4 foods to include in your diet (and 3 to avoid) for stronger bones

Here is what you should eat

Bones support our body. It surrounds our delicate organs and protects them from any kind of external injury. And it is very important to have strong and dense bones. Flexible muscles and strong bones both are important to be physically fit. Many nutrients help to keep our bones healthy and out of all Vitamin D and calcium are the prominent ones. Calcium is essential for muscle contraction, oocyte activation, strong bones and teeth, while Vitamin D helps to absorb calcium in the body. Apart from this, vitamin K, vitamin C, magnesium, and phosphorus are some other nutrients required for your bone health. Here is a list of 4 foods that are good for your bone health.

Soybeans

Being a good source of protein and calcium, soybean is a bone-friendly addition to our diet. A study carried out by researchers from the University of Missouri in Columbia suggests that consuming soy-based products could help strengthen bones in postmenopausal women.

Green leafy vegetable

The green leafy vegetable is something you must include in your diet. Vegetables like kale, broccoli and spinach are packed with different kinds of healthy nutrients, which are not only good for your bone health but also keep other chronic diseases at bay.

Pumpkin seeds

Pumpkin seeds are a good source of magnesium that help in bone formation. High intake of magnesium increases the bone density and reduces the risk of osteoporosis. The seeds also contain healthy fats that reduce inflammation and maintain bone strength.

Sardines

Sardines are one of the widely consumed fishes in India. It is a part of the staple diet in the coastal region of Kerala and Andhra Pradesh. Sardines are a rich source of calcium, Vitamin D, Vitamin B12 and other bone-building minerals like phosphorus and zinc.

Avoid: Salty food

Food with high sodium content can increase the risk of high blood pressure and is also not good for your bones. Sodium affects the amount of calcium balance in the body by increasing its excretion. Make sure you eat salt in moderation and do not sprinkle additional salt on top of your food.

Avoid: Caffeine

You may feel energized after drinking caffeine, but the feeling goes away after a while. It has been found that people who drink more than 300 milligrams of coffee everyday suffer from bone loss.

Avoid: Fizzy drinks

High in sugar and phosphorus, fizzy drinks can both harm your teeth and bones. Try to stay away from it as much as possible. As per 2006, carbonated beverages, are associated with low bone density in older women.

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     

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What Should Gastroenterologists and Patients Know About COVID-19?

Physicians need to consider that gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea could be early signs of COVID-19 infection, especially in those GI patients who also present with upper respiratory complaints. Meanwhile, patients with digestive diseases should closely monitor the news and stay in touch with their doctors if they experience new or unusual GI symptoms.

These were among the insights summarized recently by clinical researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount in New York City. They also provided renewed guidance to physicians for those patients who have inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and are being treated with immunosuppressive agents. Research suggests, they said, these patients may be considered at high risk for COVID-19, which is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

“This is a rapidly evolving area with new information emerging on a daily basis,” said Ryan Ungaro, MD, MS, Assistant Professor of Medicine (Gastroenterology). “We strongly urge our patients to closely monitor the news and to stay in touch with their doctors if they experience new or unusual GI symptoms.”

For physicians seeing a patient with predominant GI symptoms, and some respiratory symptoms, “COVID-19 should be part of a differential diagnosis,” he added.

Dr. Ungaro and world-renowned physician-scientist Jean-Frederic Colombel, MD, published an overview of COVID-19 research findings for the gastroenterology community to help them address their patients’ questions and concerns. It was published on March 17, 2020, in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, a journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. Dr. Colombel is Director of the Susan and Leonard Feinstein Inflammatory Bowel Disease Clinical Center at Mount Sinai, and Professor of Medicine (Gastroenterology). Also contributing were Mount Sinai’s Timothy Sullivan, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases), and Gopi Patel, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases).

In their overview, the researchers recounted what has been learned to date:

— The SARS-CoV-2 virus shares 79.5 percent of the genetic sequence of SARS, a respiratory illness caused by a coronavirus that appeared in 2002.

— In that outbreak, diarrhea was reported in up to 25 percent of SARS patients.

— The reported frequency of diarrhea among COVID-19 patients has varied from 2 percent to 33 percent, however, it was one of the prominent symptoms reported in the first U.S. COVID-19 case.

— SARS-CoV-2 has been detected in the stool of COVID-19 patients.

— Common laboratory findings described in COVID-19 patients also include liver function test abnormalities.

