New information on preventing cancer & preventing prostate cancer....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 11-10-2009

We’ve posted many times on ways to prevent all cancers and on ways to prevent prostate cancer.

But both are such dangerous diseases both to your life and health AND to your quality of life, when there is new and useful information on these subjects, I like to post it and add some of the other information we’ve already posted for those who haven’t yet seen it.

The original news story that I read that regular exercise reduced the risk of getting prostate cancer was welcome news. But there are so many reasons to get regular exercise, I didn’t rush to post about it. Many if not most of you already get regular exercise for one of its many other benefits.

A. However, two new pieces of information came to me recently in my health emails.

1. Since the unaggressive form of prostate cancer can often safely be ignored and treating it often does more harm than good, though it’s certainly desirable to prevent that form of it, it’s far less critical than preventing the aggressive form of prostate cancer that has to be completely and quickly treated or it will kill you and make you suffer too.

The exciting news is that the missing piece of the study in the report I originally saw is that regular exercise is even more effective at preventing the aggressive form of prostate cancer than it is the less aggressive form!

In his email last Thursday, 11-5, Dr. Robert Wascher posted a well done essay on the study showing that regular exercise tested as preventing prostate cancer.

The study was just published in the Journal of Urology.

After statistical adjustments were made for other known prostate cancer risk factors such as age, race, bodyweight, prostate specific PSA levels, and family history, the men who did regular exercise most days, had a 65 percent lower risk of prostate cancer when compared to the men who got none.

And, even less regular exercise was found to make it 86 percent less likely in those men who were diagnosed with prostate cancer at all that their cancer was the aggressive kind.

That means that the men who did regular exercise most days got quite a bit fewer prostate cancers and even then, those who still got prostate cancer were far less likely to get the aggressive and dangerous kind. That means their protection from the aggressive form of prostate cancer from exercise was quite strong

Dr Wascher did point out that the study did NOT examine other activities health oriented people who exercise also often do that are cancer preventive such as staying away from tobacco smoke and eating cruciferous vegetables. (My examples, he just stated the overall point.) So the exercise might have had help from such other actions regular exercisers tend to take.

However, since exercise tends to reduce excess body fat and slow aging -- & both of those effects directly help prevent cancer, I suspect strongly the exercise itself was the primary cause of this effect.

2. Even more interesting, it seems a study has also been done that shows that vigorous exercise is effective at preventing ALL cancers.

Dr Al Sears had this one in his email this morning.

He found that vigorous exercise done for shorter periods of time was more effective in helping people lose fat than doing longer sessions of steady state cardio. Since people are short on time and want to lose excess fat, that is very valuable to know.

He then developed a teaching method to help his patients, many of whom were not yet doing any exercise at all, to build up safely to doing vigorous exercise that he named PACE.

(His website is www.alsearsmd.com .)

(You can build up gradually to vigorous exercise in other ways, such as jumping rope or doing progressive strength training of course.)

I had heard similar information from other sources. And the finding that vigorous exercise of even a few minutes, as in one or two, done several times a week, helped lower high blood sugar and HBA1C readings, lends some real force to demonstrating this effect is real.

But the same effect may also prevent cancer.

In his email this morning, Dr Sears includes that a study newly published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine which studied men in Finland over 16 years found that high intensity exercise cut their risk of getting any cancer in half.—AND that the higher the intensity of the exercise, the lower their risk of getting cancer.

(The study title was "Intensity of leisure-time physical activity and cancer mortality in men, " Not only does that suggest that men in this study who got regular vigorous exercise were less likely to get cancer, the study may also have found they may have been less likely to die from any cancers they got.)

So the bottom line is that both doing some moderate exercise several days a week and doing some really vigorous exercise a few times a week or doing both will prevent cancer and prevent the most dangerous kinds of cancer possibly even better – including prostate cancer.

Dr Sears has measured the amount of improvement in delivered oxygen from doing vigorous exercise and found that it is extremely effective. And in his email today, he suggests that it is this extra oxygen which helps your body fight off cancers or kill them so early you never really contracted them.

He may well be right. But it’s also true that your immune system has several components that kill off and get rid of dangerous cells, bacteria, and viruses such as killer cells (which may use the extra oxygen) and macrophages that simply swallow them up and escort them out. And, since these are transported in the blood, increasing your circulation and the percentage of your cells it gets to clearly also helps your immune system become more effective.

