Heart disease is a major health threat that everybody should be concerned about, and it seems the more research we do the more it's becoming painfully obvious that the majority of risk factors are things that are under our own control. Bad habits, personal lifestyle routines and choices, are the biggest culprits causing us to get sick.

This challenges the previous widely held belief that only about half of heart disease cases could possibly have been prevented by healthier habits (or a lack of bad ones, like smoking).

To me this is both good news and bad news. Obviously it's not good that we make so many unhealthy choices as a society that we're getting heart disease on a regular basis, but it's always good to have choices and be able to impact our own lives in a positive way. Whether we choose to take advantage by living healthier or not at least we have the option.

If you're not already getting regular activity, I just have one question: What's stopping you? There are so many reasons to exercise, and the truth is, you don't need to sweat your life away in a crowded gym -- take up an activity that you enjoy, like swimming, walking, rowing, etc. The only catch is you have get your heart rate up.

Still not convinced? Read this article called 20 Proven Health Benefits of Exercise. To name a few? Exercise prevents things as minor as a cold and things as major as heart attacks. Also? It can improve your sex life. Read the full article for more inspiration.

If you're already active, what got you moving?

How would you rate your level of fitness? As for me, I would say I am fairly in shape but there's definitely room for improvement. It's important to know because apparently, your fitness level is a good predictor of the likelihood that you'll develop some form of heart problems.

Among a group of 26,000 individuals with no sign of heart trouble, those who had the greatest level of fitness, specifically endurance, had the least amount of heart attacks and stroke over 10 years. This isn't really earth-shattering news, but it's a good reminder to keep fit and active.

Who knows why so many people, men particularly, ignore their high blood pressure and don't make any moves to lower it -- only 1/3 of all patients with a diagnosis of hypertension have it under any kind of control at all. It's one of those illnesses that you can't necessarily feel doing damage, so it's easier to ignore. But whether you feel it happening or not, it is slowly killing you: among other things, having high blood pressure increases your risk of heart attack by 4 times.

Msn has compiled this list of 20 different things you can do to help lower your blood pressure. Although the article is written for men specifically, many of the tips are good for all of us, man or woman. Some things, like inactivity and stress, affect us all!

You've been diagnosed with a heart problem. You have a lot of questions but you can't seem to get your head around this, this thing that's just been dropped on you like bomb.

You probably feel very alone but believe it or not, situations like this are pretty common so WebMD has come up with this handy list of things you should ask your doctor about your heart condition. You need to know the facts, what can be done and where you'll end up on this roller coaster of life--and you might not know which questions to ask. Either that or you're too overwhelmed to think it through. You can even print the list out and take it to your doctor.

If you've gone through this before, what information did you find the most useful?

Results from the Nurses Health Study, between 1990/1991 - 2002/2003, had some interesting findings. One points to an association between cola consumption and hypertension in women.

It was speculated that it was the caffeine in the cola that caused the hypertension, but the study did not find an association between coffee consumption and hypertension. The researchers found that it made no difference if the women were drinking diet or sugared cola. They are speculating that it might be one of the other compounds found in cola that causes hypertension. The study had some flaws, so further research is necessary, but it was clear enough to make the correlation.

Hypertension is a major risk factor in coronary heart disease, stroke and congestive heart failure. It has a huge impact on many lives, and even the slightest reduction in the number of people with high blood pressure would make a difference.

Pycnogenol, a natural extract from the French maritime pine tree, may help slow the damage done to the heart by high blood pressure, in addition to other benefits such as lowered blood pressure, lowered cholesterol, and prevention of thrombosis.

The American Heart Association says nearly 5 million Americans are currently living with heart failure, with over half a million new cases diagnosed every year. Alternative treatments such as pycnogenol could provide another choice for patients and doctors to look into when prescription medications may not be indicated or have adverse side-effects. This test was only on mice, though, so does that mean they're already endorsing it for human use? Talk to your doctor, of course!

