WE’VE MOVED!

It’s been over 3 years since we launched Well for Living, and in that time, we’ve been busy behind the scenes, bringing people together and making connections to bring an efficient service for community and personal support, along with products and services. 

What a journey it’s been! With origins from LASS, Well for Living has grown into an independent social enterprise growing in clientèle every month. We’ve refocused on how we can best use the internet to provide an efficient service and we’re making steady progress.

We’ve redesigned our entire look and feel, focusing on combining the services we use to provide ease-of-use and an exceptional user experience. It’s an exciting time for us at Well for Living and we hope you enjoy the new look!

www.wellforliving.co.uk

As a consequence, we have moved away from the WordPress blogging platform and set up our blog at www.wellforliving.co.uk where you’ll find a range of services, Well for Living have to offer. We’re still blogging health and wellbeing articles so be sure to follow us over at: www.wellforliving.co.uk/blog or you may wish to follow us on twitter @WellforLiving to stay updated.

MOVE WITH US!

We’re blogging from our new website now and in time, this wordpress blog will be removed.  If you have subscribed to Well for Living, here at WordPress you’ll need to re-subscribe to the new service, you can do this by clicking here and entering your email address.

We hope you enjoy the new look, and the interesting articles we post, we look  forward to seeing you over at http://www.wellforliving.co.uk.

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Calories in alcohol

With a pint of beer the same as a packet of crisps, and a standard bottle of alcopop, the same as a three teacakes, the calories from alcohol soon add up.

Did you know a standard glass of wine can contain as many calories as a piece of chocolate, and a pint of lager has about the same calorie count as a packet of crisps?

The average wine drinker in England takes in around 2,000kcal from alcohol every month.

Drinking five pints of lager a week adds up to 44,200kcal over a year, equivalent to eating 221 doughnuts.

Many drinkers add to their calorie count by having snacks, such as crisps, nuts or pork scratchings, to accompany their tipple.

A heavy drinking session is often followed by an unhealthy breakfast to help cope with a hangover, which again helps to pile on the pounds.

Going for a fry-up instead of your usual bowl of cereal can add an extra 450kcal to the calorie count from the night before.

The findings are based on an online survey of nearly 2,000 adults in England in March 2009 by YouGov for the Department of Health.

Regularly drinking more than the NHS recommends can have a noticeable impact on your waistline as well as cause less obvious but more serious health problems.

Many women don’t realise that two large glasses of white wine not only puts them over the recommended daily limit for regular alcohol consumption, but also provides them with nearly 20% of their recommended daily calorie intake, at approximately 370kcal in total.

Most people would baulk at consuming a full glass of single cream, but wouldn’t think twice about the calorie content of a couple of pints. But the calorie content is similar and, over time, excess alcohol intake can easily contribute to gaining weight.

Wine, beer, cider, spirits and all our favourite drinks are made from natural starch and sugar. Fermentation, and distillation for certain drinks, is used to produce the alcohol content. This helps explain why alcohol contains lots of calories – seven calories a gram in fact, almost as many as a gram of fat. And, of course, additional calories can be present in added mixer drinks.

Tips to avoid weight gain

To reduce the chances of gaining weight from drinking alcohol, follow these tips from the British Nutrition Foundation:

• Stick to your daily recommended units – men should not regularly drink more than 3-4 units of alcohol a day; women should not regularly drink more than 2-3 units a day. As an indication, a pint of lager (ABV 5.2%) and a 250ml glass of wine (ABV 12%) both contain 3 units of alcohol.
• Alternate an alcoholic drink with a glass of water – this will help to prevent you becoming dehydrated.
• Don’t drink on an empty stomach. If you do reach for snacks while drinking, opt for a healthier option – choose a sandwich instead of crisps or chips, or choose a chicken burger without mayonnaise instead of a kebab with garlic sauce.
• Drinking in rounds can mean you end up drinking more than you intended. Opt out and drink at your own pace.
• Try cutting down with a friend, as you’ll be more likely to stick to it with moral support.
• Eat a healthier dinner before you start drinking. Order or cook before you start drinking so you’re not tempted to go for the less healthy options.
• Pace yourself by taking small sips.
• Avoid ‘binge drinking’ – some people are under the misapprehension that they can ‘save up’ their units to splurge at the weekend.
• If you’re drinking white wine, why not add a splash of soda water to help the same number of units last longer?

