Alcohol and Your Health

Alcohol, or ethyl alcohol (ethanol), refers to the intoxicating ingredient found in wine, beer and hard liquor. Alcohol arises naturally from carbohydrates when certain micro-organisms metabolize them in the absence of oxygen, called fermentation.

Beer, wine and other liquor contain different amounts of alcohol. The amount of alcohol in distilled liquor is known as ?proof?. Proof refers to the amount of alcohol in the liquor; for example, 100 proof liquor contains 50% alcohol, 40 proof liquor contains 20% alcohol, and so on. Traditional wine has approximately 8-14% alcohol, while regular beer has 4-6% alcohol.

Recent studies show that moderate use of alcohol may have a beneficial effect on the coronary system. In general, for healthy people, one drink per day for women and no more than two drinks per day for men would be considered the maximum amount of alcohol consumption to be considered moderate use. (By ?healthy? people, we are referring to non-pregnant women, individuals not addicted to alcohol, and people without pre-existing medical conditions, among others). However, the amount of alcohol that a person can drink safely is highly individual, depending on genetics, age, sex, weight and family history, etc. A ?drink? is considered to be:

*4-5 ounces of wine
*10 ounces of wine cooler
* 12 ounces of beer
* 1-1/4 ounces of distilled liquor (80 proof whiskey, vodka, scotch, or rum)

How Alcohol Travels Through the Body

Alcohol is metabolized extremely quickly by the body. Unlike foods, which require time for digestion, alcohol needs no digestion and is quickly absorbed. Alcohol gets ?VIP? treatment in the body ? absorbing and metabolizing before most other nutrients. About 20 percent is absorbed directly across the walls of an empty stomach and can reach the brain within one minute.

Once alcohol reaches the stomach, it begins to break down with the alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme. This process reduces the amount of alcohol entering the blood by approximately 20%. (Women produce less of this enzyme, which may help to partially explain why women become more intoxicated on less alcohol than men.). In addition, about 10% of the alcohol is expelled in the breath and urine.

How the Liver Breaks Down Alcohol

The alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme breaks down alcohol by removing hydrogen in two steps:

1. Alcohol dehydrogenase oxidizes alcohol to acetaldehyde

2. Acetaldehyde dehydrogenase oxidizes the acetaldehyde to acetyl CoA. These reactions produce hydrogen ions (acid). The B vitamin niacin (in its role as the coenzyme NAD) picks up these hydrogen ions (becoming NADH). Thus when alcohol is metabolized, NAD diminishes and NADH increases.



During alcohol metabolism, NAD becomes unavailable for the many other vital body processes for which it is needed, including glycolysis, the TCA cycle and the electron transport chain. Without NAD, the energy pathway is blocked, and alternative routes are taken, with serious physical consequences:

The accumulation of hydrogen atoms shifts the body?s balance toward acid.


The accumulation of NADH slows the TCA cycle, resulting in a build up of pyruvate and acetyl CoA. Excess acetyl CoA results in fatty acid synthesis and fat begins to clog the liver. (An accumulation of fat in the liver can be observed after only a single night of heavy drinking).

Health Tips

Cut Fat
Avoid the obvious such as fried foods, burgers and other fatty meats (i.e. pork, bacon, ham, salami, ribs and sausage). Dairy products such as cheese, cottage cheese, milk and cream should be eaten in low fat versions. Nuts and sandwich meats, mayonnaise, margarine, butter and sauces should be eaten in limited amounts. Most are available in lower fat versions such as substitute butter, fat free cheeses and mayonnaise. Thought for the day: Lean, mean, fat-burning machine…. Then be one!

Choose Your Parents Well
The link between genetics and health is a powerful one. But just because one or both of your parents died young in ill health doesn't mean you cannot counteract the genetic pool handed you. Thought for the day: Follow these basic tips for healthy living and you can better control your own destiny.

Keep a Positive Mental Outlook
There's a definitive connection between living well and healthfully and having a cheerful outlook on life. Thought for the day: You can't be unhappy when you're smiling or singing.

Avoid Excessive Drinking
While recent studies show a glass of wine or one drink a day (two for men) can help protect against heart disease, more than that can cause other health problems such as liver and kidney disease and cancer. Thought for the day: A jug of wine should last a long time.

Floss Your Teeth
Recent studies make a direct connection between longevity and teeth flossing. Nobody knows exactly why. Perhaps it's because people who floss tend to be more health conscious than people who don't? Thought for the day: Floss and be your body's boss.

