Eating constitutes one of the most important familiar and social activities. When selecting our food and planning our meals we are influenced by history, culture, and environment, as well as by our particular preferences and taste.

Food is a source of gratification and pleasure that, combined with a good nutrition, has vital effects on our health and quality of life. Healthy eating habits are essential for adequate children’s growth and development, as well as for their performance at school, both intellectual and physical. They also help active adults keep in shape. But which eating habits are healthy and which ones are not?

The key is eating in a moderate way and having food that contains an adequate nutrient equilibrium. Each ingredient in our food contains has one or more of these nutrients and for that reason looking for a wide variety of ingredients in our meals contributes to giving our body what it needs.

Eating healthy is not about eating plenty of everything. It is not gong on absurd diets, nor eliminating some kinds of food from our lives. It’s about trying to choose ingredients such as cereals, vegetables, fruits, low-fat milk, and cheese, and reducing red meat consumption as well as sugar and salt.

Amongst the fundamental nutrients needed for a good heath, we can find water, carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, minerals, vitamins, and some others. Factors like age, sex, height, the amount of exercise you regularly get, and the overall health status determine the amount of nutrients your body needs.

As for calories, a balanced nutrition is achieved easily by daily including ingredients on the following proportions:

• 50 to 60 percent Carbohydrates

• 12 to 20 percent Proteins

• 25 to 30 percent Lipids (fat)

Of course, these values are just an approximation—only your doctor knows your particular needs.

In order to be able to choose our food wisely, it is helpful to know some things about the different types of ingredients.

Refined flours obtained from cereals like corn or rice and are used to make bread, cookies, pasta, etc. These are a great source of complex carbohydrates, which represent a good energy source. They also contain proteins, fiber, B-complex vitamins, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and selenium. Besides, they contain low fat and no cholesterol.

Legumes like peas and beans contain a good deal of proteins, complex carbohydrates and fiber, and don’t contain cholesterol. It’s recommended to include a good amount of these ingredients in our daily diet.

Vegetables are also a good source of fiber, provide vitamins, and they even help your body produce its own vitamin A.

Fresh fruit contain vitamins, fiber and minerals, and are a good source of water and simple carbohydrates. Peaches and melons help your body produce vitamin A, and citric fruits are powerful suppliers of vitamin C.

Milk is a very important component of every diet. It provides essential proteins, lipids, vitamins A, D and some of the B-complex vitamins, and also minerals like calcium and phosphorus.

Fish is a great source of minerals and vitamins. Red meat is also a source of lipids, although it is less recommended than other kinds of meat because of the high cholesterol content.

It may be wise to ask your doctor about your diet. He will be able to recommend any change or nutritional supplements you may need.

Remember, eating well is living well.

Zach Thompson is a Glyconutrients Representative. You can get a free Glyconutrients consultation by visiting myglycoshop.net Glyconutrients. Clinical studies have shown that glyconutrients can help balance your immune system.

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If you have diabetes, elevated glucose levels can damage nerves needed to help pass food along from the stomach through the intestines; the motility disorder called gastroparesis is one of the major complications of the disease.

Gastroparesis causes delayed emptying of food from the stomach into the intestinal tract, which can lead to feelings of early fullness and bloating, as well as heartburn, nausea and vomiting. It’s commonly associated with type 1 and type 2 diabetes; that’s because chronically high blood sugar over many years can damage nerves throughout the body. In the case of gastroparesis, poor blood sugar control can damage the vagus nerve, which helps orchestrate the complex connections in the digestive tract and affects the wavelike movements that propel digested food through the gastrointestinal (GI) tract.

“As a result, the stomach doesn’t empty very well,” advises Cindy M. Yoshida, M.D., a gastroenterologist in Charlottesville, VA, and author of No More Digestive Problems. Complicating matters is the fact that when food lingers too long in the stomach, it can become fermented, which can lead to bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine. “This can cause problems with the absorption of foods that can, in turn, lead to weight loss and metabolic problems like dehydration and electrolyte imbalances,” Dr. Yoshida explains.

Gastroparesis Diagnosis

The condition is typically diagnosed with a gastric-emptying scan: A person eats a standard meal, then the stomach is scanned to see how quickly it empties. To treat gastroparesis, dietary adjustments are usually in order: Experts recommend eating smaller, more frequent meals that are low in fat and fiber. This may help with both gastric emptying and the feelings of fullness that often haunt people with this condition. It can also help to have liquid meals—such as soups or pureed foods—which typically pass through the stomach more easily and quickly. And keeping tight control of your blood sugar can improve symptoms of gastroparesis.

