By Grayson Jaggers

The connection between the pandemic and our dietary habits is undeniable. The stress of isolation coupled with a struggling economy has caused many of us to seek comfort with our old friends: Big Mac, Tom Collins, Ben and Jerry. But overindulging in this kind of food and drink might not just be affecting your waistline, but could potentially put you at greater risk of illness by hindering your immune system.

Hear the word "nutrition," and often what comes to mind are fad diets, juice "cleanses" and supplements. Americans certainly seem concerned with their weight; 45 million of us spend US$33 billion annually on weight loss products. But one in five Americans consumes nearly no vegetables less than one serving per day.

When the emphasis is on weight loss products, and not healthy day-to-day eating, the essential role that nutrition plays in keeping us well never gets communicated. Among the many things I teach students in my nutritional biochemistry course is the clear relationship between a balanced diet and a strong, well-regulated immune system.

Along with social distancing measures and effective vaccines, a healthy immune system is our best defense against coronavirus infection. To keep it that way, proper nutrition is an absolute must. Although not a replacement for medicine, good nutrition can work synergistically with medicine to improve vaccine effectiveness, reduce the prevalence of chronic disease and lower the burden on the health care system.

Scientists know that people with preexisting health conditions are at greater risk for severe COVID-19 infections. That includes those with diabetes, obesity, and kidney, lung or cardiovascular disease. Many of these conditions are linked to a dysfunctional immune system.

Patients with cardiovascular or metabolic disease have a delayed immune response, giving viral invaders a head start. When that happens, the body reacts with a more intense inflammatory response, and healthy tissues are damaged along with the virus. It's not yet clear how much this damage factors into the increased mortality rate, but it is a factor.

What does this have to do with nutrition? The Western diet typically has a high proportion of red meat, saturated fat and what's known as "bliss point foods" rich in sugar and salt. Adequate fruit and vegetable consumption is missing. Despite the abundance of calories that often accompanies the Western diet, many Americans don't consume nearly enough of the essential nutrients our bodies need to function properly, including vitamins A, C and D, and the minerals iron and potassium. And that, at least in part, causes a dysfunctional immune system: too few vitamins and minerals, and too many empty calories.

A healthy immune system responds quickly to limit or prevent infection, but it also promptly "turns down the dial" to avoid damaging the cells of the body. Sugar disrupts this balance. A high proportion of refined sugar in the diet can cause chronic, low-grade inflammation in addition to diabetes and obesity. Essentially, that "dial" is never turned all the way off.

While inflammation is a natural part of the immune response, it can be harmful when it's constantly active. Indeed, obesity is itself characterized by chronic, low-grade inflammation and a dysregulated immune response.

And research shows that vaccines may be less effective in obese people. The same applies to those who regularly drink too much alcohol.

Nutrients, essential substances that help us grow properly and remain healthy, help maintain the immune system. In contrast to the delayed responses associated with malnutrition, vitamin A fights against multiple infectious diseases, including measles. Along with vitamin D, it regulates the immune system and helps to prevent its overactivation. Vitamin C, an antioxidant, protects us from the injury caused by free radicals.

Polyphenols, a wide-ranging group of molecules found in all plants, also have anti-inflammatory properties. There's plenty of evidence to show a diet rich in plant polyphenols can lower the risk of chronic conditions, like hypertension, insulin insensitivity and cardiovascular disease.

Why don't we Americans eat more of these plant-based foods and fewer of the bliss-based foods? It's complicated. People are swayed by advertising and influenced by hectic schedules. One starting place would be to teach people how to eat better from an early age. Nutrition education should be emphasized, from kindergarten through high school to medical schools.

Millions of Americans live in food deserts, having limited access to healthy foods. In these circumstances, education must be paired with increased access. These long-term goals could bring profound returns with a relatively small investment.

Meantime, all of us can take small steps to incrementally improve our own dietary habits. I'm not suggesting we stop eating cake, french fries and soda completely. But we as a society have yet to realize the food that actually makes us feel good and healthy is not comfort food.

