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Friday, April 23, 2021
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Did You Check Your Heart This Month?

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"A strong and healthy heart is a happy heart"

February was national heart health month, but did you check your heart this month?

(Mirror Daily, United States) – February is the national month of the heart. And since March is approaching rapidly, the question on every doctor’s lips is: did you check your heart this month? The awareness campaign was meant to show men and women in the US that heart problems can be avoided by simply following some basic advice and regularly checking up on their health status.

Did you check your heart this month? If the answer is yes and you learned that you are at risk for developing a heart-related condition, then you must pay extra attention to managing your blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes or obesity.

Blood pressure is fairly easy to manage. There are special drugs that can be prescribed by your physician which can help you keep hypertension under control. Also, it is good to keep in mind the fact that hypertension in women usually manifests itself when the patient is overweight. Keeping your BMI in check is a very good way of also keeping your blood pressure constant and at normal levels.

When hypertension remains unthreatened, it could lead to serious disorders like stroke, heart attack, heart failure, atherosclerosis, eye damage and even kidney failure.

Cholesterol is a little bit less tricky to manage than blood pressure. You just have to be careful what you eat when it comes to trans fat, saturated fat and dietary cholesterol. Also, you must exercise regularly to keep fat away from your body and arteries.

Diabetes usually occurs in middle aged people that are overweight. Unfortunately, the condition is not curable, but it can be well managed through treatment. If you suffer from diabetes, especially type 2, which is insulin dependent, you must keep a strict and healthy diet. No fats, no sugar and very little salt. Diabetes is a good friend of high cholesterol and hypertension, so it is important, if you suffer from this nutritional disorder, to also check your cholesterol and blood pressure levels.

Did you check your heart this month? If the answer is yes, and you’re fit as a fiddle, you’re not exactly out of the woods yet. The chances of developing a heart disorder are extremely high if you smoke, have a sedentary lifestyle, if you drink more than a glass of alcohol per day, or if you take drugs.

You should stop smoking and start working out. You don’t need a personal trainer, just a jog, a long stroll or a physical exercises routine that you can perform at home. All that matters is that you don’t succumb to sedentariness.

Doctors are not telling you to give up alcohol altogether, they just advise you to limit the drinking to a single glass a day. Also, if the glass happens to be filled with red wine, then your heart will actually thank you.

Of course, there are risk factors like gender, race, age, heredity and stress that cannot be controlled by the patients. In this case, the best course of action is to visit your heart doctor regularly and respect the course of treatment he offers you.

Image source: www.pixabay.com

Middle-Aged White Population is Dying Because Of These Reasons

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"a group of middle-aged white people posing with a rocket"

Suicide, drug abuse, diabetes and heart problems are among the main factors that kill middle aged white people.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – Advancements in developing a cure for heart diseases, diabetes and obesity are not something to take lightly. Especially due to the fact that the middle-aged white population is dying because of these reasons.

Policy makers and health care professionals are worried about the reasons for which the majority of the middle-aged white population is dying. The common American is dying because of common diseases such as heart problems, diabetes, drug abuse and suicides. And it is only happening in the US.

According to the author of the study and the president of the Commonwealth Fund, David Blumenthal, diseases are discovered and treated at a normal pace, but this happens with new illnesses or medical conditions that seem like a bigger threat than high cholesterol induced heart problems.

Dr. Blumenthal explains that research in the fields that affect the majority of the middle-aged white population has stagnated. And this is worrying both medical professionals and insurance companies. It is also disastrous from an economic point of view because insurance providers will be more careful with their policies when talking about the middle-aged white population as they are considered a risk right now.

A demographer from the Pennsylvania University, Samuel Preston, explains that the mortality rates in states like Kentucky, Alabama, Tennessee, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Arkansas are higher with 60 to 75 percent than those in the 80s and early 90s. Something happened in between the late 90s and today that caused a serious spike in the mortality rated of the middle-aged white population

On the other side, the lowest mortality rates among the middle-aged white population were registered in states like California, New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Minnesota.

Dr. Preston expressed his concern and stated that the numbers should be seen as a national problem. There are parts of the United States where Americans die younger than the previous generations. The reasons registered for the deaths were common threats as suicide, drug abuse, heart problems and diabetes.

It has become obvious to medical care professionals that they have to focus more on solving these problems. The research efforts must be refreshed and strengthened in order to progress to be felt.

Last year, a couple of Nobel-prize laureates Anne Case and Angus Deaton, economists at Princeton University published a study which showed the increased levels in death rates among white Americans that are non-Latino between the ages of 45 to 54.

Image source: www.wikimedia.org

Dietary Guidelines Address Cholesterol, Saturated Fats and Sugar

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"greasy fast-food"

Saturated fats are one of the main concerns in the American diet.

(Mirror Daily, United States) – The eight edition of the dietary guidelines address cholesterol, saturated fats and sugar. The guidelines did not change significantly ever since the seventh edition that was released in 2010, but they focus more on dietary cholesterol, added sugars, saturated fats and they also included the consumption of coffee as a healthy habit.

According to the latest edition of the dietary guidelines aimed at the American people, coffee is not an enemy anymore, but rather an ally of a healthy lifestyle, if consumed with moderation. The FDA advises that the caffeine intake shouldn’t surpass 400 mg a day. But they do make a note that people who don’t usually drink coffee shouldn’t take it up just because it is now considered healthy.

The 2015-2020 dietary guidelines address cholesterol, saturated fats and sugar as the main concerns the American people should have when calculating their dietary requirements and planning a meal. The novelty of the new dietary guidelines is the fact that dietary cholesterol is no longer considered a health threat.

The previous guidelines limited the consumption of dietary cholesterol to 300 mg per day, but the latest issue says that it is no longer considered a factor in the process of building a healthy lifestyle. While they do say there is a need of additional research on the link between blood cholesterol and dietary cholesterol level, it seems that nutritionists and dietitians are not blaming it anymore for the heart problems of the American people.

But that doesn’t mean that fast food restaurants should be assaulted by people thinking it’s ok to eat food high in cholesterol. The dietary guidelines focus on the ever increasing intake of trans fats and saturated fats in the American plates. Cholesterol may have been removed, for now, from the list of dietary enemies of the blood vessels, but saturated fats are still responsible for hypertension, blood clots, diabetes and even stomach problems, like gastritis.

The last on the list of novelty subjects on which the dietary guidelines focused in the 2015-2020 edition is sugar. It is a well-known fact that the majority of processed foods, drinks and desserts that are on the present moment available on the American market are packed with added sugar.

Only a single Coke can contains approximately 7 teaspoons of added sugar, if you also count the sugar in the morning coffee, in the dough from which the morning bagel was made, from the slice of pizza and the ketchup on top you had for lunch and the from the dressing you drizzled on top of your salad at dinner you get an astonishing result.

Food in America is packed with added sugar, which is why the average citizen consumes almost double the daily recommended dose.

The new dietary guidelines address cholesterol, saturated fats and sugar. The FDA recommends the people to change their diets slowly to avoid stressing out the body.

Image source: www.wikipedia.org

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