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February 13, 2008
Do You Know About Nutrition?
Two out of every three deaths can be traced to nutrition related causes, dietary deficiencies and overweight conditions. The most prominent causes of death in Western society are heart attack, stroke and cancer. Other health problems are diabetes, osteoporosis, fatigue, digestive problems, stress, headaches, and obesity. All of these are based around nutrition.
Over two million premature deaths each year are due to nutrition related diseases with over 70% of premature deaths and doctor visits being diet and nutrition related.
Some of the problems in in diets are deficiencies in fiber, vitamins and minerals, and trace elements, as well as excesses in total/animal fat, total calories. salt and sugar.
The body needs cellular nutrition to be healthy. Within the body the 80 - 100 trillion cells, need protein, minerals, oxygen and water to live properly. Both health and disease begin with the cell. The cells are the living units that create life. We need our cells to grow, reproduce, detoxify and function. If you don't get key nutrition, the cell begins to break down. When enough cells break down, you start to feel the symptoms and if enough break down, it can lead to death.
What keeps cells from getting good whole food nutrition?
A certain amount of the problem can be traced to the way food is grown and harvested. Chemicals, fertilizers, over processing/over refining of foods- e.g. instant foods, high fat/sugar foods, foods that have been processed to make them tastier, have a longer shelf life, etc. all contribute to extra calories, salt and sugar and destroy vitamins and minerals.
Did you realize that you would have to eat 4 bowls of spinach today, to match the iron from 1 bowl in 1930? This shows conclusively that our soils are being depleted.
We also keep our cells from getting good nutrition by the way we prepare our foods. We tend to over cook foods, thus taking away the minerals,vitamins and essential oils, robbing our bodies of the things that we need for proper health.
Sixty percent (60%) of Western culture chooses to eat junk food , which is high in fat, sugar, salt and calories. It is almost devoid of any nutritional value. It is already a disaster, before it even gets to your mouth.
Food needs to be digested, broken down into a useful micro-nutrient form and absorbed by the intestine, before any of the nutrition gets to the cells.
Posted by personalhealthnews at 08:32 PM | Comments (0)
Medications for Teenage Obesity
There is pharmaceutical relief for teenage obesity. Though the medical community is firm in its message that lifestyle changes have to be implemented to effectively deal with childhood obesity, there are medications which can be prescribed for overweight teenagers.
As with other lifestyle-related illnesses, obesity is a chronic condition that can require long-term treatment. Once beginning such a program, there is a slight possibility that an obese person might need to take medications for the duration of his or her life to realize and maintain weight loss. At the very least, treatment could be necessary for several years.
The mediations most commonly prescribed for obese teenagers are categorized as appetite suppressants and lipase-inhibitors. The activity of appetite suppressants on the human body is to increase the feeling of fullness in the stomach while suppressing appetite - a person will simply have a decreased craving for food. These drugs suppress the appetite by interacting with certain chemicals in the brain involved with both mood and appetite. They include serotonin and catecholamine. Lipase-inhibitors, on the other hand, prevent the absorption of fat by not allowing it to be broken down to a chemical form and then consequently absorbed by the body.
Taking appetite suppressants has been known to reduce weight by several pounds more than that lost through only physical exercise and other non-drug therapies. The greatest impact in obese teenagers is typically observed after six months of taking the medication. So patience is a must.
Though medication usage should always be considered with a sober mindset, taking the appropriate ones for teenage obesity, however, does eradicate some of the need for diet control and physical activity. Despite this, studies support that the right medications actually help improve eating and exercising habits.
On another note of caution, these obesity-reducing medications for teens are needed only for those in a position of pending medical danger due to their excessive weight. Such prescriptions cannot, and should not, be made available casually to teens merely entertaining a short cut for weight loss. The consultation of a trusted family physician is critical in the decision-making. Doctors will usually consider the distribution of fat in the patient's body and how many pounds overweight or obese the individual is as a basis for prescribing medications.
The main goal for taking obesity reduction medications is to move away from alarming health dangers brought about by an undue increase in weight. Obtaining and maintaining an ideal weight based on height and body structure for most obese persons is normally not a realistic goal, though it certainly can be accomplished. A modest reduction of five to ten percent of one's previous - or benchmark - weight is a worthwhile short-term objective that will lead to an improved state of health. Beyond the shorter duration, one's prior success can serve as a launching pad for even greater weight loss where deemed still beneficial.
If a teen is very heavy and ill on an abnormally frequent basis, a visit to a doctor to discuss the prospect of controlling obesity through medications would be time well invested. Once prescribed, the need for remaining on the medications will likely last for years, if not for a lifetime. However, the benefit of the appetite suppression or prevention of fats being absorbed into the body may well be worth the trade off for greater health through the teen years and into adulthood.
Posted by personalhealthnews at 08:28 PM | Comments (0)
