Jocelyn Aguilar felt bad enough after the first of a scheduled four rounds of chemotherapy that she thought about quitting.

She had no detectable cancer after undergoing double mastectomy for breast cancer, so the chemotherapy was an optional treatment that Aguilar, age 37 when diagnosed in October 2019, had chosen to reduce the risk of recurrence.

She ultimately decided to continue because, starting with her next round of chemotherapy, she was going to help test a counterintuitive-but-promising strategy for reducing chemotherapys side effects and increasing its cancer-fighting power: a very low-calorie diet designed to mimic the effects of fasting.

On weeks (when) I was due to receive chemo that Friday, I got four boxes of food labeled Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. The only food I ate those days came from that days box. On Saturday morning, I woke up and eased myself back into normal eating, says Aguilar, a nurse who works at the University of Southern California (USC), where the trial took place.

The pain I experienced with that first round of chemo, before the fasting, was so terrible that I didnt think I could go on, says Aguilar, who described the sensation as aches and pains all over her body. With the fast, there were still some effects, but they were not nearly as bad. It was a huge difference.

Aguilar says that her food boxes each contained about 300 calories worth of plant-based food. The diet is billed by its distributor as containing micro- and macronutrients that are nourishing but not recognized as food by the body, which mimics fasting.

Its hard to imagine a more counterintuitive cancer treatment than fasting why deprive the body of vital nutrients when it would seem to need them most? but a growing body of research suggests that fasting decreases the toxicity of cancer treatments and may increase their efficacy too.

Some evidence also shows that a ketogenic diet, which deprives the body of carbohydrates rather than all calories, may increase the efficacy of some cancer treatments. In fact, there is even some thought that the two diets may help prevent cancer, although evidence for this is currently limited.

When it comes to supplementing cancer therapies, the benefits of either dietary intervention also have yet to be definitively proven unless youre a mouse. The animal data for fasting, which started in our lab but is now coming from many labs, is extraordinary. Its hard to think of anything in the past, ever, that has done better, says Valter Longo, who holds a doctorate in biochemistry and is the Edna M. Jones Professor of Gerontology and Biological Sciences and the director of the Longevity Institute at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology.

Healthy cells and tumor cells respond differently to fasting. Healthy cells shut down their growth-promoting pathways shortly after the food stops coming in and focus on cell repair. Cancer cells, on the other hand, rarely slow their unrestrained growth enough to engage in this self-protective behavior.

Fasting thus increases the ability of healthy cells to withstand stressors such as chemotherapyor radiotherapy, but it leaves cancer cells, which suddenly have less nutritional support to sustain their rapid growth, unusually weak and vulnerable.

Fasting also depletes stored carbohydrates. Normal cells can adapt to this by running mostly on two fat-derived energy sources fatty acids and ketones but cancer cells are far more reliant on sugars, starches and the insulin that drives them into cells.

Most of the mouse studies to date have assessed fastings effect on chemotherapy or radiotherapy, but at least one study has found that a low-calorie fasting- mimicking diet (FMD) plus simple vitamin C can slow the progression of KRAS-mutated colon cancer. Another study, this one published in the prestigious journal Nature, found that both fasting and a FMD increased and extended the efficacy of the hormonal treatments tamoxifen and Faslodex (fulvestrant) in mouse models of hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer.

The first clinical trial of short-term fasting in humans, which was published in 2009, reported results in 10 patients with various types of cancer. It found that fasting reduced chemotherapy-related toxicities fatigue, weakness and gastrointestinal side effects in the six patients who fasted 48 to 140 hours before and five to 56 hours after some (but not all) of their chemotherapy sessions.

Several other trials in humans, all of them following small patient populations for short periods of time, have also found that fasting reduced treatment-related toxicities such as fatigue or DNA damage in healthy cells. For example, one Dutch trial assigned six patients with breast cancer to follow normal dietary guidelines and seven others to fast 24 hours before and after chemotherapy. Nonhematological toxicity did not differ between the two groups, but the researchers found evidence that fasting reduced bone marrow toxicity and reduced chemotherapy-induced DNA damage in some healthy blood cells.

Data from several of these small trials also suggested that fasting increased treatment efficacy, but none of them were large enough (or lasted long enough) to prove that fasting extended patients survival. There is even less evidence to support the use of fasting or the ketogenic diet in combination with immunotherapy treatments, although that remains a tantalizing possibility.

The only large trial in humans to have reported results so far was inconclusive for a somewhat unexpected reason.

Investigators randomly assigned 131 Dutch women, all of whom were slated to receive chemotherapy for stage 2/3 HER2-negative breast cancer, either to eat according to standard guidelines or to follow the FMD. Sixty-six of the women were assigned to follow the FMD but, unfortunately, so few actually complied that it was impossible to evaluate the diets effects. Just 32% of women in the fasting group fasted before at least half of their chemotherapy cycles, and just 24% of them fasted before all of them.

