Organ Transplant Drug May Up Skin Cancer Risk

Scientists may have found a clue about why skin cancer rates are high for organ transplant patients.

In lab tests of cultured cells, they found that a drug used by transplant recipients called azathioprine made cells more sensitive to UVA light. The researchers did not perform their tests on humans.

However, studies have found that a type of skin cancer called squamous cell carcinoma is 50 to 250 times more common among transplant patients. "Twenty years after transplant, between 60% and 90% of patients are affected," write Peter Karran, PhD, and colleagues in Science.

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Ecstasy moves out of the nightclubs and into the hands of 10-year-olds

The drug that epitomised the acid house scene of the late 1980s is now being taken 20 at a time by children to relieve the boredom and trauma of their everyday lives. Sophie Goodchild, and Andrew Johnson reveal the trend
Published: 11 September 2005

They are known on the street as "sweeties" and that is what ecstasy pills have almost literally become for a new breed of user.

Disturbing research among pupils excluded from school has revealed that children as young as 10 are buying them with pocket money.

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Archaeologists investigating an ancient hospital site founded by Augustinian monks about 845 years ago have found evidence that they used to chew on the bitter vetch plant to stave off hunger pains.

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Professor Roger Pertwee, a neuropharmacologist at Aberdeen University, said it was well known that cannabis stimulated the appetite, but not widely known that the plant also contained substances that produced the opposite effect.

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A new kind of powdered insulin, which is inhaled rather than injected, was yesterday recommended by an expert panel of the US Food and Drug Administration. If approved by the FDA, the drug, called Exubera, could be on the market within months. However, the FDA is not obliged to follow the recommendation of its expert panels.

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In the Sept. 13 edition of the journal Circulation, the Hopkins team reports that 90 percent of men and women with no early signs of CHD who, nevertheless, died from it had had below average results from their cardiac stress tests conducted 10 to 20 years earlier.

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Cholera is a major global health problem particularly in children in areas in less-developed countries. In the resource-limited countries where cholera occurs, any reduction in hospital stay is important as it reduces the demands on the healthcare system. Currently, WHO recommends a 3-day, 12-dose course of antibiotic treatment with either tetracycline or erythromycin for treatment of cholera in children.

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The panel, in its report, mentioned some protocol violations.

Abbot disagreed, saying the benefits are great while the safety profile is manageable.

Abbott says it is hopeful the FDA's final decision may be different. Historically, the agency tends to go by what the panel has recommended.

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According to researchers from Duke University Medical Center, exercise can significantly reduce the amount of visceral fat you carry around. The more exercise you do, the more of this type of dangerous fat you will lose. Researchers in this study said that extra exercise can reverse the amount you have, while some moderate exercise can stop your visceral fat mounting up.

If, on the other hand, you remain inactive, more likely than not you will pile on the weight at a rate of four pounds per year, say researchers.

The more visceral fat you carry around the higher your chances of developing insulin resistance (leading to type two diabetes), heart disease and other metabolic syndromes.

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Many doctors say that smoking could be a factor. This is a puzzling conclusion - thirty years ago over 50% of the male population smoked, now less than 25% smoke, but fertility problems during this period have increased. Some doctors say alcohol may also play a part in this increase (we do not have statistics for alcohol consumption in the UK over the last 30 years among adult males).

Some doctors say stress could be playing a part.

Doctors say that the number of sperms per ejaculation has gone down significantly over the last 30 years. The quality of the sperm has also deteriorated.

There is concern that an increase in infertility will accelerate an already ageing population.

When couples have difficulty in conceiving a child, male infertility accounts for just over 30% of cases.

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The children in this study were aged 5-15. Over 40% of obese 26-year-olds watched the most television when they were children, say the researchers.

If you want to reduce your child's chances of becoming obese, you should restrict their viewing time to no more than 120 minutes per day, say the researchers.

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The study focused on the effect of smoking on monoamine oxidase A, or MAO A, an enzyme that breaks down many compounds that affect blood pressure.

Using a radiotracer to track the enzyme, researchers found that smokers had MAO A levels that were 50 percent lower than nonsmokers, said lead researcher Joanna S. Fowler, program director of the Brookhaven Center for Translational Neuroimaging in Upton, N.Y.

MAO A breaks down many compounds affecting blood pressure, and the lung is a major organ focused on degrading some of these compounds, Fowler said. So lower levels of the enzyme in smokers' lungs could contribute to high blood pressure or pulmonary disease, the study said.

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Treating cataracts long meant removing the entire lens and wearing "coke-bottle" glasses. Then came the popularization of intraocular lenses some 30 years ago. The intraocular lens procedure involves removing the clouded inner portion of the lens from the outer sac and replacing it with an artificial substitute.

Until recently, however, most substitute devices have been monofocal lenses, which provide only one range of focus -- near, intermediate or distance. Users have to wear corrective glasses even after surgery in order to see clearly at all distances, or have one lens focused for near vision and another focused for distance.

"So we put the lenses in there, but then the question was, where do we focus the lens?" said Dr. Gary I. Markowitz of Delaware Eye Care Center in Dover, the first ophthalmologist in Delaware to implant the new Alcon device.

The ReStor lenses -- termed pseudo-accommodative lenses -- allow doctors to forgo that decision by affording good vision at all distances and, for most users, eliminating the need for eyeglasses. In clinical trials, 80 percent of patients fitted with the lenses did not need glasses after having the implants. And, though they were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in March for the treatment of cataracts, they also can be used to treat presbyopia in people without cataracts.

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In most cases, the spasms are innocuous and are caused by simple muscle fatigue or an imbalance of chemicals such as sodium, potassium, phosphorous, calcium and magnesium in the blood, according to Calgary Health Region in Canada.

Night-time cramps usually subside by themselves, but sometimes applying heat, massaging the leg or stretching the muscle by pulling your toes up toward you will help.

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Researchers drew their conclusions from data gathered in a 2000 government health care survey of more than 15,000 Americans.

"We found that 33 percent of current smokers reported having at least one dental visit that year compared to 45 percent of nonsmokers," said lead author Susan K. Drilea, whose study was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This occurs even though smokers face increased risk of gum disease, tooth loss and oral cancers, she said.

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The report from Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital said the conclusion was based on a blood protein that is a marker for inflammation and that appears to be a predictor of high blood pressure.

"Besides some long-established lifestyle and dietary risk factors, little else is known about how to identify individuals at risk for developing high blood pressure," said Dr. Howard Sesso, lead author of the study published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association.

"This has made primary prevention efforts difficult. The data from this study are exciting as they represent the first major demonstration that C-reactive protein levels may help us predict the risk of developing hypertension," Sesso added.

Increased levels of the protein are associated with chronic activation of the immune system, otherwise known as an inflammatory response.

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Scientists studying nearly 250,000 people in France found that only overweight people who also had high blood pressure were at significantly greater risk of dying of heart-related problems than normal-weight people. Overweight people with normal blood pressure faced no increased risk.

This doesn't mean that extra pounds aren't dangerous, because overweight people are more likely to develop blood pressure problems.

But it does for the first time show that blood pressure may be an important "mediator" or mechanism by which excess weight can cause heart problems, said one expert who reviewed the work, Dr. Frank Hu, an associate professor at the Harvard School of Public Health.

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Aromasin is the latest in a new generation of drugs that fight breast cancer by blocking production of oestrogen in post-menopausal women.

It is licensed for women who have already undergone treatment with the standard drug tamoxifen for two to three years after surgery.

Trials have shown that switching to Aromasin instead of continuing with tamoxifen for five years cuts the chances of cancer returning by an extra 30%.

The chances of breast cancer appearing in another breast is reduced by half.

From today, doctors throughout the UK can prescribe Aromasin to their patients.

But, like its predecessor Arimidex, the drug is yet to be approved by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) which vets and recommends new treatments in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

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As traditional games begin to find their way back into the school yard, Welsh pupils are being urged to pick up a skipping rope to combat obesity and to help protect their heart health.

The British Heart Foundation wants more children to start skipping when they return to school this month.

The charity, which runs the Jump Rope for Heart scheme, believes skipping can help to reverse the worrying trend which has seen the number of physical inactivity rates double.

It is now looking for volunteers to promote the skipping project in Welsh schools.

All children and teenagers, from the age of five to 18, should be doing at least an hour of moderate-intensity physical activity every day.

But in Wales, statistics reveal that only 55% of boys and 39% of girls are active for at least an hour on five or more days a week.

Glenda Meakin, the BHF's community fundraising and volunteer manager, said, "Skipping is a good way to get kids moving at school.

"It's suitable for all key stages and can be taught to a number of different abilities at the same time.

"It is also non-competitive, which means everyone can succeed in their own way."

And a spokeswoman for the Sports Council of Wales said, "Amid fears of increasing obesity levels, playground games like skipping - both affordable and portable - offer a good aerobic workout, tone the muscles and improve co-ordination, balance and agility.

"A great way of getting active both in school and out, research has shown that skipping burns more calories than jogging and football, and just 10 minutes of skipping offers the same health benefits as a 45-minute hard run."

The Jump Rope For Heart scheme is a sponsored skipping challenge which helps to raise vital funds for heart research, education and patient care, and encourages healthy habits by showing children that keeping fit can be fun.

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Specifically, the study looked at "social behavior and network therapy" and the more established "motivational enhancement therapy."

"Motivational enhancement is an alcohol-focused treatment that works on people's motivation to change their behavior, which is a quite well-known and well-researched intervention," Dr. Christine Godfrey of the University of York told Reuters Health.

"Social behavior and network therapy is more person-centered," she explained, which helps provide patients with better social environments and alternative activities. "It gets them to think about who they associate with, and how their network can help them in changing their behavior."

Social behavior and network therapy involves eight 50-minute sessions, while motivational enhancement involves three sessions.

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With hemoglobin SC disease, red blood cells assume odd shapes, resulting in their premature destruction and anemia. Hemoglobin SC disease is closely related to sickle cell disease but is usually milder. Both disorders primarily affect people of African descent.

The new finding runs counter to claims that pregnancy related-problems are more common with hemoglobin SC disease than with sickle cell disease, lead author Dr. Graham R. Serjeant, from the Sickle Cell Trust in Kingston, Jamaica, and colleagues note.

In the current study, 95 pregnancies in 43 hemoglobin SC disease patients were compared with 94 pregnancies in 52 sickle cell disease patients and 157 pregnancies in 68 healthy comparison subjects.

All of the subjects had been followed from birth to assess the age at which menstruation began. Despite having a delay in menstruation of nearly 1 year relative to healthy subjects, patients with hemoglobin SC disease had a similar age at first pregnancy.

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They said the horseshoe bats, valued both as food and for their use in Chinese medicine, should be handled with great care. They may have helped spread the virus among different species of animals, the researchers said.

SARS first emerged in China in 2002 and in 2003 spread around the world via jet, killing more than 700 people and infecting around 8,000.

It is caused by a new virus called SARS coronavirus. Coronaviruses are common in people and animals and usually cause nothing more serious than a cold.

But SARS was different.

"The isolation of SARS-coronavirus from caged animals, including Himalayan palm civets and a raccoon dog, from wild live markets in mainland China suggested that these animals are the reservoir for the origin of the SARS epidemic," Kwok-yung Yuen of the University of Hong Kong and colleagues wrote in their report, published in the Proceedings of the national Academy of Sciences.

