The Many Health Benefits of Selenium Will Amaze You

The importance of trace minerals in the body cannot be overstated, especially when talking about the benefits of selenium. Your bodys immune system must have the right vitamins and minerals to work, and they all have their importance. But selenium is one of the special trace minerals, that can really help you if it's adequately in your system, or can lead you to illness and death if it is not.

Selenium is found in nearly every cell of your body, pancreas, spleen and kidneys and insures normal liver function. Like other essential minerals, selenium acts as an antioxidant that destroys free radicals that roam the body like little devastators. More and more, this super mineral is being linked to its role in combating a number of human diseases and illnesses.

Major benefits of selenium include heart and cancer protection

Seleniums role in protecting the heart is an incredible one. This mineral helps prevent your blood from sticking to the inside of your arteries, decreasing the risk of clotting, heart attack and stroke. How's that for a triple-threat? And, benefits of selenium include elevating levels of good cholesterol, another advantage in keeping your heart healthy.

Cancer has a natural enemy in selenium. According to the Office of Dietary Supplements, high levels of selenium in the blood decrease many forms of cancer including prostate, colorectal and lung. The antioxidant properties of selenium actually prevent the formation of some cancer cells and tumor cells. And because selenium effectively raises the fighting levels of the immune system, studies show that the development of blood vessels, that support and grow tumors, is suppressed! Needless to say, medical research is conducting ongoing selenium testing against many other forms of cancer.

This essential mineral is important in overall body health, too. For instance, it's been shown to help increase male potency and fight arthritis. Its antioxidant quality helps defend the body from the effects of alcohol and other toxins. And like copper, it has an important maintenance role in your skin and your hair. Selenium supplementation helps improve asthma symptoms and helps patients recover quicker from pneumonia and bronchitis.

Certain foods, supplementation can give you the benefits of selenium

If you can find produce that has been grown in selenium-rich soil, improve your diet with nuts, oats, brown rice and leafy greens. However, most foods that used to contain beneficial levels of selenium don't have those levels, anymore. That's because farm soil has been worked so many times, that selenium levels have plummetted.

So, keep eating as healthy a diet as you can, but know that most doctors today recommend that you take a selenium supplement, so that you can maintain a healthy selenium level. The prescribed selenium dosages are 55mcg daily for women, and 70mcg daily for men. However, for cancer patients or patients with a larger risk of cancer, doctors recommend dosages of up to 400mcg to get the full benefits of selenium.

As you can see, selenium is an all-around super trace mineral that can help your body in so many important ways. Trace minerals like selenium prove the old adage that good things really do come in small packages. Your body must have selenium, so if you do not take a multi-vitamin, chances are you're shorting yourself on this essential mineral. Get some selenium into your diet just as soon as you can, so that you can start getting the healthy benefits of selenium.


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How to Prevent Stroke in Women Naturally

The American Heart Association has established guidelines to help women avoid a stroke naturally to live a longer, healthier lifestyle.

Every year about 800,000 Americans have a recurrent or a new stroke, which happens when a blood vessel in the brain is blocked by bursts or a clot. The American Heart Association has recently put out its first guidelines to prevent strokes for women. The main focus is pregnancy, birth control and other risk factors that women encounter uniquely or more frequent than men. With stroke being the third leading cause of death for women and the fifth leading cause of death for men, this is a very serious risk factor for Americans.

My sister had a stroke last year that shocked the entire family but she has been very blessed to recover very fast and well. She has been taking her morning walks, jogging in the afternoon and following a healthy diet since then. She has lost about twenty pounds and her health has improved greatly. The guidelines by the AHA apply to patients like my sister Michelle who suffered a stroke.

The key to surviving a stroke and minimizing disability is recognizing symptoms like weakness or numbness in one arm, trouble speaking, and drooping on one side of the face. Guidelines for preventing stroke focus on controlling diabetes and blood pressure, more physical activity or fat loss and healthy eating, and quitting smoking. According to Dr. Cheryl Bushnell, stroke chief at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C. she led the panel that wrote the guidelines, published in Stroke, a Heart Association journal.

Pregnancy

During pregnancy strokes are not very common but the risk is still higher, especially the last three months and immediately after delivery. The real issue is dangerously high blood pressure that can cause a seizure and other problems, which is called preeclampsia. Later in life it doubles the risk of stroke and quadruples the risk of high blood pressure after pregnancy. The guidelines mention you can lower the risk of preeclampsia with calcium supplements and pregnant women with very high blood pressure (160/110) may need medications.

Menopause

According to the guidelines, hormone therapy should not be used to try to prevent a stroke. Now the guidelines put women's concerns "on the table" so more physicians discuss them, said Dr. Shazam Hussain, stroke chief at the Cleveland Clinic.

