I’ve just recorded a podcast with Eastbourne-based lifecoach, Julia Armstrong – listen to it here.
Posts tagged health
Prof Regan’s Diet Clinic (2)
With a firm tongue in my cheek, I’m delighted to see Professor Regan put high sugar cereals and cheese straws in her acceptable diet clinic tonight and learned from the nutritionist at Kelloggs that there is no evidence that sugar causes obesity. So it’ll be all the fruit and vegetables and unrefined food we are all eating thats keeping us all so slim then!! Excellent…. I can retire happy in the knowledge that feeding my face with white sugar will keep me nice and trim. I must stop watching this programme as its doing my blood pressure no good at all. Perhaps I should see a nutritionist!
Tips for lowering cholesterol
Good news for the humble egg this week. They are officially good for your heart! The cholesterol in eggs has a minimal effect on serum cholesterol levels according to the British Nutrition Foundation and scientists have proved that eggs produce proteins that mimic the action of blood pressure-lowering drugs. Eggs may in fact be good for your heart by lowering blood pressure in the same way as Ace inhibitors, taken by millions around the world. These drugs lower blood pressure by stopping the hormone angiotensin narrowing the body’s blood vessels.
Researcher Professor Bruce Griffin, of the University of Surrey, said: ‘The ingrained misconception linking egg consumption to high blood cholesterol and heart disease must be corrected.’
As I’m forever correcting my patients about their fear over egg consumption – this is great news and one that will hopefully filter through to the nation. One of the most sustaining and healthy breakfasts is scrambled eggs on toast. Not only is it a brilliant low GI meal, but it will prevent any hunger pangs mid morning. People rely far too much on sugary based cereals and toast every morning and forget about the importance of protein.
Many of my clients are still very confused about cholesterol and what foods make it worse or better. The most common misconception is that all fat is bad for you. That simply isn’t the case, and its important to keep eating essential fatty acids i.e. omega 3 and 6 in the diet. Essential Fatty Acids reduce your ldl (bad cholesterol) and thin the blood. Many of the eggs we buy are fed on Omega 3 rich feed.
It is important after 40 to know what your cholesterol levels are and particularly the ratio of good (HDL) to bad (LDL). If you have just had your cholesterol tested and its slightly raised and you would like to try diet and exercise before statins here is my advice. Give yourself eight weeks and then get it tested again.
Top tips to help lower cholesterol
Avoid all saturated fat and cholesterol in the diet – choose chicken, fish, tofu and pulses over red meat. Particularly avoid pork and pork products, fried and fatty food.
Avoid all hydrogenated fats – this means you will need to start reading labels.
Use a scrape of butter or margarines that contain plant sterols,
Cut out all alcohol, cakes, carbonated drinks, coffee, refined food (white flour and white sugar.
Take regular exercise and avoid stress where possible.
Do not eliminate all good fat from the diet so do include oily fish, nuts and seeds in your diet.
When eating nuts make sure they are raw rather than dry roasted etc and almonds are especially good as they are high in arginine.
Use cold pressed oil to cook with e.g. olive, soybean, flaxseed that have never been heated over 110oF.
Increase your fibre in the forms of fruit, vegetables, and whole grains as this can reduce serum cholesterol. Choose brown rice and psyllium husks, oats, and barley.
Garlic is amazing for reducing cholesterol, and can be taken raw (do be careful though!) stir fried, roasted or in supplements. Other foods known to reduce cholesterol include apples, carrots, oily fish, pulses, grapefruit and olive oil.
Antibiotics – do you really need them?
It has been estimated that in the last year £100 million has been wasted on 23 million prescriptions to fight infections that will have no effect. Think what could be done with that money. Its a shameful waste and we all have to start taking some personal responsibility for our own health.
The facts are that antibiotics dont work on colds, coughs, sore throats or the flu. And unless you are under two, elderly or have health complications you should not be asking your GP for antibiotics unless the symptoms become severe.
In the last decade alone, E coli has become 10% more resistant to antibiotics. If we continue taking antibiotics for viral infections our resistance may go down as well. Dont get me wrong, I am not against antibiotics at all. However they should be treated with great respect and used for severe bacterial infections like UTI’s and pneumonia.
If you have a cold, cough, sore throat or flu symptoms, try and boost your immune system naturally or try over the counter medication for symptomatic relief.
Here are some basic tips to help relieve the symptoms of viral infections:
1. Drink plenty of fluids – particularly water. Try hot lemon and honey which is particularly good for sore throats and laryngitis. Diluted vegetable juices, herb teas and infusions are fine.
2. Eat clean simple foods like home made vegetable soup, chicken soup if you have the flu, casseroles are a good complete meal (include ginger and garlic), fruit and vegetables and whole grains. Avoid refined foods, coffee and cheese if you have lots of mucous as this can make it worse.
