Preventing Heart Disease

Heart disease causes half of all deaths within the United States each year and is the leading cause of death worldwide. While there are some factors that are uncontrollable, many contributing factors are easily preventable by creating lifestyle changes.

High blood pressure is a major cause of heart disease, and high cholesterol greatly increases your chance of high blood pressure. To prevent high cholesterol, you need to avoid saturated fats found in red meats and dairy products such as cheese and butter. You'll also need to avoid other foods containing high amounts of oils and fats. Fish and chicken are much healthier alternatives. Also, choose baked rather than fried food and add more heart healthy fruits and vegetables into your daily food intake. Caffeine and salt should also be avoided as much as possible.

A heart healthy diet has been shown to be one of the best controllable ways to promote longevity. Talk with your doctor and check with the American Heart Association for the creation of the best possible heart healthy diet.

Another major contributor is smoking. It cannot be stressed enough that in order to prevent heart disease you should not smoke. Smoking is a major lifestyle contributor to deaths. Smoking makes your heart have to work harder and also contributes to high blood pressure. Even if you've been smoking for years, you can reap substantial heart healthy benefits by quitting now. This greatly reduces the chances of developing heart disease, and the longer you stay quit, the healthier you and heart will become.

Obesity is also a major preventable contributor. It is an increasingly common health problem in the United States and is responsible for much of the rising rates of heart disease related deaths in the country. To combat obesity, you need to develop a plan combining the reduction of caloric intake along with an exercise program developed to target weight loss. You need to incorporate new healthier eating habits not just in the short term for weight loss, but as a long-term lifestyle change to keep the weight off and to remain healthy.

Even if you are not obese, your chances of developing heart disease are much higher if you live a sedentary lifestyle. You should exercise at levels that increase your heart rate for at least 30 minutes three times a week. Your exercise does not necessarily have to be intense, as you will experience heart healthy results even with moderate levels of exercise. Exercise can be an enjoyable experience if you choose healthy activities that you enjoy.

Besides the major contributors, alcohol can also increase the chances of developing the disease. Moderate drinking (one to two drinks per day) can actually reduce the chances of developing heart disease. However, binge drinking or drinking excessively contributes to heart related problems and will also raise the level of fats within the blood and body.

Stress contributes to the development of heart disease, so learn to properly identify and deal with the causes of stress in your life. Learn stress reduction techniques to avoid negative affects on your heart's health.

While there are contributing factors out of our control such as heredity and age, you can make lifestyle changes to greatly reduce your chances of developing heart disease. Create a lifestyle of heart healthy living, and you will greatly decrease your chances of suffering. Promote your health and longevity by creating a heart healthy lifestyle.

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Five Steps to a Healthy Heart

The heart is an extraordinary organ in our body. Our life and death depend on our heart. Our live begins when we have our first heartbeat and our life ends when the beating of our heart stops. People may argue the level of importance our heart in our body as compared with other organs of the body, but none can argue the fact that we need our heart to live. That is why we need to take extra good care of our heart.

The first step to a healthier heart is to exercise regularly. Even the littlest amount of exercise can help us to maintain the health of our heart. This is because regular exercises play an important role in preventing heart or coronary diseases. Exercises give our heart the stamina it needed to pump blood into our veins.

If you have a poor heart, do some simple exercises but do take care to not over-strain your heart. Simple exercises like a long and leisurely walk at the beach or the park can really help you to be in a better physique that will ultimately influences the health of your heart.

The second step that you can take to take care of your heart is to stop smoking or to not start the bad habit of smoking. Smoking is bad for your heart because smoking can increase the risks of hypertension, heart and coronary diseases and even strokes. Not many people realize that smoking is also the key cause to cardiovascular diseases. This is because smoking can actually cause the fatty substances to build up in our arteries. These built up fats will eventually block our arteries and cause us to have a heart attack or a stroke.

To prevent yourself from getting a heart disease, you must also limit your alcohol intake to the minimum level. This is because, just the same as smoking, alcohol consumption will have harmful effects on your arteries that will one day lead to heart attack and stroke.

Alcohol consumption will also lead to increased risks of hypertension. Alcohol when consume in moderation will have a good effect on our body. The alcohol raises the level of the HDL, which is the good cholesterol and thus will help to protect us from heart diseases. But only when consumed in moderation.

The fourth step to preventing heart diseases is to have a good and healthy diet routine. Eating healthily can not only maintain the health of our heart, it can also lower our cholesterol level and also our blood pressure. To have a good and healthy diet plan, do make sure to include a lot of greens or vegetables into your diet. Do not forget to consume the minimum portion of fruits for your daily intake to ensure that your body have the right level or vitamins and minerals.

The last step that we can follow to make sure we have got a good and healthy heart is to keep and maintain a healthy weight. People suffering from obesity have more chances of contracting heart diseases than the people who have normal body mass indexes.

There were studies that showed cases where heart diseases were linked directly to heart failures. So obese people should really try their best to lose some weight and those on the edge to obesity should take care of their weight as to not have heart problems in the future.

Heart diseases are scary but they are treatable. And if we take enough prevention measures, there might not even be any need for treatments. Do the right thing, and start your prevention steps now.

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Clear and Present Dangers of Cholesterol Lowering Drugs

You probably know by now that top cholesterol drugs Vytorin and Zetia have been proven to have no benefits, doctors and patients have to rely on older lowering cholesterol drugs such as statins. Regardless of which drugs you take to lower cholesterol, there may be some potential side effects that need your attention. There are definitely other more effective and safer ways available for you to lower cholesterol levels without the use of such drugs.

