Note: The contents of this blog are for informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice or substitute for professional care. For medical emergencies, dial 911!
I promised two weeks ago when I wrote Sunday Seven: Seven ways to fine-tune your health that I'd be back to offer seven more grand ideas for optimizing your physical and emotional well-being. Here I am, with a mini-list of suggestions I gathered a while back from a newspaper article. If you don't already practice these strategies, then why not give them a try.
Eat breakfast
It's the most important meal of the day -- really. A breakfast high in complex carbohydrates and protein creates energy. Energy kick-starts metabolism and helps our bodies burn fat. We all know what fat does. It weighs us down and contributes to all kinds of health problems. Get your sleep
Sleep restores our bodies. Sleep-deprived folks secrete more leptin, a protein hormone that increases appetite. Larger appetites increase food consumption. Increased food consumption spikes the risk of obesity. And so on. You know the drill.
It's quite a scary proposition to think that a cluster of cancer cases could end up being connected to a stretch of beach, but that is precisely what has happened in Australia.
According to Australian medical experts, there is most likely no connection between carcinogenic chemicals being produced in the area near Sydney, Australia's northern beaches and reports of above-normal cancer cases coming from that area.
After a medical supply company was found to have dumped carcinogens like ethylene oxide in the northern beach area, several concerned residents requested tests in local children to see if in fact cancer was brewing inside some of them. However, the exact amount of confirmed cancer cases from the direct area was not available in the source story. Maybe that kind of incriminating or dismissive information will become shortly available? Let's hope.
Though spending time in the sun is generally considered a bad thing as far as skin cancer goes, it can help prevent breast cancer. A study shows that women who stay inside more often are at a high risk for breast cancer than those who spend time outside. What's more, breast cancer is less prevalent closer to the equator, where sunlight is more common. The key ingredient is the valuable Vitamin D that exposure to the sun provides, though I would be interested to know if it makes a difference whether people get natural vitamin D from the sunlight or if similar health benefits could be derived simply from staying inside and taking vitamin D supplements. I tend to think that people who get outside are generally healthier overall than those who are housebound.
This isn't the green light to spend your days cooking your skin under the hot sun in the hopes of achieving that golden brown glow, though. While sunlight in important, it's also important to take precautions in the sunlight, like covering up and wearing sunscreen.
Despite this finding, the Division of Public Health is unlikely to study the cluster further. The Department cited a lack of resources and historical difficulty in connecting environmental causes to cancer rates.
Resident activists say that this decision is not acceptable and that more study is needed.
"We are saying, you need to spend the money and do it right," said Pat Gearity, spokeswoman for Citizens for Clean Power. Gearity said that the state is responsible for this investigation, not private citizens.
I take most health-related tidbits I hear with a grain of salt. After all, everything seems to be linked to anything these days, and it's hard to weed through what you should be avoiding. I choose instead to trust that if I live my life as healthfully as I can stand, I'll have done the best I can.
I don't know how true this is, but if you're concerned, a switch to a more natural detergent certainly won't harm you. For some suggestions, check out this article from That's Fit.
When I read this headline, Canadian Cancer Society calls for asbestos ban, I was confused. Isn't asbestos already banned? Turns out it is -- from further use anyway. But asbestos still lurks in many buildings here in Canada, and it's was apparently responsible for 1,097 workplaces deaths in 2005. I guess the rumors of asbestos in the old lecture halls at my old university could have had some merit.
And yet despite the facts that asbestos can cause death, there are still asbestos defenders out there, who insist that the building material is safe if properly used. It's inexpensive, durable, and deadly. What's more important? I am definitely in favor of a ban ... are you?
Who knows which pieces of cancer information floating around out there are actually true? I don't. Do cell phones cause cancer? Some say yes, some say no, I say I'm confused! Luckily, I happened upon this Discovery Health article that highlights a variety of myths and then offers the lowdown on each one. Here are seven of them:
Myth #1. There is currently a cure for cancer, but the medical industry won't tell the public about it because they make too much money treating cancer patients.
