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No one could ever accuse chalked up her diagnosis to Allyson Hadland of being a bad luck. It appears to have couch potato. She grew up developed shortly after Hadplaying volleyball, basket - land suffered a viral infecball, ringette and hockey. tion in her pancreas. And as a married mother of The path the infection three, she keeps took destroyed active in a variety islet cells in my of ways, includpancreas, she ing playing in a explains. womens hockey After getting league. over the shock of For as long as the life-altering the Spruce Grove diagnosis and native can rerealizing things member, she has could be much followed Canworse, Hadland adas Food Cary vowed to do Guide, always whatever was reopting for lean quired to manmeats along with KEEPING FIT age her disease plenty of fruits including giving and veggies. herself five daily Sure shes not perfect, but insulin shots. Hadland has led a healthy It was around that time lifestyle. So when she was di- that she began dreaming agnosed with Type 1 dia- about accomplishing somebetes nearly five years ago, thing she had never before she couldnt believe it. tackled: running a maraI didnt fit the bill, she thon. says. Next week, that dream will It was a shock. I was in become reality. Hadland is denial for a long time. slated to run Sunday in the What she didnt realize in- 34th annual Honolulu Maritially was that Type 1 dia- athon. betes, also known as juveAs a member of Team Dinile diabetes or abetes Canada, she has insulin-dependent diabetes, helped to fundraise about isnt linked to any lifestyle $10,000 enough for the cost factors. of her trip and a sizable doUnlike Type 2 diabetes, nation to the Canadian Diawhich is tied to obesity, doc- betes Association. tors dont know exactly what Its going to be awesome causes the less common knowing we made a differType 1. ence, she says. There are In Hadlands case, doctors lots of innocent kids out

Healthier in the long run

Castagna
there who have the same disease. We need to help these kids. They need to grow up having normal, carefree childhoods. At 165 pounds and nearly six feet tall, Hadland has been running up to 60 km a week often with friend Colleen Murphy in preparation for Hawaiis largest sporting event. Along the way, long before she set her sights on completing in this years 42-kilometre run in Honolulu, Hadland has discovered some added benefits to running. Healthwise, it has really helped me. Running helps stabilize my blood-sugar levels, says the chemical engineer, who ran her first halfmarathon in September. In addition to running, Hadland works out up to three times a week in her home gym. Each 90-minute session includes sit-ups, push-ups and core work on an exercise ball. Its all-encompassing, she says of her regimen. Once you work out, you feel so good and you make healthy choices. Although shes determined to cross the finish line in Honolulu, what really keeps her going is staying healthy for her three sons, ages 10 months, three and five years old. They want me around. I need to be around, she says.

edmontonsun.canoe.ca

Edmonton Sun YOUR HEALTH Monday, December 4, 2006

DAVID BLOOM/ SUN

Allyson Hadland, working out at home, is entered in the Honolulu Marathon.

I want to watch them grow up. The Biggest Winner Follow my progress in Club Fits Biggest Winner Contest at: www.edmontonsun.com/ Lifestyle/castagna.html and www . c l u b fi t . ca / b igge stwinner/blog. Do you have an inspirational story for Keeping Fit? E-mail Cary Castagna at ccastagna@edmsun.com.

Folic acid is crucial during pregnancy

Dr. Richard
PREGNANCY

Beliveau

With Christmas the celebration of nativity just around the corner, its a timely opportunity to discuss the impacts of a pregnant womans diet on the health of her childin-the- making. This is the first of three columns discussing why proper nutrition is so crucial for mothers-to-be. It will highlight how folic acid helps prevent neural tube defects.

The main elements of our nervous system, such as our brain and spinal cord, start to form very early during fetal development. For this phenomenon to take place normally, one of the most critical stages is the formation of the neural tube, a structure that plays an absolutely essential role in the development of the nervous system. To be able to correctly accomplish its functions, the neural tube must close completely during the first month of pregnancy if it doesn't, severe anomalies appear. Spina bifida (overflow of the spinal marrow out of the vertebral column) and anencephaly (absence of a brain) are the most frequent neural tube defects, and affect approximately one child out of every 1,000 born. Brain-absent children die in utero or shortly after being born, while those with

spina bifida survive, but are often subject to physical handicaps. Weve known for about two decades that a pregnant womans diet plays a key part in neural tube defects. For instance, such a defect can often be traced to important deficiencies in a number of vitamins and minerals in the mothers blood especially folic acid (vitamin B9). In a large-scale study published in 1989, researchers showed that women who took vitamin supplements that included folic acid for the first six weeks of pregnancy ran a 75% less risk of delivering a child with neural tube defects than those who didnt take any. These observations led to the implementation of essential food-product enrichment programs in the hope of increasing folic acid levels in the blood of women of child-bearing age (white flour, cornmeal

and pasta have been enriched with folic acid since 1998 in North America). According to the latest statistics, it appears that this strategy is successful since

Weve known for about two decades that a pregnant womans diet plays a key part in neural tube defects.
neural tube defects have decreased approximately 15% since the beginning of the program. This downward trend is encouraging, but the results still remain below initial expectations. To decrease the incidence of neural tube defects even further, it is generally recommended that pregnant women take folic acid supple-

ments. However, neural tube defects appear during the third and fourth weeks of pregnancy, which means that by the time the woman learns she is pregnant, taking folic acid supplements will not have the anticipated protective effects. When pregnancy is planned, it is possible to reduce the risks of defects by taking these supplements as soon as contraception is interrupted. However, nearly half of all pregnancies are not planned. Therefore, in the absence of supplements, a diet rich in folic acid can play an extremely important role in preventing these defects. Besides, proper nutrition must always be at the heart of any illness-prevention strategy. Fruits and vegetables are not the only sources of vitamins like folic acid, but also include many thousands of molecules that play very im-

portant parts in good health, that is, for both mother and child. Folic acid is found in a wide variety of foods, but concentrations are particularly important in legumes and green leafy vegetables (the word folic comes from the Latin folium, which means leaf). Generally, individuals who eat five servings of fruits and vegetables daily take in approximately 0.4 milligrams of folic acid. But this concentration can be much more important if the diet includes fruits and vegetables especially rich in folic acid, such as spinach, asparagus, broccoli or even oranges. Whats more, vast quantities of foods made from flour are now enriched with folic acid (ready-to-eat breakfast cereals, breads, pasta) and account for important sources of this vitamin.