In her 90-year-old, colonial-style Indianapolis home, Sara Snow easily rattles off how she religiously follows the tenets of green living. Dressed in pants made of wood pulp and an organic cotton shirt, this up-and-coming eco-friendly expert is among the true tree-huggers, “greenies” —her words—who do everything they can to live lightly.

All the food she and Ryan, her husband, buy is organic or natural, including the herbal tea she’s sipping. She uses cloth bags for purchases. Their German shepherd, Makana, eats natural dog food. Their bath towels, bed sheets, and bathrobes are made from organic cotton. She points out pieces of second-hand furniture —a small table, decorative tubs made of recycled tires. The natural living advocate advises shopping at local farmers’ markets for fresh produce or joining a community supported agriculture (CSA) group for a regular share of local, healthy crops.

They use natural cleansers—such as baking soda and vinegar—non-toxic shampoo and soap, and energy-efficient light bulbs. Behind the garage are two compost bins for tea bags, banana peels, and the like. Around front are curb-side recycling bins they regularly fill up. Her “green” list could go on, but the picture is clear.

This outgoing 32-year-old TV series creator and host on Discovery Networks, columnist, and new book author embodies the essence of what it means to live naturally, in tune with nature and the environment.

Her life is focused on spreading the “green living” gospel, ingrained in her as a child, to help other people make simple life changes she hopes will contribute to a sea change in their own health and the well-being of the environment.

“My mission is not to become some massive superstar and to have this whole empire built around me,” she said. “My mission is being on the ground and helping people find ways to live more naturally, so they can have healthier bodies, healthier children, and healthier homes. It’s so immensely important.”

Snow’s new book outlines a room-by-room guide to a more environmentally friendly home. Yet what we all need to do, she says, isn’t remarkably new. And it doesn’t have to be all that hard.

“We’re not inventing a new way of doing things. We’re really going back to the way we used to do things less than a 100 years ago. That’s why sometimes I call it simple living.

“We didn’t used to spray our crops with so many chemicals; we didn’t used to abuse our resources the way we do now; we didn’t used to view everything as being so disposable as it is now,” says Snow. Her first book, Sara Snow’s Fresh Living: The Essential Room-by-Room Guide to a Greener, Healthier Family and Home, comes out in March. Snow wants people to know that green living doesn’t have to be all or nothing. That’s a mistake a lot of people make, she says. They can take small steps, get comfortable with them, and move on to others. Living greener can be as simple as starting to cook at home more often, rather than going out so much, because you’ll likely eat healthier, she says, also adding to remember how your grandmother or mother made dishes, the food they cooked. Do some of those things. Buy locally grown foods and grow some of your own. Also, be intentional about not overbuying in general. Buying secondhand goods also helps cut down on needless waste, Snow says.

To make the biggest impact, Snow advises taking steps in three areas: eating less processed food and more organic food; cutting back on your home energy usage; and improving your transportation methods so you’re using less energy.

Organic products are still between 10 percent and 20 percent more expensive than nonorganic food, although in-season, local organic produce may not be any more expensive. If you can’t afford to buy all organic, Snow suggests at least buying organic milk (easy to find) and buying meat that’s hormone- and antibiotic-free.

Sara Snow’s Green Living Tips for the Home

In the kitchen

• Shop often to avoid overbuying of processed foods and to keep a steady amount of fresh foods on hand.
• Buy organic to avoid pesticide exposure and increase your antioxidant intake.

In the bathroom

• Buy recycled-content paper products like tissues and toilet paper.
• Take shorter showers and save up to five gallons of water per minute.

In the bedroom

• Try organic cotton sheets for a comfy and healthy, natural bed.
• Look for eco-friendly materials like organic wool and sustainable bamboo.

In the nursery

• Simplify and avoid overbuying for a clutter-free and environmentally sound nursery.
• Seek out natural body products for your baby’s sensitive skin.

In the living room

• Place energy-efficient CFLs (compact fluorescent light bulbs) in your most commonly used fixtures.
• Make use of secondhand furniture for a more eco-friendly choice.

In the laundry

• Avoid cleaning products with synthetic fragrances.
• Line dry your clothes, either inside or outside, for an energy-efficient laundry room.

In the office

• Avoid getting excess mail by asking catalog companies to take you off their lists.
• Unplug electronics like computers, printers, and televisions when not in use so they don’t waste power.

Throughout the home

• Use common plants to clear the indoor air, which is often more polluted than the air outside. Plants like gerbera daisy, English ivy, and bamboo palm are effective at helping to clean the air.

