Wednesday, January 11, 2012

How To Have A Healthy Heart For Life

By Aviva Patz

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/02/healthy-heart_n_1176478.html

Ready for some exciting health news? "Ninety-nine percent of heart disease is preventable by changing your diet and lifestyle," says Dean Ornish, M.D., a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco and author of Dr. Dean Ornish’s Program for Reversing Heart Disease.

What's more, scientists are discovering that we don't have to ban all fat and salt to stay healthy. Instead, you just need to cut back on saturated fat (which comes from meat and whole-fat dairy) and trans fats (found in partially hydrogenated oils in fried and many processed foods). These types of fat seem to increase levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol, which lines arteries with plaque and can cause a heart attack or stroke.

Good fats, on the other hand -- such as monounsaturated (think olive oil and avocados) and polyunsaturated fats, like omega-3 fatty acids (found in sunflower oil, soybeans, and some fish) -- lower LDL levels and raise levels of "good" HDL cholesterol. Meanwhile, a 2011 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association challenges the notion that we all need to slash our salt intake, suggesting that going low-sodium is more important if you're at high risk of heart disease -- say, you have a family history of the condition, you have diabetes or you smoke.

Whether or not you have these risk factors, though, prevention is key. And it starts on your plate. See how three women staged their own heart-healthy dietary interventions, and follow in their footsteps to keep your heart pumping strong now and in the decades to come.

Build a better diet

Lily Lin, 31, recently got a serious health wake-up call: She was diagnosed with prehypertension at 30, then prediabetes the next year -- both conditions that up your chances of developing heart disease. She was placed on blood pressure medication as a result. Then her maternal grandmother died from a stroke. Lin knew that her dad had high blood pressure and her mother had high cholesterol -- heart disease risk factors that she had a chance of inheriting. "I'd thought I had years before I needed to worry about those things," she says.

Lin, a business analyst in New York City, decided to take charge of her health and went to the Pritikin Longevity Center in Miami, which focuses on reversing heart disease and other conditions through lifestyle changes. Pritikin doctors advised Lin to lower her intake of animal protein, due to its saturated fat content, so she traded her deli meat lunches for tofu, beans, and grilled fish.

Lin also learned to limit refined carbohydrates, including muffins and her 100-calorie cookie snack-pack breakfasts. Moderate to heavy consumption of simple carbs like these can double your risk of heart disease, a 2010 Archives of Internal Medicine study suggests. Instead, she now fills up on fiber-full complex carbohydrates such as oatmeal. "I learned that fiber carries cholesterol out of my body instead of into my bloodstream," Lin says.

Adding in more fruit made a difference, too; in fact, scientists have just discovered that the effects of the gene most closely linked with heart disease can actually be modified by eating plenty of fruits and raw vegetables.

Lin's efforts have paid off: She was recently told she could stop taking her blood pressure meds. "I've never felt so good," she says. "My friends and family see the changes in me. I used to live to eat, but now I eat to live."

Moves to make in your 30s: Talk to your M.D. about your family history of heart disease, and ask about any other personal risk factors to watch for. For example, if you had gestational diabetes or preeclampsia when you were pregnant, your risk of heart disease is at least doubled. If you're at low or no risk, get your blood pressure checked every year and get a cholesterol baseline, too. "If results are normal, you can wait till your 40s to repeat the test," says Jacob DeLaRosa, M.D., author of the Heart Surgery Game Plan.

Go for the best new tests

At 45, Stephanie Corn looked and felt healthy. Her cholesterol tests were normal. But because her mother had suffered three arterial blockages and undergone open-heart surgery in 2008, her doctor decided last year to go beyond the standard screenings and give her a new type called an LDL particle test which, while not routine, can give a fuller picture of heart-disease risk.

In fact, major organizations like the American College of Cardiology and the American Diabetes Association now believe that your concentration of LDL particles -- which adhere to the arterial wall and deposit cholesterol there -- is a better predictor of heart disease risk than high LDL cholesterol levels in and of themselves.

