Health Go

This article will tell how to eat healthy for life and avoid the fad diets.

• If you consume more calories than your body needs each day, your body will store the excess energy as fat. In today’s society, that excess body fat is unnecessary. We are no longer gatherers. Your next meal is as close as your local grocery store and we do not need extra energy stores to hold us over till the next meal.

• Eating healthy will give you some health benefits, but you will not achieve the full benefits possible unless you exercise. Exercising doesn’t have to be hard, and you don’t even have to break a sweat. Just going for a short 30 minute walk four times a week will greatly improve your health.

• Use extra virgin olive oil when cooking. It is purer, and is better for your heart than other kinds of olive oil. The darker the better. Furthermore, “light” olive oil has as many Calories as extra virgin olive oil — the “light” refers to the color and flavor intensity. Unfortunately, though, using extra virgin olive oil when cooking at higher temperatures ruins the flavors that make it “extra virgin”. But olive oil is not necessarily the most healthy oil, canola oil may be better.

• This takes patience. You won’t see a drastic drop in your cholesterol level or weight or increase in your energy level immediately. You need to give the changes in diet some time to kick in.

• Have a positive and upbeat attitude. If you start your new diet thinking “This is something I have to do,” instead of “This is something I want to do,” then you’ve already failed before you started.

• Adding whole, unrefined grains to the diet can add valuable vitamins and minerals that would otherwise be lost, however it can completely upset our digestion as well. Many animals that eat grains have four stomachs they use to digest them adequately, and ferment them so they can uptake nutrients. Humans have only one stomach, and if you introduce grains without first fermenting or sprouting them you may experience digestive upsets. There are various anti nutrients in grains (like phytic acid) and enzyme inhibitors that will prevent mineral absorption and lead to deficiencies and digestive problems. To remedy this, take oatmeal and soak it the night before in a little bit of yogurt. This will make it taste slightly sour, but make it more digestible. Sourdough bread is also another good example.

• 

  Lettuce is a great choice of natural fiber, and can taste great with the proper healthy dressings. You can make a great salad with nuts, raisins, and whole wheat croutons. Mix it in a bowl so it’s evenly distributed and place it on top of a salad. Use a sugar free and low carb balsamic dressing; it has less than 1 gram of carbohydrates and 0 Calories. The head of lettuce is 21 Calories, plus the nuts and raisins and whole wheat croutons which could range depending on size but for this example we will estimate 100 Calories, bringing you a very low calorie and filling meal for only ~120 Calories.

• Smoothies are great for breakfast. Combine the following:
  • banana
  • 4 medium-size strawberries
  • 1/2 cup of skim milk or soy milk

• Choose wheat (brown) bread instead of white bread. Processed carbohydrates such as those found in white bread are harder to draw nutrients from, and therefore are seen as empty Calories.

• For protein, try substituting beans for higher calorie foods like boneless skinless chicken breasts, or tuna. Not only will you be getting additional phytochemicals from the plant based protein, it will not have the harmful saturated fat content. Remember that even an orange has more than 5% of its calories from protein!

• Carry water with you at all times. Try to drink water in place of soft drinks and other flavored beverages. A good rule of thumb is to drink half your body weight in ounces per day.

• Non-fat yogurt can make a great snack, and its healthy bacteria can help with various stomach problems.

• Consider eating organic. Organic food isn’t made with the use of a lot of harmful chemicals, or other harmful processes. Not only is organic food good for you, but it is sustainable and good for the environment too! Other foods can be extremely harmful to the environment.

• Read the labels on everything you eat. Do not just buy something because it is marketed as being “healthy.” Lots of companies trying to sell their food off as healthy when really it is full of high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, trans fats, and hidden sugars. This is also the best way to learn about a product. It gives you almost all the information about that product you’ll ever need. If you’re trying to lose weight, try to choose foods with low calories. If you want to gain weight for a football team or some such reason, you are going to choose food with lots of calories. However, too many calories, not enough exercise, and eating too much at one time, can make you fat.

