Your World and You: Tips to Improve Your Family’s Health – Issue 65 (Premium)
Environmental and Nutritional Tips to Improve Your Family’s Health
This feature highlights reports, studies, and feedback on efforts that can positively impact our quest for health. The topics we cover in this issue are listed below. We invite you to share material with us that you think would interest our readers.
Articles in this issue
- Handwriting helps the brain more than typing
- Risk factors associated with early onset dementia
- Breastfeeding offers a lower risk of childhood obesity regardless of mom’s weight
- Updates on advancements in Tourette syndrome research
- Looking for non-alcoholic drinks to make or purchase?
- Health Dangers of Frozen Pizza
- Stay current on PANDAS/PANS treatments
- Childhood diet is linked to blood vessel damage in teen years
- Are you putting your toddler in front of the TV? Uh-oh. See recommendations
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Handwriting helps the brain more than typing
Many school kids do not have lessons in handwriting, which is a major shift from the emphasis on penmanship decades ago. While keyboarding is an integral part of today’s society, handwriting also plays an important role in brain function.
After recording the brain activity of 36 university students, researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology determined that handwriting might improve learning and memory.
At the start of the experiment, the students were told to either write words in cursive using a digital pen on a touchscreen, or to type the same words using a keyboard. Meanwhile, a cap of sensors on their head measured their brain waves. The cap’s 256 electrodes attached to the scalp and recorded the electrical signals of the students’ brains, including where brain cells were active and how parts of the brain communicated with each other.
“Our main finding was that handwriting activates almost the whole brain as compared to typewriting, which hardly activates the brain. The brain is not challenged very much when it’s pressing keys on a keyboard as opposed to when it’s forming those letters by hand,” said the study’s co-author.
Excerpted from an NBC news report:
Risk factors associated with early onset dementia
In this study, which included more than 350,000 participants in the United Kingdom, both modifiable and nonmodifiable risk factors for early onset dementia were identified.
While these are not the only possible factors, the findings are valuable. Yet, notably missing from this list are the beneficial impacts of optimal diet and exercise, both proven players in the fight against dementia.
Lower risk:
- higher formal education
- lower physical frailty (higher handgrip strength)
Higher risk:
- low socioeconomic status
- apolipoprotein E status (cholesterol related gene)
- alcohol use disorder
- social isolation
- vitamin D deficiency
- high C-reactive protein levels
- hearing impairment
- orthostatic hypotension (dizziness)
- stroke
- diabetes
- heart disease
- depression
Breastfeeding offers a lower risk of childhood obesity regardless of mom’s weight
Adapted from a Newswise report: While previous studies have shown that breastfeeding may protect children against obesity and other chronic conditions, this relationship has not been well studied in women who have obesity themselves.
In this research, results indicated that any amount of consistent breastfeeding during an infant’s first three months was associated with lower body mass index (BMI scores), which were calculated later at ages between 2 and 6 years, regardless of the mother’s pre-pregnancy BMI.
Updates on advancements in Tourette syndrome research
From a wrist device to deep brain stimulation and new drugs, you can read the latest summary provided by Biotech which gives an update on a handful of approaches. See here.
Looking for non-alcoholic drinks to make or purchase?
Increasingly, adults are making changes in their drinking habits to reduce the amount of alcohol they consume. This can take some adjustments, whether dealing with a social situation or simply wanting to enjoy beverages at home. Having a variety of substitutes for alcohol beats sticking with soda, juice, or tonic water. It’s also good to have some ideas if you are entertaining and nondrinkers are invited to the occasion.
Bon Appetit and the BBC weighed in on options to avoid alcohol. Cost may be a factor for some of the pricier ones, but that’s also true for a good wine! See the links below for intriguing options.
Drinks and wines from Bon Appetit
BBC Good Food’s top 30 mocktails
Health Dangers of Frozen Pizza
From the Environmental Working Group: Although almost everyone has had this popular food item in their freezer at one point, some brands might be serving up chemical ingredients that can potentially cause health harm. Whether you’re a meat lover, veggie fan or love classic pepperoni, always read the frozen pizza box to avoid potentially harmful ingredients and additives. Frozen pizza chemicals have been linked to cancer, DNA and immune system damage.
Food chemicals in frozen pizza
Frozen pizza is frequently made with food chemicals that may harm humans. Titanium dioxide, a color additive that may cause damage to DNA, can be found in frozen pizzas such as Celeste Pizza, Original Cheese. Pizza might also contain problematic preservatives – TBHQ, for instance, may harm the immune system, and it can be found in products like Totino’s Cheese Flavored Pizza Rolls. Products like Bagel Bites contain BHA, a preservative that’s been identified as a possible human carcinogen.
Potassium bromate is another possible human carcinogen, and it can be found in Imo’s Pepperoni Pizza.
Fly Guys Pizza Pepperoni, among other products, contains Red 40, a synthetic food dye that can harm children’s development and may cause behavioral difficulties.
These chemical additives, and many others, get into the food we eat through legal loopholes that allow food and chemical companies, not the Food and Drug Administration, to decide they’re safe for human consumption.
Stay current on PANDAS/PANS treatments
The field of PANDAS/PANS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections and Pediatric Acute-Onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome) has been rapidly evolving during the last two decades. The conditions typically occur after an infection, and tics are often one of the many symptoms, but the conditions are complex and challenging.
The PandasNetwork.org is well organized and offers valuable information for families and medical practitioners. A summary of clinical research is offered (see here) as well as a wide range of resources.
Childhood diet linked to blood vessel damage in teen years
Who would imagine that a 17-year-old could develop stiff arteries, which is a condition usually reserved for older people with harmful habits, such as smoking. Artery damage can increase the risk of early heart attacks and strokes. Yet, a new study revealed that when young children’s diets are high in calories, fats, and sugar, they are more prone to developing dangerous stiff arteries as a teenager.
Journal excerpt:
Researchers at the University of Bristol investigated links between childhood diet and arterial stiffness in adolescence. They found that eating a diet high in calories, fat and sugar, and low in fibrer, at the ages of seven and 10 was associated with stiffer arteries aged 17.
In addition, Mediterranean and anti-inflammatory eating patterns appeared to be protective for heart health, and children whose diets were most similar to these patterns had less stiff and more elastic arteries at 17.
Read more here.
Are you putting your toddler in front of the TV? Uh-oh. See recommendations
Drexel University research
Babies and toddlers exposed to television or video viewing may be more likely to exhibit non-typical sensory behaviors, such as being disengaged and disinterested in activities, seeking more intense stimulation in an environment, or being overwhelmed by sensations like loud sounds or bright lights. These are findings from researchers at Drexel’s College of Medicine and were published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
According to the study, children exposed to more TV viewing by their second birthday were more likely to develop non-typical sensory processing behaviors, such as “sensation seeking” and “sensation avoiding,” as well as “low registration” — being less sensitive or slower to respond to stimuli, such as their name being called, by 33 months old.
Sensory processing skills reflect the body’s ability to respond efficiently and appropriately to information and stimuli received by what the toddler hears, sees, touches, and tastes.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) discourages screen time for babies under 18-24 months. Live video chat is considered by the AAP to be okay, as there may be benefits from the interaction that takes place. AAP recommends time limitations on digital media use for children 2 to 5 years to typically no more than 1 hour per day.
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