Health
The Impact of Sleep on Mental Health
Sleep is more than just a nightly ritual; it's a critical pillar of mental health. While many focus on diet and exercise for well-being, sleep often gets overlooked, despite its profound impact on mental health. This article delves into how sleep quality and duration influence our mental well-being, cognitive function, and emotional stability.
By Zeebabe Sulaimonabout a year ago in Chapters
Understanding Pregnancy Diabetes Management in Andheri: A Comprehensive Guide
Pregnancy is a time of joy and anticipation, but it also comes with a set of unique challenges, especially for women who are at risk of gestational diabetes. Managing diabetes during pregnancy is crucial for the health and well-being of both the mother and the baby. If you are searching for a pregnancy diabetes management doctor in Andheri, it's essential to understand what this condition entails, how it is diagnosed, and the importance of specialized care.
By Dr Monika P Takalikarabout a year ago in Chapters
Is Meat Bad for You? Is Meat Unhealthy?
When our vegetarian ancestors started eating meat around two million years ago, it wasn't just because animals taste great, it was pure necessity. Climate change made many of the plants our ancestors
By TBH Agencia Exclusiva Colsanitasabout a year ago in Chapters
Milk. White Poison or Healthy Drink?
Over the last decade, milk has become a bit controversial. Some people say it's a necessary and nutritious food, vital for healthy bones, but others say it can cause cancer and lead to an early death. So, who's right? And why are we drinking it anyway? when our digestive systems are immature and small. Basically, it's power food to kick-start our bodies and help us grow. Milk is rich in fat, vitamins, minerals, and milk-sugar: lactose. On top of that, for a while after birth, it also contains antibodies and proteins that protect us from infections and regulate our immune system. But it's a lot of effort for mothers to produce. Eventually, humans stop drinking mother's milk and transition to the diet of their parents. This is how it's been for thousands of years. Until about eleven thousand years ago, when our ancestors settled down in the first agricultural communities. Soon, they domesticated the first dairy animals: goats, sheep, and cattle. They found that dairy animals are able to eat useless and abundant stuff and turn it into nutritious and tasty food. This made a huge difference in terms of survival, especially in hard times. So groups that had milk available had an evolutionary advantage. And through natural selection, it changed the genes of communities who consumed a lot of it. This adaptation has to do with a specialized enzyme: lactase. Babies have a lot of it in their system, so they can break down the milk-sugar lactose and digest milk easily. But the older we grow, the fewer lactase enzymes our body produces. Worldwide, about 65% of the population do not have the enzyme after infancy, which means they are not able to digest more than about 150 milliliters each day. This lactose intolerance is not spread evenly around the world, though. In some East Asian communities, for example, it's up to 90%. In Northern Europe and North America, the rates are the lowest overall. There are probably a few reasons for this uneven distribution. The trait was first introduced by random mutation, which happened independently of each other in a few populations. The fact that farming replaced hunting and gathering more and more created natural-selection pressure. People who were able to digest lactose had more foods at hand, which was an advantage. The migration of dairy farmers to the north then spread it further, which probably pushed back populations there that didn't have the trait. Okay, but if milk has been a valuable part of our diet for thousands of years, why is it so controversial? There are a number of claims regarding the negative and positive health effects of milk. The negative ones cover a wide variety, from brittle bones to cancer, and cardiovascular diseases to intolerance and allergies. So, how do they hold up? Some older studies found a connection between milk and a high risk of breast, colon, and prostate cancer But meta analyses found no impact on your cancer risk. On the contrary, the calcium in milk might even have a protective effect against colon cancer. Although this could be calcium in general, it's not clear milk plays a role in this effect. Only studies on prostate cancer showed an increased risk for people who consumed more than one and a quarter liters of milk a day. But again, the association is inconsistent and other studies don't find any effects. We discuss these studies in more detail in our sources document. All in all, the research seems to show that if you drink between 100 to 250 milliliters of milk per day, cancer is not a concern. Similarly, meta-analyses could not find any impact from milk or dairy products on your risk of heart disease, stroke, or your total mortality. Some studies even suggested that high blood pressure might be rarer in people who eat a lot of dairy, although the evidence is not strong enough to claim this with confidence. The case gets more complicated though when we look at bones. A number of studies found neither positive nor negative effects for adults. What most people worry most about though are harmful amounts of pesticides, antibiotics, or hormones. There are hormones in milk, but only in very low concentrations. For example to get the same amount of hormones as from the pill, you'd need to drink about 5000 litres of milk, and even if you did, most hormones would be destroyed by your digestive system before they could affect you, which is the reason why so much medication is coated to protect it from our digestion. For pesticides and antibiotics, there are regulations in most parts of the world that only allow completely harmless amounts. Milk that surpasses these thresholds is not allowed to go on the shelf. So there's nothing in particular to worry about. Besides allergies and those suffering from lactose intolerances, the best known negative effects of milk are probably