NiceNaturalHealth.comNice Natural Health

Hello, everyone! This is the editor of Mark’s Daily Apple, Aaron Fox, reporting from the field. Check back throughout the day for text, photo and (maybe, fingers crossed) video updates.

7:14 am: Recharging for the big day ahead of us

7:50 am: Energizing gentle movement session with Angelo

8:04 am: Group beach hike

9:15 am: Barefoot Trotting Training with Barefoot Ted

11:02 am: Nikki Florio’s Green Living Presentation

12:51 pm: More Primal Feasting

1:42 pm: Having some fun on a slackline during some recreation time

2:50 pm: Ultimate Frisbee

4:16 pm: Mind/Body Obstacle Course

5:09 pm: Cooling off before dinner

6:50 pm: Primal Dinner

Live Blogging from PrimalCon 2010 – Day 3

Live Blogging from PrimalCon 2010 – Day 1

Get Free Health Tips, Recipes and Workouts Delivered to Your Inbox

Related posts:

1. Live Blogging from PrimalCon 2010 Day 3
2. Live Blogging from PrimalCon 2010 – Day 1
3. Announcement: PrimalCon 2010 and The Primal Blueprint Cookbook Offer

Hello, everyone! This is the editor of Marks Daily Apple, Aaron Fox, reporting from the field. Check back throughout the day for text, photo and (maybe, fingers crossed) video updates.

7:37 am: After the breakfast buffet, Angelo De La Cruz energizes early wakers with a gentle movement session

8:04 am: Maya White shows attendees how to properly sit and stand like Grok in her posture presentation

9:51 am: Brad Kearns on Primal Blueprint Fitness and having pure motivations for training (keep it fun, convenient and energizing!)

10:32 am: The Primal Blueprint Fitness Challenge Assessment

11:07 am: One-on-one time with Barefoot Ted, Maya White and Angelo De La Cruz

12:30 pm: Fresh caught fish and local vegetables at the local farmers’ market

1:15 pm: Saying goodbyes and taking last minute photos together. See you at the next PrimalCon!

Live Blogging from PrimalCon 2010 – Day 2

Live Blogging from PrimalCon 2010 – Day 1

Get Free Health Tips, Recipes and Workouts Delivered to Your Inbox

Related posts:

1. Live Blogging from PrimalCon 2010 – Day 2
2. Live Blogging from PrimalCon 2010 – Day 1
3. Announcement: PrimalCon 2010 and The Primal Blueprint Cookbook Offer

UPDATE: 29 April 2010

Long-term anabolic steroid use may weaken heart more than previously thought

ScienceDaily (2010-04-28) — Long-term anabolic steroid use may weaken the heart more than previously thought, a new study finds. Steroid-related heart impairment is severe enough to potentially increase the risk of heart failure. The left ventricle, the heart muscle primarily responsible for pumping blood throughout the body, was significantly weaker among steroid users. … > read full article

ORIGINAL POST DATE: 12/8/07 Recently I have met several people who have been taking steroids for many years without the awareness that this class of drugs can cause serious health problems.

Along with the understanding I have because of my many years of pharmacology in college, grad school and continuing education, I continue to wonder why today’s physicians and other prescribers fail so frequently to inform patients about the side effects and risks of drugs.

This alert is from Johns Hopkins. I do not agree with all of their recommendations because they offer no natural or nutritional options, however, it is worth reading.

The higher the steroid dose, the more likely that side effects — cataracts, osteoporosis, diabetes, high blood pressure, muscle weakness, hair loss — may occur.

As a growing number of people with lung disease are living longer, more people are taking long-term oral steroids for asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and other chronic lung conditions.

Long-term use of oral steroids can cause serious side effects, ranging from osteoporosis to cataracts to high blood pressure and diabetes. If youre taking an oral steroid, its critical to talk with your doctor about how to minimize these steroid side effects.

Corticosteroids can prevent or reverse inflammation in the airways, making them less sensitive to triggers. If you have severe asthma and you have tried high doses of inhaled steroids without success, your doctor may recommend oral steroids. Some people take oral steroids because they have COPD that other medications cant relieve.

If you take daily oral steroids for months or years, particularly in moderate to high doses, you are at increased risk for developing any of a variety of side effects: cataracts, osteoporosis, diabetes, high blood pressure, muscle weakness, easily bruised skin, hair loss, facial hair growth in women, weight gain, and puffy cheeks. Other possible side effects include hyperexcitability, insomnia, and (in a small number of patients) aggressive behavior or even psychosis.

Steps you can take to avoid osteoporosis and other side effects:

* Ask your doctor about getting regular bone scans to detect osteoporosis.
* Get about 1,500 mg of calcium daily through nutrition or supplements. Because vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium, it may help to take 800 international units (IU) daily of vitamin D.
* If you are diagnosed with osteoporosis, your doctor will recommend medication.
* If you take moderate to high doses of corticosteroids, have regular eye exams to check for glaucoma.
* Ask your doctor whether you can reduce your oral steroid dose by adding other medications.
* Have your blood pressure checked regularly.
* Also have your blood sugar checked frequently. Use of high dose steroids has been associated with the development diabetes.

This information is provided by Creating Health Institute
through our Health Matters(c) project.

Heart disease is the number one killer in the world. Several factors that increase the risk for heart disease have been identified by the American Heart Association. Scientific studies have shown significant risk increases with some factors.

The risk factors that are listed are considered major risk factors and are those that medical research has shown to significantly increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. The more risk factors you have the greater the risk you have of developing heart disease. Some of us are at a much greater risk than others. Each factor itself can increase your risk depending on the amount of control you have over it. An example is your blood pressure or diabetes, both can place you at high risk, but if they are under control your risk becomes less whereas if they are uncontrolled the risk will increase even more.

