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Holiday meals offer an opportunity to indulge in some favorite foods. Now for those who want to enjoy healthier versions of these holiday treats, a registered dietitian from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston offers some easy suggestions. Veggies can help with the post-meal fatigue you usually feel after a big meal, said Courtney Cary, who works in the Department of Medicine–Gastroenterology and Hepatology. Fiber from veggies can help, even when those veggies are creamed or part of a casserole. Instead of using heavy cream in green bean casserole or creamed spinach, use fat-free half and half. You’ll still get a creamy flavor, but with little saturated fat. Replace the solid fat in a recipe with butter or oil to make more heart-healthy dishes, Cary suggests. Use low-fat or part-skim cheese to decrease the saturated fat further. Get creamy mashed potatoes by using butter and skim milk instead of butter and heavy cream. “Eating decadent and rich food one day out of the year won’t kill you, but that high concentration of saturated fat over multiple days from leftovers can have an impact,” Cary said in a Baylor news release. Nuts can help offset some of the blood sugar changes from starchy and sugary foods. The high fructose corn syrup in canned cranberry sauce is detrimental to blood sugar. Even adding a whole cup of… read on > read on >

The whole family — even the youngest members — can take part in Thanksgiving’s hours of food preparation by following some safety tips. The nation’s leading pediatrics organization offers some holiday advice for families with young children. “There’s a lot of excitement and joy surrounding meal preparation at this time of year, but it also can be stressful,” said Dr. Dina DiMaggio, a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “Consider how to involve kids in the process and think about assigning an adult to keep track of the youngest when the kitchen is at full capacity. By planning in advance, families can help ensure the day goes smoothly for all,” she said in an academy news release. Here are some helpful tips: Start by showing kids how to stay safe while cooking by teaching them to hold kitchen tools safely, DiMaggio suggests. You can do this with specific child-safe knives. Show them how oven mitts can protect hands from heat, as well as how to turn appliances on and off safely. Tell them about the importance of keeping flammable objects away from the open flames. Still, always supervise children when cooking to be sure they’re following the rules. Follow food safety guidelines, including washing raw vegetables and fruits, and cooking food thoroughly. Ensure the little ones also wash their hands thoroughly after touching raw… read on > read on >

Over-the-counter pain relievers like aspirin, Aleve or ibuprofen don’t do a thing to slow the progression of knee arthritis, and might even make things worse, a new study suggests. Knee arthritis patients who regularly took nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) wound up with worse knee inflammation and weakened cartilage, compared to a “control” group not taking the medications, researchers report. “We found that the participants who were taking NSAIDs regularly for four years showed worse results with regard to synovitis,” which is inflammation within the knee, said lead researcher Dr. Johanna Luitjens, a postdoctoral scholar with the University of California, San Francisco’s department of radiology and biomedical imaging. “Also, we saw that the composition of the cartilage was worse in the group of NSAID users compared to the controls,” Luitjens added. NSAIDs block the production of body chemicals that cause inflammation. People regularly pop these pills to provide short-term relief of arthritis pain. Aspirin, ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil) and naproxen sodium (Aleve) are the most common NSAIDs, available over the counter at any pharmacy or grocery store. For this study, Luitjens and her colleagues analyzed data gathered from more than 1,000 participants in a federally funded long-term observational study of knee arthritis. Participants entered the study between February 2004 and May 2006. The researchers compared 277 people who were prescribed NSAIDs regularly for at least a year… read on > read on >

