Health For All: 2012

Lens.com Contact Lens Online Shopping Guide

Lens.com is one of the largest providers and sellers of contact lenses internationally. If you're looking for major brands and types of contact lenses at the lowest prices, you can find them at Lens.com.

The popular brands that Lens.com carries are the following:

1-Day Acuvue Moist

1-Day Acuvue TruEye

Acuvue Advance

Acuvue Advance for Astigmatism

Acuvue Oasys

Acuvue Oasys for Astigmatism

Air Optix Aqua

Air Optix Aqua Multifocal

Air Optix for Astigmatism

Air Optix Night & Day Aqua

Biofinity

Biofinity Toric

Biomedics 38

Biomedics 55

Dailies AquaComfort Plus

Focus Dailies

Focus Monthly

Focus Night and Day

FreshLook ColorBlends

Fresh Look One Day

O2 Optix

Proclear Compatibles

PureVision

PureVision Multifocal

SofLens 38

SofLens Toric

Low prices at Lens.com are possible due to their being a direct-to-consumer contact lens provider company. Lens.com only sells contact lenses that include a valid prescription being mainly a contact lens replacement hub. Contact lenses are ordered online by customers and Lens.com ships the ordered contact lenses at customer's address. This saves a good deal of time and money especially for the contact lens buyer.

Customers who are looking for discounts will be glad to know thatLens.com discounts and coupon codes are regularly offered through their website and through other online merchants

Lens.com Return Policies

Lens.com offers a 30-day return policy which allows the customer to return unsatisfactory products for exchange or full refund within 30 days from date of order. Items return must be unopened, unmarked and sealed to be able to qualify as a valid return. The original cost of shipping, handling, or return shipping charges are not refundable.

Shipping Policies and Rates

Lens.com ships internationally thru standard shipping and FedEx.

Shipping Rates for the United States,

Standard shipping - $7.95

FedEx 2 Day - $14.95

FedEx Overnight - $20.95

Shipping Rates for Canada

Standard shipping - $12.95

FedEx Intl. Express - $24.95

International Shipping Rates

Standard International - $19.95

FedEx Intl. Express - $35.99

Warranties and Guarantees

Lens.com guarantees that exact kind of and brand of contact lenses specified in the original order are the ones that will be delivered to the customer. Every pair of contact lenses will be delivered sealed in the original packaging provided by the manufacturer free of any factory defects, if not, then the total purchase can be refunded or replaced without any extra cost.

Lens.com Customer Service Contact Details

Customer Service

Toll-Free Phone: 1-800 LENS.COM (536-7266)

International Phone: 1-573-754-3600

Fax: 1-800-401-1495

Email: Service@Lens.com

Customer Service Hours

Monday to Friday 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM CST

Saturday 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM CST

Prescription Verification Department

Toll-Free Phone: 1-888-393-7606

Toll-Free Fax: 1-800-401-1495

Email: myRx@Lens.com

Mailing Address

Lens.com, Inc.

P. O. Box 366

Louisiana, MO 63353

Steps and Techniques in Creative Self Massage

Try these self-massage techniques to help relax you mind and body.

Here are the basic steps in self-massage:

Eyeglasses and contact lenses should be removed before starting the massage.
Be attentive to your body’s needs. Let your body tell you what feels good.
Start by rubbing your hands together to generate heat and energy in them.
Place your warmed hands on your face and let them stay there for a few seconds.
Move your hands over the surface of your face moving your fingertips in circular motions then gently pull the skin in different directions. You may also gently knead, slap, and follow your face contours using finger pressure.
Run your fingers through your hair.
You may tap your skull vigorously with your fingertips. Lightly scratch your scalp with your fingernails. Gently grasp your hair by the roots to firmly move the scalp towards different directions.
Gently move hands over hair, ears, face, and neck while talking to yourself in reassuring and positive words.
Enjoy the moment and be creative.
Massage your gums through your cheeks and lips.
Give yourself a facial treatment. Place hot towels over your face to open up pores.
Cleanse your face using warm water and gentle soap. Rinse thoroughly with warm water followed by splashes of cold water.
Moisturize your face using natural oils such as olive oil, avocado, wheat germ, or almond.

Here are other creative suggestions for self massage. Modify as needed.

Using a tennis ball, apply pressure under your hand, rolling it over your feet and any muscular part of your body.
Barefooted and seated, roll the bottom of your foot over a golf ball. You may also fill a basin with marbles and warm water and rub your feet over them.
Perform a dry brush massage or loofa massage. Choose a brush with bristles that are not too firm. With circular motions, start massaging from the soles of your feet and work your way up to your neck.
Try experimenting with textures and feel how different parts of your body respond to various textures. Try fur, silk scarf, terry cloth, flannel cloth, fluffy cotton, etc. You may also try this with a partner.
Other massaging effects can be achieved using massage oils, wooden roller, a vibrator, etc. Just be creative.

