Forget five a day, eat 10 portions of fruit and veg to cut risk of early death

Five portions of fruit and veg a day is good for you, but 10 is much better and could prevent up to 7.8 million premature deaths worldwide every year, say scientists.

The findings of the study led by Imperial College London may dismay the two in three adults who struggle to manage three or four portions – perhaps some tomatoes in a sandwich at lunchtime, an apple and a few spoonfuls of peas at dinner.

All of that is good because a daily intake of even 200g, or two and a half standard 80g portions, is associated with a 16% reduced risk of heart disease, an 18% reduced risk of stroke, a 13% reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, 4% reduced risk of cancer and a 15% reduction in the risk of premature death.

But the study suggests we should be piling up platefuls of vegetables and raiding the fruit bowl every day if we want the best chance of avoiding chronic diseases or an early death.

“We wanted to investigate how much fruit and vegetables you need to eat to gain the maximum protection against disease, and premature death. Our results suggest that although five portions of fruit and vegetables is good, 10 a day is even better,” said Dr Dagfinn Aune, lead author of the research from the School of Public Health at Imperial.

Eating up to 800g of fruit and vegetables – equivalent to 10 portions and double the recommended amount in the UK – was associated with a 24% reduced risk of heart disease, a 33% reduced risk of stroke, a 28% reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, a 13% reduced risk of total cancer, and a 31% reduction in premature deaths.

And not all fruit and veg are created equal. Apples and pears, citrus fruits, salads and green leafy vegetables such as spinach, lettuce and chicory, and cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower were found to be best at preventing heart disease and stroke.

To reduce the risk of cancer, however, the menu should include green vegetables, such as green beans; yellow and orange vegetables such as peppers and carrots; and cruciferous vegetables.

The researchers did not find any difference between the protective effects of cooked and raw fruit and vegetables.

“Fruit and vegetables have been shown to reduce cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and to boost the health of our blood vessels and immune system,” said Aune. “This may be due to the complex network of nutrients they hold. For instance they contain many antioxidants, which may reduce DNA damage, and lead to a reduction in cancer risk.”

Compounds called glucosinolates in cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, activate enzymes that may help prevent cancer. Fruit and vegetables may also have a beneficial effect on the naturally occurring bacteria in our gut, he said.

Most people struggle to eat three or four portions a day, the study shows. Photograph: Simon Masters/Getty Images/Vetta

And it will not be possible to bottle the effects of fruit and vegetables or put them in a pill, he said. Forget the supplements. “Most likely it is the whole package of beneficial nutrients you obtain by eating fruits and vegetables that is crucial to health,” he said. “This is why it is important to eat whole plant foods to get the benefit, instead of taking antioxidant or vitamin supplements (which have not been shown to reduce disease risk).”

The analysis in the International Journal of Epidemiology pooled the results from 95 different studies involving a total of approximately 2 million people. They assessed up to 43,000 cases of heart disease, 47,000 cases of stroke, 81,000 cases of cardiovascular disease, 112,000 cancer cases and 94,000 deaths.

Aune said more research was needed, but “it is clear from this work that a high intake of fruit and vegetables hold tremendous health benefits, and we should try to increase their intake in our diet”.

Sarah Toule, from the World Cancer Research Fund, said: “This interesting research shows just how incredibly important vegetables and fruit are as part of a healthy diet. In fact, they’re essential for maintaining a healthy weight, which our own evidence has shown reduces the risk of 11 common cancers.

“People should aim to eat at least five portions of vegetables and fruit a day but the more the better. If people find this hard, why not start by adding an extra portion of fruit or veg a day to your lunch or try swapping one of your naughty snacks for a piece of fruit?”

Forget five a day, eat 10 portions of fruit and veg to cut risk of early death

Want to know how society"s doing? Forget GDP – try these alternatives | Mark Rice-Oxley

Here are the week’s leading indicators. The Dow Jones industrial average topped 20,000 points for the first time. British GDP grew 0.6% in the final quarter of 2016. The FTSE 100 and Germany’s DAX 30 persisted close to record highs, while US GDP softened slightly.

