Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully. For I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.–Samuel Johnson (poet, essayist, biographer, lexicographer)

Nowadays, people are so conscious about their health and body figure. Many people regularly visit the gym for weight training, cardiovascular exercise, or to simply have friends who share their passion for fitness. Many fitness gyms offer the latest in weight and cardio-machines. Others specialize in special fitness programs or routines like Pilates, Tae-Bo, Belly Dancing, Hip-Hop Exercises, and even Pole Dancing.

But lately, Yoga and Tai Chi classes have been gaining popularity especially among women and above-40 fitness buffs. These Indian and Chinese methods of meditation and exercise are popular due to the health benefits experienced by those practice them. Many health buffs claim that they now enjoy a stress and anxiety-free lifestyle because of their Tai Chi and Yoga lessons.

Studies show that these kinds of exercise do have beneficial effects on the mind and body. These religious-philosophical movements gave emphasis to the state of Zen. According to Buddhism, the term “zen” refers to the attainment of a stage of “awakening.” This belief was introduced in China by a Buddhist monk named Bodhidharma in A.D. 520. According to studies, people who cling to the teachings of Zen endeavor to achieve “satori” which is also called “nirvana”. “Satori” in general can only be reached through a meditation called “zazen” which, in turn, leads to a state of mushin or “no mind”. Mushin is the ability to see things more clearly mentally. It means that one’s judgment will not be blurred with negative thoughts. Although this belief originated from the south, many Western students and practitioners of Yoga and Tai-Chi are satisfied with the health and vitality it brings.

Yoga benefits

Practicing yoga increases flexibility because stretching exercises the different tendons, ligaments, and joints of the body. Studies also say that yoga is probably the only form of activity that massages all the internal organs and glands in the body. These may include the prostate, which according to medical specialists hardly receives stimulation. This massage or stimulation may keep certain individuals from diseases and other forms of illness. Yoga ensures the best supply of blood to the body. This helps detoxify the body of toxins and, in the process, delays aging and renewed energy. Muscles are also toned because of repeated stimulation through yoga.

Tai Chi benefits

Medical researchers and Tai Chi practitioners claim that immediate benefits occur from day one of practice. These may include a more relaxed and clearer mind. Clinical studies in the US show that improved balance and peace of mind took place after only eight weeks of training. These benefits were immediately evident after performing very simple set of movements taken from different Tai Chi styles. Other benefits of this “soft” martial arts include improved internal organ functions, improved breathing, and better sleep. Additional reports show that people who practice Tai Chi enjoyed improved strength and reduced stress, aside from gaining the ability to better deal with anxiety attacks.

However, people with a history of heart disease, back injuries, and those who have undergone recent surgery should consult a physician before starting a Yoga or Tai Chi routine. In general, Tai Chi and Yoga are very effective routines to bring back health and a sense of peace of mind to a devoted practioner. Done properly, these ancient arts of exercise and meditation can help provide anxiety relief and alleviate other forms of stress.

Life after Cancer Treatment

Cancer sucks. When I was 4 years old, my mom was diagnosed with cancer. The experts said she had less than a year. I remember being on the street, crying, on the roof of my dad’s car, screaming ‘MOM!!!!!’ to the hospital, while she waived at us from a window way up.

My mom had 6 sisters, 3 died of cancer. She also had 7 brothers. One of them died of cancer. She’s been to more operations and treatments than anyone I know. Her breasts were amputated, as well as her ovaries and uterus. She also had something about her colon and one simple cosmetic thing on her face. (The latter had beauty purposes)

Right now, as I write this, I’m 22 and very happy to announce that my mom is still alive and kicking. Awesome isn’t?

Here’s what she says to me all the time:
‘I didn’t care what the doctors said…I had to see you grow up’.

You’d be surprised if you saw her. For her age, she has a nice figure. She kicks ass in skiing and is very energetic, all the time. Since my mom is a walking monument of survival, I decided to ask her what her views on cancer are and how she managed to survive and maintain a smile all these years.

When I asked her about her ‘survival techniques’ I was pretty surprised. Not only for the ‘common sense’ type of answers that she gave me, but also for the medical arguments she has to back them up. She has a Biology degree and I’ve seen her, first hand, walking the talk. For these reasons, I feel the obligation to spread her word and let others know.
Tips from a cancer survivor

The following are tips. Your goal should be to understand them and then apply as many as possible.

