Lifestyle Choices

Infection

Certain food poisoning bacteria other than staphylococci can infect food and grow in it without detectable taste or smell. Then, when the food is eaten, these germs gain access to the gut of the consumer, multiply there and cause a typical gastroenteric form of poisoning.

An example of this type of infection is that caused by the Salmonella group of bacteria. These germs are normally carried in the gut by pigs, poultry, cows, bullocks, sheep, domestic animals and rodents, and, to a lesser extent, human beings. Eggs (especially duck), egg powder and milk can also be affected. (more…)

The effects of the sun can be seen on the skin of any present or former sun-worshipper in the form of wrinkles, dark spots, roughness, leathery skin texture and a sallow complexion, often with prominent bursts of blood vessels. Under the microscope this shows up as thickening of the outer layer of the skin, with extra grouped pigment cells, and in the deeper dermis, clumps of non-functional elastic tissue and loss of collagen. (more…)

Does the performance of alpha-hydroxy acids match the promise? Yes, when formulated correctly, AHAs do indeed exfoliate the outer layers of skin to treat clogged pores and blackheads, to smooth fine wrinkles, and to remove dry surface skin. You, the consumer, however, are confronted with advertising for a myriad of products containing AHAs, all promising youthful, wrinkle-free skin. Not all preparations are effective. When choosing, there are three key factors to consider: (more…)

GoreTex is a synthetic material composed of interconnected fibrils of expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). You may recognize Gore- Tex as the lightweight fabric used to make insulating ski jackets, but GoreTex fibers are even more interesting as surgical implants. They have been used for almost 30 years as surgical vascular grafts and more recently for implants in the skin.

GoreTex patches can be placed just under the skin of the nose to give a smooth profile to previously unaesthetic indentations, and can be threaded under the deep folds between the nose and the mouth to smooth the grooves. (more…)

Dermabrasion is an extreme form of exfoliation. For this procedure, the doctor actually uses a rotating wire brush like a sanding instrument to remove the entire outer surface of the skin. The epidermis and the upper portion of the dermis (about one-quarter to one-third of the thickness of your skin) is usually abraded. (more…)

The use of chemicals to “peel away” unwanted or dead skin is a practice with a past. Chemical face peeling can be traced back to ancient Egypt, where creams of alabaster particles suspended in milk and honey were applied to the face for “tightening”. The Egyptians also used animal oils mixed with salt and natural minerals, and plant substances to “exfoliate” their faces. Later, poultices containing mustard, sulfur and limestone were used. (more…)

It is difficult to understand why one person may have bad acne covering most of the back or chest but none on the face whilst another individual may have severe facial acne but little elsewhere. We presume that it is only the sebaceous glands and follicles in the affected areas that are responding to the hormone changes in the blood. Whichever area is affected, the changes are of larger papules and pustules which last longer and some of them may leave small scars. Blackheads will almost certainly be seen as well and they can be very extensive. When a flare-up occurs it may be very uncomfortable and an occasional cyst may appear. (more…)

The Aniline or Oxidation Hair Colorants

The most permanent (and the most successful), these dyes are included in a number of products for colouring hair such as tinting shampoos, highlighting shampoos, and the single-step and double-step permanent colourants you can buy in packages at the chemist. They are permanent dyes, because the artificial pigment is made to penetrate into the cortex of the hair shaft. There it stays. How this happens is most interesting. (more…)

Most of the time we take little notice of our hair and nails. During adolescence there may be times we would wish to have different colored or textured hair or curse that our nails break too easily, but after that we pretty well accept our lot. That is until some change occurs. When hair starts to be lost there is not only an immediate cosmetic problem but the scalp may be damaged by sunlight or low doorways. Equally, when finger nails fail to develop properly this problem is both cosmetic and functional: it may become impossible to pick up small objects.

