Masaki Ohta writes:
The harder you would like to work, the more conscious you must be about your own daily dietary habits, because diet is the basis of your healthy life.
Monday to Saturday Mr. and Mrs. M usually skip breakfast or if there's enough time, they only fry some food left over from the day before. But it is bad to skip breakfast, because breakfast is the most important meal in the day and the basis of the healthy daily life. And at lunch time Mrs. M eats a simple meal, usually a bowl of rice with beef or pork and a sweet dessert, for example, cake, cookies or ice cream which is rich in sugars and fatty acids, poor in various vitamins or proteins or fibers or calcium. Mr. M's lunch is usually a hamburger or fried chicken or fried fish. Mrs. M's dinner is very often a combination of snack food and sandwiches, she especially likes cheese or eggs and butter or margarine on her bread. When Mr. M comes home late at night, both Mr. and Mrs. M share fast food that Mr. M picks up on his way from the office, pizza, yakitori or Chinese noodles with eggs, pork and chicken. So they eat no vegetables and fruits in the morning, at noontime or evening. Their dietary habits are completely out of balance.
Mr. M has high blood pressure and occasionally experiences angina chest pains, probably from angina pectoris. Now Mr. M may be developing a cardiovascular sclerosis or myocardial infarction due to high serum cholesterol level complicated with high blood pressure. And more, he has no opportunity to do regular exercise. He is a heavy smoker, as well. He has low levels of HDL but his LDL level is 170.
Mrs. M, on the other hand, has both high HDL and LDL levels; her LDL is 165. But Mrs. M is more concerned about her appearance than her health. She is 10 kilos overweight, yet she eats only two meals a day. Even if she continues with her dietary pattern and her lack of exercise, she does not think she will gain more weight. She has a family history of cancer. Several aunts and her mother have developed complications with various cancers, including breast cancer.
To lower the level of serum cholesterol and blood pressure, it is necessary for Mr. M to keep his salt intake to 7 or 8 grams a day, to limit his high-caloric dishes and, and to eat meals with small amounts of saturated fatty acids. To avoid smoking is necessary also. And most of all, he must take three balanced diet a day with vegetables and fruits. There are some cases in which exercise has the effect of lowering the level of blood pressure and serum cholesterol, so it is effective, for example to take fast-paced walks 30 minutes a day. For Mrs. M, my directions are almost the same as for Mr. M. Mrs. M has the possibility of developing cancers, especially breast cancer. A high cholesterol level is the worst factor, because estradiol which is the cause of breast cancer is produced from cholesterol. So the foods which are rich in sugar and saturated fatty acid or cholesterol or fat from animals must be reduced, and the foods rich in vitamins and fibers are needed to prevent cancers, for example, vegetables, fruits, legumes, fish, low fat milk, yoghurt, etc. Needless to say, exercise and three balanced meal are essential for them both.
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