Redcurrants vs Cranberries – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing redcurrants to cranberries, we picked the redcurrants.
Why?
First know: here we’re comparing raw redcurrants to raw cranberries, with no additives in either case. If you buy jelly made from either, or if you buy dried fruits but the ingredients list has a lot of added sugar and often some vegetable oil, then that’s going to be very different. But for now… Let’s look at just the fruits:
In terms of macros, redcurrants are higher in carbs, but also higher in fiber, and have the lower glycemic index as cranberries have nearly 2x the GI.
When it comes to vitamins, redcurrants have more of vitamins B1, B2, B6, B9, C, K, and choline, while cranberries have more of vitamins A, B5, and E. In other words, a clear win for redcurrants.
In the category of minerals, redcurrants sweep even more convincingly with a lot more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc. On the other hand, cranberries boast a little more manganese; they also have about 2x the sodium.
Both berries have generous amounts of assorted phytochemicals (flavonoids and others), and/but nothing to set one ahead of the other.
As per any berries that aren’t poisonous, both of these are fine choices for most people most of the time, but redcurrants win with room to spare in most categories.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Health Benefits Of Cranberries (But: You’d Better Watch Out)
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Kate Middleton is having ‘preventive chemotherapy’ for cancer. What does this mean?
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Catherine, Princess of Wales, is undergoing treatment for cancer. In a video thanking followers for their messages of support after her major abdominal surgery, the Princess of Wales explained, “tests after the operation found cancer had been present.”
“My medical team therefore advised that I should undergo a course of preventative chemotherapy and I am now in the early stages of that treatment,” she said in the two-minute video.
No further details have been released about the Princess of Wales’ treatment.
But many have been asking what preventive chemotherapy is and how effective it can be. Here’s what we know about this type of treatment.
It’s not the same as preventing cancer
To prevent cancer developing, lifestyle changes such as diet, exercise and sun protection are recommended.
Tamoxifen, a hormone therapy drug can be used to reduce the risk of cancer for some patients at high risk of breast cancer.
Aspirin can also be used for those at high risk of bowel and other cancers.
How can chemotherapy be used as preventive therapy?
In terms of treating cancer, prevention refers to giving chemotherapy after the cancer has been removed, to prevent the cancer from returning.
If a cancer is localised (limited to a certain part of the body) with no evidence on scans of it spreading to distant sites, local treatments such as surgery or radiotherapy can remove all of the cancer.
If, however, cancer is first detected after it has spread to distant parts of the body at diagnosis, clinicians use treatments such as chemotherapy (anti-cancer drugs), hormones or immunotherapy, which circulate around the body .
The other use for chemotherapy is to add it before or after surgery or radiotherapy, to prevent the primary cancer coming back. The surgery may have cured the cancer. However, in some cases, undetectable microscopic cells may have spread into the bloodstream to distant sites. This will result in the cancer returning, months or years later.
With some cancers, treatment with chemotherapy, given before or after the local surgery or radiotherapy, can kill those cells and prevent the cancer coming back.
If we can’t see these cells, how do we know that giving additional chemotherapy to prevent recurrence is effective? We’ve learnt this from clinical trials. Researchers have compared patients who had surgery only with those whose surgery was followed by additional (or often called adjuvant) chemotherapy. The additional therapy resulted in patients not relapsing and surviving longer.
How effective is preventive therapy?
The effectiveness of preventive therapy depends on the type of cancer and the type of chemotherapy.
Let’s consider the common example of bowel cancer, which is at high risk of returning after surgery because of its size or spread to local lymph glands. The first chemotherapy tested improved survival by 15%. With more intense chemotherapy, the chance of surviving six years is approaching 80%.
Preventive chemotherapy is usually given for three to six months.
How does chemotherapy work?
Many of the chemotherapy drugs stop cancer cells dividing by disrupting the DNA (genetic material) in the centre of the cells. To improve efficacy, drugs which work at different sites in the cell are given in combinations.
Chemotherapy is not selective for cancer cells. It kills any dividing cells.
