5 point plan for reducing cholesterol

Naturally, you didn’t overindulge at Christmas at that New Year’s Party, but in case you know anyone who does here is a simple 5 point plan to tackle cholesterol for 2010.

1. Reduce saturated fat. I know, you know all about this, but it may be time to start practicing it rather than theorising. Just avoid too much red meat, butter and high fat cheeses and substitute healthy low fat options – not the ones containing chemicals, but the really natural ones like more white meat and fish and fewer slabs of brie and stilton and switching to cottage or edam cheese – at least for a while. Substitute whole soy protein for animal protein, and use low- or non-fat dairy products.

2. Avoid trans-fat. Read the labels and beware of the phrase “partially hydrogenated oil” on the label. Most often found in snacks such as crisps – which you were cutting down on anyway, weren’t you? Look for baked rather than fried crisps if you really can’t give them up.

3. Go for garlic because it not only will help lower cholesterol levels, but it will boost your immune system as well.

4. Switch to green or white tea as they both contain antioxidants that help lower cholesterol and prevent the cholesterol in your blood from oxidizing. Without milk or sugar please, though a little honey might help if you find green tea too bitter.

5. Fill up on soluble fibre as it has a powerful cholesterol-lowering effect, and is found in the kinds of foods that naturally fill you up and will help you avoid unhealthy snacks. Fill up on beans and lentils, apples, citrus fruits, oats, barley, peas, carrots and freshly ground flaxseed.

Pleasing the Vegetarians This Christmas

If you are stumped when faced with a relative or visitor coming for Christmas who is a vegetarian, don’t panic and overload them on Brussels sprouts as you will all regret it! I have found a free 90 page guide to having a veggie festive season and you can download it from the website of the only vegetarian TV Channel I know of so click here and stop worrying! www.VeggieVision.tv

Top 4 Foods To Eat To Suppress Your Appetite

If you love food, as I certainly do, then to stay healthy it can help to balance your appetite naturally. I am not in favour of stringent diets or some of the wilder claims for fat-busting supplements, but there are some natural foods that will help you maintain a good, healthy, weight by helping suppress your appetite.

They can be very useful if you are trying to lose some weight and the basic principle is to choose foods are filling, but low in calories. Also, be adventurous in your food choices as one of the problems people have in sticking to a diet – sensible or otherwise – is that they get bored. Add in these healthy foods to your menus and you will help keep the weight off:

Celery
This crunchy vegetable was a major feature of my childhood with the stalks washed and placed in a glass jug on the dining table whenever we had salad. My mother had no idea how healthy it was but she knew it helped fill us up as it has a low energy density and, according to research conducted by the Mayo Clinic, that can help control hunger. Celery contains few calories, only 16 for a cup, and its bulk and slight saltiness can be very satisfying when you are hungry. Add it to the snack list.

Psyllium
To be honest, I am not that keen on psyllium as my experience of it is rather akin to swallowing wallpaper paste or even worse, frog spawn. No, I haven’t actually eaten either of those but this gives you some idea of the texture! Psyllium is a soluble plant fibre which adds bulk to the diet and gives you a feeling of fullness and is also a great colon cleanser and so helps eliminate waste and this can lose you a few extra pounds in no time. Psyllium, in my view is best taken as capsules with plenty of cold water but if you are made of sterner stuff and want to try the powder then I would suggest mixing it with lemon juice and a tiny amount of apple cordial in a large glass of cold water. Mix thoroughly and the trick is to drink it immediately before it starts to solidify..

Lentils
My absolute staple for soup making, lentils again are a great source of soluble fibre that helps your blood sugar to stabilize. This means you don’t get those peaks and troughs that can send you hurtling towards the biscuit barrel – oh no, that’s me again – and they also are a good source of protein, folic acid, iron, and magnesium. If you are a fan of the Atkins Diet you will already know that protein can suppress hunger by its slower rate of travel through the digestive system.

Courgettes
Like celery, this is another low density, high fibre, food that can help suppress hunger and a cup of it has only 20 calories. If you are already a fan, then try a new way of using it by making it a replacement for pasta in one of your meals. Using a food processor, or mandolin, cut the courgettes into very thin noodle-like strands and serve with a tomato sauce hot, or with a low calorie salad dressing for a light lunch.

