Archive for September, 2009
Can Heart Disease Be Reversed?
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As you probably already know, here in the USA, heart disease is the leading cause of death. More than 459,000 Americans die of cardiovascular disease every year. That is larger than the number of Americans who died in World War II over a period of three years and 10 months. The financial cost of the casualties from the ‘cardiovascular war’ have been estimated at over $450 billion counting health care services, medications and lost productivity. Among the leaders in costs are the invasive surgeries that include coronary artery bypass surgeries, angioplasties, and cardiac catheterizations. Without question these surgical procedures are modern medical miracles for the folks that really need them. The next question that needs to be asked is how can folks live so that they preempt the need to use these extreme means.
In reality, most folks can prevent the onset of cardiovascular disease by choosing a heart healthy lifestyle. For starters, what we eat has a major impact on the health of our hearts. If we limit our intake of refined carbohydrates, sugar, and saturated fats, but stock up on lean protein, fruits and vegetables with lots of fiber, and moderate amounts of healthy fats like olive oil, then we will be a third of the way toward a heart healthy lifestyle. The second part of the solution is exercise every day of the week if possible. For example 30 minutes of brisk walking can provide the exercise needed. Finally, supplementing daily with a full spectrum multivitamin and mineral product and complementing it with fish oil capsules and coenzyme Q10 will complete the steps to living a heart healthy lifestyle that will benefit cardiovascular health.
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Try Foods Before Moisturizers
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Every day we are bombarded with ads that promise to remove the wrinkles that typically accompany aging. These ads show the before and after pictures of folks who improved their skin’s appearance by using the vendor’s anti-aging moisturizer product. Unfortunately the same folks who pay top dollar for the moisturizing products typically sabotage their plan for younger looking skin by consuming foods that contribute heavily to causing the wrinkling of their skin. For example consuming products with refined sugar very often causes a sudden jump in blood sugar levels. These sudden increases in blood sugar levels induce inflammation and aging of skin. Simple carbohydrates convert easily to sugar and contribute their share of skin aging which includes adding deeper wrinkles and sagging skin to the detriment of senior health. Limiting consumption of simple carbohydrates and refined sugar must be the first step in promoting younger looking skin.
On the positive side folks can select from over seven different groups of tasty foods that promote healthy, younger looking skin by providing antioxidants. At the head of the list is the berry family whose members are loaded with antioxidants. They include blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, pomegranate, cherries, and acai berries. Next is the yellow and orange root vegetable family that includes sweet potatoes, carrots, squash, and pumpkins. Joining the healthy skin team are the red vegetables which include tomatoes, red and pink grapefruit, and watermelon that supply lycopene which provides the antioxidants to fight the free radicals. These vegetables inhibit sun-induced skin aging. The green vegetables spinach and kale provide antioxidants and enhance skin hydration. Onions, garlic, and scallions are good for your skin and they provide an immune system boost. The list would not be complete without including salmon that provides excellent protein and omega-3 oils. The texture of your skin will show the positive result of consuming salmon on a regular basis. Rounding out the healthy skin team remember to drink lots of green tea and water, but limit drinks with caffeine, because it tends to dehydrate skin. The water hydrates your skin and the green tea provides special antioxidants.
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Preempt the Big 3 Diseases or Not?
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With all the smoke and mirrors in the media about reforming health care maybe its time to take a new look or think out of our usual health care box. It turns out that there is a lot that ordinary folks can do to prevent or preempt diseases from ever getting started. This goes double for folks as we get older, because of the special issues that affect senior health. We can choose our lifestyle so that we head in a direction with a high probability of attaining greater health or in an opposite direction with an equal probability of coming down with one of the big three diseases. The big three killer diseases are in order diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Four straight forward lifestyle changes can reduce the probability of contracting one of the big three by 80%. These lifestyle changes will not raise your health insurance premiums, but in some cases may actually lower them.
