Excusez-moi!

I have been on vacation (and will be until this Thursday), so please pardon my lack of writing over the past few weeks. We have been traveling all over Spain and a bit of France.

Of all the things I notice in traveling abroad — and particularly in these parts — it is the lack of obesity. Quite simply, I could count on hand the amount of overweight people I have seen since my arrival.

Why? I have a few theories, but I have always admired the French and Spanish use of only the freshest ingredients. Not to mention the ability to walk everywhere (driving a car is really quite a pain here!) and the lack of “to-go” culture.

Want to make your life a little more European? Check out Martha Schulman’s series on soups for some easy cooking at home (she notes the French love of soup for even a main course) = nytimes.com/recipesforhealth/soup

Or maybe whip up some Basque style pintxos (my personal favorite) = amazon.com/pintxos

More to come. Don’t you worry.

The only spiders I may ever be partial to.

I literally said “whooooaaaa” aloud when I saw this = Robot Nano-Spiders May Heal Injuries*

Amazing. A team of scientists have program tiny robots to follow the path of DNA paths. I am far too much of a layman to explain any further. You’ll just have to read it here = TechEYE.net**

*Thanks Tad for Tweeting!
**The full research appears in the journal Nature, but you’ll have to register and pay for it.

Preventive care finds a seat at the table. Finally.

The new health care law will incentivize and support preventative measures in health care — with the idea being that healthy Americans generally cost less to take care of (imagine that!).

“Under the new law, insurers must offer preventive services — like immunizations, cancer screenings and checkups — to consumers as part of the insurance policy, at no additional out-of-pocket charge.” —The New York Times

More here: prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com
And here: nytimes.com/health

Photo courtesy of Just a Temporary Measure

Let the sun shine!

But also put on your sunscreen and take your cod liver oil. Yet another study has shown that Vitamin D can be an effective weapon in the fight against Crohn’s disease according to a McGill University study.

“This discovery is exciting, since it shows how an over-the-counter supplement such as Vitamin D could help people defend themselves against Crohn's disease,” says Marc J. Servant, a professor at the Université de Montréal's Faculty of Pharmacy and study collaborator. “We have identified a new treatment avenue for people with Crohn's disease or other inflammatory bowel diseases.”

Read more here: mcgill.ca

An appropriate Piscean diet.

A quick afternoon trip to the Norway Day festival today got me thinking about the Nordic diet. And while I really don’t love sardines, what if they truly are the answer to many of our health woes?

After all, Scandinavians are some of the healthiest people in the world—and a diet of Jarlsberg cheese, torsk and lingonberries sounds pretty good to me. Sardines on the side, behage (please).

Skål!