To stay in good health, your body must constantly manage the delicate balance that keeps pH levels where they should be. The trouble is that some of our vital functions throw that balance off.

And summertime is when they can get really out of whack. In fact, 46 percent of Americans report suffering from heartburn symptoms most in the summertime and that it significantly impacts their ability to enjoy what most of us consider to be the most enjoyable season of the year.

If this sounds like you, here’s some insight into why and how to turn the summer of acid into the summer of fun…

Dehydration and pH imbalance

During the summer it’s not at all uncommon to experience some degree of dehydration.

Have you come inside after spending just a half hour or less watering your shrubs to find you’re a little dizzy or lightheaded?

Maybe several minutes later you begin to experience a mild headache, and then realize you’re feeling fatigued. Those are all signs of mild dehydration.

Your body is signaling that you need to replenish important electrolytes such as sodium, potassium, magnesium and calcium.

But replenishing those electrolytes does more than help your body use the water you drink to rehydrate. They balance your body’s acid/base (pH) level. Dehydration causes electrolyte imbalances that result in a more acidic blood pH, the last thing you need. 

Hydration and pH are powerful allies against aging and acidity. Water helps maintain pH levels, which in turn aids all bodily functions — including how your body deals with temporary bouts of excess acid when you experience GERD, acid reflux, acid indigestion — but so much more. I’ll explain more about that below…

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Acidic summer foods

Summer is when some of our favorite — and, unfortunately, acidic — foods are plentiful.

Take tomatoes for example. I eat more than my fair share of fresh tomatoes in salads (along with acidic onions) — and, of course, my ultimate guilty favorite, tomato sandwiches slathered in mayo.

But we’re also eating hot dogs and barbecued meats (with acidic and sugary sauces and condiments) more often — and downing them a crisp cold brew or one of those citrusy alcoholic drinks, complete with a tiny umbrella.

Aside from the acidity of the meat and sauces, alcohol has detrimental effects on the acidity in your stomach and your body. But so does another summer favorite: soft drinks.

Every time you eat or drink anything other than water (which has a neutral pH), the pH level in your mouth drops (becomes more acidic). This causes minerals in your tooth enamel to seep out as your body tries to re-establish a balanced pH — and soft drinks are the worst. But with body-wide acidity, the same thing can occur — except then it is the bones that are losing precious minerals.

All of this adds up to more acid in the digestive tract that’s just waiting to splash back up to the esophagus with every bite or sip triggering acid reflux.

Acid indigestion, GERD and reflux are immediate signs of acid overload. But there are times your body doesn’t give you any obvious outward signs. That’s when your health faces even bigger threats…

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Unseen signs and miscellaneous effects of acid overload

About 75 percent of Americans are chronically dehydrated. Many of us drink acidic, sugary soft drinks, sugary flavored waters and imitation juice drinks, that’ don’t provide the hydration we need.

These acidic drinks and the acidic animal protein-heavy American diet, and even medication (particularly antihistamines), compound this dehydration.

Lack of water — dehydration — creates thirst, fatigue, weakness, pain and loss of appetite and leads to a buildup of toxic acidity.

And that acidity sets off a slow process of decline. So let me explain how that impacts your pH levels…

Your pH (potential of hydrogen) is a reflection of your body’s balance between its alkaline and acidic state. That pH is measured on a logarithmic scale in which 7.0 is neutral. The lower the reading on the scale the more acidic the body is — and the higher the reading, above 7, the more alkaline the body.

When the body maintains a high pH you feel vibrant, at ease and well. However, when the environment of the body is acidic, with a low pH reading, inflammation, pain, disease, and other unhealthful issues arise.

For example, pH can affect the viscosity of blood and that impacts circulation. An acidic body can even lead to depression and obesity because of how the body is hampered in its ability to process nutrients, expel heavy metals and metabolize wastes.

The main point here is that we want our bodies to be in an alkaline state most of the time.

If the summer heat, foods and activities are causing the most obvious symptoms of acid overload to flare up — acid indigestion, reflux and GERD. Take heed. The effects on your body are likely to go much deeper.

You can work at turning things around by eating a diet composed mostly of alkaline-forming foods and by avoiding acid-forming foods as much as possible. Most green vegetables and fruits are alkaline — and most processed foods, packaged and fried foods, and those taken from their natural state are more acidic.

Sources:

Regulating your body temperature during summer heat — Michigan State University

Can the Heat Make Heartburn Worse? — Houston Heartburn & Reflux Center

Effect of electrolyzed high-pH alkaline water on blood viscosity in healthy adults. — Jefferson Digital Commons

The post Why GERD, acid reflux and indigestion increase in summer appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

In certain Asian cultures, washing rice before cooking is a given. The chef checks through the rice to remove any husks or stones, then rinses the rice repeatedly until the cloudy water runs clear. Some people actually scrub the wet grains of rice between their hands before rinsing it.

Culinary experts are split as to whether washing rice is necessary. From a cooking standpoint, if you want your dish to have separate grains of rice, they advise washing away the excess starch clinging to the surface of the grains. But if you’re making a dish like risotto, paella or rice pudding, they say you should probably skip the wash so your dish remains starchy, sticky and creamy.

What these experts fail to consider is another very good reason in favor of washing rice….

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Washing rice rids it of harmful heavy metals

Rice is known to contain relatively high levels of the toxic heavy metal arsenic because the crop absorbs it as it grows. Arsenic levels in rice vary depending on where it’s grown, the type of rice and how it’s cooked. One study found the highest level of arsenic was in the United States.

When heavy metals build up in the body they’re capable of contributing to autoimmune diseases and the underlying inflammation that accelerates the process of chronic illness, including heart disease.

The good news here is that washing rice has been shown to remove about 90 percent of bioaccessible arsenic — the type that the body is able to absorb.

In addition to arsenic, washing rice has been found to decrease levels of other dangerous heavy metals like lead and cadmium by between 7 and 20 percent.

Then, there are microplastics…

Unfortunately, rice is just as likely as other foods to be contaminated with microplastics thanks to the heavy use of plastics in the food supply chain. And a study found that rice contains the same level of microplastics regardless of whether it’s packaged in paper or plastic bags.

Luckily, the researchers found that by washing your rice, you’ll be rinsing up to 20 percent of the microplastics away. That at least puts a dent in the 10,000 plastic particles each of us is estimated to consume yearly!

If you use pre-cooked instant rice, you’ll be interested to know that study found four times the microplastics than in regular uncooked rice. By rinsing your instant rice, you could reduce microplastics by 40 percent.

While washing won’t have any effect on the bacterial content of rice, the high cooking temperature will kill any bacteria that might be present. Just make sure you don’t store washed or cooked rice at room temperature for long or it can activate the bacterial spores from the Bacillus cereus pathogen.

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You can still have creamy rice — and your good health

If you’re concerned about heavy metals, you can read more about how they can weigh your health down — and how you can lessen their load in your body.

If you’re concerned about whether washing rice will make it a lot less starchy and ruin your dish, don’t be. That’s been debunked.

A different starch inside the rice grain, amylopectin, is what produces the sticky, creamy effect, and different types of rice contain different amounts.

For instance, the type of rice used to make risotto, arborio, contains a lot more amylopectin starch than basmati rice, which is why arborio rice turns out so much creamier.

Sources:

Yes, You Should Wash Rice, But Not For The Reason You Think — ScienceAlert

Do you need to wash rice before cooking it? It all depends on what you’re cooking — ABC Everyday

A Guide to the Different Types of Rice — Chef’s Corner Store

The post 3 reasons to wash your rice: Lead, cadmium and arsenic appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Another way to maintain good health as we age is to make sure we’re getting the right kinds of nutrients. For instance, the antioxidants known as flavanols help fight age-related frailty, high blood pressure and heart disease and strengthen your nervous system. Flavanols are found in many fruits and vegetables, as well as cocoa and tea.

Flavanols (also spelled flavonols) have been found to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. And they could be key to protecting against another dreaded effect of aging….

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Flavanols could sharpen memory

There’s an idea emerging among investigators that the aging brain requires specific nutrients for optimal health, just as the brain of an infant needs certain nutrients for proper development.

“The identification of nutrients critical for the proper development of an infant’s nervous system was a crowning achievement of 20th-century nutrition science,” says Dr. Scott A. Small, a neurology professor at Columbia University. “In this century, as we are living longer research is starting to reveal that different nutrients are needed to fortify our aging minds.”

Small and other researchers teamed up to investigate the impact of flavanols on age-related memory loss. They randomly assigned more than 3,500 healthy older adults to receive a daily flavanol supplement or a placebo pill for three years. The supplement contained 500 mg of flavanols, including 80 mg of epicatechins — the amount adults are advised to get from their diet.

In each year of the study, the participants were given tests designed to assess the types of memory governed by the hippocampus, and more than a third of the participants had their urine tested for dietary flavanol levels before and during the study.

Deficiency drove age-related memory loss

For the entire group taking the flavanol supplement, memory scores improved only slightly. It’s worth noting that most of those participants were already eating a healthy diet with plenty of flavanols.

Where it gets interesting is when the researchers separated out the participants who had lower levels of flavanols at the start of the study…

At the end of the first year of taking the flavanol supplement, these participants saw their memory scores increase by an average of 10.5 percent compared with those taking the placebo. And their scores increased an average of 16 percent when compared with their memory scores at the start of the study.

“The improvement among study participants with low-flavanol diets was substantial and raises the possibility of using flavanol-rich diets or supplements to improve cognitive function in older adults,” says Dr. Adam M. Brickman, professor of neuropsychology at Columbia University and co-leader of the study.

According to the researchers, a previous study found that flavanol supplements did not improve memory in a group of people with a range of baseline flavanol levels. However, that study didn’t split the group into people with low and high flavanol levels.

“Age-related memory decline is thought to occur sooner or later in nearly everyone, though there is a great amount of variability,” he says. “If some of this variance is partly due to differences in dietary consumption of flavanols, then we would see an even more dramatic improvement in memory in people who replenish dietary flavanols when they’re in their 40s and 50s.”

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Raising your own flavanol count

Plenty of fruits and vegetables contain flavanols, including green, leafy vegetables, tomatoes, broccoli, pears, berries, apples and oranges. So do olive oil, tea, red wine and chocolate among other plant-based products.

If your diet is lacking in these sources, this is a good time to add them in. This link provides a table of flavanol foods by their epicatechins content, the supplement used in the Columbia study.

If you already consume a lot of fruits and vegetables, your flavanol levels are probably fine. But if you’re worried, you can always add a flavanol supplement to your daily regimen. Not only could it help improve memory, but studies show it also supports good heart and circulatory health.

Sources:

Low-Flavanol Diet Drives Age-Related Memory Loss, Large Study Finds — Columbia University

Dietary flavanols restore hippocampal-dependent memory in older adults with lower diet quality and lower habitual flavanol consumption — PNAS

The post The nutrient deficiency driving age-related memory loss appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

In fact, my family and I love to spend Saturday morning browsing the stands to grab all of the produce we need for the upcoming week.

But, there’s one vegetable I’ve noticed a lot of people ignore, and if you’re one of them, you’re missing out on some big health benefits and great taste in the process.

What vegetable am I talking about?

Beets.

If you haven’t embraced beets, you may not know how to incorporate them into your meal planning. So, let me help you there… but first, here’s why you should eat more…

#1 – Huge amounts of nutrients in one small package

We all know that vitamins and minerals help keep us healthy and ward off chronic disease. And, the beet packs a big punch when it comes to these critical nutrients with less than three ounces of the cooked vegetable delivering:

• Folate – 68 mcg equal to 17 percent of the RDA
• Manganese – 0.3 mg or 14 percent of the RDA
• Vitamin C – 3.1 mg or 5 percent of the RDA
• Potassium – 259 mg or 7 percent of the RDA
• Magnesium – 19.6 mg or 5 percent of the RDA
• Iron – 7 mg or 4 percent of the RDA

And, that same small serving gives you 4 grams of protein and 1.7 grams of fiber.

#2 – Supports healthy blood pressure

In addition to all of those vitamins and minerals that help keep you strong and feeling great, beets are also packed with heart-healthy nitrates. These nitrates boost the production of nitric oxide (NO) in the lining of your blood vessels which allows them to dilate or widen.

When this happens your blood can flow more freely, without your heart having to work so hard to pump your blood throughout your body, making beets one of the healthiest things you can do for your blood pressure.

In fact, scientific studies have shown that beets alone may have the power to lower your blood pressure by up to 10 mm Hg in just a few hours.

In the past, I’ve written about the confusion over good nitrates and bad nitrates — so let me clarify that again: You’ve probably heard of nitrate additives in processed meats being linked to cancer. That’s a totally different ballgame, and here’s why…

You see, organic or naturally-occurring nitrates, when ingested from eating plants that contain them (like beets), help the body produce NO — a compound that acts as a natural vasodilator, by helping to relax and dilate the blood vessels and arteries in your body — as I explained above.

So, eat less of the meats and more beets!

#3 – Major anti-inflammation properties

Have you heard of the inflammation theory of disease? Inflammation is widely accepted as the root cause of multiple chronic health problems, from obesity and metabolic syndrome to heart and liver disease. And, beets could be the answer to the problem thanks to the pigments that help give them their gorgeous color.

These pigments, known as betalains, support a balanced inflammatory response to promote healthy inflammation levels. One study even found that a capsule of these pigments made from beetroot had the power to ease the discomfort caused by osteoarthritis — most likely thanks to their effect on inflammation levels.

Adding beets to your diet

With these health benefits, it’s easy to see why you should be adding beets to your diet this summer while they’re plentiful at the farmer’s market.

If you haven’t cooked with beets before, one of the best ways to do it is to roast them. Drizzle them with olive oil, add a dash of salt, pepper, and thyme and put them in the oven at 425° for 30 – 40 minutes or until fork-tender. You can also do beets on the grill or simmer them on the stove with butter and orange juice.

Need an even easier option? Look for a tasty organic beet powder you can add to smoothies, juice and even water.

Sources:

1. Beets, cooked, boiled, drained Nutrition Facts & Calories — SELF Nutrition Data
2. Inorganic nitrate is a possible source for systemic generation of nitric oxide — Free Radical Biology and Medicine
3. Effect of beetroot juice on lowering blood pressure in free-living, disease-free adults: a randomized, placebo-controlled trial — Nutrition
4. Acute ingestion of beetroot bread increases endothelium-independent vasodilation and lowers diastolic blood pressure in healthy men: a randomized controlled trial — Journal of Nutrition
5. Acute blood pressure lowering, vasoprotective, and antiplatelet properties of dietary nitrate via bioconversion to nitrite — Hypertension
6. Inflammation: A unifying theory of disease — Harvard Health
7. Chronic Inflammation in Obesity and the Metabolic Syndrome — Mediators of Inflammation
8. Beetroot (Beta vulgaris L.) Extract Ameliorates Gentamicin-Induced Nephrotoxicity Associated Oxidative Stress, Inflammation, and Apoptosis in Rodent Model — Mediators of Inflammation
9. Betanin attenuates oxidative stress and inflammatory reaction in kidney of paraquat-treated rat — Food and Chemical Toxicology
10. Improvement of hypertension, endothelial function and systemic inflammation following short-term supplementation with red beet (Beta vulgaris L.) juice: a randomized crossover pilot study — Journal of Human Hypertension
11. Betalain-rich red beet concentrate improves reduced knee discomfort and joint function: a double blind, placebo-controlled pilot clinical study — Nutrition and Dietary Supplements

The post 3 amazing benefits of summer’s best heart-healthy vegetable appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

From peaches and pineapples to mangos and strawberries, summer is fruit season.

And no fruit may be more anticipated than watermelon.

Whether you eat it alone, turn it into a refreshing drink — like a cool watermelon agua fresca — or toss it into a cucumber watermelon salad, the sweet and juicy summer treat is always something to look forward to.

What you may not know however is that watermelon isn’t just tasty, it’s also great for your body.

In fact, scientists have now confirmed eating watermelon could be one of the best things you do for your health.

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From heart health to better blood sugar

The research, published in the journal Current Atherosclerosis Reports, took into account mounds and mounds of data on the health effects of watermelon gathered in trials for over two decades.

Specifically, they took into account clinical evidence on how eating watermelon or supplementing with one of the fruit’s signature compounds, citrulline, affects cardiovascular and metabolic outcomes.

And they found that one of the most impressive benefits of both is the way they support the heart and blood pressure while reducing the risk of diabetes.

The data showed it worked like this: Citrulline found in watermelon is a precursor to L arginine, which helps produce nitric oxide, a signaling molecule that plays a role in blood pressure regulation, lipid reduction and glucose control.

They also were able to determine that the rich levels of polyphenols and carotenoids in watermelon, particularly lycopene, provide additional support to help maintain normal cardio-metabolic health.

“Research is unveiling the health-promoting potential of watermelon. The current literature review provides evidence that watermelon intake and citrulline supplementation lower blood pressure in human trials. Although more research is needed, favorable effects on lipids/lipoprotein metabolism are emerging based on the data we reviewed and reported in preclinical models,” said lead author Britt Burton-Freeman. 

