Lifestyle Choices

Blackheads

These are plugs of sebum or oil which clog the pores and blacken due to oxidation on exposure to the air. They can easily be removed if you take care not to damage the skin which could result in infection. Heat the skin first by applying a hot compress made of 1 tablespoon of bicarbonate of soda to a pint of hot water (as hot as your skin will take). Apply and re-apply the compress to the blackhead areas for about two minutes to open the pores and loosen the material clogging them. Then gently, with the tips of your fingers wrapped in a paper tissue, (not your nails) ease out the plug. Finish off with an application of alcohol or antiseptic cream. (more…)

However, if your cancer treatment is completed and you feel an unexplainable anxiety even though your trials are apparently over, read on.

These feelings are common and occur, in part, because the end has come to the frequent visits with your various doctors, which can serve to comfort—giving you the tangible evidence that someone is watching over you and your health. But, aside from that, you may be struggling with the fear of recurrence that many women experience at this time. Remember, during the treatment planning process, you want to develop a plan to optimize your chance of cure and to carry out that plan. When done, it is time for you to go on with your life. (more…)

Hair Transplant, What needs to be done?

The most commonly and successfully used method for transplanting hair is the punch graft, which can be done under local anaesthetic and takes a couple of hours.

You will receive an injection of anaesthetic in the area of your scalp that the hair is to cover and the area from which the hair is to be taken. The instrument used for the operation is, as might be expected, a small punch. This is used to punch out about 20 to 50 small circular areas of bald skin, in a shape that will provide a relatively natural- looking hair line once hair-bearing skin is implanted in the holes. Then the same amount of hair-bearing skin is punched out, from whatever site has been chosen for their removal (usually the lower back or side of the head where thinner hair growth will be less noticeable). The hair- bearing skin is fitted into the holes that are waiting for them in the bald skin. But there will of course be small areas of bald skin between the holes, where hair still will not grow. (more…)

In Type Z diabetes, there is at first no shortage of insulin. In fact, early in the disease, there is more than usual. Yet, despite the insulin making its presence known in the muscle tissue, the muscle remains deaf to insulin’s messages, no matter how many are sent, and does nothing to stimulate the uptake of glucose or the storage of glycogen.

Another hormone which comes from the pancreas, in cells which live very near to those which make insulin, is glucagon. Whereas insulin is the hormone of plenty, glucagon is the hormone of scarcity: so when glucose is taken into the blood from the intestine during digestion of starchy foods, insulin is secreted and glucagon secretion is inhibited. During the night, when there is nothing left in your gut to absorb, glucagon secretion increases and insulin secretion is inhibited. (more…)

Over the last fifty years, the incidence of Type z diabetes (in which too much insulin is produced) has rocketed, in parallel with the incidence of obesity. This is despite us eating less — often a lot less — than our parents and grandparents. Some scientists believe that the availability of refined foods, particularly the increase in the amount of fat from diet from about 25 per cent to the present 35 per cent, plus the lack of physical activity, causes changes in muscle which are responsible for the development of Type z diabetes and obesity. (more…)

Fat suction, known technically as lipolysis or suction assisted lipectomy, is still a relatively new procedure. It was developed in France in the last decade and now is a very common cosmetic surgery procedure in the United States and increasingly common here. It has been the cause of a great deal of excitement and raised hopes for those in a permanent struggle with their weight but, while it is indeed a successful method for removing some excess fat, it is not a procedure that is suitable for those who are most overweight. It is not a surgical alternative to dieting. (more…)

Which is the stronger sex? That depends on what we mean by strength. If we refer to the ability to survive, there is no doubt that women have most of the advantages. Today they are outliving their husbands by six, eight, and ten years or more. This is true all over the world.

Ever since childbirth infections have been brought under control, the picture has been changing in favor of the women. It would seem that the ladies have more flexibility in their systems. They have more stamina. Their biological resources are greater than those of the men.

This difference begins very early in life, perhaps before the child is born. This is probably nature’s way of preserving the race. Nowhere is the female superiority more clearly in evidence than in pregnancy. A woman at that time seems to have special reserves of strength. Not only must her heart and lungs care for her own needs, but also for those of her baby. Every organ in her body is geared to work that much more efficiently. Later in life those same female hormones apparently protect her from degenerative diseases which are so much more likely to cripple her husband. (more…)

Allergy has been recognized for centuries. Even the ancient Egyptians knew that certain substances, such as cat hair, pollen, and shellfish, ‘didn’t agree’ with some people. But they didn’t know why.