acne and general discomfort after drinking milk or eating dairy products, and here the effects are very real. For example, skimmed milk has been found to statistically increase the rate of acne by 24%. Allergies against milk products are especially prevalent among children, with one in 18 kids in Germany suffering from them. In general, these allergies tend to get better or disappear as they grow older though. Okay. Is milk healthy then? Milk, no matter if it comes from mothers, cows, sheep, goats, or camels is a nutrient-dense food. It contains all necessary macronutrients and many micronutrients. Especially in regions where people struggle to get enough calories, milk can contribute to a healthy life and lower child mortality. For those living in the developed world, in general milk is not harmful if you are not allergic or intolerant to it. Especially for children, it's a good way to get large amounts of calcium and for vegetarians, it's a good source of vitamin b12 and B vitamins in general. This does not mean there are not other alternatives with the same effect. You do not need to drink milk to be healthy Milk is also definitely not a substitute for water. Milk is power food, and the additional calories from drinking a lot of it on a regular basis can contribute to being overweight. Especially flavored milk or chocolate milk is more comparable to beverages like lemonade than a healthy snack, and there's another thing to consider. Milk production has a significant impact on the global climate. About 33 percent of cropland is used to feed grazing animals including dairy cattle Even though the carbon footprint of dairy products has declined since 1990, Dairy production is still responsible for 3 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions, even more than all airplanes combined. Milk is a huge industry and sadly, most of its production in factory farms causes incredible suffering. Cows are impregnated over and over, separated from their young shortly after birth, and slaughtered once their tortured bodies are not productive anymore. We can't ignore that much of the milk we consume stems from an industry that is basically torture and contributes to climate change. What about plant-based milk? In terms of protein levels and nutritional value, only soy milk can compare to cow milk. The others need to be artificially enriched to reach similar levels of vitamins and calcium. So they can be an alternative to milk. And another option might be available soon. Several startups have created non-animal milk that is nutritionally identical to dairy milk, for example, through fermentation by gene modified bacteria. This lab-grown milk can even be turned into cheese, something that plant based alternatives struggle with because they lack casein and whey protein, the key ingredients that give dairy its taste and structure. The environmental impact is a different story though. Many milk alternatives use significantly less energy, land and less water to produce so they have a much lower environmental impact than animal milk. If you want to have the lowest possible negative impact on the planet, the best choice is whatever milk alternative is regional. As with almost any topic milk is complicated. It's not harmful for the majority of the population and it's crucial for many people around the world. It's good, nutritious food, but also harmful to the planet and causes a lot of suffering. We need to decide as a society how we want to deal with these facts.
By TBH Agencia Exclusiva Colsanitasabout a year ago in Chapters
What Happens When You Quit Steroids?
three million people currently use steroids to build muscle mass in the U.S alone and one survey found that 30 percent of gym users were currently taking steroids taking rides to get gains in the gym is clearly very popular but what happens to your brain body skin and testicles when you decide to quit steroids after 24 hours of quitting steroids you will feel extremely tired and fatigued because of how the steroids have messed with your hormone systems specifically your gonadotropin releasing hormone GnRH is released from the hypothalamus and through a series of chemical Pathways stimulates her testes to produce testosterone and maintain size steroids block the release of GnRH this is why steroids can shrink your testicles and why now with a lack of steroid consumption your body is lacking testosterone production on its own the steroids that you were consuming were mimicking the testosterone so now without the steroids you have lower testosterone this is known as hypogonadism and you start to lose energy at 48 Hours of quitting you are extremely fatigued because of how low testosterone now affects the red blood cells in your body your body relies on red blood cells to transfer oxygen as a source of energy throughout your body testosterone binds to cells in the kidney to stimulate the release of erythropoietin epo which promotes red blood cell production with the lack of testosterone from quitting steroids your body has less red blood cell production which means less oxygen and less energy for cells you might remember the discussion with Lance Armstrong and how he used EPO to increase his red blood cell count to win the Tour de France here's a clip of him admitting it to Queen Oprah did you ever take banned substances to enhance your cycling performance yes yes or no was one of those bad substances EPO yes Live Strong baby especially if you're on EPO so again at 48 hours you have a lower EPO less testosterone and less energy from quitting steroids at 72 hours your sleep is now affected by the low testosterone the exact mechanism that testosterone affects sleep is not known but there have been plenty of research showing that poor sleep can reduce testosterone levels and vice versa one study showed that for every hour of sleep loss there was a testosterone drop even people with obstructive sleep apnea which affects their quality of sleep have been shown to have lower testosterone levels so when testosterone levels are low this makes it harder for you to get a good night's sleep not get a good night's sleep make sure testosterone