Young Shark Blog

Archive for May, 2011

Skin disorders such as acne, dermatitis, eczema and psoriasis may benefit from a regular fish oil supplement. Omega-3 fatty acids are important to skin health in several ways. They may even reduce your risk of wrinkles and sagging. Here’s a look at why fish oil is being recommended for skin disorders of all kinds.

Cause of Skin Disorders – Problems

When it comes to poor skin health, nutrient deficits are often responsible. In cases of essential fatty acid deficiency, dermatitis is always present. Dermatitis is a blanket term that means inflammation of the skin. It can be caused by perfume or other types of allergies. It accompanies eczema, psoriasis and seborrhea. Too much heat, cold, environmental toxins and insect bites can also cause it.

Benefits of Fish Oil

Increased intake of omega-3 fatty acids is beneficial for all kinds of these skin disorders, because it has natural inflammation fighting activity. They are also beneficial for skin health, because they are a primary component of sebum.

Sebum is the skin’s natural lubricant or moisturizer, if you prefer. It forms a protective barrier that prevents damage from pathogens and the elements. So a fish oil supplement is often recommended for people with dry, itchy skin.

Researchers looked at the benefit of omega-3 fatty acids for reducing sagging. They found that after three months of supplementation, there was a 10% improvement in firmness. So, not only is fish oil good for skin health, it is good for the appearance, as well. Firmer skin looks less wrinkled.

Why Take Fish Oil?

Many doctors recommend omega-3 fatty acids for their patients with acne for several reasons; first, because of its anti-inflammatory activity. A pimple is actually an inflammation of the hair follicle. Hair follicles are present all over the body, even though the hairs that come from them may be tiny and fair in color.
Second, skin disorders such as acne are often accompanied by depression and poor mental health. Omega-3 fatty acids have proven benefits for relieving depression. Chromium, zinc and selenium are also recommended for skin health, as is beta-carotene and biotin.

The hair, nails and skin are closely related, because of the similar components. Often, an underlying nutritional deficiency is the cause of dryness of the hair and skin, as well as brittle nails. Flaking scalp or dandruff is actually a skin problem.

Itching, rashes and hives are often caused by low production of sebum. Changes in the skin’s color are sometimes related to low levels of vitamin E, which also causes the hair to be dry and brittle. Thus, the nutrients that are important to the skin’s health are also beneficial to the appearance of the hair and the strength of the finger nails.

Fish oil is known to significantly improve the health of the hair and the nails. The hair becomes more shiny and lustrous. Itchy dry skin resolves and finger nails grow faster.

Whether you have skin disorders or want to avoid them, supplementation is recommended. It’s good for your health today and tomorrow. For more information on how fish oil can improve your appearance and overall health, please see my website listed below. Larry L. Taylor

The human race has proved remarkably ingenious over the years. Starting with the wheel, it has developed an incredible number of tools and devices for a range of activities no one would ever have dreamed possible when we were first climbing down from the trees and wandering out over the plains. Indeed, the only activity that has remained essentially unchanged is the speed we can generate when running or the distance we can cover on foot over time. Although there are no predators waiting to eat us on the playing fields, the opposing players on a football team sure like to hunt and dump each other with prejudice. We still depend on our speed and endurance to play hard and win.

Which does show the difference between amateur sport and the professionals who make large sums of money out of what they do or who are able to cash in on their fame through endorsement and other deals. Indeed, when millions of dollars may be riding on being able to compete at the top level of any sport, it’s hardly surprising there are people who look to enhance their performance. At first, these attempts were crude. Now there are clinics and laboratories that specialize in boosting performance. The legitimate places study biomechanics and teach athletes how to get the maximum amount of effort from their bodies. Psychology is also featuring heavily with trainers motivating their athletes to try harder. But there are also clinics that use chemistry to enhance performance. Most professional sport around the world has decided this is cheating and at both a national and international level, there are testing procedures to identify the guilty. If any are found, they are banned from the sport. This is coordinated by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and it maintains a list of banned substances and sets the tone for enforcement. Needless to say, the attorneys have come into their own, arguing cases where the drug may have been taken accidentally, e.g. as a food additive, or as part of a legitimate medication, e.g. for the treatment of asthma.

