Eating sugar is not like eating one of the four food groups. It consists of calories that are empty of all nutrients, yet it contains a great deal of caloric content. Fructose, or fruit sugar, can lead to liver disease and other chronic conditions. What this might mean is that regulation agencies and people themselves should strongly consider the idea of regulating sugar intake. In particular, the intake of fructose should be regulated.

Some things that could be considered include using a special tax on high sugar items like sodas and candies, just like governmental taxes increase the price of cigarettes and other tobacco products. Sugar should be limited in the school system and advertising products should be created to educate people about the dangers of sugar. There should also be a limit as to the age in which a person can buy sugary beverages. Kids shouldn’t be able to purchase sugary items in stores they visit during after-school hours.

While it may seem that regulating sugar is like “Big Brother watching you”, it may be necessary to control sugar consumption on a wider level than just by relying on parental control over sugar use. The government and public agencies should be able to help parents who might have trouble controlling their own children’s sugar intake. This could lead to a lifetime habit of not eating much sugar as eating habits begin in one’s youth.

But does sugar really equate with alcohol and cigarette use? Can parents really control their older children’s sugar purchasing and consumption? Should sugar regulation really be a government opposition, overcoming parental shortcomings? In some cases, it seems ridiculous to have to provide a government-issued ID tag in order to buy a donut or a sugary soda. It looks too much like the government is thinking all people are fools and are unable to make eating choices by themselves. On the other hand, it makes the eating of non-sugary items cheaper by comparison so people might buy them more often.

This leaves us with the question as to whether or not the government should actually put regulations on the consumption and purchase of sugary products. Is this really the way to go about keeping the population healthy or can education alone make the difference in the way people eat? Is sugar really the threat to our health that we need to tax it and keep it away from our children on a governmental level? We should find out more in the coming years.

Should Sugar Consumption be Curbed? is a post from: MHC Health & Wellness

When a person has their cholesterol checked, they actually have several numbers revealed, including their total cholesterol, their LDL or “bad” cholesterol, their HDL or “good” cholesterol and their triglyceride levels. You should aim for a total cholesterol level of less than 200 mg/dL, an LDL level of below 70 mg/dL, an HDL level of at least 40 mg/dL and a triglyceride level of below 150 mg/dL. Your doctor may want even tighter levels of these lipids if you are at risk for heart disease.

If your levels are modestly high, you might want to forego medications immediately and instead increase the amount of fiber in your diet. There are two kinds of fiber available: soluble fiber and insoluble fiber. Insoluble fiber is the kind of fiber you take when you want to improve your bowel movements and includes foods like green beans, dark leafy veggies, whole wheat, fruit skins, corn bran, seeds, nuts and wheat bran.

Soluble fiber, on the other hand, can bind to lipids and can reduce the levels of LDL cholesterol in your blood. Sources of soluble fiber include oats and oat bran, nuts, barley, dried peas, dried beans, flax seeds, psyllium husk, carrots, and oranges or apples.

Soluble fiber sources are what you want to eat in order to reduce the LDL cholesterol in your diet. In theory, this should, in turn, reduce your risk of heart disease without having to resort to medications. Increasing soluble fiber, along with a healthy amount of exercise, should give you an overall better chance of not having a heart attack or stroke. Your total fiber intake, if you are watching food labels, should be about 30 grams per day.

Soluble fiber works by attaching to cholesterol in the GastrointestinaI tract and allowing it to pass through the body without being absorbed by the body. You need at least 5-10 mg of soluble fiber each day in order to reduce the LDL cholesterol by 5 percent but it is recommended that those with high cholesterol attempt to get in about 10-25 mg of soluble fiber per day.

Will eating soluble fiber treat very high cholesterol numbers? Not really. Dietary guidelines can only reduce the LDL or bad cholesterol by around 5-10 percent and if you have a cholesterol level that is, for example, 250 mg/dL, you will only reduce your total cholesterol by 25 points, which is still too high. LDL numbers of 150 mg/dL will only drop 15 points. In such situations, medications will likely be required.

Fiber Lowers Cholesterol is a post from: MHC Health & Wellness

What are the major risk factors for an early death? These include living with untreated high blood pressure, having diabetes, eating too much fat in your diet, having high cholesterol and smoking cigarettes or using other tobacco products. These risk factors can cause cancer, heart disease and stroke.

