Tag Archives: cholesterol

Exercise for Good Health

Health & Nutrition, , ,

When we realize how many health benefits physical fitness can give us, it’s easy to get motivated and get started with exercise, or to keep it up, whatever the case may be.
When we have health, we have hope, and when we have hope, we have everything.

Exercise as a life saver
Renowned exercise guru Dr Kennith Cooper conducted one of the best studies by following 13,344 men and women for 15 years. This conscientious research, taking into account all major interfering variables, like age, family history, personal health history, smoking, blood pressure, cardiovascular condition, and insulin metabolism, showed that, at the follow-up after fifteen years, reduced risk of death was closely correlated with physical fitness. This included death from cardiovascular diseases,
a variety of cancers, and even accidents.

Strengthening heart & lungs
Many studies prove that exercise protects your body by maintaining vital capacity, and therefore maintaining adequate oxygenation of tissues. The health benefits of restoring vital capacity are superior to any drug or medical treatment.

Blood pressure protection
In a typical study, sedentary hypertension patients, aged 55 to 78 years with elevated blood pressure
where followed. After participating in an exercise program, systolic blood pressure felt by a whopping 20 mmHg. Regular exercise will lower blood pressure in almost anyone.

Lower cholesterol level
Cholesterol is essential to every function of your body. It forms part of all organs, including your heart and your brain. Recent research showed that average cholesterol levels in runners and bodybuilders ranged between 158 mg/dl and 183 mg/dl. It proves that exercise makes the healthy difference.

Exercise and Cardiovascular Health
Cardiovascular diseases are far out our biggest health problem. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of mortality in the U.S. Heart disease and cancer combined, account for almost 50% of all deaths each year and affects nearly 14 million. It kills more than twice as many Americans as all cancers, 9 times as many as all other lung and liver diseases together, and 28 times more than all forms of diabetes. There are good reasons to warn everybody starting an exercise program to have a thorough medical and physicians approval before they start.

Cancer prevention
A study by Dr Kenneth Cooper showed that cases of all forms of cancer were closely related to lack of physical activity. Unfit men and women where 300% more likely to develop cancer. But the best findings from this study is that you have to move only a smidgen out of couch potato land to prevent cancer big time.

Exercise against all diseases
The right exercise maintains your heart and lungs, your muscles, your bones, a healthy level of body fat, even your intestinal function. The right exercise in healthy people completely protects glucose tolerance against the degenerative changes in insulin metabolism that lead to adult-onset diabetes.

Research has revealed the mayor way in which physical activity protect you against all diseases. It started with evidence that physical activity increases overall white blood cells. Then came more precise findings that moderate exercise increases bodily production of disease fighting components of the immune system. There is no longer a reason to doubt that the right exercise strengthen your immunity.

Exercise is a medicine to create a positive change in a person’s physical, emotional and mental states.

If you like all of the above, I can recommend one of the best exercise programs on the internet to improve and maintain your overall health!

Related Articles – exercise, fitness, cholesterol, cardiovascular health, cancer, diseases, immunity,

Activity – Disease Prevention

Health & Nutrition, , , ,

Activity is important to keep your body healthy. When you don’t sleep, your body was designed to be active almost all the time. If you immobilize a limb for only three hours, it starts to degenerate. That’s why even during sleep you automatically flex and stretch and turn more than a hundred times in one night. Inactivity is deadly!

This is written in a report by Dr. Walter Bortz in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1982. He reviewed over a hundred studies showing that the sedentary lifestyle developed in the last 50 years in America causes widespread bodily damage. This damage occurs independently of other health risk factors, like smoking, alcohol, fat, age and family history of disease.

Here are some of his findings: By itself, simple inactivity causes a chain reaction of cardiovascular decay. First, it reduces vital capacity. That means, when you sit like a slug, it reduces your ability to take up and use oxygen. The result is: muscles, organs, and brain become partially oxygen deprived.

Also, inactivity reduces cardiac output, that is, the ability of your heart to pump blood around the body. So the tissues of couch potatoes become double deprived. They get less oxygen and less blood and the essential nutrients the blood contains. In an effort to make up these deficits, your body constricts arteries, thereby raising blood pressure. This arterial constriction on top of a weakened heart not only increases the risk of clots and stroke, but also makes your cardiovascular system less able to respond to sudden movement or changes of position. As a result, sedentary folk often suffer dizziness when standing, because the impaired system cannot instantly increase blood flow to the brain. With any sudden movements they are prone to falls and accidents, because the restricted system of blood flow cannot respond efficiently.

One of the most interesting studies shows that more sedentary people than active people are hit and killed in traffic accidents. Because their weakened cardiovascular systems make them incapable of performing the nimble moves required to avoid oncoming traffic, with out becoming dizzy and staggering or falling in the process. Inactivity also increase levels of cholesterol and triglycerides. Triglycerides are the fats you store, and we know that inactivity makes you fat. Inactive muscles shrink, compromising your ability to burn fat, to perform even simple tasks, like running up stairs,and even to hold up your skeleton. Bones also thin and weaken, because your skeleton requires continuous resistance exercise in order to grow new bone matrix.

