Tootsie rolls and jellybeans, Snickers bars and Jujubes — these are among the things that send kids into ecstasy. But in one of life’s first cruel ironies, children learn that they pay a price for eating candy. It causes cavities. It causes pimples. It causes bouncing off the walls. It consumes the allowance. And now, a new study says that candy may cause a life of crime.

The research, out of Cardiff University in the U.K., culled data from a long-term study of 17,000 people all born during the same week in 1970. The subjects were followed from birth, periodically answering questions about their lives, their diet, and their health. (Obviously, they were very literate toddlers.) Study director Simon Moore recently reviewed the collected data, looking for links between early diet and later behavior. He discovered that of those subjects convicted of a violent crime by age 34, 69 percent reported that they had eaten candy almost every day in childhood. Of those without criminal records, only 42 percent had been daily candy connoisseurs.

No, the study wasn’t underwritten by Willy Wonka’s nemesis, Ansel Slugworth. In fact, the researchers kept reviewing the data, trying to find some other factor to explain the link. They checked to see if economic status was to blame, or maybe parental permissiveness, or living in a city versus the country, or educational level — but none of these factors made a difference. Candy consumption in childhood still correlated to violent crime later on.

Dr. Moore said, "Initially we thought this [effect] was probably due to something else. So we tried to control for parental permissiveness, economic status, whether the kids were urban or rural. But the result remained. We couldn’t get rid of it."

So is there some crazy-making component in candy that builds up like plaque, eventually causing violence? Moore thinks it’s possible, but it’s more likely that kids who eat candy daily don’t learn impulse control. (Or is it that kids with inherently less impulse control eat more candy because they lack the control?) He also thinks it’s possible that "bad kids" were given candy more regularly to appease them. If this is so, the candy would work much like it did for Skinner’s mice, teaching kids that bad behavior gets a sweet reward. (Or again, is it a question of inherent bad behavior self selecting for more candy consumption?)

Critics, of course, think Moore is leaping to conclusions that don’t hold up. The director of the Food and Drink Federation, Julian Hunt (a totally impartial observer), said, "This is either utter nonsense or a very bad April Fool’s Day joke! Antisocial behavior stems from deep-rooted social and environmental factors such as poor parenting and a deprived upbringing, and is not linked to whether or not you ate sweeties as a kid." (Of course, that’s merely Ms. Hunt’s personal opinion, unsupported by any data.)

And Melinda Johnson, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, said, "If there is any real link, my instinct is that the daily candy may be indicative of certain lifestyle factors that the researchers did not capture. For example, I do not see that the researchers were able to control for violence in the home. Perhaps children who end up violent as adults also tend to grow up in violent homes, and perhaps candy is used excessively as an ‘ease the pain’ tool." (Again, an opinion based on "instinct," not data.)

But in fact, there are huge loopholes in the study. For instance, only 35 out of the 17,000 subjects actually were convicted of violent crimes. That means that 24 of those criminals had a candy eating past, and that’s a very small sample upon which to build a theory. Consider that 7,140 out of the 17,000 ate candy every day and never turned to violent crime. And then, as numerous critics pointed out, there are plenty of factors not controlled for. Did those same 24 criminals, for instance, drink water every day? Did they wear sneakers every day — more days than those not convicted of crimes? Could sneakers and water be a recipe for creating miscreants — even more so than eating Milky Ways? More research needs to be done to confirm that in fact, candy independently correlates to a dissolute life.

Even so, there’s no denying that sugary foods influence behavior. Ask any third-grade teacher what happens after the kids finish devouring a big candy bar, or after they drink a few sodas. Behavioral problems abound when sugary foods prevail. Does the phrase "bouncing off the walls" ring a bell? Also, it may be that those who start eating candy daily in childhood pave the path for a lifetime of poor nutrition. And poor nutritional choices certainly may correlate to poor behavioral choices. In fact, a recent study out of Oxford University found that prisoners who took vitamin supplements had fewer disciplinary problems and were less aggressive than those who took placebos. Numerous studies have shown that foods and various additives affect both mood and behavior. So, maybe the old adage may need to be rephrased: "Spare the nutrition and ruin the child."

:hc

For pure misery, a sinus infection does the trick nicely — making the head pound, the tissues of the nasal passages feel like they’ll burst from pressure, even making the ears and gums and roof of the mouth throb. Plus, they trigger coughs and cause fever. Now imagine having sinus infections regularly, every few months or so. Those who have "recurrent rhinosinusitis" desperately seek relief, and for many of those sufferers, nasal irrigation seems like a godsend. It’s cheap, it gives instant relief, and until now, it seemed completely safe.

Researchers from Georgetown University found that people who used nasal irrigation every day significantly up their risk of having recurrent sinus infections. Nasal irrigation entails using a saltwater solution and a device called a "Neti pot." (It can also be done using a cup instead of the neti pot, and with other solutions that break up mucous, such as Alkolol.) The sinus sufferer simply takes the solution up the nose and then lets it run out, along with impacted mucous. For most sufferers, the process unblocks mucous from the ears and nose enough so that the pain diminishes right away. It also may actually heal the infection, providing an alternative to taking antibiotics. Many people believe that regularly rinsing out the mucous keeps new infections from forming, and so they irrigate not only to treat active infections, but also to prevent future ones. But the Georgetown University researchers say too much of even this good thing may not be so good, after all.

The study followed 68 chronic sinusitis sufferers who used nasal irrigation twice a day for a year. The next year, the subjects stopped the daily nasal irrigation completely, and their incidence of sinus infections went down by 62 percent. Put another way, the year that the subjects rinsed twice, every day, they suffered an average of eight episodes of sinusitis a year. After they quit the irrigation, they only had three episodes a year. Plus, the study included a control group of 24 subjects who continued to rinse every day while the original group discontinued rinsing. Those who kept rinsing had a 50 percent higher incidence of new sinus infections.

