Dr. Chet’s Health Memos
If it’s in the health news today, I’ll be writing about it as soon as I read the research, both old and new. With my email Health Memos, you’ll know more about making lifestyle choices that will help you get and keep good health. These free, concise updates on health are emailed to subscribers twice a week. Subscribe today and get a free MP3, in English or Spanish, of Dr. Chet’s Top Ten Tips—Small Changes for a Healthier Life.
Eat to Perform
With the NFL playoffs going on, there have been some amazing performances. Do these men have talent? Sure, but talent won't take you far enough. I've accumulated some stories about how athletes prepare to perform and they seemed especially appropriate this week.
Let's begin with what is known in Steeler Lore as The Waffle House Incident. Antonio Brown, late of Dancing with the Stars fame and one of the best wide receivers in football, went out to eat with his wide receiver teammates. He's known for eating only organic food. As the story goes, he grilled . . .
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How Exercise Affects Menopause: Heart and Brain
In the last post, I talked about the effects of menopause on the muscles and bones; in short, the changes in the muscles reduce physical abilities, and exercise can help that. But there’s another factor when it comes to physical performance: the heart and cardiovascular system. Once a women passes 30, her aerobic capacity declines every decade. That means oxygen doesn’t reach the muscles and brain as often. Her physical reserves wane.
Exercise can have a positive impact on the heart . . .
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How Exercise Affects Menopause: Muscle and Bone
In Tuesday’s post, we looked at how menopause affects exercise. Today and Saturday we’ll look at the reverse because exercise can have powerful effects on the changes we associate with menopause.
As a woman ages, she loses bone mineral content due to decreasing hormone levels. Her muscles change as well; fast-twitch muscle fibers become more like slow-twitch fibers. Women can’t run as fast . . .
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How Menopause Affects Exercise: Thirst
Dr. Peggy Whitson is an astronaut on her third extended mission on the International Space Station. If her current mission ends as planned, she will be the astronaut with more time in space than any other. She just completed her 7th spacewalk to install three new lithium-ion batteries. This is nothing like changing the batteries in the remote; each battery is about the size of half of a refrigerator and takes hours to install. And, oh, by the way, Dr. Watson is 56 years old.
By all accounts, she is fit, with an avid interest in weight training and . . .
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Nutrition Can’t Fix Everything: Your Genetics
In this final post on why nutrition can’t fix everything, let’s take a look at genetics. All things being equal, genetics—specifically minor mutations in our genes—is probably the biggest reason why nutrition can’t fix everything. Here are a few examples to explain why it can’t.
For someone with celiac disease, a genetic test can confirm the diagnosis. Once confirmed, the person should no longer eat any foods with gluten to avoid digestive issues. No other nutrient, enzyme, or probiotic can repair the gene. Nutrition can’t fix it.
In last Saturday’s message, I . . .
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Nutrition Can’t Fix Everything: Your Microbiome
In this post, I’ll cover another reason that nutrition can’t fix everything: our microbiome, the bacteria, fungi, viruses, and other microorganisms that live on and in our bodies. From birth, our microbiome is the result of contact with our mothers and others, our environment, and the foods we eat and don’t eat. It’s also the result of the antibiotics we’ve taken when we’re sick as well as those that have been in the foods we’ve eaten.
Our microbiome works best when it’s in balance; the problem is that doesn’t happen in . . .
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Nutrition Can’t Fix Everything: Baggage
Happy New Year! I hope you’re ready to make your health a priority in 2017. Let’s begin the New Year right with a statement I discussed in my monthly conference call. I received an email in which someone was convinced that there was a nutritional solution to a health issue that she was having. I thought about that for a couple of months—not her condition but the question in general.
Nutrition cannot fix everything, whether a change in diet or a supplement. I’m going to give you three reasons this week as to why.
Let’s . . .
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Schedule Your Eye Exam
Things were looking the tiniest bit fuzzy, so I decided it was time to get my eyeglass prescription checked. I seemed to have blurry spots in my right eye at about the level I would normally read, whether paper or computer. I made the appointment; the results weren’t exactly what I was hoping for. Based on the pressure inside my eye, I had glaucoma. I was stunned. Didn’t see that one coming—no pun intended.
I went through a different and very irritating vision test to see how much vision I’d lost. Turns out none with one . . .
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Rule 3: Move More
While I absolutely believe that we need to eat less and eat better, the one thing that can help you faster than anything else is exercise. Changes in how your body responds to insulin happen within three days. Your heart rate and blood pressure start to decrease within a week. Even your digestive system will work better.
To help you out, there are two papers I wrote in the Health Info section of my website. Interval . . .
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Schedule Your Dental Exam
While your physician may examine your tonsils and tongue when you have your physical, that doesn’t include your teeth. For that, you need to see a dentist. Asking people to visit a dentist is right up there with the fear of public speaking—so many people just hate it. We’ve got a great dental team that takes care of our teeth and they do everything they can to make the visit a pleasure, so Paula and I don’t mind going. Find a dentist that works with you, and the only way to do that is by trial . . .
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