Wednesday, March 28, 2012

How To Lower Blood Pressure

We have learned about blood pressure in the last post. In today's post, I am going to talk about what are the natural ways to lower blood pressure. People with high blood pressure do not really have to take medication and feel that they are doomed for the rest of their live. If their blood pressure is not excessively high, they can always use naturally using the methods below.

The first and most important thing that people with high blood pressure must really take control of is their diet. With your mouth saying that "I am going to reduce my blood pressure", while walloping a huge double cheese beef burger, one large triple cheese with bacon and chicken chunks pizza, six German beef sausages, washing them down with a double ice-cream root beer float isn't the way to take hold of your new diet regime at all! You must start by taking more fruits and vegetables in your meals. At least 50% of your daily food intake must come from plant family! As we all know fruits and vegetables like orange, grapes, berries, apple carrots, celery, broccoli and many more are high in fiber and rich in potassium which can help to clean your blood and reduce the sodium contain in blood that causes high blood pressure. They also contain anti-oxidant properties which contributes to the over well being of your cells in your body.

Eat your fruits and vegetables fresh. Do not overcooked it or add lots of oil and salt in your cooking. Stir fried vegetables are not as good as steam or lightly boiled ones due to the oil and salt content when stir fried. Most fruits are rich in vitamin C, B6, B12, and E which are found to help reduce blood pressure. Adding garlic into your diet can have the beneficial effect of lowering your cholesterol which contributes towards reducing your blood pressure too. Stop eating processed foods like canned food, sausages, frozen foods, ham, bacon, lunch meat etc. They are either trans-fats or high in sodium which contribute to your high blood pressure if consumed in an on-going basis.

Normally, people will complain that they will not get full if they only eat a vegetarian diet. Well, do not get disheartened by this, you can still have meat in your diet as long as they are not high fat or processed meat. Try to eat more fish and white meat like chicken. White meat contained less fat which are healthier that their dark (red) meat counterpart. Less fat means less cholesterol and less likely of suffering high blood pressure, as simple as that! Of course there is no harm eating some red-lean meat like beef and pork once a while. The idea is no excessive indulgent in it!

Okay, enough about food for this time. The other equation of lowering your blood pressure is to exercise. Exercise is the sure way to health as it will burn away your fat storage, let your body have more blood circulation and drain away your body toxin via sweating more. In other words it cleanses your system and thus making you healthier. Your body will produce more good cholesterol when exercise regularly and this helps to transport excess bad cholesterol away and thus takes away any risk of having high blood pressure due to narrowing of blood vessels by cholesterol. So walk your way to health my friend! And I mean it!

Other ways of lowering blood pressure is to quit smoking if you are a smoker. Smoking can develop hypertension, which is the scientific term for high blood pressure. So why smoke your way to health problem? There is nothing charming while puffing away a cigarette anyway. Try to substitute smoking by doing something else like chewing a baby carrot or celery as this proof to be a more effective way of quit smoking rather than just stop and do nothing to replace the old habit. If you are a heavy drinker, you are heading toward to high blood pressure grave as well. Do you know that you can still drink alcohol and reduce blood pressure? Studies have shown that drinking red wine, less than 2 glasses a day can actually helps to reduce your blood pressure. So why not try this habit instead!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

About Blood Pressure

What is it about blood pressure that haunts people, especially adults in this 21th century? Many have heard news about people getting stroke and being paralyzed due to high blood pressure. Worse still, if that person is someone you know. Either they are your close friends or your siblings. Let's us first understand what blood pressure really is, what constitute a normal blood pressure and how it can change to affect our health and well being.

Blood pressure is the pressure exerted on our blood vessels wall when blood flows around our body. It has a maximum (systolic) and a minimum (diastolic) pressure as blood is pumped from our heart towards organs furthest away from our heart like our toes and fingers etc. A normal adult will have a blood pressure reading of 120/80 mm Hg. People with a blood pressure reading of 140/90 mm Hg or higher is said to have hypertension or high blood pressure in layman term and should seek medical attention from doctor immediately.

