An Update On Sugar And Disease

We have posted several blogs to explain why sugar is a risk to your health. Today the averageAmerican consumes about 75 pounds of added sugar annually. Approximately half of that sugar comes from sweetened beverages.

The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend a limit on sugar. The new limit is that no more than 10 percent of a persons daily calories should come from added. sugar . This amounts to 50 grams or about 12 teaspoons for someone consuming 2,000  calories a day. The World Health Organization goes even farther and advises that getting even less than 5 percent of your daily calories from added sugar is even better.

This tough stance on sugar is in response to recent research studies. For example researchers analyzed national data from the past 20 years and found that the people who consumed the most added sugar (25 percent or more of their daily calories} were almost three times more likely to die from cardiovascular disease than those consuming less than 10 percent of their daily calories from sugar.

Other studies found that sugary beverages raised LDL (bad) cholesterol levels, contributed to the epidemic of type 2 diabetes, were associated with more than 180,000 obesity related deaths worldwide each year. Furthermore a large study from Sweden reported that those who drank at least two cups of sugary beverages were 20% more likely to suffer a stroke than those who rarely drank these beverages.

Get more information in our book Live Longer Live Healthier

or visit our website at trienergetics.net

The Truth About Generic Drugs

Are Generic Drugs The Same As The Brand Name

With the movement to curtail soaring healthcare costs, generic drugs have become increasingly popular. Even if we prefer to have the brand name we be forced to take the generic because our insurance will not cover the cost of the brand name. For this reason more than 80% of the drugs that we we take in the US are now generic It is estimated that going generic has saved Americans $193 billion dollars this past year.
                                                             
But are generic drugs the same as the original? The answer in many cases is no. For example the FDA requires that the generic have the same bioequivalence as the brand name. but the standard is very broad and the concentration of the active ingredient in the blood is allowed to fall as much as 20% below or 25% above that of the brand name. If you look at the math you will see that the biological activity of the generic is allowed to vary by 45% from the brand name. This is further complicated by the fact that pharmacies shop generics by price. The pills that you get one month may not have the same biological activity as the pills that you got another month.

This could possibly mean that if the pills you took one month only met the minimum requirement and the refill that you took another month met the maximum limit you would have increased the amount of medication that you get in our body by as much as 45%. Worse than that you would have no way of knowing from the labels that you were not getting the same amount of medication.

In many cases these differences are not important, but they are critical for medications used to treat conditions in which blood levels must be kept in a narrow range. These medications include, thyroid, anti-seizure,  blood thinners, antidepressants, antipsychotics, asthma and immunosuppressants.

There is another important difference between the generic and the brand name. Although the generic must contain the same active ingredient as the original, the additional ingredients, known as excipients, can be different. These ingredients can effect the amount of the drug that is absorbed into the blood stream and can also be responsible for systemic side effects that do not occur with the brand name.

Get more information in our book Live Longer Live Healthier

or visit our website at trienergetics.net

To Supplement Or Not To Supplement

In the preceding post we discussed the need and the rationale for supplementation. We pointed out that the retina has a very high metabolic rate and is very susceptible to oxidative stress. We also pointed out that most adults eating the Standard American Diet (SAD are deficient in the nutrients needed to neutralize the free radicals produced by oxidation. A reasonable question to ask  is whether there is any hard data that that proves the effectiveness of micronutrients in reducing the incidence of macular degeneration. The answer is yes.

There have been two Age-Related Eye Disease Studies know as AREDS1 and AREDS2. These studies were designed to study the effect of diet and nutrition on the progression of age-related macular degeneration in patients who already have the disease.

What did we learn from these studies on the 3640 patients who qualified for the AMD study? In our opinion the most important finding was those patients who ate the Standard American Diet high in red meat, processed meats, high-fat dairy products, fried foods, refined grains and eggs were at a significant increased risk for developing AMD compared to those patients who ate the Asian diet high in the consumption of vegetables, legumes, fruit, whole grains, tomatoes and seafood.

The conclusion of the studies was that a healthy diet rich in vegetables and fish was sufficient to delay the onset of AMD. Dietary supplements should be given to patients who have a high genetic risk for developing macular degeneration and to those who do not eat an adequate diet.

We are frequently asked whether the AREDS formulation should be taken for general eye health if there are no anatomic risk factors for developing AMD. The answer to this an emphatic no. Pills are not a substitude for a healthy diet

Get more information in our book Live Longer Live Healthier

or visit our website at trienergetics.net

Can You Prevent Age Related Macular Degeneration?

Age related macular degeneration affects an estimated 30 million people worldwide at an estimated cause of $300 billion dollars. The cause of this problem has been debated for years without  total agreement. Currently our understanding is that a number of factors are involved. First of all there is a genetic predisposition to develop macular degeneration. If someone in your immediate family has macular degeneration, your risk for developing it is about 70%. This is a higher rate of genetic predisposition than many other diseases.

