Tuesday, August 6, 2013

You can raise your glass and to say cheers.

It is said that when Johann Wolfgang Goethe was asked, which three things he would take to an island. He stated: "Poetry, a beautiful woman and enough bottles of the world's finest wines to survive this dry period!" Then he was asked what he would leave back first, if it was allowed to take only two things to the island. And he briefly replied: "The poetry!" Slightly surprised, the man asked the next question: "And Sir, what would you leave back if only one was allowed?" And Goethe thought for a couple of minutes and answered: "It depends on the vintage!" 


Indeed if our hearts are warm with happiness or if sorrow chills our hearts we need to take a glass of good wine. We have heard a lot about favorable influence of wine upon man’s organism and from time to time we get new and new arguments in favor of it. “The healthiest people do include moderate drinking in their lifestyle,” says Eric Rimm, Sc.D., associate professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. You can reap alcohol’s health benefits within weeks, and the gains accumulate over time.” You are watching your calories and wondering what your best bet is: beer, liquor or wine? You must know that ounce for ounce, beer turns out to have the fewest calories (13 for regular, 9 for light), followed by wine (25) and liquor (64 to 82). But when you consider how much you're typically served of each, you may be better off ordering a cocktail. That's because a drink containing a jigger of alcohol, mixed with water, seltzer or diet soda, will have no more than 124 calories—roughly 25 calories less than a 6-ounce glass of wine or a 12-ounce bottle of beer. (Light beer, with only 103 calories per bottle, is also a good choice.) If you like your drinks mixed with regular soda or juice, however, beware: You could slurp down 300 or more calories. Generally experts recommend either12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1½ ounces of 80-proof liquor. And it does not matter which sort of alcohol you prefer - all forms of alcohol have ethanol, the ingredient that adds a health benefit. But women who have a high risk for breast cancer should have less than one drink a day; there’s evidence that alcohol can raise the odds for some forms of the disease and those with a family history of alcoholism should avoid alcohol altogether. 
Moderate drinking raises HDL (“good”) cholesterol, helping reduce the risk for heart disease and possibly stroke, a study from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston indicates. Alcohol also makes blood platelets less sticky, so they’re less likely to form into potential heart-attack-inducing clots. It may insulin levels, lowering your risk for type 2 diabetes, according to a study in the journal Obesity. It appears that alcohol can increase cells’ sensitivity to insulin, which in turn allows cells to burn glucose faster and reduce blood sugar levels also that alcohol can increase cells’ sensitivity to insulin, which in turn allows cells to burn glucose faster and reduce blood sugar levels. 
A glass of good wine can make our daily living easier, less hurried, with fewer tensions and more tolerance as Benjamin Franklin said.
njeriu

Paracetamol may be forbidden.

Paracetamol have got to the list of the preparations which release can be shortly forbidden or limited in the USA. The federal expert group has recommended to Food and Drag Administration (FDA) of USA to forbid application of the preparations containing a combination of paracetamol and narcotic analgesics in the country.

More than 100 million such medicines itimes are prescribed annually in the USA. Paracetamol overdose is the leading reason of irreversible damage of a liver. It becomes the reason of 42 thousand hospitalizations and more than 400 fatal cases in the USA annually.
Experts also have recommended FDA to lower the maximum dose of paracetamol in over the counter preparations, such as, Panadol, Theraflu and others, from 500 to 325 milligram's, and to establish the maximum daily dose within 4 000 milligram's. Thus the consultative group has voted against limiting of quantity of tablets of paracetamol in one packing.
According to law FDA is not obliged to follow recommendations of expert group, however in most cases they are carried out, so in the near future it is necessary to expect interdictions and restrictions.
Paracetamol is extremely popular in the USA - in 2005 in the country has been sold 28 billion tablets containing it, that is just about of one dose for four days on each citizen of the country.

Risk of childhood cancer

Minor malformations, such as birthmarks, may reflect "altered prenatal development," which could also increase the risk developing cancer, Dr. Julie A. Ross, of the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and colleagues point out in the medical journal Pediatrics.Overall, 2505 children had a documented definite or suspected birthmark. Out of the whole group, 47 children were diagnosed with cancer before age 8 years and seven of these had a definite or suspected birthmark.
Because of the small number of cancer cases, it's possible that the findings could have arisen by chance, Dr. Ross's group notes. Nonetheless, they hope the results may lead to insights into the cause of childhood malignancies.

Sleep Deprivation

What is it sleep deprivation? It’s good if you don’t know what it is yet, you know whay I mean. But actually sleep deprivation is a very widespread disease with definite symptoms. Sleep deprivation is a serious condition that can negatively impact your life. In short, you do not get the sleep you need and this is caused by not having enough time to get the sleep you need. How much sleep do we need? We need enough good quality sleep to feel alert during the day, especially during the afternoon. If you have a sleep debt you will very sleepy in the afternoon and it may cost in lost production, accidents, nervousness and conflicts. Besides that there are some medical conditions interfere with sleep. Many different conditions can have a negative impact on sleep, such as ADHD, anxiety, asthma, bipolar disorder, depression, post-traumatic and stress of course. Stress has emerged as a chronic condition in our fast-paced society. Rest and relaxation are the best cures for stress and stress-related problems, but unfortunately those problems can actually inhibit restorative sleep.

The body and mind need time to decompress from each day's activities. When people work overtime, work from home, run around to kids' extracurricular activities, sit in traffic for hours, etc., it cuts down on the physical and mental downtime our bodies need.

