Cook Your Way to Good Health!

 Cooking is good medicine.  What you cook is better medicine.  Culinary medicine can help you get better and stay healthy.  The healthy food plus cooking adds to great, healthy feelings.  This is what more doctors and healthcare providers are studying to recommend for their patients.  More residency training programs are including culinary medicine in their school curriculum.  

Food as medicine is hardly a new treatment.  Hippocrates quoted it thousands of years ago.  Research continues to show that proper nutrition with natural foods keeps low risk for disease lower, and it also keep high risk conditions from progressing and perhaps even occurring. Starting before birth is the optimal time.  Early good nutrition is important.

Make your healthy more wealthy by learning to shop for healthy food to prepare healthy meals.  This can save your money as well as your health.  Let it begin and/or continue with education (March is National Nutrition Month) and action with the intent of adding it to your healthy lifestyle.  Best health and eating!

Diabetes Awareness Month

 Diabetes is on the rise around the world.  Current global statistics reveal that 1 in 11 persons had diabetes in 2015.  This is about 415,000 million people.  A recently published study by JAMA found that almost 50% of Americans have pre-diabetes or diabetes.  About one-third of these patients were unaware they had either condition, and were already showing signs of diabetes.  National cost was almost $300 billion in 2012.  International cost in 2015 was $673 billion which is 12% of global health expenditure.

Pre-diabetes and diabetes are often discovered during the routine physical, or in the emergency room with severe hyperglycemia or complications secondary to the disease.  Patients may present without any symptoms or the classic triad of polyuria (increased urination), polydipsia (increased thirst), polyphagia (increased hunger).  Blood tests that confirm diabetic disease include: FBS (fasting blood sugar) / FPS (fasting plasma glucose) over 126 mg/dl; two hour plasma glucose over 200 mg/dl HgbA1c over 6.5.  Weight loss and dehydration may be apparent clinically as the heavy glucose molecule depletes the body's water volume.


Comorbidities associated with diabetes include hypertension, heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, and general vascular disease.  These are all chronic disease states as is the eye disease (diabetic retinopathy) which may lead to total blindness.   Diabetic neuropathy involves nerves especially those to the extremities causing numbness, tingling, and decreased sensation.  If vascular disease is present, this may lead to poor circulation.  As a result diabetic foot ulcers may emerge.  Due to lack of sensitivity these may go unnoticed until an infection occurs which left untreated may lead to amputation.


Treatment includes diet, exercise, and medication.  Surgery is also a consideration.  It is of utmost importance that the proper diet is followed.  Counseling with a dietician provides necessary nutritional information to keep and help keep blood sugar in normal range.  Weight maintenance at a  healthy level is beneficial as overweight states have been correlated with an increased risk of diabetes.  Excess weight can make diabetes more difficult to control.  Adherence to diet leads to better control overall even if on medication.  Along with routine exercise this helps maintain a healthy weight.  If you are losing weight and eating the right foods, diabetes may come into control without medication.  It is important to check your blood sugar often when lifestyle changes are being made.  Keeping your blood sugar within normal limits will help defend against secondary complications.  Most important, you will feel better.  Best health!

Medical Treatments For Your Good Health

Are you willing to pay extra for treatments that your insurance does not cover? Whether it is conventional medical therapy or alternative treatment, it can be hard to know what to do. Two free, nonprescription treatments, prayer and meditation, are tops in alternative treatments patients use. Why? Because it works. So why aren't more doctors recommending it along with all the other treatments? Why does conventional treatment get first choice?

Massage, acupuncture and other alternative modalities can be just as effective with better results, less side effects. Treatments and medicines used over 2000 years ago on Eastern medicine are often dismissed and discouraged as fist line treatments. Evidence based studies is the buzzword for medical treatments that works best today. Drug trials done over a few months to years take precedence over tried and true alternative treatments from thousands of years ago.

One size does not fit all. Treatments must be customized to each patient. This takes careful history taking, physical exam, in conjunction with other tests - conventional and alternative. All aspects of medical treatment must be respected and offered to patients so they can make a fully informed medical decision.

Even more discouraging is that health insurance covers any alternative treatments. For a person with a chronic conditions like arthritis, insurance will cover addictive potent pain medications when routine massages and/or acupuncture and/or routine physical therapy offer better pain control, and ongoing daily function.


If drug dependence to the point of drug addiction occurs, treatment is covered by insurance over non addicting complimentary treatment even though rehabilitation for addiction will incur extra cost and suffering for the patient.  What began as arthritis pain can turn into drug dependence and adverse reactions with other side effects that may require rehabilitation or more drugs.  This can add at least two or more new diagnoses for the patient which may require some self pay in addition to insurance coverage.


Seek out other therapies for your diagnosis.  Many chronic conditions can be helped with proper diet, exercise, prayer, etc.  The healing activity must be continuous and maintained routinely to get good results.  Good lifestyle changes should be incorporated into daily life.  As one learns to take pills daily so can one learn healthy routines that improve their quality of life.  Best health!

