Alzheimer’s and A Low Fat/High Carb Diet

Scientists have spent decades trying to pinpoint spots in genetic coding that help us find, diagnose, and treat diseases. In some spots, great strides have been made. In others, there is still plenty of work to do. Regardless of the disease in question, one thing that can be agreed upon is the need for a healthy, balanced lifestyle to aid your body in warding off potential threats. The risk of Alzheimer’s Disease is no different, and research suggests that diets low in fat and high in carbohydrates can lead to cognitive impairments and other precursors to Alzheimer’s Disease.

Carbohydrates have an effect on your body’s glucose and insulin metabolism. Too many sugars from these carbohydrates can negatively impact blood vessels in the brain and hinder the brain’s ability to process those sugars. So how do we combat this disease in our daily dietary choices? Consider a few of the following options when adjusting your diet.

1. Limit your intake of carbohydrates (Sugar, Grains, And Fillers)

Carbohydrates are sugars. There are simple (table sugar, honey, agave, etc.) and complex carbohydrates (potatoes, rice, and other starches). Bread tastes delicious, but modern health tells us it just can’t be the big staple of our diet that it was for years and years. Also consider dropping pasta, rice, and cereal from your diet.

2. Increase your intake of fresh, organic vegetables

Grocery stores, farmers’ markets, and food co-ops around the country are responding to the increased concern over fresh, natural vegetables free of chemicals and pesticides. Get broccoli, celery, carrots, and squash into your daily diet for starters, but make vegetables part of every meal if you can. The majority of your vegetable intake should consist of green leafy plants such as kale, spinach, collards, chard, etc.

3. Eat high quality protein like free-range and organic beef, eggs, chicken, and wild fish

The natural proteins available in these fat-rich foods just can’t be replaced. While it is not a good idea to ingest too much protein (high levels can alter your metabolism), the sources of your protein should be organic and fresh. For weight loss and muscle gain you should be ingesting 1g of protein per pound of lean body weight on a daily basis.

4. Eat more unsaturated fats like nuts and fish

As we mentioned in a previous blog post about good and bad fats, Omega-3s are great for your body and present in fish like salmon or trout as well as nuts like almonds and cashews. Toss an avocado into your salad for more unsaturated fat. Another great fat is organic virgin coconut oil.

5. Less Sugar

Your brain needs some sugars as they are energy, but go easy! You should avoid sugars and added sweeteners as much as possible. Some health experts say you should not consume any more than 15g in an entire day. Watch out for sugars in all kinds of foods. For example, plain yogurt will have 9g per serving and a flavored one will have 26-40g per serving. You should even watch your intake of fruits.

Try eliminating something each day. For example, if you tend to drink more than one soda per day (including DIET!) replace it with something that is not sweetened such as tea, black coffee or water. Gradually switch out until you are no longer drinking your calories (and sugar or fake sweeteners that mimic glucose responses). Then work on a food group. If you do a little at a time it is much easier than you think.

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle with a low-carb/high-fat diet will not only help prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease, but it will help your body fight off a myriad of other ailments all linked to some sort of inflammation as well. Combine a healthy diet and lifestyle with natural probiotics like the PRO EM-1 supplement to give your body the best defense against disease and inflammation.

Exercise & Digestion – How They Work Hand in Hand

If you’ve ever tried to adopt a more active and healthy lifestyle, you know that exercise and diet are two crucial elements to seeing and feeling results. What can often get overlooked is how exercise will affect your digestive system in a variety of ways. For example, your metabolism becomes faster the more active you become. Abdominal workouts can strengthen surrounding muscles and encourage your intestines to process foods more quickly and efficiently. On the other end of the spectrum, over-exercise can cause nausea and stomach sickness. Let’s look at a few digestive problems and ways your exercise can reduce or eliminate the occurrence of such health issues.

Heartburn is a very common problem which affects millions of people. Unpleasant, and in some cases debilitating, heartburn can be treated with medical prescriptions, but old-fashioned exercise should be included to see lasting changes. According to LiveStrong, you can try more gradual and relaxing exercise to combat heartburn problems. Yoga, Pilates, or bike riding are great ways to put low, limited stress on your body while still exercising and encourage the strengthening of stomach muscles.

QualityHealth and WebMD outline constipation as another common ailment. Thankfully, this can be fought with a combination of higher fiber intake and a few simple exercise do’s and don’ts. Wait at least an hour or more after eating before you begin any exercise. This will allow your body to focus its blood flow on the digestive system to process the food you just ate. By nature, exercise refocuses blood flow to the heart and muscles. Immediate exercise after eating will weaken the contractions of your muscles directly linked to the digestive system, in turn slowing down the movement of food through the digestive process and causing various forms of bodily discomfort. As with heartburn, you should consider daily, light exercise such as yoga or Pilates to encourage healthy digestion if you have ongoing constipation problems.

