Health Gem

If you do one thing this week... sit less

HOW LONG do you sit for extended periods each day?

Maybe it happens at work, in the car or when you are watching TV. Just like some people measure their steps with a pedometer, it could also be an interesting experiment to work out how long you spend on your backside.

New analysis published in BMJ Open looked at the impact of sitting and television viewing on population life expectancy in the USA. The study looked at published findings on the association between sitting or television viewing and all-cause mortality and also looked at figures on sedentary behaviour.

“The analyses indicate that population life expectancy in the USA would be 2 years higher if adults reduced their time spent sitting to [less than 3 hours per day] and 1.38 years higher if they reduced television viewing to [less than 2 hours were day].”

Quote of the Day

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; We grow old because we stop playing." George Bernard Shaw

How to live beyond 100 years of age

There are over 12,000 100-year-olds in the country, and over the next twenty-five years that number is expected to rise to almost 90,000. A quarter of all children born today are expected to live beyond one hundred. But what is it like to live one hundred years?   http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00tt1vv

Photography festival launched in Temple Bar

Photography festival launched in Temple Bar

Health Gem

If you do one thing this week...get more salad

SO SUMMER in Ireland has been a bit hit and miss this year, but just as we try to make the most of the sun when it shows up, it seems you might also get more of the nutrients in a summer salad by using your salad dressing wisely.

A study at Purdue University looked at how fat levels in dressings affected how 29 people took up plant compounds called carotenoids from salads in experiments.

The findings, published in Molecular Nutrition Food Research, suggest that fat – and particularly the polyunsaturated fat – was linked with better carotenoid absorption.

Of course adding too much fat-laden salad dressing can also send the calories into the stratosphere, so you need to keep an eye on that, but the research echoes previous findings that our bodies take up these plant compounds better when we eat a bit of fat with them too.

Extract from Irish Times