Category: Health

{Dinner should be eaten at least three hours before you go to sleep and it should be the lightest meal of the day.}

Here are 4 reasons why you should eat dinner early

{{1. Eating dinner late increases your blood sugar }}

Eating dinner too close to bed time isn’t good for your health as it increases your blood sugar and insulin, which makes it harder to sleep.

{{2. Weight loss }}

If you are trying to maintain a healthy weight, it’s important you eat dinner early. When you eat your dinner at least three hours before going to bed, you give your body more time to digest the food. Your body stores excess calories as fat when you eat late.

{{3. Prevents problems with digestion }}

Eating dinner early gives your body enough time to digest the food properly thereby lowering the risk of digestive issues like acidity and acid reflux. Sleeping after a meal slows down your digestion, causing you to feel bloated and uncomfortable.

{{4. Better energy levels }}

Eating dinner early will help you wake up feeling smart and energised. When you eat dinner late, you wake up drained.

{There is this popular saying that ‘you’re what you eat’ and this saying has a lot of truth in it. Your immunity levels, fertility, IQ, height, weight and a whole lot of things can be affected directly and indirectly by what you eat. So everyone should take what they eat seriously.}

Infertility is a big issue for men; being unable to impregnate a woman is probably every man’s worst nightmare, and just as there are foods that can boost fertility, there are also foods that can harm fertility.

Every man should be wary of the following foods:

{{1. Canned foods }}

High consumption of canned foods can pose certain risks to a man’s health and one of them is infertility. Canned foods most likely contain Bisphenol-A (BPA); BPA is an industrial chemical that’s used to make plastics and cans.

Research has shown that men who are highly exposed to BPA have sperm counts that are 23% lower than men without BPA exposure. So, men who consume large quantities of canned foods should be wary of this.

{{2. Alcohol }}

Excessive alcohol consumption can also hamper the quality of a man’s sperm. Zinc deficiency has been associated with men who have low sperm counts, and alcohol is known to prevent the body from fully absorbing zinc.

Zinc is an important element of the sperm cell’s outer layer and tails which helps for good motility. Excessive alcohol intake can harm your sperm quality.

{{3. Caffeinated and Soda drinks }}

Research has also found that high consumption of caffeinated drinks and soda drinks can hamper sperm quality. A Danish study found that the caffeine in soda can also affect a man’s sperm count. The study found that men who drank at least two pints of cola daily have sperm counts almost 30% lower than men who don’t drink cola.

{{4. Junk foods }}

You might have heard about the dangers of junk foods, but you probably don’t know that they can also affect your ability to impregnate a woman. Many junk foods have a high presence of trans-fatty acids and research has shown that men with high concentration of trans-fatty acids in their semen have 96% fewer sperm than men with low concentration of trans-fatty acids.

{{5. Soy based foods }}

A Harvard based study tried to examine the effects of 15 different soy-based foods on men whose partners were trying to get pregnant.

The research found that men who eat large quantities of soy-based foods produce 36% less sperm per millilitre when compared to men who don’t eat soy-based foods.

{{6. Pregnant mothers that eat beef }}

Unfortunately for men, their mother’s diet while pregnant can also affect their fertility rate. Research has found that men whose mothers ate large quantities of beef while pregnant are more likely to have low sperm counts when compared to men whose mothers ate lower quantity of beef.

So it isn’t just the men; pregnant mothers also play a huge role in their son’s fertility or infertility rate.

{Feeding babies egg and peanut may reduce their risk of developing an allergy to the foods, finds a new study.}

In the research, which is the largest analysis of evidence on the effect of feeding allergenic foods to babies, scientists from Imperial College London analysed data from 146 studies. In total the studies involved more than 200,000 children.

The results suggest feeding children egg between the ages of four and six months may reduce their risk of developing egg allergy.

The study, which was commissioned by the UK Food Standards Agency, also found feeding children peanut, between the ages of four and eleven months, may reduce risk of developing peanut allergy.

