Saturday, July 17, 2010

Eating Right For A Healthy Immune System

Experts in the medical science field once worried about influenza. Today the focus seems to have turned to 'afflulenza'. Lifestyle diseases, more than anything else, are snuffing out lives and shortening productive years of the population. Leading the way for immune system disorders.

The mind set today seems to be to get rich, buy cars, get houses and get meals out.I see it every day. Husband and wife both working,and working longer hours to pay the bills. When we chase such a lifestyle what we get in return is appalling. We get obesity, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, respiratory problems and cancer. Despite the progress in medical science, there are sure cures for a very small number of ailments.

Besides that, there is an extraordinary level of reliance on the antibiotic alternative as patients and doctors are in a hurry to earn the next buck, which does not make things any better. Herbal antibiotics, on the other hand, treats ailments and boosts the functions of the immune system.

Besides the visible physical problems, a prolonged illness can wreck mental health and can also negatively affect a healthy immune system. It can hinder the body's capacities to self-heal. Immune system is a relatively new area of study for the medical experts and not much is known about the mechanisms of its dysfunction.

However, it has been established that certain factors that there are certain factors that affect immune system health. The way we eat and what we eat is one of them.

The immune system, which is primarily responsible for recognizing foreign substances like bacteria and toxins must be in proper shape to perform its function of destroying such foreign material. A weakened immune system is a cause to disease in two ways.

It is unable of fighting infections and you are therefore susceptible to contracting diseases more often. The immune system also looses its capability to recognize foreign invasions and starts destroying the body's own normal cells, which causes autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes.

Food has been the first of all causalities behind the gradual decline of traditional family patterns and eating practices. We may be eating more calories but we are obtaining them from poor sources, eating fat of inferior quality (trans-fats), more sugar, refined carbohydrates, more meat, chemicals and preservatives. This type of diet can adversely affect the body's self-healing capacity.

Instead of the vitamins to boost your immune system and dietary supplements that you may choose to add on to your food, opt to eat certain foods that help your immune system. Vitamin C in combination with magnesium and calcium resists infections. For people who have problems of heartburn, citrus fruits may not be advisable as they are highly acidic in nature.

Crab meat, lobsters and oysters are rich in all three nutrients - calcium, magnesium and Vitamin C. Salmon is rich in a lot of minerals and vitamins along with a substantial quantity of Omega 3 fatty acids. Omega 3 fatty acids are good for arthritis and heart disease and also aid immune system functioning. Other healthy sources of Vitamin C are broccoli, tomatoes, peaches and guava.

Selenium is a trace mineral that is essential for immune system health, which you will not find in multi-vitamin supplements. Chicken and broccoli are healthy sources of selenium. Different types of edible mushrooms increase the production of white blood cells, which are essential for effectively combating disease.

A case also exists for the use of herbs for immune system. These are herbs that our ancestors used, to maintain health and vitality. These herbs are still an integral part of traditional therapies and the mainstay of homoeopathy.

It all boils down to this. Do you have the time in todays hectic life style to make sure your immune system is getting the right nutrition? If not than supplements might be a good alternative.

A Basic Introduction to Healthy Living

It is likely that you probably think of certain things when you think of healthy living. Here are a few things that may come to mind:

* Eating well
* Being thin
* Exercising regularly
* Getting enough sleep
* Visiting your natural healthcare provider for annual checkups

All of these "touchstone" issues can be major factors in healthy living, but often they can obscure the real issues that may be preventing you from living a truly healthy lifestyle. For example, many research studies show that it is not necessarily how thin or how fat you are that determines how healthy you are, but rather the lifestyle that has led you to be that way. Often, slightly heavier people who eat more responsibly than thin ones actually live longer and healthier lives. They can be more active and experience less physical strain on their bodies than their thinner counterparts. This is just one example of a way that our cultural perception of "healthy living" may actually be leading us astray.

