Acne and peanut butter

Does peanut butter cause acne?
This is another very interesting topic. For years people thought if they consume oily foods they get acne. But with the recent research they disproved this idea and said food has nothing to do with acne. Now we know some foods are associate with acne whereas the other foods are not.
Now lets talk about peanuts, peanut butter and acne.



As you know peanut is a bit oily seed and peanut butter is produced from that oil. It is 100% vegetarian. All the fatty acids in peanuts are 100% vegetable in origin and there are no hormones or growth factors which can affect the human body. But some foods of animal origin have hormones along with fatty acids which can aggravate acne. But peanut butter and peanuts do not have this property. So the link between peanut butter and acne probably a myth. In addition to that now the researchers say that the peanut butte can reduce dark spots in your face. But not by eating to achieve this affect you should apply peanut butter on your face.

Red meat and acne

Does the consumption of red meat cause acne?

Actually we have already talked about milk consumption and acne. There we pointed out the hormones in milk like androgens and IGF-1 plays a role in the development of acne. Same applies to red meat also. Red meat usually come from cow, pig or goat. Meat from all these animals contains high amounts of hormone. Actually when we talk about acne only steroid hormones are important for us.


These androgens are known to trigger acne. In addition to that we can assume that the animals produce large amount of stress hormones during slaughtering. This extra amount of stress hormones may also contribute to the development of acne. But as always for some people red meat may not trigger acne at all. But in some it will trigger acne. So you should find out which type person you are. But it is always good to avoid red meat.

Eggs and acne

Can Eggs Cause Acne?
Eggs and acne is a very hot topic. You may think that extra fat in the eggs is the item which causes acne. No its not. Eggs may cause acne but it’s not egg fat. You may already know eggs are one the top five food allergens. And you also know acne is an inflammatory and allergic condition. So as you can see eggs can contribute to acne only in some people. In the other people it may not trigger acne at all.



So if you are suffering from acne and you consume considerable amount of eggs you may need to change your food habits for some time and check the status of your acne. Actually in most of the times it is not necessary to avoid eggs completely. Reduced consumption will help in the most of the cases. And the other important thing is sometimes eggs are not the things which cause acne. It is the additives in the foods. So you may need to change the way you cook eggs. And at last don’t forget the nutritious value of the eggs because of acne. Try to balance risk of acne and egg consumption. If you have only one or two acne don’t worry about the acne at all.

Does peanut butter cause acne ?

Does peanut butter cause acne
Peanut is 100% plant in origin and peanut butter is prepared from the oil extracted from the peanut seeds. So peanut butter only contains fatty acids of animal origin. Peanut butter does not contain any hormones of animal origin or other cytokines which stimulates inflammation. If present, in any food, steroid hormones of animal origin can play a role in the development of acne. So now we are in a position to answer the question does peanut butter cause acne? Actually It does not cause acne. Some years people believed peanut butter causes acne. But recent researches have failed to provide any epidemiological data to support this hypothesis. So we can conclude “peanut butter does not cause acne”.

How gallstones are formed?

How gallstones are formed

Gallstone disease is very common in the world. Cholecystectomy, (surgical gall bladder removal) for gall stone related diseases is the most commonly performed surgery by the general surgeons. When we look into this problem we find that there are three types of gall stones in surgical practice.(pathological definition can be different) those are cholesterol stones, pigment stones and mixed stones. ) In western counties commonly cholesterol rich stones are encountered and in Asian countries pigment stones are encounters. But keep in mind mixed stones are the most common type. Classically we say fatty, fertile females in their forties and fifties are more prone to develop gall stones. Now lets look in to the risk factors for the development of gall stones.

Risk factors

Risk factors for cholesterol stones

Obesity

High fat diet

Estrogens (Female, oral contraceptives, Pregnancy)

Hereditary

Impaired gall bladder emptying

Risk factors for pigment stones

Hemolytic disease

Biliary infection

How cholesterol gallstones are formed?

