Cancer: Detecting The Earliest Signs

Yesterday, the Lakeshore Cancer Center In Nigeria addressed the media on the prevelence on cancer in the country. One of the conclusions drawn from the event is the fact that cancer prevention is the best option in trying to tackle the scourge. But how does one detect cancer in its earliest form? is key in tackling the scourge.

 In its early stages, cancer may have no symptoms, but eventually a malignant tumor will grow large enough to be detected.

As it continues to grow, it may press on nerves and produce pain, penetrate blood vessels and cause bleeding, or interfere with the function of a body organ or system.

Look for these early signs of cancer:

• Changes in bowel or bladder habits
• Sore that doesn't heal
• Unusual bleeding or discharge
• Lumps or thickened areas in the breast, testicles, or elsewhere
• Indigestion or difficulty swallowing
• Change in the size, color, shape, or thickness of a wart, mole, or mouth sore
• Cough or hoarseness that doesn't go away

The following symptoms may also signal some types of cancer:

• Persistent headaches
• Unexplained loss of weight or loss of appetite
• Chronic pain in bones or any other areas of the body
• Persistent fatigue, nausea, or vomiting
• Persistent low-grade fever, either constant or intermittent
• Repeated infection

Make an appointment with a health provider if your symptoms:

• Are on the list of signs of cancer
• Aren't related to another cause
• Last for more than two weeks

If you do have cancer, the sooner you get a diagnosis -- and start treatment -- the more your chances for recovery improve.

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The Cure For Insomnia

Yesterday, we dealt with the relationship between sleep and obesity. Today we are looking at that issue which has now been proven (going by research findings) to be faced by 30percent of adults - insomnia or lack of sleep. Do you struggle to get to sleep no matter how tired you are? Or do you wake up in the middle of the night and lie awake for hours, anxiously watching the clock? Insomnia is a common problem that takes a toll on your energy, mood, health, and ability to function during the day. Chronic insomnia can even contribute to serious health problems. Simple changes to your lifestyle and daily habits can put a stop to sleepless nights—without relying on medication.

Insomnia is the inability to get the amount of sleep you need to wake up feeling rested and refreshed. Because different people need different amounts of sleep, insomnia is defined by how you feel after sleeping—not the number of hours you sleep or how quickly you doze off. Even if you’re spending eight hours a night in bed, if you feel drowsy and fatigued during the day, you may be experiencing insomnia.

Insomnia symptoms can include:

• Difficulty falling asleep despite being tired
• Trouble getting back to sleep when waking up in the night
• Waking up too early in the morning
• Relying on sleeping pills or alcohol to fall asleep
• Not feeling refreshed after sleep
• Daytime drowsiness, fatigue, or irritability
• Difficulty concentrating during the day

In order to properly resolve your insomnia, you need to become a sleep detective. Emotional issues such as stress, anxiety, and depression cause about half of all insomnia cases. But your daytime habits, bedtime routine, and physical health can also play a major role.
It’s important to identify all possible causes of your insomnia. Try using a sleep diary to record daily details about your daytime habits, sleep routine, and insomnia symptoms. For example, you can keep track of when you go to sleep and when you wake up, what you eat and drink, the medications you take, and any stressful events that occur during the day. Once you figure out the root cause of your insomnia, you’ll be able to tailor treatment accordingly.


Often, changing daytime habits and bedtime routines that contribute to sleeplessness is enough to overcome insomnia altogether.

Some habits are so ingrained that you may overlook them as a possible contributor to your insomnia. Maybe your daily Starbucks habit affects your sleep more than you realize. Or maybe you’ve never made the connection between your late-night TV viewing or Internet surfing and your sleep difficulties. Keeping a sleep diary is a helpful way to pinpoint habits and behaviors contributing to your insomnia.
All you have to do is jot down daily details about your daytime habits, sleep routine, and insomnia symptoms. For example, you can keep track of when you go to sleep and when you wake up, where you fall asleep, what you eat and drink, and any stressful events that occur during the day.

• Exercise. Nothing aids sleep at night like a good workout during the day. You don’t have to join a gym or spend hours on a treadmill to reap the benefits, though. Try taking a dance or yoga class with a friend, playing activity-based video games with your kids, watching your favorite TV show while on a stationary bike, or enjoying outdoor activities such as golf, playing Frisbee, or even yard work. Aim for 30 minutes or more of activity on most days—or three 10-minute sessions if that’s more convenient—but not too close to bedtime.
• Avoid naps. Napping during the day can make it more difficult to sleep at night. If you feel like you have to take a nap, limit it to 30 minutes before 3 p.m.
• Limit caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine. Stop drinking caffeinated beverages at least eight hours before bed. While alcohol can make you feel sleepy, it interferes with the quality of your sleep, and nicotine is a stimulant.
• Avoid late meals. Try to avoid heavy, rich foods within two hours of bed. Fatty foods can take a lot of work for your stomach to digest and spicy or acidic foods can cause heartburn.
• Stick to a regular sleep schedule. Support your biological clock by going to bed and getting up at the same time every day, including weekends, even if you’re tired.

