Can Meditation Help Cut Heart Disease Risk?

Being a 7000-year-old practice, meditation is a technique used to achieve a mentally clear and emotionally calm state by focusing the mind on a particular object, thought or activity. Meditation may be employed to reduce stress, anxiety, depression, and pain, and increase peace, perception and wellbeing. Stress is a risk factor for heart disease. 

Research on meditation and cardiovascular health is limited, but some studies did suggest that meditation may boost the defense against heart disease. In fact, there is some evidence that meditation may speed up activity in the parasympathetic nervous system, which is involved in lowering blood pressure and heart rate during periods of relaxation.

According to a scientific statement from the American Heart Association (AHA) published September 28, 2017 in the ‘Journal of the American Heart Association’, the studies on meditation suggest a possible benefit of meditation on heart disease risk reduction.

The attention was focused on the effects of various sitting meditation practices, including mindful meditation, Samatha, Zen meditation, and transcendental meditation, and excluding combined mind-body practices like yoga and Tai Chi. This is because the physical activity involved in such practices has already been shown to benefit heart disease risk.

In their review of previously published studies, researchers found that meditation is associated with reduced stress, anxiety, and depression and improved sleep quality and general wellbeing. The researchers also reported that meditation may also help to lower high blood pressure, help people who smoke quit, and may help lower heart attack risk. 

One of the studies being reviewed involved 201 people with coronary artery disease participated in either a transcendental meditation program or a health education program. Transcendental meditation is a type of meditation that involves sitting with the eyes closed and repeating a mantra. After about 5 years, mortality and the number of heart attacks or strokes was significantly lower in those in the meditation group.

While the findings suggested that meditation has a possible benefit on cardiovascular risk, researchers emphasize that more high-quality, large-scale clinical trials is needed before any conclusions can be made.

Nevertheless, as stated by the researchers, meditation may be a low-cost, low-risk practice that can be used together with conventional strategies like diet, exercise, and other lifestyle modifications.

Generally, other health experts not involving in the study agree that meditation may help lower the risk of heart disease by countering the impact of stress on the body. When people are under stress, their fight or flight response can be triggered, leading to a release of stress hormones and spikes in blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen consumption and a release of inflammatory chemicals in the body. Meditation can trigger the opposite of a fight or flight response, encouraging the body to slow down and improving risk factors for heart disease like metabolic problems or inflammation.

Heart Disease Prevention - How Is Stress Linked To Heart Disease?

While there is no direct link between stress and heart disease, according to the American Heart Association, chronic stress can negatively affect the health and can cause issues that can lead to heart disease. Click the following link for more details:

Heart Disease Prevention - How Is Stress Linked To Heart Disease?

Heart Disease Prevention - How To Manage Stress To Prevent Heart Disease?

It is believed that stress triggers inflammation, a known instigator of heart disease, though this has not been proven. Yet some people can act in a way that might increase their risk of heart disease because of stress. Find out how to manage stress at:

Heart Disease Prevention - How To Manage Stress To Prevent Heart Disease?

Heart Disease Prevention - How Does Stress Affect Heart Attack Recovery?

Though a previous study had actually suggested a link between higher levels of perceived stress and poorer health outcomes and death rates in older heart attack patients, there is little information available regarding this connection in younger people. In the new study, women were found to experience greater mental stress than men, and because of this, women generally recover worse than men after heart attack. For more details, click the following link:

Heart Disease Prevention - How Does Stress Affect Heart Attack Recovery?

Heart Disease Prevention - Effect Of Stress Eating On Heart Disease

A study conducted by researchers from The Ohio State University found that women who experienced one or more stressful events the day prior to eating just one single high-fat meal could potentially had an 11-pound weight gain over the course of a year. The paper was published in the journal ‘Biological Psychiatry’. Find out more by clicking the following link:

Heart Disease Prevention - Effect Of Stress Eating On Heart Disease

Are Women’s Stroke Risk Being Ignored?

