7-Signs to Monitor Your Blood Sugar

Managing the values of your blood sugar (glucose) is not critical for diabetics - only. Medical professionals recommend that patients who take certain medications maybe altering their carbohydrate metabolism. As a result, monitoring one’s blood sugar is vital. Quite often, blood glucose testing is used to diagnose hyperglycemia (an increase in blood sugar which may cause diabetic ketoacidosis leading to a coma) or hypoglycemia (a lack of blood sugar which can impede oxygen to the brain).

Alternatively, there are other medical indicators to bear watching one’s blood sugar. Individuals who experience any of the following symptoms should check their blood glucose level:

• An abnormal appetite or hunger
• A loss of sensation (numbness)
• Anxiety
• Confusion
• Convulsions
• Clouded vision
• Dizziness

Please note the above mentioned health indications may be a sign of diabetes or other medical complications.

References: ** American Heart Associations (AHA - http://www.americanheart.org)
** American Medical Association (AMA - http://www.ama-assn.org)

Ahh, Stress

You may have noticed I havne’t been posting a whole lot lately. You could consider it an early summer lull, but I haven’t slowed down a bit.

The fact is, I have a bit too much on my plate, and something has to give. When I should be happily anticipating a long weekend, instead I’m wondering how I’m going to cram in all the things I feel like I need to do and should be doing.

Of course we all get like this from time to time. Daily life is stressful by itself, and when you add on things like a day trip, a stack of assignments and a wish list of to dos, it just makes things all the more uncomfortable.

And this has to do with health because stress can make you sick.

I was a pretty high-strung, achievement-oriented kid (some things never change) and I would always get sick on vacations. I think it’s because I was so used to stress and pressure that when I got a little bit relaxed, my body was uncomfortable without stress so I would get sick.

Normal people experience illness related to stress when they get the flu at the worst possible time: days before the big project is due, or right before finals, or whenever they’re feeling particularly stressed out about something.

And living in a constant state of stress, or where you regularly feel a lot of stress, just plain isn’t healthy. It puts stress on your body, your organs, your emotions, leaving everything a little off balance, even if you don’t really get sick. Years of this kind of damage really can add up, in ulcers and heart attacks as well as bad posture and bad attitudes.

So let this little story serve as a reminder to you this weekend to stop, take a breath, relax, have fun and stop worrying for just a little while. The world probably won’t end if I don’t get everything done I intend to this weekend. And the fun I’ll have instead will be more than worth it.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and a wonderful holiday if you’re in the States!

Vegetarianism

More and more people these days are realizing the economic and health benefits of a meatless diet. As the public becomes aware of meatborne diseases such as mad cow, the effects of growth hormones on children who consume meat or dairy products from animals treated with hormones, and the emergence of resistant strains of bacteria (thought to be linked to the vast quantities of antibiotics given to livestock and even fish in farms), an increasing number of people are turning to a vegetarian diet.

Besides being naturally higher in fiber and lower in cholesterol, a vegetarian diet is economically sound. In the United States, the “meat and potatoes” standard has been promulgated since the year dot as the “only” way to get proper amounts of vitamins and nutrients. Alternative diets have received negative media attention as unhealthy, especially for children.

To many people’s surprise, a vegetarian diet is both nutritious, healthful, and tasty. Besides saving money in grocery bills (especially if you can manage to have a little bit of garden), you will also save medical bills, as positive health benefits have been statistically proven across the board in those who consume a meatless or near meatless diet.

There are hundreds if not thousands of vegetarian recipes available on the Net, and more and more cookbooks are becoming available, addressing various types of cuisine to suit everyone’s tastes. It’s worth investigating, and in light of the global famines (due at least in part to the vast tracts of land given over to growing food for livestock instead of food for humans) and the many problems and illnessess attributed to a diet high in animal products, possibly one of the only options we have in a shrinking world.

Low GI for Weight Loss

You’ve probably heard about the glycemic index, a way of categorizing foods based on how quickly the foods convert to blood sugar in the body. The theory is that foods lower on the glycemic index convert more slowly, thus make you feel full longer and don’t provide the crash that many high-carb sugary foods do.

For example, foods that rank below 55 are considered best for those eating low on the glycemic index, while those higher should be used sparingly or avoided. Low-GI foods include soy beans (18) black beasn (30) and peas (48). Borderline foods include sweet potatoes (54) and high foods are things such as white potato (boiled, 70; baked, 98).

