Eating the Mediterranean diet may lead to a longer life

“Who knew! Great read below. I’m off to Panini Grill!”

— Dr. Dale

http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/03/health/mediterranean-diet-longevity/index.html?hpt=he_bn6
By Christina Lee, Special to CNN

(CNN) -- Eating a Mediterranean diet may be your key to living longer. That's according to a new study led by Immaculata De Vivo, associate professor at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and Harvard Medical School.

The diet involves eating items off a menu that is rich in vegetables, fruits, nuts, beans and peas, unrefined grains, olive oil and fish. It keeps dairy, meat and saturated fats to a minimum. And you can have a glass of red wine with dinner without cheating.

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The diet has been consistently linked with health benefits that includes helping you manage your weight, and it can lower your risk for chronic issues such as cardiovascular disease.

This new research looks at data from 4,676 healthy middle-aged women involved in the Nurses' Health Study, an ongoing study tracking the health of more than 120,000 U.S. nurses since 1976.

It found women who ate a Mediterranean diet had longer telomeres.

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Telomeres are part of your chromosomes, the thread-like structures that house your DNA. At the end of these chromosomes are telomeres, a kind of protective "cap" that keeps the structure from unraveling. It thereby protects your genetic information.

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Even in healthy people, telomeres shorten with age. Shorter telomeres are associated with aging, lower life expectancy and age-related diseases such asartherosclerosis, certain cancers and liver disease.

Scientists have noticed some lifestyle choices such as smoking, being overweight or obese and drinking a lot ofsugar sweetened drinks can prematurely shorten a person's telomeres.

Scientists believe oxidative stress and inflammation can also shorten them.

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Fruits, vegetables, olive oils and nuts -- the key components of a Mediterranean diet -- have well-known antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. The team of U.S. researchers led by De Vivo therefore wanted to see whether the women who stuck with this diet had longer telomeres.

"This is the largest population-based study addressing the association between Mediterranean diet adherence and telomere length in healthy, middle aged women," they write. The study included completed detailed food questionnaires and blood tests to measure telomere length.

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Each participant had a calculated diet score ranging from 0 to 9 points; a higher score signifies a closer resemblance to the Mediterranean diet. Each one point change in diet score corresponded an average of 1.5 years of telomere aging.

Telomere shortening is irreversible but healthy "lifestyle choices can help prevent accelerated shortening," says De Vivo.

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This study's results provide "some insight into the underlying physiologic mechanism behind this association," indicating that greater adherence to this diet is significantly associated with longer telomeres, she says. Because of the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects of the Mediterranean diet, following this diet "could balance out the 'bad effects' of smoking and obesity," De Vivo says.

These findings further support "the health benefits of greater adherence to the Mediterranean diet for reduction of overall mortality, increased longevity and reduced incidence of chronic diseases, especially major cardiovascular diseases."

None of the individual dietary components was associated with telomere length. Researchers suggest that means the whole diet is an important element, rather than one item being a kind of superfood.

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Dr. Peter Nilsson, a professor of Clinical Cardiovascular Research at Lund University in Sweden, who wrote an accompanying editorial, suggests that the variation in telomere length and dietary patterns may also be because of genetic background factors.

While promising, Nilsson believes that future studies "should take into account the possibility of interactions between genes, diet and sex."

With these results, De Vivo and her research team hope in the future to figure out which components of the Mediterranean diet may be having a bigger impact on telomere length.

Next they also hope to study the same thing in men.

Celiac Disease Showing Up in Many Forms and at All Ages

“It’s nice to see more emphasis and greater study put toward celiac research. ”

— Dr. Dale

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/835567
By Janice Neumann

(Reuters Health) - A classical set of celiac disease symptoms no longer reflects the profile of most newly-diagnosed patients, according to a new study from Italy.

Instead, doctors should take other symptoms into account and consider the possibility of celiac disease, even when patients don't fit the old image of the condition, researchers say.

"It's been a gradual phenomenon since the 1970s that fewer people are presenting with the classical diarrhea and more with non-classical or silent presentation, both in adults and children," said Dr. Peter Green, who wasn't involved in the study.

"We don't actually know why one person has diarrhea and another presents with abdominal pain or osteoporosis," said Green, director of the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University in New York.

Dr. Umberto Volta and his coauthors wrote November 18 online in the journal BMC Gastroenterology that just 15 years ago, celiac disease was still thought of mainly as a rare pediatric food intolerance, whose most common signs were diarrhea and intestinal damage.