The key, other studies have found, is to rest or slow to a much lower pace in between sessions of vigorous activity enough that you avoid overtaxing your immune system.

B. Here are some of the ways that we’ve posted on that help prevent all cancers and that prevent prostate (& possibly breast and ovarian cancers in women).

1. To prevent all cancers:

Avoid tobacco smoke,
avoid all unnecessary radiation,
avoid all use of pesticides and herbicides you can inside and outside your home,
avoid using room air fresheners that spray chemicals into the air you breathe,
buy organic fruit and vegetables as much as you can afford to do,
and,
eat as little fat from grain fed animals as you can by eating grass or pasture fed and organically raised or wild caught animal proteins or consuming the lowest fat versions of conventionally raised animals. (Pesticides and herbicides are bioconcentrated in the fat of animals fed grains that come from farms where they are used.)

Eat many kinds of vegetables on most days and several kinds of cruciferous vegetables each week.

If you begin to get too fat or are too fat, eat enough better and exercise enough more that you lose at least some of your excess fat.

And, take at least 2,000 iu of vitamin D3 a day and a curcumin or turmeric supplement daily. Doing this strengthens your immune system enough, particularly your macrophages, that they each have been found to protect you from all cancers AND Alzheimer’s disease.

Taking the supplements resveratrol and CoQ10 or its active version, ubiquinone, may also help.

And, drinking 8 to 10 cups a day of green tea or one or two cups plus taking a daily green tea extract supplement may also help.

2. To prevent prostate cancer and the aggressive form of it (* very possibly breast and ovarian cancers as well):

Do all or most of the things that prevent all cancers. They prevent these cancers also.

One source found that those who take 3 mg a day of boron had half the prostate cancer of those who do not.

And, of even more importance, men who ate at least one serving of either raw cauliflower or raw broccoli each week had half the risk of getting the aggressive form of prostate cancer.

Cooked broccoli or cooked cauliflower are still excellent foods for helping you lose or keep off excess fat and broccoli has carotenes that you may actually get more of from cooked broccoli. But they have been found to NOT have this protective effect against cancer. Heating the vegetables apparently destroys the cancer fighting substance.

Lastly, organic vegetables have more micronutrients than “conventionally” raised vegetables do. So eating raw broccoli or cauliflower that have been organically grown will have the most cancer protection.

Now we can add regular moderate exercise and regular vigorous exercise to both lists!

Three little known ways to speed fat loss....

Today's Post: Monday, 11-9-2009

As those of you who read our posts regularly know, and those who read our posts last week know, we believe that 90 % of your ability to lose fat and keep it off is determined by:

1. NOT eating the fattening foods or drinking the fattening drinks;

2. eating health supporting foods that turn off your hunger better and that humans evolved to eat;

&

3. Getting vigorous exercise, ideally both some interval cardio & some strength training each week plus getting in some more moderate exercise such as walking or dancing each week.

However, most people who are working to lose fat or keep it off would like some extra leverage. And more and more of these extra ways to speed fat loss are being discovered.

Here are three I’ve learned of in just the last few weeks.

1. Taking a good vitamin and mineral supplement daily may help some people do better at fat loss.

Some people really do have extra trouble losing fat well due to low thyroid. And, some people with low thyroid have that problem due to iodine deficiency.

Added salt, other than a bit occasionally and a bit in some recipes is undesirable in a culture where too much is added to so many kinds of foods. And, sea salt which contains salts of other minerals besides sodium is better for you than using iodized salt.

But virtually all good vitamin and mineral supplements contain the RDA of iodine, 150 mcg per day. (You can read the label to see if a given supplement had iodine.)

(A recent study also found that taking the RDA can improve mental performance in people who have not been getting enough iodine.)

So, taking a good vitamin and mineral supplement daily not only supports your health in so many other ways, for some people, it may double their success at fat loss.

2. Oddly enough, coconut and coconut oil has been found to both: increase HDL, the beneficial cholesterol, and help with fat loss – plus help people lose belly fat.

Recently, Doctor Al Sears (see: www.alsearsmd.com ) in his emails did an excellent write up on this.

It seems that studies have found that, just like extra virgin olive oil, substituting coconut oil for oils like, corn, safflower, and canola oil that are high in omega 6 oils, using coconut oil lowers insulin which helps reduce fat storage and belly fat AND it increases your HDL cholesterol.