A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that eating a low-GI diet helped people lose weight and was even more effective than a low-fat, low-calorie diet. Those following a low-GI diet lost 7.8 percent of their body weight compared to 6.1 percent for the low-calorie crowd. Their triglyceride levels (which indicate risk for heart disease) also dropped dramatically.

If you want to incoroprate low GI foods into your diet, check out this chart. And remember that all things work best in moderation, so if you just can’t resist a baked potato every now and then, have one, but balance it with some asparagus or a big green salad.

Take Time for Exercise

According to a Blue Cross and Blue Shield study released this week (in conjunction with National Employee Health and Fitness Week) 70 percent of Americans think they don’t have time to exercise as much as they should.

Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed said they wold like to get more exercise than they currently do, and only 39 percent of people said they were meeting the government guideline of working out two and a half hours a week.

I just love the idea that people don’t have time to exercise. I’ll fully admit that I don’t exercise as much as I should, but I don’t blame time. There are a hundred ways to make time for exercise, including:

• Getting up early
• Staying up late
• Cutting out a half hour (or more!) of television every day
• Taking a walk on your lunch break
• Planning a physical family outing every week, whether it’s playing in the park or going for a bike ride

and many more. And of course you can sneak exercise into your day by picking a far-away parking spot (or working somewhere, like I do, where they make you pay $300 to park near your building), taking the stairs, scrubbing your floors, taking up gardening, chasing a two-year-old around the house, etc.

Not feeling like exercising is an excuse (not a good one, mind you). Being lazy in an excuse. But not having time is not an excuse. If you want to find time, it’s almost always there. So get out there and use it!

Low Fat for Breast Health

A study released today (reported on here) suggests that a low-fat diet reduces risk of relapse in breast cancer patients.

The study of more than 2,000 women across the United States found that a group averaging 33 grams of fat daily had a lower risk or recurrance than those who made no change in their diets (and received around 51 grams of fat daily). It is often recommended that people get 30 percent of their daily calories from fat; most American women get more like 50 percent, according to the study.

While there is some debate over whether the reduction in breast cancer recurrance was due to eating less fat or other factors such as weight loss, it’s certainly not going to hurt anything to eat less fat in your diet, whether you’re a breast cancer patient or an ordinary citizen. It’s certainly worth thinking about.

Another Pyramid to Ponder

The University of Michigan Integrative Medicine department has built a new food pyramid based around healing foods. The bottom of the pyramid is water, and the top is meat and “acompaniments” such as dark chocolate and alcohol. (You can see the pyramid here.)

In between are fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, seasonings, healthy fats, dairy and eggs. The cool thing about this pyramid is that you can click on each section and find healing foods particular to that group.

For example, clicking on seasonings gets you information about the health benefits of tumeric (anti-inflamatory), ginger (motion sickness), garlic (helps with infection and can lower cholesterol), peppermint (prevents gas) and cayenne pepper (improves circulation, eases tooth pain and increases appetite). Clicking on fish and seafood gives you information on the amount of omega-3 fatty acid in different types of fish and explains why that is important, as well as saying which fish you shouldn’t eat because of high mercury content.

Each section also underscores the importance of buying organic, pesticide-free food.

This looks like a really great basic education in natural, healing foods. I hope you all check it out and think about this pyramid as you plan your meals this week.

Avoiding the Red Wine Headache

We all know about the benefits of drinking red wine–but we don’t know just what causes some people to experience those miserable ‘red wine’ headaches. A recent MSN article offered three theories:

1. Sulfites

Sulfites are possibly to blame. They are compounds that contain sulfur and a less-than-optimal number of oxygen atoms. Consequently, they “grab� oxygen before it can react with food and spoil it. In wine, sulfites also control bacteria that might otherwise digest the alcohol content, turning a $50 bottle into some very expensive vinegar. Some sulfites are created naturally during fermentation, as the yeast breaks down sugars in the grape juice into alcohol and carbon dioxide. But wine makers often add more as a preservative.

Sulfites were once considered harmless, but in the 1980s, studies started to show that a small number of people (about 1%, according to the FDA) are sensitive to them. The FDA, therefore, prohibits the use of sulfites on fruit and vegetables intended to be eaten raw, so salad bars and your supermarket’s produce section should be sulfite-free. Depending on their concentration levels and other factors, the sulfite compounds must be included in a food’s list of ingredients. Most wines are emblazoned with a “contains sulfites� warning.

But many experts question whether sulfites are the source of red wine headaches for several reasons. First, breathing problems (including asthma attacks), not headaches, are the more typical reaction to sulfites. Second, red wine is typically the trigger, yet many sweet whites contain more sulfites than reds because they have a higher sugar content. Third, plenty of other foods contain sulfites, so these headaches shouldn’t be particular to red wine.

