-Do you need a little help in getting yourself up off the couch to exercise? We all know that exercise can help reduce the risk of many diseases, including heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and stroke.

-Staying fit can also reduce your risk of cancer, and if you are a cancer survivor, exercise can increase your likelihood of surviving.
-In a recent study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers looked at the impact of physical activity on survival in a group of over 2,000 adults who had been diagnosed with invasive but non-metastatic colon cancer.
-Compared to the couch potatoes, patients who engaged in 8.75 or more METS (metabolic equivalents) of exercise per week, equal to approximately 150 minutes of brisk walking, reduced their mortality by a whopping 42 percent.

-Why does exercise improve survival from cancer? One theory is that it reduces stress and inflammation, both of which are known to drive cancer cell growth.

Persistent, recurrent problems with sexual response or desire — that distress you or strain your relationship with your partner — are known medically as female sexual dysfunction.
Female sexual dysfunction can occur at all stages of life, and it may be ongoing or happen only once in a while.

You may experience more than one type of female sexual dysfunction. Types include:

Low sexual desire. You have diminished libido, or lack of sex drive.
Sexual arousal disorder. Your desire for sex might be intact, but you have difficulty or are unable to become aroused or maintain arousal during sexual activity.
Orgasmic disorder. You have persistent or recurrent difficulty in achieving orgasm after sufficient sexual arousal and ongoing stimulation.
Sexual pain disorder. You have pain associated with sexual stimulation or vaginal contact.

Young women who eat plenty of blueberries and strawberries may have a reduced risk of heart attack, a new study has found.
The reason, researchers believe, is that those fruits, like other red and blue fruits and vegetables, have high concentrations of anthocyanin, a flavonoid that may help lower blood pressure and improve blood vessel function.
The scientists behind the study are from the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of East Anglia in the UK.
These flavonoids are also found in grapes and wine, blackberries, eggplant, and other fruits. According to the new research the anthocyanins may provide other cardiovascular benefits — including preventing the buildup of heart attack-causing plaque.

Angioplasty is used to re-open coronary arteries that have become narrowed by atherosclerotic plaque. This procedure is used to treat blocked coronary arteries as well as arteries in other parts of the body. Angioplasty requires only local anesthesia and sometimes mild sedation (relaxing medications). Patients typically spend the night in the hospital and are able to return to normal activity in a day or two.

Balloon Angioplasty

During balloon angioplasty, a thin tube (catheter) is inserted into an artery in the groin. A tiny balloon is then passed through the catheter and is guided to the narrowed area(s), where the balloon is expanded to stretch open the artery.

Snoring could be an early warning sign of the risk of heart disease, than those who are overweight, smoke or have high cholesterol, says study.
Snoring is tied to increased thickening of the lining of the two large blood vessels that supply the brain with oxygenated blood.
Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) – a sleep disorder that occurs due to the collapse of the airway in the throat during sleep and causes loud snoring and periodic pauses in breathing - has long been linked to cardiovascular disease, along with a host of other serious health issues.
But the risk for cardiovascular disease may actually begin with snoring, long before it becomes OSA.
Snoring is more than a bedtime annoyance and it shouldn’t be ignored. Patients need to seek treatment in the same way they would if they had sleep apnea, high blood pressure or other risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Lowering LDL cholesterol is currently one of the primary public health initiatives preventing atherosclerosis and heart attacks. The benefits of lowering LDL cholesterol are:

Reducing or stopping the formation of new cholesterol plaques on the artery walls
Reducing existing cholesterol plaques on the artery walls and widening the arteries
Preventing the rupture of cholesterol plaques, which initiates blood clot formation and blocks blood vessels
Decreasing the risk of heart attacks
Decreasing the risk of strokes
Decreasing the risk of peripheral artery disease

The same measures that decrease narrowing in coronary arteries also may benefit the carotid and cerebral arteries (arteries that deliver blood to the brain) as well as the femoral arteries that supplies blood to the legs.

Experts know that many different factors are linked to high blood pressure. But experts still don’t fully understand the exact cause. Factors that are linked to high blood pressure include:
• Aging.
• Drinking more than 2 alcoholic drinks a day for men or more than 1 alcoholic drink a day for women.
• Eating a lot of sodium (salt).
• Being overweight or obese.
• Not exercising.
• Being under a lot of stress.
• Eating a diet low in potassium, magnesium, and calcium.
• Being insulin-resistant.
Primary, or essential, high blood pressure is the most common type of high blood pressure. Most people who have high blood pressure have primary high blood pressure.
Secondary high blood pressure, which is caused by another disease or medicine, is less common.
Elevated blood pressure readings may not always mean that you have high blood pressure. For some people, just being in a medical setting causes their blood pressure to rise. This is called white-coat hypertension.

-Sex and exercise can trigger heart attacks in older people who don’t get much of either, a new analysis has found.

-The risk is low, but it’s a good reminder that slackers should change their exercise habits gradually, especially in middle age. People who exercise regularly have a much smaller risk of having a heart attack immediately after sexual or physical activity, said lead author Dr Issa Dahabreh of Tufts Medical Center in Boston. “It would be really bad if someone thought our paper means people should not exercise,” Dahabreh said. “If anything, it’s the opposite.”

-The analysis, which appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association, combined results from 14 studies involving more than 6000 patients. The studies involved only people who had had heart attacks or who had died suddenly of a heart problem.

Let’s watch a video about EECP, procedure that’s also helps in heart attack prevention and sex activity:

-Seniors with depression may have a higher risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia, researchers from University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, reported in Archives of Neurology, Online First.

-The authors had gathered and examined data on a group of Medicare recipients in the USA who were 65 or over.

-According to the researchers, studies have indicated that from 3% to 63% of patients with MCI have depressive symptoms. Other studies have demonstrated that people with a history of depression have a higher risk of dementia during their later years. A study published in Archives of Neurology revealed that mild cognitive impairment and dementia are much more common among very old women.