Saturday 22 November 2014

Anaemia is much more susceptible condition in women than men



Iron-deficiency (dietary) anaemia is by far the most common type and women are much more susceptible to the condition than men. In fact in one recent study, 10% of all women between the ages of 15 and 44 were said to be on the threshold of this condition, due to excessive blood (and iron) loss during menstruation. A loss of iron in the blood produces a whole range of non-specific symptoms tiredness, breathlessness, giddiness, pallor, weakness in the limbs and often an overwhelming lethargy because it depletes the amount of hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying pigment in red blood corpuscles. Hemoglobin is responsible for unnourishing and regenerating every cell in the body and for producing the characteristic “redness” of the blood. Many cases of anaemia present two important diagnostic clues. These’re nails that are spoon-shaped and curl up or downwards and a lack of color either beneath the nail or in the normally richly supplied conjunctive tissue inside the lower eyelid. Although iron deficiency anaemia is often caused by menstrual blood loss (one of the drawbacks of the IUD is a heightened risk of anaemia in some women due to an excessively heavy menstrual flow), but it may also be caused by other types of external or internal bleeding, such as a silent and slow bleeding peptic ulcer. 


If you suspect you have anaemia or are feeling excessively tired, you should see your doctor. You should not dose yourself with iron supplements because if you do have the condition, commercial iron bolstered multivitamin pills will not contain enough iron to rectify the balance. If you do not have the condition, too much iron can be as bad for you as too little as it interferes with the absorption of other essential minerals principally zinc. For this reason, iron supplements are no longer automatically given as a routine part of ante-natal practice during pregnancy. If you want to safeguard yourself against iron-deficiency anaemia, incorporate a dark green leafy vegetable, such as broccoli, into your diet together with a helping of liver, kidney or heart each week. Eating a vitamin C rich fruit or vegetable with your meals will also help as this vitamin has been shown to aid iron absorption in the body.

A second, rarer, type of anaemia is known as pernicious anaemia and is caused by a deficiency of vitamin B12 or more commonly, an inability to absorb it from the diet. As B12 is found only in foods of animal origin (meat, fish, milk etc.), strict vegetarians, or vegans, should always take additional B12. Supplements are now available in synthetic vegetable form. An inability to absorb the vitamin is hereditary and seems to occur most often in middle age, particularly among those who are blue eyed and white or fair hair. Once diagnosed, the condition can be remedied by giving regular doses of the vitamin through injection directly into the bloodstream.   Source: Charismatic Planet

Monday 17 November 2014

Glaucoma is an Eye Affliction Caused by Disturbance of Fluid Balance in Eyeball.



Glaucoma is an eye affliction caused by a disturbance of the fluid balance with the eyeball and a consequent increase of pressure inside the eye. If allowed to persist, glaucoma may damage vision by pressing against the optic nerve. One of the main symptoms of glaucoma is a tunnel vision. Well, in other words, an increasingly restricted field of vision, even though you can still focus perfectly well. Other warning signs and symptoms which may or may not be present are headaches and seeing auras or haloes around bright objects. Because glaucoma is an age associated defect it is rarely seen in people under 35 and because it ca be absolutely symptomless in the  early stages by the time it is diagnosed medially, the process has often gone so far that the sufferer can be classified as blind for health insurance purposes. You should have an eye test at about the age of 45 to check that you have not got it. This is particularly important if there is a history of it in your family. Once detected glaucoma can never be cured but it can be controlled in one of three ways; medically through prescription of certain drugs, surgically, in order to release pressure inside the eye, or through the use of prescription eye drops which use a drug called pilocarpine to constrict the pupil, so making the wearing of glasses unnecessary.  Source: Charismatic Planet


Tuesday 4 November 2014

Acne Can be an Embarrasing Problem

This guidelines is intended to give you a basic understanding of the way in which your body functions and occasionally, malfunctions. It is also designed to help you to relieve some of the more common aches and pains by giving simple and practical notes on self-help. It is not, however, intended to replace your doctor. No amounts of medical knowledge gleaned from reading books can replace the deep understanding that a qualified doctor gains from years of training and experience. So use this advice for interest and for reference and if any doubt, consult your doctor.

Acne Can be an Embarrassing Problem and Difficult to Treat

In the normal course of events, sebum, made in the sebaceous glands deep down in the skin, travel up the hair follicle to emerge through a fine pore on the surface. There, it emulsifies with sweat to fulfill its vital double role of lubricating and protecting the skin. Therefore if the sebum hardens and becomes trapped just beneath the surface of the skin, or if the dead epidermal cells stick together and clog the opening of the pore a small pimple or blackhead will appear.

