In those days we studied the causes of scurvy and rickets and equipped ourselves with enough vitamins to avoid those problems. Today we need more to stay healthy, says family physician Dr Ray Strand. Advocating nutritional medicine, Dr Strand says most of our major ailments today is because of inadequate nutrition.
As a medical doctor, Dr Strand says, “I knew how to treat disease...I did not know how to prevent illness from occurring in my patients. I now know that just as you recommend exercise for the body, you also recommend nutrition. There are health benefits when you pursue a healthy diet. My patients who take balanced nutritional supplements have health benefits.”
He explains his contention saying, “Oxygen is necessary for life but is also inherently dangerous for our existence. When you use oxygen to create energy and life itself, you occasionally create a charged oxygen molecule called free radicals. Free radicals have electrical charge and if they are not readily neutralised by an antioxidant, they can damage the cell wall, vessel walls, proteins, fats and even the DNA nucleus of the cell.
Free radicals
“We produce many free radicals. Factors that increase the production of free radicals are medications, sunlight, cigarette smoke, excessive stress, air pollutants, pesticides in food and radiation. All this causes stress and that stress is called oxidative stress. It is the root cause for more than 70 chronic diseases including heart diseases, cancer, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Parkinsons and so on. The same process that causes a cut apple to turn brown or rusts metal is literally rusting us inside.”
Continues Dr Strand, “We are living too short and dying too long for we are spending more time treating chronic degenerative diseases people are suffering from...You are not defenceless. Antioxidants have the ability to render those free radicals harmless. Your antioxidant defence system can protect your body just like a fresh coat of paint can protect your car. Balance is the key. You need more antioxidants available than the ‘free radicals’ you produce. Antioxidants help you prevent oxidative stress.” Dr Strand says that ensures a better quality of life.
Dr Strand tackles one disease after another, be it relating to the heart or diabetes and shows that all of them can be tackled with three essential ingredients: healthy diet, modest exercise and nutritional supplements.
The healthy diet is based on the glycemic index of the foods. Carbohydrates, like bread, pasta, rice have high glycemic index while even sugar has less. The desirable food chart should be built on the base of fruits and vegetables, milk products and meat, sugar and the least desired being carbohydrates...high glycemic index spikes blood sugar which causes uncontrollable hunger and we fall into the bracket of insulin resistance.
Nutritional supplements however do not mean just increasing the vitamins you take. It has to be in the right quantity to have the desired effect and is a science by itself requiring medical guidance.
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