To keep cholesterol in solution phospholipids and bile salts are required in bile. But any relative increase in cholesterol concentration or decrease in bile salt or phospholipid concentration cause cholesterol crystals to form and precipitate. This can act as a nidus for the growth of cholesterol stones. With time layers of cholesterol are deposited around the nidus and large stones are formed.

How to relieve codeine constipation?

How to relieve codeine constipation?

Codeine is a very widely used analgesic agent with many good properties. Compared with the other analgesics it has many good properties and few side effects. But there is one nasty side effect which can be quite troublesome to some people. It is “Constipation”. Many find this very difficult to cope with and some drug companies make their living using this. But people can relieve constipation by adhering to few basic steps I would like to share with you. First in “codeine constipation” forget the first constipation part. Only think about constipation. Now how are we going to relieve constipation? You will have sacrifice a bit. Lets start by increasing the amount of water you drink. This always helps. Then you have to reduce the intake of fast foods and foods made up of refined flour. Because these foods do not have any fiber they make hard dry stools. Try to replace those with fiber rich food. Increase the intake of green vegetables. Then come to the use of laxatives. Do not use laxatives unless constipation is severe and prescribed by a doctor. Laxative abuse aggravates constipation. Not only to codeine constipation, above advises are good for any person. It will make you feel good and reduce the incidence of colon cancer.

How to reduce oiliness of your face?

How to reduce oiliness of your face

In some people their faces can be very oily. In teenagers this can be quite troublesome to them psychologically. So they keep on washing their faces and applying lotion. But this doesn’t help. Skin is different from one person to another and skin reacts in various ways to different chemicals. Coming back to our previous question “How to reduce oiliness of your face?” washing your face can temporarily reduce oiliness. But in long-term drying the skin in that way stimulates you sebaceous glands and produce more and more sebum which makes your skin oily. There is one solution for this. Wash you face and then apply oil free water based moisturizer. This will retain moisture helps to reduce oiliness. Make sure not to scrub your face too hard. If none of this helps you can meet a qualified dermatologist take advice. I think this is the best option rather than using over the counter prescriptions?

PRECIOUS STONES

Gem-stone or a precious stone is a highly attractive piece of mineral. But certain organic compounds are also considered as gem stones.

E.g.: Amber

After cutting and polishing gem stones/precious stones are used in jewelry.

Gemstones/precious stones fall into different categories because of the composition.

E.g.: Diamonds-Made of carbon

Rubies-Aluminum oxide

Many gems are crystals and classified using a crystal system

E.g.: cubic, trogon, monoclinic

Classification of gem stones/precious stones

Gems/precious stones are classified classified into different groups, species and varieties.

E.g.: ruby is the red variety of species corundum

Other colours of corundum - sapphire

Value of the gems/precious stones

Value of a gem depends on the refractive index, dispersion, specific gravity, hardness, cleavage, fracture and luster. Value of a certain gem changes from the country to country. Coloured gem stones are prized specially for its great beauty and aesthetics.

Processing

Most of the gems are cut and polished before they fit into a particular purpose. Some gems are treated to increase their beauty and some of the non-gem stones are converted to gems by treating.

Methods of gem treating are,

Heating

Irradiation

Waxing/Oiling

Fracture filling

Some gems are synthesized artificially

E.g.: Cubic zirconia

Synthetic corundums

Enzyme test or a CPK test : What is it ?

When you go to the hospital after a chest pain your doctor might request an enzyme test or a CPK test. But what is this? Did you ever think about it?

OK now I am going to tell you more about it. You don't need to have huge medical knowledge to understand this article. So don't worry. All these are enzyme based diagnostic tests designed to identify a certain disease condition. As you know the human body is made up of billions of cells. Each and every cell is a fluid filled bag. Plasma membrane serves as the boundary of this bag. As long as it is healthy it keeps everything with inside the cell without allowing escaping. With in these cells there are enzymes. Enzymes are proteins which catalyze various biochemical reactions. But when the cell is injured these enzymes come out. Then these enzymes diffuse through the extra cellular space and contaminate the blood. So when a blood sample is taken this elevated cellular enzyme levels can be detected. As certain enzymes are specific for certain organs the doctors can detect the affected organ. Eg: The heart. Now you can understand. When you have a chest pain they suspect a heart attack. To diagnose whether it is a heart attack or some other condition they request a CPK test. If it is a heart attack CPK test is life saving. Remember CPK is a very important cardiac enzyme in diagnosing.