The COVID-19 pandemic won't be the last we face, so it's vital that we use every preventive tool we as a society have. Think of good nutrition as a seat belt for your health; it doesn't guarantee you won't get sick, but it helps to ensure the best outcomes.

Grayson Jaggers is an assistant professor at the University of Southern California Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Disclosure statement: Grayson Jaggers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond his academic appointment.

Reposted with permission from The Conversation.

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Good Nutrition Can Help Keep COVID-19 and Other Diseases Away - EcoWatch

Immunometabolism is one facet of the larger story unfolding around immunity. I've previously written about how immunity is everything, and so much more than a seasonal concern around cold and flu. The new thinking around immunity is about rejuvenation, balance, and resilience. It's not about a quick boost.

Metabolism is the way we process fuel and produce energy, and it's connected to immunity. Science is showing us that different immune cells ask for different nutrients.

Some cells activate at the sign of dangerwhether from a sprained ankle or a deadly virusand prefer sugar as a fast fuel. This conversion of glucose into fuel is a process called glycolysis. It's essential in the moment, but it's not well-suited to your longer-term goal of balance. When this pathway is activated by the wrong immune cells for too long a time, this can mean inflammation and can lead to a host of problems in your body down the line.

To calm things down, think about fats. Fatty acid oxidation provides fuel to immune cells designed to calm down your immune response and dampen inflammation. You can see where this is headed.

Since immunometabolism tells us different immune cells prefer different nutrients for fuel, which means your diet, through metabolism, can affect your immune response. At Big Bold Health, I'm working with a cod liver oil that maintains its natural stores of vitamin A, vitamin D, and pro-resolving mediators (PRMs) for this very reason.

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Your Metabolism & Immunity Are Inextricably Linked: Here's Why It Matters - mindbodygreen.com

My morning routine

I try to get up before everyone else its my time for me. I have hot water with lemon and apple cider vinegar to help maintain a healthy digestive system. I also have two cups of black coffee to properly wake me up. After my shower, I cleanse my face and use my Cell Rejuvenating Power Serum, 180, and Cell Rejuvenating Priming Moisturizer, 92, followed by a sunscreen. Im obsessed with skincare, which is why I collaborated with Dr Augustinus Bader on my products hes an absolute genius.

How I relax

Harper often makes an Epsom bath soak for me when I get home from work. Shes also into beauty treatments which is really sweet. Sometimes we make our own face masks with a little manuka honey and organic oats.

My fitness secrets

I work out every day I see it like brushing your teeth, its just something you do. I normally do an uphill walk on the treadmill, followed by a Tracy Anderson routine.

What I eat

I enjoy eating healthily and keeping a clean diet. I eat a lot of healthy fats, including avocados and salmon they are good for the skin. I also love making nut and seed snacks with the kids.

Whats in my make-up bag

From the start of Victoria Beckham Beauty, I wanted to create the perfect lipstick a luxurious texture with the right level of shine, gorgeous rich shades and ingredients that are good for your lips. So Im so excited about my debut lipstick collection, Posh Lipstick, launching 3 October. I use a combination of Spice and Pout, 34 each, and line my lips with my No 2 Lip Definer, 20.

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Victoria Beckham: Everything I do in a day from my skincare regime to my diet and exercise - Telegraph.co.uk

Diabetes is a chronic condition that affects how your body uses insulin. This hormone controls how much blood sugar, also known as glucose, is released into your cells to be used as energy.

Over 34 million people in the US have diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). While there is no cure for diabetes, it can be managed with lifestyle and dietary changes, or medication like insulin.

Here's what you need to know to manage diabetes and lower blood sugar levels.

With all types of diabetes, your body either doesn't produce enough insulin, or isn't able to use insulin effectively.

Insulin is necessary to move blood sugar into your cells, where it is stored and used for energy. Without insulin, a condition called hyperglycemia can occur, where blood sugar builds up in your bloodstream instead of traveling into your cells.

Type 1 diabetes makes up just 10% of all diagnosed diabetes cases in the US, according to the CDC. It is most commonly diagnosed in children, teenagers, and young adults.

