Bringing wholesome healthy tips
Chances are you’ve heard of glands like the thyroid and adrenals. But we don’t hear nearly enough about an odd little organ located deep in the chest, close to the heart. This organ is the thymus gland. It produces several hormones like thymulin and thymosin, which regulate immune cell production. It also synthesizes hormones such as insulin and melatonin. But its central function is to produce and release powerful immune…
I don’t know about you — and maybe it’s because Google has figured out what I’m interested in learning about — but I can’t seem to get away from stories about bempedoic acid, otherwise known as Nexletol®. Bempedoic acid is a relatively new drug that lowers cholesterol. It’s taken once daily in pill form and works through the same enzymatic pathways in the liver as statins do. But because it…
Physical activity is a potent way to reduce your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. And you don’t need to be a bodybuilder, either. Research shows that just five 10-minute sessions of moderate to vigorous exercise per week can lower your Alzheimer’s risk by over 30 percent! But what if you are a bodybuilder? What if your exercise goals center around building muscle and upping your exercise performance? Well, you may…
Diabetes and atrial fibrillation (the most common type of heart arrhythmia, a condition where the heart beats too fast, too slow, or irregularly) are two seemingly unrelated conditions, but each can have the same outcome… Type 2 diabetes raises risks for developing other chronic conditions, like heart disease, kidney disease and high blood pressure, which in turn raises the risk of premature death. And Afib, while not life-threatening on its…
It’s no secret that refined sugar is not something our bodies need. But we have a love-hate relationship with the sweet stuff that’s as hard to give up as any vice, even though the reasons to do so have been stacking up… Just this year, an umbrella review — involving 73 meta-analyses and 8,500 research articles — linked excess sugar intake to no less than 45 serious health conditions, including…
Drinking alcohol is a bit of a double-edged sword. For instance, if you’re one of those people who loves a glass of red wine with dinner, you could be benefiting from a healthier mouth and gut microbiome. The antioxidants in red wine can also help reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and prostate cancer. Beer has been linked with numerous health benefits as well, including reduced inflammation, better heart health, lower cholesterol, improved blood sugar balance and…
Losing weight, like so many things, gets harder with age, while packing the pounds on seems to get only easier. But not only that, weight gain comes with problems that can really impact our livelihood. It increases the risk of joint issues like osteoarthritis, breathing problems like asthma and sleep apnea, gallstones and gallbladder disease. Obesity can also lead to heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, more than a dozen…
One of the easiest ways to protect your brain as you age is to get regular exercise. Aerobic exercise in particular has been proven to not only prevent brain shrinkage and cognitive decline — but actually reverse it. Researchers have been digging into exactly how exercise works to maintain brain volume and promote brain cell regeneration. Some studies have pointed to brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) as a key player.…
Almost as soon as they hit the market, quickly becoming the highest-grossing drugs in history, statins have fueled controversy. The roots of that controversy may have grown from the decades-long debate over the lipid hypothesis, but the drugs themselves stoked concern when patients began reporting side effects, like muscle pain. And after years of use, the list of side effects has grown — along with the number of Americans diagnosed…
It’s a well-known fact that omega-3 fatty acids are beneficial to heart and brain health. Getting enough omega-3s in your diet contributes to a larger brain and a stronger memory as you get older. And as far as your heart goes, not only do omega-3s support it, but they can guard against complications and increase your chances of being a heart attack survivor should you have one. Those are some…