8 Foods to Eat for Healthier Hair Slideshow

Eggs

Eggs (particularly egg whites) are high in sulfur, which is sometimes called the “beauty mineral” because of its ability to promote blood circulation and stimulate hair growth.

Greek Yogurt

Greek yogurt contains vitamin B5 (also known as pantothenic acid), which may help against hair thinning and loss. Pantothenic acid is a common ingredient in haircare products, and a lack of this vitamin can cause damage to the follicles.

Kiwi

Kiwi is rich in vitamins C and E — two nutrients that are most effective when consumed together. Vitamin C helps with iron absorption, which is necessary for hair follicle growth, and it also improves circulation to the scalp. Vitamin E promotes scalp health and hair elasticity

Lentils

Lentils are rich in protein and iron, which are both critical to healthy hair growth. Protein helps fortify the root of the follicle (which comprises protein cells) and allows for longer strands of hair, while iron carries oxygen to the hair and stimulates hair follicle growth. Iron deficiency was found to be one of the most common reasons for hair loss in pre-menopausal women. One cup of cooked lentils offers 36 percent of your recommended daily intake of iron

Mackerel

Mackerel is one of the best sources of omega-3 fatty acids, and unlike other fatty fish *for instance, tuna), it contains very little mercury. Omega-3 fatty acids support the oil glands around hair follicles, giving hair an added level of shine. (A vegan-friendly alternative , that's also high in Omega-3 fatty acids, is walnuts.)

Mushrooms

Mushrooms are naturally high in biotin, one of the B-complex vitamins that is a popular remedy for hair loss. Although the effects of biotin on hair health are yet to be substantiated by scientific research, hair loss often accompanies biotin deficiencies

Pumpkin Seeds

Pumpkin seeds are a healthy hair superfood because of the high amounts of zinc and copper they contain. Zinc is crucial for promoting cell growth and supporting the oil secreting glands in the scalp, while copper improves hair’s thickness. Too much zinc can hinder the body’s ability to absorb copper, but pumpkin seeds provide a well-balanced ratio.

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6 nutrients for healthy hair

The secret to thick, strong, shiny strands isn't an expensive shampoo or fancy salon treatment—it's all about your diet. Eating a variety of healthy foods will give you the mane you've always dreamed of. Fill up on these nutrients to begin growing your healthiest hair ever.-- By Hallie Levine Sklar, Health.com

Iron and zinc

Iron and zinc help hair follicles to grow, says Wilma Bergfeld, MD, a dermatologist at the Cleveland Clinic. She suggests eating lean red meat, which is rich in both nutrients, twice a week. Pair nonmeat sources, such as soybeans or lentils, with a vitamin C-rich food like an orange to boost iron absorption.

Vitamin D

Several studies have found that vitamin D may help activate hair growth. However, D is a tricky vitamin. Few foods contain it naturally, and although sitting in the sun for a few minutes a day can help your body produce more of it, many experts advise against it due to the increased exposure to harmful UV rays. Your best bet? Take a 1,000 IU supplement daily.

Protein

Protein is one of the building blocks of life, promoting cell growth and repair—and it boosts your hair strength, too! Women should get at least 46 grams a day (3 ounces of chicken has about 23).

Omega-3 Fatty Acids

Eat fatty fish (like salmon) twice a week for hydrated hair, or take up to 1 gram a day of a DHA and EPA supplement. In addition to silky hair, omega-3s may help relieve depression and are a proven heart-helper. 

Biotin

Eggs are rich in this B vitamin essential for growth. (They're also an excellent source of protein, choline, and vitamin D.)Not an egg fan? You could also take 30mcg supplement daily. This gallery originally appeared on Health.com.

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I Got Listeria From a Container of Sabra Hummus and Will Never Ignore a Food Recall Again

What is listeria

The listeria that we most commonly hear about is a bacteria called listeria monocytogenes. It's a food borne pathogen that causes the infection known as listeriosis. In the United States, listeria causes approximately 1,600 illnesses and 260 deaths each year. These numbers are alarming, but they aren't even the worst news. It's reported that 20 to 30 percent of food borne listeriosis infections in high-risk individuals could be fatal.

