Sugar, Fat, Salt, and Physical Therapy

Poor nutrition has many negative effects on your body including heart diseases, cancers, obesity, and believe it or not it, your muscle response. The main focus of this post is to inform you of the effects poor nutrition habits has on your overall body, and what physical therapy can do to help you achieve your health goals.

Let’s start off by giving you an example of what I mean by “poor nutrition = a slower you.” So you walk into your favorite fast food restaurant, let’s say it’s McDonald’s (I’m using them as an example because it’s a pretty popular restaurant; there’s approximately 35,000 restaurants serving in 118 countries2) and you order it’s famous Big Mac with a side of fries and coke. More than likely you will feel logarithmic, and in need of a nap after your meal. The question is WHY?  These types of foods are highly processed, contain extra sugar, unhealthy fats, and are loaded with salt. I’ll give you a little background on what effects some of these have on the body.

EXTRA SUGAR

According to the American Heart Association, people are eating way more sugar than they need in their diets. The extra calories from sugar are not only causing people to gain weight, but they are also causing people to develop more heart diseases. There are 3 different types of sugars you can consume:

• Monosaccharide:The sweetest of the three, is a single sugar molecule but causes the greatest insulin spike. They are the easiest and fastest to digest, and the most common in “junk food”.8
• Disaccharide:This type of sugar is also sweet. It is made from a 2 sugar molecule, and also causes an increase in insulin release.8
• Polysaccharide:This sugar is made from of multiple bonds of sugar molecules. Unlike monosaccharides and disaccharides, this type of sugar is not very sweet, and does not create insulin spikes. This sugar is the ideal and healthiest source of carbohydrates.8  

What affect does sugar have on muscle responsiveness? If you are not familiar with the importance sugar (blood glucose) I’ll give you a short review.

“Blood glucose is the sugar that the bloodstream carries to all the cells in the body to supply energy.”

However the only way the glucose can enter the body, then to the muscles, is through the hormone called insulin. If the intake of sugar is more than the amount of insulin produced by your body, you are left with a surplus of sugar.3 There are different things that happen when you have a surplus of sugar. You will more than likely get what most people call a “sugar high”, which doesn’t last very long before your body counteracts the effect with the release of serotonin (a sleep-regulating hormone).9 Which explains the “sugar crash” you experience after the “sugar high”. There are so many negatives of consuming sugar, being more aware of the amounts one is consuming is important to avoid health problems.

UNHEALTHY FATS

If you didn’t already know, there are good fats and then there are bad fats. Our body needs certain fats for fuel, and fats also are also essential for fatty acids. There are four different types of fats:

• Saturated Fat: This type of fat is known as the “solid fat”, found in animal products (milk, cheese, and meat) and in some oils (palm, coconut). Eating an excess of saturated fat can raise your cholesterol.
• Trans Fat: This type of fat is popular in the food industry, especially for frying, baking, and processing snack foods. Trans fat is even worse at raising cholesterol levels, and it also plays a big factor in creating inflammation in the body.2
• Polyunsaturated Fat: This type of fat is considered a healthy type of fat. “The American Heart Association suggests that 8-10 percent of daily calories should come from polyunsaturated fats, and there is evidence that eating more polyunsaturated fat—up to 15 percent of daily calories—in place of saturated fat can lower heart disease risk.”6
• Monounsaturated Fats: This type of fat is also considered a good type of fat. Foods like avocados, nuts (ex. pecans, almonds, hazelnuts), and seeds (ex. pumpkin, sesame) have high concentrations of monounsaturated fat.5

Most unhealthy foods are loaded with “bad fats” that can clog arteries causing heart problems, high cholesterol, and even diabetes. When there’s a surplus of fat in your food you will store that excess fat in your body, causing you to gain weight, and a lot of the time it will lead to obesity. Obesity has so many negative affects on the body. People who are obese may experience the following:

• Fatigue when performing simple daily activities.1
• Joint pain, especially in the legs and back from increased stress that excess fat and weight put on the joints and muscles of the body.1
• Difficulty performing daily activities, such as walking, climbing stairs, or playing physically active games.1
• Frustration or depression about the condition and the inability to lose weight.1

According to WHO (World Health Organization), worldwide obesity has practically doubled since 1980! Monitoring our daily fat consumption is very important to avoid getting to this point. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, there needs to be a push to educate the children over the importance of healthier eating habits.

