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Whole Food Vitamins

Laser Comb – Should You Consider and Include As Part of Your Hair Loss Treatment?

Low level laser therapy usually abbreviated ‘LLLT’ refers to the application of red-beam or near infrared lasers to treat a variety of medical conditions. Low level laser therapy is also known as cool laser, software laser or therapeutic laser therapy.
The effectiveness of laser therapy depends on the intensity, color of the light (wavelength) and total energy delivered. ‘LLLT’ usually have wave length in the range of 600 to 1000 nanometer and power ranging from 5 to 500 ‘milliwatts’.
This technique has been used to speed up wound healing, relieve pain, nerve regeneration, skin diseases and a variety of ‘musculo’ skeletal conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. It has been used to treat hair loss with limited success. Some dermatologist believe this technique enable low-level laser to penetrate deeply into the tissues and provide ‘photobiostimulation’ effect.
Hair that falls out and is not replaced by any new hairs leads to increased appearance of bald spots or thinning. Proponents of such technique believe laser promotes healthy hair growth and accelerate the increase of hair shaft diameter of miniaturized hair affected by genetic male and female pattern hair loss in some patients.
The light source or photon release energy when it make contact with the skin. The light particle energy disperse on the skin is absorbed by the micro molecules within the cells. These micro molecules are called ‘mitochondria’ and is made up of complex tiny membrane enclosed structure that exists in the cells.
‘Mitochondria’ are also known as factory or powerhouse of the cells because they produce the energy required to trigger various cellular and physiological functions, some of which associated with pain relief, cell rejuvenation and healing of injuries.
These factories are mainly responsible for providing most of the required chemical compound to convert energy for the cells (ATP). ATP is the chemical responsible for energy release within cells. Lasers are believed to trigger the conversion of ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate) to ADP (Adenosine Diphosphate) resulting in the releasing of energy which thereafter trigger cellular metabolic changes.
The light source can be directly expose to the scalp by means of positioning of a portable mechanical device equipped with light source such as a hand-held laser comb. Some dermatologist believe such device may help to energize hair and increase the blood circulation around the base of the papilla which in turn stimulates the scalp cells to accelerate hair growth. As a result, hair will flourish and becomes thicker, stronger and healthier.
Is low-level laser therapy as that used in laser comb truly effective in stimulating hair re-growth as claimed by some? After all there are various factors that contributes to thinning of hair thus it is not likely that this type of treatment alone could deliver the expected results.
Skeptics claimed that there is not enough scientific evidence to prove that low-level laser therapy prevents hair loss or restores lost hair. Some experts point out that the low-level power of the laser produced by laser comb is not able to penetrate deep enough into the skin to reach the hair follicles. Thus many dermatologist conclude hair regrowth using laser comb is simply not effective or useless.
Proponents of ‘LLLT’ high lighted the fact that FDA gave the clearance on the marketing of hand-held laser comb such as the ‘HairMax’ and this prove that hair loss treatment using light therapy is not a scam or useless.
Those who suffered more progressive balding problem may have difficulty getting obvious positive results with laser comb. Hair regrowth takes time therefore ongoing use of it for at half a year is recommended before its visible effectiveness can be determined.
If you do not suffer from any abnormal hair loss problem or experiencing mild hair lost condition then the laser comb can be use as good preventive tool to give your hair additional better chance of not falling out prematurely. After all there is no unwanted side effects and therefore no harm in trying it.
Laser comb can be use as preventive or complimentary treatment measure to increase the density and volume of hair as well as to normalize the scalp.
In summary a multi-pronged approach involving a combination of hair loss treatments will give you a strong fighting chance to deal with balding. A holistic treatment should preferably include a well balance nutrition diet, adopting basic hair care, scalp massage, achieving hormone balance, using FDA approved medication such as ‘Propecia’ and ‘Monoxidil’ and maintaining overall healthy life style.…

