It can be sometimes difficult to find quality caregivers for residential care homes, also called personal care homes. A quality caregiver should be someone who provides daily activities for the residents, show initiative and quick response, demonstrate sound judgement and provide confident care.
Hiring a caregiver at times can be a little overwhelming. There are many issues to consider before opening the classifieds, calling caregiver agencies, and searching the Internet for independent contractors. Since this is stepping into unknown territory, it's a good idea to leverage word of mouth referrals from family members and friends. Knowing what to do, how to do it, and when to do it is a huge part of finding a quality caregivers for residential care homes. With that said, here are three suggestions to help find quality caregivers for a residential care homes.
Caregiver Agencies - Hiring caregiver agencies can be expensive, but a lot of them are bonded and insured. It is important to ask the agency if they provide employees to do the work. Some agencies recruit caregivers looking for work from a referral list and do not perform background checks before hiring them. Reputable agencies ensure their caregivers pass criminal background checks, screening for communicable diseases, and are trained in CPR and first aid. However, if the caregiver does not work out, you can request a replacement. Also, agency CNAs may have nurses assigned to the residential care home to ensure that policies and procedures are being followed. Remember, you are hiring quality caregivers for a 24/7 operation. Bottom line, it takes money, time, and energy to provide consistent, high-quality care to your residents. It should not be something you enter into lightly.
Independent Contractor - This may be more affordable, but be careful! Find out if the caregiver has a current certified nursing assistant license. This will ensure the person can provide basic care for your residents. Also, perform a criminal background check and verify the caregiver's references. If everything seems legitimate, ask family members to sit in during the interview to confirm they feel comfortable with this person before caring for your special loved one. One thing you can do is call CNA schools to get staff members. CNA schools are always looking to place their qualified students in externships, temporary and permanent jobs.
In-Home Respite Care Services - It is vitally important to take care of yourself as you take care of your residents and loved ones. Plan your relief by assessing your needs. Some of these might include personal free time during the day to run errands, transporting residents, or daily activities (e.g., cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc.). Some caregiver agencies offer this service to provide temporary or regular support to caregivers that work a 24/7 schedule. Other forms of nonmedical respite breaks can be provided by family, friends, neighbors and volunteers from local retirement groups. Also consider college-bound students that need to fulfill community service hours, faith-based and non-profit organizations to cover short, nonmedical in-home intervals.
Do You Want the Best Caregivers? - Are you comfortable with the people representing your brand? Are these people exceeding your expectations when it comes to implementing your systems, policies and procedures? Do you feel confident that your residents are receiving the best 24/7 care possible every single day? Now that you know how to find a quality caregiver, when are you going to spend the time, money, and energy to do it? Who is responsible to ensure that your residents are receiving the highest standard of care? Each caregiver has a lasting impact on your business, your residents, and your bottom line. Pick and choose wisely.
Sharman Lawson is the president and senior consultant at Care Consulting and Training, LLC. As a care home consulting firm, Care Consulting and Training, LLC has helped hundreds of people get licensed throughout the country using their customized products, services, training, and consulting programs. President, Sharman Lawson is the author of the book "12 Steps to Eliminate Debt Forever" and an e-book "The Blueprint to Start and Run a Personal Care Home." Sharman Lawson has appeared and been featured in Money Magazine for Women, The Oregonian, Atlanta Live, Good Day Northwest, and other local and national media.
Showing posts with label healthy food near me. Show all posts
Showing posts with label healthy food near me. Show all posts
Friday, November 10, 2017
Healthy Living - Why Not Try These Natural Means to Overcome Nausea?
Are you dealing with nausea? Whether you are overcoming illness, not feeling well, or have been traveling by air or water and are dealing with motion sickness, nausea is no fun to deal with. Rather than turning to medical treatments, however, which may come with unwanted side effects, why not try some of the natural means of overcoming this issue?
Let us take a look at a few of the best ways to naturally combat nausea you need to know about...
1. Try Ginger. Ginger is one of the most tried and true methods to help yourself rid nausea and one you should be considering. Whether you choose to opt for sugar-free diet ginger ale, you add a little ginger into the meal you are cooking, or you decide to chew on dried ginger pieces, this can help curb in a hurry, those feelings of nausea.
Ginger is also calorie free unless it is preserved with sugar, so something you won't have to worry about impacting your body weight.
