Thursday, 12 March 2015

Women & Osteoporosis...





http://cdn.sheknows.com/articles/2013/05/Rebekah/woman-holding-bones.jpg 

What is Osteoporosis?
Osteoporosis is a disease that causes very weak bones that break easily. Women are five times more likely to get osteoporosis than men. There is no way to stop or cure it but there things you can do to slow it down.

What causes osteoporosis?


  • It can run in families.
  • Not enough calcium and vitamin D in the diet.
  • Not getting enough exercise.
  • Women who've gone through menopause are more likely to have it.
Who is at risk for osteoporosis?  
Anyone can get osteoporosis, but some people have a higher chance than others:-



  • People who used a certain medicines for a long time, like:-
    • Some hormones
    • Medicines for seizures
    • Some medicines for asthma, arthritis or cancer

How do I know know if I have osteoporosis?
  • There are test that use either s-rays or sound waves to measure bone density.
  • Ask your doctor about wihich test you might need. 
 How can i lower my chances of getting osteoporosis?
  • Get enough calcium. Women under 50 years old need at least 1000 mg of calcium each day. Women over 50 need at least 1200mg of calcium.
  • Get enough vitamin D. Women under 50 years old need at 200IU of vitamin D. Women over 50 need at 400 IU of vitamin D. 
  • Get exercise every day like walking or biking.
  • If you drink alcohol, don't drink more than one  glass per day.  
Which food have calcium?

 
from : http://www.fda.gov/women 

Tuesday, 10 March 2015

PAP SMEAR / PAP TEST



 What is a PAP TEST?
  • A Pap Test or Pap Smear checks for changes in the cells of the cervix. The cervix is the lower part of the womb ,which opens into the vagina. The test can find cancer cells or cells that could turn into cancer.
When should women getting PAP TEST?
  • All women should start getting Pap test about 3 years after they first have vaginal sex. All women should be getting Pap tests by the time they are 21 years old.
How is a PAP TEST done?
  •  A doctor/ nurse inserts a speculum into vagina to see the cervix.
  • A doctor/nurse takes sample of cell from inside and outside of the cervix.
How to get ready for a PAP TEST?
- For about 2 days before before Pap Test.
      DO NOT
  • Have Sex
  • Use tampons
  • Use use birth control  that is put into the vagina, like foam, cream or jelly
  • Use any medicine that is put into the vagina
  • Use a vagina lubrication
  • Use feminine deodorant sprays or powders
  • Swim
  • Take a tub bath
Do not have a Pap test id you are having period. It can make it harder to find cells that are not normal. Call to change your appointment.

How often should women get Pap Test?
A woman should talk with her doctor or nurse to decide how often to have Pap tests. How often a woman should have Pap test is based on many things, including
  • Her age
  • Result of pap test in the past
  • Medical history
  • Having human papillomavirus (HPV)
  • Smoking
When should women stop getting PAP Tests?
Women can stop getting a Pap Test at 70 years old if the results of all Pap tests in the last 10 years were normal. all women over 70 should still have a pelvic exam every year.

What about women who have had a hysterectomy?
  • Women who have a partial hysterectomy still need to get Pap tests. This surgery takes out the womb (uterus) but NOT the cervix.
  • Women who had a total hysterectomy may stop getting Pap tests. This surgery takes out the the womb and cervix.
  • Even after stopping Pap smears, all women should ge a pelvic exam every year. 


 from http://www.wellnessproposals.com/health-care/handouts/womens-health/pap-tests.pdf

Thursday, 15 January 2015

Here's how to take care of your mind this new year


When it comes to New Year’s resolutions, our self-improvement efforts often focus on getting a better body. And we ignore that other, equally important part of our wellbeing: our mental health.
Certain health hazards come with warnings, like cigarettes or alcohol, but less obvious ones, like loneliness and rejection, can take just as great toll, says psychologist Guy Winch, author of Emotional First Aid: Healing Rejection, Guilt, Failure and Other Everyday Hurts. Research shows social isolation is linked to shorter lifespans, yet we often ignore our emotional hygiene. “If our dental hygiene were as poor as our emotional hygiene, we’d be all gums and no teeth,” says Winch.

