Archive for October, 2009

Achievements in Public Health: Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Heading

October 31st, 2009 Health News

To those of us in the field of public health, the saying “we’ve come a long way, baby” accurately reflects the health achievements of the last 100 years. In a review of advancements in public health, the Centers for Diesease Control and Prevention (CDC) cited what they consider to be the ten greatest public health achievements of the twentieth century, a timespan in which the average lifespan of the US population lengthened by more than 30 years:  Hypnotherapy Guide

  • Vaccination
    Vaccinations have resulted in eradication of smallpox, elimination of poliomyelitis, and control of a number of infectious diseases, including measles, rubella, tetanus, diptheria, and Haemophilus influenza Type B, all of which once claimed the lives of large numbers of people in the early 1900s, many before they had reached the age of five.
  • Motor Vehicle Safety
    Improvements in motor vehicle safety have been the result of engineering efforts to make both vehicles and highways safer and successful efforts to change personal behavior, such as the use of safety belts, child safety seats, and motorcycle helmets and the discouragement of drinking and driving.
  • Workplace Safety
    Work-related health risks common at the beginning of the century are now either under better control or completely eliminated. Since 1980 alone, safer workplaces have resulted in a 40% reduction in the rate of fatal occupational injuries.
  • Control of Infectious Diseases
    Clean water & improved sanitation have greatly reduced the development and transmission of infectious diseases since 1900. In addition, antimicrobial therapy, such as the discovery of and treatment with antibiotics, has greatly reduced the risk of diseases such as tuberculosis and sexually transmitted infections.
  • CVD and Stroke Deaths
    Efforts to educate the public on how to modify health risk factors, such as smoking cessation and blood pressure control, coupled with improved access to early detection and better treatment, have resulted in declines in the incidents of CVD and stroke.
  • Safe and Healthy Foods
    Since 1900, technology for eradicating microbial contaminants from foods has increased drastically. In addition, identification of essential micronutrients and establishment of food-fortification programs have almost eliminated major nutritional deficiency diseases such as rickets, goiter and pellagra.
  • Maternal and Infant Care
    Better hygiene and nutrition, improved available ability of antibiotics, greater access to health care, and technologic advances in medicine have greatly reduced the risks to infants and mothers Since 1900, infant mortality has decreased 90 percent, and maternal mortality has decreased 99 percent.
  • Family Planning
    Access to family planning and contraceptive services has altered social & economic roles of women. Family planning has provided health benefits that have helped reduce the number of infant, child, and maternal deaths; increased opportunities for preconceptional counseling and screening; and increased the use of barrier contraceptives to prevent unwanted pregnancies and transmission of sexually transmissible infections.
  • Fluoridation of Drinking Water
    Fluoridation of drinking water began in 1945 and in 1999 reached an estimated 144 million persons in the United States. Fluoridation safely and inexpensively benefits both children and adults by effectively preventing tooth decay, regardless of socioeconomic status or access to health care. Fluoridation has played an important role in the reductions in tooth decay in children and tooth loss in adults.
  • Recognition of Tobacco Use as a Health Hazard
    This recognition and subsequent public health antismoking campaigns have resulted in changes in social norms to prevent initiation of tobacco use, promote cessation of use, and reduce exposure to environmental tobacco smoke. Since the 1964 Surgeon General’s report on the health risks of smoking, millions of smoking-related health issues have been prevented and lives have been saved.

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Yoga Lessons from a Cell

October 31st, 2009 Health News

The most basic unit of life, the cell, can teach you an enormous amount about yoga. In fact, the most essential yogic concepts can be derived from observing the cell’s form and function. Cells are the smallest building blocks of life, from single-celled plants to multitrillion-celled animals. The human body, which is made up of roughly 100 trillion cells, begins as a single, newly fertilized cell.

