Tips For Healthy Lifestyle

One of the most commonly asked questions when it regards feeding your baby is, “What is the magic of yogurt and cheese that makes it OK to give to my baby before 1 year old? My pediatrician said not to feed my baby dairy prior to the age of 1 year old!”

The truth is, there is no great magic in yogurt or cheese. It is unfortunate that many medical professionals neglect to properly explain why it is fine to offer your baby cheese and/or yogurt earlier than the age of one year old. The most common reasons for it being allowed prior to age 1 year old are:

Unlike Whole Cow Milk beverage, your baby is not at risk of breast milk and/or formula being replaced by yogurt or cheese. The medical community worries that if whole cow milk is introduced to an infant prior to 1 year old, that parents would stop formula and/or breastfeeding and use milk as the replacement. This would be dangerous to your baby’s health!

If there is any “magic”, it is that yogurt and cheese do have the advantage of lactose being broken down. As lactose is already broken down with the culturing of the yogurt or cheese, it is typically easier to digest. Many people with lactose intolerance are often be able to eat cheese and/or yogurt without trouble. The same is true for some people with a milk protein (either to the casein or the whey) allergy.

Why is Milk not recommended before age 12 months?

The medical community believes that many people would stop formula feeding and/or breastfeeding and start their kids on whole cow milk earlier than 1 year old, unless they were told not to. This is typically why pediatricians and nutritionists say that other milk products such as cottage cheese, cheeses and yogurt are fine.

Milk does not contain enough nutrients, vitamins or minerals for it to adequately and properly sustain an infant’s growth. Indeed, prior to 1 year old, the consumption of a large amount of dairy products may put baby at risk for iron deficient anemia. The most dramatic effects of whole cow milk are on iron levels in the body. Infants fed breast milk or iron fortified formula have normal iron levels. Milk impedes the proper absorption of iron. Iron intake is one thing that an infant can not afford to have cut down or cut out of the diet.

Additionally, whole cow’s milk protein and fat are more difficult for an infant to digest and absorb. “Infants fed whole cow’s milk receive inadequate amounts of Vitamin E, iron, essential fatty acids, and excessive amounts of protein, sodium, and potassium. These levels may be too high for the infant’s system to handle.” mercksource health

When will I be able to offer my baby yogurt or cheese?

Cheese is typically recommended at an age when your baby is able to mash foods with his or her gums or between 7-8 months old. Melted cheese makes a wonderful edition to a finger food meal of veggies and meats! As regards the introduction of yogurt, most pediatricians recommend starting your infant on yogurt around 7-8 months of age. Some pediatricians also recommend yogurt as a great first food (from 6 months+). Selecting a whole milk yogurt is the most beneficial to your infant as babies need fats in their diets for proper growth! You can buy plain whole milk yogurts made by such companies as Stonyfield Farm, Cascade Fresh and Brown Cow. You can also Make Your Own Homemade Yogurt! Stonyfield Farm makes the YoBaby brand that many parents know and love! However, using a large container of Plain Whole Milk yogurt will save you money (and save on added sugar) and give you the flexibility of adding your own flavorings to baby’s yogurt.

The above information applies to those who do not have a known milk allergy or a lactose intolerance, or a familial history of same. As always, you should thoroughly discuss the introduction of foods with your baby’s personal pediatrician!

There are approximately 25 000 men newly diagnosed with prostate cancer every year in the United Kingdom. For these men the risk of dying from their prostate cancer depends on a number of risk factors. For example if the cancer is confined to the prostate gland at diagnosis the chance of surviving to 5 years is 70%. If the cancer has already spread e.g. to the bones then only 20% of men will survive to five years. Of all the men who currently have prostate cancer in the UK approximately 10,000 will die of the disease each year. The prostate cancer survival rate is much higher in the developed world – unsurprisingly.

When a man is first diagnosed with prostate cancer then the doctor who has found the cancer (most often a “urologist” – a surgeon who specialises in looking after problems to do with the kidneys, prostate and bladder) will arrange a series of tests to help assess the risk for that individual patient. The results of these tests will in turn help the doctor and patient to decide the best treatment for that patient.



Prostate Cancer Tests to Help Predict Survival


1. Prostate Specific Antigen or PSA

2. Digital Rectal Examination or DRE

3. Trans-rectal Ultrasound and Biopsy

4. CT or MRI Scan

5. Bone Scan

PSA
This is a protein made by the prostate gland which can be measured on a sample of your blood i.e. a blood test. The PSA level can be raised by non cancerous problems with the prostate gland i.e. not all men who have a raised PSA have prostate cancer. Also some men who have prostate cancer will not have a raised PSA. However PSA does tend to increase as prostate cancers grow, invade and spread so PSA can be used to monitor how a prostate cancer is progressing or how it is responding to treatments.

DRE
This is where a doctor feels the prostate gland through the back passage. It tells the doctor how big the prostate gland is, whether the cancer is able to be felt easily and whether it has invaded the area near by.

Tran-Rectal Ultrasound and Biopsy
For this test you need to lie on your side with your knees brought up into the chest (same position as for a DRE). An ultrasound probe is then inserted into the back passage. This enables the doctor to see on a screen the outline of the prostate gland. There is no radiation involved. The image on the screen then allows the doctor to insert a needle safely into the prostate gland to take some samples of the prostate tissue. Usually several samples are taken from each area of the prostate gland. These samples are then sent to a laboratory to be looked at under a microscope. This allows confirmation that there is prostate cancer present and tells us how aggressive the cancer looks. Sometimes a local anaesthetic is used to help make the procedure more comfortable.

