It’s Almost Over…

The holiday season is finally almost over, so let’s start the de-stressing process….

Ice cream seems like a quick fix, but you’re better off making some wise stress-busting diet choices such as:

• Eating oatmeal, which provides more of all the B-Vitamins (except for pantothenic acid), than black beans, brown rice, or whole grain bread.
• Trying dried apricots to help keep blood sugar levels even. Stress causes the body to release hormones that cause blood sugar levels to fluctuate, triggering cravings and anxiety.
• Anxiety is associated with deficiency in the mineral selenium; one T chopped Brazil nuts, or 3 nuts, will provide you with your entire 200 mcg. daily requirement; almonds, pecans and walnuts contain 6, 6, & 21 respectively.
• Culinary herbs like basil, ginger and thyme contain mild sedative compounds, but according to experts, cooking them destroys those calming compounds; so, try eating raw in a salad.
• Stress suppresses the immune system; boost immunity by getting at least 200 mg. of Vitamin C daily: 1 C halved strawberries = 86 mg., 1 kiwi = 74 mg., and 1 C of pineapple chunks = 24 mg.
• To end your day, brew a cup of chamomile, lemon balm or valerian tea, which all contain anti-anxiety compounds. Steep the herb (1 tea bag, 3 T fresh or 1-2 tsp. dried) in covered cup of water; strain after 5 min., drink and enjoy (or, drink 1-3 cups throughout your day).

Click here for more tips on how to live an all-natural, drug-free lifestyle and remember to listen to my 24/7 radio show stream on KTRadioNetwork.com!

Yours in health…
KT

New Connection Between The Spine And Blood Sugar

April 13, 2012

Natural News

By: Healthy Times Newspaper

The possibility for chiropractic care to help people with diabetes is an up and coming area of research, and it is an important one. Roughly one out of every three men and two out of every five women born in the year 2000 will suffer from diabetes in their lifetime.

Research points to evidence that chiropractic care may make a valuable contribution to a wellness protocol that helps those diagnosed with diabetes. Diabetes is the fifth deadliest disease in the United States and a growing epidemic worldwide, so help is desperately needed!

Click Here For The Full Report From Natural News

Introduction Of New Diet Drug Misses Base Cause Of American Obesity Epidemic

February 27, 2012

Huffington Post

By Mark Hyman. M.D.

This week, in an act of desperation to turn back the tide of the obesity epidemic that now affects almost seven out of every 10 Americans and more than 80 percent of some populations (African-American women), the advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted 20 to 2 to recommend approval of Qnexa, a “new” obesity drug that is simply the combination of two older medications, phentermine (the “phen” of phen-fen”) and topiramate (Topamax).

It is a misguided effort at best, and a dangerous one at worst. Mounting evidence proves that the solution to lifestyle and diet-driven obesity-related illnesses including heart disease, diabetes, dementia, and even cancer won’t be found at the bottom of a prescription bottle.

By 2020, more than 50 percent of the U.S. adult population will have Type 2 diabetes or prediabetes, with annual costs approaching $500 billion. By 2030, total annual economic costs of cardiovascular disease in the U.S. are predicted to exceed $1 trillion. By 2030, globally we will spend $47 trillion, yes trillion, to address the effects of chronic lifestyle-driven disease.

Prescription medication for lifestyle disease has failed to bend the obesity and disease curve. Statins have been recently found to increase the risk of diabetes in women by 48 percent. And large data reviews by independent international scientists from the Cochrane Collaborative found that statins only work to prevent second heart attacks, not first heart attacks, which means they are not helpful and most likely harmful for 75 percent of those who take them.

Avandia, the No. 1 blockbuster drug for Type 2 diabetes, has caused nearly 200,000 deaths from heart attacks since it was introduced in 1999. The drug was designed to prevent complications of diabetes, yet heart attacks are the very disease that kills most Type 2 diabetics. In 2011, the FDA issued stricter prescribing guidelines for Avandia, but the drug is still on the market.

The large ACCORD trial found in more than 10,000 diabetics that intensive blood-sugar lowering with medication and insulin actually led to more heart attacks and deaths.

Something is deeply wrong with our medical approach.

