Aerobics at Sekolah Menengah Tanjong Maya with other schools

                                                         

Simple Ways to Live a Healthy Lifestyle

You hear a lot about living a healthy lifestyle, but what does that mean? In general, a healthy person doesn't smoke, is at a healthy weight, eats healthy and exercises. Sounds simple, doesn't it?

The trick to healthy living is making small changes...taking more steps, adding fruit to your cereal, having an extra glass of water...these are just a few ways you can start living healthy without drastic changes.

Exercise

One of the biggest problems in America today is lack of activity. We know it's good for us but avoid it like the plague either because we're used to being sedentary or afraid that exercise has to be vigorous to be worth our time. The truth is, movement is movement and the more you do, the healthier you'll be. Even moderate activities like chores, gardening and walking can make a difference.

Just adding a little movement to your life can:
Reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes
Improve joint stability
Increase and improve range of movement
Help maintain flexibility as you age
Maintain bone mass
Prevent osteoporosis and fractures
Improve mood and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression
Enhance self esteem
Improve memory in elderly people
Reduce stress

So, even if you opt for small changes and a more modest weight loss, you can see the benefits are still pretty good. One study has found that just a 10% weight reduction helped obese patients reduce blood pressure, cholesterol and increase longevity.

Simple Ways to Move Your Body

You can start the process of weight loss now by adding a little more activity to your life. If you're not ready for a structured program, start small. Every little bit counts and it all adds up to burning more calories.
Turn off the TV. Once a week, turn off the TV and do something a little more physical with your family. Play games, take a walk...almost anything will be more active than sitting on the couch.
Walk more. Look for small ways to walk more. When you get the mail, take a walk around the block, take the dog for an extra outing each day or walk on your treadmill for 5 minutes before getting ready for work.
Do some chores. Shoveling snow, working in the garden, raking leaves, sweeping the floor...these kinds of activities may not be 'vigorous' exercise, but they can keep you moving while getting your house in order.
Pace while you talk. When you're on the phone, pace around or even do some cleaning while gabbing. This is a great way to stay moving while doing something you enjoy.
Be aware. Make a list of all the physical activities you do on a typical day. If you find that the bulk of your time is spent sitting, make another list of all the ways you could move more--getting up each hour to stretch or walk, walk the stairs at work, etc.

Learn about more ways to fit in exercise.

Eating Well
You hear a lot about living a healthy lifestyle, but what does that mean? In general, a healthy person doesn't smoke, is at a healthy weight, eats healthy and exercises. Sounds simple, doesn't it?

The trick to healthy living is making small changes...taking more steps, adding fruit to your cereal, having an extra glass of water...these are just a few ways you can start living healthy without drastic changes.

How to Quit Smoking Naturally

cigarette smoking causes one-third of all cancer fatalities and one-fourth of all fatal heart attacks. In addition to this, there are many illnesses and diseases that are a direct result of cigarette smoking. This includes chronic bronchitis, emphysema, assorted respiratory ailments, angina, peptic ulcers, heartburn, and diarrhea. A recent estimate is that smoking is a factor in more than 15% of all of the deaths occurring annually.

Obviously, smoking is a high-risk behavior with deadly consequences. Smokers can expect to shorten their lives by approximately ten to fifteen years. Intellectually most people will agree that smoking is a very harmful activity. Overcoming the addictions associated with cigarette smoking can be an overwhelming prospect, however. It can be done, though, and it can be done naturally without substituting other harmful ingredients that can further jeopardize one's health.

For every cigarette smoked, over 4,000 toxic chemicals are inhaled into the body. Over forty of these chemicals have been directly linked to cancer. Nicotine is one such chemical and is considered extremely addictive because with ingestion it facilitates the natural release of serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. In so doing, it also stimulates the production of adrenaline, which elevates blood pressure and heart rate.

Nicotine can be ingested by chewing, sniffing, or smoking. When ingested it creates a relaxed feeling. With continued use, the body develops not only a physical and psychological addiction to nicotine, but a drug tolerance as well. This means that more nicotine will be required to achieve the same feelings of relaxation. This also means that if nicotine ingestion is stopped, withdrawal symptoms will result.

Anti-smoking ads cleverly boost smoking among teens

Tobacco industry-funded anti-smoking ads aimed at discouraging teen smoking actually caused teens to smoke more, according to a new report by Australian researchers published in the American Journal of Public Health.

Phillip Morris' "Talk: They'll Listen" ad campaign -- designed to get parents to verbally dissuade their kids from taking up smoking -- caused high-schoolers to want to smoke more. The study's authors claim that the ads were actually meant to spur teen smoking, since most teens spurn their parents' advice.

The "Talk: They'll Listen" campaign failed because its message was only that parents should talk to their kids about smoking; not that children should not smoke, according to the study's authors. The researchers concluded that "no reason beyond simply being a teenager is offered as to why youths should not smoke."

According to developmental psychologists, teens 15 to 17 years old tend to reject authoritative messages because they believe they are independent, which renders Philip Morris' ad campaign largely useless, the researchers said.

The study's authors believe that Big Tobacco anti-smoking ads have actually become a new way of getting young people addicted to cigarettes. For example, many Big Tobacco ads push "light" cigarettes -- which contain lower levels of nicotine and tar -- as a way for smokers to transition from full-strength cigarettes, rather than quitting the habit entirely.