A cell consists of three parts: the cell membrane, the nucleus and the cytoplasm. The membrane separates the cell’s external environment, which contains nutrients that the cell requires, from its internal environment, which consists of the cytoplasm and the nucleus. Nutrients have to get through the membrane, and once inside, the cell metabolizes these nutrients and turns them into the energy that fuels its life functions. As a result of this metabolic activity, waste gets generated that must somehow get back out through the membrane. Any impairment in the membrane’s ability to let nutrients or waste out will result in the death of the cell via starvation of toxicity. This observation that living things take in nutrients provides a good basis for understanding the term prana, which refers to what nourishes a living thing. Prana refers not only to what is brought in as nourishment but also to the action that brings it in.

Of course, there has to be a complementary force. The yogic concept that complements prana is apana, which refers to what is eliminated by a living thing as well as the action of elimination. These two fundamental yogic terms – prana and apana – describe the essential activities of life.

Successful function, of course, expreses itself in a particular form. Certain conditions have to exist in a cell for nutrition (prana) to enter and waste (apana) to exit. The membrane’s structure has to allow things to pass in and out of it – it has to be permeable. It can’t be so permeable, however, that the cell wall loses its integrity; otherwise, the cell will either explode from the pressures within or implode from the pressures outside.

In the cell (and all living things, for that matter), the principle that balances permeability is stability. The yogic terms that reflect these polarities are sthira and sukha. All successful living things must balance containment and permeability, rigidity and plasticity, persistence and adaptability, space and boundaries.

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Understanding the Code and the Secrets to Fat Loss

October 30th, 2009 Health News

What does it really meant to conquer the fat-loss code? You’re about to find out. Here are the real “meat and potatoes” of how you’re going to reprogram your metabolism to melt fat and lose weight – forever. A big part of the program is to understand the body’s seventy-two-hour/forty-eight-hour response pattern to eating. Yes, there is a specific pattern to how your body responds to what you eat, and 72/48 is the code for losing fat.

How do you beat this code? The 72 refers to your body’s response to food intake. Every seventy-two hours, your body analyzes the energy you take in and calculates how it can reserve as much of that energy as possible to allow it to function as it should. The 48 refers to your body’s response to energy expenditure. Every 48 hours, your body slows certain functions, or readjusts the amount of energy it uses, so that it has enough in reserve to keep functioning based on what it thinks you’ll expend. To survive, your body has to keep the amount of energy it takes in and the amount of energy it expends in balance. The secret to conquering fat loss is to manipulate where your body get its energy, and we’re going to trick it into using fat as its energy source.

Macro-Patterning to Manipulate Energy Stores
Now that you know the secret to fat-loss code, you should also understand another concept called macro-patterning. This is the process of manipulating energy stores so your body can use all its excess fat, as well as the food you eat, much more efficiently as immediate energy and not store fat.

Macro-patterning means carefully regulating and alternating protein, fat, and carbohydrate intake to combat your body’s adaptive response to your eating patterns; this allows you to manipulate something called glycogen. Glycogen is just a fancy word for the stored energy that comes from carbohydrate consumption. Your body automatically chooses carbohydrates rather than fat as its main source of energy because carbohydrates are instantly available.

Remember, your body is a machine with many operating functions, and if food is its fuel, what happens when you’re not eating? Where does it go to get fuel, and what does it use once it get there? Your body is still functioning even when you’re not putting food in your mouth, and the next source of fuel it taps into is the glycogen stored in your body’s muscles and liver. Only when glycogen stores are low – from reducing carbohydrates or creating an energy deficit through exercise – will your body find and use excess fat for fuel. Understanding the 72/48 code lets us manipulate and reduce glycogen stores in the body and use excess fat.

Remember, the minute your body thinks you’re on a diet, it will do anything and everthing it can to hold on to as much fat as possible because it knows you’re going into starvation mode. Your brain will send the rest of your body a signal to conserve energy for the coming dry spell. That means it shuts down body temperature, reduces the absorption rate of food, and slows down your metabolism, all with the intention of storing more fat so it will have plenty of energy “just in case.”

