Posts Tagged ‘Heart’
May 21st, 2010 | 
Author: If your family history includes coronary heart disease, you are wise to look at ways to reduce your risk for heart disease. Coronary heart disease although affected by genetic makeup, is also related to your lifestyle.
Think of the more common risk factors for coronary heart disease:
* Cigarette smoking – a lifestyle choice
* Elevated cholesterol – in part, a lifestyle choice
* High blood pressure – affected by life choices
* Obesity – resulting from lifestyle choices
* Prolonged periods of inactivity – a lifestyle choice
You probably know that changes to your lifestyle can readily reduce the risk for heart disease. Such changes do not require a physician’s help, although you will want to seek your physician’s advice. Nor do actions to reduce the risks of heart disease require participation in a program.
A report in the “American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine” for March/April 2007; 1(2): 79-90 called for practical steps doctors could take to help you change your lifestyle. That report states that most individuals who change lifestyle do it without any program, and gives these examples:
* “…more than 90% of individuals who have stopped smoking have done this without a formal smoking cessation program.”
* “The majority of individuals who lose weight also do this on their own.”
You can make lifestyle changes that will reduce heart disease risks.
Reduce Heart Disease Risks with These Steps
You can reduce the risk for heart disease by making a few changes in your current lifestyle.
1. Chocolate First
Can eating chocolate reduce the risk for heart disease? You have heard reports of it on television. You may have heard it discussed at the office. Is it true?
In 1996, University of California-Davis researcher Andrew Waterhouse found that chocolate contains phenols, chemicals that might reduce heart disease risks. Waterhouse wrote about his findings in the British medical journal Lancet, telling how he had used laboratory experiments to measure the amount of phenols in such products as baker’s chocolate, cocoa powder, and milk chocolate. He found that it took less than 2 ounces of milk chocolate to provide the same amount of phenols as a 5-ounce glass of red wine, which was already known for reducing heart disease risks. He reasoned that not only can eating chocolate reduce the risk for heart disease, but that more research would show that it actually does.
In 2003, Dirk Taubert, MD, PhD, and his colleagues at the University of Cologne, Germany published a further report on chocolate in the Aug. 27 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. Dark chocolate, they found, lowers high blood pressure and reduces that risk associated with heart disease. They had done clinical research to show the effects in humans. Milk chocolate and white chocolate did not have this effect. Milk, whether blended into the chocolate or used to wash down the chocolate, diluted the effect.
Why dark chocolate? The answer is the phenols that Waterhouse discovered in chocolate back in 1996. Cocoa phenols are known to lower blood pressure.
In addition, phenols lower the risk of heart disease by keeping fat-like substances from oxidizing in the bloodstream and clogging the arteries.
So can eating chocolate reduce the risk for heart disease?
It can reduce some risks – if it is dark chocolate – the darker the better – and is not washed down with milk. European made chocolates appear to be better than American made, since they contain more cocoa phenols.
2. Smoking
Another lifestyle change that can reduce the risk of heart disease is to stop smoking. Those who say they can’t stop smoking have not been determined or committed enough. As quoted above from the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, ” more than 90% of individuals who have stopped smoking have done this without a formal smoking cessation program.”
If you are serious about reducing heart disease risks, stop smoking.
3. Obesity
Overweight sounds nicer than obesity, but whichever way you look at it in the mirror, it is a lifestyle change you can make to reduce heart disease risks. You don’t need to join one of the many programs advertised on television, or ask your doctor for prescription medication. You need to change your way of eating and get exercise.
4. Exercise
While the industrial age, followed by the information age, brought us many benefits, they also took away the benefits of farm work. A great number of us have developed a sedentary lifestyle that increases heart disease risks. To reverse that, and reduce the risks of heart disease, we need to follow a regular exercise program.
5. Cholesterol
Your genetic makeup may predispose you to higher levels of cholesterol. To reduce this risk of heart disease, you can change your diet to one of the many that reduce cholesterol intake.
Conclusion
There are other risks for heart disease, but these are examples of those that can be reduced by making simple changes in the way you live. Can they be eradicated without medication? Sometimes they can. Can they become less of a risk for heart disease without medication? Yes. It certainly is worth making the necessary changes.
CAUTION: The author is not a medical professional, and offers the information in this article for educational purposes only. Please discuss it with your health care provider before relying on it in any way.
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Tags: Chocolate, Disease, Eating, Heart, Reduce, Risk | 
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Now, after researchers have successfully factored discover much variables, the Academy of Period ontology reports that grouping with deontology (gum) disease are almost twice as likely to have thrombosis arteria disease, also famous as hunch disease.
Heart Disease and Plaque
Atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, develops when fats and other substances in the murder stick to the sides of our arteries, specifically the arteries that supply murder and oxygen directly to the heart.
These deposits, or “plaques,” crapper physique up along the arteria walls, narrowing or clogging the murder flow that is so essential to some living tissue. If they country the flow completely, or if one of the plaques dislodges, a hunch attack or stroke (if the closure occurs in the arteries that take the brain) crapper occur.
It is essential to note that these plaques are not related to the monument that a dentist or hygienist scrapes off your teeth. Dental monument is a complex, sticky residue comprised mainly of bacteria, polysaccharides, or Byzantine sugars, and matter debris. It is the anorectic agent in cavities and medicates disease.
The Gums-Heart Connection
One theory to explain the correlation between deontology disease and thrombosis arteria disease holds that bacteria indigenous to the mouth crapper enter via the gums and locate or plunk in and around the plaques or greasy deposits on the arteries, directly contributing to the narrowing, blockage, or clot.
Another more popular theory is unmoving in the body’s possess self-defence mechanism—inflammation or swelling. The inflammatory response is triggered by mediators, much as C-reactive protein. Bacteria originating from the oral decay and travelling through the bloodstream are thought to trigger the release of mediators, causing murder cells to swell, thus contributing to narrowing of the arteries and crescendo the risk of blockage.
Researchers have been clear about the role of inflammation in many diseases including deontology disease, hunch disease, and arthritis. Considering how kindred the inflammatory process is throughout the body, it is not arduous to imagine one disease process having an impact on another. Many doctors routinely screen for C-reactive proteins in murder tests to diagnose patients at risk.
Though there seems little controversy over the connection between deontology disease and hunch disease, it is not clear if one is directly responsible for the other.
It is essential to remember, though, that the connection could still be significant because early spotting of cardiovascular disease is ofttimes impeded by the demand of symptoms. We can’t feel our arteries hardening, or an disequilibrium in our murder chemistry, but we just might notice our gums bleeding.
Clearly, anyone at risk or concerned about cardiovascular disease should still be convergent on the obvious style parameters: take healthy, exercise most days of the week, don’t smoke, retrograde weight if you’re overweight, etc.
Your oral health should be considered an essential part of this itemize and should be presented the same reverence. So brush, floss, and you’ll be one step closer to a long, flourishing life!