Shopping Maniac

Great products, Bargains and gift ideas


You are here: Home / Archives for The Shopping Maniac

Hormone Replacement Therapy Side Effects

by






The results of the second part of the Women’s Health Initiative (WIH), a federal study on hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and breast cancer, were released December 13, 2008 at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. The new findings show that a much higher risk of breast cancer is one of several hormone replacement therapy side effects.

HRT Side Effects

The results of this new study indicate that the risks of HRT far outweigh the benefits for most women. Hormone replacement therapy includes estrogen and progestin, which doctors though would help women to avoid heart disease, bone loss, and other post-menopausal problems.

The WIH had two parts. More than 16,000 women, matched by weight, age, and other health factors, participated in the first study. These women were randomly assigned to a group that took estrogen and progestin pills, or or to one that took a placebo.

The researchers found much higher risks of heart problems and breast cancer in women using female hormone replacement therapy. In fact, the risk of breast cancer increased by 26% among women using HRT, espcially for those women who used HRT for five years or more. This finding caused an early end to the first part of the WIH in 2002.

All the questions researchers had weren’t answered, however. Did women who started on HRT when they first entered menopause in their 50’s, and who used HRT for shorter periods of time, still face higher risks of breast cancer and heart disease? Most of the women in the first study were in their 60s and well past menopause.

In the new study, researchers followed over 15,000 women who met the new criteria through July 2005. The researchers kept track of breast cancer cases as they occurred over time.

The results? The risk of breast cancer increased when women started HRT, hit a high point when the study ended, and then fell as nearly all the women stopped taking estrogen and progestin pills. Results at the high point showed that the breast cancer risk for HRT users was twice that of the others.

Hormone Replacement Therapy And Safety?

Conventional medical practioners are quick to reassure their patients that most women won’t get breast cancer if they use HRT for a short time. They say that the increased cancer risk from using HRT for two years amounts to only a few extra cases of breast cancer per year for every 1000 women using estrogen and progestin pills.

That’s easy to say, but what if you’re one of the women who develops breast cancer. Plus the risk of breast cancer does go up the longer a woman uses HRT.

Natural Treatment For Menopause

Women have always gone through menopause. This is nothing new. It’s a normal part of every woman’s life. Menopause is not an illness and shouldn’t be treated like one.

For centuries women have used herbal remedies for menopause. These natural remedies have few, if any, side effects.

The link between HRT and breast cancer is a subject women should know more about. Natural menopause treatments are readily available and quite inexpensive. It may be possible to find relief from common menopause symptoms without increasing your risk of breast cancer.






Three Things to Consider About Instant Wrinkle Removers

by

It seems like every time you turn your head there are new instant wrinkle removers on the market. The truth is that the use of any of these products for one night will instantly remove the wrinkles. You must do your homework to do your own homework to find out which product is best for you even though a celebrity will claim that their product is the best for healing wrinkles. You can find some great producsts to make you look younger as long as you ae not expecting miraculous, instant results.

If you want a product for healing wrinkles, what should you look for? The top three reasons that you should (or should not!) buy a skin care product.

1. Does the product address your needs?

You may be concerned about sagging skin that is highlighted by your wrinkles. Or you may have bags under your eyes. For a variety of reasons, instant wrinkle removers appeals to both men and women. Choose the product that addresses your specific problem. Any reputable company will have a few specific well done products that addresses each skin care need.

2. The products contain what chemicals?

Many companies that say their products are superior for healing wrinkles use harsh chemicals that can damage your skin more. Look at the ingredients. One chemical that is in many skin care products is dioxane. Dioxane is considered a carcinogen by the state of California. Do you want to put a cancer causing agent on your skin? Something that may also damage your skin is the fragrances in that in instant wrinkle removers. And even after years of research that proves that alcohol dries your skin, some of the leading skin care companies continue to put alcohol in their products.

3. Any product that has many high-paying celebrity endorsements is one that you must be aware of.

Likely these skin care companies are spending more money on marketing than on research. When large amounts of cash are offered, even celebritites will stretch the truth about instant wrinkle removers. Do you want to buy products from a company that cares more about making money by selling a product or a company that sells a quality product? Before you are swayed by celebritites, please research products that are for healing wrinkles on the Internet.

If you need a product that will help in healing wrinkles, will you let yourself be taken in by celebrities that tell you your skin is bad. Here is some advice: Find a product with CoQ10, which is not found in many of those advertised products that claim to be instant wrinkle removers. This ingredient is a powerful anti-oxidant that works like a vitamin on your skin. One form, Nano-Lipobelle H-EQ10, penetrates deep into the skin. You will see the results after a few days of use.

Cellulite – what to do?

by

When it comes to looks and appearance, cellulite is probably one of  the worst issues to deal with. But exactly what is it, and why do women seem to suffer more from cellulite than men, and some women more than others? And  is there anything you can do about it? Here you might find some answers to this problem.

