Smileband Health issues

It's that time of year when we're plagued by coughs, sneezes and often a headache or gut pain due to festive overindulgence. And while in most cases it will be just a minor ailment rearing its head, how do you know when your symptoms could be a sign of something more serious?

No-one likes to consult a doctor unnecessarily, but there are times when you should always seek medical advice.

It's always better to be seen than dismiss the signs and delay an important diagnosis until the condition has become worse – or it's even too late to treat.

Here, I reveal the top 10 top symptoms you should never ignore – and why. 1. WEIGHT LOSS FOR NO APPARENT REASON

Most of us love losing weight and if it's achieved through sensible diet and lifestyle changes, then great.

What concerns medical professionals is unexplained weight loss – where there is no obvious reason for the pounds to be falling off someone, i.e. there has been no change to your normal diet or levels of activity.

As a rough guide, if you lose five percent of your body weight (e.g. eight pounds if you weigh 175 pounds) in less than six months without following a weight loss diet, then it's time to let your doctor know – especially if it's associated with fatigue, tiredness or other persistent niggling symptoms.

Unexplained weight loss could be a sign of an undiagnosed illness such as gut problems that affect absorption of nutrients, an overactive thyroid, undiagnosed diabetes, depression or the big worry for everyone – cancer. While in most cases it won't turn out to be cancer, unexplained weight loss is a red flag symptom and may not always be accompanied by loss of appetite.

2. AN UNUSUAL THICKENING OR LUMP ANYWHERE ON THE BODY 

If you notice an unusual lump anywhere on your body, you should always tell a doctor. While a lump in areas such as the breast or scrotum is likely to send you promptly to the doctor, don't ignore lumps elsewhere, either.

While most lumps are due to a non-serious condition such as benign (non-cancerous) growths (e.g. lipoma, fibroma or cysts) they all need to be checked and diagnosed. It is often difficult for even a doctor to tell different lumps apart and you may need a biopsy so the lump can be examined under a microscope and diagnosed accurately. Soft lumps, such as a hernia (in which a part of the body such as a loop of intestine pushes through a weakness in the muscle or tissues that normally contain it) also need assessment as some types can get trapped and painful, and can even lose their blood supply (a strangulated hernia) which needs urgent treatment. If a lump becomes increasingly painful, seek medical advice straight away.

As for thickening of the skin, this is where you run a finger over an area and feel that underlying tissues are thickened or hardened - or feel different to the surrounding area - without necessarily forming a lump.

3. CHEST PAIN

Chest pain can be caused by many conditions, some of which are serious (e.g. heart attack or a clot on the lung) and some not (e.g. spasm of tiny muscles between the ribs, or an inflammation of rib cartilage called costochondritis).

Chest pain can be due to acid reflux, or heartburn, and an estimated 20 per cent of cases are mistaken for a heart attack – but it is often difficult for even doctors to tell these apart.

While angina (heart pain) and heart attack can cause different symptoms in different people of different ages, chest pain or tightness is the main warning sign for both men and women. The pain may feel like an aching discomfort, tight pressure or burning, and can be sharp, dull or feel like a bear hug or an elephant sitting on your chest.

Sudden chest pain should always be taken seriously and medical assistance sought without delay. NHS Choices recommends that you call 999 for an ambulance if you develop sudden severe chest pain, especially if it:

• feels heavy, pressing or tight
• lasts longer than 15 minutes
• spreads to your arms, back or jaw
• is accompanied by breathlessness, nausea, sweating or coughing up blood

If chest pain is less severe, or resolves, contact your doctor or attend a local walk-in center for assessment. You could have had an episode of angina for example (heart pain due to lack of oxygen reaching heart muscle) which needs treatment to prevent a future heart attack.

4. A CHANGE IN BOWEL HABIT

Many people feel embarrassed talking about their bowels with someone else, but it's a conversation that really could save your life. Bowel cancer is one of the biggest killers and it's striking more people at a younger age than ever, so don't ignore a change in your bowel movements – it's one of the few ways your intestines can show that something is wrong.

A change in bowel habit means a persistent change in opening your bowel so it is more or less frequent than is usual for you.

Your stools may also change in consistency, so you develop constipation, or a general slowing down of bowel movements, or diarrhea and a speeding up of your intestines.

If this continues for more than a week or two, seek medical advice - earlier if you develop abdominal pain or notice blood or slime in your motions. Try not to feel embarrassed - your doctor is used to dealing with problems like this.

5. UNEXPECTED BLOOD LOSS FROM ANY PART OF THE BODY

This is a frightening symptom that you are unlikely to ignore. You should let your doctor know as soon as possible if you. 

