Goodness and ugliness of 5 Sleep Position

Jakarta - Humans spend a third of a life time to sleep and about 95 percent of the world sleep in the same position every night. Did you know that every sleep position has good effects and bad for health?

Health experts said that every sleep position has good and bad effects of each to health.

Here are some sleeping position and its good and bad effects, as reported by Dailymail, Tuesday (05/10/2011):

1. Recovery position (Tilt to the Left)

Positives: Good for stomach acid reflux
Negatives: Bad for wrinkles

"Known as the recovery position as similar to the posture used in medical emergencies. This position can help reduce acid reflux and indigestion," says Professor Jim Horne of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University.

Acid reflux or esophageal reflux (esophageal reflux) is the return of food from the stomach into the esophagus (tube that carries food from the mouth to the stomach).

Leakage of stomach acid due to the weak connection between the stomach and esophagus and trigger burning pain. The key is to sleep with the left side.

In a study of patients with heartburn in the Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia, doctors found that sleeping on the right side of stomach acid that leaks make take longer to get out of the esophagus compared with sleeping on the left, so that patients who sleep on the right side of experiencing discomfort.

However, although this position can relieve stomach pain, sleep can aggravate the oblique wrinkles. Dr. Dennis Wolf, a member of the British Association of Cosmetic Dermatologists explains that side sleeping may increase the pressure on the nasolabial folds that run from the corners of the nose to the side of the mouth (known as a laugh line.)

2. Position face upward (supine position)

Positives: Good for arthritis
Negatives: Bad for asthma, snoring, sleep apnea, heart health.

"Sleep on your back (face up) is a good choice for those who suffer from arthritis and joint pain," says Sammy Margo, rental physiotherapist and author of Good Sleep Guide.

This is because sleeping on your back to distribute weight evenly throughout the body, without putting the burden on any particular area.

"However, the same sleeping position known to aggravate snoring. In this position, the muscles in the jaw and tongue relax, and jaw and throat under the influence of gravity. This causes the throat to narrow, resulting in air turbulence that causes vibration and snoring," says Dr John Shneerson, director of the Sleep Centre at Papworth Hospital, Cambridge.

This is especially true for adults who are overweight, where the weight of extra fat at the front of the neck will exaggerate a loose throat.

In addition, people who sleep on their backs to breathe more quickly than in other sleep positions and tissues become deoxygenated. This can aggravate a number of respiratory and circulatory problems, including asthma and heart disease.

3. Fetal Position (Bend Both Legs to Chest Directions) or Melungker

Positives: Good for people who suffer from lower back pain
Negatives: Bad for the neck pain and headaches

"This is the most common sleeping position in the UK, with legs drawn toward chest. Sleep like this can help to improve the wear and tear on the spine. Throughout the day, the spine bears the gravitational force that put a lot of pressure between vertebrae," says Sammy Margo .

He suggested that sleep in the fetal position is ideal because it reduces pressure on the discs and enhance repair.

However, he also stressed that it is important to ensure the neck in alignment with the whole body. In other words, make sure that the pillow is not too high or too low, as this could suppress the muscles and nerves in the neck, causing headaches and neck in the morning.

4. Spooning position

Positive: Good to reduce stress
Negatives: Bad as it causes pain and muscle pain

"Lying down with hands to partner mneyilangkan (hug) of course can increase the strength of the relationship. Physical touch even when sleeping to reduce feelings of stress in men and women," said Dr. James Coan, neuroscientist and psychologist from America.

However, this position may mean that you force the body into positions that may aggravate the existing pain and reduce joint and muscle.

"It's important to remember that your body changed over the years, and uncomfortable position ever selali may not happen," says Sammy Margo.

5. Position sunbather (pillow face / stomach)

Positives: Good for people who snore
Negatives: Bad for people who gritted teeth, pain and numbness in the hand.

"Sleeping in the face to face down will help to prevent snoring, because the throat muscles will not sag under gravity back," explained Dr Shneerson.

However, if you are a dental pengertak it could make conditions worse. According to Dr Mani Bhardwaj, dentists at The Smile Studios in London, when people sleep with his face down, the mandible is positioned more forward than usual. This means that if a man clenched his teeth, there is extra pressure on the lower teeth.

And this position can also cause nerve problems in your upper body.

"When I lie down with this position, the pillow is too much or too little will affect the position of the neck and placed parallel to the spine. This will increase the likelihood of nerve compression, especially in older people," said Dr Eccleston.

Estrogen Lowers Breast Cancer and Heart Attack Risk in Some

In a finding that challenges the conventional wisdom about the risks of some hormones used in menopause, a major government study has found that years after using estrogen-only therapy, certain women had a markedly reduced risk of breast cancer and heart attack.

