Sugar and the Bones
         To some extent, we all are familiar with the concept of minerals being essential for the proper functioning of our body. But, are we aware that to enjoy health, minerals need to be in the proper balance? That anything different will cause disease? 

         Let us take as an example the calcium-phosphorus ratio. Although the right balance of these two minerals is essential at any stage of life, it becomes imperative during the childhood and teenager years as children need to build healthy bones. Unfortunately, this required balance is many times upset by the high intake of sugar, whether in the form or refined sugar or refined carbohydrates. 

The importance of a calcium-phosphorus balance
          Dr. Melvin A. Page, DDS (1894-1983), appalled by the numerous cases of patients who showed dental cavities and jaw bone loses, started his investigations at Mercy Hospital and Hackley Hospital in Muskegon. After running hundreds of tests, he noticed that no cavities and no loss of jaw bones occurred when the tests showed the blood calcium to phosphorus ratio in a proportion of 10 to 4. Dr. Page also found that the blood sugar level should be at 85, plus or minus 5. By restoring the 2.5 ratio of calcium to phosphorus and sugar level, the jaw bone loss and formation of cavities began to stop.  

Sugar causes mineral imbalances
          Through further investigation he also discovered that sugar caused both calcium and phosphorus either to increase or to decrease. When calcium increased, phosphorus decreased, and when the level of calcium decreased, the level of phosphorus increase. Although we may think that an increase in calcium favors strong bones, nothing further from reality; this excess calcium cannot be used by our body as it is not in the right balance with phosphorus. To the contrary, excess calcium can become toxic to our organs. Only when Doctor Page took his patients off sugar and put them on a diet based on whole foods, their dental problems started to disappear as well as many other health problems. 

          Dr. Page’s idea that diet and nutrition could cause a biochemical condition affecting the teeth, and the fact that he dared to suggest that patients should change their eating habits and eliminate white sugar and white flour from their diet was beyond acceptability. He was ostracized by his professional colleagues for his approach so he temporarily terminated his research in blood chemistry at the hospital and continue it in Florida¹. 

1. Dr. Page was a member of the Academy 100 of the State of Florida, of the New York Academy of Science, and the International Society for Comprehensive Medicine. He was a life member of the American Dental Association and a Fellow of the International College of Applied Nutrition and of the Royal Society of Health (England).  He published numerous articles on his work in nutrition in such periodicals as the Journal of the American Dental Association, Applied Nutrition, the Western Society of Periodontology, Nutrition and Health, Prosthodontics, the Dental Digest and Prevention Magazine.

Have a wonderful day.

Emilia Klapp, BS, RD
www.MediterraneanDietfortheHeart

Good morning to everybody,

          For quite a while by now, I have had this nagging thought coming back and forth to my mind: the fact that I don’t remember during my childhood and teenager years my mother being selective about what she put on our plates on a daily basis based on the calorie content of foods. 

         Being born and raised in Spain, our regular diet consisted of items like whole milk, butter and cheese products; substantial portions of saturated fat in our legume stews; fatty fish such as sardines (Spanish people have always appreciate fish because of its taste and low price), and bread with either a good size piece of chocolate or a generous portion of olive oil for our afternoon snacks among others. Olive oil was always present in our meals, one way or another as well as fruit and vegetables. In short, a diet to make health experts’ hair to stand on end!

          What amazes me now, looking back at those times, and after listening to nutrition experts’ mantra about the benefits of following a low fat diet to prevent obesity, is that nobody I knew at the time gained a pound with this diet! All my young friends were slim and, I would venture to say, healthy, considering the energy we spent playing outside day after day.

         Then, what could have been the reason for not gaining weight with this type of high fat calorie diet and at the same time being healthy? I would venture to say that the reason for not gaining weight was most likely the fact that we had no TVs, no computers, and no video games; in short, nothing that kept us glued to our chairs at home. But,  we did have friends! Lots of them! And we all played outside many hours a day, everyday.

          Being now a professional nutritionist, I have very few doubts by now that our daily physical activity at the time was what kept us thin and healthy. Thus, the question we need to ask those health professionals genuinely concerned with child obesity and trying to find a solution to this problem is: could it be that fomenting physical activity along with a healthy diet, and not a reduction in calories, should be our main objective when it comes to preventing child obesity? 

