The Obesity/Stress Connection

I used to envision a chronic worrier as jittery, emaciated and gaunt. You know, the "Barney Fife" type. But now, I know that the person enduring unimaginable stress is more likely to be obese - even morbidly obese. This is a physiological reaction from the immune system and the process of homeostasis (the process that pulls us back together when stress is pulling us apart).

Worry is the stress that pulls us apart. However, worry goes beyond the mental and emotional process that causes distress. For example, did you know that your muscles also worry?

What is worry?

Worry is the process of anticipating events or outcomes that are possible but unknown. For example, we are all worried about our health and the health of loved ones. As long as no distressing symptoms occur, our level of worry is minimal. However, a new pain or ache, a lump or bump, a change that is not anticipated sends our "worrier" into overdrive.

The recent downturn in the world economy has created fertile soil as a new source of worry.

Our senses carry information to us from outside or inside our body. These are our five senses (touch, taste, sound, smell and sight) plus our intuition - the ability to "fill in the blanks" of the unknown based on our experience and intellect.

We project what may happen in the future and assess whether or not we have the resources needed to cope with anticipated outcomes. Scientists have discovered that our muscles adhere to the same process:

They project what may happen in the future based on past activity levels and assess whether or not they have the resources needed to cope. This is "muscle worry."

Worry is a survival mechanism because it allows us to forecast with some accuracy what resources we may soon need. We do this through our experience and intellect. With a bad experience or two in our history, we may also get into the habit of always predicting bad outcomes. This is called "catastrophic thinking" because we anticipate catastrophes from even normal, everyday events. So, a simple fever is bubonic plague and a skin rash must be Ebola virus!

To prepare for these awful events we may initiate the fight or flight response, releasing copious amounts of adrenaline. Or, based on past failures to cope, we may select an opposite response called learned helplessness, releasing immune-suppressing hormones and chemicals.

What is the obesity link?

Interestingly, worry has an effect on our appetite and metabolism. For example, when worry triggers the fight or flight stress response, our liver will dump enormous amounts of sugar into our bloodstream. Our pancreas will also secrete huge amounts of insulin into our system to carry that sugar into the muscles to fight-or-flee as a response to the emergency.

In chronic worry we simply never get to use all that energy and the hormone cortisol stores it in the fat cells of our abdomen, etc. These fluctuations in metabolism will often create eating binges where we feel we can't get satisfied no matter how much we eat.

Both fight-or-flight and learned helplessness trigger your body (especially your muscles, your "muscle worry") to anticipate future energy use. So, the muscles and adipose (fat) tissues store energy as fat and the result is that you gain weight.

Stress and worry all by themselves can create obesity - even if you eat a perfect diet!

Recognizing the problem is always the first step.

This is difficult because we live in a stressful world; there are real dangers requiring fight-or-flight responses. Also, people really do get sick with catastrophic illness, though not so many get bubonic plague or Ebola virus!

It would be foolish to ignore danger signals and face real catastrophe. That said, the majority of the things we worry about never happen, do they?

Train yourself to appraise situations correctly to reduce stress and worry (see the article "Think Therapy" below).

Recognize that stress and worry elicit powerful hormones that need to be discharged. Exercise is the best way to get rid of these pesky hormones. And even three deep breaths can reduce the anxiety you feel when stressed.

Nutrition plays a vital role in breaking the stress/worry/obesity connection:

First, adaptogens interrupt the cycle of stress and allow us to face our challenges with renewed resources; we will be able to cope with more issues with the greater resources provided by adaptogens.

Next, specific nutrients found in Leanology® capsules break the cortisol cycle and discourage our body from storing "worry" in our fat cells!

The day-to-day stresses we face will not end. And for the present, there will always be another world tragedy looming on the horizon, such as an economic downturn.

Learn to appraise them without panicking. Build a bulwark against stress with adaptogens. Help break the cycle of cortisol with Leanology capsules.

Learn and live the 10 Essentials for lifetime wellness!

TriVita's Weekly Wellness Report [weeklywellnessreport@trivita.com

Death of a Generation

In medicine we get so used to dealing with statistics that we don't always remember that there are real people behind these facts. I recently quoted the statistic that children born today will not live as long or as well as their parents. Many of you could well be thinking, "That's my children or grandchildren you're talking about!"

Indeed, these are the children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews that belong to all of us. These are the people we love. How did we get this way? What does science tell us about the health of generation Y2K? How can we steer them into better health?

Generation lost

The health of the Y2K generation (those born in the New Millennium) is a direct "cause and effect" relationship of the health choices made in the previous 50 years. Since the end of World War II, North American and Western European diets have contained more fat, more sugar and fewer nutrients. At the same time, physical activity has declined and television viewing has increased. People are also getting less sunshine and less sleep - two elements critical for health!