Patient noncompliance was particularly disappointing because the FMD was designed by Longo who has a financial interest in a company that sells FMD meal kits as a less demanding way to get all the effects of a true, zero-calorie fast.

It wasnt easy, says Aguilar, but it was doable. Im not normally a healthy eater, and I was being given steroids at the time, so my appetite was out of control, but I still managed it because it reduced the pain so much.

Hopefully, patients in several other large studies, all of which are nearing their scheduled completion dates, will comply with fasting protocols well enough to help researchers determine whether short-term fasting can extend life, reduce treatment toxicity or both for patients with glioblastoma, non-small cell lung cancer, lung adenocarcinoma, ovarian cancer, breast cancer and colorectal cancer.

Positive results could change standards of care for all those tumor types within the next couple of years.

For patients who cant wait that long to select their treatment plan, the obvious question is whether they should ask their oncologists about starting now with short- term fasts or the FMD.

Some experts believe its too early to use fasting anywhere outside of clinical trials.Indeed, a group of Italian clinicians recently published a letter in Nature Reviews Cancer that cautioned against what they perceive as excessive enthusiasm about fastings potential benefits and insufficient caution about its potential to harm some patients.

It is worrying that the application of fasting in oncology has been prematurely reported by the media as a potential advance in medical oncology, to the point where FMD kits have recently been commercialized, the clinicians wrote. These may negatively interfere with cancer care, as patients at risk of malnutrition or sarcopenia (muscle loss) could autonomously decrease protein-calorie intake during treatment.

Longo agrees that neither malnourished patients nor those who are responding to their current treatment should try fasting or the FMD outside of clinical trials. However, he believes the data from both animal models and early human trials are strong enough to make fasting an option when approved treatments stop working.

I think (the evidence so far) is enough for an oncologist to say, Look, your therapy isnt working. Im out of options here. This fasting-mimicking diet is so effective in mice. Why dont we give it a shot? You have to understand there are risks, but you also have to understand that were out of options. That conversation would be appropriate now, Longo says.

Fasting isnt the only way to drive blood sugar and insulin down. Patients can achieve nearly equivalent reductions by following a ketogenic diet that provides about 80% of calories from fat, 12% from protein and 8% from carbohydrates.

Low sugar consumption means low blood sugar, which, in turn, means low levels of insulin a hormone secreted by the pancreas to drive sugar into muscles and fuel their growth and/or activity. Healthy tissue, as mentioned before, can adapt to deriving nearly all its energy fromfat, although many people feel pretty drained for a week or so at the beginning of that adjustment. (This lousy feeling is known as keto flu.) Many tumors, on the other hand, seem far less able to overcome their dependence on insulin and sugar (aka glucose).

Weve known for 100 years that cancer cells take up glucose at a much higher rate than do the normal tissues from which those cancer cells emerge, says Lewis Cantley, who holds a doctorate in biophysical chemistry and is the Meyer Director of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center and a professor of cancer biology in medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College.

This does not mean that patients can starve their tumors to death simply by following ketogenic diets, but it has led many researchers to speculate that adding a ketogenic diet to standard treatment protocols might increase the efficacy of many of those regimens.

It has been difficult to test this theory, however. Because no pharmaceutical company canpatent a ketogenic diet, no one has a financial incentive to spend the millions of dollars that largestudies cost. Instead, studies get funded through the National Institutes of Health and foundation grants. Tests of FMDs face the same issue.

The ketogenic diet also runs into the same problem that makes it hard to test fasting: patient compliance. Indeed, researchers who work for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Pittsburgh enrolled 11 patients with cancer in a 16-week trial of the ketogenic diet. Only four of them actually followed the diet all 16 weeks.

In spite of the challenges, several recent discoveries suggest that ketogenic diets may be particularly helpful for certain cancer treatments helpful enough to drive funding and convince patients to follow the diet.

Cantley discovered a previously unknown link between sugar, insulin and cancer growth more than three decades ago: an enzyme called phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) that helps drive sugar into cells. Mutations in the genes that regulate PI3K causing an increase in PI3K activity are among the most common of all cancer mutations.

His discovery eventually led to the creation of PI3K- inhibiting medications, three of which have been approved for the treatment of several cancers. But all three have a big drawback.

When you give patients a PI3 kinase inhibitor, which hits the same enzyme that propagates the insulin response, you get the unsurprising result that the patient instantly becomes insulin resistant. Many of the patients in the trials of these drugs had to drop out because of high blood sugar, Cantley says.

Extra insulin, whether created by the body in response to rising blood sugar or deliberately injected, will solve the problem by driving the sugar into muscles, but it also drives sugar into tumors and destroys treatment efficacy.

Cantleys team hypothesized that PI3K inhibitors would be far safer and more effective if used in combination with some tool that would control blood sugar without driving it into tissues. They saw dramatically improved results in mice when they paired PI3K inhibitors with a class of diabetes medications called SGLT2 inhibitors, which reduce the bodys absorption of glucose via the kidneys so that excess glucose is excreted through the urine. Results were better still when they fed mice a ketogenic diet.