And if watermelon’s ability to lower blood pressure, improve cholesterol levels and keep blood sugar in check isn’t enough, the researchers say there’s even more…

Additional potential benefits of watermelon include:

• Better body weight control to battle obesity
• Improved brain health to keep your memory sharp
• Gut health support for a strong immune system

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You love watermelon, and it loves you right back

Clearly, eating this all-time summer fruit fave is a great choice for your health.

You might also be interested to know that while this research into watermelon homed in on some extremely important benefits eating the fruit brings, there is even more the scientists didn’t mention…

For men, watermelon can help with issues of sexual dysfunction and support strong erections.

Eating the fruit can also give you a super energy boost.

And it offers six more health benefits, including better eye health and happier, healthier joints that will have you loving the fruit more than ever.

Sources:

Scientific literature review confirms watermelon’s health potential – EurekAlert!

The post Watermelon for better blood pressure and blood sugar appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

In 2021, there were 89,739 centenarians living in the United States, nearly twice as many as there were two decades ago.

So, what changed over the past 20 years? A few things:

• There have been more medical advances that allow people to live longer.
• Fewer people are smoking, and more are following a lifestyle that protects their heart health.
• Rapid population growth has also contributed to the influx of centenarians.

What about genetics?

While it’s true that genetics can play a role in enjoying life to 100 years of age, lifestyle is much more important. And there’s one factor in your lifestyle that may give you a leg up in your quest to reach the century mark — and it focuses on one specific organ….

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The longevity organ

The gut microbiome, made up of trillions of “friendly” bacteria and other microbes, is proving to be central to our health.

A thriving gut microbiome not only contributes to your overall gut health but can affect dementia risk and support mental health, promote good sleep and influence the health of your skin, muscles, heart and immune system. And when your gut microbiome is disrupted, it can trigger conditions like diabetes and obesity.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg…

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen studied the intestinal bacteria of 176 healthy Japanese centenarians to determine whether their gut microbiome had any influence on their longevity.

“Previous research has shown that the intestinal bacteria of old Japanese citizens produce brand new molecules that make them resistant to pathogenic — that is, disease-promoting — microorganisms,” says Joachim Johansen, a postdoc and first author of the study.

What these researchers discovered was that these centenarians had a unique combination of intestinal bacteria and bacterial viruses. In fact, one of the study’s findings was that specific viruses in the intestines can have a beneficial effect on the gut microbiome.

“Our intestines contain billions of viruses living of and inside bacteria, and they could not care less about human cells; instead, they infect the bacterial cells,” says Simon Rasmussen, a University of Copenhagen professor and last author of the study.

The researchers also found high biological diversity in the gut bacteria of the centenarians, which is usually associated with a healthy gut microbiome. This better protects them against aging-related diseases, Johansen notes.

The virus-bacteria connection

The researchers designed an algorithm to map the intestinal bacteria and bacterial viruses of the centenarians.

“We want to understand the dynamics of the intestinal flora,” Rasmussen says. “How do the different kinds of bacteria and viruses interact? How can we engineer a microbiome that can help us live healthy, long lives? Are some bacteria better than others?”

The researchers hope to use the algorithm to describe the balance between viruses and bacteria and determine what that optimal balance should be to protect the body against disease.

The obvious next step, Rasmussen says, is to find out whether only some or all of us have this combination of bacteria and viruses.

“Intestinal bacteria are a natural part of the human body and of our natural environment. And the crazy thing is that we can actually change the composition of intestinal bacteria. We cannot change the genes – at least not for a long time to come. If we know why viruses and intestinal bacteria are a good match, it will be a lot easier for us to change something that actually affects our health.”

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Diversify your longevity organ

If you want a gut full of diverse bacteria, a great way to start is by diversifying your diet.

A couple of years ago, researchers at Stanford School of Medicine found that a 10-week diet high in fermented foods boosted microbiome diversity and improved immune responses. According to those researchers, their findings are an example of how a simple diet change can remodel the microbiota.

Fermented foods are “foods made through desired microbial growth and enzymatic conversions of food components.”

Traditional Japanese cuisine focuses heavily on fermented foods like fermented bean paste (natto), tempeh, soy sauce, miso, rice vinegar and pickled vegetables. In fact, some type of fermented food is included at almost every meal.

Could this be the link to their longevity? Fermented foods are considered superfoods, so it certainly makes sense.

According to Tim Spector, an author and professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, “The Japanese love of many fermented soy products could be one reason that they have much better health than in the west, [and] stay slimmer despite eating lots of rice and other high carbohydrate food.”

If traditional Japanese fermented foods aren’t easily available to you, try adding Kombucha tea, kefir, yogurt and cottage cheese to your diet.

Sources:

Why do some people live to be a 100? Intestinal bacteria may hold the answer — University of Copenhagen Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences

More people are living to be 100: Here’s why — The Hill

Fermented-food diet increases microbiome diversity, decreases inflammatory proteins, study finds — Stanford Medicine

New Global Definition for Fermented Foods — The Fermentation Society

Fermented Foods: Japan’s Secret to Good Health — Discover

The post How to support your longevity organ appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

I’ve been OK with caffeine all my life. But in the last year or so that morning cup has started giving me the shakes and a bad belly.

For me, it’s an easy enough fix just to switch to decaf. But what if eating certain foods gave you miserable symptoms that medical experts couldn’t fit into a “box” — leaving you without relief?

Worse, what if that condition was also to blame for another condition that, once again, the medical community is ill-adapted at recognizing and treating?

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The conditions I’m talking about are chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) — responsible for crushing fatigue that’s not relieved by rest — and non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS), also known as non-celiac wheat sensitivity (NCWS).

According to celiac.org, the latter two terms have been used interchangeably to refer to the same condition — one where people experience symptoms similar to but not as severe as those of celiac disease (an autoimmune reaction to gluten that damages the gut and leads to malabsorption), and that resolve when gluten is removed from the diet.

The symptoms are generally considered digestive — bloating, constipation and diarrhea. But some symptoms that not all physicians have made the connection with include a foggy mind, depression, ADHD-like symptoms and chronic fatigue.

For years, chronic fatigue sufferers have been at a loss, some even being made to feel their symptoms were all in their heads. Well, now getting their energy back may be as simple as avoiding one food ingredient…

The chronic fatigue and wheat/gluten sensitivity link

Many people with CFS also report symptoms like bloating and diarrhea and test positive for immune system issues.

Researchers at Columbia University Medical School were curious to see whether some CFS patients have blood markers also associated with NCWS/NCGS, which might explain the crossover of symptoms between the two conditions.

They took blood samples from 131 people known to have chronic fatigue syndrome and from 86 healthy controls. All were screened for biomarkers for NCWS/NCGS that the researchers had identified previously. All study participants were also given a questionnaire to rate gastrointestinal symptom severity.

Twenty of the CFS patients had blood markers indicating wheat/gluten sensitivity, as compared with only four of the control subjects.

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Why this research matters

If you’ve already been diagnosed with CFS, this research validates the possibility that there are other things behind your crushing fatigue, and perhaps, behind the fact that it’s not getting any better.

Even if you don’t have chronic fatigue syndrome OR celiac disease, this research proves that there could be something else behind feelings of constant fatigue that plague you.

So what steps can you take to find out?

It can take years to get a diagnosis for wheat/gluten sensitivity. That’s because the tests are for celiac disease. Once that’s ruled out, the best way to determine if a gluten/wheat sensitivity is the cause of your troubles is an elimination diet.

The simplest is a modified elimination diet where you already suspect which food is causing you trouble (in this case, wheat/gluten-containing foods) and eliminate it for 21 days then reintroduce it slowly. For a list of gluten-containing foods to eliminate, the Celiac Disease Foundation provides an extensive list.

You may think there’s nothing left to eat, but there will be plenty if you focus on whole foods, like vegetables, fruits and meats.

Of course, you can also discuss your suspicions about your fatigue with your doctor or a qualified nutritionist.

Once you get to the bottom of what’s causing your unnatural fatigue, believe me, any dietary changes you have to make will be worth it.

Sources:

Symptoms of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Linked with Non-Celiac Wheat Sensitivity — Celiac Disease Foundation

Non-Celiac Gluten/Wheat Sensitivity — Celiac Disease Foundation

Non-celiac gluten sensitivity — Harvard Medical School

Non-Celiac Wheat Sensitivity is Official — Celiac Disease Foundation

Intestinal cell damage and systemic immune activation in individuals reporting sensitivity to wheat in the absence of coeliac disease — BMJ Gut

The post Is a wheat sensitivity causing your crushing fatigue? appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Absolutely. If they stay where they belong.

But when leaky gut syndrome exists, those bacteria and their toxins escape into your bloodstream, where they do not belong, and wreak havoc.

They can cause chronic bloating, headache, indigestion, diarrhea and nausea, as well as more severe conditions, such as irritable bowel disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

What’s more, researchers have discovered they kickstart a vicious cycle of obesity by interfering with the metabolism of fat cells.

Here’s how that happens, and what you can do about it…

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White fat vs. brown fat

To understand how this vicious cycle works, you’ll need to understand the difference between two types of fat we carry in our bodies.

There’s white fat. That’s the kind your body stores that shows up in bulges around your belly, hips, and thighs. That’s the kind of fat we don’t want.

Then, there’s our hero: brown fat.

Brown fat (the kind you want) helps burn off the calories we eat each day.

Browning is the process that turns white fat into brown fat and can be stimulated by exercise, exposure to cold and calorie restriction.

How leaky gut starts the obesity cycle

An international group of researchers took a look at how weight is affected when substances called endotoxins are released into the blood.

Endotoxins are found within the walls of bacteria. They are a normal part of the digestive tract, and their function is to trigger inflammation when an infection is present.

But when a leaky gut allows endotoxins to escape the gut and enter the bloodstream, it interferes with the normal functioning of fat cells. Specifically, it slows or stops the browning process, which is crucial to reducing the amount of stored fat and maintaining a healthy weight.

And since obese people already have less resilient guts, endotoxins have more chance of escaping into the bloodstream.

And so the cycle goes.

But if you can work to prevent leaky gut and keep endotoxins out of your blood, you’ve already won half the battle.

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How to help a leaky gut

A leaky gut leaks because damage to the lining has made it more permeable. Normally the junctures are just tight enough to allow nutrients to be absorbed and passed into the body, but keep bacteria and waste inside the intestinal walls until they exit the body.

If you’re not sure if you’re affected by leaky gut, first familiarize yourself with the most common symptoms.

Studies have shown that what you eat, and what you don’t eat, are keys to keeping the gut in healthy shape.

One of the most powerful foods to do just that is broccoli. In studies with mice, it was found to contain molecules involved in signaling cells in the intestines to halt inflammatory processes and repair damaged cells. That process helps keep the gut lining intact.

Next are polyphenols, natural antioxidants found in a variety of foods like apples, berries and green tea. In the gut, they increase helpful bacteria, reduce harmful bacteria, and prevent damaging inflammation. A recent study found that eating foods rich in polyphenols increased products of cell metabolism that improve the health of the gut and decreased those that cause intestinal permeability.

Certain supplements can also help.

Now, the foods you want to eat much less of include processed junk foods because they contain refined oils, added sugars and artificial sweeteners — and are considered inflammatory. They also contain gluten — which can aggravate digestive symptoms.

A whole foods diet, like the Mediterranean diet, is probably the best way to ensure foods that can promote weight loss and a healthy gut — which is ultimately the best way to keep your gut in shape and break the cycle.

Sources:

Toxic Fragments of Bacteria Leaking From The Gut May Drive Weight Gain — Science Alert

The impact of metabolic endotoxaemia on the browning process in human adipocytes — BMC Medicine

The post How leaky gut leads to weight gain appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

That’s because it interrupts your circadian rhythm, the natural sleep cycle that assures you get an adequate amount of deep sleep.

Without enough hours of deep sleep to “wash” your brain each night, you are a sitting duck for Alzheimer’s disease, heart problems, and stroke.

Many things can interfere with deep sleep. And you might not be all that surprised about junk food being one of them. Maybe you’ve gone to bed too soon after a couple of slices of pizza, only to toss and turn with indigestion.

But junk foods’ effects on deep sleep go much deeper… In fact, junk food appears to be a major culprit in altering slow-wave brain activity essential to deep restorative sleep.

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The importance of deep sleep

Deep sleep actually “washes” your brain.

Research has shown that rhythmic electrical signals that occur only during deep sleep — known as “slow waves” — trigger slow pulses of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that wash through the brain and remove toxins.

It’s already known that people with Alzheimer’s have less slow-wave brain activity going on, so there’s less chance for waves of CSF to remove amyloid plaque, the brain toxin most associated with Alzheimer’s.

That’s exactly why how you sleep may be the strongest predictor and deterrent to Alzheimer’s.

Proof that junk food steals deep sleep

Recently, researchers at Uppsala University investigated how junk food affects sleep.

Past studies have shown that what we eat is associated with changes in our sleep. But these researchers realized that few studies have investigated how diet itself directly impacts sleep.

They decided the best way to do that was to have participants eat different diets, in a randomized order.

Only fifteen participants were involved since the study required several days of close monitoring in a sleep laboratory.

All participants were given both a healthy and an unhealthy diet. The two diets contained the same number of calories, but the unhealthy diet contained a lot of sugar, saturated fat and processed food items.

Each diet was consumed for a week. After each week, participants were examined in a sleep laboratory.

The two diets didn’t affect the amount of time each participant slept. But did impact their deep sleep.

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Dr. Jonathan Cedernaes, Associate Professor in Medical Cell Biology at Uppsala University, explains…

“Intriguingly, we saw that deep sleep exhibited less slow-wave activity when the participants had eaten junk food, compared with consumption of healthier food. This effect also lasted into a second night, once we had switched the participants to an identical diet. Essentially, the unhealthy diet resulted in shallower deep sleep.

“Of note, similar changes in sleep occur with aging and in conditions such as insomnia. It can be hypothesized, from a sleep perspective, that greater importance should potentially be attached to diet in such conditions.”

Keep your slow-wave brain activity up

So how do you keep deep sleep and that essential slow-wave brain activity coming?

Well, the first obvious step would be to eat less junk food. Here are a few other tips to try…

• Research has found that listening to pink noise while sleeping can help older adults attain slow-wave sleep.
• Get enough vitamin D so your body can produce useful amounts of melatonin, the sleep hormone.
• Try a sleep diet.
• Don’t drink coffee, black tea or other caffeinated drinks after dinner (if you’re really sensitive, like I am, avoid them from early afternoon on).
• Do your exercising during the day, not at night.
• Try and keep a regular bedtime as much as possible.
• Don’t use your computer or cellphone within two hours of bedtime.

Sources:

Junk food may impair our deep sleep — Science Daily

Exposure to a more unhealthy diet impacts sleep microstructure during normal sleep and recovery sleep: A randomized trial — Obesity

The post How junk food interferes with brain-cleaning deep sleep appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

The trillions of “friendly” bacteria and other microbes living inside our digestive system are central to keeping our bodies in peak physical shape.

So, what’s the best way to nourish this microbiome? There’s no doubt that probiotic-rich fermented foods like yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut and kimchi are key to maintaining a healthy gut. So is a diet rich in foods like legumes, bread, fish, nuts and wine — for example, the Mediterranean diet.

It also helps to avoid foods that are bad for your gut. One of the foods that can wreck your gut health is sugar. A diet filled with soda, cookies, candy and other sweet treats can upset the delicate balance of our gut microbiome, resulting in poor health and disease.

Still, a lot of us have an incurable sweet tooth. So the best thing we can do is swap out sugar-laden foods for nature’s candy: fruit. And there’s one fruit in particular that a growing body of research is finding has surprising health-boosting powers for your gut….

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Grapes make your gut happy

Grapes are one of my favorite fruit snacks. They’re sweet, juicy and crunchy, satisfying several cravings at once. And if you pop them in the freezer for a few minutes, they make the perfect substitute for those sugary summer popsicles.

So imagine my joy when I saw the results of a human study investigating whether grapes can influence health by modulating the human microbiome.

During the eight-week study, healthy participants underwent two weeks of a restricted diet followed by two weeks of the same diet supplemented by 2 ¼ cups of grapes per day. For the remaining weeks, they followed their normal diet.

When the participants’ microbiome composition and urinary and plasma metabolites were analyzed, the researchers found changes in terms of bacteria, enzyme levels and biological pathways. An analysis of a subgroup of subjects showed unique patterns of microbe distribution as well.

Specifically, the study suggests that the consumption of grapes provides subtle gut changes that translate to health benefits, including:

• An increase in a type of bacteria considered a probiotic.
• An increase in a type of enzyme which causes metabolic detoxification.
• An overall increase in diversity of the microbiome.

“Our study showed that grapes actively impact the gut microbiome causing shifts in the intricate interactive networks and thus subtly changing the gut microbiome and the resulting chemicals it produces,” says Dr. John Pezzuto, lead author of the study and professor and dean at Western New England University College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.

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More evidence of grapes’ impact

This isn’t the first study to showcase the gut health benefits of grapes. Previous studies have found that grapes can team up with your gut microbiome to lower cholesterol and deliver the perfect dose of heart-healthy antioxidants. Another showed grapes can influence the gut-skin axis in a way that helps protect the skin from UV damage.

