Magic potatoes loss weight

 Nutrition Dean, Institute of biological science and engineering, Fuzhou University professor Rao Pingfan experts study found, potatoes are rich in dietary fiber food, rare also contain lots of vitamins, minerals, food, every 148 grams potato produced 100 calorie, really starch content is less than 2%, but not fat, can effective control of total fat intake in the diet of the people. Therefore, the potato is an ideal diet food.

     It is understood, in 1988, the French city of Villeurbanne set up the first global potato diet fitness restaurant, this restaurant is currently in France alone has more than 70. Since 1989, Italy, Spain, American, Canada, the former Soviet Union also have created a potato diet more than 30 restaurants.

     Lunch with potatoes as the staple food is not much, most people when to eat vegetables. In order to lose weight, it should be to the potatoes as rice, such as boiled potatoes, fried potato chips or Potato Pancake, one meal a day, adhere to eat, is certainly good for the prevention of nutrition or minus the excess fat.

the ways to get fit fast for summer

Summer is calling. You want to get fit and you want to do it fast. You've searched Google for juice cleanses and promised yourself that you'd work out every single day from now until you finally feel confident enough to hang out by the beach in your favorite bathing suit. 

The good news is that you don't have to start a four-week-long detox or exercise for hours on end every single day to get fit for summer. We talked to a handful of fitness professionals from all over the country to find out their best "get fit quick" tips.

But before we share them with you, remember one thing: There are no shortcuts when it comes to getting healthy and fit. If you want results, you have to put in the work. It won't be easy (nothing worth accomplishing ever is) but it will be worth it.

"Expect it to be hard," says certified personal trainer Matt Fellows. "Hard work is where real results are made, and many people will be surprised at just how much they can actually do."

These expert tips will help you learn how to maximize your calorie burn, clean up your diet and make the most of every day from now until it's time to start lounging by the pool. Make a vow to commit to these tips for life and come this time next year, you'll be ready for the beach without having to put in any extra work.

Over 5,000 Cubans receive stem cell treatment

More than 5,000 patients have received stem cell treatment in Cuba since that procedure was introduced in 2004, a medical expert said Saturday.

Doctor Porfirio Hernandez, research vice director at the Hematology and Immunology Institute in Cuba, said in an official media outlet that the stem cell treatment method has been implemented in 13 of the entire 15 provinces of the island country.

As a widely acknowledged pioneer of this practice in Cuba, Hernandez indicated that more than 60 percent of patients receiving this treatment had suffered from severe ischemia at lower limbs and other blood vessel related ailments.

The therapy has also been used to reduce the sufferings of patients with severe problems in orthopedics and cardiology, Hernandez added.

Stem cells are capable of self-renewing, regenerating tissues damaged by diverse disease, traumas, and aging, and stimulating the creation of new blood vessels.

Global initiative launched to fight infectious diseases

The United States on Thursday joined with 26 other countries and key international organizations to launch a global effort aimed at combating the perils of infectious diseases.

The U.S.-led initiative, known as the Global Health Security Agenda, is designed to help countries prevent and reduce the likelihood of disease outbreaks, detect them early and respond rapidly and effectively when they do occur, whether diseases are naturally occurring, intentionally produced, or the result of a laboratory accident.

"With our globalized world, a threat anywhere is a threat everywhere," Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a telebriefing ahead of Thursday's launch in Washington, D.C. "If there is the emergence of a disease in any part of the world, it could be in any other part of the world within a day."

The CDC director said for each of the three priorities, the initiative has "measurable concrete, ambitious targets that countries will be able to meet."

On prevention, Frieden said the initiative will make sure if countries are growing dangerous organisms in laboratories they're kept securely.

"We'll also work to strengthen immunization programs to prevent deaths today but also to establish the infrastructure if it were needed in the future," he said.

On detection, countries will detect at least five of the most deadly organisms in at least 80 percent of their country, and on response, countries will have emergency operation centers which can marshal a response within 120 minutes to quickly control an outbreak.