Acne Can be an Embarrassing Problem and Difficult to Treat
If the blockage occurs deeper down, inflammation and primary bacterial infection combine to produce a much larger and angrier spot. Both are acne. The more severe inflammatory types of acne are thought to be caused by the male hormone, androgen, circulating in the bloodstream and causing the sebaceous glands to secrete grease. Nothing is demonstrably “wrong” in a hormonal sense. Some people are simply more sensitive to the hormone than others. This sensitivity will depend on familial inheritance and skin type.
Although diet has no direct causal link with acne, an imbalanced diet can certainly aggravate it, so too can stress overzealous self-treatment and squeezing. The first rule is to leave your skin alone. If you are a habitual picker or squeezer, cut the fingernails short and watch your skin improve. Wash your skin twice daily with an antiseptic or medicated soap, use topical creams and lotions sparingly and remember that there’s absolutely no virtue in fanaticism. Dirt and oil on top of the skin have nothing to do with any but the smallest of pimples it is the oil trapped beneath that is to blame.
If you’ve persistent or severe acne, or are distressed about the condition, see your doctor. Acne can be treated often extremely effectively with a course of antibiotics, prescribed over a period of months or even years. It works by counteracting the effects of the problem, not by curing it. It may be as many as three months before a noticeable improvement in the condition of the skin can be seen.

Topical acne treatments range from mild antiseptic lotions (astringents) to stronger more abrasive chemical solutions that “strip” off the dead layer of skin cells to unblock the pore and free the sebum. Lotions containing benzoyl peroxide, salicylic acid or retinoic acid (vitamin A) are probably the most effective. However while they can be valuable in treating superficial non-inflammatory acne, they’ll not help more severe types and may even aggravate them. In addition if these lotions are used too often or applied over enthusiastically, they may produce redness, dryness and excessive irritation Cis Retinoic acid (at present only available in the USA), taken orally as a course of tablets, works by cutting down sebaceous activity and can be very effective. Its disadvantage, however, is that it tends to dry up the skin. Common side effects are chapped lips and general flaking and dryness.

In the future, medical treatment of the more severe types of acne may involve regulating the hormone levels responsible for producing the condition, either by prescribing an anti-androgen, usually cyproterone acetate, or additional oestrogen, depending on the patient. While effective in combating and protecting again acne, the drug is at present being combined with an oestrogen for a contraceptive effective. Risk factors on ovulation and pregnancy have still to be assessed. 

Sunday 26 October 2014

The Increase Popularity of Herbs & Health



The increase in the popularity of herbs as medicinal remedies is less obvious but it seems to have come partly from a general dissatisfaction with synthesized drugs, as well as plastics, artificial and chemicals manufactured articles of all kinds, which are being rejected in favor of substances naturally grown and shaped by hand into the artifact required. 

Herbal based remedies of old using parts of plants fresh or dried in simple infusions, poultices or decoctions, have been found to have great health benefits but, though their method of application is simple, their prescribing is not, since they’ve to be tailored not only to a given malady, but to the person concerned. The combinations which can be achieved for this are infinite. Furthermore complication have to be added; for instance, numerous parts of a herb have different effects because the times of the year for collection affect the content of the herb; the quantity used is also of major importance, and there’re at least 7000 medicinal herbs used by European races; so however herbs undoubtedly have marvelous potential for curing illness, home cures should only be undertaken for minor ailments. 
The medicinal application of herbs can be traced as far back as Chinese herbal written approximately five thousand years ago, and there’re Egyptian papyri from 2,800 BC listing such herbs as mint, marjoram and juniper, for medicinal use. More of the learning and practice of the Egyptians were absorbed by Greek physicians, one of the best known of whom is dioscorides, as army doctor who lived during the time of Nero in the first century A.D. His list of 400 healing plants, described and detailed in four books, is perhaps the most famous material medical of all, and continued to be a standard reference for European medicine for the next 1,500 years. 

Plants were the only source of help from health improvement for hundreds of years, and doctors were almost completely reliant on them although some, notably Hippocrates, did stress that hygiene and diet were of major importance. Medical science had perforce to be botanists and often gardeners as well, and in time medical knowledge came to be the perquisite of the European religious orders, as it had been that of the priests in the time of Egyptian pharaohs. For several centuries it remained in the hands chiefly of the monastic houses, where there was always a physic garden containing the herbs required by the prevailing medical encumbent.

