BodySense Blog

Triplets

"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered."

— Martin Luther King Jr.

Keeping Our Minds Supple

Questioning Everything

A lot of people feel threatened if they feel they are being asked to question their cherished beliefs or their perception of reality. Yet questioning is what keeps our minds supple and strong. Simply settling on one way of seeing things and refusing to be open to other possibilities makes the mind rigid and generally creates a restrictive and uncomfortable atmosphere. We all know someone who refuses to budge on one or more issues, and we may have our own sacred cows that could use a little prodding. Being open-minded means that we are willing to question everything, including those things we take for granted.

A willingness to question everything, even things we are sure we are right about, can shake us out of complacency and reinvigorate our minds, opening us up to understanding people and perspectives that were alien to us before. This alone is good reason to remain inquisitive, no matter how much experience we have or how old we get. In the Zen tradition, this willingness to question is known as beginner’s mind, and it has a way of generating possibilities we couldn’t have seen from the point of view of knowing something with certainty. The willingness to question everything doesn’t necessarily mean we don’t believe in anything at all, and it doesn’t mean we have to question every single thing in the world every minute of the day. It just means that we are humble enough to acknowledge how little we actually know about the mysterious universe we call home.

Nearly every revolutionary change in the history of human progress came about because someone questioned some time-honored belief or tradition and in doing so revealed a new truth, a new way of doing things, or a new standard for ethical and moral behavior. Just so, a commitment to staying open and inquisitive in our own individual lives can lead us to new personal revolutions and truths, truths that we will hopefully, for the sake of our growth, remain open to questioning.

DailyOM

Aging Gracefully: Napping

Studies on sleep and the opinions of sleep experts are convincing: napping has value. People who nap generally enjoy better mental health and mental efficiency than people who do not. The quality of their nighttime sleep tends to be better as well. Unfortunately, finding opportunities to rest during daylight hours in our society is not so easy - the North American culture is actively opposed to the whole concept, bombarding us with stimulation in more and more places and times.

If you want to embrace the concept of napping - as many cultures worldwide do - consider the following:

1. Accept napping as a positive thing. Remind yourself frequently that napping can make a day more productive - it is actually the opposite of being lazy.
2. Do not fight the body's desire to nap. This will result in unpleasant or unproductive naps.
3. Take naps when you can. If your schedule does not permit a nap every day, consider taking productive naps as a passenger in cars, trains, and airplanes.
4. Consider time and duration. Napping for too long, too often, or at the wrong time of day can be counterproductive. See what length and schedule works best for you.
5. Napping can mean just taking a break. Lying on a hammock or just staring into space is the essence of rest - it is not doing that refreshes you in body and mind. 

DrWeil.com

Acting Together for Good

Cooperation

Cooperation seems simple: working together toward a common goal for the benefit of all involved. But amazingly it can be quite challenging, even when we have so many successful examples all around us. Human society is based upon the concept of cooperation, but finding a balance to ensure the good of all members of society is difficult. In nature, symbiotic relationships form between unlikely allies: a bee and a flower, a bird and a rhinoceros, small fish and sharks. Yet nature also shows us instances of constant competition in which only the strongest survive. Given the choice, it seems most people would choose the more peaceful path of cooperation. Intellectually, we know that together we can create something greater than what one could do alone, but cooperation still seems to be one of the greatest challenges people face. We don’t always agree on how goals can be reached. Our priorities may be different, or our methods, but in the end, cooperation offers the best chance for success.

So how can we learn to cooperate with each other? We can gain greater perspective by trying to understand one another’s point of view, perhaps even putting ourselves in their place. We can search for commonalities as well as differences, and look for the good in different approaches. There is always more than one way of doing things, and some approaches are better suited for certain situations than others. All this is easier when we let go of the necessity to be right and to call others wrong. More important, we must believe that there is a solution that benefits all involved, not just one side.

The results of cooperation can be as simple as effortlessly getting everyone in your household to their appointments to large-scale social shifts to changing minds and hearts or policies that affect the future.

DailyOM

You Got Plans?

On Saturdays and Sundays there're always plenty of chores that need to get done (usually because they've been put off all week) as well as regular activities, but in between the laundry and the kids' soccer games, be sure to have a plan for your weekend.

It may seem refreshing to be able to be spontaneous for two days, but having too much free time can be dangerous. Free time can easily lead to hours in front of the TV and unnecessary eating, or even worse, stopping off for fried chicken! Challenge yourself to plan something fun and active for yourself this weekend. It'll get you off the couch and keep you from falling off track.

By Harley Pasternak

Everyday Health - Healthy Living on 12/30/2008

10 tips for better sleep

Feeling crabby lately? It could be you aren't getting enough sleep. Work, household responsibilities and child care can make sleep difficult to come by. Factor in other unexpected challenges such as financial worries, layoffs, relationship issues or an illness, and quality sleep may be even more elusive.

You may not be able to control or eliminate all of the factors that interfere with your sleep, but you can create an environment and adopt habits that encourage a more restful night. Try these suggestions if you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep:

• Go to bed and get up at about the same time every day, even on the weekends. Sticking to a schedule helps reinforce your body's sleep-wake cycle and can help you fall asleep better at night.
• Don't eat or drink large amounts before bedtime. Eat a light dinner about two hours before sleeping. If you're prone to heartburn, avoid spicy or fatty foods, which can make your heartburn flare and prevent a restful sleep. Also, limit how much you drink before bed. Too much liquid can cause you to wake up repeatedly during the night for trips to the bathroom.
• Avoid nicotine, caffeine and alcohol in the evening. These are stimulants that can keep you awake. Smokers often experience withdrawal symptoms at night, and smoking in bed is dangerous. Avoid caffeine for eight hours before your planned bedtime. Your body doesn't store caffeine, but it takes many hours to eliminate the stimulant and its effects.  And although often believed to be a sedative, alcohol actually disrupts sleep.
• Exercise regularly. Regular physical activity, especially aerobic exercise, can help you fall asleep faster and make your sleep more restful. Don't exercise within three hours of your bedtime, however. Exercising right before bed may make getting to sleep more difficult.
• Make your bedroom cool, dark, quiet and comfortable. Create a room that's ideal for sleeping. Adjust the lighting, temperature, humidity and noise level to your preferences. Use blackout curtains, eye covers, earplugs, extra blankets, a fan, a humidifier or other devices to create an environment that suits your needs.
• Sleep primarily at night. Daytime naps may steal hours from nighttime slumber. Limit daytime sleep to about a half-hour and make it during midafternoon. If you work nights, keep your window coverings closed so that sunlight, which adjusts the body's internal clock, doesn't interrupt your sleep. If you have a day job and sleep at night, but still have trouble waking up, leave the window coverings open and let the sunlight help wake you up.
• Choose a comfortable mattress and pillow. Features of a good bed are subjective and differ for each person. But make sure you have a bed that's comfortable. If you share your bed, make sure there's enough room for two. Children and pets are often disruptive, so you may need to set limits on how often they sleep in bed with you.
• Start a relaxing bedtime routine. Do the same things each night to tell your body it's time to wind down. This may include taking a warm bath or shower, reading a book, or listening to soothing music. Relaxing activities done with lowered lights can help ease the transition between wakefulness and sleepiness.
• Go to bed when you're tired and turn out the lights. If you don't fall asleep within 15 to 20 minutes, get up and do something else. Go back to bed when you're tired. Don't agonize over falling asleep. The stress will only prevent sleep.
• Use sleeping pills only as a last resort. Check with your doctor before taking any sleep medications. He or she can make sure the pills won't interact with your other medications or with an existing medical condition. Your doctor can also help you determine the best dosage. If you do take a sleep medication, reduce the dosage gradually when you want to quit, and never mix alcohol and sleeping pills. If you feel sleepy or dizzy during the day, talk to your doctor about changing the dosage or discontinuing the pills.

If you're having problems sleeping more than three times a week for a month's time, see your doctor. You could have a sleep disorder, such as obstructive sleep apnea or restless legs syndrome. Identifying and treating the cause of your sleep disturbance can help get you back on the road to a good night's sleep.

MayoClinic.com

Healthy Changes for Staying Young

Time takes its toll on a body, but you don't have to sit back and let the effects of aging take place without a fight.

"You have the power to control how much and how fast the aging process works on your body. You can even reverse some of the damage that has already been done," says Tom Monte, author of many health and wellness books, including "Staying Young: How To Prevent, Slow or Reverse More than 60 Signs of Aging."

The aging process is caused by oxidation, the breakdown of cells and tissues as they mingle with oxygen. "It's just like the rust in a car," Mr. Monte says.

You can fight that process by adopting healthful lifestyle habits that:

• Help your immune system fight disease.
• Build up reserves of lean muscle mass.
• Prevent or slow degenerative changes.
• Rebuild damaged tissue and restore lost function.

Help yourself

Anti-aging strategies can add to the quality of your life and health no matter how old you are, Mr. Monte says. Studies have found people in their 40s, 50s and 60s who start strength-training programs gain increased protection from injury.

Here are Mr. Monte's top 12 strategies for staying younger, longer:

Don't smoke. Each puff hastens aging's degenerative processes. Plus, smoking lowers your aerobic capacity, making it harder for you to do the things you enjoy and making you feel old before your time.

Eat foods rich in antioxidants. Vitamins A, C and E fight free-radical formation, the oxidation process that damages tissues. Eating 5½ cups of fruits and vegetables daily will help you get enough of these vitamins. Among the best sources are broccoli, cauliflower, red peppers and other red, yellow and green vegetables.

Eat lots of fiber. Dietary fiber found in beans, broccoli, bran and other complex carbohydrates helps lower cholesterol, aids digestion and defends against some kinds of cancers.

Maintain healthful cholesterol levels. Keep your total cholesterol level below 200 and your percentage of protective HDL cholesterol high. Following a diet that limits your fat intake to 30 percent or less of your total calories will help. Maintaining a healthful weight also is beneficial.

Exercise regularly. Age robs you of aerobic capacity. Performing 30 minutes of moderate activity three to four times a week can help you retain your capacity.

Build strength. As you age, you lose muscle mass; this weighs you down and reduces your ability to burn calories efficiently. Regular strength training can help reverse this trend.

Be flexible. Tight muscles limit your range of motion and increase your injury risk. A daily stretching routine that works each of your major muscle groups will help you stay supple.

Get enough sleep. While you rest, your body uses the nutrients you've consumed that day to repair the damage done by the day's activities. Not getting enough sleep keeps your immune system from doing its job and keeps your body in a state of disrepair.

Take care of your back. Keep muscles that support the spine strong and supple with cardiovascular and flexibility exercises. Use good body mechanics while lifting, standing or sitting for long periods of time.

Deal with stress. Stress is linked to many diseases and degenerative conditions associated with aging. Learn to look at problems as challenges and accept situations you can't change.

Stay close to your friends and family. A circle of support helps you deal with problems better, feel healthier and live longer.

Be nice. There's a relationship between hostility, heart disease and other stress-related problems. Look for reasons to be pleasant and to forgive people who make you angry. You may live longer as a result, and you'll probably enjoy life more.

Staywell Custom Communications

Green Tea for Your Brain

Six to 10 cups of green tea per day may help reduce memory and concentration problems – at least among people suffering from obstructive sleep apnea. These problems can develop from the loss, over time, of brain cells due to the drop in oxygen and the inflammation associated with sleep apnea. Researchers at the University of Louisville tested the effect of green tea’s antioxidant polyphenols in rats that were intermittently oxygen deprived for two weeks. During this period, one group of animals imbibed plain drinking water and the other received water to which green tea polyphenols had been added. Then the rats’ memory was tested in exercises that required them to remember the location of a hidden platform in a water “maze.” The rats that drank the green tea did much better than the ones that drank plain water. Drinking green tea won’t help you overcome sleep apnea (you’ll still need to use your breathing device) but may lessen any memory or concentration problems associated with the disorder.

The study was published in the May 15, 2008 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Flu bugs growing resistance to drugs: studies

Seasonal flu viruses are developing the ability to evade influenza drugs globally, but how and why this is happening is not clear, experts told a conference on Monday.

Europe is the worst-affected by strains of influenza that resist the effects of antiviral drugs, but the resistance is growing globally, they told a meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

"A significant proportion of resistant viruses were observed in Europe this winter," Dr. Bruno Lina of Claude Bernard University in Lyons, France, told the meeting.

The resistance also varies by strain, with a quarter of H1N1 flu viruses resistant in Europe and about 11 percent of H1N1 in the United States, but far fewer cases of H3N2 and influenza B viruses.

Their findings show that flu viruses -- already known to mutate speedily -- may be even more unpredictable than anyone thought.

Experts fear drugs may become quickly useless to fight an unusually severe flu season or the emergence of a new strain of flu that may cause a pandemic. They have been stressing the need to develop new flu drugs and also quicker and better ways to make vaccines.

The World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been collecting samples of the annual flu viruses to check them against the four available flu drugs: amantadine and rimantadine, and the newer drugs Tamiflu and Relenza.

The viruses changed rapidly over the past 2007-2008 flu season, Lina said. "We started with something like 10 percent in Europe," Lina said. By April of this year, 25 percent of the viruses tested were resistant to Tamiflu.

SUDDEN CHANGES

U.S. flu viruses developed a sudden ability to evade the effects of the older drugs amantadine and rimantadine during the 2005-2006 flu season, said Dr. Larisa Gubareva of the CDC. In 2006 the CDC said no one should use those drugs any more.

Doctors had hopes for two newer drugs -- Roche AG's Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir and licensed from Gilead Sciences, and GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza, known generically as zanamivir.

But already resistance is being seen to Tamiflu, a pill that can be taken to treat symptoms and also to prevent infection.

Lina's team tested more than 2,600 samples of flu viruses from patients in Europe and found baffling patterns of this resistance that appeared to have nothing to do with actual use of Tamiflu.

For instance in France, 54 percent of those tested in Paris carried the mutation that would give resistance to Tamiflu, compared to 29 percent in southeastern France. "Which makes absolutely no sense," Lina said.

Patients showed no difference in their symptoms if they were infected with resistant virus, he noted.

"It's difficult to understand. I have no idea why these viruses emerged," he said.

And in Europe, the H1N1 viruses were the most resistant.

Gubareva said tests across the United States, Canada and Mexico showed very quick development of drug resistance among H1N1 viruses. As of May 15 resistant viruses had been detected in 18 U.S. states out of 43 where virus samples from patients were tested, she said.

In Canada, resistant virus was found in nine of 13 provinces.

But only 6 percent of H3N2 and influenza B samples tested in North America had genetic mutations giving resistance to Tamiflu, she said.

Reuters

Nurturing techniques to improve learning and attention

The following are suggestions for nurturing your child to help improve his or her learning and attention.

