STOP SMOKING

Stop Smoking and Save Lots of Money

2009-09-28T00:07:00.001-07:00

DR. WALLACE: I read your letter from the mother who quit smoking for the benefit of her children. I also stopped smoking for my soon-to-be-born grandson.
It was difficult for me to break the habit because I had been a tobacco slave for over 37 years. I overcame the urge to light up with the help of a hypnotist. I have now been smoke-free for one year. My habit cost me $40 a week. I now put this money into a bank account, and since I bank online, I can see all my money that would have gone up in smoke. When I get the urge, I go online and look at my more than $2,000.
The money I save is for my grandson and any other grandchildren who come along. — Grandma, Holland, Mich.
GRANDMA: Congratulations! This is truly a win-win solution. You've reclaimed your own health at the same time that you're contributing to your grandson's future, though just being around longer as a loving grandma is your greatest gift to him. I'm sure your letter will inspire others.

STRONG MAN ATLAS LIKES SPORTS DRINKS
DR. WALLACE: Please end this silly debate and educate your readers at the same time. I do a lot of weight lifting. Let's say that I could be addicted to weight training. I enjoy being in good health and also having girls go "gaga" over me when they see me at the seashore.
My girlfriend is also involved in the Boston, New York and Los Angeles marathons. When we work out, we sweat a lot. My girlfriend refreshes by drinking pure water. During and after lifting, I quench my thirst by drinking various kinds of sports drinks. She says that sports drinks do more harm than good. I disagree. What's the story? — Atlas, Palm Beach, Fla.
ATLAS: Wow, I'm impressed just by your name. Your namesake in Greek mythology carried the world on his shoulders.
Now back to your question.

I defer to the expertise of Racquel Murphy, a registered dietician in New York City, who says, in essence, that you and your girlfriend are both half right. Someone who is active for less than two hours should rehydrate with pure water because the body will absorb it better than other liquids. But after longer workouts, sports drinks are better because they contain carbohydrates. These provide extra energy and help the body absorb fluids at a faster rate. NO MORE LOANS FOR CIGARETTES
DR. WALLACE: I'm 17 and work part time during the school year. I worked a 40-hour week this summer. I save most of my money to help pay for college. My mom has the habit of "borrowing" money from me to support her smoking habit. I keep a log of all the money she has borrowed and never repaid, even though she always promises to pay me back — with interest. So far, it's over $200.
My dad keeps trying to get mom to stop smoking and is not happy that I'm helping her support her habit. I love my mother and find it hard to tell her "no" when she asks me for "a few bucks." Should I tell her that I love her, and that's why I'm telling her "no" the next time she hits me up for money to buy cigarettes?
P.S.: I really don't care if she repays me or not. She is a wonderful human being, my best friend and a terrific mother! — Kerry, Miami.
KERRY: You will be doing your mother a big favor if you stop giving her money to buy cigarettes. Cut out this column and tape it on the refrigerator. It might supply the spark to encourage her to end her tobacco habit. Let's hope so!

Why are smoking bans so good at cutting heart attack rates?