Drug companies like to say that their most expensive products are fully worth their breathtaking prices. Now one company is putting its money where its mouth is — by offering a money-back guarantee.
Johnson & Johnson has proposed that Britain’s national health service pay for the cancer drug Velcade, but only for people who benefit from the medicine, which can cost $48,000 a patient. The company would refund any money spent on patients whose tumors do not shrink sufficiently after a trial treatment.
The groundbreaking proposal, along with less radical pricing experiments in this country and overseas, may signal the pharmaceutical industry’s willingness to edge toward a new pay-for-performance paradigm — in which a drug’s price would be based on how well it worked, and might be adjusted up or down as new evidence came in.
“I think payers will say, ‘If the product works and it creates value, we will reward you for it,’ ” said Anthony Farino, a pharmaceutical industry consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers. “ ‘If not, we won’t reward you.’ ”
It is far too soon to tell whether such a pricing paradigm can actually work, in particular because it can be difficult in many cases to measure how well a drug is working. And the approach would probably be most feasible in countries, like Britain, where the government is the primary payer.
But even here in the United States, Medicare and private insurers are already experimenting with new ways to create cost-justified payment systems for medical treatments.
The potential benefits might go beyond simply saving money. Pay-for-performance pricing could make it easier for patients and their doctors to try expensive treatments without busting the bank or forcing insurers to make all-or-nothing decisions about reimbursement.
That was the rationale behind another experiment that is already under way in Britain. Four makers of multiple sclerosis drugs have agreed eventually to lower the prices of their drugs — which can currently cost as much as $18,000 a year — if the medicines do not fully meet expectations.
GlaxoSmithKline also says it has made similar agreements with two European governments, although it declined to identify either the countries or the drugs involved.
Such “risk sharing” deals, as they are being called, would be harder to arrange in this country. “There’s no way we could ask for it and have any leverage,” said Dr. Lee N. Newcomer, senior vice president for oncology at the large American insurance company UnitedHealthcare. He said that state regulations and marketplace pressures make it virtually impossible for an insurer to refuse to pay for a drug that has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, regardless of its price.
Yet UnitedHealthcare is trying a risk-sharing experiment with Genomic Health, a company that sells a $3,460 genetic test meant to help determine whether a woman with early-stage breast cancer would benefit from chemotherapy.
The insurer has agreed to pay for the test for 18 months while it and Genomic Health monitor the results. If too many women are still receiving chemotherapy even if the test suggests they do not need it, Dr. Newcomer said, UnitedHealthcare will seek to negotiate a lower price on the ground that the test is not having the intended impact on actual medical practice.
“The point is to try to make the manufacturer responsible for how their product is used in the medical marketplace,” he said.
Read the rest of this entry »

Taking in enough fluids these days — especially when you exercise? Of course you are. You probably carry a bottle of water with you whenever you plan on elevating your heart rate. You can’t pass a water fountain without taking a sip or two.
Well, you may be taking in too much.
Earlier this year, the American College of Sports Medicine released its revised guidelines on exercise and fluid replacement.
You have to be a scientist to figure them out.
The bottom line, though, is that fluid needs vary from person to person — often dramatically. Sure, you can weigh yourself before and after exercise and adjust your fluid intake during exercise — next time — so your weight remains the same.
That’s not appropriate for some people. I’ve consumed close to two litres of fluids on some long runs and still dropped more than four kilos of body weight. The guidelines say I’m mildly dehydrated because I’ve dropped more than two per cent of my body weight. My endorphin-pumped brain tells me to reach for a cold beer because I’ve just finished a great workout.
Last weekend, a study conducted by a British scientist and released just in time for the London marathon, run on an unseasonably warm day, suggested that drinking lots of water won’t keep you cool or improve your performance.
Read the rest of this entry »

