Diet During Pregnancy Affects Your Child's Puberty

It is becoming a common knowledge that kids nowadays tend to have early puberty. Quite a lot of them start puberty as early as 7 years old! Young girls start menstruating at this age and their body start to change to become more womanly. Gosh. I remember back in my days, puberty starts around 10-12 years old. What a huge difference.

Apparently, what a pregnant mother eats during her pregnancy, and also lactation, affects her child's puberty. Researchers from Auckland University, New Zealand, found that the offspring of rats given high-fat diets started puberty significantly earlier compared to those rats given healthy diets. The same thing applies for rats given a calorie restricted diet.

The disadvantages of having early puberty would involve:
- changes in mood disorder
- increased prevalence in depression in adolescence
- increases in sexual activity in teenagers
- early puberty and early menopause in female
- link between early first period and breast cancer in female
- increased aggressive behaviour and risk taking behaviour in male

This study has just been published in the online journal PLoS ONE. Further research is needed though to replicate the study using different strains of rats, because different strains behave differently to diets and hence its impact.

Why Herbs Are Not Safe For Pregnant Women

Many Chinese people would take chinese herbs during their pregnancy. My families and my husband families are among those who believe that preggars should consume chinese herbs, to strengthen the uterus and thus the well being of the baby.

Consumption of chinese herbs is prohibited by my obgyn (obstetricians and gynaecologists) in Singapore. According to her, herbs do not have any quality control and thus should be avoided as we are unsure of the quality.

At first, I took some of chinese herbs during my pregnancy, and I fell ill. It was just the regular chicken herbs soup that I always took since I was young. I had stomach cramps. At first I thought it was just a coincidence. Then after the next 2 times I took the chinese herbs soup, I am very certain that the stomach cramp is due to the chinese herbs I consumed. It was in my early trimester of pregnancy. I avoided chinese herbs since then, and ignored what my family and my hubby's family said about the importance of consuming chinese herbs.

And I finally find a more detailed explanation in one of pregnancy books I am reading, on why preggars should avoid taking chinese herbs, or any herbal cures in general. So my preggars friends, or if there is any of you who is trying to conceive, note down this piece of information.

Medicinal herbs are drugs, often very powerful ones. Some are so powerful that they are used in laboratories to produce prescription medicines. Others have been used for generations in some societies to induce abortions, and some have been linked to miscarriage.

Even in a seemingly soothing cup of tea, some herbs are capable of producing such symptoms as diarrhea, vomiting, and heart palpitations. The use of herbal medicines presents an added risk that is not present hen the remedies come from the drugstore.

Herbs are not made under quality-controlled conditions, and may be dangerously strong or imptently weak. They may also contain harmful contaminants, including such allergens as insect parts, pollens, and molds, and even toxic agents such as lead or arsenic.

Considering the above, you should also avoid herbal teas. If you are craving for the taste or smell of herbal teas, just add orange, apple, pineapple, lemon, mint leaves, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves or other spices to your decaffeinated tea.

Cold Roast Potatoes Cause Hiccups

Do not eat roast potatoes when it is already cold, because it would cause inconvenient hiccups to you.

Hiccups are involuntary contractions of the diaphragm and other inspiratory muscles, that is the muscles we use to breathe in. Hiccups can be a sign of irritation in our body.

Hiccups occur when we eat too much at once and do not chew it properly before swallowing it down.

But there are also many other causes of hiccups. One of them is the resistant starch found in starchy foods like potatoes when eaten cold. Resistant starch resists the process of digestion in the small intestine (where starchy food is digested when it is hot), and moves into the bowel and colon where it is fermented by bacteria. This causes more gas, bloating, irritating our diaphragm and thus causes hiccups.

So if you happen to have roast potatoes leftovers in your fridge, do make sure you heat it up before you eat it.

How to Lose Weight, and How to Maintain is The Hardest Part

I believe many of us do experience this so-called yo-yo diet. Sometimes we lose weights, we get happy, allow ourselves some snacks and yummy guilty foods to celebrate our 'achievements', and before we know it, the fat is back on!!!

Of course those with very very strong willpower and self control can manage to keep the fat off for a long period of time. But not everyone of us is very strong willed. At times, we will fall down to the "pampering" ourselves with good food.

Not that good food is bad. What you can do is eat in moderate amount, spread your food intake into many times a day, 5 times a day will be enough to keep you feeling full, and avoid hunger which can lead you to eat excessively at once. Regular exercise will keep you in the right track.

But willpower and self control tend to fail. The question is, how to keep yourself in check.

There is a US trial involving over a thousand people started with a six-month weight loss program, during which they lost an average of 8.5 kg.

After this they were randomly allocated to 1 of 3 groups for 2 and 1/2 years: doing things for themselves with some written advice; a web-based interactive program which got them to feed in their weight and activity levels and encouraged increased exercise and sensible eating behaviours; and finally, a third group was allocated to monthly personal contact from a trained person, both by phone and face to face.

The good news was that everyone weighed less than they did at the start. The bad news was that it wasn't the intial 8.5 kilos.

Almost everyone regained weight, but those who'd had personal contact put less back on than the others, to the tune of about 1.5 kg.

The web-based program looked good to begin with, but soon lost its effect.

It's not cheap, but it looks as though to slow the passage of food from hand to mouth, what you need is having someone on your back.