wellness weekly

The News:

Cholesterol: This week I received the results from my recent physical related blood work. All was exceptional and in exploring my numbers, I came across the Adult Treatment Panel III guidelines of the NHBLI. It was fascinating and I encourage you all to review the summary document and the heart disease death risk calculator as well. The guidelines are meant for physicians to use to determine how low a person’s LDL needs to be based on how many risk factors the person has. The guidelines do have what they call a therapeutic lifestyle change or TLC diet which calls for reductions in saturated fat and an increase in fiber. However, if one has several risk factors and cannot get their LDL down to a very low number with diet and exercise, the panel recommends starting a statin medication. This can be disconcerting to someone who’s LDL is not high, but when other risks are present that LDL number can increase the chance of early death and that is what the ATP III is designed to prevent. Do check it out. Though I am anti medication in general, I am open to it when it can prolong quality life years. http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/cholesterol/atglance.pdf
http://hp2010.nhlbihin.net/atpiii/calculator.asp?usertype=prof
Colorectal Cancer Screening: A story that caught my attention this week reported on research that suggests certain lifestyle factors could do more to prevent colorectal or colon cancer than the cancer screen that I have been vocally dreading in the pages of this blog. And I can assure you, if additional research supports these findings and I can adopt all of the suggested life suggestions, I will forgo the colonoscopy. Here is the scoop: the research was done in Britain on the British population and in fact, they do not address the colonoscopy but the fecal occult blood test. As they do not mention the other test I wonder if they too recommend it for the general population when they reach age 50. Still, what they report is important. If the up tick of obesity in their country can be halted by having the current population limit their red and processed meat intake, increase exercise to five 30 minute walks a week, increase fruit and vegetables to five servings a day and have only one or two drinks a day, (women-men), then there would be a significant reduction in this disease. These same recommendations are made to reduce cases of heart disease and cancer both in the UK and the USA. I have no changes to make, but you may, so make it a priority because YOU are.
Can Food Change Your Brain? As a tobacco treatment specialist, I know that nicotine can physically change the brain and as a runner, I know that exercise can at least acutely affect neurotransmitters in the brain, so the headline than claims a high jacked brain related to overeating did not seem sensational to me. However, when reading the article that does in fact relate overeating to the activation of the reward pathway in the brain and the release of dopamine, I sort of frowned. Dopamine can be released by smoking and by exercise and by eating and by sex. The high jacking comes when the brain thinks that it absolutely must have something to survive when this is not true. For example, we do not need nicotine or chocolate to keep breathing. A former FDA chief has written a book regarding chronic over eating and how one can learn to control this and maintain a normal weight. Some fault for the condition is attributed to the food industry and its manipulation of fat, sugar and salt in our foods. The book is titled The End of Overeating.
Obesity Surgery: I hate this treatment option because I think it is insane. My very opinionated spiel is that if a person is willing to drastically change the shape of their visceral organs and eat meals that are no bigger than ounces for the rest of their life why can they not eat less and move more? That is the opinion part, but my health educator self is concerned for the complications that can occur with any of the bariatric surgeries. A study this week, where a researcher reviewed outcomes of over 19000 procedures, compared death and complications between patients at a bariatric “center of excellence” to hospitals without such a designation and found that the centers for excellence did not have better outcomes. In fact, 1.7 of the patients at the “excellent” centers died, where as only .09 at the others. There is evidence to support that the surgery can reduce adverse health outcomes that are related to obesity, I only contend that there are safer ways to loose weight.

Okay, let’s do some cooking.

Today’s recipe is for a vegetarian stew.

Live Well
Deirdre