Archive for May, 2009

Tips On Preventing The Swine Flu

For years we’ve worried about the possibility of a flu pandemic, and it seems those fears may become a reality. The swine flu, which recently surfaced in Mexico, has sickened thousands and alarmed millions of people around the world.
As of the time that I’m writing this, there are 109 confirmed cases of H1N1 flu in [...]

For years we’ve worried about the possibility of a flu pandemic, and it seems those fears may become a reality. The swine flu, which recently surfaced in Mexico, has sickened thousands and alarmed millions of people around the world.

As of the time that I’m writing this, there are 109 confirmed cases of H1N1 flu in the United States—spread out among 11 different states. Not surprisingly, I’ve been fielding a lot of questions about it from colleagues, patients, and subscribers who want to know what they can do to avoid contracting the virus—as well as how to cope if they fall ill. Here’s what I’ve been telling them…

Prevention is your best defense

The first thing you want to do is follow the same basic flu prevention techniques that you would during the regular cold and flu season. So far, the virus seems to be behaving like more common strains of flu, which means good hygiene is essential if you want to avoid infection. Wash your hands frequently and thoroughly, especially if you’ve been around someone who is sick or you’ve visited a public place.

Good hygiene also requires that you avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth. This is a special challenge at this time of year because so many of us—including me—have seasonal allergies. However, it’s the best way to avoid transferring traces of the virus that may be on your hands to the mucous membranes where infection could take hold.

Next, eat a consistently nutritious diet. Fruits and vegetables, which are rich in antioxidants, are especially important. You also want to watch your intake of sugars, since high-glycemic carbohydrates and sweets weaken the immune system, as will alcohol.

Bolster your immune system so it’s in peak shape

A strong immune system continues to be your best defense against any acute illness, including the swine flu. There are several potent nutritional supplements that you can start taking now to power up your immune system, including:

1. Resveratrol: This powerful antioxidant, which is found most abundantly in red grape skins, helps to prevent the flu by making it tougher for flu cells to divide and replicate themselves.
2. Quercetin: This powerful polyphenol that is found in fruits and vegetables is very similar to resveratrol in its chemical structure. It helps to protect the lung tissues from free radicals, and helps to prevent cytokine storms, which are the inflammatory messengers that can overwhelm healthy lung tissue.
3. Beta Glucan: This complex sugar (polysaccharide) is derived from the cell wall of baker’s yeast, oats, and barley, as well as some medicinal mushrooms. As a supplement it primes neutrophils, white blood cells in your immune system that engulf alien microorganisms.
4. Selenium: You need selenium to make glutathione, your body’s most potent natural antioxidant. Plus, as a cardiologist I’m very in touch with the impact of selenium on cardiomyopathy. Years ago, a famous disease in China called Keshan disease was causing cardiomyopathy in adults and children, due to a deficiency in selenium that weakened the heart muscle. When patients were given selenium, it increased the efficacy of the white blood cells, mobilizing them to eradicate the infection that caused the cardiomyopathy.
5. N-Acetyl-Cysteine (NAC): This important amino acid is the precursor to glutathione—which as I just mentioned is your body’s most potent antioxidant. It also helps to support your liver, and helps remove toxins from your body.

What to do if you begin to feel ill

If you follow all of these precautions and still begin to feel worn down and symptomatic, you want to do three things:

1. Add licorice root to your supplement regimen. Licorice root extract supports the adrenal glands and fights inflammation in the lungs. Star anise is an herb that is one of the materials used to make the flu medication Tamiflu. Interestingly, the star anise plant is in a similar plant family to licorice root. This may explain the antiviral properties of licorice root extract. There is a lot of press about Tamiflu, but I would be cautious about giving Tamiflu to young adults unless there is a diagnosis of the H1N1 flu, since overuse can cause bizarre psychological reactions. Licorice root extract is safe, and it does have some efficacy in treating viruses. It’s sold in liquid form, and you should take one dropperful under the tongue twice a day. NOTE: If you have high blood pressure, use licorice root extract only on a very short-term basis, one to two weeks at most. With prolonged use, licorice root can cause blood pressure to rise. If you have a home blood pressure monitor, keep a close eye on your readings.
2. Up your vitamin C intake…and I don’t mean by just a little bit. I recommend 5,000 mg of vitamin C a day, in divided doses, to help fight infection. Just be aware that this much vitamin C can cause diarrhea. If this happens to you, reduce the dosage to the highest amount you can tolerate.
3. Seek medical help. This is one time that you shouldn’t try to go it alone. The sooner you are evaluated by a doctor, the better your chances of having a short illness and full recovery.

Finally, keep a positive mindset

I can’t stress enough how important it is that you avoid undue stress and have positive intention as we weather this storm. By that, I mean telling yourself that you’re not going to become sick and then trusting that you—and your immune system—are up to the challenge.

Too often, we subconsciously create what we fear the most. This is undoubtedly a frightening time, but don’t allow those emotions to consume you. A cautious but positive approach to life is the best medicine for all of us right now.

