Ukiah Daily Journal from Ukiah, California • Page 7

-THE UKIAH DAILY JOURNAL- DEC. 4, 1990 7 HEALTH WATCH Put more fresh fruit and vegetables in your diet Heart attack leads to No. 1 best seller A recent study published in the November 1990 Journal of the American Dietetic Association indicates that approximately 40 percent of teen-age girls do not consume adequate amounts of folate or folic acid. Polic acid is pan of the B- complex family of vitamins. It is an essential nutrient for cell growth because it is chemically involved in the synthesis of protein and nucleic acids.

Nucleic acids, DNA and RNA, are akin to the cell's memory bank or computer chip. Whenever there is rapid cell growth, as in pregnancy or during puberty, the body requires more folate. When a teenager is pregnant, her needs are even greater. Folate, an important nutrient? You bet Easily obtained in our food supply? Yes, if one eats adequate fresh fruit and vegetables (especially dark green leafy vegetables). For optimum health the California Department of Public Health is pushing the "5-A-Day" campaign.

Eat five servings of fresh fruit and vegetables a day. Figuring that a serving is approximately one-half cup or a medium-sized fruit, one would need to take in one cup vegetables plus three fruit servings or cups vegetables plus two fruit servings a day. This amount of produce daily would satisfy the folate needs of teens. The fresh fruit supplies not only folate, but vitamin to help the body absorb more iron (important for menstruating teen girls and growing teen boys). Fresh fruit is also an excellent source of fiber.

But apparently teens are not eating fresh fruit and vegetables. Why? Well, the price of fresh fruit may be a major factor. Looking at the ads for major grocery stores: bananas at 39-59 cents a pound Farkas MaiyE.Farkasisa registered distitten hi practice mUMahandWriltu. She has been a member of the American Dietetic Association since 1982. Nutrition- related questions are welcome.

most weeks (there is approximately one week per month when bananas run 25 cents a pound); apples at 39-69 cents a pound; and oranges at approximately 39 cents a pound. That's not cheap for the average family. Out of curiosity, I calculated that a family of four (two adults plus two children) would need to spend approximately 11 per week or $45 to $50 per month to eat the necessary minimum two servings of fresh fruit a day. (I figured the average piece of fruit costs apprpxi-. mately 20 cents each, times eight pieces a day, times seven days for $11 per week.) And these are just the cheaper fruits.

We're not talking grapes at 990 to $1.39 per pound, or specialty apples at 690 to 890 a pound, or tangerines at 790 to 990 a pound. How do we get our kids to like and eat fresh fruit when many families cannot afford to keep it stocked in the home throughout the week? Solutions? As for the cost of fresh fruit, I've found that by shopping wisely, a great deal can be saved on fruit prices. What to do to get our kids to eat more fruit? Well, first of all, I'd recommend that the parents themselves eat more fruit. Why would they want to eat something that you don't? By ELAINE GRAY Denrty CfflCO If you could go the rest of your life without hearing the words "oat bran," you can thank Bob Kowalski. The Los Angeles-based medical writer started the oat bran craze with his book, "The Eight- Week Cholesterol Cure" (1989, Harper Row).

Besides his writing, he now speaks to groups about his ideas to lower cholesterol. At a recent speech in Chico, Kowalski, 47, told his audience his cholesterol level was 250 by age 27. "I wish I knew then what I know now," he said. Everyone should know their cholesterol level, he said, even children. At age 38, Kowalski suffered a heart attack.

His cardiologist found major arterial blockage and ordered triple by-pass surgery. "Afterward, he walked me out of the hospital with his arm around my shoulder and said, 'Bob, you're a young guy. I want you to put this behind you and pretend it never Kowalski said. "I went home and lit a cigarette, mixed up a martini and had an omelette for breakfast the next day." The following night on a date, he ate a greasy sausage and cheese pizza, he said. Kowalski abandoned that health-be-damned lifestyle in 1984 when he moved to California.

He began exercising five days a week, quit smoking and adopted a healthier diet. He got married and became a father. The damage, though, had already been done. That same year, Kowalski took a treadmill test and learned his arteries were blocked enough to require a second by-pass operation. "I literally went home and cried," he said.

