would you like to know how dose alcohol effect the Liver?

Ethyl alcohol is a waste product of cellular respiration in yeasts. To these simple organisms, alcohol is toxic and they quickly excrete It; to us it is intoxicating. Because alcohol diffuses through the phospholipid framework of cellular membranes, it can enter every cell of the body. While alcohol affects every cell of the body, it is the effects on brain cells that we seek.

 Alcohol relaxes most people, makes them more sociable, and helps them have a good time. Some people drink too much alcohol, a habit that can seriously damage every cell of the body. At first, the only signs of this problem are changes in behavior, however, the widespread damage to cells becomes apparent: a bluish nose from broken blood vessels in the skin: loss of mental agility and physical coordination caused by damage to brain cells; various signs of malnutrition; and a potbelly. The worse problems, how-ever, are not easily seen for they involve damage to the liver.

The liver performs many crucial functions. One function is to convert toxic molecules into harmless molecules. More than 95% of the alcohol consumed enters the liver for detoxification. The liver becomes over-whelmed with this task and can no longer perform its normal functions. The alcohol in a drink is carried by the blood from the stomach and intestines to the liver. While in the bloodstream, some of the alcohol is exhaled as it passes through the lungs, causing the odor of alcohol on the breath; some of it passes to the muscles, where it damages muscle cells; and some of it passes to the brain, where it produces its effects. Alcohol that enters the liver is broken down into acetaldehyde and hydrogen:

The acetaldehyde is then converted to an acetyl group and shipped to other body cells for conversion into acetyl coenzyme A, which enters cellular respiration at the Krebs cycle. Strangely, it is the hydrogen atoms that damage liver cells. They join with NAO.' to form NADH and protons. Recall that NAO. contributes electrons to the electron transport chain. When a person drinks excessively, the electrons transferred from alcohol to NADH flood the electron transport chains of liver cells, as diagrammed. The chains can no longer accept electrons from the normal pathways of cellular respiration—glycolysis, conversion of pyruvic acid to acetyl coenzyme A, and the Krebs cycle. As these normal pathways slow down, the normal fuels—glucose, fatty acids, and amino acids—accumulate and the liver cells convert them into fats.

 Normally, the liver ships fats, via the blood, to special fat cells elsealn the breakdown of alcohol by liver cells, electrons are transferred to NADH and carried to the electron transport chain. When a lot of alcohol is consumed, the electron transport chain receives so many electrons from alcohol that it can no longer accept electrons from normal pathways. These normal pathways then shut down and their fuels—monosaccharides, amino acids, and fatty acids—are converted to fats. The fats accumulate within liver cells and interfere with liver functions.

where in the body. But in heavy drinkers, the liver cells cannot deal with the fat because they are too busy ... detoxifying alcohol. Fat accumulates within the liver cells. In time. the liver cells become en-gorged with lat and no longer perform .. their normal functions.

 In this stage, called alcoholic hepatitis, the liver is swollen and tender. The person does not i feel well or look healthy. The skin and 1. whites of their eyes develop a yellowish %. tinge, a clear sign of liver damage. An alcoholic's health continues to deteriorate as the liver cells begin to . die. Scar tissue replaces the dead cells - and impedes the flow of blood through  this crucial organ. This condition, - known as cirrhosis of the liver, interferes severely with liver function.

The liver normally synthesizes blood proteins (which hold water in the blood), supplies the blood with sugar, and eliminates toxic molecules. An alcoholic is likely to develop a potbelly as fluid accumulates within the abdominal cavity. The fluid leaks out of blood vessels in the liver, because blood stagnates within scarred regions and at the same time does not contain enough proteins to hold water inside the vessels. Diabetes mellitus develops when the dam-aged liver fails to control how much sugar it releases into the blood. The most serious problem, the one that kills, is nitrogen poisoning from an inability of liver cells to convert ammonia into urea for excretion by the kidneys. Cirrhosis of the liver is the seventh leading cause of death in the United States.

