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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – Make it a lifestyle, preventive health care, that is! Healthcare reform is a national hot topic, but I’d like us to focus this week on the many things all of us can do to increase our health through the lifestyle choices we make on a regular basis.
“Lifestyle choices” have been found to be more important than genetics in relation to cancer risk!” (A.I.C.R.)
This statement is based upon the findings of a long term study done in 3 Scandinavian countries reported by the New England Journal of Medicine and summarized by the American Cancer Institute for Research. It refers to the most commonly occurring cancers found around the world. Let’s not forget about the other diseases and conditions we’re all too familiar with such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, both more common to western man (that’s us, rich or not). So, here’s a reminder about the lifestyle choices we can make to become more fit and healthy.
Let’s,
Stop Smoking. Let’s please stop smoking, and/or limit our exposure to secondhand smoke. Let’s reach out for every available support to save our own life or that of someone we love. Globally, smoking is the number one cause of all death. It out ranks obesity for primary and secondary causes of disease and death. I don’t report on health care costs, but can we guess that this must be a high cost factored into our health insurance premiums?
Eat a nutritionally balanced diet, most of the time. This means thinking about the nutrients and the power of food for health, not just for weight loss. When we eat a high fiber, high nutrient, phytochemical loaded carbohydrate diet as our base, eat smaller portions of meat, and eat smaller amounts of fat (just say no to “fad” diets, I promise you they compromise our health and immune system), we are taking a huge step toward protecting our health (notice, I haven’t mentioned perfect eating all of the time). In fact, The international report on cancer prevention from the American Institute for Cancer Research titled Food, Nutrition and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective published recently, found that 30% to 40% of all cancers are directly linked to the foods we eat.”
Exercise regularly as a way of life. I’m including a structured cardiovascular exercise program, strength training program and small steps to increase our daily activity. Exercise has been shown to strengthen our immune system, and those other vital body systems such as our cardiovascular system.
Maintain a healthy weight. One tool we can use to help us determine a healthy weight is the BMI measurement. This gives us a weight range for our height that correlates to health and disease (this range is not based on society’s ideal of the body perfect!). Let’s ask our nutritionist or doctor about this and for more info we can go to a link I’ve provided below.
I’d like to include a few more key lifestyle habits to keep our immune system humming.
Let’s
Manage stress. Let’s find ways of managing our stress that is healthy. We can exercise, laugh, take a time out, or talk to a friend to name a few.These are non food, non drug and non alcohol related coping tools, which help us, not hurt us.
Get our beauty sleep! Sleep is the time that allows our bodies and minds to rejuvenate and recuperate. Let’s not skimp (I consider less than 6 hours of sleep on a regular basis as skimping!)
Limit known carcinogens, such as smoked foods, pickled foods, and foods that are charred over a flame particularly meats. Let’s consider how the synthetic chemicals that we use in our environment affect our health (remember my tip “Pesticides and our Health”?).
Practice Prevention. Let’s keep on schedule with our preventive medical check -ups since early detection is key for our health. Scroll down for links with credible info on this!
Here’s to “Make it a Lifestyle” of health & fitness, because there are things we can control, even if we need to make small changes one step at a time. Please scroll down to go to 2 sites, one for women and one for men to review preventive screening tests, more tips for preventive care, and even a chart for us to keep record of our screening appointments.
Here’s to our Health!
June M Lay M.S.
Go to: June Fit
For more info on a personal healthy weight range, and BMI click on http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Insights/Insight16b.pdf Here are also 2 great sites with preventive health care checklists, one for women and one for men : http://www.ahrq.gov/ppip/healthywom.htm http://www.ahrq.gov/ppip/Healthymen.htm
Eating more plant foods can enhance our health! The CDC offers additional resources for “National Fruits & Veggies – More Matters” Month in September with lots of tips such as “30 Ways in 30 Days to Stretch your Fruit and Vegetable Budget” and an electronic health card. For more information go to : www.fruitsandveggiesmatter.gov .
Junefit is included in Google’s top ranked women’s health resources scroll midway http://directory.google.com/Top/Health/Women’s_Health/Resources/
June is Lifestyle Columnist at www.healthnewsdigest.com/
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