• Give frequent physical contact. Touch and hold your baby as much as possible during the first 6 months of his or her life. You will not spoil your baby. Your baby needs frequent physical contact to grow and develop.
• Limit exposure to television as much as possible before age 2. When your child is age 2 and older, one hour or less of TV a day is plenty. Make sure the programs your child watches are appropriate for his or her age.
• Choose age-appropriate toys, and provide a safe play environment. Toys that stimulate the brain are recommended, such as books, blocks, and puzzles. Use a playpen or gate to ensure the play area is safe from potential hazards, such as stairs or pets.
• Encourage your child to play. Find some time each day to play with your child. Choose games and play activities that encourage conversation, such as reading and board games. Also, allow your child some time to play alone.
• Make sure your child gets enough sleep and rest each day. Don't interrupt your child's sleep unless it is necessary. You may want to use soft music to help your child relax; some people suggest playing soft music that does not contain words for 30 minutes each day.
• Encourage your child to eat healthy foods and to develop healthy eating habits. Limit the amount of sugar and fat in your child's diet. Also, don't allow your child to have juices, sports drinks, or soda pop before a meal.

Healthwise

 

Adaptive Equipment

and

Sensory Tools

Talking to Your Child About Drugs

Just as you inoculate your children against illnesses like measles, you can help "immunize" them against drug use by giving them the facts before they're in a risky situation.

When kids don't feel comfortable talking to parents, they're likely to seek answers elsewhere, even if their sources are unreliable. Kids who aren't properly informed are at greater risk of engaging in unsafe behaviors and experimenting with drugs.

Preschool to Age 7

Before you get anxious about talking to young kids, take heart. You've probably already laid the groundwork for a discussion. For instance, whenever you give a fever medication or an antibiotic to your child, you have the opportunity to discuss the benefits and the appropriate and responsible use of those drugs. This is also a time when your child is likely to be very attentive to your behavior and any guidance that you provide.

Start taking advantage of "teachable moments" now. If you see a character on a billboard or on TV with a cigarette, talk to your child about smoking, nicotine addiction, and what smoking does to person's body. This can lead into a discussion about other drugs and how they can potentially cause harm.

Keep the tone of these discussions calm and use terms that your child can understand. Be specific about the effects of the drugs: how they make a person feel, the risk of overdose, and the other long-term damage they can cause. To give your kids these facts, you might have to do a little research.

Ages 8 to 12

As your kids grow older, you can begin conversations with them by asking them what they think about drugs. By asking the questions in a nonjudgmental, open-ended way, you're more likely to get an honest response.

Kids this age usually are still willing to talk openly to their parents about touchy subjects. Establishing a dialogue now helps keep the door open as kids get older and are less inclined to share their thoughts and feelings so openly.

Even if your question doesn't immediately result in a discussion, you'll get your kids thinking about the issue. If you show your kids that you're willing to discuss the topic and hear what they have to say, they might be more willing to come to you for help in the future.

News, such as steroid use in professional sports, can be springboards for casual conversations about current events. Use these discussions to provide your kids with information about the risks of drugs.

Ages 13 to 17

At this age, your kids are likely to know other kids who use or abuse alcohol or drugs. They're also likely to have friends and peers who drive. It's important to talk about the dangers of driving under the influence. Talk about the legal issues -- jail time and fines -- and the possibility that they or someone else might be killed or seriously injured.

Consider establishing a written or verbal contract on the rules about going out or using the car. You can promise to pick your kids up at any time (even 2:00 AM!) without asking questions if they call you when the person responsible for driving has been drinking or using drugs.

The contract also can detail other situations: For example, if you find out that someone drank or used drugs in your car while your son or daughter was behind the wheel, you may want to suspend driving privileges for 6 months. By discussing all of this with your kids from the start, you eliminate surprises and make your expectations clear.

Laying Good Groundwork

No parent, child, or family is immune to the effects of drugs. Some of the best kids can end up in trouble, even when they have made an effort to avoid it and even when they have been given the proper guidance from their parents.

However, certain groups of kids may be more likely to use drugs than others. Kids who have friends who use drugs are likely to try drugs themselves. Those feeling socially isolated for whatever reason may turn to drugs. So it's important to know your child's friends -- and their parents. Be involved in your children's lives. If your child's school runs an antidrug program, get involved. You might learn something! Pay attention to how your kids are feeling and let them know that you are available and willing to listen in a nonjudgmental way. Recognize when your kids are going through difficult times so that you can provide the support they need or seek additional care if it's needed.

A warm, open family environment -- where kids are encouraged to talk about their feelings, where their achievements are praised, and where their self-esteem is bolstered -- encourages kids to come forward with their questions and concerns. When censored in their own homes, kids go elsewhere to find support and answers to their most important questions.

KidsHealth

Why Go Organic?

1 Organic food delivers more nutrition. Studies have repeatedly found increased levels of some nutrients in various organic foods. "That means more nutritional quality per calorie and food serving," explains Dr. Charles Benbrook, chief scientist at the Organic Center for Education and Promotion in Greenfield, Massachusetts. Findings from the University of California at Davis (UCD) suggest that organic foods have much higher antioxidant levels -- for example, organic strawberries, marionberries (blackberry type) and corn had significantly more flavonoids (19, 50 and 58.5 percent respectively) than conventionally grown varieties, as well as higher levels of vitamin C. Meanwhile, a USDA study comparing lycopene content in 13 brands of catsup found organic brands generally packed 57 percent more than national brands and 55 percent more than store brands. "By buying and consuming organic foods fairly consistently, consumers can easily double their daily intake of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants," says Benbrook.

2 Eating organic dramatically reduces pesticide exposure. If you're consuming the USDA recommended "five-a-day" servings of fruit and vegetables, you're probably taking in six or more helpings of pesticide residue daily, says Benbrook. Various pesticides have been linked with adverse effects on fertility and fetal development and with increased cancer risk. According to Benbrook, more than 90 percent of conventionally grown produce contains pesticide residue, compared with 20 percent of organically produced fruits and vegetables, and these have much lower concentrations. (Pesticide residue on organic produce comes from soil that previously supported conventional farming and pesticide drift from neighboring farms.)

3 Eating organic can decrease your intake of food additives such as MSG (monosodium glutamate), artificial sweeteners and food coloring agents. Various additives and dyes have been linked to food allergies, hyperactivity, neurological disease and cancer.

4 You won't find any growth hormones or antibiotics in meat or dairy. Growth hormones, which are injected in cows to increase lean muscle mass and milk production, have been linked to early puberty development and a higher risk of cancer.

5 Organic food doesn't contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The jury is still out on the health effects of eating transgenetic food, such as wheat that's had a fish gene spliced into it. You can steer clear of "Frankenfoods" by choosing organic and avoid playing the guess-what-you're-really-eating game altogether.

6 Organic food tastes better, fresher longer. "Organic produce tends to taste better, most likely because of higher antioxidant levels, which help it store longer too," says Alyson Mitchell, PhD, the nutritional scientist at UCD who led the antioxidant studies. Also, many organic farmers are small, local food producers, so food can get to market much more quickly -- sometimes even the same day it was picked. And because it tastes better and fresher, Benbrook believes it can encourage people to reach the daily recommendation of five to 10 servings more easily.

Organic by the numbers

In food industry surveys of U.S. consumers taken in 2004,
* 66% say they use organic products at least occasionally.
* 27% ate more organic food than they did the previous year.
* 70% worry about the health risks of pesticides, hormones, antibiotics and other chemicals in food.
* 32% say organic food tastes better.
* 54% think organic food is better for their health.
* 58% think organic food is better for the environment

Alternative Medicine Magazine

Analyzing The Path

Recognizing Happiness

Those of us on the path of personal and spiritual growth have a tendency to analyze our unhappiness in order to find the causes and make improvements. But it is just as important, if not more so, to analyze our happiness. Since we have the ability to rise above and observe our emotions, we can recognize when we are feeling joyful and content. Then we can harness the power of the moment by savoring our feelings and taking time to be grateful for them.

Recognition is the first step in creating change, therefore recognizing what it feels like to be happy is the first step toward sustaining happiness in our lives. We can examine how joy feels in our bodies and what thoughts run through our minds in times of bliss. Without diminishing its power, we can retrace our steps to discover what may have put us in this frame of mind, and then we can take note of the choices we’ve made while there. We might realize that we are generally more giving and forgiving when there’s a smile on our face, or that we are more likely to laugh off small annoyances and the actions of others when they don’t resonate with our light mood.

Once we know what it feels like and can identify some of the triggers and are aware of our actions, we can recreate that happiness when we are feeling low. Knowing that like attracts like, we can pull ourselves out of a blue mood by focusing on joy. We might find that forcing ourselves to be giving and forgiving, even when it doesn’t seem to come naturally, helps us to reconnect with the joy that usually precedes it. If we can identify a song, a picture, or a pet as a happiness trigger, we can use them as tools to recapture joy if we are having trouble finding it. By focusing our energy on analyzing happiness and all that it encompasses, we feed, nurture, and attract more of it into our lives, eventually making a habit of happiness.

Daily Om

Natural Cleaning Products for a 'Green' Home

When you think of air pollution, you probably conjure up images of smokestacks and clogged interstates. But recent research shows that air quality is actually the worst where we feel safest — in our homes.

Some toxins are an unfortunate and unavoidable fact of modern life. But others, like those in household cleaning products, are remarkably easy to do without. In fact, you probably have many of the supplies you need to "go green" right in your kitchen cupboard.

And these nontoxic cleaning supplies work just as well as their chemical cousins but without the nasty side effects (which range from irritating the skin to contributing to cancer).

The well-stocked pantry
Another benefit of going green with your cleaning products: You'll free up a lot of shelf space. Instead of having a single cleaner for each purpose (how different is cleaning a tub vs. a sink, anyway?), you’ll only need these five essentials:

• Baking soda. Buy it in bulk, because this wonder powder has about 1,001 household uses. Use it to cut odors in the fridge, mix it with castile soap for a gentle surface scrubber, or pour it down the drain with some vinegar to clear clogs.

• Salt. Say goodbye to your harsh oven cleaner. Instead, pour salt on spills as they happen, allow the surface to cool and scrape up the mess. "If you do that every time you have a spill, you don't need to do anything else," suggests Linda Mason Hunter, co-author of Green Clean: The Environmentally Sound Guide to Cleaning Your Home (Melcher Media, 2005).

• Castile soap. Much gentler than detergent-type cleansers, this basic liquid soap can clean just about anything — from toilets to armpits. Dr. Bronner's is a high-quality, superconcentrated brand.

• Lemon juice. Mix with olive oil for a wood and furniture polish, use it to clean glass and stainless steel or sprinkle it in baking soda to make carpet-cleaning powder. After you've squeezed out the juice, toss the rinds down the garbage disposal to cleanse and deodorize.

• White distilled vinegar. Because of its acidic properties, vinegar can dissolve grease, soap residue and mildew, making it the perfect bathroom cleaner. It's a hit in the kitchen, too. Use it to polish chrome, shine glass and mop tile or linoleum floors.

Ready-made cleaners
Of course, if you take comfort in a bottle that tells you exactly what it’s going to do, you can buy commercial, nontoxic cleaners. Companies like Seventh Generation, Ecover and Bio-Kleen are available at health food stores and many mainstream grocery stores.

Hunter's favorite is Shaklee's new Get Clean product line (www.shacklee.com). Green cleaners can cost more than conventional cleaners, but they're often more concentrated, giving you more bang for your buck.

Out with the old
So are you ready to go green? According to Hunter, if you really want to green your life, cleaning up your cleaning is the best place to start.

"It's manageable, you're working in your own house, you have control and you learn a lot about how to read labels, what's in products and what to look for," she says. "You can use that knowledge when you're doing other things as well — buying cosmetics, furniture and building materials, for example."

Revolution Health Group

Indoor Air Cleaners: Are They Good or Bad?

If you have allergies or asthma, it can be exhausting keeping your home free of environmental triggers like pollen, pet dander and smoke. It's easy to understand the allure of a product that allows you to put away your vacuum and relax while it purifies the air around you.

Take ionizing indoor air cleaners. They work by charging particles in the air and then trapping them on oppositely-charged filter plates.

Eighty percent of people who buy them have allergy or asthma concerns. But do these products actually help clean the air and relieve your symptoms? In most cases, no — and what's worse, they introduce a new irritant into the air: ozone.

Not worth the money — or the health risks

Chronic exposure to even minimal amounts of ozone may cause respiratory problems such as wheezing, coughing and chest pain, and can increase your sensitivity to pollen, mold, and other respiratory allergy triggers. In short, many ionizing indoor air cleaners worsen the very symptoms they're supposed to relieve.

"We won't recommend machines that produce ozone to any degree," says asthma and allergy specialist James L. Sublett, M.D., vice chair of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology's Indoor Allergen Committee and chief of the allergy section at the University of Louisville School of Medicine. With a group of experts on allergies, asthma and air filtration, Dr. Sublett is developing recommendations to help people decide about indoor air filtration products.

Dr. Sublett's research has highlighted other concerns. "These products actually don't even work as air filters," he says. "Many don't have fans, so they just don't move enough air. Basically, you could put a guy in the middle of the room in a black polyester suit and he'd trap as many particulates as some of these devices do."

HEPA filters may help

There are devices that safely and effectively help clean the air in your home. High-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters for your furnace and air conditioning systems can reduce the number of floating allergens in your home, especially if you replace the filters every few months.

The minimum efficiency reporting value (MERV) rating is an industry standard used to compare different filters' abilities to trap particles. Filters for home systems are rated from one to 11. The American Lung Association Health House program recommends using filters with a MERV rating of 10 or higher.

"You don't have to go out and spend thousands of dollars on these filters," says Dr. Sublett. "Those that are available for 15 to 18 dollars will work well. The more expensive ones offer minimal added benefit."

Free-standing indoor air cleaners with HEPA filters may help, too. To select a good one, check the clean-air delivery-rate (CADR) certification seal on each model. A rating of 75 or below is poor; a rating above 350 is excellent. The CADR seal also indicates the size of the room that each model can effectively clean.

Be wary of other "seals of approval" on indoor air cleaners. Some are paid endorsements.

Tackle allergens that have already landed

Even with the best HEPA filters and air cleaners, you'll need to do more to cut down on allergens in your home.

"Many allergens don't float in the air," Dr. Sublett explains. "Dust mites, cockroaches, larger mole spores and pollen grains settle, and the bigger they are, the faster they settle."

