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As a matter of fact, March is National Nutrition Month®. The American Dietetic Association created this campaign to raise awareness and education about eating healthy. This program helps people make healthy diet choices, while encouraging them to raise their physical activity level. “It’s a Matter of Fact” is this year’s NNM’s slogan and means just what it says. Get the facts about nutrition and get on your way to a healthier, happier you.
Obesity is an increasing health issue in America. According to WebMD, 30 percent of the population is obese and 65 percent are overweight or obese. Obesity can lead to very serious, and sometimes fatal, health conditions including Type II Diabetes and heart disease.
WebMD offers two calculators on their site. The first will give you an estimate of how many calories you are burning during physical activity. This will help if you want to lose weight and have to lower your caloric intake and increase your physical activity level.
The second calculator will give your estimated body mass index (BMI). A BMI of 29.9 or over indicates a very high risk of serious health problems.
With the information from the American Dietetic Association and the help from WebMD’s calculators, you no longer have an excuse. Get the facts, get healthy and stay happy.
I went back east over Christmas break and the cold weather inevitably brings getting sick. I was staying at my parent’s house, which at any given time could have up to nine or 10 people in it. So as you can imagine, when one gets sick, all get sick. When it was my turn to have the runny nose, cough and congestion, I wasn’t coping well. Every time I would lie down to go to sleep, I would cough. I tried to prop myself up with pillows, but then I couldn’t fall asleep.
My mother told me that a friend of the family had told her that if you rub Vick’s Vapor Rub on the bottom of your feet and then put socks on, you will sleep like a baby. Being desperate to get some sleep, I was game. My mother, being the angel that she is, lathered my feet up with Vick’s, I put on my socks and was off to bed.
I had the best night’s sleep I have had in a long time. I don’t know how it scientifically or medically works, but it does! Before I fell asleep, I was getting faint whiffs of the Vick’s and then it was lights out.
The next time you’re sick and can’t sleep, don’t even waste the time putting Vick’s Vapor Rub on your throat and chest like the label tells you to. Go right for your feet and get ready to have a peaceful night’s sleep.
Saturday was World AIDS day and the world took some time to educate and spread awareness. The AIDS quilt was right around the corner from us here in Las Vegas. It stopped in Bakersfield, CA on its tour. In this day and age, no one should contract the disease let alone die from it. There are so many ways to prevent the spread of AIDS and HIV, however there is no cure once a person contracts the virus.
According to WebMD’s Web site,
Anyone can get HIV if they engage in certain activities. You may have a higher risk of getting HIV if you:
- Have unprotected sex. This means vaginal or anal intercourse without a condom or oral sex without a latex barrier with a person infected with HIV.
- Share needles to inject drugs or steroids with an infected person. The disease can also be transmitted by dirty needles used to make a tattoo or in body piercing.
- Receive a blood transfusion from an infected person. This is very unlikely in the U.S. and Western Europe, where all blood is tested for HIV infection.
- Are born to a mother with HIV infection. A baby can also get HIV from the breast milk of an infected woman.
Recently in Chicago, there were four transplants that were performed on patients who did not have the virus. After the transplant, they tested positive for HIV. Transplants may seem safe, but they actually can be very deadly, as in this case. The donor was tested before the transplants, but the doctors explained after finding out the shocking news, that if a donor contracts the virus close to the time of the test, it will show up negative.
Take the time today to learn more about HIV and AIDS and get tested!
The Breast Cancer Site is awaiting your click. Got to their Web site and simply click on the big, pink button that says “Click Here to Give.” For every click, a sponsor will donate one free mammogram to an underprivileged woman. It is completely free-you don’t pay a cent!
Your click on the “Click Here to Give – it’s FREE” button helps fund free mammograms for women in need — low-income, inner-city and minority women whose awareness of breast cancer and opportunity for help is often limited. Your click is paid for by site sponsors, and mammogram funding is provided to clinics throughout the U.S. through the efforts of the National Breast Cancer Foundation.
Do your part, and click today.
October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month. This is a great time of the year to go get that mammogram you’ve putting off or to donate to a breast cancer fund, like the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.
Delta Airlines is raising awareness on their filghts. They are selling pink lemonade for two dollars a glass. All profits will go to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. Along with selling pink lemonade, all Delta employees are representing the pink ribbon, or wearing pink scarves, neck ties or decorative pink pocket squares.
Grocery stores are shelving items that when bought, donate a certain amount of the proceeds to breast cancer research funds. All over, donation centers are set up waiting to receive even just one dollar per person.
Raising breast cancer awareness and education is as important as raising funds for research and treatment.
Since 1990, the death rate from breast cancer has dropped by at least 2 percent each year. It is becoming more survivable through early detection. Take this opportunity to raise awareness to others, or yourself, and get an examination today.
Last week in Long Island, N.Y., Darrie Eason, had an aggressive operation after being diagnosed with breast cancer. After undergoing the life-changing double mastectomy, the doctors informed Eason, 35, that due to mislabeled tissue samples at the lab, their previous diagnosis was wrong. She never had cancer.
