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From the small-time offenders to the major heavyweights, here is a top ten list of the fattiest fast food meals that you should avoid, rated from the least to worst:

Blimpie BLT 12-Inch Super Stacked- 640 calories

At a mere 640 calories, the Blimpie BLT weighs in as the lightest of the fattiest, although you might wonder why anybody would name their restaurant Blimpie if they’re trying to attract customers…

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Steak ‘n Shake Chili Mac, Supreme- 1067 calories

The vanilla milkshake won’t be the only thing that’s jiggling if you make this fat-filled orgy a part of your regular diet.

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Quiznos Large Tuna Melt Sandwich with Cheese and Dressing- 1220 calories

Oh, yeah. Don’t want to forget that dressing. As if the mayo and the extra cheese were not saturated enough for ya.

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Burger King Texas Triple Whopper Sandwich- 1310 calories

The only thing higher than this monstrosity will be your blood pressure and your cholesterol levels.

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Hardee’s 2/3 lb. Monster Thickburger- 1320 calories

Who says there’s no truth in advertising? This burger will, indeed, make you thick.  In the middle, that is.

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Wendy’s Baconator Triple- 1330 calories

Add some fried eggs and a dollop of chicken gravy and you’ve got a complete quadruple bypass in the making.

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Rubio’s Nachos Grande Steak- 1430 calories

We love your fish tacos, Rubio, but what’s up with this? Something is definitely wrong with this picture.

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Baja Fresh Quesadilla Charbroiled Steak- 1430 calories

Their motto is, “Eat well. Live fresh.” Whatever happened to live long and prosper?

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Dairy Queen Chicken Strip Basket, 6-Piece with Country Gravy- 1640 calories

DQ doesn’t even pretend to be interested in your health, and you gotta love them for that.  This fried feast is no exception.

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Baja Fresh Nachos, Charbroiled Steak- 2073 calories

You might want to call your doctor and let him know you’re coming in before you sit down to eat this caloric catastrophe. If the resulting indigestion doesn’t send you to the hospital then the obstructed coronary artery will.

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Live Strong

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Since the 70s, ancient yoga has suffered a certain reputation as belonging to a health-crazed, almost cultish Birkenstock-clad yoga mat-toting hippy lifestyle. Not anymore- current research provides compelling evidence that a daily yoga regimen can be more than just a great opportunity to zone out; traditional Indian yoga is often practiced as a form of preventative medicine.

Yoga is nature’s Advil.

According to Sat Bir Singh Khalsa,PhD, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an associate neuroscientist in the Division of Sleep Medicine at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, recommends yoga to ease symptoms such as:

• bodily aches and pains, including back and neck
• chronic headaches
• difficulty sleeping
• obesity
• indigestion
• anxiety and depression
• high blood pressure
• stress
• side effects associated with chemotherapy
• weakness of the immune system

Stress is the source of all ailments.

With practice one may eventually learn how to control the body’s reaction to stress with mental imagery, relaxed breathing and simple yoga movements.

“The best evidence really shows that yoga

is good at reducing stress and helping people cope with

the stress they have. It improves management of stress both

psychologically and physiologically.”

–Sat Bir Singh Khalsa,PhD

Dress the part.

Looking for some good yoga equipment? Shop around for some loose fitting yoga pants and a comfy tee shirt; some mats come encased in a trendy yoga bag.  Standing yoga poses require bare feet, but socks are essential for keeping the toes warm during some of the seated yoga meditations.

Don’t just do it.

Just going through the yoga poses without incorporating the breathing techniques does not a proper yoga session make; Karen Sherman of the Center for Health Studies, University of Washington, warns that while physical yoga poses are designed to increase strength and flexibility, they are by no means the main focus of the exercise. The U.S. National Institutes of Health hold that proper yoga exercise must incorporate all of these three basic elements:

• physical poses that may be paused briefly before smoothly flowing into the next movement
• inward focus on breathing for better awareness of the body
• Deep meditative trance with special focus on spirituality

Find an experienced yoga mentor.

