Nutrition

Gastroesophageal reflux disease, acid reflux, or heart burn is a chronic problem that occurs when stomach acids backflow into the esophagus. Many have heart burn occasionally when consuming too much spicy food. If you have this burning sensation more than twice a week, you may have acid reflux. In 2005, there were 3,141,965 hospitalizations due to acid reflux. Sixty- two percent of hospitalizations were women. The same study showed that the number of adults hospitalized dropped from 1998 to 2005.

Blood pressure is the force at which blood pushes against the walls of arteries coming from the heart to other areas of the body. A blood pressure may be taken anywhere an artery can be collapsed against a bone. The artery is collapsed against a bone as the cuff or sphygmomanometer is inflated. As the air is released slowly from the cuff, a stethoscope is placed on the artery to listen for beats. The first sound heard is the opening or systolic blood pressure and represents the pressure during the contraction phase of the heart.

Approximately forty-five million Americans complain of headaches each year which is more than any other ailment. This accounts for one in every six people or sixteen and a half percent of the population. More than eight million people will visit a physician for headache treatment.

From the years 2013 to 2015, 54.4 million adults in the United States or 27.7 percent of the population annually have been told by a physician that they had some form of arthritis encompassing rheumatoid arthritis, gout, lupus, or fibromyalgia. The most common form of arthritis is osteoarthritis and other rheumatic conditions include gout, fibromyalgia, and rheumatoid arthritis. Arthritis means inflammation of one or more joints. It describes more than one hundred conditions that affect joints, tissues around joints, and connective tissue.

In 2018, 30.3 million Americans were diagnosed with heart disease. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States. Approximately 647,000 people die of heart disease every year in the United States. One in every four deaths is due to heart disease. Coronary heart disease is the most common type of heart disease, which kills 385,000 people annually. Each year 825,000 people have a heart attack, with 605,000 having a first heart attack and 325,000 having a second or additional number of heart attacks.

The nervous system is probably the most important system of the body and certainly essential for life as we currently know it. The nervous system controls cognition, analysis, decision making, autonomic, and motor function. Signs of nerve damage or malfunction are numbness, tingling, pain, or more serious cases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, or multiple sclerosis. Hopefully, by eating a preventative, healthy diet people may be able to reduce or avoid nerve damage resulting from many diverse factors.

Worldwide, osteoporosis causes 8.9 million fractures annually resulting in a fracture every three seconds. Osteoporosis is estimated to affect two hundred million women. Osteoporosis affects an estimated 75 million people in Europe, USA, and Japan. One in three women over the age of fifty will experience fractures related to osteoporosis as will one in five men over the age of fifty.

Adequate sleep has proven to have a beneficial effect on overall health. Many adults have difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or finding enough time to sleep. A good night's sleep provides energy, promotes immunity, skin elasticity, and lowers blood pressure which are all components of health.

The saying is that an apple a day will keep the doctor away. It turns out that eating the right foods will boost the immune system. The immune system works well with adequate servings of fruits and vegetables, eight to ten glasses of water at least, and many of the following foods discussed in this document will help battle the flu and other ailments.

The foods we consume can have a profound impact on mental health. A diet can be created that benefits brain development, cognitive function, and slows the aging process to decrease the risk of conditions like Alzheimer's disease or dementia. The remainder of this document will discuss foods that will have a positive effect on mental processes, diseases, and health.