Talk about health

If you happen to have read any of my stuff before, you've probably got the impression that a good diet with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, lean meats, the occasional supplement and regular exercise is at the roots of a health life. And you would be correct in that.

Just by managing to avoid some or all of these things has the effect over a lifetime of making you less healthy and more likely to contract some disease or other that could shorten your life.

Having said that, I really wanted to talk today about obesity. I'm sure you are only to well aware that it is a growing problem in every sense of the phrase. My point is what to do or not do about it. I've seen a couple of TV programmes over the past week concerning young people who are unfortunate enough to be very overweigh with the consequence that their health may be at risk.

In the first case, a teenage girl was having surgery to remove more than half of her stomach in an attempt to reduce her weight. The story revolved around her history of always being overweight for her age, being bullied at school and turning to the wrong kind of food as a comfort and to cheer her up.

The second story involved a young boy who was also vastly overweight for his age and was being assessed by Social Services to determine whether he should be taken from his family and put into care.

The first thing that strikes me is how anyone thinks care could be better than his own family who seemed to be equally concerned with the boy's weight.

However, in each case my reaction ws that these children were always heavy for their age, even before they were subject to junk food and bullying. The reason for their condition was not simply eating too much of the wrong foods. And I think we should be looking at the reasons for this so as to get to the root of the problem.

It is too easy for people to jump to the conclusion that they obviously ate too much of all the wrong things and therefore they are obese. What about hormone imbalances causing weight gain, disorders of metabolism, or deficiencies in absorption of nutrients and fats from the intestine?

Then, is there a psychological factor or two that might send them down the path of over eating? It isn't as black and white as these programmes made out. A single cause (eating too much) with a single cure (surgery or removal fom your family)??

Has anyone bothered to ask or has the medical profession tried to find out? It certainly wasn't mentioned.

Perhaps the producers thought we would be confused if they told us about it. All they seemed to do was to show, in the case of surgery, that removing a great chunk of your stomach would lead to weight loss. No mention here of the long-term effects of having only a part stomach on proper digestion. No mention of psychologiacl help, dietary advice or exercise.

In the case of the young boy, it turns out he wasn't taken from his family. But, how much mental suffering would he have gone through if he had been? And, just how would he have been encouraged to lose weight without the support of his parents and siblings?

I think we are just getting a bit carried away with the weight thing! My view is that everybody should be made aware of the facts as we currently know them. Tell all the problems and the solutions. Give them help and support if they encounter problems.

The bottom line, however, is that we still have a choice in this country. The consequence of government interference at any level is to remove choice. If you want to eat the wrong food even after you have been told the whole story, that's your choice. It's not up to some local official or government lackey to tell you otherwise.

I try to eat as healthy a diet as I can, and I encourage you to do the same. But, that's as far as I go. And it should be as far as anyone else goes, too. Eat badly if you want. And if you change your mind and want to go a healthier way, let the government set up help lines and help centres where you can get practical advice to change your ways. "Hands off " is my messeage to the food police.

Eat what you want. And if it harms your health, just remember, it was your choice. If you are more that five years old, no one made you eat anything. You didn't become overweight by accidentally swallowing your food.You choose and you take the consequences. But you re not alone.

There is help on healthy eating everywhere. And there should be help to discover if there are any other reasons for being overweight.

I have some info for you if you want. Just go to http://www.healthexplored.co.uk and have a look around. I've got a Food Guide with loads of information on basic nutritional content and how certain foods help your health. And there's a FREE newsletter and TIPS booklet for joining my list.

Eat well.

Wishing you the very best of health.

One of this morning's news items was about the amount of fish that pregnant women should eat. It referred to the guidelines that we all should eat oily fish such as samon, tuna or sardines twice a week to get the best amount of omega-3 oils to sustain ideal mental and physical health. However, pregnant women have previously been advised to perhaps cut this in half just in case of impurities in the fish, such as mercury and other metals, that could affect the growing child. And now they have been advised by another board to increase their intake of fish. The result? Confusion!

What should they do? It's another example of information overload especially when it comes to food. The number of books and research findings each of which makes the news seems to multiply. Eat this, do that, avoid the other.

And then there are a growing number of cookery programmes on TV. With the statutory "celebrity chefs" demonstrating just how easy it is to rustle up a three course meal with a few simple ingredients (and twenty years of cooking experience).

I like these programmes so I shouldn't complain. But, I don't use what I've been shown. I go back to what I know and what I've cooked over the years. It's all a little boring.

Two things!

One. Just remember that food is the basis of your health. Eat rubbish food all the time and your health will suffer. A diet of mainly processed or fast foods will lead to being overweight, type-2 diabetes, high blood pressure and worse. The bottom line is to eat as much fresh fruit and vegetables as you can. Don't add sugar to everything. Fruit is sweet enough just as it is.

Cut down on the readymeals and other processed food. Manufacturers have become financially fat on providing you with the meal in a box; biscuits; fizzy drinks and the rest.

You'll get the maximum nutritional value and the best of health from a diet that includes at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. And add to that regular portions of oily fish - I think twice a week is enough whether the fish may or may not have contaminants in it. Remember you can always take fish oil supplements to boost your omega-3 levels.

Two. Use the cookery programmes as something to stimulate your ideas for new and different recipes for you and your family. If nothing else, they show that it doesn't necessarily require a degree in nutrition and many years experience. Meals don't need a days preparation, just a little planning.

What's the answer? Be a little skeptical about the mass of food advice. Don't rush into changing your diet right away. Try to change a little at a time based on what appeals to your way of thinking. Today's research breakthrough wil be forgotten by next week when another breakthrough is announced. Stick with basic common sense advice to use simple foods with a minimum of factory manipulation. Cook it yourself so you know what's been added. Then if you'll know where it cam from and how fresh it is, your health will be at its best.

If you want to know some basic facts about your food and health just pop over to http://www.healthexplored.co.uk and read about our publications and sign up for the FREE newsletter and gift.

Wishing you the best of health.

I suppose I've always believed in fate. You know the kind of thing your parents said to you - "If it's got your name on it ..." or "What's for you won't go past you" and so on. So, when you come to make a decision about which job offer you will accept, something inside you gives the answer after a subconscious toss of the coin.

And it's true with health as well. Theer is an element of fate in what life throws at you by way of health. You are sort of stuck with the genes you inherited from your parents. These genes might make you tall and slim with blue eyes and blonde hair, or vertically challenges with little hair but a genius. I've always thought that you have little choice but to go with your genes.

However, the news today is full of scientists discovering the gene for type-2 diabetes. In just a few short years doctors will be able to repair, renew, fix, change the faulty gene for a brand new, shiny, perfect gene that will sort everything out. Or will it?

The reporting is slanted towards the impression that this repaired or replaced gene will mean that the patient will no longer be a patient. He will ride off into the sunset having been cured and will henceforth be able to eat as much and as often as he likes. His vastly overweight body will cope with the excesses of his lifestyle and diabetes will not enter his horizon ever again. Hooorray!

It seems to me that science is falling into yet another phase of the universal cause of illness. In the 1950s and 60s it was the nasty bacteria that caused all ills. Antibiotics would sort all that out and we would live happily ever after once those bacteria were all dead. The result - the rise of superbugs and resistance and even more infections that can't be treated.

Then, the nasty viruses were the cause of all diseases. Antibiotics don't touch them and there are very few anti-virals that are really effective. Oh dear!

Now we think that if only we could find the gene involved in each disease and we work out how to sort it, all will once again be well. I wonder.

The truth is that there is no universal cause of illness. It is a complex process involving all sorts of factors including bacteria, viruses and genes. As part of the understanding process it is good that scientists are searching for the gene involved and the possibility of affecting it in some way. But I think we are at the start of a process that may take a great many years. In the meantime, the simplest way of working to avoid or treat many illnesses is to look at your lifestyle.