Listeria most commonly attacks the central nervous system. This leads to the following symptoms: fever, muscle aches, headache, stiff neck, dizziness, confusion, and loss of balance

 
© Christin Urso listeria vegetable hummus

How did it affect me

Listeria mainly affects the elderly, pregnant women, and people with a weakened immune system. Although rare, it can affect other individuals as well, which is what happened to me. Back in the spring of 2015, I was obsessed with Sabra hummus. So much so, that I would go through a container a week (sometimes two). Around late March, I started to feel weak and exhausted all the time.

My body ached constantly, which made the simplest of my daily activities difficult. My neck was always stiff and that contributed to many painful headaches. I even started to fall behind in my classes because I couldn't understand the material I had previously learned. On one terrible day as I was walking to class, I completely lost my lunch right on the sidewalk (like every other day, I had eaten hummus for lunch).

I couldn't look at hummus the same way after that day, and stopped my Sabra addiction cold turkey. I was absolutely exhausted from everything that my body was going through. Like every other dependent college kid, I called my mom and explained everything that had happened. After I talked her out of driving 500 miles on a whim to take care of me, she insisted I see a doctor to find out what was going on

 
© Annie Eng listeria coffee sweet
 

Throughout the period of about two weeks, I had seen three different doctors. Each doctor had a different reason for what was causing all my symptoms. Amongst the diagnoses that I was given were sinus infection and seasonal allergies. I was given an antibiotic for the sinus infection and sent on my way.

I've always trusted doctors' opinions, but I couldn't help but get more frustrated with every visit. Nothing they attributed my symptoms to seemed to line up with how terrible I felt. I've had my fair share of sinus infections and I've never suffered from more than mild seasonal allergies. In addition, these diagnoses didn't give me an answer for several of my symptoms, like muscle aches and difficulty focusing on my schoolwork.

I finally started to feel better about a week after taking the antibiotic. To put the timeline into perspective, I had been feeling ill for about a month. I was finally feeling more like my healthy self when I came home one day to my roommate freaking out while holding a container of Sabra hummus

Sterling Martin listeria candy sweet

I had no idea what was going on. She was going off about how she had eaten half of the container when she heard the news that Sabra had recalled their hummus for listeria contaminations. I had no idea what listeria was at the time, but I decided to look at the lot number on the container that I had bought before I quit eating it. Sure enough, my lot number matched the ones that were being recalled.

I quickly looked up the symptoms of listeriosis and everything matched my symptoms. I called my doctor to explain that I had eaten two to three tubs of contaminated hummus and asked if that could have been the cause of my illness. My doctor agreed that my symptoms aligned with those due to a listeria infection, likely because of the amount of contaminated hummus I had consumed.

He also went on to explain that because the listeria recall was announced after my exposure and visits, he had not even thought about that possibility. In addition, I didn't fit the typical profile of an at-risk individual. Nonetheless, the antibiotic that I had been given for a "sinus infection" had likely killed off the listeria bacteria.

You're probably wondering why I'm even bringing this up if it happened almost two years ago. The truth is that my listeria infection has had lasting impacts on my life. I didn't do as well in school that semester as I could have and it took my body months to recover. It was exhausting being sick and trying to maintain a job, school, and friends.

I haven't touched Sabra hummus since that recall. And ever since, I have been very cautious with what I eat and I pay close attention to recalls in the news

  © Jocelyn Hsu listeria seafood fillet
 

How can we prevent infection

On the consumer side, the easiest way to prevent infection is to listen to recalls and practice safe-handling, cooking, and consumption of food. Companies have been getting better at identifying contaminations before any illness cases are recorded. It's also important to check to make sure refrigerators and freezers are set to their appropriate safe temperatures. This ensures that foods are kept at safe cooling levels to prevent the growth of listeria.

Pay attention to the use-by dates on precooked or ready-to-eat foods. And don't leave them in the fridge past that date. By being smart with our food and listening to recalls, we can cut down on the spread of listeria and the number of infections

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Woman Drops 72 Lbs. Thanks to Her Instagram Followers: ‘I Couldn’t Have Done It Without the Support’

Lobke Meulemeester had always struggled with her weight, but she really began putting on extra pounds after her mother died in October 2013.

“I stopped caring about myself and my diet and health,” Meulemeester, 35, tells PEOPLE. “That why in January 2015 I reached my highest weight of 233 lbs.”

