4 Things Women in their 40s Dread, But Need to Do

As a woman in her 40s, the wellness situation starts to look a whole lot different. Your sexual health needs kicking into shape, you’ve got no energy for your hectic lifestyle and you have aches and pains you never knew a person could have. Turning 40 makes you feel, well, old, but that doesn’t mean you’re past it. You still need to look after your wellbeing – now more than ever before – to ensure you live to see and enjoy the next 40 years.

 

1. Do Your Diet Differently: In order to live long and prosper for the next 40 years, you need a few diet basics under your belt. This means eating plenty of fruits and vegetables – at least five-a-day – and healthy proteins. If you focus on these food groups, you can reduce your risks of cancer and heart disease. Don’t just do your healthy diet solo; get your partner and kids involved and plan your grocery shopping in advance so you won’t be tempted by junk on shop shelves. The key to healthy eating is to have good options on hand at work and at home.

 

2. Work on Your Workout Routine: In your 40s, many of your hormones – including growth hormone – tend to decline. This ageing process can really do a number on your wellness and, if you don’t exercise, you’ll only hurry that decline along. Exercise stimulates growth hormone, helping you to maintain a lean body mass. However, without enough physical activity, your metabolism will slow down, your bone density will decline, and you’ll be more stressed and depressed than you should be. If you find it hard to motivate yourself, why not go to a class or work with a personal trainer? If you’ve got it written on your calendar and all paid for, you’ll have the incentive to workout until the health benefits become their own motivation.

 

3. Figure out your Family History: If someone in your family has suffered from a certain illness or condition, it’s not a sure thing that you will likewise be affected, but history certainly has a way of predicting the future. Look into your family’s history of health problems, paying close attention to anything that occurred to someone when in their 40s. While having a grandparent who had a heart attack at 75 is something to take note of, being related to someone who suffered at age 45 holds is even more significant to your prevention strategy. You should primarily focus on your parents, siblings and grandparents, but it’s worth asking about other relatives as well. Take inventory so you can tailor your wellness programme to your needs, and consider talking to your GP if a particular health concern does arise when you’re digging.

 

4. Take a Few Tests: For women in their 40s, the United States Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) provides the following recommendations:

• Cervical cancer. A pap smear should be performed every one to three years. You should go for this screening every two years if your physician uses a liquid-based test, or every three if you have had three normal paps consecutively. You only need a test for human papillomavirus (HPV) if you have had an abnormal pap test.


• Breast cancer. Mammograms are recommended every one to two years, starting at 40.


• Colonoscopy for colon cancer screening. While this is usually recommended at age 50, you will need a colonoscopy if you have a family member with colon cancer. This should either be done at age 40 or 10 years prior to the age that family member was diagnosed.

Categories: cancer, colon cancer, diet, exercise, Family, family member, growth hormone, health, nbsp, Women in 40s, years

8 Tests You Should Consider Having as a Woman in Her 50s

When you turn 50, the health concerns really start creeping in. Your sexual health may soon be affected by menopause, if it hasn’t already, but other conditions can also start to have an impact on your wellbeing. However, if you initiate good wellness principles and lifestyle choices there’s no reason why you can’t feel nifty at fifty, and be fully satisfied with the state of your health right up until you reach the big 6-0. One major way in which you can take care of your health during your 50s is to get screened for health concerns that commonly affect your age group. If you catch something sooner rather than later, you can get proactive with treatment and ensure you live to see the next 50 years. For women your age, the United States Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) provide the following recommendations:

 

1. Cervical cancer: A pap smear should be performed every one to three years. You should go for this screening every two years if your physician uses a liquid-based test, or every three if you have had three normal paps consecutively. You only need a test for human papillomavirus (HPV) if you have had an abnormal pap test.

 

2. Breast cancer: Mammograms are recommended every one to two years.

 

3. Colonoscopy for colon cancer screening: Regardless of your family or personal history of the disease, it is recommended that every woman in her 50s gets tested for colon cancer.

 

4. 25-OH Vitamin D (25 hydroxy-vitamin D): There’s no denying the importance of vitamin D; optimal levels can improve your bone density, enhance your cognitive health and reduce your risk of cancer. Therefore, if your vitamin D levels are low, that’s something you’ll want to know about! There are several tests that can determine whether or not you need to do something about your vitamin D levels, but the 25-OH vitamin D level is considered the most accurate. If you find your levels are low, you can get the vitamin D you need from sunlight on your skin, supplements or fortified foods.

 

5. Homocysteine: This is a product of protein metabolism and if your levels get too high, a whole host of wellness issues may be in store. Excess levels of homocysteine can lead to blood vessel damage, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, macular degeneration and depression. If the test reveals your levels are higher than the optimal nine units, you can reset the balance with a higher intake of vitamins B-12, B-6 and folic acid.

 

6. Fasting Insulin Levels: Before your blood sugar rises to the classic diabetic markers, your insulin levels will rise. This demonstrates early signs of your body’s inability to handle the sugar it’s ingesting, so it’s a good thing to know about. The goal ranges may be from 0 -14, but you should try to keep your levels around 7 units or less. If your levels are too high, you have an indicator that you should be reducing the amount of refined sugar in your diet.

 

7. Thyroid tests: Your thyroid gland produces your thyroid hormone, which is responsible for your metabolism, energy production and mental sharpness. You may have a deficiency in this hormone if you experience fatigue, dry skin, hair loss, constipation, cold hands and feet, and sugar cravings. If this is the case, get tested through either a TSH and/or Free T-3).