"However, several lines of evidence suggested that the civet may have served only as an amplification host for SARS virus and provided the environment for major genetic variations permitting efficient animal-to human and human-to-human transmissions," they added.

So they studied wild animals in the Hong Kong countryside that may have come into contact with civets.

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Industry experts say people in their golden years now represent the fastest growing segment of the health club population.

Statistics from the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA) show that people over age 55 account for about 17 percent of gym-goers. In 2004, there were 10.2 million health club members over 55, up from 4.9 million in 1998 and 1.8 million in 1993.

"It's a huge change," says Brooke MacInnis Correia, a spokesperson for IHRSA, based in Boston.

She says baby boomers are one of the major driving factors. As they age, they're hoping to hang onto their health — and their looks — for as long as possible.

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In the journal Pediatrics, clinicians explain that so-called “hypernatremic dehydration” in newborns arises from the inadequate transfer of breast milk from mother to infant. Poor milk drainage from the breasts leading to persistently high sodium concentrations in milk may worsen sodium levels in the infant.

According to Dr. Michael L. Moritz of Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, “New mothers, especially first-time mothers, may have difficulty producing an adequate supply of breast milk in the first week after birth because of physiological issues or because the baby may not be able to latch on properly.”

Pediatricians and parents need to be aware that when this occurs, the risk of dehydration is much higher than previously assumed, he continued.

“If infants are becoming dehydrated, we strongly recommend that the breast milk be supplemented with formula or breast milk from another source,” Moritz said.

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A cross-sectional study of 16,583 men and women found depression to be the strongest risk factor for excessive daytime sleepiness (P<0.0001), researchers reported in the latest issue of Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. A body mass index of 28 or higher and diabetes (P<0.001) were also significant and independent risk factors.

On the other hand, sleep apnea was not as significant a risk factor as once believed (P=0.266), wrote investigators led by Edward O. Bixler, Ph.D., a professor of psychiatry at Pennsylvania State University here.

"When we addressed the relative contribution of various factors for the complaint of excessive daytime sleepiness, current treatment for depression was most strongly associated," the researchers wrote. This relationship held even after controlling for antidepression medication.

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Girls who ate breakfast of any type had a lower average body mass index, a common obesity gauge, than those who said they didn't. The index was even lower for girls who said they ate cereal for breakfast, according to findings of the study conducted by the Maryland Medical Research Institute. The study received funding from the National Institutes of Health and cereal-maker General Mills Inc.

"Not eating breakfast is the worst thing you can do, that's really the take-home message for teenage girls," said study author Bruce Barton, the Maryland institute's president and CEO.

The fiber in cereal and healthier foods that normally accompany cereal, such as milk and orange juice, may account for the lower body mass index among cereal eaters, Barton said.

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Among 6,689 Danish women followed for almost 20 years, those who reported having high levels of daily stress at the outset had a 40% lower risk of breast cancer than their initially more serene counterparts, reported Naja Rod Nielsen, Ph.D., and colleagues at the Danish National Institute of Public Health and other institutions.

The known estrogen-suppressing effects of high stress could account for the lower cancer risk, but that doesn't mean that women should consider adding high pressure to their daily routines, the investigators cautioned in the Sept. 10 issue of the British Medical Journal.

"High endogenous concentrations of estrogen are a known risk factor for breast cancer, and impairment of estrogen synthesis induced by chronic stress may explain a lower incidence of breast cancer in women with high stress," the investigators wrote. "Impairment of normal body function should not, however, be considered a healthy response, and the cumulative health consequences of stress may be disadvantageous."


Their findings are in direct contrast to at least two other studies suggesting that increased stress either correlates with an increased risk of breast cancer or doesn't affect it.

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The shock of moving from heels to flats, extra pressure on the heel of the foot and blisters from the thong on the flip-flops are among the problems.

Those who wear flip-flops for more than just the beach risk accidents caused them slipping off, they add.

The Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists recommends a sandal with a slight heel and more support instead.

The flatness of flip-flops is the main problem with the shoe, the experts say.

People used to wearing a shoe with a bit of a heel may find their Achilles' tendons feel tender when they swap to flip-flops.

They may also feel a tight pull either at the back of their calves or under their feet.

Having to grip the flip-flop by clenching the toes can lead to arch strain and pains - which can also be caused by the footwear's lack of support.

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The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons condemned the practice saying it was bound for catastrophe.

Of even greater concern is the message it sends to people - that plastic surgery is a commodity, and can be purchased mindlessly, BAAPS said.

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In fact, “more than 100,000 children with asthma in the U.S. may be at risk for (airway narrowing) following exposure to ibuprofen” (Motrin, Advil), Dr. Jason S. Debley told Reuters Health.

Because thousands of children with asthma take ibuprofen each year, often during an illness that can exacerbate asthma, the possibility that an asthmatic child may be sensitive to ibuprofen needs to be considered before it is administered, he emphasized.

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But even more worrying, she said, was the apparent lack of awareness of cardiovascular disease in women among healthcare professionals.

Dr Mikhail said women may have less common symptoms, such as back pain, burning in the chest, abdominal discomfort, nausea, or fatigue, which makes diagnosis more difficult.

They are also less likely to seek medical help, and tend to present late in the process of their disease.

In addition, they are less likely to have appropriate investigations, such as coronary angiography, which can delay the start of effective treatment.

She said research into heart disease also tended to focus on men - making it difficult to draw definitive conclusions about how to manage the condition in women.

Women typically account for less than 30% of participants in most trials.

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Like Reeve, widow of "Superman" star Christopher Reeve, 1 in 5 women diagnosed with the disease never lit a cigarette, doctors say. Yet they share an unfortunate stigma with cancer patients who smoked.

"The underlying assumption is, you were a smoker and you caused this, therefore you're not going to get my sympathy," said Tom Labrecque Jr., who started a foundation to raise awareness after his nonsmoker father died several years ago of the disease.

No one "deserves" lung cancer, doctors say. But nonsmokers do have one silver lining: They respond better to the newest targeted cancer drugs like Iressa and Tarceva.

That's because people who get lung cancer early in life, like the 44-year-old Reeve, are more likely to have genetic factors fueling their disease, doctors say. Only 3 percent of lung cancers occur in people under 45, regardless of smoking status.

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The rate of basal cell and squamous cell cancers rose to 32 per 100,000 women under 40 in 2003 from 13 per 100,000 in the late 1970s, their study said.

Basal cell and squamous cell cancers are the two most common forms of the disease and can be removed and treated more easily than the deadlier melanoma type.

"Tan is still accepted as a sign of health and a sign of beauty and so changing that message is going to be important to accept fair skin as very healthy and beautiful," said study author Dr. Leslie Christenson of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

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Danish and US scientists found use of SSRIs in the first three months of pregnancy was linked to a 40% increased risk - but the results are preliminary.

Cardiac defects appeared to be 60% more likely when the women used SSRIs.

But the researchers stress the results, featured in Pulse magazine, do not mean women should stop taking the drugs.

The findings were presented an International Society for Pharmacoepidemiology conference.

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Tests of the technique in an international study were halted early in 2002 because results were so good.

Now a longer-term follow-up confirms it does boost the chances of patients - who risk a stroke without treatment - surviving without disability.

The latest study, by the University of Oxford, is published in The Lancet.

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Eight percent of girls and 12 percent of boys age 12-18 said they used supplements in pursuit of a better body, according to a survey funded by the National Institutes of Health and cereal-maker Kellogg Co. published this month. For high school athletes in competitive sports, the percentage may be far higher.

“Everybody’s tried them, pretty much,” said quarterback Andrew Davis, surveying the Cordova Lancers weight room, where the team spends at least four hours a week.

Most popular are protein shakes and powders that add calories to fast-growing teenage bodies. They are often blends of whey protein and nitric oxide. Many athletes said they’ve experimented with creatine, a natural substance found in muscle tissue and also in lean meat and fish. All those substances are legal, over-the-counter and easily accessible.

The goal for many high school athletes is to try to get faster and stronger. What’s less obvious to many teenagers and parents is whether supplements are needed to do it.

The Schwarzenegger controversy was the result of the governor and body-builder having close ties to the nutritional supplement industry at the same time he vetoed a bill that could have hurt it. Schwarzenegger has long defended his own use of such products.

“Wherever I am, I have food supplements. That’s part of me. I just happen to believe in it very strongly,” he said last month.

But according to Dr. Gary Wadler, a professor of sports medicine at New York University and an expert on performance-enhancing drugs, actually most of them do not need those supplements because they are not suffering from a typical disease that need something (the supplement).

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More and more restaurants offering gluten-free menu to fit demands of people with celiac disease.

Not every customer may be as effusive as that one, but Pace says he gets tremendous amounts of feedback from customers, which also helps him try out new recipes. His latest experiment is a pasta made from white beans. Rice, the main ingredient in risotto, is naturally gluten-free.

Founded just five years ago, Pace’s restaurant quickly became known among people with celiac disease, who make heavy use of the Internet and e-mail to share restaurant recommendations.

Several major restaurant chains are also reaching out to the celiac community. Outback Steakhouse, P.F. Chang’s and other restaurant companies offer menus of gluten-free dishes, and more are joining them.

Last month, Mitchell’s Fish Market, a 13-restaurant chain based in Columbus, Ohio, introduced gluten-free menus, and six months ago Boston-based Legal Sea Foods did the same in its 31 restaurants. Richard Vellante, the executive chef for Legal Sea Foods, said his company adopted a gluten-free menu after hearing requests from customers and also noticing that competing restaurants were doing it.

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Endometriosis is an often-painful condition in which tissue that normally lines the uterus is found elsewhere in the abdomen. Current treatments for endometriosis are ineffective for many women or have dangerous side effects, Dr. Serdar E. Bulun, from Northwestern University in Chicago, and his associates note in the medical journal Fertility and Sterility.

Arimidex inhibits an enzyme, aromatase, involved in estrogen synthesis, and it was recently found that high levels of aromatase are expressed in endometrial tissue of women with endometriosis.

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The study shows that after an average of almost five years, people who ate the most red meat and processed meat had a 35 percent greater risk of developing colorectal cancer than those who ate the least amounts.

The cancer risk actually rises with fairly small amounts of these foods. Eating more than about five-and-a-half ounces of red meat and processed meat per day put people in the most at-risk group. A smaller change in risk was even seen with 10 ounces per week. The meats responsible include beef, pork, lamb and veal, plus sausage, ham, bacon and cold cuts.

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Researchers found that overweight people in their 50s who regularly practiced yoga lost about five pounds over 10 years, while a group in the same age range gained about 13 1/2 pounds over the same period.

Middle-aged people of normal weight generally put on pounds over 10 years, but those who did yoga gained less weight than those who didn't practice yoga.

The link between yoga and weight loss has nothing to do with burning calories, said Alan Kristal, one of the researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center who co-authored the study.

"Except for very strenuous yoga practices, you don't really burn enough energy to make any difference in terms of weight," said Kristal, who has practiced yoga for 10 years.

Instead, he thinks yoga helps keep people more in tune with their bodies and eating habits and aware of bad habits, such as eating because of stress, boredom or depression

Read more: Scientists say a lack of oxygen during sleep could restrict birth weight.

Sleep apnoea - where a person stops breathing for a short period during sleep - is a common condition among overweight men and pregnant women.