10 Major Risk Factors for Heart Disease

Some of the factors that place us at a higher risk can be controlled, others cannot be controlled. These are considered to be major risk factors by the American Heart Association:

1. Your Age According to multiple studies more than 80% of people who die from coronary heart disease or heart attack are age 65 and over. This is an uncontrollable risk factor.
2. If you are a Male Men are at higher risk for heart disease and heart attack than women. Men usually have heart attacks at a younger age than women. A mans risk of death is even higher than a womans after reaching menopause when her risk increases. This is an uncontrollable risk factor.
3. Family History If you have a close relative, parents or grandparents, siblings who have heart disease you are at a higher risk of heart attack and coronary disease. This is an uncontrollable risk factor.
4. Race- Studies show that the risk for heart disease is higher in African Americans, American Indians, Mexicans, native Hawaiians and Asian Americans that it is in Caucasians. This is an uncontrollable risk factor.
5. Cigarette smoking You increase your risk for heart disease by smoking cigarettes, as much as four times the risk. This is a controllable risk factor.
6. Sedentary Lifestyle Lack of exercise or inactivity increases your risk for heart disease and heart attack. This is a controllable risk factor.
7. Being overweight People who carry excess body fat especially around the waist area are at increased risk for stroke and heart attack. This is a controllable risk factor.
8. High cholesterol Increases in cholesterol raises your risk of heart attack. All people who have total cholesterol of 240 mg/dl are considered to be at high risk of developing heart disease. This is a controllable risk factor.
9. High blood pressure Elevated blood pressure increases the workload of the heart. This is a controllable risk factor.
10. Diabetes Approximately three fourths of the people with diabetes die from blood vessel disease. Diabetes places you at an extremely high risk of coronary disease and heart attack. This is a controllable risk factor.

Compounding your Risks for Heart Disease

If you have any of the risk factors you are at risk. If you have more than one your risk increases. For example if you have diabetes, are overweight, have high cholesterol and blood pressure you are at a higher risk than if you just have diabetes. To further add to the risk the more out of control your risk factor is, the more at risk you are. Such as if your cholesterol is 300mg/dl you would be at a higher risk than someone whose cholesterol is 250mg/dl. If you are 100 pounds overweight, you are at higher risk than if you were 40 pounds overweight. The risk factors that you can control should be reviewed closely and efforts made to lower your risk of this deadly disease.

Are there other risks for Heart Disease?

Yes there are other risk factors for heart disease. Some of these include stress, the use of birth control pills and excessive alcohol consumption. These are all controllable risk factors.

The stress in a persons life, their health and their social and economical status has been linked to coronary heart disease by scientists. This factor can also increase other existing risk factors. For example, when under stress some people smoke more, they consume alcohol or an overweight person may eat more.

The newer forms of birth control pills carry a lower risk than the older versions which had higher doses of estrogen and progestin. A woman with high blood pressure or who is over 35 or who smokes should not take birth control pills because this further increases your risk of heart disease.

Excessive alcohol intake can raise your blood pressure, cause irregular heart rhythms and cause heart failure. It can also contribute to obesity.

MEDLINE Abstract

——————————————————————————–
11-year follow-up of mortality in patients with schizophrenia: a population-based cohort study (FIN11 study).
Lancet. 2009; 374(9690):620-7 (ISSN: 1474-547X)
Tiihonen J ; Lnnqvist J ; Wahlbeck K ; Klaukka T ; Niskanen L ; Tanskanen A ; Haukka J
Department of Forensic Psychiatry, University of Kuopio and Niuvanniemi Hospital, Department of Clinical Physiology, Kuopio University Hospital, Kuopio, Finland. jari.tiihonen@niuva.fi

BACKGROUND: The introduction of second-generation antipsychotic drugs during the 1990s is widely believed to have adversely affected mortality of patients with schizophrenia. Our aim was to establish the long-term contribution of antipsychotic drugs to mortality in such patients. METHODS: Nationwide registers in Finland were used to compare the cause-specific mortality in 66 881 patients versus the total population (5.2 million) between 1996, and 2006, and to link these data with the use of antipsychotic drugs. We measured the all-cause mortality of patients with schizophrenia in outpatient care during current and cumulative exposure to any antipsychotic drug versus no use of these drugs, and exposure to the six most frequently used antipsychotic drugs compared with perphenazine use. FINDINGS: Although the proportional use of second-generation antipsychotic drugs rose from 13% to 64% during follow-up, the gap in life expectancy between patients with schizophrenia and the general population did not widen between 1996 (25 years), and 2006 (22.5 years). Compared with current use of perphenazine, the highest risk for overall mortality was recorded for quetiapine (adjusted hazard ratio [HR] 1.41, 95% CI 1.09-1.82), and the lowest risk for clozapine (0.74, 0.60-0.91; p=0.0045 for the difference between clozapine vs perphenazine, and p<0.0001 for all other antipsychotic drugs). Long-term cumulative exposure (7-11 years) to any antipsychotic treatment was associated with lower mortality than was no drug use (0.81, 0.77-0.84). In patients with one or more filled prescription for an antipsychotic drug, an inverse relation between mortality and duration of cumulative use was noted (HR for trend per exposure year 0.991; 0.985-0.997). INTERPRETATION: Long-term treatment with antipsychotic drugs is associated with lower mortality compared with no antipsychotic use. Second-generation drugs are a highly heterogeneous group, and clozapine seems to be associated with a substantially lower mortality than any other antipsychotics. Restrictions on the use of clozapine should be reassessed. FUNDING: Annual EVO Financing (Special government subsidies from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Finland).

PreMedline Identifier:19595447

From MEDLINE/PubMed, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

This information is provided by Creating Health Institute
through our Health Matters(c) project.