Results tagged “Increasing Your Nutrition IQ” from Weight Loss & Nutrition News

Time to let out the belt a notch and hide the bathroom scale. Eating season is in high gear.

With all the time and pleasure spent talking about, preparing and consuming food, you'd think we'd be experts on how it affects our health. But, when it comes to nutrition, most of us have a lot to learn.

"So many people believe nutrition myths, things we've heard from grandma or popularized in the media. And, it's completely understandable because everyone can relate to food.

Everyone eats.

The Art of Qi - By Dr Amir Farid Isahak

In the previous article, Nutritional Healing For Cancer, I wrote about the foods and nutrients that should form part of a daily diet that may help fight cancer when taken in higher amounts, especially through supplements. 

This article discusses nutritional elements which are specifically meant for cancer treatment, although they are also beneficial for treating other chronic diseases, and for general health. 

I must stress that these nutritional therapies do not replace medical treatment. Those who opt for chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy can safely take these as they are extracts of food, and thousands of cancer patients on conventional therapy have consumed them without adverse effects.

The Art of Qi - By Dr Amir Farid Isahak

NUTRITION is the mainstay of good health, and therefore of disease prevention, and healing. I have already discussed at length what the anti-cancer diet should be, and the importance of antioxidants that scavenge the free radicals that cause ageing, disease and cancer. There are many other nutrient groups that are essential for good health, and for fighting cancer. 

Vitamins 

Vitamins C and E have been described under antioxidants. Vitamin A is another anti-oxidant vitamin, but since it can be toxic at high doses, it is preferable to take its precursor, beta-carotene (pro-vitamin A), which is water-soluble, and much safer. It is especially beneficial against breast and lung cancer. Other than having potent antioxidant power that fights cancer, all of them have other health benefits. 

The vitamin B group is essential for cell metabolism, which is indispensable for good health. In a recent study, women who consumed the most vitamin B6 had a 34% lower risk of colon cancer than women who consumed the least B6. The benefits appeared greatest for women who drank two or more alcoholic drinks per week.

IOF survey shows good general knowledge of nutrition and bone health but confusion about vitamin D; half unaware that osteoporosis is more common amongst women than breast cancer

An on-line survey carried out in May and June 2006 among 1200 worldwide employees of the Interpublic Group and their friends and families showed a generally high level of osteoporosis awareness. The survey looked specifically at the respondents’ knowledge about the condition, its prevalence and causes, risk factors, extent of personal risk and how diet can help to prevent the condition.

The vast majority of respondents knew that calcium is important for building bones, that osteoporosis is characterized by brittle bones (95%), that poor diet is a contributing factor (85%) and that women are most at risk (81%). Respondents had a reasonable sense of their own personal risk: Half think they are at least somewhat at risk from osteoporosis. Two in five know somebody personally with the condition and one in four know a family member with it. Almost one fourth know that it affects one in three women.

The United States' obesity rates won't fall until Americans stop placing their faith in unproven and possibly fraudulent weight-loss products and treatments.

That's the message from some of the nation's top obesity experts, commenting on new data about Americans' continued, naive hope for the quick fix.

Part of the problem, they say, is consumers' misconceptions about safety laws. A national survey released last week at the annual meeting of the Obesity Society, a scientific group dedicated to the study of obesity, found that 60 percent of Americans believe incorrectly that over-the-counter dietary supplements for weight loss are required to have been tested and proven to be safe and effective.

There appears to be widespread consumer interest for nutrition information on food packages but the industry still knows next to nothing about how such labelling is actually used on a day-to-day basis.

European Food Information Council (EUFIC) director general Josephine Wills presented delegates at last week's CIAA conference with a thought-provoking review of research on consumer response to nutrition information on food labels in Europe from 2003 to 2006.

Although nutrition labelling has been a major instrument for providing consumers with information to help them make healthy, nutritionally appropriate choices, she said that there were indications that this information is often misunderstood.

And given the link between diet and health, she said that EUFIC wanted to accurately determine the role that nutrition labelling currently plays in influencing consumers purchasing behaviour.

LAWRENCE, Kan. - It's hard to tell what's actually healthy for you to eat these days. As soon as there is evidence of something having health benefits, the media grabs hold of it and spins it out of control.

After researchers found that diets rich in whole grains reduced incidence of heart disease, diabetes, obesity and some forms of cancer, every food company came out with "whole grain" foods. There are now whole grain cookies, Goldfish, chips, cereals and more.

This all sounds great, but how healthy can they be?

A brilliant article revealing the hidden motives of the FDA that caused 24 warning letter to small nutrition remedies and the following campaign against "small fish" on the nutrition market.

"The last victims were cherry farmers, terrorized for quoting solid science that cherries may help people reduce inflammation and pain without any side effects."

The FDA is trying to distract the public, portraying themselves as effective while they continue to this day to allow thousands of Americans to be injured and die in the name of profits for Bayer.

