Infants whose parents practice this were more likely to have different strains of bacteria in their gut, and with more helpful bacteria populating the intestines, the less likely the babies were to develop allergies and eczema.

When the 184 infants in the study were four months old, the scientists collected saliva samples to determine which types of bacteria resided in their guts. At six months old, parents reported whether their infants used pacifiers and how moms and dads cleaned them. The researchers checked back in with the parents when their babies were 18 and 36 months old to see if the infants had developed allergies and when the first symptoms appeared.

But the children whose parents sucked on their dummies to sanitize them were one-third less likely to have eczema, which is considered the earliest sign of allergies, at 18 months than kids whose parents relied on other techniques — such as rinsing in tap water or boiling. By the time the kids were 3 years old, those who had their dummies sucked clean were still considerably less likely to develop eczema than kids whose parents employed other cleaning strategies.

So while it might seem unsanitary, sucking on that pacifier may end up giving babies just the right kind of good germs to better equip them to battle the more dangerous ones….the study didn´t go into details about if the parents picked up any germs from sucking on a dummy that had dropped on the floor though…

Article taken in part from www.healthland.time.com

Having a glittering career in the public eye may come at the cost of a shorter life, an analysis of obituaries in a US newspaper suggests. It showed performers and sports stars tended to die a few years younger than people successful in other careers. The researchers acknowledge the study does not provide any conclusive answers, but said it asked interesting questions about the cost of fame.

Researchers in Australia looked at 1,000 obituaries in the New York Times between 2009 and 2011. They showed that performers, such as actors, singers and musicians, as well those who made a career in sport died the youngest – at an average age of 77. While writers, composers and artists died at 79. Those classed as academics, including historians and economists, survived until 82 on average while those in business or politics made 83.

The researchers, at the University of Queensland and the University of New South Wales, said cancer, particularly tumours in the lungs, was more common in performers.

Honey Langcaster-James, a psychologist who specialises in celebrity behaviour, said so few people achieved star status that it made it difficult to scientifically study the effect on people’s lives.

She said: “The results are interesting of themselves as they suggest an inherent hazard of a public career and that all that glitters is not necessarily gold. They may be paying a high price for their career.”

However she said it was not easy to come up with a scientific explanation. On the one hand she said such a career “has unique stressors” such as “the pressure to live up to a public image, which can lead to risky behaviours”.

Yet she suspected that “particular personal characteristics predispose people to wanting a career in the public arena”, which may also lead to lifestyle choices affecting health.

While reading the Health section of the Telegraph we were interested in a UK minister advising Britain of something we had realised a long time ago. The health minister warns that hundreds of thousands of elderly people are losing their “dignity” because they are being unnecessarily admitted to hospital.

In an article for The Daily Telegraph: Click here for website, Dr Dan Poulter says that up to a third of elderly hospital patients should be cared for at home.

He says that unnecessary hospital admissions are caused because frail, elderly people, often with long-term conditions, are not treated or cared for in the community for financial reasons. Their conditions deteriorate and emergency hospital care becomes necessary.

“How we better deliver care to people with long term illnesses and disabilities is the big challenge facing our NHS, and there is growing evidence that up to a third of older patients currently in our hospitals do not need to be there.”

If you are battling with a decision for yourself or a loved one and you would like us to visit and offer a free consultation to assess the needs of a patient, please just get in touch. We have a variety of different services and care packages to fit within individual budgets that offer great support for individuals who want to be cared for at home.

There may come a time when full time hospital care is needed, but if it is not needed, not wanted and could easily be avoided, why not find out how being cared for at home really works and see if it is the best solution for you?

1. Sprinkle Fresh Nutmeg

In India, they’ve long used nutmeg to shake off funky moods. Studies there show that inhaling nutmeg’s aromatic oils can kick-start the brain’s production of relaxing, stress-soothing alpha waves almost instantly.

Eating nutmeg can give you an even more impressive boost. According to Stanford University researchers, adding a quarter teaspoon to your daily diet could help you feel calmer and less easily rattled in as little as two weeks.

2. Walk Through a Door

Ever find that once you start thinking about something that’s really bugging you, it’s hard to shake off the stress and switch to happy thoughts? Try getting up and stomping through a few doorways! A recent study at Indiana’s University of Notre Dame suggests that this simple trick can help you put an end to worrisome thoughts.

According to the study authors, passing through doorways signals your brain’s frontal lobe to file away what it’s been stewing about and start fresh — and being able to file away the unpleasant thoughts can help dampen your production of the stress hormone cortisol in as little as five minutes.

