Archive for March, 2008

Avian flu, most commonly known as bird flu is potentially a dangerous infection which spreads rapidly and can lead the infected persons to death.

Most of you might be worrying about how to fight against this dreadful virus.

Certain important facts which can be helpful for you are given here. Try to know these basic facts about avian flu.

Avian flu is the mostly caused due to viral infection, which usually infects only birds and some times it also infects pigs. There are many different harmful effects of this avian flu.

Some of them can show only mild effects on birds and causes raffling of feathers and reduces the production of eggs in them, while some of them including H5 strains are more dreadful and can be responsible for serious inflammation.

How this virus is spread?

Most of the researchers believe that, avian flu spreads from one bird to another, when an infected bird comes in contact with the other healthy bird.

Certain migrating birds like ducks, swans and also geese carry and transmit virus to other healthier birds. This virus does not cause any harm to migrating birds but it uses these birds as a source of transmission.

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–Diabetes Is Not An Obstacle To A Long And Healthy Life With Regular Physical Activity!

Everybody knows the fact that physical activity has great benefits on your health. Regular physical activity can help you in controlling your blood glucose, blood pressure and weight. Also, it shows a great rise in your good cholesterol level and at the same time lowers your bad cholesterol level.

Physical activity helps the problem associated with heart and blood flow. It reduces the risk of nerve damage and heart disease, which are the problems that result from diabetes.

Types of physical activity suitable for diabetics:

Before starting any physical activity, consult your doctor to find what kind of activity is right for you. Exercises which you need to practice will depend upon whether you have any other health problems.

Most of the practitioners will recommend aerobic exercises as they make you breathe more deeply and make your heart work harder.

You can practice the exercises like walking, jogging, bicycling or aerobic dancing.

Along with these exercises, some other exercises like hiking, skating, skiing, basket ball, tennis, and volleyball are good to practice as they will work on large muscles, improves your heart rate and make you breathe deeper and harder.

Did you observe any swelling or bulge or do you feel tightness in that particular area?

This condition is mainly due to baker’s cyst, which is usually the result of your knee or joint problem like arthritis.

This pain of baker’s cyst can become worse when you completely extend your knee or even when you are physically active.

Baker’s cyst is more common in adults between 55 to 70 years of age and also in children between 4 and 7 years of age.

Almost one in five persons suffering with knee or joint pains is at increased risk of developing baker’s cyst.

Baker’s cyst can become more complicated if the fluid protrudes down your leg between the muscles of calf. Sometimes, these cysts can burst out by leaking the fluid down your inner leg to give the inner ankle an appearance of a painless bruise. This rupture of cyst is usually associated with swelling of the leg and can imitate phlebitis of leg.

What is the role of synovial fluid in developing baker’s cyst?

Baker’s cysts are most common and can be caused by any joint swelling. The cartilages and tendons present in your knee rely on a lubricating fluid called synovial fluid. This fluid plays a major role in the movement of your knees and reduces the friction between the moving parts of your legs.

Did you notice any rash on the skin of your foot? Then it can be an athlete’s foot, the most common fungal infection.

This fungal infection easily spreads in public places like communal showers and fitness centers etc. Athlete’s foot often affects the spaces between your toes.

Although, this fungal infection is most often in teens and young kids, it is also possible in women and other persons who have sweaty and damp feet. Walking with bare foot in public places can trigger this fungal infection.

You can identify this fungal infection with following manifestations:

• Athlete’s foot is often associated with peeling of skin with cracked blisters in certain areas on your foot.
• Your feet can smell with some unpleasant odor and the skin can look cheesy on the infected parts of the skin.
• Identify the skin rash that spreads inside or in step part of your foot.
• It can also be identified with redness and scaly skin on the sole of feet.
• You can notice raw skin, when you scratch the suspected areas on the skin.

Simple ways to get rid of athlete’s foot:

If athlete’s foot is left untreated, then this fungal infection creates an environment for secondary bacterial infection, which can make the condition complicated.

The parvovirus B19 that is responsible for the development of viral infection “fifth disease,” also known as erythema infectiosum, can result in a wide range of severe conditions in people with chronic blood disorders, such as sickle cell disease.

Sickle cell disease is a rare blood disorder where hemoglobin S, a blood component that helps RBC to carry oxygen is affected and causes the red blood cells to change shape.

How does fifth disease affect patients with chronic blood disorders?

Patients with underlying sickle cell disease who become infected with the parvovirus are at high risk for aplastic crisis.

This is because the fifth disease virus infects erythroid cells, the cells of the erythrocytic (red blood cells) series of bone marrow and interferes with the production of red blood cells (RBC) as they mature and differentiated all along the erythroid lineage.

The cessation of red blood cells production lasts for about ten days. The condition is harmless and not a problem in patients that are otherwise healthy. However, people with chronic blood disorders (sickle cell disease, hereditary spherocytosis or thalassemia) can have serious worsening conditions such as transient aplastic crisis.

