Category Archives: health & nutrition

Health Advantages of Following a Low-Fat Diet

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Choosing a low-fat diet is another way to reduce weight. During the last few decades it has been shown that reducing the amount of saturated fat in your diet is one of the best things you can do for your health.

You will significantly increase your risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, certain types of cancer, and many other conditions when you consume fatty foods. Today, 66% of Americans are overweight or obese and the rate of obesity has more than doubled to 32%, with most of the increase occurred during the past 20 years.

The key to losing weight is: reducing the total calorie intake. And the easiest way to do that is to eat less fat. One gram of fat delivers
9 calories, which is more than twice as many as the same amount of
protein or carbohydrate. Also, our body likes fat. It’s easier to store calories from fat than from other sources.

Danish researchers found that those who reduced the amount of fat in their diets from 39% to 28% of total calories and increased their carbohydrates intake were able to lose an average of 9 pounds
in just 12 weeks. In addition, people who followed lower-fat diets were able to keep the weight off long after the study ended.

Another advantage of reducing fat from your diet is that it can increase your general sense of well-being, according to research. In a study of more than 550 women, researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, found that when the women cut their daily fat intake in half – from 40% to 20% of total calories – they felt more vigorous, less anxious, and less depressed than they had when they were eating their former diets.

Heart Health
Fat in your diet often goes to your arteries. There is a direct link between the amount of fat in your diet and your risk for heart disease. This is particularly true of saturated fat. The dangerous type that clog your arteries, can we find mainly in meats, full-fat dairy products, and snack foods. Eating a diet low in saturated fat is the best way to lower this risk, according to research.

There is no need to go on an extreme low fat diet to get the benefits. Even reducing the amount of saturated fat in your diet just a little bit can lead to a reduction in cholesterol levels.

Cancer Protection
When you make the switch to a low fat diet, you get protection against many diseases, including cancer.
Researchers at the University of Benin in Nigeria found that when laboratory animals were fed high-fat diets, they began producing enzymes that led to cancerous changes in their colons in just
three weeks.

You can also apply in real live what works in the laboratory. In a study of 450 women, researchers in the department of epidemiology and public health at Yale University School of Medicine found that cutting just
10 grams of saturated fat a day – the equivalent of switching from two glasses of whole milk to the same amount of fat-free milk – could reduce the risk of ovarian cancer by 20%.

A low-fat diet is protective not only because of what it doesn’t contain but also because of what it does. The result of cutting back on fats is that you generally eat more fruits, vegetables, whole grains
and legumes. all of which have been shown to keep us healthier, says Jo Ann Manson, MD, professor of women’s health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Good for the Eyes
Finally, eating a low-fat diet may also protect you against macular degeneration, the leading cause of vision loss in older adults.
In a survey of more than 2000 people, researchers from the University of Wisconsin in Madison found that those who reported getting the most saturated fat increased the risk of getting macular degeneration by 80%.

Starting your Low-fat Diet
If you want to start reducing the amount of fat in your diet, to know where to begin is not always easy.
Firstly, you have to find out how much fat you’re actually getting each day. Ideally, you should get between 25% and 30% of your total calories from fat.

For example, suppose you normally get 2000 calories per day.
When you’re following a low-fat diet, no more than 600 of your total calories should come from fat. This will adds up to 67 gr of fat per day.

Don’t let lowering your fat intake to 30% discourage you! This is a reasonable amount of fat to go into your diet. According to Lalita Kaul, PhD, a national spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association and professor of nutrition at the Medical School of Howard University
in Washington D.C. Eating low fat means: avoiding fried foods, forgoing rich, fatty restaurant meals for home-cooked fare, and searching for tasty low-fat recipes with which to replace some of your higher-fat favorites. Reach for a Lean Cuisine meal or a Lean Pocket when
you’re looking for at-home convenience.

Keeping track of your daily fat intake by reading food labels is probably the easiest way.
They are based on a 2000-calorie diet. So you can look at foods which are 30% or below.
Look for a spread that says “zero trans fat” on the label, to avoid partially hydrogenated oils.
Also avoid cookies and other baked goods and snack foods that contain trans fats.

Trans fats are now required to be listed on nutrition labels along with total and saturated fat.
If you are dining out or buy foods that don’t have labels, you can buy a nutrition reference guide in a bookstore or supermarket.

As mentioned before, the most dangerous type of fat to watch out for is saturated fat, which is found in animal foods like meat, butter, cheese and eggs, and some plant sources such as coconut oil, palm oil, tropical oils and cocoa butter.The same foods that are high in saturated fat are also high in cholesterol. So when you decrease one, you automatically decrease the other.

The American Heart Association recommends that we should get less than 7% of our total calories from saturated fat,partly by choosing fat free or low-fat milk and leaner cuts of meat, like sirloin or top round.

Enjoy the Good Fats in Moderation
Generally, you should reduce all kind of fats in your diet. Although monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat are not bad,you should eat them in moderation, because they contain as many calories as bad fats. They are found in vegetable and seed oils, such as olive,sesame,
and safflower oils, and in nuts and seeds. They have been shown to actually lower cholesterol and may help prevent it from sticking to artery walls.

The fat found in fish, omega-3 fatty acids, has been shown to reduce clotting and inflammation in the arteries, which can significantly reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke.
You don’t have to eat a lot of fish to get the benefits. When you’re following a low fat diet, having two fish meals a week will go a long way toward keeping your arteries in the swim.

Health Advantages of Mediterranean Diets

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Although the cases of heart disease in the United States were staggering during the early 1960s, heart disease rates from people in Greece were some of the lowest in the world.
But what was most remarkable about this fact was that they were enjoying this excellent health, although their diet contained nearly 40% of its calories of fat. In addition, they had one or two glasses of wine with their meal.

Scientists discovered while searching along the Mediterranean Sea that not only the Greece people enjoyed a long life, but also neighboring countries, like France, Italy and Spain.

Christopher Gardner, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at the Stanford Prevention research Center in Stanford, California stated:
“For one thing, the traditional Mediterranean diet includes a lot of
vegetables and legumes, along with fruits, fresh whole-grain breads, dates and nuts.
Meats like lamb and chicken were consumed sometimes and in small portions, and the main source of fat in their diet is monounsaturated fat from olives and olive oil, rather than the saturated fats from animal food. In addition, physical activity plays a big part in their daily routine”, he adds.

But how healthy is the traditional Mediterranean diet ? you may ask.
In one study, French researchers looked at 600 men who recently had a heart attack. They gave half of the men a traditional Mediterranean diet and half of them a low-fat, low cholesterol diet that was usually advised to people with heart disease to follow. Those who followed the traditional Mediterranean diet had a 70% lower rate off recurring heart problems than those who followed the prudent low-fat diet.

Similar results were found with other studies. After examining the diets and disease rates of people in seven different countries, researchers found that, taking in account the 46% of death rates of middle- aged men in America, only 4% of men on Creta, had similar problems. In fact, the death rate from all causes on Creta during this 15 year study was lower than that of the other countries.