So what causes our blood pressure to increase from its normal level? There are a number of reasons why our blood pressure increases. It may be due to an unhealthy lifestyle of consuming too much carbohydrate and fatty foods with little or no exercise. Over time, cholesterol will build up in our blood vessel wall making it more difficult for blood to flow through. When our heart pump blood through a smaller vessel (due to the cholesterol blockage) a higher pressure will result. Similar to a water hose in our garden, when we accidentally step on the hose, the water at the other end will eject out in a more powerful manner due to a smaller opening for water to flow through as we step on it. Other reasons for change of blood pressure are, lack of sleep, emotional stress, consume too much alcohol or over eating, smoking and high physical activities.

Why do we need to seek doctor's medical attention if our blood pressure reaches 140/90 mm Hg and above? Well, let's illustrate using a balloon. When we pump air into the balloon, is will grow bigger and bigger until to a certain extend when the wall of the balloon cannot with stand the excess pressure of the air, it will burst open. The same goes with our blood vessels. It will burst open if our blood pressure is too high causing internal bleeding which may result in stroke or even death if too serious.

If we are just on the borderline of 140/90 mm Hg, we can reduce the reading by adopting a healthier lifestyle in the form of controlling our diet and doing more exercises on a regular basis. Whereas if our blood pressure is too high until in the hypertension zone of 140/90 mm Hg and above, doctor may prescribe us with some medication to control our blood pressure. However, we can always control our blood pressure using the "Natural" ways without the need of taking blood pressure controlling medicine. Essentially, these so-called blood pressure controlling medicines are in fact medicines which help to thin our blood by flushing away excess sodium and also to relax our blood vessel. We will discuss more on how to reduce high blood pressure "Naturally" in my next post.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Exercise And Cholesterol

It has been in the general public's perception that exercise can reduce cholesterol and gives you a healthier body. The more exercises you do, the healthier a person will be and all the heart attacks, strokes, high blood pressure etc will go away. Is this view correct? And if so how does exercise really reduce our body cholesterol?

When we do exercise long enough (30 minutes or more), our body will starts to burn our body fat for fuel to cater for the higher demand in energy while we are in the high physical activity state. As we know, cholesterols are fat like substances in our blood stream. The regular burning off of fats in our body prevents the accumulation of LDL cholesterol. Exercise will stimulate the production of enzyme that promotes the removal of LDL by transporting them to the liver to be converted into bile or secreted. The more exercise we do, the more LDL cholesterol will be removed from our system.

On the other hand, high physical activities can promote the production of HDL cholesterol in our body which function is to transport excess cholesterol away from our blood stream. In fact studies have shown that exercise is the only way that we can increase our HDL level. That is why people who lives a sedentary lifestyle has a lower level of HDL in their blood system which is why most of these people will have high cholesterol and suffer a higher risk of having heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure and so on.

So what kind of exercise we can do? Normally if you have never been exercising for quite some time, it is advisable to start slow by doing regular light exercises to make your body use to the higher level of physical stress or to consult your local doctor first before you start to do anything. You can do walking for 30 minutes a day, 3 times a week. As your body begins to get used to the low intensity exercises, you can crank up the level by doing fast walking or even slow running for 30 minutes or more a day. The key is to increase your exercise intensity in a gradual manner. You can always try different types of exercise to inject variety and thus prevents the boring effect from making you stop exercising! Exercises like, treadmills, stationary bike, stepper, ellipticals, rowing machine or even rope jumping are among many cardio exercises that you can choose.


DTZGTDF4MXS9

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Foods For Cholesterol

All types of food we eat seem to elevate our cholesterol level which leads us towards the danger of high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke and so on. So what should we eat instead? Is our life will become so boring without that crispy fried chicken, juicy double cheese burger or ever colourful seafood platter? Well, not for a second, it won't, I can assure you. I'll recommend to you 5 types of food that you can serve to cholesterol intake and at the same time cleanse you blood to make you the healthy YOU again so that you will no longer have to worry about heart attacks and so on.

The first and most versatile and easy to prepare cholesterol reducing food will be none other than Oatmeal. Its soluble fiber content helps to absorb the excess cholesterol in our blood and hence can cleanse our blood cholesterol if consume regularly. Now most of you might be saying, WHAT? OATMEAL! HOW BORING WILL THAT BE as compared to the juicy Hamburger! Well, no one ask you to consume oatmeal pouring it into your throat literally! Oatmeal, if prepared well, can become a delicacy for some people. Here is how you do it. Put 8 tablespoon of instant oatmeal into a bowl, pour 1 1/2 cup of omega milk into it. Cook it until warm or you can microwave it for 1 minute. Then add some banana slices and s swirl of honey to taste and wah-lah, a nice warm and healthy breakfast that you can try at home.