A lb6,000 grant from Action Medical Research will allow scientists at City Hospital in Nottingham to study the link between apnoea and birth weight.

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London's Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Trust carried out one of the first such transplants to use a the technique, which removes antibodies from blood.

The Guy's and St Thomas' team used a technique called antibody specific immunoabsorption.

It works in a similar way to the dialysis it is designed to help patients escape.

In Barbara's case, her blood group is O, and her partner Ian Long's blood group is A.

Her blood naturally carries antibodies to A-type blood.

In the weeks before the transplant Barbara was given medication to stop her body from producing the usual number of these antibodies.

She then had four sessions on the machine to filter out any antibodies which would cause her to reject the new kidney.

Her blood was fed through an immunoabsorption column, which contains a carbohydrate which absorbs anti-A or anti-B antibodies.

However, the column only removed the antibodies which would cause rejection and left other antibodies, which play important roles in fighting infections.

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The device could be used as an alternative to physiotherapy to treat patients with artery diseases.

A team at Imperial College London in Hammersmith, west London, carried out trials on 34 people with a condition which affects blood flow to the legs.

The stockings are wrapped around the leg and inflated three times a minute, squeezing blood out of the veins.

Consultant vascular surgeon Dr George Geroulakos led the research which focused on patients with a condition called intermittent claudication.

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Australian Adam Britton and US expert Mark Merchant spent the last fortnight combing the Northern Territory for salt and freshwater crocs.

It has been known for some time that these animals heal serious injuries rapidly and almost without infection.

More recently, tests showed alligator blood has strong antibacterial powers.

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It is a misconception that they are unlikely to survive for long enough for the surgery to be of benefit, doctors from the UK and Canada conclude.

The findings in Heart journal are based on 12,461 patients, 706 of whom were over 80 years of age at the time of surgery.

The octogenarians had half the risk of death of their younger peers.

This was despite the elderly patients being far more likely to undergo emergency surgery than younger patients.

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The findings from previous studies have suggested that dietary carotenoids, the chemicals responsible for the orange and yellow coloring of fruits and vegetables, can reduce inflammation through antioxidant effects.

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Workers who do overtime were 61% more likely to become hurt or ill, once factors such as age and gender were taken into account.

And working more than 12 hours a day raised the risk by more than a third, the University of Massachusetts found.

A 60-hour week carried a 23% greater risk, the study of US records from 110,236 employment periods found.

The study looked at data from 1987 to 2000. An employment period relates to the time a person spent at one firm. Counting this way meant some individuals might have been covered by the research more than once.

Report co-author Allard Dembe said risk was not necessarily associated with how hazardous the job was.

"The results of this study suggest that jobs with long working hours are not more risky merely because they are concentrated in inherently hazardous industries or occupations.

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It was a vastly different outcome than what happened in the documentary to filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, who put on 30 pounds and saw his health deteriorate after 5,000 calories a day of nothing but McDonald’s food.

Morgan, from Raleigh, thought the documentary had unfairly targeted the world’s largest restaurant company, implying that the obese were victims of a careless corporate giant. People are responsible for what they eat, she said, not restaurants. The problem with a McDonald’s-only diet isn’t what’s on the menu, but the choices made from it, she said.

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Broc Bebout, a 57-year-old retired engineer, died Thursday on the van drive back to his home in Anderson, about 25 miles northeast of Indianapolis, one day after completing the bicycle ride from Carlsbad, Calif., to Brunswick, Ga.

His wife, Patricia Brinkman, said bicycling became Bebout’s ticket to nearly 20 years of good health after quadruple-bypass surgery at age 39. He also learned to eat right and take care of himself, she said.

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Yum Brands Inc., the parent of both chains, on Thursday announced its decision to snuff out smoking at the KFC and Pizza Hut restaurants it owns nationwide.

Louisville-based Yum said “No Smoking” signs will go up beginning next week at the 1,200 KFC and 1,675 Pizza Hut restaurants across the country that are company-owned.

Franchise operators in the two chains will also be encouraged to join the initiative. Yum’s massive franchise network in the U.S. includes 4,200 KFC and 4,600 Pizza Hut restaurants.

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In the journal Nature, researchers report that only fruit flies that carry a functioning 'hangover' gene develop a tolerance for alcohol.

"If humans have a gene that has a function similar to that of 'hangover,' we could interfere with the function of such a gene," thereby preventing people from developing addiction to, alcohol, study author Dr. Ulrike Heberlein of the University of California at San Francisco told Reuters Health.

However, the researcher cautioned that this is still just speculation.

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Diet guru Dr. Dean Ornish said his vegan diet program, which some studies have suggested can reverse heart disease, also seemed to halt the progression of prostate cancer.

Tests on middle-aged and elderly men who had opted to watch indolent prostate tumors rather than treat them suggested the program slowed the growth of their cancers, Ornish said.

"This is not the definitive study, but it certainly advances the field and it adds new information about how powerful these simple changes can be," Ornish said in a telephone interview.

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A University of North Carolina team has shown valproic acid - used to treat bipolar disorder - can prevent HIV persisting in this latent phase.

The findings may boost HIV treatment and be a step towards preventing HIV from being a chronic disease, they say.

But experts cautioned against premature optimism, and said much more research into the drug's effects was needed.

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It is estimated that a third of pregnant women smoke.

Researchers looked at the impact one-to-one counselling by midwives had on pregnant smokers.

A total of 762 pregnant women who were regular smokers when they became pregnant took part in the study.

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Peter Jennings died Sunday after a brief battle with lung cancer. He was 67.

ABC News anchors said they hope if anything positive can be taken from Jennings' death, it is a greater awareness of the dangers of smoking.

"I want to give a message," Barbara Walters said. "If you have kids who are smoking, for heaven's sake, tell them that we lost Peter."

Lung cancer is the worst cancer killer in America, taking more lives each year than breast, prostate and colorectal cancers combined, according to the American Cancer Society.

An estimated 160,440 Americans die each year from lung cancer, accounting for 28 percent of all cancer deaths. Over 173,000 new cases of lung cancer are diagnosed each year, accounting for 13 percent of new cancer cases, according to the ACS.

More than 87 percent of lung cancers are smoking related, according to the Lung Cancer Organization.

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Dr. Ali El-Solh, lead author of the study published in the November issue of the journal Chest, said the findings "indicate that dental plaque is a reservoir of respiratory pathogens" that can be inhaled into the lungs and lead to pneumonia.

The University at Buffalo researcher stopped short of saying that brushing or rinsing patients' teeth or dentures is enough to destroy the germs and prevent pneumonia, citing the need for more research. But the study makes a strong case for improving dental care for nursing home residents, he and others said.

Institutionalized and critically ill elderly people, who are often frail with weakened immune systems, are particularly susceptible to pneumonia, and poor dental hygiene has been suspect for several years.

Read more:
Creating a template to help caregivers outline, reference and track the use of optimal care for stroke patients greatly increases the use of lifesaving treatments, according to researchers with the California Acute Stroke Pilot Registry.

"I think this kind of thing has worked in other disease areas, so it's not too surprising that it seems to work for stroke treatment," said study author Dr. S. Claiborne Johnston, director of the University of California, San Francisco Stroke Service. "We were surprised, though, at how much of an improvement we could see vs. how little effort was involved."

Read more:
Sleep apnea — a condition in which people stop breathing for long stretches of time in their sleep — may sometimes be caused by the destruction of cells in the brain stem, where autonomic functions such as breathing are controlled, they said.

Tests on rats showed that the loss of key brain stem cells that die off with age caused such disrupted sleep that the animals eventually stopped breathing completely.

Read more:

Airline pilots are at higher risk of developing cataracts because of exposure to cosmic rays while aloft, researchers said Monday.

Researchers at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik studied 445 men aged 50 or older of whom 79 were pilots and 71 had cataracts, concluding the pilots had triple the risk of developing cataracts.

Cataracts, which can be removed surgically, cloud the eye’s lens and cause blindness. The type of cataracts studied were the most common, called nuclear cataracts, where the clouding begins in the center of the lens and spreads.

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The Health Committee recommended the government explore the legislative options for protecting breastfeeding in public places, for example by amending the Human Rights Act.

The government is to consider whether legislation is the most appropriate avenue, but says there may be non-legislative options which could achieve the outcome.

The Labour MP who chairs the health select committee Steve Chadwick says the response is a little disappointing. She says the Human Rights Act could be amended so the Human Rights Commission could consider complaints from women who feel they have been discriminated against.

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The finding, published in the journal Stroke, supports a move by federal and academic heart experts last year that defines prehypertension as blood pressure between 120/80 and 139/89. High blood pressure starts at 140/90.

“There is a gray zone, where you are not hypertensive but your blood pressure is not normal either,” said Dr. Adnan Qureshi of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark, who led the study.

Read more:
"I wouldn't have known it was homeopathic," she said looking at the bright orange label. "The name Zicam sounds very scientific."

Stuffy noses and sore throats are driving many cold sufferers to herbal and homeopathic remedies.

But like McClanahan, consumers may not realize they're buying alternative medicines when they choose wildly popular products such as Airborne and Zicam -- next to traditional medicines in the cold and flu aisles.

The makers of both medicines have paid for their own clinical studies to test their products. But Airborne and Zicam have not been reviewed for safety and effectiveness by the Food and Drug Administration, unlike prescription and new over-the-counter drugs. The law allows their sale unless the FDA proves them harmful.

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Major pharmaceutical companies and small startups see the potential for billions of dollars in sales for a vaccine or a nicotine-free pill that could end addiction at the chemical level for America's 50 million smokers.

"It's the biggest addiction market there is," said Dr. Herbert D. Kleber, a psychiatry professor and addiction researcher at Columbia University. "Is it realistic to be able to help addicts stop smoking and remain off with a pill? I think the answer is yes and we're working on a number of them."

While nicotine patches, gums, lozenges and sprays help wean smokers off cigarettes by slowly reducing their dependence on nicotine, researchers are tailoring drugs to mimic or block nicotine's chemical reactions with the body.

In Connecticut, researchers at Pfizer Inc. identified a brain receptor that nicotine binds to and designed a drug, varenicline, that latches to the same site. Varenicline is in Phase III testing, normally the last step before a company applies for approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

Researchers hope that the drug will attach to nicotine receptors in the brain, preventing overpowering cravings from setting in when someone stops smoking.

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Aspirin is recommended now for both men and women at high risk of heart disease. Many doctors have assumed it also prevented heart problems in healthy women because of research showing it helped healthy men.

The new study "raises issues about the dangers of generalization," said Dr. Paul Ridker of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, one of the researchers. "This is an issue we thought we already had an answer to."

The Women's Health Study was the first rigorous test of aspirin and vitamin E in women. It found that taking vitamin E did no good, adding to a large body of evidence that such supplements don't help and might even be harmful.

"Bottom line: There wasn't a benefit but there wasn't harm" from vitamin E in the new study, said Harvard epidemiologist Julie Buring. "The better thing to do is to have a heart-healthy diet."

