Food Habits

• Tips For a Healthy Diet:
  Eating well does not always mean eating healthy. At the same time, don't go on a starvation diet in your effort to get that hour-glass figure. Because, with your eating habits, you are setting an example for your child.
• Eat With Discretion For A Healthy You:
  Is fat in or out? This is the question that haunts adults. Then they started thinking along the same lines for babies too. Fat babies were considered healthy babies. Then suddenly, chubby babies were no longer cute and the fear of weight problems appeared. Now what is finally correct? Cool down, a fat baby is not predictive of a fat adult. However, there are many good food habits to start with children to ensure a healthier lifestyle.
• Children And Obesity:
  In the past two decades, obesity among 6 to 11-year-old children has increased 54%! However, overweight infants and children are not doomed to have weight problems as adults. Deprivation does not mean minimization of problems. It will only make the child crave for more food. In other words, they need the nourishment and no growing child should ever be put on a weight reduction diet without their doctor's supervision. Allowing children to choose from a wide selection of nutritious foods will help them establish good habits.
• Food For Thought:
  To avoid obesity, plan snacks and time to have meals. Children allowed to graze between meals consume poor, high calorie diets. Four prime reasons for weight gain are: Irregular meals, too much intake of fat, untimely meals and lack of regular exercise. Small tablespoon servings are adequate for little ones but they will take more with increasing age. Their appetites will fluctuate daily. Desserts and sweets should not be used too much. By forcing children to finish their meal before dessert, you may force them to overeat. Set a good example by eating a wide variety of foods and providing a pleasant eating environment.
• Eat Slowly, Enjoy Your Food:
  Slow eating is always healthy eating. It is advisable not to watch TV while eating. Set and example by stating to your child that healthy eating is respected and good for the child's health.

Being Vegetarian

Vegetarians have lower rates of some cancers, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and non-insulin-dependent diabetes. A study of nearly 2,000 vegetarians and part-time vegetarians conducted by German cancer researchers found eating little or no meat cut death rates from heart and circulatory disease in half and deaths from cancer by 25 to 50 percent. Vegetarians are also less likely to have gallstones, kidney stones and constipation and they weigh less on average. Calorofic values

Their should be variety in your diet, Select an array of foods to make sure you get all the nutrients you need. Eat these foods frequently for:

• Protein:
  Good choices are soy products such as tofu or soy meat substitutes, legumes, lentils, nuts, seeds and whole grains.
• Calcium:
  Non- or low-fat milk and milk products are calcium rich. If you're a vegan, nondairy sources for calcium include leafy, dark green vegetables, legumes, fortified soy milk and tofu (processed with calcium sulfate). Women need at least 1,000 milligrams of calcium each day.
• Iron:
  Enriched cereals and whole grain products, leafy, dark green vegetables, legumes and prune juice are a good place to start. Increase iron absorption by eating vitamin C-rich foods such as tomatoes or by cooking in iron pans.
• Zinc:
  Try whole grains, soy products, nuts and wheat germ.

Vitamin B-12 Eat dairy products and eggs. Vegans can get B-12 from some enriched cereals, soy products, nutritional yeast or by taking a supplement.

Home Tips during pregnancy

• Raspberry leaf tea is a good tonic for general health during pregnancy. Among other benefits, it may help to prevent morning sickness and miscarriages. Drink 1 to 2 cups of the tea per day. For each cup, add boiling water to 1 teaspoon of the leaves. Steep for 20 minutes.

• Nettle leaf tea is rich in minerals. Drink it particularly during the last month of pregnancy. Prepare it in the same way as Raspberry Leaf tea.

• Ginger Root – in a capsule form or as a tea. This may help reduce morning sickness. To make a tea, grate 1 teaspoon of the root and simmer in a cup of water. Drink as needed – up to 4 cups a day. Or take 2 capsules 3 times a day.

Nanoparticles may increase cancer risk

Nanoparticles - currently in use in electronics, cosmetics and chemical manufacturing, among other industries - could damage DNA and lead to cancer, says a new study.

A nanoparticle is a microscopic particle - the size of one-thousandth the thickness of a single strand of human hair. Nanoparticle research is currently an area of intense scientific research, due to a wide variety of potential applications in biomedical, optical and electronic fields.

Very little is known about how they behave in the environment or how they interact with and affect humans. But research at the University of Massachusetts found that nanoparticles are small enough to penetrate cell membranes and defences and interfere with normal cell processes, reported the health portal Medical News Today.

They can be difficult to isolate from the larger environment, as they are much too small for removal by conventional filtering techniques, said scientists in their research presented at an annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research this year.

