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California’s relentless rains affect farmworkers, strawberry prices

Yahoo! News

California’s relentless rains affect farmworkers, strawberry prices

Ben Adler, Senior Editor – March 23, 2023

Strawberry fields in Pajaro, Calif. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

A spate of heavy rains in California that have interfered with the strawberry harvest are having a negative economic impact on farmworkers and may soon hit consumers in the wallet too.

Since December, the state has been battered by unusually heavy snows and rains, and the effects of the extreme weather — which scientists say has been exacerbated by climate change — are hurting California’s key agricultural regions.

Tricia Stever Blattler, executive director of the Tulare County Farm Bureau in the San Joaquin Valley, told ABC News on Wednesday that the state’s Central Valley is dealing with a “catastrophic level of water.”

Damaged strawberry fields — Flooded strawberry fields damaged beyond repair in Ventura, Calif. (Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

“There’s a lot of cropland underwater right now,” Stever Blattler said. “I can’t even begin to tell you the numbers — north of 50,000 acres. Maybe closer to 75,000, 100,000.”

Acreage for growing crops including tomatoes, onions, garlic and cotton “will be diminished for a while,” she said.

On Wednesday, the Community Alliance With Family Farmers told KCRA, a TV station in Sacramento, that hundreds of thousands of acres of California farms have been affected by the latest deluge, which hit the state earlier this week.

“The area some call ‘America’s salad bowl’ more resembles a soup bowl,” a reporter on Fox Weather quipped on Sunday, in reference to inundated portions of California’s Central Valley and coast. The state grows about half of all the fruits and vegetables produced in the United States, including 91% of U.S. strawberries, according to the Department of Agriculture.

“For the farms that were flooded, this catastrophe hit at the worst possible time,” California Strawberry Commission president Rick Tomlinson said in a statement. “Farmers had borrowed money to prepare the fields and were weeks away from beginning to harvest.”

Monterey County Farm Bureau executive director Norm Groot told Fox Weather that the latest round of flooding will likely cause even more damage than the estimated $330 million crop losses from the flooding that occurred in January.

Farmworkers wear protective gear while picking strawberries in a field in Oxnard. (Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

California farmworkers are also feeling the effects. Last week, more than 8,000 residents in Pajaro were forced to flee when a levee on the nearby Pajaro River broke. The community is composed largely of Latino farmworkers, and many saw their homes destroyed.

Last week, agricultural experts told the Associated Press that roughly one-fifth of strawberry farms in Watsonville and Salinas, areas near Pajaro, had been flooded. “When the water recedes, what does the field look like — if it is even a field anymore?” said Jeff Cardinale, a spokesperson for the California Strawberry Commission. “It could just be a muddy mess where there is nothing left.”

Cardinale told Bloomberg News that it’s too soon to know how much strawberry prices will be affected, but the outlet reported that they “almost are certain to rise.”

“There’s going to be an impact on national supply,” Nick Wishnatzki of Wish Farms, a berry grower that has farms all over the Americas, told Bloomberg.

Pajaro and its neighbors are just the latest in a series of California towns that were flooded this winter. In January, Fidencio Velasquez, a supervisor at Santa Clara Farms in Ventura County, told the Los Angeles Times that flooding had cost the farm upwards of $900,000 in damage to crops and equipment, and that 150 of its employees would be furloughed for weeks.

Raul Ortiz, 52, looks at destroyed strawberry fields in Ventura — A worker at American Berry Farm in Ventura surveys the damage after a recent flood destroyed strawberry fields there. (Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Thousands of residents of Planada, an agricultural community an hour west of Yosemite National Park, saw their homes and cars laid to waste in January by a series of dramatic rainfall events. Now they must rebuild at a time when flooded fields cannot be harvested, crops are rotting and the workers have no income.

“The very workers who put food on our table are getting hot meals from the Salvation Army,” Antonio De Loera-Brust, a spokesperson for the United Farm Workers of America, told the New York Times in late February. “Whether California is on fire or underwater, the farmworkers are always losing.”

Wildfires and floods are both becoming more severe because of climate change. As UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain recently explained to Yahoo News, warmer temperatures are causing more evaporation, resulting in more moisture in the Earth’s atmosphere. But climate change is also increasing the likelihood of droughts.

Intense heat waves have led to worse wildfire seasons throughout the West in recent years. Smoke from those fires can destroy crops — ruining the taste of grapes, for example. Inhalation of wildfire smoke is also harmful to farmworkers, and working in extreme heat is a growing health hazard.