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Men'S Health

3 Ingenious Ways To Combat Hair Loss

Being aware of body changes is so important when it comes to hair loss. Loss of hair starts with the hair thinning. Sure there are lots of remedies that are out on the market to implement, but the very first step is to take care of you.
The thinning of hair is the first outward sign that something is wrong. The answers as to why this happens are many. But knowing that action needs to be taken should be the primary consideration at this point. Don’t let the situation get any worse than it is now.
The caring for your scalp is an important part of the cure and the more information and acting upon that will be better for you in the long run.
That’s what this article is all about, taking action to inhibit or stop hair loss altogether.
Strategy #1. React and take action. Ok, this may seem like common sense, but so many people disregard the fact that something is going on with their body that’s affecting their hair. Hair thinning is a warning sign that needs attention.
No one knows their body like they do. If you feel something is wrong, then do something about it. Little things tend to add up to major issues. Sometimes we tend to negate the intuition that all of us have. We are all born with this trait that we know something is wrong.
Whether the problem ends up as a hormonal imbalance issue, nutritional deficiency, or environmental concern it all starts with being aware of our bodies.
Don’t play off little concerns without following through and finding out what the core problem really is.
Strategy #2. Be nice to yourself. Whether you’re in the beginning stages of hair loss or not, the key element here is to pamper yourself. Take care of your hair through proper grooming and being gentle with yourself. The loss of hair happens over time and regrowth of hair will happen over time. What happens during the recovery period will affect the outcome on the permanency of hair regrowth.
Using special care with any type of medications with your hair during the recovery of hair will pay off handsomely. Hair care products are an important part of hair regrowth as well, making sure that the ingredients are complementary to any medications that you may be taking.
Strategy #3. Give your scalp a break at night.
After a trying day of taking care of yourself with diet and exercise, having a full night’s rest that takes care of your head is needed. Resting your scalp on a pillow that actually will help in a hair regrowth plan is in order.
Get a satin pillow case to allow your head to comfortable slide over it. Having your scalp slide over a pillow rather than having it tugged through a conventional pillow case material can benefit you greatly. This seems like an insignificant issue, but over the span of 8 hours sleep, it can amount to faster results.
Taking into account these initial 3 strategies can pay off greatly in the long run. Knowing yourself and taking action are the key components for hair recovery.…

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Whole Food Vitamins

Help Your Daughter Love Her Hair!

When my daughter was born, she didn’t have a bunch of hair. By the time she was 2, it seems as if she had even less. She suffered from eczema causing all of her hair to fall out, except a little poof at the top of her head. She also had extremely dry, fragile, thin sandy brown hair! I just knew that this poor child would always be bald and forever suffer the stigma of being the girl with itsy bitsy pigtails.

As my daughter turned from a baby to a toddler, I did everything to try to grow her hair back. She was getting taller and bigger; she was at the age where she should be wearing beads or pretty burettes instead of a tiny, dry, auburn . I purchased a “wonderful” moisturizer and applied it daily, sometimes twice a day. I would even deep conditioner her and have her run around with a processing cap on for hours. Whenever I would see a little girl with long pretty ponytails or beads, I would stop her mother and ask her what she was using on her daughter’s hair and then I would run out to pick it up. It NEVER failed, when I got to the beauty supply store, I would see that the product was packed with nasty ingredients and I would leave it on the shelf, frustrated and back at square one.

By the time my daughter turned 4, I had gotten so frustrated with both of our hair issues that I started to make my own concoctions. Over the next year, her hair had thrived like crazy. The nutrient rich diet that I was feeding her follicles had her hair growing like wild fire! Now, we had a NEW problem; her hair had gotten so thick that doing it became overwhelming at times. It seems as if she just woke up one morning with a ton of hair that had massive shrinkage and just took forever to do! We went from 4 beads per braid, to 10, to 20 (I wouldn’t put any more than that, but there was room for several more). For the next year and a half, she exclusively wore braids so that I didn’t have to handle her hair too often. Each time I took her braids out, it seemed as if her hair had grown a bit more.

When Khyli turned 7, she no longer wanted to always have her hair braided; she wanted to try new styles, which required more upkeep. It seemed as if every time I did her hair, we would fight and I would threaten to cut it all off or make her get Sisterlocks. Doing her hair became a battle; a dreaded event. I had to figure out a way to make this more pleasurable; I didn’t want her to start hating her hair, start thinking that it was “bad” because I complained about doing it so much. Here I will share some of the tips and techniques I discovered that helped me with managing my daughter’s MID BACK LENGTH hair.

