Tag Archives: Health

Daily Mail: Some unusual ways to go for a healthy lifestyle.
A good list of some more interesting ways to get healthy.

Here’s a summary:

• Brush your teeth while standing on one leg till you wobble, then change legs to improved balance, posture and strengthen back.
• Keep a mirror on your desk. Giving a quick glance shows you your posture.
• Eat cereal before bed to avoid headaches.
  Lack of food means our bodies drain our resources which could trigger migraines and headaches.
• Take antihistamines on outings for insect bites.
• Brush teeth before breakfast since bacteria and plaque formed on teeth while we sleep will multiply on the sugar or acid in breakfast increasing the risk of tooth decay.
• Wear sunblock everyday – even in winter – SPF of 15 to 20. Increase to SPF 30 or 40 in summer even if it’s not sunny to avoid skin damage.
• Wear ear-plugs when mowing the lawn since regular, high decibel noise can damage hearing.
• Walking for 40 minutes a day is highly beneficial for cardiovascular health and can reduce blood pressure. Ditch the car altogether or leave your keys at work a few times a week to force you to walk.
• Work only the hours you are paid to.
  Working extra eats into leisure time, adding pressure and more stress. Keep work to work hours and try swimming or cycling to relieve other anxiety.
• Drink a probiotic everyday to keep a healthy balance of beneficial bacteria. Make sure it’s a LIVE bacteria probiotic.
• When buying fruit and veg, always buy different or new types exposing you to a wider range of micronutrients, essential for good health.
• Open a window at bedtime. Body temperature needs to drop for us to sleep. Ideal temperature is 16c.

MPs and Peers from all parties have demanded that all harmful food additives that cause hyperactivity should be banned in the UK.

They also want the Food Standards Agency to issue warnings to parents to avoid artificial colours and preservatives that have been identified as a risk in a report from The Parliamentary Food and Health Forum.

Research shows suspect additives which can prevent nutrients from being absorbed in children’s bodies which are key to physical and brain development.

Some of these are already banned in the US and Scandinavian countries.

Daily Mail

According to the Daily Mail, drinking fizzy can expose you to a higher risk of gout..

Fizzy drinks can dramatically increase the risk of gout, it is claimed.

As sales plummet over other health concerns, scientists revealed yesterday that carbonated drinks are behind a rise in the painful joint condition.

Gout, which affects 600,000 people in Britain, was once known as “the disease of kings” because only the very wealthy could afford quantities of alcohol usually associated with it.

A study of more than 46,000 men found those who had two or more cans a day were 85 per cent more likely to get gout compared to those who had one a month or less.

The risk also significantly increased among those who drank five to six a week, according to findings published online by the British Medical Journal.

Gout generally involves very severe attacks of joint pain followed by long periods of remission.

The condition is caused by the formation of urate crystals, formed by too much uric acid, within joints and other tissues.

Apparently, “The news comes as a report revealed Britons are rejecting fizzy drinks. Market analysts Datamonitor says the amount of fizzy drinks consumed will fall from 61 per cent of all cold, soft drinks to 50 per cent over three years.”

See GoodnessDirect for delicious, healthy alternatives to fizzy drinks.

Studying 20,000 people for 10 years has shown that healthy living can add up to 14 years to your life.

The study carried out by the University of Cambridge and the Medical Research Council in the English county of Norfolk between 1993 and 2006, suggested that people can increase their lifespan by making simple lifestyle changes regardless of how overweight or poor they were.

The research pointed to obvious changes such as exercising, cutting alcohol intake, eating fruit and vegetables and not smoking.

Source: BBC

A barley breakfast is number 19 on the Mirror’s list of 31 health resolutions you can keep this year, with a recommendation to use Goodness Direct:

19 Try a barley breakfast

Any breakfast cuts fatigue but researcher Anne Nilsson, of Sweden’s University Of Lund, found barley doesn’t just fuel you for a few hours, it stabilises blood sugar all day. Try Pertwood’s Barley Flakes, £2.87, from www.goodnessdirect.co.uk

Could this be the most effective type of weight-loss programme?

Overweight people lost more weight on low GL (glycaemic load) diets than on high GL or other weight reduction diets and their cardiovascular risk marker profile improved according to a review in July 2007 carried out by the highly respected and independent Cochrane Collaboration.

About GL and the benefits

The Glycaemic Index (GI) is a test done in a laboratory with human volunteers involving blood tests to see how different foods affect our blood sugar level.

What is GL?

An equation based on the GI that also takes into account the amount of carbohydrates in each portion.

Why is GL better than GI?

It’s a more accurate indicator of fat storage as it takes into account portion sizes and carbohydrate content so that you can balance your blood sugar level more easily.

Why is balancing your blood sugar level important?

Eating a low GL diet helps keep your blood sugar level stable and is the key to weight loss, long term health and prevention / management of diabetes.

Choosing low GL foods that don’t produce more glucose (energy) than you need results in weight loss because excess glucose is stored as fat.

Proven health benefits of following a low GL diet:

• Helps you lose weight
• Increases body’s sensitivity to insulin
• Improves diabetes control
• Reduces risk of heart disease
• Reduces blood cholesterol levels
• Helps to manage the symptoms of PCOS (Poly cystic ovary syndrome)
• Reduces hunger and keeps you fuller for longer
• Prolongs physical endurance
• Helps re-fuel carbohydrate stores after exercise
• Helps prevent diabetes
• Improves diabetes control
• Helps prevent some forms of cancer
• Helps protect eye sight
• Improves acne

If you would like to read more in depth research about the health and weight loss benefits of eating a low GL diet see the Diet Freedom GL Research page. As a member you have access to a huge and constantly updated searchable database of health, advice and research.

With the help of Diet Freedom the online health and diet service, we have listed some of the many low GL foods that we have in stock. Diet Freedom combines EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) to address comfort and emotional eating with a low GL diet for sustainable weight loss to great effect.

To gain a special 20% membership discount of Diet Freedom, just enter the code GDNL when you sign up. See some of their testimonials.

What the experts say

The GL was devised in 2001 by the highly respected Professor Walter Willett, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School as an improvement over GI. Harvard is renowned for nutritional research having carried out the longest running nutritional studies in the world.

Although the GI of a food is helpful information, it is only part of the story, because the effect of eating a food on blood glucose and insulin levels depends on both the amount of carbohydrate and the GI of that carbohydrate. For this reason the concept of the ‘Glycaemic Load’ or GL has been developed. This is the amount of carbohydrate in a food multiplied by the Glycaemic Index of that carbohydrate. The GL better reflects a food’s effect on your body’s biochemistry than either the amount of carbohydrate or the GI alone.

Professor Walter Willett, Harvard Medical School

The increasing prevalence of diabetes has huge social and financial implications for developed countries. With increasing incidence of conditions such as the metabolic syndrome, predisposing people to diabetes, the trend is even more worrying. I am convinced that making diet and lifestyle changes to reduce the risk or improve the treatment of diabetes is one of the most critical steps and individual can take. The GL diet combines the fundamental principles of a healthy balanced diet with practical advice to help improve glycaemic control and long-term health.

Sir Michael Hirst, Trustee & Former Chairman, Diabetes UK

Rather than being just a fad diet, GL represents a sustainable lifestyle choice, which is healthy and satisfying in the long term. The science is well founded, and has been talked about in academic circles for years, but now, as we are becoming expert nutritionists, we should all be more aware and conscious of GL as part of a healthy balanced lifestyle.

Dr David Haslam, Clinical director of the National Obesity Forum