Researchers in 2006 reviewed 35 experimental studies of the Mediterranean diet and found that the diet had a positive effect on cholesterol and insulin resistance. They also found that the diet lowers the risk of metabolic syndrome, heart attack and heart disease. And also the risk of cancer in obese patients who have had a heart attack.

The Fat Factor
Olive oil is the most important factor in the Mediterranean diet.
The total fat intake is 25% to 35% of total calories. Although people in Mediterranean countries eat as much fat as we do (or more), they eat relatively little meat. They eat red meat only a few times a month, but fish and poultry are eaten every week.

As a result they consume only very small amounts of artery-clogging saturated fat. “The big difference comes from limiting saturated fat and replacing it with monounsaturated fat, like olive oil.” Dr. Gardner says. Besides the fact that olive oil is a monounsaturated fat, it also contains antioxidants compounds that help prevent chemical changes in the body that can cause the law-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol to stick to the lining of artery walls. Sweet desserts made with sugar and saturated fat are consumed only a few times a week.

Nuts and seeds are the second-most common source of fats in the Mediterranean diet. Nuts contain alpha-linolenic acid, which is converted by the body to the same kind of heart-healthy fats we find in fish (which is also part of the Mediterranean diet). Studies have proved that people who eat the most of these fatty acids are the ones least likely to get heart disease.

The omega-3 fatty acids in fish that people in the Mediterranean countries eat have proved to reduce clotting and inflammation of the arteries, which decrease the risk of heart disease and stroke.
Following reports from the American Heart Association, clinical trials have shown that cases of cardiovascular disease decreases, when people consume omega-3 fatty acids, especially when it comes
from fish and plant foods, rather than from supplements.

Physical Activity
People in Mediterranean countries also take plenty of exercise, in the form of walking, hard physical labor, and stay active in general. They usually keep their weight under control, although they take in a lot of calories.

Five-a-Day Protection
The people at the American Heart Association would be happy if they could get us to eat the five servings of fruits and vegetables that people in the Mediterranean countries eat every day.
The Mediterranean diet prefers seasonally fresh and locally grown fruits and vegetables rather than highly processed foods that don’t contain as many micro nutrients and antioxidants.
Studies have shown that people who eat the most fruit and vegetables have lower rates of heat disease.

Also, fruits, vegetables and beans, which are a part of the Mediterranean diet, are one of the best sources of folate, a B vitamin that plays a big part in the prevention of heart disease.
Folate helps decrease the levels of amino acid called homosysteine. There is a link between too much homosysteine and heart disease. According to research, healthy people with high levels of homosysteine increase their change of getting heart disease about 14 times.

High Fiber
To add to all this is the fact that the Mediterranean diet is very high in fiber.High-fiber foods not only assist you by keeping your weight down by making you feel full without to much fat and calories, they also help
by blocking the absorption of certain fats and cholesterol. In other words, some of these harmful substances are flushed away before they can reach the bloodstream.
The powerful effects of fiber are shown by a study of almost 44,000 men, aged between 40 and 75 years, who added only 10 grams of fiber a day to their diet and lowered their risk of heart disease by almost 30%.

A Healthy Drink
The fact that wine, and especially red wine, is also included in the typical Mediterranean diet, also contribute to a healthy heart. Wine contains compounds, called phenols, that help prevent LDL cholesterol from sticking to artery walls It also keeps platelets in blood from sticking together and causing clots.
“In moderation, wine can be a nice addition to a healthy diet,’ says Robert M. Russell, MD, director and senior scientist at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in
Boston.

Final Thoughts
Although the Mediterranean diet is most renowned for the fact that it helps to keep your heart healthy, it also appears to lower the risks of other health threats, like breast- and colon cancer. Studies showed
that compared with women elsewhere in the world, women in Mediterranean countries have less than half the risk of getting breast cancer. The reason for this could be the low intake of saturated fat and high intake of monounsaturated fat in fruits and vegetables.

“The message here is simple,” says Dr. Gardner, “For optimal health, choose a plant-based diet, which is naturally rich in vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants, low in saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium.”

Cantaloupe – a sweet fruit that protect our sight.

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Cantaloupe is a strange word for a fruit, but when we consider that cantaloupe was first cultivated in the Italian village Cantalupo, around AD 1200, it makes more sense.

This fruit, with his bright colors, belongs to the same family as the cucumber, squash, pumpkin, and gourd . It contains strong compounds that not only helps to protect your sight, but also controls your blood pressure. lowers your cholesterol level, keeps your blood running smoothly, and protect you against cancer.

“Cantaloupe is one of the few fruits or vegetables which are rich both in vitamin C and beta-carotene,” says John Erdman, PhD, professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Illinois in Urbana.
These antioxidant compounds have been shown to protect against cancer, heart disease and other age-related health problems, such as cataracts.

Cantaloupes are loaded with carotenoids, the pigments that give fruits and vegetables their bright colors and provide strong health protection. A study in the Netherlands found, that eating carotenoid-rich fruits caused a 35% less risk of developing age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of irreversible blindness in developed countries.

Cantaloupe gives also protection for another aspect of sight problems: cataracts. Another study found that women who got the most vitamin A through their diet had a 39% reduced risk of developing cataracts. Once beta-carotene is inside the body, it is converted to vitamin A. Another study found that people whose diets included the most vitamin A, cut their risk of cataract surgery in half.

Cantaloupe is a rich source of two potent antioxidants: vitamin C and beta-carotene. As I wrote before, antioxidants are compounds that neutralize free radicals, which can cause cellular changes that can lead to heart disease, cancer and cataracts.

Vitamin C, like potassium, helps to keep the arteries clear and blood moving smoothly by preventing bad LDL cholesterol from oxidizing and clogging the artery walls. Vitamin C is also used by our body to produce collagen, a protein that makes up skin and connective tissue.

Cantaloupe is an excellent source of vitamin C and beta-carotene. One cup contains 68 mg vitamin C, which is 113% of the Daily Value for this vitamin. Half a cantaloupe provides 5 mg beta-carotene, which is about half of the daily amount recommended by most experts.

Important Tips
Cutting cantaloupe under water keeps it longer fresh. Scientists from the USDA found that when you cut cantaloupe under water, it short-circuits the signals plant cells send to each other when they detect an injury, like being sliced.

Buy them ripe.
The riper the cantaloupe, the more beta-carotene it contains. The challenge is that melons are often picked while they are still unripe so that they can make it through the shipping process undamaged. To check for ripeness, tap the melon and listen for a hollow sound. Then lift the fruit to make sure that it’s heavy for its size. Finally, smell the fruit to make sure that it exudes a sweet, musky odor. (The smell shouldn’t be too strong; an excessively strong smell indicates an overripe fruit.) If there is no smell, put it down and try another one.

There should be no stem.
Mature cantaloupes will only have a smooth, symmetrical basin where the stem once was and flesh that yields slightly to pressure.

Leave a firm cantaloupe at room temperature for several days to allow it to become softer and juicier. Once’s it’s ripe, put it in the fridge.

Eat it straight away.
When exposed to air, vitamin C degrades quickly. So it’s important to eat cantaloupe fairly soon after cutting, says Dr. Erdman. This is particular necessary when the fruit is cut into small pieces, which significantly increases the amount of air to which it’s exposed. Research found that cantaloupe cubes lost 25% of their vitamin C content and 10-15% of their carotenoids after being exposed to air for 6 days.


