How healthy are you? Vote for your health

Most people define health as absence of disease. The Government has a term RDA (recommended daily allowance), which is based on the minimum amount that you can take to prevent a disease. Beri-beri, rickets and Scurvey are three that come to mind. These are diseases that develop when we are lacking certain nutrients.

To assess your health, draw a horizontal line across a piece of paper and left end put “Death-the right end put” total vitality “.
In the middle of the line to add a vertical sign.
From the midline mark (to the left) until “death” are levels or degrees of illness and from the midline mark (to the right) until “total vitality” levels or degrees of health.

What I came to realize is that most people believe that being healthy just because they have an apparent lack of illness. I’ve talked to people who are on blood pressure medicine and as long as the medicine is lowering blood pressure does not recognize that they still have hypertension. People who take cholesterol-lowering medications believe that if it is OK then I’m OK. Cholesterol-lowering medications do not solve the problem of what caused first the high cholesterol.

Osteoporosis, the silent disease, has been going on for years without any outward indicator. You know only that I have a problem with the test or when you fracture a hip or somewhere else in the body, due to an accident or a slip and fall.

Heart disease, the number one killer in the United States today, normally gives us some outward indicators. Since being obese or overweight, breathless a lot of time and some aches and pains. Most people choose to ignore these indicators and insist that nothing is wrong and that they are healthy. I read the statistics that the first 50% indicator of people with heart problems get, is death. It is such a sad state of affairs that 50% of people with heart problems never have a second chance. They never get to change their lifestyles to improve their health.

Before any changes can take place, people must recognize that something may not be as great as they do to be. Take a realistic look to your health. Vote for your health; put a sign on the line as healthy as you think of that being. Ask a doctor or other health professional to assess your health and add a mark on the line. Recognize that if you also take drugs-as painful as it is to admit, cannot be on the right side of the center line.

Ask your doctor and what it will take to get off the drugs that you are taking now. If the answer is that you have to take the rest of your life, your next two questions should be 1) why? And 2) do you mind if I get a second opinion?

Listen Up! Exposure to Loud Noise May Cause Tumor & Other Health Risks

Bob Seger, Jeff Beck, Sting, Eric Clapton, Peter Frampton and Bob Dylan all have something in common. Their years of hard rocking have left a mark on more than just their fans–after years of exposure to loud noise, they all now have hearing impairments.

But these hard rockers are not alone. Exposure to excessive noise is, in fact, the most common cause of hearing loss and the most common work-related disease.

Some 10 million Americans already have permanently damaged hearing from loud noise. Another 30 million are at risk right now in their homes, workplace and recreational settings, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD).

Surprisingly, though, hearing loss is only one health risk that arises from loud noise exposure. There are several other, serious, risks as well.

According to Eddie Chandler, stress management specialist, “… Sounds can literally make you sick. Noise pollution can increase your stress levels and created severe tension in your daily life. It can increase your heart rate, raise your blood pressure and even result in insomnia. ”

Acoustic Neuroma Tumor

A study to be published in the February 2006 Journal of Epidemiology found that several years of repeated exposure to loud noise increases the risk of developing a non-cancerous tumor that could cause hearing loss.

People exposed to loud noise were 1.5 times more likely to develop the tumor, called acoustic neuroma, than people who weren’t exposed to loud noise on a regular basis.

The slow-growing tumor gradually presses the cranial nerve that senses sound and helps with balance. Symptoms, which typically become noticeable at age 50 or older, including hearing loss and ringing in the ears (tinnitus).

Noise Increases Heart Attack Risk

Prolonged exposure to high noise levels also increases the risk of a heart attack, according to a study published in the European Heart Journal.

The study involved 4.000 people who had been admitted to Berlin hospitals from 1998 to 2001. When it came to environmental noise (heavy traffic, machines like lawn mowers, kids yelling and barking dogs), it was found that:

Men who were exposed for a prolonged length of time had a 50 percent higher risk of heart attack than those not exposed.
Women who had been exposed to noise had a three times higher risk.

“We feel that, if you have a higher and longer exposure to noise, either environmental or workplace noise, you are at a higher risk for a heart attack,” said lead investigator Dr. Stefan Willich.

Risk of High Blood Pressure Goes Up

Another study by University of Michigan researchers, published in the Archives of Environmental Health, found that working in a loud environment raises blood pressure levels.

They outfitted workers at a Midwest auto-assembly plant with monitors to take blood pressure readings and record noise levels throughout the day.

It was found that while blood pressure was affected by overall noise exposure, peaks in noise affected heart rate. Also, an increase of 10 decibels in average noise exposure resulted in a systolic blood pressure increase of 2 millimeters.

To put things in perspective, reducing systolic blood pressure by 6 millimeters (for the long-term) has been associated with a 35 percent to 40 percent reduction in strokes and a 20 percent to 25 percent drop in coronary disease.

Where is All This Loud Noise Coming From?

Noise from all over–work, traffic, music, TVs, industry, people and more–exists like never before. As a result, much of the population is now experiencing related hearing loss and other problems.

“There’s no question that baby boomers have been exposed to different sources of noise than any generation before them,” says Dr. James f. Battey Jr., director of the NIDCD. “We’re certainly seeing people in their 40s and 50s who notice their hearing is not as good as it used to be.”

Younger people are also at risk of future problems, as exposure to noise via earbuds or headphones attached to MP3 players and other media devices is common.

Many people may not even realize that they are listening to music at harmful levels. An April 2005 study by National Acoustics Laboratories in Australia, published in the International Journal of Audiology, found that 25 percent of people wearing headphones who were stopped on city streets were listening at damaging volumes.

“Safe” Noise Levels

A safe average of noise for a 24-hour day is 70 dB, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Any noise that reaches 85 dB or more can damage your hearing, but even a softer noise can harm your health if it keeps you up at night (45-dB noise is loud enough to keep the average person awake) or irritates you.