Most of the herbs now grown in Britain culinary and domestic as well as medicinal resulted from the Roman invasion. In the same way, herbs were introduced in the 16th century from Europe to North America, to be grafted on to the use already in existence of the herbs of the North American Indians who had a considerable and long standing tradition of herbal cures from the plants native to their own continent.  


Medicine while still based on plants, became more and more sophisticated as knowledge accumulated, particularly with the introduction of printing, which meant that information could be passed on exactly, instead of wrongly, by hearsay, and thus provided a bigger and bigger base from which to work. The Doctrine of Signatures became fashionable the theory of which was that plants which looked like the symptoms of an illness would cure it lungwort or pulmonaria is a case in point, since it was used for lung conditions, because its white spotted leaves were thought to bear some resemblance to diseased lungs. 

As the science of the 19th century advanced in analytical skills, it became increasingly possible to tie down results to specific plants and the chemicals therein, until a pure chemical could be prescribed for a particular symptom. The use of a whole leaf, flower or the complete plant itself, fell into disuse and with this a whole galaxy of other chemicals which, it has now been found, were equally necessary to be cure. 

There seems no good reason why herbs should not be used at home to cure many minor ills, in the same way that aspirin are useful for headaches, toothache, etc., and the day may not be far away when a book of standard prescriptions using herbs is universally available. One will need to grow the plants and prepare the drink or poultice oneself, but neither is time-consuming and certainly likely to be less expensive and just as, if not more efficacious than the manufactured kind available from chemist.

Herbs and Foods



Without plants man could not survive. Cereals “Sophisticated grasses” fruits, vegetables, seeds and nuts are essential constituents of human diet some may say the only suitable ones and even the meat we eat comes from animals which themselves fed on vegetation in the shape of grasses and herbaceous plants. The plant lumped together under the umbrella name of herbs do not appear at first glance to be essential to maintain life, but it is now becoming apparent that this concept could be wrong, and that herbs are as essential as oxygen, although the ingredients they contribute, such as minerals and vitamins, amy only be found in small quantities. 

The so-called culinary herbs, parsley, mint, and basil and so on, all have characteristic flavors which enable them to be used in recipes of their own, or added to dishes to give a tantalizing piquancy. It is not always realized that often an herb will help with digestion generally, or with the digestion of the particular food with which it is associated. Peppermint is a classic aid to food absorption basil contains a substance which helps with stomach cramps and parsley is a diuretic. 

The strong flavors of culinary herbs ensure that they should be used in little quantities, but other is no need to go to the other extreme and be timed with them. The Greeks strew their common thyme liberally all over roasted or kebabed lamb, to its great enhancement, and it is worth applying this principle to all the cooking herbs. The leaves are closely always the part of the plant used, newly picked and freshly chopped at once, or used dried, provided they’re no older than 6 months.
Aromatic herbs are the ones most used in cooking no two are alike and some are so difficult to explain that even to say they’re clove like gives the wrong idea. The fact is that several have an aroma and flavor which is rare and unique for instance, basil can only be explain as tasting i.e. basil. Some are so strongly aromatic as to be spicy, and tarragon in particular is one of the few that has such a strong taste it does need adding in minuscule amounts to meat or fish dishes. Bay is another; one leaf is quite potent enough for the average family casserole. 

Quite why food and diet have become of such interest in recent years in for the social historian to discuss but there’s no doubt about the present popularity of culinary herbs. The history of the use of herbs in food is naturally bound up with the history of food itself. It is commonly thought that herbs were used mainly to disguise the flavor of bad meat during the winter when there was no recently slaughtered beef or lamb to be had, or when food in general had started to go off. But there were precisely good ways of preserving food without refrigeration, which were followed even more diligently than we do these days in the time of the deep freeze. 

Although, herbs have always been used to pep up the more blandly flavored foods i.e. fish, vegetables and cereals. Interestingly, religion had a considerable influence on herbal use in cookery, since the decreed times when meat should be eaten, when fish only was the rule, and when there were fast days or fasting weeks. Lenten food was particularly plain, and herbs and spices as well, were used a great deal in such food. 

Looked at from the other side, it should be realized that blandly flavored foods decrease the strong and exotic taste cooking lies to use herbs in such quantities that the strength of their flavors balances the strength and flavor of the food to which they’re added. They use to blend as well; it is no good using a herb whose taste contradicts that of the dish to which it is being added.