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Breastfeeding can take a toll on the body, especially the lower back. Below, Sarah Fulop-Furlano, IBCLC a lactation consultant with Dignity Health Medical Group — Dominican shares tips for proper breastfeeding positions to protect your back, and help keep you and baby as comfortable as possible.Continue reading
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Contributed by: Rachna Arya
Beets are a popular bright-red root veggie used in many cuisines across the world. Commonly known as beets, they are vibrant, colourful, and robust root vegetables — and they’re powerful supporters of your health. Beets are a nutrition powerhouse that is chock full of antioxidants, essential vitamins, minerals, and plant compounds, some of which have medicinal properties.
This article lists some incredible health benefits of beets.
They are low in calories, yet they are packed with the goodness of plenty of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and bioactive compounds. Beets even contain a surprising amount of inorganic nitrates and pigments, both of which are plant compounds that have several health benefits.
Studies have shown that beets have the impressive ability to widen blood vessels and enhance blood flow, thereby lowering blood pressure over a period of only a few hours. This may lead to a significantly decreased risk of cardiovascular events like heart attacks, heart failure, and stroke. These blood-pressure-lowering effects of beets are likely due to the high concentration of the substance, nitrates that dilate the blood vessels and as a result improves blood flow and helps in lowering the blood pressure.
A review of scientific research suggests that adding beetroot juice to athletes’ diets may enhance athletic performance by 1-3 per cent. This improved performance can be attributed to its high natural nitrate concentration. Nitrates appear to affect physical performance by increasing oxygen, glucose, and other nutrients for better muscle fuelling. Studies have validated that eating beets may improve sports performance and increase oxygen use by up to 20%.
Chronic inflammation is associated with the development and progression of several diseases, such as diabetes, cancer, arthritis, cardiovascular disease, obesity, liver disease, and ulcerative colitis. Beets contain pigments called betalains which give beetroot its rich red pigment. A compound is a group of powerful anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant agents that potentially possess several anti-inflammatory properties. Along with betalains, beetroot also contains a high concentration of nitrates, which act as an anti-inflammatory compound and aid in the reduction of inflammation by removing harmful compounds from the bloodstream. The presence of betalains and nitrates complements each other and aids in the treatment of inflammatory conditions like fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis.
Some anecdotal evidence suggests that beets can promote digestive health. Beets are chock full of fibre, a carbohydrate important for digestive health. They also increase the abundance of healthy gut bacteria. Working beets into your diet is a great way to prevent digestive conditions like constipation, inflammatory bowel disease, and diverticulitis.
Mental and cognitive functions naturally decline with age. This is due to a reduction in blood flow and oxygen supply to the brain. Studies have shown that the nitrates in beets may improve mental and cognitive function by helping to open up the blood vessels in the body and thus increase blood flow to the brain. Beets have been shown to particularly improve blood flow to the white matter of the frontal lobe of the brain, an area which controls executive function skills like focus, decision making, and attention to detail.
Numerous studies have confirmed the anticancer properties of beets. The antioxidant content and anti-inflammatory nature of beets provide a holistic means to prevent cancer and manage undesired effects associated with chemotherapy. However, the current evidence is fairly limited. This can be attributed to the presence of betanin, a form of betalain, found that beetroot extract, which helps in the reduced growth of prostate and breast cancer cells.
When added to a healthy diet, beets are a good addition to your weight-loss and detoxification program. Beets are an ideal food choice for anyone trying to lose weight as they are very low in calories and high in water. Despite their low-calorie content, beets contain considerable amounts of fibre which promotes a feeling of fullness. Furthermore, beets are enriched with vitamin C, nitrates, and folates that are needed to increase the metabolism rate and kick start the weight loss process.
Beets are a superfood that packs a powerful punch of nutrients that offer a wide range of unique health bonuses. With so many reasons to indulge in this vegetable, you definitely have to make it a part of your diet. Irrespective of whether you cook your beets or eat them raw, your body will reap the rewards of this superfood.
Also, it is advised to have frequent preventive health check-ups to keep an eye on overall health, especially your cholesterol levels.
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Contributed by – Harleen kaur
The healing herb often referenced as a miracle herb has long been used by people of every age. Aloe Vera is a new-age cactus-like wonder plant that usually grows in hot and dry climates.
Apart from its healing properties, Aloe Vera protects the body from sunburns and provides nourishment from the inside out, not to mention the several other medicinal properties it possesses.
Starting from supplying a lot of minerals and aiding a healthy digestive system to boost immunity, Aloe Vera not only nourishes the body from the inside but also helps to improve skin and hair quality.
Numerous healthy nutrients, including natural vitamins, minerals, and amino acids that are important for good health, are found in aloe vera.
