Obesity Going High


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Obesity is a world wide problem and it is on a constant rise. There is a research that was conducted in Canada and it showed that the Canadians who are obese are getting more obese.

The scientists still do not know as to why there is a constant rise in the population who are obese and getting more obese.

The researchers say that they do not yet know as to what is the exact cause of the steep high rise in the number of the obese people getting more obese, as well as the relation of the medical and the social factors that are contributing to this problem.

The researchers also added that it is really difficult to lose weight or even maintain weight when the person is at extremes level of obesity.

There was a study that was published in a journal, which mentioned that the people whose weight consists of 35 to 40 percent or more of fat have quadrupled since 1985.

There was a study that was released in 2004 in Canada where they found that about 7.8 percent of population was morbidly obese.

In those same statistics it was showed that there were about 36.1 percent of adults were overweight and there are another 23.1 percent who are obese and this makes the total to about 59.2 percent.

When the data was collected according to the ages, the children and adolescents between ages 2 and 17, there were about 26 percent who were overweight and about 8 percent who were obese and that makes the total to about 34 percent.

The research mentions that the Canadians are putting on weight much faster than they are taking it off. It also said that that the people who were overweight in 1994 had become obese by 2002. The rate with which the people gained back in the range of normal weight was about 10 percent.

The people who are morbidly obese are the ones who suffer a lot of health problems at a younger age, which include cardiovascular disease, diabetes, asthma, osteoarthritis, cancer and fertility issues.

It is also mentioned that when the person is obese, lifestyle changes do not help such as diet and exercise and the person needs drugs and bariatric surgery to control their weight.

There are a lot of other issues that the obese people face, which include not able to fit in the ambulances, wheelchairs etc.

Body mass index is an approximation of body fat, which is based on height and weight. It has been established that a person who has a body mass index of 25 or more is considered as an overweight individual, and a person who has a body mass index of 30 or more is called as obese.

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Inhaled insulin

There has been a recent development in the mode of delivery of the insulin treatment where the patients who are suffering from diabetes can now administer insulin in their body through inhalers and not have to inject that in their body.

During the last few weeks, the Food and Drug Administration has approved the new inhaled insulin that was being produced by Pfizer, a pharmaceutical company, which came in the market with the name of Exubera, which is the insulin treatment both for type 1 and type 2 diabetics. This is a new alternative that is there for people to use as it is pretty easy to get the required dosage of insulin through inhalers. This alternative is there for about 5 million people in America.

The pharmaceutical company, Pfizer, has not yet disclosed the price of the drug, Exubera. The company is thinking to bring the drug into the market in about six months or so. There is a general opinion by the analysts that this drug is going to be much expensive than the insulin injections. According to an estimate, the price of the drug, Exubera is expected to be at a price of about $4 a day, which is about three to four times more than the daily cost of insulin that is being administered through injection.

In order to briefly discuss about diabetes, it is a disease in which the insulin production is affected, which produces an imbalance of the sugar control in the body. The mechanism with which the Exubera works is that it is inhaled into the lungs and then it gets into the blood stream and controls the sugar in the blood. The pharmaceutical company says that the patients will be taking this medicine before each meal or at least three times a day to control their blood sugars.

As a word of caution, the doctors stated that there is no data yet to support the history and efficacy, as is established in case of injections; the people who are using the inhaled medicine should use this medicine cautiously.

Since Exubera is a high priced drug therefore it is going to be a lot expensive for the consumers to use, though on the other hand the insurance companies that are providing the prescription plans to their clients would prefer older remedies over the newer ones, as the new modes are expensive. If these medicines would be on the list of the companies, these medicines would be in an expensive tier, which is known as formulary. In this process the patients had to copay as high as $40 to $50 for Exubera, where for the injected insulin it would be $10 to $25.

Since the insulin dosage varies among different patients, each prescription of Exubera will include about 30 days of insulin.

This new discovery is going to bring a whole lot ease for the people and will improve the lifestyle and quality of life of a lot of people.