Activity – Disease Prevention

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Activity is important to keep your body healthy. When you don’t sleep, your body was designed to be active almost all the time. If you immobilize a limb for only three hours, it starts to degenerate. That’s why even during sleep you automatically flex and stretch and turn more than a hundred times in one night. Inactivity is deadly!

This is written in a report by Dr. Walter Bortz in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1982. He reviewed over a hundred studies showing that the sedentary lifestyle developed in the last 50 years in America causes widespread bodily damage. This damage occurs independently of other health risk factors, like smoking, alcohol, fat, age and family history of disease.

Here are some of his findings: By itself, simple inactivity causes a chain reaction of cardiovascular decay. First, it reduces vital capacity. That means, when you sit like a slug, it reduces your ability to take up and use oxygen. The result is: muscles, organs, and brain become partially oxygen deprived.

Also, inactivity reduces cardiac output, that is, the ability of your heart to pump blood around the body. So the tissues of couch potatoes become double deprived. They get less oxygen and less blood and the essential nutrients the blood contains. In an effort to make up these deficits, your body constricts arteries, thereby raising blood pressure. This arterial constriction on top of a weakened heart not only increases the risk of clots and stroke, but also makes your cardiovascular system less able to respond to sudden movement or changes of position. As a result, sedentary folk often suffer dizziness when standing, because the impaired system cannot instantly increase blood flow to the brain. With any sudden movements they are prone to falls and accidents, because the restricted system of blood flow cannot respond efficiently.

One of the most interesting studies shows that more sedentary people than active people are hit and killed in traffic accidents. Because their weakened cardiovascular systems make them incapable of performing the nimble moves required to avoid oncoming traffic, with out becoming dizzy and staggering or falling in the process. Inactivity also increase levels of cholesterol and triglycerides. Triglycerides are the fats you store, and we know that inactivity makes you fat. Inactive muscles shrink, compromising your ability to burn fat, to perform even simple tasks, like running up stairs,and even to hold up your skeleton. Bones also thin and weaken, because your skeleton requires continuous resistance exercise in order to grow new bone matrix.

A combination of inactivity and poor bone nutrition is the major cause of the epidemic of osteoporosis now burdening America – another man made – entirely preventable disease. Inactivity also disrupts bowel function and disorders glucose metabolism, independently of whatever food you eat. The near epidemics of intestinal disorders and adult-onset diabetes in America bear mute testimony to our slug lifestyle. Sex hormone levels also decline with inactivity, now linked to the huge increase in impotence in America. The evidence is overwhelming that the incidence of male impotence in America has doubled since the 1940’s.

Activity Can Save Your Life
One of the best studies was conducted by renowned exercise guru Dr. Kenneth Cooper at his Aerobics Center in Dallas. They followed 13,344 men and women for 15 years. This meticulous research, controlled for all major interfering variables, like age, family history, personal health history, smoking, blood pressure, cardiovascular condition, and insulin metabolism. At the fifteen-year follow-up, reduced risk of death was closely correlated with physical fitness. This included death from cardiovascular diseases, a variety of cancers, and even accidents. There is no longer any doubt: exercise can save your life, while couch potatoism creates an existence that is nasty, sick, and short.

Activity Strengthens Heart and Lungs
Numerous studies show that exercise protects your body by maintaining vital capacity, and therefore maintaining adequate oxygenation of tissues. The average sedentary American male aged 45 has lost half his ability to take up and use oxygen. With one year of the right exercise he can restore it to the level of a 25 year old. Dr. Bortz rightly stated that the health benefits of restoring vital capacity are superior to any drug or medical treatment in existence. In contrast to the weak cardiac function of sedentary folk, the athlete’s strong, slow pulse is telling evidence of a healthy heart. Many have rates in the 40s, and the Colgan Institute one recorded champion cyclist Howard Doerfling at an incredible 29 beats per minute. Sedentary folk, however, are likely to show heart rates in the 80s or 90s. When heart rate rises above 84, risk of coronary heart disease more than doubles.

Activity protects blood pressure
The majority of average people show blood pressure of 120/80, which is regard as normal. But this is not normal at all. We know know that these people are already on their way to disease. Risk of cardiovascular disease starts to rise as systolic blood pressure goes above 103 mmHg. By 120 mmHg, previously thought to be normal, risk has risen from 51 to 77 per 10.000 people. That is an increase of 50%. By 135 mmHg, a level that many physicians still regard as marginal, but acceptable, risk has doubled. Beyond 135 mmHg you are a walking time bomb. The same applies to diastolic blood pressure. Usual levels found in average people are 80-89 mmHg. Recent research shows that these figures indicate a pre-disease state. Diastolic pressures below 80 mmHg shows an incidence of new cardiovascular disease of 10 cases per 1000 people, but by 90-89 mmHg it shows an incidence of 40 cases per 1000 people, a risk increase of 300%.

Don’t fret. It’s easy to reduce blood pressure with the right exercise. Many studies show that exercise works for older people as well, in whom you might think the damage to blood pressure is permanent.
In a typical study, sedentary hypertension patients, aged 55 to 78 years were followed. All had elevated blood pressure. After participating in an exercise program, systolic blood pressure felt by a whopping 20 mmHg. Regular exercise will lower blood pressure in almost anyone.

Activity Lowers Cholesterol
Despite media bleatings, cholesterol is not the bad guy. Cholesterol is essential to every function of your body. It forms part of all your organs, including your heart and your brain. Your body makes all your steroid hormones, including adrenalin, estrogen and testosterone from cholesterol. You cannot live without it. Most of your cholesterol is not from food at all. It is manufactured in your body mainly by the liver. When a healthy person eats high cholesterol foods, the liver immediately reduces its own cholesterol production to keep blood cholesterol low and healthy. Disordered cholesterol metabolism is the cause that blood cholesterol rises to dangerous levels and is a man-made disease, caused mainly by our degraded nutrition and sedentary lifestyle.

As you probably know, we have “good” high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and “bad” low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Total cholesterol is mostly LDL and this is still one of the best predictors of cardiovascular disease. You can measure this total cholesterol with a simple device at home, it is called the “Accumeter”. What is a healthy cholesterol level? You may ask. The American Heart Association and other US health authorities made in mid 1980 below 200 mg/dl their official recommendation. Today we know that this is too high. In a comprehensive study by Dr. Jeremiah Stamler, he followed 356,000 men in 28 US cities. Following his research, death rates from cardiovascular disease starts to rise when cholesterol gets above 168 mg/dl. Total cholesterol in sedentary American men and women rise over 200 mg/dl in their 30s and reach about 220 mg/dl by age 45. It’s clear that sitting like a slug expose oneself to disease. Recent research shows that average cholesterol levels in runners and bodybuilders ranged between 158 mg/dl and 183 mg/dl. It proves that exercise makes the healthy difference.