Birth Control Pills

It is recommended that women be checked for high blood pressure before taking oral contraceptives because the combination can increase the risk of strokes. Even though the risk is small it increases greatly in women between the ages of 45 to 49. There are more than 10 million women currently on birth control pills.

Aspirin and Migraines

An aspirin is always recommended for anyone who has already suffered from a stroke unless the stroke was caused by bleeding in the brain rather than a blood clot, or if bleeding is a risk concern says Bushnell. A low-dose aspirin each day "can be useful" to reduce stroke risk in women 65 and older only if its benefits is higher by the potential for bleeding or other risks, according to the guidelines. Women are four times more likely to suffer from migraines than men, and they usually coincide with hormone changes. Migraines with aura do raise the risk of stroke but no alone. Smoking and using oral contraceptives increase the risk even more, so the guidelines stress that patients quite smoking.

I highly recommend that all Americans especially women do follow these guidelines issued by the American Heart Association to prevent all strokes to live longer and healthier. Balanced diets and daily exercise is a very important key to reducing stroke, heart attack, diabetes and other serious issues that affect your health so take action today to improve your health.

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The Best Way To Prevent Hearth Attacks

Cholesterol is one of the most familiar medical words today. Everyone knows "something" about it , but mostly cholesterol is associated in our mind with something "bad" and "unwanted" that happens to old and overweight people.The facts show that about 20 percent of the U.S. population has high blood cholesterol levels.

Actually cholesterol is a waxy, fatlike substance (lipid) that your body needs for many important functions, such as producing new cells , some hormones, vitamin D, and the bile acids that help to digest fat.. It is present in cell walls or membranes everywhere in the body, including the brain, nerves, muscle, skin, liver, intestines, and heart.
In fact our bodies need cholesterol to function normally, but too much cholesterol can be bad for our health. Why ? Cholesterol and other fats can't dissolve in the blood. They have to be transported to and from the cells by special carriers. Cholesterol travels through your blood attached to a protein. This cholesterol-protein package is called a lipoprotein. Lipoproteins are high density or low density depending on how much protein there is in relation to fat.

Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) is the major cholesterol carrier in the blood. If too much LDL cholesterol circulates in the blood, it can slowly build up in the walls of the arteries feeding the heart and brain. Together with other substances it can form plaque, a thick, hard deposit that can clog those arteries. When the coronary arteries become narrowed or clogged by cholesterol and fat deposits (a process called atherosclerosis) and cannot supply enough blood to the heart, the result is coronary heart disease. If the blood supply to a portion of the heart is completely cut off by total blockage of a coronary artery, the result is a heart attack. This is usually due to a sudden closure from a blood clot forming on top of a previous narrowing. Low-density lipoprotein cholesterol is called "bad" cholesterol because it can cause cholesterol buildup and blockage of your arteries. LDL is mostly fat with only a small amount of protein.

About one-third to one-fourth of blood cholesterol is carried by high-density lipoprotein (HDL). Medical experts think HDL tends to carry cholesterol away from the arteries and back to the liver, where it's passed from the body. Some experts believe HDL removes excess cholesterol from plaques and thus slows their growth. HDL is called "good" cholesterol because it helps prevent cholesterol from building up in your arteries. It is mostly protein with only a small amount of fat.

Since there is good cholesterol and bad cholesterol it is not only necessary to know your cholesterol level ,it is also important to know your levels of LDL and HDL.

The fact is that there are no symptoms of high cholesterol. Your first symptom of high cholesterol could be a heart attack or a stroke. The level of cholesterol can be measured only with a blood test.The results come as three main numbers:

· Total Cholesterol

· LDL

· HDL

The level of LDL should be less than 160.

Total cholesterol should be less than 200.

The level of HDL should be more than 35.

Most Important: Your LDL level is a good indicator of your risk for heart disease. Lowering LDL is the main aim of treatment if you have high cholesterol. In general, the higher your LDL level, the greater your chance of developing heart disease.

Remember : Regular cholesterol tests are recommended to find out if your cholesterol level is within normal range.

WHAT CAN YOU DO ABOUT YOUR LDL CHOLESTEROL LEVELS?

The main cause of high blood cholesterol is eating too much fat, especially saturated fat. Saturated fats are found in animal products, such as meats, milk and other dairy products that are not fat free, butter, and eggs. Some of these foods are also high in cholesterol. Fried fast foods and snack foods often have a lot of fat.

Being overweight and not exercising can make your bad cholesterol go up and your good cholesterol go down. Regular physical activity can help lower LDL (bad) cholesterol and raise HDL (good) cholesterol levels. It also helps you lose weight. You should try to be physically active for 30 minutes on most, if not all, days.

Cigarette smoking damages the walls of your blood vessels, making them likely to have cholesterol rich plaques rupture and have heart attacks. Smoking may also lower your level of HDL cholesterol by as much as 15 percent.

Also, after women go through menopause, their bad cholesterol levels tend to go up. There is also a rare type of inherited high cholesterol that often leads to early heart disease.Some people inherit a condition called familial hypercholesterolemia, which means that very high cholesterol levels run in the family.Other people, especially people for whom diabetes runs in the family, inherit high triglyceride levels. Triglycerides are another type of blood fat that can also push up cholesterol levels. People with high blood triglycerides usually have lower HDL cholesterol and a higher risk of heart attack and stroke. Progesterone, anabolic steroids and male sex hormones (testosterone) also lower HDL cholesterol levels.

So we can make a conclusion that the main therapy is to change your lifestyle. This includes controlling your weight, eating foods low in saturated fat and cholesterol, exercising regularly, not smoking and, in some cases, drinking less alcohol.

But , depending on your risk factors, if healthy eating and exercise don't work after about 6 months to 1 year, your doctor may suggest medicine to lower your cholesterol level.

Now there are very effective medications called "statins",such as Lipitor.
The drug works by helping to clear harmful low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol out of the blood and by limiting the body's ability to form new LDL cholesterol. Each tablet Lipitor includes 20mg Atorvastatin. It is in a class of medications called HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors. It works by slowing the production of cholesterol in the body. Lipitor has shown the ability to halt, not just slow, the potentially fatal buildup of plaque in clogged arteries. While a handful of drugs now available slow the buildup of new plaque, or atherosclerosis, in coronary arteries, no drug on the market has been proven to both stop new build-up and clear existing plaque.




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Detoxification - Solving Our Intestinal Problems

We know increasingly more about intestinal problems and they are also recognised as such much more frequently nowadays. The latter is particularly important as the problems we experience in our colon and small intestine were often ignored or treated as only minor annoyances in the past.
We now know that everything begins and finishes in your colon and small intestine and once you know that you will not take your intestinal problems lightly or ignore them altogether. Let us be real, you do not want to joke around with intestinal cramps.
The only situation where you are allowed to think it will not be anything serious is when you know what is going on in your intestines and why this ingenious strand can cause you such problems. If you have just completed a detoxification cure or colon cleanse, you feel healthy and revitalised, you can ignore minor discomforts (just as long as they are indeed minor, and do not last for an extended period of time).
Just keep in mind the fact that everything you eat, is carried off to the colon and lower intestine. It only reaches the factory that is your body afterwards and from there it goes on to the different parts of your body. Our body absorbs all of the nutrients it needs for the proper functioning of the organs, the blood and the muscles from the colon and small intestine. Once you realise that, you will stop ignoring what goes on inside your body.

You should always consider the fact that whenever you eat something, it will have to be processed in your body. If our body and our intestines have not been cleansed properly, our food will not be processed properly by and in our body. This is when toxins build up in our system. Too many toxins and your body will not be able to handle them anymore. Once this happens, you may want to consider a period of detoxification or a colon cleansing treatment.
Eating too much fatty foods clogs our blood vessels and fills our stomach with gas. This means that harmful substances are released that can poison our entire digestive system, causing a large number of diseases, amongst others:

• Rheumatism
• Heart diseases
• Diabetes
• Strokes

These are just a few examples.
A good place to start that will solve many of our problems is to replace all hidden and real sugar with biologically real food that helps us to be healthy and remain healthy. Physical exercise and taking in sufficient amounts of clean water will also put you on the right track.
First and foremost, make sure your colon and lower intestine are clean. Proper detoxification and deacidification will ensure your body cannot get sick. Once you have done all this, you will feel healthy, you will feel good about your self and you will have found your natural balance.
Remember you depend on your body like you do on your best friend. If you do not take care of your good friend, your buddy, he or she will not want to have anything to do with you anymore after having drawn your attention time and again to a certain problem.
The same goes for your body. If you take proper care of it, your body will pay you back in kind. You will:

• Feel good
• Have the energy to do all sorts of fun activities
• Sleep well
• Have more energy

And most of all, your colon and lower intestine will function properly:

• No constipation
• No blocking
• Less or no muscle aches
• No more or fewer migraine attacks

Proper functioning of the colon and the small intestine means you will use the toilet once a day. In fact, once you have finished a meal, you should want to use the toilet. If this is the case, you probably have a very efficient metabolism. That is, if your faeces look healthy. This is very important. The ideal situation would be if you did not need any tissue or toilet paper at all to clean your buttocks after a bowel movement.
Once you do and feel as mentioned above you can say you are doing alright by your body and your body will give you what you deserve.

