Healthy Bytes

Not your father’s heart attack

read time: 177 words, about a minute

30 million American kids are overweight – that’s 1 in 3.
In another 3 years (2010) – if the trend holds – it will be 1 in 2.

With all these overweight kids, we’re now seeing a proliferation of “adult” diseases in kids too young to get a driver’s license… heart attacks, strokes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, sleep apnea.
Kids experiencing these lifestyle diseases 40-50 years earlier than their parents generation. And they’re being treated with made for adults pharmaceuticals, replete with side effects.

Here’s a few scarry factoids:

A Harvard study found kids 10-15 years old who watched 5 hours of TV a day had a 500% (5 times) greater liklihood of being overweight than kids who watched 2 hours or less.

Every hour a day of TV correlates to 6 pounds of increased weight.

Another study found that kids over 15 who ate fast food 2 or more times a week gained 10 pounds.

For each sugar laden drink consumed by middle school kids a day, there was a 60% increase in the risk of obesity.

Looks like an extinction plan.

Your tax dollars – fattening politicians… AND YOU

read time: 214 words, about a minute

Michael Pollan wrote an interesting article in Time about some research done by Adam Drewnowski from University of Washington.

His question – is wealth the most reliable predictor of obesity in America?
Throughout history peasants were always bone thin and the aristocrats a bit more “fluffy”

Off to the supermarket he went with his imaginary dollar.
He discovered he could get more calories for his dollar in the middle aisles as compared to the perimeter… 1,200 calories of potato chips compared to 250 calories of carrots. 875 calories of soda compared to 170 calories of OJ.

Hence, you will notice – and I don’t have the stats – lower income folks have a higher obesity rate than upper income folks.

And here’s something else about those foods in the middle aisles…
There are 5 crops that receive about $25 billion of subsidies a year:
Corn, soy, wheat, rice, cotton.
In addition to the unpronounceable ingredients, what you’ll find in those middle aisle products is a lot of sugar (derived from corn – high fructose corn syrup) and a lot of fat (derived from soy). And of course they generally strip the wheat leaving it nutrient lite.

So, how much would a bunch of carrots cost if they received subsidies?

Your tax dollars… cheapening your food and your health.

Get out the vote

118 words, under a minute

I can’t believe we have 20 months until the presidential elections. With all the campaigning already you’d think it was at least next year.

We only vote for presidents every four years. But you vote everyday – multiple times – with your fork.
Would people change their vote if they watched a debate between packaged food products and real food. Maybe we could have a square off between Chocolate Chip Cookie Crisp Cereal and Irish Steel Cut Oatmeal with cinnamon and fresh blueberries. Or perhaps a quarter pounder with super sized fries and soda versus grilled chicken, cous cous, salad and water with a slice of lemon.

We know how people are voting now. Would an open debate change that?

What my dog and cats teach me about meal timing

read time: 175 words, just a minute

Most pets are like clockwork when it comes to meals… and mine are no different.

We got two kitties a couple months ago and they believed 4am was the best time for breakfast… with the human arousal process begining a half hour earlier.
Now I’m an early riser, but 3:30am is pushing it.
(Now that we’ve had that 1 hour daylight savings time adjustment, they don’t start jumping on my head until 4-4:30am).

Nevertheless, they instinctively understand a component of weight loss/weight control…
meal timing.

If you eat at approximately the same times daily, you’re telling your brain when more food is coming so turn up the metabolic rate.
When you eat haphazardly and skip meals, your brain isn’t sure when more food is coming so it instinctively conserves energy… i.e., doesn’t burn calories.

This is why it’s important to eat breakfast and try to eat your meals at approximately the same time everyday.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to adjust my sleep… so as not to gain weight – which we’ll talk about in the next post.

Just back from a delightful hour at the pharmacy, also known as…

read time: 210 words, just a minute

…dinner. That’s right dinner.
Hippocrates wisely said “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”

And we can add to that:
Eat a rainbow.
Half your plate should be veggies. The more colors the better.
Veggies are low in calories, high in fiber and flush with phytonutrients – such good stuff.

Your reds (tomatoes, peppers, watermelon) excel in lycopene which smacks down free radicals.

Your oranges (carrots, sweet potatoes, squashes) score high in alpha- and beta-carotene. Buddies that bring you Vitamin A… helps the eyes and skin.

Your orange/yellow group (papaya, orange, peach, pineapple) get stars for Vitamin C and beta cryptothanxin. Immune system support.

Your yellow/green group (greens, corn, avocado, peas) are leaders in lutein which protects against cataracts and macular degeneration

Your white/green group (leeks, scallions, onions, garlic, celery). The onion family scores with anti-tumor allicin. Others in the group are high in anti-oxidant flavonoids quercetin and kaempferol.

Your greens (cabbage, brussels sprouts, broccoli, bok choi, kale) are teeming with indoles, sulforaphane and isocyanate defenders against cancer

Your red/purple group (beets, eggplant, grapes, berries) are bursting with anti-oxidants defending the heart and slowing aging.

