Diabetes Updates

With over 2.3 million diabetics in the UK, and a further 750000 people who have the condition but don’t know it, I like to keep you updated and there are two new developments to report this week – both involving everyday food items.

First let’s do the positive and give you yet another reason to eat more fish. A UK study has found that in a study of 517 diabetics those who had fish less than once a week were four times more likely to have albumin in their system, a protein whose presence indicates kidney damage. This is a serious complication of diabetes and the study suggests that eating fish at least twice a week could help protect diabetics from this potential problem. The researchers didn’t single out any particular variety of fish, so help your diabetes, and your heart, by having oily fish like salmon and salt water fish like haddock at least twice a week to get the maximum benefit.

Fish is also of benefit for eye health, so keep reading.

AND A WARNING If you go to work, or play, on an egg then you want to rethink your breakfast options. Over twenty years of research funded by the National Cancer Institute and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute seems to indicate that people who eat eggs every day may substantially increase their risk of type 2 diabetes.

Men who ate seven or more eggs a week were 58% more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those who did not eat any eggs. However, the problem is potentially greater for women as they are 77% more likely to become diabetic if they ate an egg a day. The research was reported online in the magazine Diabetes Care.

A single egg contains about 200 mg of cholesterol and adds about 1.5 g of saturated fat to the diet, both of which increase diabetes risk, and the exact risk figures are:

Men
9% for less than one egg a week
9% for one egg a week
18% for two to four eggs a week
46% for five to six eggs a week
58% for seven or more eggs a week

Women
% for less than one egg a week
3% for one egg a week
19% for two to four eggs a week
18% for five to six eggs a week
77% for seven or more a week

This does not mean giving up eggs entirely, they are a beneficial food, but it might be wise to limit your intake if you have any other risk factors for diabetes. These include being overweight, not taking any exercise, and long term use of drugs such as diuretics and steroids as they can impair insulin secretion from the pancreas.

Osteoporosis and red grapefruit

I have mentioned the health benefits of red grapefruit in a previous issue, and now it seems that the pulp may increase bone strength and reduce the risk of osteoporosis. At present it is estimated there are three million people with osteoporosis in the UK and that half of all women and one in five men over 50 will break a bone from having this condition.

Researchers at Texas A&M University have published the findings of their recent research in the journal Nutrition and it is good news for anyone at risk of osteoporosis or having a family history of it. Their trial was conducted on rats and found that when they divided the group into three and fed them a different diet. The rats given red grapefruit pulp in their diet showed significantly lower calcium loss from their bones and lower levels of urinary deoxypyridinoline.

Rats on the non grapefruit diet showed the exact opposite with higher levels of calcium loss and urinary deoxypyridinoline – both of which are indicators of bone bone breakdown and a greater risk of osteoporosis.

The more grapefruit the rats had, the greater the protection. So follow their example and eat red grapefruit every day to help ward off osteoporosis.

Cancer risk and stress

The International Journal of Oncology has been looking at whether the stress in your life can cause you to develop cancer, and the answer lies in your diet. Particularly in vegetables such as that Christmas favourite, the brussel sprout.

These are very stressful times, so anything we can do to help our bodies deal with it will also help us avoid diseases like cancer. We know that stress impacts our immune systems and ability to fight off invading organisms so that we become more vulnerable to all kinds of diseases and illnesses. This current study goes a long way toward documenting the link between stress and cancer and stressing the importance of our own role in preventing illness.

Chronic high levels of stress result in chronic high levels of norepinephrine and adrenaline. Norepinephrine is a neurotransmitter that is similar to adrenaline and these hormones act together to produce increased heart rate and blood pressure – the precursor to our ‘fight or flight’ mode. So how do you inhibit the production of norepinephrine in this stress-filled times? You increase the amount of sulforaphane in your diet. This is a compound that you get from eating cruciferous vegetables such as Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, bok choy, kale, kohlrabi, mustard, turnip, radish, rocket, and watercress.

Sulforaphane has potent anticancer activity that triggers the production of enzymes that help detoxify cancer-causing chemicals and is particularly abundant in broccoli sprouts. A concentrated extract from broccoli sprouts may cut the development of bladder cancer by more than 50% and researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have found that eating just one ounce of broccoli sprouts provides as much sulforaphane as more than a pound of cooked broccoli. The have devised a product, called Brocco Sprouts, that is on sale in supermarkets in the USA but in the UK your choice is a bit more limited.

The healthiest option is to grow your own sprouting seeds and you can get broccoli sprouts from here www.nickys-nursery.co.uk and apparently they are good in sandwiches, mild rather like alfalfa. Personally, as a total non-broccoli fan I get my cruciferous boost by juicing with the addition of a sweet apple and carrot which is the only way I can deal with them!

