Sleep

We all know sleep is good for us, right? How good? Really good!

Here's why!

Sleep decreases cholesterol and our risk of heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, hypertension, and stroke (NIH). This is the reason why we recommend taking your cholesterol medication in the evening near bedtime. It's like a super charge. Your body makes good cholesterol (HDL) while you sleep. When you take your statin (a type of cholesterol medication) in the evening before bed, you are giving your body extra ammunition to make good cholesterol and fight bad cholesterol (LDL).

Sleep regulates hormones affecting our appetites, insulin (think diabetes prevention), and helps with growth and development in children and teens. Our kids deserve all the love and support we can give them, so why not encourage more sleep and consistent bedtimes? I need to take my own advice!

Sleep decreases depression, anxiety, suicide risk and high-risk behaviors. Sleep improves mood, clarity, function, and productivity at work.

Now that I have extolled the praises of sleep, you may be asking, how much sleep do I need? Fair question. The National Institute of Health has the following chart:

Age	Recommended Amount of Sleep
Newborns	16–18 hours a day
Preschool-aged children	11–12 hours a day
School-aged children	At least 10 hours a day
Teens	9–10 hours a day
Adults (including the elderly)	7–8 hours a day

I recommend closer to 8-9 hours/night for adults. With an occasional Sunday afternoon nap :)

If you're having difficulty initiating or maintaining sleep try to get into a routine. We call it sleep hygiene. Kids have a routine; bath, jammies, books, bed. It helps prepare their minds and bodies for sleep. Adults need that, too. Whether we read in bed for awhile or meditate or have other bedtime rituals, if you get into the habit, you may find yourself feeling more rested in the morning.

Finally, turn off the phone and TV! The electronics keep our brain wired and we have a harder time initiating sleep.

Enjoy the long week and get some extra zzzzzzzzzz's!

Fruit, vegetable, meat (eggs and beans)

This is the phrase I repeat most often at work. You know, if I had a dollar for every time....I could easily be about $11,000 more rich in the past 5 years.

What is lacking from this list? Carbs and dairy! (For the sake of this discussion, 'carbs' include rice, bread, tortillas, cereal, oatmeal, cake, cookies, etc.).

Why?

Sugar.

Sugar is the enemy of health. Cancer feeds off of sugar. Diabetes loves the sugar. Yeast devours sugar. Are you getting the point?

The spiel is, "No tortillas, rice, pasta, potatoes, bread, sweet bread, oatmeal, cereal, cakes, cookies, pies, ice cream, juice".

This diet is applicable to the majority of my patients. Why? Because sugar is the enemy of health. The breakdown of carbohydrates (bread, rice, etc.) is sugar. We have the three main macronutrients; carbs, protein, and fat. When carbs, specifically starches, are ingested they hit us as glucose and we get that "sugar rush". Kevin at Rebooted Body talks about why sugar is such a problem in our diets.

Sugar saturates items we would never imagine. The various names; high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, maltose, lactose (milk sugar), fructose (fruit sugar), sucrose (table sugar), agave, etc., can be deceptive.

So, when you eliminate carbs, you eliminate a great source of additional sugar in your diet. When I explain this to patients, they always respond with, "I don't eat sugar!", meaning, "I don't ADD sugar to anything". When I press them about their diets; rice, tortillas, and oatmeal top the list of offenders.

By eating fruit, vegetables, and meat, you cut out the most serious offenders and are stocking up (hopefully) on REAL food. Nothing processed or detrimental to your health. Are there exceptions? Obviously. But, if you make better choices every day and choose to have cake for your birthday, your body will be in a much better state. Also, you may start to notice when you eat things that are not conducive to good health, your body tells you. You may experience bloating, GI upset, diarrhea, fatigue, mental fog, and on and on. Your diet is a relatively simple fix to quite a few ailments, you just need to heed your own warning signs.

Know your numbers

There has been a recent to push to include patients in their care (what a novel concept!) and part of that is keeping patients informed of their current numbers. These can include blood pressure, A1c (diabetes), blood sugar levels, cholesterol, and BMI.

Most offices now print out a discharge plan for the patient upon the conclusion of their appointment. The information on this paper has some of the information you want; blood pressure, weight and BMI, and possibly lab results. These are useful pages! Keep them! File or scan them and keep a record!



Using your age, smoking status, cholesterol, and blood pressure, we are able to calculate your risk of a heart attack! Depending on your risk level, we will make recommendations regarding diet, exercise, medication management, aspirin therapy, etc. Basically, things you already know you should be doing.


Use this tool to print and take to your next appointment! You will impress your PCP and be well on your way to improving your health!