The verdict: Corn's particle number was about 1,700. The ideal number is under 1,000 -- meaning she was at high risk of heart disease. "I just about cried," says Corn, a finance officer for the city of Claremont, North Carolina. To get her out of the danger zone quickly, Corn's doctor put her on statins -- drugs that lower cholesterol -- but for long-term results, he encouraged her to change her diet, which, for this Southerner, meant saying good-bye to her beloved fried fish and its trans fats.

He also warned her to stay away from soda: A 2011 study from the University of Oklahoma shows that women who drink two or more sweetened beverages a day are more likely to gain weight, increase waist size and develop other risk factors for heart disease. In just one year, Corn brought her particle number down to 900 and is no longer at high risk. "I wouldn't have known I was in any danger without the test," Corn says. "It saved my life."

Moves to make in your 40s: If your chances of getting heart disease are above average, ask for a blood test to measure your LDL particles in addition to a standard cholesterol test. Women without risk factors should still get a standard cholesterol test at least every five years beginning at age 40, since plaque on your arterial walls can become more problematic with age. Being overweight or obese ups your odds of getting heart disease, too, so now's a good time to get your diet in check to help halt the middle-age spread.

Eat your superfoods

Maryann Chiaro, 54, of Valatie, New York, had gotten a clean bill of health at every checkup for decades. So when she saw a new doc last year, she was surprised to learn that her total cholesterol was high. "He told me that if I didn't get my levels down, I'd be going on Lipitor," says the upstate New York mom. Chiaro does have a family history of hypertension; her mother suffered a heart attack at age 62. She'd thought being a vegetarian was keeping her healthy, but, she admits, she was only getting in two veggies a day -- "barely." Instead, she built meals around her favorite food: cheese.

To avoid following in her mother's footsteps, Chiaro worked with her doctor and a dietitian. They identified superfoods that Chiaro makes sure to eat every day, including oatmeal, dark green veggies, nuts and olive oil. "I'm eating kale, turnips -- things I'd never had before," she says. She also lowered her saturated fat intake by giving up cheese entirely, getting her protein instead from hummus, beans and salmon.

In only five months, Chiaro has lowered her cholesterol from 181 to 138 -- without medication. Those are results anyone can achieve: "The more you change," Dr. Ornish says, "the more your heart health improves."

Moves to make in your 50s: Have your cholesterol and blood pressure checked every year, and ask your doctor about getting a blood-sugar test to rule out diabetes. On a daily basis, simply eating well and staying slim will go a long way toward keeping the cardiologist away.

Flickr photo by John Seb Barber

The role of gender and taste class in the eff... [Health Psychol. 1992] - PubMed - NCBI

The role of gender and taste class in the eff... [Health Psychol. 1992] - PubMed - NCBI:

Health Psychol. 1992;11(2):97-100.

The role of gender and taste class in the effects of stress on eating.

Grunberg NE, Straub RO.

Source

Department of Medical Psychology, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD 20814-4799.

Abstract

Participating in a laboratory study of the effects of stress on eating, healthy, nonsmoking men and women were shown a film about industrial accidents (stress condition) or a pleasant travelogue (control condition) and had access to sweet, salty, and bland snack food. Analyses of food consumption data revealed a significant interaction between sex of subject and the stress manipulation: Stress markedly and significantly decreased food consumption by men but resulted in some increased food consumption by women. Across the three food taste categories, men consistently ate less under stress than they did in the control condition. In contrast, women ate nearly twice as much sweet food and more bland food under stress than they did in the control condition, but these effects were not statistically significant. These results indicate that the relationship between stress and eating depends on the sex of the subject and may relate to type of food available. Contrasting generalizations about stress and eating reported in the archived literature can largely be reconciled by considering these interacting variables.

PMID:: 1582385; [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Publication Types, MeSH Terms

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The Gay Diet

The gay diet | Life and style | guardian.co.uk:

Many people predictably leap towards evolution to find the basis for these differences. Yale University's David Katz told Salon that "Men and women have differences in physiology which might have to do with access to different kinds of food." That is, cavemen once ate the meat from the hunt while the cavewomen made do with plants and berries. Or something. All such theories are sketchy, inchoate and highly speculative, and they aren't helped by the fact that men and women have broadly similar nutritional requirements even if men do need more calories.

