Why are berries considered to be so healthy?

Posted June 29, 2013, 2:00 am

Berry season is here again, and I keep hearing that berries are healthy. What’s in them that makes them so good for you?

Here in the Northeast, we’re enjoying strawberries and looking forward to raspberries, blueberries and even blackberries further down the road.

Berries are perhaps the easiest way to follow the fruit part of the “eat more fruit and vegetables” advice you hear all the time, including from me. Berries naturally come in bite-sized portions. They’re sweet but have a nice low calorie count, partly because they contain a lot of water. If you don’t need to watch your calories — yes, there are people who are born thin — you can “pig out” on them. (Just don’t sprinkle much sugar on them.)

Berries contain vitamins (C and a little bit of E, because of the seeds) and some lesser-known nutrients. But they also, somewhat surprisingly, contain a fair amount of fiber. A cup of raspberries contains 8 grams of fiber, which is more fiber than you’ll find in a serving of oatmeal.

But what makes berries stand out nutritionally (and visually) are substances called anthocyanins. These substances give berries their vivid red, blue and purplish colors. Anthocyanins are antioxidants, which keep oxygen ions and other unstable molecules from damaging DNA, messing with cells’ energy-making machinery, stirring up inflammation in the body and having a variety of other harmful effects.

Vitamin supplements with antioxidants in them have generally not been proven to benefit your health as many had hoped. However, there’s still a lot of evidence that antioxidants are good for you, and foods that naturally contain antioxidants are thought to promote better health.

Anthocyanins are concentrated in the skin of berries (as well as other fruits). In general, the more intense the color, the higher the anthocyanin content. So blueberries and blackberries usually contain more anthocyanins than strawberries or raspberries. And wild berries have more antioxidants than their larger, paler, domesticated relations. Raspberries also contain a substance called ellagitannin, which imparts flavor and has antioxidant properties that add to the effects of anthocyanins.

Be sure to wash your berries right before eating them. Berries can harbor viruses, bacteria and other pathogens that cause foodborne illnesses.

For me, the best way to start a day is with a bowl of fresh, delicious berries. In fact, that’s what I had for breakfast today — with toast and coffee.

I have a patient who is very knowledgeable about food and reportedly a good cook. She once chastised me for writing about how healthy certain foods were. “The point you should be emphasizing is that they are delicious, because they are. The fact that they’re also healthy is the icing on the cake.” She’s right. And berries are healthier than the icing on the cake.

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Latest Edition of Psychiatry's 'Bible' Launched Amid Controversy

Authors say it defines disorders more concisely; critics say it will lead to over-diagnosis and unnecessary treatments

By Dennis Thompson

HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, May 17 (HealthDay News) -- As the American Psychiatric Association unveils the latest edition of what is considered the "bible" of modern psychiatry this weekend, the uproar over its many changes continues.

"This is unprecedented, the amount of commentary and debate and criticism," said Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). "It's been an interesting phenomenon, but the evidence is what it is. You have to evaluate it and then make your own determination of how compelling it is, and what would be best clinical practice."

The APA believes that changes made in this fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) will allow for more precise diagnoses of mental illnesses in patients, because this edition better characterizes and categorizes disorders.

But it has drawn fire from critics who are concerned that the revised version will lead to the diagnosis of mental illness in people who are simply being challenged by life.

More than 1,500 experts from 39 countries representing a wide variety of medical fields contributed to the new DSM-5, which was more than a decade in the making. Drafts of the manual were made available online as part of three open-comment periods that drew more than 13,000 responses.

One of the most notable naysayers has been Dr. Allen Frances, chairman of the task force that created the DSM-4, the previous version of the guide that has been in use since 1994.

In a commentary released the day of the DSM-5's release, Frances wrote that this latest revision introduces "several high-prevalence diagnoses at the fuzzy boundary with normality," and predicted that the changes "will probably lead to substantial false-positive rates and unnecessary treatment."

"In DSM-5, normal grief becomes a major depressive disorder, temper tantrums become disruptive mood dysregulation disorder, worrying about medical illness becomes somatic symptom disorder, gluttony becomes binge eating disorder and almost everyone will soon qualify for attention-deficit disorder," Frances said in an interview.