levels lower so you might notice that quitting steroids has affected your ability to sleep after a week of quitting you will feel muscle aches and joint pain because testosterone usually promotes the release of anti-inflammatory cytokines from your immune cells this protects against inflammation now since the steroids affected your hormone system and you have lower testosterone the inflammation can accumulate in muscles and joints this is also around the time you may see that muscles are reducing in size because testosterone is less present to help with the maintenance of muscle so it is after a week that the gains start to noticeably go away at one month you may notice erectile dysfunction again since the steroids decrease natural GnRH production this by proxy decreases the follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone which help chemically message the testes to produce testosterone the lack of testosterone is now affecting these hormones to the point that it may be hard to maintain and get a boner is that the scientific term I don't know erection moving on after two months the acne that has been building up all over your face and body will finally start to disappear testosterone stimulates the growth of sebaceous glands in your skin which produce acne the low testosterone would reduce the acne's presence after three months of stopping steroids depressive symptoms and mood changes may get worse without testosterone replacement therapy some Studies have shown a higher suicide side rate and those that have previously used steroids and withdrawal can make suicidal ideation worse this has actually been shown to be the main reason why people start to use steroids again it's not to get their muscles back it's to deal with the depression and anxiety that they are now feeling at seven months you might notice that things are looking up as your boners erectile dysfunction begins to improve because the testes starts to produce testosterone on its own seven months baby and the testes are back they never left they're just uh getting back to creating testosterone on their own you know what I mean I mean they did shrink does that mean they left existential question the quality of your sperm now starts to improve again because the follicle stimulating hormone and the luteinizing hormone are again being able to message to your testes to create sperm in a more significant way but it has been seen that erectile dysfunction can take up to a year to improve but for many people it starts at seven months so just keep an eye on your boners okay again moving on after a year is when you start to see your testes begin to grow again after shrinking one study showed that after 15 months the testes size in former steroid users was 5.2 milliliters larger than current steroid users but the former users still had testes 4.9 milliliters smaller than non-steroid users which means it could take well over a year for your testes to get back to normal size clearly steroids have a negative effect on your body this video is important to understand what happens when you finally decide to stop using them because say you're sick of the acne or the tiny balls but it also explains why stopping steroids immediately could create many issues it doesn't really give your body the chance to start creating testosterone again on its own there may be ways to slowly reduce your steroid use in order to not create such a strain on your body again you need to talk to a doctor about this or you just never start taking steroids in the first place and you don't have to worry about this as much or this trend is just going to continue to grow because one recent survey found that 70 of steroid users were aware of the negative impacts .
By TBH Agencia Exclusiva Colsanitasabout a year ago in Chapters
Low-Carb Essentials: 10 Must-Have Foods for a Healthier You
11.Mushrooms Mushrooms are versatile and low in carbohydrates, making them a valuable ingredient for a low-carb diet. They contain dietary fiber, which promotes digestive health and helps control blood sugar levels. Mushrooms are a source of essential nutrients, including B vitamins, copper, and selenium. They add a rich umami flavor to dishes and can be used in a variety of recipes, from salads and stir-fries to omelets and soups. Certain types of mushrooms, like shiitake and maitake, contain bioactive compounds that may have health benefits, including potential immune-boosting properties.
By cathynli namuliabout a year ago in Chapters
Why Eating More Protein Will Make You Healthier
We all want to feel healthy and strong, but sometimes it can be hard to know what steps to take to get there. One simple change that can make a big difference in your health is increasing the amount of protein in your diet. You might be surprised by how much better you feel when you start eating more protein-rich foods. Let’s explore why protein is so important and how it can help you live a healthier life.
By Komal Ghotraabout a year ago in Chapters
Fighting Myopia: How to Protect Our Eyes
When I was growing up, something changed with my eyesight. Over time, I gradually lost the ability to see things clearly beyond a short distance—about 10 inches from my face. Everything beyond that point became blurry. To correct this, I eventually got glasses. With them, my world changed from a fuzzy blur to sharp clarity.
By cathynli namuliabout a year ago in Chapters
Finding the Best Gynaecologist in Andheri West: What You Need to Know
When it comes to women’s health, choosing the right gynaecologist is a decision that should be made with care and consideration. Whether you are planning a family, dealing with menopause, or simply need routine check-ups, finding a trusted and experienced gynaecologist is crucial. Andheri West, one of Mumbai’s bustling suburbs, is home to some of the best healthcare professionals in the city. Among them is Dr. Monika P. Takalikar, a renowned name in the field of obstetrics and gynaecology. In this blog, we’ll explore what makes Dr. Takalikar stand out and why she is considered one of the best gynaecologists in Andheri West.
By Dr Monika P Takalikarabout a year ago in Chapters