Blood sugar levels hardly went up. Insulin levels hardly went up. Tumors melted away, says Cantley, who also has a financial interest in a company that makes prepackaged meals for patients with cancer. Every tumor we tried essentially disappeared whenever we gave a PI3 kinase inhibitor with a ketogenic diet.

A large human trial will compare the current standard for using PI3K inhibitors against treatment plans that combine PI3K inhibitors with either SGLT2 inhibitors or a ketogenic diet. The ongoing global pandemic delayed the trial for several months, but enrollment has now begun.

And its not the only trial thats testing the ketogenic diets effect on cancer treatments. At least 18 other such studies are either recruiting patients or preparing to do so.

The whole thing comes down to energy. Without energy, nothing can grow, says Thomas N. Seyfried, who holds a doctorate in genetics and biochemistry and is a biology professor at Boston College who studies how metabolic therapies such as a ketogenic diet can affect cancer and other diseases. Tumor cells make energy by fermenting glucose and the amino acid glutamine. If we restrict the availability of glucose and glutamine, this will create tremendous metabolic stress on the tumor cells.

Continued here:
Early Evidence Shows Fasting, Keto Diet May Make Chemo and Some Other Cancer Treatments More Effective and Easier to Tolerate - Curetoday.com

After fasting for five days, Gayle King pulled an all-nighter all while wearing her favorite yellow dress.

The journalist, who covered the 2020 election on live TV, shared that after finishing Tuesday nights election coverage, that went well into Wednesday, she didnt have time to go home before her call-time for her CBS This Morning hosting duties. Marathon hours means no time to go home to change, she wrote on Instagram, noting that she slept for 45 minutes on a couch in the office. TV news so glamorous!

King didnt change into pajamas for her power nap. Rather, she stayed in the dress to rest and then woke up and went back to work.

King staying in her dress may have been a necessity but its clear shes not exactly mad about getting to show off her look two days in a row. Why? Because she put in the work to look and feel her best in, as she called it, THEEE yellow dress aka Elex nite dress!

The 65-year-old shared ahead of Tuesdays broadcast that she had been on a five-day soup fast in order to fit in the dress and lost more than 7 pounds. While theres no questioning that King looks fantastic in the yellow mustard dress, a color that she frequently wears, it might be fair to question if her methodology for fitting into the dress was actually healthy for her.

So what is a soup diet? Well, as you may have guessed, its a diet where you only eat soup, usually in hopes of losing weight quickly. It can certainly be an effective strategy but its not exactly a sustainable way to keep off weight and get healthy.

"The concept of eating soup to lose weight has spanned decades, but experts say an all-soup diet lacks nutrients and is not sustainable, Chrissy Carroll, RD, MPH told Very Well Fit. They do agree it can be smart to eat vegetable-packed soups for some meals though, as these are filling, nutrient-dense, and low in calories."

Why is it not sustainable? A few reasons. First, if taken to extremes, a soup diet could lead to a dangerously low daily caloric intake, which comes with all sorts of risks, including increasing stress levels, not meeting your nutrient needs and slowing your metabolism. A soup diet can also reduce your intake of grains and fruits, which are both recommended as part of a balanced diet.

Fortunately, it seems unlikely that King is going to adopt the soup diet as a permanent part of her life, as she has spoken openly in the past about how she is not willing to go to extremes when it comes to her diet.

Some people dont eat pasta or bread or sweets ever, she said in O, The Magazine. I love those foods too much. So for the most part, I eat healthy, but if I go to a party or on vacation, Im going to enjoy it; then I work extra hard to get back to where I was.

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Gayle King went on a 5-day fast diet to fit into her yellow election night dress: 'The results are in!' - Yahoo Sports

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2020 has gone in such a way that most people have been staying inside as often as possible. Which means that people arent going out and getting the sun they need. Especially as the weather gets colder, you wont go out as often. Which is why you need the Here Comes The Sun Diet Supplement in your life.

When you need some dietary supplements that help to boost your bodys health, Hum Nutrition is the place to go. So many great options that are made from all-natural ingredients. That way you get nothing but the best inside you. And the Here Comes The Sun Diet Supplement is a perfect example of the quality.

What you get when you take the Here Comes The Sun Diet Supplement is pretty much explained in the name. You get all the nutrients that you get from sunlight, but without the harmful UV rays hitting your skin. Itll make it a whole lot easier to stay inside with these in the home.

Inside the Here Comes The Sun Diet Supplement is Vitamin D3. Thats it. All you need is right there. Vitamin D3 is the active form, which is what the body uses more efficiently. With plenty of D3 in your system, you will see an increase in bone strength, immunity strength, heart health, and muscle retention.