I am a Licensed Practical Nurse with five years' experience in this profession. I believe it is essential to go back to the basics in all things in order to really understand them. I am fascinated by how our bodies work and I hope I can get my readers to share my fascination. I hope we all learn new things and marvel again at the things we already know. This feature -- which includes a closing section on how disease affects the topic in question -- will run on The Cancer Blog on Wednesdays, and The Cardio Blog and The Diabetes Blog on Thursdays. [The contents in this post are for informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice or substitute for professional medical care.]

We start with the cell, because so much of what happens to us when we get sick, and how we get healthy again, can be explained by what happens on a cellular level. The cell is extremely complex and I will only touch on the basics in these posts, but at least we can have a rudimentary understanding.

Structure of cells

A cell has three basic parts:

1) Plasma membrane: This post will discuss the membrane in more detail.

2) Cytoplasm: All the cellular contents between the plasma membrane and the nucleus and can be further divided into the Cytosol and Organelles.

3) Nucleus: Technically an organelle, but usually considered separately because of its numerous and diverse functions.

Membrane

A membrane lies at the border of the cells. It consists of lipids and proteins.

Phospholipids (one of the three classes of membrane lipids) are formed into what is called a lipid bilayer. This occurs because it is amphiphilic (containing both hydrophobic and hydrophilic properties). The hydrocarbon tails of the molecule are hydrophobic (water repelling) and its polar head it hydrophilic (water loving). As the plasma membrane faces watery solutions on both sides, its phospholipids accommodate this by forming a phospholipid bilayer with the hydrophobic tails facing each other. Picture a row of heads facing the outside of the cell -- which contains water -- with the tails facing in and another layer of the heads facing the inside of the cell with the tails facing in.

The other day I was taxiing my 13 year-old son and a few of his friends around town. I shamelessly eavesdrop on their conversations because I believe that at this age I need to know anything they are willing to divulge. If they are scheming about doing something they needn't be doing, I need to know that information. One of the boys was discussing smoking and what he would do were he to pick up a cigarette and start inhaling. He was laughing and telling the other boys that they would likely get "all hyper and spaz out!"

One of the activities I hope never to witness my children doing is lighting up and inhaling. So I piped up and began conversing with the boys. While three of them claimed they would never do such a thing, the other said he would just stop before he got too old so that his body would get better. Ah, the beauty of youth. So I did what I had to do and took the boys home, after a few more stops, and opened up my computer for them. I shared some statistics with them and then showed them some pictures. Then I told them that my father, a man they all knew and spent time with, smoked heavily until he was 30 when he quit cold turkey. He then devoted the rest of his life to good diet, exercise and educating others about the dangers of smoking addiction. Unfortunately, my father had only 35 years after he made the decision to quit smoking. Upon his death, it was determined that a piece of hardened plaque in his carotid artery broke off and traveled to his brain, killing him in a mere seconds. After dropping that bomb, all the boys declared they would never smoke.

Will the harsh truth alter their decisions? I can't predict that, but I sure hope it does.

It is imperative to know the signs of an impending heart attack. Many lives can be saved if people are aware of the signs, not only for themselves, but also for family members and even strangers. It might not be obvious that someone is having a heart attack, but knowing what to look for can help.

The most important thing to remember is that if there is any doubt, dial 911 or go to the nearest emergency room. You will not look foolish and the best scenario would be if it is a false alarm. Also, remember that these symptoms may show up in isolation and may also be signs of an impending attack, so catching it early could truly save a life.

The 10 most common signs are:

• Pain from the center of the chest that spreads down one or both arms and up to the shoulders, back, neck, or jaw
• Chest pain that feels like heaviness, burning, squeezing, tightness, pressure or crushing
• Chest pain or discomfort that is brought on with exertion and disappears with rest
• Sudden chest discomfort that persists even with rest
• Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath
• Indigestion, nausea or vomiting
• Cold sweats or cool, clammy skin
• Pallor
• Fear or anxiety
• Denial: a refusal to admit anything is wrong

Women are somewhat more likely to experience shortness of breath, nausea or vomiting and pain in the back of the jaw, although their most common symptom is still chest pain. To learn more go to the American Heart Association website.