The doctors told him there was a 5 percent to 6 percent chance he would not survive the operation, and the thought of his small children growing up without him was extremely sobering. He was 41 years old. Kowalski realized some serious action was in order if he was ever going to bounce grandchildren on his knee. Diet alone was not enough: his latest cholesterol level of 284 had dropped to 271 when he followed the American Heart Association's dietary recommendations. It was still dangerously high.

After a 20-year career as a medical journalist, Kowalski knew how to investigate and amass information. He started reading about diet, cholesterol and heart disease. "No man or woman," he learned, "should have a cholesterol level above 200. At that level and above, the incidence of heart disease is increased. Under 160, there is virtually no heart disease at all," he said.

Fifteen years ago there were no coronary care units in Japanese hospitals; then McDonald's, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken moved in, said Kowalski. The main streets of Tokyo are now so lined with fast food restaurants, he said, they could easily be mistaken for downtown America. "As a consequence of the younger Japanese adopting this high fat American diet, they are beginning to suffer heart attacks," he said. Kowalski also learned saturated fat is the major culprit in high cholesterol levels. Cholesterol is only found in animal products, including meat, eggs, cheese, milk and butter, he said.

"No vegetables contain cholesterol. Peanut butter does not. Cooking oil does not." Even so-called "extra lean" hamburger delivers 50 percent of its calories Cholesterol levels The 0ffoctft on coronary death rate In percent of deaths in a study of 12,000 white, middle-aged men 140 to 159 300 to 319 7.2 320 or more in the form of fat, he said. Research, he claims, showed the soluble fiber in oatmeal "grabs onto by-products of cholesterol in the intestine and shunts it from the body." The most concentrated form of the fiber is found in, you guessed it, oat bran. Niacin, a B-vitamin, also works to lower cholesterol, in part by limiting the liver's production of it, Kowalski believes.

In his book, he cites medical research to support this. Kowalski stresses, though, that no one should take niacin supplements without first consulting a doctor, especially people with liver problems, diabetes, gout, pregnancy or heart arrhythmia. A Harvard University study conducted this year that concluded oat bran is not the miracle Kowalski says it is was bogus, he said. Among his criticisms was the fact that, "They tested 20 health professionals who had average cholesterol levels of 184. Of course there was no dramatic drop these people were already healthy." After thousands of hours of research, Kowalski decided the ultimate idea for reducing cholesterol would be a modified diet with the combined therapy of oat bran and niacin," as he writes in his book.

But when he talked the idea over with his cardiologist, the man laughed. "You go right ahead with your little program, Bob. Give it a try for a few weeks and when you're done messing around, come back and we'll put you on one of the two drugs that lowers cholesterol," the doctor told him. Undaunted, Kowalski tried it He took in large amounts of niacin and oat bran, and cut the level of fat in his diet to 20 percent. Eight weeks later, his cholesterol level was 169.

His cardiologist stopped laughing. The doctor and Kowalski decided to try the program on others with cholesterol problems. Twenty people who employed the same method all dropped their levels too. "There's a book here!" Kowalski said to himself. "The Eight-Week Cholesterol Cure" he developed has made Kowalski not only healthy but wealthy as well.

It has sold more than three million copies in 30 countries, he said. He has also written, "Children and Cholesterol: Giving Your Children a Future Free of Heart Disease," and "The Eight-Week Cholesterol Cookbook." Chefs, nutritionists work to improve our eating habits NEW YORK (AP) Telling everybody what not to eat has not worked, so nutritionists and chefs are getting together with a new approach. The new advice is to stop going on diets, stop thinking of food as medicine; instead, eat healthfully over a lifetime. "We need to give advice beyond eating less," said Rebecca M. Mullis, assistant director for program development in the division of nutrition at the federal Centers for Disease Control.

"We need to get across the message about an overall lifetime diet, rather than cure-alls." Most diets tend to operate "by the bite," while people should eat "by your life," said Stephen R. Yarnall, a cardiologist in Edmonds, Wash. Mullis and Yamall were joined at a recent forum by chef Julia Child and others as part of an effort to dispel the notion that if food tastes good, it must be bad. The forum was sponsored by the Beef Industry Council and Beef Board. The beef industry has suffered from consumers' health concerns about eating too much fat and cholesterol, and producers have worked to convince consumers that beef can be part of a healthy diet.

