Heart Impacts Brain

 What's good for the heart is probably also good for the brain.

Keeping your heart fit and strong can slow down the aging of your brain, US researchers say.

A Boston University team found healthy people with sluggish hearts that pumped out less blood had "older" brains on scans than others.



The current study included more than 1,500 people who had participated in the Framingham Offspring Study. Their average age was 61 years, and 54 percent of the study volunteers were women. Anyone with significant cardiovascular problems was excluded from the study. 

A poor cardiac output aged the brain by nearly two years on average, Circulation journal says.

The link was seen in younger people in their 30s who did not have heart disease, as well as elderly people who did.

Lead researcher Dr Angela Jefferson said: "These participants are not sick people. A very small number have heart disease. The observation that nearly a third of the entire sample has low cardiac index and that lower cardiac index is related to smaller brain volume is concerning and requires further study."

The participants with smaller brain volumes on magnetic resonance imaging did not show obvious clinical signs of reduced brain function.

But the researchers say the shrinkage may be an early sign that something is wrong.

More severe shrinkage or atrophy occurs with dementia.

Dr Jefferson said there were several theories for why reduced cardiac index - how much blood the heart pumps out relative to body size - might affect brain health.

For example, a lower volume of blood pumping from the heart might reduce flow to the brain, providing less oxygen and fewer nutrients needed for brain cells.

"It is too early to dole out health advice based on this one finding but it does suggest that heart and brain health go hand in hand," she said.

Experts say a person's cardiac index is fairly static - meaning it would be difficult to change it if it were low, without doing pretty intensive exercise training.

Dr Clinton Wright, a brain and memory expert from the University of Miami, said: "Whether lower cardiac index leads to reduced brain volumes and accelerates neurodegeneration on an eventual path to dementia is not yet clear.

"To address the health needs of our aging population, a better understanding of the links between cardiovascular disease and brain structure and function will be required."

The Boston School of Medicine team will now continue to study the individuals in the trial to see if and how the brain changes affect memory and cognitive abilities over time.  Source

Exercising regularly, eating right, maintaining a healthy weight, not smoking and managing high blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes -- will lead to better heart, blood vessel and brain health.


Know that these things are important, not just for the heart but also for the brain.
 






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People Become Vegetarians for Different Reasons

People become vegetarians for different reasons. Most people become vegetarian because they love animals. But today, more and more people are choosing a vegetarian lifestyle not just for ethical reasons but also for the health benefits. The ethical, health and environmental reasons for being vegetarian are all connected.

A Vegetarian is someone who does not eat meat, including pork, chicken, beef and fish. And some Vegetarians  choose to not eat any animal products such as dairy, eggs and gelatin (from pork or fish).

Many of the foods in the typical American diet are major sources of harmful toxic chemical exposures such as phthalates.  Phthalates have been linked to kidney and liver damage in animal studies and labeled a possible carcinogen.

A recent pilot study found that people who followed a vegetarian diet for only five days were able to reduce the level of phthalates and antibiotic levels in their bodies.

There are many benefits to becoming a vegetarian. 

Here are a few:

• Vegetarians have a 28 percent lower death rate from heart disease than meat eaters.
• The obesity rate among vegetarians is only about 6 percent compared to 30 percent of the American population. 
• Women who eat red meat once a day, have a 250 percent increased chance of getting colon cancer compared with women who eat it less than once a month.
• Because they are not consuming high amounts of saturated fat, vegetarians tend to have lower cholesterol.
• The saturated fat and cholesterol in beef, pork, dairy foods, poultry, and eggs cause about 63,000 fatal heart attacks each year.
• More than 60 percent of Americans are overweight, with at least 30 percent considered obese compared with an obesity rate of 6 percent among vegetarians and 2 percent among vegans.
• As many as 75 percent of women who eat fish more than twice weekly have  blood levels of mercury, a known neurotoxin, that are seven times higher than women who didn’t eat fish at all.
• The death rate of breast cancer among American women is 350 percent higher than the rate among Japanese women and nearly 500 percent the rate of Chinese women. (People in both China and Japan consume a diet high in fruits and vegetables and low in animal products.)
• Skin and teeth look better — glow.
• Fewer allergies and more energy.

With all the information confirming the adverse health affects caused by antibiotics and phthalates in our meat supply, I’m convinced more than ever that becoming a vegetarian is the way to go.   It's not too late to rethink your approach to healthy eating.       Source

  

Check Out raw food rehab

Try one of  Uncle Ray's vegetarian recipes




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