Pharmacy and Nutrition Care Peru » Nutrition

Carbohydrates and Diet

daniela — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 19:57:09 +0000

Carbohydrates are widely distributed in nature, particularly in the vegetable kingdom. The main exception is lactose, the disaccharide that is found in milk and products made from it. Although glycogen is stored in muscle tissue, is found only in very small quantities in meat.

Carbohydrates are the most important energy available from the human body. Despite receiving strong criticism in the decade of 2000 and are often blamed for the epidemic of obesity in the United States, carbohydrates are an important part of a healthy diet for children and adults.

The two major types are:

Simple sugars (simple carbohydrates), such as fructose, glucose and lactose, and also found in nutritious whole fruits

Starches (complex carbohydrates) are found in foods such as vegetables rich in starch grains, rice, breads and cereals

Despite the recent fashion of reducing carbohydrates, the bottom line shows that not all foods containing carbohydrates are bad, whether they are complex carbohydrates like those found in grains, or simple carbohydrates, such as those found in fruit. If carbohydrates were really that bad, we would be in a serious problem, since most foods contain them. But, of course, some carbohydrate-rich foods are healthier than others.

Some healthy sources of carbohydrates include:

grains
brown rice
integral breads
fruits
vegetables
Low fat milk and its derivatives

When a person wants to lose weight, or maintain it, we must know what are good sources of carbohydrates in foods and continue to limit their consumption. Below there is a chart with the most common sources of carbohydrates in food. You should be aware that dietary fiber is an indigestible carbohydrate type, ie, when consumed it is not digested and this means that it has advantages, non nutritional and nutrition-related mechanical functions of absorption and enhancement of gastrointestinal flora . Recent studies show that thin people eat food with higher fiber content, fiber also lowers cholesterol and prevents some cancers.

		Carbohidrate Content	Fiber Content
Non-sugary foods	Cooked legumes	Beans 22.8%, Lentils 20%, Chickpeas 27.4%	Beans 7.4%, Lentils 7.9%, Chickpeas 7.6%
	Cooked Grains	White Rice 28%, integral rice 23%, Wheat 14%, Oatmeal 12%, Corn 25%	White rice 0.4%, Brown Rice 1.8%, Wheat 1.6%, Oatmeal 1.7%, Corn 2.7%
	Roots and Tubers	Potato without skin 23%, Potato with skin 17%, sweet potato 20%, Cassava 39%	Potato without skin 1.8%, Potato with skin 3.3%, Sweet Potato 3%, Cassava 1%
Sugary Foods	Fruits	Bananas 24%, grapes 18%, Mango 16%, Pineapple 13%, Orange 105, Strawberries 9%	Bananas 0.5%, Grapes 0.3%, Mango 1%, Pineapple 1.4%, Orange 0.4%, Strawberries 1.4%
Sugary Foods	Sugars	Sugar 100%, Brown Sugar 100%, Honey 95%, syrups 72%	Sugar, Brown Sugar 0%, Honey 0.1%, Syrups 0.4%

Nutriceutical

daniela — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 19:40:13 +0000

The term nutraceutical is derived from “nutrition” and “pharmaceutical” and was coined by Dr. Stephen DeFelice in 1989. Dr. DeFelice is the chairman of the Foundation for Innovation in Medicine (Foundation for Innovation in Medicine, FIM) in Cranfor, New Jersey, United States.

Dr. DeFelice defined nutraceutical as “a food or part of a food that provides medical benefits or health, including prevention and / or treatment of disease.”

This concept had been used by humans since the Paleolithic by Hippocrates in the year 400 BC “Let food be your medicine and medicine your food”

Over the past 20 years have witnessed a growing interest of society for a healthy diet based on the well-being and healthy living.

Then Nutraceuticals are natural products with biological active properties, beneficial to health and preventive capacity and / or defined therapeutic capacities.

These products must meet the following criteria:

Isolated and purified by methods that are not denaturing
Studies in experimental animals and humans that are reproducible.
Must provide health benefits
Aportar estabilidad temporal con análisis de estabilidad, químico y toxicología. Provide temporary stability with chemical, toxicological and stability analysis.
Products of natural origin.

How much should I weigh?

admin — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:33:45 +0000

It’s a question that we commonly ask and it is important to know whether your weight is adequate or if you are below or above your ideal weight.