Some of these things we all know about or they have symptoms that tell us we have the disease. Others are silent killers that take away our lives without us even knowing we were ill. For example, high cholesterol and high blood pressure often have no particular symptoms, while diabetes, smoking and eating excess fat are usually known factors. Nevertheless, people don’t recognize the relationship between the risk factor and the disease.

A recent study was performed on a group of 250,000 individuals 18 years of age or older to see if having a risk factor meant you were at greater risk for a cardiovascular event such as heart attack, congestive heart failure or stroke. The study was done on both black and white populations. The “study” wasn’t actually a single study but was the combination of several major and important studies done on heart disease including the Framingham Heart Study, the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults, the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial.

The studies did an examination of middle to older age persons from age 45 to 75 and looked at their risk factors. A normal person was considered to have a BP less than 120/80, a total cholesterol below 180 mg/dL, be a nonsmoker and have no diabetes whatsoever. Everyone else was considered to have at least one risk factor for heart disease.

Those men in middle age with no risk factors had a 1.4 percent chance of having a heart attack or stroke before the age of 80. Those with at least 2 risk factors had a nearly 50 percent chance of having a cardiovascular event, particularly a heart attack.

Women in middle age who were without risk factors had a 4 percent chance of having a heart disease problem before age 80, while women with at least two of the above risk factors ran a risk of heart-related events of 31 percent. In addition, blacks seem to suffer more cardiovascular events because they have more risk factors on average than whites.

Lifestyle Factors can cause Death is a post from: MHC Health & Wellness

There are at least three other resolutions every woman should make in order to make their health as good as possible. It should all start with a visit to your doctor for a thorough evaluation of your cardiac status. Heart health is something some people only pay attention to once they have had a major heart event. A good cardiac work up for a high risk person includes having a cholesterol panel, including a total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. Your doctor can tell you what your numbers mean and if you are at risk for heart disease.

Higher risk patients can have a stress ECG test. A resting ECG test is one in which the electrical aspects of your heart are assessed while you’re lying down. It doesn’t really say whether the heart is doing its job when you’re active. A stress ECG assesses the electrical activity of the heart when you’re walking or running. It is a better test for heart disease.

Have your blood pressure and blood sugar tested, too. Diseases like diabetes and hypertension can be very silent and are great contributors to the risk for heart disease. Both are treatable conditions that can be managed in those who take the time to be tested for them.

Another resolution to think of includes finding new and creative ways to be physically active. It might mean things like taking the stairs at all times or parking your car in a faraway parking space. You may not have to allot thirty minutes to go exercise at the gym or take in a long run. Women in general are time-constrained and need to be as creative as possible to get their exercise in.

Finally, you need to get serious about health tests such as a bone (DEXA) scan and a colonoscopy, especially if you fall into the appropriate age ranges for these tests. These tests are all about prevention of serious health conditions and tests like a colonoscopy can be life-saving with just minimal discomfort on your part.

How Women stay Healthy is a post from: MHC Health & Wellness

According to leading cardiologists, you need to make an effort to reach your target heart rate when you do aerobic exercise and you need to stay in your target heart rate for a period of time in order to get the best cardiac or heart effect from that exercise.

The target heart rate is defined as the rate your heart must be at in order to work it to the proper level. It is not the maximum heart rate your heart can reach and, in fact, it is not a good idea to get much above the target heart rate or you will put too much stress and strain on the heart, possibly triggering symptoms of nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath or even chest pain.

The target heart rate is the way you pace your workout. When you exercise, you should have an exercise heart rate detector and should watch the monitor until you reach your target heart rate. Stay in the target heart rate until it is time to cool down from the exercise or exercise in your target heart rate for ten or fifteen minutes before dropping down to a lesser heart rate. You can repeat cycles of increasing and decreasing your heart rate over the time of your exercise.

So how do you know what your target heart rate is? The target heart rate actually changes with a person’s age. The older you are the less the target heart rate is going to be. The target heart rate of an older woman of 60 is only about 111-134 beats per minute and the target heart rate of a much younger person of 18 is as high as 140-172. A good way to calculate the target heart rate is to take the number 220 and subtract your age.

