FIGHT INFECTIONS WITH DIET

Diet and the Immune System

 

The immune system is our body's protective network designed to fend off invasion by harmful substances, including bacteria, viruses, and harmful chemicals, and to act as a surveillance system against the development of cancer.
An impaired immune system weakens the body's ability to fend off infection and malignancy, infections like flu usually take advantage of the immune system's weakness to attack. In fact, many of the symptoms of the flu (such as achy muscles and joints, fever, and headache) are caused by the immune system's response to the infection. We all know how painful the flu season can be, well guess what...you can empower your body to fight such recurrent infections just by improving your diet and lifestyle.
The three areas that are most important in protecting and bolstering the immune system are diet and nutrition, exercise, and stress reduction. First, you can enrich your diet with antioxidants: Antioxidants are vitamins and minerals, found in foods and available as supplements, that remove harmful oxidants from the bloodstream. The typical American diet is often deficient in a variety of nutrients including calcium, iron, vitamin A, and vitamin C so second: you can make sure you are getting enough nutrients and micronutrients. Marginal nutrient deficiencies in the diet can also weaken the immune system.
You can further modify your diet by eating less saturated fat and animal protein (particularly red meat), by limiting dairy products (particularly those with fat), by modifying your use of oils and fats, and by eating more fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
BE THE LAST MAN STANDING THIS FLU SEASON!!

EXERCISE, Refuse to be a couch potato.

 Most of the people i know spend hours each day just sitting. It's either seated at a desk, seated staring at a computer or seated in class and yet at the end of the day they retire back home and do some more sitting in front of the telly! We call that a sedentary lifestyle. A sedentary lifestyle is a type of lifestyle with no or irregular physical activity. A person who lives a sedentary lifestyle may colloquially be known as a couch potato. It is commonly found in both the developed and developing world. Sedentary activities include sitting, reading, watching television, playing video games, and computer use for much of the day with little or no vigorous physical exercise.

A sedentary (inactive) lifestyle is one of the top risk factors for heart disease. Fortunately, it's a risk factor that you can do something about. Regular exercise, especially aerobic exercise, has many benefits. It can:

• Strengthen your heart and cardiovascular system
• Improve your circulation and help your body use oxygen better
• Improve your heart failure symptoms
• Increase energy levels so you can do more activities without becoming tired or short of breath
• Increase endurance
• Lower blood pressure
• Improve muscle tone and strength
• Improve balance and joint flexibility
• Strengthen bones
• Help reduce body fat and help you reach a healthy weight
• Help reduce stress, tension, anxiety, and depression
• Boost self-image and self-esteem
• Improve sleep
• Make you feel more relaxed and rested
• Make you look fit and feel healthy

How Do I Get Started Exercising?

Before starting an exercise program, talk to your doctor about:

• Medication changes. New medications can greatly affect your response to exercise; your doctor can tell you if your normal exercise routine is still safe.
• Heavy lifting. Make sure that lifting or pushing heavy objects and chores such as raking, shoveling, mowing, or scrubbing aren't off limits. Chores around the house can be tiring for some people; make sure you only do what you are able to do without getting tired.
• Safe exercises. Get the doctor's approval before you lift weights, use a weight machine, jog, or swim.

What Type of Exercise Is Best?

• Stretching the arms and legs before and after exercising helps prepare the muscles for activity and helps prevent injury and muscle strain. Regular stretching also increases your range of motion and flexibility.
• Cardiovascular or aerobic activity strengthens the heart and lungs and improves the body's ability to use oxygen. Aerobic exercise has the most benefits for your heart. Over time, aerobic exercise can help decrease your heart rate and blood pressure at rest and improve your breathing.
• Strengthening, repeated muscle contractions (tightening) until the muscle becomes tired; for people with heart failure, many strengthening exercises are not recommended. (See below)

What Are Examples of Aerobic Exercises?

Aerobic exercises include: walking, jogging, jumping rope, bicycling (stationary or outdoor), cross-country skiing, skating, rowing, and low-impact aerobics or water aerobics.

How Often Should I Exercise?