In addition, the team analysed milk, fish (including shellfish), tree nuts (such as almonds) and wheat, but didn’t find enough evidence to show introducing these foods at a young age reduces allergy risk.

The research is published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Although previous studies have found feeding children peanut and egg may reduce allergy risk, other studies have found no effect.

Dr Robert Boyle, lead author of the research from the Department of Medicine at Imperial, said: “This new analysis pools all existing data, and suggests introducing egg and peanut at an early age may prevent the development of egg and peanut allergy, the two most common childhood food allergies.

“Until now we have not been advising parents to give these foods to young babies, and have even advised parents to delay giving allergenic foods such as egg, peanut, fish and wheat to their infant.”

Allergies to foods, such as nuts, egg, milk or wheat, affect around one in 20 children in the UK. They are caused by the immune system malfunctioning and over-reacting to these harmless foods. This triggers symptoms such as rashes, swelling, vomiting and wheezing.

“The number of children diagnosed with food allergies is thought to be on the rise,” added Dr Vanessa Garcia-Larsen, a co-author on the study from the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial. “There are indications that food allergies in children have become much more common over the last 30 years.

The number of patients coming into our clinics has increased year-on-year, and allergy clinics across the country have seen the same pattern.”

She added that the reasons behind this rise are still unclear — doctors may be better at recognising food allergy, or there may be environmental factors involved.

In the new study, called a meta-analysis, the team initially analysed 16,289 research papers on allergies and other immune system problems. Out of these, 146 were used for data analysis of when to feed babies allergenic foods such as egg, peanut, wheat and fish.

The results showed that children who started eating egg between the ages of four and six months had a 40 per cent reduced risk of egg allergy compared to children who tried egg later in life.

Children who ate peanut between the ages of four and eleven months had a 70 per cent reduced peanut allergy risk compared to children who ate the food at a later stage. However, the authors cautioned that these percentages are estimates based on a small number of studies.

Five studies (involving 1915 children) were used to estimate reduced risk of egg allergy, and two studies (involving 1550 children) were used to estimate reduced risk of peanut allergy. Therefore these figures may change when more studies are completed.

The team also calculated absolute risk reduction. They found that in a population where 5.4 per cent of people have egg allergy (the UK prevalence rate from one recent study), introducing egg between four and six months of age could prevent 24 cases of egg allergy per 1,000 people.

For peanut, in a population where 2.5 per cent of people have peanut allergy, introducing the food between four and eleven months could prevent 18 cases per 1,000 people.

The authors cautioned that the analysis didn’t assess safety, or how many of the babies suffered allergic reactions from the early introduction.

Dr Boyle cautioned against introducing egg and peanut to a baby who already has a food allergy, or has another allergic condition such as eczema. “If your child falls into these categories, talk to your GP before introducing these foods.” He also noted that whole nuts should not be given to babies or toddlers due to the choking hazard. “Whole nuts should be avoided in young children — if you decide to feed peanut to your baby, give it as smooth peanut butter.”

The team also analysed whether introducing peanut, egg, milk, fish or wheat early into a baby’s diet affected their risk of autoimmune diseases such as coeliac disease. The team found no effect on risk.

Commenting on the findings, the UK Food Standards Agency said: “Imperial College London has produced a high quality review. The Government is considering these important findings as part of its review of complementary feeding for infants to ensure its advice reflects the best available evidence.

Families should continue to follow the Government’s current long-standing advice to exclusively breastfeed for around the first six months of age because of the health benefits to mothers and babies. ”

The study was funded by the UK Food Standards Agency who commission research to understand the causes and mechanisms of food allergy and intolerance. The study was also supported by the Imperial NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, and the MRC-Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma.

