Hair can be a good indicator of overall health, as various aspects of your health can affect the condition of your hair. Here are some key points:
It’s important to note that changes in hair can be gradual and influenced by multiple factors. If you’re experiencing significant or sudden changes in your hair, it’s advisable to consult a healthcare professional for a proper assessment and advice.
Everyone wants to be healthy. Not everyone wants to do the work it takes to be healthy. Imagine good health as a partnership between you and your doctor. You have to do the work that you can do to give your doctor the best possible opportunity to facilitate your continued health. The work you have to do is to eat healthy, avoid things that are bad for you, get proper rest, and exercise. The doctor’s job is to monitor your progress and to help you over those bumps that we all hit during life. When we cooperate with our doctor by doing what we’re supposed to do we increase the odds that we will maintain good health. Yes, it means giving up some things that we enjoy. I grew up loving pizza and macaroni and meatballs. They were staples in my home. Now, I occasionally have a piece of pizza or two but those are on special occasions. I’ll have pasta once in awhile but forget the meatballs. And, I find joy in exercising. I like the feel of sweat and tired muscles after a heavy workout. Think about your lifestyle and think about what you can do for you and your part of the partnership you have with your doctor to maintain good health.
Vitamin and mineral supplements from a bottle simply can’t match all the biologically active compounds teeming in a well-stocked pantry. By focusing on the big picture, it’s easy to get plenty of the vitamins, minerals, and other micronutrients you need to keep you healthy and prevent disease.
Vitamins and minerals. Vitamins are organic substances found in plants and animals. Minerals are inorganic elements from the earth (soil and water). Both are essential for normal growth and optimal health.
Here’s a list of vitamins and minerals that are crucial for good health, plus the best food sources of each:
Phytochemicals. Phytochemicals are chemicals made by plants. They are not essential to life, but they do have a positive effect on health. Diets rich in phytochemicals have been associated with a lower risk of chronic diseases, such as cancer and heart disease. They are found in fruits, vegetables, beans, and grains.
The following is a list of key phytochemicals, plus the best food sources of each.
“The hardest part about eating healthy is being consistent,” says Emma Willingham, clinical dietitian at Houston Methodist. One of the biggest challenges to achieving this consistency is that many people view a “healthy” or “nutritious” eating plan as one that’s very restrictive. Willingham stresses, “No foods are off limits. All foods fit, there are just some foods we want to choose more often and other foods we want to consume in moderation.” “Thinking about food through an all-or-nothing lens makes it harder to establish consistent habits.” She also warns that relying on a scale to measure progress is another common blocker to sticking with a healthy eating pattern. “The number we see on the scale serves as a single snapshot, not the full picture. You can use the scale as a data point, but make sure to assess the way your clothes fit, the way that you look in the mirror and the way that you feel.” Eating healthy also means choosing these whole foods over processed, packaged ones more often than not.
Several factors can negatively affect the immune system, including a poor diet. While no specific food can completely suppress your immune system on its own, a consistently unhealthy diet can weaken its function over time. Here are some foods that, when consumed excessively or as part of an imbalanced diet, may have a negative impact on your immune system:
It’s important to note that a varied and balanced diet, rich in whole foods like fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, whole grains, and healthy fats, is crucial for maintaining a robust immune system. Moderation and overall dietary patterns are key factors in supporting immune health.
Recently, research has suggested that certain foods can help fight allergies by controlling underlying inflammation, dilating air passages, and providing other relief effects. Anti-inflammatory foods include foods that contain healthy fats, such as olive oil and fish like tuna and mackerel that’s rich in omega-3 fatty acids. Fruits and vegetables are also good sources of inflammation-fighting nutrients. One study found that the staples of a heart-healthy Mediterranean diet, particularly nuts, grapes, oranges, apples, and fresh tomatoes, could provide allergy relief. Researchers focused on Greek children who followed this particular diet and were less likely to show allergic nasal symptoms or asthma.
Blame itchiness, hives, and other discomfort you feel during an allergic response on histamine. Vitamin C can help you with that. “Vitamin C indirectly inhibits inflammatory cells from releasing histamine,” says Carolyn Dean, MD, ND, medical director of the Nutritional Magnesium Association. Studies have shown that high levels of vitamin C reduce histamine and help it break down faster, once it’s released, providing allergy symptom relief.
In addition to its histamine-fighting power, vitamin C foods also provide allergy relief by reducing inflammation — the key to underplaying allergies. “Vitamin C is an antioxidant, meaning it counteracts the inflammatory effects of free radicals,” Dr. Bielory says. Simply put, foods containing vitamin C, such as oranges, strawberries, apples, and watermelon, counteract the inflammatory allergic response.
Health fads come and (thankfully) go. Despite the shiny promises that one particular superfood/workout/biohack will get you in the best shape of your life, the truth is, you don’t need to overthink (or overpay) to get healthy.
Exercise ~ No matter if you’re thin, it’s still important to keep working out. Research has even found that people who are obese and cardiovascularly fit have better health outcomes than people who are slim and not fit. Aim to be active 150 minutes each week, spread across five or six days instead of just one or two. Your body benefits more from daily increases in your heart rate and oxygen consumption—just like your system benefits more from food and water that’s consumed over the course of a week, rather than a giant feast eaten in a single day.
The idea is to become psychologically flexible—or in other words, to learn to balance your exposure to stress with self-soothing efforts. I often equate this to standing on a surfboard, on top of a bowling ball. You can lean into your uncomfortable emotions, and then discipline yourself to pull out of that discomfort. Being able to toggle back and forth like that will make you more resilient.
“It’s recognizing that when we feel hungry, particularly after we’ve been eating to capacity for a period of time, that our hunger signals might not be calibrated in the [usual] way,” Dr Fiona Willer says. To put this into practice, she says you need to envision what an “enjoyable” day of eating would look like for you, including nutritional foods that make you feel energized, and eat like this for a few days.
Dr Willer says it’s important to include “core foods”, which are essentially less-processed food items that are high in nutrients. These include meats, seafood, vegetables, fruits, grains and dairy. “The body needs the core foods to function properly … and if you’re eating a lot of non-core foods, you don’t have room in your day for [nutritional meals],” she says.
Intuitive eating comes down to paying attention to your body, whether you feel sated, says explains Tracy L. Tylka, professor of psychology at Ohio State University who has extensively studied intuitive eating. Through her Intuitive Eating Scale, she notes four main characteristics of the approach:
“At times, intuitive eaters may eat for reasons other than hunger, such as to try a certain food or go beyond a comfortable state of satiety when eating a tasty meal,” Tylka says. “However, these individuals typically do not stress about these minor deviations or feel the need to ‘compensate’ by restricting food intake elsewhere.”