Although the cause is unknown, type 1 diabetes may be due to an autoimmune response caused by an infection or other trigger. Your body mistakenly attacks and damages the beta cells in your pancreas that make insulin, so little or no insulin is produced.

There are not many risk factors for type 1 diabetes, though genetics is believed to play a role. The odds of the children of men with type 1 diabetes developing the condition is 1 in 17, according to the American Diabetes Association (ADA). For the children of women with type 1 diabetes, the odds are 1 in 25 if the woman is under the age of 25, or 1 in 100 after the age of 25.

A type 1 diabetes diagnosis requires some important lifestyle changes. You must take insulin every day in order to survive. Your blood sugar level needs to be frequently monitored. It's essential to carefully plan your meals and count carbohydrates.

"This can be a frustrating and tiresome adjustment, but it is crucial that patients educate themselves on how certain foods impact glucose levels," says endocrinologist Rocio Salas-Whalen, MD, of New York Endocrinology.

Type 2 diabetes makes up about 90% of all diagnosed diabetes cases in the US. It is most often diagnosed in adults, but the CDC notes that it is becoming increasingly diagnosed in children and teenagers.

With type 2, your body can produce insulin, but it is not able to use it effectively. This is called insulin resistance, which happens when your liver, muscle, and fat cells don't effectively take in the blood sugar from your blood to use it for energy. As a result, your blood sugar level increases, which can eventually lead to type 2 diabetes.

You are more at risk for type 2 diabetes if you:

In addition to eating a healthy diet, it's very important for people with type 2 diabetes to maintain a healthy weight, Salas-Whalen says, because this can also help them control blood sugar levels.

Pregnant people may develop gestational diabetes, which is caused by the body's inability to produce the extra insulin needed during your pregnancy. Gestational diabetes can put your baby at risk for health problems later in life, such as obesity or type 2 diabetes.

About 7% of pregnant people in the US are diagnosed with gestational diabetes. It usually begins in the middle of your pregnancy, without any symptoms. You should be tested for it between your 24th and 28th weeks of pregnancy. It typically goes away after your baby is born, but you will have a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes later in life.

If you have gestational diabetes, you'll need to work with your doctor to develop a healthy eating plan, and you should also remain physically active to help keep your blood sugar levels low. If a healthy diet and exercise don't lower your blood sugar levels, you may need to take insulin.

Prediabetes is a condition where your blood sugar levels are elevated, but not yet high enough for a diabetes diagnosis. However, if left untreated, prediabetes can develop into type 2 diabetes.

More than a third of all US adults over 88 million have prediabetes, yet 84% of them don't know they have it, the CDC notes.

With lifestyle changes like a healthy diet, losing weight, and getting regular exercise, it's possible for prediabetes to be reversed or delayed. Your doctor may also prescribe medication to help lower your blood sugar level.

"A prediabetic still has the potential to avoid diabetes, which should be avoided in every possible way," Salas-Whalen says.

The signs of all types of diabetes can include the following:

However, these symptoms develop slowly over time, and it may be difficult to recognize them, especially if you have type 2 diabetes. The signs of type 1 diabetes may be more severe, and can also include nausea or vomiting.

Target blood sugar levels are different for those with diabetes. The follow chart depicts normal blood sugar levels for diabetics and non-diabetics:

Yuqing Liu/Insider

Many people with diabetes with need to learn how to check their blood sugar multiple times a day using a glucose meter or a continuous glucose meter.

"Try not to think of blood sugars as 'good' or 'bad' or as a reflection of how well or bad you are doing," says Shelley Nicholls, DNP, APRN, CDCES, director of patient education at the Diabetes Research Institute. "Having a good understanding of what affects blood sugars and which of them a person can control or influence is the best tool a person with diabetes can have."

To treat diabetes, it is important to lower your blood sugar level and make sure it stays in a healthy range.

Doing this will not only increase your energy, but according to the ADA, each percentage point of A1C lowered reduces the possibility of long-term health complications which could include serious heart, kidney, brain, eye, or foot problems by 40%.

