Posts Tagged ‘Canada’

  • How 40,000 People Reversed Heart Disease

    Date: 2008.07.24 | Category: Heart Tips | Response: 0

    It is well known that about two-thirds of the U.S. population is either overweight or obese. The U.S. Surgeon General has stated that approximately 75% of Western diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, hypertension, diabetes, gout, arthritis, excess weight gain, hypertension, diabetes, some cancers, impotence, biventricular disease, constipation, heartburn, and gallbladder disease, are lifestyle-related. They are directly correlated with our high fat diet, inadequate amounts of exercise, smoking, high intake of caffeine, and high amounts of stress coupled with insufficient support.

    Hoping to address this alarming situation, more than 20 years ago, cardiovascular epidemiologist Hans A. Diehl, DrHSc, MPH, created the Coronary Health Improvement Project (CHIP). Since then, this 40-hour community-based lifestyle intervention program has helped more than 40,000 people rediscover their health by preventing, arresting and reversing their diseases. It has been conducted in more than 150 North American cities as well as in Bangalore, India, Australia and Switzerland. Depending upon the needs of the group, the meetings are held either live with Dr. Diehl delivering the program personally (usually meeting four times per week for four weeks) or as a video-based program with certified CHIP facilitators (normally two times per week for eight weeks). In addition, Dr. Diehl is a best-selling author To Your Health, Dynamic Living, and Health Power (co-authored with Aileen Ludington, M.D.) — as well as the executive editor of a 24-page quarterly Lifeline Health Letter; he has produced scores of health videos. CHIP empowers people through its scientifically-documented, educational and inspirational program that addresses common western diseases — those that used to be seen primarily later in life. Today, these diseases increasingly appear at far younger ages. CHIP may make all the difference in ones life — even the difference between life and death.

    In 1999, CHIP launched a community health transformation template in Rockford, Illinois, a city with a population of 130,000. The intention was to transform Rockford into the healthiest city in American, thereby enabling it to serve as a model and template for cultural transformation on a community-wide level. Recently, CHIP was recognized as just such a model by HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson and was approved under the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a STEPS to a HealthierUS applicant. In addition to live CHIP, a series of CHIP videos are offered through schools, churches, corporations, and hospitals. In Rockford, CHIP is sponsored by the Swedish American Health Systems Center for Complementary Medicine.

    Who is the typical CHIP participant? Generally, CHIP participants are over the age of 40. Most are between the ages of 50 and 59. There are twice as many women as men, and almost 90% are married. Clinical research, published in peer review journals, has found that they have the following lifestyle diseases:

    10% report having heart disease

    27% have elevated blood sugar

    42% are overweight

    49% show evidence of hypertension

    60% are obese

    89% are cholesterol above 160mg%

    Over the course of the program, strict adherents are likely to experience significant clinical improvements such as the following:

    Serum cholesterol reduction average 15 20%

    Average weight loss of six pounds

    In about half of the participants with type 11 diabetes, a dramatic reduction in need for insulin and hypoglycemic agents

    Lowering of high blood pressure levels

    Diminishing of angina

    Reduced levels of depression and increase in self-esteem

    Class & Video Lecture Schedule

    Week 1

    Modern Medicine: Miracles, Medicines, & Mirages
    The limitations of high-tech medical approaches in dealing with lifestyle related diseases
    Portrait of a Killer: Onslaught from Within
    Atherosclerosis, the culprit in many lifestyle diseases
    Stalking the Killer
    Reviewing the risk factors for coronary heart disease
    Eat More and Weigh Less
    Basic guidelines for healthy, sustained weight loss

    Week 2

    Going Up in Smoke
    Smoking the most controllable risk factor for coronary heart disease
    The Magic of Fiber
    The role of fiber in preventing and reversing lifestyle diseases
    Reversing Hypertension
    Changing the major risk factors for high blood pressure
    Disarming Diabetes
    Lifestyle factors that can arrest or reverse diabetes
    Effective Cholesterol Control
    Dietary factors that prominently affect blood levels of cholesterol
    Fats in the Fire
    The role of excessive fat intake in lifestyle diseases

    Week 3

    Fit at Any Age
    Benefits of regular exercise in preventing and arresting disease
    Boning Up on Osteoporosis
    Cause and prevention of this so-called disease of aging
    Lifestyle and Health
    Clinical studies that demonstrate how lifestyle choices are related to health
    The Optimal Diet
    Positive dietary guidelines for the prevention and reversal of Western diseases

