|
Our nation, which leads the world in developing new prescription medications, ranks a mediocre 29th in life expectancy.
That is because of three primary factors:
- Mothers being forced into the workforce due to wages not keeping up with inflation for the last 25 years,
- The proliferation of affordable, kid-pleasing, high-fat meals offered by the burgeoning fast-food restaurant industry, and
- Our increasingly sedentary lifestyles have made us the fattest and least-fit nation in the world.
The Problem with Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs
Elevated serum cholesterol can be lowered by 40% and more through a combination of dietary changes and exercise, but most choose to pop Lipitor instead. We are becoming a nation of irresponsible cripples, eating and entertaining our way to wheel-chair living where the dependency on multiple drugs so controlling, the enjoyment of life is all but gone.
Statin drugs decrease levels of a very important antioxidant, Coenzyme Q10. CoQ10 is essential to the proper functioning of the mitochondria which is responsible for the production of energy in every one of our cells. These drugs drain the batteries of all the cells of the body, especially those of muscle tissue, which is particularly rich in mitochondria.
The Better Way
By making a number of dietary changes, LDL (bad) cholesterol can be reduced by up to 30% in only four weeks. Those changes include a low-fat diet that includes the 8 to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables recommended by U.S Dietary Guidelines for less-active adults (more-active adults require additional servings).
A study in India in 2002 demonstrated that a Mediterranean diet, high in fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, and olive oil can reduce the risk of heart attack by as much as Lipitor. In general, each additional serving of fruit or vegetables added to your daily diet decreases the risk of heart disease by four percent due primarily to the abundant antioxidants and soluble fiber in these whole, unprocessed foods.
The Effects of Easy Living
Epidemiological studies have revealed that our bad habits: lack of physical activity, smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, and eating a high-fat diet are responsible for 80% of the risk for heart disease and almost all the risk of developing adult-onset diabetes. Heart patients who go on a Mediterranean diet reduce their risk of future heart attacks by up to 70%. Statins lower the risk only half as much. Losing a few pounds and exercising can lower the odds of developing diabetes by 58% in those at risk.
Time’s Awasting
Now is the time to make a commitment to good health. Don’t wait until sickness or chronic disease is at the door. Make healthy lifestyle changes now so that each day of the rest of your life will be built on a better foundation. The fast food and pharmaceutical industries cater to our bad habits, preferring to promulgate the lie that we can live happy and healthy lives sitting on our cans gobbling cheeseburgers and fries, popping meds for every aliment.
A Workable Solution
Most people will not make large changes in the way they eat. Taking a whole-food supplement like Juice Plus can bridge the nutritional gap between the ideal diet and what we are actually able to manage on a daily basis. Consider it a dietary insurance policy. It’s an easy, economical solution. .
Significant weight loss can be achieved with
the Adkin's diet and similar plans, but all that 
saturated fat and cholesterol will surely bring
serious health consequences over the long term.
In addition to being loaded with fat, the low carb diets are deficient in fiber and some nutrients, especially calcium, folic acid, antioxidants, and phytochemicals. Most long-term epidemiological studies indicate that this type of diet promotes heart disease, colon cancer, and osteoporosis.
Click here to read:
The Theory of Low Carb Diets
The Reality of Low Carb Diets
What the Experts Say About Low Carb Diets
Many people choose to
live very carelessly and irresponsibly for much of their adult lives thinking that the only price they will pay is a possibly shortened lifespan. The truth is, the hard part about their death is that it goes on for so long. We're talking about a morbidity of 15 to 20 years characterized by degenerative disease (cancer, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, etc), a bunch of medications with their negative side effects, depression, anxiety, and very little ability to perform sexually. I don't believe anyone would feel fast food, alcohol, tobacco, recreational drugs and laziness are worth having to pay such a price for the first half of their life not to mention the fact that they might need to spend their last years residing where they can receive supervised nursing care.
This is a reprint of an article from World magazine on American eating habits.
