5 Nutrients Your'e Not Getting Enough Of

Vitamin D

This vitamin's biggest claim to fame is its role in strengthening your skeleton. But vitamin D isn't a one-trick nutrient: A study in Circulation found that people deficient in D were up to 80 percent more likely to suffer a heart attack or stroke. The reason? D may reduce inflammation in your arteries.

Hit the mark: First, ask your doctor to test your blood levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D. You need to be above 30 nanograms per milliliter. Come up short? Get out in the sun for 30 minutes and enjoy the outdoors or take 1,400 IU of vitamin D daily from a supplement and a multivitamin.


Magnesium

This lightweight mineral is a tireless multitasker: It's involved in more than 300 bodily processes. Plus, a study in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition found that low levels of magnesium may increase your blood levels of C-reactive protein, a key marker of heart disease.

Hit the mark: Fortify your diet with more magnesium-rich foods, such as halibut and navy beans. Then hit the supplement aisle: Few people can reach 400 mg through diet alone, so ingest some insurance in the form of a 250 mg supplement. You want a product that uses magnesium citrate, the form best absorbed by your body.


Vitamin B12

Consider B12 the guardian of your gray matter: In a British study, older people with the lowest levels of B12 lost brain volume at a faster rate over a span of 5 years than those with the highest levels.

Hit the mark: You'll find B12 in lamb and salmon, but the most accessible source may be fortified cereals. That's because the B12 in meat is bound to proteins, and your stomach must produce acid to release and absorb it. Eat a bowl of 100 percent B12-boosted cereal and milk every morning and you'll be covered.


Potassium

Without this essential mineral, your heart couldn't beat, your muscles wouldn't contract, and your brain couldn't comprehend this sentence. Why? Potassium helps your cells use glucose for energy.

Hit the mark: Half an avocado contains nearly 500 mg potassium, while one banana boasts roughly 400 mg. Not a fan of either fruit? Pick up some potatoe, a single large spud is packed with 1,600 mg.


Iodine

Your thyroid gland requires iodine to produce the hormones T3 and T4, both of which help control how efficiently you burn calories. That means insufficient iodine may cause you to gain weight and feel fatigued.

Hit the mark: Sprinkling more salt on top of an already sodium-packed diet isn't a great idea, but iodine can also be found in a nearly sodium-free source: milk. Animal feed is fortified with the element, meaning it travels from cows to your cereal bowl. Not a milk person? Eat at least one serving of eggs or yogurt a day, both are good sources of iodine.


For more free information about living and staying healthy visit www.​premierhealthwe​llness.​com and look under the Wellness section.

Prevent Diabetes

If you're at risk for diabetes, here are some helpful strategies for decreasing your odds of getting it.

DIET
Monitor your diet
For most people, carbohydrates (especially complex carbohydrates that are high in fiber) should form the bulk of the diet. Protein foods (meat, soy foods, and dairy) should make up 10 to 20 percent of daily calories. Choose protein foods that are lower in fat, especially saturated fat. That means emphasizing fish, poultry, beans, and low-fat or no-fat dairy products.

Stick to a schedule
Avoid delaying or skipping meals and binge eating, all of which can play havoc with blood-sugar levels.

Shed some pounds
At least 80 percent of people who develop type 2 diabetes are overweight. Slim down and you may avoid the disease. Even if you can't get to your ideal weight, a 10-pound loss can dramatically lower blood-sugar levels.

EXERCISE
Move it
Exercise improves your body's sensitivity to insulin, aids glucose control, and can help you lose weight. Brisk walking an hour a day could cut your risk of developing diabetes in half.

MEDICAL OPTIONS

Get a diabetes test
In order to determine whether or not a patient has pre-diabetes or diabetes, health care providers conduct a Fasting Plasma Glucose Test (FPG) or an Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT). Either test can be used to diagnose pre-diabetes or diabetes. The American Diabetes Association recommends the FPG because it is easier, faster, and less expensive to perform.

With the FPG test, a fasting blood glucose level between 100 and 125 mg/dl signals pre-diabetes. A person with a fasting blood glucose level of 126 mg/dl or higher has diabetes.

