With the ever-increasing list of fad diets that the average person tries, it’s no wonder we have lost our food enjoyment and it’s hardly surprising that ‘disordered eating’ is on the rise.
It’s hard to go a day without hearing about the latest food craze and it can be tricky not being influenced by what you have heard. Worse still, you start to categorize food into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods. You try to avoid anything on the long list of ‘bad’ foods but more often than not, we slip up when we’re hungry, on the go or going out for a meal.
Disordered eating is not the same as an eating disorder.  It is estimated that 1 million Australians practice food restriction or tamper with their diets in order to lose weight. This can be anything from skipping breakfast, avoiding carbohydrates, cutting out certain sugars or avoiding all fats.
Despite well intended efforts to improve health and lose weight, these eating practices don’t do much for overall health and self-empowerment when it comes to food.
At the same time, these practices can also lead to unhealthier relationships with food with approximately 20% of the female population having an undiagnosed eating disorder. The statistics can be startling with 65% of females as young as 15 years old on a diet with 8% are severely dieting.
The problem is not with just the diets themselves, some of which cause nutrient deficiencies or other undesirable outcomes like constipation.  The longer lasting impact however, is the psychological bearing that diets have on your state of mind.
Studies have shown that maintaining a consistently slightly higher body weight is much better for your overall health than yo-yoing in body weight from year to year due to dieting.
The non-dieting approach to weight loss
This doesn’t mean you should throw in the towel with weight loss, it means you need a better approach. We recommend the ‘non-dieting approach’ to weight loss.

The non-dieting approach includes:

listen to your body’s natural hunger cues
eat when you’re hungry and stop eating when you’re full
get rid of your good and bad food lists. This is because when trying to avoid foods you’re not supposed to eat, it only makes you want to eat it more! Luckily, including a few small squares of chocolate post dinner may be a better way to stay on track than trying to avoid it all together.
Cut back on rich, highly processed and sugary foods like cakes, biscuits and takeaway for good results. Save these fun foods for special occasions instead of putting them on a bad food list.
Choose wholesome, fresh food that makes you feel good, energetic and satisfied.
Stop fearing food and see it for what it is, something that is meant to taste good and be enjoyed.  Food should be nourishing, respected and eaten mindfully.
Gabrielle Maston
Gabrielle is a health professional who has a drive for life and loves adventure. She is a sports & clinical dietitian, exercise physiologist and personal trainer. This allows her to decipher fact from fiction in all things nutrition and fitness.

To Gabrielle, health is not only about the science of the human body, it’s also about the mind. Self belief, body love and trying new things will build confidence and ultimately lead to good health.

If you need help with an individualized plan for sport, health or weight loss, visit her website for more information: www.changingshape.net.au
– See more at: http://www.asteronlife.com.au/balance/nutrition/disordered-eating#sthash.yzE2HpIk.dpuf

  5th edition

 DIETING FEARS  RUINING FOOD  ENJOYMENT
With the ever-increasing list of fad diets that the average person tries, it’s no wonder we have lost our food enjoyment and it’s hardly surprising that ‘disordered eating’ is on the rise.
Read it all…

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a model for the 21th century, I recommend it to everyone
who wants health and increased vitality.”
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HOW TO LOWER YOUR CHOLESTEROL
Cholesterol is a fatty substance which occur naturally in our blood.
Our body makes cholesterol and we can also get it from food.
The level of cholesterol in our blood varies from person to person.
Read it all….

More Health & Nutrition by Nutrobalance
How to Save your Brain
Skin Cancer
Protect your Skin

Cholesterol is a fatty substance which occur naturally in our blood.
Our body makes cholesterol and we can also get it from food.
The level of cholesterol in our blood varies from person to person.

There is  “good” and “bad” cholesterol. Too high level of “bad”
cholesterol is one of the risk factors that can lead to heart disease.
Cholesterol can build up on the inside of our arteries,narrowing them
and making it harder for our blood to run through.
Narrow arteries can become blocked, stopping the flow of blood.
If an artery feeding your heart becomes completely blocked,
you will have a heart attack.