All you need to do is take 1 soft-gel a day, at any time with food. And then, the Here Comes The Sun Diet Supplement is doing the good work. So if you want to stay healthy and limber indoors while its cold out, you should pick up a bottle now. Itll do your body a whole lot of good.

Get It: Pick up the Here Comes The Sun Diet Supplement ($12) at Hum Nutrition

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Boost Your Immunity With This Here Comes The Sun Diet Supplement - Men's Journal

There are two types of inflammation, one acts as a defence mechanism of the body, while the other is the slow one that continues working in the background. The latter type of inflammation is bad for the body and is called chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation over time can take a toll on your health.Chronic inflammation can up your risk of developing serious diseases like diabetes, heart disease, cancer, autoimmune disease, depression, arthritis, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. Chronic inflammation has no visible symptoms and thus is hard to be detected. But there is no harm in being proactive and simply eating a diet that reduces inflammation. Here is the best food that can reduce chronic inflammation in the body.

Best food to reduce inflammationAs per experts, omega 3 does wonders in reducing inflammation. Eating foods rich in omega 3 like salmon and other oily fatty fish is your best bet to combat chronic inflammation.

The EPS and DHA in omega 3 play a role in preventing pro-inflammatory compounds and inflammatory processes and encourages the production of anti-inflammatory compounds.

Studies have shown that taking omega 3 supplements help combat inflammation related to conditions to rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's lupus, type 1 diabetes, asthma, psoriasis, heart disease and more.

Various other researchers have shown that taking omega 3 supplements for four months lowered the inflammation in middle-aged and older adults.

Not just foods rich in omega 3, there are 3 other foods that can help combat inflammation. These include leafy greens, cruciferous vegetables and berries. Including leafy greens in your daily diet and having berries several times a week can also help.

Having leafy green vegetables regularly can lower the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancers and brain deterioration. Add 6 cups of different green vegetables like lettuce, spinach, kale etc in your weekly diet.

According to a study, people who ate 2 cups of cruciferous vegetables a day for two weeks, saw an improvement in inflammatory markers.

Aim for at least 5 servings of vegetables like broccoli, sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, bok choy, arugula and radish

Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, cranberries and blackberries are packed with antioxidants and anthocyanins, which fight the free radical that promote inflammation. Aim for having at least two cups of berries per week.

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This is the best food to fight inflammation - Times of India

Do these folks ever sleep? Thats the question we all had as we tuned into network coverage of this Election Day Continued.

Many saw anchors such as NBCs Lester Holt and ABCs George Stephanopoulos when they shut off their TVs late Tuesday night and then saw them again when they turned on their TVs Wednesday morning.

Consider this exchange on Fox News when Dana Perino asked Bill Hemmer if he got any sleep.

Hemmer said, Forty-five minutes. What about you?

Perino said, I doubled that. But I have to tell you, that hour-and-a-half sleep that I had was like nothing I think I dont think Ive ever experienced a deep sleep like that.

Hemmer said, Were running on fumes. The thing about our industry Dana, and you know it very well, when there is information, when there is data, when the story is changing, you can run on adrenaline for a long time. Its those periods where you hit the walls and nothing is new and you start to think Hmm, whats next? And thats when you feel it.

But all on-air personalities on all networks seemed to be going strong, even in the middle of the night, even after 16 or 17 hours of being on the air. Holt told me last week that he was bringing an extra suit, and by Wednesday morning, he had changed into that suit.

Steve Kornacki, MSNBCs map guy, had been up for more than 24 hours, according to The Washington Posts Jeremy Barr. Kornacki even posted a video on Twitter to thank everyone for their kind words. Barr also reported that CNNs map guru, John King, left the studio at 4 a.m. Wednesday morning, slept for about two hours and then was back on the air by 11 a.m. As I mentioned above, Hemmer slept for 45 minutes, as did NBCs Chuck Todd.

How do they do it? Sounds like lots of caffeine is involved. Kornacki told GQs Gabriella Paiella before the coverage that hes all about the Diet Cokes.

Way too many and too many to count, Kornacki told Paniella. On a normal day, Ill have a couple. But on election night, I just keep it nearby and Im just kind of regularly using it. These days (people) all tell you, Oh, do you know whats in that? And I say, Well, no I dont.

Poynter is providing around-the-clock coverage and analysis of the 2020 election.Follow along on our live blogfor more.

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Nearing 24 hours of election coverage, TV news anchors are running on fumes and Diet Coke - Poynter

My friends, winter is coming. Between flu season and being in the midst of a global pandemic, its really easy to get sucked into the fear narrative, get angry at the behaviors of others, and feel powerless to do anything.

Realistically, none of us can control other peoples behavior. We cant stop people from having big family gatherings, packing bars or attending large events. We cant control whether or not people practice social distancing or mask wearing, either.

But, do you know what you can do? You can be cautious with your own behavior and you can take control over your own health and build resiliency. Because, real talk, many of us will contract COVID-19 or influenza. Its our job and our responsibility to make sure our health is in tip-top shape so that our immune systems can tackle any virus that comes along.

