Category: Health

Here are some general dietary guidelines proposed by hellofood.rw that will help you achieve a good health.
Let’s be honest you can’t expect to do them all at once, but just like everything else good eating becomes a habit. Also don’t expect to live your life by these rules every day – but the closer you get to following them the more your body will forgive you if you have a day off and a bit of a binge down the burger bar.

• Start each day with a cup of warm water (you can add lemon juice or fresh ginger if you desire) ;this helps get the digestive system moving and rids the body of waste and toxins
• Eat three meals a day, at regular times if possible and have breakfast by 10 am
• Snacks are optional only eat them when you are hungry and don’t confuse hunger for boredom. If you have eaten well at meal times snacks should not be needed. If you can miss out on snacks you will give your digestive system a well-earned rest
• Never eat to the extent that you feel stuffed always stop eating before you feel full
• Don’t overdo the calories
• Eat fruit and/or vegetables at every meal. Example:order from Simba.
• Make the food on your plate as colorful as possible : this will ensure that you are taking in a broad range of not only vitamins and minerals by essential phytonutrients key in the prevention of disease
• Some of these should be eaten raw every day : in the form of salads, juices, smoothies, vegetable crudités for example(The best one find it at Hero shop)
• Two-thirds of your plate at lunch and dinner should be vegetables with the remaining third lean protein, best way to get it you can order at Mickey mouse.
• Eat lean protein with every snack and meal (try Bistro, Magda and Pasha ) – a portion of protein should measure approximately the size of the palm of your hand
• Starches (grains and potatoes) are optional at meal times but should be used in small portions
• Eat a variety of whole, natural, unprocessed foods (example: Bbrood) and try not to eat the same food every day. Try to prepare food from scratch to reduce the amount of preservatives and chemicals entering your body
• Be aware of pesticides and other chemicals used in food production – read labels
• Replace all white starches (bread, pasta, rice, bagels)(ex: Bbrood) with whole meal varieties
• Avoid genetically modified foods
• Avoid commercially processed foods as much as possible – remember low fat or low sugar labels mean “overloaded with chemicals”
• Chew your food
• Eat slowly and enjoy your food, sharing it with family and friends whenever possible
• Drink 1.5 liters if water a day – more it you are physically active. Filtered water is best.
• Try to stick to these guidelines as much as possible but don’t become obsessive.

Water is good for you, we all know that. We hear no end that we should be drinking more and more water. After all, water is a vital component for our bodies, let’s not forget that we’re made up of 80% water! Which is actually a very strange thought when you overthink it. Water basically maintains all of our everyday bodily functions from transporting vital nutrients and oxygen to helping with our day-to-day digestion of food. So we’ve successfully established we NEED it.

But fancy making your water even more helpful to your system? Just add honey, yes honey! I know what you’re thinking.

It’s full of sugar.

But it’s so sweet?

How can honey be healthy?

Fear not friends, honey is actually pretty damn good for you. Drinking a glass of warm honey water everyday can increase your health and even prevent against disease. Yep you heard right, THIS is what will happen if you start drinking honey every day…
{{
Your Skin Will Become Clearer}}

Yeah! Honey is a natural anti-oxidant which means it helps to flush away any waste and thanks to antibacterial properties it helps to keep your skin clean and clearer than ever. This infographic gives a pretty good overview as to why and how you can get better skin by using honey, anyone up for a DIY honey exfoliator?

{{You Will Boost Your Immune System}}

Honey owns some pretty impressive immune system boosting properties. Be sure to buy raw, organic honey to gain maximum benefit from the bacteria killing assets! It’s full of enzymes, vitamins and minerals that will protect you against any nasty bacteria.

{{You Will Lose Weight}}

So your first thought is probably BUT SUGAR. Yes there is sugar in honey but it’s totally different to white sugar, its natural sugar! These natural sugars will help to satisfy your everyday sweet cravings for naughty treats such as cake, sweets, chocolate and cola. In fact if you swap your sweetener packed drinks for honey water you’ll be saving up to 64% more calories!

