Healthy Snacks for all Yoghurt(plain) + nuts(groundnuts, cashew nuts....) Why Nuts? They provide an infusion of healthy oils, protein, and vitamin E. Crunchy and satisfying, choose any type of nuts: almonds, walnuts, even peanuts (technically a legume), or grab a handful of mixed nuts. preferably unsalted. Caveat: they are a high-calorie treat. So limit daily intake to a sprinkling to get the benefits without packing on any extra WEIGHT. Yoghurt? Yes,Yogurt is a nutrient-rich food that fuels your body with protein, calcium, magnesium, vitamin B12, and some key fatty acids that your body needs to stay healthy. And if you choose a high-protein yogurt, it can keep you feeling full, which may help you trim your waistline. This creamy treat also gives you a dose of probiotics, which are healthy bacteria that help keep your gut working properly and contribute to better overall health. Flavoured yogurts? NO! It’s better to stick with plain. The problem with flavored yogurt is some of the brands CONTAIN EXCESSIVE sugar, thereby negating many of the health benefits of yogurt. So just add nuts to your plain yoghurt(and may be some blueberries too) to have a great taste!😊 - adapted from Harvard's health

"A Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, United States (U.S.), researcher has compiled evidence from more than 100 publications to show how obesity increases risk of 13 different cancers in young adults..... According to the review published in Obesity, in 2016, nearly one in 10 new breast cancer cases, and one in four new thyroid cancer cases were in young people aged 20-44. The data show that with obesity rising among younger demographics, so are cancer rates.The new review integrates animal studies, clinical trials, and public health data to help explain rising cancer rates among young adults. It describes how the childhood obesity “pandemic” promotes cancer. It also offers approaches to better track—and hopefully avert—this public health crisis..... Young people with body mass indexes (BMIs) over 30 are more likely to experience aggressive malignancies, says author Nathan A. Berger, MD, Hanna-Payne Professor of Experimental Medicine; director of the Center for Science, Health and Society; member of the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center; and professor of medicine, biochemistry, oncology and genetics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. According to his review, childhood obesity may have lasting effects that could lead to cancer early and late in life. Obesity can permanently alter a young person’s likelihood of developing cancer. Even after losing weight, cancer risk remains. Says Berger, “If you are obese, you are at a higher risk of cancer. If you lose weight, it improves the prognosis and may lower your risk, but it never goes away completely.” Obesity causes changes to a person’s Deoxy ribonucleic Acid (DNA)/genetic material that can add up over time. These changes include genetic flags and markers—epigenetic modifications—that increase cancer risk and may remain long after weight loss. Data from clinical trials and animal obesity studies further link excess weight to cancer. Berger’s review shows obesity accelerates cancer progression in several ways. It over activates the immune system to produce harmful byproducts like peroxide and oxygen radicals that mutate DNA. Obesity also alters a person’s metabolism, causing growth factor and hormone imbalances that help cancer cells thrive. In the gut, obesity changes intestine microbiota such that tumor-promoting species dominate. Acid reflux in obese individuals damages their swallowing tubes and heightens risk of esophageal cancer. Berger’s research confirms obesity promotes cancer by multiple simultaneous pathways. “Even if one pathway is successfully blocked, obesity-induced cancer takes another path,” he says. Also, another study found that when middle-aged people were obese, men were 67 per cent more likely to have a heart attack, stroke, heart failure or cardiovascular death and women had 85 per cent higher odds compared to normal-weight peers.Obese people have shorter lives and even those who are just overweight spend more years living with heart disease than individuals who are a healthy weight, a U.S. study suggests...."

EGG now Part of a healthy diet Now current research shows that for most healthy people, cholesterol in food, such as eggs, has a much smaller effect on blood levels of total cholesterol and harmful LDL cholesterol, especially when compared with the much greater and more harmful effects of saturated fatty acids found in foods such as butter and fatty meat. Eggs are, in fact, low in saturated fat. Recent research has also shown that moderate egg consumption - up to one a day - does not increase heart disease risk in healthy individuals and can be part of a healthy diet. As such, since about 2000, major world and UK health organizations, including us and the Department of Health, changed their advice on eggs and there is now no recommended limit on how many eggs people should eat, as long as you eat a varied diet. However, people with familial hypercholesterolaemia (1 in 500 in the UK) would still be advised to restrict dietary cholesterol intake - no more than three or four eggs a week. Eggs are a nutritious food, but you still need to need to pay attention to how the eggs are cooked and to the 'trimmings' that come with them. For example, scrambled eggs with baked beans on wholegrain bread are a far different meal than a fry up with eggs, bacon, sausage and white toast with butter.

