RIP Oniuki

This past month the members of Hellions-Shandris lost a guildie and friend. It was something that took us by surprise. Our guild leader was told he had a heart attack. It was news to make your body go numb because he was only 35 years old. It made me stop and think about my own life.

Oniuki was a gamer through and through. Before playing Warcraft he played Everquest. It was really nice having another Evercrack addict to talk about old times with. In WoW he was known as a an achievement nut and strive to complete as many aspects of the game as possible. It wasn't uncommon for him to post retro raids so others in the guild could experience content that is usually skipped over.
A guildie mentioned last night he told some real life friends he lost someone close who was online and he received a "ho hum" attitude from his RL friends. I can understand this attitude from a person who isn't online much. Yet if you are online with the same group of friends sharing the joys and sorrows of life you become close. Our society is switching from an in-person mentality to a social networking one. I speak to friends and family more online than in person anymore.

As time passes more and more younger people are having heart attacks. They are people who generally seem healthy. In July 2009 my husband Grumble had a heart attack. He was 40 at the time. Thankfully we got to the hospital in time and he had no muscular damage but has 2 stints in his heart to keep those spots from collapsing. A week later a coworkers wife who was 39 had a heart attack. She survived but for over a month she was on life support and then sent to a nursing home to help her regain the ability to do daily activities.

So why are young people at a higher risk of heart attack than in the past? Our society is actually smoking less than in the past but it still is a risk factor. There are two points that have drastically changed; what we are eating and what we are doing.

People today are turning to premade food more than home cooked meals. Some precooked meals can be generally healthy but more and more premade foods have a whole slew of ingredients to make them cheaper and last longer. One big offender is salt. A person should have anywhere from 2000-3000mg of salt a day. One Cup-A-Soup aka ramen noodles have around 1000mg. That is 1/2-1/3 of your daily intake from just one serving.

Another bad ingredient in food today is trans fats. Not all fat is bad. Poly- and mono-unsaturated fats are considered "good fats". Saturated fats on the other hand clog arteries. A basic example is when looking at fats if they are liquid at room temp they are generally OK. Fats that are solid at room temp will probably be solid in your body. Trans fats threw this off because they are unsaturated fat with trans-isomer (E-isomer) fatty acid. Because of this fatty acid added to the unsaturated fat it causes the bad cholesterol in your blood to go up and the good cholesterol to go down.

Eating healthy does not mean having to eat expensive. Many store brands like Walmart brand and Dollar Generals brand usually do not contain bad ingredients like trans fats or MSG. If the only thing you look on food packaging is if it contains trans fats or not you will be helping out your body.

Another thing todays society is doing more of is sitting on their butts. Gamers, either PC or console, are big offenders. Thankfully with products like WII and Kinect the gaming industry is trying to get people up and moving around while still playing enjoyable games. You don't need to get a gym membership to stay healthy. Walking or biking instead of driving or walking up and down stairs are easy ways to raise your heart rate.

Usually heart attacks do not happen the way movies and TV portrays them. They usually start off slow. Because of this it makes heart attack dangerous to younger people because they try to shrug it off thinking they just have really bad heart burn. If you have pain in your chest, either sharp pains or feeling like your chest is constricting, cold sweats, trouble breathing, and/or pain in your jaw, neck, or extremities call 911 or head to your nearest hospital or doctors office.