Is Organic Food Healthier?

Is that Stanford study right? Is organic food really no healthier?

Last week, Stanford University researchers published a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine that they said showed organically-grown food to be no more nutritious than conventionally-grown food. Chaos ensued, as consumer advocacy groups, fellow researchers and environmental and parenting organizations condemned the study, suggested financial ties to food giant Cargill motivated it and even filed a petition to have the research retracted from its journal
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As of publication, a petition with Change.org had 3,351 signatures, on the grounds that it didn't factor in the potential health consequences of genetically modified foods, high fructose corn syrup and other additives that are found more often in conventional foods than in organic ones. As Rosie Mestel wrote in the Los Angeles Times:

The scientists weren’t studying genetically modified foods (though if GMO foods were in the conventional data, one might think that GMO-caused health factors would have revealed themselves in the results). And they weren’t studying high-fructose corn syrup -- they were only reviewing fruits, vegetables, eggs, grains, dairy, poultry and meat. Not processed foods.

The article, in other words, wasn’t about the entirety of everything that people think is wrong about the way our food is grown and produced today. It wasn’t even about every type of difference between organic and conventionally grown food.

Alarmists were not the only ones sounding the alarm, so to speak. As HuffPost's Lynne Peeples reported, a researcher who published a similar analysis in 2011, Kirsten Brandt of Newcastle University, had several criticisms. During the course of her research, she discovered that organic food was indeed nutritionally distinct from conventionally grown food.

"The choices they made don't seem to make sense -- they seemed to include ones where the difference was smallest to begin with," Brandt told Peeples. "I'd like to know why they chose these and not others that were just as well-described in the same papers they included."

As for the study itself, what were they actually trying to prove?

Researchers Dr. Dena Bravata, of the Center for Health Policy, and Dr. Crystal Smith-Spangler, an instructor for Stanford's Division of General Medical Disciplines, conducted an analysis of the 17 most relevant studies that compared the health of subjects who ate either organically or conventionally grown food over periods as short as two days and as long as two years. They also looked at 223 studies that compared organic and conventional foods in terms of levels of various nutrients, as well as bacterial, fungal and pesticide contamination.

They found very little difference between the composite nutrient profiles of organic and non-organic foods. And while they found that conventionally raised pigs and chicken were more likely to yield meat that was contaminated with antibiotic-resistant microbes, the overall microbial levels on organically and conventionally-grown foods were similar.

They did find two studies that showed how children who ate conventional produce had higher pesticide levels in urine samples than those who ate organic foods.

"There isn't much difference between organic and conventional foods, if you're an adult and making a decision based solely on your health," Bravata said in a statement about her study's results. Smith-Spangler added that she was surprised by the results.

Given that similar analyses have found different results, it makes sense to take all of these studies with a grain of salt. While we might not yet know the health impact of the differences between organic and non-organic foods, we have plenty of information to make a personal decision in the supermarket aisle that extend beyond nutrients.

Avoiding pesticides and antibiotic-resistant infections are two good reasons to eat organic food, but they aren't the only ones: some believe that organically-raised animals are also more humanely raised and evidence shows that organic farming is the more environmentally-friendly option. And given the lack of longitudinal study, it's impossible to know what long-term health outcomes both of these options would have.

How A Hangover Works

"What actually causes hangovers? If alcohol is metabolized after a few hours, why do I still feel crummy the next day?"
-- Alana

If the data is any indication, at least 75 percent of you will recognize this feeling: a throbbing headache, exhaustion, queasiness and even muscle fatigue following a night of overindulging. But what is it about drinking alcohol that causes such discomfort?
The cause is a combination of factors, but primarily one: dehydration.
"Alcohol is a diuretic, so you end up losing water. And the dehydration effect is probably the most severe contributor to hangover," says Dr. Gary Murray, the program director for the Division of Metabolism and Health Effects of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

