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Things you must do to prevent heart disease
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Things you must do to prevent heart disease
Written by Kofo Ogunyankin, Consultant Cardiologist
~Punch Nigeria. Thursday, September 29, 2016.
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| Kofo Ogunyankin |
The World Heart Federation designates every September 29 as the World Heart Day to raise awareness worldwide about heart diseases. This is with a focus on preventing or reducing cardiovascular deaths and stroke.
Current statistics show that heart diseases are responsible for about 17.1 million deaths worldwide every year. This is more than the cumulative global death rate due to cancer, HIV/AIDS and malaria fever.
In Nigeria, there is a significant lack of awareness of the burden imposed on the society by heart diseases and stroke, partly due to a lack of systematic data collection and our pre-occupation with fighting malaria and other communicable diseases.
The theme for the 2016 WHD is 'Power your Life'. This is broken down in to the following actionable components:
Fuel your heart
The food we eat and the calories in our drinks provide the fuel for our body. Overeating is a big problem worldwide and Nigerians are not spared from the obesity epidemic. Unfortunately, most people who are overweight are in denial of the role they have personally played through their eating and drinking habits.
When confronted about weight gain, the common excuses that the average Nigerian often gives include "I have heavy bones", "I eat less food than a child", "I eat only once a day" and so on. There is no doubt that there are genetically determined reasons for differences between individuals in how much weight that is gained from a given calorie intake.
However, if each person determines to eat only what is needed to live and no more, weight loss will occur. As the saying goes, you should 'eat to live and not live to eat'. I advise my patients to think of whatever they consume (food or drink) as a bank deposit and their weight as the monthly account balance.
Eating well is not complicated. The basic tenet is for each individual to make an effort to control what they eat. This might mean taking your lunch to work if the only choices available at work are not heart-friendly.
Written by Oladapo Ashiru, Professor of Anatomy/Consultant Reproductive Endocrinologist
~The Punch Nigeria. Wednesday, September 28, 2016.
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| Oladapo Ashiru |
If you are one of these women aged 40 and over who find it difficult to sleep, know that you are not alone. Many women wake up every night between 12 midnight and 4 am and start prowling around the house. In frustration, you may begin pacing the house, cleaning the kitchen floor, surfing the Internet or watching CNN or movies on late night TV.
Getting a good night's sleep becomes more and more difficult as we age, but women in menopause find it particularly difficult to get such. In many cases this inability to sleep is due to too much estrogen in your system, which is not balanced by progesterone.
Before menopause, estrogen is the dominant hormone for about the first two weeks in the menstrual cycle and progesterone is dominant in the last two weeks of the cycle. When menopause occurs naturally these two hormones should continue to balance each other, but if you are a woman leading a stressful lifestyle during menopause, you may find that your production of progesterone is suppressed and or converted to stress hormones and you will have a dominance of estrogen in your system leading to sleeplessness and other unpleasant menopausal symptoms.
Using a little progesterone cream made from natural bio identical plant sources may help you to easily solve this problem. The right way to use progesterone cream or oil is to use about 1/8 to ¼ of a teaspoon daily for three weeks out of the month, with a week off each month to maintain sensitivity of the progesterone receptors.
Natural progesterone cream made from bio-identical plant sources is not the same as the synthetic hormone progestin, which is made from animal sources.
I know of some women who have not slept for longer than four hours since they started menopause. When they were given some progesterone cream they reported that they were able to sleep for eight hours. This was a major turning point in their recovery from a long list of menopausal and health problems.
Excerpts from Pastor Chris’ Teaching!
~Christ Embassy.Org Online Missions
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| Pastor Chris Oyakhilome |
Husband does not mean the male partner in a marriage, husband means master. The reason for most problems in Christian marriages is the fact that women refute God’s definition of marriage and form theirs.
They believe they are equal partners. If most women had their fathers bold enough to talk to them, they will be very successful in their marriage and they will be very happy people. Most women have never been taught by their parents, their fathers particularly and that’s their biggest problem because they don’t know who a man is, they think he is another woman.
In marriage, you have the man who is the head of that union and because he’s the head of that union, its important to understand him. You think he’s the one that needs to understand his wife and that is where you are wrong.