 With material from Lawrence Robinson, Melinda Smith, M.A., and Robert Segal, M.A.

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Sleep And Obesity: Which Controls The Other?

Does sleeping too much lead to obesity or does obesity lead to sleeping too much? According to Sleepdex, researchers on better sleep, sleeping too little is correlated with obesity and non-obesity extra "love handle" weight. Does sleep debt make you fat or does extra weight make it hard to sleep?  Both.  Like most things involving sleep, the interactions are complex and the causal relationship runs both ways.

Higher BMI (Body Mass Index) is correlated with shorter sleep time.  It is also correlated with later sleep than normal (going to bed late and getting up late.)  Not enough sleep results in a tendency to gain weight.  This isn’t true for everybody (some people actually lose weight when they don’t sleep enough), but over the population as a whole it has repeatedly been shown that less sleep results in added fat.

Sleep debt increases the appetite, and particularly increases the desire for high-calorie, carbohydrate-rich foods.  Functional MRI scans show higher activation in an area of the brain involved with appetite.  This is one obvious reason for weight gain, although the deeper picture is more complex.  In some situations, researchers have found sleep restricted subjects did not have an increased appetite, but they still gained weight.

Although even one night of short sleep can result in a desire to eat more, the second night of a very short sleep left participants in a controlled study reaching for cookies and cake and eschewing fruit and vegetables.

Why the connection between sleep duration and excessive weight? When you are tired from insufficient sleep, you might fidget less and burn fewer calories, but a more likely explanation is the effect of sleep deprivation on hormones.

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Hot Or Cold Bath: Which Should You Have?

Bathing is an essential part of a healthy routine, but depending on the temperature, your time spent under the water can offer different benefits. Whether you like it hot or prefer it cold, learn how your bathing routine can affect your health. After reading, you might rethink your choice - whether cold or hot.



Hot bath can relieve tension and soothe stiff muscles. If you have a powerful showerhead, even better! Let the hot water work like a minimassage on your shoulders, neck, and back.


Studies have shown that taking a hot bath can increase tour oxytoxin level and ease anxiety. Anyone working with stress can use more of the love hormone in their life.

A hot shower also acts as a natural decongestant to relieve cold symptoms, since the hot steam moisturizes nasal passages.

Under the weather and running a slight fever? A hot shower might be what you need to help break your fever and bring your temperature back to normal.

On the other hand, cold baths also have their health benefits. Cold showers — as unbearable as they are — are actually really good for our body. Turning your shower cold for the last five minutes can help "shock" your body awake. This instant change in temperature relieves your body of fatigue and increases your mental alertness.

A "cooler" shower (around 68 degrees) for two to three minutes once or twice daily is recommended by researchers as a treatment for depression. Just make sure you check in with your doctor before testing this out.

On the more vain side of the spectrum, cold showers are better for our hair and skin. Where a hot shower can dry things out, cold showers hydrate and help with split ends and dry skin.

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Herbal Remedy For Female Infertility

Many women desire the fruit of the womb but cannot conceive due to infertility issues. Infertility is a rising problem in today’s society. Huge amount of money is spent globally on infertility issues, especially by couples who are not able to have a child because of issues relating to fertility. The saddest part is that in many cases, the body can reverse infertility naturally if given the correct resources, most times in form of herbal or natural remedies.

Very few health related problems cause more pain and anxiety as wanting to have a child and not being able to.

Infertility is often a complex problem with a simple solution. There are so many confounding factors that can cause or contribute to infertility, which is why conventional or orthodox treatment is rarely as effective… it simply can’t address all the possible causes. Fertility drugs and artificial hormones of any kind, including birth control, can make underlying problems even worse and make future fertility more difficult (this is sad, because hormonal birth control is often prescribed for various hormonal imbalances and problems).

What Causes Infertility?

Infertility can be caused by a huge number of factors: hormone imbalance, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, Endometriosis, Anovulatory Cycles, physical blockage, inadequate hormone production, short luteal phase, lack of lutenizing hormone, high levels or prolactin,  and many others.

Poor nutrition often plays a major role, as does exposure to toxins. Age plays less of a role before menopause than was originally thought.

Herbal Remedy For Female Infertility

While diet and lifestyle alone sometimes reverse infertility, some women notice better or faster results with the aid of herbal medicine and herbs.

In Nigeria, there are many expert NAFDAC approved herbal therapist who have formulated herbal remedies for the cure of female infertility which have resulted in many resounding success stories. 