{According to statistics, around 15 percent of couples are unable to have a child due to the quality of the man’s sperm.}

Here are 5 things that can destroy your sperm count

{{1. Smoking Marijuana }}

Smoking marijuana can lower a man’s sperm count according to researchers from the University of Buffalo. The researchers tested the sperm quality of men who smoke marijuana and found that the quality of sperm of marijuana smokers is generally poor. According to lead researcher Dr. Lani Burkman, the sperm from marijuana smokers move too fast too early,making it to burn out and being incapable of fertilization.

{{2. Processed meat }}

Processed meat might be delicious but you might just be consuming it at the expense of your sperm health. According to a Harvard University research, men who eat processed meat have poorer sperm quality when compared to men who eat fish. So for the sake of your sperm, eat more of fish.

{{3. Laptop use }}

Placing a laptop on your lap can affect your sperm quality. It’s advisable you keep your laptop off your lap. That’s not all. According to a study published in the journal Fertility and Sterility, the use of wireless internet connection for hours can also affect a man’s sperm count. Now that’s scary because we all use wireless internet everyday.

{{4. Using a Sauna }}

While using a sauna is a good way to sweat out all of your body’s toxins, you might just want to stay away from them for the sake of your sperm. According to researchers from the University of Padova in Italy, use of sauna causes a drop in sperm count due to testicular heating. The researchers advice men to stay away from things that cause testicular heating.

{{5. Stress }}

Your high stress levels can have a damaging effect on your sperm quality. A study by researchers from the University of California-Davis found that stress and anxiety can have a damaging effect on male fertility.

Please take care of your sperm health.

{Everyone knows that tobacco products are bad for your health, and even the new e-cigarettes may have harmful toxins. However, according to research at Texas A&M, it turns out the nicotine itself — when given independently from tobacco — could help protect the brain as it ages, and even ward off Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease.}

Ursula Winzer-Serhan, PhD, an associate professor at the Texas A&M College of Medicine, and her collaborators found that nicotine’s ability to be neuroprotective may be partly due to its well-known ability to suppress the appetite. Their research is published in the Open Access Journal of Toxicology.

Using animal models, Winzer-Serhan and her collaborators added nicotine to the animal’s drinking water. There were three different groups that received nicotine at three different concentrations (low, medium and high) corresponding to occasional, low and medium smokers, respectively, in addition to a control group that did not receive any nicotine.

The two groups that received nicotine at low and medium doses didn’t show any levels of the drug in their blood and they experienced no changes in food intake, body weight or number of receptors in the brain where nicotine acts. In contrast, the group getting the highest concentration of nicotine ate less, gained less weight and had more receptors, indicating that at higher doses, the drug gets into the brain where it can impact behavior. However, even at high doses, it didn’t seem to have worrying behavioral side effects like making the individuals more anxious, which the researchers were concerned could happen.

“Some people say that nicotine decreases anxiety, which is why people smoke, but others say it increases anxiety,” Winzer-Serhan said. “The last thing you would want in a drug that is given chronically would be a negative change in behavior. Luckily, we didn’t find any evidence of anxiety: Only two measures showed any effect even with high levels of nicotine, and if anything, nicotine made animal models less anxious.”

The next step is to test nicotine’s potential anti-aging effects using aged animal models. Although early results indicate that nicotine can keep older individuals from gaining weight like the control group does, Winzer-Serhan hasn’t yet determined whether this lower body mass index translates into less degeneration of the brain. It is also unclear if nicotine’s effects are related only to its ability to suppress appetite, or if there are more mechanisms at work.

Because there are still so many unknowns, Winzer-Serhan urges caution. “I want to make it very clear that we’re not encouraging people to smoke,” she said. “Even if these weren’t very preliminary results, smoking results in so many health problems that any possible benefit of the nicotine would be more than cancelled out. However, smoking is only one possible route of administration of the drug, and our work shows that we shouldn’t write-off nicotine completely.”

Still, Winzer-Serhan cautions people not to purchase nicotine-containing products just yet. “Although the results are intriguing, we would need large-scale clinical trials before suggesting anyone change their behavior,” she said. “At the end of the day, we haven’t proven that this addictive drug is safe — and it certainly isn’t during childhood or adolescence — or that the benefits outweigh the potential risks.”

