The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating

Nutritionist and author Jonny Bowden has created several lists of healthful foods people should be eating but aren’t. But some of his favorites, like purslane, guava and goji berries, aren’t always available at regular grocery stores. I asked Dr. Bowden, author of “The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth,” to update his list with some favorite foods that are easy to find but don’t always find their way into our shopping carts. Here’s his advice.

1. Beets: Think of beets as red spinach, Dr. Bowden said, because they are a rich source of folate as well as natural red pigments that may be cancer fighters.
   How to eat: Fresh, raw and grated to make a salad. Heating decreases the antioxidant power.
2. Cabbage: Loaded with nutrients like sulforaphane, a chemical said to boost cancer-fighting enzymes.
   How to eat: Asian-style slaw or as a crunchy topping on burgers and sandwiches.
3. Swiss chard: A leafy green vegetable packed with carotenoids that protect aging eyes.
   How to eat it: Chop and saute in olive oil.
4. Cinnamon: May help control blood sugar and cholesterol.
   How to eat it: Sprinkle on coffee or oatmeal.
5. Pomegranate juice: Appears to lower blood pressure and loaded with antioxidants.
   How to eat: Just drink it.
6. Dried plums: Okay, so they are really prunes, but they are packed with antioxidants.
   How to eat: Wrapped in prosciutto and baked.
7. Pumpkin seeds: The most nutritious part of the pumpkin and packed with magnesium; high levels of the mineral are associated with lower risk for early death.
   How to eat: Roasted as a snack, or sprinkled on salad.
8. Sardines: Dr. Bowden calls them “health food in a can.'’ They are high in omega-3’s, contain virtually no mercury and are loaded with calcium. They also contain iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper and manganese as well as a full complement of B vitamins.
   How to eat: Choose sardines packed in olive or sardine oil. Eat plain, mixed with salad, on toast, or mashed with dijon mustard and onions as a spread.
9. Turmeric: The “superstar of spices,'’ it may have anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties.
   How to eat: Mix with scrambled eggs or in any vegetable dish.
10. Frozen blueberries: Even though freezing can degrade some of the nutrients in fruits and vegetables, frozen blueberries are available year-round and don’t spoil; associated with better memory in animal studies.
    How to eat: Blended with yogurt or chocolate soy milk and sprinkled with crushed almonds.
11. Canned pumpkin: A low-calorie vegetablesthat is high in fiber and immune-stimulating vitamin A; fills you up on very few calories.
    How to eat: Mix with a little butter, cinnamon and nutmeg.

You can find more details and recipes on the Men’s Health Web site, which published the original version of the list last year.

In my own house, I only have two of these items — pumpkin seeds, which I often roast and put on salads, and frozen blueberries, which I mix with milk, yogurt and other fruits for morning smoothies. How about you? Have any of these foods found their way into your shopping cart?

Cholesterol Screening Is Urged for Young

The nation’s pediatricians are recommending wider cholesterol screening for children and more aggressive use of cholesterol-lowering drugs starting as early as the age of 8 in hopes of preventing adult heart problems.

The push to aggressively screen and medicate for high cholesterol in children is certain to create controversy amid a continuing debate about the use of prescription drugs in children as well as the best approaches to ward off heart disease in adults.

But proponents say there is growing evidence that the first signs of heart disease show up in childhood, and with 30 percent of the nation’s children overweight or obese, many doctors fear that a rash of early heart attacks and diabetes is on the horizon as these children grow up.

Previously, the academy had said cholesterol drugs should be considered in children older than 10 if they fail to lose weight after a 6- to 12-month effort. The academy estimated that under the current guidelines, 30 percent to 60 percent of children with high cholesterol were being missed. And for some children, cholesterol-lowering drugs, called statins, may be their best hope of lowering their risk of early heart attack , proponents said.

“We are in an epidemic,” said Dr. Jatinder Bhatia, a member of the academy’s nutrition committee who is a professor and chief of neonatology at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta. “The risk of giving statins at a lower age is less than the benefit you’re going to get out of it.”

Dr. Bhatia said that although there was not “a whole lot” of data on pediatric use of cholesterol-lowering drugs, recent research showed that the drugs were generally safe for children.

Surprisingly, the paper published in the medical journal Pediatrics that explains the new guidelines notes that among adolescents, average total cholesterol levels as well as LDL and HDL cholesterol have remained stable, while triglyceride levels have dropped, based on data collected from 1988 to 2000.

It is not clear how many children would be affected by the new guidelines. The recommendations call for cholesterol screening of children and adolescents, starting as early as the age of 2 and no later than the age of 10, if they come from families with a history of high cholesterol or heart attacks before 55 for men and 65 for women.

Screening is also recommended for children when family history is unknown, or if they have other risk factors, like being at or above the 85th percentile for weight, or have diabetes.

If the child’s cholesterol level is normal, retesting is suggested in three to five years. Although lifestyle changes are still recommended as the first course of action, drug treatment should be considered for children 8 years and older who have bad cholesterol of 190 milligrams per deciliter and who also have a family history of early heart disease or two additional risk factors, the new recommendations say.

The guidelines give no guidance on how long a child should stay on drug treatment.

But they do say the first goal should be to lower bad cholesterol levels to less than 160 milligrams or possibly as low as 110 milligrams in children with a strong family history of heart disease or other risk factors like obesity.

Because statins have been around since only the mid-1980s, there is no evidence to show whether giving statins to a child will lower the risk for heart attack in middle age.

The academy also now recommends giving children low-fat milk after 12 months if a doctor is concerned about future weight problems. Although children need fat for brain development, the group says that because children often consume so much fat, low-fat milk is now appropriate.

By TARA PARKER-POPE

Published: July 7, 2008

Breast-Feeding Tied to Intelligence

In a large randomized trial of human lactation, researchers have found evidence that prolonged breast-feeding is associated with improved scores on some intelligence tests in childhood.

The results, published in the May issue of The Archives of General Psychiatry, appear to confirm those of previous observational studies.

Researchers in Belarus trained 8,457 mother-infant pairs with an extensive breast-feeding educational program, while a control group of 7,856 received standard care. At three months, 73 percent of the trained mothers, but only 60 percent of the controls, were still exclusively breast-feeding. By six months, exclusive breast-feeding had declined substantially in both groups, to 7.9 percent for the education group and 0.6 percent for the controls.

At 6 ½ years, the breast-fed group scored significantly higher on tests of vocabulary, word matching and verbal I.Q., although the differences in several other tests of intelligence were not significant. Teacher ratings of the children were consistently higher for those who were breast-fed.

It is unclear whether the differences were caused by a constituent of breast milk or by the associated physical and social interactions between mother and child. But the lead author, Dr. Michael S. Kramer, a professor of pediatrics at McGill Universtiyin Montreal, said the results could not be explained by characteristics of the mother or the way she related to her baby. “It’s the breast-feeding that’s doing it,” he said.

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