Too little Hair

Male-pattern baldness

This term is used because it is so much more marked in men than in women. The typical changes of receding hair and thinning on top are well known and often run in families: the process may even start before the age of thirty years. Women are much less severely affected and anyway tend to keep the front hair line. However, with increasing age many women notice some thinning on their scalp. The hair loss, in both sexes, is due to the effect of hormones but not an excess of them. The fault lies in the hair roots which become over-sensitive to existing hormone levels. (more…)

Go to the seaside to bury yourself under the sand and gather salt. Salt is necessary for the balance, in volume and osmotic pressure, of the extracellular fluids. Everyone must have his daily dose of it. In therapeutic treatment, by strengthening the action of other elements, unrefined sea salt combats a number of deficiencies that cause humoral, glandular, and nervous imbalances.

The natural magnesium contained in sea salt is a precious remedy. Iodine in its natural state acts favorably on the thyroid gland. Bromine soothes the serves without weakening the nervous system. Salt, intermediate between earth and sea water, also contains traces of catalytic elements, such as gold, copper, nickel, and cobalt, as well as particles of clay. It goes very well with treatment by clay. Like clay, it attracts and absorbs sickness and is a pole that attracts substances with negative radiation. (more…)

Aromatherapy is the art of using essences of plants to treat the skin, the emotions, and the body as a whole. It is one of the most interesting areas of beauty care. For each plant essence has its own unique qualities, yet like a piece of music or a painting will evoke slightly different responses from different people depending on their personalities, needs, and tastes. Learning about aromatherapy, the essences themselves, and some of the things you can do with them is sheer delight. It is also a wonderful way of looking after your skin, calming your nerves when you are overwrought, and creating interesting atmospheres in your living and working environment. If I were allowed only one luxury I could easily dispense with makeup and trips to the hairdresser, but I would never want to be without the beauty of aromatherapy. Let’s start at the beginning. (more…)

The Vitamins

Vitamin A applied to the surface of the skin either from a capsule on its own or mixed into cream and oil preparations has been used successfully in the treatment of dry and aging skin and acne. It appears to work particularly well in combination with vitamin D, which itself has a healing effect on the skin. (This is why vitamin D is often used in diaper-rash remedies and in burn ointments.)

Vitamin E, about which there has been such controversy, and vitamin C are certainly useful in the treatment of skin healing from a cut or burn. There is no conclusive evidence that, applied topically, it will do much for normal skin, although many women who use vitamin E regularly claim good results from it. (more…)

When it comes to treating skin, everyone is looking for the fountain of eternal youth. At one time it is thought to be vitamins, at other times plant essences, minerals, fetal or placental extracts. In recent years all of these somewhat exotic substances have been frowned on not only by many dermatologists but also by the so-called hard-hitting journalists who insist that nothing external can be done to keep skin looking beautiful and to protect it from premature aging other than to follow the three basic steps in the craft of skin care outlined in the previous chapter: cleansing, protection from moisture loss, and screening from ultraviolet light. (more…)

The Cause

Oily skin is the result of overactive sebaceous glands, which usually occurs due to a hormonal imbalance in the body. Occasionally a diet too high in fats and fried foods or refined sugar can contribute to the condition, as can too much stimulation of the sebaceous glands by heat, the sun, or skin-care products containing chemicals such as sulfur, which, although they are designed to dry out the condition, in the long run work in a counterproductive way by removing too much oil and thereby stimulating the glands to produce yet more. Studies show that people on diets slightly deficient in some of the B group of vitamins rapidly develop whiteheads, blackheads, and oily hair and skin. (more…)

Sometimes dermatologists use the antibiotic tetracycline, usually administered in doses of 250 milligrams twice a day. In many cases this has dramatically reduced the acne probably by altering the chemistry of fatty acids in the skin so that the sebaceous glands are rendered less active, as well as acting on the infection itself. But there are disadvantages to antibiotic treatment, too, particularly in growing teenagers, for it does inhibit protein synthesis in mammalian cells. It can also stain the teeth when used over a long period of time and of course disrupts the natural intestinal flora, which produce many of the body’s B-complex vitamins. (more…)

THE METALLIC DYES

These you have no doubt heard about—they are supposed to be the magical cure for graying hair and are often called color restorers. They deposit metallic dyes and salts of various metals such as manganese, cobalt, silver, and copper on your hair shaft, which gradually darkens the hair. But hair dyed this way does not permanent-wave well, nor is itscondition very good, as this kind of dye tends to make the hair look a dull, flat color. Metallic dyes have to be removed completely, with the use of a special preparation, several days before waving or tinting with a permanent colorant. Because of their many disadvantages, I think they are best avoided.

