UNCOVERING THE HIDDEN SALT WE CONSUME

Any one of us could rattle off a dozen obviously salty foods.  And we know when we add our own salt to our food.

Unfortunately, up to 80% of the salt in our foods was put there by someone other than us.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, Americans get almost one-third of their sodium from breads and rolls, chicken and chicken dishes, pizza, egg dishes and pasta dishes, partly because these foods contain so much added salt and partly because we eat so much of them.

Our bodies need x amount of the sodium in salt to contract muscles, to send nerve impulses and to maintain a healthy balance of fluids.

But x + any additional amount of sodium is the gateway to increased risk of heart disease and stroke:  high blood pressure and thickened and stiffened blood vessels that force the heart to work overtime.

Our best course in avoiding hidden sodium is to read nutrition labels and see what the serving size is as well as the daily percentage of salt that serving size delivers—no need to memorize how many mg of the daily optimum amount of salt.

We can shop for products labeled “salt free”, low-sodium” or “no salt added.”

We can avoid condiments such as soy sauce, ketchup, teriyaki sauce and prepared salad dressings.

And we should limit our consumption of processed foods as well as the number of meals we eat out in restaurants.

My Take on hidden salts:   Here’s the scoop on a home-made ground beef patty and a prepared processed one:  The ones I make at home contains 75 mg of sodium in 4 ounces; the prepared patty has 338 mg of sodium; a breaded prepared patty has 597 mg of sodium.

I’ve known that condiments are high in added salt, so I went upstairs and checked condiments in my cupboard.  I put catsup, mustard and dill relish on my hamburgers and was shocked by how much salt I was consuming.  One tablespoon of the three mustards I like contain 5%, 3% and 2% of daily sodium allowance.  One tablespoon of dill relish has 10%; catsup has 7%; a hamburger bun has 8%.  So one of my hamburgers delivers 30% of the salt I should consume in one day.

In my favor, I use a single slice of whole wheat bread instead of a bun, bringing my total salt intake to “only” 25%.  Additionally, I make my hamburgers small and eat them infrequently.

Source: Harvard Medical School Healthbeat, January 5, 2013   And others

EATING SMART=LIVING LONGER: 5 TIPS TO INCREASE YOUR #LONGEVITY

Bowl of oat cereal, fresh berries and fruit

Seventeen years ago, AARP teemed up with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to determine the influence of dietary and lifestyle choices on the incidence of life-threatening diseases on over half a million people ages 50 and older.

What the collaboration yielded is an understanding of how specific foods affect our bodies, for good or for ill, and the knowledge of how to adjust our dietary choices to stay healthy and lose weight.

And here are the first 5 guidelines, part of what’s called The AARP New American Diet:

Have breakfast every day.

A healthy, nutrient-dense breakfast includes protein, whole grains and fruits keeps your insulin level steady all morning and keeps you from overeating later in the day.

The National Weight Control Registry studied nearly 4,000 persons who had lost weight and kept off for up to 6 years.  Those who at a nutritious breakfast daily lost more weight and kept it off longer than those who didn’t eat breakfast.

Good choices would be an egg sandwich on whole wheat bread with strawberries or whole-grain cereal with low-fat milk and a banana.

Drink more water instead of sweetened or diet soft drinks.

Most of us don’t realize how many calories we take in through sodas, juices, alcoholic drinks and other beverages.   For two weeks, try drinking nothing but water and coffee and watch the weight come off.

Though diet drinks have no sugar, research shows that they may increase our cravings for sugar-sweetened, high calorie foods.   That’s bad.

Also, they disrupt our ability to properly estimate the amount of calories we consume, so we eat more than we ordinarily would.  That’s worse.

And the worst rap?  Researchers at University of Miami found that drinking more than two diet beverages a day is associated with an increased risk for type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome, as well as with stroke and heart disease.

Include more broiled or baked fish in your diet.

Low calorie fish has the omega-3 fatty acids our bodies need for brain health and contains other important nutrients.  It may also lower your risk of getting certain cancers and improve rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory diseases.

Eating red meat—and that means pork, too, and processed meats (hot dogs, bacon, sausage) increases that risk, so eat less of them.

Include whole wheat bread, whole wheat pasta and brown rice in your diet.

Regularly consuming whole grains can cut your risk of heart disease, respiratory illness and some cancers, including breast and colon cancers—and can help you lose weight.

In a Penn State study, for 12 weeks, half of the participants ate whole grains, while the other half at refined grains, such as white bread and pasta.  The group eating whole grains lost significantly more visceral, or belly, fat, the kind linked to diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.

