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Obesitity is indirectly the number 1 cause of death in America

July 12th, 2011 admin No comments

It may be America’s No. 1 killer, but people aren’t scared enough of heart disease, says a top U.S. research cardiologist.

“We’ve done a good job of advertising to people that we’re doing better with heart disease, so people tend to sort of feel good about it,” said Dr. Robert Califf, vice chancellor for clinical research at Duke University Medical Center. “We have bypass surgery and stents and drugs that work; the [mortality] rates are declining.”

It’s true that U.S. heart disease deaths overall are down. From 1993 to 2003, cardiovascular disease death rates dropped 22.1 percent.

But more than 910,000 Americans still die of heart disease annually, according to the American Heart Association. And more than 70 million Americans live every day with some form of heart disease, which can include high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, stroke, angina (chest pain), heart attack and congenital heart defects.

“It’s sort of accepted as part of the background noise, even though it’s far and away the mostly likely reason that you or I will die,” Califf said.

And it will get more likely, he said. “We’re just on the front end of the baby boomer epidemic, where the projections on the amount of cardiovascular disease are climbing steadily over the next 10 years,” he said.

“We’re delaying the disease, but we’re not preventing it,” said Dr. Steven Nissen, president of the American College of Cardiology and chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

Prevention is key, the experts agree, and Americans know what to do: Eat a healthy diet, keep their weight in check, exercise and don’t smoke. But instead, obesity and diabetes rates continue to rise. Roughly two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. And the epidemic is spreading to teenagers and children.

“We can’t expect significant change until it becomes a cultural mandate,” said Dr. Leslie Cho, director of the Cleveland Clinic’s Women’s Cardiovascular Center. “When society as a whole makes conscious decisions to eat better and as a default plan be more active, then we’re going to do better.”

But could that happen anytime soon?

“I don’t know,” she said. “If you had asked me if New York City was going to be smokeless, I would have said no a couple of years ago.” The city’s proposed ban on transfat in restaurant food is another potential advance, she said.

Categories: Dieting, Health Tags: ,

Your Diet Coke Problem Is Actually A Problem

June 30th, 2011 admin No comments

Scientists will not rest until they’ve sucked the fun out of even your tamest vices, and now they’ve set their sights on diet sodas.

Two new studies found that diet drinks and artificial sweeteners increase people’s waistlines and increase their risk of diabetes. The new research was presented last week at an American Diabetes Association conference. The first study by doctors at the University of Texas – San Antonio analyzed data from 474 subjects in the San Antonio Longitudinal Study of Aging, or SALSA. The two-decade study includes elderly Mexican Americans and European Americas. From ScienceDaily:

Measures of height, weight, waist circumference and diet soda intake were recorded at SALSA enrollment and at three follow-up exams that took place over the next decade. The average follow-up time was 9.5 years. The researchers compared long-term change in waist circumference for diet soda users versus non-users in all follow-up periods. The results were adjusted for waist circumference, diabetes status, leisure-time physical activity level, neighborhood of residence, age and smoking status at the beginning of each interval, as well as sex, ethnicity and years of education.

Diet soft drink users, as a group, experienced 70 percent greater increases in waist circumference compared with non-users. Frequent users, who said they consumed two or more diet sodas a day, experienced waist circumference increases that were 500 percent greater than those of non-users.

Abdominal fat is a risk factor for several conditions, including diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. The researchers say this finding shows that national campaigns against sugary drinks should emphasize that replacing them with diet soft drinks won’t necessarily make you healthier.

The report doesn’t weigh in on whether a raging Diet Coke addition is preferable to a regular Coke addiction, but it goes on to note that the artificial sweetener aspartame is also bad news if you’re concerned about diabetes. In a related study, a group of mice were fed a high-fat diet including the chemical for three moths. Compared to the control group, the aspartame-consuming mice had elevated fasting glucose levels and equal or diminished insulin levels. Co-author Dr. Gabriel Fernandes explains:

“These results suggest that heavy aspartame exposure might potentially directly contribute to increased blood glucose levels, and thus contribute to the associations observed between diet soda consumption and the risk of diabetes in humans.”

This certainly isn’t the first study to warn that there are risks associated with foods containing artificial sweeteners, but many of us still see diet beverages as neutral when it comes to health because they contain no calories and fat. The truth is the fizzy chemical cocktail can still do a number on your health, and it may be time to rethink your commitment to being comprised of 70% Diet Coke.

