“I RAN MY FIRST MARATHON AFTER HAVING OPEN-HEART SURGERY” – Anna Borghesani.

She’s the new internet sensation and becoming an inspiration for everyone. Anna takes on her running a marathon dream post her serious open-heart surgery. Anna Borghesani, 41 now, was born with congenital heart disease, in her case pulmonary stenosis, which is a narrowing of a heart valve. Here’s an inspirational story of her in her words.

“In 2013, when I was 37, I started to feel very, very tired and I was getting sick all the time. I frequently had colds, high fevers and palpitations and kept feeling breathless. I’d always known I’d need to have a new heart valve fitted and, when my cardiologist finally told me I had a surgery date, I felt relieved.”

“However, the week before the operation I was absolutely terrified, as I knew they’d stop my heart from beating and use a heart-lung machine to circulate blood around my body during the operation. The surgery went well, but the psychological stress was immense.”

“A few days after the surgery, I was encouraged to start walking again. I was given an exercise schedule and had to walk for five minutes each day for the first few days and then build up to seven minutes and then 10, and so on.”

Very soon she was able to run 5K and then 10K once a week.

London Marathon Run

Anna wanted to run for charity and raise awareness to those people like her and tell them that they can lead a normal life as well. Her cardiologist wasn’t much happy but he understood her motivation.

“I didn’t do any races in the build-up to London, but on the day I completed it in 5hrs 29mins, which I was thrilled about. I loved everything about the event: the crowds who supported us, and the other runners running for great causes and reasons. Along the way, I raised almost £3,000 for Heart Research UK and the messages I received were incredibly heart-warming!”

“My London Marathon medal now hangs in a frame in my lounge. It means so much to me because every time I look at it my eyes fill up with tears and I thank my mum for having fought for my health since my birth.”

This definitely gives an incredible willpower to all those similar people motivating them to beat the pain and inspiring them to live a normal life.

Story inspired from an article published in Women’s Running.

Few things in public health are controversial and often misunderstood such as cholesterol and how they are affected by the diet.

When discussing heart disease, it’s really important to understand what it means exactly. The heart is a muscle that generates the force to propel the blood throughout the vascular system. A key step in the heart disease is a sterol (mainly cholesterol) finding it’s way inside the arterial wall. When cholesterol comes, we often misunderstand the term. Let’s get it understand in a simple human terms.

Cholesterol is absolutely essential for human body. It’s an organic molecule that humans can not live without and is found in the membrane of every single cell, helping to regulate fluidity and structure.

To your surprise, most of the cholesterol in our bodies are actually produced by our own cells. The cholesterol we eat is usually a minor source compared to the amount we produce.

What people call “cholesterol” isn’t really cholesterol, it’s the proteins that carry cholesterol around.

When people are talking about “cholesterol” in regards to heart diseases, they are talking about the cholesterol itself. Instead they are referring a structure that carry cholesterol, called lipoproteins.

Cholesterol is like an oil droplet in a glass of water which simply won’t mix. It can not travel through blood stream on its own. For this reason cholesterol is carried around the blood stream in lipoproteins.

There are many types of lipoproteins, but the two most important ones are called LDL (Low Density Lipoprotein) and HDL (High Density Lipoprotein). These are commonly referred to as the “bad” and “good” cholesterol, but this is actually inaccurate. All cholesterol is the same, it’s the lipoproteins that are different.

So… it is critical to understand that heart disease really is NOT a cholesterol disease, it is a lipoprotein disease. Having a lot of “cholesterol” in your bloodstream is NOT a bad thing, unless this cholesterol is being carried around in the wrong lipoproteins.

The bottom line: cholesterol is NOT the enemy

Let’s accept it, we face multiple moments everyday that are anxiety inducing such as stressful situation at work, being crowded while daily commute, etc.

These everyday moments raise your heart rates causing anxiety. For times like these we came across a GIF trending on internet these days.

Whenever you feel your heart rate is increasing, inhale and exhale along with the expanding and contracting shapes. This will help you manage your breathing. You can save it on your phone for the times you need it.