Are you a person who likes to roll out of bed and hit the gym? Or do you prefer an afternoon or evening workout? Exercise however you like, but according to a new study, you might want to put some planning into when you actually work out. Belgian researchers found that exercising before eating, on an empty stomach, something most people have only first thing in the morning or late afternoon, has several beneficial effects, including preventing weight gain and warding off a truly serious disease.

AN UNUSUAL STUDY — THEY ATE JUNK FOOD

In the study, 27 healthy young men ate a horrible diet high in sugar, fat and calories — chosen because it was just about guaranteed to create both weight gain and a reduction in the body’s ability to process blood sugar effectively.

The Belgian men were divided into three groups. The control group had to eat the awful diet and avoid exercising. Men in the second and third groups, in addition to eating the same unhealthful diet, both exercised, performing the same workout. But the second group did it soon after breakfast and the third group did it before breakfast, exercising on an empty stomach.

HOW DID THAT WORK FOR THEM?

The results were surprising and dramatic. As one might expect, the control group (the one that simply pigged out) gained a lot of weight and also saw their ability to control blood sugar (insulin sensitivity) plunge. The “exercise after eating” group also gained weight, but not nearly as much as the control group. Their insulin sensitivity also went down, just as it did in the control group.

But the “exercise before eating” group was a whole different story. Despite eating the terrible diet, this group did not gain weight, not only that, their insulin sensitivity didn’t fall, so even their bad diet did not make them insulin resistant. A breakthrough finding? You bet. As the authors said, “This study for the first time shows that fasted (empty stomach) training is more potent than ‘fed training’ to facilitate adaptations in muscle and to improve glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity… ”

SO DON’T EAT FIRST?

Should you forgo eating before working out? Not necessarily, it depends on your goals. I consulted exercise physiologist Liz Neporent, MS, CSCS, who serves emeritus on the executive board of the American Council on Exercise and is author of Fitness for Dummies. She said that people whose interest is in heightening their performance, who are, for instance, training for an upcoming event, might do better to eat first, since they’ll need energy to push themselves harder and harder. But, she added, if it’s weight loss or maintaining general fitness that you are after, “evidence does seem to be trending toward not eating before working out.” The benefit of the before-breakfast interval is that most of the food consumed the day before is well through the small intestine and thus the inflow of nutrients is at its ebb, but you can also benefit by being sure to work out as long after eating as possible, say, just before lunch or just before dinner.

One caveat, if you find that exercising on an empty stomach makes you feel dizzy or faint, this may not be a good approach for a vigorous workout. You might find that endurance training, where you focus on low-stress repetitive actions such as mild-to-moderate spinning, can produce benefit without driving blood sugar too low. Or you may need to have a small, healthful snack that includes protein before you do any exercising. While you won’t get the same benefits as exercising on an empty stomach, the fact that you’re exercising is still a good thing!

Source(s):

Liz Neporent, MS, CSCS, exercise physiologist based in New York City and author ofFitness for Dummies (Wiley) and Weight Training for Dummies (Wiley). She is a contributor to ABC National News and serves emeritus on the executive board of the American Council on Exercise.

Is anxiety and stress running your life? Is an upcoming presentation at work or a looming visit from your least favorite relatives causing to you lose it? Instead of just “dealing with it”, have a handful of walnuts every day. New research shows that walnuts and walnut oil reduce blood pressure when you are under stress, and even during those all-too-rare, happy moments of calm.

YOUR COPING MECHANISM

Earlier studies had already shown that nuts reduce resting blood pressure, in other words, when people are not under stress. So at The Pennsylvania State University, researchers undertook the study of walnuts’ impact on people when they deliberately exposed study subjects to psychological and physical stress. “People who show an exaggerated biological response to stress are at higher risk for heart disease,” explains study author Sheila G. West, PhD, an associate professor of biobehavioral health.

The researchers provided 22 adults who had elevated levels of LDL cholesterol (the so-called “bad” type of cholesterol) with all their meals and snacks during three separate six-week periods. The diets included:

• A control diet. An “average” American diet, which was defined as 50% carbohydrates, 16% protein and more than 30% fat, but with no nuts.
• A walnut diet. The same control diet as above, but with a handful of walnut halves (totaling 1.3 ounces — 18 halves) and a tablespoon of walnut oil daily in place of some of the saturated fat and protein in the control diet.
• A walnut/flaxseed diet. The walnut/walnut oil diet plus 1.5 tablespoons of flaxseed oil daily.