To tackle allergens on the surfaces in your home:

• Keep it clean. Fight dust by keeping your home clean and clutter-free. Remove carpets and throw-rugs, especially in your bedroom.
• Cover up. Use allergy-proof covers on your mattress, box-spring and pillows.
• Dehumidify. Run a dehumidifier to reduce mold, and regularly clean damp corners and shower curtains where mold accumulates. Use a hygrometer to measure indoor relative humidity. Aim for between 30 percent and 50 percent.
• Relocate pets. Find new homes for your furry pets. If that's not possible, avoid petting your animals and wash your hands often.
• Tighten up. During peak pollen season, keep your house shut and run central air conditioning. Change room air conditioner filters weekly.
• Replace rubber. To prevent a reaction to latex, get rid of products like rubber gloves and toys and balloons.

Revolution Health Group

Acupuncture may be effective for menstrual pain

Acupuncture can help relieve menstrual pain and improve the quality of life for some women, a new study from Germany shows.

Because the acupuncture patients were compared with a control group who received no therapy, rather than a "sham," or fake, version of the treatment, the placebo effect could have played a role, Dr. Claudia M. Witt of Charite University Medical Center in Berlin and her colleagues acknowledge.

"Nevertheless, our study showed that acupuncture was beneficial for women if offered as part of the health insurance system," the researchers write in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, are standard treatment for menstrual pain, but they carry the risk of side effects, Witt and her team note in their report. Acupuncture and acupressure have been found helpful in treating other types of pain, so the researchers tested whether acupuncture delivered by doctors -- as it typically is in Germany -- would help with dysmenorrhea.

Since 2000, the researchers note, the nation's health insurers have recommended that acupuncture to relieve pain only be covered by insurance if it is delivered as part of a study to investigate its effectiveness.

The researchers enrolled 201 women who agreed to be randomly assigned to acupuncture or no treatment.

After 3 months of treatment, which included an average of about 10 sessions, the average pain score was 3.1 in the acupuncture group, compared with 5.4 in the control group, using a pain scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst pain.

Among women given acupuncture, 63.4 percent reported at least a 33 percent improvement in their symptoms, while 24 percent of women in the control group did.

Based on these findings, the researchers conclude that "acupuncture should be considered as a viable option in the management of these patients."

Reuters

Using Yoga to Relieve Stress

To combat stress, many people turn to meditation or other mental stress reduction tools. But stress also creates physical response in the body and, as such, can be managed with exercise -- in particular, with yoga.

"Stress sends the entire physical system into overdrive," says Garrett Sarley, president and CEO of the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health in Lenox, Mass. "The muscles tense, the heart beats faster, breathing patterns change, and if the cause of stress isn't discontinued, the body secretes more hormones that increase blood sugar levels, raising blood pressure. Yoga is one of the few stress-relief tools that has a positive effect on all the body systems involved."

Recognizing the detrimental effects of stress, especially in the area of heart disease, the preventive and rehabilitative cardiac center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles began offering yoga to their patients more than 10 years ago.

"Over the years, yoga has become one of our primary therapies for stress management," says C. Noel Bairey Merz, M.D., director of the preventive and rehabilitative cardiac center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Understanding yoga

In the past 5,000 years, yoga has undergone various adaptations and now is practiced in four major ways:

• As a method of maintaining physical fitness and health
• As therapy to restore health or relieve ailments
• As a lifestyle
• As a spiritual discipline

All share several important fundamental practices. The first is cultivation of awareness: the ability to focus on exactly what you're doing in the present moment. The second, relaxation, encourages the release of unnecessary tension in the body. Conscious breathing is another vital part of yoga; the breathing exercises build lung strength and capacity and unite the body and mind.

"Without these elements, yoga would be simply exercises," says Mr. Sarley.

Getting started

There are several ways you can give yoga a try. Attending a yoga retreat for several days will teach you how to practice and what style suits you best. Numerous centers throughout the country offer a sampling of different types and levels of yoga. To find a center near you, try doing a Web search for "yoga retreat."

Or, locate a suitable yoga class or teacher in your area. Even if you intend to practice on your own, it's important to start with some basic training. Adult education centers, YMCAs, health clubs, hospitals and yoga studios all offer group classes. But ask how much training the instructor has had; a few hours isn't adequate.

Beginners should look for beginner or "gentle" yoga classes. Expect the classes to be relaxing and noncompetitive. Wear loose, comfortable clothing and take along a mat or blanket to sit on. Don't be intimidated by pictures you may have seen of people twisted into difficult poses. There are dozens of gentle, easy poses, and all students are encouraged to do only what's comfortable for their bodies. If a class you try doesn't feel like a good fit, try a different one.

You also can learn yoga from audio or video programs or books and magazines, but getting personal instruction first tends to result in a better experience, and you're more likely to continue. At all levels, yoga is about taking care of and being good to yourself.

"By being more sensitive to your body and mind, you learn to see stress coming and can take preventive measures," says Mr. Sarley. "Yoga teaches nurturing of one's body, mind and spirit, which leads to a healthier way of being."

Staywell Custom Communications

Beat Stress, Live Longer

Over the past decade or so, it's become increasingly clear that stress can harm our health. But now a study shows the damage is even more profound than we'd thought: Stress, it seems, can actually make your cells age quicker.

The study, from researchers at the University of California at San Francisco, shows that prolonged high stress speeds up age-related cellular changes by a decade or more. These changes have been associated with serious health problems, including heart attacks and increased vulnera-bility to infection.

All 58 women in the study were mothers between 20 and 50 years old -- certainly a group that knows stress. But the 39 women in the highest-stress group were also caring for a chronically ill child, and the scientists found a direct correlation between the number of years the child had been ill and the extent of premature aging in the mother's cells.

While researchers look for "treatment interventions" -- doctorspeak for ways to chill out -- do yourself a favor and start taking breaks now.

Alternative Medicine Magazine

Mumps found to have made alarming comeback in US

Mumps made an alarming comeback in the United States in 2006 and may take years to completely eradicate, federal health experts reported on Wednesday.

The outbreak of the viral disease came despite the widespread use of a second dose of a mumps vaccine, produced by Merck, beginning in 1990.

Eighty-four percent of the people between the ages of 18 and 24 who became ill in the outbreak had received the second recommended dose, the researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"A more effective mumps vaccine or changes in vaccine policy may be needed to avert future outbreaks and achieve the elimination of mumps," Gustavo Dayan of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and colleagues wrote.

There were no deaths from the virus, which can be as mild as a fever and swollen glands, or severe enough to cause deafness, testicular inflammation and encephalitis. But there were 6,584 cases nationwide and 85 hospitalizations, most concentrated in eight midwestern states and on college campuses.

"It would have been tens of thousands of cases if we didn't have the coverage," said Jane Seward, deputy director of the CDC's division of viral diseases.

The U.S. has a goal of eliminating the disease by 2010, but doctors consider a disease eliminated if there are no new home-grown cases over a 12-month period, Seward said in a telephone interview.

Thus, the goal might be achievable. But permanently banishing the disease is unlikely because 43 percent of nations do not vaccinate against the disease.

"Until the globe gets rid of their disease, we're at risk for importation and will continue to have outbreaks," Seward said.

A double dose of the vaccine is supposed to be 88 to 95 percent effective.

"The 2006 outbreak was the first account of a large-scale mumps epidemic characterized by two-dose vaccine failure," Dayan's team wrote.

"Although there was no single explanation for the outbreak, multiple factors may have contributed, including waning immunity, high population density and contact rates in colleges, and incomplete vaccine-induced immunity to wild virus."

Even countries that protect their children against mumps do not give two doses or have not been doing it for as long as the United States, Seward said.

That is one reason why there was an outbreak of more than 70,000 cases in Britain from 2004 to 2006, even though the population is one-fifth the size of the U.S. population.

Some advocacy groups have also expressed fears about the safety of the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, with some parents refusing to get their children vaccinated, officials say.

Health experts say these fears are ungrounded and say parents who do not vaccinate their children put them at risk and also children too young to have been vaccinated or with condition that prevent vaccination.

Reuters

Feng shui your way to health

Can your home’s layout influence your well-being? Definitely, says Brooklyn-based chakracologist™ and feng shui expert Nancy SantoPietro. In vivid contrast to conventional interior design with concepts based on function, form and aesthetics, feng shui, with its 4,000-year-old metaphor-rich design system, reaches deeper to embrace the flow of energy or chi through your home and environment. With feng shui the goal is to create surroundings energetically aligned with the healing forces of nature because this environment will, in turn, nurture you. 

Energy or chi flows internally through you and externally through your surroundings, according to feng shui philosophy. Depending on how this energy moves, these two energetic patterns can support harmony or disharmony, health or disease. Everyday life patterns emanate from your internal energy field, explains SantoPietro, and are mirrored and anchored in place by the environmental energy field known as your feng shui. Reciprocally, the feng shui of your environment impacts your internal energy. It is this interplay between the two energetic systems that either supports illness or enhances health. When implemented well, she says, feng shui principles positively influence the chi in your body by disarming aspects of illness supported by unhealthy energy patterns and design layouts.

Begin in the Bedroom

Feng shui cannot replace conventional or other alternative healing modalities. It can, however, augment them. A thorough feng shui assessment of your home and modifications implemented by a qualified expert yields the greatest benefits, yet you can make some core changes on your own.

Different areas of your home exert influence over different aspects of your life (such as family, career and finances) and ultimately they all affect your well-being (see SantoPietro’s book Feng Shui and Health: The Anatomy of a Home, Three Rivers Press, 2002 for more). But the aspect of your abode most aligned with overall health (thus the one that will make the most significant impact) is your bedroom. Our lives are full of energetically draining encounters so there must be somewhere to reconnect and refuel, says SantoPietro. Your bedroom should be that place for rejuvenation and intimacy — no more, no less. Yet how many of us take daytime energy into the bedroom by typing away on a laptop, talking on the phone or watching television ? No wonder we struggle to get a good night’s sleep, and then start each day exhausted.

You can change that, though. Here are SantoPietro’s top suggestions for transforming your bedroom into a restorative sanctuary:

• Place your bed so it faces the doorway but is not directly aligned. Ch'i force enters rooms via doorways (known as the mouths of ch'i) and you want to face and welcome that life energy. Yet ch'i is powerful and too taxing for the body when encountered directly.   
• Remove all telephones, televisions, computers and clock radios, which emit powerful electromagnetic fields that interfere with sleep and depress immunity.
• Clear away clutter of any kind, including under your bed and in the closet. Even if they’re not in plain view, areas of clutter block energy flow like cholesterol clogs arteries.
• Hang a 40 to 50-millimeter round and faceted Swarovski or other manmade crystal from a 9-inch red string in the center of your bedroom (the center of any room is the health area). Crystals amplify ch'i, but natural gems like amethyst, garnet or quartz come with their own energetic frequency so choose a synthetic stone that you can program with your healing intention.

Revolution Health Group

Migraines and the Chiropractor's Touch

The pain of a migraine can be so searing you may as well drill a hole through your head. Then again this was the remedy of choice 3,000 years ago when evil spirits were thought to be the culprit behind migraines. While modern-day treatments have changed, the mystery behind the condition remains.

One popular theory: Migraines result from a chemical imbalance in the brain. Often a trigger, such as certain foods or hormones, can cause blood vessels to dilate in the brain. The vessels become inflamed, thus irritating surrounding nerve fibers. The nerve fibers then send messages back to control centers in the brain, which continues vessel dilation, thus kicking off a vicious cycle of violent pain.

There are plenty of drugs that combat migraines, though no magic bullet exists. Some studies, however, show that alternative treatments can complement mainstream medicine. A study from Northwestern College of Chiropractic in Bloomington, Minnesota, compared chiropractic manipulation with amitriptyline, an antidepressant commonly used to treat migraines. The study found that chiropractic healing was about as successful as the drug.

Chiropractors believe that some migraines originate in the spine. Often a misalignment of the vertebrae, or subluxation, can irritate the nerves that travel the length of the spine to the brain. This misalignment makes a person more prone to chemical imbalances in the brain. Some researchers say that realigning the vertebrae--a chiropractor's specialty--relieves the pressure against inflamed nerves and can in turn relieve the headaches.

For migraines caused by subluxation, chiropractors recommend gently stretching the neck--rolling and sudden movements should be avoided. To prevent subluxations, pay attention to your posture. For example, if you sit for long periods in front of a computer, move your body around frequently. Also, sleep on your side or back, and use a firm pillow that supports your neck.

Psychology Today

Humor Therapy

What is humor therapy?

Humor therapy (sometimes called therapeutic humor) uses the power of smiles and laughter to aid healing. Humor therapy helps you find ways to make yourself (or others) smile and laugh more. When you think of humor therapy, picture clowns in the children's ward of a hospital cheering up sick children. Some hospitals now have humor carts that provide funny materials for people of any age. Many nurses have learned the value of providing a good laugh to those they care for.

Scientists have been researching the relation between the mind and the body, especially in connection with the body's ability to heal (a field called psychoneuroimmunology). Laughter appears to change brain chemistry and may boost the immune system.

Humor may allow a person to feel in control of a situation and make it seem manageable. It allows people to release fears, anger, and stress, all of which can harm the body over time. Humor improves the quality of life.

What is humor therapy used for?

Anyone can use humor therapy, either preventively or as part of treatment for any disease. People commonly use it in the treatment of long-term (chronic) diseases, especially those that are made worse by stress (such as heart disease and asthma). Chronic diseases can often have a negative effect on mood and attitude, which can make the disease worse. Humor therapy helps decrease the negative effects of feeling unhealthy, out of control, afraid, or helpless, which are common problems for those with cancer or chronic diseases.

Humor therapy is also valuable as a preventive measure for the caregivers of people with chronic diseases. Caregivers are at high risk of becoming sick themselves, and humor therapy can help release the stress that comes from being a caregiver. Caregivers and those they care for can practice humor therapy together, and they both are likely to have better health as a result.

Is humor therapy safe?

Humor therapy is completely safe. Your doctor is likely to approve of any efforts you make to use humor therapy, even if he or she is not aware of any medical benefits that may result. Since it is also inexpensive, risk-free, and readily available, there is little reason not to try practicing humor therapy.

Always tell your doctor if you are using an alternative therapy or if you are thinking about combining an alternative therapy with your conventional medical treatment. It may not be safe to forgo your conventional medical treatment and rely only on an alternative therapy.

Healthwise

Massage Eases Pain of Knee Arthritis

A regular massage may do more than just relax your body: It also appears to reduce pain and improve function in people suffering from osteoarthritis of the knee, a new study suggests.

The authors of the study, the first of its kind, are now embarking on larger studies to confirm the findings and see if massage is a viable alternative or adjunct to drugs and other existing treatments.