Smileband Geanral news

A group of inmates offered to help Mexican drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman escape prison in a video they filmed inside a California correctional facility.

A group of five men, using sunglasses, hats and clothes to conceal their faces, pledged their support to Guzman and bragged about their control over the prison believed to be in Taft, California.  Guzman, who is accused of running one of the world's biggest drug-trafficking operations, was extradited from Mexico to New York last week to stand trial. Speaking in Spanish, the five men announced their intentions and said: 'We want to tell the people this: If you bring 'el señor' here and if 'el señor' asks us to free him, we are going to take him out immediately.'

They bragged about having access to women, cell phones and drugs, and said they had control of the entire prison.

The group's leader 'Chucky' also said he had 'bought' the guards at the prison.

He told the leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel: 'Everything is ready for you. What you say is the law. Here you have more than 3,500 soldiers.'

The man seemed certain the drug lord would end up at the facility, but that remains unclear, since Guzman is wanted in six states and faces charges in a number of different judicial districts. 

Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesperson Jill Tyson told the LA times'Upon learning of the video, BOP oversight staff on-site at the facility began working with the contractor to investigate the allegations of irregularities at the facility. 

The low to minimum security prison in Taft is the only facility run by a private corporation in California, according to the bureau's website. Guzman arrived in a small jet at Long Island's MacArthur Airport on January 19, having traveled from a prison in the northern state of Chihuahua, where his cartel rules.

Guzman pleaded not guilty to charges that he ran the world's largest drug-trafficking organization during a decades-long criminal career.

The indictment in Brooklyn, which includes 17 criminal counts, carries a mandatory minimum sentence of life in prison, Robert Capers, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said at a news conference last week.

U.S. prosecutors gave assurances to Mexican officials that they would not seek the death penalty in order to secure his extradition, since Mexico opposes capital punishment.  

As leader of the notorious Sinaloa cartel, Guzman oversaw perhaps the world's largest transnational cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine smuggling operation. The cartel played a key role in Mexico's decade-long drug war that has killed more than 100,000 people. 

El Chapo was captured a year ago after he had fled a high-security penitentiary in central Mexico through a mile-long tunnel in his second dramatic prison escape.

He is now being held in Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center, MCC, where 9/11 terrorist Ramzi Yousef, crime boss John Gotti and fraudster Bernie Madoff, were all once jailed.  

'I assure you, no tunnel will be built leading to his bathroom,' Special Agent In Charge Angel Melendez of U.S. Homeland Security Investigations said at a news conference.  Located just south of Chinatown, and built in 1975, the jail has slit-shaped windows with frosted glass to prevent prisoners from getting even a glance at the city below. 

A tunnel leads to the adjacent federal courthouse which means inmates can be transported to and from their trial without ever seeing the sun. 

The jail is sandwiched between federal prosecutors' offices and two federal courthouses and is protected by steel barricades that can stop a 7 1/2-ton truck. Cameras capable of reading a newspaper a block away are trained on the area.

Smileband Health issues

Deciding which treatment you need

A team of doctors and other professionals discuss the best treatment and care for you. They're called a multidisciplinary team (MDT). Your treatment depends on:

• the type of skin cancer
• how far it's grown or spread
• where the cancer is
• the stage of the cancer (if relevant)

Your doctor will discuss your treatment, its benefits and the possible side effects with you.

Treatment overview

Surgery

The main treatment for skin cancer is surgery. For most people, surgery removes the cancer and is the only treatment they need.

The surgery is usually minor. Your usually have an injection of local anaesthetic in the area and then the doctor removes the cancer and a small amount of the surrounding tissue. You might have a skin graft depending on where the cancer is in the body, or if it covers a larger area.

There are different types of surgery, what you need depends on where the cancer is and how big it is. 

Radiotherapy

Radiotherapy is a treatment for BCC or SCC. You're most likely to have this if:

• the cancer covers a wide area
• it's in an area that's difficult to operate on
• surgery isn't suitable for you
• it's to reduce the risk of the cancer coming back after surgery
• the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes    

  Immunotherapy

  Imiquimod cream (Aldara) uses the immune system to attack cancers. Imiquimod makes cells produce more chemicals such as interferon and these destroy the skin cancer cells.
  You might have it as a treatment if you have BCC in the top layer of skin or actinic keratosis. Actinic keratosis can develop into a SCC over time.

  Photodynamic therapy

  Photodynamic therapy (PDT) uses a drug to make your skin sensitive to light. Once you have had the drug your doctor focuses a special type of light on the area where the cancer is. This destroys the cancer cells. 

