Instant Health Fitness

So last week there was a few post about my 30 Day Shred Experience.
However those post were written about a month ago and set to post at a later date so that my ‘competition’ couldn’t have a sneak peek as to how I was doing.
This morning was our final weigh in…I did not win, I came in 5th (out of 12).  Not much to say for the experience other then I really would have liked to stick with, not only for the results, but also for the sake of the blog entries.
Oh well….on to the next challenge, what ever that maybe.

I had some time off recently, so I was able to enjoy lunch with a friend at Al Di La, (248 5th Avenue, at the corner of Carroll St., 718-636-8888) one of the best restaurants Park Slope has to offer. The main dining room is spacious and a little funky, with bottles of wine, dark tin ceilings and a pink vine design painted on the walls. It’s country Italian food at it’s best – simple, uncomplicated meals with quality ingredients and flavorful results.

My friend started with Soup of the Day, made with a basic tomato broth, filled with tasty, meaty, little clams, tomatoes, basil and garlic it was delicious and surprisingly filling.

He also got an order of the Ravioli made with Winter Squash, brown butter and sage. It was light and delicious, albeit very buttery, with just a sprinkling of grated Parmesean on top.

The dish I chose was my favorite though. A bowl of creamy polenta in a broth with tomatoes, kale and sliced porcini mushrooms and a perfectly poached egg resting on top. It was amazing! The intermingling of all the flavors and textures worked perfectly, and it was filling without being too heavy. I’ve been thinking about it ever since!

Al Di La Trattoria is such a delightful place with comfort food at it’s simple best, in a cozy, comfortable space.

/PRNewswire/ — In many jurisdictions, tests for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) are required screening for pregnant women. Some even suggest screening the entire population for HIV. The rationale is to administer powerful antiretroviral drugs to healthy individuals to “prevent transmission.”

But what if healthy people take expensive, toxic drugs for a condition they cannot transmit because they don’t have it?

In the spring 2010 issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Henry H. Bauer, Ph.D., writes that “HIV tests are not HIV tests.” A positive test does not mean that a person has or will get AIDS. It doesn’t even mean that he has HIV. Rather, it is a test for antibodies, either to HIV or to something that cross-reacts with it.

The FDA said in 1987 that “the significance of antibodies in an asymptomatic individual is not known.” It is still not known, as positive tests have been reported in many illnesses, including multiple sclerosis, tuberculosis, malaria, and aplastic anemia. They have also been reported after immunizations to tetanus or influenza, and may even be caused by pregnancy itself.

“The problem of false positive tests applies to all screening tests, not just HIV,” states Jane M. Orient, M.D., executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS). “If a population with a very low likelihood of a disease is tested, there will be very few positive tests. But even with an excellent test, a positive is more likely than not to be a false positive.”

If only one in 1,000 tested individuals has HIV, then only one out of every six positive tests is a true positive, even if the HIV test is as good as is claimed.

This is why a test that is a very good for screening blood donors can do much more harm than good if used to screen the entire population, Dr. Orient stated.

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/PRNewswire/ — The sooner people with diabetes start taking metformin, the longer the drug remains effective, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published in the March issue of Diabetes Care, a journal of the American Diabetes Association.

The study found that metformin, an inexpensive, generic drug that helps patients prevent dangerously high blood sugar levels, worked nearly twice as long for people who began taking it within three months of their diabetes diagnosis. This is the first study to compare metformin failure rates in a real-world, clinical practice setting. Other studies compared failure rates of metformin only in clinical trials.

Metformin is recommended as a first-line agent in the treatment of type 2 diabetes, but in most patients it eventually stops working, forcing them to take additional medications to control their blood sugar. Each additional drug adds extra costs and the possibility of more side effects including weight gain, so this study is welcome news for newly diagnosed patients, researchers said.

“This is an important finding for the 30 million people world-wide who are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes every year. The sooner they start taking metformin, the better and longer it seems to work,” said the study’s lead author Jonathan B. Brown, PhD, an investigator with the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore. “This study suggests that to gain full benefit from metformin, patients should start taking it as soon as they find out they have diabetes.”

