High Blood Pressure: Nutrition Tips

 The DASH eating plan

Food

Recommended servings

Examples

Low-fat and fat-free milk and milk products

2 to 3 servings a day

A serving is 8 ounces of milk, 1 cup of yogurt, or 1 1/2 ounces of cheese.

Fruits

4 to 5 servings a day

A serving is 1 medium-sized piece of fruit, 1/2 cup chopped or canned fruit, 1/4 cup dried fruit, or 4 ounces (1/2 cup) of fruit juice. Choose fruit more often than fruit juice.

Vegetables

4 to 5 servings a day

A serving is 1 cup of lettuce or raw leafy vegetables, 1/2 cup of chopped or cooked vegetables, or 4 ounces (1/2 cup) of vegetable juice. Choose vegetables more often than vegetable juice.

Grains

6 to 8 servings a day

A serving is 1 slice of bread, 1 ounce of dry cereal, or 1/2 cup of cooked rice, pasta, or cooked cereal. Try to choose whole-grain products as much as possible.

Meat, poultry, fish

No more than 2 servings a day

A serving is 3 ounces, about the size of a deck of cards

Legumes, nuts, seeds

4 to 5 servings a week

A serving is 1/3 cup of nuts, 2 tablespoons of seeds, or 1/2 cup cooked beans or peas.

Fats and oils

2 to 3 servings a day

A serving is 1 teaspoon of soft margarine or vegetable oil, 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise, or 2 tablespoons of low-fat salad dressing.

Sweets and added sugars

5 servings a week or less

A serving is 1 tablespoon of jelly or jam, 1/2 cup of sorbet, or 1 cup of lemonade.

Cut down on fats

Eating a diet low in both saturated fat and total fat will help lower your blood pressure.

Although you need some fat in your diet, limit how much saturated fat you eat. These fats are mostly in animal foods, such as meat and dairy foods. Coconut oil, palm oil, and cocoa butter are also saturated fats. Palm and coconut oils are often found in processed foods, including crackers and snack foods.

Follow the recommendations below to include healthy fats in your diet. DASH recommends that a little less than a third of your total calories come from fats. And most of these calories should come from healthy fats such as vegetable oils, nuts, and fish. Very few calories should come from saturated fat, which is found in animal meat, dairy products, and processed foods.

Cut back on sodium

There is a link between eating sodium and having high blood pressure. Reducing sodium in the diet can prevent high blood pressure in those at risk for the disease and can help control high blood pressure. Limiting sodium is part of a heart-healthy eating plan that can help prevent heart disease and stroke.

Try to eat less than 2,300 milligrams (mg) of sodium a day. If you limit your sodium to 1,500 mg a day, you can lower your blood pressure even more.

https://www.healthwise.net/tufts/Content/StdDocument.aspx?DOCHWID=aa132451

The Importance of Nutrition

 The Nutritional Impact of Children’s Food Choices

You Gotta Nourish To Flourish

For children, adequate nutrition is one of the most important factors influencing growth and immunity.  A balanced diet must contain the proper amount of protein, carbohydrate, fat, calcium, vitamins, and fiber. Each of these nutrients plays a vital role in the overall growth and development of children:

Protein helps a child’s body build cells, break down food into energy, and fight infection.

Carbohydrates are the body’s most important source of energy, helping a child’s body to use fat and protein for building and repairing tissue.

Fats are a great source of energy for kids and are easily stored in a child’s body. They are also important in helping the body properly use some of the other nutrients it needs.

Calcium is essential in helping to build a child’s healthy bones and teeth. It’s also important for blood clotting and for nerve, muscle, and heart function.

Iron is necessary for a child to build healthy blood that carries oxygen to cells all over the body.

Vitamin B helps the body produce red blood cells and assists in metabolic activities — this means that B vitamins help make energy and set it free when your child’s body needs it.

Vitamin C does more than just fight off the common cold. It helps form and repair red blood cells, bones, and tissues. It helps your child’s gums stay healthy and strengthens your child’s blood vessels, minimizing bruising from falls and scrapes. In addition, it helps cuts and wounds heal, boosts the immune system, and keeps infections at bay.

