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I think I have probably made it pretty clear on this blog that I am not in favor of Bariatric surgery as a method to lose weight becuase it is dangerous, not always effective, and diet and exercise are not needed to lose theweight which means that your health is not improved as much even though the weight is lost.

The problem is however for the morbidly obese this is sometimes the only options. So here are some post surgery tips

Weight loss surgery can surely help you lose weight, but it won’t help you keep the weight off. What I mean is that if you lose weight today but gain it back sometime later, what is the use of weight loss?

Have yourself checked up - If you are gaining weight in the post-surgery period, you need to visit a doctor to make sure that you are not suffering from any disease that is causing weight gain. Once the possibility of such a disease is ruled out, it is time to follow the next step. Read the rest of this entry »

I have written before about the best way to suntan and the best ways to get rid of a sunburn but now that Summer is here and I really do get concerned about the people that read my suntanning articles.

I worry that people will get sunburned, I know that people can easily get skin cancer from overexposure to the sun but also I remember how hard I tried in my late teens and twenties to get the best suntan possible with the skin type that I have.

These sun worshipers bake themselves carefully and with proper apparent care. They are careful to turn and twist their bodies in a way best calculated to get an even, rich suntan over as much of their skin as possible. They slather themselves with the latest lotion that promises to keep out harmful sun-ray effects and most importantly guarantees a deep tan.

“Ah, it feels so good,” they say. And I, with a trace of the sun worshiper still in me, agree. The warmth feels like a balm. Vitamin D is brought to the body by the sunlight’s effect on the skin. The pimples of acne can diminish or disappear when the sun’s ultraviolet rays play upon them.

Any teen-ager who winces with pain of sunburn when clapped on the back can testify that the extra time in the sun is never good. For everyone there is an amount and degree of sun beyond which danger lies.

Even a person who tans readily and easily may get harmful changes in his skin if he has too much exposure. Read the rest of this entry »

Eczema is much less frequent in adolescence than in the first years of childhood. In teen-agers it usually causes a thickening, dryness, and redness of the skin. Itching, and at times pain, may accompany the rash. At this age, eczema is most frequently found in the folds of the elbows and knees and on the wrists. Another common location is the back of the neck and ears.

Eczema may bring scaling of the skin. At times there is marked splitting of the skin and sometimes blisters appear, filled with clear fluid or pus.The cause of eczema is usually an allergy. Though in infancy, the allergens (allergy causers) are nearly always foods, in later years the eczema is just as likely to be a reaction to wool, nylon, or other materials. Reactions to various plants can also cause the rash. The reactions may be from touching the plants or from inhaling their pollens.

The emotions can play an important role in eczema. If a person is anxious or tense, he is more likely to scratch and pick at the lesions. This can lead to trouble from secondary bacterial infections, or just from the mechanical irritation and injury to the skin. When the eczema has a nervous or emotional root, the medical term for it is neurodermatitis. Read the rest of this entry »

I have been a contact lense wearer for a lot of years now, probably over 25 years and have ran into more and more roadblocks to buying contact lenses over the years. What happens is I will wear contacts for 5 years or so and then switch back to glasses for a couple of years. Here is the process that I go through to get contact lenses.

1. Get an eye exam and new prescription

2. Shop around for a cheap place to buy lenses

3. Pay some sort of fitting fee and get a 6 month supply of my contacts lenses

This time around I decided to short circuit the contact lense buying process. I hate having to pay a fitting fee to buy contact lenses and they are all overpriced at the stores anyway. Read the rest of this entry »

I have often thought that exercise can help get rid of the symptoms and even the effects of Diabetes and today I see that there is yet another study that says that exercise can at the very least stop you from getting type 2 diabetes. It is one thing to say that exercise and good health stops you from getting sick but if you are not sick some will argue that you are just genetically predisposed to not getting sick.

Group-based diet and exercise lifestyle interventions over six years can prevent or delay diabetes for up to 14 years after the intervention period. But whether lifestyle interventions also lead to reduced cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality remains unclear. These are the conclusions of authors of an Article in this week’s Diabetes Special Issue of The Lancet.

While several major clinical trials around the world have shown the effectiveness of lifestyle interventions to reduce diabetes incidence in people with impaired glucose tolerance*, questions remain over how long post-intervention these strategies remain effective. Professor Guangwei Li, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing, China, and Dr Ping Zhang, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, and colleagues did the China Da Qing Diabetes Prevention Outcome Study (CDQDPOS), which followed-up patients 20 years after enrollment. Read the rest of this entry »