Could Eating Fish Help Ward Off Depression?

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Sept. 10, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Can eating a lot of fish boost your mood? Maybe, say Chinese researchers.

Overall, the researchers found that people who consumed the most fish lowered their risk of depression by 17 percent compared to those who ate the least.

“Studies we reviewed indicated that high fish consumption can reduce the incidence of depression, which may indicate a potential causal relationship between fish consumption and depression,” said lead researcher Fang Li, of the department of epidemiology and health statistics at the Medical College of Qingdao University in China.

But this association was only statistically significant for studies done in Europe, the researchers said. They didn’t find the same benefit when they looked at studies done in North America, Asia, Australia or South America. The researchers don’t know why the association was only significant for fish consumption in Europe.

The study was also only able to show an association between eating fish and the risk for depression, not that eating fish causes a lower risk for depression, Li said.

Still, Li thinks there may be reasons why fish may have an effect on depression.

“Fish is rich in multiple beneficial nutrients, including omega-3 fatty acids, high-quality protein, vitamins and minerals, which were associated with decreased risk of depression from our study,” Li said.

The researchers pointed out that it’s possible that the omega-3 fatty acids in fish may change the structure of brain membranes, or these acids may alter the way certain neurotransmitters work. Neurotransmitters are the brain’s chemical messengers, sending information from brain cell to brain cell. Some neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and serotonin, are thought to be involved in depression, the researchers said.

The report was published Sept. 10 online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health.

Depression affects 350 million people around the globe, according to background information in the study. The mood disorder is the leading cause of disability worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

Past research has suggested that dietary factors may play a role in depression, the researchers said.

To look at the possible connection between eating fish and depression, Li and colleagues reviewed 26 studies published between 2001 and 2014. The studies included more than 150,000 people. Ten of the studies were done in Europe.

This process, called a meta-analysis, attempts to find consistent patterns across multiple studies.

In addition to an overall benefit from fish in curbing depression, Li’s team found a difference between men and women. Specifically, the researchers found a slightly stronger association between eating a lot of fish and lowered depression risk in men by 20 percent. Among women, reduction in risk was 16 percent, the researchers said.

Simon Rego, director of psychology training at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, said it’s “impossible to draw any definitive conclusions about direct cause and effect” due to the study’s design.

But, he added, “While the exact way fish may prevent depression is unknown, it’s promising to learn that depression may be preventable for some people by making simple modifications to their lifestyle, such as by eating more fish.”

Rego said it’s especially important to look for novel treatments because depression can have a significant impact on people’s lives, and many people don’t respond fully to first-line depression treatments.

Future research needs to look into whether the effects of fish on depression vary by the type of fish eaten. In addition, this review didn’t look at whether or not fish oil supplements could have the same effect.

More information

For more information on depression, visit the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health.

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California Right-to-Die Measure Could Soon Become Law

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Sept. 10, 2015 (HealthDay News) — California, the nation’s most populous state, is poised to approve “right-to-die” legislation that would allow terminally ill patients to legally end their lives.

The California Assembly approved a bill on a 43-34 vote Wednesday that would let doctors prescribe life-ending medications to patients expected to die within six months.

That bill now moves to the state Senate, which must approve it by Friday. Gov. Jerry Brown has not yet indicated whether or not he will sign the bill into law.

Supporters believe that California’s approval could add momentum to the adoption of right-to-die laws across the country.

Opponents of the bill include religious groups such as the Catholic Church and advocates for the disabled.

California would become the fifth state in which people are allowed to legally end their lives. Oregon, Vermont and Washington already have passed laws allowing the practice, and Montana’s courts have authorized it.

“I think lawmakers will be more comfortable voting for aid-in-dying, knowing that a big jurisdiction like California has already done so,” said Barbara Coombs Lee, president of Compassion & Choices, a national organization that supports the practice. “It’s hard for lawmakers sometimes to think about being the pioneers in a social change movement. It will be easier for them to feel that they are one more state coming along in the assimilation of a new medical practice.”

The California legislation is modeled after the Death With Dignity law passed by Oregon voters in 1994, which made that state the first in the nation to allow some terminally ill patients to choose the time of their own death.

