4 Stages of Eclampsia

Someone out there had it out for pregnant girls. As if it isn't hard enough on them already, there is a disorder known as Pre-Eclampsia. Below, we will take a look at what this disorder is characterized by, how it effects you, and how to tell if you have it.

http://www.pre-eclampsia-story.com Pre-Eclampsia is a pregnancy disorder involving convulsions. It generally occurs after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and usually with the first child. And as I said before... someone had it out for pregnant girls, becuase if no signs or symptoms of pre-eclampsia occur, there is still possibilities of eclampsia, which can happen before, during, or after the labour process.

There is only one true way to tell if you are carrying the eclampsia disorder; Eclamptic convulsions. Eclamptic convulsions have a four stages of gruelling pain:

3 Ways You Can Boost Your Immune System And Stay Well

Would you like to boost your immune system so that you can stay healthy and well this year? Here are three basic steps you can take to ensure that your immune system is in tip-top shape.

Step One is to drink plenty of water. Your immune system requires lots of fresh, pure water to function properly. This is especially true if you are already sick, but drinking plenty of water can also help you stay well.

A general rule of thumb is to take your body weight and divide it by two. You should drink at least that many fluid ounces of water per day. For example, a 150 pound man should drink at least 75 fluid ounces of water per day.

Step Two is to take the right supplements. Glyconutrients and phytonutrients are both essential supplements to take to boost your immune system. Other supplements proven to help your immune funtion are certain vitamins, antioxidants, colustrum, etc. As with all nutritional supplements, you'll want to ensure that you take top-quality ones, so they will do your body some good.

Just throwing a scoop of glyconutrient powder in your meals can go a long way to ensuring your immune system is functioning properly.

Step Three is to eat a basic healthy diet. Avoid sugers and refined foods, as they depress your immune system. Eat plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Herbs as medicines

Herbs or medicinal plants have a long history in treating disease. In traditional Chinese medicine, for example, the written history of herbal medicine goes back over 2000 years and herbalists in the West have used “weeds” equally long to treat that which ails us. We are all familiar with the virtues of Garlic, Chamomile, Peppermint, Lavender, and other common herbs.

Interest in medicinal herbs is on the rise again and the interest is primarily from the pharmaceutical industry, which is always looking for ‘new drugs’ and more effective substances to treat diseases, for which there may be no or very few drugs available.

Considering the very long traditional use of herbal medicines and the large body of evidence of their effectiveness, why is it that we are not generally encouraged to use traditional herbal medicine, instead of synthetic, incomplete copies of herbs, called drugs, considering the millions of dollars being spent looking for these seemingly elusive substances?

Herbs are considered treasures when it comes to ancient cultures and herbalists, and many so-called weeds are worth their weight in gold. Dandelion, Comfrey, Digitalis (Foxglove), the Poppy, Milk Thistle, Stinging nettle, and many others, have well-researched and established medicinal qualities that have few if any rivals in the pharmaceutical industry. Many of them in fact, form the bases of pharmaceutical drugs.

Research into the medicinal properties of such herbs as the humble Dandelion is currently being undertaken by scientists at the Royal Botanical Gardens, in Kew, west London, who believe it could be the source of a life-saving drug for cancer patients.

Early tests suggest that it could hold the key to warding off cancer, which kills tens of thousands of people every year.

Their work on the cancer-beating properties of the dandelion, which also has a history of being used to treat warts, is part of a much larger project to examine the natural medicinal properties of scores of British plants and flowers.

Professor Monique Simmonds, head of the Sustainable Uses of Plants Group at Kew, said: "We aren't randomly screening plants for their potential medicinal properties, we are looking at plants which we know have a long history of being used to treat certain medical problems.” 

“We will be examining them to find out what active compounds they contain which can treat the illness.”

Unfortunately, as is so often the case, this group of scientists appears to be looking for active ingredients, which can later be synthesised and then made into pharmaceutical drugs. This is not the way herbs are used traditionally and their functions inevitably change when the active ingredients are used in isolation. That’s like saying that the only important part of a car is the engine – nothing else needs to be included…

So, why is there this need for isolating the ‘active ingredients’?

As a scientist, I can understand the need for the scientific process of establishing the fact that a particular herb works on a particular disease, pathogen or what ever, and the need to know why and how it does so. But, and this is a BIG but, as a doctor of Chinese medicine I also understand the process of choosing and prescribing COMBINATIONS of herbs, which have a synergistic effect to treat not just the disease, but any underlying condition as well as the person with the disease – That is a big difference and not one that is easily tested using standard scientific methodologies.