A combination of inactivity and poor bone nutrition is the major cause of the epidemic of osteoporosis now burdening America – another man made – entirely preventable disease. Inactivity also disrupts bowel function and disorders glucose metabolism, independently of whatever food you eat. The near epidemics of intestinal disorders and adult-onset diabetes in America bear mute testimony to our slug lifestyle. Sex hormone levels also decline with inactivity, now linked to the huge increase in impotence in America. The evidence is overwhelming that the incidence of male impotence in America has doubled since the 1940’s.

Activity Can Save Your Life
One of the best studies was conducted by renowned exercise guru Dr. Kenneth Cooper at his Aerobics Center in Dallas. They followed 13,344 men and women for 15 years. This meticulous research, controlled for all major interfering variables, like age, family history, personal health history, smoking, blood pressure, cardiovascular condition, and insulin metabolism. At the fifteen-year follow-up, reduced risk of death was closely correlated with physical fitness. This included death from cardiovascular diseases, a variety of cancers, and even accidents. There is no longer any doubt: exercise can save your life, while couch potatoism creates an existence that is nasty, sick, and short.

Activity Strengthens Heart and Lungs
Numerous studies show that exercise protects your body by maintaining vital capacity, and therefore maintaining adequate oxygenation of tissues. The average sedentary American male aged 45 has lost half his ability to take up and use oxygen. With one year of the right exercise he can restore it to the level of a 25 year old. Dr. Bortz rightly stated that the health benefits of restoring vital capacity are superior to any drug or medical treatment in existence. In contrast to the weak cardiac function of sedentary folk, the athlete’s strong, slow pulse is telling evidence of a healthy heart. Many have rates in the 40s, and the Colgan Institute one recorded champion cyclist Howard Doerfling at an incredible 29 beats per minute. Sedentary folk, however, are likely to show heart rates in the 80s or 90s. When heart rate rises above 84, risk of coronary heart disease more than doubles.

Activity protects blood pressure
The majority of average people show blood pressure of 120/80, which is regard as normal. But this is not normal at all. We know know that these people are already on their way to disease. Risk of cardiovascular disease starts to rise as systolic blood pressure goes above 103 mmHg. By 120 mmHg, previously thought to be normal, risk has risen from 51 to 77 per 10.000 people. That is an increase of 50%. By 135 mmHg, a level that many physicians still regard as marginal, but acceptable, risk has doubled. Beyond 135 mmHg you are a walking time bomb. The same applies to diastolic blood pressure. Usual levels found in average people are 80-89 mmHg. Recent research shows that these figures indicate a pre-disease state. Diastolic pressures below 80 mmHg shows an incidence of new cardiovascular disease of 10 cases per 1000 people, but by 90-89 mmHg it shows an incidence of 40 cases per 1000 people, a risk increase of 300%.

Don’t fret. It’s easy to reduce blood pressure with the right exercise. Many studies show that exercise works for older people as well, in whom you might think the damage to blood pressure is permanent.
In a typical study, sedentary hypertension patients, aged 55 to 78 years were followed. All had elevated blood pressure. After participating in an exercise program, systolic blood pressure felt by a whopping 20 mmHg. Regular exercise will lower blood pressure in almost anyone.

Activity Lowers Cholesterol
Despite media bleatings, cholesterol is not the bad guy. Cholesterol is essential to every function of your body. It forms part of all your organs, including your heart and your brain. Your body makes all your steroid hormones, including adrenalin, estrogen and testosterone from cholesterol. You cannot live without it. Most of your cholesterol is not from food at all. It is manufactured in your body mainly by the liver. When a healthy person eats high cholesterol foods, the liver immediately reduces its own cholesterol production to keep blood cholesterol low and healthy. Disordered cholesterol metabolism is the cause that blood cholesterol rises to dangerous levels and is a man-made disease, caused mainly by our degraded nutrition and sedentary lifestyle.

As you probably know, we have “good” high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and “bad” low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Total cholesterol is mostly LDL and this is still one of the best predictors of cardiovascular disease. You can measure this total cholesterol with a simple device at home, it is called the “Accumeter”. What is a healthy cholesterol level? You may ask. The American Heart Association and other US health authorities made in mid 1980 below 200 mg/dl their official recommendation. Today we know that this is too high. In a comprehensive study by Dr. Jeremiah Stamler, he followed 356,000 men in 28 US cities. Following his research, death rates from cardiovascular disease starts to rise when cholesterol gets above 168 mg/dl. Total cholesterol in sedentary American men and women rise over 200 mg/dl in their 30s and reach about 220 mg/dl by age 45. It’s clear that sitting like a slug expose oneself to disease. Recent research shows that average cholesterol levels in runners and bodybuilders ranged between 158 mg/dl and 183 mg/dl. It proves that exercise makes the healthy difference.

