Health and Medicine

Archive for March, 2010

Interesting bit of trivia: the word alopecia is formed from the Greek word meaning fox; the origin comes from the fact that the fox sheds its coat twice a year. The average human head has about 100,000 hair follicles; each follicle can grow about 20 individual hairs during a person’s lifetime. About 90 percent of the hair on the scalp is growing at any one time while about 10 percent of the hair is in a resting phase; after two to three months, the resting hair falls out and new hair starts to grow in its place.

Some mycotic infections can cause massive hair loss. If a medicine is causing your hair loss, your doctor may be able to prescribe a different medicine or you may find you really don’t need the medicine at all. In the past it was believed that baldness was inherited from a person’s maternal grandfather; while there’s some basis for this belief, both parents contribute to their offspring’s likelihood of hair loss.

About three or four months after an illness or a major surgery, you can suddenly temporarily lose a large amount of hair; this hair loss is related to the stress of the illness. Since hair loss may be an early sign of a disease, it’s important to find the cause so that it can be treated properly and fast. Poor digestion, parasites and nutrient deficiencies such as iron or biotin deficiency shouldn’t be overlooked as possible causes.

Temporary loss of hair can occur in areas where sebaceous cysts are present for one week to several weeks in length. Hypothyroidism can cause hair loss, especially thinning of the outer third of the eyebrows. Some drugs or medications can cause hair loss, which improves when you stop taking the medicine; medications that can cause hair loss include blood thinners, medicines used for gout, chemotherapy drugs used for cancer, too much vitamin A supplementation, birth control pills and antidepressants.  Read more...

It is possible that you are have yet to find the best anti-aging skin cream for your skin in spite of a good number of creams to select from. Having various ingredients, a mixed bag of anti-aging skin cream is there but their claim to be the best confuses you.

To select the ideal anti-aging cream for you, first think about your priority because a limited budget can’t let you to look for an expensive brand at the cosmetics counter. Or, if you are in quest of anti-aging skin creams that can efficiently take years off your face, you should go for scientific facts and studies to determine one for best results irrespective of its price. Or, if you occasionally suffer from allergies and have a very sensitive skin, natural ingredients can be the best deal for you because creams containing chemicals and fragrances can really affect your skin badly with all sorts of problem.

Some anti-aging skin creams can remove your present fine lines and wrinkles and some can stop any future damage. A young model advertising a product doesn’t suggest making you like the model removing all skin problems. This is their business policy to add to your dream of beauty like that hired model prompting you to spend money for it.

When you are certain about your needs and priorities, go ahead to search the market to look for the ingredients which can endow you with your desired results. Be sure about the product’s capability with the aid of evidence. It is of paramount significance to know if the product has gone through anyone else’s clinical trials apart from the concerned company because others’ independent opinions help establish the company’s claim credibly. This is probably one of the most important point when evaluating an anti-aging skin cream.  Read more...

For instance, what are the dietary ramifications for an individual who has high self-efficacy for increasing fruit intake, but who lives and works in a neighborhood with no access to fresh fruit? The ability to have access to good nutritional foods is of the utmost importance to the growing bodies of young children and maintenance of older generations also!

A multidisciplinary team is examining how federal, state, and local policies influence the built environment, which in turn influences residents’ accessibility to places to be active and to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables. The built environment includes man made physical structures and transportation systems and features such as land use and development, urban design, and visual surroundings. By promoting fruit trees, such as mango, avocado and citrus, and bamboo, experience shows that in time communities start to protect their trees because of the attractive revenue they generate. The grafting program helps to boost Haiti’s mango export industry and extend the avocado season. The objectives of this study were to determine how various diets, combined with exposure to volatiles containing ±-copaene, affect the ability of male Mediterranean fruit flies (from a wild and two unisexual strains) to withstand starvation. Accordingly, we maintained males on one of eight regimes combining a diet of sugar and protein, a protein pulse or apricot, with or without the aroma of the sexual stimulant ±-copaene.

Heart disease and cancers are the main cause of death in man today. These conditions are also more prevalent in our dog population. We extend our poor eating habits to our pets & children, then we wonder why our younger people are becoming obese!  Read more...

Statistics show that most men have a 50% chance of experiencing hereditary hair loss by their 50th birthday. The severity and nature of baldness can vary greatly; it ranges from male and female pattern alopecia, alopecia areata, which involves the loss of some of the hair from the head, and alopecia totalis, which involves the loss of all head hair, to the most extreme form, alopecia universalis, which involves the loss of all hair from the head and the body. The term bald derives from the English word balde, which means white or pale, or the Celtic word – ball, which means a white patch or blaze, such as on a horse’s head.

Recognizing and treating an infection may help stop hair loss. If the thyroid gland is overactive or underactive, hair may fall out; treating thyroid disease will help remedy this. Correcting a hormone imbalance may prevent further hair loss.

About 3 or 4 months after an illness or a major surgery, you can suddenly temporarily lose a large amount of hair; this hair loss is related to the stress of the illness. Hair loss may occur if male or female hormones, known as androgens and estrogens, are out of balance; correcting the hormone imbalance may stop the hair loss. Since hair loss may be an early sign of a disease, it’s important to find the cause so that it can be treated properly and fast.  Read more...

In 2003, it was reported that overall retail market for sports nutrition products, reached the value of $3.1 billion. Beverages accounted for 63 percent of sales, according to a new report Packaged Facts. However, these drinks have been marketed more for general nutrition, rather than sports benefits. Packaged Facts confirmed that physically active adults were only 10-percent more likely to use sports beverages than the general adult population.

Even if you are into sports, you’ll only need your regular diet plus plenty of water. Thus, you do not need a sport nutrition product. Right? Wrong.The need for sports and sport nutrition product

Records of antiquities show that athletics has been an integral part of earliest man’s life. Athletic life was originally meant for survival through gathering food or for self protection. Later, it developed into a contest for strength, speed, skill, and mental sharpness. With the passage of time, these activities evolved into what we now know as different forms of exercises, or sports.

Our ancestors even then, fully understand the need of our body for exercise and other forms of physical activities. They instinctively know that in order to maintain their health and further developed their physical whole being, they need to have some activities. And from this early, they understand the need for a special food, the modern version of which is our sport nutrition product.

Basic dietary patterns of our ancestors

Evidences about prehistoric people’s diets can be glimpsed from the artifacts used in food preparation such as milling, baking, and ultimately cooking. From these bits of information, we are informed that the basic diet of early Greeks and Romans for instance was a perfect combination of plant and animal products. They ate several variety of cereals, vegetables, fruits (fresh and dried), and lots of wine (usually diluted with water in varying degree).  Read more...