{Cracked heels are a common problem today and some of the causes of cracked heels include dry air, wearing the wrong types of shoes, lack of moisture, prolong standing on hard floors and improper foot care.}

Below are 9 simple ways to cure cracked heels

{{1. Honey }}

Honey can be used to treat cracked heels due to its moisturizing and antibacterial properties.

– add a cup of honey to a bucket of warm water and stir.

– soak your feet in the bucket of water mixed with honey for about 15-20 minutes.

– scrub your feet gently

– repeat this everyday until you see an improvement.

{{2. Vegetable oil }}

A variety of vegetable oils like olive oil, coconut oil or sesame oil can be used.

– scrub your feet with pumice stone after soaking your feet in soapy water.

– wash off the soapy water from your feet and dry your feet.

– apply a good quantity of vegetable oil on your sole and feet.

– wear a clean pair of soaks and leave overnight.

– wash off the vegetable oil from your feet in the morning and repeat the process for a few days until desired result is achieved.

{{3. Lemon }}

Lemon can be used to treat cracked heels due to its acidic properties.

– add lemon juice to a bucket of warm water.

– soak your feet in the bucket for at least 10 minutes.

– scrub your cracked feet using a pumice stone.

– wash off your feet and dry.

{{4. Banana }}

Bananas can also be used to treat cracked heels due to its moisturizing properties.

– mash a ripe banana into a nice, smooth paste.

– apply this banana paste to your heels and leave on your heels for 10 to 15 minutes.

– using warm water, wash your feet gently and then soak your feet in cold water for 5 to 10 minutes.

– repeat this daily until you achieve desired result.

{{5. Vaseline (Petroleum Jelly)}}

Vaseline can also be used to treat cracked heels.

– soak your feet in warm water and scrub.

– apply Vaseline over the entire heel area after scrubbing.

– to enable your feet soak in the Vaseline, cover your feet with soaks.

– repeat daily until you achieve desired result. For best results, do this before going to bed.

{{6. Rice flour }}

Rice flour can used to treat cracked heels.

– mix 2-3 tablespoons of ground rice, few spoons of honey and apple cider vinegar to make a thick paste.

– add a spoon of olive oil or sweet almond oil if your heels are extremely dry and cracked.

– soak your feet in warm water for 10 minutes.

– gently scrub your feet with the rice flour paste.

– repeat the process a few times weekly until you achieve desired result.

{{7. Paraffin wax }}

Paraffin wax treatment can be very helpful if you have a terribly cracked feet which is causing a lot of pain.

– melt a block of paraffin wax and add mustard oil or coconut oil.

– allow to cool until a thin layer forms on the top.

– dip your feet in the mixture, wait for 5 to 10 seconds and dip again. Do this until you have several layers of wax built on your feet.

– leave wax on your feet for 30 minutes while covering your feet with a plastic.

– peel off the wax from your feet after 30 minutes.

– repeat procedure once or twice weekly until you achieve desired result.

Note that this remedy should not be used if you are diabetic or have poor circulation. Also ensure you do not dip your feet into hot paraffin, ensure it cools off before dipping your feet.

{{8. Lemon,salt,glycerine,rose water foot mask }}

This is another remedy that can help you treat cracked feet.

– add salt, lemon juice, glycerine and rose water into a warm bucket of water.

– soak your feet in the mixture for 15 to 20 minutes.

– scrub your heels using a pumice stone.

– mix 1 tsp of glycerine, 1 tsp of rose water and 1 tsp of lemon juice and apply mixture over cracked heels.

– wear a pair of soaks and leave overweight.

– wash off with lukewarm water in the morning.

{{9. Epsom salt }}

You can also use Epsom salt to treat cracked feet.

– add 1/2 cup of Epsom salt in a foot tub filled with water.

– soak your feet for 10 minutes.

– using pumice stone, scrub your feet.