“We have compounding and cascading disasters from extreme storms, flooding, wildfires, heat waves and drought that are all impacting farmworkers,” Michael Méndez, assistant professor of environmental planning and policy at the University of California, Irvine, told the Los Angeles Times.

Women are skipping marriage and becoming a force in the workplace

Fortune

Women are skipping marriage and becoming a force in the workplace

Megan Leonhardt – March 22, 2023

The number of single, unmarried women in the workforce has grown three times faster than the overall pool of workers in the past decade.

Women today are spending a larger portion of their lives single, many of whom are waiting longer to marry or start families, while others are opting to remain permanently unattached. It’s a global trend, according to Dinah Hannaford, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Houston. In the U.S., the median age of first marriage for women has risen from a low of 20.1 in 1956 to an estimated age of 28.2 last year, according to the Census Bureau.

More than half (52%) of women are unmarried or separated as of 2021, according to a recent report from Wells Fargo Economics. “As women spend a greater portion of their lives as a single economic unit, it is ushering in changes to their relationship with the labor market,” the report notes.

Although the reasons behind delaying or skipping marriage vary, careers play a large role—as the numbers show. Single, unmarried women, as it turns out, are a rapidly growing segment of the labor force, holding the highest participation rate of all women. The participation rate for married women, for example, is about 7 percentage points lower than that for single women, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Unmarried single women now account for 16% of workers, up from 13.9% in 2012, according to the Wells Fargo research.

These unmarried women are increasing their share of the labor force not only because of their growing population numbers, but also because they tend to have a greater financial need for work. Single women, particularly those who have never married, usually only have their own earnings to rely on, creating more of an imperative to hold down employment. Researchers found that the labor force participation rate of never-married women has increased 1.9 percentage points over the last 10 years—higher than the rate of never-married men.

The growing labor force participation rate among unmarried women also stands in contrast to an overall steady decline in the total U.S. participation rate (even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic). “The rising number of single women in the United States has thus provided some much-needed support to the U.S. labor force over the past decade,” the report says.

The labor force participation rate of working women (ages 25 to 54) has finally, fully rebounded after 13.6 million women lost their jobs during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic three years ago. In February, 77.2% of prime-age women were working or actively looking for a job, on par with the pre-pandemic rate of 77%.

But women—even single unmarried women—are still employed at lower rates in the U.S. than men due to a number of headwinds, including a lack of childcare, wage disparities, tax policies, and even government benefits. The latest data shows men’s workforce participation is still roughly 12 points higher than women.

So while single women who have never married are increasingly a critical labor source—particularly as employers continue to struggle with recruiting—there are still challenges to overcome to see continued financial and economic improvement for this sector of the population.

Russian missiles batter Ukraine, but Bakhmut offensive stalling, say military experts

Reuters

Russian missiles batter Ukraine, but Bakhmut offensive stalling, say military experts

Dan Peleschuk and Sergiy Chalyi – March 22, 2023

Aftermath of a Russian missile strike in Zaporizhzhia

Ukrainian servicemen ride a tank on a road towards the frontline town of Bakhmut in Chasiv Yarr

Ukraine's President Zelenskiy visits a petrol station in Donetsk region — Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy visits a petrol station in Donetsk region

KYIV/ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine (Reuters) – Russian drones attacked Ukrainian cities and missiles blasted an apartment block, but a months-long ground assault on the eastern town of Bakhmut could be stalling in the face of fierce resistance, according to Ukrainian and British military experts.

Russian forces unleashed a wave of air strikes in the north and south of Ukraine as President Vladimir Putin bid farewell on Wednesday to Chinese leader Xi Jinping following a two day visit to Moscow by his fellow autocrat and “dear friend”.

But staunch resistance by Ukrainian defenders in Bakhmut, the site of Europe’s deadliest infantry battle since World War Two, led British military intelligence to believe Russia’s assault on the town could be running out of steam.

There was still a danger, however, that the Ukrainian garrison in Bakhmut could be surrounded, Britain’s defence ministry said in its intelligence update on Wednesday.

Ukraine’s military General Staff agreed that Russia’s offensive potential in Bakhmut was declining.

Bakhmut has become a key objective for Moscow, which sees the town as a stepping stone toward completing its conquest of the eastern Donbas region.

In a show of defiance, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office released a video of him handing out medals to troops it said were near the Bakhmut front line.

“Ukrainian forces have more or less stabilised the situation in Bakhmut — and Russian forces are unable to do anything,” military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said in a YouTube presentation.