{{Your Sore Throat Will Improve}}

There’s a reason warm honey water is a winter favourite, it can help to soothe a sore throat and warm you up in the colder months. Honey is a natural remedy for respiratory infections and the common cough, so next time you have a pesky winter cold, reach for the honey (raw and organic though of course).
{{
You Will Flush Out Toxins}}

Honey and warm water is one of the best combinations to flushing out waste from your system. Say goodbye to toxins and hello to a detox. Oh and a quick tip – adding lemon will improve this even further by helping to increase urination. Just saying.

{{Your Blood Sugar Levels Will Regulate}}

As we’ve discussed, whilst honey does contain a fair amount of sugar, it’s not the same as white sugar – the combination of fructose and glucose actually helps the body to regulate your blood sugar levels, it’s also said to lower cholesterol too. Not bad.

{{Your Gas Will Reduce}}

I know, I said gas *eww*. But seriously, if you suffer from bloat or feel gassy on the regular then a mug of warm honey water will help to neutralise the gas in your system. You’ll feel half a stone lighter in no time.

{{You’ll Be Preventing Risk Of Heart Disease}}

And that’s got to be pretty good right? The flavonoids and anti-oxidants in honey are also pretty handy at helping to prevent and reduce your risk of heart disease. Research has shown that honey slowed down the oxidation process of bad cholesterol in human blood – which can have a harmful effect on your heart leading to attacks and even a stroke.

So what are you waiting for? Grab that honey and boil that kettle!

www.lifehack.org

{It’s time for consumers to wake up to the risks of sleep disorders, scientists say.}

More than 50 million adults in the U.S. have a disorder such as insomnia, restless leg syndrome or sleep apnea, according to an Institute of Medicine report. And it’s now clear that a lack of sleep “not only increases the risk of errors and accidents, it also has adverse effects on the body and brain,” according to Charles Czeisler, chief of the division of sleep and circadian disorders at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Research in the past couple of decades has shown that a lack of sleep increases a person’s risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes, infections and maybe even Alzheimer’s disease. Yet most sleep disorders go untreated.

Michael Arnott, who is now 67, began having sleep problems in his 50s, he says. As a result, he often found himself having trouble staying awake during long drives on the Massachusetts Turnpike.

“I would get groggy and feel like I’ve got to keep talking, open the window,” Arnott says.

His wife, Mary White, says being a passenger on those drives could be scary.

“All of a sudden there’d be a change in the speed and I’d look over, and his eyes would be starting to close,” she remembers.

White thought her husband might have sleep apnea, which interferes with breathing. But Arnott was in denial. He figured he was free of most risk factors for apnea. He wasn’t overweight, he didn’t smoke or take sedatives, and he has always stayed in great shape.

“I’m a runner. I’ve run for more than 40 years,” he says. “I used to do marathons. Now I just do 5- and 10-kilometer road races.”

So his wife took the initiative. “I asked him to see a doctor and he wouldn’t,” she says. In 2012, though, White persuaded him to take part in a sleep research study that paid for his participation, and took place at a sleep lab in Boston, not too far from the couple’s home in Cambridge.

Doctors found a couple of problems. “I’ve got what they call moderate obstructive sleep apnea,” Arnott says. He also has a form of restless leg syndrome that causes him to kick during sleep.

Those conditions, along with his tendency to stay up late and wake up early, meant he wasn’t getting enough quality sleep. And research in the past couple of decades has shown that’s a problem even if you’re not nodding off on the Massachusetts Turnpike.

Much of that research was done in the same sleep lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital where Arnott was diagnosed. The lab includes rooms that are completely isolated from the light, sounds and even vibrations of the outside world. As study participants sleep in these rooms, their brain waves, respiration, oxygen levels and other signs can be monitored from a central control room.

In highly controlled environments like this one, Czeisler and other researchers have shown that sleep affects everything from blood pressure to memory to metabolism.

“Within 2 1/2 weeks we can take someone who is young, healthy and fit and put them in a pre-diabetic state just by putting them on an irregular schedule,” Czeisler says.

Research also has shown a strong connection between sleep and the immune system, Czeisler says. “People who are not getting sleep, if they’re exposed to a virus like the adenovirus — that causes the common cold — they will have a 200 to 300 percent increased risk of actually catching a cold,” he says.

Many studies suggest that a lack of sleep raises the risk of a heart attack or stroke. And most recently, Czeisler says, scientists have found evidence that the brain actually needs sleep to stay healthy.

