Although no two children follow exactly the same path in their development, when we consider the complexity of the developmental process, there is a remarkably consistent sequence followed by most children. In the first 5 years of life, your child progresses from a newborn baby who has relatively limited ways of communicating with you, to a child starting school who is capable of sophisticated functioning in several domains.

Parents like to follow the course of the child’s development, and to record the occasions when their child achieves certain milestones. You can record these dates and ages in the space provided in the table below.

Parents are often the first to detect signs of developmental delay, when the child is late in achieving milestones. The table below lists a number of developmental milestones and the average or range of ages at which most children achieve them. Remember that this is a guide only, and there is considerable variation in development between children. A child’s development is a dynamic process. You should not be alarmed if your child is slower in achieving these milestones. Equally, fast development may not indicate that your child is unusually gifted. However, if your child is consistently and significantly delayed in the age at which he reaches these milestones, then you should consult your doctor or maternal and child health nurse. He or she will check your child’s development, and refer him to a specialist if necessary. Parents usually know intuitively whether their child is doing well devel-opmentally or not. Do not hesitate to seek reassurance if you are at all concerned.

Remember that these ages are average ages, and that there are children who are faster and children who are slower developers. Just because your child is later in achieving milestones than outlined in the table above, it does not mean that he is developing abnormally. However, if he is later in a number of milestones and you are at all concerned, or if you are worried about your child’s hearing or language development at any age you should not hesitate to consult your doctor or maternal and child health nurse.

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Posted by admin on May 21st, 2009 :: Filed under General health
Tags :: General health

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Remember, it will take fifteen to thirty minutes after you take it before it starts to work. If you take painkillers like this you will get good, even, pain control with smaller doses of painkiller. Don’t take painkillers only when you ‘need’ them.

In the case of the painkillers on the list other than aspirin and paracetamol, if you take the same one regularly for some weeks, you are likely to find it is not working as well, or for as long. This is normal and expected. It does not mean that you are getting addicted to your painkiller. What happens is that your body develops ways of getting rid of the drug more quickly. It now takes more of the painkiller to achieve the same amount in your blood. Therefore, when you find that the dose which used to control your pain no longer does so, it is quite safe, and indeed necessary, to increase your dose. The higher dose is no more dangerous and will cause no more side effects for you than the usual starting dose would for someone who had not been taking painkillers.

*172/40/1*

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Posted by admin on May 18th, 2009 :: Filed under Cancer
Tags :: Cancer

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It is necessary for the proper development of the red blood cells and nervous tissues.

A lack of Vitamin B12, because of degeneration of these special cells of the stomach, which produce the intrinsic factor, is the cause of pernicious anaemia.

This disease, called pernicious when it was first discovered because the anaemia does not respond to the intake of iron, is treated by giving Â12 by injection.

As a final summary, let me say that vitamins are essential to good health.

A normal balanced diet contains all these essential food factors. And therefore, the taking of extra vitamins does no good whatever.

However, in certain disease states where there is a poor absorption of foodstuffs, or where an inadequate intake occurs, such as with the poor, the elderly, the unprivileged, the artificially fed infant or the food faddists, supplements of vitamins may be necessary.

For the rest of us they are not of much use. They will not necessarily do what you expect them to do.

But if you avoid taking an excessive quantity of them, you probably will do yourself no harm.

I suppose that if you believe that something will do you good, then it just might be of benefit.

*615/71/1*

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Posted by admin on May 18th, 2009 :: Filed under General health
Tags :: General health

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Few give much attention to the feet until they start to play up but that probably applies to the rest of the body as well.

The foot has 26 bones, 19 muscles, 33 joints and over 100 ligaments.

It is a complex, strong, supple structure which supports us through life, yet we squeeze it into shoes which are too tight and designed by the whim of fashion rather than for comfort.

Management of problems of the feet mainly rests with the medical profession.

The general practitioner sees and deals with most problems, referring the more difficult, or those which require operation, to an orthopaedic surgeon.

In the past, chiropodists confined their practice to cutting toenails and paring corns and calluses.

They have now changed their name to podiatrists and have more training in all aspects of feet problems. Increasingly, people are going directly to podiatrists when feet start to ache.

Let us look at a few of the common foot problems.

*357/71/1*

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Posted by admin on May 15th, 2009 :: Filed under General health
Tags :: General health

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Most infections of the urinary tract in women are located in the bladder and urethra and, although they cause great discomfort, they are not serious, infection is more dangerous when it involves the kidney. Infection in the kidney has usually spread upwards from the bladder.

Although little girls and elderly women do suffer from bladder infection it is usually a problem of sexually active women.

Symptoms come on suddenly and involve discomfort in the lower abdomen, frequency in passing urine, and burning or scalding usually at the end of the stream. There may be precipitancy, the feeling that the urine is going to come away, and the desire to pass water again straight after the bladder is emptied. Occasionally there is incontinence, when control is lost, or there may be blood in the urine.