But cancers consist of a higher proportion of dividing cells than the normal body cells. A greater proportion of the cancer is killed with each course of chemotherapy.
Normal cells can recover between courses, which are usually given three to four weeks apart.
What are the side effects?
The side effects of chemotherapy are usually reversible and are seen in parts of the body where there is normally a high turnover of cells.
The production of blood cells, for example, is temporarily disrupted. When your white blood cell count is low, there is an increased risk of infection.
Cell death in the lining of the gut leads to mouth ulcers, nausea and vomiting and bowel disturbance.
Certain drugs sometimes given during chemotherapy can attack other organs, such as causing numbness in the hands and feet.
There are also generalised symptoms such as fatigue.
Given that preventive chemotherapy given after surgery starts when there is no evidence of any cancer remaining after local surgery, patients can usually resume normal activities within weeks of completing the courses of chemotherapy.
Ian Olver, Adjunct Professsor, School of Psychology, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Adelaide
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Why Many Nonprofit (Wink, Wink) Hospitals Are Rolling in Money
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One owns a for-profit insurer, a venture capital company, and for-profit hospitals in Italy and Kazakhstan; it has just acquired its fourth for-profit hospital in Ireland. Another owns one of the largest for-profit hospitals in London, is partnering to build a massive training facility for a professional basketball team, and has launched and financed 80 for-profit start-ups. Another partners with a wellness spa where rooms cost $4,000 a night and co-invests with “leading private equity firms.”
Do these sound like charities?
These diversified businesses are, in fact, some of the country’s largest nonprofit hospital systems. And they have somehow managed to keep myriad for-profit enterprises under their nonprofit umbrella — a status that means they pay little or no taxes, float bonds at preferred rates, and gain numerous other financial advantages.
Through legal maneuvering, regulatory neglect, and a large dollop of lobbying, they have remained tax-exempt charities, classified as 501(c)(3)s.
“Hospitals are some of the biggest businesses in the U.S. — nonprofit in name only,” said Martin Gaynor, an economics and public policy professor at Carnegie Mellon University. “They realized they could own for-profit businesses and keep their not-for-profit status. So the parking lot is for-profit; the laundry service is for-profit; they open up for-profit entities in other countries that are expressly for making money. Great work if you can get it.”
Many universities’ most robust income streams come from their technically nonprofit hospitals. At Stanford University, 62% of operating revenue in fiscal 2023 was from health services; at the University of Chicago, patient services brought in 49% of operating revenue in fiscal 2022.
To be sure, many hospitals’ major source of income is still likely to be pricey patient care. Because they are nonprofit and therefore, by definition, can’t show that thing called “profit,” excess earnings are called “operating surpluses.” Meanwhile, some nonprofit hospitals, particularly in rural areas and inner cities, struggle to stay afloat because they depend heavily on lower payments from Medicaid and Medicare and have no alternative income streams.
But investments are making “a bigger and bigger difference” in the bottom line of many big systems, said Ge Bai, a professor of health care accounting at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Investment income helped Cleveland Clinic overcome the deficit incurred during the pandemic.
When many U.S. hospitals were founded over the past two centuries, mostly by religious groups, they were accorded nonprofit status for doling out free care during an era in which fewer people had insurance and bills were modest. The institutions operated on razor-thin margins. But as more Americans gained insurance and medical treatments became more effective — and more expensive — there was money to be made.
Not-for-profit hospitals merged with one another, pursuing economies of scale, like joint purchasing of linens and surgical supplies. Then, in this century, they also began acquiring parts of the health care systems that had long been for-profit, such as doctors’ groups, as well as imaging and surgery centers. That raised some legal eyebrows — how could a nonprofit simply acquire a for-profit? — but regulators and the IRS let it ride.
And in recent years, partnerships with, and ownership of, profit-making ventures have strayed further and further afield from the purported charitable health care mission in their community.
“When I first encountered it, I was dumbfounded — I said, ‘This not charitable,’” said Michael West, an attorney and senior vice president of the New York Council of Nonprofits. “I’ve long questioned why these institutions get away with it. I just don’t see how it’s compliant with the IRS tax code.” West also pointed out that they don’t act like charities: “I mean, everyone knows someone with an outstanding $15,000 bill they can’t pay.”