In general, to achieve maximum benefits, you should gradually work up to an aerobic session lasting 20 to 30 minutes, at least three to four times a week. Exercising every day or every other day will help you keep a regular aerobic exercise schedule.

LET'S FIGHT THE COUCH POTATO.

Veggie Tales

Every parent has fought the "eat your vegetables war"; every child dreads it and each of us remembers it. Hec they even made a cartoon to convince us to eat said vegetables!!! Didn't we all just love it when Popeye opened that can of Spinach and his muscles exploded only for him to save his Damsel and smash everyone in his his sight?!!! Why is everyone trying to get us to eat vegetables? Surely its not to get steroid looking muscles... Here's why you should eat a bit of green;
Vegetables are low in fat so you don't have to worry about weight gain when you indulge in them.
Vegetables contain good amounts of vitamins and minerals. All the Green-Yellow-Orange vegetables are rich sources of calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, beta-carotene, vitamin B-complex, vitamin-C, vitamin A, and vitamin K. So get rid of those vitamin and mineral supplements and chew on a carrot.
As in fruits, vegetables too are home for many antioxidants that; firstly, help protect the human body from oxidant stress, diseases and cancers, and secondly; help the body develop the capacity to fight against these by boosting immunity.
Additionally, vegetables are packed with soluble as well as insoluble dietary fiber known as non-starch polysaccharides (NSP) such as cellulose, mucilage, hemi-cellulose, gums, pectin...etc. These substances absorb excess water in the colon, retain a good amount of moisture in the fecal matter, and help its smooth passage out of the body. Thus, sufficient fiber offers protection from conditions like hemorrhoids, colon cancer, chronic constipation, and rectal fissures.
Let's not forget that vegetables are easy to prepare, no need to wait for long baking hours; chopped up carrots, onion, cucumber, a tomato plus good old french beans in a pan, a drizzle of oil, a bit of spice and in five minutes you've got yourself a vegetable dish.
LET'S GO GREEN!

Adopt the Mediterranean Diet for Optimum Health.

The Mediterranean Diet is the name that has evolved to symbolize the healthy foods eaten by those people whose countries surround the Mediterranean Sea. Their diets are higher in vegetables, legumes (beans and peas), fruits, nuts and whole grain cereals. The main fat used is olive oil and there is less use of highly saturated fats like butter and lard. Instead of beef and poultry as the main animal protein, they eat mostly fish with soem dairy, although much of the dairy is in form of cultured products lie cheeses and yoghurt. the lower intake of poultry and red meats is coupled with a moderate consumption of wine (mostly with meals).

For thousands of years, residents of the Mediterranean coastal region have enjoyed this kind of delicious diet -- high in plant foods and monounsaturated fats (like olive oil) -- while getting plenty of regular physical activity. They don’t think of their eating habits as a diet plan; it's simply their way of life.  And it's a way of life that apparently leads to long, healthy lives virtually free of chronic disease.

For the past 50 years, scientists have studied the eating patterns characteristic of the Mediterranean diet -- and they continue to find additional health benefits. Recently, a large study published in journal BMJ showed that healthy people who followed a Mediterranean diet had a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. 

Further, a recent study published in The New England Journal of Medicine showed that a restricted-calorie Mediterranean diet (as well as a low-carb diet) could be even more effective for weight loss than a low-fat diet, while also offering other health benefits.

"Research continues to demonstrate that being physically active and eating a nutritious diet of primarily whole foods that are filling and satisfying can enable people to control weight, lower blood pressure [and] cholesterol levels, reduce risk of diabetes, heart disease [and] Alzheimer’s disease, and basically protect against chronic diseases," says cardiologist Arthur Agatston, MD, creator of the South Beach Diet, based on the Mediterranean diet model.

Get Healthy Now!!!

Prevention Potential of Citrus

There is considerable evidence that citrus foods may help reduce the risk, or retard the progression, of several serious diseases and disorders;

Cardiovascular disease

It is well accepted that a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol and rich in fruits and vegetables reduces the risk of heart disease. Epidemiological studies have also shown a significant association between vitamin C intake and protection against cardiovascular mortality.