How could clearing out mucous possibly increase risk of sinusitis? "Daily long-term use [of nasal irrigation] may result in an increased frequency of acute [sinusitis] by potentially depleting the nose of its immune blanket of mucus," researcher Talal M. Nsouli, MD, wrote in a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) recently.

According to Dr. Nsouli, "By washing the nose, we are removing the bad mucus but, unfortunately, we are also removing the good mucus that contains the antimicrobial agents as well."

Apparently, mucous contains immunoglobulin A, immunoglobulin G, lactoferrin, and lysozyme, which act as antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral agents. So there’s good mucous and "bad" mucous, just as there are good intestinal bacteria and not-so-good bacteria. When you take antibiotics and kill all the intestinal bacteria, you end up with gastrointestinal problems and a compromised immune system. That’s why it’s important to take probiotics if you find yourself in the unfortunate position of needing antibiotics — to replenish the good bacteria that gets stripped out. In the same way, when you flush out all mucous, you strip away the protective element and upset the natural balance of the body. Mucous is there for a reason. It’s only when it’s old and dried or carries more infected material than not that it needs to be flushed out.

"I don’t have anything against short-term nasal saline irrigation — even aggressive nasal saline irrigation for three, four days or one week is totally fine," Dr. Nsouli said. "But when we are doing it on a daily basis, we are modifying the immunological biochemistry of the nose."

Dr. Gaelen T. Marshall, who edits Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, agrees that short-term use is advisable. "It is still a good idea to get rid of mucus through a saline wash when a patient has a cold," Dr. Marshall says. "But as with anything else, you can overdo it.

Of course, all of these "medical" statements must be taken with a grain of salt (tada!) since all this attention on the dangers of nasal irrigation serves the pharmaceutical industry well. We don’t necessarily need to throw the neti pot out with the saline solution. And remember, many medical practitioners still consider the first-line treatment for sinus infection to be antibiotics. And antibiotics can lead to chronic sinusitis plus a lot more trouble. Given the choice between nasal flushing and antibiotic treatment, the neti pot surely seems the less dangerous — just don’t use it twice a day, every day, on a prophylactic basis, at least not until more research comes in.

PS: And here’s a nice trick if using the neti pot while you actually have a sinus infection or cold. In addition to the salt, you can add a couple of droppers  of a good Echinacea based tincture to aggressively "go after" the bad guys.

:hc

The expression "stop bellyaching" tells a lot about how stress affects the body. For many people, when problems attack, so does a stomach ache.  Certainly it’s no surprise that tension messes up the gut, but the degree to which it creates serious gastrointestinal issues might surprise you.

A recent study out of Stony Brook University Medical Center in New York evaluated 697 patients who had helped clean up after the events of 9/11. Four to five years after the cleanup, 41% had gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), compared with about 20% of the general population. GERD occurs when stomach acid or bile backs up into the esophagus, causing chronic heartburn and acid reflux. It’s an uncomfortable condition at best; debilitating at its worst, sometimes driving victims to surgery.

It’s noteworthy that even without an obvious triggering trauma, one out of every five adults in the general population has the disease. That’s a huge percentage, but not surprising given that obesity often links to GERD and so many people count among the obese. It’s also relevant that exposure to acute trauma such as that experienced by people cleaning up human remains at the World Trade Center site not only doubled the incidence of GERD, but also caused gastrointestinal symptoms that persisted for years (and that still persist, the research shows).

The researchers found that length of time at the cleanup site correlated with risk of GERD — the longer the exposure to the site, the greater the likelihood that the person developed gastrointestinal disease. No correlation was found to obesity among the cleanup workers. The researchers attribute this phenomenon to stress — not to environmental toxins.

Not surprisingly, many of the 9/11 cleanup workers suffer from continuing psychological problems, and the researchers found that such problems correlate to GERD. Five years after the cleanup, 21% of those with GERD had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 21.5% were clinically depressed, and nearly 30% had anxiety disorder. Two years later (seven years after the trauma), the numbers of those with both GERD and mental health problems actually went up. By 2008, almost 33 percent of the GERD sufferers reported depression. In fact, having several mental health disorders — for instance, both anxiety and depression — made the risk of GERD among the 9/11 workers almost inescapable. Among those with both depression and anxiety, 64 percent had GERD. Add PTSD into the mix, and that rate goes up to almost 70 percent.

It seems counterintuitive that as the years since 9/11 have passed and the traumatic events have become more distant, those originally exposed to the trauma have experienced an increase rather than a decrease in associated gastrointestinal and mental health symptoms. So much for the "time heals all wounds" theory. The explanation might be that untreated grief and trauma don’t disappear with time, but rather, simmer beneath the surface, creating a snowball effect. In any event, the researchers suggest that treating mental health issues may be key to resolving the gastrointestinal health issues.

As Dr. Douglas Brand, one of the researchers involved in analyzing the study data, says, "Eight years after 9/11 we are still realizing the aftereffects on those who responded and participated in the massive cleanup efforts. Shortly after this highly stressful and toxic exposure, the appearance of GERD characterized by high comorbidity [the addition of one or more disorders in addition to the GERD] with mental health disorders, but no relation to obesity or smoking, suggests that mental health disorders may play an important role in the persistence of GERD among these workers. Thus, treatment of the underlying mental health disorder may be necessary to resolve the physical manifestation of GERD."

Hopefully the experts will take to heart evidence that counseling needs to be given to those exposed to trauma at the time of the exposure — even if the victims of that exposure seem functional — rather than letting trauma reactions (and concomitant physical symptoms) develop over the ensuing years.

