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Drinking three or more cups of tea a day is as good for you as drinking plenty of water and may even have extra health benefits, say researchers.

The work in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition dispels the common belief that tea dehydrates.

Tea not only rehydrates as well as water does, but it can also protect against heart disease and some cancers, UK nutritionists found.

Experts believe flavonoids are the key ingredient in tea that promote health.

Read: Tea ‘healthier’ drink than water

This news release points out once again that smoking of any sort is not good for you. Just yesterday I met a young woman who had a four month old baby. She had just quit smoking one week ago. She deserves lots of congratulations as she is going extremely well given many of her challenges. She was rightly worried that her mother continues to smoke, even when caring for the infant. That is rude beyond belief to me.

Second case in point. I saw a woman yesterday who has smoked for many years. Her blood pressure has been creeping up over. When I saw her just weeks before I told her to take her blood pressure and pulse at home BEFORE she had a cigarette, and then again right after. The results were even more dramatic that I suspected they would be. Her blood pressure rose by nearly 40%!!! If you smoke, try this yourself…it will give you that final push to stop smoking for good.
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Any Tobacco Use Raises Heart Attack Risk
08.17.06, 12:00 AM ET

THURSDAY, Aug. 17 (HealthDay News) — All types of tobacco use or exposure — smoking, chewing, or secondhand smoke — boost a person’s risk for heart attack, Canadian researchers say.

Researchers at McMaster University in Ontario analyzed data from more than 27,000 people in 52 countries and factored in other lifestyle traits — such as diet and age — that could affect heart attack risk. They found that any form of tobacco use or exposure was harmful.

Publishing in the Aug. 19 issue of The Lancet, they found that moderate and heavy smokers had a three-fold increased risk of a heart attack and light smokers (8-10 cigarettes a day) had a two-fold risk.

The risk decreased with time after a person stopped smoking, the study said. Among light smokers, there was no excess risk 3 to 5 years after they quit smoking. Moderate and heavy smokers still had an excess risk of about 22 percent even 20 years after they kicked the habit.

The researchers also concluded that exposure to secondhand smoke increased the risk of heart attack in both former smokers and nonsmokers. People with the highest levels of secondhand smoke exposure (22 hours or more per week) have about a 45 percent increased risk of heart attack, the study said.

Chewing tobacco doubled the risk of heart attack, the researchers found.

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You’ll find more information about smoking and quiting at the OlderWiserWomen Smoking Cessation page.

I read this article and thought I’d share it with you. While it makes sense (we do know that social connectedness has lots to do with ones well being and longevity), the fact that these researchers excluded non-married partners (regardless of sexual orientation) is a huge flaw in this study. My opinion is that “marriage” has nothing to do with it…it is having family and social support and connections (regardless of their legal status) that is important. What do you think?

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Never-Married Penalty: Early Death?
Daniel DeNoon

People who have never married are more likely to die — at all ages — than people who are married and live together, U.S. data show.

It’s the “never-married penalty,” suggest University of California researchers Robert M. Kaplan, PhD, and Richard G. Kronick, PhD, in the August issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Kaplan and Kronick extracted data from two sources: a 1989 national health interview survey, and the 1997 U.S. national death index. They had sufficient data to analyze information on more than 80,000 Americans.

Their main findings:

* Never being married has a greater risk of “poor health outcome” than being divorced or widowed.
* For men, the never-married penalty is stronger early in life.
* The never-married penalty affects both men and women.

“The risks of being never married … rival the risks of having increased blood pressure or high cholesterol,” Kaplan and Kronick conclude.

The researchers found that never-married people, compared with their married peers, are:

* 5 times more likely to die of infectious disease
* Twice as likely to die in accidents, homicides, or suicides
* 38% more likely to die of heart disease

Social Isolation to Blame?

What’s going on? Kaplan and Kronick suggest that people who never marry are isolated from other people. People who are divorced or widowed, they say, are more likely than the never-married to have children or other family relationships that offer social support.

“Accumulated evidence suggests that social isolation increases the risk of premature death,” they note. “Marriage is a rough proxy for social connectedness.”

The data strongly argue against other explanations. For example, it wasn’t true that people with poorer health tended to be unmarried. In fact, the never-married penalty was strongest among people who said they were in excellent health. Moreover, never-married people reported better health habits than married people.

There are some drawbacks to the study. The researchers excluded people who were unmarried but living together. And the survey questions did not ascertain a person’s sexual preference. Given the study period — 1989 to 1997 — a disproportionate number of deaths due to AIDS may have affected young men in the never-married group.

SOURCES: Kaplan, R.M. and Kronick, R.G. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, August 2006; vol 60: pp 760-765., WEbMDHealth

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Elderly people should take probiotic supplements, according to scientists. They said the drinks, yoghurts or capsules could help protect older people against bowel conditions, such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).

People over 60 have about 1,000-fold less “friendly” bacteria in their guts compared to other adults.

But experts, speaking at a briefing in London, also warned that some of the smaller brands on sale in the UK were not effective.

The human gut contains different strains of bacteria, some of which are “friendly”, such as bifidobacteria or lactobacillus, some that help with food digestion and some that are disease-causing.

Having a balance of “friendly bacteria” is thought to stop harmful forms taking hold and causing disease.

Probiotics, meaning “for life”, are products that contain live strains of bacteria incorporated into yoghurts, fruit juices or freeze-dried powders, which boost levels of the friendly bacteria in the gut.

Source: BBC - Elderly “should take probiotics”