Cancer

There is reasonable scientific support for vitamin C's protective role in cancer. Many of the animal, cell culture and human studies have suggested it has a positive effect. However, epidemiological studies provide good evidence that protective effects are more closely associated with the consumption of fruits and vegetables rather than with the enormous levels of vitamin C often used in cell culture and animal studies.

Neural tube defects

During the first stage of pregnancy, adequate folate intake is critical for reducing the risk of severe birth defects, namely spina bifida and anencephaly. Regular consumption of citrus foods can help supply adequate folate and thus reduce the risk of these birth defects.

Anaemia

Vitamin C can increase the absorption of non-haem iron (the inorganic iron form found in plant foods) two to fourfold (Fleming et al., 1998). The bio-availability of non-haem iron is much lower than that of haem iron, which is found in foods of animal origin (Whitney and Rolfes, 1999). Consuming citrus fruits rich in vitamin C can help prevent anaemia and its devastating consequences.

Cataracts

Oxidation of the eye's lens plays a central role in the formation of age-related cataracts. Lower cataract risk has been shown in individuals with high blood concentrations or intakes of vitamin C and carotenoids. There is now evidence to show that a high level of vitamin C intake over the long term decreases the risk of cataract development.

More Than Vitamin C

The Nutrient Content and functions of Citrus

 

Nutritional facts about Citrus fruit

	Orange	Grapefruit	Tangerine
Weight (g)	131	236	84
Energy (kcal)	62	78	37
Fibre content (g)	3.1	2.5	1.7
Ascorbic acid (mg)	70	79	26
Folate (mcg)	40	24	17
Potassium (mg)	237	350	132

Source: Gutherie and Picciano, 1995.

 

 Carbohydrate

The main energy-yielding nutrient in citrus is carbohydrate; citrus contains the simple carbohydrates (sugars) fructose, glucose and sucrose, as well as citric acid which can also provide a small amount of energy. Citrus fruits also contain non-starch polysaccharides (NSP), commonly known as the dietary fibre, which is a complex carbohydrate with important health benefits. The predominant type of fibre in citrus is pectin, making up 65 to 70 percent of the total fibre.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C (ascorbic acid), an essential water-soluble vitamin, plays a key role in the formation of collagen, a primary component of much of the connective tissue in the body. Adequate collagen synthesis is essential for strong ligaments, tendons, dentin, skin, blood vessels and bones, and for wound healing and tissue repair. The weakening of these tissues is a symptom of vitamin C deficiency. Vitamin C is an important aid in the absorption of inorganic iron; it has also been shown to aid in the treatment of anaemia and stress.

Folate

Folate is a water-soluble vitamin essential for new cell production and growth. It helps in the production of DNA and ribonucleic acid (RNA) and mature red blood cells, which ultimately prevent anaemia.

Potassium

Potassium is an essential mineral that works to maintain the body's water and acid balance. As an important electrolyte, it plays a role in transmitting nerve impulses to muscles, in muscle contraction and in maintenance of normal blood pressure. The daily requirement of potassium is approximately 2000mg. There is concern that a high sodium-to-potassium intake ratio may be a risk factor for chronic disease. Increased consumption of citrus fruits and juices is a good means of increasing potassium intake.

Phytochemicals

Several classes of phytochemicals, including monoterpenes, limonoids (triterpenes), flavanoids, carotenoids and hydroxycinnamic acid, have been isolated from citrus and may help to protect against various chronic diseases, including cancer and heart disease.

Serious Health Mistakes V

Avoiding Doctors

Seeing the doctor can be time consuming and even somewhat an embarrassing affair often requiring a ton of paper work. Even so, having regular check-ups can mean early detection and treatment thus minimizing further complications. Women should visit a gynecologist annually for a pap smear and breast exam, as well as an annual mammogram once over the age of forty.
Men should have their testicles examined for irregularities and also be checked for colon cancer. You should also be visiting your dentist and general practitioner annually. These visits maybe uncomfortable and even tedious, but they can potentially save your life.