Read more: Those fatty, forbidden foods we love may suppress our "stop eating" hormone, creating a dietary double whammy. The more we gobble, the more we can't stop gobbling.
That is the idea, anyway, behind a study released yesterday by the Neuroscience Institute at Pennsylvania State University involving a bunch of fat-snacking rats who just did not know when to say when -- and their more moderate counterparts.
Over 20 luxurious days, one group of the rats in question received a high-calorie, high-fat "rat chow" snack that the rodents found particularly delectable, the study noted. The other group led a more spartan existence, dining upon low-fat rat cuisine.
"When we gave the rats doses of 'stop eating' hormone, the rats on the low-fat diet significantly suppressed their intake of the snack, but not the rats on the high-fat diet," said nutritional scientist Mihai Covasa, who led the study. "These results suggests that a long-term, high-fat diet may actually promote short-term overconsumption of highly palatable foods, high in dietary fat."

Read more:
Expert advice is still to quit smoking during, and ideally before, pregnancy.

This is just the 'last resort' for smoking women who are pregnant. And vitamin C can not counteract any other negative impacts of smoking during pregrancy, such as decreased body weight and abnormal brain development.

Read more:
Alcohol consumption increased by 9% from the previous year, the survey of 17,000 people showed.

It also showed a 1.6% fall in fruit and vegetable sales, meaning people ate 3.7 portions a day on average - well short of the "five-a-day" target.

Nutritionists said the trends were "worrying" with obesity on the rise.

In the UK, adult obesity rates have almost quadrupled in the last 25 years with nearly one in four adults classed as obese or overweight.

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First signs

It all started to show when I kept getting ill and feeling tired or moody.

It was actually my friend's mum who said I should go to the doctors because I didn't look very well.

Testing for diabetes

The doctor said it was just a phase I was going through but he gave me a blood test anyway.

He was then shocked to find my blood sugar higher than usual.

Confused and worried

He wrote a letter to the hospital saying I might have diabetes. I went to the hospital confused and worried.

I was admitted to hospital with Type 1 diabetes and it dawned on me that this illness was for life and will never go away.

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In research published online by The Lancet medical journal, Grant and his team studied 5,300 elderly people who had fractured a bone during the previous 10 years.

They were randomly divided into four groups which were given supplements of vitamin D, calcium, both, or a placebo. After following up the patients for up to 62 months, nearly 700 patients had broken a bone but there was no difference in the number of fractures in the different groups.

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It also declines a bit faster than men’s as they grow older.

Women whose exercise capacity was less than 85 percent of what it should be were twice as likely to die within eight years, the researchers found.

Until now, the only guidelines available were based on men and it wasn’t certain whether they applied to women as well. But as more women are being included in medical research, gender differences in some diseases and other health issues are emerging.

The researchers found that to be true for fitness levels. They used the results of 5,721 exercise stress tests on women over 35 to figure out what should be considered normal for them compared to the established fitness levels for men.

Read more:
Yet few people yesterday were surprised to hear that
They just wondered why it took so long. And everyone had a theory on what went wrong.

Read more:
Susan Torres, a cancer-stricken, 26-year-old researcher at the National Institutes of Health, suffered a stroke in May after the melanoma spread to her brain.

Her family decided to keep her alive to give her fetus a chance. It became a race between the fetus' development and the cancer that was ravaging the woman's body.

Doctors said that Torres' health was deteriorating and that the risk of harm to the fetus finally outweighed the benefits of extending the pregnancy.

Torres gave birth to a daughter, Susan Anne Catherine Torres, by Caesarean section on Tuesday at Virginia Hospital Center. The baby was about two months premature and weighed 1 pound, 13 ounces. She was in the neonatal intensive care unit.

Read more:
Researchers found statistically significant increases in the relative risk of fatal CHD in females as pollution levels increased when they analyzed PM levels alone. The risk estimates were strengthened when the study also considered ozone, and strengthened further when only postmenopausal females were included.

Read more:
Salt fluoridation programs over the last decade have placed the countries of the Americas at the leading edge in reducing dental caries, and these programs are now being replicated in other regions, the book notes. Fluoridation benefits also translate into savings in dental treatments of up to $250 per person for every $1 spent on fluoridation initiatives.

"Dental caries is the most common childhood disease and can be avoided thanks to salt fluoridation," said PAHO's Dr. Saskia Estupi~nan-Day, regional advisor on oral health and author of the publication. "We are the world leaders on salt fluoridation programs. The Latin American and Caribbean experience is being replicated worldwide. Many countries are seeking our assistance and technical cooperation to implement this greatly beneficial and cost-effective public health strategy."

Read more:
"Previous studies suggest flavonoid-rich foods, including fruits, vegetables, tea, red wine and chocolate, might offer cardiovascular benefits, but this is one of the first clinical trials to look specifically at dark chocolate's effect on lowering blood pressure among people with hypertension," said Jeffrey Blumberg of Tufts University in Boston, who led the study.

"This study is not about eating more chocolate," Blumberg added. "It suggests that cocoa flavonoids appear to have benefits on vascular function and glucose sensitivity."

Scientists are far from being able to make specific recommendations for patients based on their research on chocolate, and nutritionists have urged people to be cautious because chocolate is high in fat, sugar and calories.

Read more: Gain control over your body!
Be relieved of your stress through the practice of gentle art of Yoga!

Pregnancy is a physical as well as mental experience. Women often becomes hyper aware of all the changes their bodies are going through. Yoga allows pregnant women to adapt to these changes more gracefully and to feel proud and a sense of appreciation for their bodies. Yoga exercises can increase flexibility, strength, circulation and balance. Many pregnant women find that regular yoga exercises help to reduce swelling, back and leg pain, and insomnia.

However, Yoga must be practised very carefully among pregnant women, as improper exercises will bring negative effect on both moms and babies. Here are some tips for pre-natal pregnancy Yoga practise:

1. The general yoga exercises are recommended for the first 2 months. You must consult your doctor and find very experienced Yoga teachers. With proper guidance, you can practice some yoga right into labor. If you new to yoga then you should start slowly.

2. Breathing exercises are beneficial if done twice a day. The breathing exercises provide more oxygen and energy both to the mother and the child.

3. Some yoga poses that can help a pregnant women dealing with the symptoms of pregnancy, ensuring smoother and easier delivery, and faster recovery after childbirth. Pregnant women should pay attention not to overstretch the body - the ligaments around the joints become loose and soft during pregnancy. The abdomen should stay relaxed at all times. Difficult and poses that put pressure on the abdomen and other should NOT be done during advance stages of Pregnancy. No any kind of pain or nausea should be felt during and/or after yoga. If this happens, you should stop yoga practise and contact your GP.

4. When carrying out standing poses with your heels to the wall or use a chair for support to avoid losing your balance and risking injury to both you and your baby.

5. Deep relaxation is crucial to give rest to body and mind, and you will benefit more from a good sleep. Deep relaxation helps the nerve system change from sympathetic to parasympathetic activity. Parasympathetic activity is associated with the restorative processes of the body, which is needed both by the pregnant woman and the child.

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How to Apply Eye Makeup

Before applying eye makeup, it’s always a good idea to use a concealer to hide dark circles and wrinkles around the eyes. Choose a shade of concealer that’s slightly lighter than your natural skin tone. Don’t use too much and blend it in well.

Apply the eye shadow color in several thin layers, blend well. Put the sheer color on the center of your lid with a sponge applicator or pencil.

Next, brush up and out toward your brow, then nose. Use an eye brush if possible. Apply a deeper shade of color to the crease of your lid.

Highlight Your Eyes

To highlight eyes, add a lighter shade of the same color of eye makeup to your brow bone.

Outline and Define Eyes

Outline the top and bottom of your lids with an eyeliner pencil. You can make short, close little dots with your eyeliner instead of a straight line. Smudge the dots or line lightly from the inner corners to the outer corners, if you want a softer line.

Make Thick Eye Lashes

For great looking eyelashes, go over lashes first with an eyelash separator comb. Apply a thin coat of mascara to lashes (If you don’t have many lashes, you may want to do lashes individually). Re-comb your lashes immediately after you apply the mascara. Let them dry, then repeat the process.

Removing Eye Makeup

Eye makeup should be removed with a cotton ball or swab that has been soaked in makeup remover. Makeup remover pads are good too.
Remember to be gentle and don’t rush. Be especially careful when removing mascara. You can gently rub the underside of the lashes until they come clean.

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Forget French fries and fatty hamburgers. If you want to look beautiful and feel young and healthy, you’ll eat a generous variety of super foods that have been proven to work wonders on the human body.

Whether you’re on a low fat diet, low carb diet, or no diet, adding these super foods to your plate should become as second nature to you as putting your lipstick on in the morning.

Healthy Skin – Eat: blueberries, cranberries, raspberries, strawberries, cherries, currants, purple grapes, pumpkin, carrots, butternut squash, sweet potatoes.

Healthy Eyes – Eat: broccoli, brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, bok choy, kale, spinach, romaine lettuce, mustard greens, turnip greens.

Strong Bones – Eat: yogurt, kefir, soy, tofu. Drink: skim milk.

Reduce Stress – Eat: beans (navy, pinto, red, black, etc.), green beans, sugar snap peas, green peas, chick peas.

Boost Immune System – Eat: turkey, skinless chicken breast, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, spinach. Drink: black or green tea.

Sun Protection – Eat: tomatoes, watermelon, pink grapefruit.

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I started making my own skin care products years ago. I got a book about natural skin care. You can actually make masks out of mashed fruit. They are really messy though, but back then, I was really broke. Could not afford to spend on good skin care so I made do with what I could get.

I mashed watermelon and put in on my face. My face felt really clean, but there was a bit of a rash after that. I also read that papaya was used in spas for back exfoliating masks. In fact, the enzymes in papayas and pineapples are often used to exfoliate the skin. These can be rather harsh though, so I never tried that on my face.

One thing led to another. I moved on to make my own creams. I went through a period of time where every body lotion I tried from the stores, from the cheap ones to the $20 ones, made my skin itch. That prompted me to make my own body cream.

The cream recipes I found were mainly for cold cream. These were really heavy, oil based stuff. I wanted something lighter. A water based lotion.

A cream is basically droplets of water suspended in oil, kept in that state by an emulsifier. For my creams, I used beeswax as an emulsifier.

I experimented in the kitchen. After plenty of failed experiments. I finally came up with lotion in a texture I simply loved.

A lotion is made of droplets of oil suspended in water, kept together by an emulsifier. I used lecithin for my lotion. Here are some of the lotions I made.

By varying the water based part, using rosewater or tea instead of plain water, you can make all sorts of lotions. Likewise, you can play around with the oil part of the formula, with various infused oils, or a few drops of different essential oils, to change the lotion or cream. You can make tailor your beauty products to your personal tastes, and needs.

I had lots of fun with that. My skin loved these home made creams when they were fresh.

I even made a batch tailored specially for a cousin, using ingredients that she loves.

Yet, I have since stopped making them.

Why?

Laziness is the main reason. Lack of time is another reason.

So much care must go into making the lotions which don't keep. For me, even if I keep the lotions refrigerated, 2 days after making the lotion, if I use it on my face, my skin breaks out. 3 days later, if I use it on my body, my skin itches.

Preservatives are put in commercial skin care products to prevent these from spoiling. Without preservatives, bacteria, mould and all these nasty things multiply rapidly, spoiling the entire batch, causing nasty reactions on the skin. These home made beauty products don't have preservatives. That meant that I had to make new batches of skincare almost everyday.

