Health & Fitness

Dr Mishkat Shehata explains how managing your stress can be as important as calorie counting for your slimming goals. From an evolutionary point of view, stress is a biological response to threats. The system responsible for activating stress is called the sympathetic nervous system or ‘fight or flight’. Hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol kick into action because our brain has detected a threat, prompting our body to react by increasing our breathing and heart rate and shifting the blood supply from organs such as the liver and kidneys. ‘Rest and digest’ is the system that keeps our vital organs …

Even though we may not remember them, everyone dreams. Some may be symbolic and others prophetic. We will examine dreams, give some tips on how to have a good night’s sleep, but will start with a disorder involving mobile phones. SLEEP… Ah! Do you remember that activity which involves lying in bed, doing nothing except abandoning oneself to dreams? Probably not if you’re someone suffering from a disorder called – sleep texting. This is defined as reading and responding to text messages while asleep. It is abnormal behavior in the same way as sleepwalking. For sufferers of sleep texting, a …

For each body cell, you have 10 microscopic bacteria. Together they make up your microbiome. An increasing number of researchers believe that a number of diseases are caused by an imbalance in the microbiome. This means that you can optimize your health and well-being by keeping these bacteria healthy and well-balanced. Many trillions of bacteria keep your gut mucosa healthy and dense, so harmful substances do not penetrate your blood and trigger inflammation. When you have balanced levels of good gut bacteria, they will even help and boost your immune system, fight harmful bacteria and protect you from, among other …

Discover what makes keto different to other diets and how it can help you to lose weight by eating and burning fat. The keto diet has been rising in popularity as a low-carbohydrate diet in recent years, thanks to a surge in celebrities adopting this regimen and its potential health benefits. Similar to the Atkins diet which drew attention in the early 2000s, keto focuses on restricting your carb intake while focusing on consuming a large amount of fat and protein. Though, unlike the Atkins diet, the keto diet doesn’t ever allow you to gradually increase the amount of carbs …

Your baby’s brain starts to develop during the first and second week of fetal development. Between one and two billion brain cells will have developed by week 18, but only a small amount of these will have developed connections to each other before your baby is born. According to the NHS, your baby’s hearing and some automatic responses such as searching for food are some of the connections that the brain will form before birth. This explains why newborns recognize their mother’s voice and can search for a nipple or bottle with their mouth when they are hungry. Don’t be …

Find out if you are at risk for Diabetes – By the time symptoms of related conditions flair, irreversible damage often has occurred. Sam had been feeling rundown for a while. His energy wasn’t what it used to be, and he found himself tired by the middle of the afternoon. For some reason, he hadn’t been sleeping well. It might have been because he was getting up a couple of times in the middle of each night to use the bathroom. He needed to stop drinking so much water in the evening. And he noticed his vision wasn’t what it …

Herbal medicine has been in use since at least the Paleolithic period. Archaeologists working in northern Iraq, for example, found a selection of plant pollen from mallow plants, grape hyacinth, ephedra, yarrow, groundsel, and knapweed – plants they believe were used 60,000 years ago by Neanderthals for medicinal purposes. Much later, about 3,000-5,000 years ago, some of the first written records of herbal medicine emerged. These were created by Sumerians and carefully describe the names of 250 plants and 12 recipes for remedies; one example suggests aloe leaf can be used as a laxative. Two or three millennia later, Babylonian …

Multiple sclerosis has long baffled conventional medicine, but a few pioneers have discovered a number of triggers that set off the MS disease, including vitamin D deficiency and a high-fat diet. Elena Ravalli was 37 years old when she was diagnosed with MS in 1995, after she had complained of numbness, vertigo, temporary vision loss and fatigue – all of which are classic symptoms of the disease. But what followed was anything but classic or conventional, and it has thrown open the debate on MS – what it is, what causes MS, and how it might be connected to a …

Anyone who has ever carried extra weight will know how hard it is to lose it. You have to set up your training program and decide which diet to follow. That’s when you turn to the people around you. This furthers your confusion as everyone has different advice. Your friend tells you she lost weight through Banting, while your colleague swears by juice fasting, and your brother advocates a high-protein diet as the only way to shed fat. The truth is that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to getting lean. However, there are some general nutrition and training guidelines that …

With the general increase in obesity rates, modulating the appetite through one’s own diet can be a great ally for weight loss and an alternative to the use of medications. Some foods generate a feeling of prolonged satiety and thus favor the control of appetite. “Generally, fibers and grains, if used properly, can help moderate appetite,” says Denise Boia, a nutritionist at the Morbid Obesity Treatment Center at Badim Hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Here is a list of three types of foods that can help you with the feeling of fullness and weight loss, that we elaborate with …