Protect Yourself from Pollution

If you can't live in a smog-free environment, at least avoid smoke-filled rooms, high traffic areas, breathing in highway fumes and exercising near busy thoroughfares. Exercise outside when the smog rating is low. Exercise indoors in air conditioning when air quality is good. Plant lots of shrubbery in your yard. It's a good pollution and dirt from the street deterrent. Thought for the day: 'Smoke gets in your eyes'…and your mouth, and your nose and your lungs as do pollutants….hum the tune daily.

Fitness Tips

Nutrition

People often confuse �dieting� with nutrition. Your body needs to have nutrients replaced, whether through foods being eaten or supplements. Do you remember what you learned in elementary school about the four major food groups? As adult, eating balanced meals from these groups still applies. It is important to remove the �junk food� from your diet and stick with healthy foods. If you do not like certain things such as fruits or vegetables, be sure you are taking a supplement to get the nutrients needed. Another consideration is if you are a vegetarian. There are certain benefits taken from meat such as iron and B-12 that you should consider taking a supplement for in exchange for the meat.

Yoga

The practice of Yoga is actually a spiritual practice. However, with the many benefits received it has quickly become a popular choice to thousands of people strictly for health. Yoga helps stretch out muscles and ligaments, tone the body, and the greatest benefit is that it helps to clear the mind. Having a clear mind works toward a healthy body.

Stop Smoking

You have probably heard this more times, than you can count but facts are facts! There is no other way to say it � smoking is not only bad for your health, it is deadly! One woman in her late thirties had smoked for 10 years. She had tried everything from watering down her cigarettes, throwing them away, wearing a patch, chewing gum, you name it, she tried it. She really wanted to quit but the addiction was so strong she was finding it impossible.

The mother of an 11-year old daughter and a 13-year old son, she was taken by surprise when something happened that made her quit smoking in one day. Her son told her that he had something very important to tell her. With a quick response of, �Okay, what is it?� he said, �No, I really need to talk to you.� She knew by the look on his face and the tone of his voice that this was something important. Her son looked her square in the face and without wavering said, �I want you to quit smoking because I don't want you to die. I want a mother in my life.� With that, she walked over to an ashtray, put out her cigarette, and now almost seven years later, she still does not smoke. While this will not work for everyone, the next time you pick up a cigarette; take a minute to consider how your child or family would feel if you were no longer around.

Body Fat

When you think about losing weight, more importantly than weight is the amount of fat you are carrying around. This fat is measured with what is called Body Mass Index, or BMI. For women, if you are fit, your percent of body fat should range from 21% to 31%. If you are in incredible shape, that could be as low as 10%. For men, fit should be between 14% and 25%, and excellent shape, as low as 2%.

Water

Water is excellent for the body and good health. Water helps flush out toxins and other unwanted things lingering in the body. Water also replenishes fluids that help lubricate the internal body, keeps you hydrated, reduces hunger, which helps with weight loss, and helps to make skin look smooth and young. If you are not used to drinking water, it may seem hard at first, but very quickly, you will enjoy the clean, refreshed way it makes you feel. At a minimum, you should drink 64-ounces a day and more if you can.

Watch the Sugar

Often people think by drinking fruit juices or eating low-fat fruit roll-ups and such, they are cutting out or eliminating sugar. The fact is that some fruit juices have more sugar than a soda. Reduction of sugar is important to good health; therefore always check out the sugar content of anything you put in your mouth, even if it appears to be healthy.

Health and Fitness Tips

You may not like what I'm about to say, but dieting alone will not help you to lose weight. You have to give your body the exercise it needs. As I mentioned earlier, a couple of centuries ago, people were involved in a lot of manual labor.

This gave their bodies all the exercise that was needed. But due to the changed life styles, most of us do not have to engage in strenuous work. Most of us sit in front of computers all day long or engage in other sedentary works.

It is because of this that exercise becomes crucial for weight loss. Generally people do not gain weight till their early twenties. But once they cross the 25 mark, then visible signs of weight gain can be seen everywhere and in the mid section in particular.

There is something very important that you have to understand if you are really considering the possibility of losing weight. You will have to consciously give your body the required exercise that it needs for the weight loss to be really effective.

Watching your diet alone is not going to yield results unless it is coupled with proper exercise. You have to make a conscious effort for this. And the solution for this is a work out routine. This is the first point under this section and I think I should list it out clearly one more time.

Working Out... It's Good For You

When we think about the life in the country, there is always something rosy about it. What is it that the people in the country have that we do not? When you ponder about it you find that those lucky souls eat good food, they work really hard, by work I mean real physical work and they have good night's sleep. Of course they do not have all the amenities and facilities that the city life has to offer.

