The Medical Health Plus

Important of Personal Fitness

Personal fitness has many definitions, because the term personal fitness means many thing to different people. Anyone who always engage in personal fitness can come up with a definition of the team personal fitness. I am going to explain what is personal fitness and all what personal fitness, at the long run you will be able to come out with a definition of personal fitness on your own.

Many people belief that personal fitness is the result of a way life that includes living an active lifestyle, maintaining good or better levels of physical fitness, taking healthy diet and practicing good health behaviour in ones life. Health is a way of well being of the body which includes, spiritual, mental, emotional, physical and social aspects of one life. Good health is very important to everyone, both teens, adults, boy girl, man and woman, regardless of sex and age. Health is the state of wellness of the body. And wellness can be attain by maintenance of the moderate level of mental, physical, emotional, spiritual and social health. Moreover wellness requires a lifetime of commitment and activities, from young adulthood through golden age.

Another term to be consider under important of personal fitness is functional health, which describe as a personal physical ability to function independently in life time, without any assistance. If one functional health drop below minimal level, one can lose is physical independence in daily activities. A good example of this include losing the ability to walk by yourself, ability to drive your car, ability to feed yourself. A person may have functional health but may possess a low level of wellness. For example, you may still be able to drive your car, but have the signs and symptoms of cardiovascular disease. So you need to be fit and maintain a high level of functional health.

In other to be healthy, wellness and maintaining a high level of functional health, you have to be personal fit and maintain a physical active lifestyle, which is away of living that include activity such as walking from one class to another, walking on the streets, climbing stairs, participating in recreational activities or jogging in your compound, field, streets, road etc. Researchers have recently shown that people who live a good physical active lifestyle are able to maintain their functional health status longer than people who live an inactive lifestyle. It is very good and important to be fit always, you can participate in personal fitness activities in a number of ways. There is wide range of exercise and sporting activities to choose from, you are sure to find exercise or sporting activities that match your interests and abilities, even if you have to do the exercise in your room or house. You can as engage yourself with a sport in your compound. By engage in regular physical activity or exercise you can be improve or maintain an acceptable level of physical fitness. Physically active people are more likely to live life to its fullest. They add more than just year to their life. They add life to their years, by feeling and look good and better always.

Attitudes and Beliefs about Personal Fitness
Both young and old people often fail to realize the importance of being physically active or engaging in exercise to maintain good health. They have negative attitudes or beliefs about physical activity, exercise, and physical fitness activities for a number of reasons. Some of the reasons include the following:

• No time for physical activities,
• Poor physical condition of the body,
• High percentage of body fat,
• Unrealistic physical fitness goals,
• No accurate knowledge of physical fitness,
• Feeling that one is not athletic,
• Afraid of physical overstraining themselves,
• Negative experience with physical activity and other to mention but few.

If you have many of these negative attitude, the odd are that you will live a sedentary lifestyle as you get older. By learning more about your own personal fitness you can develop positive experiences leading to an active and more productive lifestyle. At this point, I am challenge you to explore your attitudes and beliefs about physical activity, exercise, and physical fitness activities. If you do not have positive attitudes about and beliefs about physical active, exercise, and physical fitness, I hope you will develop them through your reading in this blog. If you are inactive or do not exercise regularly, it is better you change your behaviours and improve your physical fitness, it is better you start now and develop it for your body and future.

Cervical cancer linked to deprivation.

BBC health correspondent just filed a report linking cervical cancer to deprivation.

Cervical cancer is more common among women living in the most deprived areas of England than their affluent counterparts, research shows.

Data from the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN) found diagnosis levels were twice as high in deprived areas.

Experts believe lower uptake of cervical screening in deprived areas is probably key.

It is hoped a new vaccine programme could cut cervical cancers sharply.

The NCIN analysis, based on more than 25,000 cases of cervical cancer, found that in the most deprived areas 12 women per 100,000 were diagnosed with the disease between 2000 and 2004.

In contrast, in the most affluent areas only six per 100,000 women were diagnosed in the same time period.

The most deprived areas included Newcastle and Liverpool, while the most affluent included parts of Surrey and the south coast.

Lead researcher Professor David Forman, from the University of Leeds, said: “These striking figures show there is still much more that needs to be done to tackle cancer in low-income communities.

“Cervical cancer is a largely preventable disease – the national screening programme will pick up most cases before they even develop into cancer.

“Our figures suggest that women living in poorer areas are less likely to attend cervical screening than women who are better-off, so they are more likely to develop the disease.”