Outdoors

• Try composting as a way of recycling kitchen scraps into free fertilizer for your home gardens.
• Get a tune-up on your car to get the best gas mileage possible, no matter what kind of vehicle you drive.
• Install a rain barrel on a downspout of your home and make use of what comes down naturally to water your plants and gardens. The barrel can be store-bought or simply a recycled old barrel with a spigot installed toward the bottom.
• Become a member of a community supported agriculture (CSA) group for a weekly share of a local farm’s fresh and healthy crops. If you don’t have CSAs in your area, shop at a local farmers’ market for the best seasonal, fresh, and local foods.

Even though her life was quite different from her public school classmates’, she never felt deprived, nor did she envy the more typical foods they ate while she drank soy milk and munched on carob bars. Her parents taught her food can be used as medicine to make your body well, or it can do some serious harm.

“We felt like we were really a part of something big. At least there was a purpose behind it all, and my dad was helping to save the world through food,” recalls Snow, chuckling fondly. The knowledge she gained while growing up shaped her career. Snow is a graduate of Butler University in Indianapolis in telecommunications and theater performance. She worked as a television producer for ESPN’s SportsCentury series and then as a morning news reporter/ anchor for the Indianapolis Fox affiliate. But the lifestyle didn’t suit her, so after seven years she left to blend her life’s work with her life’s passion—green living.

In 2005 and 2007, Snow created and hosted two eco-lifestyle series, now shown in reruns on Discovery Health and FitTV. They’re called Living Fresh and Get Fresh With Sara Snow. Segments profile how companies and real people are living greener lifestyles. She also has regular segments on CNN.com LIVE; has her own Web site, sarasnow.com; is developing another TV series; and hopes to write another book. With all the attention on green living in the country, what’s holding people back? “Sometimes I think the hardest thing is just the first change, breaking the mold and changing your habits,” says Snow, an advisory board member for Discovery’s Planet Green, the first-ever, 24-hour green television network. “Once you’ve made that one change, the rest are much easier.” Snow is optimistic about the future of the green movement 10 or more years down the road. “At the very least, we will have slowed the rate at which we are destroying this very fragile planet.”

Snow is impressed by the environmental awareness of college-age Americans and even more by younger children. She believes that by the time they are running companies and households, if we aren’t already seeing serious changes, we will by then.

“My hope beyond that is we will start to live less as little selfish individuals in our own little bubbles,” she says. “We don’t interact with our neighbors; we don’t spend time outside interacting with the natural world.”

As for herself, Snow would like to recreate that idyllic time when her family members relied on each other, supported each other, and lived close together.

“My personal hope is that I’ll be back on a little family community, and all of my family will be living in a plot of land together. It’s such a perfect way to live.” From Sara’s Kitchen:

Going Green with Sara Snow The Saturday Evening Post

Debra BenAvram’s health woes kicked off with a “really horrible” migraine three years ago. She has no idea what triggered the attack. But over the next six months, it turned into a constant daily headache that forced her home from work each afternoon.

Since then, much of her life has been filled with a myriad of drugs and specialists, two surgeries to relieve neck and head nerve pressure, nausea, acupuncture, holistic diets, fatigue, days in bed. And lots of frustration.

But she’s persevered.

“I just haven’t wanted to cave,” said the 32-year-old CEO of a medical society in Silver Spring, Maryland, outside of Washington, D.C. “For me, I feel like it would be giving up. I have a son, a job I love and care about, and a family. I’m not ready to give up.”

Ben Avram has found some relief, though, thanks to the Diamond Headache Clinic in Chicago and more effective medications. She’s down to 10 to 12 fewer severe migraines a month — cut by more than half. But like many of the more than 29 million Americans suffering migraines, she struggles to keep them under control with a combination of drugs, dietary changes, and other methods.

It’s a daily challenge for 10 percent of the population dealing with this painful and often debilitating headache disorder. More women — one in five — are affected than men (one in 20).

Yet the outlook for migraine sufferers is better than it’s been in years.

Drug research and development for migraine and chronic headache treatments is escalating, with new medications and different forms of drug and nondrug treatments in the pipeline or close to the market.

Among them are skin patches, nasal powders, inhalation devices, a portable transcranial magnetic stimulator (TMS), a surgically implanted stimulator, and the first new class of drugs for migraine prevention in 15 years. Successful clinical trials for some of these new developments impressed experts at the annual American Headache Society’s conference last June in Boston.

“It’s a very exciting period of time for headache drugs. It’s exciting because of the interest of drug manufacturers,” said Dr. Seymour Diamond, cofounder of the National Headache Foundation and one of the pioneers in headache research. He opened the first private headache clinic in 1972 in Chicago.

More than 20 pharmaceutical and biotech companies are in the middle of research or developing drugs and other remedies to treat headaches and migraines. Seymour said the Food and Drug Administration’s approval in 1992 of the first triptan, a drug specifically designed for the acute treatment of migraine, made the drug industry realize a financial market existed for drugs for the long-standing headache sufferer.