SALT (SODIUM)

Too much salt in your body can lead issues such as edema, kidney problems, stomach ulcers, and high blood pressure. An excess consumption of sodium will also alter the balance of fluid in your body. In order to maintain a homeostatic environment after you eat a meal loaded with salt, (sodium) your body will start to crave extra water. Your body will start to swell due to the water retention, leaving you with that bloated look. This could potentially lead to edema, the swelling of extra fluid in your body’s tissues. Too much sodium can also lead to development of kidney stones. Kidney stones develop when there is too much waste in too little liquid (water), allowing for crystals to start forming.4 If you are “lucky” you may form tiny stones that can easily travel down the urinary tract into the ureter. However, some stones are too big and have a hard time moving causing a painful backup of urine in the kidney, ureter, bladder, or the urethra.

I have linked a video produced by the National Kidney Foundation which gives a great short illustration on how important it is to drink water to avoid kidney stones.

So how can physical therapy help?

Move Forward, a physical therapy blog, has a great article going into more detail as to how a physical therapist can help with obesity, one of the effects of poor nutrition. I’ll list just a few ways they mentioned physical therapist can help you achieve your healthier lifestyle

• They can help you perform activities and exercises specialized towards your needs including those with physical disabilities.1
• Physical therapists can design a “heart-healthy” program that elevates your body’s metabolism which helps burn more calories.1
• They can teach you exercises that improve your strength. Building muscle can help burn calories, make daily activities easier, and helps relieve joint pain.1

As the number of heart attacks and heart surgeries rise, the need for cardiopulmonary therapy also increases. Most people unaware of cardiopulmonary physical therapy and it’s benefits.

So what is cardiopulmonary physical therapy?

“Cardiopulmonary Physical Therapy is physical therapy focused on the physical function of the cardiopulmonary to prevent cardiopulmonary disease and help those with cardiopulmonary disease function better.”10

This type of therapy specializes in treating patients that have pulmonary fibrosis, heart valve replacement, post coronary bypass surgery, and coronary stent placement. Not only is it a post-op treatment ,but it can also act as preventative therapy to strengthen the heart muscles reducing the risks of suffering from a heart attack.

Physical therapists are a great source to get you started on your path towards a healthier lifestyle.

References:

1Avruskin, A., PT, DPT. (n.d.). Physical Therapist's Guide to Obesity. Retrieved March 02, 2017, from http://www.moveforwardpt.com/symptomsconditionsdetail.aspx?cid=df77f3aa-573b-4d1e-893b-18c88e6cedce

2Chalabi, M., & Burn-Murdoch, J. (2013, July 17). McDonald's 34,492 restaurants: where are they? Retrieved March 8, 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jul/17/mcdonalds-restaurants-where-are-they

3Imatome-Yun, N. (2015, April 15). How Does Fat Affect Insulin Resistance and Diabetes? Retrieved March 08, 2017, from https://www.forksoverknives.com/fat-insulin-resistance-blood-sugar/

4Kidney Stones. (2016, January 25). Retrieved March 08, 2017, from https://www.kidney.org/atoz/content/kidneystones

5Madell, R., & Butler, N., RD,LD. (2016, January 20). Good Fat, Bad Fats, and Heart Disease. Retrieved March 1, 2017, from http://www.healthline.com/health/heart-disease/good-fats-vs-bad-fats

6Mozaffarian, D., Micha, R., & Wallace, S. (march 23, 2010). Effects on Coronary Heart Disease of Increasing Polyunsaturated Fat in Place of Saturated Fat: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. PLOS: Medicine. Retrieved March 8, 2017, from http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000252

7Mozaffarian,D., Rimm, E. B., King, I. B., Lawler, R. L., McDonald, G. B., & Levy, W. C. (2004). Trans Fatty acids and systemic inflammation in heart failure 1-4. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 80(6), dec, 1521-1525. Retrieved March 08, 2017, from http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/80/6/1521.full.pdf html

8R. (2015, April 14). Is Sugar Bad For A Bodybuilder. Retrieved March 08, 2017, from https://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/topicoftheweek69.htm

9Voss, G. (2014, June 12). What. Retrieved March 01, 2017, from Voss, Gretchen. "What Sugar Does to Your Body." Women's Health. Women'sHealth, 12 June 2014. Web. 01 Mar. 2017

10The Health Benefits of Cardiopulmonary Physical Therapy. (2013, March 12). Retrieved March 10, 2017, from http://www.lifefitnesspt.com/blog/tag/the-health-benefits-of-cardiopulmonary-physical-therapy/