Since aloe vera is an indoor plant and is low maintenance, you can easily keep it in your house and consume it organically instead of opting for the packaged ones.
Furthermore, it helps you lose weight, controls your blood sugar levels, and reduces your chance of developing diabetes.
However, if you haven’t yet experienced the benefits of the plant, check out this comprehensive guide that outlines the 5 benefits of this succulent plant you must know.
Reduces infection
Aloe Vera has the ability to keep skin hydrated for a very long time which can prevent various infections on the skin. It is an antiseptic that provides protection against bacteria.
Aloe Vera is as safe as an all-natural moisturiser for dry skin. Moreover, it works as an astringent to constrict pores and remove excess oil, germs, and dirt from the skin. Furthermore, scientific research specifically examines aloe vera’s benefits on eczema.
There are several ways in which Aloe Vera can help those suffering from diabetes. According to research, aloe vera juice or capsules provide a number of benefits for diabetics, including lower levels of fasting blood sugar, consuming Aloe Vera juice may improve people’s fasting blood glucose levels and help them lose weight.
Boost the immune system
The detoxifying properties of aloe vera help to promote a healthy immune system therefore taking a regular intake of Aloe Vera juice or taking capsules helps. Aloe Vera boosts the immune system and fights off illness and infection more effectively.
Promotes hair growth
Aloe Vera gel helps promote new hair growth by boosting blood flow to the scalp.
Additionally, it offers vital vitamins and minerals that are beneficial for the scalp.
Proteolytic enzymes found in aloe vera help in the healing of dead skin on the scalp. Therefore, Aloe Vera is a great treatment for both men’s and women’s scalp issues that can easily be treated using this wonder herb.
Helps cure arthritis pain
Arthritis is a long-term disorder in which the inflammation of the joints causes stiffness and joint pain. Some enzymes and amino acids found in aloe vera are known to have anti-inflammatory properties which can help relieve pain. It’s recommended to drink Aloe Vera juice to prevent joint pain.
It helps in skin improvement
Aloe Vera serves as a protective layer against sun exposure while also keeping skin nourished and refreshed for long hours.
It is abundant in minerals and antioxidants, both of which help to heal damage to the skin.
The gel of Aloe Vera is rich in beta-carotene and vitamins C and E. As a result, it contains anti-ageing qualities. Additionally, it also contains anti-inflammatory and antibacterial qualities that work in removing age lines and wrinkles from the skin.
Aloe Vera gel has cooling properties and helps in soothing and moisturizing the skin. Some studies suggest that Aloe Vera gel has the highest level of skin permeation as compared with other skin care products.
It is usually advised that aloe vera should be used fresh and not packed. People, nowadays, buy packed Aloe Vera juice and tablets which may not be fully effective and can have varied results.
Aloe Vera gel is usually recommended by various doctors as it is more naturally processed than other forms, such as extracts. Using it on a daily basis can help in the improvement of skin as well as your overall well-being.
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Contributed by: Anjali Sharma
A few years back, we used to go to the doctor when we were ill or in serious need of medical assistance.
But now, more and more individuals than ever before are seeking wellness and preventive healthcare. People are frantically looking for preventive healthcare facilities nowadays to lessen the risks of the medical issues and emergencies that are emerging.
A thorough health checkup looks like an advantage at such a time to keep someone protected and be warned of any impending health risks. In order to reduce mortality, surgeries, and hospitalization, doctors are now recommending and prescribing regular full-body checkups for their patients.
Pre-planned clinical tests are called a ‘Full Body Checkup’ and can correctly measure your health on a number of different fronts.
A full body checkup comprises testing for all bodily systems, allowing you to determine whether or not each organ in your body is functioning normally. This will entail a thorough investigation of the liver’s and kidneys’ functions as well as a lipid profile, X-ray, blood sugar test, etc.
Full-body checkups are comprehensive in nature and it is for both men and women.
People’s health is being negatively impacted by the impulsive lifestyle and eating habits of today, especially in urban areas. Blood pressure issues, diabetes, and numerous cancers are major concerns nowadays.
Most of this is detectable at an early stage, and if discovered later, it might cause serious issues.
Therefore, it is advised to get a full body checkup to avoid such a dire circumstance. Some other reasons to do this checkup are obesity, smoking or serious drinking, no physical exercise, and a family history of certain diseases.
It’s crucial to regularly monitor your entire body to identify potential health issues. Blood, cholesterol, and glucose tests are a few of the examinations that are frequently performed as part of a full-body checkup.
A thorough physical examination by a doctor is also essential to search for any indications of cancer or other disorders. Finally, it’s crucial to have routine health check-ups for diseases including colon cancer, breast cancer, and prostate cancer.
