Is it Possible to Die From A Broken Heart?

It is almost Valentine’s Day and all I could hear from single people are love, love and love. Love indeed is in the air nowadays. But, Valentine’s Day reminded me of how I experienced my first broken heart, so cheesy indeed, huh?

Some people says broken heart pain is nothing more than a folklore. I was not convinced that broken heart has no physical effect because I really felt a literal pain by the time I experienced it. I was encourage then to have some info about broken heart pain and how to cope up.

Stress cardiomyopathy or broken heart syndrome could be due to emotional shocks such as traumatic romantic break up, death of a loved one, or a shock in a surprise party. It has been found out that with stress cardiomyopathy or broken heart syndrome, stress hormone could shoot up to three times higher than those suffering from heart attack though patients possess unclogged and healthy arteries. Grief could stress the cardiovascular system thus causing a heart attack-like syndrome.

It is indeed possible to die from broken heart thus you need not to grieve that much. You can prevent yourself from suffering from stress cardiomyopathy or broken heart syndrome by drinking plenty of water (more than 8 glasses of water daily), take sufficient rest (8 hours sleep), having time for exercise everyday (at least 30 minutes everyday) and in learning things how to cope up stress.

The Effects of FEARS on Our Health

Literal fear that may develop to anxiety may sent some nerve impulses to your gastrointestinal system to cause you to vomit or to head thus, causing headache. These are the common symptoms my youngest sister usually feels before an examination when she is not ready.

I remember the message our brother in church shared to us. It is about two kinds of FEARS. The first one is the cause and the other one is the remedy. And, what is the fears I am referring that may trigger health problems? Frustration, Envy, Anger, Resentment, and Sadness. These negative feelings could produce great changes on our normal body functioning. FEARS are emotional stress that could affect the functioning of the heart.

Holding back the anger could result to heart attack. Stress could elevate some hormones that raises blood pressure level and suppress the immune system. Stress could also cause muscle tension causing neck and back pains, and gastrointestinal and nervous system disturbance.

The best remedy for those physical ailments due to FEARS is FEARS as well. But, it resembles as Faith in God, Exercise, Acceptance of ourselves and others, Rest, and Singing. If you know someone suffering from FEARS that resulted to physical ailments, share also the best remedy for it – FEARS as in Faith in God, Exercise, Acceptance of ourselves and others, Rest, and Singing.

Why it is Healthier to Consume Raw Potatoes than Cooked One

Consuming raw potatoes have more health benefits than cooked one. Because of its high content of potassium, sulphur, phosphorus, and chlorine, undiluted raw potato juice is proven to be effective in clearing up skin blemishes. However, you can get this potato benefits only if you consume potato as raw food because these powerful minerals are converted to inorganic atoms when potatoes are cooked. And, the best way to consume it raw is by taking it as juice. Fresh raw undiluted potato-carrot juice is so nutritious. A cup or two of potato-carrot juice a day is a great help to health problems like skin blemishes and high blood pressure.

Potatoes may help fight against high blood pressure, prevent heart attack, protect against stroke, prevent kidney damage due to high blood pressure, controls appetite and could protect you from certain cancers due to its potassium and vitamin C content. You could get all these benefits when you consume raw potato as juice or just steam the potato.

Potato is still healthy to be consumed as baked, boiled and mashed one but its healthy effects is much lesser than consuming it raw and the easily digestable sugars in raw potatoes are converted to starches upon cooking. Potatoes are not good to be consumed as chips and fries because of acrylamide formation. Please checkout Acrylamide, what is it? for more info.

I got some small facts about potato, did you know that combination of cooked meat and potatoes strengthen the solanin poison of the potato? Solanin is an alkaloid poison that is predominant in potatoes too green in color. I’ve been given an info too that potato is not good for those who are suffering from venereal but I do not know yet its significance behind. And, did you know that consuming sweet potato is much more beneficial compared to Irish potato? Sweet potatoes has one-third more carbohydrates, three times more calcium, twice more sodium and silicon, and more than four times chlorine than Irish potatoes.

If you have not tried drinking potato-carrot juice yet now is the right time to do it. Remember, you could get the full health benefits of potato if you consume it raw.

Watch Out For Bottled Water With Xenohormones

Watch out for bottled water with xenohormones! Have you heard the news about estrogenic chemicals that are found in bottled water? Did you know that these man made hormones called xenohormones found in the glass and plastic bottles of mineral water has hormone like effect to the humans? Study in Germany showed that those xenohormones acts like functional estrogen.

If it acts as functional estrogen, it could interfere our hormonal balance. Too much of estrogen in the body especially if not from healthy source like xenohormones could result to hormonal imbalance that may lead to health problems. Either you are male or female, you have estrogen hormone. Body produces estrogen, some of the food we eat like soybean has phytoestrogen which functions like our own estrogen when consumed. These are the healthy sources of estrogen.

In females, too much estrogen results to hormonal imbalance that produces physical and psychological effects, some of it are depression, migraine, bleeding, endometriosis, infertility and cancer. In males, it could lead to breast enlargement, erectile problems, depression and heart attack.

I hope problem like this, estrogenic chemicals present in bottled water, will be eliminated as soon as possible for good health reasons.