He will eventually but you have to know the type of man you are married to and his needs.When you say you are marrying a man, you are coming under his authority.
The Bible says, the man is the head of the woman (1 Corinthians 11:3) so when you marry him you come under his authority, you are not authority sharers even though you are both heirs to the kingdom of God.When you decide not to subject yourself to that authority, you are a rebel and God is not going to accept what you are doing because you are not functioning correctly.
Why did God make the woman? Making woman was not God’s original plan because after God created Adam and before He made Eve, He said in Genesis 1:31 “Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good”.
God made woman because of man so woman was not His original idea. This is reality.Genesis 2:18a “And the Lord God said “for it is not good for a man to be alone..” The Bible didn’t say “lonely” but “alone”.
There is a big difference. Man wasn’t lonely but alone. Genesis 2:18b “…I will make him an help meet”. He didn’t say a partner or a supervisor or a special advisor or someone to tell him what to do.
I will make him someone to help him. God gave man a responsibility so woman was made to help man achieve that responsibility. If this is understood in every home then you won’t have problems.
~Vanguard Nigeria. Tuesday, September 20, 2016.
Dr Uthman Mubashir, Public Health Physician of the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, has said that emotional tears have special health benefits for people.
Mubashir revealed in an interview in Ilorin on Tuesday that crying had "therapeutic emotional freedom".
"Tears are protective and they lubricate your eyes, remove irritants, reduce stress hormones, and they contain antibodies that fight pathogenic microbes," he said.
He explained that tears might decrease arousal of distress and make people feel better.
According to him, reflex tears are 98 per cent water, whereas emotional tears also contain stress hormones which get excreted from the body through crying.
Mubashir said that emotional tears shed these hormones and other toxins which accumulate during stress.
The public health physician, who teaches at the College of Health Sciences of the University of Ilorin, noted that crying stimulates the production of endorphins, "our body's natural pain killer and feel-good hormones".
"Crying makes us feel better, even when a problem persists. In addition to physical detoxification, emotional tears heal the heart," he said.
Mubashir warned against dissuading people from holding back tears, saying that holding back tears was a form of bottling up emotions that could trigger stress and other problems.
"We are in a society that tells us we're weak for crying, in particular that powerful men don't cry.
"The new enlightened paradigm of what constitutes a powerful man and woman is someone who has the strength and self-awareness to cry," he said.
He reiterate that "it is good to cry, it is healthy to cry. This helps to emotionally clear sadness and stress."
Crying, he pointed out, was also essential to resolve grief when some someone lost a dear one.
"Tears help us process the loss so we can keep living with open hearts. Otherwise, we will be depressed if we suppress these potent feelings.
Written by Tessy Umunakwe
~Nigerian Tribune. Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Have you ever made a conscious effort to close your eyes for one minute? If yes, it is almost certain you didn’t wait for a minute before you opened them. Reason? The few seconds you had your eyes closed would have appeared as a long while, hence the belief that it was already a minute. If you find it hard to close your eyes for one minute at a stretch, then imagine how you will feel if you have to close them for, say, 30 minutes, one hour, three hours, an entire day, a whole week or even a lifetime.
Research has consistently proved that sight is the most valued of all the senses. Findings show that two thirds (68 per cent) of people value eyesight above other senses.he
Nonetheless, more than a third (36 per cent) of these people admit having eye problem for over a month- and in some cases (13 per cent) years- before seeking help, even after noticing that their eyesight is deteriorating.
Over 53 per cent said in a survey that they sometimes struggle to see what is on TV and a further 50 per cent struggle to read books.
But how soon should one visit an eye care provider after noticing certain abnormalities? According to Dr Camillus Asumu, the founder of Sight Foundation, Ibadan, there’s the need for people to visit the eye care provider every six months, even when there are no symptoms suggesting any problem. He said: “It is imperative to visit the eye doctor every six months for thorough examination of the eyes because certain eye diseases do not present any symptoms until it is too late for remedy and this should start. This goes to suggest that one must visit the eye clinic as soon as one notices any eye problem.”
Speaking further, the ophthalmologist disclosed that “the two most common eye defects are cataract and glaucoma. But unlike cataract, glaucoma can occur at any age- and it usually does not start with symptoms.”