Eat healthy, NATURAL food

Ready made food is the worst. It has too many preservatives. If you’re the kind of person pre-set for cancer, this is like an accelerator in a time bomb. You also want to avoid canned food. I know it’s easy to make, but a couple of minutes more and extra pennies will save you much pain in the long run.

Instead, what you do want to do is eat a lot of Antioxidants. Not to beat the old dead horse, but you have to eat fruits and vegetables EVERY DAY. Not so much a lot, but EVERYDAY. This isn’t hard. Make it a habit that the first thing you have in the morning is a fruit. Like an Apple, orange, banana…or whatever.

If you don’t like fruit, put the fruit in a blender with milk and a bit of sugar or yogurt and start your day with a smoothie. Also, whenever you’re hungry and are about to prepare yourself a snack; try grabbing a fruit instead. While you’re waiting for that pasta, have an apple.

Is very important that when you’re stomach is close to empty, you grab a fruit, or a vegetable. It’ll get digested fast and easy and it will provide your body with a nice amount of Antioxidants.

If you don’t like vegetables, cook them. Onion and broccoli suck. BUT, soup with onion, tomato and a nice recipe could be amazing! There are plenty of books on healthy recipes out there. Eat salads too on a daily basis.

Also, when cooking, choose your oil with care. Use very little of it and make sure is mono-saturated like olive oil. Olive oil is awesome by the way. It has Hydroxytyrosol. It is a very powerful Antioxidant. Also, soy oil is pretty good too. These things have Omega 3 and 6.

Note: The topic of Antioxidants is very, very important. You must understand what they are, how they work and how they affect the human body.

Drink lots of water. LOTS! All the time!!

For example, when you’re eating dinner, rather than complimenting it with can juice, drink water. When you’re thirsty and feel like sipping a pop, drink water. Just like eating a fruit when the stomach is empty, the same goes for water.

An amazing habit that I have the pleasure to have pioneered, is to everyday, first thing in the morning, right before the morning coffee, have an apple and a glass of water. Also, bring a bottle of water to work/school, and keep refilling it all day long.

No Alcohol

It’s ok to drink alcohol every now and then. Actually, one of the reasons wine is recommended is because it has Antioxidants.
But, by no alcohol, I mean don’t get wasted all the time.

Sleep well

Sleeping is so key. When you’re sleeping, your brain is producing chemicals that help your body. Plus, your whole system is resting and getting stronger. Plus it just feels good, so make sure you have a comfortable bed and sleep as much as you need to.

Have Fun

Simply stated: ‘Do whatever YOU want’
Go out on Friday night and have a blast with your friends. Learn a musical instrument and jam with people. Learn a new language, travel, walk around nature, go skiing, and sky diving. Just do the things that you enjoy. These things are like sources of happiness and well-being. They offer nothing but benefits.

Have Goals

This is something incredibly important. If you have a mayor purpose, something to look forward to, you’ll be much fulfilled just doing the required work to achieve your goal. It is not so much the destination but the path that’s important.

How about helping a charity? Or starting a business? Learning a new language and going to another country for 3 months? Plant a new garden on your yard and see it grow.

From personal experience, I must say that one of the major things that gave my mom the fire to fight was the following statement:
To see her son grow up. Right now, she says she’s in a stage of her life where she’s setting new goals. We’re actually looking into investing in Real Estate.

Trust me, goals and projects that are meaningful to you will keep you alive. So start right now. What is that one thing that you’ve always wanted to do?

Exercise

Do it a little bit, everyday. Adapt the exercise to your particular situation. My mom has a little machine with a couple of marbles and things in her room. She works like 10 minutes everyday. Only a couple exercises. She also swims a lot and skis. Again, do things that will keep you in shape. Try yoga out. Walk, Bike, Dance, Stay active.

Have a positive attitude

A good mental state is so key. Living a life with your emotions balanced is so awesome. Choose the people around you very carefully. Avoid whiners and the chicken littles of life. Make sure you’re around positive people that will help you out and motivate you.

Sharing time with people that also have goals and that want to be with you to share the fun of being alive is very rewarding. People that have your same state of mind and are motivated by the same activities will add massive value to your life.

Love

Experience love, develop your spiritual energy, Love yourself and give yourself importance. If you don’t like yourself, do something so that you do. Achieve something. Loving yourself will make sure that others love you. That way you’ll be surrounded by awesome people and have a loving special someone.

