OlimPeak

24/01/2022

A brief history of Christmas Pudding – and why it can actually be quite good for you
Even in these hard and strange times, Christmas will be celebrated and traditions upheld. And for many British households, Christmas dinner would not be complete without a Christmas pudding – traditionally served with brandy sauce, brandy butter or custard.

The Christmas pudding originated in the 14th-century as a sort of porridge, originally known as “frumenty”, which bears little resemblance to the dessert we know today.

It was originally made with hulled wheat, boiled in milk, seasoned with cinnamon and coloured with saffron. It was associated with meatless days, lent and advent and was often served as a plain dish. But there are a variety of recipes which included additions such as beef, mutton, raisins, currants, prunes, wines and spices.

In some instances, this was the staple food for Christmas eve, although in Yorkshire it was eaten first thing on Christmas morning. In the 17th-century changes to the recipe were made. It was thickened with eggs, breadcrumbs, dried fruit and beer or spirits were added – and came to resemble something a bit more like a sweet pudding. However, it was the Victorians who fine tuned the recipe into the Christmas pudding many of us enjoy today.

A Christmas pudding should have 13 ingredients – that represent Jesus and the 12 disciples. Traditionally, these ingredients include: raisins, currants, suet, brown sugar, breadcrumbs, citron, lemon peel, orange peel, flour, mixed spices, eggs, milk and brandy. Brandy is also traditionally poured over the pudding and set alight. The flaming brandy is said to represent the passion of Christ.

Christmas puddings were traditionally boiled in a “pudding cloth”, although today are usually steamed in a bowl. Presented on the table with a sprig of holly, they are then doused in brandy and set alight.

Old handwritten recipe for Christmas pudding
A traditional Christmas recipe. Bruce Amos?Shutterstock
The last Sunday before Advent became known as “stir up Sunday”. This was when the ingredients of the pudding would be assembled and stirred up in a bowl with a wooden spoon (representing the manger) from east to west – symbolising the journey taken by the three wise men. Traditionally, every family member stirs the pudding three times and makes a secret wish.

Trinkets were always included in the traditional pudding. As a child I still remember the excitement of waiting to see who was going to find the sixpence. Whoever found the coin was believed to have good fortune over the coming year.

A healthy pud?
Although the Christmas holidays can sometimes feel a little unhealthy – with a lot of sitting around and excessive food consumption – the ingredients that makeup a Christmas pudding are actually pretty nutritious.

Traditional Christmas puddings consists of fibre rich ingredients, such as fruits, nuts and currants. Dried fruits are rich in fibre, enzymes, polyphenols (substances with a high antioxidant activity), vitamins and minerals. Sultanas, currants, apricots and pears are highly nutritious and packed with essential potassium and iron. And although dried fruits can contain a lot of sugar, they have a lower glycemic index value so don’t impact your blood sugar in the same way as other sweet treats.

Raisins are also rich in antimicrobial compounds, fibre and iron. These compounds lower the risk of heart disease and can relieve constipation. Prunes too can also aid with digestion, relieve constipation, reduce inflammation and protect cells from free radical damage.

Christmas pudding ingredients on an old wooden table
All things nice and spice. Schnapps2012/Shuttersock
Walnuts, hazelnuts, pecans and almonds can also be added into the mix and these all come with a range of health benefits – from lowering cholesterol levels and reducing heart disease risk to delivering high levels of vitamin E, polyphenols and melatonin.

The mixed spices, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, pimentos (or all spice) in a Christmas pudding are also an incredible source of aromatic antioxidants. Spices aid digestion and have anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties. They can supposedly even help to reduce bloating, cramps and nausea – key if you’ve been overdoing it a bit.

There is one secret ingredient often overlooked but included in many recipes – the carrot. Rich in beta-carotene, which the body utilises to produce Vitamin A, carrots are good for lowering cholesterol levels and, yes, for the health of your eyes.

