Any change in your normal routine or health is called stress. If you look around, one of ten people that you see at work get stressed at some time or the other. Scientists are of the opinion that stress causes certain chemical changes in the brain which adversely affects your health. Women are very vulnerable to stress due to hormonal changes. There are certain negative effects on your health. Have a look at the different effects that stress has on your health.

1. Behavioral effects: When you are under pressure, your behavior changes to worst. You incorporate bad and harmful habits like smoking and drinking as a way of getting immediate relief from stress. Others who are too much busy with work, may not exercise daily or eat regularly. They may also cut down on sleep to cope up with their work pressure. All these are likely to harm your health.

2. Leads to heart disease: There is a strong link between stress and heart disease. If the stress is intense and if the stress hormones are not used up by physical exercise, our heart rate raises. This puts tension in the arteries and causes damage to them. As the body cures this damage, the artery walls thicken which can lead to less amount of blood flow to the heart.

3. Loss of immunity: Too much of stress leads to loss of immunity. It damages the immune system to a considerable extent which is why you catch cold more when you are stressed. It also leads to headaches and irritable bowel symptoms. Doctors are of the opinion that stress may also lead to cancer.

Regular exercise can reduce the amount of stress and the harm that it causes to your health. This strengthens your heart and increases the blood flow to the heart. This helps you to become immune to diseases and lead a healthy life.

In men who were diagnosed before 1987, the risk of a fatal heart attack during the week following diagnosis increased 11-fold, and the risk of suicide increased 800 percent. After 1987, the risks of suffering a non-fatal heart attack during the first week of diagnosis fell to 300 percent. But the risk of suicide, although small, held steady. During the year following diagnosis, the risk of both heart attacks and suicide diminished but did not disappear.

“The risks are highest during the first week after diagnosis and young men seem to be most vulnerable,” the authors said in a statement, noting that men 54 years of age and under were the most vulnerable. “These unrecognized consequences of a prostate cancer diagnosis deserve the attention of health professionals to the increasing number of men that are diagnosed with this disease.”

“Stress can be an important trigger for physiologic reactions, including increased risk of cardiovascular disease,” Dr. Meir Stampfer, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, told ABC News. “The diagnosis of cancer also can cause high enough stress to see a noticeable increase in both heart disease and suicide.”

According to Dr. Robert O. Young,  “emotional stress requires energy and the consumption of energy leaves acidic residues that can make you sick, tired, and depressed.”

One in six American men will develop a cancerous prostate at some point during his lifetime.

According to Dr. Robert O. Young, “a cancerous prostate is not only preventable with an alkalizing lifestyle and diet but is also reversible with the same pH Miracle Plan. Once you understand that cancer is caused by dietary and/or metabolic acid then you can prevent a cancerous condition by maintaining the alkaline design of the body.”

Our medical care system is ‘broken’ mainly because it focuses on the problem (i.e. the ‘war’ on cancer, diabetes, heart disease, etc.), and war is quite profitable but it acts as a parasite that is feeding on its ‘host’ (that would be the population at large in this example).   For any ‘healthcare’ system to work we must focus on ‘health’ which by nature will ‘starve’ the parasite.  Unfortunately that ‘parasite’ has money, power, lobbyists and the government that is all too susceptible to those influences in order to be re-elected.

Real change must happen from the grass roots and move up and it begins with people knowing the truth.  Politicians rarely ‘see the light’ until they ‘feel the heat’ and an educated public is needed to ‘bring the heat’.

Heart Surgeon Admits Huge Mistake!

We physicians with all our training, knowledge and authority often acquire a rather large ego that tends to make it difficult to admit we are wrong.  So, here it is.  I freely admit to being wrong.  As a heart surgeon with 25 years experience, having performed over 5,000 open-heart surgeries, today is my day to right the wrong with medical and scientific fact.

I trained for many years with other prominent physicians labelled “opinion makers.”  Bombarded with scientific literature, continually attending education seminars, we opinion makers insisted heart disease resulted from the simple fact of elevated blood cholesterol.

The only accepted therapy was prescribing medications to lower cholesterol and a diet that severely restricted fat intake.  The latter of course we insisted would lower cholesterol and heart disease.  Deviations from these recommendations were considered heresy and could quite possibly result in malpractice.

It Is Not Working!

These recommendations are no longer scientifically or morally defensible.  The discovery a few years ago that inflammation in the artery wall is the real cause of heart disease is slowly leading to a paradigm shift in how heart disease and other chronic ailments will be treated.

The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of obesity and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences.

Despite the fact that 25% of the population takes expensive statin medications and despite the fact we have reduced the fat content of our diets, more Americans will die this year of heart disease than ever before.

Statistics from the American Heart Association show that 75 million Americans currently suffer from heart disease, 20 million have diabetes and 57 million have pre-diabetes. These disorders are affecting younger and younger people in greater numbers every year.

