Wishing You the Best of Health

Dr. Lester

Your body has been designed by God with an amazing ability to maintain itself in excellent health. Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world, and this imperfection affects our ability to enjoy perfect health. We need to exercise, eat proper diets, and sometimes get medical help in order to keep our bodies as fit as possible.

Long before I earned my Ph.D. in genetics at Purdue University, I became interested in the both the ability of the human body to live a long, healthy life and the diseases that often prevent that happy outcome.

Below you’ll find a selection of articles from the world of good health. To the left you’ll find listed the websites I’ve created for a variety of health topics.

Lane P. Lester, Ph.D.

Category: Health
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Dealing With Asthma — 5 Coping Strategies That Work (via postie)

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Effectively dealing with asthma requires a management plan that addresses every level of the disease.

Let’s look at these five asthma coping strategies and see when and how they can be applied, and what the possible benefits are both as short and long-term strategies.

1. Medications–Once you have been diagnosed your doctor will prescribe medication based on the severity of your asthma, pre-existing conditions and medications, and your overall health. This might involve tablets, but very likely it will also involve one or more inhalers.

Preventative inhalers should be used routinely regardless of your condition, and reliever inhalers help to curb any symptoms when they occur.

One strategy is to spend time learning how to use these properly, familiarizing yourself with their correct use and taking them with you wherever you go. Simply knowing they are available can be a psychological comfort, and worrying about using them, or about not having them, can produce just enough stress to trigger an attack.

2. Monitoring–Make sure you schedule regular check ups and keep the appointments. Unlike many other conditions, asthma can vary from time to time, sometimes getting worse and at other times getting better.

To make sure that your condition doesn’t worsen without you being aware of it, which could result in your medications not working as effectively as you’d hope, make sure that you attend regularly checkups with your doctor.

If you have a peak flow meter or other home test kit, use this regularly, and keep a log of the results, as well as a record of attacks to allow your doctor to spot trends that will make a diagnosis more accurate.

3. Early Warnings–Most asthmatics are aware very early on that their breathing has become constricted. In most cases, asthma doesn’t occur as a sudden and unexpected shortness of breath, but rather a progressive degeneration of breathing with a tightening or constriction effect occurring gradually, increasing in severity.

A good strategy is to realize as soon as you detect the earliest onset of breathing difficulty, and sit down, stop, and try to control your breathing. If you sit calmly and concentrate on your breathing then, in many cases, you may find yourself able to prevent it from getting worse, and recover your breath without the need for medication.

4. Attacks–Should an asthma attack occur, it’s important to remain as calm as possible. Try to relax while you stop whatever you’re doing to concentrate on taking slow breaths. Sit down, but don’t squash your abdomen. Sitting on the front edge of a chair and leaning forwards slightly can help. Concentrate on your breathing and try to keep it slow, deep and regular.

If you start to panic then you will begin to hyperventilate, and this will make the condition worse. Think carefully about the location of your inhaler. Remember – stop, sit down, control your breathing and calm down – then you’re ready to deal with your medication.

5. Prevention–There are many books written on preventative asthma coping strategies, and these cover factors in your home such as hypoallergenic bedding, avoiding pets, and using special filtered vacuum cleaners.

However, one of the simplest and cheapest is to practice some form of quiet meditation. Meditation is excellent for helping control your breathing, and by doing this you may help to build better breath control which will allow you to prevent or limit the onset of asthma from becoming any worse, or of dealing with it should you suffer a full asthma attack.

Keeping indoor airborne pollutants low with a medical-grade HEPA air purifier is an effective and non-invasive way to reduce your chances of an attack being triggered by these irritants. By using a high efficiency particle arresting (abbreviated as HEPA) to remove household dust, dust mites, mold and mildew spores, pet dander and smoke, you are removing the very allergens that often cause flare ups. —————————————————- See the medical grade HEPA air purifier that can help reduce your exposure to airborne asthma triggers at http://purerair.com/allergy_machine.html

Category: Disease Treatment
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Top 6 Reasons Why Deep Breathing Will Increase Your Weight Loss (via postie)

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Need a simple secret guaranteed to speed up your weight loss?

If you answered yes, then I have something amazing to share with you.

It’s called deep breathing.

And it is a fat blasting secret so powerful it seems to defy logic. Yet study after study confirms that it works like gangbusters.