You can substitute extra virgin olive oil for butter, for margarine, and for oils that are high in omega 6 & increase your HDL, lower your belly fat, and improve your over-all health and decrease your risk of heart disease.

But it would be nice to have another health OK choice.

Apparently coconut and coconut oil do so but with an extra kick.

They may also do better at actually increasing your fat loss. Dr Sears says the research he found suggests that’s so.

They can be used when you want to have higher cooking temperatures than extra virgin olive oil can handle.

They can be used in cooking, such as making a more health OK kind of pie crust or a more health OK kind of dark chocolate fudge where you need saturated fat that you cannot use extra virgin olive oil for and get good results.

Lastly, since most people find that coconut and coconut oil tastes really good, you can substitute them for sugar in some treat foods and enjoy them as much as you would have the versions with sugar that are far more fattening.

Even better, and of particular interest with colds, regular flu, and swine flu about, coconut and coconut oil contain lauric acid which has considerable anti-viral effects.

3. There was a study done that found that pregnant women who took probiotics containing the most common probiotic bacteria gained less excess weight than matched women who did not. And they also gained quite a bit less belly fat.

Even better, and of particular interest with colds, regular flu, and swine flu about, other studies have found people who take probiotics each day have more resistance to these things, get less of them, and get lighter cases if they do than people who don’t take probiotics.

None of these 3 are strong enough to cause fat loss if you do none of the three basics. But if you do them, these three things may well increase your fat loss and help you lose more belly fat.

Best of all, two of the three things, also have documented antiviral effects. So, two of them can also boost your protection from swine flu.

The three best kinds of food for fat loss....

Today's Post: Friday, 11-6-2009

Earlier today, I read the new version of Total Health Breakthroughs.

(After it stopped its initial format that I found usually informative, for a while they stopped running the same kind of health information they were. They have begun to show signs of building back to what they were; & today’s article was quite useful.)

In this issue, their new editor tells the story of how when he was a younger man who exercised regularly, he still was at least 20 pounds overfat.

He also found he seemed to be hungry at all hours of the day; & his mood and energy bounced around quite a bit.

At that time, he was eating a lot of refined grains and other fattening foods such as pizza, breakfast cereal (mostly the kind made from refined grains from the sound of it), bagels, sandwiches, chips, & soft drinks.

As many people have, he began to study what foods people ate before 10,000 years ago. (Clearly, that’s what hundreds of thousands of years of evolution set up our bodies to use well.)

Then he did three things.

He continued to exercise.

He stopped eating the refined grain foods listed above & stopped drinking soft drinks.

Instead, he ate lots of salads made with greens, a variety of colorful vegetables, vegetable juice he made at home with a juicer, and for protein he ate whole eggs, grass fed beef, pasture fed poultry, and wild caught salmon – plus he ate some cheese and dairy foods. He also snacked on nuts and whole fresh fruit.

The result was interesting. His mood and energy improved and were more stable. He lost the 20 pounds -- virtually all of it fat since the fat in his face and in his belly were visibly reduced to a more normal and desirable look. That fat was gone.

But the really interesting part is that he completely stopped being hungry all the time.

It seems that he found either before or after he did this that almost all the foods he was eating when he lost the fat have close to zero glycemic index and glycemic load.

That means that his blood sugar was at desirable levels and not kicked into high levels several times a day by eating the refined grains and sugars he had been ingesting.

The rebound hunger he was getting from the fast-acting, high glycemic foods he was eating went away and was replaced by the more effective and long lasting turning down of his hunger from the protein, health OK fats, and fiber he then began to eat.

He points out that this way of eating eliminated the high glycemic (60 & up on the glycemic index) foods that he had been eating and replaced them with foods that were mostly low glycemic (20 or below on the glycemic index.)

He then provides a link to some foods that have been rated by glycemic index and glycemic load.

It was no surprise when the three food groups he had mostly been eating rated as zero on both glycemic index and glycemic load.

(Since glycemic load is the best indicator of what a food will do to your blood sugar as it takes the amount of carbohydrates into account and the glycemic index, that’s a valuable addition.)

Here are those 3 food groups that ranked zero on glycemic index and glycemic load.:

1. Nonstarchy vegetables. These include such foods as:

Cooked cabbage, raw cauliflower, green beans, spinach, & mushrooms -- & though not listed, raw broccoli florets, radishes, asparagus, and other salad greens such as kale and romaine lettuce, etc.

