The Q&A Files
The Q&A Files drops A Wellness Explosion
💥 BOOM! Attention Wellness Warriors. The game changer you have been waiting for is finally here. Say hello to “The Q&A Files,” where wellness meets revolution and your questions lead to new discoveries. Spearheaded by Trisha Jamison, your host, a Board Certified Functional Nutritionist. Cohost Dr. Jeff Jamison, a Board Certified Family Physician, and featured guest, Tony Overbay, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. This podcast blends three diverse perspectives to tackle your questions on health, nutrition, medicine, mental wellness, and relationships. Dive into a world of expert insights and actionable advice, all sparked by your curiosity. Tune in, ignite your wellness journey, and join the Wellness Warrior community.
The Q&A Files
29. Heartfelt Family Moments and Crucial Stroke Prevention Insights
Ever wondered what it's like to face the challenges of parenting and grandparenting? This week on the Q&A Files, we share an emotional visit to Yakima to see our daughter Alyssa, reflecting on the strong bonds and heartfelt moments that keep families united. Dr. Jeff and I delve into our personal experiences, which set the stage for addressing the rising incidence of strokes among younger adults. We explore crucial factors like obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure, and stress the importance of recognizing early signs to improve health outcomes.
Later in the episode, we provide essential insights into stroke prevention and management. Learn the differences between transient ischemic attacks (TIAs) and major strokes, and why immediate medical intervention is vital. Hear a compelling case study of a patient who avoided severe consequences thanks to quick ER action. We also share practical advice on adopting healthy eating habits and the benefits of the Mediterranean diet, while emphasizing the importance of regular exercise and mindful eating for heart health. This episode blends deeply personal stories with practical health advice to enrich your well-being and keep you informed.
We would love to hear from you! Send questions to trishajamisoncoaching@gmail.com!
Hello and welcome to the Q&A file, the ultimate health and wellness playground. I'm your host, tricia Jamieson, a board-certified functional nutritionist and lifestyle practitioner, ready to lead you through a world of health discoveries. Here we dive into a tapestry of disease prevention to nutrition, exercise, mental health and building strong relationships, all spiced with diverse perspectives. It's not just a podcast, it's a celebration of health, packed with insights and a twist of fun. Welcome aboard the Q&A Files, where your questions ignite our vibrant discussions and lead to a brighter you. Welcome back everyone to another exciting episode of the Q&A Files. I'm your host, tricia, and I am so happy to be here with Dr Jeff.
Speaker 2:Hi everybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we'll see Tony next week. So I just wanted to say how much we are loving your questions. They have been extremely thought-provoking and we love answering them. So please continue to send them our way. And for those of you who have sent in questions, you know that we love answering them. So please continue to send them our way. And for those of you who have sent in questions, you know that we will answer them. So, dr J, what do you want to celebrate today with?
Speaker 2:Oh, I have a really good one.
Speaker 2:So just recently we went Tricia and our son Brayden, went to Yakima Yakima, washington, which is where our daughter Alyssa now lives and I was happy to take Brayden from his church camp and fly him to Yakima from Spokane and then flew Tricia's mom back with me on Saturday and everything went really nicely for that.
Speaker 2:But the thing as my celebration there is that I got to see Alyssa, and Alyssa is our number two daughter. She has four children and a wonderful husband and she's been going through some changes, moving to Yakima recently and it's been a little bit of a tough transition for her. But it was really amazing when I got to Yakima, after we landed, she was there to pick me up, me and Brayden up from the airport and she ran out of the car and gave me a great big hug and then she whispered in my ear. She says Dad, I love you and I love your dad hugs. And you know it makes me emotional even just to even talk about it because she, she and all of them, all of our kids, mean so much to us. We just love them all. Anyway, that's my celebration.
