Living Together May Be Mentally Healthier Than Marriage

Living Together May Be Mentally Healthier Than Marriage -- Marriage offers few well-being advantages compared to living together, a new study contends.

The study also found that the benefits of marriage diminish over time, while unmarried couples who live together experience greater happiness and self-esteem.

Researchers examined data from 2,737 single men and women who took part in the U.S. National Survey of Families and Households. Of those people, 896 married or moved in with a partner over a period of six years.

Both marriage and cohabitation led to short-term increases in levels of happiness and fewer depressive symptoms, compared to being single.

But people who were newly married or cohabitating had less contact with parents and friends than single people, and this effect continued over time, according to the study in the February issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family.

"We found that differences between marriage and cohabitation tend to be small and dissipate after a honeymoon period. Also while married couples experienced health gains -- likely linked to the formal benefits of marriage such as shared health care plans -- cohabiting couples experienced greater gains in happiness and self-esteem," said study author Kelly Musick, an associate professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell University's College of Human Ecology, in a journal news release. "For some, cohabitation may come with fewer unwanted obligations than marriage and allow for more flexibility, autonomy and personal growth."

"Compared to most industrial countries, America continues to value marriage above other family forms," she noted. "However, our research shows that marriage is by no means unique in promoting well-being and that other forms of romantic relationships can provide many of the same benefits." ( HealthDay News )

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Smoking, Obesity Slowing U.S. Life Expectancy Gains

Smoking, Obesity Slowing U.S. Life Expectancy Gains -- Longevity isn't increasing as fast in the United States as it is in other developed countries, says a new report that points a finger at high rates of smoking and obesity.

For 25 years, U.S. life expectancy at age 50 has increased, but more slowly than in most of the other 21 countries studied, including Japan and Australia, notes the report from the National Research Council, an arm of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Since the United States spends more on health care than any other country, this slowed pace is striking, said report co-author Samuel H. Preston, a professor of demography at the University of Pennsylvania. The results are "surprising in terms of our self-concept," he added.

"We determined the most likely source of our shortfall is cigarette smoking, particularly the heavy amount of smoking done by American women," he said.

"Obesity also appears to be important, but we are less certain of its role," he added. "We are the heaviest country in the Western world."

For U.S. women, life expectancy at age 50 is 33.1 years, while it's 35.5 on average for women in Japan, Australia, Sweden and Switzerland, Preston said. "And we are a couple of years behind France, Italy and Spain. Men are not as far behind, maybe 1 to 1.5 years behind the leaders," he added.

Fifty years ago more Americans smoked than Europeans and Japanese, and this difference still affects life expectancy today. A similar effect from smoking is seen in shortened lifespans in Denmark and the Netherlands, according to the report.

The effects of smoking on mortality rates take up to 30 years to be seen, so life expectancy for U.S. men will probably improve in coming decades because fewer men have been smoking over the last 20 years, the report says.

Among women, whose smoking habits peaked later than men's, lifespan increases will likely be slow during the next decade.

Although the exact contribution of obesity to shortened lifespan isn't known, it might be responsible for one-fifth to one-third of the life expectancy gap between the United States and other developed countries, the report says.

Moreover, the obesity epidemic could make the years gained by reduced smoking moot, according to the report. However, recent data find the obesity epidemic leveling off and the risk of death associated with obesity may be in decline, the authors say.

"It's clear that our behavioral patterns are not what would lead to optimal health," Preston said. "That's partly a reflection of personal decisions. It's perhaps a reflection that we are not doing a good job in preventive medicine."

While lack of access to health care also affects lifespan, this is less of a factor because those over 65 have access to Medicare, the report notes.

Among aging Americans, cancer and cardiovascular disease remain the main causes of death, and diagnosis and survival rates from these diseases appear to be better in the United States than in most other industrialized countries, the report says.

Hormone replacement therapy did not appear to influence women's longevity, nor did social ties seem to have a bearing on life expectancy, the authors say.

However, the report, titled Explaining Divergent Levels of Longevity in High-Income Countries, suggests that gaps in research make it difficult to draw hard and fast conclusions about how factors such as diet, physical inactivity and social integration affect longevity.

Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine, said he believes the shortfalls revealed in the report are indicative of a problem much deeper than personal behaviors such as overeating and smoking.

"While we are an affluent country, we tolerate and even propagate enormous economic disparities. A large volume of research suggests that disparities in wealth predictably create disparities in health," he said.

What Americans call a health-care system is predominantly a disease-care system, focused on the treatment of disease after it develops, Katz said.

"Health is more about what happens in communities and homes, schools and supermarkets, restaurants and churches, than emergency rooms and cardiac care units," he said.