I suppose for maximum appetite suppression you should make a tomato, celery and lentil sauce with courgette noodles to get the maximum flavour, fewest calories and virtually no cholesterol. If you do, let me know what it tastes like!
Health Bite on Xmas Drinks

Usually when trying to lose weight alcohol is the first thing to be cut down on, but how do you celebrate Xmas without the odd sherry or glass of wine? Well, if you are toasting the festive season you might like to remember that the moderate drinking actually can reduce your risk of heart disease. And, as heart disease will kill more women over the age of 65 than all cancers combined, this might seem like good news except that moderate drinking also increases the risk of breast cancer in some women. What to do? Well you could try adding in some vitamin B complex to your regime as that can lower the added risk of getting breast cancer if you drink and always try to have at least one glass of water for every glass of alcohol you have as that will lessen the hangover!

What, and When To Eat For Maximum Health Benefit

One simple way to stay healthy is to pay attention to what we eat, that much we know, and of more of that about a specific part of our diet in the Health Bite at the end of this piece.

Now it seems that when we eat could be just as vital to good health. Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies has turned the conventional wisdom that our body’s metabolism is controlled by our body’s circadian rhythms –our body clock, but instead it’s our liver that is responsible.

Our liver, which is the body’s metabolic clearing house, contains thousands of genes that wax and wane throughout the day and this process is mostly controlled by our food intake, not our body clock and this has a huge huge impact on our metabolism.

Previously it was thought that people like shift workers, who are unusually prone to metabolic syndrome, diabetes, high cholesterol levels and obesity, had these problems because of their shift patterns disrupting their normal circadian rhythm. Now this theory gives them an opportunity to change that as controlling eating and fasting periods can manage the body’s processes much more easily.

We all have a ‘master clock’ in the brain which is set by light and determines our sleep-wake cycles and when we eat. We also have subsidiary clocks in our other organs and they are not affected by light but do keep time through the fall and rise of gene activity on a roughly 24-hour schedule that anticipates environmental changes and adapts many of the body’s physiological function to the appropriate time of day.

This initial research has been done by putting laboratory mice on a strict 8-hour feeding/16-hour fasting schedule and this could be translated into how we eat on a daily basis. For example, genes that encode enzymes needed to break down sugars rise immediately after a meal, while the activity of genes encoding enzymes needed to break down fat is highest when we fast.

How does this help?

If you want to optimize burning fat and sugar, to control weight, you would want your period of ‘fasting’ after a meal high in fat, and all your food intake for a 24 hour period to take place within an 8 hour time frame. The researchers have found that not eating between 8 pm and 8 am works best if you want to lose weight and stay healthy and certainly much naturopathic advice has been not to eat a heavy meal at night, but it might be worth seeing if not eating all during the evening period makes a difference.

Healthy Bite:

So now you know when to eat, and here’s some advice on what not to eat to lose weight and stay healthy. Mount Sinai School of Medicine published their findings in the October/November issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism and it means throwing away that frying pan, if you haven’t already, and giving up processed foods.

They conclude that simply by stopping frying food you will reduce inflammation in the body, restore its natural defence system, lose weight, possibly increase your lifespan and improve or prevent diabetes, cardiovascular disease and kidney disease.

Wow, and this works no matter what your age or whether you already have a serious disease. The processes of heating, pasteurizing, drying, smoking, frying or grilling food produces harmful toxins called Advanced Glycation End products (AGEs). When you eat foods subject to any of these processes then the AGEs adhere to tissues and oxidize them. This causes inflammation which can result in numerous diseases.

The new clinical study put their subjects on a diet of only eating food that was poached, stewed or steamed, but with no change in the number of calories they had each day. After four months of this they found that AGE levels, inflammatory markers, and biomarkers of vascular function declined by as much as 60 percent. Kidney patients put on this diet showed a similar reduction but after only one month on the diet.

So if you want to maintain a healthy immune system and avoid inflammatory disease it might be a good idea to follow that poaching, stewing and steaming diet recommendation.

Willing to Pay More For Nutritional Labelling?

Santiago de Compostela is more renowned as a centre of pilgrimage, but it seems they also have a University that is interested in studying food and nutrition.

They recently looked at the labelling of breakfast biscuits and found that people would be willing to pay more for products that carry more detailed nutritional information. Apparently consumers are willing to pay a premium price for products labelled ‘light’ – usually a euphemism for containing sweeteners in my experience – and apparently will pay more for good labelling. The product chosen for analysis was the breakfast biscuit owing to its popularity in Spain, and it’s high fat content, to see if consumers were concerned about what they were eating.

Older readers may remember the breakfast biscuit produced by Huntley and Palmers, and in Georgian times it was not uncommon to have sweet biscuits and tea as the first item of the day, but now we eat chewy cereal bars instead. These are not always as healthy as they seem as they often contain high amounts of fat and sugar, but if the Spanish experiment can encourage manufacturers to be even more forthcoming about their nutritional labelling I am all for it.