3. Try echinacea tincture if you feel you are coming down with a virus and 1g of vitamin c daily. This wont necessarily stop you getting ill, but will help the immune system fight the infection. A multivitamin with extra zinc (at least 10mg) may help as well.
4. Wash your hands. This can reduce your infection by as much as 70%. Think where you have been during the day and how many surfaces you have touched!
5. If the virus is bad, do take time off work if you can and go to bed or rest. Often we go back to work too soon and infect everyone else in the office and dont take enough time to recover!
6. Stay warm, do not get chilled.
7. Try Olbas Oil or a similar natural decongestant that can be breathed in or put in a hankie and sniffed and try zinc lozenges for sore throats. Go to www.olbas.co.uk for a range of vapourisers, tissues, inhalants and lozenges.
8. Avoid sugar as its thought this can impair the immune system due to the fact that glucose and vitamin C complete for transport sites in the white blood cells. With this in mind do not think that drinking litres of orange juice will help you. Not only can it be high in sugar but the amount of vitamin C can vary dramatically.
Tips for reducing stress through diet
I am constantly reminded in my job how much stress affects our health. This year alone I have seen numerous clients with serious stress situations in their life. Although I’m a nutritionist, and not a councillor, its important for me to listen to the problems my clients are having as this helps me support them with diet and supplements.
It is vital in times of severe stress to try and eat well. With high levels of adrenaline and cortisol charging round the body, we crave foods that will either wake us up or calm us down. These will include caffeine, sugar, and other stimulants, as well as cravings for carbohydrates, chocolate and cheese. Often these foods will have a direct affect on our brain chemistry helping to raise serotonin and give us energy. This may sound good but the effects are short lived and long term can lead to more anxiety and stress.
So whats happening in the brain?
Your feelings are generated by tiny brain chemicals called neurotransmitters. These include dopamine, serotonin and adrenaline. Neurotransmitters are responsible for dictating your mood and are greatly affected by what you eat. Serotonin is associated with a reduction in stress and tension and feelings of happiness, whereas dopamine and adrenaline have different mood effects by boosting concentration and alertness. The influence of food is extremely relevant when neurotransmitter production is considered. Amino acids found in proteins provide the raw materials needed to make neurotransmitters and a low protein diet is often at the route of neurotransmitter imbalance.
Some foods directly stimulate a neurotransmitter response for instance carbohydrates influence serotonin production and caffeine stimulates adrenaline synthesis. There are many other specific vitamins and minerals that have a powerful effect on your mood. Without proper neurotransmitter balance brain function and mood can be seriously affected. Feelings of anxiety and stress are commonplace in today’s society. The body’s stress response has not yet evolved to deal efficiently with modern life, meaning the slightest emotional stress still causes a powerful release of chemicals. Two minerals, calcium and magnesium play an important role in regulating your nervous system. By making sure you have adequate dietary intake of these two nutrients you can help yourself combat feelings associated with stress and induce calmness and relaxation. GABA restores calm after a stressful event, helping you to relax. Another called dopamine enables your body to deal with stress more efficiently, helping to reduce feelings of anxiety.
If you are going through a particularly stressful time at the moment, try my top 10 tips to combat stress.
1. Do eat little and often – this is vitally important to keep your blood sugar level stable throughout the day – a decent protein breakfast like scrambled eggs on toast, a mid morning snack like an apple and a handful of nuts, lunch, of protein and carbohydrate like rice salad with chicken, mid afternoon snack, a yoghurt and some fruit or oatcakes and hummous, and dinner, grilled salmon, saute potatoes and steamed vegetables.
2. Remember to stay well hydrated on 1.5 litres of water daily, this can include green tea, or redbush and fruit juice. Try and avoid caffeine and colas as this may only make you more anxious and nervy. Cammomile tea is good for anxiety, and peppermint and fennel tea are good for indigestion and nausea.
3. Avoid all refined foods, particularly white sugar, and white bread etc. Choose wholegrains, brown rice and brown pasta. Eat plenty of dark green leafy vegetables as these are high in magnesium, as are nuts, brown rice, and baked beans.
4. Choose foods high in vitamin B which is the anti stress vitamin (particularly vitamin B5): these include brown rice, lentils, nuts, and whole grain foods and avocadoes. If you are not eating enough of these you can take a Vitamin B-50 complex daily for a month then every day until you feel better.
5. Its important to concentrate on your protein levels and make sure you have some protein at every meal. Protein contains the raw materials needed for neurotransmitters. Protein sources include: chicken, fish, tofu, nuts, pulses, eggs, cheese and meat.