Stress can short-circuit your body and make it more or less forget how to relax and rest. It is also a bit much to ask our bodies to cram in all of its decompression time into sleep hours only. The world turns at a much faster pace than it ever did before; though we may not want to slow down, we must be respectful of our own mental and physical health.
Anxiety, Depression and Sleep 
Anxiety and depression can both alter a person's ability to fall asleep and sleep soundly. This can manifest in different ways, from feeling panicked or having a racing mind when you are trying to fall asleep, to having exaggerated, irrational feelings of fear or someone in your house, to waking in the middle of the night and feeling listless as you try to get back to sleep. Not only can the actual medical problem affect sleep - so can the medicine used to cure the problem. Whether it is an antidepressant, theophylline for asthma or even, surprisingly, sleeping pills, medicines can have unsettling side effects. Be sure to thoroughly discuss your medication, and its side effects, with your physician.
What to do? First try to avoid too much stress. 
Eat a balanced diet. 
Avoid too much caffeine and nicotine, especially in the evening hours. 
Don't overdo alcohol. Also sport, outdoor activities and high spirits will help you on this way. Additional way is to try melatonin sleep aid.

Diabetes

What is diabetes? First of all people can get diabetes at any age. This disease means that your blood glucose (often called blood sugar) is too high. Your blood always has some glucose in it because your body needs glucose for energy to keep you going. But too much glucose in the blood isn’t good for your health and the key to managing diabetes is knowledge. There are two major types of diabetes. In type I (Juvenile-onset or insulin - dependant) diabetes, your body completely stops producing insulin, and therefore you must take daily insulin supplement (injection) to survive. The usually develops in children or young adults, but can occur at any age. In type II (adult onset or non insulin dependent) Diabetes, your body produces insufficient insulin to properly convert food into energy. This usually occurs if one is over 40, overweight and has a family history of diabetes. And depending on the type of diabetes you get right diet, exercise and regular check-ups. So the more you know about your disease, you have better chances t keep it under control. Poorly managed diabetes can lead to a host of long term complications.




Everyone who has diabetes needs to take care of it, because after many years, the disease can lead to serious problems with your eyes, kidneys, nerves, and gums and teeth. But the most serious problem caused by diabetes is heart disease. When you have diabetes, you are more than twice as likely as people without diabetes to have heart disease or a stroke.

If you have diabetes, your risk of a heart attack is the same as someone who has already had a heart attack. Both women and men with diabetes are at risk. You may not even have the typical signs of a heart attack. Don’t forget about diet planning which is the cornerstone of managing diabetes. As usually the diabetic diet is an otherwise normal balanced diet, with a few modifications. A balanced diet depending on the patient’s age height, weight, physical activity and sex, will limit the number of calories to be taken each day. An ideal diet for a diabetic should contain the right amount of carbohydrates, proteins and fats, plus vitamins, minerals and micro nutrients.Take care!

Hair loss. What to do?

There are many cousec of hair loss - age, diseases, wrong eating etc. 

Our hair is made of a type of protein called keratin. A single hair consists of a hair shaft (the part that shows), a root below the skin, and a follicle, from which the hair root grows. At the lower end of the follicle is the hair bulb, where the hair's color pigment, or melanin, is produced.

Most people lose about 50 to 100 head hairs a day. These hairs are replaced — they grow back in the same follicle on your head. This amount of hair loss is totally normal and no cause for worry. If you're losing more than that, though, something might be wrong.


If you have hair loss and don't know what's causing it, talk to your doctor. A doctor can determine why the hair is falling out and suggest a treatment that will correct the underlying problem, if necessary.

Traveling Through Brain Cells

Researching brain cells the team from the Humboldt University in Germany and the Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands have made an interesting medical discovery. It appears that there could be enough computing ability in just one brain cell to allow humans and animals to feel, a study suggests. The research, conducted with rodents and published in the Dec. 20 issue of Nature, could rewrite the textbooks on just how important individual brain cells or cell clusters are to the working mind. 

The Dutch and German study found that stimulating just one rat neuron could deliver the sensation of touch. Before these insights, "The thinking was that very large ensembles of neurons [brain cells] had to be activated at some point for the animal to feel or perceive" a stimulus, explained the senior researcher of two of the studies, Karel Svoboda, a group leader at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Ashburn, Va.

"But it turns out that a remarkably small number -- on the order of 50 or so activated neurons -- is sufficient to drive reliable behaviors," said Svoboda, who is also associated with the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, in New York. 
A second research project from the US suggests the computational ability of the brain cell could be even more complex, with different synapses - the many junctions between neurons and other nerve cells - able to act independently from those found elsewhere on the same cell. 
This could mean that, within a single neuron, different synapses could be storing or processing completely different bits of information. Dr Douglas Armstrong, the deputy director of the Edinburgh Centre for Bioinformatics, said the research did not mean all neurons had an individual role to play but that, in some instances, they might be capable of working alone with measurable results. "The fact that a single cell can influence behavior in the cortex is fascinating," said neuroscientist Paul Sanberg, director of the Center for Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair at the University of South Florida, Tampa. The new findings are "allowing us to answer questions about how the brain controls behavior at the cellular level," added Sanberg, who was not involved in the studies.
He said: "The generally accepted model was that networks or arrays make decisions and that the influence of a single neuron is smaller - but this work and other recent studies support a more important role for the individual neuron. 
"These studies drive down the level at which relevant computation is happening in the brain."