In the midst of all this, it’s now seriously suggested that the erectile dysfunction drugs should be added to the list of banned substances. It’s been known that some athletes have been using these drugs in training for some years. The reason is that Viagra and the other drugs allow the arteries to dilate. This improves the circulation of the blood around the body and, amongst other things, this improves the rate at which the muscles receive oxygen. In turn, the muscles can deliver more effort for longer without tiring. Formal research is now attempting to discover whether using Viagra during training or just before a game produces an unfair advantage. If the research proves the advantage, all three erectile dysfunction drugs will be banned. No doubt the attorneys are delighted by this possibility as they will be able to argue sex as a defense to sporting success. Lawyers do sometimes have a sense of humor. While everyone waits for WADA to make a final decision – supposedly due before the next Olympics – we can continue to watch the saga of Barry Bonds with his conviction for obstruction of justice a fairly clear indication he was using steroids to enhance his performance at baseball.

When you win the advertising contract to sell goods or services, it’s usually easy to devise a marketing campaign. With cosmetics or an over-the-counter product to improve appearance or hide blemishes, you go for a “before” and “after” approach showing the beauty of the result. It even works with investment advisors and financial firms with happy people coming out of an office block and punching the air as if celebrating a touchdown. But when it comes to the little blue pills, you suddenly realize there are a number of problems. Even the name of the “complaint” is difficult. In the good old days, the medical profession talked about impotence as the catch-all term for everything that failed “down there”. But that word has so many unfortunate meanings, it was necessary to persuade people to prefer “erectile dysfunction”. This has a more clinical feel and is less of a judgement on the man. To say one part is not working is not suggesting that the man is a complete failure with no power to do anything.

Imagine a “before” image of a penis and then something enormous lined up against a tape measure. . . Well, this is possible in hardcore porn and in instructional content on “better sex”. Somehow even the most explicit content becomes acceptable if you label it educational. But it’s not going to be acceptable to the TV and cable companies for primetime viewing. No matter what the First Amendment might have to say about the right to publish, there would be a firestorm of protest from outraged parents and other adults who find it difficult to talk openly about sex. Whether it’s actually legal to broadcast is irrelevant in such situations. The damage would be done 10 seconds after the first ad began to air.

The other factor is the FDA which has some interesting rules requiring anyone advertising drugs to list all the adverse side effects. That’s why the last 20 seconds of every ad has a list of side effects scrolling too fast for you to read. This limits what you can show and say. So you sit down with your creative team and come up with little scenes based around the matrimonial home – can’t be seen to be promoting sex out of wedlock and as for gay sex. . .

The couple are busy with housework and then their eyes meet. Cue romantic music swelling to a climax as we see images of them first holding hands and then relaxing in a hot tub looking happy. Shame about all that unfinished housework. Even with such general content, there are family and religious pressure groups whose main function is to complain about any sexual material shown before 10 pm. Why do they complain? Because at some point the advertisers stop being coy and announce the name of their produce as Viagra and every innocent child in the world turns to their parents and asks what “that” does. Parents hate it when they are asked questions about sex in general. But sex gone wrong is even more difficult. You can just hear the opening, “Well, son, usually the man penetrates the woman but. . .” So you just can’t win although, truth be told, just showing the name Viagra for 30 seconds would work.

There’s a strange physical thing when we’re young. Given the right incentives, we seem able to manage with far less sleep than normal. Sure, we have to catch up sometime. But we cope with disturbed nights and find unexpected energy to see us through the walking dead phase in the mornings. Sadly, as the years roll by, this energizer bunny back-up system starts to fail. If we don’t get a reasonable amount of sleep every night, tiredness wears us down. We get desperate and start taking pills to deal with the “insomnia”. Of course, life can wake us up again fast. Sex keeps us interested and excited. We can be drifting along, feeling everything is against us, bored and in a rut. Then, with the suddenness of a bolt of lightning, we can get some sack time in and all seems well with the world again. Except, there can be a small problem to overcome as the years go by. It’s a biological fact men slow down the production of testosterone as they age. This is not voluntary, you understand. We just make less of the stuff and this affects our libido. The older we get, the less interested in sex we become. Or, at least, that’s what the books tell us is going to happen. Many men seem to keep going into the senior years, never losing the drive. Perhaps they do supplements and get enough sleep. Enough sleep, you ask. Well, there are some newly published preliminary research findings suggesting a link between poor sleep and erectile dysfunction. Now before we get started on this, it’s important to accept this as a complicated area of medicine where many different factors can be at work, or not as the case may be. So the new research finds there’s a link between sleep apnea and erection failure. Apnea is one of these disconcerting problems where we actually stop breathing for short periods of time and have to wake up enough to recognize this fact and remind ourself to start again. The study recruited about 870 men, most of whom were under the age of 50 and clinically obese. Because of the apnea, all suffered disrupted sleep and twice as many than the norm had erectile dysfunction. This is, however, not yet reliable information. There are several problems with making the direct link. First, quite a high percentage of the participants were smokers and there’s a well-proven link between nicotine and artherosclerosis, one of the most common causes of erectile dysfunction. Second, there’s also good evidence to show that men who are overweight are more likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction. These participants had an average BMI of over 30 with many being significantly obese. Finally, sleep disturbance has many different health effects, and separating erectile dysfunction out of the range of problems is not very scientific. However, there’s also no doubt the majority of us enjoy a better quality of life when we sleep well. So whatever can be done to reduce restlessness and eliminate causes of waking will improve our lives. If sleep does prove difficult, Cialis is the best answer to relieve any problems of erectile dysfunction. This is the conventional as-needed tablet, or the once-daily Cialis if sex is more regular.

