People, who catch cold, can recover quicker, and in some cases even prevent catching cold in the first place, as long as they help their bodies to improve it’s immune system. There are some well-known ways to improve your self-defense system and there are some surprising ways that are less obvious to us. For example, when you inhale a cold virus, it inflames your nasal passages. The inflammation process causes the body to release chemicals, which include histamine. When you have a weak immune system, you are at a higher risk of catching a cold or a virus. Your immune system is responsible for helping you fight off infections; therefore, when your immune system is weak it cannot function properly.

Sleep apnea can have severe effects on your health and has been linked to such problems as heart failure, stroke, high blood pressure and diabetes. Obstructive sleep apnea involves repeated pauses in breathing that occur when the muscles relax during sleep, causing soft tissue in the back of the throat to collapse and block the upper airway. A number of clinical trials have shown regular exercise to be strongly linked to heightened immunity, with the emphasis on regular.

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by Randy Wood

Learning is one of the biggest stumbling blocks we have with eating and diabetes.

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by Randy Wood

Diabetics strive daily to live a life of normalcy. For many it is a very difficult and troubled road. For all, diabetes is most definitely a lifestyle altering disease.

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It is no secret to those of us living with or touch by diabetes that Diet and Diabetes go hand in hand.

If you are one of the millions living with diabetes, one of the essential elements in self care is a proper diabetic diet plan.

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Nutrient deficiencies appear to increase with age. Some colleagues at the University of Iowa looked at over 400 Iowans 79 and older living independently in rural areas and found that 80 percent reported consuming inadequate amounts of four or more nutrients. When declining energy requirements are not matched by decreased caloric intake then total body fat increases. The Atkins diet leaves your body shy on some important nutrients, such as vitamin B, and also is negative for vitamins A, C and D, anti-oxidants that slow the effects of aging and calcium. Once again the lack of exercise has to enter into the equation also.

Nutritional status may be further compromised by other problems in conjunction with the illness, such as trauma, surgery, infection drug therapy which alter nutrient requirements. This makes recovery even more difficult. Another reason we need to keep our immune system healthy and keep an aged body in good health. Elderly individuals should try to strive for a well balanced diet and stay active. Adequate dietary fiber, as opposed to increased use of laxatives, will maintain regular bowel function and not interfere with the digestion and absorption of nutrients, as occurs with laxative use or abuse.

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This is your wakeup call for being prepared going into the fall and any time you are laid up with a cold or flu. Try and set-up a plan for your family, as it can save you a lot of time & money. Those trips to the doctor and/or emergency room, if you deal with older parents, can drain you and your family!

The flu typically arrives later, in November, with the peak season from late December through early March. Odds are you’ll catch a cold soon, if you haven’t already this season. The average American adult catches about two to four a year. During the cold and flu season, step up the hand-washing routine reminders. Since the two illnesses share some similar symptoms, and both come during “cold and flu season,” the two often run together in people’s minds. While there is no way to cure the common cold or the flu, there are several things that you and your family can do to prevent them and stay healthy this season. It takes the immune system about six to eight weeks to respond to vaccination, one of the best times to get the flu vaccine is mid-October to mid-November, before the December-to-March outbreak.

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Nutrition and weight loss are certainly important subjects and ones that you would love to learn all that you can and then jump in and start on your diet so that you can lose the weight you desire. However, I sincerely believe that dieting is not the best approach to losing weight.Knowing everything about proper nutrition is going to help you do what is necessary to lose weight. Nutrition and weight loss are plausible solutions to losing those unwanted pounds. Meditation, visualization and prayer also help. We are in the 21st century and have the luxury of liquid vitamins to keep us healthy. Proper nutrition also helps keep the process of your body functioning normally and the best part is that liquid vitamins can taste good!

Whereas a nutritious diet can rectify underlying causes of diseases and restore one to wholeness of mind and body. Once we realize the connection between a wholesome diet and good health, our food will be our medicine and maintaining good health will be a matter of making the right food choices and leading a healthy lifestyle. Try cutting 500 calories from your diet and burning 500 calories with vigorous exercise every day. The average woman will lose weight on a 1,500-calorie-per-day diet, while men can lose weight on about 1,800 calories per day. Permanent healthy weight loss requires permanent lifestyle changes

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By Randy Wood

People with diabetes that like to get out, exercise and be active are always on the go. This is absolutely one of the best ways to help people without diabetes or with pre-diabetes prevent it. It is also a good way for those with diabetes to control it and help prevent complications.

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Tap into the power of your immune system to avoid getting sick. You and a friend step into a crowded elevator and immediately notice two people coughing and sneezing up a storm. Within a couple of days you come down with a bad cold and blame it on that elevator ride. Yet your friend, exposed to the same germs at the same time, remains perfectly healthy.

What made the difference? The power of the immune system. The strength of our immune system is what makes the difference between who stays healthy and who doesn’t. The one with the immune system functioning below normal has an increased risk of getting sick. It’s shocking how much your immune system can affect how you feel!

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Who is at risk for getting autoimmune diseases? There are more than 80 types of autoimmune diseases and new treatments for autoimmune diseases are being studied all the time and can affect many parts of the body.  Women tend to be affected more often by autoimmune disorders; nearly 79% of autoimmune disease patients in the USA are women.  It is not known why this is the case, although hormone levels have been shown to affect the severity of some autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis. These diseases can affect connective tissue in your body (the tissue which binds together body tissues and organs).  Autoimmune diseases can be broadly divided into systemic and organ-specific or localized autoimmune disorders, depending on the principal clinic-pathologic features of each disease.  Autoimmune disorders are diseases caused by the body producing an inappropriate immune response against its own tissues.  Autoimmune disorders fall into two general types: those that damage many organs (systemic autoimmune diseases) and those where only a single organ or tissue is directly damaged by the autoimmune process (localized).

Autoimmune diseases: A group of disorders in which the primary cause is the anti inflammatory reaction caused by the bodies own immune system  attacking tissues.  Autoimmune diseases tend to cluster in families and in individuals (a person with one autoimmune disease is more likely to get another), which indicates that common mechanisms are involved in disease susceptibility.  Autoimmunity is not contagious, but the genes a child inherits from parents can influence whether a child will develop autoimmune conditions.  In autoimmune diseases, such as systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, scleroderma, pernicious anemia, myasthenia gravis, and Hashimoto's disease, specific cells uncontrollably attack the body's own tissues.  Approximately 75 percent of autoimmune diseases occur in women, most frequently during the childbearing years and do not spread to other people like infections. Women have fatigue, stiffness and weakness when suffering from a autoimmune disease. There is a higher incidence of autoimmune diseases is seen in winter months as people stay indoors and the air is dry, stale & exposure to viruses indoor.

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