Cinnamon: Sweet and Spice and Everything Nice...and healthy!

Cinnamon is known as the world’s oldest spice, having been used for the past 2000 years. You may use it in your cooking and baking or to scent your house during the autumn months, but do you know about cinnamon’s numerous health benefits?

I learned about cinnamon’s health benefits several years ago and have tried to incorporate it into my food as much as possible. It’s lovely fragrance makes it even more appealing.

Cinnamon has long been known to help lower blood sugar levels. Although research continues, it’s understood that cinnamon helps insulin work better in your body. Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas which is released into the blood when you consume carbohydrates. Once the carbohydrates are broken down into their simplest form, glucose, insulin is responsible for bringing the glucose into the cell where it is used for energy production. Diabetes results when blood sugar levels are too high. Research has demonstrated that just ½ teaspoon daily of cinnamon can help balance blood sugar levels. Cinnamon oil is not recommended for internal use.

Cinnamon is also considered a muscle relaxant and digestive aid. That means it can assist with intestinal cramps and gas as well as menstrual and night time leg cramps.

Most commonly I use cinnamon in my morning smoothies but it’s a wonderfully flavorful addition to healthy baked goods. I love meals inspired by the Mediterranean region of the world and cinnamon is often a subtle flavor in many of my main dishes. Regardless of how you incorporate cinnamon into your diet, I highly recommend it.

Brazil Nuts & Selenium

My love of brazil nuts continues to grow. Have you seen these big, but funny shaped nuts? I read yet another article today describing the tremendous health benefits of brazil nuts. Not only are brazil nuts a great source of healthy fat, but they are packed with selenium, an essential trace mineral. Not only does selenium help strengthen the immune system (especially important in this age of swine flu), but also have now been shown to reduce the risk of many cancers as well as thyroid disease, infertility and arthritis. Selenium has also been shown to hinder the replication of HIV in the body. Additionally it has been demonstrated that selenium helps create enzymes in the body that prevent cellular damage due to free radicals. Wow, what a mineral!

When I’m working with patients to balance their thyroid hormones, I recommend brazil nuts because they contain more selenium than any other food I know of. Selenium is important for the thyroid because it helps convert T4 (the mostly inactive form of thyroid hormone) to T3 (the active form of thyroid hormone). So many of the women I treat have such sluggish thyroid glands and most of them are deficient in selenium.

Eating just 2 brazil nuts daily will give you the selenium your body requires. I eat brazil nuts plain but I also put them in my homemade trail mix. Give them a try!

Perimenopause: What Can You Do About It?

Perimenopause is defined as the 2-3 years around the onset of menopause. Menopause generally affects women in their late 40s or early 50s although it can happen earlier or later. Perimenopausal women experience many changes within their bodies but that does not mean that a woman should be symptomatic. Hot flashes, brain fog, fatigue, weight gain, and general malaise are all very common in perimenopausal women but these symptoms are not natural.

When a woman is shifting into menopause, her ovaries are starting to wind down their production of estrogen and progesterone. Menopausal women still needs and produces these important hormones. Since the ovaries are no longer producing these hormones, the adrenal glands must now take up the responsibility. The adrenal glands are more commonly known for producing stress hormones but a menopausal woman’s adrenal glands now produce her progesterone. Estrogen is generally produced in the fat cells.

A woman who has stressed adrenal glands will most likely have a difficult transition to menopause. The hot flashes, brain fog, fatigue, and weight gain mentioned earlier are typical symptoms a woman will have if she has stressed adrenal glands.

But all is not lost. Even if a woman is experiencing these symptoms, they can be reversed through proper evaluation and treatment. I use saliva testing and/or hair analysis to help properly evaluate a woman’s female and stress hormones. This is a functional approach to a woman’s health. I am not looking for diseases, but rather for imbalances that prevent the body from healing. In addition to saliva testing, I use appropriate nutritional support, diet changes and stress modification to assist a woman into menopause. However, if a woman is already menopausal and having the same symptoms, this type of evaluation and treatment is appropriate for her as well. There’s no need to suffer through perimenopause or menopause.

The Cost of Obesity

The rates of obesity in the United States are staggering. The depth and breadth of the problem is astounding and the costs are many. The National Center for Health statistics has been tracking America’s obesity problem for over four decades.

• Between 1962 and the year 2000, the number of obese Americans grew from 13% to an alarming 31% of the population.
• 63% of Americans are overweight with a Body Mass Index (BMI) in excess of 25.0.
• 31% are obese with a BMI in excess of 30.0.
• Childhood obesity in the United States has more than tripled in the past two decades.
• According to the U.S. Surgeon General report obesity is responsible for 300,000 deaths every year.
  

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publishes a fascinating series of charts noting the obesity trends from 1985-2007. Go to http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/trend/maps/index.htm to view the charts.

Research has demonstrated the following increased health risks associated with being overweight or obese.

· Coronary heart disease

· Type 2 diabetes

· Cancers (endometrial, breast, and colon)

· Hypertension (high blood pressure)

· Dyslipidemia (for example, high total cholesterol or high levels of triglycerides)

· Stroke

· Liver and Gallbladder disease

· Sleep apnea and respiratory problems

· Osteoarthritis (a degeneration of cartilage and its underlying bone within a joint)

· Gynecological problems (abnormal menses, infertility)

As mentioned above, children are affected just as adults. The CDC reports that “obese children and adolescents are more likely to become obese as adults. For example, one study found that approximately 80% of children who were overweight at aged 10–15 years were obese adults at age 25 years. Another study found that 25% of obese adults were overweight as children. The latter study also found that if overweight begins before 8 years of age, obesity in adulthood is likely to be more severe.”

The health consequences for overweight and obese children make them more

“more likely to have risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease (such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and Type 2 diabetes) than are other children and adolescents.” Additional consequences include impaired learning in school and poor self-esteem to name a few.

The financial costs for obesity/overweight related health care include $79 billion dollars spent annually, in the United States alone. Half of that money is taxpayer funded as the costs are paid for by Medicare and Medicaid. These numbers were from 1998 and one can assume that they have increased as the rates of obesity continue to rise. These are only the direct health care related costs. Additional economic costs include decreased productivity, restricted activity, absenteeism, bed days and even premature death!

This is a real problem and truly, it concerns me more than the swine flu. It’s up to us to change the way we feed our children. We must realize that we are role models as children learn their eating habits from their parents. Let’s start reversing these trends!