Strawberry chip protein scone recipe

Do you have a soft spot for scones? Try these wheat and sugar free, high-protein scones for your next high tea.

What you'll need

The scones

• 1 cup oat flour (ground quick oats)
• ½ cup vanilla protein powder 
• ¼ cup rolled oats
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp sea salt
• 3 tbsp coconut oil
• 1 egg white
• ¼ cup strawberry Greek yogurt
• 2 tbsp almond milk
• 3 sachets Stevia
• 3 tbsp dark chocolate chips

Mixed berry jam

• 1 cup frozen mixed berries (thawed)
• 2 sachets of Stevia
• 2 tsp chia seeds

Natural fat-free whipped 'cream' 

• ½ cup non-fat dry milk 
• ½ cup ice water 
• 1 egg white  
• 1 tsp lemon juice 
• ¼ cup powdered sugar, sifted (you can use Stevia, quarter teaspoon or to taste)
• ½ tsp vanilla extract

What you'll do

The scones

Preheat the oven to 220ºC.

Mix all the dry ingredients together and all the wet ingredients together.

Add the wet to the dry and fold together.

Stir in chocolate chips.

Add heaped tablespoon amounts to a parchment-lined cookie sheet and bake for 12 to 15 minutes. Be careful that the tops reach golden, not brown. Enjoy with tea or cold almond milk.

The jam

Thaw frozen berries and, when thawed, puree. Add the berry puree to a small saucepan and add the Stevia and chia seeds.

Keep stirring the jam over low heat for 5 to 6 minutes – never leaving it unattended or to stick to the saucepan.

Let cool and serve with protein scones or your favourite toast or muffin. 

The cream

Put the ice water, egg white, and non-fat dry milk in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whip attachment. Beat on high for 4  to 5 minutes until it starts to thicken. Stop the machine to scrape down the sides of the bowl to get the milk powder incorporated.

 

Add the lemon juice and continue whipping on the highest speed for another minute or two until thick.

Lower the speed and slowly add sugar or Stevia, then vanilla. Beat until well mixed. 

 

Serve immediately with scones and jam.

 

Cream recipe adapted from Betty Crocker’s Pie and Pastry Cookbook.

Recipe by lifestyle blogger Kris Bitton of I Heart Wellness. 

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‘Managing’ Elderly Patients Without Powerful Antipsychotics

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, July 25, 2016 (HealthDay News) — About 25 percent of dementia patients in U.S. nursing homes are still quieted with risky antipsychotic medications. Now, a small study suggests that managing these difficult patients, instead of medicating them, could obtain better results.

“Drugs have a place, but should not be first-line treatments. They don’t work well, and there are side effects,” said study author Dr. Henry Brodaty, a professor of aging and mental health at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

Antipsychotic drugs such as Risperdal (risperidone), Abilify (aripiprazole) and Seroquel (quetiapine) are approved to treat serious psychiatric conditions such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. But in seniors, they’re often used to calm aggressive or violent behavior linked to dementia.

“They’re basically a sedative,” said Dean Hartley, director of science initiatives with the U.S.-based Alzheimer’s Association. While he agreed that the drugs are warranted in some situations, he said dementia patients who take the powerful drugs are more susceptible to falls and have a higher risk of death.

The new study touts a program that trains nursing home staff members to focus on resolving specific issues bothering the patients and not to automatically sedate them.

It’s not clear how much this kind of program would cost in the United States or whether nursing homes could adapt to a new way of doing things. But it’s clear that the tranquilizers used on patients with dementia can be dangerous, said Hartley.

U.S. health officials have been trying to reduce the use of antipsychotics in long-term nursing homes. Since 2008, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has required a boxed warning with all antipsychotic medications noting the increased risk of death in elderly patients with dementia-related psychosis.

The reported percentage of patients using the drugs dipped from 24 percent in late 2011 to 17 percent in 2015, according to background notes with the study.

Still, patients with dementia often need special management. According to Brodaty, 90 percent of people with dementia also experience agitation, depression, aggression, wandering, delusions and/or hallucinations.

His study included 156 patients at 24 nursing homes in Australia. All regularly took antipsychotic medications and were older than 60.

Nurses were trained how to handle difficult-to-manage behaviors without relying on drugs.

Of 135 patients taken off the antipsychotic drugs, 76 percent were still not using them 12 months later, the researchers said.

