We’ve all been told (or told someone else) that finishing all your veggies or eating fresh fruit every day is a good way to keep your body healthy and fit. But there are some other surprising foods (drinks too) that we can add to our diet that bring impressive health benefits, and (in moderation, of course) might just help us reach our weight loss goals.
Here are the five, good for your surprises:
1. Tea – 3 cups per day of any type that comes from the leaves of the plant Carnellia sinensis, which includes black, green, white and oolong varieties. There is strong evidence that tea might just reduce your risk of heart disease, and offer other less researched benefits such as protection from cancer and cutting your risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Tea appears to have a type of flavonoid from that same family of antioxidants found in fruits, veggies and red wine. To get the most out of your cup of tea, make it strong and steep it a good long time-but if you’re watching your weight, keep an eye on the milk and sugar you add to your cup.
2. Dark Chocolate – a little goes a long way, but just like tea, this delicious treat is believed to have an ample supply of the same flavonoids in red wine, fruits and veggies. Small amounts of dark chocolate have been shown to improve blood vessel flow, and may stabilize blood sugar and insulin sensitivity, thus reducing the risk of diabetes. Choose dark chocolate that contains at least 70% cocoa so you get more of these healthy antioxidants, and fewer calories from the milk and sugars used to make milk or white chocolate.
3. Fatty Fish – two servings per week of fish such as salmon, trout, herring, tuna, sardines or mackerel. These fish are rich in omega – 3 fatty acids, shown to reduce cholesterol, which helps to keep clots from forming and causing heat attacks. The research is so compelling that the American Heart Association recommends eating fatty fish on a regular basis. Be sure you choose grilled or broiled recipes as frying removes many of the beneficial substances in the fish and replaces them with calories and saturated fats.
4. Coffee – despite its bad rap, used in moderation, your first cup of morning coffee may have health benefits you haven’t heard about – including stimulating the brain and nervous system as well as lowering your risk of diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, mood disorders and headaches. Coffee has a compound from the antioxidant family and is a good source of magnesium, both are believed to help improve sugar metabolism, help with insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance. And while black coffee is a tasty zero calorie drink, adding cream, sugar, or other toppings adds calories that you might not want.
5. Avocados – even though these fruits are full of fat, most of it is the heart healthy monounsaturated kind that is believed to lower cholesterol. Avocados have carotenoids, vitamin E and potassium, plus fiber to fill you up. Be aware though, that just because the fats are “good” ones, they still add calories if you aren’t careful about portions. Slice them onto salads, add them to a soup or spread them on bread to keep the potion sizes under control while still getting all the taste and health benefits too.
Adding one or more of these surprisingly healthy options is a great way to improve a diet that could use some help, or boost the healthfulness of one that’s already on the right track. Along with regular exercise, eating a balanced and nutritious diet is still one of the best ways to maintain your weight and your health.
Valerie Slaugther
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/good-for-you-surprises-you-can-add-to-your-diet-today-61635.html
Sugar is the primary culprit in the development of hypoglycemia and diabetes. While sugar does provide a temporary boost of energy, eating it too frequently puts tremendous stress on the organs and glands that regulate blood-sugar levels. If you don’t have hypoglycemia or diabetes or if you rarely indulge in sugar, your pancreas can handle occasional sugary treats. But if you frequently eat sugar, your pancreas can become hypersensitive to sugar and overreact, flooding your body with insulin, which causes blood-sugar levels to plummet. This triggers your adrenal glands into action, and they notify your liver to release the glucose that it has stored as emergency fuel, which once again floods your bloodstream with sugar. If this happens too many times, your pancreas can finally give up and stop producing insulin or your cells may become resistant to insulin, and hypoglycemia can slip into diabetes.
Most American women eat about 80 pounds of sugar per year, as well as large amounts of refined carbohydrates such as white flour, which is easily converted into glucose in the body. Even if you don’t add sugar to foods, you can still take in tremendous amounts if your diet contains a lot of prepared foods. Obviously, desserts and sweets are loaded with sugar, but other foods such as salad dressings, pasta sauces, and dry cereals also typically contain large amounts of sugar. Sugar is hidden in foods in many forms and is often used in more than one form in processed foods. To help restore healthy blood-sugar levels, avoid all forms of sugar, including sucrose, glucose, maltose, corn syrup, honey, maple syrup, barley malt, and molasses. Learn to enjoy the unprocessed sweetness of fresh fruits (in moderation) and sweet vegetables such as yams, carrots, and winter squash. Although giving up concentrated sweeteners may be difficult initially, you will find that your cravings for sugar will diminish within a few weeks.
