EASY ANSWERS TO ALL YOUR HEALTH, NUTRITION AND FITNESS QUESTIONS REPORTING BY FRANCES FABIAN, AVERI HARPER, ROSALIND LAWTON, MIRIAM PRIMUS, JENESIS SCOTT AND ANATASIA WRIGHT My father had a stroke. What can I do to make sure I don’t have one? Here are the most important stroke prevention strategies, according to Olajide Williams, M.D., head of the Harlem Hospital’s Stroke Initiative: Don’t smoke and avoid second-hand smoke. Quitting smoking slashes stroke risk by 50 percent almost immediately. Control high blood pressure and cholesterol. Reduce salt intake and eat fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean meats, fish and low-fat dairy products. Maintain a healthy weight. Aerobic exercise reduces your risk by lowering blood pressure and improving the health of your blood vessels and heart. Exercise regularly. Losing as little as 10 pounds may lower your stroke risk and improve your blood pressure and cholesterol levels. African-Americans have the highest mortality rate from stroke (double that of Caucasians), with Latin Americans running a close second. Having a family history also significantly increases your stroke risk. Dr. Williams recommends that you share your family history with your doctor and take the actions above. What’s the healthiest meal I can get at the neighborhood bodega? “Bodegas can be challenging because quality fresh fruits and vegetables are often not available at reasonable prices,” says Esther Trepal, a registered dietitian with God’s Love We Deliver in New York. But you can still plan a healthy and balanced meal using frozen and canned foods. Stock up on frozen or canned vegetables such as tomatoes, string beans, broccoli and corn. For your starch, rice or pasta is a good choice; go for the more healthful brown rice and whole-grain pastas if available. As for protein, canned beans (kidney, black, pinto and lima), tuna and salmon are great options. Try a pasta salad with salmon and string beans on the side or get a can of soup and improve it by adding extra vegetables and beans to make a quick meal. My kids eat nothing but frankfurters and fish sticks. What can I do? Use repetition. Kids need about 10 encounters with a new food before they develop a taste for it, says Marilyn Swanson, Ph.D., of the Children’s Nutrition Research Center in Houston. Introduce unknown foods slowly by starting out small. Make it fun. And be a good example by eating your vegetables. A recent study found that children ate vegetables 35 percent more often when they were readily available at home. My husband and I just turned 50. What kinds of medical tests should we get? An annual physical exam should be your first step, says Brian Harper, M.D., chief operating officer of the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Care and Prevention in Harlem, New York. Be sure to share your family’s medical history with your doctor. Everyone at this age milestone should schedule a colonoscopy to screen for colon cancer. Women should have a mammography (to check for breast cancer) and a pap smear (to check for cervical cancer). Men should certainly have a blood test for the prostate specific antigen (PSA) and a digital rectal exam at the practitioner’s discretion to screen for prostate cancer. Is there anything healthy my kids can eat at Mickey D’s? A Honey Mustard Snack Wrap with grilled chicken, Apple Dippers with caramel dip and 1 percent low-fat milk makes a healthy Happy Meal at 395 calories and less than 12 grams of fat. Just avoid the french fries and Coke, which add 380 calories. What’s a good fast exercise I can do in my apartment? Turn up the music and dance. A 160-pound person will burn about 215 calories in 30 minutes of fast modern dancing. Invite your friends to join you, says Eleanor DiPalma, Ph.D., who teaches dance at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. “Friends are a good support system, and they’ll help make your workout more enjoyable.” Got two left feet? Then try a simple strength-building circuit of body-weight squats and push-ups. Stand in front of a chair with your feet shoulder-width apart. Slowly bend your knees to squat down until your butt touches the seat, then stand back up. Do this 10 times, rest a minute and then do 10 push-ups. If full push-ups are too hard at first, do them from a kneeling position. Rest, then repeat the circuit. Squats will strengthen your legs and give you a firmer butt. Push-ups will work your upper body. I’m a 57-year-old man. Why do I have to get up to go to the bathroom at 3 a.m. every morning? Don’t worry. As men age, they often experience the urge to urinate more frequently. Sometimes it wakes them up in the middle of the night. It may be due to something called BPH, a non-cancerous enlargement of the prostate. This walnut-size gland and the tissue around it can enlarge and press on the urethra. This makes it more difficult for men to urinate freely, and they’ll also feel the need to go more often. By the time they are 70 years old, 70 percent of men will have some degree of BPH. A number of studies show that BPH does not make a man any more or less likely to develop prostate cancer. Today there are many good treatments for BPH and most of them have few major side effects. See your doctor. But today, try reducing your consumption of caffeine and alcohol, which can inflame the prostate, and avoid drinking a lot of fluids after 7 p.m. That may help. How do I stop snoring? That depends on what’s causing these loud vibrations in the soft tissue that lines the throat. Weight gain is the single greatest predictor of habitual snoring, according to a new study. Sleeping pills and alcohol can also cause loud snoring by relaxing this tissue, increasing the vibrating potential. Breathing dry air and smoking cigarettes have the same effect by irritating the esophagus. So try losing a few pounds or eliminating possible triggers. If that doesn’t work, see a doctor. An upper-respiratory infection or a sleeping disorder called sleep apnea might be to blame. Are frozen vegetables as good for you as fresh ones? Yes. And because they are “flash frozen,” they are often more nutritious than fresh vegetables. Flash frozen means they were picked after they were fully developed and at their peak nutritional value, then quickly frozen and packaged. Much of New York City’s produce is shipped from other countries such as Mexico, China and Argentina, where they are picked before they have fully grown, so they are missing some of their vital nutrients, says registered dietitian Rebecca Fuller. Even vegetables grown in other parts of the United States may lose some of their nutrients during shipping, so frozen vegetables are a smart choice. What are some good late-night snacks that won’t make me fat? Low-fat proteins such as string cheese, slices of turkey breast, hard-boiled eggs and hummus spread on whole-grain crackers or vegetables will satisfy your hunger without packing on the pounds, says certified nutritionist Inna Topiler of Complete Nutrition and Wellness. “When people snack at night, they tend to eat sugary foods and simple carbohydrates like cakes, cookies and chips, which cause weight-gain,” Topiler says. Download A Printer Friendly Version Of This Section