Secondly, oxidative stress is a contributing factor. We have written extensively about oxidative stress in our book Live Longer Live Healthier. The retina is an organ that consumes large amounts of oxygen, a feature that makes it especially vulnerable to damage from free radicals that are produced as a by product of the cellular metabolism. To learn more about how free radicals are generated by your own body read the chapter on this subject in our book.

The third factor that contributes to the development of macular degeneration is environmental. Smoking is definitely a major causative factor. A poor diet is another. As we get older our metabolism tends to slow down and for most people less food is consumed. The aging body also has a reduced ability to absorb micronutrients from the gut contributing to nutrient deficiencies.

This problem is so severe that an estimated 5 to 10 % of adults over the age of 65 are clinically malnourished.  In another study it was found that 35% of patients in long term facilities were considered to be malnourished despite having access to proper nutrition. Furthermore a comprehensive nutritional survey in 2009 found that in patients over the age of 50, almost 50% did not meet their recommended daily allowance (RDA) for vitamin C and 90% did not meet the RDA for betacarotene, lutein or zeaxanthin.

A large study on nutrition and macular degeneration performed in Rotterdam concluded that a healthy diet rich in green leafy vegetables and fish was sufficient to prevent or delay the onset of macular degeneration. Unfortunately most older adults do not eat enough of the foods necessary to meet these criteria; therefore there is the need to supplement with the necessary micronutrients. We will discuss this in our next post.

Get more information in our book Live Longer Live Healthier

or visit our website at trienergetics.net

What Works Best For Knee Arthritis?

Our knees suffer from wear and tear over the years. It has been estimated that about one in seven adults will develop osteoarthritis of the knee. This percentage increases as we get older and goes even higher if we become obese. Unfortunately there is no cure for this problem other than surgery, but what has been learned about medical treatments?

There have been some controlled studies on the medical treatment of knee arthritis. The results published in the Annals of Internal Medicine contained some surprises.

The least effective drug was acetaminophen (Tylenol) even though it is the most commonly recommended. It was only slightly better than a placebo. The best of the oral drugs for pain relief was diclofenac, followed by ibuprofen and then naproxen. Celebrex was only slightly more effective than tylenol.

The most effective treatment for knee pain was an injection. There are basically two types of compounds injected into the knee for pain. One is a corticosteroid (cortisone). The other is hyaluronic acid (synvisc). Either of these were more effective than an injected placebo. A very interesting observation was that an injected placebo was as beneficial as any of the oral drugs. We are not surprised by this observation because it well known that the placebo effect is very powerful. In simple terms it means that if we are told that something will help us, chances are that it will.

A final thought that we repeat over and over again is that exercise and weight loss are important for overall health as well as reducing pain from arthritis of the knee.

Get more information in our book Live Longer Live Healthier

or visit our website at trienergetics.net

Live Longer Live Healthier

Live Longer Live Healthier is the title of our new book. In the opening chapters we point out that Americans are living longer, but because of the poor lifestyle choices that most of us  make when we are younger, most of us will live the extra years in poor health.  This information to back this statement is readily available.

In the book we emphasize that the habits we cultivate when we are younger will profoundly affect the quality of our life as we get older. There is solid scientific evidence for this statement. For example a recent study published in the journal Circulation analyzed data on 1,478 healthy participants in the Framingham Heart Study. They found that the longer participants had elevated cholesterol during the prior 20 years  the greater their risk of having a heart attack after age 55. In fact for each decade that they had elevated cholesterol the risk for having a heart attack increased by almost 40%.

When it comes to matters of your health an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound  of cure.

Get more information in our book Live Longer Live Healthier

or visit our website at trienergetics.net

Exercise To Calm Your Mind

Exercise is a cornerstone of the TriEnergetics program along with proper eating and stress management. Imagine my surprise when in the opinion column of the weekend Wall Street Journal I saw an article extolling the virtue of exercise as a refuge from the racket of everyday life. Better than that the article referred to some very important figures in literature and philosophy.

For example the danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said that "Health and salvation can only be found in motion."

Joseph Addison an 18th century English essayist said that exercise promotes a well tempered mind. He wrote, "I exercise my self an hour every morning upon a dumb bell that is placed in a corner of the room." Although I don't exactly understand or agree with what he did, I laud the effort.

Robert Frost ended a 1946 poem "Directive" with this advice. "Here are your waters and your watering place. Drink and be whole again beyond confusion." We agree and advise everyone to to use exercise not only as a physical outlet but as a method for finding inner peace.

Get more information in our book Live Longer Live Healthier

or visit our website at trienergetics.net