Health Tidbits

Jan 12, 2012

MEHMET OZ on APPETITE

Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is a protein made in the body that stimulates appetite. Carbohydrate ingestion stimulates NPY.
Cholecystokinin (CCK) stimulates satiety – CCK is cued by fat ingestion. Eating 65 grams of fat 20 minutes before a meal can help decrease appetite.
Fiber ingestion in the AM (this could be from fruit or vegetables as well as grain!) has been demonstrated to decrease late afternoon hunger. (Every 30 grams of fiber can remove as much as 100 food calories – this is why Weight Watchers lets you subtract for fiber from your produce).
Each year of life for a non-diabetic is the equivalent of 1 1/2 for a diabetic. So being a 60 year old diabetic is comparable to being a 75 year old non-diabetic.
Omentum (that lower belly fat) uses up 25% of your body’s circulating insulin so that it is unavailable for other tissues to use to store glucose.
A 1% increase in body temperature = a 14% rise in metabolic rate. Protein digestion does the same thing.
When you starve yourself for more than 12 hours, your metabolism can decrease as much as 40%.
If a 225 lb. person loses 7.5 % of their weight (approximately 17 lbs.), a waist decrease of about 4 inches, they can improve blood sugar, blood pressure and lipids by 20 %.

ANTI-AGING

Women in their 40’s and men in their 60’s lose muscle strength at a rate of about 12% per decade. Studies show that they can reverse two decdes of typical muscle loss and three decades of typical muscle strength deterioration in just 60 days of resistance training (Nutrition Action Healthletter, April 2007).

HEART DISEASE IN AMERICA

The bad news is…

Heart disease kills more women than breast cancer.
1.1 million Americans have a heart attack every year.
500,000 heart attack victims in America die each year.
$30 billion is spent per year on drugs to lower cholesterol and blood pressure.
We undergo more than 500,000 heart bypass operations.
We undergo almost 600,000 angioplasties, and over a million other procedures to diagnose heart disease.
These tests cost over $70 billion per year.
Overall, heart disease and stroke cost the nation more than a quarter of a trillion dollars a year.
About 30,000 Americans die after having these procedures every year.
64% of U.S. adults are overweight.
Diabetes will increase by 165% over the next 50 years, with 29 million Americans diagnosed.

And what about the kids?

By age 3, American children have fatty deposits in their arteries.
By age 12, 70% have developed beginning stages of hardening of the arteries.
1 in 4 children is obese.
Obesity has doubled in the last 20 years, and diabetes has increased 10-fold.
Less than 7% of our children consume the recommended 5 servings of fruit and vegetables per day, and the top 3 choices are: French fries, lettuce and catsup.

The good news is…

Only 20-30% of this is genetics.

70-80% of your likelihood of becoming one of these statistics is controllable by the lifestyle factors of exercise and diet.

Our health is in our hands.

CANCER AND LIFESTYLE

General

All cancers are caused by genetic changes – only 5-10% directly linked
to inherited risk factors.
Cancer involves a progressive accumulation of genetic changes in many genes.
Inherited risk means that it takes fewer steps and a shorter time to cancer.
In breast and colon cancer alone we know of 93 mutated genes and 11 tumor
promoters.
Greater and longer exposure to carcinogens increases risk of critical mutations
especially in vulnerable cells.
Lower exposure to tumor promoting environments (both internally and externally)
is part of why we don’t all get cancer.
These genetic mutations begin in childhood and adolescence.

Inflammation

Inflammatory conditions predispose us to cancer: physical
agents, chemical agents, infections, hormones, Metabolic Syndrome.
Body fat is an active endocrine organ producing inflammatory chemicals
that promote cancer.
Insulin resistance is a pro-inflammatory state.

Insulin

Insulin influences progression and prognosis of malignancy, interacts with
multiple growth factors, increases recurrence rate and is closely related
to the etiology of many epithelial cancers.
In a 1 million people study in 2002 by the CDC, hyperinsulinism increased
the risk of colon, pancreas, liver, bladder and breast cancers.
Caloric restriction increases longevity in all organisms, and reduces spontaneous
and carcinogen-induced tumor formation.
Insulin suppresses sex hormone binding globulin, allowing more “free” testosterone
and estrogen into circulation and thus increasing the risk of
hormone related cancers.
Insulin interferes with hormone treatment in breast cancer – it can over-ride
tamoxifen.
Obesity worsens prognosis and increases tumor grade in hormone related
premenopausal breast cancers.
Hyperinsulinemia increases aggressiveness of cancer.
Insulin level at prognosis predicts outcome.
Insulin resistance may be a consequence of chemotherapy.
Gestational diabetes is a predictor of higher risk of post menopausal breast
cancer.

Exercise

Exercise (which increases insulin sensitivity) consistently reduces breast,
endometrial, prostate, and pancreatic cancers.
Exercise can reduce the risk of recurrence of many cancers by 50+%, results
in more rapid bone marrow recovery, decreases fatigue and decreases inflammatory
compounds which makes chemo more effective.
Exercise increases sex hormone binding globulin.

Stress

There is a direct physical connection between the brain and the lymphatic
system.
Decreased stress (through stress reduction interventions) increases survival
rates in breast cancer patients.
Chronic stress can lead to the Metabolic Syndrome.
Stress decreases the immune response.
Hypersecretion of cortisol (a stress hormone) increases tumor growth in
rats.

Lifestyle

Lifestyle interventions of nutrition, exercise and stress reduction have
had comparable success (and sometimes surpassed) chemo in decrease of cancer
recurrence.
The combination of lifestyle interventions and medical treatment has produced
the best outcome in all types of cancers.

SUGAR BLUES

90% of Type II diabetes is attributed to poor nutritional and exercise habits, obesity and other modifiable behaviors.
In the US in 2003, 34% of the population was overweight and 31% obese.
Atherosclerosis is a post-prandial (“after eating”) disease.
Insulin resistance can precede clinical diabetes by 20-30 years. By the time you are diagnosed with diabetes, beta cell function (the cells that make insulin) is about 30% of normal.
Waist circumference is a better predictor of metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular risk and morbidity than BMI.
For every 1% increase in fating blood sugar starting at 75 mg/dl, there is a 1% increase in cardiovascular events.
Some of the problems in children associated with obesity and poor nutrition include: difficulty learning, restless sleep, poor self image, poor vision, dental cavities, dyslipidemia, asthma, GERD, constipation, gallstones, arthritis, knock-knees and flat feet, premature or delayed puberty, PCOS.
In a recent Yale study, 25% of the 4-10 year olds studied already had Impaired Glucose Tolerance.
If children’s health statistics remain as they are now, this is the first generation of children (since we have been recording) that are predicted to live shorter lives than their parents.
Diabetes is the 6th leading cause of death in the US. Prior to 1990, it had been increasing at the rate of 3.5-7% per year. From 1990 to 2001 it increased by 61%.
In 2002 there were 17 million diabetics in the US. If we keep going the way we’re going, by 2025, there will be 50 million diabetics, and by 2050, there will be 100 million.
The annual cost in 2002 was $132 billion.