For as long as women have had to rely on men to keep the human race going, there have been problems. Even back in the caves before indoor plumbing was invented, some men just seemed to run out of steam. It was embarrassing and always led to a loss of status within the tribe. So began the search for any natural substances or foods that would encourage sexual activity. We start to get detailed records of all the different experiments as we come out of prehistory and into the early days of the Chinese and Roman Empires. Doctors made two very important discoveries. The first was that some seafood like oysters seemed to improve matters. Modern science confirms that oysters do increase the production of testosterone but, other than encouraging the libido, they do nothing for actual performance. Whatever benefits come are the result of self-confidence. Ask any magician or shaman from a primitive tribe and they will all tell you the same story. If the captive audience believes in “magic” strongly enough, it will deliver the goods. Today, we call this the placebo effect and, in clinical trials, an average of about one-third of the participants report feeling better after taking chemically inert pills. All it takes is someone with a serious expression wearing a white coat and people will believe they are about to be cured. The one solid discovery from early research was the so-called Spanish Fly. In fact this is a green beetle. If you let them dry and crush the bodies into a powder, you can make a mixture that encourages sexual activity. At low concentrations, it was discovered effective in stimulating animals to mate. This was particularly important for selective breeding to produce the best animals for food and work. In humans, it was also not unsuccessful. There were, however, two problems that became obvious. Unlike animals that can be tricked into sexual activity, men and women have to feel “in the mood”. This relationship between the mind and body has always been one of the biggest causes of erectile dysfunction. The second problem is that, at higher dosages, Spanish Fly is poisonous and, in overdose, is fatal. Getting stiff in death is not helpful to anyone. The moral of the story so far is that, with the possible exception of ginseng that the Chinese have always favored, none of the natural aphrodisiacs have any scientific credibility. So, whenever you see ads for enhancement products based on spices, herbs, the bark of trees or the powdered bits of various “powerful” animals, keep your money safely locked away. These are all scams. Unless, of course, you’re one of these people who find the placebo effect works. Since erectile dysfunction is often caused by performance anxiety, anything that boosts self-confidence is likely to improve the sexual outcome. All of which brings us back to Viagra which was first discovered by accident in clinical trials. If ever you wanted evidence that this drug works regardless of belief, remember the history. The drug was going through clinical trials as a treatment for a different problem when the men reported an interesting side effect. Viagra works even when you are not expecting it to work.

Often during the early stages of someone developing the eating disorder known as Bulimia they won’t be able to recognize the side effects caused by it. In the beginning the person will be complaining that they have a stomach ache, but nothing else. But as time passes and because they are not providing their body with sufficient sustenance the bulimia side effects they suffer will become much worse.

Below we take a look at a few of the side effects that sufferers of this disorder may well find themselves having to deal with.

Side Effect 1 – Cardiac Problems – Over time the walls of the heart become weakened and so the rhythm will become irregular. If a person continues to purge their body of the things it needs to function properly then the heart walls may rupture and the person could suffer a heart attack. Should the person suffering from this eating disorder use too much ipecac to induce them to vomit this can lead to the heart muscle becoming diseased.

Side Effect 2 – Throat Problems – Over time the esophagus will become weakened through the acid that is being brought up from the stomach when the person vomits. Not only will the wall of the esophagus become weakened it will also swell and if the person does not seek help to stop them vomiting this could lead to the esophagus rupturing. In such severe cases the person will need to seek medical assistance immediately.

Side Effect 3 – Muscle Development Impaired – When a person suffers from bulimia they will find that muscles in the body become weakened over time. This is because their body is not getting sufficient amounts of vitamins, minerals, nutrients and potassium that it needs. Over time the weakening may of the muscles may lead to the person suffering from proximal muscle atrophy.