Healthy-food obsession can be problem
One recent study found as many as 28 percent of athletes are affected by orthorexia nervosa, or ON, an unhealthy fixation with eating correctly. It’s characterized by compulsive checking of ingredient lists and nutritional labels, eliminating an increasing number of food groups (all carbs, all meats, all dairy) and distress when desired “clean foods” are not available.
But you don’t have to be an athlete to develop a pathological obsession with healthy food. These days it’s also affecting many folks who worry excessively about contamination of food from chemicals and additives.
We want to make it clear that healthy food choices should be a means to an end — a younger Realage — not an end in itself. So remember, eating foods from a variety of sources makes it less likely that you’ll get a high dose of any environmental toxin. Your food should be nutritious and enjoyable and make you feel good.
Harnessing anger, learning from sadness
If you type “angriest” into Google search, you get “Angriest Man in Brooklyn” (a 2014 Robin Williams movie); “Angriest Dog in the World” (a comic strip by David Lynch, creator/writer of “Twin Peaks”); and Angriest Whopper (a fast-food burger with a bright-red bun).
Clearly, people spend a lot of time trying to figure out what to do about (and with) anger.
That’s not surprising, since it’s an intense emotion, unleashing a cascade of hormones, like epinephrine and cortisol, that can both stimulate action and, if chronic, cause disease-promoting inflammation.
Recently, researchers wanted to find out how anger and its sort-of opposite, sadness, affect the health of folks ages 59 to 79 and those who are 80-plus. Their study, published in the journal Psychology and Aging, found that if you’re chronically angry at 80 or older, you’re setting yourself up for serious health woes.
But anger in 59- to 79-year-olds could serve as fuel for positive changes in habits or circumstances. Sadness didn’t stimulate inflammation (they measured it) and they conjecture that it lets folks recognize and deal with what they’ve lost over time.
Our take-away? At any age, you want to manage anger by doing mindful meditation, anger-dispersing exercise and finding someone to talk with about your feelings. Sadness may be justified, but if it fuels depression, then it too should be addressed with therapy and by helping others.
Email questions for Mehmet Oz and Mike Roizen to youdocsdaily@sharecare. com.