Teens are highly conscious about their physical appearance. But they often fail to understand that drug addiction worsens their appearance and makes them look unattractive and old. Drug abusing teens often ignore their regular grooming habits. They are unaware of the fact that these unhealthy habits negatively affect the internal health as well as external physical appearance too.
This article shows how substance abuse deteriorates the natural charm of drug addicted youngsters.
General signs: Illicit drug abuse is associated with few general changes in the appearance of the individual. Some general changes include, puffy face, drowsy looks, needle marks on hands and legs etc. These things are quite commonly seen in most of the drug abusers, by which we can identify their drug abusing habit easily.
Personal grooming: Personal grooming habits of drug abusers deteriorate day by day. They ignore to maintain even the regular cleanliness. Teens who are normally self-conscious about their attire and appearance will no longer care about their personal hygiene and physical appearance once they start using drugs. Messy hair, torn and untidy clothes, not brushing teeth and not having bath are some of their lifestyle patterns.
Oral effects: Oral disorders are often found in drug and tobacco addicts. Of the various drugs, 'Methamphetamine' causes major oral problems. Use of drugs may result in discolored, brittle, chipped, rot and stained teeth. Toxic chemicals present in various drugs block the blood supply to the oral cavity and reduces saliva production. Oral disorders also include some gum diseases which result in reddened and bleeding gums.
Skin disorders: Drug addicts experience severe skin related problems. One of the major disorders is skin sores or lesions. They appear on the skin at various visible places like arms, legs, including face, and take a prolonged time to heal. In severe addictions, the sores may not heal at all. These sores are highly susceptible to infections.
The toxic substances in drugs result in the death of blood vessels present in the skin. Lack of blood flow to the skin tissues makes it difficult for the body to repair the injury. As a result, the skin loses elasticity, and hence the abusers look more aged compared to their original age.
Some dangerous drugs like 'Meth' also cause powerful hallucinations which will make the abuser feel and believe that some bugs are crawling either on or under his skin. This is referred to as 'crank bug', which causes compulsive pricking and scratching behaviors.
Changes in weight: People who are addicted to drugs either lose or gain weight suddenly. Drug abuse accelerates the body's usage of energy and suppresses the appetite which makes the abuser lose weight and look malnourished. They experience a drastic change in their weight over a period of time. Sleep disorders and lifestyle changes also can contribute to weight loss. Due to the weight loss, the person becomes weak and also is vulnerable to many diseases due to lack of disease resistance.
Now that you are aware of the fact that substance abuse worsens physical appearance, make sure that you stay away from these harmful substances.
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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6503746
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Alcohol Rehabilitation: Education As the Primary Weapon
Three theories purport to explain alcoholism: Genetic, defining it as a chromosomal predisposition; Sociological, defining it as a product of social influences; and Psychological, defining it as a personality predisposition. Effective alcohol rehabilitation takes each into consideration.
The theories, whether genetic, sociological or psychological, all boil down to one simple fact: alcoholism is a chronic, progressive disease that, if left untreated, will kill the sufferer one way or another. It may be from Cirrhosis of the liver, from heart disease, or it may be in a car crash on a dark rainy night. Whatever outcome lies in wait, it is in the interest of the alcoholic to find the power to arrest the disease before it's too late. A formidable task since, once the disease has emerged, lack of power has become the alcoholic's dilemma. This is where alcohol rehabilitation steps in.
Treatment is not a magic wand. There are no incantations, potions or secret handshakes. It is an educational process designed to help the sufferer find his or her way back to happiness by way of a roadmap emphasizing not only the negative effects of alcohol, but the positive effects of abstinence in a supportive environment. This is not an easy task in light of the fact that denial is the primary symptom of the disease. What would a person want to learn about a disease he or she is convinced they do not have? And why would they give up a substance they are convinced they have no problem with? Treatment provides a knowledge that constitutes power.
"I just didn't believe it," says Donnalee B. "What would a little old grandmother like me have in common with those guys under the bridge? But my daughter, the mother of my grandchildren, came to family night at the treatment center. She talked about everything I couldn't remember having said or done. But I had to believe her because she was crying." Donnalee, now three years without a drink, sighs while wiping a tear of her own away. "Now she trusts me with the little ones again. So I go back to Pennsylvania and visit not only my grandchildren, but that treatment center, too, whenever I can. I'm so grateful."
Residential treatment can be a slow process. And it matters little whether one, like Donnalee, is discussing Philadelphia rehab centers, rehab Pittsburgh, or rehab in Kentucky, her other daughter's new home, the process is the same. Donnalee again: "I didn't appreciate how important education was. At first, I though treatment was just an expensive roadmap to Alcoholics Anonymous. But once I understood, long term sobriety became possible for me because I know exactly what my problem is."
