Blood Pressure Over Normal? Nip It in the Bud

fROM WebMD Blood Pressure Over Normal? Nip It in the Bud: "Prehypertension: Systolic blood pressure of 120-139 and/or diastolic blood pressure of 80-89"

'Those with "prehypertension" -- the zone between normal and high blood pressure -- also have higher-than-normal odds of having a heart attack or heart disease. The findings appear in Stroke."

Yet another reason to watch your fat consumption

Penn State Live: "according to a Penn State study.

'When we gave the rats doses of a 'stop eating' hormone, the rats on the low-fat diet significantly suppressed their intake of the snack but not the rats on the high-fat diet,' said Mihai Covasa, assistant professor of nutritional sciences and a member of the Penn State Neuroscience Institute who led the study. 'These results suggest that a long-term, high-fat diet may actually promote short-term overconsumption of highly palatable foods high in dietary fat by reducing sensitivity to at least one important feedback signal which would ordinarily limit eating.'"

icWales - We have known for years that smoking harms your baby

Absolutely awful. How any mother could do this is so beyond me that I can not even comrehend it. It is one thing to smoke (and harm your own health), but to smoke around others, or in the worst case while pregnant is repugnant.

icWales - We have known for years that smoking harms your baby: "The 'shocking' number of women who risk causing serious damage to their unborn children by smoking while pregnant has been branded 'a great worry for the health of the nation'.

The research has found that 29.1% of women smoke during pregnancy.

The study, funded by Cardiff University, was designed to explore the link between smoking and anti-social behaviour, but made the surprising discovery during the course of the investigation."

Buffalo News - Secondhand smoke tied to teen obesity malady

Buffalo News - Secondhand smoke tied to teen obesity malady: "'The bottom line to me is: As we gear up to take on this epidemic of obesity, we cannot abandon protecting our children from secondhand smoke and smoking,' said lead author Dr. Michael Weitzman, executive director of the American Academy of Pediatrics Center for Child Health Research in Rochester, N.Y.

For the study, metabolic syndrome was defined as having at least three of five characteristics: a big waist, high blood pressure, high levels of blood fats called triglycerides, low levels of good cholesterol, and evidence of insulin resistance, in which the body cannot efficiently use insulin"

Interesting, I confess have not read the article. That said, I would be a tad suscipicious of confounding variables. For instance, those who smoke (or even those who's parents smoke, may not take as good of care of themselves in other ways.

Vitamin E Fails to Deliver on Early Promise - New York Times

FWIW I have essentially stopped taking it. Vitamin E Fails to Deliver on Early Promise - New York Times: "'Based on what we've seen, we don't recommend vitamin E supplements for the prevention of heart disease or cancer,' said I-Min Lee, a Harvard Medical School epidemiologist and lead investigator of one of the most recent and weightiest studies to sully the supplement's reputation.

As part of Harvard's double-blind, placebo-controlled Women's Health Study, nearly 20,000 healthy, middle-aged women were given 600 international units of vitamin E every other day for roughly 10 years. Results reported in the July 6 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association found no overall protective benefit against those illnesses."

Organic Yellow Transparent available at Allegany Store

If you have never had applesauce made from Yellow Transparent apples, wow, you are in for a treat!!!

Definitely one of my favorites. I just picked them and they will be available at the Allegany Store starting Monday.

Donald Fruit & Mercantile Heritage Apple Trees - Wapato: "42 – Yellow Transparent: (White Transparent), Russia, (Europe 1870). Medium-to-large fruit with transparent pale yellow skin. Crisp, sweet and juicy, but has a very short life after ripe on or off the tree. Often picked in a greener stage for cooking. Excellent for sauce, pie and drying. "