A Family Fitness Guide

Mild to Moderate Depression: Take St. Johns’ Wort

I hope this article from Patricia Zifferblatt from Better Life Institute is helpful in coping with a mild to moderate case of depression:

“Extracts of St. Johns’ Wort are effective in reducing the symptoms of major depression, according to a new review in the prestigious Cochrane Systemic Review” the headlines from NutraIngredients stated on October 9, 2008.

The lead researcher, Klaus Linde and fellow researchers from the Centre for Complimentary Medicine at the Technical University of Munich, Germany and the University Medical Center, Freiburg showed that the plant extract of St. Johns’ Wort is effective against mild to moderate depressive disorders. This new study pulled together 29 trials involving over 5,000 patients of major depression, 18 of which included a placebo and 17 involved comparisons with synthetic standard antidepressants.

The team made the following statement in defending their research:
“The available evidence suggests that the hypericum extracts, i.e. St. Johns’ Wort, tested in the included trials are:
a. superior to placebo in patients with major depression
b. similarly effective as standard antidepressants
c. have fewer side-effects than standard antidepressants

And now a word of caution from Better Life: Because not all supplements containing St Johns’ Wort are manufactured under GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) with the same amount of effective hypericum, we strongly suggest that anyone who supplements with St. Johns’ Wort purchase a quality product from a highly reputable supplier. As always, if you are under the care of a physician, get approval from her/him before adding St. John’s Wort or any other supplements to your diet.

Colds vs. Allergies

Well, the weather is getting cooler and that means the nasty cold, flu and allergies season is just around the corner.  Do you know the different between colds and allergies?

Many people (10-20%) of the population suffer from allergic responses to allergens. What can you do about it?

• Track the pollen count for your area;
• Stay indoors in central air conditioning with a HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filter attachment when the pollen count is high. This will remove pollen from the indoor air;
• Get away from the pollen where possible;
• Take antihistamine medications;
• If medication does not give enough relief, consider immunotherapy (”allergy shots”).

Joint Health

Joints pain any one? Consider these strategies to encourage joint health.

• Strength training. Weight-bearing exercise builds strong bone density and protects joints by strengthening the muscles that stabilize them. Combine strength training and low-impact activities such as swimming or water aerobics.
• Stretch. Regular stretching keeps joints, muscles and ligaments limber and strong, while reducing injury risk, lowering stress and encouraging weight loss.
• Slim down. Every pound of your body weight places four pounds of pressure per step on the knees. Losing 10 pounds translates to 48,000 fewer pounds of pressure per mile walked.
• Glucosamine and chondroitin. Though study results are mixed. Some find glucosamine or glocosamine plus chondroitin helpful and they appear to do no harm. To determine if these supplements are helpful for you, try 1,500 miligrams of glucosamine and 100 miligrams chondroitin, twice a day, then evaluate your pain level after 7 days.

Dash Diet

I get the Hill Health magazine every other month or so. They have some helpful information in this issue and would like to share with my readers here.

“Dash Diet

A recent study suggests the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet - known to lower blood pressure and cholesterol- also might be effective for losing weight and keeping if off. DASH emphasizes fruits, vegetables and fat-free and low-fat dairy and encourages whole grains, fish, poultry and nuts while limiting red meat, sweets and sweetened beverages.

For some， DASH can be hard to follow. If you’re struggling to stick to it, try one small change such as replacing high-sodium snacks for that apple instead of those chips, add more elements of the diet, such as increasing you vegetable intake and choosing leaner poultry and meats.”

Smokers and people with high blood pressure seem to benefit more than non-smokers and people with normal blood pressure with the high-fiber, low-fat DASH diet. You can find the DASH diet food pyramid from “How good is the DASH diet?”

DASH Diet is something women should take seriously, can reduce women’s risk of heart attack and stroke by 24 percent. Click the link below the post for the DASH diet plan.

Hope you find this piece of information helpful.

