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Queen Elizabeth II turned 94 on April 21. The queen has surpassed the average life expectancy for women in the United Kingdom by a decade. Not only is she UK's longest-reigning monarch but is also the oldest head of the states in the world. Queen Elizabeth is known to have a simple approach to food and nutrition. Here are some of her diet secrets that you can learn from:Portion controlQueen Elizabeth "eats to live" and doesn't "live to eat". She is very careful about portion control and sticks to small portion sizes. She prefers four light meals instead of three big meals a day. According to Unversity of Cambridge, having smaller portion sizes every day can help one cut their daily food consumption by 25 per cent. Thus, reducing portion size is one of the best ways to lose weight.Indulge in what you like and not everythingQueen Elizabeth loves chocolate cake. She eats a small piece of it every day. Studies show that treating yourself with what you like is an important part of a healthy and long-lasting diet. Depriving yourself of something you like, will only increase your cravings, which might make you end up eating much more. The Queen likes to have chocolate with 60 per cent or higher cocoa. She loves to eat dark chocolate. Dark chocolates are rich in flavonoids, which may protect one against heart disease and stroke. Eat seasonal foodsThe Queen eats a lot of strawberries during summer but doesn't eat them in winter. She absolutely sticks to eating seasonal. Out of season foods have to travel a lot of miles before hitting your shelves, which may compromise its nutritional value. Studies have found that tomatoes lose more than 50 per cent of their Vitamin C in eight days. Include more fishQueen Elizabeth loves to eat fish and often has salmon sandwiches with her tea in the noon and grilled fish for lunch/dinner. Fatty fish such as salmon have omega 3 and DHA, which lowers your risk of a heart attack. TeaQueen loves to have Earl Grey tea, which helps in lowering cholesterol due to the flavonoids in it. Other teas like black tea help in lowering the blood pressure, reduce one's risk of ovarian cancer and promote weight loss.

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At 94, Queen Elizabeth is the longest reigning monarch of UK and here's the secret to her longevity - Times of India

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The Hairy Bikers are a pair of popular chefs. Named Si King and Dave Myers, they followed a diet plan to lose seven stone between them.

Eating spicy food helped the chefs to slim down, they admitted.

"here are very few calories in spice. If youre clever with herbs and spices you can make fantastic dishes which have less calories," Si said.

Unlike a number of weight loss plans, The Hairy Bikers did not cut out carbohydrates.

Si went on: "You can have carbohydrates as long as youre careful because your body needs it carbs just shouldnt be the biggest portion on your plate.

"Its not rocket science, its just making sure that the food you eat is comforting, nutritious and is held back on the salts and sugars a bit."

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Hairy Bikers weight loss: How Si and Dave lost seven stone on this diet plan - Express.co.uk

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A 2018 survey by the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention found that in the United States, more than 100 million dogs and cats qualified as overweight or obese, up from 80 million in 2013.

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The most meaningful pet-relationship of my life has been with my cat Porthos, a Russian Blue-mix named after the most Rubenesque of the Three Musketeers. Porthos chub is what first caught my eye when I was looking for a kitten; he was so fat, and so cute, I knew Id love him forever and probably die for him.

I am hardly the only person with a soft spot for fat pets. Today, the internet has a thesaurus-entrys worth of affectionate, made-up words to celebrate hefty animals: chonky, floofy, thicc, round bois and absolute units, to start. For the past few years, a comedic feline bodyweight chart has bounced around Reddit and Twitter, illustrating the body mass gradations that take a cat from A Fine Boi to A Heckin Chonker to OH LAWD HE COMIN the latter a decidedly obese creature.

Most of this slang falls into its own genre of meme-speak called DoggoLingo, which can be applied to nearly any animal (dogs and cats are standard, but even the U.S. National Audubon Society website has an extremely important guide to understanding when a bird qualifies as a birb namely, when its very round).

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And, there are countless social media appreciation groups full of people using this language to express their love for fat animals. Reddits r/Chonkers is a gathering place for more than 300,000 chomnk lovers, and the Facebook group This Cat is C H O N K Y has more than 700,000 members, while Instagrams @chonkyanimals and @chonky_cats each have upwards of 100,000 and @weratechonks clocks in at nearly 80,000 members.

In short, chonks are a huge thing. But does all this body paws-itivity have any implications for the actual health of our pets?

Research shows that the majority of North American pets are getting heavier. A 2018 survey by the Association for Pet Obesity Prevention found that in the United States, more than 100 million dogs and cats qualified as overweight or obese, up from 80 million in 2013. The former number represents 60 per cent of cats and more than 56 per cent of dogs.

Last year, a study by researchers at the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph analyzed 54 million cat weight measurements collected over decades to discover that the mean weight of a neutered, eight-year-old domestic cat rose half a pound between 1995 and 2015. That doesnt sound like a lot, but it makes a considerable difference on a cats small frame and can contribute to health issues such as feline diabetes, osteoarthritis and heart disease.

We cant say for sure what the direct causes for this increase are, says Dr. Adam Campigotto, lead researcher on the study, but we suspect that its either a result of more cats living indoors and having less activity, or an increase in palatability of cat food or [meal size]. A lot of owners interact with their cats through feeding and giving pets food facilitates a sort of connection between owner and animal.

