Want To Keep Your Heart Heathly? We've Got The Answer!

Poor heart health affects two out of three Australian families. Many Australians over 40 are concerned about their general heart health, others may have specific cholesterol issues while older people need to replenish declining levels of CoQ10. Whatever your concern there are nutritional supplements that can help.

Nutritional Insurance For Your Heart
Your heart is designed to last a lifetime, but you have to do your bit to help ensure it stays in good working order. Healthy heart function is dependant on a number of factors – including antioxidant status and the fat in your blood. Supplements can provide nutritional insurance for your heart health.

In 2002, the American Heart Association released a scientific statement on the effects of omega-3 fatty acids on heart function. Randomized clinical trials have shown that omega-3 fatty acid supplements can reduce cardiovascular events including non-fatal heart attacks and non-fatal strokes. Omega-3 can also slow the progression of arteriosclerosis in coronary patients. However, coronary artery disease patients may not be able to get enough omega-3 by diet alone. These people may want to talk to their health care professional about taking a supplement. Supplements may also help people with high triglycerides, who need even higher doses.

It is recommended that we consume 500mg of omega-3 fatty acids per day from oily fish (2-3 serves a week) or fish oil capsules.

Plant Sterols Can Reduce Cholesterol Absorption
Cholesterol maintenance is an important part of many people’s diet and lifestyle regimes. Plant sterols are fat-like compounds with a chemical structure that is very similar to cholesterol. However compared to cholesterol, plant sterols are only minimally absorbed. During digestion, the plant sterols compete with cholesterol for absorption. This means that less cholesterol is absorbed and more cholesterol is excreted. Reduced cholesterol absorption leads to lower blood levels of cholesterol.

A daily dose of 2-3 grams of plant sterols is recommended to help maintain healthy cholesterol levels. It also helps in maintaining the LDL:HDL cholesterol ratio within the normal range. Supplements are now available containing a relevant daily dose of 2 grams of plant sterols

CoQ10 Supports Heart Muscle Function
CoQ10 is a naturally occurring nutrient found in every cell of the body and has been extensively investigated for its benefits to the heart. It is a potent antioxidant and it helps protect heart cells from free-radical damage and therefore helps maintain healthy arteries. CoQ10 is produced in the body however the ability to produce CoQ10 declines with age, and so levels may drop at a time when they are most beneficial for health.

A daily dose of 100mg of CoQ10 has been shown to support healthy heart function and is recommended to maintain the body’s levels of CoQ10.

There are a number of new nutritional supplements that contain Omega-3, plant sterols or CoQ10. For a personal recommendation on supplements that can assist you maintain a healthy heart just ask the Naturopath at your local Healthy Life store.

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Fight Off Cold And Flu This Winter... Naturally

Do you tend to suffer from a cold or flu during winter? What makes it worse is the cough, sore throat, runny nose, muscle aches and pains, fever and headaches which tend to go with it. If you are susceptible to a cold or the flu chances are your immune system is not working properly. If this sounds like you it makes sense for you to boost your immune system so you can remain as healthy as possible during the colder months of the year.

The common cold and flu is generally due to nutritional deficiencies, weakened immunity and the fact that you are getting older. It is true, that as we age, our bodies start to slow down. Therefore, supporting your immune system is essential to good health, longevity and happiness.

Support Your Immunity And Speed Up Your Recovery
We can easily support our immune function, as well as help speed our recovery from winter discomforts, by ensuring an adequate intake of special nutritional co-factors. Vitamins and minerals including Vitamin A and C, Selenium, Zinc, Folic Acid and Vitamin B12 have been proven to support immunity. Whilst special herbs like Garlic, Olive Leaf, Echinacea, Astragalus and Andrographis can benefit your body’s natural resistance to colds and flu.

Stay Healthy This Winter!
Supplementing with Vitamin A or Beta-carotene can help to maintain the surface layer of your gastrointestinal and respiratory tract. This encourages a protective barrier against micro-organisms from entering your body and it also elevates your immune response.

Vitamin C is a great micronutrient to help protect against colds and flu as well as enhancing your immunity. It increases anti-viral and anti-bacterial activity in your body and stimulates production of white blood cells to fend off unwanted pathogens. It works particularly well with Vitamin E. Both of these nutrients are antioxidants which aid in the prevention of cell damage.