More people in Australia die of cardiovascular disease than
any other condition.

Other risk factors are: high blood pressure , having diabetes and smoking.
Also men over 45 and women over 55 may be at increased risk of heart disease.

You may also have inherited a gene from your parents that causes
high blood cholesterol.
The usual goal for cholesterol content is 5.0  MMOL/L.  For some
it could be lower. Check with your doctor.

How to lower your blood cholesterol.
Step 1. Change your eating habits.
To keep your cholesterol level down you need new healthy eating habits.
Avoid foods containing saturated  fat.
Eat plenty of rice, pasta, breakfast cereal, fruit, vegetables & legumes.
Eat a moderate amount of fish, lean meat, chicken, low-fat dairy products,
eggs ( no more then 2 to 3 per week) and nuts.
Small amounts of “bad” oils, margarines and alcohol.

Step 2. Medication.
For some people , changing their diet may not be enough and
it may be necessary to add a medicine to lower cholesterol.
Have your cholesterol level checked regularly by your doctor.

Losing your mind is the most destructive disorder that a human being
can encounter. Most people who become senile and develop Alzheimers or other unchangeable form of brain degeneration are
aware of it. The worst of it is: we do most of the damage to ourselves.

The amount of information processed by your ten billion brain cells
each second makes our most advanced computers look like
children’s toys.Your brain controls everything, from the smallest
wiggle of your toes to the momently balance of hundreds of hormones
and the microscopically regulated metabolism of all the thirty trillion cells that enables you to think, feel and behave like a human being.

When only a few thousand brain cells get damaged or die,it effects
our whole body. Because of poor nutriton, pollution in our body,
over-use of drugs and lack of exercise, progressive brain damage
builds up. Our intelligence declines, memories fade, muscles astrophy,
bones weaken, immunity is lost and we become aged and an easy
prey for every disease.

Undoubtedly,the final solution to disease lies in the prevention of brain
degeneration.The good news is that recent nutrition science have discovered ways to maintain and even improve brain function.

In the average person, the first brain function to go is memory, starting
at age 30 and accelerating after the age of 40.As long as you can store
new information in long-term memory and recall it, you can change
your behaviour, improve your skills and enhance your life.

If that capacity declines, you become an automat, not able to learn
anything new, forever re-enacting the habits and memories of  an
increasingly distant past.

In order to prevent this decline, it is good to know something about
the structure of the neurons, which are the nerves in our brain.
Each neuron consists of a stringy filement called a dendrite, then
a cell body, then another stringly filement called an axon.

The dendrite carries nerve impulses towards the cell body and the
axon carries them away again. The nerve impulses carry information,
much like the electrical impulses that carry your spoken information
along a telephone line.

However, unlike phone lines, neurons are not connected to each other.
The end of axon of each neuron stops near the ends of dendrites of
other neurons. The gap between the axon and the dendrites is called
a synapse. The transmission of nerve impulses across the synapse
is accomplished chemically by the release of neurotransmitters,
compounds that flow from the axon to the neighboring dendrites.

Two of these compounds known to be involved in memory are
serotonin and acetylcholine. Both are formed from specific essential
nutrients that your body can’t make. You must obtain them from your diet.

Learning is stored as memory mainly through modification of synapes.
The particular pattern of synaptic discharges, called up by learning
new information, sensitizes the neurons involved to trigger that pattern
more easily on subsequent occasions. When the pattern recurs,
memory of what was learned recurs also.

A new  important  discovery is that the amount of neurotransmitter
present at the synapse, determines wether or not memory storage
takes place. If the amount of neurotransmitter is reduced, memory
storage is disrupted. We look at serotonin first.

The results of animal experiments at the Center for Neurobiology
at the Columbia University show that memory  storage can be
increased by intoducing additional serotonin into the neuron.
The same is true for humans, additional serotonin improve memory
storage.