“It’s during sleep that we clear out many of the toxins that build up during wakefulness,” Czeisler says. Among those toxins is beta-amyloid, which produces the sticky plaques that appear in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease.

Most sleep disorders can be treated, but often they aren’t. Arnott, the sleepy driver from Cambridge, didn’t address his symptoms until his wife pushed him to take part in a sleep study.

“My whole clinic is full of patients who are brought in by their spouses,” says Dr. Andrew Wellman, a sleep specialist at Harvard and Brigham and Women’s who has cared for Arnott.

When Wellman is assessing a new patient, he asks a simple question: “Do your eyelids get heavy when you’d prefer to be awake?” If the answer is yes, that is a very specific indication that someone isn’t getting enough sleep. Symptoms such as fatigue or feeling tired are less specific, and can have other causes, he says.

Much of Wellman’s practice is devoted to sleep apnea, which affects about 1 in 3 adult men and becomes more common with age.

Wellman says a sleep apnea diagnosis usually requires an overnight sleep study to measure the flow of air in and out of the lungs. “If that flow is diminished, then that is the primary measurement that we use to detect these sleep apnea events,” he says.

The problem can be in the brain — a condition called central apnea. But more often the airway is getting blocked repeatedly during sleep, a disorder called obstructive sleep apnea.

Arnott has an unusual variant of obstructive sleep apnea, Wellman says. “His airway actually collapses at the epiglottis, which is a structure just below the base of the tongue that prevents food from going down in the airway.”

Regardless of the cause, the go-to treatment for sleep apnea is a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine. Arnott tried one for three months and hated it.

“You have to have a mask on your face; you have a machine making noise all night, and you have to have electricity,” he says. “We hike. We go to places in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and Maine, where electricity is not always there.”

Complaints like those are pretty common among people using CPAP machines, Wellman says. “Somewhere around 50 percent of patients don’t adhere to their therapy. Probably there are many people that don’t even come to the sleep lab because they know they might get that breathing machine, and they don’t want it.”

One alternative is surgery to help keep the airway open. Another is an oral appliance that moves the lower jaw forward.

Arnott eventually switched to an oral appliance and has made a series of other changes. He sleeps on his side, which reduces apnea. He tries to get to bed at the same time each night. And he has begun doing yoga before bedtime, which he says helps with his restless leg syndrome.

Those steps have made a big difference, Arnott says. For one thing, he no longer falls asleep at the wheel. And now, he says, “There are times on long trips when Mary actually says, ‘I’m getting groggy. You drive.’ ”

{{Source: NPR}}

{Rwanda’s Minister of Health, Agnes Binagwaho, M.D., Ph.D., will visit the National Institutes of Health on Wednesday, July 29 to deliver the 2015 David E. Barmes Global Health Lecture. The annual event honors the late Dr. Barmes, a public health dentist and epidemiologist who devoted his career to conducting research to improve health in developing countries.}

Rwandan Health Minister Dr. Agnes Binagwaho. Photo by Stephanie Novak
The presentation, titled “Medical Research and Capacity Building for Development: The Experience of Rwanda,” will take place at 11:30 a.m., in Masur Auditorium (Building 10) on the Bethesda campus. NIH Director Dr. Francis S. Collins will provide introductory remarks.

Dr. Binagwaho has spoken frequently about the significant role research has played in improving health in her country. Before becoming minister in 2011, she had served as permanent secretary of health, as executive secretary of Rwanda’s National AIDS Control Commission and as a physician in public hospitals for over 15 years. She trained in pediatrics, specialized in emergency neonatology and the treatment of HIV/AIDS, and earned her doctoral degree from the University of Rwanda in 2014. She holds positions in the medical schools at Harvard University and Dartmouth College, where she teaches courses in health equity, HIV/AIDS, information and communication technologies for health, and pediatric care delivery systems.

Rwanda is noted for achieving “remarkable” progress in improving health, according to a recent Lancet Global Health article. “Since 1990, under-5 mortality has decreased by two-thirds and maternal mortality by three-quarters, while life expectancy has nearly doubled,” the report stated. “Rwanda has also become a pioneer in tackling cancer and noncommunicable diseases that most low-income countries are only beginning to take on. The health achievements of this country surpass those of its peers and even countries with higher levels of economic development.”