Cardiovascular diseases are far out our biggest health problem. It kills more than twice as many Americans as all cancers, nine times as many as all other lung and liver diseases together, and 28 times more than all forms of diabetes. There are good reasons to warn everybody starting an exercise program to have a thorough medical and physician’s approval before they start. Sudden exertion in sedentary people “raises their changes of a heart attack by….100 fold! A health letter from the Mayo Clinic stated: “Most people who have heart attacks during activity are sedentary or have underlying heart disease and overdo it.”

Activity Prevents Cancer
Most cancers are slow-growing diseases, eating silently away at your body for years before they show up. Despite the overblown claims of successful treatment by the National Cancer Institute, once a cancer emerges, medicine is usually powerless. Remember the swift deaths of Michael Landon of pancreatic cancer and Jaqueline Onassis of Lymphoma. If there was an effective treatment, don’t you think those immensely rich people would have bought it? So if a little of the right exercise can prevent cancer, it’s more worth than all the gold in Ford Knox. And above all, like the other best things in life, it’s free! From a study by Dr. Kenneth Cooper, it showed that incidence of all forms of cancer was closely correlated with lack of physical exercise. Unfit men and women where 300% more likely to develop cancer. But the best finding from this study is that you have to move only a smidgen out of couch potato land to prevent cancer big time.

Activity Against All Diseases
The right exercise is a major strategy for preventing and treating all diseases. Physicians who do not incorporate exercise into their treatment protocols are guilty of malpractice. The right exercise maintains your heart, lungs, your muscles, your bones, a healthy level of body fat, even your intestinal function. But what about more subtle functions, such as insulin, and your body’s handling of sugar? We know that couch potatoism leads to glucose intolerance. However, research has shown not long ago that getting off the couch not only maintains insulin function to deal with the sugar, but also can reverse decades of damage. In healthy people the right exercise completely protects glucose tolerance against the degenerative changes in insulin metabolism that lead to adult-onset diabetes. Research has revealed the major way in which activity protects you against all diseases. It started with evidence that exercise increases overall white blood cells. Then came more precise findings that moderate exercise increases bodily production of lymphocytes, interleukin 2, neutrophills, and other disease fighting components of the immune system. There is no longer doubt that the right exercise strengthen your immunity. Hence it strengthens your resistance against all sorts of damage, decay, bacteria, viruses, toxins, even radiation. Remember the wise words of Louis Pasteur, the father of modern medicine: “Host resistance is the key”.

I have developed an exercise-program that covers the basics of exercise, aerobics, weight-bearing exercises and nutrition for athletes.


Preventing Medicine

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In the 13th Century, the philosopher Roger Bacon (c.1214-1294)believed that the secret to a long and healthy life was depending on the following: exercise, good hygiene, inhaling the breath of a young virgin, a healthy diet, and proper rest. To be able to live to the age of eighty in the 13th century was quite an impressive achievement, when you consider that there was poor sanitation, there were no antibiotics, and no medical care.

Going up in time to the year 2004, the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a large study that showed healthy seventy- to ninety year old people who adopted the Mediterranean diet, used alcohol in moderation , took physical activity, and a nonsmoking lifestyle had a 50% decrease in the rate of death. These results are not far off from what Roger Bacon stated more than seven hundred years earlier, with the exception, of course, of inhaling the breath of a young virgin.
These days, research has included some more factors that showed to increase your changes of living a long live. These include: Good genetics. People who’s parents lived to an old age should have more change of also living a long life. The specific genes involved in the human aging process are still unknown.

Increased lipoprotein size and increased HDL cholesterol levels in your blood.
There is some evidence that components of your cholesterol may be protective factors for heart disease and stroke, usually seen by people who live to be one hundred . Being lucky! Not being in the wrong place at the wrong time. We all know of people who have been in a bad car accident or were the victim of a violent crime. Others have rare and unexplained illnesses.

Proper preventive medical care.
What is preventive medicine? Taking proper steps to avoid the development of illnesses is important, also the early diagnosis of illnesses .That’s why prevention can take several forms. It can involve removing one or more risk factors that can lead to the development of a disease. To quite smoking, for example, may help in preventing a heart attack or stroke.

Trying to identify a disease at an early stage before it gets to a serious illness or death. For example, a colonoscopy attempt to identify and remove small polyps in the colon before they turn into colon cancer. Keeping a close watch on people who have already an illness. Women who have had breast cancer in the past have a much higher risk to develop further breast cancer and will need closer monitoring.

Does proper preventive screening for an elderly patient exist? There are no clear guidelines for the proper screening of an elderly person. Part of the confusion is that there are so many variables among the elderly. Many of the medical specialty societies don’t agree as to which tests are suitable to order for elderly patients. This is another problem.

Is a yearly physical exam useful? We are used to the idea that a physical exam every year is an essential factor to assure that we stay healthy. There are different ideas of what should be included in this exam. Most doctors believe that it should involve a full discussion of all health care issues, a full head to-toe examination, and lab work. The truth is that it has not been proven that this standard format has any benefit for detecting new, potentially life- threatening diseases. It is however an opportunity to discuss exercises and to make sure the patient is up to date on his or her immunizations and cancer screening.

Research has shown that yearly ordered test in otherwise healthy seniors are often not beneficial. These tests include: chest x-ray complete blood cell count (CBC) blood chemistry panel electrocardiogram (EKG)
On the surface, these tests seems to be useful. But in practice, ordering these tests as a routine each year will rarely identify any new diseases.

Tea – A Cup of Good Health

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Tea stops tumors causing heart disease and stroke, according to Laboratory Studies.
And as it contains clout, it protects against dental cavities.
Also, hundreds of compounds in tea, called polyphenols, act as antioxidants.
Meaning, they help neutralize harmful oxygen molecules in the body known as free radicals, which have been linked to cancer, heart disease, and various less serious problems, such as wrinkles.
“In General polyphenols are very good antioxidants. But tea contains the best polyphenols, and tea has a lot of them,” according to Joe A. Vinson, PHD, professor of analytical chemistry at the University of Seranton in Pennsylvania.”They make up nearly 30% of tea’s dry weight.” This may help explain why tea is the most popular beverage in the world.

Protection of arteries
The results of blocked arteries, high blood pressure, heart attacks and stroke,, don’t happen over night.
Years of steadily increasing damage are proceeding, in which dangerous low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol oxidizes and gradually makes arteries stiff and narrow.
Tea can solve this problem. Polyphenols in tea are extremely effective in preventing cholesterol from oxidizing blood vessels. In fact, one of the polyphenols in tea, epigallocatechin (EGCG), was able to neutralize five times as much LDL cholesterol as vitamin C, the strongest of the antioxidant vitamins. Why are the polyphenols in tea so effective? The reason is because they can work in two ways.
They block the harmful effects of oxidized LDL cholesterol in the blood stream and at the artery walls, where LDL really produces atherosclerosis, says Dr. Vinson.

