WELL INFORMED / NEWS & VIEWS
Workouts Reduce Anxiety — QUICKLY RESEARCH HAS LONG SUPPORTED EXERCISE as a treatment for depression. Now, a University of Georgia study finds exercise effective for anxiety, too, reporting a decline of symptoms by 20 percent for those who worked out reg- ularly. In 40 randomized clinical trials, involving nearly 3,000 chronically ill adults, 90 percent of patients who exercised regularly reported less anxiety than the con- trol group, which did not exercise. Many reported posi- tive results within a half hour of beginning to exercise.
ILLUSTRATION: NICHOLAS WILTON
Make no mistake:
our health care
crisis is in large
part a crisis of the
American diet —
roughly three-quarters of the
$2 trillion-plus
we spend on
health care in this
country goes to
treat chronic
diseases, most
of which can be
prevented by a
change in lifestyle,
especially diet.”
MICHAEL POLLAN,
Food Rules: An Eater’s
Manual (Penguin, 2009)
RESEARCHERS AT THE UNIVERSITY
of Illinois suggest that
increased omega- 3 intake
may help improve fertility in
men. The study, published
in the February issue of the
Journal of Lipid Research, is
the first to connect docosa-hexaenoic acid (DHA) directly
to male fertility. Our bodies make DHA from dietary
alpha-linolenic acids, a compound of omega- 3 fatty acids
found primarily in fatty fish,
avocados, nuts and seeds.
Using infertile laboratory
mice that lacked the gene
responsible for making DHA
and produced only a few misshapen sperm, researchers
fed them DHA and found the
new sperm samples to be
more plentiful and healthier.
GOOD FATS
BOOST
REPRODUCTIVE
HEALTH
Other recent studies draw
connections between the
nature of dietary fat intake
and reproductive health
in women. For example, a
long-term study of 70,709
American nurses found that
while total quantity of dietary
fat didn’t appear to matter,
the quality of those fats did.
The research, recently published in the journal Human
Reproduction, showed that
women who ate large quantities of trans fats
had a 48 percent
higher risk of
endometriosis
compared with
those who ate
the least, while
those who ate the
most omega- 3
fatty acids were
at far lower
risk for
the uterine
condition.
!
What to Read Now
THE POWER
OF HALF:
One Family’s Decision
to Stop Taking and
Start Giving Back
by Kevin Salwen
and Hannah Salwen
(Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, 2010)
Practicing generosity is a
powerful way to connect
to the world around you,
and the Salwen clan of
Atlanta — an average
upper-middle-class family who decided to give
away half its assets to
development projects in
Africa — knows this better
than most. Written by
14-year-old Hannah and
her dad, Kevin Salwen, a
former Wall Street Journal
editor, The Power of Half
recounts how this family’s
unusual journey brought
an already-loving family
even closer; how their
adventure in collective
service deepened emotional bonds. And we’re
left pondering this: How
much do we really need to
be happy?
Reinventing School Lunch
JAMIE OLIVER’S PROGRESS REINVENTING SCHOOL
lunch programs in Huntington, W. Va., made
great television as he heaved out unhealthy fats,
sugars and processed foods and introduced real
fruits and vegetables. But upgrading school
lunches is a daunting task for most communities. Now, a beautifully presented Web-based
program, Rethinking School Lunch, can help.
Published by the Berkeley, Calif.–based Center
for Ecoliteracy, the program includes a busi-ness-planning process, a framework for campus gardens, ways for teachers to integrate
a healthy-eating curriculum, success stories
and more. Download the guide for your next
PTA meeting: www.ecoliteracy.org/downloads/
rethinking-school-lunch-guide.