You can improve your memory if you sleep immediately after
studying. Sleeping cuts off all further input and thus prevents
interfering material from blocking storage of the learning.
Now we know that the neurotransmitters are more important.
Serotonin is released in large quantities into the brain as you fall
asleep. It is the additional serotonin that improves memory storage.

The drug zimelidine also increase brain serotonin and imroves
memory. Serotonin is formed in brain neurons from the essential
animo acid l-tryptophan. The rate of serotonin formation  depends
on the amount of l-tryptophan that is available to the brain from the
blood.

To raise your blood tryptophan you can eat proteins that contain
tryptophan or you can take a pure tryptophan supplement.
People in European countries have free access to this essential
amino acid.

Because of the blood/brain barrier however,only an l-tryptophan
supplement will raise brain tryptophan without difficulty.
Transport of amino acids accross the blood/brain barrier is
limited. Trytophan is one of the class of large neutral amino acids
(LNAAs), that rely on a specific transporter molecule.

If you eat protein food at the same time as l-tryptophan, the other
LNAAs in the food, isoleucine,leucine, valine, tyrosine and
phenylalanine  all compete with tryptophan for transport, as a
result, only a fraction get through.

You can solve this problem by “neutrolizing” the other LNAAs
in the blood by eating high carbohydrate food with the protein,
like whole-grain bread or rice cakes. Carbohydrates lowers
blood levels of all the LNAAs, except tryptophan, thereby
permitting it to enter the brain preferably and so raise serotonin
levels.Your memory will undoubtedly benefit from it.

The production of brain acetylcholine reduces when we grow
older. However, memory improvement is achieved with the drug
arecholine, which stimulates acetylcholine function.
Brain acetylcholide is made from choline and pantothenic acid
in your diet.

Memory improvement by  taking choline can only be achieved
when taken with pantothenic acid as well.
Especially older people are lacking the essential nutrients, like
folic acid, vitamin B12 and thiamin in their diet.
Any strategy to maintain or improve memory must be based on
complete nutrition.

It is useless to supply your brain with acetylchloline if the neurons,
whose function it is supposed to improve, are already dead.
People with early memory loss still retain functional neurons
on which the choline can act. It is best to start early with choline
supplements before degeneration starts.

Another factor to be taken into consideration is that when choline
is taken it will only increase acetylcholine synthesis in the brain
if the brain is stimulated, for example by studying.
Also exercising the brain seems to be necessary to maintain
your memory level.

Memory improvement doesn’t happen overnight.. In most cases
any improvement can only be experienced after several months,
as it requires new growth of  dendrites and axons and even growth
of whole new neurons.

Science today has shown that it is possible to grow new brain cells.
Dr Fernando Nottebohm has made this remarkable discovery
from animal studies, when after given brain stimulating drugs and
intense mental stimulation, grow new brain cells and connections
in adulthood. Nottebohm believes it is also true for humans.

This new evidence proves that anyone can improve their brain,
but it doesn’t happen overnight. It  can take up to ten months
and six years for acetylcholine increasement.

In an attempt to increase brain acetylcholine with lecithin intake,
you must take into account that lecithin bought in health food
stores contains only small amounts of lecithin.
Only phosphatidyl choline supplements of  about 20 mg  will work.

The latest discovery shows that acetyl-l-carnitine maintains
brain function partly by antioxidant action.It improves memory,
prevents brain cell loss, boosts intelligence and restores
acetylcoline metabolism.

It is used in numerous doses of 1000-2000 mg per day throughout
Europe for treatment of Alzheimers, depression and memory loss
in the aged and for improvement by younger people.

The industry around weight loss is well aware of the fact that low-calorie
diets cause fast loss of muscle and fat.
For this reason, the market is saturated with fiber bars, liquid meals and
light weight cereals.
We live in a society of instant coffee,….. while-you-wait, etc.
Fast results are essential for continuous sales results.

