Cancer is always such a difficult but so important topic to talk about – Guest Post

Besides the devastating physical effects of cancer, the disease also wreaks havoc with a person’s mood. Not only can depression be a common side effect of cancer, but grief and sadness are common as well. A regular fitness routine can help alleviate these symptoms and bring positive physical effects as well.

Physical Effects

According to the Mayo Clinic, exercise produces a number of beneficial effects in the body. It causes the release of feel good chemicals like endorphins in the brain, which are not only natural pain killers, but also mood enhancers. Additionally, exercise increases body temperature, which calms the body. Exercise is also able to reduce the immune system chemicals in the body, which are responsible for the worsening of depressive symptoms. People with different types of cancers will look for different types of exercises. Lung cancer and mesothelioma causes patients to focus on cardio exercises to increase lung capacity while breast cancer patients might try yoga to increase flexibility.

Psychological Benefits

Illness can make a person feel isolated, and often cancer survivors can find groups like prostate cancer survivor running clubs, which provide the members with much needed social support. The increased connection that people feel exercising with others who have survived the illness can increase both mood and optimism levels.

Additionally, fitness routines like a spin class or a yoga group can change the focus of a person fighting a serious illness like cancer, providing temporary relief from the worry and stress that comes with the diagnosis and treatment. 

Personal Mastery

A cancer diagnosis can cause a person to feel helpless, and one of chief benefits of fitness is a sense of personal mastery, according to the University of California, San Fransisco. This alleviates the feeling of being out of control that cancer brings with it. Participating in a fitness routine helps to restore the sense of control, thereby elevating the mood and creating a more positive and empowered outlook. 

In cases like breast cancer, the small physical tests that daily exercise provides encourages the patient to take bigger risks. Being able to do more and more physically provides markers of progress. For example, the breast cancer survivor who can’t even lift a cup of coffee immediately following cancer surgery will develop a sense hope as her strength increases. The importance of this cannot be underestimated. According to the BBC, women who felt helpless after cancer had a greater likelihood of contracting the disease again. Exercise helps to combat feelings of helplessness, giving cancer survivors a leg up on the road to recovery.  

Liz Davies is a recent college graduate and aspiring writer especially interested in health and wellness. She wants to make a difference in people’s lives because she sees how cancer has devastated so many people in this world. Liz also likes running, playing lacrosse, reading and playing with her dog, April.

THE FACTS

There are many reasons to stay properly hydrated, but only recently have scientists begun to consider diabetes prevention one of them. The amount of water you drink can play a role in how your body regulates blood sugar, researchers have found.

The reason: a hormone called vasopressin, which helps regulate water retention.

When the body is dehydrated, vasopressin levels rise, prompting the kidneys to hold onto water. At the same time, the hormone pushes the liver to produce blood sugar, which over time may strain the ability to produce or respond to insulin.

One of the largest studies to look at the consequences was published last year in Diabetes Care, a publication of the American Diabetes Association. French scientists tracked more than 3,000 healthy men and women ages 30 to 65 for nearly a decade. All had normal blood sugar levels at the start of the research.

After nine years, about 800 had developed Type 2 diabetes or high blood sugar. But those who consumed the most water, 17 to 34 ounces a day, had a risk roughly 30 percent lower than that of those who drank the least. The researchers controlled for the subjects’ intake of other liquids that could have affected the results, mainly sugary and alcoholic drinks, as well as exercise, weight and other factors affecting health. The researchers did not look at eating habits, something future studies may take into account.

THE BOTTOM LINE

There is some evidence that proper hydration can help protect against high blood sugar, though more research is needed.

(Source)

A year ago, the USDA spelled out specific foods to avoid and lifestyle changes to make if we want to avoid being fat and sick.

And I, for one, know how much attention we paid to those guidelines.

We were supposed to avoid extra calories from solid fats and added sugars (SoFAS). We were supposed to exercise more. And we were to avoid refined grains.