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Diet Pills On Shelves Now

There was a notification from the federal health advisers who voted and recommended that the sale of the weight loss pills should only be with a prescription.

The pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline are awaiting the final wording from the Food and Drug Administration to get approval on selling a nonprescription version of their diet pill, which is already being sell in the market under the brand name of Xenical.

It must be known that the Food and Drug Administration approval of the drug can take months before they can get to the shelves. The diet pills that were once available over the counter can now hit the shelves.

There were clinical trials that were run on the drug called orlistat and in that study there were people who were taking the placebo pills as well, it was found that the people who have been taking the placebo have not much difference in their weight, but the people who have been using orlistat have lost about 5.3 to 6.2 pounds more than what other categories lost who were taking the placebo. The company recommends that the people must take the pill only for about six months and not more than that.

Doctors state that the effect of the pill stops as soon as it is stopped and they also say that there is a very steep rise in weight of people who stop using the drugs. Therefore these drugs can be helpful but in the longer term they are not.

The specialists also added that people who use the drug to lose weight must also be on proper diet and exercise plan. The officials of the drug manufacturer company added that the effect of the drug is gradual, which is the best way of achieving the weight loss. It is also being said that this drug will help people control the calorie intake and modify their diet.

The nutritionist suggest that it is possible that we can diet and exercise and lose our weight in a natural way and that is the best route possible, though we can use the pills as an adjunct but not solely as a mode to lose weight without the diet and exercise regimen.

As a general estimate the orlistat costs the users of it about $12 to $25 a week and there was an estimate given by the company that there are about 6 million Americans a year who are buying the drug and there are about 22 million people who have used orlistat in the prescription form all over the world.

The mechanism of action of orlistat is that when it is taken with meals, this blocks the absorption of fat that is consumed and the fat just passes out of the body in stools and are loose or oily as a result of this medication. The side effects of this medicine includes gas, incontinence and oily spotting. The side effects were reported in about half of the patients that took part in the study.

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Dogs Can Do Wonders

It has been long known that dogs have amazing sniffing powers and are used to sniff out explosives, narcotics, and they are also known for their powers of sniffing out fake money.

A new research has been conducted where it is shown that dogs can detect lung and breast cancer through breath samples.

It has always been a wonder when there are devices or gadgets that were invented who have the ability to detect cancer in its earliest stages. It has always been a prime need to detect cancer in its early stages so that lives could be saved and the people who are suffering from cancer can be provided with good quality of life and now with dogs have the ability to sniff out cancer through breath samples in its earliest stages can provide an amazing help to the people who might have to go through the tough and prolonged treatment process with poor prognosis.

The researchers think that dogs would be the most important tool in recognizing tumor at a very early stage and the canines can pick up on the chemical differences that linger in the breath samples of an individual who is suffering from cancer.

The dogs that were trained to identify cancers at early stages were Labrador and the two Portuguese water dogs that were trained in three weeks by either laying or sitting after they have sniffed on the breath samples that were taken from the lung or breast cancer patients, while they were trained to ignore the healthy individuals.

These are ordinary household pets who have the power to sniff out cancers in individuals.

The research was conducted on a total of 169 breath samples that were collected in special tubes, out of which 55 patients were with lung cancer and 31 patients had breast cancer and about 83 people were healthy.

The cancer patients were the ones who were already being diagnosed through the conventional ways, either by CT scans or mammograms and were about to start the chemotherapy program. These samples to which the dogs identified the cancer patients were new and they were not exposed to them earlier during training.

It was shown that through the research that dogs were about 88 to 97 percent correct in identifying both early and late stage breast and lung cancers.

This study is yet to appear in March this year.

The best thing that will happen is that there will be a chance for more people to live a healthy life after the deadly cancers have been diagnosed at an early stage, as it is impossible to save a life when the cancers progress to advanced stages.

