Healthy Tips-Long night fasting may cut risk of breast cancer recurrence

Breast cancer survivors can cut their risk of the deadly disease from recurring by fasting for longer at night, says a new research.

The risk of recurrence in those who fought the disease may be linked to how many hours they avoid food for at night.

The findings showed that a short ‘night fast’ of less than 13 hours led to a 36 percent greater chance of tumours returning in women treated for early-stage breast cancer.

“Our study introduces a novel dietary intervention strategy and indicates that prolonging the length of the nightly fasting interval could be a simple and feasible strategy to reduce breast cancer recurrence,” said lead author Catherine Marinac, doctoral candidate at University of California, San Diego in US.

Also, going to bed too soon after eating may increase the risk of breast cancer coming back.

A longer nightly fasting interval can significantly lower the concentrations of HbA1c (Glycated hemoglobin) and longer duration of nighttime sleeping.

Interventions to prolong the nightly fasting interval could also potentially reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other cancers.

However, shorter fasting was not associated with a higher risk for death from breast cancer or from any other causes.

For the study, published online by JAMA Oncology, the team collected data on 2,413 women with early breast cancer who participated in the Women’s Healthy Eating and Living study, which looked at the effects of diet on women’s health.

Between 1995 and 2007, that is, during an average of 7.3 years of follow-up, the researchers looked at invasive breast cancer recurrence and new primary breast tumors.

Women who participated in the study were of an average age of 52.4 years and kept average fasting duration of 12.5 hours per night.

The findings from this study have broad and significant implications for public health. Randomised trials are needed to adequately test whether prolonging the nightly fasting interval can reduce the risk of chronic disease,” the researchers concluded.

Health Tips-The health benefits of coffee

Coffee often gets bad press, which – in some cases – is for good reason, especially if you’re drinking lots of it or always using it as a pick-me-up in the afternoon. However, there are lots of health benefits in these little beans too, when drunk in moderation and not in a calorie-laden white chocolate mocha with whipped cream on top!

Let’s start with the liver. Research has shown that drinking two or more cups a day can help protect your liver against certain diseases, including cirrhosis. Coffee is also packed full of antioxidants and, for big coffee drinkers, is often the biggest source of antioxidants in the diet. Antioxidants are important for many reasons, including helping protect against free radical damage and therefore diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s. But that doesn’t mean that coffee can replace all those amazing antioxidants from fruit and vegetables!

We all know that the caffeine in coffee can help with energy levels, as it is often found in energy and sports drinks, and, of course, many people use it to help them get through that ‘4pm slump’. However, caffeine can also help improve your memory and mood. When you drink a cup of coffee, the caffeine is absorbed into the bloodstream and travels to the brain. Once in the brain the caffeine blocks an inhibitory neurotransmitter called adenosine, which in turn allows an increase in other neurotransmitters that help fire your neurons and increase your alertness and memory. There is also increasing evidence that coffee can help protect against neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and reduce the risk of depression, too.

Coffee also contains some essential nutrients including B vitamins, magnesium and potassium, and isn’t dehydrating on the body as some may think. According to research, coffee is in fact almost as hydrating as plain water and counts towards your total daily fluid count, plus it’s low in calories when drunk black.

Do be careful with coffee, though, as some people can be really sensitive to it. Even one cup can cause ‘caffeine shakes’ where the body feels a bit jittery and shaky, or cause nausea. It can also cause a slight increase in blood pressure, so if you suffer from high blood pressure then coffee is best avoided.

5 Step To Boost Women Gut Health

Your Five Step Plan

So how to promote more diversity, boost levels of good bugs and reap the health, weight and wellbeing benefits? Here, distilled from the latest research, is a practical five-step guide to rebuilding and recalibrating your healthy gut bacteria, and being healthier and happier as a result.

