Smoking is hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, and dangerous to the lungs.

King James I

Let’s start with what smoking actually does to the body. Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body. Smoking causes many diseases and reduces the health of smokers in general. It primarily starts at the lungs. How?   Well think of your lung tissue with openings all over which are air sacs called alveoli. This is an anatomical structure that has the form of a hollow cavity which does the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in and out of our body, when we inhale and exhale. The thing to know about this tissue is that before you start smoking the alveoli are expandable (think of it like a rubber band) allowing the person to get a good exchange of oxygen getting in the body to go to all our tissues and carbon dioxide getting out of the body (O2=oxygen being the fuel to our tissues and without it causes cellular starvation, carbon dioxide=CO2 being an acid / toxin to the human body and exhaled by the lungs).   After years of smoking the alveoli stretches out not allowing a good exchange of O2 and CO2. The sad thing for a smoker is the alveoli cannot REVERSE back after damage has already occurred unless you had a lung transplant with continuing to smoke, which no M.D. or health insurance would allow. More realistic would be QUIT the bad habit. The tissue doesn’t get completely better but it improves when you quit. So the pt with Emphysema has alveoli that can’t exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide from the blood like it use to at the bottom of the lungs, prior to even starting to smoke. Also, after smoking years and when diagnosed with COPD you have difficulty breathing (that is why smoking is a major cause of bronchitis or Emphysema=types of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease=COPD and it is not REVERSIBLE). Emphysema is the worst type of COPD you can get. COPD is the third leading cause of death in the U.S., and the economic burden of COPD in the U.S. in 2007 was $42.6 billion in health care costs and lost productivity. Isn’t this reason enough to stop smoking?

Emphysema is an enlargement of the air spaces distal to the terminal bronchioles, with destruction of their walls. People with emphysema have historically been known as “Pink Puffers”, due to their pink complexion.

Chronic bronchitis is defined in clinical terms as a cough with sputum production on most days for 3 months of a year, for 2 consecutive years. People with advanced COPD that have primarily chronic bronchitis were commonly referred to as “Blue Bloaters” because of the bluish color of the skin and lips (cyanosis) along with hypoxia and fluid retention.

Know when the lungs get effected in time the heart gets effected. One Affects the other in time. The heart can’t live without the lungs and viCE versa.

Now knowing just this you’ll understand why smoking alone can cause the following conditions, Through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They state the following:

Smoking and Increased Health Risks

Compared with nonsmokers, smoking is estimated to increase the risk of—

• Coronary heart disease by 2 to 4 times, ^(causing atherosclerosis=thickening of the vessels or due to arteriosclerosis=hardening of the arteries and remember smoking causes vasoconstriction of the vessels = increase pressure in the vessels = high B/P.
• Stroke by 2 to 4 times (Due to causing the above problems listed under coronary heart disease.)
• Men developing lung cancer by 23 times,
• Women developing lung cancer by 13 times(cancers due to constant irritation of the tissues) , and
• Dying from chronic obstructive lung diseases (such as chronic bronchitis and emphysema) by 12 to 13 times. ( Explained at the top)

“Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.

Jackson Brown, Jr. an American author best known for his inspirational book, Life’s Little Instruction Book, which was a New York Times bestseller (1991, 1994)

“I saw many people who had advanced heart disease and I was so frustrated because I knew if they just knew how to do the right thing, simple lifestyle and diet steps, that the entire trajectory of their life and health would have been different.”

Dr. Mehmet Oz (cardiothoracic surgeon & The host of The Dr. Oz Show)

Let us first understand how the heart functions. For starters think of a car, without the engine the car won’t move unless pushed in neutral but the engine is still not working at all. Well, the body can’t work at all if the heart isn’t working=dead. Right? We can’t live without the heart but more importantly you can’t function actively and productively with a one that is diseased not cared for or just severely diseased. We need to take good care of our bodies especially if diseased already, that includes your heart.

Looking at the anatomy and physiology of the heart it will help us understand in how it functions. For starters the heart is like an engine in having chambers (2 on the top called atriums and 2 on the bottom called ventricles), 4 chambers to be exact (sort of like a 4 cylinder car). It also has valves, in allowing our blood to go in and out of the heart. They are located before the entrance of the blood entering the heart on the left and right upper chamber, between the upper and lower chambers (atriums & ventricles), at the beginning of arteries and veins involved in moving blood throughout the heart and to or from the lungs to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood, in allowing the blood to leave the heart with oxygenated blood to now go throughout the body (like oil/gas entering and leaving the engine which allows it to work).

