Individual Health Lifestyle    By:Ann Marier

Just fifty years ago, we weren't faced with ten different flus of notorious proportions. There was just “the flu”. World travel has now made it possible for a dangerous flu from Hong Kong to be transported in a matter of hours to San Francisco. Today, there are conditions we'd never heard of until doctors decided it deserved a name and some bright chemist came up with a pill to get rid of the symptoms.

Does this new way of interpreting health strike a suspicious note in your mind? If so, that's probably good. In today's world, we need to take more responsibility for our individual health than might previously have been required. More and more people are beginning to realize that our individual health condition often belongs in our own hands.

There's a lot of individual health factors that we can control in very simple and effective ways, to prevent conditions and diseases, avoiding a visit to the doctor and yet another costly prescription with side effects we may not even want to think about, but must, for our own protection.

In the last couple of decades, we've come to realize that our diets play a big role in individual health and disease. We know consumption of fatty and fried foods can cause the cholesterol to soar or harden our arteries. We're aware of the many benefits of fresh fruits and vegetables, loaded with antioxidants and free radical scavengers, which can go along way towards staving off cancer, colds and digestive problems.

Cold water fish contain the now famous and beneficial omega-3 fatty acids, which are dubbed the “good” fats in nutrition circles. A couple of minutes thought on these few examples shows us we have a great deal of control over our individual health problems.

Then there are legitimate conditions we may have accumulated over the years, due to poor lifestyle habits, diet or simply genetically passed on as a vulnerability. Even then, we needn't rely on a pill to save the day. Taking responsibility for our own individualhealth concerns means we must do a little work ourselves, many times producing a very favorable result.

Let's say your cholesterol is high and your doctor gives you a prescription medicine to reduce the levels. However, after reading the literature accompanying that prescription, listing all the warnings about possible side effects, you're not so sure you want to consume this pill.

You do a little research on cholesterol and find that many clinical studies demonstrate that daily garlic intake will reduce the cholesterol levels by an equal amount in the same time frame, with no scary side effects. That's when you want to consult your doctor and talk this over. If you can get the same results from a food rather than a pill, why introduce a pill that may do you harm?

You'll find that by educating yourself, you can take charge of many individual health concerns and be hale and hearty. About the author: Ann Merier writes articles about the home and family health. Article topics include mothers day,diabetes,detox diet,yoga,pilates exercise
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