Why You Shouldn’t Eat Raw or Undercooked Chicken and How To Keep it Fresh

Eating raw or undercooked meat is something most people don’t worry too much about, but it can happen from time to time. Whether you’re being adventurous for your next meal or chowing down on some chicken that needed a little more time on the grill, it’s a danger you need to keep in mind.

To better understand the dangers of eating raw or undercooked chicken and what you can do to protect yourself, we spoke with registered dietician Mia DiGeronimo, RD.

Why you shouldn’t eat raw or undercooked chicken

Despite whatever reason you may hear, you should never eat raw or “rare” chicken. “Raw chicken can have bacteria that can cause food poisoning,” says DiGeronimo. The most common bacterial food poisoning from chicken include:

• Campylobacter.

• Salmonella.

• Clostridium perfringens.

• E. coli.

And food poisoning isn’t just a brief thing, either. Symptoms can begin within a few hours of consuming the food and, depending on the bacteria, DiGeronimo notes, the illness can last up to a week.

“Symptoms of food poisoning can include fever, stomach cramping, diarrhea, and sometimes nausea and vomiting,” she says. Plus those symptoms – particularly diarrhea and vomiting – can lead to dehydration, too, so drink plenty of water.

Additional dangers

But there’s a possibility of even more lasting damage, depending on your immune system. “Patients with weakened immune systems, such as those with a diagnosis of AIDS or those going through chemotherapy, can have worsened symptoms and more severe complications from food poisoning,” says DiGeronimo.

“Depending on the bacteria, you may need an antibiotics prescription, too,” she adds. “Patients can get a stool test done to determine what type of bacteria it is.” Bacteremia – where bacteria spread to different parts of the body via your bloodstream – is also a danger, particularly for those with immunity issues.

How to protect yourself against food poisoning

The big thing about protecting yourself from food poisoning, DiGeronimo says, is making sure you cook your chicken to an internal temperature of 165 F. Don’t just trust your instincts when cooking; use a clean meat thermometer for accurate temperature readings.

Besides properly cooking your chicken, though, there are other ways to make sure your chicken stays fresh.

How to properly store raw chicken

If you’re refrigerating raw chicken, keep it in its original packing for no more than two days, says DiGeronimo. “Store your raw chicken on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator, away from any fresh fruits, vegetables and other foods,” she says.

If you’re storing your chicken longer than two days, it’s best to freeze it, she adds. And, yes, you can freeze it in its original packaging. Just be sure to thaw it out over time in your refrigerator and cook it as soon as it’s thawed. 

How long until raw chicken goes bad? 

“Your raw chicken should stay fresh up to two days in the refrigerator (at or below 40 F) but up to one year in the freezer (at 0 F),” says DiGeronimo.

And how long can raw chicken sit out of the refrigerator when you’re preparing it or grocery shopping? ​Ideally, DiGeronimo says, you should get your perishable items into your fridge as soon as possible. Sometimes, though, you might have to make multiple stops on a grocery run and you can’t get your chicken into the fridge right away.

If that’s the case, or if you just happen to accidentally leave your chicken out on the counter once you get home, you still have some time. “It’s safe to leave items needing refrigeration out on the counter at room temperature for up to two hours,” she says. 

How can you tell when raw chicken has gone bad? 

Raw chicken should be cold to touch when buying at the store or before cooking at home, says DiGeronimo. The chicken should also be pink and moist – but not slimy. If the color of your chicken is off or it’s slimy, that’s a sign it’s gone bad.

And, of course, there’s the smell test. Fresh raw chicken should have a slight smell, but if it’s a funky, rotten odor, you need to ditch that fowl meat.

To ensure your chicken doesn’t go bad, don’t thaw it in the sink or on the counter. “The best way to thaw chicken is in the refrigerator, in cold water or the microwave,” she says.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ClevelandClinic/HealthHub/~3/iEdG3LsZjDE/

Skipped Your Mammogram Due to COVID-19? Schedule One Now

Q: You missed your regular mammogram in 2020 while quarantining due to COVID-19. How important is it to get a breast screening scheduled this year?

A: It is extremely important, and here’s why.

Regular screening mammograms are the best way to find breast cancer early. And when caught early enough, patients have that many more options for treatment and the best chance for a cure.  

A mammogram uses X-rays to look for any signs of breast cancer before symptoms (such as a lump) develop. Sometimes, mammograms will find a breast cancer months, or even years, before a patient notices any symptoms. 

It is not an understatement to say that the results of a mammogram can be life-saving. Catching cancer early and beginning treatment increases your chances of survival. It really is that simple.

Breast cancer stands as the world’s most commonly diagnosed cancer, according to the World Health Organization. The disease claimed the lives of more than 685,000 women across the globe in 2020.

In the United States, the American Cancer Society estimates that more than 280,000 women will receive a diagnosis of invasive breast cancer this year. An additional 50,000 will learn they have ductal carcinoma in situ, an early and non-invasive form of breast cancer.