Participants ate walnuts as a snack, while the walnut oil and flaxseed oil were mixed into food items such as salad dressing and muffins. Researchers matched the three diets for calories and designed them to generate neither weight loss nor weight gain. After participants ate the diets for six weeks, researchers raised participants’ stress levels in two ways:

1) Psychological stress. In the first situation, participants were given just two minutes to prepare and three minutes to deliver a speech while being videotaped.

2) Physical stress. In the second situation, participants put one of their feet into ice cold water for two and a half minutes.

The result: During each stress test, investigators measured individuals’ blood pressure. And good news, they found that stress-induced blood pressure was two to three points lower in those who ate the two walnut diets.

The walnut/flaxseed diet did not lower blood pressure any further than the walnut diet. However, it reduced inflammation and LDL cholesterol and increased vascular dilation responses, small changes that together confer a cardiovascular health benefit, according to Dr. West.

These findings were published in the December 2010 issue of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition.

While a two- or three-point improvement in your blood pressure may not seem like a lot, the walnut diets also lowered LDL cholesterol and reduced constriction of blood vessels throughout the body as measured by blood tests (lipid profiles) and vascular ultrasound. And while this particular study looked at individuals with elevated cholesterol, many other trials demonstrate that walnuts offer valuable health dividends for us all.

Walnuts are rich in antioxidants, fiber and polyunsaturated fatty acids such as alpha-linolenic acid (ALA, an omega-3 fatty acid), and researchers believe that these components may be responsible for the positive impact in blood pressure.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Enjoy one serving of walnuts daily instead of a handful of chips or a couple of cookies. Keep in mind, of course, that you can’t rely on any one magic food or supplement or exercise to control blood pressure or put a lid on stress. That said, walnuts can be one tasty and healthful daily addition to your diet.

Source(s):

Sheila G. West, PhD, an associate professor of biobehavioral health, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania.

How much do you love your diet soda? Enough to let it ruin your life?

An alarming new study raises even more concerns about the safety of diet soda, finding that people who drink it appear to be at higher risk for heart attack and stroke. We already knew these low and no-cal drinks are formulated with unhealthy ingredients, including some thought to be carcinogenic. And we knew that diet soda is associated with an increase in risk for kidney disease. And now this!

According to Hannah Gardener, ScD, an epidemiologist in the department of neurology at the Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, soda is causing major health risks that most people are unaware of.

SO LONG SODA?

Researchers at the Miller School used data from the Northern Manhattan Study begun in 1990, with more than 3,000 participants, all over the age of 40, to learn whether there was any link between their health and soda intake. Based on their soda-drinking habits, participants were grouped into seven consumption categories according to the type and frequency of soda consumed. There was no distinction among brands, flavors or type of sweeteners used (other than diet versus regular).

Results: Looking at 10 years of follow-up from this ongoing study, researchers saw that the daily diet soda drinkers had 48% more heart attacks and strokes than people in any of the other groups, including those who drank different types of soda and those who drank no soda at all. The results still held after researchers adjusted for other factors known to raise risk for heart attack and stroke, age, sex, race or ethnicity, smoking, alcohol consumption, lack of exercise, daily calorie intake, metabolic syndrome, peripheral vascular disease and heart disease history.

NOT WHAT THEY EXPECTED

It’s a perplexing finding that the researchers hadn’t expected, Dr. Gardener said that there could be a wide range of explanations. The most obvious would seem to be that one or more of the ingredients in diet soda leads to heart disease, but it’s also possible that diet soda isn’t the culprit at all. It might be that the problem lies with other behaviors of diet soda drinkers, she said. For instance, while researchers accounted for some aspects of diet (such as total calorie intake as noted above), it could be that people who drink diet soda also eat in a less healthy way overall.

Further analysis of the results of this study may yield more information. Meanwhile, the smartest thing to do is what we all know already anyway. Drink water and other natural beverages, soda is just plain unhealthy.

Source(s):

Hannah Gardener, ScD, epidemiologist, department of neurology, University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine.

It’s that time of year again – the Girl Scouts are peddling their cookies and we’re buying them up. But what is it about these cookies that the Girl Scouts don’t want you to know?

