Health Tips

Healthy eating is a challenge in our busy society. It is much more convenient to grab something at a fast food establishment and go! That is not the healthiest way to feed our bodies. It is best to eat a balanced diet. The Department of Agriculture offers a great deal of information on proper diet. It is even age specific and offers great ideas to promote a healthy lifestyle.

Would you believe that evaluating the way the mind and body relate to each other is significant enough to form a study? Well, it is!

Psychoneuroimmunology, which studies the mind-body relationship, has offer up scientific evidence of the effect of your train of thought on your body’s functionality. Essentially, the way we think can and does affect the way we feel.
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Everybody feels depressed at times. You need to be concerned when these feelings are very strong, or last for most of the day nearly every day for two weeks or longer. They may be due to a medical illness called depression. Depression affects more than 19 million Americans each year.

Depression is a treatable illness involving an imbalance of brain chemicals called neurotransmitters. The direct causes of the illness are unclear, however it is known that body chemistry can bring on a depressive disorder, due to experiencing a traumatic event, hormonal changes, altered health habits, the presence of another illness or substance abuse. Know the warning signs.

Warning Signs of Depression:
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Stroke is a blockage of a blood vessel that supplies the brain. Stroke is the third leading cause of death, behind only heart disease and cancer. Each year in the United States 730,000 people suffer a stroke and each year approximately 150,000 of those stroke sufferers die.

There is still, unfortunately, a great deal of misunderstanding about the causes and risks for stroke by the American public. For example, a lot of people believe that stroke only strikes elderly people. In reality, a stroke can strike anybody, at any age. Many people also think that stroke occurs in the heart. Actually, stroke occurs in the brain.

These critical facts are important to know about stroke. Firstly, there are two main types of stroke. Ischemic strokes are caused by the blockage of an artery supplying the brain and make up 85 percent of stroke victims. The brain tissue beyond the blockage dies from the lack of supply of nutrients, oxygen and glucose. The other 15 percent of strokes are the result of ruptured blood vessels that bleed into the brain and are called hemorrhagic strokes.
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Bleeding gums can be a sign of periodontal disease, gingivitis, or other serious dental problems. Other symptoms like bad breath, toothache, and receding gums indicate poor dental health.

Periodontal disease or Gum disease affects the tissues that surround and support the teeth. Bacteria can turn into tartar and plaque buildup, irritate your gums, and lead to bleeding and receding gums. A good periodontal dentist along with oral hygiene cures bleeding gums.

Bleeding gums are also caused by canker sores that are caused by the herpes simplex virus. Aging is also a factor for bleeding gums. If you do not treat gums properly it may eventually lead to loss of teeth. Early diagnoses of the bleeding gums are better and you can treat them so that there are no further complications. Tooth loss is caused gum weakening. Many people are affected by gingivitis that is characterized by bleeding gums and swollen gums. This condition can also be very painful.
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The breaststroke consists of push and pull cycles. It is best mastered when broken into isolated motions, or components.

First push off horizontally. With arms outstretched and your head between your arms maintaining a neutral position, the hands should be together and fingers closed. As you streamline push your weight on your chest as if gliding downhill. Your hips will slightly elevate to drive you forward.

Part your arms into a Y with palms turned out. Do not utilize the hands to apply pressure. Just think of it as putting them on a stable object then use your elbows for leverage. Once the elbows have begun the muscle work, use your abdominal muscles to continue forward.
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There are two basic types of lung cancer: non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and small cell lung cancer (SCLC). The type of lung cancer is important because it affects how the disease is treated. Most cases of lung cancer are NSCLC, which generally grows more slowly than SCLC.

Both lung cancer types can be very difficult to treat. By the time patients report symptoms, the disease has often spread to other parts of the body. Common symptoms of lung cancer include persistent cough (often called “smoker’s cough”), breathing problems, blood in sputum, pneumonia and respiratory infections, chest pain, weight loss and fatigue.

