Marty Floyd’s Weblog

This particular post is being placed in all my categories (as of September 27, 2007) as it applies to you just as much as me.

I started working on this post on a sheet of paper (an envelope) from a birthday card I received last week. My birthday is September 23rd and presented a good time for reflection.

I thought about my earlier “experiences” with art (paintings, music, books, TV, radio, cartoons in the newspaper, movies). I especially loved Picasso, future stuff, Flash Gordon, the Disney cartoons and movies, “2001, A Space Odyssey”, the Bible, Carl Sagen, baseball, GI Joe, “The Flying Purple People Eater”, Mickey Mantle, Elizabeth Taylor, Billy Jean. And they were all site and sound!

I have been a truly fortunate person. I have experiences that I still hold in memory. They are better than watching the latest high definition digitally encoded movie on CD for the “unpteenth” time. Some memories actually come with smells, touches, tastes, perfect audio and video!

Think for a moment about something that became truly mapped into your brain, psyche, and soul. Something along the lines of the birth of a child or the thrill of “knowing” you created a positive, lasting experience. What about the “experience” of discovery, freedom, faith? Something as simple as swinging on a swing (at home, a park, or on a tree rope over a lake or pond) or hitting a home run bring in all the senses, known and unknown.

Our capacity to learn, know, be unique, yet the same, is truly amazing! I have learned that the strength of positive inner feelings and mental attitude are far more powerful than negative ones. The negative ones are like weeds. They just grow when we do not engage in intentionally planting and growing the good, positive ones.

I created a web page that is a collection of some of the articles and thoughts I have “experienced” in this my birth month. I hope you take the time to visit soon at my web page.

Even this commercial brings thoughts flooding in on a very personal level,

Sleepy Hollow? Soft, smooth, fragerant, tight, tanned skin? Richard Scary, Stephen King? Star Trek, Star Wars? Bats, Batman? Pumpkins, Jack-o-lanterns? It could go on and on the longer you look at the advertisement.      

Everyone has heard of the value of the B vitamins in general. Most people have heard or read about B-complex. B-complex is one of the main listed items in any multivitamin suppliment.

I became very interested in B-12 when my doctor told me mine was low and that I should start taking a multivitamin. The problem was that I already took a daily multivitamin.

The low B-12 started several visits to specialists trying to find out why.

I started taking subligual B-complex while I had tests run on digestion and absorption. Seems that I was in a fog for a while with memory problems, lethargic and uneasy.

The more I read the more I realized there were several B vitamins that could be causing my physical/mental situation. I even found that there were some B vitamins I had never heard of before like B-13 (orotic acid). Over time I learned a lot about the vitamins I had taken for granted that make up dietary requirements.

Finally it was determined that my digestive tract was working so fast I could not properly absorb B-12. Once it was slowed with medication I eventually was able to stop taking the sublingual booster. The oddest thing about B-12 was that it takes so little of it to do it’s work. 

Fat, salt and sugar are problematic for those of us that can’t stay away from fast-food restaurants. Most of their products are deep-fried. At the least we can do our homework and read the nutritional guides available at most of these restaurants.

You can order a salad with low-fat or nofat dressing. You can avoid sweetened drinks, especially those that are sweetened with fructose or high fructose corn syrup because research indicates they increase our appetite for fatty foods and total calories.

Oils and fats have about 9 calories per gram. Saturated and polyunsaturated fats are definitely worse on your heart and cardiovascular system. Monounsaturated fat such as in olive oil is better for you.

Meats such as lamb, beef and pork are very high in saturated fat. Chicken and turkey are better as they have less and fish is best as it has the least saturated fat.

Obviously cooking affects nutrition as the heat decreases the vitamin content. Boiling disolves vitamins and minerals in the water which is genreally discarded. I eat a lot of broiled foods as broiling or barbecuing reduces fat. I love to cook outside on my grill.

Fresh friuts and vegetables contain the most nutrition and frozen is next best as it preserves most of the nutrition.