These are some of the best natural ways to lower and manage your blood sugar levels over time:

It's important for people with diabetes to be careful about the foods they eat because they can impact your blood sugar levels."Some foods can worsen diabetes, while other foods can actually improve diabetes control," Salas-Whalen says.

Carbohydrates and fiber especially affect your blood sugar levels in the following ways:

It can be helpful to follow a diet to manage your diabetes, as planning out your meals and snacks will help you control blood sugar levels effectively.

"Every person has different needs, so there is no one diet that is recommended for people with diabetes," Nicholls says. "The best option is to meet with a dietitian to determine individual needs and goals."

Here are some of the best diets for diabetics:

The Mediterranean diet includes plant-based foods, lean meats, and healthy fats.

According to a 2009 study published in Diabetic Medicine, people who strictly followed a Mediterranean diet for three months had lower A1C percentages and lower blood sugar levels after meals than those who followed it less strictly.

The DASH diet, which stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, is mainly used to lower blood pressure, but it can also help lower blood sugar.

A 2017 study published in the ADA journal Diabetics Spectrum suggests that the DASH diet can lower insulin resistance and help you lose weight. A 2016 study published in the journal Nutrition found that a DASH diet can also help lower the risk for gestational diabetes by as much as 71%.

This high-fat, low-carb diet limits carbs to 20 to 50 grams daily in an effort to put your body in the metabolic state of ketosis, where you burn fat instead of carbs for fuel.

A 2017 study published in Nutrition & Diabetes found that overweight adults with type 2 diabetes or prediabetes who followed a keto diet had lower A1C levels and lost over 4% more weight after one year than those who followed a moderate-carbohydrate/low-calorie/low-fat diet.

There are also some health risks associated with the keto diet. If you have type 1 diabetes, your lowered blood sugar level may lead to hypoglycemia and serious brain, kidney, or liver complications.

Another issue associated with this diet are "keto flu" symptoms that may include headache, nausea, and vomiting. It's important to consult with your doctor or a registered dietitian before starting a keto diet.

People with type 1 diabetes need to take insulin every day in order to survive. If people with type 2 diabetes are unable to reach their blood sugar target levels with diet and exercise, they may also need medication like insulin or metformin.

People with type 1 diabetes generally need to take three to four doses of insulin every day, according to the ADA. Women with gestational diabetes may need to take insulin daily during their pregnancy if their bodies aren't producing enough of it naturally. Many people with type 2 diabetes may need one dose each day with or without other medications.

Insulin is injected in the fat under your skin using a syringe, insulin pen, or pump. It should be injected in the same area of the body, but not the same place each day. It's best to inject insulin at mealtime so it is more effectively processed in your body.

There are many different types of insulin, and your doctor may even prescribe two or more of the following types:

"The challenge with taking insulin is that it's tough to know precisely how much to take," Nicholls says. The amount is based on factors that may change throughout the day, such as food, exercise, and stress. "So, deciding on what dose of insulin to take is a complicated balancing act."

Taking an extra dose of insulin can also help you lower blood sugar fast if it's an emergency, though you may want to check in with your doctor beforehand.

If you have type 2 diabetes, your doctor may prescribe metformin, a medication that lowers blood sugar by slowing your liver's production of glucose. It is the drug most commonly prescribed to treat type 2 diabetes.

Metformin is available in a liquid, pill, or extended-release tablet. You take it orally at mealtime two to three times a day. The extended-release tablet only needs to be taken once daily.

According to a 2012 scientific review published in Diabetes Care, metformin can effectively reduce A1C levels for people with type 2 diabetes by an average of 1.12%.

Although it's possible to control your diabetes and lower blood sugar levels, there is no specific cure.

"Because of this reality, lifestyle changes must be permanent and not temporary in order to avoid the potential long-term complications of diabetes," Salas-Whalen says.

To develop the best plan of treatment for diabetes, it's important to meet with your doctor for individualized recommendations.