Also, care must be taken to ensure all the equipment is sterile so the final product is safe to use. Carelessness could introduce lots of nasty germs into the beauty products you make.
The water and oil component must be heated to the same temperature and drops of one are added to the other while mixing thoroughly or the batch might separate.

It is so much more convenient to buy beauty products from brands that agree with my skin condition, than to make them from scratch. That is what I have been doing lately. Plus the reknown skincare lines are way better than what I can make. I mean, with their R & D budgets, they can afford to do plenty of research on creating the most effective beauty products for virtually any beauty need.

At the end of the day, whether you make your beauty products or buy them off the shelf, it is a matter of your personal preference.

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Summary
Body Mass Index:
<18: Underweight
>25: Overweight
>30: Obese

Calculate Yourself

The calculation is simple, you can do it on a regular calculator. All you need to know is your height and weight. If you want to use metric measurements, take your weight in kilograms and divide it by your height in meters squared. If you use inches and pounds instead, you need to multiply the result by 703 to get an equivalent result. I am 6' tall and I weigh 180 lbs. 180/(72 x 72) x 703 = 24.4

Underweight

If your BMI is 18 or less, you are considered underweight for your height. My work here is done. Just kidding.

Being underweight is a health problem, just as being overweight is. As Mr. Weightless, I am dedicated to helping those at the other end of the spectrum, but if you are underweight, here are a few tips to become healthier.

Don't try to do the opposite of everything I say to lose weight. You should still be drinking plenty of water, for example.

This may seem obvious, but EAT MORE. Consume more calories than you expend. Consume more protein. One main reason you may be underweight is lack of muscle mass. Resistance training combined with a hefty increase in protein consumption will put some meat on your bones.

The best way to consume more calories while keeping a balanced and healthy diet is to order one of our meal replacement products, but instead of using the meal replacement to replace meals, have a shake between other meals. You will be getting more calories, more protein, but without imbalancing your intake of other essential nutrients.

Normal Weight

If your BMI is between 18 and 25, you are considered normal weight for your height. My work here is done. Really.

Actually, not really. Read the section below "BMI is not Enough" to find out why a BMI that is in the normal range may not mean that you have no risk of disease. And let's face it, for beach season you don't want your waistline to be "normal", you want it to looked "ripped". You can benefit from my articles and products to strip off the last remaining fat cells that are hiding your six-pack.

Overweight

If your BMI is over 25, you are considered overweight for your height. This is a dangerous category because most people ignore the dangers. Technically, being in the overweight category does not seriously predispose you to any health problems. But that does not mean that you are healthy. And if you do nothing, you may just slip into the "obese" category where your risks are great for developing heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

There is a movement these days called "healthy overweight". People may have you believe that if you can jog a mile and do some push-ups that you are healthy despite being large. If you can do these things, that's great, but that doesn't make you healthy. It just means you're not sick yet. The people who believe in the "healthy overweight" basically want to take away any shame you might feel about your size, to make you feel better and relieve some of your stress about your self-image. They say that companies that sell diet products have exaggerated claims and made fat people believe that any amount of excess fat is unattractive and unhealthy. That may be true, we all see advertisements that make us feel unattractive compared to models and actors, and we don't feel as healthy as the athletes we watch in sports. But let's not kid ourselves: If you have excess fat, you are not as healthy as someone without it. Fat, especially around the waist, is a health risk, and it does you no good, unless you find yourself in the arctic. If you're a healthy overweight, lose some weight and you'll be a healthier normal weight!

In some cultures, even in America, being overweight is a status symbol. Having a big belly tells everyone that you make so much money that you can afford lots of food. It also says that you don't do manual labour or work with your muscles because your brain is all you need for your job. I think in most cultures this image is going away, because the muscular superhero look that I'm helping you attain shows just as much success in a different way.

Obese

If your BMI is over 30, you are considered obese. This is the category that is most associated with hightened risk for all sorts of diseases. Risk is not a guarantee, you might live to be 90, but the chances are slim.

I won't go into all of the health problems you are exposing yourself to, because I've written another article about that. Read all about Obesity Statistics and Dangers on my website.

I don't think anything more needs to be said. If you are obese, you need to start losing weight right now to reduce your risks. Would you rather be dead? I don't like scaring people, but I am scared for you.

BMI Alone is Not Enough

One important fact to consider is that BMI is based only on height and weight. Therefore, BMI is not the best measure of your health. It is attractive because it's fast and easy to calculate, not because it is perfect. If you have been lifting weights and have a lot of muscle, your BMI may say you are overweight even though you have little health risk. That is because your big muscles increase your weight, not body fat.

To get a truly accurate picture of your health risks, you can try one or more of the following other indicators.

Percentage bodyfat is the best measure. You cannot do this yourself without special equipment. A doctor or nutritionist must do one of three tests: 1) use skin calipers to measure "skin fold" at four or six points on your body, or 2) submerge you in water to calculate your volume, or 3) use a device that measures BIA (bioelectrical impedence analysis) by running a small electrical charge through your body.

Generally, men should have less than 18% body fat, and women less than 23%.

Another good indicator of health risk related to weight is waist-hip ratio. Stand with stomach relaxed and measure the narrowest part of your waist, and divide that number by the measurement at the widest point of your hips/buttocks. For women, this number should be less than 0.8, for men it should be less than 0.95. If your ratio is higher, then you carry excess fat around the waist, which carries a higher health risk. However, this only really applies if your BMI is already over 25.

If your BMI is over 25, it is time to take action to improve your health. If your BMI is over 30, you are already at risk for many diseases. Start one of our programs today.

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What Causes Dry Eyes?

Dry eyes occur for a number of reasons, although there is thought to be a particular link between extended contact lenses and dry eyes. Dry eyes are also prevalent with older contact lens wearers as tear ducts become less effective with age. Problems with contact lenses and dry
eyes become exacerbated when wearers spend a considerable length of time in front of a computer screen or in an air-conditioned environment.

Specific Contact Lenses for Dry Eyes

There are some manufacturers that deal specifically with the problem of contact lenses and dry eyes. For example biomedics offer their own range of frequency 55 contact lenses for dry eyes. The higher water content can be a real benefit for those suffering from irritated and dry eyes.

If you are looking for contact lenses for dry eyes, take some time to review and make a comparison before you select the best contact lenses for your circumstances. So many companies offer a range dealing specifically with contact lenses and dry eyes that it pays to
experiment and shop around and compare ratings.

Solutions for Contact Lenses and Dry Eyes

It's not only specific types of contact lenses that can help with dry eyes. There are solutions that are aimed at working alongside contact lenses and dry eyes to minimize the risks; theses include tear inducing solutions and artificial tears.

Those who suffer from problems with contact lenses and dry eyes need to pay particular attention to the various contact lens products on the market. By comparing brands and manufacturers, the perfect contact lens will be found.

If irritation of the eyes continues, the contact lenses should be removed immediately and a health care professional consulted.

With modern developments, there is no need for any contact lens wearer to suffer from dry eyes, so get help and remove the irritation. Contact lenses and dry eyes are soon to be a thing of the past!

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Eating right when you’re out of your comfort zone can actually be easier than when you are at home, so long as you think smart and plan ahead.

Getting in shape can be an arduous journey, and you should allow yourself to celebrate along the way! However, celebrating doesn’t mean two helpings of dessert. Instead, focus on these simple tips to help you enjoy your dinners out on the town without compromising your weight loss goals.

Tip 1: Daily Plan

Incorporate meals out like any others. Don’t skip meals beforehand, setting yourself up to be starving, then overeat. Plan. Don’t be afraid to call ahead and find out what the specials are going to be and figure out a couple of choices, so that you don’t stress out when you arrive and order foods that are not the best options for your diet.

If the restaurant or event is going to serve you buffet-style, again, call ahead to plan. If that’s not an option, here are a couple ideas. First, ask someone with whom you’re comfortable sharing your dietary concerns to help you. Tell him or her what foods you can eat (or what you cannot eat) and ask the person to fill a plate for you. Or second, walk up to the buffet table(s) beforehand with no plate. Just take a casual stroll around and see which foods are being served. Then decide if you would like to ask someone else to place your selections on a plate for you or if you would prefer to get them yourself.

Tip 2: Slow and Steady

First of all, use manners and eat slowly. Not only will this help with your digestion, it slows your eating down so that you don’t “gulp” and be a chow-hound, eating everything in sight.

If out with others, remember you are also there for socializing, so talk between bites. Set your eating utensils down while you chew. Have a sip of water between bites. The goal is not to see how fast can you wolf down the food while someone else is talking.

Tip 3: Avoid temptation

There is no law that says you must have a basket of bread, butter and oil before a meal out. If it is on your table when you are seated, request that it be brought back to the kitchen.

If your dinner mates are eager to start off with the carbs, then order a glass of water and take a sip each time you are tempted to break bread. Besides, you’ll want the time you would have wasted buttering and dipping to spend reading the menu for smart, sensible choices.

Don’t assume that you’ll be able to hold out on temptations throughout the entire meal. Set yourself up for success when you order by requesting they leave off the oils and sauces. Request that your meat and vegetables be steamed, not fried. Order a salad (with light or no dressing, on the side) or side of veggies instead of fries or mashed potatoes.

Tip 4: Fill up on the good stuff

Drink plenty of water before you leave for the restaurant, and while you wait for the food to arrive. This will help fill you up and prevent hunger-inspired indulgences.

Request your salad (and/or soup, if it’s not creamy) be brought out first, and dig in. By the time your food arrives, you should be able to more rationally determine what portion sizes are appropriate, and if anything needs to be avoided.

Tip 5: Dreaded desserts

First of all, do not order dessert until you are completely finished with your meal. You may be full and not want anything. And that’s certainly not a crime!

After the meal, if everyone is splurging on the dessert menu, keep in mind that you don’t have to join in just to be part of the “gang.” Enjoy a cup of coffee or tea to end your meal. Or ask someone to split a dessert with you. Hint: Doggie bags can also be used for desserts! So split it in half and take part home for another day or your neighbor. You have to be left out of choosing a neat dessert, either. See if the kitchen can put together a fruit bowl or a sorbet dish to satisfy your cravings without putting all your conscientious work at dinner to waste. This might be something to call ahead about..hint!

With the right approach, eating out can be a pleasurable experience. Remember, a successful diet is a lifelong lifestyle modification. You need to be able to incorporate healthful eating out activities into your routine.

What happens if you DO stress? Add extra activities to your schedule. Swim some laps. Walk or jog. Leave your wallet in the trunk and go to a mall for a shop-walk. Take a tour. Visit a museum. Enjoy a park and feed the ducks. Just get out, focus on something else and enjoy life.

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Research shows that one of the leading causes of Breast Cancer could be the use of antiperspirants. The human body has a number of areas, that it uses to purge Toxins from the body, these are, behind the knees, behind the ears, the groin area, and the armpits. The toxins are purged from the body in the form of perspiration and antiperspirant as the name clearly suggests prevents you from perspiring, thereby inhibiting the body from purging Toxins from the armpit area.

These Toxin do not just disappear, Instead, the body deposits them in the Lymph Nodes below the arms, since it is unable to sweat them out. A concentration of Toxins then builds up in the areas such as the armpits, which can then lead to cell mutations, which is cancer.