A global tradition
Although a British tradition, the Christmas pudding is eaten in various countries including Australia and South Africa. The Canadians also have a version which includes potatoes alongside the carrots.

The Christmas pudding even makes its way into literature, with Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol making reference to it. Then there is the case for Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot to solve in which he is advised to avoid the plum pudding – another name for the Christmas pud.

One well known fact about the Christmas pudding is that there always seems to be some left over after Christmas day. In fact Christmas puddings of the past could last up to a year, so it was often shared out. Indeed, in 1885 a British newspaper reported the joyful consumption of a plum pudding – sent overland via special envoy from Tehran — to a group of British soldiers stationed in northwestern Afghanistan.

If you don’t fancy posting a pudding there are a number of ways you can share and use the leftovers – with a whole host of recipes from Christmas strudel to a black pudding breakfast replacement. Another firm favourite is Christmas pudding ice-cream - simply mix pudding with vanilla ice cream and enjoy!

24/01/2022

Is a vegan diet healthier? Five reasons why we can’t tell for sure
While there are many reasons why a person may choose to go vegan, health is often cited as a popular motive. But although vegan diets are often touted as being “healthier” in the media, this isn’t always reflected by scientific research.

While some research has shown that vegan diets have positive health effects, such as lower risks of heart disease, diabetes and diverticular disease, our recent study also showed that vegans may have a higher risk of fractures, and vegans and vegetarians combined may have a higher risk of haemorrhagic stroke.

The mixed body of evidence makes it difficult to understand what the overall health impacts of vegan diets are. But why is the evidence so inconclusive?

1. Few studies of vegans
Though the number of vegans worldwide is rising, this group still only makes up a small minority of the world’s population. In order to truly understand the health impacts of vegan diets, we’d need to collect data from a large number of vegans, and monitor them over a long period of time to see if they develop any different diseases compared to meat-eaters.

Currently, the two largest studies tracking multiple major health outcomes (such as cancer) in vegans are the Adventist Health Study 2 (which includes data from around 5,550 vegans) and the EPIC-Oxford Study (which includes data from around 2,600 vegans). In contrast, some studies include over 400,000 meat eaters.

Given that few studies have long-term data on vegans, this makes it hard to track how vegan diets might affect health. It becomes even more difficult given that most diseases only affect a modest proportion of the population (such as breast cancer, which affects only 48 per 100,000 women a year globally). Without data on vegans to begin with, researchers won’t know precisely how this group may be affected by certain diseases – and if they’ll be more or less susceptible to them. The current number of vegans enrolled in studies is still too small to look at how these diets affect many health outcomes in the long term. Including more vegans in future research will be needed to see how this diet truly affects long-term health.

2. Not all vegan diets are created equal
Vegan diets are defined by the exclusion of animal products. But the type of vegan diet a person follows can differ substantially in terms of what foods they actually eat.

For example, a vegan diet can be highly nutritious with lots of fresh vegetables and fruit, beans and pulses for extra protein, and nuts and seeds for healthy fats. For others, it may solely contain white pasta, tomato sauce and bread with margarine. These differences might affect diet quality (such as consuming higher saturated fat content), which can have different health implications.

New large studies would need to both look at the nutritional quality of different vegan diets, and their potential health impacts.

3. Supplements and fortified foods
To avoid nutritional deficiencies while following vegan diets, supplementation with vitamins and minerals (such as iron or vitamin B12) has been recommended. This can be achieved through a daily pill or fortified foods.

Fortification can vary by product or brand, change over time, and regulations – if they exist – can vary in different parts of the world. For example, calcium is added to some, but not all brands of plant-based milks. Supplements can also differ by type, brand, dosage and how regularly they’re taken.

Plant-based milks, including almond, hazelnut, and coconut.
Not all plant-based products are fortified. Oksana Mizina/ Shutterstock
Supplementing diets with certain nutrients might lower the risk of some nutrient-related health conditions, such as iron-deficiency anaemia. But how supplement use affects other health outcomes is largely unknown, and few studies have tracked what supplements vegans take.