Speaker 1:Well, that's not fair. You make me emotional too, and so, um, oh my goodness, that just shows how much we miss our children, and they're not in spokane anymore and a lot of them have moved away. And it's hard, it's hard as a grandparent to uh, you, you want kids go through, changes you want that too. It's important, but it's a drag.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we want that. Yeah, you know, and kids go through different times. That they are, you know. Even when they're little kids they go through times where they like one parent more than the other and it seems like you can never do enough for one, and then the other one is just so grateful. And then there are times, even as they grow older and become adults, where the parents are in the doghouse for whatever reason. But our love for our children and I just think that that is one of the greatest blessings of my life, of our lives is to have children, even though sometimes they're hard.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, so I already shared that celebration that I got to go over there and spend time with them. But it was so fun and I think one of the biggest celebrations I have is I got a call from Corey, who is Alyssa's husband, and she said, mom, when are you coming over? And that just meant so much to me that my son-in-law first of all I love that he calls me mom and also that he wanted me to come over and on our way home yesterday he called and he said okay, the next time you come, you have to stay for two weeks. It's too hard to only have you here for a few days. You have to stay for two weeks. It's too hard to only have you here for a few days. So you have to stay for two weeks. And then he said that Brayden, his time expires, but yours never does. But the funny thing is Brayden and Kehlani she's seven, they just have this most adorable little bond, and so I don't think she feels that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Anyway, that was just wonderful. So thank you for sharing that, and that was just. That was wonderful, and you made me emotional too. So now we have to start with a very serious subject.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's a good subject, though I think it's a lot of things A lot of people will really like to hear about it, so go ahead and tell the question.
Speaker 1:Okay, today's question comes from Emily and she writes I've always thought of strokes as something only older people had to worry about, but lately I've been hearing more about younger people having strokes. Why is this happening and what should younger adults be aware of to prevent strokes and recognize their early warning signs? First of all, what a great question. So we're going to dive into this topic, as it's incredibly important for everyone to be aware of Now. If you think only older adults need to worry about a stroke, that's you're right. That's incorrect, because stroke risk is actually increasing among young people, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, and the rise is linked to factors such as obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure, which are becoming more and more prevalent in younger population. So a stroke occurs when blood flow to the brain is restricted, causing brain cells to die. This can happen due to a blood clot or a ruptured blood vessel.
Speaker 1:Jeff, in just a few minutes, can go into the types of strokes that there are, because there are several, but recognizing the signs of a stroke can quickly and significantly improve the chances of recovery and reduce the risk of long-term complications. But I wanted to just talk about the acronym called FAST, and FAST comes into play and it stands for F is the face drooping, a is arm weakness, s is speech difficulties and T is time to call 911. If you notice any of these symptoms in someone, it's crucial to act quickly. So, for example, if one side of the face droops or an arm is weak or numb, these can be clear indicators. Similarly, speech difficulties like slurring or the inability to repeat a simple sentence are also red flags. And let's not forget, there are additional warning signs, particularly in women. Symptoms like nausea, vomiting, confusion, general weaknesses and memory problems can also signal a stroke, and it's vital to be aware of these signs to ensure timely treatment. So, jeff, I'm excited to learn more about what you know about strokes.
Speaker 2:Well, I just really appreciate the way you started, that you gave some of the important first steps and things to talk about which I think you did a great job with that. There's God. Strokes are really interesting. First of all, I have to say that there is a lot of truth in that the age of strokes has really come down, and I don't know that this is. I don't have any studies to back this up, but my perception, as I've been caring for patients before, during and after the COVID pandemic, that there seems to be some correlation to people that have had exposure to COVID or even the COVID vaccine, that there's been an increase in blood clots.
Speaker 2:Okay. So these blood clots can end up in different places. Most notably would be the lungs, called a pulmonary embolism, the heart, of course, being a heart attack. And the other one that's the one we're talking about is our topic today, and that's strokes. And if you get a clot that travels to the brain and it shuts off the blood flow to a certain area, it's going to affect that and kill brain cells. And Tricia mentioned that there's different types of strokes and I'm just going to mention two most important ones. And that's a transient ischemic attack Some people call it a mini stroke and then there's also the cerebral vascular accident, which is the major stroke.