          Obesity is a serious health concern for children and adolescents. Data from NHANES surveys (1976–1980 and 2003–2006) show that the prevalence of obesity has increased: for children aged 2–5 years, prevalence increased from 5.0% to 12.4%; for those aged 6–11 years, prevalence increased from 6.5% to 17.0%; and for those aged 12–19 years, prevalence increased from 5.0% to 17.6%.

With these figures in mind, let’s get serious about taking some serious ”action”.

Have a very healthy day, full of physical activity.

Emilia Klapp, BS, RD.
www.MediterraneanHeart.com

Hello everybody,

Today I want to talk about one of those “miracle foods” that can solve many of our problems. And by problems I mean health problems, although in the long run it could also be a financial one if we find ourselves having to pay for medical bills caused by our lack of prevention.

How can fiber lend a helping hand in solving our problems? Because through different mechanisms, fiber can assist us in lowering LDL cholesterol; preventing constipation and as a result many of the ailments derived by it; regulating blood sugar, essential to prevent and control diabetes; and helping us to lose weight. Not too bad, right?

Let’s take a look today at one of these mechanisms by which fiber can help us lose weight:

1. Foods low in fiber can make us gain weight

• When we eat, our body converts the food into sugar and as a result, our blood sugar goes up.
• Eating foods low in fiber raises the level of blood sugar faster because it takes our organs less time to convert food into sugar than it takes when the food contains fiber.
• When glucose enters into the blood too fast, the pancreas sends insulin in a hurry to keep up with the rising levels of blood sugar.
• This excess of insulin in the blood causes our blood sugar to drop to a dangerous level.
• A drastic drop in blood sugar makes us hungry and we need to eat more and sooner.

2. Foods high in fiber can help us lose weight

• When we eat, our body converts the food into sugar and as a result, our blood sugar goes up.
• Eating foods that are high in fiber does not raise our blood sugar too fast because it takes more time to our organs to convert food into sugar than it takes when the food does not contain fiber.
• In this case, the glucose doesn’t go into the blood too fast, and the pancreas doesn’t send insulin in a hurry because the blood sugar is not out of control.
• Since there is not an excess of insulin in the blood, our blood sugar doesn’t drop to a dangerous level.
• Without a drastic drop in blood sugar, we are not hungry so fast and we don’t have to eat more.

As you can see, eating foods high in fiber results in more weight loss than eating foods low in fiber. One of the easiest ways to add fiber to your day is to eat a breakfast that includes high-fiber foods such as high fiber cereal –hot or cold-, whole grain toasts, whole grain muffins or bagels, and in the week-ends, if you like them, you can have whole grain pancakes.

Next time I’ll talk about how foods high in fiber can help lower cholesterol. In the meantime, try to choose a good cereal for breakfast that has at least 5 grams of fiber per portion. If you are still eating white bread try to replace it with whole grain bread.

Have a great day and don’t forget to stop at the market and get your fiber.

Emilia Klapp, BS, RD

www.MediterraneanDietfortheHeart.com  

Eating breakfast can help prevent pre-diabetes and diabetes. Thus, if you already have one of these health conditions or you are at risk of becoming diabetic because of overweight or family genes, don’t neglect this advice. It can be crucial for you.

These are the reasons why escaping breakfast is not a good idea:
     

• We need to keep the right amount of sugar in the blood at all times. To accomplish this we need to have meals at regular intervals.
• Blood sugar may be low after not eating all night; therefore, we need a meal in the morning. Not eating in the morning can cause a sugar imbalance in the blood.
• Eating breakfast can supply fiber. A breakfast (or any other meal for that matter) that includes fiber does not raise blood sugar too fast.
• Eating breakfast contributes with many vitamins and minerals that our body needs to prevent and reverse diabetes.

We also know that children who eat breakfast get better grades at school. Have you noticed that on the days you don’t have breakfast, by ten o’clock you are paying less attention to what you are doing because you are already hungry?

Emilia Klapp, BS, RD
www.MediterraneanDietfortheHeart.com  

Hello everyone,

Today I am delighted to bring you the new and colorful revised Mediterranean Diet Pyramid released by Oldways. It looks wonderful and its purpose is one more time to show the public in a graphic and appealing way the healthful benefits of the Mediterranean Diet. I hope you enjoy it and use some of the principles that experience and research have shown to work when it comes to have a better health and live longer.