But the drug-approval process is a long, arduous one requiring, on average, 10 to 15 years to go from lab testing to the pharmacy. In the end, only one in five drugs tested on humans is approved for the market.

The new potential remedies are coming none too soon for migraine sufferers.

Despite the development of the popular triptans, many migraine sufferers still aren’t getting adequate treatment or the relief they need, according to the recent American Migraine Prevalence and Prevention Study, sponsored by the National Headache Foundation. It concluded physicians have not dramatically changed their approach to the treatment of migraine in the past 10 years.

“We know that less than half of the people (with migraines) are being treated for migraines at any one time,” said Dr. Stephen Silberstein, neurology professor and director of the Jefferson Headache Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

The drugs either don’t work for them, cause side effects, or people are afraid to take them, experts say.

Triptans are the most often prescribed and most effective drugs in stopping a migraine attack after it begins, according to Silberstein. They work by stimulating serotonin, a neurotransmitter found in the brain, to reduce inflammation and constrict blood vessels. But people with a past history of, or risk factors for, heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, angina, stroke, or diabetes can’t use them.

In the future, Silberstein expects more nondrug options, and more alternatives to injections will be available, both of which will make seeking treatment more appealing.

The first new class of drugs since triptans for the acute treatment of migraines
is awaiting FDA approval now and could be on the market by 2010, he said. A so-called receptor antagonist drug, telcagepant — developed by Merck & Company — blocks the effect of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) released from nerve endings during a migraine.

“It’s as effective as a class of triptans, but it has no side effects and doesn’t create cardiovascular effects,” said Silberstein. “More people should be able to safety take it.”

Another promising class of migraine prevention drugs essentially calms down the nerve or glial cells in the brain, he said. Research presented at the headache conference shows these cells talk to and regulate each other. During migraine attacks, abnormal activity occurs in these cells. The tablet drug, called tonabersat— developed by England-based Minster Pharmaceuticals—interferes with this process, stopping migraines from developing.

Future drugs, Diamond predicted, should be more effective because they will abort or reverse migraines, and some may actually prevent them, with fewer side effects. Some nondrug remedies may be particularly attractive because they don’t involve any side effects.

One of those, nicknamed the “zapper,” uses a portable electronic device about the size of a hairdryer to administer two painless magnetic pulses that “zap” the neurons in the brain. Called a transcranial magnetic stimulator (TMS), it affects the aura phase before migraines begin when people experience flashes or showers of light, loss of vision, and tingling or confusion: the device is also used for other purposes, such as treating severe depression.

The TMS works by sending a strong electric current through a metal coil, creating an intense magnetic field for about one millisecond. This magnetic pulse, when held against a person’s head, generates an electric current in the neurons of the brain, interrupting the aura before it results in a throbbing headache.

“This is a landmark in the treatment of migraines,” said Dr. Yousef M. Mohammad, a neurologist and assistant professor at Ohio State University, who is the principal investigator of a study at Ohio State’s Medical Center that found the device safe and effective in eliminating headaches when used as they begin.

Last June, Mohammad reported to the American Headache Society that of 164 patients involved in the multi-university, randomized clinical trial receiving TMS treatment, 39 percent were pain-free at the two-hour post-treatment point. That compares to 22 percent who were pain-free after receiving “sham” pulses — due to a placebo effect.

“Since almost all migraine drugs have some side effects, and patients are prone to addiction from narcotics or developing headaches from frequent use of over-the-counter medication, the TMS device holds great promise for migraine sufferers,” said Mohammad.

If the FDA approves the device for migraines, he expects it to be on the market in about six months.

The device sounds worth trying to Patti Salinas, 43, a long-time migraine sufferer from Channahon, Illinois, south of Chicago. “If it’s something that helps and prevents migraines, I would try anything.”

Fortunately, she’s already found some relief, even if not complete.

At age 10, she started having headaches. When she was in her mid-20s, the migraines became debilitating. She’d have four migraines a month, with milder headaches in between from taking lots of over-the-counter drugs.

Her migraines could last six to eight hours and literally put her out of action. “I could do nothing but lay down and put ice packs against my head in a dark room. No sound, no light, nothing that had a scent to it.”

Salinas and other migraine sufferers say people who don’t have migraines usually don’t have a clue about how bad they can be.

“For me, it’s a throbbing, severe pain in the back of my neck, and it feels like my brain is being squeezed,” she said. “It can even affect your eye sockets so [that] you want to take your eyeballs out and massage them to take the pain away.”

For many like Salinas, migraines interfere with their lives.

She had to leave her office job at a utility company when they’d hit. She couldn’t drive. She’d also have to get childcare for her son. After Salinas relied on over-the-counter and sinus medication, a neurologist prescribed an analgesic with anti-inflammatory properties that helped for a couple years.

