Med Health News

Category: Lifestyle

  • Experts Say Wearing Sunscreen Lowers Your Vitamin D Production: Here’s What You Should Do

    Experts Say Wearing Sunscreen Lowers Your Vitamin D Production: Here’s What You Should Do

    Wearing sunscreen is becoming more important as the ozone layer continues to be depleted and the atmosphere protects you less from the sun’s ultraviolet radiation. But now researchers are finding that protecting yourself from the sun’s UV rays with sunscreen also blocks the sunlight’s natural ability to cause vitamin D production in your body. Don’t worry – here’s how you can continue helping to prevent developing skin cancer while getting your daily vitamin D.

    Why Is Vitamin D Important for Your Health?

    Vitamin D is a critical nutrient your body needs for good bone health, mental health, and disease prevention. Your bone cells need vitamin D to build, strengthen, and maintain your bones. Without vitamin D, your bones can become brittle, and you may develop rickets or osteoporosis. Why? Because vitamin D contributes significantly to your gut’s ability to absorb calcium, and it also controls how much phosphate and calcium are circulating in your blood. Without vitamin D, insufficient calcium and phosphate would be accessible to your bone cells.

    Vitamin D has also been linked with lowering inflammation and boosting your immunity. Not getting enough vitamin D has been linked with an increased chance of catching colds and flus. Doctors also found that supplementing with vitamin D can shorten the severity and length of a flu or cold significantly.

    Vitamin D has also been linked with cancer. Researchers found that people with higher concentrations of vitamin D are 50 percent less likely to develop colorectal cancer. There is similar evidence for vitamin D intake and prostate and breast cancers.

    Vitamin D also plays a significant role in your cardiovascular health. Researchers found that low concentrations of vitamin D increase your risk for heart disease by 60 percent compared to someone with high vitamin D levels. In fact, you’re 300 percent more likely to develop hypertension if you have chronically low levels of vitamin D compared to if you’ve kept your vitamin D levels high.

    If you’re trying to lose weight or want to stay fit, researchers found that healthy vitamin D levels play a critical role. They found that most obese and overweight people have lower concentrations of vitamin D. What’s even more interesting is that they found that women who lost weight also experienced an increase in their vitamin D levels.




    Vitamin D may also be linked with diabetes. When nondiabetic patients were given 700 IU of vitamin D with calcium for three years, they experienced lower fasting plasma glucose levels.

    Vitamin D has also been found to help treat depression. Clinically depressed patients who supplemented with vitamin D for one year experienced better scores on depression tests. Low levels of vitamin D have also been linked with cognitive impairment.

    There are many more diseases that have been linked with low levels of vitamin D, including Parkinson’s disease and autoimmune disorders. In fact, high levels of vitamin D decrease your risk of developing multiple sclerosis by 62 percent compared with if you had chronically low levels. It becomes obvious from the extensive evidence and findings that vitamin D is integral to your holistic health, and having chronic low vitamin D levels can put you in danger.

    How Do You Get Your Daily Vitamin D?

    Vitamin D is mainly made by your body when your skin is exposed to sunlight. The sun’s UV radiation catalyzes a reaction that lets your skin convert compounds into inactive forms of vitamin D that then get converted to active forms by your tissues, liver, and kidneys.

    You can also get a little vitamin D from eating fish, liver, eggs, and yogurt. Because vitamin D is found in little amounts in Western diets, most commercial products, like cereals, milks, and baby formulas, are fortified with vitamin D.

    But most of these commercially processed foods and dairy products (except yogurt) are high in cholesterol, and not at the healthy end of the spectrum. If you’re a health buff, you’d most likely stay away from foods fortified with vitamin D – which leaves you relying on sun exposure as your main vitamin D source.

    Are You at Risk for low Vitamin D Levels?

    Given vitamin D’s difficult sources, it explains why the overall population’s vitamin D levels have been declining in recent years. With advancing technology, people are staying indoors more. And as people become more health-conscious and start avoiding dairy products, they consume less dietary sources of vitamin D.

    But some groups of people are more at risk for low vitamin D levels. Experts found that vegetarians, vegans, and people with milk allergies or who are lactose intolerant have a higher risk of vitamin D deficiency because they’re avoiding diary sources of vitamin D. Breastfed infants have a high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency because their mothers aren’t supplementing with enough vitamin D for both her child and herself.

    Researchers found that people with darker skin pigmentation are at risk for chronic low levels of vitamin D. Ninety-five percent of African Americans have been found to be vitamin D deficient.

    Doctors also warn those with chronic gastrointestinal disorders that affect absorption of nutrients to increase their vitamin D intake. Irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease, celiac disease, and other conditions can lower your vitamin D absorption from food. Over time, this can lead to lower levels of vitamin D.