Meanwhile, a simultaneous study found another reason that high-stress environments induce bellyaches. Dr. Mark Riddle of the Naval Medical Research Center in Bethesda, Maryland, studied the impact of infectious gastroenteritis among military personnel on the subsequent development of long-term gastrointestinal diseases including irritable bowel syndrome. Infectious gastroenteritis includes such conditions as diarrhea and dysentery, commonly contracted by people traveling and living in stressful situations.

When we deploy overseas, one of the biggest risks is infectious gastrointestinal disorders," Dr. Riddle said. "By six months, troops will usually have one or more episodes of infectious gastroenteritis." Doctors typically prescribe antibiotics to wipe out the causative bacteria and end the acute episode, but this study found that once infected, the victim may suffer far-reaching and long-lasting consequences far beyond the run-of-the-mill dysentery bout. Those who had experienced even one incident of infectious gastroenteritis were at six times the risk for subsequent functional diarrhea, and at four times the risk for irritable bowel syndrome.

The researchers point to the continued stress that troops remain subject to as a triggering factor in developing gastrointestinal diseases once a vulnerability has been established through prior infection. Dr. Riddle also notes that the vulnerability may be related to changes in "gut microbiota or neural symptoms related to the gastrointestinal tract."
In other words, though the antibiotics may take care of the infection, something is messing up the gut bacteria. Reading between the lines, it looks like all fingers point to the antibiotics doing long-term damage, stress or no stress. (Once again, as I always point out, after exposure to antibiotics, you need to supplement with a good probiotic formula to rebuild populations of beneficial bacteria.)

Considering the vulnerability of the gastrointestinal system to stressors both environmental and psychological, we can only hope that the experts get smart and start distributing mental health care to those exposed to trauma, as well as supplements that replenish gut flora and education about how to protect and revitalize the bowels. And as for GERD/Acid Reflux, you might want to read up on exactly how it manifests in your intestinal tract and the various natural health approaches you can use to overcome it. I’ve covered this extensively, in my newsletter series on the intestinal tract, but if you just want to cut to the chase and jump right in, you can start with Your Stomach, Part 3.

:hc

Incredible though it seems, over 11 percent of Americans now have diabetes, and the rate keeps climbing. In another few years, at the current pace of increase, a full 15 percent of the population will have the disease according to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. And those figures only count the people who already have been diagnosed with diabetes. An NIH study earlier this year found that 13 percent of the population already has the disease, though many of those haven’t yet been diagnosed. Plus, if you count pre-diabetics, the numbers skyrocket. A few years ago, when "only" seven percent of the population had been diagnosed with diabetes, another 20 percent qualified as pre-diabetic, and among the 40 to 74-year-old set, the pre-diabetic rate registered at an astronomical 40 percent. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. According to the US Government, one third of all children currently in the population pipeline will eventually become diabetic — half if they are black or Hispanic.

Translated into numbers, at least 26 million Americans now are diabetic and 37 million will be by 2015. This represents a more than 90 percent increase in the past decade. And the increase extends to other countries, as well. In Mexico, diabetes has become the number one cause of death, and yet, the disease hardly existed in that country just 10 years ago. Worldwide, 30 million people had diabetes in 1985, but by 2000, that number had increased almost 700 percent to 150 million. (As a side note, no health care system in the world can accommodate those kinds of numbers when it comes to long-term medical care. The costs are beyond astronomical.)

The blame, experts say, rests in the ballooning numbers of obese individuals. While it is true that diabetes runs in families, it’s also true that the fatter you are, the greater the chance that you’ll become diabetic. According to Gallup Healthways, "More than one-fifth of obese adults [have diabetes]" — or 21.2%, compared to 7.4% of non-obese people of comparable ages." It’s no coincidence that obesity rates have increased one percent since last year, keeping perfect pace with diabetes, which also increased one percent.

The disease demolishes health, causing neuropathy, kidney damage, heart disease, stroke, and wounds that don’t heal. Diabetes related infections lead to 150,000 amputations annually in the US.) Plus, it causes retinopathy, which can lead to blindness, and in fact, diabetes is the leading cause of blindness in the US.

Diabetes also is a problem for the pocketbook (unless you happen to be a stakeholder in a pharmaceutical company that manufactures diabetes drugs). Articles in the Archives of Internal Medicine indicate that spending on diabetes drugs has doubled since 2002, with annual expenditures exceeding $12.5 billion!

But the expensive drugs do nothing to heal or prevent diabetes; they merely control or treat symptoms. If obesity triggers the disease, then to intervene in the diabetes epidemic, lots of people need to lose weight. Exercising even a minimal amount not only takes pounds off, but slashes diabetes risk. The study found that those who had exercised for 30 minutes at least four times the previous week had almost half the incidence of diabetes compared to those who hadn’t done any exercise.

While the diabetes drug industry keeps blossoming, fewer and fewer people are making the lifestyle modifications that might prevent diabetes in the first place. Gallup-Healthways found "a 2009 decline of 2.7 points in the percentage of American adults who say they are exercising at least 30 minutes three or more times per week, compared with 2008."

And yet, a study just published in The Lancet found that lifestyle changes trump drugs in preventing diabetes. In fact, the study, which involved 3000 pre-diabetic patients followed for 10 years, found that lifestyle modifications resulting in a weight loss of even a few pounds were roughly twice as effective as medications. The researchers found that those who exercised 30 minutes five times a week plus stuck to a low-fat diet reduced diabetes incidence by 34 percent over the 10 years compared to a control group that implemented no changes. Those who took the diabetes drug metformin instead of trying lifestyle modifications reduced incidence by only 18 percent. The impact of lifestyle modifications was particularly notable in those over 60 years of age.

The advantage of modifying diet and exercising rather than popping pills extends beyond the fact that the lifestyle changes work better. Getting in shape means keeping the body working well, whereas diabetes drugs don’t improve the natural functioning of the body. Plus, they cause all sorts of side effects. Metformin is considered one of the more benign diabetes pharmaceuticals, and yet, it commonly causes digestive problems and gastrointestinal distress, and can cause more serious conditions such as lactic acidosis and heart failure.

