Well-Being



Food Fact: U.S. Organic food sales have grown between 17 & 22% each year since 1997, to nearly triple in sales, while total food sales in the United States over this time period have grown in the range of only 3 to 4% a year.


 

Eat Your Way to Better Sleep
By Pauline Harding, M.D.

Ultimately, to maintain a normal sleep rhythm, one must maintain a normal eating rhythm. Part of the reason for this linking of eating and sleeping is the body’s cortisol rhythm.

Normal Cortisol Rhythm—A Key to Better Sleep

Cortisol is a hormone produced by the adrenal glands, which are located above the kidneys. Cortisol helps regulate many body functions including activation of thyroid hormone, bone resorption, muscle strength, energy production, resistance to infection and cancer, resistance to auto-immune diseases, and intensity of allergic reactions. Cortisol is a strong determinant in how rejuvenating sleep will be.
  
Cortisol is produced in a cyclic fashion with the highest levels being released in the morning and the lowest at night. This 24-hour cycle is called the circadian rhythm, and an abnormal circadian rhythm of adrenal hormones can adversely affect multiple critical functions in the body, including energy production and immune surveillance. Any disruption in this rhythm can result in a tendency toward fatigue, easy bruising, infection, osteoporosis, low sex drive, infertility, migraine headaches, adult acne, abdominal bloating, and either low or high blood pressure.
  
A disruption in the cortisol level during the night will affect the quality of sleep. If the cortisol level is high during the night, an individual will have disrupted rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and will wake up non-refreshed, no matter how many hours of sleep the individual appeared to have.
  
REM sleep is the stage of sleep during which an individual dreams. It is accompanied by muscle relaxation and an increase in the breathing rate. The intense dreaming that occurs during REM sleep is a result of heightened cerebral activity. The paralysis that occurs simultaneously in the major voluntary muscle groups, including the muscles of the chin and neck, is thought to be a way to keep the body from acting out the dreams that occur during this intensely cerebral stage.
  
REM-disrupted sleep may be one of the reasons that some individuals can have a full eight hours or more of rest and nonetheless wake up exhausted.
  
Key to rejuvenating sleep is having a normal level of cortisol at night. Key to a normal cortisol level at night is a normal cortisol rhythm during the day and leading up to sleep.

Food Glycemic Index and Cortisol Levels

Cortisol levels are rapidly responsive to our food intake during each day. The glycemic index of a meal affects the cortisol level for approximately the upcoming five hours.
  
The glycemic index of a food reflects how our blood sugar level is affected by the particular food. Foods containing high sugar and low fiber have a high glycemic index and result in wider fluctuations in insulin levels than foods with a low glycemic index.
  
High insulin levels have been found to be an underlying culprit in many diseases such as coronary artery disease. (N.B. If you have diabetes and use insulin injections, please do not interpret this statement to mean that you would be well served to cut back inappropriately on your dose. Please discuss interpretation of this information with your physician.)
  
High glycemic index foods, such as sugar and refined starches, cause cortisol levels to rise. For individuals who start the day with a normal cortisol level, starchy or sugary breakfast food choices can cause the cortisol to overshoot the normal range. The cortisol will likely remain elevated all day—and all night. Intervention with herbs or supplements that lower cortisol can help.
  
Worse than having a high glycemic meal is having no meal at all. Any time during the day that one does not eat within five hours of the previous meal or snack, the cortisol level tends to rise. A rise above the normal range during the day almost guarantees that the nighttime cortisol will be high and thus disrupt REM sleep.
  
A single late meal or skipped meal or high glycemic index meal during the day can result in a high cortisol during the early part of the night. A cortisol level higher than it should be during the night results in a disruption of REM sleep and with it non-refreshing sleep.
  
Low glycemic index foods such as eggs, meats, poultry, fish, and most vegetables tend to lower the cortisol level. If one starts with a normal morning cortisol, eating foods from the low glycemic index category every five hours during the day is needed to keep the cortisol on its normal downward track.
  
Note that the high glycemic index of sugar or starch, including whole grains, requires consumption of nearly an equal weight of animal protein to maintain glycemic balance. Vegetables usually balance themselves in terms of glycemic index, but vegetables are not of sufficiently low glycemic index to balance grains—at least not grains as they are routinely prepared by most Americans. Note that many cultures around the world have developed a 3-step process of pan-frying, soaking, and steaming rice that lowers the glycemic index of this non-gluten grain.
  
To prevent the deleterious upward swing of cortisol, one usually does better to balance all sugars and grains, including whole grains, with animal protein. Even given what we know about the various pitfalls of animal protein, it probably remains better to eat animal protein with each meal at which we have sugar, including fruit, and/or grains. If animal protein is not tolerated for medical, religious or social-consciousness reasons, it is probably better to remain vegan than to be carbo-vegan.
  