Other foods that interfere with healthy blood-sugar levels include refined carbohydrates such as breads and pastas made from white flour and white rice, all of which are rapidly broken down into simple sugars in the body. Stimulants such as caffeine offer a temporary burst of energy, but stress the adrenal glands and further impair their ability to normalize blood-sugar levels. Alcohol also interferes with blood-sugar stability because it hinders the body’s ability to use glucose and stimulates the release of insulin, which causes blood sugar take a nosedive.
To help maintain steady blood-sugar levels, eat a diet high in fiber, especially soluble fiber, which slows down the digestion and absorption of carbohydrates and prevents rapid increases in blood sugar levels. Soluble fiber keeps the pancreas from secreting too much insulin by enhancing cell sensitivity to insulin and improves the use of glucose by the liver, which prevents blood-sugar levels from remaining too high. Strive for at least 35 grams and preferably 50 grams of fiber each day. Legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, vegetables, and fruits are good sources of fiber, and especially good sources of soluble fiber include legumes, oat bran, most vegetables, apples, and pears. Eat carbohydrates in as close to their natural state as possible, because the fiber content helps to slow the absorption of natural sugars that carbohydrates contain-for example, eat an apple instead of drinking apple juice. Psyllium-seed husks, guar gum, and pectin are excellent sources of supplemental soluble fiber. To help balance blood-sugar levels, take one to three teaspoons of a fiber supplement stirred into a glass of water twice daily before meals.
Protein is essential for the proper functioning of the adrenal glands, pancreas, and liver and prevents cravings for high-carbohydrate foods. Because protein does not stimulate the release of insulin as do carbohydrates, it helps to stabilize blood-sugar levels. For maximum blood-sugar stability, eat three to four ounces of protein at lunch and at dinner. Moderate amounts of healthful fats are also essential for helping to maintain healthy blood-sugar levels and for providing a feeling of satiety, which helps to reduce cravings for carbohydrates. Raw nuts and seeds, avocados, olive oil, and flaxseed oil are all good sources of health-enhancing fats.
Eating frequent small meals is a helpful strategy for stabilizing blood-sugar levels. Avoid skipping meals, or going for more than two to three hours without eating. Get into the habit of eating meals at regular times, because your body functions best on a regular schedule. Plan for three meals a day, plus midmorning, midafternoon, and evening snacks. Include a small amount of protein or fat in your snack to help keep blood sugar stable-for example, have an apple with a few almonds, crackers with tofu spread, or carrot sticks with a few walnuts.
Supplements that are especially helpful for balancing blood sugar include chromium, a trace mineral that is essential for the proper functioning of insulin. Take 200 to 600 micrograms of chromium picolinate daily. To help strengthen the adrenal glands, take 2,000 milligrams of vitamin C daily in divided doses and a high potency multivitamin and mineral that provides 50 to 100 milligrams of the B-complex vitamins.
Krishan Bakhru
http://www.articlesbase.com/diseases-and-conditions-articles/how-to-control-bloodsugar-levels-naturally-76980.html
Sodas are the last drink hyperglycemics should pour down their throats
They contain a toxic brew of sugar, caffeine and include tartaric acid, phosphoric acid, artificial flavorings and additives. This toxic mix creates a rush of adrenalin which increases your low blood sugar levels (hypoglycemia).
Drinking sweet carbonated mineral water regularly during the day leads to the body’s check and balance mechanism being unable to pause and work properly. You must not have a constant flow of insulin through your body during the course of your day.
When you repeatedly drink high sugar sodas the body puts out too much insulin and the insulin receptors of the cells lose sensitivity. The result is the pancreas pushes out more insulin. Too much insulin then grabs more glucose out of the bloodstream to send to the cells.
Once too much glucose is taken from the blood, blood sugar levels drop too low and you have hypoglycemia.
But it doesn’t stop there, if you make no lifestyle changes. Eventually insulin receptors are so desensitized that insulin is unable to send glucose into the cells. Your body now has insulin resistance – not something you would want to encourage. If the matter is ignored, eventually you will have an excess of sugar and an almost guaranteed chance of developing type 2 diabetes.