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Surgeons and dentists with HIV to be allowed to operate on patients after ban is lifted by Government

Ban in place for more than 20 years to be lifted by the Government

NHS staff living with HIV will be allowed to carry out operations and other invasive procedures for the first time.

A ban which has been in place for more than 20 years is to be lifted by the Government, which says it will not put patient safety at risk.

The ban was imposed because of fears that if  surgeon or dentist cut themselves during certain types of operation, it could result in the patient becoming infected.

Surgeons, dentists, midwives and nurses with HIV will be able to work normally providing they are taking antiretroviral medicine which can reduce the levels of virus in the bloodstream.

In another move, from next year, people will be able to buy HIV self-testing kits that are currently illegal for home use.

England’s chief medical officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, said science had moved on and it was time to scrap ‘outdated rules’.

She said lifting the operating ban on healthcare staff would bring the UK into line with most other Western countries.

An estimated 110 staff working in the NHS would be affected by the change, based on the numbers of Britons with HIV.

From next April, anyone with HIV wanting to carry out surgical and dental procedures would have to go on a confidential register and have three-monthly testing to ensure they were complying with treatment.

Prof Davies said: ‘We’ve got outdated rules. At the moment we bar totally safe healthcare workers who are on treatment with HIV from performing many surgical treatments, and that includes dentists.’

She said modern anti-retroviral drugs enabled people with HIV to lead normal lives, adding: ‘With effective treatment, they are not infectious.’ The risk to patients was ‘absolutely negligible’.

About 100,000 people in the UK are living with HIV, although experts say a quarter of those infected do not know it. In 2011, there were 6,000 new diagnoses of HIV in the UK.

Prof Davies said changing the rules would help remove some of the stigma of the disease and encourage healthcare workers who believed they could be at risk to get tested because their careers would no longer be on the line.

Although they are under a professional obligation to get tested in such circumstances, she admitted ‘a few’ might not do so for fear of the consequences.

Under the new rules, healthcare workers with HIV will be allowed to undertake all procedures if they are on effective combination of anti-retroviral drug therapy.

They must also have an undetectable viral load of HIV in their system, and must be regularly monitored. Public Health England will set up a confidential register holding data on infected workers.

There have been four cases worldwide of health workers infecting patients since 1992, with no cases in the UK. None of the workers was on drug treatment at the time.

 HIV was no longer a killer disease, Prof Davies said.

She added: ‘What we need is a simpler system that continues to protect the public through encouraging people to get tested for HIV as early as possible and that does not hold back some of our best healthcare workers because of a risk that is more remote than being struck by lightning.’

Deborah Jack, chief executive of the National Aids Trust, said: ‘Allowing healthcare workers living with HIV to undertake exposure-prone procedures corrects the current guidance which offers no more protection for the general public but keeps qualified and skilled people from working in the career they had spent many years training for.’

British Dental Association scientific adviser Professor Damien Walmsley added: ‘Dentists in the UK comply with rigorous infection control procedures to protect both patients and the dental team against the risk of transmission of blood-borne infections.’

Sir Nick Partridge, chief executive at HIV charity Terrence Higgins Trust, said: ‘Advances in medication have transformed what it means to live with HIV, and it’s great to see regulations starting to catch up.

‘People diagnosed in good time can have full, healthy lives, and effective treatment dramatically reduces the risk of the virus being passed on.

‘So long as the right safeguards are in place, there is now no reason why a dentist or a midwife with HIV should be barred from treating patients, or why people who would prefer to test at home should be denied that chance.’

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Is sugar an invisible killer? Even ‘safe’ levels of the sweet stuff could lead to an early death, scientists warn

U.S. researchers gave mice sugary diet and found female animals died twice as fast as those eating healthy snacks