It cannot be ignored, that nearly all Breast Cancer Tumors occur in the upper outer quadrant of the breast area, this is where the Lymph Nodes are located. Men are less likely (but not totally exempt) to develop breast cancer prompted by the use of antiperspirants, because the antiperspirant is more likely to be caught in the armpit hair, rather than directly applied to the skin, but ladies, who shave their armpits, increase the risk by causing imperceptable nicks in the skin, which allow the chemicals to enter easily into the body through the armpits.

This article is aimed mainly at ladies, but please be aware that there are a few antiperspirants on the market that are made from natural products, but basically they would still trap the Toxins in the same areas. The best solution is to use deodorants, rather than antiperspirants, also please remember that the Eight Essential Sugars in Glyconutrients can also help to fight off Toxins.

There is a lot of controversy about this article, the medical profession scoff at the idea, and so do big business, but then again there are huge numbers of people that scoff at the problems associated with Fluoride in drinking water. You can make up your own mind on whether there is someting in this article or not, I know that if I was a lady, I would keep clear of Antiperspirants. I realise that Doctors everywhere, do a marvelous job, and they are appreciated, but they are reluctant to look at the bigger picture, also please remember that the fourth largest killer of people in the western world is prescription drugs.

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Sunlight is essential for your life and health. This often brings up the concern of skin cancer. People are told the sun causes skin cancer and they should wear sunblock to prevent skin cancer. This is a big fat theory of the medical symptom and disease care profession. Skin cancer is on the rise because people are supposedly spending more time in the sun, and this is the supposed "proof" that skin cancer is caused by the sun. Did the experts happen to notice that most cancer is on the rise? Does the sun cause these cancers as well?

Well, my friends, I have a question for you. How many other bad things are on the rise that people are doing? Lots. Just because the sun hits the skin, the powers that be say it means that is the one thing that "causes" skin cancer. They are looking for the one cause and one cure. Remember, there is no one cause of anything. There are only contributing factors.

In my opinion, it is not the sun that contributes to cancer, but being burned by the sun. Most people get no exposure to the sun for months; then they play weekend warrior and go out in the sun all weekend, often getting burned. My inner knowing tells me it is this burning that is a major contributing factor to skin cancer, not the actual sun exposure.

So if you do not build up to being in the sunlight, and you know you will be in the sun for a long time, use a chemical-free sunblock.

The irony about sunblock is the stuff most people use actually contains a chemical that is known to cause cancer. The FDA says PABA is a known carcinogen, or causes cancer and yet it is in most sunblocks. How ironic. There are PABA-free sunscreens that use "new" different chemicals. My thought is that those chemicals that replace the PABA will soon be identified as carcinogens as well. Just give them time. Even PABA was labeled "safe" by the FDA at first.

My recommendation: get a good chemical-free sunblock. Many health food stores will have them. Or you can find a place near you that sells them on the web. Avalon Organics is the sunblock I recommend and use. Unfortunately, they are not available everywhere right now.

The easiest way to get sunlight is go outside. Go outside every day without contacts or any type of glasses and have large amounts of your skin exposed to the sun. For you this might not be feasible, because you live some place where there is a thing called winter. So an acceptable alternative is getting some quality full spectrum light bulbs for your work and home. These are light bulbs that put out light similar to the sun. You can order them online as well, full spectrum solutions are the brand I use. But be careful; not all full spectrum bulbs are created equal. Most of the full spectrum bulbs in traditional stores are not much of an improvement over ordinary lights.

A fun alternative is going south for the winter. Go someplace where you can hang out in the sun without glasses or contacts, with much of your skin exposed to the sun.

Either way, you need sunlight all year round to be Totally Healthy.

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Dr. Larry Volz and his associates at The American Hypnosis Clinic believe that people who over-use alcohol and other drugs do so for reasons such as having a reward system or for escape and comfort from stress. Everyone is different - but in most cases these are normal and healthy needs… to relax, to get away from life and to treat your self. It's just the way that these needs were answered that has been their problem.

Through individualized sessions that involve up to four different types of hypnosis, behavior modification and addiction education The American Hypnosis Clinic helps individuals get their addictive behaviors under control permanently by fulfilling those needs in healthy ways. Whether the compulsive behavior in question is smoking, comfort eating, a phobia or drug or alcohol addiction - they do it more quickly, more easily and with much better results than traditional programs.

In fact, all of their programs are guaranteed for life.

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A recent popular diet, the Dong diet, advocates the elimination of fruits, red meats, and dairy foods. Not only is there no scientific evidence to support this diet but there may be potential harm. By eliminating so many potentially nutritious foods, there is the danger of causing a deficiency of important nutrients. Elimination diets though, have their supporters and selective elimination under the strict supervision of a registered dietician may be something to explore if you’re absolutely convinced your symptoms are food-related.

Another diet advocates the removal of dairy products. There are some who claim that dairy products make arthritis worse. The concern here is that total purging of dairy foods can lead to severe calcium deficiency and subsequent weakening of bones.

For years, there has been a myth that states the elimination of nightshade vegetables such as tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, and peppers will cure arthritis. The theory is that these plants produce a harmful toxin that causes arthritis. To date there is no scientific data indicating that these foods produce the supposed destructive ingredient that is responsible for inducing arthritis. Nightshade vegetables actually are low-calorie and contain important nutrients that might help arthritis sufferers.

Another popular “tonic” is the combination of vinegar and honey. Again, no reliable concrete evidence backs this as a “cure” for arthritis.

The advice: Thoroughly check out any story you hear. Don't be fooled. Talk with a reputable rheumatologist and dietician before embarking on a food "experiment."

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It is hard to discern if this is urban legend or fact. However, if this is true you can certainly understand how this waste could have adversely affected his health.

How much undigested food and waste material is being held in your colon?

When we think of cleansing we have to keep in mind that the body has seven channels of elimination. Just like you would clean your entire house you should also undertake a regimen of cleansing all of your channels of elimination. These channels are the liver, lungs, lymphatic system, blood, skin, colon and kidneys. A cleanse which focuses on only one of the channels of elimination is akin to deciding that you are only going to clean the closets in your house.

A constipated colon is one in which the transit time of food is more than 24 hours. Transit time is the length of time it takes for food to enter the mouth and exit the rectum. The basic principle of good digestive health is that you should put food in and wihin 24 hours that food should come out as waste.

The naturopathic perspective is that the longer the transit time of food, the longer these toxins stay in our digestive tract which permits proteins to putrefy, fats to get rancid, and carbohydrates to ferment.

Regardless how you look at it this cannot be healthy for your body. The longer your body is exposed to these toxins in your intestines, the greater the risk of developing disease.

Stop and think about this.

If you have only one bowel movement per day, you will have all of the other meals that you ate over the last 24 hours putrefying in your intestines. This is called intoxification. It is poisoning from within. The inability to purge toxins from our systems.

What we all need to understand is that the reason why constipation is dangerous to our health is that our bodies are designed to absorb whatever is in the digestive tract. If you put good healthy nutrition there the body will absorb it. Likewise, if you put putrefying, toxic waste there the body will absorb that as well.

The best way to start a cleansing program is by cleansing your colon. After you begin your colon cleansing program you might also want to consider maintenance program with colon hydrotherapy.

Talk to your Doctor for guidance and suggestions on things you can do to maintain optimal health.

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Answer : A high total cholesterol reading is from 6.21 mmol/L and higher. High cholesterol can be controlled by taking guggulipid, which helps lower serum LDL cholesterol and triglycerides levels and increase HDL-cholesterol levels, provided you are consistently taking the right dosage, which may be six to eight capsules a day in your case. Guggulipid is an Indian herb which contains guggulsterone E and Z. They help reduce LDL (low density lipoprotein) cholesterol and triglycerides levels and increase HDL (high density lipoprotein) cholesterol levels.

The herbs milk thistle and dandelion can help in high cholesterol problems as they increase the flow of bile. When these bile salts are bound by soluble fibres, your body will need to manufacture more bile salts from the cholesterol in the blood, thereby lowering the cholesterol. As the liver plays a role in regulating the metabolism of fat, taking milk thistle and dandelion will help improve liver function, thus normalising the triglycerides level. You should eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, and less red meat. Oats, apples and carrots contain water soluble fibres that help to regulate the blood sugar and cholesterol levels.

Vitamins like A, C, E and zinc can be used to improve the integrity of the blood vessel walls. Clinical evidence also points to these nutrients being the key to help prevent fats within the blood from oxidising and causing damage to the arteries.

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Simple:

o It improves the power of your concentration.

o Calms you down.

o And enables you to know what you want out of life and how to achieve it.

In our experience, we each have two sides of us, two YOUS if you prefer.

ONE YOU: wants to be successful and has the ability of giving you all the help and encouragement you need.

THE OTHER YOU: wants you to be an all so ran. Mediocre and that one will also give you all the help and encouragement you need to be mediocre.

The question is: Which of these have you chosen to work with? Which of these have you activated. Which of these have you given credence and credibility to.

Ask yourself:

When did you last say you would do something but never did?

When did you say that you volunteer for a task only to find that whilst you were procrastinating another person took the opportunity and made it?

When was the last time you broke a promise to your colleague, your partner or your children?

If you can identify with all or some of these behaviours then you have chosen to live with the You that is less powerful. As a result will find it difficult to reach the goals you have set for yourself in this life.

Success comes from the ability to concentrate on your strengths.

How do you do this?

Simple just give yourself five minutes a day. Just five minutes every morning to be with yourself and concentrate on the successful you.

If you really want to change your life give yourself five minutes every day to:

focus on your strengths. focus on successful thoughts. focus on fulfilling your commitments. focus on encouraging others. focus on delivering what you promised.

If you can’t squeeze five minutes into your schedule spend five minutes with yourself on the bus, train or in the traffic jam. Just give yourself five minutes.

When you start you will not be able to concentrate and will find your mind wandering all over the place. Don’t worry about this. It’s natural. It’s like learning to walk. You couldn’t do that immediately. It just takes practice.

The more you practice. The more you devote five minutes of your time to yourself, the easier it will become.

It’s like everything else in this world. You get a return of what you give. The more you give yourself the higher the return.

That’s the point of meditating. You improve your concentration skills, you gradually become at one with yourself and the world. And you know what you want out of life and how to achieve it.

Good Luck.

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All these wheels or lotus flowers are the bonds of love in the various relatives like parents, wife or husband, children etc. They are compared to wheels or the revolving whirlpools in the ocean, which attract a swimmer and drown him. Similarly, these love wheels are compared to lotus flowers, since the lotus flowers attract the bee by sweet fragrance and bind it. Similarly, these love flowers attract any one and bind them. “Kundalini” is the mind which is the energy travelling as waves like a serpent, should cross all these love wheels connected to 7th lotus flower in the head called “Sahasrara”, which is Buddhi or intelligence that takes the decision, which is the firm love on God.

Bhagavat Gita is called as the main scripture of Yoga (Yoga-Sastra). Why there is not even single reference to these wheels or lotus flowers in anywhere in Gita or even in Upanishats? Since they are not real, they are not even mentioned. The author of the Gita was Krishna, who was called Master of Yoga (Yogeswara). Krishna also says that the real yoga was lost since long (Sa kaleneha mahata….). This means that in the beginning, Sages in India knew the real yoga and loved God only crossing all their family bonds. In due course of time only, this true yoga was lost. Why? The middle age Indians were unable to cross their family bonds and so failed to succeed in Yoga.