Advances in radiology have radically transformed medical practice, with CT scans and nuclear medicine exams providing physicians with the ability to quickly pinpoint internal bleeding, diagnose kidney stones or confirm appendicitis, assess thyroid function and identify and open blockages in the blood vessels to the heart.
The downside is that Americans are being exposed to record amounts of ionizing radiation, the most energetic and potentially hazardous form of radiation.
According to a new study, the per-capita dose of ionizing radiation from clinical imaging exams in the United States increased almost 600 percent from 1980 to 2006. In the past, natural background radiation was the leading source of human exposure; that has been displaced by diagnostic imaging procedures, the authors said.
“This is an absolutely sentinel event, a wake-up call,” said Dr. Fred A. Mettler Jr., principal investigator for the study, by the National Council on Radiation Protection. “Medical exposure now dwarfs that of all other sources.”
The study, financed by the federal government, is to be published by early next year. It found a particularly sharp rise in the number of CT scans — to 62 million in 2006, from 3 million in 1980. Though CTs make up only 12 percent of all medical radiation procedures, they deliver almost half of the estimated collective dose of radiation exposure in the United States. A CT scan exposes patients to far more radiation than a standard X-ray, and multislice CT scanners deliver higher doses of radiation than single-slice scanners.
Nuclear medicine exams increased to 18.1 million in 2006, from 6.4 million in 1980. They represent almost a quarter of the estimated collective radiation dose, with cardiac studies making up most of the dose.
X-rays have been classified as carcinogens by the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, because studies have shown that exposure causes leukemia and cancers of the thyroid, breast and lung.
Yet with the exception of mammography, scans remain largely unregulated.Radiation doses for the same procedure can vary drastically, as different machines in the hands of different practitioners deliver doses that vary by as much as a factor of 10, experts say.
Radiologists say they do not want to scare people away from having scans and exams when necessary, but they want patients — as well as physicians — to carefully evaluate the benefits and risks of each scan or exam, make sure the procedure is appropriate and keep track of cumulative exposure levels. Full-body CT scans should be avoided unless there is a good medical reason.
“We’re not saying you shouldn’t have X-rays or CT scans — they’re wonderful, they’ve totally revolutionized the practice of medicine,” said Dr. E. Stephen Amis Jr., a former president of the American College of Radiology who is chairman of radiology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center in New York. “But if you go into the emergency room with recurrent pain and get a CT scan every time you show up, that’s not good. Use a little common sense.”
Studies of atomic bomb survivors in Japan found a statistically significant increase in cancer at high levels of exposure — 50 millisieverts, or mSv, about 16 times the current annual average for Americans from medical exams. But that figure is controversial; it is not clear that lower levels of radiation exposure are safe. Nor would it be unusual for a patient to exceed this level, according to a recent paper from the American College of Radiology.
“It is worth noting that many CT scans and nuclear medicine studies have effective dose estimates in the range of 10 to 25 mSv for a single study, and some patients have multiple studies; thus it would not be uncommon for a patient’s estimated exposure to exceed 50 mSv,” the paper said, adding that “the International Commission on Radiological Protections has reported that CT doses can indeed approach or exceed levels that have been shown to result in an increase in cancer.”There are several steps patients can take to protect themselves, and they should not be shy about asking questions, doctors and other experts say. Read the rest of this entry »