Chalk this up to urban legend. And consider this: doctors, laboratory scientists, and their families and friends die of cancer at the same rate as everyone else in the United States. How about this: medical breakthroughs happen all the time and are quickly applied. Think about antibiotics and vaccines -- like the polio vaccine -- that have transformed health care. How about this? Not too long ago, less than one in 10 kids with leukemia survived 10 years. Now, the cure rate is nearly 80 percent. Seems like progress to me.
How much do you know about recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, or rBGH for short? Probably not as much as you should. The genetically-engineered hormone, which is widely used in dairy cows and manufactured by the infamous agricultural giant Monsanto, has been linked to a whole slew of problems, both in cows and humans, including cancer.
And though both Monsanto and the FDA have stood behind rBGH, there's a huge movement out there to get it banned from regular milk. In the meantime, though, the best defense is buying organic. And to do your research.
The Sister Study is a clinical trial that is now enrolling patients to determine what environmental factors and genes play a part in developing breast cancer.
Researchers want to find what causes breast cancer, and through understanding this they can work to prevent the disease altogether. There are some known factors to contribute and or prevent the development of breast cancer -- diet, exercise, hormone therapy, breast-feeding and smoking. However, the prevalence of the disease suggest there are other factors at play that we are not aware of at this time.
Women who fit the following criteria are urged to enroll in the Sister Study and join the fight against this disease:
A sister related by blood, alive or deceased, diagnosed with breast cancer.
Ages 35 -74 years.
Living in the United States or Puerto Rico.
The Sister Study is being conducted by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and will be evaluating women from all backgrounds, occupations, races and ethnicities to attempt to identify environmental and genetic factors that may be associated with affecting the risk of breast cancer.
The city I live in recently banned smoking. I, along with many other people, breathed a huge sigh of relief when the ban was implemented (literally!) because it sometimes seemed downright impossible to have a social life in a city where smoking was allowed in almost all restaurants and bars. I recall an argument I had with someone who was upset because not being allowed to smoke in a public place was unconstitutional -- it was his right to smoke wherever he pleased and if people don't like it, they shouldn't go out. Ever.
What about the right to live and to work in an environment where you're not putting yourself in grave danger? Everyone has the right to a safe work environment, including bar and restaurant staff. And make no mistake--second hand smoke is toxic. According to this report, bar and restaurant workers showed an alarming amount of carcinogenic material in their urine after being exposed to smoke for only minutes.
So I say, if you want to smoke, smoke. Just don't poison everyone else while you're at it. Your thoughts?
Unless you've been touched by it, cancer can seem a world away. But it's not, and no matter your age, there are steps you should be taking to avoid getting cancer. My Doc Hub has compiled this list of thing you should be doing now to avoid getting cancer in the future. They are: -Maintain a healthy weight -Exercise regularly -Don't smoke -Eat healthy -Cut your alcohol consumption -Cover up in the sun -Don't have unprotected sex -Compile a medical and family history -Talk to your doctor about risk factors and getting screened
If you're not doing these things right now, there's no time like the present.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is launching a three-year pilot phase of a new program that will help bring state of the art care to patients in community hospitals across the country.
The NCI Community Cancer Centers Program (NCCCP) is designed to encourage the collaboration of private practice medical, surgical, and radiation oncologists. Building on this expanded network, the NCCCP will explore ways of sharing information, via electronic medical records, to further enhance patient care. Evidence from a wide range of studies suggests that cancer patients diagnosed and treated in a setting of coordinated multi-specialty care and clinical research may live longer and have a better quality of life.
The pilot program will research new and enhanced ways to assist, educate, and better treat the needs of under served populations -- including elderly, rural, inner-city, and low-income patients. As well as racial and ethnic groups with unusually high cancer rates.
