Health & Wellness

WELLNESS 

REMEMBER THE BETTER YOU TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF THE BETTER YOUR LIFE WILL BE. YOUR HEALTH SHOULD BE A TOP PRIORITY IN YOUR LIFE. YOU CAN TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF BY PRACTICING A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE—EXERCISE REGULARLY AND EAT RIGHT. 

A Little Walking Cuts Blood Pressure
Study Shows Even Short Walks Can Improve Your Health
By Jennifer Warner, WebMD Medical News reviewed by Louise Chang MD

Aug. 15, 2007—Thirty minutes of walking three times a week may be enough to help lower blood pressure and start you on the path to better health. A new study shows that even a little bit of weekly exercise is enough to lower blood pressure and improve overall fitness. The results showed that 30 minutes of walking three times a week– even if it was broken into 10-minute walks throughout the day—was enough to have a healthy effect on blood pressure as well as measurements around the waist and hip.

National guidelines recommend that people exercise at least 30 minutes a day on most days of the week to maintain optimum health. But few people achieve that goal, citing lack of time as the biggest obstacle. Researchers say these results may help motivate people to fit in even a little exercise here and there to benefit their health.

Even a Little Exercise Helps:

In the study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, researchers invited 106 healthy but sedentary civil servants to take part in an exercise program for 12 weeks. About a third were told to briskly walk for 30 minutes, five days a week. Another third were told to briskly walk for 30 minutes a day, three days a week; the remaining third were told not to change their sedentary lifestyle at all.

The participants wore pedometers to monitor their walking, and researchers measured their blood cholesterol, weight, hip and waist size, and overall fitness before and after the study.

The results showed systolic (the top number) blood pressure dropped— and waist and hip measurements shrunk significantly—in both the three-day-a-week and five-day-a-week exercise groups.

Systolic blood pressure dropped by 5 points among those who exercised three days a week and by 6 points among those who exercised five days a week.

Waist and hip measurements fell by 2.6 centimeters and 2.4 centimeters respectively among the three-day-a-week exercisers and by 2.5 centimeters and 2.2 centimeters among the five-day-a-week exercise group.

No changes were found in the sedentary group.

Researcher Mark A. Tully of Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, says a decrease of a few points in blood pressure and a few centimeters in the waist and hips is enough to significantly reduce the risk of death due to heart disease. They say the study shows even moderate exercise below the recommended levels can still have benefits. 

WELLNESS:
Surgeon General Report: Just one cigarette is bad

A new report released by the Surgeon General says even brief exposure to tobacco smoke causes immediate harm to the body—damaging cells and inflaming tissue in ways that can lead to serious illness and death. The report, which focuses on the medical effects of smoke on the body, also sheds light on why cigarettes—which contain 7,000 chemicals and compounds– are so addictive: They are designed to deliver nicotine more quickly and more efficiently than cigarettes did decades ago. The report also notes that every exposure to tobacco from occasional smoking or just secondhand smoke-can damage DNA in ways that can lead to cancer.

The Surgeon General Regina Benjamin says that “Tobacco smoke damages almost every organ in your body.” In someone with underlying heart disease, she says, “One cigarette can cause a heart attack.”

Tobacco kills more than 443,000 Americans a year, causing one in five deaths, both from direct smoking and secondhand smoke. Half of all long-term smokers will die from the habit, says the 700 page report, written with contributions from 64 experts.

Recent changes in the design and ingredients used in cigarettes have made them even more likely to hook first-time users and keep older smokers coming back, according to Benjamin.

Changes include:

· Adding ammonia to tobacco, which converts nicotine to a form that gets to the brain much faster.

· Filter holes that allow people to inhale smoke more deeply into the lungs.

· Sugar and “moisture enhancers” to reduce the harshness and burning sensation of smoking, making it more pleasant, especially for new cigarette users.

This report shows that millions of adult social smokers who light up occasionally at parties, believe they’re not putting themselves at risk.

Some sobering statistics about smoking:

· 44300 Americans are killed by tobacco per year 
· 1 in 5 Deaths are attributed to tobacco annually 
· $193 billion is the annual cost in health care and lost productivity in the U.S. due to cigarette smoking 
· Approximately 4100 teens smoke their first cigarette each day 
· 1000 Americans die from a tobacco-related illness per day 
· 85% of lung cancers are caused by smoking 
· 1 in 3 cancer deaths is tobacco related .

Relaxation to the Rescue

Are you trying to eat better, quit smoking, or foster other good-for-you habits? It's not that hard to make healthy changes for a day or two. However, it's much harder to stick with the changes for weeks and months. Stress and tension can interfere with your best intentions and cause you to give in to food cravings, smoking urges, or other familiar habits.

The Road to Relaxation
Relaxation can rescue you from stress so that you don't backtrack on your healthy behaviors. To help you relax on a deeper level, these techniques may help:

• Breathing exercises
• Yoga
• Meditation
• Progressive muscle relaxation

Taming Tension
You can learn yoga, meditation, breathing exercises, and other relaxation methods from a class or book. Here's one exercise to try now

• Sit or lie compfortably in a quiet place. Close your eyes.
• Imagine you are in a peaceful place, perhaps lying on a warm beach or grassy hilltop watching the clouds float by.
• Put one hand on your stomach and focus on your breathing.
• Breathe slowly and deeply. As you inhale, feel your stomach rise. As you exhale, feel it sink.
• Continue breathing slowly for 10 minutes.

