Heartburn or GERD can Kill

Heartburn is a common annoyance. The busy lifestyle, quick meals, fatty or spicy foods all contribute to the occasional need of a chewable pain reliever. The acceptance of heartburn as an inconvenient, but natural, part of the daily grind can blind you to the warning that a severe heartburn symptom can bring.

Heartburn as a Disorder

Heartburn can be a symptom as well as a disorder. Simple heartburn or GERD can be controlled and dealt with. However, heartburn can signal the presence of a much more serious problem. If it’s heartburn, you will have a burning sensation in the chest usually after eating. There may be a spread of the burning to the throat, sometimes accompanied by a bad taste, difficulty in swallowing, belching, coughing, hoarseness and/or wheezing.

It can become worse by lying down or bending over or by eating. Relief can come from an antacid. While the more severe heartburn symptoms may be mistaken for a heart attack, simple heartburn is usually not made worse by exercise. If there is any concern that the pain may signal a heart attack, get help quickly.

Saturday, July 18, 2009

How To Prevent Wrinkles And Have Healthier Skin

By Joslyn Gayle

As kids, many of us wished we were older. As adults, though, all we ever want to do is look younger. For some, it becomes a matter of reversing things after they happen. Some, though, are able to learn how to prevent early wrinkles from happening.

Before you can prevent wrinkles, you need to understand how they get started. After all, it's impossible to avoid or treat what you don't understand. There are two big causes of wrinkles to learn about.

Internal, sometimes known as intrinsic, causes are one of the two big wrinkle creators. For example, genetics can play a role in the health of your skin. So, you might get wrinkles at age 20 or age 50, depending on your genes.

What are the signs of aging that could be produced by intrinsic sources, besides just wrinkles? Well, you might also have thin skin, sagging skin or skin that has lost its elasticity. On top of that, you could have to deal with dry or rough skin, too. Luckily, there are several products that can help you, but be aware that they are not all alike. Some don't work at all, while others work fairly well.

Of course, many outside factors change the state of your skin, too. Those are known as extrinsic, or external, aspects. Many of them have to do with the choices you make in life.

Sun:

When it comes to wrinkles and signs of premature aging, one of the biggest external factors is sun damage. As kids, and even as adults in some cases, we spend way too much time in the sun. That makes something that is actually healthy, in moderation, into a nightmare later in life. Tanning beds or too much sun can definitely cause premature age signs. On top of that, though, it can even put you at high risk of developing skin cancer.

Smoke Damage:

If you smoke, you should consider quitting now, if you want to reverse signs of aging, like wrinkles. After all, smoking causes skin to become discolored, paper-like and wrinkled. So, you can't expect to avoid early signs of aging if you smoke.

Facial Exercises:

It's difficult to say whether facial exercises can help you stop wrinkles from forming or not. A few exercises can certainly help you to firm up your muscles. However, if you over do it, some say that you will just create the very wrinkles you're trying to stop.

So, as you can see, you can't avoid wrinkles completely. You can certainly slow down the aging process a bit, though. All you have to do is take good care of your skin. That means avoiding bad habits and using good skin care products.

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Why Just Reducing Fat Intake Will Not Improve Your Health

By Joe Graham

If you are on a body building program or just looking to lose weight and get a ripped look then it is important to also eat healthily. It is easy, when following some programs, to overlook the fact that the foods you may be consuming may not be ideal to stay healthy over the long term.

Fats in the diet are probably one of the most important aspects of a diet. The reason is that fat contains more calories per gram than glucose and protein, and so are not particularly ideal if you want to lose weight, and fat is also responsible for increasing your cholesterol level which can increase your risk of cardiovascular disease.

Many people have come to the realization that dietary fats can be bad for you and as such society has seen a general decline in the intake of fats. This is important as fats are the main causes of diseases such as obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Although there has been a reduction, there is still much uncertainty about the difference between the so called good fats and the bad fats.

In the diet, fat is important because some fats are essential to a lot of the normal physiological processes that go on in the body. Many, such as linoleic acid, are not manufactured by the body, so need to be taken in the food we eat. Fat in the food is also vital for the absorption of certain nutrients such as fat soluble vitamins in the gastrointestinal tract.

Fats come in two main types, saturated and unsaturated. The ones known as bad fats are the saturated fats which are often found in animal fats such as lamb and beef. Foods such as dairy products, fish fried in fat and cheese are also high in these types of fat.

Foods that are commonly cooked in fat, such as fast foods like burgers, contain a lot of saturated fats. These types of fats are one of the biggest culprits in the increase in triglyceride and cholesterol levels causing a rise in the incidence of disease.

Unsaturated fats or the good fats are found in higher level in certain oils such as rapeseed and soyabean oil. Replacing animal fats with these oils can be a successful approach to reducing the intake of your saturated fats. Various cooking methods such as grilling instead of frying can be employed to lower the intake of the fats also.

In order to lose fat mor weight it is important to reduce your general fat intake in the diet. However, to stay healthy it is also vital to look at the quality of fat your are putting into your body and lower the intake of the bad saturated fats. Eating more vegetables and fruit is a more healthy approach which will leave you feeling full without increasing your fat intake.

