H E A L T H I N F O R M A T I O N P R E S E N T E D A S I F Y O U R L I F E D E P E N D E D O N I T

A Publication Of The Wellness

Council Of America

PET TOPICSH E A L T H I N F O R M A T I O N P R E S E N T E D A S I F Y O U R L I F E D E P E N D E D O N I T

People and animals have a long history of living together and bonding, but today, animal companions are more popular than ever. The pet population nationwide has been growing dramatically for nearly a half century, from about 40 million pet cats and dogs in 1967 to more than 160 million in 2006. About two-thirds of U.S. households now own at least one pet. People have lots of reasons for owning pets. Now a small but growing body of research suggests that owning or interacting with animals may have the added benefit of improving your health.

How To Steer Clear of Acid RefluxHeartburn is a word people use to describe reflux, but reflux is also sometimes painless—you may have trouble swallowing or get a dry cough, perhaps some wheezing. Occasional episodes of reflux are normal for all of us, but if you are having multiple episodes per week, it should be discussed with your health care provider to avoid further health issues.

To help prevent acid reflux, you should: •Maintainahealthyweight.

•Eatsmallermeals.

•Avoidtriggeringfoods,includingalcohol.

•Don’tliedownfor3hours afterameal.

•Raisetheheadofyourbed6to8inchesbyputtingwoodblocksunderthebedposts.

•Foraninfant,tryburping frequentlyduringfeeding.Keeptheinfantuprightfor30minutesafterfeeding.

•Ifyouhaverefluxtwiceor moreperweek,see yourhealthcareprovider.

Want to learn more about acid reflux? See the article on page 6.

Some of the largest and most well-designed studies suggest that four-legged friends can help to improve our cardiovascular health, lower heart rates and blood pressure, and quicken our recovery from stress when we are with them. Several studies have also shown that dog owners may get more exercise and other health benefits than the rest of us. Our furry friends bring many good attributes to our homes by fetching our slippers, protecting us from intruders and giving us loving nuzzles. But kids, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems are at greater risk for getting sick from animals. Here are some things you can do to reduce your risk of getting sick from your pets:

•Washhandsthoroughlyaftercontactwith animals.•Keepyourpetcleanandhealthy,andkeep vaccinationsuptodate.•Supervisechildrenunderage5whilethey’re interactingwithanimals.•Preventkidsfromkissingtheirpetsorputting theirhandsorotherobjectsintheirmouthsafter touchinganimals.•Avoidchanginglitterboxesduringpregnancy. Problempregnanciesmayarisefrom toxoplasmosis,aparasiticdiseasespreadby exposuretocatfeces.

Pets Are Good For Your Health But Precautions Need To Be Taken

health | self-care | work & family | lifestyle | exercise

Healthy Recipe...................... 2

Physical Activity .................. 3

The Eyes Have It ....................................4-5

Healthy Lifestyles .............. 6

Wise Choices ........................... 7

VOL. 13 | NO. 5 JULy 2011

A H E A L T H Y R E C I P E B Y R I C H A R D C O L L I N S , M D

WALKING TACO SALAD

PreparationFirst, crush the chips in the bag. Cut along the side of the bag to create a lengthwise envelope for a bowl. Drain the beans and add one teaspoon of prepared taco seasoning. Add 2 tablespoons of the beans to the chip-bag-envelope bowl. If using the veggie burger, crumble and place into the chip envelope. Add lettuce, tomato and cheese. Top off with the salsa and sour cream, if desired.

If creating this at work, pre-pack the lettuce and tomatoes in a zip-top bag. The beans or meat substitute can also be packed in the zip-top bag with the seasonings.

about Richard Collins md Dr. Richard Collins, a leading

authority and speaker on the prevention and reversal of heart disease, emphasizes the connection between eating well and living long. His delicious low-fat recipes have been shared with millions through his cookbook, videos, and his nationally-renowned cooking seminars. For more information, visit Dr. Collins’ website at www.thecookingcardiologist.com.