Hospitals get their tax breaks for providing “charity care and community benefit.” But how much charity care is enough and, more important, what sort of activities count as “community benefit” and how to value them? IRS guidance released this year remains fuzzy on the issue.
Academics who study the subject have consistently found the value of many hospitals’ good work pales in comparison with the value of their tax breaks. Studies have shown that generally nonprofit and for-profit hospitals spend about the same portion of their expenses on the charity care component.
Here are some things listed as “community benefit” on hospital systems’ 990 tax forms: creating jobs; building energy-efficient facilities; hiring minority- or women-owned contractors; upgrading parks with lighting and comfortable seating; creating healing gardens and spas for patients.
All good works, to be sure, but health care?
What’s more, to justify engaging in for-profit business while maintaining their not-for-profit status, hospitals must connect the business revenue to that mission. Otherwise, they pay an unrelated business income tax.
“Their CEOs — many from the corporate world — spout drivel and turn somersaults to make the case,” said Lawton Burns, a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “They do a lot of profitable stuff — they’re very clever and entrepreneurial.”
The truth is that a number of not-for-profit hospitals have become wealthy diversified business organizations. The most visible manifestation of that is outsize executive compensation at many of the country’s big health systems. Seven of the 10 most highly paid nonprofit CEOs in the United States run hospitals and are paid millions, sometimes tens of millions, of dollars annually. The CEOs of the Gates and Ford foundations make far less, just a bit over $1 million.
When challenged about the generous pay packages — as they often are — hospitals respond that running a hospital is a complicated business, that pharmaceutical and insurance execs make much more. Also, board compensation committees determine the payout, considering salaries at comparable institutions as well as the hospital’s financial performance.
One obvious reason for the regulatory tolerance is that hospital systems are major employers — the largest in many states (including Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Arizona, and Delaware). They are big-time lobbying forces and major donors in Washington and in state capitals.
But some patients have had enough: In a suit brought by a local school board, a judge last year declared that four Pennsylvania hospitals in the Tower Health system had to pay property taxes because its executive pay was “eye popping” and it demonstrated “profit motives through actions such as charging management fees from its hospitals.”
A 2020 Government Accountability Office report chided the IRS for its lack of vigilance in reviewing nonprofit hospitals’ community benefit and recommended ways to “improve IRS oversight.” A follow-up GAO report to Congress in 2023 said, “IRS officials told us that the agency had not revoked a hospital’s tax-exempt status for failing to provide sufficient community benefits in the previous 10 years” and recommended that Congress lay out more specific standards. The IRS declined to comment for this column.
Attorneys general, who regulate charity at the state level, could also get involved. But, in practice, “there is zero accountability,” West said. “Most nonprofits live in fear of the AG. Not hospitals.”
Today’s big hospital systems do miraculous, lifesaving stuff. But they are not channeling Mother Teresa. Maybe it’s time to end the community benefit charade for those that exploit it, and have these big businesses pay at least some tax. Communities could then use those dollars in ways that directly benefit residents’ health.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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Why scrapping the term ‘long COVID’ would be harmful for people with the condition
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The assertion from Queensland’s chief health officer John Gerrard that it’s time to stop using the term “long COVID” has made waves in Australian and international media over recent days.
Gerrard’s comments were related to new research from his team finding long-term symptoms of COVID are similar to the ongoing symptoms following other viral infections.
But there are limitations in this research, and problems with Gerrard’s argument we should drop the term “long COVID”. Here’s why.
A bit about the research
The study involved texting a survey to 5,112 Queensland adults who had experienced respiratory symptoms and had sought a PCR test in 2022. Respondents were contacted 12 months after the PCR test. Some had tested positive to COVID, while others had tested positive to influenza or had not tested positive to either disease.
Survey respondents were asked if they had experienced ongoing symptoms or any functional impairment over the previous year.
