Archive for the ‘Health’ Category

Wash your hands off messy notes

August 7th, 2010 No Comments

Next time you buy vegetables from a street vendor or purchase meat from a butcher shop, make sure you wash your hands thoroughly. The reason: A study has found that the currency notes given by street vendors and butchers have a high concentration of bacteria!

The study conducted on the microbial contamination of Indian currency notes circulated in Bangalore was conducted by the Department of Microbiology, Genohelix Biolabs, Jain University. It showed that the pathogenic count was the highest in rupee notes given by butchers, street-food vendors and vegetable sellers and bus conductors. The notes given by banks reported the lowest growth of bacterial colonies

According to the study conducted over a period of three months notes were collected in sterile zip-lock covers. The samples were taken from butchers, beggars, vegetable sellers, bus conductors, banks from areas like City market, M G Road, Majestic bus stand and near colleges in JP Nagar 1st Phase. Currency notes of denominations – Rs 5, Rs 10, Rs 100 and Rs 500 – were chosen for the study.

It was found that contamination of pathogens, both bacterial and fungal, were less in higher units of denominations and higher in lower units of denominations. Some of the bacterial pathogens that were identified were Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumonia, Proteus mirabilis and Streptococcus faecalis. Fungal forms included Asperglluls sp., Trichoderma sp and Penicillium sp.

“The lower denomination notes get soiled easily. The notes are treated to sweat and saliva of people. In a butcher’s shop, the notes are stored in places that have extensive scope for bacteria to breed,” said Sourav Bhattacharya, one of the three members, who conducted the study. Arijit Das and Nagananda G S are the the other two members on the panel.

Colonies of bacteria

With each note undergoing tests three times, notes from a butcher’s shop on an average showed over 50 colonies of bacteria breeding on it. A note from the bank showed around 3-4 colonies. Sourav said that currency papers are bigger in surface and therefore conducive for bacteria and fungi to be persistent on it even more than coins.

The contamination was the result of lack of hygienic practice among meat, food and vegetable vendors, faecal contamination, coughing and sneezing on the notes, etc. So, what’s the solution? Sourav felt that people should wash their hands after exchange of money, especially people who are constantly engaged in monetary transactions.

“It would be wise to use hand sanitisers or washing of hand before touching food as the bacteria could cause various infections and illnesses,” felt Sourav. He added that Reserve Bank of India should repeatedly conduct decontamination of notes through UV treatment. Usage of plastic currency is another solution.

  • Share/Bookmark
Posted in Friends, Health

When Love Is Gone

May 19th, 2010 No Comments

The first thing you should remember is that being lovelorn is not something serious. It is a very normal thing in life. People around you like your friends, your colleagues, your close relatives or even your ex have been in this situation at least once.

Of course, you will be sad and broken-hearted when your lover leaves you. This cannot be avoided. However, an intelligent girl will not let it affect her so much, she knows what is good for her and will recover her balance quickly by:

1. Spending her time on new hobbies or coming back to old ones that she has forgotten so far like: photography, traveling, dancing, reading, etc. Those hobbies do not only help her to forget the ex but also make her become more attractive and she will easily find another man can bring happiness to her life.

2. Going shopping with her friends. Most of girls are interested in fashion, cosmetic, jewelry, etc. Go around and bring home stuffs that make you more attractive, she will realize that life has many wonderful things to enjoy. While doing the shopping together, you she can talk to and share her sadness with her friend, she will feel better. Be sure that a true friend will come to us whenever we need her.

3. Going with her friends who are still single. Those friends will make her laugh and forget all troubles. She knows that sitting alone at home to think about what have happened and being sunk in sadness just make the situation become worse.

4. Going on holiday to a city or a region that she has desired to visit so far. In a strange environment with new things and new people, there will be no memories that can remind her about the ex and she can quickly forget him.

When you are lovelorn, you can also go out with other guys to realize that besides your ex there are many other wonderful boys around you and he is not the only one you can fall in love with. However, do not get a new love in a hurry with the purpose to fill the gap, it may be a wrong decision and bring you more troubles.

Never think about calling him and begging him to come back to you, this is one of the most stupid action. He decided to leave you, it means that he has thought about that and does not love you anymore. When you beg him to come back to you, for some certain reasons, he may agree but that kind of relationship will not last long and even make you feel worse after that. Therefore, stop it right now and find a better man for you. That may be hard at first but then you will see it is the most useful solution.

