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Middle-aged health is more than just waist circumference. This is why

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You’re now not 20 or 30 years old and you already know that regular health check-ups are vital. So go to your GP. During your visit, they measure your waist. They may check your weight. Appearing concerned, they recommend some lifestyle changes.

GPs and healthcare professionals often measure waist circumference as a vital health parameter. This is a greater indicator of abdominal fat than body mass index (BMI). This is the really dangerous fat around and inside your organs that may cause heart disease and metabolic disorders reminiscent of type 2 diabetes.

Men are much more more likely to have health problems in the event that they have a waist circumference greater than 102 centimeters. It is believed that girls with a waist circumference of approx 88 centimeters or more. More than two-thirds of Australian adults have a waist circumference that puts them at increased risk of the disease. An even higher indicator is waist circumference divided by height or waist to height ratio.

However, we all know that individuals (especially women) are liable to this in middle age they gain weight across the middle of their body, which may be very difficult to regulate. Are they doomed to poor health? It seems that while such measurements are vital, they don’t provide all the knowledge concerning the risk of disease and death.



How much is an excessive amount of?

Having a waist circumference to height ratio greater than 0.5 is related to a greater risk of chronic diseases and premature death, and this is applicable to adults of all ages. A healthy waist-to-height ratio is between 0.4 and 0.49. A ratio of 0.6 or more puts the person in the best risk group of the disease.

Some experts recommend Waist circumference must be routinely measured in patients during medical visits. This can start a discussion concerning the risk of chronic disease and easy methods to address it.

Excessive fat tissue and related health problems turn out to be more pronounced in middle age. Quite a few social, personal and physiological aspects make it increasingly difficult to regulate waist circumference as we age. Metabolism tends to decelerate, mainly on account of the decrease in muscle mass, which is typical of humans less intense physical activity, especially resistance exercise.

For women, hormone levels start to vary mid-life and that too stimulates a rise in the extent of fat tissue, especially within the abdominal area. At the identical time, at this stage of life (often including work responsibilities, parenting and caring for aging parents), increased stress can result in: increased cortisol levels, which cause fat tissue to extend within the abdominal area.

Middle age may cause poorer sleep patterns. They contribute to the expansion of fat tissue disruption of hormones that control appetite.

Finally, your loved ones history and genetics may make you predisposed to accumulating more fat in your belly.

Why waist?

This abdominal or visceral fat is much more metabolically lively (has a greater impact on the body’s organs and systems) than subcutaneous fat (subcutaneous fat).

Visceral fat surrounds and infiltrates major organs reminiscent of the liver, pancreas, and intestines, releasing quite a lot of chemicals (hormones, inflammatory signals, and fatty acids). They affect inflammation, lipid metabolism, levels of cholesterol and insulin resistance, contributing to the event of chronic diseases.

Exercise may reduce visceral fat gain in middle age.
Shutterstock/Frozen Sounds

The problem is particularly visible during menopause. In addition to the direct effects of hormonal changes, falling estrogen levels change brain function, mood and motivation. These psychological changes may end up in decreased physical activity and eating more often – often consisting of comfort foods which can be high in sugar and fat.

But these effects are usually not inevitable. Diet, exercise and mental health management can limit the gain of visceral fat in midlife. Importantly, waist circumference (and the ratio to height) is just one measure of human health. There are many other facets to body composition, exercise and weight-reduction plan. They can have a much greater impact on human health.



Muscles matter

The amount and quality of skeletal muscle (attached to bones to enable movement) an individual has affects: an enormous difference for his or her heart, lungs, metabolic, immune, neurological and mental health, in addition to physical functions.

The available evidence shows that it is equally and even more vital for health and longevity To have greater muscle mass and higher cardiorespiratory (aerobic) fitness than waist circumference inside normal limits.

So, if an individual has an excessive waist circumference, but additionally leads a sedentary lifestyle, has less muscle mass and fewer aerobic capability, then it is advisable to deal with an appropriate exercise program. Fitness deficits must be prioritized over fat loss.

Conversely, an individual with low levels of visceral fat is not necessarily fit and healthy and could have quite poor aerobic fitness, muscle mass and strength. Research evidence is that these vital signs of health – how strong an individual is, the standard of their weight-reduction plan, and the fitness of their heart, circulation and lungs – are more predictive of their risk of disease and death than how thin or obese an individual is.