Probiotics can also assist with digestive problems. PRO EM-1 is a great way to undergo a gentle cleansing and detoxification of your digestive system. Take this liquid probiotic daily to act as a complement to your diet and exercise regimen. Dairy, wheat, and soy-free, PRO EM-1 is a safe and effective supplement for your daily digestion.

No diet or exercise regimen will be a perfect fit for any two people, but maintaining general best practices when it comes to your eating and exercise habits should yield positive results. Should you have a history of health problems, it is encouraged you see a medical professional before implementing any major changes in your diet or exercise routine.

About Teraganix: Teraganix is the official EM Technology distributor of North America. From probiotic supplementation for digestive health to agricultural waste composting, EM-1 is a revolutionary, oragnic technology with a myriad of applications and useful properties for personal and widespread use.

Sources:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/356356-immediate-effects-of-exercise-in-the-digestive-system/

http://www.qualityhealth.com/fitness-exercise-articles/food-exercise-digestion-connection

http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/exercise-curing-constipation-via-movement

Good Fat vs. Bad Fat

There is a never-ending battle going on in gyms around the world when it comes to burning fat… a conflict that also spills into our kitchens and diet. From the fat-free obsessed 80’s and 90’s to the high- fat Adkins craze, it’s hard to know where fat should fit into our diet.  What exactly can we eat for optimum health without putting on those extra pounds?  How can we reduce body fat and get the most of our workouts?  

At its core, eating fat is an animalistic behavior. We fatten up to survive the winter. On a more palette-related level, fats taste delicious.  They are readily available and add a lot of flavor to the foods we eat.  And since fat was critical to early survival, our bodies crave it. 

A few things, however, have changed since the days of our ancestors.  Food is far more abundant and we are much less active - a dangerous development for our waistlines!  Discretion in our diets is now an important part of everyday life. The key to a healthy diet is recognizing the distinction between good and bad fats and making good fats a diet staple while avoiding the bad. This is the tricky part.

What is Saturated Fat?

We hear the term frequently, but what exactly are saturated fats? Saturation is synonymous with words like loaded, full, or dense. These dense fats have a molecular make-up that is believed to contribute to a number of dangerous diseases including cardiovascular disease, dyslipidemia, and a variety of cancers. For this reason, it is better to incorporate unsaturated fats as opposed to their dense counterparts.

What Foods are Rich in Unsaturated Fats?

A prime, defining component of unsaturated fats is the existence of natural, raw ingredients. For example, salmon or trout are chock full of essential Omega-3s. And while there are Omega-3 supplements available, it is optimal to rely on whole foods such as fish for the bulk of your good fat intake.  Not to be overlooked, monounsaturated fats like almonds, avocados, olive oils, and cashews are great ways to give your body the right type of fats and can be added to all sorts of daily snacks.

What Foods Should I Limit to Reduce My Saturated Fat Intake?

Saturated fats are much easier to find and recognize.  You can bet if it is a processed meat (lunch meats, etc.) it has tons of saturated fats (and sodium). Several popular meats such as pork and hamburger and dairy products are loaded with saturated fats.  Is it processed, baked, or fried? Beware! Start reading your food labels when you shop for groceries to check the fat content of foods. Chances are if it looks suspect, it is. Look for lean meats such as turkey, lean cuts of beef, or wild game meats. Avoid anything labeled “Low Fat”. This means the food has been processed to remove the fat and something has been added to make it taste good…something that is likely worse for you than the fat that was removed.

Lowering your bad fat intake not only can help reduce your waistline, but it can help prevent diseases or reduce the risk of certain cancers. Cancers of the colon, prostate, and breast as well as disease of the heart have been linked to too much bad fat in the diet. Unfortunately, it takes more than just a change in diet to reduce your weight and treat your body well. Combining healthy snacking (be sure to have a good fat and protein at every snack) and meals with exercise, a non-sedentary lifestyle, and diligent food label reading will make your body and heart healthy and put money back in your pocket that would’ve been spent on bad fats. Your body with thank you and you’ll thank yourself. 

Happy Eating!

 

Gut Microbes: Protectors of the GI Tract

Gut flora, and the associated probiotics used to supplement them, help the body function properly in a variety of ways. Sometimes, though, the method of assistance is counterintuitive. You may already know that microbes in the gut can aid in protecting the gastrointestinal (GI) tract from harmful infection. But, one of the major reasons why may surprise you.

The beneficial bacteria of the gut do a good job of keeping out harmful, or pathogenic, bacteria by, to put it simply, taking up the prime real estate and eating all the good food. In the gut, there is a limited amount of space that can be occupied along the epithelial cells lining the inside of the intestines. Access to this lining is essential to bacteria because the transferal of wastes and nutrients between the inside and outside of the intestines occurs here. Thus, it is a major gateway between the GI tract and the rest of the body. Probiotic bacteria occupy the space along the lining, preventing harmful bacteria from gaining access to this gateway. Without helpful flora occupying these spaces, potentially harmful species could gain easy access to the nutrient-rich areas of the body which would allow them to thrive.