In the OGTT test, a person's blood glucose level is measured after a fast and two hours after drinking a glucose-rich beverage. If the two-hour blood glucose level is between 140 and 199 mg/dl, the person tested has pre-diabetes. If the two-hour blood glucose level is at 200 mg/dl or higher, the person tested has diabetes.

NATURAL HEALTH
Protect yourself with E
In a study, men with the lowest blood levels of vitamin E were found to be about four times more likely to develop diabetes than men with the highest levels. Some experts recommend taking a supplement of 200 to 400 mg of vitamin E daily.

LIFESTYLE
Lower your stress
Excess stress, in combination with poor coping skills, can raise your blood-sugar levels.

Fight Stress

Some days it seems as if life throws you stress left, right, up, and down. It can drain your energy, destroy your good mood, and challenge your outlook. Those are the obvious mental repercussions.

Science has shown that stress causes your body to release hormones that raise blood pressure, speed up your heart and breathing, halt digestion, cause a surge in blood sugar, and more. When stress is constant, such as the stress caused by money problems, bad relationships, or a burdensome job -- this constant physical reaction can significantly raise your risk of colds, diabetes, heart disease, back troubles, and almost every other major health concern. Indeed, stress is emerging as one of the principal contributors to poor health in modern countries.

There's more, stress often leads to unhealthy habits. A really bad day pushes you to the nearest doughnut or ice-cream store. It saps your willingness to exercise or eat well or have fun. It causes you to tune out the world, to sit in front of the television and ignore your relationships.

And yet stress can be relatively easy to manage. All it takes is a mental commitment to it and an open mind. These approaches to stress management work. Give several a try.


Schedule six to eight hours of free time each week
Use the time to daydream, read a novel, take a nap, see a movie, or generally relax in whatever way feels best to you. This is your time. Guard it as closely as you do your PIN code for the ATM.

Walk the stress off
Stress hormones prepare your body for a physical response. A healthy way to respond to a rush of stress, then, is to get physical. Go for a brisk 15-minute walk and burn off your nervous energy. Use the time to think through the issue and return to a positive, peaceful frame of mind.

Switch exercises
If exercise isn't helping to lower your stress level, switch from a repetitive type of exercise to a type that engages your mind. Sometimes workouts are not effective at reducing stress because we use the time to think about all the stressful things we have going on. Step aerobics, very active spinning classes (where you change positions a lot), and circuit training or interval training (where you alternate different activities) prevent your mind from drifting, providing the mental break you need. A good option at home is dancing. Play your favorite music, and really get into it. Involve your whole family to benefit one and all, and add a great bonding experience into the bargain.

Take on just one new activity at a time
When you try to master too many new activities at once, you can easily feel overwhelmed. Both at work and at home, take on new commitments with care. When your job is pushing the envelope, don't do more at home. Don't buy a new house and simultaneously take on higher car payments. When your home life is stressful and changing, don't quit your job or change careers.

Unclench your muscles
Until you do this exercise, you won't even know how tense you really are. It's called progressive relaxation and it works like this: Starting with your toes and working your way up, clench each muscle for 10 seconds, then thoroughly relax them. The whole exercise shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes, and you'll feel as if you've just undergone a massage.

When you're ready to rip out your hair, phone a friend
People who have strong social ties live longer. A conversation with a close romantic partner, friend, or family member helps prevent stress hormones from triggering high blood pressure and other health complications.

Every night before bed, take five minutes to look over your day
Instead of asking yourself, "How did my day go?" ask "How did I handle my day, and how does that compare with six months ago?" Focusing on what you can control, your response to stress, will help you feel more in control.

Healthier Kids

For both boys and girls, it is important to engage in exercises that require walking, jumping, running, skipping, hopping, catching, and climbing to aid in developing their balance, agility, and coordination. Movements such as these will also allow for their natural growth spurts and patterns to occur.

A minimum of 4 days per week of cardiovascular activities are recommended. Kids should move for 30 minutes per day, and up to 7 days a week is acceptable. These activities can be done through group sports or as general play.

Check your local YMCA and park districts for classes and events. Whatever activities you choose, supervision and proper instruction are always recommended. It's okay to ask your children what they like to do - discover what they consider to be fun. This is also a way of finding out what sports or activities they might naturally excel at. Watch out for those future Olympians! If they can't decide, feel free to suggest a daily activity and provide them with the necessary environment.