The more you drink and the higher the concentration of alcohol in the drinks you choose, the more dehydrated you're going to be. According to an overview of the research, that's because alcohol suppresses the release of the hormone vasopressin, which normally repurposes water released by the kidneys back into the body. With the absence of vasopressin, that water is marked for the bladder and eliminated. Alcohol also causes inflammation of the stomach lining, which can cause diarrhea -- another dehydrating condition.
In the morning, that translates to classic dehydration symptoms: a headache as the body borrows water from the brain, causing temporary tissue shrinkage; thirst; dry mouth; nausea; and even dizziness.
Though dehydration is a major factor, it's not the only one. Everyone has a unique physiological response to alcohol in terms of how it's broken down and eliminated by the body. And the way you metabolize alcohol can certainly have an effect on the onset, severity and duration of a hangover.
Alcohol is metabolized in two stages: one group of enzymes break down ethanol -- the alcohol that you ingest -- into acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is a toxic, carcinogenic substance, but soon after a second class of enzymes metabolizes the acetaldehyde into harmless acetate, which is basically vinegar. The problem is that for some people, the second metabolic process can be slower and less effective than in others. That means a build-up of acetaldehyde toxicity, which includes several hangover-like symptoms like rapid pulse, sweating, skin flushing, nausea and vomiting.
Interestingly, there are some ethnic patterns to this variation: Asians, Asian-Americans and Native Americans have a higher instance of a gene that causes inactivity of the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase-2 which, along with glutathione, metabolizes acetaldehyde into acetate, according to National Institutes of Health research.
"People with that hypersensitivity to alcohol know it," says Jim Schaefer, a research professor of anthropology at Union College and an expert on alcohol metabolism. "They'll feel a flushing response, they'll feel nauseous after one or two drinks. It's not just during the hangover."
"Whether they choose to ignore that [feeling] has more to do with social factors," he added.
Another contributor to hangovers has to do with the taste of alcohol: congeners. These are byproducts of the distillation and fermentation process that are both good and bad -- while they give alcohol, especially amber alcohols like whiskey and rum, their distinct, full flavor, they're also associated with feeling ill the next day.
"A quadruple distilled vodka is very clean compared to a heavy dark rum and it's probably going to make you feel less sick," says Schaefer.
Let's say you've overdone it. What's the next step? Short of the recommendation to drink in moderation (or not at all), drinking a preemptive glass of water alongside your cocktail or before bed is the best preventive measure, according to all the experts who spoke to Healthy Living. Everyone seems to have their own hangover cure -- either commercial or homegrown -- but what does the research actually show?
"My own personal experience with hangovers -- and I've had a couple -- is that a tall glass of water and an hour of time after I wake up and I'm usually OK," says Murray. "Other people who sell hangover cures or tout things like 'hair of the dog' -- those things are probably less useful. You probably don't need to add a lot beyond water."
Given that dehydration is accompanied by electrolyte imbalance from the loss of sodium and potassium (which might help explain those salty breakfast cravings), rebalancing with a sports drink or alternative might be a good idea. And, for a pounding headache, aspirin or ibuprofen -- rather than acetaminophen, which can cause liver damage, especially in conjunction with alcohol -- can help.
Additionally, Schaefer believes that some commercial treatments that involve activated charcoal have a role in treating and preventing hangovers.
"The charcoal is a very fine compound that filters alcohol compounds -- grabbing them out of the system, shunting them into the lower parts of the small intestine. In a way, activated charcoal acts much like the charcoal slurry given to poison victims in the ER," he says. But other experts are skeptical that the charcoal can effectively target alcohol and its byproducts in a person's system.
It's important to remember that the best way to prevent a hangover is not to drink in the first place -- and to drink moderately if you choose to. If you believe that you or someone you know is abusing alcohol or suffering from alcohol addiction or dependency, there are many resources available such as these provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Why Do My Eyelids Twitch?

Why does your eyelid go through twitching phases?
-- Anya

Myokymia, or involuntary eye twitching, is a condition that many of us are familiar with. And it seems everyone has an opinion on what triggers it: Is it fatigue? Eye-strain? Stress?

"Most of the time, myokymia is idiopathic, which is a fancy way of saying we have no idea why it happens," says Dr. Andrea Thau, an associate clinical professor at SUNY Optometry and a spokesperson for the American Optometric Association. "It’s such a benign condition, and tends to resolve on its own, so there's little incentive to research it."

Essentially, myokymia is a twitch -- an involuntary muscle spasm in the upper eyelid muscle that causes a fluttery sensation. The trick to stopping it, according to Thau, is to "break the twitch." She recommends trying alternating hot and cold compresses, which can soothe the overactive nerve that's causing the spasm. If that doesn't work, "try drinking a glass of tonic water," she recommends. "The quinine helps nerve impulses."