People are afraid of getting a stroke. But what is your understanding of stroke?

According to American Stroke Association, a stroke is a condition when a blood vessel that carries oxygen and nutrients to the brain is either blocked by a clot or is burst. When this happens, the oxygen will be prevented from reaching the brain and this will kill the brain cells.

A report by the American Heart Association (AHA) revealed that stroke is the third leading killer of women in the United States. 60 percent of all stroke-related deaths in 2010 occurred in women, and non-Hispanic black women are most at risk.

Many of the stroke cases could have been prevented but doctors often underestimated the risks in their female patients. That is why AHA, after reviewing scientific literature, released the first guidelines for the prevention of stroke. The new guidelines, which were released online February 6, 2014 in the journal ‘Stroke’, include recommendations for women of all ages.

While the new guidelines were meant mainly for the doctors, women need to be more aware of their risks too.

Men and women share many of the same risk factors for stroke like high cholesterol, smoking and obesity. There are, however, some that are specific to women, including pregnancy, preeclampsia, gestational diabetes and birth control pills. Others that are more common in women than in men are migraine with aura, atrial fibrillation or abnormal heart rhythm, diabetes, high blood pressure and depression and psychosocial stress.

Women have a higher lifetime of stroke because they live longer. They also tend to do worse after they have had a stroke, and they are more likely to end up in long-term nursing care and have a worse quality of life. Therefore, it is important to emphasize prevention and to start those strategies early in the childbearing years for women.

On the other hand, it is also possible that women do not take prescribed drugs because of the side effects like fatigue and frequent urination, or women might not be treated as aggressively as men.

The researchers noted that some of the women-specific risk factors are significant only if coupled with others. For instance, birth control pills become an issue if a woman also smokes or has high blood pressure. For a healthy woman, taking birth control pills might cause a little rise in her blood pressure, which is something to watch out for.

Some studies did indicate that high blood pressure is more common in women aged above 55 than in men and the condition has often not been managed well in women, though uncontrolled high blood pressure is a stroke risk for both sexes.

Certain things that are inherited cannot be changed. Nevertheless, people can always modify their lifestyle to cut their stroke risk by as much as 70 percent, better than any medications can accomplish.

Cardiovascular Risk Increases After Losing Loved One!

When someone who is loved passed away, the survivors would be grieved over his or her death. They might have loss of sleep and appetite over a period of time. All this could have aggravated existing underlying medical conditions.

A study of old folks revealed that the risk of heart attack was double in the 30 days following the loss of a partner, and stroke risk rose 2.4 times over that of similarly aged people who had not sustained a loss. The findings were published online February 24, 2014 in the ‘Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) Internal Medicine’.

After comparing 30,447 bereaved patients to 83,588 who were matched in age and gender but had not lost a partner, the British researchers from St George’s University of London and Brunel University found that the risk of heart attack and stroke was highest in the month after the loss and the risk declined slowly over the following year.

The participants, who aged between 60 and 89, were taken from a United Kingdom primary care database containing available data of 401 general practices from February 2005 through September 2012.

As a matter of fact, evidence from other studies have already shown that bereavement and grief could lead to a range of adverse physiological responses, including changes in blood clotting, blood pressure, stress hormone levels and heart rate control. All these would possibly contribute to a higher risk of cardiovascular events like heart attack and stroke after loss of a partner.

While the actual reasons have yet to be determined, there are some explanations available. For instance, some studies have indicated that intense stress could activate the ‘fight or flight’ response that could trigger a surge of epinephrine, adrenaline and cortisol. When at low and medium doses, these hormones are good because they cause the heart pump harder and faster. People might need this in many situations, for instance, when they are doing exercise. But in some people, very high doses of adrenaline have a toxic effect on the heart.

In addition, people’s daily schedules could be interrupted, for example, they might forget to take their medications, stop eating right or do some harmful things like drinking or eating too much. Changes like these could undoubtedly raise the risk of heart attack.