A vuestra salud!

Emilia Klapp, BS, RD.
www.MediterraneanDietfortheHeart.com

Scientists Update Healthful Mediterranean Diet Oldways Releases Revised Mediterranean Diet Pyramid Last November, Oldways convened a high-level international meeting of leading nutrition scientists to review the very large number of recent studies expanding support for the healthful Mediterranean Diet. Based on this new scientific evidence, Oldways revised the Mediterranean Diet Pyramid, the colorful graphic that displays the high-level science underlying importance to good health. What’s New in the Updated Healthful Mediterranean Diet and Mediterranean Diet Pyramid: (1) Because foods from the plant kingdom are at the core of the Mediterranean Diet, the scientists decided to combine all plant foods into a single group. This change conveys the importance of eating a food or foods from this plant-based group – fruits, vegetables, grains (mostly whole), beans, seeds, nuts, olive oil, herbs and spices (a new addition to this Pyramid too) – at every meal to achieve maximum health benefits. (2) Another key change is the recommendation to eat fish at least twice a week.  (3) The illustration itself is a change. It celebrates the delicious, varied foods of the Mediterranean region, and is designed to get consumers interested and excited about the delicious and healthy foods of the Mediterranean Diet. These are just a few of the changes and we invite you to visit the Oldways website for more details.  We also welcome you to visit the Mediterranean Foods Alliance for Mediterranean recipes, cooking tips, the latest health information and more. For hi-resolution graphics, please contact me at (617) 896-4888, or at aclancy@oldwayspt.org. Salud! Alison Clancy Social Media Manager         Oldways Links:Find us on Twitter – OldwaysPT Oldways Page on Facebook – Become a Fan! About Oldways and the Mediterranean Foods AllianceOldways, a Boston-based non-profit educational organization, changes the way people eat through positive and practical programs grounded in science and tradition. The Mediterranean Foods Allianceis an Oldways program created to help people eat better with the Mediterranean Diet. You can learn more at www.oldwayspt.org and www.mediterraneanmark.org.

If you are like me, you may be curious, maybe at times skeptical, of certain lifestyle recommendations made by health authorities. It may not be enough for you to hear from a health expert that walking helps with diabetes because you don’t see the correlation between those two concepts. And that’s why, at the risk of becoming too technical, I try to explain my clients at times the mechanisms of our marvelous body.

In my last blog I was talking about how walking briskly almost every day of the week clears the blood of glucose by stimulating GLUT-4 transporters inside the cell to come to the cell’s surface and wolfed glucose down. And because walking is so important to the diabetic patient, today I want to expand on this mechanism.

Walking not only gets the GLUT-4 transporters to come to the surface and gulp down glucose, but it also increases the number of GLUT-4 transporters. So, guess what, the more you walk, the more GLUT-4 transporters your body makes. The result is that more transporters come to the surface of the cell to take glucose inside; this translates into less medication needed.

I hope this “simple” explanation was not too technical and convinces diabetic patients that walking is 50% of the treatment to prevent diabetes from getting out of control and in certain cases to reverse it.

And by the way, this same mechanism works for people without diabetes or who are at the verge of becoming diabetic, so you may want to use it as a prevention measure.

Hope you have a wonderful and healthy day,

Emilia Klapp
http://www.MediterraneanDietfortheHeart.com  

One of my mantras during my counseling of diabetic clients or during my diabetes nutrition lectures is that walking clears blood glucose. And I invariably get the same question: How does walking clears blood glucose? I guess some people don’t take my word for it. Thus I explain to them that although there are several theories, the most recent one goes as follows:

In order to have energy, our cells need glucose. In some diabetic individuals, because of insulin resistance, glucose cannot get into the cells and remains wandering around the blood vessels.

So, how can we get glucose into the cells? Well, under normal conditions, glucose is ushered into the cells by special proteins called GLUT-4 transporters. Insulin stimulates GLUT-4 transporters to come to the surface of the cell and take glucose inside. In some diabetic individuals this mechanism doesn’t work efficiently.

And guess what! Exercise appears to do the same as insulin: it stimulates GLUT-4. Like insulin, it causes GLUT-4 transporters to rise to the surface of the membrane of the cell where they can grab the glucose from the blood and get it into the cell. This takes care of the loose glucose in the blood. Amazing, isn’t it?

