Five years ago my friend Mona was just about the happiest person you ever met; she had a dream marriage, and her first baby was on its way. Right after her baby was born, and she was wheeled to the . . . → Read More: Colon cancer treatment]]> Why does it have to be so Difficult finding the Right Colon Cancer Treatments?

Five years ago my friend Mona was just about the happiest person you ever met; she had a dream marriage, and her first baby was on its way. Right after her baby was born, and she was wheeled to the gynecologist’s clinic for a routine postnatal checkup, they found that the difficulty she had had with labor and the stabs of pain she had felt, were not normal as they had thought they were.

After a battery of tests, they came out with a pronouncement that shook all of our lives – she had colon cancer. She reacted to this much better than any of the rest of us did. She had an inspirational faith in God and felt that the very fact that she had just been given a child meant that she was marked to live, not death. With this truly uplifting faith, she took in doctor after doctor, asking about all the colon cancer treatments that were available. To begin with, they didn’t think she would make it through the year – her cancer had spread to her liver; one doctor said that he could try chemotherapy to perhaps extend her life by another year. Another doctor said that surgery would probably give her a few years more months.

As she struggled with the system, trying to find the best way to learn of the colon cancer treatments that would work, she came upon a stubborn fact about surviving cancer – as many world leading experts as there are in this country, each one a true experimen in his specialty, there is no one place you can go to that will give you all the information you need.  If you have a surgeon who specializes in cancer-related surgery, he’ll know everything there is about surgery, but he won’t really know much about oncology. There are some people who feel that cancer is a kind of overhyped disease. They feel that the magazines and movies are far too cancer-aware, and neglect other equally important diseases. But the facts speak for themselves – more than half a million people will die this year from cancer in America.

That’s the second worst killer disease there is out there, next only to heart disease. All the attention has really contributed in a meaningful way though – every year for the last 15 years, fewer and fewer people have died of cancer.

The Institute of Medicine, a government body, admits that the quality of care you will receive at various hospitals around the country is shockingly uneven. Some hospitals will give you the best care in the world with the greatest colon cancer treatments ever invented. Some will give you treatment that is on par with Third World hospital care. So now, the National Quality Forum is trying something new – for the breast and colon cancer treatments that you seek, there will be quality standards established that can help you tell which hospital is best.

The most basic colon cancer treatments and tests are skipped sometimes at hospitals. For instance, if it is suspected that you have colon cancer that has spread to the lymph nodes, doctors absolutely have to offer you the option of chemotherapy. The standards will fail a hospital that neglects to offer this course of treatment.

My friend’s healthcare plan didn’t allow for aggressive treatment – it only allowed palliative treatment, which meant that they paid for colon cancer treatments like chemotherapy that would help with her pain, but they wouldn’t pay to try to cure her. She quit her healthcare provider and switched to another she got with a new job she got. She went to the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. The doctor there was an expert who had about two dozen colon cancer treatment options for her, to go with one after the other. She didn’t find the doctor easily; she went from one doctor to the other for about two months, and this final hospital was perhaps her eighth.

There are times when doctors don’t offer colon cancer treatment options even when they know of them. There are all kinds of reasons why. Sometimes, it is because they feel that the patient doesn’t have the right kind of insurance or the right kind of money. Sometimes, the race of the patient somehow comes into play. Black and Hispanic patients are not offered the kind of treatments white patients are. In the end, my friend got surgery done. She is still alive today, and it all goes to her tenacious search for the right doctor.

There are many diseases that are mysteries to us. Whether it’s the common cold, or influenza, or breast or testicular cancer, even the most common of diseases can flummox the medical establishment. Yes, we know how to treat some symptoms or remove some tumors, but we don’t . . . → Read More: Cause of lung cancer]]> Smoking, the leading cause of lung cancer.

