Taking care of your kidney health is important. – By Dr harold Gunatillake Monitor your kidney health, blood pressure, and glucose levels regularly. Stay within your targets and lead a healthy lifestyle to maintain a healthy weight. Kidneys are the unsung heroes of our bodies, working tirelessly to filter waste and maintain a delicate balance of minerals and nutrients. You are always concerned about your heart health by checking cholesterol levels, but you do not get tested to check whether you are keeping your kidneys healthy. Most people do not know they have kidney disease because symptoms are typically not noticeable at early stages. The first step to prevent kidney disease like heart disease is to monitor your blood pressure and keep it within normal range. Over time, uncontrolled high blood pressure can cause arteries around the kidneys to narrow, weaken or harden. These damaged arteries cannot deliver enough blood ...

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How good is a can or two beers every day? – By Dr Harold Gunatillake Beer is one of the oldest beverages in the world. Beer recipes can be found in Egyptian tombs, Mesopotamian archaeological sites and Babylonian texts. Today, beer is found in grocery stores and breweries around the world. People are even rediscovering the joy of making beer at home. *Beer has high levels of B vitamins, particularly folic acid, which is believed to help prevent heart attacks. Beer also has soluble fibre, which keeps you regular, reducing the likelihood that your system will absorb unhealthy junk like fat. I drink a can or two small beers every day. I walk an average of 35,000 steps in a day, intermittently covering 8,000 steps per hour, and I relax with a small can of beer or two at intervals. I am 94 years old and have carried this habit ...

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What are the foods your heart prefers? – By Dr harold Gunatillake How does healthy food help your heart? Unhealthy foods cause heart disease, other than the minority born with congenital defects, Eating daily the right food for the heart will keep your heart ticking with a regular healthy beat during your lifespan. A healthy diet can help reduce your risk of developing coronary heart disease and stop you from gaining weight, reducing your risk of diabetes and high blood pressure. It can also help lower your cholesterol levels and reduce your risk of some cancers. A healthy diet can benefit your heart even if you already have a heart condition. The first step toward maintaining heart health is understanding heart disease risk factors. Your risk depends on many factors, some of which are changeable and others that are not. Risk factors are conditions or habits that make a person ...

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Need to check your blood pressure, frequently – By Dr Harold Gunatillake Website: www.Doctorharold.com Transcript: Normal blood pressure is essential for proper blood flow to the body’s organs and tissues. Blood pressure is created when the heart pumps, mainly from the left ventricle, against the peripheral resistance of the arteries and needs to remain within the considered normal range. Each heartbeat forces blood to the rest of the body. The ideal BP for an adult is systolic 120 and diastolic 60-90mm Hg, regardless of age. Systolic blood pressure is the pressure when your heart is pumping. Diastolic measures the pressures in your arteries when they are resting and refilling. This is also when the heart fills up with blood to pump again. Many years back, the systolic blood pressure was calculated according to the person’s age: Age plus 100 was supposed to be the upper limit. If you are 50 ...

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Keeping your Kidneys Healthy – by Dr harold Gunatillake Transcript: Your kidneys get rid of waste in your body and help you hold on to the right amount of fluid. They also send out hormones that keep your blood pressure steady, and they play a role in making red blood cells. They even make a form of vitamin D that’s good for your bones. Just the way you check your blood cholesterol to keep the ticker working, you need to think of doing the right thing for your kidneys to keep them healthy. They are silent organs, makes no fuss, but you need to think of keeping them healthy with the right lifestyles and nutrition. You need to be aware that certain drugs, continuous usage harms your kidneys. Common examples are ibuprofen and naproxen taken for arthritic pains. They do damage your kidneys if taken too many times a day. ...

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Depriving your heart muscles with Calcium can lower your blood pressure.-By Dr Harold Gunatillake Transcript: The drugs used are called Calcium channel blockers Let us talk about them. During contraction of the heart muscles to pump blood to the periphery and simultaneously receiving the venous blood, calcium particles in the blood seems to enter the heart muscle cells with each contraction, and also the calcium contribute to the electrical signaling that coordinates the heart function, by slowing down the electrical impulses initiated by the sinoatrial node (SA-node), which gives you a lower pulse rate. It is also important to have the right concentration of potassium in the blood for the calcium to act. If there is high potassium concentration in your blood that can cause cardiac arrest because the calcium found within heart muscle cells seem to be pumped out. So, it is important to check your blood potassium level ...

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  What should be the normal Blood Pressure for a Sri Lankan By Dr Harold Gunatillake The blood pressure that is considered normal for men and women seems to be changing from time and again. When we were medical students in the fifties, we were told that the upper pressure should be less than your age plus 100: meaning, if you are 50 years, your normal systolic pressure should be 150mm.Hg or less. With time, studies revealed that the incidence and the risk of heart disease and stroke was quite high with such blood pressure readings.   Then, it was realised that the strain on the Heart muscles with this respective BP considered normal, was too severe, resulting in high incidence of heart problems, including failure.         The blood pressure of an individual depends on the force of blood ejected from the left lower chamber (ventricle) of the ...

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