Ingredientscorn or taco chipssouthwest-flavored blackbeans, drainedtaco seasoningsouthwest-flavoredveggie burger (optional)reduced-fat cheddar cheese,shreddedlettuce, shreddedtomato, dicedsalsa or taco saucefat-free sour cream (optional)

Measure1ozbag

2tbsp

1tsp1

2tbsp

½cup1

1tbsp1dollop

Nutritional AnalysisCalories 275 (From fat 123), Total Fat 14g (Sat 4g)Cholesterol 15mg, Sodium 410mg, Total Carbohydrate 27gDietary Fiber 5g, Sugars 3g, Protein 13g

PreparationBring small saucepan of water to a boil. Blanch tomatoes for 30 seconds, then rinse with cold water. Peel, remove seeds and chop tomatoes. Place all ingredients in a large bowl and stir until mixed thoroughly. Allow to stand at room temperature for 1 hour. Mix and serve. Refrigerate any unused salsa. Serve salsa in endive leaves and garnish with baked, crumbled tortilla chips. Also excellent on top of grilled chicken or fish.

NutritionCalories 65 (From fat 3), Total Fat 0g (Sat 0g), Cholesterol 0mg, Sodium 6mg, Total Carbohydrate 16g, Dietary Fiber 3g, Sugars 12g, Protein 2g

NumberofServings5

IngredientsRoma red, ripe tomatoeslarge oranges, peeledand dicedlarge Vidalia onion, choppedlarge jalapeños, seededand mincedlime juice, freshorange juice, fresh1-oz Splenda packetsfresh cilantro, choppedsalt (optional)Endive leaves and baked tortilla chips for garnish

Measure42

12

2tbsp¼cup

31tbsp1tsp TACOTACO

SALADSALAD

•• W A L K I N G • •

CitrusSalsa

HEALTHy RECIPE

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Our bones are alive. We might not think of them that way—but our bones are always changing. “Bone is living, growing tissue,” says Dr. Joan McGowan, a scientist at National Institutes of Health. “It’s constantly breaking down and building up. It keeps refreshing itself.” As you get older, your bones may be at increased risk for osteoporosis, when the bones become weak, fragile and are more likely to break. And once they break, they take longer to heal. This can be both painful and expensive. Current estimates suggest that around 10 million people in the U.S. have osteoporosis, and 34 million more have low bone mass, which places them at increased risk. Osteoporosis is a “silent” disease. you may not realize you have it until a sudden strain, twist or fall causes a broken bone (also called a “fracture”). With osteoporosis, even a minor tumble can be serious, requiring surgery and hospitalization.

Unfortunately, some factors are beyond your control. Women are more likely to have osteoporosis and related fractures. Osteoporosis becomes more common the older you get. Low body weight, certain medications (such as steroids) and certain diseases and conditions (such as anorexia nervosa, rheumatoid arthritis, gastrointestinal diseases, thyroid disease and depression) also increase the risk of osteoporosis. you can talk to your doctor well before the age of 50 about your risk for osteoporosis, and when to start having bone mineral density tests. “A large part of osteoporosis and fracture risk is inherited,” says McGowan. “If close relatives have suffered a fracture in their later years, this may be a clue to think carefully about your own risk. But diet and physical activity are major ways to build and maintain the best possible skeleton.” your bones are so important because they support you and allow you to move. They also protect your heart, lungs and brain from injury. They’re a storehouse for vital minerals you need to live. your bones take care of you in so many ways. Learn to take care of them.

Keeping Bones Strong and Healthy

OsteoporosisLet’s Talk About

Youcanpromotebonehealthbyincreasingyouramountofload-bearingexercisesuchaswalking,andbymakinggoodfoodchoicesthatarerichincalciumandvitaminD.Physicalactivityisimportantforbuildingbone,becausethemoreworkbonesdo,thestrongertheyget.Mostofourboneismadeofarigidproteinframework.Calcium(amineral)addsstrengthandhardensthatframework.VitaminDhelpstheintestineabsorbcalcium.SomepeoplegetalltheVitaminDtheyneedwhenthey’reexposedtosunlight,butothersneedtotakeVitaminDpills.TalktoyourdoctortofindouthowmuchcalciumandVitaminDyoushouldgeteachday.