Making love is also strongly recommended. Do it often. Please your partner. Have fun. As a healing mechanism, and happiness generator, it has no match.

Be realistic and optimistic

Deal with problems in a realistic way. Be effective and quick. Seek help if you have to. At the same time though, don’t let bad things take over you. There’s always a solution. Even if it means dropping the problem because is something out of your control.

Obstacles, in anything, are a part of life. You learn something every time you make a mistake or have a set-back. Just keep going.

Be financially smart

Don’t buy into debt. Make sure you live within your means. Then, expand your means. Don’t work too much either. Invest in your tranquility. Give yourself pleasure, but be careful with debt.
Learn to manage your money.

It’s been said that a lot of people under stress and that develop diseases are suffering of cancer of the wallet. Again, use your money in smart ways. Think of the future.

So there you have it. Simple isn’t it? I really hope, deep down inside, that this article helps someone out.

Strategies To Overcome Social Phobia - Part 1

By: Gary M. Miller

According to medical professionals, the best strategies for overcoming social phobia include varied treatments. These treatments include cognitive behavioral therapy, cognitive group behavioral therapy and medication.

A doctor, specifically a psychologist or psychiatrist will determine which strategy is best suited to each individual patient in order to help the patient overcome their type of social phobia. This is done by assessing the severity of the symptoms that the patient is experiencing, the level of affect that social phobia is having on the patient and the ability of the patient to recover from their disorder.

Cognitive behavioral treatment or CBT is one of the first treatments that will be tried to resolve social phobia. It is a form of psychotherapy that has been in use for varied mental illnesses and disorders for many years. It works by analyzing the roots of all the emotions experienced by someone with social phobia.

The first step in cognitive behavioral treatment for social phobia strategies is to determine the negative thoughts that are causing the patient’s anxiousness. These are then put into different categories and help the therapist to teach the patient ways of controlling these thoughts, correcting the patient’s perceptions which result in these thoughts and then help them to restructure their thought patterns to avoid these unreasonable thoughts.

The strategies for treating social phobia with CBT involve varied methods such as attribution, teaching the patient the difference between irrational and rational thoughts, and helping the patient to overcome any past experiences that may have contributed to their irrational thoughts. In the case of children, psychiatrists can get to the root cause or trauma that may have resulted in their social phobia. They can help them to understand the event and learn to deal with what happened and cope with moving forward in life with a new positive approach and attitude versus forgetting what happened, which in itself is merely avoidance of the memories of those events.

Another strategy that medical practitioners find useful is cognitive group behavioral therapy. It is similar to CBT in its strategy for dealing with social phobia, but in a group setting with other people who are suffering the same disorder and one or more group therapists. The aim of this strategy is to not only overcome the negative thought processes attributed to social phobia, but allow the patients to realize that they are not alone in what they suffer and have support from people who understand what it really feels like.

There are other important strategies for overcoming social phobia that group therapy undertakes. These include:

• Group discussions of each individuals symptoms, perceptions, experiences and traumas

• The use of the group to show their support for individual social phobia attacks by encouraging the changes in thought patterns and perceptions.

•The use of the group on outings to overcome social phobia attacks with people that each member feels can be trusted to not judge them or ridicule them. The group helps each member to avoid perceived embarrassment and the need to become isolated.

• The group outings help individual sufferers realize that social interaction with new people does not have to be fearful or even judgmental or embarrassing.

• The use of the group in varied situations in helping each individual social phobia sufferer to no longer having the need to put on appearances in how they look, behave, talk or in regards to their abilities to lessen the likelihood of misinterpreted judgments by others.

• The use of the group in varied situations to support individual sufferers in learning that they no longer need to feel embarrassment or guilt in social situations.

• Group discussions to help each individual sufferer in overcoming anger resulting from previous situations or traumas.

• Group discussions to assist each individual sufferer in overcoming the need to please everyone, be a perfectionist, procrastinate, avoid social interactions and in becoming a realistic individual with self-confidence and self-esteem.

• Group discussions to assist each individual sufferer in dealing with times when social interaction does result in judgment or embarrassment by others.