They wanted to cover their in ability by twisting the very concept of yoga. The family bonds were removed from the concept and only wheels or lotus flowers are left fixed. Now, they close the eyes and say that they have seen the lotus flowers or wheels, which are only imaginary. Now they cross these wheels by their imaginary “Kundalini” and say that they have succeeded in Yoga. These blind teachers are also not to be blamed, because they were trained like that by their blind teachers. This misinterpretation was done long time back and hence, even at the time of Krishna, He told that yoga was lost since a long time.

We cannot catch those original culprits, who were the top most twisting masters and so the present tradition also cannot be blamed. Only rectification is the way left over. Some say that they see light, which is only an imagination. After all, the mind is a form of energy and on its concentration imaginary light can be imagined. Instead of such a week light, you better see a strong light with your open eyes. What is the use of these imaginary lights and colours, without achieving the Lord through your love, which excels the various worldly, loves.

I pity the foreigners, who are trapped in this false imaginary line of yoga, who are wasting their precious lifetime and energy. In fact, they are the best to succeed in yoga, if the reality of the yoga is exposed. Their family bonds are very weak and their love towards God is real, which is proved by their huge sacrifice of money to God’s work. Money is the fruit of work and its sacrifice for God’s work is “Karma phala tyaga” as mentioned in Gita. Again, the middle age Indians twisted this word “Karma phala tyaga” as sacrifice of the fruit of the work like praying God instead of sacrifice of money.

The reason was that these Indians were unable to sacrifice money to God due to their strong love on their children. Foreigners ask their children to earn after certain age. Indians store money even for ten generations and still continue to store only. Since prayers, meditation and knowledge are very much diverted to God, India was blessed by God with good language, good mind and good knowledge.

Since foreigners are good in sacrifice, God blessed them with good wealth. Even Indian spiritual centres were strongly funded by foreigners only. Swami Vivekananda cried, “Why my India suffers with poverty in spite of so much spiritual knowledge?” Sacrifice of money (Karma phala tyaga) and sacrifice of work (karma Sanyasa) put together constitute the God’s service, which is the real Yoga (real proof of love) called “Karma yoga” in Gita. Foreigners are the best in this karma yoga and so they easily succeed in yoga. Throughout Gita, this karma yoga was explained as yoga and wheels or lotus flowers are not at all mentioned.

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As with most cosmetic procedures, patients undergoing eyelid surgery (blepharoplasty) are given either general anesthesia, which will require a longer stay at the medical facility and a person to take care of the patient for 24 hours following surgery, or they are given local anesthesia and a sedative, so they are awake but they cannot feel the area being operated on and they are much calmer about the procedure because of the sedative.

Blepharoplasty can be done on either the upper or lower eyelids or all four. The variation will determine the length of the surgery. In eyelid surgery, tiny incisions are made along natural creases in the upper eyelid and below the lash line on the lower eyelids. The skin of the eyelid is then separated from the fat deposits and muscle so the fat can be removed. Depending upon the patient, the skin and muscle can then be trimmed as well before they are sewn back together. Recovery can be uncomfortable because of the swelling associated with any surgical procedure which will, in this case, dry out the eyes and sometimes prevent them from comfortably closing fully before the swelling goes down.

Blepharoplasty does not remove wrinkles, dark circles or a sagging brow. For this reason, eyelid surgery is commonly performed in conjunction with other facial cosmetic procedures such as brow lifts.

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Liposuction is a good choice for people who are healthy, in good shape, are an appropriate weight for their age and height, but have areas of fat that don’t respond to diet, exercise or other weight loss methods. Liposuction is also ideally suited to younger people who still have good elasticity in their skin. Skin elasticity allows the skin to shrink to the new size after fat is removed. Skin that has lost elasticity is more likely to remain baggy. In this case a tummy tuck would be a better solution for removal of areas of fat. However, liposuction can be the best solution for older people as well and you should consult with a cosmetic surgeon to make the appropriate choice.

Prior to the operation, patients may be given general anesthesia, which is a common choice if a large amount of fat is being removed, or local anesthesia in addition to a sedative so he or she stays relaxed. Liposuction is done with a small cannula which breaks up and the suctions out the fat using a vacuum or a syringe. The cannula is inserted into tiny incisions made in strategic places so that fat from a wide area can be removed, but the scars will be hidden by clothing or natural creases of the body.

There are different techniques involved in liposuction, many dealing with the loss of fluids that is liked to liposuction. Patients can either remain on IV fluids or have a liposuction process of fluid injection. Here, fluids (salt solution, lidocaine, and epinephrine) are injected into the region before the surgery so the fat can more easily be removed. Different types of fluid injection techniques include tumescent, super-wet, or ultrasound-assisted lipoplasty techniques.

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Having a home gym with free weights and a machine for aerobic activity is the perfect combination for your home gym workout routine. Exercise and cardiovascular fitness are essential in a balanced fitness program.

It's important to include stretching and resistance to help build and tone muscles, burn fat and help prevent injury. Variety is the key to enjoying and keeping you motivated for a successful exercise workout program.

Setting goals that are realistic can be a huge motivating factor in sticking to your home gym workout routine. These goals keep your mind focused on the rewards you will see and feel.

Once you start your exercise workout program and experience good results, you will become even more dedicated to achieving your goals. When beginning an exercise program here are a few important things to consider:

1. Decide how many times a week you are willing to dedicate yourself to this exercise workout program. For any real benefits to occur, your home gym workout routine should be done at least 3 to 4 times a week. It is also important to set aside a couple of days each week for complete rest.

2. How much time do you plan on dedicating to your exercise program each exercise day? It's best to start slow and gradually work up as you get more fit. Aim for 30 to 60 minutes a day on the days you exercise depending on your fitness level.

3. Remember to change your exercise and cardiovascular fitness program every few weeks. That's because your body will adjust to the same routine and your workout won't be as effective without the change. Variety is a key element for keeping your motivation going and the boredom at a minimum.

Exercise and good aerobic workouts can provide you with a lifetime of good health. According to a study in 2004, more Americans are now participating in fitness activities to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

If your goal is having a toned body with more strength and flexibility, aerobic activity combined with a home gym with free weights is a great way to achieve it.


Copyright (c) 2005 Treadmill Info.com All Rights Reserved.

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If you are considering acne scar removal surgery be sure to do some research. Before you have acne scar removal surgery check out the doctor and the treatments available.

Some things your doctor will consider before acne scar removal surgery are your age and health as well as the type and severity of the scars. Before acne scar removal surgery your doctor may also need to know how you tolerate certain meds and procedures.

One type of acne scar removal surgery is called dermabrasion. When dermabrasion is used the top layers of skin are removed with a machine. This type of acne scar removal surgery should produce skin that appears smoother.

Another kind of acne scar removal surgery is the chemical peel. A chemical peel is an acne scar removal surgery procedure where the top layer of skin is removed chemically as the name implies. The skin regenerates after a chemical peel and often the appearance of the skin is improved.

Laser resurfacing is a type of acne scar removal surgery that uses a high-energy light to burn away acne-damaged skin. This acne scar removal surgery is used to minimize fine scars.

Punch grafts are an acne scar removal surgery that is used for deep acne scars. When this acne scar removal surgery is used, unscarred skin is used to replace skin that is scarred with acne.

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A scientist who accidentally exposed his arm to 692 diode pumped YAG for a few seconds discovered laser hair removal treatment in late 1970's. The exposure burned off the hair but did not damage the skin. After few weeks, the scientist noticed a bald patch on his arm. Further research and development resulted in the birth of a revolutionary new method to get rid off unwanted hair. Since then, Laser Hair removal has become popular with both men and women of all age.

Advantages of Laser Hair Removal

The relief from the age-old hair removal methods like plucking, waxing, shaving is temporary. In the new hair removal method of electrolysis, each hair is treated separately. This makes the process time consuming and restricted to small areas. The inconvenience faced in the old methods has made the Laser Hair Removal the most popular hair removal technique. Most of the cosmetologists prefer laser hair removal to other methods of hair removal. Here are some advantages of Laser Hair Removal:

1. Ease of Use - Laser treatment uses the principle of light energy absorbed by dark matter such as hair. An experienced laser technician directs and fires a laser beam at the area of hair growth thereby burning off the unwanted hair. Laser hair removal method is not painful like waxing. Users have compared it to a tingling sensation like a small pinch.

2. Less time - Unlike electrolysis that is painful and takes a lot of time, laser hair removal is faster. With laser hair removal process, facial hair can be removed in about 45 minutes. Larger body parts take a longer time.

3. Few side effects - Unlike waxing or hair removing creams, laser hair removal treatment does not cause skin irritation or any other side effects.

4. Long Lasting - Laser hair removal treatment is long lasting than waxing, shaving or hair removal creams which have to be repeated every few weeks.

The wavelength required by laser to achieve efficient treatment is in the range of 670 to 890 nanometers. The treatment includes wearing protective eyewear. Usually, more than a single treatment is required since hair is best removed when it is in the active growth phase.

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A diet is something temporary. We follow the guidelines, the do’s and don’ts, and the result is weight loss. As soon as we stop following those guidelines, we start to gain weight. It’s temporary. We need to educate ourselves about carbohydrates, sugar, fat and protein, and how they affect our bodies. We need a healthy, nutritional balance that will keep the weight off for good. What we need is a way of life.

I have struggled with my weight since I was 18; I am now 34 years old. Over a year ago, I decided to try the South Beach Diet. I lost over 30 pounds and have kept it off. What made the difference for me is that I made the choice to not treat it as a diet, but a way of life. I learned how to eat the foods I enjoy, but in a healthier way. Instead of white bread, I choose to eat wheat or grain bread, instead of white potatoes, I choose to eat yams or sweet potatoes. We don’t have to give up our favorite desserts or pasta, but we don’t have to eat them four or five days a week either.

If I want ice cream, chocolate or French-fries, then that’s what I allow myself to have, I don’t deprive myself of anything I want to eat. What I do though, is go right back to my way of life eating habits.

Why choose a temporary weight loss solution, when you can choose a permanent one? Say goodbye to dieting and choose a way of life.

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Serving Size. The serving size is listed at the top of the label. This is an important part of meal planning and also where many people go wrong. To get the total number of carbs, calories, etc., in an item, simply multiply the listed units by the number of servings. You may be surprised at how many items you assume are only 1 serving that are actually 2 or 3. The smaller the item, the more likely you are to make mistakes.

Calories. Calories are the units of energy within a food item. When you eat, your body converts calories into energy, uses what it can, and then stores the rest in the form of fat. On labels, you’ll find separate numbers for calories and calories from fat. The fat calorie number refers to the number of calories derived from fat. The higher this number, the more fat in the product. For example, a can of diced tomatoes may have 30 calories (units of energy) and 0 calories from fat, making this a product your body can use efficiently. However, a prepackaged children’s snack may have 130 calories with 40 calories from fat, making the processed food item a less efficient source of body fuel.

Daily Percent Values (% DV). These tell you what portion of the recommended amounts of an item (fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, etc.) are in a single serving in comparison to how much you need for a full day. You should take this number in account when selecting items from the grocery shelf. For example, it you are going to buy a bottle of pasta sauce, and Brand A provides 11% DV of fat and Brand B provides 40% DV of fat, the best choice is Brand A. Be sure to look at the numbers in the context of all the others on the label. If brand A turns out to be heavy on the sodium, you should continue to shop, taking a look at Brand C and Brand D.

