Obesity Remedy

Anorexia Nervosa

Anorexia Nervosa - On the opposite side of binge eating is anorexia nervosa. It affects around 1 to 2 percent of the female population. Anorexia is characterized by self-starvation and obsession with food, weight, and appearance, weight loss of 15% or more below the normal body weight, and an intense fear of being fat. Many of them look emaciated, but they’re convinced they are fat.

Because anorexics literally starve themselves, their bodies are severely depleted of nutrients. As a result, they develop muscular atrophy, dehydration, low blood pressure, and brain and organ damage to name a few. As many as 10 percent of anorexics die. Most anorexics deny they have a problem until the problem gets so bad that they have to be hospitalized. Because anorexia is so life-threatening, the first stage of treatment is getting body weight back to normal. Once this is on track, therapy and medications are used.

Eating disorders are serious disorders and should not be taken lightly. If you suspect you have one or think someone you love does, please seek help. It could be a matter of life and death.

THE SCIENCE OF OBESITY: FATS & CHOLESTEROL

For years we heard that a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet would keep us healthy and help us lose weight. And many of us jumped on the bandwagon, eliminating fat and high-cholesterol foods from our diets. Well, unfortunately, we were doing it all wrong.

Instead of eliminating fat completely, we should have been eliminating the “bad fats,” the fats associated with obesity and heart disease and eating the “good fats,” the fats that actually help improve blood cholesterol levels. Before we examine the good fats and bad fats, let’s talk about cholesterol.

Cholesterol - It’s been ingrained into our brains that cholesterol causes heart disease and that we should limit our intake of foods that contain it, but dietary cholesterol is different than blood cholesterol. Cholesterol comes from two places—first, from food such as meat, eggs, and seafood, and second, from our body. Our liver makes this waxy substance and links it to carrier proteins called lipoproteins. These lipoproteins dissolve the cholesterol in blood and carry it to all parts of your body. Our body needs cholesterol to help form cell membranes, some hormones, and Vitamin D.

You may have heard of “good” and “bad” cholesterol. Well, high-density lipoproteins (HDL) carry cholesterol from the blood to the liver. The liver processes the cholesterol for elimination from the body. If there’s HDL in the blood, then less cholesterol will be deposited in the coronary arteries. That’s why it’s called “good” cholesterol. To be Continued on the next Post.

posted by Emmanuel @ 6:33 PM