LET FOOD BE THY MEDICINE - Hippocrates

Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.)

Hippocrates the father of modern medicine said this about 2,500 years ago and it was practiced by our ancestors to stay healthy. However, in the past 200 years the new modern life style has made it difficult for us to follow this old adage. With intelligent reasoning and common sense it is possible to follow Hippocrates’s advice and preserve our health

.

The measures we need to take are simple but its positive effects on our health can be tremendous.

Whole grains food: Our ancestors ate whole grains. For longer shelf life of foods our industries are processing foods, thus removing vital nourishments and fiber from the grain by removal of bran and endosperm. Remaining processed grain contains very high percentage of starch. This is claimed to be the higher incidence of diabetes, heart diseases Alzheimer’s and cancers. Starch turns into glucose that spikes insulin secretion, which increases triglycerides and plaques in our arteries.

Fresh vegetables: Eat as fresh vegetables as best as possible. The veggies should be green, leafy and colorful. More color will usually mean better antioxidants. If you can consume raw, well washed vegetables, it is better still. To increase the yield the agriculturists have been using excessive fertilizers and pesticides. Many chemicals are new, untested and even totally unknown causing diseases.  

Meat form grass fed animals: Grass fed animals provide better omega 3 essential fatty acids. Meat from animals fed on corn and artificially fattened animals provides fewer omega 3 and also contain inferior quality of micronutrients. Such foods also cause inflammation in body, which is touted for many modern illnesses.

Poultry products: These are also different in quality when compared to farm raised versus poultry raised chickens. Free range raised chicken eggs provide better omega 3 and nutrition than overcrowded poultry farm raised birds. Poultry farm also has problems of possibilities of infections. A lot of discussion is also taking place about the unhygienic and unacceptable conditions of poultry farms.

Fish consumption: Try and eat fatty fish once or twice a week. This also should be preferably from wild stock instead of farm raised. Fish is rich in anti-inflammatory essential fatty acid like Omega 3. Water pollution from industrial wastes contains a lot of PCB and high levels of mercury, which gets to us through fish and we should be mindful of this.

Ultra violet rays of sun for Vitamin D: Almighty has made sun available to the universe. Ultra violet rays of sun light makes Vitamin D in our skin. Recently we are getting habituated to live in air conditioned homes and indoor offices all day resulting to our exposure to sun to minimum. It is estimated that half the population of the USA is Vitamin D deficient because of this. It is claimed that vitamin D is not only a vitamin but a hormone because unlike other vitamins it is produced in our body. It is said to affect every cell of the body

SUMMARY:  

In the name of modernization and conveniences we have either overlooked the importance of quality of our food. . Some experts believe that high incidence of cancer, ADD, Alzheimer’s, depression, diabetes and heart diseases is partly attributed to our attitude to the quality of food.  We need to learn some simple hints to follow the healthful advice Hippocrates. These are as follows:

10 simple hints to keep ourselves healthy and avoid diseases:

1      

11. Eat fresh vegetables, preferably raw.

22. Consume only whole grains.

33. Stay away from Starch, Salt and Saturated fats.

44. Consume Mono and Polysachurated fats and only sparingly Saturated fats.

55. Consume a lot of antioxidants from Vit C, fruits and vegetables.

66. Consume a lot of nuts containing anti-inflammatory Omega 3.

77. Consume enough micronutrients and vitamins.

88. Put in habit daily exercises, cardio and weight lifting both.

99. Keep your weight to ideal level.

110.  Stay away from radiation, ionizing and electromagnetic both.

Hara Hachi Bu - Confucius; Eat less and live longer

Secret of longevity: “Hara Hachi Bu” is a 2500 years old famous adage of Confucius (551 – 479 BC), the legendary Chinese philosopher. It literally means “stomach 80%” or “eat food until your stomach is 80% full”. This is a greeting that the people in Okinawa Island in Japan use at the start of a meal to each other. And this is considered to be the secret of 29% population of that island reaching over 100 years of age. (Confucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical “religion” developed from the teachings of Confucius).

Eat Less and Live Longer: Longevity has been always a fascinating subject. Everyone wants to live as long as possible, may be forever. If possible no one wants to die at all. Secret of long life seems to be consuming fewer calories and living a simple life. They all have lower incidence of diabetes, heart diseases, Alzheimer's and cancers. No one is overweight.