The main points of contention regarding the DSM-5 include:

The combination of a number of autism-related disorders into a single category called autism spectrum disorder. Although some clinicians believe that placing autism on a continuum from mild to severe will allow for more accurate diagnoses, others are concerned that high-functioning people with autism will find themselves unable to receive services or treatment. This is particularly true of people with Asperger's Syndrome, a diagnosis that has been eliminated from the DSM-5, critics of the new version contend.

"We're concerned that people who have Asperger's -- who have high-functioning autism -- are going to be dismissed as just being different when the majority of adults with Asperger's will need people to assist them in parts of their lives," said Karen Rodman, president and founder of Families of Adults Affected With Asperger's Syndrome.

"We are very concerned that medicine is going to drop the ball again, and the children who need services won't get them," Rodman said. "Fortunately, clinicians and physicians and the public around the world are still going to refer to Asperger's as Asperger's. It's like saying people don't have a right arm anymore.

"Many people with Asperger's are [also] concerned there will be a stigma -- that everyone will be considered autistic -- and when people think of that they think of a child sitting in a corner and spinning," Rodman added.

Changes made to the diagnostic criteria for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Critics are concerned that changes made to better diagnose ADHD will instead lead to over-diagnosis. In the previous version of the DSM, a person needed to show the onset of symptoms before age 7 to be diagnosed with ADHD. The new version now says 12 is the latest age at which ADHD symptoms can manifest themselves. The DSM-5 also reduces the number of criteria needed to arrive at a diagnoses of adult ADHD from six to five.A new diagnostic category for children who are hostile or acting out. The DSM-5 includes a new category called disruptive mood dysregulation disorder, which would apply to children who have extreme irritability but fall short of the standards for bipolar disorder or depression. The category was created to deal with the upswing in bipolar diagnoses among children, but there is concern that some clinicians will label a simple childhood temper tantrum as a treatable mental illness.Breaking out obsessive-compulsive disorders into their own category. Obsessions such as hoarding, hair-pulling and skin-picking had been considered anxiety disorders, but in the DSM-5 they will have their own category. Critics are concerned that this change has more to do with reality television's recent focus on hoarders than with the need for a new category of mental illness.

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demotivated

Hey all am haifa 21 year old student

Started my weight loss journey again on 2 of June And I had a goal of losing 1 kg/ 2 lbs a week which means 4 kgs a month It's almost the end of the month and I only lost 2 kg :'( I feel so sick and tired of my self I don't know what's wrong with my body but I don't seem like I lose weight fast It's driving me crazy

I started at 82 and reached 79 after 3 MONTHS ! Why is my body resisting weight loss ?! Please help me

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Cancer Patients May Face Higher Bankruptcy Odds

By Barbara Bronson Gray
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) -- People diagnosed with cancer are almost three times more likely to declare bankruptcy than are those without the disease, a large new study suggests.

And younger people with cancer have up to five times higher bankruptcy rates compared to older patients with the disease, the researchers found.

Of almost 200,000 people with cancer in the study based in Washington state, about 2 percent filed for bankruptcy protection after being diagnosed. Of those who were not diagnosed with cancer, 1 percent filed.

Although the risk of bankruptcy for those with cancer is still relatively low, researchers said it is significant.

"Bankruptcy is such an extreme measure of financial distress, and we didn't include the other forms of financial difficulties people encounter," said Catherine Fedorenko, a study co-author and technical project coordinator at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, in Seattle.

Whether people suffer substantial debt or have to go so far as to declare bankruptcy, their financial problems are likely to be stressful, said Karma Kreizenbeck, a study co-author and project director at the Hutchinson Institute for Cancer Outcomes Research.

"This paper shows how medical debt associated with a cancer diagnosis could be more likely to lead to a bankruptcy," Kreizenbeck said. "But it could also mean people have to take second jobs, end up with lower credit scores or have to make other decisions."

Celeste Smith, 63, was diagnosed five years ago with breast cancer. A Seattle realtor who was just starting to do well in a new job, she found she had to stop working when she was faced with months of radiation and chemotherapy. Despite the fact that she had health insurance, her mortgage and car payment bills began to mount. "It's a horrible circle trying to get over cancer and deal with all the financial stress," she said. Smith ended up filing for bankruptcy and moving from her foreclosed house to affordable living for seniors.

Researchers have noted before that the financial burden on people with cancer can be substantial. Data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey in 2004 showed that 6.5 percent of the $20.1 billion spent on cancer care by those not yet on Medicare each year comes directly from the patients themselves, according to study background information.

