Diabetes Less Likely with Better Lifestyle Choices. Who Would Have Thought?

Ten years ago the Diabetes Prevention Program Research Group compared intensive lifestyle changes to drug therapy and the placebo effect. No surprises, the intensive lifestyle group did much better than the drug and placebo group.

Last week the  Lancet published a paper on it’s website a follow up to that study called “10-year follow-up of diabetes incidence and weight loss in the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study” where they found that the lifestyle group were still way out in front.

Should we be surprised? I don’t think so. One of the important features of the lifestyle group was the “intensive training in diet, physical activity, and behaviour modification. By eating less fat and fewer calories and exercising for a total of 150 minutes a week, they aimed to lose 7 percent of their body weight and maintain that loss.”

This program reminded me of the Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days documentary where as the title suggests they go way beyond preventing diabetes but actually reverse it using a raw, organic, vegan diet.

Now if you’re like I was a few years ago your probably saying “Raw? Vegan? Organic? … there’s no way I could do that. I just couldn’t give up all the good stuff.

Once you watch the documentary you realise that you don’t have to give up wonderful tasting food at all. (I especially like the bit about chocolate!) Hands up who’s had a green smoothie. One of the rules is it has to taste good.

For those of you who work or play in the city I absolutely recommend Bliss Organic Cafe just off Gouger Street for awesome vegan organic food.

Eat Your Greens!!

def. Greens (noun) “the flat leaves of a plant,

attached to the stem, that can be wrapped around a finger”. 

Victoria Boutenko.

From childhood on, we are told to eat our greens.  It is fairly widely recognised that they are a very important (some even say the most important) food group.  But how many of us actually have a decent serve of greens each day?

Greens have an image problem.  Sure they might be good for you, but do they taste any good?  Do they fill you up?  Will your friends and family support you or call you ‘Rabbit’ for ordering a salad?

If you choose to eat meat, there are many varieties available and hundreds of different ways to prepare it.  Decent greens are hard to come by.  Most restaurants have a wide selection of meat dishes on the menu, but greens?  Most places there is only a dodgy day-old salad! 

So, a couple of good home-made salads and some cooked spinach now and then, that’ll be good enough, right?  And a piece of lettuce in a sandwich?

WRONG!  Well, OK, you’re off to a flying start, but to get the most out of your greens you need to consider three factors: 

1. your greens should be raw, and as fresh as possible, in order to preserve the vital nutrients they contain; 
2. you need to consider possible food interactions that may minimise the benefits of your greens to your body; and
3. they need to be very thoroughly ‘chewed’, to a creamy consistency, to ensure that you are actually breaking down the tough cellular structure of the greens in order for your body to access the goodness within.

Stressed?  Don’t be… there’s a simple solution!  Get yourself a good blender and have a Green Smoothie.

A what?  A GREEN SMOOTHIE??

OK, now you think I’m crazy.  But it wasn’t my idea! 

Take your chosen green leaf variety, stick three chunky handfuls into a blender and add your favourite fruits and / or berries.  Add some water and blend!!  Drink slowly, ensuring a good mixture of saliva into each mouthful.  Start with a couple of times a week, increase gradually to daily and even twice daily if you get hooked!

WHY???  Hopefully you will experience higher energy levels, improved mood, fewer cravings for unhealthy foods, some healthy weight loss and stabilisation of blood sugar levels, and improved immunity!  Sound good??

Pointers:

• keep it simple, one type of greens with a basic combination of fruits and water;
• MAKE SURE YOU GET IT TASTING GOOD!  Believe me it can, and if you don’t enjoy drinking it then you won’t stick at it;
• have your smoothie on its own, with a 40 minute buffer between it and other foods;
• rotate the type of greens that you use to avoid alkaloid toxicity;
• go organic!!

Much of this information comes from the work of Victoria Boutenko, “Green For Life” and “Green Smoothie Revolution”.

 

Good Luck!

Clodia Porteous

Driving The Porcelain Bus

• Vomit
• Chuck
• Technicolour yawn
• Acid flavoured stew
• Puke
• Chunder
• Spew
• Hurl
• Barf
• Throw up
• Repeat
• Burp for the hearing impaired

Now I’ve got your attention I’ll save you from the pictures. We often think of symptoms as bad. But what are symptoms really? Apart from a radical weight loss solution (definitely not recommended) why have these symptoms.

In the case of vomiting, obviously it is to get something out of your stomach that shouldn’t be there, the fast way! Too much alcohol, dodgy take-away, or that cheese from the back of the fridge (Is it ok? Should be. I’ll just cut the green bit off).

Unfortunately we often treat the symptoms as the problem instead of recognising it as the solution.

Consider the fever and muscles aches of flu. Easily treated with paracetamol, but is this what you really need?