“Over the years, we have learned that consumption of grapes has the potential to mediate an amazing cadre of health benefits,” Pezzuto says. “Data suggest health improvements in heart, colon, brain, skin, and more.

More than 1,600 phytochemical compounds have been identified in grapes, including catechins, anthocyanins, polyphenols and flavonols, all of which alone or in combination, affect different processes in the body. One of the most well-known chemical constituents of grapes is resveratrol.

Be sure to wash your grapes in cold water before consumption to get rid of any dirt or unfriendly bacteria that might be hanging around. Also, try to buy organic so you don’t have to worry about pesticides or other harmful chemicals.

Once you’ve washed your grapes, pat them dry and pick off a cluster of grapes from the stem rather than removing them individually. Then you can eat them however you like — in salads, on a fruit or cheese plate or simply by themselves.

Sources:

Consuming grapes modulates the human microbiome with potential benefits for health — EurekAlert!

Influence of grape consumption on the human microbiome — Scientific Reports

Health Benefits of Grapes — Nourish by WebMD

Grape expectations: Dietary grapes promote subtle shifts in human microbiome with potential health implications — News Medical Life Sciences

The post Eating grapes leads to subtle gut changes for major benefits appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Sold under the name Splenda, sucralose has been linked to an increase in malignant tumors in mice. Research also shows sucralose upsets the balance of the gut microbiome, disrupts blood sugar levels and promotes inflammation.

Other symptoms reported by people who consume sucralose include:

• Red, itchy skin
• Wheezing and breathing problems
• Swelling of face, lips and tongue
• Bloating and stomach pain
• Anxiety, dizziness and depression

As if that weren’t bad enough, sucralose also has been found to increase the risk of coronary heart disease, a condition that makes heart attack more likely.

So why is it that sucralose appears to be nothing but trouble health-wise? Investigators may have found an answer — and it’s pretty alarming….

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Sucralose could damage DNA

In a previous study, researchers discovered that after sucralose is ingested, several fat-soluble compounds are produced in the gut. One of these compounds is sucralose-6-acetate.

Now, a study by the same research team has determined that sucralose-6-acetate is what’s known as “genotoxic.”

In other words, the chemical breaks up DNA in the cells exposed to it.

What’s worse, the researchers found trace amounts of sucralose-6-acetate in the sucralose itself, not just as a byproduct of sucralose consumption.

“To put this in context, the European Food Safety Authority has a threshold of toxicological concern for all genotoxic substances of 0.15 micrograms per person per day. Our work suggests that the trace amounts of sucralose-6-acetate in a single, daily sucralose-sweetened drink exceed that threshold,” says Susan Schiffman, corresponding author of the study and an adjunct professor in the joint department of biomedical engineering at North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“And that’s not even accounting for the amount of sucralose-6-acetate produced as metabolites after people consume sucralose,” Schiffman adds.

Sucralose chemical could alter gut composition

For the study, the researchers exposed human blood cells and gut tissues to sucralose-6-acetate in lab tests.

“When we exposed sucralose and sucralose-6-acetate to gut epithelial tissues — the tissue that lines your gut wall — we found that both chemicals cause ‘leaky gut,’” Schiffman says. “Basically, they make the wall of the gut more permeable. The chemicals damage the ‘tight junctions,’ or interfaces, where cells in the gut wall connect to each other.”

What that means is with a leaky gut, things that would normally be flushed out of the body in its waste are instead leaking out of the gut into the bloodstream, Schiffman adds.

When looking at the genetic activity of the gut cells exposed to sucralose-6-acetate, the team found increased activity in genes related to oxidative stress, inflammation and cancer.

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What to eat instead of sucralose

Schiffman says their work raises a host of concerns about the potential health effects of sucralose and its metabolites.

“It’s time to revisit the safety and regulatory status of sucralose because the evidence is mounting that it carries significant risks,” she says. “If nothing else, I encourage people to avoid products containing sucralose. It’s something you should not be eating.”

Now, you may think that having an occasional diet soda is probably okay. However, bear in mind that sucralose-6-acetate is fat-soluble, meaning it could be stored in the body’s fat long after you consume it. Just imagine this chemical terrorist lurking in your cells and destroying your DNA — all after just one drink!

It’s best to replace your diet soda fix with a healthy unsweetened beverage like tea, coffee or plain water. They’ll all keep you hydrated, and with tea and coffee you’ll be getting additional health benefits as well.

If you absolutely must have soda and you want it to be calorie-free, then try soda naturally sweetened with stevia. Just make sure the soda in question uses 100% stevia that’s free of bulking agents like erythritol, which, like sucralose, should be avoided at all costs.

Sources:

1. Chemical Found in Common Sweetener Damages DNA — NC State University

2. Toxicological and pharmacokinetic properties of sucralose-6-acetate and its parent sucralose: in vitro screening assays — Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health

The post The ‘genotoxic’ sweetener that damages your DNA appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

So I’m taking steps (literally!) to avoid becoming part of the 10 to 15 percent of adults who develop a syndrome known as frailty.

Luckily, there’s research pointing to ways we work at avoiding frailty like taking vitamins, increasing blood levels of CoQ10 and avoiding functional decline.

But I’m especially excited about a tasty way I just learned about that could drastically lower my risks of becoming frail any time soon…

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What is frailty?

Frailty is a geriatric syndrome that leads to a greater risk of falls, fractures, disability, hospitalization and mortality.

You or a loved one may be considered frail if three or more of these criteria, developed by Johns Hopkins University Medicine, apply to you:

1. You’re shrinking. You’ve unintentionally lost ten or more pounds in the past year.
2. You feel weak. You have trouble standing without assistance or have reduced grip strength.
3. You feel exhausted. Everything you do takes a big effort, or you feel like you just can’t get going on three or more days most weeks.
4. Your activity level is low. This includes formal exercise plus household chores and activities you do for fun.
5. You walk slowly. Your pace is considered slow if takes you more than six or seven seconds to walk 15 feet.

Both men and women can develop frailty. But for men belly fat is an additional factor. Men with the combination of dynapenia (age-related loss of muscle strength) and belly fat are on the road to becoming physically incapacitated before their time.

Flavonols fight frailty

Dietary recommendations for frailty prevention have focused on protein intake. But an international group of scientists wanted to explore if other foods could be helpful.

To do so they looked to The Framingham Heart Study, one of the first large cohort studies to identify risk factors for heart health which also gathered a wealth of data on other factors including aging.

And though they found no significant association between total flavonoid intake and frailty, higher flavonols intake (one of the subclasses of flavonoids) was associated with lower odds of developing frailty in adults over a 12-year follow-up.

“There may be some validity to the old saying, an apple a day keeps the doctor (or frailty) away,” said the authors. “Our findings suggest that for every 10 mg higher intake of flavonols per day, the odds of frailty were reduced by 20 percent.”

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Quercetin: The best flavonol of all

Quercetin was the flavonoid that had the strongest association with frailty prevention. This makes the study authors think that there may be particular subclasses of flavonoids that have the most potential as a dietary strategy for frailty prevention.

Some you may have heard of include anthocyanins, found in purple produce like grapes and plums, and epigallocatechin gallate, or EGCG, a cancer-fighting agent found in green tea.

But if apples are your favorite fruit, you’ll be glad to know can easily consume 10 mg of quercetin by eating just one medium-sized apple.

Quercetin is also available in the following fruits and vegetables:

• Citrus fruits
• Apples
• Onions
• Cherries
• Blackberries
• Kale

It’s also plentiful in olive oil, green tea and resveratrol-rich red wine.

Sources:

Three generations of health research — framinghamheartstudy.org

Flavonol-rich foods like apples and blackberries can lower chances of developing frailty — Eureka Alert

Higher intake of dietary flavonols, specifically dietary quercetin, is associated with lower odds of frailty onset over 12 years of follow-up among adults in the Framingham Heart Study — Science Direct

Stay Strong: Four Ways to Beat the Frailty Risk — Johns Hopkins Medicine

The post An apple a day could keep frailty away appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

But the truth is women are more than twice as likely to die after a heart attack than men.

Thanks to mountains of research into what can help us avoid such a fate, it’s not a risk that you have to take lying down.

In fact, simple dietary changes such as embracing the DASH or Paleo diets, or even going all out with the Pesco-Mediterranean diet, can make big strides when it comes to improving your heart health.

But you know what, it gets even simpler than that…

According to a study published in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society, the meal that boosts your heart health the most isn’t all about what you eat, but who you eat with…

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Previous research notes the dangers of eating alone

It may seem odd, but if you’re eating alone, you’re putting your heart at risk.

It’s true — previous studies have reported that eating alone more often is associated with a higher risk of abdominal obesity and elevated blood pressure.

This is likely due to the fact that when you eat by yourself, you’re more likely to eat faster, which can lead to an increase in body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, blood pressure and cholesterol — all of which skyrocket your risk of heart disease.

And if that weren’t enough, eating alone has also been found to negatively impact your mental health, which is further linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

So this got the researchers wondering: Just how much of an effect does going it alone at mealtime really have on women’s heart health?

The easiest meal with the biggest impact

To find out, the research team followed nearly 600 menopausal women, 65 and older, and compared health behaviors and nutritional status between ladies who ate alone and those who spent mealtimes with others.

Hands-down, the team discovered that older women who ate alone had both poorer nutritional knowledge and intake than their counterparts.

Specifically, the researchers say that eating alone went hand-in-hand with lower intakes of energy, carbohydrates, dietary fiber, sodium and potassium.

Even worse, women who ate alone were 2.58 times more likely to have angina, a type of chest pain caused by reduced blood flow to the heart and a symptom of coronary artery disease.

“This study shows that older women who eat alone are more likely to have symptomatic heart disease.  Given that women live longer than men, finding ways for older women who are socially isolated to engage and create meaningful social ties may not only improve their nutrition but also their overall health,” said Dr. Stephanie Faubion, NAMS medical director.

Call a friend for dinner, lunch or breakfast

So, there you have it. The easiest meal to support your heart health is the one (or ones) you enjoy with someone else. When your next mealtime rolls around, be sure to use your “call a friend” lifeline to keep your heart at its best.

And if you’re a woman already living with heart disease, there’s one more tip that could up your chances of survival even if you were to suffer a heart attack…

Switch to a female doctor.

Research has shown that women who see female doctors are more likely to get the treatment they need in time to save their hearts and their lives.

Sources:

Can eating alone be bad for your heart? – EurekAlert!

The post The meal that boosts your heart health the most appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

But this little organ does a lot, storing bile until it’s needed by the small intestine to digest fats and carry away toxins produced by the liver.

Several years ago, my mom had to have her gallbladder removed in a procedure known as a cholecystectomy. She just had too many gallstones, and they were starting to cause a painful and dangerous blockage in the bile duct.

She didn’t suffer too many short-term side effects after the procedure, and the ones she did diminished over time.

However, growing research indicates the long-term repercussions of gallbladder removal may be a lot more serious — including cancer.

Gallbladder removal and cancer risk

For instance, one study showed in the year before their diagnosis, 4.7 percent of patients with pancreatic cancer had a diagnosis of gallstone disease, with 1.6 percent of them requiring gallbladder removal. By contrast, only 0.8 percent of non-cancer patients had gallstones, with 0.3 percent having their gallbladders removed.

Now there’s evidence of a second and bigger cancer risk associated with gallbladder problems…

Drawing on data from large prospective cohorts using Mendelian randomization — a method that uses measured variation in genes of known function to strengthen the causal effect of a modifiable exposure on disease in observational studies — an international team of researchers conducted a large two-part analysis exploring the link between gallbladder health and kidney cancer.

In the first part of the study, the researchers examined the risk of kidney cancer in more than 16 million individuals from a Swedish database who were followed for about 13 years. During that time, some experienced gallbladder removal. They took into account the age at which the cholecystectomy occurred, as well as the time between the gallbladder removal and kidney cancer diagnosis.

Next, the researchers studied the causal effect of gallstones on kidney cancer risk based on data from more than 400,000 participants in the U.K. Biobank.

In their analyses, the team discovered that:

• In the first 6 months after gallbladder surgery, the risk of developing kidney cancer shot up by a whopping 279 percent.
• Patients who had a cholecystectomy before the age of 40 saw a 55 percent increase in their kidney cancer risk compared with those who did not.
• The risk of kidney cancer increases by almost 10 percent for every doubling of gallstone prevalence.

Excess bile acids could be the problem

The researchers have a couple of theories about the gallstones-kidney cancer link…

Study leader Dr. Justo Lorenzo Bermejo of the Institute of Medical Biometry at Heidelberg University in Germany told MedPage Today that it’s possible gallbladder removal could result in increased excretion of bile acids, which could lead to oxidative stress and damage to the kidneys that could lead to kidney cancer.

“Another possible explanation is that excess bile acids lead to increased synthesis of secondary bile acids, which in turn can alter Wnt/β-catenin signaling and promote cancer,” Bermejo says. “The Wnt gene pathway regulates a huge array of cellular functions, including proliferation, differentiation, renewal and apoptosis [cellular death].”

The results also suggest type 2 diabetes and smoking may mediate the effect of gallstones on kidney cancer. Cigarette smoke releases harmful chemicals that spread to the kidneys and can damage DNA, making it harder for kidney cells to repair themselves.

Bermejo told MedPage Today the study emphasizes the compelling need to screen for and rule out kidney cancer before and during gallbladder removal. “It would also be important to inform patients undergoing cholecystectomy in their 30s about their increased risk of kidney cancer 25 to 30 years after surgery,” he adds.

Keeping a healthy gallbladder

This study is just one more reason to consider our gallbladders before things go bad. Start by understanding your risks…

The risk of gallbladder disease is higher for women, especially if pregnant, on hormone therapy or using birth control pills, or over the age of 60.

Other risk factors include a history of rapid or significant weight loss using very-low-kilocalorie diets,  increased fat and sugar intake, high cholesterol, diabetes, bariatric surgery and a sedentary lifestyle.

My colleague Joyce Hollman writes about six natural ways to reduce your risk of gallstones. The herb milk thistle has also been found to raise the solubility of bile, deterring the formation of gallstones.

The perfect diet for avoiding gallstone would look something like this:

• Five servings of fruit and vegetables
• Several servings of carbohydrates, preferably whole grain
• Two to three servings of low-fat milk or dairy products
• Lean protein, such as chicken, fish or beans

Focus on foods high in fiber and low in fat and sugar. Flax seed, salmon, walnuts and other foods high in omega-3 fatty acids can also help lower your cholesterol. Gallstones are usually made up of cholesterol or bilirubin.

Sources:

Patients With Gallstones Should Undergo Kidney Cancer Screening — MedPage Today

Justo Bermejo on the Gallstone-Kidney Cancer Connection — MedPage Today

Gallstones, Cholecystectomy, and Kidney Cancer: Observational and Mendelian Randomization Results Based on Large Cohorts — Gastoenterology

Cholecystectomy (gallbladder removal) — Mayo Clinic

Can you recommend a diet after gallbladder removal? — Mayo Clinic

Anti-gallstones Diet: What Foods to Eat and What to Avoid — University of Maryland Medical System

The post The crazy high cancer risk that comes after gallbladder surgery appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

However, while the message that cholesterol issues and heart disease go hand in hand has been trumpeted by the medical community for decades, the truth that high cholesterol can damage other aspects of your health as well has been largely overlooked.

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Beyond your heart

In fact, in addition to the heart problems that can arise with high cholesterol, the condition is also associated with:

• Gallstones — High cholesterol means that your body is also more likely to form gallstones that can block the bile ducts in your gallbladder and land you in surgery.
• Cramps, tingling, numbness and spasms — If the fatty deposits in those blood vessels block blood flow to your extremities, you can experience cramping, tingling, numbness and even muscle spasms in your legs, feet, arms and hands due to peripheral artery disease (PAD).
• Headaches — Cholesterol deposits can even block blood flow in the vessels in the vessels leading to your skull. Symptoms often present as headaches and pain at the back of your head. High cholesterol is also associated with more severe and frequent migraines.
• Impotence — If fatty deposits build up in the blood vessels that supply the penis, achieving and sustaining an erection may become difficult or impossible.

Clearly, high cholesterol can affect numerous areas of your health in a very negative way.

And sadly, things don’t get a lot better if you’re living with high cholesterol and are prescribed medication to help.

That’s because the statins used to treat the condition come with side effects that aren’t much different from the damage caused by cholesterol issues, including sexual dysfunction and feelings of tingling, pins and needles. Side effects can even encompass liver damage, stomach pain and memory problems.

Yikes!

No wonder so many people with high cholesterol are searching for natural ways to normalize their numbers so they don’t have to worry.

And luckily, there’s good news on that front…

Since cholesterol issues are so common, researchers spend a lot of time and energy looking for ways to help and recently, they found one…

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Improving total and LDL cholesterol

The scientists set out to comb through the research to determine the effects of prickly pear fruit on blood markers for cholesterol.

If you haven’t heard of it before, prickly pear is actually the nopales cactus, which produces neon purple fruits that Simply Recipes says, “tastes like a cross between all-natural bubble gum (if indeed there is such a thing) and watermelon.”