People in the working-age population (30 to 60 years old) have been found to have a greater risk of developing lifestyle illnesses.
Lack of sleep, inherited illnesses, and unhealthy lifestyle choices can all result in a variety of mild to serious health issues. Long-term savings can be realised by investing in a full-body examination that includes testing for diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure, and heart disease.
An ideal full-body checkup is a set of clinical tests that have been specifically created to evaluate your health in a number of ways.
A full body checkup comprises of health tests for all bodily systems, allowing you to determine whether or not each organ in your body is functioning normally. This will entail a thorough investigation of the liver’s and kidneys’ functions as well as a lipid profile, X-ray, blood sugar test, etc.
You can determine how healthy you are by regularly checking your physique and health. It is important to follow your doctor’s advice and adhere to the recommendations made by him/ her.
Depending on your age, gender, family history, and general health, you may need to have more frequent checkups with particular tests.
Many of us are reluctant to have regular health checkups. But a preventive health checkup keeps you informed about your health status and warns you of any impending danger to help you get treatment on time and get better before it’s too late.
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Several days after President Joe Biden declared that “the pandemic is over,” Anthony Fauci weighed in on the president’s controversial remarks during an interview at The Atlantic Festival, an annual live event in Washington, D.C.
“He was saying we’re in a much better place with regard to the fulminant stage of the pandemic,” Fauci, the president’s chief medical adviser, said. “It really becomes semantics and about how you want to spin it.”
By “the fulminant stage,” he meant the phase of the coronavirus pandemic during which we saw sudden, unpredictable spikes in disease and death. Thanks in large part to vaccines and antivirals, Fauci explained, we are now in a new phase, one in which even as case counts and hospitalization numbers fluctuate, death tolls hold fairly constant. The United States is no longer seeing thousands of deaths a day, and for many Americans, the risk of serious illness has declined dramatically.
Still, the idea that declaring the pandemic over is truly a matter of semantics is a fraught message coming from the nation’s top public-health communicator. Especially during the rollout of the country’s first Omicron-specific boosters, some experts and insiders worry that the declaration could have real consequences: Six administration officials told The Washington Post that the president’s comments would likely make the tasks of persuading Americans to get shots and securing funding from Congress even more challenging than they already were.
Fauci is not the only administration official who has walked back the president’s remarks, which came just a few days after Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization, said, “We are not there yet, but the end is in sight.” According to Politico, Biden’s remarks caught senior administration health officials off guard, and indeed, in the following days, the White House clarified that the president was referring to public sentiment, not epidemiological reality. “The president,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra told Yahoo Finance, “was reflecting what so many Americans are thinking and feeling.” (In today’s interview, Fauci built on Ghebreyesus’s sentiment with a trademark Fauci-ism: Easing up on our efforts to fight the pandemic now, he said, would be like saying, “Just because I see what the finish line is, I’m gonna stop and get a hotdog. No, you don’t want to do that.”)
Fauci himself is no stranger to the delicate art of discussing the pandemic’s end. In a late-April interview with PBS NewsHour, he said that the United States was “out of the pandemic phase,” only to reverse course the next day and say that the country (along with the entire world) was “still experiencing a pandemic.” Last month, when he announced that he would step down from his government position by the year’s end, Fauci said that he was not satisfied with this state of affairs. “I’m not happy about the fact that we still have 400 deaths per day,” he said. “We need to do much better than that … But I hope that over the next couple of months, things will improve.”
So far, they have not. Statistically speaking, not a whole lot has changed since last month—or, for that matter, since late April: Average daily cases, which Fauci acknowledged are an underestimate, are up slightly, from about 50,000 to just under 60,000. The numbers of people hospitalized and in ICUs rose to a peak in late July and have slowly declined since. Death tolls have held fairly constant, as Fauci said, at about 400 a day. And modelers think they may remain there for a while yet. “I’ll say it even today,” Fauci repeated. “Four hundred deaths per day is not an acceptable number as far as I’m concerned.”
Meanwhile, America has done away with nearly all of its pandemic precautions, and Congress has declined to renew funding for vaccines and therapeutics. Whether or not the pandemic really is behind us, many people are living as if it is. An Axios/Ipsos poll released last week found that nearly half of Americans have returned to their pre-COVID lives, and 66 percent only occasionally or never wear a mask in public indoor spaces—by far the highest percentage that has given that answer since pollsters first posed the question in May 2021.
