Obesity Can Give You Alzheimer Disease. Fight Obesity For A Healthy Mind And Body Health.

"All parts of the body which have a function if used in moderation and exercised in labors in which each is accustomed,

Become thereby healthy,

Well developed and age more slowly,

But if unused they become liable to disease,

Defective in growth and age quickly."

~Hippocrates~

"People who are obese at 60 are twice as likely to develop dementia by the time they are 75"

Professor Clive Ballard

"Living a healthy lifestyle will only deprive you of poor health, lethargy, and fat."

Jill Johnson

I have many patients who request medications to help them lose weight. They are right to be concerned with their weight; however, they have the wrong approach to managing their weight gain. They want a short cut solution to their obesity-a pill that will melt the fatty tissue. A recent article that appeared on the BBC on line and the Washington Post showed that obesity, smoking, high blood pressure and high cholesterol can lead to Alzheimer disease because they destroy the blood vessels in the brain and lead to the death of the brain cells. It will therefore appear that lifestyle changes can go a long way to prevent the disease. These are some suggestions:

• You should buy into the concept that food is medicine so you can eat the right food at the right time.
  
• Learn form the Nun study. The nuns who engaged their minds all the time were immune to the onslaught of the Alzheimer disease even though some of the nuns showed Alzheimer changes in their brain after death. This study gives us a healthy model to follow. It is a recipe for preventing Alzheimer disease.
• Find time to exercise. Exercise keeps the brain alive by inducing the growth of new cells. It will also keep your weight down and help reduce high blood pressure and increased cholesterol levels in your blood.
  
• Eat fish or take Omega 3 fatty acids as they help prevent Alzheimer disease.
  
• Embrace spirituality to help you reduce stress. When you are under continuous stress, your body comes under attack from the steroids you produce from the stress. The result of this steroid onslaught is to attack your immune system, your brain cells, your chromosomes and cause you to age prematurely. Spirituality gives you resilience and buffers you from stress so you can weather these stressful moments in your life.
  

"Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness."

Edward Stanley

"If exercise came in a bottle, everybody would have a great body."

Cher

"He that takes medicine and neglects diet, wastes the skill of the physician."
- Chinese Proverb

Stress Can Cause Obesity. Combat Stress to Help You Loose Weight and Keep You Healthy.

Stress can cause many diseases. The ability to manage stress is important to our survival. Obesity is an epidemic in the world. According to the WHO estimates, the number of obese people will double to 700 million in 2012 from 200 million in 2005. It is one of the most difficult diseases to treat. Many patients with obesity have other family members with obesity. During stress, the body releases a chemical called neuropeptide Y or NPY that is linked with appetite, weight gain and obesity. A team of researchers led by Zofia Zukowska of Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington found that neurotransmitter NPY can 'unlock' Y2 receptors in the body's fat cells, to promote growth of the cells in size and number.

During the study, the scientists first stressed the mice, and then fed half of them with a normal mouse diet and the other half with a high fat, high sugar diet, equivalent to human junk food. After examining the mice, researchers found stressed mice gained twice as much fat as those that consumed the same high-calorie diet. Surprisingly, the stressed mice did not store weight when they blocked or removed the gene.

NPY induces the growth of immature fat cells, coaxes mature fat cells to get bigger and promotes blood vessels necessary to sustain fat tissue. The stressed out junk food eaters gained the largest amount of fat, deposited around their abdomen, developed high blood pressure, early diabetes mellitus, high cholesterol and metabolic syndrome. In humans, this type of obesity would translate into the apple shape type of obesity.

How can one fight this kind of disease? The following are suggestions that can help:

• Find time to exercise. When you are under stress, you tend to lose motivation to do many things that may help you, such as exercising because the stress may cause depression. Exercise is an antidote for stress.
  
• Practice mindfulness. This meditation practice will make you live one day at a time so that you do not stress yourself about, say, you job interview tomorrow. This is because being scared about tomorrow is crippling and makes your condition worse. Living moment by moment is not easy to practice. However, like everything else, practice brings perfection. Remember, you are human and will slip many times. However, when you slip gently go back and practice going with the flow.
  
• Be flexible and do not be rigid. Be like the water flowing over rocks. The water flows seamlessly and conforms to the shapes of the rocks on which it travels. It does not struggle to maintain its shape all the time. It adapts and cooperates because all it wants to do is to get to its destination without trying to proof anything to anybody. Its motto is "just get me there."
  
• If you confront a stressful situation, try to find the meaning in your suffering. That way, you will find it easier to hang in the trenches with the hope that the night would not last forever. If you have the Devine in your life, it helps to talk to Her. Having the Devine on your side helps you build resilience and gives you hope.
  
• Watch your diet, because food is medicine. Even if you have stress and you take the right food, you would be healthy.