Medicinal Effects of Plants

would you like to know about Medicinal Effects of Plants?

As our hunter-gatherer ancestors searched for edible foods, they discovered plants that produced unusual effects on their minds and bodies. In time, they learned to identify and use these plants to treat specific illnesses, to stimulate their minds, and to produce hallucinations. Each generation, the knowledge was refined and then passed on to the next generation. Hunter-gatherer societies that still exist today often use several hundred plants to treat illnesses and to alter the mind.

aeValleha We now know that the active ingredients in medicinal plants evolved as chemical defenses against herbivores, especially insects. As many as 100,000 such molecules exist. These unusual molecules, evolved to alter the bodies of insects, have profound effects on human bodies as well. Consider aspirin, a miracle drug used for the treatment of pain, fever, inflammation, and headaches. Salicin, a molecule similar to aspirin, occurs naturally in the leaves of myrtle (a Mediterranean bush), the leaves and bark of willow trees, the oil of winter-green, and several other plants. We have evidence, in the form of written prescriptions found in Egypt, that myrIle leaves were used to treat uterine pains as many as 3.500 years ago. Hip pocrates, of ancient Greece. prescribed myrtle leaves to reduce fever.

 Later, in wc. 30. the Romans used wile:, low leaves to treat inflammation. in the Middle Ages. a derivative of sailor.' was used to treat headaches. We still use salicin, in the form of aspirin, to treat pains, fever, inflammation, and headaches. Consider another example—digitalis, a drug that strengthens heart contractions and synchronizes the beat. In t785. a British physician reported that ingestion of dried leaves from the foxglove plant eased dropsy, a disorder in which fluid accumulates in the legs because the heart tails to pump blood adequately. The doctor explained, "t was told that this use of foxglove had long been kept a secret by an old woman in Shropshire, who had sometimes made cures after the more regular practitioners had failed.

 " The active ingredient in foxglove is digitalis. Today. drug companies and re-searchers seek medicinal plants in a:I corners of the world. With more than 450,000 plant species to examine, the search must necessarily be focused on plants with high probability of yield-in• useful drugs. How do%ive identify such plants? By consulting indigenous healers—local people whose ancestors have lived in the area for genera-_"The leaves and flowers of this plant (Cornutia pyramidata) are used to treat skin rashes.

 The knowledge such healers possess is quite remarkable. Samoan healers treat yellow fever (a viral disease) with brews made by steeping the wood of a certain tree in water. Researchers have discovered that the active ingredient in this brew is effective against the virus that causes AIDS. In Thailand, healers use

the roots of a plant related to ginger to ease stomach pains and other gastrointestinal disorders.

 A chemical in this plant is now known to kill parasitic worms, such as tapeworm and hook-worm. In India, healers treat snake-bites and mental illness with the roots of a climbing shrub called Indian snakeroot. The active ingredient in these roots is reserpine, now prescribed throughout the world for high blood pressure. In Peru, the Jivaro Indians use sap from a particular tree to make wounds heal more rapidly. The active ingredient in this sap is now being tested for its healing properties.

 Materials isolated from plants now account for about 25% of all prescriptions issued in North America. Some of these drugs are listed in table 13.A. How do we thank the local healers, in various isolated regions of the world, for this invaluable knowledge? Many drug companies and research groups are now arranging to provide these peoples with a share of the royalties earned from the drugs. Many of these cultures, however, value their land and its forests more than they value money. Hence, in many places, such as Costa Rica and Samoa, the royalties from drugs are used to preserve local forests.

