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ALEXANDRIA, Minn. The call for more modern diet studies on muskies is being answered, and Lake Miltona in Douglas County is part of a project that will take a close look at the big game fishs primary prey in some Minnesota lakes.

Kamden Glade is a 25-year-old graduate student at Bemidji State University who is in charge of gathering most of the diet data. The Minnesota DNR and Bemidji State University have a contract to complete the project, with Brian Herwig of the Bemidji DNR office and Jeff Reed of the Glenwood office leading the overall research.

The work is scheduled to look at 11 bodies of water in Minnesota. Seven of those lakes hold muskies, but northern pike, largemouth bass and walleyes are also a part of the study that is designed to do a wide-ranging diet overview of some of the states most popular predatory fish and see how the species are co-existing in Minnesota waters.

Were taking diets from muskies, northern pike, walleye and largemouth bass in all the lakes so that were able to compare diets between lakes and between seasons, Glade said. Then we have (four) reference lakes too to see if theres any kind of significant difference in walleye, pike and largemouth bass diets in lakes that do or dont have muskies in them.

The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to stop spring sampling in 2020, but Glade said they are hopeful that sampling not done this year could be rescheduled to 2021. The work is scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2021 with final publication of the results following that.

Glade has not analyzed all the numbers from every lake that was sampled in 2019 due to the study being ongoing, but he has taken a hard look at the data from Lake Miltona.

Most of the muskies that are sampled are captured through electrofishing at night. Researchers also looked at the diets of fish on Miltona by going along with crews from the Glenwood Area Fisheries department during netting surveys in 2019.

Diet samples are taken from muskies by placing a small piece of clear tubing through the fishs mouth and into the back of its stomach. Water is then slowly pumped in before pressure builds enough to cause the fish to regurgitate any stomach contents. Some fish sampled had nothing in their stomachs due to not feeding recently.

Overall, we had a 67% full stomach rate on muskies throughout all seasons, which is actually quite a bit better than most of the other studies that Ive seen, Glade said.

From Miltona, 29 muskies were sampled with full stomachs in the spring, compared to two in the summer and 15 in the fall. The contents ranged from easily identifiable species that had just been eaten, down to matter that was nothing more than bones or a small piece of tissue.

Some of those you can identify the species based on the bone structure, Glade said. Beyond that, were working with Dr. Loren Miller from the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota DNR. Hes a geneticist. Hes able to take a little chunk of flesh from a diet and he can do genetic barcoding on that chunk of flesh and tell us what species it was.

The preliminary numbers on Lake Miltona showed that yellow perch made up the largest percentage of the muskies diet by numbers.

Largemouth bass were a fairly important diet item for them as well, Glade said. They had a decent amount of bullheads there, and also some crappie and bluegill. Then white suckers were also important for them.

Yellow perch came out to about 65% of the total diet items by number for Miltona muskies, but that is not the only thing researchers look at when assessing diet studies.

Percentage by mass, the total mass of one prey species divided by the total mass of all prey species present, is also an important factor. Yellow perch made up about 8% of the muskies diet by mass on Lake Miltona.

Thats because muskies will commonly feed on larger prey. One muskrat, one ring-billed gull, 11 northern leopard frogs and two northern pike were found in muskies on Miltona. A couple of bowfin, commonly known as dogfish, were also found.

Theyre not eating extremely frequently, but when they do eat theyre eating some fairly large diet items, Glade said. We had a couple muskies from Miltona that had white suckers in their stomach that were at or over 20 inches in length.

A total of three walleyes were found in muskies on Lake Miltona. That made up less than 1.5% of the muskies diet by number and less than 2% by mass.

Its definitely not like they were targeting walleyes, Glade said. We expected to see some. I was kind of surprised we didnt see more, just based on how often we saw muskies and walleyes in the same areas when we were sampling.

Researchers for the study are using an overlap metric to analyze how the predator species are competing for limited resources within a lake. That overlap metric is accumulated by looking at each species diet as it relates to percentage by number and by mass.

It gives a number between zero and one. For muskies and walleye, that was about 0.23, so definitely low, Glade said. Anything below 0.4 is considered low overlap. So its definitely looking like at least on Miltona they are not competing for the same resources too much.

Yellow perch are an important prey species for all the game fish, but the low percentage by mass that perch accounted for in the muskies diet made for that low overlap with walleyes.

Northerns surveyed on Miltona had a diet of yellow perch that consisted of almost 70% by number and 40% by mass. Largemouth bass also had nearly 40% by mass of yellow perch, and walleyes relied on perch for their diet at 40% by number and about 60% by mass.

Walleyes, northern and bass exist in the lake at much higher densities. Miltona is managed as a trophy lake for muskies, and fingerlings are stocked at low numbers in order to create better opportunities for fish measuring 50-plus inches.

I havent really analyzed the numbers from a lot of the other lakes, but just from looking at Miltona, there was a lot higher chance of overlap between the other three species than muskies had on any of the other three species, Glade said. For instance, walleye had a relatively high overlap with both pike and largemouth bass. That was a little interesting to see, but not entirely unexpected. The muskies had relatively low overlap with all three of the other species.

Sampling is completed on Lake Miltona, with more lakes left to look at across Minnesota over the next two years. The end result should be some modern research that can help guide management decisions on Minnesota waters.