Hence, it is important that doctors, friends and family members are aware of this increased risk so that they can make sure that care and support is as good as possible, especially in the first month following bereavement when stress levels are particularly high.

Meanwhile, the survivors should look after themselves and if they are having trouble coping, they should seek help from their doctors who will be able to advise on any health issues or offer any further support that they might need.

Laugh More To Be Healthy!

“Laughter can be the best medicine.”

Believe it or not, this is what people always talk about. Is this statement true? If yes, what are the reasons behind such claim?

After years of research, scientists have found some justifications on why laughing is good for the health.  

First of all, laughing boosts the immune system. Laughter has been shown to raise levels of salivary immunoglobulin A (IgA), an important antibody that fights bacteria and infections, especially those in the respiratory system.

Pain could be relieved by laughter, which is effective, free and available everywhere. Endorphins are human body’s natural painkiller that can help ease chronic pain. It is released when people laugh.

Laughing might also increase the tolerance for pain. By watching just 15 minutes of comedy with other people pushed up the pain threshold by about 10 percent, according to a paper published in 2011 in ‘Proceedings Of The Royal Society B: Biological Sciences’ by researchers from the University of Oxford in Britain. Watching drama, factual shows or feel-good nature program, in contrast, did not affect the pain threshold.

Blood sugar levels might be positively affected by laughter, too. In a study, people with Type-2 diabetes and those without diabetes attended a boring lecture after eating a meal. On the next day, the participants joined a comedy show after eating the same meal. The blood glucose levels did not increase after the meal for the diabetic patients at the comedy show. While the researchers have not figured out the exact cause, they suspected that laughter might impact the neuroendocrine system and restrain blood sugar levels from spiking, or cause the acceleration of glucose use by muscle motion.

As shown by studies, laughter could lower or balance blood pressure and increase vascular blood flow. People who lower their blood pressure will reduce their risk of heart attack and stroke. 

By improving blood circulation and increasing oxygenation of the blood, laughter might help fight against heart disease. In a study conducted by the University of Maryland in 2005, laughter was linked to cardiovascular health. The findings found that laughter seemed to cause the endothelium (tissue that composes the lining of blood vessels) to expand and allow for better blood flow.

For those who are unable to do other physical activity due to injury or illness, laughter could be a great cardio workout. Laughing can help the heart pump and burn a similar amount of calories per hour as walking at a slow to moderate pace.

Nevertheless, laughter cannot simply replace medications. Patients should still take the drugs, if any, that are prescribed by their doctors.

Can Healthy Habits Counter Stress?

While stress can be positive, it becomes negative when it continues without relief until a condition called distress occurs. Distress can cause physical symptoms including headaches, upset stomach, elevated blood pressure, chest pain, and sleeping problems.

Stress can also lead to or worsen certain symptoms or diseases, including high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, skin conditions, depression and anxiety. It is estimated that 43 percent of all adults suffer stress related health ailments.

A paper published on May 13, 2013 in the ‘Canadian Medical Association Journal’ by researchers from the University College London and other institutions reported that job strain was linked to a 25 percent higher chance of getting a heart attack or dying of heart problems. But the risks could be cut by 50 percent among people, either stressed or otherwise, who maintained a healthy lifestyle comparing to those who drank, smoked or were obese. Job stress was defined in the study as having a lot of demands at work with little control.

Though people have been encouraged to reduce work stress for heart disease prevention, this is sometimes unrealistic for certain group of people. As such, researchers were eager to find out whether adopting an otherwise healthy lifestyle would reduce heart disease risk among those with job strain.

Using data gathered from 7 European studies that surveyed 107,200 people about their general lifestyle habits that included how much strain they were under at work, the researchers found that about 1 in 6 initially reported being under job strain. None of these participants had heart disease at the start of the study.