The first thing I did was make a conscious effort to be patient with myself. I would schedule her hair just like I would schedule a meeting. Do it on a day where I knew I had enough time to take it down, wash it, condition it, and then put it back up, which could easily take 6 hours.

As her hair grew and became denser, I started to wash her hair in sections. I would put 5-7 puffs in her hair and wash each one separately; this would cut down on tangles. I did the same with conditioning her hair.

Comb the hair in sections as well; starting from the ends to the root. Take small sections for very dense course hair. Use a detangling spray such as

Although Khyli is very tall, I still washed her hair in the kitchen sink, while she would lie across the kitchen counter. This made it so much easier to wash her hair; as she was more comfortable.

I also decided that I would make the day a bonding experience. We would spend the time to catch up! This was a time for just the two of us with very minimal interruptions. We talked about everything; how school was going, how my job was going, tell her stories about when I was a little girl or when she was a little girl; and I would make it a point to tell her several times throughout the day, how much I loved her hair!

You may also pick up her favorite movie or book; if your daughter is anything like mine, she will want to talk about the movie, amongst a million other things. I allow her to …

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Healthy Nutrition

The Acai Berry Super Food

This super berry has gotten much media attention lately and it leaves us with many questions. Where does this berry come from? Why is it good for us? Will it really keep us healthy and help us lose weight? Based on the latest research, let’s explore all we know to be true about this berry.
Acai berry, pronounced (ah-SAH’ee) is said to be one of the most nutritious foods in the world. So what is this berry and what does it exactly do? Acai is a small purplish, blackish-looking berry. It is a cross between a grape and a blueberry but smaller and darker. The fruit has a large seed and a small amount of pulp. It’s now being used in the United States in energy drinks, bars, juices, and even yogurts and ice-creams. It comes from the Amazon palm tree in Brazil and the native people there have been traditionally using acai berries to treat digestive disorders, skin conditions, and insomnia, to name a few.
The berries are actually found in some of the large palm trees that grow in the thick forests. Unlike cherries which grow individually in trees, the acai berry grows in bunches, more like bananas would.
These berries have gotten lots of media hype lately and have been featured on talk shows such as Oprah, Rachel Ray, NBC, CBS, and ABC. An Oprah guest, health expert Dr. Perricone, promotes Acai berries as one of the best foods you may have never heard of. He considers it a super food with many reasons to back it up.
These berries are packed with antioxidants, amino acids, and essential fats which are the perfect trifecta when looking at the nutritional profile of any food. Essential fats, which nutritionists speak of quite frequently, help to kick start metabolism, absorb more nutrition from your food, help with brain and heart health, as well as a host of other things. It also contains amino acids which are the building blocks of protein, and of course antioxidants. We speak of antioxidants all the time but most people aren’t really sure what they really are and why they’re so vital. We just know that they must be good for us because we talk about them so often.
Antioxidants help to defend the body against free radicals which are harmful byproducts produced by the body with the help of pollutants like cigarette smoke, pesticides, air pollution, and so forth. Eating foods high in these anti-oxidants such as fruits and vegetables, interferes with the aging process and disease process by neutralizing these free radicals. By lessening the destructive power of free radicals, we can help reduce the risk of diseases like heart disease and of course, cancer. The USDA has a way of measuring these antioxidants in foods called the ORAC (oxygen radical absorbance capacity) scale and it’s used by many nutritionists. The acai berry has surpassed many foods on the ORAC scale by leaps and bounds. Examples of other foods that are high on this scale would be blueberries, goji berries, and cranberries, and from the research we’ve seen so far, Acai surpasses them all in that department.
The other thing all these foods have in common would be the different blueish, purplish, pigments which is a measure of the anthocyanins and flavonoids they contain. Anthocyanins comes from 2 Greek words, “plant” and “blue”, so these are responsible for the pigments in fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Foods that are richest in these would blueberries, red grapes, red wine, and acai.
There is lots of discussion about these berries and how they pertain to weight loss. It is true that any fruit that is high in fiber and antioxidants which help you feel full and rid the body of toxins would be great for energy and weight loss. There is still much research that has to be done as far has prevention of illness and extreme weight loss so promotion of these berries as a miracle solution or a quick fix is highly pre-mature until more research is done. They’re simply a very nutritious fruit that can certainly be a part of any weight loss plan. In fact, it is sometimes given in extreme weight loss facilities to help give clients energy to get through challenging workouts.
Where and how to we get the acai berry? The best advice would be to try and purchase it as a juice that has been freeze dried as the fruit is extremely perishable, therefore would never last the trip over to the United States in its natural form. Therefore any brand you buy should say “freeze dried powder” or extracts such as what you would find in the products like Monavie, and the brand Earthfruit which has a freeze dried powder. Don’t fall for things that say 4:1, …