These strategies for overcoming social phobia have proven to be very useful in helping patients deal with their affliction. Studies have shown that both forms of cognitive behavioral therapies do succeed and allow each patient to move forward and enjoy normal, productive, socially interactive and happy lives. Of course, there are a few cases were the affects of the anxiety are so deep rooted that the individual needs to combine these therapies with medication. However, if you do sufferer social phobia, getting guidance from your doctor is the best first step to curing your suffering.

Article Source:
http://www.articlecity.com/articles/health/article_6875.shtml

The Antiaging Nutritional Supplement Hype

When it comes to nutrition, there is no better reason to use a supplement than just that; nutrition. Nowadays, there is even more reason to use supplements as an antiaging nutritional supplement not only takes care of supplementing your nutrition, but it also aids in antiaging benefits. You can’t expect to look ten years younger with these supplements, but you can expect to feel more confident, keep a fresher look, and feel healthier too. Too many times do we hear products that claim to work miracles, but are these claims really reality?

Where are the facts?

In many cases, you may notice that an antiaging nutritional supplement shows the ingredients on the bottle, but many times the small print also explains that their product has not been given the seal of approval per say, from the Drug and Food Administration. What this means to you as a consumer is the fact that just because the antiaging nutritional supplement claims to promote antiaging, does not mean it actually does.

It’s important to remember who we deal with when we go to purchase products of this nature. If the company isn’t well known or their product is still in a testing phase, it’s probably a good idea to leave the product alone. There is no reason to waste money in finding out an antiaging nutritional supplement doesn’t even work the way it claims to.

How can you trust it?

Because of all the hype that gets thrown around about new revolutionary products that hit the market, it is close to impossible to separate the truth from the fantasy. When there are so many of us who are desperate to bring youth back into our lives, it can be easy for us to believe claims that are simply far fetched. One way to make sure you don’t fall victim to purchasing a useless product, is to use the Internet to your advantage. By reading user reviews of different antiaging nutritional supplements online, you can arm yourself with the knowledge of how the product has worked for other people, giving you and opportunity to decide whether it might just work for you.

This type of research also gives you the opportunity to learn how long a product has been on the market, the specific benefits people are discovering with the products, and it is one of the best ways to compare products. You will probably find that many of the antiaging nutritional supplement products on the market offer different benefits from others, which gives you an opportunity to find one to meet your specific needs.

Our perception and response to our environment and community plays influences our mindset, behavior, and perception about other people and the world we live in. We can be pessimistic, allowing gloom and negativity to haunt our every waking hour; or we can choose to be optimistic and see our stress and anxiety as normal human reaction to life’s challenges.  But there is more to human response to stress and anxiety than just having a “bad day.”  Our disposition not only affects our behavior but the state of our health, as well.

Extensive research has shown that people who are are suffering from depression and anxiety are at greater  risk of having heart disease and other illnesses. Further studies also proved that people who are under extreme prolonged stress are more susceptible to infections like the flu and the viral cold.

In recent years, researches have reinforced the theory that the human mind plays a major role in influencing the way that our body works.  Attitudes and emotions directly impact health and well-being. Being too negative in terms of one’s thoughts or emotions somehow weaken an individual’s immune system, which also confirms the mind-and-body link of health and well-being. The same study showed that people who are more optimistic have a 50% lower risk of untimely death than those who are pessimistic. Aside from a lower risk of premature death, having a positive attitude increases a person’s energy and ability to handle life’s difficulties. Having a positive attitude helps us deal with emotional pain and helps us attain peace, calm, and joy.

Although we cannot will ourselves to feel positive all the time, a number of techniques can be learned to help us reduce the impact of stress and anxiety.  Using relaxation techniques based on Western, Eastern, and other traditional forms of meditation can help us reclaim a positive outlook. These techniques not only alleviate but also prevent psychological problems such as depression, anxiety attacks, aggression, and other stress-related illnesses like chronic pain, tension headaches,and hypertension.

The following are some of the useful methods that promote peace and relaxation:

l    Visual Imagery – It involves visualizing oneself in the midst of a soothing and peaceful scene— a forest, a beach, a stream, a lake, or being in the mountains. The important thing is that you visualize a scene that is beautiful and calm. Aside from picturing nature scenes in your head, you could also try recalling a special, happy moment in your life.  The practice of visualization slows down the heart rate and breathing patterns.

l    Meditation – This requires concentration or focusing one’s thoughts.  It is a often referred to as the act of “emptying one’s thoughts of all negative thoughts and emotions.”   Meditation helps cultivate calmness and promotes the development of new and fresh insights into a problem and about life itself.

l    Exercise – A good relaxation therapy that is mixed with physical exercise is called isometric squeeze technique.  This technique is used as part of a systematic desensitization therapy for people who suffer from anxiety and panic disorders. The technique entails the application of alternate tension and relaxation on the body’s 16 different muscle groups.

