The "M" Word

Whitney Fountas brought an interesting article to my attention. Everyone has heard that wine, especially red wine, has many health benefits. Unfortunately, they always put the word “moderation” in the same sentence. Well now there is a new study out from UC Davis Department of Food Science and Technology that reports that beer has health benefits as well. Namely, beer contains “a significant source of dietary silicon, a key ingredient for increasing bone mineral density,” according to ScienceDaily.
A connection can be made that “moderate” beer consumption can help reduce osteoporosis. Now, I’m not a big beer fan but I know that some of you are so I went to an osteoporosis expert and one of our faculty members, Joanna Davies, M.D. and asked for her opinion on the benefits of beer and here’s what she wrote:

“According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), dietary silicon (Si), as soluble OSA, may be important for the growth and development of bone and connective tissue, and beer appears to be a major contributor to Si intake. Based on these findings, some studies suggest moderate beer consumption may help fight osteoporosis, a disease of the skeletal system characterized by low bone mass and deterioration of bone tissue.How does the medical community define moderation? According to the Mayo Clinic website, moderate drinking is defined as two drinks a day if you’re a male 65 and younger, or one drink a day if you’re a female or a male 66 and older. A drink is defined as 12 ounces (355 milliliters) of beer, 5 ounces (148 milliliters) of wine or 1.5 ounces (44 milliliters) of 80-proof distilled spirits. While most of the experts agree that moderate consumption may have benefits. They clearly to not recommend anyone begin drinking alcohol to treat or prevent diseases!!!!!"

Ok, so everything in moderation. I get it.

What have you heard about soda? First I heard it “bleached your bones” and now I hear it wasn’t the soda that was bad, it was drinking soda instead of milk that was bad. What’s the latest?

Time to Celebrate

OK, so I don’t want to brag BUT my total cholesterol count is 147 and my blood pressure is 110/84. My fasting blood sugar is 88. Since I am not at my ideal weight I can at least gloat that my “other” numbers look good. My doctor said I have good genes (little does he know). I think my lifestyle choices have a little to do with it as well.

Speaking of lifestyle, last weekend there was a lot to celebrate. For one it was a three day weekend and my brother and his family came to visit me. It was my youngest daughter’s 18th birthday, President’s day and Chinese New Year’s. How could we not have a party and eat! I went to the farmer’s market early on Saturday morning where I bought fresh fish, scallops and shrimp. Then I bought all kinds of fruit and vegetables. I bought fresh goat cheese and bread for an appetizer. We ended up grilling the fish and I made two kinds of salads and two vegetable dishes. I thought it seemed like a typical family feast and everyone had a good time without the usual calorie intake. For desert I bought dark chocolate to melt and fresh berries. I like to buy my berries from a grower from Pismo Beach. I have actually done a taste test between these locally grown berries and the ones you can buy for much less at the grocery store that are grown in another country. The extra dollars are worth every penny. If you have a choice buy locally grown berries. They are delicious.

The next morning we had dim sum. Dim sum is dicey as there are many temptations in the high calorie range but there are also several smart choices on the menu like Chinese broccoli and shrimp har gow. If you can resist eating too many, you can keep your calorie intake down to about 400 calories and still enjoy yourself.

The food part is never that difficult for me. It’s the wine. I love red wine. My friends and family all know I love red wine so they give me bottles of it for presents. My husband gave me a membership to a wine club for Christmas so it gets shipped directly to the house. How’s that for temptation? But because I don’t need the extra calories I swore of it and have not had a drop since New Year’s Eve. That is until last weekend. I had so much to celebrate AND my family was in town. After a great meal and all the dishes are cleaned up, I love to plop on the couch and drink wine with my sister-in-law. I love staying up late at night and talking to my brother about when we were kids, about our kids, about what we did wrong and what we did right. More about doing the right thing next time.

The Results are In

When I made my appointment for my annual physical exam with my doctor (which for me is more like a quadrennial exam) I requested that I have my lab work done in advance. It has never occurred to me to do this before. I usually go and my doctor gives me a referral to the lab and then I never go. It works out pretty well for me that way. This year though, I thought it would be a good idea to find out in advance of seeing my doctor if anything is wrong with me. This way, if there were anything wrong, I could talk to him about it when I see him.

I highly suggest that everyone start doing this. Maybe you already do, but most people I know report that they have been seeing their doctor first and then referred to the lab. Well, all of my lab results came to me in the mail and from what I could tell (which wasn’t much) I have GREAT results. Everything was in the normal range. I don’t think they really tell you if you have awesome results. I think your choices are normal and high. Well, normal isn’t good enough for me. Call me an overachiever or just sadly in need of external validation but I wanted to find out that my lab results were better than most others. Since I have no one to compare myself to I went online to try and find out how great my scores actually are only to find out there is a whole body of literature that suggests that cholesterol levels are over rated and that there is a cholesterol debate. What can you tell me about this?