For example: 2017 Dutch study followed chubby and obese people for 15 years and located that very physically lively people had no increased risk of heart disease in comparison with normal-weight participants.



Getting moving is vital advice

Physical activity has many advantages. Exercise can counteract lots of the negative behavioral and physiological changes that occur during midlife, including those going through menopause.

Regular exercise reduces the tendency to overindulge in foods and drinks to assist with what could also be: quite a difficult period in life.

Measuring waist circumference and monitoring body weight remain vital. If your metrics exceed the values ​​listed above, it’s definitely value making some changes. Exercise is especially effective for losing fat reduction of visceral fat tissue with greater effectiveness when combined with a weight-reduction plan limiting energy intake. Importantly, any fat loss program – whether through medication, weight-reduction plan or surgery – is also a muscle loss program unless resistance exercise is a part of this system. place to begin is by talking to your doctor about your overall health.

Accredited exercise physiologists AND accredited practicing dietitians are probably the most appropriate allied health professionals to evaluate your physique, fitness and weight-reduction plan and work with you to develop a plan to enhance your health, fitness and reduce current and future health risks.

This article was originally published on : theconversation.com
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Health and Wellness

John Legend Criticizes Trump’s Lies About Haitian Immigrants in His Ohio Hometown: ‘How About We Love Each Other?’ – Essence

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John Legend has taken to social media to counter former President Donald Trump’s recent provocative and false remarks about Haitian immigrants in Legend’s hometown of Springfield, Ohio. During Tuesday’s presidential debate, Trump made racist claims, suggesting that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were “eating dogs” and “eating cats” to local residents. His claims come just days after his vice presidential candidate, J.D. Vance, made the identical outrageous claims on social media.

Despite repeated fact-checks by ABC News debate moderators, who identified that city officials in the Ohio town had denied any evidence that immigrants actually eat pets, Trump doubled down, saying that “people on TV” were saying that. When pressed, Trump simply said, “We’ll find out.”

In his videoLegend addressed his supporters, saying, “You may have heard about Springfield, Ohio this week. In fact, if you watched the debate, our presidential candidates were talking about us, including a very unique, interesting man named Donald J. Trump.” He then gave some historical context in regards to the city, explaining, “Our city has been shrinking for decades. We didn’t have enough jobs, we didn’t have enough opportunity. So people were leaving and going somewhere else.”

Legend detailed how Springfield’s population “has declined from 75,000 to about 60,000 in recent years. However, with the emergence of new job opportunities under the Biden administration, including manufacturing jobs, the city has seen an influx of Haitian immigrants who have been granted visas for these positions.” He continued, saying, “At the same time, there was upheaval and unrest in Haiti, and the federal government granted visas and immigration status to a certain number of Haitian immigrants so they could legally come to our country.”

The singer said Springfield has added “about 15,000 immigrants” to its population of 60,000. “You can say, ‘Wow, that’s a lot of people.’ For a town that used to have only 60,000, that’s a 25 percent increase. That’s true.”

The singer also acknowledged that integrating a brand new population has its challenges, noting, “You can imagine that integrating a new population, a new language, a new culture, new dietary preferences, has its challenges. There are a lot of reasons why there might be growing pains — making sure there are enough services to accommodate a new, larger population that may need to be bilingual.”

Regardless, Legend said, “Bottom line, these people came to Springfield because there was work for them, they wanted to work and they wanted to fulfill the American dream.”

He compared the stories of those in Springfield to “your German ancestors, your Irish ancestors, your Italian ancestors, your Jewish ancestors, your Jamaican ancestors, your Polish ancestors. All of these ancestors were brought to this country, maybe not speaking the language that everyone else spoke, maybe not eating the same food, maybe having to adapt.” He continued, “But they all came because they saw an opportunity for themselves and their families in the American dream, and they came here to do it.”

Legend then spoke about welcoming immigrants into all communities. “Some facts about immigrants: They tend to do very well here. They’re hardworking, ambitious. They commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans, and over time they assimilate and integrate. But it takes time, so I think we all need to have the same kind of grace that we wish our ancestors had.” He added, “I was raised in a Christian tradition. We said to love your neighbor as yourself and treat strangers as if they could be Christ. How about taking that ethos when we talk about immigrants moving into our communities and not spreading hateful, xenophobic, racist lies about them?”