It’s also important to remember that we’ve seen swine flu before and it does not carry the mortality and morbidity of other previous flus, such as the epidemic of 1918.

If You Would Like more info on Resveratol check this out:

http://www.rejenx.com/luvnlife

Your Thyroid and Weight loss – The Connection is Real

 
Your thyroid dictates much of your metabolism… any malfunction or disease afflicting this area may cause you to have problems in metabolism leading to a  problem with your weight – you may either gain weight, lose weight, or may find that losing weight is harder than usual.
Those that plan diets do not take into consideration [...]

 

Your thyroid dictates much of your metabolism… any malfunction or disease afflicting this area may cause you to have problems in metabolism leading to a  problem with your weight – you may either gain weight, lose weight, or may find that losing weight is harder than usual.

Those that plan diets do not take into consideration how their thyroids and metabolism may affect their weight loss program. Most experts and even the media pitch in and recommend that the best way to lose weight is cut calories.

Those with a condition called hyperthyroidism suffer from an overactive thyroid leading to one having his or her metabolism skyrocket. If this is the case, then you will probably lose weight fast. This is a nice proposition for some who wish to lose weight. However, this is actually hazardous to the health.

Aside from the medical difficulties such a disease brings, one will also notice weight problems as a result. These people have trouble keeping on weight and may notice weakness and bulging of the eyes. This disease may need special treatment from doctors.

Hypothyroidism on the other hand works in the other direction – slowing metabolism until the body gains weight at an incredible rate. Like hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism causes a general weakness in the body. It too may need special treatment and may cause serious health problems if left unattended.

While cutting calories in itself can be very hard for most people – imagine, the people involved in life and death struggles at the supermarket regarding whether to buy that extra box of sweets, some have exactly the opposite problem.

Instead of eating too much calories – which is a problem in itself, they eat too little calories instead.

Problem… What Problem?
The problem with some is that they believe that since the experts say that they have to cut calories, cutting calories to an inordinate amount will reap greater results. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. While cutting calories helps diets, consuming too little calories pushed the body into a hoard mode, the body’s metabolism slow to adapt to the lesser amount of available energy.

If your body enters this mode, your body will work at such slow metabolism that losing weight becomes impossible.  The technique here should be to reduce calories without the body slowing its metabolism. Only then can losing weight become easier.

Another problem that can arise from decreased metabolism is that when your metabolism slows due to a drastic reduction in metabolism, and then you suddenly eat a good, hearty, calorie-filled meal, you are bound to gain more weight owing to the increased surplus of energy.

This is why an imbalanced meal is highly discouraged among those that seek to lose weight. The sudden loss and increase of calories will cause an imbalance in one’s energy consumption directly affecting fat deposit.

Here is a simple computation to help you get to the right amount of calories you will need per day so that you get your nutrients in the right balance.

First of all, multiply your weight in kilograms by 30. If you only know your weight in pounds, divide it by 2.2 to get to its English equivalent. We divide this number by 30 because that is the number of calories you need to maintain your weight per pound of weight.

For example if your weight in pounds is 150, divide it by 2.2. That will give you a figure of 68.18. This is your weight in kilograms. Multiply this by 30 and you will arrive at the amount of calories you will need per day to maintain 150 lbs.

You may consult a nutritionist to help you come lose weight. In the end it all comes down to math. If you consume more that your body needs, it stores it as fat. Now is probably a good time to start studying the back of those grocery cartons.

Try to keep your diet at a 40% protein, 25% fat, and 35% carbohydrate meals at 300 calories per meal. Spread out these meals in a day for optimum results.

While it may be simple computation to get at numbers, do not forget the earlier mentioned fact that the body adapts to its condition. Expose it to extreme ones and you may find yourself getting results you never wanted. Consult a nutritionist for more advice.

How Artificial Sweeteners Are Making You Fat

You know how frustrating it is to be doing everything we are “supposed” to be doing, but still, do not lose weight. Of course, this is frustrating. Losing weight is hard enough, and to change your eating habits and still see no results, that’s even more frustrating.
Why do these people not lose weight? If I [...]

You know how frustrating it is to be doing everything we are “supposed” to be doing, but still, do not lose weight. Of course, this is frustrating. Losing weight is hard enough, and to change your eating habits and still see no results, that’s even more frustrating.

Why do these people not lose weight? If I had to pick the most common reason why most people’s efforts have proved no results, I would say it is the deception of artificial sweeteners and processed diet foods. Yes, you heard right. It is the diet coke, diet snacks, processed foods and artificial sweetener in your coffee that is keeping you fat.
How is this so?

Artificial sweeteners overwhelm your liver

Your liver is your largest internal organ, and it’s responsible for an astonishing variety of life-sustaining and health-promoting tasks, including those that make healthy weight loss and weight management possible. Integral to countless metabolic processes, the liver supports the digestive system, controls blood sugar and regulates fat storage. One of your liver’s most important functions, and the most crucial to your weight loss, is chemically breaking down everything that enters your body, from healthy vegetables, to not so healthy fast food, from healthy water to not so healthy soda.