Volta, a professor of medicine at the University of Bologna in Italy and vice president of the Ethical Committee at St. Orsola-Malpighi University Hospital, and colleauges looked at the celiac patients diagnosed over the course of 15 years at that hospital.

The study involved 770 patients, 599 of them female, diagnosed between 1998 and 2007. Nearly half were diagnosed during the first 10 years of the study period and the rest in the last five years, indicating a steep rise in rates of diagnosis.

Among all the patients, 610 people, or 79%, had symptoms when they were diagnosed. But most of their problems were not the typical diarrhea and weight loss, but rather "non-classical" issues like bloating, osteoporosis and anemia. Diarrhea was a symptom in just 27%.

Indeed, classical symptoms became less common over the years, decreasing from 47% of patients during the first 10 years to 13% in the last five. Meanwhile, other problems, as well as a lack of any significant related illness, increased by more than 86%.

"The most striking change in clinical presentation of celiac disease over time has been the decrease of diarrhea as the leading symptom and the progressive increase of other non-classical gastrointestinal symptoms (such as constipation, bloating and alternate bowel habits as well as gastro-esophageal reflux, nausea, vomiting and dyspepsia)," Volta said in an e-mail to Reuters Health.

"A high proportion of celiac disease patients did not show any gastrointestinal symptom, but they displayed extra-intestinal manifestations such as iron-deficiency anemia, unexplained osteoporosis, abnormalities of liver-function tests and recurrent miscarriages," he said.

The most common illness associated with celiac was thyroid disease. Only half the patients had severe intestinal damage.

In later years, more patients were diagnosed with blood tests. That may be one factor accounting for the changing pattern of typical symptoms, Volta said, because the patients were diagnosed earlier.

"The effects of gluten weren't as severe yet," Volta said. "The story of celiac disease has been radically changed by the discovery celiac disease-related antibodies, which identify plenty of unsuspected cases."

Green agreed that testing has vastly improved diagnosis of the disease. He said that in the UK, anyone with iron deficiency or migraine is tested for celiac disease.

While most celiac specialists understand the varied symptoms, other physicians might not, he said. Green pointed out that in the United States, only 17% of people with the disease are actually diagnosed.

"Anyone can have celiac disease, it's common and underdiagnosed," said Green. "The message we want to get out is if you think you've got celiac disease, don't just go on a gluten-free diet, test for it."

Volta said he hoped the study reminded doctors about the many problems that can signal celiac disease.

"I hope doctors keep in mind that celiac disease is a very frequent food intolerance, which should be investigated not only in patients with diarrhea and overt malabsorption, but also in people (with other symptoms)," Volta said.

"The treatment by gluten-free diet improves the quality of life in symptomatic patients and prevents complications in all celiac disease patients including those without symptoms," he said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1ATNpT3

BMC Gastroenterol 2014.

Hate being alone?

Check out this article by Alena Hall via the Huffington Post.  Very interesting! -- Dr. Dale

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Why You Can't Stand To Be Alone -- And How To Learn To Love It

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/09/how-to-be-alone-loneliness-coping-strategies-tips_n_5737600.html?utm_hp_ref=healthy-living

For many of us, the idea of being alone conjures up a sense of dread. Maybe it’s the sense of boredom, or the feelings of isolation, or being forced to confront our own thoughts. In fact, a recent study in the journal Science showed that people would rather give themselves electric shocks than be alone with their thoughts for just 15 minutes.

But turns out, there’s a difference between being alone and feeling lonely. Even though we may use the phrases interchangeably in conversation, psychotherapist and HuffPost blogger Ross Rosenberg, who also authored The Human Magnet Syndrome: Why We Love People Who Hurt Us, explains that they’re actually two distinct concepts.

The main distinguisher: Being alone is a physical description (meaning when we are alone, we are just not with people), while loneliness is a feeling that often is experienced as negative and painful. “You can be alone and happy, you can be alone and lonely,” Rosenberg explains. “The idea of being alone is what you make of it."

Many people who struggle with feelings of loneliness can link their struggles to deeper roots. According to Rosenberg, loneliness is a feeling fueled by trauma, loss and grief, a lack of self-esteem, and insecurity. Those who lead healthy, balanced lives are better equipped to face these negative experiences because they have both internal and external resources that help guide them through the process -- from a sense of community to a strong and positive self-concept.