Kitchen Sponge

Did you know the average kitchen sponge is saturated with mold, bacteria and yeast, giving food pathogens free range to roam on kitchen counter tops, dishes, small appliances and eventually enter your mouth, according to the USDA Department of Agricultural Research? The result is often downright distasteful – stomach pains, cramping, and diarrhea.

The USDA team who investigated different methods to clean dirty sponges found that microwaving sponges for one minute or running them through a dishwasher on a heated dry cycle killed more than 99% of bacteria, yeast and molds. Bleach solutions, lemon juice or deionized water killed an average of 37-87% of these pathogens.

This is probably the only reason Ｉ　ｋｅｅｐ　ｍｙ　ｍｉｃｒｏｗａｖｅ　ｉｎ　ｔｈｅ　ｇａｒａｇｅ．

Fruity Salsa

My sister made a delicious fruity salsa for our Labor Day picnic. This recipe is loaded with antioxidant like vitamin A, beta carotene, vitamin C and lycopene. Easy to make.

• 1 large mango or papaya, peeled, seeded, and diced
• 1 large tomato, diced
• 1/2 cup fresh chopped cilantro
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 small (4 oz.) can chopped green chilies
• Fresh lime juice
• Salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients and chill well. Good served with chicken, fish and baked corn chips.

Getting A Stress Test

From Doctor Chet Zelasko

Fitness is an important part of a healthy lifestyle. Being fit means that you should have a certain level of muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, body fat, and cardiovascular endurance. Let’s define some of these terms:

• Muscular strength is an indication of how strong you are. In other words, how much weight can you lift?
• Muscular endurance is how long you can sustain a muscular effort. For example, shoveling snow or digging in a garden requires that you lift a weight repeatedly, so it combines strength and exertion over time.
• Flexibility is the range of motion in a joint. Touching your toes or not is an indication of lumbar flexibility, while trying to touch your hands behind your back (at shoulder level) is an indication of shoulder flexibility.
• Body fat is the amount of fat you store for energy on a rainy day-or a month or two. It’s no surprise that Americans carry far too much body fat and need to reduce it.
• Cardiovascular endurance is a measure of the fitness of your heart and blood vessels.

While every area is important, your heart is critical to all other areas-if it’s got a problem, your body has a problem. That’s why you need to have a stress test before you begin to exercise strenuously.

A stress test is a maximal-exertion graded-exercise test (GXT). This type of test is usually performed on a treadmill-sometimes a bike-and begins at an easy level and takes you to a maximal effort in 8-12 minutes. During the test, a cardiologist or internist will monitor your heart patterns on an electrocardiograph for any abnormalities. While there are certain limitations to the test, it’s the only way to test how your heart will perform at maximal levels and whether disease is present.

More than identifying whether you have heart disease, a recent study on men who were referred for a GXT demonstrated that the men who were the fittest lived longer than those who were not as fit. The higher the fitness level, the longer they lived-whether they had diagnosed heart disease or not (1).

Who should have a stress test? Anyone who is considering strenuous exercise, such as running a 5K or doing a triathlon. Most professional health organizations, including the American College of Sports Medicine, recommend a stress test performed by an internist or cardiologist if you are a male 40 years and older or a woman 50 years and older. In addition to checking your heart for any signs of disease, the GXT provides a baseline for comparison if problems develop in the future. How would your doctor know what is normal for you if you had never been evaluated?

Getting fit is important, but getting fit safely is even more so. Schedule an appointment with your healthcare professional to discuss when you should have your GXT. Fitness is not an option in this life. Make it a priority for you.

Calcium-Second Best Selling Supplement

Yes, calcium is the second most frequently sold supplement. Therefore, since so many people invest in calcium, let’s have a small discussion about the different sources of calcium and the best for you and your body.

What is calcium? Calcium is an essential nutrient for all animal and plant life. Most people know that calcium is necessary for strong bones and teeth. But do you know that calcium, found mainly in dairy products and dark leafy greens as well as supplements, is very important for the muscles, cells and nerves in the body, especially the most important muscle–the heart!