When fat is  stored in the body resulting in the skin appealing lumpy and uneven, you are likely to suffer from cellulite. It is often called orange peel skin,  resembling the look of skin being pinched. In general, cellulite is more commonly found on the hips, buttocks and legs, more than other parts of the  body.

The difficult truth about cellulite is that it is made up of exactly the same kind of fat, or ‘adipose tissue’, as any  other. Adipose tissue  sweeps up fat that the body wants to store as an extra amount of energy. When the  blood is exposed to a high concentration of sugar for a very long time, coming from calories, the body stores this in adipose  tissue.

What gives cellulite its characteristic appearance is the fact that the adipose tissue almost squeezes itself in between the  rather stringy connective tissue that makes up the skin. It is a little bit like butter being squeezed through a  knitted sweater. The butter will come squeezing through the various holes in between the strands of wool and you’ll get an  effect very like cellulite in the body.

It particularly affects women because we put on fat in a totally different way to men. In men, adipose tissue settles more around the waist and abdomen, as well as close to internal organs.  Women however, tend to build up adipose tissue around hips and thighs, and this is more likely to create visible  cellulite. Also,  the adipose tissue squeezes through connective tissue if it is more elastic, and sadly as we all get older, our connective  tissue tends to loosen up.

But enough of the science – how to get rid of Cellulite?  The key is simply to lose weight and there are two main ways to do this. Firstly, use up more energy than you put into your body as calories. It is useful  to exercise, as using up energy is only one result of exercising. The metabolic rate in your body will increase with aerobic exercises done regularly,  resulting in using up more energy stored in the body. It also helps improve muscle tone.  As working  the muscle fibres in the skin results in tighter muscles, cellulite will become less visible.

Losing weight can also be achieved by making sure your blood sugar levels are stable,  when avoiding eating all those lovely sugary things we like so much. To achieve this, it is best to  stay away from foods containing lots of sugar, French fries, white bread that has been processed, noodles, rice and alcohol.  As the body needs blood with a high concentration of sugar to be able to store fat, it will be  physically impossible to gain weight.

Massage and creams that hydrate the skin are also used often. T hese will have the effect of swelling the skin around the cellulite to temporarily reduce the lumpyness associated with  it. There is no long-lasting substitute for a low-calorie, low sugar diet that is fairly high in protein, fruit  and vegetables however. Treating cellulite is the same as treating any other fat in the lobby – the only ways to fight it are exercise and diet.

Educational Opportunities in Top Video Games

by

Who knew that a form of entertainment like playing top video games would improve the minds of the gamers that play them! Amid all the amazing graphis, wonderful music, and the addictive plots in video games, educational opportunities are present, and to locate them you only need to pay close attention and look a bit closer.

1. Video games improve strategic thinking. Unusual is the video game that does not need the player to decide plays two or three steps ahead of the immediate situation. With constant play, players quickly learn the advantage of strategic thinking and they start to apply it to actual world opportunities.

2. Video games can help improve problem solving skills. Although the same could be said about any game, video games have proven in study after study to improve problem-solving skills. This is due to most games being centered on a problem and the challenge it presents a play to solve it. In onlyone game, a gamer can be required to solve up to a hundred different problems.

3. Video games improve hand and eye coordination. If you are skepitical about this, simply pick up a video game controller and attempt to move around the game. Maneuvering the game controller requires the same or better skills then it requires to manipulate a mouse around a computer screen.

4. Video games facilitate quick decision-making. One quality of video games that lends to quick decision making is its impromptu situations. There is always the element of surprise around the corner and it makes games intriguing to play. To win players need to make intelligent decision quickly.

5. Video games feed the imagination. We don’t really understand the argument against things like television, videos, and gaming where people use the lack of imagination to support their part of the debate. Some people claim that video games take away from the imagination because games supply the mind with things instead of encouraging the mind to come up with these things on their own. Bear in mind that these are the same people who say a stack of blocks is sufficient to grow a child’s imagination. Of course we couldn’t disagree more. The imagery in video games only fuels the imagination and gives it a spring board to form new possibilities that might not have occurred otherwise.

6. Video games are also a great way to encourage exploration. In role playing games, the players must learn to leave the known path and explore the unknown. Players must open doors never knowing what lies behind them. They have to enter areas of the game without knowing the consequence. And they have to interact with characters that they’ve never met before. Inside these particular kinds of games, the opportunity to gather up the courage to explorer unknown territory isn’t just available, it’s required.

7. Video games will reinforce memorization. Another feature of video games is its strong influence on memorization. The terraine represented in some video games is extremely large, however accessing the maps can be disruptive to the game. To make up for this, gamers will memorize a portion of terrain and the tasks required to get to certain areas.

8. Video games teach consequence. Video games, like computer games, operate off an action/reaction principle. Do something, and the game will react. This is a great opportunity to learn about consequence – whether this opportunity is experienced from a gamer’s point of view or a programmer’s point of view.

