Are you not satisfied with your look because you are overweight? Obesity and overweight have always been associated with human appearance and physical beauty. Most of the time overweight people are considered unattractive and in worst cases they turn into laughing-stock in the society. There are many occasions in the life of an obese person when he is ashamed of his own physical appearance and suffers from inferiority complex. At times he does not even have a social life. But the curse of obesity does not end with the deformation of a body. Obesity or being overweight is not just a matter of physical beauty; it has the power to have a menacing affect on your health that may be life-threatening.

Yes, this is true! Obesity has the power to succumb your health condition. You will be horrified if I tell you that according to CDC researchers, an estimated 300,000 American deaths per year are related to obesity. Obesity experts say that the patients with morbid obesity which is of BMI 40+ or malignant obesity of BMI 50+ remain at a high risk of premature death.

Let me tell you about the diseases which come along with obesity;

· Stroke and Heart Disease

· Diabetes Type 2 or noninsulin-dependant diabetes mellitus

· Cancer of Colon, Rectum, Prostrate, uterus, gallbladder, cervix, ovary and breast

· Osteoarthritis

· Gout

· Gallbladder Diseases

· Sleep Apnoea

Obese or overweight people are more likely to suffer from the above mentioned diseases twice as compared to people of normal weight. Moreover there are certain other diseases that are very closely related to obesity; i.e. deep vein thrombosis, breathing problems, chronic venous insufficiency, fatty liver disease and health risk of expectant mother and baby etc.

There are certain symptoms that signify greater risk hence it is important for every obese person to have knowledge about the same. In case of central or abdominal obesity there is a higher risk of weight-related physical problems. Abdominal obesity is a warning sign of cardiovascular disease and insulin resistance syndrome.

Again, women with waist circumference of about 35+ inches and men with waist measurement of 40+ inches are endangered with more susceptibility towards diseases. You can also check your waist-hip ratio in which a woman with a waist-to-hip ratio of more than 0.8 or a man with waist-to-hip ratios of more than 1.0 are considered “apples”. This is a condition of bigger health risk owing to their body fat distribution.

But there is always light at the end of the tunnel. You can reduce the chances of developing heart disease or a stroke by losing just a small amount of weight. A 10 percent reduction will be enough to improve your heart function, blood pressure, and levels of blood cholesterol and triglycerides. Many researchers have proved that you can develop your health condition just by losing as little as 10 to 20 pounds. Is not it an easy answer to your obesity induced health problems?

Check your BMI and tighten your belt. It is your time to shed a few kilos, if not for beauty, may be you will do it at least for the sake of your health. Get set go!!

Cellphone usage worldwide numbers in the billions. If there is a possibility of injury from these devices, then a lot of people will be affected.

A cellphone is actually a radio transmitter and receiver. It sends and recieves radio frequency electromagnetic waves. The received signals are fairly low level, so I will concentrate on the signal transmitted from the cellphone.

Cellphones transmit mainly at frequencies of 900, 1800 and 1900 Megahertz (MHz). A microwave oven cooks food using a frequency of 915 MHz or 2450 MHz. In other words, the food is not fussy about what frequency you use, as long as it’s in that range, say 900 to 2500 MHz. Which means, cellphones use Microwave Oven frequencies.

A microwave oven puts out a power of about 1000 watts, on average. If you put your head in a microwave oven, it will take about an hour to cook to a nice sizzling crisp.

A cellphone transmits at a power of about 3 watts, and it self adjusts it’s power continually to compensate for poor signal paths, up to a maximum of 5 to 7 watts. Not much, but there’s a twist…

A microwave oven spreads it’s radiation over the whole oven cavity, so that the food is cooked uniformly.

A cellphone has a tiny, array antenna, measuring maybe 2 or 3 cm in length, and it’s right next to your ear. So 5 watts of power is radiating into your head into an area of perhaps 3cm by 0.75cm. That’s a lot of power when concentrated in such a small area.

The cellphone manufacturers have said that they have put “shields” into their phones to keep radiation risks to a minimum.

If you turn around while making a call, does the call cut out or the audio disappear at any time? No, it doesn’t. Radio waves, like light waves, travel in a straight line. If your head got in between the cellphone and the cell transmitter tower, then the signal should be blocked (shielded) by the shield in the phone, as the waves can’t bend once they’ve left the phone.

Which means that those microwaves are going through your head, all the time.
Whenever you’re “on the phone,” you are being microwaved just like the roast in your microwave oven.

So What Can You Do?

If you’ve got a handsfree kit, use it if it’s practical. Don’t use bluetooth – it also transmits radiowaves close to your head, albeit at different frequencies.