  PDT is a treatment for BCC, Bowen's disease and actinic keratosis (solar keratosis). 

  Chemotherapy

  Chemotherapy cream is a treatment for:

  • actinic keratosis (solar keratosis)
  • skin cancers that are only on the top layer of the skin
  • Bowen's disease

  You usually have a type of chemotherapy cream containing Fluorouracil (5FU). Actinic keratosis might develop into squamous cell skin cancer over time. So you have treatment to try to prevent this from happening.

  You might have chemotherapy tablets or injections if your cancer has spread. Having chemotherapy in this way can help to relieve symptoms in cancers that cannot be cured. 

Smileband Health issues

Can humans be frozen and defrosted successfully?

There are two advances that make cryonics a little less far-fetched that it once was. The first is vitrification. As Arctic explorers and mountaineers have learned, humans are not designed to be frozen and defrosted. When our cells freeze, they fill with ice crystals, which break down cell walls as they expand, reducing our body to mush once it is warmed up again.

How does vitrification work?

Vitrification prevents this by replacing the blood with a mixture of antifreeze-like chemicals and an organ preservation solution. When cooled to below -90C, the fluid becomes a glass-like solid.

The technique has substantially improved the reliability of freezing and thawing embryos, and particularly eggs, in fertility treatment and it works for small pieces of tissue and blood vessels. Earlier this year, scientists managed to cryogenically freeze the brain of a rabbit and recover it in an “excellent” state – although it is not clear if the brain’s functions would have been preserved as well as its superficial appearance. However, even vitrifying larger structures, such as human kidneys for transplantation, has never been done clinically and remains some way off.  Barry Fuller, a professor in surgical science and low temperature medicine, at University College London, said: “There is ongoing research into these scientific challenges, and a potential future demonstration of the ability to cryopreserve human organs for transplantation would be a major first step into proving the concept, but at the moment we cannot achieve that.”

What is the second advance?

This is the growing appreciation that our personality, skills and memories are to some extent defined by the connections between neurons. This has led some to speculate that rather than bringing the actual body back to life, the brain’s contents could be “downloaded” on to a computer, allowing the person to live as a robot in the future.

This might have the whiff of nonsense, but Nick Bostrom, a professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute, and his colleague, Anders Sandberg, are both banking on this possibility. “As a head, my life would be limited, but by then we will be able to make real connections to computers,” Anders said in 2013 interview, So my hope is that, once revived, my memories and personality could be downloaded into a computer. However, many neuroscientists have pointed out that even if you could code the astronomical number of connections between the brain’s 100bn neurons, even this would not capture the full complexity of the human mind.

So should I get my body preserved?

From a purely scientific perspective, your money is probably better spent while you are still alive.

• The headline on this article was amended on 18 November 2016 to use the more accurate term of cryonics, rather than cryogenics. 

Smileband Health issues

Overview

The brain is an amazing three-pound organ that controls all functions of the body, interprets information from the outside world, and embodies the essence of the mind and soul. Intelligence, creativity, emotion, and memory are a few of the many things governed by the brain. Protected within the skull, the brain is composed of the cerebrum, cerebellum, and brainstem. The brainstem acts as a relay center connecting the cerebrum and cerebellum to the spinal cord. 

The brain receives information through our five senses: sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing - often many at one time. It assembles the messages in a way that has meaning for us, and can store that information in our memory. The brain controls our thoughts, memory and speech, movement of the arms and legs, and the function of many organs within our body. It also determines how we respond to stressful situations (such as taking a test, losing a job, or suffering an illness) by regulating our heart and breathing rate. 

Nervous system

The nervous system is divided into central and peripheral systems. The central nervous system (CNS) is composed of the brain and spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system (PNS) is composed of spinal nerves that branch from the spinal cord and cranial nerves that branch from the brain. The PNS includes the autonomic nervous system, which controls vital functions such as breathing, digestion, heart rate, and secretion of hormones.

Skull

The purpose of the bony skull is to protect the brain from injury. The skull is formed from 8 bones that fuse together along suture lines. These bones include the frontal, parietal (2), temporal (2), sphenoid, occipital and ethmoid (Fig. 1). The face is formed from 14 paired bones including the maxilla, zygoma, nasal, palatine, lacrimal, inferior nasal conchae, mandible, and vomer.  

• cerebrum is the largest part of the brain and is composed of right and left hemispheres. It performs higher functions like interpreting touch, vision and hearing, as well as speech, reasoning, emotions, learning, and fine control of movement.
• The cerebellum is located under the cerebrum. Its function is to coordinate muscle movements, maintain posture, and balance.
• The brainstem includes the midbrain, pons, and medulla. It acts as a relay center connecting the cerebrum and cerebellum to the spinal cord. It performs many automatic functions such as breathing, heart rate, body temperature, wake and sleep cycles, digestion, sneezing, coughing, vomiting, and swallowing. Ten of the twelve cranial nerves originate in the brainstem.