2009-09-26T21:26:00.000-07:00

The battle to stop people from smoking in public places has been a long and hard one. Those of us who knew the impact that inhaling smoke could have on health have had to combat others who saw smoking as a right – no matter what the impact might be on others.
Now that bans are in place however, it is becoming clear that smoke-free legislation is one of the most effective health policies ever introduced in the UK in the past ten years.
The first legislation covered workplaces and its initial aim was to protect the health of the thousands of people in the UK who were then working in smoky atmospheres, and prevent the estimated 500 deaths caused by workplace exposure each year.
However, perhaps the most important legacy of that legislation was a step change in the acceptability of smoking in public – so that when the new rules about smoking in pubs, restaurants, shopping centres and the like came in, it achieved almost universal compliance.
Just a couple of years after the change, most people wonder why we waited so long to do it. What most people, including many health professionals, didn’t realise was just how big the health benefits would be.
What early studies have shown is that, in the year or two after smoking bans are put in place, the number of hospital admissions for heart attacks falls by between one sixth and one quarter. Effects of this magnitude translate into the prevention of thousands of deaths each year in the UK. On this outcome alone, the smoke-free legislation has been a massive success.
What is the explanation for this reduction? First some sober facts. Smoking still kills around 100,000 people in the UK each year. Lung cancer remains the biggest killer, but in close second and third place come heart disease, and the combination of chronic bronchitis and emphysema now referred to as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Stopping smoking at any age reduces the risk of dying from all of these conditions, but usually reductions in numbers of hospital admissions and deaths for lung cancer and COPD take years to materialise.
For heart disease, however the picture is very different. This is because when non-smokers inhale cigarette smoke it has a rapid and powerful impact on the blood clotting mechanisms involved in triggering heart attacks. What’s more these effects reverse within days after smoke exposure stops.
What this means is that avoiding tobacco smoke cuts the risk of a heart attack almost immediately – and it is this that has led to the marked reductions in hospital admissions and deaths.
The ban has also helped many smokers to give up their habit. In fact the smoke-free legislation, along with the tobacco advertising ban, media campaigns, NHS stop smoking services, and many other initiatives have all contributed to a near 30% reduction in UK smoking prevalence since 1997.
The health benefits and NHS costs saved are vast; indeed, one of the lasting legacies of the present UK government is that it has done more to tackle smoking than any other in history, making the UK a world leader in tobacco control.
However, smoking is still the biggest avoidable cause of death and disability, and of inequalities in health. Smoking is still ingrained in our society so that millions of adults and children are still exposed to tobacco smoke in the home.
Millions of children grow up in families and communities where smoking is the norm, and consignment to a life of addiction to tobacco, and to premature death from lung or heart disease, is a fact of life. Children still see tobacco products displayed prominently for sale in the shops they visit with their family and friends; millions of smokers are still denied a choice of more affordable, effective substitutes to smoking that, if not safe, are far less harmful that burning tobacco and inhaling the smoke.
Not all of these problems can be solved by measures so simple as smoke-free legislation, but many can. The success of going smoke-free shows just what can be achieved.

Lower Your Risk Of Heart Disease Without Drugs

2009-09-26T07:24:00.000-07:00

Last week, I explained how preventing heart disease has very little to do with simply lowering cholesterol with statin drugs. Our current thinking about how to treat and prevent heart disease is at best misguided, and at worst harmful. We believe we are treating the causes of heart disease by lowering cholesterol, lowering blood pressure, lowering blood sugar with medication. But the real question is what causes high cholesterol, high blood pressure and high blood sugar in the first place. It is certainly not a medication deficiency!

If you say your genes are responsible, you are mostly wrong. It is the environment working on your genes that determines your risk. In other words, it is the way you eat, how much you exercise, how you deal with stress and the effects of environmental toxins that are the underlying causes of high cholesterol, high blood pressure and high blood sugar. That is what determines your risk of heart disease, not a lack of medication.

The research clearly shows that changing how we live is a much more powerful intervention for preventing heart disease than any medication. The "EPIC" study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine studied 23,000 people's adherence to 4 simple behaviors (not smoking, exercising 3.5 hours a week, eating a healthy diet [fruits, vegetables, beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and limited amounts of meat], and maintaining a healthy weight [BMI <30]). In those adhering to these behaviors, 93% of diabetes, 81% of heart attacks, 50% of strokes, and 36% of all cancers were prevented.

And the INTERHEART study, published in the Lancet in 2004, followed 30 000 people and found that changing lifestyle could prevent at least 90% of all heart disease.

These studies are among a large evidence base documenting how lifestyle intervention is often more effective in reducing cardiovascular disease, hypertension, heart failure, stroke, cancer, diabetes, and deaths from all causes than almost any other medical intervention. It is because lifestyle doesn't only reduce risk factors such as high blood pressure, blood sugar, or cholesterol. Our lifestyle and environment influence the fundamental causes and biological mechanisms leading to disease: changes in gene expression, which modulate inflammation, oxidative stress, and metabolic dysfunction. Those are the real reasons we are sick.

The good news is that by fixing the problem at its root results creates benefit for most chronic disease and it makes you feel more alive, healthy and has no side effects.