In order to truly live a healthy lifestyle, you need to understand what you are undertaking when you decide to pursue this goal. A healthy lifestyle often leads to many desirable things, including a longer lifespan, higher levels of activity, more fulfilling existence and multiple options about where you go and how you get there in life in general. To determine what type of lifestyle will be the healthiest for you, you need to determine several things before you get started:

· Know your ideal diet

Eating right is important, but people's bodies react to food differently. Your personal preferences and health issues will determine what you should put in your mouth and how much of it you should be eating.

· Determine what vitamin regimen is right for you

While you are evaluating your dietary habits, evaluate your vitamin and mineral intake as well. Vitamins, like diets, should be customized to fit your unique body and health requirements.

· Take a hard look at your "healthy" habits

You may be doing "healthy" things that are actually hard on your system. The wrong diet, the wrong types of exercise and a number of other "healthy" activities that our culture says are good for us may actually be stressing your body out because you are not uniquely suited to these activities.

Healthy living is important, and it can be difficult to master if you have spent a lifetime misunderstanding the meaning of the words "healthy lifestyle." However, you will be amazed at what you have been missing once you find the healthy way of life that is perfectly suited to you.

Tips For Healthy Living and Weight Loss

The most fundamental means for weight loss is a healthy lifestyle. healthy living and weight loss are inseparable. But, unfortunately too many people who want to lose weight simply don't understand this simple principle. It is no secret that when we give our bodies what they need to be healthy, our bodies will regulate themselves and take care of the weight problem.

In order to have a healthy lifestyle, we must learn how to live a balanced life. The key word here is 'balance'. It is the lynchpin for living a more healthier and longer life. I am sure you agree that nobody wants to be sick and spend his or her final years in a hospital.

By living a balanced life, we mean that you need to eat nutritious foods, exercise on a regular basis and have enough sleep every night. This is the winning formula to lose excess weight and keep it off permanently. This is also what we meant when we mentioned about living a healthy lifestyle earlier.

Cultivating healthy living while you are young will also help promote good health when you are entering your golden years. Many people have the misconception that the elderly folks are naturally weak, unproductive and have decreased mobility. Well, this kind of notion is simply not true in the world of advanced healthcare facilities we have today.

When you are healthier, not only that you will have an optimal weight but also a stronger immune system to deny certain illnesses and diseases. Staying active will help increase your muscular strength and agility, this can in turn lessen the chance for injuries that could prevent you from living a fulfilling life.

Another element of healthy living that we haven't mentioned is proper management stress. As a human being, we all encounter stress, it is part of our life. Nobody can totally eliminate stress in his life. As long as you are still breathing, stress will be around you. So, there is no such thing as a stress-free life. We can, however, learn to develop a stress-proof life.

Stress, if not managed properly, can take its toll on your health. Many studies have shown the connection between stress and diseases. Stress can lead to obesity, heart attack, stroke, gastric disorders, menstrual dysfunction, ulcerative colitis, chest pain (angina), irritable colon, high blood pressure, and ulcers. Stress management is therefore an important part of living a healthy lifestyle.

There you have it! All the elements you need for losing weight the healthy way: good nutrition, regular exercise, adequate rest and stress management.

Healthy Living For Boomers Encompasses Mind And Body

The world today has a renewed focus on nutrition and the appropriate exercises that go hand in hand with a healthy body. This idea of a healthy living in essence requires a two-prong approach in the sense that eating right and exercising play an important role in promoting health. The concept of using these two basic elements in our daily lives stems about the belief that there is more to healthy living than just eating. It is not just about what a person eats, how much of this they eat and what type of exercises they do to burn off the excess calories that the generate from the food they eat, but rather it also encompasses other areas such as mental health, personal safety and physical injury prevention.