As I’ve written before, forcing blood sugar levels down with medications does nothing to relieve the underlying diabetic condition. It merely suppresses just one of its manifestations. If you want to prevent and reverse diabetes, you have to reduce sugar intake, reduce insulin resistance, improve beta cell function in the pancreas, and protect and repair insulin/sugar damage to mission critical organs in the body. And you have to do all of these things all at once.

It’s the same old story all over again. There’s no substitute for avoiding obesity in the first place by eating well and exercising. But if you’ve already crossed the line to become diabetic or at high risk for diabetes, you’ll still benefit from utilizing natural methods for regulating blood sugar metabolism.

:hc

Planning to buy a car? If you want the best deal, wait until you’re in a really foul mood. A study out of the University of New South Wales found that subjects who felt miserable paid more attention to their surroundings, had better discrimination, were less gullible and showed better recollection than their more cheerful cohorts. (So you’d better hope your car salesman is in a good mood — assuming you’re one of the few people buying a car nowadays!)

The researchers put subjects through a series of tests in order to reach their findings. In one such test, the subjects observed a staged fight between students and a teacher in a lecture hall. A week later, the subjects reported to the lab where they watched 10-minute videos intended to induce either happy, sad, or neutral moods. Those subjects who saw the depressing videos did much better at recalling accurately what had happened during the fight earlier in the week compared to the students who saw the happy film. Apparently, good moods led subjects to spruce up their memories with irrelevant and misleading details — almost like putting flowers on the table in a dirty room. The grumps, though, remembered events with sober clarity. (Perhaps part of cramming for finals should be watching Gigli just before the exam.)

In another test, subjects again watched mood-altering films. Then, they had to rate the accuracy of a series of urban myths. The subjects who saw the depressing films did a much better job of discerning reality than did those who had watched happy flicks. They also communicated more clearly. The sad subjects did far better at stating their case in written arguments. Study director and professor of psychology Dr. Joseph Forgas explained that a "mildly negative mood may actually promote a more concrete, accommodative and ultimately more successful communication style."

Apparently, the researchers found that gloomy weather exerted the same effect on subjects. On beautiful, sunny days, the memory lagged, but on gray, miserable days, the memory functioned just fine. So perhaps it’s no accident that Microsoft is based in Seattle; then again, that would make Silicon Valley harder to explain.

According to Dr. Forgas, "Our research suggests that sadness…promotes information-processing strategies best suited to dealing with more demanding situations. Whereas positive mood seems to promote creativity, flexibility, cooperation, and reliance on mental shortcuts, negative moods trigger more attentive, careful thinking paying greater attention to the external world." Well, there you go. That’s why Google and Apple are in sunny California rather than rainy Seattle.

Ironically, the inaccurate cheerful folks had more confidence in their memories and judgements than did the depressed subjects. This led the researchers to warn that happy people may make lousy witnesses at judicial proceedings. (Of course, it’s an easy fix. Just require all witnesses to watch Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf right before the trial.)

Forgas says that, "The finding makes sense in evolutionary terms. Animals that are wary of their environment are more likely to perceive threats to their survival. This supports the idea that mood states are evolutionary signals about how to deal with threatening situations. That is, a negative mood state triggers more systematic, more attentive, more vigilant information processing. By contrast, good moods signal a benign, non-threatening environment where we don’t need to be so vigilant."

It’s interesting that the relaxed mind tends to embellish and create stories, while the vigilant mind simply recounts facts. Could it be that when we feel happy, the right brain functions more actively and clouds the logical left brain?

In any event, the findings converted the researchers over to the "grumpy is good" school of thought. "Positive mood is not universally desirable: people in negative mood are less prone to judgmental errors, are more resistant to eyewitness distortions and are better at producing high-quality, effective persuasive messages," the report said. Now that we know the truth, it’s easy to see that the campaign slogan for the next Presidential election will not be the upbeat, "Change you can believe in." Instead we can look forward to something more along the lines of, "Depressed and loving it."

But before you turn on the evening news to induce despondency, know that being glum isn’t all good. In fact, plenty of studies show that depression takes a huge toll on your health, and it can even shorten your life. So choose your fate carefully: healthy, happy, and a bit dull-headed…or wretched, ailing, and sharp as a saber.

:hc

If you want to catch up on sleep, don’t plan a vacation to West Virginia. People there are more sleep-deprived than anywhere else in the US. You’d be better off going to, say, Hawaii, where the scent of plumeria must lull citizens into REM, since more people there report sleeping through the night compared to every other state.

According to a poll of more than 400,000 people just completed by the Centers for Disease Control, the percentage of people reporting disturbed and inadequate sleep really does vary wildly from one state to the next. In West Virginia, over 19 percent of the respondents reported bad sleep during the previous 30 days. But people in chilly North Dakota had far lower numbers, with only 7.4 percent having lost sleep. In general, the Southern states performed poorly, although none were nearly as sorry as West Virginia. Florida respondents, for instance, reported 13.5 percent poor sleep, and Alabama 13.2.

But while the geography factor certainly sparked interest among researchers, so did the finding that overall, the respondents, regardless of which state they lived in, were overwhelmingly short on sleep. Only three out of every 10 respondents claimed excellent sleep for the previous month, meaning that a full 70 percent hadn’t slept well at least some of the month A full 38 percent hadn’t had adequate sleep for more than seven nights in the previous 30 days, and more than one in ten claimed they hadn’t enjoyed a single good night’s rest.

The study also found that adults now get considerably less sleep than they did a mere decade ago, and that sleep levels continue to decline. Experts say that adults need between seven and eight hours of rest every night in order to maintain health. But in this latest poll, 20 percent of the respondents reported sleeping less than six hours a night, far short of the minimum, compared to only 13 percent in 2001. And remember, quality of sleep counts even more than quantity — six restless hours adds up to nowhere near enough restorative rest.