Rresearchers from a Dutch study, involving 880 men, found that those who ate the most flavonoids, a large phytochemical family, including polyphenol in tea, had a 58% lower risk of dying from heart disease than those who ate the least. After further analyzing the results, it was revealed that the healthiest men were those who were getting more than half their flavonoids from black tea, and the rest from onions and apples.
You don’t have to drink lots of tea to get the benefits. In the Dutch study the healthiest men drank about 4 cups of tea per day.
Just as the tea protect arteries leading from the heart, the same effect happens on arteries in or leading to the brain, says Dr. Vinson.
A new Japanese study found that people who drank at least 5 cups of green tea daily had a whopping 62% lower risk of having a stroke from clotting arteries. According to experts, antioxidants in green tea help sticky cells that clump together to form clots, called platelets, to slide safely past each other. When there are no clots, there can be no strokes.

Cancer protection
When you grill a hamburger, compounds called heterocyclic amines are formed on the surface of the food. The body transforms these chemicals into more dangerous forms, which can cause cancer, according to John Weisburger, MD, PhD,vice president for research and director of the Naylor Dana institute for Disease Prevention, in New York,
Other compounds found in tea, called polyphenols, prevents the formation of potential carcinogens, Dr. Weisburger says. In other words, they help stop cancer before it starts.

Skin cancer protection
Cancer researcher Hasan Mukhtar, PhD, of the department of dermatology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, has seen tea stopping cancer at each stage of its life cycle, arresting both its growth and spread. And where cancerous tumors have already formed, he has seen tea shrink them.
Dr. Mukhtar studied the effect of sunburn skin on laboratory animals and found that the animals given tea developed one-tenth as many tumors as those given water. Even when the tea-given animals developed tumors, they were often benign, not cancerous. What’s more, tea was equally effective whether given as a drink or applied to the skin. Some cosmetics companies have started adding green tea to skin products for its potential protective benefits.

Dental protection
Tea also help prevent toothache, since it contains many compounds, polyphenols as well as tannin, that act as antibiotics. In other words, tea removes the bacteria that promote tooth decay.
Tea also contains fluoride, which provide further dental protection. When researchers at Forsyth Dental Center in Boston tested a variety of foods for their antibacterial qualities, they found that tea was far and away the most protective.
Researchers at Kyushu University in Fukioka, Japan, have identified four components in tea – tannin, catechin, caffeine and tocopherol ( a vitamin E-like substance) – that help to increase the acid resistance of tooth enamel. This quartet of compounds was made even more effective with the addition of extra fluoride. The extra boost made tooth enamel 98% impervious to the action of acids on the teeth.

Different colors of tea
You can have Green tea, Black tea, Vanilla maple tea, Raspberry tea, Black currant tea, Apricot tea. Which tea has the most healing polythenols? It makes no difference, as long as it is real tea and not herbal tea, which doesn’t contain leaves from the Camellia sinensis , the tea plant. There is not much difference among them. They all contain leaves from the same plant.
However, they are not identical. The lightest leaves, green and white, are minimally-processed and, in general, retain more disease-protective polyphenols and other antioxidants. But darker teas contain healthy theaflavins, which form when their polyphenols ferment and turn orange-red.

Here follows an overview of the various “real” teas:
Black – The color refers to the leaves, the beverage is deep amber. Black tea varieties include Darjeeling and Earl Grey; flavors range from spicy to flowery. Black tea may lower the risk of heart disease and colon cancer; it can also inhibit bacteria that cause cavities and bad breath.

Green – If you find the flavor to “grassy”, try jewel green matcha or Japanese sencha. Green tea has been shown in numerous studies to help prevent many kinds of cancer, lower cholesterol and boost immunity.

Oolong.- Midway between green and black tea in color, flavor, and antioxidant action, oolong has a fresh floral or fruity aroma. When you drink three cups a day, it may help relieve itchy skin rashes.

Pu-ehr. (poo-air) -This dark red tea has an earthy flavor reminiscent of coffee and tobacco.
It’s considered a delicacy in China ( you can purchase it on line), where it’s processing is a highly guarded secret. The most oxidized of teas, pu-ehr is said to mellow and improve with age, like wine. It may help reduce cholesterol.

White.– Rare and somewhat expensive, the least processed tea has an extremely subtle flavor. But it does contain more antioxidants than other teas. Test-tube studies show that it can block DNA mutations (which trigger tumor formation). A study on rats discovered it prevented precancerous colon tumors.

How to get the most Steep for three minutes
It takes three minutes for it to release the health-promoting compounds. That’s also the time researchers use in their studies on tea. Longer steeping causes the tea to go bitter.
Use tea bags.
The pulverized content of tea bags release more polythenols than the larger loose leaves.
That’s because the tiny particles in the bag yield more surface area for polyphenols to dissolve into hot water.

Choose your flavors
Although green tea has been more thoroughly researched than the black variety, both kinds show equally salutary effects, says DR. Vinson. If you prefer decaffeinated tea, that’s okay. The removal of caffeine has little effect on tea’s polyphenol content. The same holds for bottled teas, iced tea, and tea made from mixes. In fact, some soft drinks and juice companies have been so impressed with the benefits of tea that they have begun fortifying their beverages with green tea. Check out your health food store for new products.
Don’t use milk – at least for now. According to an Italian study, adding milk to tea, as the British do, blocked tea antioxidant benefits. “There is some evidence that milk protein binds to some of the tea compounds and blocks their absorption. But those compounds could get unbound in the stomach. So we’re not so sure milk is bad,” says Dr. Vinson.

Keep it fresh
When making your own iced tea, drink it within a few days. “And make sure you cover it to keep it fresh when you refrigerate it” he advises. When you keep iced tea for longer than
a week, the concentration of compounds falls off. Many bottled and powdered iced teas remain spectacular antioxidant levels. In one prevention magazine analyses of antioxidants in various commercial iced teas, even the lowest-scoring convenience iced teas contained at least as many antioxidants as fruits and vegetables, such as strawberries and spinach! But highest honors went to home-made iced tea- cold-brewed refrigerator and classic hot-brewed tea that was than chilled came in even with each other for antioxidant levels. (One tip: shake cold-brewed tea before removing tea bags. It seems to knock more antioxidants into the liquid.)

Drink tea after eating meat
Because polyphenol compounds in tea help to block the formation of cancer-causing chemicals, it’s a good idea to have a cup of tea after eating fried or charred meat.

Doctor’s top tip
When you are a sneezer, drink more green tea, It may be useful against a wide range of sneeze- starting allergens, including pollen, pet dander and dust. Go for two to three mugs a day.

Celery’s strong protection

Health & Nutrition

Celery belongs tot the parsley family, and contain compounds that could help lower your blood pressure and perhaps help prevent cancer. Celery also contains some essential nutrients, like potassium, vitamin C and calcium, and is also a good source of insoluble fiber.
According to laboratory tests with animals, it showed that celery has the ability to lower cholesterol. In a study conducted at the National University of Singapore, laboratory animals were fed a high-fat diet,plumping them up for 8 weeks and raising their cholesterol. Then they gave some of the animals celery juice. The animals that drank the celery juice had significantly lower total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol than the animals that didn’t received any celery juice.