The team eventually narrowed their research down to 11 studies and separated their results into the effects provided by the prickly pear fruit itself or the leaves and stems of the prickly pear cactus.

And here’s what they found…

In healthy and obese people as well as those with metabolic illnesses, specifically type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome, consumption of prickly pear was associated with:

• A significant reduction in total cholesterol
• Decreased LDL (bad cholesterol)

The consumption of the stems and leaves on the other hand resulted in only small changes in cholesterol, with one study reporting a significant increase in plasma HDL-C (good cholesterol).

In other words, while the stems and leaves may help boost the good, if you’re trying to get your high numbers under control, prickly pear fruit is the way to go.

The scientists believe these differing effects may be due to the variations in composition between the fruit versus other parts of the cactus, such as fiber levels. This makes sense, since according to the Mayo Clinic, fiber may help lower both total cholesterol and LDL levels.

So if you want to lower your cholesterol without turning to dangerous statin drugs, prickly pear fruit may just hold the answer you’ve been looking for. You can add it to your daily diet in supplement form or find the fruit itself in your local grocery store or farmers market to make everything from prickly pear juice to a yummy sauce for fruit salads. For advice on how to get started, our friends at Simply Recipes can help!

Sources:

1. The effects of Prickly Pear fruit and cladode (Opuntia spp.) consumption on blood lipids: A systematic review — AHPA Science Alert
2. Dietary fiber: Essential for a healthy diet — Mayo Clinic
3. How to Cut and Prepare Prickly Pears — Simply Recipes
4. Cholesterol: High Cholesterol Diseases — Cleveland Clinic
5. Understanding Cholesterol Problems: Symptoms — WebMD
6. Certain type of migraine may contribute to high cholesterol — PPM
7. Migraine Intensity, Frequency Linked to High Cholesterol — National Headache Foundation
8. Side effects –Statins — NHS
9. High cholesterol — Mayo Clinic
10. The new oil on the block that gives olive oil stiff competition — Easy Health Options

The post Prickly pear: The cactus fruit that lowers cholesterol appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Those plaques are made up of cholesterol, phospholipids and other miscellaneous fats, immune cells and fibrous components.

Obesity and a diet high in fat and cholesterol are all established risk factors for atherosclerosis. In fact, some studies have shown that being obese makes a person two and a half times more likely to develop heart disease.

But the mechanics behind why have not been fully understood, until now…

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The window to the body and hard arteries

“The gut is the dietary window to the body,” said Srinivasa Reddy, professor of medicine at the University of California Los Angeles and corresponding author on the study.

It also appears to be the window through which bacterial toxins leave the gut and make their way into the bloodstream to cause systemic inflammation that turns up the thermostat on atherosclerosis…

Using a mouse model, the researchers found that on a high-fat high-cholesterol diet, the cells that line the small intestine churn out reactive phospholipids that make the intestinal lining more susceptible to invasion by bacteria in the gut.

“The normal defenses for intestinal lining cells to keep bacteria in the lumen of the intestine are reduced when they take up large amounts of cholesterol and fat,” said Alan Fogelman, a professor of medicine at UCLA and project supervisor.

“This also results in bacteria being able to come in direct contact with the cells lining your intestines called enterocytes. Without those defenses, this results in more bacterial products, like bacterial cell membranes that contain a toxin called endotoxin, getting into the bloodstream to cause inflammation.”

This is known as leaky gut syndrome.

“People who are obese and people eating high-fat, high-cholesterol diets have higher levels of endotoxin in their blood,” Fogelman adds. “It’s not at the level of causing sepsis, but it causes a low level of inflammation. When the cholesterol and fat come into the mix, the endotoxin kind of turns up the thermostat on inflammation and that accelerates atherosclerosis and leads to increased heart attacks and strokes.”

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Help your gut protect your arteries

First thing: stop allowing the worst offenders into your diet…

“We study natural emulsifiers in the diet called phospholipids,” said Fogelman. “For example, if you look at salad dressing and shake it up, it is the phospholipids, or emulsifiers, that keeps the oil in globules. Those emulsifiers can get modified by specific enzymes in the intestinal cells into very potent pro-inflammatory molecules in the body.”

He and the research team are looking for ways to reduce the phospholipid derivatives that cause endotoxin to enter the bloodstream. In the meantime, you can reduce bringing them into your body by shying away from the Western diet and leaning towards a Mediterranean diet.

Gut bacteria produce something called short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs). SCFAs feed the cells in your gut. In fact, they’re their main source of food.

In previous studies, SCFAs were also able to reverse leaky gut syndrome — and SCFAs are key mediators of the favorable effects of the Mediterranean diet on intestinal barrier integrity and cardiovascular health.

Here are a few tips on helping your body produce a healthy supply of SCFAs:

• Plant-based fiber produces more SCFAs.
• Whole grains produce more SCFAs than grain that has been ground into flour.
• Starchy foods, like cornmeal, potatoes, pasta, peas and lentil are also superstars in SCFA production.

Sources:

High-fat diet ‘turns up the thermostat’ on atherosclerosis — Eureka Alert

Role of enterocyte Enpp2 and autotaxin in regulating lipopolysaccharide levels, systemic inflammation, and atherosclerosis — Journal of Lipid Research

What to know about short chain fatty acids in food — WebMD

The post The gut problem that hardens your arteries appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Has much changed since then?

Surprisingly, a Green Giant “Favorite Veggie” survey crowned broccoli as America’s favorite vegetable — yet only one in ten of us is meeting the daily recommended servings of fruits and vegetables.

That means most of us are probably still not eating enough broccoli and we’re cheating ourselves of major disease protection…

Broccoli is packed with sulforaphane and other phytochemicals, like diindolylmethane (DIM), that can help fight diabetes, slow aging, strengthen your bones, protect your eyesight, defend against colon cancer and support prostate health.

And that’s not all researchers are finding out about this superfood….

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Molecule in broccoli keeps your gut intact

In a new study, researchers at Penn State divided mice into two groups to determine broccoli’s impact on the small intestine. They fed an experimental group of mice a diet containing 15 percent broccoli (equivalent to 3.5 cups per day for humans) and a control group a typical lab diet without the superfood.

The wall of the small intestine is designed to be permeable enough that water and nutrients pass into the bloodstream, but strong enough to keep harmful food particles and bacteria inside until it’s voided. The epithelial lining of the small intestine is made up of specific cells that support this healthy balance.

In the study, the researchers discovered that molecules in broccoli known as aryl hydrocarbon receptor ligands bind to aryl hydrocarbon receptors (AHR), initiating activities that affect the functions of those cells.

An AHR is a transcription factor, a type of protein that when activated signals both your immune cells and the cells lining your intestines to stop all inflammatory processes and repair any cells that were previously damaged.

The analysis showed the mice that weren’t fed broccoli lacked AHR activity, resulting in altered intestinal barrier function and reduced transit time of food in the small intestine. These two things are harmful because reduced transit time means waste sits in your intestines longer. And if the barrier is not functioning as it should, harmful elements of the waste, including endotoxins (fragments of bacteria), can breach the barrier.

These mice also had decreased numbers of goblet cells, which secrete a protective layer of mucus on the intestinal wall; decreased Paneth cells, which secrete lysosomes that contain digestive enzymes; and a reduced number of enterocyte cells, which absorb water and nutrients.

“The gut health of the mice that were not fed broccoli was compromised in a variety of ways that are known to be associated with disease,” says Gary Perdew, chair in agricultural sciences at Penn State. “Our research suggests that broccoli and likely other foods can be used as natural sources of AHR ligands, and that diets rich in these ligands contribute to resilience of the small intestine.”

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The importance of your gut barrier

It’s much easier to keep your gut lining healthy than it is to repair it. If it’s damaged, via any number of factors including poor diet, antibiotic use, stress or aging, the barrier weakens, increasing intestinal permeability and allowing endotoxins to enter the bloodstream. This is known as leaky gut — a condition that acts as an open door to disease.

A person suffering from leaky gut may experience a range of symptoms from diarrhea to constipation, bloating, skin problems, joint pain, headaches and even confusion.

It also exacerbates weight gain. Researchers that looked specifically at the impact of endotoxins on fat cells discovered that key processes that usually help control the buildup of fat are interrupted by the material.

And as inflammation further wears down the intestinal barrier, its spreads throughout the body, triggering the immune system to over-respond.

The result? A wide range of symptoms that drag health down, lead to food allergies, intolerances and sensitivities, as well as autoimmune diseases. And because the symptoms and these types of conditions are so varied, often mimicking other illnesses, it can take years to get a diagnosis from a physician.

So, if you’re not over your aversion to broccoli it’s time to get serious about working this superfood into your diet.

Supplements can also support your gut lining and you can read about five of them here.

Sources:

Broccoli consumption protects gut lining, reduces disease, in mice — Penn State

Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor Activation Coordinates Mouse Small Intestinal Epithelial Cell Programming — Laboratory Investigation

Do Pureed Vegetables Have as Much Fiber as Fresh? — Week&

The post Why broccoli is a gut-saving disease-fighting superfood appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Or, a pandemic.

One Swedish study found that the risk of cardiovascular disease and heart attack was a whopping 64 percent higher among people who suffered a severe stress reaction or other stress disorder.

And let’s face it, even if you haven’t lost anyone close to you in this pandemic, the stress of watching the news and wondering what the future holds can wreak havoc with your blood pressure and your heart health.

One of the tried and true ways to help your body cope with stress is by adjusting your diet. The nutrients we feed our body can determine how our body handles stress.

If you’re looking for a way to help keep your blood pressure under control, without turning to medications that may do more harm than good, adding a handful of the little blue fruit that’s already considered a “superfood” may be just the ticket.

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Blueberries lower blood pressure

A team of researchers from King’s College in London found that drinking 200g (almost a cup) of blueberries every day for four weeks led to decreased systolic blood pressure (the top number of a blood pressure reading, which shows the amount of pressure in your arteries when your heart contracts).

Blueberries also improved blood vessel function in the 40 healthy volunteers who took part in the study.

During the monthlong study, half the volunteers drank a blueberry beverage. All volunteers were monitored for blood pressure, as well as for flow-mediated dilation (FMD) of the brachial artery (how much the artery widens as blood flow increases). FMD is considered an accurate measure of cardiovascular disease risk.

The results?

Drinking blueberries daily lowered blood pressure by 5mm Hg, comparable to what’s expected from using blood pressure medication.

The researchers followed up with another study, where they tested the results of a non-blueberry drink high in anthocyanins, the antioxidants that give blueberries their color.

They found that the anthocyanin drink helped with blood clotting and blood pressure regulation, but they still believed that the real benefits come from the blueberry itself.

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Other reasons to eat more blueberries right now

Not only will a handful of blueberries in your cereal or yogurt help you avoid high blood pressure, this superfood still protects your health in other ways:

Blueberries fuel your brain. After 12 weeks of drinking concentrated blueberry juice daily, a group of adults ages 65-77 showed increased blood flow to the brain, and significant increases in brain activity, including improvements in short-term (working) memory.

Blueberries pump up your immune system. Research at the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University demonstrated that pterostilbene, a natural compound found in blueberries, works together with vitamin D to increase the expression of our natural disease-fighting genes.

Blueberries prevent atherosclerosis. Animal studies have shown that blueberries can help prevent the growth of plaques and lesions in the arteries, thus preventing the development of hardened arteries and stroke.

Sources:

1. Blueberries and Blood Pressure — News-Medical.Net
2. Recent Research on the Health Benefits of Blueberries and Their Anthocyanins — Advances in Nutrition
3. Blueberry concentrate improves brain function in older people — University of Exeter

The post How blueberries keep your blood pressure (and more!) in check appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

It’s a scary disease that can progress quickly, stealing bits and pieces of your life as it marches on — something I’ve witnessed firsthand since a good friend of mine was diagnosed six years ago. As is the case for many, hers it began with tremors that were at first barely noticeable and then became more and more debilitating.

And there’s no cure — only treatments to buy time, including brain surgery.

That’s why news of a study that has found potent Parkinson’s protection in your daily cup of coffee was a must-read for me.

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Coffee intake goes up and the odds of Parkinson’s go down

The research, following participants in the Harvard Biomarkers Study and reported in the Journal of Parkinson’s Disease, assessed daily caffeine intake versus Parkinson’s risk.

Participants filled out questionnaires to determine their usual consumption of caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee, tea and soft drinks during the previous 12 months. The researchers then put everyone into categories that included nine possible frequencies of intake ranging from never to six or more per day.

And the results just might have you looking forward to your morning cup of Joe more than ever.

The researcher team found:

• Caffeine intake was lower in people diagnosed with Parkinson’s compared to healthy controls.
• The odds of having Parkinson’s decreased significantly with increasing caffeine consumption.
• Compared with those with the lowest caffeine consumption, the incidence of Parkinson’s in people who consumed the highest amount of caffeinated beverages was over 70 percent lower.

Yes, not only was caffeine found to be protective against Parkinson’s — drinking the most caffeine lowered the incidence of the disease by a whopping 70 percent!

Related: What your appendix has to do with getting Parkinson’s

And this wasn’t just a flash-in-the-pan, small study with results that could be easily dismissed.

When asked about the findings, Professor Bas Bloem, Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Parkinson’s Disease, said this, “The strength of this new study relates to the robust approach, including the large and carefully followed cohort of people living with PD and the comprehensive set of outcome measures.”

In other words, it’s a strong study with results you should pay attention to.

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Is it time to drink more coffee?

Of course, even with the strength of this study, the researchers say you shouldn’t necessarily set out to drink more caffeine. They’re still working toward a long-term trial. But they do say that if you already enjoy drinking coffee or tea, you can take even more pleasure in knowing that it could help you ward off Parkinson’s disease.

For an in-depth look at more reasons to love your coffee, check out Why coffee is healthy for you.

Sources:

1. Age-Related Neurodegenerative Disorder — Progress in Molecular Biology and Translational Science, 2018
2. Parkinson’s disease — Mayo Clinic
3. New evidence that higher caffeine and urate levels are protective against Parkinson’s — American Association for the Advancement of Science

The post Coffee shown to decrease your Parkinson’s risk appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Like the way gum disease is tied to cancer and diabetes.

Well now, researchers have confirmed a new connection…

It comes from a type of drug known for helping get things “up” — but has been found to take down long-term blood sugar in type 2 diabetics…

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It’s all about nitric oxide

Before you read about this amazing connection, you need to know a little about nitric oxide (NO).

Nitric oxide is a gas that our bodies produce naturally. It acts as a signaling molecule, telling blood vessels to relax, for one very important purpose: to allow healthy blood flow to every nook and cranny of the body.

One arena where this is crucial is in the treatment of erectile dysfunction.

NO is what makes drugs for erectile dysfunction, like Viagra and others, effective.

You see, erectile dysfunction is a vascular (blood vessel) and hormonal problem.

When NO helps the muscles in the penis to relax, the chambers inside the penis can fill with blood and an erection can be achieved.

Erectile dysfunction is not only a sign of trouble in the bedroom. It can be a sign of a serious heart problem or an indication of high blood sugar that is moving quickly toward full-blown diabetes.

And here’s where the connection comes in…

ED drugs promote effects of NO on blood sugar

Drugs like Viagra, known as PDE5 inhibitors, harness nitric oxide and its ability to open blood vessels.

That’s why, in previous research, investigators tested a theory that providing a sustained supply of NO may be an efficient way of treating cardiometabolic syndrome. Reduced NO absorption is a hallmark of the disorder.

And they were right. In experiments using mice, those that had their NO levels boosted had better glucose tolerance and lower fasting insulin levels. And compared to a control group that was not supplemented with NO, the NO mice gained 17 percent less body weight.

More recently, research at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden set out to investigate whether the drug tadalafil (Cialis), might have a similar effect in people…

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Potency drug reduced long-term blood sugar in small group of people

In their research, eighteen participants were randomly assigned to receive either a high daily dose of tadalafil or a placebo for a period of six weeks. The groups then switched for another six weeks.

Because tadalafil has several unpleasant side effects, including headache, heartburn, diarrhea, muscle and back pain, low blood pressure, nasal congestion, tinnitus and blurred vision, the participants were closely monitored. 

How did things pan out?

There was no significant difference in insulin sensitivity. But surprisingly, tadalafil caused a clear improvement in metabolic control, based on a test that shows how much sugar is in your blood known as the A1C test.

For people taking tadalafil, the level of A1C fell by an average of 2.50 mmol/mol (millimoles/mole).

“That’s a very distinct improvement in the long-term sugar levels, which we couldn’t have dreamed of after only six weeks of supplementary treatment in patients with well-controlled type 2 diabetes,” said Prof. Per-Anders Jansson who led the research.

But he also had a warning: “Self-medication with PDE5 inhibitors must never take place because, at worst, it can be life-threatening in combination with certain other drugs. These medicines are available on prescription only and must always be prescribed by the attending physician.”

His team is looking at repeating this pilot study with a larger group for a longer period to see if the results are similar.

How the body produces NO

Our bodies produce NO in a couple of ways — no drugs needed — with the right foods.

