Conscious Choice: Hot Mush for Your Heart

March 2008 | Healthy Living :: Body Talk

Hot Mush for Your Heart

By Liz Barker

Love it or loathe it, oatmeal’s got serious heart-protecting power. A new research review published in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine shows that the mushy stuff may pack even more cholesterol-lowering benefits than were established in 1997 (the year the FDA approved that health claim’s appearance on food labaels).

For the review, researchers checked out seven studies (all published in the last 15 years) on oatmeal’s health effects. Without exception, the studies demonstrated that total cholesterol levels are reduced through oat consumption. What’s more, study findings also revealed that eating oatmeal regularly may lessen risk of high blood pressure and type-2 diabetes, prevent weight gain, reduce LDL (“bad”) cholesterol during weight loss and deliver compounds that help stave off early hardening of the arteries.

Troubled Moms and Asthma-prone Kids

Kids with constantly distressed moms may have a higher asthma rate, suggests a new study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. The study didn’t determine how maternal distress might raise children’s asthma risk, but the authors note that depressed mothers are more likely to smoke and less likely to breastfeed (two actions associated with the development of asthma among kids). Previous animal studies also show that depressed mothers are less likely to interact with their infants, and that decreased attentiveness from the mother could negatively impact the infant’s immune response.

“It is increasingly clear that traditional environmental risk factors do not fully explain the origins of asthma,” states study author Anita Kozyrskyj, Ph.D. For the study, Kozyrskyj and her team examined the medical records of nearly 14,000 kids born in 1995. They found that asthma risk among children with distressed mothers was even higher for those who lived in high-income households or who had more than one sibling.

Leafy Greens for Your Baby Blues

By the time they reach 80, more than half of all Americans will have developed cataracts, a condition that clouds the eye’s lens and blurs vision. But getting your fill of the antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin could curb your cataract risk, according to a new study from Boston’s Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. The study looked at data on 35,551 women, finding that those whose diets were richest in lutein and zeaxanthin had an 18 percent lower chance of developing cataracts than women who consumed the least amount of the nutrients.

Both abundant in dark-green leafy vegetables, lutein and zeaxanthin are the only carotenoids (yellow plant pigments that act as antioxidants) found in the lens of the human eye. The study’s authors suggest that the two nutrients could guard against cataracts by filtering lens-damaging blue light. To keep your vision sharp, load up on veggies such as kale, spinach, collard greens, broccoli, and brussel sprouts.

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