So, how does someone go about building resilience? These are the top five strategies I use with both myself and my patients.

Take out the dietary trash. Food plays a huge role in, well, everything! Generally, I advise patients to eat food that looks like it did when it came from the farm. Or at least as close as you can get. If you need a chemistry degree to read a food label, look for something that is closer to real food, because what you have in your hand is too processed. Soda (regular and diet) and sugary foods need to go out the door, too. And alcohol has been a big problem for many people ever since our movements have been more restricted by the pandemic. It needs to be used minimally, if at all.

Get moving. Body composition plays a large role in the inflammatory and immune response. Adipose (fat) cells are, by nature, more inflammatory and people with a lot of adipose tissue will have a poorer response to both influenza and COVID-19 infection. Building muscle and losing fat can be a huge benefit for the immune system and pretty much any system in the body. There are a few exceptions, but I recommend at least a few sessions with a personal trainer for patients so that they dont injure themselves in the pursuit of fitness. Luckily, we have many fantastic personal trainers in Flagstaff who can get you off the couch and moving.

Modulate your stress response. Feeling fearful and stressed can contribute to depression and anxiety, tank the immune system, and contribute to weight gain. Those fight or flight hormones arent designed to be elevated all the time, but we have a lot of tripwires in our world that will trigger stress and fear. Common triggers are social media, news intake, school and work. Take a good look at your triggers, because some are controllable and some arent. Do you need a social media fast? News diet? Or do you need to see a counselor or other health professional to learn some tools to manage how you respond to work or school stress?

Socialize. We humans are social animals and our immune systems know it! Too much time alone isnt healthy for humans and there are safe ways to socialize in the midst of a pandemic. I have heard some great ways that my patients have been able to get creative and see family and friends safely. Being outdoors and distanced is a pretty simple and relatively safe way to maintain those vital connections.

Targeted nutrients can help. I cant recommend nutrients in this article, but I do recommend nutrients for patients if they have any gaps in their diet or they need specialized support. I do a detailed intake on patients before putting them on supplements or medications. But, I will say this, because I can never say it enough: You cant out-supplement or out-medicate a poor diet and lifestyle.

I want to finish this article by telling you about a patient I recently saw who really impressed me as an example of building resilience by taking a few simple steps. I saw this patients annual blood work results before she came in for her visit and her labs were greatly improved over the previous years labs. Her inflammatory markers were lower, her Vitamin D levels were improved, and her blood sugar had decreased. I was excited to speak with her and hear what changes she had made. When she got to my office for her physical, I found she had lost 50 pounds! Want to know how she did it? She cut sugar, including soda, out of her diet and started walking every day. Thats it. Those two simple changes she made drastically increase her chances of surviving COVID-19 or influenza if she ends up being exposed. I know you can get your health house in order and build resilience, too! FBN

By Amber Belt, ND

Amber Belt, N.D. is a naturopathic physician with sharp regenerative injection skills, a roller derby enthusiast, a business owner, an animal lover and a Flagstaff devotee. She has been performing regenerative injections for 12 years and can be contacted via aspenmedcenter.com or at 928-213-5828.

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Building Resilience: Five Simple Steps to Thrive - Flagstaff Business & Online News | Northern Arizona Local Newspaper - Flagstaff Business News

Are you fed up with restless nights and drowsy days? Does life seem to have come at a standstill, and nothing improves or gets worse? Has your happiness become a little less joyful? Are you frequently feeling under the cloud?

If your answer to two or more of these questions is yes, then youre at the right place looking for answers. But before we move any forward, pat yourself on the back for trying to improve. Most people dont even do that!

Health and lifestyle are more interconnected than you know. Improving one naturally improves the other, but how do you do that? Well, its not that easy, and its not that difficult either. Its how you look at it. And to make it easier for you to improve your health and lifestyle, here are a few tips that will be of help.

Declining health and lifestyle are indicators of a lack of motivation. And to make any changes in your lifestyle, you need a solid source of inspiration. Your motivation may come from your family, yourself, or your career, but it has to be something.

You arrive at his point in life for different reasons. Maybe youve lost a motivating force in life (breakup or separation), or youve achieved the goals you had set for yourself. So, what now?

In either case, you need to set a different source of motivation for yourself. Instead of spiraling in negative thoughts and emotions, make out what you really want. Do you dream of buying a fancy house in the better parts of town? Or is it a new car that you cant get your mind off? Or is it to settle down in life and start a family?

The thing that you want the most right now is ideal to find motivation for. Once you have your eyes on the prize, you will be much more focused and determined to make your way. And this is what will bring a shift in your lifestyle. Before all else, such motivation will drive you to improve other aspects of your life as well. It causes a chain reaction and is your first step towards improvement.

Coming over to taking care of your health, nothing fits in perfectly than exercise and working out. Research shows that people who exercise daily live better and fulfilled lives. And that can be attributed to the numerous health benefits it has. It is a major lifestyle change and positive in all entirety.