Heart disease is a number of abnormal conditions affecting the heart and the blood vessels in the heart. Types of heart disease include:
Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the most common type and is the leading cause of heart attacks. When you have CAD, your arteries become hard and narrow. Blood has a hard time getting to the heart, so the heart does not get all the blood it needs. CAD can lead to:
Angina. Angina is chest pain or discomfort that happens when the heart does not get enough blood. It may feel like a pressing or squeezing pain, often in the chest, but sometimes the pain is in the shoulders, arms, neck, jaw, or back. It can also feel like indigestion (upset stomach). Angina is not a heart attack, but having angina means you are more likely to have a heart attack.
Heart attack. A heart attack occurs when an artery is severely or completely blocked, and the heart does not get the blood it needs for more than 20 minutes.
Heart failure occurs when the heart is not able to pump blood through the body as well as it should. This means that other organs, which normally get blood from the heart, do not get enough blood. It does NOT mean that the heart stops. 
Extreme tiredness:
Heart arrhythmias are changes in the beat of the heart. Most people have felt dizzy, faint, out of breath or had chest pains at one time. These changes in heartbeat are, for most people, harmless. As you get older, you are more likely to have arrhythmias. Don’t panic if you have a few flutters or if your heart races once in a while.
Do women need to worry about heart disease?
Yes. One in three American women dies of heart disease. In 2003, almost twice as many women died of cardiovascular disease (both heart disease and stroke) than from all cancers combined. The older a woman gets, the more likely she is to get heart disease. But women of all ages should be concerned about heart disease. All women should take steps to prevent heart disease.
Both men and women have heart attacks, but more women who have heart attacks die from them. Treatments can limit heart damage but they must be given as soon as possible after a heart attack starts. Ideally, treatment should start within one hour of the first symptoms.
Do women of color need to worry about heart disease?
Yes. African American and Hispanic American/Latina women are more likely to get heart disease because they tend to have more risk factors such as obesity, lack of exercise, high blood pressure, and diabetes than white women. Women of color also are more likely than white women to die of heart disease. If you’re a woman of color, take steps to reduce your risk factors.
What can I do to prevent heart disease?
You can reduce your chances of getting heart disease by taking these steps:
Know your blood pressure. Your heart moves blood through your body. If it is hard for your heart to do this, your heart works harder, and your blood pressure will rise. People with high blood pressure often have no symptoms, so have your blood pressure checked every 1 to 2 years. If you have high blood pressure , your doctor may suggest you make some lifestyle changes, such as eating less salt and exercising more. Your doctor may also prescribe medicine to help lower your blood pressure.
What does high cholesterol have to do with heart disease?
Cholesterol is a waxy substance found in all parts of the body. When there is too much cholesterol in your blood, cholesterol can build up on the walls of your arteries and cause blood clots. Cholesterol can clog your arteries and keep your heart from getting the blood it needs. This can cause a heart attack.
There are two types of cholesterol:
Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) is often called the “bad” type of cholesterol because it can clog the arteries that carry blood to your heart. For LDL, lower numbers are better.
High-density lipoprotein (HDL) is known as “good” cholesterol because it takes the bad cholesterol out of your blood and keeps it from building up in your arteries. For HDL, higher numbers are better.
All women age 20 and older should have their blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels checked at least once every 5 years.

No matter how much you know about men’s health, there’s always room to know more about ways to a better lifestyle, the top men’s health concerns, and the importance of getting medical care and regular screening tests. Many of the major health risks that men face can be prevented and treated if they are diagnosed early.
While the life-expectancy gap between men and women has shrunk to five years, the narrowest since 1946, it is no secret that men still need to pay more attention to their bodies. Why? Some reasons include:
-Men tend to smoke and drink more than women and generally have less healthy lifestyles.
-Men do not seek medical help as often as women.
-Men tend to join in fearless, risky, dangerous behaviors more than women.
-Men also largely define themselves by their work, which adds to stress and to being disconnected from their emotional side. This can add to problems in relationships, as well as in jobs and careers.
Women also play an important role in the health care of their men through education and awareness. Many surveys have been done to see where people get their health information. For women, it’s usually from their doctors, the television, the Internet, and printed materials. For men in these same surveys, wives, girlfriends, and/or mothers are the source of most of their health information.
The good news is that many of the major health risks that men face can be prevented and treated if they are diagnosed early. So you deserve to pay more attention to yourself! Take better care of yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally. Or if you are a woman searching for ways to help the men in your life, tell them the same.