As soon as you understand the serious course hypoglycemia takes, the sooner you will do something about your low blood sugar levels.
It’s your body and only you can make the decision. You will need an understanding of dieting and hypoglycemia that will help you make the changes to your lifestyle. But, above all, you will need information that motivates you to persist in your new lifestyle changes because of the seriousness of where hypoglycemia can lead.
Another problem with carbonated soft drinks is the ratio imbalance of phosphorous to calcium which they create. In the 1950’s the typical American diet was about 3 to 1 instead of 1.5 to 1. But today the ratio has slipped to 5 to 1. This ratio is explained by the huge increase in the volume of sodas drunk.
Because there is no calcium in sodas and the body must maintain a balance between phosphorous and calcium, it leaches calcium from the bones. This decalcification leads to osteoporosis.
Today 10 – 12 million Americans, mainly over 60 years of age, have osteoporosis. This explains the high incidence of broken hip bones and vertebrae.
Another bone softening disease caused by the imbalance of calcium is gum disease.
As soon as you understand the serious course hypoglycemia takes, the sooner you will do something about your low blood sugar levels.
It’s your body and only you can make the decision. You will need an understanding of dieting and hypoglycemia that will help you make the changes to your lifestyle. But, above all, you will need information that motivates you to persist in your new lifestyle changes because of the seriousness of where hypoglycemia can lead.
Noel Glass
http://www.articlesbase.com/fitness-articles/hypoglycemia-and-sodas-hidden-rush-of-sugar-736506.html
Sodas are the last drink hyperglycemics should pour down their throats
They contain a toxic brew of sugar, caffeine and include tartaric acid, phosphoric acid, artificial flavorings and additives. This toxic mix creates a rush of adrenalin which increases your low blood sugar levels (hypoglycemia).
Drinking sweet carbonated mineral water regularly during the day leads to the body’s check and balance mechanism being unable to pause and work properly. You must not have a constant flow of insulin through your body during the course of your day.
When you repeatedly drink high sugar sodas the body puts out too much insulin and the insulin receptors of the cells lose sensitivity. The result is the pancreas pushes out more insulin. Too much insulin then grabs more glucose out of the bloodstream to send to the cells.
Once too much glucose is taken from the blood, blood sugar levels drop too low and you have hypoglycemia.
But it doesn’t stop there, if you make no lifestyle changes. Eventually insulin receptors are so desensitized that insulin is unable to send glucose into the cells. Your body now has insulin resistance – not something you would want to encourage. If the matter is ignored, eventually you will have an excess of sugar and an almost guaranteed chance of developing type 2 diabetes.
As soon as you understand the serious course hypoglycemia takes, the sooner you will do something about your low blood sugar levels.
It’s your body and only you can make the decision. You will need an understanding of dieting and hypoglycemia that will help you make the changes to your lifestyle. But, above all, you will need information that motivates you to persist in your new lifestyle changes because of the seriousness of where hypoglycemia can lead.
Another problem with carbonated soft drinks is the ratio imbalance of phosphorous to calcium which they create. In the 1950’s the typical American diet was about 3 to 1 instead of 1.5 to 1. But today the ratio has slipped to 5 to 1. This ratio is explained by the huge increase in the volume of sodas drunk.
Because there is no calcium in sodas and the body must maintain a balance between phosphorous and calcium, it leaches calcium from the bones. This decalcification leads to osteoporosis.
Today 10 – 12 million Americans, mainly over 60 years of age, have osteoporosis. This explains the high incidence of broken hip bones and vertebrae.
Another bone softening disease caused by the imbalance of calcium is gum disease.
As soon as you understand the serious course hypoglycemia takes, the sooner you will do something about your low blood sugar levels.
It’s your body and only you can make the decision. You will need an understanding of dieting and hypoglycemia that will help you make the changes to your lifestyle. But, above all, you will need information that motivates you to persist in your new lifestyle changes because of the seriousness of where hypoglycemia can lead.
Noel Glass
http://www.articlesbase.com/fitness-articles/hypoglycemia-and-sodas-hidden-rush-of-sugar-736506.html
Vitamin B-3, also called niacin, is one of the eight water-soluble B complex vitamins. Niacin is required by all living cells, as it helps in the release of energy from carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. Niacin is also required for the synthesis of amino acids and fat needed for nucleic acid formation.
This vitamin is different from the other vitamins of the B-complex group, because an essential amino acid, tryptophan serves as its precursor.
