Encouraging Health

Heart

Last summer, I had a whole round of heart tests, which basically said “it’s functioning normally”. Woohoo for me!

Ten years ago, if you just knew your blood pressure and cholesterol numbers you were considered heart savvy. But now, with tests for heart disease factors including C-reactive protein, coronary calcium scores and high-speed scans, heart health can be pretty confusing — and expensive. That leaves a lot of people wondering which tests are necessary for them and which ones are a waste of time and money.

The American Heart Association recommends anyone over the age of 20 start thinking about getting his or her blood pressure, cholesterol and triglycerides measured every year. Knowing your numbers early, cardiologists say, is key to preventing heart disease.

Watching these numbers over the years gives doctors the opportunity to treat patients sooner in life if their statistics fall into the danger zone.

If you are at low risk, meaning you don’t smoke, sport a healthy weight, have no heart disease in your family history and have no prior conditions, such as extremely high cholesterol or type 2 diabetes, watching your numbers and having yearly checkups is the best way to go. But if you do have one of these factors, or have a relative, say a grandparent or parent who has or had heart disease, cardiologists say you may need more tests to make sure your heart is in good shape.

Body Shape Chart

Your measurements may come as a shock. Mine certainly did! The new twist here is body shape. WebMD’s calculator give Your Waist-to-Height Ratio, recommended below .50. Mine was .43 and my BMI is 22.9, so i’m healthy (but still have belly fat to lose).

This is a great new tool for people to find out how their exercise and dietary guidelines are helping them. If anything is off, they give tips and hints on how to tweak your lifestyle, with their other interactive items like the Food & Fitness Planner, Diet Health Check and even has a Diet Buddies section to help you find someone to commisserate…er…support you in your quest for a more healthy lifestyle.

Health takes hard work, determination and dedication. Lately I’ve become complacent and need to crack that whip on myself. Would be nice to find some walking buddies here in Seattle, I must admit. Love walking along the waterfront and around downtown Seattle. So much to see and do. I know, there’s no excuse.

What are the risks of belly fat? Read on!

How Does Belly Fat Harm You?
Belly fat doesn’t just lay idle at your beltline. Researchers describe it as an active “organ” in your body — one that churns out hormones and inflammatory substances.

“Abdominal fat is thought to break down easily into fatty acids, which flow directly into the liver and into muscle,” says Lewis Kuller, MD, DPH, professor and past chair of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health.

When these excess fatty acids drain into the liver, they trigger a chain reaction of changes — increasing the production of LDL ‘bad’ cholesterol and triglycerides. During this time insulin can also become less effective in controlling blood sugar, so insulin resistance sets in, he explains.

Blood sugars start to get out of balance. Fats and clots get into the bloodstream, and that sets the stage for diabetes, heart disease, and more.

And research shows that abdominal fat triggers a change in angiotensin, a hormone that controls blood vessel constriction — increasing the risk of high blood pressure, stroke, and heart attack, Kuller explains.

Whether you sprinkle it on hot drinks or mix it into your favorite muffins, you’re giving yourself the gift of good health with this seasoning: cinnamon.

Ground or stick, sprinkled or stirred — cinnamon packs an antioxidant wallop. It tested near the top when 20 spice extracts were recently analyzed for their antioxidant capacity. Cinnamon is great in coffee (with some real vanilla extract), maybe some sweetener of your choice. Plus, it has so many great properties!

Phenol Power
Cinnamon and cinnamon sticks were clear standouts during the test, not only because of their total antioxidant ranking but also because they scored high marks for phenolics — health-protective compounds credited with thwarting cell-damaging processes in the body. Bonus: Cinnamon phenols in particular may also help bring down blood sugar.

Hot ChocolateThis spiced hot chocolate warms you from within.

Ingredients
4 cups prepared hot cocoa with 1% milk
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
4 cinnamon sticks

Directions
1. Combine cocoa, nutmeg and chili powder. Pour into mugs and serve with a cinnamon stick.

The Tastiest Way to Drop Blood Sugar
It’s great on french toast. It’s lovely in apple pies, oatmeal, and eggnog. And now, cinnamon may be good for your blood sugar, too. One study found that people with diabetes who ate three-eighths of a teaspoon of the spice a day had better blood sugar levels after a little more than a month.

