Fatty Liver Disease and Diabetes
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease occurs when excess fat is stored in your liver. The most common cause of liver disease used to be alcohol, but now it is far more likely to be caused by eating sugar-added foods and drinking anything with sugar in it. Up to 12 percent of people with fatty livers keep on adding fat to their livers to develop Non-Alcoholic Steato Hepatitis (NASH), which is liver inflammation and permanent liver damage called cirrhosis and can cause liver cancer .
Burt Reynolds’ Heart Attack
Burt Reynolds was a famous film and television star, producer, and director who had it all. He was extremely good looking, incredibly popular with the ladies, a gifted movie star who could be absolutely hilarious, a college scholarship athlete who was a potential All-American, and a much sought-after actor who became fabulously wealthy.
Diet Recommendations from the PURE Study
The PURE (Prospective Urban Rural Epidemio.logy) Study, reported at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Munich on August 28, 2018, concludes that increasing intake of fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, fish, dairy and non-processed red meat is linked to reduced death rate and reduced incidence of heart attacks in three data sets. However, I hope that you do not use these results as a reason to increase your intake of meat.
Robin Leach: Risk Factors for Strokes
Robin Leach was best known as the host of the 1984-95 television series, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, which featured palatial homes, yachts, expensive cars and lavish lifestyles of wealthy entertainers, athletes and corporate executives. Leach died prematurely at the very young age of 76 from a second stroke, which occurred 10 months after his first stroke that cost him the ability to speak and use his right side.
Red Meat, Neu5Gc and Risk for Cancer
This year, researchers have identified the CMAH gene in meat, dairy, and even caviar from some fish that produces a sugar-protein called Neu5Gc, which may explain the association between eating red meat and increased risk for certain cancers. We do not have an explanation for the association between eating meat from mammals and various diseases in humans, but a leading theory was offered by Ajit Varki in 1982 when he discovered a sugar-protein on the surface of all cell membranes in mammals except humans. He called this sugar-protein Neu5Gc.
Risk for Dementia Goes Down with Steps to Prevent Heart Attacks
You can reduce your risk for suffering from dementia by up to 70 percent when you follow the same healthful habits that help to prevent heart attacks. A study of 6,600 people over 65, followed for 8.5 years, found that each lifestyle risk factor for heart attacks is also a risk factor for dementia, and that correcting each heart attack risk factor reduces risk for dementia.
Eggs Do Not Prevent Heart Attacks and Strokes
A recent news headline proclaimed, “An Egg a Day May Keep Heart Disease Away” (Time, May 21, 2018), based on a study of 512,891 adults in urban and rural areas of China. Those who ate one egg a day were reported to have an 18 percent reduced incidence of heart attacks and an incredible 26 percent reduction in bleeding strokes.
Neil Simon’s Kidney Disease
Neil Simon was America’s premier play and movie writer. His more than 30 plays and 30 movies won a Pulitzer Prize, three Oscars, three Tony awards, 17 Tony nominations and four Academy Award nominations. He once had four successful plays running at the same time on Broadway, and in 1983, he became the only living person to have a Broadway theater named after him.
Lifestyle Can Override Genes
Studies in the new field of Epigenetics are showing that lifestyle factors can change the way your body responds to your genes. In one of these studies, researchers were delighted to find a set of identical twins with vastly different lifestyles. They found that a lifetime of exercise is likely to give you the body characteristics of a healthy athlete, while an inactive lifestyle can give you body characteristics associated with increased risk for many diseases.
Can Cell Phones Cause Memory Loss or Cancer?
Two recent studies show that non-ionizing radiation from cell phones may be associated with impaired ability to recall images, but not words, in teenagers; and at high levels, can increase brain and heart tumors in rats. Most studies on cell phone use have not shown increased cancer risk or memory loss.