If your phone has a loudspeaker, switch it on and speak at a distance. The guy on the other side will still hear you perfectly.

Buy phones with a low Specific Absorption Rate (SAR)

Don’t let children make long calls. Their soft skuls are much more affected than the hard heads of adults. (See “The Stewart Report.”)

Swop ears every minute or so, to give your head time to “cool down” on that side.

Don’t hold the phone next to your ear while connecting – this is when it transmits at maximum power.

Avoid making calls in weak reception areas, as the cellphone will boost it’s output power to make sure it stays connected.

Keep your conversations short.

Use SMS’s whenever possible.

Avoid sleeping with a cellphone under your pillow. Cellphones transmit even when you are not using them, exchanging data and checking signal strength, at regular intervals.

Avoid carrying the cellphone close to your body. This applies especially to the breast pocket of people with heart problems.

Use a landline whenever possible.

Many people have proven health problems from cellphone usage, brain tumors being the most common, followed by loss of memory, impaired brain function and other symptons. Usually these symptons take a few years to surface.

By taking the simple precautions listed above, we can actually save our lives. Tell your friends too. There’s a lot of people out there that need to know these facts.

You can thank me later!

For the past decade, people have focused on the importance of clean drinking water. Purified drinking water reduces or eliminates chemicals found in normal tap water. However,the body derives its need for water from alternative sources, most notably while showering.

It is common practice in North America to shower on a daily basis, sometimes more than once. Unfortunately, most people are unaware that more chlorine is absorbed through the skin during the average shower than by drinking six to eight glasses of tap water. This may make one wonder,how clean is shower water?

Are you a fan of hot showers?

Since the skin is porous, it is the body’s way of excreting toxins and regulating temperature, hot showers cause the pores of the skin to dilate, allowing chlorine and other free radicals to be rapidly absorbed. Chlorine is also contained within the water vapor that enters the air as steam, and which we breathe into our lungs as we shower. Dr. Halina Brown, a professor of water chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, claims that the exposure to vaporized chemicals in water supplied through showering,bathing and inhalation is 100 times greater than through drinking the water.

Furthermore, chlorine and other water contaminants reduce the effectiveness of many shampoos, conditioners, lotions, oils and skin creams, leaving your skin dry and unnourished.

Any contact the body has with water is cause for concern. Swimming pools and hot tubs use chlorine to kill bacteria. Little thought is given to the effect on the human body. Chlorine is a highly toxic element, which has the ability to denature protein. All living organisms are made up of protein; thus any living organism that comes in contact with sufficient quantities of chlorine is killed. After swimming or showering you may notice that you have sore eyes, sinus blockage, respiratory problems (such as asthma), cracking skin (hands and feet), or dry hair and an itchy scalp. You may also feel tired and your skin might smell of chlorine for hours afterwards, even after showering.

What is your health worth?

The May 2003 issue of Elle Magazine, featured a showerhead that has a carbon filter that removes chlorine as well as other toxic substances in our water like lead, iron oxides and other sediments that leave dulling deposits on the hair. If the showerhead removes the minerals that cause this dulling effect, one might notice an increase in shine and hydration. This is something you may want to consider when comparing showerheads and filters.

Here’s to your health.

Peter McGarry

Are you aware of the health risk of soy?

Do you honestly believe soy is a health food? After studying this document and performing some research on your own you will probably change your mind. Soy is literally an anti-nutrient. It may contain heavy metals such as aluminum and can do harm to your hormonal balance.

Soy may slow or accelerate Sexual Maturation, – Cause Damage to Newborns. – Soy contains Potent Enzyme Inhibitors. – May Promote Blood Clots.- Most Soy is Genetically Modified – .Feeding Soy to Children may be considered Child Abuse.- May widely contain: Nitrates, Isoflavones, Phytic-Acid (anti-nutrient). – Contribute to Breast Cancer. -Affect Brain Functions. – Weaken the Immune System. – Cause Kidney Stones. – Reduce Male Fertility. – Attribute to Malnutrition

Two glasses of soy milk a day can change women’s menstrual cycle by mimicking female hormones.

Soy can block the intake of minerals such as magnesium, calcium, iron and zinc. This is due to it’s phytic acid content. There seems to be a relationship between consuming soy and brain aging! Does that sound healthy to you? Well then what about killing testicular cells? You may see now how soy may unnecessarily cause many health problems including Alzheimer’s and affect brain functions. Soy is not the “perfect food” you were led to believe. Actually it is more of a health risk causing many health related problems.