This year, prioritize your mind as well as your body, and make a resolution for better mental health. Here are some of Winch’s tips for prioritizing your emotional hygiene in the new year (and all year long).

1. Pay attention to emotional pain. Psychological pain is much like physical pain—if something hurts for more than a few days, you need to do something about it. If you experience rejection, failure, or have a bad mood that lingers too long, don’t ignore it.

2. Take action when you feel lonely. Chronic loneliness is devastating to your emotional and physical health because it increases your chances of an early death by 14%. Therefore, when you feel lonely, actions like reaching out to family members, connecting with friends or joining a dating website can help. Make a list of people who you’ve been close to in the past (use your phone book, social media friends, and email contacts) and reach out to one of them each day to chat or to make plans. It will feel scary and risky to take those kinds of steps, but that’s what you need to do to break the cycle of disconnection and end your emotional isolation.

3. Stop your emotional bleeding. Psychological wounds tend to create vicious cycles that get worse with time. Failure can lead to feelings of helplessness that in turn can make you more likely to fail again in the future. To break the negative cycle of failure, find ways to gain control of the situation. Our minds are not as reliable as we tend to think, so ignore misleading feelings from your gut that tell you to give up, and focus on the aspects within your control, such as your preparation, planning, effort and execution.

4. Protect your self-esteem. Your self-esteem is like an emotional immune system—it can increase your resilience and protect you from stress and anxiety. Good emotional hygiene involves monitoring your self-esteem and boosting it when it’s low. How? Avoid negative self-talk that damages it further—despite how tempting it might be to indulge these kinds of thoughts at times.

5. Revive your self-worth after a rejection. It’s very common to be self-critical after you get rejected. It’s an unfortunate reaction, since that’s when your self-esteem is already hurting. You’re most likely to call yourself names, list all your faults and shortcomings and generally kick yourself when you’re already down. The most important thing you can do after getting rejected is to treat yourself with the same compassion you would treat a good friend. Make sure your inner voice is kind, understanding and supportive.

6. Battle negative thinking. When something upsetting happens, it’s natural to brood over it. But replaying the scene over and over in your mind will not give you much insight or closure. The best way to break a brooding cycle is to distract yourself with a task that requires concentration, like a game on your cell phone, a quick run or a crossword puzzle. 

7. Be informed on the impact of common psychological wounds and how to treat them. You know how to treat a cut or a cold, so you should also know how to treat rejection, failure, loneliness, guilt and other common emotional wounds. By becoming mindful about your psychological health and adopting habits of good emotional hygiene, you will not only heal your psychological injuries when you sustain them, but you will elevate your entire quality of life

from

things TO do in 2015......


New Year ....New Resolutions....