The effort to pass the legislation in California was prompted, in part, by the death last year of Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old California woman diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. Maynard moved to Oregon so she could end her own life when the time was right, and became a prominent activist in the “death with dignity” movement through online videos and well-read news articles about her choice.

Under the Oregon law and the California bill, two physicians must see the patient, review the prognosis and agree that the person has an illness that will be fatal in six months, Coombs Lee said.

The doctors also must attest that the patient has no mental illness or mood disorder that impairs judgment, and that the person is not being coerced or forced into the decision, she said. The person must receive counseling about hospice and palliative care, and be told that they are under no obligation to either fill the prescription for the life-ending drugs or to take them.

“The control resides with the patient, from beginning to end,” Coombs Lee said.

The California legislation places additional safeguards on the Oregon model, including a statement that the patient must sign within 48 hours of their self-inflicted death indicating that they are still of sound mind and remain capable of taking the medication on their own, Coombs Lee said.

However, opponents believe the Oregon law is flawed and allows abuses that will also occur in California.

Marilyn Golden, a senior policy analyst with the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, said that assisted suicide laws could potentially let insurance companies coerce vulnerable people into a cheap and quick death.

“If insurers deny or even delay a person’s life-sustaining treatment, they are being steered toward hastening their death,” she said. “Do we really think insurers will do the right thing or the cheapest thing?”

Golden also questioned whether the safeguards cited by Coombs Lee are truly effective, noting that people who are depressed or being pressured to take their own lives can “doctor shop” until they find a physician willing to sign off on their lethal prescription.

“It’s common knowledge in Oregon that if your doctor says no, you can call Compassion & Choices to find a doctor who says yes,” Golden said.

These are troubling concerns that have kept legislators in other states from acting on assisted suicide legislation, she said.

“No one pays attention to the fact that 12 other states this year have rejected the Oregon model,” Golden said. “As the legislators became aware of these problems, they chose not to move forward.”

Coombs Lee believes many other states will come around, encouraged by Maynard’s story and the example set by California.

“It takes a long time for lawmakers to educate themselves, and to start to feel comfortable voting yes,” Coombs Lee said. “It’s very unlikely a bill would pass a legislature the first time. California has been considering this in one way or another since 1991, when the first ballot initiative occurred.”

More information

For more on Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act, visit the Oregon Health Authority.

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Gut Bugs May Affect Body Fat, ‘Good’ Cholesterol Levels

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Sept. 10, 2015 (HealthDay News) — The size of your waistline may depend to some degree on the specific bacteria dwelling within your gut, new research suggests.

The study, of nearly 900 Dutch adults, found that certain gut bacteria might help determine not only body fat levels, but also blood concentrations of HDL cholesterol and triglycerides.

HDL is the “good” cholesterol that helps maintain a healthy heart; triglycerides are another type of blood fat that, in excess, can contribute to heart disease.

This is the first study to offer “solid evidence” that gut bacteria are linked to cholesterol and triglyceride levels, said lead researcher Jingyuan Fu.

But it does not prove that the bacteria directly alter people’s blood fats, stressed Fu, an associate professor of genetics at University Medical Center Groningen, in the Netherlands.

So it’s too early to recommend probiotic supplements for heart disease prevention, experts said. However, the findings add to growing evidence that the intestinal microbiome plays an important role in human health.

The term “microbiome” refers to the trillions of bacteria and other microbes that naturally dwell in the gut.

As recent research has revealed, those bugs do much more than support good digestion: They aid in everything from immune function, to metabolizing drugs to producing vitamins, anti-inflammatory compounds and even chemicals that relay messages among brain cells.

Studies have also suggested that when the microbiome lacks diversity, that may contribute to health conditions such as obesity, asthma and type 1 diabetes.

This latest study “contributes important information to our understanding of the gut microbiome and health risks, in particular cardiovascular disease,” said Dr. Lea Chen, a gastroenterologist and microbiome researcher at NYU Langone Medical Center, in New York City.

The findings, published online Sept. 10 in the journal Circulation Research, are based on 893 adults ranging in age from 18 to 80. Fu’s team analyzed fecal samples to get a snapshot of each person’s intestinal microbiome.

Overall, the researchers found 34 types of bacteria that were associated with people’s triglycerides and HDL levels, and with body mass index (BMI) — a measure of weight in relation to height.