Hartley, the Alzheimer’s Association scientist, said focusing on the needs of patients requires understanding the issues that burden them. For example, he said, they may suffer pain from urinary tract infections but are unable to tell their caregivers.

Hartley mentioned the case of a patient who kept wanting to leave a facility, saying that it was raining outside. When asked, she explained that her kids — now grown — needed to be picked up at the bus stop. “They said they’d pick them up for her,” Hartley said, and the woman became calmer.

What about cost? This kind of program could actually reduce expenses, Hartley said, because patients would be less disruptive and need fewer emergency room visits due to injuries from falling.

Hartley cautioned that the study was small and needs to be validated. “It’s an important study, but it’s only the beginning,” he said. Still, the approach “may help caregivers or families know that their family members are being treated in a humane way.”

The study was scheduled for presentation Monday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Toronto. Medical studies released at conferences should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

For more about dementia, visit the Alzheimer’s Association.

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Is Binge-Watching Hazardous to Your Health?

MONDAY, July 25, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Binge-watchers, beware: Too much time in front of the TV could boost your risk of death from a blood clot in the lung, researchers warn.

A lung blood clot (pulmonary embolism) typically begins as a clot in the leg or pelvis that develops due to inactivity and reduced blood flow. The clot can break free and travel to a lung and lodge in a small blood vessel, posing a serious threat.

This new study included more than 86,000 people in Japan, aged 40 to 70. They were asked how many hours they spent watching television and then were followed for 19 years. During that time, 59 participants died of a pulmonary embolism.

Compared to those who watched less than 2.5 hours of television a day, the risk of dying from pulmonary embolism increased 70 percent among those who watched 2.5 to 4.9 hours daily. It was 40 percent greater for each additional two hours of television viewing, and 2.5 times higher among those who watched five or more hours a day, the study found.

The results were published July 25 in the journal Circulation.

These findings may be of concern to Americans, who reportedly watch more TV than Japanese adults, said study first author Dr. Toru Shirakawa, a research fellow in public health at Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine.

“Nowadays, with online video streaming, the term ‘binge-watching’ to describe viewing multiple episodes of television programs in one sitting has become popular,” Shirakawa said in a journal news release. “This popularity may reflect a rapidly growing habit.”

Pulmonary embolism occurs at a lower rate in Japan than it does in Western countries, but it may be on the rise, said corresponding author Dr. Hiroyasu Iso, a professor of public health at Osaka University.

“The Japanese people are increasingly adopting sedentary lifestyles, which we believe is putting them at increased risk,” Iso said.

While the study can’t prove a direct cause-and-effect relationship, it’s likely the risk of death from watching too much television is even higher than what was found in the study because the condition is difficult to diagnose, the researchers said.

The most common symptoms of pulmonary embolism are chest pain and shortness of breath, which also occur with other life-threatening conditions. Also, diagnosis of pulmonary embolism requires imaging scans that aren’t available at many hospitals.

If you spend a lot of time in front of the TV, there are ways to reduce your risk of pulmonary embolism.

“After an hour or so, stand up, stretch, walk around, or while you’re watching TV, tense and relax your leg muscles for 5 minutes,” Iso said.

Drinking water may also help, he added.

This study was conducted before computers, tablets and smartphones become popular sources of entertainment, so new studies are needed to assess how these technologies affect pulmonary embolism risk, Iso and colleagues said.

More information

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has more on pulmonary embolism.

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Strawberry chip protein scone recipe

Do you have a soft spot for scones? Try these wheat and sugar free, high-protein scones for your next high tea.

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2 of 3 Americans OK With Doctors Discussing Gun Safety

MONDAY, July 25, 2016 (HealthDay News) — A large majority of American adults thinks it’s OK for doctors to discuss gun safety with their patients, a new study reveals.

The online survey included more than 3,900 respondents. The researchers found that 66 percent said it was at least sometimes appropriate for doctors to talk about guns with patients.

Twenty-three percent said it was always appropriate for doctors to talk to patients about guns, 14 percent said it was usually appropriate, and 30 percent said it was sometimes appropriate, the survey found.

Seventy percent of people who didn’t own guns said such discussions were at least sometimes appropriate. Only 54 percent of gun owners thought such discussions were at least sometimes OK, the study authors found.

The study, led by Dr. Marian Betz of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, was published July 25 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

It’s estimated that there were almost 34,000 gun deaths and 81,000 nonfatal gun injuries in the United States in 2014. Most gun deaths (59 percent) are suicide, the report noted.

