Types of Acne - What Type Do You Have?

More than half of the population deals with acne at some point in their life. That's a lot of people struggling with the same condition. Except that there are different types of acne. Understanding your type of acne can help you not only treat it but also get rid of it. You can live acne free.

1. Do you have blackheads? Blackheads are what happens when you have a partially clogged pore. If you have blackheads then you likely have mild to moderate acne vulgaris.

2. Do you have whiteheads? Whiteheads occur when you have a completely blocked pore. If you experience whiteheads then you likely have mild to moderate acne vulgaris.

3. Do you have small red bumps? Papules or small red bumps occur when the underlying tissue is irritated. You can experience papules if you have acne vulgaris or Rosacea.

4. Do you have pustules? A pustule is a red inflamed bump or blemish that has a yellow or whitish center. This is standard, albeit irritating and frustrating, acne vulgaris. Do not pick or squeeze!

5. Do you have red areas on your cheeks, chin, nose and/or forehead? Do the red areas become more irritated or flushed when you get hot, are exposed to sunshine or eat certain foods? If so, you have Rosacea. It's important to know that you can have acne vulgaris and Rosacea simultaneously. It happens often.

6. Do you get large cysts or nodules under your skin? If so then you have a more severe type of acne. It's often called nodular or cystic acne. Treatment is generally different for severe acne than mild or moderate acne.

7. Do you have numerous acne lesions that are cyst like in nature and connected? Are you male? Is the acne on your face, back, arms and buttocks? If so you likely have a rare form of acne found in men called Congoblata. It's treated with Accutane and can leave deep scars.

8. Do you have the above symptoms and have the occurred rapidly following a fever? If so then you likely have Acne Fulminans. It's also treated with Accutane and/or oral steroids.

9. Have you been on antibiotics for an extended duration? Do you have both pustules and cysts? If so then you may have Gram-Negative Folliculitis. This type of acne is caused by an extended stint on antibiotics. Treatment can be tricky.

Acne is common and most likely you're experiencing mild to moderate acne vulgaris. It's treated effectively through a number of lifestyle changes and acne medications. Most often over the counter acne cleaners and lotions can both clear up your skin and prevent future breakouts. If you have a more severe type of acne consider visiting a professional for help.

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Stretching Exercises: The Basics

What's the first thing you do when you get up in the morning? You stretch. This feels good and it's important to engage in regular stretching exercises in order to maintain a flexible and healthy body.

Some benefits to stretching include:

- Reduced muscle tension

- Greater range of joint movement

- Increased blood flow to parts of the body

- This increased blood flow adds to a greater amount of energy

First we need to define the two main kinds of stretching: These are static and dynamic. Most likely static comes to mind when you think about stretching. This is when you stretch a muscle and hold that position for a few seconds.

Dynamic on the other hand stretch your muscles with the use of movement. For example when your warming up before an exercise or physical activity and your swinging your arms back and forth across your chest you are performing dynamic stretches. Basically you are taking your arms and legs and using movement to make them reach their full range of motion.

Other stretching exercises include:

- Passive: This is similar to static except that a partner applies the stretch to the muscle.

- Ballistic: Ballistic stretching is similar to dynamic. With ballistic stretching your forcing your body part to go beyond its normal range of motion by making it bounce to a full stretch. This stretching exercise can be dangerous because it may lead to injury. Because of this only a conditioned athlete should perform ballistic stretches.

- Active Isolated: Active Isolated is when you attain a position and hold it using only the strength of your muscles. For example holding your leg up high and staying in that position for 10 seconds. The idea behind these stretching exercises is that one muscle contracts in order for you to hold the position while the other muscle relaxes.

- Isometric: When performing an isometric stretch you extend a muscle, then you begin to resist the stretch. Isometric is great with partners. For example your partner holds your leg up while you try to force your leg back down in the opposite direction.

Stretching is important for people of all ages and fitness levels. Stretching increases a joints range of motion which means your joints can move further before they are over extended and an injury occurs.

Working stretching exercises into your workout routine is a great way to increase flexibility, joint movement, and blood flow. Stretching will also help you feel better and in turn give you more energy to do the things you love. Remember, it's important for you to warm up and do light exercises before you perform stretches. Stretching cold muscles can cause injury which can delay your workouts for weeks.

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Arthritis - 3 Tips to Help Slow Its Progress

The main factors for susceptibility to arthritis are age, sex and it being heredity but there are steps you can take to minimize the onslaught of this debilitating condition.

Adopting a healthy lifestyle is one option this includes exercising, eating correctly, practicing weight loss and using a safe natural herbal supplement.

More than 200 types of arthritis have been identified. While the more severe forms are crippling, the milder ones often go unnoticed, the most commonly occurring form of joint inflammation is osteoarthritis, which is caused by wear and tear of a cartilage. Rheumatoid arthritis is the second most common form. Arthritis statistically is known to affect three times the number of women as men and has been found in the bodies of young adults.

It is a common misconception that arthritis only affects older people, the fact is, that it can strike at any age.

Arthritis is known to be present in the bodies of around 20,000 children worldwide some as young as 12 years old. The signs of arthritis in children are often overlooked, these errors can be attributed to insufficient training in rheumatic diseases. In their five years of education, most medical students undergo a mere, two weeks, training period in rheumatology.