Restore Your Immune Function
To help restore your immune function try using Selenium as it is a powerful anti-oxidant, and increases production of white blood cells. It is particularly useful in helping to eliminate toxins from your body.

Zinc is also great for your immune system. Poor smell and taste, white spots on fingernails and poor wound healing are an indication of Zinc deficiency. Zinc helps destroy micro-organisms, protects against free radical damage and is a necessary component of white blood cell functions.

Folic Acid and Vitamin B12 are responsible for the production and responses of white blood cells. A deficiency in these vitamins can cause shrinkage of the thymus (a major gland of your immune system), therefore impairing white blood cell function and increasing risk of disease.

Special Herbs Help To Fight The Common Cold And Flu
Herbs are incredibly useful when your immune system is compromised. One of Nature’s most powerful weapons in the war against winter’s ills and chills is Garlic. Garlic has become synonymous with maintaining healthy airways and resistance to winters ills.

Next is Olive leaf. This herb is wonderful for immunity and helps to fight against viral, bacterial, fungal and parasitic infections. It is extremely beneficial for fending off colds and flu.

Echinacea is another special herb known to benefit immune function. It helps to activate your body’s natural defences against nasty bugs. Echinacea can help to protect against poor immunity and hasten recovery following ill health and upper respiratory infections such as catarrh, tonsillitis and sinus infections.

It is also an effective treatment if an infection or virus is contracted. Astragalus helps prevent the onset of the common cold and chronic viral infections. It has been shown to protect you against immune suppression.

Andrographis is a herb that has been used in traditional medicine in both India and China to help low immune function, digestion and liver problems. Researchers have studied the powerful immune benefits of Andrographis, where it has shown to strengthen natural defences against infections, such as the common cold and may help with cough, sore throat, runny nose, muscle aches & pain, fever and headaches.

With winter approaching it is best to prevent immune deficiency, rather than treat infections as they occur. By consulting the professional staff at your local Healthy Life store, you can avoid the winter blues easily.

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Exercise May Guard Girls Against Dementia in Senior Years

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, June 30 (HealthDay News) — If you want to help your young daughter avoid dementia much later on in life, a new study suggests it might be a good idea to send her outside to play.

Canadian researchers believe they’ve found a link between exercise in adolescence and fewer cases of senility in a woman’s senior years.

The study doesn’t definitively prove that exercise lowers the risk of dementia. And the research is only based on the recollections of older women, some with signs of dementia, about their childhoods.

Still, the findings suggest that “early life physical activity is important to late-life health and in particular in preventing late-life cognitive impairment. The sooner you start being physically active, the better it is,” said study author Laura E. Middleton, a researcher at the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto.

Scientists have been trying to document a link between exercise and dementia in later life in the hopes of understanding how physical activity affects the brain. The new study was designed to examine how exercise in youth may affect women in their later years.

The researchers asked more than 9,300 women in the United States about their exercise habits before the age of 18, at 30, at 50 and in late life. All were over 65, and their average age was 72.

The findings appear in the June 30 issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

About 15 percent to 30 percent of the women reported being inactive during each period of their lives. Exercise occurring before the age of 18 seemed to be most influential: Close to 17 percent of those who didn’t report being active then had symptoms of dementia, while just 8.5 percent of the others did.

The researchers adjusted their statistics so they wouldn’t be thrown off by factors such as weight and age. After they did that, those who thought they exercised as kids were still 30 percent less likely to show signs of dementia.

The researchers don’t know if exercise in childhood directly leads to less dementia since other factors could be at play, such as diet. And exercising as kids — playing outdoors, for example — may set a pattern for physical activity later in life, Middleton said.

If there is a cause-and-effect link between early exercise and less mental decline, she said it may have something to do with the brain’s ability to change and develop new circuitry. It’s also possible that exercise leads to less clogging of blood vessels in the brain, she said.

It’s not clear whether men might benefit in the same way. The study only looked at women, Middleton said, and previous research has suggested that women benefit more from exercise than men.

Greg Cole, a brain researcher who’s familiar with the findings, said scientists are interested in the benefits of exercise when it comes to brain decline, but they’re focusing on studying the elderly at risk instead of looking backward at childhood.

Cole said the study’s reliance on the memory of the elderly “makes one wonder” about its reliability. But childhood habits could presumably lead to lifelong habits that might contribute to the benefits of adult exercise seen in other studies, said Cole, a professor of medicine and neurology at the University of California at Los Angeles.

