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Carrying too much fat around your middle and GERD ( gastroesophageal reflux disease - think chronic heartburn) go together like walnuts and port. About half obese people have this miserable condition, called GERD. Extra fat hanging off the stomach pulls it down, straightening the angle where the esophagus ( the tube that carries swallowed food to your stomach) joins it. When there’s no angle at that juncture, stomach acid spills upward and burns the esophagus. Pressure on the stomach from deep-belly fat increases the backwash.

Losing even a little weight,since that allow the angle to return, may cure GERD.

That’s what happened for 66 percent of people with GERD in a recent study. For obese women, the magic number for improving heartburn and other GI symptoms was losing just 5 percent of their body weight and taking 2-4 inches off their waists. Men got relief when they lost 10 percent of their weight and 4 inches from their waists.

Another reason why so many losers got better could be that they used to spend on alcohol, chocolate, fat and other GERD triggers with fruits and vegetables. They also exercised up to an hour, five days a week. And presumably they did what we tell anyone with heartburn to do: Avoid eating within three hours of bedtime. Put blocks under the head posts of your bed so you sleep at a slight downward tilt. And skip other trigger foods, too, like coffee, black pepper, spicy food, tomatoes and orange juice.

source: THE YOU DOCS/ LIVING/ TORONTO STAR

If you are trying to lose weight, looking at labels to find the lowest fat foods may actually be sabotaging your efforts.  Food labels can be quite misleading in an attempt to try to sell more products: and it works!  One of the most falsely held beliefs is that when you find a food that is fat free, it is also calorie-free.  This leads you to believe you can eat all you want.  And that’s what the manufacturers want you to think.

In actuality, when fat is taken out of a product, other additives must go in to take its place, enhancing the flavor and texture of the food.  Carbohydrates are often added and these provide a substantial amount of calories; even artificial sweeteners provide a small number of calories and you can get the accurate information on the nutrition facts panel if you look closely. Read the rest of this entry »

Laughter is a highly complex process. Joyous or mirthful laughter is considered a positive stress (eustress) that involves complicated brain activities leading to a positive effect on health. Norman Cousins first suggested the idea that humor and the associated laughter can benefit a person’s health in the 1970s. His ground-breaking work, as a layperson diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, documented his use of laughter in treating himself with medical approval and oversight into remission. He published his personal research results in the New England Journal of Medicine and is considered one of the original architects of mind-body medicine. Read the rest of this entry »

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