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The Olive Oil Hunter News #44

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Peruvian Purple Potato Salad Recipe, Spotlight on Potatoes, The Other “Utility” Knife and Spiritual Fitness for Brain Boosts and Protecting Your Skin

This week’s Olive Oil Hunter Newsletter delivers the goods with a delicious and surprising twist using richly colored Peruvian purple potatoes. And their beauty is more than skin deep!

Note: Specialty potatoes are often available online if they’re not at your local market. And if you can’t find purple ones, you can substitute any brightly colored variety.

PERUVIAN PURPLE POTATO SALAD

  • PERUVIAN PURPLE POTATO SALAD Peruvian Purple Potato Salad

    The beauty of these potatoes is more than skin deep—they’re rich in antioxidants. Leave on the skins for maximum nutritional benefits. 

    Ingredients

    • 2 pounds Peruvian purple potatoes, scrubbed 
    • 3 tablespoons Pear Balsamic Vinegar
    • 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
    • 1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste 
    • 1/4 teaspoon black pepper, plus more to taste
    • 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
    • 1/2 cup Kalamata olives, pitted and roughly chopped
    • 1/4 cup red onion, peeled and diced
    • 1 jalapeño pepper, stemmed, seeded, and finely diced (optional) 
    • 1/2 yellow or orange bell pepper, stemmed, seeded, and diced
    • 3 tablespoons each chopped fresh cilantro, parsley, and chives 

    Directions

    Step 1

    Boil the potatoes in salted water until just tender—20 minutes or so, depending on their size, but don’t overcook. Drain, let cool slightly, and quarter them. Transfer to a large bowl. 

    Step 2

    In a small bowl, combine the vinegar, mustard, salt, and black pepper. Slowly whisk in the olive oil until the mixture emulsifies. Pour the vinaigrette evenly over the potatoes while they’re still warm. Gently fold in the olives, onion, jalapeño (if using), bell pepper, and herbs. Season to taste with more salt and black pepper. 

    Yields 4 to 6 servings

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight: Americans and Potatoes

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Potatoes Get More Colorful

Americans don’t get enough fruits and vegetables, except when it comes to our beloved potatoes—we each eat about one pound every week! Potatoes are considered starchy because they’re calorie-dense, but a medium-sized potato, skin on, still delivers on nutrition: 35% of a day’s vitamin C needs, 30% of vitamin B6, and 25% of potassium, plus 4 grams of fiber and 5 of protein. Most of those nutrients are in the skin, so keep it on, even when making mashed.

Potatoes have been getting more and more colorful, and each color is a sign of its antioxidant content, just as it is for berries. Beyond Yukon golds and red-skinned potatoes, purple varieties are becoming easier to find. Even the US Agricultural Research Service got into the act by creating Huckleberry Gold, with a purple jacket, a fine-textured yellow flesh, and a significantly higher level of antioxidants than those Yukons.

As with pasta, it’s what you put on your potato that counts. Cleveland Clinic registered dietitian Andrea Dunn suggests: “Try a drizzle of olive oil with chives instead of sour cream, butter, and salt.”

Healthy Kitchen Tip: Grapefruit Knife

Healthy Kitchen Nugget

The Other “Utility” Knife

Think of it as the unsung hero in your utensil drawer (chances are, it’s hidden somewhere in the back). The grapefruit knife, often the same length as a dinner knife, is unique because both edges are serrated and the blade itself is curved. This makes it not only ideal to cut out the sections of a citrus half (oranges and lemons as well as grapefruit), but also to stem peppers, from jalapeños to bells, and even strawberries, with a neat edge. It’s especially handy when you want to keep a pepper intact for stuffing, since you can maneuver the blade around the inside to cut away the ribs. If you don’t already have one, a grapefruit knife is just a few dollars, and you can find many options online.