    Week 4

    Diet and Cancer
    Dietary factors in the development and prevention of common cancers
    Atherosclerosis of the Mind
    The importance of adaptability in achieving and maintaining optimal health
    The Gift of Forgiveness
    How a spirit of forgiveness enhances emotional and overall health
    Building Self-Worth
    The development, preservation and role of self worth in a healthy person

    Connie Thebarges Story

    At the age of 59, Connie Thebarge, a patient at the Ottawa Heart Institute in British Columbia, Canada, was told that her doctors could no longer help her. After all, in addition to suffering from hypertension, she had diabetes and painful diabetic neuropathy. She had two heart attacks followed by a triple coronary bypass surgery and an unsuccessful angioplasty. Every day, she had to take 27 pills. Not surprisingly, she was also depressed.

    Yet, today, more than a decade later, Thebarge walks three miles a day, swims twice a week, dances, and travels to Florida and Europe. No longer depressed, she also requires far fewer pills. How was this accomplished? Thebarge participated in CHIP and transformed her life.

    Written by the Editors at Weight Loss Buddy Press in collaboration with Hans A. Diehl, DrHSc, MPH, FACN, CNS

    Copyright © 2004, by Weight Loss Buddy Press

    May be reproduced and distributed as is.

    Joey Dweck- your Weight Loss Buddy

    http://weightlossbuddy.com

    PO Box 488 Tenafly NJ 07670

    Tel. 877-BuddyUp

    Written By: Joey Dweck

  • Iron and Your Heart Health

    Date: 2007.12.24 | Category: Heart Tips | Response: 1

    A ranch house, a zip lock bag and some ordinary flour

    Two experiments:

    1)Some ordinary wheat flour such as can be found in most homes placed with some water in a zip-lock plastic bag. A magnet is passed over the bag and an extraordinary thing happens – Iron particles start popping out and attaching themselves to the side of the bag, forming clusters of what looked like iron filings.

    2) The next experiment involves placing a well-known brand of cereal into a bowl of water. The magnet is again passed over the bowl this time and the flakes literally line up and follow the magnet round the bowl.

    This is the first time I realized that there is so much added iron in the food that we eat and the effect it can have on our health.

    We’ve all been told that heart attacks and heart bypass surgery are as a direct result of clogging or furring of our arteries by bad cholesterol. The arteries become so narrowed as to make the blood flow through the arteries very difficult thus placing enormous strains on the cardio-vascular system.

    Why do we need chelators and what are they?

    A few trace metals that we absorb are toxic, these include iron and lead

    To make use of them our bodies must form chelates (key-lates) out of them, and to do this requires chelating substances

    Chelating substances attach to desirable trace metals and allow the body to properly utilize those metals they also attach to undesirable trace metals and allow the body to remove them.

    Types of Chelator

    Many chemicals can serve as chelators. Their effects will depend on the precise nature and concentration of that chelator.

    There are some weak chelators present in common foods.

    Stronger chelators are substances used medicinally to rid the body of excess toxic metals

    Why is there potential for Iron Overload? Iron overload is possible because there is no normal mechanism for removing it from the body.

    The body is iron-efficient, it retains its iron and recycles it over and over again.

    The body’s iron level is controlled almost entirely by absorption and iron can build up progressively as dietary intake increases, especially in men because they do not have a monthly blood loss.

    Over a period of months and years this will result in the accumulation of several grams of iron.

    Iron and Heart Disease Risk

    Iron can generate free radical pathology.

    There is now good evidence that free radical pathology leads to changes in the blood vessels which sets the stage for atheroscelerosis.

    Accumulation of excess iron in the body may increase the risk for heart disease and the connection doesn’t end there….

    Health statistics have revealed that women have a lower risk of heart disease than men, until menopause, after which the risk is the same.

    Why?

    Pre-menopausal women have a monthly blood loss that rids the body of excess, potentially toxic iron, which may protect against heart disease.

    Even pre-menopausal women with high blood cholesterol levels and high levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol, which are considered to be strong risk factors for heart disease, have less heart disease than men.

    The Lead connection

    Lead is a toxic element that has many undesirable health effects.

    Evidence links excess lead with cardiovascular disease, cancer and other disorders.

    Researchers have found that cancer rates are higher amongst people living near heavily-traveled roads and it was suggested that this increased risk is due to the higher levels of lead in the air.

    This led the researchers to test the effect of a lead-removing substance – EDTA (ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid),a man-made amino acid and chelating agent – on cancer rates in people living near high-traffic roads.