If there is a significant shift in diets when were stocking muskies, maybe that is something we need to look at a little closer, Glade said. If theres not, that also gives managers important information theyre able to continue stocking or increase stocking and have scientific data to back that up instead of anecdotal observations.

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Minnesota study will look at primary prey of muskies and other predatory fish - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press

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Aingeru Zorita

What are some activities you can do, no sweat, thanks to muscle memory? I can dribble a soccer ball, weave a lanyard into a staircase pattern, and summon lyrics to any Top 40 song post-1995.

Alison Bries recall includes jumping from the high corner ropes of a wrestling ring, her body in a horizontal plane, and landing crosswise on the body of another human as they fall in perfect coordination to the ground (a crossbody). She can also hurl herselfagain horizontallyonto someones back and hold on while that person spins (a crucifix). Not only that; she knows how to hold her frame upside down, legs straight up toward the heavens, while supporting herself by grasping the torso of the human below her (a 12 oclock suplex). This is how I find her on a Sunday in February, in a wrestling ring with pink ropes, her body upturned on pro wrestler Chavo Guerrero Juniors and pointing to the sky.

It really does come back pretty quickly, says Alison, stretching afterward, as if she is referencing a golf swing or how to French-braid. By season four of GLOW, we have the muscle memory. The thing to relearn is the fearlessness and commitment. You cant do any of the moves halfway.

Aingeru Zorita

The Netflix series about the 80s TV show Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling is entering its fourth and final season, and it has changed a lot for the 37-year-old. It marked the first project for which she was number one on the call sheet, and the first (and, she imagines, only) time shell be in a show requiring dramatic acting, broad comedy chops, and major physicality. Since GLOW debuted in 2017, Alison has been vocal about how it seismically changed her. It helped with my relationship to my body times a million, she says. Before, I always felt at odds with it; I wanted it to be something it wasnt. But I didnt have the tools to do that in a healthy way.

Now, after four seasons, Alison has a confidence that stems in part from seeing her body as useful rather than merely aesthetic. Even Alisons stuntwoman has noticed the shift in her as she learns to trust herself more: Alisons training on GLOW has made her more comfortable doing her own small stunts in other projects, says Helena Barrett. Shes gotten through four years of a highly physical role with zero injuries, echoes her trainer, Jason Walsh, CEO of Rise Nation. Shes doing the jumps, the flips, the lands. Thats typically not what actors do.

"I like to lead the charge against people thinking that strength training makes women bulky."

Alison says she used to approach fitness all wrong. Everything was cardio, cardio, cardio. Nine years ago she started working with Walsh, mostly out of a sense of obligation. I thought, Im in my late 20s, I should probably start doing some strength training. What she did with Walsh changed when she started preparing for GLOW.

It took the motivation out of being skinny for Hollywood standards and made it about being strong for lifting other women, literally. There was a real goal. Because of that, Walsh has Alison focus on primitive movementswarming up by crawling or rolling, then pushing and pulling a heavy sled, performing trap bar deadlifts, and doing squats, presses, or lunges with a FitFighter (a handheld steel hose).

I mention that after she entered the GLOW ring, it looked to me as if her body shrank as she got stronger. Im glad you said that, actually, because being small was a side effect of being super fit and muscular, Alison replies without missing a beat. I like to lead the charge against people thinking that strength training makes women bulky. Jason uses my body as an example at the gym, because I can lift more than a lot of people. You can pack a lot of muscle into a lean little body.

Aingeru Zorita

Given the ways her physical self has changed over the past four years, I ask Alison if she still grapples with body dysmorphia, something Id read affected her, growing up in L.A. Oh, definitely. Still do! she says, matter-of-factly. In the past, she felt it had a hold on her. I go back to red carpet photos where I thought I looked so horrible, and there are some where I now think, God, I looked beautiful. And Ill remember: An hour before that I was in tears; I thought I was so disgusting. I think its something Ill probably be working through my whole life. And depression too.

Mental illness runs in Alisons family; her maternal grandmother had schizophrenia and went through periods of homelessness. The rest of my family then dealt with the trickle-down effects of trauma, she says. And that meant depression more than anything. The issue traces a line on both sides of Alisons genealogy and occasionally comes out of nowhere and really blindsides me. While some of her loved ones have benefited from anti-depressants, Alison says being active is her way of combating the condition. When Ive been in a really serious depression, Ill drag myself to a yoga classeven if I dont want to be around peopletears streaming down my face. But, Get in class, get out of your head, get blood flowing. It ends up helping eventually.

Aingeru Zorita

Working out six days a week (three days with Walsh, three days of activities like hikes and riding her Peloton) is one way Alison maintains her mental wellness. She also credits open communication as something that helps. Im so lucky Im married to a really wonderful, open person, she says of her husband, actor Dave Franco. We have great lines of communication, and I can talk often about my feelings. Dave gave her perspective when she was in the depths of self-loathing about her body. Its been funny talking to him about it. He said, Before I knew you, Im not sure I believed body dysmorphia was a real thing. Its so interesting to me what you seeand what Im seeing when Im looking at youand the frank discussions we have about it.