Some doctors will prescribe antihistamines for particularly stubborn or enduring eye twitches. If eyes are a bit swollen -- due to low-grade allergic reaction -- that can cause the nervous system to overreact and trigger a twitch.

Huffpost Wellness Editor Patricia Fitzgerald has observed clinically -- which is to say, in an observational, rather than a scientifically rigorous research setting -- that patients of hers have mentioned fatigue and stress in connection to eyelid twitching. Fitzgerald finds that many of her patients' twitches are resolved by acupuncture.

In very rare instances, eyelid twitching can indicate a more serious condition, like the beginning stages of multiple sclerosis or a lesion on the brain stem. Those conditions typically begin with a host of symptoms, and in this circumstance the eyelid twitch soon moves to the facial muscles, as well. It's so rare, in fact, that Thau says she's never seen it in clinic herself.

There is another condition that affects the eyelid muscles, a rare disorder called blepharospasm, in which the eyelids involuntarily close. This can take the form of brief, excessive blinking or squinting and can progress to full eye closure, according to Mary Smith of the Benign Essential Blepharospasm Research Foundation. Blepharospasm affects about 60,000 Americans, and is more likely to affect women and those over 40, Smith says. "It can be problematic, if you don’t know when your eyes are going to shut, you may walk into things or fall," she says. "It’s definitely debilitating."

There's a genetic component to blepharospasm and also a trigger -- sometimes trauma, a secondary condition like dry eye or even external factors like bright or rapidly changing lights. It is most commonly treated with regular Botox injections and, interestingly, blepharospasm was among the conditions listed during Botox's first FDA approval in 1988, according to Smith.

If you experience occasional eye twitches, chances are it's a benign. But it's important to get your eyes checked each year by an ophthalmologist or doctor of optometry to rule out any other problems. Even if it's simply eye strain or stress causing the twitch, it could indicate a need for glasses.

Adult Acne: Why Does It Happen?

I'm a 61-year-old woman who has hardly had a pimple my whole life, til now. Lately, I've been getting these huge, what I call, under-grounders. They hurt like the dickens but never come to a head. They appear around my mouth, near my nose or on my forehead. What is going on?
-- Jane 

A pimple occurs when sebum -- the lubricant that naturally moisturizes our skin and hair -- is trapped under dead skin cells and debris in a hair follicle, according to the Mayo Clinic. Typically, sebum rises to the surface, where it is able to condition the skin. If it gets trapped, it creates an ideal circumstance for bacteria to grow. What Jane calls "under-grounders" are actually pockets of sebum and bacteria that are trapped further down along the hair shaft, deep within the follicle.

Adult acne is common -- about 30 percent of women and 20 percent of men between the ages of 20 and 60 have breakouts, according to WebMD. So why would a person develop acne later in life? Very often, it's related to hormones.

"When adult women experience acne outbreaks, hormones are usually the primary culprit," dermatologist Dr. Diane S. Berson said in an interview with Medical News Daily. "Hormonal acne can be particularly frustrating because it may not respond to the same over-the-counter treatments that worked for some women during their teenage years."

At 61, menopause, hormonal treatments or a growing ratio of androgen (male) hormones like testosterone may be contributing to the sudden emergence of acne, according to an explainer by the American Academy of Dermatology. Research shows that testosterone, for example, causes increased production of sebum by the sebaceous gland.

Other causes of adult acne can be medication related -- some psychotropic medications, like lithium, or steroids or hormonal medications can contribute to acne breakouts, according to the Mayo Clinic.
The best course of action may be to talk to a doctor about having your hormone levels checked and to speak with a dermatologist about proper skincare. Since many acne medications and special soaps are geared towards teenage skin, which is thicker and less dry, picking the right skin care regimen for an adult requires greater care.

Who Decides Serving Sizes?