Researchers used electronic health records to follow nearly 1,800 people with diabetes in Kaiser Permanente’s health plan in Washington and Oregon for up to five years. Metformin failed at a rate of only 12 percent a year for the patients who began taking it within three months of diagnosis. That compares to a failure rate of 21.4 percent per year for patients who started taking metformin one to two years after diagnosis, and 21.9 percent per year for those who didn’t start taking the drug until three years after they were diagnosed.

“We believe that starting the drug early preserves the body’s own ability to control blood sugar, which in turn prevents the long-term complications of diabetes like heart disease, kidney failure, and blindness,” said study co-author Gregory A. Nichols, PhD, an investigator with the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research. “The American Diabetes Association recommends that patients start taking metformin and make lifestyle changes as soon as they are diagnosed. This study provides more evidence to back up that recommendation.”

In the study, patients were considered to have failed metformin when their hemoglobin A1C–a test that monitors glucose control—went above 7.5 percent or when they started taking a second anti-hyperglycemic agent. Only patients who initially controlled blood sugar (to less than 7 percent on the A1C test) with metformin were included in the study.

To reduce the possibility that factors other than delay in starting metformin influenced the results of the study, researchers controlled for age, gender, and how well blood sugar was controlled prior to treatment. After controlling for these factors, an even stronger relationship emerged between the time a patient started on the drug, and the amount of time it remained effective. Still, the authors caution that other unmeasured factors could have influenced the results.

The study was funded by Novo Nordisk, Inc., a company that does not make or sell metformin and has no financial interest in, or connection to, Kaiser Permanente.

Study authors include: Jonathan B. Brown, PhD, MPP, and Gregory A. Nichols, PhD, from the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore., and Christopher Conner, PharmD, PhD, from Novo Nordisk, Inc., Seattle.

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People run funny. It’s true. If you’ve ever set up camp next to a track and watched the funny mammals go round and round then you’ll know that you don’t need retinal scanning to uniquely identify someone – you just have to watch their running gait. (Although I hear it’s hard to make dead bodies run so perhaps there is still a need for fingerprinting and the like. Or Voodoo.) I remember one woman at our Y known solely by the moniker “Pam Who Runs On Her Toes.” And Pam was truly a sight to see, boinging up and down around the track like a gazelle wearing moon boots. Her legend lives on passed down from runner to runner despite the fact that I don’t think she’s worked out there for 3 years now.

The net result of all this weird running – besides good stories – is weird foot pain. While I myself have experienced shin splints and corns, and the Gym Buddies have had bouts of plantar fascitis, Reader Joshua’s (of TechnicalParent) pain was all new:

I’ve never been a runner. Exercise wasn’t something my parents instilled in me as a child. So, I’ve just started running and am kind of enjoying it. The only problem is that my feet are starting to hurt; not the arches, but the tops of my feet close to my toe joints. Do you know anything about the physiology of running? Am I doing this wrong in some way (obviously)? I guess I mean in terms of hitting the ground too hard, or not using my full foot and putting too much weight on the balls of my feet. Any help/advice would be appreciated, mostly by my feet, but the rest of me, too.

I replied oh-so-helpfully with three suggestions:

Congrats on taking up running! I’m glad you are enjoying it so far! I’m not an expert on foot pain but I do have a few ideas for you to consider:
1. Your shoes. Are they old? Are they actually running shoes (not cross trainers)?
2. Your stride. Have you ever had your stride analyzed? Are you a mid-foot striker? A heel-striker? Heaven help you, a toe runner? Most specialty running stores will analyze your gait for free and give you suggestions to make it more efficient.
3. Stretching. After each run, do “towel pick ups” to strenghten and stretch your toes. Drop a hand towel on the floor and then pick it up using your toes. Repeat… oh I don’t know, a bunch of times:) I also like to write the alphabet with each foot to stretch my shins & feet.

Don’t continue to run on it though if the pain is getting worse!

I should have just said, “Wow you’re a freak! I’ve never heard of that!” and then shut up because really I have no idea. But I bet one of you knows what he’s talking about! Have you ever had weird foot pain while running? Did you run through it or take a rest? What did you do to get past it?

