More Kids Getting Kidney Stones from Melamine

Doctors say they are seeing increasing numbers of children with kidney stones. This could represent more fallout from the obesity epidemic.

While exact numbers of children with kidney stones are elusive, physicians at children's clinics say the numbers are up. Proposed reasons include sedentary lifestyle, obesity increase, and processed high-salt diets.

A kidney stone is a hard mass that results when calcium oxalate or other urinary chemicals form sticky crystals. The crystals grow and become stones that can range in size from a grain of sand to a golf ball.

At the first week of September this 2008, 54,000 children were affected by dairy products like milk and chocolates containing Melamine, 74 of those victims died because of kidney failure because this substance produces stones in a person's kidney specially for children.

Melamin is now banned worldwide because of it's deadly effect and companies in asia are now trying to eliminate those dairy products containg this substance.

Is GLUTATHIONE Safe for our skin? Is it advisable?

Does Glutathione is a safe formulation for kids and teenagers that combines lower dose of L. Glutathione with grapeseed powder and Vit. C. A capsule can be taken once daily for children ages 8-12 yrs and two capsules for teens aged 13-18 years old.

With the effectiveness of L.Glutathione as a whitening agent for adults, teenagers and kids are also enticed to use the product. Most of the available L.Glutathione products though are formulated for adults in high doses. Formulating L.Glutathione for kids and teenagers makes sure that young people get the safe amount their body needs.

But more than just skin deep, Glutathione helps maintain over all health with its powerful combination. Other than being just a whitening component, L. Glutathione is popular all over the world as a master anti-oxidant.

The decision to combine Vit. C and Grape seed with L.Glutathione is both to enhance its effectiveness to whiten skin and improve its anti-oxidant power. This way, it act more than just as a whitening component but also helps boost the immune system by combating free radicals.

Glutathione is a combination of L. Glutathione with grapeseed powder and Vitimin C, formulated to be safe for teens aged 13 - 18 years old. It has many of the benefits that you get from Greenwhite such as whitening and anti-oxidants.

Glutathione said to be safe for our skin and makes it whiter and more radiant. It boost up our immune system that prevent acne, pimples and other skin deseases.

Different Forms Of Depression Treatment

Being a very flexible condition, it is not surprising to learn that the medical community believes that the treatment for depression should also be flexible. There are various options available for people who do have one form of depression or another, and most of them can be modified to suit a patient’s needs.

Cognitive Therapy

The purpose of cognitive therapy is to identify the changes and pessimistic perspectives that may be contributing to a person’s depression. The depressed are often said to see the world in negative terms, with even small problems capable of being turned into major disasters. The goal of the therapist in cognitive therapy is to help identify the situations that cause these negative thoughts and slowly help the patient adjust their view to a more positive or realistic one.

Behavioral Therapy

While cognitive therapy aims to adjust the patient perspective to ease depression, behavioral therapy attempts to change behavior that contribute to the symptoms. The objective is to identify the internal factors behind depression, such as actions and behaviors that might affect a person’s feelings. Part of how it works is the identification of activities that the patient might find pleasant, then helping that patient spend more time enjoying them, rather than being depressed. The concept is that, as you engage in more activities to lift your mood, the less depressed you feel.

Interpersonal Therapy

This last approach, interpersonal therapy, focuses on relationships and how they affect the person with depression. While the two above focus on environmental and internal factors, this method chooses to examine and repair the damage done on a social level. The goal is to resolve conflicts caused by the condition, improve the social skills of the depressed, and allow them to become more involved with their own family, co-workers, and friends.

Plan B for Accidental Pregnancy

There are simply times when something happens at the spur of the moment – you meet someone and get busy with the person. Sometimes this happens between total strangers. It's what happens the morning after that makes the difference.

Some people wake up from a one-night stand finding themselves heavy with baby. The inability to use, failure of, or the inaccesibility to any form of primary contraceptive product during unprotected sexual intercourse is one of the most common causes of unwanted pregnancies in the country today.

But its a good thing we have emergency contraceptive pills available in the market to help us prevent unwanted pregnancies from happening. Marketed under the brand name Plan B, emergency contraceptives are designed to intercept conception before it even begins.

Emergency birth control pills are not to be confused with the popular abortion drug RU-486. Plan B works to prevent ovulation, if a woman has not yet released an egg. It also works by preventing fertilization. If fertilization had already taken place, using emergency contraceptive pills will help minimize the chances of post-coital implantation of the embryo into the uterus. Using Plan B will not terminate an existing pregnancy, as opposed to RU-486 which can terminate a 49-days old embryo.

This is particularly useful because women will not be able to tell when exactly their body will start ovulating. With the knowledge that sperm can live inside the body for three days at hand, there is a constant scare that if a couple has sex unprotected three days before the woman ovulates, there is a high possibility that the woman might get pregnant.

In context, Plan B is a mini-pill of sorts, but with higher concentrations of levenogestrel. Levenogestrel is one of the different progestins found in your typical birth control pill. The FDA approves of this drug and deems it to be safe to be used by women 18 years old and above.

Plan B is a two-dose system that needs to be take within three days of the unprotected sex. It is best that the emergency contraceptive pill be taken as soon as possible to increase efficacy. The second pill is taken 12 hours after the first dose. This emergency contraceptive pill is not 100% effective, clinical trials show that Plan B is 89% effective in preventing pregnancy. Its efficiency rate lowers when you use it past the 72-hour mark.

