Takeshi Murouchi writes:
Mr. Hiroshi Tanaka has many risks on his behaviors. He doesn't
have time to eat breakfast most mornings. Also he needs to intake
fast foods, such as hamburgers, cheeseburgers, or udon at lunch or
dinner, causing his intaking too much cholesterol. Moreover, he
drinks four or five cups of coffee in the morning and colas in the
afternoon. It results in overtake of caffeine. And further, he
relies on vitamin supplements. When he can eat other foods, he have
lots of meat, beef and pork mostly. He only does exercise for a half
an hour per week. Also he has many risk factors. Lately he's been
feeling lots of stress at work, and he finds it hard to relax even
after work. And his family history has the record of diabetes and
critical heart condition. He himself has high level of LDL. What is
more, he has many misunderstandings about what he should do for his
good health, like that he's surprised by his high LDL level since he
has thought sweets foods only affects LDL level. He should learn what
is right about things he ought to do in order to keep his good health.
First of all, he has to change his diet. He should take three regular
meals everyday, since every one of them is necessary for the body.
Breakfast supplies energy, especially to the brain. The first problem
is that he has unbalanced diet, and the solution is not so difficult;
he has to take every three meals regularly and also have balanced
foods. Fast foods as he has (hamburgers, cheeseburgers or udon) is
not so good because they are so unbalanced. In Japan we say that we
have up to 30 different ingredients a day. The reason is quite obvious;
we have to take lots of macronutrients (carbohydrates, fats,
proteins..) and also micronutrients (vitamins, minerals..) in order to
keep ourselves in good shape. The RDA (Recommended Daily Amounts) of
iron for man of his age is 10 milligrams everyday. He can get it
through eating liver, spinach, etc. It is very bad that his vitamin
intakes relies on only supplements and that he seldom have vegetables.
The absorption is not so efficient by taking only supplements. Also
when the supplements are with caffeine, some of the vitamins could be
broken before our intestines absorb them. Caffeine is a drug that
stimulates the central nervous system, making you feel more energetic.
Also it increases the blood flow. The average cup of coffee gives us
approximately 100 milligrams of caffeine, and most caffeinated cola
drinks gives even less. Although there is not so many evidences that
caffeine causes any major long-term effects on health, it is a good
idea too keep his average intake below three cups of coffee a day. He
can get independent of caffeine. He might think that he can get
fiber from udon and rice, but such grains contain very few
fibers. To make them, they use only the carbohydrate part of grains
for rice or udon. He should take more fruits or vegetables to take
more fibers, more than 5 kinds of those.
The second problem, and the
most dangerous, is his condition concerning his own diet. It is not
good of him to feel extra stress, because mental condition sometimes
affects our health situations. The cause is not clear but what is the
cause may be that he lacks micronutrients such as vitamins B1, B5, B6
(all for mental stability), vitamin C (for coping physical stress).
He, too, should do exercise much more, because keeping weight is not
the only reason to do exercise, but also relaxing or maintaining good
health, through lowering one's blood pressure and cholesterol in
blood, etc. is. His LDL level being 172, he should do exercise more,
and have less cholesterol-high foods. Since his family history has
diabetes and critical heart condition, it is of importance. Also
exercising is good for vitamin D absorption.
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