Friday, April 17

Author: Catherine

Health and Wellness: Understanding And Treating Hearing Loss
Wellness

Health and Wellness: Understanding And Treating Hearing Loss

One of the most common health conditions facing older Americans is also one of the least treated. More than 36 million Americans suffer from some degree of hearing loss, including 17 percent of all adults and more than a third of adults over the age of 65. Unfortunately, treatment is frequently delayed for years, with only about 20 percent of people seeking necessary treatment. Here are five things to know about hearing loss, including who it affects and how treatment can improve quality of life. • It is common • Hearing loss has several causes • It affects more than your ears • Untreated, it can lead to depression • It can be treated There are a variety of treatments that can help a person with hearing loss improve their hearing and quality of life. A visit to a health profes...
NO YOLK! Boiled Egg Diet: Does it Work?
Diet

NO YOLK! Boiled Egg Diet: Does it Work?

Entering a new year is a good time to correct some dietary deficiencies. So this article revisits a topic I covered eight years ago. When it comes to injuries such as muscle strains, ligament tears, nerve irritation, tendon tears, tendonitis, etc., most people would think about taking Advil, getting a cortisone shot, receiving physical therapy, chiropractic treatment or even surgery. In particular, there are three main dietary components that can have a positive influence on the recovery and prevention of injury. These three components are simple yet elusive: calcium/magnesium and zinc; hydration; and an anti-inflammatory diet. Calcium and magnesium are essential minerals for all of our bodily systems. Calcium is required for all muscle contractions and nerve functions. Without calci...
Do You Happily Eat Genetically Modified Foods?
Genetically Modified Foods

Do You Happily Eat Genetically Modified Foods?

Talk about genetically modified (GM) foods causes angst for some people who’re concerned about eating healthily because they worry that too little is known about the long-term effects of modified foods to label them safe. But others say that controlling our food’s characteristics is nothing new, having been practiced in agriculture for hundreds of years. For example, being selective about the fruit and vegetables we propagate means that we now have products that are larger, are more resistant to natural elements and taste better. The Australian and New Zealand Food Standards Website explains that “today’s techniques use new ways of identifying particular characteristics and transferring them between living organisms”. For example, the site explains that it’s now possible to make a co...
Remedies on Cough Depends On What’s Causing It
Remedies

Remedies on Cough Depends On What’s Causing It

Is a cough making your life miserable? Don't blame your body; coughing is the only way your lungs can expel an irritant. The key is to figure what's causing it and then to get your lungs the help they need. "A majority of coughs actually resolve with just rest and home remedies," said Dr. Sharon Horesh Bergquist, an internist at the Emory Clinic in Atlanta. "So that's the place to start unless there are warning signs of something more serious." Home Remedies For a Cough Staying hydrated is the best thing you can do for a cough. Liquids thin out the mucus, making it less irritating to the throat and easier for the lungs to expel. Steam from a hot shower can do the same. Saline or salt water drops or spray are another option to moisten the nasal passages and thin mucus. "Chicken ...
A Diet High In Fat Is Best – With The Right Kind Of Fat
Botanicals, Diet, Genetically Modified Foods, Remedies, Wellness

A Diet High In Fat Is Best – With The Right Kind Of Fat

This is the time of year we tend to consider a change in diet. There has been a lot of confusion in recent years about what constitutes a healthy diet, with many people advocating and espousing a ketogenic diet, similar to the Atkins diet: a low-carbohydrate, high-fat/high-cholesterol diet (HF/HC). Since most North Americans will die of a heart attack or stroke if they don't die young from another cause, this is a big mistake. In 2016, there were large headlines trumpeting that "we can eat cholesterol now; the new U.S. guideline says so." But that's not what the guideline said. It said that there were insufficient data on which to base a specific limit to daily cholesterol intake, as in the past, but the intake of cholesterol should be as low as possible within the recommended eating pa...
Is GMO Opposition Immoral?
Botanicals, Diet, Genetically Modified Foods, Remedies, Wellness

Is GMO Opposition Immoral?

Evaluation of GMO crops that emphasizes independent science — rather than nonpublic research by pesticide companies — reflects that in 2015, the research arm of the World Health Organization analyzed all published glyphosate studies and determined the pesticide was a probable carcinogen. That finding prompted California to add glyphosate to its list of cancer-causing chemicals. Escalating use of GMO crops and glyphosate has triggered the growth of glyphosate-resistant superweeds across nearly 100 million acres in 36 states. To combat that, pesticide companies are now pushing the use of the highly toxic, drift-prone pesticide dicamba on a new generation of GMO crops that tolerate both dicamba and glyphosate. I have long been perplexed that so many people continue to condemn foods made...
Hangover Cures: The World’s Best and Weirdest Remedies
Genetically Modified Foods

Hangover Cures: The World’s Best and Weirdest Remedies

Since the earliest days of civilization, humanity has been trying to work out how to enjoy all the pleasure of drinking alcohol with none of the pain of a hangover. To combat the symptoms of a big night out, veteran partygoers swear by everything from the hair of the dog to a full English breakfast to alleviate the symptoms of a big night out – but do any of them work? Alas, the NHS has no words of comfort for the regretful raver. “There is no cure for a hangover,” is their stark ruling on the subject. So, from a scientific perspective, anything purporting to be a "miracle" hangover cure is probably a load of hokum. But if the thought of getting out of bed is making you quail and you're willing to give anything a go, here are some of the most unusual remedies from around the world...
Water Diet: The ‘Most Dangerous Weight Loss Regime Ever’
Diet

Water Diet: The ‘Most Dangerous Weight Loss Regime Ever’

AS desperate dieters go to ­extreme lengths to shed the Christmas kilos and slim down for summer, experts have taken aim at a deadly new diet that bans everything but water, tea, and coffee. With the so-called #waterfast diet becoming a potentially fatal fad via social media, body image and eating disorder advocate Mia Findlay warned “starving” your body was the “most dangerous” way to lose weight. “There are a lot of people who do reviews on these so-called diets, and they say they felt so clear-headed, and they felt like they were reaching this state of nirvana, and the reason that is happening is that their bodies are going into starvation mode,” Ms. Findlay said. Meanwhile, eating disorder expert Joanne Labiner said “water fasting” pushed the body to an anorexia-like state, ri...
Cold And Flu Remedies That Actually Work
Remedies

Cold And Flu Remedies That Actually Work

Cold weather doesn’t literally make you sick, but the winter season does indeed make you more prone to catching a bad cold. Chilly conditions mean you spend more time indoors, where bacteria and viruses are more likely to linger in the air and on surfaces you touch, and the drop in temperature leaves your mucous membranes dry, irritated, and more vulnerable to infection. The holiday season can be particularly rough on the ol’ immune system, what with all the traveling and hanging out with far-flung relatives and their exotic germs. And let’s be honest, you’re probably not taking the best care of yourself either—drinking, eating lots of unhealthy food, staying up late. Actually, take a break! The simplest remedy is also the most effective, and probably the most disappointing. If yo...
Gene Editing Could Rewrite the GMO Debate
Genetically Modified Foods

Gene Editing Could Rewrite the GMO Debate

Decades of fretting over the safety and virtue of genetically modified organisms have led to a perverse outcome. Plant scientists in academia and startup companies have largely shied away from creating new GM crop varieties because it takes, on average, more than a hundred million dollars and over a decade to get such a plant approved by regulators in the United States, and also because the idea of GMO food has elicited public outrage. As a result, a few large agricultural and chemical producers like ­Monsanto—or MonSatan, if you prefer—dominate the GM industry, making a killing off herbicide- and insect-resistant corn and soybeans. New gene-editing tools, either CRISPR or the slightly older TALEN, don’t insert a foreign gene into the plant to create a new trait (as typically happens...