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September: A Whole Month of Happiness and Wellbeing

September is the ninth month of the year, yet is named after the word septem, meaning seven as it was originally the seventh month of the year in the Roman calendar. This month a new season begins, whether it is spring in the southern hemisphere or autumn for the north.

 This month we will consider the impact your thoughts have on your life. This is in recognition of Albert Ellis who was born on the 27th September. Albert Ellis was a psychologist who devised Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, and his work impacted on many people around the world. He died in 2007 at the age of 93. He worked his entire life and wrote 80 books and over 1200 articles. This brings us on to the second theme of learning, as this month it is Adult Learners' Week in Australia. Finally I will discuss ways you can take control of your health, as World Heart Day takes place this month.
Consider your thoughts
Your thinking can have a great impact on your behaviour and emotions. Not all thoughts make much sense and Albert Ellis would describe them as irrational. Irrational thinking is thinking that essentially makes little logical sense, or fails to stand up to the evidence. 'Bad things always happen to me', 'I must not fail' are examples of irrational thinking. However these thoughts can be changed, as you come to recognise them as irrational and replace them with more realistic ones. From here, you will have more positive emotions and feel more in control of your behaviour. There is a lot that could be said about your thought patterns but for now I will offer you ideas to help you identify and change your own thoughts.

1. Write down a current worry of yours. Give the details. Try to describe the situation as much as possible.


2. What thoughts and beliefs do you have when thinking about your current concern?


3. How do you feel as a result of these thoughts? How do you behave? This is where we pause to help you recognise that it is your thoughts, not the situation that is leading you to feel and behave as you do.


4. Looking at your response to 2, ask yourself honestly how rational these thoughts are. Is there good evidence to support these thoughts? Are you thinking in all or nothing terms? Perhaps giving too much focus on the negative and ignoring the positive? Look out for words such as 'always', 'never', 'must.


5. Challenge these thoughts. Write down what is actually true about the situation, even if you don't fully believe them right now. Perhaps think about what a friend or stranger would say about your thoughts.


6. Replace your old beliefs identified in 2 with new, more rational beliefs. This may take effort, but once you recognise them you will feel a lot happier.


7. Write down the positive consequences of your new beliefs.


8. To reinforce your new beliefs, you will need to take action to prove they are true. What steps will you take to support your new thoughts?

This is a concise version of Ellis' work, but hopefully enough to get you thinking about thinking.
Get learning
It's easy to give up on the idea of learning once you leave school. If you disliked school, you may think that you dislike learning also. However, as adults we can choose what we learn and the skills we want to develop. Even retirement should be an opportunity to try new things rather than letting it all go because you are no longer doing paid work. Recognising that learning is not just about books or something to be endured, can make the process enjoyable for many.
If you make learning part of your life, you are sure to see the benefits. Not just in your increased skills and knowledge but in your overall happiness. Working on an important goal and coming up with solutions to potential hurdles getting in the way of your goal can be inspiring. Not only do you learn more about the task you are trying to achieve, but also things about yourself. Also, when you are learning you are giving yourself the opportunity to experience flow. A flow experience is best described as one of those moments when you are so absorbed in an activity that everything else goes unnoticed. Yet afterwards you feel great.
So give learning a go, no matter how old you are. It could be something completely new or an opportunity to expand on an existing skill or interest.

Have a healthy heart
Did you know that 80% of premature heart attacks and strokes are preventable? That's a lot! This means there are things you can do to improve your health and wellbeing and reduce your risk. Such changes will also give you the energy to do the things you want to be doing, allowing you to have a happy balanced life.

I know it's easy to wonder why you should change, you're happy as you are. I do wonder how happy you would be lying in a hospital bed having just survived a heart attack at an early age. Or worse, how happy your family will feel knowing they lost you too soon. But you only live once right? True, but don't you want to make sure you really do live it, having the energy to get the most from your one life?
What follows are tips to a happy heart. Remember it's about moderation, not deprivation. You can have your cake and eat it. Just not all at once, every day.
Eat a healthy diet. Try to limit processed foods and foods high in sugar, salt and saturated fat.
Exercise. Aerobic activity which gets your heart pumping is good for your heart. Combine it with strength work and flexibility exercise such as yoga to get further benefits for your body.
Don't smoke. Once you stop smoking your risk of heart attack and stroke goes down, as does your risk of many other illnesses.
If you want to know your risk of cardiovascular disease, see your doctor who can test your blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels.






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