Unfortunately, only a very small portion of research on nanoparticles is focused on health and safety risks, or on threats to the environment, according to Sara Pacheco, one of the researchers.

Pacheco said: 'I am concerned because so many new nanoparticles are being developed and there is little regulation on their manufacture, use and disposal.'

'Until we understand which types of nanoparticles are harmless and which have the potential to be harmful, I think it is prudent to limit their introduction into the environment.'

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a nucleic acid that contains genetic instructions for the development and functioning of living organisms.

Drinking tea could protect your skin

Drinking at least two cups of tea daily can protect you from developing skin cancer, says a new study, but scientists call for more research to strengthen the findings.

Tea's disease-fighting properties appear to protect the body against Squamous cell carcinomas and Basal cell carcinomas - most common forms of skin cancers usually caused by too much exposure to the sun's rays - that grow slowly over a period of months or even years, the researchers say.

Squamous cell carcinomas normally appear on the face and turn into an ulcer-like growth that doesn't heal.

Basal cell carcinomas normally show up as a painless lump that gradually expands in size. Although they do not normally spread through the body, they still need be removed through surgery.

In the latest study, carried out at Dartmouth Medical School in New Hampshire in the US, the scientists analysed over 1,400 patients aged between 25 and 74 years with one of the two types of tumour, reported the online edition of Daily Mail.

They compared their diet, drinking habits and lifestyle with a similar group who did not have cancer.

They found that regular tea drinkers were 65 percent less likely to have squamous cell carcinoma and almost 80 percent less at risk of a basal cell carcinoma. The biggest benefits were seen among long-term drinkers, especially those who downed several cups a day for more than 40 years.

Judy Rees, who led the research, said: 'The constituents of tea have been investigated for their activity against a variety of diseases and cancers. But the most potent appear to be polyphenols.'

These are antioxidants that block the damaging effects in the body of molecules known as free radicals.

But she stressed more research was needed to confirm it is the tea and not some other lifestyle factor which is protecting against the illness.

The New Trend - Free Cervical Cancer Vaccine in New Hampshire

New Hampshire is offering a free cervical cancer vaccine to girls ages 9 -18. The normal cost of this vaccine is about $360 for 3 shots over 6 months, according to AP. It is said that it is a response to the high demand for free vaccine that’s why medical practices have created a list of patients with ranks according to priority.

Read more about
Surveys have been made in America about early 90’s where the participants are those people that are having mood problems. 25% of the patients were incorrectly diagnosed with depression. This is because those people are only reacting to those normal stressful events like death of a family member, losing a job, and relationship breakups. These events are normal and just part of our lives; we get really depressed by these events so there’s no use of taking antidepressants. It is also advised that only those people who are diagnosed to have clinical depression should take the antidepressants.

Here are some general side effects of taking antidepressants:
Anxiety
Weight gain
Abdominal pain
Nausea
Sleep disruption

Abortion doesn't boost breast cancer risk, large study finds

An abortion or a miscarriage does not increase a woman's risk of breast cancer, according to results released Monday from a decade-long study of more than 100,000 women.

The findings are the latest, and perhaps most convincing, in a series of studies that have discredited a concern cited by antiabortion activists to dissuade women from having the procedure.

"It's important for women to have the facts," said Karin B. Michels of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. Michels is lead author of the study.

She said her group's study was "very much in line" with a 2003 expert panel convened by the National Cancer Institute that concluded no evidence supported a link between abortion and breast cancer. The institute funded Michels' study as well.

Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, took issue with the findings. Her group uses the purported link as an argument against abortion.

"Clearly [the cancer institute] must suspect a link, or else they know that a link really exists," Malec said. "Why else would they continue to pay for these studies?"

Texas, Minnesota and Mississippi require physicians to warn women seeking an abortion about the supposed cancer risk. Several other states considered similar laws but rejected them in light of the 2003 consensus report.

The new results, reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine, are from an arm of the Nurses' Health Study that involved 105,716 women.

Beginning in 1993, Michels and her colleagues biennially questioned the women — who were ages 29 to 46 in 1993 — about abortions, miscarriages and breast cancer.

They found that through 2003, a total of 16,118 had had at least one induced abortion and 21,753 had had at least one spontaneous abortion (miscarriage). The team found 1,458 new cases of breast cancer — an incidence that was the same among women who had had an abortion (induced or spontaneous) and those who had not.

The design of the study, Michels said, was much more reliable than previous studies, which started with women who'd had breast cancer and asked them if they had undergone an abortion. Such studies introduce "recall bias," she said, because women with breast cancer are more likely to acknowledge an abortion, thinking it might be related to their condition.
Source : Latimes