Over the next 7 years, on average, there were about 1,100 heart attacks or deaths from heart disease. Over a decade, it was found that 12 cases per 1,000 generally healthy people without job strain and 31 per 1,000 people with job strain and multiple lifestyle risks like rarely exercising or having more than 3 or 4 alcoholic drinks a day.

Analysis also showed that approximately 4 percent of all heart attacks and deaths from heart disease could be due to job strain and about 26 percent to drinking, smoking, obesity and lack of physical activity.

Nevertheless, the new study might underestimate the link between job strain and heart disease. Furthermore, other types of job stress that may influence heart risks, like having low social support and job insecurity, were not taken into account.

The new study also did not prove that pressure at work causes heart problems, though the results are in tandem with past studies that suggested chronic stress, including from job strain, could have negative health effects.

Meanwhile, the American Heart Association (AHA) also advise people with stress to adopt positive healthy habits that include performing daily physical activity, giving up bad habits, getting enough sleep and trying not to worry.

Does Stress Cause Weight Gain Or Vice Versa?

The primary causes of obesity, as highlighted by the World Health Organization (WHO), are diet high in fat, salt and sugar, and lack of physical activity. Of course, there are other factors that could also make people become overweight or obese. For instance, stress can make a person fat, too.

 

In the present fast pace environment, people are constantly under tremendous stress, which could come from their boss, co-workers, peers or even family members. Stress can contribute to weight gain in a number of ways. One of them is do with cortisol, a stress hormone. When human bodies are under stress, the fight or flight response is triggered leading to release of various hormones.

 

With an intention to explore how stress and obesity might be linked and find out the cause and consequence relationship between stress response and obesity, researchers from University of Stavanger, Norway reviewed a number of previous studies showing weight gain and cortisol levels were noticeably higher in people who became fatter because of stress.

 

They finally established a hypothesis: “stress and obesity could reinforce each other through positive feedback”. In other words, stress can make one fat and being obese can create stress as well. Their findings were published on March 28, 2011 in ‘Medical Hypotheses’.

 

According to their arguments, getting fatter could potentially trigger the stress response that would encourage additional weight gain. When a person gains weight, the body also filled with stress, which would probably make this person gain additional weight.

 

Meanwhile, they also suggested out that dieting could also stimulate cortisol production that might trigger the stress response and thereby prevent the weight loss. If their hypothesis were correct, people will have to break the stress cycle if they want to prevent weight gain.

 

Perhaps, the new hypothesis could help people understand and cope with obesity, which can likely cause them to develop chronic diseases including diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

More Women Are Affected By Heart Disease!

It is thought that heart disease is more common among men. But as what NIH (National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute) has announced, heart disease is the number one killer of women in the United States and it is also a leading cause of disability among women.

Heart disease, rather than breast cancer, has become the number one killer for women in Malaysia. The statistics provided by the Heart Foundation Malaysia (HFM) showed that 1 in 3 women died of heart disease while only 1 in 8 women died of breast cancer. In fact, heart disease is the major cause of death in government hospitals, which accounted for about 25 percent of all deaths.

In Goa, a state in India, 10 to 11 percent of the population is being hit by heart diseases. While heart disease is spread across the genders, women seem to be leading and this is a situation that has never prevailed in Goa. Initially, heart disease was restricted to the age group above 50 years but now people between 30 and 40 are diagnosed with heart disease.

According to cardiac experts, more women die of heart disease especially after menopause when the oestrogen level in their body changes. When one grows older, the risk of getting heart disease also rises. However, the latest trend does show that those below the age of 40 have also developed heart disease due to their unhealthy eating habits, smoking and alcohol consumption. Other modifiable risk factors include high cholesterol level, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and stress.

It is important that the younger adults should adopt a healthy lifestyle by avoiding alcohol consumption and smoking, having a balanced diet, exercising at least 30 minutes or getting for a brisk walk everyday and learning how to handle stress.