A streamlined diet is another thing that keeps Alisons mental state balanced. I used to feel more out of control with it, she says, describing how intense sugar cravings would lead to unhealthy choices and spin her into sadness about her body. Being more diligent has been helpful for me mentally.

You wouldnt believe how diligent. As Alison gets closer to shooting a season of GLOW, she ups her lean protein intake, removes sugar, and doesnt eat carbohydrates after 4 p.m. For breakfast, she has oatmeal with protein powder, then she works out and has a post-sweat chocolate and sea salt Aprs vegan protein shake. A few hours later shell make a tuna salad with spinach and whatever she has on handolives, avocado, cucumber. For dinner, she whips up ground-turkey stir-fries; one from a Gwyneth Paltrow cookbook calls for eggplant, and another she makes with onion, ginger, garlic, and low-sodium tamari sauce. When shes not prepping or shooting, she tends to eat vegan or vegetarian.

Aingeru Zorita

Nutrition is just part of the logistics shes navigating as she preps for the Netflix series and shoots Happiest Seasona rom-com led by Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis about a gay couple who go home for the holidays and have to pretend to be straight. Shes been flying back and forth between Pittsburgh and L.A. and exercising in apartments and trailers. I have workouts for any type of situation, she says. Her routines from Walsh are heavy on calisthenics done at a slow tempo, like pushups and Bulgarian split squats. She also uses the PulseTread app for intervals on the treadmill. For recovery, she is loyal to foam rollers, her Theragun, and Epsom salt baths after ingesting a few drops of CBD oil.

A car is idling outside, ready to take Alison to a flight back to Pittsburgh for Happiest Season. (Shell also appear in this springs Promising Young Woman, a chilling #MeToo revenge thriller.) In a week, shell be back in the ring, rehearsing with all the women of GLOW. Its exciting! she says. My chance to rebond with all the girls. Does it feel as if youre on a team more than a cast, I ask, knowing that Alison was a full-fledged theater nerd and unlikely to have soccer in her muscle memory. One hundred percent, she says, beaming. And I feel like the captain. I want to motivate everyone. Shes going to miss her character, Ruthmullet perm and allwhen she has to say goodbye, but shes taking wrestling, and all its lessons, with her. Its part of me forever.

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Photographed by Aingeru Zorita Fashion director Kristen Saladino Hair Mark Townsend for Dove Hair Makeup: Molly R. Stern using Armani Beauty Manicure: Emi Kudo at Opus Beauty using Chanel Le Vernis.

This article appears in the May 2020 issue of Womens Health, available April 21. Subscribe now.

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Alison Brie Can Lift Another HumanAnd Not Just On TV - Women's Health

By Laura Stec

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As of April 16th, South Dakota reported a COVID outbreak of 598 workers at Smithfield Foods, a pork processing facility in Sioux Falls responsible for 5% of U.S. pork production, causing the plant to close indefinitely. The Chinese-owned company released a statement that the virus is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply, making it impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running.

Several other U.S. meat processing plants have also closed temporarily, including a Tyson Foods plant in Iowa, and a JBS USA Colorado factory, which both had two deaths.

Part of the problem may be the high concentration of the U.S. meat industry in the hands of a few. Four companies control 80% of the beef industry. Five companies control about 60% of the chicken market, and four companies control nearly 70 percent of pork.

Oh darn, we might run out of meat.

The Food Party! isn't crying over closures, or spilt milk in the news however. On the contrary, we feel empowered. Most Americans need to cut down on meat. (On average, we ate more than 217 pounds of beef, pork and/or chicken in 2019 (over 4 pounds weekly). Time to learn more about the secrets of vegetables and the endless options, and unique tastes and textures achieved when incorporating more plants into your diet.

Decreasing or eliminating animal flesh, while increasing plant consumption, is better for our health, and as many are realizing, also the health of animals and our planet. Actually, one of the best things you can do as an individual for the environment begins on your breakfast, lunch and dinner plates. With the 50th anniversary of Earth Day coming next week, April 22nd, consider using this time to flex your plant-based cooking muscles and create more meals with less, or no, meat.

Graphic from Cool Cuisine Taking the Bite out of Global Warming (2008)

Track results of your meat-free days by joining the Darwin Challenge (and local environmental group Acterra).

We also have all kinds of recipes, diatribes, and options at the Food Party! to help:What's the Hottest Trend in Eating?

Global Warming DietThe Impossible Burger

City Supper the Future of FoodBurger Please, Side of IntegrityOom is Moo Spelled Backwards

Lastly, Insider Tips, our new, weekly feature for those stuck in the house, can also assist.

Inside Tip #3

I gave some of the sauerkraut (and juice) we made last week to a client, leaving me with some partially fermented cabbage, sans juice. I could have topped off with salt water to keep fermenting, but instead chose to sauted it up with raw onion,

And made a quick dinner topping for my frozen Trader Joes veggie wontons.

Add a splash EZ Seasoning (salt and pepper with a college education) of umeboshi vinegar, mirin, brown rice vinegar and soy sauce, and you got an easy, filling meal with the perfect touch of sour pucker power. Top with sauted seitan, tempeh or chicken for your protein kick.

