"Adopt these most natural ways to fight Hypertension-
1. Exercise. 30 min everyday is enough.
2. Eat Bananas. Its potassium counters sodium from salt.
3. Cut Salt. Avoid processed foods and you will cut salt.
4. Don't Smoke. Avoid Alcohol
5. De-stress. It will keep BP in control.
6. Meditation or Yoga. Both are very balancing.
7. Skip Caffeine. Coffee is bad for your BP.
"

7 Natural Ways to Lower Blood Pressure

Snacking between meals for weight gain

If you are struggling to gain weight here is an all time unbeatable way to do so. Have a healthy snack right in the middle of two meals. However, if you do not snack at the right interval or have it too close to meal times, it would only result in a reduced appetite. Pack yourself some fruits, nuts, yogurts, or granola bars as snacks. 

Caution: try to avoid the easy but unhealthy junk food route. Fast food only adds unhealthy weight which will prove to be detrimental later in life.

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The Most Powerful Way To Put On Weight - Snacking Right.

Do you need vitamin supplements? Here's how to find out

Taking vitamin and mineral supplements is increasingly becoming common these days. People generally opt for these supplements to ensure good health as their diets are usually lacking in vitamins due to the pursuit of a hectic lifestyle.

But before you begin consuming vitamin supplements, it's necessary for you to know whether your body actually needs them. According to nutritionists, you should plan your diet appropriately to fulfil your nutritional needs and not depend on vitamin supplements to do so. If your diet includes foods like fruits, green vegetables, whole grains, low-fat dairy products, legumes, fish and lean meat, you won't need vitamin supplements.

So, when exactly do you need vitamin supplements?

You might need vitamin supplements in the following cases:

- If you are above the age of 50, you can take vitamin b-12 supplement. Additionally, you may consider eating food items fortified with vitamin b-12, like fortified cereals.

- If your diet does not meet the normal requirement of 1, 600 calories a day, you should consider dietary supplements. Moreover, the diet of people who do not consume red meat usually lacks in zinc and iron, which can be supported by vitamin supplements.

- If you are a woman whose menstrual cycle is associated with heavy bleeding, you might need vitamin supplements.

- If you suffer from a disorder that has a negative impact on the nutrient absorption process of your body, you need to take vitamin supplements. These conditions include chronic diarrhoea, food intolerance, food allergies or any disease related to the liver, pancreas, intestines and gall bladder.

- If your body has difficulty in absorbing and digesting nutrients because of a surgery of the digestive tract.

- If you are a woman who is planning to have a child. Women who want to get pregnant should consume 400 mg folic acid, which can be obtained from dietary supplements or fortified foods.

- If you are pregnant, you should include a prenatal vitamin in your daily diet. This vitamin should contain iron. You may also fulfil this iron requirement by consuming a separate iron supplement.

If you would like to consult with me privately, please click on 'consult'.

Do You Need Vitamin Supplements?

4 Reasons you SHOULD have your meals with ghee

Full of nutrients, ghee or clarified butter comes with an assortment of health benefits. Despite its vast nutrient content, most people avoid ghee, believing that it is fattening. This is in fact not entirely true! Here s why you should consider adding a dollop of ghee to your meals. 

1. Good for your brain: Ghee is an excellent source of omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids, which help in the proper functioning of your brain and nervous system. Furthermore, these fats can also decrease your risk of getting brain disorders like Alzheimer s and dementia.

2. Strengthens your immunity: Ghee is rich in nutrients like CLA and K2 that give it its anti-fungal and anti-viral properties. Also, the presence of these nutrients helps ghee in strengthening your immune system so as to keep diseases at bay. 
Additionally, several studies show that the butyric acid (acid that helps in controlling metabolism) content of ghee also helps in fortifying your immune system as it enables the creation of killer T cells (a type of white blood cells) in the stomach.


3. Promotes weight loss: Contrary to popular belief, the inclusion of ghee in your diet can also help in reducing fat cells in your body, leading to loss of weight. It does so by improving the functioning of your gall bladder, so that the bile that is produced is able to break down the fats that are digested. As your meals get easily digested, your body s metabolism levels also increase significantly. 
Moreover, it contains medium-chain fatty acids (MCTs) that are responsible for augmenting your body s metabolic processes. Several researches indicate that these fatty acids have the ability to burn calories and bringing about weight loss. While decreasing hunger, they are also responsible for oxidation of fats that get accumulated in your body.