People could lower their high cholesterol risk factor by consuming low cholesterol food items and avoiding food high in animal fat like dairy products, egg yolk, coconut milk and seafood except fish. People should also consume less salt, sugar and oily food to lower other risk factors such as hypertension (high blood pressure) and obesity.

How Fast Can Stroke Cause Brain Damage?

A stroke, sometimes also known as brain attack, occurs when there is an interruption of blood supply to any part of the brain because of blockage or burst in one of the blood vessels in the brain. If the brain cannot get blood and oxygen, the brain cells could die and permanent damage would be caused within a relatively short period.

Stroke is one of the top killer s in the developed countries. In Canada, stroke ranks the fourth leading cause of death, affecting as many as 50,000 people and killing 16,000 every year. Risk factors for stroke include alcoholism, diabetes, high cholesterol, overweight or obesity, physical inactivity, smoking and stress.

So how fast can stroke damage the brain?

Common public perception believes that all strokes can be medically treated within 3 hours, but scientists from the University of British Columbia in this Western Canadian city reported otherwise. Their study, which was funded by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, found that stroke could cause brain damage within 3 minutes.

Generally, stroke can be categorized into 2 types: ischemic and hemorrhagic. Ischemic strokes are those caused by interruption of the blood supply, while hemorrhagic strokes are those that result from rupture of a blood vessel or an abnormal vascular structure.

About 80 percent of stroke patients suffer ischemic stroke, which can usually be treated by clot-busting medications, provided if they could be admitted to the hospital within 3 hours. In reality, not every stroke patient is a candidate for clot-busting drugs.

Based on the results obtained from animal experiments performed, the scientists declared that brain could be damaged within 3 minutes. Such 3-minute window does not give people sufficient time to even call for help.

Preventive measures, therefore, are urgently required to tackle structural changes that happen very early on. People just need to manage risk factors and change their lifestyle to prevent getting a stroke, instead of relying on treatment when stroke strikes them.

Can Smoking Relieve Stress?

Numerous studies have shown that smoking and secondhand smoke are linked to many medical disorders including cancer, heart disease, hypertension (high blood pressure), and stroke. So quitting smoking would certainly be beneficial to both smokers and people around them.

Interestingly, many smokers have claimed that lighting up a cigarette can actually help them reduce the stress they have. This is probably a fairly good reason for millions of smokers to light up their cigarettes again even after quitting.

But studies have found otherwise. In reality, smoking has the entirely different effect. Instead of reduced, the long-term stress levels will be raised among smokers. In fact, smokers can have their stress relieved only when they quit smoking.

In a paper published on June 7, 2010 in the journal “Addiction”, researchers from the London School of Medicine and Dentistry found that smokers who stopped lighting up cigarettes had a significant larger reduction in perceived stress.

A total of 469 people, who attempted to quit smoking after being hospitalized for heart disease, were examined. At the outset, the participants had similar stress levels and about 85 percent of these people generally believed that smoking helped them cope with the stress they had.

After a year, 41 percent of the participants managed to quit smoking completely and their perceived stress levels were reduced by about 20 percent, whereas patients who continue smoking showed little change in their perceived stress levels.

Obviously, the findings supported the theory that smoking can actually contribute to stress among some people. But why do smokers still think that lighting up a cigarette could help them relieve stress?

According to researchers, when smokers are refrained from smoking, they tend to feel more and more edgy, irritable and uncomfortable as the period lengthens. A cigarette would more or less help them get through the stressful state. This is probably the main reason smokers think that smoking help them reduce stress.

Therefore, smoking can relieve stress is actually a myth, at least in the long term.

Be Happy for Heart Disease Prevention!

There are about 2.5 million people in Britain with heart disease, which is the single biggest killer, causing 94,000 deaths a year.

