Americans Are Overfed and Undernourished

Americans are some of the most overfed and yet undernourished people on the planet, and it shows.

The United States ranks 40th in the developed world for life expectancy even though we spend far more per person on health care than any other country. A new study from the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine says that the life-expectancy gap between the US and other developed countries is only getting larger.   Shocked? We should be!

Proper nutrition and healthy lifestyle plays an important role in helping prevent many major diseases (like heart disease, diabetes and even cancer), but getting proper nutrition in our modern world can be a challenge.

Let's take a look:

•	Our bodies cannot produce many of the nutrients we need, so they must be found in the food we eat and the supplements we take every day. Additionally, if the food we are eating is lacking nutrients, then supplementing can really be beneficial in staying healthy.
•	Most people say that they eat well, but research shows that 80 percent of Americans are not eating enough servings of fruits and vegetables.i We are also not getting enough Omega- 3 oils (EPA/DHA), antioxidants, B vitamins or a host of other nutrients our bodies need.
•	The nutritional content of our food has changed. A 2004 study of common crops showed a decline in the nutrient content between 6 and 38 percent over the past 50 years.ii
•	The amount of processed food that we eat has been on a steady climb ever since the invention of the refrigerator. Today, most of us eat more processed food than non-processed food. Convenience has become more prized than quality.
•	Our high stress and fast paced lives increases our needs for nutrients, especially the B vitamins.
•	The world is a much more toxic place than it used to be. Our bodies are exposed to more pollutants and under more oxidative stress than ever before. We need optimum nutrition in order to help our bodies battle these stresses.

None of us are perfect, there are days when you might eat well, but then days when you don't. A multivitamin, along with other key nutritional supplements can be the insurance policy you are looking for to fill in those nutritional gaps that may leave us vulnerable.

i	Krebs-Smith SM, Guenther PM, Subar AF, Kirkpatrick SI, Dodd KW. Americans do not meet federal dietary recommendations. J Nutr. 2010;140:1832–1838.
ii	Davis DR, Epp MD, Riordan HD. Changes in USDA food composition data for 43 garden crops, 1950 to 1999. J Am Coll Nutr. 2004 Dec;23(6):669-82. PMID: 15637215.

March is National Nutrition Month

National Nutrition Month is a nutrition education and information campaign created by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, and celebrated annually in March. The campaign focuses on the importance of making informed food choices and developing sound eating and physical activity habits. 

Here is my goal list to eat and live healthy ...

* Drink pure water with lemon as soon as I get up (lemon naturally detoxes the body)
* Reduce/Replace morning cup of coffee with green tea
* Reduce meat protein and eat primarily plant based protein
* Eat a wide variety of raw organic vegetables and fruits in multiple colors
* Forget it is cold... Get out and exercise

 

 

 

Fast Food Billboard Ads Making Us Fat?

Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, have found that we are more overweight and obese in areas where there is more outside fast food billboard ads.

"Obesity is a significant health problem, so we need to know the factors that contribute to the overeating of processed food," Dr. Lenard Lesser, who conducted the study while he was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation clinical scholar in the UCLA Department of Family Medicine, said in a university news release. "Previous research has found that fast-food ads are more prevalent in low-income, minority areas, and laboratory studies have shown that marketing gets people to eat more."


For the study, published online Jan. 10 in the journal BMC Public Health, areas of Los Angelos and New Orleans were studied and both had low and high income individuals.

If you want to read more about this study, click here.

Women and Heart Health

Source: michaelelgo.com via Vicki on Pinterest

Heart Health Tips

Today is the last day of February and also the last day of Heart Health Month.  Do you know what your ideal numbers should be?

Source: web.extension.illinois.edu via University of Illinois Extension on Pinterest

What Is Cholesterol?

  

Cholesterol is a waxy, fat-like substance that is found in every cell of our bodies and in our blood.  Most of your circulating cholesterol is manufactured by your liver, although the cholesterol we consume in our diet contributes as well to the total cholesterol level.  A simple blood test can measure the "good" cholesterol (HDL) and "bad" cholesterol (LDL) in your blood.

Why Control Cholesterol?

While your body needs cholesterol, many of us have too much.  Hardening of the arteries occurs when plaque made from cholesterol, calcium, and fat builds up in the arteries surrounding the heart.  That increases the possibility of a heart attack or stroke.

People with high total cholesterol (over 200 mg/dl) have almost twice the risk of a heart attack or stroke than people with desirable levels.

The Cost of high Cholesterol....

The financial cost of high cholesterol is difficult to determine, but we do know we spend $444 billion a year on heart disease and stroke costs.  It is estimated that one out of every six dollars spent on health care is spent on cardiovascular disease, which accounts for more than one-third of all U.S. deaths.

* One third of all adults have high cholesterol and half of them do nothing to control it.
* An estimated 71 million adults have high cholesterol.
* An estimated 935,000 heart attacks occur every year.
* An estimated 795,000 strokes occur each year.
* Men still outnumber women in heart attacks, but not by much.  More women than men have strokes.

What can I do to control cholesterol?

 There is much that you can do to help control cholesterol.

1. Lifestyle:  Start by having your cholesterol checked regularly.  Make sure you are eating a healthy diet that includes plenty of fruits and vegetables, and avoid packaged, fried, and fast food.  Lose weight if you are not your ideal weight.  Exercise and avoid smoking.

