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vitamin D and your brain?
Though many people associate vitamin d with its role in promoting bone health, it also plays an important part in immune and brain functioning. In fact, vitamin d has also been linked to protective roles in preventing autoimmune disease such as multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes along with certain types of cancers.
Vegetarian diet associated with lower risk of metabolic syndrome?
The metabolic syndrome is a group of disorders which are associated with an increased risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Previously, it’s been unknown whether or not certain dietary patterns would confer a lower risk of developing the metabolic syndrome.
A recent study published in the journal, Diabetes Care [1], compared three diets and their respective risk of developing the metabolic syndrome (vegetarian, semi-vegetarian, and non vegetarian). The study itself included data from 773 subjects with a mean age of 60 in a cross-sectional analysis.
Obesity vs. Overweight, what’s the diff?
Obesity has been arbitrarily interchanged with overweight. However, at the medical point of view they are supposed to be defined differently. The term obesity refers to the medical condition where there is an accumulation of excess body fat. Being overweight may refer to the inappropriate or too much weight for one’s height. Additionally, being overweight may due to other structures in the body such as the muscle and the bone rather than fats.
Overweight can also be a “pre-obesity” stage in a standard classification, but the risks of associated diseases increase as an individual became categorized as obese. The excess fat build-up associated with obesity may cause adverse health effects where in many cases can lead to other metabolic, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. Thus, obesity may reduce the life expectancy of an individual.
To further define obesity, a crude population measure known as the body mass index (BMI) is used. It is done by comparing weight with height and by a standard table, the level of obesity can be determined.
Below is the formula for BMI:
The BMI of an individual is correlated to the total body fat and percentage body fat. The result of one’s BMI is categorized and classified using the standard table below:
