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We wish you the HAPPIEST of HOLIDAYS this Season!

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4770 S Ridgewood Ave Port Orange, FL 32127

 Phone: 386-761-0050

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Heart Healthy Valentine's Day Tips:

1. Rather than tempting your beloved with chocolates, consider a gift that has more permanence. Search for a poem that describes your feelings and write it on beautiful paper for a handmade Valentine.


2. Quality time is one of the most meaningful gifts. Bundle up and plan an active outing such as sledding, ice skating, gathering wood for a fire, or if you’re feeling adventurous, visit an indoor rock wall.


3. If your children are having a Valentine’s Day party at their school or day care, instead of sending candies, consider mini-boxes of raisins, mini-bags of pretzels, pencils or stickers as tokens of their friendly affection.


4. Cooking at home is an excellent way to control the quality and amounts of what you eat. Take a date to a local cooking class to practice your skills or learn a new technique.


5. Prepare a romantic candlelit dinner at home using one of our heart-healthy recipes.


6. If you go to a restaurant to celebrate, check out our heart-healthy tips for dining out.


7. Give to one another by giving back. Ask a date to volunteer with you at a local charity. Giving back is a healthy habit that will boost your mood and beat stress.


8. Visit www.ShopHeart.org for gift ideas that benefit the American Heart Association.


9. Use this day as an opportunity to tell your loved one how you feel about hime or her, and share ways that you can support each other’s health and wellness. Get started by taking the My Life Check.


10. Still craving something sweet? Send a fruit basket to your loved one that has natural sugar as well as healthy nutrients instead of sending sweets with added sugars.


11. Spice it up – try cooking at home with healthier seasonings and avoid prepackaged mixes that may contain a lot of salt. Instead, add some spice with some fresh hot peppers. Remove the membrane and seeds first, then finely chop them up. A little goes a long way.


12. Sharing is caring – if you do go out for a romantic dinner date, order one entrée to share. Many restaurant servings are enough for two – splitting will keep you from overdoing it.


13. Don’t forget to love Fido, too! Give your pet a Valentine and remember to walk or exercise them daily – getting active will benefit your health and your bond with your pets.


14. Take it slow – if you were gifted a luxurious box of chocolates from your sweetie stick it in the fridge or freezer and enjoy in moderation over several weeks.


15. Still seeing hearts? You’ve seen hearts all month long; look for them at the grocery store and select products with the heart-check mark. These items are low in saturated fat and cholesterol.


16. One of the best things you can do for your heart is to give up smoking or help a loved one quit. Smoking is the most preventable cause of premature death.


17. Go fish – did you know for ideal health you should eat fish (particularly oily fish such as salmon, mackerel or tuna) twice a week?


18. Take a walk – walking is free, and costs nothing to get started. Walking for as little as 30 minutes a day provides heart-health benefits.


19. Instead of frying foods – which adds unnecessary fats and calories – use cooking methods that add little or no fat, like stir-frying, roasting, grilling or steaming.


20. Try something new – dare yourself to try a new fruit or vegetable. Next time you’re at the store pick up something you’ve never made before. Many grocery stores have free recipe cards in the produce section or just type the food into your favorite search engine.


21. Rekindle an old flame – try preparing one of your less-favorite foods in a new way. Not crazy about bananas? Try grilling one for dessert. Pop grapes in the freezer for mini-ice pop snacks.


22. Stay hydrated – staying properly hydrated helps you feel (and look) better and water is a great alternative to high-calorie, sugar-sweetened drinks. Treat yourself to a fun new water bottle to encourage the habit – if it’s always handy, you’re more likely to drink up.


23. Get active inside – winter is almost over, but there are plenty of ways to get moving indoors that don’t involve a gym membership; start mall walking, hit the stairs at work, or check out a yoga video form the public library or your local video store.


24. Know before you go – make it a point next time you go out to eat to look up the nutrition information for the restaurant you’re going to (most major chains have this online) and note the nutrition information for what you plan or usually order. Just knowing what you’re eating is a good step in the right direction.


25. Make a change – pick one small thing you can change about your daily diet – start buying skim milk, order the nonfat latte, skip the afternoon vending machine visit or add an extra veggie to your dinner plate.


26. Snacking isn’t bad if done in moderation and eating a little throughout the day can actually keep you from overdoing it at meal times. Check out some of our heart-healthy snack ideas.


27. You can make many of your favorite recipes healthier by using lower-fat or no-fat ingredients. These healthy substitutions can help you cut down on saturated fats, trans fats and cholesterol, while noticing little, if any, difference in taste.


28. Whether cooking or making dressings, use the oils that are lowest in saturated fats, trans fats and cholesterol – such as canola oil, corn oil, olive oil, safflower oil, sesame oil, soybean oil and sunflower oil – but use them sparingly, because they contain 120 calories per tablespoon.