Disregarding the underlying causes and treating only risk factors is somewhat like mopping up the floor around an overflowing sink instead of turning off the faucet, which is why medications usually have to be taken for a lifetime. When the underlying lifestyle causes are addressed, patients often are able to stop taking medication and avoid surgery (under their doctor's supervision, of course). Now I am going to tell you how to lower your heart disease risk as well as your cholesterol using a comprehensive dietary and lifestyle approach.

Dietary Recommendations to Help Prevent Cardiovascular Disease

The first step in preventing heart disease is to eat a healthy diet. Increase your consumption of whole foods rich in phytonutrients, plant molecules that give your body the nutrients it needs. Here are some practical tips:

1. To avoid the blood sugar imbalances that increase your risk for heart disease, eat protein with every meal, even at breakfast. This will help you to avoid sudden increases in your blood sugar.

2. Use lean animal protein like fish, turkey, chicken, lean cuts of lamb, and even vegetable protein such as nuts, beans, and tofu.

3. Combine protein, fat, and carbohydrates in every meal. Never eat carbohydrates alone.

4. For the same reasons, avoid white flour and sugar.

5. Eat high-fiber foods, ideally at least 50 grams per day. Beans, whole grains, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and fruit all contain beneficial fiber.

6. Avoid all processed junk food, including sodas, juices, and diet drinks, which impact sugar and lipid metabolism. Liquid sugar calories are the biggest contributors to obesity and diabetes and heart disease.

7. Increase omega-3 fatty acids by eating cold-water wild salmon, sardines, herring, flaxseeds, and even seaweed.

8. Reduce saturated fat and use more grass-fed or organic beef or animal products, which contain less saturated fat.

9. Eliminate all hydrogenated fat, which is found in margarine, shortening, and processed oils, as well as many baked goods and processed foods.

10. Instead use healthy oils, such as olive (especially extra virgin olive oil), cold pressed sesame, and other nut oils.

11. Avoid or reduce alcohol, which can increase triglycerides and fat in the liver and create blood sugar imbalances.

12. Don't allow yourself to get hungry. Graze -- don't gorge -- by eating every three to four hours to keep your insulin and blood sugar normal.

13. Try not to eat three hours before bed.

14. Have a good protein breakfast every day. You can start with a protein shake or may use eggs. Some suppliers offer omega-3 eggs, which are ideal.

15. Include flaxseeds by using two to four tablespoons of ground flaxseeds every day in your food. This can lower cholesterol by 18 percent. Flax is tasty in shakes or sprinkled on salads or whole grain cereal.

16. Drink green tea, which can help lower cholesterol.

17. Use soy foods such as soymilk, edamame, soy nuts, tempeh, and tofu, which can help lower cholesterol by 10 percent.

18. Eat at least eight to ten servings of colorful fruits and vegetables a day, which contain disease fighting vitamins, minerals, fiber, phytonutrients, antioxidants, and anti-inflammatory molecules.

Supplements Can Help Reduce Your Risk

Supplements are important. Along with a healthy diet and exercise program, they can dramatically affect your risk of cardiovascular disease. Combining these together can have the greatest impact on your cholesterol.

Here are the supplements I have found most useful in my practice to lower cholesterol and even prevent and reverse heart disease:

1. Everyone must take a good multivitamin and mineral, as well as a purified fish oil supplement that contains 1000 to 2000 grams a day of EPA/DHA. More may be necessary for those with low HDL and high triglycerides.

2. Red rice yeast (two 600-mg capsules twice a day), which is another powerful cholesterol-lowering herbal formula.

3. Plant sterols (beta-sitosterol and others) can help lower cholesterol. Take 2 grams a day.

4. Try policosanol (10 mg to 20 mg twice a day), which is from sugarcane wax and can help lower cholesterol.

5. A soy protein isolate shake can be helpful in lowering cholesterol by about 10 percent.

6. Fiber supplements such as WellbetX PGX (Konjac fiber or gluccomanan) -- 4 before each meal with a glass of water -- can both lower cholesterol and balance blood sugar metabolism. (x)

There are other suggestions and therapies, but these will work for most people. Working with a doctor specializing in nutritional therapy can help sort out questions or difficulties that arise.

