Health Front (Quality of Life Better After Quit Smoking) - Two Rivers ...

By Dr. Jerry DeCapua, Two Rivers Tribune Contributing Writer,

Life after cigarettes is happier. Quitting is hard, but for those who actually do it report less stress in their lives three years later. People who have quit smoking report that they?re moods are much better in the long run. The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and its Center for Tobacco Research made an assessment of the ?quality of life? indicators for people before and after they have quit smoking. The researchers concluded that life satisfaction could be another motivating tool for people who are reluctant to quit smoking. Smokers die 13 to 14 years earlier than nonsmokers on average. Once getting through the quitting part, the quality of life appears brighter.

A new analysis on the effects of vitamin D on bone health shows that it cuts fracture risk in older adults, but only when taken with calcium supplements. The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force is recommending daily vitamin D doses of 1000 international units, combined with 1,200 milligrams of calcium to reduce fracture risk in those people over 65. Vitamin D needs may vary as to how much direct sunlight you receive and how much vitamin D is in your diet. Scientists note that acceptable levels are always a moving target, as well as somewhat controversial. Calcium should only be taken in powder or liquid form and along with magnesium for full absorption into your blood stream.

The Los Angeles Times reports, ?For many students, L.A. Unified?s trailblazing introduction of healthful school lunches has been a flop?Many of the meals are being rejected en masse. Participation in the school lunch program has dropped by thousands. Principals report massive waste?Acknowledging the complaints, L.A. Unified?s food services director Dennis Barrett, announced this month that the menu would be revised?The new menu, introduced this fall, was hailed as a revolutionary step by the nation?s second-largest school district to combat the growing epidemic of youth obesity, diabetes and other health problems. It was the latest healthful food initiative by the district, which banned sodas on campus in 2004. The food service program introduced produce while nixing junk food, salt, and fats. This year, L.A. Unified, which serves 650,000 meals daily, has received awards for improving its school lunches. However, the students, brought up on salty processed foods and sugary junk, panned the healthy program.

The L.A. school system will begin to reintroduce pizza, but with a whole wheat dough. Black eyed peas, Asian food, and other exotic entrees are out, while hamburgers are being brought back. The school system will try to stay within the federal government?s updated dietary guidelines.

Britain has a drinking problem. New research from the Department of Health underlines how excess alcohol affects almost every aspect of British life. More than 2.6 million children in the U.K. now live with a parent who drinks at hazardous levels. Mortality rates from liver disease among under-75s rose 16 percent between 2001 and 2009. Lost production because of hung over staff cost businesses 1.7 billion pounds a year. Britain is the staggering drunk of Europe. Alcohol consumption in France, Germany and Italy is down by between 37 and 52 percent since 1980. But the U.K. booze consumption is up at about 10 percent.

The Washington Post and Harvard World health News report that ?Scientist seeking to fight future pandemics have created a variety of Bird flu potentially so dangerous that a federal advisory panel has for the first time asked two scientific journals to hold back on publishing detail of the research. In the experiments, university-based scientists in the Netherlands and Wisconsin created a version of the so-called H5N1 influenza virus that is highly lethal and easily transmissible between ferrets, the lab animals that most closely mirror human beings in flu research.?

The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, created after the 2001 anthrax bioterrorism, has informed the scientific journals to censor the details of its findings.

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Source: http://www.tworiverstribune.com/2012/12/health-front-quality-of-life-better-after-quit-smoking/

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