Twelve Palms Recovery Center, experts in private, compassionate alcohol rehabilitation , focus their efforts on the individual. They also emphasize the importance of the 12-step model by not only encouraging AA attendance, but hosting AA meetings, as well. For additional information call 866-331-6779 any time, 24 hours a day. Mark R. Merrill is a veteran of twenty-three years in alcohol recovery. He has worked as a volunteer in Multnomah County and Washington County, Oregon "In Jail Intervention Programs," as well as written extensively on the issue of alcohol and drug recovery.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6500239
The theories, whether genetic, sociological or psychological, all boil down to one simple fact: alcoholism is a chronic, progressive disease that, if left untreated, will kill the sufferer one way or another. It may be from Cirrhosis of the liver, from heart disease, or it may be in a car crash on a dark rainy night. Whatever outcome lies in wait, it is in the interest of the alcoholic to find the power to arrest the disease before it's too late. A formidable task since, once the disease has emerged, lack of power has become the alcoholic's dilemma. This is where alcohol rehabilitation steps in.
Treatment is not a magic wand. There are no incantations, potions or secret handshakes. It is an educational process designed to help the sufferer find his or her way back to happiness by way of a roadmap emphasizing not only the negative effects of alcohol, but the positive effects of abstinence in a supportive environment. This is not an easy task in light of the fact that denial is the primary symptom of the disease. What would a person want to learn about a disease he or she is convinced they do not have? And why would they give up a substance they are convinced they have no problem with? Treatment provides a knowledge that constitutes power.
"I just didn't believe it," says Donnalee B. "What would a little old grandmother like me have in common with those guys under the bridge? But my daughter, the mother of my grandchildren, came to family night at the treatment center. She talked about everything I couldn't remember having said or done. But I had to believe her because she was crying." Donnalee, now three years without a drink, sighs while wiping a tear of her own away. "Now she trusts me with the little ones again. So I go back to Pennsylvania and visit not only my grandchildren, but that treatment center, too, whenever I can. I'm so grateful."
Residential treatment can be a slow process. And it matters little whether one, like Donnalee, is discussing Philadelphia rehab centers, rehab Pittsburgh, or rehab in Kentucky, her other daughter's new home, the process is the same. Donnalee again: "I didn't appreciate how important education was. At first, I though treatment was just an expensive roadmap to Alcoholics Anonymous. But once I understood, long term sobriety became possible for me because I know exactly what my problem is."
Twelve Palms Recovery Center, experts in private, compassionate alcohol rehabilitation , focus their efforts on the individual. They also emphasize the importance of the 12-step model by not only encouraging AA attendance, but hosting AA meetings, as well. For additional information call 866-331-6779 any time, 24 hours a day. Mark R. Merrill is a veteran of twenty-three years in alcohol recovery. He has worked as a volunteer in Multnomah County and Washington County, Oregon "In Jail Intervention Programs," as well as written extensively on the issue of alcohol and drug recovery.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6500239
Friday, March 25, 2011
Psychologists seek authority to prescribe psychotropic medications
Many who do receive care get it through their primary-care physician rather than a mental health professional like a psychiatrist or psychologist. That’s partly by choice: People prefer to talk to someone they know and trust about medical problems, and for many, there’s still a stigma in seeing a “shrink.”
But part of the reason people turn to their primary-care doctors or go without care is that it can be tough to get an appointment with a mental health expert. Psychiatrists, in particular, are in short supply, especially in rural areas.
A recent survey conducted for the Tennessee Psychological Association, for example, found that the average wait to see a psychiatrist for a non-emergency appointment was 54 days for patients with private health insurance and 90 days for those covered by TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program, says Lance Laurence, director of professional affairs for the TPA. “It’s a huge access issue,” says Katherine Nordal, executive director for professional practice at the American Psychological Association, a trade group for psychologists.
Psychologists say they have a solution to help address the access problems: Give them more authority to prescribe psychotropic medications. They can already prescribe in New Mexico and Louisiana, as well as in all branches of the military and the Indian Health Service. A half-dozen other states are considering measures that would give more psychologists prescribing authority.
Some of those states have considered and rejected such legislation before, but Nordal says her group is “cautiously optimistic” that it may succeed in a few states this year.
Psychiatrists are medical doctors with a specialty in psychiatry; psychologists have doctoral degrees, and their training includes coursework in diagnosing and managing mental illness. Any medical doctor, from dermatologist to surgeon, can prescribe psychotropic drugs; but before psychologists can prescribe drugs — in the jurisdictions that allow it — they must complete work equivalent to an additional master’s degree in clinical psychopharmacology, says Nordal. With the exception of psychiatrists, she says, no medical professional is as well versed in medication for mental disorders as prescribing psychologists.