When lung cancer is suspected, diagnostic tests such as ultrasound, MRI, CAT scans and PET scans can be useful to assess how far tumors have spread. Bone scans may be performed to determine metastasis to the bones. Needle biopsy is performed to obtain a sample of the cells for microscopic examination.
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Swimming is a great way to escape summer heat. Local pools and beaches are filled with people having fun. Water safety is the first rule of swimming and should never be disregarded whether in a private pool or on the beach. Here are some simple guidelines to being water safe.

• Learn to swim. This seems obvious but many people enjoy water recreation without this ability. It is never too late to learn to swim. YMCA’s or other community facilities offer adult classes.

• Learn CPR. If you are not properly trained in CPR, contact your local American Red Cross or YMCA. They can offer a schedule of classes or give a list of community facilities such as a hospital or fire department that might offer classes.
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Our bodies experience a series of hormonal and biochemical changes that put as in danger mode as we encounter stress. Your heart rate increases, adrenaline rushes through your blood stream, and your digestive and immune systems will temporarily shut down. If the stressor continue you experience extreme exhaustion.

It’s impossible to avoid stress altogether, but you can learn to cope with stress through a variety of ways. Some beneficial techniques to help you in coping with stress are deep breathing methods, meditation, yoga, and exercise. These activities provide calming and relaxing sensory input for stress relief and can be selected according to individual lifestyle and preference.

Coping with Stress – Deep Breathing Techniques
When you’re encountering a stressful situation, you can reduce your stress simply by deep breathing. Deep breathing involves not only the lungs but also the abdomen. Deep breathing technique requires you sit comfortably with your back straight. Put one hand on your chest and the other hand on your stomach. Inhale deeply through your nose, the hand on your stomach should begin to rise. Your other hand should move very little.
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Gout is a painful form of arthritis that affects the joints. It most often occurs in middle-age, overweight men who consume large amounts of meat, eggs and other foods that are high in nucleic acid. Men are more prone to having gout than women. Women may be protected from gout by the female hormone estrogen. Men start building uric acid levels during puberty.

However, uric acid does not start accumulating in women until after menopause. Gout attacks are very painful and are caused by too much uric acid (a waste product of the kidneys), which forms crystals in the joint fluid. Certain medicines may also cause gout, such as diuretics, niacin, low doses of aspirin, cyclosporine and some drugs used to treat cancer.

A gout attack usually occurs very suddenly. It often starts at night in the joint. The joint becomes red, feels hot and is painful. Various joints may also be affected by gout. Pain and swelling can last for several days. Frequent gout attacks over many years can lead to tophi, which are soft tissue swellings caused by uric acid crystals. Gout sufferers are also at risk for kidney disease or kidney stones.
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The genie is out of the bottle… it will happen again… the only question is when and where”

Modern Medicine considers antibiotics to be one the greatest success stories of all time. Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin 75 years ago. Antibiotics first became widely used in the World War II era. 50 years+ later, antibiotics are no longer as effective as they were perceived to be. Sir Alexander Fleming predicated this would happen 75 years ago.

Drug resistance happens when germs develop ways to survive the use of medicines meant to kill or weaken them. yes, bacteria has found ways to outwit modern medicine. In fact, the use of antibiotics may have caused it all by spurring evolutionary change. A microbe (germ) can also be resistant to several drugs.

VRE, a now common hospital-acquired infection, is a perfect example. Enterococci becomes resistant to Vancomycin (an antibiotic) and it is now known as Vancomycin Resistant Enterococci, sometimes, requiring the use of several seperate medications that may or may not combat the infection . VRE played a large role in the death of Christy, the person this group is named after. Treating the infections these germs cause is difficult at best and may require very long hospital stays and may require treatment with second or third choice drugs that may be less effective, more toxic, and more expensive. At worst, they become impossible to treat and cause severe disabilities and / or death.
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