You say WHY?

Let’s look at the health aspects of them for our body:

1- They are high in vitamins, minerals, some with antitoxins (helping the immune system) and have anti-inflammatory effects that can help you build up to your optimal health.  Some fruits have soluble fiber in them that slows down the breakdown of complex carbohydrates and helps reduce blood sugar.

2- Fruit taken in proper portions (moderate amts.) can even help lower blood cholesterol.

3- Soluble fiber is not just in rye, barley, oats, and vegetables but in fruits as well.  Insoluble fiber can’t be absorbed or digested by the human body but can still provide the body with advantages like reducing hunger, stimulates regular bowel movements, and can be found in fruits as well as vegetables, seeds whole wheat bread and other foods.

Let’s look at what you look for in the food you put in your body:

One of my healthy eating rules is know what the food’s makeup is before eating it; yes this includes calories, fat, sugars, carbs and sodium but knowing the energy density in the foods you eat is very important too.  Foods with the lowest density are foods that help curb your appetite that can help you maintain or even lose weight.

The lowest energy density food group contains healthy foods like most vegetables and fruits with based broth soups & skim milk.  The highest density groups are cookies, chips, nuts, full-fat condiments, chocolate and butter (not the best nutritional foods to be eating regularly).  Remember, if you’re trying to be healthy or even losing weight than know fruits are high glycemic foods.  If you eat too much fruit at one time it will result in high glycemic amounts in your body at that one time putting you at risk for fat storage=weight gain.

You see, digestion of the foods whether calories, carbohydrates, sugars, or some fats get broken down into simple or complex sugar molecules=glucose or fructose.  One of the body’s major fuels for energy so we can function with working properly & survive is glucose (the same concept like fuel for a car=gas=it operates).

The body utilizes glucose after digestion takes place in the stomach where the foods break down into simple and complex sugars than transferred into our bloodstream as our active fuel for energy (like our car’s tank sending gas to the engine to be able to run).  Our fuel, being the glucose, then gets sent to all our tissues and into our cells but only for the amount they need at that time (sort of like the car in filling the gas tank to full).  When our body reaches full for all energy needed to all areas of the body at that time if there is extra un-needed glucose in the bloodstream it has to go somewhere and the body stores it=fat storage=weight gain.  In the diabetic if no insulin too pass the sugar over through the cell membrane in the red blood cell (RBC) or if all extra sugar that can go into RBCs is full than the sugar has to to go somewhere.

Take the car, the storage reservoir is the gas tank it only stores in the tank, but if the tank reaches full with gas (its energy) it would just overflow as opposed to the human body with extra glucose in the bloodstream=our extra fuel which doesn’t overflow by leaving our body somehow but gets stored in our body as fat storage. Thus, when it’s needed (glucose) it will be released back in the bloodstream.  If you more frequently have in your body more overflow of glucose versus the need for it you’ll have more fat storage occuring as opposed to energy utilized by the body.  This causes you to be at a higher risk of becoming overweight to obese (that’s the logic in eating 6 small low glycemic meals a day which prevents this from happening).

To prevent a high risk of becoming overweight to obese stay off of 3 large meals/day and high sugar snacks during the day.  Also, don’t have constant healthy frequent high glycemic meals day in and day out especially with no activity/exercise other than your regular activities of daily living, which doesn’t count as exercise.

Remember, eat fruits in moderation not in excess; including the size of your meals (don’t allow the size of the plate greater than 9” including NO second helpings).   The key to eating healthy is to include all 4 food groups (Meats/Fishes, Vegetables, Fruits, and Dairy) and eat your first meal for the day within 30 minutes.  You can also learn exercise that fits into your lifestyle (ranging from walking fast 30 minutes for 2 to 3 times a week to daily workouts) with knowing healthy habits to add in your life to stay or get within your ideal weight.  The ending result is you feel better, look better, and have higher odds you’ll live a longer life that allows more excitement in it due to being in better shape.  Good luck in getting yourself on the right track of health independently.

“In digestion there are 4 major organs that are involved in digestion process.  This entails the stomach, small intestines, liver and the pancreas.

The pancreas is quite high up in your abdomen. It lies across your body where your ribs meet at the bottom of your breastbone, just behind your stomach. It is about 6 inches (15 centimetres) long and shaped like a leaf. The pancreas has 3 parts the head, body and tail.

The pancreas is a large gland that makes digestive juices and hormones, including insulin. The digestive juices flow down a tube (pancreatic duct) into the duodenum. The duodenum is the first part of the small bowel and is joined to the stomach.

Another tube (duct) joins the duodenum. The bile duct comes down from the gallbladder and liver and joins the duodenum right next to the pancreatic duct. The place where the two ducts join and meet the bowel is called the ampulla of Vater.”