Photos by LSIC

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Oh Darn, We Might Run out of Meat - Try #2 - Palo Alto Online

Based on available evidence and expert consensus, a working group put together by the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) on Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy released a position paper on lipid management in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). This report was published in European Heart Journal Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy.

Investigators performed a systematic review of studies focused on strategies for lipid management based on the estimation of cardiovascular risk for RA. In addition, the working group proposed a new algorithm to stratify patient risk. Opinion-based recommendations were developed to facilitate lipid-modifying therapies in RA until further evidence becomes available.

Recommendations for Lipid Assessment

The panel recommends annual lipid assessment in patients with RA with high-risk cardiovascular factors (high-risk RA), regardless of age. Reassessment of risk should be considered if patients make substantial lifestyle changes that influence lipid levels and cardiovascular risk or if they initiate treatment with disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) or high-dose glucocorticoid therapy. Examination of lipid status is also recommended among patients with low-risk RA or whose disease activity has been reduced, regardless of age. The panel suggests lipid assessment 1 to 4 months after initiation of DMARDs and 4 to 8 weeks after initiation of treatment with interleukin-6 inhibitors, and subsequently at 6-month intervals.

Lipid monitoring should be adjusted according to the severity and treatment response. Individuals predisposed to adverse effects or with a short life expectancy may not benefit from stringent lipid management. On the other hand, patients with severe lipid abnormalities or those who experience a poor response to treatment may be screened more frequently.

In patients with RA, routine lipid monitoring should include total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and total glucose concentrations, in which fasting assessment is ideal but may be performed under nonfasting conditions. If nonfasting total glucose levels are 2.3 mmol/L (200 mg/dL), fasting levels should be assessed.

To guide lipid-modifying therapies in RA, non-HDL-C (calculated by subtracting HDL-C from total cholesterol) is recommended as a superior marker to LDL-C as it is not influenced by food intake and high total cholesterol levels. The panel suggests that non-HDL-C is more accurate especially in patients with high total glucose and low HDL-C.

To refine risk estimation, lipoprotein(a) screening may be considered in individuals with moderate or high cardiovascular risk or with a family history of early cardiovascular disease.

Recommendations for Stratification According to Cardiovascular Risk

Investigators propose an algorithm that may be feasible for clinical practice to estimate RA-specific cardiovascular risk and guide lipid management strategies in patients with RA. The algorithm uses LDL-C as the primary treatment target but can be adapted to a non-HDL-C target. Using Systematic Coronary Risk Evaluation (age, sex, cholesterol levels, blood pressure, smoking status, and geographic region), the algorithm can be further adapted to the appropriate national risk prediction tool in which the preferred version should preferably include HDL-C.

According to the panel, low-risk RA can be defined as patients with seronegative, nonerosive RA who present without extra-articular manifestations, in long-term remission (>1 year), with well-preserved physical function, without active arthritis or high cumulative disease activity, and not receiving glucocorticoids or have a high cumulative glucocorticoid dose. Patients who do not fall under this definition can be classified as high-risk RA.

Patients with low-risk RA can be recommended to follow lipid management guidelines for the general population, but goal LDL-C levels of <3 mmol/L (115 mg/dL) should be considered in all individuals with low/moderate cardiovascular risk. Patients with high-risk RA are classified into a higher ESC risk category and therefore can be recommended to follow lower LDL-C targets than for the general population.

Because of the high occurrence of unrecognized cardiovascular disease in patients with RA, a proactive approach to diagnosing cardiovascular disease is recommended. Carotid ultrasonography to detect subclinical plaques is recommended in patients with RA as this method can be clinically meaningful across all ESC cardiovascular risk categories, particularly in moderate or high-risk RA.

Among patients with diabetes aged >40 years, the investigators recommend the use of statins; younger patients with pronounced cardiovascular risk may also benefit from receiving statins.

Although risk calculators are intended to facilitate clinical decision making, the investigators emphasize that cardiovascular risk estimation should ultimately be individualized to the patients overall situation, including comorbidities, laboratory results, treatment status, psychosocial factors, lifestyle, and clinical characteristics.

Recommendations for Therapeutic Interventions

Many patients with RA, especially high-risk RA, can benefit from intensified lipid management with lower LDL-C targets and an emphasis on a healthy lifestyle.

Investigators recommend that all patients with RA receive adequate lifestyle counseling and support. Lifestyle modifications may include adopting a healthy diet, increasing physical activity, achieving optimal weight, abstaining from smoking, and introducing psychosocial interventions such as stress management.

In patients with RA, aerobic exercise and resistance training can improve their lipid profiles, lower cardiovascular risk, disease activity, and functional status. Adults with RA should perform at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity or 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity per week. Diet should be based on general population guidelines, using supplements to make up for deficiencies that cannot be corrected by diet.

If lipids cannot be managed through lifestyle, the investigators suggest pharmacologic treatment with statins. Although the optimal statin regimen for patients with RA requires further research, these drugs with profound cardioprotective and anti-inflammatory effects may be beneficial (eg, atorvastatin or rosuvastatin).

Among patients who experience an insufficient response to statins, the addition of other lipid-modifying therapies should be considered, including the LDL-C reducing drugs ezetimibe, proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin Type 9 (PCSK9) inhibitors, and fibrates.