The investigators estimated that the gut microbiome explained 4 percent to 6 percent of the variance in BMI, triglycerides and HDL across the study group.

That’s a “modest” impact, Chen pointed out. Plus, it’s not clear that the microbiome is the cause at all.

“The identified gut bacteria could be driving changes in BMI or cholesterol, or they could merely be the byproduct of these factors,” said Chen, who was not involved in the study.

A few of the bacteria highlighted in the study are known to be involved in metabolizing bile acids that affect cholesterol levels. But Chen and Fu both said much more research is needed to understand how different gut bacteria function in relation to cholesterol and other risk factors for heart disease.

“At the current stage, this field is still in its infancy,” Fu said.

Researchers do not yet know how to define a “healthy” microbiome. But studies have suggested that modern living may be decreasing the diversity of the typical American’s gut microbiome — and that lack of diversity may be related to higher disease risks.

What makes a microbiome less diverse? Experts suspect that C-sections and lack of breast-feeding are two factors: C-sections deprive newborns of beneficial bacteria from the birth canal, while breast milk feeds gut bacteria.

Diets filled with processed foods are also thought to be at fault.

What’s key, Fu said, is that the gut microbiome can be changed through diet — unlike age, genes and certain other heart disease risk factors. But it’s not clear exactly what changes might support a healthy heart.

For now, Chen suggested that people stick with proven ways — which include eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, fish, fiber-rich grains and other “whole” foods.

More information

The American Society for Microbiology has an overview of the human microbiome.

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First Evidence That Alzheimer’s Proteins May Have Passed From Person to Person

 

Photo: Getty Images

In a breakthrough experiment described Wednesday in the journal Nature, researchers in London report for the first time evidence that patients may have acquired the Alzheimer’s protein, amyloid, from a medical treatment.

John Collinge, a neurologist at University College London, and his colleagues studied the brains of eight people who had died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a condition caused by a protein that acts like a virus. Instead of being inert like other proteins, these misfolded proteins, called prions, can grow and break off and seed new growths as if they were reproducing. CJD can be caused by genetic mutations, by exposure to contaminated foods (as with so-called mad cow disease) or even, in rare cases, from accidental exposures during medical procedures, such as surgery or other invasive treatments.

In eight autopsy cases studied by Collinge and his team, those prions came from the latter.

There was evidence that children treated with human growth hormone before 1985—when it was made from hormone collected from cadavers—might have been exposed to prions and therefore at higher risk of CJD. Because prions have a long incubation period, even 30 to 40 years after the practice of using human cadaveric hormones was stopped, patients who received those treatments continue to show signs of CJD. As part of their autopsy analysis, Collinge also looked for other abnormal brain patterns and was surprised by what he found.

“What we found, very much to our surprise, was that of the eight patients, four had quite significant, some severe, deposition of amyloid protein, the Alzheimer’s protein,” he said in a teleconference discussing the results. These patients had damage to the blood vessels in their brain typical of Alzheimer’s. Only one patient, he said, did not have any signs of amyloid.

The results are noteworthy but they don’t mean that Alzheimer’s is contagious, Collinge said. Nor do they suggest that all patients with Alzheimer’s will develop CJD, or vice versa.

In fact, given the small number of brains studied and the preliminary nature of the results, it’s hard to say exactly what the connection between prions and Alzheimer’s disease may be. What the results do suggest is a need to re-think Alzheimer’s and how it may develop. It’s possible that in addition to being caused by genes and environmental exposures, Alzheimer’s may also, in rare cases, be triggered by exposure to amyloid protein “seeds” that may be passed from one source to another.

It’s known, for example, that taking brain tissue from a mouse with Alzheimer’s disease and injecting it into healthy mice will cause the latter to develop the neurodegenerative disease. And it’s known that CJD can be transmitted by certain exposures to infected material, including, according to some reports, surgical instruments. The amyloid protein’s precursor, a-beta amyloid, is also known to “stick avidly to metal surfaces,” says Collinge. German researchers showed previously that mice implanted with a metal wire blanketed with a-beta seeds developed amyloid plaques in their brains.

In the case of the eight patients in the study, Collinge said that it’s likely they acquired a-beta amyloid seeds from the hormone harvested from the deceased elderly who donated their organs for that purpose. “The growth hormone preparations with which people were treated as children in addition to being contaminated with CJD, probably also was contaminated with a-beta seeds,” he said.