4. Helps in digestion: Ghee regulates the secretion of stomach acid, which gives you a stronger appetite, while helping you to properly digest your food. Furthermore, when added to foods like khichdi or puran poli, it could help you to digest these better. If you suffer from low levels of butyric acid production, it can significantly perk up your butyric acid production by improving the functioning of your digestive tract. Butyric acid is highly important as it strengthens the walls of your intestines, while being an energy source for your body. 

If you would like to consult with me privately, please click on 'Consult'.

Did You Know: GHEE Promotes Weight loss? 4 Reasons You Must Have Ghee

Curd Vs. Buttermilk

Curd and buttermilk are both milk based products, have the same composition, and more or less the same nutrients, yet there remains a persistent question as to which out of the two is better?

Does adding water to the contents of the curd, to turn it into buttermilk, really affect the properties of curd?

The answer is yes.

Read on to find out, how.

The basic difference between curd and buttermilk is the process of dilution by the addition of water. The more water you put in curd, the less concentrated the buttermilk becomes. According to Ayurveda, the churning (Manthana) of the curd into buttermilk, gives it additional properties. Churning induces the proteins in the buttermilk to be easily digested due to their degraded structure.

Here are a few pointers that could help you choose which out of the two suits your needs more:

Calorie content:

If you are looking to reduce your weight and prefer a controlled diet, you should opt for buttermilk. 100 grams of buttermilk contains 40 calories, whereas 100 grams of curd contains close to 98 calories. So, for undernourished children or people looking forward to gain weight, curd should be opted because it is nutrient dense.

Nutrient content:

Buttermilk is rich in calcium, vitamin B12, zinc, iboflavin and proteins. It helps in keeping your bones healthy, lowering the level of bad cholesterol, preventing cancer, battling stress and anemia due to the presence of these nutrients. On the other hand, curd contains calcium, phosphorus, vitamins B12, B5, B2, potassium, proteins, and molybdenum. These nutrients prove to be beneficial in preventing chances of hypertension and heart diseases, promoting teeth and bone health and reducing stress and anxiety.

Fluid content:

Buttermilk has significant fluid content, so it can be consumed in extremely hot weather conditions to curb dehydration and as a replacement to other fluids. On the contrary, curd has limited fluid content, which makes it suitable for consumption by people who have been instructed to adhere to a fluid restricted diet, but require an intake of good quality proteins.

Probiotics content

Both curd and buttermilk are rich in probiotics or good bacteria, which help in strengthening your immune system and increase longevity.

Remember make either of the two a part of your regular diet!

Curd Vs. Buttermilk - What's Your Summer Delight?

There was an era where we had deadly infections like plague and polio causing death of thousands of people. We still have occasional outbreak of swine flu, but by and large, infections are quite controlled. The new killer diseases are caused because of the lifestyle we have adapted and the damage we have done to the environment. High intake of processed foods, artificial chemicals in our foods, sedentary lifestyle with very minimal to no physical activity, couching over the computers; the list is quite long. All these have led to diseases like diabetes and cancer that were not so common about say few decades ago.

Detailed observation has revealed that both these new epidemiologic diseases have a close correlation. There are factors, which induce diabetes and diabetes in turn and in some cases, diabetes inducing agents, can cause cancer also. It has also been observed that mortality is severely increased if diabetic patients are diagnosed with cancer. There are two types of diabetes. While type 1 is mostly hereditary, type 2 is lifestyle induced and the age at which this is being diagnosed is taking a severe plunge. Adolescents and teenagers are being diagnosed for diabetes. Cancer, on the other hand, is of various types (leukaemia, melanoma, etc.) and can affect various organs (lung, breast, prostate, stomach, liver, etc.).

The medical community is yet to decipher the disease pattern of both these conditions. While there is no definite correlation between diabetes and all types of cancer, some types of cancer are definitely correlated with a definite reason identified, pancreatic and liver cancer for instance. The high amounts of insulin that diabetic patients are exposed to causes changes in liver and pancreas including fatty liver and cirrhosis, here the incidence of cancer is higher. The linkage is not very clear in lung and intestinal cancers and also there is no link between prostate cancer and diabetes.

Diabetes is considered as a state of chronic inflammation and leads to conditions like hyperinsulinemia (higher levels of insulin in the blood) hyperglycemia (higher levels of sugar in the blood). These are believed to aggravate the neoplastic process of cancer formation, thereby inducing cancer at a greater pace and also increasing the mortality rates.

The following are risk factors that are applicable to both age, physical activity, diet, obesity, drinking and smoking. It is also possible that onset of one can be followed by the other. As noted earlier, more detailed research is awaited to establish a definite linkage, but the correlation cannot be ignored at all.

Both these new epidemics are here to stay and since they have a common set of factors, we need to work on ways to contain them.

Diabetes and Cancer: The New Epidemic?

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