Should You Exercise While Pregnant?

It is one of the most common questions medical experts are asked.  It comes up in the office and even in social settings.  The question is, "Should you exercise while you are pregnant?"  The answer is yes.  Exercise and proper conditioning can help with the labor and certainly improve your overall blood supply to the baby.  In addition, stretching, flexibility, and exercise are quite helpful and can help at the time of delivery.  But, there is a longer answer we need to stress.  Women who are pregnant need to realize they should not expect to do more than when they were not pregnant.  That's a very important point.  

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Toilet Training Battle

It is a source of constant problems for parents. Should they toilet train their baby? Are they affected by the toilet training? Are they doing a good job? Many parents get upset about it. The bottom line is your child will learn to use the toilet. Don’t put so much pressure on your child that your child actually feels that they have to deal with the toilet training under a gun. The bottom line is this…this is one of the first times your child can exhibit independence and it will be a battle. It’s not done easily.

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Helping Kids Deal with Divorce

Divorce and children. You can not underestimate the role that divorce can play. The best thing to suggest to people who are suffering from divorce and dealing with those pressures is to not forget the children; to realize that when they seem okay, they may not be. In other words, you need to talk with them and consistently reinforce what’s going on. There is nothing better than communication. Communication can get you through a lot of those pressures and things you have to deal with under that stress.

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Stress of Stay-at-Home Moms

Stay-at-home moms don’t get enough credit. Yes, there is the lip service, the comments such as, ‘It’s very difficult to stay at home.’ ‘That’s yet another job.’ But in the workforce, many stay-at-home moms are put down. The reality is, women who stay at home to be with children have a very important job. One of the big stresses they have is the fact that they don’t get out and they don’t have the opportunity to interact with other adults. If you’re a stay-at-home mom, at least several times a week, give yourself an opportunity to get out.

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Can Drinking Coffee Help Fight Skin Cancer?

Can coffee help fight skin cancer?  The Journal of the National Cancer Institute recently took a look at the effects of caffeine intake. What they found is that people who drink coffee on a regular basis, four or more cups a day, had a 20% lower risk for developing the deadliest form of skin cancer, malignant melanoma, than those who drank less coffee.  The same did not hold true for decaffeinated coffee drinkers.  Malignant melanoma is the 5th most common cancer in the United States and the leading cause of skin cancer deaths.  Coffee has been the subject of medical research quite a bit. In the past, researchers have found associations between coffee and protection against Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s, depression, and diabetes.

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Sleep Apnea May Be Associated with Diabetes

Sleep apnea is a very common health problem where people have sleep interrupted with periods of snoring and erratic breathing. We have known for quite some time that sleep apnea is associated with high blood pressure. Now, a new study from Dublin, Ireland, has made the association between sleep apnea and diabetes. The study looked at 8,000 people and found an association. One of the most important points is if you’re someone who has sleep apnea, or suspects that you might, it is worth getting a complete physical and clearly be evaluated for diabetes.

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Dealing with Muscle Aches

Muscle aches and pains can be very frustrating. If you sit in one position or if you’re under a lot of pressure, you will find that those aches and pains can occur. It also will happen after you extend yourself if you’re exercising and haven’t been doing that for quite some time. The way you should deal with the muscle aches and pains best is to stretch and improve your flexibility. That’s the most important thing that can play a major role in helping you out. Muscle aches can become frustrating, but you can’t give in to them. You actually have to work through them.

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Studies Are Showing Alternative Medicine Techniques Can Be Helpful

Complementary and alternative medicine include such things as yoga, acupuncture, massage, and tai chi.  In the past, these modalities were considered a far field from medicine, but as a growing number of studies are being performed, the medical community is beginning realize that some of the techniques can be helpful for everything from stress reduction to help with blood pressure.  It may be years before we have enough significant studies to suggest using them as treatment, so what can you do?  Here's our suggestion…as long as you're not replacing a tested medical treatment with something like yoga or massage, there's no reason not to combine it with others.  It makes sense to try things that are good for you. 

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Mentally Quitting Smoking

There is no doubt that it is tough to kick the habit when it comes to cigarette smoking. If you ask 100 people how they stopped, the odds are quite strong you will get 100 different answers. But there is usually one consistent comment that comes across. It goes something like this. ‘I was so frustrated with smoking that I finally said, ‘The heck with it. I’m quitting.” It is clear that to finally stop smoking, a person needs to take a mental order to do it. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the latest drugs, acupuncture, or whatever. You have to want to.

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Cold Weather Exercise Cautions

It’s tough to exercise in the cold weather, and certainly one of the most frustrating things is that you can pull muscles. You can also put extra pressure on the chest. When you’re in the cold, the blood vessels that go to the heart actually can clamp down, and when they clamp down they can have decreased oxygen supply to the heart. With that decrease of oxygen can come chest tightness and situations resolving and leading into a heart attack. The other problem of course is if you don’t warm up properly, and you don’t stretch out, you can also pull hamstrings and other muscles and tendons.

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Fruits, Vegetables and Cancer

Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables doesn't help women with breast cancer and it doesn't necessarily reduce the risk of the disease returning.  The same can be said for prostate cancer and other forms of the disease.  But a recent study found, in colorectal cancer, that a diet that relied more on these foods plus whole grains fish and chicken did reduce the recurrence.  Here's our take on it.  We will definitely find that a diet like this helps in all cases, but it is difficult to get a clear association or correlation because diet has so many components and effects.  It also depends on the individual's genetics.  Nevertheless, it shows how we are looking more and more at diet and its role with cancer and other conditions.  That's the point we need to take home.  Diet plays a key role and a crucial role in how we evaluate cancer and other health issues. 

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