If you want to exercise in a moderate way, you should exercise until your heart has reached 50 to 70 percent of the maximum allowable heart rate, which is about 220. Vigorous exercisers should get their heart rate as high as 70 to 85 percent of the maximum heart rate.

According to generally acceptable government guidelines, you should exercise about 150 minutes of exercise that is of a moderate level or more per week. This means that if you keep your workout to about a half hour, you need to exercise four to five times per week.

Learn to Exercise Right is a post from: MHC Health & Wellness

Screening tests don’t have to be expensive. For example, screening for diabetes can be as simple as purchasing a home test kit for around $15 and testing your fasting blood sugar. Doctors’ testing is a bit more expensive but probably not more than $50-$100. In addition, many employees are offering screening tests for their employees for free and many low cost screening programs exist.

Finding out you have an early case of a serious disease can cut down on visits to the emergency room and endless visits to the doctor in order to treat a complicated condition. Health plans, for this reason, are providing incentives for those willing to be screened for diseases in their asymptomatic or early state.

Even so, Preventive care is not something adults often think of. They think nothing of taking their infant in for a shot or for Preventive care and yet they fail to consider the fact that their health is as important as their children’s.

Screening for cancer is especially important. The two most common cancer screening tests include the colonoscopy and the mammogram, which screen for colon cancer and breast cancer, respectively. Screening for colon cancer is recommended at age fifty and yet less than half of all individuals are current in their colorectal screening.

In the same vein, fewer than half of all women eligible to receive a mammogram for breast cancer detection are getting their tests on a regular basis. Most doctors are beginning to screen women for the disease by the age of forty. The risk of dying from a case of breast cancer is reduced by 35 percent among women aged fifty and older.

Diabetic, heart disease and stroke detection are just as important as cancer screening. Diabetes is very common, affecting up to 24 million Americans at any given time. Diabetes is a major contributor to heart disease, kidney disease, amputation of the legs, stroke and blindness. Diabetic screening along with screening for cholesterol and high blood pressure can demonstrate the risk of heart disease before the patient actually develops the condition.

Preventive Screening Saves Lives is a post from: MHC Health & Wellness

It is a good idea to see a doctor for a complete check up before attempting the task of training for a marathon. If you are older or are worried about your cardiac health, a doctor can order an exercise stress test, which can tell you if your heart can handle the stressors of running long distances.

Choose the distance you are intending to run and plan your training sessions accordingly. You can choose to run a marathon as short as 10 kilometers or you can go all out and choose to run a marathon that is as long as 42 kilometers or about 26 miles.

Don’t forget that training for a marathon can’t be done in a very short period of time. Begin your training session for your marathon as early as 4 to 5 months ahead of the date of the marathon. Your physical training is what is going to get you through the event so you need to give your body time to adjust to the rigors of running.

Understand the importance of an excellent diet plan necessary for success in a marathon. Your performance depends on eating a balanced diet with all the essential nutrients, including protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, fats, minerals and, of course, plenty of water.

On the day of the marathon, you need to dress lightly. While it may be cool or even cold in the morning when the marathon starts, the temperature will only continue to rise as the day progresses. If you overdress for the morning hours, it is too likely that you will become overheated and even dehydrated as it begins to warm up.

You need to select the right running shoe for you. Ideally, your shoe will be specifically for running, should fit you extremely well and should have already been broken in with several kilometers of previous running. That way, you’ll know exactly whether or not the shoe is right for you.

You need to pace yourself during the marathon. If you expend all your energy stores by trying to get ahead of the next person or fail to take time to slow your speed for periods of time, you will tire out too easily and will fail at the task of finishing the run.

Right Ways to run a Marathon is a post from: MHC Health & Wellness

This kind of person needs to get away from counting weight numbers and instead think more about their total wellness and what goes into creating the healthiest type of person. Weight loss alone has the tendency to become very extreme only to lose ground when the person loses motivation and stops their difficult exercise behavior.

There are many things that go into how much you weigh. First of all, there is the factor of genetics. If your ancestors were generally fat, it means that they probably have more efficient metabolic systems that would be good in situations of a lack of available food—something that doesn’t exist today.

Your body type also goes into what you weigh. If you carry your fat around your middle, you will gain weight there and have the capacity to be fat in that location. If you carry your weight in your legs and buttocks, you will likely gain less weight because these areas of the body are not as big as the stomach.