Gastroparesis Treatment

A few different drugs—including pro-motility agents and antibiotics—can be used to treat gastroparesis. One emerging treatment uses Botox, which has been found to relax the muscle that lies between the stomach and small intestine. Relaxing that muscle allows the stomach to release food more readily. As with other Botox treatments, however, the results are temporary.

In another new development, gastric pacemakers have been found to help with gastroparesis. This treatment involves the surgical implantation of the device on the stomach, where it provides electrical impulses that “help mimic the normal movements of the stomach, causing it to empty faster,” says Prabhakar Swaroop, M.D., an assistant professor of gastroenterology at the St. Louis University School of Medicine. In fact, one recent study at the University of Memphis in Tennessee found that electrical stimulation decreased nausea and vomiting and improved the rate of gastric emptying in one week. Even better news is that the study also found that the results were sustained over one full year in those patients who had gastric pacemakers permanently implanted.

While there isn’t a cure, discovering the options in gastroparesis treatment can improve your quality of life.

©Diabetes Focus, Second Quarter 2007

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When people are diagnosed with Diabetes, their reactions range from, ‘So what, another pill,’ to, ‘My life is over.’ We’re going to examine the serious complications of the disease, the available treatments and, most importantly, how you can personally reduce the complications and medicines through diet and exercise to lose weight. Since Type 1 Diabetes occurs in childhood, with medicine and diet control required for survival, the focus in this article will be on the more common disease, Type 2 Diabetes.

What Is Type 2 Diabetes? This is a disease where the body has been overfed with carbohydrates (carbs) for so long, it develops a weird kind of reaction to them. Insulin is a chemical your body makes, to turn carbs into energy in your cells, but, when you’ve been overdosing on carbs for a long time, your cells become resistant to the insulin and can’t absorb the energy. Your cells begin starving even though there’s more than enough carbs for energy. The carbs stack up in your body as blood sugar (glucose) and eventually get added around your waist as fat, leading to obesity. The fat and starving cells make diabetics sluggish and tired, and almost continually hungry. It’s easy for Diabetics to develop food addictions because of this hunger. As we load up to satisfy our hunger, we send our blood sugar into a roller-coaster, where we risk stroke at high-sugar times and Diabetic coma at low-sugar times.

What Are The Diabetic Health Risks? Stroke and coma are just the 2 immediate extremes of Diabetes. When you add in the fact that Diabetes is the number one cause of kidney failure, a major cause of cardio-vascular diseases and a contributing factor in many cancers, pneumonia and other serious diseases, Diabetes could be the number one cause of death in the U.S. Short of death, Diabetes is nothing to ignore. It’s a leading cause of blindness, nerve diseases, periodontal disease, vaginal yeast infections and amputations of fingers, arms, legs, ears, noses and other extremities. It slows healing from all diseases and infections. Diabetes needs to be treated seriously in order to extend your life and retain a high quality of life.

What Treatments Are Available? Diabetes treatment can be as simple as monitoring and diet/exercise control, to adding a pill to your daily medicines, to insulin supplements, to complex and painful surgery and living assistance for normal daily activities. There are new treatments being discovered all the time but you should have the attitude of ‘less-is-more’ when it comes to treatment. The less treatment you need, the longer and better your life will be. Even with minimum treatment, you’ll need to monitor your blood glucose levels regularly to make sure everything is going right. Your doctor will recommend a home glucose monitor, other diabetic supplies and blood glucose lab tests about every 3 months. As your disease progresses, the monitoring and labs will be more extensive. Once you’re taking medicine, you should test your blood glucose at least twice daily, when you get up and 1-2 hours after your biggest meal. If you’re using insulin injections, you’ll be testing more often than that. No matter what stage of Diabetes treatment you’re in, diet and exercise can help.

How Do Weight Loss Diet And Exercise Help Manage Diabetes? Unfortunately, many people approach Diabetes like a headache…taking a pill is enough. With this disease, you have to look at diet and exercise as medicine. I reduced my average blood glucose by 50% (to normal) in 6 months just by changing my diet and exercise. Most medicines don’t claim to do as much. The diabetes.org/home.jsp” target=”_blank American Diabetes Association (ADA) is a great place to learn about the disease, treatment, diet, research, etc. Using the ADA diet as a guide, I ate smaller meals with 3 in-between meal snacks, keeping a balance of proteins, carbs and fats, I added high fiber fruits and vegetables, lots of water, and I watched my cholesterol. I should point out that I was less hungry on this diet than when I ate without control. I did aerobic walking and other exercises for 30 minutes, 5-6 days per week. As diabetics, if we reduce our weight by just 5 %, we can make improvements of up to 30% in our blood sugar. For a 200 pound person, that means losing 10 pounds…anybody can do that. You can find more information on e-health-fitness.com/weight_loss_tips.htm” target=”_blank diet and weight loss all over the internet. Just be careful to consult your doctor and not do any fasting type diets because they lower your blood glucose too much.

