Dr. Chet’s Health Memos
If it’s in the health news today, I’ll be writing about it as soon as I read the research, both old and new. With my email Health Memos, you’ll know more about making lifestyle choices that will help you get and keep good health. These free, concise updates on health are emailed to subscribers twice a week. Subscribe today and get a free MP3, in English or Spanish, of Dr. Chet’s Top Ten Tips—Small Changes for a Healthier Life.
I’m Recommending a Broccoli Bath
This week’s final question is whether cooking destroys the nutrients in vegetables. If it does, is there any method better than others for preserving the nutrient content? Let’s take a look. Researchers examined three cooking methods with several vegetables including broccoli. The methods were boiling, sous-vide cooking, and water immersion cooking at temperatures below 212 […]
Would You Eat a Broccoli Popsicle?
Uh-h-h-h, no. I don’t think I could convince anyone to eat a popsicle made of broccoli. But the question is: does freezing affect the nutrient content of broccoli? If it does, would it increase the nutrients like cutting it up does or lower the nutrient content compared to fresh? That’s what researchers attempted to find […]
Broccoli: Cut It Up
In preparing my 2018 nutrition seminar, I came across a paper on why we need to supplement our diet with a multivitamin-multimineral (I’ll be giving an overview of that paper in the next Insider Conference Call next week), and it raised a question. Quality supplements have precise amounts of specific nutrients. But what affects the […]
What to Do After a Bypass
A family friend recently had a quadruple bypass surgery or CABG for short; CABG stands for coronary artery bypass graft. In case you’re thinking all our friends are old, I have to tell you this man is 47; we met him through our kids. So what happens now? He’ll go through recovery and rehab. Here […]
Vaping: The Spit Test
The use of e-cigarettes, also known as vaping, is gaining in popularity, especially among young adults. I wouldn’t recommend it because the research is incomplete; here’s the latest study. Researchers recruited subjects for three groups: 15 non-smokers, 14 e-cigarette users, and 15 cigarette smokers. The researchers had the subjects spit into sterile containers. Then they […]
Halloween Haze
Today is the day adults and children will be walking around in a sugar haze: candy at work, candy at parties, trick or treating and eating the haul. Paula and I have the candy-corn-and-peanuts mix out for Halloween season. I happened to see the comic Family Circus on Sunday; it was one of those where […]
Build Herd Immunity: Vaccinate
Let’s take a look at both types of herd immunity with the goal of deciding which is better in 2017 when it comes to the flu vaccination. Natural Herd Immunity The benefit of natural herd immunity is the innate ability of the immune system to protect against other forms of the same virus. No question […]
What’s Herd Immunity?
Herd immunity is a way to protect a population against the transmission of an infectious disease from one person to another by increasing the number of people who are immune to the disease. This results in lower transmission of the disease and thus protects more people or “the herd”; herd immunity is the only way […]
What’s Viral Shedding?
Based on the response to my email about the flu vaccination, people raised a few questions and I had one of my own. The first question is about viral shedding. Your first thought is probably “What’s that?” Viral shedding is the period of time when you’re infected and can transmit the flu virus to someone […]
A New Commitment
The numbers are in and the U.S. is fatter than ever: 39.6% of all adults over 20 years old are obese based on the Body Mass Index. That’s a rise of close to 2% since 2015, the last time the statistics were released. This isn’t affecting only adults; children 2–19 are also fatter than ever […]