Fiber helps produce bowel regularity in a child. It can also play a role in reducing the chances of heart disease and cancer later in life.

 What is proper nutrition?

Good nutrition plays an important role in our lives.

It can help guard against malnutrition and help prevent diseases such as obesity, diabetes and cancer.

Unfortunately, in 2017, many people within Britain have a diet consisting largely of saturated fat, trans fat, sugar and sodium.

They should instead be consuming healthy choices such as fruits and vegetables. The food we put into our bodies reflects onto our health. If you’re an expectant mother, it’s a no-brainer how imperative good nutrition is. To test how much vitamins we have filled in our bodies, tools such as a mothers milk dha test kit can be utilized.

Nutrition London

Good nutrition aids the immune system

Nutrition helps us to maintain a healthy immune system.

Our immune system is our defence against diseases, and so poor nutrition can mean we are more prone to these.

By eating foods and taking supplements, such as the ones from www.rootine.co, that are loaded with vitamins and minerals, we are helping to keep our immune system healthy.

A well-balanced diet that consists of fruit, vegetables and low fats will help to keep your immune system strong and healthy and defend against diseases for years to come.

Proper nutrition provides you with more energy

Did you know that our bodies rely on energy that is outsourced from the foods and drinks we consume?

The main nutrients our bodies use for energy are carbohydrates, fats and protein.

You can find carbohydrates in foods such as wholegrain breads and starchy vegetables like potatoes.

These foods digest at a slow rate and therefore offer prolonged energy.

Water is also necessary in order to transport nutrients throughout our bodies, with dehydration from lack of water causing an absence of energy.

Mood

Many people opt for diets that are low in carbohydrates, however, this can be detrimental to your mood.

These diets can increase feelings of tension whereas diets high in carbohydrates tend to have an uplifting effect on moods.

By having a diet that is rich in protein, reasonable carbohydrates and low in fat, you will be obtaining an adequate supply of iron, omega-3 fatty acids and iron, and our moods will be positively affected by this.

Well Being

Eating a nutritional diet can also help with your physical and mental health, as eating healthily allows you to have more energy, and therefore become more active.

Studies have shown that two thirds of people who eat fruit and vegetables every single day report no mental health issues.

Living a longer life

Whilst our bodies need food in order to be healthy and survive, the process our body takes to metabolise causes stress on the body.

By overeating, we are creating more stress and this could potentially lead to a short lifespan if changes are not made.

If we feed our bodies the wrong types of food our lifespan can hugely decline because of this.

By eating diets that are rich in nutrients, and contain little to no processed foods, our lives may be lengthened.

At Perea Clinic we offer nutrition therapy to help you to meet your personal goals and requirements.

We can help with a weight loss program, a specific diet plan or sports nutrition. For more information, get in touch with a member of the team by visiting our contact page.

Why is nutrition important?

 Why is nutrition important?

A healthy diet throughout life promotes healthy pregnancy outcomes, supports normal growth, development and ageing, helps to maintain a healthy body weight, and reduces the risk of chronic disease leading to overall health and well-being.

Benefits of healthy eating

A diversified, balanced and healthy diet will vary depending on:

age 

gender

lifestyle

degree of physical activity

cultural context

locally available foods 

dietary and food customs.

The basic principles of what constitute a healthy diet remain the same.

Healthy food starts with a healthy diet in pregnancy (external site), continues with breastmilk for babies (external site) and is important for children and teenagers (external site) and adults (external site) and with ageing.

People who regularly eat:

more foods high in energy, fats, free sugars or salt/sodium and

do not eat enough fruit, vegetables and foods with whole grains

How nutrition can protect people’s health during COVID-19

 “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” The notion that nutritious and safe diets support good health has been around at least since antiquity, as this quote, often misattributed to Hippocrates, attests. What to eat – and not to eat – regularly grabs news headlines, as consumers try to balance scientific advice and marketing trends with their own culinary traditions, pocketbooks, and local food options.

Now, with so many people falling ill from the coronavirus (COVID-19), unhealthy diets are contributing to pre-existing conditions that put them more at risk.  And in much of the world, illness also means loss of income. Hence the pandemic has raised the stakes for consumers, producers and policy makers worldwide. What would it take to get healthy food right? Answers to this question are as pressing and relevant as ever.

