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Year: 2019

2019 Health

All the raisins—er, reasons—grapes are good for you, according to a registered dietitian

5 min read

June 08, 2019 at 04:00AM by CWC Grapes are blessedly one of the most accessible fruits there is. Even if your local supermarket doesn’t stock some of the more exotic summer fruits like papaya, kiwi, or mango, they probably still have beautiful bunches of green or red grapes no matter the season. But given that they’re so sugary sweet and delicious…that can’t be a good thing for you health-wise, right? It has to be too good to be true. If a low-carb diet has you wondering whether grapes are good for you, you’re in luck: the little globes pack in a ton of health benefits, says registered dietitian Cara Harbstreet, RD. (Phew!) Here’s what she says you need to know. What are the nutritional benefits of grapes? 1. Grapes are full of polyphenols. Polyphenols are active compounds naturally found in plants (including many fruits and vegetables); grapes are particularly high in them. “The polyphenols in grapes that we tend of think of have antioxidant properties, which may support health by lowering risk of inflammatory conditions such as heart disease,” Harbstreet says. Another 2015 meta-analysis found that grape polyphenols could help reduce blood pressure. 2. Grapes are a good source of vitamin K. Just half a cup of grapes gives 14 percent of the daily recommended amount of vitamin K, which is pretty great for such a small serving. “Vitamin K is an important nutrient for blood clotting, bone health, and may play a role in regulating blood pressure,” Harbstreet says. “Although

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2019 Health Relaxation

Science says sighing is involuntary self care—not your inner angsty teen being rude

4 min read

June 07, 2019 at 04:00PM by CWC I’ve taken to sighing approximately, oh, 22,000 times a morning, and I’m worried that my co-workers thing I’m an uptight, bored, and rude. The meaning of sighing is, after all, murky at best and the connotations of it are mostly negative. Sure, you can sigh of relief when your college friend cancels those after-work dinner plans. Or you can sigh dreamily when you scroll past the most perfect trifecta of Harry Styles, Gucci, and piglets. But mostly sighing conjures that phase of your life when wearing liquid eyeliner was a moody personality trait. And I’m trying to escape my reputation as the token Goth Teenager in every room I inhabit. Is my sighing habit precluding me from such progress? If you have similar anxieties, brace yourself for one of those big relief sighs: Sighing is actually a incredibly benign reflex that we all do pretty much constantly. On average, a person sighs every five minutes, which is about 12 times an hour. And while that may seems excessive, it actually may be a factor that’s keeping us alive. One study from UCLA and Stanford points to how the purpose of sighing is to inflate the alveoli, balloon-like sacs where oxygen enters and carbon dioxide leaves the bloodstream. Sometimes the alveoli collapses, so sighing is engaged to bring in double the oxygen to pop it back up again. Otherwise, your oxygen-to-carbon-dioxide process is compromised, and—not to get catastrophic—your lungs will fail. That biological function aside,

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