Most soybeans are grown on farms using toxic pesticides adding insult to injury. The only soy products that should be consumed is organic fermented soy. Even then don’t over do it.

Israel has issued a health warning that soy should be eaten in moderation and soy formula avoided altogether. Soy users may be deficient in B12 and Vitamin-D. Also Soy may contain MSG from processing. MSG is very bad for you and is another entire article in itself.

Soy is in many foods that we aren’t aware of including many vegetarian products.

Seems to me that soy’s many negative aspects outweighs any helpful ones. It’s a disgrace that soy have been marketed as such a super health food just to serve someone’s financial benefits with no care about the results to our population’s health.

Remember that soy is in many products particularly in health food stores, so read the labels. Many animals that people eat are fed soy and grains that make these products unhealthy too. I often shop at our neighboring health food store and always read the labels before I purchase.

You have to be diligent. Read the labels. Stay informed by doing research and making smart decisions.

I strongly advise you to consider the health risk of soy and to investigate it further and make a forthcoming decision on your own. It is my responsibility to inform you about these matters so that you may choose.

You can search for “soy’s health risk” on Google or other search engines to find many studies on soy. Visit Mercola.com and search for soy on his site also.

Wishing you the best of health now and into the years to come.

People around the world are dying because they carry around excess fat. That excess fat causes many problems which lead to their deaths. What does this have to do with abs. Excess ab fat is one of the most lethal fats in the body.

We all know that ab fat is not the most attractive thing in the world. Thousands of books, magazines, articles, infomercials, and more focus on the reduction of ab fat to form a hot sexy mid-section. What they don’t focus on is the health risk of carrying around a lot of abdominal fat.

Your abdominal area is made up of two types of fat. The health risk of one of those fats is very high.

Eighty percent of the fat in your bodies lies just beneath the skin. It is also known as subcutaneous fat. This fat is above the abdominal muscles and must be reduced to see your abs.

Visceral fat is the other type of fat in the area of the abs. This fat is deep inside packed in between the internal organs. The average non active person piles on four pounds of this dangerous fat per year. Women may experience this type of fat in the hips and buttocks. Also known as the apple or pear shape. Men usually see the effects of this fat as a pot or beer belly. Instead of being flabby this fat often feels hard when you push on it.

Science has shown that visceral fat is much worse than subcutaneous fat. Although both are a health and cosmetic issue.

You will greatly reduce your risk of many diseases such as cancer, diabetes, asthma, alzheimer’s and many more by lowering your visceral fat. You see your bodies immune system is powered by inflammatory messengers. Visceral fat releases too many and sends your immune system into dangerous overdrive. This overdrive attacks healthy tissue and slowly destroys your body.

If all your looking to do is reduce your ab fat and create a tight toned midsection so you look fantastic then that’s great. However, now that you know the health risk involved you can use that as motivation to stay focused and succeed. You will not only look great on the outside, but your inside will be looking great too.

Now that you know how dangerous ab fat is to your body, what’s the solution? Most of the things you have tried or seen others try simply don’t work. The first thing you need to realize is there is no magic bullet. No simple trick that will transform your abs over night. However, if you learn some sound principles there is an effective way to get results.

You know you want to develop incredible abs. However, you can’t do what everybody else is doing. Most of the people you see doing thousands of sit-ups and hours of cardio fail to ever develop abs of steel. Then there are the people you know who have started and given up. Why do people fail to follow through with their goals of healthy abs? Why don’t people follow proven workout and nutritional plans?

It is no longer about whether you want to rip off your shirt and have others drool over your abs. I want that to happen for you, but as you have seen there are serious health issues involved as well. So stay focused and never give up. Your body will thank you for it.

Workplaces can be dangerous environments. Even an innocuous office space can be home to hundreds of potential hazards, anything from trailing computer leads, unsupportive chairs and glare from VDUs can cause a work accident. According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) there are hundreds of thousands of work accidents in the UK every year, with 35 million working days lost due to an injury sustained in the workplace. 28 million of those were due to work related illness and 7 million were due to workplace injury.

Employers are legally required to carry out a risk assessment in their workplace. It is not difficult to carry out a simple risk assessment and it can save money through avoiding the likelihood of personal injury claims and more importantly the suffering caused by a work accident.

The main consideration for an employer is whether a risk is a significant hazard. Most risks will be obvious and precautions already addressed. For example most office employers supply a suitable chair and proper facilities such as lighting, good ventilation and a comfortable environment. It is important however, that employers check and adhere to the provisions of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (Management Regulations). The regulations indicate the need to identify all hazards that are likely to cause a work accident and that could cause personal injury to anyone in the work environment including members of the public.

