We soon discovered laser therapy and were able to quit smoking in just 1 day. A month later my father, Ken moved down from Pennsylvania and was amazed that I was finally able to quit smoking. After smoking for 43 years, he was able to quit with just one laser therapy treatment. After months of research and setting up FDA studies, Mark, Melissa and Ken opened up Healing Laser Clinics of Central Florida under the direction of their Medical Director, Dr. Michael Dillehay.

here’s the rest of the article

Now I have no idea how something like a laser treatment can help with an addiction, and the article doesn’t say, but if it’s even a fraction as effective as the testimonials indicate then it might be worth looking into.

Mesothelioma is a from of lung cancer that is almost always caused by asbestos exposure and is most commonly found in the outer lining of the lungs (called the mesothelium.) A majority of the people who develop mesothelioma contract this cancer through breathing in asbestos fibers or being exposed to asbestos dust while on the job.

In cases where mesothelioma is found in a person with no previous occupational exposure it is thought that the exposure may have stemmed from asbestos fibers found on the clothes of someone in their home or workplace who worked in an area where asbestos dust was found.

the rest >> Mesothelioma and Asbestos Exposure

While I think that much of the flap regarding asbestos is generated by trial lawyers and people looking for big payoffs there really is a there there and many people really have come down with serious asbestos issues. It is certainly stuff you do not want to have in your lungs. Asbestos.net looks like it has a lot of good info if asbestos is a concern of yours, so check out the article.

Back pain is an extremely common problem in the United States and most developed nations.  It has been estimated that 80% of adults will experience at least one major episode of back pain in their lives.  Many of these episodes of back pain will resolve on their own (with or without any kind of treatment), but some cases become chronic, resulting in long-term pain and disability.

Here’s the rest: Natural Approaches To Back Pain

About Acne and its Treatment

Acne is a skin disease that affects many people today. People think that acne affects only teenagers but this just isn’t so. Acne plays no favorites and it can strike even adults who may have thought they were way past an acne outbreak. The causes of this skin problem are many but it involves inflammation of hair follicles and oil producing glands that are present in the skin.

Because acne usually appears on the face, neck, chest, back, and shoulders, it is almost always noticeable and hard to keep concealed. Its appearance at the most inopportune times are one of the reasons teens and young adults dread looking in the mirror. This disease unfortunately is at its worst during adolescence or teen years. Researchers believe that hormones play a large part as to why it is during this time that acne makes its appearance.

Cure Your Acne In Only 3 Days! No Prescriptions…No Over-The-Counters…100% Natural! Click Here for More

Some also say that acne can be hereditary so if your mom and dad suffered with acne, chances are you may too. Teenagers who have acne don’t really care about how or why it happened they just want to know how to get rid of it. There are millions of people who would love to get that magic silver bullet that just blasts acne away forever.

Acne Cures

Mild acne may be treated with over the counter medications as well as with frequent skin washing and good skin care. You don’t want to pick at your acne because this can lead to scarring and skin infections. Even if the zits are annoying, leave them alone and they will go away faster.

Some people use compresses and leave these in place on acne-affected areas for 15-30 minutes. They use compresses 3-4 times a day. The compresses can be made from clean cotton pads that have had a little witch hazel applied. You can even use lavender oil on the compress. These natural herbs are often very helpful in diminishing the zits of acne.

Dermatologist Treatment of Acne

If treatment at home is not effective or you have severe acne, you may want to contact a dermatologist. Dermatologist treatments can range from an oral antibiotic or topical cream to hormonal treatments. Some prescribed medications can be very effective but carry serious side effects.

Another treatment method can be found with the small handheld electronic devices that are available. These are battery operated and deliver a tiny current to the acne zit that will kill the bacteria and clear up the infection in 24-48 hours. These devices cost about $100, but they do work.

Article syndicated courtesy of Syndicate Kahuna

Ok, no cows were killed in the making of this post and the amount of radiation relased from a cell phone wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less bake a cow. In the short term, anyway.

Still there is some radiation released, It’s not gamma radiation, or anything you’d enounter if you went swimming in a reactor core’s cooling pool. It’s electromagnetic radiation, along the lines of what your microwave oven, cordless phone, radio towers, and realted devicxes pump out. Short term, it’s probably completely harmless. Long term, that’s where things get interesting.

If you’re the type who…

• Lives with a cell phone glued to your head and/or
• works in an office with large numbers of cordless phones and/or
• you live within a mile or two of a large radio/TV tower
• is a hypochondriac
• or is actually sensitive to these devices

then you might want to look into this stuff.