Bored yet? I am. As a former financial journalist, I’m well acquainted with the merry-go-round of indicators that blip in and out of our lives like digital dopamine, telling us how well we’re doing. As a human being, I’m increasingly alarmed that these are just irrelevant numbers that have little or no bearing on how well we are really doing.

Stock market indices have long been decoupled from what is happening in the real world. All they reflect is the performance of big private pension pots belonging to the haves (in Britain only 58% of people have private pensions and the majority of those really very small), and how big the bonuses of a few thousand money men (yes, mostly men) will be this year.

Indeed, a company’s share price rising might be an indication of a round of redundancies or other cost-cutting which makes shareholders richer at the expense of staff. The number of people who should celebrate the Dow hitting 20k is truly tiny. Most of them wouldn’t be much fun to go out for a beer with.

As for GDP, has there ever been an acronym as spellbindingly dismal as this? GDP goes up if you sit in traffic for an hour with the engine ticking over. It doesn’t if you stay at home, caring for a sick child. GDP has soared in China over the past 20 years. Now its people wear masks in the street to filter the smog. GDP can’t measure the things that are really important to us – our health, relationships, environment – but can and does measure when industries strip-mine the Earth to make gimcrack that nobody wants but which people buy anyway, and then throw away.

This is not to deride the herculean efforts of journalists who follow this stuff, like our own Graeme Wearden, who tries to makes sense of the blizzard of financial data spewed out every day here.

Instead, I’d rather suggest a series of other metrics that give a clearer indication of where humanity is at. Perhaps these are the key performance indicators we should hardwire into our reporting calendar:

If we must focus on financial instruments, make it edible commodities. You can’t eat a Treasury bill, after all

One of the lessons of the 20th century was that inequality breeds revolt and revolutions never end well. One of the lessons of the 21st century is that people seem to be determined not to learn the lessons of the 20th century. The Gini coefficient is a crude measure of how unequal societies are becoming. Some economists have been toying with another measure, the Palma ratio, which is better at discerning how much richer the richest cohort are getting, compared with the poorest. Both tell us much about our direction of travel.

If we must focus on financial instruments, edible commodities are surely more interesting than stock and bond prices. You can’t eat a three-month Treasury bill, after all. In 2007/08, a wave of riots swept the developing world as the cost of basic foodstuffs soared. Governments fell. A dotted line joined that manifestation of unrest with the Arab spring four years later. Food matters. We routinely write that as many as a billion people on the planet are hungry, malnourished. That’s far more than the number with Dow Jones tracker funds.

The most scary dataset of all. It goes up every year. And so do global temperatures. If this carries on for another couple of decades, people won’t be inspecting their portfolios – they’ll be foraging in the woods. Has anyone read The Road?

Carbon dioxide graphicCarbon graphic

A veritable bellwether for so much – from the wretched state we’re in psychologically to the inadequacies of our healthcare systems. Prescriptions have doubled in England in the past decade. An interest to declare: I take them, and believe they work for me. But I also firmly believe they are prescribed far too readily, by overstretched GPs who have only six minutes to speak to patients and little recourse to anything other than pills. Personally, I’d be willing to shave a couple of points off GDP in return for a more comprehensive programme to address this 21st-century epidemic.

Not just in the UK, where it’s risen for six years in a row, but in California, Paris, Moscow. Surely, one of the first questions a newly arrived alien might ask upon landing in Britain would be “why do so many of you earthlings live outside?”, and not “how are my BT shares doing?”

Admittedly, this is not a thrilling one to monitor as it doesn’t move much. But it is moving – and in the wrong direction for lots of developed countries. The dependency ratio is the number of working-age people compared with the number of children and those over retirement age. According to the Resolution foundation, there are currently seven dependants for every 10 working-age Britons, but this will increase to eight in the 2020s and nine by 2050.

I’ve barely scratched the surface. Everywhere you look, there are better benchmarks than these tired old financial yardsticks. Let’s retire them, and find a new set of data to measure the performance of our leaders.

