Pak Doktor a.k.a. Mr Doctor!

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(ARA) – Making healthy decisions isn’t always easy in today’s fast-paced world. But what you may not realize is that even the smallest choices can have a big impact on your health, mindset and life. There are many simple ways to defend your health every day including easy nutritional and physical routines that you can feel good about.

“A busy lifestyle doesn’t have to mean sacrificing healthy choices,” says leading nutrition expert Dr. Susan Mitchell. “One healthy commitment that many Americans aren’t currently making is to get enough fiber in their diets, which is important in helping to maintain immunity and digestive health. In fact, the majority of Americans only get half the recommended daily amount, mainly because today’s easily accessible food is processed or refined and contains few nutrients.”

A prebiotic fiber supplement like FiberChoice is a simple, convenient way for people to help close the gap between the fiber that they get from food and the additional fiber that they need. The prebiotic fiber in every serving helps the good bacteria in the digestive system grow and thrive, supporting overall health and helping to avoid digestive problems. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Dr. Susan Mitchell suggests these additional small, smart choices that can have big health benefits:

* Take the steps instead of the elevator. If you sit at a desk most of the day, get up about every hour and climb a flight of stairs in your building. At the end of the day, it makes quite a difference.

* Take a little “me” time. A mental health day every once in a while can help alleviate stress which can lead to long-term health issues.

* Still hungry after lunch or dinner? Add a second helping of salad or vegetables. Your body will love the additional nutrients and fiber found in many vegetables such as asparagus, broccoli, artichokes or cauliflower.

* Be adventurous and try new foods. Most people only eat pumpkin at Thanksgiving, but canned pumpkin is actually available year-round. It’s high in fiber and beta-carotene and low in fat. Try mixing it in a smoothie with low-fat frozen yogurt and cinnamon.

It can be hard to know if you’re getting the recommended daily fiber intake (25 to 30 grams). A prebiotic fiber supplement, such as FiberChoice helps remove the guesswork as just two tablets contain 4 grams of prebiotic fiber.

For more information, visit www.fiberchoice.com or www.twitter.com/fiberchoice.

Dr. Susan Mitchell is compensated by GSK but her opinions are her own.

There are many ways you can improve your health; some people take vitamins and
minerals (together with a balanced diet), while others place their faith in protein
supplements, to complement a structured exercise regime.

One thing is clear, over the last decade or so individuals across the United
Kingdom, and the rest of the world for that matter, have begun to realise
the importance of leading a healthy lifestyle.

Not only can living healthily help you to live longer, it can also give you a
much happier and enjoyable life. One reason why people are more aware of
these matters today is due to the coverage of the subject across the media.

There is so much information at our fingertips today that there is simply no
excuse for leading an unhealthy lifestyle. To give you a helping hand in the
right direction here are 10 easy ways that you can improve your health and
fitness quickly.

One of the simplest and quickest ways to improve your health is to eat more
fruit. Many people do not eat fruit as they find it difficult and
troublesome to prepare. The secret is to purchase easy to eat fruits such as
grapes, bananas and dried fruits. If you have these lying around the house
rather than sweets and biscuits you will find it much easier to substitute
them as snacks.

Sleep is extremely important to your health and far too many people do not get
enough. This could be for a number of reasons, a hectic work life, a large
family to look after or the fact that you just watch too much television.
Whatever the reason, it’s just not good for you, so just try to get an extra
hour’s sleep per day and you will be amazed at the difference it makes.

Stress can cause a lot of problems inside your body. As we live rather
stressful lives due to busy work schedules and money problems, it is
important to relax whenever possible. Try to insert 20-30 minutes of
relaxation time into your day; this could be anything from reading to yoga,
as long as you are completely relaxed the whole time.

Most people do not consume anywhere near enough water, which is vital to your
health and fitness. It’s common for people to drink coffee, tea and fizzy
drinks more often; so try replacing at least one drink per day with just
water.

Eating too quickly can be hazardous to your health and prevents your body from
taking in the nutrients such as protein and iron that you need to survive.
Eating more slowly and allowing your food to digest will improve your
digestion and your immune system.

Most people, vegetarians excluded of course, eat too much meat. If you are
able to replace just one meal per week with a completely vegetarian dish you
will help your body hugely. Vegetables hold a lot of vitamins and they are
all great for your health.

A simple but effective method of improving your health is by replacing white
bread with brown, as there is much less sugar in brown bread.

Salad is also a great way to keep you healthy, but make sure that you vary the
kind of salads that you eat. Don’t simply stick to iceberg lettuce, be
adventurous, try tasty leaves like rocket and spinach.

Reduction in your portion sizes, is a simple but effective way to help you get
in shape. This is something that can be used along with the reduction of the
speed you eat at. If you eat slower and reduce your portion, your body is
able to burn higher amounts of fat.

Last, but by no means least, is exercise. It is no secret that exercise is
good for you but it’s important to carry it out safely and properly. For
example, if you are not used to exercise do not just go running, start by
walking a little every day and build your body up.