When you lose motivation in life and welcome stress, your physical activity sees a decline as well. Instead of walking, you prefer lying on the couch, and even getting the lights seems to be one hell of a chore at times.

And due to inactivity, you start experiencing pains in your body and become more vulnerable to catching a cold. But when you pick up where you left off in your physical activities, you immediately turn the tables around.

Working out helps improve your mobility, so you dont feel the annoying neck pain or backache. It improves your metabolism, so you have enough and more sustained energy throughout the day. Also, it boosts your immunity, so youre less vulnerable to seasonal illnesses. And the list goes on to cover mental health benefits and treating chronic diseases.

However, it is also one of the most challenging lifestyle changes to make. And it is not the starting out thats the tricky part. It is sustaining it for the long-term that takes planning and willpower.

A mistake that most people make when starting to work out is expecting quick results. And that compels them to resort to the more aggressive forms of exercise and high-intensity workouts. These are not only difficult to keep up with but impossible to make a lifestyle out of.

To reap the maximum benefits of exercise and have it stick with you for life, start with something that you can easily do. If it is walking, running, swimming, rowing, dancing, or playing a sport, start with it right away! You can then later scale up the intensity or frequency as you see fit. This way, you wont scare yourself away from the workouts and will have a habit of life.

Diet is often an excellent place to start your lifestyle change journey. Indulged in the digital age distractions, we have forgotten about the impact food makes in our life.

Unhealthy eating habits lead to several chronic illnesses like diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular conditions. It is a risk to your life and takes a heavy toll on your mental health. The more junk you eat, the worse you feel through the days of your life. Replacing tacos with a can of beans is too far a shot and is certainly not what I intend to say. So, stay away from the crash diets and, instead, make up a plan for yourself.

You can also add a few food supplements or relaxants to your diet to meet the nutritional requirement. Relaxants CBD buds or herbal teas help you calm down and unwind after a hard days work. They allow you to recover your energy efficiently, so you dont run out of gas the next day at work.

You can buy yourself carious hemp products from a CBD wholesale that helps fight depression and anxiety. Other than that, you can include multiple herbs like rosemary and cinnamon in your meals to keep your health and lifestyle in check.

Sometimes, when life gets too bland, having a change of environment helps you recover better. Going on a vacation, attending a family wedding, making it to your high-school reunion, or spending the weekend with friends are excellent examples of giving yourself a break.

It is only natural to assume that you need a dose of enjoyment after a harsh episode of work. Youve bottled up your emotions for a while, and now is the best time to let them out.

Maybe you can figure your stuff out better when on vacation. Youll have more time to think about your motivation and blessings in life. And more than that, youll have all the time to make a plan and set a deadline for your goals. Taking a break from your normal routine is highly therapeutic and useful in introducing your lifestyle change.

Last but not least, you have to make sure that you act much more frequently on the changes in your life that youve outlined for yourself.

It is essential to remember that lifestyle changes are not temporary. They are permanent. Like brushing your teeth every morning, nobody looks up to it really, but everyone does it because it has to be done.

The more frequently you perform new activities in your life, the bigger difference you will see in how things turn out to be. However, frequency does not mean high intensity. So, dont plan on taking the bulls share of work in a single day. Be lenient on yourself and remind yourself to take one step at a time. And no matter how small that step might be, it is still making a significant change in your life.

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Tips to improve your life with a healthy lifestyle Film Daily - Film Daily

Scientists have completed large-scale tests on a new type of five-minute urine test that measures the health of a person's diet, and produces an individual's unique urine 'fingerprint'.

Scientists at Imperial College London in collaboration with colleagues at Northwestern University, University of Illinois, and Murdoch University, analysed levels of 46 different so-called metabolites in the urine of 1,848 people in the U.S.

Metabolites are considered to be an objective indicator of diet quality - and are produced as different foods are digested by the body, say the research team, who published their findings in the journalNature Food.

The work was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and Health Data Research UK.

Dr Joram Posma, author of the research from Imperial's Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction said: "Diet is a key contributor to human health and disease, though it is notoriously difficult to measure accurately because it relies on an individual's ability to recall what and how much they ate. For instance, asking people to track their diets through apps or diaries can often lead to inaccurate reports about what they really eat. This research reveals this technology can help provide in-depth information on the quality of a person's diet, and whether it is the right type of diet for their individual biological make-up."

The findings revealed an association between 46 metabolites in urine, and types of foods or nutrients in the diet. For instance, certain metabolites correlated with alcohol intake, while others were linked to intake of citrus fruit, fructose (fruit sugar), glucose and vitamin C. The team also found metabolites in urine associated with dietary intake of red meats, other meats such as chicken, and nutrients such as calcium. Certain metabolites were also linked with health conditions - for instance compounds found in urine such as formate and sodium (an indicator of salt intake) are linked with obesity and high blood pressure.