The average consumer is not aware of the fact, that when they are
losing fat, they lose muscle also.
Nutrition scientists have known for many years that reducing calories to
800 – 1200 per day, which is below the essential energy requirement of the
body to maintain vital functions, causes you to cannibalize your own muscles
for fuel. On these diets, muscle provides up to 45% of the energy deficit.
If the deficit in essential energy requirement is 500 calories per day,
then up to 225 calories will come from muscle breakdown.

On only four weeks on such a diet, you can lose 1.5 kg of vital muscle.
In your muscles is all your energy created by burning of fats,
carbohydrates and proteins in the mitochondria of each and every cell.
Even an ounce of muscle lost, lowers basic metabolic rate of fuel
consumption and reduces your ability to burn body fat.
So all diets that are below the essential energy requirement of your
body are a guaranteed recipe for failure.

Besides the fact of losing muscle,which is your body’s engine,
the weight loss industry also know that fast fat loss guaranties regain of fat.
The physiology behind it has been known for decades.
Fast fat loss alerts the potent defenses of the body of its energy reserve.
The quantity and activity of the lipo protein lipase enzyme increases
immediately, which is the body’s main mechanism that collect digested
fat from the bloodstream and stuff it into fat cells.
Lipo protein lipase get hold of every fat molecule and even disable your
body to use it for energy.

In order to make up the deficit, you have to burn more muscle.
However, as muscle is your basic structure, it is harder for your body to
burn it than fat. As a result, your metabolism slows down,which reduces
your ability to burn fat.
Toxic wastes build-up as a result of burning proteins. This can make you
sick and cranky. This activity does not help you to control your appetite,
which becomes more ravenous.

It gets even worse. If you can’t resist the inconvenience any longer and
succumb to real food, the lipo protein lipase has become so efficient,
that you regain seven weeks painful fat loss in almost seven days.
But the biggest problem is that you don’t get any of the lost muscle back.
So the final result of the diet is that there is no change in body fat but
a big loss in muscle.
This loss of part of your engine causes further fat gain as it reduces
your ability to burn the fat you have.

Overweight people using low-calorie diets lose so much muscle that they
set their bodies up for permanent obesity, when they use them repeatedly.
The food industry is constantly creating new ‘functional foods’ that will
help you lose weight, reduce blood pressure and cholesterol, and help you
keep your blood sugar and insulin levels in check and so on and so on.
When did eating become so complicated, and since when could food do all
of these magical things?

Foods designed to help you lose weight are a multi billion dollar industry.
And think of how ironic of an industry that is, how could you possibly eat
something to lose weight? That doesn’t make any sense at all. The act of
eating always adds mass to your body, it couldn’t possibly take it away.
The only way you can lose weight ever, is to eat less calories than you
burn off. Bottom line, there is no arguing this.
This rule existed 1000 years ago, and will exist a 1000 years from now.

There is no possible way you could gain weight if you ate less calories
than you burned off.
No matter how easy you seem to put on weight, and how little food you think
you eat, there is always a lesser amount that will cause you to lose weight.
The actual matter that makes up your fat cells has to come from somewhere,
and that somewhere is your diet. If you eat more food than you burn off
then you will store fat and gain weight. If you eat less food than you
burn off you will lose fat and lose weight. That’s it.

So the list of 7 foods you can eat to lose weight consists of any foods
you would like to see on that list!
You could lose weight eating cheesecake everyday. As long as you ate less
total calories that day than you burned off.
The only weight loss diets that have ever worked or proven to have any effect
always make people eat less total calories. That’s it. Carbohydrate, fat, protein and
sugar don’t make any difference, as long as you eat less. If anyone tells you
otherwise they just haven’t done their research. And I encourage you to challenge
anyone who thinks that any ‘special’ food can actually help you lose weight.
It’s baloney, eating less is the only way.