The problem of chronic disease, including obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, is not a medication deficiency, but a problem with what we put at the end of our fork.

The emperor truly has no clothes. Why would good men and women of science vote to approve a medication for a condition that is a social disease and requires a social cure? The social, environmental, economic, and political conditions of America and increasingly the global community have created an obesogenic environment.

Clearly we need to do something. But it is not better medication or surgery or more angioplasties and stents, which have no proven benefit in more than 90 percent of those who receive them. The data show they work for acute coronary events, but not stable angina or blockages.

We continue to pay for expensive treatments for chronic disease, despite the fact that they don’t work, while insurance does not pay for nutrition counseling unless the patient has kidney failure or diabetes.

Chronic disease is a food-borne illness. We ate our way into this mess and we must eat our way out.

Click here for the full report from the Huffington Post.

Foods To Help You Fight Stress

January 27, 2012

Food Matters

By Louise Atkinson, DailyMail

“Food is medicine!”  –KTRN

The Christmas holidays may have been full of cheer, but there’s no doubt that the effort and expense involved can leave our stress levels sky high. We all react to it in different ways, but there is mounting evidence that one of the most insidious side-effects of chronic stress is an infuriating inability to lose weight.

And the way your body deals with stress could provide the clues that can help you become calmer and slimmer, explains nutritional therapist and TV diet expert Charlotte Watts, who has written a ground-breaking book on the issue. Perhaps you are someone who collapses in a tearful heap. Or maybe you fret over endless lists, while others go down with every passing cough and cold.

Not only does feeling stressed and tired cause us to look for an instant energy fix (often found in high-calorie or high carbohydrate foods) but it also makes any excess weight we are carrying harder to lose. Excess stress hormones in the body encourage fat storage, especially that hard-to-shift type around the middle. Most diets are doomed to fail if you are stressed. But eating and lifestyle changes can tackle how you react to stress, according to the new book The De-stress Diet.

Take the quiz below to pinpoint your stress type. If you answer yes to three or more questions in any section, that could be your problem. Just follow the expert advice for a slimmer, calmer, healthier 2012. Extracted from The De-stress Diet by Charlotte Watts and Anna Magee, published by Hay House.

Click here for the full report.

Barley Grass Improves Health In Type 2 Diabetics And Reduces Cholesterol

January 13, 2012

Natural News

By Donna Earnest Pravel

“Barley Grass is a miracle herb. Talk about a way to alkalize the body.” –KTRN

Barley grass (Hordeum vulgare) has been a favorite among health enthusiasts for centuries. It is usually consumed as a powder or liquid, but is also used to make barley malt. Barley grass is considered a superfood, because of its incredibly dense nutritional profile. It contains a wide variety of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and amino acids. Barley grass contains an abundance of chlorophyll, and is rich in Vitamins A, B, C, iron and calcium. It also contains high amounts of the electrolyte minerals potassium, magnesium, and phosphorus. Barley grass is rich in plant enzymes and antioxidants. Clinical studies involving the ingestion of barley grass powder show that it improves the health of diabetic patients. Barley grass has been proven to reduce cholesterol and can be used as a weight loss supplement.

Barley grass powder improves the health of type 2 diabetes patients
Type 2 diabetes mellitis is by far the most prevalent type of diabetes among adults. In a 2010 medical study, it was suggested that medicinal plants might have therapeutic effects on complex diseases such as diabetes. Barley grass powder was selected because of its reported benefits. The experimental group of diabetics took 1.2 g of barley grass capsules every day for sixty days. The control group took no supplementation. No other changes were made, and no other alternative measures were taken. The patients’ fasting blood sugar and lipid profiles were taken at the beginning and end of the study.

Supplementing with barley grass powder caused a significant fall in the fasting blood sugar level of the experimental group. No change was noted in the control group. There was a 5.1% reduction in overall cholesterol levels after two months. The researchers also noted that the risk of coronary heart disease was significantly reduced in the diabetics who took barley grass supplements.

Click here for the full report.

Lack of Sleep Means Lack of Weight Loss

November 3, 2011

DrAxe.com

BY DR. AXE

Sleep is one of the most undervalued essential practices in modern society. In 1910, an average night’s sleep was 9 hours. By 1975, it was down to 7.5 hours. From 2000 to 2002, polls found that it had fallen to 6.9 hours. Today, many people average just 5-6 hours of sleep per night.