The U.S. has four deliverables for the initiative, including a commitment to partner with at least 30 countries over the next five years to advance model systems, he said. In 2014, the focus for this commitment for the CDC and the Department of Defense will be to partner with up to 10 countries to implement and accelerate efforts in field epidemiology, diagnostic tests and other capabilities.

In 2015, there will be a proposal in the President's budget to add 45 million U.S. dollars to the CDC budget to further expand the initiative, said the director, who added that the White House will host an event later this year bringing together countries involved in the initiative to review progress and chart the way forward.

Countries joining the initiative are Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, the Republic of Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, Uganda, United Kingdom and Vietnam. And the international organizations involved are the World Health Organization (WHO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), as well as the World Organization for Animal Health.

Hormone-affecting chemical found in certain perfumes

 In a study of 53 perfumes and aftershaves, six were found to contain a high amount of dangerous hormone-affecting chemical diethyl phthalate (DEP), an Austrian environmental protection organization said Thursday.

In a press conference in Vienna on Thursday, Global 2000 said its study results showed a high concentration of DEP in certain kinds of fragrances.

Potential side-effects of the chemical, which Global 2000 said can enter the bloodstream once applied to the skin, are fertility problems in both men and women, increased risk of breast, testicular, and prostate cancers, and metabolic diseases such as diabetes and obesity.

Austria Press Agency quoted Professor Andreas Lischka, Director of the Children's Hospital in Glanzing, Vienna saying such chemicals are particularly dangerous for pregnant women, as they can enter the blood stream and affect the development of the fetus.

Global 2000 said it was pleased that the majority of fragrances did not contain the chemical, but was at the same time alarmed that others contained it in relatively high concentrations.

"We must take immediate action in the form of prohibitions," said Helmut Burtscher, a Global 2000 biochemist.

Eating more fish may cut young women's heart disease risk

Young women may reduce their risk of developing cardiovascular disease simply by eating more fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids, researchers reported Monday in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association.

In the first population-based study in Danish women of childbearing age, those who rarely or never ate fish had 50 percent more cardiovascular problems over eight years than those who ate fish regularly. Compared to women who ate fish high in omega-3 weekly, the risk was 90 percent higher for those who rarely or never ate fish.

About 49,000 women, 15-49 years old, median age of just under 30 years in early pregnancy -- were interviewed by telephone or answered food frequency questionnaires about how much, what types and how often they ate fish, as well as lifestyle and family history questions.

Researchers recorded 577 cardiovascular events during the eight- year period, including five cardiovascular deaths in women without any prior diagnosis of the disease. In all, 328 events were due to hypertensive disease, 146 from cerebrovascular disease, and 103 from ischemic heart disease. Inpatient and outpatient admission for cardiovascular disease was much more common among women who reported eating little or no fish. In three different assessments over a 30-week period, women who never ate fish had a three-fold higher disease risk compared to women who ate fish every week.

"To our knowledge this is the first study of this size to focus exclusively on women of childbearing age," said Marin Strom, lead researcher and post doctoral fellow at the Center for Fetal Programming, at Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark. " We saw a strong association with cardiovascular disease in the women who were still in their late 30's."

Fish oil contains long chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are believed to protect against heart and vascular disease. Few women in the study took fish oil supplements, so these were excluded from the analyses and the results were based on the dietary intake of omega-3 fatty acids, not intake from supplements.

The most common fish consumed by women in the study were cod, salmon, herring, and mackerel.

Parents should chill over house dust mites

Parents wanting to help their children avoid asthma and other allergies are being told to give their toys a frosty reception by sticking them in the freezer.

Medical scientists in New Zealand and Taiwan have discovered that freezing children's soft toys can kill almost all house dust mites (HDMs), the microscopic bugs associated with a range of allergies, including asthma.

Other effective remedies for killing HDMs, commonly found in children's soft toys, were tumble drying and washing with eucalyptus oil and detergent, the scientists from New Zealand's University of Otago and Taiwan's Changhua Christian Hospital found.

