A strawberry a day keeps the wrinkles away?

LEAVE A COMMENT 2011 January 3

My head is spinning with the amount of advice I hear about what to eat, how to exercise and which medical tests to take.  I recently heard that strawberries help prevent wrinkles, protect your heart and ward off certain types of cancer.  Blueberries reportedly help keep gums healthy because they provide Vitamin C. And apples may reduce breast cancer. (We’ve known for years that they keep the doctor away.) My question is, if an apple, strawberry and blueberry were in a race, which would win?  Should I eat a cup of blueberries, 12 strawberries and one apple a day? Or am I better off with 18 blueberries, 2.5 strawberries and an apple every other day?

Eggs used to be bad. Now they’re great.

Don’t touch steak, one expert says. Not true, says another. It’s perfectly healthy to have it a couple of times a week.

Stay away from yogurt. It has too much sugar. False, have it once or twice a day.

Blah. Blah. Blah.

As for exercise, should I walk one mile a day, on the fast side, or can I simply stroll for two miles?  Is tennis better than swimming? Is swimming better than racquetball? And is racquetball better than croquet?

I recently read in AARP, the magazine, that yoga beats walking as a mood booster. “Doing an hour of yoga three times a week for 12 weeks increased GABA levels by 13 percent,” according to a study from the Boston University School of Medicine. GABA, in case you’re interested, is a neurotransmitter in the brain that’s lower in people who are depressed. Walkers showed no increase in GABA levels. “This is the first study to find a behavioral intervention that has an effect on brain chemistry similar to that of antidepressants,” says study author, Dr. Chris Streeter, in the AARP article.

I do yoga an average of two times a week, so I guess I should keep talking my Zoloft. Right? Or can I cut the pill in half?

0 Responses to “A strawberry a day keeps the wrinkles away?”

  1. Deborah Milne says:

    It sounds like I had better purchase myself a yoga mat & get with the program. I’ve always been a walker, I think I’d better change my ways; or at least adjust them.

    You may just be able to cut that pill in half Geri!

    Thanks for the great info as always. ( :

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  2. Heather Chapple says:

    Moderation as my lovely Grandmother used to say….

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  3. Toby Wollin says:

    I’m a big believer in the fact that everyone is different. My mom was a Scottish redhead and certain medicines and chemicals just drove her crazy. Anything that was supposed to suppress sensation/put her to sleep for surgery/was used as a sleep aid, totally whacked her out or did not work at all. She was given Ambien in the hospital and was up all night, hallucinating that she was hanging up curtains, complete with arm movements. She was pumped full of anesthesia for surgery to install a filter into one of her femoral arteries and she spent the entire time talking to the surgeon asking him questions. My father’s family was poor from Day One – once he got going as a doctor, our family did much better and therefore ate more meat. I got gall bladder disease. Native Americans have the highest rate of diabetes in the US – seemingly because they went from their diet of tens of thousands of years, which included no grain-based foods, to Western European grain-based diets. Genetics is huge.
    I say: what works for you — do that.

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