It is often observed and noted that people tend to place all their focus on their diet, whilst forgetting about the essential need to have the proper nutrition that will allow them to keep the body functioning as it is supposed to. This leads to exercise, and virtually everybody knows that part of having a healthy healthy is to be able to keep the body weight down to the recommended weight, maintain the muscles strong and the heart pumping efficiently. This means that exercise, and the proper type of exercise is also important to ensure that the body metabolizes the food that has been consumed into the nutrients useful for the body to function properly.

Another factor that needs to be considered is being able to control stress, as this is a major part of healthy healthy. Far too often, a great many people tend to forget that stress control plays a critical role in the overall health and just dismiss it. The problems arise when stress causes an individual to lose sleep or fail to eat properly, and this in turn can affect their systems, and in some cases can throw them out of control thus making them prime targets of an array of illnesses and diseases.

Healthy healthy Extends beyond the Kitchen

Healthy healthy while being important in today's world needs to emphasize that it does not begin and end in the kitchen, but rather extends beyond that. Nutrition does play an important role in a person's health, however they can quite as easily jeopardize all that they have accomplished by simply not paying close attention to safety in their homes. Some of the most common home accidents are slips and falls, and this is mainly due to not paying attention to the basics of home safety which quite easily be avoided, and these accidents can simply destroy all the efforts of improving their health. Accidents at home are far worse than not eating properly, especially if this occurs frequently.

Another important aspect that people need to pay attention to is emotional stress, and this is particularly delicate for people who are in the retired stages of their lives since a great many retirees may be alone or have a companion that is having problems of some sort. Outside influences can and do take their toll on everyone's mental health especially as they get older and ignoring them leads to problems that arise instead of go way if they are not properly taken care off. A part of healthy living is being able to cope with the occasional crisis that comes up or at least knowing when and who to call for help to assist in handling the situation.

Five Ways to Start a Healthy Living

Most people will realize that they need to stay fit if they are already suffering signs and symptoms of an acute illness. Many of them neglect to harness a healthy living beforehand to prevent such illness-condition to set in.

Latest statistic shows that millions of Americans die from the complications of diabetes, cancer, and acute infections every year. The reason for this is not because the state failed to supply its people with an adequate access to health care, but more so because of the slackness of people to employ a healthy healthy.

If you are a type of person who cares a lot for your health and you are very much aware of how it will feel when you are in the limelight of wellness, then good for you because you will live longer and enjoy life to the fullest. However, if you are one of those negligent citizens, you should now be alarmed and do something to save your health.

Here are the five ways you need to know to start a healthy healthy.

Stop your vices. Most people who contacted cancer are those who love to spend the day with at least five sticks of cigarettes. You are aware that smoking is bad for your health, and this reminder is always attached in every cigarette commercial on TV or over the radio. Lung cancer and any other types of carcinoma can be triggered by the chemicals you inhale while you smoke. If you do not want to die early, better put an end to this habit.

Increase oral fluid intake. Not because it was repeatedly stated since you where in first grade, but because it remains to be an important everyday task. Drinking eight glass of water a day can do a lot in your body, such as rehydrating your cells, maintaining blood function, energizing your immune system, and facilitating the movement of food for digestion. Eight glasses is the average requirement, but if you are doing tasks that make you sweat a lot or if you are enduring the heat of the sun most of the time, then you should drink more than what is required.

Eat fresh fruits and vegetables. Processed foods have chemicals incorporated in them, such as those that are used as preservatives. Eating freshly-picked fruits and vegetables will always be one of the best things to do to achieve a healthy healthy. You are not only guaranteed with safety, but you are also assured to get an adequate amount of minerals.

Take your daily dose of vitamins. You do not always get the right amount of vitamins from the food you eat, especially if you are not aware of what your meal is all about. that is why you need to take your vitamins daily to supply the missing elements in your body that are needed to maintain the vital functions of your organ-systems.

Sleep well. At the end of the day, your body is asking for some respite. Healthy healthy is not only about moving energetically or eating a well-planned meal, you need to allow your body to rest, and as recent research would suggest, a five to six hours of sleep can already do so much.

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