So, here you have it. Walking briskly in your neighborhood for about an hour most days of the week will have this effect. If you are at risk of developing diabetes type 2, walking can prevent your developing of this disease. If you already have diabetes type 2 and you are on diabetic medication, by walking briskly you may be able to reduce the amount of medication or you may not need taking it.

Please, keep in mind that you cannot stop taking any medication without consulting with your doctor; you can only do it under his/her supervision.

Hope you start walking today. Don’t wait until tomorrow.

Have a wonderful day,

Emilia Klapp, BS, RD.

MediterraneanDietfortheHeart

Mantras are good for the immune system is what researchers from the University of Ohio and the National Institute of Health of USA found. In the year 2006, they published an analysis of the studies carried out in the last few years on the biological rhythms of the human organism. All the studies included in the analysis coincided in that a coherence of those rhythms, as described by Dr. Luciano Bernardi from the University of Pavia, Italy, led to:

Stronger immune system
Reduction of inflammation

Maybe those members of the medical establishment who still believe there is no connection between mind and body and insist on prescribing pills for any physical disequilibrium occurring in our body, would like to consider, after reading this article, prescribing their patiens to recite the rosary or chant a yoga mantra.
 

Here is Dr. Bernardi’s article as it was published by THE INDEPENDENT.

 
Why the Ave Maria is good for your heart

By Lorna Duckworth Social Affairs Correspondent

Reciting the rosary or chanting yoga mantras induces more than just inner calm. The slow, rhythmic breathing that results is the key to a healthy heart and lungs, a study reveals today.

Reciting the rosary or chanting yoga mantras induces more than just inner calm. The slow, rhythmic breathing that results is the key to a healthy heart and lungs, a study reveals today.

Scientists found that repeating the Ave Maria or an incantation slows the breathing to six respirations per minute, which is the natural rate for a human. This has a favourable effect on the cardiovascular system, increasing the amount of oxygen in the blood.

The study, published in the British Medical Journal, concludes that incantations are so beneficial that they could be “viewed as health practice as well as a religious practice”.

Luciano Bernardi, of the University of Pavia, recorded breathing rates in 23 adults during normal talking, recitation of the Ave Maria, yoga mantras and controlled breathing.

Breathing was more regular when the Ave Maria was repeated 50 times in Latin and when the mantra “om-mani-padme-om” was chanted.

Prof Bernardi says that mantras may have evolved as a device to improve concentration and induce calm. Similarly, the rosary, may have partly evolved because it instilled a feeling of well being and increased responsiveness to the spiritual message, along with enhancing the immune system.

I wish you a very healthy day, wherever in the world you are now.

Emilia Klapp, BS, RD.
MediterraneanDietfortheHeart 

Yesterday I was talking about cows, grass, and inflammation but since I didn’t want to make my “dissertation” too long, I didn’t get to explain what inflammation is. So, in a few words, here it is:

What is inflammation?

Inflammation is a response of our immune system to injury or irritation. Through inflammation our body attempts to remove the cause of injury by producing pain, swelling, redness and heat. The pain lets us know about the damage and the swelling protects us as it prevents us from moving that body part which could cause more irritation. Inflammation can be acute or chronic.

Acute inflammation
It is the initial response of our body to injury or infection. It happens over seconds, minutes, hours, or days. We need acute inflammation so that the healing takes place in our body. 

Chronic inflammation

However, prolonged inflammation, known as chronic inflammation, is a never ending response of the body to injuries or infections. Although inflammation is needed to heal injuries, long term inflammation can lead to serious chronic diseases. In fact, more and more studies are coming out proving that inflammation is linked to heart disease, cancer, diabetes as well as Alzheimer’s and several kinds of dementia. Scary, isn’t it?

Factors that cause inflammation

Several factors may cause inflammation. Among them we find:

Injuries
Toxins and chemicals in our air, water and food
Poor nutritional habits
Bacterial or viral infections
Allergies
Medications
Diseases of the immune system
Physical and emotional stress

 
As you may have guessed by now, reducing inflammation seems to be crucial to prevent a wide range of chronic illnesses that have the potential of shortening our lives. You may want to check my yesterday’s blog post to see one way of reducing inflammation. We’ll talk more about inflammation in the following days.

Have a happy and healthy day.

Emilia Klapp, BS, RD

MediterraneanDietfortheHeart