"This is a very happy outcome, but it's a pilot study in that the duration is short and the population is small," said senior author Dr. David Katz, associate adjunct professor of public health and director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine. "We think that the primary role for massage therapy will be to reduce dependence on pharmacotherapy, rather than replace it outright, and to delay any functional decline rather than reverse the disease. So, the question then becomes, what is the bang for the buck?"

Katz and his colleagues are now researching the cost of massage, in the hopes of convincing insurance companies that it can take its place as a legitimate therapy for this disease.

Osteoarthritis is caused by a progressive degeneration of bone cartilage and is the most common type of arthritis in the United States. The condition affects some 21 million people and is associated with aging.

Conventional treatments include pain medication, exercise, hot and cold therapy, corticosteroid injections and, possibly, surgery.

The medications used for osteoarthritis, however, are problematic. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as aspirin, can cause serious gastrointestinal side effects. The cox-2 inhibitors such as Vioxx that were developed to bypass those side effects are now known to cause cardiovascular problems, and some, including Vioxx, have been taken off the market.

"Primarily therapy is NSAIDs, but the target population is the very group that is least tolerant of those drugs," Katz said. "The cox-2s were developed as alternatives to NSAIDs to offer less toxicity, and look at how that turned out. We've kind of left folks high and dry."

While massage has been shown to relieve chronic lower back pain and musculoskeletal disorders, there has been no research on massage to help osteoarthritis sufferers. At least until now.

For this study, appearing in the Dec. 11 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, 68 adults with osteoarthritis of the knee were randomly assigned to receive either standard Swedish massage therapy or to a wait-list control group that started massage eight weeks after the first group. All participants were encouraged to continue with their previous treatments and medications.

Individuals in the massage group received a one-hour Swedish massage twice a week for four weeks, then once a week for the following four weeks.

After the first eight weeks, participants receiving massage had improved flexibility and range of motion and reduced pain.

Those in the control group showed no changes in symptoms until they, too, started receiving massage. Then, during weeks nine through 16, they experienced benefits similar to the first group.

Interestingly, the benefits did not go away even when the massages were stopped.

"The very significant therapeutic response over eight weeks of therapy persisted eight weeks later," Katz said. "Two months after the last massage, they were still significantly better than baseline and significantly better than the control group. That exceeded our expectations."

There are two possible explanations for the improvements.

In the immediate time frame, Katz explained, "sensory input [the massage] competes with pain input in the spinal cord, travels faster and blocks pain symptoms."

Massage may also enhance blood flow to the region affected by osteoarthritis. "Since the acute pain of osteoarthritis is related to inflammation, increased perfusion brings an influx of cells to clean out the debris and facilitates, to whatever extent possible, bone and cartilage remodeling," Katz explained.

More studies are needed before doctors, patients and insurance companies can be persuaded to accept this as common practice, he said.

"The end game would be that this would be something people with osteoarthritis would be able to access routinely," Katz said. "We ultimately want to change the standard of practice, but we don't do that with one study."

Health Day

Yoga: Not Just for Chilling Out

Many people think of yoga as a wonderful way to relax. But any true yogi knows the practice can also be quite energizing. In fact, a new study suggests it might help a group of people even more in need of a boost than the average person: those fighting multiple sclerosis, a disease that often comes with bone-crushing fatigue.

Researchers at the Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon, discovered that people with MS who took a yoga class every week for six months -- along with doing poses at home -- reported being considerably less tired than a group who did nothing out of the ordinary. The study is the first in-depth trial of yoga for MS patients. Lead researcher and neurologist Barry Oken says that people whose symptoms are mild should be able to manage in a gentle class designed for seniors; those with more severe symptoms might prefer a class geared to people with MS.

Alternative Medicine Magazine

Father's Day June 15th

Our wide selection of uniquely versatile packs, mitts, wraps, boots and more offers an option for Father's Day

Mother's Day May 11th

Proven through centuries of use in traditional medicine, ayurvedic therapies and modern holistic practice offering  an option for Mother's  Day.

Pump Up Your Immune System

Live well

It's true that you are what you eat, but your health is also a reflection of what you do. That’s why making healthy lifestyle choices can drastically affect your ability to keep illness at bay. So consider the following to optimize your immune-system strength:

• Exercise regularly
• Limit alcohol, caffeine, and sugar
• Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables
• Drink lots of bottled water
• Don’t miss meals

Take your vitamins

Even if you never eat junk food or miss meals, your body will still need a bit of help getting all the nutrients it needs to stay strong. That is where supplements come in. A good multivitamin is a must. In addition, boosting your intake of the nutrients below can help prevent deficiencies that make you a target for infections:

• Vitamin C
• Zinc
• Beta-carotene

Chill out

Excessive stress essentially cripples the immune system, making the body less able to fend off everything from bacteria and viruses to serious diseases. Finding ways to relax is essential for your good health. Give the following a try:

• Yoga
• Meditation
• Warm baths with soothing oils, such as lavender
• Walking
• Reading

Whatever you choose, look for activities—or nonactivities—that give you a real break from everyday work and home obligations.

Catch some Zs

Skimping on sleep can cut your immune defenses in half, so be sure to snooze a full eight hours a night. If you can’t get a full night’s sleep because of time constraints, try to squeeze in a 15- to 30-minute nap during the day. Although not as beneficial as nighttime rest, a nap can help stave off illness. If you have trouble falling asleep or staying that way, try some remedies for insomnia.

Build good bacteria

Making sure the good bacteria in your body outnumber the bad is one way to help fend off infection. Healthy probiotic bacteria stimulate the intestine’s immune system and slow the growth of infectious organisms in the digestive system. Good sources of healthy bacteria are yogurt and other foods containing live cultures, and supplements containing 10 billion colony-forming units a day of acidophilus or bifidobacteria.

Try taming tonics

Miraculously, tonics both energize your system when it’s low and protect it when it’s over-stimulated. That is the beauty of adaptogens, also known as tonics. Essentially, adaptogens help keep the immune system in balance and help spare vital tissues from stress-induced damage.

Healthnotes

Good Nutrition: Why It's Important, Plus 10 Rules to Live By

2006 Athletes' Performance Inc.

Food is not the enemy. In fact, you should view nutrition as your training partner. Proper nutrition not only fuels your body for every training session; it also ensures proper recovery.

Don't look at food as something that adds pounds onto your frame and seconds onto your time. If you think you need enormous amounts of food to maintain your size, think again. Others of you may think nutrition has nothing to do with your training or performance.

Fueling your body optimally will increase your energy levels, enhance the quality of your training, help you to get the most out of each of your training days, improve your hormone profile, decrease inflammation, and decrease your chance of overuse injury.

It is worth reiterating. You must begin to view nutrition as your training partner, your essential tool to optimizing your health, your training, and your performance.

We spend so much time strengthening, stretching, and training to achieve a body that is in balance. But, what does a body is in balance look like on the inside? There are many amazing athletes who, on the outside look like they have the ultimate body in balance. They train hard day in and day out, they are lean and they are competitive. However, with one look inside, you may find that this picture of perfection is actually on the brink of a complete meltdown. By not fueling the body properly, the environment created on the inside is one of chaos. By not giving the body the correct fuel that it needs, it becomes catabolic or in breakdown mode.

When the body becomes catabolic, it begins mobilizing fuel from inefficient sources like muscle. When the body is not fueled properly it is also in a constant state of stress. Your cortisol:testosterone ratio is out of whack as a result of increased cortisol (nasty stress hormone) and decreased testosterone (building hormone). The microscopic damage to the muscle never really gets a chance to fully heal. Your resting heart rate may increase and you may have decreased endurance and power. This unbalanced state sets the body up for a greater risk for sickness, fatigue, depression, inflammation, injury, loss of competitive drive, and ultimately underperformance.

Proper nutrition is one of the tools that can be used to put the body back into balance after training and prevent the chaos that can occur with prolonged insufficient nutritional habits. Ensuring you are getting enough calories and all of your nutrients each day will allow the body to run efficiently and energy stores to be full.

Engaging in a pre- and/or post-workout nutrition routine after each workout will help to restore your body's hormone profiles to normal, refuel your body, and jumpstart the recovery and repair of the body. Proper nutrition day in and day is one way to prevent the body from slipping into a spiral of overtraining and injury risk. Proper nutrition is one way that you can control to enhance your health and performance.

Below you will find some simple rules to live by to ensure you are on the road to optimal nutrition, optimal health, and optimal performance.

10 NUTRITION RULES TO LIVE BY

1. COME BACK TO EARTH!!! Try to choose the least processed forms of food. Fruits, veggies, and whole grains.

2. Eat BREAKFAST every day!

3. Eat smaller portions more often, spread evenly across the day. No excuses -- you should be eating 5-8 meals/day!

4. Stay HYDRATED (.6 x body weight = ounces of water per day) by drinking only non-caloric beverages (water/green tea).

5. Include a LEAN protein source with each meal.

6. Choose foods, especially carbs, rich in FIBER (25-35g/day).

7. Add a multivitamin with anti-oxidant complex and an omega 3/omega 6 blend into your daily routine.

8. Eat fruits or vegetables with each meal. Green vegetables are key!!!

9. Drink a mixture of carbohydrate and protein before and/or after your workout.

10. Last, but not least. Get some rest. The body recovers and repairs when it is sleeping.

Dave Schifrin
Director of Marketing
Athletes' Performance & Core Performance
www.coreperformance.com 

Teens turn deaf ear to risks of MP3 players

Teenagers seem to know that loud music can damage their hearing, yet most see no reason to lower the volume on their iPods, a small study suggests.

In focus-group discussions with students at two high schools in the Netherlands, researchers found that the teens were generally aware that blasting an MP3 player could harm their hearing. Yet most said they usually played their own device at maximum volume and had no plans to change that.

Like many teenagers, the students often denied their own personal risk. Most knew the general hazards of loud music, but believed they had a "low personal vulnerability" to hearing loss, the researchers report in the Journal of Pediatrics.

Given this, lead researcher Ineke Vogel told Reuters Health in an email interview, "we strongly recommend parents to inform their children and to discuss with their children the use of MP3 players and the potential long- term, irreversible consequences for hearing capacity."

Parents can also look for signs of a problem, like when a child complains of ringing in the ears or sounds being "muffled," according to Vogel and co-researcher Dr. Hein Raat, who are both based at the University Medical Center Rotterdam.

Based on the focus-group discussions, though, many parents may be unaware of the hearing risks posed by MP3 players, the researchers note. Of the 73 students in the study, few said their parents had warned them that playing the devices too loud could harm their hearing.

It may also be necessary for MP3 manufacturers to make changes, the researchers note in their report.

Many students in the study said they did not know how to tell when their MP3 players were too loud. Volumes at or above 90 decibels (dB) are believed to be hazardous, Vogel's team notes, but noise levels need to reach 120 dB to 140 dB to become uncomfortable or painful.

Manufacturers, according to the researchers, could equip MP3 players with an indicator that displays the volume level in terms of decibels, along with a signal -- such as a flashing light -- that goes off when decibel levels reach the danger zone.

For now, Vogel and her colleagues recommend that, as a general "rule of thumb," MP3 users set the volume no higher than 60 percent of its full capacity when using "ear bud" style headphones, like those that come with iPods.

With over-the-ear headphones, they recommend 70 percent as the maximum.

Just as there are safety standards for occupational noise exposure, Vogel and her colleagues suggest that more long-range studies are needed to develop safety guidelines for "leisure-time" noise exposure.

Reuters

Woman's Abdominal Organs Removed in Unique Cancer Surgery

Brooke Zepp, a 63-year-old South Florida woman, was diagnosed last May with leiomyosarcoma, a rare cancerous tumor deep inside her abdomen that had wrapped itself around her aorta and other arteries that supply blood to vital organs such as the stomach, intestines and spleen.

Surgery wasn't an option, she was told, because there was literally no room to remove the tumor without damaging those vital organs. She was given six months to live.

Refusing to give up, Zepp went to the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center, where surgeons at The Transplant Institute performed what's believed to be the first operation of its kind: Early this month, they removed six of her internal organs, freeing up space to cut out the cancer, and then they reinserted the organs.

Usually, this is an inoperable tumor, Dr. Andreas Tzakis, director of The Transplant Institute, said during a Monday teleconference. "In order to remove the tumor, we took a very unusual approach. We removed all the organs along with the blood vessels and the tumor," he said.

Before undergoing the operation, Zepp had tried chemotherapy and radiation, both of which failed. The only option left was surgery, "but no one wanted to operate," Zepp said during the teleconference.

"Because people wouldn't operate and I wanted to live, I said, 'Somebody has to do it first,' " Zepp said. "And I wanted to prove to people, even though many doctors told me not to do this, that I thought it would be better to take a chance on living than on dying."

The organs removed during the 15-hour surgery were the stomach, pancreas, liver, spleen, small intestine and about two-thirds of the large intestine. Because of their delicate nature, the kidneys weren't taken out during the procedure, Tzakis noted.

"We had to move very quickly because the organs were removed from her body and she had no organs in the belly. And we had to move quickly to cut the tumor out," Tzakis said.

Once the tumor had been removed, Zepp's organs -- which had been kept chilled -- were placed back in her abdominal cavity and artificial blood vessels were put in and connected. In total, the organs were outside her body for about 90 minutes, Tzakis said.

Tzakis said the idea for the surgery was a natural extension of the work his team had been doing with multiple organ transplants.

"This is unique and brand-new, but pieces of the surgery were done before," Tzakis said. "We know how to remove organs -- we know how to put them in. We've done surgery to remove liver tumors, taking the liver out of the body, removing the tumor and putting the liver back in."

The Miami doctors have also performed similar operations removing tumors from intestines, Tzakis said. "So this came to us kind of naturally. We've done pieces, we just hadn't done the entire thing at one time," he added.

Zepp said she feels good. "I feel like I'm coming through a tunnel and I have a whole life ahead of me," she said.

She added: "I want the rest of the world to know that inoperable cancers can be operated on. Different cancer centers have different training and their own vision, and they don't think in the terms that a transplant surgeon would."

Health Day

Symptoms of Heart Attacks in Women

Heart attacks often feel different to a woman than to a man. Women are more likely than men to have "silent" or unrecognized heart attacks, called myocardial infarctions. Not all heart attacks begin with sudden, crushing chest pain, the way they are often shown in the movies and on TV.

Heart attack symptoms may be severe from the start, or they may be mild at first, and then gradually worsen. Women are more likely than men to have nausea, pain high up in the abdomen or burning in their chest during a heart attack.

Heart attacks and their aftermath tend to be more deadly in women. About one-quarter more women than men die within a year of having a heart attack. This may happen because women are generally older than men when they suffer heart attacks. Also, women don't respond as well as men to the treatments usually prescribed during or after a heart attack.