Even ‘safe’ levels of sugar could be having invisible adverse effects on our health, American researchers.
Researchers gave mice the equivalent of a healthy human diet plus three cans of fizzy drink a day and found the female animals died twice as fast as those whose food was not largely composed of sugar.
Male mice consuming the sugary diet were less able to hold territory and reproduce, leading scientists to speculate that sugar has a damaging effect on the health of mammals, including humans.
Scientists from the University of Utah said the mice showed no sign of suffering serious physical changes in their bodies.
Writing in the online edition of the journal Nature Communications, the researchers said: ‘Our results provide evidence that added sugar consumed at concentrations currently considered safe exerts dramatic adverse impacts on mammalian health.’
Mice on the experimental diet received 25 percent of their energy intake in the form of added sugar, no matter how many calories they ate.
In human terms this was equivalent to a person eating a normal healthy diet plus three cans of sugar-sweetened fizzy drinks a day.
After 32 weeks, more than a third of the female mice fed extra sugar died – twice the number fed a non-sugary diet.
The death rate of males was not affected, but their survival behaviour was.
Males on the sugary diet acquired and held on to 26 percent fewer territories than their normal diet nest-mates and produced 25 percent fewer offspring.

Study leader Professor Wayne Potts at the university said: ‘This demonstrates the adverse effects of added sugars at human-relevant levels.’
To observe the mice in a more realistic setting, the researchers kept them in room-sized pens rather than cages.
This allowed them to compete more naturally for mates and desirable territories. Despite the effects on the mice, the sugar-fed animals showed only minor metabolic changes, including raised cholesterol.

The study found nothing unusual in terms of obesity or insulin and blood sugar levels.
‘Our test shows an adverse outcome from the added-sugar diet that couldn’t be detected by conventional tests,’ said Professor Potts.

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Is your birth control pill controlling YOU? New book claims hormonal contraception is a tool to suppress women in society

Studies have found that women on the Pill are attracted to men with lower testosterone levels and that its hormones can affect a woman’s memory

A new book has claimed that the Pill is in fact the tool of a capitalist patriarchy intent on altering and suppressing femininity.
British author Holly Grigg-Spall has written ‘Sweetening the Pill: Or How We Got Hooked on Hormonal Birth Control’ and believes that a number of studies proves her point that contraception is in fact controlling women.
She adds that women’s unquestioning acceptance of such powerful medications is in some ways a submission to a culture steeped in hatred of the feminine.

A 2011 study of women both on and off hormonal contraception found that the medication did affect a woman’s memory.
Both sets of women were shown photos and told a story about a car accident involving a young boy and his subsequent hospital visit.

Women on the pill remembered more of the emotional aspects of the story – the boy being hurt, what happened to him at the hospital – while the women who were not on the Pill were more likely to recall the details of the scene – what things looked like and where they were placed.

Ms Grigg-Spall argues that if memory contextualises our past experiences and governs our future behaviour and understanding of the world, then a drug that alters it in even a slight way might have far-reaching consequences.

Indeed, the changing testosterone levels in a woman’s body has been shown to affect women’s choice of sexual partners and mates.

A 2012 study revealed that women on hormonal birth control – which suppresses naturally occurring testosterone – were attracted to men with lower testosterone levels.

However when women went off of the Pill, and their testosterone levels increased, their attraction to their feminine partners decreased.

Reviewer Kelly Bourdet agrees that the evidence does show that the hormonal contraception has powerful and life-altering side effects.

And she adds that it’s fair to wonder whether a drug that could alter our choice in long-term partners is ‘too powerful for comfort’.

But the reviewer says the anti-Pill activist’s argument has its flaws. She says that it presumes that a woman is ‘somehow entirely defined by her hormones, lack of hormones, or artificially achieved level of hormones.

‘That a woman couldn’t possibly use her brain to decide to alter her hormones and that the hormonal levels once believed to rule women’s behaviour in such a way to make her nervous, emotional, and hysterical, once suppressed, rule her in an entirely different way.’

The book is available in the U.S. from September 7 and in the UK from September 27.

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For medical advice via the internet…

http://www.channel4embarrassingillnesses.com/

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E-Cig Companies Will Never Promise To Help You Quit Smoking

Two or three years ago, e-cigarettes were exotic. These strange sticks, their ends LED-lit and their owners expelling odourless smoke – “It’s vapour!” – would look as futuristic as a Replicant’s food injector. They gave the smoker nebulous powers, namely the ability to smoke on a plane, and they were expensive and hard to find.

Now, they’re everywhere. Even Leonardo DiCaprio was caught sucking on one on set. But are they safe? And what will they really do for the hard-core smoker?

Today the e-cigarette industry is worth around $3 billion globally, outpacing the entire stop-smoking industry including patches, gum, and other addiction killers.