Has it always been this way? Perhaps not. Many factors have changed in the past century.

High Cortisol Caused by Non-Sprouted Grains

For example, our grains have been hybridized to contain about half the protein that they contained in 1900. In addition, our failure to sprout our grains in the preparation of the flour used for our commercial breadstuffs has added to the disruption in our cortisol rhythm.
  
Non-sprouted grains result in an inflammatory response in the gut, causing the secretion of excess cortisol into the intestinal tract. This hormonal drain of cortisol in the gut deprives other parts of the body of their fair share of cortisol. While allergy and inflammation manifest themselves elsewhere in the body, the gut is a set-up for intestinal dysbiosis (abnormal gut flora), lowered immune protection (due to lowered secretory IgA levels), and metabolic reactivity to foods. 

Sprouting removes much of the toxic peptides that are found on the hull of grains. Feed children sprouted grains to avoid or delay gluten- and gliadin-intolerance. Individuals with gluten intolerance are advised to avoid gluten grains. Note that the incidence of gluten intolerance is especially high for those with Celtic, Nordic, or German background. However, travel and intermarriage have led to the dispersion of this gene to virtually every land. In addition, with the introduction of genetically modified grains into our food supply, the incidence of grain intolerance has risen in populations from all backgrounds.




Pilates: Fitness for all ages
By Meg Charendoff  

Pilates is one of the hottest trends in fitness. Actress Julia Roberts claims Pilates helped her shed all the weight from her recent twin pregnancy. Pop star Madonna credits her still awesome body to rigorous Pilates workouts (two-hour sessions in a superheated room!). But Pilates is not just for the young and fabulously famous.

Sylvia Glassman, 67, a rubber-stamp artist from Elkins Park, enjoys her weekly Pilates session. She credits Pilates with keeping her active.
“The fact that I’m still able to be as active as I am has got to be because I do Pilates,” she says. “It makes me feel better. I’ve seen an improvement in my flexibility, and I think it enables me to move more freely. I like the mental picture I have of myself as someone who doesn’t move like some older people do.”

Glassman, a lifelong exerciser who also walks, lifts weights and does yoga, has been practicing Pilates since before it was fashionable. Like many seniors, Glassman suffers with muscular-skeletal conditions including osteoarthritis and osteoporosis. On the advice of doctors and “just my own common sense,” she has modified her exercise routines over the years. Pilates helps her stay fit despite her limitations.

“I couldn’t do some of the things I liked to do anymore,” she says. “I couldn’t exercise and work my muscles in the usual way, so I began to look for other ways to work those muscles.”

Pilates is an excellent form of exercise for active seniors. Not only can it help seniors look and feel better, but practiced regularly and properly, Pilates also helps prevent or improve some of the conditions that can occur as our bodies age—stiffening muscles and joints, postural changes, osteoporosis, and osteoarthritis. And Pilates exercises can be modified for the individual abilities of the exerciser, making it a great choice for people with injuries or limitations.

“Pilates is good for everybody!” says Carol Rachel Shore, a certified Pilates practitioner and owner of This Is Pilates!™ in Jenkintown, PA. At least sixty percent of Shore’s clients are over 55. “Pilates is designed for any level of health and fitness,” Shore says. “In fact, the assisted work on the equipment was originally created for people who were bedridden.”
Rob Kiewe, health and fitness director for the Betty and Milton Katz Jewish Community Center in Cherry Hill, NJ, also recommends Pilates as a fitness activity for seniors.

“Pilates is a safe, non-impact, non-stress exercise,” he says. “It’s good for flexibility and balance, which is important for preventing injuries and falls. And it makes the whole body feel great.”





Healing through Happiness
By Steven E. Hodes, M.D.  

If sadness can be the source of enlightened healing, then surely happiness can. In his book Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert, a popular professor of psychology at Harvard, describes a plethora of ways and means by which the average person creates their own sense of reality from amongst the fragments of their life.

This form of “spinning” considers a series of circumstances that might appear to an outsider as extremely negative and demoralizing. Yet the affected individual might just choose to regard these events as temporary road blocks that may very well serve to inspire them to 1) re-empower their skills, 2) direct them along a somewhat different path, or 3) totally alter their life’s journey. Any one of these options can leave the individual full of energy and hope for the future. A similar set of circumstances, however, could totally depress and demoralize a different individual.

Tailoring our reaction to life’s events is a theme of neurolinguistic programming (NLP) practitioners. Although I am far from an expert on their positions and methods, I do know that they also emphasize changing the language by which we characterize events in our lives. Words and phrases are powerful signals to our conscious, as well as unconscious, minds. Seeing ourselves as failures, victims or losers in life’s game merely reinforces and exacerbates the negative energy, which can only cripple us further. It is unproductive, to say the least.





