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Health and Fitness Newsletter Archive from Dr. Ann Wellness Newsletter November 2009 News
By: Dr. Ann |
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Take Charge of Your Health |
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November 2009 Newsletter | |
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Over the past decade, one of the biggest "wow" developments on the healthy living front has been the recognition that inflammation is a key driver of most all chronic diseases. We have known about inflammation and heart disease for the longest, and can now add high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, obesity, Alzheimer's, autoimmune conditions, arthritis, and the aging process to the list of ills associated with the ravages of excess inflammation. What you eat can have a profound impact (and don't forget it!) on the process for better or for worse, and one of the most effective things you can do through diet to quiet the fire of inflammation is to regularly consume the long-chained omega 3 fat called DHA (I call it your fairy god-mother fat). According to the journal Nature (Oct 2009), scientists think they have finally cracked the case on exactly how this superstar fat comes to the anti-inflammatory rescue. Apparently, our bodies convert DHA into a chemical called Resolvin D2. Even when present in small amounts, Resolvin D2 is a highly effective anti-inflammatory agent and unlike anti-inflammatory drugs, has no side effects! Be sure to get a good dose of DHA daily -- seafood, especially oily fish (salmon, tuna, herring, sardines, lake trout) and DHA-fortified foods like eggs, milk, and peanut butter are the only ways to get it from your diet. Fish oil supplements or algae-based, "pure" DHA supplements are also an easy and convenient way to ensure optimal intakes. For a concise and comprehensive list of all the other dietary strategies available to keep the ravages of excess inflammation at bay, check out my advice in this feature story in the December issure of U.S. News and World Report. It is refreshing to see mainstream media covering such a "hot" health topic!  |
I Can't Believe it Took Me so Long to Get Cool...
My Anti-inflammatory Grocery List is now available! This 2-sided laminated grocery list concisely summarizes all of the dietary strategies available to quiet the ravages of excess inflammation and tells you exactly what to buy (and what not to buy!) to stay cool. Buy before December 3rd and get 20% off your purchase plus free shipping! |
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Slow Down to Eat Less
There are a host of easy and painless steps we can take to help us eat less (I am currently writing a book on this topic!) and one of them is simply to slow down. Yep - grandma was right all along. The faster we eat, the more food we consume. Studies show that wolfing down your meal thwarts your body's innate appetite-control mechanisms. A new, hot-off-the-press report provides a logical explanation for the relationship between speed-eating and over-eating. In this study, scientists fed 17 healthy men a big bowl of ice cream on 2 separate occasions: in one they ate the ice cream in several small servings over 30 minutes and in the other, they ate it in 2 servings over 5 minutes. The researchers then measured the study subject's blood levels of the appetite suppressive hormones PYY and GLP-1. When the study subjects ate the ice cream over a full 30 minutes, they reported a greater sense of fullness and had higher levels of PYY and GLP-1 released into their blood stream compared to downing the ice-cream in 5 minutes. ( Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, Nov 2009).
Keep in mind too that we know it takes a full 20 minutes for the satiety signals triggered by food entering the stomach to reach and begin to quiet the brain's hunger center. Here are some other simple tips for reining in your appetite.
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Have Your Fat and Eat it too
A powerful, new randomized clinical trial (the only kind of study that can really tell us the truth) adds to the validity of my standard dietary advice to "have your fat, and eat it too - as long as you make sure it's the right type." Presenting at the American Heart Association's 2009 Annual Meeting in Orlando, FL, researchers found that study subjects with metabolic syndrome who were placed on a moderate, healthy fat diet (40% total calories) lowered their LDL's (bad cholesterol) and tryglycerides 2 ½ times more effectively than study subjects placed on a low-fat (20% of calories) diet.
Learning to do your fat right is the single most powerful nutritional strategy available to protect your health and achieving success is as simple as giving yourself an oil change. Here is all you have to do.
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I Think Fructose is Killing Us
Over the past 20 years there has been a dramatic and precipitous increase in the intake of dietary fructose (mainly from HFCS and other sweeteners). This flash flood of dietary fructose parallels dead-on with our escalating rates of obesity. According to a new report, fructose may boost our blood pressure along with our waistlines. Investigators evaluated dietary fructose intakes amongst 4,528 adult study subjects and found those who consumed more than 79 grams a day (equivalent to 2.5 regular soft drinks) were up to 87% more likely to develop high blood pressure than those consuming lesser amounts. (American Society of Nephrology's 42nd Annual Meeting, San Diego, California.)
I feel very strongly that the surge of fructose in modern American diets is the most powerful driver of our twin epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes. Here is why - When we consume fructose, it all gets shunted to the liver because our cells are not capable of using it -- think of fructose as a form of foreign currency on the metabolic front. The liver, however, can convert fructose into a usable metabolic currency (glucose or fat). The problem is that when fructose hits the liver, especially in large amounts (think a can of soda or a bowl of fruit loops) it becomes a potent stimulator of liver fat production. This is a unique metabolic property of dietary fructose and HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT because the build-up of fat in the liver (even small amounts) has recently been shown to be the defining step in the development of insulin resistance. This is HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT because insulin resistance kills more people in this country than anything else. Having insulin resistance( which currently effects half of the adult population and a growing number of kids) dramatically boosts your risk of heart attacks, high blood pressure, type II diabetes, cancers, obesity, and accelerated aging. Take heed and reduce your liver's exposure to excess fructose by avoiding sugar sweetened beverages and minimizing sweetened, processed foods. Here are some other simple strategies to help you just say whoa! to insulin resistance. |
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Follow me on Twitter!
