What is Global Warming ?

Global warming is perhaps the most important environmental problem in the world today. Levels of greenhouse gases are increasing in the atmosphere due to human activities, and are changing the composition of the atmosphere and global warming. Climate scientists agree that human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels contribute to the problem.



What is global warming - Clearly detailed

Scientists have predicted the phenomemon of global warming for decades. Unfortunately, some of the adverse effects of global warming, they have also predicted begin to occur throughout the world, including:

* growing incidence of droughts in some areas, floods in others;
* The rising temperatures of oceans and the sea level;
* increase extreme weather events such as tornadoes and hurricanes;
* The melting of mountain glaciers and the reduction of snow cover;
* Dying coral reefs, and
* Coastal erosion, and loss of coastal ecosystems.

While a handful of skeptics continue to discuss science, the World 'scientists agree: science is in. Global warming is happening.


What is global warming

What scientists say:

The Intergovernmental Group of Experts on International Climate Change (IPCC), an organization of more than 2000 climate scientists , has produced three scientific assessments concerning climate change and, in each, has concluded that global warming occurs, and is related to human activity. Their latest report (January 2001) stated that: "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities."

The US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) concluded in June 2001 that: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth 'atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing air temperatures on the surface and subsurface of the Ocean temperatures on the rise. Temperatures are, in fact increasing. "And he added: " national policy decisions made now and in the longer-term future will influence the extent of any damage suffered by vulnerable populations and ecosystems later in this century. "

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) issued an unprecedented alert in July 2003 warning that " Extreme weather events Might Increase "in the world. The alert tied a record number of extreme weather events such as tornadoes and heat waves in 2003 to global warming. The alert said: "Record extremes in weather and climate events continue to occur around the world. Recent scientific assessments indicate that, as the global temperatures continue to warm due to climate change, the number and intensity of extreme events might increase. "Here in the United States, some states are taking action. The private sector is also responding to this challenge.

What is global warming
What is the United States about global warming?

The Bush administration, unfortunately, has turned its back on this problem. Shortly after taking office in 2001, President Bush went back on a campaign promise to regulate carbon emissions from the power plants (a major source of pollution to global warming). The Climate Change Plan announced by President Bush in February 2002, calls for a 18 percent reduction of greenhouse gases "intensity " in 2012, which translates into a 14 per cent more greenhouse gases during this period. As pointed out by the US General Accounting Office (GAO) in October, 2003 report, however, the "plan " represents virtually 'business as usual. 'The report states: "While the emissions of greenhouse gases in the United States rose Significantly, the Energy Information Administration of the United States reported that the emission intensity has been generally declining steadily since 50 years. "The Bush Climate Change Plan allows greenhouse gases continue to rise while the long decline in emissions intensity is also continued.

Fortunately, the United States Congress are beginning to demand action in the light of the continued blocking of the Bush administration. In the very first Senate vote on a mandate of the American policy cuts greenhouse gases, which took place in October 2003, 43 members of the Senate voted in favor of the measure, with 55 voting members of the objection. The authors of legislation, Senator from Arizona John McCain and Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut have promised to push for another vote on the bill, the Climate Stewardship Act, in 2004, and believe that they may even have enough votes for the measure to pass the Senate.

Source From : http://www.effectofglobalwarming.com/what-is-global-warming.html

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Children's illness: Top 5 causes of missed school

Why do children get sick so often? When can they return to school?

Childhood illness may not affect your family life until your child starts child care or school. After that, though, it may seem like he or she is sick all the time. This pattern is normal as your child builds a robust immune system. Resistance to infection develops only after exposure to a multitude of germs.

Young children in large groups are breeding grounds for the organisms that cause illness. Little hands rub drippy noses, and then transfer infectious agents to other children or to shared toys. Here's a lineup of the top five infectious illnesses that keep children home from school or child care.

1. Colds

The most common childhood illnesses are upper respiratory infections — colds and other viral ailments that affect the throat, nose and sinuses. While adults average two to four colds a year, children typically have six to 10. Children also tend to have more severe and longer lasting symptoms than do adults.

Studies have shown no benefit from treating children's colds with antihistamines, decongestants or cough suppressants. The only medications that might ease the discomfort of a bad cold are acetaminophen (Tylenol, others) and ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin, others), which reduce fever. Do not give your children aspirin because it may trigger Reye's syndrome, a rare but potentially fatal disease.


2. The stomach flu (gastroenteritis)

The second most common childhood illness is gastroenteritis, more commonly known as the stomach flu. This childhood illness causes vomiting and diarrhea, and can lead to dehydration, particularly in very young children. Signs and symptoms of dehydration include:

* Excessive thirst
* Dry mouth
* Little or no urine, or dark yellow urine
* Decreased tears
* Severe weakness or lethargy

Oral rehydration solutions, such as Pedialyte, can help replace lost fluids, minerals and salts. When you reintroduce food, start with easy-to-digest items — broth, toast, bananas and rice. Avoid dairy products.