---- Article written by the American Heart Association.  Check out their website for more great information:  http://www.heart.org/

Welcome to Our Website!

4770 S Ridgewood Ave Port Orange, FL 32127

Phone: 386-761-0050

If you are having a medical emergency,

please go to the nearest phone and DIAL 9-1-1.

Click on any of the links (yellow words above this box)
to find out more about us!



Benefit of Healthy Whole Foods....

The Benefits of Healthy Whole Foods

What's the difference between whole foods and processed foods?

By R. Morgan Griffin
WebMD FeatureReviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MD

Healthy whole foods: you might know that you're supposed to eat them. But do you really know what they are?


"We live in a society that eats so much processed and manufactured food, that I think there's some genuine confusion about what qualifies as a whole food," says Tara Gidus, RD, a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. Even for the health conscious, the phrase gets tangled up with other terms. Whole foods might be organic, or locally grown, or pesticide-free. But they aren't necessarily. The definition of healthy whole foods is much simpler.


If you've dropped and regained so many pounds it would take a Harvard PhD to do the math, then here are some diet motivation tips that can help. Sure, you've tried to diet before. You've gotten rid of the cookies in the cupboard, and virtuously refused the cake at the office party. And then, a few weeks into it, your motivation begins to flag. Maybe you hit a plateau in your weight loss, or you're bored with steamed vegetables for dinner night after night, or, tempted by a special dessert,...


"When you eat whole foods, you're getting the food in its natural state," Gidus tells WebMD. "You're getting it intact, with all of the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that are in the food." Basically, it's the healthy whole food, rather than the bits that remain after refinement and processing. It's the difference between an apple and apple juice , or a baked potato and mashed potatoes.


While whole foods might be associated with the upscale grocery store of the same name, they are available to all of us anywhere in the country. Most dietitians feel that eating healthy whole foods has all sorts of benefits. Their nutrients may help to keep your immune system strong and protect you from disease.


"If you're trying to eat a healthier diet, relying on more whole foods is a great place to start," says Lucia L. Kaiser, PhD, community nutrition specialist in the department of nutrition at the University of California, Davis.

Healthy Whole Foods

Many studies have found that a diet high in healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains are associated with a reduced risk of diseases such as:


So what's so good about healthy whole foods? For one, they're loaded with fiber, vitamins, and minerals. They also contain phytochemicals, the general name for natural compounds in plants. While thousands of individual phytochemicals have been identified, countless more remain unknown. They help in different ways. Some are antioxidants, which protect cells against damage. Examples of antioxidant phytochemicals are flavonoids, carotenoids, and lycopene.


Usually, the term whole foods is confined to vegetables, fruits, and grains. But any dietitian will agree that eating a skinless chicken breast is preferable to eating processed chicken nuggets.


One problem with processed food is that, during manufacture, many healthy nutrients are removed.


For instance, "When whole grains are refined, the bran and the coat of the grain are often removed," says Kaiser. Some nutrients are lost, most significantly fiber. Then, during the enrichment process, nutrients may be artificially added back in. But even after enrichment, the final product is likely to be less nutritious than the whole grains you started with.

The Synergy of Healthy Whole Foods


"One of the biggest advantages of eating whole foods is that you're getting the natural synergy of all of these nutrients together," says Gidus.

Gidus points to studies of vitamin E, selenium, and a number of antioxidants. We know that when they're eaten in food, they have all sorts of health benefits. But studies of the single vitamins and minerals in supplement form have not shown the same success. Why? "It could be the natural combination and interaction of all of these different phytochemicals and proteins that give a food its health benefit," Gidus says. "Trying to extract a single nutrient and take it by itself may not work."


There's another thing. We simply don't know all of the nutrients in a food that make it healthy.


"Nutrition science is always discovering new components of foods, things that we didn't know are there," says Kaiser. "Many of them are not even available in supplement form." If we don't know what they are, we obviously can't synthesize them.


Avoiding Additives in Food

The nutrients lost during refinement are not the only disadvantage of eating processed foods. What's added can also be a problem.


A lot of health conscious people are wary of the preservatives and chemicals that are added to processed and manufactured foods. You know -- the ones with the scary-sounding eight-syllable names. But in fact, Kaiser says that some of the worst food additives are household words.


"I think the most worrisome additives are not the preservatives," says Kaiser. "It's the salt, sugar, and saturated and trans fats." While there's been a lot of attention paid to the risks of trans fats in recent years, Kaiser thinks salt is gravely underestimated.


"As a country, we eat way too much salt," she tells WebMD, and observes that it's closely associated with high blood pressure and numerous other health problems.