Cinnamon is well known as a stellar antioxidant and a potent germ-killer, and there’s a growing — but not perfectly consistent — body of evidence that suggests that a substance in the spice turns on insulin receptors to help your body use glucose. That’s a good thing, because too much glucose in your bloodstream is tough on your organs and is a marker of diabetes. If you currently measure your blood sugar, you can test how cinnamon works for you by checking your blood sugar levels at a time (but not right after eating) when they are near stable. Then, try some nonsugary thing with the cinnamon; wait 1 to 2 hours, and then measure your blood sugar again. Do this for 3 days, then follow it with 3 days when you do and eat the exact same things, but leave the cinnamon out.

You know those infomercial gadgets that do 10 jobs in one? Well, there’s a fruit that tops them all.

It’s the pomegranate. And it puts on quite a show when it comes to fighting disease. We’re talking everything from cancer to high blood pressure.

The All-Purpose Pomegranate
The pomegranate — a tough, leathery fruit packed with delicious, edible seeds — has been used medicinally since ancient times. When present-day researchers recently took a closer look, reviewing over 90 pomegranate-related studies, what did they find? Pomegranates have antioxidant, anticarcinogenic, anti-inflammatory, and even antimicrobial properties. Whew! Our ancestors were onto something.

Here’s a short list of what pomegranates may help tackle:

Cancer: In lab studies, pomegranate extract triggered the death of both prostate and breast cancer cells.

Blood pressure: Pomegranate juice dropped systolic numbers in hypertensive patients.

Blood sugar: Pomegranate improved blood sugar levels in animal studies.

Holiday Pomegranate recipe:

COUSCOUS
Take time to seek out the tiny, dark green lentils from France. You’ll often find them boxed in the dried legume aisle of your grocery store or in the bulk bins. They cook up more quickly and hold their shape better in a salad.

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Scientists have transformed one type of cell into another in living mice, a big step toward the goal of growing replacement tissues to treat a variety of diseases.

The cell identity switch turned ordinary pancreas cells into the rarer type that churns out insulin, essential for preventing diabetes. But its implications go beyond diabetes to a host of possibilities, scientists said.

It’s the second advance in about a year that suggests that someday doctors might be able to use a patient’s own cells to treat disease or injury without turning to stem cells taken from embryos.

The work is “a major leap” in reprogramming cells from one kind to another, said one expert not involved in the research, John Gearhart of the University of Pennsylvania.

That’s because the feat was performed in living mice rather than a lab dish, the process was efficient and it was achieved directly without going through a middleman like embryonic stem cells, he said.

The newly created cells made insulin in diabetic mice, though they were not cured. But if the experiment’s approach proves viable, it might lead to treatments like growing new heart cells after a heart attack or nerve cells to treat disorders like ALS, formerly Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Douglas Melton, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and a researcher with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, cautioned that the approach is not ready for people.

He and his colleagues report the research in a paper published online Wednesday by the journal Nature.

Basically, the identity switch comes about by a reprogramming process that changes the pattern of which genes are active and which are shut off.

Scientists have long hoped to find a way to reprogram a patient’s cells to produce new ones. Research with stem cells, and similar entities called iPS cells that were announced last year, has aimed to achieve this in a two-step process.

Head on over to Mental-Emotional Health to discover why depression accompanies pain.

I LOVE berries! Recently, a friend invited me to go up Interstate 5 near Everett, WA to buy berries fresh from the actual farmers. I bought a 1/2 flat of blueberries and immediately stuck them in the freezer, on the pretense of enjoying them in the winter. There were 8 baggies of them, now I think I have 3 or 4 left. They are so good!

Been known to gorge on blueberries in late summer and early fall, when they’re abundant and in season? Go ahead! Even in the world of fruits and berries, which is loaded with health-boosting, age-fighting nutrition stars, blueberries are a supernova.

They’re linked not only to skin, heart, eye, and urinary health but also to a lower risk of cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s.

So how much should you be eating to reap the protective health benefits? About 1 to 2 cups a day says Steven G. Pratt, MD, author of the new book SuperFoods HealthStyle: Proven Strategies for Lifelong Health.