    If you spend most of your time indoors throughout the week (working at the cubicle or at your home computer and only exercising at the gym or your home gym), you also run the risk of chronic low vitamin D levels if you aren’t supplementing with more vitamin D from food.

    As you get older, your body makes less vitamin D. If you’re getting up there in years and aren’t eating more dietary sources of vitamin D or staying in the sun longer, then you risk having chronic lower levels of vitamin D.




    But Now Scientists Discovered That Being in the Sun Isn’t Causing Enough Vitamin D Production

    As if getting vitamin D wasn’t hard enough – new findings suggest that staying out in the sun might give the false sense that you’re giving your skin what it needs to make vitamin D. Dr. Kim Pfotenhauer states in a clinical review published in The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association that wearing sunscreen with an SPF of 15 or greater blocks so much of the sun’s UV radiation that it lowers your skin’s sun-catalyzed vitamin D production by 99 percent!

    That means that if you’re being responsible and health-conscious by protecting yourself from skin cancer by wearing sunscreen everytime you plan on exposing yourself to the sun’s harmful UV rays, you’re also practically cutting off a source of vitamin D without even knowing it.

    But does that mean that you should stop wearing sunscreen or wear lower SPF protection? No!

    Here’s What You Must Do to Get Your Daily Vitamin D Without Sacrificing Skin Protection

    Wearing sunscreen is mandatory if you’re going to spend time in the sun, especially between 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.. The sun’s harmful UV radiation can cause skin cancer and speed up signs of aging (like wrinkles, lines, and roughness of your skin).

    But what should you do about your sunscreen blocking 99 percent of your skin’s vitamin D production? You can up your dietary intake of vitamin D by incorporating your own vitamin D-infused mushrooms into your daily diet.

    The American College of Healthcare Sciences says that if you place your grocery-bought mushrooms on a sunny windowsill for a couple of hours, they’ll start making vitamin D via similar chemical processes that happen when your skin is exposed to sunlight.

    Any mushroom will do, but different mushrooms produce varying levels of vitamin D. For example, every 100 grams of portabella mushrooms make 835 IU of vitamin D. You should choose mushrooms based on their nutrition and not their vitamin D-producing capacity. Among the top picks are shiitake and chaga mushrooms, which have some of the highest antioxidant activities and are being investigated as potential supplemental cancer therapies.

    Eating your naturally vitamin D-enriched mushrooms as a dietary source of vitamin D is the solution that lets you up your vitamin D levels without resorting to eating more mercury-contaminated fish or unhealthy dairy products, or exposing yourself to more harmful UV radiation.

    Mushrooms are vegan-friendly and a clean source of protein and omega-3 fatty acids, which do wonders for your brain and heart. They’re also filled with antioxidants and nice sources of some vitamins and minerals.

    Unlike dairy products, these holistically healthy properties are why health buffs encourage you to incorporate mushrooms into your daily diet as a replacement for proteins sourced from meat, which have been found to increase your risk for cancer by 13 percent. (Whereas mushrooms’ antioxidants fight cancer.)

    You can also take a daily vitamin D supplement, but here you run the risk of a vitamin D overdose if you don’t watch your dosage. Vitamin D supplements are also less economically savvy than mushrooms because all you’re getting is pure vitamin D without the additional natural nutrients of mushrooms, which are cheaper than the supplements.

    Now that you’re more aware of vitamin D’s role in your holistic health, you should up your dietary intake by mixing your sunbathed-mushrooms into your daily salads and meals. Continue wearing sunscreen because it protects your skin from cancer and accelerated aging from contact with the sun. If you’re breastfeeding an infant, it’s important to double your vitamin D intake because you’re the main source of your baby’s vitamin D.

  • Here’s Some Hope for Lazy Dieters – Research Shows You Don’t Need to Be Fully Committed to Lose Weight

    Here’s Some Hope for Lazy Dieters – Research Shows You Don’t Need to Be Fully Committed to Lose Weight

    New research finds that fasting regularly on some days, then going back to your normal diet on other days works just as well as the normal weight loss method of being on a calorie-restricted daily diet.

    Have you been putting off losing weight because you feel it’s too hard to stay on a strict diet for weeks or months? The idea certainly is daunting – it’s easy to go on a diet for a whole day, but if you had to do it every single day for over a month, it just feels like tremendous work and sacrifice. But now researchers say going on these one-day diets can help you lose just as much weight as diligently dieting everyday.

    The Comprehensive Weight Loss Study Followed Dieters for Four Years – Not Just Months

    Researchers wanted to see if regularly fasting on alternate days can help you lose weight in the long run. They took 100 adults suffering from obesity and gave them one of three eating regimens: an alternate-day fasting diet, a mainstream calorie-restricted daily diet, and no diet at all. The no diet group served as the control group for researchers to compare both diet regimen results to.