Girl Scout Cookies - What They Don't Want You To Know

When it comes to health, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that eating a cookie isn’t good for you, but let’s face it, having a treat every once in awhile makes life worth living. And as a nutritionalist, I have no problem with that. I tell my clients all the time, you have to live your life and having a treat once in awhile is okay, as long as the treat isn’t loaded with garbage.

What the Girl Scouts don’t want you to know is their cookies are loaded with garbage … a lot of garbage.

My issue is the Girl Scout cookies don’t have to be filled with garbage. When additives are put into the cookies for the shear reason of causing addiction and cheapening production at the health risk of those who consume, well, I have a MAJOR problem with that.

And you should too.

First, let’s cover the use of High Fructose Corn Syrup which is found in Girl Scout cookies. This is an extremely dangerous ingredient to use in ANY food. What was shocking to me is the Girl Scout organization officially commented why they use High Fructose Corn Syrup in their cookies:

Our licensed vendors use a variety of ingredients in the production of Girl Scout Cookies, including, in some cookies, High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). Our bakers have indicated that HCFS is a specifically helpful ingredient in the browning process, and helps cookies retain freshness. For those cookies where HFCS is used, our bakers indicate that it is a key ingredient in ensuring the quality of the cookie.

Seriously, they are going to try and get you to believe that they use HFCS because it is helpful “in the browning process”? Really? You wouldn’t hear as much B.S. in the Republican debates! The real reason they use it? It is cheaper and more addictive than real sugar.

Corporations who sell food products know they can make more money two ways: make their product with cheaper ingredients or get people to consume more of them. HFCS allows them to do both.

That’s shameful.

What’s worse? You think you are supporting your local Girl Scout troop, but they only receive between 10-20% of the sales. That’s it. Why not just go door-to-door and ask for donations instead of selling a product that is detrimental to one’s health?

I will be straight up with you, as delicious as these cookies are, they are poison to your body, and they don’t need to be. If they would accept less profit and actually use natural ingredients, Girl Scout cookies could be much healthier. Using the cheapest ingredients to maximize profits and contributing to the sharp rise in obesity and diabetes … especially among juveniles, is morally wrong.

Stand up for what is right and pass on the Girl Scout cookies. Send a message that no matter how addicting of a product they try to make, the public is smart enough to pass.

If you need a healthy snack that will also satisfy your sweet tooth and also give your body the nutrition it is craving, turn to our snack items to lose weight and feel better. We never use high fructose corn syrup as our meals are designed with your health in mind. After all, our diet has been recommended by more than 20,000 since 1980, that’s over 30 years. There is a reason why Medifast is the last diet people try because it works and it can for you too.

You want to be healthier. The fastest way to better health and skinnier waistlines is by changing your diet. You already know this as it isn’t breaking news. It is difficult to always eat the “required” fruits and vegetables you need a day…five plus servings a day. If you are one who has a hard time eating and enjoying all the fruits and veggies you should eat in a 24 hour period then smoothies might be just what the doctor ordered.

Smoothies are fruit based drinks that are typically blended with either yogurt or milk until smooth. The combinations of smoothies are endless. These super fast meal replacements are packed full of goodness that will give you plenty of energy to power you through your day. If you choose just the right ingredients for your smoothie, it can keep your blood sugar in check, beat fatigue, help keep you regular and help keep your mind focused and sharp.

When searching for smoothie recipes it is sometimes difficult to find recipes that are really good for you. If they call for ingredients like syrup or frozen yogurt or even tons of sugar then your smoothie will no longer be the healthy meal that you really want. Bodies crave nutrients and when man made ingredients are used you will find that you will be “craving” something else to nibble shortly after your smoothie is gone.

Smoothie How To’s
The main elements to a smoothie are base, liquid and fruit.

Base

The base to your smoothie can be so many different ingredients. It is important that the base of your smoothie makes your smoothie creamy in texture and taste. The base is what helps give your smoothie body. Without the proper base your fruit would quickly rise to the top. The base helps to thicken your smoothie.

For a creamy base use:

Bananas – Bananas are a great base. The overripe bananas are especially sweet and creamy. One to two bananas work great. Bananas can be peeled and cut into chunks and then frozen to use later.

Pears – Many people just don’t like bananas, pears can be used instead and give the same qualities to your smoothie as the banana. Pears, just like bananas, need to be a little overripe to have the best results. One pear per smoothie is usually just enough.