First off, you may be thinking, “Wow, that’s a lot of blueberries, even in August!” Second, if they’re not in season, you’re wondering how on earth you’re going to eat a cup or more a day. Here’s how:

Stock your freezer. There’s evidence that frozen blueberries provide the same benefits of fresh, says Dr. Pratt. The big tip-off? A European study found that men who ate frozen berries daily had as much as 50% more quercetin, a particularly powerful anticancer antioxidant, in their blood than did men who abstained from eating berries.

When fresh blueberries are so last season, here are a few suggestions from Pratt and others on how to use frozen ones to get that “cup a day”:

• Put a cup of frozen berries in the fridge in the evening to defrost; in the morning, sprinkle them over cereal or stir them into yogurt. Forgot to defrost? Throw those chilly berries in the blender, and whip up a quick all-fruit smoothie.

• Boost the fiber and nutrients in your baked goods by tossing a handful into muffin or quick-bread batter. Just add 5 to 15 minutes to the baking time to compensate for their chilling effect.

• Float a few in a glass of cold club soda or lemonade as festive, edible ice cubes. (Kids will get a kick out of this.)

• Eat them plain, like tiny popsicles. (Another kid pleaser.)

• Add them to a salad of winter fruit about 15 minutes before serving.

Eating fistfuls of blueberries every day is certainly no risk to your weight. You’re only looking at 79 calories a cup. And all those antioxidants pay off big-time.

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If you’ve been denying yourself pancakes for health and waist reasons, get out the griddle — they’re back.

Play Fast and Loose with the Batter
“Pancake batters are like cookie mixtures: They aren’t an exact science. You can throw all kinds of stuff into them and they’ll still come out just fine!” says nutritionist Elizabeth Somer, RD, author of The Food and Mood Cookbook. Here’s how to rehab your favorite flapjack recipe:

1. Cut Down the Calories
· Use half the oil, margarine, shortening, or butter called for in the recipe.
· Use nonfat milk or nonfat condensed milk — or low-fat buttermilk or soymilk — instead of whole milk.
· Use cooking spray to prepare the griddle.
· Keep servings to two 4″ pancakes.

2. Pump Up the Fiber
· Replace some of the white or unbleached flour with whole-wheat pastry flour. (It’s lighter than regular whole-wheat flour.) Start with 3/4 cup white and 1/4 cup whole-wheat flour for every cup of flour called for. Increase the whole-wheat flour every time you cook until you find the proportion you like best.
· Toss in a handful of oatmeal to up the protein and fiber. (You may need to add a little extra milk, too.)
· To make gluten-free pancakes, use buckwheat flour.

3. Skim Off the Cholesterol
· Replace the eggs with egg substitute, or use two whites per yolk.
· For fluffier pancakes, whip the whites separately, and then fold them into the batter.

4. Skinny Down the Sugar
· Replace half the sugar with Splenda.
· Try adding sweet-tasting flavorings: vanilla, nutmeg, and/or cinnamon, and leave out some of the sugar.

5. Rev Up the Antioxidants
· Mix a spoonful of canned pumpkin, grated apple, or whole blueberries into the batter.
· Add some toasted wheat germ or ground flaxseeds, too.

6. Swap Out the Syrup
· Heap on fresh or thawed berries — any kind.
· Top with a tablespoon of all-fruit apricot jam and a sliced banana.
· Spoon on fat-free sour cream, yogurt, or ricotta cheese mixed with mango chunks or mandarin oranges.

If you still crave syrup, drizzle any of the above with a little agave nectar (sold in health-food stores). It tastes as sweet as syrup, but it’s far easier on your blood sugar levels.

Now, Reap the Rewards
Trading pale, wimpy pancakes soaked in butter and syrup for hearty, healthy ones rich in flavor, fruit, fiber, and nutrients will do more than rehab an A.M. favorite and boost your energy for the day.

Read about Anna Friel over on Pushing Daisies.

Take time to find — and do — things that make you happy. It could mean better blood sugar.

It’s true. A study shows that depressed people may be 42 percent more likely to develop diabetes. And the stronger the sad symptoms, the greater the odds.