There are many diseases that are mysteries to us. Whether it’s the common cold, or influenza, or breast or testicular cancer, even the most common of diseases can flummox the medical establishment. Yes, we know how to treat some symptoms or remove some tumors, but we don’t know how the disease starts in the first place. And that’s an issue because preventative medicine is the best medicine – as your mom used to say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

There’s no such mystery when it comes to sussing out the cause of lung cancer, however. Everyone from the youngest child to the elderly know that the number one cause of lung cancer is smoking. It’s simply the worst thing you can do for your body on a number of levels, and there’s no more obvious way than when seeing smoking as the leading cause of lung cancer.
And it’s important to understand that the cause of lung cancer in most Americans is smoking, and lung cancer causes more deaths in the united states than any other cancer. For both men and women.

In 2007 alone, more than one hundred sixty thousand people were projected to die in the United STates of lung cancer. To put it into context, that’s more than breast cancer, colorectal cancer and prostate cancer combined.
And lung cancer is very deadly. If you’ve had it identified only after it’s spread to other parts of your body, then your chances of surviving at least five years are just two percent. If you’re diagnosed earlier, your chances of survival raise almost to fifty percent.
Compare that with testicular cancer, where even after it’s metasticized your survival rate is close to eighty five percent. If you’ve identified your testicular cancer before metasticization, the survival rate is nearly one hundred percent.
So there’s really no reason at all to continue smoking. Take it from me, a former smoker – I used to smoke a pack a day through high school, college and through to my mid-twenties. It was only after I really educated myself on the primary cause of lung cancer that I found the strength enough to quit. And now I’m working on six and a half years without buying a pack of smokes.

So do yourself a favor and quit smoking now, before it’s too late. And that’s the thing to remember: It’s never too late to quit smoking. Even if you have terminal lung cancer, your chances of surviving longer are increased if you quit smoking.

In our health conscious society, everyone is working out. There are a multitude of programs designed to give you maximum results. However, nothing beats good old fashioned aerobic exercise to shed calories, pounds and inhibition. Aerobic exercise is fun, and healthy for you in a variety of ways. In . . . → Read More: Aerobic Exercise]]> Learning to Love Aerobic Exercise.

In our health conscious society, everyone is working out. There are a multitude of programs designed to give you maximum results. However, nothing beats good old fashioned aerobic exercise to shed calories, pounds and inhibition. Aerobic exercise is fun, and healthy for you in a variety of ways. In addition, the wide variety of aerobic exercises available make it interesting and fun.

Aerobic exercise benefits your body and mind in a couple of ways. Initially, it will raise your heart rate. This jumps your metabolism, and can help you burn calories at an accelerated rate. Moreover, it helps to build lean muscle, especially in your legs. Certain types of aerobic exercise can also tone your core, if it requires balance. Finally, aerobic exercise is fantastic for clearing your mind. It allows you to focus and unwind all at once, relieving stress by producing endorphins, which gives you a mild feeling of euphoria.

How should one introduce aerobic exercise into their routine? The answer is slowly. Starting an intensive aerobic routine suddenly will cause major muscle pain, and exhaust you. If you are not an active person, start by introducing aerobic background activity into your daily routine. This can be as simple as taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or parking at the back of the parking lot. Once you can complete these tasks without being winded, start by walking on a daily basis for twenty or thirty minutes at a brisk pace.

There are other ways of practicing aerobic exercise that don’t involve walking or running, though. Riding your bike, dancing, swimming and playing certain sports also qualify. Have fun, and use variety to keep your exercise from becoming dull. If you have a gym membership, take advantage of the variety of aerobic machines you can exercise on. Aside from a treadmill or stationary bike, there are also elliptical machines, stairmasters, and gazelle machines that will work out your body in different ways while elevating your heart rate and making you sweat.

Aerobic exercise is a tried and true form of physical activity that can get you into shape in a hurry. It helps improve heart health, keeps your mind clear, and keeps you feeling good. You can ease into an aerobic program, and once you’re in the groove of things, there are a wide variety of activities that you can partake in. Want to be healthy? Aerobic exercise is the ticket.

