by Sunil on March 14, 2010
No matter how glowing and radiant your skin is, the harsh effects of exposure to heat, extreme sunlight, humidity and pollution can be ruinous. A few basic precautionary measures though can help you maintain healthy skin.
Skin care in summer is down to one word – WATER! Drink lots and lots of water and remember diluted fruit juice is better than aerated drinks. While hydrating from the inside, you can also splash some cold water on your face to hydrate the outer layer of the skin making it look smooth and young. Avoid hot water baths – instead gently steam to open facial pores and a clean-up of the face should be limited to not more than twice a week. Mild soap or a soap-free face wash is recommended.
Heat, humidity, sweat and pollution can increase the accumulation of dead cells on the skin’s surface. Exfoliation of skin increases the skin’s sheen. Avoid coarse scrubs – instead use natural fibres, ingredients or mild scrubs twice a week.
Moisturisers increase the water content in the top layer of skin, making it glow. Moisturisers are most effective when applied at night however, for people prone to dry skin application of a moisturiser before make-up is suggested. Quite a few non-greasy gel formulations are available over the counter with your pharmacist.
The sun is a mixed blessing. While exposure to sunlight is required for the synthesis of vitamin D, excessive exposure can dehydrate the skin. Also, the UV rays breaks up the collagen in the deeper layers of the skin making it lose elasticity. Pigmentation increases making one look darker. Though sunburn is rarer for us as the pigment in our skin protects us, unlike say, Caucasian skin, the skin’s surface can still look dry and irregular with patchy discolouration.
Long sleeves, lighter coloured garments made of natural fabrics, hats, parasols and proper sunglasses help prevent over exposure. Sunscreens, with SPF 15 (Sun Protection Factor) and above are a must. A few tips about sunscreen use: apply sun-screen at least 20 minutes before exposure. Apply a generous coat and not a thin layer. At high altitudes, in or close to water (the sun’s reflection of water can have lot of UV rays) and during long periods of exposure to sun, repeat application every three to four hours. Water resistant sunscreens help protect you while swimming.
As a rule of thumb, one gets half the protection of the SPF factor of the sunscreen — so, if the SPF of your sunscreen is 30, your protection level is about 15. This is due to various factors, like time of application, thickness of the cream and location of exposure. Choose double the SPF you need, eg: if you think you need SPF 15 choose one with SPF of 30.
Though we are a nation obsessed with fair complexions, you have to admit — a smooth, radiant, healthy but dusky complexion is much more attractive than fair skin with a poor surface. Remember, the pigment in the skin protects it from many harmful skin ailments caused by UV rays. A glance at skin cancer statistics in the western skin type will reinforce the argument. Also, ageing is much slower in Indian skin, we develop wrinkles and lines much later in life — 30s for fairer skin and the late 40s for darker. So use fairness creams with caution.
Pigmentary changes, when interfering with appearance, can be treated safely with chemical peels. Micro-dermabrasion or various other exfoliation techniques can help you to get a good sheen and tone of skin. Vitamin C serums and vitamin E lotions also help but it is best to use them under medical supervision. Skin rejuvenation lasers can help improve appearance. Your plastic surgeon or dermatologist can help you to choose an appropriate technique.
Rauwolfia serpentina, popularly known as sarpagandha, is Nature’s gift to man against high blood pressure, snake bites, sleeplessness, hysteria, paranoia and schizophrenia. But Rauwolfia is considered a wonder drug as far as its anti-hypertension properties are concerned. It was once used as a front line drug against high blood pressure, but because of its certain side effects, sarpagandha is now used as a second line medicine to treat hypertension.
Since pure alkaloids extracted from Rauwolfia act quickly on the human body including the circulatory, reproductive and nervous systems, it is better to use the powdered raw roots of the plants for home remedies. Its extracts are sold in the form of differently branded drugs, but for the purpose of home remedies, one should take the raw roots, powder them and consume with either honey, milk or oil. In this way, one can reduce the highly dangerous side effects.
A word of caution. Only those with high blood pressure should consume sarpagandha as it will further bring down the blood pressure in normal persons, leading to hypotension or low BP. Pregnant women and people with gastric ulcers better avoid the plant or its extracts.
The roots contain a chemical called reserpine, which is widely used in anti-hypertensive drugs. As its name suggests (sarpa, snake; gandha, smell), sarpagandha works against snake bites. It is also widely used in treatment of reptile bites.
Home remedies
For sound sleep and quick relief from insomnia or mental stress, take 500 mg of sarpagandha root. Powder it and mix it with a teaspoon of sesame (gingelly or til) oil. Consume it before going to bed. To beat severe skin rashes (hives), take a few fresh leaves of sarpagandha. Crush them and apply the paste on the affected portions of the skin.
