Hyperglycemia and insulin resistance cause actual structural changes to key brain regions involved in cognition, greatly increasing the risk of cognitive dysfunction.
Amid the clamor over metanalyses suggesting that organic veggies are no more nutritious than conventional, and that omega-3’s don’t reverse heart disease, another important metanalysis got totally overlooked: the one showing that anti-hypertensive drugs are largely ineffective in people with Stage 1 hypertension.
Exercise programs that bridge the gap between rehabilitation and conditioning, and focus on restoring range of motion, can provide a good measure of “pre-habilitation” to prevent musculoskeletal pain, injury and long-term disability.
Drug therapies to reduce cardiovascular risk and prevent the onset of diabetes may be effective in the short term, but as people age, the efficacy of drugs like statins and metformin tends to diminish, while the risk of adverse effects increases. The benefit of nutritional and lifestyle interventions, on the other hand, remains robust even as people enter their final decades.
Elevated cholesterol and high blood glucose are the obvious features of diabetes and heart disease but they’re hardly the whole picture. Other, less obvious factors including environmental toxins like BPA and lead, gastrointestinal disorders, and frequent use of artificial sweeteners are also important drivers of disease. According to Dr. Mark Hyman, author of the popular book, The Blood Sugar Solution, these oft-overlooked factors warrant closer attention.
A new and interesting angle on the vitamin D story is emerging from research on weight gain in older women. The vitamin, it seems, is an important metabolic signal that indirectly regulates the propensity to store fat.
High blood viscosity, a robust predictor of cardiovascular disease risk, is also predictive of cognitive dysfunction in older people, and may be an early indicator of the risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
Magnesium supplementation, particularly at doses over 370 mg per day, can significantly reduce both systolic and diastolic blood pressure in hypertensive and pre-hypertensive people, according to a new metanalysis of 22 trials.
Weight loss wagers, the latest rage among big employers trying to cut health care costs, are proving to be an effective strategy for helping men get into better shape.
Increased blood viscosity is the only biological parameter that has been linked with all of the other major heart disease risk factors, including high blood pressure, elevated LDL cholesterol, low HDL, type-II diabetes, metabolic syndrome, obesity, smoking, age, and male gender. Until recently, technological limitations made it impractical for doctors to measure this key risk factor. Fortunately, that’s changing.
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