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While childhood obesity gets a lot of attention, some kids struggle with the opposite issue — they have trouble gaining weight. So, how can parents know if their child is “too skinny?” While the best resource is likely a child’s pediatrician, experts have also weighed in on the topic. “Underlying health conditions can result in children and adolescents being underweight. Additionally, underweight can indicate malnutrition,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted in a recent study about the prevalence of underweight kids in the United States. Just over 4% of children and adolescents aged 2 to 19 were underweight in the United States in 2018, according to the study. To help figure out if your child is too skinny, here’s what to know. Children are considered underweight when their body mass index (BMI) is below the 5th percentile for their age and gender on growth charts, according to the CDC study. If a child is underweight, the pediatrician may ask more about medical history or could order testing to check for undiscovered health issues, Dr. Gary Kirkilas, a general pediatrician at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, explained in a recent American Academy of Pediatrics article. “Children below the 5th percentile could have a nutritional shortfall — either not taking in enough calories or burning up more calories than they are getting, or both,” Kirkilas said.… read on > read on >

The key to losing weight sounds simple — eat less. Regardless of the diet you follow, dropping the pounds means burning more calories than you eat. That begs the question, how many calories should I eat to lose weight? According to the U.S. National Library of Medicine, for most people, cutting about 500 calories a day is a good place to start. If you can eat 500 fewer calories every day, you should lose about a pound a week. Another easy way to figure out how many calories you should eat is to multiply your weight by 15, Harvard Health advises. That number will give you the number of calories you need to maintain your current weight. To lose weight, simply cut that number. But counting calories isn’t enough, says Samantha Heller, a nutritionist at NYU Langone Health in New York City. “Everyone wants a quick fix, but weight loss is not an overnight proposition. We do not gain weight nor will we lose weight quickly,” she said. “If you want to lose 10 pounds, one important tool is keeping a food diary,” Heller said. Keep track of everything you eat for five to seven days. Then review your food record. See where you can cut back on sweets, snacks, large portions and alcohol. Let those discoveries help you make a plan for losing weight.… read on > read on >

Not all prescription drugs and dietary herbal supplements work well together. It’s important to be aware of possible drug/supplement interactions that could be harmful, according to the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), a part of the National Institutes of Health. The organization offered tips on six potential issues. The supplement St. John’s wort interacts with many types of drugs, according to the NCCIH. Most often, it speeds up the processes that would change the drug into an inactive substance, meaning a person taking a certain medication would have less of that drug in the body. It can also interact with certain types of antidepressants, causing harmful side effects. Concentrated garlic extracts can thin the blood. That’s similar to what aspirin does. It can be a problem during or after surgery. Another type of supplement, concentrated green tea, can interact with the decongestant pseudoephedrine. The herb goldenseal has a high herb-drug interaction risk with some medicines, according to recent research. Some medications have what’s known as a narrow therapeutic index, meaning that if the drug amount is too low or too high, it can be problematic. Some drugs with a narrow therapeutic index include digoxin, cyclosporine and warfarin. Patients taking herbal supplements such as Asian ginseng or St. John’s wort, along with a medicine with a narrow therapeutic index, should be closely… read on > read on >

Meditation might help a person’s gut health — but it takes a lot of meditation over a long time. Tibetan Buddhist monks appear to have gut microbes that differ substantially from others living near them, a new study reports. Those differences have previously been linked to a lower risk of anxiety, depression and heart disease, according to the study authors. The findings suggest that regular deep meditation practiced for a number of years appears to regulate the gut microbiome and improve health, the researchers said. The report was published online Jan. 16 in the journal General Psychiatry. Meditation is more frequently being used to help treat mental health problems like depression, anxiety, substance abuse, traumatic stress and eating disorders. It can also help a person deal with chronic pain. To see whether meditation has a deeper effect on human health, the investigators analyzed stool and blood samples from 37 Buddhist monks from three Tibetan temples, as well as 19 people living nearby. These monks use a form of meditation derived from the ancient Indian medical system known as Ayurveda. They have been practicing this meditation at least two hours a day for between three and 30 years, the researchers noted. Stool sample analysis revealed that the monks’ guts were significantly enriched with a number of bacterial strains. “Collectively, several bacteria enriched in the meditation group… read on > read on >

When birth rates fall in the United States, experts try to figure out what’s happening. The fertility rate is at its lowest since the 1970s — 1.71 per woman, according to a new study. But it’s not that young people today don’t want children, new research suggests. In fact, they want about as many as their parents had. Instead, young Americans may simply be having more difficulty achieving life goals in order to have kids, said study co-author Sarah Hayford, director of the Ohio State University Institute for Population Research. “You see a lot of things of like, ‘Oh, young people just aren’t interested in having children’ or ‘young people have better things to do.’ And we don’t find that,” Hayford said. “We find that young people are interested in having children and people want children. They’re planning to have children. It’s just other things that are making it hard to carry out those plans.” The U.S. fertility rate peaked during the post-World War II baby boom, at 3.58 in 1958 and reached a low of 1.77 in 1972. After a rebound, birth rates plummeted during the Great Recession starting in 2008 and continued to drop even after, Hayford said. For the study, Hayford and co-author Karen Benjamin Guzzo, director of the Carolina Population Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, used… read on > read on >