2. Eat Smaller Meals. Another thing you can do is focus on eating smaller meals. For some people, nausea tends to come on more often after eating huge meals, so breaking those meals down into smaller, more manageable ones, can be a smart decision.
Try keeping your meals at a maximum of 250 to 350 calories and see if the smaller amount of food helps to reduce your nausea. As an added benefit, you might just find this helps out with weight loss as well. Frequent eating encourages the body to burn fat instead of muscle tissue.
3. Pop Some Peppermint Gum. Peppermint may also have some great anti-nausea benefits, so that is another consideration you will want to note. Popping a stick of peppermint gum after you eat your meals may help you ward off nausea, while also freshening your breath.
It is another calorie-free option you will want to try.
4. Have A Glass Of Lemon Water. Another great way to combat nausea is to drink a glass of lemon water. Fresh lemon tends to suppress nausea naturally, and anything sour will also do the trick quite nicely as well.
Sometimes those who suffer from nausea are not tending to their hydration needs well enough, so this may help you offset the dehydration as well.
There you have a few of the best tips to help you manage your nausea. Which of these have you tried?
Managing your health can be challenging, You can make simple changes to your daily routine and lower both your weight, your blood sugar levels and if you experience nausea, prevent it naturally.
For nearly 25 years, Beverleigh Piepers has searched for and found a number of secrets to help you build a healthy body. Go to http://DrugFreeType2Diabetes.com to learn about some of those secrets.
The answer isn't in the endless volumes of available information but in yourself.
Let us take a look at a few of the best ways to naturally combat nausea you need to know about...
1. Try Ginger. Ginger is one of the most tried and true methods to help yourself rid nausea and one you should be considering. Whether you choose to opt for sugar-free diet ginger ale, you add a little ginger into the meal you are cooking, or you decide to chew on dried ginger pieces, this can help curb in a hurry, those feelings of nausea.
Ginger is also calorie free unless it is preserved with sugar, so something you won't have to worry about impacting your body weight.
2. Eat Smaller Meals. Another thing you can do is focus on eating smaller meals. For some people, nausea tends to come on more often after eating huge meals, so breaking those meals down into smaller, more manageable ones, can be a smart decision.
Try keeping your meals at a maximum of 250 to 350 calories and see if the smaller amount of food helps to reduce your nausea. As an added benefit, you might just find this helps out with weight loss as well. Frequent eating encourages the body to burn fat instead of muscle tissue.
3. Pop Some Peppermint Gum. Peppermint may also have some great anti-nausea benefits, so that is another consideration you will want to note. Popping a stick of peppermint gum after you eat your meals may help you ward off nausea, while also freshening your breath.
It is another calorie-free option you will want to try.
4. Have A Glass Of Lemon Water. Another great way to combat nausea is to drink a glass of lemon water. Fresh lemon tends to suppress nausea naturally, and anything sour will also do the trick quite nicely as well.
Sometimes those who suffer from nausea are not tending to their hydration needs well enough, so this may help you offset the dehydration as well.
There you have a few of the best tips to help you manage your nausea. Which of these have you tried?
Managing your health can be challenging, You can make simple changes to your daily routine and lower both your weight, your blood sugar levels and if you experience nausea, prevent it naturally.
For nearly 25 years, Beverleigh Piepers has searched for and found a number of secrets to help you build a healthy body. Go to http://DrugFreeType2Diabetes.com to learn about some of those secrets.
The answer isn't in the endless volumes of available information but in yourself.
Homeopathic Remedies Cure Patients Holistically
Homeopathy, which dates back to the 1700s, is an alternative medicinal practice that uses small doses of natural substances that in a healthy person would create symptoms of disease. In order to help treat or cure a disease Homeopathy uses the fewest possible quantity of an active element, even if this same component has resulted in the illness in the first place.
Homeopathy is the second largest therapeutic system in use in the world, according to WHO.
Now, hundreds of diverse homeopathic remedies are available. A range of natural substances are used in Homeopathic medicine. They are either derived from animals or from minerals or plants. Activated charcoal, fresh or dried herbs, garlic, vinegar, caffeine, crushed bees, white arsenic, mountain herbs, stinging nettle plants, and poison ivy are used by a homeopathic doctor to treat a patient. To create the sweet pills, gels, skin ointments, creams or drops, these substances are extracted or processed in another way.