With so many people falling ill from the coronavirus (COVID-19), unhealthy diets are contributing to pre-existing conditions that put them more at risk.

There are uncertainties around what constitutes healthy food and appropriate policy interventions. But a growing body of evidence and analysis points towards actions that may save lives – and at the very least improve the well-being of billions.  

The quality of diets is essential to health

Diets are crucial to the health status of people around the world. Food is not a peripheral concern: according to the 2017 Global Burden of Disease report, metabolic risks accounted for most of the top five risks of disability and death. More than 2 billion people are overweight or obese, with over 70% of them in low- and middle-income countries. Unsafe food caused an estimated 600 million illnesses and 420,000 premature deaths in 2010, according to the World Health Organization, undermining people’s health and nutritional security. And emerging evidence suggests that people with pre-existing, diet-related conditions such as severe obesity, heart disease, and diabetes, are suffering more serious consequences from COVID-19, including more severe illness and a greater need for intensive health care, such as respirators.

Malnutrition also severely weakens people’s immune systems, increasing people’s chances of getting ill, staying ill, and dying because of illness. Iron, iodine, folate, vitamin A, and zinc deficiencies are the most widespread, with over 2 billion people affected worldwide. This “hidden hunger” not only increases the risk of morbidity and mortality, but also contributes to poor growth, intellectual impairment, and perinatal complications. This lowers countries’ human capital and development prospects.

Expect food and nutrition insecurity to rise

Global inequity on food and nutrition is about to get much worse. The World Food Program has warned of a potential doubling of acute food insecurity in low- and middle-income countries this year due to income and remittance losses. Experience from 2008 also points to an impending nutrition crisis. Studies in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Mauritania assessed the impact of the 2008 global food price crisis, suggesting it increased acute malnutrition by 50% among poor children. Other studies found evidence of a significant rise in stunting among both urban and rural children.

COVID-19 puts diets at risk through disrupted health and nutrition services, job and income losses, disruptions in local food supply chains, and as a direct result of infections among poor and vulnerable people.  At the same time, there is evidence that the sale of snacks and non-perishable foods is growing rapidly in the crisis, at the expense of fresh foods, such as vegetables and fruits, and high protein foods, such as legumes, fish and meat. Junk food manufacturers reportedly see the crisis as an opportunity to expand their market share.

COVID-19 puts diets at risk through disrupted health and nutrition services, job and income losses, disruptions in local food supply chains, and as a direct result of infections among poor and vulnerable people.

How can we improve access to healthy food when people need it most?  And what can we do to limit the harm caused by unhealthy diets? We propose three areas for immediate and medium-term action.

1. Secure food at affordable prices for poor communities

The first area of action is to adopt policies that secure food at affordable prices for the most vulnerable. Remembering lessons from the past, international organizations including the FAO, IFAD, World Bank and World Food Programme have joined with agriculture ministers from countries of the G20, ASEAN, African Union, and Latin America and the Caribbean and are calling on exporting countries to avoid trade disruptions and keep food and agricultural inputs flowing across borders.

Attention to international trade must be complemented by steps to keep domestic food production, processing, and marketing functional and safe, despite social distancing and movement restrictions. And social safety net programs are essential to provide resources for families who have lost the ability to buy food.

2. Ensure better nutrition

The second area is no less important: countries must go beyond high-calorie staples and ensure better nutrition to boost people’s resilience and lower their risks from pre-existing, diet-related conditions and foodborne illnesses.  On the agricultural side, this may take many forms, from promoting kitchen gardens, growing bio-fortified crops, and diversifying food produced for domestic consumption, to improving cold chains for more perishable nutritious food, upgrading fresh food markets, and investing in food safety.

Stepping up nutrition advice, promoting breast-feeding, and fighting misinformation around COVID-19 transmission will help preserve the role of nutritious food as an ally against illness.

