Diet and Weight Loss

Are You Getting Enough Calcium?

Quick, name one type of food—besides milk—that’s rich in calcium. Can’t do it? You’re not alone. Most people don’t know much about calcium or get enough in their diet, even though it’s the most common mineral found in our bodies. Sure, you may know calcium plays an important role in bone health, but you might be surprised to find out how important it is for a host of other key body functions.

Take this quiz to find out how much calcium you need, why you need it, how to get it, and why you’ll be a stronger, healthier person once you do.

Click here to take the quiz.

5 Steps To A Healthy Heart

By Letesha Campbell and Tatiana Quiroga from Womenshealthmag.com

1. Eat More Plants and Fish

Stock up on colorful foods that are rich in heart-healthy antioxidants, such as pomegranates, blueberries, tomatoes, and spinach. Antioxidants decrease your risk of heart disease because of the anti-inflammatory effect they have on the blood vessels, says Marisa Moore, R.D., a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. They help get rid of the plaque buildup in the arteries, keeping vessels clear.

Many fruits and vegetables, such as oranges, bananas, and mushrooms, are also high in potassium, which helps regulate blood pressure. Moore recommends eating five to nine servings a day of fruits and vegetables, making sure you have three different vegetables and two kinds of fruit. "A variety gives you a healthy balance of the nutrients you need," Moore says.

Also learn to navigate your grocery's seafood section, and make it a habit to include fatty fish like salmon, sardines, or rainbow trout in your diet. Moore says adding a four-ounce serving of fish like these to your menu twice a week is a great way to get your omega-3 fatty acids. These help reduce the risk of heart disease by decreasing your blood pressure and triglycerides.

2. Cut the Fat
A diet that's low in fat is like a warrior's shield against heart disease. Decrease your saturated fat intake to no more than 7 percent of your daily calories. You'll find it in butter, meat, and whole-fat dairy products, says Nieca Goldberg, M.D., director of the Women's Heart Center at New York University's Langone Medical Center.

Try to eliminate trans fats from your diet too. They're the worst offenders, not only raising levels of bad cholesterol but also lowering levels of good cholesterol. Only 1 percent of your daily diet should consist of trans fats. Foods such as margarine, oils, fried foods, and pastries are prime spots for this heart foe, so beware.

3. Know Your Risk
It's important to see your physician to check for high cholesterol, elevated blood sugar, and signs of diabetes.

Blood pressure should be less than 120/80 for women, Goldberg says. Plus, being aware of your specific risk factors for cardiovascular disease can help guide your diet and fitness goals.

Another way to assess your risk is to know your family's history. Your risk is increased if women in your family under 65, or men under 50, have had heart disease, Goldberg says. It rises 17 percent if your father has had heart disease, and skyrockets to 43 percent if your mother was afflicted. And even if you follow a healthy diet and exercise regimen, your risk could rise to as much as 82 percent if both of your parents had heart disease.

Knowing your numbers and risks allows you to be proactive about your health, says Michelle A. Albert, M.D., associate physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. "It also means you're going to take some action against that risk. That action may be drug therapy or changing your behavior," she says.

4. Move Your Feet
Not up for an intense workout? Even walking for 30 minutes a day can help strengthen your heart.

Exercise can increase your high-density lipoprotein, commonly known as "good" cholesterol, and decrease your low-density lipoprotein, also known as "bad" cholesterol. These two kinds of cholesterol, combined with triglycerides, form your total cholesterol count, which should be less than 200.

LDL should be less than 100, and HDL should be above 50 for women, says American Heart Association spokesperson Anjanette Ferris, M.D., assistant professor of medicine at the University of Connecticut Health Center. The more you exercise, the better your chances of reducing your cholesterol.

5. Stop Smoking
It's time to give up cigarettes. For good. Besides the fact that they cause cancer, are expensive, and just plain smell bad, they could very well kill you. Smokers are two to four times more likely to develop coronary heart disease. Since that's the leading cause of death in the United States, why keep up the bad habit? Smoking tobacco narrows arteries, raises blood pressure, and thickens blood, making it more likely to clot—the perfect recipe for a heart attack.

And if you don't care enough about your own health to stop, think of how you are affecting the health of those around you. Exposure to secondhand smoke can cause heart disease even in nonsmokers.