“A quick look at the pie charts suggests that one particular kind of pie — pizza — is a major source of the food types Americans are advised to avoid,” wrote Daniel J. DeNoon for WebMD.

Cutbacks advised 1,500 mg of sodium daily for people over 51, African-Americans and people with high blood pressure. That, DeNoon concludes, is about half of all Americans.

Every year the USDA offers some new guidelines and some dietary advice.

But we don’t have to wait for this year’s release to know what’s going to be said. Because it all amounts to eat less and eat healthy.

It’s what online diet coach Valerie Orsoni calls “avoiding the most common traps.”

They are:

—Going it alone. It’s really hard to stick to a diet by yourself so publicly declare your war on pounds and find a support group.

—Don’t deprive yourself or view food as an enemy. Remember quick loss diets are most quickly regained. Learn to cook and eat new foods that are good for you.

—Slow and steady wins the race. Make small changes, such as adding a freshly squeezed lemon juice to a glass of room-temperature water and drink first every day; walk up to 30minutes before breakfast; stop eating between meals; have a 100 percent raw meal daily (like almond and fruit for breakfast) and try going without sugar for a few days.

—”It’s hard to stay motivated after years of trying but losing weight is like living in Hollywood,” says Orsoni. “Only the highly motivated ones who never lose hope make it.”

Her suggestion? Steep about two tablespoons of roasted buckwheat in a cup of boiling water. The resulting “tea” will reduce your appetite by 20 percent, she claims.

Then eat what you like but watch the portion size, she adds.

Of course, you also can go to her web site, lebootcamp.com, and pay a fee to ask unlimited questions and have a diet coach.

The truth is individuals determine for themselves which diets are best, from Weight Watchers to Jenny Craig to simple calorie counting.

This year, US News ran a feature on the best diets, according to medical experts. What’s illuminating is the input from dieters.

They report Weight Watchers, the Biggest Loser, Jenny Craig and the raw food diet were most successful for those anxious to drop pounds.

And then the magazine offers seven “new” tips to help you stick to your diet plan:

—Picture yourself — keep a photo of yourself that you love or you hate and whip it out when temptation strikes, suggested by dietitian Keri Gans, author of “The Small Change Diet.”

—Bet on it — Put money on the line or donate to a charity when you fail, says the 2008 American Medical Association Journal.

—Color your way thin — Reach for a crayon instead of a cookie. Keeps your hands busy, says dietian Dawn Jackson, author of “The Flexiation Diet.”

—Brush your teeth — a minty mouth can quash nibbling, says Jackson Blatner.

—Shoot your dinner — take a photo of each meal and post on your favorite social network site, experts say. Discourages cheating.

—Spice things up — using mustard powder, cinnamon, nutmeg to your meals.

—Role-play — Heading to an event heavy with hors d’oeuvres or whipped cream? Practice turning down the goodies with a friend or in front of a mirror.

See the health section at usnews.com for more 2012 diet tips.

And be resolved to stay resolved this year.

When an overweight person walks into a physician’s office, the conversation often veers to weight management. It may not be the main focus, but people with bulging waistlines now expect some level of weight-related lecturing. To an extent, the patient should expect at least a quick speech.

But is this focus on weight a fair portrayal of health risk? Or is obesity only the most visible of many culprits?

Picking on fat people is common practice in medicine. Weight bias is a long-standing problem, influencing how clinicians perceive patients’ complaints, what tests they do, how thoroughly they read those tests and even leading to assumptions on how motivated a patient is. Being overweight can significantly influence how clinicians treat you.

But put obesity head to head with another common risk factor – low fitness levels – and it turns out that how fit you are is far more predictive of health than how fat you are. But clinicians rarely measure how fit you are.

Fitness is most easily defined as how efficiently your muscles can use the oxygen and other nutrients your heart and lungs pump around your body. Imagine my twin brother and I are both pedalling bikes at the same speed; my heart is pumping at 160 beats per minute while his is pumping at 130 bpm. While we are doing the same amount of work, it requires less energy from his heart and lungs to get it done. He is fitter than I am.

