Tagged: surviving disease
In the last blog, I talked about fighting disease using diet and weight loss. In particular, I talked about fighting cancer. That was only two of the pieces to fighting cancer. It is also important to include exercise (especially when using a Keto diet as an adjunct for cancer treatment or weight loss) and intermittent fasting. Exercise is linked to the immune system. Recent research suggests that cytotoxic T cells (white blood cells that specialize in killing cancer cells) are activated with exercise and improve their ability to attack cancer cells. Regular exercise has an important role in almost every disease. In the Keto diet, it is really important to avoid saturated fats as much as possible and include things like fatty fish, olive oil, avocado oil and coconut oils. Lean proteins such as chicken and some cuts of pork are great choices. To offset the “bad cholesterol”, as when...
According to the CDC, just by being overweight or obese, you are at risk for 13 types of cancers which make up about 40% (684,000 people) of all cancers diagnosed in the US each year. Being overweight or having obesity doesn’t mean that someone will definitely get cancer. But it does mean that they are more likely to get cancer than if they kept a healthy weight. In health care, we use a tool called the BMI (Body Mass Index) calculated by height and weight to determine if you are overweight (BMI of 25 to 29.9) or obese (BMI of > 30). Being overweight and obese causes changes in the body including long-lasting inflammation, much higher than normal levels of insulin, insulin-like growth factor, insulin resistance and sex hormones. These changes may lead to cancer. The longer you are overweight and the more overweight you are, both increase your risk....
I should start with a definition by the American Heart Association (AHA): “Heart failure can progress, so researchers have identified four stages of the disease — A, B, C and D. Health care professionals also classify heart failure when it has progressed to stages C and D. This classification measures a patient’s overall heart function and severity of symptoms”. There are further definitions based on classes ( I- IV). I encourage people to go to the AHA website to get more information, I have added the website to my resource page. I need to add that there is not just one kind of heart failure: As I mentioned in the previous post my father had a degree of heart failure after his heart attack. A portion of his heart was not contracting well from the damage to the muscle on the bottom left side of his heart and possibly some...
Surviving Disease. Sounds simple to some and impossible to others; however, one of the best keys to surviving any disease begins with education. I have been a registered nurse for 30+ years and continue to learn and evolve as an educator, patient advocate and health care provider. Please go to my “About Me” to read about my work experiences. My goal with this blog is to provide an educational resource to help people better understand their disease process and use my personal experiences to help guide them through the medical maze. I have found with some of my patients or my family, a simple lack of understanding of why they got sick and what they can do along with their physician to get well. The internet, which is a fabulous tool, can be daunting due to the highly technical language and some recommendations may not be appropriate for your particular...