The research, part of the landmark Women’s Health Initiative study, is likely to surprise women and their doctors, who for years have heard frightening news about the risks of hormone therapy. But most of those fears are related to the use of a combination of two hormones, estrogen and progestin, which are prescribed to relieve hot flashes and other symptoms of menopause, and have been shown to increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer.

The new findings, reported Tuesday in The Journal of the American Medical Association, come from 10,739 women in the Women’s Health Initiative study who had previously had a hysterectomy, the surgical removal of the uterus. Nationwide, about one-third of women in their 50s have had a hysterectomy.

The Women’s Health Initiative was begun in 1991 by the National Institutes of Health as a sweeping investigation of hormone use and other health issues of postmenopausal women.

While most women in the hormone study were taking combination hormone therapy, women without a uterus took estrogen alone or a placebo for about six years and were followed for nearly 11 years. The estrogen-only group was not given progestin, which is prescribed only to protect the uterus from the harmful effects of estrogen. Although all the women in the estrogen study stopped using the treatment in 2004, the investigators have continued to monitor their health, as is typical in large clinical trials.

The most surprising new finding relates to breast cancer. The women with hysterectomies who used estrogen alone had a 23 percent lower risk for breast cancer compared with those who had taken a placebo. This is in stark contrast to the higher risk of breast cancer shown in the estrogen-progestin part of the trial.

“The decreased risk of breast cancer in this group is something we totally didn’t expect when we started the W.H.I. hormone therapy trials,” said Andrea Z. LaCroix, the study’s lead author and a professor of epidemiology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. “This study differentiates estrogen alone from estrogen and progestin in a very big way. I hope it gets across to women, because we are not reversing ourselves.”

Indeed, the investigators emphasized that the results do not change recommendations concerning combination hormone therapy for the two-thirds of menopausal women who still have a uterus. The Women’s Health Initiative data have consistently shown that the combination of estrogen and progestin raises breast cancer risk, and that the treatment should be used only to relieve severe menopause symptoms, using the lowest dose for the shortest possible time.

But the data are reassuring for millions of middle-aged women without a uterus who take estrogen to relieve hot flashes and other menopause symptoms.

An accompanying editorial in the journal was skeptical about the results, arguing that the design of the initiative, which is skewed toward older women and stopped all forms of hormone treatment after several years of use, does not match the way doctors typically prescribe treatment to women in their 50s at the onset of menopause.

Dr. Graham Colditz, an author of the editorial and professor of surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, said he thought data collected from observational studies that show a higher risk of breast cancer associated with estrogen use were more reliable than the data gathered from the Women’s Health Initiative clinical trial.

“The finding doesn’t reflect how hormones are used in the U.S. at the moment,” Dr. Colditz said.

The trial has, however, been held up for years as the gold standard for medical research, and its findings linking combination hormones to breast cancer and heart problems led to significant changes in the way doctors around the world treated menopause.

A major caveat in interpreting the new estrogen data is that the study used conjugated equine estrogens, which are estrogen compounds derived from the urine of pregnant mares and marketed by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals under the brand Premarin. The brand has fallen out of favor with many women who are choosing treatments that contain estradiol, which is chemically similar to a woman’s natural estrogen. It is not known whether the benefits of estrogen shown in the Women’s Health Initiative would be replicated using a different type of estrogen.

Nobody knows why estrogen treatment alone appeared to lower breast cancer risk in the study, but one explanation may be that in menopausal women with low levels of natural estrogen, the effects of estrogen drugs induce cell death in existing tumors. Nobody is suggesting that women start using estrogen to prevent breast cancer, but the finding opens a potentially new avenue of research in the prevention of the disease.

“We need to look closely at these findings to see if we can learn more about ways to prevent breast cancer in women,” said Dr. JoAnn Manson, a Women’s Health Initiative investigator and an author of the study who is chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

In the final analysis of the estrogen-only trial, use of the hormone was not associated with any significant risks or benefits pertaining to blood clots, stroke, hip fracture, colon cancer or overall death rates.

But there were surprising differences in the risks and benefits of estrogen use on heart risk when comparing the youngest and oldest women in the study. Women who were in their 50s when they first started using estrogen also had significantly fewer heart risks, including almost 50 percent fewer heart attacks, compared with those assigned to the placebo group.

The data indicate that for every 10,000 women in their 50s, those using estrogen would experience 12 fewer heart attacks, 13 fewer deaths and 18 fewer adverse events like blood clots or stroke in a given year, compared with those taking a placebo.

But the risks of estrogen use were pronounced in older women. For every 10,000 women in their 70s, using estrogen would cause 16 extra heart attacks, 19 extra deaths and 48 serious adverse events.

