Holiday Hosting Survival
Are you hosting the holiday festivities this year? These ideas can help you beat the stress and save your energy for the party.
Dietary Solutions for Migraines
There are many common triggers for migraines, with diet playing a major role for many people that suffer from migraine headaches. Some of the most common foods that can trigger a migraine are:
- Chocolate
- Citrus fruits
- Alcohol (especially red wine or beer)
- Meats preserved with nitrates (ham, bologna, luncheon meats, etc.)
- Pizza
- Aged cheese
- Caffeine (especially while cutting back or eliminating), including coffee, chocolate, soft drinks, over-the-counter and prescription medications that contain caffeine (consult with your physician before changing or discontinuing any medications)
- Nuts
- Fermented, pickled, cured or marinated foods
- Foods prepared with monosodium glutamate (MSG)
- Foods high in tyramine, including aged meats, avocados, bananas, beer, cabbage, canned fish, dairy products, eggplant, hard cheeses, potatoes, raspberries, red plums, tomatoes, wine, and yeast
This is a long (and by no means all-inclusive) list of foods for a person to try and avoid. However, keeping a food journal and completing food hypersensitivity testing can help each person determine their exact triggers to make avoidance more manageable.
In addition to avoiding foods that can trigger a migraine, there are a number of foods that can help improve the production of key neurotransmitters, including serotonin and dopamine. Eating these foods daily can help maintain proper neurotransmitter function.
The pesticides, herbicides and insecticides used on many foods can also disrupt proper neurotransmitter function. Buying these foods organically or substituting them with foods that are lower in chemical exposure can be a great help. To learn more about dietary solutions for migraines, click here.
What Most People Don’t Know About Exercise
Everybody knows that getting regular exercise is important to improve your health. What most people don’t know is that how you exercise can have a tremendous impact on what that benefit is and how great a benefit you will get. (more…)
Vitamin D Can Help Weight Loss and Improve Blood Sugar
There is so much research coming out about vitamin D these days that it seems prudent that everyone get their levels checked and supplement accordingly. Here is another reason to dose-up on the “sunshine vitamin” – it can help you lose weight, limit weight gain and improve blood sugar levels.
A study published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry this month found that supplementation with vitamin D for 10 weeks limited weight gain in animals on a very high fat diet. Those supplemented with vitamin D showed an increase in lipid oxidation (fat burning) and energy expenditure (they used up more calories) which the authors say was due to a vitamin D-induced increase in the expression of genes that control metabolism.
This study suggests that vitamin D3 supplementation may represent a way to fight the onset of obesity and associated metabolic disorders, including metabolic syndrome and diabetes. Everyone should have their vitamin D3 levels checked (the test is called 25-hydroxy vitamin D) and supplement accordingly based on their test results.
Amino Acid Therapy and ADD/ADHD
Amino acid therapy is extremely effective at optimizing neurotransmitter function and correcting symptoms due to neurotransmitter imbalance. This is important for a number of conditions, including ADD, ADHD, depression, anxiety, migraines, insomnia, fibromyalgia, trichotillomania, memory and a host of other conditions. (more…)
National Cholesterol Education Month
September is National Cholesterol Education Month. There is a lot of confusion surrounding cholesterol.
High cholesterol is a topic that gets a lot of press, whether it be about ways to lower it, the negative effects of many cholesterol lowering medications (like statins) or the dire need to optimize cholesterol and other blood fats to prevent disease. Luckily, cholesterol and other blood fats often respond very well to dietary and lifestyle interventions. (more…)
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