“They may have advanced a couple of hundred metres to the north or south of the city, but this has really achieved nothing.”

During Wednesday night, air raid sirens blared across the capital Kyiv and parts of northern Ukraine, and the military said it had shot down 16 of 21 Iranian-made Shahed suicide drones.

Firefighters battled a blaze in two adjacent residential buildings in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, where officials said at least one person was killed and 33 wounded by a twin missile strike.

In Rzhyshchiv, a riverside town south of Kyiv, at least eight people were killed and seven injured after a drone struck two dormitories and a college, regional police chief Andrii Nebytov said.

“This must not become ‘just another day’ in Ukraine or anywhere else in the world. The world needs greater unity and determination to defeat Russian terror faster and protect lives,” Zelenskiy tweeted, along with a video of security camera footage showing a building exploding.

A playground and a car park at the scene in Zaporizhzhia were littered with glass, debris and wrecked cars. Emergency workers brought out the wounded along with anyone unable to walk.

An elderly woman with a scratched face sat alone on a bench, wiping tears and whispering prayers.

“When I got out, there was destruction, smoke, people screaming, debris. Then the firefighters and rescuers came,” said Ivan Nalyvaiko, 24.

International groups estimate rebuilding Ukraine will cost $411 billion – 2.6 times Ukraine’s 2022 gross domestic product.

CHINA-RUSSIA UNITY

Hosting Xi in Moscow this week was Putin’s grandest diplomatic gesture since he ordered the invasion of neighbouring Ukraine 13 months ago and became a pariah in the West.

The two men referred to each other as “dear friend”, promised economic cooperation, condemned the West and described relations as the best they have ever been.

Xi departed telling Putin: “Now there are changes that haven’t happened in 100 years. When we are together, we drive these changes.”

“I agree,” Putin said.

But the public remarks were notably short of specifics, and during the visit Xi had almost nothing to say about the Ukraine war, beyond that China’s position was “impartial”.

The White House urged Beijing to pressure Russia to withdraw. Washington also criticised the timing of the trip, just days after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin on war crimes charges.

China has proposed a peace plan for Ukraine that the West largely dismisses as vague at best, and at worst a ploy to buy time for Putin to regroup his forces.

Ukraine says there can be no peace unless Russia withdraws from occupied land. Moscow says Kyiv must recognise territorial “realities” after its claim to have annexed nearly a fifth of Ukraine.

(Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Michael Perry; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Ukraine: The Latest podcast – hard truths from Ukrainian frontline troops

The Telegraph

Ukraine: The Latest podcast – hard truths from Ukrainian frontline troops

David Knowles – March 22, 2023

A handout photo made available by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service shows servicemen waiting to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky (not pictured) as he visits the Ukrainian military's advanced positions in the Bakhmut direction, during a working trip to the Donetsk region, at an undisclosed location in Ukraine, 22 March 2023, amid the Russian invasion of the country. Russian troops entered Ukrainian territory on 24 February 2022, starting a conflict that has provoked destruction and a humanitarian crisis. Ukraine's President Zelensky visits troops near the Donetsk frontline, Bakhmut - 22 Mar 2023 — A handout photo made available by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Service shows servicemen waiting to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky (not pictured) as he visits the Ukrainian military’s advanced positions in the Bakhmut direction, during a working trip to the Donetsk region, at an undisclosed location in Ukraine, 22 March 2023, amid the Russian invasion of the country. Russian troops entered Ukrainian territory on 24 February 2022, starting a conflict that has provoked destruction and a humanitarian crisis. Ukraine’s President Zelensky visits troops near the Donetsk frontline, Bakhmut – 22 Mar 2023

In today’s episode of Ukraine: The Latest, we bring you updates from across Ukraine, dispel Russian misinformation on British tank rounds, and interview Kyiv Independent reporter Francis Farrell on his time reporting from the front lines across Ukraine.

Assistant Comment Editor Francis Dearnley discussed the significance of Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow that ended today:

I do think that if we are to summarise this as a glamorous ‘photo opportunity’, I do still think that photo opportunity matters enormously. When the war began, China was publicly – and I stress that word because in private, no doubt, they were making different calculations – cautious about their dealings with Russia, seeing how things would develop.
Evidently, they now think the prospects of a long war and a relatively secure Putin in the short-term mean that backing him publicly is worth it.

Our guest Francis Farrell commented on the morale of the Ukrainian troops he has met.

