eDocAmerica Weekly Health Tip: June 2020

Maybe you've heard of the Mediterranean Diet and you want to know more? In the 1960s, researchers noticed that there were significantly fewer deaths from heart disease in Mediterranean countries than in the U.S. and northern Europe. One of the more likely causes for this inequality is the difference in our dietary habits.

What exactly is the Mediterranean Diet?

While there is no single definition for this diet, studies began to find that eating primarily vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and healthy fats each day along with fish, poultry, beans, and eggs each week is associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease. In addition, the traditional diet of this region includes moderate portions of dairy products and limited intake of red meat.

Meals are built around plant-based foods and use healthy fats like olive oil, a monounsaturated fat, instead of saturated or trans-fats which contribute to heart disease.

The Mediterranean diet typically includes fatty fish such as mackerel, herring, sardines, albacore tuna, salmon and lake trout. These fish are rich in omega-3 fatty acids. These polyunsaturated fats may reduce inflammation in the body. They also decrease triglycerides, reduce blood clotting, and decrease the risk of stroke and heart failure.

Fruit is often served as a dessert, rather than desserts with high levels of refined sugar and other highly refined carbohydrates.

Other components of the Mediterranean Diet

People in this region also tend to share meals with family and friends. When you are socializing during meals, you tend to eat more slowly, and recognize that you are full earlier in the meal.

People in this region also tend to be more physically active than people in the U.S. and northern Europe.

They often have a glass or two of red wine with meals. While alcohol has been associated with a reduced risk of heart disease in some studies, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans caution against starting to drink if you don't already. They also recommend not increasing how much alcohol you drink now.

What do health organizations say about this eating plan?

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends the Mediterranean Diet as a healthy eating plan to promote health and prevent chronic disease.
The World Health Organization considers it a healthy and sustainable dietary pattern.
U. S. News and World Report lists it as one of the best diets year after year in their annual ranking by experts of popular diets. This is based on how healthy the diets are and how easy they are to follow.
The American Heart Association says that a Mediterranean-style diet can help you achieve their recommendations for a healthy dietary pattern. They note, too, that this diet is low in sodium, highly processed foods, refined carbohydrates, saturated fats and fatty and processed meats so the risk of stroke, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure is reduced. It is also low in added sugar.

How do you get started on the Mediterranean Diet?

Some people are ready to jump right in to protect their health by following this style of eating. But it is okay to start slowly. Take a look at what you are eating - and drinking - and find one or two changes you can make. Maybe cut out, or at least cut down, on sugary drinks. Just don't substitute juice, which can have more calories than soda. Water is the best choice.

Choose whole fruits instead of drinking juice. Whole fruit has fiber, which most juice doesnt, so it helps to keep your blood sugar in check and keeps you full longer, among other health benefits. One thing you might try is eating an orange with breakfast, rather than drinking orange juice.

Find recipes to try using beans, lentils or other legumes. Search the American Heart Association website, the DASH diet, or the Bean Institute website, but there are many other good sites, too.

If you have any questions about The Mediterranean Diet, please log into your account and send us your question. We are here to help.

Saturday, June 13, 2020

Adverse Health Effects of Heavy Alcohol Use

Last time we talked about the guidelines regarding alcohol consumption. This week we'll focus on the adverse health consequences of excessive alcohol use. Remember that moderate alcohol consumption is considered one drink a day for women and two drinks a day for men.

Light to moderate alcohol consumption is considered safe for most people, although there are some people who should not drink alcohol at all. We talked about this briefly last week, and we'll touch on it again today.

Drinking too much alcohol can cause both physical and mental harm to your body in a number of ways. Let's go through it by body system.

Liver: Heavy drinking can certainly take a toll on the liver. The metabolism of alcohol creates a toxic compound call acetaldehyde. This toxin contributes to inflammation in the liver and other organ systems. Your liver functions to remove toxins from the body, so it has to work overtime when you drink alcohol. If you drink heavily, either too many drinks in one sitting, or too many drinks over a long period of time, your liver can't keep up. This excess alcohol can damage your liver in different ways.