First off, look at the numbers of people using cell phones, cordless phones, microwave ovens, and any other related devices. You don’t see them growing tentacles, extra arms, developing super powers, showing off their new radiation burns, or even acting particularly stupid (any more than normal, that is. )  If there is a danger in the radation released from all these devices then it’s a much more subtle, long term thing.

People who claim that there is a danger mention cancer as one of the issues and cell damage as another. The other camp claims that there is zero evidence that this radiation has any effect on living tissue.

Pass the salt

“..radiation from cell phones is dangerous, perhaps causing brain tumors or other cancers, maybe even cooking your brain like an egg or like popcorn.”

Take the above quote with a grain of salt and take all the “Man Kills Cow With Cell Phone!” news with a much larger grain of salt. Heck, you probably should take the “Cell Phones Pose Cancer Risk!” with a similar, though slightly smaller, grain of salt. There might actually be a cancer (or other health risk,) but people are sharply divided on that.

This post, from Switched.com, nicely sums up the situation with cell phones and other emitting devices :

Cell Phones a Greater Threat Than Smoking, Asbestos? – There are plenty of people out there who believe that talking on a cell phone is just as unhealthy as sticking your head in front of an active X-Ray machine and holding it there while you engage in idle conversation with a friend. Others, though, think the first group are being overly paranoid and probably are the sort who won’t use a public restroom under any circumstances for fear of picking up a flesh-eating virus.

The above clip references a CNN report. My opinion is that most of our media (US and any other) puts scare value first, sensationalism second, eye catching headlines third, and rigorous fact checking frequently (usually?) isn’t part of the calculation.

It’s Dangerous!

This following clip outlines the potential dangers of the use of any of this technology. I picked it precisely because of its These Things are Dangerous view. The author makes some good arguments regarding the dangers of this technology.

cell phones – the largest biological experiment ever – the most basic fact about cell phones and cell towers is that they emit microwave radiation; so do wi-fi (wireless internet) antennas, wireless computers, cordless (portable) phones and their base units, and all other wireless devices. …

It’s Safe!

This last clip is the skeptics point of view, also picked for it’s particular view. The author also make some strong points.

How Dangerous Is Cell Phone Radiation? – Turn on CNN or watch YouTube and you’ll hear plenty of tales about cell phone radiation being dangerous to human tissue, causing cancer or other health problems. Shouldn’t it tell you something that there has never been a documented …

My view? All other forms of radiation have decreasing effect as one receives less of it. All other forms of electromagnetic radiation can be blocked by one method or another. I see no reason for any radiation given off by a cell phone or a cell tower to be different. In addition, I think that reports discussing the dangers of the radiation need to discuss mechanism of effect. How does it do damage?

Obviously there is a vested interest in proving these things safe, given the massive use of all the devices all over the world and by the companies making and promoting them. It’s not a conspiracy, it’s that they’re so damn useful andf that they may be indispensible. I do think it’s something that should be continually researched, by objective people, on a long term basis.

Are cell phones (and all those other devices) safe? Read the three links above and then you tell me in the comments below.

The Mediterranean Diet is now being touted as the basis for a flat belly. The premise for this weight loss plan is that the mono-unsaturated fats (MUFA’s) that are so rich in the traditional Mediterranean foods are fantastic for eliminating abdominal fat and increasing the pleasant feeling of fullness at the end of a meal. This diet offers a wide variety of healthy foods, incorporates the basic Mediterranean eating habits, along with calorie counting. Best of all, those who like to indulge in dark chocolate are able to do so. Sound too good to be true?

The Mediterranean Diet Now Linked to a Flat Belly

If you’re looking into a diet program here’s a review of several diet programs, that you may find interesting.

More About the Med. Diet:

Mediterranean diet in the British Medical Health Journal – shared by: skoobe1 on: Friday, October 17, 2008. More research outcomes put the Mediterranean diet in an enviable position if you take the British Medical Health Journal seriously…

mediterranean diet may halve risk of skin cancer – people who follow a traditional mediterranean diet may significantly reduce their risk of malignant melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, italian scientists have said.

what is the mediterranean diet? – so, what is the healthy mediterranean diet? research shows the traditional mediterranean diet before the 1960’s, in countries like southern italy and greece, was far healthier than typical modern diets. life expectancy was higher, …

mediterranean diet – what is it? – well, to begin with, there isn’t really any one mediterranean diet! there’sa whole swag of countries bordering the mediterranean sea. the basic mediterranean diet has common characteristics even if the sourrounding countries differ in …

“ideal diet” update: mediterranean diet helps reduce skin cancer – reasons…not choice…eat healthy whole foods like bright colored vegetables, fish, nuts and fruit…ie the mediterranean diet and you body benefits…you live longer and with a higher quality of life…read below… …

Proteins are the building blocks for your muscles, organs, tissues, etc. Fats are necessary for long term energy storage, they carry certain forms of vitamins and nutrients (Vitamin E, for example) and your body needs fats for many of its metabolic processes.