In his wide-ranging interview at The Atlantic Festival, Fauci touched on a number of other topics, including his decades of work on the HIV/AIDS crisis, the politicization of public health, and how during the pandemic he’s become something of a larger-than-life figure—to both those who adore him and those who despise him. He laughed about the Dr. Fauci–themed candles, bobbleheads, and other paraphernalia that are sent to him. “That is as unrealistic in many respects as the craziness of people who want to decapitate me because I’m ruining the economy,” he said.
Fauci also addressed the origins of the coronavirus, repeating his oft-cited position that while he keeps an open mind to theories that the virus leaked out of a lab in Wuhan, China, evidence points toward natural spillover from animals in a market in the city. It’s unlikely that we’ll ever get definitive proof in either direction, he said, but one thing that would help is greater transparency from the Chinese government, beginning with answers to the question of what exactly happened at the Wuhan wet market to which some of the earliest COVID cases have been traced.
“The thing I think would be the best thing to do would be to open up those markets,” which are now closed to investigation, Fauci said. “If we were able to go and do surveillance easily in China, we would get a lot more information than we have now.”
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About three years ago I was incredibly lucky: I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Lucky? One of the most lethal forms of cancer, how on earth was that lucky? Well, because it was found incredibly early. No, not before lunchtime, but before it had gone anywhere.
A decade before I had asked my doctor for a quick death. It wasn’t for me, it was for a play I was writing called Death The Musical. With all the boomers heading for the final curtain, I thought it was an interesting subject for comedy to examine. Mike Nichols hated it. We would have read-throughs around our dining table, with fine people like Tim Curry, David Hyde Pierce, Tracey Ullman, Rita Wilson, Julian Sands, Jim Piddock, and a young Jordan Peele, where we’d read the play and John Du Prez would play the songs we’d demoed and people would laugh and be very happy and Mike would invariably say, “No. It’s crap.”
Once, on Mike’s birthday, we had a reading, and when I got to David Geffen’s mansion in Bel Air for his party, Mike’s wife, his daughter, and various other friends all congratulated me on the success of the reading.
“They’re all talking about how funny it was.”
“No,” said Mike, “it’s still crap.”
My play was about a writer who is writing a musical about death when he discovers he is about to die. Dramatic irony, right? The joke for me was that as he was only a writer and there was a playoff game that weekend in L.A., they were having trouble getting people to attend his memorial.
FATHER NED
When a world-famous star falls under a bus
It makes us feel better that it isn’t us.
MADGE
It makes us feel better that no matter who
The rich and the famous must also die too.
But though I loved Freddie and I’m his PR
The name of a writer won’t go very far.
FATHER NED
Yet though he was kind and no one politer,
Still, in the end, Fred was only a writer.
LUCY
For Stars and their sex lives
The internet hums
But for only a writer
Nobody comes.
For my plot to work I needed to kill my character off quickly, and as part of my research, I asked David Kipper, my doctor friend, the quickest way to die.
He gave me the skinny during a ball game at Dodger Stadium.
“What is the quickest, surest, and most sudden cause of death?” I asked.
“Pancreatic cancer,” said Kipper without hesitation. “You may only have three weeks.”
“Perfect,” I said.
Flash forward 10 years to 2019 and my same friend Kipper is taking me to a variety of tests at imaging facilities. He specializes in preventative medicine, and I rather reluctantly go through these checks because, while I quite like being alive, as the son of a nurse, I have an inbred fear of hospitals. So this day we are doing an MRI. He has already done blood work and notices a slightly high marker, a dubious blood score on a panel, and on a hunch asks Westside Medical Imaging, while they are examining a couple of other areas, to shoot an isotope into me to highlight and take a look at the pancreas.
“Just add a little contrast,” he instructs the technician.
It goes into my IV. A slightly warming feeling as the iodine spreads. He disappears into the control booth and I am slid under the banging scanner. It’s not long. The banging stops and I meet Kipper in the control area.
“Hey buddy,” he says, “let’s just go in here.”
I can tell immediately he is serious.
It can’t be more serious.
It’s pancreatic cancer.
Of course I find it funny. How could I not? Here’s Kipper giving me the diagnosis I asked him for 10 years ago. What’s my life motto? Entropy and Irony. Both pigeons limping home to roost. He and the MRI technician gaze at the ghost of a tumor sitting in the middle of my pancreas. It is intact. It is unattached. But it is undeniably, most probably, the C thing. However, this little puppy is still fairly new. It hasn’t burst or spread.
Read More: Can Complementary Therapies Ease Cancer Treatment Symptoms? Here’s What the Science Says
“Here’s the good news, Eric,” he says, “neither the technician nor anyone here has ever seen this at this stage. It’s unattached, no nodes, and we have a very good chance of whipping it out.”