How To Get Fit And Slash Your Health Insurance Costs

Okay, before we start, let me explain the purpose of this article. I want you to get so healthy, you'll never need to make a health insurance claim. You'll save money by increased fitness. You'll save money with a long no-claims insurance history. And you'll look and feel much better. 

There's three sides to your maximum health and fitness. Diet, and Exercise. But that's only two ! Let me split Exercise into Aerobic exercise and Aneorobic exercise. 

Get all three right. Get the right balance. And you'll get as fit and healthy as your body and genetics will allow. 

Whole forests of paper have been filled with advice on each of these fitness factors. Just go into your local bookstore, and see shelves of diet advice. Shelves of exercise advice. 

Funny how so much contradicts itself, especially for diet e.g right next to each other on the shelf, you'll find a book advocating low carbs & low fat; another saying high fat is okay if you keep the carbs low. Yet another focuses on high protein, and says carbs don't matter... 

8 Tips to Burn Fat Fast

Are you looking for that “jump start” to rev your metabolism and get you bathing suit ready?  The following eight tips will improve your workouts and ignite your metabolism.  Try some or all of these tips, but beware, the result may be a number of admiring second glances and stares when you don that bikini or pair of trunks. 

1.  The majority of your workouts should be composed of free-weight or cable exercises. 

Compared to machines, free-weight and cable movements often require more skill, create muscular balance, and have a greater metabolic cost.  For example, it is more difficult to balance the weights, and to coordinate muscles when performing free-weight exercises. Although this may sound like a disadvantage, it is actually a benefit.  By balancing and stabilizing free-weights or cables you are working more muscles through a greater range of motion resulting in more muscles developed and more calories burned.

 2. Use mostly compound (multi-joint and multi-muscle) exercises. 

When focusing on improving body composition, you can't worry about “detail” exercises, so you should use exercises that'll get you the biggest bang for your buck. Isolation exercises can be used at the end of a workout to work on a specific weakness, but only do the bare minimum.  

Virtually every savvy fitness professional is privy to the fact that compound exercises recruit the most muscle groups for any given body part. 

If you seek lean muscle and the increase in metabolism that comes with it, you must choose exercises that allow for the greatest load. One of the main reasons why squats are superior to leg extensions for quadriceps development relates to the fact that the load you can expose the quadriceps to is much greater with squats. That’s why presses and dips will give you great triceps development, while triceps kickbacks will do little for triceps development and even less for the metabolism. 

A good rule of thumb is to use lifts that will allow you to use the most weight. These will have a systemic effect on your body that'll help maintain or increase your muscle mass, and in turn ignite your metabolism.

3. Super-set or group exercises. 

Perform either non-competing muscle group training or antagonist training.

Non-competing muscle group training would involve doing a set of a lower body exercise, and following it up with an upper body exercise

Antagonist training is executed by alternating exercises that target opposing muscle groups (e.g. chest and back). The list of benefits includes: quicker recovery, greater strength levels and shorter workout times. 

This design can be a huge advantage in your mission to burn fat. If you alternate exercises for opposing or non-competing muscle groups, you’ll be able to keep your heart rate elevated and burn calories like a blast furnace! 

4. Keep rep ranges, in general, between 8 and 12. 

Through research, it has been determined that the best range for hypertrophy (muscle gain) is roughly between 8-12 reps. Since the main focus of your resistance training efforts is to gain lean body mass and stimulate your metabolism, this rep range fills the bill perfectly.  

“High reps for tone and fat loss” is the “big kahuna” of all training myths! Somehow the aerobics, yoga and Pilate’s community have convinced us that when we perform bodyweight exercises or light resistance training for high reps, our muscles magically take on a beautiful shape without growing or bulging. On the other hand, if you challenge yourself with moderately heavy weights, your body will take on a bulky, unflattering appearance. If you believe this, you probably still believe in the Tooth Fairy!

5. Rest only 30 to 60 seconds between sets. 

When you keep the rest periods under one minute, it’s easier to stay focused on the task at hand and keeps your heart rate elevated. In addition, it forces your muscles to recover more quickly between sets, along with keeping your nervous system revved up.

If your first movement in an upper/lower body superset is squats, you might want to rest 60 seconds before attempting your second movement. However, if your first exercise is a fairly "easy" exercise, like lat pull downs, you might only wish to wait 30 seconds before doing the second part of the superset.  