5 Ways To Lose Weight At A Restaurant

From womenshealthmag.com

If you walk into a restaurant with the intention of ordering the grilled chicken salad, but find yourself wolfing down a bacon cheeseburger, it may not be because your willpower suddenly pulled a disappearing act. It's possible you were duped by menu-design experts who are paid to dream up sneaky ways of enticing you into ordering cheap, not-so-healthy foods that yield big profits. WH reveals the tactics restaurants use so you never fall for them again.

Pictures Good Enough To Eat

A study in the Journal of Consumer Research found that large, vivid images increase the probability that you'll impulsively order that food. And where the photo is placed also matters: The most profitable items get prime real estate, which in the menu world is the upper corners and the center of the page—hot spots where your eyes naturally travel. "The more attention we can bring to an item, the more likely you are to order it," says Gregg Rapp, a menu engineer consultant in Palm Springs, California.

Names Like German Black Forest Indulgence

Sounds better than plain ol' chocolate cake, doesn't it? Sexed-up monikers can boost food sales by up to 27 percent, according to industry research. "Enticing descriptions create a positive emotion about how something will taste," says Sybil Yang, a researcher and menu psychologist at Cornell University. That's why saying something is "hand-battered" or "crispy" can be a home run: It triggers a craving and draws your attention away from the harsh reality that the food is fried.

Healthy Options Next To The Fattening Ones

You'd think this would help us eat better, but the opposite is true: A study at Duke University found that people are actually more likely to choose a higher-calorie dish when healthy fare is offered right beside it. Crazy as it sounds, "just reading about a salad makes you feel like you've satisfied your nutrition goals and are free to go nuts and indulge," says study author Gavan Fitzsimons, Ph.D., a professor of marketing and psychology at Duke.

Lots of Veggies In Plain Sight

The presence of veggies—even if they're carb-coated, deep-fried, and cheese-slathered— convinces you that you're making the right food choices. Don't fall for it! "A seemingly healthy addition to a less-than- wholesome dish sounds like a smart compromise," Yang says. But in reality, these "veggie" delights can often be worse for you than more notorious diet killers like pizza and hamburgers.

The Sampler Platter That Seems So Innocent

Instead of ordering a few apps, you get the sampler, thinking you'll try just a wee bit of everything offered. But research from the University of Pennsylvania reveals that when you're given a wide selection, you'll eat 10 percent more than you would have if there had been only one option. That's because having more variety makes you feel as if you're not eating as much. In other words, when you're given a couple of mozzarella sticks as opposed to the usual six, you feel entitled to gobble those up and then move on to the chicken wings, the potato skins, the poppers, and so on.
Learn to spot these tricks and you can still dine out when dieting.

Sugar May Be Bad, But This Sweeter Is Far More Deadly

By Dr. Joseph Mercola

Study after study are taking their place in a growing lineup of scientific research demonstrating that consuming high-fructose corn syrup is the fastest way to trash your health. It is now known without a doubt that sugar in your food, in all it's myriad of forms, is taking a devastating toll.

And fructose in any form -- including high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and crystalline fructose -- is the worst of the worst!

Fructose is a major contributor to:

• Insulin resistance and obesity
• Elevated blood pressure
• Elevated triglycerides and elevated LDL
• Depletion of vitamins and minerals
• Cardiovascular disease, liver disease, cancer, arthritis and even gout

A Calorie is Not a Calorie
Glucose is the form of energy you were designed to run on. Every cell in your body, every bacterium -- and in fact, every living thing on the Earth--uses glucose for energy.

If you received your fructose only from vegetables and fruits (where it originates) as most people did a century ago, you'd consume about 15 grams per day -- a far cry from the 73 grams per day the typical adolescent gets from sweetened drinks. In vegetables and fruits, it's mixed in with fiber, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and beneficial phytonutrients, all which moderate any negative metabolic effects.
It isn't that fructose itself is bad -- it is the MASSIVE DOSES you're exposed to that make it dangerous.

There are two reasons fructose is so damaging:

1. Your body metabolizes fructose in a much different way than glucose. The entire burden of metabolizing fructose falls on your liver.

2. People are consuming fructose in enormous quantities, which has made the negative effects much more profound.

Today, 55 percent of sweeteners used in food and beverage manufacturing are made from corn, and the number one source of calories in America is soda, in the form of HFCS.

Food and beverage manufacturers began switching their sweeteners from sucrose (table sugar) to corn syrup in the 1970s when they discovered that HFCS was not only far cheaper to make, it's about 20 percent sweeter than table sugar.

