Med Health News

Tag: red meat

  • 3 Ways to Be Kinder to Your Father’s Heart This Father’s Day

    3 Ways to Be Kinder to Your Father’s Heart This Father’s Day

    Father’s Day has come and you’re probably all geared up to spend the day with your loving dad. While making your dad happy today to show your appreciation for all that he’s done for you is great, you should also consider his health. Here’s what you should know about the number one disease that most dads in America should watch out for.

    We all love our dads, and Father’s Day is the one day out of the year officially dedicated to them! It’s when you show how much you love your father by spoiling him more than you usually do – like spending the whole day doing everything he loves and buying him something that would make him happy. But filling your dad’s heart with joy can be different from keeping his heart happy – and spending the day eating barbecued hot dogs and burgers while watching the game might make him happy, but it also taxes his heart physically.

    It’s equally important to be more mindful of your dad’s health on Father’s Day because you want him to be happy and live long. And the number one disease that kills most men is heart disease. You should help protect your dad’s heart by being aware of what’s bad for his heart and what you can do to protect it.

    You can start by planning a heart-healthy Father’s Day with these suggestions:

    1. Try Vegan Hot Dogs and Burgers

    Red meat, especially processed meat, has been linked with increasing your risk for heart disease. For one, they’re filled with bad cholesterol and saturated fat. But researchers have also found that red meat has a lot of L-carnitine, which your gut bacteria turn into trimethylamine-N-oxide (or TMAO) during your digestive processes. TMAO has been found to cause atherosclerosis in mice, and researchers found that people who eat unprocessed red meat have a higher risk of developing heart disease.

    But people who eat processed meats have an even higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease because of their nitrate and sodium content.

    How can you enjoy burgers and hot dogs with dear dad without harming his heart? They may sound gross, but try vegan burgers and hot dogs. They’re made from tofu, which is soy and it’s been found to help protect your heart.




    2. Do Laps With Dad During Game Breaks

    Inactivity has been found to increase your risk for heart disease. In fact, researchers found that every hour you spend sitting increases your chances of dying prematurely from heart disease or other lifestyle diseases. If your dad’s ideal day is watching the game, then there’s going to be a whole lot of sitting.

    But if you both run rally laps around the living room or outside during intermissions, you can help mitigate the effects of prolonged sitting. Running is also great exercise for the heart and helps improve cardiovascular function.

    3. Visit a Bathhouse

    Mix in a relaxing visit to a sauna or hot spring this Father’s Day. Hot springs and saunas are very therapeutic, and researchers found that regularly sauna bathing every week lowers your risk of heart disease by over 20 percent. It explains why heart disease is less statistically prevalent in Asia and Finland, where sauna bathing is a cultural norm.

    Remember to care for your dad’s health this Father’s Day so you can share more Father’s Days with him! Try these three tips to make this Father’s Day healthier for his heart, and hopefully you can incorporate them into his and your daily lives for better long-term heart-protective effects.

  • Can Living a Healthier Lifestyle Help Cure Colon Cancer?

    Can Living a Healthier Lifestyle Help Cure Colon Cancer?

    Researchers found that colon cancer patients who lived healthier lifestyles had a higher rate of staying in remission.

    Colon cancer is one of the deadliest cancers. Patient survival rates are between 92 to 11 percent within the first five years after diagnosis, depending on the stage of the cancer. But for patients who do survive and go into remission, researchers have found that living a healthier life can drastically increase the length of their remission.

    The American Cancer Society released lifestyle guidelines for cancer patients that advised maintaining a healthy body weight, exercising regularly, not drinking too much alcohol or drinking little alcohol, and eating an ounce of tree nuts twice or more weekly. After studying 1000 colon cancer patients in remission, they found that those who followed these recommended lifestyle guidelines had between a 47 to 51 percent lower risk of their cancer recurring for the next 7 to 10 years. Patients who drank more alcohol ended up near the higher end of the risk spectrum.

    This means that simply living a healthier life can cut your odds of cancer recurrence by half for about a decade if you’re in colon cancer remission. The American Cancer Society’s lifestyle recommendations are:

    • Maintain a healthy body mass index.
    • Exercise for 150 minutes total weekly. Do strength training twice weekly.
    • Eat a diet high in vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.
    • Eat 1-ounce of tree nuts at least twice a week. Peanuts and peanut butter are not considered tree nuts.
    • Limit alcohol consumption. Drink little to no alcohol.



    Other Factors That May Affect Colon Cancer Remission

    If you’d like to enjoy less risk of any form of colon cancer coming back, limit or remove red meat from your diet. Harvard Medical School says their review of research concludes that eating processed or fresh red meat increases your risk for developing colon cancer by about 33 percent.

    Why does eating red meat contribute to causing colon cancer? Researchers found that your body converts some compounds present in red meat into N-nitroso compounds (NOCs), which are carcinogens. They found that people who ate a diet rich in red meat had higher levels of NOCs in their stool, whereas people on a vegetarian diet had low levels of NOCs in their stools. The researchers then took samples of colon cells from people with high-NOC stools and discovered that the cells’ DNA was damaged. They concluded that eating red meat directly damages colon cells’ DNA. Chronic ongoing damage to DNA is a significant risk factor for developing cancer.

    The good news is that eating fresh chicken didn’t seem to increase colon cancer risk. They also found that eating fish lowers your risk for developing colon cancer by 33 percent. Also, people who ate red meat accompanied by a high amount of fiber had less levels of NOCs in their stools, but still more NOCs than the stools of people on a vegetarian diet.

    Avoid developing colon cancer and colon cancer recurrence by living healthier. Exercise regularly, stay away from red meat, enjoy a vegetarian-like diet with fish, eat more tree nuts, and stay away from alcohol. But you can also have chicken once in a while, which doesn’t seem to affect colon cancer risk unless you eat it burned or charred. If you’re going to eat red meat, then include a high amount of fiber with your meal to help lower the NOC levels in your GI tract.