What you eat and drink, the exercise you take, the sleep you get, the stress you suffer, the risks you take and so on contribute more to your health than the genes you have. All of these can be altered by a little thought and worked on with some strength of purpose. And the changes you make will have an effect much more quickly that hoping for a cure in an indeterminate number of years in the future. We could all be dead and gone by then.

I read recently that about one third of people choose not to do anything about their health because it is all down to fate. I have to disagree. If you choose to smoke, drink a lot, eat processed foods, take no exercise and suffer from stress all the time you are loading the dice against you and giving fate a helping hand to make you ill and perhaps even end your time on earth sooner that you would otherwise wish.

It's time to wake up to the things you can do right now to help your heath. Not wait for a new gene. It might be too late.

Go to my site at http://www.healthexplored.co.uk and sign up for my FREE newsletter and bonus booklet; check out my articles and look over the range of information booklets that show you what you can do to help your health.

Wishing you the best of health.

"... people over 40 will be offered statins to help their hearts." WHAT??? Have I heard correctly? I caught the end of that sentence as I turned on the news this morning. I couldn't believe it, so I waited around until the headlines came on again about half an hour later. Sure enough, there it was again. This time I caught the whole piece and scribbled down the relevant sentence. Here it is: -

One in two men and one in three women over the age of forty in Scotland will be offered statins to help their heart.

Help their heart what? I wondered. I'm sure you have heard that Scottish people lead the world in suffering from heart disease, so I can see where they are coming from. But, giving a large proportion of Scots some expensive drug for the rest of their natural lives is not the answer. It's not even one of the answers.

This seems like yet another story dreamed up by the multi-national drug industry marketing department to increase their hold on power and money. Before you think I'm just having one of my turns, you might like to find out just what these statin drugs can do.

Sure, they lower your cholesterol. In some cases they just about drain all the colesterol out of your body. For a start, there is a great deal of research to show that we all need reasonable amounts of cholesterol just to function normally, so lowering it to artificially minimal levels is not what anyone wants. Except the drug companies that is!

They want as many people as possible to take them, not for any altruisitc health reasons but to help maintain and increase their profit levels. Just because they have the means to lower cholesterol to almost zero, doesn't mean it is a good or healthy thing.

Remember, too, that cholesterol does not mean heart attack. More than half the people who have heart attacks have normal cholesterol. There are several factors that lead to heart disease and cholesterol is one indicator, but by no means is it the only one or indeed the major one.

Even if you think mass statin therapy is a good and reasonable thing to do, consider the side effects. The statins have quite a long and interesting list of side effects, some of which are pretty devastating. The most well known of them is rhabdomyolysis a fancy name for muscle pain and wasting followed by kidney disease.

Then there's co-enzyme Q-10, an essential chemical for your heart. Statins cause it to be lowered thus leaving the heart open to failure.

And, there is the problem of episodes of memory loss, and possible triggers for Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease, dizziness, depression, tingling, etc, etc...

These side effects cause many people to stop taking statins after a year or so. Where does that leave the lifetime's treatment? I know at least one doctor who stopped his statins just a few months after having had a heart attack. Is he wrong or foolish, or does he know more that he is saying?

This shows that the media are always open to the drug industry hype without bothering to ask any questions or get other opinions to give some balance.

There may well be a place for statins in certain cases. Research show this to be true. But there is no evidence that mass medication on the scale mentioned this morning will do anything other than increase the drug industry profit margins. It will certainly not do much good for the Scots or any other large group of people.

If you want to get your cholesterol down a bit, there are loads of things you can do before you reach for the statin. Diet and exercise for a start, followed by a range of complementary and alternative therapies. To me, statin therpay is vey near the last avenue to go down, not the first.

I have a booklet that will take you through the whole story. it's called "All about cholesterol" and you can get it at http://www.healthexplored.co.uk/eOrder/shop.php for instant download. It tells you the good and bad of statins plus the alternative ways of lowering cholesterol.

Thanks for reading my latest rant.

Wishing you the very best of health.