As we go through the day our blood pressure just naturally raises and lowers depending on a lot of conditions. What most people are most interested in is a regular resting blood pressure as high blood pressure and hypertension are a very strong indicator toward present and future heart problems

The Effect Of Sleep on Blood Pressure

Sleep causes a fall in blood pressure. The maximum depth occurs about two hours after falling asleep. In sound, untroubled slumber a pressure of 130/80 might dip to 100/70. It once was thought that this drop in pressure was the cause of sleep, the reasoning being that a lower pressure delivers less blood to the brain resulting in mental sluggishness and hence sleep. Now it is known that this blood pressure decline is the result, not the cause, of sleep. As morning approaches, the blood pressure drifts slowly upward as the subject begins the awakening process. Any interference with sound sleep causes the blood pressure to rise. Read the rest of this entry »

Looking to make a change and lose some weight? I have reviewed the top diet on the internet and you can go and read over 200 comments people have made about why this diet has worked well for them, as well as some of the problems.

Tags: Britain, Cairo, exercise, GBP, heart problems, high blood pressure, hypertension, incipient illness, known illness, physical activity, sleep, stroke, twitches, Washington Monument

Fox news has an article today about a guy that lost 140 pounds using a self created “Baked Bean Diet”

A diet of baked beans helped Neil King to lose 140 pounds in nine months. In fact, since June 2007, he’s eaten more than half a ton of them, about 1,500 cans.

Prior to dieting, King ate a full English breakfast, which at its heart consists of bacon and eggs and may include sausage, toast, and stewed tomatoes, for lunch, and drank eight pints of lager in the pub after tea.

King, from Halstead in Essex, England, made the switch from boozing to beans after being told he was at risk for bowel cancer.

And his high fiber diet has been gas-free since he stopped having toast with his beans, it is reported. The diet helped King go from 420 pounds to 280 pounds.

Speaking to Britain’s Mirror, King said, “Some people think I’m mad but I love the taste and the weight has been dropping off.”

King apparently eats six cans of beans each day, and has them with rice for lunch and with potato for his afternoon tea.

His wife Cheryl told the Mirror, “He’s like a new man.”

Baked beans contain little fat and are full of fiber, although it is best to go for a low-salt variety.

I like baked beans and ate almost one can one night for dinner last week but come on, how many baked means can you eat? How about the processing that goes into canning these things?

I am always a bit nervous when I read the headline and then see that someone is overeating one thing, what about the rest of his diet overall?

Tags: Bean, Britain, cancer, Cheryl, Essex, King, Mirror, Neil King, United Kingdom

As the parent of two young kids I am always aware of the drugs being pushed on parents to treat ADD and the fact that in the past no kids were using Adderall or Ritalin or even Prozac.  Some people think that may of the problems assicated with ADD and ADHD are caused by food additives that have been added over the last 20 years in the foods that kids eat. Well there was just a new research paper released in Britain that is having people take notice.

“Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is an increasingly common problem, and theories abound to account for that,” said Dr. David Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine. “Among them is the notion that food additives induce hyperactivity.”

Despite this apparent connection, Katz cautioned that the increasing number of children with ADHD cannot be blamed on food additives alone.

“No one factor is solely responsible for rising rates of ADHD,” Katz said. “Along with the hazards of a highly processed food supply, children are getting less and less physical activity as a means of dissipating their native rambunctiousness.”

In the study, Jim Stevenson, a professor of psychology at the University of Southampton, and his colleagues gave drinks containing additives to 297 children. The children were in two groups: 3-year-olds and 8- and 9-year-olds. The drinks contained artificial food coloring and additives such as sodium benzoate, a preservative.

These concoctions were similar to the drinks that are commercially available. The amount of additives were also similar to what is found in one or two servings of candy a day, according to the report. As a control, some children were given drinks without additives, according to the report in the Sept. 6 issue of The Lancet. Over the six weeks of the trial, Stevenson’s team found that children in both age groups who drank the drinks containing additives displayed significantly more hyperactive behavior. These children also had shorter attention spans. However, which specific additives caused specific behavioral problems is not known, the researchers said.

One of the additives, sodium benzoate, has been linked to cell damage in a previous study, and to an increased for cancer. Sodium benzoate is found in Coca-Cola, Pepsi Max and Diet Pepsi, and in many fruit drinks.

Other additives assessed in the study include a number of colorings — sunset yellow (E110), found in fruity drinks; carmoisine (E122), a red coloring often added to jams; ponceau 4R (E124), a red food coloring; tartrazine (E102), found in lollipops and carbonated drinks; quinoline yellow (E104), a food coloring; and allura red AC (E129), and orange-red food dye.

