Health Guidance

Binge drinking by young people is a growing social issue, with a startling number of alcohol-related problems affecting students and others. It is a problem that concerns many parents, who are unsure how to react when their own kids start drinking — sometimes at quite a young age — other than to get angry.

Surprisingly, there are some excellent reasons why a personal-use breathalyzer in the home can help discourage teen drinking -

* Many teenagers do not even need or want to drink, but are bowing to peer pressure. When they are able to tell friends that their parents will be testing them with a home breathalyser they have a legitimate excuse to avoid doing something they actually may not want to do. Continue reading ‘Concerned About Your Kids' Drinking? Why a Breathalyzer in the Home Might Help’ »

As we go through life, we all hope we can maintain good physical and mental health as long as possible. There is not much pleasure in living a long life if our final years are spent in pain and if we lose our ability to think and remember. As much as we may dread suffering physical pain and illness in old age, many of us fear even more the possibility that we might lose our mental capacities and end up completely helpless in a nursing home.

Often the first hint that our memory is starting to lose its sharpness happens around the fifth decade of life. As people enter their middle years, they start to notice more and more frequent lapses of memory, particularly their short-term memory. They may enter a room to do something, and forget what it is. They may be unable to recall the name of someone who used to live next door. And they may start to worry that their forgetfulness is more than just a harmless incident, they worry that it might be the first hint of something far more sinister–perhaps the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Alzheimer’s is the name given to a very serious brain disease in which the brain cells are killed by microscopic plaques and tangled fibers. The parts of the brain needed to form and access recent memories are usually destroyed first. Brain cell destruction spreads to other parts of the brain, causing a loss of function, and eventually death follows. Continue reading ‘How You Can Keep a Sharp Mind as You Age’ »

Breast Cancer – Aside from October being one of the cooler months of the year, and a special month for kids to go trick or treating dressed up as an eerie ghoul to scare people witless, it is however on a more serious note Breast Cancer Awareness Month. For some women being greeted at the door by a vampire, devil or witch, the fright at that moment is nothing in comparison to the fear they feel inside after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a time when women and young girls are alerted to the importance of early detection. This doesn’t mean that women are not made aware of what’s involved with breast cancer treatments, self breast examination and recovery issues all year round; it is just strongly more focused upon in October through Breast Awareness Campaigns. These types of campaigns have great pulling power where we see more and more women coming forward to get themselves checked out, and their questions answered.

As it is with most organizations and support groups they need financial help to keep up the good work. Breast cancer groups will include people who care, and are compassionate towards your feelings. It is also most likely that them who run the groups are, or, have been patients themselves. Cancer care workers will help you the best they can to come to terms with having breast cancer, be there for you when undergoing treatment for breast cancer Continue reading ‘Breast Cancer Awareness Month – Best Way to Beat Breast Cancer Is to Prevent It’ »

Among the many kinds of contact lenses you can buy are: novelty, colored, crazy, Halloween, special effects, theatrical, costume, scary, glow in the dark, wild eyes, mirrored, black, white, and red. Before you buy contact lenses from anyone other than your eye care professional, it pays to be a wise consumer. Contact lens sales are regulated by the FDA (Food And Drug Administration) and the FTC (Federal Trade Commission.)

There are 75 million contact lens wearers worldwide and 31 million in the U.S. alone. If you’ve always wanted to change your eye color, color contact lenses can provide baby blues, gorgeous greens, heavenly hazels — even various patterns and designs.

Continue reading ‘What You Need To Know About Discount Contact Lenses’ »

Very few of us don’t have at least one good memory of chocolate. Remember warm chocolate chip cookies after school, or brownies pulled straight from the oven on a cool, fall day? Hot chocolate is still the beverage of choice for many children, and few of any age can resist a scoop of chocolate ice cream. With a hot Texas summer approaching, and cities like Dallas, Houston, and Austin already getting a hint of the heat to come, a hot fudge sundae just might be the cooling cure for a lot of maladies. Not even health insurance can provide a sweet cookie and fresh glass of milk when it’s really needed, after all.

The first records of chocolate consumption date back to the Mayan Classical Period, or between the years 250 and 900 on our modern calendar. Cacao beans were cooked, ground, and made into a paste. When mixed with water, a bitter beverage important to Mayan, and later Aztec, ceremonies was created. That means chocolate has not only survived thousands of years of conquests, changing political maps, shifting cultures, and natural disasters, but also managed to grow more popular. That’s fairly impressive.

Continue reading ‘Texas Loves Its Chocolate: An Ancient Treat From The Mayans Just Gets Better’ »