Almost all of them said the same thing: that they understand their job as infantry is to stand and hold the line. Probably the hardest job in the military in a full scale conventional war between two states like this. But they know what they’re fighting for. It didn’t seem like they were faking their patriotism or anything like that, but they were honest in the sense that they are very, very tired.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon spoke about Russian disinformation regarding British tank shells that are being supplied to Ukraine:

This is a classic Putin disinformation and absolutely bonkers. Putin has used the threat of new correct escalation from the very start to try and keep NATO out of this conflict and it hasn’t really worked. To suggest that a tank round that contains depleted uranium is some sort of nuclear weapon is absolutely ridiculous.

Yesterday Dom Nicholls interview former US National Security Adviser John Bolton. For a video of the interview click here.

In today's episode, we also talk to former national security adviser John Bolton. — In today’s episode, we also talk to former national security adviser John Bolton.

War in Ukraine is reshaping our world. Every weekday the Telegraph’s top journalists analyse the invasion from all angles – military, humanitarian, political, economic, historical – and tell you what you need to know to stay updated.

With over 24 million downloads, our Ukraine: The Latest podcast is your go-to source for all the latest analysis, live reaction and correspondents reporting on the ground.

Ukraine: The Latest‘s regular contributors are:

David Knowles

David is Head of Social Media at the Telegraph where he has worked for almost two years. Previously he worked for the World Economic Forum in Geneva. He speaks French.

Dominic Nicholls

Dom is Associate Editor (Defence) at the Telegraph having joined in 2018. He previously served for 23 years in the British Army, in tank and helicopter units. He had operational deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland.

Francis Dearnley

Francis is Assistant Comment Editor at the Telegraph. Prior to working as a journalist, he was Chief of Staff to the Chair of the Prime Minister’s Policy Board at the Houses of Parliament in London. He studied History at Cambridge University and on the podcast explores how the past shines a light on the latest diplomatic, political, and strategic developments.

They are also regularly joined by the Telegraph‘s foreign correspondents around the world, including Joe Barnes (Brussels), Sophia Yan (China), Nataliya Vasilyeva (Russia), Roland Oliphant (Senior Reporter) and Colin Freeman (Reporter). In London, Venetia Rainey (Weekend Foreign Editor), Katie O’Neill (Assistant Foreign Editor), and Verity Bowman (News Reporter) also frequently appear to offer updates.

Russian soldiers stop receiving salaries: complaints coming from all over Russia

Ukrayinska Pravda

Russian soldiers stop receiving salaries: complaints coming from all over Russia

Ukrainska Pravda – March 22, 2023

The conscripts and contract soldiers in Russia are not paid promised salaries, allowances and social benefits.

Source: Vyorstka, a Russian news outlet

Details: According to the calculations of the news outlet, since the beginning of March 2023, the salaries of the servicemen have been delayed or not paid at all in 52 regions of Russia and in occupied Crimea.

Instead of the promised 195,000 roubles [approx. USD$2,530 – ed.] per month, their accounts receive much smaller amounts.

Judging by the stories of the Russian servicemen themselves and their relatives, frequent problems with payments began in January, but at the same time, individual cases of withholding and non-payment of salaries, allowances and social benefits have been reported at least since November 2022. It is noted that both conscripts and volunteer and contract soldiers face this problem.

Since the beginning of March, dozens of messages about the non-payment have been posted in groups devoted to payments to conscripts on the Russian social network VKontakte.

In the comments, the authors of the complaints are often told that the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation officially transfers salaries from the 10th to the 20th of each month and that delays may be related to the transfer of the serviceman himself to another unit. In these cases, some admit that they received payments later. Others publish payslips from the personal online accounts of servicemen on the website of the Ministry of Defence, in which there are zeros in place of payments.

According to Dmytro Loboyko, the Head of the Regional Studies Centre, people from the Russian hinterland associated “the hope of qualitatively changing their lives, but they had to face reality” with payment for participation in hostilities.

An MIT neuroscientist says ‘routine’ and ‘discipline’ are the keys to preserving memory and staving off dementia

Business Insider

An MIT neuroscientist says ‘routine’ and ‘discipline’ are the keys to preserving memory and staving off dementia

Yeji Jesse Lee – March 22, 2023

Elderly Chinese people perform tai-chi while exercising at Ritan Park on June 10, 2016 in Beijing, China. — People perform tai-chi while exercising at Ritan Park in Beijing.Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Memory and cognitive function tend to decline as people age.
But research shows that healthy habits can keep your memory stronger.
MIT neuroscientist Li-Huei Tsai said it boils down to routine and discipline.

