Healthy Internal Organs- Lungs

Here is information about maintaining healthy lungs- if you need more info, talk to a health care professional.

LUNGS

In today’s health conscious world, proper care is taken to decide what foods to eat for lung health. We all know that lungs help us in breathing. Even this simple act requires a lot of energy from our body. If we don’t eat well and don’t take healthy food, our body will find it difficult to provide that kind of energy for breathing as well as for all its other daily functions. Proper nourishing food should be taken in the right quantity for better health of lungs as this effects the body’s metabolism and even the amount of carbon dioxide produced by digestion whose excess can make you feel weak and fatigued.

For good lung health, we must take a nourishing diet. Unfortunately there is no food or food group that has all the nutrients required by the body. In a way it is good because it allows us to enjoy a variety of foods to meet the requirements. Therefore it is essential to combine three or four food groups in every meal. You can even have some healthy food snacks if you want.

Let us see some dos and don’ts about the foods eaten for lung health.

• Enjoying a variety of foods is a must. This will ensure proper nourishment for the body
• We all know that fruits and vegetables are very rich in nutrients. So it is important to include a generous serving of fruits and vegetables in your daily meal.
• Have plenty of cereals, breads and other grain products. This increases the fibre that is required by the body.
• Avoid oily and greasy foods and take low-fat dairy products. The foods high in calories will only harm the lungs
• It is better to have lean proteins such as eggs, fish, white meat chicken and turkey etc. Consuming lean meats reduce the intake of calories
• Excess of salt is very bad for lungs as well as the overall health. Limit the amount of salt consumed
• Cut your intake of caffeine and alcohol. These foods are very addictive and are bad for the lungs
• Drink at least 6-8 glasses of water or other healthy beverages every day. Its good for lungs and it also flushes out toxins from your body
• Don’t go for carbonated and sugary beverages. The foods with added sugar and refined starches such as cakes and candies should be avoided
• Don’t combine beverages along with you meals. Having them along with the meals increases the pressure on the diaphragm
• Avoid chewing gums as the air swallowed by us when we chew it causes bloating and gas

Besides having healthy eating habits it is also important to have healthy living style. You must be physically active and follow a regular exercise routine. Maintain an ideal weight. An overweight person carries extra weight around his stomach or the upper part of the body. It makes breathing difficult and puts strain on the lungs as well as on the heart. In the same way an underweight person will also face problems, as he will feel weaker and more tired easily. Therefore, you must try and maintain an ideal weight and take care about the best foods to eat for lung health and enjoy a long and healthy life.

More Best Foods For Lung Health

If you want to improve the functioning of your lungs, you need a list of foods that are the best foods for lung health and the appropriate way to eat those foods. People with damage to their lungs, COPD, often have a difficult time breathing after a large meal. Not only does the increased amount of food in your stomach require more oxygen to digest, it also takes more room and often pushes against your diaphragm. This makes breathing far more difficult. Beware of gassy foods, also. As your stomach fills with gas, it has the same effect as eating too much. It presses on your diaphragm and makes breathing far more difficult. Whether you have COPD, or simply want to improve the health of your lungs, you’ll find a variety of foods that can help you. The most important foods are fruits and vegetables. These foods provide plant fiber that helps you not only reduce your cholesterol but also move food through your system faster. Foods high in fiber include fresh vegetables, cooked beans, whole grains, dried peas and fresh fruit. Not only do these foods help reduce cholesterol but they also help control your blood sugar levels. Uncontrolled high glucose levels in the blood, diabetes, can cause damage to the lungs.

If you’re a smoker and have already done damage to your lungs, then the first thing you should do is to detox your lungs. Your lungs can go from black and clogged to pink and healthy by following a simple regimen

Get foods that contain plenty of vitamin D. Recent research shows that vitamin D helps to slow declining lung function in people with asthma. Scientists tested cell cultures from both asthmatics and non-asthmatics and found that calcitriol, a type of vitamin D, slowed muscle proliferation in airways. Muscle proliferation reduces lung function. Calcitriol, also acts as an anti-inflammatory. You can get vitamin D from exposure to the sun, but also from fish.