While “do not smoke, have a healthy diet and exercise regularly” are the 3 basic things that people could do to maintain a healthy heart and avoid heart attack, a paper published online on February 18, 2010 in the European Heart Journal indicated that happiness might help to keep a healthy heart!

Researchers from Columbia University Medical Centre in New York, America used a 5-point scale to measure happiness levels of more than 1,700 adults in Canada with no heart disease in 1995. After a decade, they examined the 145 people who developed heart disease and found that happier people were less likely to have had heart problem.

After statistically adjusting to account for other factors like age, gender and smoking, it was found that for every point on the happiness scale, people were 22 percent less likely to develop heart disease.

It has been known that depression and stress would significantly raise people’s risk of developing heart disease, but this study is believed to be the first to suggest happiness could lessen heart disease risk.

Happy people tend to be more likely to have a healthier lifestyle. This could be owing to an unknown genetic trait embedded in these people making them happy and have less heart disease.

According to researchers, even if one is not naturally a happy person, just try acting like one; it could really help the heart!

Ordinary people can ensure they engage with some activities that they like in their daily lives. For example, spending 15 minutes or so to read a book or incorporate activities like walking or listening to music in the daily schedule if these activities could improve one’s mood.

Nevertheless, as this study used an experimental design that is good for observation of trends and associations, it does not prove cause and effect nor confirm lowering risk of heart disease by changing one’s mood. Perhaps, more studies should be carried out to find out more from the cause and effect perspective.

Would Depression Raise Stroke Risk?

When the blood flow to the brain is blocked, stroke would occur. It is one of the leading causes of death and permanent disability globally. It usually happens to elderly people but it can strike anyone including young people, children and even babies too.

Being a state of feeling sad, depression can affect thoughts, feelings and ability to function in everyday’s life. A number of factors including stress, difficult life events, side effects of medications, and unpleasant environmental factors can trigger depression. Depression can occur at any age. It is estimated that almost 10 percent of American adults (aged 18 and above) experience some sort of depression every year.

There are not many debates on the argument that people who had strokes are likely to have depression, as previous studies had shown. But it appears that experts have yet to have consensus on whether depression would lead to stroke.

For example, researchers from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) pointed out in the July/August 2000 issue of Psychosomatic Medicine that people experiencing symptoms of depression are at an increased risk of getting stroke. The 20-year study found that people with high levels of depression symptoms were 73 percent more likely to have stroke, while those with moderate levels of depression symptoms were 25 percent more likely to develop stroke.

On the other hand, a large study, published on March 3, 2008 in the journal Neurology, reported that depression does not appear to increase the risk of stroke, and it is the high degree of psychological distress seemed to raise the risk.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge studied more than 20,000 people aged between 41 and 80 over a period of 8 and half years to discover if there is a link between depression and stroke.

600 people in the study suffered a stroke, 28 percent of which were fatal. But the researchers could not find any significant link between depression and stroke, after they factored for known risk factors like family history, high blood pressure, obesity and smoking. Instead, they identified psychological distress as the culprit. The most distressed people had a 40 percent higher chance of getting a stroke. The findings were similar for both men and women.

Distress occurs when an individual could not cope with stress. It can be marked by anxiety and problems with emotional control.

How Could A Bank Crisis Link To Heart Disease?

If someone says that you would be at risk of getting heart disease if you do not exercise and do not watch your diet, you would surely not be surprise! However, you would probably stare at a person who tells you that you will very likely to have heart disease if there is a repetition of “bank crisis”. This is understandable because in your memory, bank crisis has never been quoted as a risk factor for heart disease.

On February 26, 2008, a team of researchers from Cambridge University reported that if there were a widespread repetition of bank crisis (like the one at Britain’s Northern Rock Bank), thousands of people could be die from heart attack.

They pointed out that the stress of a system-wide bank crisis could contribute to a 6.4-percent increase in heart attack in countries like Britain and the United States. Take Britain as example, between 1,280 and 5,130 people could just die if there were a significant number of banks being forced to close down. This could apply to developing countries as well. The number of heart attack in country like India could rise by as much as 26 percent.