In fact, I’ll make you a promise that you won’t find anywhere else: taking deeper breaths WILL dramatically increase your health while decreasing your body fat… period!

So you should listen to what I have to say because it can make you thinner.

Here are the top 6 reasons why…

FACT: Studies performed by California university found that simple deep breathing can help you burn up to 140% more calories than riding a stationary bike.

This means that if you road your exercise bike for thirty minutes and burned 250 calories, you would have burned 350 calories just spending that time deep breathing!

FACT: Your excess body fat must be combined with oxygen BEFORE it can be released from your body.

This means that simply increasing the amount of oxygen flowing through your veins by taking deeper breaths can significantly increase the rate that your body fat melts away.

FACT: Studies have found that deep breathing supplies the oxygen to your body that is required to remove toxins from your body.

Toxins that research shows would otherwise be stored as fat.

FACT: Research shows that you only use about 25% or less of your total lung capacity.

Something guaranteed to lead to excess fat storage.

A conscious effort to take deeper breaths throughout the day can reverse this and help you get much thinner.

FACT: Oxygen increases metabolism.

Just like flames grow hotter and burn faster in the presence of more oxygen… your metabolism will melt away far more fat if you start taking deeper breaths.

FACT: Oxygen is required by our intestines to absorb nutrients.

Did you know that nutrient deficiency is the primary cause of obesity?

Breathing more deeply can help deliver the nutrients to your body that will increase metabolism, burn fat, make you thinner and exponentially improve your health.

Bottom line…

Deep breathing has too many health benefits to list.

And the best part is… it’s NOT based off “theory”. This stuff really works! Study after study confirms it.

So if you begin today to take deeper breathers… get more oxygen into your body… it will increase your weight loss.

—————————————————- *** Need To Lose Weight Fast? ***

Here’s a simple 5 step fat loss guide that will show you how.

==> Visit http://www.naturalexplosiveweightloss.com

Category: Diet
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Get Rid of Weight Loss Flab — But Change Your Thinking First (via postie)

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Isn’t it strange that, when most people talk about their health and fitness, they talk about getting in shape. They usually have some event in mind: a wedding, a beach season, a vacation, or some other single event. They don’t seem to understand that what they’re saying works against their dreams of becoming lean and beautiful.

A lot of people worry about being out of shape, and they say something like “I’ve got to get in shape and burn off this fat!People never say “I’ll shed all this flab and fat, get myself in shape and keep myself healthy and lean forever.”

Of course, when we set out to lose weight, we’d like to get to our goal and have it last for the rest of our life; but we always seem to be focused on the immediate goal, not the long-term goal. This “quick-fix” mindset, makes us vulnerable to fad diets and the latest machine, gadget or gizmo that pops up on late night TV. Those ads hit you when you’re most vulnerable: it’s late, you’re tired, and the models using the item are beautiful and happy. Maybe you’ve just had a midnight snack of something you shouldn’t have: ice cream, cookies, cake, or sugary sodas. The ads get you by playing on your emotion and guilt.

It’s a shame that many American “baby boomers” grew up eating too much processed, fattening food and watching far too much TV – not learning to get out and be active. This large population is at the age now where the metabolism is slowing, and the eating habits learned over a lifetime are causing obesity and all its related problems including diabetes. There is a lot of tummy flab, abdominal fat, and loose flab, and a great deal of obesity in adult couples. All these problems are avoidable!

Once we’ve admitted what bad shape we’re in, it’s natural to want to fix the problem as fast as possible, and these products always promise fast results. Why would we want to wait and work for months, when it seems each shiny new product can give us that short-cut we crave? Well, those models didn’t get their beautiful bodies by taking a shortcut and using that product. Their health and physical appearance is part of their daily regimen, and they work hard to look the way they do. They have to proper mindset: work every day toward lifelong fitness.

No matter how silly, ridiculous or difficult some new product or regimen may seem, we’re game to give it a try. What we never seem to acknowledge, in that first flush of enthusiasm as we whip out the credit card one more time, is that these quick-fixes never work. Then, when the disappointment hits, we feel even worse for having spent money and time, and gotten no results. A lot of us then take comfort in the worst way possible for our health – in food, and usually fattening “comfort” foods. The downward spiral progresses.