Breast cancer survival rates have steadily increased in recent years largely due to earlier detection and treatment. Regular mammograms – particularly for women age 50 and older – helped drive that trend.

A recent study looked at how many patients did not have their mammograms during the pandemic. This study showed a nearly 60% drop in the rate of screening mammograms. This is concerning.

It’s impossible to look at those numbers and not wonder how many women missed an opportunity for an early diagnosis.

COVID-19 certainly disrupted the screening cycle. And while a short-term delay may have little to no effect on a patient’s diagnosis and course of the disease, there’s worry that longer delays may lead to a later-stage diagnosis that requires more intense treatment.

So when should you schedule your screening mammogram?

ASAP! 

There are timing issues to consider, however, with the COVID-19 vaccine. We strongly encourage women to have their screening mammograms prior to getting the vaccine or at least four weeks after receiving their final vaccine dose.

The reason? The COVID vaccine – like other vaccines – can cause the lymph nodes under your arm to swell. This is a normal (and temporary) response to vaccination.

Swollen lymph nodes, however, also can be a sign of disease. Scheduling your mammogram around a COVID-19 vaccination will better allow a radiologist to determine the exact cause of any swelling.

But let’s get back to the central point: scheduling your mammogram. I urge anyone who has postponed visiting their healthcare provider because of COVID-19 to get back on track. Make your appointment and encourage your family and friends to do the same.     

– Diagnostic Radiologist Laura Shepardson, MD

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ClevelandClinic/HealthHub/~3/FjV_BSKGU-o/

Delaying Aging Would Bring Trillions of Dollars in Economic Gains, Study Finds

People are living longer than ever, but there’s growing recognition that longer life expectancy is of little use unless we also delay the physical decline associated with old age. New research suggests doing so could be worth trillions of dollars in economic gains.

Over the last century, life expectancy has shot up across the world thanks to improvements in medicine, diet, and education. However, too often we are unable to make productive use of the extra years we have been blessed with due to the fact that old age is associated with a host of non-communicable diseases, general physical frailty, and disability.

This is driving a growing shift in focus from increasing lifespans to increasing “healthspans,” the number of years a person lives in good health. Key to this approach is a shift in focus from treating the individual diseases of old age to targeting the process of aging itself.

Besides allowing people to enjoy their advanced years, a strong argument for this approach is that boosting peoples’ healthspan will also allow them to remain economically productive for longer. That could be crucial for the future of countries across the developed world facing falling birth rates and graying populations.

Now researchers have used US economic, health, and demographic data to put a price on just how valuable such an intervention could be. In a paper in Nature Aging, they showed that treatments that slow down aging could be worth US$38 trillion for every extra year of life they give people.

This isn’t the first time someone has tried to pin a number on the benefits of slowing aging. The authors reference a 2013 study in Health Affairs, which estimated that a 2.2-year increase in life expectancy could be worth as much as $7.1 trillion over 50 years.

The new study uses a different methodology, though, known as value of statistical life. This is the measure used by various US agencies and represents how much people would be willing to pay to reduce their risk of dying. It incorporates concepts like health, consumption, and leisure, and therefore measures not just quantity but quality of life.

As a result, the approach achieves different results when applied to different scenarios. The researchers used it to assess the economic value of boosting lifespan but not healthspan, and healthspan but not lifespan. They found that increases in healthspan were more valued, but both of these scenarios were significantly less attractive than a scenario where healthspan and lifespan increased, which would be expected with successful anti-aging therapies.

To more precisely assess how powerful a general anti-aging therapy could be compared to simply treating specific diseases, the researchers then turned to the results of a recent study on patients taking metformin. The drug was designed to treat diabetes, but has recently received attention for its potential anti-aging effects.

A 2017 study in the Journal of Diabetes and its Complications on 40,000 older men with diabetes found that the drug reduced the incidence of a host of age-related conditions, like cardiovascular disease, dementia, and cancer. The researchers applied the proportional decrease found in this study to data on the number of deaths and years lost to illness due to each of these conditions in the US.

They found that the benefits of treatment with metformin in terms of increased life expectancy often matched or exceeded those from the complete eradication of cancer, dementia, or cardiovascular diseases.

Finally, to work out what the overall value would be of an anti-aging therapy that could extend both lifespan and healthspan, they applied the third scenario they investigated to current US Census Bureau data on the population, its age structure, and birth rates.

They found the value of a 1-year increase in life expectancy would be $37.6 trillion, and for a 10-year increase it would rise as high as $366.8 trillion. Most interestingly, they discovered that this anti-aging scenario would create a virtuous circle, because as delayed aging increases the average age of society and quality of life in later years, more people stand to benefit from further improvements in anti-aging therapies.

The authors note that the study does omit two crucial details that could have significant impacts on the value of such an intervention: health inequalities among the population being studied, and income inequality. The former is likely to further increase the value of anti-aging approaches, they note, but the latter could cause significant reductions in the value if the cost of therapies is high.

That means that while the potential for anti-aging therapies could be colossal, their true value will only become apparent if we can ensure widespread access to them.