Cardiovascular, Nutrition
The Anti-Inflammatory Diet: A Diet for All Ages
What is the most prudent diet to follow today? Some swear it's the Atkin's high protein diet. Others believe the low fat Ornish diet is the answer. And I've often stressed that a high fiber diet promotes health. But what about The Anti-Inflammatory Diet? A report from Tufts University in Boston has an entirely new twist on nutrition and health. It claims that if we can decrease inflammation in our body we can also decrease the progression of disease. We all know that something is amiss when we have an inflamed throat. But no one would give inflammation a second thought as the cause if the doctor diagnosed high blood pressure, heart disease or arthritis. Yet inflammation may be the culprit. Today hypertension...Read More
Nutrition
What You Should Know About the “Difficult Infection” – Clostiridium Difficile
John Dillinger, the notorious bank robber, was asked why he robbed banks. He logically replied, "It's where the money is". Today if you asked infection control specialists where many infections are, they would say, "It's in the hospitals". Hospitals can be dangerous places. You can occasionally, be given the wrong medication or have the wrong leg amputated. But more commonly, patients acquire a debilitating and sometimes serious hospital infection called Clostridium difficile. How do you become infected and how can it be prevented? A report in the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association states that C. difficile associated diarrhea (CDAD) is now the leading cause of diarrhea in hospital patients. It suggests that CDAD infection should be suspected if patients with...Read More
Nutrition, Orthopedics
It’s “Calcium Balance” That Causes Osteoporosis
Why would I give my wife a new cook book when she's often threatened to turn the kitchen into a den? I took a calculated risk that I wouldn't end up stirring the pot. But I believed that she would see the benefits of "The Everyday Calcium Cookbook". It's loaded with sound advice on calcium-rich nutrition for whole-body health. And why normal amounts of calcium in the blood is causing an epidemic of osteoporosis (brittle bones). Helen Bishop MacDonald is Assistant Professor at the Universite de Moncton and nutritionist for the Calgary Flames hockey team the year they won the Stanley Cup. She says, "It's no secret that most Canadians do not get enough calcium for optimum bone health". TV talk shows,...Read More
Nutrition
How Naturegg Omega Pro Liquid Eggs Help The Heart
Why can't you make up your mind about eggs?" my wife asked me. "A few weeks ago you told me to buy Omega-3 eggs. You said they were good for the heart. The refrigerator's full of them! Now you want Naturegg Omega Pro liquid eggs. Just how many eggs do you want? I may as well open a grocery store," my usually calm wife remarked. That's when I realized I was in deep doo-doo. Unfortunately I had forgotten to explain the benefits of another super egg. Without some fast explanation it was obvious I'd soon to doing the shopping. Several weeks ago I explained that Naturegg Omega-3 eggs are produced by feeding chickens flaxeed containing Omega-3 fatty acids. These fatty acids...Read More
Nutrition
10 Health Benefits Of Dairy Products
Benjamin Disraeli, in a speech to the House of Commons in 1860, rebuked his critics by saying , "It is much easier to be critical than to be correct". Today, for reasons that are hard to understand, some organizations try to dissuade Canadians from consuming milk products. Another example of it being easier to be critical than right. Here are 10 ways that milk products help to maintain health. One - Calcium (and milk is the best source) Can Keep You Trim A study of adolescent girls showed that those who consumed the most calcium were also the leanest. Researchers have found that calcium at the cellular level causes fat to be broken down in the cell and speeds up the rate...Read More
Nutrition
Life May End Rather Than Begin at 40
Have you heard of Stein's Law? It states that, "If something can't go on forever it will stop." Stein's Law always wins, it just takes time. Those who bought tech stocks thinking they would go higher and higher forever are now familiar with Stein's Law. Unfortunately, our Minister of Health, Anne McLellan, hasn't heard of this law, otherwise she would rid the nation's food supply of trans fatty acids (TFAs). A Health Minister should know that eating toxic food eventually kills. It just takes time. It's been said that, "Life begins at 40". But recent reports show that for many children degenerative health problems could end their lives at 40. Trans fatty acids are solid fats produced by heating liquid oils in...Read More
Nutrition
Start Losing Weight In Just 20 Minutes
This week toss away all the books on "How to Eat Everything You Want and Lose Weight". Or "Calories Don't Count". Or "How to lose 30 pounds in One Month". And all the other dribble you've been exposed to over the years. Now I'll tell you how to start losing weight in a mere 20 minutes. "Sounds like another gimmick" you say. But you're wrong. This isn't like selling swamps in Florida. Family history provides me with part of the answer. I've always lead a busy life. Medical school, an active medical practice and constant deadlines. But one routine our family rarely missed. Every night we sat together around the dining room table. Moreover, no fast food was served. Another part of...Read More
