Sabado, Pebrero 8, 2014

Jacob loves books. His mom knows this because when she sits down to read to him every night, he waves his arms excitedly.
His favorite page of "Goodnight Moon" shows a cow jumping over the moon. He squeals and reaches for the book every time he sees it. When she is done reading, his mom usually lets him hold the sturdy board book, which he promptly sticks into his mouth.
Jacob is only 6 months old, but he is already well on his way to becoming a reader.

Why Read to My Baby?

You may wonder about the benefits of reading to your baby. An infant won't understand everything you're doing or why. But you wouldn't wait until your child could understand what you were saying before you started speaking to him or her, right? Nor would you bypass lullabies until your baby could carry a tune or wait until he or she could shake a rattle before you offered any toys.
Reading aloud to your baby is a wonderful shared activity you can continue for years to come — and it's an important form of stimulation.
Reading aloud:

teaches a baby about communication
introduces concepts such as numbers, letters, colors, and shapes in a fun way
builds listening, memory, and vocabulary skills
gives babies information about the world around them

Believe it or not, by the time babies reach their first birthday they will have learned all the sounds needed to speak their native language. The more stories you read aloud, the more words your child will be exposed to and the better he or she will be able to talk.
Hearing words helps to build a rich network of words in a baby's brain. Kids whose parents frequently talk/read to them know more words by age 2 than children who have not been read to. And kids who are read to during their early years are more likely to learn to read at the right time.
When you read, your child hears you using many different emotions and expressive sounds, which fosters social and emotional development. Reading also invites your baby to look, point, touch, and answer questions — all of which promote social development and thinking skills. And your baby improves language skills by imitating sounds, recognizing pictures, and learning words.
But perhaps the most important reason to read aloud is that it makes a connection between the things your baby loves the most — your voice and closeness to you — and books. Spending time reading to your baby shows that reading is a skill worth learning. And, if infants and children are read to often with joy, excitement, and closeness, they begin to associate books with happiness — and budding readers are created.

Heart Disease: Exercise for a Healthy Heart

A sedentary (inactive) lifestyle is one of the top risk factors for heart disease. Fortunately, it's a risk factor that you can do something about. Regular exercise, especially aerobic exercise, has many benefits. It can:

Strengthen your heart and cardiovascular system
Improve your circulation and help your body use oxygen better
Improve your symptoms of congestive heart failure
Increase energy levels so you can do more activities without becoming tired or short of breath
Increase endurance
Lower blood pressure
Improve muscle tone and strength
Improve balance and joint flexibility
Strengthen bones
Help reduce body fat and help you reach and stay at a healthy weight
Help reduce stress, tension, anxiety, and depression
Boost self-image and self-esteem
Improve sleep
Make you feel more relaxed and rested
Make you look fit and feel healthy

How Do I Get Started?

Always check with your doctor first before starting an exercise program. Your doctor can help you find a program that matches your level of fitness and physical condition. Here are some questions to ask:

How much exercise can I do each day?
How often can I exercise each week?
What type of exercise should I do?
What type of activities should I avoid?
Should I take my medication(s) at a certain time around my exercise schedule?
Do I have to take my pulse while exercising?

What Type of Exercise Is Best?

Exercise can be divided into two basic types:

Cardiovascular or aerobic is steady physical activity using large muscle groups. This type of exercise strengthens the heart and lungs and improves the body's ability to use oxygen. Aerobic exercise has the most benefits for your heart. Over time, aerobic exercise can help your blood pressure and improve your breathing (since your heart won't have to work as hard during exercise).
Strengthening exercises are repeated muscle contractions (tightening). They help tone muscles, improve strength, and increase your metabolism.

What Are Examples of Aerobic Exercises?

Aerobic exercises include: walking, jogging, jumping rope, bicycling, skiing, skating, rowing, and aerobics.

How Often Should I Exercise?

In general, to achieve maximum benefits, you should gradually work up to an aerobic session of at least 20 to 30 minutes, at least three to four times a week. Exercising every other day will help you start a regular aerobic exercise schedule. The American Heart Association recommends working up to exercising on most days of the week. While the more exercise you can do the better for your fitness, any amount of exercise is beneficial to your health.

What Should I Include in My Program?

Every exercise session should include a warm-up, a conditioning phase, and a cool-down.

Warm-up. This helps your body adjust slowly from rest to exercise. A warm-up reduces the stress on your heart and muscles, slowly increases your breathing, circulation (heart rate) and body temperature. The best warm-up includes dynamic stretching (as compared to the “touch your toes” stretches you did in high school) and the beginning of the activity at a low intensity level.
Conditioning. This follows the warm-up. During the conditioning phase, the benefits of exercise are gained and calories are burned. If you experience chest pain, significant breathlessness, or dizziness, you should stop exercising and let your doctor know about your symptoms.
Cool-down. This is the last phase of your exercise session. It allows your body to gradually recover from the conditioning phase. Your heart rate and blood pressure will return to near resting values. Cool-down does not mean sit down! In fact, do not sit, stand still or lie down right after exercise. This may cause you to feel dizzy or lightheaded or have heart palpitations (fluttering in your chest). The best cool-down is to slowly decrease the intensity of your activity.

What Are the Health Benefits of One Banana a Day?

Bananas are good for bowel regularity and satiety.

Adding a banana to your daily diet has an array of benefits in your body. Bananas help you reach your weight-loss goals, keep your bowels healthy, provide nutrients that regulate heart rhythm and have vitamin compounds for eye health. Keep a bunch of bananas on your desk at work and replenish your stock each week. You'll be more likely to reach for a healthy banana -- instead of heading to the vending machine -- if you have a bunch sitting in front of you.