Dr. Ada Cooper: Don't think that living a life of mouthwash four times a day is always going to cure your bad breath. If food remains on your teeth because you don't brush and you don't floss, that food just sits in your mouth and is degraded by bacteria and you can just imagine the odor that gives off. Be sure that when you brush, you brush your teeth at night. Again, many people don't realize that food just sits in your mouth overnight, in the morning your breath will be far stronger than you could ever imagine. And brush your tongue too. Bacteria accumulates in the back surface of your tongue and can also cause strong odor. Also be sure to drink a lot of water. When your mouth becomes more dry, you have less saliva and when you have less saliva food and bacteria tends to sit in your mouth for a much longer period of time. But also remember that there are other things beyond just being thirsty that can make your mouth dry. For example, coffee alcohol smoking which is never a good idea and even some medications can cause dry mouth. If you find that your breath is strong no matter what you do. If you find that you're constantly having to use mouthwash which really often times just camouflages bad odor you may have something else going on than poor hygiene. So in the instance, it's really important to see your dentist because other things that

Eat more Beans, Fruits and Vegetables(fibers)....!

HOW IS A VASECTOMY PERFORMED AND REVERSED? Vasectomy is usually carried out under local anesthetic, and takes about 15 minutes. The procedure involves severing, then sealing off, a tube called the vas deferens, which carries sperm from the testes to the penis. This prevents sperm from reaching the seminal fluid (semen), which is ejaculated from the penis during sex. There will be no sperm in the semen, so a woman's egg can't be fertilized - and the procedure has a 99.9 per cent success rate. During a conventional vasectomy, the skin of the scrotum is numbed with local anesthetic. The doctor makes two small cuts, about 1cm long, on each side of the scrotum. The incisions allow the surgeon to access the vas deferens, or sperm-carrying tubes. Each tube is cut and a small section removed. The ends of the tubes are then closed, either by tying them or sealing them using diathermy (an instrument that heats to a very high temperature). Men will not feel any pain, although it may feel slightly uncomfortable. The incisions are stitched, usually using dissolvable stitches, which will disappear naturally within about a week. After a vasectomy, a man's hormones remain normal, and there is no noticeable difference in his ejaculate volume, since sperm make up only a tiny part of the semen. Because the sperm cannot come out after the vas deferens is cut, like other dead body cells, the sperm disintegrate and are reabsorbed by the body.

Interesting story illustrating that Vasectomy may fail in 1 in 2000 cases....

"Anti-inflammatory injections could lower the risk of heart attacks and may slow the progression of cancer, a study has found, in what researchers say is the biggest breakthrough since the discovery of statins. Heart attack survivors given injections of a targeted anti-inflammatory drug called canakinumab had fewer attacks in the future, scientists found. Cancer deaths were also halved in those treated with the drug, which is normally used only for rare inflammatory conditions....."

Should we get worried about size of the Phallus in chldren? :) "The pediatric wisdom is that it’s often the mother who asks the question. But she usually says the question comes from the boy’s father. His dad is worried, she begins. Is our son’s penis a normal size? Is it too small? Is something wrong? Most of the time, everything is perfectly normal. But what most of those boys have in common is their physique: They tend to be overweight. Questions about penis size have become more common over the past decade, as my colleagues and I have all seen more overweight children coming in for physical exams. And these worries reflect cultural preoccupations and anxieties, which can make the conversation highly fraught for all concerned. “I see dissatisfaction with the phallus very regularly,” said Dr. Aseem Shukla, a pediatric urologist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and associate professor of urology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He said that with 10- to 11-year-old boys, “a common thing is, my son’s penis is too short.” The vast majority of the parents who bring up the issue with their pediatricians after the newborn period have children whose genitals fall in the normal range. A baby or toddler’s penis can look very small, and maybe especially when the child himself is larger rather than smaller. Watching their bodies as they grow, parents sometimes begin to worry about heavier boys and whether their genitals are normal. The penis can be buried in the fat pad that sits in front of the pubic bone, and it can remain hidden as boys go through adolescence. What is called a “hidden penis” can be a combination of being prepubertal (so the penis has not begun to grow), being overweight (so the fat pad is significant), and in some cases an anatomical condition in which the soft tissue below the skin of the penis doesn’t adhere well to the Buck’s fascia, the thick covering that surrounds the penile nerves and arteries. This fixation problem can yield what Dr. Shukla described as a “slidey” penis, in which the actual shaft retreats and only the skin, or the foreskin, in an uncircumcised boy, is clearly apparent. There are some surgical procedures which can unbury that concealed penis, but Dr. Shukla said that except in extreme cases, it made more sense to wait and let the child grow older — and, ideally, slimmer. And for preadolescent boys that is often a very welcome solution. “The kids are usually pretty relieved that we’re not going to cut,” Dr. Shukla said. But while they are relieved, they still want reassurance. “I basically say, first of all I want you to know that you are absolutely and completely normal,” Dr. Shukla said. “We don’t all walk around with our pants down, and we don’t see how everybody is. But you should realize the private area can be different, and because yours looks different from your brother’s doesn’t mean there is something wrong.” There is a condition called micropenis, and it should be diagnosed in the newborn period, because it can reflect a variety of disruptions of the hormone system during pregnancy, which at some point prevented the usual effects of testosterone. Micropenis can reflect any of a number of rare genetic syndromes and hormone problems, and early diagnosis is important to make sure that other hormonal issues, like low blood sugar, don’t endanger the baby. The relevant measurement, in a boy of any age, is the stretched penile length, measuring from the pubic bone, and stretching the nonerect penis to the point of resistance; in a full-term newborn, the mean stretched penile length is 3.5 centimeters. Micropenis (at any age) is defined as a penis 2.5 standard deviations or more below the mean, so in full-term newborns, we worry about any child below 2 to 2.5 centimeters. For older boys, doctors use growth charts that reflect the child’s age and physical maturity. And until the hormones of puberty kick in and the penis begins to grow, a statistically normal penis on a disproportionately large body can look small to a worried parent. Merritt Jensen, a pediatric psychologist, works with the division of urology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “I hear a lot of parents just wanting to be reassured it is within the realm of appropriate and typical and that it’s going to work correctly,” she said. “The mom often will say it but you can see the relief in Dad’s face.” None of these conversations are easy, from the nervous questions in the pediatric office to the specialist referrals. Dr. Shukla said that he tries to reassure preadolescents that if they lose some weight and still feel that there is a problem when they reach puberty, they can come back to address it. “I push down and I show them the length and width,” Dr. Shukla said. And he tells them: “You are going to be totally fine, you are going to have a great life.”