A small study presented last year at an American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting showed that four of every five cancer patients and their spouses or caregivers said they had concerns about meeting medical costs and suffered associated financial and mental stress.

The new research, published online May 15 and in the June print issue of Health Affairs, is based on data taken from a registry of people 21 and older who lived in Washington and were diagnosed with cancer from 1995 through 2009. They were compared to a randomly sampled population of people without cancer, matched by age, gender and ZIP code. Cancer cases were identified using a cancer registry based at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, part of a U.S. National Cancer Institute epidemiology database.

Key findings of the new study include the following:

Cancer patients were 2.65 times more likely than people without cancer to go bankrupt.Those cancer patients who filed for bankruptcy were more likely to be younger, female and nonwhite than were cancer patients who didn't file. The youngest age groups had up to 10 times the bankruptcy rate compared to the older age groups. The youngest groups in the study were diagnosed at a time when their debt was typically high and their income was not, the study noted. Bankruptcy filings went up as time went by. While the proportion of cancer patients who filed for bankruptcy within one year of diagnosis was 0.52 percent, it went up to 1.7 percent after five years. Bankruptcy rates were highest for people with the diagnosis of thyroid and lung cancer, and lowest for melanoma, breast and prostate cancer. The authors suggested that the higher rate of bankruptcy associated with thyroid cancer was likely due to the fact that it affects younger women more often than do other cancers.

The study, based on data from 1995 to 2009, did not take into account the potential impact of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, an expert pointed out.

"The problem of bankruptcy was one thing the ACA was designed to address," said Peter Cunningham, a senior fellow and director of quantitative research at the Center for Studying Health System Change, in Washington, D.C.

Cunningham expressed concern that the researchers didn't note whether the cancer patients or the control participants had health insurance. "So we don't know how much of a difference having health insurance makes in terms of avoiding bankruptcy," he said. "It would have been nice to see what the impact of health insurance coverage is in being able to prevent bankruptcy and how many people lost their health insurance coverage because of their cancer diagnosis."

What should people do to avoid the stress of money troubles when faced with a serious disease? "The study points to the value of having health insurance," Cunningham said.

Copyright © 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved. SOURCES: Catherine Fedorenko, technical project coordinator, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle; Karma Kreizenbeck, project director, Hutchinson Institute for Cancer Outcomes Research, Seattle; Peter J. Cunningham, Ph.D., senior fellow and director of quantitative research, Center for Studying Health System Change, Washington, D.C.; Celeste Smith, Seattle; June 2013, Health Affairs

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Cara Delevingne: "I want tattoos all over my body!"

Cara Delevingne: "I want tattoos all over my body!" - celebrity news (Glamour.com UK) GlamourSearch Glamour Dos & Don'ts Style Dos and Don'ts Hair Dos and Don'ts Celebrity Celebrity News Pics Just In! Celebrity Galleries Entertainment Celebrity A-Z GLAMOUR TV Quizzes Festivals Sexiest Men GLAMOUR Awards Fashion Style Tribe Shopping Celebrity Fashion Who Wore It Best? Street Style Style Jury Weddings Fashion News New Trends Catwalk Show Photos Fashion Week Beauty & Hair Hair & Hairstyles Beauty News A-List Hair & Beauty Beauty Features Get the Look GLAMOUR Apps Spas & Salons Life, Love & Sex Sex & Relationships Health & Fitness Living & Travel Horoscopes GLAMOUR Diets Love Calculator The Oracle Quizzes The Detox Bible Features Magazine The GLAMOUR List Subscribe To GLAMOUR Covers 2001-13 The Beauty Desk GLAMOUR Careers Ts and Cs Glam Happenings Digital Edition Competitions Best Dressed Comp May Beauty Giveaway Join In Newsletters Twitter Facebook GLAMOUR Apps Meet The Team //$('.adLeaderboard .no-ad,.adLeaderboard img[src$=817-grey.gif]').closest('.adLeaderboard').hide(); PushDownAd.init("http://ad.uk.doubleclick.net"); /* var PUSHDOWNAD = window.parent.EXPANDABLEAD || {}; PUSHDOWNAD.registerExpansion = function (expansionUrl) { PUSHDOWNAD.register(document.getElementById('PushDownHeaderImage'), expansionUrl); }; PUSHDOWNAD.writeHeader = function (cardImageSrc) { document.write(""); }; PUSHDOWNAD.writeExpansion = function (expansionUrl) { document.write(""); }*/ Glamour Celebrity Celebrity News Cara Delevingne: "I want tattoos all over my body!" Celebrity News Cara Delevingne: "I want tattoos all over my body!" By Rebecca Cox Friday, 17 May 2013 Tweet Getty Images Just days after showing off herfirst tattoo, Cara Delevingne has well and truly caught theink bug. 