Preventing or controlling heart disease may mean making changes in the way you live. A healthy heart requires a personal action plan. But where do you begin? A complete medical checkup is a sensible first step, especially if you have multiple risk factors. Your health care provider can tell if you have cardiovascular disease or its risk factors, and if so, help you with a practical treatment plan. Even if you don't have any risk factors now, you can discuss ways to lessen your chances of developing them.

About angina

A common symptom of coronary heart disease is chest pain or tightness, known as angina. It may be the earliest sign of heart disease and usually brings someone to a health care provider for the first time.

Episodes of angina occur when the heart's need for oxygen increases beyond the oxygen available from the blood. Physical exertion is the most common trigger for angina. Other triggers can be emotional stress, extreme cold or heat, heavy meals, alcohol and cigarette smoking.

A person may feel heaviness, tightness, pain, burning, pressure or squeezing, usually behind the breastbone but sometimes also in the arms, neck or jaws. It can also cause shortness of breath. The pain usually gets better or goes away with rest.

An episode of angina is not a heart attack. A heart attack occurs when the blood flow to a part of the heart is suddenly and permanently cut off. This causes permanent damage to the heart muscle. Typically, the chest pain is more severe, lasts longer and does not go away with rest or with medicine. It may be accompanied by indigestion, nausea, weakness and sweating. Some people, especially women, have heart attacks without ever having any of these symptoms.

Did You Know?

A half-million women have heart attacks each year.

Warning Signs

These are the most common warning signals for heart attack:

• Pain or discomfort in the center of the chest that lasts more than a few minutes, or goes away and comes back
• Chest discomfort with sweating
• Pain that spreads from the chest to the arm, neck or jaw
• Shortness of breath, tiredness or upset stomach; these are particularly common in women

If you are at risk for heart disease and notice any of these symptoms, contact your health care provider immediately. Time is a crucial factor in a heart attack because drugs that break down blockage in the arteries (thrombolytic therapy) should be given within the first one to two hours.

Staywell Custom Communications

Helping Someone With a Mental Illness

Caring for someone you love who is sick or disabled is never easy. When the illness affects your loved one's state of mind, the demands placed on you can be especially difficult.

Mental illnesses, such as depression, schizophrenia and bipolar or anxiety disorders, are biological in nature. This means that they directly affect brain function, making it difficult or impossible for the person to think, reason, feel or relate to others in a predictable, normal way. As a result, relationships with family and friends can become strained, especially if efforts to help are met with indifference, anger or suspicion.

Nature, not nurture

Because the words, actions and choices made by people with mental illness can be so difficult to understand, "an instinctive response is to feel that if they just tried harder or pulled themselves up by the bootstraps, they would get better," says Joyce Burland, Ph.D., deputy executive director of education and training for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). "There is a cultural mindset that blames people with mental illness and the families who raised them. Families are not the cause of mental illness. But they can be part of the solution."

Mental disorders are a leading cause of disability and often strike people during adolescence and young adulthood. If your loved one has recently been diagnosed, it helps to know that most mental illnesses can be treated successfully. Medication, counseling and other services significantly reduce symptoms and help improve the quality of life for up to 90 percent of people with mental illness.

As a person begins treatment and recovery, the emotional support of family and friends is vital. Coming to terms with the situation may feel overwhelming, however.

"It's traumatic to learn that a loved one has mental illness, and families go through a process of shock, anger and grief," Dr. Burland says. Nevertheless, getting the diagnosis is a critical step. "Once you know what you're dealing with, you can learn how to help your loved one get treatment and begin recovery."

Educate yourself

Mental illness is a medical disorder, not a character flaw or a sign of personal weakness. Learn as much as you can about your loved one's particular disorder, then try to understand the challenges he or she faces. Learn about the recommended treatment and how to get it. Remember that you can't be a therapist for your loved one. Professional help is essential for the person to get better, and your loved one may need your help in accepting that.

Medication issues

Encourage medication use, but be prepared for resistance. Drug treatments for mental disorders have greatly improved, but side effects remain a problem for some people. Many people refuse medication because they don't think they are ill. Be respectful but persistent in urging your loved one to take prescribed medication. Many caregivers require medication to be taken as a condition for housing their loved one. Likewise, help your loved one keep therapy and medical appointments, and give feedback to doctors who may need to adjust medications.

Attitudes affected

Remember that the illness affects attitudes and beliefs. When a person says, "I am a total failure" or "I'll never feel better," remind your loved one that these feelings are a result of the illness. In cases where a person totally loses touch with reality, Dr. Burland advises, "Don't argue. Trying to talk the person out of delusions won't help." Proper treatment will restore realistic thinking. In the meantime, stay supportive and positive, but set boundaries and rules, especially if the person lives with you.

If your loved one lashes out or becomes agitated, stay calm and quiet. Try to find out what the problem is in a non-threatening way. If a situation becomes abusive or frightening, "Call someone who can help, and get yourself to safety," advises Dr. Burland. Any threats of violence or suicide should always be taken seriously.

Create a support system

Using all available resources will make it easier to deal with the unpredictability of the illness. For example, keep a list of phone numbers of therapists, doctors, family members and friends who can help out. Also include the number of a suicide crisis line, substance abuse center or mental health hospital in case of a crisis. This will help you and your loved one know that there is a safety net of people and resources available at all times. It will also keep the burden of care from resting completely on your shoulders.

Find support for yourself. It is important for you to live your own life as much as possible and take time for yourself and your interests. Your needs are important. It also helps to seek support from others in the same situation. "You need to talk to others who have come through this and who can give you hope," Dr. Burland says.

Staywell Custom Communications

Concussion Raises PTSD Risk for Iraq Vets

Researchers report that soldiers who have suffered concussions during their time in Iraq are more likely to experience post-traumatic stress disorder and other physical health problems.

"There was indeed a higher rate of PTSD and/or health problems among those who had concussions versus those with other injuries," said study author Dr. Christopher Hoge, director of psychiatry and neuroscience at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, in Washington, D.C. His study is published in the Jan. 31 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

"This is probably one of a very few studies which has begun to enumerate the incidence of mild traumatic brain injury [i.e. concussion] in returning veterans," said David Hovda, director of the Brain Injury Research Center at UCLA's Geffen School of Medicine, in Los Angeles.

According to background information in the study, more than 1.5 million U.S. military personnel have been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2001. Thanks to better protective gear, many of these men and women are surviving injuries that before would have killed them.

Head and neck injuries have been reported in one quarter of troops evacuated from these areas. The proportion of soldiers with concussion may be as high as 18 percent.

Hoge and his colleagues surveyed 2,525 U.S. Army infantry soldiers three to four months after they had returned home a yearlong deployment in Iraq. Soldiers reporting concussion (defined as an injury with loss of consciousness or altered mental status such as being dazed or confused) were compared with soldiers reporting other injuries. The soldiers were from two brigades only.

Almost 44 percent of soldiers reporting an injury involving loss of consciousness met the criteria for PTSD versus only 27.3 percent of those reporting an injury involving altered mental status, 16.2 percent of those with other injuries and 9.1 percent of those with no injury.

Soldiers who had suffered concussion, and especially those who had suffered concussion with loss of consciousness, were significantly more likely to report poor general health, missed workdays, visits to health-care providers and sleep problems.

After adjustments, PTSD and depression appeared to be the primary problem. This makes a certain amount of sense as concussion often occurs in the context of a traumatic event involving psychological stress, pointed out an accompanying commentary.

"This has implications for treatment, because obviously there's a big difference in how we treat someone if they're labeled as brain-injured versus identifying that they, in fact, have PTSD," Hoge said.

It's also critical that soldiers be properly evaluated in the combat theater at the time of injury, Hoge added.

The findings should help raise awareness for a generally underappreciated condition, Hovda said. "There's no face for that injury, so it really is a silent epidemic," he said. "And these military individuals are extremely dedicated and want to get back to service so they [may be playing down their injuries]."

A second study in the same issue of the journal confirmed that violence has been a major cause of death for Iraqis, and the main cause of death for Iraqi men aged 15 to 59 during the first three years following the 2003 invasion.

This is lower than previous estimates, said the authors, from Children's Hospital Boston, but still constitutes a huge death toll.

Taking Out the Trash

If you count yourself among the ecologically minded, chances are you focus a certain amount of brainpower and energy on minimizing the environmental impact of your consumption. For most of us, responsible trash disposal begins and ends with recycling. In the assortment of bins under our sinks, we segregate our carefully rinsed glass, plastic, and aluminum. And the satisfying thump of yesterday's newspaper in the recycling box signals room for today's paper on our breakfast table and in our environment. Or does it?

Certainly recycling factors significantly in reducing waste, but it's really only one part of an oft-overlooked three-tiered strategy: reduce, reuse, and recycle. We've become so good at recycling that we've made it the star of the sustainability movement, when it really should be just one of the players.

Since recycling deals only with the back end of consumption (disposal), it treats the symptoms of the disease rather than its root cause: the overproduction of trash. The new approach to sustainable consumption, however, focuses not just on how we dispose of a product (à la recycling), but on how we produce that product in the first place (dubbed precycling). It strives to create goods using nontoxic, recyclable, or reusable materials with the least amount of packaging and waste. In fact, precycling is fast becoming the most effective approach to long-term sustainability.

Getting to the source
Precycling resonates so powerfully as a concept and practice because it targets the production of industrial waste as well. While it's important for each of us to manage our own consumption and waste disposal effectively, residential trash is just a drop in the landfill bucket. Nonhazardous industrial waste outweighs municipal solid waste by about 11 to one and accounts for about 98 percent of the nation's waste. Clearly, the mere act of sorting one's trash efficiently is not going to make a huge dent in the collective dustbin. To effectively reduce the by-products of our consumption addiction, the industries that drive it have to become part of the solution. If our end of the bargain is to consume more wisely and dispose better, manufacturers as a group need to produce more sustainable goods. This has to be the most important paradigm shift in the recycling world: getting manufacturers more involved with the entire life cycle of their products, from production to disposal.

By encouraging companies to produce less waste, use environmentally friendly materials, and design their products to be durable, recyclable, or reusable, we can tackle the problem from the front end while continuing to work the back end through reducing, reusing, and recycling.

Two of the leaders of this new perspective, William McDonough and Michael Braungart, an architect and a chemist respectively, cowrote Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (North Point Press, 2002). McDonough and Braungart talk about "design being a signal of intention." They have abandoned industry's standard cradle-to-grave mentality, in which products are destined to be disposable and to become obsolete. Instead these two pioneers, who together design everything from factories to ice cream wrappers, incorporate into their projects the intention to "eliminate the concept of waste."

Even the "paper" Cradle to Cradle is printed on signals their intention to remake everyday objects into something ecologically viable. The book is printed on plastic polymers that can be recycled ad infinitum with no loss of quality -- and it's waterproof to boot. The nontoxic inks can be washed off in a safe chemical process and then reused. The cover is made from a heavier polymer, ensuring that the entire book can be easily dissolved and then reformed as a high-grade polymer.

In the cradle-to-cradle model, also called biomimicry, products don't get recycled so much as they get reincarnated. All the by-products of the manufacturing process become usable in the creation of still more products, whether biological or industrial. For example, McDonough and Braungart designed an upholstery fabric that is not only environmentally friendly but also nourishing -- literally. Because it has no toxic dyes, you can use it as compost or throw it directly on the soil to decompose. Plus, the wastewater from the fabric's production emerges from the factory as clean as it came in.

Braungart and McDonough envision an industrial sector based on natural principles, in which "buildings, like trees, produce more energy than they consume and purify their own waste water." This is not merely the whimsical vision of overeducated tree-huggers. Their remodel of Ford Motor Company's 1,100-acre Rouge River plant in Dearborn, Michigan, designed for implementation over the next two decades, will make this vision a reality. The 450,000 square-foot campus will feature what will be the world's largest living roof, which will provide natural habitat for migrating birds and wildlife, decrease the building's energy costs, and protect the factory from UV degradation.

Zero waste
"The recycling movement is ... emerging into the goal of zero waste," says Neil Seldman, president of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. "It's no longer about how to recycle the waste stream but how to change the waste stream." Turning waste into nourishment can begin at home, by buying responsibly produced goods and adopting a "precycling" vision. (See sidebar "Thinking Outside the Dumpster.") Another obvious step toward zero waste is to transform organic waste into compost. About 25 percent of domestic garbage is organic matter -- a wealth of untapped nutrients for our depleted soil. As it stands now, the waste normally goes into landfills, where it decomposes anaerobically and creates methane, a major contributor to global warming. Simply composting this green waste would contribute enormously to the country's average waste diversion rates (the percent of trash diverted from the landfill), which currently hovers at a lackadaisical 27 percent. Fortunately, the idea has taken root -- the number of municipal composting centers all over the country has grown from 651 in 1989 to 3,227 in 2002.

Both companies and individuals need to recognize one key thing: Sustainability is about making choices. To a certain extent, garbage is not inevitable -- it's a decision. Just sorting paper and plastics no longer suffices. Everyone needs to make a lifestyle choice that requires both creativity and a sincere commitment.

"We are our environment -- there is no separation," says Boulder, Colorado's Eco-Cycle Community Outreach Director Linda Smith. "Recycling is part of our larger understanding of our economic system, our connection to our natural resources, and our environment. It may not be the biggest, most important action, given all the other daunting environmental problems we face, but it's always going to be necessary."

In truth, we can no longer afford to remain blissfully ignorant as we take out the garbage, never giving its future a second thought. EM Forster's famous dictum, "only connect," which referred to correlating our ideals with our lives, our "prose with our passion," was his recipe for integrity. It applies as much to our environment as it does to our relationships, because we will only save what we love.

Thinking Outside the Dumpster

Become brand savvy. Choose a company committed to the environment. According to Linda Smith of Eco-Cycle in Boulder, Colorado, there are two questions to ask. "The first is does the company handle its own operations in an environmental way, such as their energy supply and their recycling," she says. "The other side of the coin is whether the product or service comes in responsible packaging or even if the company offers to take back the product after its life is over, as some computer manufacturers are starting to do."
Don't just recycle -- precycle. Precycling is thinking about the life cycle of the product -- and its packaging -- before you buy. It might mean not buying certain things because of their excessive packaging, like single-serve portions and individual bottles of water. For some people, precycling could translate to buying in bulk whenever possible. For others, it could mean essentially buying less, buying used, or going without, if the packaging is particularly obnoxious.
When you do come to the end of a product's utility for you, don't just dispose of it. An organization called Freecycle provides an online forum to match people getting rid of stuff with people who want it. Founded in 2003 by Deron Beal, the group has more than a million members scattered around the country (check out www.freecycle.org for more information).
Start where you are. Thinking too cosmically about the endless stream of garbage each one of us creates can cause feelings of guilt, inadequacy, and even paralysis -- the oh-what's-the-use effect. Instead of being overwhelmed by all that you're not doing, take the just-one-thing approach. Go slowly and do what you can -- don't drive yourself crazy trying to do everything at once.
Green living does not require scarcity. "We can live in a world that meets our needs, and it doesn't mean we have to sit in a cold, dark room without pleasure," says Smith. "People need to see their connection to the system and figure it out for themselves. If you see the connection, your life changes."