"Loneliness is a normal part of the human existence," Rosenberg says. “We all feel lonely, but chronic, pathological loneliness is a deeply embedded pattern that is self-reinforcing. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Healthy, resilient people respond to normal loneliness by resolving it. Unhealthy people become overwhelmed by it."

Personality type is also a big factor when it comes to who experiences discomfort from being alone. Introverts -- who lose energy from being around others -- may find alone time more desirable than extroverts, who instead gain energy from the company of others.

“If you’re an extrovert, you are comfortable and feel compelled to be around other people. It is just the way you are genetically set up. If you’re an extrovert and you’re not around people, you feel uncomfortable and if you’re psychologically healthy, you use internal and external resources to be around people,” Rosenberg explains. “If you’re an introvert and you like being alone, that’s also completely psychologically healthy. You can be very secure and self-confident and still be very nervous around crowds of people, but you have friends and loved ones, and those are the resources that make an introvert feel just fine when they’re alone."

At the end of the day, whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, all humans experience feelings of loneliness. And many do so during the times they are physically alone. But it doesn't have to be that way. Here are seven ways people who struggle with "me" time can learn to like it, and maybe even love it.

Consider the root causes.

Take the time to ask yourself where the discomfort of solitude comes from. Is it true feelings of loneliness or something else? If it's the former, explore what that means for you and come to the realization that loneliness usually can be traced back to an unpleasant experience or past memory. To truly understand what makes being alone so painful, you must recognize that it comes from a deeper situation -- no matter how uncomfortable it may be to do so, Rosenberg says.

Just do it.

With any uncomfortable situation, sometimes you have to push past the negative thoughts and hesitations and just take the plunge. The same goes for being alone. More often than not, the result will be far more positive than you anticipated.

"It’s like jumping in the pool when you know it’s cold," Rosenberg says. "Everyone knows that once you jump in the pool and get past the coldness, you’re going to have a blast and not even notice it’s cold anymore. You have to tell yourself that that shock to the system is only fleeting and that you're going to enjoy yourself."

It's all about addressing what are called "cognitive distortions," or things that tell us that the pain is not going to be worth it. "We have to actually tell ourselves the opposite," Rosenberg says. "We have to do reverse self-talk."

Explore new hobbies.

Some people who find that they don't like spending time alone are simply bored when they do so. By spending the majority of their time entertaining others, they haven't learned how to entertain themselves. To remedy this, you must retrain the mind by developing habits and hobbies that can consume your attention, inspire your creativity and spark your imagination, Rosenberg says. It may not come naturally at first, and it will likely require experimentation with different activities, but you get that much closer by taking the first step.

Deepen your relationships.

It might sound counterintuitive, but the strength of your relationships can speak bounds to how secure you feel when spending time alone. A lack of depth and connection can make you feel less heard, understood, appreciated or secure in the fact that you do have someone to call should you need to.

"To solve that problem, deepen your relationships, take risks," Rosenberg advises. "Knowing that there are people out there that love you whom you can call will solve your feelings in one of two ways: You’ll actually call them, or you'll just know that you can call them and that will make you feel better. It makes you feel less lonely in your world, and paradoxically, you don’t need to call them because you know they’re out there."

Opt for a change of scenery.

If you hate being alone because you feel stir crazy at home, a change in location could do the trick. Rosenberg suggests doing something new like visiting a museum.

"Do something you’ve never done," he advises. "Step out of your comfort zone physically. At the very least, it will make time pass quicker, and you might find that you actually enjoy yourself."

Think back to your childhood.

A critical component of feeling comfortable spending time alone is the ability to self-soothe, a coping technique learned at a very young age. According to Rosenberg, people with the ability to self-soothe mostly likely had a healthy early childhood, where their parents met their needs unconditionally and in a timely way. And unfortunately, people without this kind of upbringing may struggle more with self-soothing because it isn't something that can often be learned after adolescence.

"If the world around you feels trustworthy, you experience the world as safe. But if you have an early childhood experience when your parent could not or did not meet your nurturing and safety needs, you don’t feel secure in your world -- and as an adult you have to keep trying to bring people into your world to soothe that feeling," he explains.

Ask for help.

Through this self-exploration process, if you find you experience less the physical discomfort of of being alone and more the consistent feelings of loneliness, don't hesitate to reach out for help. According to Rosenberg, psychotherapy is one of the best ways to address chronic loneliness that is debilitating and self-perpetuating. Talking through the parts of life that engender those feelings is critical to discovering the many mindful benefits that solitude can offer.