CT or MRI Scan
This is usually carried out in an x-ray department and involves lying still on a thin couch which moves through either a big donut (CT) or into a long tunnel (MRI). This is not painful in any way. The pictures gained from this test helps the doctors to see whether the prostate cancer is still within the prostate gland or whether it had started to invade out of the gland into other surrounding structures. This tells the doctor what “stage” the prostate cancer is.

Bone Scan
This requires you to have an injection and then to lie on a special table where a camera scans the whole body. It shows up whether any of the bones in the body have been affected by the prostate cancer i.e. whether the prostate cancer has spread to the bones.

Prostate Cancer Stage and Survival

The stage of prostate cancer describes how far the cancer has grown and spread. It is assessed by a mixture of DRE and CT/MRI scans.

T1 Stage
This is very early prostate cancer which can only be seen under a microscope. At this stage the cancer would not cause any symptoms. Men with this stage are at low risk from their disease may not need any treatment but surveillance. The original cause of a prostate cancer problem can be difficult to diagnose.

T2 Stage
This is early prostate cancer but is now big enough to be felt by a doctor on DRE. This may still not have caused any symptoms. This is most often cured if treatment is undertaken at this stage and about 70% of men are still alive after 5 years i.e. average length of survival from diagnosis is well over 5 years.

T3 Stage
This is locally advanced prostate cancer which has started to extend and invade outside of the prostate gland. This stage would often cause bladder symptoms in men. By this stage in the disease the chance of cure with treatments is reduced however survival is often around five years.

T4 Stage
This is more advanced prostate cancer which invades the structures around the gland. At this stage there are often already secondaries e.g. bone metastases. If the disease has spread it is usually incurable but may be controlled for some time. The average survival is between 1 and 3 years.

Predicting Survival in Prostate Cancer

Doctors use a combination of risk factors to predict the behaviour of prostate cancer but cancers do not always act as expected. The factors they consider include the cancer stage (see above), the age of the patient, the PSA level and how quickly it is rising, and the Gleason Score. The Gleason score is a marker of how aggressive the cancer looks under the microscope and how much of the gland is affected by cancer.

Problems with the blood, as opposed to the supply or circulation of blood, are normally the result of something wrong in the chemical composition of the blood so that either it does not flow as it should (it may clot too quickly or not fast enough) or it does not have the right amount of chemicals to nourish and protect the body or itself properly.

Serious blood problems such as hemophilia (an inherited deficiency in which blood will not clot properly, resulting in excessive bleeding), agranulocytosis (which is the result of a white blood cell deficiency), leukemia, polycythemia (high altitude or mountain sickness, from having too many red blood cells), and septicemia (blood poisoning, the result of an overload of disease-causing bacteria in the bloodstream) are relatively rare but need medical help, mostly urgently. They are really not suitable subjects for treatment by alternative therapies.

Anemia

Anemia, which simply means lack of blood, is not a disease so much as a disorder. It is caused by a deficiency of the red oxygen-carrying pigment in blood (hemoglobin), often from lack of iron in the diet. It is more common among women than men and can be a particular problem for women with heavy periods. Iron-deficiency anemia may also be caused by blood loss into the gut in conditions such as peptic ulcer and stomach cancer.

Symptoms of anemia are a “tired-all-the-time” feeling, pale skin, shortness of breath, dizziness, poor concentration, recurrent colds and infections, and white eyelid linings.

Sickle Cell Anemia

Several blood disorders are the result of a single gene. Sickle cell anemia causes a distortion of the red blood cells into sickle shapes (a sort of half-moon shape), slowing the blood flow and decreasing the amount of oxygen the red cells are able to carry. It is much more common in Africans, Caribbeans, and people of middle Eastern descent; in the United States, 1 in every 400 Afro- Americans has this disease. There are several forms of sickle cell anemia, ranging from mild to severe. Symptoms of the severe form, which usually begins at about six months of age, include organ dysfunction, pain, and jaundice, eventually leading and extreme lethargy.

Sickle cell anemia cannot be cured, but most sufferers maintain a good lifestyle with regulerers transfusions. It is often suggested that sufferers, take specific inoculations in order to avoid infection. Dehydration and coldness may cause painful sickle cell crises in the sufferer, and should be avoided.

Treatment

Diet and Nutrition The treatment of iron-deficiency anemia is to take more iron in food or as food supplements, ideally in a multimixture that includes a complex of B vitamins, especially B12 and folic acid, vitamins C, vitamins E, copper, and selenium. Supplements may be taken tablets or liquid tonic. Iron – rich foods include liver beef, and chicken. The best non-animal sources are soybeans, corn flour, spinach, black kidney beans, rhubarb, dried fruits, and dark green leafy vegetables. Biochemic tissue salts may also help. Avoid tea: it cuts down the amount of iron the body can absorb.

Consult a qualified practitioner/therapist for:

Traditional Chinese Medicine Chinese herbs (gui pi wan or “Return spleen tablets”) may help.

Acupuncture Some find this therapy helpful.

Nobody wants to tell someone else that they are going to die and there is no easy way to tell someone that their treatments have failed and/or they are going to die from cancer. Nobody wants to tell a cancer patient they have a terminal or incurable cancer and it’s only a matter of a short time. It’s never been easy to tell people of horrific future events in their lives.

And someone who is too blunt with a terminal cancer patient may find quite a bit of reflex and reactionary emotion coming back at them. An outburst filled with hostility, anger and pure hate. Of course, this is a reaction of fear and it is often coupled with denial and ignored. Thus, a doctor or loved one that is in charge of breaking the news needs to do it correctly. Otherwise, they may feel the effect of a “kill the messenger” syndrome, which is quite common.