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What is diabetes? A comprehensive guide to lower blood sugar and manage the condition - Insider - INSIDER

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Bay Area advocates refused to give up on Bike to Work Day, which usually takes place in May every year and usually involves a rousing day celebrating everyone on bikes with free coffee, snacks, and goodies and post-work parties. But that was in a different era. In 2020, the event was postponed until September, hoping things would be more normal by now. Then it was redubbed Bike to Wherever Day, because so many people are still working from home.

Yesterdays event , hosted by the various bike coalitions in San Francisco, Marin, East Bay, and San Jose, was much quieter than usual.

There were still pop-up booths along popular bike routes to distribute free bags (pre-printed last December, when life was relatively innocent) and to sign up new members, but no morning Energizer Stations with snacks and cowbells, no gatherings, no Bike Away from Work Parties.

One of Bike East Bays pop-ups was at Tip-Top Bicycle Shop on Telegraph Avenue, where the brand new parking-protected bike lanes are lined by a growing number of new parklets for nearby restaurants and bars to create a lively scene. Some of the people who stopped by to pick up bags were brand new to riding one said he had started riding when he saw the new road diet and bike lanes. Some were local residents who bring their children on bikes through the quiet nearby streets and on to the new Telegraph bike lane, no longer fearful that the area is too dangerous for the little ones to ride in.

The parklets filled up as the day progressed, which meant riding the bike lane was a slow meander through the crowd, passing busy waiters and even hands holding phones reaching way out into the lane to take selfies of the people enjoying yesterdays stunning Bay Area weather.

Another pop-up was set up at the Crucible along Seventh in West Oakland, where some riders stopped by to pick up BTWD bags as well as free food from a neighborhood mutual aid station. That route out of downtown, while well-used now by bike riders, is rough, with bad pavement, faded lane markings, and no space marked for bikes. But the city plans will make it better, according to Bike East Bays Robert Prinz, who ran that station, if the city can get the funding. Eventually, Seventh will be repaved with protected bike lanes and protected intersections.

For some, Bike to Wherever meant a ride to the beach, or the park, or with their dog, just to get away from work, maybe, and enjoy the weather.

Silicon Valley Bike Coalition is celebrating Bike to Wherever days, which includes an ongoing challenge for residents to log their bike miles and compete for prizes.

They are also hosting a booth tomorrow along the Guadalupe River bike path to pass out bags.

As a long-time bike rider in California mostly but not exclusively in the Bay Area and L.A. and S.F Bay areas I am sometimes amazed when taking stock of how these events have changed over the years. Also, of how riding has changed. I used to stick closely to certain routes that I knew would bring me quickly, relatively safely, and with relatively little stress to where ever I was going. Usually that meant studying a map like the early East Bay Bike Coalitions painstaking efforts to map out the least stressful, least car-traffic-heavy routes possible. It meant sticking to quiet side streets, and sometimes taking circuitous routes to stay away from the main roads where most destinations are. The last piece, arriving where I wanted to be, could mean taking a sidewalk, or going the wrong way down a street, or walking the last bit.

But that is changing in many areas. Now more main streets have bike lanes on them, more routes are marked, more signals can detect bikes, more drivers expect to see people on bikes. When you get a facility like the new, much-fought-over road diet with parking-protected bike lanes along Telegraph Avenue pictured below a bike rider feels downright welcome, on a road that used to be a nightmare to be avoided (and meant maybe going somewhere else to shop).

Im not saying its perfect. Too many places still serve only cars, and the safety concerns of a white lady like me are not the same things Black and brown riders are worried about highlighted by the timing of this BTWD, coming on the day after the announcement that Breonna Taylors killers would not be charged.

Much, much more remains to be done.

But events like these are a fabulous way of both celebrating the hard-fought changes we have seen and of reminding everyone why better facilities are important and necessary. The advocates who work to make Bike to Work Day, and CicLAvia, and San Gabriel Golden Streets, and the Modesto Bike Rollouts successful are doing fabulous work that we all benefit from. Its well worth everyones while to join and support their local bike advocacy group, so we can have more of this.

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Bike to Whereever Day: A Pivot from BTWD, Celebrating Some Progress - Streetsblog California