It is important for women to know that emergency contraceptive pills are not meant to be used as a primary birth control means. It is only a back-up plan for those instances where you simply don't have any means to get your commonly used birth control method.

It is also important to note that Plan B, like any other birth control pill, will only protect its users from unwanted pregnancies and not from sexually transmitted diseases. Plan B is available to women 18 years old and above without a prescription, provided that they show a proof of age. Teenagers 17 and below who need to use Plan B need to present a valid prescription note before they can buy the emergency birth control pill.

Questions You Feel Too Stupid To Ask About Generic Drugs

If you are one of us ordinary people who have to strive and work hard to make ends meet, you know the value of every cent and dollar that come your way. However, there are things we really need to spend on like healthcare. But did you know that you can save a lot of money on healthcare by opting to use generic drugs?

Of course, you probably know this – but have you tried them yet or are you too doubtful to entrust your healthcare needs to medications that are not branded? Here are some answers to some of the questions you feel too stupid to ask about generic drugs. Hopefully, after this, you can be more secure and confident about using these cheap but excellent lifesavers.

Are generic drugs imitations of brand-name drugs?

In a way, yes. But generic drugs are not like counterfeit drugs that just imitate how brand-name medications are supposed to look like. Generic drugs are essentially the same as brand-name drugs in dosage, safety, strength, method of administration, quality, performance, and intended use.

Then, why are they cheaper than brand-name drugs?

Manufacturers of generic drugs are able to price their products lower since they don’t have to recover investment costs. Companies that develop new drugs protect their investment—including research, development, marketing, and promotion — through patents. A patent gives a company the sole right to sell the drug while it is in effect. When the patent expires, manufacturers can apply to the FDA to sell generic versions. Because they don't have the same development costs, these generic manufacturers can sell their product with great discounts. The greater competition also keeps the price down.

But why do they look different if they only differ in production costs?

Okay, here’s the thing. While the patent expiration allows other manufacturers to produce generic medications, trademark laws still protect how the original medication looks like. U.S. trademark laws do not allow a generic drug to look exactly like its brand-name counterpart. However, a generic drug must duplicate the active ingredient. Colors, flavors, shapes, packaging, and certain other inactive components may be different.

Reference

Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_drug

Original Syphilis Strain Shows Remarkable Difference to Modern Variant

Most people know that syphilis is not the kind of condition that makes it hard for the infected to spread the condition by having sex, or being spread by skin contact. However, scientists have found that in an isolated community once visited by European explorers may carry the original form of the syphilis bacteria. The result is markedly different from the modern incarnation, spreading by skin contact and putting most displeasing marks and boils on the infected person’s skin.

You don’t get too many bits of news that makes a significant impact on medical science when it comes to old diseases that have long been treatable. Then again, you don’t hear much about things like the possible, definitive origin of any one illness. However, a recent discovery of an isolated bacterial infection in an isolated area, among an isolated population of natives, has done just that: shock the medical world. You see, the infection has some qualities that make it very startling. First is the sheer isolation of it, such that it was largely contained within the population and a small area around it. Second, it is a particularly nasty little skin ailment. Third, this disease happens to be syphilis.

Yes, that syphilis. This is the same syphilis that got to Al Capone. This is the same syphilis that, unless having antibiotic resistance, is easily treated by the use of conventional antibiotics. This is the same syphilis that was brought over by European explorers from areas of the New World back home. The same syphilis that is known for being sexually transmitted and is often cited as one of the many conditions one can avoid by not engaging in unprotected sexual intercourse. The bacterial strain, the symptoms, and the effects were all found to be largely the same, but there was one major difference between the isolated syphilis and the syphilis we all know and wish to avoid. The isolated one, which is believed to be the original strain, is not sexually transmitted.

Some have taken this as a rather unpleasant reminder of the power of the diseases that we fight, and the bacterial strains that are now making some seek out generic antibiotic alternatives. Syphilis, based on the findings, was not the sexually transmitted pathogen that the modern world is aware of in that isolated community. It was transmitted through basic skin contact among the natives, but this was far too unlikely an occurrence among European peoples at the time – and maybe even now, but that is arguable. So what happened? The bacteria adapted to the new environment and the conditions that came with it, eventually finding a way to be transmitted that was reliable and still somewhat similar to how it used to spread: sexual intercourse. Sex, after all, has always been a fairly reliable means of spreading virtually any microbial creatures from one person to another.

Now here’s something even more interesting. So far, we’ve found that syphilis jumped from being spread through skin contact to being transmitted through sex. When one takes a look at the earliest signs of having the condition, it was found that the general effects were not very aesthetically pleasing. In fact, one might argue that it counteracted the disease’s newfound means of transmission. After all, if an infected person is incapable of having sex because everyone around him finds his dark green boils and pus-coated skin terribly unattractive is likely doing a poor job of spreading the condition. Over time, though, it was notable that these overt signs became less and less prominent. In fact, the modern, sexually-transmitted syphilis is actually rather difficult to spot based on physical examination alone. In other words, the condition evolved to improve its likelihood of spreading. Hoping that there are medicines that that can cure all of this diseases