Cancer Research UK (https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/pancreatic-cancer/about)

How our stomach including, gallbladder, pancreas and liver work with digestion:

During digestion of a meal, smooth muscles in the walls of the gallbladder contract to push bile into the bile ducts that lead to the duodenum. Once in the duodenum, bile helps with the digestion of fats.  Gallbladder: A pear-shaped reservoir located just under the liver that receives and stores bile made in the liver. The gallbladder sends this stored bile into the small intestine to aid in the digestion of food.

The stomach, gallbladder, and pancreas and liver are four of the most important digestive organs in the human body.

These organs work together to produce and store secretions that digest our food into its most basic building blocks. Once digested, these small molecules pass into our intestines to be absorbed and to feed our body’s tissues. These are major organs that actually produce hormones for food digestion or store the hormones for digestion that help to coordinate their functions and even lead to the feeling of fullness after consuming a meal since it allows the food to get in smaller pieces to moves into the large intestines where the stool forms into a more solid form to evacuate via our rectum to the anus.

The common bile duct is formed by the union of the common hepatic and the cystic ducts. It leads to the duodenum, where a sphincter muscle guards its exit. This sphincter normally remains contracted until the bile is needed, so that bile collects in the common bile duct and backs up to the cystic duct. When this happens, the bile flows into the gallbladder and is stored there.

Yes the gallbladder stores bile produced by the liver so that there is a sufficient supply of bile on hand to digest fats at any given time.  Remember this, that the pancreas stores the pancreatic juice produced by its own exocrine glands so that it is prepared to digest foods at all times but passes the bile to the gallbladder which reaches the small intestines via the common bile duct (between the gallbladder and the duodenum). The small intestine is made up of the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum. In living humans, the small intestine alone measures about 6 to 7 meters long.   After death, this length can increase by up to half. It has a surface area of over 200 meters.

The pancreas is a large gland that makes digestive juices and hormones, including insulin. The digestive juices flow down a tube (pancreatic duct) into the duodenum. The duodenum is the first part of the small bowel and is joined to the stomach.

Another tube (duct) joins the duodenum. The bile duct comes down from the gallbladder and liver and joins the duodenum right next to the pancreatic duct. The place where the two ducts join and meet the bowel is called the ampulla of Vater.

So there is a relation between digestion in 5 major areas the stomach to the intestines, the gallbladder and theliver with the pancreas. 

How does cancer relate to these  areas?

Well if your diagnosed with intestinal blockage that shows cancer cells you need to know where its located.  If cancer cells where questionable by the doctor in certain tests done in the stomach or small intestines.  You need to find out where the location is and if your told the small intestines find out if the MD questions the cancer cells going to the common bile duct to the gall bladder that could further end up in the pancreas also.  If pancreatic cancer is determined this now means in the 3 parts of the pancreas cancer is high probability being in the head of the pancreas.  The pancreas has a tail, body and head the head is located to easy access of spreading the cancer in ducts and to the gallbladder which can further have its cancer cells go into the small intestines from the bile duct that is connected to release stored bile when needed for digestion in the small intestines.

There may be some things you remember that you wish you didn’t.

Maybe you lost someone or something close to you or close in dealing with in your life, or there was a divorce you didn’t see coming, or you were let go from your job in a painful way.

It’s easy for these kinds of memories to keep you up at night. But there are some expert-backed ways to help you process and integrate painful experiences.”

Psych Central (https://psychcentral.com/health/letting-go-of-the-past-why-memories-remain-painful-over-time)

“More and more US adults are dealing with stress, which can lead to mental health problems.  In August 2022, more than 32% of US adults reported having symptoms of depression or anxiety in the last 2 weeks.  Quick activities to improve your emotional well being!

“Atrial fibrillation is the most common type of abnormal heart rhythm. Nearly 4 million emergency room visits from 2007 to 2014 in the United States were for atrial fibrillation. An estimated 2 million people in the U.S. have A-fib Complications arising from afib vary from Cardumyopathy to CVA (stroke), Low B/P,  CHF and more.”.

Cleveland Clinic (https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24578-atrial-fibrillation-with-rvr)

Symptoms:

 Some of the symptoms of this disease atrial fibrillation RVR include Chest Pain or Discomfort, heart palpitations (described as unnoticed skipped beats or skipped beats noticed from experienced dizziness or difficulty in breathing), shortness of breath when lying flat (orthopnea), shortness of breath (dyspnea after exertion) sudden onset of short breath during the night (also called paroxysmal nocturnal dyspnea) and gradual swelling of lower extremities. As a result of inadequate blood flow, some patients complain of light headedness or dizziness and may feel like they are about to faint, a condition referred to as presyncope and may actually lose consciousness (syncope). Some patients experience respiratory distress that results in them appearing blue. A close examination of jugular veins usually reveals elevated pressure in some patients (jugular venous distention). When some patients are subjected to lung examinations, crackles and rales may be observed pointing to possible lung edema.