Interestingly, most of the people showing the amyloid deposits in their brains did not also have the other hallmark sign of Alzheimer’s, the fibrous tangles of the tau protein. None had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s either. But they all died at relatively young ages, between 36 and 51 years. So they may have died before the later stages of Alzheimer’s could set in.

“What I’m arguing is that we need to consider that in addition to sporadic Alzheimer’s that comes with age, and inherited or familial Alzheimer’s caused by genes, there could also be an acquired form of Alzheimer’s. It’s what I’m hypothesizing here. We certainly haven’t proven it, but it’s important that those interested in exploring the question in Alzheimer’s disease should develop the tools that we have applied in prion disease.”

For one, he said, it’s critical to understand exactly what the a-beta protein seeds are — what they look like, where they form in the body and how they might be detected in something like the blood. Collinge admitted that more research needs to be done to fully understand how important a pathway the amyloid seeds might be in contributing to Alzheimer’s, but that the latest results highlight “the growing paradigm shift in understanding that neurodegenerative disease [like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s] may be all about accumulation of [prion] seeds.”

For now, the findings only apply to those who may have received injections of growth hormone prior to 1985, before the treatment switched to entirely synthetic sources. But it raises the need for a host of new studies that may help us better understand Alzheimer’s, and other degenerative brain diseases, and some of the more unexpected ways they might develop.

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

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Too Much, Too Little Sleep May Harm the Heart

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Sept. 10, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Otherwise healthy people who have poor sleep habits may be putting themselves at risk for early signs of heart disease, a new study suggests.

Folks who get too much or too little sleep — or not enough quality rest — are more likely to suffer from stiffened arteries and calcium deposits on the walls of their major arteries, said study lead author Dr. Chan-Won Kim.

“Coronary calcium develops way before heart attack symptoms occur, and a greater amount of calcium in the coronary arteries predicts future development of heart disease,” said Kim, a clinical associate professor in the Center for Cohort Studies at Kangbuk Samsung Hospital in Seoul, South Korea.

The sweet spot appears to be about seven hours of sleep, the researchers reported. People who got more or less sleep tended to have increased signs of potential future heart problems.

Earlier studies have linked poor sleep to bad heart health, but this research goes a step further by looking for precursors of heart disease in people who appear healthy, said Dr. David Meyerson, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore and a national spokesman for the American Heart Association.

Because the study authors took this route, their implications more directly highlight sleep as a potential risk factor for heart disease, Meyerson said.

“Quality and duration of sleep is not always asked by every physician during a cardiovascular risk assessment session, and perhaps it should be,” he said.

While the study uncovered a link between poor sleep and potential heart problems, it did not prove a cause-and-effect connection.

The study involved more than 47,000 young and middle-aged adults who completed a sleep questionnaire and had advanced tests to measure arterial stiffness and detect early artery lesions caused by calcium deposits.

The findings revealed that study participants who:

• got five or fewer hours of sleep a day had 50 percent more calcium in their arteries than those who slept seven hours a day.
• slept nine or more hours a day had at least 70 percent more calcium compared to those who slept seven hours.
• reported poor sleep quality had more than 20 percent more calcium than those who reported good sleep quality.

“Since we studied apparently healthy young and middle-age men and women without major diseases, it is unlikely that other health problems can explain the association between extreme sleep duration and early markers of heart disease,” Kim said.

Doctors don’t yet know exactly why the proper amount of sleep appears to protect heart health, said Meyerson and Dr. Mark Urman, a cardiologist with Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles.

During sleep, a complex dance of metabolic changes, hormone releases, body repair and brain refreshment takes place. These processes affect blood pressure, blood sugar, inflammation, stress hormones and a host of other factors that can increase risk of heart disease, the cardiologists said.

“We know our bodies every day need this ability to recharge our batteries, to put everything at ease and calm everything down,” Urman said, adding that poor sleep has been linked to heart risk factors like diabetes and obesity.

Sleep should be considered part of an overall heart-healthy lifestyle, Urman said.

“This adds to the importance of getting a good night’s sleep on a regular basis, in addition to regular exercise and a heart-healthy diet, in reducing risk of heart disease,” he said. “This is one more thing that’s part of that package.”