Cardiovascular diseases are far out our biggest health problem. It kills more than twice as many Americans as all cancers, nine times as many as all other lung and liver diseases together, and 28 times more than all forms of diabetes. There are good reasons to warn everybody starting an exercise program to have a thorough medical and physician’s approval before they start. Sudden exertion in sedentary people “raises their changes of a heart attack by….100 fold! A health letter from the Mayo Clinic stated: “Most people who have heart attacks during activity are sedentary or have underlying heart disease and overdo it.”

Activity Prevents Cancer
Most cancers are slow-growing diseases, eating silently away at your body for years before they show up. Despite the overblown claims of successful treatment by the National Cancer Institute, once a cancer emerges, medicine is usually powerless. Remember the swift deaths of Michael Landon of pancreatic cancer and Jaqueline Onassis of Lymphoma. If there was an effective treatment, don’t you think those immensely rich people would have bought it? So if a little of the right exercise can prevent cancer, it’s more worth than all the gold in Ford Knox. And above all, like the other best things in life, it’s free! From a study by Dr. Kenneth Cooper, it showed that incidence of all forms of cancer was closely correlated with lack of physical exercise. Unfit men and women where 300% more likely to develop cancer. But the best finding from this study is that you have to move only a smidgen out of couch potato land to prevent cancer big time.

Activity Against All Diseases
The right exercise is a major strategy for preventing and treating all diseases. Physicians who do not incorporate exercise into their treatment protocols are guilty of malpractice. The right exercise maintains your heart, lungs, your muscles, your bones, a healthy level of body fat, even your intestinal function. But what about more subtle functions, such as insulin, and your body’s handling of sugar? We know that couch potatoism leads to glucose intolerance. However, research has shown not long ago that getting off the couch not only maintains insulin function to deal with the sugar, but also can reverse decades of damage. In healthy people the right exercise completely protects glucose tolerance against the degenerative changes in insulin metabolism that lead to adult-onset diabetes. Research has revealed the major way in which activity protects you against all diseases. It started with evidence that exercise increases overall white blood cells. Then came more precise findings that moderate exercise increases bodily production of lymphocytes, interleukin 2, neutrophills, and other disease fighting components of the immune system. There is no longer doubt that the right exercise strengthen your immunity. Hence it strengthens your resistance against all sorts of damage, decay, bacteria, viruses, toxins, even radiation. Remember the wise words of Louis Pasteur, the father of modern medicine: “Host resistance is the key”.

I have developed an exercise-program that covers the basics of exercise, aerobics, weight-bearing exercises and nutrition for athletes.


The Mighty Nutritional Value of Beans

Health & Nutrition, , , , , ,

Beans are an excellent way to add to a healthy diet. Although they are small in seize, they are packed with a variety of nutrients which are vital for good health.
Firstly, they are full of fiber. “They are one of the better sources of fiber there is,” according to Joe Hughes, PhD, assistant professor in the nutrition and food sciences program at California State University in San Bernardino, who has beans at the center of his research.

What’s so good about this is that they have a high content of soluble and insoluble fiber, which causes different effect in the body. Besides beans, oats are also one of the few other foods which are high in both types of fiber. But you can use beans in many more other type of dishes than oats.

Besides fiber, beans are also rich in minerals, protein, and surprisingly: antioxidants.

Although beans are not the only food that help lower cholesterol levels, they certainly are one of the best. The soluble fiber is the same gummy stuff found in apples, barley and oat bran.
In the digestive tract, soluble fiber traps cholesterol-containing bile and remove it from the body before it gets absorbed.

“Eating a cup of cooked beans a day can lower total cholesterol by 10% in 6 weeks, “ says Patti Bazel Geil, MS, RD, a diabetes educator and nutrition author in Lexington, Kentucky, who has written about the benefits of beans. While 10% doesn’t seem like much, keep in mind that every 1% reduction in total cholesterol means a 2% less risk for heart attack.

Beans can lower cholesterol in just about anyone, but the higher your cholesterol content, the better they work. In a study at the University of Kentucky, 20 men with high cholesterol ( over 260 milligrams per deciliter of blood ) were given about 3/4 cup of pinto and navy beans per day. The men’s total cholesterol dropped an average of 19% in three weeks, possibly lower their risk of heart attack by almost 40%. Even more remarkable, the dangerous low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol – that’s what cause the blocking of arteries, plunged by 24%.

Apparently all beans can help to lower cholesterol levels, even canned baked beans.
In another study at the University of Kentucky, 24 men with high cholesterol ate 1 cup of canned beans in tomato sauce every day for 3 weeks. Their total cholesterol dropped by 10.4 %, and their triglycerides ( another blood fat that contributes to heart disease)dropped 10.8 %.)