For Your Best Health: Brain Health and Alzheimer’s disease

For Your Best Health

Spiritual Fitness for Brain Boosts

According to researchers Dharma Singh Khalsa, MD, of the Alzheimer’s Research and Prevention Foundation in Tucson, and Andrew B. Newberg, MD, of the Marcus Institute of Integrative Health at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, “spiritual fitness,” a new concept in medicine that centers on psychological and spiritual well-being, may reduce multiple risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

Spiritual fitness weaves together basic, psychological, and spiritual well-being, which is often practiced independent of religion. Drs. Khalsa and Newberg analyzed existing research for their review, “Spiritual Fitness: A New Dimension in Alzheimer’s Disease Prevention,” published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, and found positive connections between spiritual fitness and brain health. Psychological well-being includes having a purpose in life, and according to one study, people who feel this strongly are 2.4 times more likely to remain free of AD than people who don’t. In another study, having a purpose in life was linked to better cognitive function as people age.

Because stress, with its physical, psychological, and emotional effects, may elevate AD risk, stress management is important to help reduce it. Drs. Khalsa and Newberg highlighted a practice called Kirtan Kriya, a 12-minute singing meditation that involves four sounds, breathing, and repetitive finger movements. It not only helps improve sleep, decrease depression, increase well-being, and improve mood, but also may increase blood flow to areas of the brain involved in cognition and emotional regulation. Practiced long-term, it may increase grey matter volume and decrease ventricular size to help slow brain aging.

“Mitigating the extensive negative biochemical effects of stress with meditation practices, in tandem with the creation of heightened levels of spiritual fitness, may help lower the risk of AD. Small shifts in one’s daily routine can make all the difference in AD prevention,” Dr. Khalsa and Dr. Newberg conclude.

You can read the entire report here.

Fitness Flash: Sunscreen for Longterm Health

Fitness Flash

Avoiding Another Kind of Injury

You know all about warming up and stretching before exercise to avoid injury, but you might not realize the risk that the sun poses, especially on hot, sunny days, and not only in terms of dehydration. Your skin is especially vulnerable to sunburn when you’re active outdoors, especially when you forget the sunscreen. In addition to being a risk factor for skin cancer, sunburn affects thermoregulation and the dissipation of excessive heat—that also makes it a risk factor for heat-related illnesses, according to Frank Perna, EdD, PhD, of the National Institutes of Health, and David Conroy, PhD, of the Penn State Cancer Institute, writing for the American College of Sports Medicine. Even though sweating plays the vital role of cooling you off, it also shortens the time it takes UV exposure to cause a sunburn.

Consider these smart precautions:

  • Protect your skin with a variety of approaches—sunscreen, protective clothing, and working out in shady conditions and/or avoiding peak UV times.
  • Apply sunscreen regularly, and don’t be skimpy with it. “Some dermatologists recommend higher SPF sunscreen for athletes because of sweat effects on photosensitivity and the common finding that most people only apply about half the recommended amount of sunscreen,” write Drs. Perna and Conroy. For less mess and to be sure it’s properly absorbed, apply it before going outside. The CDC recommends using a broadband sunscreen with SPF of 15 or greater and reapplying it every 80 minutes or every time you towel off. Carry sunscreen with you even if you don’t have specific plans for outdoor exercise—you never know when someone will toss a Frisbee your way at the park.
  • Choose exercise apparel with a UPF rating to shield skin. Add a hat to protect your scalp. And remember to wear sunglasses with UV protective lenses—sunlight can accelerate cataracts.
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The Olive Oil Hunter News #43

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

Grilled Halloumi Over Salad Recipe, Spotlight on Cheeses That Can Take the Heat, When to Wash Veggies and The Link Between Exercise and Sleep

Who doesn’t love a gooey grilled-cheese sandwich? But what can you do when you want cheesy goodness without the bread? The delicious answer is cheese varieties that hold their shape under heat.

