The Amount of Water You Actually Need Per Day
Eight, 8 oz. glasses of water a day: it’s a rule that’s been burned into our brains for years as the ideal amount of fluid to drink each day. Yet no matter how many times experts say that’s not quite accurate, many still believe “8×8” is the magic amount.
The truth: How much water you should drink each day really, truly depends on the person, Robert A. Huggins, PhD, of the University of Connecticut explained to Health. “Fluid needs are dynamic and need to be individualized from person to person. Factors such as sex, environmental conditions, level of heat acclimatization, exercise or work intensity, age, and even diet need to be considered.”
What this means is that simply listening to your thirst is the best way to gauge when to drink. Another way to monitor hydration is to look at your pee before you flush. You want it to look like lemonade; if it’s darker than that, you should down a glass.
RELATED: 7 Easy Ways to Drink More Water
But what about exercise?
To gauge how much water you specifically should take in during exercise, Huggins recommends doing a small experiment on yourself.
First, before you work out weigh yourself wearing with little to no clothing. “If you can, [make sure you’re hydrated beforehand] and avoid drinking while you exercise to make the math easy,” Huggins says. But if you get thirsty, don’t ignore it: drink some and make sure to measure the amount.
After you’re done exercising, weigh yourself again. Then, take your first weight and subtract the second weight, and you’ll end up with how much fluid you lost. Convert this to kilograms (if you search it, Google will return the number for you or try a metric converter), then drink that amount in liters. (If you drank some water during exercise, subtract the amount of water you drank from your final total.)
RELATED: 14 Surprising Causes of Dehydration
This is your “sweat rate,” Huggins says. It’s the amount of water you should drink during or after your next workout to replace what you’ve lost. (You can also use an online calculator for sweat rate; just plug in your numbers.)
Complicated much? We agree. Huggins estimates that most people lose between one to two liters of sweat for each hour of moderate intensity exercise. But ultimately thirst should still be your guide.
Why it’s important to get the right amount
You already know that dehydration can be dangerous, but over-hydrating may actually be just as bad.
RELATED: 12 Reasons Why Dehydration Is Bad for Your Body
In fact, a new consensus report in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that many athletes are at risk of exercise-associated hyponatremia, which is an electrolyte imbalance that can be caused by drinking too much liquid. This can lead to nausea and vomiting, headaches, fatigue, and in serious cases, coma and even death.
While it was previously thought to only be a concern for long-distance athletes competing in events like marathons and Ironmans, the paper (which was funded by CrossFit, Inc.) concluded that many athletes are actually dangerously over-drinking during events as short as 10K races and even bikram yoga classes, Tamara Hew-Butler, PhD, lead author of the paper, explained to Health.
Because “it is impossible to recommend a generalized range especially during exercise when conditions are dynamic and changing, there is not one size that fits all!” she adds.
So the best method to keep you in that sweet spot between over- and under-hydrated is, as with many things, to listen to your body.
RELATED: Fat Water Is Now a Thing
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Cancer Still the Leading Cause of Death for U.S. Hispanics: Report
By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 16, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States overall, but a new report finds that cancer remains the number one killer of U.S. Hispanics.
Hispanics now make up over 17 percent of the U.S. population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In a new report, the American Cancer Society predicts that nearly 126,000 new cancers will be diagnosed among Hispanics this year and an estimated 38,000 will die from the disease.
Although overall cancer rates are 20 percent lower among Hispanics compared with whites and cancer death rates are 30 percent lower, cancer is still the biggest killer among Hispanics, said cancer society epidemiologist Kim Miller, one of the authors of the report.
“The good news is that the rates for the four most common cancers — prostate, breast, lung and colon — are lower in Hispanics than in whites,” she said.
In addition, cancer rates among Hispanics are dropping 2.4 percent per year in men and 0.5 percent per year in women, which mirrors trends among whites, Miller said.
The report was published Sept. 16 in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.
According to the report, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among Hispanic men. This year, liver cancer will surpass colon cancer as the second leading cause of cancer deaths among Hispanic men.
Liver cancer deaths among Hispanic men and women are about double those among white men and women, the researchers found.
Among Hispanic women, breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death at 16 percent of all cancer deaths, followed by lung and colon cancers, the findings showed.
Miller said that lung cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death among U.S. women overall. However, since Hispanic women have traditionally smoked less, lung cancer deaths are 70 percent lower among Hispanic women than among white women. In 2014, 8 percent of Hispanic women smoked cigarettes, compared with 17 percent of white women, she said.