The U.K.-based professional translator says she didn’t think twice about eating unhealthy foods, and her diet consisted of bread with butter, cookies, chips, pizza and chocolate.

She knew she had to make a change when doing day-to-day tasks became difficult.

“I couldn’t walk a small distance without having back pain,” says Meulemeester. “Going up the stairs got me out of breath. Doing up shoe laces was impossible unless I would hold my breath due to my big growing stomach.”

In March 2015, Meulemeester joined Weight Watchers and bought a Fitbit to track her activity. She started out going for walks, and eventually started taking Zumba classes. She also completely overhauled her diet.

“I learned to control my food, made wiser choices, and ate more fruit and vegetables, but still had the occasional treat worked into my plan,” she says. “That way I never felt as if I was missing out on something.”

Meulemeester shared her progress on Instagram and credits encouragement from her followers with helping her stay on track.

“I really couldn’t have done it without the support of these people,” says Meulemeester, who now has 85.7k followers. “I have tried so many times to lose weight, but never succeeded like I have now. There have been many days when I felt like giving up but the support I have received has been so immense that it’s kept me going.”

She has now dropped 72 lbs. and still follows a Weight Watchers plan to stay on track. Along the way, Meulemeester has found a new appreciation for herself and her body.

“I have found more respect for myself, and I no longer beat myself up for how I look,” she says. “I like what I see in the mirror, and I am so proud of myself for accomplishing what I have so far. I enjoy clothes shopping, I am no longer paranoid when I walk on the streets thinking everyone is looking at me. I feel happier within myself and I am enjoying life again

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Having Trouble Hearing? Maybe It's Not Your Ears

TUESDAY, Nov. 29, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Seniors who struggle to make out what people are saying around the dinner table or on a noisy street may have perfectly "normal" hearing. The problem could actually be in the brain, a new study suggests.

Trouble processing conversations in a loud setting may indicate that the brain's ability to quickly and easily process speech is diminished.

The findings demonstrate that "separately from any typical hearing loss that might occur as we age, our brains also get worse at processing the sound of talking when there are other sounds at the same time," said study co-author Jonathan Simon. He's an associate professor at the University of Maryland's Institute for Systems Research.

"The background noise may not even be considered especially loud by younger listeners," he noted.

But "the implication is that typical older adults need to exert more effort, and take more time, in order to understand what someone is saying to them when there's also noise, even only moderate noise, around them," Simon explained.

About one in three Americans aged 65 to 74 has some degree of hearing loss, according to the U.S. National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. For those 75 or older, half have difficulty hearing.

The new study included 17 young adults (aged 18 to 27) and 15 older adults (aged 61 to 73). All had normal hearing and were dementia-free.

All had a series of hearing tests, some of which included background noise. All also underwent brain scans focused on two regions of the brain: the midbrain, which controls basic sound processing; and the cortex, which is critical to speech comprehension.

Younger adults performed significantly better than seniors in both quiet and noisy settings. But the researchers found that noisy settings were more challenging for seniors.

The scans suggested why.

Midbrain scans revealed that neurological signaling related to hearing was weaker among the older study participants. And cortex scans suggested that auditory information took longer to process among seniors than young adults.

Why? The study authors theorized that the problem could trace back to normal age-related nerve impairment that undermines signaling and communication between nerve cells in the brain.

Regardless, the bottom line was clear: seniors often have to expend more effort to hear, and often end up with worse results.

"Typical seniors who have difficulty understanding what someone is saying in a noisy room will have both kinds of degradation," said Simon, referring to loss of actual hearing function as well as brain-processing problems.

And that means that while hearing aids "may be an important part of any solution to general problems with hearing," they don't solve the whole problem, Simon said.

The solution, he added, could be a kind of physical therapy for hearing and speech recognition.

"There is -- in theory, not yet in practice -- a real possibility of restoring enough of the youthful aspects of the brain to help with this problem," Simon said.

Robert Frisina directs the University of South Florida's Global Center for Hearing and Speech Research, in Tampa. Though he was not involved with the new research, he called "the Maryland study a good advance in this area."

"Now, it is pretty well accepted that neurodegenerative changes in the parts of the brain used for hearing play a significant role in age-linked hearing loss and speech perception problems, particularly in background noise," he said.

"As the aging brain is understood more and more at molecular levels, these molecular changes become the prospective targets for drug or medication interventions," Frisina added.