GRILLED HALLOUMI OVER SALAD

  • GRILLED HALLOUMI OVER SALAD Grilled Halloumi Over Salad

    I’m a huge fan of halloumi, a brined goat’s milk cheese from Cyprus. Because it has a high melting point, this firm, somewhat salty cheese can be grilled directly on the grate. You can skewer chunks along with your favorite veggies or simply grill slices and serve them with the refreshing seasonal salad in this recipe.

    Ingredients

    • 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
    • 1 tablespoon best-quality red wine vinegar 
    • 1 teaspoon fresh oregano, chopped, or 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano 
    • Kosher salt to taste
    • Freshly ground black pepper to taste
    • 8 ounces cherry tomatoes, halved 
    • 1 cucumber, diced
    • One head romaine lettuce, washed, dried, and torn 
    • 12 brined Kalamata olives, drained, pitted, and halved 
    • 1/2 cup loosely packed flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
    • 12 ounces of halloumi, cut crosswise into 1/3-inch-thick slices 
    • 4 tablespoons Greek yogurt (optional)

    Directions

    Step 1

    Make the salad: In a bowl, whisk together 2 tablespoons of the olive oil, the red wine vinegar, oregano, salt, and pepper. Add the tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, olives, and parsley. Toss gently to coat the vegetables with the dressing and divide evenly on four plates.

    Step 2

    Pour the rest of the olive oil onto a rimmed sheet pan and gently coat both sides of each cheese slice. On a medium-hot grill, grill the cheese for 1 to 2 minutes per side, turning with tongs or a thin-bladed spatula. (Work in batches if necessary.) 

    Step 3

    Top each salad plate with equal amounts of the grilled cheese and add a dollop of yogurt, if desired. Serve immediately. 

    Yields 4 servings.

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight: Americans and Potatoes

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

More Cheeses That Can Take the Heat

Halloumi isn’t the only fresh, semi-firm cheese that can be cooked without melting. Another great one is paneer, the cheese used in Indian cuisine, most famously the creamy spinach dish saag paneer. It’s readily available at many markets, not just specialty shops. And from frigid Finland comes leipäjuusto, popular there at breakfast, according to the experts at the magazine Culture: The Word on Cheese. These cheeses will soften when grilled, but they won’t break down and melt thanks to their low acid content. That’s also the reason you may hear a squeaking sound as you bite into them!

Healthy Kitchen Tip: Grapefruit Knife

Healthy Kitchen Nugget

When Exactly to Wash Veggies

While most concern over food contamination centers on raw meat, vegetables as well as fruits can have organisms you want to keep out of the kitchen. Here are some tips from the FDA and the University of Maine Cooperative Extension to stay safe.

Start by choosing produce that isn’t bruised or damaged. If shopping for precut foods, like fruit chunks or bags of lettuce, make sure they’ve been kept refrigerated or on ice at the store, and get them into the fridge as soon as you get home. If a food gets marred before you’ve had a chance to use it, cut off the affected areas before preparing or eating it.

There are also steps to take with freshly harvested produce, whether from your own garden or a farmers’ market. Washing off produce can help reduce microorganisms. There’s no need to use soap or a special produce wash—just gently rub the produce while holding it under plain running water. Do make sure the water is no more than 10 degrees Fahrenheit colder than the food, or else any pathogens could get drawn in through the stem (if there is one). Because excess water can lead to faster molding or rotting, be sure to thoroughly dry your produce with clean paper towels before storing it in the fridge. To store produce without washing it first, shake, rub, or brush off any garden dirt with either a clean, soft brush or a clean, dry paper towel before you bring it inside if possible. Then place the produce in a plastic bag or container to prevent any risk of contamination to other foods in your fridge. For a list of which produce should be washed and which produce should be wiped clean, check out this resource page from the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.

Always rinse produce right before you peel or cut it so that any dirt and bacteria aren’t picked up by your knife and transferred back onto the fruit or vegetable or elsewhere in your kitchen.