The online popularity of fat cats has not escaped Campigottos attention. One issue is a lot of overweight cats can be cute and cuddly, he says. Fat cats are something people want to post about online and when you see them online it becomes more normal.

Campigotto is right: Thanks to the internet, we can look at fat pets all day. Yet, those who run chonk-appreciation social media accounts argue that they are not glorifying pet obesity, rather, theyre trying to create spaces where people can share pictures of the pets they love without being harassed.

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I do feel like our stance has been a bit misunderstood, says Tori Diaz, founder of Facebooks This Cat is C H O N K Y, a group that forbids both fat shaming and the sharing of medical advice. Some people have twisted it into Oh, you dont want [pets] to lose weight, you want people to purposefully fatten up their animals, which is a not it at all, she says. The reason we dont do medical advice here is the vast majority of people are not experts and what works for one animal wont work for another. Unless its from your vet, you really shouldnt be following advice on the internet.

Diaz says that more often than not, the pets posted to her page are on slow, healthy, vet-monitored weight-loss journeys (rapid weight loss can be dangerous for pets). The owners dont want to feel pressured to constantly, preemptively state when they post Yes, were putting them on a diet and were making sure theyre losing weight. They just want to put up a lighthearted post and move on, she says.

Lauren Paris, whose cats Bruno and Carlo have 125,000 followers on their Instagram page, @TheeBrunoBartlett, also bristles at body shamers. That may sound silly or irrelevant because its just a cat but its representative of a bigger issue in society: bullying, she says. Still, Paris recognizes her own responsibility to emphasize her pets health on her account. Otherwise, I think [the chonk] gets glorified and people just want to adopt big cats because theyre cute and keep them that way. Bruno has lost seven pounds since being adopted at 25 pounds in 2018, alienating some of his fans. You see comments like, Oh, I miss his basketball belly. And I do feel its my job to say, Yeah, it was cute, but now hes going to live forever, Paris says.

Fortunately, according to Zazie Todd, a B.C.-based psychologist specializing in animal companions and author of the new book Wag: The Science of Making Your Dog Happy, pet owners can rest assured that putting their cats or dogs on a diet neednt affect their relationship with them. Todd suggests replacing edible treats with bonding activities such as taking your pet for a walk, playing with it or cuddling.

Another upside to the popularity of online chonk is that it may encourage more people to adopt overweight animals, who are often overlooked in favour of more energetic shelter puppies and kittens. Fat pets may need a little extra care, but theres so much of them to love.

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Fat pets are cute, but our enthusiasm for them may be harmful - The Globe and Mail

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SYRACUSE A swarm of bees caught a northern Utah family by surprise when it buzzed in and set up shop in the yard in just minutes.

I just thought it was crazy, Joanna Plant laughed as she explained what happened.

The family was setting up a picnic when the bees set up for lunch.

We came back and the kids were just yelling, Mom!, Dad! Come here!' Plant said. We came to the back door, we looked in our backyard and it was swarming bees, everywhere!

She said the swarm swelled and within 30, 40 minutes they had all swarmed and made this big hive it was nuts!

Beekeeper Rodeny Marchant came to the rescue with a vacuum to suck up all the bees and so he can relocate them.

Theyll be in a hive. And if the hive gets too small for the amount of bees that are in there, the worker bees will actually stop feeding the queen so that shell be able to lose weight and be able to fly long distances," Marchant said, as he explained what likely caused the swarm.

Marchant is one of about 45 beekeepers in Davis County who shows up to collect swarming bees.

He said a quarter or more of the bees will leave to form a new hive, calling the trampoline a temporary staging area.

He said its a good thing the Plant family called for help quickly.

Hopefully we catch them at that stage, because if we dont catch them, thats when they move into the soffits of houses, or they move into walls, or they move into somebodys shed, he said.

He said if they move into one of those areas, its a lot tougher to get them out.

Not all the bees are gone. Some scout bees are still trying to play on the trampoline.

We do need to get a bigger trampoline, so we can get rid of it, Plant giggled.

Perfect excuse, her daughter Brooklyn agreed.

With so many kids stuck at home, a replacement may be hard to find.

For now, they will just have to stay patient and stay safe.

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Thousands of bees take over Utah family's trampoline - KSL.com

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When Kate Kernan married her husband Justin two months ago, she didn't try to change her body before the big event.

The 26-year-old tells 9Honey she was already happy with how her body looked and felt.

"Even though usually people go crazy before their wedding and try to get to a certain number, I didn't because I was already comfortable," she adds.

"I love all my wedding photos. In all of them you can tell I felt comfortable and that I am happy and healthy. That's all that matters."

However, Kate hasn't always been so happy with her body, having struggled with body image issues since she was a child and trying her first diet shortly after leaving high school.

RELATED: Brisbane mum drops 45 kilos in under a year after postnatal depression battle

"I always loved my food, especially chocolate. I have a massive sweet tooth."

Kate, who lives in Tasmania, didn't know anything about how to lose weight, so simply stopped eating.

"Then I'd end up eating chocolate and stuff like that. I tried diet shakes at one stage but they were disgusting," she says.

Working in a cafe didn't help, surrounded by food each day, and despite persevering with the shakes for almost a year, she remained the same size.

