Category: Health

No Need to Shower so Much

Showering is something that a lot of North Americans do everyday: and if you’re one of them then you should stop. Showering daily can actually do more harm to your health than good. So relax about your daily urge to cleanse and just roll with your micro biome!

As we learn more about the relationship between the microbiome and our health, some scientists and journalists have begun weaning themselves from cosmetic products like soap and shampoo. In taking away the bad bacteria, we could be losing too much of the good.

In this episode of If Our Bodies Could Talk—the final in a three-part miniseries on the microbiome—senior editor James Hamblin investigates the health of the microbes on our skin.

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Eat Whole Grains for a Whole Lifetime

A simple change to your diet can make a whole lot of difference on your heart. Instead of reaching for the white bread go for the bread with the whole grains. It’s a pretty easy modification you can make to your diet. Just by switching to whole grains over bleached grains you can improve your health.

Give it a try and see how you feel!

People who ate the most whole grains were about 16 percent less likely to die of any cause during the study than those who ate the least, almost 20 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease and more than 10 percent less likely to die of cancer.

For every additional serving of 16 grams of whole grains, cardiovascular disease-related death risk declined by 9 percent and cancer death risk by five percent, as reported in the review in Circulation.

A half-cup of cooked brown rice, cooked oatmeal, or cooked 100 percent whole grain pasta, for example, or one slice of 100 percent whole grain bread, would be the equivalent of about 16 grams.

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Marathons Aren’t as Impressive as Running a 5K

Running a marathon is seen as the big goal for committed runners – and it’s quite the triumph since running for so far and long is a big challenge no matter how healthy one is. I’ve never run a marathon and I just found out that there’s no reason to (phew!). It turns out that after looking at a lot of studies on health and running that just committing to a 5K run is enough.

5K seems to be the optimal distance for the vast majority of people given the fact that it’s long enough to be a challenge but not so long it can endanger one’s health.

So by focusing on the 5K, you’re optimizing health benefits and minimizing injuries, and if you’re deliberate about your training, you can maximize your fitness gains too. Training seriously for the 5K will get you close to your biological potential for aerobic fitness, Joyner said. “Seriously is the key though,” he said. The secret is high-intensity interval training, or HIIT — short periods of very hard efforts interspersed with easier recovery bouts. Studies show that these high intensity workouts produce greater improvements in VO2 max than the kind of long, slow workouts emphasized in many marathon training plans.1 Two-time U.S. 5,000-meter champion Lauren Fleshman has published a list of a dozen 5K-friendly HIIT workoutsat Strava, most of which require no track, just a stopwatch.

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Easy HPV Testing From Eve Kit

HPV is a virus that can lead to cancer, but is generally easy to test for and prevent. It can be an awkward experience getting tested though, and that is where a new crowd sourced intuitive, the Eve Kit, comes into play. It’s a simple to use STI and HPV testing kit that women can use from the comfort of their own home.

The idea behind Eve Kit started over coffee, when our co-founder Jess realized that many of her close friends were all avoiding a potentially life-saving Pap test, just because it was “awkward” – which seemed like a terrible reason!

This sparked a mission to create a less invasive, more comfortable way for women to engage in their own health.

Through ongoing collaborations with women, healthcare providers and experts, Jess and the Eve team developed a simple, intuitive device to collect high quality samples for molecular diagnostic HPV, Chlamydia and other STI testing.

Check it out!
Thanks to Delaney!

What’s The Best Sunscreen To Use?

In the northern half of the planet summer has started and people are feeling the burn. There’s no need to feel the burn if you practice good sun safety though. Umbrellas are an option to shade your skin as are other fashion accessories. Although sunscreen is perhaps the most convent form of sun protection when out and about.

So which sunscreen to buy? A lot of the big brands use vicious chemicals in their sunscreen formulas which can be bad for you and the environment. Next time you purchase some of that sun protecting goo check out what the Environmental Working Group has done!

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has released their 2015 guide to sunscreen, and among the worst brands for sun protection is the number one culprit for toxicity and false advertising, Neutrogena.

“Neutrogena’s advertising hype is further from reality than any other major brand we studied. It claims to be the “#1 dermatologist recommended suncare brand, yet all four products highlighted on Neutrogena’s suncare web page rate 7, in the red – worst – zone in our database,” says EWG.

Not only do many Neutrogena sunscreens contain harmful chemicals like oxybenzone and methylisothiazolinone – we’ll get to those later – but their advertised SPF levels of over 70 have been debunked by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. According to the federal department, SPF levels max out at about 50. Europe, Australia and Japan have already banned brands from advertising SPF levels over 50.

Read more (and see the complete list).