HFCS is either 42 percent or 55 percent fructose, and sucrose is 50 percent fructose, so it's really a wash in terms of sweetness.

Still, this switch drastically altered the average American diet.

By USDA estimates, about one-quarter of the calories consumed by the average American is in the form of added sugars, and most of that is HFCS. The average Westerner consumes a staggering 142 pounds a year of sugar! And the very products most people rely on to lose weight -- the low-fat diet foods -- are often the ones highest in fructose.

Making matters worse, all of the fiber has been removed from these processed foods, so there is essentially no nutritive value at all.

Fructose Metabolism Basics
Without getting into the very complex biochemistry of carbohydrate metabolism, it is important to understand some differences about how your body handles glucose versus fructose. I will be publishing a major article about this in the next couple of months, which will get much more into the details, but for our purpose here, I will just summarize the main points.

Dr. Robert Lustig[i] Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco, has been a pioneer in decoding sugar metabolism. His work has highlighted some major differences in how different sugars are broken down and used:

• After eating fructose, 100 percent of the metabolic burden rests on your liver. But with glucose, your liver has to break down only 20 percent.

• Every cell in your body, including your brain, utilizes glucose. Therefore, much of it is "burned up" immediately after you consume it. By contrast, fructose is turned into free fatty acids (FFAs), VLDL (the damaging form of cholesterol), and triglycerides, which get stored as fat.

• The fatty acids created during fructose metabolism accumulate as fat droplets in your liver and skeletal muscle tissues, causing insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Insulin resistance progresses to metabolic syndrome and type II diabetes.

• Fructose is the most lipophilic carbohydrate. In other words, fructose converts to activated glycerol (g-3-p), which is directly used to turn FFAs into triglycerides. The more g-3-p you have, the more fat you store. Glucose does not do this.

• When you eat 120 calories of glucose, less than one calorie is stored as fat. 120 calories of fructose results in 40 calories being stored as fat. Consuming fructose is essentially consuming fat!

• The metabolism of fructose by your liver creates a long list of waste products and toxins, including a large amount of uric acid, which drives up blood pressure and causes gout.

• Glucose suppresses the hunger hormone ghrelin and stimulates leptin, which suppresses your appetite. Fructose has no effect on ghrelin and interferes with your brain's communication with leptin, resulting in overeating.

If anyone tries to tell you "sugar is sugar," they are way behind the times. As you can see, there are major differences in how your body processes each one.

The bottom line is: fructose leads to increased belly fat, insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome -- not to mention the long list of chronic diseases that directly result.

Panic in the Corn Fields
As the truth comes out about HFCS, the Corn Refiners Association is scrambling to convince you that their product is equal to table sugar, that it is "natural" and safe.

Of course, many things are "natural" -- cocaine is natural, but you wouldn't want to use 142 pounds of it each year.

The food and beverage industry doesn't want you to realize how truly pervasive HFCS is in your diet -- not just from soft drinks and juices, but also in salad dressings and condiments and virtually every processed food. The introduction of HFCS into the Western diet in 1975 has been a multi-billion dollar boon for the corn industry.

The FDA classifies fructose as GRAS: Generally Regarded As Safe. Which pretty much means nothing and is based on nothing.

There is plenty of data showing that fructose is not safe -- but the effects on the nation's health have not been immediate. That is why we are just now realizing the effects of the last three decades of nutritional misinformation.

As if the negative metabolic effects are not enough, there are other issues with fructose that disprove its safety:

• More than one study has detected unsafe mercury levels in HFCS[ii].

• Crystalline fructose (a super-potent form of fructose the food and beverage industry is now using) may contain arsenic, lead, chloride and heavy metals.

• Nearly all corn syrup is made from genetically modified corn, which comes with its own set of risks.

The FDA isn't going to touch sugar, so it's up to you to be proactive about your own dietary choices.

What's a Sugarholic to Do?
Ideally, I recommend that you avoid as much sugar as possible. This is especially important if you are overweight or have diabetes, high cholesterol, or high blood pressure.

I also realize we don't live in a perfect world, and following rigid dietary guidelines is not always practical or even possible.

If you want to use a sweetener occasionally, this is what I recommend:

1. Use the herb stevia.

2. Use organic cane sugar in moderation.

3. Use organic raw honey in moderation.

4. Avoid ALL artificial sweeteners, which can damage your health even more quickly than fructose.

5. Avoid agave syrup since it is a highly processed sap that is almost all fructose. Your blood sugar will spike just as it would if you were consuming regular sugar or HFCS. Agave's meteoric rise in popularity is due to a great marketing campaign, but any health benefits present in the original agave plant are processed out.