    The group with the calorie-restricted daily diet could only eat up to 2,000 calories everyday, which is 75 percent of the average calories people eat daily.

    The group with the alternate-day fasting diet enjoyed a lot of freedom. They only dieted three to four days out of the week, and during their non-diet days they could eat up to 2,500 calories, which is about 125 percent of the recommended daily calorie intake. But during their diet days, they could only eat 25 percent of the normal daily calorie intake — which is only 500 calories.

    All three groups followed their diet regimens for 365 days. Surprisingly, the alternate-day fasting diet group lost more weight than the group diligently following the everyday calorie-restricted diet! They lost 6 percent of their original weight relative to the control group who didn’t change their eating habits. The daily calorie-restricted diet group only lost 5.3 percent.

    What makes this even more amazing is that the alternate-day fasting diet group also ate more calories than they were supposed to during their fasting days, but less than they were allowed to on their off days. Whereas the daily calorie-restricted diet group mostly kept within their prescribed calories.

    Despite the alternate-day fasting diet group eating almost whatever they wanted during their off days, they had almost the same blood pressure, heart rate, and blood levels of fat, sugar, insulin, and other relevant metabolic blood factors. But during the sixth month, the alternate-day fasting diet group experienced higher cholesterol levels than the calorie-restricted daily diet group. But by the 12th month, both groups had almost identical metabolic parameters again.

    The researchers went on to study the participants and run more trials for four more years.




    A Great Option for People Who Can’t Stick to a Diet

    The alternate-day fasting diet group lost almost 12 percent more weight than the calorie-restricted daily diet group. But researchers say the difference in negligible and both groups should be treated as losing almost the same amount of weight.

    What does this mean for you? If it’s too hard to diet everyday, you can go on a more stringent, calorie-limited diet for a couple of days, then switch back to your normal diet. If you keep doing this, you’ll end up losing as much weight long-term as if you had been following a less stringent diet everyday. Doing so has also been found to be just as safe as dieting everyday.

    Think of it this way – let’s say you were planning on dieting for a month. That means you just need to fast for a cumulative of 30 days. Every day that you fast is one day completed of your 30-day diet. Even if it takes you 90 days to complete 30 days of fasting, you’ll lose the same weight as though you dieted for a month!

  • Cellphones Have Been Officially Recognized as Causing Brain Cancer: Here Are Some Ways to Keep Yourself Safe

    Cellphones Have Been Officially Recognized as Causing Brain Cancer: Here Are Some Ways to Keep Yourself Safe

    In Italy, a court made a decision that might prove medically noteworthy. They found that a man’s brain tumor was caused by cellphone usage. It’s difficult not to use a cellphone in this modern era, so here are ways to help lower your risks for developing cancer.

    Cellphone Use Legally Linked With Causing Brain Cancer

    Robert Romero was required to use his cellphone for three hours daily for 15 years while working for Telecom Italia. He developed a brain tumor and the court found that it was caused by his cellphone usage.

    He was awarded about $7,500 per year in damages for the rest of his life. It’s a weird monetary award from an American perspective because it could be on the low end of the spectrum or on the very high end, depending on whether he dies of old age or gets hit by a car the very next day.

    The legal decision is a silent opening of a floodgate. One consumer welfare group has already started the flood by initiating a class action suit to force all cellphone companies to add a warning label about the risks of brain cancer and cellphone usage.

    But Does Using Your Cellphone Cause Brain Cancer?

    Everyone uses a cellphone, especially now that smartphones are becoming more common and accessible to all ages. Smartphones are becoming a necessity because of their internet capabilities. Many stores have QR codes placed on their wares, which gives shoppers with smartphones a price advantage over those who don’t. But is all this cellphone usage putting everyone at risk for brain cancer?

    The National Institutes of Health conclude that cellphones don’t cause brain cancer, in general. They say that cellphones emit radiofrequency energy that doesn’t damage or change DNA, but does cause nearby living tissue to heat up. After reviewing numerous studies, they found no statistically significant increased risk of brain cancer with normal cellphone usage.

    But they did mention that in more than one study, brain cancer was more prevalent in heavy cellphone users, like Robert Romero. But they haven’t cited any studies that focused on heavy cellphone usage only.

    In a more recent study with rats, heavy radiofrequency energy exposure has been found to cause higher rates of brain and heart tumors. But the study is small, and further research must be done for experts to make a definite conclusion.




    Cellphones Lower Male Fertility

    What researchers are sure of is that being near cellphones or talking on a cellphone lowers male fertility. They found that men who talked for longer than an hour a day on their cellphone or had their cellphones close to their groins for a significant period of time experienced lower sperm counts and lower semen quality.

