jliu's blog

Quite obviously I haven't updated this site in a while. Mainly due to a lack of motivation, lack of inspiration, and overall laziness.

Feel free to browse the archive of articles which mainly focus around health and fitness.

If you are interested you can proceed to my new blog which is focused on the sport of volleyball at Confessions of a VolleyNut

Thanks.

News Review from Harvard Medical School - Lower-Salt Diet Would Have Major Impact

If all Americans cut their salt intake by less than half a teaspoon a day, we could save up to $24 billion in health costs every year. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University built a computer model to test the idea. Experts recommend less than 5.8 g of salt per day. Women eat about 7.3 g per day, and men 10.4 g. Most salt in the diet comes from processed foods, such as lunchmeat, canned food and sauces. The study was published January 20 in the New England Journal of Medicine. HealthDay News wrote about it the same day.

This comes from Robert H. Shmerling, M.D. of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center...

Here are some of my favorite useless or potentially risky activities with little proven benefit that many of us are doing on a daily basis:

1) Twirling cotton-tipped swabs in the ears - It's nearly irresistible. The use of swabs to "clean" the ears or to remove water is nearly universal (although I have no hard statistics on this). Perhaps it's the way cotton swabs are shaped and "the itch" they seem to "scratch" when we insert one into the external ear canal. But read the label. Their manufacturers recommend that they only be used (wink, wink) on the outside of the ear.

News Review From Harvard Medical School -- Study: Exercise, Fitness May Boost Grades

"Girls who are physically active and boys who are fit also have higher grades, a study from Sweden suggests. The study included 232 students. Their average age was 16. They wore devices to track their activity for four days, including one weekend day. On average, the girls spent 69 minutes a day in moderate or vigorous activity. Moderate exercise included hiking and skateboarding. Vigorous exercise included soccer and running. Boys were active about 81 minutes a day. Researchers looked at exercise in relationship to grades. They adjusted for several other factors that can affect grades. They found that girls who were more active also had higher grades. Researchers also tested fitness. This did not affect girls' grades, but boys who were more fit had higher grades. The amount of exercise was not linked with boys' grades. The study was in the Journal of Pediatrics. Reuters Health news service wrote about it December 11."

In a survey conducted by Aetna earlier this year, 69 percent of consumers were ill-informed or completely uninformed about available health insurance plans and how they work. With an increase in the number of people looking towards individual health plans for their health insurance needs (due to a loss of employee coverage of expiration of COBRA benefits), the need for improved health insurance education has been obvious.

There are two such quick and easy resources available that I know of, both provided by Aetna (who conducted this study and subsequently helped create these resources.)

Quite obviously no updates have been made here in a while. There are quite a few articles queued up for final edit and publication, but I've been too lazy to do so.

So for now just enjoy the archive of articles.

Tanning beds are as deadly as arsenic, cancer study says
Maria Cheng
07/29/2009
The Boston Globe

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Commentary: You know, generally I don't take anything out of the Boston Globe with any regard being that it's a majority holder in the Red Sox, but this article caught my eye as interesting and relevant to our generation and it's obsession with remaining tan throughout the year. Having to be tan during winter months, and building up a base tan prior to the spring and summer months using tanning beds as a quick hitting solution has always been assumed to be unhealthy. But to what degree? Hit the jump for the full article.

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Face masks are everywhere in Mexico City as people try to protect themselves from swine flu, the Associated Press says. The government has handed out millions of them. But U.S. officials say there's little evidence that they help to prevent the spread of flu. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not advised the public to use them. Some experts say masks might even cause harm. This could occur if people who wear them fail to take other precautions such as washing hands often.

By Howard LeWine, M.D.
Harvard Medical School

Human touch may have some healing properties; It can lower stress and blood pressure

Sharon Jayson
09/29/2008
USA Today

A new study from researchers in Utah finds that a warm touch -- the non-sexual, supportive kind -- tempers stress and blood pressure, adding to a growing body of research on how emotions affect health.

The study of 34 young married couples ages 20 to 39 by researchers at Brigham Young University in Provo and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City found that massage and other supportive and caring touch lower stress hormones and blood pressure, particularly among men, while also enhancing oxytocin, a hormone thought to calm and counter stress. The findings will be published in the Oct. 14 issue of the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.

Researchers from the World Health Organization (WHO) in Australia conducted a study recently to determine the amount of food consumed versus the amount of food people need to maintain weight.

The result? People are eating too much...

"Scientists measured the metabolism of almost 1,500 adults to determine how many calories their bodies burn under normal conditions. Then they calculated how many calories they’d need to maintain body weight. They figured out how much we’re eating today versus three decades ago by comparing agricultural data from then and now. They determined total food grown and imported, minus what was exported, thrown away or used for livestock."