Importance of proper diagnosis:

A good diagnosis of the symptoms shown by patients is important to ascertain that the patient is suffering from atrial fibrillation with RVR.  This is because some forms or irregular and rapid heart rates, tachyarrhythmia, are dangerous and must be ruled out as they are life threatening – such as ventricular tachycardia. Some patients are usually placed on continuous cardio respiratory monitoring, but an electrocardiogram ECG is vital for correct diagnosis.

 How is it diagnosed?

 Simple, a typical 12 lead electrocardiogram (ECG). This test shows cardiac rhythms which atrial fibrillation is. Rhythms are made up of types of waves that the ECG shows which are P waves, QRS waves, T waves and U waves.

The QRS complexes should be narrow, to signify that they are being initiated by normal conduction of atrial electrical activity through the Intra-ventricular conduction system, or heart conduction system. Wide QRS complexes could point to ventricular tachycardia, although wide complexes may also be an indication of disease processes in the Intra-ventricular conduction system. The R-R internal will also likely be irregular. Meaning measuring from each R section of the QRS rhythm. It is also important to find out if there are triggering causes for the tachycardia which include dehydration, Hypovolemia – a decrease in blood volume, and more specifically decrease in blood plasma volume. You can go ahead to eliminate Acute coronary syndrome – which refers to any diseases that are directly attributed to the obstruction of coronary arteries.

How A Fib is treated:

1-A Shock

This is known as cardioversion and is used typically either when an immediate result is required or used when the Afib is of relatively recent onset or only intermittent, and so has more chance of staying in normal rhythm. In cardioversion a small shock is given using defibrillation pads. It is done under light anesthesia therefore it doesn’t hurt. The Afib may return however.

2-Rate Control Drugs

The biggest problem in Afib with RVR is too fast a heart rate. In a rhythm control strategy we use drugs such as beta-blockers to slow the heart rate down. These drugs typically will leave the patient in AF. For many people with AF it turns out that a rate control strategy is preferred as it is considered less risky than the rhythm control drugs used to get rid of the AF while being just as effective. In Afib with RVR rate control drugs can often slow the heart rate down fairly quickly and improve symptoms.

b-Rhythm Control Drugs

These medications are generally more powerful than the rate control drugs and attempt to convert the Afib back in to a normal rhythm. They are often given after a shock treatment to try and help the heart stay in normal rhythm. These drugs are also commonly used in hospitalized Afib with RVR patients. The problem with these drugs is that they may have side effects and associated risks. Many patients simply cannot tolerate Afib even if the rate is controlled and therefore require rhythm control drugs. They may be safe and effective however if used in selected patients. In cases of Afib with RVR these medications may need to be used if patients cannot tolerate other rate control medications.

3-Ablation Procedures

Ablation procedures are minimally invasive procedures typically done through the groin. They are typically used in patients that have tried, or cannot tolerate medicines for control of AFib. Ablation is typically not used as an emergency treatment of Afib with RVR, rather it is used for stable patients in AF, or those with intermittent AFib that wish to remain in normal rhythm. In patients that have had persistent Afib for a long time these procedures are not likely to be successful in the long term.

b-Pacemaker

This is typically the last throw of the dice for AF control. In some patients, drugs can either not control the rate in AFib with RVR, or the drugs can simply not be tolerated. In these patients who have no other choice, and in whom it is determined the Afib is causing harmful effects, a procedure called AV node ablation and pacemaker is done. In a relatively minor procedure, a small burn is made to the connection that connects the top and bottom chambers of the heart. A pacemaker is then inserted. This prevents Afib with RVR as although the top chambers continue to fire at a fast rate, the pacemaker now controls the bottom chamber, in a nice regular way. The downside of course is that now although the patient cannot have Afib with RVR, they have a pacemaker.

Acute afib RVR patients are more likely to be converted to Normal Sinus Rhythm (the best rhythm you could be in) as opposed to patients with chronic afib. There are complete resolutions for both kind of afib but atrial fibrillation in RVR the heart can handle for only so long and remembering the engine of our body is the heart so take good care of it for if you don’t it could allow you to die.

“Atrial fibrillation with rapid ventricular rate (A-fib with RVR) is a type of irregular heart rhythm. With A-fib with RVR, your heart doesn’t have a normal signaling process telling your heart when to beat. Instead, signaling is disorganized and the parts of your heart beat out of sync. Medicines and procedures can help manage this condition.  They have a heart rate of 100 beats per minute or more.

When you have A-fib with RVR, it’s difficult for your heart to pump the amount of blood it should. That makes it hard for your body to get the oxygen-rich blood it needs to function.”

Cleveland Clinic (https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24578-atrial-fibrillation-with-rvr)

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