What Is Alcohol Abuse?

Many people drink a small or moderate amount of alcohol to relax and enhance their social activities. Using alcohol in this way is not harmful for most adults.
However, people whose use of alcohol has negative effects on any aspect of their lives, including health, relationships, work or school and money, are considered to have an alcohol problem. These problems can range from mild to severe. The severity of an alcohol problem depends on factors including the type of alcohol you drink, how much you drink, and how long you have been drinking.
Experts divide levels of alcohol use and abuse into the following categories in terms of risk for developing problems:

• moderate drinking;
• at-risk drinking;
• alcohol abuse; and
• alcohol dependence (alcoholism).

Alcohol affects different individuals in different ways. The level of alcohol in the blood may be affected by gender, age, physical health, amount of food eaten, and any other drugs or medication taken.

Moderate drinking is drinking that does not usually cause problems for the drinker or society and is considered low risk. In the United States, moderate drinking is usually defined as:

• men: no more than two drinks per day.
• women: no more than one drink per day.
• over age 65: no more than one drink per day.

A standard drink is considered to be:

• 12 ounces of beer or wine cooler;
• 5 ounces of wine; or
• 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits.

The limit for women and all people over age 65 is lower because they have smaller amounts of water in their bodies than men age 65 and under. As a result, they reach the same concentration of alcohol in their blood after drinking a smaller amount of alcohol. In addition, more older people have medical conditions that can be worsened by alcohol and take medicines that can have harmful effects when mixed with alcohol.

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Brain regulates cholesterol in blood, study suggests. Can we control cholesterol by controlling hunger?

Can we control cholesterol by controlling hunger? The amount of cholesterol circulating in the bloodstream is partly regulated by the brain, a study in mice suggests.

It counters assumptions that levels are solely controlled by what we eat and by cholesterol production in the liver.

The US study in Nature Neuroscience found that a hunger hormone in the brain acts as the "remote control" for cholesterol travelling round the body.
Too much cholesterol causes hardened fatty arteries, raising the risk of a heart attack.

The research carried out by a US team at the University of Cincinnati found that increased levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin in mice caused the animals to develop higher levels of blood-circulating cholesterol.

Levels in the blood rise because signals from the brain prompt the liver to store less cholesterol, the researchers said.

It is known that ghrelin inhibits a receptor in the brain in its role in regulating food intake and energy use.

In a separate experiment, they found that blocking this receptor in mice also increased levels of cholesterol in the blood.

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Maybe, just maybe, we should be looking at having smaller, more frequent, meals. This could maintain a feeling of "fullness" for longer. As far as herbs go, St. John's Wart is one, amongst others, that is reputed to be a natural appetite suppressant. The amino-acids L-Phenylalanine and L-Tyrosine have also been used to reduce hunger pangs. And one last thing, recent research tells us that the hunger hormone ghrelin is activated by fats from the foods we eat, so eating foods with a lower fat content may help control cholesterol levels.

No laps for warm laptops; skin damage possible

Have you ever worked on your laptop computer with it sitting on your lap, heating up your legs? If so, you might want to rethink that habit.

According to a new medical report, it can lead to "toasted skin syndrome," a condition caused by long-term heat exposure.

"In the old days, we would see them from heating pads, causing this raised, almost net-like rash on the thighs or wherever a heating pad may be applied like the back. But with the advent of computers, we see a fair amount of it on the legs, but only with long exposures and usually to bare skin," says Dr Vail Reese, a dermatologist.

Children with more sensitive skin may be especially at risk. Researchers say, in very rare cases, it can cause damage leading to skin cancer.

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Another medical report found heat from laptops can decrease sperm production in men.

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/technology/no-laps-for-warm-laptops-skin-damage-possible-57037?cp

 

 

 

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Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/technology/no-laps-for-warm-laptops-skin-damage-possible-57037?cp

Female Sexual Dysfunction 'Was Invented by Drugs Industry'

Female sexual dysfunction – which is claimed to affect up to two thirds of women – is a disorder invented by the pharmaceutical industry to build global markets for drugs to treat it, it is claimed today. 

Drug companies have invested millions in the search for a female equivalent of Viagra, so far without success. But while doing so they have stoked demand by creating a buzz around the disorder they have created, according to Ray Moynihan, a lecturer at the University of Newcastle in Australia.

Corporate employees worked with medical opinion leaders, ran surveys aimed at portraying the problem as widespread and helped create the diagnostic instruments to persuade women that their sexual difficulties deserved a medical label. But sex problems in women are far more complex than they are in men, encompassing lack of desire, lack of arousal and lack of orgasm and the drug industry's narrow focus is failing them.

Mr. Moynihan, who first investigated the drug industry's role in female sexual dysfunction a decade ago, says it illustrates a wider problem about the creation of new diseases, and the widening of existing boundaries for treatment with designations such as pre-diabetes, pre-hypertension and pre-osteoporosis, for which the latest treatments are aggressively promoted.

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