Unfortunately, air pollution is a reality for all of us. It is produced by so many of the modern conveniences we use very day – cars, electricity and power plants (just to name a few). We are only now even beginning to understand how much of a health concern this air pollution is.
“Research consistently is finding that, when spread out over a given population, the quality of the air has a very significant impact on public health. When vehicles, factories, power plants, and other machines burn fuel, the chemicals they release into the atmosphere react with one another (and other compounds in the air) in ways that can amplify health hazards.
One major study, which followed subjects for 16 years, found that people living in cities with higher levels of fine particulates were at greater risk of cardiovascular death. A difference of 10 micrograms per cubic meter increased the risk of dying from ischemic heart disease (narrowed arteries) by 18 percent, arrhythmia by 13 percent, and cardiac arrest by 21 percent. It seems air pollutants incite processes that lead to high blood pressure, blood clotting, and electrical instability in your heart.
Air pollution might actually cause disease as well. Separate Children ages 9 to 16 who played at least three sports and lived in areas with high ozone concentrations had a 30 percent increased chance of developing asthma. And other work indicates that infants whose mothers were exposed to air pollutants while pregnant might be at a greater risk of low birth weight, pre-term birth, and even death.” – www.mercola.com
The good news is that with the use of Standard Process whole food supplements, we can assist your body in better handling the enormous number of toxins it is exposed to every day. If you are concerned about exposure to things like air pollution, please call our office for more information on the healthy, safe and effective purification programs we can help you with.
Obesity among children is on the rise, and this is a big concern for our entire country. With healthcare costs already on the rise, having generations of children suffering from obesity gaurantees that healthcare costs will continue to go up. In addition, children who suffer from obesity are at a significantly greater risk for conditions such as Type II Diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, gout, heart disease and certain types of cancers. Our bodies simply cannot operate optimally when we carrying large amounts of extra weight and this is especially dangerous for children. Their bodies are growing, their brains and organ systems are still developing. If their bodies can’t perform optimally during years of critical development, their health will suffer for the rest of their lives. Dr. Joseph Mercola recently wrote an article discussing one of the reasons children are suffering from obesity so much these days. The link to this article can be found below.
For more information on how to put together a healthy, balanced diet please contact our office.
http://blogs.mercola.com/sites/vitalvotes/archive/2010/02/17/childhood-obesity–its-not-the-amount-of-tv-its-the-number-of-junk-food-commercials.aspx
Did you know your body has Two Types of Fat ?
Subcutaneous fat is found just under your skin and is noticeable. It’s the type of fat that jiggles, dimples, and causes cellulite.
Visceral fat is fat on the inside of your body, under your abdominal muscle. It is more dangerous than subcutaneous fat because it can surround vital organs like your liver and heart.
Visceral fat is linked to heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, strokes and other chronic diseases.
Belly fat is also dangerous because it produces inflammatory molecules that enter your bloodstream. High inflammation levels in your body can trigger a wide range of systemic diseases linked with metabolic syndrome.
While it’s often referred to as “belly fat” because it can cause a “beer belly” or an apple-shaped body, you can have visceral fat even if you’re thin.
Not All Body Fat is Bad
You may think all body fat is the enemy. The fact is, fat cells are an active and intelligent part of your body, producing hormones that impact your brain, liver, immune system and your fertility.
Research indicates that the subcutaneous fat found just under your skin is different from visceral fat in a number of ways.
It has been discovered subcutaneous fat can actually improve glucose metabolism and communicate with your organs to elicit beneficial effects.
The Leptin Connection
Most people are not aware that leptin plays an enormous role in the development of obesity. Leptin is a hormone your body produces which is just as important as insulin in determining your risk for Type 2 diabetes and other serious diseases. The hormones your fat cells produce impact how much you eat and how much fat you burn.
Leptin resistance causes an increase in the visceral fat your body produces.
Simply put, here’s how you become leptin resistant:
You eat a diet which includes too many sugars and grains (grains turn to sugar once you consume them)
The sugar metabolizes to (turns into) fat and is stored in your fat cells
This activity in turn causes a surge in leptin
Your body becomes resistant to leptin just as it can become insulin-resistant
When you’re leptin-resistant, your body no longer hears its own signals to stop eating, burn fat, or pass up sugary foods.
The result? You stay hungry, you crave sweets, and your body stores ever more fat.
When your body routinely stores this much excess visceral fat, you increase your risk for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, vascular disease, atherosclerosis (hardening of your arteries) and an increased thickness in the walls of your heart.
Measuring Your Diabetes Risk in an Instant
You probably have the most powerful tool available to determine your risk of diabetes right at your fingertips – a simple tape measure.
Your total body fat and overall level of fitness are not the best indicators of insulin sensitivity, your waist size is.
Studies clearly show that measuring your waist size is one of the most powerful ways to predict your risk for diabetes.
Determining your waist size is easy. With a tape measure, figure the distance around the smallest area of your abdomen below your rib cage and above your belly button.
If you’re male, these guidelines apply:
Ideal waist measurement: between 31 and 36 inches
Overweight: between 36 and 40 inches
Obese: over 40 inches
For women:
Ideal waist measurement: between 28 and 33 inches
Overweight: between 33 and 37 inches
Obese: over 37 inches
The Two Keys to Getting Rid of Belly Fat
1. Eliminate sugars and grains from your diet.
Did you know refined sugar is far more addictive than cocaine? In fact, it’s one of the most addictive substances you can consume.
And refined sugar is not the only thing you must avoid when you’re craving sweets.
Starch, in the form of grains and potatoes, metabolizes into sugar in your body and should also be eliminated from your diet if you suffer from excess weight, diabetes or high cholesterol.
Following my nutrition plan is a simple way to automatically reduce your intake of both grains and sugars.
2. Exercise regularly.
Studies show regular, ongoing exercise is extremely important in getting rid of visceral fat and staying rid of it. Exercise also reduces the inflammatory properties of visceral fat that are linked to metabolic syndrome.
One of the keys to using exercise to normalize your insulin and leptin levels and eliminate visceral fat is to do enough of it.
There are three important variables with exercise:
Length of time
Frequency
Intensity
If you’re healthy enough to exercise, you should gradually increase the length and frequency of your workouts to one hour per day.
This is where you should stay until your weight and insulin levels are normalized. When you reach that goal, you can reduce your exercise frequency to three to four times per week.
Do you know the difference between butter and margarine?
Both have the same amount of calories.
Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams; compared to 5 grams for margarine.
Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.
Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.
Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few and only because they are added!
Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavors of other foods.
Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years.
Margarine is very high in trans fatty acids.
Triples the risk of coronary heart disease.
Increases total cholesterol and LDL (this is the bad cholesterol) and lowers HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol).
Increases the risk of cancers up to five times.
Lowers quality of breast milk.
Decreases immune response.
Decreases insulin response.
Margarine is but one molecule away from being plastic and and shares 27 ingredients with paint.
Pass the REAL BUTTER PLEASE!