People who want to improve their sleep should dim the lights in their living room or bedroom as bedtime approaches, and they should go to bed at the same time every day, Kim said.

“It is also important to avoid exposure to electronic media at bedtime,” Kim said. He added that “people who experience inadequate sleep need to avoid caffeine-containing beverages after lunch.”

The study findings were published Sept. 10 in the American Heart Association journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.

More information

For tips on getting a good night’s sleep, visit the Harvard Medical School.

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Happy Baby yoga pose

 

Feeling stressed? Relax your body with the Happy Baby yoga pose.

How to

Lift the legs up in the air, taking a hold of the outsides of your feet into Happy Baby.

Pull the knees in towards your armpits and stack the ankles above the knees.

Keep the core activated, and the hips on the floor.

Relax through the neck and breathe. Exhale, release, lying prone on the floor.

BENEFIT: Calms the brain and helps to relieve stress and fatigue.

Words and series by Sammy Veall

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FDA Acts to Make Food Safer in Wake of Outbreaks

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Sept. 10, 2015 (HealthDay News) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced new steps Thursday to improve the cleanliness of food manufacturing plants in the wake of a string of lethal foodborne illness outbreaks.

Tainted foods — including recent examples such as spinach, cantaloupe and ice cream — sicken 1 in 6 Americans — or 48 million people — each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Approximately 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die from foodborne illnesses annually.

“The food safety problems we experience have one important thing in common: They are largely preventable,” Michael Taylor, FDA deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, said during a morning media briefing.

Under two new rules that take effect later this year, manufacturers of human and animal foods must submit food safety plans to the FDA showing how they keep their facilities clean and how they’ll react to possible safety issues.

The new preventive measures can help ensure that foodborne illnesses and the disruptions they cause will be eliminated, Taylor said.

“American consumers have high expectations of the safety of the food supply,” he added. “For prevention to be effective, the proper steps need to be taken at each point in the food production processing to ensure hazards can never enter the system,” Taylor said. “That’s why Congress enacted [the new] rules.”

The rules come under the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. President Obama signed the law in January 2011 but implementation has been delayed. The new procedures represent the first sweeping changes to U.S. food safety laws in 70 years, according to the agency.

Besides the two rules finalized Thursday, five additional food safety rules will become final in 2016.

The FDA says consumers and their pets will be protected in various ways.

Rather than only reacting to outbreaks, companies now will have to keep them from occurring. Manufacturers must take steps to prevent, or kill, harmful bacteria. In addition, companies should keep allergens — a major cause of food recalls — from getting from one food into another.

Health regulators want to expand prevention measures to farms, where contamination is harder to control than in factories. “Standards have been proposed for agricultural water, farm worker hygiene or cleanliness, compost and sanitation conditions affecting buildings, equipment and tools. These standards will apply to both domestic and imported produce,” the agency said in a news release.

Oversight of imported foods, which account for 15 percent of the U.S. food supply, will also improve. Importers will have more responsibility to ensure foods are safe and meet the same standards as domestic producers, the agency said.

“These are not one-size-fits-all requirements,” Taylor said. “The rules are risked-based, targeted and flexible so that good outcomes are achieved in the most effective and practical way.”

One expert welcomed the new safety protocols.

“These proposed updates are directly responsive to the evolving challenges of a global food supply, and illustrate the vital importance of the FDA to us all,” said Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center in New Haven, Conn.

Oversight of food safety is a core function of the FDA, and a job that only a government agency can perform effectively, Katz added.

Noting that Americans count on the safety of the nation’s food supply, he added, “We can do so with a bit more confidence courtesy of these new provisions.”

More information

For more on food safety, visit Foodsafety.gov.

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Nonsmokers Account for Rising Proportion of Lung Cancer Cases, Studies Find

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Sept. 10, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Nonsmokers account for a growing percentage of aggressive lung cancer cases in the United States and the United Kingdom, new research finds.

In one study, British researchers found that over seven years the proportion of U.K. never-smokers with non-small cell lung cancer jumped from 13 percent to 28 percent.

Similarly, a study of lung cancer patients at three U.S. hospitals reported that never-smokers accounted for a growing percentage of non-small cell lung cancer patients between 1990 and 2013. These nonsmokers with lung cancer were more likely to be women, the researchers said.