The salads and cooked vegetables he ate contained these foods or others like them.

2. Raw or dry roasted nuts. Pecans, walnuts, and almonds were listed in the zero, zero group.

He snacked on nuts in part.

3. Eggs, meats, seafood, and fish also were listed in the zero, zero group.

He not only ate these foods, he ate the safest, least polluted, and most health supporting kinds.

He did also eat some fresh fruit and dairy foods and juiced vegetables which have low moderate to moderate ratings on the glycemic index. But with the majority of his foods from the zero, zero, list, the overall glycemic load of his food and drink was clearly at an average glycemic index of less than 20.

The result was hunger-free and effective fat loss. (He was gradually getting fatter and almost always hungry before.)

He did continue to exercise. But the kinds of foods and drinks he stopped and those he switched to clearly did a great job.

More on setting up your home for effective fat loss....

Today's Post: Thursday, 11-5-2009

From my recent post on Monday this week (11-2-2009):

“I read a recent news story reporting that people who had exercise equipment in their homes and virtually no fattening, packaged foods or soft drinks often were quite successful at fat loss.

And, the people who had no exercise equipment in their homes and lots of fattening, packaged foods and soft drinks were usually not successful if they tried to lose excess fat.

That seemed so basic and obviously true, I didn’t bother at that time to note which news service or who did the research.”

In that post I expand on those two themes and give tips and examples on how to bring in less fattening foods and more exercise equipment that when used will help you lose fat.

Then on Tuesday, 11-3, Health Day ran a story on that study or one very like it.

Their initial line in this version of the story was :

“If you want to lose weight, exercise and diet are crucial. But a new study says other factors appear to play a role, too -- including the number of TVs in your house and the presence of exercise equipment.”

The study compared the homes of people who lost least 10 percent of their bodyweight -- and kept off the weight for five or more years to people who were overweight or obese and were still fat.

As we discussed on Monday, the people who lost that much weight and kept it off were about three to four times more likely to exercise than those who were obese or overweight. (That means some of the people who were still fat were exercising at least some.) I’ve read separately that the people who have lost that much fat weight almost all exercise. Plus they average about 2900 calories a week of exercise.

(Even some exercise helps; & as we’ve posted before some kinds of exercise such as vigorous interval cardio and progressive strength training work best.) But up to about 3500 calories a week, more exercise IS better than less.

Here’s our today’s topic that was NOT in the earlier news story or my post on Monday.

Those who lost weight had fewer televisions in their home in addition to having far fewer or no fattening foods on hand and more exercise equipment in their homes.

Here’s why fewer televisions help plus some ideas.:

It’s really quite simple really. One of the most effective fat loss methods known is to watch less TV.

It seems that watching TV burns fewer calories than sleeping! Worse, a large percentage of the advertisers for broadcast TV are the makers and providers of the foods it’s worst to eat or drink. Even worse than that, the people who eat those foods or drink those drinks watch TV at the same time & fail to notice the large amounts of that stuff they are ingesting. Further the ads and even some of the shows make that lifestyle seem typical and normal.

Unfortunately, over the last 35 years, it HAS become typical.

That’s why something like half our young adults were recently found to be too fat to be in the United States armed forces.

It never was normal in any desirable or long term sense of that word. And, it’s absolute death to being able to lose excess fat weight.

So, if you do several things to enable yourself to watch far less TV, your chances of losing excess fat go up every time you take a step in that direction.

1. Having fewer TVs is a great idea for many people.

Older children and teens who have TVs in their own rooms reliably do less well in school. They also are reliably much fatter than similar kids who do not. Not only do they do less studying and homework, they read less even on subjects they are interested in and they are far less likely to do any exercise or play any kind of sports. And, they see far more of the ads for fattening foods and drinks and consume far more of them.

So, if you no longer want that stuff in your home to tempt YOU, pulling your kids room TVs will help. They’ll be less likely to bring it home themselves and be more OK with you not buying if for them.

2. The same thing is true of having a TV in your own bedroom. You’ll watch fewer hours of TV each week and see less of those ads. Even better, you’ll sleep a bit more which also helps fat loss and helps prevent depression and high blood pressure. Better yet, surveys found that your sex life will improve!

