The Health Spoilers

In this room we discusses the dangerous foods and tell you what to avoid and why. Once you know why you must avoid certain foods and habits, saying no will be much easier.

Alcohol

Not all of the health no-nos are foods that you must completely avoid. Alcohol is an example of where moderation can substitute for abstinence. Alcohol shouldn't be used as a thirst-quencher. But if you sip it slowly, savouring each sip, a glass of wine to prolong relaxation after work or a pint of beer to refresh after an afternoon of skiing can be an acceptable pleasure. They will add calories that you have to subtract somewhere else in your meal planning, but neither your health nor appearance will be harmed. Be sure, however, to eat a well-balanced meal soon after you have a drink. According to Dr. Boris Tabakoff of the University of Illinois Medical Centre in Chicago "alcohol depletes the system of vitamins very fast."

That glass or two of wine or mug of beer should be the outside limit. If you drink too much, your body will tell you that you're not being careful and your looks will tell everyone else.

Like caffeine and nicotine, alcohol becomes addictive when consumed in large quantities. Drinking too much greatly reduces the efficiency of the circulatory system, which can result in brain cells dying from oxygen starvation.

Moreover, alcohol attacks and irreparably damages the liver, the only organ with the capacity to break down and detoxify alcohol. The liver performs this task properly when presented with small amounts of alcohol, but when excessive drinking occurs, the organ can't function properly. Active liver cells become totally useless; they degenerate into fatty tissue, robbing the liver of a significant portion of its capacity to act as the body's own "detox" unit.

Of course, alcohol is not the only toxic material assaulting our bodies. A liver partially destroyed by too much alcohol can no longer deal with these other toxins as it should. These other materials then clog up the body, interfering with metabolism and causing problems ranging from bad breath to pasty-looking skin.

Drinking too much alcohol also steals vitamins B and C from the body, both of which are necessary for general well-being, immunity against disease, and a glowing, young-looking skin.

Cigarettes

Unlike drinking, cigarette smoking is NOT something that can be done in moderation, simply because virtually no one can. Smokers simply do not have a couple of cigarettes at special moments during the week. They either smoke a lot or quit entirely. And since smoking a lot is very destructive to your health and beauty, the only solution is to consider cigarettes an absolute no-no.

The health dangers of smoking are so well known - and so well publicised in public service ads and in complaints from non-smoking colleagues - that there's no need to recite them here. The extremely high correlation between smoking and deaths from lung cancer is, after all, no coincidence.

But the consequences of smoking on your looks are less well known. Perhaps if they are understood completely, vanity can accomplish what health concerns do not. If so, that's all to the good.

Skin is the component most vulnerable to damage from smoking, because cigarettes steal vitamin C, which is absolutely essential for maintaining healthy collagen and smooth, young-looking skin.

In addition, the carbon monoxide present in cigarette smoke attacks the walls of our blood vessels. Looking at them under a microscope, you can actually see how the smooth surface of a healthy blood vessel is roughened by carbon monoxide, creating areas susceptible to arterial deposits. In addition, carbon monoxide combines with haemoglobin, the blood's oxygen carrier, greatly reducing the blood's capacity for carrying oxygen to the organs.

Again, you see this oxygen starvation in your skin, which will wrinkle prematurely and look dry and lifeless. Remember that the same kind of deterioration from reduced oxygen is happening to your internal organs.

Caffeine

You ought to avoid coffee and tea just as completely as you avoid cigarettes. The caffeine in coffee and tea (where the chemical analog is technically known as theine) is addictive, just as nicotine is. While there's no doubt that a glass of wine or beer can be an important component of the unwinding so essential for a busy person's healthy life, there are so many completely acceptable alternatives to caffeine-laden drinks that there's no reason to take even the modest health risks involved.

Rather than "real" tea, sip an herbal brew. There are a large variety on the market, and you can find a blend of peppermint, rosehip, chamomile, black currant, hibiscus, apple, or cinnamon that will fit your personal taste. And rather than coffee, choose one of the grain substitutes made from barley or rye, a chicory blend, or, if you must, a chemically decaffeinated coffee. Now that all the major cola makers offer a caffeine-free diet alternative to their basic formulation, there's no good reason for choosing the caffeinated Cokes or Pepsis.

Any of these substitutes will avoid the concentrated stimulants that speed up your heartbeat, increase the acidity in your stomach, and make your nerves feel taut.

You know that when you drink too much coffee, tea, or cola, you are over stimulated; you overreact; and you are apt to be too startled at noises, bright lights, and minor irritations you later wish you had handled without losing your cool. That same overreaction keeps your mind flitting from subject to subject at night, keeping you awake and robbing your body of rejuvenating sleep. Longer term, you can expect stomach ulcers and a disruption in metabolic function from continued overindulgence.