According to Peter Prouse, a rheumatologist at North Hampshire Hospital, it is very important to identify the condition at the earliest possible point in children. He states "The majority of children disabled by the disease are the ones who are mis-diagnosed in the first five years. This results in damage to the soft tissues around joints and the joint itself, they eventually cannot move either the knee or hip resulting in the wasting of muscles which inhibits normal mobility."

Here are 3 tips that may help reduce the progress of arthritis.

Weight Loss - When arthritis starts to set in people tend to lessen their physical activity due to the fear of the pain becoming too much to bear or causing further damage, this is the wrong thing to do as it can lead to the muscles becoming weaker which in turn can make you gain pounds or even cause obesity. Ensure that you have a healthy diet with ample fruit, fish, vegetables and a natural supplement if required.

Daily Exercise - like cycling, swimming or walking, to strengthen support muscles and keeping the joints moving helps with some of the characteristics of arthritis, these types of activity have helped many people cope with the discomfort caused by this painful disorder. Daily activity should also help muscle rejuvenation, relieve pain also help with the stabilization and ease the stiffness of joints.

Diet Control - Early research intimates that foods high in omega-3 fatty acids, ginger, glucosamine (extracted from shellfish) and chondroitin (from cow cartilage) can reduce inflammation and pain and have a strong anti-inflammatory effect on arthritis. For more information, please go to:

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Stressful jobs a heart risk for women

Women with demanding jobs that provide few opportunities to make decisions or use their creativity are at increased risk for heart attacks, according to new research.

How the study was done

For the study, researchers analysed data provided by 22 000 women over 10 years regarding their job strain, job insecurity and other health and lifestyle information. Most participants were white health professionals. The women, whose average age was 57, answered questions about the pace of their workday, how hard they worked and to what extent they had to juggle competing demands.

After taking into account factors such as age, race and income, the investigators found that women with high job strain were 38% more likely to have heart-related events, such as stroke, heart surgery to clear blockages, or death. Heart attack risk was 70% higher, according to the report published in PLoS ONE.

Women who had highly stressful jobs but who also had a lot of control over their work - such as physicians, executives, nurses, teachers and managers - also had higher risk of cardiovascular events, according to the researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital.

"Previous long-term studies of job strain, defined by the combination of psychological demand and job control, and heart disease risk have mainly focused on men and a more restricted set of cardiovascular conditions," said Dr. Michelle Albert, a cardiologist and researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital and associate professor at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

"Our study indicates that high job strain can negatively affect your health. There are immediate and definite long-term, clinically documented cardiovascular health effects of job strain in women, and it is important for women and their health care providers to pay attention to the stresses of their job," Albert explained in a news release from Partners HealthCare.

While the researchers found an association between stress at work and heart attacks, they did not prove that there is a direct cause-and-effect relationship between job strain and heart attacks or other cardiovascular problems.
For more information please go to:
http://www.health24.com/news/Stress/1-3748,75643.asp

Should I Cut Back on Coffee?

NO

Rob van Dam, PhD, adjunct assistant professor of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health

• For most of us, java isn’t harmful.

It’s true that caffeine may raise blood pressure, so if you have hypertension, it’s smart to switch to decaf. Caffeine can also interfere with sleep; if you suspect it’s causing you to toss and turn, cut back. Otherwise, there is no health reason to stop drinking it.

• It may lower your risk of becoming diabetic.

Every cup of coffee you drink seems to reduce your risk of the disease. In fact, a review of research in Archives of Internal Medicine found that after three or four cups a day, you see a 25 % lower risk. Other research shows that decaf may also cut your risk of diabetes, which suggests that it’s not the caffeine but something else in coffee, possibly an antioxidant called chlorogenic acid, that’s responsible. Coffee drinkers may also be less likely to develop cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer.

• Caffeine may have its own benefits.

It could reduce your risk of Parkinson’s disease and possibly even Alzheimer’s. That’s not a reason to start consuming it, but it’s good news if you already enjoy a cup of joe.

YES

James D. Lane, PhD, director of the Duke University Medical Center Psychophysiology Laboratory

• The research on coffee’s perks is weak.

The main problem is that many studies compare coffee drinkers with people who don’t drink coffee. Coffee drinkers may have something else in common that’s the true cause of these benefits. Just because two things are correlated doesn’t mean that one causes the other.

• It can make health conditions worse.

The caffeine in coffee does have negative effects, especially for people with high blood pressure or diabetes. In one study, hypertensives’ blood pressure came down a bit after they quit coffee for a week. In another study, we found that giving diabetic patients caffeine before giving them a glucose tolerance test made their blood sugar rise higher than when they didn’t have caffeine. In other words, for people who already have diabetes, it appears to make the condition worse. Decaf, however, is fine.

• Your brew can aggravate stress.

My studies have shown that adrenaline responses to stress are higher if you’ve had caffeine than if you haven’t—it may make you more tense, anxious, and jittery, in addition to giving you sleep problems.

Our advice:

If you don’t have diabetes or high blood pressure, a coffee habit probably doesn’t hurt—and may even help your health. While research suggests that some people are more sensitive to caffeine than others, there’s no need to cut back unless you suffer from anxiety or insomnia, in which case you may want to switch to decaf.

If you don’t drink coffee, there’s no reason to start: Adding fruits, vegetables, and whole grains to your diet is a surer way to reduce disease risk. For more information, please go to:

http://www.health.com/health/article/0,,20516885,00.html