3. Be much more selective in what you watch.

You get far more news and news far more relevant to your own interests by reading newspapers or going to Yahoo.com . In reading print, your intake speed is at least double, and after factoring in ads, it’s likely at least triple what it is watching TV news. Then since, you no longer have to sit through stories of no interest to you, the speed difference is closer to five or ten to one faster than watching TV news.

Only watch TV news for news where the visual scenes are important to you. Or occasionally you may get important local news faster by watching the TV news.

But do that kind of viewing mostly on rare special occasions and you’ll be far better informed and a good bit less fat.

Discontinue watching TV as a baby sitter for yourself. By all means keep watching the 10 or 20 percent of the things that you really like the best. But simply read or exercise or talk to real people or even do housework instead of watching TV for that time. Your life will be more varied and interesting & you’ll be far less fat.

4. Consider making the main or only use of your TV to watch movie DVD’s on weekend nights when you aren’t doing something else.

Neflix.com makes watching movies you really like this way an inexpensive and super easy thing to do.

If you are short on money, subscribing to NetFlix and discontinuing your cable TV will save you a good bit of money. You can always get the TV cable back for some kinds of breaking news and sports when you have more money.

5. Try picking two nights a week when you would otherwise just sit home and watch so – so TV and taking a class on Tai Chi or going to the gym. That gives you a double, you not only watch less TV, you get more quality exercise at the same time.

6. Another thing you can do is to watch the TV you do still watch while exercising on a stationary bicycle.

Remember, every TV you can sell, donate, or give to the electronics recyclers will make you less fat AND cut your utility bill.

And, every hour a week you stop watching the TV’s you still have will help you be less fat – either helping you lose excess fat or not gain any or both.

Junk foods may increase your odds of depression....

Today's Post: Tuesday, 11-3-2009

Yesterday, AFP reported a study done in London on people in civil service jobs which found that the people who mostly ate processed & fatty foods such as fried foods, processed meat, high-fat dairy products and sweetened desserts were more likely to report being depressed than the people who instead ate lots of fresh vegetables, fruit and fish.

The story said that eating a diet heavy in processed food had a 58 percent higher risk of depression. And that the people who ate more whole foods such as fresh vegetables, fruit and fish had a 26 percent lower risk of depression.

Apparently the study suggests the researchers had some way of removing the effects of not smoking and of doing regular exercise and STILL found this effect.

The study was published in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

The article had several theories the researchers suggested for why eating the more health OK foods helped people escape being depressed.

They suggested that the high level of antioxidants in the fruits and vegetables could have had a role in creating this effect – noting that previous studies found higher antioxidant levels were associated with a lower risk of depression.

Secondly, eating lots of fish may protect against depression because it contains high levels of omega 3 oils which they said stimulate brain activity. (These oils, though the article didn’t say so, have definitely helped prevent or reverse depression.)

They also said the reduced risk of depression might be due to the combined effect of consuming beneficial nutrients from many types of food.

X* X* X* X* X* X* X*

I think they are likely correct on the three things they said helped make eating the more health beneficial foods protective against depression.

But they seem to have missed a couple of things.

The data reported seemed to show that the negative effect of eating the junkier foods was worse for increasing the risk of depression than eating the more health supporting foods was protective.

So, I think some guesses on why that was found are in order.

Here are mine.

Eating a lot of fatty meats and high fat dairy products and sweet desserts tends to cause heart disease and over time decreases circulation to the brain.

That same diet also tends to cause high blood sugar levels & type 2 diabetes, particularly when combined with no exercise. That tends to harm circulation to the brain also AND it can often produce mood swings and feeling tired and sluggish at times during the day. So, since that leads to quite literally not feeling quite well, it seems clear to me that would tend to cause depression.

My second point is different. When you find associations between two things it’s often the case that instead of one causing the other or being the only cause, some third factor is causing BOTH the effects.

I think that’s definitely likely in this case.

People who are less well paid or live in neighborhoods where people have less money than average tend to have more eating places and stores offering fatty meats and high fat dairy products and sweet desserts while people who are better paid or live in neighborhoods where people have more money than average are more likely to have a good selection of fruits, vegetables, and fish.

Such people are often less educated, feel in less control of their lives, are less optimistic, less informed about health, and less proactive. And people with those characteristics are well known to be more prone to depression.

As a result of these factors, such people both tend to eat more fatty meats and high fat dairy products and sweet desserts AND to be more likely to be depressed with those predisposing factors causing both the food choices and the depression.