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Resveratrol Ultra Extract

By Reema Jones

There has been a common perception that drinking wine can be detrimental to the health but very recently the scenario has changed for all the drinkers. A lot of people assumed that it might be the alcohol in the wine that was providing the health benefits. However, they have been proving wrong.

Recently, in many researches by reputed universities and research labs, it has been seen that resveratrol ultra is the most potent longevity booster that is natural available. It is a powerful anti oxidant generally manufactured by the plants in the response to any bacterial or fungal infection.

So finally we know what it is in the wine that is responsible for things like the French Paradox and other mysteries relating to how people who eat a less than ideal diet still manage to remain largely free of the kinds of diseases and health problems that afflict so many Americans.

It wasn't known until recently just how powerful resveratrol actually is. We now know that it's as much as 50 times more powerful than vitamin C, for example, and has been shown to do everything from protect against cancer to slow down -- dare, I say reverse -- the aging process.

To get sufficient quantities of resveratrol ultra to get the maximum benefit, you have to drink many, many bottles of wine every day. While this may sound like fun, the amount that you have to drink would quickly lead to other health problems that even resveratrol couldn't solve.

The bottom line is that the alcohol in the wine has the potential to largely undo the benefits of the resveratrol extracts. Your body has to work at extra hard to remove the toxicity associated with the alcohol you're drinking. And when that happens, it's pretty obvious that you're probably doing more harm than good, even if you are getting a decent amount of resveratrol in the bargain.

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Omega3 Fatty Acids. Should You Eat Fish To Get Them?

By Peter Bertonich

It's a good question isn't it. Fish is contaminated with mercury, so should we be eating fish to get those good omega3 fatty acids in our diets?

And if you shouldn't eat fish how do you get that Omega3 in your diet?

Ive pointed out before that Omega 3 fats are most prevalent in fish, but that there are plant sources like flax seeds but they dont have the optimum types, or amounts, of Omega 3 fats that you need.

But surely there's a problem with eating fish, because we all know that now fish is contaminated with mercury.

The EPA says that there is mercury contamination in all fish.

And it's not a good idea to get mercury into your body, particularly for children. Your body doesn't get rid of it.

However the EPA doesnt recommend that you eliminate all fish from your diet. Fish is healthy, in small quantities, and if you follow some simple guidelines you should be ok eating it. Just dont eat too much.

2 serves a week is fine, but for children and pregnant women they do offer some more guidelines about the types of fish to avoid.

Pregnant women and children ought to avoid eating shark, swordfish, king mackerel, or tilefish. These fish are high mercury fish.

But dont eliminate all fish from your diet just because youre worried about mercury. If you like fish you can eat it, sensibly and in relatively small quantities.

But there's another problem before we conclude that we all ought to be eating fish for our Omega3 fatty acids. Fish is scarce and getting scarcer. Have you seen the price of fish lately? It's really expensive.

And although the EPA says its ok to eat it, if youre eating fish to get your Omega3 then there is a better way. Of course if you just love fish then go for it.

And although it's small amounts, there is still mercury in fish. So if you can find a way of getting your Omega3 fats that isn't so expensive, and doesn't have mercury, that's got to be a better way.

Use fish oil supplements. You can get Omega3 fatty acid supplements. They contain fish oil, and they are extremely clean, sourcing their oil from fish that live in the cleanest ocean in the world, the southern ocean, and then this is put through a molecular distillation process until contaminants are undetectable.

But there are no enforced standards for fish oil contamination levels. and not all fish oil supplements are totally clean. Be careful.

So if you're just eating fish for it's Omega3 fatty acids, don't bother. There's cheaper ways that allow you to take your Omega3 fats daily, without the mercury. But if you just love to eat fish then go for it.

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Successful Goal Setting

By Janet Smith

If you want to accomplish something in life, you need to be methodical. And the very first that is required is to set a well defined goal for success. You can try this for anything, from scoring well in an exam to winning a chess championship.

Before you go out and set more goals then you can handle, you must take a realistic look at what it is you are trying to attain. I will be going over some helpful suggestions that should aid you in setting goals for success.

When you are setting a goal for success, you must know what you are trying to achieve. You should be extremely thorough when setting up a goal. For the purpose of this article say that we want to shed some of those extra pounds off of the waistline.

Your goal should be like; I want to lose 10 lbs (or whatever your desired weight is). Your goal should be very precise. Be focused for success. Once you are clear about your exact goal, then that can help you get to where you want to be.

Do this with every goal for success that you want to achieve. The more realistic they are the more you will see that success will follow you when you set your mind in the mode to where you want to accomplish something.

Like it would not be wise to set a goal for you to be able to run a marathon by next week, if you have not been training at all, or have not went for a jog in months or years. This is something you will need to build yourself up to, instead of a week, you should try to be able to run a marathon in 5 months, just for example of course.

Another good way to follow through with goals would be to get help from others trying to achieve the same thing. If you are in a big math class and you have an exam coming up, it might be wise to form a study group so every one can meet the goal of passing the test.

This will provide more means of the learning curve for those that have it. You will be able to learn from mistakes and help others that may have a weak point that you do not have, and the other way around also.

I hope that this gives you a better understanding on the steps that you should take when it comes to setting up a reasonable goal for success. The best advice I can give is do not cheat yourself out of accomplishing something, do not let laziness get in the way, stay focused and there should not be any reason for failure.

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