Avocados – Avocados are super creamy. You may not like them alone, but mixed with other foods you may be surprising. Avocados are full of good for you, healthy fats, but don’t overload on these. Both because of the fat and the fact that too much will overpower your smoothie’s flavor. Use only one quarter to one half of an avocado per smoothie.

Nuts – Nut smoothies can be delicious! They give a fantastic creaminess. Do use nuts in moderation, however. If used as a base try a quarter cup per smoothie. Blended nuts are great to use in place of milk. It is best to blend the nuts with your liquid of choice first to get them smooth. Then you can add the fruit of choice and ice.

Dairy – It is easy to find recipes for yogurt smoothies, but for those of you who are allergic to dairy so try one of the other alternatives. You can also try coconut milk. The best choice is plain yogurt with probiotics and no sugar. Cottage cheese can also be used. One third to 1 cup of either yogurt or cottage cheese is just right.

Liquid

You must be careful with the liquid part of your smoothie. If too much is added, your smoothie will be thin and “watery”. The liquid you choose will influence your smoothie’s overall flavor. Normally you only need a cup or two of liquid.

Fruit

When adding in your fruit there are numberless combination options. You will have to experiment some to see what you like, but there are some combinations of fruit that just seem to go together. For instance mangos just seem to work with pineapple, but also taste great with other fruit as well. Bananas and berries also seem to just go together.

Smoothies are a way to incorporate many good things to your diet. Kids love smoothies too so get your whole family involved. At first it will probably be a good idea to follow a recipe and as you gain confidence make and name your own.

You already know that there are tons of damaging and dangerous things such as pesticides, carcinogenic additives, chemical dyes and fillers made from unappetizing ingredients such as wood, yes wood, found in packaged and processed foods. But the real hidden danger is what the food is shipped in and stored in. New research has found that by simply getting rid of these packages as quickly as you can, you can bring yourself and your family nearly immediate health benefits.

Are you aware of the dangers linked to use of the toxic chemical Bisphenol A (BPA), found in polycarbonate plastic food containers? These also include bottled water and takeout food containers. How bad is BPA in packaging? It is linked to breast and prostate cancer and even early puberty.

The question you may be asking is since you have been exposed to BPA all your life are you doomed to get cancer? The Breast Cancer Fund and Silent Spring Institute (both San Francisco-based organizations focused on environmental causes of breast cancer) conducted a study to measure how dangerous these packages are, specifically zeroing in on how quickly and meaningfully the BPA levels in the body decline when people stop eating or drinking foods packaged in BPA containers.

As part of their study, the Breast Cancer Fund and Silent Spring Institute enrolled five families, each consisting of two parents and two children, who had regularly consumed prepackaged, processed foods and drinks in cans, frozen dinners, bottled water and foods designed to be microwaved in their own containers. Then, for three days, these families were presented with fresh, organic food cooked by the research team and stored only in glass or stainless steel containers. To measure the direct and immediate impact of the change, researchers collected urine samples from all participants before, during and after the diet.

The Results

After just three days, everyone’s BPA level fell, with an average drop of two-thirds. BPA has a half-life of six hours in your body, notes Connie Engel, PhD, program coordinator at The Breast Cancer Fund. This means that six hours following exposure, half of what you’ve taken in is eliminated. When the families resumed their normal diets, their BPA levels returned to pre-intervention levels by the next urine sample.

These findings were published in March in the online journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Make the Right Choice to Be Healthy Now

As part of your “Lean and Green Meal” and your maintenance plan with Medifast, make the smart choices on how you consume food, store your food and heat your food. It isn’t enough to eat the right foods, you also have to be mindful how it is shipped, stored and heated too. This study demonstrates that we all can quickly lower our own BPA levels by making basic changes in what we eat and drink. Such as:

- Buy whole foods and carry them home in paper bags.
- Do not microwave in plastic, even if it is labeled “microwave-safe”! Heat raises BPA levels in plastic, upping the health hazards. Instead, microwave food in glass or ceramic containers.
-Consider switching to a French press coffeemaker. Typical coffeemakers may contain traces of BPA and other toxins in the bin that holds the coffee filter and coffee. These grow more concentrated when heated.
- Kick the cans. Avoid canned foods except those that are in BPA-free cans, such as from Eden Foods, Vital Choice, Oregon’s Choice and Trident Seafoods.
- Watch out for the kids. Developing children are at even greater risk for harm from BPA. Use glass baby bottles or BPA-free plastic bottles. For older children, get stainless steel lunch boxes instead of plastic.