Tuesday, 16 December 2014

Curcumin quiets crosstalk in tumor cellular environment



Curcumin quiets crosstalk in tumor cellular environment



Life Extension Update
Tuesday, October 7, 2014. The journal PLOS One published an article on September 19 demonstrating BCM-95® curcumin altered the microenvironment of a colorectal cancer cell culture model, thereby reducing tumor promoting factors and potentially enhancing chemotherapy effectiveness.
"Accumulating evidence suggests that the development and progression of colorectal cancer is due to genetic and epigenetic alterations that are the result of complex interactions of transformed cells with their microenvironment," explain authors Constanze Buhrmann of Ludwig Maximilian University in Germany and her colleagues. "The tumor microenvironment is regarded as the tumor bed, which comprises of resident components, such as stromal cells and the factors that are stable within the milieu of the stroma, and nonresident components such as different immune cell populations, which influence tumor invasion and metastasis. The synergistic impact of the microenvironment on inflammatory responses and tumor progression is now considered to be an essential feature of carcinogenesis, and there is growing interest in the identification of agents that specifically target the pathway interaction between the tumor and stromal cells."
Dr Buhrmann and associates cultured human colon cancer cells with human stromal fibroblast cells for three days. They observed clustering of the cancer cells around the stromal cells, which established close cell-to-cell contact. This cellular interaction was associated with increased expression of adhesion and metastatic molecules, active cell cycle proteins, transforming growth factor-beta3 (TGF-beta3) and vimentin, which is a marker of epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT), a process that supports the initiation of metastasis.
The team then employed a three dimensional high density tumor microenvironment in which colon cancer cells were co-cultured with stromal cells and treated with varying concentrations of BCM-95® curcumin and/or the chemotherapeutic drug 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). While 5-FU alone increased tumor-promoting factors, TGF-beta3, and EMT, pretreatment with curcumin prior to 5-FU administration reduced these factors. Treatment with 5-FU and/or curcumin promoted disintegration of high-density tumor spheres, an effect that was greater in curcumin-treated co-cultures.
Cancer stem cells, which are believed to be responsible for treatment resistance and tumor recurrence, were more numerous in co-cultured cancer and stromal cells in comparison with cancer cells alone, indicating the role of crosstalk in supporting in tumor promotion. Administration of curcumin with or without 5-FU inhibited and diminished the expression of cancer stem cell markers, while 5-FU alone was associated with an increase—a fact that the authors attribute to a defense reaction of the tumor cell culture and microenvironment.
The results, according to the authors, demonstrate "for the first time, the modulating effect of curcumin on the crosstalk between the colorectal cancer cells/cancer stem cells and the fibroblasts in the tumor microenvironment, creating an adequate climate for more effective chemotherapeutic action of 5-FU to specifically target chemoresistant colorectal cancer cells."
They conclude "that the natural NF-kB inhibitor curcumin is a promising modulator of the synergistic crosstalk in the tumor microenvironment and curcumin-based anti-EMT and tumor progression may be a promising therapeutic strategy to prevent resistance to chemotherapeutic agents, sensitizing cancer stem cells to 5-FU and impede metastasis."


What's Hot


Curcumin may help prevent metastasis


brain volume
Writing in an article published online on October 5, 2012 in the journal Carcinogenesis, German and Italian researchers report an anti-metastatic effect for curcumin, a compound that occurs in the spice turmeric, in an animal model of prostate cancer.
Previous experimentation by the team uncovered an inhibitory effect for curcumin against the expression of pro-inflammatory immunomodulator cytokines that include CXCL1 and CXCL2, which are associated with breast cancer metastases. The current research found a similar inhibitory action for curcumin in prostate carcinoma cells via inhibition of nuclear factor kappa-beta (NFκB). Upon testing curcumin in a mouse model of prostate cancer, a significant decrease in lung metastases was observed.
"Chronic inflammation can induce a metastasis prone phenotype in prostate cancer cells by maintaining a positive pro-inflammatory and pro-metastatic feedback loop between NFκB and CXCL1/-2," the authors write. "Curcumin disrupts this feedback loop by the inhibition of NFκB signaling leading to reduced metastasis formation in vivo."
"Due to the action of curcumin, the tumor cells synthesize smaller amounts of cytokines that promote metastasis," commented lead researcher Beatrice Bachmeier of Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. "As a consequence, the frequency of metastasis formation in the lungs is significantly reduced, in animals with breast cancer, as we showed previously, or carcinoma of the prostate, as demonstrated in our new study."
"This does not mean that the compound should be seen as a replacement for conventional therapies," she added. "However, it could play a positive role in primary prevention – before a full-blown tumor arises – or help to avert formation of metastases. In this context the fact that the substance is well tolerated is very important, because one can safely recommend it to individuals who have an increased tumor risk."
Dr Bachmeier is planning a clinical trial to evaluate the effects of curcumin in treatment-resistant prostate cancer patients.