All of my tweets promise to be 100% motivation and education on the healthy living front. | |
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Superstar Food of the Month
Carrots
Crunchy, sweet, super low in calories, and oh-so-orange -- carrots are an exceptional food. Just a 1/2 cup serving provides 340% of your day's worth of vitamin A along with a whopping dose of carotenoid antioxidants. Likely because of their antioxidant exuberance, carrots are legendary when it comes to disease protection. Enjoy them regularly for heart health, vision protection, blood sugar regulation, optimal lung function, and protection from a host of cancers. Here are two of my family's favorite carrot recipes. | |
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Tip of the Month
Sip on Some Cocoa
Cocoa powder, like its dark chocolate cousin, is exploding with super-potent antioxidants called flavanols. Flavanols work all sorts of magic on blood vessels, keeping them open and functioning well. According to a new clinical trial, enjoying a daily cup of hot cacao made with skim milk can boost HDL (good cholesterol) and decrease pro-inflammatory "adhesion"molecules (proteins that trigger the development of artery plaque) in as little as one month. (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Nov 2009) Be sure to use 100% cocoa powder and stay away from the instant varieties.
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Eat Right for Life! CD
This is a life-changing, transformational message. Place your order, and get 20% off through the month of December. |
News Flash for Parents
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10 year olds who ate sugar and sweets daily were significantly more likely to become violent adults. (British Journal of Psychiatry, October 2009). The favored explanation among researchers was that giving children sweets regularly could impair their ability to learn how to defer gratification, thus encouraging impulsivity which is powerfully linked to delinquency.
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Children 5 years old who drank 2 or more sweetened beverages (soda, fruit drinks, or sports drinks) daily were significantly more likely to be overweight at age 15 than those who drank less than 1 a day ( American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Oct 2009).
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Relative to TV geared to a general audience, children's networks exposed viewers to 76% more food commercials per hour. Saturday morning viewing hosted the most frequent food advertisements with about 7.7 food commercials per hour. Sugary cereals, sweets, fast foods, convenience foods, chips, and crackers comprised more than 70% of the foods promoted (Journal of Nutrition Education, and Behavior, November 2009).
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AGE Awareness
I want to make you aware of a particularly nasty group of toxic chemicals called Advanced Glycation End products (AGE's for short) because they are largely unrecognized as a hazard to your health and because there are simple steps you can take to reduce your bodies' exposure to them. These dangerous substances form within foods when sugars react with proteins and fats and their production is greatly accelerated by heat, especially grilling, frying, drying, or smoking. It is now firmly established that they incite damaging oxidation and inflammation in the body and can accumulate in our tissues over time. Through their particularly potent pro-inflammatory activities, they can spur the development of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, kidney disease, and even obesity.
In a revealing new investigation, scientists determined that having study subjects poach, stew, or steam foods(lower and wetter heating) versus frying, grilling, or broiling( higher and dryer heating) can reduce AGE levels in the body by 60% (Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, Nov 2009).
Scientists believe that levels of AGE's in the standard Western diet are at least 3 times higher than the safety limit for these toxic agents. To reduce your exposure, think "heat down and water up" when preparing your foods because the higher the heat and the dryer the food, the more readily they form. The foods that typically provide the most are fatty meats, fast foods, and processed foods while whole, fresh plant foods have the lowest levels.
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Diet Soda is Unhealthy
I want everybody to stop drinking soda, including the diet variety, and a new study gives me yet another reason to encourage you to do so.
According to Harvard's Nurses Health Study, women who consumed 2 or more servings of diet soda daily were twice as likely to experience a reduction in kidney function. ( American Society of Nephrology, Nov 2009) Past studies have linked diet soda to weight gain, metabolic syndrome, loss of tooth enamel, and osteoporosis. Diet soda has zero nutritionally redeeming value, cost you money and may even make you sick. You can get the same caffeine kick from freshly brewed, unsweetened tea which can decrease your risk of heart disease, boost your immunity, reduce your stress, kick up your metabolism and likely decrease your risk of cancer all for zero calories. Make the switch to tea!
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Join me on the Radio!
Tune in on the first Tuesday of each month to SC ETV Radio, from 12:00 to 1:00 PM EST for my live "Ask the Expert" interactive broadcast on Clemson University's public radio program Your Day (also live webstreamed world-wide and podcast at http://yourday.clemson.edu). Click here to visit the archives. A special thank you to Integrated Health (iH3) and Whole Foods Market for sponsoring my radio broadcasts! You can also catch me on the 2nd Monday of each month on WBCL's Mid-Morning Show from 9:00 - 10:00 AM EDT via live webstream.
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Until next time -- Enjoy health!
Dr. Ann
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Dr. Ann & Just Wellness, LLC | 246 Mathis Ferry Road | Suite 100 | Mt. Pleasant | SC | 29464
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