Look for colorful fruits and vegetables, which contain high amounts of vitamin A. Recent studies on lab animals indicate that a high intake of vitamin A can actually help heal the lungs. In addition, vitamin A also helps the body build more resistance to infections, including those in the respiratory area. Foods containing vitamin A in the form of retinol or beta-carotene, which the body converts to vitamin A, include Apricots, carrots, asparagus, cantaloupe, tomatoes and watermelon, to name just a few.

Increase the amount of anti-oxidants in your diet. Vitamin C and E are powerful antioxidants. Besides being an antioxidant and enhancing the antioxidant action of vitamin E to protect the lung cells from damage from free radicals, vitamin C also plays a major role in building collagen and elastin, both necessary for the health of all tissues. A recent study showed that if both vitamin C and magnesium levels played important roles in maintaining healthy lung tissues. Foods that contain high vitamin C are citrus fruits, red peppers, cantaloupe, rose hips, tomatoes and cucumbers, among others.

Help your lungs by reducing the amount of sugar you consume. Sugar has a negative effect on the body’s immune system, lowering its efficiency. If you want to keep not only your lungs healthy, but also the rest of your body, reduce your intake of sugar and sugary products.

Cut down on fats and salt. Whether you already have a problem with your lungs, such as COPD, or simply want to live healthier, cut down on your intake of saturated fats and salty foods. Sodium causes you to retain fluids and people with lung problems find that makes it more difficult to breathe. Fats clog your arteries. When this happens, it often builds up fluid in the lungs.

Eat appropriately, exercise and lose weight if necessary. Running, bicycling, walking and other aerobic exercises help work your lungs, cleanse them and make them stronger.

Maintaining appropriate weight is good for not only those with lung disease but also those that wish to continue a healthy life. When you select from the list of foods to eat for lung health, exercise and quit bad habits such as smoking, you’ll not only improve the health of your lungs but also your entire body.

If you are looking for a great way to keep your lungs clean, you should try a lung exercise. This is will aid you in breathing better and just feeling better in general. When you can breathe easily you can better do the things you enjoy in life, and you’ll be more confident when doing them.

One great exercise for lung, that you may want to consider include are breathing exercises. When you practice your breathing by focusing on it, you are much more likely to enjoy healthier and cleaner lungs as a result of your lung exercise.

The way to lung fitness involves exercising them, and there are many great ways for you to do this through cardiovascular exercise. By working out and strengthen your body you are also doing exercises for your lungs.

Are you aware that exercises increase lung function? If you jog, or walk briskly this is considered a lung exercise and can dramatically increase the functions of your lungs by allowing them to be stronger and cleaner than they may have ever been otherwise.

By doing a lung exercise every day or at least three times a week, you can drastically improve the quality of you life as well as your health. Being able to breathe better is a one of the best reasons to do so, and can really allow you to enjoy your life better too.

If you intend to live a long, healthy life, you’ll need to have clean and healthy lungs to do so. There is no better way that can allow you the most stamina or endurance other than this, so you can see the importance of maintaining a lung exercise on a regular basis.

Now, that you have some important information on how to help your lungs stay healthy and strong through lung exercise, you may want to also consider another way to keep you body strong and you lungs clean. If you smoke, you must quit smoking to keep your lungs as strong as they can be. It’s imperative to your health.

When you smoke, you’re inviting thousands of cancerous toxins into your body and this can destroy all the good you may have done with your lung exercise. It’s not easy to quit smoking but it’s imperative to have good health and clean lungs.

By utilizing a lung exercise, coupled with a quit smoking program, you can the best lungs that you possibly can. This will allow you to have a high quality and hopefully a very long life as well.

When you practice a lung exercise you’ll not only improve the quality of your lung but the entire health of your body.