1 Veg out

Eating lots of veg is a key recommendation from all the new healthy gut plans. In The Gut Makeover, Hyde recommends having at least seven handfuls of produce a day (five veg, two fruit, 20-30 different varieties per week), while Chutkan suggests implementing a 3:2:1 regimen for mealtimes – one portion of veg at breakfast, two at lunch and three at dinner. The reason? ‘A helpful way to think about the relationship between eating plants and gut bacteria is that the plant fibre that can’t be broken down and absorbed by your body ends up feeding your gut bacteria instead, explains Chutkan. ‘That means less food for you (think easier weight loss) and more for your microbes.’

2 Select gut-friendly carbs

In essence, that’s any of the whole grain or unprocessed, types (the fibre advantage again). But to really turbo charge your good bugs, it’s important to include carbohydrates with prebiotics in them (prebiotics include inulin, fructo- and galacto-oligosaccharides and in horticulture terms are like giving your gut bacteria a big dose of organic fertiliser). Foods highest in prebiotic carbs are onions, garlic, leeks, asparagus and Jerusalem artichokes, but you can also find them in bananas (the greener the better) and chicory coffee replacement. Another food with prebiotic properties is the ‘resistant starch’ which forms in significant amounts when starchy carbohydrates are chilled after cooking. To harness the benefits of resistant starch for your bacteria means plumping for chilled potato salad over baked potato, and cooking your pasta and rice ahead, and then reheating (thoroughly) for dinner the next day.

3 Include fermented foods

Different experts have their different takes on which fermented foods to consume, but they all agree that by eating them you can introduce important probiotic (friendly) cultures into your system that help keep the microbiome alive and kicking. The most familiar fermented food is natural probiotic (or ‘bio’) yogurt, while at the more delightful end of the scale, a smelly Roquefort, good strong Cheddar or chunk of Parmesan will also give your good bugs a boost. For a more hardcore (and potent) option, try whizzing kefir into a smoothie (Mlekovita Kefir, £1.39 a litre, tesco.com), a helping of freshly made sauerkraut  (from £3.99, theculturecellar.co.uk) or kimchi (from £6.49, theculturecellar.co.uk). Chutkan gives a detailed account of how to ferment your own veg, kimchi-style, in her book.

4 Don’t graze

Giving your gut some down time looks likely to benefit your biome, with a study from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California showing that when mice were only allowed an eight-hour window in which to eat they absorbed fewer calories from their food. The eight-hour access groups also had more diversity of bacterial species in their guts than the ad lib groups. Previous research has shown that a period of fasting or calorie restriction beneficially alters gut bacteria, perhaps by avoiding a constant stream of sugar into the bloodstream, which raises insulin levels and might give less healthy bugs the upper hand. If an eight-hour window seems a bit undoable, Hyde recommends giving your gut at least a 12-hour break – in practical terms, not eating until eight in the morning if you finished dinner at eight the night before. Professor Tim Spector goes further, suggesting that skipping breakfast may actually be a healthy strategy for some people (he’s also a fan of the 5:2 regimen). Whatever approach you take, it seems at the very least, it’s important to eat substantial meals that reduce the need to snack in between.

 

5 Dial down the sugar

The health of your microbiome is yet another good reason to cut down on the sweet stuff. ‘Simple carbohydrates found in soft drinks, baked goods and other processed grains cause undesirable shifts in microbial composition, and can lead to the proliferation of yeasts,’ says Chutkan. Unfortunately, sweeteners such as saccharin and aspartame may not be your microbiome’s friend either – although the significance of the findings to humans have been disputed, a study published in the journal Nature in 2014 identified gut bacteria changes and associated glucose intolerance in mice who were given high levels of sweeteners. For your gut, as well a your general health, when it comes to drinks, it seems water is best.

 

Health Tips-Curb your sweet tooth

Got a late-night sugar craving that just won't quit? "To satisfy your sweet tooth without pushing yourself over the calorie edge, even in the late night hours, think 'fruit first,'" says Jackie Newgent, RD, author of The Big Green Cookbook. So resist that chocolate cake siren, and instead enjoy a sliced apple with a tablespoon of nut butter (like peanut or almond) or fresh fig halves spread with ricotta. Then sleep sweet, knowing you're still on the right, healthy track.

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