Fill up on fruits and vegetables

The AARP-NIH partnership shows that including fruits and vegetables into you daily diet will help you live longer.  These antioxidant rich foods will help you live longer, and, according to the Penn State study, help you lose weight when you aren’t even trying, probably because they’re mostly water & make you feel full.

Though potatoes are healthy, the recommendation is to not eat them for a few weeks until you’re ready to eat them without unhealthy toppings and without having been fried.

Coming up:  6 More Tips to Increase Your Longevity

SOURCE:  AARP the Magazine  December 2012/January  2012

KING’S COLLEGE, LONDON, STUDY SHOWS #SMOKING ROTS THE BRAIN

Smokers have known they’re saying goodbye to their hearts and lungs, but now they can kiss their brains goodbye, too.

After studying 8800 people over 50 for eight years, the conclusion of King’s College researchers is that smoking damages memory, learning and reasoning.

High blood pressure and being overweight also affected the brain, but to a lesser extent.

The scientists were looking for links between the likelihood of a heart attack or stroke and the state of the brain.  In addition to collecting data about participants’ lifestyles, researchers administered brain tests, such as the ability to learn new words or to name as many animals as they could in a minute.

The people were retested after four years and again after eight years.

Results showed that overall risk of a heart attack or stroke was strongly associated with cognitive decline, and those at the highest risk showed the highest decline.

Researchers found a “consistent association” between smoking and lower scores in the tests.

Dr Simon Ridley, from Alzheimer’s Research UK, said, “Research has repeatedly linked smoking and high blood pressure to a greater risk of cognitive decline and dementia, and this study adds further weight to that evidence.  These results underline the importance of looking after your cardiovascular health from mid-life.”

The Alzheimer’s Society said, “We all know smoking, a high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels and a high Body Mass Index (BMI) is bad for our heart.  This research adds to the huge amount of evidence that also suggests they can be bad for our head, too.”

My Take on the study:  The good news is that high blood pressure, overweight and smoking are all modifiable conditions.

Sources:  BBC News, November 25, 2012   SmartPlanet Daily, November 27, 2012        Study published in Age and Ageing

#MENTOR SENIOR CENTER: FITNESS AND EXERCISE EQUIPMENT—IT’S BETTER IN MENTOR

I took an informal poll of some of the  health-conscious men and women in the Senior Center exercise room to find out why they exercised.  Here are their answers, in no particular order:

I exercise because . . . I’m a heart patient, I’ve had heart bypass surgery, I’m recovering from an injury, diabetes and heart disease runs in my family, I want to keep up with my grandchildren, I like to, it’s good thinking time, it relaxes me, it peps me up, I want to stay alive, I need to strengthen my muscles, I want to maintain my health, I want to live longer, it boosts my metabolism and I can enjoy more food without gaining weight, it relieves joint pain, it keeps me limber and flexible, I’m older and I gotta, I think better afterwards,

I exercise to avoid . . . lupus, diabetes, becoming obese, having a heart attack, having a stroke

Of all the choices in Lake County, I prefer to work out at the Mentor Senior Center because . . . the location is convenient, I like working out with people in my age group, it has a laid-back atmosphere, there’s no loud music, it’s clean, the equipment’s well-maintained, people are friendly, people work out instead of socializing, everything at the Mentor Senior Center’s the best in the area, the equipment’s good, the staff is responsive to suggestions to improve the Fitness Room, the staff is caring, I feel comfortable here, it’s never crowded or noisy, people are considerate and polite,

Almost everyone mentioned cost as a factor.  The cost of using the room is part of the $5 annual fee Mentorites pay and the $7 others pay.

If that doesn’t bespeak a senior center, a city administration and a city council willing to subsidize the health and well being of its community, I don’t know what does.

There are 20 pieces of equipment in the Fitness Room, 7 of which are multipurpose.

My Take on the Fitness Room:  I’ve been working out for 40 years, but for only the last 2 months at the Senior Center.  What took me so long to get here????  (Besides coming of age, of course.)

Tomorrow:  5 Myths about Fitness Workouts

Mentor Senior Center    8484 Munson Rd     440 974-5725          Fitness Room available 7 AM to 9 PM, Monday-Thursday, 7 AM to 4:30 PM, Friday, Main Entrance and Center Street doors open.       (Only Main Entrance doors open at 7 AM, Monday-Friday, for access to Fitness Room) 

 Office hours  Monday-Thursday, 8 AM-7:30 PM,   Friday 8 AM-4:30 PM 

HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL: KEEP THE HIDDEN BURDEN OF HYPERTENSION AT BAY

Hypertension is a gateway to stroke, heart attack, heart failure, and kidney disease.

