by wildcherry on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 | Health, Life | No Comments

Happily, maintaining a healthy heart is relatively simple, and it’s never too late to start. Do you smoke? If you do, the first step is to quit. Even occasional smoking has been proven to be detrimental to the health of your heart. Regular exercise is essential to help maintain weight and keep the heart strong. It is also important to limit fats in the diet particularly animal fats derived from meat and full fat dairy foods.

Enjoying health to a ripe old age is common in many Mediterranean communities where diet is based on olive oil, vegetables, fish, nuts, fruits, grains and pulses. Many doctors and naturopaths believe that it’s the low levels of cholesterol that make the Mediterranean diet an excellent model for those wishing to maintain their cardiovascular health.

Include in your diet:

- Seasonal fresh vegetables, especially leafy greens, broccoli, zucchini, onions, red and white cabbage, cucumber, potatoes, pumpkin and sweet potatoes.

- Fresh fruit, rich in antioxidants.

- Fish, particularly oily varieties such as sardines, mackerel and salmon.

- Fresh herbs, especially parsley, mint, basil, thyme, coriander, oregano and dill.

- Whole grains cereals, brown rice, oats, wholemeal bread and pasta, millet, buckwheat and barley.

- Lean meat, chicken and eggs.

- Nuts and seeds, small amounts of almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds.

- Sea vegetables, nori, arame and wakame.
Soy foods and tofu.

Keep to a minimum:

- Full fat dairy foods.

- Refined white flour products, white bread, pasta, biscuits and cakes.

- Salt.

- Saturated fats, butter, matured cheeses, fatty meats and fried foods.

Exercise:

Exercise is extremely important for the maintenance of a healthy cardiovascular system. In addition to keeping the heart itself strong, exercise helps maintain a healthy weight, which reduce pressure on the heart. You don’t need to become gym junkie. A brisk 30 minute walk at least three times a week can make a huge difference to your health.

Supplement with CoQ10:

CoQ10 occurs naturally in the body and levels decline with age. A CoQ10 supplement assists in maintaining a healthy heart, in particularly the function of the heart muscle. CoQ10 has been shown to reduce oxidation of LDL cholesterol.

Tags: eating, Foods For Healthy Heart, healthy, Healthy Heart, Healthy Heart Foods, heart, human

by wildcherry on Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 | Health, News | 1 Comment

Get fresh fruit delivered to your door each month with The Monthly Fruit Club at TheFruitCompany.com

Economists, health researchers and consumers are struggling to answer that question as food prices rise and the economy slumps. The World Bank says nearly a billion people around the world live on a dollar a day, or even less; in the United States, the daily food-stamp allowance is typically just a few dollars per person, while the average American eats $7 worth of food per day.

Even middle-class people struggle to put healthful food on the table. Studies show that junk foods tend to cost less than fruits, vegetables and other healthful foods, whose prices continue to rise.

This fall a couple in Encinitas, Calif., conducted their own experiment to find out what it was like to live for a month on just a dollar a day for food. Overnight, their diets changed significantly. The budget forced them to give up many store-bought foods and dinners out. Even bread and canned refried beans were too expensive.

Instead, the couple — Christopher Greenslate, 28, and Kerri Leonard, 29, both high school social studies teachers — bought raw beans, rice, cornmeal and oatmeal in bulk, and made their own bread and tortillas. Fresh fruits and vegetables weren’t an option. Ms. Leonard’s mother was so worried about scurvy, a result of vitamin C deficiency, that they made room in their budget for Tang orange drink mix. (They don’t eat meat — not that they could have afforded it.)

Breakfast consisted of oatmeal; lunch was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Dinner often consisted of beans, rice and homemade tortillas. Homemade pancakes were affordable, but syrup was not; a local restaurant gave them a few free syrup packets.

One of the biggest changes was the time they had to spend in meal preparation.

“If you’re buying raw materials, you’re spending more time preparing things,” Mr. Greenslate said. “We’d come home after working 10 to 11 hours and have to roll out tortillas. If you’re already really hungry at that point, it’s tough.”

While he lost weight on the budget diet, Mr. Greenslate said, the larger issue was his lack of energy. During the experiment he was no longer able to work out at the gym.

A few times they found a bag of carrots or lettuce that was within their budget, but produce was usually too expensive. They foraged for lemons on the trees in their neighborhood to squeeze juice into their water.

Ms. Leonard said that after the 30-day experiment, one of the first foods she ate was a strawberry. “I almost cried,” she said.

The couple acknowledged that the experiment was something of a luxury, given that many people have no choice about how much to spend on food.

“People in our situation have the leisure to be concerned about issues like this,” Ms. Leonard said. “If we were actually living in this situation, I would not be taking the time to be concerned about what I could and could not have; I’d be worried about survival.”

Researchers say the experiment reflects many of the challenges that poor people actually face. When food stamps and income checks run low toward the end of the month, they often do scrape by on a dollar a day or less. But many people don’t know how to prepare foods from scratch, or lack the time.

“You have to know how to cook beans and rice, how to make tortillas, how to soak lentils,” said Adam Drewnowski, director of the Center for Public Health Nutrition at the University of Washington. “Many people don’t have the knowledge or the time if they’re working two jobs.”

