High blood pressure (HBP) is a life-threatening condition for millions of Americans. Drugs that help HBP can have serious side effects.
Prof. MacGregor and his team have shown that you can lower blood pressure with Potassium chloride. This is the main component in HBP drugs. So his team looked at dietary potassium - potassium citrate (in food) rather than chloride ( in the drugs).
They compared both types of potassium and their effect on HBP in a series of tests.
“Increasing [dietary] potassium [has] the same effect on blood pressure as potassium chloride,” says Prof. MacGregor.
His team believes that modern diets are the root cause of HBP. “Until recently, humans consumed a diet high in potassium,” says Prof. MacGregor. “However, with the increase of processed food, there has been a large decrease in potassium intake.”
Another reason why we’re lacking potassium is because we eat fewer fruits and vegetables. Instead, we’re switching to potassium-lite carbs and grains.
Basically a high-potassium diet lowers blood pressure. A research team at the Hypertension Unit of Ben Gurion University in Israel revealed that tomato extract effects blood pressure. They took 54 people with HBP. They treated half of them with tomato extract. The other half received a placebo. People taking the tomato extract averaged a reduction of more than 10 mmHg in systolic pressure (the top number on your blood pressure reading) and more than 5 mmHg in diastolic pressure (the lower number). This is amazing research because a reduction of just 5 mmHg can decrease your risk of stroke by 34 percent.
The best foods that are rich in potassium are bananas, cantaloupes, papayas, and honeydews. But I recommend your primary source of potassium be tomatoes. That’s because those other foods have a high glycemic score that triggers a hormonal response. One that leads to weight gain. And weight gain is also a factor in HBP. So stick with tomatoes because they have a lower glycemic score. Try to get them into your diet at least twice a day to lower your blood pressure.
C. diff is now believed to be the most common hospital-acquired infection. It causes diarrhea, colitis, and other intestinal problems that are sometimes severe enough to require surgery. And because C. diff infections are most common in older patients, many of whom are already sick, C. diff can be deadly. There are three important steps to C. diff infection prevention.
Step One: Wash your hands. C. diff spores can live for days on all types of surfaces. So after a visit to a hospital or nursing home, wash your hands thoroughly.
Step Two: Avoid regular use of these three types of drugs have been shown to increase C. diff infection risk:
* Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)
* H2 receptor antagonists (such as Zantac and Pepcid) to treat heartburn
* Proton pump inhibitor drugs (such as Prevacid and Prilosec) to treat heartburn
Step Three: Use a probiotic supplement whenever you’re prescribed an antibiotic.
Antibiotics kill both good and bad bacteria. And low levels of good bacteria provide a perfect environment for C. diff to thrive. This is where a good probiotic supplement can help enormously.
I recommend Metagenics probiotics at the beginning of every antibiotic treatment and continue probiotic use for a full week after the antibiotic is finished.
link to drjeffreytucker.meta-ehealth.com to order probiotics.
A new Harvard study discussed at a recent American Heart Association (AHA) convention reviewed 20 studies and gave the AHA crowd these two key results:
1) High intake of processed meat that’s been cured and/or loaded with preservatives (hot dogs, lunch meat, bacon, sausage) increases risk of heart disease and diabetes.
2) Any level of intake of unprocessed red meat does NOT increase heart disease or diabetes risk.
Go PALEO Diet!
This is a perfect workout to get your energy flowing but not your sweat!
March in place for two minutes.
Vertical Push-Up: Stand at arm’s length from a wall. Keeping your elbows at shoulder level, place both hands against the wall, shoulder-width apart. Lean into the wall, bending your elbows as you come forward… and straightening them out as you push back. Try to do 10-12 reps.
Squats: Stand one foot away from a chair, facing away from it. Bend at your knees, lean forward and bend – keeping your back straight – until you are seated in the chair. Rest for a second, place your hands on your thighs, and push off using your legs… and stand. Try to do 8-12 reps.
Crunches: Sit on a desk, bench, or other straight surface. Cup your ears with your hands. Bring your left knee up and across to your right elbow. Pause, tighten your ab muscles, and return to your starting position. Bring your right knee up and across to your left elbow. Pause, tighten your ab muscles, and return to your starting position. Try to repeat 6–10 times.
Do 10-12 more wall push-ups. Do 8-12 more squats. And finally march in place for two minutes.
Enjoy!
Workout #2 The following is a basic interval-training exercise. You can vary it as much as you like to make further progress.
Walk for 90 seconds, picking up pace as you go.
Run for one 30-second burst.
Walk at an even pace for another 90 seconds.
Kick it up to another 30-second run.
Walk for another 90 seconds.
Run for 30 seconds.
Walk for 90 seconds.
Run for 30 seconds. Finally, slow to a walk for two minutes… decreasing your pace gradually until you come to a stop. If you find this too challenging at first… switch your runs to fast walks. Gradually turn one fast walk per exercise into a run. And then another as you increase your fitness. Once you get used to this exercise you can continue making progress. Simply pick up the pace of the run… and the walks.
Workout #1 All you need is a clock and just 10 minutes per session!
Walk in place for one minute.
Jump rope for one minute.
Do as many pushups as you can for one minute.
Do as many crunches as you can for one minute.
Jump rope for two minutes.
Do another round of pushups for one minute.
Do another round of crunches for one minute.
Jump rope for one minute.
Walk in place for one minute.
Your body puts B-6 to use in activating nearly 120 enzymes and 19 of your body’s 20 amino acids. And all of that contributes to DNA repair, healthy immune, hormone, and cognitive functions, as well as prevention of heart disease, depression, kidney stones, and some cancers.?