Back in the seventies and eighties it seemed that there were new fad diets coming around nearly every week. First it was the all fruit juice diet, then the no fruit juice diet. Some diets were all about beets and beet juice (yuck) and some diets were . . . → Read More: Safe Weight Loss]]> Safe Weight Loss is The Real Goal.

Back in the seventies and eighties it seemed that there were new fad diets coming around nearly every week. First it was the all fruit juice diet, then the no fruit juice diet. Some diets were all about beets and beet juice (yuck) and some diets were all about eliminating all dairy products.

No fat or low fat diets were very popular for a while until scientists debunked them because most of them had high caloric content which actually made you gain weight. We all of course know about the protein diets that eliminated most of the carbohydrates from the diet like the Atkins diet. One thing is for certain, for real, effective, safe weight loss you first need to understand how the body works and what effect certain foods have on our bodies.

We all know those types of people that are naturally skinny and can eat anything they want without getting fat. There seem to be these people everywhere we look, especially on TV, the movies, or in all the magazines. They seem to be mocking us regular folks with their smug attitudes and easy fit lifestyles while the rest of us have to shop at big and tall stores and hit the gym every day with the false hope of losing an inch or two. Why can some people eat anything they want and some get fat just looking at rich foods? Genetics does have a lot to do with it, but so does the absence of certain neurotransmitters in the brain that tell you when you are full. If you donít have these signals, you will keep on eating even if you should be feeling full.

When you first get a plate of food and you are hungry everything tastes great and your brain tells your body to eat in order to survive. For naturally skinny people when they eat a sufficient amount, the brain sends out signals to make them stop eating. As they feel fuller, the food starts tasting not so good anymore. All of this is a natural system that ensures that we eat just enough to continue to live. For fat people or people who have a propensity to gain weight (and that is a lot of people in the U.S.), the mechanism is broken and somehow the brain refuses to tell them that they are full and should stop eating.

To achieve safe weight loss then one must eat foods that will break the cycle. Certain foods at certain times of the day will trigger our brains to shut down our eating. In the morning it is best to eat protein, and that means egg white omelets with some lean ham and some veggies tossed in. A mid morning snack will keep the metabolism burning and let you have safe weight loss without feeling hungry. Lunch should be a salad without croutons and just a little bit of dressing. Mid afternoon you need another snack such as an apple or a Zone Perfect bar. Dinner needs to be some lean meat and brown rice or one slice of lean whole wheat bread. If you crave a snack in the evening, try some light yogurt. Stop eating sugar of any kind and no fried foods.

Safe weight loss will result if you combine this plan with a consistent exercise routine that includes aerobics and some weight training at least four times a week. Exercise and lots of small, carefully planned meals during the day will result in safe weight loss.

Intellectual disability is not a general term of psychology or psychiatry. Such terms are more specific, with mental disability holding the consensus as the adequate term to designate any general psycho-physical disability. The intellect is itself not recognized . . . → Read More: An intellectual disability]]> An intellectual disability is not a mental disease, but a predisposition not to use the intellect.

Intellectual disability is not a general term of psychology or psychiatry. Such terms are more specific, with mental disability holding the consensus as the adequate term to designate any general psycho-physical disability. The intellect is itself not recognized as a component of the psyche in modern psychology. It is the psyche. The word is often, but not correctly, used in place of the more likely thinking or cognitive disability and associated with a ìlearningî or ìmemoryî disorder. The word does reference the process of thinking or reasoning, but lapses in the intellect are errors in deduction or induction, even judgment. Such errors do not constitute an intellectual disability.