Other lipid abnormalities may be treated with drugs indicated to reduce total glucose and lipoprotein(a) levels and should follow general population guidelines. These drugs include statins, fibrates, ezetimibe, omega-3 fatty acids, icosapent ethyl, niacin, apheresis, novel lipid therapies such as PCSK9 inhibitors, and DMARDs.

Reference

Hollan I, Ronda N, Dessein P, et al. Lipid management in rheumatoid arthritis: a position paper of the Working Group on Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy of the European Society of Cardiology. Eur Heart J Cardiovasc Pharmacother. 2020;6(2):104-114.

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ESC Working Group on Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy Releases Recommendations for Lipid Management in RA - Rheumatology Advisor

VANCOUVER, British ColumbiaSanyami Shah flew through stages of perspective as her plane ascended from India in January. She dwelled on the sadness of the airport goodbyes to her family, and the tears of her grandmother especially.

Then her view changed from the life she had always known to the new world ahead of her. Regret gave way to premonitions of excitement, intrigue, ambition. By the time she landed in Canada, she was resolute and committed.

Ive never been away from my family, Ive never been away from my home, she says. Two things were going into my mind. I was excited that Im going to a new place to explore new things, as well as I was nervous that I have to explore it all alone.

She was entering the inaugural class at Northeastern University in Vancouver. Nine students joined Shah at the universitys temporary facility overlooking Vancouver Harbour, where they are pursuing masters degrees in computer science. (A permanent facility for the new campus is under construction nearby.)

Shah had been working in India as a junior Big Data analyst and living at home with her parents when she decided to further her education in North America, in order to take her career in a new direction. She had accepted an invitation to attend Windsor University in Ontario when, two weeks before her planned departure to Canada, she learned that she had been accepted by Northeastern in Vancouver.

Shah preferred Northeastern, but she and her parents knew little of Vancouver. Her father, a businessman in India, spoke with Kannan Chandran, assistant director of student recruitment and enrollment at the new campus.

Sanyami is someone who had never left her comfort zone, Chandran recalls. From what I understood, her parents were very concerned about her safety and who she would live with.

It turned out that three of her new classmates were from Shahs state of Gujarat, on the west coast of India. They have been sharing an apartment in Vancouver, where Shah tends to initiate the cooking. She is a follower of Jainism, a religion founded in non-violence, with a vegetarian diet that forbids any food that is grown underground. Shah will routinely cook a larger meal at the apartment to suit her needs, and then after she has served herself, her three roommates may add potato, onion, garlic, and other ingredients to the base.

That builds a connection when you are all from the same place, Shah says. You get moral support on the days when you have lots of work to do, or when you are homesick and missing your family. These people are there to say its going to be fine. You are going to enjoy each and every situation with them.

She has been adapting to the student-driven culture of teaching in Vancouver. At school in India, she says, the faculty would spend class hours introducing new material, leaving little time for student input. At Northeastern, conversely, the students tackle new subjects at home and are expected to come to class with any challenges or questions they had.

The pattern is totally different, and adapting to this pattern was a little bit hard for me, Shah says. But the learning has been at a very high level. So I am enjoying it.

It has also been a growth opportunity for Bethany Edmunds, director of computer science at Northeastern in Vancouver, as she has developed a curriculum to connect with students from a variety of backgrounds. She and her students have spent their initial semester establishing a common ground from which to learn and grow.

This is not the way that they learned before, and theyre quite open to it, says Edmunds, whose classes have shifted online in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I get to learn, and I really appreciate hearing about their experiences and where their difficulties are. Im really excited because they are going to be the teachers assistants for our next group of students, so setting this tone of learning is really fantastic.

Shah speaks with her family virtually every day, in spite of the 12.5-hour time difference. Eventually, she hopes to apply her education to a business career in India. In a way, she will be building upon the career of her fatherbut in a new, high-tech direction.

After doing my masters, as my whole family is in India, I will be going there to live, she says. I will be exploring the knowledge which I gain here and putting that into my country, to help my people and my family.

For this was how she made peace with her departure in January. Each of her goodbyes was a promise to come home, smarter and stronger than ever.

For media inquiries, please contact media@northeastern.edu.

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'You are going to enjoy each and every situation' - News@Northeastern

Jackson, MS, April 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Diet Doc, the nations leader in telemedicine weight loss coaching and wellness support wants to remind consumers how important it is to keep an eye on their self-care amid times such as these. During this nationwide as well as global lockdown, it can be difficult to maintain your physical and mental well-being. Gyms are closed, and the nonstop breaking news can lead us to indulge more than normal or neglect our health in search of comfort-inducing activities that may not be as healthy, such as overeating, binge eating, and a lack of physical activity. If you were already on a diet and/or exercise regimen, the COVID-19 health scare may have made a big difference in your routine. However, continuing or beginning a new healthy regimen can help you fight off the additional stress, it can help you balance your emotions, it can improve your heart health and it can also help you better prevent getting infections diseases by boosting your immunity. The more weight gained, the more suppressed your immunity can become.