Product Review for Botanic Choice Herbal Products

When it comes to health and beauty, natural is the best. Botanic Choice is one company that provides nutritional supplements, fresh herbs, vitamins, and various herbal products in the USA since 1910. The founder, Joseph E. Meyer, founded the company under the name Indiana Botanic Gardens, Inc. To this day, under the leadership of Tim Cleland (great-grandson of Joseph E. Meyer), the company, which has been named Botanic Choice is currently the largest retail merchant of herbal products by mail worldwide.>>> MORE

Their wide range of products are categorized mainly as the following:

Men's Health
Women's Health
Energy Boosters
Antioxidants
Multivitamins
Sexual Health
Bladder Health
Thyroid Health
and many other health concerns

Get Botanic Choice Discount Coupons HERE

Skin Cancer From Overexposure to Direct Sunlight

Everyone loves to be outdoors during a sunny day. Although being in the sun might make us feel good, we all recognize that too much time spent in the sun can sooner or later cause wrinkling and worse, skin cancer. Wrinkles, which are in fact signs of skin damage and aging, make you look and feel older than you really are. Skin is among the most important organs of the body. Wrinkles indicate that the skin is losing the elastin that keeps it young and healthy. Sunshine is essential for our bodies to turn specific types of cholesterol in foods into vitamin D, a significant nutrient that helps decrease aging of the immune and cardiovascular systems. The liver and kidneys then change vitamin D into vitamin D3, the active form of the vitamin. Ten to twenty minutes of sunlight each day seems to be the optimal amount that each of us requires.

Regrettably, a lot of people live in areas where the sun isn't adequate for them to receive this benefit. It takes a fair amount of energy from the sun to turn the cholesterol precursors of vitamin D to vitamin D3 just any old sunshine won't be enough. Actually, anyone who lives north of Raleigh, North Carolina, will not get this benefit of the sun starting October 1 to April 15, because the sun doesn't have plenty of energy throughout this period to convert precursor vitamin D to vitamin D3. If you are living in the North, or in the South but unable to get some sun each day, you must take 400 IU of vitamin D daily, or 600 IU if you're over sixty years of age. Reports on mood elevation indicate that sunlight and exposure to broad-spectrum light help enhance our mood. Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and other forms of depression can be improved by exposure to sunlight. So a bit of sun is good.

How much is too much?

Skin cancer comes into mind regarding sunlight exposure. As a universal rule, your risk of skin cancer is determined by the amount of sun exposure you received thirty years back, not how much sun you're exposed to presently, since it takes some time for these cancers to grow into clinically significant events. Those who had serious sunburns as kids are at much higher risk of skin cancer than those who never burned. Nevertheless, just because the sun exposure you got as a child is the most crucial to your risk of skin cancer does not mean you can be careless as an adult. If you plan to be in the sun for more than 10 or 20 minutes a day, take some precautionary measures.

Too much sun ages us since exposure to ultraviolet light ruins elastin and elevates wrinkles. It also harms the chromosomes in skin cells. Chromosomes are the strands of DNA found in each cell in your body. If you look through a microscope at sun-damaged skin cells, you will see literal breaks in the chromosomes where they've been damaged by solar radiation. Astonishingly, the sun can even damage the chromosomes in cells indirectly exposed to sunlight. This chromosomal damage can lead to cancers.

There are two types of skin cancers: basal cell cancers, and squamous cell cancers. Even though these skin cancers are seldom fatal and can typically be removed surgically without major aging backlashes, they are usually disfiguring. Still, there is a third type of skin cancer that is much subtler. Malignant melanomas are quite serious and can be fatal. About 54,000 cases are reported annually.

How Antioxidants Fight Skin Aging

While oxidants and antioxidants are viewed to be among the most essential elements of vitamins in the past, new research shows that oxidation might not be the primary cause of arterial aging. It could be that anti-inflammatory attributes are more important factors in creating the chief anti-aging benefits of vitamins; it is still not yet known for sure that anti-oxidation alone is creditworthy for the main benefit.

Although antioxidants aren't the magic bullet that was first thought, they still bear excellent value, since they supposedly could help prevent the damage from oxidation that has been tied to cancers and other sorts of aging. Taking the right quantities of antioxidant vitamins C and E, for instance, can make your physiological age one year younger. Still, a lot of people wrongly think that little bit of antioxidant is good, a lot is much better. Too many antioxidants, particularly the wrong type, can in fact cause oxidation and its subsequent impairment. It is recommended to use antioxidants in moderation.

To better understand antioxidants, let's consider oxygen. Oxygen is needed for our bodies to function in the least. Breathing is key to living. As we breathe, oxygen enters the bloodstream and is transmitted to our cells. When it gets into your cells, oxygen builds the foundation of several of the cells' most basic processes. This same oxygen, all the same, in the form of unstable molecules or ions known as oxygen radicals (or free radicals), could oxidize tissues— that is, induce those tissues to "rust." As an effect, oxygen waste products, known as lipofuscins, build up inside the organs like the heart and brain, leaving brown stain on the tissues. Do these waste products induce or impart to aging or age-related disease, or are they only innocent by-products?