How Homeopathy Works
We have already discussed that the same substance which contribute to an illness is used to treat the very same illness in Homeopathy. Homeopathy is based on the belief that this practice helps the body's natural ability to heal and stimulate the immune system. The School Of Homeopathy states, "that which a substance is capable of causing, it is also capable of curing."
In Homeopathy, treatments are tailored to each person's specific symptoms, body, history, and needs. It focuses on "individualized" and holistic cure. For instance, just imagine that two people are suffering from fever or migraine. But if they go to a Homeopathy doctor he/she will give different recommendations for them. Medicines will be prescribed based on their distinctive situation and also after analysing how their body is expected to respond.
Homeopathy is different from conventional medicine. When you consult a Homeopathy doctor he will ask you about your likes and dislikes, food habits, behaviour, etc. This is because in Homeopathy a patient's personality and emotions are very important. A patient is treated based on these factors.
Some patients might need higher doses than others because patients react in a different way to a range of doses of homeopathic medicines.
Depending on the patient's needs Homeopathic remedies - whether minerals, adaptogen herbs, animal products or medicinal mushrooms - are diluted to a certain potency. The aim is to always use the minimum dose possible.
Apart from asking patients about their relationships, stress levels, family, personal characteristics, and so on, lab tests are also normally carried out to help the homeopathic doctor learn about the patient's condition.
However, a Homeopathy doctor never prescribes medicines only based on lab tests. They are always self-reported and viewed in light of the patient's symptoms. A Homeopathy doctor will not just fix standard medications after simply taking urine, blood, hormone or other tests. To learn about the patient's expectations and entire experience is the goal of the homeopathic doctor. This is an effective way to help heal a patient "holistically" without any side-effects.
Homeopathy is the second largest therapeutic system in use in the world, according to WHO.
Now, hundreds of diverse homeopathic remedies are available. A range of natural substances are used in Homeopathic medicine. They are either derived from animals or from minerals or plants. Activated charcoal, fresh or dried herbs, garlic, vinegar, caffeine, crushed bees, white arsenic, mountain herbs, stinging nettle plants, and poison ivy are used by a homeopathic doctor to treat a patient. To create the sweet pills, gels, skin ointments, creams or drops, these substances are extracted or processed in another way.
How Homeopathy Works
We have already discussed that the same substance which contribute to an illness is used to treat the very same illness in Homeopathy. Homeopathy is based on the belief that this practice helps the body's natural ability to heal and stimulate the immune system. The School Of Homeopathy states, "that which a substance is capable of causing, it is also capable of curing."
In Homeopathy, treatments are tailored to each person's specific symptoms, body, history, and needs. It focuses on "individualized" and holistic cure. For instance, just imagine that two people are suffering from fever or migraine. But if they go to a Homeopathy doctor he/she will give different recommendations for them. Medicines will be prescribed based on their distinctive situation and also after analysing how their body is expected to respond.
Homeopathy is different from conventional medicine. When you consult a Homeopathy doctor he will ask you about your likes and dislikes, food habits, behaviour, etc. This is because in Homeopathy a patient's personality and emotions are very important. A patient is treated based on these factors.
Some patients might need higher doses than others because patients react in a different way to a range of doses of homeopathic medicines.
Depending on the patient's needs Homeopathic remedies - whether minerals, adaptogen herbs, animal products or medicinal mushrooms - are diluted to a certain potency. The aim is to always use the minimum dose possible.
Apart from asking patients about their relationships, stress levels, family, personal characteristics, and so on, lab tests are also normally carried out to help the homeopathic doctor learn about the patient's condition.
However, a Homeopathy doctor never prescribes medicines only based on lab tests. They are always self-reported and viewed in light of the patient's symptoms. A Homeopathy doctor will not just fix standard medications after simply taking urine, blood, hormone or other tests. To learn about the patient's expectations and entire experience is the goal of the homeopathic doctor. This is an effective way to help heal a patient "holistically" without any side-effects.
Monday, March 6, 2017
5 Things To Keep In Mind While You're Researching Home Hemodialysis Companies
It's hard not to notice the number of dialysis centers popping up all over many areas of the country. Though these dialysis centers are considered to be specific in providing this life-saving procedure in-house, many of them have taken the term 'in house' very literally by also touting their place as home hemodialysis companies. As the medical landscape changes from day-to-day, so, too, does the idea of undergoing a medical procedure in the comfort of your own home.