Want to know how society"s doing? Forget GDP – try these alternatives | Mark Rice-Oxley

Don’t Forget the Vitamin K

You may already know the importance of vitamin D3 for overall health and especially for breast cancer prevention. In fact, women with breast cancer who have high levels of vitamin D are twice as likely to survive than women who have low levels. But did you also know that, along with D3, it is essential for you to also take vitamin K2? In fact, without K, vitamin D supplementation may be damaging to your health.

Vitamin K is Making a Comeback

K1 comes mainly from food or supplementation. There was a time when sufficient Vitamin K1 could be obtained from what we eat, just as enough Vitamin D could be obtained from exposure to the sun and other natural means. With commercialization of agriculture, however, K from foods like grass-fed meats, butter and green leafy vegetables has all but vanished.

Another important K─ Vitamin K2 ─ is manufactured in the intestines, but only if you have balanced gut flora. Experts say that millions of Americans suffer from leaky gut syndrome and other GI tract disorders which effect the balance of bacteria in the digestive tract. Ensuring Vitamin K2 absorption is another reason to also supplement with probiotics and prebiotics like raw cultured veggies.

Over 100 years ago, pioneering dentist Dr. Weston Price discovered the healing power of Vitamin K. Some vital functions Vitamin K is responsible for include:

-proper blood clotting;

-metabolism of bone;

-assisting in the transport of calcium to the soft tissues;

-decreasing inflammation;

-improving the body’s use of insulin.

And according to a 2004 Dutch study, vitamin K intake can lead to a 57% reduction in Coronary Artery disease. Both Heart Disease and cancer share several risk factors. Other studies have found that sufficient Vitamin K can result in a 26% reduction in all forms of disease-related mortality.

Why It is Important to take Vitamin K2 with D3?

Vitamin K often goes ignored by experts who talk about the benefits of supplementation. That does not negate its vital importance to the health of your body, however– especially when it comes to D3 absorption and how D3 is utilized in the body. D3 and K2 fit together like two pieces of an intricate puzzle since when you take vitamin D in supplement form, you are naturally creating an increased demand for K2.

The importance of taking K and D together lies in the process of protein generation in the body. By ingesting D3, the body will be signaled to make more vitamin K2-dependent proteins. These proteins are specifically designed to transfer calcium to areas in your body that need it most–and they need sufficient amounts of K2 to do this. When taken in tandem, D and K strengthens your bones, improves your heart function, helps to balance the hormones, boosts the immune system and may even help your body prevent breast cancer.

The amount of Vitamin K2 you should be taking depends on the Vitamin D levels in your blood. If you are unsure about your Vitamin D levels, talk to your holistic health professional or family doctor about getting a simple Vitamin D blood panel today.

Be proactive with prevention. Make sure that you are getting enough Vitamin D and Vitamin K every day!

Dr. Veronique Desaulniers, better known as Dr. V, is the founder of  The 7 Essentials System ™, a step-by-step guide that teaches you exactly how to prevent and heal Breast Cancer naturally. To get your FREE 7-Day Mini e-Course and to receive her weekly action steps and inspiring articles on the power of Natural Medicine, visit her at BreastCancerConqueror.com

Don’t Forget the Vitamin K

Will Trump cause progressives to forget about women"s rights? | Jessica Valenti

If you were concerned that forced funerals for fetuses and zygotes wasn’t quite horrific enough, rejoice! In the last week, Ohio has passed a law banning abortions after 20 weeks and Oklahoma wants to mandate that businesses post anti-abortion signs in women’s public restrooms.

In the wake of Trump’s win, reproductive rights opponents have not wasted a moment in their plan to roll back access to abortion and birth control. And, as has been the case for some time, these harmful policies are being presented as wins for women.

When Governor John Kasich of Ohio passed the 20-week ban, for example, he also vetoed a six-week ban – the hope being that the move would be seen as moderate in comparison. But 20 weeks is around the time that women find out about fetal abnormalities – a leading reason for later abortions. And while the Oklahoma plan is being touted by pro-life groups as a way to offer women “alternatives”, what it’s really doing is shaming women and requiring that businesses spend money on ideological propaganda. (Also, so much for the Republicans caring about women’s privacy in bathrooms!)