The findings didn’t surprise Dr. Karen Reckamp, medical director of the lung cancer and thoracic oncology program at the City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif.

“As smoking rates declined, we continue to see more patients diagnosed with lung cancer who do not have a prior smoking history,” said Reckamp, who wasn’t involved in either study.

The lung cancer that affects nonsmokers appears to be a different disease, Reckamp said. “We know that nonsmoking lung cancer is a distinct entity and often presents with specific genetic changes in the cancer that drive tumor growth,” she said.

She and other experts suspect genetic and environmental factors may be to blame.

Non-small cell cancer — by far the most common type — is aggressive and usually diagnosed at a later stage when it is harder to treat, according to the American Cancer Society. It is especially challenging to detect in nonsmokers because there are no known risk factors that merit screening, researchers said.

The British findings were based on medical records for 2,170 U.K. patients who underwent surgery for lung cancer between 2008 and 2014.

In the U.S. study, a team led by Dr. Lorraine Pelosof analyzed data on more than 12,000 lung cancer patients at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, Parkland Hospital in Dallas and Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

Pelosof and colleagues compared data compiled from 1990-1995 and 2011-2013. “In 1990 to 1995, 9 percent of non-small cell patients were never-smokers. By 2011-2013, nearly 15 percent were,” said Pelosof, an assistant professor of hematology-oncology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

In comparison, nonsmokers with small cell lung cancers — a less common form of disease — increased only slightly, from 1.7 percent to 2.5 percent in the later period, the study found.

Small cell cancers account for about 10 percent to 15 percent of U.S. lung cancer cases, the American Cancer Society says.

Results of both studies were scheduled for presentation this week in Denver at a conference organized by the International Association of the Study of Lung Cancer. Data and conclusions should be considered preliminary until they’re published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

Experts said they can’t explain why nonsmokers are a growing proportion of lung cancer diagnoses, or why women seem especially vulnerable.

Besides smoking, Pelosof said, exposure to asbestos and radon are known risks for lung cancer. Genetic factors are thought to play a role, too.

The increased proportion of nonsmokers with lung cancer doesn’t seem to be due to better diagnostic methods, she said. However, Pelosof acknowledged her team’s findings need to be confirmed in other studies, noting that one limitation of her research is that participants’ smoking status was self-reported.

Reckamp said other studies are looking at genetic risk and family history to zero in on who might be at risk for these cancers, despite no tobacco exposure.

Most lung cancers don’t cause noticeable symptoms until the disease is advanced, says the American Cancer Society. However, if you have a persistent cough or bronchitis or hoarseness, the society recommends seeing your doctor for a checkup.

More information

To learn more about lung cancer, visit American Cancer Society.

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Chrissy Teigen’s Hilarious Answer for Forgetting Her Gym Clothes

Photo: Getty Images

As if Chrissy Teigen wasn’t enough of an inspiration for us already, now she’s showing us that nothing can stop her from getting to the gym. On Tuesday morning, Teigen showed her Insta followers just how dedicated she is to staying in shape.

“Forgot workout clothes. Wearing Spanx to the gym. Feeling pretty compressed,” she wrote in the caption. Naturally, she poked fun at the situation with the hashtags “nosquats” and “crotchhole.” There’s the Chrissy that we know and love.

The lesson here: You certainly shouldn’t make this a regular habit (being that compressed couldn’t have been comfortable), but in a pinch you can always get creative. Also. If a Sports Illustrated cover girl (and wife of John Legend) packs Spanx without shame, you’ve got nothing to fret over either.

RELATED: Here’s Why Chrissy Teigen Says She Won’t Edit Her Instagram Pics Anymore

RELATED: The Most Powerful Body-Positive Celeb Selfies We’ve Ever Seen

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Move of the Week: Swan

You’re no ugly duckling. But even swans can use some help taking their backside from drab to fab sometimes. This aptly titled move tones your butt, thighs, and lower back. Watch Health‘s contributing fitness editor, Kristin McGee demonstrate how to do it perfectly.

RELATED: A Move to Lose the Love Handles

Here’s how to do it: Lying on your stomach with your arms in front of you, lift your arms and legs off the mat, then lower down to the starting position and repeat 3 to 5 times.

Try this move: Swan

RELATED: 16 Ways to Lose Weight Fast

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