At the same time, obesity rates have doubled! Sleep and the neuroendocrine system are intricately entwined. Chronic lack of sleep is thought to be linked to diabetes, hypertension, obesity and memory loss. Lack of sleep increases blood pressure and the risk of heart disease.

A recent study by the University of Chicago found that cutting sleep from 8 hours to 4 hours a night for less than one week produced physiological changes that resembled the effects of advanced aging and early diabetes.

Those changes happened in less than one week!

The study’s participants took 40% longer to regulate their blood-sugar levels after eating and their ability to secrete insulin and respond to it decreased by 30%.

Lack of sleep affects the secretion of thyroid-stimulating hormone and increased levels of the “stress hormone,” cortisol.

The study found that recovery occurred and above-average functioning occurred when the subjects slept more than 8 hours a night.

Click here for the full report from DrAxe.com

Six Measures of Heart Health

December 20, 2011

Dr. Ben Kim

By Dr. Ben Kim

As a follow-up to my outline of the three most important determinants of cardiovascular health, this post reviews six reliable measures of how healthy your heart is.

Clearly, it’s not practical or even possible for some people to track all six measures on a regular basis. But tracking one or even a few of the following measures once a year is recommended if you want to have some idea of how healthy your heart is.

1. Waistline

The amount of adipose tissue (fat) that’s found around your waistline is strongly correlated with your risk of suffering a cardiovascular accident.

A study published in Circulation indicates that having even a small amount of fat in the abdominal region increases risk of experiencing heart failure.

A study published in Stroke indicates that even when hypertension, diabetes, a sedentary lifestyle, and smoking are accounted for, people with excess fat tissue around their midsection have a higher-than-average risk of experiencing a stroke.

You can calculate your body mass index to track your body fat relative to your height and weight, but it’s far easier to keep an eye on your waistline. The less excess fat tissue you have around your belly, the lower your risk of cardiovascular disease.

2. Blood Pressure

Chronic high blood pressure (systolic or diastolic) can injure the inner walls of your blood vessels, which can trigger scar tissue formation that can contribute to clogged vessels. Repeated bouts of injury and scar tissue formation can decrease the lumen size of your blood vessels, which elevates your risk of suffering congestive heart failure or a stroke.

For a comprehensive look at blood pressure and what you can do to promote a healthy range now and over the long term, please view:

Understanding Blood Pressure

3. Blood Sugar

Having a chronically high blood sugar level is like having thick molasses or maple syrup clogging up your circulatory system. Over time, high blood sugar leads to less delivery of oxygen and nutrients to your cells, and less removal of carbon dioxide and other wastes from your cells.

In short, chronic high blood sugar increases your risk of experiencing nerve damage, congestive heart failure, stroke, and all of the other health challenges associated with diabetes.

For a comprehensive look at blood sugar and blood insulin, including recommendations on how to keep both in healthy ranges, please view:

Blood Sugar & Insulin: The Essentials

Click here for the full article.

Why is Glycemic Load More Significant Than Glycemic Index

December 5, 2011

Prevent Disease.Com

By PD.Com

The glycemic index (GI) is a numerical system of measuring how much of a rise in circulating blood sugar a carbohydrate triggers–the higher the number, the greater the blood sugar response. So a low GI food will cause a small rise, while a high GI food will trigger a dramatic spike. A list of carbohydrates with their glycemic values is shown below. A GI is 70 or more is high, a GI of 56 to 69 inclusive is medium, and a GI of 55 or less is low.

The glycemic load (GL) is a relatively new way to assess the impact of carbohydrate consumption that takes the glycemic index into account, but gives a fuller picture than does glycemic index alone. A GI value tells you only how rapidly a particular carbohydrate turns into sugar. It doesn’t tell you how much of that carbohydrate is in a serving of a particular food. You need to know both things to understand a food’s effect on blood sugar. That is where glycemic load comes in. The carbohydrate in watermelon, for example, has a high GI. But there isn’t a lot of it, so watermelon’s glycemic load is relatively low. A GL of 20 or more is high, a GL of 11 to 19 inclusive is medium, and a GL of 10 or less is low.

