If you need any additional reasons to indulge in a cool, juicy slice of watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew or casaba, here is a new one:  Melons are a rich source of potassium and a host of other nutrients.  Refreshing and delicious, they also are a healthy, natural way to help lower your blood pressure, notes Lona Sandon, MEd, RD, LD, an assistant professor at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, and a national spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association (http://www.eatright.org).

Shake Off Blood Pressure Worries

If you have salt-sensitive high blood pressure, you probably know that you should watch your sodium intake. Too much salt — both from the salt shaker and from processed foods — causes fluid retention and blood vessel constriction that can contribute to hypertension. What you may not know is that potassium also plays an important role in this equation. A study published last year in the Archives of Internal Medicine noted that people with a low sodium-to-potassium ratio — that is, simultaneous restriction of salt intake and increased intake of potassium — were less likely to develop high blood pressure. Because it is a vasodilator and helps get rid of sodium and water, potassium helps curb fluid retention and blood vessel contraction.

According to the American Heart Association, the recommended daily intake of potassium for adults is 4,700 milligrams. Many people don’t normally consume this much potassium, but melons provide a tasty solution. Two cups of cubed melon contain more than 1,000 mg of potassium, or nearly one-fourth of your daily requirement.  Other rich dietary sources of this mineral include apricots, artichokes, avocados, bananas, beans, kiwis, oranges, peas, potatoes, prunes, raisins, tomatoes, spinach, Swiss chard and other green leafy vegetables.

Melon at Every Meal?

Melons are much more versatile than most people realize; they can be easily incorporated into a wide variety of dishes. Instead of reserving them for breakfast or a snack, take advantage of the season’s bounty and put melons on your family’s summer menu of soups, salads and salsas:

Melon soup: Puree chunks of ripe honeydew and cantaloupe with orange juice and chill.

Luscious melon salad: Combine small chunks of your favorite melon with raspberries, strawberries or orange sections and drizzle with honey and lime or lemon juice.

Fish or chicken with melon: Serve grilled or broiled meats on a bed of diced ripe melon. Or make a melon salsa to accompany the main dish — combine finely diced honeydew and cantaloupe, diced tomatoes, minced red onion, orange juice, lime juice, cilantro and salt.

Grilled melon: Cube honeydew, and toss in lemon juice, brown sugar and ginger. Thread onto skewers and grill for three to four minutes or until slightly soft and beginning to brown.

Note: Potassium affects the balance of fluids in the body, so too much can be a problem for older people and those with heart or kidney disease. If you take a diuretic drug or have issues with fluid retention, talk to your doctor before adding significant amounts of melon to your diet.

Source(s):

Lona Sandon, MEd, RD, LD, assistant professor, department of clinical nutrition, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas. Sandon is a National Spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. www.eatright.org.

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It sounds very serious when you hear that someone “needed” a blood transfusion. And it is, for many obvious and not so obvious reasons. According to research I’ve recently read, what necessitates a transfusion varies dramatically from one hospital to the next. That’s surprising enough, but I also learned that receiving a transfusion of someone else’s blood lowers immunity to the point that it doubles the likelihood that the recipient will suffer infection in the hospital.

Dangers of blood transfusions

I called Neil Blumberg, MD, director of the Transfusion Medicine/Blood Bank at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York, to learn more. With an estimated five million Americans receiving blood transfusions each year, it seems to me that this is something we need to know more about.

Transfusion Impacts Your Immune System

Now that strict safety rules regulate the nation’s blood supply, the risk for direct infection (e.g., with the hepatitis B or C virus or HIV) from transfusions is remote, observes Dr. Blumberg — but, he said, many other serious risks persist. Though doctors don’t fully understand why, they know that transfusions dramatically affect your immune system, likely in both the short and the long term. Receiving another person’s blood increases the risk for harm to lung tissue and red blood cells and can trigger an array of allergic reactions. Also, in the immediate post-procedure period, transfusions raise the risk for bacterial infection due to decreased immune function, potential organ failure and possible clotting in key veins and arteries. These problems can lead to heart attack, stroke or deep vein thrombosis.

What Researchers Learned

To measure the health risks posed by transfusions, Dr. Blumberg and his colleagues examined the outcomes of a specific procedure that often involves a large transfusion of stored blood over two to six hours — cardiac bypass surgery. In nearly 25,000 people who underwent a cardiac bypass, they found that…

• About 30% of the variation in transfusion practices (the likelihood of whether or not a person would be transfused) was attributable to the hospital where the procedure was performed, a figure high enough that Dr. Blumberg calls it “striking.”
• Among patients who received another person’s blood, about twice as many suffered postoperative infections as did those who didn’t receive a transfusion.

Findings were published in the July 2009, issue of BMC Medicine.

Less is More

While guidelines regarding blood donation are safe and uniform, guidelines for when a transfusion is needed are imprecise, leaving doctors to make transfusion decisions based on prevailing practices at their own hospitals and on their own training and experience, rather than on scientific evidence, says Dr. Blumberg. He told me that some cardiac surgery programs transfuse almost all patients, others transfuse very few, and the rest are scattered along the spectrum in between.

One fact stands out, however — in most studies to date, fewer transfusions correlate with fewer complications and deaths in surgical patients. Dr. Blumberg believes these programs have better clinical outcomes because they are more conservative in their use of transfusion and have technically sophisticated surgeons who take various steps to minimize bleeding, such as using scalpels that clot blood as they cut tissue.

I also asked Dr. Blumberg about bloodless surgery, which uses new surgical techniques and equipment to minimize the use of blood and blood-related products during surgery. This was first developed in the 1960s to meet the needs of Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose religious beliefs do not permit blood transfusion; but it has since become more widely available, as its medical advantages have become apparent. In Dr. Blumberg’s opinion, the presence of a bloodless surgery program or other blood-management program at a hospital is a quality indicator, suggesting that health-care providers pay more attention to transfusion issues. This might translate to better outcomes.

The Underused Safety Measure

There is a process that can dramatically reduce the risk for infection and death in transfusion patients, yet some hospitals still don’t use it. Called leukoreduction, it is the removal of white blood cells from donated blood. This reduces risk by lowering immunologically driven problems. An array of evidence supports the efficacy of leukoreduction, and the cost is modest. Dr. Blumberg told me that he would like to see this process made universal in every hospital.

In the meantime, if you are going to have surgery, Dr. Blumberg advises that you protect yourself by asking in advance whether you might require a transfusion. If the answer is yes…

• Ask whether the hospital uses leukoreduced blood. If the answer is no, consider looking for a different hospital. Dr. Blumberg advises having surgery at hospitals that have 100% (universal) leukoreduction of transfusion blood — meaning that all the blood for transfusions has the leukocytes removed. “It’s just too risky otherwise,” says Dr. Blumberg.
• Donate your own blood for your exclusive use. This is called autologous donation and is the safest of all ways to receive blood. You can donate your blood in advance of the scheduled surgery, or your surgeon can collect your blood just before surgery and return it to your body at the end of the procedure.

By the way, there is no evidence that receiving blood donated by family members or friends is safer than receiving blood from the national blood supply.

Source(s):

Neil Blumberg, MD, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, director, Transfusion Medicine/Blood Bank, and director, clinical laboratories, Strong Memorial Hospital and Highland Hospital, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York.

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Reprinted with the permission of:
Bottom Line Publications/Daily Health News
Boardroom Inc.
281 Tresser Blvd., 8th Floor
Stamford, CT 06901
www.BottomLineSecrets.com