"I just wasn't happy with myself. I was unhappy at how I had let myself go," Kate recalls.

"Then I met my husband. I went to hospital when my nephew was born and he was visiting my nephew as well."

Justin, 36, was a friend of her brother's. It was truly meant to be.

"I still wanted to lose weight and I wanted to be happy with my body, but I never was," Kate adds.

"Justin always said he liked how I looked, that he was happy if I was happy."

Kate says she gained more weight, reaching her highest weight while pregnant with her daughter Alice.

A month away from giving birth, a friend introduced her to Healthy Mummy.

"I had put on a lot of weight and I was unhappy with how I looked," Kate recalls.

Her first few weeks and months as a mum weren't her happiest time, with Kate saying she didn't go out much.

"I didn't have depression but I was very uncomfortable and none of my clothes fit," she adds.

"I was at a point that I had to buy bigger clothes."

Kate had started the Healthy Mummy pregnancy program towards the end of her pregnancy, kicking her weight loss efforts up a gear once she was home with little Alice.

Not a big breakfast eater, Kate started having smoothies for breakfast and following the healthy recipes for the rest of the day.

"The smoothies were much better that the ones I used to have," she says.

"Each day I'd get out and walk with Alice, and the Healthy Mummy support group was really motivating."

During her pregnancy, Kate began experiencing pain in her feet but doctors could only attribute it to pregnancy and weight gain. It wasn't until she fell pregnant with her son that she was diagnosed with arthritis.

"I now take medication so I can work normally compared to how I was," she said.

The first time Kate weighed herself was just after having a daughter and then following her weight loss efforts. During her second pregnancy with son Arlo she maintained her health habits and quickly lost the pregnancy weight the second time around.

These days she avoids the scale, choosing to focus on how she feels instead of a number.

"I stopped weighing myself. Now I know when my body is at its healthiest."

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The one thing this Tassie mum refused to do before her wedding day - 9Honey

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Jane* first noticed her son looked thin when she met him for dinner in Manchester. Joseph*, then 14, was a full-time boarder after winning a scholarship at a ballet school, and as he stepped off the train at Manchester Piccadilly, Jane handed her son a doughnut she had bought him at the station. Joseph had never had issues with food, but that day he devoured the doughnut so quickly it was as though hed never seen food before.

If you think about anorexia specifically, often the girls who display it are hyper-smart.

That night, the family went for dinner at a pizza restaurant, but Joseph didnt seem himself. He didnt eat much at all, says Jane. I kept saying, are you eating? Youre getting very thin, darling.

What followed was a confession. Joseph broke down to his mother, telling her he had been restricting food in the belief that the less he ate, the better he would perform.

I have a very close relationship with Joseph, and I had no idea, says Jane. It was unbelievable really.

I hadnt noticed because he was eating at home and he was growing, so it was really difficult to spot.

Jane went to the school with her son that night to speak to the housemaster, but she says there wasnt much support.

The housemaster just said: Right, OK its just a case of you eating, Joseph. He was very young and not capable of looking after Joseph really. The problem with ballet schools is that they see eating disorders as a weakness in a dancer.

There wasnt a nutritionist on site, and there was no-one looking at what they were eating. I think his ballet teacher did have his suspicions, because Joseph told me hed questioned him about what he was eating. [The teacher] would never admit that, but he did.

As Jane started to realise what her son had been going through, there were more confessions from Joseph. Hed started getting ill. On one occasion hed turned blue in a ballet class and had to be taken to the schools medical centre, yet the school hadnt notified his parents. Joseph also told his mother hed started coming down with colds regularly and his hair had started falling out, yet the school had failed to pick up on the symptoms.

Jane sought help from private counsellors and a nutritionist, and Joseph was diagnosed with relative energy deficiency in sport also known as RED-S. Most common in athletes, the British Medical Journal describes RED-S as the result of insufficient caloric intake and/or excessive energy expenditure, with consequences affecting metabolism, menstrual function, bone health, immunity, protein synthesis, and cardiovascular and psychological health.

Thanks to a four-pronged approach including hypnotherapy and support from a private nutritionist, Joseph is now in recovery, but Jane says if it hadnt been for him acknowledging something was wrong and speaking to his mother when he did, he would most likely have been hospitalised.

Joseph is one of the lucky ones. Recent figures from NHS England show hospital admissions for eating disorders have risen by 37 per cent over the last two years. The most common age last year for patients with anorexia was 13 to 15, while a quarter of admissions in 2018-19 were for children aged 18 and under at 4,471. There were also 10 cases of anorexia among boys, and six among girls aged nine and under.

If theres one thing experts and those who are in recovery from eating disorders agree on, its that early intervention is key. Research by eating disorder charity Beat shows it takes nearly three and half years for someone to get treatment after first falling ill with an eating disorder, and the largest part of this delay almost two years is due to them not realising they have the eating disorder. There is often then a further wait of more than a year before they visit a GP. Then theres what happens when people do finally attempt to get help.

Rose Anne Evans first started showing symptoms of anorexia when she was 15. After starting to cut out food during school lunchtimes, Evans managed to hide her disordered eating for a while, but friends eventually noticed she had started to isolate herself and urged her to get help.