In order to do that, you must control your emotion and win yourself. Whenever you miss him and want to send him a message, call him or chat with him, think about moments when he made you sad, surely you will leave that intention

  • Share/Bookmark
Posted in Friends, Health

Boost Your Self Control with a Mental Budget

March 24th, 2010 No Comments

It’s easy to set goals, but the chasm between saying you’re going to do something and exercising the willpower and self control required to actually follow through can be enormous. Psychology Today recommends setting a mental budget to improve your self control.

The basic requirements for setting a mental budget, as laid out in the blog post, are four-fold (and in this instance are written with food/diet goals in mind):

1. You need a point of reference for setting your mental budget. In the case of diet, for example, you need to know what sort of consumption is normal.
2. You need to be able to track your goal (e.g., you need to be able to see how many calories a food items contains).
3. It may not sound all that fun, but your mental budget will be most successful if you’re thinking about the negative aspects of failing your goal rather than the positive (e.g., you’ll be more successful with your diet if you think about the fat content of candy bars than the deliciousness).
4. Last, you need to remember that your budget isn’t guaranteed, and you have to make your budget realistic if you’re going to stick to it.

As noted, the Psychology Today post focuses mostly on food and diet, but the concepts laid out for setting a mental budget seem like they could apply to goal setting across the board

  • Share/Bookmark
Posted in Health Tags:

Yoga helping Hollywood celebrities age backward

January 22nd, 2010 No Comments

NEVADA – Thanks to yoga, which is contributing to some Hollywood celebrities to age “backward”.NEVADA – Thanks to yoga, which is contributing to some Hollywood celebrities to age “backward”.According to People magazine: “They’re Aging Backward! With the Help of Yoga, Caviar Facials and Organic Diets, the Older These Stars Get, the Younger They Look”It lists stars who are “Aging Backward” as: Demi Moore, Jennifer Aniston, Sandra Bullock, Halle Berry, Jennifer Lopez, Courteney Cox, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Nicollette Sheridan.It calls Demi Moore “47 and fabulous”. About Jennifer Aniston, it says: “Getting her body yoga-fit …helped turn back the clock…After her 2005 split from Brad Pitt, Aniston started doing yoga at least three times a week and adopted an organic diet”. Regarding Jada Pinkett Smith, it points out: “Smith keeps her body ageless with a mix of yoga, hiking and weight training.”Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that yoga was a mental and physical discipline by means of which the human-soul (jivatman) united with universal-soul (parmatman). Zed suggested celebrities to explore the spiritual dimension of yoga also besides its physical benefits.Zed, who is president of Universal Society of Hinduism, further said yoga was one of the six systems of orthodox Hindu philosophy and urged celebrities to take a look at the rest of the five schools also.Some sages had described yoga as the silencing of all mental transformations, which lead to the total realization of the Supreme Self, Zed added. (ANI)

  • Share/Bookmark
Posted in Health

Amino acid helps protein grow tooth enamel

December 25th, 2009 No Comments

Proline, a simple amino acid that recurs at the centre of proteins found in tooth enamel, makes teeth stronger and more resilient, according to a new research. Tough-tooth-enamel-002

University of Illinois-Chicago (UI-C) researchers compared proline repeats in amphibian and animal models and discovered that when the repeats are short, such as in frogs, teeth will not have the enamel prisms that are responsible for the strength of human enamel.

Conversely, when the proline repeats are long, they contract groups of molecules that help enamel crystals grow.

“Proline repeats are amazing,” said study leader Tom Diekwisch, professor and head of oral biology at the UI-C College of Dentistry.

The new discovery, Diekwisch said, will give new clues to engineer tooth enamel. “We hope that one day these findings will help people replace lost parts of the tooth with a healthy layer of new enamel.”

Diekwisch’s team discovered that the longer the stretch of proline repeats, the more the protein bubbles contracted. The study also showed that the smaller protein bubbles were associated with longer enamel crystals, he said, according to a university release.

The findings were published in the Monday online version of the PLoS Biology.

  • Share/Bookmark
Posted in Health Tags:

Excess salt intake linked to higher risk of stroke

November 25th, 2009 No Comments

Intake of high amounts of salt is linked to much higher risk of strokes and cardiovascular disease, says a new study.

The study looked at the relationship between the level of habitual dietary salt intake and the occurrence of stroke and cardiovascular disease by reviewing 13 prospective studies from Britain, Japan, the US, the Netherlands, Finland and China.

