Gout-Friendly Eating: Nutrition Guidelines & Diet Restrictions

Gout is a type of arthritis caused by too much uric acid in the blood. Excess uric acid can lead to a buildup of fluid surrounding the joints, which can result in uric acid crystals. The formation of these crystals causes the joints to swell, become inflamed, and cause intense pain. The good news is that you can control gout. In addition to taking medications, dietary and lifestyle changes can help prevent painful attacks. A gout-friendly diet involves a specific plan, which is designed to avoid painful gout attacks. Learn more about which foods to include — and those to avoid — to help prevent symptoms.

What Causes Gout?

Gout develops when there is too much uric acid in the blood. This over-abundance of uric acid may be the result a diet high in purines. Or, your body may produce too much uric acid. In some cases, blood uric acid levels may remain normal, yet gout is still the correct diagnosis. This is due to the body excreting excess uric acid in the urine and inflammatory factors.

 

What Are Purines Anyway?

Purines are chemical compounds that, when metabolized, are broken down into uric acid. Purines are either made by your body, or taken into your body through foods you eat.

In a normal process, purines break down into uric acid. The uric acid is then dissolved in the blood, passed through the kidneys into the urine, and eliminated from the body.

However, this isn’t usually the case in gout. Complications occur when the kidneys don’t get rid of uric acid fast enough, or if there is an increased amount of uric acid production. These high levels build up in the blood, leading to what is known as hyperuricemia. Though not classified as a disease, hyperuricemia can be dangerous if it leads to the formation of uric acid crystals. Gout can develop when these crystals build up around the joints.

 

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Nonalcoholic fatty liver facts

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, NAFLD) is the accumulation of abnormal amounts of fat within the liver.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease can be divided into isolated fatty liver in which there is only accumulation of fat, and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) in which there is fat, inflammation, and damage to liver cells.

NASH progresses to scarring and ultimately to cirrhosis, with all the complications of cirrhosis, for example, gastrointestinal bleeding, liver failure, and liver cancer.

The development of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is intimately associated with and is probably caused by obesity and diabetes.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is considered a manifestation of the metabolic syndrome.

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Low Carbohydrate Diet: What You Need To Know

If you are trying to lose weight, regardless of which diet plan you choose, watching your carbohydrate intake can be helpful for several reasons. Benefits of counting carbs include:

  • Overall decrease in calories. Most of us eat a diet that is primarily made up of carbs. If you decrease the intake of your most significant source of calories, you will decrease your caloric intake overall. Decreasing carbohydrate intake is one of the easiest ways to decrease the amount of food you eat.

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Sugar Detox Diet: Health Benefits

Benefits of Sugar Detox

There are various sugar detox diet plans that have flooded the market over the past 10 years. We have collected a few of the findings of two health care professionals for this list of sugar detox benefits. Dr. Mark Hyman is the author of The Blood Sugar Solution 10-Day Detox Diet and Traci D. Mitchell wrote the Belly Burn Plan book.

 

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Ways to Maintain Weight Loss

 

There are a few common reasons why people gain back the weight they lose. They are mostly related to unrealistic expectations and feelings of deprivation.

Restrictive diets: Extreme calorie restriction may slow your metabolism and shift your appetite-regulating hormones, which are both factors that contribute to weight regain. Continue reading →

The Low Glycemic and a Gluten-Free Diet

All About Low Glycemic Diet and a Gluten-Free Diet

 

Creating a gluten-free eating plan with foods that have a low glycemic index, or GI, can be a balancing act. Gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye, barley and possibly oats that causes a severe autoimmune reaction in people with celiac disease. The starchy vegetables and grains that replace foods with gluten may have a high GI value, meaning that they can raise your blood sugar quickly after you eat them. Whether you have celiac disease or are eating gluten-free foods for other dietary reasons, you can keep your blood sugar stable by emphasizing low-GI gluten substitutes and increasing your intake of foods that are naturally gluten-free.

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Reasons Your Diet and Exercise Isn’t Working

5 Reasons Why Your New Diet and Exercise Routine Isn’t Working

By Best Health

It’s one of the most frustrating moments for any dieter: after a week of hard work, you step on the scale only to find the number hasn’t budged at all. Sometimes, the reason is obvious (think office birthday parties or missed workouts). But often, you can’t figure out why you haven’t lost weight. Here are five possible reasons.

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How to achieve your New Year’s Resolutions

 Strategies for Achieving Your New Year’s Resolutions By Amanda Gore

You rush around for the holidays — eat and drink too much and then find the best party you can go to on New Year’s Eve, drink buckets more, and the next morning think about what resolutions you need to make for the new year. You decide to change your life or give up every bad habit you’ve ever had or may make some other simple changes.

 

The new year is a fantastic opportunity to spend time (preferably a couple of hours) working on your life rather than just being caught up, running around in circles, in your life. Time is so precious that we are flat out getting the basics done, let alone thinking about our lives and how we are functioning.