Since 1995, cancer death rates among Hispanic men have been on the decline and have been declining among women since 1996 — four years later than among whites, the researchers reported.
Miller said that Hispanics have a higher risk of cancers tied to infections — such as those of the stomach, liver and cervix — than whites. Stomach and liver cancer rates and deaths among Hispanics are double those of whites, she said.
Miller suggested that Hispanics are vulnerable to inequalities in cancer diagnosis and care. They are less likely than whites to be diagnosed with cancer at an early stage, especially for melanoma skin cancer and breast cancer, she explained.
Some of the disparity results from less access to care, she said.
Less access to high-quality care because of poverty and lack of insurance also worries Jane Delgado, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Hispanic Health.
“This cancer pattern is what has concerned us for a while, and it is another reason why we have been very active in encouraging people to enroll in health insurance,” she said.
Delgado said that the problem is particularly acute in Florida and Texas — two states with large Hispanic populations that have not opted for expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. This has left many poor Hispanics without access to health care, she said.
Highlighting a problem isn’t enough, Delgado added. More needs to be done to bring health care to the Hispanic community, she said.
However, Delgado explained, the data need to be looked at as part of the larger picture of the health of Hispanics: Hispanics live longer than whites and have less heart disease, regardless of having the factors that increase risk in other communities, such as obesity and diabetes.
Miller suggested that, like all Americans, Hispanics need to make lifestyle changes — including a healthy diet and not smoking — to reduce their risk for cancer.
More information
For more on Hispanics and cancer, visit the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
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Americans Support More Funding of Cancer Research
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 16, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Major advances have been made in the fight against cancer, but Americans aren’t satisfied, a new survey suggests.
In fact, about three-quarters of those polled want more federal funding allocated for cancer research.
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) survey found that four out of five voters support the use of taxpayer dollars for cancer research, suggesting federally funded medical research is a bipartisan issue.
Researchers questioned 1,000 registered voters across the United States in July. The findings were released Sept. 16, along with the association’s annual Cancer Progress Report. The report calls for the federal government to provide annual budget increases of at least 7 percent for the U.S. National Institutes of Health, U.S. National Cancer Institute and U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2016 and beyond.
“The decline in NIH funding that we have seen since 2004 threatens the pace of progress and undermines the promise of cures for patients,” said Dr. Jose Baselga, AACR president and physician-in-chief at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, in New York City.
“It is extremely heartening to see from the results of the survey that most American voters have the same message for Congress as the AACR — increasing funding for medical research should be a top national priority,” he said in an association news release.
The report highlights major advancements in cancer research made in recent years. In the United States, the five-year survival rate for all cancers combined increased from 49 percent about four decades ago to 68 percent in 2010.
Meanwhile, the FDA approved nine new anti-cancer treatments and new uses for six existing drugs between August 2014 and July 2015. Also during this time, a cancer prevention vaccine and cancer screening test were approved by the FDA, the report pointed out.
About 85 percent of voters recognize that progress is being made in the fight against cancer, but they also believe more should be done. By a margin of five to one, voters said they would more likely vote for a presidential candidate who supports sustained increases in funding for cancer research.
The survey also revealed 88 percent of Americans know someone who has cancer, and 47 percent have a friend or relative with the disease.
This year, cancer will kill more than 589,000 people in the United States. The direct medical costs related to cancer were nearly $125 billion in 2010, and are expected to jump to $156 billion in 2020, the association says. The number of people of all ages with cancer is also projected to increase from 1.7 million today to 2.4 million by 2035.
Dr. Margaret Foti, chief executive officer of the AACR, said “spectacular progress” has been made against cancer, resulting in millions of lives saved. “However, without increased federal funding for cancer research, we will not be able to realize the promise of recent discoveries and technological advances,” she said in the release.
More information
The U.S. National Cancer Institute provides more information on research in cancer treatment.
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Pesticide Exposure Tied to Diabetes Risk
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 16, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Exposure to pesticides may increase your risk of diabetes, a new analysis suggests.
After reviewing 21 previous studies, researchers found exposure to any type of pesticide was associated with a 61 percent increased risk for any type of diabetes. The increased risk for type 2 diabetes — the most common type — was 64 percent, the investigators found.
Scientists believe genetic and environmental factors are involved in the development of diabetes. Although the current findings don’t prove pesticides cause diabetes and more research is needed, the study authors said their findings add to the growing body of evidence that contaminants in the environment play a key role in the development of the disease.