Researchers have found a way to safely deliver a steady supply of chemotherapy directly to brain tumors — in what they hope will be an important advance for patients with currently incurable cancers. The treatment involves an implantable pump system that supplies a steady drip of chemo straight to the brain tumor. Researchers have tested it in five patients who had recurrent glioblastoma, a particularly deadly form of brain tumor. They found the system was able to hit patients’ tumors with chemotherapy doses that were 1,000-times higher than is possible with traditional chemo. And there were no significant side effects. The big unanswered question, experts said, is whether the approach can ultimately extend people’s lives. Glioblastoma is an aggressive brain cancer that is diagnosed in about 12,000 Americans each year, according to the American Brain Tumor Association. Adults with the disease typically live for about 15 months after diagnosis. Sens. Edward Kennedy and John McCain both died of the disease. Glioblastoma is very difficult to treat for a number of reasons. For one, it cannot be completely removed with surgery because the tumor has finger-like extensions that interweave with normal brain tissue. “There’s no real boundary between where the tumor starts and healthy brain tissue starts,” said Dr. Adam Sonabend, an associate professor of neurological surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.… read on > read on >

Annual lung cancer screening for heavy smokers can provide a big boost in lung cancer survival over the long term, a new study shows. When low-dose CT screening identifies early-stage lung cancer, patients have an 80% chance of surviving 20 years, researchers found. And for some, the odds are as high as 100%. But only 16% of lung cancers are caught early, and more than half of people with lung cancer die within a year of being diagnosed, according to the American Lung Association. The average five-year survival rate is less than 19%. This study shows “how powerful screening is,” said Dr. Andrea McKee, a volunteer spokeswoman for the lung association and chair of radiation oncology at Lahey Hospital & Medical Center in Burlington, Mass. She was not involved in the study. By detecting and treating the cancer when it is small, patients can be effectively cured in the long term, the study authors say. Lung cancer screening, however, is underutilized. A recent lung association report revealed that only 6% of eligible Americans had undergone the screening. In some states, lung cancer screening rates are as low as 1%. Dr. Claudia Henschke, the new study’s lead researcher, pointed out some obstacles to screening. “There’s been talk about too many false positives and radiation. But the radiation dose is very low. It’s less than that of… read on > read on >

Research in wild bats is reinforcing a notion crucial to stopping future pandemics: When wildlife populations stay healthy, the odds of “crossover” viruses infecting humans subsides. In Australia, deforestation has caused a deadly respiratory virus to pass from fruit bats to humans, by forcing the two species into closer contact, a new study reports. Robbed of their winter habitats, large “flying fox” bat populations started breaking up over the past quarter-century and roosting in smaller groups closer to human agricultural and urban areas in subtropical Australia, the study authors explained. These bats are the natural reservoir of Hendra virus, which jumped from the bats into horses and then from horses to humans, according to the report published Nov. 16 in the journal Nature. Hendra virus causes a severe respiratory infection that has proven to be 75% fatal in horses and 57% fatal in humans. The case study offers a glimpse into the process that causes infectious diseases like Ebola to jump from animals into humans, a process called “pathogen spillover,” the researchers noted. “We collected and collated 25 years of data and saw this amazing pattern. We captured this rapid transition from bats feeding in big populations as nomadic animals to bats eking out a living in small populations, in areas where there are people,” said senior researcher Raina Plowright, a professor of public and… read on > read on >

A happy holiday can go sour quickly when food poisoning joins the party. Experts from Rutgers New Jersey Poison Control Center offer some tips on safely thawing, preparing and storing food, as well as avoiding issues with alcohol and drugs. “Forgetting about food safety is a recipe for disaster,” said Diane Calello, executive and medical director of the poison control center at the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School’s department of emergency medicine. “Don’t prepare food if you have any kind of respiratory illness or infection, as this puts your guests at risk of becoming ill. No matter how busy your kitchen gets during the holidays, always remember the risks of improperly handling food,” she said in a Rutgers news release. Food poisoning is no small problem. It sickens about 48 million Americans each year, causing 128,000 to be hospitalized and 3,000 to die, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But here’s some advice from the poison center on how to avoid it: To start, remember to clean, separate, cook and chill. Wash your hands and surfaces often with warm water and soap during food preparation. Use just water to clean fruits and vegetables, not soap. Don’t let food that will be served raw come into contact with uncooked poultry, meat or seafood while grocery shopping or in the refrigerator. Use one… read on > read on >