Lastly, your diet can affect how much you weigh. If you consistently eat more than the recommended number of calories for your size, you will likely gain weight, even if you are eating foods you consider to be healthy for you. Granted, eating healthy foods helps improve your chances of eating fewer calories and maintaining a healthy weight.

Exercise is only part of what goes into your weight. If you exercise but have a body type that has a naturally low metabolism, you will have a harder time losing weight, even though you are steadily exercising in a moderate to vigorous weigh. Instead, you may have to focus on using exercise in order to strengthen your heart rather than in order to lose weight.

The other things you need to consider about exercise and losing weight. Firstly, you can gain calories much more easily by eating than you can lose them by losing weight. Moderate exercise burns only about 150 calories per half hour, while this can be turned around in minutes by eating an unhealthy food.

As you eat, you will be hungrier and will eat more food. This will offset your progress in trying to exercise in order to lose weight. In addition, the more you exercise, the more efficient will be your ability to burn calories and exercise will have a lesser ability to burn calories.

Exercise can cause a loss of fat in your body but a gain in muscle weight so you don’t actually lose the weight you had wanted to.

Having Health instead of Fitness is a post from: MHC Health & Wellness

Most people find out they have high blood pressure during a routine test at the doctor’s office but some can make this determination at blood pressure stations at the drug store or at a health fair. The natural response is to follow the doctor’s recommendation and to being taking one of a number of medications for high blood pressure.

These medications usually work to reduce the blood pressure but are not without side effects and the problem of high cost. What some people want is to manage their blood pressure naturally in behavioral ways that can reduce the blood pressure without pills.

It should be noted that extremely high blood pressure carries the risk of stroke and heart disease and should not be messed with. Treating your own high blood pressure naturally should be done under a doctor’s guidance and supervision.

You can begin reducing your high blood pressure by meticulously reducing the amount of sodium in your diet. Sodium or “salt” carries the risk of elevating one’s blood pressure. In order to best manage the sodium content in the diet, one must begin by carefully noting the sodium content of all prepackaged items you buy at the store and avoid those with high sodium contents. There are some things that are infused with sodium by the manufacturer, including things like soups, which could have 1000 mg or one gram of sodium per serving size. Most doctors who treat high blood pressure or “hypertension” recommend a 2 gram sodium diet or the taking in of only 2 grams of sodium in an entire day.

The truth of the matter is that many pre-packaged or processed foods are high in sodium—even the ones that don’t taste very salty. If you still need to buy pre-packaged items, you need to do so with lots of label watching.

Exercise reduces high blood pressure. Exercise can be intense but most people will see reductions in their blood pressure with a program of walking. Walk at least half an hour at a moderately brisk pace three to four times a week and you’ll see nice reductions in your resting blood pressure.

Treating High Blood Pressure Yourself is a post from: MHC Health & Wellness

Unfortunately, many people begin smoking in their youth. They build up a habit for nicotine, the active component in cigarette and cigar smoking. This is a habit that is extremely difficult to break, even with anti-smoking aids.

Unless there is a health crisis that spurs a person into action, few people develop the incentive to try and quit the smoking habit. Before long, the individual ages and, in older age, people often feel they won’t have any benefit from quitting smoking after having smoked for so long.

The results of a new study now dispute that idea. The study indicates that smokers who are elderly and who might think it isn’t worth it to stop smoking at their age actually can experience positive health benefits if they quit smoking. These health benefits seem to show up much more quickly than doctors once thought.

Health benefits of stopping smoking in the elderly extend past just breathing better. Elderly smokers who quit smoking were found to have a 16 percent reduction in the chances of dying, even if the stoppage of smoking happened after the person was 60 years of age. The study was done on smokers who had smoked their whole lives and even smokers who had only smoked for about four years.

The study done over a period of ten years on 63,000 elderly individuals defined long term smokers (quitters) as having smoked and quit for an average of twenty seven years. Short term smokers or “new quitters” were defined as smokers who had smoked approximately four years. As expected, new quitters carried the greatest advantage. They actually had a reduction in the risk of early death due to lung cancer of twenty four percent. Patients who didn’t have any severe chronic illnesses did even better. These individuals had a 40 percent reduction in risk of suffering from lung cancer death. Things like heart disease and stroke were reduced as well.

Quitting Smoking saves Lives is a post from: MHC Health & Wellness