Correction Appended:
What is it that some parents don’t understand about the HPV vaccine, licensed last summer in hopes of preventing most cases of genital warts and cervical cancer?
That infections with human papillomavirus, or HPV, are the most common sexually transmitted diseases?
That there is no treatment for HPV infections?
That cervical cancer is the most serious sexually transmitted disease caused by this virus?
That 70 percent of cases of cervical cancer arise because of two variants of the virus that the new vaccine protects against?
That 90 percent of genital warts cases are caused by two other variants of the virus that are countered by the vaccine?
That most people infected with HPV do not know it, yet can transmit the virus to an unsuspecting sexual partner?
That 20 percent of American girls 14 to 19 are infected, and the vaccine works only if administered before women contract the viral variants it is intended to prevent?
Despite these facts, the vaccine, sold by Merck as Gardasil, has been mired in controversy, and many parents remain wary about using it for the girls and young women it was meant to protect.

Are the Objections Valid?
One commonly voiced thought is that immunizing young girls against HPV will encourage promiscuity and that the message to these youngsters should be abstinence before marriage and monogamy after.
But the abstinence message is rarely effective. Half of all girls become sexually active before graduating from high school. For some girls and women, sexual behavior occurs against their will, through rape, incest and date rape.
Why would this vaccine give girls license to be sexually indulgent? It protects against only one sexually transmitted problem, and there are so many others, including chlamydia, trichomoniasis, H.I.V. and, of course, unwanted pregnancy.
Another concern involves long-term safety. How do we know this vaccine will not eventually cause other problems like autoimmune or neurological disorders or lose its protective powers or foster the dominance of other HPV variants?
Actually, we don’t. But we do have at least five years of safety data that include no hints of long-term risks or waning effectiveness. But if the vaccine should begin to lose potency over time, that could easily be remedied by a booster shot.
In response to suggestions of mandatory HPV vaccination for all girls entering high school, opponents have objected to “forcing” therapy on healthy girls under the presumption that future behavior might result in a disease.
This is exactly the principle on which every form of immunization is based. Not everyone contracted polio or smallpox before the advent of mandatory vaccines to protect every child. We vaccinate the masses, causing herd immunity, to protect the relatively few who would otherwise become ill and suffer devastating consequences.
Finally, objections have been raised about costs. This vaccine is not cheap. Each dose costs $120, or $360 for the three doses needed for full protection, far more than any other commonly used vaccine. If a booster shot is needed later, that could mean another $120. If the vaccine is made mandatory, states might have to pay for immunizing girls not covered by insurance.
Still, HPV infections are far more costly. As noted in the March issue of The American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology: “The annual burden of cervical HPV-related disease ranges from $2.25 billion to $4.6 billion in the United States. The annual burden of cervical cancer ranges from $181.5 million to $363 million.”
This is not to mention the physical and emotional costs of cervical cancer to affected women, most of whom can no longer have children and some of whom die of the disease.

Forget beauty products with dodgy packaging and claims that are questionable. The ‘green’ cosmetic industry is growing up.
If George Clooney had parked his environmentally friendly hybrid car in my driveway I would have got excited. Up until now, that’s about as exciting as the combination of beauty and environment got for me.
Organic products certainly didn’t cut it. But all that is changing. Ian Forrester, founder of the Hawkwood organic food label in the UK and a speaker at the Natural and Organic Products Exhibition held in Johannesburg in October last year, stated that the worldwide organic food market will grow to an estimated US$32 billion by 2009.
This bodes well for natural and organic cosmetics because cosmetic trends closely mirror those of the food industry. And there’s every indication that South Africa will be in on the deal.
The’green’ cosmetic industry has fluctuated between sensationalism and seriousness; we’ve all seen shocking e-mails about lead in lipstick and parabens in deodorant. But how effective is this finger-wagging, head-shaking communication?
If cosmetic consciousness is to transform hippie to hip, the industry needs to speak to us in a language that’s as exciting and inviting as conventional ‘cosmetic speak’.
Most of us are happy to entertain the idea of going green, but we expect the convenience and performance we get from conventional cosmetics. That goes for packaging too: who wants to spend money on a good cosmetic and hide it in the cupboard because it looks so unappealing?
Now it seems we really can have it both ways. International beauty powerhouses are buying into organic, environmentally conscious companies with a view to expanding existing brands and including new ones to satisfy an ‘enlightened’ consumer (L’Oréal has acquired The Body Shop and a stake in Sanoflore; Clarins has bought into Kibio, the French organic beauty company; Estée Lauder owns Aveda).
I think George Clooney may just have pulled into my driveway…