Legend vehemently rejected Trump’s xenophobic and racist rhetoric, declaring at the top of the video, “Nobody eats cats, nobody eats dogs. We all just want to live, thrive, and raise our families in a healthy and safe environment. How about we love each other?”


This article was originally published on : www.essence.com
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Health and Wellness

Dangers of sleep deprivation

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Most of us are all too acquainted with that dull, drained feeling after an evening of no sleep. But some social media users have taken their tiredness to the acute by collaborating in something they call the “no sleep challenge.”

A 19-year-old YouTuber, Norme, live-streamed his try and break the world record for probably the most consecutive days without sleep. After 250 hours, viewers he expressed concerns about Norme’s health and well-being, but he ultimately managed to realize a “sleep-free” time of 264 hours and 24 minutes.

Norme’s attempt earned him bans from social media platforms YouTube and Kick. However, despite his claims of breaking the world record, his experience was not enough to beat the last Guinness record holder, Robert McDonald, who amassed 453 hours – almost 19 days! – in 1986.

In 1997, Guinness World Records stopped tracking the record for longest time without sleep for safety reasons—and so they were right. Going without sleep for long periods of time may be incredibly dangerous.

Adults should strive for greater than seven hours of sleep a day frequently. Chronic inability to get enough sleep is related to an increased risk many conditions akin to depression, diabetes, obesity, heart attack, hypertension and stroke.

Sleep is a vital part of our each day routine. It allows many of our body systems to rest and give attention to repair and recovery.

During the primary three stages of sleep parasympathetic nervous system – which regulates rest and digestion – takes over. This reduces lowers heart rate and blood pressure.

In the last stage, the rapid eye movement phase (REM), the center activity increases and the eyes move – this stage is crucial for such cognitive functions as creativity, learning and memory. Alcohol Or caffeine Consuming before bed may disrupt sleep cycles.

Sleep deprivation may be acute or chronic. Acute deprivation may occur inside one or two days.

Although it could appear to be a brief period of time, 24 hours of sleep deprivation may cause a greater degree functional impairment than exceeding the alcohol limit. Symptoms of severe sleep deprivation can include puffy eyes or dark circles under the eyes, irritability, cognitive decline, brain fog AND food cravings.

On the second day without sleep, symptoms grow to be more severe, behavioral changes occur, and cognitive function continues to say no. The body’s need for sleep becomes stronger, causing “micro-sleep” – involuntary naps lasting about 30 seconds.

The body’s need for food increases, as do physiological responses akin to: systemic inflammation AND impaired immune responsewhich makes us more prone to disease.

The third 24-hour period may trigger a desperate need for sleep, increasing the likelihood of longer microsleeps, depersonalization – feelings of detachment from reality – and hallucinations. After the fourth day of insomnia, all symptoms grow to be much worse and progress to a state psychosis because of lack of sleep where you might be unable to interpret reality and feel a painful have to sleep.

Recovery from sleep deprivation varies from individual to individual; some people only need a solid night’s sleep to get well. For others, it could take days or even weeks.

However, studies have shown that restorative sleep often doesn’t reverse the metabolic changes that could cause weight gain and decreased insulin sensitivity, even for relatively short periods of sleep deprivation.

Shift employees may be chronically sleep deprived. Shift employees typically work a median of one to 4 hours less sleep per day than people whose working hours fall on daytime hours – which can increase their risk of premature death.

In fact, many studies have shown that too little sleep is related to increased risk of death. However, an excessive amount of sleep can also be related to increased risk of death.

It is subsequently best on your health to avoid social media challenges and as an alternative go for good sleep hygiene to get seven to nine hours of quality sleep. Your body will thanks for it.

This article was originally published on : theconversation.com
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Health and Wellness

new health campaign highlights common source of anxiety

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For most individuals, the every day or near-daily ritual of having a bowel movement isn’t something we give much thought to. However, for some people, the necessity to do a double in a public restroom or at work might be fraught with significant stress and anxiety.

In response to the discomfort people may feel when passing stools at work, the Queensland Department of Health recently launched a social media campaign called ‘It’s OK to poo at work’.

The campaign gained significant popularity Instagram AND Facebook. This was praised by health and marketing experts for his or her witty tackle a taboo topic.

