Whenever you think of a beautiful face the first thing that comes to your mind is radiant and glowing skin isn’t it? All of us want beautiful skin but forget to follow some simple tips to get healthy skin.

People wonder why they don’t have beautiful skin like their friends. It is easy to believe that beautiful skin is a gift of those costly products which your friend use and which you can’t afford. But you need to get rid of this misconception. You can not get beautiful skin over night by using some expensive creams. The secret behind glowing skin is a healthy lifestyle. Here are a few tips that will help you to get healthy and radiant skin.

Drink Enough Water:

The first condition for having a beautiful skin is to drink a lot of water. You should drink at least 8 to 10 glasses of water per day to keep your skin hydrated and young. Water helps your body to discharge all toxic elements from your body which keeps your healthy.

Eat Healthy Food:

In order to get beautiful skin it is necessary that you avoid those junk foods even if they are very tasty. You don’t need to ignore chocolates forever. Having a chocolate once in a blue moon is fine but don’t make it a habit. Replace those pizzas and pastries with fresh fruits and vegetables. Fruits and vegetables contain minerals, anti oxidants and vitamins needed for your skin. If you are alcoholic or addicted to smoking you need to quit these habits for a healthier lifestyle.

Use Natural Face Care Products:

Yes it is true that some face care products are good for your skin but you should select natural skin care products. Don’t be fooled by the glamorous TV ads because the products shown there contain chemicals harmful for your skin. So never go for cheap products. Natural products may be expensive but they are worth of buying.

source: www.gethealthadvice.net/healthy-skin/essential-tips-for-healthy-beautiful-skin.html

Fish oil fed intravenously to patients in Intensive Care Units (ICUs), improves gas exchange, reduces inflammatory chemicals and cuts down hospital stay.

A randomised controlled trial, which examined the effects of including fish oil in the normal nutrient solution for sepsis patients, found a significant series of benefits. (Sepsis is the presence of pus-forming bacteria or toxins in the blood or tissues).

Philip Calder, University of Southampton, worked with a team of researchers to carry out the study in patients with systemic inflammatory response syndrome or sepsis in the Hospital Padre Americo, Portugal.

“Recently there has been increased interest in the fat and oil component of vein-delivered nutrition, with the realisation that it not only supplies energy and essential building blocks, but may also provide bioactive fatty acids,” said Calder.

“Traditional solutions use soybean oil, which does not contain the omega-3 fatty acids contained in fish oil that act to reduce inflammatory responses.”

“In fact, soybean oil is rich in omega-6 acids that may actually promote inflammation in an excessive or unbalanced supply,” cautioned Calder, according to a Southampton release.

Calder and his colleagues found that nearly half the patients in the fish oil group had lower levels of inflammatory agents, were able to achieve better lung function and left hospital earlier than patients who received traditional nutrition.

These findings were published online in BioMed Central’s Critical Care.

Women who ta

According to a new study in the International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health, researchers have found that when they gave flaxseed oil to female rats who had either had their ovaries removed or were diabetic, they reported a lower risk of developing osteoporosis.

However, the rats that had both post-menopausal symptoms and were diabetic were still considered at high risk for developing the disease.

It was also found that diabetes tends to have a stronger effect on the bones than menopausal symptoms, which is why those with the disease still may be at risk whether they take flaxseed oil or not.

Because of this, the researchers are looking for more studies to be done to understand why flaxseed oil cannot diminish the risk factors for diabetes.

“We recommend further investigations using animals and humans to confirm the effect of using dietary flaxseed oil to improve bone health and to prevent osteoporosis,” the researchers wrote.

A team of epidemiologists from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston looked at 2,600-plus men who were diagnosed with prostate cancer between 1990 and 2002, while they were enrolled in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.

As part of that study, the men answered questions about their rates of physical activity every year, so exercise data was available from before and after their diagnoses. What they found was that men who engaged in five or more hours of vigorous activity a week had a 56 percent lower risk of dying from prostate cancer.

Exercise has what doctors call a “protective effect.” In this study of men with prostate cancer, the researchers found that after a prostate cancer diagnosis, exercise was linked with a lower risk of death by all causes, whether the exercise was vigorous or not. “But when we looked at mortality specifically from prostate cancer, we only saw a significant benefit with more vigorous activity—at the level of five or more hours of vigorous activity per week,” says lead author Stacey Kenfield, Sc.D., a research associate at Harvard School of Public Health.

So while any type of exercise is beneficial for overall health, for prostate cancer, it seems more vigorous levels are needed to see a benefit.

Other studies evaluating the link between exercise and survival after the diagnosis of colorectal and breast cancers suggest that exercise also improves the odds of surviving those cancers. It’s not clear why or how exercise can have beneficial effects for cancer patients, though.