I was going to write a blog later in my series of blogs on toxins and stress and disease from the studies that I have been reading for the last month. But since a comment was made about stress and whether it has a correlation to disease to the previous blog I wrote on toxins and stress creating disease in our bodies, I will jump ahead and share some research I found on the relation of stress and disease. A relation to stress and disease has been researched by many doctors, psychologists, and medical research facilities and conclusions are that stress does several things to the body causing it to shut down in areas that can effect the body with disease and illness.
Do the common phrases, Tension Headache, Upset Stomach, Shaky Nerves, Tight Chest, ring a bell? Studies showed that work place stress has created an increase in heart disease and high blood pressure as well as making the body more susceptible to flu and viruses. It also has shown that stress can be related to Type 2 Diabetes as well as obesity. "Stress in general can disrupt the body's ability to process glucose, especially in people whose genetics make them vulnerable", said Richard Surwit of the Duke University Medical Center in a research article in the November/December issue of the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.
Asian lifestyles have long been touted as a way to stay healthy. The typical Asian diet is low in fat, meat and overall calories, and high in vegetables and soy, which is a stark change from the mainly animal-based North American diet, one that revolved around processed foods.
All that said, I don't think I could live on a fully Asian-style diet. I mean, I love sushi and Thai and many other Asian foods, but giving up my cheese? Say it ain't so.
Yesterday I visited the High Points Monument at High Point State Park. It was a fitting day to visit the monument -- Memorial Day. The monument was built and dedicated to the memory of New Jersey's wartime heros. Construction was started in 1928 and completed in 1930.
My husband and I climbed the stairs up the 220- foot structure for a breathtaking view of the ridges of the Pocono Mountains, the Catskill Mountains and the Wallkill River Valley.
The high points in my life can come unexpectedly. I think we should all think about what the high points in our lives have been and cherish the memories. A camping trip in an RV, my husband and two dogs this weekend was definitely a high point in my life. High points don't have to be something monumental -- no pun intended. High points can be small things that make the day a joyful one.
I promised two weeks ago when I wrote Sunday Seven: Seven ways to fine-tune your health that I'd be back to offer seven more grand ideas for optimizing your physical and emotional well-being. Here I am, with a mini-list of suggestions I gathered a while back from a newspaper article. If you don't already practice these strategies, then why not give them a try.
Though spending time in the sun is generally considered a bad thing as far as skin cancer goes, it can help prevent breast cancer. 
Delaware officials have confirmed a cancer cluster near the Indian River power plant
I take most health-related tidbits I hear with a grain of salt. After all, everything seems to be linked to anything these days, and it's hard to weed through what you should be avoiding. I choose instead to trust that if I live my life as healthfully as I can stand, I'll have done the best I can. 
When I read this headline, 
Who knows which pieces of cancer information floating around out there are actually true? I don't. Do cell phones cause cancer? Some say yes, some say no, I say I'm confused! Luckily, I happened upon this 
How much do you know about recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, or rBGH for short? Probably not as much as you should. The genetically-engineered hormone, which is widely used in dairy cows and manufactured by the infamous agricultural giant Monsanto, has been 
The Sister Study is a clinical trial that is now enrolling patients to determine what environmental factors and genes play a part in developing breast cancer.
The city I live in recently banned smoking. I, along with many other people, breathed a huge sigh of relief when the ban was implemented (literally!) because it sometimes seemed downright impossible to have a social life in a city where smoking was allowed in almost all restaurants and bars. I recall an argument I had with someone who was upset because not being allowed to smoke in a public place was unconstitutional -- it was his right to smoke wherever he pleased and if people don't like it, they shouldn't go out. Ever.
Unless you've been touched by it, cancer can seem a world away. But it's not, and no matter your age, there are steps you should be taking to avoid getting cancer. 
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is launching a three-year pilot phase of a new program that will help bring state of the art care to patients in community hospitals across the country.
I was going to write a blog later in my series of blogs on toxins and stress and disease from the studies that I have been reading for the last month. But since a comment was made about stress and whether it has a correlation to disease to the previous blog I wrote on 
Despite the news that 
Yesterday I visited the 
