of acute diarrhea. I recommend one capsule, or ¼ tsp of the powders, every 30-60 minutes until the diarrhea is gone. It usually resolves in about four hours. These products are quite impressive.

Source:www.mercola.com

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Getting a Grip on the Winter Blues (SAD)

It is that time of year again, when despite the ratcheting up of festivities for the holidays, fully one person in five in the United States ratchets down. The cause is a now well-known but still infrequently treated disorder, winter blues or SAD, for seasonal affective disorder.

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There are several remedies to help those affected by SAD escape an affliction that leaves many wanting to climb into bed, put their heads under the covers and not come out until spring. Indeed, some experts refer to SAD as a form of hibernation.

The problem typically starts gradually as the days become shorter in late summer or fall and peaks in midwinter in regions where there may be just 9 or 10 hours of daylight, if that.

For the estimated 14 million severely affected American adults, SAD can send them into a tailspin that makes it difficult if not impossible to fulfill daily responsibilities and derive any joy from life. An additional 33 million people are less severely affected but may experience declines in energy, cheerfulness, creativity or productivity in the dark days of winter.

The most commonly used treatment is exposure for up to several hours a day to high-intensity artificial light, in an effort to simulate the longer days of summer when people with SAD function at top speed.

Jet Lag and Circadian Rhythm
Dr Alfred J. Lewy, a psychiatrist who has been studying the biology behind SAD, describes it as a form of jet lag, a concept he proposed 20 years ago. He recently published experimental evidence that he says attests to the validity of this theory. If true, this would make SAD a disturbance in the circadian rhythm, the 24-hour pattern that normally aligns the sleep-wake cycle with all the other bodily rhythms. Dr. Lewy suggests that with the delayed dawn and shorter days of fall and winter, the rhythms of people afflicted with SAD drift out of phase with the sleep-wake cycle, as if they had traveled across many time zones.

With jet lag, recovery occurs over a matter of days, and the circadian rhythm once again becomes synchronized with day and night. “In people with SAD, this adjustment takes five months,” Dr. Lewy said.

If his theory is substantiated by further research, it may one day be possible to treat SAD with tiny daily doses of time-released melatonin, the substance in the brain that regulates the sleep-wake cycle. Melatonin naturally increases in the evening, causing sleepiness, and falls off as morning approaches. The idea would be to tailor the administration of melatonin in a way that realigns the out-of-sync circadian rhythm in people with SAD, just as tiny doses (much smaller than those typically sold in health-food and drug stores) of melatonin can be used to speed recovery from jet lag.

In his study, conducted with three colleagues at Oregon Health Sciences University, Dr. Lewy identified two types of SAD patients. About two-thirds required morning light or evening melatonin to correct their body clocks. The remainder needed evening light or morning melatonin to put their body rhythms back on track. Currently, there is no commercial source of time-release low-dose melatonin that could be used, with or without light therapy, to help people with SAD.

Current Remedies
Dr. Norman E. Rosenthal, a native of South Africa who discovered his own serious problem with SAD while a resident in psychiatry at the New York State Psychiatric Institute in 1976, has become an expert in diagnosing and treating the problem. His knowledge and experience in helping himself and countless patients afflicted with SAD are summarized in “Winter Blues: Everything You Need to Know to Beat Seasonal Affective Disorder,” whose revised edition the Guilford Press published this year.

Dr. Rosenthal aptly describes SAD as “an energy crisis.” Patients are not depressed in the usual emotional sense, but rather feel as if their batteries have run down.

The symptoms of SAD do mimic those of serious depression. Patients say they have to drag themselves out of bed in the morning, even after 10 hours of sleep, and force themselves to perform necessary chores. They feel leaden and would just as soon not see anybody or do anything. They find it difficult to concentrate and think clearly and quickly.

Sex drive often dwindles markedly but is often replaced by an insatiable appetite for carbohydrates — breads, pasta, potatoes, rice and sweets — that results in weight gain. Many people with SAD have two wardrobes, the one for winter being two sizes larger.

The most common remedy is light therapy. But not just any light. Patients are advised to sit in front of a specially designed light box that emits about 10,000 lux from a fluorescent bulb, most often in the morning for at least 45 minutes. Some patients require hours of light therapy each day to ward off the symptoms of SAD, which may mean having one light box at home and a second at work.

Among commercial sources for these light boxes is the Center for Environmental Therapeutics, which sells them for $200. Its Web site, www.cet.org, is a useful source of information about SAD.

Among other light-enhancing suggestions from Dr. Rosenthal are planning a winter vacation in a sunny climate or relocating to someplace nearer the Equator, where the days are longer in winter. (But, he cautions, first be sure you can tolerate the summer there.)

Helpful Machines and Therapies
For those who remain in northern latitudes, Michael and Jiuan Su Terman of the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University, who have conducted pioneering studies of SAD remedies, suggest considering a “dawn simulator.” This device gradually turns on a bedroom light every morning while you are still asleep, helping ease SAD symptoms by making the body think that it is experiencing the early sunrises of summer.

This might also help people who do not have SAD but who hate getting up in the morning when it is still dark out.

The Termans have also found another helpful gadget, a negative-ion generator. They showed that sitting in front of a machine that emits negative ions at a high rate for 30 minutes every morning was as effective as sitting in front of a light box for the same time. The generators are available for $165 from the Center for Environmental Therapeutics (Michael Terman is the president of its board). The advantage of this device is that it can be used while sleeping.

A third approach that has proved effective is cognitive behavioral therapy, when used with or without light therapy. Kelly J. Rohan of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., (and currently of the University of Vermont) found that this therapy, a brief form of psychotherapy that helps people change negative thoughts and behaviors, was as effective as light therapy in a study of 23 patients with SAD.

And unlike light therapy used alone, cognitive behavioral therapy helped prevent a relapse of SAD symptoms the next winter.

Dr. Rosenthal also recommends eating a diet relatively high in protein and low in carbohydrates and performing regular physical exercise, which is especially helpful if it is outdoors in the morning or, if indoors, in front of a light box.

Source:The New York Times

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