Now getting down in how the heart works. First take our blood, in particular our red blood cells are the cells that carry oxygen and carbon dioxide throughout our body; the body without enough oxygen in the body tissues=cellular starvation. We can’t survive without oxygen sent to our tissues=food to our tissues (Ex. poor circulation to any tissue of the body = pain and if not resolved it will go into necrosis = death of the tissue, like in a diabetic that has poor circulation to the toes/foot that has pain/numbness and unresolved = necrosis to amputation). So your blood, in particular the red blood cells, need to transport oxygen (O2) to and take carbon dioxide (CO2) from our tissues in the body and refill up with more 02 and release C02 (O2 used up by our tissues) that takes place at the lungs. This process is done constantly in the body to feed our tissues O2 (by RBC’s picking up 02 upon inhalation), with tissues releasing CO2 picked up by the RBC’s that take the CO2 to the lungs in release it from our body completely via breathing=exhaling but only done due to the heart beating allowing the blood to circulate and recirculate throughout the body and get more 02 from our lungs (just like the engine how the engine works to allow fuels, oils to circulate throughout the engine and other areas of the car to allow the car overall to function).                                                                                                                                                                        In review, our bodies oxygen is the food to our tissues in keeping them alive through our red blood cells (RBC’s) that carry the O2 to the tissues but there through a working heart and lungs only (one organ cannot live without the other). There has to be a systemic way we allow this to work and this is through the heart, lungs, and RBC’s (3 systems that connect with each other). The heart = right side deals with more C02 blood which is blood returning to the heart to get more 02 going first via the Rt. side of the heart to the Rt. and Lt. pulmonary artery, each of which carries blood to the lungs for 02 and C02 exchange to occur. This is for getting more 02 in our RBC’s with allowing them to release C02 at the lungs and then return them to the left side of the heart to be sent through both Lt. chambers of the heart to our blood stream to utilize the new 02 in our RBC’s to our body tissues. This is a 24hr/7days a week job for our red blood cells, lungs and heart in functioning to keep the human body alive.

In simpler terms this is how it works: The blood that needs to be refreshed with more 02 when it enters the right (Rt.) atrium coming from a vessel that brings back mainly carbon dioxide in the blood from the toes and the brain that was mainly used up by the tissues and those RBC’s need to be reoxygenated with higher levels of oxygen for the RBC’s to deliver 02 again to tissues. It first goes to the Rt. atrium & fills up to its max level simultaneously while the left (Lt.) atrium is filling up to its max level. When the Rt. atrium is ready to drop its blood max level into the Rt. ventricle below it the valves open between the chambers simultaneously dropping the blood to the Rt. Ventricle (Lt side does the same thing) but only the Rt. side ends up going to the lungs through a Rt. and Lt. pulmonary artery to get more oxygen to send it to the highly oxygenated side of the heart, being on the left side. The job the Rt. side of the heart does is this, it just goes from the Rt. side of the heart to our lungs and back to the heart on the Lt. side through the 4 pulmonary veins to the L atrium; so the path or distance for the Rt. side of the heart to do its function is a short distance = it gets your used up oxygen in the red blood cells (that are high in carbon dioxide) to get more oxygen by going through the Rt. side of the heart sending them to the lungs where they get more O2 and then they are sent back to the Lt. side of the heart.   This is the Rt. side of the heart’s function.

Now let us look at what the Lt. side of the heart does in function. The RBC’s reoxygenated leave the lungs and sent via the 4 pulmonary veins to the Lt. side of the heart reaching the Lt. atrium thus carries a high 02 level in the RBC’s (this blood just came directly from the lungs where O2 and CO2 exchange for the RBC’s took place). Next the RBC’s go to the Lt. ventricle to our Aorta that sends this high oxygen level of RBC’s out to all our tissues as food to prevent starvation of the tissues).   Again, when the valves open between the chambers and allowing this blood to fill up in the lower chambers called the Rt. and Lt. ventricles it is simultaneously done also including the valves that open and close in the the pulmonary artery and the aorta that is in the Lt. ventricle sending RBC’s out to our circulatory system high in O2 to be utilized by our body tissues.

So the way it works with both sides of the heart is the Rt. side sends blood of highly carbon dioxide blood (RBC’s) to the lungs to get re-oxygenated through 2 vessels from the Rt. side of the heart to the lungs that sends this re-oxygenated RBC’s through 4 vessels to the Lt. side of the heart and it reaches the Lt. side of the heart which sends this highly oxygenated blood throughout the top and bottom of the Lt. side of the heart to the aorta that sends this blood throughout our body tissues. When this oxygen is used all up from dispensing it out to tissues the C02 is taken back from the tissues by RBC’s that replace it with O2, this process starts all over again with these RBC’s that returned to the heart. Ending line the right side of the heart is for higher levels of carbon dioxide in the blood (used up blood) to get more oxygenated whereas the left side of the heart sends higher levels of O2 throughout the body all the way to the toes (a harder job=muscle mass of the left side of the heart works out more than the right making the left side of the heart a bigger muscle vs the right side.