By focusing on good nutrition and macro-patterning, you can trick your body into using fat as an energy source and feel great while doing it! With my new meal plans, you also take fat loss to a more advanced level, forcing your body to “melt” fat more efficiently and stop its automatic conservation of fat.

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Why are you so afraid of FAT?

October 30th, 2009 Health News

Jobs are lost, lovers forsaken, lives postponed – all because of fat cells. A $40 billion industry thrives on the hatred of the graceful, lipid spheres called fat cells. Millions of people fight a war of starvation against them every day. Most Americans would rather get hit by a truck than get fat. Amputation of a leg is preferable. Some would rather die.

Fear of fat does nothing for you except get in your way. Being afraid of fat won’t impress a date or advance your career or make your family closer. It doesn’t whiten teeth or balance your bank account or cure depression. I guarantee that worrying about your weight won’t make you look better in your clothes, or out of them. Fear of fat is like a cloud over your head. It’s not attractive. Ask yourself, what has body anxiety done for me lately? Nothing good, right? So why not get rid of it?  Essential Health Tips

There are a lots of people who’ve conquered their fear of fat (probably you’ve already started). You can face your fears. You can dispel that cloud. And you don’t have to change the world to do it. You don’t even have to change your weight. You just have to change your attitude. It’d be my honor to act as your friendly tour guide on the trip from the old attitude (fear of fat) to the new attitude: flabulousness!

Scientists don’t study fat cells very much because nothing much goes wrong with them. A hundred years ago, Woods Hutchinson (the C Everett Koop of his day) called fat cells “one of the most peaceable, useful, and law-abiding of all our tissues” and “a most harmless, healthful, innocent tissue.” (Laura Fraser, author of Losing It: False Hopes and Fat Profits in the Diet Industry, found these quotes in Cosmopolitan and Saturday Evening Post.) The UCSF library houses atleast 2859 books about cancer but only one book on fat cells, or adipocytes.

The average human body contains between twenty billion and 40 billion fat cells. Even if our pals the adipocytes don’t warrant much shelf space in the med-school stacks, they are important for your health. Fat cells keep you warm in winter, protech your internal organs from injury, and allow you to float blissfully in the swimming pool on a summer afternoon. Fat enables women to menstruate and protects against osteoporosis, one of the major killers of women. What’s more, fat prevents wrinkles and gives you sexy curves. Without the awesome energy resources of your fat, you’d find it tough to skip breakfast or run a marathon or bear children. Fat is a necessary part of the human body, just like brain cells, and blood cells, and just like them, fat represents life.

Quiz: Are you a FATSO?

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How good is butter for your health?

October 30th, 2009 Health News

Butter stick

Butter stick

What could be better than a slice of fresh bread slathered with butter? Rich, buttery shortbreat, perhaps? A fish doused in a bath of brown butter and capers? Or simple pan juices enriched with a swirl of butter? In the kitchen, butter is a tasty and very useful fat. Butter melts at just below body temperature, giving it a luscious sensation on the tongue, and it imparts a rich, creamy taste. Just a litle butter adds flavor to everything we eat. Butter is also an excellent flavor carrier: spike it with garlic and herbs or sugar and orange and it delivers those flavors to everything it touches.

Love is like butter. It is good with bread. - Yiddish Proverb

Butter is unique in the world of fat. Unlike other animal fats, it doesn’t require that we kill an animal to obtain it, and without us it wouldn’t exist. But just what is butter, exactly? The science behind the transformation of liquid milk into a solid fat is not completely understood. Anyone who has been distracted while whipping cream knows how quickly it can turn to butter. Whipped too long, cream changes from a stable foam into a combination of fatty globules and a watery liquid, or buttermilk. Those fatty globules are not pure fat, but an emulsion of butterfat, water, and milk solids. The fat content of butter is naturally about 82% – this is the European standard for butter – although it can range upto 86%, depending on the cow and its diet. In North America, butter’s minimum fat content is set at 80%, so water is often added to lower the butterfat to the legal minimum. What’s in the other 20% of butter? Mostly water – around 18%, which explains the sizzle when butter hits a hot pan – and the rest is milk solids. Those milk solids will burn in the pan if the butter gets too hot, which is why butter is not the best fat for frying.