Others say these differences are established in childhood. Many adults encourage boys to eat well and heartily, without necessarily urging girls to do the same. This can undoubtedly lead to complexes and psychological difficulties around food in later life, and may help to influence the fact that the go-to comfort foods for many men are often homely things like mashed potato, pasta and steak, while women are more drawn to cakes, chocolate and biscuits. Men and women are also said to treat food differently when when under stress: women eat more, while men often avoid food altogether.

Doonan has an interesting riff on high-end food, which he defines as inherently gay. When he appeared as a judge on Iron Chef, "I [had] never seen so many tangerine emulsions and champagne gelées in my life". While "gourmandizing in the South of France," he once ordered sardines. "When the dish arrived, my gay nerves just about snapped. The plate was triangular (gay) and the raw (!) sardines were cut into narrow, perfectly rectangular strips (so gay) and arranged into an abstract basket-weaving pattern (Liberace gay) ... Only a straight chef could have taken a nice, wholesome, hetero sardine and transformed it into something so explosively gay."

He prefers to eat "a healthy combo of both the gay and straight food groups". And, taking him on those terms, I'd agree. Gay- or straight- or girl- or guy- food: whether or not there is any truth in the labels, a mixture of all is a good idea: one should eat the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the world, as Oscar Wilde put it. Where do you stand on gendered foods? Is there any value in such distinctions, or is it all sexist nonsense best abandoned?

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Twinkie 101

Twinkie - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Twinkies are high in saturated fat and sugar.

Twinkie diet

In 2010 a college professor named Mark Haub went on a "convenience store" diet consisting mainly of Twinkies, Oreos, andDoritos in an attempt to demonstrate to his students "that in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most—not the nutritional value of the food". He lost 27 pounds over a 2 month period, returning his body mass index (BMI) to within normal range.

Relatives:

Ingredients

Enriched wheat flour, sugar, corn syrup, niacin, water, high fructose corn syrup, vegetable and/or animal shortening – containing one or more of partially hydrogenated soybean, cottonseed and canola oil, and beef fat, dextrose, whole eggs, modified corn starch, cellulose gum, whey, leavenings (sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking soda, monocalcium phosphate),salt, cornstarch, corn flour, corn syrup, solids, mono and diglycerides, soy lecithin, polysorbate 60, dextrin, calcium caseinate, sodium stearoyl lactylate, wheat gluten, calcium sulphate, natural and artificial flavours, caramel colour, yellow #5, red #40.

Main article: Twinkie defense

The Twinkie defense is a derogatory term for a criminal defendant's claim that some unusual factor (such as allergies,coffee, nicotine, or sugar) diminished the defendant's responsibility for the alleged crime. The term arose from Herb Caen's description of the trial of Dan White, who was convicted in the fatal shootings of San Francisco mayor George Moscone and city supervisor Harvey Milk. During the trial, psychiatrist Martin Blinder testified that White had suffered from depression, causing diminished capacity. As an example of this, he mentioned that White, formerly a health food advocate, had begun eating junk food. Twinkies, specifically, were never actually mentioned in the case.

Other Sites about the Twinkie:

http://www.twinkiesproject.com/

Ettlinger, Steve (2008). Twinkie, Deconstructed. Plume. ISBN 9780452289284. – Twinkie Deconstructed site

This site performs 'Real Science" on the Twinkie!!!
http://www.twinkiesproject.com/

T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. stands for Tests With Inorganic Noxious Kakes In Extreme Situations.

T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. is a series of experiments conducted during finals week, 1995, at Rice University. The tests were designed to determine the properties of that incredible food, the Twinkie.

Hey, kids! Try these wholesome EXPERIMENTS!

Resistivity Test, Gravitational Response Test, Radiation Test, Turing Test

Rapid Oxidation Test Solubility Test Maximum Density Test
Resistivity Test Gravitational Response Test Radiation Test Turing Test

This Page Maintained by
Chris Gouge: (e-mail) and
Todd Stadler: (web) (e-mail)

Hey! We think you should know:
"Twinkies" and the "Twinkie the Kid character" are registered trademarks of
Interstate Brands Corporation, 12 East Armour Blvd., Kansas City, MO 64111.