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Men'S Health

Start Losing Belly Fat Now

Belly fat is one of the biggest complaints among people who are out of shape. What we eat directly affects how are bodies will look like both on the inside and on the outside. It’s only up to us as an individual how quickly we lose weight. The harder a person works, the faster the excess weight will come off.
Cut the Crap Food
Crap food, or what most people probably call junk food, does horrible things for us. When I say junk food, I’m talking about foods high in calories, high in fat or both. Even diet soda isn’t as great as its cracked up to be. It may not contain any calories, but it does contain ingredients that our bodies don’t know what to do with. This causes our bodies to hold onto it and store it as fat. Not only can these fatty foods elevate blood pressure and increase the risk of developing other health problems, they also cause us to gain excess fat all over the body and that includes belly fat.
Start Moving
Exercise is the only way you can burn calories. The more you exercise the more calories you burn and the more calories you burn, the more weight is lost. It’s really a simple science and basically comes down to how bad you actually want to lose belly fat. If you make a promise to yourself to burn an extra 500 calories per day, you can lose one pound every week. Burning an extra 500 calories a day is fairly easy and can be achieved by jogging at a moderate pace for 45 to 60 minutes. You don’t have to jump right in and start running for that long. It is okay to start out lightly. The important thing is to maintain a routine and do it regularly. That’s the only way you’ll ever get the results you’re looking for.
Liposuction is for the Rich & Lazy
Liposuction is the easy way out and it doesn’t teach us anything. It’s a quick fix for those who can afford it and many of us can’t. Losing belly fat can be done naturally, without surgeries or diet pills, but people do need to be prepared to put a bit of work into it. The more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it.
Belly fat can be a stubborn thing, but if you make the decision to start eating healthy foods, stay active and keep your caloric intake within the recommended range, losing belly fat and fat all over the rest of your body will become easier. You can’t expect to just sit around and eat whatever you want and not have belly fat.…