Losing Weight Sensibly

Here are some things you can do to lose weight and keep it off sensibly:

• Make good eating habits part of your life long health maintenance plan.  Avoid yo-yo dieting.  This often results in recurrent weight gain - each time!
• Learn good eating habits.
• Eat small portions.  Five small meals a day will be less caloric and give you more energy with less hunger.
• Enjoy foods you like that may more unhealthy less frequently. 
• Exexrcise routinely.  Frequent intervals of 10 minutes 2 to 3 times a day a few times a week is adequate.  Start slow like with five minutes for first week.  This will help encourage a positive attitude and more activity.

Ask your primary care health provider to refer you to dieticians and nutrition specialists for more details.  Weight loss surgery is an option that can be considered if obesity is causing and making other health problems more serious; however, serious side effects can occur and you can gain the weight back.  Talk to a doctor that specializes in bariatric surgery for details.

Healthy weight is always great. It is one time when less is more.

Best health!

Keep a Happy Heart, Be Heart Smart

A healthy heart is a cheerful heart.  Keep your heart smart and happy with this quick, easy to understand information.

Check your heart list:
___Heart and vascular exam by health care provider
___Blood pressure, pulse, weight, height
___EKG

For further evaluation, especially if symptoms are present, and/ or if there is a strong family history of heart and vascular disease see a cardiologist.

Tests may include:
___Doppler echocardiogram (checks heart valves, size, etc.)
___Stress test - nuclear, doppler or exercise (heart function)
___Heart MRI scan (artery disease)
___Interventional studies like cardiac catherization, angiogram (checks artery blockage, valve function)

Heart health habits:

1. Maintain a healthy weight.
2. Eat healthy small portions.
3. Exercise regularly - every little bit counts! Just do it regularly.
4. Keep blood pressure under control.
5. Keep stress level low.
6. Get adequate sleep.
7. Take an aspirin a day if in a high risk group. Check with your health care provider.
8. Love, laugh, and let go!

Have a happy, healthy heart! Best health and love!

J.L. Richardson, MD, family medicine, is the author of the award winning Patient Handbook to Medical Care: Your Personal Health Guide.

How You Can Save on Health Costs

Rising health care costs are one of the biggest reasons many people refrain from getting medical care when they need it.  Medical care costs deter many from doing what is best for their health. The following suggestions will help you spend your health dollars more wisely.

1. Eat proper foods. This is more healthy and less expensive especially if dining out or ordering in is eliminated.  Deleting junk food reduces expenses as well.  Home cooking is better for you and less costly.
2. Keep weight stable. It is the healthy thing to do. This will save on grocery and clothing expenses as well as long term savings on medical expenses.
3. Get prescription medicines in bulk quantity of 100 versus thirty day supply especially if you are paying outright. Buy nonprescription medication in bulk when on sale. You will be amazed at your savings when you buy a six to twelve month supply on sale. This tip is also effective for emergency preparedness.
4. Talk with your doctor by phone, fax, and email to save on the cost of an office visit payment. Just think about the number of office visits you have been to where all you did was talk (after waiting for a long while). This will save your time and money.
5. Monitor blood pressure at home.  Call in, email, or fax your readings to your health care providers. Many doctors will discover that your blood pressure is actually stable when the stress of the doctor's white coat is absent. For diabetics, a home glucometer is very useful for monitoring blood sugar.
6. Maintain healthy lifestyle changes long term.
7. Do routine health maintenance check-ups and testing.  Prevention and early detection have proven cost effective and good for overall health.

Invest in your most important asset - YOU. Maintaining your good health is one of the best ways to prosper into longevity.  Best health!

Your Choice: Medication or Food?

As health care costs rise everyone is looking for ways to save and cut costs. Recent studies and polls reveal that many are foregoing their medicine for other necessities of life like food and shelter.  Patient compliance has dropped to a new low.  Patients are taking their medication as needed when their budget allows.  This means less to none on a daily basis. Many are finding this indeed saves money, and possibly affects their health outcome minimally.

As food is the sustenance of life, many are making healthier choices.  This helps their medical maladies as well.  For hypertension and diabetes proper food choices can often alleviate the need for “stronger” treatment with medication. As more patients learn about dietary management and adhere to it, they find that they can indeed save money.

Talk to your healthcare provider if you are noncompliant with your medication because of the cost, or side effects that may cause other conditions requiring more medication, more money.  Be sure to get formal diet and nutrition counseling.  This will help make the right choices when you shop for food.  Contrary to popular myth, healthy food is actually affordable.  Shop smart to save your money and your health!     

Free Prescription: Lifestyle Changes

Behavior modification takes time as most good things do. Studies show that this is a sure way to attain and maintain excellent health. Changing your behavior is safe, inexpensive and free from side effects that you might get from medication. Lifestyle changes that result from behavior modification become habit especially as you feel and see the health benefits.

Exercise and healthy eating are two of the easiest ways you can make your behavior count towards your health. For instance, home preparation of meals makes it easier to select healthy choices. The focus is to eat the proper foods that nourish and heal.  Likewise, exercise keeps the body in motion and less susceptible to pain. Walking and stretching benefit the body as much as an expensive gym membership.  The more you can do in your home or at your home is probably better.  This also provides less stress which is good for mental health.

 

Give your body and mind what it deserves.  Modify your behavior to help yourself attain better health and fitness.  Use your free prescription freely.

 

Best health!