2010 September | Quality of Life

The Low GL Diet

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Low GL (glycemic load) diets go along with the idea of low GI (glycemic index) diets. Both look at how the food you eat affects the sugar levels in your blood. When you eat foods with simple carbohydrates, these carbs are metabolized quickly causing a spike in your blood sugar levels. According to studies, sustained peaks may lead to a higher risk of developing diabetes. By keeping blood sugar levels stable, you’ll be able to decrease this chance, and your body will more easily lose weight.

Glycemic indexes mostly just look at how quickly a particular carbohydrate turns into sugar. For a GI diet, you are only allowed to eat certain foods that have a low-GI rating, with some exceptions here and there for medium-GI rated foods and every once in a great while for foods with high-GI ratings (which include potatoes, watermelon, bagels, white rice, etc.).

Glycemic load takes on a different view of how food affects blood sugar levels by focusing not only on what type of carbohydrate is in a particular food, but how much of that carbohydrate is in a food. For example, in a GI diet, you should not eat carrots because the carbohydrate in carrots is quickly metabolized, making it a high-GI food, and yet there isn’t a lot of it in carrots, making the glycemic load fairly low, which is why on a low GI diet, you would not be able to eat a carrot, but with a low GL diet, you would. Another example is watermelon – it is a high-GI food with a rating of 72 per 100 grams. Yet on the GL scale, 100 grams of watermelon is only 3.6, which is well within the low range, and would be okay to eat.

Overall, if you want to follow a low GI or low GL diet, either because you want to level out your blood sugar levels because you’re a diabetic or at risk for developing diabetes a GL diet seems more beneficial than a GI diet because the information used to develop the GI scale for foods is incomplete.

Filed Under: Health Tagged With: Blood sugar, Carbohydrate, Glycemic index

Mental Illness Doesn’t Always Require Drug Treatment

The importance of physical health is obvious, but people often overlook the importance of mental health. It’s easy to see most physical sickness, but when someone is unwell mentally, the signs are not always visible, especially if the person attempts to hide the illness.

When people speak of mental illness, there is a stigma attached – it’s easy to assume that the person must be crazy or a danger to society, but this isn’t fair. There are milder forms of mental illness, such as depression, which do not mean psychosis but do affect the person’s quality of life and, if left untreated, might cause serious problems.

There are many reasons for mental unwellness. Discontent is an obvious cause. People who hate their job, are in a dysfunctional relationship or are in some other circumstances they don’t like, become stressed and miserable, often the more so if they try to hide what they’re going through.

Society has little tolerance for unhappiness, so those who are sick at heart often feel they have to hide it in order to be accepted. The misery they go through can become exacerbated by a mental issue, with serious consequences. Prolonged unhappiness can have a physical effect, causing people to waste away as they stop taking care of themselves and lose their motivation for action. Sometimes people turn to substance abuse for solace and may fall into a self-destructive spiral unless they get into drug treatment.

It’s not always possible to see when people are unwell mentally. The most important thing people can do is be vigilant. Friends and family are the best weapon against mental illness. Whether they talk someone out of depression or help that person seek medical treatment for a more serious condition, people are the only ones who can help other people, because often the sick are unable to help themselves.

Filed Under: Health Tagged With: Health, Mental disorder, Mental health

Enzymes: Important to Your Diet

Have you heard of a pancreas? Do you know what it does? The pancreas is an organ located near the beginning of the small intestine. It pumps out enzymes that are used to break down the foods we eat so that the nutrients can be absorbed and digested into the body. Without the proper enzymes, food is digested and can cause negative side effects including low-nutrient absorption, gas, bloating, and even diarrhea. If you’ve ever heard of someone being lactose intolerant, that is caused by not having enough lactase, an enzyme that breaks down the lactose found in dairy so the body can digest it.

The problem is that the body cannot produce enough enzymes to break down all of the food we eat each and every day. Many enzymes can be found in foods that we eat – mostly from fruits and vegetables. Just another reason why we need to be eating five servings of these each and every day. Enzymes, such as bromelain found in pineapple. In fact, in South America and other locations, pineapple is used to tenderize meat because of this enzyme action (so is papaya which contains papain, in case you were wondering).

When we don’t eat enough foods with enzymes to digest food, we find that our pancreas has to work harder to keep up, which is not good for the pancreas, especially if it’s long term.

For those who aren’t able to eat enough enzymes, another option is supplements. If you’ve ever heard of Bean-o, that’s one supplement available that contains enzymes. There are many products out there that can be found at any typical grocery store or other stores that sell nutritional supplements.

But when possible, try to avoid processed food. The more food has been processed, the more likely it will have lost its enzymes, and with each process, more enzymes are lost. So basically, when it comes down to it, if you want to provide enzymes for your body, do what doctors and nutritionists have been saying for decades – eat more fruits and vegetables!