Achieve Healthy Lungs

If you want to be able to blow out all the candles on your cake when you’re 75 (assuming your family dares to put a candle for every year) not to mention climb three flights of stairs without needing oxygen, now is the time to take action. What, you’re wondering, could you possibly do beyond quitting smoking to get your bellows in better shape? Plenty. Although quitting smoking tops our list, we also found another 18 tips that will have you doing less huffing and puffing and protect your lungs from damage and disease. 1. Have a heart-to-heart with your bed partner. Key question to ask: Do I snore? If the answer is yes, make an appointment with a sleep specialist and get checked for sleep apnea. The condition, in which you stop breathing dozens or even hundreds of times during the night, can actually damage your lungs nearly as much as smoking. Fortunately, it’s treatable. 2. Make several trips downstairs to the basement every day. The kind of exercise that makes your heart beat faster, like climbing stairs, riding a bike, or walking briskly, is very important for keeping your heart and lungs in good shape. For instance, studies find that walking about 15 minutes at a time, three to four times a day, improved breathing in people with emphysema, a lung disease. 3. Pop a fish-oil supplement every morning. Most airway problems, including asthma, are related to inflammation. Omega-3 fatty acids, which are the main ingredient in fish-oil supplements, reduce inflammation. 4. Breathe from your belly for at least five minutes every day. This kind of breathing, called diaphragmatic breathing, involves training and strengthening your diaphragm so it requires less effort to take in each breath. To do it, inhale deeply through your nose, filling your lungs from the bottom up. If you’re doing it right, your stomach will pooch out. Exhale and repeat.? 5. Expand your chest like a cocky rooster. To help your chest expand and boost your lung capacity, lie on the floor with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. Place your hands behind your head and bring your elbows together so they’re nearly touching. As you inhale, slowly let your elbows drop to the sides so your arms are flat on the floor when your lungs are full. As you exhale, raise your elbows again. 6. Read the fine print on household cleansers. Some products, like oven cleaner, can be toxic if inhaled. And if the instructions say to open a window or use in a well-ventilated space, follow them, says Kevin Cooper, M.D., a Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center pulmonologist. 7. Enforce a no-smoke zone in your house. And avoid smoky bars and smoking areas in restaurants. It doesn’t seem fair, but secondhand smoke you breathe from these sources can damage your lungs just as much as the smoke from your own cigarette. 8. Wear a face mask or even a gas mask when working around toxic dust or fumes. “Occupational exposure is a major hazard to lung health,” Dr. Cooper says. Even simple household tasks like sanding paint could send damaging fragments into your lungs, he says . 9. Work in 10-20 crunches a day. Your abdominal and chest muscles allow you to suck air in and out. Strengthen them, and if you’re also practicing your deep breathing, you’ll have the breath power of a professional opera singer (or at least close). 10. Take your medicine and listen to your doctor if you have asthma. There’s some pretty good evidence that people with asthma eventually develop chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, a lung disease that strikes people 65 and older. There’s also evidence that keeping your asthma under control with medication and lifestyle changes can prevent the disease from developing. 11. Make spaghetti sauce tonight, tomato and basil salad tomorrow night, and roasted tomatoes over the weekend. British researchers found that people who ate tomatoes three times a week had improved lung function and experienced less wheeziness and fewer asthma-like symptoms. 12. Look on the bright side. So the stock market is down; at least the bond market is up. When Harvard researchers followed 670 men with an average age of 63 years for eight years, they found those who were more optimistic had much better lung function and a slower rate of lung function decline than the pessimists in the bunch. 13. Get at least seven servings of fruits and vegetables a day. A 1998 study found that high amounts of antioxidants found in such foods, including vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium, and beta-carotene, meant better lung function — even in smokers! 14. Have a glass of wine tonight. Drinking wine, particularly white wine, both in the recent past and over your lifetime, seems to help your lungs. It has to be wine, though. Researchers found no such correlation when they looked at the effects of other forms of alcohol. Researchers aren’t certain why, but suspect it may be due to high levels of antioxidants in wine that protect cells from the damage from smoke and air pollution. 15. Brush your teeth twice a day and floss after every meal. Seems the state of your gums makes a difference when it comes to your lungs. Researchers at the State University of New York in Buffalo found patients with periodontal, or gum disease were 1 1/2 times more likely to also have COPD. Plus, the worse the gum disease, the worse the lung function, suggesting a direct correlation between the two. 16. Say no to dessert. There’s a direct link between what you weigh and the health of your lungs. Having extra weight makes your respiratory muscles work harder and less efficiently, researchers found in a 2004 study. This, in turn results in shortness of breath, which makes it hard to exercise, which makes it hard to lose the weight. 17. In hot, dry, or very cold weather, or in dusty or polluted air, breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. Our nasal passages are designed to filter the air and regulate its temperature and humidity. If you breathe in through your mouth, everything — dust, coldness, etc. — goes straight on into the lungs. 18. Take it easy when pollution or ozone levels are in the red zone. The more you exert yourself, the more you have to breathe through your mouth to take in larger volumes of air. This, in turn, means less filtering of the air during some very dangerous air quality times.