Cardiovascular, Nutrition
Joe Hudson, The Omega-3 Egg Man
Who is Joe Hudson? I hadn't heard of him either until I decided to do some grass routes research and visited Burnbrae Farms in Brockville, Ontario. Joe has been raising chickens for 40 years, and eight million chickens later he's the Number One producer of Omega-3 eggs in Canada. But what's so healthful and special about the super egg? For this city boy, it was quite a sight to see a single farm processing one million eggs a day. How chickens are tricked into thinking summer is winter by varying the intensity of light. But it's no trick that gets chickens to lay the egg-to-end-all-eggs. Dr. Steve Lesson and his colleagues at the University of Guelph first produced these enriched eggs by...Read More
Nutrition
Cats Love To Love Me
Millions of North Americans dearly love their cats. I've always preferred dogs and damn it cats instinctively know it. My wife and I laugh at how often romance blooms. We're at a friend's home with several guests and I see their cat out of the corner of my eye. I know exactly what's going to happen. The cat eyes the crowd, slowly circles the room and jumps up on the sofa right behind my head or in my lap as if to say, "You're mine". But so far none of them have infected me with cat-scratch disease. It's estimated that every year over 400,000 people in North America are bitten or scratched by cats. And cat bites are two to three...Read More
Cancer, Gynecology, Nutrition
Milk Cuts Ovarian Cancer Risk By 50 Percent
How can we change these grim facts? That we can't diagnose early ovarian cancer. And that once this malignancy spreads to other organs, 85 percent of women are dead within five years. Every doctor asks himself this question when confronted with the tragic confirmation of this disease. Now a new study shows that drinking milk cuts the risk of ovarian cancer by 50 percent! It's logical for women to ask, "Why can't doctors diagnose early ovarian cancer?" After all, we live in an era of CT scans, MRI's, ultrasound and blood tests. Unfortunately none of these tests can spot "early" malignancies of the ovary. The problem is anatomy. The Creator was friendly to women when he or she placed the cervix at...Read More
Nutrition, Obesity
Schools and Hospitals Can Fight Soda Pop Obesity
What would you do if you're a member of a school board facing this dilemma? You need money for the school gym and a soft drink company has offered to install soft drink vending machines and share the profits with you? The end result of course, will be money for the school, and damaged health for the children. But there is way where everyone benefits. Today schools are justifiably criticized for placing soda pop machines within reach of students. After all, it's downright hypocrisy to preach the importance of sound nutrition to children. Then allow sugar laden drinks to add to the epidemic of obesity in children. One can only wonder why the Minister of Health remains silent while this happens. Excess...Read More
Nutrition
Energy Bars and Other Nutritional Tidbits
Is eating too much fat the main cause of obesity? Will a high protein diet affect the risk of heart disease or cancer? What is the best type of grain for good health? Should people cut back on carbohydrates even if they don't have diabetes? And what you should know about energy bars. A recent report shows why it's so important not to go off half-cocked on nutritional advice. Today many consumers are choosing low fat foods. They've done this by cutting back whole milk, red meat, butter and by buying low fat packaged foods. Due to these dietary changes during the past 20 years the amount of fat in the diet has gradually declined. But it's created an ironic situation....Read More
Lifestyle, Nutrition
From 1600 T0 400 Calories in 40,000 Years!
What can we do to shorten the long waiting lists for surgery? How can we stop the massive increases in the cost of health care? Politicians and health care workers continue to struggle with this dilemma. They always conclude that more money is the answer. But this approach is doomed to failure. How can it work when it's taken 40,000 years for humans to get into such horrible shape? How did it happen? And is there a solution? Dr. Barry Bogin is a professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan. He says we all envision our Paleolithic ancestors as being short, bent- over people with small brains. Actually they were a tad taller with brains as large as ours. And...Read More
Medicine, Nutrition, Orthopedics
Eating Your Way Out of Arthritis
Could the thousands of recent knee and hip replacements have been prevented by the right diet? And could millions of people suffer less arthritic pain by following more nutritious food consumption? Arthritis has been called the "chronic-care challenge of the 21 century century." It's estimated that 30 million North Americans suffer from osteoarthritis (OA). And that 70 percent of hip replacements are due to this disease. Osteoarthritis is the "wear and tear " form of arthritis. Like an aging car that starts to squeak, human joints begin to grate and scrape as we get older. But research at Tufts University in Boston shows that there's more to arthritis than the stresses associated with aging. They say, inadequate nutrition also sets the stage...Read More