By the time Evans went to her GP, anorexia had her firmly in its grip. Her eating disorder was affecting her energy levels, mood and mental health. But when her GP told her to step on the scales, Evans was told her BMI was too high for her to be referred to other services.

My weight wasnt low enough in the GPs eyes and I was sent away, says Evans, who has now been in recovery for more than four years.

Evans says the GPs decision that day fuelled her eating disorder. Eventually she was hospitalised in an in-patient unit for eight months before being transferred to a day unit. When Evans went to university in York she became an outpatient, but she says spending so much time in hospital meant she had to learn to adapt to the outside world again once she was discharged. She now campaigns for early intervention.

The more we can support young people at home rather than having to go into an in-patient unit like me, and also the earlier we can get these young people treatment, the better chance they have of making a recovery and flourishing and being able to live their life without an eating disorder, she says. The problem with hospital is it can help to a certain extent but then when you come out youve got to learn to live in the outside world again.

Psychologist Natasha Tiwari agrees. Tiwari, who runs private education and wellness company the Veda Group, specialises in supporting children and adults with anxiety-related disorders including stress, phobias and past traumas. Most of the clients Tiwari sees with eating disorders are teenage girls, but she is noticing more younger children being referred for help, and says early intervention is everything.

As time goes on we are seeing it with younger and younger children, says Tiwari. We dont label it in the same way. We wouldnt describe a seven year old who is restricting her eating as having anorexia, but what we might notice is that we have a seven year old who has serious anxiety and it is manifesting in the fact that she is restricting her eating.

Social media might seem like an obvious place to point the finger, but Tiwari says eating disorders were an issue long before Instagram came on the scene in 2010. Instead, she says eating disorders, particularly in children and teenagers, are often triggered by factors that exist outside body image.

There are so many reasons why it is happening more now compared to 20 years ago, says Tiwari. I definitely think schooling [is linked]. Kids are so aware of the fact they are being assessed and that they are constantly competing against their peers for higher grades.

Theres also just a lot more toxicity in the environment. We are hit with information about food from all angles and its really hard to discern that which is good from that which is unhelpful.

The language around food has also changed. We say things like food is clean, food is dirty, or we will say things like: Im on a detox. A detox only means you are restricting your body from having most of the things that you need in the assumption that you are going to be starting from scratch. These messages are so confusing for adults, let alone kids, and these conversations are framed around wellness, which is also very manipulative.

But despite the external factors that can trigger eating disorders, Tiwari says the changing standards of beauty and the nature of the media cant be ignored.

Its age-old but they give all people a sense that the unachievable is possible. But the difference is that usually for an adult who is reasoned and know images are manipulated, they are able to regulate their emotions. We are able to say to ourselves: Yeah, I dont look like her, but she probably doesnt even look like her. But I would say even kids as old as 17to 18 arent able to process that.

Kids these days have only ever known the world with access to this kind of information. Youd have to be around25 or above at the moment to imagine or remember a time when celebrities looked like normal people when they didnt have plastic surgery, or had all the things you do to have a Jessica Rabbit-style body.

Eating disorder charity Beat offers training to school staff so they can help spot the signs of eating disorders in pupils and refer children and parents to local support. Recently rolled out in the North East and Yorkshire and Humber, the charity is aiming to eventually have one staff member in every high school across the country trained in this way.

Tom Quinn, Beats director of external affairs, says: My understanding is that levels of prevalence are pretty equivalent across the country. There is this stereotype that [eating disorders] only affect young, white girls who are middle class, but thats absolutely wrong. It can affect anyone from any background.

But Tiwari says successfully spotting the signs can be complex.

The challenge with eating disorders is that they are so deeply intertwined with anxiety. A lot of children with eating disorders dont always lose weight really fast, so its hard to know what you are looking at. People find it hard to distinguish between what is teen angst and what is somebody acting up because they are actually going through something psychologically and from a neuro perspective things are going a bit wrong.

Whats also key is that often the person who is suffering from eating disorders doesnt want to be found out. If you think about anorexia specifically, often the girls who display it are hyper-smart. They are really bright girls. If they dont want to be found out they are bright enough and able to manipulate the adults around them for as long as possible into believing that they are eating.

Evans admits her eating disorder was a secretive illness, but thanks to teachers tentatively asking about her welfare when they noticed things werent quite right, she felt she had somewhere to turn when she was ready.

Teachers did ask me if I was OK and they did say they were noticing certain things, but there are stages, and at the time I was in the denial stage.

What does help is those teachers coming to you and asking if youre OK. I know Beat use the term opening the door.

One message I always try to get out is that eating disorders are more of a state of mind than a state of body. You can still be whats classed as a healthy weight, but it is a mental illness so you can be mentally unwell with it.

Obviously if youre not able to open up the first time, just knowing that theres someone to go to when you are ready is really helpful. It often just takes a bit of time to be able to accept help.

* Not their real names

A new support group based in south Manchester aims to bring women in recovery from eating disorders together in a bid to share advice and reassurance.

Founded in January, Seeds of Hope invites women to meet once a week at Withington Fire Station.

Co-founder Helen Bourne was inspired to start the group with friend Eleanor Shiers after the pair lost a close friend to an eating disorder last September.