When we become infected with a virus,  antigens or toxins from the pathogen and chemicals produced by our white blood cells stimulate the hypothalamus in our brain to set the body's temperature higher. So we shiver until we get to the new temperature. Some pathogens don't work well at higher temperatures while our white blood cells do, effective giving our body an advantage in fighting the infection. Pretty clever hey?

Our immune cells also produce more free radicals as ammunition to kill the infected cells or bacteria. Unfortunately this war between our immune system and the invading virus or bacteria leaves the battleground (our body) ravaged (painful).

The aches and pains we get in this type of infection has another useful side effect. They force us to rest allowing more energy to be spent on recovering from the illness rather making that deadline at work.

As usual my advice is:

• feed yourself healthy food/exercise/thoughts/mental stimulation,
• get enough rest,
• make sure your brain can communicate effectively with the rest of the body and vice-versa (hopefully you know that I mean – “get your spine checked by your chiropractor regularly”),
• and when your body is showing symptoms understand what those symptoms really are. Is your body taking control of the situation? If so, give yourself a pat on the back for being so clever.
• if you do get sick find out what can you do to help yourself get over the problem (maybe even assist the symptoms)

Symptoms are often a sign of being healthy.

This small list is all the synonyms for vomit I could think of. The less mature among us (yes I know that includes me) might enjoy this page.

Acute Sandwichitis – or Sandwich Induced Back Pain

So your sitting at your desk happily catching up with friends on facebook and checking the lastest viral video on youtube, and you lean over to grab your sandwich and bam it hits you. It feels like you’ve been struck in the back by a red hot poker and you instantly know "your back has gone out."

But how could a sandwich have done that. It was even a healthy sandwich with organic wholemeal bread, lettuce, tomato, carrot, cucumber and alfalfa sprouts.

The truth is, it wasn't the sandwich.

To find the cause we have to look at what you have been doing during the hours, days, months or even years before the sandwich. To explain further we’ll have a short anatomy lesson.

Your back is made up of 24 bones (called vertebra) stacked one on top of the other. Between the bones are discs, ligaments and some very small muscles. Spanning multiple bones you have the big muscles that you can feel under you skin.

The discs, ligaments and small muscles holding your back upright and are, fortunately, very strong. But they do have their limits. If you put them under strain for long enough, such as sitting in the same position updating your MySpace page they will eventually get tired and microfail. When they fail the larger muscles take over and go into spasm, compressing your whole spine.

Imagine holding your Harry Potter collection, Philosopher’s Stone in one hand, Deathly Hallows in the other and the other 5 books in between. The small muscles in your back would be like rubber bands holding adjacent books together and the big muscles your hands hold the books at either end. If the rubber bands break you have to squash your hands together harder to hold all the books, compressing all the books (or your spine and it's joints) in the process.

This muscle spasm and compression of the joints can be extremely painful.

Seemingly harmless repetitive movements can also lead to microfailure and muscle spasm and it is more likely to occur if there is already some other injury in the joint such as a subluxation, or joint degeneration/decay.

So what do you do about it.

As usual prevention is much better than the cure (and much less painful).

1. If you have to work in the same place for long hours change position regularly. For example switch between your office chair and an exercise ball throughout the day.
2. Ensure you have you work area set up correctly. You might need help from an occupational therapist with this.
3. Take regular breaks when doing repetitive tasks.
4. Regular exercise will keep the muscles strong and flexible.
5. Have you spine checked by a chiropractor for subluxations.
6. Get your golf swing sorted out, or get coaching for what ever sport you play, poor technique in any sport can lead to injuries.

If it does happen though i would recommend starting with some ice therapy for the first 72 hours to reduce the inflammation and provide some pain relief, and get in to see your chiropractor as soon as possible to assess the damage and recommend the best solution.

Dream Maps

Fans of The Secret will understand this weeks topic well. A few years ago Clo and I spent a weekend in Brisbane with a lifestyle coach. During the weekend we did all sorts of activities like writing our BHAG list (that's Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals) and discussed what might be preventing us from reaching our goals and what to do about it. We learnt a much more about ourselves and each other along the way. I think Clo would agree the activity we got the most out of was making our dream maps.

At the time we had spent 6 months searching for a home to buy. Everything we saw was too small, too big, wrong colour bricks, too expensive, wrong orientation, hidden garage with far too many power points!

To make our dream maps Clo, myself, the lifestyle coach and the other seminar attendees spent an evening pouring through magazines finding pictures we had an affinity for. It might have been the car, house, family or travel we wanted. It could also have been a picture we just liked. It was a really fun evening with everyone helping each other out. There was lots of "who wants a house on the beach?" and "Anyone seen a picture of an elephant?" types of conversations and we all helped each other out.

After collecting all our pictures we glued them to a big cardboard sheet in a collage, with a photo or thumb print of ourselves, dated and signed it.

The effect  has been profound. 2 weeks later we found and bought our dream home. Clo and I walked through the front door of it and looked at each other with amazement. This was the home on our dream maps. 6 months later we picked up our golden retriever, Beanie.