Speaking at a party in Cannes lastnight, the supermodel revealed to GLAMOUR that shedoesn't intend to stop at the small lion tattoo on her left indexfinger. 

She toldus: "I want loads more. All over mybody!"

But you won't catch Cara in aUK tattoo parlour any time soon.

"I wouldn't go anywhere but BangBang in New York," she  continued. "Rihanna recommended me, and I'll definitely begoing back."

Other A-list clients at thefamous New York-based parlour include Cara's 'wifey' Rita Ora,Nicole Scherzinger and Justin Bieber. 

« Back to more Celebrity News Related stories Cathy Mee, Law Student Read more » Cara Delevingne returning home Read more » Cara Delevingne on the street in New York Read more » Previous Next Vote Do-Vote » Don't-Vote » Bored-Vote » Inspired-Vote » In love!-Vote » Share Your Vote Facebook» Twitter» Add your comments Your name
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I need a buddy!

28 yrs old medium build 9 months post partum. Gained way too much weight while pregnant!! I weigh about 170lbs now and am looking to get down to 128. I'm also currently breastfeeding. Anyone in a similar shaped boat?

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FDA: Lower Ambien's Dose to Prevent Drowsy Driving

Blood levels from nighttime dose of sleep aid can remain too high the next morning, agency says

By Amanda Gardner

HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved new, lower-dose labeling for the popular sleep drug Ambien (zolpidem) in an effort to cut down on daytime drowsiness that could be a hazard while performing certain tasks such as driving.

The move follows the FDA's request to manufacturers in January that drugs containing zolpidem carry instructions that lower the recommended dose and provide more safety information to patients.

"FDA has approved these changes because of the known risk of next-morning impairment with these drugs," the agency said in a statement released Tuesday on its website.

Sleep medications containing zolpidem include Ambien, Ambien CR, Edluar and Zolpimist, as well as generic versions of Ambien and Ambien CR.

"The purpose of the lowering is to help decrease the risk of next-morning impairment of activities that require alertness," Dr. Ellis Unger, director of the Office of Drug Evaluation I at the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said at the time of the agency's request to manufacturers. "We're particularly concerned about driving. A large fraction of the population drives and driving is an inherently dangerous activity."

Lowering the nighttime dose means there will be less residual drug in the blood by the time the person wakes up. Extended-release forms of the drugs tend to stay in the body longer, the FDA said.

The FDA has told manufacturers that recommended doses for women should be cut in half, from 10 milligrams to 5 milligrams for immediate-release products (Ambien, Edluar and Zolpimist) and from 12.5 mg to 6.25 mg for extended-release products (Ambien CR).

For men, the agency has asked manufacturers to change the labeling to recommend that doctors and other health-care professionals consider prescribing lower doses, meaning 5 mg for immediate-release products and 6.25 mg for extended-release products.

In explaining the different recommendations for men and women, Unger said that "women appear to be more susceptible to risk for next-morning impairment because they eliminate zolpidem from their bodies more slowly."

It's not clear why women eliminate the substance from their bodies more slowly than men.

Although there have been reports of adverse events, including motor vehicle accidents possibly related to zolpidem, the link has not and probably cannot be definitely established, Unger said.

The changes were spurred by new driving-simulation studies showing that currently prescribed levels of drugs containing zolpidem may be high enough to impair alertness the next day, he explained.

The FDA will be requiring driving-simulation studies for new sleep medications, and it is assessing other insomnia medications on the market. Eventually, Unger said, "we want driving data on all sleep medications."

Unger emphasized that next-day impairment is not limited to medications containing zolpidem but to all sleep medications.

"For all sleep medications, doctors should prescribe and patients should take the lowest dose," he said.

People taking any kind of sleep medication should not change their dose without first talking to their health-care professional, he stressed.

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