Be proactive, greatly reduced the levels of BPA in your foods and containers and you should notice an increase in your health.

Fact: Sleep is Key to Fight Obesity!

Sleep deprivation and obesity-is there a link between the two? So many American’s are now obese, more than one-third of us fall into that category. As the decades come and go, the problem just keeps getting worse. Lower amounts of physical activity, higher caloric intake, how our genes and our environment mesh as well as the impact our culture has on us all contribute to our overall fat/weight gains. While all of these things have had an impact on our lives, American’s now sleep less than ever before. Researchers are beginning to see what the effect this lack of sleep has on us; does it have an effect? You be the judge.

Our ancestors slept more than we do, that’s a fact. In the 1900’s the average sleep time was 9 hours per night as opposed to us today as we average less than 7 hours each night. That’s two full hours less. A study done in 2001 found that if you get less than 6 hours of sleep a night, and stay awake after midnight, you are more likely to be obese. 1.1 million adults were surveyed in 2002. It was discovered that those who got less than 7 hours of sleep a night also found that as a result, their body mass index (BMI) increased.

It is a known fact that overall, those of us who are overweight or obese get less sleep then individuals who are a normal weight. How much more overweight are those sleepy eyed people? A 2004 study found that those who got in less than 8 hours of shut eye a night increased their BMI proportional to how much sleep they lost.

In the past 20 years, over 12 studies have been conducted on more than 45,000 children and it was found that there is absolutely a link between how many hours of sleep these kids got a night and their risk of future obesity. If children sleep less, they show a higher risk of obesity in the future. The British Medical Journal discovered that 3 years olds with short sleep patterns had a higher risk of obesity by age 7. This shows that poor sleep patterns may permanently influence the part of the brain that controls appetite and energy levels.

One study examined how restricting sleep to 4 hours per night for a week impacted the subject’s metabolism. The subjects showed signs of glucose intolerance (this leads to diabetes) as well as hormone changes that are hooked to weigh gain and hypertension. And hypertension is one of the fastest growing health issues in America today. These physiological changes were reversible as normal sleep patterns returned. Yes, reversible.

A good night sleep is so important for so many reasons. When you are sleep deprived you are affected in almost every aspect of your life. Just a few of the areas affected include:

Memory loss
Weight Fluctuations
Weakened immune system
Increased sensitivity to pain
Shakiness and hand tremors
Slurred speech
Increased risk of cancer

If you find yourself locked into some poor sleep habits, whether by choice or by circumstances out of your control, what can you do to get back on the sleepy time train?

Here are some things that may help:

Stick to a schedule: Have a set bedtime and stick to it even on the weekends. In addition, wake up at the same time every morning.

Keep your room cool: We tend to sleep better in a cooler room; about 65º. If your bedroom is too hot or too cold it could interrupt your sleep.

Do something relaxing right before bed: Doing something relaxing to help you wind down after a busy day can help you feel sleepy. Try reading, a warm bath or listening to soft music. Most important, cut off TV and electronic use at least an hour before you go to sleep. This will allow your mind to relax and allow you to get a better night’s sleep.

Cut out caffeine: Caffeine can keep you up even ten to twelve hours after drinking it! Think about eliminating caffeine after lunch or cutting back your overall intake.

If you have tried everything and you still need extra help getting a good night’s sleep, Medifast has a fantastic sleep aide called Essential 1: Sleep Health. It contains a time released blend of melatonin. It not only helps you fall asleep but also helps keep you sleeping all night without making you feel groggy.

You want to be more healthy, that’s not breaking news, but how we get there. That’s what you really want to know.

First of all, let’s cut to the routine stuff for review that’s important for you to be doing …

- Cancer Screening
- Eating More Fiber
- Having a Good Social Network (not Facebook, REAL people!)
- Weighing Less (use Medifast)
- Drinking Less
- Smoking Less (or quitting altogether)
- Controlling Blood Pressure and Cholesterol

While all the above are important and you shouldn’t minimize your efforts on any of them, which is the most important? What would give your health the biggest R.O.I. (Return on Investment)?