The Culprit: Unhealthy Habits
Sad feelings, researchers suspect, can make you wanna do some pretty unhealthy things — like pig out before bed, sack out on the couch all day, or maybe even smoke or drink. And those are all things that could put you on the road to diabetes. But bad habits are only part of the picture, experts note. Even in the absence of bad habits, depressed people are still more likely to develop diabetes.

Beating the Blues
Battling depression isn’t easy and may require counseling or other treatments if it’s severe or hangs around. But if you’ve got just the occasional blue mood, don’t let it linger. Bust out of it.

Any number of events can set off an unpleasant emotional reaction that leads to a blue mood. For some people, the blue mood can spiral into something deeper and last for weeks or longer. This level of depression typically requires treatment by a professional healthcare provider.

However, if you experience milder forms of depression, such as dysphoria, you can take steps to diffuse your negative feelings before your world comes crashing down and you put your health at risk.

First, take a closer look at three key facets of your life: 1) your thought processes, 2) your relationships, and 3) your stress levels. Next, assess how they influence your psyche on a daily basis and why. As you consider these areas of your life, develop a plan to more effectively deal with any troubling issues.

Read Healthy BPM to find out why livng for the weekend isn’t such a good idea.

You use it for cooking, cleaning, gardening, and a hundred other household chores. But for your blood sugar?

You bet. Seems vinegar — the tart stuff in tasty vinaigrettes and marinades — may help clamp down on blood sugar spikes from eating starchy carbs like potatoes and pasta.

Keep It Steady
Keeping blood sugar from surging may cut down on diabetes risk in the long run. But stabilizing blood sugar can do good things instantly, too — like stymieing hunger pangs, keeping your energy up, and keeping pounds off. To get the blood sugar benefit of vinegar, try pairing starchy foods with vinegar-based sauces or dressings. Or start a meal with a salad dressed in oil and vinegar.

Reality Check
Of course, a shot of vinegar will only go so far when it comes to keeping your blood sugar steady. To really ward off blood sugar problems, you’ll need to:
Get moving . . . so your body uses blood sugar better.

Load up . . . on low-glycemic-index foods that help keep blood sugar stable. We’re talking high-fiber fruits, veggies, and whole grains.

Pare down . . . maintaining a healthy weight helps reduce your risk of diabetes.

Try this easy-on-the-joints workout:

Chi-Gong Workout
Ever tried chi-gong (also spelled qigong)? Ever even heard of it? No, it’s not a tea or percussion instrument, but a 2000-year-old series of bodily movements and breaths that calms the spirit and the mind. It has also been shown to strengthen the immune system, reduce stress, and improve balance and posture (all important as we get older).

The most important goal of chi-gong is to learn how to breathe correctly — which involves breathing from the tan tien — a point 2 inches below the navel.

In each exercise, breathe in slowly. Focus on a point on the wall in front of you, with your chin parallel to the ground — this will help maintain balance. Your eyes should never drop during any exercise. Ideally, do this series of movements, crafted by the YOU Docs and chi-gong master Karl Romain, once daily to help keep your mind and body calm and focused.

Repeat each move three times before moving on to the next.

1. Loosening the Neck
Sink to the ground with your elbows and knees slightly bent and your chin parallel to the ground. Turn your head to the right as you inhale, and exhale as you come back to the middle. Then, turn your head to the left and repeat the sequence.

2. Picking the Fruit
Exhale as you reach for imaginary fruit, and inhale while bringing the fruit down. Reach for the closest fruit first, and then progressively move up the imaginary tree. Keep your knees bent and your back straight.

3. Relaxing the Shoulders
Lift your shoulders first, then elbows, then wrists. Roll your shoulders back; your elbows go out and your hands angle toward the middle — as if you’re grabbing a pole — with your hands sliding down to the level of your waist. Feel the energy as your hands pass down your body.

4. Reaching to Heaven
Inhale and clasp your hands at the level of your navel, and then raise your arms as if you’re reaching toward heaven. Lean to the right as you exhale, and then inhale as you come back to the center. Use the same technique as you lean to the left. Finally, bring your hands down in front of your navel as you exhale.

