How do I ensure that I follow the right diet for a healthy life?

Learn more from Dr. Michael Rakotz on behalf of NorthShore University about following the right diet for a healthy life.

Transcript

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Across the board if you want to live a long, healthy life is don't smoke. Smoking is the single most dangerous thing that you can do to your body.

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How do I ensure that I follow the right diet for a healthy life? Well, we've learned a lot over the last 20 years about lifestyle that contributes to health and living along,

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healthy life. Number one on that list across the board if you want to live a long, healthy life is don't smoke. Smoking is the single most dangerous thing

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that you can do to your body for shortening your life expectancy and increasing your risk for a host of things,

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including heart disease and cancer. So not smoking should be at the top of the list. As far as dietary intervention goes,

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eat more fruits and vegetables. We know that the people who live the longest eat 5 to 7 servings of fruits and vegetables a day.

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The good news is that a serving of vegetables cooked is about a half a cup and raw is about a whole cup.

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So it's not as bad as it sounds. But it's very important to try to get 5 to 7 servings in a day.

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One of my personal recommendations I think is very important and really helps people is to try to eat more natural food. When you're shopping in the grocery

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store if you can stick with produce fruits and vegetables that you find in the produce section and real whole natural foods, eggs, fish, poultry, things

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that you find on the outside of a grocery store typically. Again, in the dairy section, the low fat dairy is recommended.

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Those things are real. They're real food. And they're not processed. And I think it's the lack of processing.

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The fact that they're natural really makes them better for you. A processed food, something to avoid. A large portion of the food that we buy in the grocery store

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are made by huge companies and factories. And there's not a whole lot of natural food in them if any. And many of these products the more highly processed

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our food is, you increase the amount of chemicals you add and food coloring you add. And it really is turning out-- there's

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a lot of scientists and physicians in medicine who are starting to realize that the high amounts of processed

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foods are certainly not good for us and probably may eventually turn out to be linked to serious health conditions

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that we're bringing upon ourselves by eating these foods. We need to eat more fiber. So fiber is something that if you

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have the adequate recommended amount of fiber every day you're going to lower your risk for heart attack in both men and women. And that's really important.

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So try to eat foods high in fiber. Limit red meat consumption. There's some confusion here. A lot of people--

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there's some debate. Does red meat cause heart disease? Does it contribute to heart disease? My recommendation comes from the fact that people that eat more than three servings a week

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of red meat increase their risk of colon cancer significantly. And this is true throughout the world if you look at populations.

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So just a safe recommendation, try to limit your amount of red meat consumption. Twice a week is probably as much as you want to do.

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And that should hopefully help lower your risk for colon cancer. Eating a handful of nuts a day is a very healthy thing

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to do possibly due to the omega 3s that are found in some nuts. It's a small amount. But for some reason, people that eat a handful of nuts a day

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live longer than people who don't eat nuts. The same thing is true for fish. Again, eating fish twice a week. People that eat fish twice a week

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have lowered their risk for having serious health conditions. They for some reason live a little bit

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longer than people who don't eat fish. We think it's the omega 3 fatty acids, the fish oil that you hear so much about.

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But for whatever reason fish is a healthy thing to eat on a regular basis. Like I said, I recommend twice a week.

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If you're not getting fish twice a week in your diet, it's a good idea to take a good fish oil supplement.

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And don't forget to exercise. Exercise, although it's not part of the diet for a healthy life, it's part of a good plan for a healthy life.

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So like not smoking, getting regular exercise every day is extremely good for you.

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Will help you live a longer, more active, healthy life. [AUDIO LOGO]