Health & Wellness Blog
My name is Sigga Fridriksdottir and I joined the team at Whole Healing Dental in 2022. I am a Registered Nurse with over 15 years of clinical work experience. I am CPR AED certified, ACLS certified. Nutrition and exercise are my passions, so I expanded my career and became certified as a Nutrition Coach with PN and recertified as a Personal Trainer with the American Council on Exercise (ACE). My goal is to assist clients on their wellness journey by helping them create healthy dietary habits and sustainable lifestyles. Having worked in a hospital setting and in-home health with clients of all ages for years, I realized how important it was to educate people holistically on how to optimize their health with sustainable life habits, instead of having to address issues and conditions that were already underway. That is where key lifestyle factors come into play; nutrition, daily physical activity/exercise, quality sleep, and emotional/mental well-being.
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Magnesium Support Nurse Sigga recommends that everyone consider taking a high-quality magnesium supplement as studies indicate that over 50% of Americans are deficient in this essential nutrient. Magnesium offers numerous benefits, including promoting restful sleep, relaxing muscles (helping to alleviate tension, cramps, spasms, and twitching), promoting healthy digestion, and supporting a balanced stress response.
In Dr. Amy Dayries' book Solve Your Sleep for Better Health: get to the Core of Your Snore, she says, "Magnesium is one of my personal favorite recommended supplements for helping with sleep. I call magnesium the $6 sleep solution.
Here is an excerpt from Dr Dayries' aforementioned book..."Magnesium has an effect on sleep duration and increases quiet sleep and decreases active sleep. In infants, a conversation needs to be held with a pediatrician because dosages can affect sleep patterns that potentially influence infant sleep patterns for years. Expectant mothers taking magnesium sulfate had more active sleep without REM. In the elderly, magnesium supplements apparently have been found to reverse age-related sleep changes (less REM), but more studies are needed to fully appreciate the effects of magnesium in the elderly. Magnesium also alleviates constipation and helps absorption of calcium into bone tissue."
Dr. Dayries' goes on to list symptoms that can indicate low levels of magnesium, foods that contain magnesium, and pharmaceuticals that can deplete and affect the absorption of magnesium.
Confused about the many supplements on the market? Nurse Sigga prefers a comprehensive formula like the one offered by Whole Healing Dental: BIOptimizers’ Magnesium Breakthrough, which features a proprietary blend of seven different forms of magnesium while being free from irritants, gluten, and soy.
Metabolic Health Research shows that only 12% of the population in the US are metabolically healthy. That is of great concern because metabolic dysfunction increases the risk of developing diseases and complications down the road, like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke, and dementia. What is more, having gone through a pandemic in the past few years, people who are metabolically unhealthy are more at risk of getting severely sick when getting infected with the virus. Therefore, it is more important now than ever for us to become masters of our health, and to be proactive when it comes to our overall health and wellbeing.
There are 5 major factors we can use to evaluate if a person is metabolically
1. Waist Circumference Waist circumference is more important than weight when evaluating primary markers for metabolic health. For men, a waist circumference greater than 40 inches would be considered a risk factor for metabolic disease, and for women, the number is 35 inches or above. Measurement is done at the waist, right above the hip bones, at the most narrow part of the waist. As metabolic dysfunction worsens, gaining weight in that abdominal area can be a big risk factor. Visceral (abdominal) fat only makes up 4-6% of total body fat, and it often does not reflect on a regular scale.
2. Blood sugar levels
One of the most important factors to look for is a person’s blood sugar level before and after a meal. A comprehensive metabolic panel (CMP) covers fasting blood glucose levels. Until recently, a fasting blood glucose below 100 mg/dL has been considered normal. Today, most functional doctors prefer for that number to be between 70-80 mg/dL. In the context of metabolic health, a fasting blood sugar level above 100 mg/dL, is a sign of a blood sugar problem.
3. Blood pressure
Blood pressure plays a significant role in metabolic health. A reading of 135/80 is a risk factor for metabolic dysfunction. If a person’s reading is higher than 125/75 consistently, he/she might have a mild to moderate metabolic issue. It is important to keep track of past measurements, especially if they have been historically high.
4. Triglyceride levels
A factor to consider when assessing metabolic health is triglycerides, which are the end product of digesting and breaking down fats in food. Blood triglyceride levels are considered crucial when evaluating fat metabolism. A level above 150 mg/dL indicates a metabolic disease. This can be checked with a standard lipid panel, which measures a person’s HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol), LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol), and triglycerides. We want the HDL cholesterol level to be above 40 mg/dL. Some experts say it is also crucial to consider a person’s triglyceride-to-HDL ratio. If the triglyceride number is more than 2.5 times the HDL level, that is an indicator that the body fat is not transferring new fat fast enough through the body, which makes the triglycerides circulate in the bloodstream for too long.
5. LDL cholesterol levels
LDL cholesterol on the lipid panel is often called the “bad cholesterol”. It is recommended to keep LDL levels low to promote metabolic health. It is not enough to know if you have high LDL levels, you also have to know the type of LDL in question. 80% of the LDL in the bloodstream is irrelevant, called buoyant LDL or type A. The remaining 20% that matters when it comes to metabolic health is slow-dense LDL or type B. To tell the difference, there is an advanced lipid test people can take called the “VAP test”, but it is often expensive and not covered by insurance. The easiest way to tell is by checking a person's triglyceride levels. If the LDL level is high, and triglycerides are low, then it is large, buoyant, and irrelevant. So the takeaway here is looking at the path of LDL, not the absolute number.
There are many ways we can improve our metabolic health, basically by
supporting our overall well-being.
Here are some helpful tips:
● Prioritizing whole foods diet. Eating plenty of vegetables and fruits that are rich in phytonutrients, plus fiber-rich whole grains, nuts, and seeds.
● Getting at least 30 min of daily exercise, ideally an activity that increases heart rate and builds muscle. Outdoor activity is ideal, which at the same time increases Vitamin D levels by getting at least 30 min of sun exposure.
● Increasing daily intake of Omega-3 fatty acids.
● Maintaining a low-glycemic diet.
● Emphasizing good quality sleep.
● Finding healthy ways to manage stress.
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