This ability of dogs with which they can detect cancer was discovered in 1989 and they were known to detect melanoma and bladder cancers.

The researchers are planning to start and develop the canine training centers where they can train dogs and can train them to detect different cancers.

The time the dogs took to detect cancer was very less, and the accuracy level that they gave was way high after such a short time of training.

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Too Much Acetaminophen Can Kill

The researchers have warned people to take care in taking the drugs, which have acetaminophen in it.

The researchers said that painkillers are the widely used medicines and people take a lot of extra doses of it. According to the recent statistics, it has been found out that there are a lot of deaths reported from the use of painkillers, which contained acetaminophen in them.
Acetaminophen can cause acute liver failure and then can ultimately lead to death. The researchers say that there are a lot of accidental poisoning cases reported of acetaminophen overdose.

The drug, Tylenol, has acetaminophen in it, and is named as the safest painkiller when used according to the doctor’s recommendation. This medicine is being used by more than a million people a year and the liver damage occurs in only a fraction of people who use this drug.

The researchers say that most of the cases of lethal overdose occurs when the patients do not follow the instructions of their physicians. Acetaminophen is present in over the counter remedies such as Theraflu and Excedrin, as well as the prescription narcotics that are Vicodin and Percocet.

It is also being stated with great stress that the people should not use the painkillers as they like, which have acetaminophen in it, but must take it according to the doctor’s prescription so as to prevent any accidental over dosage.

The recommended dosage of acetaminophen that adults can take in a day should be no more than 4,000 milligrams a day.

It must be known that if the recommended dose is doubled, it can just kill.

There are more than 56,000 emergency room visits a year due to acetaminophen overdose and out of that about that 100 people die annually from unintentionally taking too much.

There were stats collected on patients who suffered from acute liver failure and there were about 662 patients that were tracked over six years by the researchers at the different transplant centers and they found that about 28 percent of the patients suffering from acute liver failure were because of acetaminophen toxicity.

There were about 74 patients who died and 23 received a transplant, while the rest of them were admitted into the intensive care unit and received necessary treatment.

The basic essence of this article is to make you aware of the fact that you should take a lot of care while taking painkillers that have acetaminophen in it.


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Nicotine Patch Links To Birth Defects

According to the latest research, the use of nicotine patches and gums can cause birth defects if used in the early stages of pregnancy.

It was further eluded that the women who use nicotine replacement therapy in the first twelve weeks of pregnancy pose a 60 percent higher incidence of birth defect than nonsmokers.

The research was conducted on 77,000 pregnant women and the data was collected from them in regards to smoking habits and about 21,000 women said that they were smokers and about 56,000 women were nonsmokers. Including in the nonsmokers were about 250 women who were in the process of quitting smoking and were using nicotine patches.

In a previous research it has been shown that there is an increased risk of birth defects of cleft palates, heart problems and digestive disorders in women who were smokers.

It was found that there were birth defects in both the groups, smokers and nonsmokers, which makes about 5% of the babies having the defects. It is a fact that women who are smokers are at high risk of miscarriages, as well as birth defects.

It was also established that the women who were using the alternative therapies to quit smoking such as patches and gums have a 60 per cent greater risk of birth defects than non-smokers and there is also a double chance of malformations such as hip problems.

As mentioned above, there were about 250 women who were in the process of quitting smoking and were using alternative therapies, in that group there were about 19 children were born with birth defects.

The researchers also mentioned that their studies are based on a very small population and there is still a whole lot that needs to be done to elucidate the facts.

It is also being stated that the women who are planning for pregnancy must give up smoking as it can cause low birth weights and premature births along with birth defects.

Tobacco smoke has a lot of toxins that are lethal for the child in the womb and can lead to a great deal of problems during pregnancy for both the mother and child.

It is being debated that women who are smoking, when switch onto different alternatives such as patches and gums as a tool for smoking cessation, are not exposing themselves to the many harmful substances that are in the cigarette smoke and are only using nicotine, but nicotine is considered fetotoxic, as well as with patches it can reach high peak values.

