BLOG #5: WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HIV/AIDS?

          HIV ( Human Immunodeficiency Virus) and AIDS ( Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) are two different terms but they are always used together because if people get HIV, they have the high risk of getting AIDS. 

(Retrieved from http://onlinefreehelp.com/hiv-aids-kaise-hota-hai-in-hindi)

1) HIV: Basically, HIV is a virus that attacks immune system of the body. For that reason, people become weaker and it is easier to get diseases since tons of virus are able to attack.

• Causes: Infected blood, semen or vaginal fluids. Most people get HIV by having unprotected sex or sharing drug needles with people who have HIV. Besides, HIV can also be passed to the baby if a woman gets HIV during her pregnancy.

• Treatment: Currently, there is no effective cure for HIV so once people get HIV, they can't be cured. However, with proper treatment and medical care, HIV can be controlled, prolong the lives of HIV people and reduce the risk of transmitting the virus to other people. 

• Early stage of HIV: Before being diagnosed, people get HIV infection might have some symptoms like fever, chills, rash, night sweat or mouth ulcers. These symptoms can last from a few days for several weeks. Normally, people can hardly recognize HIV because these symptoms can also come from other illnesses. However, be aware of them, get an HIV test because you might be able to get HIV. 

(Retrieved from http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/634798/Charlie-Sheen-Miracle-doctor-injected-himself-with-HIV-positive-blood)

2) AIDS: AIDS is the stage of infection when the body is badly damaged and too weak to fight against the viruses and this is the last stage of HIV, which means if this stage is untreated, it will lead to the death. 

• Symptoms: In the last stage, people become vulnerable to serious illnesses like blurred vision, diarrhea, which is usually persistent or chronic, dry cough, shortness of breath or white spot on the tongue or mouth. Obviously, in this stage, symptoms are more clear and people should know about their disease . 

• Similarly, there is no current vaccine or cure for AIDS. 

3) HIV/ AIDS myths and facts:

• The virus can not be transmitted from shaking hands, hugging or other forms of visual contact.

• According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP), about 1 in every 8 HIV-positive Americans is unaware of their HIV-status.

• In order to know if a person gets HIV or not, blood test is done. And if the HIV virus has been found, the result will be "positive", if not, it's "negative"

• Some HIV prevention: getting well-educated about this disease or having sex protectively. 

(Retrieved from https://www.avert.org/hiv-transmission-prevention)

References : 

1. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/17131.php
2. https://www.aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/hiv-aids-101/what-is-hiv-aids/
3. https://www.aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/hiv-aids-101/signs-and-symptoms/

BLOG #4: WE ARE OUR WORST ENEMIES

Our bad habits are killing us! As you may know, hundreds of thousands of people die each day around the world, according to "Ecology Global Network" and that is a big number. There are a lot of reasons causing people's death such as accident, old age, air pollution or starvation and amongst them, it is believed that some of our bad habits account for a large percentage of death like alcohol, cigarettes, lack of exercises or poor nutrition. In this blog, I'm going to list some of the bad habits which might become the cause of our death. 

1.     Smoking: If we talk about bad habit killing people, smoking must be ranked #1. There is a fact that more than 20 million Americans have died because of smoking since 1964, including approximately 2.5 million deaths due to exposure to secondhand smoke. This figure was in 1964 and in recent years, that number must be much bigger. Due to its harm, behind each cigarette package, we can see images which are the outcome of smoking such as mouth cancer, throat cancer, lung cancer and many other types of cancer to prevent people from using cigarette and you also may die at a young age (https://betobaccofree.hhs.gov/about-tobacco/facts-figures/) Yes! They are exactly what you get if you smoke since nicotine and tar, which are bad for your health, working together. So if you are smoking, quit it and if you don't smoke, you are doing a great job of protecting your health. 

(Retrieved from http://www.factslides.com/s-Smoking)

2.     You became an "owl" at night: This is a thing that people, especially young people, are doing without knowing that sleeping late is damaging their body. There are many study and research show that in order to lead a healthy life, you need to eat a healthy diet, get enough sleep, exercise and avoid smoking. If you stay up late to do your homework and exams for only 1 or 2 days, that's fine. But once you make it become your routine, your health is in danger. Due to lack of sleeping, your immune system becomes weaker, and that's a great chance for harmful bacteria to attack your body with tons of disease (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/20-bad-habits-you-need-to-quit-now/articleshow/18162949.cms) Instead of wasting a lot of money for different types of medicine, what you need to do is just sleep for 8 hours a day. No matter how busy your work is, your health must be the top priority.

(Retrieved from http://www.veganacnesufferers.com/single-post/2017/02/28/How-Lack-of-Sleep-Affects-Acne)

(Retrieved from https://jeffreysterlingmd.com/tag/hearing-loss/)

3.     Wearing headphones for long hours: The habit that we think it's harmless is actually leading you to hearing loss. The real culprits for the hearing loss are the volume and the hours you use headphones. Using headphones is not harmful, the problem is how you adjust the volume and limit the hours of use. World Health Organization (WHO) recommends listening by using headphones maximum 1 hour per day, and the volume should be between 60 percent. (http://www.popsci.com/limit-headphone-time-hour-day-says-who)

4.     Fast eating: People with a busy schedule don't have time to eat and they either skip the meal or eat it quickly. Please slow down! If you eat too fast, you may get more calories than other people since you don't take time for the digestive system to work and you don't feel full. Besides, if you just gulp your food without chewing it properly, it may be the reason of acidity, bloating and excess gas in your stomach. (http://www.webmd.com/diet/obesity/features/slow-down-you-eat-too-fast#1)

(Retrieved from https://www.scienceabc.com/humans/why-you-shouldnt-eat-too-fast.html)

BLOG #3: HEALTH AND NUTRITION ADVICE

          Obviously, different people have different circumstances, they may be rich people, they can also be poor people. They have distinct habits, works, there are people have to work ten hours a day, but there are some working two to three hours a day, people eating healthily, people prefer eating junk food. And all the factors that I mentioned above can strongly affect their health. Now, let's imagine a case of a person who is dealing with social and emotional conditions that are affecting his health. And in this blog, I'll analysis the case and give that person some helpful advice.