Speaker 2:Okay, so what's the difference? The transient ischemic attack or mini-stroke, basically, where stroke symptoms happen, but they are resolved, or mostly resolved within 24 hours. And there's an important blood clot busting agent that your body has, naturally, that if it notices this happening, it may go after that particular clot, clear it up, and then your symptoms resolve. And that's a really amazing thing if that happens. If the clot's small enough, it will work. If it's big, then it's not going to do it. Now, that's why, as Tricia was mentioning, the speed at which these are addressed and you get to medical care is super, super important because the sooner that happens you can be evaluated for a clot-busting agent that can be either injected into you or you can have a clot actually physically removed by interventional means. If you get to the medical center, that can handle that in rapid time.
Speaker 2:So it really is important that if you see any of those things like Tricia said facial drooping no-transcript. They're both sides of their face smile. That's normal. But if only one side smiles and the other side does not, that's a droop. If one eye blinks and the other doesn't blink, that's a droop. If you have other numbness or tingling if they explain that they've got swelling or a feeling of fullness in a side, that can mean numbness or a change in their sensation in their face or other areas of the body.
Speaker 1:Can a person that is having the stroke? Can they feel those symptoms? Or is it somebody that is looking at them? They are the ones that recognize.
Speaker 2:They can often feel it too, yes, and there are times that some people don't, but most often you feel it, and especially if there's confusion, which is a really a big side effect or a problem, that happens with strokes or speech difficulties. Speech difficulty, especially if you have a stroke on the left side of the brain, speech is almost always a factor or a problem. People have trouble with word search, people have trouble with forming words. They can actually say you know, they tell us later if they have some resolution of that, that the whole thing they wanted to say, and then they just couldn't say it.
Speaker 1:They couldn't find the word.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they couldn't find it. In fact, I had a patient this week that went to the ER with the sole symptom of difficulty finding words and he did have a stroke in his left side of his brain and that caused some difficulty with his speech. Of course he got clot-busting agents and that resolved, so he's back to almost normal at this point, although if he had not gotten the clot-busting agent it would have been a full stroke. But since it wasn't, it became a transient ischemic attack.
Speaker 1:How long do you think people have from the time that they have a stroke? I know you said it was like 24 hours, but I mean like to really prevent.
Speaker 2:No, 24 hours is how you tell if a transient ischemic attack or TIA, if that resolves on its own within 24 hours. That's the definition of a TIA, right, okay, but you really need to get in and get this addressed as soon as possible, certainly within the first couple of hours.
Speaker 1:Okay, perfect.
Speaker 2:Okay, and so sometimes that's too long and they can't do anything, and sometimes it's good enough to get in that kind of time.
Speaker 1:So don't wait, you've got any other things going on. You just get in the car and you go.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So just to recap facial droop, arm weakness, sensation changes or cognitive or speech changes these are really important. Now, if a person has slowly, slowly getting less, their memory is going or they're slowly having problems with things, that's not a stroke. Strokes are emergent, acute, immediate things. So this would be an immediate change, not something that comes on slowly generally speaking.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So what can you do to prevent them or what are the things that we look for? Okay, so in this gentleman that I was talking about just a minute ago that I saw this week, he went, he was worked up by the emergency room, he was treated and then he was sent home. Now, he was sent home, he didn't spend any time in the hospital, because anytime that we can get people out of the hospital now we try our best to do that, even though it seems like things are not completed, and that's true. So the ER physicians and the physicians that treat people in the hospital depend on primary care and neurology and cardiology to do their part as an outpatient to help people get worked up. So, for instance, this gentleman he had an EKG, which is an electrical conduction system monitoring while he was in the hospital, but that didn't show anything abnormal at the time, and so I checked that and I noticed when I was listening to him, that his heart was irregular. So he had an irregular beat. Now what's irregular mean? That means normally you have a lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub kind of beat, and his was going lub-dub-dub-dub, lub-dub-dub-dub-dub-dub-dub-dub. So it was very irregular in the way that it was beating and it was actually beating too fast as well. It was beating about 125 beats a minute where it should be between 60 and 100. So I knew there was a problem right there. So we did a new EKG tracing on him and he was in atrial fibrillation with what's called a rapid ventricular response.