Think of it this way. If any of the popular diets like low carbohydrate, low fat, high
protein actually worked, would you or anyone else still be looking for another
way to lose weight?

There are three main keys to losing fat and gaining muscle.
If you’re missing any of these you will most likely fail in your attempts
to build a lean muscular body.
So what are they?
1) Eat Less Calories than you burn off
2) Resistance Training
3) Eating enough protein to maintain muscle mass
That’s as short and sweet as I can put it.

Any diet can work as long as it gets you to eat less calories than you burn off.
The key is to find a diet that suits your personality and your lifestyle.
If you’re like me you don’t have time to spend on diet rules and focusing on
good foods and bad foods and what to eat and what not to eat, and meal timing
and all of that.
The diet that will work for you will most likely be the one with the least amount
of rules,or in fact no rules at all but rather just provide a guideline or two.
For me that diet is Eat Stop Eat.
It is the simplest nutrition program I have ever come across.

There is only one guideline, and that is to take a 24 hour break from eating
once or twice per week. That’s it, simple and effective.
This type of eating program might work for you, or it might not.
You just have to try it first. As long as you can find a diet you can stick with for
the long term you’ll be able to lose weight,
the next key it making sure all of that weight comes from fat.

This is where resistance training comes in.
You have to do some form of resistance training in order to maintain and build
muscle mass while you’re losing fat. If you are following an effective diet
without doing resistance training you could end up losing muscle mass along the way.
If this happens you could lose body weight without actually improving the look
or shape of your body.
Your actual body weight doesn’t matter as much as your percentage of fat.
If you can lose 5 pounds of fat, but gain 3 pounds of muscle you will only lose
2 pounds of body weight on the scale, but you’ll look 8 pounds different.
Even though 2 pounds doesn’t sound like much,the difference on your body fat
percentage is the key.

This is why weight training is so important while dieting. Weight training is
the best way to make sure you don’t lose muscle while you diet, this helps with
overall health as well as improving the overall look and shape of your body.
After all when you diet the goal is to show off the lean muscle that is under the fat.
The third key to building muscle while losing fat is protein. You have to eat
just enough protein to make sure your muscles can grow. This is a controversial
topic that many nutrition ‘experts’  still don’t agree on.

But the bottom line is protein is your friend when it comes to building muscle
and especially when you’re dieting.
Mix these three key ingredients together and you’ll have a potent fat loss and
muscle building program that can transform your body in no time.
One of the best ways to loose body fat is to enroll in USANA’s Reset Program.
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Most cancers grow very slowly, silently eating away at your body,
before they manifest themselves.
In spite of claims by the National Cancer Institute of successful
treatment, after a cancer emerges, medicine is usually powerless.

Every time you are set at ease by statements of the cancer industry,
remember the rapid death of  Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis of
lymphoma and Michael Landon of pancreatic cancer.
If there was an effective treatment anywhere in the world, don’t you
think such enormously rich people would have bought it?

So if a little of the right exercise can prevent cancer, it’s worth more
than all the gold in Fort Knox. And like all other good things in life…..
it’s totally free!

In my article about exercise to lower cholesterol, I referred to the
study of Dr. Kenneth Cooper who followed 13,344 men and women,
for fifteen years. After eliminating interfering factors, incidence of all
forms of cancer was closely correlated with lack of physical fitness.

Unfit men and women had 300% more change to develop cancer.
The fitter the subjects were, over five levels of fitness, the lower
their risk of cancer. But the best finding from this study is that you
have to move only a fraction out of couch potato land to prevent
cancer big time.

“You don’t have to be a marathon runner. A half hour of exercise
four or five days per week can drop cancer risk dramatically,”
according to Dr. Carl Casperson of the Centers For Disease
Control in Atlanta.

There are numerous new studies showing that exercise inhibits
specific cancers. So I will restrict to two prominent examples,
one for women and one for men.

Breast cancer is the most common female cancer and the third
biggest cancer killer in America. More women are developing
and dying from breast cancer today than in the 1960’s, including
all other cancers of the female reproductive organs, like uterine
cancer and ovarian cancer.