In addition, psychologists provide other types of treatment, such as talk therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy, in contrast to psychiatrists, who often only prescribe drugs; a national survey found that only 10.8 percent of psychiatrists offer talk therapy to all their patients. “We have a bigger toolkit than many others do that prescribe,” Nordal says.
Health insurance generally covers prescription drugs to treat mental illness, but coverage for therapy sessions with a mental health provider is less routine. This has resulted in an over-reliance on drug therapy in recent years, all agree. Experts say this imbalance should change under the Mental Health Parity Act, which took effect last year; it requires mental health benefits, if offered, to be at least as generous as benefits for medical and surgical care. Even if the type of treatment shifts somewhat, however, many patients will still need drug therapy.
Physician groups such as the American Medical Association and some patient advocacy groups, however, are cool to the idea of letting psychologists prescribe drugs. “These are serious drugs with serious side effects,” says Mike Fitzpatrick, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, a consumer advocacy organization. “We feel strongly that [prescribing] should be handled by someone with medical training.”
The problem is likely to become more acute with an estimated 32 million people expected to gain health insurance under the health-care overhaul law. The Association of American Medical Colleges projects a shortage of 45,000 primary-care physicians alone by 2020.
Experts agree that solutions lie in better integration between primary care and mental health care. This makes sense in part because for more than a third of patients with mental health problems, the only practitioner they see is a primary-care provider. In addition, people with chronic illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and asthma are significantly more likely to have mental health problems than those without chronic illness. People with serious mental illness, in fact, die 25 years sooner, on average, than the rest of the population.
The health-care overhaul, with its emphasis on medical homes and accountable care organizations that take responsibility for managing a patient’s health rather than just providing medical services, offers promising models for integration, experts agree.
In clinical psychologist Benjamin Miller’s primary care “dream world,” mental health providers work alongside primary-care physicians, in the same office. Miller is an assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Colorado’s school of medicine in Denver. Part of his job is to integrate mental health into the family medicine department’s clinical, education and research functions.
“There’s a range of mental health needs that will be seen in primary care,” he says. “You can’t tease it out from the other conditions that an individual is facing.”
But part of the reason people turn to their primary-care doctors or go without care is that it can be tough to get an appointment with a mental health expert. Psychiatrists, in particular, are in short supply, especially in rural areas.
A recent survey conducted for the Tennessee Psychological Association, for example, found that the average wait to see a psychiatrist for a non-emergency appointment was 54 days for patients with private health insurance and 90 days for those covered by TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program, says Lance Laurence, director of professional affairs for the TPA. “It’s a huge access issue,” says Katherine Nordal, executive director for professional practice at the American Psychological Association, a trade group for psychologists.
Psychologists say they have a solution to help address the access problems: Give them more authority to prescribe psychotropic medications. They can already prescribe in New Mexico and Louisiana, as well as in all branches of the military and the Indian Health Service. A half-dozen other states are considering measures that would give more psychologists prescribing authority.
Some of those states have considered and rejected such legislation before, but Nordal says her group is “cautiously optimistic” that it may succeed in a few states this year.
Psychiatrists are medical doctors with a specialty in psychiatry; psychologists have doctoral degrees, and their training includes coursework in diagnosing and managing mental illness. Any medical doctor, from dermatologist to surgeon, can prescribe psychotropic drugs; but before psychologists can prescribe drugs — in the jurisdictions that allow it — they must complete work equivalent to an additional master’s degree in clinical psychopharmacology, says Nordal. With the exception of psychiatrists, she says, no medical professional is as well versed in medication for mental disorders as prescribing psychologists.
In addition, psychologists provide other types of treatment, such as talk therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy, in contrast to psychiatrists, who often only prescribe drugs; a national survey found that only 10.8 percent of psychiatrists offer talk therapy to all their patients. “We have a bigger toolkit than many others do that prescribe,” Nordal says.
Health insurance generally covers prescription drugs to treat mental illness, but coverage for therapy sessions with a mental health provider is less routine. This has resulted in an over-reliance on drug therapy in recent years, all agree. Experts say this imbalance should change under the Mental Health Parity Act, which took effect last year; it requires mental health benefits, if offered, to be at least as generous as benefits for medical and surgical care. Even if the type of treatment shifts somewhat, however, many patients will still need drug therapy.
Physician groups such as the American Medical Association and some patient advocacy groups, however, are cool to the idea of letting psychologists prescribe drugs. “These are serious drugs with serious side effects,” says Mike Fitzpatrick, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, a consumer advocacy organization. “We feel strongly that [prescribing] should be handled by someone with medical training.”
The problem is likely to become more acute with an estimated 32 million people expected to gain health insurance under the health-care overhaul law. The Association of American Medical Colleges projects a shortage of 45,000 primary-care physicians alone by 2020.