How do they decide what a serving size is?
-- Gina

Believe it or not, we decide what a serving size is. The unit we see at the top of our nutrition labels (eight cookies, 100 grams, half a bottle, e.g.) comes from the average amount that Americans over the age of four consume in a single seating. And that average comes from federal food surveys. When nutrition labeling on packages became standardized in 1994, a U.S. Department of Agriculture task force used answers from the two previous Nationwide Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (known as the NHANES) to determine how much a typical person eats at one time. These averaged amounts are known within the industry as "reference amounts customarily consumed per eating occasion."
In other words, the current serving size on your bag of chips is a reflection of your fellow citizens' eating habits -- as they were between 1978 and 1988, when the two NHANES data were released.
But let's back up for a moment and discuss what a serving size actually is -- and is not. A serving size is a measurement that allows food manufacturers to create accurate and uniform nutrition labels across brands. It is not a prescriptive size that relates to health. "You’ve got servings related to the nutrition facts panel and then another issue is a reasonable portion of food to build a healthy eating pattern," says Dr. Robert Post, executive director of the USDA's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion. "That may be a little bit different. The serving size might be bigger than what we’d use in the nutrition world to promote good habits."

Instead, Post -- who previously worked for the task force that helped determine serving size -- recommends ignoring that measure when determining a reasonable portion size. "It's really an industry regulation tool," he tells HuffPost Healthy Living.
Serving sizes are also occasionally unrealistic. For example, a serving size of potato chips is ten chips. But when a family size bag is opened, we all know what happens -- half the bag disappears.
At this point you may be wondering what we starting wondering as we spoke to Post and investigated the industrial regulations on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's website. What about foods that have been created since the labeling regulations were put in place? When a manufacturer wants to bring a new food to market, they must classify their food -- say, a "snacking cracker" (as opposed to a non-snacking cracker, a category that includes ice cream cones) -- and then look up the reference amount on a large database. The FDA and USDA share regulation, splitting jurisdiction by food group. The FDA, for example, is responsible for ensuring serving size accuracy for things like bread and yogurt; the USDA regulates things like meat, poultry and some egg products.
Of course, most of us do not have a new and innovative food to label -- we simply want to know how much snacking we can do to maintain a healthful diet. In that instance, you may be better off talking to a nutritionist or looking at the USDA's MyPlate guidelines. But it's always good to know where your health information comes from -- and it's a major advance for healthy eating that we have a tool through which we can equally measure different brands and versions of the same products.

Eat Before A Workout: Is It Necessary?

Honestly, when working out first thing in the morning, do I really need to eat before? Especially if I'm just doing a quick 30-minute run or elliptical?
-- Alicia, 26, Shreveport, Louisiana

With all of the marketing of sports drinks, bars, gels and powders, this is an excellent question to ask. There's certainly no harm in eating -- and it might help you meet your fitness goals by giving you more energy during the actual run or elliptical workout.
"It's a contradiction, but you really do need the calories to perform well," Barbara Lewin, R.D., L.D., a sports nutritionist who works with professional and Olympic athletes, said in an earlier interview about sports drink alternatives. "The calories are what's enabling you to work out at your best. If you're not well-fueled, you're not going to work out as hard."
And certainly, if you're planning an endurance training session, you must eat. According to Andrea Hacker Thompson, M.S., R.D., of the American College of Sports Medicine, endurance athletes should eat even when they aren't hungry. She wrote:

A race car never starts a race without new tires and a full tank of gas, so an endurance athlete should not start a workout without fueling. Eating before a workout guarantees that the body starts with a full tank of glycogen.

But even for those of us who aren't trying to run an ultramarathon, if we plan a rigorous session of 90 minutes or longer, getting a bit to eat beforehand is a good idea. To understand why, it's important to know how our bodies use energy during a workout. When we exert ourselves, we burn glycogen -- the cache of glucose we keep stored in our muscle and liver cells. After we've gone through that store of carbohydrates, we can start to feel fatigued. As Thompson explains for the ACSM, the body can store about 2,000 calories in glycogen. If you plan to go over that amount (and, wow, that's quite a workout if you do!), you could begin to get light-headed, weak or just plain exhausted.
But for a 30 minute treadmill session? You probably don't have to make a concerted effort to eat enough. You do, on the other hand, have to keep hydrated. Water is fine for a half-hour run, but any workout over an hour may require some electrolyte replacement -- such as a sports drink or a piece of fruit.
Beyond the question of whether or not to eat, there are other considerations. It's important not to eat too much -- or too little. And to know when to eat it. The Mayo Clinic provides a guideline, suggesting a small snack about an hour before exercising or a medium meal two hours before a gym session. For a full meal, they recommend giving yourself a three to four hour time period between eating and hitting the gym. Overdo it, and you could give yourself stomach cramps or even diarrhea.
Most of all, it's important to note your own reaction to food and figure out an eating plan that's right for you. Feel fine during a morning run, even without that yogurt? Skip it. But if you need a little something for extra energy, there's nothing wrong with starting with a snack.