While supplement use by anyone (vegan and non-vegans alike) can impact nutritional studies, the impact on certain health outcomes would be magnified in people who have inadequate intake compared to those who meet the minimum threshold. This is why knowing how taking supplements or eating fortified foods affect health outcomes is important when trying to understand the health effects of vegan diets.

4. New plant-based alternatives
Most of the current published studies on vegan diets and health are older than many plant-based products – which have become increasingly popular among vegans.

And since many of these plant-based products are relatively new, there’s no information on the nutritional quality of them, how often they’re consumed by vegans, and how these plant-based products affect long-term health.

5. Individual versus population risk
What we know about the effects of diet on health often comes from large epidemiological studies. In these studies, researchers compare the risk of different diseases in groups of people with different dietary habits – for example, people who consume vegan diets to those who don’t. This means that findings from available studies can only inform health risks for groups of people and not for individuals.

For example, in our recent study we found that vegans (as a group) had a 2.3 times higher risk of hip fractures than meat-eaters. However, this does not mean that an individual is 2.3 times more likely to have a hip fracture if they go vegan. Different risk factors (such as genetics or lifestyle) contribute to a person’s overall health and disease risk. An individual also cannot be compared to themselves – so the findings from any epidemiological study from a group will not apply to any particular individual.

To get conclusive answers on the overall health impacts of both short and long-term vegan diets (including the types eaten today), we will need more information. This means collecting data in people following different types of vegan diets, in different countries, and tracking them over long periods of time.

24/01/2022

They don’t come as pills, but try these 6 underprescribed lifestyle medicines for a better, longer life
The majority of Americans are stressed, sleep-deprived and overweight and suffer from largely preventable lifestyle diseases such as heart disease, cancer, stroke and diabetes. Being overweight or obese contributes to the 50% of adults who suffer high blood pressure, 10% with diabetes and additional 35% with pre-diabetes. And the costs are unaffordable and growing. About 90% of the nearly $4 trillion Americans spend annually for health care in the U.S. is for chronic diseases and mental health conditions. But there are new lifestyle “medicines” that are free that doctors could be prescribing for all their patients.

Lifestyle medicine is the clinical application of healthy behaviors to prevent, treat and reverse disease. More than ever, research underscores that the “pills” today’s physician should be prescribing for patients are the six domains of lifestyle medicine: whole food plant-based eating, regular physical activity, restorative sleep, stress management, addiction reduction or elimination, and positive psychology and social connection.

We are a primary care preventive medicine physician and a computational immunologist, both committed to applying state-of-the-art research to inform the clinical practice of lifestyle medicine. Our findings and recommendations were just published. We highlight the key take-home points for each of the areas below.

Use the Healthy Eating Plate as an evidence-based guide for creating healthy, balanced meals. ©2011, Harvard University, CC BY-NC
Whole-food, plant-based eating
Diets high in fruits, vegetables and whole grains and lower in animal products and highly processed foods have been associated with prevention of many diseases. These diets have also improved health and even reversed common cardiovascular, metabolic, brain, hormonal, kidney and autoimmune diseases as well as 35% of all cancers.

We believe that future research should include larger trials or new research methods with emphasis on quality of diet. This would include more data on the micronutrient composition and protein sources of plant versus animal-based foods – not just proportion of fat, carbohydrates and protein. Such trials should include children, as many adult disorders are seeded as early as infancy or in utero.

First Lady Michelle Obama led a Let’s Move! initiative to help children grow up healthy. Joe Raedle/Getty Images News/Getty Images
Regular physical activity
For decades, surgeon generals’ guidelines have emphasized that daily moderate-to-vigorous aerobic physical activity has both immediate and long-term health benefits. For example, why we age and the rate at which we age – chronological age versus biological age – is determined by multiple molecular processes that are directly influenced by physical activity. And now scientists are gaining a better understanding of the cellular and molecular changes that exercise induces to reduce disease risk.