On the health side, stepping up nutrition advice (delivered, for example, by mobile phone twinned with cash transfers, or through community workers), promoting breast-feeding, and fighting misinformation around COVID-19 transmission will help preserve the role of nutritious food as an ally against illness, even in hard times. In designing interventions, there is much we can learn from the findings of the South Asia Food and Nutrition Security Initiative (SAFANSI). Another key resource is the Optima Nutrition tool, developed in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help improve the efficiency of nutrition spending and better reach vulnerable groups such as women and children.

3. Realign public spending for better health and nutrition

The third area that’s ripe for action is realigning public spending to match health and nutrition objectives. Growing food and eating meals may be largely private activities, but they are shaped in countless ways by public policies and by incentives  that reach a half trillion dollars a year in 53 countries reviewed by the OECD. Data is hard to come by, but most price support schemes are thought to go to a limited number of crops that form the basic ingredients of carbohydrate-rich, nutrition-poor packaged foods.

Fruit and vegetables, on the other hand, remain prohibitively expensive in many countries. Public support for cereals and sugar, combined with private marketing and clever packaging, is encouraging a transition to unhealthy diets in low and middle-income countries. For example, in Nepal, data shows that unhealthy snack food and beverage products comprise nearly 25% of calorie-intake among 1- to 2-year-old children.  

Food safety is imperative – foodborne disease in low- and middle-income countries is estimated to cost $110 billion in lost productivity and medical expenses each year.  It’s also urgent to tackle obesity. A new World Bank study on the health and economic consequences of the obesity epidemic encourages governments to increase taxation on unhealthy foods and regulate their marketing and advertising. Learning from successful examples such as Chile and Mexico, it also urges governments to subsidize healthier foods and mandate adequate labelling on processed foods. Over 47 countries are already experimenting with these approaches.

Being smarter about public resources, including by deploying taxes on items like sweetened beverages, would help generate resources at a time when budgets are constrained and governments are ramping up social safety net programs. This would create more fiscal space for health and nutrition interventions that help fight infectious diseases like COVID-19, while building resilience for future generations.

Original Source: https://blogs.worldbank.org/voices/how-nutrition-can-protect-peoples-health-during-covid-19

Vital Foods

 The latest nutrition trends are pretty easy to spot. You’ll often hear about new food and diet trends from friends or in the media, and before you know it there’s a whole host of new food products on the grocery shelves.

Dietitians are able to get a head start on upcoming nutrition trends, as I recently did when I attended annual Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics meeting in Atlanta. This is always a fun and interesting meeting to attend. Not only for the educational sessions, but also because you can spend hours wandering through the exhibit hall to view and sample hundreds of new food products. With all the vendors gathered under one roof, it was easy to spot the latest nutrition trends and hot topics.  Here’s a sampling.

 

Food and Nutrition Trend #1: Protein Snacks

One of the most evident food and nutrition trends at the meeting was the focus on protein. So many of the vendors I spoke with were eager to tout the amount of protein in their products, particularly in snack foods.

I was really happy to see this, because it suggests that we may be starting to move away from the idea of that snacking is bad, and that well-balanced, healthy snacks have their place.

Snacking has got a bad reputation because many people associate snacking with “snack foods” that offer little nutritional benefit. Often, snacking is considered bad because it’s viewed as something we do primarily for entertainment, not as a way to boost our intake of vitamins, minerals or protein.

A healthy snack that contains protein can serve a couple of important purposes. It can help keep hunger at bay in between meals, and it also offers up another ‘eating opportunity’ to sneak more nutrition into your day. Putting together your own snack isn’t hard but it does take time. As more healthy snack options begin to appear on store shelves, it’ll be easier than ever to get a shot of protein in between meals. And it may also help support the notion that snacking, when done properly, can be a healthy habit.

 

Food and Nutrition Trend #2: Gluten-Free is Here to Stay

 There were so many new gluten-free products to sample, which leads me to think that more people will try them since they’re becoming so widely available. Whether or not people need to go gluten-free, the gluten-free trend could help add more variety and nutrition to your diet.

Since the primary source of gluten in the diet is wheat, the gluten-free trend is introducing us to all kinds of interesting grain alternatives, like quinoa, buckwheat, millet, teff, amaranth and foods made from them. This is a great way to add variety to your diet. And since every plant offers up its own unique set of nutrients, you’ll also be getting a wider variety of vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients.