E.g.: C.P.K- Heart muscle

CPK blood test range

If you have undergone the CPK blood test the laboratory may have provided you with a set of values. Any decent laboratory should provide the range of normal values with it. But sometimes they may not. Then you may be wondering before going to a doctor “what is the CPK blood test range? “ For you reference herewith I am providing you with the CPK blood test range. Blood please remember CPK normal values are always laboratory specific so there can be a slight deviation of the normal values I have provided here from the normal values of your laboratory.

Creatine kinase (CPK)

• Female 24-170 U/L
• Male 20-260 U/L
• CK-MB fraction

There is another thing. Any value outside the normal range is not necessarily abnormal. Any value outside this range has a higher probability to be abnormal. So some values outside the normal range can be perfectly normal for some people.

INR test PT/INR test

INR test
If you are currently on warfarin your doctor may request for a PT/INT test or you may see one of your relatives getting done a PT/INR test. But what is it? You may wonder. Warfarin is an anticoagulant mainly given to patients who at increased risk of the development of intravascular blood clots. For this discussion we will restrict our patient category to patients with prosthetic heart valves. Patient with prosthetic heart valves at increased risk of development of blood clots. These clots can cause various catastrophic events. E.g.: strokes, Myocardial infarctions, Peripheral vascular disease and etc. To reduce this an anticoagulant is given. But this has side effects. Major side effect of our interest is excessive bleeding. To balance this risk and benefit anticoaguability of the warfarin PT/INT test is used. Actually the PT part is the test. PT is the abbreviation for prothrombin time. INR means international normalized ratio. Due to diversity of the chemical manufacturers different laboratories get different result for the PT test. But the manufacturer of that particular chemical compound gives the data to convert it to the universally accepted INR. This value doesn’t change from the laboratory. So is a single patient’s blood checked by two laboratories the INR test value should be equal.

Free Etrade US bank account for non US residents

Free Etrade US bank account for non US residents
If you were looking for an us bank for non us residents you might have searched the internet a lot. And read number of articles and paid thousands of dollars for a US bank account and got scammed. The method I am going to tell you will allow you to open a free us offshore bank account being a non us residence. Still you may ask can I open bank account in us etrade as non residence? Yes possible they allow you to open a complete investment account. And even though you are a non US resident you eligible for a platinum VISA debit card with Etrade account. Your US bank account can be managed online with Etrade. As far as I know this is the easiest way to open a free us offshore bank account non us residence. Other people say that this US account can be used with paypal. Etrade is probably the best us bank for non residents. This is a free guide for us bank account as non resident (non US resident).

PT/INR Test

PT/INR Test

PT/INR test is a special blood test designed to give an idea about the coagulation status of a particular individual. But what does PT/INR Test shows? Many people don’t know that. Actually PT is “Prothrombin time” and INR is “International normalized ratio”. Prothrombin time measures the extrinsic path of blood coagulation. In PT/INR Test blood is collected to a tube containing sodium citrate. Then tissue factor is added and time taken to the sample to clot measured optically. As you can see in this PT/INR Test the test result depends on the methodology used and the quality of the tissue factor. So the PT/INR test result is specific to that particular laboratory. That’s why there is an INR part. INR takes the ratio between patient sample and the control sample. When it is added to the formula PT/INR Test results can be compared globally. PT/INR Test is usually perfomed for the patients on warfarin, Liver damage and vitamin K status. This test is the most sensitive and widely used method to determine the blood coagulation profile. After a prosthetic valve replacement of the heart is is almost always necessary to check the coagulation profile by PT/INR test. Some times it may be necessary to measure it after an myocardial infarction.

Medicines that affect cpk test

Medicines that affect cpk test
As you already know medicines can affect most of the biochemical tests. One such test is creatine kinase test or the cpk test. Medicines which affect the CPK test are, amphotericin B, ampicillin, some anesthetics, blood thinners, aspirin, clofibrate, dexamethasone, furosemide, alcohol, and cocaine. Actually above substances increases the blood CPK level giving rise to false positive values. But in addition to this I would like to discuss other factors which affect the CPK test. Those factors are cardiac catheterization, intramuscular injections, trauma to muscles, recent surgery, and heavy exercise. So when someone goes to the hospital and had a positive CPK test the above factors should be considered. When the above factors are excluded a positive CPK test can be due to heart attack, Brain injury or stroke, Inflammation of the heart muscle and etc. So I think now you have some understanding about the other factors which affect the CPK test.

Etrade US bank account for non US residents

Etrade US bank account for non US residents
If you were looking for a US bank account being a non US residents you should already know how difficult to find one. Many website in the internet trying to scam people by offering US bank accounts for non US residents. I can assure you one thing. Non of these websites can not offer US bank accounts for non US residents. But there is a one bank which offers complete investment accounts for non US residents it’s Etrade. With this Etrade complete investment accounts for non US residents you should be able to do whatever you want. But please keep in mind it is an investment account. And another thing is many websites offering US bank account for non US residents send you information on how to open an account at Etrade when you pay. So I strongly suggest that you should contact directly rather than going around those scam sites. Etrade telephone number is 1-800-ETRADE-1 (1-800-387-2331) Before you call please visit the Etrade website. since this is a toll free number you can use skype to call them for free. If you are trying to find a find a US bank account to use with your paypal account you should be able to use Etrade complete investment account. They also provide you with a VISA debit card. This should be able to use to fulfill the credit card need in paypal.
But if you only need an offshore bank account you can try offshore bank account from HSBC. These account are easy to open and handle and also the HSBC offshore bank accounts offer high interest rates.

Codeine constipation

Codeine constipation

Codeine is a drug which is well known to cause constipation. Codeine is also known as 3-methoxymorphine. It does not have euphoric effects and so it is freely available over the counter. But it only has 20% of the analgesic potency of morphine. (With in the body codeine is converted morphine by an enzymatic reaction) So it is used to treat mild types of pain such as headache, backache and toothache etc.
Codeine constipation is due to its effect on the gastrointestinal tract. It increases the tone and reduces the motility in many parts of the gastro intestinal tract. Since this reduces the gastric emptying and reduces the rate of movement of food in the gastro intestinal tract this produces small amount of hard stools due excessive water absorption. Sometimes codeine constipation can be very severe and troublesome to the patient. Constipation is thought to be mediated by the effect of codeine on gastro intestinal tract smooth muscle cells. Some suggests that it is mediated by the effect on intramural nerve plexuses. Other hypothesis suggests that constipation is partly mediated by its central effect since intra ventricular injection of codeine inhibits the propulsive movements of the gastro-intestinal tract.

Elevated CPK Enzyme

Elevated CPK enzyme level is of great diagnostic value. CPK enzyme is a non functional plasma enzyme and in most of the times elevated levels indicates as underlying organic skeletal muscle disorder or a myocardial infarction. CPK enzyme has 3-isoforms.



CK-BB (Mainly found in the brain tissue)
CK-MB (Mainly found in the myocardial tissue)
CK-MM (Mainly found in the skeletal muscle issue)
Myocardial tissue is the only tissue that contains more than 5% of the total CK-MB activity. So elevated plasma levels of CK-MB isoform of CPK-enzyme suggest a myocardial infarction. But however this should be used along with another cardiac marker like Troponin I ot Troponin T since cpk enzymes coming from the other sources such as skeletal muscle can interfere with the interpretation of the results.




In the case of a myocardial infarction CPK enzyme levels start to rise to rise 4 to 8 hours after the onset of the chest pain and plasma CPK enzyme level reaches the peak in 24 hours.
Serum CPK enzyme is greatly elevated in many muscle disorders including Duchenne dystrophy and polymyositis.But the CPK enzyme level is not elevated in myasthenia gravis and LEMS. In muscle trauma plasma level of myoglobin is also elevated.