Battling Heart and Stroke

We all know that our diet is a key factor to being and keeping healthy. It is the food we eat that provides us the energy to perform our daily activities - it is what keeps our heart pumping. Now, we get to wonder, what do high performance athletes eat? What gives them the energy, the power to run, swim, jump or lift weights faster and better than non-athletic people like you and me?

Here are some examples of what Olympic athletes eat on a normal day. More →

Let’s continue with our Olympics special this week and look at what exercise can do for you.

If you want to stay active and live longer, running seems to be the sports for you. A study showing the health benefits of running is being published this month in the Archives of Internal Medicine, a journal of the American Medical Association.

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Many of us look to up to successful sports people and we can’t really imagine that some of them may also be fighting against heart disease like the rest of us. After all, physical exercise is supposedly the key to cardiovascular health.

Yet, there have been sudden deaths in past sports competition. According to Dr. Barry J. Maron of the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation, “about 125 athletes under 35 involved in organized sports die of sudden death in the United States each year…” The institute keeps a national registry of such fatalities and the majority of cases recorded were due to cardiac-related events.

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The Summer Olympic Games in Beijing have just started. What better way to start this week than talk about athletes’ heart rates?

There are certain tests that professional athletes have to go through before they can complete. I am not only referring to those tests that detect the use of performance enhancing drugs. Athletes also have to go through tests to determine their health status. A major determining test in the preparticipation screening of athletes is the electrocardiogram or ECG which reads the heart’s electrical activity and look at the heart rate patterns. ECG measurements are usually done while at rest. Athletes who have abnormalities in their ECG are disqualified - for their own safety. Many cardiac events happen during sports competition.

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As we grow older, our body and its organs deteriorate. Including our heart. Now, is there in any way that we can slow down, even reverse our heart’s aging process?

Researchers at the Washington University at St. Louis may just have found the secret to eternal youth and it’s none of the power pills that you take or the power beverages that you drink. Surprise, surprise - it’s endurance exercise.

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Every year, over 700,000 people in the US suffer from stroke. According to the American Stroke Association, stroke is the number 3 cause of mortality in the US, after heart diseases and different types of cancer.

Those who are lucky to survive this monster can end up with after effects that would include paralysis, speech or language impairment, vision problems, behavioural changes, and memory loss.

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In some parts of the world, children are dying of hunger; in other parts, children are dying from obesity-related health problems. Such irony.

Childhood obesity is becoming a major problem in the developed world. In the US alone, 16.9% of boys and 15.6% of girls aged 6 to 11 years among non-Hispanic whites are overweight. Among non-Hispanic blacks, it’s 17.2% of boys and 24.8%of girls in the same age group. For Mexican Americans, it’s 25.6% of boys and 16.6% of girls. (Source: American Heart Association (AHA)). Obesity is a major risk factor in cardiovascular health as well as type 2 diabetes.

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Part I: The Health Benefits of Alcohol - “Eat, drink and be healthy”

Drinking alcohol has been linked to a wide range of health effects, ranging from the very good to the very bad. A post in June reported on the adverse effects of heavy drinking on cardiovascular health. On the other hand, light to moderate drinking has been shown to have long lasting beneficial effects. The only problem is how to determine the boundary between healthy and unhealthy alcohol consumption. Some researchers are concerned that recent reports about the health benefits of alcohol may mislead people to drink more than they should, thereby doing more harm than good to their health.

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You could be young, healthy, and fit with no history of hypertension. But suddenly, your blood pressure skyrockets to hypertensive levels. And the main reason is - pregnancy.

Preeclampsia, usually used synonymously with pregnancy-induced hypertension, occurs when the blood pressure of a pregnant woman increases dramatically within a short period of time usually during the second half of her pregnancy. This leads to hypertension, kidney damage, inflammation, preterm delivery and premature babies with low birth weights and presents a serious risk to the mother and to the baby. According to FamilyDoctor.org, preeclampsia commonly occurs: More →

Weight is a major factor in battling heart disease and stroke. There’s a wide range of ways to lose weight out there, from the blatant rip-offs, to the bizarre, even to the dangerous.

But there are also methods that work and people trying to lose weight would swear on or swear at weight loss programs depending on what works and what doesn’t work for them. This study by researchers at the University of Missouri compares 2 of the most popular weight loss programs: Weight Watchers or fitness centers? More →