The research is clear: women suffer when you deny them access to birth control and abortion. In fact, despite anti-choice rhetoric to the contrary, the only kind of negative mental health impact that abortion has on women occurs when someone seeks out the procedure and is denied.

The challenge we have in front of us, though, is not just the danger of Trump’s administration or the emboldening of Republicans. In a time when bad news for progress is around every corner – as Slate writer Jamelle Bouie put it, “what disaster to write about today?” – we have to make that sure that women’s rights don’t get lost in the shuffle.

It wasn’t so long ago that gender and race were considered ancillary or distracting topics in progressive politics – a notion still being bandied about as people blame “identity politics” and “political correctness” for Trump’s win. If history is any indication, it won’t be long before we start hearing murmurings from so-called progressives that women should sacrifice working on issues that affect them in service of “the greater good”.

It’s vital that we not forget or lose the momentum feminism has had over the last decade, especially on reproductive rights. The stakes are just too high. Hundreds of thousands of American women have already sought out illegal abortions, in part because of state-level restrictions. And as the Affordable Care Act comes under fire, it could leave millions without coverage for contraception.

These are not small things, these are not side issues or special interests. Women’s ability to control their bodies and plan their family size is a human rights issue. And while we have a tremendous amount of work to do on so many fronts, Americans cannot afford to treat feminism and women’s progress as something that can be pushed aside for a time and picked up later. Let’s not allow our the fact that we’re overwhelmed to get the better of us – not now, and not for the next four years.

Will Trump cause progressives to forget about women"s rights? | Jessica Valenti

Forget ‘on the head, son’: for football it’s time for ‘on with the headgear’ | Saleyha Ahsan

I can hear the roar already from the football fraternity for what I am about to say, but hear me out. Maybe it’s time for head-safety gear for footballers – particularly children. The alternative being discussed is to stop youngsters from heading the ball altogether, but that would not safeguard against the moment that a ball comes tantalising close at head height.

A study carried out by the University of Stirling has identified that heading a ball can significantly impair brain function and memory. The researchers found inhibitory and cognitive changes in the brain after players headed the ball 20 times. Memory function fell by up to a staggering 67% in the 24 hours after heading practice, before normalising

This suggests that students playing football the day before exams would be better off not heading the ball frequently. The study’s co-author, the neuropathologist Dr Willie Stewart, has advised parents to consider letting children miss football training ahead of important tests.

We already have codes of practice within football and rugby that take concussion seriously. It’s now time to take on the effects on the brain of frequent knocks and bangs to the head during a football match. The Stirling study – the first to detect direct changes in the brain after heading the ball – has outlined something that not even the researchers themselves were expecting to find: heading sessions could halve memory function for a day.

It’s still not yet known if repeated exposure to headers could have long-term consequences, but the Football Association is planning further studies.

There is already concern at the potential link between brain diseases such as dementia and sport. Researchers have already stated that they feel such brain changes following repeated headers are significant to brain health. An estimated 270 million people around the world play football: could that be 270 million people predisposed to developing dementia? In order to protect them it is imperative to know what risks they are exposed to, in both the short and long term.

The incidence of brain disease is increasing globally, and the onset is in some cases occurring at ever younger ages. We still are nowhere near a definite cure, so preventative measures against scientifically established causes and links are our best weapon currently. The findings of this study should therefore lead to action.

Jeff Astle celebrates after scoring the winning goal for West Bromwich Albion against Everton in the 1968 FA Cup final at Wembley. Photograph: Mike McLaren/Getty Images

One British case where a coroner specified that the brain disease suffered by a professional footballer was due to heading what was then a leather ball – calling it an “industrial disease” – is that of Jeff Astle, a striker for England, West Bromwich Albion and Notts County. He died at the age of 59 from brain trauma in 2002, after developing early-onset dementia. After his death, Astle’s brain was found to show evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which had been found in deceased boxers and players of American football and rugby.