You can contact any of the over 90 NAFDAC approved herbal therapists in our consultancy list who are expert in that field of natural medicine, by calling +2347031040178.

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More People Will Die Of Smoking Unless... - World Heart Federation

The World Heart Federation has come down strongly on both active and passive smokers. A report released by the Federation reveals significant gaps in public awareness regarding the cardiovascular risks of tobacco use and secondhand smoke. The report, entitled “Cardiovascular harms from tobacco use and secondhand smoke”, was commissioned by the World Heart Federation and written by the International Tobacco Control Project (ITC Project), in collaboration with the Tobacco Free Initiative at the World Health Organization.

Professor Geoffrey T. Fong at the University of Waterloo, Canada, and Chief Principal Investigator of the ITC Project, commented, “This report shows a broad correlation between poor knowledge of the risks of tobacco use and high levels of smoking prevalence. To break this link and reduce the deadly toll of tobacco, more needs to be done to increase awareness of the specific health harms. Our research shows that the risks of tobacco use to lung health are very widely accepted. But we need to attain the same level of knowledge and awareness that tobacco use and secondhand smoke can cause heart disease, stroke, and peripheral vascular disease. Health warning labels are known to be an effective method for educating the public on the health harms of tobacco products. A number of countries have introduced warnings about the increased risk of heart disease or heart attack, but no country has yet implemented a label to warn people that secondhand smoke causes heart disease. Increasing knowledge of these specific health risks will help encourage smokers to quit and help non-smokers protect themselves, so raising awareness is an important step in reducing people’s exposure to tobacco smoke.”

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the world’s leading cause of death, killing 17.3 million people every year. Eighty per cent of these deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, which are increasingly being targeted by the tobacco industry. Tobacco use and secondhand smoke exposure causes about one-tenth of global deaths from CVD. Even smoking a few cigarettes a day significantly increases the risk of heart disease. Smokeless tobacco products have also been linked to an increased risk of heart disease and stroke. Secondhand smoke exposure increases the risk of heart disease by 25–30 per cent and more than 87 per cent of worldwide adult deaths caused by secondhand smoke are attributable to CVD.

Johanna Ralston, CEO of World Heart Federation, commented: “If people don’t know about the cardiovascular effects of tobacco use and secondhand smoke exposure, they cannot understand how much or how quickly smokers are endangering not only their own lives, but those of family members, friends, co-workers or other non-smokers who breathe tobacco smoke. In countries like India or China, so many people are at high risk for heart attack or stroke, and it strikes at a relatively early age: risks of CVD are far more present and immediate than most of the better-known fatal effects of tobacco use and secondhand smoke exposure. Knowing about cardiovascular risks of tobacco will help smokers take quitting seriously, and encourage people to demand and comply with policies that protect everyone from the harms of tobacco. The World Heart Federation calls on governments around the world to a make these policies an immediate priority, as they committed to do last year through the Political Declaration of the United Nations’ High-level Meeting on the Prevention and Control of Non-communicable Diseases.”
 
Dr. Douglas Bettcher, Director of the World Health Organization’s Tobacco Free Initiative, noted that, “This report provides conclusive proof that the level of information people have about the cardiovascular harms of tobacco use and secondhand smoke is still insufficient and therefore mass media campaigns and warnings are urgently needed to make people aware of these lethal harms. In fact, to avoid the enormous toll of needless deaths caused by tobacco use, a special UN high level meeting on non-communicable diseases recently called upon Parties of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) to accelerate implementation of this Convention, recognizing the full range of measures, including measures to reduce tobacco consumption and availability. I hope that this report will boost the sense of urgency that world leaders and the public health community are trying to instill into the implementation of the WHO FCTC.  This will mean the difference between death and life for almost six million people each year.”

The report, which presents data from two major global tobacco research and surveillance studies - the Global Tobacco Surveillance System (GTSS) and the ITC Project - recommends three steps to reduce the current and future cases of CVD due to tobacco use - which may total over 100 million people - among the one billion people throughout the world who smoke today, and of their families exposed to secondhand smoke:
1.    Support tobacco control policies outlined in the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), including those that:

a.    Increase the price of tobacco products
b.    Eliminate tobacco promotion and marketing
c.    Implement 100 per cent smokefree laws in workplaces and public places – which is proven to significantly lower hospital admissions for heart attacks
d.    Make the necessary step-change in public awareness through committing to population-level strategies, such as large graphic warnings on tobacco product packaging and mass media public education campaigns – including warnings and messages about the risk of smoking and secondhand smoke to cardiovascular health
e.    Introduce plain packaging to discourage youth from starting smoking

2.    Increase training in cessation advice and support among health professionals

3.    Implement programmes and protocols to ensure cessation advice, support and aids are provided systematically.

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