“Although the use of artificial coloring in food manufacture might seem to be superfluous, the same cannot be said for sodium benzoate, which has an important preservative function. The implications of these results for the regulation of food additive use could be substantial,” the researchers conclude.

Based on these findings, the British government’s Food Standards Agency cautioned parents to be on the lookout for hyperactive behavior linked to food additives.

Tags: adderall, add_and_adhd, adhd, artificial food coloring, attention_deficit_hyperactivity_disorder, Britain, British government, cancer, Coca-Cola, David Katz, director, E102, food additive use, Food additives, food coloring, food manufacture, Food Standards Agency, hyperactivity disorder, Jim Stevenson, NEC e122 Cell Phone, orange-red food dye, Pepsi, Prevention Research Center, Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine, processed food supply, professor of psychology, red food coloring, University of Southampton, Yale University School of Medicine

We have all heard about the great effects of green and black teas and their effect on people with heart problems lately but here is something that I had heard nothing about until today. Reauters is reporting a new study that shows that taking milk in your tea will significantly reduce the benefits of drinking the tea.

Drinking tea can reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke but only if milk is not added to the brew, German scientists said on Tuesday.

Research has shown that tea improves blood flow and the ability of the arteries to relax but researchers at the Charite Hospital at the University of Berlin in Mitte found milk eliminates the protective effect against cardiovascular disease.

“The beneficial effects of drinking black tea are completely prevented by the addition of milk, said Dr Verena Stangl, a cardiologist at the hospital.

“If you want to drink tea to have the beneficial health effects you have to drink it without milk. That is clearly shown by our experiments,” she told Reuters.

Tea is second only to water in worldwide consumption so any benefits could have important public health implications. But until now it was not known whether adding milk had an impact.

Stangl and her team discovered that proteins called caseins in milk decrease the amount of compounds in tea known as catechins which increase its protection against heart disease.

They believe their findings, which are reported in the European Heart Journal, could explain why countries such as Britain, where tea is regularly consumed with milk, have not shown a decreased risk of heart disease and stroke from drinking tea.

Protective against cancer
The researchers compared the health effects of drinking boiled water and tea with and without milk on 16 healthy women. Using ultrasound, they measured the function of an artery in the forearm before and two hours after drinking tea.
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Tags: Britain, cancer, Cardiologist, cardiovascular disease, Charite Hospital, heart disease, Mario Lorenz, molecular biologist and co-author, Reuters, stroke, Tea Milk, the European Heart Journal, tumor, ultrasound, University of Berlin, Verena Stangl

As a parent of two small children I always try to make sure that the kids get a lot of exercise to stay healthy but it is my wife that makes sure that they eat well as well. A new report from the British Medical Journal tells us that diet is very important too. Another thing of note is watching how much the kids exercise, it seems many are more inactive than we would think.

Physically active preschoolers are on to a good thing, but exercise alone won’t keep obesity at bay as they get older, British researchers report. Instead, a combination of exercise and other lifestyle changes — especially improved diets — may be the only solution to the childhood obesity epidemic, experts say.

“Promotion of physically active play per se may not be sufficient to have an impact on the weight status of young children,” said lead researcher Dr. John J. Reilly, a professor of pediatric energy metabolism at the University of Glasgow, Scotland.

His team published its finding in the Oct. 5 online issue of the British Medical Journal.

The researchers had already shown in earlier work that Scottish preschoolers have surprisingly inactive lifestyles. They typically get less than 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity each day, in contrast to the recommended 60 minutes a day. In their study, Reilly’s team looked at whether exercise could reduce the weight of 545 preschool children. Some of the children took part in an active play program, which consisted of three 30 minute sessions each week. In addition, parents received guidance on how to increase physical play at home.

The researchers measured the children’s weight at six months and then again at one year. They also assessed the youngsters’ movement skills, and tracked whether or not the increase in activity reduced sedentary behaviors.

They found that exercise had some health benefits, but weight loss was not among them.

