Health news

Too much focus is often put on high cholesterol levels as the major risk factor for heart disease when in fact more than 50% of people with heart disease do not have high cholesterol levels. Something else must also be at work. More and more evidence is pointing towards chronic inflammation as the culprit. So what is chronic inflammation, and what can you do about it?

Normal inflammation occurs when you have an infection or cut your finger. It is your body’s natural healing response. Overt symptoms of inflammation are redness, swelling, and soreness. The problem happens when your body remains in an inflammatory state when it is no longer needed. This is called chronic inflammation, and it is a problem because the immune system starts attacking healthy tissue as is the case with such autoimmune diseases like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and Type I diabetes. In addition, there is increasing evidence that chronic inflammation may be the main underlying cause of heart disease, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

So what causes your body’s natural healing system to get out of balance? Inflammation is greatly influenced by the kinds of foods you eat and the lifestyle you live. Below are 4 tips on what you can do to control inflammation:

Reduce Waist Size: Visceral fat contributes to inflammation and heart disease. Visceral fat accumulates around the belly and internal organs to create the apple shaped figure. One excellent way to help reduce visceral fat is to exercise regularly.

Increase Omega-3 Fatty Acids: Most people are eating too few Omega-3 fatty acids and too many Omega-6 fatty acids due to high meat and polyunsaturated vegetable oil consumption (corn, safflower, cottonseed, soybean, and peanut oil). To help improve your ratio, eat more foods that contain Omega-3 fatty acids like fatty fish, walnuts, and flax seeds and reduce your consumption of meat and store-bought packaged foods which often use polyunsaturated vegetable oils. If you choose to eat meat, choose meat from grass-fed instead of grain-fed animals to increase the Omega-3 content of the meat.

Greatly Reduce Sugar Consumption: Most of your diet should consist of foods that are low on the glycemic scale because these foods will trigger an inflammatory response in the body. Examples of high glycemic foods include white potatoes, tropical fruits like pineapple, sugar, juice, high fructose corn syrup, refined or pulverized flours found in bread, many cold cereals and baked goods.

Eat More Turmeric and Ginger: These two spices are anti-inflammatory spices that should be incorporated more frequently into the diet.

There is a ton of nutritional information on the web, but where to start or even what to look up can seem overwhelming. Your best bet is to start off with what you know, which, for most people, will probably mean the food pyramid they learned in elementary school.

A proper nutrition is your best bet at losing that stomach fat and keeping it off. The western lifestyle caters to the quick and easy, but it wreaks havoc with our body, chiefly in the way our body stores fat. So, one tip would be to look at what you have in your fridge and pantry. Chances are, if you have a gut, a lot of the food you have will be responsible for it. This is a good start because now you know what to avoid on your next grocery trip. Perhaps the next tip would be to look at what the contents are of what you eat.

What you want to aim for are foods that are very low or don’t contain any trans-fat. This is the culprit for the guts and stomach fat of the world. Your body does need and use fat, but they are natural fats and should be taken to help your body run. One last tip would be, when buying groceries, stick to the outside of the store. The majority of the healthier foods, the ones we all need like milk, eggs, meat, vegetables, etc. are found along the outer edge of the store. All the fattier foods full of sugars, trans-fat, salts, etc. find themselves in the middle of the store. Stick to the outside and have most of your food from there. You’ll see that as time goes on and you stick to this way of eating, you’ll be losing some weight and feeling much healthier over all.

According to common belief, only non-veg items and animal foods contain the essential proteins. But interestingly, plant foods also do contain the same eight important amino acids for the body – just as non-veg sources. The difference only is in the amounts. As long as you keep your calorie intake in the right proportion, plant foods will also provide you the necessary amino acids just by themselves or in combinations. Some of the vegetarian sources of proteins that you can easily include in your diet are:

• Nuts
• Beans and legumes, especially when eaten raw
• Soy foods, such as miso, tofu, tempeh, and soy milk
• Sprouted seeds. Each type of sprout generally includes differing proportions of nutrients. Therefore, it’s wise to eat a variety of these stuffs.
• Grains, especially amaranth and quinoa, are high-quality proteins. So, try having them regularly.
• Spirulina and chorella do have over 60 percent protein

Histidine, Arginine, Valine, Tryptophan, Threnoine, Phenylalanine, Methionine, Lysine, Leucine and Isoleucine are the major amino acids those propel the growth of the body. These aminos acids are available primarily in fruits and vegetables. Try eating all varieties of fruits and vegetables as much as you can in their raw forms. If you want to be absolutely certain that you are having enough protein from your vegetarian protein source, it’s good to eat food combinations thus forming a complete protein, like:

• Legumes + grains
• Legumes + seeds
• Legumes + nuts

Those who are not in a mood to consume those healthy protein items in their raw forms, they can try the following vegetarian protein source preparations without compromising on their taste buds.

• Beans on toast
• Veggie burgers on bread
• Pasta with beans
• Corn and beans
• Hummus and pita bread
• Rice and beans, peas, or lentils
• Split pea soup with whole grain or seeded crackers or bread
• Tortillas with refried beans
• Nut butter on whole grain bread

Nutrition sports supplement made from vegetarian sources can be another effective way of getting all necessary protein nutrients for your health.

Vitamins are organic compounds that are required by the body to perform specific biological functions, for normal maintenance and optimum growth and health of the body. They are 13 in number namely vitamins A, C, D, E, K, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, biotin, vitamin B-6, B-12 and folate .

Most of them are obtained from the diet, basically fruits and vegetables. The microorganisms in the intestine synthesize vitamin K and vitamin B12. Vitamin D is synthesized by the skin with the help of ultraviolet wavelength of natural sunlight.

They are classified as fat-soluble (A, D, E and K) and water-soluble (C and B-group). The water-soluble vitamins are readily excreted in urine. Vitamins have diverse functions. They function as hormones (Vitamin D regulates the levels of calcium and phosphate in the blood.), as antioxidants (vitamin E), regulate the cell development and growth and act as mediators of cell signaling. Some act as enzyme cofactor bio-molecules (coenzymes). Some assist the enzymatic action and some take part in it.

To avoid deficiencies they must be continuously supplied in the diet. Vitamin deficiencies can be classified as primary deficiency and secondary deficiency.

• Primary deficiency is due to the decreased intake of the vitamins.

• Secondary deficiency is due to an underlying cause or disorder that either does not allow proper absorption or usage of the vitamins.

If the required amount of vitamins cannot be obtained by varied diet, dietary supplements are given to prevent deficiencies and in cases of secondary deficiency, the underlying cause needs to be identified and treated appropriately.

However, care needs to be taken to avoid over dosage of vitamins to avoid serious complications.