“This systematic review supports the hypothesis that exposure to various types of pesticides increases the risk of diabetes,” wrote study authors Giorgos Ntritsos, from the University of Ioannina School of Medicine in Greece, and Dr. Ioanna Tzoulaki and Dr. Evangelos Evangelou, from Imperial College London.
“Analyzing each pesticide separately suggests that some pesticides are more likely to contribute to the development of diabetes than others,” the authors concluded.
The following chemicals were linked to an increased risk of diabetes, according to the researchers: chlordane, oxychlordane, trans-nonachlor, DDT, DDE, dieldrin, heptachlor and HCB.
The review included 21 observational studies (with a total of almost 67,000 people) that investigated a possible link between exposure to pesticides and diabetes. The researchers also conducted a specific analysis that focused solely on type 2 diabetes. Most of the studies measured pesticide exposure with blood or urine analyses, which are considered very accurate methods, the researchers said.
The findings were presented Tuesday at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Stockholm, Sweden. Data and conclusions presented at meetings are usually considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.
More information
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has more on the health risks of pesticides.
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Brain Scans May Take Guesswork Out of Schizophrenia Treatment
By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, Sept. 15, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A brain scan might someday help psychiatrists quickly determine which antipsychotic drugs work best for patients with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, researchers say.
This personalized approach could eliminate a lot of trial-and-error and hasten critical time to treatment, the study authors suggested.
“The ultimate goal is to develop a strategy in which a simple brain scan could provide the necessary information to help select the best medication — or treatment approach — for an individual patient,” said study co-author Dr. Anil Malhotra, director of psychiatry research at the Zucker Hillside Hospital in New York City.
The test is still in the preliminary stages of research, and scientists want to improve its sensitivity before pushing to make it publicly available.
Psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder affect about 3 percent of the general population, according to prior research. While there’s a perception that people with schizophrenia have multiple personalities, that’s not the case. Schizophrenia causes symptoms such as delusions and paranoia, and bipolar patients with severe episodes of mania or depression can have psychotic symptoms, too.
Powerful antipsychotic drugs such as Abilify (aripiprazole) and Risperdal (risperidone) are available to treat these mental illnesses. But it can take a long time for physicians to pinpoint the correct treatment, and side effects can be very difficult to experience.
“We have no way to predict how an individual patient with schizophrenia is going to respond to treatment,” Malhotra said. “Essentially, we use a trial-and-error approach to treatment choices.”
Patients may remain psychotic, leading to more costs and devastating consequences such as suicide. Or they may walk away from treatment.
In the new study, Malhotra and colleagues at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, N.Y., used functional-MRI brain scans to develop a measurement of how well two regions of the brain communicate with each other. The level of communication correlated partly with how well psychotic patients improved when they took certain antipsychotic drugs.
The researchers tried out the strategy on a group of 41 patients, aged 15 to 40, experiencing their first “psychotic break.” The patients underwent brains scans before they were randomly assigned to take risperidone or aripiprazole for a year.
Using information gained from that trial, the researchers tested their technique in 40 patients hospitalized for psychotic illness.
Seventy-six percent of the time, the investigators successfully predicted the response of the second group of patients to drug treatments.
The researchers said they hope to improve that number to 80 percent. “We were close to these goals with the current work and are now looking to launch additional research in this area to hopefully increase this signal to those levels,” said Malhotra.
The brain scans run from $300 to $700, Malhotra added. MRI brain scans do not use radiation and are not thought to have any immediate side effects.
Ultimately, he said, successful development of a test could lead to less time in the hospital for patients “and hopefully increased services and attention to those patients who may not be the best responders to treatment.”
Patients and families who want to know how rapidly a medication will work would welcome such a test, said Keith Nuechterlein, psychiatry professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior.
“Antipsychotic medications rarely work quickly, sometimes requiring weeks or months to resolve psychotic symptoms,” Nuechterlein said. A test like the one envisioned in the study “would be very useful in helping to give realistic expectations,” he added.
Knowing when a medication is likely to kick in also might help prevent patients from prematurely giving up on drugs, said Kenneth Subotnik, an adjunct professor of psychiatry at UCLA’s Semel Institute. Subotnik and Nuechterlein were not involved in the research.
The study was published online recently in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
More information
For more about psychotic illnesses, see the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
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More Than 400 Illnesses Reported in Latest Salmonella Outbreak
TUESDAY, Sept. 15, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A salmonella outbreak that has been linked to contaminated cucumbers imported from Mexico has now caused 418 illnesses in 31 states, U.S. health officials said Tuesday.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the cucumbers were distributed in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas and Utah. Distribution to other states may also have occurred, the agency added.
