HEALTH AND WELLNESS

  You may have imagined that all living things must inevitably wear out. Cars and vacuum cleaners in daily use eventually stop working. It is easy to suppose that animals age and die in a similar way. But professor of zoology Steven Austad explains: “living organisms are very different from machines. The most fundamental defining character of living organisms, in fact, may be their ability to repair themselves.”   The way your body repairs itself after an injury is marvelous, but the routine repairs it makes are, in some respects, even more remarkable. Consider your bones, for example. “Seemingly inert when viewed from the outside, bone is a living tissue that ceaselessly destroys and rebuilds itself throughout adult life,” This remodeling essentially replaces the entire skeleton every 10 years.”   Other parts of your body are renewed more often. Some cells in your skin, liver, and intestines may be replaced almost daily. Every second, your body produces about 25 mi

                                       WHY DO I FAINT?                       The doctor wanted to check the pressure in my eyes, a procedure that required him to touch my eyeball with an instrument. I knew what was going to happen. It always does. It is the same when a nurse uses a needle to extract blood. Sometimes just talking about injuries has the same effect. –I faint. According to a British report some 3 percent of us often faint when we are in one of the aforementioned specific situations. If you are a fellow sufferer, you may have tried in vain to stop yourself from fainting. You might have tried walking to the bathroom to avoid fainting in public. But that is not a good idea. You might faint suddenly on the way and injure yourself. After experiencing this reaction so many times. I decided to find out what causes it. After talking to a handful of doctor and checking a few books. I found that such episode is called a VASOVAGAL reaction. “Vasovagal” refers

                                      Does it make any health difference whether you exercise by hiking up or down a steep incline? Researchers say that in some ways it might.   Taking the stairs regularly is a simple and practical means to improving health. Researchers asked 69 sedentary employees to use the stairs at their place of work instead of the elevators. After 12 weeks, the workers aerobic capacity had increased by 8.6 percent, which gave them a 15 percent reduction in all-cause mortality risk. The workers also saw significant improvement in their blood pressure, cholesterol, weight, fat mass, and waist circumference. A study conducted on a mountain in the Alps where for two months 45 volunteers hiked up the 30-degree slope and rode a cable car back down. Then, for two months more, they did the opposite. While hiking in either direction helped lower bad cholesterol, the study suggested that hiking uphill was more effective for lowering levels of fats c

                                     A few drops of blood taken from a newborn can show whether the baby has a thyroid abnormality. If blood tests reveal a problem, physicians can take corrective measures. Lacking sufficient thyroid hormones, a child may become physically and mentally retarded, a condition called cretinism. Hence, babies are usually tested just days after birth.   Thyroid impairment may be the result of a diet poor in iodine, physical or mental stress, genetic defects, infections, disease [usually autoimmune disease], or side effects of medications prescribed for various        illnesses. An enlarged thyroid, or goiter, may be an indication of disease. The enlargement may be diffuse or in the form of nodules. Although genetically benign goiters should always receive medical attention, for they might indicate a more serious condition, such as cancer. Just as the accelerator controls the speed of a car’s engine, thyroid hormone regulates the rate of the

                         “Transfusion medicine will continue to be a little like walking through a tropical rainforest, where the known paths are clear but still require careful navigation, and new and unseen threats may still lurk around the next corner to trap the unwary.” –Ian M. Franklin, professor of transfusion medicine. After the worldwide AIDS epidemic cast the spotlight on blood in the 1980’s, efforts to eliminate its “unseen threats” intensified. Still, huge obstacles remain. In June 2005, the World Health Organization acknowledged: “The chance of receiving a safe transfusion … varies enormously from one country to another.” Why? In many lands there are no nationally coordinated programs to ensure safety standards for the collection, testing, and transport of blood and blood products. Sometimes blood supplies are even stored dangerously –in poorly maintained domestic refrigerators and picnic boxes! Without safety standards in place, patients can be adversely