An overview of some of the effects that cooking and other food processing methods (e.g, freezing and grilling) have on the nutritional value of foods. Click on the following link to see this interesting data.
Nearly every food preparation process reduces the amount of nutrients in food. In particular, processes that expose foods to high levels of heat, light, and/or oxygen cause the greatest nutrient loss. Nutrients can also be “washed out” of foods by fluids that are introduced during a cooking process. For example, boiling a potato can cause much of the potato’s B and C vitamins to migrate to the boiling water. You’ll still benefit from those nutrients if you consume the liquid (i.e. if the potato and water are being turned into potato soup), but not if you throw away the liquid. Similar losses also occur when you broil, roast, or fry in oil, and then drain off the drippings.
Posted September 1, 2009 by Ali Al-Rajhi under Personal Health
And new details on the vaccine’s safety. The WSJ reports: Recipients of Merck & Co.’s Gardasil cervical-cancer vaccine had higher rates of fainting and blood clots than those receiving other vaccines, but it doesn’t appear to raise the risk of certain severe adverse events, according to a new safety analysis. The writer of one editorial in this week’s JAMA called the marketing “pushy” and “disturbing.”
Posted August 20, 2009 by Ali Al-Rajhi under Personal Health
The safest and most effective treatment for hard-core heroin addicts who fail to control their habit using methadone or other treatments may be their drug of choice, in prescription form, researchers are reporting after the first rigorous test of the approach performed in North America. For years, European countries like Switzerland and the Netherlands have allowed doctors to provide some addicts with prescription heroin as an alternative to buying drugs on the street.
Alan Russell studies regenerative medicine — a breakthrough way of thinking about disease and injury, using a process that can signal the body to rebuild itself.
About Alan Russell
(source: TED)
Alan Russell is a professor of surgery — and of chemical engineering. In crossing the two fields, he is expanding our palette of treatments for disease, injury and congenital defects. We can treat symptoms, he says, or we can replace our damaged parts with bioengineered tissue. As he puts it: “If newts can regenerate a lost limb, why can’t we?”
The founding director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, at the University of Pittsburgh, Russell leads an ambitious biomedicine program that explores tissue engineering, stem cell research, biosurgery and artificial and biohybrid organs. Lately, they’ve started testing a new kind of heart pump, figured out that Botox can help with enlarged prostate, and identified human adipose cells as having the possibility to repair skeletal muscle. In his own Russell Lab, his team is studying antimicrobial surfaces and helping to develop a therapy to reduce scarring on muscle after injury.
He’s also co-founder of Agentase, a company that makes an enzyme-based detector for chemical warfare agents.
For many individuals and caregivers staying in shape and getting healthy can be a bit of a challenge. The iPhone can help make it a little easier, however, with a wide range of apps that can help you track and stay informed about your health. From nutrition facts that let you know just how many calories are in that Big Mac to instructional fitness videos, there are numerous ways you can turn your iPhone into more than just a phone and let it help you keep yourself in tip top shape. Here are a few great applications that can let you integrate your iPhone into you or your patient’s health and fitness program.
Ali Al-Rajhi writes with the purpose of informing individuals in the Public Health field about pressing issues in environmental health, public health policy, epidemiology, and behavioral health. Learn more here.