Last year, Dr. Drewnowski led a study, published in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association, comparing the prices of 370 foods sold at supermarkets in the Seattle area. The study showed that “energy dense” junk foods, which pack the most calories and fewest nutrients per gram, were far less expensive than nutrient-rich, lower-calorie foods like fruits and vegetables. The prices of the most healthful foods surged 19.5 percent over the two-year study period, while the junk food prices dropped 1.8 percent.

Obesity researchers worry that these trends will push consumers toward less healthful foods. “The message for this year and next year is going to be affordable nutrition,” Dr. Drewnowski said. “It’s not the food pyramid, it’s the budget pyramid.”

The experiment in California was hardly the first of its kind, though the teachers’ budget was tighter than most. Last month Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm of Michigan and her family took a weeklong “food stamp challenge,” spending only $5.87 per day per person on food — the Michigan food stamp allotment. She told reporters that she ended up buying a lot of macaroni and cheese. Last year Gov. Theodore R. Kulongoski of Oregon lived for a week on his state’s $3-a-day food stamp allocation.

Ms. Leonard and Mr. Greenslate, who chronicled their dollar-a-day experience on their blog, onedollardietproject.wordpress.com, say they are looking at other ways to explore how difficult it is for people with limited income to eat a healthful diet.

“I challenge anyone to try to live on a dollar a day and eat fresh food in this country,” Mr. Greenslate said. “I would love to be proven wrong.”

Source:NyTimes

Tags: diet, diet food, diets, eating healthy foods, food, food coupons, food stamps, food tv, health, healthy, healthy foods, junk food, lose weight, low fat food, weight loss

by nate on Saturday, November 1st, 2008 | Health, Life | 5 Comments

By doctoradhi

It is said in the article that some of foods have natural-content that will help us soothing the mind, relaxing the muscles, and stimulate the sleep-inducing hormones.

Tags: almond, banana, good food, good sleep, healthy, honey, sleeping, warm milk

by nate on Friday, October 24th, 2008 | Health | 7 Comments

Before we start, I’d like to introduce you all to an old friend of mine, he is actually a wonderful-genius-full of dedciation person. We went to the same junior high school and I just found out recently that he pursued his medical degree. Like I mention before, he is a smart and very kind in personality… I’m trying to persuade him to join this community just in case any of you have any medical inquiries…so without further due, please welcome the first writing of Doctor Adhi within this blog…

by permission of: doctoradhi.com/blog

Today was one of my busy day, and suddenly I felt headache this afternoon. I first thought this might be caused by hypoglycemia, but then it didn’t go even after I finished my dinner. I wanted to take coffee, to help reduce the headache, but I was afraid I will have difficulty to sleep tonight. So, while I’m now fighting my headache (damn, I rarely feel this happening in my head!), I would like to paste my article about coffee.
Some of us are really addicted to coffee. I have some friends who always start their morning with a cup of coffee. They say that they can’t concentrate on their jobs if they miss a cup of coffee in the morning. Some believe that missing coffee in the morning will generate such an headache. So, is it true?
Caffeine inside the coffee is really seducing. Starting from a cup of hot coffee with the scrambled-egg breakfast (you start feeling hungry, huh?) until a cold starbucks frapuccino, caffeine cannot be separated from our daily life. In medical point of view, yes it is a vasoconstrictor that can help reduce the headache symptoms. And since it has sympathetic effect, caffeine is really a help for us to stay awake and keep concentrating.
But lately, there’re pros & cons about the caffeine addiction. The pros say that caffeine is good for our health, it can improve memory, decrease fatigue, and keep the concentration. Consumption of 300 mg caffeine has little evidence of health risks and some health benefits. But don’t forget that coffee can also increase the blood pressure, so older people should be careful about that. Some people will experience a withdrawal syndrome. If they suddenly stop drinking coffee, they will sometimes feel fatigue, irritable, have trouble concentrating, and drowsiness.
As a conclusion, it’s not wrong to start your day with coffee, but remember also that sometimes it can bring discomfort feeling to your stomach. So I do suggest that you don’t miss your meal while you’re having your caffeine drink.

Tags: addiction, caffeine, coffee, doctor, healthy, healthy living

by nate on Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 | Knowledge, Life | 4 Comments

When it comes to losing weight, tried-and-true strategies work, period. Obese adults who were given a pamphlet with 10 basic rules were motivated enough to lose 4 pounds in 8 weeks. Follow them all, and you could shave off up to 900 calories a day, study authors say—enough to lose nearly 15 pounds in the same amount of time.

1. Eat your meals on a regular schedule.

2. Choose low-fat foods.

3. Wear a pedometer and walk 10,000 steps a day.

4. Pack healthy snacks.

5. Check the fat and sugar content on food labels.

6. Portion wisely and skip seconds (except vegetables).

7. Stand for 10 minutes every hour.

8. Avoid sugary drinks.

9. Turn off the television while you eat.

10. Eat at least five servings of fruits and veggies daily.

Tags: diet, eating healthy, healthy, weight loss