Probably because of its interference with health, on average the life span of people with hypertension is five years shorter than that of people with normal blood pressure.

Hypertension directly leads to 60,000 deaths a year and contributes to another 300,000 deaths.

Quite naturally, if you’re working to control it, you’re burdened with concerns. You must reprogram your eating and exercise habits and begin a regimen of one or more pills a day, pills which may be expensive.

Spanish researchers uncovered another hidden burden associated with high blood pressure: its effect on survival after both admission and readmission to hospitals.

Over a 10-month period, they studied 1,007 men and women admitted to a hospital for any heart-related problem, including chest pain, fainting, heart attack, heart failure, atrial fibrillation and pericarditis.

In this group of patients, 69% had pre-existing hypertension before being admitted. At the end of one year, 17% of those with high blood pressure were dead compared to only 9% of those with normal blood pressure.

Patients rehospitalized for a cardiac problem had similar outcomes: 31% with pre-existing high blood pressure died within a year compared to only 18% with normal blood pressure.

There are many things you can do to keep your hypertension under control and even prevent the condition from developing. Here are the recommendations of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and the American Heart Association:

Achieve & maintain a healthy weight for your height.

Exercise regularly.

Eat a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.

Limit sodium intake to under 2,300 milligrams (one teaspoon) a day.

Get plenty of potassium (4,700 milligrams) a day.

Drink alcohol in moderation, if at all.

Reduce stress.

Monitor your blood pressure regularly, and work with your doctor to keep it in a healthy range.

from Harvard Medical School Healthbeat June 7, 2012

TUFTS UNIVERSITY: MEASURING THE CONSEQUENCES OF BELLY FAT

It’s not only subcutaneous fat (under the skin) sported by pot bellies and muffin tops that endanger our health.  Both visceral fat (surrounding internal organs) and retroperitoneal fat (behind the peritoneum) can do us in just as handily as can subcutaneous fat.

As a matter of ugly fact/fat, researchers studying 15,156 participants, ages 45-64, in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities Study found that excess belly fat carried a 40% greater risk of dying–within an hour from the unset of sudden heart problems.

Among the three measures of obesity–BMI, waist-to-hip ratio, waist size–scientists found only waist-to-hip was a significant predictor of cardio risk.  Women whose waist-divided-by-hip ratio was 0.97 or greater and men whose ratio was 1.01 or higher were in the top 20% for risk.

Visceral belly fat is especially dangerous because its effects on inflammation can lead to fibrosis in the heart muscle.

A report published in Circulation determined that among 44,636 women studied, those with a waistline of 35 inches or more doubled their risk of dying from heart disease or stroke.  Women with the largest waists were 63% more likely to develop cancer than was the trimmest group and had an overall 79% greater relative risk of death from all causes.

A study published in Neurology linked belly fat to increased risk of developing dementia.  After researchers tracked the health of 6,853 subjects, age 40 to 45 for 36 years, they found that nearly 16% of the participants developed Alzheimer’s disease or some other form of dementia by their 70s.  Those with the biggest bellies in middle age were almost three times as likely to develop dementia as were the 20% in the group with the trimmest tummies.

The magic or tragic number for a woman’s waist is 35”, 40” for men.  At those respective numbers and higher, visceral fat begins to accumulate around the heart, liver and other internal organs and serves as a gateway to pre-diabetes, high cholesterol levels and high triglyceride counts.

What to do?  In a study conducted by P K Newby of Tufts’ Friedman School ,m he and his colleagues were among the first to discover a correlation between white bread and refined grains and belly fat.

They also found that study participants with the smallest increase in waist measurements consumed the most carbohydrates.  Those individuals, both men and women,  were eating carbs rich in fiber—fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

My Take on the research:  You’re off to a good start if you’re reading labels and have discovered that Wheat Bread has no whole wheat grains in it and that much of the Rye or Jewish Rye Bread sold in our stores, even baked in our stores, has no rye flour in it.

Still, I advise everyone to keep a loaf of white bread in the pantry at all times.

You never can tell when your unwashable wall paper may get smudged, in which case you can simply ball up a couple slices of white bread and rub it on the smudge till it disappears.

Balled-up white bread’s also useful should you shatter a glass and need to pick up the tiny shards from the counter or floor.

But under no circumstances should you take white bread internally.

From Tufts University Health & Nutrition Update,   May 18, 2012  Study published in Heart Rhythm Society.   Also from Tuft’s report, Gut-Check Time:  Why Belly Fat Poses Extra Risks, July 2008