The statistics skew not only by geography, but also by gender, economic status, and educational level. Having a college degree, for instance, may open the door to employment, but apparently, it shuts the door on good shut-eye. In fact, high school dropouts fare much better in the sleep department (38 percent report excellent sleep) than do college graduates (28 percent). The data show that men sleep better than women, the elderly sleep better than young adults, and Caucasians sleep better than Blacks or Hispanics.

The sleeplessness epidemic has an impact beyond making people dull at work or school. In fact, the researchers say that not sleeping the minimum seven hours night after night adds up to a chronic sleep disorder, and that’s what between 50 million to 70 million Americans suffer from. Lack of sleep correlates with psychological problems such as anxiety and depression, as well as with physical issues including increased risk for obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and high cholesterol — not mention, higher mortality rates. Plus, poor sleep links to higher levels of smoking, substance abuse, and drinking, more risk of car accidents, compromised attention span and greater likelihood of obesity.

On the other hand, some evidence indicates that oversleeping (more than eight hours a night) also correlates to major health issues and increased risk of early death. You can’t sleep too much or too little. But many experts argue that the factors that lead people to oversleep — typically depression or preexisting heath issues — cause the spike in morbidity and mortality, not sleeping in. In any event, nobody is arguing with the reality that sleep deprivation causes an array of serious psychological and physical health problems.

So what is causing all the restless nights? And why do rates of sleeplessness just keep increasing?

The CDC report says, "The major causes of sleep loss are overlapping and include lifestyle and occupational factors that reflect broad societal factors (e.g., work hours and access to technology), and specific sleep disorders." In other words, people work into the night or work so many hours that their schedule cuts into sleep. Or, they stay up at night enjoying "technology," including the Internet and television.

According to researcher Lela McKnight Eily, who led a previous CDC sleep study, "At night, we’re doing everything except for sleeping — we’re on the Internet, we may be watching TV. With these new lifestyles, we have kind of taken sleep for granted as something that we can do when we have time or we can catch up on it on the weekends. We don’t realize that sleep is a vital part of overall health and that chronic sleep loss is related to both physical and mental health issues. It’s getting worse."

The researchers don’t mention a few other factors that might cause tossing and turning. First, diet contributes to insomnia. Drinking caffeine-laden sodas and coffees, eating sweets, and eating a poorly balanced diet all create sleeplessness. So do many pharmaceuticals. Not getting enough exercise also throws the metabolism off and makes sleep difficult. Compared to a few decades ago, we eat more, we eat worse, and we exercise less and then to compensate for the toll on our bodies, we take more pharmaceuticals. No wonder we have disturbed sleep. And, of course, we haven’t even mentioned the epidemic of obesity, which can be a major contributing factor to sleep apnea. Add to that the factors the CDC named — the late night internet cruising and work schedules that spill over into the night, and you have the perfect recipe for insomnia.

The CDC recommends that health care providers address the problem by "evaluating patients who report chronic insufficient rest or sleep and advise them of effective behavioral strategies including keeping a regular sleep schedule; avoiding stimulating activities within 2 hours of bedtime; avoiding caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol in the evening; sleeping in a dark, quiet, well-ventilated space; and avoiding going to bed hungry." I was with them until that last recommendation, the "avoid going to bed hungry" They don’t mention that the pre-bedtime snack should not be milk and cookies, nor should it be a large meal, which surely will wake you in a few hours as your body tries to digest. Instead, the report says, "pharmacologic intervention might be warranted."

If you can’t sleep, you might take a good look at your lifestyle and physical condition, and if there’s no way to get it under control in the short run, at least try some natural solutions before resorting to Ambien.

:hc

At the turn of the last century, a popular cure for most major ailments was a stay in the country. The fresh air, it was believed, could strengthen a weak constitution and restore health. Now, new evidence shows that proximity to things green and alive in fact does exert a curative, or at least a protective health benefit.

Researchers from the EMGO Institute VU University Medical Centre in the Netherlands studied the medical records of 345,143 adults. Sorting the records by postal code, the researchers determined the percentage of green spaces such as parks or forests within two miles of each patient’s home. They then reviewed the records for prevalence of 24 different health conditions and found that those subjects living closest to green areas had a lower incidence of 15 of the 24 diseases on the list.

Apparently, the closer to the green, the more powerful the healing effect experienced. Head researcher Jolanda Maas, PhD, says, "The strongest associations we saw between green space and health occurred within a one kilometer [0.6 mile] radius of the home."  Also, the association was strongest for children, for low-income people, and for those who lived in slightly urban areas rather than in the inner city.

Of the conditions studied, mental health problems were the most affected by the presence of green. Those who lived close to parks or other natural areas had a 30 percent reduced risk of anxiety disorders requiring treatment and a 20 percent reduced risk of needing treatment for depression. It’s no secret that anxiety and depression can lead to a host of other health problems over time. In fact, both anxiety and depression negatively affect longevity, and so if green deprivation compromises mental heath, that surely has some spillover to physical health.

Among the physical ailments, respiratory conditions responded most dramatically to proximity to green. The data showed a sharp reduction of asthma rates, COPD, and upper respiratory infections among people who lived close to nature. An association also was found between green and lowered rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and even back problems.

Earlier studies also underlined the palliative effect of green. Last year, researchers at the University of Glasgow found that the sizeable disparity in mortality rates between rich and poor families narrowed in residential areas closest to nature. In fact, the gap between rich and poor living in the greenest areas was half that in the most urban. In densely urban areas devoid of green, the mortality rate among poor people exceeded that of rich people by 1.93 times, but in the greenest areas, that gap shrunk to 1.43. When considering only death rates by cardiovascular complications, the figures become even more dramatic, with low-income people living in the least green areas having 2.19 times the incidence of death compared to their rich neighbors. But in the greenest places, the cardiovascular death gap between rich and poor ratcheted down to 1.54. Then again, we already knew that the closer people lived to heavily trafficked roads, the higher the incidence of cardiovascular disease.

