Issue Date: Janury 5, 2005
Publisher: Mellanie True Hills, The Health & Productivity Revitalizer

Escape the hype. The Healthy Living News cuts through all the health clutter to bring you reliable news to optimize your life, your health, and your work.

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season.

In this issue, you'll find the following topics:

1. Health Tidbits

2. Do You Make New Year's Resolutions?

3. What's On My Mind: Are You Next?

1. Health Tidbits

Here are some of the recent findings that can impact your health and life.

a) Controlling your blood pressure and cholesterol is far more effective for your brain than expensive memory drugs. A new study from University of Michigan researchers (and others), which was just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that having high blood pressure and high cholesterol damages small blood vessels in the brain, causing brain cells to die over time.

It's a vicious cycle: high blood pressure and high cholesterol can lead to dementia and Alzheimer's, and Alzheimer's can lead to strokes, and strokes can cause dementia. (Resource: A Woman's Guide to Saving Her Own Life discusses how to control blood pressure and cholesterol.)

b) Organic milk contains three-fourths more good, heart-protecting Omega-3 fatty acid than conventional milk, and organic cheese is even better. But be careful not to overdo it as milk and cheese also contain bad (saturated) fats.

c) We already knew that if you have infections (respiratory, etc.), you're at higher risk of heart attacks and strokes while sick, but recent research has quantified that effect. During the first three days of a respiratory infection, study participants were at 395% increased risk of heart attack and 219% increased risk of stroke. The risk was still elevated for 28 days afterwards. For tips on avoiding the flu and other respiratory ailments, check out this back issue of the Healthy Living News:.

d) If you do get sick, stay home. Men who didn't take sick days were at much higher risk of heart attacks, according to a study in the January 5th issue of the American Journal of Public Health. This likely also applies to women. So, avoid getting sick, but if you do, stay home, to protect your health from more than just the flu.

Give the gift of good health to your friends and family in 2005 by spreading the word about the Healthy Living News. Please tell them that they can sign up to receive their own copy of this priceless information every other week . Thanks.

2. Do You Make New Year's Resolutions?

Have you made New Year's resolutions yet? Have you stuck to them so far? Maybe; maybe not.

New Year's resolutions are often weak and ineffective because they are more like wish lists than concrete plans for permanent change. You can't say "I will lose weight" and just expect it to happen because it won't, but lots of folks do that, which is why resolutions get a bad rap. What are the steps you can take to actually make permanent changes for the new year?

1) Create a vision/master plan: What's important to you? Where do you want to end up? It's not hard to do—just "go into the silence" to dream and think, and then write it down.

2) Define the steps: How do you get where you want to go? Once your plan and steps are in writing, you're halfway there to accomplishing them.

3) Schedule it: If you're like me, with lots of balls in the air (who isn't these days), it has to be on your calendar or you'll drop lots of those balls. Daily exercise is a recurring calendar event, so when the reminder pops up, I just go do it.

If you'd like more detail about how to reach your goal to be healthier in 2005, check out A Woman's Guide to Saving Her Own Life . This workbook guides you step-by-step through making permanent life-saving changes, and includes the secrets of how I easily lost 85 pounds and how you can lose excess weight, too. Get off to a great start for 2005!  

I'd love to know what you've resolved or what health goals you've set for 2005, and how I can help you reach them. Please take a moment to e-mail me to let me know:  

• Do you make New Year's resolutions, and do you keep them?
• What are your goals or resolutions for 2005?
• How can I help you reach them?
• How will you pamper yourself this year?

I'll share a summary with you all soon.

3.  What's On My Mind: Are You Next?

I'm just back from an American Heart Association meeting. Many of you know that I serve on the local board of directors and do speaking and media appearances on their behalf to raise awareness of heart disease and stroke.

Many folks at this particular meeting were, like myself, either heart disease or stroke survivors. Having one of these makes you more vulnerable to the other, and many of you know from my speeches and writing that since my brush with death from heart disease, I've also had blood clots and close calls with stroke.

Finding out more about the experiences of these stroke survivors made me heartsick. They used to be thriving, productive, and active—doing things to take care of themselves—but now they are permanently disabled. I was brought to tears of sadness, and even anger, by one survivor's story. She has a grandmother who had suffered a stroke. She shared this information with her doctor, but perhaps she didn't get the right testing and follow up, or maybe nothing showed up, but at any rate, she, too, recently had a stroke. Here's this young woman who now has vision and walking problems, and who can no longer work to make a living.

But her story isn't unique. This story happens every 45 seconds in the US . Today, in the US alone, we have nearly 5 million stroke survivors, and of those, 30% are permanently disabled. Many are unable to walk, speak, or see, and can no longer work. Since they are more at risk for other medical issues, including further strokes and heart disease, many can no longer get medical insurance. Stroke is devastating—physically, emotionally, and financially—for individuals, families, companies, and our economy.

Why should you care? Because two out of every five of us—forty per cent—will get and die from heart disease or stroke. Heart disease is the #1 killer, and stroke is #3. Stroke is also the #1 cause of disability. Every family--including yours--will be touched by heart disease or stroke.

Both are preventable, if you know what to change. Do you know your risk factors for heart disease and stroke, and are you doing something about them? Do you know what to ask your doctor and how to make sure you're getting the care you deserve? If not, you need to. Make changes now, or YOU could be NEXT .

I wrote A Woman's Guide to Saving Her Own Life as a labor of love to let you know how to protect yourself, your family, and your friends from these debilitating and deadly diseases. It's not just for women—much of this information also applies to men, and men need to know how to protect the women in their lives. What are the symptoms to look for? How do you know when to call 911? What can you do to protect others?

With your help, the Special Limited Edition sold out almost immediately, and more will be coming, but we can't wait—you can immediately download the e-book version and get started now at making the permanent changes that can save your life and others. Please don't put it off. You need to take action immediately to save your own life or that of your loved ones.

Please, take care of yourself, and even find ways to pamper yourself this year. You deserve it!

Wishing you health and happiness,

Mellanie

Mellanie True Hills
The Health & Productivity Revitalizer
Speaker, consultant, health and productivity coach, and
Author of A Woman's Guide to Saving Her Own Life: The HEART Program for Health and Longevity - read the first two chapters

PPS. Feel free to reprint this or any of my articles in your publication, company newsletter, or on your intranet. Please include attribution, copyright, and contact information (http://www.saveherlife.com and http://www.mellaniehills.com) and please send us a copy. Thanks.

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