“There are a number of molecular pathways through which exercise could exert an effect on prostate-cancer biology,” says Kenfield. “For instance, exercise influences hormones thought to stimulate prostate cancer.” Exercise can improve your sleep and your mood. Plus, exercise in general improves immune function and can reduce systemic inflammation—all good stuff for trouncing cancer.

Here’s how cancer patients can use exercise to shift the odds in their favor:

• Get your doc’s okay. According to the American Cancer Society, exercise after a cancer diagnosis can actually lead to more physical problems, not fewer, if you have the following conditions: bone metastasis (cancer that has spread to your bones); a low white blood cell count; a low platelet count; a fever or active infection; anemia; or unsteadiness, frailty, or other problem that might make exercise unsafe. So be sure to run your planned exercise regimen by your oncologist before you begin.

• Progress gradually. The rule of thumb for any exerciser—whether he or she has cancer or not—is to boost time and intensity no more than 10 percent per week. That means, if you start off by walking 60 minutes per week, you should add no more than 6 minutes to your weekly walking time the next.

• Exercise vigorously, if you can. In this study, five hours of jogging, running, tennis, swimming, and/or biking a week significantly reduced the risk of dying from prostate cancer in men with prostate cancer. Every person’s situation is different, though, so consult with your care team if you’re not sure how much exercise you can handle.

New discoveries into how the body clock works could provide clues to help combat jet lag, research suggests.

A University of Manchester team studied special cells which they say play an important role in regulating a person’s body clock.

The cells had been thought to be inactive during the day – but their research found the opposite is true.

It is hoped the findings may also pave the way to combating sleep disorders triggered by body clock malfunctions.

Professor Hugh Piggins, an expert in neuroscience at the university, said the research will allow a new approach to being able to tune our daily clock.

Two cells

The Manchester research turns on its head the idea that the brain keeps the body clock on track by firing more cells during daylight and very few during the night.

“The traditional model said the clock and the brain communicated to the rest of the brain via the number of electrical impulses that the brain cells were producing,” Prof Piggins told the BBC World Service’s Health Check programme.

“These impulses would travel around the brain, telling it what time of day it is.

“What we’ve found is in fact that there are at least two types of cells in this part of the brain.”

These brain cells behave unlike any other cell seen so far, and contain a key gene – per1 – which allows them to sustain unusually high levels of “excitability”.

The cells becoming so “excited” that they seem quiet or even dead; but then later they calm down, recover and become normally active again.

It is this activity which tells the human body when to be awake.

Sleep dysfunction

Prof Piggins added: “There’s a lot of interest in the pharmaceutical industry, obviously, to try to develop chemical treatments to reset your daily clock to help counteract things like jetlag.

“Or, perhaps more importantly, different kind of sleep disorders for which dysfunctions in this clock are often involved.”

This study marks the first time these “quiet” cells have been studied.

“This may mean that elsewhere in the brain there are cells like this that can also survive these very unusual conditions.”

Usnews.com reports that some dietary supplements offer multiple health benefits, including preventing individuals from developing certain diseases and cancers.

The website reports that while vitamin D supplements help with bone health, they may also help prevent certain cancers, and previous studies suggest it may even ward off tuberculosis, diabetes and even the common cold.

Fish oil supplements continue to be reported for health benefits, including improving heart-related conditions. Usnews.com cites a study found in The Lancet that revealed there was a slightly lower rate of deaths and hospitalizations in heart failure patients who were taking a 1,000 milligram fish oil supplement daily.

The American Heart Association suggests taking the supplements for those who don’t enjoy eating seafood twice a week. The recommended dosage for those who are at a high risk for heart attack is 1,000 milligrams.

The article is quick to point out that while these natural supplements are beneficial to humans, the dosages may vary due to age, race and gender.

Australian researchers have identified a link between allergic asthma in 3 to 5 year-old children and exposure to folic acid that their birth mothers took as supplements during late pregnancy. They said the timing of when folic acid is taken in pregnancy might be important.

The study was the work of Dr Michael Davies, associate professor with the Research Centre for the Early Origins of Health and Disease at the Robinson Institute in the University of Adelaide, and colleagues, and is published online in the 15 November issue of American Journal of Epidemiology.
The researchers said the study may have revealed why childhood asthma has been on the rise in Australia and other developed countries over recent decades.

Davies told the press that mothers are advised to take folic acid supplements during pregnancy to prevent birth defects, but research in mice and infants suggests this may also lead to “additional and unexpected” consequences.

“In our study, supplemental folic acid in late pregnancy was associated with an increased risk of asthma in children, but there was no evidence to suggest any adverse effects if supplements were taken in early pregnancy,” he added.

For the study, Davies and colleagues set out to investigate the effect of timing, dose and source of folate during pregnancy on childhood asthma.

They used data from an Australian prospective birth cohort study covering 1998 to 2005 that involved more than 500 women whose diet and supplements were assessed by food frequency questionnaire in early ( before 16 weeks) and late (between 30 to 34 weeks) pregnancy, and whose children’s asthma status was followed up at 3.5 and 5.5 years.

