07.27.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:00 pm by Luis
Recent research from New England (a study of 12,000 people) shows that when your friends get fatter it's likely that you will too.
It's not just a general trend in the population towards putting on weight - if your friends keep themselves in trim you're more likely to stay slim as well.
It makes sense in a lot of ways - after all if you are always eating out with your friends and they all have dessert and multiple drinks - what do you do? You'll likely go with the trend. And you don't feel too conspicuous putting on weight if everyone in your social group is carrying extra pounds too. There's safety in numbers.
Of course if your friends socialize at the gym and eat a light lunch together that's what you're going to do too. And you'll feel more ashamed if you're the only one who can't squeeze into a regular pair of jeans and have to go into the size for larger folk than when others in your group of friends are looking at the plus size rails too.
But the question is, do you choose your friends subconsciously so that you can eat too much or do you eat too much because of who your friends are? And do your friends sabotage (subconsciously or not) your attempts to lose weight so that they still have the comfort of being surrounded by equally large buddies? It could go very deep this one ...
The latest diet advice: don't hang around with fat people - Independent Online Edition > Health
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07.25.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 7:01 am by Luis
Yes.
Sexual dysfunction including difficulty achieving and sustaining erections (erectile dysfunction) is more common in men with epilepsy than in the general population. Several factors likely play a role.
Epilepsy itself may cause sexual dysfunction, especially if seizures are poorly controlled. Disruptions in hormone levels and brain activity may impair sexual desire and performance. In many cases, improved seizure control alleviates sexual dysfunction.
Drugs used to treat epilepsy may also cause sexual dysfunction. Anti-seizure medications, such as phenytoin and carbamazepine, can decrease testosterone levels in men, which in turn reduces sexual desire and impairs sexual function. If a specific anti-seizure medication is the likely culprit of erectile dysfunction, your doctor may recommend an alternative medication.
In addition, psychological factors such as depression, sexual anxiety or stigma associated with epilepsy can contribute to sexual dysfunction in men with epilepsy.
If you have epilepsy and erectile dysfunction, consult your doctor. Your doctor may refer you to a urologist to make sure that your erectile dysfunction isn't due to an unrelated urological condition. In any case, a careful assessment is needed to determine the cause and best treatment for erectile dysfunction.
Source: Mayoclinic
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07.20.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 5:00 am by Luis
Many consumers find that they are wasting their hard-earned money and that many of the supplements have no effect on their waistline, and the only thing that is slimming down is the wallet. Physicians warn that many unscrupulous marketers will make impossible claims in order to get buyers to walk through the virtual doors of their marketplace.
Do you know which the best dietary supplements are?
Chances are, you do not know. What some consumers may consider the best weight loss supplements will have little or no effect for other consumers who try them. After all, there are so many weight loss pills on the market right now, that it is hard to understand how each of them works, and what their claims to fame are. Similarly, it is hard to know what the risks of the individual supplements are, especially since many of them are formulated quite differently from one another.
If you are trying to lose some weight, the odds are pretty good that suddenly you are paying much more attention to the television ads that tout the benefits of a host of dietary supplements. It may appear as though the floodgates have opened, because when you open your newspaper, you cannot help but see the ads for dietary supplements are there as well. Of course, the same can also be said of your email inbox.
As a matter of fact, between ephedra diet pills, ephedra free pills, and the latecomer to the bunch Hoodia it is not surprising for many dieters to simply purchase the newest addition to the market, and hope for the best. According to doctors, the best weight loss supplements are the ones that not only work, but that also will not have any counterproductive effect on medications you may already be taking, and that will also not add stress to your heart. So before taking any dietary supplements, please be safe and visit your doctor!
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Posted in Uncategorized at 5:00 am by Luis
Everyone knows, diet is crucial to losing weight. What everyone doesn't know is that diet includes what you drink. This, of course, can be taken to mean avoid sugary sodas, but there's something more, and most people miss it...
Just drink more water. Most people, period, don't drink nearly enough water. Drinking 8 eight-ounce glasses of water a day, or around two quarts, can be the missing key to success in your fat loss diet. Here's why:
1.) Water Quenches Appetite
Can't stay away from the fridge? Our runaway appetites are often the biggest obstacles to a sustained fat loss diet. After all, if we're going to cut the pounds, we've got to cut some calories. But did you know that when the brain tells us we're hungry, it may be instead signaling thirst? Physiologically, our brains do not truly differentiate between hunger and thirst. So if we find ourselves picking up a snack right after a meal, fill up a glass of water instead. Just wait a few minutes and see what it does to your appetite... More often than not, you'll walk away without eating a bite.