The first person to categorize food allergy as a medical condition was Hippocrates, the father of modern medicine, who noted that some people reacted negatively to cheese while others didn’t. But Hippocrates couldn’t figure out why this happened.

In the 1920s, doctors finally began to understand the biochemistry of allergy. They found a substance in itchy, allergic skin that wasn’t in healthy skin. It wasn’t until the 1960s, though, that researchers realized that this substance was an immune system substance known as an antibody. Antibodies are sent out by the immune system to kill foreign invaders, such as bacteria and parasites. Antibodies are essential for keeping us healthy and are powerful enough to kill worms in the intestines. (more…)

There is more health and beauty through natural movement than you will get from vigorous aerobic exercise alone. For no matter how far you run, no matter how fine an athlete or dancer you are, unless your muscles and joints move freely through the full range of motions possible for them you quite simply won’t feel fully alive. Neither will you have full freedom of locomotion nor will you get the complete enjoyment of your sensations.

The body is the medium of experience. Everything you do—walking, writing, playing, working, making love—you do through its movements. In fact, all life is made up of the action of living flesh and muscle on moving joints and bones. These movements are composed of finely controlled positions and motions. When your joints and muscles are supple and mobile your body remains free, glowing, alive and highly resistant to stress. To get it that way, unless you are a child or unless you happen to be gifted with exceptional flexibility, you need to teach your muscles to stretch to their limits and encourage your joints to move fully. (more…)

Long-term stress can destroy your good looks, your vitality, and eventually your health. But contrary to popular belief, that doesn’t mean there is anything intrinsically dangerous in stress. On the contrary, stress is the spice of life—the challenge just waiting to be met, the excitement of something new and unknown, the wonderful, exhilarating feeling when adrenalin flows through your body and makes you feel ready for anything. It only means that if you do not know how to move from the active, stressed state of mind and body into the passive state of psychophysical relaxation at will, then you, like most people (for few have this skill naturally), are likely to find yourself stuck in the stressed state for long periods. And if it happens often enough and lasts long enough, you can become physically or mentally ill. (more…)

It is now common knowledge that uncontrolled stress can trigger a great many diseases and disorders—insomnia, gastric ulcers, high blood pressure, asthma, and migraine, to mention just a few. But for a long time these ailments were treated like something over which we had no control. It was assumed that one could only treat their symptoms with drugs, treat the stress that triggered them off with more drugs, and hope for the best. Now, thanks to research into altered states of consciousness and work done with biofeedback, studies have shown that every human being can exercise a high level of conscious control over his nervous system. (more…)

Varicose veins are the most serious enemies of leg beauty. But they are not the accident of nature that many women believe. The problem is virtually unknown amongst native populations living on a diet of natural unrefined foods. But studies show that as soon as our highly refined Western diet of convenience foods arrives in a country, varicose veins start to appear. The hidden constipation that results from living on the average Western diet lacking in natural fiber from whole grains and raw vegetables is one of the prime causes of varicose veins, for uneliminated wastes in the intestines put constant pressure on the blood vessels supplying blood to and from the legs. Long-term overweight is another factor in the development of varicose veins. (more…)

When there is a serious misalignment in the body, such as a chronic stoop that begins to distort the soft S-shape curve of the spine, heavy, shapeless piano legs, or twists, curves, and bulges in parts of the body, that stays there even after the loss of excess weight, cellulite treatment, and exercise, then you need professional help. There are a number of different disciplines that can be useful. Osteopathy or chiropractic, through manipulation and specific exercises, can realign spines as well as eliminate pressures on nerves or blood vessels in the spinal area. Left unattended, these pressures may result in serious back pain, varicose veins, poor lymphatic drainage to the legs, and bad cellulite. The Alexander technique can help straighten a spine bent by years of discouragement and rehabilitate the personality that carries it in the process. Tai chi and yoga work slowly and gradually, but are capable of restoring most bodies to perfect alignment and balance as well. But I’ve found two other techniques—Rolfing and connective tissue massage—to be especially helpful in treating body problems that, by interfering with perfect form, mar beauty. (more…)