For Your Best Health: Brain Health

For Your Best Health

The Mediterranean Diet: Brain Booster

One of the reasons I’m such a proponent of olive oil is the key role it plays in the fabulously healthy Mediterranean diet, known for its heart health benefits. A recent study published in the journal Neurology advances the theory that it protects brain health too. The researchers found that, among a group of 500 seniors, those who ate an unhealthy diet had higher levels of amyloid and tau proteins, which have been linked to Alzheimer’s, in their cerebrospinal fluid, and that they performed worse in memory tests than those who regularly ate a Mediterranean-like diet. “There was also a significant positive correlation between a closer adherence to a Mediterranean-like diet and a higher volume of the hippocampus. The hippocampus is an area of the brain that is considered the control center of memory. It shrinks early and severely in Alzheimer’s disease,” explained Tommaso Ballarini, PhD, lead author of the study. “It is possible that the Mediterranean diet protects the brain from protein deposits and brain atrophy that can cause memory loss and dementia.” The researchers will continue their work by reexamining the same study participants in four to five years.

In the meantime, this delicious way of eating isn’t complicated. According to the Mayo Clinic, while there is no single definition of the Mediterranean diet, it is typically high in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, nuts and seeds, and olive oil. Here’s an easy way to adopt it:

  • Daily: vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and healthy fats
  • Weekly: fish, poultry, beans and eggs with moderate portions of dairy
  • Limited: red meat

Fitness Flash: The Link Between Exercise and Sleep

Fitness Flash

The Link Between Exercise and Sleep

There are many factors that contribute to good health, with getting enough exercise and getting good quality sleep among them. We know that, separately, physical inactivity and poor sleep are linked to a greater risk of death from causes such as heart disease and cancer. New research published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine now shows that exercise and sleep may be more linked to each other than we thought. Scientists looked at the exercise and sleep patterns of more than 380,000 middle-aged adults over an 11-year period and how different combinations affected their health. Not surprisingly, compared with those with a high physical activity level and healthy sleep combination, those at the other extreme—no moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and poor sleep—were most at risk for heart disease, stroke, and cancer. However, the findings also showed that getting the recommended 150 minutes of exercise a week could mitigate the risks posed by poor sleep, prompting the researchers to suggest that there’s a certain synergy between the two activities. This was an observational study that relied on self-reported data so cause and effect can’t be established, but it does give the idea that you should meet physical activity goals as you work on getting better sleep. Other lifestyle habits that helped participants achieve better sleep levels were being thinner, eating more fruits and vegetables, spending less time sitting each day, not smoking, and limiting alcohol.

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The Olive Oil Hunter News #42

Posted on by The Olive Oil Hunter

Espetadas Recipe, Spotlight on Red Wine Vinegar, Cooking with Skewers, The Importance of Breakfast and Getting Fit with Tai Chi

With grilling season in high gear, I love having a few recipes that are delicious yet not complicated. Kebabs are perfect because you can marinate the meat ahead of time, and the cubes cook up fast. The following marinade has a Mediterranean twist featuring two of Portugal’s signature ingredients, Madeira and red wine vinegar. Enjoy!

Espetadas

  • The Olive Oil Hunter News #42 Espetadas

    Popular in Portugal’s Madeira Island where its namesake wine is produced, these kebabs were traditionally skewered on branches of bay laurel, grilled over a wood fire, and accompanied by a round of local bread called bolo do caco. While you might not readily find bay laurel branches, you can serve this delicious grilled beef on the crusty bread of your choosing—slices can be rubbed with garlic, grilled for under a minute on each slide, and then brushed with extra virgin olive oil before serving.

