Health Insider: Staying healthy in the new year

It's that time when everybody starts looking ahead to the new year, new you, and either making resolutions or setting personal goals. And often, finance and health lead the way. So in the realm of health, we bring in our ABC15 Health Insider, Dr. Shadmar Vashti, to give us some guidance if we were going to start on maybe three things to aim for in the new year. Good morning. Good morning, Noelani. How are you? I'm great. I love this topic because I like to call them kind of goals for the new year and kind of set the intentions rather than a resolution. So the first one, of course, makes sense that it does deal with diet in some form for you of what you should look to change. Absolutely. Diet is the number one risk factor for preventable disease and premature death worldwide. And when we look at diet, one of the biggest factors is whether you're eating real food or not. So I think one resolution would be to educate yourself on what is a real versus a processed food and begin the process of shifting towards minimally processed food. Stop eating the frankenfood, otherwise known as processed foods or ultra processed foods. So these are foods you get at a fast food restaurant. These are prepackaged with multiple long lists of difficult to pronounce ingredients. So when we talk about eating, if you're going to eat meat, you're going to eat meat that isn't pumped full of antibiotics and hormones. You're going to look at meat that is more naturally raised, organic, maybe grass fed if it's red meat. When you look at oils, you're going to look at minimally processed oils like extra virgin olive oil that's cold pressed or an avocado oil. You're going to avoid a lot of the seed oils and the vegetable oils, which use high temperatures, chemical solvents that are very highly processed. I think that would be a great resolution for people to explore and start for the new year. So maybe it even just starts with counting how many items you got from those center aisles and try to cut down that way. Or can you make a trip to a farmer's market, you know, once a week or even start with once a month and try and buy some things there. So I like that one too. Of course, a popular one for everybody is that fitness routine, right? Absolutely. Exercise was a drug. It would be the most prescribed drug in history. It has so many benefits, not only for things like reducing blood pressure, increasing good cholesterol, reducing bad cholesterol, optimizing weight. So all these physical things to prevent stroke, prevent heart attacks, also help for giving blood perfusion to your brain to help prevent dementia. In addition to that, exercise, when you do good cardio exercise, you get your heart rate up, that's been shown to be as effective as SSRIs, medications like Prozac, for mild or moderate even depression without any of the side effects. So I think the key here is that people end up doing too much too quickly and you end up being a weekend warrior and then I'll see you in my office because you've got a sprain or a strain or something happened. And so we want to avoid that. And the way you do that is to really start low and go up slow. And most people don't realize that if you're totally sedentary, which basically means you spend 90% or more of your time sitting, which many of us unfortunately do with the jobs that we have, just getting out there and just doing a walk to start with, a brisk walk of five to 10 minutes to begin and then just kind of adding to it or taking the stairs instead of taking the elevator wherever you work or in your parking space or wherever it is. You know, these small steps actually make a big difference for taking a break every 45 minutes if you're sitting for hours on end and then going for a walk. Your third change or resolution to look to make when I heard you say this was like a light bulb moment for me, but I loved it. And it has to do with focusing on relationships. Absolutely. So, you know, one of the things I think at the height of the pandemic that really became clear is that loneliness is not only painful, isolation is not only difficult, but it actually can be a risk factor and can actually be killing us. You know, when we actually now know that loneliness, you know, is a risk factor on the same level of things like high cholesterol, high blood pressure or smoking. And we also know on the flip side that meaningful, authentic relationships really are the main predictor of success and happiness later in life, more than how much money you have, how famous you are. So it can be a romantic relationship, right? It can be your partner or it can be very close friends, right? Or extended family members. But these meaningful, authentic relationships actually have huge benefits for our health, our mental and our physical health. So one thing to do is to invest in them, right? So if you have those close friends, pick up the phone, go out for coffee, do something, get something going. Maybe you have like a weekly game night together or something like with those friends, whatever it is that you do together, make it something that's regular and continue investing in those relationships because when you do that, you're going to be investing in a healthier, happier, longer life. Three ways to set intentions for a healthier you in the new year. I absolutely love it. I'm going to put each one of them to practice. Thanks, Dr. Schott. Thank you.