Lower Blood Pressure
Celery has been used in Asia as a remedy for people with high blood pressure. In the United States, a man named Mr. Le with mild high blood pressure, persuaded researchers at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
Instead of cutting back on salt as his doctor advised, he began eating four stalks of celery per day. Within a week, his blood pressure had dropped from 158/96 to 118/82.
An assistant professor of medicine and pharmacological and physiological science at the University of Chicago, W. J. Elliott, MD, PhD, decided to put celery at the test. Test animals were injected with a small amount of 3-n-phthalide, a chemical compound celery that is found in celery. Within a week, the blood pressure of the animals dropped an average of 12 to 14 percent.

“Phthalide was found to relax the muscles of the arteries that regulate blood pressure, allowing the vessels to dilate.” according to Dr. Elliott. In addition, the chemical reduced the number of “stress hormones” called catecholamines in the blood. This may be helpful because stress hormones typically raise blood pressure by causing blood vessels to constrict.

If you have high blood pressure and would like to give celery a try, use this strategy recommended by Asian practisioners. Eat four to five stalks of celery every day for a week, then stop for three weeks. Then start over and eat celery for another week. But don’t overdo it and eat celery by the pound, warns Dr. Elliott. Each celery stalk contains 35 milligrams of sodium, and for some people, this can cause blood pressure to go up instead of going down. “Eating a ton of celery can be dangerous if you have salt-sensitive hypertension.” says Dr. Elliott.

Cancer Prevention
Celery contains compounds called acetylenics, which proved to stop the growth of tumor cells. Celery also contains compounds called phenolic acids, which block the action of hormone like substances called prostaglandins. Some prostaglandins are thought to encourage the growth of tumor cells. Thirdly, celery contains compounds called coumarins, which help prevent free radicals from damaging cells. That gives celery a one-two-three punch against cancer.

Skin problems
As celery is such a sweet, succulent stalk, it has to produce its own pesticides to protect it from hungry fungi. These compounds protect the celery, however, they could do humans some harm. For some people, getting these compounds in the diet, or even through the skin, can make their skin very sensitive to sunlight. So much so that they can get sunburns after they have spent even a short period of time in the sun.
If you begin having skin problems after eating celery, stop eating it. You have to wash celery thoroughly before you eat it . That way you remove any fungi that may have formed on the plant, which sometimes causes the production of those compounds.
Keep the flavonoids
Don’t be tempted to cut up celery to eat later. It’s best to eat the celery soon after you cut it. After only 24 hours in the fridge, the flavonoids are consider ably decreased, according to researchers in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Save the leaves
While celery stalks are certainly a healthy snack, however, the leaves contain the most potassium, vitamin C and calcium.

Eat it any way you like it.
In contrast to many other foods, that lose nutrients during cooking, most of the compounds in celery will be preserved during cooking. Eating a cup of celery raw or cooked, provides about 9 milligrams of vitamin C, which is 15% of the Daily Value; 426 milligrams of potassium of 12% of the Daily Value, and 60 milligrams of calcium, or 6% of the Daily Value.

Cantaloupe- a sweet fruit that protect your sight.

Health & Nutrition

Cantaloupe is an unusual word for a fruit, but when we learn that cantaloupe was first cultivated in the Italian village Cantalupo, around AD 1200, it makes more sense.
This brightly colored fruit belongs to the same family as the cucumber, squash, pumpkin, and gourd. It is filled with strong compounds with many health benefits. It helps to protect your sight, controls your blood pressure, lowers your cholesterol level, keep your blood running smoothly, and protect you against cancer.

“Cantaloupe belongs to one of the rare fruits or vegetables which are a rich source of two potent antioxidants: vitamin C and beta-carotene,” says John Erdman, PhD, professor of nutritional sciences at the University of Illinois in Urbana. Both of these antioxidant compounds have been shown to protect against cancer, heart disease and other age-related health problems, such as cataracts.

Cantaloupes are charged with carotenoids, the pigments that give fruits and vegetables their bright colors and offer powerful health protection. According to a study in the Netherlands, eating carotenoid-rich fruits results in a 35% lower risk of developing age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of irreversible blindness in developed countries.

Cantaloupe protect you also for another sight problem: catarcats. Another study found that women who received the most vitamin A through their diet, reduced their risk of developing cataracts by 39%. When beta-carotene comes inside the body, it is converted to vitamin A. Still another study found that people whose diets included the most vitamin A, halved their risk of cataract surgery.

As I wrote before, antioxidants are compounds that neutralize free radicals, which can cause cellular changes that can lead to heart disease, cancer and cataracts.

Vitamin C, Like potassium, helps to keep your arteries clear and a smooth blood flow by preventing bad LDL cholesterol from oxidizing and clogging the artery walls. Another use of vitamin C by our body is the production of collagen, a protein that makes up skin and connective tissue.

Cantaloupe is an excellent source of vitamin C and beta-carotene. One cup contains 68 mg vitamin C, which is 113% of the Daily Value for this vitamin. Half a cantaloupe provides 5 mg beta-carotene, which is about half of the daily amount recommended by most experts.

Important Tips
Cut cantaloupe under water to keep it longer fresh. Scientists from the USDA found that, when you slice cantaloupe under water, it short-circuits the signals that plant cells send to each other when they detect an injury, like being sliced.

Buy them ripe.
Cantaloupe contains more beta-carotene when it is ripe. The challenge is that melons are often picked while they are still unripe so that they can make it through the shipping process undamaged. To check for ripeness, tap the melon and listen for a hollow sound. Then lift the fruit to make sure that it’s heavy for its size. Finally, smell the fruit to make sure that it exudes a sweet, musky parfume. (The smell shouldn’t be too strong; an excessively strong smell indicates an overripe fruit.) If there is no smell, don’t buy it and try another one.

Check the stem.
There shouldn’t be one. Mature cantaloupes will only have a smooth, symmetrical basin where the stem once was and flesh that yields slightly to pressure.

Set it out.
Leave a firm cantaloupe at room temperature for several days to allow it to become softer and juicier. Once’s it’s ripe, put it in the fridge.

Eat it quickly.
Vitamin C degrades quickly when exposed to air, so it’s important to eat cantaloupe fairly soon after cutting, says Dr. Erdman. This is in particularly necessary when the fruit is cut into small pieces, which significantly increases the amount of air to which it’s exposed. Research found that cantaloupe cubes lost 25% of their vitamin C content and 10-15% of their carotenoids after being exposed to air for 6 days.

How to avoid Menopausal Problems

Health & Nutrition, , , , , ,

Margaret Mead, Anthropologist, did some of her most exciting work when she was well past her fifties. She says: “There is no greater creative force in the world than the menopausal woman with zest.”

Menopause can be a time of great exuberance for many women. To feel a sudden sense of freedom is natural with concerns about pregnancy, unfettered by monthly periods, or the anxiety of starting a career, as though the rest of your life is truly your own.

However, the body goes through some physical changes during the period of menopause that can take the zest out of the best. Hot flashes, mood swings, and insomnia are the most common symptoms many women experience during this time. Many women
believed for many years, including their doctors, that the discomfort of menopause was an inevitable part of the process. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Many of the problems of menopause can be controlled or even eliminated by eating the right foods, says Isaac Schiff, MD. Chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and author of Menopause.

Now that many women worry about the risk of treating their menopausal symptoms with hormone replacement therapy (HRT), diet is more important than ever.