    Ingredients

    • 1/3 cup red wine vinegar, best quality available
    • 3 tablespoons Madeira
    • 4 cloves garlic, minced
    • Coarse kosher or sea salt
    • Freshly ground black pepper
    • 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for serving
    • 2 dried bay leaves, crumbled
    • 2 pounds beef tenderloin or top sirloin
    • Rustic bread, grilled with olive oil, if desired, for serving

    Directions

    Step 1

    In a large nonreactive bowl, combine the vinegar, Madeira, garlic, and a teaspoon each of the salt and pepper. Whisk until the salt crystals dissolve, and then whisk in the 1/3 cup of olive oil. Stir in the dried bay leaves.

    Step 2

    Trim off any excess fat or silver skin from the meat and cut it into 2-inch cubes. Add the cubes to the marinade and stir gently to coat. Cover and refrigerate for 4 to 8 hours, stirring occasionally.

    Step 3

    When ready to cook, preheat a grill to medium-high heat. Brush and oil the grill grate. Drain the meat cubes and discard the marinade. For a good sear, pat the cubes dry with paper towels and then thread them onto 4 to 6 metal skewers. Season with more salt and pepper. Grill the meat 2 to 3 minutes per side for medium-rare, or until done to your liking. Transfer the skewers to a platter or plates. Drizzle with olive oil and let the meat rest for 2 to 3 minutes. Serve with the grilled bread, if desired.

    Yields 4 to 6 servings.

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight: Red Wine Vinegar

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Red Wine Vinegar: Be Choosy

If your only experience with red wine vinegar comes from commercial brands sold at your local supermarket, you may wonder what all the fuss is about. But a beautifully—and slowly—crafted red wine vinegar will have the variety of notes of a fine wine because it will have been made from fine grapes (look for details on the label).

There are many historical tales about forgotten barrels of wine that transformed over time into vinegar, but in the hands of today’s producers, nothing is left to chance. This ensures that the finished product is vibrant and fruity, a perfect match for extra virgin olive oil and other ingredients, whether you’re making a marinade or a vinaigrette. It takes more time to make this type of red wine vinegar, and it’s more expensive than mass-produced brands, but since it’s typically used in small amounts, a bottle will go a long way. One key clue: Look for an acidity level over 7% rather than the average 5%–6% of commercial varieties.

Your Olive Oil Hunter is on a quest to bring you the best vinegars from around the world, so stay tuned for important developments to come in future newsletters!

Healthy Kitchen Tip: Cooking with bamboo skewers

Healthy Kitchen Nugget

Get Skewered!

For serving fresh foods like cubes of fruit, long bamboo skewers make an elegant presentation and allow guests to grab a portion without dipping into a large fruit salad bowl. But even if you soak wood skewers first, they’re not my favorite option for grilling because they can easily burn. They can also break when you’re trying to push them through a piece of raw meat or a hard vegetable. I like reusable and sturdy stainless-steel skewers, at least 12″ in length and with a sharp point that easily pierces food chunks. There are many options with attractive and easy-to-grip handles so that, once cooled, guests can help themselves. Handles also make it easy for you to slide off the cooked food if you’re arranging it on a serving platter. Be sure to buy at least a dozen so you’ll have enough to skewer meat and veggies separately since their grilling times can vary.

For Your Best Health: Importance of Breakfast

For Your Best Health

Lost Nutrients From Skipping Breakfast ​

We know that breakfast fuels the body and brain for the day ahead, and skipping it can leave you feeling sluggish, but the problems may go deeper. According to an analysis of one-day food diaries kept by over 30,000 American adults, people who skip breakfast not only miss out on the nutrients associated with breakfast foods, but they also don’t make up for those losses later on.

“What we’re seeing is that if you don’t eat the foods that are commonly consumed at breakfast, you have a tendency not to eat them the rest of the day. So those common breakfast nutrients become a nutritional gap,” said Christopher A. Taylor, PhD, RDN, professor of medical dietetics and family medicine at The Ohio State University and senior author of the study. The biggest shortfalls were calcium and iron; vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, folate, and C; and fiber. To make matters worse, breakfast skippers were more likely to have a meal-sized snack to compensate for the missed breakfast, plus a larger lunch and dinner, all of which tended to be of a lower dietary quality.