The second kind of food you can add into your diet is Celery. Celery is found to induce the bile secretion property in our body and hence the lowering of cholesterol in our blood. I also contain phthalides, an active compound which helps in the lowering of our blood pressure by dilating our arteries and enhancing our blood flow, what we called blood thinning effect. Beside this, celery is also rich in vitamin C which helps in the tackling the free-radicals in our body and promotes the overall well being of our body. Celery can be blended with tomato and apple with a tablespoon of honey and drink as a refreshing juice for breakfast. Besides, serving as a juice, celery can be eaten raw or serve as a salad with other vegetables and fruits.

The third type of food is none other than the good old creature from the sea, FISH. Fish contained Omega-3 Fatty acids which can reduce oily substance (triglyceride) in our blood stream, reduces blood pressure and prevent us from getting stroke or blood clot in our arteries. Fish like Sardin, Mackerel, Salmon, Tuna, Herring, Trout and Halibut contain high level of these Omega-3 Fatty acids. So next time, go to a Sushi bar and order a Salmon sushi rather than having a double cheese burger in a fast food shop! Besides fish you can also try Omega Milk. Drink this type of milk instead of full cream ones. The Omega milk contains ACTICOL and added plant sterols and is scientifically proven to lower your LDL cholesterol. Drink 2 glasses a day, add it to your cereal or oatmeal and see the result of your body cholesterol in 30 days.

The forth kind of cholesterol reducing food will be Nuts. It includes Walnut, Hazelnut, Almond, Peanut and pistachio. They contain polyunsaturated fatty acid which can keep your blood vessels healthy. However, walnut is rated top on the nut list as it contained a superior amount of omega-3 fatty acids that can reduce cholesterol as those in the fish mentioned above. Do not eat sugar coated or those with high salt contain. Add them into your salad or you can eat them as snack. A cup of serving per day will be sufficient (40gm) and do not munch it none stop watching your favourite tv program!

The fifth type of Food I recommend will be olive oil. This type of oil has antioxidant property that can reduce the bad LDL cholesterol while maintaining your good HDL cholesterol. Use olive oil instead of other type of oil in your cooking. Add olive oil (extra virgin has more cholesterol reducing effect) into your salad dressing and eat your way to a healthy body for sure! (Suggested daily serving is 2 tablespoon).

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

What Is Cholesterol

Nowadays we always heard about cholesterol is bad for health. It can cause heart attack, stroke and so on. So what is this cholesterol thing and how well do people really know about it. Can we really prevent cholesterol from lingering in our body all together? Or how do we prevent cholesterol from entering into our body in the first place?

Cholesterol is actually a fat or lipid as they called it in scientific term. Our liver produces cholesterol to aid in the hormone and bile production, helps to convert sunshine into vitamin D, use in the metabolism of fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K), build cell membrane and insulate our nerve fibers. There are 2 types of cholesterol, namely the Low Density Lipoprotein or LDL and the High Density Lipoprotein or HDL. LDL is what we commonly known as the bad cholesterol. It comes mainly from the food we consume every day. Foods that are high in cholesterol are egg, seafood like squid and prawns, cheese and full cream milk, red meat like beef and pork and also most fatty food which most people like to eat like hamburger, fried chicken, pizza, fries and so on. This is the main reason why so many people suffer from high cholesterol level due to the fatty food they consume on a daily basis.

Over consumption of fatty food will cause the build-up of the bad cholesterol in our blood stream. As this process continues, layers upon layers of bad cholesterol will starts to build up around the inner walls of our blood vessels until a time when a total blockage occurs. If this happen to our artery supplying blood to our heart, then a heart attack may result. Other than that, if the piled up cholesterol flows into our brain and cause a blockage there and damage part of our brain cells, we may suffer paralysis of body function or what is commonly known as a stroke. So as you can see the danger of excess bad cholesterol in our body. The other good cholesterol or HDL, helps in the transport of cholesterol back to liver for breakdown. The HDL can only be produce via doing exercise. So that is why many people who are sedentary or lack of exercise will have high blood pressure due to the high level of bad cholesterol accumulated in their body as they aren't producing enough HDL to transport the excess cholesterol away for breakdown. A healthy blood cholesterol level should between 3.6 mmol/liter to 7.8 mmol/liter.

