Chronic kidney disease

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(Today another guest post by Dr Andrew Weissenberger. Read more about Dr Weissenberger here)

Chronic kidney disease (CKD), commonly also known as chronic renal disease, is a progressive, and generally permanent, loss of kidney function over a period of months or years.

If a permanent loss of more the one-third of kidney function occurs, this is defined as chronic kidney disease.

Chronic kidney disease if often associated with, or linked as a secondary condition to, heart diseases and diabetes.

Chronic kidney disease can lead to chronic kidney failure. An increased risk of developing chronic kidney disease is found with those who: Read more

Osteoporosis risk factors

(Today comes a guest post by Dr Andrew Weissenberger. Dr Weissenberger is a fellow of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), a general practice supervisor and an examiner for the RACGP.)

Osteoporosis means “porous bones” and is a disease where bone density (the thickness of the bone) and structural quality deteriorate, leading to fragile and brittle bones causing an increased risk of fracture than in normal bone.

The bone density and structural quality deterioration occurs from the loss of minerals, such as calcium, from a persons bones more quickly then the body is able to replace them. Read more

Healthy Warm Salad Recipe

Ingredients:

Pumpkin, diced coarsely

Red Capsicum, diced coarsely,

Mushrooms (I prefer large, flat, or Swiss Brown, but any will do), diced coarsely

Tomatoes (I prefer small vine ripened, tomatoes, but any will do), chopped coarsely

Danish Feta Cheese, diced

Spinach Leaves

Place the pumpkin on one tray and then dry roast in an oven at approximately 210degC for 10 minutes.  Leave the pumpkin in the oven and then add a second tray with the capsicum, mushrooms, feta and tomatoes and dry roast all of these for a further 10 minutes (or until the pumpkin is cooked).

Remove from the oven and toss through with the Spinach Leaves and serve.  I don’t think this needs any dressing at all, but you could add a balsamic vinaigrette if needed.

Image credit: taste.com.au

Benefits of Strength Exercise and Resistance Training OTHER THAN Weight Loss

Here are some quick facts about why you should include strength or resistance training into your exercise regime…

• Each day ~275 adult Australians develop Type 2 Diabetes.  This is the diabetes that occurs due to insulin resistance.  Insulin resistance occurs in skeletal muscle.  During exercise, muscle glucose uptake is increased by 7-20%.  Before 2000, most exercise

Read more

22 ways to modify your recipes for a healthy heart

Ever wondered how to still create great tasting meals, but reduce the calories and/or fat intake? Well here’s a few tips that might help you out….

1. If for example you were making a Steak and Mushroom Pie and the recipe called for 750 g braising steak… you could try reducing the meat to 500g and add 200g of canned kidney beans.
2. Replace any butter with margarine or canola oil
3. Use reduced salt stock
4. Remove salt altogether
5. Use filo pastry instead of puff pastry

Read more

Eggs…not as bad as they’re cracked up to be???

For a long time now, there has been a lot of bad stuff said about eggs in relation to dietary cholesterol and fat levels.

But in actual fact, eggs are highly nutritious. They contain good quality protein and 10 vitamins and minerals. One egg contains approximately 5g of fat…and that fat is mainly the “healthy” unsaturated fats that we need to include in our diets for healthy eating.

One egg contains about 1.5g of saturated fat and NO trans fat – the type of fats that raise blood cholesterol and increase the risk of heart disease.

The Heart Foundation says that “The Healthy population can include cholesterol rich foods such as offal (e.g liver, brains, kidney etc) and egg yolks as part of a healthy eating pattern.

Those at risk of cardiovascular disease, especially with high blood cholesterol, should discuss how much cholesterol rich foods they can eat with their doctor or accredited practicing dietician.

Read more

Deciphering Food Labels

Reading food labels can be confusing…sometimes manufacturers can disguise saturated fats by calling various names, and ‘Reduced Fat’ doesn’t necessarily mean low fat and ‘Lite’ or ‘Light’ can mean anything.

With all these marketing smoke screens…its easy to fool yourself into thinking you’ve made some healthy food choices.

So here’s some information that might help you make better food choices on your next grocery shop…

Marketing/Labelling…

1. Cholesterol Free: This doesn’t mean that the food has to be healthy, low in fat or kilojoules, or low in saturated fat. It just means it’s free from dietary cholesterol. Some foods might be cholesterol free, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t high in saturated fat…e.g coconut and palm oil fit into this category. Commercial biscuits and cakes often contain coconut and palm oil which as usually listed on the ingredients as ‘vegetable fat’ or ‘vegetable oil’.
2. Lite or Light: This can refer to anything. They might have less salt, fat or sugar. It doesn’t necessarily mean low in kilojoules (or calories) or low in fat. In some cases ‘Lite’ is used to say something about flavour. E.g olive oil that is lite in flavour.

Read more

Plant Sterol enriched margarine spreads can help reduce blood cholesterol

We’ve all seen margarine spreads in the supermarkets that boast about being “cholesterol reducing” etc. Have you every wondered if they really work?

Well…This is some information that I found on an information handout from the Heart Foundation…

What is a plant sterol?

Plant sterols are naturally occurring components mainly found in vegetable oils but are also present in smaller amounts in nuts, legumes, breads and cereals. Traces are also found in fruit and veges.

What effect do plant sterols have on blood cholesterol levels?

Plant sterols can lower blood cholesterol levels by around 10%, depending on how much is consumed. A reduced blood cholesterol level is associated with a reduced risk of heart disease and stroke.

Read more

What is cholesterol?

Cholesterol and triglycerides are fatty substances that can be found in the blood. There are 2 types of cholesterol:

(1) Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol which is sometimes referred to as BAD cholesterol because it increases your risk of coronary heart disease
(2) High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, which is the GOOD cholesterol because it protects you against coronary heart disease

Triglycerides travel through your blood and are also stored as fat deposits in your body. High levels of triglycerides are common in people with high cholesterol, and in people who are overweight and have heart disease and/or diabetes.

LDL cholesterol accumulates along your artery walls, forming plaque and narrowing your arteries. HDL cholesterol then comes along and tries to clean it up.

So usually when you get a blood test the doctors will check both your total cholesterol and your HDL cholesterol levels and then sometimes they will calculate a ratio by dividing the total cholesterol by the HDL cholesterol. The lower this ratio…the better off you are when it comes to heart disease. Read more

Stress Soloution #1 - Fulfillment & Purpose

I don’t know if you are like me, but sometimes I find it so difficult to hear my own thoughts above the constant background noise of other people’s chatter … (“Mum, can I please have something to eat?” “Mum, I’m bored!” “Honey, have you seen the car keys?” “Mum can you wipe my bottom?” ) It’s easy to lose yourself or at least, the person you used to be.

It’s a fact of life… these things don’t go away (and in some cases you wouldn’t ever want to change it), but Andrew Sheridan who is a life coach has some suggestions on how to make your situation better…

Read more

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