We who suffer from Diabetes need to recognize that this disease will progress, but we can control how fast it progresses. If we just take the meds the doctor gives us, the prognosis isn’t good for the length of our lives or the quality. If we decide to fight the disease by controlling our diet and exercise, we may not need medicine for years, we’ll add many years to our lives and have a far better quality of life during those years. What’s your choice?

Glen Williams is founder and CEO of EHF, Inc. and Webmaster for e-health-fitness.com e-health-fitness.com. He has done extensive research on personal and family health and fitness issues and has been helping and advising people on health since 1987.

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Good hearing is essential to the full enjoyment of life. Unfortunately, one in ten people in Hawaii have some degree of correctable hearing loss. That makes hearing loss our third most chronic health condition. Arthritis and high blood pressure are numbers one and two.

You or a loved one may benefit from hearing correction if:
People have to repeat what they say
You need the TV volume higher than others
Certain voices are hard to understand
Background noise causes greater hearing difficulty
You don’t hear well on the phone

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I be sure a hearing aid will help?

You should begin with an accurate hearing evaluation. The results will indicate if you would benefit from a hearing device as well as how much improvement you can expect. Most of us don’t realize how much even a small hearing problem adversely effects our lives and that of those around us.

What is the best hearing aid brand?

There are about 23 hearing aid manufacturers. There may be little difference in comparative quality and performance. Fewer than ten actually do research and design. Many seemingly different brands are actually the same hearing aids using different names. That is why it is essential to consult with an ethical and knowledgeable hearing health care provider. The cost for the same hearing aid model may be double simply because of the brand name.

What features should I look for?

Modern digital hearing aids offer many features that can be customized for your individual hearing needs and lifestyle. Here is a partial list:

Directional microphones: Helps you to understand conversation better in noisy places by focusing on the speaker in front of you.
Noise reduction: Helps reduce background noise to enable you to understand better.
Multiple programs or memories: Enables you to control certain amplification aspects for better performance in different listening situations. Some devices do this automatically.
Feedback Canceling: Eliminates the annoying acoustic feedback or whistle associated with ordinary hearing aids.

I already have a hearing aid. Will a newer digital model be better?

There have been tremendous advances in technology in the past few years. If your hearing aids are more than two years old, you should get many benefits. More clarity, better understanding in noise, more natural sound and comfort are only a few reasons to try a new hearing device. Ohana Hearing Care offers a free 45 day trial. That way you have a opportunity to experience the benefits without any financial risk.

If I use a hearing aid, will my hearing get worse?

Research indicates that our ability to understand words deteriorates more rapidly if the nerve path is not stimulated. If you delay using a hearing aid, it may be more difficult to adapt and thus, get full benefit later on.

Unfortunately we see many people who postpone getting a hearing aid because, in their opinion, they “just miss some words”. Our free hearing check-up is the best way to determine whether you should consider trying a hearing device or not.

How much should a hearing aid cost?

Hearing aids have a wide price range. Style, brand name and technology are some of the reasons for this price difference. Ohana Hearing Care clients have the assurance of our written low price guarantee. Since we offer all major brand names you can count on us to recommend the best solution for your individual hearing needs, your lifestyle and your budget. Make sure you know what warranties and services are included in the price. All our services are provided in a state-of-the-art, friendly and professional atmosphere.

Since 1966 Ohana Hearing Care has helped the people of Hawaii regain their quality of life. Hearing loss affects every aspect of your life. Ohana Hearing Care has pioneered a demonstration method that is on the cutting edge of technology. It enables you to hear for yourself the best solution for your unique hearing loss. Through this exclusive process, you’ll be able to experience how our advanced digital solutions are able to improve your hearing. Please visit our website OhanaHearingCare.com OhanaHearingCare.com If you have a question you can email us anytime at: mailto:help@OhanaHearingCare.com help@OhanaHearingCare.com You will receive a prompt answer. Hawaii residents may wish to get a copy of our “Hearing Aid Buyers Guide”. Call 593-2137 and we will mail it to you.

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