There are other practical steps towards building a more positive life.  These steps include the following:

1.    Reduce Stress
2.    Get Plenty of Rest
3.    Get Organized
4.    Exercise
5.    Eat Well

By cultivating a more positive attitude and frame of mind, we can overcome life’s many challenges. Having a calm disposition entails the development of a coping mechanism that enables as to face life’s many obstacles and occasional heartaches.  Through the application of stress management techniques and a commitment to overcome one’s personal problems, life can be more meaningful, worthwhile, and of course, happy as happy can be.

Doing what you can now will abate the affairs of accepting a affection advance and access your activity which should be every ones goal.

Fuel for the Body:

The animal physique needs aliment to ammunition us thru our active days. Our bodies about-face the aliment we eat into activity we charge to accumulate our physique activity properly. Fried and blubbery foods are bad for the physique and gum up the works. These types of foods advice physique blockage in the arteries that bear the basic accumulation of claret to and from the heart, and if one of them clogs you accept a affection attack. Try switching your diet to broiled angle and chicken, with lots of aflame or raw vegetables. These foods are abounding of bare nutrients and will advice accumulate your arteries apple-pie and your affection strong.

Keeping the Physique Strong:

It is not abundant just to put acceptable ammunition in the physique you accept to aswell yield acceptable affliction of the body. It is important to conditioning at atomic 3 to 4 hours a week. Alive out agency breaking a diaphoresis and adopting your beating rate, the way to amount out what your alive out affection amount should be is simple decrease your age from 220. This agency a 35 year old should accession their affection amount to 185 for a conditioning to be a lot of effective. If you acquisition that you can not authority a accustomed chat during your conditioning you are blame too fast and should apathetic down, huffing and puffing agency your physique is not accepting abundant oxygen, as you plan out added you will acquisition yourself able to advance harder and faster. Tog et a acceptable conditioning you do not charge to accompany an big-ticket gym. Gyms action aerobics classes weight training and bikes and treadmills for cardio workouts, but you can get just the aforementioned conditioning with a conditioning DVD and a fast paced airing two or three times a week.

Screwing up the Works:

Smoking, bubbler and accepting high, does annihilation acceptable for the body. Medical scientists are belief what if any are the allowances of Marijuana, but one affair they accept already agreed on is that smoker Marijuana is worse for you because of the smoke again any allowances that the biologic may offer. Smoker puts a actinic into the physique that makes claret array added accepted again in anyone who does not smoke, add that to poor bistro habits and you accept an ambiance that is acceptable for a affection attack. Again yield into annual that some drugs like cocaine accomplish your affection chase for continued periods of time. This weakens and shortens the activity amount of your affection and afterwards continued appellation use can leave you ashore in bed absorbed up to machines or ashore in a wheelchair. Bubbler Alcohol may be the affliction of them all it not alone raises the adventitious of affection ache it hardens your arteries and kills your alarmist and even your kidneys.

If you wish to reside continued abundant to adore your aureate years you accept to alpha accomplishing something about it now. Many humans will say that 60 yeas ago humans ate abundant worse again we do now, but my acknowledgment would be that those humans aswell did added concrete activity again we do today.

Increased sperm count and quality is vital in the reproductive process. It is essential in emitting a strong sexual presence for a man and is very important to fulfilling one’s desire to make his wife pregnant. The volume and quality of semen released during ejaculation is needed to ensure conception. In order to fertilize an egg, a large amount of sperm is needed, often requiring hundreds of millions of live spermatozoa. For pregnancy to take place, one sperm cell must survive long enough to reach and fertilize the egg. Under natural circumstances, a man produces hundreds of millions of sperm cells each day.  However, disruption of this complex male body process may occur due to unhealthy lifestyle and other medical reasons.

To improve sperm count and sperm quality, the readers should consider the following suggestions:

Eat right

A healthy diet is essential in maintaining sperm count and quality. Today’s fast-paced lifestyle have made the consumption of healthy food and drinks more of a therapeutic measure for those who already have sickness or disease. Fast foods have taken the place of nutritious home-prepared food. In order to increase sperm count and quality, men should increase the intake of foods that contain the necessary vitamins and minerals.