It comes down to discipline.

That’s according to MIT Professor Li-Huei Tsai, a neuroscientist who focuses on diseases like Alzheimer’s and directs The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory. She told Insider that the keys to maintaining healthy brain function and memory as you age are no secret.

“I think people actually know what they should be doing to stay healthy and to preserve their memory,” Tsai said.

She said that common expert advice — exercise, be socially and intellectually active, and maintain a healthy diet — are important to implement into our lives. The harder part is maintaining those habits.

“I think that if you just keep a routine, you know, you do it,” Tsai said. “I mean, I think that’s the only way to do it.”

A recent study published in The BMJ that followed almost 30,000 people in China for 10 years found that those who followed more “healthy lifestyle factors” had slower memory decline than those who did not.

Researchers in the study looked at many of the same factors that Tsai called out: a healthy diet, regular exercise, regular social contact, cognitive activities, and abstaining from both smoking and alcohol.

Tsai is now working on a medical device that’s intended to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. It creates a show of light and sound for the wearer, and is designed to stimulate their brain.

Tsai said she knows it’s important to maintain her routine even when conditions are less than favorable.

“I just have to really discipline myself,” she said. “For instance, exercise in the winter: it’s really painful when you look at outside temperature below zero and there’s ice and snow on the ground. I just try to discipline myself.”

US semiconductor firm Marvell lays off entire China research and development team in latest round of job cuts amid industry slowdown

South China Morning Post

US semiconductor firm Marvell lays off entire China research and development team in latest round of job cuts amid industry slowdown

South China Morning Post – March 22, 2023

US semiconductor company Marvell Technology is laying off its entire research and development team in mainland China, about five months after the firm initiated job cuts to scale down its operations in the world’s largest chip market.

Santa Clara, California-based Marvell said it is eliminating about 320 jobs, or 4 per cent of its global workforce, in response to what the company described as an industry slowdown, according to a statement from the firm on Wednesday.

“We are streamlining our organisation to ensure that our workforce is positioned to take advantage of our most promising opportunities, both now and when we emerge from the current industry downcycle,” Stacey Keegan, Marvell’s vice-president of corporate marketing, said in the statement.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

While China remains a large and important market for Marvell, Keegan said the company has decided to “concentrate our China-based resources on customer-facing teams to best support our local customers and business opportunities”. She added, however, that this move has “resulted in the elimination of certain R&D roles”.

The logo of US semiconductor company Marvell Technology is seen at its headquarters in Santa Clara, California. Photo: Shutterstock alt=The logo of US semiconductor company Marvell Technology is seen at its headquarters in Santa Clara, California. Photo: Shutterstock>

Most of Marvell’s latest job cuts will directly affect the firm’s entire research and development operation in mainland China, while only about 5 per cent of these lay-offs will be conducted in the US, according to a report on Wednesday by Chinese semiconductor industry portal Ijiwei, which cited sources familiar with the matter.

Marvell is expected to immediately notify its affected Chinese employees and offer a severance package similar to that provided during the lay-offs last October, the Ijiwei report said.

Multiple departments at Marvell’s offices in Shanghai and in Chengdu, capital of southwestern Sichuan province, were either downsized or entirely cut last October.

Before the lay-offs, Marvell had nearly 1,000 employees in China at its peak. About 800 of these workers were located in Shanghai, which had the company’s third-largest research and development team behind its operations in the US and Israel.

Marvell’s latest round of job cuts reflect the increased pressure on the world’s major semiconductor companies owing to the large imbalance between supply and demand in the global market, where chip inventories have risen to record levels.

Arm China, the mainland joint venture of SoftBank Group Corp-owned Arm, last month laid off more than 100 people across three departments, following a tough 2022 that saw profits plummet by 96 per cent.

Meanwhile, US memory chip giant Micron Technology closed its DRAM design operations in Shanghai at the end of last year, with some 150 Chinese engineers asked to relocate to either the US or India amid rising tensions between Beijing and Washington.

Marvell, which designs advanced chips for cloud computing, automotive, 5G mobile communications and enterprise networking applications, earlier this month reported record revenue of US$5.92 billion for its financial year ended January 28, up 33 per cent from a year earlier, on the back of growth from those business segments. But it also posted a US$164 million net loss in its past financial year.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century.