This doesn’t mean that sulfites in red wine can’t be a problem. For example, red wine has been known to trigger asthma attacks, presumably because of the sulfite content.

2. Histamine

White wine is made using only the grape’s juice, or must. Red wines use the entire crushed fruit, including the skins, which contain the biologically active compound histamine. As a result, red wine contains 20–200 times more histamine than white wine.

Some people are histamine-intolerant because of a deficiency in diamine oxidase, an enzyme that breaks down histamine in the small intestine. Alcohol also inhibits the enzyme, so some experts believe that red wine headaches are caused by a combination of wine’s alcohol content and a diamine oxidase shortage. But this theory is contradicted by some studies. For example, a French study in the February 2001 Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology of 16 people with “wine intolerance� found no difference in reactions to low- and high-histamine wines. The researchers didn’t dismiss the possibility that histamine plays a role, but suggested that some other ingredient in red wine might boost levels of it in the blood.

3. Tannins

Tannins, another constituent of grape skins, give red wine its distinctive pleasant but slightly bitter flavor. They may also explain why red wine is so healthful, because they’re flavonoids, antioxidants found in plant-based food. But here’s proof that there’s no such thing as a free lunch: tannins may cause headaches. Several carefully controlled lab experiments have shown that they provoke blood platelets into releasing serotonin, and high serotonin levels can cause headaches.

Finally, for some people, it may simply be the alcohol. Alcohol, in any drink, is a well-known precipitant of migraine, and some of the headaches set off by wine are migraines.

So what can you do to prevent red wine headaches? Depends on which theory you like best. If you think sulfates are causing your headaches, stick to “no sufates added” wines. If you think it’s histamine, try taking a nonsedating antihistamine. If you think it’s tannins, try wines with lower levels of tannin.

Meditation for Life

A recent study published in the American Journal of Cardiology (I’d line to the abstract if I could find it) found that meditation reduces blood pressure and can even prolong life. The study of two older studies found that men and women who meidtated had lower blood pressure than those who did not, and that those who meditated were 23 percent less likely to die from any cause than those who did not meditate.

They were also 30 percent less likely to die from heart disease and 49 percent less likely to die from cancer than their non-breathing counterparts.

Meditation is also great because it is relaxing and can give you insights into the larger meaning of things. It doesn’t have to be thought of as a religious thing, or as a crazy hippie thing, but simply as a way to relieve stress and possibly even protect your body from illness. That sounds like a pretty good reason to start, doesn’t it?

Meditation can be difficult in the beginning, your mind is always wandering and you don’t feel like you’re getting anything useful out of the time you spend. But you are, even when you struggle. Just focus on deep breath and giving yourself time and space to relax, and in time you will find that you can relax more quickly and easily. You might just get some other benefits, too.

Try it for a week and see what happens. Just 15 minutes a day, sitting or lying in a comfortable position, focusing on nothing but taking deep breaths. You’ll be glad you did.

Eating to Prevent Cancer

A bunch of recent studies have dealt with foods and cancer risk, because everyone wants to know what they can eat or what they should stop eating in order to reduce their risk of cancer. Of course, there’s no silver bullet, no perfect diet that will completely eliminate cancer risk, but there are a few things you can do to lessen your risk of certain types of cancer.

1. Eat more hot peppers. Capsaican, which is the chemical that makes hot peppers hot, has been found to have a nasty effect on pancreatic cancer cells (they basically self destruct).

2. Eat more cruciferous veggies. Vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower contain a substance (phenethyl isothiocyanate) that seems to inhibit growth of ovarian cancer cells.

3. Lay off the red meat and pork. You already know how I feel about meat-based diets, but it turns out that cutting out meat will cut your risk of cancer of the pancreas. A study in Hawaii found those with the highest intake of processed meat (this is the land of Spam, after all) had a 76 percent higher risk of getting pancreatic cancer than those with the lowest consumption, and the risk was 50 percent higher for those who ate the most beef and pork.

4. Eat Omega-3s, especially if you’re pregnant. We all know the benefits of eating more fatty fish with their healthy Omega-3 fats including reduction of inflamation and heart benefits, but it turns out diets high in Omega-3s can help prevent breast cancer, even in the womb. At least if you’re a mouse: pregnant mice fed diets rich in Omega-3 had children with less mammary cancer.

I’m trying to resist the urge to say something about food for thought, but I just can’t.

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