Bourne says: Obviously no two eating disorders are the same but there are common experiences. We meet once a week and its a chance to give and receive advice, share ideas, inspire and motivate each other, and offer reassurance and hope.

The main aim is to bring people together and provide a safe space where others understand. Theres something really affirming and reassuring when you say something and somebody nods as if to say yeah, I get that, and I can see that happening in the group.

Mental illnesses can be isolating and you can feel like youre the only person [going through it], so I can see it in the group when somebody says something and someone nods. It reduces that isolation a bit.

See facebook.com/pg/seedsofhopemanchester

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What's eating them - Big Issue North

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For many women, the journey through menopause is a roller coaster of symptoms including hot flushes, night sweats, sleep disturbance, dry and itchy skin, mood changes, anxiety, depression and weight gain. For some, it can be relatively uneventful.

Menopause is medically defined as not having any menstrual bleeding for 12 months. Most women reach this milestone between the ages of 45 to 55.

Even though weight gain is common, you can beat it by using menopause as an opportunity to reset your eating and exercise habits.

Read more: Thinking of menopausal hormone therapy? Here's what you can expect from your GP

Australian women tend to gain weight as they age.

During menopause, women also experience a shift in how fat stores are distributed around the body. Fat tends to move from the thigh region up to the waist and abdomen.

A review of studies that quantified changes in body fat stores before and after menopause found total body fat mass also increased significantly.

While the average weight increase was only about one kilogram, the increase in percentage total body fat was almost 3%, with fat on the trunk increasing by 5.5% and total leg fat decreasing around 3%.

Average waist circumference increased by about 4.6 centimetres and hips by 2.0 centimetres.

Other bad news is that once postmenopausal, women have lower total daily energy needs. This is partly because body fat requires less energy to maintain it compared to muscle. So even if your weight doesnt change, the increase in body fat means your body needs fewer kilojoules each day.

In addition to this, the menstrual cycle had a small energy cost to maintain ovarian function. This amounted to about 200 kilojoules a day, which is now saved.

The bottom line is that unless your transition to menopause is accompanied by a reduction in your total energy intake or an increase in your physical activity, youre at high risk of weight gain.

Around 60% of women manage to avoid weight gain at menopause.

They manage this by either decreasing the total amount of food they eat, cutting down on fat and sugar, using commercial weight loss programs, doing more exercise, or a combination of all these.

They key thing is that they change some aspects of their lifestyle.

Until recently, only three major studies had tested interventions.

The Womens Healthy Lifestyle Project compared the impact of receiving support to improve diet and exercise habits over four years covering menopause, to making no changes at all.

Women who changed their lifestyle had lower body weights, less abdominal fat and better blood sugar levels compared to those in the control group.

The second study, of 168 women, enrolled them into a 90 minute Nordic walking program, three times a week.

This was associated with a reduction in weight, body fat and waist circumference, as well as blood levels of bad cholesterol and fats, highlighting the benefits of endurance walking.

The third study divided 175 Nigerian women into two groups: one group undertook a 12-week circuit training exercise program, the other was a control group.

Women in the exercise group reduced their waist circumference relative to their hips, indicating a reduction in abdominal fat, even though their total body weight did not change.

Read more: Health Check: what's the best diet for weight loss?

More recently, we studied 54 women aged 45-50 years in the 40-Something trial.

We randomly assigned half the participants to receive healthy eating and physical activity support from health professionals, using motivational interviewing to encourage behaviour change. The other half received information only and were asked to self-direct their lifestyle changes.

Our aim was to prevent weight gain in women who were in either the overweight or healthy weight range as they entered early menopause.

We encouraged women who were overweight to reduce their body weight to achieve a body mass index (BMI) in the healthy weight range (BMI 18 to 25). We encouraged women already in the healthy weight range to maintain their weight within one kilogram.

We gave all women the same healthy lifestyle advice, including to eat:

And to:

Women in the intervention group had five consultations with a dietitian and exercise physiologist over one year to provide support and motivation to change their eating habits and physical activity.

After two years, women in the intervention group had lower body weights, less body fat and smaller waist circumferences compared to the control group who received information pamphlets only.

When we evaluated changes based on their starting BMI, the intervention was more effective for preventing weight gain in women initially of a healthy weight.

Of all the health advice, eating five serves of vegetables and taking 10,000 steps per day were the most effective strategies for long-term weight control during menopause.

Read more: What is a balanced diet anyway?

Although weight gain, and especially body fat gain, is usual during the menopausal transition, you can beat it.

Rather than menopause being a time to put your feet up, its a time to step up your physical activity and boost your efforts to eat a healthy, balanced diet, especially when it comes to the frequency and variety of vegetables you eat.

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How to beat weight gain at menopause - The Conversation AU

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April has been designated National Heartworm Awareness Month.

Heartworm disease is a serious disease caused by long, spaghetti-like worms (Dirofilaria immitis) that live in the pulmonary artery next to an animal's heart. If left untreated, heartworm disease can spread into the animal's heart and lungs, causing lung disease, heart failure and even death.

A variety of animals can be affected by heartworm disease, including dogs, cats, ferrets, coyotes and foxes.

Heartworms are passed from one animal to another by mosquitoes. When a mosquito takes a bite of an infected animal, microscopic baby worms (microfilaria) are in the blood the mosquito ingests. The baby worms mature into an infective larval stage while inside the mosquito.