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Mental Health Woes Plague ‘Cyberbullies’ and Their Victims

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, July 6 (HealthDay News) — Teens who “cyberbully” others via the Internet or cell phones are more likely to suffer from both physical and psychiatric troubles, and their victims are at heightened risk, too, a Finnish study finds.

The survey of almost 2,500 teens found that more than 7 percent of teens bullied other teens online, about 5 percent were targets of this aggressive behavior, and 5.4 percent said they were both bullies and bullied.

“People may wonder how similar teens in Finland are to teens in the U.S., but national research that I recently published indicates that rates of traditional bullying and victimization from bullying are very similar among kids in both countries,” said Dr. Matthew Davis, an associate professor of pediatrics, internal medicine and public policy at the University of Michigan.

In fact, a recent U.S. survey of children aged 10 to 17 found that 12 percent were “aggressive” to someone else while online, 4 percent were victims of this type of online aggression, while 3 percent reported being both aggressors and targets.

The new study appears in the July issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.

As defined by the researchers, cyberbullying includes aggressive, intentional, repeated acts using mobile phones, computers (including e-mails and Facebook) or other electronic media against victims who cannot easily defend themselves.

The widely publicized death in January of 15-year-old Phoebe Prince, a Massachusetts teen who took her life after months of relentless cyberbullying, swung a national spotlight on the issue. Parents have also become increasingly concerned about both bullying and their children’s Internet safety, Davis said, and “for that reason, it is imperative that we track and address the problems of cyberbullying and cyberpredator behavior very actively in the near future.”

In addition, the fact that about a third of teens in the United States and Finland report that they are victims of some type of bullying behavior “is a red flag that communities, schools, and families must respond more effectively to bullying, whether it occurs in person or electronically. This is an area that needs more real-world attention and action,” Davis said.

For the study, a team led by Dr. Andre Sourander, from Turku University, collected data on 2,215 Finnish teens 13 to 16 years old. The teens were asked about cyberbullying and cybervictimization, as well as their overall health.

Teens who were victims of cyberbullying were more likely to come from broken homes and have emotional, concentration and behavior problems. These teens also found it harder to get along with others. In addition, they were prone to headaches, abdominal pain, sleeping problems and not feeling safe at school, the researchers found.

Cyberbullies were not without their own problems, however. Compared to teens who didn’t engage in such behaviors, they were also more prone to suffering from emotional, concentration and behavior problems. In addition, they had trouble getting along with others and often suffered from hyperactivity and conduct problems. Cyberbullies also frequently smoked or got drunk, reported headaches, and were more prone to not feeling safe at school, the study found.

Teens who were both cyberbullies and cybervictims suffered from all of these conditions, Sourander’s group found.

“Of those who had been victimized, one in four reported that it had resulted in fear for their safety,” the researchers wrote. The feeling of being unsafe is probably worse in cyberbullying compared with traditional bullying, they added. That’s because traditional bullying typically occurs on school grounds, so victims can at least feel safe within their homes. With cyberbullying, however, victims are at risk 24 hours a day, seven days a week, the team noted.

Richard Gallagher, director of the Parenting Institute at the NYU Child Study Center in New York City, believes that schools, parents and children can all play a role in dealing with cyberbullying.

“Some schools are very concerned about this,” he said. “And if they find out about it some schools are taking proactive action and there are consequences for the bully.” But other schools aren’t taking as active a role, Gallagher noted. “The proactive approach does seem to be helping with reducing the impact of bullying and teasing,” he said. “So, I do think it is appropriate for schools to do this, but to be careful how they do it.”

“In addition, most effective anti-bullying programs are ones that suggest that bystanders should be involved as well,” Gallagher said. In these cases other children or parents who know someone is being bullied should report it to the school, he explained.

Another expert, Dr. Thomas Paul Tarshis, director of the Bay Area Children’s Association in Cupertino, Calif., said the problem of cyberbullying is a growing one.

“The main place cyberbullying and cybervictimization begins from is the school,” he said. “So it is in the school-peer relations where kids are likely to put pressure on someone, to taunt someone through instant messaging or Facebook.”

Ideally, all schools should implement strict anti-bullying policies, but many are overwhelmed, he said. “Schools aren’t even doing enough with standard bullying,” he noted.

One positive of cyberbullying is that it leaves a data trial, Tarshis said. “So it’s easier to get evidence of cyberbullying and it makes discipline and follow-through better.”

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