However, unsafe gun storage practices can also result in deaths, the study authors said in a journal news release.

Many public health experts suggest that doctors provide gun safety counseling to patients, particularly if there are children or teens in the home, or when there is a risk patients may harm themselves or others.

More information

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence outlines the risks of having guns in the home.

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Little Threat of Zika Spread From Rio Olympics: Study

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, July 25, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Travelers and competitors at the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil are not likely to contract the Zika virus during their stay or bring it back to their home countries, Yale University experts contend in a new report.

Fear of the mosquito-borne virus has led some athletes to skip the games, which start Aug. 5 in Rio de Janeiro. U.S. cyclist Tejay van Garderen withdrew from Olympic consideration because of the potential effects Zika infection could have on his pregnant wife. And a number of golf stars — including Jason Day, Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Jordan Spieth, Adam Scott, Louis Oosthuizen and Vijay Singh — have also declined to participate.

But out of as many as 500,000 travelers to Rio for the games, estimates state that at most 37 people are likely to contract Zika and return home while still contagious, said study co-author Gregg Gonsalves.

“Yes, Zika is an epidemic. Yes, we need to invest in combating Zika,” Gonsalves said. “But we need to make policy based on the best available evidence and not overstate our case.”

Gonsalves is co-director of the Global Health Justice Partnership, a joint program of Yale Law School and Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Conn.

The report supports the position taken by the World Health Organization. The WHO has said the Rio Olympics are not expected to play any significant role in the international spread of Zika.

“Based on several modeling studies, the risk to non-pregnant visitors or competitors to the Olympics seems to be manageable and does not merit any postponement or abstention,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior associate at the University of Pittsburgh’s UPMC Center for Health Security in Baltimore. “It is more likely, by some estimates, that visitors to the Olympics will contract influenza than Zika.”

The Zika virus is frightening because it can cause the brain-related birth defect microcephaly if an expectant mother becomes infected.

Microcephaly results in babies born with abnormally small heads and brains. Thousands of babies have been born with microcephaly in Brazil, the epicenter of the Zika epidemic, according to the WHO.

However, Zika poses little threat to most other people. In fact, an estimated 80 percent of people who come down with Zika don’t know they’ve been infected, according to health experts.

What’s more, it’s winter in Brazil, which means mosquito activity has subsided for the year, the new study points out. Also, most travelers will stay in screened and air-conditioned lodgings, further reducing their potential exposure to mosquitoes.

According to the Yale experts, other factors that will minimize the risk of Zika spread from the Olympics include:

• Zika infection clears the human body within 10 days, meaning people who become infected will likely not be contagious by the time they head home.
• More than half of Olympic visitors are expected to return to wealthy first-world countries where there’s little risk of establishing local transmission of Zika.
• About another third of Olympic visitors will return to Latin America countries where Zika transmission is already established, and so won’t contribute to the epidemic.

Overall, the Yale experts estimate anywhere from six to 80 Zika infections in travelers to the Olympic Games, with just one to 16 of those people experiencing any symptoms.

“If I could get a ticket to the Olympics, I would go to the Olympics,” Gonsalves said. “I personally wouldn’t feel worried at all about going down there.”

By the time they’re ready to go home, only between three and 37 of the infected visitors are expected to still be contagious, the study authors concluded. The rest will have cleared the virus from their bodies.

People traveling to Brazil know they’re entering the world’s most active Zika area. And, that will influence their decision to attend and their actions while there, said Stephen Higgs, director of the Biosecurity Research Institute at Kansas State University.

“The types of people who are visiting are going to already have taken the threat seriously when they made the decision to go to Rio,” Higgs said. “They’re not the people who are going to be in the back streets, where mosquito control isn’t being implemented as effectively as possible.”

For example, pregnant women are not expected to attend the Olympic Games, since their unborn children bear the brunt of the risk from a Zika infection. The WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have advised pregnant women against traveling to any country or region where Zika is actively transmitted.

“They’re no more likely to get the virus than anybody else, but the consequences of them getting the virus are much worse than for anybody else,” Higgs said.

The report was published July 25 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

More information

For more on Zika virus, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This Q&A will tell you what you need to know about Zika.

To see the CDC list of sites where Zika virus is active and may pose a threat to pregnant women, click here.

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Even a Little Exercise May Help Younger Women’s Hearts

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, July 25, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Younger women who exercise just 2.5 hours a week may cut their risk for heart disease by up to 25 percent, a new study suggests.