Try refocusing on a new target. Rather than looking at an event that’s coming up in a couple of weeks, focus on your health for the rest of your life. Isn’t that a better goal than dropping a few pounds and then gaining it all back, plus plenty more? You’ll be much more likely to take a calm, rational look at the item or program you’re thinking of buying, and you’ll be much less likely to fall for those hyped-up ads.

An essential step is to create in your body an environment that lets you burn your fat as fast as possible. It will take some work and dedication. It’s much easier to look good when you’re 25 than when you’re 55, so it may take a little more work as we get a little older.

If you really want to make a big change in your body for the rest of your life, you need to make it a daily habit. Not just a “diet” that you go on, which suggests you’ll go off it again at some point – but you must make this change into a lifestyle. Of course, that starts in the mind. People who are consistently healthy, lean and fit all their lives do it this way.

Every day you get up, brush your teeth, get dressed and do your daily routine. Staying fit and healthy needs to be on the list of things you do each day. With everything you do and every bit of food that you put into your body, you should be aware of how it will affect your long term health and fitness, and how it will affect your fat burning. Will everything you do and eat make you overweight, or lead to a fit and healthy lifestyle?

There is good news! Research shows that you can develop new habits very quickly. Eating, drinking and exercising correctly can be very simple habits that can be developed in less than a month! You don’t need to follow impossible diets, either, or live your life in the gym. There are many ways to have a healthy eating plan and a very effective exercise routine that don’t take up excessive amounts of time or cost a lot of money.

After a few months of using the proper methods, and possibly much sooner, your body will let you know that it wants to continue on the path to good health. Maybe you’ve heard stories from people quitting smoking: They don’t have a cigarette for several days or weeks, then decide to “reward” themselves with a smoke. Many times they can’t stand the taste of the cigarette, or the other sensations that the cigarette causes. The body has begun to adjust itself to the healthier lifestyle and lets the person know it doesn’t like the unhealthy habits any more! Our bodies naturally want to be healthy, active and lean.

Becoming lean and healthy is not something you can do from the outside inwards. You won’t have a lot of success if you just follow what some diet guru has said and do a few exercises because it seems like the right thing to do. You need to shift your thinking first. Get behind the idea of staying in shape for life and making your body into a lean, healthy, beautiful fat burning furnace.

—————————————————- Rosemary Kurtz offers an instant, free download for you to learn more about a revolutionary fat burning program. No fads, no living in the gym. Exercise 15 to 30 min. a day, 3 days per week. Money-back guarantee. http://www.superweightburner.com

Category: Diet
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Congestive Heart Failure and the Heart-Healthy Diet (via postie)

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Congestive Heart Failure, or CHF, is a medical condition concerning the heart. When diagnosed with CHF, a patient has a weakened heart that cannot properly pump blood to the necessary parts of the body. This condition requires extensive treatment and lifestyle changes in order to live as healthy and as normal a life as possible. Such lifestyle changes include a medicine regimen, an exercise program, and a heart healthy diet. While all of these factors are important, following a strict diet is a key element to controlling Congestive Heart Failure, and ensuring the best quality of life that can happen while living with this condition. A heart healthy diet includes low sodium intake, low fat and calorie intake, and reduced fluid intake.

When a patient is first diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure, his or her doctor will begin a treatment plan matched specifically to that patient. Part of this treatment plan is usually a heart healthy diet. Part of what makes Congestive Heart Failure so uncomfortable for the patient diagnosed with the condition is the fact that as a result of how the heart fails to work efficiently, the lungs and the body in general begin to retain large amounts of fluid. Though there is an abundance of fluid in the body, the fluid that builds up in the lungs of the heart failure patient makes it exceedingly difficult to breathe, which is already a difficult venture for the patient.

Where the heart healthy diet comes in is that ridding the body and lungs of excess liquid is important to be able to breathe comfortably. An abundance of sodium in a person’s diet causes excessive amounts of liquid to be retained. This is something a heart patient does not need, considering the large amounts of liquid that already makes itself a problem. Along with medication to help release retained liquid, a diet of low sodium limitations is often given to the patient. The standard amount of sodium allotted in a diet like this is 2g or 2000mg. If the heart patient is a unusually bad case, a sodium limit as low as 1g or 1000mg may be given. When a heart failure patient exceeds this level of sodium in his or her diet, he or she runs the risk of retaining relatively large amounts of liquid that the body, in its less-than-efficient state, cannot effectively get rid of.

