Healthy Foods
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Archive for the 'Healthy Eating' Category
Eating is one the most important events in everyone’s life. We enjoy eating - it’s part of who we are and part of our culture; in fact, eating is the hottest universal topic of all times. We depend on eating: the foods we eat are the sole source of our energy and nutrition. We know so much about eating: we are born with the desire to eat and grown up with rich traditions of eating. But we also know so little about eating - about how the foods we eat everyday affect our health. We are more confused than ever about the link between diet and health: margarine is healthier than butter or not; a little alcohol will keep heart attacks at bay but cause breast cancer; dietary vitamin antioxidants can prevent lung cancer or can not. Eating is a paradox and a mystery that our ancestors tried and modern scientists are trying to solve.
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Healthy Eating Brain power is characterized by how alert, energetic, and concentrated your brain is in response to a task. Information in your brain passes through neurotransmitters, which are manufactured by the nerve cells using precursors. Different neurotransmitters will have different impacts on your brain activity. For example, serotonin is the calming neurotransmitter that usually makes you more relaxed, drowsy, and fuzzy-headed. While dopamine and norepinephrine are neurotransmitters that make you more alert, more attentive, motivated and mentally energetic.
Healthy Eating Coronary heart disease is the most common of all heart diseases. It is characterized by blockage in the coronary arteries that result in reduction of blood flows to the heart muscle, depriving it of vital oxygen. The clogging of coronary artery, known as arteriosclerosis, begins with fatty streaks in and under the layer of cells, that line artery walls. Gradually, the streaks are transformed into plaques-fatty scar tissue that bulges into the artery opening, partly choking off blood flow.
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Healthy Eating Free radicals are oxygen-containing chemicals that have an impaired electron. The impaired electron makes free radicals highly reactive to DNA, proteins, membranes, and other cell machineries, resulting in oxidative damages including DNA mutations, protein dysfunction, and destruction of membrane and other cell structures. These oxidative damages promote aging and increase the risk of age-related diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, immune system declines, brain dysfunction, and cataracts. Known free radicals that are involved in the aging process are superoxide, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), hydroxyl radical (OH), singlet oxygen, lipid epoxides, lipid hydroperoxides, lipid alkoyl, peroxyl radicals, and oxides. They are either produced during our normal metabolisms or introduced into our bodies from outside sources.
Healthy Eating Kidney stones are rock-hard accumulation of crystal deposits, usually composed of calcium and oxalates that can grow and obstruct the flow of urine through the kidneys. About a million Americans are hospitalized every year for treatment of kidney stones. Men are three times as susceptible to kidney stones as women. Once you have kidney stones, the chances of a reoccurring stone are about forty percent in the next five years, and eighty percent in the next twenty-five years. Whether you develop stones depends on many factors, including heredity, metabolic abnormalities, infections, medications, and diet.
Healthy Eating Compulsive overeating or binge eating is a common eating disorder in which people eat and eat, even after they are completely full. Compulsive overeaters often feel “out of control” with food, so much that they literally cannot stop eating. This problem is different from bulimia nervosa (where people binge, but then try “purge” food out of their bodies by vomiting or some other means). Compulsive overeaters don’t “purge”.
Healthy Eating Isoflavone is a class of non-nutrient plant substances with potential anticancer effects. Isoflavones occur in relatively high concentrations in soy products. The content varies with the variety, time of harvest, and geographic location. Isoflavones belong to the general class of flavonoids; they possess complex ring structures with oxygen atoms attached. Genistein and daizein are two examples of isoflavones. Their general shape resembles the steroid hormone estrogen, a major female hormone. It is possible that isoflavones block estrogen from binding to targets, a needed step in hormone-dependent cancers like cancers of the breast, ovary, and endometrium. They could also stimulate the production of an estrogen-binding protein in the blood, or they could block liver enzymes that activate compounds to become cancer-causing agents. Vegetarians whose diets are enriched in soy products and tofu have a lower risk of cancer.
Healthy Eating Disruption of blood flow to the brain is known as stroke (or cerebrovascular accident - CVA) - a disorder that occurs in two basic forms: clot strokes and bleeding stroke, both potentially life threatening. About 80 percent of stokes among Americans are due to clot stroke - clots in blood vessels blocking the oxygen-rich blood flowing to the brain. The rest come from bleeding stroke when blood vessels in the brain rupture, spilling blood into the brain.
Foods that help ward off clots, keep blood vessel flexible and unclogged, and keep blood pressure normal are good bets for preventing strokes. Even one extra daily portion of the right foods may cut an astounding 40 to 60 percent or even more of your chances of having or dying of a stroke as some scientific studies have indicated. Such an effective and certainly safer and cheaper drug is in everyone’s possession right now.
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Aging is the progressive decline over time in physiological functions, including reflexes, vision, hearing, short-term memory and learning, physical strength and endurance, digestion, cardiovascular function and immunity. Two well-supported theories have been proposed to explain the biological cause of aging.
Based on recent scientific findings, a revolutionary theory called free radical theory of aging has been developed to describe the roles of oxidative damages to cells in the process of aging. The theory hypothesizes that oxidative damage by free radicals to genetic materials, proteins, cell membranes, and other cellular machineries is the genesis of aging and its consequences. According to the theory, free radical damage to our cells accumulates but our inborn ability to resist and repair the damage with antioxidants and enzymes declines as we age, resulting in chemical disintegration of our bodies, increased risk of age-related diseases, and eventually death. Therefore, the battle between free radicals and antioxidants in the body is a major factor determining aging rate and life span.
Healthy Eating Calorie restriction refers to reducing calorie intake to achieve better health. Calories are a measure of the energy released when the body burns any fuel including fat, protein, carbohydrates, and alcohol. Many studies have indicated that excessive calorie intake may result in various health problems such as cancer, heart disease, aging, and obesity. One of the reason that excessive calorie intake cause those health problems is that it facilitate free radical production in the body. Free radicals are considered to be a major causative factor for cancer, heart disease, and aging. Thus proper calorie restriction is an effective way to achieve good health and longevity. According to experts, certain things need to be considered in order to have success with calorie restriction:
Healthy Eating