A SPECIAL SECTION OF THE SCARSDALE INQUIRER E OCTOBER 19, 2012
To Your Health! Back to Basics
Best nutrition comes from simple foods By TRACI DUTTON LUDWIG Courtesy Mount KisCo ACuPunCture And MAssAGe
Managing the stress Mess A GPS to navigate the road to relaxation By L AURIE SULLIVAN
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urn off those stress machines and follow the road to relaxation. That’s right, take a break and turn off those iPads, iPods, iPhones, Kindles and other electronic gear and pick a path that can lead the way to lessen the tension of work and the demands of family life. It doesn’t have to take that much time to achieve. Some stress relievers take only 15 minutes a day and others might take up to an hour once or twice a week or once a month but worth every minute to relax your body and mind. Many people find it hard to relax, even when they have the time to do so. There are executives who go on vacation, but who check their work emails every five minutes. On weekends, instead of relaxing, taking in a ballgame or playing in one, are you checking those endless emails? Work sometimes encroaches on weekends, but often it’s just a habit. And that includes people who work late because their days could have been better organized. Couldn’t resist playing Words with Friends or had to check the sports scores on ESPN? I’m talking to all of you. We’re all programmed to live our lives, jam packing everything we can into our day. And the result? S-T-R-ES-S! Well, there are lots of choices out there that will help you slow your life down a bit — enough to rid yourself of the stress that keeps you up at night. Turning off the stress machine that powers many of our lives can give you more energy for the stuff you want and need to do. Acupuncture and massage: Nirvana!
James Silverman is an acupuncturist and massage therapist with an office in Mount Kisco. He sees patients who sometimes have specific pain issues that are stress related, such as migraines and back pain. He explained that the whole idea of acupuncture is the “qi of energy.” “I usually tell people the Nei Jing, the old classic book of Oriental medicine says, ‘Where there is no flow, there is pain; when there is flow there is no pain,” he said. Silverman looks at the tongue first and checks the meridian points. “Pain is usually caused by stress in the system,” Silverman said. “Something in the body stagnated it. When
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implify your plate and feed good health. As nutritional science keeps developing, it still supports the basics — the most healthful diet is based on vegetables, fruit and whole grains in their whole food forms. High-quality protein and healthy fats are a necessary complement, but neither should dominate the diet as they often do in Western culture. The benefits of simple, healthy eating are manifold. A well-rounded, plant-based diet has the power to “achieve better health and reduce the risk for chronic disease,” said registered dietitian Allison Cecere. Cecere has been in practice for 18 years, with a master’s of science in clinical nutrition. Her practice, Nutrition Therapy and Educational Services, is in Bedford Hills. “People tend to overcomplicate diet and nutrition,” she said. “We need to refocus on how simple the strategies can be.” “The first step is to eliminate or minimize highly processed foods from the diet,” Cecere continued. “After that, the focus is on plant-based food sources — the very foods for which human physiologies were designed. It is something we have been advocating for years as the cornerstone of healthy eating. But new research has exciting evidence that supports this, particularly in the area of bioactive food components that exist in plantbased foods.” Beyond vitamins and minerals, bioactive food components, or phytochemicals, are unique chemical substances that offer far-reaching protective health benefits. They work to support various body systems at the cellular level, which optimize biological performance and reduce the risk or acceleration of chronic disease. “Bioactive components are a complex science, but basically they work through antioxidant pathways to maintain the health and integrity of DNA, favorably regulate hormones and hormone response, reduce inflammation, protect cell-signaling pathways and enhance apoptosis pathways,” Cecere said. Apoptosis refers to the body’s automatic programming to kill and eliminate atypical cells — an important area of cancer research. “The research of bioactive food components is very exciting in the areas of cardiovascular disease, cancer and any inflammatory-based disease. When people understand the significant health benefits they can achieve just from making better dietary choices, there is no better motivation,” Cecere said. To achieve maximum advantage of bioactive food components, consumers should expose themselves to high concentrations in whole food plant forms. “Whole foods” refers to the concept of eating food in a state that is closest to how the food looked when it was picked or harvested. Vegetables and fruit
Seven or more servings of fruit or vegetables per day are recommended. (A fruit/vegetable serving size is 1/2 cup cooked or 1 cup raw.) Since each fruit or vegetable family contains different phytochemicals with unique benefits, “eat the rainbow” for good variety. Overall intake should include more vegetables than fruit. Citrus
Oranges, lemons, limes and grapefruit possess bioactive components called terpenes, which have an antioxidant effect and help regulate hormones. In addition to the fruit flesh, the peel is also highly concentrated in terpenes and should be used in creative ways. Cecere suggests including zest in daily meal plans by adding it to cereal, yogurt, salads, whole grain dishes, fish preparations and pastas. “Of course, use only organic citrus to reduce your exposure to toxic pesticide residues,” she said. continued on page 8a
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INsIDE: Bad eating habits: When, why and how to control them ......... 3A Fluids: The fads, the facts & the fallacies ............................. 4A Spray-on skin cells: They could make wrinkles a thing of the past ................................... 5A Diet: Conjugated linoleic acid for a healthy weight .................... 10A To Your Health!: News and Notes ............................... 9A-11A Working out: What fitness plan works for you? ..................... 12A
By JENNIFER LEAVITT-WIPF
oXygen: Better breathing, better living
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ost people laughed when the media claimed that Michael Jackson took his naps in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber. “What an eccentric,” many said. But years later, that very technology, along with other forms of oxygen supplementation, is starting to creep into the mainstream, from major hospitals to alternative health centers, and even into the home. Why is that? A person can survive up to eight weeks without food, as long as seven days with no water, but only three minutes in the absence of oxygen. Not only must we breathe it in to perfuse our cells, tissues and organs, but our other tools for survival incorporate it as well. Water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen. Add carbon and you’ve got carbohydrates. The addition of nitrogen gives us protein. And carbohydrates work with oxygen to produce the energy we use to function. Thus, some scientists have long theorized that the volume of oxygen we take in must influence our health in major ways. But don’t we get enough oxygen naturally? Some of those same scientists don’t believe we do.
The average oxygen content of ambient air today is approximately 21 percent. We know that air bubbles trapped in fossilized amber contain about 38 percent. This means that, since prehistoric times, there has been a near 50 percent drop in the average oxygen content of the air we breathe. Some speculate that life on Earth today is much smaller in size and stature for this very reason. Of course, most of us are happy to live without giant cockroaches and dinosaurs, but the idea that oxygen supported such enormous tissue growth in the past hints at just how influential it is on cells and tissues, beyond its ability to keep us breathing. It also suggests that oxygen levels in the air have been on the decline since life on Earth began, and that the current levels may not be optimal. Many of the health habits and environments we hear about — quitting smoking, exercising, fresh air, saunas, eating whole foods and drinking water — also increase our blood oxygen levels, and there is increasing evidence that low blood oxygen levels are usually present with disease, though scientists are debating which came first, the disease or the deprivation. Dr. Otto Warburg, a German biochemist who won CONTINUED ON PAGE 7A