The results showed that:

• Asthma was reported in 11.6 per cent of children at 3.5 years and 11.8 per cent of children at 5.5 years.
• Nearly a third of these children reported persistent asthma.
• Folic acid taken in supplement form in late pregnancy showed a statistically significant association with an increased risk of childhood asthma at 3.5 years.
• There was a similarly statistically significant link to an increased risk of persistent asthma at 3.5 years.
• The links were just as strong when the researchers accounted for potential confounders.
• There was a similar but not statistically significant link at 5.5 years.
• Nearly half of all mothers in the study took a folic acid supplement pre-pregnancy and 56 per cent met the required daily public health recommended dosage of 400 micrograms in early pregnancy.

The authors concluded that:

“These findings on childhood asthma support previous observations that supplementation with folate in pregnancy leads to an allergic asthma phenotype in mice via epigenetic mechanisms and is associated with poorer respiratory outcomes in young children.”

Public health guidelines currently recommend that women supplement their diet with 400 micrograms of folic acid per day in the month leading up to and during the first trimester of pregnancy to reduce the risk of neural tube defects in children.

Davies said this study supports this guideline, because they found no increased risk of asthma when the folic acid supplements were taken before or early in pregnancy.

“These findings show there is a potentially important critical period during which folic acid supplement dosages may be manipulated to optimise their neuro-protective effects while not increasing the risk of asthma,” he said.

“However, these guidelines may need to be expanded to include recommendations about avoiding use of high dose supplemental folic acid in late pregnancy,” added Davies.

He also emphasized that they found no evidence that asthma was linked to folate found naturally in foods like green leafy vegetables, some fruits and nuts.

The compound in question is glutamic acid, and according to the work conducted at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, boosting its intake may contribute to better health of the circulatory system.

The researchers analyzed data from the International Study on Macro/Micronutrients and Blood Pressure which involved 4,680 people aged between 40-59 in rural and urban populations in China, Japan, the UK and the U.S.

Increasing the consumption of protein-rich vegetables by 4.72 percent resulted in a 1.5 to 3 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) decrease in systolic blood pressure and a 1 to 1.6 mm Hg reduction in diastolic pressure.

“It is estimated that reducing a population’s average systolic blood pressure by 2 mm Hg could cut stroke death rates by 6 percent and reduce mortality from coronary heart disease by 4 percent,” says Dr. Jeremiah Stamler, professor emeritus of the Department of Preventive Medicine in the Feinberg School.

In view of these results, the alkaline diet—which is rich in citrus fruits, vegetables, tubers, nuts and legumes—may also be beneficial for those at risk of high blood pressure.

General health claims for “probiotic” drinks and yogurts have been dismissed by a team of experts from the European Union.

Their opinions will now be voted on by an EU Committee which is drawing up a list of permitted health claims.

Scientists at the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) looked at 180 health claims for the supplements.

They rejected 10 claims and said a further 170 had not provided enough evidence of their effects.

The manufacturers of best-selling yogurt drinks Actimel and Yakult have submitted claims that will be considered at a later stage.

EFSA is reviewing all health claims made for food products following the introduction of a new EU law in 2006 which stipulated that all medical-sounding marketing claims must be verified.

The European Commission will eventually consider the list drawn up by the EU committee and develop legislation which will be voted on by member states.

No products or health claims will change until that legislation is published.

Albert Flynn, who chairs the EFSA panel which looked at these claims, said the first stage had been to look at general health claims for the products.

More specific claims from individual manufacturers will be considered next.

He said: “It’s been an issue for some time that general health claims are made about these products using the family name for the active ingredient and not saying which member of the family is in the pot.

“We expect the claims that will come now from the companies will be much more specific.”

A Yakult spokesman said: “Yakult has submitted claims for Lactobacillus casei Shirota, a well characterised probiotic strain unique to Yakult.

“Evidence for its health benefit is based on over 70 human studies and over 70 years of research.

“Opinions on claims submitted for this strain are not expected until 2010.”

Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine followed 44 patients who had gastric bypass surgery. They found that those who received a probiotic supplement everyday for three months following their procedure had a significantly higher weight loss as well as higher levels of vitamin B12 than those who got a placebo pill.

The group who received the probiotics had a 47.6 percent weight loss compared with a 38.5 percent loss in the control group.

Almost two-thirds, or 66 percent, of adult Americans are overweight. Gastric bypass is the most common weight loss surgery because it is associated with fewer complications than other interventions.

Vitamin B12 is important for proper metabolism, the formation of red blood cells and health of the central nervous system.

Probiotics are good bacteria that are known to aid digestion. They can be found in foods like yogurt and other cultured milk products, miso, tempeh, some juices and soy beverages. They can also be taken as a nutritional health supplement.

Sources: betterhealthresearch.com/news