In further research into the cholesterol-lowering effects of beans and other legumes, authors of a report in the British Journal of Nutrition compiled the findings of 11 studies that looked at the relationship between cholesterol and different types of legumes, such as pinto beans, chickpeas, white beans, and mixed beans ( except soybeans).
They found that the beans in these studies lowered total cholesterol by 7.2%, LDL (bad)
cholesterol by 6.2%, and triglycerides by 16.6%. The soluble fiber in these foods appeared to be the most important factor responsible for their cholesterol lowering effect.

Steady Blood Sugar
Keeping steady blood sugar levels is vital to keep diabetes under control.
“Many people don’t realize how good beans are for people with diabetes,” says Geil.
In fact, eating about 1/2 to 3/4 cup of beans a day has proved to significantly improve
blood sugar control. And beans provide yet another benefit for people with diabetes,
she says.”People with diabetes have a four to six times greater change to develop heart
disease,” she says.”Eating more beans will keep their cholesterol low, thereby reducing
their risk.”

Beans are also rich in complex carbohydrates. Not like sugarly foods, which dump sugar
(glucose) into the bloodstream all at once, complex carbohydrates are digested more slowly. This means that the glucose enters your bloodstream a little at a time, and helping to keep blood sugar levels steady, says Geil.

The effect that food has on blood sugar is commonly measured on a scale called the
Glycemic Index. The lower the GI, the better. Beans have a low GI, which is very good,
because of their soluble fiber, says Dr. Hughes. This should be good news for the 21 million Americans with diabetes, and the 54 million with “prediabetes,” a condition that
causes a rise in blood sugar and usually occurs in people before they develop diabetes.

Unfortunately, Americans only eat 17 grams of fiber daily, on average – and people with
diabetes only eat 16 grams – according to a survey from the federal government.
The American Dietetic Association recommends 25 grams daily.

Something nice about beans is that you can buy them in many varieties – and you can
prepare them in different ways – which makes it easy to eat beans even more than once
a day in relatively large quantities to benefit from their fiber content, says Dr. Hughes.

Cancer-Licking Legumes
As we all know, fruits and vegetables are the foods rich in antioxidants.
To prove this fact, the USDA researchers compiled the antioxidant capacity of hundreds
of foods in the American diet and many of these foods stood out.
The Granny Smith apple, for example, scored a 5,381 on the measurement of total
antioxidant capacity per serving. The artichoke scored 7,904 and the low bush blueberry
got a hopping 13,427. But several beans more than held their own, too.
The pinto bean scored 11,864 and the red kidney bean scored 13,259!

Beans are rich sources of phytochemicals, which are plant components that have
antioxidant and other disease fighting properties, says Dr. Hughes.
Beans may contain hundreds of types of antioxidant chemicals.
If you can remember what I have written in my previous articles, that antioxidants
help to protect you from cancer by limiting damaging attacks on your cells from
free radicals. Also, unlike some antioxidant rich plant foods like blueberries,
you can put lots of different beans on your plate, meal after meal, without getting
bored or overwhelmed by the flavor.

Some other compounds in beans – like lignans, isoflavones, saponins, phytic acid,
and protease inhibiters – have proved to inhibit cancer cell growth.
These compounds appear to keep normal cells from turning cancerous and prevent
cancer cells from growing.

The Healthy Alternative to Meat
Beans used to be called the ” poor man’s meat”. But a more accurate name would be
the healthy man’s meat. Like red meat, beans are loaded with protein. But unlike
meat, they’re low in fat, particularly dangerous, artery-glogging saturated fat.
For example, a cup of black beans contains less than 1 gram of fat and less than 1%
of that comes from saturated fat. Three ounces of lean, broiled ground beef on the
other hand, has 15 grams of fat, of which 22% is of the saturated kind.

Beans are also a great source of vitamins and minerals. A half cup of black beans
contains 128 micro grams, or 32% of the Daily Value for folate, a B vitamin that may
lower risk of heart disease and fight birth defects. That same cup has 2 milligrams
of iron, 11% of the Daily Value, and 305 milligrams of potassium, or 9 % of the DV.
Potassium is a mineral that has been shown to help control blood presure.

The darker the beans, the more antioxidants they contain. Black beans also contain
more fiber, about 6 grams.
If you don’t have the time to cook you can buy canned beans as they contained their
nutrients. Only they may have a higher sodium content.

If you have a problem with uncomfortable and embarrassing gas, start eating beans
once a week and the next month twice a week, for example.
It may also help to add ground ginger to the beans.