    After 18 years those treated with EDTA had one-tenth of the cancer rate of those not treated with EDTA.(1)

    Chelation Therapy

    This is the use of chelating agents, orally or by injection, in order to bind and remove harmful metals from the body.

    The man-made chelating agent EDTA can remove most toxic metals.

    Intravenous Chelation

    This therapy has been used by doctors as an effective alternative to bypass surgery for atherosclerosis since the 1950s, giving hope that having hardening of the arteries need not lead to coronary bypass surgery, heart attack, stroke and numerous other related diseases.

    Doctors noted reduced pain and blood cholesterol levels as well as other favorable changes. EDTA chelation therapy has been reported to help in many conditions now thought to be related to free radical pathology: Rheumatoid Arthritis, Diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and others.

    Another effect of EDTA is that it changes the calcium/ magnesium ratio in the body.

    EDTA removes calcium more efficiently than magnesium which reduces the ratio.

    Lowering the ratio improves the flexibility of blood cells, reduces the tendency of blood to clot and reduces blood cholesterol and blood pressure.

    So the benefits of EDTA are not entirely due to the removal of toxic metals but also the calcium/magnesium balance.

    In the case of intravenous chelation, EDTA is used as the chelating agent. It is carried in a glucose formulation together with synthetic B Vitamins. It takes several hours and requires 80-100 treatments.

    Oral Chelation

    Oral EDTA therapy can also be used. One or two oral doses of EDTA per day, over a period of months can have a long-term preventative effect.

    But beware! – there are many so-called oral chelation supplements on the market containing few or no chelating substances!

    For an oral chelation supplement that has been tested and certified to lower bad cholesterol by The University of Illinois, Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition: Go to http://GetaHealthyHeart.com

    References:

    1. Blumer,W, et al Environmental International 3: 1980, pages 465-471

    Bibliography:

    New Answers to Old Questions, The Free Radical Story by Harry W Hersey

    Jakki Francis operates ‘Natures Remedies’ a health and nutrition business selling cutting-edge herbal nutrition products. They are based in the UK and also trade in Europe, USA and Canada and new partners are welcome from any of these countries.

    Natures Remedies also trade worldwide on-line. http://www.naturesremediesuk.com

    And while there, don’t forget to subscribe to her F*REE Ezine, “Health News You Can Use”

    Who is Jakki Francis? http://www.JakkiFrancis.com

    Written By: Jakki Francis

  • Heart Attack Warning Signs

    Date: 2006.11.19 | Category: Heart Tips | Response: 0

    Heart disease is a leading cause of death for Canadian men and women.1 Chest pain (a classic symptom of angina or heart attack) occurs when not enough blood is reaching the heart muscles due to the narrowing of the heart’s coronary arteries or complete blockage of these arteries. Learn the signs of a heart attack and the steps to take if you or a loved one experience these signs:

    Uncomfortable pressure, fullness, squeezing or pain in the centre of the chest that lasts more than a few minutes, or goes away and comes back

    Pain that spreads to the shoulders, neck or arms

    Chest discomfort with lightheadness, fainting, sweating, nausea or shortness of breath

    Atypical chest pain, stomach or abdominal pain; nausea or dizziness

    Shortness of breath and difficulty breathing

    Unexplained anxiety, weakness or fatigue

    Not all of these signs occur in every attack. Sometimes they go away and return. If any occur, get help fast.

    If you or someone else is having heart attack warning signs, call 911 or your local emergency number immediately.

    Speak to your doctor to determine your level of risk and to discuss what measures you can take to reduce the risk of heart attack.

    1 Selected leading causes of death by sex, Canada, 1997. Statistics Canada. www.statscan.ca (November 22, 2002).

    About The Author

    News Canada provides a wide selection of current, ready-to-use copyright free news stories and ideas for Television, Print, Radio, and the Web.

    News Canada is a niche service in public relations, offering access to print, radio, television, and now the Internet media, with ready-to-use, editorial “fill” items. Monitoring and analysis are two more of our primary services. The service supplies access to the national media for marketers in the private, the public, and the not-for-profit sectors. Your corporate and product news, consumer tips and information are packaged in a variety of ready-to-use formats and are made available to every Canadian media organization including weekly and daily newspapers, cable and commercial television stations, radio stations, as well as the Web sites Canadians visit most often. Visit News Canada and learn more about the NC services.

    Written By: News Canada