Posts Tagged ‘nutrients’

Phytonutrients your personal pharmacy means that it doesn’t take a hike to the Pharmacy; just a few steps to your garden will help heal what ails you.

phytonutrients

Phytonutrients are compounds that naturally occur in plants and provide a range of potential health benefits. It’s believed that the health benefits come from the pigments in fruits and vegetables that give them their vibrant colors. By boosting phytonutrient intake, it can help decrease the risk for certain chronic diseases, including cardiovascular, cancer, and diabetes.

A study, supported by the Nutrilite Health Institute and presented at the Experimental Biology Meeting, April 25, in Anaheim, California, found that despite the availability of a wide range of foods that contain phytonutrients, many Americans are getting phytonutrients from a relatively small number of specific foods that are not necessarily the most concentrated sources.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise; processed food is the food group of choice. With that being the main stay of the American diet, eating has become risky. There is no understanding of what are the primary foods for the human body to function at peak performance.

The next generation will have no compelling evidence, because this is seldom stated as the cause of ill health. The drop in plant consumption has resulted in many of the chronic health conditions plaguing us.

Produce Intake Among Americans

A previous study conducted by the Nutrilite Health Institute concluded that 8 in 10 Americans have a Phytonutrient gap, which translates to a lack of fruit and vegetable intake. If such great things come in small packages that could result in better health you would think that we would partake of it.

If fruits and vegetables were pharmaceuticals we would have the medical community touting the remarkable results that it produced.

Common drugs accelerates mental and physical decline in the elderly. Yet, changing to a good diet curtails both of these events. Pulling all the research together shows that produce promotes health and longevity.

Phytonutrients offer powerful protection optimizing digestive, circulatory, hormone function, bladder, liver, pancreas and vision function.

With all the health giving benefits produce intake which is the foundation of health is quite low. This is more than an apple a day will keep the doctor away. It literally is the fountain of youth that everyone is so intent on seeking. It is right in front of your nose, the plant food that lines the produce department of super-markets, and the farmers markets that spot the landscape.

A Short List of Potential Live Extending Produce

Beta-carotene – carrots

Beta-cryptoxanthin – oranges/orange juice

Lutein/zeaxanthin – spinach

Ellagic acid – strawberries

Isothiocyanates- mustard

For each of these phytonutrients, however, there is a more highly concentrated food that could be chosen instead:

• Beta-carotene – sweet potatoes
  Sweet potatoes have nearly double the beta-carotene compared to carrots in a single serving.
• Beta-cryptoxanthin – papaya
  A serving of fresh papaya has roughly 15 times the beta-cryptoxanthin of an orange.
• Lutein/zeaxanthin – kale
  By substituting cooked kale for raw spinach, it is possible to triple lutein/zeaxanthin intake.
• Ellagic acid – raspberries
  Serving per serving, raspberries have roughly three times the ellagic acid compared to strawberries.
• Isothiocyanates – watercress
  Just one cup of watercress as the basis for a salad has about the same level of isothiocyanates as four teaspoons of mustard.

Obesity is tied to heart failure. Specialists at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere report evidence linking severe overweight to prolonged inflammation of heart tissue and the subsequent damage that lead to failure of the body’s blood-pumping organ. The latest findings from the Multi-ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (Mesa) to be published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, says the estimated 72 million obese Americans should be concerned over these findings.

The biological effects of obesity on the heart were found to be profound said senior investigator Joao Lima, M.D. Even if obese people feel healthy there are measurable chemical signs of damage to their heart, which go beyond diabetes and high blood pressure. Researchers conducted the tests, and tracked the development of heart failure in an ethnically diverse group of about 7,000 men and women, ages 45 to 84, which were enrolled in the MESA study.

The researchers from five universities across the United States also found alarming links between inflammation and metabolic syndrome. This condition produces the risk factors for heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, elevated blood glucose levels, excess abdominal fat, abnormal cholesterol levels, and obesity. This also doubles a person’s chances of developing heart failure.

Again it is inflammation chemicals in the obese participants that seemed to be a key predictor of heart failure. A tripling of average levels of C-reactive protein in study participants increased the chance of heart failure by 36 percent. One-fifth higher than average blood levels of fibrinogen, best known for its role in blood clotting, but also a major player in muscle scarring, upped the risk of heart failure by 37 percent.

 “What this tells us is that both obesity and the inflammatory markers are closely tied to each other and to heart failure,” says lead researcher Hossein Bahrami, M.D., M.P.H

Bahrami, a senior cardiology research fellow at Hopkins, says “the basic evidence is building the case that inflammation may be the chemical route by which obesity targets the heart, and that inflammation may play an important role in the increased risk of heart failure in obese people, especially those with the metabolic syndrome.”

He also notes that previous studies, done at Hopkins, show that even moderate exercise to lose abdominal fat dramatically offsets the harmful effects of metabolic syndrome on heart function.

Obesity is tied to heart failure. However, we may not need all these studies telling us that. All we need to know is that we can’t be obese and remain healthy. Concise information is informative, but is it a powerful enough tool to reverse the trend. What we allocate to these studies may not give us the currency to specifically reduce the incident of heart failure, or any other chronic condition.

The reason is heart failure is a nutrient deficiency as are many of the chronic conditions. Americans for the most part are overfed and under nourished. Without an optimal diet to operate on, all the studies in the world are not going to be as helpful as we would like. Being obese is of course a burden on any individual as it leads also to being out of condition. A connection to obesity and any number of diseases is easy to make.

What are needed are the tools that specifically help with the nutritional solutions, and lower the risk of inflammation. We eat a diet that causes inflammation throughout the body. Our Omega 6 intake is too high, and does not come from healthy sources. The ratio of omega 3 to 6 should be anywhere from 1:3 and is currently as high as 1:25. Omega 3 fatty acids works as an anti-inflammatory. This information is not acknowledged in media reports. We need to know more than obesity is tied to heart failure.