The hidden risks of adult peanut allergies
Charles Schulz launched the “Peanuts” cartoon on October 2, 1950, in seven newspapers. Eventually it appeared daily in 2,600 papers in 75 countries. The funny and often poignant responses of Charlie Brown and the other Peanuts characters resonated with adults, not just kids.
According to a Northwestern University survey published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, peanuts can do that. Researchers have discovered that more adults than kids have a peanut allergy! In fact, 4.5 million Americans over the age of 17 have the condition — and many developed it as grown-ups. Sadly, they are sidelined when it comes to management of the condition.
While the Food and Drug Administration recently approved an allergy therapy (Palforzia) for kids 4 to 17, there are no therapies approved by the Food and Drug Administration for adult-onset food allergy. That leaves many of the approximately 900,000 adults who end up in the ER every year with a reaction to peanuts without all the help they need. According to the study, too many folks 17 and older are not receiving essential counseling and a prescription for life-saving emergency epinephrine. Compounding the problem: Two-thirds of adults with peanut allergy have at least one other food allergy, often to tree nuts or shellfish.
If you suspect you have a peanut allergy, see a doctor pronto for a diagnosis and treatment. If you are diagnosed but don’t carry an EpiPen (injectable epinephrine) to counter an allergic reaction (anaphylactic shock), start doing it now — all the time, everywhere. And check out foodallergy.org for more info on adult food allergies.
Teach — and feed — your children well
When Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young sang “Teach Your Children Well” in 1969, they were imploring parents to raise children with “a code to live by.” More than 50 years later, we still need to be reminded of how important that is — especially when it comes to kids’ nutritional code of conduct.
Two new studies reveal that the food choices kids make — and that parents make for them — can lead to serious health problems as adults. The first, published in JAMA Cardiology, found that adolescents ages 12 to 18 with elevated lousy LDL and triglyceride levels are headed for coronary artery calcification in their 30s and 40s. That means they’re at risk for premature stroke, heart attack and dementia.
The second study, done in a lab, indicates that eating too much fat and sugar as a child can cause a lifelong disruption in your gut biome, affecting everything from glucose regulation to immune strength. And, say the researchers, it’s not easy to repair a biome once the damage is done. That may be why you may need to take probiotics long-term. Stop taking them and the microbes you’re beneficially introducing into your gut often fade away.
Bottom line: Feed your kids whole, high-fiber foods, largely unprocessed, with no added sugars or syrups, only 100 percent whole grains and lean proteins (max one serving of red meat a week and no processed red meats). Then they’ll have a fighting chance to avoid America’s epidemic of diabetes and obesity. That’s a code to live by!
More on the amazing benefits of drinking coffee — and green tea
In the late 1960s, American Airlines public relations specialist Donald Bain ghostwrote a supposed expose on the wild times of three stewardesses titled “Coffee, Tea or Me?” The book’s publisher hired two stewardesses as the “authors” for book tours and television appearances — even though their escapades were pure fiction. That would never fly these days, although you could write a highly respectable health book called “Coffee, Tea and You!”
The evidence keeps mounting on the health benefits of drinking coffee (filtered, with no added flavors, sugars or dairy) — and green tea. We know coffee reduces the risk of Type 2 diabetes, liver disease and breast cancer and helps forestall or slow progression of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, and the caffeine and phytonutrients in coffee and green tea can help fight off cancers, dementia and cardiovascular disease. Plus, a recent meta-analysis in BMJ Open showed that consumption of coffee was associated with a 9 percent reduction in prostate cancer risk.
Now, a 15-year study in the journal Stroke shows that if folks who have had a stroke drink around 24 ounces of green tea daily, they’ll lower their risk of dying over that period of time by 24 percent and heart attack survivors who drink one 5-ounce cup of coffee a day reduce their overall risk of death by around 22 percent. People who have never had a stroke or heart attack and drink one or more cups of coffee a week have about a 14 percent lower risk of death than noncoffee drinkers. So drink up!
You think reality is tough to take? VR can be a real hazard
Exergaming can be exergasmic — distracting you from the discomforts of exercise and motivating you to repeat the workout day after day, because you’re engaged in a virtual reality video game that thrills you. There are programs for strength-building and aerobics that get you into a jump-rope challenge, a spacey dance routine, sword-fighting, fitness boxing and cycling.
Entertaining. Highly motivating. And, oh yeah, potentially nauseating. VR sickness is a real phenomenon that can make you feel lousy after even a brief encounter with the fantasy world within your head-mounted VR device. It’s a form of motion sickness that can trigger a headache, nausea, vomiting and disorientation.
A study in the Journal of Medical Internet Research reveals that exergames, like the wildly popular “Beat Saber,” leave many people feeling slightly queasy and unsteady even 40 minutes after removing their VR device — and 14 percent of the study’s participants who had exergamed for 50 minutes still felt extremely ill at that point. FYI: “Beat Saber” puts you in a fantastic neon environment where you slice up blocks in sync with musical rhythms using two sabers of contrasting colors.
There’s not much you can do to dodge VR sickness until game designers create environments that aren’t so disorienting. So allow yourself time to recover before going on about your day. Or, hey, here’s an idea: Tune in to an exercise class on your computer or TV, or head outdoors for a 10,000-step walk — no side effects except muscle tone, energy and a younger RealAge.
Refined grains lead to unmistakably coarse results
“The more refined one is, the more unhappy” — that was the Russian author Anton Chekhov’s view of the world. And more than 100 years after he penned that observation, nutritional scientists are shouting it from the rooftops: Eating refined carbohydrates not only fuels depression and some cancers (prostate and breast, for example), it lowers the quality of your life — and shortens it.
Researchers looked at data from the PURE study to evaluate the association between intakes of refined grains, whole grains and white rice with cardiovascular disease, total mortality, blood lipids and blood pressure. Their results published in the BMJ found that eating around 12 ounces of refined grains a day (seven servings) was associated with a 27 percent higher risk of death and a 33 percent higher risk of serious cardiovascular events and higher blood pressure compared with folks who had the lowest intake of refined grains — about 1.7 ounces or what’s in 6 ounces of pasta. (White rice wasn’t heart-damaging.)
How easy is it to eat 12 ounces of refined carbs in a day? That’s what’s in a large serving of McDonald’s fries, four slices of hearty white bread, a cup of sugared cereal, one baked potato, two scoops of chocolate ice cream and three Oreos.
Luckily, it’s easy — and tasty — to dodge the refined carb bullet too. Opt for natural sugars in fruits, 100 percent whole grains, lots of high-fiber veggies and no ultraprocessed foods. Then you can enjoy the happiness that comes from a lack of refinement!
Mehmet Oz, M.D. is host of “The Dr. Oz Show,” and Mike Roizen, M.D. is Chief Wellness Officer and Chair of Wellness Institute at Cleveland Clinic. To live your healthiest, tune into “The Dr. Oz Show” or visit www.sharecare.com.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 37 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.