6. Avoid so-called energy drinks and sports drinks because they are loaded with sugar, sodium and chemical additives. Rehydrating with pure, fresh water is a better choice.

If you or your child is involved in athletics, I recommend you read my article Energy Rules for some great tips on how to optimize your child's energy levels and physical performance through good nutrition.

[i] Robert H. Lustig, MD: UCSF Faculty Bio Page, and YouTube presentation "Sugar: The bitter truth" and "The fructose epidemic" The Bariatrician, 2009, Volume 24, No. 1, page 10)
[ii] "Why is the FDA unwilling to study evidence of mercury in high-fructose corn syrup?" 20 Feb 2009, Grist

Dr. Joseph Mercola is the founder and director of Mercola.com. Become a fan of Dr. Mercola on Facebook, on Twitter and check out Dr. Mercola's report on sun exposure!

New Recomendations: Why You Need More Vitamin

By Andrew Weil, Founder of the Arizona Center For Integrated Medicine

I am raising my recommendation of 1,000 IU of vitamin D per day to 2,000 IU per day. Since 2005, when I raised it from 400 to 1,000 IU, clinical evidence has been accumulating to suggest that a higher dose is more appropriate to help maintain optimum health.

We have known for many years that we need vitamin D to facilitate calcium absorption and promote bone mineralization. But newer research has shown that we also need it for protection against a number of serious diseases. In recent years, scientists have discovered that it may help to prevent several cancers, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disorders, psoriasis, diabetes, psychosis, and respiratory infections including colds and flu.

To focus particularly on cancer prevention, two recent meta-analyses (in which data from multiple studies is combined) conducted by the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California at San Diego and colleagues suggested that raising blood levels of vitamin D could prevent one-half of the cases of breast cancer and two-thirds of the cases of colorectal cancer in the U.S. Discussing the breast cancer analysis, study author Cedric Garland, Dr.P.H., stated that "The serum level associated with a 50 percent reduction in risk could be maintained by taking 2,000 international units of vitamin D3 daily plus, when the weather permits, spending 10 to 15 minutes a day in the sun."

A 50 percent reduction in breast cancer deaths would have saved the lives of more than 20,000 American women in 2009.

As these meta-analyses suggest, vitamin D deficiency is widespread. Aside from breast cancer, it is quite likely that hundreds of thousands of cancers of various kinds worldwide might be prevented each year if we all were getting enough.

We can get vitamin D through foods such as fortified milk and cereals as well as eggs, salmon, tuna and mackerel, but the amounts are not nearly sufficient to lift blood concentrations to optimal levels. Sun exposure is the best way to get it; ultraviolet rays trigger vitamin D synthesis in the skin. Factors that decrease the body's ability to make vitamin D include dark skin, heredity, obesity and certain medications, including some anti-seizure drugs (check with your pharmacist). Most significantly, sunscreen blocks vitamin D synthesis in the skin, and in northern latitudes (above that of Atlanta, Georgia) the sun is at too low an angle for half the year to provide sufficient UV radiation.

Low levels of vitamin D in the population as a whole suggest that most people need to take a vitamin D supplement. This may be especially true for seniors, as the ability to synthesize vitamin D in the skin declines with age. Always take your vitamin D with a fat-containing meal to ensure absorption.

Don't be concerned that 2,000 IU will give you too much. With exposure to sunlight in the summer, the body can generate between 10,000 IU and 20,000 IU of vitamin D per hour with no ill effects. In addition, no adverse effects have been seen with supplemental vitamin D intakes up to 10,000 IU daily.

If you decide to have your vitamin D levels tested, look for results in the normal range, from 30.0 to 74.0 nanograms of 25-hydroxy vitamin D per milliliter (ng/mL) of blood. If you are found to be deficient, your physician can advise you on the best way to raise your blood concentration into the normal range.

Andrew Weil, M.D., is the founder and director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine and the editorial director of www.DrWeil.com. Become a fan on Facebook, follow Dr. Weil on Twitter, and check out Dr. Weil's Daily Health Tips blog.

The Lite 96.3 Women's Health Connection is sponsored in part by Northern Michigan Regional Hospitals.