Two deaths have also been reported in the outbreak, one in California and one in Texas.
So far, 91 people have been hospitalized, CDC officials said Tuesday.
Fifty-two percent of the illnesses reported have been in children under the age of 18, agency officials added.
On Sept. 4, the company considered the likely source of the tainted cucumbers, Andrew & Williamson Fresh Produce of San Diego, recalled its “Limited Edition” brand cucumbers because of their connection to the outbreak, the CDC reported.
On Sept. 11, Custom Produce Sales voluntarily recalled all cucumbers sold under the Fat Boy label starting Aug. 1, the CDC said Tuesday. Unlabeled cucumbers packed into a black reusable plastic container, and sold in Nevada since Aug. 1, are also covered by this recall. These cucumbers were sent to Custom Produce Sales from Andrew & Williamson, the agency said.
If you don’t know if your cucumbers were recalled, the CDC suggests asking your supplier. Or, if you’re in doubt, throw them out.
Symptoms of salmonella include fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal cramps. Illness typically lasts about a week, but infections can be serious. Children, the elderly and people with compromised immune systems are most vulnerable to having severe illness.
According to the CDC, the states where salmonella has been reported include: Alaska (10), Arizona (72), Arkansas (6), California (89), Colorado (16), Hawaii (1), Idaho (14), Illinois (6), Indiana (2), Kansas (1), Kentucky (1), Louisiana (4), Minnesota (20), Missouri (8), Montana (13), Nebraska (2), Nevada (9), New Mexico (22), New York (4), North Dakota (2), Ohio (2), Oklahoma (10), Oregon (8), Pennsylvania (2), South Carolina (8), Texas (20), Utah (37), Virginia (1), Washington (15), Wisconsin (9), and Wyoming (4).
More information
Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more on salmonella.
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What in the World Are Cotton Candy Grapes?
Photo: Getty Images
From the outside, they look like any other green grape you’d have in a lunchbox, on a cheese plate, or on a forlorn fruit platter at a baby shower. They’re large, plump, and tender. The light green orbs shows specks of yellow and brown. Their scent is fragrant, sweet, and fruity. In other words, they’re “normal” grapes. On the outside, that is. On the inside, Cotton Candy Grapes are anything but ordinary.
Grapery, a California grape-growing company and the grower of Cotton Candy Grapes, uses “growing techniques” to create unique, flavorful varieties of grapes. They list six on their site, including their Cotton Candy variety, which has gained a cult following in recent years as its market reach is growing. (See: #cottoncandygrapes on Instagram.) These “growing techniques” don’t involve genetic engineering or strange science. It’s good ol’ fashioned plant breeding. This same type of breeding science has given us many new varieties of apples, like Honeycrisp or Pink Lady (two of my personal favorites). So now, growers like the folks at Grapery, are turning their eyes to a new fruit.
I have to admit, the packaging and marketing pulled me in. Grapes that taste like cotton candy?! I picked up a bag instantly. Then, I brought them back to the Cooking Light offices and asked everyone I saw to try one, without telling them the “flavor” they should be tasting. Most nailed the flavor after one grape. But the reviews were mixed.
Photo: Grapery
As we discovered, these grapes are cloyingly sweet. They’re super sugary, too, the way actual cotton candy is–they really have nailed the flavor. After one plump grape, you’ll be instantly transported to a world of pink soft-spun cotton candy. If that isn’t a flavor you enjoy, you definitely won’t enjoy these grapes. But if it is (and a lot of people here in the offices said it was), or if you’re just really into novel new foods, these grapes are quite the unique treat.
If you’ve not tried them out, find a retailer near you and grab a bag if you can. But hurry! I went back to my local Fresh Market, where I found the original bag, and they were all sold out. Seems the word is getting out about these crazy flavorful grapes.
More from Cooking Light:
What Are Microgreens, and How Do You Grow Them?
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25 Fast Food Chains Ranked on Antibiotics Usage
Photo: Getty Images
Antibiotic resistance is one of the top five health threats facing Americans, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). More than 2 million people in the U.S. get infections every year that are resistant to antibiotics, and around 23,000 people die from these infections. Contributing to that problem is the unrestricted use of antibiotics in animal rearing; drugs are used to fatten up livestock and prevent illness, and their routine application has contributed to the rise of so-called superbugs resistant to the drugs designed to kill them.
