The 80%-20% Goal To Help You Make Good Food Choices

A healthy diet supplies enough calories to meet your energy needs, plus all the protein, essential fats, vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and fiber you need to stay healthy and help to prevent diseases.

To get everything your body needs from the food you eat, without taking in too many calories, MOST of your food should be full of nutrients. This can be hard when you are bombarded with “junk” foods that are loaded with calories and have very little other nutritional value.

This is not another diet book – it’s an explanation and listing of all the nutrient-rich foods available in your supermarket and restaurants. Use it to help you make good food choices. The 80% - 20% Goal.

A reasonable goal for anyone who wants a healthy diet is to try to fill 80% of your plate with foods from the Food Lists: mostly fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans and other seeds; what you do with the remaining 20% is entirely up to you.

Special Situations

Almost everyone can use these Food Lists and follow the 80%-20% goal. See the section on Special Situations for extra helpful tips if you are diabetic, need to lower cholesterol or blood pressure, or want to lose weight.

You'll also find tips for seniors, children, active teens and athletes; and people who eat in restaurants often or are just too busy.

You can read Dr. Mirkin's Good Food Book online - you can turn the pages and read any chapter you are interested in...I think that is so great!

Or you can subscribe to Dr. Mirkin’s FREE weekly newsletter on fitness, health and nutrition.

Copyright 2006 http://www.drmirkin.com/

Study: Tai Chi May Help Prevent Shingles

By Alicia Chang, AP Science Writer

LOS ANGELES - Tai chi is already known as a good low-impact exercise for older people.Now a recent study suggests it offers benefits beyond improving fitness and balance:It may help prevent shingles, a painful skin condition.

Researchers found older people who performed the slow, graceful movements of tai chi had a better immune response against the virus that causes shingles than those who only got health education,according to the most rigorous test to date.

It's unclear how tai chi, an ancient Chinese martial art that has become increasingly popular in the West, affects the immune system. But health experts were encouraged by the positive results.

"The message is that older people need to maintain healthy behavior," said Andrew Monjan of the National Institute on Aging, which helped fund the research. "It's nothing that ourmothers haven't told us, but we're seeing it certainly holds up to scientific inquiry."

The study appears in the April issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society and was led by Dr. Michael Irwin of the University of California, Los Angeles.

Shingles is a painful skin rash that can pop up in people who have had chickenpox. The chickenpox virus can remain dormant in the body and resurface as shingles years later. It usually starts with pain and itching on the skin that later turns into an irritating rash.

An estimated 1 million Americans are afflicted with shingles every year and it commonly occurs in people 50 years old and older.

The UCLA study involved 112 healthy adults, ages 59 to 86, who have had previous cases of chickenpox.

Half of them took tai chi classes three times a week for three months and the rest attended health education classes where they were taught good diet habits and stress management.

Then both groups were vaccinated with a chickenpox vaccine. Researchers took periodic blood tests before and after vaccination to determine their level of immunity against shingles.

After six months, the tai chi group had nearly twice the level of immunity against shingles than the education group.

Those who performed tai chi before vaccination had an immune response that was similar to what a vaccine would produce in a younger population. Tai chi combined with the vaccineshowed a 40 percent increase in immunity than the vaccine alone, researchers found.

The results weren't surprising to tai chi instructor Howard Chuck, who owns a tai chi academy in Sunnyvale, Calif.

Although none of his students are trying to ward off shingles, Chuck said the exercise is popular among his older people who prefer tai chi's meditation aspects.

"Tai chi requires a lot of mind power not just muscle power," he said.

On the Net:
Shingles page: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_he_me/storytext/fitness_tai_chi_shingles/22566832/SIG=11kjt63sj/*http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/list_varicl.htm
UCLA: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_he_me/storytext/fitness_tai_chi_shingles/22566832/SIG=10lbtmfq3/*http://www.ucla.edu