Weight management is key to keeping blood pressure levels low, reducing bad cholesterol levels, and enhancing circulation throughout the body which works wonders for the heart. In fact, losing just 5-10 pounds can make a significant impact on heart health. Medical weight loss is one of the best ways to keep yourself on track as far as wellness and with maintaining a healthy weight. Diet Docs telemedicine weight loss program has helped thousands of patients remotely, from the comfort of their own homes for over a decade. Their licensed weight loss doctors and coaches develop customized diet plans for each customer based on individual body composition

For individuals seeking to lose quick pounds to boost their health or to keep their weight under control, Diet Docs doctor-supervised Jumpstart Diet at Diet Doc is an ideal solution. The Jumpstart Diet is a quick weight loss program with heart-healthy and balanced diet options, backed by a team of medical weight loss experts to assist with short-term as well as long-term weight loss goals.

Interested in what medical weight loss can do for you? New Diet Doc patients can call or easily and effortlessly visit https: https://www.dietdoc.comto complete an initial comprehensive, yet simple, health questionnaire and schedule an immediate personal, no-cost consultation. DietDocs physicians all received specialized training in nutritional science and fast weight loss. DietDoc reviews each patients health history to create a personalized diet plan geared for fast weight loss, or that addresses life-long issues causing weight loss to slow down or stop. Nutritionists work personally with each patient and use their own algorithm to craft meal and snack plans that are compatible with each patients age, gender, activity level, food preferences, nutritional needs and medical conditions. They combine these state-of-the-art diet plans with pure, prescription diet products that enable their patients to resist the temptation to reach for sugary snacks, eliminate fatigue and curb the appetite. Over 97% of DietDoc patients report incredible weight loss results with the majority losing between 10-15 lbs. or more pounds per month.

At Diet Doc, all patients gain unlimited access to the best minds in the business. Their staff of doctors, nurses, nutritionists and coaches are available seven days per week to answer questions, offer suggestions, address concerns and lend their professional guidance and support. Because of this, more and more people are turning to Diet Doc for their weight management needs. Diet plans are tailored to be specific to the needs of those of any age, gender, shape or size and for those who are struggling to lose that final 10-20 pounds to those who must lose 100 pounds or more. Call today to request a private, confidential, no-cost online consultation.

About the Company:

Diet Doc is the nation's leader in medical, weight loss offering a full line of prescription medication, doctor, nurse and nutritional coaching support. For over a decade, Diet Doc has produced a sophisticated, doctor designed weight loss program that addresses each individual specific health need to promote fast, safe and long-term weight loss.

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Diet Doc Advises Consumers on How They Can Stay Healthy During Times of Crisis - Yahoo Finance

Even in normal times, home-cooked meals are a healthier option, and incorporating them back into your life now can help you focus on your overall health, too.

Meals dont just provide us with energy and nutrients, its also a time of pleasure and enjoyment interacting with the people in your house, said Jessica Bihuniak, assistant professor of clinical nutrition at the nutrition and food studies department at N.Y.U.

Dr. Bihuniak added that sharing meals provides emotional benefits, too, and that because so many of us are working and eating in the same area or nearby, cooking and sharing a meal can help us draw boundaries to stave off work-creep into our personal lives.

Now can be a good time to experiment with new types of food and recipes, she added.

Self-control is already challenging without the stress of a pandemic, so as you slowly resume normal-ish daily life, consider simply not stocking foods youll want to phase out of your current diet, added Dr. Li, calling this a golden time to think about not just your health, but your environment.

Its a time for spring cleaning, Dr. Li said. Any processed food, including the wonderful cereals, cookies and juice, they need to be out. Processed food is never doing us anything good.

She added: We want to take a lesson from this virus pandemic to refocus our own health, our familys health, so in the future it doesnt matter what comes along. What matters is good health is our own defense system.

Still, a bottomless bowl of snacks makes for an easy addition to any home office, and as our lives have moved almost entirely indoors, some processed foods, once shunned by health-conscious consumers, have had a resurgence in sales. But those small, seemingly insignificant mini-meals add up quickly and, for many of us, they are far outside our normal eating habits.

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Eating Is Weird Now. Heres How to (Kind of) Get Back to Normal. - The New York Times

If youre looking for a heart-healthy eating plan, the Mediterranean diet is probably a good fit, blending the basics of healthy eating with the traditional flavors and cooking methods of the Mediterranean.

Two new studies recently took a closer look at the diet, discovering that those who closely follow it can reduce their risk of cognitive impairment by half by taking advantage of the diets strong emphasis on vegetables, whole grains, fish, and olive oil.

People with the higher adherence to the Mediterranean diet had almost a 45% to 50% reduction in the risk of having an impaired cognitive function, said lead author Dr. Emily Chew, who directs the Division of Epidemiology and Clinical Applications (DECA) at the National Eye Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.

Closely following the diet was defined as eating fish twice a week and regularly consuming fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, legumes, and olive oil while reducing consumption of red meat and alcohol. The risk for cognitive decline increased as the levels of adherence dropped, Chew said.

The Mediterranean diet didnt appear to slow cognitive decline in people with the ApoE gene, which dramatically raises the risk for Alzheimers disease, Chew said. But when the study looked at just the levels of fish consumption, eating fish twice a week did slow the decline in people with the gene.

In this study, while the Mediterranean diet overall decreased risk, the strongest factor to really move the needle was regular fish consumption, said Dr. Richard Isaacson, who directs the Alzheimers Prevention Clinic at New York-Presbyterians Weill Cornell Medicine Center.