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Healthy Nutrition

Healthy Eating On-The-Go

Healthy eating seems difficult to us because we believe that it takes time to prepare. We opt for fast food and junk because it’s convenient, cheap and everywhere we go. We couldn’t be more wrong. Here are 10 easy and affordable ways to eat healthy on the go this summer.
10. Carry it With You
Keep a variety of ready to eat fruits and vegetables at home to grab and go. Pack a mini cooler bag full of them along with low fat yogurt, granola bars, dried cereal, trail mix and cheese sticks to feed your hunger throughout the day.
9. Keep Yourself Hydrated
To quench your thirst you should be drinking 9 to 12 cups of water per day and even more on hot, humid days or when exercising. Keep a case of bottled water at home and take a few bottles wherever you go.
8. Breakfast
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Skipping it would be like driving your car to work on an empty tank. Have a bowl of multi grain cereal, high in fibre and low in sugar, with skimmed milk and topped with fresh fruit.
7. What’s on the Barbecue?
All meats for the barbecue should be lean cuts, preferably chicken and fish. Limit your intake of steak and other red meats. Remember portion control. A single serving should be no bigger than the size of a deck of cards.
6. Preparation
Plan your snacks and meals the night before. Sandwiches, side salads and veggies store easily in zip lock baggies in your fridge. At work and in the car have a kit including cutlery and napkins along with plastic containers. Prepare a grocery list prior to shopping.
5. Vegetable “V8” Drinks
Vegetable juice drinks contain vitamins, minerals and other nutrients found in everyday vegetables. They store easily in the fridge and you can grab them on the run. Look for low sodium brands.
4. Use a Smaller Plate
Whether you are at home, a barbeque or a buffet, always reach for the smallest plate possible. Portion control is everything. We have a tendency to force ourselves to finish what’s on our plate. The smaller the plate, the less food we will eat.
3. Healthy Eating Out
Most fast food restaurants offer salads and fruit on their menus. Sub shops and fresh delis offer several low fat options. Order your sub on a whole wheat bun or wrap, skip the fatty dressings and load up on the veggies.
2. Veggie Delight
Vegetables are a great source of essential nutrients and dietary fibre, providing us with energy while being low in fat and calories. Canada’s food guide recommends 7 to 10 servings per day. Half of your lunch and dinner plates should be filled with fresh vegetables.
1. Moderation, Balance and Variety
The key to healthy eating can be summed up best like this. Control how much as well as how often you eat while getting a good variety and balance from all 4 major food groups.
Fast food doesn’t have to be bad food. Learn this and feel good about what you eat. Healthy eating has never been so quick or easy, and it’s always been right in front of you. Bon Appétit.…

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Nutrition

The Magic of the GI Tool to Lose Weight Fast

Diet and nutrition is a subject that is constantly evolving and changing with new information, new trends and fads, and new studies. The latest buzz word that it has yielded is a term known very simply as GI, or Glycemic Index. It has hit the public consciousness like a storm, and has earned itself all the attention of people looking to lose weight fast.
What is GI?
Essentially GI is an index that identifies the effect that different food items have on blood sugar levels. Foods with high GI levels are those in which the carbohydrates are broken down rapidly during digestion, leading to quick glucose release into the bloodstream. Alternatively, low-GI foods have carbohydrates that take a long time to break down, and the glucose is only released gradually into the bloodstream. The standard of measurement of GI is pure glucose, which has a GI of 100.
GI and Weight Loss
High-GI foods generally lead to a rapid increase in blood sugar levels, followed by a rapid downfall. This means that one experiences a quick boost and a subsequent crash in energy levels. This can spell disaster for diabetes patients. Furthermore, the quick rise and drop in energy levels could leave you feeling tired and hungry very soon after a high-GI meal, and you will be tempted to pick up another snack and eat all over again. On the other hand, low-GI foods take longer to break down and with their consistent and gradual release of glucose, they offer sustained energy for a longer period of time. The result is that they will leave you feeling satisfied for longer. Naturally, people who have weight loss goals have begun to gravitate towards low-GI foods.
Is GI a Perfect Indicator?
While the GI index is a good measure of foods that will tempt you to overeat and those that will leave you feeling satisfied for longer, it is not a perfect indicator for fast weight loss. In other words, if you are interested in slimming down, you cannot simply rely on the GI index. Some sugar-intensive foods like ice-cream and chocolate have a low GI, because of the high levels of fat and protein that they contain. However, they are not healthy foods for people who want to lose weight quickly. In fact, even adding oils or butter or excessive salt to a meal can reduce its GI, but these are not healthy eating habits either.
If you are really serious about your weight loss diet, what is important is to choose those low GI foods that also have a high nutritive value. Besides, your diet should be varied, so that you are not missing out on any essential nutrients. An over-concentration of any one healthy, low-GI food is not healthy.
The Healthy Low-GI Foods
Some of the healthy low-GI foods that will help you lose weight fast are chicken and fish, eggs, legumes and pulses, whole grains, most fruits and vegetables, brown rice, oats, muesli, pasta and bran. What you need is a concentration of these low-GI foods in your diet. However, don’t make the mistake of completely giving up on medium or high-GI foods in your bid to lose weight. Some of these, like skimmed milk, carrots and watermelons, carry significant health benefits.
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