Professor Forman said other factors such as higher rates of smoking, and earlier onset of sexual activity might also contribute to raised cervical cancer rates in deprived areas.

You can read the full story here

Fatty Fish reduce risk brain damage

Regular eating of fish by older adults may help lower their risk of silent brain damage that contributes to memory loss and dementia and a higher risk of stroke, because of the high level of omega-3 fatty acids in fish,  according to a new finnish study. Fish is high in omega-3 fatty acids like tuna, salmon, mackerel, herring and sardines, among others, when ate baked or broiled — but not fried – lessens the persons’ chances of developing silent brain lesions – an area of damaged brain tissue that shows no obvious symptoms unless detected through brain scans, researchers report in the current issue of Neurology. “Previous findings have shown that fish and fish oil can help prevent stroke, but this is one of the only studies that looks at fish’s effect on silent brain infarcts in healthy, older people,” said lead researcher of the study, Jyrki Virtanen from the University of Kuopio in Finland.

In the study that followed 3,660 adults age 65 and older, the experts found that older adults who regularly eat fish may have a lower risk of this subtle brain damage referred medical to as brain infarcts, which contributes to stroke and dementia — as long as the fish is not fried. The brain damage is considered subtle because it causes no obvious symptoms and can only be detected through brain scans. They add up over a long term to the kind of brain damage that contributes to stroke and dementia. Silent brain infarcts can raise a person’s risk of both stroke and cognitive decline. It is estimated that about 20 per cent of adults age 65 and above who are free of silent infarcts will develop at least one within five years.

Among older adults in the study, those who said they ate tuna and “other” baked or broiled fish at least three times per week were 25 per cent less likely than those who rarely ate fish to have the subtle brain damage when the study started. Fish eaters also tended to be less likely to develop new signs of brain damage over the next five years. No such benefits were linked to consumption of fried fish, however, the researchers report in the August 2008 edition of the journal Neurology.

While the researchers from the University of Kuopio, could not conclusively point to the reason for the brain benefits, they suggested that it was likely that omega-3 fatty acids found mainly in oily fish — played a key role. Nevertheless, they noted that the lack of a protective effect from fried fish might stem from the fact that foods like fish burgers and fish sticks were typically made from fish low in omega-3. Whereas, a single serving per week reduced the risk by 13 percent compared to people who did not eat fish. While overall findings add to evidence that fish rich in omega-3 fats have ‘important health benefits’, researchers emphasize on the fact that eating of fried fish failed to put forward similar benefits. Virtanen said, “While eating tuna, salmon, mackerel and other types of fish seems to help protect against memory loss and stroke, these results were not found in people who regularly ate fried fish,”

They submitted that more research was needed as to why these types of fish may have protective effects, even though the omega-3 fatty acids seem to have a major role. Eating fish that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids would prevent the thickening or prevent the deposition of fat in blood vessels. Deposition of fat in blood vessels will tend to reduce blood flow to the brain and predisposes individuals to stroke. Therefore, if individuals eat healthy, like they take fish and use vitamin E supplements, then they are at less risk of having vessels into the brain becoming clogged and developing strokes. If there are no strokes and brain develops and functions well, then the chance of dementia is also less and that is why fish is something recommended as people get older. It was also recommend by American Heart Association recommends that all adults strive to eat at least two fish meals per week, preferably fatty fish based on previous findings which had shown that fish and fish oil can help prevent stroke.

Brain Tumour Associated with Mobile Phone

Mobile phone use associated with increased risk of brain tumors, a research was conducted by a team led by Professor Lennart Hardell of the University Hospital in Orebro in Sweden. It has not been formally published yet, the research focused on the risk of specific tumors in individuals who started to use mobile phones before the age of 20. Younger people were the target for this research because they are believed to be more susceptible to the electromagnetic radiation that emanates from mobile phones, partly because their skulls are thinner and may allow the radiation to penetrate deeper into the brain.

The research found that individuals who started mobile phone use before the age of 20 were at very significantly increased (more than 5-fold) risk of brain tumours known as ‘gliomas’ as well as benign (non-cancerous) tumours on the main nerve responsible for hearing known as ‘acoustic neuromas’. According to reports, use of cordless home phones were at significantly elevated risk of glioma too.

Individuals who started to use mobile handsets in their 20s were also at increased risk of glioma and acoustic neuroma, though the enhanced risk was smaller than that seen in the earlier users: risk of glioma and acoustic neuroma was up about 50 and 100 per cent respectively. Professor Hardell is quoted as saying: “This is a warning sign. It is very worrying. We should be taking precautions.”