Hypertension is defined as a repeated blood pressure (BP) reading of greater than 150/90 mm Hg (mercury). There are two types of hypertension: primary (aka essential or idiopathic, which means no particular cause can be identified) and secondary, which means due to some definable cause such as kidney failure or atherosclerosis. About 89% of cases...
Tag: heart disease
The standard definition of high cholesterol is having an excess of cholesterol in the blood, usually more than 200 mg/dl, although many doctors are now citing 180 mg/dl as the maximum of the reference range. The reason you have “high cholesterol” is probably because you have eaten too much saturated fat (from animals) over the...
Fats, or lipids, are essential to good health. Fats serve as a concentrated source of energy. Each gram of fat supplies 9 calories, whereas protein and carbohydrate supplies 4 calories each per gram. Fatty tissue in the body helps to hold the organs and nerves in place and protects them against traumatic injury. The layer...
Why is heart disease the number one killer of the Western world? Because we Westerners love to eat fats that are solid at room temperature. Butter, marbled steak, cheese, lard. Lard? It’s in most commercially available baked goods. “Heart disease” covers a lot of territory: high blood pressure (more technically know as hypertension), congestive heart...
Strokes are brief episodes involving a lack of oxygenated blood flowing to the brain (90% are ischemic infarctions), or a sudden bleed within the brain tissue (10% are hemorrhagic) which causes permanent damage to the effected area of the central nervous system. In a classic stroke, the neurologic defects continue to expand for 24-48 hours...
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