Much thanks to Hostess for hosting www.twinkiesproject.com

Twinkies at 75: munch 'em, fry 'em, save 'em for years

By Judy Mandell, Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor / May 4, 2005

The Twinkie just turned 75. Considering that 500 million of them are sold yearly, it seems obvious that Americans are crazy for these sweet, spongy, cream-filled snacks. The question is - why?

"The reason behind my loving Twinkies is obvious - they taste so darn good," says Debbie Rizzo, a publicist in San Francisco..

"Twinkies are simply my favorite food group," says Denise Dorman, a Twinkie connoisseur in Florida. "I craved Twinkies during my recent pregnancy, and we're having my newborn son's christening cake made of Twinkies."

OK, so some people think Twinkies taste great. But why have the squeezable yellow cakes endured as an American cultural icon?

"Great brands live on because of the emotional response they evoke as part of our [long-term] memory," says Tom Collinger, associate professor of integrated marketing communications at Northwestern University in Chicago.

Professor Collinger once thought of a Twinkie as the perfect food: "You could hold it in one hand. You didn't get crumbs on your fingers or your mouth. There were options to get at the filling inside - biting, licking, and slurping or sucking."

Phil Delaplane, a 50-something professor of American cuisine at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, N.Y.,, grew up eating Twinkies.

"Loving Twinkies is a nostalgia thing," says Mr. Delaplane, who recently made his wedding cake with Twinkies. "Where I work, there are pastry chefs all around. My colleagues told me a substantial wedding cake for 150 guests would cost $1,200."

So he decided to go with a Twinkie cake instead. Saving money wasn't really the motivation, he insists. "We wanted something fun that would bring back our childhood - not just for ourselves but for our guests as well."

The choice of cake has also had a continuing effect on Delaplane's life. "On our monthly 'anniversary,' I stop off at the convenience store and pick up a piece of 'wedding cake' to bring home to my wife, Pam. With Twinkies, you don't have to freeze the wedding cake" to enjoy it together later.

These days, you might think Twinkies would be a big no-no among nutritionists. But some don't condemn it at all.

"It's portable, individually wrapped, and has a lot of flavor and satisfaction if you are looking for a portion-controlled treat," says Madelyn Fernstrom, associate professor and director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Weight Management Center.

With 150 calories per Twinkie, Dr. Fernstrom says, it's a great choice for those seeking a "real dessert" without a lot of extra fat and calories - a Twinkie contains only 5 grams of fat, although it is high in sugar. She's not arguing that nibbling on a Twinkie is better than eating an apple. But if the choice is a piece of cheesecake or pie versus a Twinkie, she recommends the latter.

Chef Delaplane admits to watching what he eats, but he isn't concerned about Twinkies: "There are too many other things for me to worry about in this world - not necessarily what's in my Twinkie."

And what's in a Twinkie that causes its phenomenally long shelf life (rumored to range from years to decades, although officially it's 25 days)? Fernstrom attributes it simply to the absence of dairy products.

Some adults who loved Twinkies as kids and try them again as adults wonder what in the world ever attracted them to the snacks. Have their tastes changed, they wonder, or are Twinkies different now?

The ingredients for the Twinkie are the same today as they were when introduced, except for the filling, says a spokesman for Interstate Bakeries Corp.The original Twinkie contained banana creme filling. When bananas were in short supply during World War II, the company changed to vanilla creme filling.

Read More@ http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0504/p11s02-lifo.html Christian Science Monitor

Twinkies trivia:

• Twinkies have been featured in major movies, including "Ghostbusters," "Grease," and "Sleepless in Seattle."

• In the TV series "All In The Family," Edith put a Twinkie in Archie's lunchbox each day.

• In 1999, President Clinton and the White House Millennium Council selected the Twinkie to be included in the nation's Millennium Time Capsule, representing "an object of enduring American symbolism."

• Chicago consumes more Twinkies per capita than any other city in the US.

• It takes 10 minutes to bake a Twinkie.

• Interstate Baking Corp. bakeries can produce 1,000 Twinkies in a minute.

• When Twinkies were first introduced, the price was two for a nickel. In 1951, a package of two cost 10 cents; in 1966, 12 cents. Today, the price ranges from two for 99 cents to two for $1.29.

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