HDMs were strongly associated with the development of asthma in children, and the severity of asthma was in proportion to the number of house dust mites a child was exposed to when sleeping with soft toys, said a statement from the university Monday.

"Children frequently sleep with their favorite toys close to their airways and this may be important for HDM-sensitized asthmatic children," said University of Otago Associate Professor Rob Siebers.

The scientists tested the three different cleaning methods on 36 toys divided into three groups of 12.

Freezing toys for at least 16 hours at minus 15 degrees centigrade resulted in a 95-percent reduction of HDMs, as did soaking in an emulsion of eucalyptus oil and liquid detergent for one hour before rinsing and drying.

Hot tumble drying for one hour reduced mites by 89 percent, the study found.

"Washing and soaking with eucalyptus oil and detergent is very effective in not only reducing live mites, but also reducing house dust mite allergens, compared to freezing and tumble drying," said Siebers.

Ten of the 12 toys cleaned this way showed no live mites at all.

Siebers said all three methods were more effective than just washing toys, because water needed to be above 55 degrees centigrade to kill HDMs, but this usually damaged the toys.

"My advice for parents is to either tumble dry for one hour, or freeze the soft toy overnight, and then wash it in a cold wash to remove any allergens."

Siebers said the thickness of the material used in making the toys could alter the effectiveness of the three methods.

The scientists would conduct further research to determine how quickly HDMs recolonized soft toys and how often toys should be treated.

House dust mites main cause of respiratory allergies in Singapore

 Scientists in Singapore said on Friday that they found exposure to house dust mites to be the primary cause of respiratory allergies in the tropical city sate.

The scientists from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research and the National University of Singapore surveyed about 8, 000 people, with 80 percent found to be reactive to house dust mites.

These people show only minor reactivity to other allergens.

The high rate of reactions from house dust mites are "strongly correlated with increased rates of allergic rhinitis and asthma in Singapore," the scientists said.

"We believe that results from this study will help to understand the differences of allergies in the tropics and other parts of the world," Olaf Rotzschke, the lead investigator of the study at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research.

The results also suggested that changes in lifestyle resulting in more time spent indoors increased the exposure to high loads of house dust mite allergens.

It is estimated that close to 15 percent of Singapore's adult population are affected by asthma and nearly 40 percent troubled by allergic rhinitis.

China reports 11 new H7N9 human cases

Eleven Chinese people were confirmed to be infected with the H7N9 bird flu on Wednesday in four regions, with 8 in critical condition, according to local health authorities.

The southern province of Guangdong reported 4 new cases, including a 5-year-old girl and a 42-year-old man in Zhaoqing City, a 49-year-old man in Foshan City and a 56-year-old man in Shenzhen City, said the provincial health and family planning commission.

The girl and the man from Foshan are in stable condition while the other two remain in critical condition, according to the commission.

The eastern province of Zhejiang, the region hit hardest by the H7N9 virus, confirmed four new human cases on Wednesday, bringing the total number of affected cases to 69 in the province so far this year, said the provincial health and family planning commission.

The patients were two men and two women, all in critical condition, according to the commission.

Two new cases were reported in Hengxian County in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, according to the regional health and family planning commission. They were a 41-year-old woman, in critical condition, and his 5-year-old son.

A 36-old man in Quanzhou City of east China's Fujian Province was confirmed to be infected with the virus on Wednesday. He is in critical condition, according to the provincial health and family planning commission.

Chinese health authorities on Wednesday reaffirmed no proof has been found that the H7N9 virus is spreading from human to human.

Most human H7N9 infection cases have been isolated so far, said a statement from the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

During the Spring Festival holidays, expert teams sent by the commission have been supervising local hospitals in Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong in diagnosing and treating H7N9 patients, the statement said.

Health authorities and hospitals in provinces with high incidence of H7N9 are working hard to identify H7N9 cases as early as possible, it said.