"Only when we confront the widening divide between haves and have-nots in the U.S., and invest in health promotion programming in the places people work and learn and play, will this kind of comparison to our peers prove less embarrassing," Katz said. ( HealthDay News )

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Saturated fat may not always be harmful

Saturated fat may not always be harmful - Eating butter, cheese and full fat milk might not be as bad for you as previously thought, scientists have found.

Whilst health advice tells us that saturated fat causes cardiovascular disease, it might not be as clear-cut as first thought.

Recent advances in the study of saturated fat have shown that the evidence between saturated fat intake and health had been oversimplified in dietary advice.

Several different studies seemed to imply that genetics, lifestyle and age could all play a part in how badly your body is affected by its saturated fat intake.

And some scientists believe that non-harmful saturated fats are 'lumped in' with others distorting health advice.

A series of research articles published in the journal Lipids provides a snapshot of recent advances in saturated fat and health research, based on science presented at the 100th American Oil Chemists' Society (AOCS) annual meeting.

Dr Bruce German, at the University of California, said: "Although diets inordinately high in fat and saturated fat are associated with increased cardiovascular disease risk in some individuals, assuming that saturated fat at any intake level is harmful is an oversimplification and not supported by scientific evidence.

"The relationship between dietary intake of fats and health is intricate, and variations in factors such as human genetics, life stage and lifestyles can lead to different responses to saturated fat intake."

Researchers found that replacing saturated fat with monounsaturated fat had an unclear effect on cardiovascular disease, while replacing saturated fat with carbohydrates was found to be ineffective and even harmful especially when refined carbohydrates such as starches or sugars were used in place of fat.

Replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat did give a slight reduction in risk, but the benefit was very small.

Researchers concluded that rather than replacing saturated fat, we should focus more on increasing our intake of seafood containing omega-3 fatty acids, whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and decreasing our intake of salt and trans fats, found in cakes, biscuits and fast foods.

*Meanwhile a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found organically grown onions, carrots, and potatoes are no healthier than traditionally produced vegetables, say scientists.

They do not have higher levels of beneficial antioxidants and other substances that are good for us than those grown with traditional fertilisers and pesticides, a study shows ( telegraph.co.uk )

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Preventing Heart Risks at the Root

Preventing Heart Risks at the Root - Two studies published Monday suggest that the road to hypertension and heart disease starts in childhood and that prevention should start there, too.

One analysis found that parental smoking increases the risk for high blood pressure in preschoolers, and the other that excessive sugar consumption in teenagers is associated with multiple factors known to increase the risk for cardiovascular disease. Both reports appear in the journal Circulation.

The first study looked at 4,236 children in Germany, where 5-year-olds undergo a compulsory physical and cognitive assessment before starting school. During the period of the study, 2007-8, more than 28 percent had at least one parent who smoked. Even after correcting for body mass index and parental hypertension, having a smoker as a parent substantially increased the likelihood that a child would have blood pressure readings in the top 15 percent of the sample.

Parental smoking was not the only association, or even the strongest. Being overweight and having a parent with hypertension were also associated with high blood pressure in the children. But the lead author, Dr. Giacomo D. Simonetti, said smoking was probably the easiest risk to modify.

Dr. Simonetti, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Bern in Switzerland, said there was little risk for cardiovascular disease in children. But high blood pressure persists into adulthood, and then becomes a major contributor to heart disease risk.

“If you have a kid who has high blood pressure, it’s likely he will continue to have high blood pressure,” he said. “It’s the same for B.M.I. — for an obese child, the chance of remaining obese as an adult is very high.”

The authors acknowledge that it would take a long-term study to provide proof a smoke-free childhood promotes cardiac health in adulthood. But secondhand smoke has no benefits for children and many well-known risks. There is good reason to believe that adult hypertension is one of them.

The second report was based on a nationwide sample of 2,157 adolescents surveyed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention using a questionnaire that assessed dietary intake.

Teenagers, the researchers found, eat large quantities of sugar. In this study, the daily consumption of added sugars — that is, sugar added to foods and beverages during processing or preparation — averaged 476 calories a day per child, the equivalent of more than half a cup of table sugar. Sugar made up more than one-fifth of their total energy intake.

The researchers found that teenagers who consumed the largest amounts of sugar — more than 30 percent of their calories in that form — were significantly more likely to have lower HDL (high-density lipoproteins, or “good” cholesterol), higher LDL (low-density lipoproteins, or “bad” cholesterol) and higher triglyceride blood levels than those who ate the least, about 10 percent of their total calories.

All three of these factors are known risks for heart disease. The association held after controlling for socioeconomic factors and sex, and for the consumption of fats, carbohydrates, protein and cholesterol.

“I think that parents should be aware of how of much their teenagers’ daily energy comes from added sugars,” said the lead author of the study, Jean A. Welsh, a postdoctoral fellow at Emory University. “It’s a nutrient that provides energy but contributes very little else. Sugar-sweetened beverages are a major contributor, and there may be negative health consequences down the line.”