Save Your Life From Heart Attack

How to Recognize a Heart Attack 

 Warning Signs of a Heart 

Uncomfortable ,pressure, fullness, squeezing, or pain in the center of your chest lasting 2 minutes or longer c

 Pain spreading to your shoulders, neck, or arms

 Severe pain, dizziness, fainting, sweating, nausea, or shortness of breath 

Not all of these warning signs occur with every heart attack. If some start to occur; don't wait.: Get help immediately::

What to Do in an Emergency 

Find out Which hospitals in your area have 24-hotir emergency cardiac care. - Determine (in advance) the hospital or medical facility that is nearest your home and Office, and tell your family .and friends to call this facility in an emergency. Keep a list of emergency rescue service numbers next to your telephone and in your pocket, wallet, or purse. If you have chest discomfort that lasts for 2 minutes or more, call the emergency rescue service. If you can get to a hospital faster by going yourself and not waiting for an ambulance, have someone 'drive you there.

Be a Heart Saver 

 

If you:are with someone experiencing the signs of a heart attack and the warning signs last for 2 minutes or longer, act immediately.

 Expect a "denial." it is normal for someone with chest discomfort to deny the possibility of something as Serious as a heart attack. Don't take "no" for an answer. Insist on taking prompt action. 

Call the rescue service (911), or get to the nearest hospital emergency room that offers 24Thour emergency cardiac care.

  Give CPR (moUth-t67mouth breathing and chest compression) if it is necessary and if you are properly trained. -

Eating Patterns and Our Body

How to Change Your Eating Patterns

 Following the tips listed below will help you achieve 1 your weight loss goals:

 • Keep a log of the times, settings, reasons, and feelings associated with your eating. 

• Set realistic long-term goals (for example, loss of a pound per week instead of 5 lb per week).

 • Do not completely deprive yourself of enjoyable foods (occasionally reward yourself with a small treat).

 • Realize that the sacrifices you are making are what you feel are important for your health and happiness.

 • Eat slowly. It takes about 20 minutes for your brain to recognize satiety signals from your body.

 • Put more physical activity into your daily routine (taking stairs instead of elevators or parking in the distant part of a parking lot, for example).

 • Reward yourself when you reach your goals (with new clothes, sporting equipment, a vacation trip).

 • Share your commitment to weight loss with your family and friends so that they can support your efforts.

 • Keep careful records of daily food consumption and weekly weight change.

 • Be prepared to deal with occasional plateaus and setbacks in your quest for weight loss.

 • Remember that low-fat, low—saturated fat, and high—complex carbohydrate meals in combination with regular physical activity is the basis on which these strategies are applied.  

How to choice a Diet Book

 • Make sure the program described in the book incorporates a balanced diet, an exercise program, and behavior modification.

 • Beware of inflexible plans, such as those that require you to eat certain foods on certain days.

 • Avoid plans that allow fewer than 1200 calories a day, the minimum needed to get essential nutrients.

 • Make sure the recommended rate of weight loss does not exceed 2 lb per week. 

• Steer clear of books that promote vitamins, pills, shots, gimmicks, gadgets, or brand-name diet foods. 

• Read reviews to see if the book received approval from a reputable nutrition expert, institution, or journal. 

• Check the author's credentials. He or she should have a degree in nutrition from an accredited university or should use reliable sources for the information.

 • Make sure the hook is based on up-to-date scientific research. • Beware of diets that promise fast, easy, or effort-less weight loss or "a new secret formula." 

• Choose a plan that teaches how to keep the weight off once you've lost it.

Maintain your HEALTH

How to Gain Weight Safely


How to Gain Weight Healthfully?

to can't believe how thin you are! It must be so great to eat whatever you want. I wish I had your problem. Of course, it wouldn't hurt you to put on a few pounds. You sure would look healthier!

" "Hey, stick! Do you have anorexia or what? Don't you ever eat?"

 These excerpts from real-life exchanges are just two examples of how cruel people can be to the underweight. Some observers think that naturally thin people must have an eating disorder because of their appearance; others are envious because they wish they could indulge in high-fat foods without a second thought. Even in a society where thin is in, being too thin can be just as emotionally and physically devastating as being too heavy. Our society has little understanding or sympathy for people who can eat all they want and never gain a pound.