But what causes the "green effect"? Researchers believe that those living nearest parks and outdoor recreational areas get more exercise, taking advantage of the opportunities such areas provide. This is particularly true of children. Parks also lead to social encounters, which improve mental health. And, people use parks and green areas simply to relax, so they can be major stress reducers. The researchers think that the reason the effect of green diminished in the heart of the city is because urban parks are considered unsafe so people use them less.

"The role of green space in the living environment for health should not be underestimated," the study authors wrote in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. "Most of the diseases which were found to be related to the percentage of green space in the living environment are highly prevalent in society and in many countries, and they are the subject of large-scale prevention programs." The authors say that opening more green space might be an effective use of disease-prevention funds.

Interestingly, the authors did not mention several factors that might be key. First, where green dominates, the golden arches don’t. In other words, neighborhoods with plenty of natural areas probably don’t have fast food joints on every corner, and that means less access to junk food. Studies have shown that the closer people live to fast food restaurants, the more likely that they’ll have major health problems. Also, more green usually means fewer roads and buildings, which translates to fewer emissions from automobiles and places of business. Again, studies have repeatedly shown that the more pollution in the air, the greater the risk of numerous diseases and death. And finally, of course, plants actually remove pollutants from the air.

In fact, an analysis in Australia determined that if roofs in that country’s major cities were replaced with "green roofs" consisting of live plants, the carbon dioxide emissions could be reduced by half a million tons each year. While green roofs cost a bit more than regular roofs to construct, they increase roof life by two times and experts say costs can be recouped in a few years. Although not so common in the US, sales of green roofs in Europe are, so to speak, "through the roof," with 700 million Deutsch Mark in sales in 1997 in Germany alone. Of course, it might be far more satisfying to walk through a field filled with flowers or to bike through the woods than to climb up to your urban roof for a green fix, but at least the roof is close to home.

When you think about, real estate agents may have been onto something all these many years when they said, "The three most important things to consider when buying a home are: location, location, and location." But who knew they were talking about your health?

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In at least five states, parents have had their children taken away by the government and placed into foster care, or they have completely lost custody, because the kids weighed too much. Ditto in Canada and in the United Kingdom. With two-thirds of all adults in the US now overweight and one third so overweight that they qualify as obese, it’s surprising to hear about obese children being removed from their homes because they are too fat. You’ve got to wonder if the welfare authorities and attorneys and judges and foster parents involved all fall into that minority of adults still at healthy weight, or if they themselves hypocritically tip the scales.

You would think the preponderance of obese individuals would usher in a climate of leniency toward those grappling with weight problems, but apparently not. In fact, according to Dr. Matt Capehorn of the U.K.’s National Obesity Forum, "It’s happening more than the public is aware of, but because these cases are usually kept quiet [as a result of child-privacy laws], we have no record."

The publicized cases have thus far been extreme. In South Carolina, mother Jerri Gray lost custody of her 555-pound 14-year-old son after failing to show up for an appointment with social services. In New York, a 261-pound teenage girl was ordered by the court to follow a prescribed diet and a fitness regimen, although she was allowed to remain at home.  And in Scotland, parents just had a newborn temporarily removed because the whole family is fat. The other six children in the family range in age from three to 13 and weigh between 56 and 220 pounds.  The three- and four-year-old children already have been placed in foster care. The authorities have warned the parents that all the kids will be taken if their weight doesn’t go down.

All of these cases went to court on the grounds that allowing kids to get fat represents a form of abuse. In fact, courts in Texas, Pennsylvania, New York, New Mexico, and Indiana already have ruled that medical neglect includes morbid obesity. Although criminal charges against the parents have been filed in several cases, no parent yet has served jail time because junior is fat. But an expert from the British National Obesity Board, Tam Fry, says, "My point will be that we regard malnourished children as being abused and so with those children who are so overweight, either consciously or by neglect because their parents allow it, there should be a case for them being removed from their parents to a pediatric ward and put under weight management by doctors."

And Ron Jones, an Atlanta-based wellness expert, has spearheaded a campaign declaring that child obesity is child abuse. "If you gave your child a drug, you’d be held in the court. But if you kill them with food, that seems to be acceptable," he says.

The thinking is that kids who remain obese will likely develop weight-related diseases like type 2 diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, and so on unless they get out of the environment where they gained excess weight. They need to go somewhere that will enforce dietary restrictions and teach them healthier eating habits. Meanwhile, their parents need to pay the price for allowing their kids to balloon up.

But some experts decry this type of thinking. Grant Varner, who is the attorney for Ms. Gray, the South Carolina mother mentioned above, says, "If she’s found guilty on those criminal charges, you have set a precedent that opens Pandora’s box. Where do you go next?" In other words, just how fat do kids need to get before they get taken away from their parents, and who makes that determination? Twenty states now have laws that allow schools to screen kids for body mass index. Can the law be interpreted so that kids who "fail" their BMI become wards of the state? These are the questions that critics of the recent actions against parents are asking.

Meanwhile, the welfare authorities universally argue that they wouldn’t remove children from their homes just on the basis of weight, that they only act when there’s an imminent medical threat to children. But let’s get real. The fact is that 30 percent of all kids between the ages of 10 and 17 are now overweight or obese. In Mississippi, that rate is 44 percent. The obesity rates keep climbing — not going down. Studies show that one out of four overweight children already shows early signs of type II diabetes and 60% already have one risk factor for heart disease. And according to the CDC, one in three U.S. children born in 2000 will become diabetic — and if you’re black or Hispanic, that percentage is half. That means that if we are to believe the authorities, one third of all children will be subject to court ordered removal from their homes — and again, half if they’re black or Hispanic. Perhaps it’s just me, but that seems a bit Orwellian!

