How to prevent gallstones

While it may not seem the most obvious time of year to start talking about sleep, we can often forget when the sun is out our natural instinct is to go out and play sport or socialise.  In addition summer is often a time when things naturally slow down in the business world so we can be tempted to pack in as many things as possible before it gets busy at work. This means at this time of year we can often find out ourselves feeling depleted and short on sleep due to hot summer nights which are not condusive to a good nights sleep. I know I have blogged in the past about sleep, here are my tips for a good nights sleep .  I have talked in the past about how we feel good if we get a good nights sleep but the medical profession is still unclear about why we need sleep.  What is clear is that sleep is a huge clear out of thoughts and feelings that accumulated during the day - and this is critical to our health.  The medical profession has many theories about why we dream or need to dream - what is agreed on is that parts of our brains are very active when we dream  and that dreaming improves our ability to solve problems and be creative. The key question about sleep is often how much sleep do I need.  I don't focus on a figure but go by how my body feels.  That means sometimes it needs more sleep and sometimes less sleep.  What I focus on is the quality of sleep which I judge by how refreshed I feel in the morning.      

Following on from my introduction to Hypertension (High BP), in this blog I want to discuss lifestyle strategies to prevent and assist the treatment of Hypertension (High BP). Manage your Stress I know its obvious, but I thought it was worth starting with this.  The link between hypertension and stress is well documented as are the long list of things that help you cope including exercise, counselling, massage, reflexology etc.  While we are on the subject of the obvious, I would like to remind readers that High BP is associated with high salt diets, smoking and high alcohol consumption too. Optimise your Vitamin D levels Ateria stiffness (atherosclerosis) is a driving factor for hypertension.  As your blood travels from your heart, cells in the wall of your aorta, called barorecptors, sense the pressure load, and signal your nervous system to either raise or lower the pressure.  However, the stiffer your arteries are, the more insensitive your baroreceptors become, and the less efficient they become at sending the signals.  Vitamin D deficiency is, in turn, linked to stiff arteries, which is why optimising your vitamin D levels are so important. Get enough sleep In a study presented at the American Heart Association High Blood Pressure Research 2012 Scientific Sessions, researchers found a strong link between sleep quality and a type of high blood pressure known as resistant hypertension, which does not respond to typical drug-based treatments. In fact, women who had resistant hypertension were five times as likely to also have poor sleep quality. While the average length of sleep in this study was only 6.4 hours a night (and nearly half slept fewer than six hours each night), it was sleep quality, not quantity, that appeared to influence hypertension risk. While this study only found an association with women, other studies have also linked hypertension in men to a lack of deep sleep,¹ and sleeping fewer than seven hours a night has been linked to hypertension in both men and women.² Read Part 3 References ¹ Hypertension AHA August 29, 2011 ² Sleep. 2006 Aug;29(8):1009-14.

A growing body of scientific evidence shows that vitamin D plays a crucial role in disease prevention and maintaining optimal health.  You have about 30,000 genes in your body and vitamin D affects nearly 3,000.  This is in addition to all the vitamin D receptors through out your body. Inflammation is the body's attempt at self-protection; the aim being to remove harmful stimuli, including damaged cells, irritants, or pathogens. While inflammation is a vital part of the body's immune response, it can also be problematic and plays a role in some chronic diseases e.g asthma, arthritis. Researchers investigated specific signalling events that vitamin D suppresses in order to inhibit inflammation.  Research published in The Journal of Immunology called it the "inflammatory cascade"; low vitamin D levels failed to inhibit the cascade while adequate levels did the job.  Researchers concluded that patients with chronic inflammatory diseases who are also vitamin D deficient may benefit from supplementation. Researchers in Turkey, reported in the international Journal of Rheumatic Diseases that chronic widespread musculoskeletal pain is improved with vitamin D.  Fibromyalgia sufferers and other patients with chronic widespread musculoskeletal pain were given 50,000 iu/week oral vitamin D3 for three months.  Afterwards scientists discovered decreases in pain, fatigue upon awaking, lack of energy, tender points and depression.  Significantly there were 30 Fibromyalgia patients at the beginning of the study and only 20 at the end! Next week I want to look at the relationship between low vitamin D levels and common ailments. References Zhang Y, et al. (2012). Vitamin D Inhibits Monocyte/Macrophage Proinflammatory Cytokine Production by Targeting MAPK Phosphatase-1. The Journal of Immunology.

1. http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/heart_vascular_institute/clinical_services/centers_excellence/womens_cardiovascular_health_center/patient_information/health_topics/vitamin_d_and_the_heart.html