There's no doubt that you are already being bombarded by the trials and tribulations of being diagnosed with kidney failure, which is why you need to undergo dialysis. The last thing you need to worry about is how to approach treatment, and for those looking to maintain their lives as normally as possible, having treatments at home sounds fantastic. There are, however, a few things to keep in mind when deciding the best course of treatment for you:
1. How is Training Handled? If you're thinking that home dialysis is right for you, you have to think about who exactly will be in charge of running the procedure. Both you and, if applicable, a partner or family member must be trained to handle the materials & machinery involved. When looking for the right dialysis company, find out if they provide training.
2. How Much Does This Cost? Depending on whether you're operating from health insurance or government program, you need to take into account how much treatment will cost. You may find that perhaps holes in your health plan may not cover some costs or that your government-assisted health program covers only so many treatments for a week. Remember that training also costs money, so you'll need to be sure to talk things out with your health plan provider to see what options you have available.
3. Is Your Home Equipped for Home Hemodialysis? This is a bit of a complex question. For starters, you'll need to be sure your house can work with the machinery your treatments will use. You'll also need to see if you have a layout that handles any physical changes you'll need to make to accommodate this machinery. The complexity arises when you consider whether you or your proposed partner are ready to handle treatments. Extended medical care can be very taxing on the person being treated & on those administering treatments. It would be a good idea to ask if any home hemodialysis companies have social workers available to help when times get a little tough.
4. What Else is Offered? in doing your research, find out if these companies provide other services to patients such as disaster response assistance or general educational programs.
5. Always Remember the Risk - Some of the main risks you'll need to be aware of are low blood pressure & infection. The right training helps these be less common, but still keep in mind more severe risks such as air embolisms & blood loss.
There's no doubt that you are already being bombarded by the trials and tribulations of being diagnosed with kidney failure, which is why you need to undergo dialysis. The last thing you need to worry about is how to approach treatment, and for those looking to maintain their lives as normally as possible, having treatments at home sounds fantastic. There are, however, a few things to keep in mind when deciding the best course of treatment for you:
1. How is Training Handled? If you're thinking that home dialysis is right for you, you have to think about who exactly will be in charge of running the procedure. Both you and, if applicable, a partner or family member must be trained to handle the materials & machinery involved. When looking for the right dialysis company, find out if they provide training.
2. How Much Does This Cost? Depending on whether you're operating from health insurance or government program, you need to take into account how much treatment will cost. You may find that perhaps holes in your health plan may not cover some costs or that your government-assisted health program covers only so many treatments for a week. Remember that training also costs money, so you'll need to be sure to talk things out with your health plan provider to see what options you have available.
3. Is Your Home Equipped for Home Hemodialysis? This is a bit of a complex question. For starters, you'll need to be sure your house can work with the machinery your treatments will use. You'll also need to see if you have a layout that handles any physical changes you'll need to make to accommodate this machinery. The complexity arises when you consider whether you or your proposed partner are ready to handle treatments. Extended medical care can be very taxing on the person being treated & on those administering treatments. It would be a good idea to ask if any home hemodialysis companies have social workers available to help when times get a little tough.
4. What Else is Offered? in doing your research, find out if these companies provide other services to patients such as disaster response assistance or general educational programs.
5. Always Remember the Risk - Some of the main risks you'll need to be aware of are low blood pressure & infection. The right training helps these be less common, but still keep in mind more severe risks such as air embolisms & blood loss.
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
Is Aluminium Cookware Toxic To Your Health?
Cookware is for cooking, right? And as long as your food gets cooked, what does it matter whether you've used an iron pan or a scratched Teflon pan?
It might matter much more than you've believed. A growing body of research evidence appears to point to a strong link between aluminium accumulation in the body and Alzheimer's disease - a disabling loss of mental ability that is the 6th leading cause of death in the United States and the 5th leading cause of death among those age 65 and older and also cause of disability and poor health. As per statistics in 2017, more than 5.5 million Americans living with Alzheimer's, an approximately 5.3 million are age 65 and older and estimated 200,000 peoples are below age 65 and have younger-onset Alzheimer's. Almost 2/3 of Americans with Alzheimer's are women.
Is this cause for worry?
