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Don’t Remove Earwax

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According to just-release U.S. national guidelines on earwax removal, you should leave it in your ears….CLICK & SEE THE PICTURES

Earwax is a self-cleaning agent, with protective, lubricating and antibacterial properties. That’s why tiny glands in the outer ear canal constantly pump it out. Excess earwax normally treks slowly out of the ear canal, carrying with it dirt, dust and other small particles.

When individuals poke around in their ears with cottons swabs or other foreign objects, earwax can actually build up and block part of the ear canal.

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Positive thinking

Increase Your Happiness … by Limiting Your Choices

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This headline certainly sounds paradoxical. But while all the choices available to you nowadays may offer more freedom than ever before, they may also exact quite a cost on your psyche, according to psychologist Barry Schwartz in this compelling video.

Schwartz, the author of The Paradox of Choice, believes, rightly, that the “freedom of choice” provided by limitless options escalates expectations, and therefore introduces indecision and unhappiness into the equation.

He believes happiness may be easier than you think; that by simply limiting your choices and options, you can increase your level of happiness.

Live Science Magazine takes a less complex look at happiness, offering these simple keys to give your mood a much needed boost:

Give it away

After performing good deeds, people are happier and feel their life has more purpose. It only takes $5 spent on others to make you happier on a given day, according to a recent study. And selfless acts can also help your marriage become a more enjoyable experience.

Ponder this

A 2005 study that tracked mood changes in dialysis patients found they were in a good mood most of the time, despite having their blood cleaned three times a week. However, healthy patients envisioned a miserable life when asked to imagine adhering to such a demanding schedule.

As Winston Churchill said,

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

Work out

Consistent exercise can help people battling depression. Exercise improves your state of mind in part by affecting your body’s levels of two chemicals: cortisol and endorphins.

Cortisol, which is produced in response to stress, increases blood pressure and blood sugar, weakens your immune response and can lead to organ inflammation and damage. But working out burns cortisol, restoring your body’s normal levels. Exercise can also cause your brain to release endorphins, your body’s natural pain relievers.

Live long

If you still find yourself down in the dumps, just give it some time. A study of 2 million people from 80 nations found that depression is most common among adults in their mid-40’s. But with age, humans are more inclined to filter out the negatives while focusing on what they enjoy.

Sources:
TED.com August 13, 2008
Live Science August 22, 2008

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Featured

Mouth Or Dental Injury

Schematic of patterns of disease in Crohn's di...Image via Wikipedia

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Conditions that may increase the risk for problems after a mouth or dental injury:
.CLICK & SEE THE PICTURES

Many conditions, lifestyle choices, medicines, and diseases interfere with one’s ability to heal or fight infection. The person may be at risk for a more serious problem from his or her symptoms if he or she have any of the following. Be sure to tell the health professional in detail.

THE CONDITIONS:-

*Heart valve disease:

*Heart valve replacement

*Previous dental injuries

*Previous dental or gum surgery

*Radiation therapy to the mouth, face, or neck (now or in the past)

*Surgery to remove the spleen

Lifestyle choices:

*Alcohol abuse or withdrawal

*Drug abuse or withdrawal

*Smoking or other tobacco use

Medicines:

*Antiseizure medicines, such as phenytoin

*Birth control pills (oral contraceptives)

*Blood-thinning medicines, such as warfarin, heparin, and aspirin

*Calcium channel blockers, which are used to control high blood pressure or for people with heart problems

*Corticosteroids, such as prednisone

*Medicines that contain gold

*Medicines to prevent organ transplant rejection

*Medicines used to treat cancer (chemotherapy)

*Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), such as aspirin or ibuprofen

Diseases:

*Cancer

*Crohn’s disease

*Dental disease, such as tooth decay or gum disease

*Diabetes

*Eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa

*Gastroesophageal reflux disease

*Hemophilia

*Idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP)

*Infection of the muscles and valves of the heart (endocarditis)

*Iron deficiency anemia

*Malabsorption syndromes

*Scleroderma

*Sickle cell disease

*Sjögren’s syndrome

*Vitamin deficiencies, such as too little folate, niacin, pyridoxine, riboflavin, vitamin C, and vitamin K
Credits

Sources:MSN Health & Fitness

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News on Health & Science

Nanosilver Use Prompts Worries of Resistant Bacteria

The advent of nanosilver products raises the possibility of new strains of silver-resistant bacteria, although there’s little evidence of that.
..
Could the use of nanosilver products create another problem for medicine — strains of bacteria that are resistant to silver? Although silver is not used to treat disease, it is used in hospital settings to speed wound-healing, prevent eye infections in newborns and as a coating for catheters, where it can cut infection rates.

Here, too, there is much surmise and not much evidence, although researchers do know there are strains of bacteria that have developed resistance to silver.

“If [nanosilver] is used without restriction, then you’re increasing the chances that a number of microbes will develop resistance to it,” says Andrew Maynard, chief science advisor for the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Maynard says he worries especially about bacteria that develop resistance to the major classes of antibiotics and silver.

But Dr. David Weber, an infectious disease and public health expert at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, isn’t convinced that silver resistance will prove much of a problem. Resistance to antibiotics occurs quite readily in bacteria once prolonged exposure to, say, penicillin, occurs. But there’s little reason to suppose that resistance to silver would develop so easily, he says.

An antibiotic like penicillin works by hitting a bacterium in a limited fashion, at specific sites. Because the killing is done precisely, the bacterium has a good chance of developing a mutation that would confer resistance.

In contrast, silver kills microbes in a broad, unspecific fashion — like tossing a bomb at a bacterium. It hits many essential points such as a bacterium’s entire respiratory system. This makes it much more difficult for silver-resistance to develop.

And even if tolerance did develop, Weber says, increasing the dose of silver the bacterium is exposed to will solve the problem in most cases.

Sources: Los Angeles Times

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News on Health & Science

Artificial Pancreas Just Years Away

Researchers working on an artificial pancreas believe they are just a few years away from a nearly carefree way for people with diabetes to monitor blood and inject insulin as needed.
………………………………………

They believe they can link two current technologies — continuous glucose monitoring and insulin pumps — into a seamless package. Such a mechanical pancrease could greatly reduce the need for fingersticks and injections of insulin that diabetics must now endure several times a day, researchers told a meeting this week at the National Institutes of Health. “I think we are on the brink of a first-generation artificial pancreas,” said Dr Roman Hovorka of Britain’s University of Cambridge, who is testing some experimental devices with components by Abbott Laboratories and Medtronic, the No 1 maker of insulin pumps and continuous monitors.

Hovorka’s team has been testing devices in patients with type-1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease caused when the body mistakenly destroys the insulin-making cells in the pancreas. A continuous glucose sensor is implanted under the skin, and transmits blood sugar readings to a monitor.

A computer calculates the right dose of insulin, which is delivered by an insulin pump — something many patients already wear. His team is ready to send some patients home with the device, but has to work out the logistics of keeping a nurse full-time in each volunteer’s home, just in case. US Food and Drug Administration regulators are working closely with the researchers to ensure they design studies in a way that can lead to quick review, said Dr Aaron Kowalski of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, which funds many of the artificial pancreas study teams.

Sources:The Times Of India

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