Entries by Chet Zelasko

Prove It

The final opinion I’m going to share began with a recently published report titled “Chain Reaction: How Top Restaurants Rate on Reducing Use of Antibiotic in their Meat Supply.” It was published by a number of environmental groups. It’s free and you can get a copy by clicking on the link in the references. Read it and you can form your own opinion on what they did and how they did it.

The problem I have is what they didn’t do. Assuming this is a significant issue, you have to prove that there are antibiotics in the . . .

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Just Be Honest

One of the problems that I have with many websites and health gurus is that they won’t tell you what they’re really about. This isn’t the same as reposting websites; they get paid for getting you to click on links and thus don’t really care what they post as long as it’s eye-catching. The people and websites that bother me write most frequently about the food supply and what is and is not healthy for you. Fine. I do that, too. What isn’t apparent is why they do what . . .

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“That Saved My Life!”

This is going to be an opinionated week of messages, starting with a recent conversation. Actually, I’ve had the conversation with many people over the years who feel that at a time when their health was spinning out of control, they heard or read something that made sense, and they feel it saved their lives—a product, a diet, or even a person.

I don’t see it that way. When people get to the point of realizing that the path they’re on is going to kill them, whatever trigger gets them on a better path gets the . . .

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Blood Pressure: Lifestyle First

Today I’m going to share a caution from one of the lead authors in the Mayo Clinic arm of the study and tell you what I think is the biggest mistake the researchers made in announcing the preliminary results of the SPRINT Study.

The Mayo Clinic posted a video from Dr. William Haley, a lead researcher in the SPRINT Study; remember there were 102 different clinical sites that provided data for this study. What he said was significant. Here’s my interpretation: The results of a large study such . . .

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Blood Pressure: More Drugs

Continuing our look at the SPRINT Study from Tuesday, the study showed a significant reduction in mortality from cardiovascular events such as heart attacks and strokes in subjects older than 50. I can’t argue that those are important results. The question is how did they do it? Here’s how: The group of subjects whose target systolic blood pressure (SBP) was less than 140 were treated with an average of two antihypertensive medications. What did they do with the group whose target SPB was less than . . .

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Teaching Kids to Cook

When it comes to teaching kids to cook, the primary thing to consider is safety. I’m not giving a three-year-old sharp knives nor letting a five-year-old operate a stove. Common sense has to reign supreme. The best approach is to start with basics.

Before we get to that, you have to understand that it’s going to be messy and it’s going to take a lot longer. Those are givens. It may be better to pick one afternoon or evening to dedicate to cooking with your kids, creating soups, casseroles, and crockpot meals for . . .

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When I Was a Kid…

I began cooking young, probably around 10 or so. My grandmother was a cook; not a chef by today’s standards, but a very, very good cook. She worked as the head cook in the cafeteria of a manufacturing company back in the day when they had such things. She also worked weekends at a private-park kitchen; think of it as a place where companies held summer picnics for their employees. In addition to that, she and my mother also catered weddings.

I had a single mom who worked second shift, and we lived with my grandparents who were . . .

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Kids and Cooking

Many people are still finishing up their vacations so I thought I’d tackle something a little lighter than a complicated study this week. Sometimes I’m bombarded with so many events and observations, a message theme just appears; recent events are pointing me to kids and cooking.

First, it’s back-to-school time. What seemed to begin the day after school let out—the back-to-school sales—has kept kids in every ad and commercial.

Second, the NBC show Foodfighters featured a 12-year-old girl who was inspired to cook healthier meals when her . . .

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Further Research: Iron and ADHD

The final study I’ll review this week turned into three. In my original research, a study from 2012 demonstrated a tendency for children with ADHD to have low levels of ferritin (1), a protein that can store iron until it’s needed to make energy as well as other functions. When I came across the study, I checked to see if any further research had been done. Sure enough, two more studies confirmed that some children with ADHD have low ferritin levels (2,3).

The low ferritin was also associated with insomnia and restless-leg syndrome. The association doesn . . .

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Further Research: Exercise and ADHD

One of the characteristics of children with ADHD is that they seem to have plenty of energy. Too much energy. They want to talk, they want to move, they need to be doing something. Today’s study examined the research on children with ADHD and exercise.

Researchers conducted a meta-analysis on studies that examined the effects of exercise on the symptoms associated with ADHD. Those symptoms include inattention, hyperactivity, impulsivity, anxiety, learning and memory difficulties. The analysis showed that even short-term aerobic activity improved almost every symptom of ADHD.

What constitutes short-term aerobic activity? Running, skipping, jumping . . .

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