“While COVID-19 appears to primarily spread through respiratory droplets and secretions,” the authors wrote, “the gastrointestinal tract may be another potential route of infection.” With this possibility, they reinforced the importance that gastroenterologists use personal protective equipment during endoscopy.

They acknowledged that there are no data currently about the impact of immunosuppressive agents. “At the current time, we should not advise IBD patients, or others on immunosuppressive agents, such as those with autoimmune hepatitis, for example, to hold or stop medications,” they wrote, as the risk of disease flare is still a larger concern at this time. They further suggested that physicians advise their patients on immunosuppression to follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines for at-risk populations.

They additionally highlighted new evidence on the cell entry receptor ACE2. “Interestingly,” they wrote, “the cell entry receptor ACE2 appears to mediate entry of SARS-CoV-2,” a similar phenomenon observed with SARS, “and has been demonstrated to be highly expressed in small intestinal enterocytes,” the intestinal absorptive cells that line the inner surface of the small and large intestines. ACE2 is important in regulating nutrient absorption, in particular basic amino acids such as tryptophan, and its disruption may lead to diarrhea.

Mount Sinai is actively studying ACE2 expression in intestinal tissue, said Dr. Ungaro, referring to the work of Saurabh Mehandru, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine (Gastroenterology). “We are particularly interested in determining if the ACE2 inhibitor is differentially expressed in patients with inflammatory conditions of the GI tract to better understand this patient population’s susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2.”

Additionally, Mount Sinai, with collaborators from the University of North Carolina, has started a web-based registry for physicians to report any IBD patients who have a confirmed case of COVID-19. The goal is to better understand the impact of immunosuppressive medications and other risk factors to best guide clinical decisions, he said. 

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     

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Common acid reflux drug may reduce preterm birth

Researchers have found that Lansoprazole, an over-the-counter acid reflux drug that is often taken by pregnant women, may be a promising therapy to reduce preterm birth.

The study, published in the journal JCI Insight also identified 12 other USFDA-approved drugs that are deemed safe in pregnancy.

While the drugs encompass a variety of modalities, the researchers said they all appear to act on biological pathways that affect the immune response, which is implicated in preterm birth.

"Inflammation clearly plays a role in initiating labour and preterm birth. Immune pathways are very significantly dysregulated in women who end up delivering preterm, and they're also dysregulated in babies who are born early," said said study senior author Marina Sirota from University of California.

"However, we have seen from our previous work that there is an interaction between the maternal and fetal immune systems and a breakdown in maternal-fetal tolerance," Sirota added.

To identify candidate drugs that might be effective in preventing preterm birth, the researchers first looked at which genes were up- or down-regulated in the blood cells of women who experienced spontaneous preterm birth to identify a gene expression "signature."

Then they looked for the opposite signature in cells that had been exposed to 1,309 different drugs, reasoning that if a drug could correct the effects that preterm birth had on the women's blood cells, the drugs might also prevent preterm birth itself.

The researchers identified 83 drug candidates, but when they excluded those found to have pregnancy risks in animal or human studies, they wound up with 13 drugs, ranked according to their "reversal score," a measure of the extent to which they were able to reverse the gene expression signature of preterm birth.

The scientists chose lansoprazole for further testing because, in addition to its high reversal score, it is available over the counter, and they know from their previous work that it affects a stress-response protein, heme oxygenase-1, that has been linked with pregnancy disorders.

Lansoprazole, which is a proton-pump inhibitor marketed as Prevacid, had the second-highest reversal score of the 13 drugs identified as being safe and effective. Progesterone was further down the list.

The researchers tested lansoprazole in pregnant mice that had been given a bacterial component to induce inflammation, which causes some fetuses to die in utero, where they are reabsorbed.

When these mice were given lansoprazole, they had more viable fetuses. Lansoprazole also worked better in these mice than progesterone.

Although it is a good measure of how inflammation affects pregnancy in mice, the researhers said the fetal resorption mouse model is not an adequate model of human preterm birth.

They said more work, including studies in people, would need to be done before lansoprazole or any of the dozen other drugs they identified could be proven effective in pregnant women at risk for preterm birth.

"This, basically, is a proof of concept that this drug has anti-inflammatory properties, which are not the properties the drug was designed for, this is a short way to get to new therapeutics for known diseases," said study author David K Stevenson.

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     
https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com. one can see my crochet creations  
https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com. feel free to view for easy, simple and healthy recipes    
https://kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com. for info on knee replacement