5. Bow, Bend, and Stretch
As you inhale, bow forward from the waist while your hands slide down your thighs and onto your knees. Bend at your knees and squat with your hands on the insides of knees. (Do not exhale until you come back up; this really works the control of your breath.) Then, stretch your legs as you let your torso hang to the floor, keeping your knees slightly bent. As you slowly rise up, exhale, allowing your head to be the last part of the body to rise up.

6. Stepping over the Fence
Inhale and deliberately shift your weight to the left until the right leg has no weight on it. Lift your leg only when it is weightless. Pretend that your right hand is attached to your right knee by a string. With your hand over your knee and leg, exhale as you rotate your leg and arm to the right — as if you’re stepping over a 1-foot fence. Slowly lower your heel, foot pointed out, and then rotate your foot frontward as you transfer weight to the right. Repeat with your left side.

see the rest of the work out here.

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There may be a newly discovered bonus to good blood sugar control: better recall.

Turns out that Alzheimer’s disease and the #1 blood sugar disorder, diabetes, share something in common — something that wreaks havoc on normal brain function: lack of insulin.

Not All in the Genes
A long-term Swedish study revealed that too little insulin ups Alzheimer’s risk. Men with low insulin secretion at age 50 had a significantly greater risk of the mind-robbing disease — as well as other types of dementia — later in life. One caveat though: The link was strongest in men without the gene that predisposes people to Alzheimer’s.

What It Means to You
Exactly how an impaired insulin response bumps up Alzheimer’s risk isn’t clear. But it definitely underscores the importance of diabetes prevention efforts.

Being active is a big part of living a healthy lifestyle. It offers up many health benefits. This is true for people of all ages and especially true for people with or at risk for pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes. Check out the benefits of being active, how much activity is best for you and get a few tips to become more active now.

Top 10 Benefits of Being Active

Improve blood glucose management. Activity makes your body more sensitive to the insulin you make. Activity also burns glucose (calories). Both actions lower blood glucose.

Lower blood pressure. Activity helps your heart pump stronger and slower.

Improve blood fats. Exercise can raise good cholesterol (HDL) and lower bad cholesterol (LDL) and triglycerides. These changes are heart healthy.

Take less insulin or diabetes pills. Activity can lower blood glucose and weight. Both of these may lower how much insulin or diabetes pills you need to take.

Lose weight and keep it off. Activity burns calories. If you burn enough calories, you’ll trim a few pounds. Stay active and you’ll keep the weight off.

Lower risk for other health problems. Reduce your risk of a heart attack or stroke, some cancers, and bone loss.

Gain more energy and sleep better. You’ll get better sleep in less time and have more energy, too.

Relieve stress. Work out or walk off daily stress.

Build stronger bones and muscles. Weight-bearing activities, such as walking, make bones stronger. Strength-training activities, such as lifting light weights (or even cans of beans), make muscles strong.

Be more flexible. Move easier when you are active.
Just How Much?

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans is put out every few years by the federal government. These Guidelines were revised in 2005 and for the first time they suggest how much activity Americans should aim for. Read through these below. Keep in mind, they are goals, not the place to start. Note that the American Diabetes Association (ADA) supports these Dietary Guidelines and believes they are good advice for people with diabetes or those who want to prevent it.

People with pre-diabetes, diabetes, or the general adult public should aim for a minimum of 30 minutes most days (Walking, gardening, doing yard work, swimming, or cleaning house will all work to meet this goal. Anything that increases your heart rate and causes you to break a light sweat.)

Children &, teens should aim for at least 60 minutes most days.

The Diabetes Prevention Program — a large study done in people with pre-diabetes — showed that 150 minutes of physical activity a week (30 minutes, five times a week) helped prevent or delay type 2 diabetes. In this study, people also lost 10 to 20 pounds by making changes in their eating habits.

Do these guidelines seem hard to fit in to your busy life? It’s not easy to find the time. You won’t go from zero to thirty or sixty (minutes), in a day or week. Take one step at a time. Slowly build up to your goal.

First, Doctor’s OK

Most adults without medical problems don’t need their doctor’s OK to exercise. But because people with pre-diabetes and diabetes may have a heart or other diabetes-related problem, ADA suggests you get your doctor’s OK. Talk to your doctor about your plans for activity. Learn from your doctor how to stay safe while you exercise.

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