National Geographic research: In 2005 National Geographic commissioned a study to find where in the world people live the longest and what is their secret of longevity? Their researcher Dan Buettner, author of “Blue Zone, Lessons of Living Longer from the People Who Have Lived the Longest” identified four such geographical areas he named as Blue Zones. They are namely, Sardinia, Okinawa, Costa Rica, and Loma Linda in California. These places have maximum percentage of centurions (persons living more than 100 years) in the population. Top position is claimed by Okinawa Island. They remain active until the end. The common denominators for the longevity were then compared. The results are interesting and many articles are available on websites about this and similar subjects, some excerpts of which are reproduced below.
Most important commonalities: The study found the following:

• Eat fewer calories: In Okinawa Island when people start to eat, they greet each other with “Hara Hachi Bu”. With this reminder they eat less. In 1930 Prof. Clive McCay of Cornell University also deduced from animal experiments that calorie restriction prolongs the life.
• Stay active and use more calories: Our sedentary life style is the cause of many ills. Even sitting on floor, as in olden days, is considered to be better than sitting on chair because you need to use more calories to stand up from floor. Walking is even better. Many thousand years old Chinese medicine believes in acupressure on soles of feet and hands where the body organs are represented. Walking and working with hands continues such acupressure with all its benefits.
• Eat predominantly plant based diet: Most of these people are found to eat leafy veggies grown in their own gardens. They eat little meat, fish tofu and dairy. Because mostly it is plant based, the quantity is large but calories are few. Hence they stay lean.
• Have a purpose to live: Again in Okinawa a word "Ikigai” is often referred to. This means "that which makes one's life worth living." For some it may be family for others it may individual spirituality or community service.
• Live a balanced life in all different ways: It may be eating, drinking, exercising or resting. Anything that stands to common sense is good. Sardinia's local vine containing three times antioxidants may also be an explanation.
• Get involved in your people: In all these blue zones the community is well knit and stay involved with one another. It is almost tribal society.
• Meditation and prayers: Californian Seventh Day Adventist centurions perform communal prayers and walks. Meditation is their way of life.

Bottom line: It is simple and straight forward. Live a clean, simple and involved life. Use common sense. Do all that our ancestors have done to stay healthy. Make the community your family. Do all that helps each other. Feel happy doing what you do. You will surely live longer and that too with good health. It makes sense. Let us all follow this.

Modern Life Conveniences Causing Damage to Our Health?

Life styles of human being have changed hugely over the past two centuries. This started about two hundred years ago with industrial revolution. Use of oil and energy created another big change because these changed the pace of life fto very fast. These changes provided a lot of conveniences and luxuries but they have also changed our eating habits, which has adversely affected our health because our genes have been used to what our ancestors were used to for thousands of years. These conveniences have caused unintended consequences because of sedentary life style hence increasing risks to human health.

Let us see some of the changes that have damaged our health:

Over Abundance of Calories and Carbohydrates:
Few thousand years ago our ancestors lived on hunted food and gathered wild plants vegetables. This consisted mostly of protein and fat. Agricultural revolution brought us abundance of carbohydrate in our diet. High fructose corn syrup was added only 50 years ago. This is causing increased disease load in people with diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndrome.

Lack of Exercises:
Cars and means of communications are added to our lives just about 100 years ago. Fastest means of transport was horse or camel until then. Now we have become sedentary and non-active with cars and airplanes. Remote-controls fax and internet has made us even worse. Our daily walking used lot of calories in past, which has disappeared and those who are conscious of it now need gyms to work out.

Lack of sunshine and Vitamin D:
With facilities of air conditioning and fast transport our exposure to sun has been severely curtailed. In developed world a substantial percentage of us are hence Vitamin D deficient. This is causing a number of illnesses like depression, Alzheimer’s and cancers. Pundits say that Vitamin D is not only a vitamin but an enzyme that works on every cell of the body.

Radiation:
Our experimentation with radiation is also only about a century old when we started finding the radioactive isotopes. Our experience of radiation started with bombing of Japan in WWII and then three accidents in nuclear reactors since then. With such minimal experience we are thinking to embark on having major part of our need of electricity with nuclear power plants, which is frightening.

Genetically Modified (GM) foods:
We have embarked on this without enough experience and we do not know how it may hurt us. We need to know its long term implications before it is allowed universally.

Hormone supported animal rearing:
Major part of our meat and chicken now comes from farms where hormones and unknown chemical feed stocks are used to fatten the birds and animals. These substances are consumed by us every day with our food.

Chemicals and fertilizers:
These are now major industries to provide us food. The chemicals in the form of fertilizers and pesticides are ingested by us with our food on daily basis. Aside from that the chemicals produced in industries as by-products are disposed in water channels eventually consumed by humans through fish meals.

Possible ways to avoid damage to our health:

1. We should avoid excessive calories and carbohydrate to avoid diseases.
2. We all need to exercise regularly to keep fit, burn calories and avoid insulin resistance.
3. We need to make our own natural Vitamin D by exposing ourselves to sunlight for a few hours a day.
4. It is wrong to allow something in our food like GM foods, about which we do not know enough. We must discourage its use until we are sure.
5. Natural and synthetic chemicals are growing in number by millions. We should restrict use of unknown chemicals and of those known to hurt.
6. Radiation is a new issue from last century. We have accepted its use despite that we know it causes cancer. We need to have more information about it.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF MODERN LIVING

Importance of Vitamin D and its deficiency

In the past two hundred years with Industrial revolution following the agricultural revolution, we are becoming indoor people. We work in offices, factories or homes. With availability of air-conditioning we have become too soft and cannot stand sun or heat. This has further reduced our exposure to sun. It is a matter of recent knowledge that Vit D is formed in skin when it is exposed to ultraviolet rays of sun light. We are inadvertently losing this nature’s bounty because of which we are being hurt by many diseases.