Research priorities for scientists and physicians include obtaining a deeper understanding of the type, intensity and frequency of activity, and better insights into the molecular and cellular alterations that occur with exercise.

Restorative sleep
Sleep helps the cells, organs and entire body to function better. Regular uninterrupted sleep of seven hours per night for adults, eight to 10 hours for teenagers and 10 or more for children is necessary for good health.

Though understudied, there is evidence that high-quality sleep can reduce inflammation, immune dysfunction, oxidative stress, and epigenetic modification of DNA, all of which are associated with or cause chronic disease.

Therefore, research into the biological mechanisms that underlie the restorative properties of sleep could lead to environmental or population-based and policy approaches to better align our natural sleep patterns with the demands of daily life.

Stress management
Though some stress is beneficial, prolonged or extreme stress can overwhelm the brain and body. Chronic stress increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, irritable bowel disease, obesity, depression, asthma, arthritis, autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, neurological disorders and obesity.

One of the most powerful mechanisms to reduce stress and enhance resilience is by eliciting a relaxation response using mind-body therapies and cognitive behavioral therapy.

More research is need to gain a better understanding of how these therapies work.

Thousands of people participate in yoga to improve their physical and mental health. Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images
Addiction reduction and elimination
Many social, economic and environmental factors have fueled the national rise in substance abuse generally and, most tragically, the opioid epidemic.

Physicians and researchers are beginning to understand the underlying physiology and psychology of addiction.

Yet the continued stigma and disjointed or absent access to services remains a challenge. Clinicians and scientists need to explore how to predict who is more vulnerable to addiction and find ways of preventing it. Treatment that incorporates integrated care focused on all the patient’s needs should be prioritized.

Positive psychology and social connection
Maintaining a positive mindset through the practice of gratitude and forgiveness has a significant impact on psychological and subjective well-being, which are, in turn, associated with physical health benefits.

Social connectivity, namely the quantity and quality of our relationships, has perhaps the most powerful health benefits.

Conversely, social isolation – such as living alone, having a small social network, participating in few social activities, and feeling lonely – is associated with greater mortality, increased morbidity, lower immune system function, depression and cognitive decline.

Further study is needed to uncover how an individual’s biology and chemistry change for the better through more social interactions.

Inflammation’s role in lifestyle-related diseases
Unhealthy lifestyle behaviors produce a vicious cycle of inflammation. While inflammation is a healthy, natural way the body fights infections, injury, and stress, too much inflammation actually promotes or exacerbates the diseases described above.

The inflammatory response is complex. We have been using machine learning and computer modeling to understand, predict, treat and reprogram inflammation – to retain the healing elements while minimizing the detrimental more chronic ones. Scientists are unraveling new mechanisms that explain how chronic stress can turn genes on and off.

Overcoming challenges and barriers
We and others who study lifestyle medicine are now discussing how we can leverage all of these approaches to improve clinical studies on the impacts of lifestyle interventions.

At the same time we and our colleagues realize that there are environmental challenges and barriers that prevent many people from embracing these lifestyle fixes.

There are food deserts where healthier foods are not available or affordable. Unsafe neighborhoods, harmful chemicals and substances create constant stress. Poor education, poverty, cultural beliefs and racial and ethnic disparities and discrimination must be addressed for all people and patients to appreciate and embrace the six “pills.”

The application of lifestyle medicines is particularly important now because unhealthy lifestyles have caused a pandemic of preventable chronic diseases that is now exacerbating the COVID-19 pandemic, which disproportionately afflicts those with these conditions.

Ask your doctor to “prescribe” these six “pills” for a longer and better life. After all, they’re free, work better than or as well as medications and have no side effects!

24/01/2022

24/01/2022