TACOTACOSALAD

PHySICAL ACTIVITy

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ou may barely notice the changes at first. Maybe you’ve found yourself reaching more often for your glasses to see up-close. You might have trouble adjusting to glaring lights or reading when the light is dim. You may even have put on blue socks

thinking they were black. These are some of the normal changes to your eyes and vision as you age. Although you can’t prevent all age-related changes to your eyes, you can take steps to protect your vision and reduce your risk for serious eye disease in the future. Effective treatments are now available for many disorders that may lead to blindness or visual impairment. You can also learn how to make the most of the vision you have.

EYESThe

H AV E I TKeep Your Eyes Healthy

For Years To Come[ ]Y

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elieve it or not, the clear, curved lens at the front of your eye may be one of the first parts of your body to show signs of age. The lens bends to focus

light and form images on the retina at the back of your eye. The flexibility in this lens lets you see at different distances—up-close or far away. But the lens hardens with age. The change may begin as early as your 20s, but it can come so gradually it may take decades to notice. Eventually, age-related stiffening and clouding of the lens affects just about everyone. You’ll have trouble focusing on up-close objects, a condition called presbyopia. Anyone over age 35 is at risk for presbyopia. In addition, cloudy areas in the lens, called cataracts, are another common eye problem that comes with age. More than 22 million Americans have cataracts. By age 80, more than half of us will have had them. Some cataracts stay small and have little effect on eyesight, but others become large and interfere with vision. Symptoms include blurriness, difficulty seeing well at night, lights that seem too bright and faded color vision. There are no specific steps to prevent cataracts, but tobacco use and exposure to sunlight raise your risk of developing them. Cataract surgery is a safe and common treatment that can restore good vision.

he only way to detect these serious eye diseases before they cause vision loss or blindness is through a comprehensive dilated eye exam. Your eye care

professional will put drops in your eyes to enlarge, or dilate, the pupils and then look for signs of disease. There’s no question, having regular comprehensive eye care gives your doctor a chance to identify a problem very early on and then treat it. Many of the healthy behaviors that help reduce your risk for long-term diseases, like heart disease and cancer, can also help to protect your eyesight. These include not smoking, eating a healthy diet and controlling conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure.

What’s more, the passage of time can also weaken the tiny muscles that control your eye’s pupil size. The pupil becomes smaller and less responsive to changes in light. That’s why people in their 60s need three times more light for comfortable reading than those in their 20s. Smaller pupils make it more difficult to see at night. To be sure, trouble seeing at night, coupled with a normal loss of peripheral vision as you age, can affect many daily activities, including your ability to drive safely. Loss of peripheral vision increases your risk for automobile accidents, so you need to be more cautious when driving. If you’re not convinced you should have regular eye exams, consider that some of the more serious age-related eye diseases—like glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic eye disease—may have no warning signs or symptoms in their early stages. Glaucoma comes from increased fluid pressure inside the eye that damages the optic nerve. Fortunately, it can be treated with prescription eye drops, lasers or surgery. If not treated, however, it can lead to vision loss and blindness. Diabetic eye disease, another leading cause of blindness, can damage the tiny blood vessels inside the retina. Keeping your blood sugar under control can help prevent or slow the problem.

Recommendations To Keep Your Eyes Healthy For Years To Come• Have a comprehensive eye exam each year after age 50. • Stop smoking. • Eat a diet rich in green, leafy vegetables and fish. • Exercise. • Maintain normal blood pressure. • Control diabetes if you have it. • Wear sunglasses and a brimmed hat any time you’re outside in bright sunshine. • Wear protective eyewear when playing sports or doing work around the house that may cause eye injury.