What they’re working on:
Although the ill-effects of cosmetics on the environment have been well documented, we also need to be realistic.
For example, it’s all very well to go on about ‘evil’ preservatives in face cream, but we know that without them our lovely new face cream would transform itself into smelly, gooey, allergy-inducing, glow-in-the-dark scum in no time.
So the industry is looking at the type of preservatives used, rather than considering life without them.
Similarly, the flak that aerosols quite rightly took in the mid 1990s for the effect that propellants have on the ozone layer needs tobe put into perspective: the beauty industry has substantially reduced its output of CFCs, and aerosols aren’t the major cause of the ozone problem.
But let’s not gloss over those issues that still need to be resolved. For instance, it takes the average sudsy shower gel 300 years to disintegrate after you swoosh it down the drain to ‘Oh what a beautiful morning’.
Industry experts argue that ultimately everything is biodegradable, which is true, but it would be nice to know that it will disintegrate in our lifetime.
They’re working on it! And of course there’s the extraordinary amount of packaging involved – we may love it, but it is clearly not sustainable.
The industry is working on that too, increasingly making use of recycled paper and cardboard. So the good news is that things are happening.
The not-so-good news from the Natural and Organic Products Exhibition was that even though a product might pass as ‘organic’, this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s healthy or environmentally friendly. As in everything else, it’s a case of ‘let the buyer beware’.

What causes BV?
Bacterial vaginosis (BV) is a common condition of the vagina caused by an overgrowth of various bacteria (germs). It is not just a simple infection caused by one type of bacterium, but the cause is not fully understood.
How do you catch BV?
Not necessarily from having sex, but having intercourse can introduce different types of bacteria into the vagina and so lead to BV. The risk increases if you have anal and vaginal intercourse using the same condom. Douching and excessive hygiene can also cause the condition as it upsets the natural balance of bacteria.
How do you know you’ve got BV?
Not everyone gets symptoms, but if you do it tends to be an excessively fishy smell (espcially after sex), heavy whitish discharge, plus itching, possible swelling and maybe a bit of redness.
How do you treat bacterial vaginosis?
Visit your doctor and get some antibiotics.The bad news is once you’ve had it you’re more likely to get it again, and it puts you at risk of other infections.
How can you protect yourself?
Practise proper, but not over-zealous hygiene, avoid douching and always wipe front to back after urinating.

Smokers looking for a way to beat the habit have been using acupuncture for several decades now — but does it actually work?
According to those who endorse it, the technique helps stimulate the release of endorphins and other brain chemicals, blotting out cravings and easing the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. A 2006 survey by the Mayo Clinic found that about 27 percent of smokers looking to quit had tried acupuncture at least once, and many others said they hoped to try it in the future.
Most studies, however, suggest they could just as well try something else. One of the most extensive studies, published in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, looked at more than a dozen past studies, most comparing acupuncture with sham, or fake, acupuncture and other control conditions. The scientists who led the study found that acupuncture and similar interventions — acupressure and electrostimulation, for example — were better in the short term than no treatment at all, but that over all they were not very effective.
Still, other studies show that more than three-quarters of smokers will relapse a few times no matter what. And because the effects of different techniques vary from one person to the next, most scientists recommend combining interventions, particularly those that involve behavioral modification and nicotine replacement.