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Food industry urged to pinch sodium from products Canadians need to break their addiction to salt, and food manufacturers need to help, concludes a new report from a federally-appointed task force on sodium. The Sodium Working Group released six general and 27 specific recommendations in its report Thursday that call for manufacturers to voluntarily lower the sodium content of their products over time. The aim is to lower Canadians' average daily sodium intake by about a third, to 2,300 milligrams, by 2016. That's the figure considered the upper daily limit of sodium for most adults; 1,500 milligrams is considered the recommended intake. But most Canadians go well over both figures, averaging about 3,400 mg every day. And almost 80 per cent of that coming from processed food and restaurant food. In order to cut Canadians' sodium intake by a third, the "Sodium Reduction Strategy for Canada" suggests: -- read the full article at CTV News – Health. Strong relationships key to long life, study suggests Having great friends, a strong marriage and children who love you may be just as important to living a long life as something like quitting smoking, a new study finds. Researchers from Brigham Young University have found that people who have lots of close relationships have better odds of living a long life than those who are lonely. The study, which appears in the July issue of PLoS Medicine, found that strong social connections improve our odds of survival by 50 per cent. In fact, the protective effect of strong social relationships exceeds the influence of other early-death risk factors, such as:
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 Accessing accurate and reliable information is important. Visit the Public Health Agency of Canada at their website. www.phac-aspc.gc.ca To reach their findings, BYU psychology professor Julianne Holt-Lunstad and counseling psychology professor Timothy Smith analyzed data from 148 previously studies. All were longitudinal studies that measured frequency of human interaction. Together, these studies included 308,849 people who were followed for about 7.5 years, on average. -- read the full article at CTV News – Health. |
Mom's hugs create less stressed offspring: study A mother's cuddles and kisses offer long-lasting positive effects on her baby's mental health well into adulthood, the research finds. Duke University behavioral scientists found that babies given lots of affection during infancy grow up to have lower levels of anxiety, hostility, and distress, and overall stronger mental health. While psychologists have long noted that children deprived of physical affection as babies often grow up to have severe social interaction problems, few studies have tracked kids to adult life to assess the effects of affection. For this study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, researchers followed 482 Rhode Island participants of the National Collaborative Perinatal Project. To assess the level of affection these babies received from their mothers, they were observed at the age of eight months during a routine developmental assessment. A psychologist assessed how the mother coped with her child's tests. The amount of affection and feedback she gave her child was categorized, ranging from "negative" attention to "extravagant" attention. Ten per cent of the mothers offered their children very low levels of affection, while 85 per cent offered a "normal" degree of warmth. Six per cent offered a very high amount of maternal affection. The authors then followed up with the children decades later, at the average age of 34, and assessed their mental health and levels of anxiety and hostility. Joanna (Asia) Maselko, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University Medical Center who led the study, reports that babies whose mothers who were most affectionate at the 8-month assessment became adults who showed significantly lower levels of distress, anxiety and hostility. The strongest association was with anxiety: the higher the mother's warmth, the lower the adult's anxiety. Based on their findings, the authors say it's clear that lots of cuddles and kisses from mothers appears to lead to stronger bonding and feeling of security. This not only lowers distress, but may also enable a child to develop effective life skills and coping skills that they can use into adulthood. "These findings suggest that early nurturing and warmth have long-lasting positive effects on mental health well into adulthood," the researchers conclude. |
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