The surface of the cerebrum has a folded appearance called the cortex. The cortex contains about 70% of the 100 billion nerve cells. The nerve cell bodies color the cortex grey-brown giving it its name – gray matter (Fig. 4). Beneath the cortex are long connecting fibers between neurons, called axons, which make up the white matter  The folding of the cortex increases the brain’s surface area allowing more neurons to fit inside the skull and enabling higher functions. Each fold is called a gyrus, and each groove between folds is called a sulcus. There are names for the folds and grooves that help define specific brain regions.

Right brain – left brain

The right and left hemispheres of the brain are joined by a bundle of fibers called the corpus callosum that delivers messages from one side to the other. Each hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body. If a brain tumor is located on the right side of the brain, your left arm or leg may be weak or paralyzed. 

Not all functions of the hemispheres are shared. In general, the left hemisphere controls speech, comprehension, arithmetic, and writing. The right hemisphere controls creativity, spatial ability, artistic, and musical skills. The left hemisphere is dominant in hand use and language in about 92% of people.

Lobes of the brain

The cerebral hemispheres have distinct fissures, which divide the brain into lobes. Each hemisphere has 4 lobes: frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital (Fig 3). Each lobe may be divided, once again, into areas that serve very specific functions. It’s important to understand that each lobe of the brain does not function alone. There are very complex relationships between the lobes of the brain and between the right and left hemispheres. 

Frontal lobe

• Personality, behavior, emotions
• Judgment, planning, problem solving 
• Speech: speaking and writing (Broca’s area) 
• Body movement (motor strip) 
• Intelligence, concentration, self awareness 

Parietal lobe

• Interprets language, words 
• Sense of touch, pain, temperature (sensory strip) 
• Interprets signals from vision, hearing, motor, sensory and memory
• Spatial and visual perception 

Occipital lobe

• Interprets vision (color, light, movement)

Temporal lobe

• Understanding language (Wernicke’s area) 
• Memory
• Hearing 
• Sequencing and organization

Messages within the brain are carried along pathways. Messages can travel from one gyrus to another, from one lobe to another, from one side of the brain to the other, and to structures found deep in the brain (e.g. thalamus, hypothalamus).

Deep structures

Hypothalamus - is located in the floor of the third ventricle and is the master control of the autonomic system. It plays a role in controlling behaviors such as hunger, thirst, sleep, and sexual response. It also regulates body temperature, blood pressure, emotions, and secretion of hormones. 

Pituitary gland - lies in a small pocket of bone at the skull base called the sella turcica. The pituitary gland is connected to the hypothalamus of the brain by the pituitary stalk. Known as the “master gland,” it controls other endocrine glands in the body. It secretes hormones that control sexual development, promote bone and muscle growth, respond to stress, and fight disease. 

Pineal gland - is located behind the third ventricle. It helps regulate the body’s internal clock and circadian rhythms by secreting melatonin. It has some role in sexual development. 

Thalamus - serves as a relay station for almost all information that comes and goes to the cortex (Fig. 5). It plays a role in pain sensation, attention, alertness and memory.

Smileband Health issues

The parents of a baby girl who had all of her limbs amputated after being struck down by an almost eradicated form of meningitis are campaigning for earlier vaccines. Kia Gott contracted the extremely rare strain of the condition in September in what doctors called the worst case of meningitis they have seen in 25 years. 

The one-year-old, from Bradford, underwent emergency surgery in a desperate bid to save her life and had all of her limbs amputated.

Her parents, Paul, a 35-year-old self-employed window fitter, and Vikki, 30, have been told she may lose her sight and hearing. Tragically, if Kia had been born just months earlier, she may not have contracted meningitis at all.  

In July 2016, the meningitis C vaccine, routinely offered to all babies in the UK at 12 weeks old to protect them from that particular strain of the disease, was withdrawn from the national vaccination programme. 

Instead, it was decided that the vaccine would be given at 12 months. 

Now Kia's parents are campaigning for the vaccination age to be reconsidered and have started an online petition aimed at forcing discussion in Parliament.

They are calling for the meningitis C vaccine to be reinstated at 12 weeks. 

Donna said 3,000 people have signed it up but 10,000 signatures are required for the government to respond to the petition while it takes 100,000 names to have the issue debated in parliament.