The colourful Instagram post comes with a caption warning of the health risks of “holding on,” including hemorrhoids and other gastrointestinal issues. The caption also includes the next note:

If you might have great difficulty relieving yourself within the presence of other people, it’s possible you’ll be affected by parkinsonism.

What is parkerosis?

Parcopresis, sometimes called “shame bowel”, occurs when people have difficulty or are unable to pass stool in public toilets as a consequence of fear of perceived control from others.

People affected by parkinsonism may have difficulty to make use of the bathroom in public places resembling shopping malls, restaurants, at work or school, and even at home when friends or family are around.

They may fear judgment from others about unpleasant odors or sounds during bowel movements, or how long it takes them to have a bowel movement.

Living with a digestive disease (no less than 4 in ten Australians c) may contribute to parcopresis as a consequence of fear of having to make use of the bathroom steadily and perceived evaluation from others when doing so. Other aspects, resembling past negative experiences or accessibility issues, can also play a task.

Some people may feel uncomfortable using the bathroom at work.
Motortion Films/Shutterstock

People with this condition may experience anxiety through rapid heartbeat, rapid respiratory, sweating, muscle tension, blushing, nausea, tremors, or a mix of these symptoms. They may feel constant anxiety about situations by which they might need to make use of a public restroom.

Living with parcopresis can affect many areas of life and overall quality of life. For example, victims could have difficulties with employment, relationships and social life. They may avoid traveling or attending certain events because of their symptoms.

How common is parkinsonism?

We don’t really know the way common parcopresis is, partly since it’s difficult to evaluate. It’s not necessarily easy or accurate to trace people to see in the event that they’re using or avoiding public restrooms (and why). Furthermore, observing individual bathroom activities can change an individual’s behavior.

AND conducted a study to higher understand how common parcopresis is. The study involved 714 university students. I asked participants to answer a series of vignettes, or scenarios.

In each vignette, participants were informed that they were in a neighborhood shopping center and needed to alleviate themselves. In the vignettes, the bathrooms (which had been recently cleaned) had configurations of two or three toilet stalls. Each vignette varied within the configuration of the available stalls.

Several scenes showing different toilet configurations.
In my research, various methods were used to evaluate parkinsonism.
First published in Current Psychology, Volume 42, Pages 1762–1772, 2023, by Springer Nature

The overall avoidance rate was just over 14%. However, participants were more more likely to avoid using the bathroom when other stalls were occupied.

About 10% avoided walking when all toilets were available. This percentage increased to about 25% when only the center of three toilets was available. Men were significantly less more likely to avoid walking than women in all vignettes.

Many of those that avoided using the bathroom said they might either go home to alleviate themselves, use an accessible disabled toilet, or return when the lavatory was empty.

Parcopresis at work

In the work environment, anxiety levels related to using shared bathrooms could also be higher for several reasons.

For example, people may feel more embarrassed about their bodily functions being heard or observed by peers than they might be by strangers in a public restroom.

People can also feel guilt, shame, and fear of being judged by colleagues or superiors in the event that they should make long or frequent trips to the lavatory. This could also be particularly true for individuals with gastrointestinal disease.

Reducing anxiety related to using the bathroom

Using a public toilet can understandably cause some anxiety or be unpleasant. However, for a small minority of people it could possibly be an actual problem, causing serious anxiety and affecting their ability to perform on a regular basis activities.

If pooping in the lavatory at work or in one other public place makes you anxious, be kind to yourself. Just a few strategies might help:

  • discover and query negative thoughts about using public toilets and remind yourself that using the lavatory is normal and that the majority people don’t concentrate to others in toilets

  • try to administer stress with rest techniques resembling deep respiratory and progressive muscle restwhich involves tensing and relaxing various muscles within the body

  • getting involved in gradual exposure it could possibly be helpful, which suggests visiting public toilets at different times and places, so you may gain confidence in using them

  • use grounding or distraction techniques when using the bathroom. These may include listening to musicwatching something in your phone or specializing in your respiratory.

If you are feeling like you might have parcopressive symptoms, significant impact in your life, seek advice from your loved ones doctor or psychologist who might help determine appropriate treatment approaches. This may include cognitive behavioral therapy.


This article was originally published on : theconversation.com
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