In the US there is a ban on under-11s heading the ball, something that Gordon Smith, the former Scottish Football Association chief executive, has suggested his country should consider. But he admits that, even with the latest knowledge, he would still play the same way. “I think if I was given the choice to play again with the scenario that you were heading the ball and it could do some sort of damage, I would still agree to play.”

So is it enough to simply attempt a ban? We wear head protection for riding bikes, we put them on the heads of the wee ones on the ski slopes, we strap on helmets when rock climbing. So is it really a step too far to design and then require the wearing of protective headgear, particularly for youngsters?

The results of this study are clear. We still do not know the long-term effects, but the door is open now for further research to look into this. As football’s governing bodies work together with science to look into new approaches for detecting, monitoring and preventing cumulative brain injuries in the beautiful game, one question remains. How is the long-term health of football players at all levels and ages going to be safeguarded?

This is a question that Jeff Astle’s daughter, Dawn Astle, asks too. “Would I be surprised if damaging effects of heading are found? No. The question is: what are they doing to do about it? What are the authorities going to do to protect our children?”

Let’s accept the science and think about headgear.

Forget ‘on the head, son’: for football it’s time for ‘on with the headgear’ | Saleyha Ahsan

Forget Westminster"s punch and judy: young men and women now get political on-line | Kajal Odedra

‘The power of the internet indicates that the issues that never always get higher profile in the mainstream media can nonetheless rise up the agenda.’ Photograph: Paul Brown/Rex

On Tuesday of this week, 17-12 months-outdated Fahma Mohamed took a train from Bristol to London to meet Michael Gove to talk about female genital mutilation. With a stack of press coverage, a group of amazing friends and the help of her teacher, she marched boxes containing 250,000 petition signatures into the Department for Education. Three weeks ago the subject was barely on the education secretary’s agenda. By 6pm on Tuesday evening he had agreed to compose to every college in the country, advising headteachers how they can tackle FGM in their schools.

Mohamed was elated. Campaigners who have worked on FGM for many years celebrated this outstanding, individuals-powered victory. Social media were buzzing with how this younger lady had taken on a senior member of the cabinet and won.

You may possibly think Mohamed is an unusual situation, an outlier in a nation of apathetic youthful men and women disengaged from politics and uninterested in the world all around them. You’d be incorrect. She is 1 of thousands of young people who are employing sites this kind of as Adjust.org, Twitter and Facebook to make their voices heard on all sorts of issues – and on their terms.

Mohamed is speaking out for girls who can’t automatically communicate out for themselves: victims of FGM in her neighborhood and around the planet. She says we want to end ignoring some thing that is taking place to girls her age and younger, and she has a straightforward message that cuts via to people’s innate sense of fairness and justice: FGM is youngster abuse. It occurs across the world, but it also transpires right here in Britain. She known as on Michael Gove to consider action and mentioned, in no uncertain terms: “We will not back down. We won’t go away.” It is a message that speaks louder than scores of NGO policy papers or Westminster debates. And with a quarter of a million supporters behind you, it really is extremely hard to ignore.

The world wide web has changed politics in plenty of methods. But the most profound effect has been the voice it has given to ordinary men and women. People like Mohamed men and women like Esha Marwaha who, at 15 years old, stored climate change on the national curriculum or like Yas Necati, a campaigner for much better intercourse schooling in schools, between many other leads to. The connecting energy of the web implies that the troubles that don’t often get high profile in the mainstream media can still rise up the agenda.

The existing crisis of self confidence in the punch and judy politics of Westminster signifies the establishment needs to do much greater at engaging citizens. But I will not think it issues, simply because youthful people are not sitting close to waiting for that. They are taking issues into their own hands and creating movements they are receiving listened to no matter whether politicians like it or not.

Mohamed, Marwaha and Necati – and the a great number of other younger folks carrying out politics on their very own terms and in their very own way – display us that the long term is brilliant. They are fearless, idealistic and – crucially – speaking for themselves. This is far more powerful than you think.