Gut flora also keeps pathogens from gaining access to nutrients in another way. Most probiotic bacteria establish a symbiotic relationship with the host (our body). In this relationship, the bacteria perform essential regulatory and nutrient production processes for the body, and the body does the same for the bacteria, thus creating a positive environment for both organisms. Because of this relationship, the body and the bacteria have developed ways to signal their needs to one another. The bacteria can tell the body, via chemical signals, when to produce more of the nutrient which the bacteria needs, and when to produce less. This signaling process prevents overproduction of the nutrient. And, because pathogenic bacteria often need the same nutrient to survive, the pathogen is prevented from gaining access to any excess food.

In this context, the activity of the bacteria through these two processes is called the barrier effect. It exemplifies the principle of competitive exclusion, whereby two organisms competing for identical resources cannot coexist. It is, in essence, one organism being crowded out by another, fitter organism. Since the body favors the symbiotic probiotic bacteria, the good bacteria have a leg up in the competition.

Unfortunately, the body can sometimes be stripped of the gut flora which it has grown accustomed to, making the body vulnerable to pathogens. This is where a probiotic supplement, such as PRO EM-1, can be helpful. PRO EM-1 contains symbiotic microorganisms beneficial to the body which can restore the balance of gut flora in the GI tract. For more about the relationship between microorganisms and the GI tract, check out Guarner and Malagelada’spaper on the subject.

Top 5 Tips for Digestive Health in 2013

While a variety of digestive health concerns exist, there are a few highly effective ways to combat some of the more general digestive problems. Whether it’s bloating, excess gas, heartburn, constipation or other digestive concerns, we have 5 easy-to-follow tips for you!

1. Take a Probiotic Regularly

Take a high quality liquid probiotic like Pro EM-1 that can be absorbed easily into your system. Probiotics work to detoxify the digestive system and keep your intestinal environment properly balanced by introducing beneficial microorganisms that naturally fight malicious bacteria. It’s important to use high quality raw probiotics that feature natural, certified organic ingredients, with no preservatives, wheat, soy or animal byproducts.


2. Exercise

WebMD, Livestrong and many more sources point to exercising for a near immediate improvement of the digestive system. The benefits of exercise are astounding. The good news is it doesn’t take a lot to qualify as “exercise”. You really just need to get moving for 20 minutes every day. That means you can just go for a walk around the neighborhood! That is all it takes to start to get yourself exercising. Surely you can find 20 minutes a day to do something! Working out will improve your digestion and elimination because it helps blood circulation, hormone production, and a slew of other things. On top of benefiting the digestive system, you’ll be working on cardiovascular and muscular health, too. So, start today and go for a quick 20-minute walk!


3. Reduce Processed Foods Consumption

Processed foods can poison the beneficial microflora  in your digestive tract, leading to an imbalanced digestive ecosystem. Processed foods not only lack nutrients and fiber, but they have been linked to poor digestion, decreased energy, illness, acidic blood and weight gain. A highly processed diet has been proven to artificially stimulate dopamine, the neurotransmitter linked to pleasure and addiction. As a result, processed foods can trigger over eating and obesity. Your digestive track fairs much better with natural, whole foods which are easier to digest, and provide a diverse array of nutrients, as well as valuable fiber and fats, all of which aid in digestion and immune system health.


4. Limit Excess

Along with eating slowly and early, most sources recommend limiting excess to better digestion and elimination. By restricting portions at meal times, you allow your body to digest easier. It’s recommend to eat smaller, more frequent meals rather than indulging in infrequent binges that are hard for your stomach and digestive system to process. Athletes learn to eat 4 to 7 small meals per day. At each meal they will eat some protein, some vegetable, and some good fat. Two of those meals will be snacks, but each snack will still have that mix of protein, veggie, and fat. Another guide they use is to only eat until you are 80% full.


5. Eat Slowly

Enjoy your food. Give yourself 20 minutes to eat and get rid of distractions. Don’t eat while watching TV or playing with your phone. And, it takes your stomach about 20 minutes to register that it is full. Bloating and gas can occur if one eats or drinks too quickly. Whether you’re swallowing a lot of air during a meal, or simply not allowing your stomach enough time to register that it is full, inhaling food and beverages can cause poor digestive health. Take your time and enjoy a meal! We recommend adding 1 tablespoon of  Pro-EM-1 probiotic to your water 3 times a day; sip on this during meals and it should help cleanse your system and boost digestion. (And, you might lose some weight by stopping eating just before you are full!)

To a happier, healthier New Year – we hope some of these quick tips aid you in better digestive health!