Professor Paul Elliott, study co-author and Chair in Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine at Imperial said: "Through careful measurement of people's diets and collection of their urine excreted over two 24-hour periods we were able to establish links between dietary inputs and urinary output of metabolites that may help improve understanding of how our diets affect health. Healthful diets have a different pattern of metabolites in the urine than those associated with worse health outcomes."

In a second study also published inNature Foodby the same Imperial team, in collaboration with Newcastle University, Aberystwyth University, and Murdoch University and funded by the National Institute for Health Research, the Medical Research Council and Health Data Research UK, the team used this technology to develop a five-minute test to reveal that the mix of metabolites in urine varies from person to person.

The team says the technology, which produces an individual's urine 'fingerprint', could enable people to receive healthy eating advice tailored to their individual biological make-up. This is known as "precision nutrition", and could provide health professionals with more specific information on the quality of a person's diet.

Dr Isabel Garcia-Perez, author of the research also from Imperial's Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction explained: "Our technology can provide crucial insights into how foods are processed by individuals in different ways - and can help health professionals such as dieticians provide dietary advice tailored to individual patients."

Dr Garcia-Perez added that the team now plan to use the diet analysis technology on people at risk of cardiovascular disease.

The researchers say this urine 'fingerprint' can be used to develop an individual's personal score - called the Dietary Metabotype Score, or DMS.

In their experiments, the team asked 19 people to follow four different diets - ranging from very healthy (following 100 per cent of World Health Organisation recommendations for a balanced diet), to unhealthy (following 25 per cent WHO diet recommendations).

The team found that people who strictly followed the same diet had varied DMS scores.

The team's work also revealed that the higher a person's DMS score, the healthier their diet. A higher DMS score was also found to be associated with lower blood sugar, and a higher amount of energy excreted from the body in urine.

The team found the difference between high energy urine (i.e. high DMS score) and low energy urine (low DMS score) was equivalent to someone with a high DMS score losing an extra 4 calories a day, or 1,500 calories a year. The team calculate this could translate to a difference of 215g of body fat per year.

The next step is to investigate how a person's urine metabolite fingerprint may link to a person's risk of conditions such as obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure. Professor Gary Frost, co-author of the research and Chair in Nutrition and Dietetics at Imperial said: "These findings bring a new and more in-depth understanding to how our bodies process and use food at the molecular level. The research brings into question whether we should re-write food tables to incorporate these new metabolites that have biological effects in the body."

Professor John Mathers, co-author of research and Director of the Human Nutrition Research Centre at Newcastle University said: "We show here how different people metabolise the same foods in highly individual ways. This has implications for understanding the development of nutrition-related diseases and for more personalised dietary advice to improve public health."

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Urine test reveals quality of your diet -- and whether it's the best fit for your body - Jill Lopez

November 2, 2020 2:15 PM

Posted: November 2, 2020 2:15 PM

Updated: November 3, 2020 5:37 AM

Recently, a Harvard Heart Letter reader emailed to say he was puzzled by a statement in the July issue namely, the one saying that low-fat diets dont seem to prevent heart disease. Dont most major health organizations, including the American Heart Association, recommend a low-fat diet? he asked.

Yes, they did for more than 40 years. But over the past decade, the American Heart Association, the federal dietary guidelines and other nutrition authorities have shifted away from advising people to limit the total amount of fat in their diets.

Instead, the focus is on an overall healthy dietary pattern. That means an eating style that emphasizes vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and beans, along with only modest or small amounts of meat, dairy, eggs, and sweets, says Dr. Eric Rimm, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

The reality is that eating more whole or minimally processed, plant-based foods will naturally lower your intake of fat, especially saturated fat. Found mainly in meat and dairy products, saturated fat can boost levels of harmful LDL cholesterol, a key contributor to heart disease. But simply cutting back on all types of fat does not necessarily translate into a diet that lowers cardiovascular risk.

Starting in the 1980s, when food manufacturers and consumers cut the fat from their products and diets, they replaced it with refined carbohydrates. People filled up on bread, pasta, low-fat chips and cookies, and low-fat sweetened yogurt. Eating lots of these highly processed carbohydrates floods your bloodstream with sugar, triggering a release of insulin to clear the sugar from your blood. But that can push your blood sugar too low, leaving you hungry again after just a few hours, which encourages overeating and weight gain. Whats more, a steady diet of these unhealthy carbs can eventually impair your bodys ability to respond to insulin, which can lead to diabetes. Both obesity and diabetes are closely linked to a heightened risk of heart disease.

But eating too many refined carbs wasnt the only problem. Avoiding unsaturated fats those found in nuts, seeds, olives, avocados, and fish isnt necessary. Not only do these foods make your meals more satisfying and tasty, unsaturated fat promotes cardiovascular health.

Some physicians advocate an ultra-low-fat diet, which includes just 10% of calories from fat. This diet excludes all animal-based products (such as meat, poultry, dairy, and fish), as well as refined carbohydrates (including white flour, white sugar, and even fruit juice).

