Vitamins, minerals & supplements Archive

Excluding the wrong foods and following eating plans that are too restrictive may do more harm than good.

If you've ever made a New Year's promise to eat more healthfully, then you know how easy it is to slip back into less healthy eating routines. "People go into these plans with the best of intentions, but sometimes they don't have the best information to support their changes," explains registered dietitian Kathy McManus, director of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital (www.brighamandwomens.org).

Whether you've chosen an eating plan to lose weight or to address a health problem (for example, a low-salt diet to help lower your blood pressure), it's important to understand the little things that can throw you off track.

Tailor salad greens to your dietary needs and taste preferences.

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In the quest to follow daily dietary recommendations and eat the right amount of vegetables, salad is your friend. A large salad can check off your veggie requirements for the day in one fell swoop.

But not all salad greens are created equal. "They vary in regard to their nutrient content, nutrient density, flavor, and texture," says Elisabeth Moore, a registered dietitian at Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. So it helps to know which salad greens will give you the most bang for the bite.

Health benefits come from the live microbes that thrive in foods such as yogurt, kimchi, and sauerkraut.

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Pickles and sauerkraut might not be the first examples that jump to mind when you think of health foods. But a growing body of research shows that a diet that includes a regular intake of fermented foods can bring benefits.

Fermented foods are preserved using an age-old process that not only boosts the food's shelf life and nutritional value but can give your body a dose of healthful probiotics — live micro­organisms crucial to good digestion.

You need adequate amounts of good dietary fat.

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Low fat? No fat? Try more fat. Dietary fats are essential for maintaining good overall health, especially as you age. "Your body needs a regular intake of fat," says Vasanti Malik, a research scientist with the Department of Nutrition at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. "Fat helps give your body energy, protects your organs, supports cell growth, keeps cholesterol and blood pressure under control, and helps your body absorb vital nutrients. When you focus too much on cutting out all fat, you can actually deprive your body of what it needs most."

Two types of fats

To understand the role fats play in a healthy diet, you have to look closer at the two types of dietary fats: saturated and unsaturated. (A third kind, trans fats, have been all but eliminated from U.S. foods.)

Research we're watching

Eating nuts even just a couple of times a week is linked to a lower risk of dying from heart disease, a new study suggests.

The study included 39,000 women who filled out dietary questionnaires at the start of the study and again about 10 years later. During the follow-up, which lasted an average of 19 years, nearly 1,000 of the women died of cardiovascular disease.

Medication errors and communication problems may put people at risk.

It's been 20 years since the Institute of Medicine published its landmark report To Err is Human. It found that as many as 98,000 people were dying each year from preventable medical errors, prompting an industrywide patient safety effort that has spanned the past two decades.

An editorial published in JAMA Dec. 29, 2020, notes that in the years since that report came out, hospitals and doctors have made numerous changes that have succeeded in reducing preventable problems, such as hospital-acquired infections, falls, and medication-related errors. But more work remains to be done. Mistakes still happen.

Research we're watching

Lifestyle changes may help to prevent symptoms related to gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), according to a research letter published online Jan. 4, 2021, by JAMA Internal Medicine.

Using data from the Nurses' Health Study II, a nationwide study that included 116,671 women, researchers found that among 9,000 women who had GERD symptoms, those who met five specific anti-reflux lifestyle criteria were 40% less likely to have GERD symptoms than women who did not meet any of them. These were having a normal body weight; never smoking; participating in 30 minutes of moderate or vigorous exercise each day; drinking no more than two cups of coffee, tea, or soda each day; and following a healthy diet. GERD symptoms were defined as reporting acid reflux or heartburn at least once a week.

Here's how to prepare for spring and summer pollen allergies.

Ah, spring is in the air. But unfortunately, so are billions of pollen particles that make millions of stuffed-up Americans suffer through weeks and months of sneezing, coughing, and wheezing. Even if spring and summer allergies never bothered you before, it's possible for symptoms to suddenly appear now in your 60s or 70s.

"Your immune system changes over time. Although most allergies begin early in life, it's possible to develop seasonal allergies at any age," says Dr. Mariana Castells, an allergist and immunologist in the department of Allergy, Rheumatology, and Immunology at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Research we're watching

While opioid use disorders have gotten a lot of attention in recent years, the number of people dying as a result of methamphetamine use is on the rise. A study published Jan. 14, 2021, in The New England Journal of Medicine found that a combination drug therapy may provide some hope in helping people with this difficult-to-treat disorder.

In the trial, half of the 403 adult volunteers were given a combination of two drugs: naltrexone, which is used to treat both opioid and alcohol use disorders, and bupropion, an antidepressant. The other half of the group received a placebo. The treatment period began in 2017 and ended in 2019. During that time people were given periodic urine tests to gauge whether they used methamphetamines. Those who had at least three of four drug-free tests were defined as having responded to treatment. Researchers found that by weeks five and six, 16.5% of the treatment group had responded to treatment, compared with 3.4% of the control group. By weeks 11 and 12, 11.4% of the treatment group met the urine test criteria for successful treatment, compared with less than 2% of the control group. Most people who received the drug treatment didn't have any serious side effects.