Responding to public pressure, some major fast food chains and meat suppliers have pledged to use fewer antibiotics. And now, a new report analyzed the practices and policies of 25 of the largest fast food and fast-casual restaurants in the U.S. to see how companies were faring. The paper, authored by several public interest groups, gave each chain a letter grade based on their use of antibiotics—and their transparency about it.
“Consumers should be as concerned as the foremost infectious disease doctors are—which is very concerned,” says Dr. David Wallinga, a senior health officer at the environmental nonprofit the National Resources Defense Council, who contributed to the report.
In the report card, only Panera and Chipotle received an A. The two companies both have a wide variety of meat offerings that do not use antibiotics. About 90% of the meat Chipotle sources is free of antibiotics. Panera says 100% of its chicken and pork is raised without antibiotics, and a third of its turkey. The company is still reviewing its beef policy: One of its beef suppliers does not use antibiotics, while another supplier only uses antibiotics when the animals are sick.
Chick-fil-A follows with the lone B rating. It has policies limiting the use of antibiotics in its chicken, and has pledged to be 100% antibiotic-free by 2019. In March of 2015, the report says, that 20% of Chick-fil-A’s chicken met the standard.
McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts were both given a C. While Dunkin’ Donuts says it has a policy limiting antibiotic use in its meat, it apparently does not have a timeline for meeting that goal. McDonald’s announced in 2015 that within two years, it would serve chicken that are only fed antibiotics when they’re sick.
Photo: Courtesy of Consumer’s Union
The researchers note that most chains have not come forward with policies regarding antibiotic use. The chains with no public policies include Burger King, Wendy’s, Olive Garden, KFC, Chili’s, Sonic, Denny’s, Domino’s, Starbucks, Papa John’s Pizza, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Applebee’s, Jack in the Box, Arby’s, Dairy Queen, IHOP, Outback Steakhouse, and Little Caesars.
“We know that overusing antibiotics, including in the meat supply, is a driver of the [drug-resistant bacteria] problem and yet the consumer public is in the dark when it comes to what companies’ policies are,” saysWallinga.
“We’ve seen some real positive developments recently among the companies that rank highly in the report, and also with their suppliers,” says Wallinga. “That’s a big part of the optimism behind the report. I think it’s not a stretch to say that a fast food company that wants to serve chicken that’s been raised without routine antibiotics should be able to do so right now with no delay. Companies are in business to satisfy their customers, and like never before, customers are asking for meat raised without antibiotics.”
This article originally appeared on Time.com.
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Women the Bigger Losers in Terms of Alzheimer’s Costs
TUESDAY, Sept. 15, 2015 (HealthDay News) — The cost of caring for a woman with Alzheimer’s disease is ultimately about six times more than it is for a man with this form of dementia, new research indicates.
When the patient is a man, the true value of the time and energy a female family member typically puts into her caregiving job is 20 times greater than that performed by a male family member when the patient-caregiver roles are reversed, the Emory University researchers said.
In other words, women perform more unreimbursed labor. And when men care for sick women, more money is spent on paid caregiving staff, driving up the overall cost, said study authors Zhou Yang and Allan Levey.
The findings will appear in the September/October issue of the journal Women’s Health Issues.
“This study demonstrates the importance of policies to address the needs not only of patients but of caregivers, the majority of whom are women,” said Women’s Health Issues editor-in-chief Chloe Bird in a journal news release.
To better understand the financial burdens wrought by the disease, Yang and Levey pored through data collected by the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey between 2000 and 2010.
Survey information included expenses covered by Medicare; long-term care covered by Medicaid; uncovered costs of providing home care and/or care in an assisted living facility, and the uncovered value of manpower by caregiving loved ones.
Caring for women with Alzheimer’s was found to cost more by every measure. Compared with caring for a male patient, Medicare expenses were 1.5 greater; Medicaid costs were 2.2 greater, and out-of-pocket home and/or assisted living costs were 5.8 times greater.
But it was the big falloff in the amount of work performed by male caregivers, relative to female caregivers, that ended up increasing the overall bill for female Alzheimer’s patients.
The study authors said policy reforms, including reforms to Medicare and Medicaid payments, must address the needs of Alzheimer’s patients.
“Public policy interventions that aim at curing or slowing the progress of Alzheimer’s disease, as well as those meeting the special home health care or long-term care need of the [Alzheimer’s] patients, will greatly benefit the welfare and economic status of women,” Yang said in the news release.
More information
There’s more on Alzheimer’s costs at the Alzheimer’s Association.
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