Lower Cholesterol - Quick Facts and Tips

Image : http://www.flickr.com

Love your food and enjoy your lifestyle, suddenly you realise your need to lower your cholesterol level. This is definitely not rare in today’s modern society. Do not wait until you found this out in the hard way. Check your cholesterol level now.

Cholesterol is a waxy, fat-like substance called sterols that is essential to our human cells. We need cholesterol to make vitamin D, hormones, cell membranes and bile salts. It is essential to our development of the brain function. The liver is responsible to produce most of the cholesterol the body needs, with the remaining sourced from dietary intake.

Lipoproteins in our body carries the cholesterol, and there are two main types known as the high density lipoprotein (HDL) and the low density lipoprotein (LDL). Low density lipoprotein is the one which carries the cholesterol from liver to the body, where high level lipoprotein does the reverse. Hence, the lower density cholesterol often referenced as “bad cholesterol”, and high level lipoprotein as “good cholesterol”.

If you have not been tested your cholesterol level, it will be a good idea to include this check in your next visit to your doctor. It is a simple blood test. Understand your cholesterol level periodically. there is certainly benefit to your overall health. The cholesterol level test result consists of your total cholesterol level, triglycerides, high density and low density lipoprotein cholesterol level. This will give your doctor an overall picture of your health. The best total cholesterol reading is 200 mg/dl with a limit between 200 mg/dl to 239 mg/dl. Medical experts predict you are at risk of having heart disease if you have a total of 240mg/dl above cholesterol readings.

High cholesterol level increases your risk of coronary heart disease. With the excessive cholesterol circulating our body, deposits of cholesterol will form the plagues in our artery walls, hence narrowing the blood flow. In worst case, it can block the blood flood to your heart which ends you up with coronary heart disease.

There are a number of factors which will affect your cholesterol level. This includes your diet, eating habits, body weight, body shape, level of exercise, age, agenda and family history. Dietary change is usually the first thing to lower the cholesterol level. Saturated and trans fats are the most important ones to avoid. Saturated fats are mainly animal fats and can be found in seafood, whole-milk diary products like cheese, meat and poultry skin. Other fats such as monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats are helpful to reduce the LDL level. These fats are found in fish and nuts. In addition, soluble fibre like oats has the same effect of reducing the cholesterol level. Increased level of HDL has a protective effect for coronary heart disease.

Medical research shows that exercise reduces the risk of coronary heart disease. It is because exercise improves the lipoprotein profile. The research shows that it is the amount of exercise which is important. It does not matter you exercise extremely hard with high energy, or just general energy consumption exercise. The most critical factor is the amount, you need to exercise in the maximum duration you can. Consult your doctor to ensure the level of exercise is suitable to your health condition. So, get started whether you have high cholesterol or not. Exercise will definitely improve your health.

Why is it that some people can eat all the ice cream and fatty foods they want without increasing their cholesterol or gaining weight, whereas others have to watch their diets so closely? The answer is in our genes. Although it is known that our genes can be influenced by a number of different factors, including our environment, diet, lifestyle, education and personal and family experiences, this doesn’t apply to how our bodies respond to cholesterol. Indeed, no matter what our lifestyle, it seems our genes play an overriding role in our cholesterol response. Some people have to be careful about their diets, while others have much more freedom in their dietary choices. The take home message remains the same – we might not be able to change our genes but we can certainly modify our lifestyle.

[Via http://vitamindbenefit.wordpress.com]

5 Tips For the Non-Photographer Photographer

There is a lot you can do to fake a great picture. If you have the eye of a photographer it is easier than if you don’t, but here are a few pointers for the passionately inclined.

1. A good Camera – If you have the money, a good camera is one that can make all the difference. Some of my favorite are the Canon D series and Nikon D series. You are a better photographer with a tool like this in your belt. If you don’t have a camera like this, then you have to rely more on your eye to get the picture that you want. It is possible, but you have to love the cameras that have a mind of their own.

2. Be Creative – The stand alone tripod shots are ok, but don’t really cut it when you are trying to get amazing shots. Take the camera in hand, take weird angle shots of the people, or scenery in question and you’ll be happier with your final product. The best shots I have taken, are when the people are candid and unaware, and when I did something or took something I didnt even mean to.

3. Lighting – The most important part of taking a picture is the lighting. If you dont have good lighting, the picture won’t look good. If you have too much lighting the image will get saturated and washed out. Where is the median? In your eye. Find a place with subtle tones of light. The more natural the better. Find areas with dimmed, muted light for cool shadows and creative shots. speaking of shadows… they can ruin a picture. Look for shadows everywhere. If there is a shadow of you in the picture, congratulations. You just committed a photographer felony.

4. Placement – Taking a shot off to the side or with a lot of white space, can be cool. But the best shots (especially if you are being hired to take them) are the ones that strategically place the elements well. Think of a sunset without the sun. It can be good, in the right setting, but one that is taken with the beaming rays of the sun flying away from the lens can be epic.