Those suffering from high BP may take a Sarpagandha root preparation to keep the blood pressure under check. Take 500 mg of root, powder it and mix it with water or honey. The preparation may be taken twice daily. One should avoid extra dosage as it will lead to drastic fall in blood pressure, causing severe health trouble. Pregnant women should avoid it.
by ravi on March 14, 2010
Ingredients:
2 cups chapatti flour
1 cup spinach (palak), finely chopped and steamed
1tbsp oil
1 tsp jeera
salt to taste
1/4th tsp chilli powder or black pepper
Oil / butter to shallow fry
Method:
Drain the steamed spinach and cool it to room temperature. Now mix all ingredients — flour, spinach, salt, chilli powder, jeera and oil. Add enough water to make a dough of rolling consistency. Cover it and keep aside for 30 minutes.
Then make small balls and roll them like parathas.
Put the palak paratha on the tawa and fry it on both sides.
Serve the paratha hot with homemade chutney.
Benefits
Spinach is a rich source of Vitamins C and A. It is also a vegetable that prevents ageing.
The writer is an expert in Ayurvedic cooking
by pavan on March 14, 2010
It’s often said that one should never let the sun set on an argument. And, now a new study has claimed that kissing and making up with one’s partner before going to bed really does improve one’s mood the next day.
An international team, led by Harvard University, has located the precise area in the brain – the lateral prefrontal cortex - which leaves people seething when they wake up the following morning after an unresolved row.
Scans showed that those people whose brains were more active at that spot were less likely to be upset the following day after a spat. And those showing less brain activity in the cortex were more likely to seethe — and for longer.
“This critical brain area could also help regulate emotion in our day-to-day lives,” the researchers were quoted by the ‘Daily Express’ as saying.
Lead author Christine Hooker said: “What we found, as you might expect, was that everybody felt badly on the day of the conflict with their partners. But the day after, people who had high lateral prefrontal cortex activity felt better and the people who had low lateral prefrontal cortex activity continued to feel bad.”
For their study, the team analysed healthy couples in relationships of more than three months. Brain scans examined them as they viewed their partners with “positive, negative or neutral” facial expressions.
The couples also recorded in an online diary their daily emotional state and whether they had had a fight with their partners.
Prof Hooker said: “The key factor is that the brain activity in the scanner predicted their experience in life. Scientists believe that what we are looking at in the scanner has relevance to daily life, but obviously we don’t live our lives in a scanner. If we can connect what we see in the scanner to somebody’s day-to-day emotion regulation capacity, it could help psychologists predict how well people will respond to stressful events in their lives.”
The study has been published in the ‘Biological Psychiatry’ journal.
A special US court has ruled against the parents of an autistic child, rejecting their claim of a connection between autism and a triple vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) their son was given.
In a similar ruling a year ago against three other families, the United States Court of Federal Claims said the “theory of vaccine-related causation (of autism) is scientifically unsupportable.”
Like some 5,000 other families seeking compensation, the parents of William Mead, 11, argued that the MMR vaccine their son was administered in his first year triggered the symptoms of autism six months later.
They asked the special court to acknowledge that thimerosal, a mercury-based preserving agent in some vaccines like MMR, is the cause of autism in William.
“Petitioners have not shown either that certain children are genetically hypersusceptible to mercury or that certain children are predisposed to have difficulty excreting mercury,” the court said in its 200-page ruling.
The “petitioners have not shown that the inorganic mercury deposited in the brain in the amount that could be received from a full complement of thimerosal-containing vaccines can cause the effects that petitioners have alleged,” it added.
by pavan on March 14, 2010
An extract from tomato seeds has been found to be a potential alternative to aspirin in preventing heart attacks and strokes.
A tomato derivative called Fruitflow, derived from the gelatine that surrounds tomato seeds, is apparently effective in reducing the risk of blood clotting.
Scientists at Aberdeen’s Rowett Institute said the results of the latest trials were “statistically significant“.
Provexis, a spin-off company of the research institute, which manufactures Fruitflow, has released its findings after comparing the effects of Fruitflow and aspirin over a seven-month period using 43 people.
“We are delighted with the results of this latest human trial, which highlights the substantial effect that Fruitflow can have, without the associated side effects known to occur with aspirin,” the Scotsman quoted chief executive Stephen Moon as saying.
He added: “We have already announced intent to enter into an agreement with DSM Nutritional Products, the world’’s leading supplier of vitamins, carotenoids and other fine chemicals to feed, food, pharmaceutical and personal care industries.”
