1. Hypertension

2. Current smoking

3. Low waist to hip ratio

4. Unhealthy diet

5. Lack of regular exercise

6. Moderate or high alcohol intake

7. Psychosocial stress

8. Depression

9. High ratio of apoB to apoA1 lipoprotein (i.e. high cholesterol)

10. Diabetes

Reference: Interstroke Study, Lancet

To be fair, some people do need extra help since diet and exercise alone cannot do much to help them reduce because they are abnormally obese. And so weight loss pills help them control and/or suppress their appetite or prevent their bodies from digesting the fat in the food they eat. But a recent study conducted by Brazilian and Canadian researchers and published in the British Medical Journal states that even the long term use of weight loss pills contributes only to a minor reduction in weight, an average of less than 11 pounds.

And when we take into consideration the number of side effects that these pills cause – the anti-obesity drug orlistat which is supposed to boost weight loss by preventing your body from digesting fats causes digestive side effects even as it promotes only an average weight loss of 7 pounds; sibutramine and rimonabant which suppress or interrupt neural signals to disguise hunger pangs and food cravings reduce weight by an average of 9 pounds, but at the cost of insomnia, high blood pressure, an elevated pulse rate, and nausea. Rimonabant has also been known to cause anxiety and depression and other mood disorders and is as of now not approved for sale by the FDA.

On the bright side however, the drugs did serve to improve cardiovascular health and prevent and/or control diabetes, hypertension, and cholesterol, the killer diseases that attack overweight people. But then again, with most weight loss drugs being available OTC, we must ask ourselves the question – is it ok to tempt and even court the disease just because we perceive that the cure is just a pill away? And are we fooling ourselves into believing that it is ok to be overweight because anti-obesity medicines are now available even without a prescription?

The truth cannot be written more clearly on the wall – we are a nation plagued by obesity; we invite disease with open arms because of our irresponsible lifestyles, a callous attitude towards exercise, and an overindulgence of food. And because of this, our healthcare costs are spiraling out of control. It’s time we stopped depending on pills and medicines as the panacea to cure all our ills and start looking at their source instead; it’s time we bring up our children to respect and safeguard their health instead of encouraging their sedentary lifestyles and feeding them with junk food; and it’s time we started giving good health the deference it deserves – we don’t have to place it on a pedestal, it’s enough that we acknowledge its importance in our lives.

(This article is contributed by Susan White, who regularly writes on the subject of online radiology technician schools. She invites your questions, comments at her email address: susan.white33@gmail.com)

(http://xkcd.com/765/)

But if we stop to think for a moment, we would realize the fact that medicines sometimes cause more harm than good, mostly because of our ignorance or because we abuse them knowingly. Take for instance a person who has been prescribed painkillers for a debilitating condition like a headache; seven times out of ten, you can bet that the patient takes them for more than the prescribed amount of time or uses these pills randomly even for perceived symptoms of pain. Some people become so addicted to painkillers that they suffer a relapse if they’re forced to stop. Painkillers have powerful chemicals that affect not just your digestive tract but also your overall physical and mental health.

While this is an instance of substance abuse, ignorance comes to the fore when we’re prescribed antibiotics or any other medication that must be taken for a certain period of time even if you feel better or the symptoms of disease are no longer present. Most people stop taking them when they feel ok, and because of this, variant and new strains of bacteria are formed and cause many more new diseases. Also, some people tend to dose themselves with antibiotics even for colds and other viral infections, thus setting themselves up for various health problems.

Be it the habitual pill popper or the compulsive addict, neither behavior bodes well for progress in the pharmaceutical world. The demand for drugs has also given rise to hundreds of spurious manufacturing units, most of which churn out OTC medicines that end up harming or even taking lives.

In order to maximize the efficiency of drugs and ensure that they do more good than harm, we must:

• Take them only with a prescription.
• Never use them beyond the recommended period or dosage.
• Never self-medicate.
• Never get into the habit of popping a pill for any perceived ailment.
• Always check for expiry dates and authenticity of the drug.

A little common sense goes a long way in making medicine effective and safe.

This article is contributed by Ashley M. Jones, who regularly writes on the subject of Online Pharmacy Technician Certification. She invites your questions, comments at her email address: ashleym.jones643@gmail.com

I will not go through the features of the device and they are available on the Apple website and have been reviewed and deconstructed on almost every major tech website.

I will try to divide this post in 3 major parts – who will benefit most, limitations and use in medicine.

1) Who will benefit most from the iPad (vs laptop)

The quick answer is most casual users. If you want to browse the Internet, check email, watch video, read books – the iPad is more than enough. Some may argue that an iPhone (or other smart phones) can also do this, so why buy an iPad. That is a matter of personal choice. Some people will be comfortable with the small screen of the iPhone and may not want to carry an extra device. The advantage of the iPad is the larger screen and keyboard which does allow for light typing – so it is possible to actually get some work done. Also he apps make use of the larger screen and offer more functionality.

People who need to edit audio-video, type long documents or need to use applications that use a lot of horsepower will not ditch their laptops any time soon.

2) Limitations

It is not a stand alone device and needs iTunes for transferring data. There is no file system so one file cannot be be opened in another application (e.g. PDF files transferred into one application cannot be opened by another application and needs to be transferred through iTunes again thereby creating 2 copies on the iPad).

Apple has provided iWork suite of applications but they cannot replace the desktop versions. They are good for creating outlines and a basic version and then transferring to the computer to finalize it. That said these applications are sufficient for creating light documents. I transferred a Keynote presentation from my computer to the iPad and ended up losing fonts, some formatting and animations.

3) Use in medicine

Finally a device in which I can keep all my journal articles (in PDF format) and actually be able to read them. That is a huge benefit. Also I am waiting for the major textbook publishers to release medical textbooks so instead of carrying actual books, I can have ebooks with me all the time.

Electronic health records will presumable be extremely slow to use this platform but I can imagine the day when I can go to the hospital with my iPad (or other tablet computer) and get the entire patient chart, labs and radiology images on it. This is a huge advantage for busy clinicians as most will attest that a lot of time is wasted in searching for charts and finding a computer to actually get work done. And when my patients want to see their labs or x-rays I can show it to them immediately!

(This post was typed on iPad – and minor editing done online in Wordpress)

“As American women age many begin a war with their weight. A new study shows for normal weight middle aged women and older who eat a regular diet, 60 minutes of daily exercise is recommended just to maintain and not gain weight as they age. For overweight or obese women exercising 60 minutes wasnt enough to maintain and not gain weight over time.”

“Reuse of syringes, all too common in under-funded clinics, kills 1.3 million each year. Marc Koska clues us in to this devastating global problem with facts, photos and hidden-camera footage. He shares his solution: a low-cost syringe that can’t be used twice.“

“Henry Markram says the mysteries of the mind can be solved — soon. Mental illness, memory, perception: they’re made of neurons and electric signals, and he plans to find them with a supercomputer that models all the brain’s 100,000,000,000,000 synapses.”