BLEACHING

Hair bleaching is done with hydrogen peroxide, which affects the hair shaft both physically and chemically. Combined with an alkaline compound such as ammonia, it opens the imbrications of the cuticle so that it can penetrate the hair shaft, and then inside the cortex it chemically oxidizes the melanin pigments, fading their color, thus bleaching out the hair in the process. There are products on the market that are simple bleachers—they are called lighteners, and they consist of peroxide together with ammonia. Sometimes a “drabber” is added in order to remove the red highlights that come from bleaching darker hair. Bleaching forms an important part of the other permanent tints, which also rely on oxidation processes to work. (more…)

One of the simplest and most effective ways of changing your appearance is to change the color of your hair. As we get older, the color of hair tends either to fade or to go darker, so that a once shimmery golden mane or deep mahogany tresses can become lackluster and dull. One of the best ways of remedying the situation is with a color boost. Hair coloring these days is effective and reasonably priced and can look even better than most natural hair—provided, of course, it is done correctly. Otherwise it can end up looking like a burnished haystack.

There are two categories of hair colorants: permanent colorants, which enter the cortex and cannot be washed out, and the temporary and the semipermanent, which can be used to highlight and intensify your own hair color but won’t alter the cortex.

The Temporary Colorants

These are the easiest to use. They coat the cuticle of the hair with color that washes away with the next shampoo. You can get temporary highlighting shampoos and color rinses in a great variety of colors that don’t disturb the cuticle imbrications. Most of them have a shine- promoting pH, too. But what you can do with them is limited, for while they will darken the hair—say from blond to red or to black—they are really designed for minor color changes only. If you try to go too many shades away from your natural color, they tend to streak and give uneven coverage. They also cannot make your hair lighter than it is, because they have no action on the cortex, where the melanin granules are —they merely coat the outside of the hair shaft. (more…)

The brushes you use, the sponges and absorbent cotton, and even your mirror and lighting are all-important in getting good results from your makeup products. You need to acquire a collection of them, keeping your tools immaculately clean and using them every time you put on

your makeup. It is always tempting to put on an eye shadow with your finger or to apply powder with a dirty puff, but the results are never good, and the makeup you put on that way doesn’t last as long as it should. Also, many of the little padded wands and brushes supplied with eye shadows and cheek colors look great in their compacts but won’t really do the job of applying colors properly. And once any applicator wand or brush is dirty, you will never get good, smooth application from it. (more…)

The behavioural treatment of obesity is based on changing daily habits and behaviours to reach the desired goal. The basic premise of behaviour therapy is to reward beneficial behaviours and discourage detrimental ones. However, state of the art behavioural treatment has a wider perspective and focuses on eating behaviours, social support, exercise, attitudes and nutrition. The aim is to modify the situations which promote eating and to evaluate the consequences of eating behaviour. Behaviour therapy involves specific processes which are aimed at modifying behaviour.

Self-monitoring

The client is asked to monitor when she eats, how much she eats and why she eats. This increases self-awareness so that eating cannot ‘just happen’, and enables her to evaluate her success and whether any changes have occurred. put their eating into context and to learn to say ‘I am not useless, the odd slip is inevitable and I will now return to my diet‘. This eradicates an ‘all or nothing response’ which can often result in the client abandoning the diet. (more…)

So far our main concern has been the importance of freshness in some of the foods we eat on a daily basis. But what about other invisible influences and procedures that contribute to the quality of what we select from the supermarket shelves? You may feel that you can soon enough tell if an apple is past its prime just by looking at it; what you can’t tell is whether it still has pesticide residues clinging to it - or whether it’s been irradiated.

With the ‘Green’ revolution meaning as much a change in environmental attitudes as the importance of including more salads in your daily fare, it’s not surprising there is increasing concern about how our fresh foods are produced, the extent to which chemicals (some of them deadly) are used, and the risk to our health these powerful agricultural weapons pose. The other major worry that has been added to the list of consumer concerns in recent years is the question of irradiation - who uses it and why, and how safe is it? (more…)