“The big message there is that the data look much more favorable for younger women and much riskier for older women,” said Dr. LaCroix.

Dr. Rowan Chlebowski, another author of the study and a medical oncologist at Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, said the findings underscored the fact that the risks and benefits of menopause hormones change depending on a woman’s health status, her age and the type of hormone used.

Dr. Chlebowski previously led research that showed cancer risks associated with combination hormone therapy, but he says the new data on estrogen alone show that in certain women, estrogen use to relieve menopausal symptoms is a “good choice.”

“When you look at the debate, people are saying hormones are good or not good — it’s been all or nothing. This calls attention to the fact that there are differences,” Dr. Chlebowski said. “I hope that separation will become clearer now.”

20/20/20 Trick to Prevent Eye Damage Due to Computers

Jakarta, sore eyes is the most common complaints when working too long at the computer. These complaints if left unchecked could develop into the damage that causes blurred vision. To avoid this, apply the 20/20/20 rule.

"The human eye is designed to view 3-dimensional objects. On the screens, the eyes are forced to look at the 2-dimensional objects," said Andrea Thau, OD optometrists of the American Optometric Association, as quoted by MSNBC, Monday (03/21/2011).

Coercion by Thau cause the brain to work harder to interpret the images captured by the eye. Brain that fatigue would cause the light from the eyes of signal processing is disturbed, then perceived as a blurred eye complaints.

In addition, the normal human eye can only see with a comfortable if the focus is at a minimum distance of 20 feet (about 6 meters). While at the computer, eyes again forced to focus its views at a distance of less than 2 times (about 60 cm).

Coercion-coercion has sparked some complaints are referred to as computer vision syndrome (CVS). Symptoms include dry eyes, headaches and if left unchecked will continue to lead the view was blurred or unfocused.

According to Thau, overcoming the syndrome should not be done by removing the computer from everyday life because after all humans need technology to support productivity. What needs to be changed only how to use it.

For people whose jobs require to sit for hours in front of the computer, it is recommended to apply the 20/20/20 rule. This means that every 20 minutes, a time to turn the view from the screen for 20 seconds to another point, a distance of 20 feet (about 6 meters).

Also, do not forget to blink because the average person just blinks 6 times / min while being engrossed in front of the computer. In order not to dry eye balls and feels pain, eyelid should always blink of approximately 16 times / minute.

If possible, position the appropriate monitor to no higher than eye, at least parallel. If too high then the eyelids tend to work harder to blink and moisten the eyeball, so that the edges so remember to blink.

Eating Fish Cut Risk of Blindness

LONDON - A recent study revealed that consuming omega-3 fatty acids, commonly found in salmon and tuna, may reduce the risk of blindness associated conditions of Age-Related MacularDegeneration (AMD), or because of advanced age.

Based on the study, with only taking one or two servings of fish each week, the risk of vision loss among older women could be reduced to 42 percent.

The finding supports previous research showing similar results among men. Dr. William Christen of Harvard Medical School claim, the greatest benefits found in fish 'fleshy dark'.

"The risk is lower mainly due to eating canned tuna and dark meat fish," he said, as reported by the Telegraph, Tuesday (03/15/2011).

People with AMD is expected to increase three-fold within the next 25 years, following an aging population. Therefore, this fact becomes valuable findings in the medical community.

Dr Christen and her team asked more than 38 thousand women to study the effects of consumption of omega-3 fatty acids. Participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire to answer questions about their eating habits, including how much omega-3 fatty acids they consume.

Later, it is known, those who consume Omega-3 fatty acids have at most 38 percent of AMD risk levels lower than those who consumed the least omega-3.

Be careful with Fish Spa!

Vienna: Are you including those who like fish spa? Perhaps this information could make you reconsider before going to a place with a fish spa body treatments. Well ... there is information that the fish spa that is now popular among lovers of body treatments proved to have adverse effects for the body. Even the experts have issued warnings that contains the information that the fish spa is a place that allows the transmission of disease from fellow users.

Experts say Garra Rufa fish, which has long been used as a natural spa in Asia and Turkey should only be used for one customer. although powerful to drive away the dead skin, this fish takes a long time to digest their favorite food was. Dead skin containing these germs can be tacked back into the skin of other users.

Some findings also show that the fish used in some places the spa is not the Garra Rufa fish. Most of the spa that uses Chinchin fish species that have teeth at a certain age. Chincin bite of fish that have teeth will rip the skin and make it hurt. The injury will be a means of entry of various bacteria and even viruses into the body of a person.

