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Daily Edition • Tuesday, Sept 22
SPONSORED BY
Daily Edition • Tuesday, Sept 22
SPONSORED BY
The lettuce-linked cyclospora outbreak is over, according to the CDC. While we can all feel a little more confident about eating our daily servings of leafy greens, the months-long outbreak may have us all thinking a little more about the cleanliness of our food, and our potential exposure to germs and bacteria.
Cyclospora showed how food contamination can spread on a large scale, but what about the germs lurking in our own homes? Does the age-old 5-second rule actually hold up to protect your food from floor germs? It’s a little more complicated than you might think — and you can read our full deep dive on the debate here.
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Cognitive Health
The Midlife Habits Linked to Fewer Dementia-Free Years
Ahmed/Unsplash
Think Long-Term: We tend to think of dementia prevention as a late-life concern, and often we isolate cognitive decline into a silo. But new research adds to the evidence that what happens to your cardiovascular health in midlife may shape how many years you spend without dementia.
The Study: Researchers analyzed 12,409 adults from the long-running Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study who were dementia-free at age 55. They looked at three vascular risk factors — smoking, high blood pressure, and diabetes — and followed participants for a median of 26 years. The more risk factors people had, the fewer years they lived without dementia. Those with no risk factors averaged about 30 dementia-free years after age 55, compared with about 17 years among those with all three — a 13-year difference.
The Takeaway: The brain doesn’t exist in isolation. Keeping blood pressure and blood sugar in a healthy range and avoiding smoking may help protect both cardiovascular and cognitive health.
Keep in Mind: This was an observational cohort study, so it can’t prove that these risk factors directly caused dementia. It also measured vascular risk at one point in midlife, rather than tracking changes over time. Still, the findings reinforce a familiar message: midlife is an important window for protecting long-term brain health.
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Sponsored
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Courtesy: Hear.com
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Thank you for supporting our sponsors! They help us keep All Healthy free.
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Beauty
Forget Healthspan. What About Your “Hotspan”?
All Healthy Design Studio
The Trend: Cosmetic surgery, Botox, and fillers aren’t just for young people trying to maintain their youth. A new report from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons has found that more adults aged 66 and older are going under the knife and the needle, too — an increase of 24% and the biggest jump for any age group. The most popular procedures? Liposuction, breast augmentation, and tummy tucks.
What People Are Saying: There’s a lot of talk about lifespan and healthspan, but there’s such a thing as “hotspan,” too: the desire (and pressure) to stay hotter, stylish, and vibrant for longer. Experts say the focus on GLP-1 drugs and weight loss has spurred a lot of consultations among older patients, with a goal of subtly restoring the body to its younger version: “tweakments,” not transformations. Plus, more women are feeling better in their bodies as a result of these weight loss treatments, experts say, so they’re getting a nip here or a tuck there to boost their confidence even more.
What to Know: The uptick in cosmetic procedures isn’t happening in New York or L.A., surprisingly. The Southeast is the main hotbed, stretching from D.C. down to Florida.
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Personal Growth
The Heart-Health Measurement You’re Probably Not Checking
Curated Lifestyle/Unsplash
You Should Know: For decades, doctors have treated BMI (a formula based on height and weight) as the be-all, end-all for whether someone is in a healthy weight range. However, a new study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology that followed nearly 260,000 people for two decades found something that BMI alone often misses. That is, where body fat is located matters quite a bit.
Going Deeper: Researchers measured waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio, and both proved better predictors of cardiovascular risk than BMI alone. Among people with a normal and overweight BMI, some still had an elevated waist-to-hip ratio, and their risk for heart attack and stroke ran 15% to 50% higher than the scale alone would suggest. So a result above 0.90 for men or 0.85 for women indicates added risk, according to the World Health Organization.
Takeaway: You can check your own ratio at home with a tape measure. Wrap it around the narrowest part of your waist, then the widest part of your hips, and divide the first number by the second.
Bottom Line: Where you carry your weight matters. BMI can still be a helpful rough estimate of how body weight affects your health, but it’s incomplete as best.
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Quick Picks
Beat the Clock — Does the 5-second rule actually protect your food from the floor?
These five-ingredient, no-cook bites are one of the easiest appetizers you can make in under 30 minutes. They put a fun twist on classic caprese, swapping the tomato with cantaloupe for a fresh and juicy bite. Cantaloupe, fresh mozzarella, basil, and prosciutto are stacked on skewers with a balsamic drizzle, creating a sweet-and-salty combo that will keep you coming back for more. Serve them as an appetizer or alongside a meal — and with 24 skewers per batch, they’re made for sharing.
Here’s something you may not know: more softness underfoot can sometimes backfire if your arches and heels are not actually supported. That is where PowerStep Pinnacle comes in, combining a structured arch, deep heel cradle, and dual-layer cushioning that fits into many everyday shoes, so you can explore support that targets plantar fasciitis, heel pain, and sore, tired feet at the source.
Thank you for supporting our sponsors! They help us keep All Healthy free.
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HEALTHY HABIT
Take the First Break Outside
At some point before lunch, step outside for a few minutes. No agenda required. A little daylight and fresh air can help break up the indoor blur, especially on days when your entire world has become a chair, a screen, and a calendar full of rectangles.
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Final Thought
There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.”