 Causes of Being Underweight

  A person is considered to be underweight when he or she is 10% to 15% or more under the ideal weight as indicated on a standard height and weight chart.L2 Such a condition can be caused by heredity, poor eating habits, or disease:2'3 Hereditary causes of being underweight center on high metabolism. Being underweight can be caused by a tendency to burn more calories than are taken in.' Many researchers believe that people have a natural "set point" for their metabolic rate that deter-mines how quickly and efficiently calories are used in the body. Metabolism also may prevent people from reaching unrealistic goals with regard to weight gain.4 Poor eating habits may also play a role in being underweight.

 The same concept applies to eating as to metabolism; not consuming enough calories can lead to a person burning more calories than are taken in. High-calorie foods may be lacking in the diets of some under-weight people. Other underweight people may include high-calorie foods in their diets but simply do not consume enough total calories to gain weight.Weight control disorders resulting from anorexia, bulimia, or other diseases should be treated by a doctor and are not considered here.

Effects of Being Underweight

 Being underweight can cause a variety of physical problems. Women who are underweight are at increased risk of amenorrhea, a reproductive system disorder characterized by a complete absence of menstruation :3 Under-weight people tend to have lower bone mass than people of normal weight, which may place underweight people at risk for bone fractures and osteoporosis." Being female, over 65, and underweight can increase the risk for hip fractures!' Being too thin can also shorten the life expectancy for men and women.

" The dangers of being underweight are gradually being discovered. Some studies have shown that being underweight may be as dangerous as being overweight. Government weight guidelines now include data showing that being too thin is as dangerous as being too heavy, and people who are obese by government standards are living longer than those who are underweight.
 Being underweight can cause psychological problems in addition to physical problems. Anna, a young woman who spent her youth, teenage years, and early twenties as an underweight person, recalls what life was like for her during that time. "It was like a never-ending night-mare. f hated to go to school because the kids made fun of me all the time.

 They called me names like 'concentration camp victim' and 'twig.' Many nights I would cry myself to sleep because I hated the way I looked so much. I tried everything I could think of to gain weight eating as much high-calorie food as I could, using commercial weight-gain products, even not exercising in hopes that I'd get fatter. Nothing worked. When I graduated from high school, I was five feet eight inches tall and still weighed 98 lbs. So many people had told me that I was ugly that I believed it must be true. I spent 6 years in therapy trying to get my sell-esteem back. Thank God I finally began to gain weight when I graduated from college. I'm actually a little overweight now. If I had to choose between being this way or being the way I was, there's no question in my mind that I'd choose to be like I am now. People say and do things to under-weight people that they'd never dream of saying or doing to people who are overweight.'



 If you are underweight, gaining weight safely is not just a matter of continuously gorging on food. Gaining fat pounds will increase a person's actual weight but will not make him or her any healthier. Diet and exercise plans are available for those who wish to gain weight safely. You should first consult a physician to determine the cause of being underweight. If it has been deter-mined that the underweight condition is not due to dis-ease, a combination of diet and exercise can be prescribed to gain lean body mass. Such a weight gain plan should include a diet that is high in complex carbohydrates and low in fat. About 60% of the caloric intake should consist of complex carbohydrates,° which can be obtained from foods such as pastas. Fat intake should be low (about 10% of total caloric intake), since gaining weight in the form of fat is not healthy."-10 Protein should make up about 30% of the caloric intake, but protein supplements are not recommended 4,10 since their use could damage the kidneys.

 An underweight person must exercise to gain muscle mass. The exercise program should be a combination of weight training and endurance training.' 10 About 80% of the exercise program should consist of weight training, with the other 20% consisting of endurance exercises such as aerobics.° Fairly heavy weights should be used with fewer repetitions to gain lean body mass,° since more repetitions with lighter weights will not increase lean body mass as effectively. Stretching and calisthenics can be incorporated into the weight training as well." Weight training can help underweight people (and women in particular) gain upper body strength that may be lacking!' Exercise is also important because it improves cardiovascular fitness and may deter osteoporosis.'