Fact of the Day A low-inflammation diet rich in unsaturated fats, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains helps to build strong bones.

"The following are common types of hand pain and their treatments. Osteoarthritis Osteoarthritis is the wearing away of cartilage in the joints. Any joint is susceptible. However, in the fingers, it's typically the last joint before the fingernail that's affected. On the thumb, it's usually the joint at the base of the hand. Symptoms include stiffness and pain that goes away with rest. "What causes pain is the restriction of gliding motion. It causes inflammation," explains Dr. Lee. To diagnose osteoarthritis, your doctor may order an x-ray to look at the bones. Treatment includes steroid injections, heat and cold therapy, use of a splint to immobilize the joint, and surgery in some cases. Dr. Lee cautions against hand exercises for osteoarthritis, which he says may worsen pain. He says topical prescription anti-inflammatory medications, such as diclofenac (Voltaren Gel) provide only temporary relief. He advises against using over-the-counter painkillers. Long-term use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, such as ibuprofen (Advil), has been linked to ulcers, stomach bleeding, kidney problems, high blood pressure, and increased risk of heart attack or stroke. The FDA says NSAIDs raise the risk for heart attack and stroke even with short-term use. Large doses of acetaminophen (Tylenol) can damage the liver. Drinking a lot of alcohol while taking acetaminophen can also cause liver damage. If you take warfarin (Coumadin), starting acetaminophen may increase the risk of bleeding, so check with your doctor first. Carpal or cubital tunnel syndrome Problems with the nerves of the arm and hand can also cause pain. In carpal tunnel syndrome, the median nerve is compressed where it passes through a small area at the wrist known as the carpal tunnel. Symptoms include pain or tingling and numbness in the thumb and the middle, index, and ring fingers. In cubital tunnel syndrome, the ulnar nerve is compressed where it passes through a tunnel of tissue near the elbow called the cubital tunnel. Symptoms include pain or numbness and tingling in the ring or little fingers. To diagnose these conditions, your doctor may order nerve conduction tests to measure how quickly the nerves transmit signals. Treatment involves rest, splinting, steroid injections, and exercises to stretch the wrist tendons and relieve pressure on the nerve. If that doesn't work, surgery can relieve pressure on the nerve, Dr. Lee says. Trigger finger Stenosing tenosynovitis, often called trigger finger, affects the thumb or fingers, especially the ring finger. It's caused by a narrowing of the sheath that surrounds the tendon, and irritation of the pulley that enables the finger to bend. Symptoms include pain, popping, and a feeling that the digit is locking when you bend or straighten it. To diagnose trigger finger, your doctor may order an MRI scan to look at the soft tissue. Treatment involves steroid injections. "But if you come back for injections three times, you'll need surgery to release the sheath," says Dr. Lee. A few other tips A hand therapist can help you modify routine motions so you place less pressure on your fingers and hands. Dr. Lee advises refraining from activities that make hand pain worse." - Harvard Health Publications

'You'll want to concentrate on yellow and orange fruits and vegetables, plus egg yolks and fatty, cold-water fish.'