No ill effects were observed even when Fruitflow and aspirin were taken together. The drawbacks of aspirin are that it increases risk of ulcers and stomach bleeding.
by pavan on March 13, 2010
The Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL)
(A Government Company)
Kothagudem, Andhra Pradesh, India
Advertisement No.01/2010
Singreni Collieries invites Online application for the following Job posts of in Non-executive cadre posts :
Online Application need to be submit for the following posts as well as hardcopy of the same with registration number obtained through print file :
* Junior Mining Engineers (Trainee) Male Only (JMET) : 150 posts, Qualification : Diploma in Mining Engineering., Age : 24 years as on 01/01/2010
How to Apply : Online application can be submitted upto 5.00 PM on 31/03/2010. Candidates have to take a print of the Online Application Form after successful submission of data. The printed form of the application signed by the candidate enclosing therewith copies of certificates in proof of age, qualification, experience, marks memos, caste etc., self-addressed stamped (Rs.5/-) envelope should be sent to the General Manager (Personnel), The Singareni Collieries Co. Ltd., Recruitment Cell, Kothagudem – 507101, Khammam District (AP) on or before 10/04/2010, superscribing the application registration number on the envelope.
Please visit http://www.scclmines.com/careers.asp for detailed information and online submission of the application.
Want to pep up your sex life? Then start jogging, as a new study says joggers have more active sex lives than those who don’t run.
One in 10 joggers said they have sex at least once a day and three percent of joggers said they have sex twice a day. Amongst non-runners one in four (25 percent) said they had sex once a month or less, reports telegraph.co.uk.
The survey involving 1,000 runners and 1,000 non-runners, carried out by healthcare charity Sue Ryder Care, also found that one in 10 male runners confessed to thinking about sex while exercising.
In comparison, only five percent of women said they think about sex while running and almost half spend their time thinking about how the exercise is benefiting them.
The poll also found that a quarter of joggers admitted going running to help them flirt with the opposite sex in a trend branded as ‘flunning’. More than a third said they have managed to strike up a conversation with someone of the opposite sex while running.
“Last year runners raised over 500,000 pounds for Sue Ryder Care so we wanted to find out what motivates people to run,” telegraph.co.uk quoted Laura Savory, running and events manager at Sue Ryder Care, as saying.
“We were tickled to discover this new craze which seems to have really caught on everywhere. We estimate that there are almost 600,000 flunners in the UK. It’s a great opportunity for single runners to get out there and find their love match. We’re hoping this will encourage more Brits to get running,” Savory added.
Copper prices gained on supply concerns after an earthquake struck Chile, the world’s biggest source of the metal.
A magnitude 6.9 earthquake hit south of Santiago at about 9:40 a.m. New York time, the U.S. Geological Survey said today on its Web site. An 8.8-magnitude temblor, the world’s fifth- strongest in a century, killed more than 400 people on Feb. 27, briefly shut mines and prompted a three-day copper rally. Aftershocks have rocked the country for the past two weeks.
“Copper rose as a knee-jerk reaction to the earthquake,” said Frank McGhee, the head metals dealer at Integrated Brokerage LLC in Chicago. “The concern now is each time this happens, it causes an additional impact on roads and facilities. It creates an overall infrastructure problem.”
Copper futures for May delivery rose 0.9 cent, or 0.3 percent, to $3.377 a pound on the Comex in New York. The most- active contract has advanced 2.8 percent since Feb. 26.
The metal added as much as 0.8 percent today after initial reports put the quake, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) southwest of Santiago in Libertador O’Higgins, at magnitude 7.2. The region, north of the Feb. 27 temblor’s epicenter, was hit by three tremors above magnitude 6 in less than an hour today.
Chile’s state-owned Codelco, the world’s biggest copper producer, evacuated its Ventanas smelter on Chile’s central coast after a tsunami warning. The Santiago-based company said there were no reports of problems at its El Teniente and Andina mines after the 6.9 quake, which shook buildings in the capital.
“It’s a classic case of shoot first and ask questions later,” said David Thurtell, an analyst at Citigroup Inc. in London. There is “always a risk that production might be affected,” he said.
On the London Metal Exchange, copper for delivery in three months climbed $24, or 0.3 percent, to $7,464 a metric ton ($3.39 a pound). Zinc, nickel, tin and lead fell. Aluminum gained.
–With reporting by Steven Fromm in New York and Matt Craze in Santiago. Editors: Ted Bunker, Daniel Enoch.
by Sunil on March 11, 2010
Gastric bypass surgery can raise the risk of developing kidney stones, says a new study.
Researchers at Texas University have found patients who undergo gastric bypass surgery experience changes in their urine composition that in turn increase their risk of developing kidney stones, ‘The Journal of Urology’ reported.
The study found that some of these urinary changes place weight-loss surgery patients at higher risk for developing kidney stones than obese patients who don’t undergo the procedure. For the study, researchers collected urine samples from 38 study participants.
There were 16 women and three men in each of two groups. One group had undergone Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery; the second group contained normal obese individuals.
RYGB, which is one of the most commonly performed weight-loss procedures, involves the creation of a small gastric pouch and allows food to bypass part of the small intestine.
The researchers found that the excretion of a material called oxalate in urine was significantly greater in the participants who had the surgical procedure than those who did not (47 per cent compared with 10.5 respectively).