Together they make 220,000 victims among the American women
ech year. It will be a winner for every woman if simple exercises
can help prevent such disaster.

In a major study , Dr. Rose Frisch and colleagues at the Harvard
School of Public Health, followed 5000 women college students.
Those who exercised from high school on had many fewer breast
cancers and reproductive system cancers than their inactive
class mates.This evidence is clear. Regular exercise can stop
female cancers cold.

The regulation of estrogen and other sex hormones is the major
mechanism, by which exercise prevents these cancers.
If left unchecked, can cause uncontrolled cell proliferation in the
female reproductive system.

It seems that women who exercise regularly are simply activating
an essential health mechanism in their bodies, designed to be
activated in just that way by the Almighty hand that created all
life on earth.

What about exercise and cancer in males? I like to use examples
of colon and rectal cancers, although these are also a leading
cause of cancer in women. Colo-rectal cancers are the second
leading caner category , with more than 155,000 new cases
every year. Red meats and animal fats are major causes, but
so is inactivity.

A large study measured the exercise levels and the resting heart
rates of 8000 men over 21 years. As I mentioned in my previous
articles, resting heart rate is a good measure of fitness and
provides a good check on reported exercise. The risk of colon
and rectal cancers was directly correlated with heart rate.

An even larger study tracked 17,000 Harvard students for 25 years.
Subjects who were highly active, burning 2500 calories or more
i exercise each week, showed only half the risk of colon cancer
as their inactive fellow students.

The mechanism by which exercise probably prevents colo-rectal
cancers is simple and also part of the human design.
Exercise naturally promotes regular bowel movements and
increases the speed of excretion of food wastes.

As a result it reduces time for carcinogen formation and also
prevents prolonged contact between carcinogens and intestinal
walls. In our constipated society that spends a whopping
$700 million per year on harmful (oops! “gentle, safe and soothing”)
laxatives, this kind of evidence should be a wake up call to exercise.

These studies are just a fraction of the mass of intense research in
respected medical journals, proving that exercise prevents cancer.
But nowhere in any of the public advice hand-outs from the National
Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society mention exercise
as a means of preventing cancer.

Unlike pharmaceuticals and medical treatment, exercise is free
of course and available to everyone. So it garners no grants,
solicits no ads and makes no obscene profits.

In the American Cancer Society’s professional journal, called CA
for example, a new analyses of risk factors for breast cancer
includes everything. From residence in northern states to social
economic class, except couch potatoism.

Anyone less trusting than I might suspect that geniuses who
populate our health agencies, are either far too brilliant to bother
with lowly scientific research, or they dance to more moving music.
“One-step, two-step, I’ll scratch you-step, if you’ll scratch me-step,
Tee Hee Hee-step.”

Conventional medicine often does not recognize the early stages and symptoms of
a mineral or vitamin deficiency. Neither does it understand the havoc created
in our bodies by these deficiencies and the many ways they contribute to the
destruction of our health and the part deficiencies play in both our common
and most serious disease states. Scientists and physicians alike may wait until
a state is fully developed before they take action.

If we are to understand the importance of proper nutrition and  how devastating
deficiencies can be, we must first understand the differences between functional
mineral deficiency disease and organic deficiency diseases.

A functional disease is a condition whereby one or several organs, or groups of
organs, begin to suffer an impairment of function. For instance, the legs might
not function well, the heart may malfunction, vision may be reduced, or one’s
balance may be less stable than it used to be.

On the other hand, an organic disease refers to a definite, specific breakdown
of some kind. For example, a heart arrhythmia would be considered an impairment
of function, or functional disease. A heart attack would be a tissue or organ
breakdown, thus an organic disease. Arthritis, which is a tissue breakdown,
and diabetes, which is an organ failure, are both organic diseases.

