health care information

Nutrition and sports performance is a complex and essential relationship for serious sports men and women to understand and it can help them achieve success in their chosen sport. Sports nutrition also aids injury prevention and speeds up recovery times from an injury. The correct diet and fluid intake coupled with appropriate training is the difference between winning and losing. Fuelling the body with the right nutrition can be key to success.
Good sports nutrition promotes brain function and muscle activity. Physical training and performance requires the right diet (quantity and quality) that will provide the athlete with energy. Each sport has its own individual requirements as does each individual sports man and woman. These requirements dictate the nutritional demands of training and competition. Sports nutrition applies scientific methods to the applications of the sport to provide a diet that meets the needs of both athlete and discipline.
Sports performance is fundamentally affected by dehydration. The importance of water and fluid replacement in sports nutrition is paramount to supporting the activity of tissue cells in the body. These cells carry nutrients and oxygen around the body, eliminating toxins and removing excess body heat. During physical exercise, body heat increases and water is lost through evaporation or sweating. In hot environments, sports activity can attribute to sweat losses of 4-5 pints an hour. Water loss is partly offset by metabolic water produced from proteins, carbohydrates and fat metabolising in the body. However, sports nutrition dictates that hydrating the body properly requires fluid intake before, during and after activity.
A sports nutritionist will calculate fluid losses by measuring body weight before and after a session to determine how much fluid is required. Optimum levels should never be exceeded as overloading on fluids can lead to stomach discomfort and breathing difficulties during the activity. Modern sports nutrition recommends special carbohydrate-electrolyte drinks for intense activity that has a longer duration but water is typically recommended for low to moderate level activity.
A diet rich in carbohydrate and low in fat improves long-term and short-term sports performance. High-intensity exercise requires more carbohydrates to ensure the liver and muscle glycogen levels are high. High liver and muscle glycogen levels improve performance and glycogen present in the liver is a source of glucose for the brain (important for concentration, alertness and reaction time). A wide range of carbohydrates are required to ensure essential vitamins and minerals are present. Potatoes, bananas, pasta, bread, vegetables, cereals and porridge are a good source of carbs for sport.
Protein plays an important role in sports nutrition by building muscle and repairing it. Athletes should aim to eat a range of foods that will provide the necessary levels of protein. Foods such as lean meat, fish, eggs, beans and pulses, milk, yoghurt, cheese and cereals will provide protein needs. High protein sports nutrition does not necessarily lead to greater muscle mass as excess protein in the body is metabolised or excreted. The extra amount of food required for sport is usually enough to provide the correct intake of protein without resorting to increased portions or protein supplements. High-protein diets can be expensive and will decrease the bank balance before increasing muscle mass. A good sports nutritionist can ensure there are adequate nutrients and calories for an athlete to support the requirements of their sport.

Experiencing hair loss? You’re not alone, many people struggle with hair loss and they seek a cure, how ever there is no natural cure for hair loss, only treatments.In this short article we’ll discuss how you can’t cure your hair loss but can stop or slow it down, and also give you an expectation of how long it can take to stop hair loss.

Treat your Hair Loss don’t Cure It

Unfortunately the only permanent cure for hair loss or thinning hair is a transplant right now.Realistically a hair transplant is no fun, and it is very expensive. How ever there are quite a few natural hair loss treatments you can use to stop your current hair loss, and depending on the product stimulate regrowth of some of the hair you’ve lost.

The majority of these treatments do the same thing to stop hair loss, they block DHT (a hormone) from reaching the scalp where it slows down and almost stops the growth stage of your hair. Once this hormone is blocked you will stop losing your hair.Stopping hair loss by blocking DHT how ever doesn’t always mean you’ll get new hair growth back.

Stop Then Regrow

Once hair loss is stopped you can begin to concentrate on regrowth.Hair loss products that block DHT will stop hair loss, and also possibly supply the required nutrients to dormant hair follicles to start new hair growth. How ever not all treatments will do this, it is possible you will need another product or hair loss supplement to kick start the growth phase. If this is the case I suggest you look into some hair loss product reviews to decide which treatment is best for you.

How Long Does it Take?

From the time you begin to take your hair loss treatment to the point when hair loss has all but stopped will likely be two months. Be sure you’re consistent using the product as directed to get maximum results.The majority of Hair loss treatments ask that you use them for at least two months to ensure they will produce results for you. Not every product works for every person.

Regrowing hair you’ve lost after this can take longer, usually an additional 4-6 months.Give it at least a six month period before you start looking for new regrowth in thinning or balding areas. Also keep in mind that your hair must still be in the growth phase in order to experience regrowth at all.

If you have a completely bald area on your scalp, unless it’s recently gone bald you most likely won’t be able to achieve any regrowth.

Talk about breast cancer and naturally, people think of the disease that is the number one cancer among women. But the truth is that breast cancer is on the rise among both women and men, and researchers think the national obesity crisis may be to blame.

With two-thirds of Americans now overweight, we can probably expect more obesity-related cancers. But on the brighter side, weight problems are extremely treatable, even preventable. So to the extent overweight is contributing to cancer, this is one risk factor we may actually have some real control over.