The far more upsetting thing was that not only did a technician admit cutting corners while labeling samples, but a doctor signed off on the diagnosis. Neither of the two have jobs anymore.
If Eason’s situation wasn’t bad enough, somewhere out there, there is a woman with breast cancer who is in need of a double mastectomy, and she doesn’t know it.
Any time that you receive test results or your doctor suggests you have a procedure done, get a second opinion. It may just save your life.
So it’s not bad enough that every single month we get an unfriendly visitor for a week, along with cramps, bloating and moodiness. Or that we are the ones that carry a hungry and growing little package for nine months, only to care for it for at least 18 years after it’s born. No, that stuff isn’t enough. We have to be more likely than men to get debilitating headaches as well.
Women are three times as likely as men to suffer from migraine headaches, and a new study suggests the reason may be that their brains are faster to activate the cascading waves of activity thought to cause migraine pain as well as other migraine symptoms.Researchers say migraines were once thought to be caused by constriction and dilation of blood vessels. But advances in brain imaging technology now suggest that migraines may start as a result of brain excitability.
I am one of those women. Every once in awhile I get a headache that is so excruciating that I can’t move. I can’t open my eyes or sleep or listen to any kind of noise. Basically no over-the-counter medicines relieve the pain. So I either have to O.D. on over-the-counter meds, get a prescription that may not in fact work or just bear down and endure the pain until it desists.
There are many causes of migraines in women. Diet, sleep patterns, genes and hormones, menstrual cycle or stress can all trigger these pesky headaches. If you suffer, as millions of us do, from migraines, try to keep track of the conditions under which you get them. Write down the weather condition, what you ate that day, your mood, if you’re on your period. Anything that can help identify triggers may help reduce your chances of getting migraines. After observing a few migraines, bring the findings to your doctor and hopefully he/she can shed some light on what it is causing the headaches. Once you have an idea of the cause, a remedy is a lot more likely to be found.
In a previous post, I talked about osteoarthritis and a solution to the condition being knee-replacement surgery. I read an article on Medical News Today that suggested that physiotherapy, also known as physical therapy, after the surgery will greatly help recovery and help to prevent knee injuries and pain.
After a study was performed on about 600 patients, the evidence suggested that in the months following the surgery, the quality of life and range of mobility (or joint motion) was moderately better than patients who did not participate in physiotherapy after the surgery.
Obviously therapy affects each individual person differently, but any kind of therapy to area that has been operated on surely can’t hurt.
Visit their Web site for more information.
Total Knee Replacement Surgery for Women
Recently, in the New York Times, I read an article explaining that heavy drinking over a long period of time could raise your risk of developing endometrial cancer. Endometrial cancer is a uterine cancer that arises in the endometrium. This type of cancer is usually seen in women over the age of 40.
The article was of particular interest to me because someone who I have become pretty close to over the past couple years at UNLV had endometrial cancer. The article explained:
An eight year study was done on about 42,000 postmenopausal women and concluded that women who have two or more drinks a day (beer, liquor, wine, etc.) are at more than twice the risk of women who did not.
This isn’t to say that you will definitely develop endometrial cancer if you drink often. Just keep it in the back of your mind the next time you reach for a cocktail. Wouldn’t some nice, cold water be just as refreshing, sometimes?
I am 22 years old and I have been getting annual gynecological checkups since I was 16. It blows my mind that some girls my age have NEVER gotten one. Girls, girls, girls. Let me explain some things that may be of interest to you and why avoiding this little appointment once a year could be dangerous.
At your annual checkup, the gynecologist will do a full examination-including checking your breast for lumps, checking your ovaries and the not so fabulous Pap smear. Ok, so yeah, it is uncomfortable for about a minute. But, would you rather have discomfort for a minute or cervical cancer for who knows how long? Yes ladies, Pap tests, if abnormal, could reveal cervical cancer cells. If detected early, it is treatable. Why would you chance cancer?
On WebMD.com they explain:
According to ACOG (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists ), the Pap test should be done annually until age 30. After 30, if a healthy woman has had three completely normal and satisfactory Pap tests, she may be able to have a Pap test every two to three years (but should still see a gynecologist every year for an exam). Cervical cancer was once the leading cause of death for women in the U.S., but the widespread use of the Pap test has significantly decreased deaths from this cancer.
With all of this new technology and ways of preventing disease, there is no excuse for missing your annual. Like I said, I had been going for annuals since I was 16, and when one of my Pap tests came back abnormal, I thought, “Who, me?” No matter how careful and diligent you are, cancer, or in my case, HPV, is not picky about who it choses.
HPV, the human papillomavirus, is an extremely common sexually transmitted virus. In women around my age, the chance of it going away are almost 80 percent. But, some strains of HPV, if untreated, can lead to cervical cancer.
The new vaccine, Gardasil, protects against certain strains of HPV. Although my particular case of HPV did go away, the events leading up to that were not so fun. Biopsies and Pap tests every three months dominated my life for almost a year until I was rid of the virus.
Girls, please, for your sake, take a few minutes out of your day once a year and go get an annual gynecological checkup! Just remember, it can never hurt, only help.