Alternative Medicine Magazine

Lady in Red

At RevolutionHealth.com, we're fortunate to work with a wonderful team of non-profit organizations

around the country. It's exciting and inspiring to spend time with the people who are working to advance research and understanding for conditions that affect all Americans. They're making a difference in medicine every day.

This week, we're excited to meet some people who are making a difference with... fashion. On Friday February 1, I'll be attending the The Red Dress Collection 2008

fashion show as part of New York's Fashion Week. More than 20 of today's hottest celebrities, including Heidi Klum, will walk the runway in red dresses created by America's most renowned designers.

The Heart Truth, which created this event, is a national awareness campaign designed to warn women of their #1 health threat: heart disease. The campaign is sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.I'm looking forward to putting on my red dress and seeing the show – and taking lots of pictures to share with you.

Revolution Health

U.S. group seeks Botox warning after 16 death reports

Botox and a similar injection should come with strong warnings following reports of 16 deaths and other serious problems after the botulinum toxin spread inside the body, a U.S. consumer group said on Thursday.

Public Citizen asked U.S. authorities to require the strongest possible warning, highlighted in a "black box," on Allergan Inc's Botox and Solstice Neuroscience Inc's Myobloc.

Botox is famous for smoothing facial wrinkles but also has approved medical uses such as treating cervical dystonia, or rigid neck muscles. Myobloc is cleared only for the neck condition.

Both injections are made with forms of the botulinum toxin, which can paralyze muscles.

Public Citizen said it reviewed 180 reports submitted to the Food and Drug Administration by manufacturers involving patients injected with Botox or Myobloc. The reports detailed cases of muscle weakness, difficulty swallowing or aspiration pneumonia, a serious condition caused by breathing a foreign material into the lungs.

Reports to the FDA do not prove a product caused a particular problem, but the agency uses them to look for patterns of potential complications.

Officials at Allergan, Solstice and the FDA could not immediately be reached for comment.

Sixteen of the cases reported were fatal, including four involving children under 18, Public Citizen said. Some patients were hospitalized.

Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, said such problems can occur if botulinum toxin spreads from the injection site to the esophagus, causing partial paralysis. Instructions for Botox and Myobloc mention the issue but it is easy to miss, he said.

Public Citizen asked the FDA to order a black-box warning to highlight the concern, plus a letter to doctors. The agency also should require a consumer-friendly guide explaining the risks that would be handed out by doctors when the drug is injected, the group said.

"These significantly improved warnings to doctors and patients would increase the likelihood of earlier medical intervention when symptoms of adverse reactions to botulinum toxin first appear, and could prevent more serious complications, including death," Public Citizen said in a petition to the FDA.

The group said European regulators have warned physicians to watch for signs of botulinum toxin complications, most recently in March 2007.

Content provided by Reuters

Meat, diet soda linked to heart disease - US study

People who eat two or more servings of red meat a day are much more likely to develop conditions leading to heart disease and diabetes, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

Eating two or more servings of meat a day increases the risk of suffering from a cluster of risk factors known as metabolic syndrome by 25 percent compared to those who had only two servings of meat a week, the researchers reported in the journal Circulation.

The symptoms of metabolic syndrome include excessive fat around the waist, high cholesterol, high blood sugar and high blood pressure.

The study also found that diet soda consumption was linked to these elevated risk factors for heart disease and diabetes, echoing the findings of a study published in July.

"When we found that diet soda promoted risk we were surprised," said Dr. Lyn Steffen, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota.

"But then we thought about other behavior patterns," she added in a telephone interview.

"It may be associated with compensating for eating higher calorie food. People may say, 'I can eat this cookie because I am drinking this diet soda.'"

Lots of meat, fried foods and diet soda add up to heart disease, the researchers said, and the conclusions add to a swelling body of evidence linking fast food with unhealthy lifestyles.

Steffen's team examined the diets of 9,514 people in a study funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. In a departure from related studies, this one went into a detailed look at precisely what people were eating.

Most were aged 45 to 64.

Based on a 66-item food frequency questionnaire, the volunteers were categorized into two groups: those with a "western-pattern" diet, heavy on processed meat, fried foods, red meat; and a "prudent-pattern" diet with more fruit and vegetables, with small amounts of fish and poultry.

After nine years, nearly 40 percent of those involved developed three or more of the factors linked to metabolic syndrome, they wrote. This was clear even when smoking and exercise were factored in.

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Work-related stress can kill, study finds

Work really can kill you, according to a study on Wednesday providing the strongest evidence yet of how on-the-job stress raises the risk of heart disease by disrupting the body's internal systems.

The findings from a long-running study involving more than 10,000 British civil servants also suggest stress-induced biological changes may play a more direct role than previously thought, said Tarani Chandola, an epidemiologist at University College London.

"This is the first large-scale population study looking at the effects of stress measured from everyday working life on heart disease," said Chandola, who led the study. "One of the problems is people have been skeptical whether work stress really affects a person biologically."

Heart disease is the world's leading cause of death. It is caused by fatty deposits that harden and block arteries, high blood pressure which damages blood vessels, and other factors.

The researchers measured stress among the civil servants by asking questions about their job demands such as how much control they had at work, how often they took breaks, and how pressed for time they were during the day.

The team conducted seven surveys over a 12-year period and found chronically stressed workers -- people determined to be under severe pressure in the first two of the surveys -- had a 68 percent higher risk of developing heart disease.

The link was strongest among people under 50, Chandola said.

"This study adds to the evidence that the work stress-coronary heart disease association is causal in nature," the researchers wrote in the European Heart Journal.

Behavior and biological changes likely explain why stress at work causes heart disease, Chandola said. For one, stressed workers eat unhealthy food, smoke, drink and skip exercise -- all behaviors linked to heart disease.

In the study, stressed workers also had lowered heart rate variability -- a sign of a poorly-functioning weak heart -- and higher-than-normal levels of cortisol, a "stress" hormone that provides a burst of energy for a fight-or-flight response.

Too much cortisol circulating in the blood stream can damage blood vessels and the heart, Chandola said.

"If you are constantly stressed out these biological stress systems become abnormal," Chandola said.

Content provided by Reuters

        

Nine Steps to More Effective Parenting

Raising children is one of the toughest and most fulfilling jobs in the world - and the one for which you may feel the least prepared. Here are nine ways to tackle child-rearing responsibilities that can help you feel more fulfilled as a parent - and enjoy your child more, too.

Nurture your child's self-esteem.
Children start developing their sense of self as babies when they see themselves through their parents' eyes. Your tone of voice, your body language, and your every expression are absorbed by your child. Your words and actions as a parent affect your child's developing self-esteem more than anything else. Praising your child's accomplishments, however small, will make him or her feel proud; letting your child do things independently will make him or her feel capable and strong. By contrast, belittling comments or comparing your child unfavorably with another will make him or her feel worthless.

Avoid making loaded statements or using words as weapons. Comments like "What a stupid thing to do!" or "You act more like a baby than your little brother!" cause damage just as physical blows do. Choose your words carefully and be compassionate. Let your child know that everyone makes mistakes and that you still love him or her, even when you don't love his or her behavior.

Catch your child being good.
Have you ever stopped to think about how many times you react negatively to your child in a given day? You may find that you are criticizing far more than you are complimenting. How would you feel about a boss who treated you with that much negative guidance, even if it was well-intentioned?

The more effective approach is to catch your child doing something right: "You made your bed without being asked - that's terrific!" or "I was watching you play with your sister and you were very patient." These statements will do more to encourage good behavior over the long run than repeated scoldings. Make a point of finding something to praise every day. Be generous with rewards - your love, hugs, and compliments can work wonders and are often reward enough. Soon you will find you are "growing" more of the behavior you would like to see.

Set limits and be consistent with your discipline.
Discipline is necessary in every household. The goal of discipline is to help children choose acceptable behaviors and learn self-control. Children may test the limits you establish for them, but they need those limits to grow into responsible adults. Establishing house rules will help children understand your expectations and develop self-control. Some house rules might include: no TV until homework is done, and no hitting, name-calling, or hurtful teasing is allowed.

You may want to have a system in place: one warning, followed by consequences such as a "time out" or loss of privileges. A common mistake parents make is failure to follow through with consequences when rules are broken. You can't discipline a child for talking back one day and ignore it the next. Being consistent teaches your child what you expect.

Make time for your children.
With so many demands on your time, it's often difficult for parents and children to get together for a family meal, let alone spend some quality time together. But there is probably nothing your child would like more. Get up 10 minutes earlier in the morning so you can eat breakfast with your child, or leave the dishes in the sink and take a walk after dinner. Children who are not getting the attention they want from their parents often act out or misbehave because they are assured of being noticed that way.

Many parents find it mutually rewarding to have prescheduled time with their child on a regular basis. Create a "special night" each week to be together and let him or her help decide how you will spend your time. Look for other ways to connect with your child - put a note or something special in his or her lunchbox.

Adolescents seem to need less undivided attention from their parents than younger children. Because there are fewer windows of opportunity for parents and teens to get together, parents should do their best to be available when their teen does express a desire to talk or participate in family activities. Attending concerts, games, and other events with your teen communicates caring and lets you get to know about your child and his or her friends in important ways.

Don't feel guilty if you're a working parent. It is the many little things you do with your child - making popcorn, playing cards, window shopping - that he or she will remember.

Be a good role model.
Young children learn a great deal about how to act by watching you. The younger they are, the more cues they take from you. Before you lash out or blow your top in front of your child, think about this: is that how you want your child to behave when he or she is angry? Be constantly aware that you are being observed by your children. Studies have shown that children who hit usually have a role model for aggression at home.

Model the traits you wish to cultivate in your child: respect, friendliness, honesty, kindness, tolerance. Exhibit unselfish behavior. Do things for other people without expecting a reward. Express thanks and offer compliments. Above all, treat your children the way you expect other people to treat you.

Make communication a priority.
You can't expect children to do everything simply because you, as a parent, "say so." Children want and deserve explanations as much as adults do. If we don't take time to explain, children will begin to wonder about our values and motives and whether they have any basis. Parents who reason with their children allow them to understand and learn in a nonjudgmental way.

Make your expectations clear. If there is a problem, describe it to your child, express your feelings about it, and invite your child to work on a solution with you. Be sure to include consequences. Make suggestions and offer choices. Be open to your child's suggestions as well. Negotiate. Children who participate in decisions are more motivated to carry them out.

Be flexible and willing to adjust your parenting style.
If you frequently feel "let down" by your child's behavior, it may be because you have unrealistic expectations. Parents who think in "shoulds" (for example, "He or she should be potty-trained by now") may find it helpful to do more reading on the matter or to talk to other parents or child development specialists.

Your child's environment has an impact on his or her behavior, so you may be able to modify that behavior by changing the environment. If you find yourself constantly saying "no" to your 2-year-old, look for ways to restructure his or her surroundings so that fewer things are off-limits. This will cause less frustration for both of you.

As your child changes, you will gradually have to change your parenting style. Chances are, what works with your child now won't work as well in a year or two.

Teenagers tend to look less to their parents and more to their peers for role models. But continue to provide guidance, encouragement, and appropriate discipline while allowing your teen to earn more independence. And seize every available moment to make a connection!

Show that your love is unconditional.
As a parent, you are responsible for correcting and guiding your child. But how you express your corrective guidance makes all the difference in how your child receives it. When you have to confront your child, avoid blaming, criticizing, or fault-finding, which undermine self-esteem and can lead to resentment. Instead, strive to nurture and encourage, even when you are disciplining your child. Make sure he or she knows that although you want and expect better next time, your love is there no matter what.

Be aware of your own needs and limitations as a parent.
Face it - you are an imperfect parent. You have strengths and weaknesses as a family leader. Recognize your abilities - "I am loving and dedicated." Vow to work on your weaknesses - "I need to be more consistent with discipline." Try to have realistic expectations for yourself, your spouse, and your children. You don't have to have all the answers - be forgiving of yourself. And try to make parenting a manageable job. Focus on the areas that need the most attention rather than trying to address everything all at once. Admit it when you're burned out. Take time out from parenting to do things that will make you happy as a person (or as a couple). Focusing on your needs does not make you selfish. It simply means you care about your own well-being, which is another important value to model for your children.

Content provided by KidsHealth

Stomach Flu Spread By Contaminated Computer Keyboards

The highly contagious norovirus, often called the stomach flu, can be passed from one person to another through contact with commonly shared items such as computer keyboards and computer mice, U.S. health officials report.

The virus, which is common in winter and is the most frequent cause of outbreaks of vomiting and diarrhea in the United States, is often contracted in schools, at work and on cruise ships.

On Thursday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on a norovirus outbreak at a Washington, D.C., elementary school last February in which some of the victims picked up the virus from contaminated computer equipment.

"There is evidence that shared objects and surfaces help transmit disease," said Dr. Shua Chai, a CDC epidemiologist and co-author of the report, published in the Jan. 4 issue of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

"This is the first time that we have demonstrated that keyboards and computer mice can be a source of transmission of norovirus," he added.

Of the 314 students and 66 staffers at the D.C. school, 103 came down with the illness -- 79 students and 24 staff members. To find the sources of contamination, samples were taken from various surfaces around the school. In one first-grade classroom, a computer mouse and keyboard tested positive for norovirus, according to the report.

The virus can live on surfaces for several days, Chai said. To prevent infection with the virus, people should wash their hands after using shared objects, and computer keyboards and mice should be disinfected regularly with diluted bleach, he said.

"In addition, people who are ill should stay home for one to three days after they have had their last symptom, because they continue to shed the virus and can still contaminate objects," Chai added.

One infectious disease expert said norovirus is a common infection, second only to the common cold.

"These outbreaks are extremely common, and they occur in a variety of settings," said Dr. Pascal James Imperato, distinguished service professor, chairman of the department of preventive medicine and community health, and director of the master of public health program at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, in New York City.

Most outbreaks are food-borne, Imperato said. "A smaller percentage are due to person-to-person contact, and an even smaller proportion are water-borne," he said. "Outbreaks in schools account for about 12 percent of all the outbreaks."

Contamination of surfaces such as computer keyboards is fairly common, Imperato added.

