JOURNAL
One-a-Day...Not so much
Vitamins and other supplements should help your health, not harm it —in fact; the whole idea behind the campaign to “take your vitamins” is to provide your body with essential nutrients it might not be getting through your diet.
However, there are some vitamins and minerals that may have adverse effects on your health if you take them in the form of supplements, these effects can range from transient and unpleasant symptoms, to severe and life-threatening diseases; in the worst cases, certain vitamins may raise your risk of cancer.
Are you taking life too seriously?
Life is a serious thing. It’s full of ups and downs and twists and turns that sometimes make you feel like you are on a rollercoaster. There are times that get us down and times that require greater focus but if you’ve ever been accused of taking life too seriously, perhaps it’s time to recognise the grave effects that that can have. After all, having fun and enjoying life is not all about having fun and enjoying life, but it’s also about looking after your mental and physical health. In fact, taking life too seriously inevitably leads to stress – and stress is a killer.
The Amazing Health Benefits of Breastfeeding
You have probably heard that breastfeeding provides a wide range of amazing health benefits for babies, but you may not realize that the act of breastfeeding can also substantially improve a mother’s well being. Read on to discover the five most fascinating and surprising ways in which choosing to breastfeed can boost your health and extend your life
1) It makes you less likely to develop a range of different cancers:
A large number of independent research projects have shown that women who breastfeed are reducing their chances of suffering from cancer. For example, those women who breastfeed for more than three months slightly reduce their risk of developing endometrial, ovarian cancers, and they are more than 10% less likely to develop breast cancer at some point in their lifetimes.
Mapping Emotions
Have you ever felt your heart ache with sadness, or the flutter of nervous butterflies in your stomach? How about the all-over tingle of happiness or the pit-of-the-stomach emptiness of depression? We sneer with disgust and puff our chests with pride – all these may be true in a metaphorical sense and we certainly have the language connections to back them up. However, recent research suggests that our emotions have real physiological reactions to go with them.
It has long been accepted that emotions induce some sort of physiological reaction – cheeks burning with shame, for example, or palms that sweat with nerves. Now though, researchers in the Biomedical Engineering department of Aalto University, Finland have mapped exactly which parts of the body are affected by which emotions.
Cervical Cancer - Prevention and Detection
What is Cervical Cancer?
Cervical cancer tends to develop slowly inside the surface cells of the cervix. The cervix has two types of surface cells known as squamous and columnar. Squamous cells are where the majority of cervical cancers originate.
Cervical cancer is caused overwhelmingly by HPV(Human PapilIomavirus). HPV is a commonly spread STD, taking various different forms and causing diverse effects for those afflicted. Some forms of HPV lead to cervical cancer and genital warts, other varieties of the illness prove to be harmless.
Really Bad PMS or a Mental Disorder?
Most women have dealt with premenstrual syndrome (PMS) to some degree at some point in their lives. It may come in the form of irritability, mood swings, food cravings or a depressed mood, but a small percentage of women experience premenstrual symptoms that are much more severe than your typical bout with PMS. These women suffer from something called premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), a severe and sometimes debilitating extension of premenstrual symptoms that cause significant problems in the sufferer’s life.
Experts estimate that approximately 1-5% of women suffer from PMDD (Standen, 2013), compared to about 75% of menstruating women who suffer from PMS (Mayo Clinic, 2012). PMDD is not very common, but it’s a major issue for those women who have to deal with it each month. So much so that it has gotten the attention of the American Psychological Association (APA), who have recently moved it from being categorized under "depressive disorder not otherwise specified," to having its own separate disorder in the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM V). There is a very specific criteria laid out by the APA in order for a person to be diagnosed with PMDD. The symptoms include things like:
Too much sugar isn't so sweet for your wellbeing
Most Americans ingest an amount of sugar equal to their own weight each year. Consumption of such large doses of sugar (also known as maltose, sucrose, high fructose corn syrup, molasses, cane sugar, corn sweetener, raw sugar, syrup, honey or fruit juice concentrates) can increase a wide number of diseases.
According to the American Heart Association the average American adult consumes 22 teaspoons of sugar a day, and it's a whopping 68 kg per year. Teens consume even more – on average an American has 34 teaspoons a day.
Sex, What's the Big Deal?
Our society tends to make quite the stink when it comes to sex. Sex is a basic human experience, yet we treat it as something other than what it is. We put it up on a pedestal. We judge it. We repress it. We exploit it. We label it as sinful or taboo. But we rarely accept it exactly as it is, as a normal, everyday thing. It begs the question, why is sex still such a taboo subject when industries like fashion and entertainment exploit it on a daily basis? Why are we, as a society, accepting of oversexed images everywhere we look, but we can’t be supportive of talking about sexuality in an open, honest, and real way? Anthropologist, Ava Mir-Ausziehen, says, "Sex isn't some strange, ethereal construct. It's as normal and necessary as eating and sleeping...when we regard sex as something apart from the mundane, we're causing anxiety, fear, and dysfunction." Could this be the answer to why our society struggles to have a healthy, positive relationship with sexuality?
A Farm-Load of Problems: Why an Animal’s Daily Dose Might be Killing You
Antibiotics are as close to a ‘cure-all’ as we have. Since Fleming’s discover of penicillin in 1929, numerous types of antibiotics have been developed to treat numerous types of illness, from everyday throat infections to life-threatening problems like pneumonia. However, they are far from perfect. One of the dangers of antibiotics is the development of resistance – and if we become completely resistant, we could see ourselves taking a step back in time, to a place where people die from even the most common infections. The worrying thing is, we are getting closer to that truth every single day. The bacteria that causes infections are becoming more and more resistant to more and more types of antibiotics and it is becoming an epidemic that we should be more concerned about. The question is though, why are we becoming so resistant and how can we stop it?
A Fight for Health: The Commonalities of the Paleo, Vegan, Vegetarian, Slow Carb, and Flexitarian Diets
Weight loss and health are big business these days, and with so many fad diets claiming to be ‘the one’ to help you meet, or even beat your goals, it is difficult to decide which ones to believe. There is a group of diets, however, that are increasingly gaining in popularity. Not only do they argue for a lifestyle change rather than a faddy quick fix but they all advocate similar eating patterns and for very similar reasons.