Phytochemicals, compounds to cut cancer and heart risks

Health & Nutrition, , , ,

INDOLES
Phytochemicals have an important function to prevent some cancers and heart disease .
One of them are called Indoles. You find them in crusiferous vegetables like cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower and mustard greens. They have a bitter taste that bugs don’t like.
The phytochemical responsible for this way of plant protection is called Indole-3-
carbinol, known by researchers by the nickname I3C.
In humans, this compound plays a role in regulating hormones, which may be useful
in preventing breast cancer.

Researchers at the Strang Cancer Prevention Center in New York City found that when
women took 400 milligrams of I3C a day, about the amount found in half a head of
cabbage, their levels of the harmless estrogen increased significantly.
In fact, they had the same levels as those found in marathon runners, which is quite a
feat, since vigorous exercise has been shown to have a strong positive effect on
estrogen levels. I3C also helps stop tumor cells from spreading to other parts of the body,
Studies also show that I3C may slow the growth and reproduction of prostate-cancer cells.
That’s why you should say yes to broccoli and cabbage.

ORGANOSULFUR COMPOUNDS
Other phytochemicals are organosulfur compounds, called allylic sulfides.
They are one of nature’s most potent compounds to decrease your risks of cancer and heart disease. They also raise good HDL cholesterol and stimulate enzymes that suppress tumors.
You will find them in onions, garlic, also but in lower concentration in leeks and chives.

Allylic sulfides also have the unique potency to keep cholesterol and other blood fats known as triglycerides from causing health-threatening blood clots and hardening of the arteries.
Allicin, which researchers believe to be the most potent compount in garlic, and diallyl
disulphyde also made blood vessels relax, reducing blood pressure and improving bloodflow.
Allicin also has potent germ killing powers. Studies show that it can kill microbes responsible for colds, the flu, tummy viruses, yeast infections, and possibly even tuberculosis.

Other studies have shown that taking two or more servings of garlic per week can help
protect against colon cancer. It can also stop the growth of cancer cells, once they develop.

PHYNOLIC COMPOUNDS
This is another phytochemical, also called polyphenols.You will find them in most fruits,
vegetables, cereal grains, and green and black teas. These compounds fight cancer on two
fronts. They stimulate protective enzymes while squelching harmful ones, and they’re also
havy-duty antioxidants.
Most active polyphenols include ellagic acid from strawberries, green tea polyphenols,
and curcumin, the yellow collering in turmeric.
Curcumin plays a role in cancer prevention because it act as an antioxidant.
It also seems to inhibit the growth of cancer cells and prevent or help to treat Alzheimer’s
disease and arthritis.

SAPONINS
One of the most common phytochemicals are the saponins. You will find them in a wide
variety of vegetables, herbs and legumes, like spinach, tomatoes, potatoes, nuts, and oats.
Soy beans alone contain 12 different types of saponins.

Studies show that people who eat saponin-rich diets have consistently lower rates of breast- prostate- and colon cancer,
Unlike other cancer-fighting phytochemicals, however, saponins possess a unique array
of weapons. One way that they help prevent cancer is by binding with bile acids, which
over time may metabolize into cancer-causing compounds, and eliminating them from the
body, says Dr Rao, professor of nutrition at the University of Toronto.

They also stimulate the immune system so that’s better able to detect and destroy precancerous cells before they develop into full-blown cancer.

But perhaps the most important ability of saponins is to target the cholesterol found in cancer cell membranes. Cancer cells have a lot of cholesterol in their membranes, and saponins selectively binds to these cells and destroy them.

Not surprisingly , this ability to bind to cholesterol is helpful for lowering total cholesterol
as well. Saponins bind with bile acids, used for digestion in the intestinal tract.
The bile is then excreted, instead of being reabsorbed. Since bile acids are made of cholesterol, getting rid of some of these acids means that your body has to use up cholesterol to make more, effectively lowering cholesterol levels in the process.
See also my article titled: Phytonutrients, compounds from the garden for good health.

 

circuit-training

Activity: essential prevention against all diseases

Health & Nutrition, , , , , , , ,

Activity is important to maintain a healthy body.
I refer to my article: “Benefits of Exercise”
When you are not sleeping your body was designed to be almost
continually active.
If you immobilize a limb for just three hours, it starts to degenerate.
That’s why even during sleep you automatically flex and stretch and
turn more than a hundred times in one night. Inactivity is deadly!

You can read this in a report by Dr. Walter Bortz in the Journal of
the American Medical Association in 1982.
He reviewed over a hundred studies showing that the sedentary lifestyle
developed in the last 50 years in America causes widespread bodily
damage. This damage occurs independently of other health risk factors,
like smoking, alcohol, fat, age and family history of disease.

Here follows some of his findings:
By itself, simple inactivity causes a chain reaction of cardiovascular
decay. First, it reduces vital capacity. That means, sitting like a slug
reduces your ability to take up and use oxygen.
As a result, muscles, organs, and brain become partially oxygen deprived.
In addition, inactivity reduces cardiac output, that is, the ability of your
heart to pump blood around the body.