Norovirus causes severe vomiting and diarrhea that can last for several days. The virus is usually not serious, and most people get better without treatment. However, it can be life-threatening to infants, older people and those with weakened immune systems.

In New York City, an outbreak of norovirus has been ongoing since November. Some 500 infected people have been showing up each day at emergency rooms around the city, health department officials said.

"The best way to stop the spread of norovirus is to wash your hands regularly with soap and stay home from work or school if you are sick," Dr. Sharon Balter, director of enteric disease for the New York City Health Department's Bureau of Communicable Disease, said in a prepared statement. "Norovirus is common at this time of year and is not serious for most people, but it is important to take these steps to keep others from getting sick."

Imperato agreed. "Hand-washing remains the foundation of preventing the spread of norovirus," he said.

Content provided by Health Day

Cell Phones Put Traffic on Hold

Researchers have verified what many American drivers already knew: Drivers who talk on a cell phone clog traffic.

These highway conversationalists drive slower on the freeway, pass slower vehicles less often and take longer to complete their trip compared to the cell phone-free, reports a new study.

A fatal accident can cost up to $5 million in medical, property and loss-of-income costs, but these types of events occur much less often than everyday traffic delays, the researchers noted.

Traffic delays linked to cell phone use are estimated to cost about $13 per hour -- based on a measure of the value of a typical American traveler's time. Multiply $13 by the millions of drivers every day who talk, argue, yell and conduct meetings on the phone, and the figures add up, the researchers said.

Highway officials know that all too well.

"Safety on the roads is our number one priority," said Doug Hecox, a spokesman for the Federal Highway Administration, part of the Department of Transportation. "We cannot equivocally say that using a cell phone while driving is a distraction but we are doing everything we can to reduce distractions, which can include loud radios and kids in the back seat. When the driver is in charge of a vehicle, it is a serious operation."

The study was led by Joel Cooper, a doctoral student in psychology at the University of Utah, who will be presenting the findings Jan. 16 at the Transportation Research Board's annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

According to background information in the study, more than 240 million people now use wireless services in the United States, and an estimated 73 percent of them admit to using their phones while driving. One survey found that about 10 percent of drivers were using wireless phones at any daylight moment in 2005.

Previous studies have found that drivers talking on cell phones are up to four times as likely to be involved in an accident, the same risk as driving while drunk.

Fifty countries now have laws prohibiting the use of cell phones while driving, unless those phones are hands-free. Even then, the research isn't clear that hands-free devices help reduce driver distraction.

Earlier studies have found that cell phone users follow other cars at greater distances, are slower to hit the brakes and slower to regain speed after braking.

For this study, 36 University of Utah psychology undergraduate students used a PatrolSim driving simulator, built to mimic a Ford Crown Victoria sedan with automatic transmission. Different traffic scenarios appeared on three screens around the driver.

Each participant drove through six, 9.2-mile-long stretches of highway: two each in low-, medium- and high-density traffic with freeway speeds of 70 mph to 40 mph. One ride at each density level was done while talking on a cell phone and one while not using a cell phone.

"We found that when drivers were conversing on the cell phone, they drove those sections about two miles per hour slower when traffic density was medium or high," Cooper reported. "In all three scenarios, when people were talking on the cell phone, they made about 20 percent fewer lane changes."

Cell phone talkers took 15 seconds to 19 seconds longer to complete the distance assigned, and they also took 17 percent more time to recover half of their speed after braking. Motorists on cell phones also tended to trail other cars rather than overtake and pass them, potentially adding to traffic slowdowns.

All of this came from a simulation involving only one person talking on the phone.

"The next step is to take these, plug them into the microsimulator and try to make some more concrete generalizations about broad traffic flow," Cooper said.

Content provided by Health Day

Influenza (flu) Prevention

These steps can help you stay healthy, even at the height of flu season:

• Get an annual flu vaccination. The best time to be vaccinated is October or November. This allows your body time to develop antibodies to the flu virus before peak flu season, which in the Northern Hemisphere is usually December through March. Keep in mind that the flu vaccine doesn't offer complete protection, especially for older adults, but it can reduce the risk of illness. In any given year, the flu shot (Fluzone) may be 70 percent to 90 percent effective in young, otherwise healthy people but far less effective in older adults. Health experts still recommend vaccinations for people over 65 because the flu shot may reduce the risk of flu-related complications, hospitalizations and deaths.

  Healthy people ages 5 to 49 alternatively may receive the flu vaccine through a nasal spray called FluMist. It protects against the same strains of influenza that the flu shot does. Like the flu shot, FluMist is given every year. Because FluMist contains live but weakened flu viruses, it shouldn't be used by pregnant women, people with weakened immune systems and those with chronic illnesses. A study published in 2006 found that FluMist was only between 30 percent and 57 percent effective in preventing the flu in adults. However, another study in 2006 found that giving nasal spray vaccine to school-age children helped to reduce the spread of flu in the community. And in 2007, researchers compared the effectiveness of FluMist against the flu shot in children ages 6 months to 5 years. The children treated with FluMist experienced about half as many cases of flu as did those treated with the shot. However, Flu Mist increases the risk of wheezing in this age group - especially in children who are 6 to 11 months old - and is not yet FDA approved for children younger than 5 years. Consult with your doctor about which form of vaccination may be best for you or your child.

  You can get the flu vaccine from your doctor, at public health centers and many pharmacies. In some areas, flu vaccines are also available at senior or community centers and at supermarkets.

• Wash your hands. Thorough and frequent handwashing is the best way to prevent many common infections. Scrub your hands vigorously for at least 15 seconds, rinse well and turn off the faucet with a paper towel. Or use an alcohol-based hand gel containing at least 60 percent alcohol. Hand gels are easy to use and may be even more effective at killing germs than soap and water are.
• Eat right, sleep tight. A poor diet and poor sleep both lower your immunity and make you more vulnerable to infections. A balanced diet that emphasizes fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and small amounts of lean protein works best for most people. On the other hand, the amount of sleep needed for a healthy immune system varies from person to person. In general, adults seem to do best on seven to eight hours of sleep a night. Older children and teens need more rest - between nine and 10 hours every night.
• Exercise regularly. Regular cardiovascular exercise - walking, biking, aerobics - boosts your immune system. Exercise won't prevent every infection, but if you do come down with the flu, you may have less-severe symptoms and recover more quickly than do people who aren't as fit.
• Limit air travel. Researchers say that the pronounced drop in air travel that occurred in the fall of 2001 slowed the spread of the flu and delayed the start of flu season by several weeks. Ordinarily, new flu strains spread rapidly in November, during the height of the holiday travel season, so you may be able to reduce your risk by limiting your time in the air in the late fall.
• Avoid crowds during flu season. Flu spreads easily wherever people congregate - in child care centers, schools, large office buildings, auditoriums, even cruise ships. By avoiding crowds whenever possible during peak flu season, you reduce your chances of infection.

Content provided by MayoClinic.com

Miracles In Every Day

It is the everyday aspects of our lives that bring us the most joy, even if at first it may seem natural to expect our feelings of happiness to come from the larger events in our lives. By noticing how small things can fill our days with delight, we are more likely to experience the wonder of living. Once we take the time to look around and witness the beauty, kindness, and laughter that envelop us, what may seem like the ordinariness of the everyday becomes filled with the extraordinary detail of each individual moment. If we bring this sense of awareness to our lives for even a few minutes each day, we will begin to see how just blessed we truly are.

Beholding the joy that surrounds us may initially seem easy, but for some it can take a conscious effort to make it a part of a daily routine. When you awake in the morning and set the intention to notice more joy in the world, watch how your day and, eventually, your life is filled with more joy. The more we do this the more apt we will be to notice the sounds of children laughing or the sparkle of dewdrops on a flower petal. Allow this joy to fill your heart fully, and from there it will naturally expand to your entire body and then spread to others, giving them joy as well.

Taking in the small joys of each day expands our feeling of being connected with the world, especially once we become more attuned to them. With each passing day, we will find that these small delights, which bring a deeper level of appreciation for everything the universe has given to our lives, are miracles.

DailyOM

Common cold Prevention

Because so many different viruses can cause a common cold, no effective vaccine has been developed. But you can take some common-sense precautions to slow the spread of cold viruses:

• Wash your hands. Clean your hands thoroughly and often, and teach your children the importance of hand washing. Carry a bottle of alcohol-based hand rub containing at least 60 percent alcohol for times when soap and water aren't available. These gels kill most germs, and are safe for older children to use themselves.
• Scrub your stuff. Keep kitchen and bathroom countertops clean, especially when someone in your family has a common cold. Wash children's toys after play.
• Use tissues. Always sneeze and cough into tissues. Discard used tissues right away, and then wash your hands carefully. Teach children to sneeze or cough into the bend of their elbow when they don't have a tissue. That way they cover their mouth without using their hands.
• Be a little selfish. Don't share drinking glasses or utensils with other family members. Use your own glass or disposable cups when you or someone else is sick.
• Steer clear of colds. Avoid close, prolonged contact with anyone who has a cold.
• Choose your childcare center wisely. Look for a childcare setting with sound hygiene practices and clear policies about keeping sick children at home.
• Consider the alternatives. Whether therapies such as vitamin C, zinc and echinacea relieve cold symptoms remains controversial. But the latest research seems to show that moderate doses of vitamin C can shorten the duration of a cold and that zinc nasal sprays or lozenges taken at the beginning of a cold may help reduce symptoms.

Content provided by MayoClinic.com

For Your Heart's Sake, Lower Your Cholesterol

There's a lot of news about cholesterol these days, and with good reason. High cholesterol contributes to heart disease, which kills more Americans than all cancers combined.

What is cholesterol?

Cholesterol is a waxy, fatlike substance that your body, mainly the liver, produces in sufficient quantities to make some hormones, vitamin D and bile acids, which help to digest fat. Cholesterol also is used to build healthy cell membranes (walls) in the brain, nerves, muscles, skin, liver, intestines and heart. It only takes a small amount of cholesterol to meet all these needs. Your body makes all the cholesterol it needs; you don't have to get cholesterol in your diet.

Why is a high cholesterol level unhealthy?

Cholesterol causes a problem only when there is too much of it in the blood. When there is excess cholesterol, it is deposited in the lining of the arteries, including the arteries that feed your heart muscle. This narrows the area inside the artery where blood flows. High blood cholesterol itself does not cause symptoms, so many people are unaware that their cholesterol level is too high.

You should have your cholesterol checked at least every five years starting at age 20. The most accurate test is a lipoprotein profile, a blood test given after fasting for nine to 12 hours. It will tell you your:

• Total cholesterol
• LDL ("bad") cholesterol; this cholesterol is what's deposited in your arteries
• HDL ("good") cholesterol; this cholesterol helps keeps deposits from building up in your arteries
• Triglycerides; these are another form of fat in your blood

Even without a lipoprotein profile, you can get a rough idea of your cholesterol health if you know your total cholesterol and HDL cholesterol. These levels can be determined through a non-fasting cholesterol test often given at shopping malls or health fairs. If your total cholesterol is 200 mg/dL or more, or if your HDL cholesterol is less than 40 mg/dL, you should ask your doctor about getting a complete lipoprotein profile.

Total cholesterol

A total cholesterol level of 200 mg/dL to 239 mg/dL is considered borderline high; 240 mg/dL and above is high.

HDL (high-density lipoprotein) cholesterol

An HDL level of less than 40 mg/dL is low; 40 to 59 mg/dL is satisfactory but not optimal; 60 mg/dL and above is considered optimal. The higher your HDL cholesterol, the better, because it helps protect against heart disease.

LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol

A high LDL is anything above 130 mg/dL. (An LDL level of 130 to 150 mg/dL is considered borderline high; 160 mg/dL and above is high to very high.) Having a high level of LDL cholesterol can cause fatty plaque to form along the insides of your artery walls. This makes the arteries narrower and stiffer. Narrower arteries mean less room for blood to flow through -- like a partially clogged pipe. This process, called atherosclerosis, develops over a long time. It is especially dangerous if it narrows the vessels to the heart and brain, creating a major risk for heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular disease.

What causes high cholesterol?

Heredity is the main factor determining your cholesterol. Then, depending on your genetic makeup, your diet is next in line as a risk factor for high cholesterol. Foods containing cholesterol, saturated fats and trans-fats all contribute to your total cholesterol pool. People with the right genes to handle cholesterol usually have no problem handling a regular fatty diet. For a large portion of the population, however, a bad diet drives the cholesterol up.

Many foods that come from animals are high in both saturated fat and cholesterol. Some non-animal foods also are high in saturated fat; these include foods made with coconut and palm oils and hydrogenated vegetable oils like shortening and margarine (trans-fats).

Other factors that influence your cholesterol levels include:

• Heredity. Your genes determine how fast LDL is made in your body and removed from your blood. Inherited high cholesterol leads to very high cholesterol levels and can lead to early heart disease.
• Weight. Being overweight usually raises your LDL cholesterol. Losing weight may lower your LDL level, as well as your triglycerides, and boost your HDL cholesterol.
• Exercise. Getting regular exercise may lower your LDL cholesterol and raise your HDL cholesterol.
• Age and gender. Until menopause, women usually have lower total cholesterol levels than those of men. After age 50, women often have higher total cholesterol levels than men of the same age. For both men and women, total cholesterol levels rise until about age 65.
• Alcohol. Although alcohol boosts HDL cholesterol, it has no effect on LDL cholesterol, and excessive alcohol consumption raises triglycerides. Too much alcohol also damages the liver, brain and heart.
• Stress. Long-term stress can raise cholesterol levels, although this may be because some people try to ease their stress by eating fatty foods. It is the fatty foods that boost cholesterol levels.

The main goal of cholesterol-lowering treatment is to lower your LDL level enough to reduce your risk for developing heart disease or having a heart attack. The higher your risk, the lower your LDL goal will be.

What should you eat?

To eat a heart-healthy diet, you need to cut down on foods high in saturated fats, like fried foods, red meat, processed meats (cold cuts and hot dogs), some kinds of cheese and most commercially prepared baked goods (muffins, cookies, doughnuts). Commercial food manufacturers are responding to health concerns by reducing saturated fats and trans-fats in their products. Make sure you check the nutrition labels on the foods you by to ensure you are getting the least possible amount of saturated and trans-fats.

A low-saturated-fat, low-cholesterol eating plan has less than 7 percent of calories from saturated fat and less than 200 mg of dietary cholesterol per day. This plan calls for only enough calories to maintain a desirable weight and avoid weight gain. If reducing your saturated fat and cholesterol intakes doesn't lower your LDL enough, you should increase the amount of soluble fiber in your diet.