Blood levels of HDL, the famously “good” kind of cholesterol, may not make a big difference to heart health after all — particularly for Black people, a large new study suggests. The study, of nearly 24,000 U.S. adults, found that low HDL levels were tied to a somewhat higher risk of heart attack among white people. That was not the case for Black adults, however. Meanwhile, high HDL levels — traditionally lauded as heart-healthy — made no difference in heart risks for Black or white adults. Experts said the findings call for a reevaluation of how HDL is used to predict people’s risk of developing heart disease. More broadly, they said, researchers need to figure out whether various “traditional” heart disease risk factors have similar effects for all people. “We need to expand our understanding of risk factors for all racial and ethnic groups,” said senior researcher Nathalie Pamir, an associate professor of medicine at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland. That understanding, she added, turns into treatment guidelines. “And our guidelines have to work for everyone,” Pamir said. HDL, or high-density lipoprotein, first gained its reputation as the “good” cholesterol with the Framingham Heart Study. Back in the 1970s, it found a correlation between higher HDL levels and a lower risk of heart attack. The Framingham study is a major, still ongoing research… read on > read on >

With U.S. health officials calling childhood obesity a public health crisis, conversations about weight are important. But what you say to your kids can be challenging, and even counterproductive, a new study found. “Body weight is a sensitive issue and the way we talk about it matters,” said lead author Rebecca Puhl, deputy director of the University of Connecticut Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health. “We really want to identify language that adolescents feel more comfortable using in these conversations, that they don’t feel stigmatized, that they don’t feel blamed or shamed,” Puhl noted. To do that, researchers reviewed 2021survey data from more than 2,000 kids ages 10 to 17, along with more than 1,900 parents. Participants were asked about 27 terms and phrases that can be used to describe body weight. The teens felt the most negative emotions about terms like “overweight,” “fat” and “extremely obese,” the study found. More than one-third of youths reported feeling embarrassment, shame and sadness when their parents used these words. Have a daughter? Tread lightly, the researchers recommended. Girls reported feeling more negative emotions in response to words used about weight than boys did. Whether the young person had obesity or not did not impact how they felt about the words. “I think a lot of parents have positive intentions when it comes to talking about their… read on > read on >

Regular exercise has long been hailed as a great way to preserve heart health, but could a morning workout deliver more benefits than an evening visit to the gym? New research suggests that for women in their 40s and up, the answer appears to be yes. “First of all, I would like to stress that being physically active or doing some sort of exercise is beneficial at any time of day,” noted study author Gali Albalak, a doctoral candidate in the department of internal medicine at Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands. Indeed, most public health guidelines ignore the role of timing altogether, Albalak said, choosing to focus mostly on “exactly how often, for how long and at what intensity we should be active” to gain the most heart health benefits. But Albalak’s research focused on the ins and outs of the 24-hour wake-sleep cycle — what scientists refer to as circadian rhythm. She wanted to know whether there might be “a possible additional health benefit to physical activity” based on when people choose to exercise. To find out, she and her colleagues turned to data previously collected by the UK Biobank that tracked physical activity patterns and heart health status among nearly 87,000 men and women. Participants ranged in age from 42 to 78, and nearly 60% were women. All were healthy when… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

All the Flavor, Better Health: Holiday Dinner Ingredient Swaps That Work

Keeping T-Day Kitchens Safe for the Whole Family

Could NSAIDs Like Ibuprofen, Aleve Make Arthritic Knees Worse?

Implant Delivers Chemo Directly to Brain in Patients Battling Brain Tumors

CT Screenings Can Dramatically Improve Lung Cancer Outcomes

Protecting Wildlife Key to Preventing the Next Big Pandemic

Keep Food Poisoning at Bay This Holiday Season

HDL ‘Good’ Cholesterol’s Role in Heart Health Under Scrutiny

Words Can Wound When Parents Talk to Kids About Obesity

There’s a Best Time of Day to Exercise for Women’s Heart Health