But it also shuns some healthier unsaturated fats, including added oils and high-fat, plant-based foods such as avocados and nuts. Small studies have shown that this eating pattern may actually reverse the buildup of cholesterol-clogged plaque in the arteries.

At least some of that benefit may stem from the abundant fiber and other nutrients in the diets copious amounts of vegetables, beans, and whole grains, all of which are fairly scarce in the typical American diet. The only problem with an ultra-low-fat vegan diet is that its very challenging for most people to stick to over the long term. If you are among the 1% of people who can, may the Force be with you, says Dr. Rimm.

For everyone else, a Mediterranean-style diet offers the best of both worlds: a plant-centric diet thats not overly restrictive. The Mediterranean diet doesnt require extreme eating habits that make it difficult to socialize with other people, he says. Whats more, he adds, it tastes good and has the best evidence from long-term clinical studies for lowering a persons risk of heart disease.

To ease into this eating style, look over these suggestions from registered dietitian Kathy McManus, director of the Department of Nutrition at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Womens Hospital. Choose one, try it for a week, then gradually add more changes over time, she advises.

Switch from whatever fats you use now to extravirgin olive oil. Start by using olive oil when cooking, including in salad dressings. Try swapping olive oil for butter on crusty bread.

Have salad every day. Choose crisp, dark greens and whatever vegetables are in season.

Go nuts. Instead of a bag of chips or cookies, have a handful of raw nuts as a healthy snack.

Add more whole grains to your meals. Experiment with bulgur, barley, farro, brown rice, and whole-grain pasta. Select dense, chewy, country-style bread without added sugar or butter.

Add a variety of vegetables to your menus. Add an extra serving of vegetables to both lunch and dinner, aiming for three to four servings a day. Try a new vegetable every week.

Eat at least three servings of legumes a week. Options include lentils, chickpeas, pinto beans, and black beans.

Eat less meat. Choose lean poultry in moderate, 3- to 4-ounce portions. Save red meat for occasional consumption or use meat as a condiment, accompanied by lots of vegetables, as in stews, stir-fries, and soups. Eat more fish, aiming for two servings a week. Both canned and fresh fish are fine.

Cut out sugary beverages. Replace soda and juices with water.

Eat fewer high-fat, high-sugar desserts. Fresh fruit or poached fruit is best. Aim for three servings of fresh fruit a day. Save cakes and pastries for special occasions.

More:
A heart-healthy diet doesn't need to be low in fat - KXLY Spokane

Environmental factors involving diet may play an important role in the onset and development of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs), especially in their early stages. That is because of the involvement of dietary patterns and nutrients in shaping inflammatory responses that become detrimental if they persist over the long term.

A new nationwide cohort study shows the association between the inflammatory potential of diet and risk of Crohns disease.

The authors used an empirical dietary inflammatory score, derived by weighting food groups based on their relationship with plasma inflammatory markers (i.e., C-reactive protein, interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor a receptor 2), to explore the link between dietary inflammatory potential and risk of incident IBD.

A new nationwide cohort study shows the association between the inflammatory potential of diet and risk of Crohns disease

The index assesses the inflammatory potential of diet and is the weighted sum of 18 food groups based on food frequency questionnaire data, with higher scores indicating proinflammatory diets (e.g., processed and red meat, some fish, refined grains and high-energy beverages) and lower scores indicating anti-inflammatory diets (e.g., dark yellow and green leafy vegetables, tea, coffee, beer and wine).

The sample under study consisted of 328 cases of incident Crohns disease and 428 cases of incident ulcerative colitis from 3 large prospective cohorts in the United States.

Dietary patterns with high inflammatory potential were associated with increased risk of Crohns disease, compared with participants who showed a high intake of foods with lower inflammatory potential.

The authors also examined whether change in dietary inflammatory potential could affect the risk of IBD. Participants who shifted from a low to a high inflammatory potential diet and those who usually consumed a proinflammatory diet showed a greater risk of Crohns disease, compared with participants who persistently consumed a diet with low inflammatory potential.

Dietary patterns with high inflammatory potential were associated with increased risk of Crohns disease

In contrast, different levels of dietary inflammatory potential were not linked to risk of ulcerative colitis.

On the whole, the current study highlights the importance of diet in the development of Crohns disease by modulating inflammatory mechanisms. Although more mechanistic data and intervention controlled studies are needed, the findings show that what you eat is an important modifiable factor in IBD prevention.

Reference:

Lo CH, Lochhead P, Khalili H, et al. Dietary inflammatory potential and risk of Crohns disease and ulcerative colitis. Gastroenterology. 2020;159(3):873-883. doi: 10.1053/j.gastro.2020.05.011.

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The inflammatory potential of diet is tied to Crohn's disease risk but not to ulcerative colitis, suggests a new observational study - Gut Microbiota...