Chew and her colleagues examined data previously collected by two massive clinical trials called AREDS and AREDS2. Both examined nutritional supplements as a potential treatment for age-related macular degeneration, a progressive eye disease causing blurred vision and vision loss.

These studies included information about the participants diet and assessed their cognitive function periodically over five- and ten-year periods, respectively. The researchers also asked participants to report how often they consumed nine components of the Mediterranean diet.

The retina is an extension of the brain, Chew said. A third of your brain functions for vision and the retina lines the eyeball and travels back via an optic nerve all the way to the brain. Thats why it made sense that any antioxidants which might improve the retina might also improve the brain, she said.

The researchers new evaluation shows that participants who stuck closest to the Mediterranean diet had the lowest risk of cognitive impairment. Eating lots of fish and vegetables appeared to have the greatest protective effect. At the 10 year mark, participants with the highest fish consumption had the slowest rate of cognitive decline.

Thats because of two important antioxidants that are not naturally produced in the body: lutein and zeaxanthin. Responsible for the bright colors of vegetables, lutein and zeaxanthin are found in all vegetables, but especially good sources are green, leafy vegetables such as kale, parsley, spinach, broccoli, and peas.

Achieving some of these potential brain benefits doesnt require a total diet overhaul. Radically changing what one eats is a complicated task, shaped by economic factors and social pressures, Chew points out. Instead of a total overhaul, she suggests making small changes.

The new studies, however large, are also observational, so more work is needed to definitively link this diet to cognitive preservation. Previous research has linked the diet to a wide array of benefits, from being good for heart disease to reducing the effects of air pollution.

The studies were published in the journal Annals of Neurology.

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The Mediterranean diet can lead to better cognitive function, studies show - ZME Science

captionPeople who lose weight are often hungrier when they eat and feel less satiated afterward, which makes keeping the weight off extremely difficult once you go off your diet.sourceShutterstock

Whenever you restrict calories and lose weight, you disrupt your bodys basal metabolic rate (BMR) the number of calories your body burns while at rest. Thats where the concept of reverse dieting, or a recovery diet, comes into play.

Reverse dieting is supposed to give your BMR a boost, returning it to baseline where it was before you lost weight, and help you burn more calories during the day. That way, youre more likely to keep off the weight you lost and not gain it back.

At least, thats the idea. Reverse dieting is not proven, and most of the evidence for it is anecdotal. In practice, the actual eating plan of reverse dieting can be beneficial, but relying on your metabolism to keep the weight off is a bad idea.

Insider spoke to Manhattan-based registered dietician Brittany Modell, founder of Brittany Modell Nutrition and Wellness, about reverse dieting and how to best recover from a restrictive diet.

On a reverse dieting plan, you are supposed to gradually increase the number of calories you eat over several weeks to months so that youre no longer in a caloric deficit and your weight can stabilize, Modell says.

Overall, the theory is to eat more calories gradually, rather than restrict and increase dramatically, she adds. This is a good way to ease out of a diet and prevent weight gain.

And, according to the reverse dieting philosophy, this is also supposed to help increase your BMR and prevent you from regaining weight as you add more calories back to your diet.

However, it is not so simple. It is impossible to make claims that a reverse diet will recalibrate your metabolism and maintain the weight you lost. The body is much more complex.

Our bodies are influenced by many hormones, like ghrelin and leptin, that dictate our appetite and hunger levels. Ghrelin triggers hunger and leptin signals when youre full. So your body releases a certain amount of ghrelin when you need to eat and then replaces it with leptin when its time to stop eating.

However, when you lose weight, researchers have found that your body releases more ghrelin and less leptin meaning you feel hungrier when its time to eat and less full after youre done.

These hormones and the way they contribute to weight control is totally separate from the role that metabolism plays. Plus, these hormones likely play a larger role in whether or not you keep the weight off that you lost.

In other words, relying on your BMR to keep the weight off for you is a bad, and likely unsuccessful, game plan.

If youve found yourself in a restrictive mindset and youve dieted for a long time, you can adopt healthier habits to ease yourself out of a diet without putting on pounds.

Chances are you likely restricted carbohydrates and fat. If this is the case, start by adding in carbohydrate and fat sources with breakfast or lunch, for example, adding oatmeal and peanut butter to breakfast or beans and avocado at lunch, says Modell. This will increase your overall calorie intake as well as incorporating back some healthy fats and carbs, which your body needs.

Eating these types of whole, fiber- and protein-rich foods instead of introducing or reverting back to processed foods will help you feel fuller longer and may help prevent overeating.

Some other methods of safely easing out of a diet include:

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What is reverse dieting and how to best recover from a restrictive diet - Business Insider

Microbes Gone Missing

In the early 20th century, biologists began to uncover fascinating relationships between complex organisms and their microbes: in tubeworms that had no mouth, anus or gut; in termites that fed on tough, woody plants; in cows whose grassy diet significantly lacked protein. Such observations generated excitement and prompted follow-up experiments. In those years, the absence of microbial helpers in an animal wasnt considered particularly surprising or interesting, and it often received little more than a passing nod in the literature. Even when it was thought to merit more than that as in a 1978 report in Science that tiny wood-eating crustaceans, unlike termites, had no stable population of gut bacteria it ended up flying under the radar.