Losing The Last 10 Pounds: Why Does Weight Loss Get Harder?

"Why is it so hard to lose the last 10 pounds? And why is it harder to lose weight the smaller I get?"
-- Tamara

Anyone who has tried to lose weight knows about those frustratingly immobile final five or 10 pounds. And while there are a lot of suggestions (just Google "last 10 pounds" and you'll enter an echo-chamber of weight loss advice, scientific half-truths and can-do enthusiasm), the truth is that several pretty straight-forward reasons can explain that unshakeable weight.
The first is easy to fix, but also the most psychologically daunting: it could be something called "diet fatigue," in which the repetitive behaviors dieting requires -- keeping a food journal, weighing portion sizes, skipping that glass of wine -- become arduous, hard to manage and, frankly, boring.
"Dieters become less careful, they are not taking the precautions they did in terms of knowing what they ate, how much," says Carla Wolper, Ed.D., R,D., research faculty at the Obesity Research Center at St. Luke’s and assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia Medical Center. "They may not realize they’re not as careful anymore."

That's not an invitation for blame -- it can happen insidiously and there's an easy solution. If the scale needle slows its descent, simply write what you eat down in a food journal. "Keeping food records is always recommended," says Wolper. "Studies show that people will lose weight, even if they don’t do anything different to their diet but simply start writing it down."
There is also the possibility that it's time to recalculate. When a person begins to lose weight, their metabolic rate drops. In other words, they need fewer calories to meet basic functioning and requirements. While a 150-pound woman might have a certain basic metabolic rate, that rate may drop when she becomes a 130-pound woman. That's why it's a good idea to reevaluate caloric needs after more than 10 pounds of weight loss, according to Wolper.
"People who are normal weight tend to eat fewer calories than people who are overweight, every day, forever," agrees Rebecca E. Lee, director of the Texas Obesity Research Center and a professor of nutrition in the Department of Health and Human Performance at the University of Houston. "It takes fewer calories to maintain a lower body weight. This doesn't necessarily mean that they eat less volume -- they might, but they also might eat more nutrient dense foods that have fewer calories, like vegetables, fruits, lean meats, etc."
There's an additional consideration regarding metabolism: something called "metabolic adaptation."
"When dieting, your body is forced to work on a reduced number of calories per day. Eventually your body adapts and trains itself to live on whatever calories it gets -- without losing weight. This built-in survival mechanism is your body’s way to protect you against starvation," says Dr. Caroline J. Cederquist, a metabolic expert and board-certified medical weight management specialists. "Once you have hit this point, you may manage to lose a few bonus pounds, but they will come off much more slowly and, before you know it, the weight you lost may start to come back on!"
So what can you do? Interestingly, the answer is not exercise. (Which is not to say you shouldn't exercise. Please exercise!) Very often we're told that building muscle mass will help rev up our metabolisms because muscle tissue burns more calories per hour than fat tissue does. But, as Wolper explains, the difference in caloric burn rate is minor. Fat tissue burns about two calories per pound per day, while muscle tissue of the same weight burns seven calories per day. If someone made a significant change -- transformed two pounds of fat into two pounds of muscle, that would amount to a difference of 10 more calories burned per day.
"The truth is that skeletal muscle doesn’t burn that much more than fat. Our brains burn the most calories. In fact, the lean tissue that burns a lot of calories is our heart, lungs, liver and brain. About 60 percent of the calories that are burned come from those four sources," says Wolper.
Exercise may help create a greater calorie deficit and that will help further along weight loss or help maintain sustained weight loss -- but it won't make a big metabolic difference.
Instead, in addition to redoubling food journal efforts and recalculating caloric intake for one's new size, Cederquist recommends something she calls a "metabolic adjustment phase." Instead of reducing calories, she suggests a two-week period of increased meal sizes. "During this phase, the goal is not to lose weight, but to readjust your body’s ability to metabolize an increasing number of calories, by increasing portion sizes and bumping up caloric intake."
Most of all, it's important to evaluate one's goals. Have you reached a healthy weight? If so and if continued weight loss is a huge struggle, it may be time to consider entering a maintenance phase. "Focus on the benefits of maintaining your weight loss," says Cederquist. "And remember that maintaining is as important as losing."