When the infected mosquito bites another animal, the larvae enter the animal through the bite wound, where they develop into adult heartworms.

In a newly infected dog, infective larvae travel through the bloodstream to the heart and lungs, where they grow into adult heartworms, mate, reproduce and release more microfilaria into the dog's bloodstream. Now, mosquitoes that bite the infected dog pick up more heartworm disease to distribute.

Heartworms live five to seven years in dogs. Adult heartworms grow up to 6 inches long; female heartworms can reach up to a foot. The average number of heartworms in untreated dogs is 15, although there can be hundreds.

When a dog is first infected, he may not exhibit any symptoms. As the worms mature and reproduce, symptoms include coughing, fatigue and weight loss that worsen as the disease progresses. Heart failure is common in later stages.

Cats are affected differently by heartworm disease. Although they can be infected just like dogs, most worms do not become adults in cats. Cats typically have just one or a few worms, and the life span of worms is shorter. However, even immature heartworms can cause severe damage and death in cats.

Symptoms are sometimes rare and at other times extreme. They may include coughing, vomiting and weight loss. Unfortunately, sometimes the first sign something is wrong is sudden death.

It is also unfortunate for cats that the medication available to treat heartworm disease in dogs is not safe for cats. Cats with heartworm disease must develop a plan with their veterinarian for long-term therapies.

Dogs with mild to moderate cases of heartworm disease can be successfully treated with a series of a drug that kills adult heartworms. Additional medications may also be prescribed by your veterinarian. During the treatment period, dogs must reduce activity to minimize damage caused by dying heartworms. It is not a pleasant experience for the dog and is expensive for the owners.

The best way to treat heartworm disease is to prevent it from happening in the first place.

There are many methods available, with a product to suit every lifestyle. Your veterinarian can help you sort through the options before prescribing the medication. Tablets, topicals applied on the skin and injections are all available.

The American Heartworm Society recommends giving your pets year-round prevention.

A heartworm test -- a simple blood test performed by your veterinarian -- should be done for dogs more than seven months old and then repeated once every year after that to confirm the prevention program is working. Missed doses or doses given later than directed opens an opportunity of infection.

Testing in cats is not commonly completed annually and should be discussed with your veterinarian. Dogs and cats should be started on heartworm prevention by 8 weeks of age.

Heartworm disease has been reported in all 50 states, and veterinarians in this area have already seen several new cases of heartworm disease this year. It only takes one bite of just one infected mosquito to give your pet heartworm disease. Please protect him from this preventable disease -- it's easy.

Diana Stoll is the Practice Manager at Red Barn Animal Hospital with locations in Hampshire and Gilberts. Visit redbarnpetvet.com, or call (847) 683-4788 (Hampshire) or (847) 422-1000 (Gilberts).

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Year-round heartworm prevention critical to your pet's health - Chicago Daily Herald

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Green juice is one of the biggest health and wellness trends of the last decade.

Celebrities, social media influencers, foodies, and wellness bloggers are all drinking and talking about drinking green juice.

Green juice enthusiasts purport that this drink offers numerous health benefits, including improved digestion, weight loss, reduced inflammation, and boosted immunity.

Though these claims may make it seem like an obvious choice, green juice also has downsides.

This article reviews everything you need to know about green juice so you can determine whether to add it to your routine.

Green juice is a beverage made from the juices of green vegetables.

Theres no official recipe, but common ingredients include celery, kale, Swiss chard, spinach, wheatgrass, cucumber, parsley, and mint.

Given that green juice tends to taste bitter, most recipes add small quantities of fruit which may or may not be green to sweeten it and improve its overall palatability. Popular fruit options include apples, berries, kiwi, lemons, oranges, and grapefruit.

The most dedicated green juice drinkers prefer fresh, homemade juice, but you can buy it from specialty juice cafs too.

Commercial green juices are available as well, but some varieties contain added sugar, which reduces the drinks nutrient density. Excess sugar intake is also linked to several adverse health effects.

Moreover, many bottled green juices are pasteurized. This process heats the juice to kill harmful bacteria and extend shelf life, but it may damage some of the heat-sensitive nutrients and plant compounds found in fresh juice (1).

Green juice is made from various green vegetables and herbs. Fruit is often included to sweeten the final product.

Green juice is not a substitute for a balanced and healthy diet, but it shares many of the benefits that come along with eating more fruits and vegetables.

Green veggies and their juices are excellent sources of several essential vitamins, minerals, and beneficial plant compounds. For example, Swiss chard and kale are packed with vitamins A and K, while wheatgrass supplies plenty of vitamin C and iron (2, 3, 4).

Research suggests that eating leafy green vegetables daily may help reduce inflammation, heart disease risk, and your risk of age-related mental decline (5, 6).

Theres also evidence that certain compounds in fresh juice can function as prebiotics, which feed and support the growth of beneficial bacteria living in your digestive tract (7, 8, 9).

Routine prebiotic intake is linked to numerous benefits, including reduced constipation, weight maintenance, and improved immune function (9).

Moreover, many people find that drinking their vegetables and fruits is an easy and efficient way to boost their intake of valuable nutrients (10).