2. Window Shop

Whether you wander around the mall, flip through catalogues or surf websites at home, pretend shopping helps 76 percent of women de-stress within 20 minutes. The bright, upbeat images, the restful break from your usual routine and the feeling of indulgence that comes from “virtual shopping” triggers an uptick in feel-good beta waves in the brain, say University of Miami researchers.

Bonus: According to Ohio State University researchers, women who love window shopping — but keep their credit cards tucked away most days – are half as likely to struggle with severe stress overloads. The reason? They get the relaxing indulgence of shopping for pricey items without actually being saddled with extra debt.

So based on these findings all we have to do is walk through our front door out of our house and go an have a browse in a few shop windows in order to feell more relaxed - throw in a nutmeg latte and we will be feeling fabulous!

For more great tips and hints on healthy living visit www.ivillage.com

Poor posture is another possible culprit. Holding your neck muscles in one position for too long – hours or computer work, sleeping in an awkward position – can also set off a tension headache. Other triggers may include a change in sleep patterns (too much, too little), low blood sugar from skipped meals, dehydration and jaw clenching or grinding. Some foods, such as aspartame, alcohol and caffeine, are also linked to tension headaches.

“A diary is helpful in accurately diagnosing headaches and learning your triggers,” says Deborah I. Friedman, M.D., director of the Headache and Facial Pain Management Program at Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. “We can identify patterns when we have a few months’ worth of information.” Create a headache diary and list the date of every headache, its duration and intensity level and your symptoms. Include the foods you ate, where you are in your menstrual cycle and the medications you took that day. Also note whether or not over-the-counter (OTC) medications relieved your headache.

If you start to feel a tension headache coming on, stop what you’re doing. “Take a break, stretch your legs, leave your office and get your brain to do something else,” says Goadsby. As simple as it sounds, redirecting your brain may halt a headache. Or try this acupressure trick: Firmly squeeze the webbed space between your thumb and index finger with your opposite hand for a few minutes to relieve pain. Other relaxation tricks include meditation, deep breathing, acupuncture, or you can try cognitive behavioral therapy to learn stress management techniques to reduce the frequency of headaches.

“If you need to take OTC medications a few times a week or tension-type headaches impact your ability to function, it’s time to see your doctor,” says Dr. Friedman. Your primary care doctor may treat you or refer you to a neurologist or headache specialist.

Article taken in part from www.ivillage.com

Disclaimer

All content on this website is provided for general information only, and should not be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of your own doctor or any other health care professional. Always consult your own GP if you’re in any way concerned about your health.

Ikarians are living much older than most other Westerners, and are healthy, active, purposeful and happy well into old age. What’s their secret? Is it diet, or exercise, or no smoking, or a little bit of red wine? Sure, it’s a bit of those things, but more importantly, it’s the community.

Ikarians live in a community where it is the norm to eat mostly plant foods (beans, potatoes, veggies from the garden), drink some wine with neighbors, walk everywhere, garden during the day, take naps in the afternoon, not stress about time, wake naturally, socialize with the community every day.

On average, people in Western society often live in communities where it is the norm to drive everywhere, sit most of the day, eat fast food and lots of meat and fried foods and dairy, be isolated, be inactive, hurry up and stress out about time.

The problem isn’t so much forming individual healthy habits, but forming a community that fosters healthy habits. This bears out when you look at other communities that are healthy, even well into old age: the Okinawans, the Seventh-Day Adventists in Loma Linda, California, the Sardinians, and so on. They all have communities that foster healthy habits.

So what can we do if we’re in the wrong kind of community? Well, we could take small steps to create the right kind of one.

There isn’t one single definition of what a “Superhealth” Community would entail — if you look at the examples above, there are all slightly different kinds of habits that people in these communities have. But here are some of what seem to be important:

• Interact daily. Socialising is an important function in community, whether that be visiting neighbors, meeting in a marketplace, going to church, or talking in some way.
• Walk or exercise. Most of the communities mentioned above feature daily walking — sometimes a daily walk for exercise and socialising, other times just to get around to the store or neighbors’ houses.
• Eat plants. While not all communities mentioned above are vegetarian, plants make up the huge majority of their calories. Cow’s milk doesn’t, and meat is usually a small part of their meal. Okinawans (traditionally) eat soy and purple sweet potatoes and lots of veggies and a little fish, Sardinians eat beans and potatoes and veggies and goat’s cheese. Lots and lots of vegetables and fruits are good. Read about forming a plant-based diet.
• Eat in moderation. All of the communities mentioned eat in moderation. The normal Western standard, however, is to super-size and pile plates high. Moderation is a good thing.
• Garden. It seems like almost everyone in these communities has a garden, and they garden daily.
• Wine. Actually, I think the Okinawans drink a nasty tasting home-brewed alcohol, but the Ikarians drink wine, so it would be nicer to choose their method. They do it in moderation, and socially.
• Tea. There are lots of good things in tea, and drinking it in the late afternoon is a good ritual, also socially if possible.
• Purpose. Have a reason to get up in the morning. In other countries, the retired (or unemployed) often don’t have this purpose, and don’t feel they have anything useful to do each day. As a community it would be nice to integrate them more and draw upon their knowledge and experience — the elderly are great teachers and can be very active into old age.