The Japanese see-through skirt trend is one I will never be able to get behind (har har)

If you had 50$ to buy yourself any piece of fitness gear you want, what would it be? Boxing gloves? Kettlebell? A racquetball racket? Trail shoes? Snorkel? Down payment on a heart rate monitor (those suckers are pricey!)? That’s because you all are not vain. Me: I want a pair of skapris. Skort-apris. Capriskas? Whatever. I want a workout skirt with attached capri pants. Like these from See Jane Run:
Or these from Skirt Sports:

Or this little Nike number:

I have a thing for workout skirts. I’d blame my ultra girliness on having 3 sons but you can ask my mom, I’ve been this way ever since I could dress myself. My kindergarten year was immortalized as the year I refused to wear anything but dresses even in -30 weather. Even when I was a sad-eyed goth (I woulda been Emo except it hadn’t been invented yet) it was still all skirts all the time except that they were all black. You should see my dress closet now. What, not everyone has a dress closet? (Side note: someone please invite me somewhere I can wear one of my dresses to, stat!)

I know I should say that I want some super geeked out gadget (I DO desperately want a fitbit) but really what I want are new clothes. Don’t worry, I’m appropriately ashamed of my frivolity. It doesn’t matter though because I can’t win the $50 gift card from Dick’s Sporting Goods. But YOU can! And at the same time you can help me by voting me onto Dick’s Sporting Goods Starting Lineup – a panel of fitness folk who get to try out new fitness stuff- by tweeting my Twitter username @CharlotteGFE to @Dickssportcmo! To enter the contest and get all the details, click through to my giveaway page.

Anyone else have a thing for workout skirts or just dresses in general? Feel free to post a link to your fave in the comments!

PS> I didn’t realize until after I’d published this post what Blogger had truncated the URL down to. It’s kinda hilarious, really. (Dear Mom & Dad, please don’t read your address bar, thanks.)

Does Garlic Really Work with High Blood Pressure?

Garlic has been known to help in lowering high blood pressure but many are confused if this simple bulb can really work with your BP.
Research shows that garlic may in fact reduce diastolic and systolic blood pressure!

“In a study, when people with high blood pressure were given one clove of garlic a day for 12 weeks, their diastolic blood pressure and cholesterol levels were significantly reduced. Eating quantities as small as one clove of garlic a day was found to have beneficial effects on managing hypertension.” http://www.netscape.com/fact sheet high blood pressure treatment with garlic

How does garlic work?

“Garlic dilates the muscles of blood vessels, which helps in lowering blood pressure. It consists of a compound called adenosine, which helps in vasodilation and is also a muscle relaxant. Although, both raw and cooked garlic can benefit blood pressure, raw garlic is more potent and benefits faster. Garlic also interferes with the formation of blood clots and helps in reducing cholesterol. It not only helps lower the risk of colon, gastro intestinal tract and stomach cancers but also improves immunity and prevents gas formation.” http://www.indianfoodforever.com/food-guide/hypertension.html

“It appears, according to research that the beneficial effects of garlic on blood pressure come more from the garlic sulphides than from allicin. Unlike allicin, garlic sulphides are not destroyed by cooking.” http://www.aafp.org/afp/20050701/103.html

To give a hint about high blood pressure; high blood pressure is a condition that is treated with a combination of prescription drugs, diet, daily exercise, avoiding caffeine, managing stress and, if you are willing garlic. Below is a quick definition along with a list of symptoms of high blood pressure:
“High BP, or hypertension, means a pressure above 140/90 mmHg. High blood pressure symptoms are usually absent unless hypertension is elevated above 240/120 mmHg.
Hypertension symptoms may be a combination of:
• headache, often upon awakening
• blurred vision
• ringing in the ears
• dizziness
• facial redness
• nosebleeds
• fatigue
• heart attack”

Garlic alone cannot help with your high blood pressures. You also have to maintain a healthy lifestyle and a healthy-natural-diet to prevent yourself from getting sick.