And maybe all the parents of all those kids are indeed endangering the health of their children, and they need to be stopped. But clearly, the problem is so out of control that something needs to be done beyond pressing criminal charges against parents. For instance, consider the fact that food companies are allowed to produce and market foods that make kids fat, no holds barred. And while it’s true that cigarette companies can’t bombard kids with ads during cartoon hour trying to get them to crave tobacco, the makers of candy and chips and greasy prepared foods sure can — and do. They also seduce the parents with promises of no-fuss meals and surefire ways to keep the kids happy, and load the shelves with these products.

As obesity expert Dr. Marc Jacobson of The American Academy of Pediatrics says, "There’s clear evidence that the food industry — fast food restaurants, vending machines, sweetened cereals — influences childhood obesity. I can’t say which is relatively greater in influence [parents or the food industry], but [the food industry] certainly is important. The more fast food restaurants in a community, the more likely the kids are to be obese." If we want to point fingers, the FDA and AMA both endorse high fructose corn syrup, one of the primary culprits in the obesity epidemic, and the US government subsidizes its production and sale. Isn’t it a bit Hansel and Gretelish for the government to subsidize the fattening of our children and then be in charge of removing them from their homes once they get fat?

Meanwhile, the economic realities demand that most parents work during the hours when kids snack and nobody is home to monitor. Parents who don’t have health insurance can’t afford to enroll kids in weight-control programs after the damage is done, and many can’t afford to live in neighborhoods where parks and recreational options abound. And let’s not forget the fact that fast food outlets are concentrated in poor neighborhoods — by design.

David Ludwig, director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children’s Hospital in Boston sums up this side of the argument in Time Magazine, "Parents have a responsibility, but it’s also society’s responsibility — the national government spending billions of dollars on farm subsidies for poor-quality foods, communities placing their priorities on development revenue rather than parks, cutbacks to school nutrition. All this is unfair to the kids." In short, holding a few parents criminally responsible won’t end the epidemic of fat kids. Sweeping changes are needed in industry and society. Or perhaps as (dare I say it) Hillary Clinton once said, "It takes a village to raise a child."

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If it wasn’t for bratty kids and their exasperated parents, television shows like SuperNanny and Nanny 911 wouldn’t be so incredibly popular. The child-rearing experts on those shows make it look like an effortless deal to turn kids who curse, bite, and throw spinach at the wall into civilized beings. But unlike those calm, in-charge TV nannies, the typical parent still flounders through the discipline quagmire — pleading, cajoling, yelling, screaming, punishing, and finally spanking or hitting the errant child in desperate hope of effecting some change.

And spanking — that last-resort tactic–does indeed effect changes in kids, but those changes tend to be for the worse. That’s what numerous studies have confirmed, including a new study out of the University of New Hampshire. The study followed 806 children aged two to four, and 704 children ages five to nine. The children took IQ tests at the start of the study and then four years later. Those children who had been spanked during those years tested lower on the IQ tests than the children who weren’t spanked — five points lower in the case of the younger group and 2.8 points for the five to nine year olds. The researchers had controlled for socioeconomic status, level of parental education, amount of cognitive stimulation the children received, and so on. They also noted how often the child was spanked and found that the more spanking the child received, the greater the negative impact on intelligence. "But even small amounts of spanking made a difference," said study director Murray Straus.

So how does a bop on the butt translate into lost IQ points? According to Dr. Straus, "Contrary to what everyone believes, being hit by parents is a traumatic experience. We know from lots of research that traumatic stresses affect the brain adversely." He says that most children who receive spankings get hit at least three times a week, which over the years creates post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSD). PTSD is associated with lower IQ. This especially holds true for children who get hit into adolescence, as he found in a separate study that confirmed a link between spanking prevalence in countries around the world and the national IQ, using data on over 17,000 university students worldwide. That study found that in places where spanking flourished, the national IQ tended to be lower.

Another expert, Elizabeth Gershoff of the University of Texas, Austin, says, "With spanking, a parent is delivering a punishment to get the child’s attention and to get them to behave in a certain way. It’s not fostering children’s independent thinking."

Some fed up parents may not care about knocking a few IQ points out of their kids, but even the most diehard spanking-enthusiasts might decide to spare the rod if they review the results of other studies on the subject. Earlier studies almost universally have found that spanking makes kids meaner and more aggressive. A recent study found that spanking tends to lead to sexual dysfunction in adulthood. (Maybe spanking would be more effective if you could actually communicate that down-the-road effect to the child being punished.) And yet another study that just came out, involving 2,500 toddlers from low-income families, found that spanking at age one led to increased aggressive behavior by age two and poorer performance on mental ability tests by age three. In other words, spanking may provoke the very behavior that it’s intended stop. In this study, one-third of the one-year-olds, and about half of the two to three year olds had received spankings in the week prior according to reports filled out by the parents. And those are just the parents who admitted hitting their kids! If one-year-olds commonly get hit, no wonder so many people grow up ornery!

Interestingly, verbal punishment, including screaming, yelling, and so on, didn’t have the same negative effect on the kids, according to the study results. This is good news, if an article in the New York Times is to be believed. The article quotes Amy McCready, a parenting skills expert who founded Positive Parenting Solutions, who says, "I’ve worked with thousands of parents and I can tell you, without question, that screaming is the new spanking. This is so the issue right now."  In other words, at least in New York, spanking is popularly considered taboo, so parents scream instead. (But truly, isn’t that so New York?)