“The habits and the choices we make in the first half of our life determine our well-being and freedom from chronic disease in the second half of our lives,” said Dr. Erin Michos, an associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.

“Importantly, higher levels of physical activity have been shown to be associated with reduction in rates of heart disease, stroke, cancers, diabetes and many other chronic health conditions,” said Michos.

She co-authored an editorial accompanying the study, which was published online July 25 in the journal Circulation.

Lead researcher Andrea Chomistek said women can achieve the recommended 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per week in as many or as few sessions as they wish.

Joining a gym or walking or bicycling, or any other moderate activity that one enjoys, can be enough to reduce your risk of heart disease, she said.

Chomistek, an assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Indiana University’s School of Public Health, thinks that men, too, can achieve a similar benefit with a few hours a week of moderate exercise. But, further research would be needed.

“It is important for normal-weight, overweight and obese women to be physically active,” she said. “For people who are currently inactive and find joining a gym intimidating, emphasizing the benefits of walking may help them get active.”

For the study, Chomistek and her colleagues collected data on more than 97,000 women, aged 27 to 44, who took part in the Nurses’ Health Study 2.

Specifically, the researchers looked at the frequency, amount of time, intensity and type of preferred physical activity in which the women participated. During 20 years of follow-up, 544 women developed heart disease.

The researchers found that women who were the most physically active during their leisure time had the lowest risk for heart disease — 25 percent lower than women who exercised the least.

Exercise didn’t have to be strenuous. In fact, moderate exercise, such as taking a brisk walk, was associated with a lower risk of heart disease, the researchers found.

But the study did not prove a cause-and-effect link between the two.

The women who seemed to benefit the most exercised the most, at least 150 minutes a week.

And, it didn’t matter what weight a woman was when she started exercising to lower her risk for heart disease, Chomistek said.

However, Chomistek acknowledged that the study has two limitations. First, the women in the study were mostly white, so it can’t be assumed that these results apply to other racial or ethnic groups. Second, the data from the participants were self-reported, so it’s possible that the figures were less than accurate.

Young women are so busy being caretakers of others — their young children, their spouses, their aging parents, their friends and neighbors — that they can neglect their own health, Michos said.

“Young women, however, are often the gatekeepers of health for their families. If we can encourage young women to make better food choices and be more active, often their spouses, children and other members of their social network will benefit, too,” Michos said.

More information

Visit the American Heart Association for more on exercise and heart health.

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Bipolar Diagnosis May Take Up to 6 Years

MONDAY, July 25, 2016 (HealthDay News) — People with bipolar disorder may face a long wait from when their symptoms start to the time they get a proper diagnosis.

In fact, a new study reports the average delay is six years.

That lost time can result in greater frequency and severity of episodes of the psychiatric condition, the researchers said.

“While some patients, particularly those who present with psychosis, probably do receive timely treatment, the diagnosis of the early phase of bipolar disorder can be difficult,” study leader Matthew Large, a professor psychiatry at the University of New South Wales, Australia, said in a school news release.

“This is because mental health clinicians are sometimes unable to distinguish the depressed phase of bipolar disorder from other types of depression,” he added.

The new research reviewed the results of 27 past studies. Those studies included more than 9,400 patients.

Many patients had distressing and disruptive symptoms for many years before they received proper treatment, the researchers noted.

The delay in diagnosis and treatment was often longer for young patients because symptoms such as moodiness can sometimes be mistaken by parents and doctors as just part of being a teen, the study authors said.

“The diagnosis of bipolar disorder can also be missed because it relies on a detailed life history and corroborative information from careers and family, information that takes time and care to gather,” Large explained.

He recommended that doctors look more closely at a patient’s history of mood symptoms, especially distinct changes in mood and mood swings caused by outside events, such as overseas travel or treatment with antidepressants. He also suggested a closer look at mood symptoms in people who have a family history of the disorder.

A long delay in diagnosis and treatment is “a lost opportunity because the severity and frequency of episodes can be reduced with medication and other interventions,” Large said.

The study was published July 25 in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry.

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians has more on bipolar disorder.

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Induced Labor Won’t Raise Autism Risk in Kids, Research Suggests

MONDAY, July 25, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Inducing labor won’t raise a pregnant woman’s risk of having a child with autism, a new study suggests.