Speaker 2:What's atrial fibrillation? This is one of the main causes of strokes, and so that's why I bring it up, because atrial fibrillation is an abnormal heart rhythm where the blood flow through the heart becomes abnormal and it can cause some pooling or swirling of the blood in the heart that a clot can form. And if a clot forms in the left side of the heart, it can go straight to the brain. So those are the things that we watch for, and this particular gentleman had what we call paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, which means he didn't have atrial fibrillation all the time or they would have caught it in the ER. So he has atrial fibrillation that comes and goes.
Speaker 2:So I started him on medicine to help him get that rate under control and then send him to cardiology, and I also did a ultrasound of his carotid arteries Now carotid arteries if you've got plaque buildup in the carotid arteries Now carotid arteries. If you've got plaque buildup in the carotid arteries, which are in the neck. If there's plaque in there that breaks away, that can flow downstream to the brain and then become a stroke, and so that's what we want to make sure we can prevent if that is a possibility. So we check that. That's one of the things that they depend on us to do as an outpatient, because often ultrasound isn't available to do that in an emergent basis there.
Speaker 1:Hey, well, perfect. So we've got, when somebody's having a stroke, the steps to take during that time. Let's talk about prevention. I want to have you talk about some things. I'll share some thoughts as well, but I know monitoring blood sugar is huge. Quitting smoking, limiting alcohol, getting quality sleep is really important.
Speaker 2:Why don't you just keep going? You're doing great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and managing blood pressure are all very important steps to lower your risk of strokes, but are there some things that you'd like to elaborate on on some of those? And, of course, eating a heart, healthy diet and movement is really critical as well.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm going to reiterate what you just said. Basically is that the most important things you can do is try your best to live a healthy lifestyle. Is that the most important things you can do is try your best to live a healthy lifestyle, because those are things you can control. You can't control things like your heritage, your genetic makeup. These are things that can put you at higher risk If you've had a family member that's had strokes, or if you have family members that have heart disease and cancer. Those are things you just can't control. That part in you you can control. Your weight you can control if you smoke.
Speaker 2:Smoking is probably one of the biggest risk factors. For people with a heart or any cardiovascular problem, smoking is right up there with one of the biggest risk factors. So, if you smoke, decrease it. If you can't quit, and if you can quit, do it's really important to get rid of smoking as best you can. That means all forms. I'm not just talking about the actual smoking of tobacco. I'm talking about using chewing tobacco. I'm talking about vaping. I'm talking about all of it. Okay, all of those things have cardiovascular impact. So, yes, get rid of those. The other thing you talked about was high blood pressure. We call high blood pressure the silent killer, for a reason.
Speaker 1:Talked about that a couple of weeks ago too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, high blood pressure, especially sustained high blood pressure over a long period of time, can cause a thing called left ventricular hypertrophy, which means let's just imagine you were a weightlifter and you lifted weights only on your left arm. Well, your left arm would get stronger and bigger than your right arm because you were exercising it most. Well, if your blood pressure is high, the left side of your heart has to get thicker and push harder against the blood that is in the blood system with each beat. So it has to push stronger and harder and over time it quits doing it so well. So when you get older, the strength of your heart will eventually fail and you can't give the same push to your heart that you used to. That leads to congestive heart failure and where the pump doesn't work as well.
Speaker 2:And the other part is that the atria, the top part of the heart which helps with increasing your blood, push out with each beat. If you don't have the atria working right, then you don't get as much blood with each stroke of the heart. So that can create clotting systems in the atria, like I talked about earlier, and that can send blood clots to the brain. So there's a whole bunch of a cascade of events that can happen because you didn't take care of your blood pressure. Okay, so blood pressure is so important, it can if you don't take care of it, it can cause these other things I just talked about. They seem kind of complicated, but they cause a downward spiral of your ability to prevent them.
