Commitment to quality – for 33 years

Is your lifestyle keeping your heart healthy or is your heart ageing faster than you are? What steps can you take to keep your heart age low?

The hard facts

     There are simple steps everyone can take to reduce their risk of heart problems. Yet 17.5 million people still die of heart disease every year worldwide

 – that's the equivalent of 120 full jumbo jets every day.

    So is your lifestyle helping or harming your heart? Now there's a quick and easy way to find out.

Find out your estimated heart age compared to your real age. Learn more Petite Cranberry Pear Cakes See recipe    Get heart healthy recipes, offers and articles in your inbox. Sign up now

Take the test

Click the link above to test your heart age. Along with your results, you'll get personalized information on how to look after your heart. For now, here are four simple tips.

Be aware

Have your blood pressure and cholesterol checked, especially if there's a history of heart disease in your family. High levels contribute to a higher heart age.

Don't smoke

Not smoking helps keep your heart age lower. If you want to give up, ask your healthcare practitioner for advice and help.

Stay active

Being active ensures your heart age stays low. It reduces stress, keeps your weight down and gives your heart a good workout! Try including exercise in your daily routine. Take the stairs instead of the lift or park the car further way from the shops.

Eat healthily

If you're overweight, you're more likely to have a higher heart age, so cut back on fat – and watch your salt intake too.

Don't forget that some foods actively promote a young heart age. Make sure you eat lots of fruit and vegetables. Include cholesterol-lowering spreads, yogurts and drinks from the Promise range in your diet. And to boost heart-protecting Omega 3 oils in your family's meals, try serving oily fish at least once a week and putting Flora Omega 3 Plus on the table.

Dr. Richard Collins is the Director of Heart Disease Prevention and Wellness at South Denver Cardiology Associates. He's a Fellow in the American College of Chest Physicians and the American College of Cardiology and is board certified in cardiology and internal medicine. In addition, he served in the U.S. Navy as a physician to the U.S. Congress in Washington, D.C. As a leading authority and spokesperson in preventive medicine, Dr. Collins' dynamic plan for prevention and reversal of heart disease through changes in diet and lifestyle has been shared with millions across the nation. His creativity in the kitchen as "The Cooking Cardiologist®" is legendary, and his delicious, heart-healthier recipes have established him as a popular chef on television, at health fairs and at cooking demonstrations and conventions coast-to-coast.

Dr. Collins created it and never cooks without it – find out what it means for heart healthier cooking.

For more than 40 years Unilever has played a leading role in helping consumers maintain healthy!

Heart-healthy choice

Recognizing Unilever as a world leader in nutritional research, the medical profession asked the company to create a healthy alternative to butter, lard and hard margarines.

Lowering cholesterol

This led to us developing a blood cholesterol-lowering spread that was high in polyunsaturated fat and low in saturated fat. In the UK the Flora business is the main sponsor of the Flora London Marathon.

Proven health benefits

Its success has led to brand extensions into a milk drink, yogurts and 'one-a-day' yogurt drinks, which also have proven health benefits.

Keep your heart healthy

It's a myth that all fats are bad for you. In fact, some kinds can actually help you to combat the effects of over indulgence. So if your cholesterol is sneaking up the scale, here's what you need to know to get it back to normal.

Innovation

We are broadening the range of products available to customers, investing in developing new products with added health and nutrition benefits to help individuals make healthier choices.

• Nutrition

Did you know

• about 17 million people die of cardiovascular diseases, particularly heart attacks and strokes every year*

• high cholesterol causes a third of all cardiovascular disease worldwide*

• by 2020, heart disease and strokes will become the leading cause of death and disability worldwide, with the number of fatalities likely to reach more than 20 million a year - and by 2030 the figure will rise to more than 24 million a year*

• on average, a 10% lowering of cholesterol will reduce the risk of coronary heart disease by up to 20% 

• around half of the world's population has blood cholesterol levels that are too high

• nearly a third (30%) of people acrosss the world have raised blood pressure levels                   

Innovations

In 1999 we launched spreads with plant sterols – marketed as Flora pro·activ. These spreads have been clinically proven to reduce the absorption of cholesterol in the body and are endorsed by key scientists and health professionals around the world.

The science

Consuming Becel/Flora pro·activ spread, milk drink or yogurt can provide around 2g of plant sterols per day. Clinical studies show that, for those who follow a healthy diet, this level of plant sterols can reduce LDL – bad - cholesterol by about 10-15% within a few weeks. 