The most direct way is via the nitrate–nitrite–nitric oxide pathway. Research claims it’s the most bioavailable, sustainable and quickest route for raising NO levels. And it works like this…

When we eat foods containing dietary nitrates (not to be confused with the food preservatives sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate), like beets or spinach, a chemical reaction occurs with bacteria in the mouth. This converts nitrates to nitrites and then NO in the gut, bloodstream and various organs.

The amino acids l-arginine and l-citrulline are also building blocks of NO and are found in a range of foods, including:

• Lobster
• Turkey
• Chicken
• Watermelon
• Squash
• Chickpeas
• Pumpkin
• Cucumber

So, whether you are a meat eater, a vegetarian or a vegan, there are foods available to you that will help generate healthy levels of nitric oxide naturally. That’s a relief considering the side effects — and the cost of drugs like Cialis…

To quote Dr. John Morley, director of endocrinology at Saint Louis University in Missouri, providing his opinion on a similar study, “Clearly, there is a potential, but these are among the most expensive drugs there are.”

Sources:

Potency drug reduced long-term blood sugar in type 2 diabetes — Eureka Alert

Feasibility of high-dose tadalafil and effects on insulin resistance in well-controlled patients with type 2 diabetes (MAKROTAD): a single-centre, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled, cross-over phase 2 trial — The Lancet

All About Your A1C — Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

The post The ED drug that brings long-term blood sugar down appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

But the flip side of this is that, without that small but necessary amount, things can start to go wrong.

Selenium plays a role in many bodily processes, including reproduction, thyroid function, and protecting the body from free radicals and infection.

Selenium is the subject of much health research, which has shown that it could help prevent heart disease, certain cancers and even asthma.

Most recently, research has focused on the role selenium may play in regenerating our brain neurons and helping to slow the decline of cognitive abilities that comes with age, or after a stroke.

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Selenium slows brain aging …

According to a study from the University of Queensland in Australia, selenium could be a powerful defender of our cognitive abilities.

The study revealed that not only could selenium boost the learning and memory power of our aging brains, but may also be able to reverse the cognitive decline that follows a stroke.

“We’ve known for the last 20 years that exercise can create new neurons in the brain, but we didn’t really understand how,” says lead researcher Dr. Tara Walker.

Prior studies on exercise and the aging brain uncovered a protein that is needed to transport selenium in the blood. Exercise elevates levels of this protein, allowing selenium to do its brain-saving work.

But what if you’re old, ill, or physically unable to exercise or even move around much? Can you still take advantage of the brain benefits of selenium?

The Queensland research team wanted to find out whether simply taking dietary selenium supplements could help generate new neurons, without the help of the exercise-generated protein.

They gave selenium supplements to older mice. New neuron generation decreases rapidly as mice age, similar to the way human brains age.

“When selenium supplements were given to the mice, the production of neurons increased, reversing the cognitive deficits observed in aging,” Dr. Walker reported.

… and may aid in stroke recovery

But would selenium supplements have an impact on the cognitive decline that follows a stroke?

“Young mice are really good at the learning and memory tasks, but after a stroke, they could no longer perform these tasks,” Dr. Walker said.

“We found that learning and memory deficits of stroke-affected mice returned to normal when they were given selenium supplements.”

Dr. Walker believes that these results open a new therapeutic option for boosting cognitive function in people who were unable to exercise due to poor health or old age.

But she notes that taking selenium supplements should not be viewed as a substitute for exercise and healthy eating, but that, in older people, particularly those with neurological conditions, supplements could be beneficial.

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How to get enough selenium in your diet

The safe upper limit for selenium supplementation is 400 micrograms (mcg) per day. Anything more can cause fever or nausea, and at extreme amounts, can cause liver,  kidney and heart problems.

Most people who eat a balanced diet of fruits, vegetables, nuts and fish or meat will have good selenium levels.

Brazil nuts are the food highest in selenium, with just an ounce (6-8 nuts) containing 544mcg.

Other selenium-rich foods include:

• Tuna
• Sardines
• Halibut
• Turkey
• Beef liver
• Chicken
• Cottage cheese
• Brown rice
• Eggs
• Whole wheat bread
• Oatmeal
• Baked beans

As you can see from this list, a good supply of selenium is available through a wide variety of foods. Even if you’re not a meat or fish eater, it shouldn’t be too hard to get enough.

Sources:

Natural Mineral May Help Reverse Memory Loss — Neuroscience News

Selenium mediates exercise-induced adult neurogenesis and reverses learning deficits induced by hippocampal injury and aging — Science Direct

15 foods high in selenium — Medical News Today

The post The trace mineral that slows brain aging and helps after stroke appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

It isn’t your fault. The modern American diet has made you the victim of a tragic nutrient deficiency.

Oh, sure, you’ve probably heard all your life how important it is to eat your fruits and veggies. But you’ve also heard that you should avoid fat — thanks to the wrong-headed advice of American nutritionists.

And that lack of dietary fat is a big fat problem for more than 90 percent of Americans who are missing out on the incredible health — and weight loss — benefits of omega-3 essential fatty acids.

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Healthy fats help you lose fat

Guess what? If you struggle with stubborn weight around your midsection, there’s a good chance you’re falling short in the essential fatty acids department.

That’s because without the helpful long-chain fatty acids found in omega-3s — eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) — the cells in your body become sluggish. When that happens, your metabolism plummets.

With the addition of EPA and DHA, however, activity within cells increases. That’s because these building blocks of omega-3s give the cells in your body what they need to operate most efficiently.

Researchers have proven that increasing omega-3 intake in obese people reduces belly fat by actually shrinking the size of individual fat cells. And here’s how it works…

Just as people who are more active tend to be leaner, the omega-3s have the amazing ability to increase metabolic activity within fat cells — so the more active cells stay in leaner shape than sluggish ones.

The benefit of kicking cellular activity into high gear is huge when it comes to sustainable weight loss. That’s because the smaller and more active fat cells that remain as you begin to shed pounds respond far better to diet and exercise.

This means that by adding more omega-3s to your diet, you actually can lose weight and keep it off without unsustainable fad diets and unrealistic exercise regimens.

Optimizing your diet with omega-3s…

A big reason so many Americans are deficient in omega-3s is that our diets are low in healthy, oily fish like salmon and mackerel. But adding more omega-3s to your diet doesn’t mean you must start buying and preparing expensive seafood dinners several times each week.

Fish oil supplements are an option, but my preference is krill oil. Krill are small, shrimp-like crustaceans packed with EPA and DHA. Because they are at the bottom of the food chain and found in the cleanest oceans on the planet, it’s a source of omega-3s virtually free of toxins that are commonly found in larger ocean fish.

Beyond its clean composition, what makes krill oil such a better ‘delivery method’ for omega-3s than fish and fish oil are the phospholipids that bind its fatty acids.

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Because your body naturally produces phospholipids, EPA and DHA delivered through krill oil’s phospholipid structure makes it easy for your body’s cells to get the most nutritional benefit from the oil. In fact, compared to fish oil — which delivers EPA and DHA in triglyceride form — krill oil is absorbed 10 to 15 times better.

That means your cells get packed with plenty of EPA and DHA needed for the peak metabolic function that promotes healthy weight loss.

While krill oil is an excellent weight loss aid, you’ll benefit in many other ways by making it part of your daily routine. That’s because krill oil also contains astaxanthin, a powerful antioxidant that’s not found in fish oil. Its antioxidant potency — in terms of ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) values — is 48 times more potent than fish oil.

That means along with quick and sustainable weight loss results, krill oil can also provide:

• Better skin, hair and nail health
• Mood enhancement and improved cognitive function
• Heart benefits
• Improved joint health and relief from arthritis

To get the most out of krill oil for weight loss and overall good health, a dose of around 1000mg per day of a quality supplement should do the trick.

The post Energize your cells to shrink fat—literally appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Sometimes the seeds inside fruits and vegetables are harmful. For example, the seeds and pits of apples, apricots, cherries, plums and peaches contain a chemical that breaks down into cyanide, which is poisonous. However, it’s unlikely most of us would eat those, let alone enough to do us harm.

But in other cases, the smallest part of a plant contains the most powerful nutrition…

Here are five seeds in particular that you should know about. Because these tiny powerhouses are so packed with goodness — they could actually help you live longer and healthier!

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Sunflower seeds

Sunflowers, those beautiful sunbathing flowers, were being cultivated in North America as early as 3000 B.C.! It wasn’t until the 1800s, though, that their oil and seeds became known as nutritional sources.

Just a small serving of sunflower seeds (just a quarter cup) contains huge amounts of vitamin E and copper, as well as Vitamin B1 and manganese. Copper helps make red blood cells and keeps nerves and immune system healthy. And manganese is needed for normal brain development, and the growth of connective tissue.

Moreover, that same quarter cup contains 34 percent of the required daily amount of cancer-crushing selenium. If you are a vegetarian or vegan, you need to make a concerted effort to get enough selenium. That’s because, besides Brazil nuts and mushrooms, the main dietary sources are fish and grass-fed beef.

Combined with Vitamin E, selenium is a potent antioxidant. More importantly, a selenium deficiency can lead to hypothyroidism, an underproduction of thyroid hormone that slows down the entire body.

Read: 7 signs of thyroid problems

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Coriander seeds

Cilantro, the herb used to season salads and other dishes, is actually the leafy part of the coriander plant.

Studies have shown that coriander seeds decrease blood sugar and reduce insulin resistance. And, in animal studies, they have reduced colon cancer risk by protecting against the action of fats in the colon.

But, they are perhaps best known as a digestive aid, and for treating mild insomnia.

Read: 7 kitchen ingredients to improve blood sugar control

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Pumpkin seeds

Pumpkins have been cultivated in North and South America for hundreds of years, and their seeds valued for a wealth of nutritional content.

After all, pumpkin seeds are rich in heart-healthy magnesium and omega-3s, and zinc to support both immune and prostate health.

Two other benefits of pumpkin seeds you should appreciate: they contain the amino acid tryptophan, which your body converts to serotonin and then melatonin, the “sleep hormone.” It’s also reported to soothe IBS symptoms.

And, pumpkin seed oil is rich in natural phytoestrogens. Studies have suggested this may help control hot flashes, headaches and other menopausal symptoms.

Read: 5 diseases magnesium could help you avoid

Flax seeds

Flax seeds may be the world’s first cultivated superfood. They’ve been consumed for their health benefits for about 6,000 years, and with good reason: this tiny seed contains:

• Omega 3 fatty acids to fight inflammation and support the heart
• Alpha-linoleic acid (ALA) to promote cardiac function and arterial health
• Essential fatty acids for healthy skin, hair, nails and eyes
• Soluble fiber that lowers cholesterol by trapping fats for excretion
• Flax seeds are rich in lignans, an antioxidant that:
  • reduces cellular aging caused by free radical damage
  • has antiviral and antibacterial properties
  • supports the growth of probiotics in the gut

Read: What this tiny seed does to your big appetite

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Black sesame seeds

While you may be more familiar with white sesames, Traditional Chinese medicine has long valued the black version for its health properties.

Just a quarter cup of black sesames has 35 percent of the daily requirement of calcium and 32 percent of the RDA for magnesium. Copper, the trace mineral we need to build joint-supporting collagen, is also abundant in black sesames: 74 percent of the daily requirement!

Black sesames are high in phytosterols, plant compounds known to lower blood cholesterol. Studies have also shown that phytosterols can inhibit tumor growth in the lungs, stomach, ovaries and colon.

Read: 4 ways to lower triglycerides without statins

How to add more seeds to your diet

It’s easier than you may think!

• Sprinkle them into your salad for some extra crunch.
• Toss them onto your morning oatmeal or other cereal.
• Add them to your smoothies and yogurt.
• Sesame, pumpkin and flax seeds are especially good for baking into breads and muffins.
• Buy sunflower seed butter and spread on toast.
• Try overnight chia seed breakfast pudding!
• Roasted sunflower or pumpkin seeds, lightly salted, are a delicious snack on their own, or added to granola or trail mix.
• Keep ground coriander seeds in your pepper mill. They add a Middle-Eastern flavor to your meat and fish.

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A few precautions

Salted seeds are often sold as a healthy snack food. Just be aware of the sodium content, and don’t overdo it. If you prefer a salty taste, look for seeds seasoned with sea salt. Or better still, roast your own at home.

Beware that pumpkin seeds are very chewy. That means eating a lot of them could cause indigestion or gas. Again, as with most foods, moderation is the key.

For some people, too many coriander seeds can be problematic, causing allergic skin and breathing reactions. If you are prone to these, check with your doctor first.

The healthy fat content in some seeds means they can become rancid. Be sure to store them in air-tight containers for no more than about two months.

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It sounds weird but it’s true.

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The post 5 ‘magic’ seeds to snack on every day appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

And if you’re one of the more than three million Americans suffering from atherosclerosis, you know this all too well.

Atherosclerosis is the primary cause of heart attack, but it also causes about half of all strokes. And there are often no symptoms until it’s too late and a plaque ruptures or blood flow is completely blocked.

That’s why prevention is key. And this time, it’s pretty easy…

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3 powerful nutrients could make one heart-healthy supplement

When it comes to treating or preventing atherosclerosis naturally, three is the magic number. That’s because when used together, there are three ingredients that, when supplemented, may help keep your arteries free and clear, according to research.

Researchers from Cardiff University collaborated with UK nutritional supplement manufacturer Cultech Ltd to test their theory that three was better than one when it came to treating atherosclerosis with nutritional supplements.

“A variety of active food ingredients have been shown to impart beneficial effects on cardiovascular disease although little is known regarding their actions when taken in combination,” co-author of the study Dr. Dipak Ramji from Cardiff University’s School of Biosciences.

The artery-clearing cocktail that Ramji and fellow researchers devised included fish oil, cocoa extract and phytosterols. And based on their initial results in cell-based models, it looks like a promising way to stop the progression of atherosclerosis. The next step is to test their results on humans.

Considering what the health world already knows about these three supplements, the results are no surprise. Because of its high content of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, fish oil has been a frontrunner to promote artery and heart health.  And krill, which many believe to be a superior form of omega-3s, works just as well at promoting your heart health — maybe even better.

And, due to its high flavonoid content, cocoa too has developed a reputation as an anti-inflammatory hero that keeps arteries clear and heart-healthy (a reputation that is also backed up by a significant amount of science).

Last but not least, plant phytosterols (available as supplements) have been added to the atherosclerosis-fighting arsenal because they contain fatty acid esters, which are proven to lower LDL (bad) cholesterol levels.  According to the Cleveland Clinic, when phytosterols are combined with omega-3 (DHA) they not only lower LDL but also improve HDL (good cholesterol) and lower triglycerides.

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Lowering risks means more choices

With research-backed nutritional resumes like these, you would only expect that these three supplements would pack a powerful punch against arterial plaque. But perhaps most important is that this solution is natural and completely non-invasive.

And if you get a jump on the game you could avoid medical options that are risky.

Doctors would recommend stenting, which is often done as a “precautionary measure.” But a review showed that there is no data confirming that these procedures reduce the risk of stroke, which is the stated reason for the surgery and the stent in the first place. In fact, carotid stenosis screenings often lead to false positives, which lead to unnecessary procedures, which lead to people dying unnecessarily.

The results of a major $100-million study on the effectiveness of stents and bypass surgery found lifestyle and medications worked better.

But not all medications are risk-free.

Take statins? There are the studies they want you to see that make it out to be a miracle drug. But other studies show that for every 10,000 people on statins, there were:

• 307 additional patients with cataracts.
• 23 more patients with acute kidney failure.
• 74 additional patients with liver dysfunction.

Another scientific review found that statins were even worse for women, actually increasing their risk for cardiac disease.

Just remember, this dangerous condition is often symptom-free and alarmingly common, affecting up to 80 percent of Americans over 30 years old. Taking supplements, along with following a healthy diet and exercising regularly, could decrease these odds so surgery later or risky drugs aren’t your only option.

Sources:

Could a combined dietary supplement help ward off heart disease? —Science Daily

Flavonoids: Antioxidants Against Atherosclerosis — The Journal Nutrients

Chocolate Consumption is Inversely Associated with Calcified Atherosclerotic Plaque in the Coronary Arteries: The NHLBI Family Heart Study — Clinical Nutrition

Omega-3 fatty acids in atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease — Future Science OA

The post Triple nutrient cocktail could help stave off heart attack and stroke appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Drinking too much coffee has been shown to lead to heart palpitations.

But at the same time, drinking higher amounts of coffee was associated with a three percent reduced risk of developing an arrhythmia, including atrial fibrillation.

A daily cup of coffee may also help heart attack survivors lower their risk of death after a heart attack — and two cups a day may lower heart failure risk by 30 percent.

However, a previous study suggests if you have very high blood pressure, you should limit your coffee consumption to a cup a day or risk doubling your chances of death from cardiovascular disease.

So what is the truth? A team of researchers working to resolve these mixed messages has discovered something surprising about coffee, blood pressure and the best predictor of stroke and heart attack…

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One to three cups a day maintains low blood pressure

Almost 10 million tons of coffee are consumed worldwide. No doubt, a little of the beverage’s popularity might be attributed to studies that imply protective effects against cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and certain neurodegenerative and liver diseases.