Future interventions may ultimately involve a combination of both hearing therapy and cutting-edge medicine, Frisina said.

The study was published recently in the Journal of Neurophysiology.

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Daily Aspirin Benefits Could Outweigh Risks

A new study from Cardiff University has examined the risks and benefits of taking aspirin daily. Researchers found that aspirin's potential side effect of stomach bleeding is less of a concern than the spontaneous bleeds that can happen in people who don't take the drug.

The study also showed that there's no increased risk of death from such bleeding, leading researchers to hope that the news will spur older people and those with conditions that aspirin treats, including heart disease, to use more of it. 

To reach their findings, the team used a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials, according to Medical XPress. This type of research draws on the most relevant evidence, therefore it provides “ the strongest evidence for drawing causal conclusions,” the publication reported. 

Low-doses of aspirin are an effective additional treatment for patients with cancer, according to recent research. Alongside chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy, the drugs have proven to reduce the deaths of patients with bowel, and possibly other cancers, by a further 15 percent.

According to Medical XPress, research has also shown that a small daily dose of aspirin can reduce the occurrences of both heart disease and cancer by around 30 to 30 percent.

"With our study showing that there is no increased risk of death from stomach bleeding in people who take regular aspirin, we hope there will be better confidence in the drug and wider use of it by older people, leading to important reductions in deaths and disablement from heart disease and cancer across the community,” said Professor Peter Elwood from Cardiff University's School of Medicine, according to Medical XPress.

Source: Elwood PC, Morgan G, Galante J, Chia JWK, Graziano JM, et al. Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomised Trials to Ascertain Fatal Gastrointestinal Bleeding Events Attributable to Preventive Low-Dose Aspirin: No Evidence of Increased Risk. PLOS ONE. 2016.

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3 Foods To Eat For Those With High Blood Pressure And Diabetes

This question originally appeared on Quora. Answer by MJ Thomas, Health and Nutrition Expert

What is the diet suggested for patients suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes

Chronic inflammation is an increasingly common health condition that contributes to heart disease,diabetes, obesity arthritis and metabolic syndrome. Caused by a number of environmental factors including eating processed foods, saturated fats, sugar, and chemicals, inflammation is a dangerous condition that mimics many other serious health issues.

Fortunately, there are a number of natural foods that reduce inflammation levels in the body - these include fresh fruits and vegetables, fish, whole grains, and certain spices. Increasing the amount of omega-3 fatty acids in the diet is perhaps the most important step in preventing inflammation in the body

  Top Anti-Inflammatory Diet Foods

Ginger

With over 500 natural compounds, ginger has a number of health benefits - including calming an upset stomach, preventing motion sickness, and reducing inflammation. While science has yet discovered exactly how fresh ginger reduces inflammation in the body, it has been shown to reduce inflammation that contributes to arthritis and various cancers.

 Vitamin C

Found in grapefruit, oranges, lemons and many vegetables, vitamin C is most commonly known for its cold fighting abilities. However, vitamin c is also a powerful antioxidant that reduces the harmful effects of stress and teams with vitamin E to serve as a very effective anti inflammatory food.

Being water-soluble, vitamin C is not stored in the body; meaning it needs to be consumed throughout the day to maintain appropriate levels. Since the typical American diet is low in vitamin C, 1,000 to 4,000 mg (milligrams) a day through fresh fruit, vegetables, or supplement is recommended

  Omega-3 and Essential Fatty Acids

Omega-3 and essential fatty acids are good, healthy fats that assist in preventing heart disease, joint pain, mental health issues, and inflammation. People typically consume most of omega fats from vegetable oil, however this is omega 6, and omega 3. Omega 3s are found in wild-caught fish, quality fish and krill oil, avocado, and olive oil.

The ideal anti inflammatory ratio of omega 6 to omega 3 is 1:1, currently the average American diet contains a ration of 20:1. With significant research demonstrating omega-3 fatty acids reduce inflammation and prevent significant health issues like diabetes and heart disease, it is recommended that 1,000 mg is consumed twice a day.

Inflammation contributes to many preventable health conditions, including diabetes and heart disease. Make sure you eat a diet is rich in anti-inflammatory foods, including avocados, fish, oranges, lemons, and ginger - and prevent these dangerous health conditions.

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