– after scrubbing with pumice stone, soak your feet again for another 10 minutes.

– dry your feet and apply Vaseline (petroleum jelly).

{Researchers have found that drinking just half a litre of beer makes women less shy about sex and more attracted to happy faces.}

“We found that drinking a glass of beer helps people see happy faces faster and enhances concern for positive emotional situations,” lead researcher Professor Matthias Liechti from Basel University Hospital in Switzerland said.

“Alcohol also facilitates the viewing of sexual images, consistent with disinhibition, but it does not enhance sexual arousal.”

The study was published in the journal Psychopharmacology.

{Anger might feel like just an emotion, but it goes beyond that; anger can actually cause harm to your health in many ways.}

These are some reasons you should be wary of getting angry.

{{1. Anger can weaken your immune system }}

One study by researchers from Harvard University found that in healthy people, simply recalling an angry experience from their past caused a six-hour dip in levels of the antibody immunoglobulin A, the cells’ first line of defense against infection.

Getting angry all the time can make you fall sick.

{{2. Anger increases the risk of stroke }}

One research found there was three times higher risk of having a stroke from a blood clot to the brain or bleeding within the brain during the two hours after an angry outburst. Worst still, people with an aneurysm in one of the brain’s arteries had six times higher risk of rupturing this aneurysm following an angry outburst.

This makes anger even worse.

{{3. Anger can lead to anxiety and depression }}

Unresolved anger issues can lead to anxiety, which can have long-term effects on your life.

Dizziness, rapid breathing, nausea, muscle pain, muscle tension, headaches, and problems with concentration and memory are some immediate effects of anxiety. These symptoms could even make it difficult to perform routine tasks and can lead to depression.

{{4. Could cause harm to your heart health }}

Anger is a very dangerous emotion; it could ramp up your “fight or flight” response, and when this happens, stress hormones, including adrenaline and cortisol could speed up your heart rate and breathing. Your blood vessels could tighten and your blood pressure could soar.

{{5. Impair judgement }}

Anger could also impair judgement and make you do something you wouldn’t ordinarily do. During a bout of anger, the brain’s amygdala overreacts; blood rushes to the frontal lobe, the area in charge of reasoning, and this will prompt you to do something irrational.

{{6. Stress }}

You stress your mind, your brain and your heart when you’re angry. Stress could then manifest itself through physical symptoms such as migraines, grinding teeth, light-headedness, nausea, exhaustion, heart palpitations, insomnia, and a decreased or increased appetite. Worse still, it could manifest itself through high blood pressure and loss of sleep.

{{7. Depression }}

Anger could lead to loneliness and then a long-term condition like depression, which is a risk factor for early death. One study found that loneliness could increase your risk of premature death by 14 percent.

Anger management is essential, and if you get angry unnecessarily, you are only causing more harm to your health.

{Most of us spend too much time taking care of our face and forget our hands need attention too. Below are 5 ways to keep your hands looking younger.}

1. One way to keep your hands looking younger is by exfoliation. Exfoliate your hands at least once a week to keep them looking younger. Exfoliating your hands removes the dead layer of the skin leaving only smooth new skin.

2. Always put on rubber gloves when scrubbing as this helps protect your hands and keep them looking younger. It’s really important you wear gloves to protect your hands when scrubbing or using chemicals because the skin on your hands is very thin and not protecting them will cause ageing.

3. Always apply sunscreen to your hands regularly as your hands get exposed to the sun anytime you go outside. Using sunscreen on our hands is very important because sun is the biggest cause of premature ageing.

4. Always apply moisturisers to your hands after you wash and dry your hands. Doing this regularly keeps your hands hydrated and prevents them from getting dry. Make this a habit and you would notice a difference.

5. Moisturising your cuticle helps keep them hydrated and prevents them from looking dry and scaly. Using a cuticle and nail oil, swipe a bit on the cuticle and rub in. Do this a couple of times weekly before going to bed.

ViV