There are some diseases that create fear in the heart. In that, leprosy is one disease.

Although this is in the way of withdrawing stage, the stigma, fear, and the isolation associated with this condition is proven to be more damaging than the disease itself.

Even individuals who are cured with leprosy fear to speak about it because they are scared of the discrimination. Even though many are being cured, many people are still isolated.

Leprosy is caused by a slow-growing bacterium called Mycobacterium leprae and it is not extremely contagious. The mechanism of transmission of this disease is not known.

According to the reports from 109 countries, during the past five years, the number of new detected cases of leprosy has continued to decrease dramatically at an average rate of 20% per year.

Know different types of leprosy!

The leprosy is classified as paucibacillary (tuberculoid leprosy) and multibacillary Hansen’s disease (lepromatous leprosy) or borderline leprosy.

Borderline leprosy (multibacillary leprosy) of intermediate severity is the most common form of this disease.

In this type, skin lesions look like tuberculoid leprosy, but these lesions are numerous and irregular with large patches, which affects the whole limb. It also involves the peripheral nerves causing severe weakness and loss of sensation.

–The key to breast cancer is to know all the prevention methods.

It is a known fact that 1 in 8 women have a chance of developing breast cancer in their lifetime. Various causes can lead to the development of breast cancer, but making simple lifestyle changes can reduce your risk of breast cancer.

Here are 20 effective ways which can help you in breast cancer prevention:

1. It’s never too late to quit smoking:

Though smoking does not link to breast cancer, some researches confirmed that smoking a pack daily for 11 or more years can increase the risk of breast cancer up to 40%.

Also, the studies showed that women who smoked for 20 years or more and had hormone replacement therapy are twice at a risk of developing breast cancer than the women who never smoke or have hormone replacement therapy.

2. Say goodbye to alcohol:

Drinking alcoholic beverages increase the chance of developing breast cancer. Women who take 2-5 drinks in a day are about 1½ times at higher risk than women who don’t consume alcohol.

Alcohol consumption change the way of your body metabolizing estrogen. Most of the breast cancers are fueled by the estrogen hormone.

Bipolar disorder is not a single disorder; it is a combination of mood disorders.

If an individual experiences one or more episodes of abnormally elevated moods, it is referred clinically as mania.

A person who experiences manic episode will commonly experience depressive episodes or mixed episodes called manic depression.

Manic depression is also called as bipolar affective disorder or bipolar disorder. Individual who experiences bipolar disorder will have mood swings, which can last from several weeks to months and more.

In that, if they are depressive, they have feelings of intense depression and despair. If they are manic, they have feelings of extreme happiness and despair. If they have mixed feelings, they experience depressed mood with restlessness and overactivity of manic episode.

Approximately 1 in 100 adults has manic depression at any point in their life. It is generally seen during teenage period. Men and women are equally affected and this manic depression is not seen after the age 40.

How many types of bipolar disorders (manic depression) are being seen in individuals?

People with manic depression experience mood swings from high episodes of mania to low episodes of depression, but in most cases, people with manic depression experience episodes of depression than episodes of mania.

Have you ever undergone a pap smear? Pap smear test is extremely effective in detecting the cancerous cells present in your cervix and it is very essential in the prevention of cervical cancer.

Detecting the presence of cancerous cells in your body in early stages can be the first step in stopping the development of cervical cancer in your body.

It has been predicted that, almost 90% of the cervical cancer cases are prevented with the regular Pap smear test.

If you get regular pap smear test done, then the chance for getting cervical cancer in your body substantially decreases. Even if you get positive results for the development of cancerous cells, then the chances for curing the cervical cancer are as high as 90%, provided they are detected in early stages.

What is the right time to have pap smear test?

It is recommended that you can have your first pap smear at the age of 21 or about three years after having sexual relations and from then you need to follow these guidelines.

• From 21-29 years of age, you need to have pap smear once in a year or for every two years, you can get it tested with liquid based pap test.

Are you pregnant? Are you aware of hepatitis B? It is very essential for a pregnant woman to know more about hepatitis B.

This is the most serious infection of liver which can be transmitted from mother to a new born baby through umbilical cord.

Hepatitis B mainly infects your liver and if left untreated, it can result in severe damage to your liver. Most of the cases with this hepatitis virus can be recovered on their own, however about 15% to 20% of the infected persons die with major damage to liver.

Why hepatitis B virus is dangerous for pregnant women?

If you have Hepatitis B virus (HBV) in your blood, then there are chances for you to pass it to your unborn baby which is very dangerous. Most of the babies with this kind of infection will be more prone to HBV infections throughout their lives.

In the initial stages of the hepatitis B infection, it might not show any kind of sickness, but as it grows gradually, it can lead to severe liver damages. Almost 25 percent of the HBV infected babies can die due to liver diseases.