How does your diet affect the planet? Plus, protecting your kids from edibles, how to stop stress, and more health news
How does your diet affect the planet?
Swapping that steak for a fish filet or a veggie burger is not only good for your health, but the planet’s, too, a new study suggests.
The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, ranked various diets based on two measures: nutritional quality and “carbon footprint.”
And overall, non-meat diets came out on top, on both counts.
Researchers found that on average, vegan and vegetarian diets had the smallest carbon footprint — which refers to the amount of greenhouse gases that are churned into the atmosphere in order to produce the foods the diets comprise.
Meanwhile, the pescatarian diet — which includes seafood, but no meat — scored highest in nutritional quality, and was more planet-friendly than diets containing meat.
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Florida man dies from brain-eating amoeba
A brain-eating amoeba has killed a Florida man, state health officials reported.
The man may have acquired this very rare infection after rinsing his sinuses with tap water, the Florida Department of Health in Charlotte County said in a news release.
While health officials continue to investigate the cause of the Naegleria fowleri infection, they emphasized that it can’t be contracted from drinking tap water.
These infections only happen when contaminated water enters through the sinuses, officials said.
That more typically happens from swimming in warm lakes or rivers in summer. N. fowleri grows in warm temperatures, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It can be found in soil and fresh water.
How to stop being so stressed out
If you’re on edge, you’re not alone. More than a quarter of adults in the United States reported they’re too stressed out to function, according to a 2022 survey by The Harris Poll for the American Psychological Association (APA).
What’s so stressful? The list is a lengthy one. Adults in the APA survey cited inflation, violence and crime, the current political climate, and the racial climate in the country as significant sources of stress. These are on top of other ubiquitous stressors we’re all familiar with: relationships, family dynamics and responsibilities, and work and school conflicts.
So, what is stress exactly — and how can we help tame it?
Get to sleep fast without a prescription
You toss, you turn, you can’t fall asleep.
Certainly, there are sleep medications that can be prescribed by a doctor. And with some investment of time, cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia is considered to be an effective option.
Yet, there are also a lot of healthy sleep habits and natural sleep aids that some experts believe can make a difference, too.
With more than 60 million Americans suffering from poor sleep quality, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine, it seems like these easily accessible options could be worth a try when searching for the best natural sleep aid.
Older Black men face higher risk of death after surgery
Older Black men are more likely than others to die after surgery, according to a new study.
Black men have a higher chance of dying within 30 days of surgery compared to Black women and white adults, and their odds of death after elective procedures is 50% higher when compared to white men, researchers found.
This may be because of the “especially high cumulative amounts of stress” that Black men face contributing to declines in their physical health, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles said.
“While a fair bit is known about such inequities, we find in our analyses that it’s specifically Black men who are dying more, and they are dying more after elective surgeries, not urgent and emergent surgeries,” said study lead Dr. Dan Ly. He’s an assistant professor of medicine at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine.
It’s possible that Black men may suffer from poorer pre-op treatment of chronic conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure, Ly said.
How to “childproof” your weed
With cannabis poisoning soaring among U.S. children, an expert from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles offers tips for keeping kids safe from so-called “edibles.”
“The best way to keep your kids safe from marijuana edibles is not to have them in your home,” Dr. Colleen Kraft, an attending physician in the Department of Pediatrics, said in a hospital news release.
However, if you do have them at home, store them where your children can’t get them.
Between 2017 and 2021, more than 7,000 children younger than 6 were exposed to edible cannabis, according to the National Poison Data System.
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