To give you an idea, let’s look at some clinical trial results:

- Knee Arthritis. Patients who did treatment for one hour a day three days a week, 47% experienced less pain in their knees.
- Dementia & Alzheimers. Reduced progression in older patients by 50%.
- Diabetes. Those at risk, 58% lowered their progression, in other words, without treatment they would have diabetes.
- Post Menopausal. 4 hours a week of treatment had a 41% decrease in risk of hip fracture.
- Anxiety. Reduced by 48%.
- Depression. 30% were relieved and as dose was increased that number jumped to 47%.
- Harvard Alumni. Following over 10,000 Harvard alumni over 12 years those who had the intervention over those who didn’t had a 23% lower risk of death.
- Fatigue. #1 treatment.
- Quality of Life. This treatment has been proven over and over that your quality of life will improve if you take the treatment.

So what is the medicine?

Exercise.

Yes exercise. Mainly just walking, not doing triathlon crazy stuff, just walking. Think about your day … mostly spent sitting, sleeping and not really being active. And what you really want to do is devote a half hour, preferably and hour to exercise. The 23 1/2 hours to better health comes from … you get to keep doing what you do for 23 1/2 hours … just give up one half hour for a better quality of life.

What you may not know is there was a recent study done with 50,000 people and what it determined is that “Low Fitness” is the strongest indicator of death. More so than smoking, hypertension, diabetes, high blood pressure or even obesity.

Now, what is most interesting about this study is most studies are backed by large pharma companies because they will have a drug for hypertension and the study will “show” that the #1 problem is hypertension so just take this pill and all will be okay. It is great to see a study that is NOT sponsored by big pharma and with the results coming back that exercise is the key … there is no “funny business” going on trying to sell a product as going on a daily walk is absolutely free.

Now, another study was done that looked primarily at obesity. If a person is obese and not exercising, that is a VERY bad combination. However, if the obese person was active, even if they weren’t losing weight, they were just active, many of the negative factors were not as prevalent in those patients.

So if exercise is the medicine, what is the proper dose? You should focus on How much, how often and how intense. The easiest way to look at this is the more exercise the better but also it should be understood that the “rate of return” diminishes after 30 minutes, which is why 30 minutes is the absolute minimum you should be exercising a day.

If you currently are not exercising at all, if you begin, you will start to see big differences in about a week. In some females, just doing an hour per day cut their risk of heart disease by half. That is reason enough to start right there. And you don’t have to do the 30 minutes all at once. You can do three 10 minute walks. To stay motivated and continuing this program of daily exercise it is best to have a friend or even go on morning and evening walks with your spouse. It is a great “planning time”. Another great motivator is a dog. Dog walkers have typically better health than non-dog walkers. At work or when you are out an about, park far away from the store entrance so you can walk. Take the stairs when you can. It is the little things that keep you active that will lead to big differences.

In Japan a study was done with 8,000 workers who would walk to work if that played any significance in blood pressure. It was found that if their walk was 10 minutes or less there was no change. 11-20 minutes blood pressure reduced by 12%. Over 21 minutes and the rate dropped by 29%.

What I hope you gain from this is being sedentary is bad for your health – really bad. What is the biggest culprit? TV. The average American watches 5 hours of TV a day … and if that number goes up to 6, that person can expect to live five years LESS! Yes, less. Just watching TV.

Walking is truly man’s best medicine.

Ask yourself this question, do you think you can limit your sitting and sleeping to just 23 1/2 hours a day?

Along with exercise, getting the proper nutrition and healthy calories is key to your overall health and fat loss. Turn to the diet that 20,000 doctors have recommended since 1980. The Medifast Diet.

You don’t need high tech equipment to get the information you need to check on your health. With the right information about your health, you can make changes to your lifestyle, be healthier and live longer too. And you don’t need a doctor to get you the information.

Looking Into Your Healthy Future

Let’s be honest, you still need your doctor, but you can save money on co-pays and also long waits and get the information you really need by following the advice in this article. With that understood, there are five tests you can do yourself, right at home, that will help gauge your health and all physician-approved. The equipment you will need is merely a stopwatch and tape measure. That’s it.

LIFE TEST # 1: A BRAIN TEASER

Many doctors use the Mini-Mental State Exam (MMSE) to evaluate memory and cognitive abilities for their patients. It also screens for signs of dementia in older people. Instead of going to the doctor, you can do this test right in the comfort of your own home.

All you need is a pen and paper.

