Nutrition. Vitamins. You.
? by Ursula Spaulding on Unsplash There are so many reasons why revamping your diet is important. A healthier diet can help you lose weight, give you the energy boost you’ve been looking for, help you sleep better, and even give you clearer, healthier looking …
With summer quickly approaching, it is common to see more individuals than usual hitting the gym and trying their best to maintain their diets. Diets such as a low-carb diet or vegetarian diet can really help you to remove toxic and damaging foods from your …
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) reports that insufficient sleep is associated with a number of chronic diseases and conditions that especially threaten the health of the U.S. population, as high numbers of the population suffer from diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, and depression. A new meta-analysis published in the Biological Psychiatry reports that getting too much or too little sleep also seems to be associated with inflammation, further contributing to depression and other illnesses.
A team from the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology at UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience in California reviewed 72 existing studies, which included over 50,000 participants from population-based and clinical studies, in order to find associations between sleep and inflammatory markers. The analysis shows that poor sleep quality or participants who complained of insomnia (classified as sleep disturbances) and participants who slept more than 8 hours per night (classified as long sleep duration) were associated with high levels of CRP and IL-6. CRP is a C-reactive protein and IL-6 is an interleukin, both of which predict adverse health conditions like hypertension and type-2 diabetes. These factors were used as indicators of inflammation. Shorter sleep duration was associated with increased levels of CRP. No associations were found with TNF? Tumor necrosis factor, another indicator of inflammation.
In short, sleep disturbance and long sleep duration were associated with increases in these markers for inflammation. Short sleep duration was not found to be associated with inflammation.
According to Michael Irwin MD, one of the researchers from UCLA, sleep disturbance or insomnia should be regarded as behavioral risk factors for inflammation, similar to the adverse effects of a high-fat diet or sedentary behavior. Treatments targeting sleep behavior could be a strategy for reversing the inflammation and reducing the risk of inflammatory illnesses. “Together with diet and physical activity, sleep health represents a third component in the promotion of health-span,” said Dr. Irwin.
Nicole Crane BS, NTP, Director of Nutrition at InVite Health, explains, “Once the [inflammation] flame has been lit, poor food choices, stress, and poor sleep patterns only fuel the fire. While we cannot always control stress or sleep quality, food choices and essential nutrients are entirely in your hands. The type of fat, the amount of sugar, and the form of carbohydrates you eat are some of the main determining factors in whether you will suffer chronic inflammation or maintain overall wellness. The good news, though, is that nature has provided us with several powerful inflammation regulators, like Omega-3 fatty acids found in fish and krill oil, plus herbs like turmeric and Boswellia. These work by producing immune cells, so you can finally end the damaging cycle of chronic inflammation.”
Need more information? Read Nicole Crane, BS, NTP’s article, “Chronic Inflammation: The Slow Burn of Disease” by clicking here!
Need more information on sleep health? Read “Your Natural Sleep Routine by Dr. Millie Lytle, ND, CNS” by clicking here!
According to the CDC, 39.4% or 78.6 million U.S. adults are obese. This may be due to numerous reasons including sedentary lifestyles and accessibility to fast food. Obtaining calories is effortless; many beverages and foods average the amount of calories the body should consume in …
Phone applications have become a leading source of information and entertainment. But there are many apps that are for more than just gaming and listening to music. Nutrition, fitness and wellness applications (apps) have been developed to help keep you on a fast track to …
To skip or not to skip? That is the question!
No matter how many nutritionists you speak to or what the rules of your latest fad diets are, you’ll most likely hear that breakfast is the one meal that you should absolutely never skip. But what if eating breakfast or skipping it actually has no effect on your weight loss efforts?
In a recent study conducted by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers found that dieters who skipped breakfast lost just as much weight as dieters who ate breakfast regularly. Researchers also concluded that while breakfast can have several health benefits, weight loss is not one of them.
Lead study author Emily Dhurandhar stated, “Previous studies have mostly demonstrated correlation, but not necessarily causation, when comparing skipping breakfast and the likelihood of being overweight.” According to study results, skipping breakfast doesn’t seem to cause weight gain. Researchers followed a group of 309 adults who wanted to lose weight and split them into three groups for 16 weeks. All three groups lost the same amount of weight on average. This shows that whether you choose to eat breakfast or skip it actually doesn’t matter much when it comes to weight loss.
However, there were some limitations to the study. The participants of the study were able to freely choose what they ate every day. Body fat and metabolism were not taken into consideration for the study. Also, the short 16 week timeframe may have been too short to see the bigger picture.
A nutrition expert and author of “The Green Box League of Nutritious Justice,” Keith Kantor, stated that eating breakfast is still a good idea regardless of weight loss because it creates a routine. “Skipping means eating at random times throughout the day and requires more of a thought process, which allows more room for negative behaviors like skipping exercise or grabbing fast food due to lack of planning.”
Overall, eating breakfast is a good idea. It is a great way to start your day and to make sure your body is getting the right protein and energy it needs to get ready for the day.
Source: http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com