So the tissues of couch potatoes become double deprived.
They get less oxygen and less blood and the essential nutrients the blood contains.
In an effort to make up these deficits, your body constricts arteries,
thereby raising blood pressure. This arterial constriction on top of
a weakened heart not only increases the risk of clots and stroke, but also
makes your cardiovascular system less able to respond to sudden movement
or changes of position.

Consequently, sedentary folk often suffer dizziness on standing, because
the impaired system cannot instantly increase blood flow to the brain.
With any sudden movements they are prone to falls and accidents,
because the restricted system of blood flow cannot respond efficiently.

One of the most interesting studies shows that more sedentary people
than active people are hit and killed in traffic accidents.
Because their weakened cardiovascular systems make them incapable of
performing the nimble moves required to avoid oncoming traffic, with out
becoming dizzy and staggering or falling in the process.

Inactivity also increase levels of cholesterol and triglycerides.
Triglycerides are the fats you store, and we know that inactivity makes you fat.
Inactive muscles shrink, compromising your ability to burn fat, to perform
even simple tasks, like running up stairs,and even to hold up your skeleton.

Bones also thin and weaken, because your skeleton requires continuous
resistance exercise in order to grow new bone matrix.
A combination of inactivity and poor bone nutrition is the major cause of
the epidemic of osteoporosis now burdening America – another man made
– entirely preventable disease.

Inactivity also disrupts bowel function and disorders glucose metabolism,
independently of whatever food you eat. The near epidemics of intestinal
disorders and adult-onset diabetes in America bear mute testimony to our
slug lifestyle.

Sex hormone levels also decline with inactivity, now linked to the huge
increase in impotence in America. The evidence is overwhelming that the
incidence of male impotence in America has doubled since the 1940’s.

Activity Can Save Your Life
One of the best studies was conducted by renowned exercise guru
Dr. Kenneth Cooper at his Aerobics Center in Dallas.
They followed 13,344 men and women for 15 years.
This meticulous research, controlled for all major interfering variables, like age,
family history, personal health history, smoking, blood pressure, cardiovascular
condition, and insulin metabolism.

At the fifteen-year follow-up, reduced risk of death was closely correlated
with physical fitness. This included death from cardiovascular diseases,
a variety of cancers, and even accidents.

There is no longer any doubt: exercise can save your life, while couch
potatoism creates an existence that is nasty, sick, and short.

For Science based Nutrition, Training & Health resources , visit: www.muscle-health-fitness.com 

Activity Strengthens Heart and Lungs

Numerous studies show that exercise protects your body by maintaining
vital capacity, and therefore maintaining adequate oxygenation of tissues.

The average sendentary American male aged 45 has lost half his ability
to take up and use oxygen. With one year of the right exercise he can
restore it to the level of a 25 year old.

Dr. Bortz rightly stated that the health benefits of restoring vital capacity
are superior to any drug or medical treatment in existence.

In contrast to the weak cardiac function of sedentary folk, the athlete’s
strong, slow pulse is telling evidence of a healthy heart.
Many have rates in the 40s, and the Colgan Institute one recorded champion
cyclist Howard Doerfling at an incredible 29 beats per minute.

Sedentary folk, however, are likely to show heart rates in the 80s or 90s.
When heart rate rises above 84, risk of coronary heart disease more than doubles.

Activity protects blood pressure
The majority of average people show blood pressure of 120/80, which is regard
as normal but this is not normal at all. We know know that these people are already
on their way to disease. Risk of cardiovascular disease starts to rise as systolic blood pressure goes above 103 mmHg.
By 120 mmHg, previously thought to be normal, risk has risen from 51 to 77 per
10.000 people. That is an increase of 50%.
By 135 mmHg, a level that many physicians still regard as marginal, but acceptable,
risk has doubled. Beyond 135 mmHg you are a walking time bomb.

The same applies to diastolic blood pressure. Usual levels found in average people
are 80-89 mmHg. Recent research shows that these figures indicate a pre-disease state. Diastolic pressures below 80 mmHg shows an incidence of new cardiovascular disease of 10 cases per 1000 people, but by 90-89 mmHg it shows an incidence of 40 cases per 1000 people, a risk increase of 300%.

Don’t fret. It’s easy to reduce blood pressure with the right exercise.
Many studies show that exercise works for older people as well, in whom you might think the damage to blood pressure is permanent.

In a typical study sedentary hypertension patients, aged 55 to 78 years were followed.
All had elevated blood pressure.
After participating in an exercise program, systolic blood pressure felt by a whopping
20 mmHg. Regular exercise will lower blood pressure in almost anyone.

Activity Lowers Cholesterol
Despite media bleatings, cholesterol is not the bad guy.
Cholesterol is essential to every function of your body.
It forms part of all your organs, including your heart and your brain.