The word intellect or intellectual is most often used to designate that part of man that he experiences as pure subjectivity. In this usage, intellectual disability refers to a sickness of the entire psyche, which would include not only cognition, perception, and emotion, but imagination as well. The intellect in most literature is often synonymous with the term soul and is also found in the place of the word spirit. In fact, many writers use the term to designate a faculty that has the ability to apprehended pure notions or ideas. Kant assigns to the intellect the faculty of insight into pure forms, into pure ideas that are not givens in the world of sense, in nature. Thus, a disabled intellect in this context would mean a person is unable to take an attitude of interest appropriate to apprehended pure formal ideas. This is more precisely a cognitive disability meaning one is unable to apprehend these preexistences, these abstract ìideasî. Very few people are able.

Modern usage of the term intellect assigns a more inclusive meaning to the term, not limiting it to subjective experience only, but extending it to include all ideas that individuals may or have experienced at one time or another. Modern history, for instance, delineates an entire segment of human history as ìintellectual history.  In this view, all ideas, whether in mathematics, science, philosophy, or art, are part of the intellectual heritage of a people, its intellect. Claiming a person has an intellect disability in this context would imply a lack of experience or knowledge in one of any of these areas of intellectual history. We do not say a person is intellectually disabled because they are not conversant with art, sculpture, philosophy, theology or any of the other artifices of the intellect. We would merely say they are intellectually deficient in the given area.

Intellectual disability may be appropriately used, however, when referring to a person who is in fact in a purely vegetative state, rather what we refer to as being brain dead in its strictest medical sense. Describing someone in this condition as having an intellectual disability is more appropriate on the comedy stage when they may be joking of such characters as George W. Bush or Dan Quail.

There is only one place in psychological parlance where one might be said to be disabled intellectually, and this is with reference to intelligence tests, the well known I.Q. Test. A person achieving a low score may be said to have an intellectual disability, but again, this term is extremely general even in this context. Still used to designate such a person, it is now more common to be specific in designating the area of low score, such as being cognitively disabled.

Given that the intellect encompasses the whole mind, and the disability is one of intelligence, the best treatment for such a disability is study, education, and perhaps training in the thinking or reasoning process. This is not a disease, but a deficiency. Study, study, study is the surest cure.

As more and more young people are becoming obese these days, kids eating healthy is more important in this day and age than in any other time in history. There is an obesity epidemic in this country today that one health official called the greatest threat . . . → Read More: Kids Eating Healthy]]> Kids Eating Healthy Has Never Been More Important.

As more and more young people are becoming obese these days, kids eating healthy is more important in this day and age than in any other time in history. There is an obesity epidemic in this country today that one health official called the greatest threat to our national security. Children are having more health problems related to their weight than ever before, and proper steps need to be taken to reverse this trend.

The fact of the matter is, it used to be that parents made sure that their children were eating healthy. When I was growing up, we had to finish our vegetables before we could get desert, and our parents really didn’t care whether or not we wanted to eat them. It was just something that you did, and you did not complain about it or you went to bed hungry.
Kids eating healthy back in those days meant that kids ate what their mothers cooked for them. We rarely went out to eat, and when we did, we ate the vegetables at the restaurant we visited. We hardly ever ate fast food until we were teenagers, and we spent our time outside playing instead of in front of the television or computer.

I really don’t want to make it out like the good old days were the best time of all, but there is a lot to be said about how we ate and lived our lives in general compared to today. Our parents were not concerned with being our best friends or winning any popularity contests.
It seems that today, many parents want to do just that, and the idea of kids eating healthy seems to go by the wayside. Because of that, kids, and American kids in particular, are heavier than ever before, and one study suggests that this may be the first generation that does not have as long a projected life span as their parents’ generation.

The good news is that it is not too late to do something about it, and a lot of school districts and teachers are trying to instill good eating habits into their students and explain the necessity of kids eating healthy to form good eating habits throughout their lives.
The reality is, with kids eating healthy, they will feel better physically, perform better in school and greatly reduce their risk of becoming overweight or obese.
It is such an important issue these days that we get kids to start eating healthy. That is when they learn the most and are the most able to establish proper eating habits that can last the rest of their lifetime. We need to have the love and the courage to act now.