6. Inflammatory conditions like asthma, eczema or skin disorders can flare up. Its important to keep your levels of omega 3 up – either by eating salmon, mackeral, herring or sardines three times a week or take flaxseed oil if you are vegetarian.
7. A glass of red wine every night is not going to do you any harm but try not to depend on alcohol to relax you and find another way like yoga or meditation.
8. If you are craving chocolate, avoid all refined products and go for organic or 70% dark chocolate and have a few squares after a meal instead of a pudding.
9. Foods that will calm you down include: dark leafy vegetables like watercress, kale, broccoli, spinach along with brown rice, almonds and walnuts, wheatgerm and sardines to top up on calcium and magnesium. To boost GABA formation include cheddar cheese, cow’s milk, chicken, turkey and eggs in your diet. For dopamine add in a few soya products like tofu, miso and soya yoghurt with peanuts, almonds and tuna.
10. Eat every three hours throughout the day. So if you have breakfast at 7am, snack at 10am, lunch at 1pm, snack at 4pm, supper at 7pm and if needed another snack at 10pm. Foods high in trytophan might help you fall asleep – these include turkey and lettuce, oats, bananas, milk, yoghurt and cottage cheese.
Are you taking too many supplements?
I had a woman come into my clinic last week carrying a rucksack. When I asked her if she took any vitamin supplements she proceeded in a Ready Steady Cook kind of way to empty the rucksack on my desk – in it were over 35 pots of supplements.!!To say my eyebrows raised was an understatement!
On further investigation she said that she had picked them up as she had gone along. Some had been recommended by friends, some she had read about in magazines or on the internet to be good for certain conditions she thought she had.
As a nutritionist I am qualified to prescribe vitamin, mineral supplements and some herbs. These are used to aid in medical conditions and are usually used for a short period of time until the problem is resolved. My concern is that people are self diagnosing problems that they may not have and taking way too many vitamins.
It is not so much a concern with the water soluble vitamins ie Vitamin C and B, which are excreted through the urine. However, the fat soluble vitamins E, D, A etc are a different matter as they are stored in the liver. There is also the drug inter-reaction problem. Last year one of my patients had put himself on high levels of fish oil, even though he was on warfarin. As fish oils thin the blood they should not be taken in conjunction with any blood thinners and that goes for many other supplements as well.
Its obvious that people have the very best intentions but need to tread cautiously and get expert advice before starting on a supplement programme.
After the awful flu and viruses we have had you might be tempted to dose yourself to build your immune system. Please refrain! Instead here are my top tips to boost your immune system after a virus.
TOP TIPS TO BOOST THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
- If possible get extra sleep. Try to aim for at least 6-8 hours daily and more if you need it. If you can catch up at the weekend, do so.
- Take time to recover, if you are on a fixed exercise regime – do take it really easy for a while!
- Eat something (naturally!) blue/ red/yellow every day.
- Eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables per day.
- Don’t eat foods that you are intolerant/allergic to and try and reduce your allergic load.
- This is still the time to eat comforting food like chicken soup, casseroles and broths which are particularly good for the immune system.
- Avoid fried foods, barbequed food and smoked/cured meats.
- Avoid processed, refined foods and white sugar.
- Do not forget to eat enough protein – try to eat a little at each meal.
- Take a daily probiotic to help assist the immunity in the gut.
- Do not eat hydrogenated fat and keep saturated fat to a minimum.
- Try to keep your stress levels as low as you can.
- If you feel lethargic and unusually tired try a vitamin b-50 complex for a few weeks and a daily antioxidant formula with extra zinc (at least 10mg) and selenium.
Save Our British Bacon – Channel 4 – 29th January 2009
Channel 4′s The Great British Food Fight continued last night with Jamie Oliver trying the save British Pig Farmers. Pig farmers across the country are in crisis because huge increases in the price of grain mean they are losing up to £20 for every animal they produce. Experts warn the industry faces catastrophe unless the price of pork and bacon rises, a move so far rejected by supermarkets. Also the cost to UK farmers of meeting higher welfare standards has left them open to competition from some mass producers from the EU.
Britain is importing cheaper bacon and pork from Europe which has often been reared in conditions that are banned in the UK.
Bewildered? You should be.
It does seem ludicrous to say the least that pig stalls are banned in the UK and yet we are quite happy to import bacon from Europe that has been reared like that. The pork is cheaper by the very method it is reared with pigs living up to 5 years in stalls forced to pop out about 40 pigs a time. So the bottom line is that if we buy cheaper e
European pork, the pig is unhappy, the British farmer is unhappy and everyone loses out (except perhaps the Danes).
As Jamie showed last night when people are offered a choice they almost always want to buy British and would also pay a small amount more if they knew the pigs have lived a decent life.