You might also include attitudes about time, taking naps, waking naturally, and having a positive outlook on life. But I think the seven things outlined above would be a good start.

If you friends and family aren’t that healthy yet, start talking to them about doing a monthly challenge, where you adopt one of the healthy habits above. See how many of them you can get on board — it might only be one or two at first, but two people is all that’s needed to form a community. Others might be inspired to join you in later months when they see the healthy changes you’ve made.

Get together on a regular basis — daily if that’s possible, but at least a couple times a week. And if you can’t get together daily, talk on the phone, on Facebook, or via email on a daily basis. This regular contact helps you get support from each other, keep each other accountable, forms a bond of doing something together.

You can start by creating something new, or joining something already there:

• A community garden
• A group that walks every morning or afternoon
• A gardening class
• A running club
• A vegan meet-up
• Get-togethers featuring tea or wine and plant foods
• Community projects where people work together with purpose
• Classes taught by the elderly

Those are just a few ideas. You don’t have to get everyone to change — but you can start the change by leading by example.

A Superhealth Community might sound difficult, but really it’s not. It’s getting together (in real life or online) with at least one other person, and supporting each other in a healthy lifestyle. After you have one other person, maybe later you’ll have two or more to support you and each other to develop a super healthy life and a micro super health community.

Disclaimer

All content on this website is provided for general information only, and should not be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of your own doctor or any other health care professional. Always consult your own GP if you’re in any way concerned about your health.

If you’re generally fit and healthy, you can usually manage the symptoms of a cold or flu yourself without seeing a doctor. Look after yourself by resting, drinking non-alcoholic fluids to avoid dehydration and avoiding strenuous activity. Painkillers such as ibuprofen or paracetamol can relieve aches and pains.

Some people need to take extra care as they’re more at risk of serious chest complications, such as pneumonia and bronchitis. People over 65 are more at risk of complications. People under 65, including children, are more at risk of complications if they have:

• serious heart or chest complaints, including asthma
• serious kidney disease or liver disease
• diabetes
• lowered immunity due to disease or treatment
• had a stroke or transient ischaemic attack (TIA)

Symptoms

There are around 200 viruses that cause colds and three that cause flu. There are many strains of these flu viruses, and the vaccine changes every year to protect against the most common ones.

Colds

Symptoms of a cold include:

• runny nose, beginning with clear mucus that develops into thicker, green mucus as the cold progresses
• blocked nose
• sore throat
• sneezing
• cough

People with a cold may also suffer with a mild fever, earache, tiredness and headache. Symptoms develop over one or two days and gradually get better after a few days. Some colds can last for up to two weeks.

Help prevent colds and flu from spreading by:

• sneezing or coughing into a tissue
• throwing the tissue away
• washing your hands
• getting the flu jab if you’re eligible

According to the Common Cold Centre in Cardiff, a cold is most contagious during the early stages when the person has a runny nose and sore throat.

Flu

Flu usually comes on much more quickly than a cold, and symptoms include:

• sudden fever of 38-40°C (100-104°F)
• muscle aches and pains
• sweating
• feeling exhausted and needing to lie down
• dry, chesty cough
• sneezing

Flu symptoms appear one to three days after infection and most people recover within a week, although you may feel tired for longer. A severe cold can also cause muscle aches and fever, so it can be hard to tell the difference.

Whether it’s a cold or flu, get medical help if you have a chronic condition (such as asthma, diabetes or heart disease), or if you have a very high fever as well as an unusually severe headache or abdominal or chest pain.

Disclaimer

All content on this website is provided for general information only, and should not be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of your own doctor or any other health care professional. Always consult your own GP if you’re in any way concerned about your health.

Information taken from www.nhs.uk

“Both apples and dried plum are pretty powerful in keeping the cholesterol at bay,” said Bahram Arjmandi, the lead author of the study and the chair of the department of Nutrition, Food, and Exercise Sciences at Florida State University.

