May is America Heart and Stroke Month

In the month of May we have American Heart and Stroke month. And the CDC is also stepping up things and wants us to observe High Blood Pressure Awareness month. So we need to be taking a look at our health and our risks. How often do you check your blood pressure?

The heart is a very important organ in our bodies. When we reach the age of 50, this is about the age of natural menopause; our risk for heart disease increases considerably. Here is a list of risk factors: 

·        High blood pressure

·        Smoking

·        Diabetes

·        High and Low cholesterol

·        Overweight

·        Heart disease in the family

·        Inactive lifestyle

I have suffered with high blood pressure since 1996 and one of the contributing factors was fibroids and a family history. So my doctor put me on blood pressure medicine. It was a very mild dosage and had very little side affects. Can I treat my high blood pressure with diet and exercise? His response was yes you could. So I did just that and as of today my blood pressure is still kept maintained by diet and exercise. 

Just making some healthy lifestyle changes would reduce your risk of heart disease. You can start adding some exercise to your life everyday and it would help you. Something as easy as adding a walking program can help you control your weight, handle your stress, increase your well-being, improve your heart. 

Walk your way to health and well being with the American Heart Association’s Walking CD! A simple walking program can help you improve cardiovascular health, control weight, manage stress, and increase overall well being, regardless of your level of fitness. Just doing some regular walking would help to prevent and control diabetes, body fat, and blood pressure and reduce your body fat.

With two complete walking workouts, The Healthy Heart Walking CD can help you get started. You will find inspiration for every step with this ideal walking companion.

Book Review

That’s the question –Why are we still faced with an epidemic of heart disease that will kill more than half of our population? Dr. Lundell witnessed heart disease; he held it in his hands a quarter century after performing over 5,000 open heart surgeries.

While he was saving lives for many years he also wrestled with what he saw in the arteries of every patient-inflammation. The question he asked himself was why was inflammation present? This book is about a dedicated heart surgeon, Dr. Dwight Lundell. He wrote this book for the people, our hearts, our life’s for us to act on the knowledge and share this information with our loved ones, friends, etc. We need to tell as many about the truth so we can save as many life’s as possible. The book helped me to understand the reason people develop and die from heart disease. If only I knew what I just found out I would have been able to help some of my family and friends that have passed away as a result of heart disease. I thought high cholesterol was the cause of heart related diseases.

Now I see the real cause is inflammation-not cholesterol. This is inflammation you have swelling, redness, heat and pain around the area of the reaction to the injury or infection. The combination of the low fat and low cholesterol diet with other life style choices has created a firestorm. The most important thing to understand is with the long lists of aliments-inflammation is the common factor in almost all cases. The awesome news is that we can reduce inflammation. Dr. Lundell’s book explains in very simple terms how to take a stand and fight inflammation. We just need to read this book and follow his recommendations, watch our health change, get that glow back in our face.

This book is a must have in your library of books. Dr. Lundell says we need to make simple changes that will treat the inflammation instead of believing that cholesterol causes heart disease. If we give our bodies what it needs to operate properly our health will make remarkable strides and respond.