There is one caveat, though. Many people have mistakenly jumped on the gluten-free bandwagon, assuming it was a straight path to weight loss. Ten or 15 years ago, that might have been true. There were just so few gluten-free products available that avoiding gluten meant, in essence, avoiding wheat and everything that was made from it. So, a gluten-free diet consisted primarily of fruits, vegetables and protein—and a lot less refined carbohydrate—so many people lost weight.

Many of the gluten-free products that are out there now—as well as the ones I tried which are making their way to your grocery store—aren’t necessarily low in calories. If you decide to follow the gluten-free trend, just be sure to read your nutrition facts carefully so you know how many calories you’re eating. Bottom line:  Gluten-free doesn’t necessarily mean low-calorie.

 

Food and Nutrition Trend #3: Probiotics – The “Good” Bacteria

There is an intense research interest focused on the gut microbiome. This is the collection of various bacterial species that inhabit your gastrointestinal tract and its role in human health. From what I saw at the meeting, you’ll probably be seeing more and more products that are designed to support the growth of these “good” bacteria.

Fermented foods are one of the primary ways we get these good bacteria into the system. Most people are familiar with fermented dairy products, such as yogurt and kefir, as sources of these bacteria. I also sampled something new, a cultured (fermented) cottage cheese that contained probiotics. There were also packaged fermented beets and carrots, as well as several probiotic beverages and probiotic “shots.”

As more people become aware of the importance of the microbiome to overall health, I expect we’ll be seeing more and more of these probiotic-rich, fermented foods on store shelves.

 

Views expressed are personal to the author, and Herbalife Nutrition shall neither be responsible nor liable for the same at any time.

This article is only for general information and not intended to be a substitute for the advice of a qualified and registered medical practitioner or a recommendation for any treatment plan. Person with any specific or special medical condition should consult his/ her physician before adopting suggested workout

Original Source: https://www.herbalife.co.in/articles/vital-foods/

Why Immunity Is Your Best Defense and How to Fuel It

 Our immune system has one job: helping our bodies defend and recover from illness.

Unhealthy diets – high on calories from sugars, meats, and dairy products – are usually associated with health problems like obesity and metabolic diseases. But they can also cause a tremendous imbalance in our immune system, thus weakening it.

Regularly eating foods that are not nutritious can break down our immune defense, similar to how invaders can damage a fortress. This, in turn, can also make one more susceptible to new and reoccurring illnesses.

 

Why Is Immunity Our Best Defense?

I want you to think of your body as a well-designed fortress. Every day, our body silently defends itself against potential harm through its layered system of defense. It can defend and repair when it is challenged.

Our cells are like the army of protectors, each with specific roles to play to help our body defend itself. If unsuccessful, they will repair the body when needed. That is why nutrition is so important. Our cells need nutrients that come in the form of:

• Macronutrients
• Micronutrients
• Phytonutrients

Within these three broad categories, we understand the specific importance of protein, healthy essential fats like omega-3, the power of fiber to support our microbiome, and of course, vitamins, minerals and plant-based nutrients that keep our body in optimal condition.

 

A Real-Life Story on the Impact of Good Nutrition

While deficiency is rare in developed countries, many people in developing countries do not get enough essential vitamins over a long period of time. Back in 1976, an eye doctor was working in Indonesia to reduce the number of children who would go blind because of a deficiency in Vitamin A. He noticed that when these individuals were given vitamin A, they also were not dying from common infections in the country like measles or diarrhea.

This led to studies and the eventual recommendation by the World Health Organization for universal vitamin A supplementation. The World Bank declared vitamin A supplementation one of the most cost-effective of all health interventions.

This teaches us that whether it is vitamin A, D, or C, minerals like Magnesium or Zinc, or antioxidants from plants or protein – our cells need the right balance of nutrients to do the job they were meant to do.

Consuming a balanced diet with the right vitamins, minerals, and nutrients while maintaining a healthy lifestyle is the best way to keep your immune system working fine and doing what it is meant to do: defend your body.

https://www.herbalife.co.in/articles/why-immunity-is-your-best-defense-and-how-to-fuel-it/