Some Questions Answered as Best I Can.

High Blood Pressure
I have no idea why anyone would even think of asking me about high blood pressure or Hypertension. I'm not a physician or anything resembling a medicine man (no pun intended). I'm just someone amongst MANY who are Hypertensive. I was lucky, so to speak, because I was diagnosed when I was young and I was put on a Beta Blocker which controls my blood pressure, and has controlled it for over 30 years (same meds). Sometimes the doc will put me on my Tenormin with a diuretic (Tenoretic) to help alleviate any excess fluid and that's fine. There are many types of blood pressure meds besides beta blockers. There are ACE Inhibitors, Calcium Channel Blockers, the list goes on. What matters most is what's causing the pressure to be up and what damage , if any, has already occurred. Your doctor will be able to discern that for you, not me. Note to middle aged men: It's okay to see the doctor and sooner is always better than later, later is better than never.

Weight Loss
I've been writing about this topic for a while and I've mentioned some good web sites that I've come accross and I'm happy to share them with you. I wrote an article a long time ago on Olestra and it's benefits in fat reduction. I also wrote about the negative effects that were later revealed when people thought that if you ate a little you'd shed a little and if you ate a lot .... Yeah, they shed a lot in the form of uncontrolled diarreha. People were wolfing down potato chips cooked in this 'stuff' thinking it was great. Wrong! There are a number of herbal supplements I've written about but if your taking a prescription medication PLEASE check with your doctor AND pharmacist about possible interactions it may have with your meds. I strongly encourage you to ask both about them but especially the pharmacist, that's their stock and trade to know about these things. The Internet is a great resource for researching too. I'm currently doing a flax seed review and a liporexall review to see how these products are working out, I'll have a link for you if you want to see for yourself about the liporexall, it's still kind of new to me right now but I've heard it has some promise. Flax seed has been around for a long time and take care with this one as it can cause internal irritability in some people.

Smoking
This is a tough one for me right now because the one product I hold in high regard has come under fire recently. Chantix, made by Phizer, is a smoking cessation drug that is taken for three months(I did it in 2) and it eliminates the desire for smoking, eliminates the cravings associated with cessation, and eliminates the NEED to smoke. It blocks the nicotine receptors in the brain until your 'weaned off' the nicotine dependancy. The other medicine is Zyban, which is an anti-depressant and something I have never heard worked for smoking that well anyhow. The FDA has recently issued strong warnings on these two drugs due to side effects some people have encountered. (On a side note Tylenol has gotten FDA warnings recently too where it may be controlled tighter due to dosage abuse on the packages, but that's another article.) I mentioned above that I only did the 2 months and never took the third months supply because I felt I didn't need it. That was May of 2007 and I haven't wanted or had a cigarette since. I can stand in the middle of a group of smokers and not want to light up. I love it. I was able to quit smoking in my fifties, to date I've lost over 25 lbs of mostly belly fat which is a killer for us guys at that age and I'm feeling good, blood pressure is decent and cholesterol is very good.
Back to Chantix in the news. For some people it isn't a miracle smoking cure. Some people have described having suicidal thoughts and insomnia and that's a problem. I heard about possible side effects like that when I went on the meds but continuing to smoke would kill me eventually, I chose to live. I believe the secret to Chantix being successful is the strong desire to actually quit smoking and not just go through the motions to shut up the doctor or wife, etc. I'm a walking, non-wheasing, testament to the benefits of Chantix and I still recommend it because no other med will do what this does for smoking cessation, not even the mad Russian hypnotist everyone seems to know that will make you stop for a week or two.

I'm getting weary and I'll have to continue my question topics on another article. Keep them coming in and Ill get to them ASAP. Thanks!