Most gyms today offer yoga classes along with their other workout and strength training classes, but Sherman advises everyone to seek out an instructor who has been trained with traditional yoga certification for a more complete, authentic yoga session.

Many forms of yoga exist, such as Hatha Yoga and Bikram Yoga, also known as “hot” yoga; beginners are advised to start out with kundalini, viniyoga or Iyengar yoga before progressing to some of the more advanced yoga moves.

Watch this demonstration of ashtanga yoga, set in scenic India.

Find more info about yoga online at the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Images:

stolethetv

lululemon athletica

It’s being hailed as a medical breakthrough: scientists have discovered a way to use a PET brain scan to detect the beginnings of Alzheimer’s disease as early as twenty years before any symptoms arise.

Currently, the only way to accurately diagnosis Alzheimer’s is posthumously, via autopsy.  But an innovative new brain scan will make it possible to detect the warning signs, clusters of proteins called amyloid plaque, and begin the process of treating the disease immediately.

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), a radioactive dye called Amyvid is used as a magnet for amyloid plaque; once injected into the arm it attaches itself to the destructive protein. High levels of Amyvid, when picked up on a PET scan, indicate a strong likeliness that somebody will develop Alzheimer’s disease later in life.

While having a high level of Amyvid does not guarantee the presence of Alzheimer’s- approximately 30% of subjects with high Amyvid will never develop any form of dementia- low Amyvid levels may be used to negate that possibility.

Scientists have also linked a correlation between vitamin b12 deficiency and Alzheimer’s disease. A Finnish study which followed 271 senior citizens found that elderly test subjects with sufficiently high levels of vitamin b12 and proportionately low traces of homocysteine (an amino acid linked to dementia, stroke and heart disease) were the least likely of all to suffer Alzheimer’s disease.

Symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease include:

• Memory loss, misplacing everyday objects, tendency to wander
• Mood swings, paranoia, aggression, childlike behavior
• Lack of decision-making ability
• Difficulty managing financial transactions
• Sleep disturbances
• Disassociation from formerly enjoyable pastimes
• Loss of motor skills, difficulty dressing oneself
• Inattention to personal hygiene
• Repetitive speech

B12 deficiency is common among the aging; physicians recommend a regular regimen of vitamin b12 supplementation in order to prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s or diminish the symptoms where dementia has already been established.

As part of Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move initiative the first lady took her campaign to the aisles of Wal-Mart. Her message to the world’s largest retailer:  to provide healthier food products with less sugar and salt, and to entirely remove trans-fats from their shelves over the next five years.

Michelle Obama in the news

In this latest televised You Tube news video Michelle Obama orates from the produce section of a Washington Wal-Mart and delivers her speech. She demands that Wal-Mart president Bill Simon pledge that within the next five years Wal-Mart will remove all products containing unhealthy trans-fats from their warehouse, stock their grocery shelves with products containing dramatically lower sugar and salt content and pump up their fresh produce section, all the while maintaining Wal-Mart’s competitively low pricing.

Attributing America’s childhood obesity crisis to the lack of selection of fresh produce in the more poverty-stricken states combined with the escalating costs of nutritious foods, the first lady hopes that this new Wal-Mart measure will encourage parents to make more health-conscious food choices when shopping for their families.

Let’s Move in the White House

Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move project is part of a national attempt to address childhood obesity, which has more than tripled in 30 years; approximately 1 out of 3 children between the ages of 6 and 19 in the US are obese.

Health risks associated with childhood obesity include:

• Heart disease
• Type 2 diabetes
• Asthma
• Sleep apnea
• Social discrimination
• High cholesterol
• High blood pressure

“In the end, as First Lady, this isn’t just a policy issue for me. This is a passion. This is my mission. I am determined to work with folks across this country to change the way a generation of kids thinks about food and nutrition.”

– First Lady Michelle Obama, on Childhood Obesity Task Force report

Wal-Mart CEO Bill Simon heartily accepted the first lady’s challenge, replying, “No family should have to choose between food that is healthier for them and food they can afford.”

Wal-Mart pledges not only to cut their prices on produce and eliminate high sugar and sodium; the retailer will also step up on their charitable support for various healthy food programs aimed at educating the public about health and fitness.