However, investigators are still trying to unravel the mechanisms behind these benefits, since many of them do not appear to be directly related to the caffeine in coffee.

“Caffeine is only one of the several coffee components and certainly not the only one with an active role,” says Arrigo Cicero, a professor at the University of Bologna. “Positive effects on human health have indeed been recorded even among those who consume decaffeinated coffee.”

Cicero adds that while it’s true caffeine can increase blood pressure, other bioactive components in coffee seem to offset this effect, resulting in a positive end result on blood pressure levels.

To explore this phenomenon further, the research team looked at a sample of just over 1,500 men and women from an Italian heart study. They compared blood pressure levels and coffee consumption habits, along with a range of other clinical data All the participants were free from cardiovascular disease.

And the results were clear…

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Peripheral blood pressure was significantly lower in participants who consumed one to three cups of coffee a day than in those who did not drink coffee at all. Peripheral blood pressure is the measurement your doctor gets when they use your arm to take your blood pressure.

That wasn’t the only revelation…

For the first time, the researchers were able to confirm an almost identical phenomenon with regard to central aortic pressure — the measure that’s closest to the heart.

Experts believe measuring central aortic pressure is more accurate and useful than peripheral blood pressure because it’s better at predicting if the person will have a stroke or heart disease.

Bottom line: People who drink two or three cups of coffee a day have lower blood pressure than those who drink just one cup or none at all. And all results confirmed the positive effects of coffee in mitigating the risk of cardiovascular disease.

How to drink coffee like the Italians

One thing the researchers did not track was the preparation methods of the self-reported coffee consumption by participants — or how much of the coffee consumed by the participants was decaffeinated.

However, Italians drink very little decaffeinated coffee — it makes up less than 5 percent of the market,  and as of 2018 that was shrinking.

The most popular preparation among Italians is expresso. They may enjoy 7 or 8 per day — but in very small amounts, often just a few ounces at a time.

Based on time of day, milk may be added (cappuccinos are popular in the morning) and sometimes a little cocoa (which has health benefits of its own). Later in the day, adding milk is frowned upon because it’s considered “too heavy.”

As for milk, follow your preference. Copenhagen researchers found that taking your coffee with milk can boost the inflammation-dousing power of polyphenols.

A key thing to remember about drinking coffee is to go easy on the sugar to avoid the sweetener’s ill health effects.

However, Italians can be a little heavy-handed with the sugar. A friend shared a story about an Italian nun who visited and wanted to make the family authentic espresso. It was too sweet even for their tastes. This might be one time the adage “when in Rome,” might not be the best advice.

Sources:

Drinking coffee helps maintain low blood pressure — EurekAlert!

Self-Reported Coffee Consumption and Central and Peripheral Blood Pressure in the Cohort of the Brisighella Heart Study — Nutrients

Central Blood Pressure Measurement — Cleveland Clinic

The post Coffee’s blood pressure benefits ‘closest to the heart’ appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

After all, heart disease is the number one killer of women in the United States, taking the lives of more women each year than all types of cancers combined. 

In fact, the likelihood that a woman will die of breast cancer is about 1 in 30. The chance that she will die from heart disease is 1 in 3.

Given that heart disease is a woman’s disease and that it is predominantly preventable, I’d like to share some heart-healthy tips for women at every phase of life.

Let’s start with those of you in your 20s and 30s…

Heart disease doesn’t just happen when you get older

Although heart disease disproportionately affects older women, it’s critically important to lower your heart disease risk at as young an age as possible. 

Heart disease — the build-up of plaque in arteries — is a result of the cumulative impact of various risk factors. So the earlier you start addressing those, the better. 

One of the best things you can do for your heart in your 20s and 30s is to not start smoking — or vaping. And quitting if you already smoke or vape. 

About 14% of women between ages 25 and 44 smoke cigarettes.  1 in 5 Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 vapes.  Most people think vaping is much less injurious compared to smoking, but when it comes to heart health, that’s just not true.

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For decades, we’ve known that the toxic chemicals in cigarette smoke damage the cells that line blood vessel walls. 

That not only reduces blood vessel reactivity so that they can’t dilate properly in response to stress — but also makes them more susceptible to accumulating plaque leading to coronary artery blockages, stroke, peripheral vascular disease and abdominal aortic aneurysms.

What we are beginning to see is that vaping nicotine is probably equally dangerous to blood vessel health, and those negative impacts show up even among younger users with less exposure to nicotine than older smokers… 

Recent studies have shown that people who vape or smoke have worse blood pressure, higher heart rates and more blood vessel constriction, and can’t exercise as well as people who don’t use nicotine at all.

Plus, we really don’t know what the health effects may be of regularly exposing your respiratory system to the vaporized scents, flavors and nicotine carriers that are part and parcel of e-juice. 

Many of these compounds are “generally regarded as safe” by the FDA based on data around ingestion, but their effects on the respiratory system might not necessarily be benign. For example, workers at a microwave popcorn processing plant became sick with severe lung disorder, later dubbed “popcorn lung” after airborne exposure to butter flavoring chemicals. What could recurrent exposure to a bubble gum flavor in vape juice do to the lungs of teenage girls? We have no idea.

Make exercise and healthy weight a priority

Besides avoiding all nicotine-containing products, another important health step during your 20s and 30s is to attain and maintain a healthy weight. Our bodies respond to food and exercise adjustments most readily when we are young. I’m not suggesting you have to run marathons or be a stick.  Get your body to a place you are happy with and keep it there — and get back to that place after each pregnancy (I know, easier said than done). 

Making exercise a daily habit now will really help keep you fit down the road. I started regular exercise at the tender age of 54. I wish I had started MUCH earlier because regular physical activity has given me so much energy and has helped me feel so much better! 

Setting aside time to exercise might feel selfish if you have a young family. But no one can do this for you. Plus, don’t you want to be that fun, active mom that can keep up with her kids even when they’re teens?

I’ve never had a weight issue, but I see many female patients who hit 50 out of shape and markedly overweight. And what I can tell you is that losing weight and getting fit is WAY harder after menopause. Being proactive about attaining and maintaining a healthy weight when you’re young is priceless insurance for the future.

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Checkups and testing

Your 20s and 30s are also a great time to start talking to your doctor about risk factors that can only be discovered through testing.

At your annual physical, make sure you have baseline tests for cholesterol and blood pressure. After that, your provider should check your cholesterol blood levels at least every four to six years and your blood pressure every two years, more often if you have a family history of either hyperlipidemia or hypertension.

If you have blood relatives who have experienced early heart or vascular events, let your doctor know that. Under those circumstances, getting your lipoprotein A level checked would be a good idea at this age.

It’s also important to note that gestational diabetes and eclampsia/pre-eclampsia are risk factors unique to women that translate into a higher likelihood of developing heart disease down the road. If you experience any of these during pregnancy, know that controlling all other, modifiable risk factors will be even more important as you age.

And lastly — but certainly not least! — don’t forget to eat like those people in the Blue Zones! As we’ve demonstrated many times, eating a colorful diet rooted in whole foods can go a long way to not only improving heart health but to ensuring healthy longevity. The earlier you include healthier foods in your routine, the better. 

And yes, it’s perfectly appropriate for young adults to consume Step One Foods. You may not need to eat them twice per day for cholesterol control, but you’ll never go wrong incorporating nutritionally dense foods formulated specifically to enhance health into your diet, even if it’s only from time to time.

I’ll be back with tips for women heading into the perimenopausal years.

The post Women and heart disease: Don’t wait to take it seriously appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

From guarding your body against metabolic syndrome and improving blood pressure numbers to keeping your mouth healthy, it’s often considered the holy grail of drinks.

So if drinking green tea is so good for you, wouldn’t leveling up its power and using a high-dose green tea extract be even better?

Not so fast…

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The health benefits of green tea

But before we jump into what we’ve learned about green tea extracts, let’s take a look at why we should all be adding green tea to our daily sipping schedule:

• Protection from DNA damage – Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), an antioxidant found in green tea, has been found to boost levels of a natural anticancer protein known as p53. It’s a protein that acts as a guarding for your genome, capable of repairing DNA damage and destroying cancerous cells.
• Lower blood pressure – A study in China found green tea was associated with a 6 percent lower risk of hypertensive BP.
• Better eyesight – Green tea has also been shown to strengthen the eyes and protect against two common causes of vision loss, cataracts and glaucoma.
• Improved gut health – Poor gut health can put you at risk for everything from diabetes to heart disease. But green tea has been found to decrease gut inflammation to help ward off disease.
• Potent antibacterial activity – This may surprise you, but green tea has so much antibacterial power, it works to fight off a multitude of disease-causing bacteria, including bacteria that target your mouth and skin. It’s even strong enough to go after tuberculosis (TB).
• A slimmer, trimmer body – And if all that weren’t enough, the caffeine and antioxidants found in green tea can also enhance weight loss by increasing metabolic rate and fat burning, both at rest and during exercise.

Clearly, the benefits of green tea really stack up! Does that mean more is better?

Use caution with green tea extracts

But when it comes to green tea, like many other things — you can get too much of a good thing…

Using data from the Minnesota Green Tea Trial, a large study of green tea’s effect on breast cancer, Rutgers researchers discovered a small subset of people in whom too much of the predominant compound found in green tea — epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) — increased stress on their livers, which could potentially lead to damage or even failure of the organ.

Now mind you, they took in 843 mg daily via green tea extracts — that’s the equivalent of about 8 to 10 cups of green tea daily — over a one-year period.

The researchers found that early signs of liver damage were more common in women with one variation in the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) genotype and strongly predicted by a variation in the uridine 5’-diphospho-glucuronosyltransferase 1A4 (UGT1A4) genotype.

For this high-risk group, signs of liver stress increased by a whopping 80 percent after just nine months of consuming a green tea supplement.

However, even the people without that genetic issue weren’t out of the woods. According to the researchers, people that were part of the low-risk genotypes saw the same enzyme go up by 30 percent.

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The takeaway?

According to Hamed Samavat, senior author of the study and an assistant professor of nutrition sciences at the Rutgers School of Health Professions, “We’re still a long way from being able to predict who can safely take high-dose green tea extract.”

But Samavat noted the risk of liver toxicity is only associated with high levels of green tea supplements and not with drinking green tea or even taking lower doses of green tea extract.

Green tea is an incredible tool in your arsenal to promote health and keep your body at its best. Just be sure to do it sensibly and avoid high-dose green tea extracts.

For most people, one to four cups of green tea daily is considered safe. The amount of EGCG in an 8-ounce cup of green tea ranges between 50 to 100 mg. So if four cups deliver 400 mg, that’s less than half of the amount that caused potential liver problems in the groups at risk in the Rutgers study.

Sources:

Not Safe for Everybody: The Hidden Risk of Green Tea Extract – SciTechDaily

The post Green tea extracts may turn superfood’s benefits harmful appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

It’s no secret that studies have shown that eating too much salt can cause your blood pressure to skyrocket.

But cutting down on salt is next to impossible…

Sure, you can remove the shaker from your dining table, ignore it at restaurants and say no to the gravy, sauces and dressings — but unless you’re preparing all your meals from scratch, salt is an inescapable given.

But what if there was something that countered salt’s bad effects? Sort of a “kryptonite” that weakened its ability to raise blood pressure?

Sound too good to be true?

Well, this time it’s not…

Research has found — that for women at least — a heart-healthy nutrient can lower blood pressure, even in salty diets, and are urging women everywhere to start eating these foods…

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The relationship between salt and potassium

“It is well known that high salt consumption is associated with elevated blood pressure and a raised risk of heart attacks and strokes,” says Professor Liffert Vogt of Amsterdam University Medical Centers, the Netherlands. “Health advice has focused on limiting salt intake but this is difficult to achieve when our diets include processed foods. Potassium helps the body excrete more sodium in the urine.”

Armed with these facts, the professor and his research team set out to determine just how important potassium really is in managing the blood pressure dangers of salt.

So they accessed the health data of almost 25,000 participants between the ages of 40 and 79, a near-even split between men and women, and compared their blood pressure and risk of cardiovascular events to their sodium and potassium intake from their diets.

And the results were clear…

There’s an inextricable link between potassium consumption and blood pressure — but dietary potassium was linked with the greatest health gains for women, per Professor Vogt.

The team found that as potassium intake went up, blood pressure went down. Specifically, for every one gram increase in daily potassium, women benefitted from a 2.4 mmHg lower systolic blood pressure.

And these benefits were seen most clearly in women who ate a LOT of salt.

What about the men? While their benefits weren’t as significant as the women’s, they weren’t left out in the cold completely…

The researchers followed up with all of the participants for 19.5 years. And after adjusting for all confounding factors, like age, sex, body mass and more, they discovered that people who consumed the most potassium in their diets had a 13 percent lower risk of cardiovascular events compared to those who got the least.

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Getting more potassium in your diet

When asked about the results of the study, Professor Vogt had this to say: “The results suggest that potassium helps preserve heart health, but that women benefit more than men. The relationship between potassium and cardiovascular events was the same regardless of salt intake, suggesting that potassium has other ways of protecting the heart on top of increasing sodium excretion.”

This is great news, but I do have one warning…

Just because potassium acts like salt kryptonite for blood pressure, don’t throw all caution to the wind. Too much salt has other effects on the body that are far from healthy…

Salt negatively impacts your body’s production of nitric oxide — a compound that relaxes and widens the blood vessels, allowing blood to flow.

A high sodium diet could leave you with immune system problems and open to infection as well.

Now, how to get more potassium into your diet…

To protect your heart and have better blood pressure, these foods should be on your list to eat regularly:

• Bananas (Green bananas have a special added benefit)
• Avocados
• Salmon
• Potatoes
• Sweet potatoes
• Pumpkin
• Dark leafy greens
• Asparagus

And be sure to watch out for warning signs that you may be deficient in potassium since many of us don’t get enough of the vital nutrient in our diets.

Sources:

Women urged to eat potassium-rich foods to improve their heart health – ScienceDaily

The post Women urged to eat this blood pressure ‘kryptonite’ appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

But there’s a problem with that assumption…

The truth is what your body absorbs from food can range from 10 to 90 percent. And many factors, such as time of day, other foods eaten at the same meal, preparation methods, the health of your digestive system and your age, affect how much nutrition you may or may not be getting.

Ease of absorption — or bioavailability — can also depend on the nutrient. Certain vitamins like A, D, E and K are all fat-soluble vitamins, meaning they dissolve in fat. If you want to soak up those important nutrients, you need to consume supplements or foods containing them with some dietary fat.

Then there are phytochemicals (or phytonutrients), which may be the most powerful source of antioxidants. Their potential benefits include strengthening the immune system, reducing inflammation, guarding against DNA damage (and repairing it!), regulating hormones and preventing damaged cells from reproducing and spreading.

They come from plants, but unfortunately, phytochemicals can be tough to free up from the fruits and vegetables that contain them. But because they’re far too important for us to miss out on, researchers looked into what we can do to make that easier…

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Help your smoothie give up the goods

According to Rosanna Chung, assistant professor in the Department of Health, Medicine and Caring Sciences at Linköping University, “Lutein is a bio-active compound. We have studied lutein in a similar way to studying a pharmaceutical drug.”

That means lutein is one powerful phytochemical…

In the world of science, a bio-active compound is a type of chemical found in small amounts in certain foods that have action in the body that may promote good health. These compounds are being studied in the prevention of cancer, heart disease and other diseases. 

Spinach is a great source of lutein, but as we discussed earlier, just eating spinach, even lots of it, doesn’t ensure you’ll get your fair share of lutein. Plus, there are additional complications…

Previous research has found that lutein degrades when heated. So cooking spinach can cheat you of this powerful compound.

That’s why Prof. Chung and fellow researchers at Linköping University (LiU) decided to explore different ways to prepare smoothies using raw spinach.

One thing they discovered was that lutein is fat-soluble, not water-soluble. So lutein requires gastric juice and/or other food components to free it from the plant material and allow it to be absorbed in the intestines.

They also discovered that the liquid you choose to blend up with your spinach makes a huge impact on how much lutein gets freed up…

Out of 14 different dairy and plant-based liquids used in the smoothie preparations, only four increased the release of lutein from spinach compared to water:

• Smoothies made with high-fat cow’s milk and medium-fat cow’s milk increased lutein liberation by 36 percent and 30 percent, respectively.
• Coconut milk was even more effective, increasing lutein release by 42 percent.
• Coconut milk with additives showed a 25 percent increase in lutein liberation.

Most plant-based “milk” beverages did not affect lutein release. Neither did yogurt, which could be due to the fermentation process. And soymilk actually reduced lutein liberation by 61 percent compared with water.

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Remember the fat

One reason the cow’s milk and coconut milk were so effective at increasing lutein release could be because they both contain fat. It works for fat-soluble vitamins, so makes perfect sense.

If you’re not a fan of smoothies, consider a raw spinach salad made with a dressing made from olive oil. Remember to steer clear of cooking it — if the nutrition is what you’re after.

One more important note the researchers made: Spinach smoothies should be consumed as soon as possible because lutein breaks down quickly. So don’t let it sit around too long or store in the refrigerator, or else all your hard work liberating lutein goes down the drain.