So all in all, in order to have a healthy body, we need to control our food consumption by taking less of the high cholesterol or fatty food as mentioned above while eating more fruits, vegetables and high fiber foods and the like. We will touch on more on how to have a cholesterol free diet in my next post and ways to exercise your way out of these bad cholesterol from your blood system!

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Why it's bad to eat just before sleep

Whether you are a workaholic who eat your meal minutes before you go to bed or a snack lover, who likes to eat your favourite fish and chips or ham and cheese with pepperoni pizza and jump into your bed straight after a full stomach, you will be doomed to have a lousy body and a bad health as the above are lifestyle of a very unhealthy human being!

So why is it so unhealthy to eat just before you go to bed? Well, first of all let me tell you this simple fact. The purpose of you, going to bed in the first place is to rest your whole body, that is, to give your entire inner system a break and chance to repair for any wear and tear suffered during the day time. If you stuff in foods into your body within 3 hours prior to sleep, you are forcing your own digestive system to work overtime while they are suppose to be at rest at night after a full day of digesting activities. Furthermore, while you are asleep, your metabolic rate will be at a slower pace and so the food you have eaten will be more likely turned into storage fat rather than supplying energy for your body use. In other words, people who eat a lot prior to their bed time will be more likely to gain that extra pound as compare to those having their meals more than 3 hours before bedtime.

Eating potatoes chips, white rice, pizza and sugary foods which are high in glycemic-carbohydrate is found to have a bad effect in our body repairing system while we are asleep. This high glycemic-carb will induce a surge in the release of insulin in our body which will in turn inhibit the production of Human Growth Hormone or HGH. HGH is normally produced at night while we are sleeping (80%) and it is used primarily for fat burning and cell repairing. If the high insulin level which prevents to production of HGH occurs, our body will be slow in the repairing of any damage cells while storing of extra fats will make us fat and weak as a whole.

Normally, if we had our meal 3 hours before our sleep at night, our body would have fasted for a few hours and by the time we are fast asleep the HGH can start to do its function of cell repairing and can even promote fat burning after the 5th hours into our slumber. A final advice is that whenever you feel hungry prior to your bedtime, try to have a light meal which consists of fruits and fiber like apple or a glass of fruit juice rather than having a high glycemic-carb meal like potato chips and pizza and stuffs like that. In this way you can have a good health, fitness and life as you enjoy your sleep every night!

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Health Equals to Life

In the old days, most people always put making money or their job and career as their top priority in life. They always thought that the more money they make or accumulate, the happier they will be and the more satisfaction they will get in their lives. Little do they know that, the stress they put on their body doing overtime, no rest, little sleep, skip lunch, late dinner, no exercise will make their health suffer as a result. Even with the amount of dollars they have accumulated, a millionaire will not be able to enjoy his life due to his or her bad health. Monies supposedly earned for holidays and entertainment will now have to be channelled to clinics and hospitals to cover for the medical expenses incurred.

That's why we should always put health as our top priority in life. Without health, we may not even be thinking of making any money at all, let alone having a luxurious lifestyle as we might not be able to work. Even if we are not rich as we expect but with a healthy body that we have, we can always find a way to earn enough money to live a happy lifestyle. Failing which we can always live within our means and can still enjoy the life that we want.

The main purpose of my blog is to create awareness among all working adults out there so as to stop worrying about how much you are earning and start thinking of having a good healthy body. This blog will cover every aspects about health, diseases that are most common like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, high uric acid to name a few here, how to combate these diseases and so on. We will also give some expert advise on how to eat in a healthy way and to make your own healthy food recipes as well as various exercise tips from how to shed some pounds to maintaining body fitness that are easy to do. Besides maintaining a healthy body we will also touch on ways to have a healthy mind and how to keep a sharp mental fitness for the more senior citizens. So let's bookmark this blog or RSS so that you won't miss any of our blog post in the future.