Fish is a good choice for a healthy diet. Many types contain high levels of omega-3 fatty acids, which may help lower blood cholesterol and blood pressure and reduce your risk for dangerous blood clotting. Cold-water and fatty fish, such as salmon and herring, contain the most omega-3s.

You should also eat more vegetables, fruit and whole grains (like oatmeal and barley). They contain fiber, which fills you up, and also limit your fat intake while still giving you the nutrients you need.

If you eat red meat, here are some ways to decrease fat without giving up flavor:

• Decrease the amount of meat in a recipe.
• Serve smaller portions of meat and add more vegetables, grains and fruit to a meal.
• Select a lean cut when you buy meat. The terms "round" and "loin" indicate lower fat.
• Trim all visible fat from meat before cooking.

Other tips for reducing cholesterol

• Drink black or green tea, which has powerful antioxidants that may help prevent cholesterol from damaging your arteries.
• Exercise. Regular physical activity -- 30 to 60 minutes on most, if not all days -- is recommended for everyone. It can help raise HDL and lower LDL cholesterol.
• Maintain a healthy weight. Losing weight if you are overweight can lower your LDL cholesterol. Exercising 60 to 90 minutes per day will help maintain weight loss.
• Control your blood pressure.
• Don't smoke.
• Consider medications. If your cholesterol level remains high six months after you change your lifestyle, ask your doctor about available medications that can lower your cholesterol by 25 to 60 percent. Medication is mandatory for cholesterol of 300 mg/dL or higher and is usually recommended for people with cholesterol of 240 mg/dL or higher who do not meet total cholesterol and LDL goals by diet and exercise alone.

Content provided by Staywell Custom Communications

Me First

How to Respect and Honor Your Personal Needs

In life, it is encouraged to think of others first. It is seen as a virtue to selflessly address the needs of parents, children, friends, and loved ones before, or sometimes at the cost of, our personal needs. But this virtue, like any, is best and most meaningful in moderation. Overly caring for others can easily be an unconscious cry for love or a crutch. Devoting all of your time to others can stand in the way of you caring for yourself. Taking care of yourself can feel selfish while taking care of others can seem easier than dealing with your own issues. But addressing your own needs first in some cases is beneficial and vital, not only to your own health and well-being, but to your ability to care for others when needed.

You may often find yourself faced with too many responsibilities, and those most readily given up are often those most important to you. Ask yourself why. Do you feel the need to prove yourself by being selfless or hope your sacrifice will be acknowledged? Do you feel selfish for wanting things for yourself? Or is it simply more stressful to contemplate your own needs, because they are the ones requiring the most personal effort on your part? Selfless dedication can be frustrating when we don't find the appreciation or love we desire, which ironically leads to putting more effort into others. But when you care for yourself, you affirm your own worth and boundaries. Don't be afraid to put yourself first now and then. Listen to your inner voice and be fair to yourself as well as to others. Have the courage to face your needs and issues head-on without putting them off by helping someone else with theirs.

Avoiding caring for oneself is often indicative of great internal struggle. It can be helpful to recognize that you are as deserving of care as any other human and that you, too, function best when your needs are met. Try, when possible, to do something special for yourself, take a break, ask for help, and give your own needs the attention they deserve.

Reprinted from DailyOM, inspirational thoughts for a happy, healthy, and fulfilling day.

Know Your Boundaries at Work

Sally in Sales refuses to back down from a challenge. She refuses to take no for an answer. Did you hear she refuses to breast-feed? Amber in Accounting leaves no stone unturned. She leaves the office late when necessary. Did you hear she's leaving her husband?

Understanding co-workers' skills can be powerful — knowing their scuttlebutt can be problematic.

"Your ability to carry a conversation is crucial in building relationships with fellow employees, but boundaries must exist," says Susan Morem, a Minneapolis-based business consultant and author of How to Gain the Professional Edge, 2nd edition (Ferguson Publishing Co., 2005).

"The border separating professional and personal relationships isn't easy to patrol, especially at smaller, informal offices," she says. "But conversational boundaries help to determine the reputation of an employee and staff. Simply put, boundaries preserve integrity."

Whether you're a principal, manager or rank-and-file employee, taking the following advice will help to ensure that conversations with co-workers never distract from a productive, positive workplace.

Beware of feeling informal

Some organizations clarify "appropriate" office communication, but most codes of conduct mention only potential legal headaches such as sexual harassment and invasion of privacy.

"There's generally no clear rule about where to draw the line, so a good rule of thumb is to avoid issues that might make someone uncomfortable," Morem says. Such topics of conversation may include romance, physical appearance, health, race, religion and personal finance.

"Refrain from gossip," Morem advises. "Remember: Those who talk to you about others will also talk about you to others."

Morem says most gossip and other inappropriate conversations occur in places that feel informal, such as elevators, hallways and bathrooms. But co-workers should never get the false sense of security that they're off duty in these locations.

"It's better to pretend your personal microphone is always on. Don't say something if you don't want it heard or repeated," he says. "Making an unsuitable remark damages how others perceive you, and the negative effects on reputation and future advancement can be long-term."

But making such remarks isn't always the problem; co-workers can aim to prevent hearing them. While it's natural for employees to show interest in one another's lives, someone has to be courageous enough to cut off a co-worker when warranted, says Lydia Ramsey, a consultant on office etiquette in Savannah, Ga., and author of Manners That Sell (Longfellow Press, 2000).

One strategy is to turn off-topic conversations back to work-related issues as quickly as possible. An unwillingness to reveal too much personal information — or to listen to another person reveal it — shouldn't be seen as unfriendly, Ramsey says. By smiling and simply saying, "Let's not go there," you can stick to suitable discussions without seeming like a stick-in-the-mud.

Just as informal places can get co-workers into trouble, so can seemingly informal methods of communication. "Employees should treat email as broadcasted words that can be read and printed," Morem says. "It's easier to pass around rumors, gossip and tasteless jokes to multiple people via email than by word of mouth. If you think before you speak, don't forget to think before you hit the 'send' button."

Forge office friendships with care

When you're at the office for around 2,000 hours a year, you're bound to develop friendships with co-workers. Some may become confidants with whom you share personal details.

"Make sure you know and completely trust this kind of co-worker friend," Morem suggests. "It's a risk any time someone has knowledge about details you don't want to make public."

When co-worker friendships fizzle, the parties often have to see each other daily. Also, keep in mind that office walls are (sometimes literally) thin, so it's best to share personal information during non-working hours.

A close friendship in the office can cause reluctance to express problems. Employees whose friendships interfere with objectivity need to create some distance, Morem says.

Expect boundary differences

The workplace not only combines people of different backgrounds, ages, talents and skills but also folks of different boundary types, says Maggie Down, a relationship counselor and psychotherapist in Perth, Australia.

People with "overdeveloped" boundaries often are brash and don't notice they're sharing too much information, while people with "underdeveloped" boundaries often believe it's not OK to protest such communication.

"Getting along at work is often a matter of being flexible and willing to compromise," she says. "It's also important to be tolerant of individual differences."

Because those differences are widespread and co-workers' boundaries are subjective, office humor is risky, Morem warns. "Most people want to laugh, but you never know who you're going to offend," she says. "The more people you involve, the more likely someone will feel embarrassed or picked on. Jokes can backfire, so tread lightly with them."

Employ tact

If you have a problem with a co-worker, address what you can do to solve it. Talk to the offending person directly and privately.

"Talking behind someone's back makes the situation worse," Morem says. "Choose a neutral place away from your work area, such as over lunch or in a quiet area during a break."

If a co-worker says something that offends or upsets you, try to respond instead of react. "Reaction is immediate and emotional. When we react to something, we are more likely to say or do things we might later regret," Morem says. "A response is planned and controlled, and it leads to fewer communication issues."

Content provided by Revolution Health Group

Metabolism and weight loss: How you burn calories

You likely know your metabolism is linked to your weight. But do you know how?

Common belief holds that a slim person's metabolism is high and an overweight person's metabolism is low. But this isn't usually the case. Metabolism alone doesn't determine your weight.

Rather, weight is dependent on the balance of calories consumed versus calories burned. Take in more calories than your body needs, and you gain weight. Take in less and you lose weight. Metabolism, then, is the engine that burns these calories and is the scale that regulates your energy needs.

Metabolism: Converting food into energy

Stated simply, metabolism is the process by which your body converts food into energy. During this biochemical process, calories - from carbohydrates, fats and proteins - are combined with oxygen to release the energy your body needs to function.

The number of calories your body burns each day is called your total energy expenditure. The following three factors make up your total energy expenditure:

• Basic needs. Even when your body is at rest, it requires energy for the basics, such as fuel for organs, breathing, circulating blood, adjusting hormone levels, plus growing and repairing cells. Calories expended to cover these basic functions are your basal metabolic rate. Typically, a person's basal metabolic rate is the largest portion of energy use, representing two-thirds to three-quarters of the calories used each day. Energy needs for these basic functions stay fairly consistent and aren't easily changed.
• Food processing. Digesting, absorbing, transporting and storing the food you consume also takes calories. This accounts for about 10 percent of the calories used each day. For the most part, your body's energy requirement to process food stays relatively steady and isn't easily changed.
• Physical activity. Physical activity - such as playing tennis, walking to the store, chasing after the dog and any other movement - accounts for the remainder of calories used. You control the number of calories burned depending on the frequency, duration and intensity of your activities.

Metabolism and your weight

It may seem logical to think that significant weight gain or being overweight is related to a low metabolism or possibly even a condition such as underactive thyroid gland (hypothyroidism). In reality, it's very uncommon for excess weight to be related to a low metabolism. And most people who are overweight don't have an underlying condition, such as hypothyroidism. However, a medical evaluation can determine whether a medical condition could be influencing your weight.

Weight gain is more likely due to an energy imbalance - consuming more calories than your body burns. To lose weight, then, you need to create an energy deficit by eating fewer calories, increasing the number of calories you burn through physical activity, or preferably both.

Influences on your calorie needs

If you and everyone else were physically and functionally identical, it would be easy to determine the standard energy needs. But many factors influence calorie requirements, including body size and composition, age, and sex.

• Body size and composition. To function properly, a bigger body mass requires more energy (more calories) than does a smaller body mass. Also, muscle burns more calories than fat does. So the more muscle you have in relation to fat, the higher your basal metabolic rate.
• Age. As you get older, the amount of muscle tends to decrease and fat accounts for more of your weight. Metabolism also slows naturally with age. Together these changes reduce your calorie needs.
• Sex. Men usually have less body fat and more muscle than do women of the same age and weight. This is why men generally have a higher basal metabolic rate and burn more calories than women do.

Burning more calories

Your ability to change your basal metabolism is limited. However, you can increase daily exercise and activity to build muscle tissue and burn more calories.

Regular aerobic exercise, such as walking daily for 30 minutes or more, is an excellent way to burn calories. Strength training exercises, such as weight training, also are important because they help counteract muscle loss associated with aging. And since muscle tissue burns more calories, muscle mass is a key factor in weight loss.

Even though regularly scheduled aerobic exercise is best for weight loss, any extra movement helps burn calories. Look for ways to walk and move around a few minutes more each day. Lifestyle activities, such as gardening, washing your car and even housework, burn calories and contribute to weight loss. Taking the stairs more often and parking farther away at the store also are simple ways to burn more calories.

Don't look to dietary supplements for help in burning calories. Products that claim to speed up your metabolism are likely to offer minimal benefit and may produce undesirable or even dangerous side effects. Dietary supplement manufactures aren't required by the Food and Drug Administration to prove their products are safe or effective, so view these products with caution and skepticism.

Your metabolism influences your energy needs, but it's your food intake and physical activity that ultimately determine your weight.

Content provided by MayoClinic.com

Internet Safety: Warning Signs Your Child Is Engaging in Dangerous Behavior Online

A parent's intuition — coupled with sound parent-child relationships — is often enough when it comes to spotting and correcting errant behavior before a kid causes real trouble. But if you're not sure whether your child is crossing the line while online, certain signals might tip you off.

Bob Kessinger, director of operations for CyberPatrol software, a part of SurfControl PLC (which sells Internet security programs), says some of the signs that children are overusing or abusing Web-based technology may also indicate problems that aren't related to technology. Those warnings include neglecting school assignments, avoiding normal social activities, withdrawing from the family, being secretive, having sleeping problems and displaying inappropriate sexual knowledge.

Others signs are more specific. For instance, if your kid frequently clicks out of whatever program or site he's looking at when you enter the room, he probably doesn't want you to know what he's up to. So, you'd better ask what's going on! Other indications that trouble may be afoot include:

• An empty Internet browser list — the history of recently viewed Web sites (URLs) when you click the drop-down menu to the right of your browser field — may indicate that a child doesn't want you to see where he's been visiting online.

• Your child's acquisition of mail or gifts from someone you don't know may mean that she has given out personal information in a chat room or via e-mail.

• An extra Internet e-mail account — one you didn't authorize — may mean your child's trying to escape scrutiny.

• The presence of Web-based business names on your credit card statement may mean your kid's making unauthorized purchases online.

Content provided by Revolution Health Group

Revealed: The seven great 'medical myths'

Reading in dim light won't damage your eyes, you don't need eight glasses of water a day to stay healthy and shaving your legs won't make the hair grow back faster.

These well-worn theories are among seven "medical myths" exposed in a paper published on Friday in the British Medical Journal, which traditionally carries light-hearted features in its Christmas edition.

Two U.S. researchers took seven common beliefs and searched the archives for evidence to support them.

Despite frequent mentions in the popular press of the need to drink eight glasses of water, they found no scientific basis for the claim.

The complete lack of evidence has been recorded in a study published the American Journal of Psychology, they said.

The other six "myths" are:

* Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight

The majority of eye experts believe it is unlikely to do any permanent damage, but it may make you squint, blink more and have trouble focusing, the researchers said.

* Shaving makes hair grow back faster or coarser

It has no effect on the thickness or rate of hair regrowth, studies say. But stubble lacks the finer taper of unshaven hair, giving the impression of coarseness.

* Eating turkey makes you drowsy

It does contain an amino acid called tryptophan that is involved in sleep and mood control. But turkey has no more of the acid than chicken or minced beef. Eating lots of food and drink at Christmas are probably the real cause of sleepiness.

* We use only 10 percent of our brains

This myth arose as early as 1907 but imaging shows no area of the brain is silent or completely inactive.

* Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death

This idea may stem from ghoulish novels. The researchers said the skin dries out and retracts after death, giving the appearance of longer hair or nails.

* Mobile phones are dangerous in hospitals

Despite widespread concerns, studies have found minimal interference with medical equipment.

The research was conducted by Aaron Carroll, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Regenstrief Institute, Indianapolis, and Rachel Vreeman, fellow in children's health services research at Indiana University School of Medicine.

Content provided by Reuters