Speaker 1:And if you haven't heard our last episode on blood pressure, please feel free to go back and listen to that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we got to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So preventing blood pressure elevation over time is really a biggie. Cholesterol Cholesterol is a risk factor. It is a risk factor that we are watching. In recent years it's become a little less of a high risk, but it is something that we as doctors and we like to try and control. So that is something that we focus on. So that may be something your doctor may focus on a lot, but probably the best things you can do are lifestyle prevention factors.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So that goes into making sure that you exercise regularly and you eat a heart-healthy diet. That can make a big difference. So what does that even look like? But a heart-healthy diet can definitely minimize your stroke. Healthy diet can definitely minimize your stroke, and it's never too late to focus on eating healthier.
Speaker 1:It's hard, we get it. We like treats, we like to go out to eat and have you know our favorite foods, but sometimes we have to start focusing on our health to improve our longevity. So that's going to be really essential. So diet and lifestyle changes are essential for our CVD prevention and treatment cardiovascular disease. So what you eat is important to your heart because it directly impacts factors like diabetes, high blood pressure just talked about that and something else Jeff just talked about is elevated cholesterol, and even though it may not be as prevalent as it has been in the past, it's still something that we can focus on. And excess abdominal fat is critical.
Speaker 1:So what should a heart-healthy diet look like? I always tell my clients to think about a rainbow when you look at a rainbow. The brighter the color of foods, the more antioxidants and flavonoids they may contain. So what is an antioxidant? More antioxidants and flavonoids they may contain. So what is an antioxidant? What are flavonoids? Antioxidants help protect your cells from damage caused by free radicals. If you cut an apple in half and you leave it there for a couple hours, it starts to turn brown and wrinkly. Well, that is the same kind of thing that happens to our cells. Those are free radicals, and so what it does is it shores up that cell wall and it makes it stronger. But what are flavonoids? Flavonoids are? They are anti-inflammatory properties that can help improve health heart health, brain health. It's really, they're really important. But what is the number one culprit in this whole?
Speaker 2:scenario Wait, wait, I know, I know, I know.
Speaker 1:What, what, what.
Speaker 2:Sugar.
Speaker 1:Yes, sugar. Sugar is the number one inflammatory food, especially high fructose corn syrup that causes significant inflammation in the body. It's cheap and it's sweeter than normal sugar, but boy is it deadly. And if you look on the back of an ingredient list and if you see HFCS high fructose corn syrup and anything that ends with OSE, that is what you're gonna see in your ingredient list. That is, a sugar OSE. Anything that ends fructose, maltose, lactose, glucose all those are sugars. So the first ingredients have the largest amounts of the ingredient down to the least the further you get to the bottom. And if you also read partially hydrogenated vegetable oil or hydrogenated vegetable oil, that is a trans fat and that is very, very damaging to your heart as well.
Speaker 2:So if you look at it that goes right into the inflammatory pieces that you were talking about.
Speaker 1:Yes, so inflammatory.
Speaker 2:And inflammation is a major reason that people develop diabetes, and that's a part that we hadn't really talked much about yet. But go ahead and keep going. I love where you're going with this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so well. You don't have to follow a specific diet program to achieve a heart healthy eating. What I teach my clients is I teach them how to fish, I teach them the principles behind eating a healthy lifestyle and creating those nice steps to incorporate into your life so you can have a healthy lifestyle.
Speaker 2:You know it's interesting you bring that up because I had a patient yesterday who wanted me to give her a diet plan and who said you know, just tell me what foods to eat and I'll just follow the plan and I'll get that. Give me the recipe.
Speaker 1:And I said well, I said, you know, just tell me what foods to eat and I'll just follow the scan. I always get that. I'll get that. Give me the recipe.