Finally, certain people, such as those whove had surgery on the stomach or intestines, can benefit from green juice, as its easier to digest. For these populations, juicing is a short-term option during recovery.

Speak to your healthcare provider or dietitian about juicing for your specific condition.

Regular green veggie intake may reduce inflammation, as well as support heart and brain health. Fresh juice may also play a role in promoting healthy digestion. Also, specific populations can benefit from juicing in the short term while healing.

Although drinking green juice is a great way to increase your intake of a variety of important nutrients, there are several drawbacks you should consider before buying into the trend.

Juicing a fruit or vegetable removes the majority of its fiber (11).

Fiber is vital to a healthy diet. Adequate fiber intake supports heart health by helping manage blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol levels. It may also relieve certain digestive disorders, such as acid reflux, diverticulitis, and intestinal ulcers (12).

The Institute of Medicine recommends a daily intake of 25 grams for women and 38 grams for men.

Given that green juice doesnt contain much fiber, it shouldnt be used to substitute your veggie or fruit intake.

If youre considering adding green juice to your wellness regimen, dont forget to eat plenty of whole vegetables and fruits as well.

If you have diabetes or another medical condition that contributes to poor blood sugar control, juices may not be the best option for you.

These drinks tend to be low in fiber and protein, two nutrients that support balanced blood sugar (13, 14).

Green juices made only with veggies are lower in carbs and unlikely to negatively affect your blood sugar. However, if you prefer your green juice with fruit, the sugars in the fruit may contribute to unwanted increases in your blood sugar levels.

You can mitigate this effect by pairing your juice with a meal or snack that provides fiber and protein, such as flax crackers with cheese, veggie sticks with tuna salad, or oatmeal with unsweetened plant milk and almond butter.

That said, you should be especially wary of store-bought green juices, as these may pack added sugar. Check the label and ensure that fruits or veggies are the only ingredients.

You can also check the nutrition label for added sugar, which should be zero. This is distinct from total sugars, which will account for the natural sugar found in fruits.

Drinking green juice in moderation can boost your intake of multiple nutrients, but too much may cause serious side effects.

Green vegetables are a rich source of oxalic acid, or oxalate, which is considered an antinutrient because it binds to minerals in food and stops your digestive tract from absorbing them.

The amount of oxalates you typically consume from whole vegetables in a balanced diet isnt harmful. However, green juices tend to be highly concentrated sources of oxalate.

Too many oxalates can lead to negative health effects, including kidney stones and even kidney failure (15).

A handful of recent cases of acute kidney failure have been attributed to excess oxalate intake from green juices and smoothies included in cleanse or fasting protocols (16, 17).

Although juice cleanses, detoxes, and fasts are a popular trend, relying on green juice or any other juice as a sole source of nutrition is never necessary and may harm your health.

If you plan on including green juice in your diet, play it safe by practicing moderation and eating balanced meals that include a variety of whole foods.

Green juice is healthy when consumed in moderation but lacks certain important nutrients like fiber. Whats more, drinking too much may harm your blood sugar and kidney function.

Although green juice is often marketed as a cure-all with exceptional healing powers, it gives you nothing that you cant get from eating whole vegetables and fruit.

As such, the drink is largely overhyped.

That said, it can be a nutritious component of your diet as long as you drink it in moderation and dont use it to replace whole veggies and fruit. Furthermore, you may find it to be a simple way to boost your intake of a number of nutrients.

Just remember to read food labels if you buy store-bought varieties, as these may harbor added sugar. If you have diabetes or another blood sugar condition, you may also want to limit yourself to those that only contain vegetables.

Finally, keep in mind that you cant depend on juice to meet all of your bodys nutrition needs.

Green juice doesnt offer any benefits beyond those associated with fresh produce. However, if it helps you get more nutrients in your diet, its safe and healthy in moderation.

Green juice is extracted from green vegetables like kale, spinach, and celery. Some green juices may also include fruit.

This beverage is a rich source of numerous nutrients and plant compounds that support heart health, digestion, and immunity. Still, its lacking in fiber and may contribute to poor blood sugar control or kidney issues if consumed in excess.

If you drink green juice, be sure to moderate your intake and include it as part of a balanced diet.

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Green Juice: Benefits, Downsides, and More - Healthline

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This article originally appeared on VICE US.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. At least thats what many of us were brought up to believe. But a growing body of research is seriously undermining that idea. Fasting, in one form or another, is all the rage as evidenced by the volume of ripped bros on YouTube who are itching to share the fasting secrets that have finally gotten them over that thing that happened in high school.

For most people, a fast amounts to missing breakfast. They break their fast later in the day. Others chose to skip dinner instead. Either tactic will will result in a 16/8 fast. This means that in every 24-hour period, you fast for 16 hours and do all of your eating in an eight-hour window. Another popular variant is alternate day fasting, in which adherents typically eat no calories one day and whatever they want the next.

Some of the reported benefits of fasting regimens include a reduction in inflammation, decreased blood sugar levels and even a prolonged life spanalthough that last one has only been proven in rats so far. It wasnt long before people started wondering if longer fasts would yield more pronounced results. I should remind you, if youre considering doing this, to examine your intentions since any extended period of voluntarily skipping meals can be a sign of disordered eating.