5. People – I like to take pictures of pretty boxes, and nicely decorated room. However, shots of wedding pictures and candid pictures with people in it, make the photo ten times better. Homework: Aim your lens at a beautiful scenery or room, or sanctuary, then watch as nature interacts with it. People, animals, etc… You will be amazed at the depth and perception it ads to your photo.

I hope a few of these tips help you on your quest to become a great photographer. I am not an architect with the lens, but like you, love taking photos and being in them. Practice on family and friends and you will become more confident in your picture taking. Good Luck and keep on clicking.

Brooke is an amateur Seattle wedding photographer and loves wedding photography and giving people information about it.

[Via http://beatrizumadgebea.wordpress.com]

National Nutrition Month - Tackling the Myth of the Food Guide Pyramid

March is National Nutrition Month.  It is an event sponsored by the American Dietetic Association in an effort to raise awareness about nutrition.  The idea of a National Nutritional Month is a good one, however, the ADA still insists that low fat is a must.  Let’s have a look at the paradox of the food guide pyramid and why it is actually an unhealthy way to eat.

Above is the most recent food guide pyramid from the government.  They have changed the way it looks in order to try and keep up with recent research.  No longer do you see the grains at the “base” of the pyramid as you did in the old one.  Now you see it on the left and as the first “step” which still suggests it should be the largest part of your nutritional day.  From the governmental website www.mypyramid.gov you can find their suggestions regarding each category in the pyramid.  Let’s start with grains.

They recommend that half, only half, of your grain serving be whole.  The other half?  I guess it’s o.k. to get that from simple and refined grains.  They recommend eating breads and pastas every day to maintain health simply because they are low fat.  What they fail to inform the public is that these kinds of foods cause massive amounts of insulin to be released and over time this causes obesity and diabetes.  I can’t tell you how many patients I have that want to lose weight and all they eat are “low fat” carbohydrates.

Their information on vegetables and fruits is actually o.k.  It’s not that hard to say ‘eat more.’  The one exception to their fruit recommendations that I have is that they say to eat fruit any way you can get it including canned or dried.  Canned fruits are often in a sugary syrup to maintain flavor and this is extremely high in terms of glycemic load.  Sugar is sugar and just because it comes from a fruit doesn’t mean it’s healthy.  Dried fruit is acceptable once in a while, but drying a fruit raises its glycemic load.  The information is only a little misleading in this area of the pyramid.

If you look at the new pyramid you can see a small yellow sliver in there somewhere.  It is so small that it does not have a correlating category listed at the bottom.  This is supposed to be your entire serving of oils for the day?  This is a major problem.  The healthy oils such as olive oil, coconut oil, nuts, seeds and fish are unbelievably good for your health.  They promote heart health, reduce inflammation, provide a great source of healthy energy and increasing them reduces the carbohydrate intake one consumes. Primitive cultures have been using fats for thousands of years as a source of energy and nutrition.  These cultures, while few and far between now, are not the ones that have the epidemics of heart disease, diabetes and obesity that Western cultures do.  The difference is the amount of carbohydrate that Western cultures consume on a daily basis.  The problem with the current food guide is that all people see is that fat is bad.  It’s so bad it fact that it barely deserves a place in the pyramid.  That’s what the diagram suggests anyway.

The next section is also very misleading.  This section is entitled simply milk.  If milk is going to be consumed it should be raw.  Pasteurization destroys any health benefits outside of the calcium that one might get from milk.  They also recommend you drink skim milk which just makes the sugars in the milk more of a problem.  Milk is also highly allergenic.  There are many people that are allergic to casein, the protein in milk.  It is especially bad for children.  The protein in milk has been linked to increases in the number of kids with diabetes and autism. Asking America to drink more milk could be a worse idea.  If you’re going to consume milk, make sure it is raw and whole.  That is the only way to benefit from milk.  It should still be a small portion of what you have in a day.

The next section is meats and beans.  This section is also o.k. with one exception.  They still can’t get away from the the fact that they want you to go low fat.  They stress lean meats in this section.  While lean meats are good, don’t shy away from cuts of meat with a little more fat in them.  Go ahead and have that steak.  The benefits of the fats in the cut far outweigh any negative.  This steak only becomes problematic when you combine it with steak fries. Keep the carbohydrate count low and the fats and oils from your steak only help you.

The food guide pyramid is designed on flawed data and therefore is flawed itself.  All fats are not bad, as this pyramid suggests.  There are many fats that are actually very good for you, but you’d never know it looking at the schematic they have designed.  It places entirely too much emphasis on carbohydrates which are known to contribute to inflammation, diabetes and obesity.  To make this more appropriate the healthy fats must be emphasized more and carbohydrates much less.

[Via http://thevreelandclinic.wordpress.com]