Archive for the 'General Health' Category

The Daily Telegraph reported that drinking more than three cups of tea a day cuts the risk of a heart attack. The newspaper said that according to research, tea - with or without milk - may also strengthen bones.

It adds that the “beneficial effects on many biochemical effects in the body” are due to polyphenols, which are natural plant antioxidants in tea.

A review conducted in 2001 of 10 follow-up studies, found that the risk of heart attack was reduced by 11% when three cups of tea per day were drunk (237ml).

Other studies that have since been conducted showed similar results, with four studies demonstrating links between tea consumption and reduced risk of CHD death and risk factors.

Five studies investigating bone health suggested that tea had a ‘modest beneficial effect’ on bone mineral density, with most benefit seen in elderly women who drank four or more cups per day.

The clearest consistent evidence points to an association between tea consumption, in excess of three cups per day, and a reduced risk of myocardial infarction. There is no consistent evidence to indicate that tea drinking has detrimental effects on hydration, bone health, or iron status.

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— Find Out The Underlying Health Issues!

Do you repeatedly experience headaches in your routine life? Usually, it is quite common for us to experience headaches time to time, due to many reasons.

But if you are persistently suffering with headache for many days, then it is quite sure that you are suffering with a health condition called chronic daily headache.

Recognize whether it is your work tension or any other health issue in your life that is making you to experience headache in your normal life.

Experiencing this sort of headaches is quite common and they usually go away within hours or certainly within a day or two. But, if you are suffering persistently for 4 to 5 days or even more with severe headache, then it becomes most concerning issue for you.

Is there any underlying health issue involved?

Till now there is no perfect reason for the occurrence of chronic daily headaches. But, here are certain underlying health issues, which are thought to be responsible for causing chronic daily headaches. So, if you are really suffering with chronic daily headaches, then try to check for these conditions in your body.

Is some deafness avoidable? Hearing loss is usually accepted as an unavoidable side effect of aging, but new research suggests that lifestyle has a greater influence than previously thought.

According to the largest study on age-related hearing impairment done so far, the recipe for keen ears well into the senior years may be simple: stop smoking, stay slim, and have an alcoholic drink at least once a week [Link between hearing loss and tobacco smoke].

Our take-home message is that hearing loss up to a certain degree is preventable. Environmental factors are responsible for about 50% [of age-related deafness] and we now know which ones to avoid,” says Erik Fransen at the University of Antwerp in Belgium.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, noise exposure, known to destroy the sound-transducing hair cells in the inner ear, was the biggest risk. More surprising is the apparent effect of smoking and overeating [Treating hearing loss].

These factors have been suspected as potential causes of deafness, but it has been hard to separate them from the effects of cardiovascular diseases that are also frequently suffered by people who smoke and overeat. This study has been able to do just that.

For more information, visit: NewScientist

Of all the minerals, which you consume every day, iron plays a vital role in maintaining good health in your entire course of life.

Generally, most of you mainly concentrate on those vitamins and minerals, which are quite good for your health.

But be aware, even over consumption of these essential minerals like iron also leads to various health disorders like hemochromatosis.

The manufactures of every thing from cereals, which you take in breakfast, to vitamin syrups, usually tell us that iron plays a vital role in building rich blood cells.

But, when this essential mineral becomes overloaded in your body, then it can eventually leads to hemochromatosis. In most of the cases, hemochromatosis is hereditary and causes very serious problems in affected people.

Certain manifestations involved with this hemochromatosis such as fatigue, abdominal pain, high blood sugar levels can usually disappear in your mid life even though if they occur at your earlier stages of life.

Hemochromatosis also develops through heredity!

If you are affected with hemochromatosis, which is caused due to heredity, then you don’t have signs or symptoms of this over loaded iron disorder. In persons with hereditary hemochromatosis, daily absorption of iron from intestines considerably increases than it is actually required for your body.

Researchers say, People who take aspirin to keep their blood pressure down will get more benefit if they take it at bedtime.

They say that the hormones and other chemicals the aspirin acts on are most active at night though blood pressure tends to drop at night.

While doctors often advise patients to take aspirin to help control their blood pressure, they generally do not give any advice about the time of the day.

“If you take the aspirin in the morning, it is not going to be effective because aspirin basically has an effect for fours hours or so,” Ramón C. Hermida of the University of Vigo in Spain said.

For the study, presented at a conference of the American Society of Hypertension, researchers looked at more than 240 people with a condition known as prehypertension over three months.