These are the different forms of calcium available today in supplements:

• Calcium carbonate can help stabilize stomach acids as well as help reduce the risk of colon cancer. This form of calcium may also provide relief from muscle cramps and PMS.
• Chelated calcium is calcium carbonate bound to protein. This form of calcium has been shown to help balance the ratio of good (HDL) and bad (LDL) cholesterol.
• Calcium from bone meal works the best for strong bones and teeth. A form of bone-meal calcium known as MCHC, has been shown to help improve bone density when taken regularly for one year.

Here’s some important information about calcium absorption for strong bones. Not everybody absorbs calcium effectively. For the best calcium absorption and utilization, remember the following:

• Weight-bearing exercises and aerobic exercises can help to keep bones strong.
• Getting 20 minutes of sun in the morning or evening can produce vitamin D. The mineral magnesium as well as vitamin D helps with calcium absorption.
• Reducing the amounts of soft drinks and caffeinated beverages can help keep bones strong. Drink milk instead or if you’re lactose intolerant, soy or rice milk with added calcium.
• Don’t smoke. It’s bad for the entire body and interferes with bone production; it doesn’t do your teeth and gums any favors, either.

Regular supplementation with a calcium supplement is most important. Check with your physician to see how much you should take, but most healthcare professionals recommend 1,000-1,500 mg per day.  I have best result with the Nutrilite Calcium Magnesium and  Vitamin D, no constipation, best absorption.

Weight-Loss Myth: Walking vs. Running

This is another myth that has some basis in fact.

Walking burns more fat than running.

The basis for this myth is the estimate of what kind of fuel a person uses while exercising. The muscles prefer glucose (sugar) as a fuel because it can burn it more efficiently than other fuels. The harder you exercise, the more your body relies on sugar.

If you exercise slowly or less strenuously, the body shifts to burning more fat as a fuel. That’s the basis for fat-burning exercise: exercise slower and your body uses fat as a fuel.

While absolutely correct, it’s meaningless in the real world. You’d have to invest much more time in exercising slowly than if you go fast. It doesn’t mean that walking isn’t efficient–it is, but you’ll have to spend more time doing it than you will running or taking a spinning class.

Here’s the thing: it doesn’t really matter what type of fuel you use when you exercise because as long as you don’t overeat, you’ll burn up body fat when you run out of glucose. It may be hours later, but you will burn up the fat and that’s a fact.

Links Between Gum Disease and Heart Disease

I got this article from my inbox and thought it was interesting and would like to share it with you.

“From a reader: “I went to my dentist and he told me I needed special cleaning of my teeth in order to prevent heart disease. Is he right?”

Answer: Your dentist is right–get your teeth cleaned as suggested by your dentist, and do it on a regular basis! Many dentists now use an ultrasonic device, which is especially effective at destroying harmful bacteria, to clean your teeth above and below the gumline.

And now, an explanation of how the gums, teeth, and body are connected. Gum disease is an infection in the mouth where specific bacteria can penetrate the gums causing swelling and bleeding–as well as bad breath that can be very offensive to people around you.

When a gum infection is left untreated, the infection can spread to the blood stream and travel to other parts of the body including the heart, lungs, and gastrointestinal tract. Recent research is proving that gum disease is a serious threat to a person’s overall health. In fact, many health professionals believe that there’s as great a risk of heart disease from gum infections as from high cholesterol!

Gum disease may have few symptoms, but regular dental examinations can help prevent an infection before it starts. It sounds like your dentist is suggesting good dental health for you, and as he said, it all starts with a thorough cleaning by a hygienist and good dental habits thereafter: daily brushing and flossing to help keep the teeth and gums healthy.

A word to the wise: FLOSS! Most people don’t like to floss their teeth, usually because of stupid reasons and excuses! Flossing every day not only helps to keep bad breath away, it also helps to clean between the teeth, and toughen the gums so that bad bacteria can’t find a place in your mouth to grow. So get into the habit of flossing and make it a part of your regular health routine!

If you have any questions, you can go online to the American Dental Association for information on gum disease and heart disease, dental hygiene, or ask your dentist for information.

Be sure you have your dental appointments set up–for you and for all your family members. It’s a great investment in your health!”