She cautioned that this was an observational study, and that more research, particularly in the form of prospective studies, would be needed to firmly establish the connection.

Dr. Simonetti and Dr. Welsh agreed that childhood was not too soon to be thinking about the risk for heart disease. “We always speak about prevention of cardiovascular disease in adults,” Dr. Simonetti said. “But the prevention of these diseases begins in childhood.” ( nytimes.com )

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Ten Reasons You Don't Have Abs

Ten Reasons You Don't Have Abs - If there's one fitness goal that almost every man goes to the gym in hopes of achieving, it's a ripped set of abs.

Whether you're trimming down or developing more muscle mass, there's no question that your abs are important. But you might have worked on sculpting an eye-catching stomach many times in the past without ever seeing the results you had hoped for. What is it that makes getting ripped abs so hard to achieve?

Let's take a look at the top 10 reasons you don't have abs.

10. Low-muscle tone

The first reason you don't have abs is simple: a shortage of muscle. While everyone has a degree of abdominal development, some people simply have very little of it. The larger your ab muscles are, the more the muscle will be able to show definition through your body fat, and therefore, the more ripped you'll look. Start performing heavy-weighted ab work to overcome this problem. Weighted decline sit-ups work perfectly

9. It's not in your genes

Another reason you don’t have abs is that you simply don't have the genetics for it. Some people are naturally prone to carry more abdominal fat, and even if they get down to leaner levels with ripped arms and legs, the abs still don't show through. Couple that with the fact that genetics plays a principal role in determining the shape of the abs and the way they look on the body, and you'll realize that if you have genetics working against you, toning your abs is going to be an uphill battle.

8. You're not drinking enough water

In today's world of fast food and excessively processed foods, water retention is the norm. If you have a high-sodium diet and you're not drinking enough water throughout the day, you can bet your looks will be hindered by what you consume. Up your water intake to at least 10 glasses a day and put down the saltshaker. You'll see noticeable differences in two to three days' time.

7. You're not sleeping enough

Do you find yourself staying late at work and vowing to sleep in on the weekend to make up for it? If you're hoping for six-pack abs, you'll have to rethink that strategy. Lack of sleep causes increased cortisol to surge through your system, and this potent hormone actually encourages the accumulation of stomach fat. Get to bed earlier. Not only will you see belly benefits because of it, but you'll be more productive during the day so you won't have to stay so late in the first place.

6. You need more carbs

If you're like many people, you think removing the carbs from your plate is the fastest way to get lean. Unfortunately, that's often not the case. Low-carb diets may be useful for fat loss, but following a very low-carb diet for a long time will cause you nothing but problems. Certain fat-fighting hormones begin to change when your carb intake is too low, and this actually causes your metabolism to shut down. When your metabolism slows, you end up burning so few calories over the course of the day that fat loss becomes next to impossible. Go high-carb once a week to keep the balance steady. Your abs will thank you.

5. You're too focused on abs

Some men who have a six-pack as their goal focus the greater part of their workout on training the abdominal muscle group. Sadly, this focus only drives them further away from their goal. Since the ab muscles are very small, they're hardly going to burn any calories at all (per minute of exercise). Instead, try to focus on compound movements. These work the abs in the course of greater stabilization exercises, and, in the process, they burn 10 times the calories any crunch will.

4. You have poor abdominal control

Abdominal control doesn't end when you finish a workout. If you train your abs hard in the gym but then let them relax the rest of the day, you're making a critical error. Instead, focus on keeping them tight and pulled in at all times. Eventually it will become a habit and you'll immediately look leaner.

3. You drink too much

Headed out for another Friday night with the guys? Before you order another beer at half time, think about its effect on your six-pack goal. As soon as it enters the body, alcohol immediately puts the brakes on fat loss, which means each beer really slows down your progress. Drinking too much too often can also encourage fat to develop around the stomach area, making your job that much harder. While you may take some ribbing when you ask for water, you'll render your buddies speechless next time you cross paths with them at the gym.

2. You're too stressed

Just like lack of sleep, high levels of stress also induce the release of cortisol and quickly cause fat gain in the belly area. If you lead a high-stress lifestyle and feel chronic tension, not only are you encouraging stomach fat accumulation, but you're also risking the loss of lean muscle mass. If you want to stay ripped everywhere else and move closer to a six-pack, you must control your stress.

1. You binge eat

Even the best of us crack under the pressure of too long on a strict diet. If you're trying to stick with a regimen far too low in calories and carbs, it won't be long before you hit the buffet with a vengeance. When binge eating rears its head in your diet plan, have a good look at the regimen you're following and be sure you're consuming enough calories. A very low-calorie diet is the chief reason why most men binge. Your intake must be appropriate to your size and activity level. Low calorie is good, but too few calories will leave you hungry for a binge. ( foxnews.com)

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