Test-taking instructions: Ask a series of straightforward questions. What’s today’s date? What country are we living in? Who is the Governor? Repeat something you recently heard. Can you name objects around the room where you are sitting? Consistent problems with answering questions such as these can indicate that you may have some underlying health troubles, which may be dementia or could be other problems, including other factors or nutritional deficiencies. For example, dementia-like symptoms can sometimes be side effects of prescription or over-the-counter medications or may be caused by a deficiency of certain nutrients, such as vitamins B-12 and B-6 or the amino acid L-carnitine.

LIFE TEST # 2: STICK YOUR NECK OUT

A simple test for obstructive sleep apnea, which is a dangerous sleep disorder. Basically the person stricken with this displays abnormal pauses in breathing and snoring and it is usually caused by neck circumference. Although size matters in the sense that larger people have larger “healthy” measurements, if you are a man with a neck circumference of 17 inches or more or a woman with a neck that measures 16 inches or greater, you have a higher-than-normal risk for sleep apnea, in fact, you may have sleep apnea and not even realize it.

What you need: A tape measure.

How to do it: Measure the distance around your neck at about the spot where a man would measure for collar size for a shirt. If you are in the danger area, see your physician to discuss whether you should be tested for sleep apnea. Left untreated, sleep apnea can lead to complications ranging from daytime sleepiness and poor concentration to an increased risk for high blood pressure and heart disease. Losing weight or sleeping on your side may solve the problem, or your physician can prescribe a special sleep mask or other device to help regulate breathing.

LIFE TEST # 3: NAME THAT FRUIT

In general, people of both genders whose bodies are shaped like apples (round at the middle) face greater health risks than those shaped like pears (a narrow waist and wider hips). When fat accumulates in your abdomen and around your waist, it’s a sign that fat is also building up around vital organs such as your heart, liver, kidneys and intestines. For people of average height, a waist circumference over 35 inches in women or over 40 inches in men often is an indication of higher risk for metabolic syndrome, diabetes or even heart attack or stroke.

What you need: tape measure.

How to do it: Wrap the tape measure around your waist and then your hips. If your waist is bigger than your hips, you have an apple shape. To slim down, consult your health-care provider and get started on a sensible program of diet and exercise.

LIFE TEST # 4: PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR POOP, YES YOUR POOP

A sudden change in bowel habits, especially if you are 50 or older, is a possible sign of a digestive disorder, which may or may not be serious. Watch for variations in stool frequency, color, consistency or shape that last longer than a few days. Also be alert to the onset of prolonged periods of constipation or diarrhea. Other stool symptoms that should be checked out with your doctor include the presence of mucus or blood (bright red or dark or clotted) or a color that is very light or very dark.

Required equipment: None.

A normal stool is soft, medium brown, doesn’t sink quickly and doesn’t stink (not terribly, anyway). If you detect danger signs, promptly report them to your physician and seek appropriate diagnosis and treatment.

LIFE TEST #5: SPEED TEST

Believe it or not, something as simple as the way you walk (called “gait speed” in medical-ese) is an accepted measurement of frailty in older people and a predictor of physical and cognitive health. In fact, it is a key barometer of heart and lung health and overall well-being. In the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, researchers reported that measuring gait speed even can aid doctors in determining whether a patient is fit for heart surgery. In other research, investigators found that people with a brisk gait of at least 3.28 feet (one meter) per second live longer than average.

Required equipment: A tape measure or yardstick and a stopwatch.

How to do it: Measure out a distance of 30 feet (roughly three car lengths) and then use the stopwatch to time (or have someone else do so) how long it takes you to walk the distance at your regular pace, for instance, imagining yourself taking a walk on a nice spring day. Ideally, you should cover the distance in no more than 10 seconds. A worrisome result would be if it takes you 20 seconds. The idea here is not that you should try to walk faster, but rather that if you are healthier overall you will naturally be a faster walker. Therefore, picking up your walking speed may turn out to be a good way to achieve this general health goal, and it will enhance your mental acuity as well. That should be ample incentive to start a regular walking program several days a week!

Yes, these tests are basic, but the information they provide is valuable and helpful, they’re worth doing periodically to keep a measure on your health and well-being.

Source(s):

Andrew L. Rubman, ND, founder and director, Southbury Clinic for Traditional Medicines, Southbury, Connecticut. www.SouthburyClinic.com.

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