While eating fruit seems beneficial, the study could not say whether women’s cholesterol would have been any different if they hadn’t added the prunes or apples to their diets, because it did not include women who didn’t eat one of the fruits.

Arjmandi said there have been earlier studies looking at the health effects of apples, but not a clear experiment in humans on whether eating them can alter risk factors for heart disease.

“As much as there is a feeling that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, there has not been much study done,” he said.

Arjmandi and his colleagues asked 45 women to eat about 75 grams (roughly two apples’ worth) of dried apple each day for a year. In comparison, 55 women ate 100 grams of dried plum daily for a year. At the beginning of the study and after three, six and 12 months, the women gave a blood sample to measure cholesterol.

All of the women had gone through menopause, a factor that is normally tied to a rise in cholesterol levels, Arjmandi said. And average levels started below 200 milligrams per deciliter of blood, the threshold above which guidelines typically say otherwise healthy people are at increased risk of heart attack and stroke.

After three months, those who ate prunes saw no difference in their cholesterol levels, and those levels remained steady at the 12 month mark.

Among those who ate dried apple, total cholesterol dropped by nine percent and LDL cholesterol (considered the “bad” form of cholesterol) also dropped by 16 percent.

After six months, the apple-eaters saw their total cholesterol drop even further, to 13 percent less than what it was at the beginning of the study, and LDL cholesterol dropped by 24 percent.

At 12 months out, the cholesterol levels remained lowered.

“The extent to which especially apples reduced bad cholesterol, it went beyond my own imagination. So powerful,” Arjmandi told Reuters Health.

Article taken in part from Health News

Disclaimer

All content on this website is provided for general information only, and should not be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of your own doctor or any other health care professional. Always consult your own GP if you’re in any way concerned about your health.

As the lead author of  the study, Judge studied nearly 600 twins – some identical, some fraternal – who were raised together and reared apart. He found that being raised in the same environment had very little effect on personality, stress and health. Shared genes turned out to be about four times as important as shared environment.

“Assume James and Sandy both work in the same organization,” Judge says. “James reports more stress than Sandy. Does it mean that James’ job is objectively more stressful than Sandy’s? Not necessarily. Our study suggests strong heritability to work stress and the outcomes of stress. This means that stress may have less to do with the objective features of the environment than to the genetic ‘code’ of the individual.”

The battle of nature vs. nurture shows that even at work, nature wins. Changing a job to free yourself of stress is probably not going to do the trick unless you appreciate your own predispositions toward stress.

“This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do things as employers or individuals to avoid stressful jobs,” Judge says. “However, we also shouldn’t assume that we’re ‘a blank slate’ and therefore be overly optimistic about what the work environment can and can’t do as far as stress is concerned. More of it has to do with what’s inside of us than what we encounter outside in the work environment.”

Article published in Science Daily

Disclaimer

All content on this website is provided for general information only, and should not be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of your own doctor or any other health care professional. Always consult your own GP if you’re in any way concerned about your health.

Here are some practical tips to help you and your family live a safe and healthy life. These tips have been condensed and made easy to follow by CDC and visit their website for further details.

Tip 1: Eat healthy

• Eat a variety of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains every day.
• Limit foods and drinks high in calories, sugar, salt, fat, and alcohol.
• Eat a balanced diet to help keep a healthy weight.

Tip 2: Be active

• Be active for at least 2½ hours a week. Include activities that raise your breathing and heart rates and that strengthen your muscles.
• Help kids and teens be active for at least 1 hour a day. Include activities that raise their breathing and heart rates and that strengthen their muscles and bones.

Tip 3: Protect yourself and your family

• Wear helmets, seat belts, sunscreen, and insect repellent.
• Wash hands to stop the spread of germs.
• Avoid smoking and breathing other people’s, or (second hand), smoke.
• Build safe and healthy relationships with family and friends.
• Be ready for emergencies. Gather emergency supplies. Make a plan. Be informed.
• Wash Your Hands

Tip 4: Manage stress

• Balance work, home, and play.
• Get support from family and friends.
• Stay positive.
• Take time to relax.
• Get 7-9 hours of sleep each night. Make sure kids get more, based on their age.
• Get help or counseling if needed.

Tip 5: Get check-ups

• Ask your doctor or nurse how you can lower your risk for health problems.
• Find out what exams, tests, and shots you need and when to get them.
• See your doctor or nurse for regular check-ups and as often as directed. Get seen if you feel sick, have pain, notice changes, or have problems with medicine.

More information found on this page of the CDC website: Click here

Disclaimer

All content on this website is provided for general information only, and should not be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of your own doctor or any other health care professional. Always consult your own GP if you’re in any way concerned about your health.