The Risk of Weight Loss Surgery

May 29th, 2010 admin No comments

surgery
The desire to lose weight has led many overweight people to undergo risky procedures, in order to lose weight fast. Instead of changing diet and exercising more, a growing segment of the population is extremely obese choose weight loss surgery, however, a decision that cost them a few end their lives.

Bariatric surgery, a procedure that involves the removal of a portion of the stomach to reduce appetite and eliminate weight, is becoming increasingly popular as more people become obese. Over the past 20 years, the rate of obesity among children and adolescents has tripled. Since 2007, the number of people opting for bariatric surgery to deal with their obesity more than doubled.

Dr. Anoop Misra, Director, Department of Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases at Fortis Hospital in Delhi, India, notes that the risks associated with bariatric surgerycan be reduced if proper guidelines are followed. However, physicians are increasingly prescribing surgery for people who do not meet the criteria, he says, that puts people in danger.

In India, several people have died in recent years after receiving bariatric surgery. A girl died of a heart attack just a week after his speech while many others died a few months after them. Dr. Misra believes that both patients and their future doctors fail to ascertain properly the risks associated with surgery, causing unnecessary deaths.

New York University Medical Center describes bariatric surgery as an option of last resort when all other options have been tried. According to experts of the Centre, the gastric bypass surgery has a mortality rate per cent of those who choose to undergo it. The Centre recommends to investigate alternative procedures if lifestyle changes do not work, strongly urging those who ultimately decide to go with weight loss surgery to make sure they have considered the high risk nature of the first procedure. In other words, the procedure is extremely risky and patients must choose to receive it at your own risk.

Many people always look at weight loss surgery are simply looking for an easier way to lose weight. While some people have reached a behemoth that surgery may be their only way, many moderately obese people see surgery as a shorthand guide to shrinking their waistlines. For most people, changing their eating habits and regular exercise is still the best way to lose weight and maintain vibrant health.

Categories: Health Tags: ,

A rejuvenating 5-day body detox plan to keep you going

May 1st, 2010 admin No comments

In the present condition, you can no longer survive a single day, without contamination found. At work so you can be sure at all from the cleanliness of the water that you drink, or from the food you eat. When dealing with people, you can get away from air pollution, be it from smokers, all sorts of sprays or from the exhaust, the institution receive little. This greatly influenced the health on the one way or another. Do not be so sure that if your body does not visibly react, it is good.

For these reasons, detoxification is necessary, to maintain a healthy body which also results to healthy mind and healthy relationship with the people. Our body has its own means of healing and detoxification. However, as was pollution substances enter our bodies, accumulated more than the capacity of self cleansing, we were giving our inside mechanisms a hard time. Then the tissue stresses and, subsequently, to disturb. And because they are weakened, the cleaning process is also affected.

We definitely want a clean body. But we must also help our system if we regulate the body processes. However, you should not be stressed out and your wait a bit before the action body organs, have been overloaded. In the times when the body lacks the command to work to keep the systems must complement the person. The five-day Detoxplan doing a great help in keeping the body systems at work. The five-day Detoxplan rejuvenate the body and the mind and keeps it clean and toned. Detox diet is a part of the 5-day Detoxplanes.

During the period of detoxification, certain foods are avoided. Your meals consist mostly of fresh fruits and green leafy vegetables. Fats, oils, preservatives and food additives are not large, if they are going through the process of detoxification. The meat should be kept away because they are hard to digest. For a day or two is the eating of meat in any form left are eliminated from the diet. Ideal foods that can be a part of your diet are as follow: garlic, broccoli, beets and beans or nuts. Only extracts of the fresh fruit can be taken out as a grapefruit drinks. And since water is a universal solvent, six to eight glasses should be encouraged by this day. Water is also a major factor in the detoxification process. It fills out the toxins in the forms of perspiration, urine or stool. Although you seem to eat less when detoxifying, you are sure that you will not starve, and ironically, you even download them to your stamina. It is because your intake is limited only to foods that are healthy and are good for the digestive system. Detoxification plan should be done at least quarterly.

To ensure that you get a powerful, it is best one nutritionist or consult an expert. You should also search for the Council to ensure a doctor, that what you are doing a detox and a non-addition of the toxins to your body. Through the process of detoxification, the toxins in your body be filled and a new set of energy is delivered to the body that you provide physical and mental alertness. Clean the outside should not only be maintained but in the interior of Sun

Categories: Health Tags: , ,