Cut back on caffeine

Excessive drinking of coffee, sodas, and other beverages with caffeine may harm sperm production in the long run. Several medical studies show that drinking caffeine particularly in the form of coffee may decrease fertility. Drinking as much as a cup of coffee a day can decrease the chances of conceiving into half. Medical specialists advise the elimination of foods and drinks with caffeine for at least three months before trying to conceive.  Make it a point to stay away or take these drinks in moderation and drink lots of water to increase sperm count and quality.

Cut back on the alcohol

Alcohol is potentially harmful to the health of sperm cells. It may have adverse effects on one’s  overall health and the same may apply to the life-giving characteristics of spermatozoa. Alcohol may decrease sperm count, increase abnormal sperm development, and reduce the proportion of motile sperm. Alcohol may also hamper the absorption of nutrients such as zinc, which is one of the most important minerals for male fertility.

Quit smoking

Smoking may increase the number of free radicals in the body which may damage many cells, including the sperm cells. It may reduce sperm count and motility, and increase the number of abnormal cells.

Avoid emotional stress

If one is mentally or emotionally stressed, there is a possibility that sperm count is below normal. This happens because blood gets routed to the vital organs like the lungs, heart, and brain in moments of stress. It is possible that the testes may lack nourishment when one is under chronic stress. Men ought to realize the importance of keeping a healthy body and a healthy mind.

Exercise

People who frequently exercise have more energy, less anxiety, better self-esteem, and increased testosterone levels. However, these activities should be done in moderation because too much or too intense physical training may cause fatigue and affect sterility.

As a general rule, individuals with low sperm count should visit doctors and other health professionals to determine the cause of the decreased sperm. Having a low sperm count or quality does not mean that one will not be able to father a child. It simply means that adjustments in one’s lifestyle or habits should be done to improve the life of sperm cells — which are actions necessary to ensure success in procreation.

Indoor air purifiers are acceptable added all-important than anytime as the amount of pollutants in the air we breathe increases steadily. Despite the ascent attendance of billow and added contaminants in the alfresco world, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) appraisal that the air we breathe outdoors is two to 5 times beneath attenuated than the air we commonly drag in our homes. Calm air purifiers can advice abate this arrangement and accommodate a home ambiance for your ancestors that is safe and comfortable.

The air abuse allegation accomplished by the EPA put a accomplished new acceptation to traveling outdoors for a animation of beginning air. Our homes are our ambush from the world, and should represent a safe ambiance for our families. An calm air bactericide can advice annihilate the alarming particles and odors that charge our homes, and advice abrogate the adverse furnishings of these pollutants.

The blazon of calm air bactericide you accept will depend on any accurate needs you ability have, such as allergies or asthma, but allotment an calm air cleaner that incorporates added than one technology increases the amount of adverse substances that can be eliminated. Calm air purifiers are acutely able nowadays.

HEPA calm air purifiers are one of the a lot of reliable around, removing an estimated 99.97% of particles from the air. But even these top superior calm air cleaners cannot action adjoin odors or actinic problems, which requires the use of activated carbon. Allotment an calm air bactericide that combines these appearance ensures that you are creating the best accessible ambiance for your family’s connected wellbeing.

Industrial environments, such as apple-pie rooms, crave optimal air purification, and allotment a bartering air bactericide for your home can ensure that your ancestors abide a safe and apple-pie environment. The air in your home is two to 5 times added attenuated than in the blurred outdoors – allotment a bartering air bactericide will accommodate your home with the fresh, apple-pie air you deserve.

Bring absolute beginning air to your home with an calm air purifier, and allure the spirit of the abundant outdoors inside.

Indoor air purifiers are acceptable added and added a all-important allotment of our avant-garde life.

Armed with good information, you can be your own best advocate when it comes to making health care decisions. That means not only gathering information on specific medical conditions and the latest treatments, but asking questions and seeking advice during your doctor visits.

But where can consumers get reliable and accurate health care information? In many cases, it’s from prescription drug advertisements. Studies show that direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising starts important conversations about overall health and disease between doctors and patients-conversations that may lead to new diagnosis and better treatment.