How Fish Is Cooked Affects Omega 3 Levels

We know all about the heart benefits of eating fish high in Omega 3, but did you know that how you cook it can seriously affect the levels? Research carried out by the University of Hawaii and was presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions on November 20 and found that if you want to get the maximum benefit your fish needs to baked or boiled, rather than fried, salted or dried.

You can also enhance the benefits by adding low-sodium soy sauce or tofu when cooking it. Frying does not generally get many health points and fish is no exception – despite the wonderful crisp batter from my local fish and chip shop – and in fact has several associated health risks.

The researchers studied the intake of various forms of omega 3 including tinned fish, soy products like tofu and shoyu and studied the results.

The Gender Difference

Men with a high Omega-3 intake from fish had a lower risk of death due to heart disease, but women got the same heart protection from both fish and plant sources. The researchers theorised that, for women, eating omega-3s from shoyu and tofu that contain other active ingredients such as phytoestrogens, might have a stronger cardioprotective effect than eating just omega-3s from fish alone. Also, that eating salted and dried fish was a risk factor in women, but not in men.

Before you start shaking that soy sauce bottle, please note that the benefits apply only when using a low salt version as the standard one is very high in salt which can raise blood pressure. You might do better to make tofu a regular part of your diet as that also seemed that eating it also had a cardio-protective effect. Personally I think it’s like eating your school eraser but without the added taste benefit of ink, so soak it in low salt shoyu before using it, or try smoked tofu instead as that has more flavour.

So, banish that frying pan and steam/bake your fish instead for a healthier option. Interestingly they didn’t study microwave cooking, and as this is a very fast way of cooking that essentially steams the food it would have been useful to see if that was also a good method for preserving the Omega 3.

Pomegranate Power

If these fruits are not on your shopping list, add them now if you want to treat chronic inflammation, and the diseases that go along with it.

Previous research has already suggested that pomegranates may help prevent or reduce the risk of a number of inflammation-linked diseases, including breast and prostate cancer. It also has a role in preventing heart disease by increasing the amount of oxygen it receives and the way it prevents LDL (”bad”) cholesterol from oxidizing. Some evidence is also linking it improvements in the symptoms of erectile dysfunction, if the juice is taken over a long period of time.

Short-term inflammation is a normal immune response, but chronic inflammation has been linked to a number of diseases including heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis, dementia and autoimmune disorders. Scientists are increasingly coming to believe that pomegranate helps combat inflammation, in part due to its exceptionally high content of antioxidants.

Pomegranate extract was first shown to combat inflammation as long ago as a 2005 study which showed that when injected into human cells, pomegranate extract lowered inflammation and levels of enzymes that can cause cartilage to break down, as in arthritis.

More research followed which confirmed this and the latest is from the University of South Carolina and is the first to study its effects in human cells. Pomegranates are something I always associate with winter, and that cheery red and yellow skin is hiding a powerhouse of benefits so make sure you eat the fruit – one by one with a hatpin as was traditional in my house – or save yourself time and effort and buy the juice!

Relaxation in a bar

No, not AT the bar – that was just your wishful thinking.  We are well used to the idea of meal replacement bars, healthy and unhealthy alike, but there is now a new take on the idea.

WILDBAR, apart from its odd name for something meant to relax you, has a unique ingredient in the blue-green algae called Aphanizomenon flos-aquae (AFA) which is phenylethylamine.  Rather than scraping down the side of the fish tank, this is in a palatable form combined with raw cacao, also high in phenylethylamine.

The benefit of this is that it is a neuro-amine we produce naturally in the nervous system when we are calm, happy and focused. It has been proven to dramatically improve mood, concentration, mental energy and libido and all without leaving the comfort of your kitchen cupboard!

WILDBAR combines Cacao and AFA with Macadamia Nuts, Agave Nectar, Hemp and Poppy Seeds, Mesquite (a sweet nutty tasting flour) and Himalayan Crystal Salt.  Exotic enough for to relax you just reading the ingredients ,and if you can’t find them in your local health store then go to http://www.simplyvital.com/

Take supplements? Then take action

I have mentioned before the potential disaster that could affect your ability to buy the vitamin and mineral supplements that you want for your health. There is great pressure from France and Germany to set very low levels on supplements and the UK will be forced into line if this goes through.

If you value your health, then first sign the petition at www.consumersforhealthchoice.com and then write a personal letter today to Jos Barroso, the president of the European Commission. Patrick Holford, Founder of the Institute for Optimum Nutrition, has drafted an outline letter you can use, and feel free to adapt it to suit yourself. If you don’t register your dissatisfaction then no excuses when you have to buy vitamin C in 25mg doses – it’s the same restriction put on aspirin that you have to look forward to.