The first thing to do is know your complexion. We need to measure the circumference in centimeters of your hand you use most, ie the right if you’re right-handed and left if you are left handed. After you measure you hand, find your complexion in the following table:
Now find your ideal weight in the tables of weight:
The Height and Complexion (weight) is in Meters and Kg.
Here is a table for converting your Height to Meters:
http://www.translatum.gr/forum/index.php?topic=25873.0
Here is a table for converting your Weight to Kg:
http://www.asknumbers.com/KilogramsToPoundsConversion.aspx
Calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI)
BMI relates height and weight and is easy to get, you have to do to divide your current weight in kilograms between your height in meters multiplied by two:

Weight / height x height

For example, if someone weighs 66 kilograms and measured 1.61 meters, your BMI is 25.46.
Once you know your BMI, you should know if you are obese, and what health risks are:

Level	Types	BMI	Overweight	Appearance	Complications
1	I	25-29.9	22 to 33 pounds	Barely noticeable	Social. Stress, not many health complications
2	II	30-39.9	22 to 110 pounds	Obesity is noticeable	Risk of high cholesterol, hypertension, varices, etc
3	Hiper-obsesity	40-49.9	110 to 176 pounds	Large person	Varices, bigger risk of hypertension
4	Super-Obesity I	50.64.9	176 to 242 pounds	Very striking	Heart problems, hemorrhoids, back pains
5	Super-Obsesity II	65-79.9	242 to 330 pounds	Abandonment	Severe disability. Quirurgical risk
6	Super-obesity III	80-99-9	330 to 440 pounds	Abandonment	Handicapped, ulcer problems in legs
7	Super-Obesity IV	100 or +	More than 440 pounds	Abandonment	Totally handicapped, heart, sexual and respiratory problems

If you suffer from some degree of obesity it is important to
talk to your doctor or dietitian to avoid endangering your health.

Spirulina to lose weight

admin — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 01:46:46 +0000

There are three inviolable pillars to achieve and maintain the right weight:
A balanced nutrition, physical activity and the incorporation of healthy eating habits.
The problems that usually occur when you go on a diet to “lose weight” are the difficulty to control your appetite, the risk of poor nutrition because of harsh diets and the rebound phenomenon of body weight.
Spirulina goes very well together with diets established to reduce obesity because it decreases appetite stimulation by increasing the production of neurotransmitters, (due to its content of phenylalanine and other amino acids) that limit the tendency of compulsive eating, acting on the centers that trigger the anxiety of the cerebral cortex. Brings together non-essential and essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals, which are frequently used for the reduction of food intake, as with the adoption of various hypocaloric schemes.
In a double-blind study of Spirulina compared to a placebo, Becker et al. have found that a diet of 2.8 g of Spirulina-1 D 3 times during 4 weeks resulted in a statistically significant reduction in body weight in obese patients. (Becker, EW, Jakover B., Luft H., et al -Clinical and biochemical evaluations of the alga Spirulina with regard to its application in the treatment of obesity).

La Spirulina además asegura una nutrición adecuada porque contiene todos los nutirientes que necesita el cuerpo. Spirulina also ensures adequate nutrition because it contains all of the nutrients the body needs.. It is not a substitute for diet, it is not magical and does not deliver results within a few days, but it can be considered a supplement of food and probably the best help to achieve adequate control and maintenance of body weight.

Nutrigenomics and Nutrigenetics

admin — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:55:19 +0000

Nutrition is a complex process that allows the cycle of life, which supplies substances that act as sources of energy in the cell structure and the control of metabolism, and function to maintain homeostasis. According to some authors, such as Bourges, the nutritional phenotype is a result of interaction between the genetic information of each person, physical, biological, emotional and social development. Environmental factors involved in the homeostasis of organisms are several, notably the diet which influences the incidence of common chronic diseases.

Your daily diet has thousands of biologically active substances, many of which may have potential health benefits and in some cases, may even be injurious. In this way, health or sickness depends on the interaction between genetics and environment, which gives rise to phenotypes. In this regard, numerous epidemiological studies confirm the existence of some association between dietary intake and the incidence and severity of chronic diseases, although it is not easy to distinguish which are the bioactive molecules from food exercising certain beneficial actions. As an example of the complexity a of “simple” food, there are hundreds of compounds in olive oil, whose variety and concentration of fatty acids, triglycerides, sterols, sterol esters and tocopherols provide a wide range of functions, since these components have different cellular destinations. The components of the diet could alter the genomic expression in a direct or indirect way.

Nutrigenetics is an applied science that is marked by the paradigms of nutritional pharmacology in relation to polymorphisms and clinical experience. Just as pharmacogenetics seeks to improve the design of drugs, according to the influence of genetic variations in the metabolism of xenobiotics and drug targets in the patient, nutrigenetics offers customized nutrition according to the genetic constitution of consumers, taking into account the knowledge of genetic variations that affect the metabolism of nutrients and their targets. Ultimately, nutrigenetics refers to the analysis of genetic variation between individuals and their clinical response to specific nutrients. An example would be individuals with different values of serum cholesterol and blood pressure by genetic variations, even with standard diet.

Nutrigenomics is a branch of genomics that seeks to provide an understanding of molecules (genes) in the dietary components that contribute to health by altering the expression and / or structures, according to the individuals genetic makeup. For example, nutrigenomics explores the role of polyunsaturated fatty acids on gene expression of its oxidation and utilization of energy.