Read below the whole article.

American adults think weight-loss supplements are safer and more effective than they actually are, researchers report in a new national survey.

More than 60 percent of the 1,444 telephone respondents, all of whom had made significant efforts to lose weight, mistakenly said that such supplements have been tested and are proven to be safe (65 percent) and effective (63 percent).

Over half (54 percent) wrongly stated that such supplements are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Diabetes is a fact of life for millions. According to figures from the American Diabetes Association, more than 17 million Americans are living with diabetes, and 16 million of them have type 2 (formerly known as adult onset diabetes).

Diabetes can cause health problems throughout the body, but those who have type 2 can do a lot about improving their own health by keeping a careful watch on their nutrition.

People with diabetes can live long, healthy lives if they take good care of themselves – particularly by controlling blood glucose levels through good nutrition.

BOSTON, Oct. 25 (UPI) -- Studies presented at a meeting of the Obesity Society in Boston have suggested that water helps weight loss and low-fat foods may hinder it.

The first study, which analyzed data from 240 overweight women, aged 25 to 50 and using popular carbohydrate-limiting diet plans, found that dieters who replaced all the sugary drinks in their diets with water lost an average of 5 pounds more a year than dieters who continued to consume the beverages, USA Today reported Wednesday.

Wellness is not a static condition. Our health is constantly changing and one of the greatest influences on the state of our health, or wellness, is our nutrition.
Nutrition influences our health because the food we eat becomes our tissue, bone, blood, mind and mood. Looking at food this way, it is easy to see it has enormous potential to affect our health.
Many major food markets today feature a section of the store that is designated the "healthy food aisle". If you look carefully at the ingredient labels on the foods found here, and compare them to similar foods found in other sections of the store, you will likely find different ingredients. Most, but not all, foods in the healthy food aisle are free of trans fats, the partially hydrogenated oils found in so many name brand products. You will likely see cane sugar as the sweetener in the healthy food aisle rather than high fructose corn syrup, a step up from the standard fare.

When the time comes that you want to start a workout routine you need to keep one thing in mind if you want results in weight loss and muscle tone: you need to have proper nutrition.

Nutrition is the key element to success for getting into shape. By adopting a proper daily meal plan and measuring the correct amount of each food group into your eating routine you will make your results come quicker and easier.

Very daring Press Release by Ardea Beverage Company. I'd even say overbold.

Immune is a nutrient enhanced soda with vitamins, minerals and amino acids that helps boost the immune system to defend against fall and winter ailments..

A recent BBC news report discussed how common colds and flu are very easily transmitted by hands and even just contact with commonly touched surfaces. Immune serves as a powerful tool in supporting the combat of spreading germs and viruses by this type of transmission.

And the most important part of this PR:

The statements in this press release have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

This is not the first attempt to release such kind of "bomb" to the market. Remember Coca-Cola's attempt to make a Weight-Loss soda? Now this. Just "in time" before the horror of coming winter, which is promised to bring another flu pandemic. At least, according to the media.

It looks like a good article. At least it asks you to think before going for wide-advertised products.

However, I am somewhat concerned about it. I want solid numbers in order to believe. And the link at the bottom fo the article is broken...

Well, I let you to decide for yourself

Are you a good cook? We're not asking about how things taste but rather about your healthy cooking habits. Here's a quiz to find out.

1. Adding salt to water will make food cook faster.

True or false?

2. Add fresh herbs at the end of cooking time to get the most flavor from them.

True or false?

Latest numbers on overweight and obesity.
I am 10 kg over my normal weight. How about you?

A billion people out of the world's six billion population are now considered overweight, compared with 800 million who do not have enough to eat.

by Ebbina Clorah, IPP media, 18 Oct 2006

Good nutrition improves immunity and so helps in the prevention of infections. Malnutrition is a significant underlying factor in more than half the deaths of young children in developing countries.

This is particularly true for deaths from diarrhoea, measles, acute respiratory, infection, meningitis and malaria. Malnutrition impairs the immune system so that infections are more frequent, more serious and last longer.

Programmes for the prevention and early treatment of childhood illnesses include several key nutritional interventions such as reducing prevalence of low birth weight.

Organically grown wheat may have different labeling and a higher price in stores, but it contains essentially the same profile of amino acids, sugars and other metabolic substances as wheat grown with conventional farming.

That's the conclusion of a German study, which produced perhaps the most comprehensive metabolic profile of wheat from organic and conventional agriculture.

By Lorraine Heller, 16 Oct 2006

Most Americans use food labels and the government Food Pyramid to make informed diet choices, with a main priority being to follow a more nutritious diet, according to a new survey.

Two out of five US adults say they have changed their eating habits to conform to the US Department of Agriculture's (USDA) nutrition guidelines, while just over half claim to check food labels when choosing products for themselves or their families, revealed the Harris Interactive/Wall Street Journal Online survey.