We believe it's time to start taking precautions:
Rita Hayworth, not so long ago, made Alzheimer's a household word. A disease that usually occurs at 50 and over, Alzheimer's is characterized by severe forgetfulness initially, leading to a gradual waning of the ability for abstract thinking (including the ability to perform simple calculations, exercise judgement and solve everyday problems.) The person finally becomes severely disoriented to time, person and place. Post-mortems show the brain to be highly shrunken, the brain chambers to be abnormally dilated and a marked reduction in the number of brain cells.
To date, there is no sure care for Alzheimer's. Nor do scientists agree on what causes it, though there are several theories, and research is going on apace to identify the culprits.
It was way back in the mid-1970s that researchers first noted higher-than-normal levels of aluminium in the brains of Alzheimer's victims. The question raised by this discovery was whether this excess aluminium caused the Alzheimer's or the aluminium accumulation was a result of the disease process.
It's a big question. Aluminium, it turns out, is a major player in our lives. It's the third most common element on earth.
Aluminium, like other materials is present in all our bodies, though there's no evidence that it's an essential mineral. We all consume aluminium every day. A small amount of that consumption is due to aluminium that occurs naturally in some foods. But most of our aluminium intake occurs because someone, somewhere, added that aluminium to our food, drink, water, medicine or cosmetics.
And in our kitchens, aluminium pots and pans are widely used in cooking: being cheaper, lighter and easily available, they are preferred by a majority of the population.
But the aluminium in your cookware doesn't stay there. Aluminium is highly prone to pitting corrosion, a localized form of corrosion that occurs due to small impurities in the metal. Says Dr. K.R. Satyanarayan, Head of the department of metallurgy, College of Engineering, Pune, India, "Even anodized aluminium vessels, i.e. those coated with a protective oxide that increases corrosion resistance, are not completely safe: the protective layer wears off with time, and there is no obvious indication to a lay person that this has happened."
The risk of corrosion increases when food is cooked in aluminium vessels over a long time, and over high temperature. The greatest amount of leaching (of aluminium into the food) occurs when acidic food is cooked in aluminium vessels or stored in them. Try the acid test at home and you'll believe!
"Try this at home: Want to see some dramatic evidence of the effect of acid foods on aluminium? Line a container with aluminium foil, place some leftover tomato sauce in it, cover with foil so it touches the food, and leave it in the refrigerator for a week or two. When you take it out, you will probably find holes in the foil where the aluminium has been dissolved by the salt and acid in the food."
Nor is Teflon-coated (non-stick) cookware an automatically safer option. The coating is a layer of PTFE (polytetrafluorethylene), a polymeric material that is highly corrosion-resistant. But when the coating wears off, the underlying aluminium layer is exposed, and the pan becomes prone to all the effects of aluminium leaching.
What exactly are these effects? The Scientists have reported laboratory studies that have shown that aluminium binds to the body's chemical energy, ATP (adenosine tri phosphate) and could thus interfere with the body's energy storage system.
How Aluminium works? Dr. Theodore Kruck, Ph.D., member of a leading team of aluminium-investigating scientists at the University of Toronto, offers his explanation of how aluminium damages nerve cells in the brain, based on research he and his colleagues have conducted:
"All living cells must perform 'house-keeping' to maintain their normal functions. To do this, they read 'recipes,' which are stored in the DNA molecules of their chromosomes. When we extracted the active chromatin (the chemical that contains the DNA molecules in our cells) from the brain cells of Alzheimer's patients, we found aluminium levels in the chromatin that were nine times the normal levels. We believe that this aluminium reacts with the chromatin and makes it 'sticky,' and this prevents the cell from maintaining itself. It's as if someone put glue on some of the pages in the recipe book. If enough pages get stuck, the cell can't get the information necessary for its maintenance and it will slowly die."
Dr. Kruck says, "We have progressed to the point where we now have a smoking gun (aluminium) lying beside a dead body (the Alzheimer's victim). Although we still can't prove conclusively that the bullet came from that gun, we now believe there is very strong circumstantial evidence that aluminium is the murder weapon." Let's look at some of the evidence against the metallic defendant:
Aluminium's Toxic Litany. Several independent lines of investigation have clearly established that aluminium can be highly toxic to our nervous system:
Animal experiments show that injections of aluminium into the brains of cats (animals often used in such experiments because of their tissue's close resemblance to the human variety) will produce memory loss and other behaviours similar to Alzheimer's. And the damage to the cat's brain cells is in the same parts of the brain as in human victims of Alzheimer's. Experiments with rabbits show similar results.