Americans have the same problem with food that Imelda Marcos had with shoes | by Andree Seu
I don't think we're serious yet. A USDA food pyramid on this box of crackers in front of me has not a smidgen of whole grain anything in it. They talk fruits and vegetables in junior-high health class and serve French fries, frozen pizza, and soda pop in the cafeteria. Church meetings and donuts go so hand-in-hand that you'd think Martin Luther had founded Krispy Kreme.
OK, we can play this game for another 10 years, maybe. Meanwhile, the balance has just tipped in my fair city of Philadelphia, which officially has more overweight children than not—51 percent, up from 45 percent in 2002. Mark Twain said, "First get the facts. And then you can distort them at your leisure." Trouble is, nobody wants food facts, for the same reason that nobody wants to hear the gospel: There is so much we would have to give up.
Considering that American teens are more obese than their counterparts in 14 other industrialized countries (Lithuania, with few fast-food restaurants and little spending money, has the lowest rates), it's a cheap shot to dismiss the concerns of food-industry critics with a sneer, while tossing off nostrums about individual self-control. Doesn't the Bible always talk about the two sides: those who sin and those who cause sin? (Mark 9:24).
 |
Heart disease and stroke deaths (45 percent of American lives) were almost nonexistent 100 years ago. Cardiovascular illness took off after World War II, when we started eating more meat, and the food industry cranked out sugared, refined, processed, salted, and laboratory-engineered stuff to tickle our taste buds. Cows were fattened in feedlots, with no exercise, and pumped with growth hormones and antibiotics. Chickens, their beaks sawed off to cram more into overstuffed cages stacked in tiers, are force-fed till their legs buckle. (A Polish Pysanki egg painter told me she has to use hard-boiled eggs because whatever the fowl eat nowadays renders raw shells too brittle.)
Let's have muckraking! "Juices" containing 10 percent juice beckon from supermarket shelves. Products boasting "53 percent less sugar" merely decrease package size. Even Tupac knew this is bullfeathers: I overheard the late rapper's song "Changes" in which he exhorts the brothers: "We gotta change the way we live, we gotta change the way we eat. . . ."
I talk to guys every day who know what infralapsarianism is and don't know that white bread is a non-food—the best part of the wheat kernel (the fiber, vitamin, and mineral-rich bran, and the vitamin B and E-rich germ) milled off and sold for animal feed. The resulting "bread" is a bizarre concoction of the remaining white endosperm and artificial chemicals, such as propylene glycol, antifreeze (for whiteness), and calcium sulfate (plaster of Paris). Replacing four of the stripped nutrients earns it a label of "enriched."
Christians in particular have a tendency to confuse veganism with Green Party whackoism, and a (more plausible) sense that with millions dying without Christ in the 10/40 window, we have more important things to worry about. (I'm sure there's a fancy Latin name for this logical fallacy.)
Like a latter-day Imelda Marcos agonizing over where to house more shoes rather than facing the root problem of her shoe addiction, we play parlor games with public versus private healthcare proposals. If the Philippine first lady's fetish for footwear showed a shift from necessities to entertainment, America is also guilty: Sex is entertainment, shopping is entertainment, eating is entertainment. If you doubt it, who wakes up in the morning and says, "Let's see, what can I eat today to maintain optimum present and future body health for the kingdom of God?"
I gave my 15-year-old "the talk." After tackling how to look at girls (1 Timothy 5:2), we hit other body issues, like being fit for God's service. I told him "the freshman 15" isn't inevitable. I told him wisdom is a matter of "knowing the times." I advocated eating for life rather than eating for pleasure—and promised it's not unpleasant. You pays your money and you takes your choices: Start doing right or a health crisis crouches at the door.
Copyright © 2005 WORLD Magazine
September 10, 2005, Vol. 20, No. 35
Reprinted with Permission of WORLD Magazine.
Copyright © 2005 WORLD Magazine
September 10, 2005, Vol. 20, No. 35
|