Forget Westminster"s punch and judy: young men and women now get political on-line | Kajal Odedra

Forget the "cause" of eating disorders – we must encourage very good psychological wellness | Daisy Buchanan

Women from aspirational households are the quickest growing group of men and women suffering with anorexia. Photograph: David Levene

Eating Disorders Awareness Week begins these days, and charity Beat is operating with Cosmopolitan magazine to campaign for doctors to consider consuming ailments more seriously, and to deal with them ahead of they get out of management.

In the past year there has been an eight% rise in the amount of admissions of individuals becoming taken care of for eating disorders – most markedly amid the underneath-15s, with some patients as youthful as five. And, in accordance to analysis from psychological wellness charities, there is an anorexia epidemic in Britain’s independent schools, with ladies from aspirational households imagined to be the quickest growing group of sufferers. Following the latest trend weeks in New York, London and Milan, I suspect that the finger is about to be pointed at the sector after more.

It may be correct that younger ladies idolise slender celebrities an airbrushed picture in a magazine may well be ample to make a healthier youthful lady ditch her dinner. Our difficulty with bodies is external, and so the solution must be too – but it isn’t that simple.

As a functions writer for the teen magazine Bliss, I spoke to several younger readers, male and female, about what it was like to reside with an consuming disorder, how it was triggered, how it developed, and how it affected the way they looked at existence. Each and every single one particular had a diverse story. And mine was diverse yet again. I am a recovered anorexic, and though seeing photographs of Kate Moss on the catwalk has never aided my self-esteem, the trend industry had no better impact on my entire body self-assurance and consuming patterns than the nuclear electrical power a single.

When I was 12, like a lot of young children I started a new college. I believed I would really like it. But the stress to perform was intense, and the feeling that failure was not an selection did not do considerably for my mental wellness. Several ladies in my 12 months were beginning to expertise a kind of disordered consuming, now acknowledged as Ednos (consuming disorder not otherwise specified). I had always loved meals and been a bit larger than my peers, but when every little thing about me appeared frightening and chaotic, skipping lunch proved I had energy in excess of my entire body and mind. My resolve to keep in handle was stronger than my urge to drop excess weight.

Puberty was frightening, my close friends could be cruel, and my family members have been at times baffling – but my capacity to steer clear of placing food into my physique stayed consistent. I had begun to obtain some bewildering interest as my hips and breasts commenced to emerge – but not eating took care of that.

The theme widespread between the sufferers I know is the sense of powerlessness. When their lives look chaotic, with no indicates to talk out or correct the difficulty that was generating them unhappy, they took charge employing one of the only approaches obtainable to them.

And it is irritating for them that people consider the only way to finish the difficulties brought on by eating problems is with a Whac-A-Mole strategy, shutting down something that may well be deemed dangerous or difficult without having trying to get to the root of the issue and talking to teens about how they are feeling. When I was struggling from anorexia in the late 90s I did not have accessibility to a series of “thinspiration Tumblrs”. However, when I was critically unwell I was energetically consuming each and every young adult novel and Tv programme that talked about the illness. For youthful ladies at the moment in the grip of the sickness these “professional-ana” websites are enormously appealing, providing comfort and local community when you really feel particularly isolated – but you have to be deep in the grip of the disease before you look for them out. It is worth remembering that the internet sites are created by sufferers who want just as a lot compassion, assist and help as their readers.

Counselling assisted me overcome anorexia – I was lucky that my school had an enlightened mindset to mental overall health. My compassionate therapist didn’t try out to guess my motives, but produced me realise I was missing out on all kinds of teenage fun because I was so fixated on getting the most A*s and into the smallest jeans.

There are a lot of external aspects that compound the causes of consuming ailments. If you are depressed or anxious and have a complicated connection with food, any materials focusing on entire body image and excess weight loss may possibly validate what you’re performing. But this week, I hope we will all wake up to the fact that the prevention of consuming problems among youthful folks lies in trying to keep them content and mentally – as well as physically – healthier.

Forget the "cause" of eating disorders – we must encourage very good psychological wellness | Daisy Buchanan