Key facts

• Unilever is the world's leading manufacturer of margarine

• an estimated 13 million households currently benefit from Becel/Flora pro·activ products

• Becel / Flora pro·activ has been approved by regulators in more than 20 countries

• Becel / Flora pro·activ has been endorsed by key scientists and health care professionals worldwide

• a program of scientific research has established that the phytosterol esters used in Becel / Flora pro·activ – which help lower cholesterol – are both safe and effective

• Becel / Flora pro·activ is the world’s best-selling cholesterol-lowering food brand

• sales of pro·activ have grown by over 25% in each of the last three years

• Becel/Flora signed a partnership with the World Heart Federation in 2003 to promote heart health awareness                     

From our range

Your heart is capable of amazing things, especially if you take care of it. Discover our original Buttery Spreads, formulated mainly with unsaturated fats, to provide a good substitute for butter or margarine. Also, try our NEW activ™ spreads and drinks, made with natural plant sterols. Natural plant sterols are clinically proven to help actively remove cholesterol from the body as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol. For more product listings, click here.

Fitness Mistakes and Solutions
by David Pat

     No, you don't have to eat the same thing everyday but if you think that eating pizza every other day won't affect your diet than your wrong. 3,500 calories = 1 pound of weight gain. Anytime you eat more calories than you body burns it is going to be stored for later in the form of fat. So for example, let's say you eat a piece of cheesecake on a "special" day. That's an extra 600 calories for that one day alone. Now let's say that in the same week you go out for fast food. A typical fast food burger is about 500 calories. Now this is a very conservative person. Only 2 cheat foods the whole week! That's also 1,100 calories over their regular diet.

     Say this person regularly cheats only on 2 foods a week (many people cheat more than this). This still means that they are going  to gain 1 lb. every 3 weeks. Which means over a year 17 lbs. Moral of the story is that cheating once in awhile is not okay.

      Solution: Develop a taste for healthy foods. Fighting temptation is hard, once you start eating healthy and enjoying it then it becomes a lot easier to resist bad foods. People can go there  whole lives without eating fast food and not regret it (in fact most people in other countries do it).

Are You a Bodybuilder or a Powerlifter?
By Zach Bashore

Bodybuilding and power lifting may sound the same, but they are actually the very different. You are going to learn why and the differences between the two sports in training, diet, and supplementation.

The bodybuilder's training routine emphasizes whichever current goal the bodybuilder may have. Let's say that a bodybuilder is getting ready for a contest and is only paying attention to getting toned. His training routine would start consisting of lighter weights just with more repetitions. In powerlifting, it is completely different! In a powerlifting contest, three events (squat, bench press, and deadlift) determine who wins. This is why powerlifters use a periodized training program which consists of four phases.

1) Hypertrophy
2) Basic Strength
3) Maximum Strength
4) Transition Speed

Bodybuilders must pay more attention what they eat than what powerlifters do because of the simple fact of bodybuilders keeping fat gain to a minimum. Powerlifters don't have to go through the twelve weeks of severe diet that bodybuilders go through, but they still  have to keep their food intake high enough to stay in an anabolic state. Powerlifters get to eat more but that can actually be a bad thing for them because they simply have to eat more of the same healthy foods, which can make one feel sick after a week or so. However, bodybuilders and powerlifters diets both emphasize eating to gain muscle but powerlifters don't have to worry about eating for fat loss.

A bodybuilder's supplement cupboard would most likely consist of a healthy fat source, multivitamin, and whatever supplements for the goal that they are emphasizing. A powerlifter's cupboard would contain the same basic supplements but only with more of the muscle building supplements such as creatine, ZMA, protein powder, and weight gainers. You will seldom ever see a powerlifter supplementing with weight loss products unless they are at the point of having too much bodyfat that is having a negative impact on their lifts.

Bodybuilding and powerlifting are both great sports to be involved with, but it is important that you know the differences between the two so that you're not confused. If you are currently in one of the sports and would like to further educate yourself on the differences between the two, attend a contest and see which one that you like best. You never know, maybe that bodybuilding body is more suited forpower lifting, and vice-versa. You just never know until you try it.

WASHINGTON, Nov.  2006– Tricare beneficiaries will get a pleasant surprise the next time they visit Tricare Online. The Web site has a new name, a new look and a new home. It’s now part of Tricare.mil, the official Web site for all Tricare information.

“We reorganized the Web site with our beneficiaries in mind,” said Army Maj. Gen. Elder Granger, deputy director, Tricare Management Activity. “Now they can go to one site to look up benefit information, schedule an appointment or track claims. Everything’s in one place, making the site easier to use.”

Tricare.mil comprises five main content areas:

-- My Health (Tricare Online) -- personal health information and online appointment scheduling for Tricare Prime enrollees;

-- My Benefit -- Tricare benefit information;

-- MHS Staff -- resources for Military Health System staff members;

-- Tricare Providers -- information for Tricare network providers; and

-- Pressroom -- the latest news about Tricare and the military health system.

In the next phase of Web site improvements, beneficiaries will be able to enter their profile and receive benefit information tailored to them. Tricare expects this feature to be available in winter of 2007.