Now knowing the anatomy and physiology of the heart let’s now understand more about cardiac disease in how they develop and in how it effects the engine of the body, being the heart and other areas of the body. If eating unhealthy or living unhealthy habits or even overweight to obese these are the problems that can arise regarding the cardiac system alone:

• High Blood Pressure is the primary cause of death among Americans older than 25. About 75 million people suffer from high B/P or hypertension, which is a major risk factor for heart disease and more. Did you know that from the National Health Survey in 1981 their statistics indicated that hypertension afflicts at least 17 to 22 million American adults during that time, in the book of “Principles of Anatomy and Physiology” by authors Tortora and Anagnostakos? Look at today, yes our population has increased but the debate with that is we now know better and have for awhile. We as responsible people for ourselves, families (children in particular) and as a country should be living healthier but still too many EAT and PRACTICE unhealthy habits based on statistics, if we weren’t disease would be less in percentage throughout America.

AMERICA wake up or else we will just continue increasing high in the following problems we already have at home and make life, especially for many, unbearable.                                                                                                                                              Uncontrolled high blood pressure is of considerable concern because of what harm it can do to the HEART, BRAIN, and KIDNEYS.  What harm and how?  Than come back this weekend for Part 2 on that section of this article.

Fructose is processed in the liver. To greatly simplify the situation: When too much fructose enters the liver, the liver can’t process it all fast enough for the body to use as sugar. Instead, it starts making fats from the fructose and sending them off into the bloodstream as triglycerides .

Laura Dolson-Low Carb Diets Expert (See more on lowcarbdiets.about.com .)

To search for similar articles learning more on this topic, look up on your internet typing in the following:

Agave Syrup Is Like High Fructose Corn Syrup

High Fructose Corn Syrup and Obesity

High-Fructose Corn Syrup – Why Is It Bad for You?

High Fructose Corn Syrup – Useful Facts You Might Not Know

You might think that the increase of the use of “high-fructose corn syrup during the past 30 years, would be safe. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is an “artificial” sweetener made from a complex process with corn; a process of brewing, separating, breaking down, injecting enzymes, filtering, mixing and blending.  Sounds safe enough, doesn’t it?

High fructose corn syrup is extremely soluble and mixes well in many foods. It is cheap to produce, sweet and easy to store. It’s used in everything from bread to pasta sauces to bacon to beer as well as in “health products” like protein bars and “natural” sodas.

HFCS is less expensive, lasts longer, and is more easily transported and handled than natural sugar; thus food producers prefer it for their manufacturing processes.

Research has shown that “high-fructose corn syrup” goes directly to the liver, releasing enzymes that instruct the body to then store fat! This may elevate triglyceride (fat in blood) levels and elevate cholesterol levels. Because it is metabolized by the liver, fructose does not cause the pancreas to release insulin the way it normally does. Fructose converts to fat more than any other sugar. Fructose reduces the affinity of insulin for its receptor, which is the hallmark of type-2 diabetes.

Some research claims that HFCS does not metabolize in the body like regular “natural” sugars; and that it might cause obesity-related glitches within the liver and other organs which normally deal with metabolizing, storing and using sugars in the body.

HFCS is Often Contaminated with Mercury. Recent studies of samples of HFCS and food products containing it in the United States conducted via two studies found that between 31% and 45% of the samples contained mercury. Mercury is toxic in even small quantities. For years, there have been suspicions that mercury used in vaccines may be related to the rise in autism in the United States. But this mercury contamination issue is much bigger and affects common foods widespread throughout the nation’s food supply. Products tested from big-name manufacturers such as Minute Maid, Coca-Cola, Hershey’s, Quaker, Hunt’s, Manwich, Smucker’s, Kraft, Nutri-Grain, and Yoplait had detectable levels of mercury.

Today, Commercial fruit juices and any products containing high fructose corn syrup are more dangerous than sugar and should be removed from the diet.

Read Labels! You’ll quickly see that this ingredient has been added to half the supermarket. So read under Ingredients carefully and look for High Fructose Corn Syrup or even just Corn Syrup.

• www.SweetSurprise.com/

High Fructose Corn Syrup

All Your Questions Answered About HFCS. Visit Our Site to Learn More.

• highfructosecorn.buyerpricer.com

High Fructose Corn Syrup

Looking for What Is High Fructose Corn Syrup Info? Compare Results Now.

• www.PriceMachine.com

High Fructose Corn Syrup

High Fructose Corn Syrup – Save. Find Low Prices at Price Machine!

• About.com/High Corn Fructose Syrup

High Corn Fructose Syrup

Search for High Corn Fructose Syrup. Find Expert Advice on About.com.

• Condiments.bizrate.com

Thanks to Time Warner Cablevision I have had no computer access for putting my blog up all Wednesday and that is pathetic on Time Warner Cablevision’s part; with including no phone access.  Paying over 150 dollars a month.  Considering a new company.  Again my sincerest apologies.

“Some STDs can have severe, life-changing consequences; syphilis, for example, can eventually cause progressive destruction of the brain and spinal cord, leading to mental dysfunction and hallucinations, speech problems and general paresis.”

CDC

“Honey or Cola May Disrupt Heart”

“A detailed history of patients with arrhythmia or syncope might need to decrease their cola intake or the origin of the honey they consume, two case studies suggest.” 

Chris Kaiser, Cardiology Editor, MedPage Today www.everydayhealth.com