People with kidney failure, can develop "dialysis dementia" - a condition resembling the symptoms displayed by Alzheimer's victims - when aluminium from the water used in the dialysis treatment accumulates in their brains.
Natives of certain regions in Guam and Japan (where there are high levels of aluminium in the soil and water) suffer from an increased frequency of neurological diseases in which their brains develop aluminium-containing lesions similar to those in Alzheimer's victims.
The excess aluminium in the brains of Alzheimer's victims isn't found throughout the organ. The aluminium build-up is in the exact same brain cells that are physically damaged by the disease.
The only way to make a 100 per cent certain diagnosis of Alzheimer's is to examine the brain after death to confirm the presence of nerve fibre "plaques" and "tangles" in the brain cells. Although aluminium occurs naturally in the brain, in Alzheimer's-diseased brains aluminium levels are elevated where these plaques and tangles are found.
Dr. Kruck and his colleagues feel that, while they are still far from having all the answers, the mounting evidence against aluminium justifies some recommendation.
How the risks from aluminium cookware may be minimized?
If an aluminium vessel is to be used for cooking, make sure it's anodized aluminium - but not an old anodized vessel where the protective layer might have worn off.
Never use a high flame when cooking in aluminium. Aluminium is a soft metal; therefore higher temperatures cause greater leaching. The risk is less when water-based food is cooked, in which the temperature does not rise above the maximum of 100 degree C, than if dry cooking like roasting is done, when the temperature rises higher.
As far as possible use a wooden spoon to stir food being cooked in aluminium vessels; the abrasive action of metal spoons or forks will get the aluminium off the vessel and into your food.
Don't cook acidic foods in aluminium - the risk of leaching multiplies greatly.
Salt also reacts with aluminium, so transfer cooked food into a stainless steel container before adding salt. (That goes for vinegar too).
Avoid boiling tea or coffee for long hours in aluminium kettles. American researchers have found 30 times the recommended WHO limits of aluminium in kettles in which water has been boiled for long periods.
Avoid storing cooked food in aluminium vessels or in aluminium foil, especially acidic food.
Avoid scouring soiled aluminium vessels with an abrasive sponge. Instead, use a soft sponge and warm soapy water. It is best to discard very badly burnt vessels.
As a better option consider cast-iron sizzler pans. Made out of an iron-zinc alloy, these pans retain heat and, like non-stick pans, require very little oil. They can be used instead of non-stick pans to make anything from omelettes to dosas. Also available are iron pans, which are ideal for making all kinds of foods. (The iron you may ingest from these pans will probably be beneficial to you, considering those who are iron-deficient).
If you have a malfunctioning kidney, you need to be particularly careful about aluminium ingestion: the kidney is one of the body's prime mechanisms for controlling and guarding against overload of any metal.
Children, particularly infants, are similarly susceptible, because of their immature controlling mechanisms. Don't go overboard with tinned milk powder which comes in aluminium containers.
We 'humans' have got the life a billion years ago. There have been five mass extinctions in earth's history. We are living through the sixth. And now we too are running at a pace to end it all. This time it will be our fault.
The new discoveries and inventions have made our lifestyle full of convenience. But our bodies require work. Just like the sedentary water starts smelling, the sedentary lifestyle has given rise to many chronic diseases like the heart problems, diabetes and hypertension.
Today, the health researchers are suggesting that most of the chronic diseases that have appeared in man's life are due to STRESS. From where it has come. It is the bi-product of our so-called modern lifestyle.
We are standing at the edge of cliff. Immediate actions are required to bring back the healthy days. We must incorporate exercise, balanced diet, sound sleep, and the most importantly happy and positive thoughts to our lifestyle to get rid of all health problems.
I believe "The opposite of great truth is also true."
Day and Night, Work and Rest, Art and Science... they all looks opposite but my viewpoint is they compliment each other.
The more you relax, the more you active. Life is a balance between what we can and what we cannot. Learn to live between effort and surrender.
It might matter much more than you've believed. A growing body of research evidence appears to point to a strong link between aluminium accumulation in the body and Alzheimer's disease - a disabling loss of mental ability that is the 6th leading cause of death in the United States and the 5th leading cause of death among those age 65 and older and also cause of disability and poor health. As per statistics in 2017, more than 5.5 million Americans living with Alzheimer's, an approximately 5.3 million are age 65 and older and estimated 200,000 peoples are below age 65 and have younger-onset Alzheimer's. Almost 2/3 of Americans with Alzheimer's are women.