Changes in hormonal production
When a woman approaches menopause, her ovaries begin to produce less of the female hormones estrogen and progesterone.
At some point, the production of these hormones starts to be so little that menstrual periods stop, and the physical problems, like hot flashes and mood swings begin.

Even more serious are some of the long-term changes in the body caused by low hormone levels. For example, a woman’s cholesterol levels is regulated by estrogen. When estrogen production get lower, the bones lose calcium at a very fast rate. Unless women take care to get extra calcium in their diets, their bones become thin and weak, a condition called osteoporosis.

“Getting enough calcium before, during and after menopause is one of the most important things a woman can do to prevent possibly disastrous bone fractures”, says Dr. Utian.

Soy foods can make a difference at this point, because there is some evidence that the phytoestrogens in soy play an active role in helping bones keep their calcium. Holding on to calcium is important because many women don’t get anywhere near enough of this important mineral. On average, women between ages 20 and 50 get about 600 mg per day, and women past menopause get only about 500 mg per day.

Scientist at the National Institutes of Health recommend that women during their childbearing years are getting at least 1000 mg of calcium per day. Women past menopause should aim for 1,500 mg per day.

Most women can get plenty of calcium from their diets. For example, 1 cup of fat-free milk contains 302 mg of calcium, or 30% of the Daily Value (DV). An 8-ounce serving of yogurt has 415 mg or 41% of the DV, and 3 ounces of salmon has 181 mg, or 18% of the DV.

During many years, many women replaced their estrogen levels with synthetic hormones,as they thought it was a cure for everything; from hot flashes to high cholesterol. But in 2002, new research found that the hormones may actually increase the risk of heart disease. This led the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association to advice women not to take HRT to lower cholesterol or for the prevention of a heart attack.

According to the Nurses’ Health Study, postmenopausal women who have had a heart attack or have been diagnosed with heart disease and have been on HRT for less than a year have a 25% higher risk of another heart attack or dying from heart disease than similar women who never have been on hormone therapy.

Although HRT still has advantages, such as protecting bones and easing problems in menopause, many women are looking for alternatives, and they’re finding them in their own kitchens. Even women who do take HRT may find that making small adjustments to their diet will give them extra relief.

Protection from Soy Food Since many of the problems of menopause are caused by low levels of estrogen, it makes sense that replacing some of the estrogen will make women healthier. Scientists have found that certain foods – most importantly, soy foods such as tofu and tempeh – contain large amounts of phytoestrogens, plant compounds that act very much like the natural hormone.

In Asian countries, where women eat a lot of soy foods, only about 16% have problems with menopausal discomfort. In fact, there isn’t even a word in Japanese for “hot flash”.

“Of course it’s always better to reach for the food, rather than the supplement”, says Mary Jane Minkin, MD, clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Yale University School of Medicine and author of A Woman’s Guide to Menopause and Perimenopause. Dr Minkin recommends getting two servings of soy a day, such as a glass of soy milk and a serving of tofu. Or you could have a bowl of miso soup, which is flavored with a condiment made from soybeans and salt.

Soy is also very important for protecting the heart, since a woman’s risk for heart disease rises after menopause. Research has shown that eating more soy foods can help bring down cholesterol levels and the risk for heart disease.

Of course, when you’re eating more soy foods, you’re automatically eating less saturated fat, and this can also help keep cholesterol levels down. “Women approaching menopause and those who are already menopausal, should concentrate on having the heart-healthiest diet,” adds Wulf H. Utian, MD, PhD, chairman of the department of reproductive biology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. “It’s one of the most important issues they face because of menopause.”

For an alternative to soybeans,you can try eating black beans to reduce your hot flashes. They contain about the same amount of phytoestrogens, and they can be cooked into great-tasting soups or sprinkled into salads.

Feel better with Flaxseed In addition to soy, it’s a good idea to add flaxseed to your diet, Dr. Minkin says. Flaxseed is also a phytoestrogen that help relief hot flashes and sleep problems, the two complains Dr. Mirkin hears the most often from her patients going through menopause. Flaxseed also contains a large amount of lignans that may have antioxidant properties. which means they’ll help menopausal women fight cancer. Of all the plant foods that contain lignans, flaxseed contains the most, at least 75 times more than other foods.

Add a tablespoon of ground flaxseed to your cereal or on top of your salads, or bake it into bread or muffins.You don’t need a lot of flaxseed to get the benefits, Dr Minkin add.

Herbal Relief Dr. Minkin has found that taking 20 mg of the herb black cohosh helps her patients with menopausal problems. Because the United States doesn’t regulate herbal products, she recommend buying the German brand Remifemin. Herbal products are regulated in Germany, and you’ll know that you’re actually getting what’s on the label.

While the jury is still out on whether or not black cohosh is an effective treatment for menopausal symptoms, it wouldn’t hurt to try the herb and see if it works for you.

Turn down the Heat
There are some classic triggers for hot flashes. Here’s how to avoid them and stay cool. Pass on hot foods. When it comes to temperatures and spiciness, hot foods are likely to bring on a hot flash, DR. Minkin says. It’s a good idea to avoid hot beverages like hot soup or coffee. The same goes for spicy foods, such as Chinese or Mexican food.

Avoid red wine
If you’re going to drink, keep in mind that red wine is a classic trigger of hot flashes, says DR. Minkin. White wine isn’t as bad, so it may be a better choice.

Dress for indulgences.
If you really want to indulge in a spicy meal or drink a glass of red wine, prepare for a hot flash by dressing in layers. Wear a cardigan over something light so you can take off the top layer and cool off, Dr. Minkin suggests. If you’re at a restaurant, you may look for a table near a cool air vent or ask to sit away from the hot kitchen.

Doctor’s Advice
Menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes and sleep problems are certainly bothersome, but they’re small compared with the higher risk of breast cancer and cardiovascular disease menopausal women face, says Jay Kenney PhD. RD, director of nutrition research and educator at the Prilikin Longevity Center and Spa in Aventura, Florida.

Luckily, doing all of the things that protect you from cancer and heart disease will also help with your menopausal symptoms.So add some soybeans to your diet, and eat more whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and legumes. “The more the merrier,” he says. “You can certainly eat beans everyday. Have chili one day, black beans soup the next, a salad with garbanzo beans the next.

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Related Articles – calcium, cholesterol level, estrogen, hormonal production, hot flashes, insomnia, menopausal problems, soy foods,

A Healthy Brain Diet for the prevention of Stroke

Health & Nutrition

Research has shown that when people are missing certain nutrients, their mental performance drops. When people meet their nutritional needs, they are okay. But even if they are not getting enough water their mind can get fuzzy. The thirst mechanism slows down when we age. The result is, that we’re not always aware immediately that we need water. However, your diet is not responsible for all memory problems, but when everything else is okay, it may be what you eat that cause you to slow down.