Your body makes all your steroid hormones, including adrenalin, estrogen and testosterone from cholesterol. You cannot live without it.

Most of your cholesterol is not from food at all. It is manufactured in your body mainly
by the liver. When a healthy person eats high cholesterol foods, the liver immediately reduces its own cholesterol production to keep blood cholesterol low and healthy.

Disordered cholesterol metabolism is the cause that blood cholesterol rises to dangerous levels and is a man-made disease, caused mainly by our degraded nutrition and
sedentary lifestyle.

As you probably know, we have “good” high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and “bad” low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Total cholesterol is mostly LDL and this is still one of the best predictors of cardiovascular disease.
You can measure this total cholesterol with a simple device at home,
it is called the “Accumeter”.

What is a healthy cholesterol level? You may ask.
The American Heart Association and other US health authorities made in mid 1980
below 200 mg/dl their official recommendation.

Today we know that this is too high.
In a comprehensive study by Dr. Jeremiah Stamler, he followed 356,000 men
in 28 US cities. Following his research, death rates from cardiovascular disease
starts to rise when cholesterol gets above 168 mg/dl.
Total cholesterol in sedentary American men and women rise over 200 mg/dl
in their 30s and reach about 220 mg/dl by age 45.

It’s clear that sitting like a slug expose oneself to disease.
Recent research shows that average cholesterol levels in runners and bodybuilders
ranged between 158 mg/dl and 183 mg/dl.
It proves that exercise makes the healthy difference.

Chardiovascular diseases are far out our biggest health problem.
It kills more than twice as many Americans as all cancers, nine times as many as
all other lung and liver diseases together, and 28 times more than all forms of diabetes.

There are good reasons to warn everybody starting an exercise program
to have a thorough medical and physician’s approval before they start.
Sudden exertion in sedentary people “raises their changes of a heart attack by….100 fold!
A health letter from the Mayo Clinic stated:
“Most people who have heart attacks during activity are sedentary or have underlying heart disease and overdo it.”

Activity Prevents Cancer
Most cancers are slow-growing diseases, eating silently away at your body for years
before they show up.
Despite the overblown claims of successful treatment by the National Cancer Institute,
once a cancer emerges, medicine is usually  powerless.

Remember the swift deaths of Michael Landon of pancreatic cancer and Jaqueline
Onassis of Lymphoma. If there was an effective treatment, don’t you think those
immensely rich people would have bought it?

So if a little of the right exercise can prevent cancer, it’s worth than all the gold in
Ford Knox. And above all, like the other best things in life, it’s free!

From a study by Dr. Kenneth Cooper, it showed that incidence of all forms of cancer
was closely correlated with lack of physical exercise. Unfit men and women where
300% more likely  to develop cancer.
But the best finding from this study is that you have to move only a smidgen  out of
couch potatoland to prevent cancer big time.

Activity Against All Diseases

The right exercise is a major strategy for preventing and  treating All diseases.
Physicians who do not incorporate exercise into their treatment protocols are
guilty of malpractice.

The right exercise maintains your heart, lungs, your muscles, your bones, a healthy
level of bodyfat, even your intestinal function.
But what about more  subtle functions, such as insulin, and your body’s handling
of sugar?

We know that couch potatoism leads to glucose intolerance.
However, research has shown not long ago that getting off the couch not only
maintains insulin function to deal with the sugar, but also can reverse decades
of damage. In healthy people the right exercise completely protects glucose tolerance against the degenerative changes in insulin metabolism that lead to adult-onset diabetes.

Research has revealed the major way  in which activity protects you against all diseases.

It started with evidence that exercise increases overall white blood cells.
Then came more precise findings that moderate exercise increases bodily production of
lymphocytes, interleukin 2, neutrophills, and other disease fighting  components
of the immune system. There is no longer doubt that the right exercise strengthen
your immunity.

Hence it strengthens your resistance against all sorts of damage, decay, bacteria, viruses,
toxins, even radiation. Remember the wise words of Louis Pasteur, the father of
modern medicine: “Host resistance is the key”.

Health Benefits of Brown Rice

Health & Nutrition, , , , , , ,

Rice is the main ingredient in cuisines around the world
with an estimated 40,000 varieties available worldwide.
In the United States you can buy white and brown basmati rice
from India and Pakistan, Arborio rice from Italy, Valencia rice
from Spain and “sticky”” rice from Japan, to name just a few.

Brown rice is the most nutritious kind of rice, which contains
abundant amounts of fiber, complex carbohydrates and essential
B vitamins. Brown rice retain all four parts of their original
grain kernel – the germ, the bran, a protective layer called
the aleurone, and the starchy endosperm – intact.