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation of Menlo Park, is sponsoring Project LEAN, or Low-fat Eating for America Now, a nationwide campaign to educate Americans about how to eat less fat but still eat well. To develop low-fat recipes and methods, it has organized a group chefs including Wolfgang Puck of Spago in Los Angeles; author and chef Jacques Pepin; teacher Madeleine Kamman; Michael Foley, owner of three top Chicago restaurants; and Marion Cunningham, who revised "The Fannie Farmer Cookbook." Child also appeared at a seminar in Boston in October, sponsored by the American Institute of Wine and Food, which she helped found. The purpose was the same: to get people to learn to eat well without sacrificing nutrition or taste. "I've been very worried, in the last year or two because of this fear of food," Child said at the forum.

"Although all of this information is available, people don't seem to pay attention to it." Following the calls to eat more oat bran, "we saw advertisements for diarrhea medicine," Child said, only half in jest. "Obviously, something is wrong." "I'm very much concerend that we continue to enjoy the pleasures of the table," she said. "If we don't have family meals, what happens to family life?" The average American diet gets 40 percent of its calories from fat. Federal guidelines recommend limiting fat to 30 percent of calories. An diet would then include five to six tablespoons of fat a day.

"That really is a lot that you can play with and thoroughly enjoy," Child said. UKIAH FOOT CLINIC Welcoming new patients House Calls Bio-mechanics Medicine surgery Gentle, caring attention Most insurances CUSTOM MOLDED INSOLES FOR MANY FOOT PROBLEMS! CALL FOR FREE CONSULTATION 462-3436 Podiatrists Art Vigor DPM and Susan Bishop-Vigor DPM M-T-TH 8-1 Wed 1-8 230-B Hospital Ukiah Drive-up Window HARRIS PHARMACY FREE DELIVERY NO 3-Dtyl NO 2-Tftyl N01 -Day) N01 Hour! Hourl Hour waiting for your praKriptioni to MMI Open Mon-Fri 8 AM-8 PM Sat9AM-6PM 707 S. DORA, UKIAH 462-7518 MEDICAL WEIGHT MANAGEMENT RICHARD J. POWELL, M.D. Endocrinology and Metabolism Balanced Deficit Dieting, Injection Programs, Medications, Supplemented Fasting STRICT MEDICAL SUPERVISION MAINTENANCE FOLLOW-UPS ON ALL PROGRAMS 750 South Dora St.

Ukiah 462-9424 Family Fun Shopping Package! Holiday shopping? Combine it with an overnight stay at JCos Kobks Codge $55.00 per room, families up to 4, $40,00 per adjoining room. to the finest shops and boutiques, including Macy's, Emporium, and Penney's. Enjoy Santa Rosa's festive Holiday atmosphere! and unwind walk to the movies or tour the beautiful Sonoma County countryside. dinner in either of the Lodges two restaurants; then have some genuine Holiday fun Ice skate at Snoopy's Redwood Empire Ice Arena! Catch their Chrlitmai Ice Show! some Holiday spirit: take a Christmas tree home! Cut your own at a Sonoma County Farm Trails ranch. The 39 farms listed feature Holiday goodies such as home-baked breads, Jams, and confections.

Complimentary maps to Sonoma County Farm Trails, parks and shopping centers provided to our guests. Kids menu, rollaway bids and cribs available. Kobles jCodp 925 Edwttrds Avmtu Santa ROM CA 707 545-63M or 800 255-6330 DUNGENESS CRAB Ready to crack and eat, crab lover's delight! Plucked from the Pacific and rushed ocean fresh to Raley's COCKTAIL SAUCE PRICES 600D: DEC. 4 DEC. 8,1990 Fresh Sealowt availability subject to weather fishing conditions.

REALTY presents a Christmas Home ffy-xtz SECOND PLACED THIRD PLACE FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL: 462-6514 OR STOP BY 350 GOBBI, UKIAH.