Your brain needs vitamin B
The most essential nutrients to keep your mind sharp are probably the vitamin B complex. Your body needs the B vitamins for the transformation of food into mental energy and for the manufacturing and repairing of brain tissue. “Thiamin, niacin and vitamin B6 and B12 deficiencies can all cause mal function of the brain”, says Vernon Mark, MD, author of Reversing Memory Loss. In fact, pellagra, a niacin deficiency, used to be the main cause of admissions into mental hospitals,” he explains. Research has shown that when children are given 5 mg thiamin instead of the Daily Value of 1.5 mg, they achieve remarkable higher scores when they are given tests of mental functioning, Dr. Mark adds.

Nowadays many cereals, breads and pastas are enriched with thiamin and niacin, so that most people are getting enough of these vitamins. Niacin deficiencies have become extremely rare, especially in this country. But in older people or those who frequently drink alcohol, levels of thiamin can drop low enough to cause memory problems, says Dr. Mark.

The best way to make sure you get enough brain-boosting B vitamins is to eat foods that contain enriched grains. One cup of enriched spaghetti, for example, has 0.3 mg of thiamin, or 20% of the Daily Value (DV), and 2 mg of niacin, or 10% of the DV. Meat is also a good source for getting these nutrients. Three ounces of pork tenderloin, for example, provide 0.8 mg of thiamin, 53% of the DV, while 3 ounces of chicken breast deliver 12 mg or 60% of the DV for niacin.

It’s not so easy when we get older, to get extra amounts of vitamin B6 and B12, because it’s harder for the body to absorb them. After the age of 55, it’s common to be low in these vitamins, because the lining of the stomach is changing. When you get older, it’s a good idea to get more than the DV of both of these nutrients. Vitamin B6 is abundant in baked potatoes, bananas, chickpeas, and turkey. One baked potato provides 0.4 mg of vitamin B6, 20% of the DV. and one banana provide 0.7 mg or 35% of the DV. For vitamin B12, meat and shellfish are good choices.

Maintaining blood flow to the brain
There should be sufficient blood flow to the brain in order to avoid memory problems. When adequate blood flow is not maintained, the brain and memory begin to perform poorly. The lack of blood to the brain is often caused by a buildup of cholesterol and fat in the arteries, the same problem that leads to heart disease and stroke. This condition is not only preventable through diet, it is even at least partially reversible. The primary cause of cardiovascular disease – clogged arteries in the heart and the brain – is too much saturated fat in the diet. Keep your intake of saturated fat low by cooking with small amounts of liquid oils, such as olive or canola oil. instead of margarine or butter and by minimizing your intake of fatty foods, such as full-fat mayonnaise, rich desserts and fatty meats.

It’s also important to get plenty of fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables are packed with antioxidants, compounds that block the effects of harmful oxygen molecules called free radicals.This is important because when free radicals damage the harmful low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, it becomes stickier and more likely to stick to artery walls.

Studies have proved that antioxidants in fruits and vegetables can help prevent Alzheimer’s disease. In 2002, researchers studied nearly 5,500 people and found that those who ate diets rich in antioxidants, vitamin C and E, lowered their risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.Citrus fruits, kiwifruit, sprouts, broccoli, and cabbage are packed with vitamin C. While whole grains, nuts, milk and egg yolks contain vitamin E.

The combination of eating plenty of fruits and vegetables and reducing fat in your diet will help to keep your arteries clear, including those leading to your brain. Actually, it can help restore blood flow through your arteries that have already started to close up.

Coffee can Improve Memory Function It’s not without reason that millions of Americans jump start their day with steaming cups of coffee. The caffeine in coffee has been shown to improve mental functioning, including memory.

In one study, Dutch researchers used a chemical to block short-term memory in 16 healthy people. They found that giving these people 250 milligrams of caffeine – about the amount of 3 cups of coffee – quickly restored their powers of recall. However,too much coffee can be bad, if only the java buzz wears off within 6 to 8 hrs. For some people, at least, the after-coffee slump can result in mental fogginess.

Everyone has different reactions to caffeine. For people who rarely drink coffee, having a cup or two can definitely improve performance and memory. But if you drink coffee throughout the day, you quickly build up tolerance and you won’t get the same benefits. In fact, too much caffeine can make you nervous and reduce your concentration.

Don’t kill your brain cells “Killing brain cells is not the best way to get a high score in the memory department. Yet that’s exactly what many of us do to our grey matter. Drinking too much alcohol can cause a significant decrease in memory function.” In fact, even small amounts of alcohol can damage cells in the brain responsible for memory.

Many doctors recommend to stop drinking alcohol all together to keep your mind at its sharpest. At the very least, it’s a good idea to limit yourself to one or two drinks – meaning 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 11/2 ounces of liquor – a day. When you do drink, choose red wine. It contains resveratrol, a compound that may keep your brain young.

Optimal Diet for your Brain
You can’t prevent Alzheimer’s disease and dementia altogether, but you can keep them at bay longer with a heart-healthy diet that focuses on the nutrients that have been found to be critical for brain function and aging.

Aim for a body mass index of 23 to 25
Being overweight increases your risk for diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and hypertension, which leads to vascular disease and brain damage.

Choose Dairy
Eat one serving of low-fat, low-sugar dairy once a day, such as milk, plain yogurt, cottage cheese or ricotta cheese. Epideemiologie studies show that people who drink milk are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease.

Toast to a young brain
Drink one glass of red wine or 4 ounces of purple grape juice or pomegranate juice a day. They contain resveratrol, a compound that doctors believe activates a gene that is associated with longevity.

Eat berries
When you eat one cup of berries a day, it gives your brain resveratrol, and other flavonoids, that strengthens your resistance against the development of chronic diseases associated with aging.

Drink some juice
Drink 8 ounces of fruit juice high in vitamin C daily. Three times a week, substitute a glass of vegetable juice that you buy or make on your own for the fruit juice. Antioxidants and other compounds in those juices help protect the brain from dementia.

Include fish oil in your diet.
Omega-3 fatty acids are powerful agents for a healthy heart and arteries. When you eat oily cold water fish such as sardines or mackerel you will ensure that you get enough omega-3. You can also substitute with 2,000 to 3,000 mg of fish oil or flaxseed oil per day.Walnuts are also rich in omega-3. Eating 8 to 10 walnuts per day or using walnut oil in your salads of dark green vegetables will help protect your brain.

Drink green tea every day.
Green tea is rich in antioxidants and has proved to reduce the risk of dementia. Experts recommend drinking one to two cups a day.

Use Multivitamins
To include those in your diet is particularly important for older, inactive adults who’s calorie intake doesn’t supply the micro nutrients that they need. Choose a multivitamin without iron or reduced iron if yo ‘re not anemic or menstruating.

Consider vitamin D supplements
Vitamin D is a new shining start in the role of brain development and function and many people are deficient without knowing it. We get about 95% of our vitamin D from sunlight, but young people who work long hours and elderly adults who are home bound often don’t get enough sunlight to fill their vitamin D requirements.

Avoid omega-6 fats The omega-6 fatty acids in corn- safflower- and sesame oils aren’t as healthy as omega-3’s found in olive and canola oil. So use those oils sparingly.

Nourish Your Brain
An overall brain-healthy diet is low in refined carbohydrates, (Found in sugars, baked food, candy, and other sweets, for example), red meats and trans fats. It’s high in fatty fish, poultry, soy protein, fruits, vegetables and legumes.