Family Exercise

At one time during the week, everyone in your family should participate in one family activity for 30 minutes.

Generally, you can do whatever you want for your weekly family fun as long as it involves the entire family and is healthy, and you have a good time. It should be something easy that puts the family together and begins to reinforce good habits around this weekly event.

Go to a park with a soccer ball and have a family soccer game. Regardless of where you live, there are plenty of park areas where you and your entire family can meet and do lots of things. If you can't find any goals, use some trashcans or plastic cones to make goals, and have a blast. Everyone loves to kick a ball.

Spend as much time as you like playing, but no less than 30 minutes. Have scoring contests with one another, or have a parents versus kids game. Be creative, and you will have fun and lots of laughs. And don't forget to give yourself and your family small rewards for their healthy efforts; maybe a trip to the movie theater or some extra time staying up on the weekends. It will go a long way.

If it's raining or too cold outside, find an indoor rock climbing wall and have the whole family try to climb. Rock climbing develops hand grip and all upper body muscles, and it's a great confidence booster. Climbing on an indoor wall is safe and fun for the whole family, but be sure to have proper instruction before starting.

The earlier children are introduced to physical activity, the more inclined they will be to make exercise a part of their personal lifestyles as they grow and mature.

The Power of Sleep

Millions of chronically sleep-deprived Americans are putting their health, quality of life and even length of life in jeopardy. New evidence shows why getting enough z’s may trump all your other priorities.

Live Longer and Healthier

About 40% of Americans get less than 7 hours of shut-eye on weeknights and for many of them it’s taking a toll. The link between sleep and health, and bad sleep and disease is becoming clearer and clearer. For example, sleep duration has declined from a median of eight hours in the 1950s to seven in recent years. At the same time, high blood pressure has become an increasing problem. Blood pressure and heart rate are typically at their lowest levels during sleep; people who sleep less tend to have higher blood pressure. The association between hypertension and sleep duration could explain other findings linking lack of sleep to increased risk of heart attack, diabetes, weight gain and other problems.

Sleeping better may help you fight off illness. When people are sleep deprived, there are higher levels of stress hormones in their bodies and an increase in inflammation, both of which can decrease immune function.

Simply stated, people who sleep well live longer. So say good night sooner and it may help you stay active and vital even when you're old.

Look Better, Feel Better

People limited to only 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night for several nights not only experience more physical ailments, such as headaches and stomach problems, but also undergo changes in metabolism similar to those occurring with normal aging. It’s no wonder we look terrible after a sleepless night.

One of the reasons may be growth hormones. They’re essential to keeping us looking good as we get older. Levels of the hormone drop dramatically between the ages of 20 and 60. When you have high levels of the hormone, you have muscle mass, better skin—you look good. You want to keep your growth hormones as high as possible, and the number one best way to do that is sleep. When you don’t look good, you don’t feel sexy, and your relationship can suffer. So getting more sleep can rev up your love life too.

Be Happier, Less Stressed

More than half of adults surveyed by the National Sleep Foundation in 2005 said they experienced insomnia at least a few nights a week. People with insomnia produce higher rates of stress hormones than others. This puts their bodies in a hyperaroused state that can make it difficult for them to wind down and sleep. The inability to sleep causes more stress, which can have a devastating impact.

People who don’t sleep get depressed, and depression causes insomnia, so it’s a vicious cycle. But we know the inverse is true: that more and better sleep can make you feel happier.

Lose a Few Pounds

It should come as no surprise that the trend toward shorter sleep duration in this country has coincided with an increasing trend toward obesity. Recent studies suggest that people who get inadequate amounts of sleep are more likely to gain weight. With sleep deprivation, we see a reduction in metabolism and an increase in appetite. Inadequate sleep lowers levels of leptin, the hormone that causes you to feel full, while increasing levels of ghrelin, the hormone that makes you feel hungry.

Sleep deprivation influences your food choices, making you crave high-carb and high-sugar foods. This is because sleep loss decreases insulin sensitivity, putting the sleep-deprived at higher risk for developing type 2 diabetes. So sleep more and it may be easier to fight that cookie craving, and wake up a whole new you.