But the migraines persisted, so she sought help at the Diamond Clinic five years ago. She learned about headache triggers, kept a log of her headaches, took many tests, and stopped all over-the-counter drugs except ibuprofen. Preventive medications — daily dosages of Inderal and Vivactal — and Imitrex injections she does herself for a severe headache have helped limit her migraines to only one every couple months.

“I still get headaches, but now I know how to treat them,” said Salinas. “I think it’s manageable. My quality of life is better. The severity and frequency (of migraines) have decreased with these preventive drugs.”

For those with chronic, intractable migraines who can’t find such relief, another type of stimulator may be the answer. A study presented at the recent headache conference showed promising results from occipital nerve stimulation (ONS), said Silberstein.

ONS treatment involves implanting a neurostimulator under the skin at the base of the head. The device delivers electrical impulses near the occipital nerves via insulated lead wires tunneled under the skin. People can adjust it themselves.

While the cost isn’t estimated yet, he said the device may be federally approved and on the market within a couple years.

In addition to the potential new drugs and devices, migraine sufferers may get some additional choices with generic versions of existing medications, drugs being repackaged into different modes of delivery, and new combinations of drugs.

Here are some of the options under study, according to the National Headache Foundation:

• Drugs previously used to treat conditions such as epilepsy, depression, and Alzheimer’s may have an impact on headaches and migraines. Ongoing clinical trials involve Aricept, an Alzheimer’s drug; Neurontin, an anticonvulsant; and others.
• A transdermal skin patch contains a drug and a small battery-powered electronic controller that precisely controls the rate and amount of drug released from the patch. A patch using zolmitriptan is in clinical trials.
• A nasal powder form of dihydroergotamine from Britannia Pharmaceuticals may be easier to use and more rapidly absorbed than the current nasal spray form.
• An inhalation device uses heat to vaporize a drug into an odorless mist that passes through the lungs into the bloodstream, perhaps providing relief within 60 seconds. The Staccato device from Alexza Molecular Delivery Corp. is in clinical trials using prochlorperazine.
• Oral and intranasal generic sumatriptan are expected to be available in 2009.

Even with all the promise of new drug and nondrug therapies, experts advise those who experience chronic headaches and migraines to find out and avoid the triggers in their environment and diets that prompt an attack.

A migraine sufferer since age 4, Ashley Etters of Cary, Illinois, has to stay clear of many different foods and scents — caffeine, chocolate, candles, perfumes. Etters, now a 19-year-old Illinois State University student, knows to avoid extended time in the sun and going without eating for too long.

Unfortunately, she’s learned this through years of experience with migraines, causing her to miss a lot of school and interfering with basketball and soccer practices.

“I usually got them for 48 to 72 hours. I was always throwing up with them. I had to sleep in a dark, quiet room or just lay there,” she recalled. “It felt like someone was taking a hammer to my head.”

Now Etters, who takes preventive medications every day, gets a bad migraine about once a month as well as various minor headaches that she’s able to control all the time.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to get rid of them,” she said, seeming resigned to put up with them, as her mother has done for 25 years. Still, she knows how to adapt by taking steps like not falling behind in her studies. If she did, stress would lead to an inevitable migraine.

Stress can also be relieved by other strategies, such as good exercise and massages, and nondrug therapy like biofeedback, say headache experts.

“It’s not a cure-all, but it can work prophylatically in many people because stress is one of the triggers of headaches,” said Diamond, who studied using biofeedback for migraines more than 30 years ago.

Biofeedback is a method that teaches people to control bodily functions such as heart rate, blood pressure, and muscle tension, which were once considered to be beyond voluntary control. Research has shown that by monitoring these functions and feeding back information to people on an ongoing and immediate basis, through visual and auditory instruments, voluntary control can actually be taught.

Using techniques of self-regulation, people can learn to change specific responses of the body, such as releasing muscle tension and spasm, lowering blood pressure, and diminishing headache pain.

No matter what combination of drugs and nondrug therapies they’re using, migraine sufferers often have to stay on high alert — avoiding known triggers but also worrying about attacks they can’t control.

After years of not being able to make definite plans, BenAvram’s life is getting somewhat more predictable. She has responded better to the beta-blocker, anti-inflammatory and antinausea medications she takes. She also knows what to do and not do, eat and not eat.

“You have to wake up at the same time every day,” she said. “I have to eat lunch at noon or I’m going to have a headache at 12:30. I haven’t had alcohol in three years.”

Still, her migraines force her to leave work sometimes. Her scalp is so sensitive, she can’t wear hats, headbands, or tight sunglasses. Her doctor at the Diamond Clinic thinks she’ll always be a headache patient.

“But it’s definitely better,” she said optimistically. “I just try to tell myself, ‘This is a good month or this was not a good month.’ I’ve had two good months in a row. That’s more than I’ve had in the last two years.”

Heading Off the Pain of Migraines The Saturday Evening Post