I break the news to my wife Tania, and even though she will reveal later that she would go into the garden with the dogs and cry, I tell her early on that she is in no way British and that tears, and even other expressions of emotion, are quite acceptable. She can weep. She can come for a hug. Anytime, night or day. She is steadfast, strong, and determined to see me up on my feet again.
We immediately decide that pancreatic cancer is such a scary term and freaks people out so much that we will call my diagnosis Kenny. Kenny is far less threatening. Kenny is manageable. Kenny is something we can talk about publicly. The next day I have an appointment at The Kenny Center. In the Kennyology parking lot, as the valet takes away my car, I say to Tania: “This is the Valet of the Chateau of Death.”
There is still no cure for the common comedian.
Idle (far right) with members of the Monty Python team on location in Tunisia to film Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which features the song “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,” 1978.
Evening Standard/Getty Images
Kipper has cleared his schedule to join us. The Kenny doctor is late. Caroline, his medical assistant, goes through the results. They are as predicted. A cancerous tumor in the middle of the pancreas. Tania asks her how long I have. Caroline says, “I honestly can’t tell you, we’ve never had someone at such an early stage as this. It’s so early that there are no statistics on it.”
“Not only is this good news, Eric,” says Kipper, “but the doctors are going to love this. They rarely get a chance to cure these things, and your diagnosis is so early we have a very good chance of getting it all out.”
This optimism is confirmed by the surgeon who now comes down to see me. An air of comedy enters with him as Dr. Nissen is wearing what can only be described as a Monty Python jacket, something Michael Palin or I would have worn as a TV game-show host: a purple floral paisley dinner jacket. He laughs as we all do and excuses himself. He had just come from a reunion lunch at Manhattan Beach. Later he promises to wear the jacket for my surgery.
Kipper discusses the benefits of robotic surgery with him, which is apparently far more accurate than a surgeon.
“And a lot cheaper,” I point out. To laughter.
They are all keen. The whole team, doctors, nurses, and surgeon. Usually they are fighting a hopeless battle against Kenny. With me they might have a good result. And I’m fit and healthy, adds Kipper. It’s odd to think that had he not called for that extra test I might have been walking around without knowing this time bomb was ticking away inside me. Just carried on with my year, making plans, looking good and healthy with this growing inside. As I hug him, I say, “There’s no doubt you just saved my life.”
Read More: What It’s Like to Participate in a Clinical Trial for Bladder Cancer
I’m hardly home before we’re booked for my next appointments. Shots Monday. Full-body scan Tuesday. Operation Thursday.
The question now is who to tell. Of course the kids. I’d sent my son Carey an email the night before asking him to call over the weekend. He’d called immediately. Taking me by surprise. Tania and I had just toasted Kenny with a glass of Cristal Louis. I’m not drinking. But I’m not not drinking at moments like this. My son is brave and very encouraging. He immediately offers to fly in from Australia. Now the hardest thing I have left to do, apart from having no tea for 24 hours, is to break the news of Kenny to our daughter Lily. She has been avoiding me as if some instinct is warning her. I suspect she thinks we are going to have a financial talk. She gets married in a year, and I want to reassure her I will be there for her. Long ago I promised I was going to dance at her wedding, but, I warned her, it was going to be an interpretative dance.
“Now,” I say to my wife, “it may have to be a lap dance…”
Our friends we mostly decide to spare. Better to break the news when it is over. One way or another. But I make my lawyer friend Tom Hoberman laugh when I say that at least it’s better than boarding school. He is a Kenny survivor of both lung and prostate, so I’m lucky to even have him still in my life. And at dinner on the eve of the surgery, I am tempted to tell my old friend Jim Beach that I am heading into hospital for a major op, but his film Bohemian Rhapsody has just picked up four Oscars at the Academy Awards.
“Oh, four Oscars, eh? I got awarded Pancreatic Cancer, but they’re still cutting it…”
No, it seems utterly tasteless to rain on his parade. And we are thrilled for him.
Tania is being very brave, and I remember to tell her the gag I made when Kipper first broke the news to me: “Well, Trump and Brexit have certainly made death a far more appealing alternative.”
But at least now we know where we are: the soap opera ain’t over and the proverbial fat lady hasn’t only not sung yet, she hasn’t even ordered her Uber. There’s a chance. We must attempt to bid Kenny goodbye.
Idle shakes hands with Queen Elizabeth II.
Courtesy Photo
I drive myself to Cedars-Sinai before dawn to check in. It has been decided I will use a pseudonym. To keep away the tabloids. I wonder if the tabloids are at all interested in me, but still, it will be safer, they insist. However, what name to choose? I can’t think. I finally settle on Mr. Cheeky. Of course the name of the character in The Life of Brian who sings, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.”