White rice only has the high-carb, nearly zero fiber endosperm.
What’s missing? Not just fiber, but hundreds of health-protective
phytochemicals, vitamins and minerals.
According to the American Institute for Cancer Research, whole
grains can have 10 times the amount of vitamin E, four times
the potassium, magnesium and zinc; three times the vitamin B6,
and twice the selenium of white rice.

No wonder when you eat at least three servings of brown rice
a day, you cut your risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and
overweight.

The body need small amounts of cholesterol for different functions,
for example for making cell walls and for manufacturing essential
hormones. In order to supply the necessary amounts, the liver
produces cholesterol every day. But when we eat a high-fat diet,
the body churns out more cholesterol than it can use.
As a result, the risk of heart disease goes up.
We can avoid this from happening by eating brown rice.
A compound in the bran layer of rice, called oryzanol, has been shown
to reduce the body’s production of cholesterol.
This compound is actually chemically similar to cholesterol-lowering
medications.

In a study at Louisiana State University, people ate 100 grams of
rice bran a day for three weeks. At the end, levels of harmful
low-density Lipoprotein (LDL), cholesterol decreased by 10%, while
levels of beneficial high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol
stayed the same. That means a 30% reduction in risk of heart attack.
Ïn combination with a low-fat diet, brown rice is one of the best
foods you can eat for lowering cholesterol”, says Dr.Hegsted.

Fiber offers powerful protection against type 2 diabetes.
Studies show that eating at least three servings of brown rice a day,
cuts the risk for this condition by 21% to 30%. Because fiber slows
digestion and keeps blood sugar low and steady.

In contrast, carbohydrates from refined grains ( white rice) send
blood sugar soaring after a meal, and triggering the release of
more insulin to force the sugar into cells.
Over time, higher blood sugar and insulin levels put you in the
danger zone for diabetes – and also for high blood pressure and
even some forms of cancer.

The insoluble kind of fiber in brown rice acts like a sponge in the
intestine, soaking up large amounts of water, according to Dr. Hegsted.
As a result, stools are getting larger and wetter, so they pass
more easily. Also, larger stools move faster through the colon.
As a result, any harmful substances that they contain, have less time
to damage cells in the colon wall, which may reduce the risk of cancer.

Some researchers estimate that if people would increase the amount of
fiber in their diets to 39 grams a day, they could drop the risk of
colon cancer by 31%.

Facts about Cholesterol

Health & Nutrition,

One out of two men and one out of two women in Europe have an elevated
level of cholesterol, triglyceride, lipo-proteins, LDL and other risk factors
in the blood. Worldwide it concerns millions of people.

These blood factors are for the risk of cardiovascular diseases in general
of minor importance, because the main risk is the instability of the artery wall.
That’s why these risk factors who are circulating in the blood are also called
together under the idea: secondary risk factors.

Elevated levels of cholesterol and other risk factors in the blood are not,
as was previously believed, the cause of cardiovascular diseases, but in the
least the result of the emotion, which is developing.

The traditional medical science concentrate in particular on the fight against
the symptoms of secondary risk factors.
Medicines, which block the production of cholesterol and also other means
are prescribed these days to millions of people.

As the cause of an elevated cholesterol content, the traditional medical science
knows two important factors.
Firstly: genetic disturbances in the metabolism (genetic risks) and secondly:
a wrong nutrition pattern.( nutrition dependent risk).
This insight in the causes is incomplete and is urgently in need of a supplement.

Cellular medicine offers a complete new insight into the secondary risk factors of cardiovascular diseases and also a total new preventive method. Cholesterol, triglyceride, LDL cholesterol, lipo-protein and other metabolic products are ideal remedies for a damaged artery wall.
The metabolic center of the body:the liver, get a signal to produce more repair molecules. From the liver comes cholesterol and other repair molecules in the bloodstream and so reach the damaged spots in the artery wall, for example the coronary artery. We know that repair of the artery wall also continues in case of a chronic vitamin deficiency and other elements of the cell. As a consequence, an atherosclerotic deposit starts.

The cellular medicine not only gives us a new insight in the part of atherosclerotic deposits of the artery wall in case of vitamin deficiency, but also as part of the secondary risk factors.Cholesterol, triglyceride, LDL and lipoprotein are important repair molecules for a weak artery wall caused by vitamin deficiency. They can only develop into a risk factor of a cardiovascular affection if the artery walls are weakened by chronic vitamin deficiency. That’s why the classification of secondary risk factors is very striking.

Cellular medicine enlarge our insight in the factors which are determent for your personal risk of a cardiovascular affection. An optimal compiled vitamin program include a selection of vitamins and other essential nutrients who on the one site oppose the increase of secondary risk factors and on the other site are helping to lower an elevated cholesterol content.
The ingredients of such a vitamin program are helping with the repair of the artery walls. As a result, the liver gets a signal to reduce the production of repair molecules, and consequently, the cholesterol content and other secondary risk factors are decreasing.