High Cholesterol in Teenagers

Teenagers should begin forming good habits regarding their diet and exercise because they will be far more difficult to adopt as adults. By taking care of high cholesterol as a teenager, they can significantly reduce their chances for heart problems further along in their lives. Teenagers should eat low-fat diets, avoid saturated fats, and eat more foods that come from plants like fruits and vegetables.

As a teenager, there is lots of peer pressure to try things such as alchohol and cigarettes. These are two habits you can't afford to pick up. They reduce HDL (good) cholesterol levels.

Teenagers are generally more active, but TV and video games has significantly hampered many teenager's physical activities. They should strive to exercise 30 minutes of aerobics at least 3 times a week. This will help raise HDL cholesterol levels.

What are acceptable levels of cholesterol for teenagers

Acceptable levels of cholesterol in teens are between 120 mg/dL and 170 mg/dL for total cholesterol. If you have levels above 200 mg/dL, you should see a doctor and make some lifestyle changes. It is normal for cholesterol levels to increase about 1 point per year after the age of 18.

How to lower LDL cholesterol in teenagers

If your cholesterol levels remain high even though you follow the treatment recommendations, ask for an appointment with a nutritionist for low cholesterol diets. Join a local gym or fitness center to get on a weekly routine. Medications are prescribed for adults to help lower their cholesterol levels in serious cases. However, teenagers are rarely prescribed unless they have a rare form of high cholesterol related to disease instead of diet.

Is Your Heart Sick?

Your heart and my heart.......

Can be time bombs.

Waiting to explode.

If you and I aren't careful and watchful for our hearts' well being and health..........

Tick, tick, tick........

The time bombs, could be quite harmless, well, until they detonate.

What I'm talking about is heart disease and it's a serious, serious matter.

I'm sure you've heard of heart disease but do you really know how it starts?

Not many of us do, because we think the disease won't hit us, so we don't bother.....

Until it's too late.

So it's time to really sit down and take stock of things regarding your heart (and my heart)......

In The Beginning.......

Back to the question: how does heart disease first start off?

Well, according to cardiologists, it begins with atherosclerosis - a process where cholesterol and other substances build up inside walls of your blood vessels and form little bumps called plaque.

Sometimes, so much plaque can form in a blood vessel that they narrow the space inside and restrict blood flow.

When this happens in the arteries supplying blood to your heart, you'll get chest pain, breathlessness and fatigue.

The situation worsens further because plaque is brittle, therefore easily ruptures, which forms a blood clot that can completely block all blood flow. If blood flow to your heart is blocked, you'll have heart attack; if it's to your brain, you'll have a stroke.

Like lots of people, you probably don't know whether your blood vessels are healthy. You may look healthy outside but inside, your blood vessels could be squeezed up and crying for help!

The thing with heart attack - you can never know when they'are going to happen, or can you?

A simple way to know is through your cholesterol level; it can reveal the state of your heart's health.

Get to know the 2 main types of cholesterol in your blood - "good" cholesterol (HDL-C) and "bad" cholesterol (LDL-C). It's the "bad" cholesterol that's causing you troubles in the heart. See, when partially oxidised, LDL-C becomes toxic and penetrates lining of blood vessels to form plaque.

3 Reasons For High Cholesterol

OK, why do you think we develop high levels of "bad" cholesterol?

For one, there's the stressful lifestyle we lead which affects us in more ways than we know - and one of it is careless eating and poor choice of food. This contributes to high cholesterol.

For two, if you smoke, it damages your arteries plus increases your cholesterol. You're twice as likely to suffer a heart attack compared with one who doesn't smoke.

For three, if you're overweight and obese, you tend to have high cholesterol, high blood glucose and high blood pressure which give you heart disease. This usually comes in threesome - if you've one, you'll get the other two as well......

And the most frightening part? Most people will die from a heart attack or a stroke......

How To Defuse The Time Bomb?

Yeah, right. I've been dishing out all the bad news to you.

Now, to the part of good news - how do you defuse this time bomb?

Health researchers suggest these "tried and true" ways:

1. Exercise!

Get off your couch.....g-e-t u-p and e-x-e-r-c-i-s-e!

Swing into the habit of exercising 3-4 times per week, for at least 20-30 minutes per session. Any exercise will do but cardio exercise is considered the best because it exercises your heart by revving up your heart rate, strenghtening it so it can pump blood more effieciently.

It also burns off body fat, reduces cholesterol and helps maintain a healthy bodyweight.

Examples of cardio exercise: running, walking, jogging, swimming, cycling, etc.........

One "secret" for you - choose one you like and enjoy doing. That way, you'll sustain long in the exercise because you enjoy doing it! And get a strong and healthy heart!

2. Eat right!

OK, I know this could be the "hard" part for you.

But it's essential you recognise this fact - if you don't eat right, your heart's gonna suffer......

Eating right means eat a well-balanced diet that's nutritious and don't indulge in overeating.

More importantly,cut down fats of all kinds as they're high in calories and in fat, putting you at risk of high cholesterol. If you must eat, opt for unsaturated fats. Avoid saturated fats and trans fat.