Yet unlike smoking cessation products, which are sold over the counter in pharmacies, e-cigarette companies will never, ever make a claim that e-cigs will treat smoking addiction. In fact, these companies claim the opposite in their marketing materials, citing that they are not intended “to treat, prevent or cure any disease or condition.” This is the same language that appears on other dubious health concoctions

Even though it seems obvious that e-cigarettes are meant to help people tame their addiction to analog cigarettes — and there is even anecdotal evidence suggesting they are more effective than smoking cessation therapies — the claims made by these companies will partially determine the fate of the entire industry.

But before we get into the regulation of tomorrow, let’s look at the history of the tobacco industry.

A BRIEF HISTORY

In 1906, the Food and Drug Administration was created under President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1938, the FDA passed the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act, giving the federal government jurisdiction over products like foods, medicines, and other substances that could harm the public health.

For years, that didn’t include tobacco products. It was only in 2009, under President Barack Obama, that the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (FSPTCA) was put into place, giving the FDA the power to regulate the Tobacco Industry.

Before this, big tobacco was allowed to experiment with new products and market their wares however they pleased, with regulation coming from state governments. In the 1950s, the realities of smoking were just beginning to show their ugly head. We began to realize there was a clear connection between smoking cigarettes and developing cancer and other fatal illnesses.

So what did the industry do? They created something called “harm reduction products”, which were meant to be “safer” than your usual cigarette. In the beginning, this simply meant adding a filter. By the 80′s, companies were taking it a step further.

RJ Reynolds introduced a type of smokeless cigarette called Premier, which seemed to disgust everyone and eventually went off the market, only to resurface itself as the Eclipse. The American Cancer Society claimed that the Eclipse line, which went on sale in 2000, was not as safe as the marketing campaign suggested, as it still delivered carcinogens and other harmful substances.

In other words, harm reduction has long been a strategy for Big Tobacco to keep sales up in the face of… well, cancer. Keeping that in mind, it’s not too much of a surprise that harm reduction products have never really taken off. Until now.

E-CIGARETTES AND HARM REDUCTION

In public perception, smoking cessation products are the good guys. These are the products like Nicoderm CQ and Nicorette that are sold by pharmacies only, used for a temporary period, and regulated as treatment and/or therapy. I quit smoking for a while with the help of the patch, and got more congratulations during that period then I did graduating from NYU, winning State Championships in volleyball, or landing a job at TechCrunch.

Harm reduction products, on the other hand, seem like ploys. Many people hear “safer” and “cigarette” in the same sentence and assume it’s yet another trick to increase sales.

But e-cigarettes are different. The movement wasn’t led by Big Tobacco. The e-cigarette industry began to boom in 2007 led by hundreds of smaller companies. Eventually, Big Tobacco took notice. Unlike the patch, or the gums, e-cigarettes actually made a dent (a small, but noticeable one) in cigarette sales.

Rather than fight it, major tobacco companies are now investing in e-cigarette offerings. Lorillard, the maker of Newport, Maverick and Old Gold cigarettes acquired Blu eCigs for $135 million in April 2012. Reynolds American, which makes Camel, Pall Mall, Kool and others, is now selling its own Vuse e-cigarettes in select cities as a trial run. And Altria (formerly Phillip Morris), seller of Marlboros, now sells an e-cigarette line named MarkTen.

This has pushed distribution of e-cigarettes far beyond what small, independent companies could ever manage.

However, Big Tobacco’s involvement is a double-edged sword. While distribution is greatly increased, pushing these devices into the far reaches of the country, big tobacco also gives off the perception that these devices, like the products they’ve sold for centuries, will probably kill you.

“What are these products?” asks Dr. Michael Siegel, Professor at Boston University’s Public School of Health and supporter of e-cigs. “Are they harm reduction or are they smoking cessation? It’s a tough situation because, on the one hand, you have what it does and on the other you have the claims are that are allowable under the law. It’s a strange situation where they are being regulated as tobacco products. But they are not tobacco products. There’s no tobacco in them.”

SAFETY

To be clear, any product that delivers nicotine into the human body is automatically considered “unsafe.” That’s the nature of nicotine itself. It’s not meant to be in our bodies.

That said, smoking cessation products like Nicoderm and Nicorette are automatically forgiven. Their purpose is to wean you off the nicotine addiction, and then be discarded. No one quits smoking and says, I’m going to use the patch for the rest of my life. That’s not how it works. In fact, doctors who prescribe smoking cessation therapies have strict limits on how long they can continue to provide the patch, gums, etc.