Oxidation itself might not be the primary problem. There could be a more fundamental problem like inflammation, or something else that induces immune dysfunction. Whatever the cause, these brown patches are indications of aging. As one ages, the more prevalent they turn out.

Think of apples. When you slice an apple and allow it to sit out in the air, it would soon become brown. When exposed to air, the surface of the apple oxidizes (mixes with oxygen). This process is the same as what occurs when oxygen radicals build up inside our body. Take that same apple and sprinkle lemon juice on the slices, they will remain white. The apple doesn't become brown since lemon juice is full of vitamin C, which acts as an antioxidant. Lemon juice prevents the oxidation process and keeps the apple from "rusting." Inside our body, antioxidants like vitamins C and E do the exact same thing.

© 2012 Tip Writer

How Was Insulin Discovered?

If Otto Folin of Harvard had figured out his testing for blood glucose in 1908 rather than in 1913, the use of insulin could have been practiced years earlier. Medical history, just like most historical data, has a lot of bitter ironies as well as happy accidents. Insulin, or something very much like it, was extracted from the pancreas by a German scientist, Georg Zuelzer in 1908. This fluid was injected into several dogs and the unfortunate animals perished. Zuelzer, not able to know precisely why the dogs died, decided that the substance was very dangerous.

Further test would have indicated that the insulin extract had stimulated a rapid a drop in blood glucose level that the dogs suffered from extreme insulin shock. Even without the blood-sugar test, if Zuelzer injected it on diabetic instead of healthy dogs during the tests, his extract will have produced relief of symptoms rather than shock. And Zuelzer would now be among the medical heroes, not an obscure man of science whose name is nearly forgotten.

Still another tryst with immortality finished in a narrow escape when an an insulin extract was developef by Israel S. Kleiner of New York and J. R. Murlin of Rochester, N. Y. Similar with Zuelzer's experiment, the blood test that could have shown the importance of the work was not yet available.

Many researchers have helped in the advancement of medicine when Frederick G. Banting entered the scene. In 1889 Minkowski and von Mering showed that the extraction of the pancreas brought on a diabetes-like disease in a dog. Opie of Johns Hopkins had described in 1900 that in diabetics, there was retrogression in the islets of Langerhans, those deep small cells in the pancreas.

Learn more about the origins of insulin HERE

Understanding the Conditions of Children With Diabetes

Juvenile diabetics generally have a difficult and complex dilemma. The younger the patient, the bigger and more exacting attention is required to control the disease.

Occurrences of ketosis and coma increase in frequency and become more erratic in children due to of their lower reserves of carbohydrates. And, because the relentless demands of growth, food reduction is not an acceptable treatment for children. Insulin becomes imperative.

Diabetic children sometimes show irregular subsiding of symptoms after the initial stages of therapy. This could last for several months. But the demand for insulin invariably returns and, with the uncommon exceptions where a shift to an oral medication is possible, remains permanent.

As the diabetic child grows and hits adolescence, emotional disturbances related to the disease are frequently expected to develop. Different matters are implied here—the tyranny of everyday insulin shots, the requirement to eat at rigid schedules, the restrictions against sweets and candies which their non-diabetic peers are free to enjoy, anxiety concerning too much physical activity (which may induce insulin shock) or too little (which could lead to diabetic coma).

These and other factors resulting from his "difference" from other youngsters—if they're accentuated—may contribute to the tensions and stress of the child who is diabetic. This, successively, may agitate the basic instability of the disease and add to its severity.

As treatment of the disease improves, and understanding grows, many juvenile diabetics carry on productive and active lives through adulthood, get married and raise families. Quantify this versus the days prior to insulin invention when the juvenile diabetic was bound to perish within two years after the attack of the disease.

Common Symptoms of Juvenile Diabetes

Juvenile diabetes, when it develops during childhood, can be easily recognizable. Often it begins showing the standard symptoms. In cases where it has not been promptly recognized, the fault typically lies with the parents who are either unaware of medical progresses or who are unable to emotionally accept their child's condition.

Bed-wetting is commonly the initial symptom to diabetes in a child. Unfortunately, a lot of parents only consider this as a behavioral disorder which is often punished either physically or verbally. The other symptom is an insatiable thirst which could not be satisfied even with large amounts of water, juice, soda, or other fluids. Next comes extreme hunger and loss of weight. Growing children are normally hungry many times in a day. But if their normal hunger is intensified, and they are losing instead of gaining weight, the craving may be caused by diabetes rather than the normal growth demands.

At this point, with these symptoms such as bed-wetting, thirst, hunger, and weight loss, the parents should surely be aware that something is wrong with the child and that an immediate consultation with the doctor is necessary. All in all, too many children are not perceived as diabetic until the disease becomes so severe that the young victim go into diabetic coma and need to be hospitalized.