Life is a Do-Over
Reported July 09, 2009
CLEVELAND (Ivanhoe Newswire) — Our leading killer remains what it has been every year since 1900: heart disease. It kills nearly 650,000 each year. We can only blame ourselves. Our own bad habits such as smoking, no exercise and fat-ridden diets are the main causes of heart disease. But did you know you can reverse the damage that’s been done?
Pattiy Hill was a yo-yo dieter who rarely exercised. She was diagnosed with diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and joint problems. Hill was 51 years old and fading fast.
“I had been fat for so long,” Hill told Ivanhoe. “I wanted to live, and I knew fat people don’t grow old.”
At 280 pounds, Hill wanted a do-over.
“We get a do-over,” Michael Roizen, M.D., Chief Wellness Officer at the Cleveland Clinic, told Ivanhoe. “If you change your habits now, within three years, it’s like you only had the healthy habit.”
Put down that cigarette. In five years, a smoker’s lungs can heal.
“If you quit before age 35 and before 20 pack years, which is one pack a day for 20 years, you get all of it back,” Dr. Roizen explained. “The longer you wait to quit, and the more you smoke, the less you get back, but even at age 60, you get some of it back.”
You can also change the way your genes function. “Just changing your habits changes whether your genes are on or off,” Dr. Roizen said.
Eating three quarters of a cup of broccoli four times a week turns on the GSTM1 gene. That gene makes a protein that kills prostate, breast and colon cancer cells.
“You get to turn on a gene that helps you kill those cancers with something as simple as having broccoli,” Dr. Roizen said.
About 12 walnut halves a week doubles the amount of Omega-three that most of us have.
“It decreases the risk of stroke or heart attack by 62 percent,” Dr. Roizen said.
Avoiding saturated fat in beef, pork, poultry, butter and cream also turns off aging genes.
Diet and exercise are other ways to take the years off.
Hill lost 136 pounds the old-fashioned way. In 13 months, she cut her body fat from 60 percent to 20 percent and went from a size 24 to a slender size four.
“I looked at it as a way to help myself rather than depriving myself,” Hill explained.
Hill is now free of diabetes. Her high blood pressure and high cholesterol are gone along with her joint pain.
“It’s turned my life around 100 percent,” Hill said. “I feel so healthy now, and I am so healthy now.”
So keep Hill in mind when you do-over, and be sure to do it right.
If you’re using money or insurance as an excuse, think again. Hill lost all her weight while she was uninsured. The only money she spent was on a gym membership. The savings on her medications she used to take has more than paid for that.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Erica Foreman, Media Relations Manager
Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland, OH
(216) 444-7935
foremae@ccf.org