Putin is under the influence of strong drugs, Russian political scientist says

The New Voice of Ukraine

Putin is under the influence of strong drugs, Russian political scientist says

March 21, 2023

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin at a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, March 20, 2023

“If you watched at least a part of the speech to entrepreneurs (Putin’s speech at the Congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs — ed.), you can see a person high on speed, as young people say, meaning someone using powerful stimulant drugs,” Solovei said on the Morning Turn program on the Zhyvyi Hvozd (Living Nail) YouTube channel.

Putin gave a speech at the Congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) in Moscow on March 16.

The things the dictator said during the speech “were provoked by the drugs and the corresponding changed state of mind,” the scientist said.

Top Russian businessmen ignored the congress.

LUKOIL co-owner Vagit Alekperov, his partner Leonid Fedun, former Sibur CEO Dmitry Konov, and Crocus Group owner Araz Agalarov resigned from the Chamber of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs in early March. Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov also asked to leave the RSPP.

None of them showed up for the meeting with Putin.

Owner of the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant, Vladimir Lisin, and owner of Sistema, one of the largest private investors in Russia, Vladimir Yevtushenkov, also did not attend.

As a result, only six people out of the top 20 on the Russian Forbes list participated in the congress and met with Putin.

What’s Causing Your Gut Inflammation? These Common Triggers Might Be to Blame

Real Simple

What’s Causing Your Gut Inflammation? These Common Triggers Might Be to Blame

Amanda Lauren – March 21, 2023

You have more control over gut inflammation than you think.

<p>Fabian Montano/Getty Images</p> — Fabian Montano/Getty Images

Most of us are aware of gut health, but it’s probably not something we think too much about until it becomes a problem. Then one day something starts feeling off—maybe you’re constantly bloated, constipated, or struggling with another form of digestive discomfort—and gut health suddenly has to come to the forefront of your mind. Or it’s possible you may experience other, seemingly unrelated symptoms, such as bad breath, breakouts, fatigue, or headaches and wonder if somehow it could be connected to poor gut health.

“Numerous studies have shown that the gut microbiome is a powerful driver behind the body’s inflammatory status and gut dysbiosis—a broad term that describes an imbalance of the gut microbiota—is thought to trigger inflammatory responses that can lead to chronic gut inflammation,” says Jordyn Gottlieb, MS, expert in nutrition science and food and agricultural policy, and contributor for January AI and Eden’s.

What is gut inflammation?

“Gut inflammation is an immunological state that occurs when the body senses an irritant somewhere along the digestive tract and signals to the immune system to repair it, resulting in swelling, pain, and impaired functions,” Gottlieb explains.

But gut inflammation isn’t just one thing—it’s an umbrella term that covers a wide range of issues, diseases, and syndromes associated with a disturbed digestive system including IBS, IBD, and leaky gut syndrome.

“Symptoms [of gut inflammatory issues] often start out with stomach aches, digestive pain, diarrhea, constipation, fatigue, bloating, and cramping,” she says. “But longer-lasting, chronic inflammation can lead to problems that extend beyond the digestive tract.”

Gut inflammation can stem from several factors, and since gut health is such a complex and multifunctional thing—affected by and affecting so many other facets of our health—it can be tricky to pinpoint the source of gut issues and find solutions without some knowledge. Here are five common causes of gut inflammation and the best ways to keep it at bay and prevent flare-ups.

Common Causes of Gut Inflammation

Routinely eating inflammatory foods and drinking alcohol.

While most of us enjoy foods and drinks that aren’t the most nutritious for our bodies, at least on occasion (and we should!), if the food you eat regularly doesn’t support a thriving, diverse, and healthy microbiome, then gut inflammation often isn’t far behind.

If gut inflammation is an issue, it’s smartest to limit (or better, avoid) certain things that trigger inflammation, disrupt the ratio of good-to-bad gut bacteria, and send our systems on a metabolic roller coaster. This includes drinking alcohol and highly processed, sugary drinks, says Chris Damman, MD, MA, clinical associate professor of gastroenterology and medicine at the University of Washington, and the chief medical and scientific officer of Supergut.

“Some foods that might adversely impact gut health, but not necessarily be associated with an increase in gut inflammation include processed meats, baked goods containing refined sugars, sugary drinks, and alcohol,” he says. “Baked goods containing refined sugars and sugary drinks (including diet drinks without sugar) have been linked to imbalances in the gut microbiome and dysregulation of blood sugar.”

Neglecting gut-healthy foods and nutrients, like fiber.

Your gut health is impacted just as much by what you don’t put into your body. A diet lacking in certain things your body craves will have its consequences. Fiber, antioxidants, prebiotics, and probiotics are a few of the best things to eat regularly for a happy gut microbiome.