It’s fine until I hear someone calling this name at check-in.
Everyone looks up.
“Mr. Cheeky,” they repeat loudly.
“Oh sh-t, that’s me.”
Good thing I didn’t choose Biggus Dickus.
Time to face the music.
Cedars at dawn. Warm blankets, and Dr. Nissen is as good as his word and makes me smile as he comes in wearing his paisley dinner jacket. I count backward from 10 and long before 4, I have disappeared into the Propofol-filled world. When I wake up, I am in recovery. A vague gray world of being washed and fed. And painkillers. The surgery went well, I am assured. Five hours, part of it robotic. The ministering angels in the hospital minister through the long nights while I come off the opiates, and my inner Yorick comes up with riffs on Famous Last Words:
Ouch.
F-ck.
Sh-t this hurts.
No, I haven’t had a bowel movement yet…
Finally my surgeon tells me to go home.
“You’ll get better a lot quicker there.”
He is right. A few days later he confirms the results. It was pancreatic cancer. He has cut it all out. It was not attached to anything and my lymph nodes were clear. The cancer is gone. They could find no further trace in my body. I had been a dead man walking. I am going to live.
Only then do I cry.
This summer, after two years of lockdown, I have finally succeeded in making it back to Europe and I am sitting happily in the sunshine eating croissants with a big grin on my face when I get an unexpected offer. The producers of The Masked Singer want me to turn around and go all the way back to California. Really?
Should I?
On the phone they say it is a very silly show and I’ve not exactly been a stranger to very silly shows. I have been a singing water rat and a crooning moon. I sang “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” as a Japanese maid from Madame Butterfly to the late Queen, as a dying swan in a tutu with an entire corps de ballet to Prince Charles, and once, dressed as Emma Thompson from Angels in America, to Mike Nichols. Even at my proudest moment, singing my own song at the London Olympics, I was lifted up and tossed around by Bhangra dancers. So I have some experience with silly singing in public, but would I still be able to do that?
Idle performs during the closing ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games on August 12, 2012.
Adrian Dennis—AFP/Getty Images
Only one way to find out. I turn right round and come back.
On our first Zoom call, I need to pick an avatar. They show me three costume sketches, and I instantly choose the hedgehog. It’s easy to become a prickly old bastard at my age and I do curl up into a ball when attacked, so yes, a hedgehog seems an appropriate identity.
Next I have to choose a song. Recently I have been admiring “Love Me Do,” but I know it’s hard to get permission to do a Beatles song so I call my old pal at Apple who tells me that it’s not actually in the Beatles catalog but in Paul McCartney’s.
“You might have a chance if you asked him,” says Jonathan. “I think he’s forgiven you by now,” he adds, referring to my playing Dirk in The Rutles.
So I pluck up courage and write to Paul. He is kind and helpful. He ends with, “Anyway, have fun, good luck and let me know what show it is so I can make sure to give it a miss!”
Yes, he is that funny.
On stage, I am in constant danger of tipping forward and face planting, but strong hands always reach out to grab me. The show is the first time I have performed since my operation, and the crowd is happy, the jury funny, the producers pleased. I am proud to have pulled it off.
As I take my place beside him during the filming, moments after being unmasked, William Shatner, dressed as a knight, whispers in my ear, “Wasn’t that the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do in your entire life?”
Hedgehog in the Season 8 premiere of The Masked Singer.
Michael Becker—FOX
It is then that I begin to reflect on how fortunate I have been, not only to survive but to be able to squash my feet into oversize paws and sing and dance on the telly. I decide to finally ask Kipper how long he thinks I have. I have been testing every six months and doing well, but still, his answer shocks me.
“Well, you’re in very good shape. The cancer hasn’t recurred. You should have about 10 years.”
Ten years! Wow.
So, having survived both the disease and the show, I realize I must tell people what happened to me. And apart from thanking Dr. Kipper, Dr. Nissen, and all the amazing people at Cedars, it’s time to do something to help. Because it’s good news. And I wish to help spread it. It’s early days, but we’re starting the Bright Side Fund at Stand Up To Cancer to fund pancreatic-cancer research. I want to encourage people in families at high risk of pancreatic cancer to explore the newer tests available for detecting the disease early. Kipper said that if we had delayed by only two weeks, I would not even have seen the surgeon. So please talk to your doctor to understand which screening tests may be right for you and tell your loved ones to do the same. Help me help others like me to survive. And, all together now: “Always look on the bright side of life…”
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Kelly Officer, 49, eats a vegan diet and shuns most processed foods. So, after a recent routine blood test revealed that she had high cholesterol, “I was shocked and upset,” she says, “since it never has been [high] in the past.”