Is this cause for worry?
We believe it's time to start taking precautions:
Rita Hayworth, not so long ago, made Alzheimer's a household word. A disease that usually occurs at 50 and over, Alzheimer's is characterized by severe forgetfulness initially, leading to a gradual waning of the ability for abstract thinking (including the ability to perform simple calculations, exercise judgement and solve everyday problems.) The person finally becomes severely disoriented to time, person and place. Post-mortems show the brain to be highly shrunken, the brain chambers to be abnormally dilated and a marked reduction in the number of brain cells.
To date, there is no sure care for Alzheimer's. Nor do scientists agree on what causes it, though there are several theories, and research is going on apace to identify the culprits.
It was way back in the mid-1970s that researchers first noted higher-than-normal levels of aluminium in the brains of Alzheimer's victims. The question raised by this discovery was whether this excess aluminium caused the Alzheimer's or the aluminium accumulation was a result of the disease process.
It's a big question. Aluminium, it turns out, is a major player in our lives. It's the third most common element on earth.
Aluminium, like other materials is present in all our bodies, though there's no evidence that it's an essential mineral. We all consume aluminium every day. A small amount of that consumption is due to aluminium that occurs naturally in some foods. But most of our aluminium intake occurs because someone, somewhere, added that aluminium to our food, drink, water, medicine or cosmetics.
And in our kitchens, aluminium pots and pans are widely used in cooking: being cheaper, lighter and easily available, they are preferred by a majority of the population.
But the aluminium in your cookware doesn't stay there. Aluminium is highly prone to pitting corrosion, a localized form of corrosion that occurs due to small impurities in the metal. Says Dr. K.R. Satyanarayan, Head of the department of metallurgy, College of Engineering, Pune, India, "Even anodized aluminium vessels, i.e. those coated with a protective oxide that increases corrosion resistance, are not completely safe: the protective layer wears off with time, and there is no obvious indication to a lay person that this has happened."
The risk of corrosion increases when food is cooked in aluminium vessels over a long time, and over high temperature. The greatest amount of leaching (of aluminium into the food) occurs when acidic food is cooked in aluminium vessels or stored in them. Try the acid test at home and you'll believe!
"Try this at home: Want to see some dramatic evidence of the effect of acid foods on aluminium? Line a container with aluminium foil, place some leftover tomato sauce in it, cover with foil so it touches the food, and leave it in the refrigerator for a week or two. When you take it out, you will probably find holes in the foil where the aluminium has been dissolved by the salt and acid in the food."
Nor is Teflon-coated (non-stick) cookware an automatically safer option. The coating is a layer of PTFE (polytetrafluorethylene), a polymeric material that is highly corrosion-resistant. But when the coating wears off, the underlying aluminium layer is exposed, and the pan becomes prone to all the effects of aluminium leaching.
What exactly are these effects? The Scientists have reported laboratory studies that have shown that aluminium binds to the body's chemical energy, ATP (adenosine tri phosphate) and could thus interfere with the body's energy storage system.
How Aluminium works? Dr. Theodore Kruck, Ph.D., member of a leading team of aluminium-investigating scientists at the University of Toronto, offers his explanation of how aluminium damages nerve cells in the brain, based on research he and his colleagues have conducted:
"All living cells must perform 'house-keeping' to maintain their normal functions. To do this, they read 'recipes,' which are stored in the DNA molecules of their chromosomes. When we extracted the active chromatin (the chemical that contains the DNA molecules in our cells) from the brain cells of Alzheimer's patients, we found aluminium levels in the chromatin that were nine times the normal levels. We believe that this aluminium reacts with the chromatin and makes it 'sticky,' and this prevents the cell from maintaining itself. It's as if someone put glue on some of the pages in the recipe book. If enough pages get stuck, the cell can't get the information necessary for its maintenance and it will slowly die."