Guns will make us powerful; butter will only make us fat. - Hermann Goering

Butter is a very complex fat, containing more than 500 fatty acids and 400 volatile compounds, all of which determine its flavor. The breed of cow, its diet, and the season all affect the taste, texture, and look of butter. Most of us have forgotten that butter, like many foods, is seasonal.

If you take the cow’s milk and butter, you must accept her kicks, too. - Indian Proverb

In spring and early summer, butter is deeper yellow because the cows eat grass at this time of year, which has a high percentage of orange and yellow carotenes. The pasture is also filled with herbs and flowers, which gives the butter floral and herbal notes. In winter, the cow’s diet is supplemented with silage, so the butter is pale, higher in fat, firmer and milder in taste. There is a direct link between what the cow eats and the flavor of its butter, but most of us have never tasted herbs or flowers in our butter.

Butter spoils no meat. - Danish Proverb

Before the advent of refrigeration, butter shipped to towns and cities was highly salted to preserve it, but it still often went rancid and was sometimes adulterated. Only those who lived in the countryside and churned their own enjoyed the taste of fresh butter. Butter’s delicate flavor is so easily overwhelmed that most of us don’t know what good, fresh butter from grassfed cows tastes like.

To promise more butter than bread; to promise the best. - French Proverb

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Why loose weight? – The benefits are great, or Good-bye, Heartburn

October 29th, 2009 Health News

Here are some of the benefits you can except to achieve after loosing some pounds off your weight successfully:

  • Reduced risks of heart disease, cancer, diabeter – you’ll be so healthy your doctor will ask you for advice.
  • Incrased energy and endurance – you’ll have to find younger friends to keep up with the New You.
  • A more attractive you – you’ll look in the mirror and like what you see.
  • No more heartburn – throw away your lifetime supply of antacids.
  • Increased self esteem – you’ll be in control and it will show.
  • Improved sex life – you’ll have more vigor and stamina, and you won’t crush your partner.

A friend confided to us that the reason he started loosing weight was because of his sex life. He huffed & puffed so much during sex he thought he would have a heart attack. Loosing weight turned his problem around. Not only did he loose weight & gained energy and could also enjoy sex again. Loosing weight will improve your stamina, your outlook and your love of life!

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The Ins & Outs of Weight Loss Surgery

October 28th, 2009 Health News

Making the decision to have weight loss surgery is a major commitment to your overall health. It’s usually the last resort after years of struggling and trying other methods to lose weight and live a healthier life. Weight loss surgery, also known as Bariatric Surgery, is currently the only treatment available that has been found to be effective as a long-term treatment for morbid obesity. The results after surgery are, for the most part, extraordinary, not only in terms of appearance but also in terms of the improvement or removal of health risks associated with obesity.

If you’re considering weight loss surgery, being well informed about the procedure and how your life will change following surgery is essential. The procedure itself is only a tool to assist you in losing weight and modifying your behavior. Success is up to you. After weight loss surgery, you have to be careful about choosing foods wisely, taking your vitamins and supplements regularly, making exercise a part of your daily life, and being certain to follow your doctor’s directions. You’ll need a support system of family and friends to get through the emotional and physical ups and downs.

With any surgery, risks are involved. Before you decide to have weight loss surgery, you need to understand – and accept – the risks and benefits. For many patients the risk of death from not having the weight loss surgery is greater than the risks of having the procedure itself.

Is Weight Loss Surgery Right For You?

For people who are morbidly obese, trying to lose weight without surgery isn’t as effective when it comes to achieving significant long-term weight loss. The majority of morbidly obese people who try to lose weight without having weight loss surgery regain all the weight they’ve lost over the next five years. Surgical treatment is the only proven method of achieving long-term weight control.