Sources:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/01/20/eveningnews/main7266890.shtml

http://thestir.cafemom.com/food_party/115344/why_is_michelle_obama_in

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-krotz/one-big-store_b_813201.html

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20110126/OPINION01/301260071

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) recently sponsored a US study which focused on a group of over 10,000 teens between the ages of 13-18.

• Out of those studied, 20% suffered from mental illness.
• Out of that group only 36.2% were receiving any type of medical or psychological attention.
• While the most severe forms of mental illness were most likely to receive treatment, only half were in the process of being treated, according to the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
• Out of the teens who received services, 59.8% were diagnosed with attention-deficit /hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD); others who were receiving aid were those categorized with some type of defiant conduct behavioral disorder.
• Teens who suffered from an anxiety or eating disorder were least likely to have been in any sort of behavioral program- only 20%.
• Hispanics and blacks youths who suffered anxiety were less likely to be in treatment than Caucasians.
• Girls were more likely than boys to receive therapy for anxiety disorder; boys were more likely to be receiving treatment for AD/HD.

Parents, be on the lookout for depression in your teen; here are 10 warning signs, as reported by Fox News:

• Passivity, less inclined to cry when something is troubling her/him
• Difficulty concentrating
• Sudden detachment from activities or interests that were previously enjoyable
• Vocalizing feelings which indicate lack of self-worth
• Interruption of sleeping habits, like oversleeping
• Loss of appetite
• Misperception, likeliness to be confused by more things than usual
• Decreased academic performance
• Substance abuse such as alcohol or drugs
• Paranoia

Get proper diagnosis.

Only a trusted psychologist can correctly diagnose teen depression or any other form of mental illness.  Governmental programs such as the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and the federal Children’s Mental Health Initiative are working to improve mental health facilities nationwide.

Encourage your teenager to eat healthy.

It might seem like following a healthy diet is less of a priority when faced with the symptoms of depression, but many doctors have found that deficiencies such as low vitamin b12 may contribute to depression; in some cases vitamin b12 deficiency may be the sole reason for the sudden change in behavior.

B12 deficiency is often misdiagnosed as clinical depression.

The Mayo Clinic confirms a correlation between b12 deficiency and symptoms of depression. Warning signs of vitamin b12 deficiency include chronic fatigue, dizziness, anxiety, increased violent tendencies, sleep disturbances and loss of appetite. Sound familiar? Many are the same symptoms above-mentioned for clinical depression.

A blood test is required to determine whether vitamin b12 deficiency is present; if you are tested positive then your physician will recommend supplementation, which may be administered as an injection, sublingual tablet, or spray.

Sources:

MSN News

Yahoo News

Watch this motivating video.

Images:

Anita Patterson Peppers

Apple announces 10 billionth iTunes app store download.

ITunes just sold their ten billionth mobile app, only 2 ½ years since the Apple store first made its debut as the celebrated mobile application merchant for the groundbreaking iPhone.

With a menu that boasts paid and free apps for iPhone, iPod Touch and the new iPad for immediate download, Apple still leads the way over competitors like Google’s Android, HP’s Palm and Research In Motion’s Blackberry.  While the Android is slowly gaining popularity, it currently only offers 130,000 apps to Apple’s staggering 300,000.

ITunes offers a selection of both paid and free mobile apps for immediate download; all that is required is a standard computer, internet connection and an Apple handheld device- iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and even the previously incompatible iPod Nano.

Medical apps are scoring big.

While gaming apps are the fave downloads for students, a new category is gaining popularity among iTunes’ more mature audiences: medical, healthcare and fitness apps. Since 2010, medical-related mobile applications have accounted for a record $84.1 million in sales, twice the amount iTunes grossed the previous year.

