Berkson’s Blogs

I have been saying for years that we can live younger, and here’s proof. This amazing study examined patient data of 18,670 participants in the Cooper Center Longitudinal Study. This comprised 250,000 medical records, which were meticulously maintained over a 40-year span. This information was then compared with the patients' Medicare claims filed from ages 70 to 85. The researchers’ analyses of the data clearly showed that if you increase your fitness in mid-life by 20%, you decrease your risk of severe illness in your 70s and 80s by 20%. You get less heart disease, colon cancer, even Alzheimer’s disease, in [...]

I love popcorn. I love to sit at the movies and much away. But perhaps there are healthier ways to get popped corn into you. Why should you care? The flavor ingredient, diacetyl, that gives the distinctive buttery flavor and aroma to movie and to microwaved popcorn has been found to amplify the damaging effects of the nasty brain protein linked to Alzheimer’s disease. It’s also found in some margarines, snack foods, candy, baked goods, pet foods, and other products. In other words, fake buttery flavor isn’t brain friendly. In fact, at the factory where workers in the microwave popcorn and [...]

In the far reaches of Mongolia, Harvard researchers worked together with local health researchers, diligently looking for an inexpensive treatment that might reduce respiratory infections in kids during the winter months. In children who tested low in their blood levels of vitamin D at the beginning of the winter, supplementing with vitamin D cut the risk of getting lung infections in half. The amount of vitamin D used in the study was 300 IU. Since this study was run, the U.S. Institute of Medicine has raised the recommended dosage for most children up to 400 IU and even up to 1000 [...]

Science usually studies what’s wrong, but this scientist studied what was right, with brains that is. God bless Emily Rogalski out of the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She gives us hope! Dr. Rogalski used imaging techniques to evaluate the part of the brain that indirectly tells us how healthy a brain is: the cortical thickness. The thicker the cortex, the more nerves live there. The more nerves we have, the better we can think, remember, and focus. The more nerves, the more agile and energetic our brains. Looking inside the brains of [...]

Should you pay more for organic foods? I love Stanford. When I practiced in Palo Alto, CA, in the days before the Internet, I would go to the Lane Medical Library most evenings after work to do extensive nutritional research. So I have much respect for their medical library, but NOT for the conclusions of their recent meta-analysis of organic vs. conventionally-raised/processed foods. Consumer, beware of headlines that may guide you to make unhealthy decisions for you and your loved ones! The Stanford research group under Smith-Spangler ran a review of numerous studies, called “data drudging,” to create a meta-analysis (looking [...]

Which foods lower blood pressure almost as effectively as medication, demonstrated by our old friend—data from the Framingham Heart Study of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institutes and NIH? If you can slurp at least one 6-ounce cup of yogurt every three days, you have, according to this study, a 31% decreased risk of developing high blood pressure. They used low-fat yogurt so as to be careful to not add calories, though I am more a fan of whole foods, including yogurt, and then lowering calories elsewhere, or burning off more calories through exercise. This was a 15-year study on [...]