As we know more about Vitamin D, it is becoming more apparent that this is more than a simple vitamin that we did not care much about until recently. Newfound additional knowledge Vit D is changing our respect towards Vit D. However, at the same time the modern life style that we are pursuing is inadvertently causing us Vit D deficient or insufficient resulting in many health issues. Let us see how this has happened?

Vit D was the fourth vitamin accidentally found early last century, after discovery of Vit A, B and C and hence it was named fourth in the alphabetical list. Vitamins are defined as “vital chemicals needed to complete metabolic and chemical processes beneficial to the body functions” and hence they are called Vitamins. These are not made within our body and hence have to come with our intake of food.

Similar vital chemicals “produced in the body” are called hormones, like in thyroid gland, pituitary gland, parathyroid, adrenaline glands etc. It was not realized in early days that Vit D is also produced in the skin and it is also a hormone. It's importance was not all that felt because it's production in skin while it is exposed to sun light containing ultraviolet rays B (UV B) was almost given because our life styles until century almost made it necessary for almost everyone to remain exposed to sunlight for certain part of the day. And that was just enough to produce necessary quantity of Vit D for our body functions.

With Industrial revolution more and more people started working indoors and exposure to sunlight reduced. Additionally, with the advent if air conditioning, staying away from heat of sun became more of an available comfort and people became habituated to stay away from sun. Now we also know that UV B do not pass through glass and hence if we are sitting in air conditioned space covered by glass windows, the skin is not exposed to the beneficial UV B and Vit D is not produced. It is estimated that we need about two hours exposure to mid-day sun to produce enough Vit D we need. In present day working in developed countries such a long exposure in hot sun has become either impossible or intolerable. Then the choice is to have Vit D supplements.

Vit D ids fat soluble. Fish is best source of Vit D. Eggs and beef also contains some Vit D. It is almost absent in vegetables. Vit D exists in two forms, I.e. Vit D2 and D3. Its daily need in body is minute and the presence of Vit din blood is measured in ng/ml of blood. One nanogram is one billionth of a gram. Its deficiency was not all that common except in Rickets, hence health professionals did not attach all that much importance to it.

We need to take care of our Vit D levels because of following reasons:

·       Because of more indoor living in air conditioned spaces, the Vit D deficiency seems to be on an increase.

·       As our knowledge about many prevalent conditions like Diabetes, Obesity, cardiovascular and Heart diseases, Depression, Alzheimer’s and Cancers etc is increasing, there is more and more evidence available that this Hormone/  Vitamin works at cellular levels. It is directly or indirectly affecting several thousand genes of our body. Some workers even connect Vit D with Multiple Sclerosis, ADD and many other conditions.

·       Our knowledge of minimum levels necessary of Vit D is also not firmly agreed upon by all the concerned pundits. For example recently in November 2010, Institute of Medicine (IOM) has almost doubled the Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) to be taken as supplements because more number of Americans and Canadians seem to be Vit D deficient.

·       Until recently, <19 ng/ml was considered to be deficiency, and 19 to 29 ng/ml was considered to be insufficient. Those who swear by this Vitamin insist that probably 50 to 70 ng/ml is a satisfactory level, with 50 as optimal.

·       They also dispute strongly with the recent RDA from IOM and say that RDA should be 2000 to 5000 IU daily for an average person who does not get enough exposure to sunlight every day. And because our exposure to sun light and UV B is drastically reduced because of our newly adopted life style, it is estimated that a substantial majority of North American population is Vit D deficient.

·       Yet another recent awareness is that if we live around equator, we get sun light at a better angle and if we are away in North or South latitudes on planet earth, our exposure to sun light is reduced and we need higher RDA.

·       Another new understanding is that the angle at which these rays fall on skin is also important. That is, if we are exposed to sun in morning or evening the angle is too small for UV B to produce Vit D. If our skin is exposed to sun at or around mid day the angle is better to produce more Vit D.

·       Yet another surprise revelation is that even mildest usage of sunscreen reduces the UV B penetration in skin and hence production of Vit D is small to none.

With all the above scientific facts that have emerged and that we know that we have adopted a different life style than what our ancestors used to live in sometime about a hundred years ago, it is a matter of God given common sense and wisdom that needs to be applied. A measure needs to be adopted to ensure that we maintain an optimal level of Vit D in our body by doing the following:

1.     Get ourselves tested for Vit D levels and try and keep it at above 50 ng/ ml.

2.     Get the appropriate diet supplement to achieve the above.

3.     It would be best to get enough exposure to sun light every day.

By taking those measures we can keep ourselves insulated from many diseases that are plaguing our citizens and incidence of such diseases is continuously becoming higher.