Starting off too fast will cause more harm than good. Once you start
exercising it is even more important that you monitor your protein and
carbohydrate levels as your body will need them to repair.

These are 10 simple ways that you can improve your health, more can (of
course) easily be found online. There is simply no excuse for not being
healthy today; all of the food and information that you require is within
reach.

“For anything other than religion and spirituality, governments and health
providers would be doing their utmost to promote it,” they quoted him as
saying.

Of all the factors that affect our health and fitness, noise and its impact on our well being is, perhaps, the toughest for us to control. In fact, we don’t really pay any heed to noise and its affects on our health.

However, noise can seriously impact our health in many ways. And since we live in cities where noise has reached new heights altogether, its only going to get worse. Here’s looking at how noise affects our health and whether we should be worried or not.

Noise can have a serious impact on your overall health and it’s not just your ears that are affected. Noise can cause stress and can also put you at risk of heart attacks. A recent article by the New York Times says that noise appears responsible for 1.8% of heart attacks in Western Europe and 2.7% in densely populated Germany.

Noise can increase blood pressure even when people are sleeping. Aircraft noise, a partner snoring, an extremely noisy neighbourhood, are all contributors to various hypertension related diseases. Apart from a direct impact on our health, researchers have found that noise can also affect us mentally and affect our cognitive functioning as well. Research shows that people fare worse when it comes to performing complex tasks, if exposed to high levels of air traffic or road traffic noise. Children who come from chaotic and noisy households also have trouble when it comes to reading comprehension and long term memory.

What can you do about noise pollution? You may stop the honking, but what about everyone else around you? No matter what the arguement though, it begins with you…

1. Always remember that noise pollution starts with you : When at home, try keeping things serene: soft music, low voices, don’t keep the tv on at blaring volume, don’t disturb your neighbours if you have a party going on. Try and keep noise levels at reasonable levels.

2. Minimise noise form other sources : Turn of the tv, radio, or other appliances when not in use. Don’t keep noisy appliances near the areas where you sleep. Try adding materials to your home that will insulate your house from noise, for example – carpets absorb noise, solid doors, and double paned windows.

3. Deal with stress: Sometimes in spite of your best efforts, you may live on a busy junction or near an airport and there is nothing you can do about the noise that creeps into your home. So it is important to deal with it like you would deal with stress. Be positive, try and find peace within yourself through meditation, and lead a healthy lifestyle through proper nutrition and exercise. Getting everything else right may put you in the right frame of mind to deal with stress caused by excessive noise.

4. Calming sounds: Flowing water, birds chirping, nature cds that have all kinds of natural sounds really have a positive effect and negate the effect of jarring noises outside. You could try investing in noise cancelling headphones or a white noise machine if the noise is really driving you insane.

Now that you know how noise may be hampering your health, we hope that you don’t ignore it anymore. Ask yourself if you really care for all that background noise from some random news channel 24/7. Chances are, you won’t miss it once the television is finally off, and your days will be a lot more peaceful and noise-free.

For more than a decade, Helen Osborne drafted health education material, but when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006 and her doctor gave her a printout that was supposed to help her understand her condition, she said she couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

“I had no idea what I just read,” said Osborne, who worked with a variety of medical centers and organizations, including the National Institutes of Health. “I could not even absorb it. I was totally floored.”

Osborne, 62, of Natick, Mass., reached out to her colleague at the National Cancer Institute to vent her frustration. She told her friend that she didn’t understand why the printout recommended that she see numerous specialists, including a medical oncologist and a radiation oncologist.

“Who exactly are these folks anyway?” she recalled asking her colleague.

“Well, Helen,” she recalled her colleague say, “You wrote a whole booklet about this topic already.”

Although Helen is highly educated and considered extremely literate, she is one of many Americans who, regardless of their education level, at times struggle to understand health information.

Nearly half of American adults, including doctors themselves, have poor health literacy, according to a report by the Institute of Medicine. Many struggle to understand instructions on prescription drug bottles, doctors’ notes, health insurance forms, and educational brochures.

And many studies suggest that understanding health information could mean the difference between life and death.

Surveyed heart failure patients who had low health literacy were more likely to die outside of a hospital setting than those who were considered health literate, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of American Medical Association.

“When you have something going wrong, there are many self-care components,” Osborne said. “So that takes a wide variety of skills to know why you need to do it, do it consistently and perfectly over time for a good part of your life.”

But literacy and health literacy are not synonymous terms, said Osborne, who founded Health Literacy Consulting, LLC.

“If you’re struggling to read, of course you’ll have trouble with health information,” she said

But health information is often hard to decipher on your own.

“The fact that I love Shakespeare does not mean I’ll have good health,” said Rima Rudd, senior lecturer on society, human development, and health at the Harvard School of Public Health. “The mistake in research has been to focus on skill level of patients rather than on the information presented to them.”

The responsibility lies in large part with some health experts who don’t effectively communicate health information with the patient, according to Rudd.

But it’s also due in part to some patients who don’t ask for clarification when they need it, Osborne said.