With all of the extra fat and sugar in processed foods, the calories can quickly add up. That leads to weight gain. But eating more healthy whole foods may actually help you maintain or lose weight. The natural fiber in many vegetables, fruits, and grains may fill you up without adding many calories, Gidus says.


The Cost of Whole Foods

There's another bonus to eating healthy whole foods. Although the name may now be synonymous with that fancy grocery store, whole foods are much cheaper than processed foods. They're also available everywhere.


"Generally, the more processed things are, the higher the cost," says Kaiser. "A bag of healthy brown rice is going to be cheaper than a fancy prepackaged rice mix."


Of course, there may be a different cost to eating healthy whole foods: the preparation time. It's hard to deny that popping a processed sandwich pocket in the microwave for three minutes is easier than cooking a proper meal with whole-food ingredients.

But Gidus stresses that you don't need to cut out all processed foods. The goal is just to decrease the number of processed foods you eat and increase the proportion of healthy whole foods. That isn't hard, especially when it comes to snacks. The next time need something to tide you over, eat a handful of nuts or a piece of fruit instead. It's no harder than reaching for an energy bar -- you'll even be spared the labor of unwrapping it.



The other key to a healthy diet is variety. It's easy to get caught up in the details -- the nutritional value of specific healthy whole foods, and exactly how much you need of each. But Gidus and Kaiser say the best advice is to relax and just eat a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Not only is it simple, but it's the best way to be sure you're getting all the nutrients you need.


"After some research into this, my husband decided that the smartest thing he could do was eat as many fruits and vegetables as he could stand every day," says Kaiser. "That's not very scientific, but it isn't bad advice."








Wishing You ......

a VERY
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Remember, if you have a MEDICAL EMERGENCY,
Go to the Nearest Phone and Dial 9-1-1.

Primary Care Center of Port Orange
4770 S Ridgewood Ave
386-761-0050

We will be CLOSED Thurs Nov 25th and Fri Nov 26th.

On Call number 386-761-0050:  (only if it can NOT wait until Monday
please,  as John would like to enjoy the Holiday with his family too).

Politics .... and SODA??

What Do You Think of a SODA Tax?

As we approach mid-term elections, one of many issues facing voters is “how much government is too much government.” People typically think about this in terms of military spending, financial bail-outs, social programs, and ultimately, the taxes that will pay for all of the above.

While many voters will just hold the party line, I think we need some more debate regarding the issue of “lifestyle taxes.” As you know, this isn’t a new concept — smokers will tell you that the cost of cigarettes has skyrocketed over the past fifteen years. But as recent emphasis on the obesity epidemic has renewed our interests in healthier lifestyle choices, many have suggested that taxing highly processed foods or higher calorie foods with little nutritional value might be a good next step. The government, in effect, could enforce a pricing structure which would essentially penalize certain food choices, with the goal of ultimately changing behavior. Enter the soda tax.

So what’s the next step? There are lots of strong opinions on either side. Those in favor emphasize the staggering impact of obesity on the health care system and our economy and the need to do something more than we are currently. Those against it go back to the role of government and concerns that this is a slippery slope to a Big Brother that we wouldn’t want to have, looking over our shoulders and telling us how to live our lives.

Interestingly, we’re not still hearing the same debate about cigarette taxes. Why? People finally seem to understand that smoking causes heart attacks, emphysema, lung cancer and early death. People also recognize that laws preventing smoking in restaurants and bars as well as pricier cigarettes are felt to be playing a role in a decreased prevalence of smoking. In effect, we have evidence that the policies are working. Not working perfectly — and not everyone likes them — but they seem to be working. And it’s hard for either side of the aisle to take away a policy that seems to be effective.

One of the challenges with the current soda tax proposals is that we just don’t have the evidence we need to put them into wide effect. At the recent Obesity Society meeting in San Diego, researchers presented several mathematical models examining how a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages (i.e. soda) would impact behavior, and ultimately the obesity problem. One study suggested that taxing soda by about 20 percent would be associated with a 20 percent reduction in excess gain in body mass index among children.

Another study found that a penny-per-ounce tax (adding about a quarter to the price of your bottle of soda) could decrease consumption by close to 25 percent, thereby reducing health care costs by $50 billion in ten years, and generating $150 billion in revenue over the same time frame. That money that could be invested in fighting obesity by expanding educational programs or even subsidizing the costs of more expensive, but healthier foods.

Sounds intriguing, doesn’t it? True, a computer model won’t be enough to convince a lot of people. But at least the beverage corporations are listening — the American Beverage Association is reportedly spending close to ten times what it was five years ago in lobbying efforts to avoid these types of taxing proposals from gaining too much momentum.