If you’re too rushed in the morning or don’t wake up with an appetite, you may want to make the effort to eat foods in the dairy, fruit, and whole grain groups when you are ready to chow down.

Fitness Flash: Whittle Your Waist With Tai Chi

Fitness Flash

Whittle Your Waist With Tai Chi ​

Tai chi is a popular mind-body discipline practiced the world over. It incorporates gentle movements, focused breathing, and meditation-like self-awareness. And it’s great for balance and flexibility. Now a study done by a team of researchers from the University of Hong Kong and UCLA has found that, practiced consistently, it may help reduce belly fat. Belly fat is often the most outward sign of metabolic syndrome, a group of diabetes and heart disease risk factors that also include high blood fats, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure. To make tai chi part of a comprehensive exercise plan, look for in-person or online classes at the Tai Chi Foundation.

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The Olive Oil Hunter News #41

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The Essential Dry-to-Wet Rub Recipe, Spotlight on Mustard, The Life of Spice, Another Reason to Ditch Crash Dieting and Creating Your Own Exercise “Cocktail”

What’s the #1 grilling essential? You might think it’s the charcoal or your favorite BBQ sauce, but extra virgin olive oil should be the go-to ingredient for every grill master. You probably know that for sauces and dressings, it’s a great way to emulsify all the other ingredients and create a rich texture, and that steak and vegetables in particular benefit from a drizzle just before serving. But olive oil is the first ingredient I reach for at the very start of my grilling process, when I’m putting together the marinade—it not only imparts its own wonderful flavor but also helps herbs and spices better penetrate the food. This week’s recipe, which builds on the great flavors of a dry rub, is the perfect illustration of olive oil’s versatility and magic—if there’s one go-to prep for chicken, pork, and beef before they hit the grill, this is it.

The Essential Dry-to-Wet Rub

  • The Olive Oil Hunter News #41 The Essential Dry-to-Wet Rub

    This special blend of sweet, salty, and spicy will infuse any type of grilled meat with a smoky, garlicky flavor. It’s especially great on any cut of pork.

    Ingredients

    • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
    • 1 tablespoon sea salt
    • 2 tablespoons cracked black pepper
    • 2 tablespoons pimentón (Spanish smoked paprika)
    • 1 tablespoon garlic powder
    • 1 tablespoon onion powder
    • 1 teaspoon dry yellow (ground) mustard
    • 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
    • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

    Directions

    Mix all the ingredients together. Pat your meat dry with paper towels and coat liberally with the mixture, using your fingers to press it in place. If you’re in a hurry, you can grill after 15 minutes, but letting the rub “cure” for 3 hours or longer in the fridge will intensify the flavors.

    Yields enough rub for up to 8 pounds of meat.

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight: Can You Cut the Mustard?

Healthy Ingredient Spotlight

Can You Cut the Mustard?

Brown or yellow, fine or whole grain, the mustards sitting in your fridge started with seeds from a mustard plant (by the way, mustard greens are great in salads or a stir fry). Just as there are several kinds of mustard in a jar, different varieties of seeds are available. If you had dry mustard in the house when you were growing up, it likely came in the distinctive yellow can with the Colman’s logo on it. These days, both seeds and ground powders are sold through spice stores and online.

Western cooking typically calls for the mild yellow mustard seeds, which you can buy whole and grind yourself as needed in a coffee bean grinder. Brown and black mustard seeds are other popular varieties with more pronounced tastes. They’re often used in spicy Indian and Asian recipes and to make whole-grain and coarse-style mustards. (Some people find the brown seeds more acrid and the black ones more potent yet sweeter when cooked.) Lightly toasting the seeds in a skillet, either dry or in a small amount of oil, really brings out their aroma.

Consider using whole mustard seeds when making a spice blend for pickling and trying your hand at homemade mustard. When grinding seeds fresh for mustard powder, reduce the amount called for in a recipe by a third to a half since freshly ground powder will be more intense than store-bought.