Just how we go about getting that control appears to be critical, though. Even among the most motivated of people, we see that very few are successful in independent efforts to lose weight, even if their life depends on it. And among cancer patients, it clearly does.

Consider some of the numbers: breast cancer in women increased by 52 percent from 1973 to 1998. Part of that increase can be accounted for by better detection, because mammography is much more available than it was 30 years ago. But use of post-menopausal estrogen supplements has also become routine, and these have been clearly linked to cancer in women.

But in that same period, incidence of breast cancer among men increased by 26 percent, and that’s without the ingested estrogen and without the extra detection offered by mammography, since men typically don’t pursue that procedure.

So what else is going on? Experts say the increase in breast cancer in both sexes seems to closely track the increase in American obesity, giving rise to the theory that the obesity crisis may actually be to blame for the boom in breast cancer.

Obesity has been shown to have a clear relationship with some cancers, but not with others. For instance, there does not appear to be any correlation between overweight and prostate cancer in men. Or sometimes, the relation is clear, but the reasons aren’t. Hence, researchers are looking at whether acid reflux in overweight people might account for their greater incidence of esophogeal cancer.

But with breast cancer, there is at least one known culprit: all that excess estrogen. Fatty tissue produces estrogen, in both men and women.

Studies of menopausal women make the case most clearly. Before menopause, the ovaries are the primary source of estrogen. But after menopause, when the ovaries have retired from that duty, fatty tissues are the main estrogen source.

Among postmenopausal women, estrogen levels are 50 to 100 percent higher in heavy women, compared to those of healthy weight. Similar ratios are found among men.

And when estrogen-sensitive tissues get more estrogen exposure, that leads to more growth of estrogen-responsive breast tumors.

Researchers figure that between 11,000 and 18,000 breast cancer deaths per year could be avoided in American women over age 50, if they could maintain a healthy body weight throughout their adult lives. There are no similar guesstimates for men, because while breast cancer is a growing problem for men, there is little research on mortality rates among males, and it is still less of a concern than heart disease or prostate and colon cancer.

But obesity puts men at higher risk for these diseases, as well, so the imperative is to drop that excess weight, or at least some of it. There’s abundant evidence that even a minor weight loss reaps huge rewards for health. So how do you do it?

It’s tough, especially if you’re an older person, and the average age of diagnosis for breast cancer is 62 among women, and 67 among men.

Motivation counts, but the research shows that it’s not enough. People need help. For instance, who would be more motivated to lose weight than a heavy person who had already survived cancer?

An overweight survivor has a double whammy when it comes to risk of recurrence, but a study published earlier this year in Obesity Research said that even among that motivated group, people left to their own devices, or those who only had a group program did not achieve much weight loss.

This is no surprise to those of us who have treated obesity for years. We see people who have tried diet after diet, joined gym and club and fellowship alike, all to no avail. But when they are treated with a comprehensive diet and lifestyle modification program that has been designed specifically for them, things change.

In this latest study, the researchers were pretty unequivocal, concluding that “for breast cancer survivors to lose weight to reduce risk factors, intervention is necessary. Of the different intervention regimens, individualized counseling combined with attending weekly … meetings was most effective….”

When you’re facing a chocolate éclair, death is perhaps too abstract an idea, even if you’ve only narrowly escaped it. Without some real retraining, it’s hard to equate even the greasiest burger with a lethal tumor. But professional support makes all the difference.

For instance, I’ve been tracking insulin levels in weight management patients for years, because we know that high insulin levels indicate a metabolic abnormality that leads to diabetes and weight gain. Now recent research shows that elevated insulin levels are also a risk factor for breast cancer recurrence.

Yet very specific changes in lifestyle and diet can significantly reduce insulin levels in days to weeks, immediately reducing those disease risks. The disembodied threat of disease is sometimes hard for people to get their arms around, but when patients can look at their lab results and see how their behavioral changes directly affect their blood chemistry, it hits home.

What happens to patients’ bodies on the inside as they lose weight is more important than the changes they get on the outside, but even at the best health clubs or peer support groups, they won’t have an opportunity to see that.

It’s inspiring to see how people embrace a fitness and weight-loss program when they have more than just a bathroom scale to tell them that it’s working. Consistent and reliable guidance is essential because nobody goes from obese to healthy overnight. It takes time.

But cancer takes time, too, so the race is on. With the proper help, this is a race both men and women have great odds of winning.

THROUGH THICK & THIN

Breast cancer is a growing risk for both men and women, and it’s a cancer for which the obesity link has been clearly established. Fat produces excess estrogen; excess estrogen produces breast cancer. And in the reverse, weight loss reduces cancer risk. The data are clear, but it doesn’t make the task any easier. What does make it easier, and more successful, is professional help-—-and the sooner the better.

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Caroline J. Cederquist, M.D. is a board certified Family Physician and a board certified Bariatric Physicians (the medical specialty of weight management). Dr. Cederquist is the founder of Bistro MD formerly Diet To Your Door, a home diet delivery program that specializes in low calorie gourmet food that is delivered to your home or office. Bistro MD serves as culmination of Dr. Cederquist’s expertise and experience in the world of medical weight loss.