Another 3 months later we bought a new car.

12 months after making our maps we spent 10 days holidaying in Thailand including riding on elephants.

Last year I got my new boat.

Then there are the more abstract pictures. One on Clo's map was a cartoon of a woman standing in front of a wine cellar with a look of exasperation on her face. Clo really liked the picture. I nearly fell over when saw Clo assume the exact same posture while pregnant and saying "all this great wine and I can't have any".

Many more amazing things on our dream map have come true. I absolutely recommend creating your own dream map.

The AMA's Priorities

Last week the AMA released a report tilted "Priority Investment Plan for Australia’s Health System". The report describes 7 key areas the AMA feels urgent action is needed to improve the health system. The 7 key areas are:

1. more money to close the health gap between indigenous australians and the rest of the popluation.
2. $830 million dollars to help GPs run better practices
3. more money for more beds in hospitals
4. more money to train more doctors and the AMA should be consulted on what sort of health care providers we need
5. 1.5 billion dollars to help doctors look after patients after they have left the hospital, better funding (more money) for psychaitric nurses and psychologist training (under the supervision of a psychiatrist of course) and more money for rural doctors
6. money to set up better electronic and internet based health care
7. and lastly the federal government should pay for all our public hospital expenses, (instead of the state and federal government paying a bit each)

Now I'm not a GP and I don't work in a hospital so I can't appreciate everything they have to deal with but I did notice a theme amongst the 7 key areas above. Did you see it too? Yep, the words nutrition, diet, food, exercise, sedentary lifestyles, smoking and junk foods didn't appear once. Not even once.

This is amazing when you consider that according to the the Australian Bureau of Statistics the leading causes of death in Australia in 2007 are:

• heart attacks
• strokes
• cancers (mainly trachea and lung)
• dementia and alzhiemers disease
• diabetes

These are mainly lifestyle diseases. Too much of the wrong food, not enough of the right food, smoking, not enough exercise and too much TV. This report reminded me of Bill Maher's rant a couple of years ago were he says "we need to stop making ourselves sick"... and save billions of dollars in the process!

The Rules

Bill Esteb has many more good ideas than just going on a media fast. Today I bring you an except from his book Connecting The Dots.

The fact is, most patients show up to our office because they’ve broken the rules. And with all rules there is a consequence for breaking them. Sporting events have rules. Break the rules and you can receive a 10-yard penalty or you can be ejected from the game. Imagine attempting to play chess, rugby or any other game without knowing the rules. By the time you’ve exhausted the trial and error process in an attempt to learn the rules, you’d lose interest or give up all together. You probably meet people, especially those that have already exhausted medical solutions to their problem, in this state of affairs.

What are the rules? Fortunately, there aren’t too many. In no particular order, here are the ones I know about:

You shall breathe.
It’s the most obvious thing we do after we’re born to declare our independence. If you stop breathing, breathe in a shallow manner or inhale pollutants, there will be a price to be paid.

You shall ingest nutrition.
Eating quality food is needed to provide the essential building blocks, vitamins, enzymes and minerals to fuel, grow and repair your body. If you don’t receive the quality nutrition your body needs, you’ll pay the price later. The same goes with eating too many of the foods that may taste good, but aren’t good for you.

You shall expel wastes.
What goes in, must come out. If it comes out too quickly you’ll suffer. If it takes too long to come out you’ll suffer as well.

You shall have proper hydration.
We’re made mostly of water. Replacing what is lost to facilitate crucial bodily functions is essential. The key is to drink enough fluids so we never feel thirsty.

You shall move.
You were designed to move. A sedentary lifestyle causes stagnation, poor circulation and hampers the function of the lymphatic system while muscle tone suffers.

You shall receive enough rest.
Your body needs time to renew, refresh and repair. This is done largely at night while enjoying restful sleep. Your body will quickly speak up if it needs more or less sleep.

You shall adapt to your environment.
Your nervous system orchestrates every cell and tissue. That’s why chiropractic care is so essential for good health. Once you stop adapting, you’re dead.

You shall love.
You are the product of love. Love yourself and love others. The more you give away, the more you’ll get.

You shall forgive.
You will make mistakes. You will hurt others. You will fall short of the mark. Forgive others as you forgive yourself. And then do better next time.

You shall serve others.
Your life will have meaning and value only to the extent you find someone to serve. Break this rule and your selfishness isolates you.

You shall see this as a journey.
There’s nowhere to get to. You will leave this world as you came into it. With nothing. Become attached to nothing.

You shall die.
Many try to break this one. Even medicine sees death as a disease state. It’s natural. It’s inevitable. It’s even healthy.

Ignore or break any of these rules and there is a price to be paid, based on the seriousness of the infraction. For example, you can go for a period without getting enough restful sleep. The consequence for breaking that rule is different from say, ignoring the obligation to forgive others. Yet, breaking any one of the rules can have a physical, emotional or spiritual price tag that is paid instantly or much later.