Sources:

The best liquids to maximise antioxidant content in spinach smoothies — Linköping University

The Effects of Dairy and Plant-Based Liquid Components on Lutein Liberation in Spinach Smoothies — Nutrients

How Much Nutrition Do You Absorb from Food? — Scientific American

Fat-Soluble Vitamins — National Library of Medicine

Are You Eating Too Many Antioxidants? — Prevention

Nanoscale Delivery Systems of Lutein: An Updated Review from a Pharmaceutical Perspective — Pharmaceutics

The post The surprising reason your smoothie isn’t that nutritious appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

And that’s fine with me. I love the creamy taste of avocados, and spreading one on my toast seems so much better and more flavorful than slathering it with butter, or worse, “fake butter.”

Well, research is now showing that eating just one avocado a day can help lower “bad” cholesterol and protect you from stroke and heart disease.

More specifically, an avocado each day seems to protect you from oxidized LDL.

Oxidation in the body is the start of a chain reaction that ends in hardened arteries, stroke and heart disease.

If just eating something I like every day can protect me from that, well, I’m in!

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Just one each day to reduce stress on your heart

Research from Penn State University took people who were overweight or considered obese as its subjects and looked at whether eating an avocado each day would help lower LDL (“bad”) cholesterol.

Specifically, Penny Kris-Etherton, distinguished professor of nutrition at Penn State, wanted to see if an avocado would reduce the oxidation of LDL particles.

“When you think about bad cholesterol, it comes packaged in LDL particles, which vary in size,” Kris-Etherton said. “All LDL is bad, but small, dense LDL is particularly bad. A key finding was that people on the avocado diet had fewer oxidized LDL particles. They also had more lutein, which may be the bioactive that’s protecting the LDL from being oxidized.”

Just as it turns an apple brown or causes metal to rust, oxidation causes harm in our bodies. We usually call this oxidative stress.

“We were able to show that when people incorporated one avocado a day into their diet, they had fewer small, dense LDL particles than before the diet,” said Penny Kris-Etherton, distinguished professor of nutrition, who added that small, dense LDL particles are particularly harmful for promoting plaque buildup in the arteries.

“Consequently, people should consider adding avocados to their diet in a healthy way, like on whole-wheat toast or as a veggie dip.”

Why avocados?

Besides controlling the oxidative process in the body, avocados do other things for heart health.

• Avocados are rich in lutein, a plant pigment found in the macula of the eye. In the Penn State study, participants who ate an avocado daily increased their levels of lutein by more than 68 percent. Lutein has been found to decrease the production of inflammatory cytokines in coronary artery disease patients.
• One avocado has 975 mg of potassium, about a third of the daily recommended amount. Low potassium has been linked to hypertension, heart disease, and stroke.
• Avocados fill you up. The healthy monosaturated fatty acids found in avocados help you feel full, which can help you manage blood sugar and reduce levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol.

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How to eat more avocados

There are so many possibilities here!

A ripe, soft avocado can be mashed and spread on whole-wheat toast, or combined with garlic, onions and lime juice for tasty guacamole to be enjoyed with carrots and whole-wheat pita bread.

The health benefits and versatility of the avocado are no secret. Here are even more details on what avocados can do for your health.

And here are some super ways to get more avocado in your life!

• Avocados for breakfast: Avocado Toast and Eggs Over Easy
• Avocado Banana Smoothie
• Avocados for dinner: Guacamole Burgers
• Avocados in salad: Chickpea, Avocado, and Feta Salad

Sources:

1. One avocado a day helps lower ‘bad’ cholesterol for heart healthy benefits — EurekAlert!
2. How Eating One Avocado a Day Can Help Your Health — Bicycling
3. Lutein exerts anti-inflammatory effects in patients with coronary artery disease — Atherosclerosis
4. Lutein and Your Heart — Cleveland HeartLab

The post One a day to lower cholesterol, stroke and heart disease risk appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

It’s clear to me that eating blueberries will help me maintain good health as I age. They can help keep blood pressure in check, mangle metabolic syndrome, and build muscle mass.

And I’m counting on blueberries to help me stay sharp as I age. The particular phytochemical compounds they contain, known as anthocyanins, have been shown to decrease dementia risk and increase blood flow to the brain, improving cognition and memory.

As if that weren’t enough, new research is showing that, even if cognitive decline has already begun, blueberries appear powerful enough to reverse its effects…

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Faster mental processing speed

A simple yet powerful study has just been completed by scientists at the University of North Carolina that demonstrates the powerful effects blueberries can have on people already suffering cognitive decline.

Dr. Carol Cheatham and her team recruited a group of 86 adults ages 65 through 80, all of whom reported having issues related to cognitive decline.

After an initial screening to determine their cognitive functioning, participants were split into two groups: one group added wild blueberry powder (made from frozen blueberries) to their diets and the other was given a placebo.

After six months, both groups were again screened for cognitive health — and the results were impressive…

Adults who had eaten blueberries showed great recovery in their mental processing speed — so much so that on average they had the same processing speed as those in the control group, who had reported no cognitive decline at all.

In other words, eating blueberries for six months restored their processing speed to normal!

Why is processing speed the key? Because it is, basically, the key to all brain function. It’s the brain’s ability to store information and recall it at a later time, and for most of us it slows around age 60.

Slow processing speed may also interfere with executive function.A person with slow processing speed will have a harder time planning, setting goals, paying attention, responding, starting tasks and seeing them through to completion.

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More reasons to eat Maine blueberries

According to Dr. Mary Ann Lila, an author of the study, Maine blueberries are particularly well suited to the role of “superfood.”

“Phytochemicals are compounds in plants that develop to defend the plant from environmental stress, fungi, bacteria and viruses,” she says.

According to her, once we consume blueberries, these phytochemicals transfer their health benefits to us. And Maine blueberries in particular have evolved defenses against the harsh northeastern environment.

Luckily, you don’t have to live in Maine to enjoy these delicious and super-nutritious berries. Previous studies have demonstrated that frozen fruits and vegetables maintain nutrients quite well, and now this study has shown that frozen, then powdered berries do as well.

There are endless ways to use frozen, fresh or powdered berries, but these are my favorites…

Blueberry-Pomegranate Smoothie

Blueberry Smoothie Bowl

Sources:

Blueberries really ARE a superfood! Study finds eating the fruit every day can reverse cognitive decline in elderly people, study finds — dailymail.co.uk

Six-month intervention with wild blueberries improved speed of processing in mild cognitive decline: a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial. — Nutritional Neuroscience

The post Daily blueberry powder changed brains in just 6 months appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Fats give your body the energy it needs to work properly. Certain vitamins need fat for your body to absorb them properly. Fats also control inflammation and blood clotting and keep your brain functioning well. These are just a few of the reasons fat is an essential part of a healthy diet.

The key is to consume healthy unsaturated fats. These include oils from olives, nuts and seeds, avocados and fish. In most people, these fats have a reputation for helping lower LDL, raising “good” HDL cholesterol and lowering triglycerides.

But when it comes to sauteing your dinner, what’s the best oil to use?

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Cooking for better cholesterol

Surprising, considering all the studies establishing that mono- and polyunsaturated fats are better for cholesterol, there’s not been one really large study comparing them all to see which comes out on top. The majority of these studies just looked at the benefits of one oil or food source at a time.

That’s why a team of researchers used a new study technique called a network meta-analysis to see the big picture. They sought to combine the results of several existing studies that met specific criteria: They had to have compared the effect of two or more oils or fats — from a list of 13 — against the participants’ LDL or other blood lipids like total cholesterol, HDL or triglycerides over a period of at least three weeks.

That gave them total results of 55 studies to analyze and identify those oils with the greatest impact on LDL cholesterol and other blood lipids.

Unsurprisingly, the final ranking indicated that solid fats like butter and lard are the worst choice for LDL levels. The best choices, by contrast, are oils from seeds.

“Sunflower oil, rapeseed oil, safflower oil and flaxseed oil performed best,” says Lukas Schwingshackl, a researcher at the German Institute of Human Nutrition.

“Some people from Mediterranean countries probably are not so happy with this result, because they would prefer to see olive oil at the top,” Schwingshackl adds. “But this is not the case.”

The researchers cautioned that this study didn’t present “a hard clinical outcome.” Schwingshackl said, “LDL is a causal risk factor for coronary heart disease, but it’s not coronary heart disease.”

However, he added, that it might be difficult to conduct a study comparing those clinical outcomes. Study participants would need to eat one type of fat for years at a time, to compare results.

One risk of meta-analyses like this one is they could mislead by combining several pieces of low-confidence data into one falsely confident-sounding ranking. In this case, for instance, there wasn’t enough evidence to choose a single seed oil that was most beneficial. Also, the oils that were best at lowering LDL were not the most beneficial for triglycerides or HDL.

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Not all saturated fats are bad

Interestingly, the meta-analysis showed that beef fat and coconut and palm oils, all of which are classified as saturated fats, were more effective at reducing LDL than butter. What’s more, palm oil had the best impact on triglycerides, and coconut oil was best for elevating HDL levels.

So what does this mean? Should we treat all fats as the same, even those classified as less-healthy saturated fats?

The answer: it depends on the type. Using a plant-based saturated fat like coconut oil is probably fine in moderation.

The worst trouble seems to lie with trans-fats, which are types of fats classified as hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated. These chemically created fats are designed to give oils and processed foods a longer shelf life.

These “fake” fats are terrible for our cholesterol levels, raising the “bad” LDL while lowering the “good” HDL. They also fuel inflammation, disrupt cell signaling and interfere with numerous critical bodily functions. Worse, because the body doesn’t recognize them, it has a difficult time processing and eliminating them.

The FDA banned the use of trans fats in food in 2020 but they warn they may still appear in some foods. You can find a list here, and of course, they’re processed foods. They advise checking labels. We’d advise avoiding processed foods as much as possible.

Sources:

Seed oils are best for LDL cholesterol — ScienceDaily

Effects of oils and solid fats on blood lipids: a systematic review and network meta-analysis — Journal of Lipid Research

Blood Cholesterol: Causes and Risk Factors — National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

Coconut oil and palm oil’s role in nutrition, health and national development: A review — Ghana Medical Journal

Saturated Fat — American Heart Association

Trans Fats — American Heart Association

The post High LDL? Seed oils may help best appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

But even though we know they’re bad for our health, we still crave them.

So much so that you might even think that sugar hijacks your brain, causing you to eat more and more of it.

Well, according to the latest research, you’d be correct.

Eating fats and sugars just makes you eat more

“Our tendency to eat high-fat and high-sugar foods, the so-called Western diet, could be innate or develop as a result of being overweight. But we think that the brain learns this preference,” says Dr. Sharmili Edwin Thanarajah of the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research, Cologne, Germany.

Along with other scientists from the Institute, Dr. Thanarajah tested her hypothesis that eating high-sugar and high-fat foods changes our brain in ways that make us eat more of those foods instead of choosing healthier ones.

To test this hypothesis, the researchers gave one group of volunteers a small pudding containing a lot of fat and sugar once a day for eight weeks, in addition to their regular diet.

They measured volunteers’ brain activity before and during the eight-week period.

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Brain changes were observed in the group that ate the puddings. Specifically, it activated the dopaminergic system, the region in the brain responsible for motivation and reward.

Dr. Marc Tittgemeyer, the study’s lead author, explains:

“Our measurements of brain activity showed that the brain rewires itself through the consumption of [fat and sugars]. It subconsciously learns to prefer rewarding food. Through these changes in the brain, we will unconsciously always prefer the foods that contain a lot of fat and sugar.”

Even if you’re a healthy eater, it won’t take much to affect your brain

Even if you’re not a habitual candy and chip eater, these researchers warn that all it takes is one binge to create these changes in your brain.

And once your brain has been rewired, you’re way more likely to binge again. And again.

Your brain will reward you with a dopamine “hit” for eating that candy, while it won’t give you any such reward for a healthy meal.

It’s easy to see how this can lead you down a path of craving sweets, even if you’ve spent your life avoiding them.

How to control those cravings

Clearly, the best way to avoid eating too much sugar is not to start in the first place.

Or, if you do indulge from time to time, here’s some advice on how to keep your brain in balance and avoid sugar cravings.

Chromium supplements can help curb sugar cravings. So can cinnamon, ginger, and other herbs found right in your kitchen.

And if you do slip, here’s how you can quiet the resulting sugar cravings.

Sources:

Sweets change our brain — Science Daily

Habitual daily intake of a sweet and fatty snack modulates reward processing in humans — Cell Metabolism

The post The brain-changing effects of one more fatty, sugary treat appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

That’s because, in large part, it’s been seen as a man’s disease — by doctors and by researchers. In fact, most relevant clinical trials have included relatively few women.

An analysis in 2020 found that in a decade’s worth of cardiovascular studies, only about 38.2 percent of subjects were women.

No wonder current guidelines on how best to lower cardiovascular disease risk still don’t give advice targeted specifically for women.

Frustrated by this fact, a group of researchers set out to remedy the situation.

And settled on a diet that can lower women’s risk of coronary heart disease by nearly 25 percent…

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The diet that lowers women’s heart disease risk

To say that the Mediterranean diet has been well-researched would be an understatement. It’s probably the healthiest style of eating with the most powerful effect on diseases linked to inflammation, including diabetes and heart disease.

Olive oil, the heart of the Mediterranean diet, contains oleic acid, an anti-inflammatory substance. Fatty fish, also a mainstay of the diet, contain omega-3 fatty acids that beat back inflammation as well.

The diet also features whole grains. Eating whole grains raises the levels of 5-aminovaleric acid betaine, or 5-AVAB, which is shown to be heart-protective. 5-AVAB builds up in your heart tissue which delivers a protective effect for your heart.

Knowing these proven benefits, researchers at The University of Sydney set out to determine the effects of the Mediterranean diet specifically on women’s heart health.

They began by searching databases for relevant studies. Out of a whopping 190, they were able to settle on 16 relevant to women, published between 2003 and 2021.

Their analysis of these studies found that sticking closely to a Mediterranean diet was not only associated with a 24 percent lower risk of cardiovascular disease for women but a 23 percent lower risk of death. 

Women’s unique risk factors and symptoms

According to the Mayo Clinic, the following risk factors for heart disease are ones that women should pay particular attention to:

• Diabetes. Women with diabetes are more likely to develop heart disease than men with diabetes. Also, because diabetes can change the way women feel pain, there’s an increased risk of having a silent heart attack — one without symptoms.
• Emotional stress and depression. Stress and depression affect women’s hearts more than men’s. Takotsubo syndrome, or “broken heart syndrome,” resulting from extreme stress or grief, is notorious for silent heart attacks in women.
• Smoking. Smoking is a greater risk factor for heart disease in women than it is in men.
• Family history of early heart disease. This appears to be a greater risk factor in women than in men.

Also, lower estrogen levels, which occur when women begin to enter menopause, increase a woman’s risk of developing heart problems.

As far as heart attack symptoms, it’s fairly well known, but always worth repeating, that women’s symptoms differ from men’s. Women are more likely than men to have heart attack symptoms unrelated to chest pain, such as:

• Neck, jaw, shoulder, upper back or upper belly (abdomen) discomfort
• Shortness of breath
• Pain in one or both arms
• Nausea or vomiting
• Sweating
• Lightheadedness or dizziness
• Unusual fatigue
• Heartburn (indigestion)

Women should never ignore these signs. If you have any of these symptoms and they’re new, or can’t be explained by other things, go to an emergency room. Better to be safe than sorry.

Sources:

Mediterranean diet cuts women’s cardiovascular disease and death risk by nearly 25% — Eureka Alert

Primary prevention of cardiovascular disease in women with a Mediterranean diet: systematic review and meta-analysis — Heart

Anti-Inflammatory Mediterranean Diet Plan — Eating Well

Heart disease in women: Understand symptoms and risk factors — Mayo Clinic

The post Women can eat away a quarter of their heart disease risk appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

While this form of eating can involve skipping meals for a day or two at a time, by far the easiest way to embrace intermitted fasting is through time-restricted eating — simply setting a window of time each day within which you eat.

For some, that window might be from 10 am to 6 pm, while others might start and stop eating earlier. There’s no set rule, making it easy to adapt to any lifestyle. And according to a study from Salk Institute, it could be one of the best things you can do for your body.

That’s because the researchers were able to determine that time-restricted eating leads to positive changes across 22 regions of the body and brain and a whopping 70 percent of genes…

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Powerful changes at the molecular level

While it’s true that a multitude of past studies have shown the health benefits of time-restricted eating, exactly how it provides those benefits at the molecular level — and how those changes interact across our organs — has not been well understood.

So those Salk scientists set out to fill in that knowledge gap…

To do so, the team fed two groups of mice the same high-calorie diet. While one group had free access to food throughout the day and night, the other was restricted to eating during a nine-hour period each day.

Then, after seven weeks, the scientists collected tissue samples from 22 organ groups and the brain to look for genetic changes.

And in every organ group, the brain included, time-restricted eating was found to produce positive changes in gene expression — the process through which genes are activated and respond to their environment by creating proteins.

“By changing the timing of food, we were able to change the gene expression not just in the gut or in the liver, but also in thousands of genes in the brain,” says Professor Satchidananda Panda, senior author of the study.

