Spirulina: The Super Food?
Have you heard of spirulina? I’ve heard of this food being referred to as a super food, but I’ve not looked into it much until today. Let me share what I’ve learned.
What is spirulina?
Spirulina would be comparable to a sea vegetable such as kelp or wakame. Spirulina is both a human and animal food or supplement. It’s a member of the “blue-green” family, but it’s not considered algae. It’s actually a type of bacteria – cyanobacteria. Its primary source includes two species of cyanobacteria: Arthrospira platensis and Arthrospira maxima. Japan is currently the largest producer and consumer of spirulina.
Spirulina can be purchased as a tablet, flake, or powder.
What nutrients are provided by spirulina?
The Effect of Inflammation on Weight Loss
If you are to successfully lose weight you will likely focus on eating fewer calories and increasing your activity to burn more calories. It’s important that you also address inflammation on your journey to lose weight.
Research on mice has shown a “switch” controlling inflammation in the hypothalamus (region of the brain that regulates energy) becomes “flipped on” in response to high fat diets. It also shows that “overnutrition” (i.e. eating too much) turns on this inflammatory switch.
An increased level of inflammation leads our cells to become resistant to insulin and leptin.
Insulin plays a messenger role in that it tells cells it is time to take in glucose (sugar). If cells become resistant to insulin, they ignore the message that it is time to take in more glucose, glucose is converted to fatty acids, and is stored by our fat cells. If insulin resistance is persistent, eventually the fat cells will no longer respond and increased levels of fatty acids will remain in circulation.
Leptin is a hormone that triggers satiety. This is your body’s way of telling you you’ve had enough to eat. When production of leptin is hindered, we do not feel satisfied and tend to eat more.
As inflammation causes the cells to ignore the messages of insulin and leptin, you are more likely to consume more calories (because you still feel hungry) and potentially store increased levels of fat due to the increased level of circulating fatty acids.
5 Steps to Prevent Heart Disease
Heart disease is a lifestyle disease. Your diet and lifestyle choices are a major factor in determining your likelihood of developing heart disease.
Heart disease develops as a result of inflammation and oxidative damage. So, let’s cover steps you can take to decrease inflammation and oxidative damage to reduce your risk of developing heart disease.
1. Decrease your sugar intake.
When I say sugar, I’m also referring to simple carbohydrates. When you consume carbohydrates the body breaks them down into sugar molecules. Converting simple carbs (i.e. refined carbohydrates) into sugar is a fairly quick process for the body. Simple carbohydrates include potatoes, pasta, bread, and rice, along with your sugar sweetened beverages, candy, and sweets. As these foods are broken down, sugar enters the blood steam and can result in blood sugar spikes. These spikes contribute to oxidative damage and inflammation.
Portion Control at the Holidays: Will you succeed?
During the holidays it can be difficult to control how much we eat. When you attend gatherings with friends and there are all these new dishes you oftentimes want to sample some of everything. Then there are the desserts. . .how can you pass up on all these home cooked goodies?
It’s not easy, but it’s not impossible to stay on track. Let’s review some tips so you can avoid going overboard on portions:
1. Have a snack before attending a holiday party.
If you are going to be attending a holiday party it’s to not go on an empty stomach or work hungry. This will lead you to overeat on especially rich foods. Instead, go ahead and have a snack ahead of time, such as a piece of fruit or small handful of nuts.
2. Don’t eat in front of the TV.
Hidden Calories in Beverages
If you are working to lose weight you need to make adjustments to your food choices. However, don’t forget what you drink has an impact on your success also. There can be a surprising amount of calories in beverages.
Let’s say you are reducing your calorie intake to 1500 calories per day. If you stop at Starbucks for a 16 oz Vanilla Frappucino with 2% milk, a 12 oz. can of Dr. Pepper with lunch, and a 16 oz. sweetened ice tea with dinner, you’ve consumed around 565 calories just from what you drank. . . and this is assuming you consumed water between meals. That leaves you just 935 calories to “spend” on food for the day if you are going to achieve your goal of 1500 calories per day.
1. Portion size
Keep your portion sizes small. For example, you do not need a 12 ounce glass of juice in the morning, cut back to 6 ounces of fruit juice or better yet replace the juice with a piece of fruit. A 12 ounce glass of juice contains 192 calories.
2. Read food labels correctly
What is Your Biological Age?
Do you watch the Biggest Loser? If so, you have seen each contestant visit a doctor at the start of the season and many times they’ll learn their actual ‘biological’ age. This usually ends up being a shocker, such as a 28 year-old whose physical condition is that of a 55 year-old or something drastic like that. Telomeres are a tool that can be used to fairly accurately identify your biological age.
I recently participated in a webinar hosted by Spectra Cell Laboratories and lead by Dr. Mark Houston discussing telomeres.
What is a telomere?
Telomeres are a DNA sequence that appears at the end of each chromosome. Chromosomes comprised of DNA are in each cell of our body. Our DNA is protected at each end by telomeres. Dr. Houston describes a telomere as a safety cap or ball cap on the end of each chromosome. They protect the chromosome and DNA from things like oxidative stress. As the telomere becomes damaged the chromosome and cell function ineffectively the cell begins to die.
Telomere Shortening
As a normal part of aging, telomeres become shorter. Once a telomere becomes shortened there is no way to lengthen the telomere.
There are many factors that influence how quickly telomeres shorten. Here are some of the factors that impact telomere length:
