The Problems With Diabetes And Hair Loss

The connection between diabetes and hair loss was established long ago.
Diabetes is a hormone related disorder that often leads to hair loss or thinning of the hair.
Frequent loss of hair is often considered one of the early symptoms of diabetes, which requires prompt treatment in order to avoid further complications. The growth of hair is affected by diabetes, which gradually leads to thinning of hair.
Stress is directly related to diabetes and hair loss, as the disease causes excessive anxiety, which in turn becomes the prime cause of hair loss.
Diabetes Leads To Hair Loss:
Diabetes occurs when it becomes difficult for the body to metabolize carbohydrates properly. Diabetics are highly sensitive to skin ailments, as their blood circulation and blood sugar levels are impaired.
Bruises and small wounds often take a relatively long time to heal; therefore, the recovery rate is comparatively slower and obstructs the re-growth of hair.
This causes visible hair reduction, as diabetics cannot maintain the normal cycle of re-growth process. Bacterial and fungal infections on the scalp because of diabetes could also result in hair loss, thereby making diabetes and hair loss inter-related.
Normally, a healthy person would lose around fifty to hundred strands of hair every day. Therefore, if hair loss increases rapidly, you could require medical assistance, since untreated diabetes can escalate hair loss further.

The process:
Diabetes often leads to diffused hair growth that could be a result of medical stress or side effects of certain prescribed medicines to diabetics. It usually depends on the individual's body, as each person responds differently to specific medications. The stress caused by chronic diabetes reduces the growth of hair.
After a period of seven to eight months, hair follicles undergo a resting period and are gradually replaced with the growth of new hair. The replaced strands push the old hair to the surface of the scalp, and the hair falls out, this is known as telogen effluvium.

An autoimmune problem:
The other cause of hair loss due to diabetes is an autoimmune problem, which leads to one or more small bald patches developing on the scalp. This ailment is called alopecia areata.
Other additional autoimmune problems like a dysfunctional thyroid gland, the skin rash vitiligo, pernicious anemia, or Type 1 diabetes, often accompanies it.
Generally, Type 2 diabetes occurs when a hormonal imbalance causes polycystic ovary syndrome. Both the conditions are related to insulin resistance, which refers to the reduced ability of cells in the body to react to insulin.
Early detection and monitoring:
Diabetes often remains undetected because the symptoms at the early stage are not considered significant.
This is a major problem because early detection could slow down its harmful effects. Some of the symptoms of diabetes could be blurred vision, frequent urination, acute hunger, increased thirst, unusual weight loss, fatigue and unnecessary irritation.
Early detection of any of these symptoms, and early treatment could help in early recovery from both diabetes as well as excessive hair loss.
Careful monitoring of blood sugar levels provides relevant information that helps maintain control, which would consequently delay the development of various long-term complications.
Some of these long-term complications of diabetes could be the damage of blood vessels and nerves, loss of functioning of the kidneys, loss of sensation, heart disease and strokes.
Hair loss normally begins at the onset of diabetes and gradually becomes worse after the disease takes charge of the body.
It is very important to get the hair loss symptom diagnosed, to know the root cause of hair fall.
You need to seek a qualified doctor's advice, so that you can avoid further problems, and to desist from using hair lotions and conditioners, which will not help to solve the problem.By Mike Herman

Treatment of Blood Under a Fingernail

Everyone at some point in their life pinches or smashes their fingertip under or between something. It's just a part of life (ouch)!! If it were not for the fingernail, the injuries would probably heal within a few days like a common bruise and have no lasting effect or pain. However, because the fingertips are highly vascular, minor trauma, such as a crushing injury or a blow to the fingertip will cause them to easily bleed underneath the fingernail. Your skin, and the anatomy of the fingernail, naturally seals that area below the nail and does not allow the blood to drain. The blood therefore pools in the nail bed, causing an increase in pressure and intense throbbing pain. This is how the fingernail becomes darkened, and you can often literally feel throbbing pain to your injury, with each heartbeat.

Treatment and Expectations: Immediate treatment includes ice and elevation of the limb to minimize the swelling of the injury. Sounds easy you say? Well read on! The next part is not for the faint at heart.

If the pool of blood under the nail is painful and you can feel a throbbing sensation (your pulse), then relief can only be achieved by actually releasing the pressure. This can be done by creating a hole in the top of the fingernail itself, and allowing the blood to drain. Now this may sound like the last thing you want to do to an already painful finger, but if you get in the car and drive to an Urgent Care center, this is exactly what they would do. The following section describes two basic ways to painlessly achieve this, one by drilling a hole, and one by burning a hole. Neither way is any more painful than the other, and both are very easy to do.

One way to do it: The hole can be made with a jeweler's drill (a really small drill bit that you can twist by hand), or an 18 gauge syringe type needle. Clean the top of the nail off with alcohol and begin drilling the hole directly over the largest and darkest part of the blood pool. Use a quick twisting motion of the needle or drill with very little pressure. You won't feel any additional pain because the nail has no nerves in it. When you get through the nail, blood will spurt out of the hole, often with surprising force, and relief will be instantaneous. You can also try to gently squeeze out any remaining blood from the hole.

The fastest and best way to do it: The other method involves melting a hole right through the nail. Although it sounds horrifying, in my experience, it is easier, faster, less traumatic and more sterile since it cauterizes and kills bacteria with the heat. To begin, first straighten a small paperclip. Then holding it with a pair of glove or pliers, heat the paperclip in a flame until it gets red hot, and then poke a hole in the nail. You really should not have to push the paperclip, as it will melt through by itself. Apply just a little pressure, right over the darkest spot, and continue until you feel a little pop, or blood is released. You want to do this procedure quickly enough so that you won't have to reheat the paperclip again to finish the job. When you get through the nail, blood will spurt out of the hole, often with surprising force, and relief will be instantaneous. You can also try to gently squeeze out any remaining blood from the hole.

Whichever method you choose, you don't want to go deeper than about 1/16 in. (2mm) below the nail. (Don't stress about this, just estimate it with your good judgment and get it over with!) After your done, soak in some Hydrogen Peroxide solution, repeat the soaks three times a day. This is to prevent a clot from forming and causing pressure to build up again. You might have to squeeze once or twice again, but usually, the first time does it.

When to seek professional medical attention:

-Signs and symptoms of infection. -You lose any movement or range of motion in the body part as a result of the trauma. -The injury appears to be worse than a simple bloody fingernail. -When in doubt.

- Rich D. Fan

Causes of High White Blood Cell Count

There are several possible causes for a high white blood cell count. This count is high when there are more disease-fighting cells in your body. The technical term for this condition is leukocytosis.

Different medical practices may have different limits by which they define high white blood cell count. A count of 10,500 leukocytes in one microliter of blood is widely accepted as a high count. The threshold may vary between sex and age.

White blood cells are categorized by five subtypes, and each type has a different activity in fighting disease. When you get the results of your white blood cell count, they will usually specify what the levels are of all the different types. Usually, a high count is only caused by an increase in one type of white blood cells.

A high white blood cell count is indicative of an immune system problem that increases their production; a disease in your bone marrow that causes high blood cell production; a reaction to some drug that is used to enhance cell production; or the increase expected when your body is fighting off an infection.

There are some more specific reasons why your white blood cell count may be high:

Acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) is a cancer that lives in the bone marrow and blood. This disease is a rapidly progressive one. Children are more affected by this than any other type of cancer, although adults can develop the disease as well.

Drugs like epinephrine and corticosteroids can affect your white cell count.

Measles is an infection that affects mainly the respiratory tract. It is very contagious. The signs include skin rash, fever, sore throat, inflamed eyes, runny nose and cough. The measles vaccine is an excellent way to protect children against this disease, but outside of the civilized countries, many children are not vaccinated. This disease will spread rapidly among people who have not had the vaccination.

Rheumatoid arthritis is a serious type of arthritis from which you will experience joint damage and pain. It attacks your joints' lining and this causes swelling. In turn, that leads to throbbing, aching pain and possibly eventual deformity. Rheumatoid arthritis, also called RA, can make even the easiest of normal activities hard to accomplish.

Some of the other causes of high white blood cell count include:

Stress, be it emotional or physical
Smoking
Tuberculosis
Tissue damage, like one receives with burns
Acute or chronic myelogenous leukemia
Chronic or acute lymphocytic leukemia
Whooping cough
Severe allergic reactions
Myelofibrosis
Polycythemia vera
Other viral infections
Other bacterial infections

By Sara Le

Chocolate really does lower your blood pressure

(NaturalNews) A growing body of research is emerging to show that eating chocolate really can lower your blood pressure.

Researchers have suspected for many years that chocolate may have a beneficial effect on blood pressure, ever since discovering that the indigenous Kuna people of the Central American island San Blas have normal blood pressure well into old age. One of the major lifestyle differences between the traditional Kuna and their urban relatives, scientists found, is that the traditional Kuna drink enormous quantities of essentially unprocessed cocoa.

Laboratory studies later confirmed that a group of naturally occurring chocolate chemicals called flavanols may have a beneficial effect on blood pressure. Scientists believe that flavanols cause nitric oxide to form in the body, which in turn relaxes and opens the blood vessels.

But until recently, there has been little experimental evidence to suggest that benefit can be gained simply from eating the processed chocolate sold in the United States.

Then in August 2012, researchers from the National Institute of Integrative Medicine in Melbourne, Australia and the University of Adelaide published a research review in The Cochrane Library finding that people who consumed more chocolate or cocoa really do have lower blood pressure.

The researchers reviewed the results of 20 separate studies involving a total of 856 people who were fed between three and 100 grams of chocolate or cocoa powder each day, containing between 30 and 1,080 mg of total flavanols. All the studies lasted between two and eight weeks, except for one that lasted 18 weeks.

On average, participants who consumed the chocolate lowered their blood pressure by two to three mmHg compared with participants given placebos. In trials where the placebo group consisted of people fed flavanol-free chocolate, the relative blood pressure decrease in the experimental group was even greater (three to four mmHg).

"Although we don't yet have evidence for any sustained decrease in blood pressure, the small reduction we saw over the short term might complement other treatment options and might contribute to reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease," lead researcher Karin Ried said.

Large observational study

Further evidence comes from a large longitudinal study conducted by researchers from the German Institute of Human Nutrition and published in the European Heart Journal in March 2010. Researchers collected dietary information on 19,357 people, all of whom were between the ages of 35 and 65, had no history of heart attack or stroke and were not taking blood pressure drugs. They found that patients who consumed the most chocolate (an average of 7.5 grams per day) had blood pressure about one mmHg lower than participants who ate the least (an average of 1.7 grams per day).

In the eight years following the study, the researchers found that participants who had the most chocolate were significantly less likely to suffer from heart attacks or strokes, and that differences in blood pressure accounted for 12 percent of this risk.

"Chocolate consumption appears to lower cardiovascular disease risk, in part through reducing blood pressure," the researchers wrote. 

Source: naturalnews