And their fight has been boosted by their local MP who wrote a letter to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt demanding the issue be reconsidered. Bradford South MP Judith Cummins wrote: 'As a parent myself I can only begin to imagine the devastation that this heartbreaking situation has caused for Kia's parents, Paul and Vikki as well as her older siblings, Kayden and Elsie and I can certainly appreciate their frustration and, quite frankly, sheer anger that had Kia been given the MenC vaccine at 12-weeks-old her upcoming 1st birthday would be spent at home surrounded by a large and loving extended family instead of facing many more months in hospital where Paul and Vikki keep a constant vigil by her bedside.'  

According to the Meningitis Research Foundation, one of the reasons the Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation, which advises the Government, decided to withdraw the meningitis C vaccine at 12 weeks was because incident rates had dropped significantly, and it was believed that the new meningitis B jab, a breakthrough vaccine, would also offer some protection against meningitis C, too. Another factor was the introduction in September 2015 of another meningitis vaccine, known as ACWY and given to children at the age of 14, which would help build ‘herd immunity’ that would also protect babies and young children.   

The number of infants contracting meningitis C remains low, but it has risen since the vaccine at that age was withdrawn.   

Statistics released by Public Health England show that in 2015-16 (from July 1 to June 30), two children up to the age of five contracted the disease; in the year 2016-17, the figure had risen to six. In babies up to 12 months, the figure rose from one case in 2015-16 to four in 2016-17.    

Smileband Health issues

Understanding Sexual Health Coming up with a definition of sexual health is a difficult task, as each culture, sub-culture, and individual has different standards of sexual health. ASHA believes that sexual health includes far more than avoiding disease or unplanned pregnancy. We also believe that having a sexually transmitted infection or unwanted pregnancy does not prevent someone from being or becoming sexually healthy.

Here is ASHA’s definition of sexual health:

Sexual health is the ability to embrace and enjoy our sexuality throughout our lives. It is an important part of our physical and emotional health. Being sexually healthy means:

• Understanding that sexuality is a natural part of life and involves more than sexual behavior.
• Recognizing and respecting the sexual rights we all share.
• Having access to sexual health information, education, and care.
• Making an effort to prevent unintended pregnancies and STDs and seek care and treatment when needed.
• Being able to experience sexual pleasure, satisfaction, and intimacy when desired.
• Being able to communicate about sexual health with others including sexual partners and healthcare providers.

Defining Sexual Health

ASHA Board member and professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine J. Dennis Fortenberry, MD, considers the term sexual health, how it is used, and how it can be defined.

The phrase “sexual health” encompasses a range of public health and clinical issues related to prevention of sexually transmitted infections. I use the phrase a lot in my own work and its widening currency is a welcome new paradigm in our field. In fact, the concept of sexual health seems to me of fundamental relevance to all aspects of prevention of sexually transmitted infections.

To be honest, though, all of the talk about sexual health doesn’t seem to have influenced the day-to-day particulars of our work. Sex still is primarily seen as a set of risk factors that we counsel against. I am convinced that this perspective on sex and sexuality as “risk” legitimates the stigma associated with sexually transmitted infections and contributes to our society’s poisonous intolerance of sexual diversity. A sexual health perspective incorporates the concept of personal and epidemiologic risks of sex, but recognizes the pervasive importance of sex in our lives. Sexual health is a state of physical, emotional, mental and social well-being in relation to sexuality; it is not merely the absence of disease, dysfunction or infirmity. Sexual health requires a positive and respectful approach to sexuality and sexual relationships, as well as the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences, free of coercion, discrimination and violence. For sexual health to be attained and maintained, the sexual rights of all persons must be respected, protected and fulfilled.”

There is a lot to agree with in this definition, especially in its recognition of the complex physical, emotional, mental and social attributes of sexual health, and the anchoring of sexual health in universal sexual rights. But, I find this definition to be quaintly admonishing and parental (“…the possibility of having pleasurable and safe sexual experiences…”). More importantly, however, the definition is sexually vague. No matter how many times I’ve read, used, and cited this definition, I can’t derive from it even a rudimentary vision of how sexual health operates in people’s daily lives. I feel the same about the more recently wrought definition of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, particularly because sexual rights and of sexual pleasure are absent from that sexual health definition.

So, maybe I need to get clearer with myself about what sexual health is. And, sexual health should be more than just the negatives: not coerced; not discriminated; not violent. The prevalence of these negatives in many people’s lives tells us how far we are from achieving a just and equitable society. But I think that sexual health ultimately requires much more active involvement from all of us, and it seems quite insufficient to hope that sexual health will arise on its own if coercion, discrimination, and violence are finally conquered.