Beans- broad based nutrient rich food

Beans- broad based nutrient rich food

Are you fond of beans? Did you know that beans are broad based nutrient rich food? They are good source of protein, starch, fibers, phytochemicals, folic acid, vitamin B6, and magnesium. Combination of beans and grains forms a complete protein. Beans help reduce total cholesterol, bad cholesterol and triglyceride levels, stabilize blood sugar in people with diabetes, and reduce the risk of many cancers.

Beans contain two potentially effective cancer fighting phytochemicals- phytate and protease inhibitors. Protease inhibitors may block cancer-causing agents from gaining a position and base in your cells. Phytates grab carcinogens and escorts it out of the body before it has a chance to do its job.

Folic acid and vitamin B6 in beans help lower levels of homocysteine, an amino acid that is an intermediate product in an important metabolic process called the methylation cycle. Elevated blood levels of homocysteine are found in between 20 to 40 percent of patients with heart disease. A high homocysteine blood level is an independent risk factor for heart attack, stroke, or peripheral vascular disease.
In pregnant women, deficiency of folate can cause life threatening holes in the spine or skull of the baby. And, among all women, folate deficiency may set the stage for cervical cancer. A study showed that women who had clear deficiencies in folate were approximately three times more likely to have cervical dysplasia than women who did not.

Almost all beans are good source of soluble fiber but black beans, chickpeas, black-eyed peas, kidney beans and lima beans are fiber champs, containing 6-8 grams of fiber in a half cup serving. Beans are rich source of cholesterol-lowering fiber. Researchers concluded that bean may very well lower cholesterol and triglycerides as effectively as many medications. And, the high fiber content of beans prevents blood sugar levels from rising too rapidly after a meal, making beans a good choice for individuals with diabetes, insulin resistance, or hypoglycemia.

The Health Benefits Of Apple

The Health Benefits Of Apple

There are lots of health benefits we can get from apple consumption. Did you know that apple fibers can reduce Low Density Lipoprotein or LDL cholesterol or commonly known as bad cholesterol by 15 points? Yes, you hear it right, fibers. The insoluble cellulose fibers in the skin and soluble pectin fibers in the pulp can help lower bad cholesterol. As we all know, too much of LDL or bad cholesterol clogs up arteries and sets the stage for heart attack. Flavanoids supports heart health by giving antioxidant protection, regulate blood pressure and helps prevent too much clumping together of platelets.

Study showed that among animal, those who have high cholesterol levels have high potential to form gallstones. The good thing is–researchers discovered that apple-rich diet alters the composition of bile, from which gallstones are sometimes formed, thus, lowering the risk of gallstone formation.

Researchers also found out that those who regularly ate lot of apples had one third the risk of developing colon cancer and 76 percent less risk of developing rectal cancer compared to those who never ate apples. Pectin helps remove toxic substances by producing galacturonic acid. Antioxidants such as polyphenols and flavanoids prevent causative agents to damage cells which may lead to cancer. Study showed that 100 grams of apple has an antioxidant effect that is equivalent to 1,500mg of vitamin C. Malic acid and tartaric acid also helps improve not just the digestive system but the liver as well and, it reduces skin disorders too.

Those fibers and antioxidants helps a lot not just to heart, digestive system, gall bladder, liver and skin but to the lungs as well. Flavanoids and phloridzin plays an important role in supporting lung health.

Maybe by this time you are already planning to treat your family of dried apples or a preserved one or bake some apple cookies for them or have an apple sauce or an apple juice or use an apple cider. Those things are good but why not treat your family some fresh, whole, intact, raw apples? Raw apple has mouthful of health-giving nutrients especially antioxidants, compared to the prepared ones. Including at least three medium-sized apples to your variety of fruits per week has been found to be helpful.

Cholesterol and The Hardening of The Arteries

Cholesterol and The Hardening of The Arteries

There is a truth in a saying “You are as old as your blood vessels” because blood vessels are the lifelines to all of the tissues in our body. Any defect in our blood vessels or in the heart has great effect on the body.

Hardening of the arteries is commonly known as atherosclerosis, this is a condition behind high blood pressure, strokes, heart attacks and circulatory problems. Hardening of the arteries and high blood pressure usually exist as team, they go hand in hand.

The development typically starts with building up of cholesterol on the inner wall of the arteries thus, narrowing the channel through which the blood flows. What happened now is there is a reduction of blood flow to the tissues, to resolve the problem the heart pumps more often to raise the blood pressure for an adequate supply of blood to the tissues. The muscle layer of the narrowed arteries due to cholesterol build up usually hardens preventing the wall to  move or function properly thus, raising the blood pressure more.

Hardening of coronary arteries reduces the blood supply to the heart muscles resulting to the condition called coronary heart disease. Stroke is usually caused either by hardening of the arteries supplying the brain or hypertension or both. Reduction of blood supply to the limbs, especially the legs and feet due to hardening of arteries or atherosclerosis may result to death of tissues, this circulatory problem is called gangrene.

Since we now know what started it all– our wrong choices of food particularly cholesterol rich, saturated  fat rich and, or trans fats rich foods, we should now cut down and if possible eliminate those fat sources of food for us to stay healthy and young. Remember you have much better sources of fats—the polyunsaturated fats and the unsaturated fats. But, we must bear in mind that though they are good sources of fats still, we should take in polyunsaturated and unsaturated fat food in moderation. Five or more servings of fruits and variety of vegetables in your diet everyday help lower bad cholesterol level. Moderate exercise and exposure to sunlight, and water therapy has an impact also in lowering the blood cholesterol level.