Page 50 - Panama City Living Magazine

HEALTH HACKSTHE DEBATE IS OVER... co ee and dark chocolate are healthy!DARK CHOCOLATEDark chocolate, or more precisely, one of its main ingredients, cacao, is believed to improve you heart, brain, and overall health. While chocolate’s other ingredi- ents, sugar, powdered milk, and plant fat lack the health bene ts, it’s the cacao that will boost your wellbeing. Look for chocolate that has at least a 70% cacao content, or even better, buy the cacao powder and serve the beverage hot or ice cold. You can even make chocolate yourself with raw organic cacao powder, coconut oil, and maple syrup.Currently, clinical trials are being conducted by JoAnn E. Manson, M.D. of Bos- ton’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard, and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle to test the health e ects of cacao extract and multivi- tams. Find out more: www.clinicaltrials.govCOFFEEResearch confirms that coffee is good for you. Throughout the years coffee has received severewarningsandoutstandingpraises. Thearticle"Howcoffeelovesusback" by Harvard staff writer Alvin Powell clarifies its benefits. Here an excerpt:“Coffee, said the Napoleon-era French diplomat Talleyrand, should be hot as hell, black as the devil, pure as an angel, sweet as love. Bach wrote a cantata in its honor, writers rely on it, and, according to legend, a pope blessed it. Lady Astor once reportedly remarkedthat if she were Winston Churchill’s wife, she’d poison his coffee, to which Churchill acerbically replied: “If I were married to you, I’d drink it.” Coffee is everywhere, through history and across the world. And increasingly, science is demonstrating that its popu- larity is a good thing. Harvard scientists have for years put coffee under the microscope. Last year, researchers announced they had discovered six new human genes related to coffee and reconfirmed the existence of two others. The long-running Nurses’ Health Study has found that coffee protects against type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Researchers are continuing to follow up on 2001 findings that it protects against Parkinson’s disease. The work at Harvard is just part of an emerging picture of coffee as a potentially powerful elixiragainst a range of ailments, from cancer to cavities.Sanjiv Chopra, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School andHarvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, has been so impressed he’s be-come something of a coffee evangelist. The author of several books, Chopra included achapter on coffee in his 2010 book, “Live Better, Live Longer.""(Source: Alvin Powell, Harvard staff writer, www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2015/09/how-coffee-loves-us-back/, Retrieved February 12, 2018)Unexpected health benetifts in spices...CUMINA spice native to Asia, Africa, and Europe, cumin can be bought inpowder form or as whole dry seeds. Aside from cooking, cumin hasalso been used medicinally in many parts of the world for someyears. Cumin is believed to aid in weight loss, lower cholesterol,improve the blood sugar levels in diabetics, help with irritable bowelsyndrome, ght the e ects of stress, and help with memory loss.(Source: Megan Metropulos, MS, RDN, and Megan Ware, RDN, LD www.medicalnewstoday.com/arti- cles/319562.php)