E-cigarettes are different. These companies don’t want you to quit smoking entirely; they simply want you to switch from smoking to vaping. In fact, the business model is built around your return. The idea is that you pay a larger sum up-front, for the device and a first set of cartridges, making an investment in it, and then return to buy refills.

In this way, e-cigarettes are simply a cigarette alternative, and not a therapy to help you quit.

But even though e-cigarettes deliver nicotine into the body, and for an extended period of time, many experts agree that they are much, much safer than combusting cigarettes.

Right now, however, clear cut information on their safety is limited. To start, there have been no finished clinical trials to measure the difference, and holding a clinical trial that is effective becomes difficult knowing that subjects would be exposed to a known carcinogen.

Moreover, the lack of regulation here allows e-cigarette companies to be lazy or negligent. The nicotine dosage may vary from one product to the next, or perhaps they’re using something other than propylene glycol (the standard liquid found in e-cigarettes). They might even have a shoddy battery or wiring that exhausts burning plastic along with the nicotine.

Many e-cigarettes are manufactured in Asia, sold at gas stations, and the consumer is none the wiser that these products haven’t been checked out by any governing body. In short, there is no oversight.

Thankfully, according to Dr. Siegel, e-cigarettes are “orders of magnitude safer” than combusting cigarettes.

“Even if e-cigarettes only cause a five to ten percent reduction in cigarette consumption, you have to understand that from a public health perspective, that is an enormously positive impact,” said Dr. Siegel.

On the other hand, it’s the lack of regulation that makes e-cigarettes potentially dangerous. So what can be done?

REGULATION

This is where things get tricky.

The FDA is set to regulate the e-cigarette industry over the next year, at the latest. How they will regulate them is anyone’s guess.

There are three possible scenarios:

The first is that e-cigarettes will be regulated just like traditional cigarettes, with rules on how they can be marketed. This would still allow for distribution, letting e-cigs be sold anywhere traditional cigarettes are sold, but it would limit these companies’ ability to market themselves as a cigarette alternative, or at all.

The second option is that these products will be regulated in the same way as smoking cessation therapies. They would be sold only in pharmacies, over the counter. This would limit visibility and distribution enormously.

The third option is that the FDA will create brand new regulation for e-cigarettes, which would covers things like dosage, materials used, quality control testing, etc. but would still allow for broad distribution and marketing.

There is a raging debate right now over these options, or more pointedly, the time it will take to get to these options. Those that are pro-e-cigs want to ensure that the regulation is fair, and are willing to wait as long as they’re waiting for something close to option three.

Others believe that the e-cigarette companies are purposefully stalling, asking the FDA to wait for more hard evidence on the effects of e-cigarettes (especially compared to traditional cigarettes) in order to grow marketshare in an unregulated field. They see this as a huge risk considering that the e-cig industry is growing rapidly, and these unregulated products are in the hands of more and more unknowing consumers every day.

Bloomberg is even working to essentially ban e-cigarettes in New York.

Big Tobacco’s involvement in the matter only muddles things further. The industry doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to reducing public harm (or even admitting their products cause it in the first place), so in a way, Big Tobacco’s investment in the industry almost discredits e-cigarettes as just another marketing ploy.

On the other hand, Big Tobacco has the brawn to lobby the FDA in a way that these small manufacturers wouldn’t be able to do. Thanks to Big Tobacco, e-cigarette companies now have a voice in the pending regulation of their products.

The future of the industry is surely in question, but one thing is quite certain: this isn’t the last you’ll hear about e-cigarettes and the debate is heating (not burning) up.

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The adult dummy that can stop those dizzy spells

You may look slightly silly!