Simply stated, without inflammation being present in the body, there is no way that cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel and cause heart disease and strokes.  Without inflammation, cholesterol would move freely throughout the body as nature intended.  It is inflammation that causes cholesterol to become trapped.

Inflammation is not complicated — it is quite simply your body’s natural defense to a foreign invader such as a bacteria, toxin or virus.  The cycle of inflammation is perfect in how it protects your body from these bacterial and viral invaders.  However, if we chronically expose the body to injury by toxins or foods the human body was never designed to process, a condition occurs called chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is just as harmful as acute inflammation is beneficial.

What thoughtful person would willfully expose himself repeatedly to foods or other substances that are known to cause injury to the body?  Well, smokers perhaps, but at least they made that choice willfully.

The rest of us have simply followed the recommended mainstream diet that is low in fat and high in polyunsaturated fats and carbohydrates, not knowing we were causing repeated injury to our blood vessels.  This repeated injury creates chronic inflammation leading to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and obesity.  Let me repeat that. The injury and inflammation in our blood vessels is caused by the low fat diet that has been recommended for years by mainstream medicine.

What are the biggest culprits of chronic inflammation? Quite simply, they are the overload of simple, highly processed carbohydrates (sugar, flour and all the products made from them) and the excess consumption of omega-6 vegetable oils like soybean, corn and sunflower that are found in many processed foods.

In Part 2 of this two-part article, I’ll discuss which foods cause inflammation, how those foods trigger the inflammatory process, and the foods to eat that will cure inflammation.

[Ed. Note: Dr. Dwight Lundell is the past Chief of Staff and Chief of Surgery at Banner Heart Hospital, Mesa, AZ.  His private practice, Cardiac Care Center was in Mesa, AZ.  Recently Dr. Lundell left surgery to focus on the nutritional treatment of heart disease.  He is the founder of Healthy Humans Foundation that promotes human health with a focus on helping large corporations promote wellness. He is the author of The Cure For Heart Disease and The Great Cholesterol Lie.

About 71% of the earth’s surface is covered by water.  With all this water out there, why are most people not drinking as much as they should?  Water is vitally important in order for humans to function properly, since every system of the body depends upon this sustaining substance.  In fact, about 50-65% of your body is made up of water.

A person can only survive for about 3 days if they don’t drink any fluids.  Drinking soda, coffee, or juice will keep you alive, but you need pure water if you want to be as healthy as you can be.

Reduces the Risk of a Heart Attack
A study at Loma Linda University discovered that people who drink 5+ glasses of water daily were less likely to die from heart disease than people who drank less than 2 glasses a day.

Helps with Weight Loss
Water helps your metabolism to work properly.  One of the main jobs of the liver is to convert the fat your body stores into energy.  If the kidneys aren’t getting enough water, then the liver has to do their work along with it’s own and the result is that it can’t metabolize fat as efficiently.  Water also gives you the energy and hydration needed for exercise.  If your muscles have the proper amount of water, they will contract more easily which means your workout will be more effective and beneficial.  It’s also true that many people think they’re hungry when their body is actually thirsty for water!

It’s Good For Your Body and Brain
Your body is constantly using up water.  Even minor dehydration can result in headaches, fatigue, lack of concentration, and irritability.  Drinking water can wash these symptoms away!

Keeps Your Skin Healthy
Water is important for preventing dry skin and acne.  It flushes impurities out of your skin.  As a result, your complexion is clear and your skin is healthy.

Keeps your Muscles and Joints in Good Shape
Your joints and muscles are mainly lubricated and cushioned by water. You can prevent fatigue and muscle cramps by drinking plenty of water before, during, and after hard work or exercise.

Cuts down on Disease and Infection
Drinking water can help you to avoid kidney stones and reduce your risk of getting urinary tract infections.

Helps Maintain Proper Digestion
If you don’t drink enough water, the pancreas doesn’t work efficiently, acids in the stomach are not properly neutralized, and intestine functions are hindered.  This can lead to constipation, false appendicitis pain, colitis pain, and hiatus hernia.   Drinking a glass of water, at least a half an hour before mealtime will greatly help the digestion process.  Also, proper water intake can prevent heartburn.

Traditionally, apple peels have been considered healthy because of their fibre content, as the peel contains about 75 percent of the dietary fibre in an apple.

But a recent study has shown that the peel also contains most of the beneficial phytochemicals responsible for apples’ anti-carcinogenic effects.

Scientists processed more than 200 pounds of Red Delicious apples, and extracted phytochemicals from about 24 pounds of peel. They screened the compounds for anti-cancer effects in laboratory cultures of human liver, breast, and colon cancer cells, and identified a group of compounds with potent anti-cancer properties. Specifically, 13 triterpenoids from the peels of Red Delicious apples were identified and confirmed to be highly effective against cancer. Exactly how and why these biochemicals seek and destroy cancer cells is still unknown.

Apple consumption has previously been linked to a reduced risk of lung cancer, heart disease, and stroke.

Source: Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, Vol. 55, No. 11, May 30, 2007: 4366-4370