Dr. Kruck says, "We have progressed to the point where we now have a smoking gun (aluminium) lying beside a dead body (the Alzheimer's victim). Although we still can't prove conclusively that the bullet came from that gun, we now believe there is very strong circumstantial evidence that aluminium is the murder weapon." Let's look at some of the evidence against the metallic defendant:
Aluminium's Toxic Litany. Several independent lines of investigation have clearly established that aluminium can be highly toxic to our nervous system:
Animal experiments show that injections of aluminium into the brains of cats (animals often used in such experiments because of their tissue's close resemblance to the human variety) will produce memory loss and other behaviours similar to Alzheimer's. And the damage to the cat's brain cells is in the same parts of the brain as in human victims of Alzheimer's. Experiments with rabbits show similar results.
People with kidney failure, can develop "dialysis dementia" - a condition resembling the symptoms displayed by Alzheimer's victims - when aluminium from the water used in the dialysis treatment accumulates in their brains.
Natives of certain regions in Guam and Japan (where there are high levels of aluminium in the soil and water) suffer from an increased frequency of neurological diseases in which their brains develop aluminium-containing lesions similar to those in Alzheimer's victims.
The excess aluminium in the brains of Alzheimer's victims isn't found throughout the organ. The aluminium build-up is in the exact same brain cells that are physically damaged by the disease.
The only way to make a 100 per cent certain diagnosis of Alzheimer's is to examine the brain after death to confirm the presence of nerve fibre "plaques" and "tangles" in the brain cells. Although aluminium occurs naturally in the brain, in Alzheimer's-diseased brains aluminium levels are elevated where these plaques and tangles are found.
Dr. Kruck and his colleagues feel that, while they are still far from having all the answers, the mounting evidence against aluminium justifies some recommendation.
How the risks from aluminium cookware may be minimized?
If an aluminium vessel is to be used for cooking, make sure it's anodized aluminium - but not an old anodized vessel where the protective layer might have worn off.
Never use a high flame when cooking in aluminium. Aluminium is a soft metal; therefore higher temperatures cause greater leaching. The risk is less when water-based food is cooked, in which the temperature does not rise above the maximum of 100 degree C, than if dry cooking like roasting is done, when the temperature rises higher.
As far as possible use a wooden spoon to stir food being cooked in aluminium vessels; the abrasive action of metal spoons or forks will get the aluminium off the vessel and into your food.
Don't cook acidic foods in aluminium - the risk of leaching multiplies greatly.
Salt also reacts with aluminium, so transfer cooked food into a stainless steel container before adding salt. (That goes for vinegar too).
Avoid boiling tea or coffee for long hours in aluminium kettles. American researchers have found 30 times the recommended WHO limits of aluminium in kettles in which water has been boiled for long periods.
Avoid storing cooked food in aluminium vessels or in aluminium foil, especially acidic food.
Avoid scouring soiled aluminium vessels with an abrasive sponge. Instead, use a soft sponge and warm soapy water. It is best to discard very badly burnt vessels.
As a better option consider cast-iron sizzler pans. Made out of an iron-zinc alloy, these pans retain heat and, like non-stick pans, require very little oil. They can be used instead of non-stick pans to make anything from omelettes to dosas. Also available are iron pans, which are ideal for making all kinds of foods. (The iron you may ingest from these pans will probably be beneficial to you, considering those who are iron-deficient).
If you have a malfunctioning kidney, you need to be particularly careful about aluminium ingestion: the kidney is one of the body's prime mechanisms for controlling and guarding against overload of any metal.
Children, particularly infants, are similarly susceptible, because of their immature controlling mechanisms. Don't go overboard with tinned milk powder which comes in aluminium containers.
We 'humans' have got the life a billion years ago. There have been five mass extinctions in earth's history. We are living through the sixth. And now we too are running at a pace to end it all. This time it will be our fault.
The new discoveries and inventions have made our lifestyle full of convenience. But our bodies require work. Just like the sedentary water starts smelling, the sedentary lifestyle has given rise to many chronic diseases like the heart problems, diabetes and hypertension.
Today, the health researchers are suggesting that most of the chronic diseases that have appeared in man's life are due to STRESS. From where it has come. It is the bi-product of our so-called modern lifestyle.
We are standing at the edge of cliff. Immediate actions are required to bring back the healthy days. We must incorporate exercise, balanced diet, sound sleep, and the most importantly happy and positive thoughts to our lifestyle to get rid of all health problems.
I believe "The opposite of great truth is also true."
Day and Night, Work and Rest, Art and Science... they all looks opposite but my viewpoint is they compliment each other.
The more you relax, the more you active. Life is a balance between what we can and what we cannot. Learn to live between effort and surrender.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)