So vow now to cut out the caffeine.

Salt

There's simply too much salt in the normal American diet. Would you believe that our national consumption works out to fifteen pounds a year for every man, woman, and child in this country!

The sodium content of normal table salt is dangerous; too much can lead directly to high blood pressure, and can cause a heart attack or a stroke. "Hypertension is very much a disease of the Western world. It is almost unheard of in 'primitive' societies where salt is not a common food additive," notes Dr. Sheldon Saul Hendler, a biochemist and physician who teaches at the University of California's San Diego campus.

The link between salt consumption and high blood pressure is not a worry for everyone. Some are at risk and some are not. But since medical science has yet to find a way to warn us whether we are in the high-risk group, it is best to avoid salt.

You cannot, of course, control the amount of salt added to processed foods or to what you eat away from your own home. So try to counteract the sodium intake by eating plenty of calcium-rich foods such as skimmed milk products, fish, and leafy green vegetables. By lowering your blood pressure, the calcium helps counteract the deleterious effects of the sodium.

Too much salt in our diet leads to water retention, causing joints, legs, and hands to swell and eyes to look puffy. Use a low-sodium salt or an herbal blend salt substitute in your cooking. See how long you can make a shaker last. It's better to wean yourself from salt entirely, and learn to appreciate the true taste of the foods you eat.

Fats

Just as our bodies need sugar, they need fats. But a normal diet provides the amount we need - a very small quantity - without any fat-heavy foods (like red meat) and anything deep-fried, which we are better off avoiding. Fish, nuts, cereals, and dairy products give us all the fat we need.

Eating excessive fats is the quickest route to obesity and to straining the biological system that was designed for a normal weight body. What's excessive? Consuming more than one-quarter of your daily caloric intake in the form of fats.

Obesity is only the beginning of the beauty and health toll taken by ingesting too much fat. It can lead to cancer, especially colorectal cancer. A 1983 article in the International Journal of Cancer reported the results of a comparison of one hundred people in Athens, Greece, who ate meat-heavy, high fat diets with an equal number of people from the same city who ate little meat and lots of vegetables. The result: Those who favoured meat were eight times as likely to develop colorectal cancer as those who seldom ate it.

No one yet knows for sure why a high-fat diet seems to encourage development of cancer. But New York Times science writer Jane Brody outlines what is currently deemed the most likely explanation: "During the metabolism of fats and cholesterol, substances are formed that are cancer-promoting, including some chemicals that mimic the action of sex hormones, which are notorious for their ability to stimulate the growth of cancers."

In addition, fat can cause heart disease. It can aggravate a predisposition to high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, gout, arteriosclerosis.

Too much fat in your diet will show on your skin; it will be greasy, unattractive from a distance, and not very pretty up close.

Sugar

Be it white, golden brown, or dark brown, sugar in anything but minute quantities is bad news for good looks. Our bodies can make good use of sugar when, as a naturally-occuring component of fruit or milk products, it is digested slowly and made available to the pancreas in very small quantities. But when we eat cookies or buttercreams, the pancreas is overloaded and reacts by producing large quantities of insulin to process the sugar.

If this happens many times a day, the pancreas learns to expect such onslaughts. Constant overindulgence in sugar-rich foods will cause the pancreas to produce increased quantities of insulin whenever you eat something sweet. At worst, you can develop diabetes. Even if you don't, you may find yourself short-tempered and often fatigued beyond what you would expect. You know that eating sweets even in moderation will make you gain weight, often in the places where it will be least flattering. You are also likely to develop blotchy skin, because overdoing your sugar intake upsets the careful balance of nutrients vital to beauty and causes deficiencies, particularly of the vitamin B complex.

Occasional desserts are alright; your body can deal with the piece of birthday cake or the Belgian chocolate that your boss brought back for his staff. But then go back to your health-making routine. If it's abandoned for too long, it really will show.

Those, then, are the six no-nos. Each is bad for you, but in combination they can be even worse. For instance, Dr. M. Ward Hinds conducted research at the Cancer Center of Hawaii that showed that smokers with diets high in fats have a lung cancer rate that is even higher than that for smokers who watch their fat intake. And research results published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition show that the chances of salt bringing on hypertension are significantly higher in persons who also consume large quantities of sugar.

So curb your alcohol intake. Stop smoking. Opt for caffeine free drinks. Stay away from refined sugar. Select a diet with only small amounts of salt and fat. And then stand in front of your mirror and take pleasure in how terrific you look!