When it comes to keeping gut inflammation at bay, don’t approach nutrition from a mindset of deprivation, because the idea of depriving yourself of the foods and cocktails is a huge bummer. Instead, think about it in terms of what you can add to your diet. Experts strongly suggest prioritizing adding more fiber into your diet. “Increased fiber intake helps produce gut-healthy short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) and other bioactives that promote metabolic and immune health, which is important not only for optimal blood glucose regulation, but also for appetite suppression, immunity enhancement, reduced intestinal inflammation, and other beneficial effects,” Gottlieb says.

How can you up your fiber intake?

Focus on eating lots of veggies, such as acorn and butternut squashes, kale, broccoli, carrots, spinach, sweet potatoes, and asparagus. Fruits are also packed with gut-beneficial fiber. Some of the best high-fiber fruits include avocados, raspberries, blackberries, pears, kiwi, pomegranate, oranges, and tangerines. Beans and legumes are excellent sources of fiber, too. Enjoy chickpeas (hello, hummus!), lentils, and edamame as well as nutrient-dense beans like kidney, pinto, navy, and black beans. Whole grains such as bulgur, quinoa, buckwheat, and whole oats are another essential fiber-filled food group for reduced gut inflammation.

If all of this has you worried about your grocery bill (good-quality produce can be pricey, for example), know there are affordable ways to integrate more gut-beneficial foods into your everyday meals. Wendy Lopez, MS, RD, and Jessica Jones MS, RD, cohosts of The Food Heaven Podcast, recommend stocking up on canned tomatoes, which are inexpensive and a great way to reduce gut inflammation.

“We already know tomatoes, particularly canned, are rich in the anti-inflammatory antioxidant lycopene, which gives tomatoes their beautiful red hue,” they say. “Lycopene has been shown in hundreds of studies to have a positive impact on breast cancer, heart disease, and prostate cancer, plus, a recent small animal study also suggests tomatoes are great for gut health.”

Sleep deprivation and unchecked stress.

“Beyond [what you eat], lifestyle factors can impact the gut,” Dr. Damman says. The two big culprits here are sleep and stress. “Poor sleep and high stress can lead to changes in the tight junctions that stitch the cells of the gut together. Opening of tight junctions causes shifts in gut fluid balance and looser stools.”

Being too sedentary.

Dr. Damman also recommends getting at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise every day. Regular exercise has been shown to help boost good gut bacteria, diversify the microbiome, and improve the relationship between types of bacteria in the gut. Research has found that moderate exercise, in particular, benefits gut health by decreasing intestinal permeability (making it harder for harmful pathogens to enter the bloodstream), which helps reduce systemic inflammation. And even more simply, moving your body regularly helps keep your whole system moving regularly, if you catch our drift. Whether it’s walking, jumping rope, dancing, gardening, or yoga, finding a movement practice or exercise routine you can stick to consistently is an underrated habit for keeping gut inflammation under control.

When to Visit the Doctor

If you’re dealing with chronic inflammatory gut issues such as diarrhea, constipation, excessive gas, pain, or excessive bloating that simply won’t go away even after adopting these gut-healthy lifestyle changes, Lopez and Jones recommend making an appointment with a gastroenterologist or your primary care doctor to make sure it isn’t something more serious.

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These Sleep Habits Are Putting Your Heart Health At Risk

HuffPost

These Sleep Habits Are Putting Your Heart Health At Risk

Jillian Wilson – March 21, 2023

In addition to eating nutritious foods and exercising, sleeping is important for your heart health.

While it’s well known that exercise, healthy eating and managing things such as high blood pressure and cholesterol are crucial for your heart health, it turns out your sleep habits play a big role, too.

A recent study of 2,032 people published in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that poor sleep or not enough sleep led to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, including atherosclerosis ― an issue where plaque causes the arteries to harden or thicken.

The study looked at people with obstructed sleep apnea, people with fragmented sleep and people with short sleep duration. Participants wore a wrist tracker for seven days to measure their sleep and completed a sleep journal; the study also measured their heart rate, breathing and sleep stages.

People who had irregular sleep ― which means sleep that varied by 90 minutes to 2 hours each week ― were 1.4 times more likely to have high coronary artery calcium scores, which is the amount of plaque in your arteries.

The study underscored data found by other recent sleep-and-heart research, according to Dr. Manesh R. Patel, the chief of the division of cardiology and the division of clinical pharmacology at Duke University School of Medicine.