    What’s the Takeaway?

    It seems like the human and rat studies point to one unofficial conclusion: Using your cellphone for longer than normal can lead to brain cancer and a decrease in male fertility. The Italian courts state that an hour a day is normal cellphone usage.

    To be safe and lower your risk for cancer and decreased fertility, don’t use or be near your cellphone for longer than an hour a day. If you need to talk on your cellphone for longer than that, use a headset and keep your cellphone a safe distance away, like on the table or a seat next to you.

    To lower your exposure to your cellphone’s radiofrequency energy, don’t keep your cellphone in your pockets, but store them in a carry-on bag. Also never sleep with your cellphone close to your body – keep it on a nearby table.

    How to Naturally Lower Your Risk for Developing Cancer

    It’s highly unpractical for you to avoid your cellphone on a daily basis, especially if you’re a corporate person. But there are healthy ways you can help protect yourself from developing cancer:

    Try to avoid red meat. Harvard finds that one additional serving of unprocessed red meat increases your risk for total mortality, including cancer, by 13 percent. If it’s processed meat, the increased risk is 20 percent!

    Eat vegetables with every meal. Vegetables, especially cruciferous vegetables, are high in antioxidants. These protective compounds circulate through your body once absorbed and neutralize toxins, free radicals, and other cancer-causing pollutants in your system. As a bonus, they also help slow signs of aging.

    Exercise more. Researchers found that exercising more than 150 minutes every week lowers your risk for 17 different types of cancer, including lung, breast, and brain cancer, by at least 20 percent. But you need to be exercising at a moderate intensity level – leisurely walks won’t do, but leisurely jogs fit the bill.

    Incorporating these cancer-protective things into your regular regimen can help offset the increased cancer risk from using your cellphone daily.

  • Doctors Now Think Drinking Diet Soda Can Cause Dementia and Stroke

    Doctors Now Think Drinking Diet Soda Can Cause Dementia and Stroke

    Do you think it’s healthier to drink diet soda? Doctors say that may not be the case. They actually found that drinking diet soda can increase your risk for certain diseases that sugar-sweetened drinks don’t!

    The Hidden Dangers of Sugary Drinks

    That commercial-colored, fun label on that can in the vending machine might look appealing and friendly to drink because of the company endorsement. But it’s giving you a false sense of security – that multi-colored can’s contents can be just as deadly as eating a fatty steak.

    New research finds that 184,000 adults around the world die from drinking sugary drinks (excluding 100 percent fruit juice). These are mostly due to diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. Most of these deaths are within the younger demographics, where artificial sugary drinks are more popular.

    Switching to Diet Soda Might Not Be Better

    Even if you’re aware of the dangers of sugary sodas and try to be responsible by switching to diet soda, it might not save your health that much. Researchers found a correlation between drinking artificially sweetened drinks (like diet sodas that use lower-calorie sweeteners) and dementia and stroke. But they were surprised they didn’t find a correlation between stroke and dementia and drinking normal soda and sugary commercial drinks, like soda sweetened with natural sugar.

    These researchers found that drinking one diet soda a day increases your risk for developing dementia and an ischemic stroke by 300 percent. But if you only drink between one to six diet sodas in the span of seven days, you don’t have an increased risk for developing dementia, but still are 260 percent more likely to have an ischemic stroke caused by blocked blood vessels.

    The good news is that the researchers only studied people 45 and up. That means that diet soda probably isn’t as harmful to you if you’re below middle age.

    Possible Explanations for Diet Soda’s Deleterious Effects

    The researchers only found a link between artificially sweetened drinks and these increased risks. They’re still not sure how diet soda is causing harm to your brain. Neurology professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Dr. Ralph Sacco, says that the chemicals in the artificially sweetened drinks may be destroying blood vessels.

    He says that dementia and strokes can be caused by hardening of the blood vessels. He theorizes that artificially sweetened drinks gradually contribute to vascular disease.

    Another possible mechanism is that diet soda makes you eat more. When your body tastes something sweet, it activates a neural pathway in your brain that makes you want to keep eating it. But, when your body digests the carbs from natural sugars, it activates a reward pathway in your brain that sates you and stops the craving.

    But when you drink a diet soda with zero-calorie sweeteners, you’re tasting something sweet but there are no calories to sate the cravings it causes. You end up seeking carbs from other sources to fill in what’s missing – and that may lead to overeating, which is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and dementia in the long term.

    Even if you can control your carbs and enjoy diet soda, it may still be harming your blood vessels in other ways. It’s best to cut any kind of unhealthy commercial drink from your everyday diet and stick to natural fruit juices, which are loaded with antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals. Try refrigerated grape juice with your next meal – you might not notice a difference!