It included more than 170,000 participants, followed up for 3.5 to 19 years, who experienced nearly 11,000 vascular events.

The research was carried out jointly by the WHO’s Collaborating Centre for Nutrition at the University of Warwick and University Hospital in Britain and European Society of Hypertension Excellence Centre at Federico II University Medical School in Italy.

The study provides unequivocal evidence of the direct link between high dietary salt intake and increased risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease.

A five gram lower daily salt intake would reduce stroke by 23 percent and total cardiovascular disease by 17 percent, thus averting 1.25 million fatal and non-fatal strokes, and almost three million vascular events worldwide each year.

The effect is greater, the larger the difference in salt intake and increases with time, said a WHO release.

Francesco Cappuccio, professor and head of the WHO Centre at Warwick Medical School said: “We have seen reductions in the salt content of several food items, due to the collaboration between governments, public health bodies and sectors of the industry on a voluntary basis.”

“Habitual salt intake in most adult populations around the world exceeds 10 grams per day as against the WHO’s recommended daily intake of no more than five grams,” says Pasquale Strazzullo, professor and study author.

These results were published in the British Medical Journal.

  • Share/Bookmark
Posted in Health

Pressure Points for Headaches

August 28th, 2009 No Comments

All of us have experienced headaches some time in our life. That headache normally could be for any reason – tension, not eating right and many others. Depending on the severity and frequency there could be other major underlying causes of headache. But this article is not going to deal with these headaches, which are symptoms of serious health problems, leading to melodramatic situations!

For dealing with normal day to day headaches, apart from the artificial pain killers, there are natural remedies to get rid of those frustrating headaches. One of such remedy is applying pressure on the pressure points for headaches. These pressure points are either straight from the books of acupressure and general points around the temple, which are believed to work wonders against headaches. The following is a list of such pressure points.

Pressure Points to Cure Headaches

Basically the acupressure technique involves the usage of two fingers, and it pressing until it hurts not more than you can tolerate. The trick is that it should be slightly uncomfortable but not painful. So, now that the technique is clear, lets get to the pressure points for headaches according to acupressure.

GB20: If there is a pain in the temporal regions and sides of your head, then this is the accurate point. For this point, check out the depression at the back of your head, at the base of your skull. Then, once you get that, run your fingers starting from the center point of the back of your neck to past the first large muscle you can sense. The bottom line is that the fingers should slide in that depression. Press slightly up and in until you feel a tender point. Then massage by making circular motions with the fingers.

Point CO4: This is an all purpose pressure point. This is a point some of you might be even aware of. This point has its location in the webbing of the hand between the thumb and the first finger. To see how useful this point is, place your thumb on the top of your hand and your first finger on the side of the palm. Until you come across a tender spot, continue pressing. Apply small circular motions to obtain headache relief. Switch hands for better outcome.

Point LV3: Now, this pressure point is located between the big toe and first toe, on top of the foot. Find a depression between the bones and a soft spot. Again, hold and apply a small circular motion.

There are some more points, which are not exactly from acupressure books, but effective nevertheless, for tackling headaches.

Temples: Feel your temples with your thumbs and gently massage them. However, remember that you should barely touch the skin. Massage clockwise for around 20 seconds to a minute. This relaxes the individual undergoing headache. There is another point, which is somewhat the midpoint of the distance between two ears. Massage for around 10 to 40 seconds with the tips of your middle finger or by thumbs.

Eyebrows: There are a few pressure points to cure headaches near the inside ends of eyebrows. Now using tips of your middle fingers massage these points. One of the points is above the eye brows and one of them is on both the eyebrows, where eyebrows connect to the nose bridge. The massage should involve strong, circular motions. It is advisable to massage for around 20 to 40 seconds at one go.

There are a few more pressure points for headaches. However, the above are the most easiest to locate and effective for curing headache.

The acupressure points, though will need a consultation in pregnancy and any chronic medical condition. So, it will be ideal to consult your doctor because these pressure points to cure headaches are contraindicated for some conditions.

  • Share/Bookmark
Posted in Health, IT world

Few Tips For Using Aloe Vera

August 28th, 2009 No Comments

Aloe is a succulent plant that can easily be grown indoors or outdoors, in garden beds or in pots. The cheapest and easiest method of using this wonderfully healing plant is to grow it yourself if you can. The plant proliferates very quickly, so from one plant you can end up with many plants in a short amount of time. No need to buy dozens of plants or worse yet, expensive preservative ridden pre-prepared creams and gels.