It’s your liver’s job to distinguish between the nutrients you need to absorb and the dangerous or unnecessary substances that must be filtered out of your bloodstream. But when the liver is clogged and overwhelmed with toxins, like artificial sweeteners, it can’t do a very effective job of processing nutrients and fats. If it can not process the nutrients and fats that your body needs, this will cause you to gain weight or will prevent you from losing weight.

Your liver also produces bile, a crucial substance for detoxifying our bodies. It is the job of bile to help our bodies break down the fats we need and to assimilate fat-soluble vitamins. But when our bile becomes overly congested with the toxins it’s trying to filter out, it simply can’t function properly. It becomes thick, viscous and highly inefficient in breaking down fats. The result: You are more likely to gain weight and to have a greater difficulty losing it. So the more toxic your body becomes, the more difficulty you’ll have losing weight and keeping it off because your liver just can not work properly to break down fat.

Are artificial sweeteners considered a toxin?

What qualifies something as a “toxin”? A toxin is anything that your body does not recognize as a natural food source. The reason why artificial sweeteners have “zero” calories is because your body does not recognize them as a food source. For example, the chemical process to make Splenda (sucralose) alters the chemical composition of the sugar so much that it is somehow converted to a completely different molecule than sugar. This type of “fake” sugar molecule does not occur in nature and therefore your body does not possess the ability to properly metabolize it. This is how the makers of Splenda claim that it has zero calories, because in theory it should not be digested or metabolized by the body (Although it has been shown that some people’s body do absorb up to 15% of the artificial sweeteners they ingest). So the more artificial sweeteners that you consume in one day, the more you are overwhelming your liver with toxins and the less able it is to do its job of processing fat. And what happens if the liver can’t do its job? You can’t lose weight or worse yet, you gain weight.

What if you don’t use artificial sweeteners? Don’t be fooled. Almost every diet product on the market has some kind of artificial sweetener added to it. Even some children’s snacks are now being made with sucralose (Splenda) and most flavored waters contain sucralose or aspartame.

Now add up how many things you eat in one day that contain some form of artificial sweetener. The list may be very long. How overwhelmed do you think your liver is? Does it have the ability to work properly? Even if you keep your calories at bay and only drink Diet Coke with your meals, will you truly get down to the weight that you want, and stay there? It has been in my experience that the answer is “no” and until you are ready to commit yourself to a healthy way of eating, weight loss will always be a constant struggle.

What else do sweeteners do?

Sweeteners increase appetite

Artificial sweeteners tell your taste buds that, “sweet stuff has arrived,” which to the brain means, “nutrition has arrived.” When artificial sweetened drink or food reaches the small intestine, the receptors find no nutrition. A message is then sent back to the brain saying, “We’ve been tricked-there’s no nutrition here.” The appestat (the part of your brain that triggers satiety) sends the message to “keep eating because we need nutrition to help process all this fake food and run your body.” So even after you eat a good portioned healthy meal (along with your diet coke) you still feel like your starving all day, or you become very hungry soon after. Your healthy eating efforts may be sabotaged if you continue to feel hungry all day. No one likes to feel hungry so you continue to eat more food until you feel satisfied, which in your effort to lose weight, may just be too much.

Sweeteners Increase our Sweet Tooth

Saccharin (Sweet n Low) is 300 times sweeter than sugar, aspartame (Equal) is 200 times sweeter than sugar and sucralose (splenda) is 600 times sweeter than sugar. Such sweeteners can only increase our sweet tooth and increase our taste of sweet things. If you can never get rid of your sugar cravings, any healthy eating plan will be difficult because you will constantly be craving “sweet”. Artificial sweeteners have also shown to promote the same blood sugar fluctuations as regular sugar, which, again will bring on “sugar lows” which will increase appetite and cravings. This is not to say, that something sweet now and again is not ok, but it is those people who can not control their sugar cravings that are being sabotaged by these artificial sweeteners.

What are some alternatives to sweeteners?

Giving up sugar and artificial sweeteners may be difficult, especially if you are accustomed to everything having such a sweet taste. A wonderful alternative to sugar and artificial sweeteners is an herb called Stevia. Stevia is an extraordinarily sweet herb, 200-300 times sweeter than sugar. Stevia is almost calorie-free, so it is perfect for people who are watching their weight. Unlike sugar, it does not trigger a rise in blood sugar so you will not get a sudden burst of energy followed by fatigue and a need for another “fix”. It increases energy and aids digestion by stimulating the pancreas. Stevia also presents great advantages over saccharine and other artificial sweeteners in that it is not toxic. Stevia is a plant that is found in nature and is not man-made in a laboratory. Stevia can be found at almost all health food stores such as Whole Foods, and is listed under the “supplement” section. Stevia can be used exactly like sugar and artificial sweeteners to sweeten drinks and it can even be used in baking.

If weight loss or staying away from sweets has always been a problem for you, take notice of how much artificial sweetener you have been ingesting. That just may be the culprit. Make a resolution this year to give up the “fake” stuff and stick to natural alternatives like Stevia. You will not only be helping your weight loss efforts but you will also be benefiting your health.