Foods that have a low GL almost always have a low GI. Foods with an intermediate or high GL range from very low to very high GI.

Both GI and GL are listed here. The GI is of foods based on the glucose index–where glucose is set to equal 100. The other is the glycemic load, which is the glycemic index divided by 100 multiplied by its available carbohydrate content (i.e. carbohydrates minus fiber) in grams. (The “Serve size (g)” column is the serving size in grams for calculating the glycemic load; for simplicity of presentation an intermediate column that shows the available carbohydrates in the stated serving sizes has been left out.) Take, watermelon as an example of calculating glycemic load. Its glycemic index is pretty high, about 72. According to the calculations by the people at the University of Sydney’s Human Nutrition Unit, in a serving of 120 grams it has 6 grams of available carbohydrate per serving, so its glycemic load is pretty low, 72/100*6=4.32, rounded to 4.

Click here for the full report.

Whey: The Magic Protein

December 1, 2011

Better Nutrition

By Vera Tweed

“When consuming whey, make sure to check the ingredients. Some whey protein has artificial colors and flavorings. It’s also important to look at the sugar levels and if the whey comes from cows not treated with growth hormone. Get your whey at a health food store and read the label.  Avoid GNC.” –KTRN

If there’s a bullet among proteins, whey is the one. Studies have shown that it helps the human body stay lean, maintain a healthy heart, reduce risk for diabetes, and boost our resistance to illness.

According to reviews of available research in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition and Alternative Medicine Review, whey enhances the human body’s production of glutathione—our most important internal antioxidant—which increases our ability to withstand toxic assaults from the environment and even slows down the aging process. Glutathione is difficult to absorb as a supplement, but your body can make its own from whey.

Whey can help you stay lean because it’s rich in the branched chain amino acids leucine, isoleucine, and valine, which preserve muscle and help it grow. Research shows that in a weight-loss program, whey can lead to greater loss of body fat than other proteins.

In addition, whey helps control inflammation and aids the immune system in resisting bacterial and viral infection. Individual studies have also found that it improves bone growth, blood pressure, cholesterol, mood, blood sugar, and wound healing.

Whey can also help us deal with day-to-day stress. A study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that whey with high tryptophan content improved mental reaction time in people with high stress levels. The tryptophan in whey also improves mood, sleep, and morning alertness—benefits most of us would appreciate.

Click here for the full report.

Six Amazing Facts You Need To Know About Sweet Potatos

November 14, 2011

Natural News

By: Tara Green

One of the most nutritious foods on the traditional Thanksgiving menu is the sweet potato. These orange-skinned root vegetables offer a host of health benefits (especially when cooked without the unnecessary sugar and marshmallows). If you want to raise health consciousness around the dinner table this holiday season, try throwing some of these six sweet potato facts into the conversation:

1. High nutritional value
A 7-ounce (1 cup) serving of sweet potatoes contains 65% of the minimum necessary daily amount of Vitamin C. Sweet potatoes are also high in calcium, folate, potassium and beta-carotene. Beta-carotene is an antioxidant which converts to Vitamin A in the body: one serving of sweet potatoes can provide you with as much as 700% of the US RDA for Vitamin A. The Center for Science in the Public Interest rates sweet potatoes as the number one most nutritious vegetable because they such are so nutritionally rich.

2. Low glycemic index
If you are unfamiliar with this term, the glycemic index indicates the impact a food substance has on blood sugar levels. A high glycemic index means blood sugar levels can spike. Diabetes and others who monitor their blood sugar levels seek to avoid foods with a high glycemic index or load. Sweet potatoes have a glycemic load of only 17. (By way of comparison, a white potato has an index of 29.)

3. Accessing sweet potatoes’ nutritional benefits is easy
To gain the maximum health benefits from eating sweet potatoes, avoid discarding their skins — much of their healing potential resides in this portion of the tubers. Also, following the common dieters’ fallacy of avoiding all fats reduces your ability to access sweet potatoes’ benefits: beta-carotene absorbs more thoroughly into the body when consumed with a small amount of fat. Recent research seems to indicate that steaming or boiling sweet potatoes rather than roasting them helps preserve their low glycemic index.

Click here for the full report.

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