Lifestyle and Exercise Changes for Heart Health

I encourage 30 to 45 minutes of cardiovascular exercise at least six times a week. You may try interval training (also known as wind sprints) if you are feeling stronger. I also encourage strength training to build muscle and reduce body fat composition.

Exercise is a necessity, not a luxury, in preventing almost all chronic disease, from heart disease to cancer , from dementia to diabetes , from osteoporosis to osteoarthritis. You cannot age successfully without it. It is how we are designed.

Stop Stressing Out Your Heart

Stress alone can cause a heart attack. It is often the trigger that leads to the cascade of events that causes that final, fatal heart attack. But all along the way, it contributes to heart disease by creating inflammation, raising your cholesterol and blood sugar, causing high blood pressure and even making your blood more likely to clot.

Therefore, finding ways to manage stress, to relax, and to find the pause button is essential for dealing with nearly all chronic health conditions, including high cholesterol.

Learn to reduce stress by doing regular relaxation exercises such as yoga, tai chi, meditation, breathing, guided imagery, or whatever it takes to engage the relaxation nervous system, which can lower cholesterol, reduce your overall level of inflammation, balance your blood sugar, increase metabolism, and help with your overall health.

Try classes, buy tapes, try therapy, or just go out and have fun. But you must do something to switch daily out of the alarm response to maintain your health.

Heart Medications

Occasionally I will recommend medications if I feel that my patient is swimming upstream genetically, or if there is significant heart disease present already. Then I can carefully weigh the risks and the benefits of medications.

However, it is possible to achieve most of the benefits of medications through lifestyle changes. Dr. David Jenkins from the University of Toronto compared treatment with statin drugs (the number-one cholesterol medication) to a diet high in viscous fiber, almonds, soy, and plant sterols and found they were equal, although the diet was more effective in lowering inflammation and homocysteine.

In fact, many of my patients have lowered their cholesterol over 100 points by following the comprehensive program I outline above.

In the rare occasions when I do need to use medications, here are the ones I have to choose from:

1. Statins -- These work by blocking the production of cholesterol in the liver. They can also lower inflammation and very high doses may even reverse plaque or fatty deposits in the arteries.

Though now widely prescribed, statin medications do have significant side effects, in that they deplete the body's stores of the vital component Coenzyme Q10. If you're on statins, it's a good idea to supplement with at least 100 mg of CoQ10 a day.

Many patients have to stop taking statins because of muscle pain and aching, known as statin myopathy. It is more common that most people think.

And you must have your liver function checked regularly and have your muscle enzymes (CPK) measured to make sure you can continue the medications safely. However you can have symptoms, pain, and muscle injury without having an abnormal CPK test.

2. Niacin -- This is also known as vitamin B3, and in very high doses (1000 to 3000 mg a day) can be very helpful for raising good cholesterol (HDL) and lowering high triglycerides -- something that statins are not very effective at.

I use niacin often in my patients who have insulin resistance or pre-diabetes. The major side effect is flushing (sort of like hot flashes), which are benign, subside after an hour, and reduce completely over a few weeks. You can stop flushing by taking a baby aspirin (81mg) half an hour before your take the niacin.

I usually recommend long-acting Niaspan and build up slowly over the course of 2 to 6 weeks to the desired dose of 1500 to 2000 mg daily. This needs to be done only under a doctor's supervision.

3. Ezetimbe (Zetia) -- This drug prevents absorption of cholesterol from the intestine. It can interact with the statins to increase the risk of liver toxicity. However recent studies have shown that combining Zetia with a statin actually increases plaque in the arteries even though it lowers cholesterol. Another reason to not assume that lowering cholesterol is what protects us against heart disease.

4. Fibrates -- This class of medications includes drugs such as fenofibrate (Tricor) and gemfibrozil (Lopid) and helps to lower triglycerides and raise HDL. These drugs also act on a class of receptors that control inflammation and blood sugar called PPAR.

The verdict is still out on their effectiveness and safety. I prefer to use niacin, which achieves the same results, at lower cost with less risk.