Fiber is important in any diet and more fiber reduces your chances of eating fat by curbing your appetite. It also helps you lose weight by keeping you feeling fuller, longer. Fiber carries waste out of the body quickly and that helps “flush” unabsorbed fat and calories as well!

An estimated 72 million adults in America have hypertension, or high blood pressure. The term “silent killer” seems to have been lost in current literature and has been replaced with the term “life-threatening conditions”.

The undiagnosed or untreated person with hypertension may have hardening of the arteries everywhere in the body, like the brain, heart, kidneys, eyes! With the result of stroke, heart attack, kidney failure, blindness and even death, it is amazing that many people still don’t bother having it checked because they feel OK.

A big warning sign is if you have immediate family history of high blood pressure. That should be a tickler to have yours checked and monitored.

You can make a difference yourself by maintaining a “right lifestyle” that can prevent or control high blood pressure. Keep salt intake below 6 grams a day, eat fewer calories, maintaining a diet rich in fruits and vegetables.

Exercise, or physical activity, has been shown to lower the risk of developing hypertension.

These are some of many simple things we can do to help ourselves before serious damage has occurred. One of the biggest problems is that we do not take the time to include prevention in our personal lives. We get caught up in the visible, economic, social requirements to the exclusion of our very health. We spend too much time scurrying around, eating fast food, not exercising, not getting physicals, and not paying attention to our own health until a problem stops us in our tracks.

Do yourself a big favor. Don’t think that because you were active in school or playground activities in your early life that it carries forward into your personal work and family life. I know because I did not take into account the family history of hypertension, the lack of exercise, smoking, working long hours to get ahead, and good eating habits. Simple things ignored until I became disoriented, suffered from undue tiredness, felt lousy and, finally, went to the doctor.

My wake up call was when tests revealed I had poor stamina, high blood pressure (185/120), high blood sugar, high fats. My doctor even called me at home and asked that I come back in to retake some of the tests. At the time I did not know that his lab could not get an accurate result on my triglycerides because the equipment could not register high enough. He wanted another blood sample to send out to a commercial lab.

A few weeks after I had been on medication I went back for a followup. He told me I was so unstable when I came in originally that he was concerned I would have a major heart attack or stroke. He said that he did not want to cause more stress by telling me originally but his equipment could not measure high enough to record my triglycerides (they were over ten times normal) and my “bad” cholesterol was pretty high as well.

Then he gave me the shock that my chances of survival were now probably a million times better with my medications but I needed to change my life now. He said I was a walking time bomb.

Today my blood pressure is 128/78, it was high systolic and high diastolic (185/120). My cholesterol is 145, it was 422!  My triglycerides are 199, it was 1922.   

Take it from me, the simple truth is that we forget to practice what we all know to be true, prevention is much easier if you actively participate!

The following are some of the most important things you can do to protect your kidneys:

• Keep your blood pressure lower than 130 over 80. Your doctor may give you medicine to help lower your blood pressure.
• Control your blood sugar level. Your doctor may give you medicine to help lower your blood sugar level.
• Stick to your diet. Ask your doctor how many calories and carbohydrates and how much protein you should eat.
• Be physically active every day.
• Take the medicines your doctor prescribes for you. Check with your doctor before taking any new medicines. This includes vitamins, herbal medicines and over-the-counter medicines.
• Keep all of your doctor appointments.
• Stop smoking.
• Drink water every day to help cleanse your system and your kidneys.

Creighton University of Omaha has conducted a study that was focusing on calcium and bone cancer and in the process have found that vitamin D drastically reduces the risk of contracting cancer.

The sunshine vitamin, or D3 as it is known, is available as a suppliment for those who can not spend time in the sun. The multivitamins you can take have vitamin D2 which is a much less effective version of vitamin D.

It was also shown that there is a much less risk of cancers in southern states due to the amount of sunshine people are normally subjected to on average.