If eating healthy amounts of cruciferous vegetables does not appeal to you, try adding broccoli sprouts to a sandwich or salad. Broccoli sprouts don’t have to be eaten daily to provide their full effect. A one ounce serving is good for three days worth of full spectrum antioxidant protection from sulforaphane comparable to the best antioxidant supplements on the market. A box of sprouts contains four of these servings and retails for about 4 dollars.

Juicing is another good way to consume cruciferous vegetables, particularly if you have digestive difficulties. You can add cruciferous vegetables to your vegetable juice recipes. One large stalk of broccoli makes only about an inch of power packed juice in a glass, so it doesn’t have a huge impact on the taste of the recipe.

Supplements of broccoli sprouts are available at health food stores and online health retailers such as Vitacost or Lucky Vitamin. The best known is called Broccoliv. Vitacost has a less costly house brand.

Purple tomatoes

I mentioned the benefits of the Mediterranean diet for children with Asthma, and one of the main ingredients of that are tomatoes. However, not content with letting mother nature get on with it, scientists have grown genetically-engineered purple tomatoes in an attempt to promote healthy food. I wasn’t aware tomatoes were not already a healthy food, but you know these scientists, they can’t let a good thing alone.

The research was done at the John Innes Centre, a biotechnology institute in Norwich – and presumably grown in their own compost. They took two genes from the snapdragon flower (Antirrhinum majus) which gave them anthocyanin, the purple pigment that makes blackberries almost black. Anthocyanins can protect against certain cancers, heart and degenerative diseases, and may delay the development of inflammation, obesity and diabetes.

I may be wrong, but I think I grew purple tomatoes in my greenhouse around ten years ago – just for the colour as it turned out because the taste wasn’t that great. They were more black than purple and if anyone remembers them do let me know the variety and I will pass it on to the John Innes Centre to save them wasting any more time – and compost.

Mediteranean diet reduces kids asthma risk by 78%

With 1 in 11 children currently receiving treatment for asthma it is now a very common condition – but that doesn’t make it any the less worrying. We have dealt with asthma before, but some news in this week might help make life easier for some of those children, and their parents. For those who are unsure about asthma in young children, the symptoms to look out for are:

* A cough at night
* A cold that doesn’t go away
* A whistling sound when breathing out

That last symptom is particularly relevant in the UK as we apparently have the highest prevalence of severe wheeze in children aged 13-14 years than anywhere else in the world.

Now the medical journal Allergy is suggesting a way parents can be more in control of the condition through some simple dietary changes. I have talked about the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet for heart health in adults, but now it seems it could also relieve asthma symptoms in children. In Crete, where the Mediterranean diet is the norm, an estimated 80% of the children there eat fresh fruit at least twice a day and almost that same number also have fresh vegetables twice daily as well. (Sadly the research doesn’t tell us how they get them to eat so much without a fistfight) So why is it important? Well very few children in Crete have asthma or hay fever and the researchers from the University of Porto in Portugal concluded that their best asthma-fighting foods were oranges, apples, tomatoes and grapes.

Adults on the same type of diet, who had asthma, were found to have fewer attacks and flare-ups. However, if they also included nuts in their diet at least three times a week then that produced less wheezing. A likely explanation for this is that nuts contain a lot of magnesium which helps boost your lung power.

AVOID THIS: There was however one substance that the researchers found that would double the risk of children getting asthma and allergic rhinitis – margarine. This finding confirms what an Australian study found over 7 years ago when they first warned that the polyunsaturated fats found in many margarines can double a child’s chances of having asthma.

If you want more information, please visit www.asthma.org.uk

Help with hand tremors

I was recently ‘afloat’ on Ventura and was approached by a gentleman with a question I have never been asked before – and those are ones I really appreciate as it lets me go off and try and find some information. He was suffering from hand tremors, but did not have Parkinson’s Disease and so I asked a doctor friend and then went searching elsewhere, but it proved far harder than usual to find information. That certainly interested me, as it seems this is an area where there don’t seem to be that many remedies available, but I did find some useful advice on Dr Andrew Weil’s site and a couple of others that might prove helpful to anyone suffering from this condition.

Trembling or spasm is the most common of all involuntary movements and is an unintentional and rhythmic muscle movement involving to-and-fro movements (oscillations) of one or more parts of the body. What happens is that the muscle fibres contract, tighten and restrict blood circulation so that the muscle becomes rigid. What causes it can be physical, emotional, or psychological; it may be as a result straining the muscle, sitting or lying awkwardly, or stress and anxiety that affect the nervous system. Whatever the cause, the result is the same: the muscles cannot relax on their own or release with movement.

