Ordering the Right Amount of Test Strips

Ordering glucose or cholesterol test strips on line for your home use monitor or meter is a handy convenience. However, there are many models to choose from and many strips have expiration dates. Ordering more than you need will cancel the savings since you may have to discard them on account of the expiration date. For safety and accuracy, it is important to stick to those strips that are recommended by the manufacturer of your monitor, meter or device. Order or purchase strips online if those strips or panels are made by reputable manufacturers, avoid suspisciously low-cost ones that may turn out to be worthless counterfeit strips.

Health Monitors for Home Use by Patient Acquiring Bluetooth Technology

This is probably more than a budding trend. Health professionals, doctors and hospital authorities seem to be adopting the Bluetooth technology en masse for the purpse of remote monitoring of patients. To keep up with this new trend, manufacturers of meters and monitors for  home use by patients have started to enable their monitoring devices and machines with wireless Bluetooth technology. A N D Medical / LifeSource are now offering a blood pressure monitor with such wireless Bluetooth technology. Omron is also coming uo with an Omron Bluetooth blood pressure monitor. The Omron model is already on the market in Japan and will be available soon in the United States, if it is not already by the time these lines are written. Some makers of glucose meters and makers of blood coagulatition monitors are also working towards integrating the Bluetooth technology into their machines.

We have added a Bluetooth enabled BP monitor to our selection. For now, it is mentioned in the band at the bottom of the page for Monitors and Devices for Use by A Patient at Home. Because this technology promises to render remote monitoring of a patient's vital signs possible at a very low cost, we believe that in the near future most machines will have the wireless communications Bluetooth technology integretaed into them. We will follow this trend and will most likely add more and more of these Bluetooth enabled machines to our recommendations.

Selected Natural and Medical Dietary Supplements

When it comes to natural products and supplements, one has to realize that a lot of them (if not most) cannot be successful demonstrated to have any efficacy. We have made a selection of supplements that are either natural or of medical/pharmaceutical origin. We limited ourselves, in the natural products category, only to those that are proven to work.

The selection features:

- Niacin, to improve a person's cholesterol ratio.
- Plant sterols or phytosterols that are proven to help decrease the absorption of LDL cholesterol
- Psyllium husks, to help managing glucose peaks and cholesterol levels
- Fish oil, although the first epidemiological studies pointed to an ability to stabilize coronary plaque, there is a bit of a controversy on the subject of fish oil.
- Omega-3 supplements.

The above are the only natural products that are featured.

The selection was completed with non-natural but beneficial products:

- Ecotrin (low-dose coated ASA)
- Bayer's Health Advantage
- and Centrum

You can review the selection online

The present is for educational purposes. Natural products do not constitute or replace medication or treatment. Always consult with your physician before taking any natural products.

Monitors, Meters and Testers for a patient's use at home

A selection of personal health monitors, meters and testers has been added to the hM Bookstore. This section has been renamed the hM HealthStore Online.

The selection includes some of the best monitors, suh as:

- for monitoring blood pressure: 3 of the best Omron models.
- for diabetics to monitor blood glucose, models from the Bayer Contour and OneTouch series.
- for measuring cholesterol, hdl and triglycerides at home: three models from Cardiocheck.

Browse through selection of personal monitors for a patient's home use

Note: we did not necessarily review the cheapest ones. We rather tried to select the best and most efficient ones. Some come with health management software.

Forget Fast Weight Loss, Slow and Steady is More Realistic

In this day and age, we all seem to want things to happen at once. You double-click and Bang! Done!
This may explain why so many people are tempted by ads that promise incredibly fast weight lost. In fact many of those heavily advertised diets are not even healthy or safe on the long term.

Realistic weight loss plans should always be based on balanced nutrition. The USDA's food pyramid is an excellent guide that can be used to prepare long term, safe and realistic weight loss plans.

Please read full article before commenting.

The emphasis was put on slow and steady (or gradual) weight loss.

Modified Macaroni and Cheese Recipe

The old classic has turned into a healthy casserole. The recipe was modified and is featured under the "Macaroni and Cheese with Tuna and Vegetables"

It is definitely NOT about your traditional Mac & Cheese, like the one we would expect to find in a cafeteria or coffee shop or the one that comes from a box bought at the grocery store.

It has been made to be heart and diabetic friendly as well weight-control-friendly.

Please view recipe before commenting.