Combine that with relaxing conversation and sharing with people important in your life.
Blend in some laughter.

Beats purple pills in orange bottles.

Are you spending your tax dollars to GAIN weight?

read time: 436 words, about two minutes

Some of the worst ingredients we consume are sweeteners – the artificial ones, the processed ones and the chemically altered ones.

The similarities to heroin are frightening…
-> it’s addictive
-> we crave it
-> it pretty much has nothing but bad effects on our brain and our body
-> it crowds out good stuff

Corn is much in the news these days because of the whole ethanol thing.

I have no comment on that. What I do have comment on is HFCS – high fructose corn syrup.

2005 corn subsidies in the US were $9.4 BILLION.
There are 300 million people in the US (fewer in 2005)… so that pencils out to roughly $31.38/person.

Subsidies were changed in the 1970’s to heavily support corn and soybean agriculture.
Also in the early 1970’s HFCS was created… in a lab of course.
HFCS is a chemically altered sweetener way sweeter than regular ole sugar.

You say so what, you don’t have any in your cabinet.
Think again. HFCS is used in nearly every processed and prepackaged food product.
In the last 25 years consumption is up 1,000% and it currently is 40% of ALL sweeteners added to food products and beverages.

So what again. Ahh, here’s the big so what…
Regular sugar is 50% fructose, 50% glucose.
HFCS is 55% fructose, 45% glucose.

That seemingly small difference of 5% makes a huge difference when it passes your lips.
Fructose is a masterfully stealth robber. Unlike glucose, it DOES NOT trip the chemical reactions and hormones that get your brain to close your mouth and stop eating.

And fructose doesn’t reduce the stomach hormone ghrelin. Ghrelin in that “lion” in your stomach that roars to be fed.

And fructose doesn’t decrease the fat cell hormone adiponectin which makes you more insulin sensitive which in turn helps control appetite and weight.

But WAIT, there’s more…
Fructose is not digested and metabolized – it goes straight to fat production. (It’s used for cholesterol and triglyceride).

You know those “IV drips”… it’s a glucose solution. You can live on it.
If you replace it with a fructose solution – you’ll get fatty liver. That’s not something you will survive.

So all that HFCS you’re subsidizing with your tax dollars is contributing to increased caloric consumption (with less nutrition consumed), raised LDL, lowered HDL, increased triglycerides, decreased satiety sensitivity, increased insulin resistance and some other nasty odds and ends.

Read labels. You’ll be frightened how many products have HFCS.

Oh yea, that soybean subsidy. We get something for that as well… hydrogenated soybean oil, AKA trans-fat.

Makes ya want to buy an island and have your own country sometimes.

Does your retirement plan include this?

Fidelity Investment has been estimating the average health care cost during retirement since 2002.

Their latest estimate: $215,000/year for a 65 year old couple.
They anticipate health care costs will increase 7% a year.
These estimates DON’T include the cost of long-term care.

Depressed – sweat it off

More research has come out showing that regular exercise decreases anxiety, improves mood, sleep and self-esteem.

The flow of blood and oxygen to the brain creates more nerve cells which slows aging and helps with stress.

Exercise has been shown to have a biological effect equal to antidepressants.

Fast – STAND UP
Do one hard minute of jumping jacks.
Good job. Now don’t you feel much better?

A generation of wealth for health transference

read time: 156 words, about a minute

News out about Alzheimers hitting the major news venues…

• More than 5 millions Americans currently living with it – a 10% increase over the last 5 years
• 7.7 million expected by 2030; 16 million by 2050
• One in 8 folks over 65; nearly one in 2 over 85
• Medicare beneficiary cost for Alzheimers is nearly triple the average beneficiary cost ($13,207 a year vs. $4,454)
• Medicare spending is projected to double by 2015 to $189 million

There are two contributing factors recognized by the conventional medical establishment:
1. Modern medicine is keeping people alive longer
2. The large baby boomer population is moving into the 60+ years

I’d add one more… nutrition and exercise (ok, that’s two more).
Alzheimers has been linked to both.
Let’s face it, our health has been on a downward spiral. That’s just going to multiply as the boomer generation increasingly realizes the consequences of years of bad eating, sedentary lifestyle and stress packed days.

Drink soda, get diabetes

read time: 159 words, about a minute

Dr. Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, analyzed and reviewed 88 studies which explored the relationship between soda and poor nutrition, obesity and diabetes.

No surprise – at least to me – there is one.

Results of one particular study published in the American Journal of Public Health followed 91,000 women for 8 years.

The findings: women who drank one or more sodas per day (national average consumption is two, 12-ounces), were twice as likely to develop diabetes over the course of the study as compared to women who drank less than one soda per month.

So basically, if you’re an average or more soda drinker, you’re twice as likely to develop diabetes.

And as noted in the previous post… that means you’re also 65% more likely to develop Alzheimer.

Shouldn’t there be a Surgeon General’s warning on soda?!?

What has a greater health impact…
Cigarettes or soda?