Weight Loss

Finding foods to fit into your weight-loss diet can be challenging, but bananas make a perfect fit. Bananas are naturally sweet and can help curb your sweet tooth if you get that afternoon sugar craving. A 6-inch banana has a minimal 90 calories, about one-fourth of the calories you would get from a chocolate candy bar. Additionally, about half of the fiber content in bananas is soluble. When soluble fiber reaches your digestive tract, it absorbs water and slows digestion. Food is forced to sit in your stomach for a while, making you feel full. If you have a banana before lunch, you'll be less likely to overeat when your food comes to the table.

Regularity

Enjoying a banana each day aids in keeping you regular. One 6-inch banana has more than 2.5 grams of total fiber, about half of which are insoluble. As insoluble fiber travels through your digestive tract, it sweeps up waste and helps push it out. You'll have more regular bowel movements that are soft and easy to pass. Keep your bowels healthy by getting 14 grams of fiber in your diet for every 1,000 calories you consume, reports Colorado State University Extension. For example, if you tend to stick to an 1,800-calorie diet, you need about 25 grams of total fiber. You get nearly 10 percent of your daily fiber needs -- for this number of calories -- from one 6-inch banana.

Normal Heart Function

Having a banana at breakfast every day adds a nutrient to your body to support normal heart function. Bananas are rich in a mineral electrolyte called potassium. When potassium enters your body, it absorbs directly into your bloodstream through intestinal walls. Potassium travels around to cells all over your body and dissolves in fluid inside of cells. It travels across cell membranes if needed to keep fluid balanced in and around cells. This process keeps electricity flowing throughout your system, which is required to make your heart beat. In cases of severe potassium deficiency, your heart rhythm may become irregular, which can be deadly. According to the Linus Pauling Institute, you need 4,700 milligrams of potassium on a daily basis. Bananas provide more than 360 milligrams per 6-inch piece of fruit.

Eye Health

Adding a banana to your diet also helps keep your eyes healthy. Bananas have a small amount of vitamin A, a fat-soluble vitamin that is vital for protecting your eyes and normal vision. The term "vitamin A" refers to a series of compounds, including beta-carotene and alpha-carotene. These compounds preserve the membranes that surround your eyes and are a component of one of the proteins that brings light into your cornea. Adequate daily vitamin A intake also lessens your risk of night blindness and is essential for everyday vision. Women require 700 micrograms of daily vitamin A, and men need 900 micrograms, explains the Office of Dietary Supplements. One 6-inch banana has nearly 10 micrograms of vitamin A. Bananas also contain alpha-carotene and beta-carotene, which convert to vitamin A to further keep your eyes healthy.

Cure For Gray Hair And Vitiligo Found

Sunday 5 May 2013 - 12am PST

Dermatology

Seniors / Aging

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Cure For Gray Hair And Vitiligo Found

A modified pseudocatalase, a new compound that reverses oxidative stress may provide a cure for loss of skin or hair color, i.e. gray hair or vitiligo, researchers from the United Kingdom and Germany reported in The FASEB Journal.

The need to use hair dyes to cover up a classic sign of aging - gray hair - may soon be a thing of the past.

Scientists from the Institute for Pigmentary Disorders in association with E.M. Arndt University of Greifswald, Germany and the Centre for Skin Sciences, School of Life Sciences at the University of Bradford, United Kingdom, explained that people's hair goes gray because of massive oxidative stress caused by a build up of hydrogen peroxide in hair follicles. This causes hair to bleach itself from the inside out.

The researchers found that this massive build up of hydrogen peroxide can be reversed with a UVB-activated compound called PC-KUS, a modified pseudocatalase. The research team developed this new proprietary treatment.

PC-KUS restores skin color in patients with vitiligo

The authors added that PC-KUS treatment is also effective for patients with vitiligo. Vitiligo is a long-term skin problem that produces white depigmentation patches that develop and grow in certain sections of skin.

Study author, Karin U. Schallreuter, M.D., said:

"To date, it is beyond any doubt that the sudden loss of the inherited skin and localized hair color can affect those individuals in many fundamental ways. The improvement of quality of life after total and even partial successful repigmentation has been documented."

Schallreuter and team analyzed 2,411 patients from several countries with vitiligo. Fifty-seven (2.4%) of them were diagnosed with SSV (strictly segmental vitiligo) and 76 (3.2%) were diagnosed with mixed vitiligo, which is SSV plus NSV (non-segmental vitiligo).

They discovered that those with SSV with a specific nerval distribution involving eyelashes and skin showed the same oxidative stress found in the much more common general NSV. General NSV is associated with decreased antioxidant capacities, including thioredoxin reductase, catalase, and the repair mechanisms methionine sulfoxide reductases.

They found that PC-KUS treatment led to successful patient outcomes - patients' pigmentation in their skin and eyelashes was restored - i.e. they recovered their original skin and hair color.

Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, said:

"For generations, numerous remedies have been concocted to hide gray hair. but now, for the first time, an actual treatment that gets to the root of the problem has been developed.

While this is exciting news, what's even more exciting is that this also works for vitiligo. This condition, while technically cosmetic, can have serious socio-emotional effects of people. Developing an effective treatment for this condition has the potential to radically improve many people's lives."

Gray hair is caused by a massive accumulation of hydrogen peroxide in the hair follicles.

This report is a follow-up on a 2009 study that explained why our hair turns gray. Scientists from the Universities of Bradford, England, and Mainz and Luebeck, Germany, explained in The FASEB Journal (March 2009 issue) that graying hair has absolutely nothing to do with wisdom. They wrote that "Going gray is caused by a massive build up of hydrogen peroxide due to wear and tear of our hair follicles."

Hydrogen peroxide eventually blocks the normal production of melanin, the natural pigment responsible for hair color, as well as skin and eye color.

Written by Christian Nordqvist