Officer is not alone. As women enter menopause, cholestrol levels jump—by an average of 10-15%, or about 10 to 20 milligrams per deciliter. (A healthy adult cholesterol range is 125-200 milligrams per deciliter, according to the National Library of Medicine.)
This change often goes unnoticed amidst physical symptoms and the general busyness of those years. But, says Dr. Erin Michos, director of women’s cardiovascular health at Johns Hopkins Medicine, “we need women to get screened and know their numbers.” High cholesterol is a leading risk factor for heart disease, which kills more women in the U.S. than any other cause, including all forms of cancer combined. And the longer someone lives with high cholesterol, the greater the odds that it will build up in their arteries and cause a heart attack or stroke.
Many factors around midlife conspire to push cholesterol levels up, such as a sedentary lifestyle, less healthful diet, and weight gain. But the one that stands out as a clear driver of this shift is the sudden, unavoidable drop in estrogen levels at menopause. Unlike other issues that begin in perimenopause—mood changes, hot flashes, fatigue—the rise in cholesterol tends to happen fairly suddenly, typically in the year before through the year after menopause.
Researchers are learning more about how and why this change happens, how better to screen for it, and the best treatments for women. But the first step is to acknowledge it. “This is a normal transition,” Michos says. And menopause marks an essential time for women to check in on their health.
Read More: How to Lower Your Cholesterol Naturally
Before women go through menopause, which typically arrives around age 51 in the U.S., they tend to have healthier cholesterol profiles and lower rates of cardiovascular disease than their male counterparts. But with the onset of menopause, that advantage drops off. By the time people reach their 60s and 70s, the rates of cardiovascular disease are almost even between sexes, with women surpassing men in this risk by their 80s. And women who go through menopause early are at an even higher risk sooner.
Estrogen’s protective effect on cholesterol is apparent even before menopause, as cholestrol levels rise and fall slightly with estrogen level fluctuations throughout each menstrual cycle. Researchers are still teasing out the details about how estrogen influences cholesterol, but much of it can be traced back to the liver, where estrogen receptors help to dictate a person’s lipid profile.
The resulting patterns are clear: Once the body stops making as much estrogen, overall lipid profiles turn more harmful. Levels of “bad” cholesterol (low-density lipoproteins, or LDL) and triglycerides rise, and “good” cholesterol (high-density lipoproteins, or HDL) falters.
Even the remaining HDL might become less protective, says Samar El Khoudary, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health. Her research has shown that although HDL is a marker of decreased risk for heart disease before menopause, the opposite might be true after menopause. So it’s not just the quantity and balance of these particles, but also that “the quality of these particles changes as women transition through menopause,” she says.
The only way to determine cholesterol levels around menopause is to test for them. But predicting the timing is difficult. Menopause is usually only apparent once it’s over and a person has already gone a year without a period.
Current recommendations suggest most people at low risk for cardiovascular disease have their cholesterol checked every five years, starting at age 20. (Even children and adolescents should have baseline cholesterol screenings.) Experts advise additional testing if there is a family history of high cholesterol or there has been a substantial health change, such as abdominal weight gain, periods of high stress, or menopause.
Regular tests are important because heart disease risk goes up the longer high cholesterol remains untreated. And cholesterol can be a quiet killer: “If you don’t check, you don’t know,” says Dr. Samia Mora, a cardiovascular specialist and director of the Center for Lipid Metabolomics at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and associate professor at Harvard Medical School.
Of course, not all women who go through menopause develop high cholesterol. If someone’s baseline cholesterol has been healthy, and if their other risk factors for heart disease are low, an average rise in cholesterol levels is usually not immediately worrying.
But additional testing might be warranted if cholesterol levels or other cardiovascular disease risk factors (such as family history, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and smoking) are high. Other tests that doctors might recommend include a coronary calcium scan that measures the amount of plaque buildup in the arteries around the heart or a check of lipoprotein (a), which is a form of LDL that can reveal more about cardiovascular risks.
El Khoudary and others say that doctors should also start looking beyond standard lipid panels for more details about a person’s cholesterol, including particles’ size, shape, and composition. Research has found that, for example, smaller particles of LDL are more harmful than larger ones. Such tests exist—El Khoudary and others use them in research—but they are harder to get through standard clinician visits. She says incorporating these details into care could be even more helpful for women as they transition through menopause and shape their health for the next decades of life.
Read More: Only 7% of Americans Have Optimal Heart Health, Study Says
For women whose cholesterol rises to unhealthy levels during menopause, lifestyle adjustments are usually the first recommendation. “We can’t avoid aging, we cannot avoid our genetics, but we can change our lifestyle to counteract these effects,” Mora says.