The big four lifestyle changes are within the reach of most folks, but they do require serious commitment. They are not monumental challenges like trying to climb Mt. Everest and return safely. The alternatives for not embracing these changes are higher health insurance premiums for everyone, seriously degraded quality of life and early death. The big four lifestyle changes include eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, maintaining a healthy weight, and not smoking. As one motivation coach put it, “Where attention goes, energy flows, and the result shows”. This is something that we can do for ourselves and our country, because a healthy people make a country healthy and prosperous.
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Can Vitamin D Bind the H1N1 Flu?
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By all indications the H1N1 Flu is already beginning to pay a return visit to the Northern Hemisphere. In the USA the Government is promising that a vaccine will be ready in time to head off the H1N1 and protect us from the consequences of this disease this fall of 2009. Due to the short time required to prepare the new, H1N1 vaccine we do not know how well it will work in the general public. The second issue that has been raised concerns the availability of and accessibility to the vaccine by the general public. Putting all our hope on this new, H1N1 vaccine to provide protection from the H1N1 flu is like putting all our health protection in one basket. Common sense says that we should have a layered defense in place that will preempt the H1N1 flu. The key to such a layered defense will be to take steps that will strengthen a weakened immune system.
Taking the path to boost immune system has strong support from diverse groups that are concerned about preventing the spread of the H1N1 flu. An agency of the Canadian Government is studying the role of vitamin D in preventing the onset or mitigating the severity of the flu infection. Numerous studies have shown that a deficiency of vitamin D is linked to influenza infections. The Harvard Medical School, that normally recommends getting vitamins through food, makes an exception for supplementing with vitamin D. The good news is that the vitamin D supplements that duplicate the form D3 made by our bodies in sunlight are very inexpensive. The D3 form that is more readily absorbed by our bodies is preferred over the less potent form D2. Together with eating a healthy diet and getting enough sleep, supplementing with vitamin D3 will support a layered defense against infection by the H1N1 flu.
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Are We Iodine Deficient?
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For very good reasons, doctors have been telling us to cut back on our salt intake, because too much salt intake can can contribute to certain cancers and high blood pressure. Apparently we have been listening to our doctors, because folks in the USA have been reducing their salt intake, but some unintended consequences have resulted. When we reduce the amount of iodized table salt in our diet, we can put ourselves in the unhealthy position of suffering from iodine deficiency. Iodine was originally added to ordinary table salt to help prevent iodine deficiency, because the typical Western diet is low in iodine. Iodine deficiency has been linked to increased risk of breast cancer, fibrocystic breast disease, and impaired thyroid function. All three of these diseases are threats to senior health.
In Japan folks get their iodine from foods that they eat like kelp and Japanese women have lower incidences of breast cancer, fibrocystic breast disease, and impaired thyroid function. The Japanese diet insures that they receive several times more iodine than folks in the USA do, including those who use iodized table salt. As it turns out that about four weeks after opening a package of iodized salt, most of the iodine is gone. The good news is that iodine is a low-cost element, so that larger amounts of it can be added to the multivitamin/mineral formulas that health conscious seniors take on a daily basis. Supplementing with iodine is particularly important for post-menopausal females, because they are at higher risk for breast cancer, fibrocystic breast disease, and thyroid disease.
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Avoiding Malnutrition the Healthy Way
Many of today’s older Americans are malnourished, and the reasons are rather obvious upon closer inspection. The same medications that so many elderly people take to live healthy lives have a detrimental side effect: they limit appetite. That means that the older generation is trying to function without all of the vitamins and minerals recommended by doctors and nutritionists.
We also need vitamins to boost immune system function. In order to create effective antibodies that fight off germs and disease, we need a full complement of Vitamin D and calcium. These vitamins work in tandem to strengthen the immune system. Vitamin D is especially important for those senior citizens with mobility issues who might not get all of the sunlight they need.
Keep Your Muscles after 65!
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As adults grow older they lose the muscles that they had when they were younger, because their muscles shrink. Previous research has shown that seniors are less efficient at building muscle from food compared with the way they did when they were younger. Smaller, weaker muscles means less strength, but they also increase the probability of falling injuries that have a very negative impact on senior living. If that were not bad enough, recent research in England at the University of Nottingham has discovered more bad news that hinders seniors’ muscle building efforts. It turns out that the mechanism that blocks the breakdown of muscles does not work very effectively in folks over 65 years of age.