It’s no secret: The standard American diet is at the root of the obesity epidemic and many of its associated diseases. But why is American food so unhealthy? It’s not just that Americans eat too much, which they do, but it’s also what they eat that’s unhealthy: fat, sugar, salt and ultra-processed foods. According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the average American diet consists of excess salt, saturated fat, refined grains, calories from solid fats and added sugars. Americans also eat fewer vegetables, fruits, whole grains, dairy products and oils than recommended. Nearly 42% of American adults are obese, statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show. One reason may be that healthy foods are often more expensive than packaged foods. Packaged foods tend to have higher amounts of salt, refined grains, sugar and unhealthy oils not recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The CDC notes that high blood pressure and high cholesterol caused by consuming too much salt are the leading causes of heart disease and stroke. Current guidelines recommend getting less than 2,300 milligrams (mg) of salt a day, but most Americans consume more than 3,400 mg a day, on average. The culprit? More than 70% of the salt that Americans eat comes from packaged, processed, store-bought and restaurant foods, the CDC says. “Ultra-processed foods are designed to… read on > read on >

A Texas-based education initiative has found that enrolling children in poor communities in gardening and cooking classes may help boost their long-term health. Called “Texas Sprouts,” the program covered one full academic year and exposed elementary school children in 16 low-income schools access to outdoor gardening instruction, nutrition information and cooking lessons. Parents were offered similar classes. The end result? Among the kids, there was a notable post-class drop in the risk for becoming pre-diabetic and diabetic, as measured by lower blood sugar levels, and lower “bad” cholesterol levels. “We know that diets high in added sugar, specifically sugar-sweetened beverages, are linked to higher risk of type 2 diabetes in children, teens and adults,” explained study author Jaimie Davis, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Texas at Austin. “We wanted to design and evaluate an intervention that taught kids to garden and cook in a school setting [focused] on diet, obesity and type 2 diabetes risk factors,” she noted. The goal, said Davis, was to influence dietary habits by “essentially teaching kids where their food comes from and how to grow and cook with it.” The idea is that “if kids have ownership and autonomy over what they eat, they are more likely to have increased preference for that food and this preference can last a lifetime,” she added. All of the… read on > read on >

A common eating plan with a catchy acronym — the DASH diet — is designed to help you lower your blood pressure, but exactly what can you eat while on it? The DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet has been around for almost 25 years and it’s still one of the top diets recommended for overall good health and heart disease prevention. One recent study of the DASH diet published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found “some of the strongest evidence that diet directly impacts cardiac damage, and our findings show that dietary interventions can improve cardiovascular risk factors in a relatively short time period,” study author Dr. Stephen Juraschek, an assistant professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Harvard Medical School, in Boston, said at the time. Juraschek added that the DASH diet reinforces the importance of a low-sodium diet rich in fruits, veggies and whole grains. What is the DASH diet? DASH was originally created to help with high blood pressure, based on studies sponsored by the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). It is a list of daily and weekly nutritional goals, rather than a specific meal plan, according to the NHLBI. Comprised of eating vegetables, fruits and whole grains, fat-free and low-fat dairy products, fish, poultry, beans, nuts and vegetable… read on > read on >

While U.S. veterans are already eligible for emergency suicidal crisis care, starting Tuesday they can get it for free. Care available at any VA facility or any private facility will include up to 30 days of inpatient or crisis residential care, the Department of Veteran’s Affairs announced Friday. It will also include up to 90 days of follow-up outpatient care and ambulance rides to hospitals. The veterans will not need to be enrolled in the VA system. “Veterans in suicidal crisis can now receive the free, world-class emergency health care they deserve — no matter where they need it, when they need it or whether they’re enrolled in VA care,” VA Secretary Denis McDonough said in an agency news release. “This expansion of care will save veterans’ lives, and there’s nothing more important than that.” The change will affect more than 18 million veterans, about twice as many as are enrolled in VA medical care, NBC News reported. This change was required by the Veterans Comprehensive Prevention, Access to Care, and Treatment (COMPACT) Act of 2020. “I am thrilled by Secretary McDonough’s announcement,” Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., former chair and now ranking member of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, told NBC News. “This new benefit removes cost from the equation when veterans are at imminent risk of self-harm and allows them to access lifesaving… read on > read on >

Hundreds of rural hospitals across the United States are teetering on the edge of closure, with their financial status increasingly in peril, a new report reveals. More than 200 rural hospitals are at immediate risk of closure because they aren’t making enough money to cover the rising cost of providing care, and their low financial reserves leave them little margin for error, the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform report states. Overall, more than 600 rural hospitals — nearly 30% of rural hospitals nationwide — are at risk of closing in the near future, according to the report. “Costs have been increasing significantly and payments, particularly from commercial insurance plans, have not increased correspondingly with that,” said Harold Miller, president and CEO of the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform (CHQPR). “And the small hospitals don’t have the kinds of financial reserves to be able to cover the losses.” The COVID-19 pandemic actually provided temporary relief to cash-strapped hospitals, thanks to federal grants that helped keep them open and serving patients. More than 150 rural hospitals nationwide closed between 2005 and 2019, the CHQPR report noted. Another 19 shut down in 2020, more than any year in the previous decade. But only six more closed in 2021 and 2022, because of the financial assistance hospitals received while the pandemic raged. Now that federal… read on > read on >

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All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Is My Child Too Skinny? Advice on When to Be Concerned

How Many Calories a Day Can Safely Spur Weight Loss?

Herbal Remedies & You: 6 Tips to Safeguard Your Health

In Tibetan Monk Study, Hints That Meditating Can Alter Gut Microbes

Young Americans Still Want Same Number of Kids, Just Not Right Now

Why Is American Food So Unhealthy?

Elementary School Kids Get Healthier When Gardening Is on Curriculum

What Is the Heart-Healthy DASH Diet?

VA Announces Plan to Give Free Care to Any Vet in Suicide Crisis

Hundreds of Hospitals Could Close Across Rural America

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