Under the provisions of the regulations employers are required to do a thorough assessment of all areas that they feel could potentially prove hazardous. There are also more specific areas that need to be addressed, such as manual handling.

If staff are required to lift objects as part of their role then they will need to be properly trained on how to lift safely to minimise the risk of injury. They will also need to follow guidelines under the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 which state that:

Avoid hazardous manual handling operations so far as is reasonably practicable, for example by redesigning the task to avoid moving the load or by automating or mechanising the process

Make a suitable and sufficient assessment of any hazardous manual handling operations that cannot be avoided

Reduce the risk of injury from those operations so far as is reasonably practicable. Where possible, you should provide mechanical assistance, for example a sack trolley or hoist. Where this is not reasonably practicable, look at ways of changing the task, the load and working environment

There are many other regulations that need to be followed such as noise regulations in environments such as airports, for manual workers using drilling equipment and nightclub workers. The risk assessment in this situation should be carried out before work begins in order to minimise the risk of a work accident such as tinnitus or a more serious personal injury.

If you have sustained a work related injury and are suffering as a result then you may be entitled to claim personal injury compensation. If your employer has failed to carry out adequate work place risk assessments then they have failed in their duty of care to you and you are entitled to seek legal advice about your personal situation.

For advice regarding making a work accident claim or to learn more about personal injury visit www.the-claim-solicitors.co.uk, or alternatively you can call them on 0800 197 32 32 for free legal advice.

To manage Hazardous Substances a requirement is to conduct Risk Assessments for each of the hazardous substances. The process required to ensure that all risks identified with using a substance is controlled under the Queensland Workplace Health and Safety Regulations is described below. The requirements for other legislation will be quite similar.

When is it a requirement to conduct a risk assessment?

Legislation requires that Hazardous Substances risk assessments are required at the following times:

• As soon as practicable after it is used;
• Within five years after the last assessment;
• When a work practice involving the substance is significantly changed;
• New information about the substance’s hazards is available;
• Health surveillance or monitoring shows control measures need to be reviewed; and
• New or improved control measures are implemented.

Are you asking why you have to complete a risk assessment at all of these times? Let’s have a look at the benefits:

• You will know before using the substance the risks to you employees, therefore, allowing you to put controls in place to reduce the risks.
• Reviewing the assessment every five years allows you to identify if anything has changed, therefore, altering your risk significance. Including, if there is a less hazardous substance that could be used.
• Changes in work practices may impact other areas of risk in conjunction with the use of the substance, for example: changing from fine powder to pelletised form.
• If the manufacturer changes the substance, this may affect your practices or employees differently.
• Health Surveillance and monitoring are tools used to measure your controls. If there is a significant change in the results this is your first indication that your controls are not performing as you had anticipated.
• Regularly employees, suppliers, manufacturers or even visitors will identify new or improved control measures. A risk assessment is required to ensure that no further risk will be introduced.

What needs to be included in the risk assessment? The legislation requires that the following are included in the risk assessment:

• Identification of the hazardous substance;
• If the substance’s MSDS is available; a review of the MSDS;
• If the substance’s MSDS is not available; a review of available equivalent information;
• If the substance is contained in a consumer package; a review of the package’s label;
• A decision whether any workers may be exposed to the substance; and
• A decision about the control measures, health surveillance and monitoring needed for the substance.

MSDS’s and consumer packaging is an invaluable source of information when conducting your risk assessments, they will contain a substantial amount of the information required, for example: Substance Product Name; Chemical and Physical properties; Health Hazards and Safe Use. Generic assessments may be prepared for the workplace where the substance is used in the same or similar circumstances. For example: An assessment prepared by an industry body or trade association about the use of brake fluid at service stations.Controlling the Risks Identified: Now that the identification of the risks, monitoring / surveillance requirements and control measures have been identified – YOU need to ensure that they are implemented. The effectiveness of your controls can be measured by monitoring / surveillance data; incident / accident trending; training and the review of your risk assessment. What records are required to be maintained? Legislation requires that the following records are maintained for each risk assessment:

• The date the assessment was conducted;
• The substance’s product name or other information;
• Whether the degree of risk is assessed to be significant;
• The control measures for the use of the substance that were in place when the assessment was done; and
• The type of monitoring that is needed and the intervals at which the health surveillance must be done.

Conducting risk assessments for hazardous substances is not difficult and is not a chore. Completing this risk assessments and complementing processes will protect the health of yourself, your friends, your employees and your family.