And so expectations quietly began to shift to a new norm, that every animal had a relationship with bacteria without which it would perish. A few voices protested this oversimplification: As early as 1953, Paul Buchner, one of the founders of symbiosis research, wrote with exasperation about the notion that obligate, fixed and functional symbioses were universal. Again and again there have been authors who insist that endosymbiosis is an elementary principle of all organisms, he seethed. But counterexamples drowned in the flood of studies on the importance of host-microbe symbioses, especially those that drew connections between human health and our own microbiome.

The human microbiome has completely driven a lot of our thinking about how microbes work, said Tobin Hammer, a postdoctoral researcher in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Texas, Austin. And we often project from ourselves outwards.

But the human example is not a good model for whats going on in a diverse range of species, from caterpillars and butterflies to sawflies and shrimp, to some birds and bats (and perhaps even some pandas). In these animals, the microbes are sparser, more transient or unpredictable and they dont necessarily contribute much, if anything, to their host. The story is more complex, said Sarah Hird, an evolutionary biologist and microbial ecologist at the University of Connecticut, more fuzzy.

A transient, almost nonexistent relationship with bacteria was what Sanders saw in his tropical ants. He brought his samples back to his lab (then at Harvard University, although he is now at Cornell), where he sequenced the insects bacterial DNA and quantified how many microbes were present. The ant species with dense, specialized microbiomes had approximately 10,000 times more bacteria in their guts than Sanders found in the many other species he had captured. Put another way, Sanders said, if the ants were scaled to human size, some would carry a pound of microbes within them (similar to what humans harbor), others a mere coffee beans worth. Its really a profound difference.

That difference, reported in Integrative & Comparative Biology in 2017, seemed to be associated with diet: Strictly herbivorous tree-dwelling ants were more likely to have an abundant microbiome, perhaps to make up for their protein-deficient diet; omnivorous and carnivorous ground-dwelling ants consumed more balanced meals and had negligible amounts of bacteria in their gut. Still, this pattern was inconsistent. Some of the herbivorous ants also lacked a microbiome. And the ants that did have one didnt seem to have widespread, predictable associations with particular species of bacteria (although some sets of microbes were common to individual genera of the insects). That result marked a clear departure from mammalian microbiomes like our own, which tend to be very specific to their hosts.

The reasons why would become clearer as case studies of other organisms started to trickle in.

At around the same time that Sanders was examining ants in Peru, Hammer was in Costa Rica on an independent search for a microbiome in caterpillars. (What better insect to have obligate relationships with bacteria than these cows of the insect world? Sanders commented.) But try as he might, Hammer couldnt find much bacterial DNA in the gut and fecal samples he collected. Something really weird was going on, he said.

When, after months of frustrating lab work, he realized that the animals might simply not have a stable microbiome, it was a shift in thinking for me that was not expected at all. He and his colleagues ultimately found that, like so many of Sanders ants, caterpillars had much, much lower quantities of microbes than was considered the norm. Moreover, those microbes were simply a subset of the ones found in the animals plant diet which supports the idea that theyre transiently passing through and some of them are getting digested, essentially, Hammer said. Theyre not establishing stable populations within the gut.

To determine whether those transient bacteria benefited the caterpillars, the researchers eliminated them with antibiotics. In other insects and animals, such a treatment tends to stunt development or kill the host outright. But it had no effect whatsoever on Hammers caterpillars.

Deepa Agashe, an ecologist and evolutionary biologist at the National Center for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India, saw something similar in insects that her team collected from several locations near the greenery of their campus. The microbes they found in dragonflies and butterflies strongly correlated with the insects diets rather than with a particular insect species or developmental stage. The vast majority of the dragonflies bacterial communities seemed to have come together by chance. Most of the bacteria were just there because they got there, Agashe said. The insects do not seem to be selecting for particular species of bacteria or a particular kind of bacteria.

Repeated experiments that disrupted the butterflies microbial populations yielded no effect on the hosts growth or development. Neither did reintroducing the bacteria to their guts. Really, Agashe said, they dont seem to care about their microbes at all even though the butterflies feed on toxic plants and seem like perfect candidates for a full-fledged, functional microbiome that could detoxify their meals.

Like Hammer and Sanders, initially we were scratching our heads, Agashe said. It was a surprising result, and actually it took us a while to wrap our heads around it.

But maybe it shouldnt be so surprising. As the scientists realized, when microbiomes are present, theyre often found in specific tissues and they involve specific bacteria that influence specific traits at specific times. The bobtail squid, for example, has a symbiosis thats limited to one species of luminous bacteria, which is sequestered in a single light-producing organ while the squids gut and skin remain microbe-free. Adult honeybees have important relationships with their bacteria, but the larvae dont.

So its not such a leap to think there could be animals that dont have such relationships at all, or that have relationships that play by different rules. I think theres now an increasing realization that theres this whole spectrum of kinds of associations that you might find, Agashe said.

Hammer agreed. Were just getting a glimpse at the tip of the iceberg, he said.

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Why Is the Microbiome Important in Some Animals but Not Others? - Quanta Magazine

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