It was further discussed that the role of nicotine substitutes causing the musculoskeletal and congenital malformations must be carefully studied in smokers who are considering pregnancy.

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Cholesterol Lowering Drugs Offer No Help To Fight Cancer

It had been thought that the cancer drugs have been providing greater benefit to fight cancer. The researchers have performed about 26 studies, which was involving more than 73,000 people who were taking the statins such as Zocor (simvastatin) and Pravachol (pravastatin).

These statins were given to the patients who were suffering from cancers of different organs such as breast, colon, gastrointestinal tract, prostate, respiratory tract, skin etc. and there was no benefit reported in these patients who were on different cholesterol lowering medications.
It was thought before that the cholesterol lowering medications reduce the risk of cancer by reducing inflammation and even blocking the genes that work in causing cancer.

There was a research on animals and in some studies on humans that the cholesterol lowering medications can prevent certain cancers, but the drawback of that study was that the participants were not given statins or placebos randomly.

The statins have been known to have a lot of side effects such as liver damage and muscle pain, therefore the researchers have said that it is not useful to prescribe statins anymore to prevent cancer, as they say that it is not worth to spend both money and time to find a practical link between cancer and statins.

There are a whole lot other roles of statins such as reducing cholesterol in patients who are suffering from high blood pressure, it is also given to patients who are suffering from increased weight and cholesterol lowering medications are used as a mean to lower their cholesterol and hence prevent them from having heart and vessel related diseases. Increased weight can also lead to a lot of other problems in the body and results in endocrine disorders as well. Therefore there are a lot of other benefits that can be extracted from the cholesterol lowering medications.

The researchers also stressed that “Prevention is better than cure�, therefore, it is always good to eat healthy and prevent yourself from using medicines, as they have side effects along with benefits.


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Birth Control Pills Suppress Sex Drive

According to a new research, the birth control pills may suppress the sex drives of women who are on birth control pills for a long duration of time. This fact has been stated in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

It has been an established fact that birth control pills have been known to alter libido in women. The researchers have found the way that these birth control pills affect the sex drive, they say that these pills can change the level of the proteins in the blood that are responsible for the libido for a longer period of time even after the women have stopped using the birth control pills.

The researchers have collected data and they have found very astonishing results. There are a total of about one hundred million women who are using birth control pills, which they are using either for birth control pills, hormonal imbalances or menstrual irregularities. It has also been found out that there are about 80 percent of American women who were born after 1945 have taken the birth control pill.

The researchers have also pointed out that the data of suppressed sex drive has been taken from the clinic where women with sexual dysfunction were treated and this data was collected on about 124 women who were surveyed. So the researchers mentioned that the women should not get panic after reading this data.

There are a lot of reasons of sexual dysfunction. It can be due to stress, medicines taken during treatments, sleep deprivation, alcohol, illicit drug usage etc. So there are a lot of reasons for loss of libido and one should not only consider that they are having loss of libido because they have used the birth control pills. Sexual dysfunction is also related to the psychological condition of a person. For example, if a person is depressed, there would be loss of libido.

Let us discuss as how the birth control pills prevent pregnancy. The birth control pills prevent pregnancy by changing the reproductive hormones of the women, they also bear effect on the sex-hormone binding globulin, which is a protein that suppress testosterone. It is of note that women, whose testosterone levels are suppressed, suffer a loss in libido. It has also been found that the women who are on birth control pill have very high levels of serum hormone binding globulin that binds up with the testosterone and in turn suppresses it than the women who are not on any birth control pills.

This study is still under process and there are a whole lot of things that need to be sorted out and debated so that things could be said with greater authenticity. So the researchers have been mentioning it loud that there is no need to panic.

There are also a lot of women who have not used birth control pills but they suffer from sexual dysfunction, therefore one must not consider the above stated under process research as the last word.