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Feeling Tired All The Time, Even After A Full Night’s Sleep? By Kevin Phillips

→  Getting the Right Amount of Nightly Sleep

So you regularly get 8 hours of sleep every night but you still feel tired during the day. What’s the deal? For starters, the 8 hour sleep guideline is just that—a guideline.

Yes, the 8 hours of sleep standard has been routinely researched to be the number of hours of sleep that most people need. However, it doesn’t always work for everybody, and you may need to adjust it a little to get it right for you.

 

→  Fine-tune your body’s clock

Too much sleep can be just as bad as too little sleep. It’s important to dial in your personal body clock so that you feel refreshed and ready to tackle the day, everyday.

To do this, figure out what time you need to get up in the morning.

Count back 7.5 hours as a good time to start getting to bed.

7.5 hours is a good benchmark because the average person goes through five 90 minute sleep cycles alternating between sleep (non-REM) and deep sleep (REM).

It’s best to wake in-between deep sleep cycles rather than in the middle of one. Waking in the middle of REM can lead you to feeling groggy during the day. If you wake during non-REM you’re more likely to feel alert and attentive as the day progresses.

Try this 7.5 hours sleep duration for 3 days. If you find yourself waking about 10 minutes before your alarm goes off, you’ve found your perfect bedtime. If however you’re still relying on your alarm clock to wake you up, try moving your bedtime back 15 minutes every 3 days until you find yourself waking just a few minutes before your alarm goes off.

Once you find your body’s perfect internal sleep-clock, stay consistent with it. The less you vary from the norm, the more alert you will be during the day and the better you will function.

 

→  Practice better sleep habits

If you find yourself having difficulty getting to bed on time every night, there are a few things you can do to help you get to bed quicker:

  • Ditch your electronics. This may be the simplest yet hardest habit to break. The artificial light emitting from your cellphone, tablet, laptop, television set, e-reader, portable game console, etc, tricks your brain into believing it needs to stay awake because it associates light with daytime. This deception can disrupt your circadian rhythm, which in turn leads to poorer sleep at night and feeling rundown during the day.
  • Keep your room dark and quiet. Ditching those electronics may not be enough to create the ideal sleeping quarters. If possible, turn off all lights. If this is not possible, leave one dim light on or use a nightlight.
  • Try using “white noise.” Listening to music to help you get to bed may work for you, but it’s also likely to disrupt your sleep, causing more problems than it solves. If you must listen to music, try setting it on a timer that will shut it off shortly after you fall asleep. A better option is to listen to white noise while you sleep. White noise from a fan or a sound-machine creates a consistent rhythmic sound that can be both relaxing and help drown out other sudden noises that may cause you to wake at night.
  • Avoid caffeine before bed. This one should be a no-brainer, but many people have a hard time resisting caffeinated beverages before bedtime. Caffeine is a stimulant and will increase alertness at that crucial time when your body wants to wind down. If you are a habitual caffeine user, try avoiding using caffeine three hours before bedtime to help get you to sleep on time.

 

→  A Healthier Lifestyle Leads to Healthier Sleep

Diet and exercise can go a long way towards getting better rest at night and being more alert during the day. Balancing healthy eating choices with routine exercise can dramatically affect the way you perform throughout the day.

Foods to Avoid to Improve Sleep

  • Foods high in sugar and caffeine can have a temporary energy-boosting effect on the mind and body’s alertness, but is often followed by a crashing feeling that can last much longer than the short energy-surge you were after.
  • Fatty foods and processed carbs have also been associated with daytime sleepiness. These foods may fill you up but they’re not loaded with the vitamins and nutrients your body needs to produce ample amounts of energy.
  • Spicy foods close to bedtime. Spicy foods are notorious for causing heartburn, indigestion, and acid reflux. Heartburn can be made worse while lying down as it allows the acids to creep up into the esophagus and burn the sensitive lining.

 

→  Increase Quality Sleep with Healthy Choices

  • Eat more healthy foods. Eating more foods that naturally boost your daily energy levels can go a long way in helping you feel more alert everyday. Eat more natural, unprocessed carbs. Eat foods that are rich in antioxidants, amino acids, proteins and high in vitamins. A short list of high energy foods would be: leafy greens, whole grains, tree nuts, lean meats, eggs, fruits (especially apples, bananas, and blueberries), and bell peppers just to name a few.
  • Exercise more. Routine exercise can go a long way in curing your daytime fatigue. Exercise breeds energy. It is recommended that you exercise at least 40 minutes a day, 4 days a week. Aside from the energy boost you’ll experience, exercise also releases endorphins which will leave you simply “feeling good” about yourself.

 

→  Poor sleep could be a sign of a sleep disorder

If you practice the above guidelines of a healthier lifestyle and better sleeping habits but still find yourself suffering from daytime drowsiness, it may be a sign of a more severe medical condition such as: obstructive sleep apnea (OSA),anemia, thyroid problems, narcolepsy, depression, restless leg syndrome, undiagnosed heart disease, or deficiencies in key nutrients. If you think that you may be suffering from one of these medical conditions you should contact your physician or local sleep clinic immediately.

 

 

Originally posted at http://www.alaskasleep.com/