7 Ways to Lose Weight

Everyday ways you haven't heard of — and they work!
Remember to always check with your doctor before beginning any diet or exercise program.  

1. Put the kettle on. Drinking green tea (which is also known for its powerful cancer-fighting compounds) may help you burn more calories by inducing slight changes in metabolism, according to researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

2. Choose cereal. Eating cold cereal with skim milk for breakfast and as a replacement for lunch or dinner can help jump-start your diet, according to a Purdue University study released last fall. The men and women in the study, who all ate Special K, lost an average of six pounds in two weeks.

3. Consider peanut butter. Foods rich in monounsaturated fats (including nuts, peanut butter, olive and canola oils and avocados) can help you lose weight, according to a study conducted at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital. Researchers studied 101 overweight people who were divided into two groups. One group was put on a low fat diet that got about 20 percent of its calories from fat; the other followed a diet that got 35 percent of its calories from fat, mostly the monounsaturated kind. While both groups of women lost an average of 11 pounds in the first year, only those on the so-called "peanut butter" diet were able to keep the weight off for 18 months or longer.

4. Keep sipping. Experts say you should drink enough water to equal half of your body weight in ounces. If you weigh 160 pounds, aim to drink 80 ounces a day. One way to keep tabs: Drink fluids with each meal and keep a water bottle with you at other times so you remember to drink, suggests Kimberly Glenn, M.S., R.D., L.D., a registered dietitian at North side Hospital in Atlanta. Drinking adequate water will help keep you from mistaking thirst for hunger, which is a common pitfall.

5. Prioritize your workouts. Make your workouts an important part of your everyday life.

6. Pump up the volume. Foods with high water or fiber content tend to fill you up faster, according to researchers at Penn State University. The idea here is that you'll eat less of (and it'll take longer to eat) a spinach omelet versus a plate of scrambled eggs.

7. Reach for dairy. Low fat dairy products can be among the best weight-loss staples, according to researchers at Purdue University who studied a group of women for two years. Those who met the recommended dietary intake (RDI) for calcium (1,000 mg) and ate less than 1,900 calories a day lost an average of six pounds, while women who consumed the same amount of calories but less calcium actually ended up gaining weight. Researchers speculate that calcium may help promote the breakdown of the body's fat stores.

The better you take care of yourself the better you life wil be.  You can take care of yourself by eating right and exercising regularly

Stopping smoking will not only have a positive affect on your health but it can also lower the cost of the Welfare Fund Medical Plan.

• 20 Minutes After Quitting
  Your heart rate drops.
• 12 hours After Quitting
  Carbon monoxide level in your blood drops to normal.
• 2 Weeks to 3 Months After Quitting
  Your heart attack risk begins to drop.
  Your lung function begins to improve.
• 1 to 9 Months After Quitting
  Your Coughing and shortness of breath decrease.
• 1 Year After Quitting
  Your added risk of coronary heart disease is half that of a smoker's.
• 5 Years After Quitting
  Your stroke risk is reduced to that of a nonsmoker's 5-15 years after quitting.
• 10 Years After Quitting
  Your lung cancer death rate is about half that of a smoker's.
  Your risk of cancers of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, kidney, and pancreas decreases.15 Years After Quitting
  Your risk of coronary heart disease is back to that of a nonsmoker's. Need more convincing?

• Stroke risk is reduced to that of a person who never smoked after 5 to 15 years of not smoking.
• Cancers of the mouth, throat, and esophagus risks are halved 5 years after quitting.
• Cancer of the larynx risk is reduced after quitting.Coronary heart disease risk is cut by half 1 year after quitting and is nearly the same as someone who never smoked 15 yearsafter quitting.
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease risk of death is reduced after you quit.
• Lung cancer risk drops by as much as half 10 years after quitting.
• Ulcer risk drops after quitting.
• Bladder cancer risk is halved a few years after quitting.
• Peripheral artery disease goes down after quitting.
• Cervical cancer risk is reduced a few years after quitting.
• Low birth weight baby risk drops to normal if you quit before pregnancy or during your first trimester.

How Patients are Diagnosed with Mesothelioma

Preliminary mesothelioma detection can be achieved through a chest imagery scan (CT scan, x-ray); however, mesothelioma is often misdiagnosed as viral pneumonia at this stage because of certain symptomatic similarities between the two. The only way to definitely verify a suspected case is through a biopsy.

A biopsy is a relatively minor procedure (dependent on the location of the tumor) during which a small section of suspect tissue is removed. The removed section is examined by a histopathologist, an expert in the study of diseased tissue. Hisopathological examination can confirm a case of malignant mesothelioma while also typing and staging it. Understanding the type and stage can help doctors suggest the best form of treatment.