 

8. C-Reactive Protein (CRP): Inflammation is a marker for heart disease, and this test measures your body’s level of inflammation. The result you’re after is anything less than 1mg/L. However, if you do find that your inflammation levels are elevated, you can fight back with fish oils, CoQ10, magnesium and vitamin D.

Categories: colon cancer, health, health concerns, insulin levels, levels, nbsp, preventative measures, Screenings, Test, vitamin, women in 50s

What Everyone Ought to Know About Cooking With Oil

Have you seen the cooking oil section in your local supermarket lately? The range is huge, and it can be mind boggling trying to work out which ones make a good contribution to your diet, which ones have the right credentials in terms of nutrition and which ones are pure fat that will go straight to your hips! The good news is that there is a really a simple answer to this – using olive oil is far better for your wellness and wellbeing than any of the other types of oil!

Olive oil has numerous health benefits, including the fact that it actually reduces your blood pressure. A recent study was carried out which proved that virgin olive oil resulted in a reduction in the need for blood pressure medication.

Cholesterol can also be benefitted by the use of olive oil, as recent studies have shown that using olive oil can significantly reduce your body’s levels of harmful cholesterol. On top of this, olive oil has also been shown to increase the body’s levels of good cholesterol!

Olive oil is known to be good for your heart, too. The American Heart Association has backed this, stating that olive oil provides numerous benefits for a healthy heart.

It’s not just the heart and blood that can benefit from the use of olive oil; further studies have shown that there are links between the use of olive oil and the body’s ability to fight or protect itself against cancer.

A study on rats showed that those fed a diet high in olive oil produced few cancerous tumours, despite being fed carcinogens, too. In another study, it was shown that olive oil could help to prevent colon cancer by helping to protect the digestive system. Olive oil reduces bile acid in the stomach and this can lead to a reduction in the rates of colon cancer.

Categories: Blood, blood pressure, colon cancer, cooking, heart, oil, olive, olive oil, shown, study

How to Spot the Warning Signs of Different Types of Cancer

There’s no bigger health concern than cancer, but a lot of people can’t recognise when the disease affects their wellbeing. It’s important to get annual checkups and tests, but there are also a lot of cancer symptoms that are commonly overlooked which, if spotted early, may make all the difference to your wellness. Here are the 20 common cancer signs to watch out for:

 

1. Upset stomach or stomach ache: This is one of the first signs of colon cancer, but also occurs in leukaemia, pancreatic and liver cancer patients.

 

2. Acid pains in your stomach: This feels like gas or heartburn in your upper or middle abdomen, which is often aggravated by eating. It’s often a sign of liver cancer.

 

3. Unexplained weight loss: When the pounds are falling off despite not making any changes to your lifestyle, it could be a sign of colon and other digestive cancers.

 

4. Jaundice: This is a sign of pancreatic cancer, and includes symptoms such as yellowing of your skin and eyes have yellowed, darker than usual urine, clay-coloured stools and itching.

 

5. Wheezing or shortness of breath: This is one of the first signs of lung cancer, but as it can also signal asthma, COPD and heart disease, it’s worth getting checked out anyway.

 

6. Chronic cough or chest pain: Though several types of cancer, such as leukaemia and lung tumours, mimic a bad cough or bronchitis, you can tell its cancer if the problem persists, rather than coming and going in cycles.

 

7. Frequent fevers or infections: Leukaemia saps your body’s ability to fight fevers and infections, and causes frequent feelings of achiness, and flu-like symptoms.

 

8. Trouble with swallowing: If you have a frequent feeling of needing to clear your throat or that food is stuck in your chest, it could signal lung cancer or throat cancer.

 

9. Chronic heartburn: Regular heartburn and an acidic taste in the throat can trigger a condition called Barrett’s oesophagus, which may be a precursor of oesophageal or throat cancer.

 

10. Facial swelling: Small cell lung tumours block the blood vessels in your chest, which limits blood flow to your face and causes puffiness, swelling, or redness.

 

11. Lumps on your neck, underarm, or groin: Depending on where it occurs, lumps or swollen lymph nodes could indicate leukaemia or throat cancer, especially if they’re painless.

 

12. Excessive bruising or bleeding: This is another sign of leukaemia, as it suggests something abnormal happening with your platelets and red blood cells.

 

13. Weakness and fatigue: This is a symptom of many different cancers, especially if it doesn’t respond to getting more sleep.

 

14. Rectal bleeding: Blood in you stool or in the toilet alone is a common symptom of colorectal cancer.

 

15. Bowel problems: If constipation, diarrhoea, and changes in stools go on for more than a few days without a clear cause, it may be colon or pancreatic cancer.

 

16. Trouble urinating: Changes and difficulties in urination are commonly associated with prostate cancer.

 

17. Pain or burning during urination: Although it may be a urinary tract infection or sexually transmitted disease, pain during urination can also indicate prostate cancer.

 

18. Blood in your urine or semen: This is a sign of prostate cancer.

 

19. Erection problems: While it may be a sign of erectile dysfunction, erection problems can be a sign that your prostate cancer has progressed.

 

20. Pain, aching, or heaviness in your groin, hips, thighs, or abdomen: Men with testicular cancer report noticing a heavy, aching feeling low in the belly and/or testicles, and the condition also causes swelling in the hips, legs and back.

Categories: colon cancer, prostate cancer, warning signs