Healthy Life Blog

Archive for March, 2011

Passive smoking or Second Hand Smoke (SHS) causes more harm even though it is an involuntary inhalation of smoke caused by tobacco or cigarette smoking by others. This involuntary smoking happens when some one smokes in public places spreading the smoke (pollution) into the air. Regular exposure to tobacco smoking causes more injurious effects when compared to that of actual smoking.

As a cigarette smoke is a combination of several harmful chemicals identified to be nearly 4000 highly toxin that are more harmful to ones health. It is important to keep away form second hand smoking as they may cause various psychological distress and future emotional illness on a long run.

Passive Smoking effects

Tobacco smoke exposure causes quicker effects on blood vessels that affects the rate of increasing the heart attacks and respiratory tracks at once. The risks of passive smoking towards acquisition of heart diseases are 24% more for non-smokers than that of regular smokers.

In children
Children get affects to passive smoking than that of the adults as the immune system is low in resistive power. Tobacco effects are more dangerous that affects the lungs and the respiratory track all together. Some of the problems faced by children are Asthma, Allergy, respiratory infection affecting throat and Lung, pneumonia and Bronchitis. Children whose parents smoke have a prolonged exposure to passive smoking from the younger age.

In fetus
Both active and passive smoking are harmful to fetus in the pregnant and expecting mothers. They lead to infections such as Premature Birth, Low weight birth of babies, Lack of milk secretion in mothers and risks of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). As it is the developmental stage the fetus are very sensitive to get infected via smoke.

In adults
Adults with good immune power are less affected by the passive smoking with Common Cough with soreness of throat, headache and infection in eyes, nose and ears. Long term passive smoking effects are more dangerous causing some of the serious problems like Lung Cancer, Pneumonia, Asthma, Bronchitis, Tuberculosis and Hypertension. It wholly affects the blood circulation that carries oxygen to various parts of the body. Brain tumors, Heart diseases and Lung and respiratory cancer are more common when exposed over long time, exceeding the limits of tolerance.

Measures to keep-off passive smoking
Motivating the chain smokers to quit cigarette and tobacco smoking by explaining the smoking facts and effects caused to healthy living can do well. Smoke addiction can be improved with the helps of certain programs that work upon how to quit smoking habits with various recovery techniques.

Obesity is one of the problems that most of them encounter these days and there have been many methods formulated for fighting this slow killing disease. Some of the methods include the best exercise regimen and some others include diets that bring the obese people back into shape. One such diet plan that helps shed those extra pounds is the high protein diet plan where you are destined to consume as much of protein rich foods as possible. The protein diet plan has it that the carbohydrate consumption must be restricted so that there is an encouragement of weight loss. This works like this. When you reduce the intake of carbohydrates, there is a dearth of energy in the body and the fat in the body is burnt for deriving energy, consequently resulting in the weight loss.

The Right Protein Diet Plan

Here are a few tips to follow a productive protein diet plan. Some of the foods that can be included in your protein diet plan are as follows.

Meat – A majority of the proteins is to be obtained from the meats and a high protein diet is incomplete without the intake of meat. But for the diet, the meat should be lean so that there is no intake of fat along with protein. Chicken, beef, mutton and fish are excellent sources of protein and must be included in the every day diet.

Dairy Products – Dairy products are also as important as meat in a high protein diet. The products that are highly rich in proteins are cheese, yogurt, butter and milk. You must make a calculation of the amount of required protein and then consume these foods.

Legumes and Vegetables – Legumes being an excellent source of protein and fiber, are said to encourage the weight loss faster. Almost all kinds of beans like black beans, soybeans, kidney beans, etc are rich in proteins. Inclusion of certain vegetables in the diet is also important. But you need to make sure that the vegetables are devoid of carbohydrates.

Nuts – Among the protein rich foods, there are also a few nuts that you can have in the form of snacks in the evenings. Examples of some such nuts are peanuts, pecans, macadamia, almonds, cashews, etc.

Another important rule to remember while following a high protein diet is that you must avoid eating processed junk food as the efforts of the diet will turn futile. You need to be careful while in the diet. Also drink lots of water so that there is a removal of the harmful toxins from the body.

Blepahrospasm, commonly called eye twitching is the involuntary movement of the eye muscles. There are various ca uses for the eye twitching and some of them are stress, fatigue, lack of nutrients, lack of sleep, genetic problems, excessive consumption of alcohol and caffeine, etc. A case of eye twitching can last from a few hours to many years. This depends upon the severity of the condition and this needs immediate attention at the beginning stages. Eye twitching can be cured by both surgical and non surgical methods of getting rid of eye twitching. Here are a few methods by which you can get rid of eye twitching.

• Though there are many non-surgical and simple methods of treating eye twitch, you can cure the involuntary movement in the eye using surgery. However, this surgery is performed only when the case is too severe. The surgery that is done for the purpose is called myectomy. This surgery involves the removal of a few muscles that are present around the eyes.
• Botox injections are another way of bringing the eye twitching under control. Since the botox injections tighten the muscles around the eye there is least possibility for the eye twitches to take place.
• Another remedy that you can follow by yourself is to reduce the amount of time spent in front of the television so that there is some rest given to the eyes. Even those who spend long hours working with computers are equally prone to eye twitching and need to give their eyes some rest from time to time.
• Increase the number of sleeping hours as it is one of the best ways of keeping away from the twitching issues. A minimum of seven hours is required for every person everyday.
• You can also practice eye exercises that can bring about relief to your stressed out eyes. Concentrate on a distant object and then gently rub the eyes in clockwise and anti clockwise direction slowly. This relaxes your eyes to a great extent.
• Include a lot of nutritious food to your diet. Fresh fruits and vegetables give the required nutrients for the body and reduce the twitching in the eye. You can also consume supplements for vitamins and potassium to stop eye twitching.
• One of the best home remedies that can help in getting rid of the problem is to have bananas. The high content of potassium and zinc curbs the twitching in the eye.
• Placing a thin slice of potato or cucumber over the eyes for a few minutes may give a great relaxation to the eye muscles.
• You can also soak cotton eye pads in rose water and place it over the eyes for the relief. Keep washing your eyes with cool water every not and then to keep the strain away from your eyes.