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RSS FeedTruth or fiction: An apple a day keeps the doctor away
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| Truth | 65% | 110 votes | Total: 169 votes | |
| Fiction | 35% | 59 votes |
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Add to FavoritesDid you know that most fresh, whole foods have innate healing properties? Did you know that a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains can actually improve pain, reduce inflammation as well as impact weight? If you suffer from a variety of chronic painful conditions, then it's important that you look closely at your diet.
Processed and refined ingredients, especially carbohydrates found in many packaged foods, are actually very inflammatory. Because these processed foods have been stripped of many nutrients and fiber, they cause a rapid rise in blood sugar, provoking a surge in insulin and subsequent rapid decline in blood sugar. These initial high blood sugar levels promote inflammatory molecules called cytokines in your body. Eventually your body begins to store fat with each blood sugar surge. And guess what? Fat tissue actually produces the same inflammatory molecules, cytokines, in your body! That's right. Just being overweight can increase the inflammation in your body that causes pain. This inflammation can attack specific joints, muscles or even wide-spread areas of your body.
However, the vitamins, minerals and large colorful molecules called bioflavenoids, found in many fruits and vegetables, act as powerful antioxidants to neutralize your body's inflammation. In addition, these foods are low-glycemic in impact on your blood sugar levels. Low glycemic impact foods keep your bloods sugar levels within a normal and narrow range. Maintaining a normal blood sugar level keeps your body in the "fat-burning" zone, thus lowering your body fat and minimizing the amount of cytokines or inflammatory molecules produced. A balanced diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, lean protein, nuts, low fat dairy and whole grains is the key component of a pain free lifestyle. Neutralizing inflammation with a healthy diet and minimizing the production of inflammation by maintaining a normal body weight will dramatically decrease symptoms of many common painful conditions.
So for pain relief, the old adage, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away", is nature's ultimate pain prescription!
Learn more about this author, Dr. Pamela Avery - The Natural MD.
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Fiction
An apple a day may be good for you but alone it will not keep any disease or doctor at bay. Health must be looked at in the holistic view rather than focusing on one aspect.
To deal with the actual saying first, it is thought to have originated in 1866, in the magazine Notes and Queries, as a Pembrokeshire proverb 'Eat an apple on going to bed and you'll keep the doctor from earning his bread'. It was again cited, by Elizabeth Wright, in 1913 in a Devonian dialect that evolved into the now famous 'An apple a day keeps the doctor at bay'. Whether this was folklore or a sage comment from an actual doctor is not known.
Apples are good for you. That is not in doubt as they contain vitamin C, help to clean teeth whilst being eaten and have been connected to beneficial effects on anything from breast cancer to lowering cholesterol and weight loss. They are good for fiber, especially if the skin is eaten and also contain an antioxidant called Quercetin and much is currently being made of antioxidants and their health benefits.
However, simply eating one apple a day is not going to stop the medical bills piling up. Eating two a day had been shown to help lower cholesterol by as much as 15% but that still gives only a partial picture. The current mantra is 'Eat 5 a day'. Not five apples but 5 fruits and vegetables (and no, you can't get away with eating five peas or five strawberries).
The point is to work for a balance in your diet. Eating 5 different fruits and vegetables in a day, preferably of varying colors, is a part of that bigger picture of maintaining a healthy body and mind. There is no point in eating your 5 a day if you never move from the couch and consider ordering salad with your Mcsandwich a healthy option.
A balanced diet equally does not mean denying yourself any form of treat. There's no harm in the occasional bar or chocolate or fast food meal if your general diet contains plenty of fresh fruit, vegetables and meats that have been cooked without drowning them in cream rich sauces or deep fried to within an inch of their lives.
The mantra should actually be 'Balance in all things'. If you have a chocolate bar, balance it by walking to the store instead of taking the car (good for the environment too). If you spend a couple of hours watching the television, spend another couple of hours reading a book.
People tend to forget that a healthy body isn't the only way to a healthy life. Being so focused on how we look often leads to neglect of the mind and the emotions. By all means watch your favorite soaps and reality shows but balance the equation with the occasional documentary.
We all get angry, it's a simple fact of life but letting it consume you and make you stressed leads to an unhealthy mind. Get rid of your rage by writing it out or thumping a pillow or screaming, whatever suits you. Then watch a comedy program, read a funny book or have a chuckle with your friends and restore the balance.
Live your life in balance. Eat well but don't deny your cravings too often. Relax with some television but remember to read, to walk and to communicate with friends and family. Feed your mind as well as your body. Exercise, even if it is only a walk to work or a gentle stroll around the local area.
An apple a day may help keep the doctor away but balancing your life will reduce all your strife.
Learn more about this author, Gillian Taber.
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