The health consequences to our Y2K generation could be compared to planting a seed of "convenience" in the 1940s, nourishing the sapling with inactivity in the 1950s and 1960s, seeing the blossoms on the tree in the 1970s and 1980s (the rapid decline in our own health and the rapid increase in our waistlines), and bearing full fruit of a lost generation beginning in the 1990s until today.

How bad is it?

According to popular resources such as The National Post in Canada and esteemed scientific journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine, there is a sharp decline of several years in expected longevity and a dramatic rise in disease risk - especially diseases associated with obesity (e.g., heart disease, cancer, diabetes). It is pervasive across all social and economic groups; but of course, the disease rates increase for people in lower economic regions.

Just imagine: The health gains of the past 1,000 years are erased in one generation! It is comparable to a global recession where financial gains and wealth of a lifetime are wiped out in a matter of minutes.

Steer a new course

Imagine your health is like the voyage of a cruise ship. If that ship is the Titanic you immediately know that it may not have a happy ending. If the captain of the Titanic knew in advance the certainty of losing his ship, he would change his course. Our health and the health of our children, grandchildren and community are on the same dangerous path as the Titanic.
Science and our own experience tell us that by staying on a particular course we will have a health catastrophe. However, by changing that course even a little we can have a successful journey for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren.

Proper nutrition and nurturing can help us steer a healthier course. So, eat a balanced diet with healthy proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Select organic when possible - grow your own garden when possible.

Take Healthy Aging nutrients every day (try replacing Sublingual B-12 with Super Sublingual B-12 if you often experience allergies, insomnia, indigestion or muscle aches). Get your sunshine and your sleep. Turn off the TV, go for a walk and take those Y2K kids with you!

Be an example and be an educator of the simple but profound health principles found in the 10 Essentials of Health and Wellness.

Plant a seed of hope, knowledge and proper self-care in this generation, and we can be content knowing it will sprout, mature and bear healthy fruit for generations to come.

TriVita's Weekly Wellness Report [weeklywellnessreport@trivita.com

Answers to Your Nopalea Questions

With a new product comes questions about why, when and how to use it. The more popular the product is, the more frequently the questions are repeated. In this Weekly Wellness Report I have attempted to answer some of the more common questions about this wonderful anti-inflammatory product.

How much sugar, salt and iron are in Nopalea?

Nopalea™ contains NO ADDED SUGAR. It is naturally sweet. Yet it is still low-calorie and low-carbohydrate. Interestingly, the calories and carbohydrates will change from batch to batch depending on the harvest. Nopalea is "wildcrafted," meaning that Nopalea is not cultivated, and no fertilizers, pesticides or chemicals of any kind are ever used - ever!

It is harvested from the Sonoran Desert by natives just as it has been for thousands of years. Since it is not cultivated, the concentration of sugars and minerals in the plant change depending on how much rain we have that year. The label will accurately reflect the concentration of constituents for that harvest.

One challenge is that Nopalea is the first product of its kind. Therefore, no "standards" data existed before we created them. So, label changes happen because we created the testing standards to accurately measure the rare and powerful constituents of Nopalea.

Will Nopalea interfere with my medications?

Your physician and pharmacist know you best - ask them! We will say this: With over 200 papers published on the benefits of the Nopal cactus superfruit in human health, we have not found even one negative reaction or drug interaction. The only caution we discovered concerns the blood-thinner warfarin (Coumadin).

If you take warfarin you need to speak with your pharmacist. Nopalea is a fruit juice. In rare instances, people on warfarin will be restricted from consuming fruit juices for a short time while their medication stabilizes. Only your physician and pharmacist know if you should be restricted from fruit juices at this time, so ask them before you take it. But we have not found a single instance of drug interaction in the medical literature; Nopalea should be very safe.

How much Nopalea can I take in a day?

The label recommends one to three ounces daily. This is based on minimum amounts in otherwise healthy people. However, the greater the level of your inflammation, the more anti-inflammatory strategies you will need. That makes sense, doesn't it? You wouldn't want to quench a forest fire with a single bucket of water!

One Member was experiencing a flare-up of a rheumatoid disorder. She had taken many remedies - prescription and non-prescription - and had seen chiropractors, acupuncturists and massage therapists. She had been in an unbroken cycle of pain for 18 months. She took additional ounces daily and broke the cycle of inflammation and pain in about three weeks. She continues to take it daily with no known adverse effects. And she is pain free.

In the early pilot trials of Nopalea we gave our test subjects 16 ounces daily. Not only did they not experience any known negative effects, their blood work universally improved.

Conclusion

So many of the maladies we suffer from today are related to inflammation.

Nopalea contains Betalains; Betalains quench inflammation.

Testimonials from around North America report amazing improvement in well-being with Nopalea. Science from around the world details the astounding health benefits from Betalains found in the Nopal cactus. Both scientific and empirical reports tell us that Nopalea is safe and effective in promoting wellness. Enjoy Nopalea often.

I promise: we won't run out!

TriVita's Weekly Wellness Report [weeklywellnessreport@trivita.com