The symptoms between the two disease types are different. If a person has
learned to be aware of his or her body, an evident reduction of energy would
be the body’s signal that a mineral deficiency is making it impossible to
operate at peak levels.

The normal sequence of a mineral deficiency is: the less than adequate intake
of minerals, followed by depression and/or loss of energy, insomnia and/or
anxiety, followed by muscle cramps. Any of these symptoms could indicate
a calcium deficiency.

Next, there will be a measurable lowering of minerals in the blood and extra-
cellular fluid. In order to maintain steady levels of minerals in the fluids,
and thus preserve life, the body robs the bones and tissues of minerals.
Since the cells can no longer perform at peak levels, the above symptoms increase.
At this point, tissues themselves become inflamed, deformed or deranged, and
organic disease is the result.

At first, a calcium deficiency might appear as a functional disease; though
depression may be present, the bones have not yet deteriorated to the point of
osteoporosis. Depression or insomnia, since they inhibit the person’s usual
functions to a certain degree, are classified as functional diseases.
If the deficiency is not halted, osteoporosis will develop and would be
considered an organic disease. Similar progressions may develop with other
mineral deficiencies.

Most people who take Vitamin and mineral supplements self-prescribe to what they think they should take, not even what is fashionable. As well as being a waste of money, this is likely to do more harm than good. Why? Because taking an extra dose of one Vitamin can lower levels of another. Falling short of a particular mineral can prevent the absorption of another, seemingly unrelated one. A dose of an isolated Vitamin or mineral that is too high can produce the same symptoms as a deficiency of another nutrient.

This is what nutritionists call synergy and it explains why taking extra calcium to build stronger bones may backfire on you. Too much calcium in the body can cause a deficiency in iron, zinc, magnesium and phosphorous by preventing their proper absorption. All these minerals are vital for good bone health and their ongoing deficiency can lead to osteoporosis – the condition you were trying to prevent by taking calcium supplements.

Vitamin D, which is also known as the sunshine Vitamin, since the body needs exposure to sunlight to make it, enhances the absorption of calcium, but too much can cause a potassium deficiency. Vitamin A is an antioxidant that is said to help to prevent premature aging. It does help to maintain the surfaces of the body,including the skin, but too much increases the body’s need for another antioxidant, Vitamin E, which protect against heart disease.

Vitamin C remains the most popular of the self-prescribed supplements: an estimated ten million Britons take it every day. Research papers now prove that it has powerful antioxidant properties that protect against cancer and heart disease and show how it boosts the immune system to protect against infections and can even speed up wound healing. Yet not many people know that it works much better in the presence of Vitamin A or that, to use it properly, the body needs calcium. Ask any alternative cancer specialists what nutrients their patients should be eating and they will specify bioflavanoids. Though not a true Vitamin, these are a group of biologically active substances found in plants that are sometimes called Vitamin P.

As well as cancer-fighting properties, they also have an antibacterial effect in the body, where they promote healthy circulation, stimulate bile production for the breakdown of fats and lower blood cholesterol levels. Foods that are rich in flavanoids include apples, beetroot, blackberries, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, cherries, dandelions, lentils, lettuce, oranges, parsley, plums, peas, potatoes, rhubarb, rose hips,spinach, tomatoes, walnuts and watercress. But what you may not know is that they all work even better when taken with Vitamin C, and vice versa.

Synergistic partners are rarely monogamous. To correct a deficiency in Vitamin A, you also need six additional nutrients: choline, zinc, Vitamin C, D and E, plus the essential fatty acids found in oily fish or evening primrose oil supplements. To restore normal levels of Vitamin C, you need the bioflavanoids, Vitamin A, plus calcium and magnesium. Those last two minerals are so closely linked that if you plan to take a supplement, you need to follow a ratio of 2: 1 in favor of the calcium. So if you are taking 800 mg of calcium, you need to take 400 mg of magnesium, too.