Using Food to Protect Yourself Against Cancer
By Weston A. Price Foundation Staff  

    Once a rare disease, cancer is now widespread, affecting as much as one-third of the population in the U.S. The rise in cancer in the West has paralleled the rise in factory farming and the use of processed foods containing polyunsaturated and hydrogenated vegetable oils and other food additives.

    Orthodox methods for treating cancer (radiation and chemotherapy) do not prolong life. The best approach to cancer is prevention.

    Traditional diets, containing animal and plant foods farmed by nontoxic methods, are rich in factors that protect against cancer. Many of these protective factors are found in healthy animal fats.

    Vegetarianism itself does not necessarily protect against cancer. In fact, vegetarians are particularly prone to cancers of the nervous system and reproductive organs.

Nutrients in Whole Foods that Protect Against Cancer

Vitamin A: Strengthens the immune system. Essential for mineral metabolism and endocrine function. Helps detoxify. True vitamin A is found only in animal foods such as cod liver oil; fish and shellfish; and liver, butter and egg yolks from pasture-fed animals. Traditional diets contained ten times more vitamin A than the typical modern American diet.

Vitamin C: An important antioxidant that prevents damage by free radicals. Found in many fruits and vegetables but also in certain organ meats valued by primitive peoples.

Vitamin B6: Deficiencies are associated with cancer. Contributes to the function of over 100 enzymes. Most available from animal foods.

Vitamin B12: Deficiencies are associated with cancer. Found only in animal foods.

Vitamin B17: Protects against cancer. Found in a variety of organically grown grains, legumes, nuts and berries.

Vitamin D: Required for mineral absorption. Strongly protective against breast and colon cancer. Found only in animal foods such as cod liver oil, lard, shellfish and butterfat, organ meats and egg yolks from grass-fed animals. Traditional diets contained ten times more of this natural vitamin D than the typical modern American diet.

Vitamin E: Works as an antioxidant at the cellular level. Found in unprocessed oils, nuts such as almonds, and animal fats like butter and egg yolks.

Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA): Strongly protective against breast cancer. Found in the butterfat and meat fat of grass-fed ruminant animals.

Cholesterol: A potent antioxidant that protects against free radicals in cell membranes. Found only in animal foods.

Minerals: The body needs generous amounts of a wide variety of minerals to protect itself against cancer. Minerals like zinc, magnesium and selenium are vital components of enzymes that help the body fight carcinogens. Minerals are easily absorbed from animal foods.

Lactic Acid and Friendly Bacteria: Contribute to the health of the digestive tract. Found in old fashioned lacto-fermented foods (miso, sauerkraut—free of vinegar, citric acid, and sugar—keifer and live yogurt cultures).

Saturated Fats: Strengthen the immune system. Needed for proper use of the essential fatty acids. The lungs cannot function without saturated fats. Found mostly in animal foods and in coconut oil.

Long-Chain Fatty Acids: Arachidonic acid (AA), eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) help fight cancer on the cellular level. They are found mostly in animal foods such as butter, organ meats, cod liver oil and seafood.

Co-enzyme Q10: Highly protective against cancer. Found only in animal foods.

Compounds in Processed Foods that Can Cause Cancer

Trans Fatty Acids: Imitation fats (including hydrogenated oils) in shortenings, margarines and most commercial baked goods and snack foods. Strongly associated with cancer of the lungs and reproductive organs.

Rancid Fats: Industrial processing creates rancidity (free radicals) in commercial vegetable oils.

Omega-6 Fatty Acids: Although needed in small amounts, an excess can contribute to cancer. Dangerously high levels of omega-6 fatty acids are due to the overuse of polyunsaturated vegetable oils in modern diets.

MSG: Associated with brain cancer. Found in almost all processed foods, even when “MSG” does not appear on the label. Many flavorings and spice mixes, and hydrolyzed protein contain MSG.

Aspartame:  Artificial sweetener in diet foods and beverages. Associated with brain cancer.

Pesticides: Associated with many types of cancer. Found in most commercial (non-organic) vegetable oils, fruit juices, vegetables and fruits.

Hormones: Found in animals raised in confinement on soy and grains (plant-based hormones are plentiful in soy foods). Also given to cows (rBGH) to promote milk production.

Artificial Flavorings and Colors: Associated with various types of cancers, especially when consumed in large amounts in a diet of junk food.

Refined Carbohydrates: Sugar, high fructose corn syrup and white flour are devoid of nutrients. The body uses up nutrients from other foods to process these refined carbohydrates. Tumor growth is associated with sugar (including alcohol) consumption.

Information courtesy of the Wellbeing Journal: Wellbeing Journal  




 
About Us | Book Store | Privacy Policy | Contact