Of all the information I found, there are three areas to look at:

1 The Medical solution. It is crucial first and most important to check with your doctor if you are taking any form of medication at all and ask whether any of the side effects could be causing the problem. If it is, then ask if there is any other treatment they can give you instead.

2 The Dietary Approach. Caffeine and alcohol can both exacerbate the condition so cut them out and monitor the results. Increase your consumption of ‘calming’ foods such as carbohydrates and soothing teas which contain valerian. Celestial Seasonings produce one called Sleepytime which I recommend to anyone to reduce anxiety and stress. 3 Alternative therapies that can help include cranial osteopathy or acupuncture and both tai chi or meditation will help reduce stress.

Because this condition can be made worse by anxiety and stress, it will be of benefit if you do all you can to reduce this to manageable levels.

CO Q10, How to boost levels by 4 X plus

Coenzyme Q10, (COQ 10) is a nutrient that occurs naturally in the body and plays a key part in metabolizing energy from food. It is essential in the production of energy in your body, and is found in large concentrations in those tissues that use a lot of energy, such as your heart. It has a whole host of health benefits associated with it, particularly in the area of heart disease, but current research is also showing its application in other areas such as those below:

* Migraine prevention – a 2002 study reported that 61% of patients treated with CoQ10 as a migraine preventive reported 50% fewer migraines at the end of three months. * Chronic fatigue – those deficient in CoQ10 reported higher levels of energy when supplementing withthan those with deficient levels of the enzyme.

* Hypertension reduced – patients with high blood pressure taking CO Q10 were compared to similar patients on heart medication and were found to have exactly the same reduction in levels – without the side effects of the drugs. * Heart transplants patients benefit – patients given CO Q10 regularly before their surgery were found in a 2004 study to have a significant improvement in functional status, clinical symptoms, and quality of life.

* Parkinson’s Disease damage reduced – only a small study has been undertaken so far, but it appears that patients with the highest levels of CO Q10 showed significantly less impairment to their motor functions than those on lower doses.

* Statins – those taking statins often show a low rate of CO Q10 and may be advised to supplement as these drugs work to block cholesterol and have the potential to block the production of CoQ10 and reduce levels further.

As we get older, the levels of CO Q10 we naturally produce in the body tend to be less, for a number of reasons. There may simply not be enough CIO Q10 in our diet – we get it mostly from oily fish, meat and whole grains – or we can no longer effectively produce or synthesize adequate amounts of it ourselves. Further factors include the external effect of illness, and stress

Now it appears there is another way of increasing your CO Q10 levels, and it’s absolutely free. It’s our old friend exercise that is the key factor, as a recent study from the Lancisi Heart Institute in Italy has shown. They divided their subjects into four groups:

* Group one received 100 mg of supplemental CoQ10 three times each day

* Group two received the same, plus supervised exercise five times each week

* Group three received a placebo

* Group four received a placebo and participated in the same exercise routine as group two.

They were supervised for four weeks, and the results were very positive for the combination of exercise and CO Q10. Those in Group one, who just took the supplement had their blood levels of CoQ10 boosted four-fold – which is impressive in itself. However, those who were in Group 2 had their levels raised even further while there was no difference at all for Groups 3 and 4.

As the greatest concentration is found around your heart, it makes sense to have some aerobic exercise that will make that muscle work harder. Good brisk walking, or take a look at the health tips what I think is an ideal form of exercise for everyone, regardless of age or fitness.

Omega 3, dieting and depression

Studies in the US have linked a low dietary intake of omega 3 fatty acids and dieting with growing rates of depression. Interestingly, the risk of developing depression has increased at a rate similar to the rise in consumption of omega 6 fatty acids from sources like vegetable seed oils and is relative to the decrease in omega 3 fatty acids from fish, walnuts, and flaxseed. Many nutritionists feel that this is a direct result of the increased consumption of processed foods as opposed to eating ‘real’ food.

The study gave either a fish oil capsule or a sugar pill in addition to their antidepressant medication to the participants. Just two weeks into the study, there was an improved sense of well being and sleeping patterns in the omega 3 supplement group. After four weeks a substantial had a significant reduction in the symptoms of depression as compared to those taking the sugar pill. The study concluded that the fatty acid EPA may be used as an antidepressant booster, but I would go further and suggest that it can be used proactively to help anyone with a tendency to depression before they start medication. Dietary changes have already been substantiated as helping depression, and adding in adequate amounts of Omega 3 can definitely help.

Vitamin K, helps women fight heart disease

Hardening of the arteries is a major concern for many, particularly as they get older, but new research has good news for women – sorry chaps but it doesn’t help you much apparently. It’s just been reported in the journal Atherosclerosis, that women who have the highest levels of vitamin K2 have the greatest protection against hardening of the arteries.