Healthy Kitchen Tip: The Life of Spice

Healthy Kitchen Nugget

The Life of Spice

All spices start losing their flavor—albeit slowly—from the moment they’re harvested, but you can do a lot to preserve their taste once you get them home. Keep them in tightly sealed glass containers away from light, humidity, and heat—not above the cooktop. Choose a dark pantry shelf or a drawer away from the oven, and only buy the quantity you’ll use within 6 to 12 months.

For Your Best Health: Another Reason to Ditch Crash Dieting

For Your Best Health

Another Reason to Ditch Crash Dieting

A team of researchers has found yet another downside to very low-calorie diets: unwanted changes in the normal flora—including the good bacteria—of your digestive tract. “For the first time, we were able to show that a very low-calorie diet produces major changes in the composition of the gut microbiome and that these changes have an impact on energy balance,” said lead author Dr. Joachim Spranger, professor and medical director of the department of endocrinology and metabolic diseases at Charité Hospital in Berlin. Over 16 weeks, the team studied a group of older women. Some followed a medically supervised meal replacement diet with fewer than 800 calories a day, while the others simply maintained their weight. “We were able to observe how the bacteria adapted their metabolism in order to absorb more sugar molecules and, by doing so, make them unavailable to their human host,” said the study’s first author, Dr. Reiner Jumpertz-von Schwartzenberg, a researcher and clinician at Charité.

Even more worrisome was the finding that a very low-calorie diet appears to reduce the gut’s resistance to the dangerous bacterium C. difficile, in turn affecting the gut’s ability to absorb nutrients, all of which can go undetected. “What remains unclear is whether or to which extent this type of asymptomatic colonization by C. difficile might impair or potentially improve a person’s health. This has to be explored in larger studies,” said Dr. Spranger.

Fitness Flash: Create Your Own Exercise “Cocktail”

Fitness Flash

Create Your Own Exercise “Cocktail”

It might not be what we want to hear, but getting in the all-important 30 minutes of exercise a day may not be enough to give you maximum longevity. “For decades, we’ve been telling people that the way to stay healthy is to get at least 30 minutes of exercise 5 days a week,” said Keith Diaz, PhD, assistant professor of behavioral medicine and director of the exercise testing laboratory at the Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. “But even if you’re one of the few adults who can stick to this advice, 30 minutes represents just 2% of your entire day. Is it really possible that our activity habits for just 2% of the day is all that matters when it comes to health?” The short answer appears to be not quite.

To find the best combination, or cocktail, of activity needed to prolong life, Dr. Diaz and fellow researchers analyzed the results of 6 different studies involving more than 130,000 participants wearing fitness monitors. They found that the benefits of 30-minute bouts of moderate-to-vigorous exercise depend on how you spend the rest of the day—the regimen can reduce the odds of an early death by up to 80% for those who sit for less than 7 hours, but it’s not enough for people who sit 11 to 12 hours daily. “In other words, it is not as simple as checking off that ‘exercise’ box on your to-do list,” said Dr. Diaz. “A healthy movement profile requires more than 30 minutes of daily exercise. Moving around and not remaining sedentary all day also matter.”

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to physical activity, but the researchers developed a base formula that you can use to find the right approach for you: Get in 3 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity or 12 minutes of light activity per hour of sitting. As an example, people who spend just a few minutes a day engaging in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity could still lower their risk of early death by 30% as long as they also spend 6 hours engaging in light physical activity like housework or casual walking. Said Dr. Diaz, “This is good news for people who may not have the time, ability, or desire to engage in formal exercise. They can get health benefits from a lot of light physical activity and just a little moderate-to-vigorous activity. Perhaps you’re a parent with young kids and you simply can’t get to the gym to exercise, but you can still have a healthy movement profile as long as you move around a lot throughout the day as you tend to your everyday activities.”

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