Scientists have devised a gadget that resembles a baby’s dummy to help tackle dizzy spells in adults, and prevent people from passing out.
The gadget, which the user places in their mouth whenever they are feeling dizzy, is designed to increase blood flow to the brain in people who suffer a sudden drop in blood pressure when they stand up.
This is called orthostatic or postural hypo-tension and is particularly common in older people. It is thought to be the cause of fainting in one in ten people aged 60 or over, and is a common cause of falls in older people.
The symptoms are caused by a lack of blood to the head when we stand up. Gravity causes blood to drop to the legs and away from the brain.
Normally, special blood pressure sensors in the neck automatically detect this and adjust our blood pressure and heart rate to cope. However, in some people, this doesn’t occur, causing a person to feel faint.
Ageing is one of the most common causes, as the blood pressure sensors in the neck become less sensitive with advancing years, meaning that blood pressure and heart rate aren’t increased as quickly as they should be.
Other causes include dehydration, some heart conditions, and diabetes. It has also been linked to use of some medicines, including diuretics, beta-blockers and some types of antidepressants.
The idea behind the new device is that it makes it slightly harder for a person to breathe when inserted into the mouth.

The device contains a single tube that the patient breathes through. This contains a type of filter, which restricts the amount of air flowing into the mouth, making a person suck harder on the tube to pull air into the lungs. Although this sounds counter-intuitive, it’s thought that the actions of sucking on the tube causes the lungs to expand more than they normally would, in an effort to pull in more air. This extra lung expansion signals to the body that it is struggling for air, which helps push blood back to the heart and brain.
However, the device still allows a person to breathe enough air so that sufficient oxygen reaches the brain.
Early studies have shown the device results in a 50 per cent increase in blood pressure, and results in more blood being pumped to the brain.
In the new study at Vanderbilt University in the U.S., 100 patients who suffer from postural hypo-tension will use the device at home whenever they feel dizzy.
Commenting on the gadget, Dr Christopher Morley, consultant cardiologist, and lead consultant for the Blackout Service at Bradford NHS Trust said: ‘The device provides a simple way of increasing blood flow to the heart and may moderate symptoms of postural hypo-tension.
However, whether or not it is well tolerated by patients, and they find it easy and comfortable to use, remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, cinnamon could help control blood pressure.
In a new study, conducted at Thames Valley University, patients with type 2 diabetes were given 2g of cinnamon every day for 12 weeks; the spice decreased systolic blood pressure (the top number in a reading, which is the pressure in the arteries when the heart beats) by five points and diastolic blood pressure (the pressure between beats) by two points.
How exactly the cinnamon reduces blood pressure is unknown, but one theory is that it helps widen the blood vessels.

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How to be healthy

Stop engaging in risky behaviour: Taking unnecessary risks is hard on the body and mind and can have devastating long-term consequences. Serious or established patterns of risk-taking can also be indicative of deeper psychological problems, in which case you should talk to a health care professional who specializes in a relevant field. Start by setting your sights on one of the following achievements:

• Drink more water: Adult humans should be drinking a litre or more water per day; six eight ounce cups of water. That is in addition to diuretics like tea and coffee. Water keeps bodies at the correct temperature and removes toxins that are the inevitable result of metabolism and industrial life. Water-rich foods are an even better idea.

• Eat well: A light organic breakfast is sufficient and, when combined with a snack mid-morning, will see you through until lunch time. A good time for a healthy, easy-to-digest evening meal is between 5pm and 8pm depending on your work/study schedule; it is best to avoid late night snacks because they fill you with unnecessary calories and can disrupt your sleep. Once a steady eating pattern has been established, your body will feel more comfortable. Remember that not all fats are bad for you. Good fats can be found in oily fish like salmon and tuna, avocados, nuts and olive oil. These are essential to a well-balanced diet. Read below on How to Eat Healthy for more facts:

Learn how to cook. Cooking your own meals is a wonderful experience as you can try out different recipes while saving money at the same time.

• A high-fiber diet can lower your cholesterol, control your blood-sugar level, improve your bowel health, and make you less likely to overeat. The recommended fiber intake is 30 grams a day for men and 21 for women; after the age of 50, this jumps up to 38 for men and 25 for women. Some good sources of fiber include fruits and vegetables (with the skin), whole grains, and legumes.
  
• Increase your intake of antioxidants to fight the free radicals that have been linked to cancer, heart disease, atherosclerosis, among other diseases.
  
• Maintain a weight that is suitable for you. Our physical frames vary in size and weight. An individual with a large frame can carry a little more weight while a person with a light frame will be able to carry less.
• Do not use any form of crash diets. There is no magic bullet for weight loss – and even if there were, starving your body of vital nutrients wouldn’t be it. A slow change in your eating habits is much safer and the long-term benefits for your physical health are greater.
• If you don’t want to go on a diet, read How to Lose Weight Just by Exercising. Just remember that only serious athletes are able to burn off enough calories to be able to enjoy massive indulgences – and even so, they tend not to because it’s hard on the body. Even if you do consume more calories than are recommended for you, be sure that they are nutritious; your heart, brain, muscles, bones, organs, and blood can’t run forever on empty calories.