Draft letter
——————————————————————————————————————————————————

Jos Barroso
President of the European Commission
1049 Brussels
BELGIUM

[date]

Dear President Barroso

THE FOOD SUPPLEMENTS DIRECTIVE

Setting Maximum Levels for Vitamins & Minerals

I am most concerned about the EU proposals for dietary supplements, particularly vitamins and minerals that will be covered by the Foods Supplements Directive. My family and I are all users of dietary supplements to keep ourselves well and maintain good health; we have been watching the progress of the Food Supplements Directive with interest.

Currently we take [explain what supplements you take and why you do so - keep this list short and give examples of vitamins & minerals only]

I understand that key officials at the Health and Consumer Protection division have reached the final stages of the regulations – and that we can expect to be informed of their proposals for the setting of dose levels in a matter of weeks. We have heard conflicting stories about this – not least that the officials are under pressure from some Member State Governments, France and Germany have been mentioned, plus a number of lobbying organisations from mainland Europe to set very low, restrictive maximum dose levels.

I firmly believe that the only way forward is for decisions to be made on the basis of sound science only. It would be unthinkable to have low levels imposed – when millions of consumers like me and my family have been using the specialist higher safe doses for many years. There really is a wealth of scientific information available supporting the products as both safe and beneficial.

Like all sensible consumers, we want quality products, accurately labelled and properly certified as safe. But please don’t allow the levels to be set artificially low; please provide clear and accurate information and allow us to make own informed choices.

I appeal to you for help and a commonsense approach to this matter. Thank you.

I look forward to your reply.

Yours sincerely,

[insert your name and address]

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

At current postage rates it will cost you between 1.52 for 100g letter by airmail. That small investment in maintaining personal choice doesn’t seem too much to me.

Beneficial Foods for Mesothelioma Patients

Mesothelioma is a rare type of cancer that is primarily caused by exposure to asbestos. This type of cancer develops in the mesothelial cells that make up the lining of the lungs, heart and abdomen. Mesothelioma symptoms can take anywhere from 20 to 50 years to become noticeable and by that time, the cancer is typically in advanced stages and is much more difficult to treat effectively.

Good nutrition is essential in preventing and fighting cancer and there are a number of foods that can be very helpful for mesothelioma patients to enable their bodies to better fight the disease, as well as alleviate symptoms of the disease and side effects of treatment.

Dark green leafy vegetables are full of essential vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that provide important cancer-fighting benefits. Beta-carotene, Lutein, and Zeaxanthin are powerful antioxidants that help protect the body against all forms of cancer by destroying free radicals. Dark leafy green vegetables also contain folate which is essential for the proper repair and replication of DNA. Without folate, damaged cells would be unable to repair their own DNA. Cells with damaged DNA are more likely to become malignant. Powerful anti-cancer enzymes called phytochemicals are also present in dark green cruciferous vegetables such as bok choy and kale. Some phytochemicals boost levels of enzymes that help cleanse the body of carcinogens and block the activity of enzymes that are known to activate carcinogens.

Berries contain a whole host of important nutrients, including plenty of fiber and vitamin C. In fact, just one cup of strawberries has the same amount of vitamin C as one cup of orange juice, and all berries are great sources of this anti-oxidant and immune-strengthening vitamin. In addition to essential vitamins, berries are packed with several different types of cancer-fighting nutrients. They also contain anthocyanins which are phytonutrients that give red berries their luscious color. Laboratory studies have shown that anthocyanins can prevent the growth of lung cancer cell. Berries also contain other cancer fighting phytonutrients like ellagic acid, pterostilbene and resveratrol.

One of the most common side effects of cancer and cancer treatment is nausea. There are a number of dietary changes you can make to help this problem. Dry grain products like crackers and toast can help calm an upset stomach. Bland foods will also help with nausea, as well as acid reflux problems.

Another common characteristic found in cancer patients is low white blood cell count, which increases the chance of contracting an infection. To avoid this side effect, a number of changes can be made in the foods you ingest. It is most important to avoid bacteria, which is common in foods that are damaged or not prepared well. Avoid buffets when eating out, wash your hands before preparing meals, avoid raw meats and fish (like sushi), and throw away any foods that are bruised or damaged.

Be sure to talk to your doctor to learn about more ways to decrease the risk of developing cancer. Positive changes in your diet and other areas of your life (such as your physical activity) will help prevent cancer. If you do develop this medical condition, at the very least, these changes will allow you to fight the cancer more readily.

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