B-6 has been shown to modify the way the prostate responds to testosterone.??Therefore?B complex?may have a preventive effect on the development and progression of prostate cancer.
To investigate this link, a team from the Harvard School of Public Health looked at dietary habits of 525 men with prostate cancer. Survival over a period of 20 years was compared to the intake of four B vitamins: folate, riboflavin, B-6, and B-12.
Results: Men with highest B-6 intake were significantly more likely to survive the two decades compared to men with the lowest intake of the vitamin. None of the other nutrients were linked to longer survival time.
Most importantly, men with the best survival records were those who had localized-stage prostate cancer at the outset of the study and also had the highest B-6 intake. In other words, high levels of the vitamin were most effective when the cancer was newly diagnosed and had not yet spread beyond the prostate.
Men who had the highest intake averaged 2.2 to 2.9 mg of B- 6 daily–about twice the recommended intake.?
Bananas and chicken breast have particularly high levels of vitamin B6. Red meat, fish, beans, fruits, vegetables, and leafy greens are also good sources.?
Daily recommends 100 mg of B-6 daily, along with other B vitamins, of course, and magnesium.
Scientific Fact 1 – The 2/3 rule If you were to look at a lumbar spine disc from above, it would look like an onion cut in half. You would see a softer jelly like centre and a system of concentric surrounding rings surrounding this jelly centre. The jelly is called the nucleus pulposis, and the rings are called the annular fibres. The interesting thing about the disc is that only the outer 1/3 of the disc has a nerve supply, the inner 2/3 has no nerves. This means that the inner 2/3 can be damaged, you simply just don’t feel it. However when discs fail, the rings progressively tear from the centre outwards. It is only when the fibres from the outer 1/3 start tearing that you will feel sharp back pain.
This explains many patients situation. Some of you have likely been progressively tearing fibres in the disc. Whatever incident that brought you into the office was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. When the disc starts improving, the opposite happens. The outer fibres repair first. Even when you feel 100%, still give yourself 10 days of being careful as it is quite easy to tear back out to the outer 1/3.
Scientific Fact 2 – Pressure changes. In the 1960’s a clever Northern European by the name of Nachemson performed a neat experiment whereby he measured pressure changes in lumbar spine discs as body position changed. What he found out was that when we stand upright, the pressure on the lowest lumbar disc is about 100kg. When we sit straight, it jumps to 150kg. When we sit slumped (as most of us do), the pressure jumps to 200kg. When we stand and bend slightly over at the spine (imagine picking something up of a chair), the pressure is 225kg. Moral of the story is that activities or occupations that are flexion based will create the most disc pressure and have a greater chance of causing disc damage. The flexion based movements can be sudden or sustained. The 2 cohorts of the population most likely to suffer back pain are office workers (too much sitting in flexion) and manual labour workers (too much load in bending and lifting).
Scientific Fact 3 – Morning Pressure - When we lie horizontal at night, the pressure in our disc drops to about 25kg (on our backs) and 75kg (lying on our side). The decrease in pressure compared with standing results in the disc uptaking fluid. They effectively swell in your sleep. When you awake in the morning you are then actually a little taller for this reason. However, you are also more susceptible to either feeling a damaged disc (this explains why those with fresh disc injuries find it hard to get out of bed) or actually damaging a disc if you lift or bend over. Most acute back pain episodes admitted into Casualty wards occur before 9am in the morning. If you are going to hurt a disc, you have more chance of doing it first thing in the morning.
Gout pain is usually diagnosed when you have pain in the joint of your big toe (one of the typical spots where gout flares up). Gout occurs when uric acid crystals cause inflammation and swelling in tissue around joints. Those crystals form when high levels of uric acid build up. For most of us, uric acid normally dissolves in the blood and is passed out of the body in the urine. But for some, the body produces too much uric acid. In other patients, the body does a poor job of eliminating uric acid. In both cases the end result is the same: crystals form and pain develops. Gout can last for days.
I recommend gout patients eat cherries. It’s an old fashion remedy but eating cherries and drinking cherry juice helps relieve gout pains. The secret: Cherries help prompt uric acid excretion. Unfortunately, you might have to eat quite a few cherries before you start to feel relief. And cherries happen to be a natural laxative, so brace yourself for the repercussions. Meanwhile, there are other things you can do to help manage the excess uric acid:
Drink lots of water to help with elimination
Two herbal therapies: Celery seed extract and extract of juniper
Chiropractic treatments – especially gentle soft tissue therapy
Yoga
Avoid: High fructose corn syrup, heavy alcohol consumption, red meat, liver, kidneys, Shellfish and being overweight.
High-dose vitamin C promotes uric acid to be excreted into the urine. Start with 1-2 grams of vitamin C, three times daily.
Hope this helps!
Goal 1: Find a Time & Remain Committed
Figure out when you’re going to head to the gym or workout at home. Whether it’s weight loss or building new muscles you have to have a regular, consistent time to workout.
Goal 2: Follow Through
Start out with three days a week for two to three months. The amount of time doesn’t matter – it could be ten minutes, twenty minutes and even longer. Let’s just get started and get it into your schedule. Short bouts are better than nothing and makes it easier to stick with exercise for the long haul.
Goal 3: Keep a Workout Diary
Exercise is a priority in my life. Every day I work out I write down what I did and I might include how much weight I lifted or the number of reps completed. I like looking over a few weeks of my workouts. If weight loss is your goal, get a body fat analysis performed, or once a week write down your weight. Over time, you’ll be able to see improvements in all these areas. Just pick a statistic and follow it, such as your lowered blood pressure or how much longer you can stay on the treadmill now than when you first began.
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