Niacin is a major component of the coenzymes – nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) and nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADP). These compounds help remove hydrogen atoms during organic reactions in the body.
Since it is a water-soluble vitamin, niacin is absorbed by the intestine; but very little is stored in the body and any excess of the vitamin which is not used by the body is excreted in the urine. Therefore,
it becomes very important to include a regular source of Vitamin B3 through daily dietary sources.
Benefits of Vitamin B-3:
* Niacin plays an important role in helping the body get rid of toxic and harmful chemicals.
* Niacin promotes insulin secretion and increases insulin sensitivity. This is found to be quite effective
in stabilizing blood sugar levels and preventing the advance of type I diabetes in some patients, if niacin supplements are given early enough at the onset of diabetes.
* Vitamin B3 required for the production of genetic material in our cells, called deoxyribo nucleic acid (DNA). Deficiency of vitamin B3 has been directly linked to genetic harm.
* It also assists the body manufacture various sex and stress-related hormones in the adrenal glands and other related parts of the body.
* Vitamin B3 is useful in improving blood circulation, and helps reduce cholesterol levels in the blood.
* Vitamin B3 is important for converting protein, fat and carbohydrates into energy.
* It helps the proper functioning of the digestive system and promotes healthy skin, hair and nerves.
Vitamin B3 deficiency symptoms –
Early symptoms of deficiency include:
· Muscular pain
· Skin eruptions, including wrinkles, rashes, dry and coarse scaly skin in areas exposed to sunlight
· Indigestion
· Anorexia – loss of hunger
· Headaches and body aches
· Swollen, red tongue
· General tiredness
· Mood swings along with irritability
· Dizziness
· Nausea and vomiting
· Dementia
· Death in very severe cases
Consequences of Vitamin B3 deficiency –
Severe deficiency of niacin commonly leads to pellagra – typical symptoms include dermatitis, old age dementia, fits, sore tongue and diarrohea. In some people, the skin becomes scaly, cracked and pigmented in those parts exposed to sunlight. Eruptions can appear in the skin leading to mental confusion and stupefaction. Inflammation of the mucous membranes of the mouth and digestive abnormalities also develop in niacin deficiency.
Inadequate intake of iron and vitamins B2 and B6 increase the risk of niacin deficiency.
Dosage of Vitamin B3 –
Vitamin B3 requirements are affected by many factors such as age, body size, level of physical activity, any major illness, pregnancy and lactation. The daily allowance of vitamin B3 should be based on caloric intake. Tryptophan is an amino acid that serves as a Vitamin B3 equivalent.
The Recommended Daily Allowance for women is around 15 milligrams each day and for men, it is around 15 to 19 milligrams each day. RDA for children – 13 mg and RDA for infants – 6 mg.
Extreme high doses of niacin can cause niacin maculopathy, a thickening of the macula and the retina, which leads to blurred vision and blindness.
What foods are high in vitamin B3?
The body’s niacin requirement can be met to a large extent by eating protein rich foods because the human body can easily convert tryptophan, an amino acid, into niacin.
Dietary sources which are rich in Vitamin B3 include -
· Meat, poultry, fish
· Peanuts, dried nuts
· Milk and eggs contain small amounts, but are excellent sources of tryptophan, which is converted in
the body into niacin.
· Sunflower seeds
· Dairy products including cottage cheese
· Vegetable sources include the husk of cereals, green vegetables, peas, beans, tomatoes etc.
Storage of Vitamin B3 –
Vitamin B3 is one of the more stable water-soluble vitamins and is minimally prone to damage by air, light, and heat.
However, it is better to keep the vitamin away from strong light. If on vitamin B3 supplements, store them at room temperature in a dry place that is free of moisture.
Who are more vulnerable to Vitamin B3 deficiency?
People with chronic intestinal problems, including diarrohea, inflammatory/irritable bowel disease, alcoholics, people with poor protein intake – in these group of people Vitamin B3 deficiency can be triggered very easily.
A word of caution for people planning to take Vitamin B3 supplement –
Do not take B3 supplements on your own if you:
· Are allergic to niacin or any other niacin containing vitamin supplement.
· Suffering from restricted liver function.
· People with peptic ulcer.
· Diabetes.
· Gallbladder malfunctioning
Tom alter
http://www.articlesbase.com/supplements-and-vitamins-articles/vitamin-b3-sources-benefits-and-deficiency-104065.html
