Healthy Lifestyle Protects Against Many Diseases
The theme of this Web site is that once you start living a healthy lifestyle, you do NOT have to worry about all the details. Good health will naturally come to you at all levels. Over time living a healthy lifestyle will cure all that ails you the natural way.
Healthy people develop a certain sixth sense, or logic, which they use to determine what, is healthy and what is NOT. A recent research study supported this site's theme. It found that what is good for your heart and vascular health will also protect you against Alzheimer's disease. More specifically developing high levels of good cholesterol or high-density lipoproteins (HDL) will protect you against booth cardiovascular disease and the Alzheimer's form of dementia.
So, how does anyone develop high levels of good HDL cholesterol? Why by living a healthy lifestyle, of course. More specifically, regular participation in aerobic forms of exercise along with NOT eating any meals at junk food establishments is probably the biggest factor. Aerobic exercise is exercise that rapidly raises your heart rate while performing it over a period of at least ten minuets; such as brisk walking, jogging, running, swimming and bicycling. Ever wonder why you have to do at least ten minutes of Aerobic exercise first thing in morning and in the evening after work, every day? Well, this is a good reason why. As Jack LaLanne would say: Your body demands to be used everyday. In addition, you should be consuming more monounsaturated fats, such as olive or canola oil, and as little trans fatty acids as possible, along with consuming more soluble fiber, in your healthy whole food diet. Those advocating a zero fat diet are just plain wrong. Eating a very low-fat diet is guaranteed to kill off your good cholesterol or high-density lipoproteins (HDL) levels. A healthy diet consists of about 30% good fat.
Good and Bad Cholesterol
Magic foods for raising your high-density lipoproteins levels are the regular consumption of orange or cranberry juice, and cold-water fatty fish like salmon, mackerel, and sardines for their omega-3 fatty acid content.
And, of course, let us not forget about working on the really big overall health risk factors of smoking and excess body weight.
There are other things that you can also do, but overdoing them is just as detrimental to your health, if NOT more so, then under doing them. Walking the fine line between deficiency and excess is extremely hard to figure out. So, I would recommend against drinking wine or taking niacin vitamin supplements.
References:
- Association
of higher levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol in elderly individuals
and lower risk of late-onset Alzheimer disease.
Reitz C, Tang MX, Schupf N, ...
Arch Neurol. 2010 Dec;67(12):1491-7.
PMID: 21149810
