A healthy diet is one way of preventing illnesses from affecting us. Eating healthy means the diet we have is well balanced and contains all the nutrients that our body requires to function properly. There are several benefits of a healthy diet right from reducing weight to lowering risk of many life-threatening diseases. In the following section, we will look at how a good diet can effectively ward off diseases that can pose serious health risk.
Reducing Risks of Heart Problems
If your food is high on salt content then risk of hypertension and increased blood pressure rises considerably. Similarly, diet rich in saturated fats and food items that are high on cholesterol tend to make the arteries narrow also called atherosclerosis.
Both these two problems along with obesity result in heart diseases such as cardiovascular problems that can lead to heart attacks or strokes.
Controlling Diabetes
If you are able check your diet and make sure it has less of sugar, fats and carbohydrates then you will be able reduce your risk of having diabetes, especially Type 2 Diabetes. All these eating problems often result in obesity, which in turn is linked with diabetes.
Your risk of diabetes is higher if you have prediabetes in which a person has blood sugar higher than normal level but it is not that high to be judged as diabetes. For such prediabetes people, it is necessary to take extra precaution and pay attention to what they eat. Such people can bring down there risk levels considerably if they can keep their weight in check and possibly bring it down by about 6 to 8 percent.
Few of the other points that are to be kept in mind include fat intake, which should remain close to thirty percent of overall calorie consumption and intake of saturated fats should not be more than ten percent of daily calorie consumption. Such prediabetes people will also have to eat food, which is rich in fibers such as oatmeal, vegetables and legumes.
Fight against Cancer
Healthy diet can prove to be a major deterrent for many different types of cancer. A proper mix of fruits and vegetables can provide our immune system with necessary strength to fight against diseases like cancer. Let us look at how some food items can fight against cancer:
- Leafy vegetables have carotenoids that act like anti-oxidants and stop cancer cell growth.
- Berries have ellagic acid that provides prevention against lung, skin and breast cancer.
- Whole grains have phytochemicals, which reduce possibility of cancer.
- Green tea contains polyphenols that guards our body against prostate, liver and colon cancer.
Remedy for Osteoporosis
In recent studies, it has been found that a low fat diet in addition to proper intake of Vitamin D as well as Calcium can effectively fight against this disease. Some of the food products that are rich in Vitamin D consist of skimmed milk, broccoli and low fat cheese. Similarly, soy foods are particularly rich in Calcium and can help in increasing bone density.
Keep in mind that carbonated beverages often have phosphorous which can percolate calcium from bones so it better to avoid such beverages. You should also know that with age, our ability to make vitamin D starts to go down and as such, it is necessary to start taking supplements, as we grow older.
Apart from supplements, some of the food items like egg yolk, fish and several dairy products can meet our needs of vitamin D. If we look at the daily requirement of vitamin D we must meet, for those falling in the one to seventy age group require about 650 IU and this amount is higher for senior people aged more than seventy and they have requirement of eight hundred international units.
Summary
Many diseases occur because our immunity system is weak due to lack of proper nutrition. If we can create a proper diet schedule and follow it properly, then we can prevent many diseases.