Archive for the ‘Diabetes’ Category
Increasing Prostate Awareness
Over the course of a lifetime, more than one in five males will have medical issues with their prostate. It’s important to be aware of potential risks of improper prostate health, and also to take precautions to ensure the well-being of your prostate. Ironically, maintaining a healthy prostate begins as easily as most other health improving practices; balanced diet. It’s important to avoid eating foods that are high in fat or cholesterol, and also to be sure to eat green vegetables when possible.
You can also increase prostate health by taking various vitamin supplements designed for men of all ages. The prostate can repair and prevent future damage with a correct allocation of vitamins and minerals.
What Makes Sweet Potatoes A Super Food?
- Image via Wikipedia
For many folks sweet potatoes are a food for the Thanksgiving season and usually no other time. It turns out that sweet potatoes provide an impressive array of nutrients, despite the fact that they are not really potatoes. They are members of the Convolvulaceae family which are plants with trumpet shaped flowers. Sweet potatoes come in 400 different varieties and range in skin color from white to yellow to orange to red to purple. The typical sweet potato has orange flesh and is sometimes called a yam. Folks have been consuming sweet potatoes for about 8,000 years. They were introduced in Europe by Christopher Columbus when he returned from the New World after 1492.
The good news for seniors is that sweet potatoes provide large amounts of the vitamins A and C and the minerals potassium and manganese. To top it off they deliver lots of fiber. Additional nutrients found in sweet potatoes include beta-carotene, copper, and vitamin B-6. Sweet potatoes hold special interest for senior men who need to supplement with beta-carotene, because consuming them on a regular basis may support cognitive function. Sweet potatoes have shown to provide significant support in reeling in some of the markers for diabetes, particularly improved insulin resistance. Finally in a cancer risk study that compared folks in Asia with those in North America and Northern Europe, the folks in Asia who regularly consumed sweet potatoes had a much lower risk of cancer compared with the folks in Northern Europe and North America who did not. For all these good healthy results that come from consuming sweet potatoes the conclusion for senior health is that sweet potatoes really are a super food.
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Why Is Oatmeal So Good for Your Heart?
- Image by Avelino Maestas via Flickr
Over ten years ago the FDA affirmed that consuming oatmeal may reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, but recent research confirms that conclusion and actually amplifies it. The health benefits of consuming wholegrain oats are even greater than originally discovered. In a recent article researchers point out that in the years since the FDA granted a ‘heart healthy’ claim for oats, new research has shown that consuming oats and oat-based products reduces total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL). Consumption of oats does not produce adverse effects on the high density lipoprotein (HDL) or on the triglycerides.
When consumption of oats and oat-based products is combined with a healthy lifestyle-management program the results in terms of health benefits can extend beyond just reducing total cholesterol and LDL. These extended benefits may include a reduced risk of diabetes, a decreased trend to obesity, and a reduced risk of atherosclerosis. The way that oats might reduce the risk of atherosclerosis would be by favorably modifying the subclass and particle number of LDL. This is excellent news for seniors who are concerned about taking preemptive aging steps against age-related diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
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Can Green Tea Extract Provide Dual Anti-Aging Protection?
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Recent British research has shown that consuming green tea extract greatly increases the burning of fat and it additionally benefits insulin sensitivity in healthy men. In the study the men engaged in half an hour of moderate intensity exercise before and after taking the green tea extract or a placebo. In the case of the men who took the green tea extract their fat oxidation was more than 15% greater compared with the men who took the placebo. For the men who took the green tea extract their fat burning proved to be a larger contributor to their total energy expenditure.
In the second half of the study the researchers measured the subjects’ glucose tolerance before and after they consumed the green tea extract. The researchers found that after consuming the green tea extract the subjects showed improvements in insulin sensitivity. A similar study in Japan reported that adults suffering from visceral-type obesity showed reductions in body fat, blood pressure, and low density lipoprotein (LDL) after consuming a high-catechin green tea extract. The results of these two studies indicate that consuming green tea extract can provide anti-aging effects against both cardiovascular disease and diabetes. This is good news for seniors who are concerned with taking preemptive anti-aging steps to improve their senior health.
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Is Magnesium Deficiency Linked to Aging?
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Recent estimates of magnesium deficiency in the United States put the number of folks in that category to be about 50% of the total population. The reason for concern about this magnesium deficiency that is spread across half the folks in the United States follows from the links to a number of major age related diseases. Seniors especially need to be concerned, because the diseases that have been linked to magnesium deficiency include cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, osteoporosis and even some cancers.
In laboratory studies performed at the cellular level, cells that were cultured with normal levels of magnesium were compared with those that were not. The cells that were cultured without the normal level of magnesium manifested accelerated aging compared with the cells that were cultured normally. The researchers suspect that magnesium deficiency over the long term can damage the health of the cells and may very likely be promoting long term chronic disease. This is good news for seniors who are searching for information to help them take preemptive anti-aging steps to foster their senior health. Natural sources of magnesium include figs, lemons, grapefruit, yellow corn, almonds, dark green vegetables and apples.
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Supplements Support the Big Five Health Categories
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During the last few years numerous articles have appeared in the popular press in favor of taking nutritional supplements and other against taking them. In the reports in professional literature from medical and nutritional professionals a very healthy majority of medical professionals that includes both doctors and nurses recommend supplements to their patients. More than 75% of physicians and more than 80% of nurses recommend that their patients use supplements in addition to consuming a healthy diet and engaging in exercise. Typically a majority of both nurses and doctors recommended that their patients take multivitamins.