So how do you know if you’re morbidly obese? In general, individuals are considered morbidly obese if their weight is more than 100 pounds over their ideal body weight. But a more common way to define morbid obesity is to use the body mass index (BMI). If your BMI puts you in the morbidly obese category, you may be a candidate for weight loss surgery. If your weight is lower, but you have other health problems related to obesity; if you’ve tried to lose weight and failed; and if you’re aware of all the risks and rewards of weight loss surgery, it may be the solution for you.

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Difference between people interesting in losing weight and committed to losing weight

October 28th, 2009 Health News

Below is a summary of the differences between people who are interested in their goal of losing weight, compared to those who are committed.

People who are interested in losing weight:

  • Stick with it until something better comes along
  • Take action only if they “feel like” doing it
  • Need to see results in order to stay motivated
  • Blame people or circumstances for their struggles
  • Easily give up when they face challenges

People who are committed to losing weight:

  • Stick with their plans no matte what
  • Take action whether they feel like doing it or not
  • Assume that if they stay motivated, results will follow
  • Take responsibility for their own actions
  • Keep going in spite of challenges and setbacks
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Eating as a tool against weight loss

October 28th, 2009 Health News

Eating. Yes, eating has been the hardest part of every attempt to lose weight. Eating the right foods in the right amounts and at the right times based on the diet you are following can be very tedious. Eating becomes confusing and difficult when we have many external rules to follow and we aren’t following the wisdom of our own bodies. We have been sold a bill of goods about why we are overweight. Every new diet sells us a new reason why we can’t lose weight and how, for a small price, their diet is the answer. The best suggestion for you is to forget every food combination fad scam you have ever heard and just remember the truth.

The reason you are overweight is because:

YOU EAT MORE THAN YOUR BODY REQUIRES FOR FUEL.

Period.

End of the story.

Though it seems basic, but it is amazing how easily we forget the basics. We start believing the sales pitch for the diet products and stop believing the truth. There are two parts to this basic truth that we need to evaluate. The first part is that you eat more than is required.

There are two reasons why people overeat and both reasons include ignoring your body:

The first reason people overeat is due to too much deprivation. They restrict their food intake for a period of time by going on a crash diet or trying not to eat at all. Inevitably, they end up overeating because for each unrealistic restriction there is an equal and opposite “overeat.” By going on a highly restrictive diet you must disconnect from your body’s signals of hunger and feed it according to some external plan. This is painful for both you and your body. Once the disconnection has been maintained for a certain amount of time, the urge to eat becomes unbearable for your body, whose job it is to keep you from starving. You end up eating much more than you need. The disconnection from your body has now exacerbated this issue because the denial of the hunger signal now leads to denial of the full signal and the overeating is rampant. This is why you end up eating much more than you normally did before you went on the diet.

Your body is primal. It thinks you live in a cave with limited food available.

When we don’t honor our hunger and eat accordingly to our body, we create problems with our metabolism. When we deprive the body of food, it’s designed to slow down, conserve energy, and hold on to fat. It does this to protect us and to keep us alive when there is little food available. It’s a brilliant design. When we were cave dwellers, our body needed to adjust between times of feast and times of famine. When there was no food available, our cave-dwelling body adjusted its metabolic rate, the rate at which it used up food. Our metabolic rate, the rate at which it used up food. Our metabolic rate went down and we hung on to every calorie we got to use and store nutrition for later. Fortunately, we aren’t cave dwellers any more and we have plenty of food to eat (and we don’t use up the calories trying to catch it). For example, when we choose to strictly diet and eat very little food, our body turns into a cave dweller and adjusts our metabolic rate downward. We hold on to every calorie. When we keep our bodies reasonably fed, they know that there is no need to keep extra fat around because there is plenty of food coming at regular intervals. Your metabolism speeds up and the fat comes off.

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