Exercise had little effect on weight, or on the activity behaviors of the children, compared with the children who did not take part in the program. However, for children in the program, additional exercise did help improve their motor and movement skills.
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Tags: Britain, David L. Katz, director, food, John J. Reilly, junk food, lead researcher, obesity, pediatric energy metabolism, Prevention Research Center, Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine, professor of pediatric energy metabolism, Scotland, the British Medical Journal, United States, University of Glasgow, Yale University School of Medicine

Sertraline is used medically mainly to treat the symptoms of depression and anxiety. It has also been prescribed for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, panic disorder, and bipolar disorder. It was first approved by the FDA in 1991. The patent for this brand-name drug expired in December 2005. It is anticipated that the generic drug will be available in the United States in June of 2006, manufactured by Andrx, Aurobindo, Genpharm, Ivax, Mylan, and Roxane. In Scandinavia a generic drug called Sertralin, manufactured by HEXAL is available. The price differences between Zoloft and Sertralin are as high as 1.50 dollars per pill.

Sertraline can have a number of adverse effects, including insomnia, asthenia, gastrointestinal complaints, tremors, confusion, dizziness, anorgasmia, and decreased libido; it can induce mania or hypomania in around 0.5% of patients. It has also been known to cause minor weight loss. It is contraindicated in individuals taking MAOIs or undergoing electroconvulsive therapy.

Until 2003 Zoloft was only approved for use in adults ages 18 and over; that year it was approved by the FDA for use in treating children ages 6 to 17 with extreme obsessive compulsive disorder. In June, 2004, Britain banned the use of Zoloft by minors and in February, 2005, Pfizer was forced to change the labeling of Zoloft to include information regarding increased incidences of suicidal behavior and depression in adolescent users of the drug. According to mentalhealth.com, Zoloft is not currently recommended or advised for use in individuals under the age of 18. After these changes, multiple incidences and at least one medical study showed an increased risk of suicide in seniors who were taking Zoloft. In response to these findings, the FDA released a public health warning. This warning indicates that anyone currently using Zoloft for any reason has a greater chance of exhibiting suicidal thoughts or behaviors regardless of age. This warning is questionable, however, due to the types of illnesses Zoloft is used to treat, it is impossible to determine if these tendencies are a side effect of the drug or the illness the drug is meant to treat.
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Tags: bipolar disorder, Britain, depression, director, dizziness, dysphoric disorder, electroconvulsive therapy, fda, FDA's Office of Generic Drugs, food and drug administration, Gary J. Buehler, generic drug applications, insomnia, Ivax, major depressive disorder, mania, Mylan, name prescription products, obsessive compulsive disorder, Office of Generic Drugs, panic disorder, pfizer, post-traumatic stress disorder, retail sales, Scandinavia, Sertaline Sertraline, Sertraline, sertraline hydrochloride, Sertraline tablets, treatment of major depressive disorder, treatment of MDD and some anxiety related disorders, treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder, tremors, United States, USD, Zoloft, Zoloft tablets

Ok I am sure there will be people excited about this giant of a buger but is there really a need?

FAST food chain McDonald’s is launching a giant burger for the World Cup – flying in the face of its healthier food policy.

The burger will be 40 per cent bigger than a Big Mac and new president Steve Easterbrook admitted: “The emphasis has changed.

To celebrate the World Cup, that huge sporting event everyone in the world but the United States cares about, McDonald’s will be offering a special World Cup burger that will be forty percent larger than the normal Big Mac patty. At first I was impressed, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it’s actually not that big of a deal. I’m going to assume that the Big Mac is roughly the same size in other countries as it is in the United States, which is to say, it’s not that big. I mean, the sandwich itself is big, once all the ingredients are stacked on, but the patty itself is rather small and flimsy.

“We are a burger business. Our traditional menu – hamburger, cheeseburger, Big Mac and chicken sandwich – is front and centre of our plans.

“Everybody loves a burger and there is nothing wrong with that.

“It’s time to be proud, to say ‘We’re a good burger company’.”

Three years ago McDonald’s adopted a healthier menu, including salads and fresh fruit, after bowing to pressure to encourage healthy eating, especially among youngsters. But only a small number of customers bought the products.McDonald has seen its revenue grow by 30 per cent in the US while sales in Britain have been flat since 2002 when the healthier menu was brought in.

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has blasted McDonald’s and wants burgers to carry the same health warnings as cigarettes.

He said: “We have got to start conveying a serious message about exactly how bad these foods are.”

I am personally a bit split about this subject. If people really want to eat this much burger that is there own fault. The trouble is that people love to try to sue companies for making them fat. On the other hand, society as a whole suffers because of people making very bad health decisions and eating these very bad foods.

Tags: Britain, Celebrity chef, chef, food chain, Gordon Ramsay, healthier food policy, mcdonalds, president, Steve Easterbrook, United States, World Cup