The researchers named their study as "Can A Bank Crisis Break Your Heart?" The findings of the study were based on comparisons of World Health Organization (WHO) and World Bank data on mortality rates and previous banking crisis between 1960 and 2002. The study was initiated in September 2007 after the Northern Rock Bank nearly collapse. In order to stay afloat, the bank was forced to apply for emergency central bank loans.

Banking crisis and the large-scale economic turbulence it brings along were found to be a significant determinant of short-term increases in heart disease and mortality. Every time there is a systemic bank crisis, cardiac deaths surge briefly and regularly. The stress level during such times is very similar to those experienced by individuals during earthquakes, wars or even terrorist attack. This would frequently raise heart and blood pressure, which will in turn increase the chance of getting heart attack.

Older people would especially be hurt the most because they feel unsafe about their lifetime-accumulated savings and because of their possible predisposition to conditions like diabetes, hypertension (high blood pressure), overweight, etc.

In the case of Northern Rock Bank, spreading panic had caused ordinary customers to completely lose their trust in the financial system that appeared to have completely eroded.

Can Meditation Help Reduce Heart Disease and Stroke Risk?

Hypertension, or what is more commonly known as high blood pressure, is definitely a risk factor for heart disease and stroke. Therefore, when one is diagnosed with hypertension, his or her doctor will prescribe hypertensive medication for reduction of blood pressure.

Besides drugs, there are also other ways such as diet and exercise can help reduce blood pressure. In fact, a study, which was carried out by researchers from the University of Kentucky in Lexington and published in the American Journal of Hypertension, reported that practicing a particular type of meditation twice a day could significantly reduce blood pressure.

The findings also indicated that the blood pressure reductions associated with regular practice of transcendental meditation (TM) would actually translate to a 12 to15 percent reduced risk of dying from cardiovascular causes and a 15 to 20 percent lower risk of stroke.

Besides TM, there are a number of different types of meditation and relaxation techniques. However, TM is unique in a way that it can bring the practitioner into a quiet zone that acts as some kind of sanctuary for a person, refreshing them and reducing stress.

In TM, a person sits in a comfortable chair for 20 minutes twice a day and attempts to quiet the mind by focusing on a mantra. It is simple but training is required for one to get into it.

In order to understand better the real benefits of practicing TM for people with high blood pressure, the researchers examined 9 trials that compared blood pressure changes in a group of patients practicing TM versus a so-called 'control' group. As some previous research on TM has been criticized as being biased and of poor quality, they analyzed the findings of only 3 clinical trials that they rated as being high quality.

Their analysis showed that TM reduced systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure reading) by 4.7 points and diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number) by 3.2 points. Sustained blood pressure reductions of such magnitude, according to the researchers, could significantly reduce the risk of heart disease.

Can Diabetes Be Prevented and Even Cured?

Type-2 diabetes is usually caused by overweight or obesity. Being a diabetic, he or she is at a much higher risk of getting high blood pressure, kidney failure, and even heart disease.

According to the statistics released by the diabetes association, nearly 57 million people in the United States are pre-diabetic and 18 million have been diagnosed with diabetes. Meanwhile, there are almost 6 million Americans, who have diabetes, but they are not aware of it. About 90 to 95 percent of diabetics are classified as Type-2 diabetes, which is closely related to obesity.

Generally, when a person is diagnosed as pre-diabetic, he or she would not really bother because technically, he or she would not be classified as diabetic just because of a slightly higher than normal blood sugar level.

A 55-year-old woman Jane (not her real name) in Dallas was diagnosed as pre-diabetic by her doctor who advised her to lose 3 kilograms through changing her lifestyle and diet. Nevertheless, this did not really alarm her even her sister had died of diabetes.