B

T

Potential Problems

Prevention Is TheBest Medicine

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ost of us get heartburn from time to time. It may come as a burning sensation in the chest, or a bitter taste in the back of the throat. Heartburn is one word people use to describe reflux. It happens

when stomach contents come back upwards. Reflux is sometimes painless: You may have trouble swallowing or get a dry cough, perhaps some wheezing. Occasional reflux episodes are normal. Like millions of Americans, you can manage reflux by avoiding foods that don’t agree with you—things that are fatty, spicy or acidic—or by eating smaller meals. If reflux occurs less than once a week, you can usually cope by making lifestyle changes or using over-the-counter medications. “We all have a little reflux when we burp or belch,” says Dr. John Pandolfino of Northwestern University. But of the 20 million or more Americans with reflux, about 5% have significant episodes 2 or 3 times per day. When severe events occur this often, it’s not ordinary reflux. It may be gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), and you may need prescription medications to control it. GERD should be taken seriously. Stomach (gastric) contents contain acid needed to digest food. In reflux, these contents wash upward into the esophagus, a slender tube connecting the mouth and the stomach. Because the lining of the esophagus isn’t meant to touch gastric acid, the acid can irritate the lining of the esophagus and lead to bleeding and scarring. In adults, GERD can raise the risk of cancer of the esophagus. And if you have asthma, GERD can make it worse. Dr. Michael Raymond Ruggieri, Sr. of Temple University is researching the root causes of GERD. The problem isn’t that the stomach makes too much acid. In GERD, the special set of muscles between the esophagus and the stomach is weakened. “The stomach muscle fibers are not doing their job, and we’re trying to understand why they’re not,” says Dr. Ruggieri. His team is among the first to look at how nerves receive and send messages to these muscle fibers. Their goal is to develop drugs that prevent GERD altogether. People of any age can have GERD. Available medications, whether over-the-counter or prescription, can make the acid in the esophagus less intense, but medications don’t prevent GERD. Surgery can be an option if symptoms are severe and medicine and lifestyle changes don’t seem to help. For more information about steps you can take, please see the tips on page 1. If you have reflux twice or more per week, talk to your health care provider. It’s best to start treatment early to prevent GERD from leading to more serious health problems.

M

Reflux or

GERD?When

HeartburnSpells

TROUBLE

HEALTHy LIfESTyLES

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Because it tastes so good, you may assume coffee is bad for you. Maybe you’ve heard rumors that your morning brew causes everything from heart disease to cancer. But researchers are finding that coffee poses little to no health risk for most people. Not only that, coffee drinking might have some health benefits. Let’s look at some of the pros and cons of coffee.

Caffeine ConcernsCaffeine is probably the most well-known compound in coffee. It can make you feel more awake and alert, which is why most people drink coffee in the first place. But too much can be harmful. In fact, according to Harvard’s Walter Willett, caffeine causes the most common problem reported by coffee drinkers: trouble sleeping. Caffeine can also blunt your appetite and cause headaches, dizziness, nervousness and irritability. If you’re sensitive to caffeine, Willett says, simply drink less of it. If you have trouble falling asleep at night, make sure to avoid it later in the day. But be warned: caffeine is mildly addictive, so you might get headaches, drowsiness, irritability, nausea and other symptoms if you suddenly cut back. You can avoid these effects, though, by gradually reducing your caffeine intake. “There’s some evidence that high amounts of caffeine during pregnancy may cause problems with the pregnancy,” says Dr. Jared Reis of NIH’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. That’s why doctors recommend that pregnant women cut back on coffee and other caffeinated beverages. Studies also suggest that caffeine may interfere with calcium absorption. Calcium is an important nutrient for growing and maintaining strong bones. Make sure you get enough calcium in your diet to help reverse this effect.

