Whole Life Times: Body Image and Bad Health

April 2008 | Healthy Living :: Body Talk

Body Image and Bad Health

The body-image blues could be bad for your health, suggests a recent report from the American Journal of Public Health. Scientists studied more than 150,000 U.S. adults, finding that about 66 percent wanted to shed pounds while 26 percent were happy with their weight. Those who longed to slim down spent a greater number of days per month feeling physically unhealthy: Women who wished to lose 20 percent of their weight, for instance, said they felt under-the-weather an average of 4.3 days a month.

Negative body image could contribute to chronic stress, which in turn may weaken mental and physical health, notes study author Peter Muennig, M.D. Young people and women may be particularly at risk, since both groups were found to be disproportionately impacted by negative body image and both “unduly suffer” from morbidity and mortality associated with being overweight or obese, according to Muennig.

Good bugs for long runs
Keeping up an intense workout routine can clobber your immune system, but popping a probiotics supplement might save you from getting sick.

In a new study from the British Journal of Sports Medicine, 20 professional long-distance runners took either a placebo pill or a capsule containing lactobacillus (a form of “friendly” bacteria known to protect your body against harmful, illness-causing organisms). At the end of the four-month study, researchers determined that the runners experienced 72 days of respiratory-infection symptoms while taking the placebo, but just 30 days of symptoms while on lactobacillus. Symptoms also tended to be less severe for the runners when they took their twice-daily dose of good bugs. Furthermore, probiotic treatment seemed to double the runners’ levels of interferon gamma, compounds that are crucial to immune-system response.

It’s possible that boosting your intake of probiotics could help stimulate T-cell activity, according to the study’s authors. Previous studies have shown that friendly bacteria—available in yogurt, kefir, and fermented foods like tempeh and miso—may also help treat irritable bowel syndrome, reduce yeast infections, and lower risk of allergies.

New mind-body heart risk
Feeling hostile and struggling with depression might be a dangerous mix for your heart, according to a new study published in Psychosomatic Medicine. The study, which included 316 healthy men and women aged 50 to 70, revealed that hostility and depression may team up to increase the body’s level of interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein, two inflammatory proteins thought to predict heart disease. What’s more, the relationship of those negative emotions to the inflammatory proteins appeared to be “more complex and much stronger than depression or hostility individually,” the study’s authors point out. In fact, the authors suggest, the hostility-depression combo may even rank with high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, and smoking when it comes to risk factors for heart disease.

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