To correct a shortage of calcium in the hope of building stronger bones, you also need magnesium, boron, manganese, phosphorous, Vitamins A, C, D and F, plus essential fatty acids. To complicate the picture further, synergy may not affect the whole body but only specific cells, so the impact of what you are doing may be hidden. Smoking, for example, wipes out Vitamin C in the body, but this deficiency may be confined to the cells of the lungs. As you can see, when taking supplements you have to make sure that the Vitamin and mineral balance in your body is maintained.

Date:
January 29, 2015
Source:
BMJ-British Medical Journal

More than a third of children in England are overweight/obese, finds a 20 year study of electronic health records, published online in Archives of Disease in Childhood.

But the rapid rise in prevalence may be starting to level off — at least in younger children — the findings indicate, although there are no grounds for complacency, warn the researchers.

They scrutinised the anonymised electronic health care records of more than 370,500 children, aged 2 to 15, who had accumulated more than half a million weight (BMI/body mass index) assessments, between them, over a period of 20 years (1993 to 2013).
The researchers wanted to track any changes in the prevalence of overweight and obesity over these two decades.

The children were patients at 375 general practices across England. Their anonymised health data had been entered into the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink, a large database containing the health records of around 5.5 million patients registered with 680 general practices around the UK.

The analysis showed that between 1994 and 2003 the prevalence of overweight and obesity in all children increased by just over 8% each year. But the rate slowed substantially between 2004 and 2013 to 0.4% a year, suggesting that it may have levelled off, say the researchers.

Trends were similar for both boys and girls, but differed by age group.
Among the boys, the prevalence of overweight/obesity among 2-5 year olds ranged from around one in five (19.5%) in 1995 to one in four (26%) in 2007. Among 6-10 year olds, prevalence ranged from 22.6% in 1994 to 33% in 2011.

The highest figures were seen in 11-15 year olds, among whom the prevalence of overweight/obesity ranged from around one in four (26.7%) in 1996 to almost four out of 10 (37.8%) in 2013.

These patterns were similar among girls. The prevalence ranged from 18.3% in 1995 to 24.4% in 2008 among the youngest, and from 22.5% in 1996 to 32.2% in 2005 among 6-10 year olds.

Once again, the highest rates were among 11-15 year olds, ranging from 28.3% in 1995 to 36.7% in 2004 and 2012.

Overall, the increase in rates of overweight/obesity was significant for all age groups in the first decade of the study, but it was only significant in the second decade for 11-15 year olds.
Rates among this age group continued to rise in the second decade, albeit more slowly than in the first.

“There are several possible theories for the recent stabilisation of childhood overweight and obesity rates,” write the researchers. “One explanation may be that rates have reached a point of saturation.” Alternatively, public health campaigns may actually be starting to work, they say.

In a linked editorial, Professor Julian Hamilton-Shield and Dr Debbie Sharpe, of the University of Bristol, point out that the implications for such levels of teen obesity are “profound” in terms of current and future health.
They go on to say that many of the techniques used by local authorities in England, who have assumed responsibility for obesity as part of their public health remit, are not based on strong evidence, and there is little in the way of outcomes data to determine how successful they are.

Furthermore, many parents and clinicians remain to be convinced that childhood obesity is a serious enough health concern, they say, suggesting that it may be time to revisit the idea of implementing a ‘fat tax.’

“Thus far, we simply do not seem to have the tools to manage this problem effectively,” write the editorialists. “The childhood obesity crisis in England is far from over, and our current weapons in the war against fat seem unlikely to provide the answer.”
They add: “The recent call to the chief medical officer to develop a ‘child obesity action group’ may prove a first step in what is likely to be a very long campaign.”

The above story is based on materials provided by BMJ-British Medical Journal.

  4th Edition

MORE THAN ONE-THIRD OF KIDS IN ENGLAND ARE OVERWEIGHT/OBESE

Summary:
More than one-third of kids in England are overweight/obese, researchers report, however there does seem to be some evidence that rates may be leveling off in younger children.
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