Cataract, on the other hand, he said, is mostly age-related. While there are other forms of cataract which are not linked to age like the traumatic cataract (which occurs when a hard object hits the eye) and drug-related cataract, the medical expert asserted that advancement in age is a major factor in degenerating eyesight.
~Vanguard Nigeria. Sunday, September 18, 2016.
IT was a little incident, but it opened the floodgate of nostalgia, I'd arrived late at a wedding reception and was ushered to what looked like the high table. The groom's mother is a close friend. I sensed rather than saw this look of disapproval burning into my scalp. I turned, and there she was – Dolapo's wife. I held her gaze and gave as much hostility as she emitted. She promptly looked away. How long ago was it? Over 20 years at least. I'd met Dolapo on a flight from abroad when he wangled his way to the empty seat by my side in first class. Those were the good old days!
The goodies I didn't want jostled about in the haul was deliberately perched on the empty seat next to mine. I had to shift for Dolapo to sit down. It later expired that the seat was booked in his assistant's name but he quickly nudged the poor man towards his own seat so he could sit next to me. I wasn't really interested in what he had to say. Someone else had treated me to this holiday and I'd had fun. Then I noticed he was a picky eater. First, he didn't touch the individual pot of caviar that was served with the starter. Then the lobster in his main dish was left untouched. "I'm allergic to sea food," he whined. Deftyly, I scooped the lobster on to my plate and retrieved the pot of caviar.
"That moment you stole my food," Dolapo later boasted, "I knew I would get my pound of flesh!" And he was a very easy person to love. In spite of his position, he conducted our affair as if he were single. Our social outings were very public and once or twice, his private driver had hinted I should ask him to be a bit careful, that whenever he sent him to mine, it was always within ear- short of the poor wife.
What exactly was I supposed to do? From the little he told me, his marriage obviously wasn't up to much. What was more, I was almost divorced, I had no irate husband to worry about. We were together every opportunity we had and the man's appetite for sex was insatiable! It was as if he couldn't have enough of me. Even when we were apart, I had one of these cordless phones with a very wide range as mobiles weren't in vogue then. I took the phone everywhere I went and became a laughing stock with my friends.
Still, Dolapo's wife's ghost was always there. I saw both of them together a few times in the dailies and she fitted my image of a dull, frumpy wife. Even the wig she always had on looked like a badly used mop. I was never a frumpy dresser and for him, I pushed the boat out a bit – wearing really flattering gears any time we were together. And he often spent the night too – his martyr of a wife never questioned him and they had separate bedrooms.
~Vanguard Nigeria. Sunday, September 18, 2016.
DOES the thought of living life sugar-free fill you with horror? If so, you may unknowingly be addicted. In fact, sugar is believed to be eight times more addictive than cocaine. Some people are more sensitive than others, but the more sugar you eat, the more likely it has taken hold of your addictive pathways and is driving you to eat – and drink – far too much.
When sugar hits the bloodstream, it stimulates release of a brain chemical called dopamine, which makes you feel good. The feeling is usually short-lived. By the time you're licking the chocolate off your fingertips or picking the last crumbs of biscuit from the plate, your dopamine levels will probably have fallen, taking you into a mini-withdrawal. This can trigger cravings for more sugar, urging you, against your better judgement, to pick up another biscuit or break off another square of chocolate so your brain can have another hit of dopamine. Before long, the biological signals that would normally control hunger and satiety (fullness) are swiftly being overwhelmed by this dopamine stimulation, to the point where your body (and brain) starts listening only to sugar's cues and ignores the fact that you have already eaten far more than you need.
If you have even the mildest addiction to sugar, there is every chance that your 'off' switch no longer works properly in response to eating, either. That's why one biscuit or scoop of ice-cream never seems like enough, even after a huge meal. The more sugar you eat, the more your tolerance adapts, so you end up needing more and more sugar to get the same boost – drug addicts and alcoholics experience the same cycle.
QUIZ: ARE YOU A SUGAR ADDICT?
ANSWER honestly yes or no to the following questions …
*CAN YOU eat sweet, starchy or fatty foods until you are over- full?
*DO YOU feel hungry even after eating a full meal
*CAN YOU eat large quantities of sweets or stodgy foods even when you're not feeling particularly hungry?