Ive tried to reconcile all the anecdotal fasting with conversations Ive had with with doctors and dieticians to figure out what might happen to my body if I commit to this increasingly popular fad-within-a-fad and eat nothing for 72-hours straight. Oddly, I havent tried this personally, but based on the below, I just might.

For many of us, skipping breakfast is NBD, particularly when youre sufficiently distracted and quaffing black coffee all morning. Skip lunch, however, and by mid-afternoon your brain is screaming at you to refuel. Its not literally screaming, of course. It just makes you behave like an irritable and petulant toddler until someone else recognizes the tell-tale signs of hanger and shoves a donut in your face.

A recent study looked into why hanger is a thing and concluded that a disruption in homeostasis of the brain can provoke complicated emotional response involving an interplay of biology, personality, and environmental cues. This, perfect shitstorm along with flagging energy levels, and a talkative abdomen can and do make getting through the first part of a 72-hour fast extremely challenging.

But if you can ride it out, things tend to greatly improve at day two or three. The gradual decrease in hunger is well documented in physiological studies showing gradual decrease in ghrelin over multiple days of fasting, says Jason Fung, Toronto-based nephrologist and co-author of The Complete Guide to Fasting. Ghrelin, he explains, is a hormone that makes you feel hungry. Its secreted in greater amounts when your stomach is in a non-stretched state. Fung goes on to explain that an abatement of hunger happens more often than not during an extended fast.

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I should probably mention here that 72 hours is a much shorter duration than it would take a healthy person to starve to death. In an editorial published in the British Medical Journal, a review of the pertinent literature on the subject found that humans can survive without any food for 30-40 days provided they are adequately hydrated.

As Alan D. Lieberson told Scientific American, how long a person survives without food really depends on factors such as body weight, genetic variation, other health considerations and, most importantly, the presence or absence of dehydration. Dying of thirst, however, can happen within mere hours. In another Scientific American article, professor of biology at George Washington University Randall K. Packer, said that an adult in comfortable surroundings could potentially last a week sans-liquid.

When Fung talks about your body using your fat for fuel, hes talking about ketosis. To get into ketosis, you dont give your body any of its preferred grabn go fuelglucoseand force it to look for alternatives. When theres nothing coming into your piehole, the body will start shaking down fat cells for energy. Thats why all those ripped bros are so into fasting and the ketogenic state it puts them in. Theyll tell you that fasting and ketosis is whats gotten their body fat percentage down into the single digits and studies have shown that they may be right about that. What they dont talk too much about is that those abs may have come at a high price.

A byproduct of that conversion of paunch into available energy are ketone bodies. One way the body releases ketone bodies is through exhalation therefore making the breath sweet and fruity, says New York-based dietician Amy Shapiro, putting somewhat of a positive spin on the odor. Research has shown that breath acetone is reliable indication that you have gone into fat burning mode. You release ketone bodies through your breathand the smell is often unpleasant enough that the people you hangrily scared away by threatening to flay the next person you find pilfering your yogurt will stay away in fear of having their faces melted by your hellacious mouth farts.

Keep in mind, Shapiro doesnt consider the 72-hour fast as a way to achieve meaningful weight loss. You will likely lose more water weight than actually fat as your body uses its glycogen stores for fuel before dipping into actual fat, she says. As you release glycogen, you lose water and that is usually the reason for the rapid weight loss. Losing fat takes more time. Fasting proponent Fung, however, disagrees and maintains that you could lose 1.5 pounds of fat over a 72-hour period. For that reason, he recommends that people with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of less than 20 could put themselves at risk of malnutrition. Most people have much more fat than that, he says.

Traditionally, not eating for three days would be seen by most as a not smart move. In fact, in times and places of food scarcity, it would likely be viewed at the last word in stupidity. Provided you can get something to eat on Thursday however, padlocking your pantry on Monday may actually improve brain functionaccording to rodent studies, at least.

Researchers at Yale started injecting ghrelin into mice and found that their performance in learning and memory tests was increased by 30 percent. Another study at Swansea University in Wales added the hormone to mouse brain cells grown in a dish. The infusion it switched on a gene known to trigger neurogenesis, a process in which brain cells divide and multiply.

As mentioned, ghrelin production tapers off after a few days of not eating. In the interim, the stomach is secreting plenty of it. Shapiro says that this could be an adaptation from a time when food was often scarce and getting at it had as much to do with your cognitive ability as it did with how well you could throw a spear. During times of starvation, the body preserves two organs and then shrinks the rest, she explainsthe preserved organs are the brain and, in men, the testicles. Biologically, this is likely linked to the necessity of mental clarity to get out of starvation times or to survive long periods without food and to continue to grow the species.

Fasting is said to be a mental, physical, and spiritual reset, says Virginia Beach-based dietitian Jim White. He explains that people who have fasted for three days often report that it causes them to face their bottled-up emotions so that they are more mentally stable after fasting is completed. Additionally, those who fast learn to appreciate the little things that they may take for granted in everyday life, such as having a cold glass of water to drink or a bed to sleep in at night. By focusing on spiritual and mental connections during fasting instead of food and life inconveniences, mental clarity can be achieved.

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This Is What Happens to Your Body if You Don't Eat For Three Days - VICE

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