2.) Boil Away the Fat
Our kidneys are designed to process all the water we consume. However, if we don't drink enough, they can't handle the small amounts - there's a sort of minimum requirement. The job is then delegated to the liver that, while able to deal with small amounts of water, also hosts a number of other duties - like converting fat into energy. Yet, if it's too occupied with processing water, that fat doesn't turn into energy. It turns into body fat. The kidneys can take one for the liver here, and you can help by just drinking enough water. Try giving your fat loss diet another leg up.
3.) Evaporate the Water Pudge
You gain weight if you don't drink enough water. Sound contradictory? This is how it works. Our body adapts to our daily water intake, and in ideal circumstances, does not retain water. This happens only if we provide it with enough hydration. If we don't drink enough, water gets stored in something very much like fat.
This is a safety mechanism, guarding against the impending "drought". But if we're at home or at work, there's no reason to enter into survival mode. Once we begin hydrating our bodies again, this water fat disappears, as our bodies no longer deem it necessary to survive. Several pounds can be lost by this alone. Not bad.
There is a legitimate concern here - if I drink so much water, won't I constantly be in transit to and from the bathroom? Well, at first, there will be more trips to the bathroom, but only at first. When you reach ideal hydration levels, your body dumps all the water fat it has been retaining - and when you go the bathroom, you're effectually losing weight. But once the water fat is gone, the bathroom visits return to normal. With all the benefits to be had, it's worth a few days of getting up and down a little more.
Adding water to your weight loss diet can be key in dropping pounds. After all, if it's free, easy, and convenient, why not soak up the skinny?
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07.18.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 6:40 am by Luis
In a new study that will be published in the July 17th issue of the journal Circulation, Canadian researchers reveal that the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra (
Sildenafil), may likely be effective in the treatment of patients with right-sided heart failure, principally because their study shows that only the hearts of these patients exhibit the target molecules that can be blocked by these types of drugs.
The study was led by Drs. Jayan Nagendran, a cardiac surgery resident and Evangelos Michelakis, professor in the Department of Surgery and the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Alberta in Canada.
The researchers wanted to gain insight into the mechanism of how Viagra may benefit patients with pulmonary hypertension (high blood pressure in the lung vessels). This devastating condition usually leads to right-sided (right ventricle) heart failure.
In their study, the researchers evaluated heart specimens from 9 patients to assess their phosphodiesterase type-5 (PDE-5) activity and their response to specific type-5 PDE inhibitors such as Viagra.
PDE-5 is an enzyme that degrades the activity of cGMP, a chemical that relaxes smooth muscle cells. In the vasculature, relaxation of smooth muscle cells causes vessels to dilate thereby increasing blood flow.
PDE-5 is preponderant in the corpus cavernosum of the penis. When it's inhibited, it leads to higher cGMP levels and less dilation (more constriction) of the blood vessels that let blood escape from the corpus cavernosum and thereby leading to a sustained erection.
The researchers essentially found that PDE-5 was not expressed in heart samples from patients that were healthy. Conversely, they did discover that patients with enlarged right heart ventricles had marked increased PDE-5 activity.
When the research team used Viagra (the PDE-5 inhibitor) in their experiments, they found that it increased the activity of isolated cardiac cells and the strength of heart contractions only in unhealthy samples and patients and not in any of the healthy controls.
In the press release from the University of Alberta, Dr. Nagendran stated that "there are a number of medical conditions in both children and adults for which there is a need to boost the performance of the right ventricle, and this drug can be clinically and immediately relevant to help these patients"
Dr. Michelakis also added that "We have a number of drugs and therapies available to treat the left ventricle of the heart to prevent it from failing or to treat it after it has failed, bet we don't have anything for the right ventricle. The phosphodiesterase type-5 inhibtors, which include Viagra and similar other drugs may offer some important benefits in this case."
Viagra (Sildenafil) has been recently approved in the treatment of pulmonary hypertension.
Source: Associatedcontent
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