Speaker 2:And I said well, I said if that was the case, you would have done this already. Right, because you can do this yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Everyone knows what foods they should eat and what foods they shouldn't eat, and this is not rocket science anymore. We know that. Even though I didn't get very much nutrition in medical school, I've learned a lot from Tricia as she's gone through the things with her, so I'm grateful to her for that. But, oh my gosh, if there's a choice between vegetables and French fries, which one's the more healthy? I mean, it's pretty clear. So you've got to make sure that you spend at least as much time preparing your food and looking at what you're going to eat as you do getting ready for work in the morning or laying out your clothes or doing your hair, or whatever it is that you do that you find important. You've got to make food important to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that that's so important. Yeah, I love that that's so important. The other part is just like Jeff said most people know what to do but you've got to be your own advocate because no one else is looking out for your health and so you have to look out for your own health. But I do have people ask me is there a particular diet that may be better than another? Ask me, is there a particular diet that may be better than another? And I'm going to say that I think for probably heart health, because it has a lot of the really great fats in it is the Mediterranean diet. I think that with that diet there's a lot of great heart health benefits and they have a very similar guideline to follow. So, besides focusing on what you eat, it's also ensuring you get the recommended 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity exercise, which is, I call it HIT, high intensity interval training, and those sessions of exercise really, really important, and we talk about high blood pressure, anything like that.
Speaker 1:You always want to make sure when you start a exercise routine, you always talk to your doctor first. That is highly critical to make sure that you are healthy enough to start an exercise program. But walking most people can just get out and walk, even if you park your car the furthest away from the grocery store, that you have to walk and then take your cart a little bit further, you know, to grab your car, to put your food in your car. There we go. Those kinds of things rather than take an escalator, take the stairs, just being mindful of what can you do to have more movement. If you're talking on the phone, get up and walk around while you're talking on the phone, be doing your laundry, do anything to just get out. We have such a sedentary lifestyle anymore that it really is causing a lot of issues.
Speaker 1:But I have a lot of people ask so what foods Now? We've talked a lot in the previous episodes of eating healthy. What does that look like? So I'm gonna go through those again. So it's focusing on eating whole grains, a variety of fruits and vegetables. Remember the rainbow the higher, the more brighter the color you've got your raspberries, blueberries. Those are all full of antioxidants and that also fights cancers, and so those are things that we're going to really want to pay attention to Healthy proteins like nuts, seafood, legumes, lean meats. Be careful of the processed meats. Those aren't the meats that I'm talking about.
Speaker 2:What I can't have hot dogs.
Speaker 1:Right. They actually say you don't want to have more than two hot dogs in a month. In a year In a year. That's even better because of the nitrates and all of the things that they actually the processing, that, the over-processed foods that we consume every day. So also use liquid, non-tropical vegetable oils like olive oil and avocado oil. Any foods that are high in monounsaturated fats or polyunsaturated fats are super good.
Speaker 1:Now that's another episode. That we can talk about are just the fats, the healthy fats, but a couple of them to stay away from are safflower oil, canola oil, rapeseed oil. Those are really bad oils that you don't want to incorporate into your diet. Another just key thing is nuts go rancid quickly, so once you open that package they can go rancid. So you want to make sure you put your nuts and seeds in the refrigerator, and if the nuts or oil is rancid they go into free radicals, and so that is something that you don't want what's a free radical?
Speaker 1:again. So a free radical is when we talk about an apple. You cut an apple in half and it starts to deteriorate that apple. That's what happens to your cells Is that the cell wall starts deteriorating.
Speaker 2:So it's an oxidation process.
Speaker 1:Yep, your cells are oxidizing and it's creating that cell wall to be less stable. And knowing what is to avoid is limit your high sodium foods, which can contribute to high blood pressure and other health complications. Talked about this a little bit, but reducing alcohol consumption and choose lean protein over fatty meats and avoid ultra processed foods and reduce your added sugar. So I think of these as fake foods. If you've got a lot of chemicals in your food, if you look at an ingredient list and there's like so many different ingredients and you can't even pronounce most of them, what is that? Those are all chemicals. You don't want those in your body and so, if anything, if a food has more than five ingredients probably need to take a look at what you're eating Anyway. So it's focusing on your healthy fats is also critical. Those healthy fats lower your LDL levels and reduce inflammation.
Speaker 1:Inflammation is such a key component to health. When you have inflammation, it causes a myriad of health issues and by reducing that inflammation, it helps support your brain health and your heart. So many different things, and the examples that we can incorporate are avocados, nuts, seeds, olive oil, fatty fish and seafood, and we want to have the wild caught, not farmed, and that's going to be really important. So making these dietary changes can be definitely challenging, but starting small can be very, very helpful. So try incorporating one heart healthy change at a time, like replacing a sugary snack with a fruit or some nuts, and experiment with new foods and recipes. So cook with a friend or a family member and then set achievable goals, and each small change can add up to a significant improvement in your heart health over time.
