REPORTING POINT EXPRESS 01-03
AEROMEDICAL NEWS
“Live healthy...live well”
by Larry Kline
SWAPA Voice Mailbox 511/email: skyguy737@cox.net
IT'S NEVER TOO LATE. . . if you have spent your adult life being a couch potato, you may reverse age-related cardio decline. Following a regular aerobic training program just might reverse the effects of years of meticulous inactivity, according to new research at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. All of the age-related decline in cardiovascular fitness among middle-aged men, aged 50 or 51, occurring over a 30 year period, was reversed by a six month program of moderate endurance exercise. Subjects walked, jogged, or rode a stationary bike, increasing their training weekly. By the end of the study, the subjects were exercising four or five times a week for a total of four hours. Men's Fitness 4/02.
ANALYZING FOOD ADDITIVES - most food additives - notably preservatives, vitamins, and minerals - help keep our food supply safe and offer obvious health benefits. Others, such as emulsifiers and flavoring agents, improve the taste, texture, consistency, or appearance of foods. Preservatives keep our foods from spoiling (thus keeping grocery prices down) and protect us from food poisoning.
The main problem with additives is that the foods with the most additives tend to be "junk food" - heavily processed, high in fat and sodium, and not very nutritious. Most food additives are sugar, salt, and corn syrup, which together with baking soda, pepper, and a dozen other substances make up about 98% of all additives. Notice that these additives are all natural, yet natural substances can be health hazards-just look at sassafras bark extract (known as safrole and formerly used to flavor root beer) or aflatoxin (found in peanuts), both known carcinogens and both natural.
On the other hand, there is no reason to worry about the great majority of artificial ingredients. Laboratory-made vitamins and some flavors are exact replicas of natural substances, so the body cannot tell them apart. Other chemicals have no natural counterparts, and while this isn't necessarily bad, they
arouse the most fear in consumers, who may remember the banning of the artificial sweetener cyclamate and some artificial food colorings in the 1970's because they were shown to cause cancer in animals.
Since 1958, Congress has required manufacturers to prove the safety of any new additives (such as a fat substitute olestra, which finally won approval in 1995); before that, the burden was on the government to prove the health danger of the substance. Once an additive is shown to be safe in manufacturer-sponsored test, the FDA sets guidelines for its use. The 1958 law exempted about 700 "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS) substances from testing because of their long history of use without any known harmful effects.
When you hear antioxidants you may think of vitamins C and E and their potential health benefits, while preservatives make you think of chemicals with a health risk. Yet some of the most common preservatives, notably BHT and BHA, are antioxidants. (And, many antioxidants-such as vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid, are preservatives).
Eat fresh or minimally processed foods as much as possible, not because they have few additives, but because they are usually the most nutritious. When reading the ingredients list on the food label, pay most attention to the main ingredients, which are listed first, not to the additives at the end of the list. You're better off with bread or cookies made from a whole grain and seven additives than bread or cookies made from refined flour, hydrogenated oil, and just three additives. Avoid junk food not because it has additives, but because it is junk.
Finally other "health-enhancing" substances are being added to more and more foods and beverages. Such ingredients have never been approved as food additives, and they are not GRAS. The FDA last year warned companies for the first time that these ingredients are probably illegal and may be unsafe in foods. For example, St. John's wort can interfere with many prescription drugs, and ginkgo may exacerbate bleeding in people taking anticoagulants or aspirin. Many people should not take echinacea, including those who are allergic to daisies, plus those with chronic diseases involving immune dysfunction, such as HIV, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis.
Most of the estimated 3,000 compounds deliberately added to foods fall into these categories:
TYPE FUNCTION Common Uses COMMENT
Maintain/Improve Quality
Preservatives:
Nitrates, nitrites 1) Retard spoilage Most processed Nitrates and nitrites pro-
BHT, BHA, benzoic, from bacteria, or prepared foods mote cancer in lab animals,
acid, sulfites, molds, and fungi. But there is no evidence
ascorbic acid (vit- 2) Keep fats/oils that the amounts in our
amin C), calcium from turning rancid foods pose any risk.
propronate 3) Delay browning, Sulfites may cause allergic
as in cut fruit. reactions.
Nutrients:
Vitamins and Replace nutrients Processed flour, Most vitamins are artifi-
minerals lost in processing. rice, cereals, milk, cially synthesized, but are
margarine chemically identical to the
natural substances.
Make More Appealing
Flavor enhancers: Modify taste/aroma Gravies, canned Many large studies have
MSG, hydrolized vegetables, soup failed to find that MSG in
vegetable protein mixes food causes allergic re-
actions
Flavors: Improve or re- Baked goods, soft Largest group of additives-
Vanilla, spices, store flavor drinks, ice cream can be listed as spices or
seasonings artifical flavors
Colors: Gives foods an Most processed Synthetic dyes are most
Carotene, cara- appealing color foods widely used, especially in
mel, fruit juice, junk food - yellow 5 can
synthetic colors cause allergic reactions.
Sweetners Gives foods an Candies, baked Many general concerns
Natural sugars agreeable flavor goods, soft drinks about aspartame - no evi-
(fructose, corn dence of health risk.
syrup), artificial
sweetners
Fat replacers Thicken, add Baked goods, More and better fat sub-
Olestra, oatrim creaminess and dairy products, stitutes are being used in a
gums, modified bulk cookies, chips, wide variety of foods.
starch processed meats,
dressings.
Processing Aids
Emulsifiers (mixers)Keep liquid parti- Baked goods, fro- Helps disperse oils and
Lecithin, poly- cles evenly mixed zen desserts, dres- flavors, as in peanut butter
sorbate and homogenous sings and mayonaise.
Stabilizers, thick- Improve consis- Prepared desserts Many are natural carbohy-
eners, texturizers tency and desired sauces, baked drates that absorb water in
texture goods, soups foods.
pH control agents Control acidity or Soft drinks, baked Used to prevent botulism in
Citric acid, acetic alkalinity, affecting goods, fruit low-acid canned goods -
acid, alkalis, buf- texture and taste. products some acids help the rising
fers of dough
University of California Berkeley Wellness Letter 6/02.
SLEEP DEPRIVATION CAN HURT YOUR WORKOUT - sleep is recovery. In research performed recently at the University of Chicago, subjects exhibited a drastically reduced ability to process glucose after six nights of partial sleep deprivation, which translated into diminished ability to produce energy when awake. The subjects also showed heightened levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that attacks tissue and must be suppressed for proper post workout tissue repair. HGH, the anabolic hormone that plays the biggest role in rebuilding tissue after exercise, requires sleep for full activation, so the less sleep you get, the less muscle you have.
Sleep deprivation is chronic in our society. The average adult sleeps 90 minutes less today than a century ago. The majority of Americans sleep less than the recommended eight hours a night, which most sleep experts agree is the optimum. Men's Fitness 4/02.