Eating more vegetables, somewhat more whole fruit, and more wild caught fish not excessively high in mercury is likely to help prevent depression.

So is eating far less fatty meats and high fat dairy products and sweet desserts; moving to a smaller place in a better neighborhood in some cases; becoming more informed about health, and taking proactive control of your health.

So, is learning to become more optimistic and proactive in general.

Lastly, it helps to do the things that prevent depression that were not researched in this study such as getting regular exercise, increasing your amount of social interaction each week, and taking omega 3 supplements and at least an extra 1,000 iu to 3,000 iu of vitamin D3 in addition to any other sources such as sun exposure or from multivitamins or in food.

Set up your home for effective fat loss because it works...

Today's Post: Monday, 11-2-2009

I read a recent news story reporting that people who had exercise equipment in their homes and virtually no fattening, packaged foods or soft drinks often were quite successful at fat loss.

And, the people who had no exercise equipment in their homes and lots of fattening, packaged foods and soft drinks were usually not successful if they tried to lose excess fat.

That seemed so basic and obviously true, I didn’t bother at that time to note which news service or who did the research.

But, I wish I had now -- because I suddenly realized how important this finding is.

It gives people who really want to lose excess fat a really powerful way to load the dice in their favor and sharply increase their chances of success!

And, since people have to drink and eat something, the third piece of information or strategy that follows from this is that if you don’t have lots of fattening, packaged foods and soft drinks, you are much more likely to have whole fruit and vegetables and other low glycemic good for you foods such taste enhancers like spices and garlic and onions.

1. So if you have lots of fattening, packaged foods and soft drinks in your home and want to win at fat loss, a great first step is to get a large garbage can (or a set of grocery bags to use to give away the stuff if you are too thrifty to be comfortable just tossing it) and get it out of your house.

Boxes of commercially baked cookies, boxes or bags of snack foods, all soft drinks, all white bread and bread not totally whole grain, cake mixes, any sugared breakfast cereal, and most candies should all go out.

Then get apples or cherries or berries and shelled, raw or dry roasted nuts, and snack vegetables like baby carrots or radishes or broccoli florets or cauliflower florets and low salt vegetable juices and green tea or black tea and unsweetened cocoa and coffee or soda water to have to drink & for snacks.

And, buy more vegetables for cooked vegetable dishes and salads and some extra virgin olive oil and real garlic or garlic powder from the spice section and onions and some kind of vinegar you like for these dishes.

2. If you have rugs, get a large towel you can use to lie on for crunches and pushups and other exercises you do at home and on the floor or buy mats like they use in gyms. If you are willing to do skipping rope as an exercise (it’s very effective in causing fat loss), get a good jump rope for about $25. If you are willing to try a mini-trampoline (also very effective at causing fat loss) check out www.urbanrebounder.com . Their mini-trampoline costs about $150. If you are willing to do dumbbell work as strength training, get a set of fixed weight or a few adjustable dumbbells and plates. (I’ve found that a great way to do this cheap is to just get one dumbbell at each weight—instead of two. Then I do an exercise for each arm one at a time which allows me to do exercises virtually nonstop since each arm rests while the other is being exercised.) If you can afford to get more equipment like a gym-quality treadmill or elliptical trainer or recumbent exercise bike you can use while watching the TV news or sports or a Nordic Track or a Bowflex or Total Gym strength training station that can also work. Then use the equipment several times each week.

Then find your favorites or those your are at least OK with in the health OK foods and drinks and ingest those instead of bringing home the stuff that made you fat in the first place.

And, keep using your exercise equipment several days each week.

I believe about half of all Americans now obese (really fat) or very over-weight just did these two things without any other effort to restrict the amount of food, most of them would lose most of their fat. A woman who is 120 pounds overweight might easily lose 80 pounds of that in about a year and a half for example.

And, the converse is also true. I’m about 15 pounds overweight and 30 pounds overfat. If I stopped eating vegetables and doing regular exercise and had sugary cereal for breakfast instead of oatmeal and fatty meats and white bread and cookies and my favorite commercial desserts each day and drank several soft drinks each day, in a few months I could easily be 60 pounds heavier and fatter. Yikes!

But that stuff never comes in our front door.

And, I do have a towel and dumbbells and a NordicTrack that I use every week and exercise virtually every day even if it’s just 5 minutes of crunches. (Most weekdays my total exercise session is just 15 minutes or so first thing in the morning just before breakfast.)