Speaker 2:That's great stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Boy, I sure appreciate that and I appreciate the direction that you give. I love how you do a great job of helping people learn how to fish and you're not just giving people lists, because you know this ultimately comes down to a person making their own choices and choosing to do a better job, and that's what what we all have to do. And just getting a list of foods and saying here, eat this or don't eat that, and pretty soon on the list that you can't. You're not supposed to eat.
Speaker 1:That'll be how you think of it.
Speaker 2:You all think of that, then that's it. So I think it's really important to have a variety. So there are some people who don't like different textures of food. There are people who don't like different. You know, there's some people that I just don't eat vegetables, and if you're one of them, it's time to move out of the teenager range.
Speaker 1:I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's time to grow up and get into what real adults are supposed to eat. And so the cereals and the other carbohydrates, straggly breads and pastas and things like that, all of those are fine in moderation, but it is just not a good idea to have your whole diet centered on that.
Speaker 2:The other thing I wanted to touch on real quickly is alcohol. Now, alcohol, as you all know, the more you drink, the worse it is for lots of places, and one of the places is the liver. The more you drink, the worse it is for lots of places, and one of the places is the liver, and the liver becomes a real problem. That increases your blood pressure, and if your kidneys aren't functioning right, too, that increases your blood pressure, and we've talked a lot about that. So how much should a person keep their alcohol down to? The recommendation is that, if you're a female, no more than one alcoholic beverage per day. And what is that?
Speaker 1:So how big is that? They may think.
Speaker 2:That is one 12-ounce regular beer, one glass of wine, one shot of liquor. That's what we're talking about. When I've said this to a lot of guys they'll say, oh, I just have one and it's 64 ounces, is their one. But for a man, because of body mass and so forth, two alcoholic beverages per day is also the recommended limit, and part of the reason for those limits are twofold. The first part is the health benefits or the health consequences of drinking more are well known. The other part is that when you drink more than that, it can decrease your inhibitions and make it so that you drink a lot more or eat a lot more or make other bad choices. So those are other reasons to stay under that one or two drink minimum, depending on what, or maximum, excuse me, not minimum. Staying under those will help keep your health in control in many ways.
Speaker 1:Excellent, excellent. So I think that there's lots of golden nuggets here, and I hope that this has been very helpful. Learning about your heart health and making these lifestyle changes is crucial for everyone, regardless of age, and so we want to thank Emily for your question and remember that the fast. What is it again, honey?
Speaker 2:Facial Drew A Arm weakness S Speech, and then T is telephone.
Speaker 1:Time to call 911.
Speaker 2:Time to call 911.
Speaker 1:Yes, excellent, and to incorporate a rainbow of foods in your diet can be really-.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad I didn't have a stroke and forgot what those were.
Speaker 1:So yes, but again, thanks, emily, for your question. This wraps up our episode for today. So remember, think of acronym FAST to recognize the signs of a stroke face drooping, arm weakness, speech difficulties, which I'm having right now, and time to call 911. Also, adopting a heart healthy diet can significantly reduce your risk of stroke and other cardiovascular diseases. And don't forget to eat the rainbow the more colorful your plate, the more nutrients you're getting. Thanks for joining us and keep those questions coming to Trisha Jamison coaching at gmailcom, and we'll see you next time on the Q&A files. Making an awesome day everyone.
Speaker 2:Hey, bye everybody.
Speaker 1:Bye-bye. Thanks for tuning in to the Q&A files, delighted to share today's gems of wisdom with you. Your questions light up our show, fueling the engaging dialogues that make our community extra special. Keep sending your questions to Trisha Jamieson coaching at gmailcom. Your curiosity is our compass. Please hit, subscribe, spread the word and let's grow the circle of insight and community together. I'm Trisha Jamieson signing off. Stay curious, keep thriving and keep smiling, and I'll catch you on the next episode.