9. Video games teach endurance, patience, and dedication. No great game can be conquered in a day. Some of the top video games can take weeks or months to complete.

These are just a few of the eductional opportunities hidden away inside computer and top video games. With closer exploration, we are positive you will find more then hours of fun and amazement.

Wedding Rings: Research Before You Shop

by

Judging custom wedding rings is to a large degree, admittedly, a subjective affair. You either like the look or you don’t. But when adding in factors of cost, durability and the like, it’s helpful to be aware of some objective criteria used by the pros. You’ll want your personalized ring choice to be a good one. Fine personalized jewelry is not something you want to buy uninformed.

WEIGHT

It is often misunderstood that, while diamonds are measured in carats, gold is measured in karats. This is an indication of the purity, rather than a measure of the weight or the size. Rings made of 14k gold actually consist of 14/24 pure gold which makes it about 58% pure. Platinum’s purity hase a measurement scale between 900 and 950 out of 1000. This translates to a 950PT wedding ring being 95% pure platinum.

Note that the remainder is often comprised of chemically similar though equally valuable metals. While lower numbers can be found, they won’t be found in fine jewelry wedding rings.

A diamond, by contrast, is measured in carats (ct), ranging from near zero and up. 1 carat = 200 mg, a measure of mass. A diamond that is less than one eighth of a carat is considered a chip. Partly, the reason is the difficulty of faceting and polishing such a small stone in order to bring out a diamond’s effects.

A diamond that isn’t fully faceted or properly shaped is known as a “chip.”. They can result from accidents or the crystal structure that makes cutting and polishing nearly impossible. But the smaller the stone, the more difficult this becomes. So, most chips are in the range stated.

The Cullnan diamond, weighing in at about 3106 carats, is the biggest individual gem-quality diamond ever discovered. It was cut down into the egg-shaped stone that sits in the scepter of England, itself about 525 carats.

But there are many other factors that influence the cost and look of a fine diamond intended to sit in an engagement ring or wedding band.

CLARITY

A diamond is judged by professionals on how ‘clear’ it is, and the stone is then placed into a category.

FL, IF – Flawless, or Internally Flawless represents the highest grade in this area. Such stones are extremely rare and hence invariably very expensive.

VVS1, VVS2 – These ratings represent a diamond which is only ‘very very slightly included’. ‘Included’ means, essentially, occluded or cloudy. Inclusions of non-diamond material or structure are responsible for lack of perfect clarity. Despite the ominous sounding word, these gems are very high quality. The flaws can only barely be seen under 10x magnification.

VS1, VS2 – Very Slightly Included ratings represent high quality stones. No flaw is visible to the naked eye.

SI1, SI2 – Slightly Included gems contains flaws that are visible under 10x magnification and may just barely be seen by those with very sharp eyes. Beyond having good eyesight, though, one needs to know what to look for. Generally, non-experts won’t notice much of anything.

I1, I2, I3 – These are mediocre quality stones that may still look very nice. But they have visible flaws when one looks closely that will reduce the brilliance of the stone’s appearance.

COLOR

Clarity is actually a separate measure from color. Diamonds are usually considered a colorless stone, but diamonds come in a wide variety of colors. Fashions change and in one era what might be considered a flaw will be highly valued by the next generation. The color is produced by small ‘impurities’ mixed into the carbon structure that makes up diamond.

A 200-carat blue diamond in the Smithsonian (the Hope Diamond), for example, is valued not only for its unusually large size. Its rare and pure color is also a significant factor.

Blue, pink and yellow are among the most common colors found in ring stones.

D stones are completely colorless and correspondingly rare.

E diamonds are also considered colorless. Any impurities are in trace amounts detectable only by experts with special tools. Still very rare.

F are also graded colorless, but a slight color may be seen by an expert.

G-H are near colorless. Non-experts can detect some shading if they look closely, but these can still be high quality diamonds.

I-J Near colorless diamonds in which the color is slightly detectable. Still a very good value.

K-M are stones in which the color is highly noticeable. Observe, though, that these ratings are for diamonds that are ranked according to how little color they have. As a result, many will find a yellow diamong quite beautiful.

What’s important is to have the color be uniform. Small spots of color are still considered a flaw by most everyone. Of course, that too is simply a matter of taste and some future trendsetter may decide such diamonds are worth even more.

CUT

It is challenging to give a ranking to the quality or price of a diamond based on the cut of the gem. This is due to the fact that detemining the “best” cut is really a matter of personal preference. The different cuts – round, oval, square, princess – are all equally beautiful and choice simply depends on personal preference. Other common shapes are the Marquise (a type of elongated stone), the Pear, Emerald cut, Trilliant (a wedge shape), Radiant, Cushion and Heart shaped.

Diamon experts have much more specific criteria and will evaluate the different angles and the facet numbers. The Radiant, for example, has 70 facets while the Trilliant has 25 on the crown and 19 on the pavilion. But these details need not concern wedding ring buyers.

Meta

Pages