Another aspect of the heart healthy diet is for the heart patient to eat many low-calorie, low-fat foods. Sometimes Congestive Heart Failure is caused, in part, by obesity in the patient. Two things are accomplished by eating these low-calorie, low-fat foods. One, eating low-calorie, low-fat foods helps to keep the heart arteries clear of clots. Heart patients already have a weakened heart and, therefore, should not weaken it further by introducing clots to the passageways of the heart. The other thing that is accomplished by this part of the diet is that weight is a contributing factor to being healthy or unhealthy. Obesity, in some cases, can cause the Congestive Heart Failure condition. Not gaining weight if you are already thin, and losing weight if you are obese is important to being healthy with CHF. A low-fat, low-calorie diet can help with keeping or getting to a healthy weight.

The last part of a heart healthy diet for CHF patients is a diet with reduced fluid intake. In much the same way that sodium increasing fluid retention is negative for the heart failure patient, drinking lots of fluids is sometimes negative as well. If a heart patient is drinking many liquids, it just makes it harder for the body to get rid of the fluids that are building up naturally. Keeping a diet low in fluids helps keep fluids in the body at a minimum as well.

There are many positive aspects to the heart healthy diet. Low sodium limitations, low-fat and low-calorie foods, and reduced liquid intake can be helpful in keeping a heart healthy lifestyle. Congestive Heart Failure patients are recommended to change their current eating habits to a heart healthy diet in order to become as healthy as possible and to live as full life as is possible with this condition.

—————————————————- For more information on how to improve heart disease. http://www.UltimateHealthyHeart.com/mdpag2

Category: Disease Prevention
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Exercise As a Treatment Method for Back Pain (via postie)

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Undertaking an exercise regime if you are suffering from back pain has been shown to be an effective treatment, especially when combined with anti inflammatory drugs.

Types of exercise for back pain:

McKenzie Exercises:

These back exercises involve stretching the spine and the muscles to decrease painful sensations in the back. These exercises can be done while you stand, sit, or relax on a flat surface. Stretching can reduce the herniation of a disc in the spine. In addition to this, exercise can help in treating degenerative joint disease pain.

Dynamic lumbar stabilization:

You can perform these exercises in combination with the Mackenzie exercises to further reduce pain. You may want to seek the help of a physical therapist for optimum use of these exercises.

Aerobics:

Aerobic exercise elevates the heart rate and increases blood flow to the affected area, which aids in a speedy recovery. Aerobic exercise can involve taking a walk, riding a bike, and physical activity in a pool of water.

Exercise is performed on the following muscles:

Hamstrings, piriformis muscle, the psoas muscle and the gluteus muscles, which are the muscles of walking.

Regular daily stretching promotes health to the muscles and bones of the body. It helps to increase the strength of weakened muscles and provides for increased oxygen to the body tissues.

Wear loose clothing for freedom of movement. Loose clothing allows for freedom of movement without restriction. Nothing can hinder you from reaching your full potential for healing exercises of the body.

Physical therapy:

A physical therapists are trained professionals who utilize an assortment of techniques and exercises for treatment of back pain to include heat and range of motion, as well as ultrasound and other modalities to help you reduce back pain.

Chiropractic treatment involves manipulation and adjustment of your musculoskeletal system to promote an increase in flexibility. A well-trained professional can provide you with an excellent form of treatment which can also be combined with your work with a physical therapist for even greater gains. Chiropractic care isn’t for everybody, with various people being unsuited due to medical issues. Be sure to check with a doctor first.

There are many methods and techniques related to exercise that has other benefits. Exercise can help to burn calories and lose weight. This will help to decrease back pain and result in a better quality of life. Talk to your doctor for more exercise tips that can help you lose weight and feel better.

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Jared Wright is the webmaster for the free learning community site, Clivir.com. Visit the links below to read more about related back pain issues including lower back pain exercises and low back pain remedy:
http://www.clivir.com/classrooms/show/lower-back-pain-exercises-treatment-and-remedies.html
http://www.clivir.com/lessons/show/low-back-pain-relief.html

Category: Fitness
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Total Fitness Home Gym – The Key to a Healthier You

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Kids Songs – Fun Fitness for Kids

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Cheap Equipment For Fitness Training

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Category: Fitness
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Dragan Challenge – a New Vision in Fitness Training

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Category: Fitness
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