by dnshah | Sep 1, 2020 | Health and Wellness Tips
Since March, 2020 we’ve all been adjusting to our new normal. Our children are learning about our new normal – asking questions and searching for answers on why their lives are changing. It’s a challenge to explain the loss of the elementary school face-to-face, final ceremonies of completing middle school, highlights of high school senior years, graduations, or missing face-to-face social events.
It’s a stressful society we live in, and that stress is reaching our children at younger ages too. We know that QoL depends on reducing unnecessary stress. QoL is quality of life based upon mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual wellness.
The one thing that I know helps with stress management is increasing mindfulness. And this thing we call mindfulness also helps children cope with increasing stress. What does mindfulness look like? Pretty much the same as it does for adults!
A pilot study has looked at increasing mindfulness in children by adding group yoga classes and meditation. Improvements were demonstrated in 40-minute sessions which included breathing exercises, guided relaxation, and age-appropriate poses.
by dnshah | Jul 28, 2020 | Age Defying, Health and Wellness Tips, Virus
We have over 100 trillion bacteria in our gut microbiome. Our microbiome impacts a majority of our immune system. I’ve written previously about eating for our gut bacteria (Balancing Trillions of Friends), but it is vitally important to also promote diversity in our gut bacteria also.
Dysbiosis is an imbalance between the “good” and “bad” bacteria. Dysbiosis can happen from inadequate diet, lack of exercise, surgery, or antibiotic use. Adding prebiotics helps with dysbiosis. Prebiotics are food for the good bacteria. With prebiotics, the healthy bacteria can cultivate over time. Probiotics are actual bacteria strains. Each can contain different genus, species, and strains. Since we know that diversity is important, the more the merrier! But if you buy a particular probiotic bottle with a fixed number of strains, and you take it daily. It may not help as much as if you purchase 2-3 different probiotics containing different genus, species, and strains. Then you can alternate what you are providing the microbiome. It’s more efficient at promoting diversity.
To learn more about probiotics check out the Metagenics Video on probiotics. Contact your local health & wellness coach for more information!
by dnshah | Jul 28, 2020 | Age Defying, Health and Wellness Tips, Virus
What we know for sure is that smoking seems to increases risk of flu. Data shows a higher mortality among smokers in the 2012 MERS-CoV. Some preliminary studies on COVID19 and smokers found unfavorable outcomes. This data was done so early with COVID19, that it may not be current but I wanted to provide the analysis and observations.
- Smokers were 1.4 times more likely to have severe symptoms compared to non-smokers
- Smokers were 2.4 times more likely to be admitted to an ICU, need mechanical ventilators, or die compared to non-smokers
The pattern (this study and more current ones) seems to indicate that smoking is most likely linked to negative progression and adverse outcomes with the COVID19 pandemic. So, this is more evidence to indicate that one of the best things smokers can do to protect themselves from COVID19 risks is to quit smoking.
Although this habit is one of the harder habits to break, please reach out and get help from medical professionals or work with a health & wellness coach trained in this to progress your goal of smoking cessation. It’s a life-saving lifestyle change.
by dnshah | Jul 28, 2020 | Age Defying, Diet and Weight Loss, Health and Wellness Tips, Virus
Green tea contains an anti-viral and anti-inflammatory compound called EGCG (epigallocatechin). Some of the benefits of EGCG that we know about include:
- Direct or Indirect Inhibition of viral entry: (hepatitis B & C, Zika, HSV, HPV, Epstein-Barr, Dengue, West Nile, Chikunjunya, Enterovirus, Japanese Encephalitis, Tick born Encephalitis, HIV, Ebola, Influenza)
- Inhibits inflammatory enzymes
- Helps to Prevent respiratory infection
At this time COVID19 has no known universally accepted treatment or cure and there is no clinical evidence that EGCG can prevent, treat, or cure COVID19. Still some chemists are looking into the impact of EGCG on Covid19 because it has a high affinity for binding to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
While primarily found in green tea, small amounts can also be sourced from apples, kiwi, strawberries, hazelnuts, and pecans. There were some concerns cited on the purity of green teas sourced internationally, and possible harm from teas sourced from sites that didn’t have as thorough government safety standards.
The full effects of EGCG on COVID19 are unknown to date. Excessive EGCG hasn’t shown serious adverse effects in studies ()19). It seems to have broad human appeal due its safety profile; however excessive caffeine consumption should be monitored. There are known medication interactions so always check with your doctor before making dietary changes.
by dnshah | Jul 28, 2020 | Age Defying, Diet and Weight Loss, Health and Wellness Tips, Virus
Dietary flavonoids are a large family of plant compounds sharing a structure, and there are 6 major subfamilies (anthocyanidins, flavan-3-ols, flavanones, flavones, flavonols, and isoflavones). Quercetin is a flavonoid from the Flavanol subfamily.
Some of the functions quercetin provides (human or animal studies) include:
Main dietary sources (from the USDA database) are listed below. The way food is prepared (boiled, fried, etc.) impacts quercetin concentration.
Excessive quercetin may cause headache, tingling of arms/legs, and kidney damage. There are some possible medication interactions (antibiotics, cyclosporine, warfarin, liver medications), so always consult a doctor when changing dietary habits.