6. Every session should consist of approximately six to eight exercises. 

Why? Because empirical evidence has shown that normal trainees can consistently maintain six to eight exercises per session without burning out. 

It’s imperative to base your exercise selection around compound, multi-joint exercises. Seventy-five percent (75%) of your exercises for each session must be compound exercises. Six single-joint isolation exercises are not going do the trick. Sure, you can perform a few isolation exercises, but the majority of your exercise choices should be multi-joint.

7. Perform Total Body Workouts

 First and foremost, you must drop the notion that a muscle group can only be trained once or twice a week. Fitness enthusiasts from the past didn't train that way and you shouldn't either. The more frequent muscle producing / fat burning sessions you can have, the better. 

8. Cardio is not the cure-all for Obesity

Cardiovascular exercise aids in the creation of a caloric deficit, but the caloric expenditure during cardio is temporary.  Strength training addresses the core of the problem by permanently increasing the rate at which the body burns calories by adding muscle.  The best programs will include both strength training and cardiovascular training, but the core or the programs effectiveness is resistance. 

Vitamin and Mineral Digestion Taken For Granted

The body is a complex web of systems.  Most are not fully aware of the complexity of the digestive system.  However, most know of its opposite, indigestion.  Most do not realize how amazing the body can be, especially the digestive tract.  When the process of digestion is described as fascinating, passing gas isn’t going to be the major focus (flatulence), but more so the process of how gas is produced.

The digestive system’s primary role is to convert the food into substances that are capable of being absorbed.  The digestive system is comprised of the following structures: the mouth, pharynx, esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, and the anus.  The liver, gallbladder, pancreas, and salivary glands also play a role in digestion but are not considered part of the alimentary canal (primary digestive organs).

Digestion begins in the mouth when food is ingested.  This is a mechanical process.  Through mastication, (the biting and chewing action of the teeth) the breakdown of food from larger particles into smaller particles takes place.  This process doe not chemically alter the food, but increases the total surface area of the food.  This in turn increases the speed and efficiency of enzyme activity.  An enzyme is a protein that catalyzes, or speeds up, a chemical reaction.  Enzymes are essential to sustain life because most chemical reactions in the body would occur too slowly, or would lead to different products without the assistance of enzymes.

Vaccines

While vaccines are a proven, safe and effective way to prevent certain life-threatening diseases, myths abound about vaccinations and the risks that they pose to human health. This is a sobering thought when you consider at least two million children die each year from diseases that are vaccine-preventable.

Immunization has led to great advances in eradicating common childhood illnesses. Without it, infants and children would still suffer from diseases such as measles, mumps, tetanus, polio and pertussis (whooping cough). Millions of children in Canada have escaped infection from these serious and sometimes deadly diseases because of the success of immunization programs over the years. 

The benefits of vaccinations spill over even to those children who have not been vaccinated - this effect is referred to as 

herd immunity and means that even children who have not received the vaccination receive some protection once the majority of children have been vaccinated. This occurs because vaccinated children resist infection and decrease the chances of those who are unprotected from ever being exposed to the disease.

Using Yoga For Weight Loss

Yoga can be put to good use for taking off excess pounds through the power of creating a state of mental and physical well being. The basic tenets of Yoga promotes a healthy lifestyle and when combined with a calorie reduction can help to speed up your weight loss. It will increase your metabolism by increasing the caloric burning process. All weight loss is based on using more calories than you take in. It will also allow you to increase your ability to concentrate and focus.

Your thyroid regulates your metabolism and is responsible for the chemical processes that transform food into energy. Yoga uses a series of twisting poses that will help to stimulate the work flow of the internal organs. This will cause your metabolism to increase and burn more calories which will eventually cause you to have a lower body weight. Another side effect is that it will help to improve your circulation and increase your energy level.

The various back bends combined with the forward bends will help to stimulate the metabolism. The poses that affect the neck region can be helpful in stimulating the thyroid if the weight problem is caused by a hormonal imbalance. Poses that will help the most for this include the camel, rabbit, plow, bridge and head stand. Going quickly between the various poses can help to accelerate the weight loss. Beware though that those seriously overweight may find some of these poses extremely difficult and should start slowly with the easier poses and add others as they become more confident in the easier ones.

You can use standing poses to increase muscle strengthening such as the warrior. These will help to create higher endurance and increase your caloric usage.