According to a Harvard University/Massachusetts General Hospital and Harris Interactive health care survey, for example, one-quarter of adult patients who consulted a doctor after seeing a DTC ad received a new diagnosis. Some of the most common new diagnoses included high cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes and depression. These conditions are often undertreated and underdiagnosed in the general population.

“Direct-to-Consumer advertising plays an invaluable role informing physicians and patients both about disease and new and lifesaving medicines,” says Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Senior Vice President Ken Johnson. “Educational advertising empowers patients to seek guidance from their doctors, which can lead to earlier detection and treatment of diseases.”

Guiding Principles

PhRMA recently issued new guiding principles to further improve the educational value of prescription drug advertising. Through these principles, pharmaceutical companies pledge to provide even more accurate information to patients and doctors about health and disease they can use. Key elements include:

• Companies should submit all new DTC television advertisements to the Food and Drug Administration before releasing them for broadcast.

• DTC television advertising that identifies a product by name should clearly state the health conditions for which the medicine is approved, as well as the risks associated with the medicine being advertised.

• Companies should spend an appropriate amount of time educating health care professionals about new medicines or new therapeutic indications before beginning the first direct-to-consumer advertising campaign.

PhRMA represents the country’s leading pharmaceutical research and biotechnology companies, which are devoted to inventing medicines that allow patients to live longer, healthier and more productive lives.

Thousands of patient records had been reviewed and yielded an alarming discovery about a previously unknown risk associated with a popular weight loss operation: Suicide in bariatric surgery. Bariatric surgery is a complex surgical procedure concerned with causes, prevention and treatment of severe overweight known as obesity. Bariatric operations are major gastrointestinal procedures which alter the capacity and/or the anatomy of the digestive system.  In simple terms, the stomach is made smaller so as to speed up weight loss. Some bariatric procedures are performed using general anesthesia via a midline abdominal incision. Another method is to use laparoscopic surgical techniques, involving smaller instruments connected to cameras through which they view the operational site.
There are two types of bariatric surgeries:
1.Restrictive -  This type of surgical procedure simply reduces the size of the stomach, using staples and/or a band, resulting in a drastic reduction in the quantity of food it can ingest.
2.Combined Restrictive and Malabsorptive – This type of surgical procedure reduces stomach capacity and bypassing the upper part of the small intestine, causing a reduction in the number of calories and nutrients which the body absorbs.
In bariatric surgery, most studies show that the risk of dying is about 1%, and complications strike up to 40 % of obese patients. Aside from being overweight, these patients usually have health problems, such as diabetes and heart disease, that’s why it’s no wonder they also have higher death rates from natural causes.
However, nearly 17,000 weight-loss surgeries performed in Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2004 had been reviewed and the findings were startling.  Out of the 440 deaths in the group, 16 were due to suicide or drug overdose, according to the University of Pittsburgh researchers who reviewed the data. About three cases of suicides should have occurred in the group based on the suicide rate in the general population, the study authors say. Even more disturbing is the fact that another 14 of the drug overdose cases that were reported are likely to include some suicides, suggesting that the real suicide rate was even higher. “There is a substantial excess of suicide deaths, even excluding those listed only as drug overdose,’’ the researchers noted.
The New England Journal of Medicine reported last August 2007 about a review of nearly 10,000 bariatric surgery patients by Utah researchers, who compared them to a control group of obese people who had applied for a state driver’s license. Although these surgery patients had a 50% lower risk of dying from disease compared to obese people who hadn’t undergone surgery, their risk of dying in an accident or suicide was 11.1 per 10,000 people.  That statistics is 58% higher than the 6.4 per 10,000 rate in the obese group. The study revealed that the suicide risk was twice as high for surgery patients than for those who had not had surgery, though the finding wasn’t statistically meaningful.
Experts are clueless as to why bariatric surgery patients seem to be at higher risk for killing themselves. Some research suggests a connection between obesity and depression, that is why the typical surgery patient may already be at higher risk for depression and suicide even before the operation. There is a great possibility that depressive symptoms may worsen in patients who have unrealistic expectations about the results of surgery, or who struggle not to regain weight after the procedure.
The Pennsylvania case review reveals that there is already a 7 percent death rate from suicide and drug overdose signals the need for better mental health follow-up for patients who have undergone weight-loss surgery. Although many weight-loss surgery programs require psychological evaluation prior to the procedure, most doctors seem lenient about making follow-ups after the surgery, as well as patients who prefer to disregard follow-up counseling.