          Mr. S is a 58-year-old man coming from Thai land is a man living in poverty, because of family circumstances, he cannot afford to buy expensive, healthy food and various kinds of foods to consume distinct types of nutrient. Furthermore, he is currently working at a shoe factory producing the majority of products for people all over the country. In order to meet the requirements of consumers, the factory forces their employees to work 10 hours a day without any lunch break. He damaged his kidney because of an accident 5 years ago.

Next, I'm going to analysis what might happen to his health:

(Retrieved from http://listabuzz.com/12-common-misconceptions-about-fitness-and-exercise/)

1. Generally, if he is eating unhealthy and affected by many social factors, his lifespan may shorten.
2. His intake energy doesn’t balance with output energy as he is working hard and doesn’t have enough food, unwanted weight loss can occur. 
3. Since he is 53 years old, he might get osteoporosis because when we get older, our bone becomes weaker.
4. Because he is poor, he cannot get enough kinds of necessary nutrients that he needs in his age: 

• Protein is an essential nutrient. If he is lack of protein, the muscle becomes weak, it can lead to poor balance and it’s easier to fall and broke your bone
• He seriously needs calcium because it can reduce the risk of developing osteoporosis. If he cannot afford to consume calcium, he has the high risk of getting this disease.
• Omega 3 fatty acids: decrease the risk of developing dementia, which means you forget everything. So the inefficient amount of consumed omega 3 can make him forget everything sooner.



(Retrieved from https://dailyhealthpost.com/10-vitamin-or-mineral-deficiencies-related-to-fatigue/)

     5. As he got a kidney injury several years ago, his kidneys’ function became worse, he has the risk of getting chronic kidney disease, which is hard to cure.

      6.As he works 10 hours a day without a lunch break, he cannot get enough energy and nutrients intake to keep working. And it can lead to fatigue, exhaustion or dizzy so his health may become worse and worse.

       

To prevent illnesses and diseases:

1. First and formal, creates a healthy lifestyle by reducing the working hours to 6-7 hours, eat 3 meals a day and get enough sleep. 
2. Makes a plan for what he wants to buy. He is 58 years old so he doesn’t need to consume calories as much as before so just consume a small portion but make sure that he can get every necessary nutrient, especially nutrients like protein, calcium and omega-3 fatty acid
3. Spends a small amount of time every day to exercise.
4. Takes care of his kidneys in order to avoid kidney disease by following low-salt and low-fat diet.

BLOG #1: TECHNOLOGY VS HEALTH

   First, this is the first time ever I've written a blog. The main purpose of these blogs is to share all knowledge and experiences about health and nutrition and I'll try to bring new topics about health and nutrition as much as I can. To start, let's discover about the relationship between technology and health. Personally, technology is something which people can live without it since it's 100% helpful for their life. People can not live without cell phone, laptop, TV because they are tools for people to communicate with the world. Maybe people will wonder how can technology and health be related to each other? When people are strongly dependent on technology, they can spend all of their time using their laptop and cell phone and these people don't want to leave their beloved ones just for a moment. There are several cons of using technological devices too much that I want to mention in this blog, some of them you may read before but some of them you don't know about it, so I hope that you can find it useful after reading my blog. 

          Sometimes you feel like loving your cell phone so much that you just want to spend all your time being together with it. You want it, but your health doesn't want it. If you seat in front of your computer for hours day by day, it's a good chance for your body to gain weight. Once you don't do physical activities, don't move and keep consuming energy, there will be one day that you even can hardly move. And I'm sure that all of you know what will come if you're obese, it can be heart risk, high blood pressure and tons of dangerous disease that can lower your lifespan. 

(Retrieved from http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/science/cancer-and-obesity-risk-warning-of-sitting-1523980)

          Also, you love your phone so much that you can't live it for charging it so you use your phone and charge it at the same time. In fact, it can injure and make you get burn 

(Retrieved from http://wafflesatnoon.com/cell-phone-charging-dangers/)

          There are tons of news articles on the internet warning people not to use cell phone or electric devices when charging it. It's continuing happening around the world and I just wonder that in 21st century, people can easily get access to the internet but they still can't learn a lesson from previous issue? The attraction of cell phone is possibly greater than their safety?The reason is because" batteries work in limited operating temperature range and while charging, the processor in the phone takes power from charger and battery will be charging during this time. When you talk on phone while charging, the processor generated heat and battery generated heat both increase the battery temperature to raise rapidly" (Retrieved from https://www.quora.com/Is-it-dangerous-to-use-a-smartphone-while-charging-or-is-this-just-a-rumor). And it leads to a possible outcome, which is explosion. If you're lucky, you get burn. If you're unlucky, you may die. I think that this isn't new knowledge, many people know it but they completely don't care about it. 

          However, besides from some danger that technology brings to health, there are many more health benefits that people can get from technology. In these days and ages, technological equipment are developing to make people's life better, included healthcare. More and more devices are invented to make it easier for people to check their health. For example, needle-free diabetes care is a device allowing people to measure their blood glucose, and then they are able to make their diet suitable for a good treatment. 

(Retrieved from http://www.newsnish.com/technology/accessories/needle-free-diabetes-care/) 

          There are many more things about the relationship between technology and health and I'll try to bring you new knowledge about it as much as I can. That's all about my first blog. Thanks for reading.