Patel said that other studies have explored this topic and also found that low-quality sleep (like waking up frequently in the night) or not getting enough sleep can put folks at risk for other cardiovascular conditions beyond atherosclerosis. This includes high blood pressure and irregular heart rhythms, Patel noted.

What do these findings about sleep mean for you?

Unfortunately, even just short durations of poor sleep can impact your heart health.

Dr. Virend Somers, a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic, recently led a randomized controlled study that focused on sleep deprivation and its impact on high blood pressure. The study was made up of healthy young people.

“We looked at their blood pressure and their sympathetic nervous system … over 24 hours,” he explained. When study participants were sleep-deprived (in this case, researchers reported they got four hours of sleep a night for nine days), their blood pressure went up both during the daytime and when they were asleep. These results were more common in women than men, Somers said, which surprised researchers.

“When they’re sleep deprived … the endothelial function — the ability for their blood vessels to dilate — was also impaired,” Somers explained. The inability of blood vessels to dilate is a predictor of future cardiovascular disease, he noted.

This shows that if you take people who are otherwise young and healthy and deprive them of sleep, you create risk factors for the development of heart disease, Somers said.

Additionally, in a small, 21-day study that also followed young, healthy people, Somers found that participants who did not get enough sleep ate an extra 308 calories of food per day. For 14 days, participants got just four hours of sleep per night, which led to this finding. Researchers conducted scans to find that the extra calories went right to the belly and were converted into visceral fat, the dangerous type of fat deep in the abdomen that produces toxins that can make our cardiovascular systems sick, Somers said.

Normally, in healthy, young people, fat goes to a safe storage spot under the skin, which is known as the subcutaneous level, he said. But this was not the case when those young people were sleep-deprived.

“Something about not sleeping enough, that did two things. One, it made them eat more calories, and two, those calories were sent to the worst place — the visceral fat,” Somers said.

Even after a few nights of recovery sleep, the visceral fat continued to accumulate, which shows that recovery sleep doesn’t make up for even a short period of not enough sleep, he added.

If getting more sleep is not a realistic option for you, prioritize other heart-healthy habits like exercise or eating healthy foods.

What You Can Do If You Have Poor Sleep

“It’s hard to tell people to sleep better,” Patel explained. Someone who works an overnight shift or has young kids and a busy schedule may just not be able to commit to the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep per night. And if you have trouble staying asleep, you can’t just decide to start sleeping through the night.

Patel said one dangerous potential reason behind not sleeping through the night is obstructive sleep apnea, which is when “you have an obstruction and you’re actually at times startling, or your oxygen can get low at night and you’re just not getting restful sleep and you have periods of apnea where you’re just not breathing because you’re obstructing your airway.”

Snoring, waking up with a headache or waking up tired are all signs of this condition; if you notice these issues, let your doctor know so they can run tests to determine if this is the cause of your bad sleep, Patel added. There are treatment solutions available for those with this condition.

But if you are not suffering from sleep apnea and are able to go to bed earlier, do so. “The more you can get regimented about getting yourself and everyone to bed, the better your health will be,” Patel said.

There are many ways to create a more restful and peaceful sleep environment. “Keep the bedroom cool and very, very dark … even light from a clock can be disruptive to your sleep,” Somers said.

He added that the bedroom should be for sex and sleep, not for watching TV or working. Additionally, if you get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, for example, avoid looking at your cell phone.

“The light from the cell phone can shut down melatonin, and melatonin helps us get to sleep at night,” Somers said. And even if you have a blue light filter on your phone (which is supposed to be better for sleep), just the arousal from reading emails or texts can wake you up, he added.

While sleep is clearly an important factor in heart health, it also is not the only factor. Somers said you can create other good habits to help cut your risk of issues like atherosclerosis and high blood pressure.

“If you want to maintain your heart health, just follow the American Heart Association’s Life’s Essential 8 guidelines,” Somers said. These guidelines include eating better, exercising, quitting smoking, managing your weight, and controlling your blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar — in addition to getting good sleep. (It’s worth noting that good sleep was just added to the guidelines in June 2022, which underscores its newfound importance for heart health.)

So, if you do have to cut your sleep short for the time being, whether due to your work schedule or other commitments, focus on other behaviors like exercise or making sure your plate is loaded with fruit and veggies. Or make an appointment to get bloodwork to determine if you need to manage your cholesterol.

“If we can’t fix the sleep component, let’s try and emphasize some of the others until we have the opportunity to get more sleep,” Somers said.