The study found people with respiratory symptoms can suffer long-term symptoms and impairment, regardless of whether they had COVID, influenza or another respiratory disease. These symptoms are often referred to as “post-viral”, as they linger after a viral infection.
Gerrard’s research will be presented in April at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. It hasn’t been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
After the research was publicised last Friday, some experts highlighted flaws in the study design. For example, Steven Faux, a long COVID clinician interviewed on ABC’s television news, said the study excluded people who were hospitalised with COVID (therefore leaving out people who had the most severe symptoms). He also noted differing levels of vaccination against COVID and influenza may have influenced the findings.
In addition, Faux pointed out the survey would have excluded many older people who may not use smartphones.
The authors of the research have acknowledged some of these and other limitations in their study.
Ditching the term ‘long COVID’
Based on the research findings, Gerrard said in a press release:
We believe it is time to stop using terms like ‘long COVID’. They wrongly imply there is something unique and exceptional about longer term symptoms associated with this virus. This terminology can cause unnecessary fear, and in some cases, hypervigilance to longer symptoms that can impede recovery.
But Gerrard and his team’s findings cannot substantiate these assertions. Their survey only documented symptoms and impairment after respiratory infections. It didn’t ask people how fearful they were, or whether a term such as long COVID made them especially vigilant, for example.
Tens of thousands of Australians, and millions of people worldwide, have long COVID.
New Africa/ShutterstockIn discussing Gerrard’s conclusions about the terminology, Faux noted that even if only 3% of people develop long COVID (the survey found 3% of people had functional limitations after a year), this would equate to some 150,000 Queenslanders with the condition. He said:
To suggest that by not calling it long COVID you would be […] somehow helping those people not to focus on their symptoms is a curious conclusion from that study.
Another clinician and researcher, Philip Britton, criticised Gerrard’s conclusion about the language as “overstated and potentially unhelpful”. He noted the term “long COVID” is recognised by the World Health Organization as a valid description of the condition.
A cruel irony
An ever-growing body of research continues to show how COVID can cause harm to the body across organ systems and cells.
We know from the experiences shared by people with long COVID that the condition can be highly disabling, preventing them from engaging in study or paid work. It can also harm relationships with their friends, family members, and even their partners.
Despite all this, people with long COVID have often felt gaslit and unheard. When seeking treatment from health-care professionals, many people with long COVID report they have been dismissed or turned away.
Last Friday – the day Gerrard’s comments were made public – was actually International Long COVID Awareness Day, organised by activists to draw attention to the condition.
The response from people with long COVID was immediate. They shared their anger on social media about Gerrard’s comments, especially their timing, on a day designed to generate greater recognition for their illness.
Since the start of the COVID pandemic, patient communities have fought for recognition of the long-term symptoms many people faced.
The term “long COVID” was in fact coined by people suffering persistent symptoms after a COVID infection, who were seeking words to describe what they were going through.
The role people with long COVID have played in defining their condition and bringing medical and public attention to it demonstrates the possibilities of patient-led expertise. For decades, people with invisible or “silent” conditions such as ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome) have had to fight ignorance from health-care professionals and stigma from others in their lives. They have often been told their disabling symptoms are psychosomatic.
Gerrard’s comments, and the media’s amplification of them, repudiates the term “long COVID” that community members have chosen to give their condition an identity and support each other. This is likely to cause distress and exacerbate feelings of abandonment.
Terminology matters
The words we use to describe illnesses and conditions are incredibly powerful. Naming a new condition is a step towards better recognition of people’s suffering, and hopefully, better diagnosis, health care, treatment and acceptance by others.
The term “long COVID” provides an easily understandable label to convey patients’ experiences to others. It is well known to the public. It has been routinely used in news media reporting and and in many reputable medical journal articles.
Most importantly, scrapping the label would further marginalise a large group of people with a chronic illness who have often been left to struggle behind closed doors.
Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Vitalities Lab, Centre for Social Research in Health and Social Policy Centre, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Endure – by Alex Hutchinson
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Life is a marathon, not a sprint. For most of us, at least. But how do we pace ourselves to go the distance, without falling into complacency along the way?