Fat, Sugar, Fiber, Sodium and Carbohydrates. These are the sections of the label that seem to draw the most attention from dieters. However, everyone should consider them important. If you have dietary food restrictions, high blood pressure, or diabetes, these numbers could mean the difference between remaining in good health and heading towards the danger zone. If you are on a low carb diet, you can monitor your protein intake by paying attention to the carbohydrate and sugar content. Likewise, those on a low fat diet will want to know the fat and fiber content.

The FDA provides information on what specific label terms are supposed to mean.

“No fat” or “fat free” means that the item contains less than 1/2 gram of fat per serving, “Sugar free” means that the item contains less than 1/2 gram of sugar per serving, and “Good source of fiber” indicates 2.5 g to 4.9 g. per serving. A full list can be obtained from the FDA website. You’ll note that there is no definition for “low carb,” so be particularly wary when this phrase is used.

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Glyconutrients are just recently coming to the forefront of medical research. In the past, glyconutrients, or monosaccharide sugars, were thought of as nothing more than calories that were consumed in our food. Lately, however, we are learning that glyconutrients actually play an extremely major and important function in the human body. Glyconutrients, in fact, are the means by which every one of our cells recognizes and communicates with each other. There are millions of cellular “conversations” going on at all times in our body. For example, some may signal cells to start the inflammatory process while others may signal pain receptors to fire.

Inflammation is a normal process occurring within our body to protect it from infection and foreign substances such as bacteria and viruses. When viewed as such, inflammation is a good thing, not something to be interfered with. The body, as usual, knows what to do without our meddling in its actions when invaded by harmful substances or organisms.

However, what we do have to do is supply our body with the necessary raw materials to enable it to undergo inflammation at the appropriate time and in the correct fashion. Without the proper tools, our body’s inflammatory defense mechanism can’t work optimally. A major component of these raw materials, which must be supplied to the body through food or supplementation, is glyconutrients. By giving the body the correct equipment it will perform the way it should to ward off foreign invaders and infection.

The same can be said about pain. Pain is an indicator of “something isn’t right”. When the body is equipped with everything it needs, in the proper amounts and in the appropriate places at the right time, there is no reason for pain to be present. Most pain inducing symptoms can be reduced and possibly cured if the body is functioning in its optimal condition. One of the things needed to function at optimal condition is having the correct raw materials, such as glyconutrients, available to the cells of the body.

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Talk to your doctor about Retin-A for acne scars and see what she recommends. Be sure to tell your doctor or dermatologist about any other medications you are taking before you consider Retin-A for acne scars.

If you decide to use Retin-A for acne scars you may see results in two weeks. After using Retin-A for acne scars for seven weeks you should achieve full results.

When you start using Retin-A for acne scars you will want to read all the directions carefully. Begin the Retin-A for acne scars regimen by washing your hands and putting a very thin layer on your face at bedtime. Don’t forget to wash your hands when you are through using the Retin-A for acne scars medication.

You may think that it will be helpful to use the Retin-A for acne scars more often than advised or in larger quantities but it can actually be detrimental and can increase the side effects.

Don’t worry if your acne appears to take a turn for the worse when you first use Retin-A for acne scars. It may take awhile before you notice an improvement.

There may be times when you miss a dose of Retin-A for acne scars medication. If it is not almost time to take the next dose use it as soon as you remember. Otherwise skip the missed dose of Retin-A for acne scars and continue your regular schedule.

Try Retin-A for acne scars.

by using herbs and spices can speed up your weight loss efforts,
by quite a considerable amount actually.

We all know that herbs and spices are used with cooking to
varying degrees, and of course the primary reason for doing
so is to make food much more tasty and interesting.

I suspect however that you might be surprised at the
considerable health benefits that can also be gained by
using them. In saying this I am referring to those everyday
items that can be found in most larders, and not necessarily
those exotic and probably not so well known varieties.

I happened to discover the many benefits of herbs and spices
and the fact that they can be most beneficial to a weight
loss program, when I was doing extremely detailed research
for my latest book. The results of that research were so
extensive, that it could be the basis in itself for a
complete publication, and much more detailed therefore, than
I could possibly include in this short article.

However I have been able to include a fair amount of
information below about various herbs and spices which are
known to particularly help to speed up weight loss, and that
is also in addition to their excellent overall health
benefits by the way.

You should find that you will be able to purchase these
herbs from any good Herbalist supplier.

Garcinia: (Garcinia cambogia) is a herb which is sold
primarily for enhancing weight loss and boosting the
amount of lean muscle. This is also known as hila or
brindell berry.

One of the major benfits of Garcinia is that it acts as an
appetite suppressant and stops the body from storing fat.

Pysillium: (Plantago spp.) This cheeky little herb has quite
a few health benefits. Physillium is known to help lower
cholesterol, and another major benefit is that it also helps
to prevent constipation.

If you use it as part of your weight loss program, it can
help you to eat less calories and yet still feel really full.

This is because of the amount of fiber that it contains.

I mentioned earlier that it does help in preventing
constipation, but in order to achieve this you should make
sure that you drink plenty of water.

Siberian Gingsing: (Eleutherococcus senticosus) If you
are going to start regular exercise as part of your health
and weight loss routine, which is normally to be highly
recommended, then this is a really useful herb.

It can help your body adapt to the stress of
unaccustomed changes, and it will help to make you feel
less tired even when you are doing simple exercises
like walking for example.

So in turn therefore you are more likely to stick to your
exercise routine.

Little Known Secrets In Your Larder

Cayenne: (also known as Capsicum, hot pepper, chilli pepper,
tabasco pepper). The majority of us have cayenne in our
larders, and it is very commonly used in many food dishes.
Cayenne can be found in many forms such as ground spices,
teas, and would you believe it, topical creams.

It is well known for its antitoxidant action, and greatly
helps with osteoathritis and rhumatoid athritis, shingles,
and diabetic neuropathy.

A note of caution however: Cayenne may act with anticoagulant
drugs so be sure to consult with your doctor. Excessive use
may also irritate the intestinal tract.

Manufactured topical capsacin creams can cause a burning
sensation, so test first on a small area of the skin,
remembering to wash hands thoroughly after applying the
cream. This will avoid it spreading to the eyes nose or
other sensitive areas.

Fennel: is native to the Mediterranean and is widely
utilized throughout the world. You will find it in teas,
capsules, tinctures and lozenges.

Fennel can be used to help with bloating, flatulence,
mild digestive spasms, catarrh, and coughs. It also has
antimicrobal, antispadmodic, and anti inflammatory
properties.

A note of caution here: Fennel can sometimes cause rare
allergic skin and respiratory tract reactions.
Fennel is also a potential source of synthetic oestrogens
and should be avoided if you are pregnant.

Garlic: you can buy this fresh, or the one you will most
probably have in your larder will be dried. The downside
of garlic is the odour which it leaves on your breath,
but chewing some parsley after eating will soon sort out
that problem.

Garlic is also known to help stimulate the immune system,
and to help in fighting cancer. Well documented health
benefits include lowering cholesterol,fighting infections,
and reducing blood pressure.

Again a note of caution: garlic may also interact with
anticoaglant drugs, so do be sure to check with your doctor
if in any doubt.
Rare cases of allergic reactions are known, and some people
might possibly experience heartburn or even flatulence.

These are just a few of the herbs you can use in cooking,
but do remember that there are many many more, and the
benefits in using them frequently can be quite remarkable.

You will realize of course that when using them as part of
any dish to use them sparingly, as to add too much would
just spoil the meal.

As with everything in life one should try and strike a
balance, after all you know what they say "all things in
moderation".

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Have you ever heard the expression “You are what you eat.”? It turns out there is more truth to this statement than was once thought. The reason for the people of Japans long life is exactly that, their diet.

There are three staples of the Japanese diet which can be linked to their long healthy lives.

1.Fish – Seafood is a well known staple of the Japanese diet. It is also a well known fact that seafood is very healthy. The average Japanese diet includes at least one piece of seafood every day. Seafood is naturally low in fat and cholesterol, high in protein and omega 3 fatty acids. It is arguably one of the healthiest meats available today.

2.Rice – The most well known food in Japan has to be rice. It is eaten every day often multiple times a day in Japan. Whether by itself as a meal or in a multitude of other dishes, rice is the foundation of Japanese food. Rice itself is low in fat, a great source of energy, filling, and nutritious. Japan has perfected rice growing and cooking. I have never met a Japanese person who did not own a rice cooker. In Japan there have even been developed vitamin infused rice, or hybrid rice’s. These provide even more nutrition than normal white rice.

3.Green tea – The beverage of tea has existed in Japan for a very long time. Japanese green tea, similar to rice and fish, is consumed every day by most Japanese. It is often consumed with most meals, given as gifts, and used in the most important of ceremonies. Green tea is high in vitamins such as C and E, high in dietary fiber, it helps lower cholesterol, and raises your metabolism. Green tea is perhaps the most convenient and least expensive way to live a longer healthier life.

So let us learn from the Japanese. With these three secrets you to could live a longer healthier life.

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Clostridium tetani is a noninvasive organism. It is found in soil and in the intestine and feces of horses, sheep, cattle, dogs, cats, rats, guinea pigs and chicken. Manure-treated soil may contain large numbers of spores too.

Tetanus occurs after spores or vegetative bacteria gain access to tissues and produce toxin locally. The usual mode of entry is trough a puncture wound or laceration. Tetanus may also follow elective surgery, burn wounds, otitis media, dental infection, abortion and pregnancy. Neonatal tetanus usually follows infection of the umbilical stump.

In the presence of anaerobic conditions, the spores germinate. Toxins,including tetanolysin (which potentiates infection) and tetanospasmin (a potent neurotoxin) are produced. Tetanospasmin, often referred to as tetanus toxin, causes clinical tetanus. The toxin produced is disseminated through the bloodstream and lymphatic system. However, it does not enter the central nervous system through this route, as it cannot cross the blood brain barrier except at the fourth ventricle. The toxin is exclusively taken up by the neuromuscular junction, where it migrates retrograde transynaptically at the rate 75-250mm/day, a process which takes 3-14 days, protected from neutralizing antitoxin, predominantly to inhibitory synapses to prevent the release of acetylcholine.

The toxin acts after the incubation period (3-14) days) at several sites within the central nervous system, including peripheral motor end plates, spinal cord, brain and sympathetic nervous system. The typical clinical manifestations of tetanus are caused when tetanus toxin interferes with release of neurotrasmitters, blocking inhibitor impulses.

Blockade of spinal inhibition is produced when the toxin acts at the synapse of interneurons of inhibitory pathways and motor neurons. General muscle rigidity arises from uninhibited afferent stimuli entering the central nervous system from the periphery. The effect of the toxin on the brain is controversial; direct inoculation can cause seizures.

One of the many complications from tetanus is respiratory failure secondary to spasms, obstruction by secretions, exhaustion and pulmonary aspiration. Cardiovascular complications thought to be due to hyperactivity of the sympathetic nervous system include tachycardia, with heart rates over 180 beats per minute, severe vasoconstriction and hypertension. Autonomic dysfunction is seen as increased basal sympathetic activity and episodes of sympathetic over activity. (SOA).

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