Bolster your immune system: Maintaining healthy habits and a high level of energy is difficult for anyone who constantly battles fatigue, colds, infections, or any other effects of a weakened immune system.

Improve your sleep quality: When you sleep, your body produces cells that fight infection, inflammation, and stress – which means that getting too little sleep or poor-quality sleep not only makes you more prone to getting sick, but also increases the time you need to recover from illness. On top of that, a study conducted by The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition demonstrated that men who slept for 4 hours consumed 500 more calories than they did after sleeping for 8 hours.

Get in shape: In addition to helping you lose weight and gain confidence, exercising has a host of other benefits for your body and mind. For example, having good cardiovascular health has been linked to a decreased risk of Alzheimer’s. Exercising also boosts your immune system; even a change as minor as walking briskly for twenty to thirty minutes a day five days a week can improve your immune system by increasing both your antibody and T-killer cell response. Exercising is also one of the absolute best ways to sleep better at night – which, as previously mentioned, can help you lose weight by keeping you from overeating.

Maintain your personal hygiene: Wash your hands often, especially after visiting the bathroom at home or using the restrooms in a public place. Floss and brush your teeth and tongue after eating; food particles are often the cause of bad breath and gum disease. Visit your dentist regularly for cleanings and to catch any problems before they become serious.

Find emotional balance: Even if you master every other aspect of health, it won’t feel complete if you’re suffering from inner turmoil. Everyone needs a pick-me-up sometimes, and there are many small things that you can do to feel better about yourself. If the problem extends deeper, you may need to learn to cope with emotional pain or even depression. Once you have worked on yourself, you should work on your approach to interpersonal relationships. Learn how to recognize a manipulative or controlling relationship and, if necessary, deal with emotional abuse so that you can have a healthy relationship. Exercise daily or if not possible twice or thrice a week. It will increase your metabolic rate and you’ll feel fresh the whole week.

Source: WikiHow

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Red-headed men are less at risk of prostate cancer because of their unusual genes, study reveals

It may have become something of a magnet for ridicule and discrimination.

But now, it seems, there may be major health benefits to being ginger, especially for men.

New research shows that naturally red-headed men are 54 per cent less likely to develop prostate cancer as those with blond, brown or black hair.

Why hair colour should be such a powerful influence on cancer risk is not clear.

But scientists behind the findings, published online in the British Journal of Cancer, think it might be to do with the way genes that dictate hair pigmentation also influence tumour development.

Britain has some of the largest numbers of ginger-haired people per head of population. Globally, the figure is one to two per cent, but  it is 13 per cent in Scotland, 10 per cent in Ireland and six per cent in England.

Previous studies have hinted that having red hair affects health in other ways.

Scientists at Louisville University in Kentucky, found ginger-haired people feel pain and the cold more than everybody else because their pain threshold may be partly dictated by the same gene that sets their hair colour – MC1R.

Red-heads, being fair skinned, are also known to be more at risk of skin cancer.

But researchers from Finland’s National Institute for Health and Medicine, in Helsinki, and the US National Cancer Institute, based in Maryland, wanted to see if the same genetic factors also influenced a man’s chances of prostate cancer.

Nearly 32,000 cases are diagnosed annually in the UK and 10,000 men die from the disease a year. Men over 50 are more likely to develop a tumour.

The researchers looked at 20,000 men aged 50 to 69 who were recruited to a long-term health study in the late 1980s.

Among the data collected were records of what colour their hair was aged 20.

Researchers found that 1,982 men went on to develop prostate cancer.

Researchers stressed that only one per cent of the men studied had red hair, compared to more than 40 per cent with light brown hair.

Scientists think it is possible that the MC1R gene may help to control the way some cells divide and grow.

Dr Iain Frame, director of research at Prostate Cancer UK said: ‘This research does indicate an association between having naturally red hair and a reduced risk of developing prostate cancer.

‘But the strength and exact nature of this association is still unclear.

‘We would not wish any man with red hair who has a concern about prostate cancer to hold back from seeking advice.’

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