Forget the Cigarette

Smoking also makes skin age rapidly. This is probably because of a substance called benzopyrene, which is found in cigarette smoke and which uses up the body’s supply of vitamin C rapidly, making it unavailable for the support of healthy collagen. So the skin wrinkles earlier. Dr. Harry Darnell investigated the relationship between wrinkling and cigarette smoking for almost twenty years, looking at eleven hundred patients between the ages of thirty and seventy. He found that the skin of smokers wrinkles and ages up to twenty years sooner than that of nonsmokers. But the problem with cigarette smoke doesn’t end there. For it is not only the smoker whose skin can suffer from it. So can the nonsmoker’s. (more…)

The Cause

These so-called liver spots are changes in pigmentation in the skin as a result of the aging process coupled with exposure to the sun’s rays. Their proper name is lentigines. They usually mar hands and faces most, and in truth they have little to do with the liver, from which they have borrowed their name. Women deficient in some B vitamins—particularly folic acid and niacin—or women who have a particularly high personal requirement for them thanks to their genetic inheritance or their taking of oral contraceptives, are particularly prone to developing liver spots in areas of the body that are regularly exposed to the sun’s light or artificial ultraviolet rays from a sun lamp. (more…)

Choosing to change your diet and lifestyle doesn’t just improve your health; it also changes your life. Even so, it can be a challenge to get started, and hard to stay on track. The keys to success are effective planning — and developing self-belief.

To be successful, you need to plan ahead and set goals, to give yourself time to prepare, both mentally and practically, for your lifestyle change. Deciding in advance what you are going to do and what you want to achieve will build your enthusiasm and help you to commit to the diet, to see off the temptation to stray beforeyou get started.

The most important tip of all is: Believe you can succeed. Your self-belief and the way you talk to yourself will influence your ability to stay the course. Supporting each personal ‘wish’ with a positive programme of action will help you to maintain momentum. (more…)

There are five core principles at the heart of the Holford Low-GL Diet. Each of them is a positive guideline in its own right, and each supports the others. All five are easy to follow, and essential if you are serious about achieving permanent weight loss and 100 per cent health:

1 Balance your blood sugar.

2 Eat good fats; avoid bad fats.

3 Eliminate allergies.

4 Supplement for success.

5 Exercise for at least 15 minutes a day.

The 21 days of menus listed later articles do all the initial meal planning for you. You can use the recipes as part of your weight-loss diet, or follow the recommendations to modify them for a maintenance diet that will keep you at your ideal weight. (more…)

Although physical diseases can cause or mimic depression, they are a comparatively rare cause. Most of the specific illnesses mentioned here are uncommon and, with the possible exception of hypothyroidism, they start with depression in only a relatively small number of cases.

Several hormones have an effect on mood. As well as the female sexual hormones, hormones from the pituitary gland, adrenal glands, thyroid glands, parathyroid glands and pancreas may all affect energy and mood. However, such effects occur only when there is a significant disease in therelevant gland, which is fairly rare, and in which case there are usually also physical symptoms. (more…)

We are built of what we eat and the balance of our diet can affect both our physical and mental well-being. Many dietary imbalances may cause some depression of mood.

BLOOD SUGAR

If you take in too few calories, as you may during a fast or aperiod of dieting, you may feel tired, lethargic and low. This is because your level of blood sugar has decreased — energy, well-being and clear thinking require an adequate level of sugar in the blood so that the brain, muscles and other organs can help themselves to as much immediate energy as they require from moment to moment. The brain and nerves are completely dependent on blood sugar since they cannot get energy from other foods in the blood, such as protein. (more…)

Electro-convulsive therapy (ECT) is like banging a TV set when it does not work. However, the crudity of whamming a 100-volt electric shock through someone’s brain does not take away the fact that this technique has saved people’s lives when all else has failed. As with every new and seemingly successful physical treatment of mental ailments, such as tranquillizers and anti-depressants, ECT has a history of gross overuse. It has also been misused in some institutions as a form of control or punishment.

ECT produces a temporary epilepsy. It was started on the theory (later found to be untrue) that epilepsy and schizophrenia never co-exist. It was therefore used to treat schizophrenia but with no success beyond a significant placebo effect. However, the technique was also used on people in severe depressive states with incredible results. In a few weeks people who were expected to remain in hospital for months or even years were recovering from the blackest and whitest of depressions. (more…)