But for you lovers of the spa using the fish, not to worry. Martin Grassberger MD from the Medical University of Vienna offers several suggestions for choosing safe fish spa. Among them is a note whether the fish is stored in a tank with ultraviolet filters, spa centers provide different containers for each customer, do not use fish repeatedly, and pay attention to foot hygiene customers who must be free of skin disease.

Want to Slim? Try Swimming in Cold Water

Swimming is an excellent cardiovascular workout. Swimming also can strengthen the heart muscle, and improve the delivery of oxygen to various parts of the body. However, if you want to burn more calories, swimming in cold water is the most effective way because the body is forced to work hard to normalize the cold air.

To normalize the temperature changes, a lot of fuel or energy required. Therefore, the body will burn calories faster and energy, so to lose weight so much cepat.Reaksi shivering in the cold pool can also accelerate the body's metabolic system. The higher the metabolism, foods that are digested quickly, will burn more calories so it does not cause fat deposits in the body.

Someone who likes swimming activity will also experience increased strength and flexibility, muscular endurance and balance, physical and better posture. In addition, the swim also serves as an effective treatment and rapid healing in terms of muscle.

Scientists Discover Virus AIDS Prevention Gel

NEW YORK - An experimental gel managed to prevent some of the female monkeys infected with the AIDS virus, according to results of tests conducted a number of scientists who are members of the Population Council.

The test itself is conducted to mimic the path of transmission through sexual intercourse in humans. Gel is using AIDS drugs and zinc components, managed to prevent all animals tested from the HIV virus for the monkey. The result itself has been reported in the journal Public Library of Science.

As reported by Straits Times, Thursday (6/1/20110, gel experiments were able to provide protection of 21 female monkeys in the next 24 hours. That's after they received a dose of gel every day for two weeks.

Drugs used in the gel are so few that its safety is assured. Also the price was estimated reasonably priced.

Melissa Robbiani, one member of the Population Council, who also worked with the National Cancer Institute and several other laboratories to test the gel, hoping to soon conduct trials in humans.

The results of this study is actually not the first time. Last July scientists created AIDS was surprised when a number of scientists found a similar gel containing tenofovir and Gilead AIDS drug has reduced transmission rates in women up to 39 percent for 2.5 years.

Here are 10 Foods Healer

Let food be obatmu. The words of ancient Greek physician named Hippocrates was so popular in the medical world. Messages that are then encouraged the scientists to figure out the benefits of food for health.

For years, nutrition experts conducted a study to identify the nutritional benefits of certain foods. They studied proteins, carbohydrates, calories, fats, minerals and vitamins to determine health benefits for the human body.

Here are some foods that provide many benefits to the body, as quoted by the website Methods of Healing.

1. Honey

Research shows that honey contains antibacterial and antiviral. Studies over the mention of honey useful for wound healing and good for digestive health.

2. Green Tea

Research shows that green tea helps reduce the risk of cancer, stroke and heart disease. Green tea is also believed to help prevent type two diabetes and osteoporosis, and relieve inflammation of the intestine.

3. Walnuts

Eating 1.5 ounces of walnuts every day can be a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease.

4. Blueberry

Is one of the fruits with high antioxidant levels. The content of substance in it to help slow down aging, reduce the risk of diabetes, lower cholesterol, improve motor skills, and support urinary health and eyesight. Blueberries also have anti-inflammatory properties.

5. Pomegranate

As a fruit rich in antioxidants, a study showed that pomegranate helps reduce the risk of heart disease and lowering blood pressure. In fact, help lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of certain cancers.

6. Spices

Cinnamon helps lower cholesterol and stabilize blood sugar. Ginger helps to improve digestive health, and contains anti-inflammatory. Benefits of ginger for the prevention of cancer is also being studied. While anti-inflammatory properties of turmeric is believed to slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease and reduce the risk of cancer.

7. Yogurt

The best thing is plain yogurt. The content of calcium, magnesium, Vitamin B-2 & B-12, and probiotics are known as good bacteria in the gut, digestive system healthy and beneficial immunity. Regular consumption of yogurt is also believed to help lower cholesterol.

8. Dark chocolate

Type of brown offers good benefits for the cardiovascular system as well as protection from cancer. Not only that, eating dark chocolate can also generate a good mood for the emotional and mental health.

9. Salmon

Salmon rich in omega-3 fatty acids and protein, low calorie, low saturated fat, and has anti-inflammatory properties. Salmon health benefits including prevention of diabetes, Alzheimer's, cancer and cardiovascular system healthy.

10. Broccoli

Broccoli is full of vitamins like folic acid, vitamin A, B6 and K. Minerals such as calcium and potassium make it more healthy. Broccoli is considered a healing food that is activated by the phytochemicals indole-3-carbinol and sulforaphane, helps fight cancer.