Experts agree that solutions lie in better integration between primary care and mental health care. This makes sense in part because for more than a third of patients with mental health problems, the only practitioner they see is a primary-care provider. In addition, people with chronic illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and asthma are significantly more likely to have mental health problems than those without chronic illness. People with serious mental illness, in fact, die 25 years sooner, on average, than the rest of the population.
The health-care overhaul, with its emphasis on medical homes and accountable care organizations that take responsibility for managing a patient’s health rather than just providing medical services, offers promising models for integration, experts agree.
In clinical psychologist Benjamin Miller’s primary care “dream world,” mental health providers work alongside primary-care physicians, in the same office. Miller is an assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Colorado’s school of medicine in Denver. Part of his job is to integrate mental health into the family medicine department’s clinical, education and research functions.
“There’s a range of mental health needs that will be seen in primary care,” he says. “You can’t tease it out from the other conditions that an individual is facing.”
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Truths about sparkling wine bubble to the surface
We tend to call any sparkling wine "champagne," a tribute to the region that even today defines the genre. But that's unfair, not only to the makers of true champagne, who deserve the right to protect their product's image, but also to producers elsewhere, by denying their sparkling wines their own character and identity.
In the end, it's unfair to lump them all together and deprive ourselves of the fun of exploring different styles, flavors and terroirs from around the world. It is more than bubbles, to those of us who care: We want to taste the earth the vines grew in and the sweat of the hands that tended them.
France's efforts to protect the name "champagne" for sparkling wines made in the Champagne region have largely succeeded. The U.S. government, under intense lobbying pressure from a few American producers that had long used the name, won a concession for a few wines to continue being labeled "champagne." Those companies apparently lack enough confidence in their wines to allow them to succeed or fail on their own merits.
I was reflecting on that recently while savoring a glass of Cuvee Ludwig Hahn, a modest sparkling wine with no appellation controllee designation on the label. It is produced in the far western region of France's Loire Valley by Guy Bossard, the owner and winemaker of Domaine de l'Ecu, one of my favorite Muscadet producers. Bossard practices biodynamic viticulture, the "beyond organic" school of farming that inspires near-religious devotion from its followers and cultish opposition from its detractors.
France offers dozens if not hundreds of sparkling wines as alternatives to champagne. Most are called cremant, a term that used to apply to a sparkling wine with less pressure (bubbles) than champagne but now refers to wines made outside the Champagne region by the traditional champagne method. Cremant de Bourgogne, typically made with chardonnay, most resembles champagne. Cremants from Alsace and the Loire typically use regional grapes and often are excellent values. Other styles, such as Blanquette de Limoux and Clairette de Die, are lightly effervescent and slightly sweet.
Chenin blanc is the mainstay grape of Loire Valley sparkling wines. Two new ones in our market are particularly good. The Chateau de l'Aulee Brut Cremant de Loire is gutsy and earthy, rich and flirtatious, with flavors of mutsu apples and Bosc pears and a hint of sweetness. The Triple Zero, from winemaker Jacky Blot's Domaine de La Taille aux Loups in the sub-appellation of Montlouis-sur-Loire, is almost the exact opposite in style. Blot uses extra-ripe grapes from 50-year-old vines and does not add sugar: not during primary fermentation, not at bottling (when sparkling wines are often topped off with sugar and yeasts to induce the secondary fermentation and bubbles), not when the bottled wine is disgorged, or cleared of sediment. The result is a nearly clear wine with bracing minerality, a laserlike focus and precision, and gentle bubbles that tickle the palate.
So the next time you raise a glass of bubbly, be it champagne, cremant, prosecco from Italy, Spanish cava or American sparkling wine, take a moment to appreciate what the wine is trying to tell you. You might find yourself uttering another toast: Vive la difference!
Monday, December 27, 2010
Nutrients in fruit and vegetables
Fruits and vegetables offer different mixes of key nutrients. In general, vegetables have less sugar and fewer calories than fruits do. Which would be your pick from each of these pairs? (Percentages are based on the daily value recommended by the USDA for a 2,000-calorie diet.)
Blueberries (1 cup)
Calories: 84
Sugars: 15 grams
Vitamin K: 36 percent
Green peas (1 cup, raw)
Calories: 117
Sugars: 8 grams
Vitamin K: 45 percent
Banana
Calories: 105
Sugars: 14 grams
Potassium: 12 percent
Potato (1 small, baked, with skin)
Calories: 128
Sugars: 2 grams
Potassium: 21 percent
Orange
Calories: 62
Sugars: 12 grams
Vitamin A: 6 percent
Carrot (1 cup of strips)
Calories: 50
Sugars: 6 grams
Vitamin A: 408 percent
Apple (with skin)
Calories: 95
Sugars: 19 grams
Folate: 1 percent
Red bell pepper
Calories: 37
Sugars: 5 grams
Folate: 14 percent
SOURCE: nutritiondata.self.com
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