Fatty liver – Fat builds up in the liver, leading to poor function.
Cirrhosis – Liver cells are killed, leading to scarring and fibrosis. This damage, referred to as cirrhosis, significantly damages the ability of the liver to function properly.
Alcoholic hepatitis – Often caused by binge drinking or heavy drinking over short periods of time, this is an acute inflammation of the liver that can lead to loss of liver function and death.

Pancreas: Alcohol can cause inflammation in the pancreas, called pancreatitis, which can be acute or chronic. It can be a very serious condition that causes significant pain and digestive problems.

Heart and Cardiovascular System: Damage to the heart can be caused by excessive alcohol consumption on a single occasion or heavy drinking over a long time. Heart problems that can be caused by alcohol include:

Cardiomyopathy - The heart muscle becomes stretched thin and the heart becomes enlarged and cannot pump adequately.
Arrhythmias - Several abnormal heart rhythms can be associated with alcohol use, some fatal.
High blood pressure - Increases your risk for cardiovascular death from heart attack and stroke.
Brain and Neurologic system:
Stroke - Stroke risk is increased by heavy alcohol use, which can lead to significant disability or death.
Memory - Alcohol interferes with the pathways in the brain. Intoxication, especially heavy intoxication prevents your brain from moving short term memories into long term storage, so you may remember what happened when you were drunk for a few days, but you will not be able to remember weeks or years later, even really important things that happened.
Encephalopathy - Usually caused by chronic heavy drinking. This is an inflammation within the brain, which causes confusion, loss of motor coordination, short-term memory loss, involuntary eye movements, and other symptoms.
Neuropathy - Also caused by chronic heavy drinking, neuropathy causes damage to sensory nerves, causing tingling, numbness, and pain in the feet and hands. It can also cause poor function of motor nerves, leading to foot drop, abnormal gait, and frequent falls.

Immune System: Drinking too much can weaken your immune system. This is true for chronic excessive drinking, which increases your risk for several infections. Drinking a lot on a single occasion weakens your immune function for up to 24 hours after getting drunk. This is certainly not something you want to happen right now!

Cancer: There has been extensive research on the effects of alcohol on cancer risk. There is strong scientific evidence of an association between alcohol consumption and several types of cancer. Alcohol is actually listed as a known human carcinogen by the National Toxicology Program of the US Department of Health and Human Services. The more alcohol a person drinks over time, the higher the risk of developing an alcohol-related cancer.

Here are the types of cancers that have a clear association with alcohol:

Head and neck cancer – People who drink 3.5 drinks per day or more have at least a two to three times greater risk of developing head and neck cancers than non-drinkers. This includes cancers of the tongue, tonsils, larynx and others. This risk is substantially higher among heavy drinkers who also use tobacco products.
Liver cancer – Alcohol consumption is an independent risk factor for liver cancer.
Esophageal cancer – Alcohol consumption is a major risk factor for certain types of cancer in the esophagus.
Breast cancer – There have been more than 100 studies that looked at the association between the risk of breast cancer and the consumption of alcohol. These studies have consistently found an increased risk of breast cancer associated with increasing alcohol intake.
Colorectal cancer – There is a modestly increased risk of cancers of the colon and rectum associated with alcohol consumption.

For most people, moderate alcohol consumption is not associated with significant health risks. However, this may not be true for everyone. Here are just a couple of examples. If you have a strong family history of breast cancer, you might want to avoid alcohol use, or reserve alcohol for rare special occasions. If you have high blood pressure that is hard to control, eliminating alcohol consumption might allow you to take fewer medications.

If you have questions about your own alcohol consumption, be sure to talk with your family doctor about your risk. If you have any questions about the effects of alcohol use, please log into your account and send us your question. We are here to help.

Dr. Anita Bennett MD - Health Tip Content Editor

Friday, June 19, 2020

The Mediterranean Diet

Saturday, June 13, 2020

Adverse Health Effects of Heavy Alcohol Use