Health researchers also recommend we eat dietary fiber daily, sourced from vegetables, fruits, cereals and grains.

One very good source of fiber for your heart is oat, which has been clinically proven to reduce cholesterol as it binds the cholesterol-laden bile acids in the gut, hence preventing cholesterol from entering your blood stream.

So, eat more oats to keep your heart in healthy condition.

3. Regular medical check-ups!

This ensures that you're right on track with your heart health!

Obesity Paradox- Excess Body Fat Helps in Heart Failure Recovery

We have all known for a fact, and for some time now that obesity is one of the risk factors for developing heart disease and heart failure. We have also in the last few decades been very upbeat, to say the least, in encouraging weight loss.

Particularly, BMI or Body Mass Index has been used to show increasing risk for heart condition as it increases. BMI is a number that indicates the extent of body fat in an individual. A higher BMI has often, if not always, been associated with adverse outcome; until now.

Evidently, the excess body fat may cause heart failure, but it also helps one recover better. There are indications that the obese fare better after heart failure compared to their healthy counterparts. This is according to a study by Dr. Gregg C. Fonarow of the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles U.S.A and colleagues. This study has been backed up by another led by Dr. Jeptha P. Curtis of Department of Medicine section of cardiovascular medicine, Yale University School of Medicine.

Both studies came to the counter-institute conclusion that higher BMI is well associated with lower mortality risk. Overweight and obese patients had lower risks of death in case of a heart failure compared to healthy and underweight individuals.

Fonarow tries to explain this unusual finding, "the study suggest that overweight and obese patents may have greater metabolic reserves to call upon during an accuse heart failure episode which may lessen in-hospital mortality risks"

The studies found that in-hospital mortality rate in patients that had heart failure reduced as their BMI increased. Mortality rate in the hospital was highest at 6.3 percent for underweight 4.6 percent for healthy weight, 3.4 percent for the overweight and only 2.4 percent for obese patients.

The studies seem to point to the existence of what has now come to be know as the "obesity paradox". Many researchers and doctors are stumped y the phenomena, but not everyone is buying into the paradox. A. Habbu and colleagues at the University of Texas School of Public health Huston think the obesity paradox may be a bunch of baloney. They comment on one of the studies, "closer examination of these studies raises important questions on the validity of the paradox". They have issue with the quality of data used in the studies implying they could be inherently skewed.

But whether the obesity paradox exists or not, these is not doubt you still need to lose excess weight. Remember although excess weight may help you recover from heart failure; it is the one that increased your chances of the heart failure in the first place. So having to make a choice between successful recovery from a heart failure and not having any heart failure, we suggest you choose the latter.

Ara Toranian invité de la semaine sur RFI le Samedi 23 avril 2005

Madame, Monsieur bonjour,

je suis un jeune français d'origine turque. J'ai vécu toute ma vie en France et suis allé à l'école en France. Je me considère Français, puis Européen, puis en dernier Turc. Je tiens à vous faire part de ma grande surprise et déception concernant votre invité de cette semaine.

Ayant assisté à plusieurs activités et organisation où M. Toranian a pris la parole j'ai pu être le témoins de ses dérives. En effet, M. Toranian tient régulièrement des propos ouvertement racistes, tout particulièrement à l'encontre des Turcs et des français d'origine turque. En 2004, ce monsieur que vous considérez suffisemment respcetable pour l'inviter à votre émission a littéralement invité ses spetateurs à "prendre les armes contre les Turcs et leurs idées". Ces propos sont d'autant plus inquétants quand on connait le passé sombre de M. Toranian qui entretient d'étroites relations avec la branche politique d'une organisation sur la liste noire de l'Union Européene et des Etats-Unis, j'ai nommé l'ASALA.

M. Toranian nie régulièrement et baffoue la mémoire de mes ancêtres. En effet, ma famille est originaire de l'Est de la Turquie, et les massacres qu'a subi celle-ci avant de migrer à Istanbul sont encore fraiches dans la mémoire de mes grands parents qui ont vu leurs familles entières massacrées devant leurs yeux par les milices arméniennes de la Dashnaksoutioun; mouvance d'extrême-droite arménienne à laquelle appartient M. Ara Toranian et qui jutifie ses massacres en faisant une impasse totale sur le quasi million de civils musulmans et turcs que ses collègues dont il a herité l'idéologie ont froidement assassinés pour l'exercice d'une politique expansionniste encore d'actualité en Arménie. Politique encore d'actualité car vous n'êtes pas sans savoir que l'Arménie occupe illégalement un quart du territoire de l'Azerbaïdjan et que cette invasion par les forces armées arméniennes a forcé environ un million de civils, en grande majorité des musulmans Azéris à quitter leurs terres ancestrales. Actuellement, l'Arménie mène dans ces territoires occupés une politique de purification éthnique récemment condamnée par l'OSCE et le Parlement Européen.

Pour plus d'informations, je vous transmets l'adresse d'un article à propos de M. Ara Toranian extrait du site Tête de Turc:
http://www.tetedeturc.com/home/article.php3?id_article=105

bien à vous,
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