Keep fiber in diet when cutting carbs
IF YOU’RE ON A LOW-CARB DIET, be sure to consider how you’ll get your fiber, advises a highly regarded health newsletter. A high-fiber diet is thought to lower the risk of diabetes, gastrointestinal disorders, heart disease and obesity. Here are some tips from the Mayo Clinic Women’s HealthSource newsletter on how to increase fiber in your diet:
• Eat a high-fiber cereal or add unprocessed wheat bran to your cereal.
• Add bran cereal or unprocessed bran when making foods such as meatloaf, breads, muffins, cakes and cookies.
• Choose whole-grain bread instead of white bread. Look for bread made from 100 percent whole-wheat flour.
• Substitute whole-wheat flour for half or all the white flour when baking.
• Try brown rice, barley, whole-wheat pasta and bulgur.
• Add canned kidney beans, garbanzos and other beans to canned soups and salads.
• Snack on fresh fruit, dried fruit, raw vegetables, low-fat popcorn and whole-grain crackers.
• Add barley to soups and stews.
To subscribe to the Mayo Clinic Women’s HealthSource, call (800) 876-8633.
Cruise ship health
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers these tips for staying healthy while on a cruise vacation.
1. Wash your hands thoroughly and often. Wash them before and after eating, before and after smoking, after touching your face, after going to the bathroom and, of course, when your hands are dirty.
2. Leave the area if you see someone get sick (vomiting or diarrhea). Report it to cruise staff. You could become sick if you ingest contaminated particles that travel through the air.
3. Get plenty of rest and drink lots of water. Resting helps rebuild your immune system. Drinking water helps prevent dehydration.
4. If you’re ill before taking a cruise, call the cruise line to determine if there are alternative cruising options.
Permanent makeup risks
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last week alerted consumers to adverse reactions to certain shades of ink used in permanent makeup, a form of tattooing used to outline lips and eyes and add color to eyebrows.
The reactions include swelling, cracking, peeling, blistering and scarring. For more information, go to www.fda.gov.
Joint replacement recognition
A health-care consulting company has named three regional hospitals as “better performers” in total joint replacement procedures.
Holy Family Hospital and Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, and St. Mary Medical Center in Walla Walla, received the top performer status from Premier, Inc., a company that does group purchasing and other services for hospitals nationwide.
The three hospitals, all part of the Providence Health Care system, are among 10 top hospitals. They were chosen from more than 530 hospitals that participated in a performance study.
Criteria included an evaluation of each hospital’s operational and clinical performance, a review of data from more than 100 major joint replacement cases during 2001 and a two-day site visit of each hospital by a team of medical experts. The team reviewed the hospitals’ process for total joint replacement, starting with the decision to do surgery and ending with post-discharge policies and procedures.