07.20.07
Posted in Education, Finances, Health at 4:23 am by <ADMINNICENAME>
I had to have a root canal today. It was actually better than some root canals I have had, but it still wasn’t much fun.
When I was first married, we were poor like most young couples so I didn’t go to the dentist for about six years. I had three children and breast fed each of them for at least nine months during the six year absence from the dentist. When I finally went to the dentist, he got after me for not going to the dentist regularly because now I had a mouthful of deep cavities that would eventually lead to root canals and crowns; oh boy, how right he was. Years later, it is exactly as the dentist predicted, I now floss a mouthful of crowns that protect teeth with root canals.
The child bearing years are hard on women’s teeth because the baby takes all the nutrients it needs, thus, often leaving the mother depleted of minerals and vitamins that are needed to keep a healthy smile. I learned the hard way that you don’t save money by not going to the dentist. In actuality, you spend more, a lot more. The only way to save money is to get regular preventative dental care whether you think you can afford it or not. I told my new daughter in law that it is imperative for new and nursing mothers to have their teeth checked at least once a year.
Most dentists will take a monthly fee for service rendered. If you can’t afford to pay your dental bill in full, I suggest looking for a dentist that will allow you to pay a monthly fee, or find another solution that will enable you to go to the dentist at least once a year.
For those interested in dental promotional products, here are a few of my recommendations:
Mini Tooth Dental Floss Key Chain
Tooth Shaped Sugar Free Mints
Flashing Toothbrush
Tooth Key Tag
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07.09.07
Posted in Health, Self Improvement at 9:31 pm by <ADMINNICENAME>
If you haven’t noticed by my blog entries, I have taken a renewed interest in becoming fit. A couple of weeks ago, I caught the end of Oprah Winfrey who was speaking to Bob Greene about his new book the, “The Best Life Diet”
Bob Greene said when trying to lose weight you need to temporarily eliminate the following:
- High Fat Dairy Products
- Regular Pasta (use whole grain pasta which can be purchased at most grocery stores)
- White Bread (again purchase whole grain bread)
- Fried Foods
- Trans Fat Foods like Margarine and Vegetable Shortenings
- Soft Drinks
These foods can occasionally be added back into your diet in moderate portions.
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07.03.07
Posted in Family, Health at 9:42 pm by <ADMINNICENAME>
My daughter is majoring in community health. In one of her health classes she studied a section on lactose intolerance, and she began to wonder if she was lactose intolerant.
Wikepedia defines lactose intolerance as:
Lactose intolerance (or hypolactasia) is the condition in which lactase, an enzyme needed for proper metabolization of lactose (a sugar that is a constituent of milk and other dairy products), is not produced in adulthood.
Lactose intolerance can sometimes be confused with milk allergy. In reality, the former is a lack of the enzyme lactase, while the latter is an aberrant immune response (usually) to milk proteins.
With lactose intolerance, the result of consuming too much lactose is excess gas production, stomach aches and often diarrhea.
The majority of humans stop producing significant amounts of lactase sometime between the ages of two and five. A relatively recent genetic change caused some populations, including many northern Europeans, to continue producing lactase into adulthood. Lactose intolerance is an autosomal recessive trait, while lactase persistence is the dominant allele. The gene is expressed and the enzyme synthesized if at least one of the two genes are able to express properly. Only when both gene expressions are affected is lactase enzyme synthesis reduced, which in turn reduces lactose digestion.-Wikipedia
When I had a stomach ache when I was a kid, my mom would tell me to go get a glass of milk. So when my daughter would tell me that she had a stomach ache, I told her to go get a glass of milk. As I think back about the use of milk as a stomach ache remedy, I know it didn’t work. I remember that my daughter’s stomach ache did not go away until morning, after a night’s rest, or probably more likely, after a night’s digestion.
As an experiment, my daughter decided to cut milk from her diet to see if it would improve her overall health, and it did. She no longer had stomach aches, or sinus and ear infections. My daughter replaced milk with yogart, and some soy milk (although there seems to be controversy as to whether soy milk is an healthy product…… See “Scientists versus the soya industry”
Since my husband and son had similar symptoms, they decided to reduce their milk intake, and increase their consumption of yogart and soy milk. They also noticed overall improved health.
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06.28.07
Posted in Health, Promotional Products, Self Improvement at 11:10 pm by <ADMINNICENAME>
How many steps per day are enough to keep you trim and prevent obesity? A pedometer study of an Old Order Amish community showed that their average man logged 18,000 steps per day and their average woman logged 14,000 steps per day, and they had one of the lowest rates of overweight and obesity of any community in North America.
While typical North Americans find logging 10,000 steps a day to be a challenge, requiring dedicated walking time to accomplish, the Old Order Amish achieved it with ease with their typical daily activities. In fact, the only day their average dipped as low as 10,000 steps was on Sunday, their “day of rest.” The farming community was studied in March at a moderate-activity time rather than high-activity time of year such as during harvest.
96 Amish studied wore pedometers for a week and recorded their daily steps and other physical activity. Use of the pedometers and scales did not violate Amish traditions because they were borrowed. The participants were men and women, ages 18-75, in an Old Order Amish community in Ontario, Canada. The study was published in the January, 2004 “Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise,” and conducted by David R. Bassett, Jr. and associates of the University of Tennessee.
None of the men were obese, and only 2 of the women were obese, an overall rate of 4% obesity as measured as a BMI of 30 or more. This compares to 14.9% obesity rate in Canada and 30.9% in the USA.
Of note is that the obesity rates for this community do not compare to that of more sedentary Amish communities where they work in tourist shops and furniture factories. In those communities the obesity rate is similar to their non-Amish neighbors. It might be predicted that it is the high-activity farming lifestyle that keeps this Amish community lean.
The moral of this story: modern lifestyles have greatly reduced our everyday physical activity levels, yet we haven’t reduced our food intake to match.
If you would like to read the full article, see Walking.About.com
SOURCE: Bassett DR, Schneider PL, Huntington GE. “Physical activity in an Old Order Amish community.” Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. 2004 Aug;36(8):1447. Author reply 1448.
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