smoking

Healthy Tips: Don’t Smoke Tilt the Odds in Your Favor

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I enjoy going to Vegas about 3 times a year. I’m not a heavy better. I play the slot machines and I might take a trip to sports betting area. I have a budget. I make a valiant effort to stretch my budget to the finish line – The finish line being when I check out and head for the airport. I know when I go to Vegas all the odds favor the casinos. All this background leads to today’s healthy tip.

In Vegas the casinos are going to win. When you smoke, death is going to come early to your door. Here’s the facts: Smoking is strongly linked to disease and early death (42Trusted Source). Overall, people who smoke may lose up to 10 years of life and be 3 times more likely to die prematurely than those who never pick up a cigarette 

DYK Smoking Causes Brain Cells to Shrink

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Smoking Not Only Causes Lung Cancer and Heart Problems. Smoking Damages Your Brain

  • Cigarette smoking causes brain shrinkage, and the more and longer a person smokes, the greater the damage is, according to a new study.
  • Loss in brain volume raises the risk of cognitive decline, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease.
  • Smoking cessation can help stop brain shrinkage, but it cannot be reversed.
  • The study authors recommend that anyone at any age who smokes should prioritize quitting.

Cigarette smoking causes the brain to shrink, according to a new study from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, MO (WashUMed).

Brain shrinkage is also associated with an increased risk of cognitive impairment, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

The study’s results show that quitting smoking at any time stopped further gray matter loss. However, the brain does not recover its original mass once shrinkage occurs.

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Healthy Lifestyle Tip ~ What Are 5 Strategies that will Protect Your Heart?

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Boost Your Heart Health with These 5 Strategies

Count on these five white knights to protect your heart, your arteries, and the rest of you. They will make you look better and feel better. And it’s never too late to start.

  1. Avoid tobacco. Smoke from cigarettes, cigars, and pipes is as bad for the heart and arteries as it is for the lungs. If you smoke, quitting is the biggest gift of health you can give yourself. Secondhand smoke is also toxic, so avoid it whenever possible.
  2. Be active. Exercise and physical activity are about the closest things you have to magic bullets against heart disease and other chronic conditions. Any amount of activity is better than none; at least 30 minutes a day is best.
  3. Aim for a healthy weight. Carrying extra pounds, especially around the belly, strains the heart and tips you toward diabetes. If you are overweight, losing just 5% to 10% of your starting weight can make a big difference in your blood pressure and blood sugar.
  4. Enliven your diet. Add fruits and vegetables, whole grains, unsaturated fat, good protein (from beans, nuts, fish, and poultry), and herbs and spices. Subtract processed foods, salt, rapidly digested carbohydrates (from white bread, white rice, potatoes, and the like), red meat, and soda or other sugar-sweetened beverages.
  5. Drink alcohol in moderation (if at all). If you drink alcohol, limit your intake — one to two drinks a day for men, no more than one a day for women.

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Healthy Lifestyle Tip ~ Keep Your Kidney’s Healthy

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5 Tips to Maintain Healthy Kidneys

The kidneys act like your body’s personal garbage collectors. Every day, these two bean-shaped organs, which sit just below your rib cage on either side of your spine, filter about 55 gallons of blood daily to sift out about two quarts of waste products and excess water. . . .The kidneys prevent the buildup of wastes and excess fluid in the body, keep electrolyte levels stable, produce hormones that make red blood cells, regulate blood pressure and build strong bones.

  1. Stay hydrated. Your kidneys need sufficient fluid to clear sodium and flush out toxins. And while there’s no clear-cut guideline regarding the exact amount of water and other fluids you should drink daily to maintain good health, most experts recommend sipping 1.5 to 2 liters daily.
  2. Adopt a healthy diet. The vast majority of kidney problems stem from other medical conditions, such as diabetes and high blood pressure. So it makes sense to reduce your risk of those chronic conditions by eating a healthy diet that includes plenty of fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Not only will this style of eating help control weight and blood pressure, it may also stave off other diseases, such as cancer.
  3. Exercise. Engaging in regular physical activity is just as important as developing healthy eating habits. Both help prevent weight gain and keep blood pressure levels in check. “Keeping trim and fit helps the kidneys continue to function as long as possible,” Patel says. Just don’t go overboard. Extreme activity, particularly when you’re not already fit and healthy, can put undue stress on the kidneys.
  4. Stop cigarette smoking. Smoking wreaks havoc on your blood vessels, decreasing the flow of blood not only to the kidneys but to all of your vital organs. And when the kidneys don’t have adequate blood flow, they won’t work as well as they should. To make matters worse, smoking raises blood pressure levels and increases your risk of heart disease.
  5. Keep medications in check. Many medications, whether over-the-counter or prescription, filter through the kidneys to be cleared from the human body. Even seemingly “healthy” supplements can harm your kidneys. “Herbs and supplements may increase toxins in the body and affect the kidney cells directly,” Dr. Patel says.

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Today’s Health Tip ~ Sugar is Not Your Friend

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Cut Back on the Sugar for a Healthier You

We all know smoking is one of the worst things you can do for your health, but a more stealth killer may be having the same level of impact: sugar. Just as cigarettes have long been linked to preventable mortality from cancer, heart disease, and stroke, researchers have increasingly found that consuming added sugar leads to similarly deadly conditions. According to a 2016 report in the journal Nutrients, too much sugar leads to “a variety of chronic diseases including obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) as well as cognitive decline and even some cancers.” 

Today’s Health Tip ~ Smoking is a Killer

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Quitting smoking before 35 could save your life

If you’re a smoker, but not yet middle age, let this be your wakeup call: A 2002 report from the American Journal of Public Health suggests that roughly 90 percent of the increased mortality risk associated with smoking cigarettes can be stopped if a smoker quits before the age of 35. Past middle age and still hooked? You can still reap the benefits of increased longevity by quitting today.

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