According to our author Alex Hutchinson, there’s a lot more to it than goal-setting and strategy.
Hutchinson set out to write a running manual, and ended up writing a manual for life. To be clear, this is still mostly centered around the science of athletic endurance, but covers the psychological factors as much as the physical… and notes how the capacity to endure is the key trait that underlies great performance in every field.
The writing style is both personal and personable, and parts read like a memoir (Hutchinson himself being a runner and sports journalist), while others are scientific in nature.
As for the science, the kind of science examined runs the gamut from case studies to clinical studies. We examine not just the science of physical endurance, but the science of psychological endurance too. We learn about such things as:
- How perception of ease/difficulty plays its part
- What factors make a difference to pain tolerance
- How mental exhaustion affects physical performance
- What environmental factors increase or lessen our endurance
- …and many other elements that most people don’t consider
Bottom line: whether you want to run a marathon in under two hours, or just not quit after one minute forty seconds on the exercise bike, or to get through a full day’s activities while managing chronic pain, this book can help.
Click here to check out Endure, and find out what you are capable of when you move your limits!
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Great Sex Never Gets Old – by Kimberly Cunningham – by Kimberly Cunningham
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Here some readers may be thinking “after 40? But I am 70 already” or such, so be assured, there’s no upper limit on the applicability of this book’s writings. The number of 40 was chosen more as the start point of things, because it is an age after which the majority of hormonal declines happen (and with them, often, sex drive and/or physical ability). But, as she explains, this is by no means necessarily an end, and can instead be an exciting new beginning.
She kicks things off with a “wellness check”, before diving into the science of the menopause—and yes, the andropause too.
She doesn’t stop there though, and discusses other hormones besides the obvious ones, and other non-hormonal factors that can affect sex in what for most people is the later half of life.
Nurse Cunningham, much like most of modern science, is strongly pro-HRT, and/but doesn’t claim it to be a magic bullet (though honestly, it can feel like it is! But here we’re reviewing the book, not HRT, so let’s continue), or else this book could have been a leaflet. Instead, she talks about the side-effects to expect (mostly good or neutral, but still, things you don’t want to be taken by surprise by), and what things will just be “a little different” now if you’re running on exogenous bioidentical hormones rather than ones your own body made. A lot of this comes down to how and when one takes them, by the way, since this can be different to your body making its own natural peaks and troughs.
But it’s not all about hormones; there are also plenty of chapters on social and psychological issues, as well as medical issues other than hormones.
The style is very light and conversational, while also casually dropping about 30 pages of scientific references. Like many nurses, the author knows at least as much as doctors when it comes to her area of expertise, and it shows.
Bottom line: if your sex has ever hit a slump, and/or you simply recognize that it could, this book could make a very important difference.
Click here to check out Great Sex Never Gets Old, and enjoy the best of life in the bedroom too!
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Celery vs Radish – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing celery to radish, we picked the celery.
Why?
It was very close! And yes, surprising, we know. Generally speaking, the more colorful/pigmented an edible plant is, the healthier it is. Celery is just one of those weird exceptions (as is cauliflower, by the way).
Macros-wise, these two are pretty much the same—95% water, with just enough other stuff to hold them together. The proportions of “other stuff” are also pretty much equal.
In the category of vitamins, celery has more vitamin K while radish has more vitamin C; the other vitamins are pretty close to equal. We’ll call this one a minor win for celery, as vitamin K is found in fewer foods than vitamin C.
When it comes to minerals, celery has more calcium, manganese, phosphorus, and potassium, while radish has more copper, iron, selenium, and zinc. We’ll call this a minor win for radish, as the margins are a little wider for its minerals.
So, that makes the score 1–1 so far.
Both plants have an assortment of polyphenols, of which, when we add up the averages, celery comes out on top by some way. Celery also comes out on top when we do a head-to-head of the top flavonoid of each; celery has 5.15mg/100g of apigenin to radish’s 0.63mg/100g kaempferol.
Which means, both are great healthy foods, but celery wins the day.
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
Celery vs Cucumber – Which is Healthier?
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