Filed Under: Health Tagged With: Enzyme, Lactose intolerance, South America

Addiction and Substance Abuse for Teens

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Teens can be difficult to deal with when it comes to following rules and living a healthy life emotionally, mentally, and physically. Parents that have teenagers find it more difficult to deal with them as they reach the middle years of their teen years because the teens are running into a higher amount of peer pressure. Teens will try certain things when they are still young such as alcohol, drugs, smoking, tobacco and sex. Some teens will like what they have tried and continue to use or will dislike what they have tried and will discontinue their use of the item. It is important for parents to stress the harm that alcohol, smoking, tobacco and drugs can cause if used by teenagers.

Some teens who like what they have tried will continue to use these items and cannot live without them or function without them. This is considered substance abuse. Substance abuse can cause serious medical problems and emotional problems in teens because they are so young and do not know how to handle problems that might arise from their substance abuse. The illegal drug used most by teens these days is marijuana, even though many teens abuse prescription drugs found in their own home or household chemicals as inhalants. Teens use alcohol or drugs to fit in with their friends or just because they like how these items make them feel.

It has been found that teens who have parents with alcohol and drug abuse problems will have an increased risk in developing substance abuse problems of their own. Teens who also are not close with their parents or who do not feel valued by their parents are also at a higher risk for developing a substance abuse problem during their teenager years. Alcohol and drug abuse problems are a leading cause of death or injuries suffered in teenagers in accidents, suicides, violence and drowning. Studies have been released that substance abuse in teens can lead to pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV because of unprotected sex.

Filed Under: Addiction, Health, Rehab, Treatment Tagged With: Addiction, Drug abuse, Illegal drug trade, Substance abuse

Aromatherapy and Depression

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Depression, especially manic depression, is a condition that millions of Americans suffer from each year that can be treated via medications, cognitive therapy, or aromatherapy. Aromatherapy is one of the most popular treatments because it uses natural oils that come from plants to treat the symptoms and assist in a healing process. Depression can be caused by a lack of sleep and aromatherapy can relax the mind and help patients suffering from depression get their sleep back on track. The oils used in aromatherapy can also help to brighten one’s mood, but should only be used as a complimentary treatment that is combined with a variety of other treatments.

Clary Sage essential oil is used to help treat insomnia, anxiety, and depression. Basil is used to help treat fatigue, anxiety, and depression. Rose essential oil is used to treat the nervous system and other disorders. Ylang-ylang is used to treat anxiety, depression, and insomnia. Sandalwood is used to treat depression and tension. Lavender is used to treat headaches, insomnia, migraines, nervous tension and stress related conditions. Jasmine essential oil is used to increase the beta waves in the front of the head which gives the patient a more alert and responsive state of mind.

The emotional centers in the brain are closely related to the sense of smell, which is why aromatherapy is so commonly used in treating depression. Smelling the scents listed above can easily help patients suffering from depression relax and remove tension from their bodies.

If anyone feels that they are experiencing depression they should consult their doctor as soon as possible before beginning an aromatherapy regimen because there could be other treatment options available including medication, cognitive therapy, and other treatments. When using aromatherapy patients can do perform aromatherapy on their own or they can go to a masseuse and receive a massage to help with their depression. If the patient does their aromatherapy on their own they can use candles, diffusers, and other scented items to help with their depression.

Filed Under: Addiction, Health, Rehab, Research, Treatment Tagged With: Anxiety, Depression, Essential oil, Mental health

Information on Food Addiction

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Food addictions, which is also called compulsive overeating, comes when an individual becomes obsessed with food to the point where he or she eats many times more than is necessary. Sometimes this comes in the form of binge eating when the addict east uncontrollably and keeps eating even after being full. Following these binges, addicts feel depressed and guilty about what they did, and unlike with bulimia, they do not purge what they ate afterward.

Compulsive eaters will spend a lot of their thoughts thinking about food and what they want to eat. These thoughts often include fantasizing about eating by themselves where they can eat without judgment from other people. Because of these actions, food addictions will lead to weight gain and obesity, with the extreme addicts weighing somewhere around 400 to 500 pounds. Even so, there are plenty of people who of normal weight that are also afflicted with this addiction.

Compulsive eaters often participate in the behavior of grazing as well where they always have food near them at all times and will eat a little here and there. The calories from grazing add up quickly and lead to eating way more calories than are needed in one day.

An abbreviated list of symptoms for food addiction include the following:

- binge eating
- obsessed with body weight
- eating alone
- gaining weight rapidly
- feeling guilty after overeating
- depression and mood swings

Eating food for food addicts results in a high that is very similar to what drug addicts feel. Recovery often comes in the form and therapy and counseling, but luckily the about 80 percent of food addicts are able to overcome their addiction, or at least reduce the severity of their symptoms significantly. For those that are morbidly obese, the recovery rate is greatly decreased (around 2 percent).

It’s important for sufferers of a food addiction to get help since the health risks from being obese are high including high cholesterol, heart disease, hypertension, kidney disease, arthritis, and more. Help is available for those who have an overeating disorder.

Filed Under: Health Tagged With: Binge eating, Compulsive overeating, EAT