Similarly, if we used a standard program on a treadmill that increases the pace a set amount every minute, we could estimate someone’s fitness by seeing how long they last before their heart rate reaches a predetermined maximum. The longer it takes to get their heart rate revving to the max, the more efficient their body, and the higher their fitness.

To find out which factor – fitness or fatness – has more impact on health, we could round up all the fit people (who lasted a long time on the treadmill) who are also classified as obese (using body mass index – a flawed but still useful comparison of height and weight) and group them together.

We could then take all the slim people whose fitness level measures low (they max out on the treadmill pretty early) and put them in a second group. We would then watch these two groups and see who develops more disease, or who dies off faster.

And this is exactly what has been happening since 1970 as part of the Aerobic Center Longitudinal Study in the southern U.S. As it turns out, the fit but fat people perform better in almost every health category compared to their skinny, out-of-shape counterparts. Every time. And not just by a little. By a lot.

This raises a few questions: Shouldn’t my doctor be more concerned about my fitness level? Do they think measuring my fatness is a good substitute for measuring my fitness, as though addressing one will automatically address the other? I’m sure they know what my “ideal weight” should be, but do I dare ask what my “ideal fitness level” should be?

I’m not trying to make excuses for obese people, and I don’t mean to vilify doctors who (quite rightly) treat obesity seriously. I just see far too many active yet overweight people in my clinic being convinced they are not healthy, and equally as many lean but inactive people being led to believe they don’t need exercise. To truly under-stand how healthy you are, it is more important to monitor how active and physically fit you are than it is to obsess over weight.

Paul VanWiechen is director of exercise physiology at Cleve-land Clinic Canada (cleveland-clinic.ca).

The New Year is upon us, in all of its promising potential. A year of new beginnings, new resolutions, and new possibilities. There may be much we cannot change around us–the economy, our jobs, housing, insurance. But we all can focus on our most important foundation–our health–to help carry us successfully through the next year.

 A theme of simplicity may help herald change this New Year and can be approached in many different holistic ways:

 1. I will simplify my food ingredients. I will look at the ingredient labels of everything I eat, and choose the foods with the least artificial ingredients, and least chemicals and additives. I will pick whole grains, and natural products in their most simple state possible (e.g. apple over apple sauce, milk over ice cream). I will take more time to shop for groceries and cook fresh produce, and eat out less.

 2. I will simplify my finances. Instead of focusing on acquisitions this year, I will pick a debt to reduce. I will look at my monthly expenditures and find something to cut out – something I don’t need or use. I will cut down on the frequency of my shopping expeditions. I will carpool. I will eat out half as much as I used to. I will defer on a new wardrobe. I will explore second-hand shops. I will recycle.

 3. I will simplify my living area. I will create serene and clean living surroundings. I will focus on what I don’t need in my house and office, and give it away or recycle it (old furniture, books, clothes, toys). I will bring fresh plants into my living spaces. I will move into a smaller living area with less monthly expenditures. I will empty half of my clothes closet – anything I haven’t worn in the last 2 years.

 4. I will simplify my health and my pill box. I will partner with my doctor in helping focus on prevention of one reversible illness I might have (pain, high cholesterol, obesity, depression, smoking). I will create an exercise regimen that I can do daily, with ease, which strengthens my body. By achieving better health, I will try to get rid of lifestyle meds – medications that I am on due to the lifestyle I had been choosing.

 5. I will simplify my time commitments. I will say no to anything that is not a resounding yes. I will work less overtime. I will volunteer only in those causes I am passionate about. I will simplify my social calendar. I will schedule time for exercise into my daily calendar, and watch less than one hour of TV daily. I will sleep 7 hours a night. We wish you a simple New Year, full of health, peace, and serenity.
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