Carbohydrates are the fuel that your body uses for energy. While it can use proteins and fats for that energy, which is why low-carb diets work, it prefers to use the carbs. They are easier to process for energy than either the fats or the proteins and your body gets more energy “bang for the buck” with carbs.

The Rings

On the molecular level carboydrates are ring molecules. A “simple” carb, like glucose, is one ring of six carbon atoms. Just like the ring on your finger. Table sugar is two of these rings. Starches and “complex carbohydrates” are made up of many of these rings. This is why your body takes longer to digest the complex carbs, it has to break them down into the individual rings first and then use them for energy.

This is also why a meal of simple carbs will blast your blast your blood sugar sky high. Your body can use them almost immediately. Have a glass of glucose or a soda and wham! Sugar is immediately pumped into the system and your blood suger levels leap. Insulin is secreted into the blood and the insulin causes the sugar levels to drop, along with your energy.

A meal of complex carbs takes longer to digest and as a result doesn’t slam sugars into your system, rather the complex carbs provide longer term energy. Fats and proteins take even longer to digest and convert into the carbs your body needs.

update: A dietician (in the comments) pointed out something with that last line, said line not being strictly accurate. Proteins are metabolized to glycogen then to glucose. Fats are broken down to ketones. Your body uses both, for energy,  just fine. See the comments for more.

No Carbs?

Extreme low-carb diets, such as they first part of the Atkins Diet, are not recommended for anything other than short term use. Even the Atkins diet brings you back into carbs after than first section, but they are the complex carbs. Simple carbs are almost completely abandoned.

As far as energy goes, though, your body only needs so much at one time and it can only store so much at one time. An athlete needs more than someone sitting in front of a computer all day, but even they have limits to how much they need right now. Those extra carbs are stored in two ways.

One way is conversion into glycogen, a type of starch, which is then stored in the muscles for near term energy reserves. The other way they are stored is fat. Your body can only store so much excess carbohydrate as glycogen, the rest goes to fat. (This is a little over-simplified, but close enough.)

In addition to being converted to fat, excess simple carbs over a long period of time can lead to a variety of health issues, diabetes and heart issues being among them.

So What’s a Simple Carb?

So what foods are the simple carbs? Any kind of sugar, rice, white flour, potatoes, Rice Krispies, Corn Flakes, etc. These are all “high glycemic index” (GI) foods. The GI is just a measure of how much a given food will raise your blood sugar as compared to a glass of glucose.

Fruits tend to be in the medium GI range and most veggies are pretty low. Go to Google.com and look for “high glycemic foods” or “glycemic index” and you’ll find charts with examples of various foods and their ratings.

So while you body does needs carbs for fuel it doesn’t need a ton of them and it works best if they come in slowly and steadily, rather than in a burst. You may have heard of the “eat several small meals” plans? This is one of the reasons they work. Your body has the time to properly process the carbs and so uses them, rather than storing them as fat.

Get Big Fast

Want to gain weight fast? Eat one big meal a day, preferably in the evening, and sleep afterwards. That’s how the Sumo wrestlers of Japan do it.

What to do?

There’s no “magic pill” to losing weight, but there are several plans which will speed up your weight loss quite nicely. One system, Strip That Fat, covers everything you need to know in detail. You can read the complete review of that system here.

From BestHealthAndWellnessInfo.com:

Knee pain is a very common problem and considerable money and effort is dedicated to treating knee problems.  Typically, the person with knee pain that is not due to a recent traumatic injury is diagnosed with arthritis and few people with knee pain go beyond treatments that merely suppress inflammation and pain, unless they wind up going to the extreme of surgical treatment.  Occasionally, some of the new injectable drugs to promote joint lubrication are used, but rarely are the actual underlying causes of knee pain addressed.  I guess one could argue that because inflammation is a cause of knee pain in the majority of cases, anything that helps inflammation is treating the cause of knee pain; however, I think it bears investigating what is causing the inflammation to occur in the knee joint.

Here’s the rest: Knee Pain Solutions

Found this on RealRelaxation.net:

There are numerous ways on how to lessen pressures and tension. If you are already feeling the stress, this article is right for you! I have discussed here the top ten stress relievers to help you prevent the stress and to relax. Keep on reading and start living normally!

The Top 10 Stress Relievers

Top 10 Tips to Relax in the Workplace
The smart ones know that relaxation isn’t synonymous to slacking off. If you want to do a good job at work, it’s imperative that you know how and when you should relax and give your mind and body much needed respite to face upcoming tasks.