2.  Sterols:  Plant sterols and stanols (2,000 mg/day) have been shown in multiple studies to help lower cholesterol levels as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol.  They appear to work by cblocking the absorption of cholesterol in the diet. (i)

3. Fiber:  Multiple studies have shown the benefit of fiber on lowering cholesterol levels in high-risk subjects. (ii)

4.  Soy:  Soy supplementation has been shown to help lower cholesterol.  Soy contains isoflavones, which are belived to be soy's main cholesterol lowering ingredients.  Just make sure you are getting a non-gmo soy because soy is one of the highest gmo foods in the market. (iii)

iBaumgartner S, Mensink RP, Plat J. Plant sterols and stanols in the treatment of dyslipidemia: new insights into targets and mechanisms related to cardiovascular risk. Curr Pharm Des. 2011;17(9):922-32. PMID:21418032.

iiEstruch R, Martínez-González MA, Corella D, et al. Effects of dietary fibre intake on risk factors for cardiovascular disease in subjects at high risk. J Epidemiol Community Health. 2009 Jul;63(7):582-8. PMID: 19289389.

iiiBakhtiary A, Yassin Z, Hanachi P, et al. Effects of soy on metabolic biomarkers of cardiovascular disease in elderly women with metabolic syndrome. Arch Iran Med. 2012 Aug;15(8):462-8. PMID: 22827780.

Happy Valentine's Day & Heart Health Month

Happy Valentine's Day!  Did you find that perfect gift for your sweet heart?  Valentine's Day is one of the biggest holidays for candy and sweets (maybe 2nd to Halloween).  According to Nielsen, Americans will purchase around 58 million pounds of chocolate during the days leading up to the 14th,  and we shell out somewhere around $345 million to satisfy our Valentine's sweet tooth.   Flowers, chocolate and jewelry are some of the traditional gifts given today.  However, I think the best gift you can give to your loved one may be taking better care of your own heart.  February is not only for lovers, it is also American Heart Month.  You may have heard that heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. Over 800,000 people die from cardiovascular disease every year; that means, on average, someone dies every four minutes from some complication of heart disease.   The numbers of heart attacks are even scarier to me–almost every minute in the U.S. someone has a heart attack–and for those who survive the heart attack, they often have severe limitations as a result of the damage done to their heart! Their lives are changed forever.


Heart Health Fact:  Your Heart - The Hardest Working Muscle In Your Body 
Your heart - beats on average 100,000 times a day and pumps the equivalent of 2,000 gallons of blood each day. Imagine what a workhorse our hearts must be! So vital to our life and yet not well taken care of by most of us. 



Heart disease is costly, too, not only in terms of health care dollars but also in lost productivity.. However, the real kicker is that 80 percent of all heart disease is preventable. That means you have a choice. If you have high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, or are overweight, you are on the pathway to becoming a heart disease statistic.

So, let’s talk about what you can do starting today to put yourself on the path to prevention–keeping your heart healthy for your Valentine!

Here are the top 3 tips from Dr. Jamie McManus, Chairman, Shaklee Medical Affairs & Health Sciences :

• Control Your Blood Pressure and Cholesterol: Monitoring your own blood pressure is easy, and if anyone in your family has heart disease you should regularly check your blood pressure. Blood pressure is the leading cause of stroke and a major cause of heart attacks. Testing for cholesterol has also become easy and should at least be done once a year. I encourage you to exercise, eat plenty of fiber-rich vegetables and fruits, limit foods with saturated fats, trans fats, and cholesterol, and reduce the amount of salt you are consuming. There are great natural supports for both cholesterol and blood pressure, including fiber and plant sterols for cholesterol and fish oils, CoQ₁₀, and garlic for blood pressure. Be sure to follow up with your medical doctor to assess how you are doing with achieving good blood pressure control and healthy cholesterol levels.

• Appropriate Weight: The farther away you are from your ideal weight, the higher your risks are for heart disease and stroke. There are many tools to help you control your weight. Just be sure to pick a plan that is based on sound nutrition principles and helps you keep your lean body mass (muscles), and therefore your metabolism intact.

• Exercise: Physical fitness not only helps you to lower your weight, but it also helps to control blood pressure and cholesterol. Start slow and then work your way up to exercising a total of an hour a day. While an hour a day may seem like a lot, remember that exercise is cumulative; you don’t have to do it all at once. You can exercise 20 minutes in the morning, midday, and evening to get your hour. Walking is probably the best exercise that everyone can do.

While taking care of yourself is not a traditional gift for Valentine’s Day, it can be the very best gift because it keeps on giving for many years to come.


So in honor of February - Heart Health Month and Valentine's Day - Make sure you are taking special care of your most prized possession, your heart. Learn if you have any risk factors and take the necessary action to modify your risk - starting today. Start by following a heart healthy weight and inch loss plan and increasing your physical activity level. In addition, consider the use of heart-smart dietary supplements as added nutritional support. Incorporate soy protein and soluble fiber into your diet. Eat a diet rich in plant foods like whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, other lean protein and heart healthy fats. Be sure you are consuming adequate amounts of homocysteine lowering folic acid, Vitamins B6 and B12. Make sure to get plenty of omega-3 fatty acids. If you are concerned about contaminants in fresh fish, consider a pharmaceutical grade fish oil supplement that will bring you a full spectrum of omega-3 fatty acids including EPA for hearth health and DHA to support brain function. And don't forget about Coenzyme Q10, to prevent the oxidation of LDL cholesterol, the form of cholesterol that makes up the plaque that builds up inside artery walls. People who take statin type drugs may be depleted in coenzyme Q10.

So, enjoy a few bites of mouth-watering dark chocolate on Valentine's Day (for its heart healthy polyphenols, of course) and then go for a walk with your "honey." Talk about your excitement about incorporating exercise, healthy eating and wise supplementation into your daily routine so that you can enjoy the coming year with energy and vitality--and the confidence that you are taking care of your heart.

Be well.