The use of supplements was recommended for five big health categories including overall health, bone health, joint health, healthy cholesterol levels, and cardiovascular health. The doctors and nurses practiced what they preached, because a healthy majority of both reported using supplements themselves. Multivitamins were the most popular supplement used by the doctors. This is good news for seniors who are concerned about geting preemptive aging information so that they can take steps to improve their senior health.
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Sweeteners, Metabolism, and Senior Health.
- Image by Joshua Rappeneker via Flickr
At the beginning of the 20th Century table sugar (sucrose) was the main source of sweeteners in the diet of Americans. Sucrose is made up of 50% fructose and 50% glucose. Another sweetener that was not introduced until the 1970′s is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) that has the same number of calories as sucrose, but can contain as much as 80% fructose and only 20% glucose. Up until the later part of the 20th Century folks consumed no more than about 15 grams of fructose per day that was obtained from fruits and vegetables. At the end of the 20th Century less than 30 years after the introduction of HFCS the daily consumption had suddenly jumped to over 80 grams of fructose per day. This change in the balance of fructose and glucose has had negative health consequences in terms of glucose metabolism that are a concern for anyone trying to improve their senior health.
Parallel with this fivefold increase in the consumption of fructose has been the appearance of a number of unhealthy symptoms in the general population that are typical of an unbalanced metabolism. Our bodies are used to a sweetener with a 50/50 balance of sucrose and glucose, but the current high dietary intake of HFCS has upset that balance. The typical high intake of fructose which is found in all soft drinks and 40% of the sweeteners added to foods and beverages should be of concern for seniors who are concerned about avoiding diabetes. This imbalance of fructose upsets the metabolism of glucose in the liver and can induce insulin resistance that is a hallmark of type 2 diabetes. For seniors who are concerned about taking preemptive aging steps against developing diabetes, eliminating or at least seriously reducing their intake of fructose by avoiding foods and beverages containing HFCS is a high priority.
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Green Tea Extract For Blood Glucose Control
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Recently a study about the effects of green tea extract on blood glucose control was conducted in the Far East. The study was conducted over a four month period in the following manner. The participants include both men and women who showed elevated blood glucose levels prior to the start of the study. The volunteers were divided into two groups such that one group drank a supplement of green tea extract every day for two months and then ceased taking the supplement for two months. The second group followed the same schedule but in reverse order. Prior to the initiation of the study all the volunteers were borderline diabetics or prediabetic. Their blood glucose levels measured at the start of the study provided the baseline against which any changes would be compared. The blood glucose levels were measured using the hemoglobin A1c levels.
The first group that started taking the green tea extract saw a reduction in their hemoglobin A1c levels. This group started at a baseline of 6.2% which declined to 5.9% after two months. Their levels continued to decline to 5.8% after two more months during which time they did not supplement with the green tea extract. For the second group that delayed two months before starting to take the green tea extract the results were nearly as good with the hemoglobin levels coming in at 6.1%, 6.1% and 5.9%. Healthy hemoglobin levels range from 4% to 5.9%, so supplementing with green tea extract modulated the long-term control of blood glucose. This is good news for seniors who are concerned about their senior health in regard to controlling their blood glucose levels and avoiding diabetes.
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Seniors Can Reduce the Risk of Diabetes
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A recent study in Europe reported that folks who had a higher level of vitamin C in their systems had a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The study included more than 21,000 participants who began the study as nondiabetic participants. At the start of the study their vitamin C levels were measured and they answered dietary questionaires. At the end of the study which lasted lasted 12 years slightly more than 300 woman and 400 men had developed diabetes. In terms of the levels of risk of developing diabetes, those participants who ranked in the top 20% of the vitamin C levels had more than a 60% lower risk of developing diabetes when compared with those in the lowest 20%. In addition those with the higher intakes of fruits and vegetables showed lower risks of developing diabetes compared with those with the lower intakes of vegetables and fruits. The researchers concluded that the results of this study provides strong evidence of the benefits of vitamin C along with a high intake of fruits and vegetables for lowering the risk of developing diabetes. This is wonderful news for seniors who are concerned about fostering senior health by lowering their risk of developing diabetes.
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A Super Food for 2010!
- Image by Amanda Rudkin via Flickr
This grain is one of the oldest grains used by humans. Barley was first used by humans in Egypt about 10,000 years ago. Late in the 15th Century it was brought to the Americas by Columbus, but barley has never gained the same popular use in the USA as other grains such as wheat and oats. Recently a number of barley’s exciting health benefits have been discovered that have particular relevance for senior health. It turns out that barley is loaded with phytochemicals, minerals and fiber that can provide preemptive aging benefits against a range of diseases. Those benefits include protection against cancer, cardiovascular disease, and unbalanced blood sugar levels.
One of the components in barley that makes it rank as a super food is a particular kind of soluble fiber known as beta-glucan. Beta-glucan is a fiber that we can not digest. It binds with water in our digestive system and slows the rate at which food moves through the digestive system. By slowing down the movement of food through our digestive system it moderates the body’s insulin and glucose responses following a meal. Among the top two grains that provide the most beta-glucan barley ranks above oats. This high beta-glucan content makes whole grain barley a super food in terms of helping folks who suffer from diabetes, because it reduces the peak glucose and insulin levels. Barley can lower the risk of cardiovascular disease by promoting healthy blood lipid levels. Other components in Barley that add to its standing as a super food are its phytonutrients known as lignans. The lignans have been shown to reduce the risk of certain cancers such as breast cancer and prostate cancer.
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