There's so much information these days on what causes what, what prevents what and so on that it's really hard to keep up. So it's really, really refreshing when someone breaks it down for you in common-sense terms. Like this -- it's a list of 5 things you should do to prevent heart disease. You should read it, even if, like me, you're young and not worried about that kind of stuff yet, because it's important to build a healthy foundation for living when you're young. In no particular order, they are:

1:Eat Less Fat
2:Eat less sodium
3:Exercise daily
4:Maintain a healthy weight
5:Reduce stress

These 5 tips aren't easy changes to make, but they're things you should remember every single day and try to live by. Don't you think?

In the interest of full disclosure, the blog post I am going to site for this piece was written by my father, Thomas L. Creer, PhD. He runs the blog called Manage Your Illness, which is a resource for people with chronic illness of all kinds. My father has spent his entire career as a clinical psychologist working with patients to manage their health.

In his post Self-management and heart failure, he discusses the results of a study about self-management of heart disease and hospital admissions. Patients who take responsibility for their own health, who implement preventions, and who are compliant with their heart medications have fewer hospitalizations due to their heart problems, and health care costs in general are greatly reduced.

All too often, we tend to expect our health care to be provided by our physicians, with little or no participation on our part. However, there is a movement afoot in the States to make patients co-equal partners with their physicians in the management of their health, and disease. Something as simple as maintaining a medication regime can make a great amount of difference in improving overall health.

For obese teens, regularly scheduled exercise -- at least 90 minutes, three times a week -- not only helps shed extra pounds, but also improves the health of their arteries. They need your help to get motivated -- that and low perseverance are two of the biggest obstacles for obese teens in sticking to their routines.

"Atherosclerosis - also referred to as hardening of the arteries -- starts during childhood in the presence of such risk factors as obesity and sedentary lifestyle," said Dr. Andreas Alexander Meyer, a pediatric cardiologist at the University of Rostock Children's Hospital in Germany.

At the beginning of a recent study of the effects of regular exercise on preventing heart disease in obese teens, most already had visible signs of artery hardening and thickening of the arterial lining. After six months of exercising at least one hour or more, three times a week, not only had these teens lost significant weight -- the flexibility of their arteries returned, the excess arterial lining shrunk, and their cholesterol and blood pressure levels reduced. Hooray for exercise!

As women get older, it is common to gain weight. The metabolism slows, physical activity lacks, and diets get heavy. These combinations spell out heart disease. According to a new Danish report, women who steer clear of simple carbs and stick with high fiber foods tend to stay slimmer as the years go on.

Over a period of six years, normal-weight women whose diet was higher on the glycemic index -- meaning higher consumption of blood sugar spiking foods like candy and white bread -- packed on more abdominal fat than women whose diets were low glycemic -- consisting of lots of high fiber vegetable and complex carb whole grains.

High glycemic diets also make you feel hungry quicker, prompting you to fill up faster on more empty calories. The study also noted that the results were worst for women who lead sedentary lifestyles -- reminding us that physical exercise is one of the best preventative measures against weight gain.

Coinciding with Mondays New York court hearing on the ban of trans fat use in restaurants, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) announced that all 5,500 of it's U.S. fried-chicken chains will stop using oils containing trans fat by April 2007. In addition, the Yum Brands Inc. company will also switch oils in all of its 786 Canadian fast food chains as well.

After a two-years of testing a variety of cooking oils, KFC chose linolenic soybean oil, which contains zero trans fat. Joining the ranks of trans-fat banning hamburger chain Wendy's, KFC is still ahead of McDonald's -- who after two years of promises still can't find the right replacement oil and still uses trans fatty oils. In China and other parts of the world, KFC fast food chains already use healthier cooking oils.