Remember that a gradual approach is best with all Yoga practices. The long term effects on your weight loss regime will become evident and even more so the inner peace and general well feeling that Yoga will promote within you.

Dieting with Slim Fast

Slim Fast is another great diet aid that has been around for quite a while. From it's origins as a thick and gritty powder designed to help you stave off hunger to it's current incarnation as a line of weight loss products and meal bar supplements we have seen some amazing transitions and longevity in this particular product. 

Slim Fast is becoming famous for the new flavors they have introduced and their steady stream of testimonials from those who have met or exceeded their goals by using the Slim Fast system. Using Slim Fast when dieting can assist those with little will power when it comes to chocolate and sweets achieve their weight loss goals by having the higher calorie shakes and snacks throughout the day followed by a sensible meal in the evening and indulging in their craving for sweets throughout the day. It's a good plan as long as those using it can manage to stick with the plan. 

In the past Slim Fast would not have been a product I would have recommended for those needing to lose a large amount of weight. That has changed however in the last year or so as they have introduced a much more aggressive health and wellness plan that is appropriate to those who have more pounds to take off than the simple 20 or so vanity pounds that was typical of the Slim Fast user of the past. 

When it comes to dieting, not all plans are one size fits all, nor should they be. It's good to see that Slim Fast is also adapting to meet the various needs of consumers. Not only does Slim Fast offer consumers shakes and meal replacement or snack bars that are convenient to use even when on the go but they also offer meals that you can prepare as well as healthy convenience meals to replace those evening meals when you are on the run. For those who like options, Slim Fast seems to have more options than ever before. 

More than options however, it is good to see that Slim Fast, even after all these years, is still getting results by those who stick with the program. The truth is that the product wouldn't have been around this long if it wasn't working for someone along the way. Like many other weight loss plans, Slim Fast has taken to pushing the benefits of an active lifestyle in addition to the need for a healthy diet. There are some that will argue that you are not getting all the nutrients you need from drinking shakes but it could be reasonably argued from reading the label that the average shake contains more vitamins and nutrients than a sad margin of people consume on a daily basis.

Whether your dieting goals are very short term and specific or long term and lifestyle altering, Slim Fast can assist you in reaching those goals. This is a lifestyle adjustment in itself though and you must be prepared for a new way of eating in order for this plan to work for your specific dieting needs. If you haven't checked out Slim Fast lately and you have made the decision to lose weigh but are uncertain how to go about it, perhaps it's time you take a second look at the Slim Fast line.

Vitamin B-2

Riboflavin is a common name for vitamin B-2 and was once known as Vitamin G. You will see Vitamin B-2 described as Riboflavin on the back of vitamin bottles and in other food packaging.

An interesting and curious fact about Riboflavin is that it is naturally produced by the bacteria in your gut. Although it may not be produced in sufficient quantities to prevent deficiencies. Intestinal production, however, can reduce the symptoms of a deficient state.

Some experts claim that B-2 deficiency is the most prominent nutrient deficiency in North America. Those who eat a diet largely constructed of refined and fast foods may be at risk. And of course, alcoholics are at higher risk of B vitamin deficiencies. Low-income individuals may also tend to be at higher risk due to diet.

Problems with blood proteins may lead to deficiency. And states that block or reduce the uptake of riboflavin into the cell can also be responsible for a deficient state. Therefore, just having an adequate supply of Riboflavin in your food does not necessarily preclude deficiency.

Brewer's yeast and organ meats are sources that are high in Riboflavin. Lower amounts may be found in milk, eggs, green leafy vegetables and some fruits.

Teen Dieting

We have the highest teenage and childhood obesity rates today than at any other point in the world's long history. Much of the blame for this is on the fast food, low energy society that we have become. Far too often we feel that it is safer to keep our children inside our homes rather than out and about in the great outdoors. The things we are doing for the protection of our children are actually detrimental to the health of our children.

There are things however that are being done to address the problem and get our children more involved, more active, and better educated about making the proper choices about diet, nutrition, fitness, and overall health. The problem for most teens is getting them off the computer, phone, or away from the television long enough to get active.

Even video games are getting in on the act of getting children up and active by creating games such as Play Station 2's Dance Party Revolution and the new Nintendo Wii gaming system that seem to be taking the market by storm. These systems allow consumers, to actively participate in the game play adventure rather than sitting back and playing the game in a static environment. It is a great way to get teens off their seats and active. These games are also fun for adults and will have the same effects when it comes to activity. Whoever thought we'd be actually encouraging game play for exercise?