This discovery was made during a comparison study between 25-year-olds and folks in their late 60’s. The young people’s muscles were able to stop the muscle breakdown and the older folks’ muscles were not. The researchers also discovered that the older folks had a lower blood flow in their legs than the younger folks. One conclusion that the researchers drew from this finding was that the rate at which nutrients and hormones are supplied is lower for the older folks which may explain the cause of the declining muscles. The researchers performed a follow-up study in which the older folks performed at least three exercise sessions a week for 20 weeks. Instituting this weight training exercise for seniors was enough to increase the blood flow to the legs of the seniors until it was identical to the younger group. By increasing the blood flow to the legs of the seniors their muscle wasting was reversed.
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Coenzyme Q10 – A Two-Fold Ally
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Just what is this compound called coenzyme Q10? There are numerous articles and reports about it in the health literature often abbreviating it to CoQ10. CoQ10 is a compound that is made by our own bodies. Our bodies use coenzyme Q10 to produce the energy that our cells need to grow. This function illustrates the first way that CoQ10 is an ally of our bodies. Besides helping our cells grow, CoQ10 enables our cells to stay healthy after they grow. CoQ10 performs a second function as an antioxidant, which is another way that it is an ally of our bodies. As we age the amount of CoQ10 in our bodies decreases. Many cancers make their appearance in our bodies as we age due to a weakened immune system. Interest in CoQ10 as a treatment for cancer started back in the 1960’s, because folks with low levels of it were afflicted with breast, prostate, pancreatic cancer, etc.
Current studies suggest that CoQ10 may work in treating cancer, because it boosts the immune system. It may also be the case that CoQ10’s antioxidant activity may prevent cancer from developing. At this time research is ongoing to understand how CoQ10 might work with conventional cancer therapies. The National Cancer Institute has reported both on the theoretical basis for using CoQ10 to treat cancer and on some preclinical studies and some small clinical studies that have been performed. Based on those studies the National Cancer Institute concluded that CoQ10 helps in the treatment of cancer in the following ways. As an antioxidant it may prevent cancer from starting and CoQ10 analogs may block the growth of cancer cells that are already present.
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Cinnamon – Balances Inflammation
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Inflammation in our bodies is like a two-edge sword. We need an inflammatory response, because without it infections and wounds would never be healed. The second edge of inflammation acts as an accessory in many serious diseases including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, osteoarthritis and many others. For good health, especially for good senior health, we need to keep the inflammatory response in balance. As we age the inflammatory processes tend to fall out of balance causing those serious diseases.
It turns out that our bodies have their own balancing mechanisms that utilize certain proteins that can be induced by insulin, which is an anti-inflammatory hormone, and cinnamon extract. Recent research has shown that water soluble cinnamon extract lessens a type of intestinal inflammation. In addition to lessening inflammation, cinnamon has been shown to mimic the effects of insulin, manage blood-sugar metabolism, help regulate fatty acids, help reduce blood sugar and cholesterol levels, and act synergistically with insulin. Working together with insulin cinnamon reduces the type of inflammation that is known to the increase the risk for cardiovascular disease.
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The Move to Assisted Living
The aging process can be difficult for multiple generations within a family. Mothers and fathers are so busy attending to their children’s every need that they forget to monitor their own parents for warning signs. One should never expect an elderly person to reach out for help; it’s not easy to admit that you can no longer take care of yourself adequately and oftentimes the realization is never made.
Your aging parents might be candidates for senior housing or an assisted living facility if they begin to demonstrate a few tell-tale characteristics. Grooming and hygiene might deteriorate, along with the ability to concentrate and make sound judgments. The person might also betray a loss of interest in hobbies and social activities that he or she was once passionate about. It’s important to reinforce that the move to senior housing is a decision that is intended to benefit all parties.