The article refers to one study that asked 1300 parents what created the most guilt for them, and over two-thirds named yelling at their kids as the single biggest source of guilt, though other choices included hitting the kids or failing them in some other way. Another study found that of 991 parents interviewed, 88 percent admitted screaming at their children within the past year.

The article ends with plenty of ammunition to convince parents that yelling is bad, and that it undermines kids (despite the findings of the Straus study). But an editorial in The Last Psychiatrist makes an interesting point. It says that the problem isn’t so much the disciplinary tactic used, it’s the fact that so many parents discipline kids willy nilly for shaming or burdening the parents rather than for doing something intrinsically wrong. For instance, a kid who spills milk on a clean floor may get punished as harshly as a kid who lies, leaving the kid confused about the difference between right and wrong and about what really counts.

And perhaps that’s true. Perhaps many parents do spout off because of their own frustrations and stresses rather than responding wisely and reasonably. But clearly, if almost 90 percent of all parents scream at their kids and a large percentage spank, it won’t work to simply say, "It’s bad for your kids — don’t do it." So what should parents do when kids act out? For one thing, they should care for themselves. They should get enough exercise, meditate, eat well, and if necessary, take some herbal or nutraceutical relaxants so that they react to exasperating kid behavior from a place of poise rather than a place of frenzy. They also might find that the kids behave better if they follow a similar regimen — eating well, avoiding sugar, getting enough exercise, and yes — meditating. But if de-stressing the adult and dealing with the child’s excess physical energy doesn’t help, you can always get in line for a spot on the Nanny 911 show.

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Back in September of 1968, 100 women became famous for protesting outside a Miss America pageant — throwing their girdles, bras, hair curlers, high heels, and other "instruments of torture" into a huge trashcan. The media picked up the action, and women nationwide discussed whether they really needed to keep wearing the restrictive and oft-times painful garments. In the case of high heels, the answer at that time, at least among the feminists, was a resounding "no."

The gist of the argument against heels was political — high heels make it impossible for women to run, so women in heels become easy prey for predatory men. Also, as author William Rossi explains in The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe, men get erotic pleasure from watching the "sashaying buttocks and undulating hips of the high-heel walk" — a fact that infuriated feminists who believed that the constricting discomfort of heels was too high a price to pay for stimulating male fantasies.

But beyond politics, even back then, it was clear that there were plenty of reasons to avoid high heels. In heels, women got blisters and bunions, twisted their ankles, and hurt their backs. Now, a new problem with heels has come to light: they can cause damage to feet and ankles that shows up years after the shoes have been put to rest.

A study by Boston University and The Institute for Aging Research of Hebrew Senior Life reviewed medical data on the feet of over 3,300 men and women. The researchers found that when older women suffered pain in the back of their feet and in their ankles, there was a strong association to having worn high heels for long periods of time earlier in life. And those who wore pumps or sandals didn’t fare much better, according to the data.

Given that foot pain ranks as one of the top 20 reasons people over the age of 65 go to the doctor, and that more than 43 million Americans have foot problems, these results are significant. In the study, 29 percent of the women reported generalized foot pain on most days, as did 19 percent of the men. Those women who had worn "good" supportive shoes for most of their lives were 67 per cent less likely to experience ankle or heel pain than women who wore less supportive shoes. But in fact, most women had not opted for a life in sneakers. The study found that 64 percent of the women surveyed had worn heels, sandals, or pumps for most of their lives — shoes categorized by the researchers as "poor choices." In contrast, less than two percent of the men wore shoes in the poor choice category. Good choices, according to the researchers, include sneakers and athletic shoes. Work boots and rubber-soled shoes fall somewhere in the middle.

Research conducted by the American Podiatric Association found that 39 percent of women wear high heels every day.  Of those daily wearers, 75 percent have shoe-related foot pain and related problems such as hammer toes, calluses, corns, tendonitis, lower back pain, and plantar warts. The Association warns women that heels higher than three inches put seven times the pressure on the ball of the foot, which can damage bones. In fact, one study published last year in Clinical Biomechanics found that standing in high heels for long periods can result in a deformity of the big toe where it angles in toward the other toes. Even worse, perhaps, is a finding out of the Harvard Medical School that links wearing high heels to the development of osteoarthritis in the knees.

"High heel shoes may alter foot structure and alignment…while sandals and slippers are considered to lack the support of a conventional shoe," said Dr. Howard Hillstrom of the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. And Dr. Marian Hannan of the Harvard Medical School adds, "Wearing shoes with poor arch support or shoes that negatively affect any aspect of foot biomechanics could lead to a breakdown in the health and operation of the foot’s musculoskeletal system."

The researchers say that with every step we walk, the foot absorbs shock from contact with the ground. Most of the stress goes to the heel area (in non high heel shoes). Better shoes offer both cushioning and support so that the heel isn’t subjected to constant pounding , while the worst shoes offer neither. 

So back to the political argument. If high heels and women’s shoes in general consign women to foot deformities, arthritis, and extreme foot and ankle pain that make it difficult to walk later in life, just how far have we come from the practice of foot binding in China? The obvious similarity is that just as in China, women today suffer a high price for high fashion, but the difference is that women now do have a choice: they can opt to wear sneakers instead of spikes. At the least, they can wear heels only when absolutely necessary.

If the thought of wearing sneakers horrifies you, don’t despair. It may in fact be possible to wear sandals and pumps of a certain type without suffering damage.

Dr. Hannan points out, "The issue is not simply whether one is wearing a good shoe, but if one is wearing a good shoe for one’s foot type." Some sandals do, in fact, offer excellent support, and some foot types actually respond better to certain types of sandals than to other shoes. Just make sure that whatever shoes you wear offer good support, plenty of cushioning, minimal lift, and that they fit really well. And if you do wear heels, stretch your heel and calf muscles afterwards, give your feet and legs a soak and massage, take smaller steps, and opt for shoes that at least have straps in the back.

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