Jamie comes in for a lot of stick by the press, but his heart is definitely in the right place and the programme last night highlighted the need for every single British shopper to know exactly what they buying, where it has come from and be able to make informed decisions based on clear labelling.
To hear any pig farmer has taken their own life is tragic, and with a little help from consumers it need not be like this.
So please, until labelling is clearer, BUY BRITISH -look for the Union Jack label or, RSPCA standard approved and make sure its reared in the UK. As shown last night you might need a magnifying glass to read the labelling properly!!
The One Show – 28th January 2009 – Food Allergies
BBC1’s The One Show did a piece last night on food allergies and food intolerances and I was wondering what people thought of it?
I agree that many people are self diagnosing themselves with wheat and dairy intolerances, and many people I see have taken themselves off these two food groups without the right advice i.e. do they really need to, and what will they replace the missing foods with?
There has definitely been a sharp rise in bowel problems in the last 20 years and food allergies are also on the increase. This can be blamed on many factors, the overproduction of grains, the rise in antibiotic use making the gut more sensitive, general environmental factors etc etc. The problem many of my patients have is after seeing their GP they are sometimes left high and dry with what to do. None of the people I see in my clinic are copying their friends, trying to be trendy or hypochondriacs. They are however, people who are suffering debilitating problems which affect their work and home life. Trust me they are not smiling when they walk through the door and are often bought to tears with their stories. Allergy and intolerance is a complicated issue and needs time and patience to get to the bottom of what is causing the problem.
So here’s what I suggest:
If you feel you have a problem with certain foods these are the correct steps to take.
Firstly, see your GP, and if your symptoms are acute you will need to be checked to see if you have coeliac disease, ulcerative colitis, crohns or lactose intolerance. If all those are negative, the GP can usually do no more for you. There are drugs for IBS that can be given like peppermint capsules and anti spasmodic drugs like Buscopan, but often they don’t work. This is the time to see a nutritionist/dietician when you will be asked to write a food diary listing your diet and symptoms. There are also some extremely good FACT allergy tests which can test for IgE allergies. There are also IgG intolerance tests that you can do as well. These tend not to be so accurate as foods you eat often can show as positive which doesn’t necessarily mean you are intolerant to them.
More often than not it can be the gut itself that is the problem rather than the foods you are eating. For example low levels of gut flora can cause all the symptoms of food allergy – bloating, gas, indigestion, constipation and diarrhoea. If the gut is in good working order, the chances of allergies and intolerances are greatly reduced and probiotics can be used for all inflammatory bowel conditions and have a good track record of reducing symptoms.
So the message here, is if you are suffering do not self diagnose, get the right advice, particularly if you are cutting out large food groups. As GP’s are not trained in nutrition it’s a good idea to get an hours consultation with a qualified nutritionist who can go through your diet in detail.
New register for complementary therapists
I am delighted to see the introduction of a new register which has been designed to help protect the public from cowboy complementary therapists. The new register allows therapists to demonstrate that they are appropriately qualified, insured and run a proper practice, which is a huge step forward. The Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC – go to www.cnhc.org.uk) has been set up to offer a degree of regulation on therapists which is a huge step in maintaining and improving standards throughout the sector. The register opened last week and is there to register the therapist rather than actually endorsing a therapy that might not be so evidence based.
As it is now widely acknowledged that what we eat affects our health and the governments change4life campaign is directly centred around diet and exercise, nutritionists are at the forefront of helping to prevent the future epidemic of obesity and the health complications that might come. As a nutritionist I will have done 6 years of study in total when I finish my MSc next year. But there are people claiming to be nutritionists who have done just hours or weekends of study that can set themselves up in business. After the shocking news last year that the nutritionist Barbara Nash had caused brain damage to a client of hers after telling her to drink ludicrous amounts of water, on her amazing hydration diet, it is no wonder that this register is welcomed. People who are untrained should be found and taken to account for their appalling lack of knowledge of the very basics of good health advice.
Before CNHC I have always advised my clients to find a nutritionist who at the very minimum are on the BANT (British Association of Nutritional Therapists) register and have studied a minimum three years, and have either a diploma, BSc or MSc in nutrition. There are orthodox nutrition degrees and there are weekend courses – I know who I’d rather take advice from. So I’m thrilled that at last there is some registration process that will highlight the cowboys and to be frank I don’t care if their business goes under. I feel honoured doing the job I do and take the responsibility I have seriously and professionally. As you are often working with very ill and very vulnerable people, they can so easily be taken advantage of. Anyone going against that undermines all the good professional work that is being done in the UK with nutritionists who are turning the health of the nation around and going out into the community to talk to schools and companies as to how to obtain optimum health.