But the city life comes with a lot of strings attached. People in the cities are generally less healthy than the people in the country. One of the reasons is pollution of course but the other reason is because people in the city do not get enough exercise.

Now, when I talk about healthy bodies please make no mistake about what I am referring to. I am not talking about the Mr. Universe kind of body, the bodies that we see on WWE.

I am talking about people who are fit. And fitness and exercise are just two sides of the same coin. They both go hand in hand.

In order to stay fit you need exercise and in order to exercise you need to be fit. But just because you are not fit now, it does not mean that you shouldn't exercise.

And just like that, just because you do not have any visible excess fat on your body right now, it does not mean that you need no exercise. Exercise is the best way to keep obesity, cardio vascular disorders, hypertension and all those lifestyle-related disorders under control.

First of all let us get one point straight, exercise does not necessarily mean pumping metal. If you do have the time to go to a gymnasium everyday, then that is well and good.

But I suppose most of us do not have the time for a regular work out in a gym. So the other alternative is to do it at home of course.

But whether it is at home or at a multi-gym, there is something that I want to tell you. Whatever you are doing, you must try and do it regularly.

Consistency is very important for an exercise routine to have the desired effect on our body. Getting started is the easy part, it is sticking to a regular exercise routine that is difficult and this is what makes most people give up in between.

Most people get on to a beautiful start. They buy track suits and gym-wear, running shoes and a whole lot of other gear. Their first day at the gym is almost a celebration.

Then as the days go on, they find it increasingly difficult to meet the domestic and professional demands and so their routine slows down and finally comes to a complete workout burn out. In other words, the stop working out completely.

It is a universal fact that the most chosen time for work outs is the evenings. If you can stick to work out in the evenings then it is well and good. But most of us find ourselves exhausted in the evenings. We find ourselves physically and mentally drained. And at that time our bodies will be just too tired for a work out.

The result is that after the first few days of working out, the interest just dwindles away. The other reason is that in the evenings a thousand and one things may crop up and then there is hardly time for a warm up. So it is best to set aside some time for exercise in the morning itself.

There are two advantages of setting apart time in the morning. The first advantage is that in the morning our bodies are fresh and full of energy. Now over here I want to make one point clear.

There is a popular misconception that exercise depletes the body of energy but the case is just the opposite. Exercise pumps up more blood through the different parts of the body and warms up the body, so in fact, after exercise we feel more charged and ready to face the challenges of the day.

The second advantage is that in the morning we can plan for the whole day without letting the exercise routine affect the rest of our activities.

What about those of us who have never worked out before? In such cases you might need to start off under the personal supervision of an instructor and that may require that you go to a gym. But what I would suggest is that there are two simple things that any one can do for which you do not need the help of any instructor.

Diet and Nutrition Tips

There was a time in this world when the need to lose weight was completely unheard of. People ate well, but they worked well too. They woke up early in the morning and then engaged in a whole day's work. This work was mostly physical labor; people worked on fields digging, sowing, and harvesting. They tilled their soil, rode horses, worked on farms and ranches. The result was that they could afford to eat almost anything they wanted in whatever quantities they wanted.

But that was ages ago. The world has changed so much since those days. Life styles have changed so much and the comforts and facilities have increased so much.

But every rose has its thorn. As a result of all these comforts and amenities the state of physical well being has really changed. Most of us have sedentary jobs that demand little or no exercise at all. To put it simply, things have become so darn easy. And just as can be expected, weight gain has become a major concern for almost every city dweller.

During the period of thoughtless youth it is not such a major concern. The young practically eat nothing and so weight problems do not bother them so much. But as soon as you turn twenty, you start showing signs of weight gain and that too in all the wrong places.

It's not about the hour glass figure or the perfectly sculpted and toned body. It is more about staying fit and remaining healthy to ensure a long, disease free life. Every body knows that those extra pounds spell illness. All over the world people are switching to a healthier life style and the catch line is indeed weight loss.

This site is dedicated solely to the cause of losing weight and that too in the most surprising ways you ever heard of. There is only one thing that you have to bear in mind. Weight loss does not happen by itself. There are only two ways to accomplish it...

The first is by watching what you eat and the second is by seeing to it that your body gets the exercise that it needs. (This report gives tips for both.)

As you go through the following pages, my hope is that you're continually amazed by all the �everyday� things you can be doing to lose 10 pounds... or more.