Here are the top 10 healthcare, fitness and medical apps people are purchasing today:

1. Lose it, by Fit Now. Keep track of your daily eating habits and exercise goals; quickly find out how many calories you consume and spend each day. Free download.
2. Nike + GPS, top seller in paid health apps, helps you record your progress on the run. $1.99.
3. Foodscanner, Scan UPC barcodes for instant calorie information; highest grossing health app, $4.99.
4. RXmind Me: never forget to take your pills; get scheduled alerts on your iPhone. Free.
5. Medscape– one of the leading apps for healthcare professionals; get comprehensive medical information at your fingertips. Free.
6. Anatomy in Motion Don’t let the high price tag deter your. This app features cutting edge, high definition illustrations of all three layers of the body- bones, muscular definition and epidermis. $25.99.
7. Sleep; doze off to the soothing lullaby of crickets, raindrops or the melodious sound of harp strings. Choose from 84 recordings. $0.99.
8. Supplements Guide; a handy glossary of all the different types of vitamins your body needs. $0.99.
9. Weight Watchers Mobile Discreetly and easily jot down your daily WW points, calculate meals and keep track of favorite WW recipes. Free; Weight Watchers membership required.
10. IScanner. Keep updated with emergency news updates from police reports, fire departments, and emergency medical response teams. $0.99

Buyers beware: critics such as MobiHealthNews are concerned that the 9,000 medical applications currently available may contain information that is not 100% accurate.   As the Wall Street Journal points out, iTunes does not require FDA approval or medical certification of its medical application developers.

Listen to this talk radio show review of the Vitamin B12 Patch:  b12 patch review

Let’s suppose, hypothetically speaking, that you were going to prepare a home-cooked dinner for you and your family. I say “hypothetically” because current research proves that the family sit-down dinner around the table is slowly becoming a thing of the past, as convenience food becomes standard fare in today’s “gotta have it now” society.  But let’s instead imagine a scenario where all the fast food restaurants have temporarily closed their doors to the public, and here you are left to fend for yourself and your family with nothing but a frying pan, four stove burners and a few bags of groceries still sitting on the kitchen counter waiting to be unpacked.

Not wanting to intimidate your children by cooking up something unfamiliar or too “crunchy granola,” you decide that tonight’s menu will include chicken nuggets, french-fried potatoes, and fruit on the side. Here are the typical recipe ingredients for golden chicken nuggets, as featured on allrecipes.com:

• 1 cup dry bread crumbs
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 teaspoons dried basil
• 2 teaspoons dried thyme
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 3/4 cup butter, melted
• 2 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch cubes

Looks good, right?

But wait! What’s that they’re saying on the television news? Leading fast food chain Donald McRonald has settled in court, agreeing to incorporate apple slices dipped in caramel into their kid’s menu as a healthy alternative to French fries?  Yippee! You drop your spatula like a hot potato (no pun intended).

Here are some of the ingredients your family will be getting as they gratefully chomp on their fried chicken tidbits, breathing a collective sigh of relief between sips of cola:

• Dimethylpolysiloxane, silicon-based anti-foaming agent
• Tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ)- poisonous, but only if you consume 5 grams.
• Approximately 13 corn derivatives, including modified cornstarch, yellow corn flour, partially hydrogenated corn oil and dextrose
• Mono-, tri-, and diglycerides
• citric acid
• “leavening agents”: sodium aluminum phosphate, mono-calcium phosphate, sodium acid pyrophosphate, and calcium lactate
• chicken

Only half of the ingredients in a fast food chicken nugget consist of actual chicken; the rest is made up of a combination of corn-like substances, leavening agents, preservatives and synthetic poisons. Yum.

Surely, if customers had some idea how badly they were clogging up their arteries they would order something healthier, right?

Nope. Consider Taco Time, a fast food eatery in Seattle, Washington. When compulsory nutritional labeling came into effect several years ago Taco Time complied, as did all restaurants of that district; for the first time customers were able to glance at a menu and quickly assess the caloric content of a burrito or a grilled chicken salad from the “light” menu.

Later, Duke University and Seattle-King County Public Health ran a study to see if the new labeling law had any effect, encouraged by health experts who predicted a sharp decline in sales. The results were underwhelming; the new menus had zero effect on Taco Time’s revenue, nobody ordered from the salad menu that ordinarily wouldn’t have and people who customarily ordered high-fat sugar-laden entrees went right on ordering the same meals everyday. Many confessed to not even looking at the label.

Scientists might be baffled by these results, but anybody who’s ever seen the website This Is Why You’re Fat knows one indisputable truth: you can lead a fast food junkie to the nutritional data, but you can’t make him read it.

January 19, 2011- the Wall Street Journal just published a report on b12 deficiency and its accompanying symptoms.  Kudos to the WSJ for giving b12 deficiency the attention it deserves, as the symptoms of low b12 vitamin levels are still being misdiagnosed by physicians.

The Wall Street Journal article quotes Dr. Alan Pocinki of Washington, D.C., “B12 deficiency is much more common than the textbooks and journal articles say it is,” How right you are, doc. Over 60 years ago scientists first discovered a link between vitamin b12 deficiency and pernicious anemia, yet doctors still confuse red flag indicators such as numbness and tingling in the feet with the common side effects of type 2 diabetes. Likely they are unaware of the diabetes drug metformin-low b12 link.

The consequences of ignoring low b12 levels can be severe.  Warning signs often begin as premature hair loss, decreased appetite, dizziness and bouts of depression; untreated they escalate to chronic fatigue syndrome, anemia and short-term memory loss.  Finally, and unless given medical attention, vitamin b12 deficiency could result in irreversible neurological damage or pernicious anemia.

I’d like to take the WSJ author to task on a few issues, though, regarding her piece: first of all, what’s with the cheeseburger reference? So what if a cheeseburger contains 30% of the suggested b12 allowance? A plate of chopped liver contains 800% – more b12 than a person would need in an entire week, and it’s a lot healthier.  But I suppose that a close-up shot of freshly mashed beef liver wouldn’t have attracted the same kind of attention as a larger-than-life double-decker burger. Still, is she suggesting we all just go out and order a cheeseburger for lunch everyday in order to meet our b12 allowance?  What about stroke and heart disease? I’ll take low b12 over a heart attack any day. Not to make light of the seriousness of b12 deficiency, but let’s just keep things in perspective here.

As if that weren’t enough, she then cites Dr. Pocinki as saying that his “very lean” patients often suffer from b12 deficiency, as they lack the fatty tissues necessary to properly store b12 in their system.  Well, who says you have to store it? That’s what eating is for. You eat, your body gets the vitamins it needs and then…you eat again tomorrow.  No folks, if you aren’t getting enough vitamin b12 from your foods, and some of you who are on a vegan diet, take acid-blocking medicines and metformin or simply do not produce enough stomach acids aren’t getting your daily allowance of b12, then your only alternative is to supplement every day. Please don’t jump on the cheeseburger bandwagon.  Have a heart.

Autism, B12 and Your Child.

A correlation between malabsorption of vitamin B12 and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been confirmed by numerous clinical studies; varying forms of B12 have been tested as possible anecdotes for some of the symptoms of ASD, if not as a 100% cure for the condition. However, the use of vitamin B12 as a treatment for autism is slowly emerging as a superior option.

According to DAN physician Dr. Jaquelyn McCandless, B12 is 80-90% effective in treating children with autism spectrum disorder.

How Can B12 Help My Child?

Visual Acuity

In a study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania, researchers found a high incidence of partially reversible optic neuropathy in autistic children who were “picky eaters.”  When given vitamin B12, a nutrient which was missing in their diets, a marked improvement in visual functioning was observed.

Brain Development

Vitamin B12 aids in myelination, the production of a protective layer around the brain known as the myelin sheath. Vitamin B12 also influences production of neurotransmitters which carry messages between the nervous system and the rest of our body.

Are There Side Effects?

One of the dilemmas in obtaining proper feedback regarding B12 as a treatment for children with autism has been the accompanying side effects; though short-lived, many parents are hesitant to wait out the effects while the body adjusts to the new medication.  Side effects can include hyperactivity, disturbance of sleep schedule and mouthing of non-food items.

Parents are advised to allow 5 weeks for B12 therapy to take effect.  It is important to continue to observe your child’s behavior during these initial 5 weeks and not making any changes to their diet.

Source:

National Center for Biotechnology Information (PubMed)