There is growing evidence that drinking alcohol in a moderate fashion, especially a red glass of wine, actually contributes to good health. A 2001 meta-analysis in the Postgraduate Medical Journal found that moderate alcohol consumption fortifies heart health and improves blood pressure.
Dr. J. Michael Gaziano, a preventative cardiologist with the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Division of Aging explains: “It comes down to moderation, A safe amount–about one drink per day–may support a healthy heart and lower your risk of heart disease, while too much can be damaging.” When scientists and physicians refer to “one drink”, they mean about 12 ounces of beer or five ounces of wine.
Skip That Fourth Cup of Coffee
There's nothing inherently wrong with drinking coffee, especially if you do it in moderate amounts. The problems only start when you drink too much coffee, which is considered to be more than three or four cups per day, depending on your body size.
Drinking too much caffeine causes your blood pressure to rise and your heart to work irregularly, it also causes stress and heartburn, all of which contribute to possible kidney damage. Dr. Jessica Saville of the National Kidney Foundation recommends drinking no more than three cups of coffee per day as a standard.
The More You Stand, the Better Your Health Will Be
First, let's just get this out of the way — the human body is not built for sitting down for long stretches of time, period. Our bodies are mostly built for using complex and sophisticated muscle and bone systems to perform various physical activities. There's a good reason why our bodies are as resilient as they are, often a lot more than we even think.
In 2015, a meta-analysis of 41 studies found that sitting for a prolonged time drastically increases the risk in adults for heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. Another recent study found that reducing your sitting time by just one hour daily reduces heart disease risk by a whopping 26%. There's no problem with sitting for short bursts, as long as you make sure to get up and walk right after. Try to not sit down for more than an hour without at least taking a quick two-minute stretch.
Don’t Abruptly Stop Taking Your Medication
When you take medicine, you put a great deal of pressure on your kidneys, either due to having a lot of junk to filter out of the pill, or because they are getting a smaller amount of blood, as we’ve explained in the painkiller section above. These sudden and strong demands on your kidneys tend to put them under a lot of stress, so it's best to train them on a consistent routine if you want to avoid a catastrophe.
When people abruptly stop taking their medication or continually go on and off their prescription, it causes an immense amount of instability for these vital organs, as they attempt to predict just how much junk they’ll have to filter throughout the day. Remember, your kidneys love a routine. This will keep your body and emotions regulated, and provide you with many benefits that far outweigh the cost of discipline and consistency.
Keep Track of Your Blood Pressure Regularly
Your kidneys depend on your blood pressure to perform their job adequately, and vice versa. The kidneys help filter out the toxins and waste that build up in the blood, and the blood helps transfer oxygen to your vital organs, including your kidneys. This is why having high blood pressure is actually the second leading cause of kidney damage, even kidney failure.
The American Heart Association recommends getting your blood pressure checked at least once every two years, even if you consider yourself an athletic or healthy person. It’s a quick procedure and is completely painless, so if you don’t have one of these at home, make sure to ask your family doctor to check it. We recommend you to put a reminder on your phone that sets off every year just in case, you definitely won’t regret it.