Fortunately, these symptoms may settle down without any treatment, or the old-fashioned trick of drinking barley water works, as does any treatment to make the urine alkaline in reaction.

*107/71/1*

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Posted by admin on May 15th, 2009 :: Filed under General health
Tags :: General health

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Prior to the early 1960s, chemotherapy was in its infancy and the drugs were used one at a time. A few types of cancer were found to be very sensitive to particular drugs. Some cancers were even cured—for example, the rare cancer of women called choriocarcinoma could be completely cured by the drug methotrexate. As there was previously no effective treatment for these cancers, it was very obvious that the new treatment was a major improvement!

In the early 1960s, a group of doctors from the United States reported using a revolutionary new technique. They combined high doses of four different chemotherapy drugs (mustine, vincristine, procarbazine and prednisone) to produce a treatment that produced remissions in the majority of patients with Hodgkin’s disease. Prior to this, extensive Hodgkin’s disease was fatal within a few months. Now patients were living for years and, in fact, many of them later proved to be completely cured. The improvement in results was so great and significant that no special research techniques were needed to prove it.

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Posted by admin on May 15th, 2009 :: Filed under Cancer
Tags :: Cancer

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What sort of variation do we see from day-to-day and between people?

G.I. values show a certain degree of variability, both from day to day and between people. In non-diabetic subjects, the average day-to-day variation is 22 per cent (ie the G.L value varies by an average of 22 per cent). In people with type 2 diabetes, it is 16 per cent, but in individuals with type 1 diabetes, it is as high as 30 per cent. This means we should not expect to see precisely the same blood sugar levels after one particular food from one day to the next.

As is the case with any biological response there is quite wide variation between subjects ie the G.I. in one person may be double that in another. However, it is dear that subjects tend to ‘track’ well, giving high or low or intermediate responses on a consistent basis. In practice, therefore, foods will show the same ranking in terms of G.I. factor in different subjects.

Why are there different G.I. values for the same food in different publications?

In some instances, there is a difference between two results but it is small and not statistically or biologically important. For example, G.I. factors of 70 and 80 for white bread are not considered very different. The difference is within the error of the methodology. A difference of 20 units, say 60 and 80, is considered important in a clinical sense and is usually statistically significant as well.

There may also be differences due to variations in the food itself. Rice is a good example of this. Genetically determined differences in the amylose content of rice means that different varieties of rice have very different G.I. factors. Basmati rice has a low G.I. factor and Calrose rice has a high G.I. factor. In the early days of G.I. research, the variety of rice was not specified.

Again, the same food processed in different ways can produce very different G.I. factors. Breads containing a lot of intact whole grains will have a lower G.I. factor than normal soft white sandwich bread. Packaged breakfast cereals, on the other hand, are processed in similar ways all over the world and their G.I. factors are very similar in Canada, Australia and elsewhere.

A third reason for the differences is the use of two reference foods, bread or glucose. However, it is easy to convert from one scale to the other using the factor 1.4 (equals 100/70). For example, if the G.I. factor of a food is 80 when bread is the reference food, its G.I. factor on a scale where glucose equals 100, is 80 divided by 1.4 (equals 57).

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Posted by admin on May 8th, 2009 :: Filed under Diabetes
Tags :: Diabetes

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Age. Age differences are most obvious at four different stages—childhood, adolescence, middle age and elderly—but age also interacts with gender and other variables in influencing the effects of exercise for fat loss. There are big differences between childhood and early adolescence and early and late adulthood in a range of factors which have relevance for fat loss. Metabolic rate, for example, is much higher in childhood and is known to decrease at the rate of around 2 per cent per decade after age 20. This means that by age 70, the body is burning about 10 per cent less energy at rest than it was at age 20, largely due to changes in the fatilean mass ratio. When this is coupled with a decrease in ‘spontaneous physical activity’ (SPA), a decrease in the sensitivity of ? receptors on the fat cell surface modifying substrate utilisation, changes in body fat distribution and muscle content, and changes in thermogenesis, all favouring a higher fat metabolism in the young, the extra difficulty older people have in maintaining a low level of body fat is more understandable.

Decreases in aerobic capacity and muscle strength suggest that if fat losses are to be gained through physical activity in the older age groups, attention will need to be paid to the total amount of exercise (at a low-moderate intensity) and the level of incidental and spontaneous activity. Maintenance of muscle mass through resistance training may also be important in maintaining metabolic rate which is thought to be reduced due to the atrophy of type II muscle fibres with ageing.

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Posted by admin on May 8th, 2009 :: Filed under Weight Loss
Tags :: Weight Loss

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Summary of main points.

• Fat has a variety of functions, but the most important is as an energy reserve. A minimum level of body fat is essential for this purpose.

• Excessive body fat can have disease implications.

• The health implications of obesity are determined by total fat and fat distribution.