And Now For The Good News…But here’s the good news. Overall, says Dr. Rob M. van Dam of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, “Caffeine doesn’t seem to have the wide array of detrimental health effects we first thought it had.” “Coffee’s been looked at in detail in relation to many cancers, and there’s really not been any good evidence that any type of cancer is increased by coffee consumption,” Harvard’s Willett says. “I think we can say quite confidently that there’s no increased risk of cancer with coffee consumption.” Some evidence even suggests that coffee may help reduce the risk of liver cancer. Moreover, some doctors thought coffee might cause heart attacks or strokes, because caffeine can raise blood pressure. But recent research suggests that a cup of coffee won’t lead to a dramatic increase in blood pressure for regular coffee drinkers. In fact, in long-term studies, higher levels of caffeine have not led to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease. It is hypothesized that coffee can also help your social life, if you meet good friends to talk over coffee. Studies have clearly shown that people who have more social relationships have less stress and live longer. Research also suggests they’re less likely to show mental declines as they age. So, for now, go enjoy that cup of coffee—in moderation of course. It might not be the guilty pleasure you may have thought. Stay tuned!

WhenHeartburn

Spells

TROUBLE

Coffee Conversations…Is CoffeeGood or BadFor You?

Tips For Healthier Coffee Drinking • Drink coffee that’s been filtered through paper.

• Avoid specialty coffee drinks loaded with sugar and fat, which can contribute to weight gain.

• Consider adding a little non-fat milk if you’re concerned about bone health.

• Don’t drink caffeinated coffee late in the day if you have trouble sleeping.

• Avoid caffeinated coffee if you’re pregnant.

WISE CHOICES

PAGE 7

A Publication Of The Wellness

Council Of America

Information is reviewed by a prestigious Medical Advisory Board comprised of physicians and healthcare professionals and is intended to help you make smart health decisions for yourself and your family. Although editorial content is based on sound medical information, we ask that you consult a healthcare professional for all matters of concern. We also encourage you to keep your copies to build a handy home-medical reference or recycle issues to friends and family. ©2011 Wellness Council of America, 17002 Marcy Street, Suite 140, Omaha, NE 68118; phone 402.827.3590; fax 402.827.3594; visit our Web site at www.welcoa.org. All rights reserved. ISSN 1549-9367 Executive Editor: David Hunnicutt, PhD; Vice President of Operations: Brittanie Leffelman; Director of Marketing: William M. Kizer, Jr.; Creative Project Manager: Graden Hudson; Design Consultant: Brad Norr. Information may not be reproduced, copied, cited, or circulated in any printed or electronic form without written permission from the publisher.

I N T E R A C T I V E M I N D S

Tips To Remember Your Medicines We forget things every day—people’s names, our keys—but when it comes to taking your medicines, don’t let your memory fail you. Taking medicines the right way could mean the difference between life and death.

“Keeping track of different medications can be a problem for everybody, whether you’re young or old,” says Dr. Marie Bernard, of NIH’s National Institute on Aging. The more you know about your medicines and talk with your doctor, the easier it will be to avoid problems.

Use these simple steps to remember what medicines to take, and when to take them:

� Make a daily checklist of all the prescription and over-the-counter medicines you take.

� Post your checklist in an obvious location in your home. Keep another copy in your wallet or purse.

� Use a pillbox that keeps track of a week’s worth of medications.

� Make taking medicines part of your daily routine.

� Try to fill all your prescriptions at the same pharmacy, so all your records are in one place.

� Talk to your doctor about all the medications, remedies and vitamins you use. Your doctor can make sure they’ll work together safely and effectively.

� Technology, such as cell phones, programmable wristwatches and other types of timers can remind you when it’s time to take your medications.

“We live in a wonderful age where there are a lot of good medications that can help a lot of conditions,” says Bernard. “But medications must be taken as prescribed, and always in careful coordination with your health care provider.”

Protect Your Vision �Have a comprehensive eye exam each year after age 50.

�Stop smoking.

�Eat a diet rich in green, leafy vegetables and fish.

�Exercise.

�Maintain normal blood pressure.

�Control diabetes if you have it.

�Wear sunglasses and a brimmed hat any time you’re outside in bright sunshine.

�Wear protective eyewear when playing sports or doing work around the house that may cause eye injury.

�Want to know more? See the article on pages 4-5.

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