9 months later, she was confirmed having Type-2 diabetes. By then, she was shock and took the advice from her doctor seriously. On a regular basis, she exercised and her weight had slimmed down. More importantly, her blood sugar level fell back to normal and healthy range without taking any diabetes medications.

In fact, the medical community is expressing its interest in diabetics like Jane who manage to get their blood sugar under control, either escaping the need for drugs or improving enough to keep away from the medication. The task force from American Diabetes Association will focus on this group of patients to see if they can be considered cured.

The future is definitely not promising with one study had estimated that 1 of every 3 children born in the United States in the year of 2000 will eventually develop diabetes. On the other hand, a diabetes prevention study had revealed that daily exercise for 30 minutes and a 5 to 10 percent loss in body weight could actually reduce the risk of getting diabetes by nearly 60 percent and it is more effective than medicine in delaying its onset.

Though some health experts do admit diabetes could be prevented with diet and exercise, they also stressed that this is a one-way road and there is no turning back! Other doctors caution that for some diabetics, lowering of blood sugar may be temporary. If they later on experience stress, weight gain or any other factors, their blood sugar would surely be push back to the unhealthy level.

Anger and Stress Can Be Deadly for People With Heart Disease!

According to the American College of Cardiology, there are more than 400,000 sudden cardiac deaths in the United States every year. Previous studies also showed that earthquakes, war or even the loss of a World Cup soccer match could raise rates of death from sudden cardiac arrest. Sudden cardiac arrest is a condition in which the heart stops circulating blood.

Recently, a study by Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut indicated that anger and other strong emotions could trigger potentially deadly heart rhythms in certain people with heart disease. The paper was published on February 23, 2009 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

62 patients with heart disease were studied by the researchers. They were equipped with implantable heart defibrillators or ICDs (implantable cardioverter-defibrillator), which are devices that deliver an electrical shock to restore a normal heartbeat when dangerous heart rhythms or arrhythmias are detected.

The patients were asked to recount a recent angry episode so that the research team could perform a so-called T-Wave Alternans test to measure electrical instability in the heart. By specifically asking questions to get people to relive the angry episode, the researchers found in the lab setting that anger did increase the electrical instability in these patients.

These patients were then followed for 3 years. The study found that people who had the highest anger-induced electrical instability were 10 times more likely to have an arrhythmia in follow-up.

The researchers suggested that anger could be deadly for people who are already vulnerable to this type of disturbance in the heart. However, how anger and stress might affect people with normal hearts is likely very different from how it might affect the heart with structural abnormalities. Therefore, they cautioned that people should not simply extrapolate their results to normal people.

Meanwhile, a study has been conducted by the same researchers to see if anger management classes can actually help reduce the risk of arrhythmia for patients who are at risk.

Can Living Near Green Space Prevent Heart Disease?

Some earlier studies had already shown that living near green space would improve people’s states of health. However, a new report released on November 7, 2008 by the University of Glasgow indicated that some of the impacts are bigger than thought.

According to the study, parks, forests and playing fields could greatly narrow the health gaps between the rich and poor. In fact, the size of the difference in the health gap is surprising and represented a much bigger effect than what the researchers had been expecting.

In the study, the health impact of parks, forests, and playing fields were examined by dividing England into 5 sectors based on the amount of adjacent green areas and then death rates between rich and poor were compared. It was found that the health gap in the greenest areas between the richest and poorest people as measured by death rates was about half as big as that in the least green areas.

Helping people get rid of stress and allowing them to have more physical activity would naturally help them reduce the risk of heart disease. This is exactly what the parkland and open space could offer and make a difference.

For the very first time, research had shown that physical environment could create such an impact in such a good way with a combination of exercise and restoration. As such, the governments are urged to promote and invest in green areas.

The researchers believe that green spaces are other viable tools for governments to narrow the health gap between the rich and the poor. This is because over long term, government could have a substantial saving on the health care spending if they promote outdoors recreation and hence boost health for their people.