What is Lifestyle? If you Google the term you will find this quote from Wikipedia: “The term lifestyle was originally coined by Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler in 1929. The current broader sense of the word dates from 1961.

In sociology, a lifestyle is the way a person lives. A lifestyle is a characteristic bundle of behaviors ...” A healthy lifestyle is one that has better living habits and that reduces the risk for diseases that have an established relationship with behaviors that are detrimental to your health.

I have just returned from a trip to Guatemala and Honduras where I had a chance to admire the Mayan culture. The World of the Mayas is fascinating and even though it goes back thousands of years you can draw a contrast between the haves and the have nots similar to many countries in the western world today. Whereas the ruling class had access to the best of everything including a protein based diet, the peasants on the other hand had to work the land and their diet was mostly based on carbohydrates (corn and beans). This resulted in a ruling class that achieved a higher stature, and developed an alphabet, excelled in Astrology and other sciences. The peasants lived in poverty and had to do very hard physical work. Moving forward to the 21st century, things have not changed much for the Indian population in Guatemala and Honduras. Great majorities of the indigenous population in Guatemala live in poverty are malnourished and their diet is based on carbohydrates yet no one appeared overweight. So……….how are we doing?

Going through two different airports on my way there and back it was hard to get a balanced meal and the occasional snack provided by the airlines was pure carbohydrates. One can see how eating well is hard.

The fact that we live in a society of consumption where food has to be processed in massive amounts to satisfy the needs of a growing population has lead to techniques that in the end are detrimental to people’s health like the addition of preservatives and ingredients to make food more appealing (like MSG). It is widely known that cattle and fowl are warehoused in pens and given hormones to grow faster as well as antibiotics to prevent and treat infections. All these are indirectly consumed by us.

Most of us have busy schedules and are pressed to limit the time we spend having our meals in order to be more productive at work and fit in all the activities required from our busy lives.  People drift towards ready made meals or snacking which is really a bad choice for our health.

The number of overweight and obese people in the US has steadily increased since the 70’s. Many factors contribute to obesity besides an increase in the consumption of calories, the amount of calories used, unhealthy lifestyle, and Genetics are also important.

We all have to be aware of our eating habits.
That is where a Healthy Lifestyle comes in. Why? Because the way we live has a profound impact on our health.

Excessive body weight is associated with type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, hypertension osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, stroke, sleep apnea and some kinds of cancer (Endometrial, breast and colon).

My point is that you can prevent or delay many diseases by making changes in your lifestyle.

A healthy lifestyle includes not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, eating healthy and exercising.  It sounds hard doesn’t it? However you don’t have to change everything at once. You can start by making small changes. I would emphasize the importance of starting with weight loss and healthy diet. Just loosing 10% of body weight can decrease blood pressure, cholesterol and increase longevity.

It is widely known that in order to loose weight you have to decrease you food intake and increase physical activity.

A healthy diet includes a wide variety of foods including fruits, vegetables, grains, and legumes—foods high in complex carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins, and minerals, low in fat, and with low fat dairy products, lean meat and poultry, and fish. However, it is important to maintain a balance between the amount of calories that you eat and your calorie expenditure in order not to gain weight.

In my next few blogs I will address the different kind of diets followed by exercises and other components of a healthy lifestyle.

Type 2 diabetes has reached epidemic proportions around the world.
Here in the US there are more than 20 million people living with type 2 diabetes, of those, more than 6 million are undiagnosed.

The rapidly growing number of type 2 diabetics in the world is causing a significant public health and economic burden. However type 2 diabetes can be prevented or the onset of it delayed. This is most important for people to realize since they can play an active role in taking appropriate measures to improve or maintain their own health.
Many factors predispose people to type 2 diabetes. Obesity, old age, family history and race/ethnicity are high risk factors for developing the disease.
Type 2 diabetes has a higher prevalence among racial and ethnic minorities.
A disproportionate amount of Latinos/Hispanics are affected and at risk for type 2 diabetes. One of the reasons why this happens is the change in eating habits and in physical activity. It has been observed that when immigrants arrive in the US they are healthier that their US counterparts. After 5 years in the US Hispanics have higher rates of obesity, diabetes, HTN and cardiovascular disease.
Changing to US eating habits and the adoption of a more sedentary lifestyle play an important role.
In looking at the risk factors, having a parent with diabetes increases your risk to 40%; if both parents are diabetes the risk goes up to 70%.
Older age is associated with prevalent diabetes, at least 20% of patients over 65 years of age have diabetes. However,the incidence of type 2 diabetes is rising among US children and adolescents.
One of the strongest predictors for developing type 2 diabetes is obesity.
There are many changes that may cause people to develop type 2 diabetes, in most cases is due to a combination of factors but basically the cells that produce insulin may become impaired and the insulin they produce is either insufficient or the tissues develop a resistance to the hormone. This causes the level of blood glucose to rise and cause damage to the tissues.

Lifestyle changes can have a dramatic beneficial effect on the disease. Weight loss and increased physical activity are key.