Diet alone can impact cholesterol by 20 to 30 milligrams per deciliter. Even when diet alone cannot get someone into a healthy range, Michos likes to remind patients that their cholesterol would likely be even more harmful without the extra effort. And she sees plenty of women going through menopause who, even with vegan diets, ultimately need cholesterol-reducing medication.
Statins are the standard pharmaceutical treatment for people with high cholesterol, including those in menopause. But women are less likely to go on statins, due to a combination of health care providers being less likely to recommend them and women being less likely to agree to take them. This trend is unfortunate because women can get a greater benefit from statins than men do, says Dr. Patricia Best, a cardiologist at Mayo Clinic and the Women’s Heart Clinic and an associate professor at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science.
Best sees people get discouraged when their lifestyle efforts fail to generate healthy cholesterol levels—and many then avoid medications because taking them makes them feel like they’ve failed. “It’s really important to understand that sometimes even if you do everything right, you’re still going to end up needing a medication,” Best says. That is not failure, she says. Starting on medication to manage high cholesterol is a success: “The most important thing is to keep yourself healthy over the long haul.”
Experts also warn that the way many doctors calculate the need for statins or other cholesterol treatment is based on a 10-year risk of a major event like a heart attack or stroke. But, particularly for women in midlife, these risk-scoring systems do not capture the lifetime risk and the years of accumulating risk leading up to that point. “You don’t want to wait until 65 to start instituting all of these preventive [measures] that are going to help for quality of life throughout the rest of her years,” Mora says.
If a drop in estrogen prompts an increase in cholesterol, what about adding estrogen back into the body, such as with hormone replacement therapy? Typically taken as synthetic estrogen pills, hormone replacement therapy is frequently prescribed for hot flashes and other menopause symptoms. And many women who do take it see an improvement in cholesterol levels. However, it’s not recommended solely as a cholesterol drug, in part because estrogen also increases the risk for blood clots.
As with much of health, the best bet is prevention, which includes having a healthy lifestyle for as many years as possible. “It’s not just how high your cholesterol is now, but how long it has been high,” Mora says. “All of the years exposed to high cholesterol are cumulative. On the plus side, lifestyle interventions are also cumulative.”
Read More: What to Know About High Cholesterol in Kids
Menopause often coincides with a potentially stressful and busy time in women’s lives, when their careers are still in full swing, and they may be providing care for their offspring as well as their parents. Amid these pressures, women often put their own health aside, foregoing exercise and healthy food—and missing routine health care, including cholesterol checks.
But healthy habits during this period are particularly important, Best says. “A little bit more exercise, a little bit more thoughtfulness [about] diet can really make a huge difference—because it’s during the next decade that women are at a marked increased risk of heart disease.”
The hard truth is that with the inevitable metabolic shifts during middle age, what used to work to stay healthy might not cut it anymore, Best says. “Your body is changing, so you have to adapt.”
When a shift in hormones is coupled with weight gain, “that’s your one-two punch” that can lead to a high cholesterol reading—often for the first time in a woman’s life, Best says. This pattern has become even more familiar in the past couple of years. For example, although Officer used to exercise regularly, since the pandemic disrupted her previous routines, she says that healthy habit fell by the wayside, and she has now put on extra weight.
To help combat menopause-related cholesterol shifts, women don’t need to start running marathons or even going fully vegan, Mora says. She recommends a heart-healthy diet, such as a Mediterranean diet, with plenty of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains and low amounts of processed foods and refined carbohydrates. Other often-overlooked lifestyle adjustments, she says, including getting enough sleep and managing stress—which can help not just cholesterol but overall cardiovascular and metabolic health.
Mora, who is around menopause age herself, tries to follow smart lifestyle habits about 80-90% of the time. This means she eats lots of fruits and nuts and takes the stairs instead of the elevator—but still eats the occasional dark chocolate bar. “We get overwhelmed with trying to change everything at once,” Mora says. “All you need to do is institute a moderate amount of healthful lifestyle behaviors that you do consistently most of the time.”
Best agrees that trying to make healthy decisions all the time can be daunting. She’s 53, the mother of two children, and married, and she holds multiple positions at the Mayo Clinic as well as with other professional groups. “So I fully understand my patients when they’re like, ‘Are you kidding me? How am I going to fit that in?’”
Best has been folding healthy activities into her daily life, such as cooking as a family or walking with her husband. Not only are these good for her own health, she says, “but it’s good for everyone else in the family.”
Despite these efforts—and her own clinical expertise—even Best’s cholesterol went up during menopause. “It’s always disappointing,” she says. She didn’t lose her resolve though. “Gaining weight and having worse cholesterol are expected, but you can also fight through all of those things.”
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