Awas, Shisha 1 Jam Setara Menghisap 100 Batang Rokok!

28 Aug 2015

Siapa bilang merokok dengan hokah atau yang dikenal dengan shisha tak lebih berbahaya dari merokok tembakau biasa? Shisha selama 1 jam justru setara dengan menghisap 100 batang rokok. Mereka yang menghisap shisha pun mengalami peningkatan risiko sakit jantung, kanker, stroke, pembekuan darah, hingga berujung pada kematian.
Sayangnya, menurut studi terbaru, masih banyak anak muda yang tidak tahu mengenai bahaya merokok shisha. Sebuah studi yang diterbitkan dalam jurnal Health Education & Behavior menemukan banyak pemuda yang percaya bahwa menghisap shisha adalah alternatif dari merokok yang tidak terlalu berbahaya bagi kesehatan.
Peneliti menganalisis data dari 2.871 perokok dan sekitar 25 persen menilai shisha lebih aman dari merokok biasa. Anggapan itu tentu salah besar. Shisha sama bahayanya atau bahkan bisa lebih berbahaya bagi kesehatan.
Pada awal tahun ini, Pusat Pengendalian dan Pencegahan Penyakit di Amerika Serikat pun menemukan fakta bahwa shisha maupun rokok elektrik lebih populer di kalangan anak muda dibanding rokok biasa.

Penelitian terbaru menunjukkan, 62 persen orang dewasa juga percaya bahwa rokok elektrik kurang berbahaya daripada rokok biasa. Untuk itu, penyebarluasan informasi mengenai bahaya menghisap shisha memang perlu terus dilakukan.

Penulis studi, Olivia A. Wackowski dan Cristine D. Delnevo dari Rutgers School of Public Health mengatakan, pandangan yang salah mengenai shisha maupun rokok elektrik barangkali dipengaruhi oleh pesan iklan yang disampaikan. Dalam iklan, produk tersebut menawarkan berbagai macam rasa dan bagi anak muda itu adalah sesuatu hal yang baru untuk dicoba.

Menurut peneliti, shisha dan juga rokok elektrik juga bisa membuat kecanduan seperti rokok konvensional. Keduanya juga mentransfer bahan kimia ke dalam mulut dan paru-paru orang yang menghisapnya. Kebiasaan merokok shisha dan rokok elektronik juga dinilai dapat membuat seseorang pada akhirnya mencoba rokok biasa.
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Skipping Meals Lays On The Belly Fat

20 Aug 2015



Skipping meals could lead to abdominal weight gain, according to a new study on mice from Ohio State University. Mice that ate one large meal and fasted the rest of the day developed the pre-diabetic condition of insulin resistance in their livers.

This means the liver stops responding to insulin, continuing to produce glucose, which leads to a surplus of sugar in the blood. That extra sugar is stored as energy-storing white fat, which is less desirable than its counterpart, energy-burning brown fat.

In the begining, these same mice were fed a restricted diet and lose weight while a control group was given free-for-all access to food. Mice that had dieted gained back most of the weight they had lost, nearly catching up to the control group by the study’s end.

Even though they didn’t gain back the entirely of teh weight they lost, the mouse equivalent to human belly fat weighed more for  those that had dieted.

This kind of fat, in addition to being unsightly, is associated with the very kind of insulin resistance described above in additiion to increased risk for type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

But this is not an excuse to graze all day, either.

Human nutrition professor Martha Belury of Ohio State says her findings do not, in any way, support the notion that eating multiple small meals over the course of a day could help a person lose weight.

“But you definitely don’t want to skip meals to save calories because it sets your body up for larger fluctuations in insulin and glucose and could be setting you up for more fat gain instead of fat loss,” she says.

Even though mice were used, Belury says the behaviour of the group  that dieted matched that of human dieters. The group developed gorging behaviour as a result of calories deprivation the eventually made them so full they would go as long as 20 hours without food.

This bingeing-and-fasting behaviour turned the mice’s metabolism topsy-turvy and the research team believes it caused insulin production to spike and subsequently plummet.

These same mice exhibited increased inflammation and higher activation of genes that promote fat storing, according to the study, published in The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry.

“Under conditions when the liver is not stimulated by insulin, increased glucose output from the liver means the liver isn’t responding to signals telling it to shut down glucose production,” says Belury.

“These mice don’t have type 2 diabetes yet, but they’re not responding to insulin any more and that state of insulin resistance is reffered to as pre-diabetes.”- AFP-Relaxnews


Article source: The sun


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Do Headphone Damage Hearing?

11 Aug 2015

At present nobody knows how loudly people listen to music on their personal music players on how continuously they do so. What we do know is that personal music players can reach
105 decibels (dB), this level being almost equivalent to holding a chainsaw at arms’ length.

The Dangerous Decibels campaign from the Oregon Health and Science University says that base on this evidence you’d expect to damage you hearing within 15 minutes if you used ordinary headphones with your iPOD at maximum volume.

Loud noises cause hearing loss by damaging the stereocilia: tiny hairs that sit on the top of hair cells in the inner ear. Noise makes them vibrate-changing the voltage in the hair cells which then sends chemical message through nerves to the brain. Battering your stereocilia will damage your hearing.

The issue facing parents is how to advise children so they will listen and take action. Stuart added: “We always advise customers to use good quality head phones that protect against high-frequency sounds, which are most dangerous to hearing. 

Explaining to kids that less is more is also a good idea.  Ask them if they like listening to their favourite band and point out they will find it harder in the future if they don’t turn the volume down and take frequent breaks. It may fall on deaf ears, but at least you’ve started the conversation.” 

Here are some loudness/time facts to consider (the unit of measurement is decibel)

  •  At 95 dB, damage will occur after four hours of exposure per day.
  • At 100 dB, damage will occur after two hours of exposure per day.
  • At 105 dB, damage will occur after one hour of exposure per day.
  • At 110 dB, damage will occur after 30 minutes of exposure per day.
  • At 115 dB, damage will occur after 15 minutes of exposure per day.
  • At 129-plus dB, damage occurs almost immediately.
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Poor Sleep Leads To Bad Habits

4 Aug 2015

Bad sleeping habits could make a person more impulsive, potentially leading to risky behaviours in their work and personal life, according to a new study.

“Our study explored how sleep habits and self-control are interwoven, and how sleep habits and self-control may work together to affect a person’s daily functioning,” says June Pilcher of Clemson University in the US. Studies have shown that time spent sleeping is dwindling in today’s busy society.

They also indicated that more and more people are adopting irregular sleeping patterns, which is to blame for poor decision-making.

Stable energy reserves come from healthy sleep habits, according to the study, and with that we are less likely to bypass difficult tasks.

While improved performance on the job and better health are clear benefits of regular sleep, the study concluded that substance abuse, gambling and excessive spending could be curbed with proper sleep habits.

In 2013 paper published in the journal Obesity, a research team concluded that just one night of sleep deprivation led people to purchase more food of greater calorie content than they would, had they slept better.

Increased levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin in the blood were present, yet curiously, the team found no correlation between ghrelin and purchasing.

Instead, they pointed to impulsive decision-making as the likely culprit of the spending sprees they witnessed.

What’s more, a recent study suggests that individuals with a hoarding disorder could be sleep deprived.

“Hoarders typically have problems with decision-making and executive function,” said lead author Pamela Thacher of St Lawrence University in the US.

“Poor sleep is known to compromise cognition generally,” added Thacher,” so if hoarders have cluttered bedrooms, any existing risk for cognitive dysfunction, depression and stress may increase as sleep quality worsens”.


Source article: The Sun

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