• Visceral fat, or fat stored around the organs of the trunk, is the most dangerous to health.

• Abdominal fat, or a ‘pot belly’, is the most visible indication of visceral fat.

• Diabetes, heart disease, gallstones and some cancers are the main diseases associated with excessive abdominal fatness.

Functions of fat in the body.

• Energy reserve (i.e. 1g of fat = 9kcal of energy).

• Protection of the vital organs (e.g. stomach, kidneys, liver etc).

• Heat insulation.

• Transport medium for fat-soluble vitamins and minerals (e.g. vitamins D, E and K).

• Formation of hormones (e.g. cholesterol).

• Structure of cell membranes (cholesterol and phospholipids).

*12\186\4*

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Posted by admin on May 8th, 2009 :: Filed under Weight Loss
Tags :: Weight Loss

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The well-known Russian physiologist Tarkhanov wrote: “The time will come when it will be a disgrace for a man to die less than 100 years old.”

There is extensive research going on in Russia on the prolongation of life. Russia is concentrating heavily on the preventive aspect of medicine. Russian medical scientists consider the prevention of disease and prolongation of life as their ultimate goals.

One of the Soviet scientists engaged in research on longevity is I Dr. Olga Lepeshinskaya. In her book Life, Age and Longevity, she states that the normal life span of the human beings should be not : less than 150 years, if they would observe the elementary laws of I health. Everyone who feels old before he reaches 100, she says, is j suffering from premature old age. And she claims that premature old age, like other diseases, can be prevented; it also can be successfully treated after it appears. How? Her recipe is simple enough:

sound, simple, natural nutrition;

plenty of physical work, recreation and rest;

a cheerful, optimistic outlook on life.

Here are some Russian longevity secrets, nutritionally speaking:

Food processing and refining is not as advanced in Russia as it is here; Russians still eat largely natural, unprocessed, unrefined I foods.

There are very few additives allowed in food processing or manufacturing; all artificial colorings and flavorings are totally prohibited.

Russians eat very little meat compared to Americans. Only 25 percent of their protein intake is acquired from animal sources j (in the United States it is 71 percent).

There are fewer devitalized foods and condiments available: no chewing gum, no Coca-Cola, no TV dinners.

Add to this less polluted water, virtually unpolluted air, no lead allowed in gasolines, more fertile soils, considerably less use of patented nonprescription drugs, and the great popularity of outdoor sports, hikes, bicycle tours, swimming, etc., and you can see why Russians are achieving better health and longer life. Their mortality rate is 7.6 per thousand against 9.4 in the United States and they have seven times more people reaching 100 years of age than has our country.

Here are a few other longevity points based on Russian medical discoveries and the experience of 21,000 Russian centenarians:

Russian scientists believe that vitamin C is the long-sought Fountain of Youth. They encourage Russians to collect wild rose hips and cultivate hip-bearing “vitamin roses” in their backyards for a plentiful supply of Vitamin C.

Russian scientists believe that vitamin E plays a vital role in staying younger longer and preventing premature aging. They prescribe vitamin E for the youthful function of sex glands and the healthy function of the reproductive system. At the Institute of Biochemistry of the Russian Academy of Science, experiments with vitamin E have shown that it has an emormously beneficial effect on the diseases of old age, specifically in combination with vitamin A. The rejuvenating property of these vitamins, aside from their direct effect on sex glands, is explained by the fact that they strengthen the ability of the tissues to absorb oxygen, restore impaired circulation in blood vessels, especially in the small capillaries, and help to restore the normal permeability of the blood vessels.

Studies of Russian centenarians show that almost all of them use lots of honey in their diet. Russian doctors encourage people to eat honey; they also prescribe honey as medicine and use it in hospitals, at bedtime, to induce a deep, restful sleep.

Russians eat enormous quantities of sunflower seeds and use unrefined cold-pressed sunflower oil. Sunflower oil is rich in vitamin E and essential fatty acids, the deficiency of which is definitely linked with premature aging. Sunflower seeds are also an excellent source of complete protein, B-vitamins, and minerals, especially zinc, which has been recently found to play an important role in the growth and maturity of the gonads, the sex glands, and is also directly linked with the health of the prostate gland. Zinc has been pointed out as an active agent in most so-called virility foods, such as oysters, raw nuts, sea foods, onions, etc. Sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds are very rich in this mineral.

Russians eat great amounts of raw onions and garlic, both considered by many nutritionists to be important life-prolongers.

Russian people eat lots of fermented foods; sour bread, sour pickles, sauerkraut, sour milk, kefir, yogurt. It has been demonstrated that fermented lactic-acid foods have an extremely cleansing and revitalizing effect on the digestive and assimilative tracts, and also have a direct curative effect, especially on the degenerative diseases. It could be, therefore, said that these foods have a rejuvenating effect.

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Posted by admin on May 8th, 2009 :: Filed under General health
Tags :: General health

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