All in all, a full 70 percent of genes responded to this easier form of intermittent fasting.

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This included nearly 40 percent of genes in the adrenal gland, hypothalamus and pancreas — organs vital for producing important hormones — which could explain how time-restricted eating can help prevent, even reverse, diseases like diabetes.

Overall, the scientists say their findings could have significant implications in the prevention of a wide range of conditions, including heart disease, high blood pressure, hardening of the arteries and even cancer.

So it seems that when it comes to better health and better functioning genes, it’s time to focus on when we eat, not just what we eat.

Choose your eating window each day and stick to it. 22 regions of your body, including your brain, will thank you.

Sources:

Time-restricted eating reshapes gene expression throughout the body – ScienceDaily

The post How time-restricted eating can change your genes appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

But for decades, experts, including doctors and nutritionists, have maintained that not only could T2D be avoided with the right intervention — but that the disease could be reversed. There aren’t many conditions or diseases that present that opportunity — or where food is the medicine.

The number of people suffering from T2D is rising globally — and at a much faster rate in developed regions like Western Europe and the United States. Experts believe this is mainly because of the Western diet

And research appears to back up this hypothesis — including which specific foods are the biggest troublemakers…

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Poor diet linked with the majority of diabetes cases

Using data from 1990 and 2018, investigators at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University developed a research model based on dietary intake in 184 countries.

Their analysis estimates that a staggering 7 out of 10 cases of T2D worldwide in 2018 were linked to poor food choices. That translates to more than 14.1 million global cases!

Out of the 11 dietary factors considered in the analysis, three foods significantly contributed to rising T2D incidence. They were…

• Insufficient intake of whole grains;
• Overconsumption of refined rice and wheat;
• And excess intake of processed meat.

They also noted factors like drinking too much fruit juice and not eating enough non-starchy vegetables, nuts or seeds.

Previous studies had estimated that 40 percent of cases of T2D were linked to a poor diet. The Tufts researchers felt the reason their number was as high as 70 percent was due to the inclusion of refined grains.

You can’t just lump grains into one group. Whole grains are full of benefits that promote good metabolic health. But refined grains are a totally different monster…

Refined grains are wheat grain products or flours that have had the bran and germ removed, rendering them low in fiber. Refined grains are used in many processed foods, cereals and ready-to-eat baked goods and bread. And they have the opposite effect of whole grains, especially concerning heart problems, stroke risk and blood sugar.

“Our study suggests poor carbohydrate quality is a leading driver of diet-attributable type 2 diabetes globally, and with important variation by nation and over time,” says senior author Dariush Mozaffarian, a nutrition professor and dean for policy at the Friedman School.

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The best diets for combating type 2 diabetes

If you’re at elevated risk for blood sugar problems, you don’t want to join these rising ranks of people touched by full-blown T2D. Consider this a wake call and heed the alert about which foods have the biggest negative impact—and which ones can support normal blood sugar levels.

Several eating plans can help reduce your T2D risk. In fact, some have reversed type 2 diabetes…

In one study, an eight-week restricted-calorie diet was able to reverse type 2 diabetes. Of course, that study involved ingesting only 600 calories a day, so it may not be feasible for people outside of a clinical environment to follow such a strict limit.

Instead, you might want to try a 5:2 eating pattern, which involves eating 600 calories two days in a row, then eating a normal amount of calories for the rest of the week. For most people, that’s between 1,800 and 2,400 calories. A study of the 5:2 eating plan found it reduced blood sugar and weight.

Other diets that can help keep blood sugar levels balanced include the paleo diet, the DASH diet and the Mediterranean diet. All these diets focus on lowering consumption of refined grains, processed meat and added sugars, and the latter two also include plenty of whole grains and fiber from plant sources. Fiber helps to control blood sugar, as well as blood pressure and heart disease risk

Sources:

Study Links Poor Diet to 14 Million Cases of Type 2 Diabetes Globally — TuftsNow

Incident type 2 diabetes attributable to suboptimal diet in 184 countries — Nature Medicine

Epidemiology of Type 2 Diabetes – Global Burden of Disease and Forecasted Trends — Journal of Epidemiology and Global Health

The post 3 dietary factors that lead to millions of T2D cases appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

It stands to reason that too much weight could put undue stress on your joints.

The Arthritis Foundation reports that being overweight causes nearly one-fourth of all diagnosed cases of arthritis.

And if you’re obese, you’re 60 percent more likely to end up with arthritis compared to someone with a lower body weight.

But that’s not the whole story.

What happens inside the joints of obese people to cause arthritis reads something like a spy novel…

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Obesity turns normal synovial cells rogue to degrade joints

Previous research has shown that fat tissue that has been metabolically altered by obesity releases proteins called cytokines which are known to promote inflammation around the body, including in the joints.

But a new study has found that, in someone who is obese, there’s a “stealth operation” going on that doesn’t just destroy joints, but actually “recodes” normal cells crucial to joint health and turns them into “enemy” inflammation-producing machines.

According to Dr Susanne Wijesinghe from the Institute of Inflammation and Ageing at the University of Birmingham, “Obesity is creating an environment in the body, which is negatively affecting cells called synovial fibroblasts, which are stem cells involved in regulating the lubricating fluid [synovial fluid] of the joints. The effect is that these cells get recoded into those that promote inflammation within the fluid around the joints.

“Then, like bad apples in a barrel, they begin to affect the whole joint, increasing secretion of chemicals such as CHI3L1 which degrade the joint and increase the progression of osteoarthritis.”

She and a team of researchers used biopsy information from both weight-bearing joints, like the hips, and non-weight-bearing joints, in the hands, from sixteen patients who had a BMI over 30 (which made them clinically obese), to confirm that weight alone did not account for the molecular changes seen in the joints.

Zoe Chivers, the Director of Services at Versus Arthritis, the UK charity that funded this study, summed it up this way, “The research reveals that obesity can lead to a change in the cells in the joint lining to make them more inflammatory and that these changes occur not only in load bearing joints such as the knee and hips but also in non-load bearing joints such as the hand.”

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Overweight and in pain — what to do

Hopefully more will come from this research to help improve treatments for arthritis. And even better, the researchers wonder if they treat osteoarthritis patients with obesity as a clinical sub-group, could they also see whether specific therapies that address the metabolic element driving osteoarthritis can halt their underlying risk.

But until they know more about how managing weight might impact the progression of arthritis, there are many good health-related reasons to give it a try. And the pain of arthritis is certainly an incentive. Still, that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

There are so many diets to choose from, that alone can be confusing. But a couple of years ago, a study determined that the Mediterranean diet may be the easiest for people to stick to — and that’s a recipe for weight loss success.

The Mediterranean diet also promotes healthy oils, especially omega-3s from fatty fish, and there are two very relevant ways they can help…

• The University of Surrey looked at previous research on the connection between diet and osteoarthritis. Based on 68 studies, they confirmed that fish oil reduced inflammation and decreased pain in people with osteoarthritis. Just one gram of fish oil per day can do the trick.
• Research published in the Journal of International Society of Sports Nutrition, found that six weeks of supplementing fish oil significantly increased lean mass and decreased fat mass in a group of 44 men and women.

Sources:

Obesity turning arthritic joint cells into pro-inflammation ‘bad apples’ — Science Daily

Obesity defined molecular endotypes in the synovium of patients with osteoarthritis provides a rationale for therapeutic targeting of fibroblast subsets — Clinical and Translational Medicine

The post Obesity and arthritis: The real reason behind the pain and progression appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Considering their nutritional value, there’s good reason to hold them in such high regard…

Over the years we’ve learned that eating walnuts can slash the risk of heart and blood sugar problems, cut the risk of metabolic syndrome, protect against free radical damage and promote living healthier longer.

But some of the most interesting research on the mechanism behind their benefits has to do with a special relationship between this treasured nut and your gut…

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The impact of walnuts on your gut

Previous research has shown that walnuts are great for the gut because they have a probiotic effect.

“Research has shown that walnuts may have heart-healthy benefits like lowering cholesterol levels and blood pressure,” says Mansi Chandra, an undergraduate researcher at Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pa. “This motivated us to look at how walnuts benefited the gut microbiome and whether those effects led to the potential beneficial effects.”

To determine this, the researchers needed to study the gene expression of gut microbes using samples from a previous controlled-feeding study. That study put participants with high cardiovascular risk on a two-week standard Western diet, then randomly assigned them to one of three diets for six weeks with a break between each.

The first of the three diets incorporated whole walnuts. The other two diets included the same amounts of certain nutrients found in walnuts, but not the nuts: the second diet included omega-3 fatty acid alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) and polyunsaturated fatty acids; the third diet partially substituted another fatty acid known as oleic acid for the same amount of ALA found in walnuts.

Shortly before participants finished their diets, fecal samples were collected to analyze gene expression and the bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract. And this is where the researchers saw the gut’s contribution to the walnut’s biggest benefit…

According to the analysis, participants on the walnut diet saw their gut microbiome altered in a way that increased the body’s production of the amino acid L-homoarginine. Homoarginine deficiency has been linked to higher risk of heart problems.

“Our findings represent a new mechanism through which walnuts may lower cardiovascular disease risk,” Chandra says.

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Walnuts: Whole food health benefits

This study is supportive of the fact that eating a whole food, as opposed to picking and choosing specific nutrients, may be key to grabbing all the benefits.

The participants who received some of the same nutrients found in walnuts, but did not consume the nut, didn’t benefit the way the walnut eaters did. That should be plenty of incentive to start adding them to your diet regularly.

How many walnuts should you eat daily? Most experts say one ounce of walnuts should do it. That’s equal to roughly a quarter cup, or one handful. They make the perfect replacement snack for those greasy chips and sugary treats.

Have you found walnuts don’t always sit well with you? Try this tip: Soak walnut kernels (that’s the meaty part removed from the shell) overnight first. By soaking them, you lower their level of phytic acid and make them easier to digest. Also, soaking promotes better metabolism and nutrient absorption.

Sources:

The heart benefits of walnuts likely come from the gut — EurekAlert!

History — California Walnuts

Walnuts: A worthy addition to your daily diet? — Harvard Health Publishing

How Many Walnuts Should You Eat in a Day? — Healthier Steps

The post The amino acid deficiency tied to heart problems and the nut that fixes it appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Fruits and vegetables with these color pigments contain anthocyanins, a group of polyphenol antioxidants that have a strong effect on cellular inflammation. Research shows that regularly eating foods rich in anthocyanins can lead to drastic reductions in acute inflammation and oxidative stress.

That’s likely why other studies have linked anthocyanins with benefits that affect cardiovascular function, risk of Parkinson’s disease, lung function, a strong immune system, slower aging, improved control over obesity and vision loss.

Anthocyanins also can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. And Finnish researchers have found that this benefit could be enhanced by a particular variety of these antioxidants…

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Acylated anthocyanins may boost protection

In addition to their anti-inflammatory effects, anthocyanins have been found to reduce the risk of diabetes by affecting energy metabolism and the gut microbiota. The Finnish study showed this protective effect is increased when the anthocyanin is acylated.

When an anthocyanin is acylated, it changes its physical and chemical properties. Acylated anthocyanins are more effective antioxidants and can also improve the intestinal barrier. This is important because your intestinal barrier enables absorption of essential nutrients and an unhealthy intestinal barrier can lead to problems connected to leaky gut syndrome.

In addition, acylated anthocyanins have probiotic properties that help maintain balance in the gut microbiome, suppress inflammatory pathways and modulate the metabolism of glucose and lipids. That last part is especially beneficial for blood sugar problems.

“The latest research has shown that the acylated and nonacylated anthocyanins can impact type 2 diabetes in different ways,” says Kang Chen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Turku in Finland.

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Best sources of acylated anthocyanins

Chen notes the plant’s genotype defines whether they produce acylated or nonacylated anthocyanins.

“In general, purple vegetables contain many acylated anthocyanins,” he says. “Also, purple potatoes, especially the Finnish variety called Synkeä Sakari, are abundant in acylated anthocyanins.”

The researchers say a large amount of acylated anthocyanins can be found in purple potatoes, purple sweet potatoes, red radishes, purple carrots and red cabbages.

By contrast, many berries, including bilberries and mulberries, contain mostly nonacylated anthocyanins. Two exceptions are blueberries and gooseberries, both of which appear to have a significant amount of acylated anthocyanins, according to earlier studies.

Previous research has found that anthocyanins can be degraded through high-temperature cooking methods. Interestingly, the Finnish researchers observe that acylated anthocyanins do appear to be more stable than their nonacylated counterparts when exposed to moderate heat.

Still, if you want to preserve maximum acylated anthocyanin content in your red and purple foods, it’s probably best to consume them raw or gently steam or boil them.

Sources:

Purple Vegetables and Tubers Have Antidiabetic Properties — University of Turku

Anthocyanins as Promising Molecules Affecting Energy Homeostasis, Inflammation, and Gut Microbiota in Type 2 Diabetes with Special Reference to Impact of Acylation — Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

Anthocyanin composition and content of blueberries from around the world — Journal of Berry Research

Anthocyanins in berries of ribes including gooseberry cultivars with a high content of acylated pigments — Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

Effect of domestic cooking methods on the anthocyanins and antioxidant activity of deeply purple-fleshed sweetpotato GZ9 — Heliyon

The post How purple produce pushes back at blood sugar problems appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

They say that you can outgrow pollen allergies, but I haven’t been that lucky. To this day, my favorite season of the year is full of flowers, blooming trees… and sneezing.

Some days, the sneezing and runny nose are bad enough to make me stop everything else I’m doing. My body feels like I’ve got the flu. And on some nights, it’s enough to keep me awake into the wee hours.

I’ve found an antihistamine that doesn’t make me drowsy, but it doesn’t always give me a lot of relief.

This year, I began looking to more natural ways to tamp down my allergies and relieve my suffering, and here’s what I’ve found…

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Allergy remedies for natural relief

1. Honey. The bee pollen in honey is said to desensitize your body to other pollens. Just make sure that it’s honey local to your area. Start adding honey to your diet each day before allergy season starts.

2. Vitamin C. Vitamin C prevents your immune system from forming histamines, chemicals that cause the sneezing, watery eyes and runny nose of allergy sufferers.

Foods that have both vitamin C and flavonoids, especially quercetin and bromelain, are particularly effective. These include pineapple, citrus fruits, strawberries, cranberries and red peppers.

Vitamin C supplements work best if they are taken at intervals throughout the day.

3. Hot peppers. Capsaicin, the active chemical found in hot chili peppers, can open nasal passages and reduce congestion. While it won’t prevent the allergic reaction itself, it can make you a lot more comfortable during allergy season.

4. Carotenoids. The natural pigments that give many fruits and vegetables their bright yellow, red and orange colors also act as a type of antioxidant that decreases inflammation and supports the upper respiratory tract.

5. Chamomile tea. Like vitamin C, chamomile has been shown to reduce the production of histamines. Warning: chamomile has proteins similar to those found in ragweed and could cause itching or swelling of the tongue, lips or mouth in some people with a ragweed allergy. Chamomile is also known as a sleep aid, so you may want to use this allergy remedy in the evening near bedtime.

6. Black seed oil, which comes from the seeds of the Nigella sativa plant, was found to be an effective treatment for symptoms of allergic rhinitis when you want to avoid the effects of other allergy drugs. In a study of 66 patients, symptoms including nasal congestion, nasal itching, runny nose and sneezing were relieved during the first two weeks of using it.

7. Green tea. Naturopathic physician Dr. Peter D’Adamo suggests drinking a daily cup of green tea starting weeks before allergy season begins.

The polyphenols in green tea, as well as the amino acid theanine, are natural antihistamines, and that daily cup of green tea will build up your reserves before the pollen arrives in earnest. If you need to sweeten it, remember to use local honey.

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8. Turmeric. Among all its other well-known health benefits, turmeric is an immune system modulator. That means that it, too, helps to slow the release of histamines.

9. Resveratrol. According to WebMD, using a nasal spray containing resveratrol three times daily for 4 weeks seems to reduce allergy symptoms in adults with seasonal allergies. You might find such a nasal spray online, but there are plenty of food sources, including grapes, blueberries, cranberries, raspberries and more.

Dehydration can make your allergy symptoms worse

During spring and into the summer months, as the weather warms and we become more active, dehydration can become a real danger.

In order to prevent allergy symptoms, staying hydrated is also crucial.

Dr. Susanne Bennett is a specialist in allergy treatment, and founder of the Wellness for Life Center in Santa Monica, California.

She says that allergy sufferers need extra water to support the increased drainage (translation: runny nose) and tears that flush mold and pollen out of our noses and eyes.

The more hydrated you are, the more those allergens are diluted and the less those histamines will go after them and bring on your allergy symptoms.

Dr. Bennett suggests taking your weight, dividing it in half and drinking that number of ounces of water each day during allergy season.

Sources:

1. The best natural hayfever remedies and relief — Good to Know
2. Vitamin C for Allergies — New Health Advisor
3. The Best Foods to Manage Your Seasonal Allergies — Next Avenue

The post 9 natural allergy remedies that won’t put you to sleep appeared first on Easy Health Options®.