We had Navaratri and Bakrid a few weeks ago and here comes Diwali.

In a month’s time, we have Christmas and New Year with Pongal close at its heels and so on, the year long. There are so many festivities and tempting foods to savour as part of the celebrations! It is so easy to get caught in a roller coaster ride of overeating and subsequent dieting (out of guilt) ending up with the yoyo effect.

It is like falling down and then picking yourself up. Every time you fall, you get up. The same way, going back to eating healthy after a bout of festive eating is mandatory for the weight loser.

But, the best way to achieve this is by what I would call taking a pre-emptive or defensive approach. That is to start taking a conscious note of your eating much before a scheduled festival or celebration and immediately after it too.

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To prevent the drooping of your eyelids post lunch, step out into the sunshine and take a little stroll.

A new probiotic taken twice a day has been found to lower key cholesterol-bearing molecules in the blood as well as “bad” and total cholesterol in patients with high cholesterol, a new study has found.

Probiotics are live microorganisms (naturally occurring bacteria in the gut) thought to have beneficial effects; common sources are yogurt or dietary supplements.

In previous studies, a formulation of the bacteria, known as Lactobacillus reuteri NCIMB 30242, has lowered blood levels of LDL or “bad” cholesterol.

Such treatments are drawing increasing medical attention as researchers unravel how supplementing gut bacteria (microbiome) with probiotics can play a role in health and certain chronic diseases such as heart disease, said Mitchell L. Jones, M.D., Ph.D., lead author of the study and a research assistant in the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University in Montreal.

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