5. Bile Acid Binding Agents -- Drugs like Questran and WellChol bind up bile in the gut and promote the elimination of cholesterol from the body. Bile is comprised of cholesterol among other things, and getting rid of bile helps lower your cholesterol. These are somewhat difficult to take, and not often used.

Remember, cholesterol is only one of many factors that lead to cardiovascular disease, and it may not even be the most important one. Inflammation and insulin resistance or pre-diabetes are much more important. There are many causes. We have to look at all of them. We focus on cholesterol because it is what we have the best medication for. But remember if all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.

Comprehensive diet, supplements, exercise, and other lifestyle approaches can have a huge impact your risk of heart disease and can dramatically improve cholesterol. And this approach reduces your risk of nearly all chronic diseases.

Medications are available as a last resort, but I never start them without trying an integrated approach to cholesterol management and heart disease prevention. In fact, the cholesterol comes way down as a side effect of changing lifestyle. You often don't have to treat it directly.

If you are willing to make the changes in diet and lifestyle and take a few supplements, your health, and your numbers, may change dramatically ... and so will your life.

Now I'd like to hear from you ...

Have you taken medications to lower cholesterol? Have you had any side effects?

Have you tried any of the lifestyle measures mentioned here?

What do you plan to do to lower your risk of heart disease?

FDA bans flavored cigarettes, menthol next?

2009-09-24T00:05:00.000-07:00

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday officially banned cigarettes with candy, fruit or clove flavors, its first action since taking over responsibility for regulating the tobacco industry.
The FDA said the ban is aimed at reducing the appeal for smoking for children and cutting smoking rates in the country.
Neither Winston-Salem-based Reynolds American Inc. nor Greensboro-based Lorillard Inc. — the Nos. 2 and 3 tobacco companies in the country, respectively — make cigarettes with those flavors.
But the FDA said it is also “examining options” for regulating menthol cigarettes, a key category for Lorillard. Its flagship Newport brand is the top selling menthol cigarette and second-largest selling overall cigarette in the country. According to Lorillard’s second-quarter results, released in July, Newport owned about a 35 percent share of the menthol market and 10 percent share of the overall cigarette market.
Both Reynolds and Lorillard have joined a lawsuit that seeks to block several provisions of the law, passed this spring, that gave the FDA authority to regulate tobacco.

Buy Zyban at Pharmacy-Adviser.com

Choose to Stop Smoking

2009-09-17T06:27:00.000-07:00

If you're struggling to stop smoking, you are certainly not isolated. Annually there are millions of people who decide to stop smoking. Each year there also are many millions of people who start smoking.
This causes a continuous cycle of people struggling to give up. While there are lots of excuses that have a tendency to circulate all around, there also are several excellent resources that may be a big help as you are fighting with the idea of stopping smoking. What could seem straightforward for you to conquer one day, might be your biggest problem another day.
It is highly necessary to gain a thorough understanding of why you need to stop smoking. Simply awakening one morning and deciding to quit typically doesn't work. You need to have a specific reason that you are out to quit.
Whether your reason is for better health, due to the request of your doctors, because you want to economize, or you simply actually need to be alive for your youngsters. At last, the rationale itself is not important. The important thing has a reason.
People who choose to stop smoking without an honest to goodness reason to give up find it much tougher to quit. When the going gets tough, they typically have absolutely nothing to fall back on as an ultimate motive.

Sponsor Link - Stop Smoking Pills - Zyban - at Pharmacy-Adviser.com

Kids more aware of parents smoking habits

2009-09-17T06:17:00.000-07:00

Nearly all children who have a parent that smokes wishes they would quit, new research has found.

Results of a poll carried out by the Department of Health revealed that almost two-thirds (64 per cent) of children would rather their parents quit smoking than give them more pocket money.

Commenting on the findings, Martin Dockrell, director of research and policy at Action on Smoking and Health (Ash), said: "Smokers don't just harm themselves but they harm the people around them.

"The only way that we can effectively protect kids from second hand smoke is by convincing their parents to quit."

He added that since the ban of tobacco advertising in 2003, the current generation of children are more aware of the risks associated with smoking.

Figures show that the number of people who successfully quit smoking through NHS Stop Smoking Services in the past year reached over 337,000.

Sale - massive savings today!