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How You Can Protect Yourself From Cancer Through Diet

At this day and age cancer is the leading cause of death among other leading causes and affects the people throughout the globe without making any difference of age, sex, class, religion etc. There are millions of people who are dying every year because of cancer and very few are being saved whose cancer is being detected at an early stage. Almost every organ system of the body can have cancer because in cancer the actual cells mutate and they take the shape and form of the different cells than normal and this ultimately leads to the development of cancer.

The prognosis of individuals suffering from cancer is good who are detected at an early stage than the individuals whose cancer is not detected until it reaches the advanced stages and this then leads to deterioration of health at a very fast pace and this just drags the person through misery and pain until one dies. There are a few things that we can do and prevent ourselves from doing to protect ourselves against the cancer and this is what we are going to write down in the following paragraphs.

What You Should Avoid?

There are certain things that must be avoided in order to protect oneself from the clutches of cancer, which includes:

1. Avoid the animal fats and fats found in different meat and the dairy products.
2. If you are eating a large amount of margarine, then you must know that it is really unhealthy for you.
3. Use of refined flour products is pretty unhealthy.
4. Take out the alcohol from your life.
5. Do not use foods that are high in sugar and salt content.
6. Smoking is one of the leading cause of cancer and it is responsible for about thirty percent of all the cancers that occur in our body.

What You Should Do

1. You must adopt a diet that is high in vitamin B, folic acid, which is high in green beans and spinach.
2. You must eat foods that contain omega-3 fatty acids, which is contained in fish such as salmon, tuna and mackerel, as well as olive oil. These fatty acids lower cholesterol, as well as prevents the damage that is being done by the omega-6 fatty acids.
3. You must prevent your weight from creeping up.
4. Make a habit of regular exercise in your life.
5. You must not take pill in an uncontrolled fashion.
6. You must eat fruits and vegetables, as they have cancer fighting properties, especially the green leafy vegetables, onions, garlic etc.
7. There is a compound known as Geisten that is present in soy beans that enhances the repair of DNA and thus protect the cells from becoming cancerous.

There are a lot of studies that have confirmed the link between the food that we eat and the protection from cancer. The researchers have also found the genes known as the brca1 and brca2 genes whose function is to prevent the passing on of information from the damaged cells. If any individual that has a faulty structure of the brca genes, are the ones who are prone to have the cancer of the breast, ovary and prostate.

You must eat healthy foods and avoid eating unhealthy foods and habits so as to prevent yourself from having cancer. I know you will make the right choices for you and will put yourself on the right track. You must also read the literature from the Internet on the different foods groups that are really good for prevention of cancer by selecting the keywords from this article. I wish you Best of Luck and a good healthy life.


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Young Cautious About Their Youth

It has always been considered that people who start to reach their late 30s and early 40s tend to work more on regaining their youth by using anti-aging products, but now in this era things are changing very fast. The young ones who are the age of 20s are working on retaining their youth from that age. They are using anti-aging products as well as wrinkle treatments.

The young people in their 20s are saying that its better to start early to care for staying young rather than begin working at the later ages.

This is a new trend that has been starting to take roots as more and more younger people are just beginning to move towards this drift.

The younger generation says that they have been experiencing problems with their skin while they have been spending hours in tanning booths or tanning under the sun where they say that their skin have started to experience changes and for that reason if they do not take care of it now, this might be something that would get out of their hands to control in their 30s or 40s.

Women are the ones who have the most incline towards using the anti-aging products, whereas on the other hand, the men are not that inclined on towards the anti-aging process as compared to women.

On a large scale, men do not believe in spending money as to how they look, but the trend is generally growing in them too to use the anti-aging products to have better looks and have a much younger look.

This trend has also gotten strong overtime because of the treatments to achieve beauty through surgery and Botox injections, which have their own side effects, so in order to prevent that, the women are beginning much more inclined to maintain a younger look in their early ages.

So we can clearly see that younger people have a much more inclination to maintain their beauty from their early ages, which is a very positive development.

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