How Hope Can Help You Cope

A school system in a large city had a special program to help hospitalized children keep up with their schoolwork. One day a teacher who worked in the program received a routine call asking her to visit such a child. She was given the child’s name, hospital, and room number. Her instructions were to help the boy with lessons in grammar.

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Water Works

Water provides true refreshment for the thirsty, but most people don’t know that it also plays a vital role in all bodily processes. Unfortunately, most people don’t drink enough water, perhaps because they don’t realize just how important it is. The fact is, not drinking enough water affects every aspect of your body, right out to your skin.

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Protect Your Family From Antibiotic Resistance

Last year when Meredith started getting symptoms of a sinus infection, this 44-year-old teacher and busy mother of three opted to call her doctor’s office and describe the symptoms to the nurse instead of going in for an evaluation. After speaking with the doctor, the nurse called in a prescription for antibiotics to the local pharmacy. A few months later when Marilyn was preparing for the family’s vacation, she again called the nurse and asked for several refills of the antibiotic “in case she became ill.”

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Fight Cancer With Fiber

New research confirms what nutritionists have said for years–eating lots of high-fiber foods is a great way to protect your health. That might sound like an outrageous claim. But according to researchers conducting the biggest-ever study into the relationship between diet and cancer, it’s the truth. For 15 years the European Prospective Investigation of Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) has examined the dietary habits of more than 400,000 people in nine European countries. EPIC researchers released preliminary results from their long-term cohort study at a nutrition conference last year in Lyons, France.

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Type II Diabetes

Type II diabetes is becoming more and more common. However, there’s encouraging news on how to manage this disease better if you already have it–and ways to avoid it if you don’t.

To begin, Type II (also known as adult-onset diabetes) accounts for 95 percent of diabetes cases in the United States. Now there’s solid evidence that patients themselves hold the key to improving their health, and that the improvements they experience are often dramatic.

In a groundbreaking study at the University of South Carolina’s Norman J. Arnold School of Public Health in Columbia, researchers have found that lifestyle intervention focusing on exercise and modest weight loss worked nearly twice as well as medication did.

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Medical Resources on the Internet

No matter what your condition, you can find a vast amount of information on the Internet. There are online versions of medical journals, government sites such as the National Library of Medicine, Centers for Disease Control, or the Food and Drug Administration, and sites sponsored by medical schools.

Patients who take time to do research on their condition are more informed and have a better understanding of their disease. By going online, they can read articles by experts from all over the world. Internet-savvy doctors can provide patients with lists of sites containing relevant information.

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Cancer risks during each decade of life – Men

The American Cancer Society estimates that approximately 1.3 million new cancer cases will be diagnosed in the United States this year (excluding skin cancers). More than 1,500 people die every day because of cancer. It is our second-leading cause of death, surpassed only by heart disease.

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5 Easy Ways to Sneak Soy Into Your Diet

The first written record of the soybean was found in Chinese books dating back to 2838 B.C. It has been the primary protein source for people in Asia for centuries. Americans have used it for little more than oil and livestock feed. But things have changed.
The humble soybean has captured the attention of health-conscious consumers everywhere–with good reason. Research has shown that incorporating soy protein into the diet provides numerous health benefits, including reducing the risk of heart disease and reducing the levels of LDL, or “bad cholesterol,” in the bloodstream. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued a recommendation for consumers to integrate 25 grams of soy protein per day into their diets.

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Six Simple Steps to Avoid Food-borne Illness

If you are a vegetarian, the thought of having a food-borne illness probably never crosses your mind. After all, everyone knows that E. coli makes its home in raw beef, and Salmonella breeds rapidly in undercooked chicken or pork.

Well, it’s time to rethink your past beliefs about food-borne illness, as fresh fruits, vegetables, eggs, lentils, and dairy products can also play host to a variety of deleterious bacteria, including E. coli and Salmonella. In fact, some of the most common carriers of food-borne germs include basil, cantaloupe, lettuce, potatoes, raspberries, scallions, strawberries, and tomatoes.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), food-borne diseases cause an estimated 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,200 deaths in the United States each year. Not only are the symptoms uncomfortable; food-borne illnesses can lead to secondary long-term illnesses. For example, there are some strains of E. coli that can cause kidney failure in young children, while Salmonella can lead to reactive arthritis and serious infections. For pregnant women, the Listeria bacteria (commonly found in soft cheeses such as brie and feta) can cause meningitis and stillbirths.

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Coping With Addictions

Why do people do things that they know are harmful? The next time you go to the grocery store and see an elderly man pulling an oxygen bottle behind him with the tubes going into his nostrils at the same time he is smoking a cigarette, stop and think. Why is he doing something that he knows is the cause of his inability to breathe well? It doesn’t make sense, does it? That very man would probably advise others not to smoke while at the same time be unable to correct his own problem.

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