The important thing to remember about such changes in diet and lifestyle is that they must be continued on a long-term basis. It may take 6 to 12 months to see results,' and if the program is halted, any weight gained may be lost again.° A person must maintain a lifetime commitment to gaining the weight and keeping it on. As always, consult your physician before starting any exercise or diet program.

Cancer effects and the Cell Cycle

would you like to know how dose the Cancer effects the Cell Cycle?


 Cancer is uncontrolled cell division. A normal cell becomes a cancer cell when it loses its ability to stop at inter phase of the cell cycle. Most cancers arise from just one aberrant cell. The original cancer cell produces daughter cells with the same defect, and these daughter cells divide to form more cancer cells. (At some point, a cancer cell also acquires the ability to metastasize—to burrow its way into a blood vessel or lymph vessel and invade other parts of the body. A cancer that has metastasized can no longer be eliminated by surgery because its cells are too widely dispersed throughout the body. Cancer cells continue to multiply, in various parts of the body, until they interfere with normal body functions by monopolizing nutrients and pressing on blood vessels. When a critical function fails, the person dies. Cancer kills one out of every five adult Americans. Cancer cells behave abnormally even under laboratory conditions. Normal cells, when grown in a dish, multi-ply until the cells cover the bottom of the dish with a single layer—no more. The physical contact of one cell with other cells signals the cell to stop dividing. This phenomenon is known as contact inhibition. Cancer cells, by contrast, continue to divide even after they contact one another. They pile up, layer after layer, within the dish. Another abnormality seen,'n laboratory-grown cells is that a line'uf cancer cells can live forever. Normal cells are programmed to divide only a certain number of times. Certain cells in an embryo, for example, always divide just fifty times. They then remain in interphase until they die. Cancer cells, by contrast, continue to divide and divide; the line of cells does not die out. One line of cancer cells—the so-called HeLa cells (removed from a patient named Henrietta Lacks)—have been dividing continuously since 1951. The cells appear to be immortal. Cancer begins when something goes wrong with the genes that regulate the cell cycle. Two sets of genes appear to be involved: genes that stimulate cell division and genes that sup-press cell division. Whether a cell divides or remains in interphase depends on the relative activity of these two sets of genes. Normal genes that stimulate cell division are called protooncogenes. They become oncogenes, and cause cancer, when too many copies of their proteins are synthesized. The excess proteins dominate the cell, ordering it to continue immediately into mitosis rather than to stop at interphase. The best-known oncogene codes for the Ras protein, which forms part of a pathway that re-lays signals between the plasma membrane and the nucleus. When a signal from this pathway reaches the nucleus, it activates genes that trigger cell division. About 15% of all human cancers synthesize too much of the Ras protein. Genes that inhibit cell division are called suppressor genes. They normally switch off cell division so that the cell spends most of its time in interphase. In a cancer cell these genes fail to produce enough of their proteins to stop the cell cycle at interphase. Consequently, the cell moves directly from one cell division to the next. The best-known suppressor gene is p53, which codes for a protein that blocks cell division. Its mutated form does not produce its protein, and so the cell does not stop at interphase. Roughly half of all human cancers contain the mutated form of p53. A cancer cell is the outcome of a series of genetic accidents—perhaps as many as fifteen changes in the genes that control the cell cycle. Some of these changes may be inherited; others occur during the lifetime of the individual as the DNA is damaged by radiation or chemicals in the environment, such as tobacco smoke, smog, and pesticides. In addition to damage to the genes that control the cell cycle, the development of a cancer cell may also require damage to the genes that pro-mote DNA repair. These genes code for proteins that recognize and correct errors in the DNA molecule. If they did not function correctly, the cell would accumulate mutations rapidly. A person's cells undergo about 1016 cell divisions during their lifetime. Cancer can develop anytime one of these cell cycles gets stuck in the "on" position. Most likely, these cell divisions often generate cancer cells, but they are destroyed by the immune system (white blood cells and antibodies) before they have time to proliferate into a tumor. Cancer appears to develop from both a series of altered genes and a weakened or abnormal immune system.