When your medical practitioner tells you that you have high cholesterol levels, it means that your ratio of Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) to High Density Liporprotein (HDL) is high. High cholesterol level is linked to higher risk of heart disease and stroke. However, before you consider taking any cholesterol lowering drugs you should also take into account the following:

a. Lifestyle - are you on high fat diet, drinks, smoke and stay up late at night

b. Blood pressure - you have family history of hypertension

c. Diabetes - are you diabetic or have family history of diabetes

d. Weight - are you over weight

e. Age - which age group do you belong?

f. Cholesterol - do you have family history of high cholesterol levels?

g. Vascular disease - are you suffering from any form of vascular disease like the narrowing of arteries

If your only problem is high cholesterol levels, then you should evaluate the need for cholesterol lowering drugs because this condition can be managed and controlled by changing your lifestyle ��" most importantly taking lower cholesterol diets and exercise routine.

Although the drug that you are prescribed with may help you lower cholesterol, however, it does not mean that you can stop taking it once your cholesterol level has lowered. This happens because such cholesterol lowering drug blocks an enzyme that is responsible for making cholesterol in the liver. (The name of this enzyme is hydroxy-methylglutaryl-coenzyme A reductase or HMG-CoA reductase in short).

Taking cholesterol lowering drugs has 3 potentially serious side effects:

1. Liver damage

Cholesterol lowering drugs like statins can cause an increase in liver enzymes. If the increase in enzymes production is severe, and when left uncheck, can leave to permanent liver damage.

The other popular prescription drug, Zetia is also in the limelight lately; its effectiveness and the long term impact on the health of the consumer are now in question. Zetia, together with Vytorin, have been found to have no benefits to lower cholesterol. The New England Journal of Medicine now recommends to forgo taking Vytorin and Zetia unless older cholesterol lowering drugs cannot lower cholesterol levels.

In fact, as far back as in 2005 regulators in Australia and Canada have issued warning about the potential danger of Zetia. It can cause hepatitis, pancreatitis and depression.

Liver problem can develop without symptoms, thus if you are on statins it is advisable to go a liver function test periodically.

2. Muscle problems

The most common cholesterol lowering drugs statins can cause muscle pain, muscle weakness and in severe cases causes muscle cells to breakdown (rhabdomyolysis). When this happen a protein called myoglobin is released and this protein can damage your kidneys.

The risk of rhabdomyolysis also increases when statins is taken with certain drugs like antifungal medications, nefazodone (Serzone), gemfibrozil, erythromycin (Erythrocin), cyclosporine and niacin.

While most people who experience muscle pain will return to normal after discontinuing statin use, some susceptible individuals suffer permanent muscle damage from statin use. If you have a new muscle ache or tenderness after taking statins it is advisable to check with your doctor.

3. Memory Loss

Some people who want to lower cholesterol and took the statin drugs experience memory loss and an inability to concentrate. They feel that they are developing Alzheimer’s disease when taking statin drugs. In extreme cases, the memory loss seems to be amnesia that lasts for 6 to 12 hours. These types of problems are known as cognitive defects.

Fortunately most people return to normal after they stopped taking the statin drugs. The time to recovery appears to be related to the amount of time before the cognitive symptoms appeared. In other words, the longer it took for the symptoms to appear, the longer it took for the person to recover. However, a small group may continue to suffer with cognitive problems, perhaps indefinitely.

About the Author

Now that you know the dangers posed by cholesterol lowering drugs can cause, are you interested to learn how to lower cholesterol naturally without the use of harmful prescription drugs? Visit http://www.cholesterol-tips.com now.

Ethan Curoso is the creator and founder of Cholesterol-Tips where he provides valuable tips and resources on how to lower cholesterol naturally. Visit http://www.cholesterol-tips.com for your free cholestero

What Happens to your Body When you Quit Smoking?

While you want to stop, you might not know what happens to your body when you quit smoking. In addition to nicotine, cigarettes contain many chemicals that affect your health in very damaging ways. It might be difficult to believe, but healing begins within 20 minutes when you quit smoking.

Within the first 20 minutes of quitting, your healing process begins. Your blood pressure decreases, your pulse rate drops, and the body temperature of your hands and feet increases. These benefits will continue to improve your health for years.

After eight hours of quitting smoking, the carbon monoxide level in your blood drops to normal and the oxygen level in your blood increases to normal.

At 24 hours, your chance of a heart attack decreases.

At 48 hours, your nerve endings begin regrowth and your ability to smell and taste improves.

And the benefits of quitting smoking are just beginning.

Between two weeks and thee months of stopping, your circulation improves, walking becomes easier, and your lung function increases.

Your worst nicotine withdrawal symptoms subside within the first month. After that, you learn how to decipher and reprogram the psychological urges to smoke that you've all built up over the years.

Starting as early as a month after you quit smoking, and continuing for the next several months, you may notice significant improvements in coughing, sinus congestion, fatigue, and shortness of breath.

At one year smoke-free, your excess risk of coronary heart disease is decreased to half that of a smoker.

Once you put a year between you and the last cigarette you smoke, congratulate yourself! Be grateful for the freedom you have created for yourself. The benefits of the positive choices you've made will continue to grow as you move forward from here.

For all of the work it takes to shed your addiction to nicotine, the incredible feelings of freedom and control you'll be rewarded with when you quit smoking are just the beginning of the benefits headed your way.

At two years smoke-free, your chance of achieving long-term success with quitting tobacco increases significantly. Smoking relapse rates drop off sharply after two years.

About the Author

Cedrick is the creator of Healthoogle.com and online Health News and Information blog. If you are looking for a way to stop smoking visit http://healthoogle.com/Nicocure-Stop-Smoking-Aid/ for more information.