The most outstanding benefit of using fresh Aloe Vera is that you will experience it at its freshest best quality, just like Mother Nature intended. Just make sure you buy a plant from a reputable nursery to ensure you are getting real Aloe Vera.

Here are my 7 tips for using Aloe Vera:

1. Make Your Own Aloe Vera Gel

Preparation of Aloe Gel can be done very simply. Firstly cut a few thick fleshy leaves at the base near the stem. Rinse the cut part of the leaf thoroughly, peel off outer layer of skin. If you are going to ingest the gel then rinse again to get rid of any latex residue. Put the gel into a blender and add a little Vitamin C powder or Citric Acid powder to stabilize the gel. If it is too thick to blend, just add a little purified water. Please take note, for internal use make sure you rinse off the brown exudate from the open cut of the leaf, called latex, as this can have a strong (and usually unwanted) laxative effect. If done properly you shouldn’t have a problem. I have been using Aloe from my garden for years now, and by being very meticulous about rinsing it properly I haven’t had an issue with it. Usually keeps in the fridge for a few weeks, depends on your fridge of course.

2. Make An Aloe Vera Gel Spritz

The gel can be put into a small spray bottle and sprayed directly onto skin, after blending the gel strain through cheese cloth to get rid of fibrous particles. Keep in the fridge to give it a longer shelf life, it should keep there for a few weeks. Be sure not to spray into eyes though.

3. Use It To Control Acne

Acne is a skin problem that affects people from 10 all the way through 40 (sadly, sometimes even older now), and this can appear in many forms such as whiteheads, congested pores, pimples, cysts, pustules or blackheads. The usual onset of acne occurs when oil glands within the skin start to come to life at around puberty, these are stimulated by hormones that come from the adrenal glands and is common for both girls and boys. There is also an adult onset form of acne, it is no longer just a nuisance for the young. The gel can assist in soothing and clearing the skin due to its anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties. Natural methods to control skin issues are often best carried out from the inside out, rather than just treating the topical symptoms.

4. Help With Digestion

Aloe Vera gel is used to aid in digestion and for the protection of the digestive system. A little can be taken either before or after meals. Nutrients from food are normally absorbed into the blood stream whilst dispensing with the unwanted waste along the digestive tract. Due to various causes, the bowel can gradually build up unabsorbed food residues along the lining. As these residues become compacted they may prevent essential nutrients being absorbed. The resulting nutrient deficiency can cause a variety of symptoms, anything from lethargy and exhaustion to diarrhoea or constipation.

5. Relieve Eczema

Aloe gel soothes and helps repair skin suffering from a skin condition called eczema. Eczema is a generic term for rash-like skin conditions. Generally described, it is an inflammation of the skin which is characterized by dryness, flakiness, heat and, probably most importantly, itching. It can affect one or many areas on the face and body and can be mild, moderate or severe.

6. Cool Down Burns

Fresh aloe gel soothes pain, cools the skin, and stimulates blood flow to burnt skin, it is a renowned salve for burns. Whilst providing essential nutrients needed to promote healthy tissue growth it helps reduce inflammation and kill bacteria and other foreign organisms that thrive on damaged skin cells. The cooling effect offers instant relief from burns and will typically prevent, or greatly reduce, blistering when applied immediately after receiving a burn. For minor burns you can peel a section of the leaf and gently dab the gel from the fresh leaf onto the burnt area. Of course for major burns you must seek medical advice.

7. Speed Up Wound Healing

The Aloes wound healing ability mainly comes from its moisturizing effect, which prevents air from drying the wound. It is also believed that the barrier formed over the wound after the gel has been applied, actually speeds up the wound healing process. It may also be attributed to the plants immunity boosting properties which may be responsible for accelerated wound healing, as well as the nutritive, anti-bacterial and antiviral properties found in the plant. Dab gel directly from fresh leaf, or spray onto affected area.

These tips are not recommended to replace medical care and attention, they are intended for minor afflictions and general use only. If you have health concerns or are on any medications please consult your health care professional before attempting to use any of the above tips.

  • Share/Bookmark
Posted in For Parents, Health

Buy T-MobilePhones and Save. | Thanks to Highest CD Rates, Credit Card Offers and UK Loan