So I don’t carry that extra 60 pounds of fat around that I’d otherwise have.

I also haven’t had a heart attack triggered and partially caused by that lifestyle. (To be fair, I do take some supplements that, according to my blood tests, are effective at giving me extra heart protection.)

If you have kids, this may be more challenging as they may be used to the bad stuff and all their friends may still eat it. But consider this. One mother who insisted on doing this found her family grocery store bills dropped a few hundred dollars a month!

More bad news for smokers – even light smokers....

Today's Post: Friday, 10-30-2009

Two days ago on Wednesday, 10-28-2009, HealthDay News had a story with this headline.:

“Even Light Smoking Affects Young Adults' Arteries” & this subtitle.:

“Smoking just one cigarette stiffens the arteries of young adults by 25 percent,
says a new study.”

The researcher who did the study noted that the stiffer a person's arteries, the greater their risk for heart disease & stroke.

(This is because the stiffer a person's arteries the higher their blood pressure. And high blood pressure tends to trigger or make worse heart attacks, strokes, and kidney disease. And, that effect is made worse when not only are your arteries made worse by this stiffening effect, build- up of arterial plaque on the inside of your arteries makes less space for your blood to circulate and your arteries even stiffer. Tobacco smoke reliably causes and accelerates plaque build-up too.)

The researcher who did the study, Dr. Stella Daskalopoulou, an internal medicine and vascular medicine specialist at McGill University Health Center in Montreal, measured arterial stiffness in smokers and non-smokers, ages 18 to 30, at rest and after exercise.

To establish a baseline measure, the smokers, who smoked five to six cigarettes a day, were asked to refrain from having a cigarette for 12 hours before their first exercise test.

Before the second exercise test, smokers were allowed to have one cigarette. Before the final test, they were asked to chew a piece of nicotine gum.

After exercise, arterial stiffness in non-smokers decreased 3.6 percent. (It went DOWN.)

But the smokers' arterial stiffness increased 2.2 percent after exercise. (It went UP.)

In smokers, arterial stiffness increased 12.6 percent after they chewed nicotine gum and 24.5 percent after they had one cigarette.

There was no difference in arterial stiffness between smokers and non-smokers at rest.

That means that even smoking as little as 5 cigarettes a day is dangerous.

"Even in otherwise young healthy people who smoke very little, their ability to safely things to respond to respond to physical stress, “such as climbing a set of stairs or running to catch a bus," she said."

She found that this occurs even in young people long before they have the additional damage of their arteries their arteries that causes them to be less flexible at rest & compromises the ability of their bodies to cope with physical stress was compromised, “such as climbing a set of stairs or running to catch a bus," That also means that if they do vigorous exercise for any health reason or particularly if they participate in any kind of athletic competition, their safety is at risk

Her study was scheduled to be presented Oct. 27 at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress 2009. (And, since the story was dated a day later, it probably was.)

This study is far more important than the reporter may have realized because of its many implications.

For example, on of the key reasons why smokers don’t try to quit or fail when they do is that they haven’t a clue they are actually being damaged RIGHT NOW and FOR SURE instead of the “maybe not” and “sometime later if at all” most of them now believe is the case.

That’s particularly the case for young smokers. So in addition, to being able to show smokers and young smokers their ability to breathe has become similar to much older people and their homocysteine and other heart disease risk indicators are already elevated into the danger zone from their smoking right now and for sure, we have this additional new indicator we can show them.

Next, many of the people who don’t try to quit smoking are those who smoke about 5 cigarettes a day as they think they are not being harmed. This test can be used to show them they are quite wrong and putting their safety at risk.

This also means that coaches and gym teachers should ask any of the children, teenagers, or adults ahead of time that are thinking of participating if they smoke at all or are exposed to second hand smoke. If they are, at the very least they should get the disclosure they would be at extra risk if they chose to participate due to this effect.

Lastly, second hand smoke, particularly second hand smoke you are exposed to regularly, was long thought to be relatively harmless. This study is one of many that shows that even small amounts of second hand smoke occasionally is not safe and should be outlawed and avoided by people who value their health.

So, for anyone that makes public policy on exposure to second hand smoke, anyone who still smokes even if only 5 cigarettes a day or so, any young person who smokes, any doctor who wants his or her patients to stay well, AND any smoker who is trying to quit, should know of this study.

It’s that important.