Now that the New Year is in full swing, we need all the strength we can muster to cope with the barrage of usually bad news that will hit us in the media. Here are some health tips for the coming year based on scientific research gleaned in 2004.
What’s good for you…
Weddings…
apparently are great for women but not for men. No wonder locally more men tend to be in favour of divorce than women. Apparently those women who marry their first love have the best mental health, while the most contented of men are the serially monogamous – those who have a series of partners and remain faithful to each one. However marriage does significantly improve the happiness of one group of men. Delinquent males who marry are significantly less likely to turn crime into their career. Perhaps we should have a good marriage guidance and encouragement service at those facilities which help delinquents locally.
Love…
as opposed to marriage. Apparently while love can also break your heart, a study published in May showed that a very good friend or lover does lessen the risk of cardiac patients having a second heart attack. So if you can’t stop smoking make sure you are surrounded by love.
Music lessons…
are apparently great for kids’ brain power according to a study published in August. While it’s always been known that kids with a musical instrument do better at school, this was thought to be linked to class and status. However a study on children from all backgrounds who had music lessons for six months showed improvements in IQ tests, so there you go…perhaps it would be better to have more music as part of our curriculum here than… what’s that subject… Systems of Knowledge. Sends shivers down my spine...
Blueberries and Brazil nuts…
Blueberries are now the new wonder food according to research published in September. Apparently they are not only good at keeping cancer at bay and boosting memory, but also helped to reduce cholesterol as much as certain prescription drugs. The US table of the 40 best foods is now topped by blueberries.
Retailers please note. All we can find here is perhaps blueberry jam!
Brazil nuts are equally magical as they apparently contain a mineral found to prevent cancers in the liver, lung, pancreas, prostate… the list is endless.
Drinking tea
This is good news for all tea-drinking anglophiles but not too hot for cappuccino addicts like me.
Tea can make our memories sharper and keep Alzheimer’s at bay. Tests in November showed both black and green tea have this beneficial effect, in rats at least.
And some things we were told to avoid...
Sleep
We all need sleep but not too much apparently. Seven to eight hours is optimum, but those who sleep more than that seem to suffer the same side effects as those who don’t sleep enough.
Vitamin supplements…
These had a bad year really. In October a review of 14 separate trials involving Vitamin C, which included almost 200,000 people, found that taking it seemed to increase rather than decrease mortality rate – by six per cent no less. Vitamin E was even worse, with those taking high doses of it having an increase risk of dying early of 10 per cent.
And we can’t forget that in 2002 cardiac patients who took multi vitamins had none of the benefits hoped for. There was no protection against heart attacks, strokes or cancers over a five-year timescale.
Wheat
This was put forward as a possible dyslexia trigger in June. While there is no scientific proof, it is gaining momentum as a theory when all the dyslexic pupils in a school were put on a wheat free diet for six months. Six months later 11 out of 12 had improved their reading ages by one year.
Salt
Well, we’ve known about this for some time but nutritionists go on hitting on this one. No more than six grams a day but half of us in the western world at least regularly take more than double that dose.
Breakfast cereals
These had bad press in the UK in April when their Press Association warned how many of them had very unhealthy levels of salt and sugar. Sadly the worst culprits were those targeted at children. I won’t name names here but it’s just not the best way to start your kids day, although it does make them happy and is very easy for us mums.
Try porridge instead or fruit or bread and cheese…easier written than done I know!
A bit like persuading people that throwing away 52 million bags of plastic is just doing us too much harm. Hopefully it won’t take too many more tsunamis, freak floods in Scotland, people dying in the north of France, mudslides in California, for us all to grow up and realise that we can’t go on as we are. And it may already be too late.
At least we can tell our kids and our grandchildren that we did try and didn’t just waste our time wailing about public holidays that fall on a weekend.
Though, of course, workers should keep the higher rates of pay for working on public holidays.
No health tips as to what would make our Malta Council for Social and Economic leaders work together instead of the opposite, I’m afraid!
We will all have to grow up eventually and adopt healthier attitudes to each other.