Some took aspirin in the morning, others at night and some not at all.

Their blood pressure was taken regularly during the study, and the researchers also kept track of physical activity.

Source: The New York Times

Scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) have found a fast and effective way to investigate important aspects of human ageing. Working at the University of Oxford and The Open University, Dr Lynne Cox and Dr Robert Saunders have discovered a gene in fruit flies that means flies can now be used to study the effects ageing has on DNA.

Dr Lynne Cox from the University of Oxford said: “We study a premature human ageing disease called Werner syndrome to help us understand normal ageing. The key to this disease is that changes in a single gene (called WRN) mean that patients age very quickly.

Scientists have made great progress in working out what this gene does in the test tube, but until now we haven’t been able to investigate the gene to look at its effect on development and the whole body. By working on this gene in fruit flies, we can model human ageing in a powerful experimental system.”

Source: EurekAlert

Do you want the kind of body that burns fat even in your sleep? There is a simple solution to this - just rev up your metabolism.

If you already know that, then it’s okay. But are you following the mandatory things to make sure your internal fat burning furnace stays on for 24 hours?

Nutrition tips to rev up your metabolism:

1. Have three full meals a day and also include 2-3 snacks. Balance is the key. Consume enough proteins, lots of fruits and vegetables and a small amount of fat. If your balance is out of whack, you are going to be out of whack too. With proper practice, you will achieve the right balance [Boost metabolism naturally].

2. Purchase foods that can remember where they came from. Avoid consuming processed junk or convenience foods.

3. Prepare nutritious meals that can be stored for few days. Keep enough food in your refrigerator or cooler at your work and also at home. Purchase a box of nutrition bars or power bars to eat when you are extra busy. Store them in your gym bag, desk drawer and coat pockets.

These cures are strange but totally effective solutions to treat some of the most common ailments.

1. Music to beat back pain:

A 20 percent reduction in pain can be experienced by simply listening to music for an hour every day.

Results will start to present themselves after about a week.

This is due to the disruption of your mind to music, thus resulting in muscle relaxation.

Simply switching on the radio and leaving yourself to relax doesn’t provide such relief however.

You need to pick your own tunes to experience the full effect.

Listening to the songs preferred by someone else doesn’t usually provide maximum results.

2. Text messages to quit smoking:

According to the researchers, if you receive daily text messages which include tips on beating cravings with motivational words from those with whom you share your desire to stop smoking or help you stop smoking, then you have twice the chance to kick the habit.

When you have finally decided to stop smoking, set a quit date and then log on to backpackit.com.

Here you can write text messages for yourself and then have them sent on specific days and times.

Smallpox is one of the most contagious diseases caused by variola virus, which has been completely wiped out throughout the world.

It was also potentially one of the most devastating and disfiguring biological weapon that have killed almost 300 million people in 20th century alone.

The early signs and symptoms of smallpox, which you can notice after two weeks of infection resembles like those of flu. You can suffer with fever, fatigue and head ache if you are affected with this viral infection.

Later when the infection develops, it causes severe pus filled blisters on your skin. These blisters eventually leave deep, pitted scars [Treating scars] on your skin. Once when the symptoms reaches advanced stage, there is no cure or effective treatment for small pox.

Variola virus is the main culprit!

Variola virus is the main source for the infection to take place. When you are infected with this variola virus, initially this virus starts replicating inside your body cells, primarily in lymph nodes and then in your spleen and bone marrow.

Are you suffering with yellow-crusted painful lesions on your lips, cheeks, and chin or in your nostrils?

Fever blisters can be the cause! These are the most common skin conditions which affect almost 15% of total population.

These fever blisters, also known as cold sores, are actually caused by herpes simplex virus, which can spread from person to person through direct contact with the infected skin or saliva.

Fever blisters are highly contagious and once if you are affected with these cold sores caused due to herpes simplex virus, frequently you can experience fever blisters again and again in your life.

There are no prevention methods or vaccines for this viral infection, but there are methods to ease the pain caused by these cold sores and prevent the spreading of infection through quick healing.

Useful steps to speed up the healing process of fever blisters:

• Avoid confusion between canker sores and cold sores. A canker sore is different from cold sore. Canker sores are usually explained as mouth ulcers which normally take place inside your mouth while cold sores very occasionally occur inside your mouth and they are also normally smaller than mouth ulcers. Consult your doctor and get it checked to determine whether they are cold sores or mouth ulcers.