The researchers examined the diets of women in their 60s and found that vitamin K2 reduced hardening of the arteries by as much as 20 percent and the more K2, the better. We tend to be encouraged to eat more of the K1 vitamins, which are found primarily in leafy green vegetables, as they have plenty of other health benefits but they don’t provide any K2. The best sources are cheese and milk products and some from meat. These of course can be sources of cholesterol and fats, so don’t switch your diet completely – remember everything in moderation is the very best health advice.

Top 4 foods to fight cholesterol

As winter approaches and cold weather is upon us, we naturally start to change our diets and often we are going for food that is comforting and also high in cholesterol from increased amounts of things like red meat and butter. Now while I admit that a crumpet with low fat spread would never pass my lips, it is sensible at this time of year to look at your overall diet and see if you are including the best possible foods to help fight cholesterol if that is a health problem for you. Women might also want to check out the Health Bites item for a tip on vitamin K.

I don’t think any of these ‘superfoods’ are going to be a revelation to you, but they might remind you of how helpful they can be in your fight to maintain low cholesterol. Many people ask me why I don’t just suggest statins (see previous issues on the website for my negative views on that) or just take one of the many cholesterol-lowering drinks you find in your supermarket. You can, of course, but if you read the labels on many of them you will find they are full of sugar, or worse, sweeteners plus E numbers and colours.

Also, the American Heart Association warns consumers about filling their diet with sterol-enhanced products such as spreads and drinks unless they also cut back on other sources of fat. If you just add these items in without doing so, they warn that obviously it could lead to excess calorie consumption which is not healthy and that anyone who has a history of heart disease or elevated LDL levels, must talk to their doctor before adding these sorts of products into their diet.

These suggestions are for a natural way to control cholesterol, and in these economically challenged times they are also cheaper – and healthier – than those manufactured products.

1 Oats
The Scots have had it right all along, because porridge for breakfast is one of the healthiest ways to start the day. If you don’t fancy the traditional salt version, and I wouldn’t recommend it if you are dealing with heart disease, then try it with semi-skimmed or low-fat milk and sweeten with a little honey or maple syrup. It’s the fibre in the oats that plays a significant role in decreasing “bad cholesterol” (LDL) levels. It works to reduce LDL levels by grabbing onto the cholesterol and eliminating it from the body through the digestive system. If you want to increase your fibre intake even more then add a chopped apple, or some prunes to the breakfast bowl. Some excellent fiber-rich choices besides oatmeal and oat bran include beans, barley, apples and prunes.

2 Plant Sterols
Another way to significantly reduce LDL levels is to include plenty of natural sterols found in fruit, vegetables, pulses, nuts and seeds. They work by blocking cholesterol absorption and preventing it from getting into the bloodstream. People who include plenty of fruit and vegetables in their diet experience, on average, a 9% decrease in LDL levels and an average 12% reduction in C-reactive protein levels, another key indicator of heart disease risk. Another good reason for exceeding your ’5 a day’ quota.

3 Fatty Fish
I can’t help it, the phrase Fatty Fish reminds me of a childhood reading of Billy Bunter, and doesn’t sound all that appetising does it? However, wild salmon, sardines and anchovies are all rich sources of omega-3 fatty acids. There is so much research now on how these “healthy fats” are essential for so many functions in the body that I hesitate to even mention it. But – in case you haven’t heard, they reduce LDL levels, help lower high blood pressure and cut cardiovascular risk. Foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids may also raise levels of “good cholesterol” (HDL), which helps transport bad cholesterol to the liver, where it can be eliminated from the body. The usual recommendation is to have these fish at least twice a week, but not from the fish and chip shop as they are at their healthiest when grilled or baked.

Vegetarians, or fish haters, can also get the same good benefits from soya beans, seeds or nuts. A study in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association reported that omega-3 fatty acids from walnuts and flaxseeds had as much impact on blood pressure as omega-3 fatty acids from fish. A handful a day is enough to provide the heart benefits you need – any more and you are running into high calorie territory. Oh, and check out the health bites for another benefit of Omega 3.

4 Olive Oil
I have mentioned the benefits of the Mediterranean diet before, and olive oil is a key component of it. For a healthy heart we need to cut down on saturated fat and trans fats – often listed in the ingredients as ‘hydrogenated’ or ‘partially hydrogenated’fats or oils.

Sources of the healthier monounsaturated fats are extra virgin olive oil, avocados, peanuts and nuts and they will all help lower your LDL and raise your HDL levels. Again, however, please be cautious as all types of fat contain more than twice the calories of proteins or carbohydrates.

So how do you combine them in the ideal day? Well you could start with breakfast of porridge with an apple chopped into it, then for lunch a large salad and dinner of grilled fish and home made ratatouille – lots of olive oil and healthy garlic in there!

« Previous Page — Next Page »