“These findings should provide reassurance to women who are about to give birth, that having their labor induced will not increase their child’s risk of developing autism spectrum disorders,” said senior researcher Dr. Brian Bateman. He’s an anesthesiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

One 2013 study had suggested a possible link between autism and induced labor using medication, such as oxytocin, the researchers noted.

Labor induction is sometimes recommended when a woman’s labor stalls and her health or the health of her baby are endangered. Since the 2013 study, many pregnant women may have had fears about being induced. So, Bateman’s team of American and Swedish researchers, led by the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, decided to investigate the issue.

They used a database on all live births in Sweden from 1992 through 2005, and looked at child outcomes for more than 1 million births through 2013, to identify any children diagnosed with a neuropsychiatric condition.

They also identified all the children’s brothers, sisters and cousins on their mother’s side of the family. The health of the children’s mothers was also taken into account.

Labor induction was performed in 11 percent of the deliveries. These births often involved complications, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and preeclampsia. The researchers noted that 23 percent of the induced pregnancies were late deliveries (after 40 weeks of pregnancy).

Nearly 2 percent of the babies in the study were later diagnosed with autism during the follow-up period.

When just looking at unrelated children, the researchers did find a link between induced labor and a greater risk for an autism spectrum disorder. This association disappeared, however, once they also considered the women’s other children who were not born from an induced labor.

“When we used close relatives, such as siblings or cousins, as the comparison group, we found no association between labor induction and autism risk,” said study author Anna Sara Oberg, a research fellow in the department of epidemiology at the Harvard Chan School.

Explaining further, she said in a university news release that “many of the factors that could lead to both induction of labor and autism are completely or partially shared by siblings — such as maternal characteristics or socioeconomic or genetic factors.” Therefore, Oberg said, “previously observed associations could have been due to some of these familial factors, not the result of induction.”

Alycia Halladay is chief science officer of the Autism Science Foundation. She acknowledged that women have had concerns about induced labor and autism risk in children.

“One concern has been around the exposure of the unborn child to medications which speed up delivery, such as Pitocin [the brand name for oxytocin],” Halladay said. “These medications are medically necessary when labor is not progressing and the health of the baby is in jeopardy.”

While the results of prior studies on this connection have been “mixed,” she said that “this recent analysis using a large registry system showed that Pitocin was not a factor that increases autism.”

Another expert agreed.

“Pregnant women have enough things to worry about,” said Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Cohen Children’s Medical Center of New York, in New Hyde Park, N.Y.

“If a woman’s doctor recommends that labor be induced, the expectant mother should not worry about an increased risk of the child having an autism spectrum disorder,” Adesman said.

The study is published online July 25 in JAMA Pediatrics.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides more information on risk factors for autism.

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After Missing the Olympic Track and Field Team, Keni Harrison Broke a 28-Year-Old Record

Photo: Getty Images

U.S. hurdler Keni Harrison may not be headed to Rio this summer, but that didn’t stop her from breaking a world record over the weekend.

Harrison, 23, finished first in the women’s 100-meter hurdles at the Diamond League meet in London on Friday evening with a time of 12.20 seconds, beating the previous record—held by Bulgarian Yordanka Donkova since 1988—by one one-hundredth of a second.

Aside from setting a new mark, Harrison finished ahead of three fellow American athletes who will compete in the Olympics in August: Brianna Rollins (who finished with a time of 12.57 seconds), Kristi Castlin (12.59 seconds), and Nia Ali (12.63 seconds).

Earlier this month, Harrison missed her chance at a spot on the 2016 Track and Field roster after finishing in sixth place at the trials in Eugene, Oregon, with a time of 12.62 seconds. Harrison saw the race in London as an opportunity to deliver a powerful message: “I wanted to come out here and show the world that I still have it even though I won’t be going to the Olympics,” Harrison said. “I had to give it all I had.”

RELATED: 5 Reasons We’re Inspired by 16-Year-Old Olympian Sydney McLaughlin

The hurdler from Tennessee won Friday’s race by a huge margin (more than a quarter-second). But her victory became even sweeter a few seconds after she crossed the finish line, when the official clock was corrected from 12.58 to 12.20.

This clip captures the incredible joy on Harrison’s face as she learned she had broken the 28-year-old world record.

“Initially I saw 12.5, and I was just happy to come out here and win. I was so happy when [the real time] came up and I was feeling really blessed. It shows that even if you don’t go out there and make the team, you have to keep going and be strong. I just ran my best and look what happened,” she said.

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