However, recent studies have shown "light" cigarettes to be just as dangerous as regular brands, though 37 percent of smokers switched to "lights" because they believed they were less harmful.

According to a 2003 study from the Cancer Council Victoria in Australia, the only anti-smoking ads that actually work on teens show the graphic, gory health consequences of smoking. Teens shown images of a smoker's oozing artery or a blood clot in a smoker's brain were less attracted to smoking, the researchers found.

Nicotine Levels in Toenail Clippings Reveal Risk of Heart Disease

The level of nicotine in a woman's toenails is a highly accurate predictor of her heart disease risk, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of California-San Diego and published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

"The use of toenail nicotine is a novel way to objectively measure exposure to tobacco smoke and could become a useful test to identify high-risk individuals in the future," lead researcher Wael Al-Delaimy said.

Al-Delaimy noted that while it is well-known that smoking is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, including heart attack and stroke, physicians cannot always obtain accurate data about a patient's smoking history simply by asking. Other tests of nicotine body burden, such as saliva or urine tests, only indicate recent exposure to cigarette smoke. But because toenails grow at an average rate of only 1 centimeter per year, their nicotine concentration gives a more accurate picture of long-term exposure - including second-hand smoke.

The researchers examined toenail clippings from 62,500 nurses, and found that those who had heart disease had, on average, twice as much nicotine in their toenails as healthy women. Even after adjusting for other potential influences, women with the highest nicotine content in their toenails had four times the heart disease risk of those with the lowest nicotine content.

Women with high nicotine concentrations were more likely to have high blood pressure, diabetes, to drink heavily, to have a family history of smoking and to be thinner than those with less nicotine were.

The researchers noted that it is not nicotine itself that causes heart disease, but that nicotine merely functions as a measure of overall tobacco exposure.

"People using nicotine replacement therapy should not be alarmed by this study," said Ellen Mason of the British Heart Foundation, "as it is the other chemicals inhaled when smoking, such as carbon monoxide that cause the risk of heart disease, not nicotine."

"Men and women who smoke are around twice as likely to suffer a heart attack in their life time as those who don't," Mason said, "and quitting smoking is one of the most effective ways to reduce this risk."

Smoking Linked to Bladder Cancer

Smoking strongly increases a person's risk of developing bladder cancer - a risk that the majority of the population seems to be unaware of, according to a new analysis conducted by researchers from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.The general public understands that cigarette smoking can lead to lung cancer, but very few people understand that it also can lead to bladder cancer

The researchers compiled data from all studies in the MEDLINE database that had been conducted on the connection between bladder cancer and smoking between 1975 and 2007. The correlation between smoking behavior and bladder cancer risk, they found, was strong. For example, one study found that a person's risk of developing bladder cancer goes down by 40 percent within the first four years of quitting smoking.

Yet the general population remains unaware of this connection, the researchers also found, as are patients who have been diagnosed with bladder cancer. Only 22 percent of bladder cancer patients surveyed knew that smoking increases the risk of developing the disease.

"A big gap exists between patient knowledge and their actual risk," co-author Seth A. Strope said. "Our study suggests that physicians must do a much better job of communicating the risk to our patients, and directing them toward smoking cessation programs."

Bladder cancer is one of the most expensive forms of cancer to treat. In the United States, it is the fourth most common cancer in men in the ninth most common in women, with more than 47,000 new cases diagnosed in men and 16,000 in women each year. The higher prevalence in men is believed to be due to the fact that male sex hormones play a role in the development of the disease.

Other than smoking, risk factors include being African-American or Hispanic and having a family history of the cancer. Exposure to secondhand smoke is also a suspected risk factor.

 

Bladder cancer in men 

                                                              Bladder cancer in women

World no tobacco day

Smoking kills 6 million people every year around the world, and more than half a million non-smokers get affected from second hand smoke. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death. In fact, tobacco kills more people every year that alcohol, AIDS, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders and suicides combined. Unless more people quit smoking, this deadly habit could kill up to one billion people in the 21st century.

The World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) is observed worldwide every year on May 31st to help smokers abstain from consuming tobacco for at least 24 hours, smokers are also encouraged to give up the habit for life.

WHO is persuading more countries to sign a global treaty to ensure public protection from smoking. The treaty, 'The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control' (FCTC) is known as the world's primary tobacco cessation instrument, and is the focus for the theme this year. The treaty was drafted 6 years ago and 172 countries have signed it, though 20 percent have done nothing to implement it's recommendations. In addition, major countries such as the U.S. and Indonesia have not even signed it.

For countries that have signed the treaty, the WHO FCTC places certain requests including obligations to:

- Protect public health policies from commercial and other interests of the tobacco industry
- Protect people from exposure to tobacco smoke
- Warn people about the dangers of tobacco
- Regulate the packaging and labeling of tobacco products
- Offer people help to end their addiction to tobacco
- Ban cigarette sale to and by minors
- Support economically viable alternatives to tobacco growing

The WNTD campaign will focus on fully implementing the treaty to protect present and future generations from the consequences of tobacco consumption and exposure.

If more people give up smoking this will be a major victory for health services worldwide. It will help prevent millions of unnecessary deaths and save a huge amount in health care costs. Not to mention, the next generation will be healthier.