But what can we learn in the meantime? Probably not much if we don’t have data. It’s time to test the tax. Randomize two different communities to different prices and see how behaviors change. If they don’t, then we’re right back where we started. But if they do… then maybe it’s time to have some Soda Party rallies of our own.

What’s your take on the soda tax — good or bad idea? Speak your mind on the Heart Disease Community @ http://www.webmd.com/

by: James Beckerman, MD, FACCVirus-Destroyer and A

Welcome to our Website!

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Hanging by a Thread: Flossing Your Teeth Can Save Your Life

Poor dental hygiene can not only destroy the first impression you make, but contrary to what was previously believed, oral hygiene and general health are strongly connected.

In fact, recent studies have shown that neglecting your dental care may also be damaging to your heart. Inflammation of the gums, a condition medically known as periodontal disease, is has been found to significantly increase the risk of the development and progression of heart disease.

Specifically, periodontal disease is being linked to coronary artery disease or atherosclerosis, a narrowing of the arteries caused by deposits of fat and plaque onto the arterial walls. In severe cases, the arteries can become entirely blocked, leading to heart attacks. As the affected arteries are responsible for carrying oxygen-rich blood to the heart, the narrowing of these vessels leads to strain and chest pains during periods of heightened activity.

Considering heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States, finding a connection between it and inflammation of the gums could lead to a new approach in preventative cardiac medicine.

Many people are currently taking expensive medication to control their atherosclerosis, but perhaps the simplest preventative measure you can take is to visit the dentist regularly.

Periodontal disease is a condition in which the gums around the teeth become infected. This happens in response to plaque development, which irritates the gums and causes them to swell. According to Dr. Angelo Poulos, a dentist at Waterview Dental in Toronto, periodontal disease includes both gingivitis and periodontitis (a more severe progression of inflammation). The majority of the population has some degree of gingivitis, Dr. Poulos said.

It is not surprising that “gingivitis” is a commonly used term in the marketing of mouthwash. Although common, it is a condition that can lead to periodontitis if it is left untreated. During the development of gingivitis, bacteria causing the infection move underneath the gum line and attack the tissues and bone around the teeth. Larger pockets are formed underneath the gums in which more bacteria can grow. Thus, not only will this condition lead to painful gums and tooth loss, but it could lead to heart disease as well.

By moving underneath the gum line, the bacteria have an easy passage into the bloodstream, where they can also cause inflammation of the blood vessels, encouraging heart disease. To simplify, poor dental hygiene leads to inflamed gums which is basically giving dangerous bacteria an open door to enter the body.

Individuals who already have fatty deposits (plaque) in their blood vessels are more susceptible to this. Inflammation-causing bacteria attach themselves to the plaque where they cause inflammation and further narrowing of the vessels. By this stage the individual has developed heart disease and is in danger of a heart attack.

Studies have found that patients with severe periodontal disease are twice as likely to develop coronary artery disease, compared to patients who do not suffer from periodontal disease.

Periodontal disease is still a fairly general term. The inflammation can be caused by a host of different bacteria. The strongest dental predictor of heart disease, according to a recent study in the medical journal Circulation, is pericoronitis, infection of the gums around the molars. After pericoronitis, tooth decay-- where only the tip of the root remains--is the next strongest predictor of heart disease.

The third predictor is gingivitis. Even though pericoronitis is the strongest indicator, it initially begins as gingivitis.

“It seems that certain bacteria found in patients with periodontitis have also been detected in the artherosclerotic plaque of the heart vessels,” says Dr. Poulos. “Periodontitis in itself can lead to tooth loss if left untreated, which further increases the risk of introducing bacteria into the bloodstream.”

Saving your heart, and your life, may be as simple as brushing and flossing your teeth on a regular basis.

“Foul breath, bleeding gums, sensitive gums, and recessed gums are all signs that some level of disease or inflammation could exist," says Dr. Poulos. "A thorough evaluation by a dentist can determine whether some form of periodontitis is present, and what the best course of action is,” he said.

The risk of developing periodontal disease is also partially genetic. In fact, 30 percent of the population may be genetically more susceptible to gum disease, according to the American Academy of Periodontology.

Whether a person is more susceptible or not, the most basic tool against heart disease cost less than $3: floss and a toothbrush. By brushing and flossing twice a day, you can keep inflammatory bacteria, and heart disease, away.


Article taken from:
Foxnews.com Health writer Christine Buske contributed to this report.

For more great information on living healthy through every decade of life, click here to check out Dr. Manny's book The Check List (Harper Collins, 2007).

Dr. Manny Alvarez is the managing editor of health news at FOXNews.com, and is a regular medical contributor on the FOX News Channel. He is chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Reproductive Science at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey. Additionally, Alvarez is Adjunct Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at New York University School of Medicine in New York City.