Many parents assume that any kind of stomach upset in a child is the result of a contagious illness when the real culprit is simple indigestion or constipation. Some children get stomachaches when they're worried about things, either at home or at school. The dread of facing a bully or of taking a test, for example, can make a child's stomach hurt. It's important for a doctor to determine the cause of a child's digestive symptoms before prescribing treatment.

3. Ear infection (otitis media)

Ear infections most often occur in children under the age of 2, but the problem can also be common between the ages of 5 and 6 — triggered by the respiratory illnesses picked up in kindergarten or first grade. Colds or allergies cause congestion, which may squeeze shut your child's eustachian tube, the tiny drainage pipe for the middle ear. Fluid trapped in the middle ear can become a breeding ground for viruses or bacteria.

It can be difficult to distinguish between ear infections caused by bacteria and those caused by viruses. The distinction is important, however, because antibiotics will cure bacterial — but not viral — infections. And using antibiotics when they aren't necessary has serious consequences, most notably fueling the emergence of bacteria strains with built-in resistance to many of the drugs that fight infection. For that reason, doctors today often wait to see if an ear infection will clear up on its own before prescribing antibiotics.

If your child has chronic ear infections, you may want to consider having a small tube placed in the eardrum, to help drain the excess fluid inside the middle ear.

4. Pink eye (conjunctivitis)

Pink eye (conjunctivitis) is an inflammation of the clear membrane that covers the white part of the eye and lines the inner surface of the eyelids. When caused by viruses or bacteria, conjunctivitis is highly contagious. It is typically treated with antibiotic eyedrops or ointment. Warm or cool compresses may ease your child's discomfort.

5. Sore throat

Most sore throats are caused by viruses and are usually associated with other respiratory signs and symptoms, such as a runny nose and cough. But about 15 percent of children's sore throats are caused by streptococci — bacteria that cause strep throat.

Fevers above 101 F are common in strep throat, and swallowing can be so painful that your child may have difficulty eating. Antibiotics are required to combat strep throat. Left untreated, strep bacteria eventually can trigger an abnormal immune response, which is responsible for rheumatic fever. Complications of rheumatic fever include damaged heart valves and stiff, swollen joints.

Prevention

Your child's sneezes and coughs spray germs into the air, sometimes landing right on other children, who are then infected. Or a child's hand can become a vehicle carrying viruses and bacteria from toys and other well-handled objects to the eyes, nose or mouth — the usual points of entry for germs that cause illness.

The single most important thing your child can do to prevent illness is to wash his or her hands thoroughly and frequently. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people wash their hands with soap and warm water for 15 seconds — about as long as it takes to sing the "Happy Birthday" song twice.

Alcohol-based hand sanitizers also can keep hands clean. They come in disposable hand wipes or in gel form and require no water.

How long should sick kids stay home?

As a parent, you can help prevent the spread of illness by not sending a sick child to school or child care. Each facility generally has its own rules, but most won't let children attend if they have a fever of more than 100.4 F, are vomiting or have diarrhea. In addition, some facilities require that children with strep throat or pink eye be on antibiotic therapy for 24 hours before returning.

Generally, though, children can return to school when they:

* Have no fever
* Can eat and drink normally
* Are rested and alert enough to pay attention in class
* Have completed any period of medically recommended isolation

Resistance comes with time

Despite your best efforts, your child is going to get sick — especially during his or her first few years of contact with larger groups of children. But a child's immunity improves with time. School-age children gradually become less prone to common illnesses and recover more quickly from the diseases they do catch.

Source from : http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/childrens-conditions/CC00059

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Caffeine ( Coffee Poison )

Don't drink, smoke, or do drugs? Think you've got no vices? Think again. If you drink coffee, tea, cola or indulge in the occasional piece of chocolate, then you're using a drug. Believe it or not, caffeine has the same pharmacological effects on the body as many of the substances we associate with doing harm. Of course, coffee is so well integrated into our culinary culture that we barely give its health effects a second thought.

Apart from being highly addictive and causing unpleasant withdrawal symptoms if we stop drinking it suddenly, research shows that even a little bit of coffee may reduce fertility by damaging sperm. It's also bad news if you're pregnant. Caffeine seems to affect the amount of time the baby spends resting, which could lead to abnormal behaviour later on.

But every cloud has a silver lining. Ironically, caffeine is being administered to pre-term babies to help them breathe. It also appears to increase alertness and improve performance under some circumstances.

To drink or not to drink? That is the question . . .



1. Caffeine Consumption

Global consumption has been estimated to be 120,000 tonnes per annum. This is the approximate equivalent of one caffeine-containing beverage per day for each of the planet's 5 billion plus inhabitants. So, caffeine is almost certainly the most widely consumed psycho-active substance in the world.

As a beverage the worldwide consumption of tea is surpassed only by water.



2. Where Did Caffeine Come From?

The coffee "tree" is indigenous to Ethiopia, but its cultivation and use as a beverage stem largely from Arabia. In Arabic it was referred to as gahwah, the poetic term for wine. The Turkish equivalent is kahveh, which became cafe in French and kaffee in German.

Apparently the Ethiopians mixed crushed dried coffee beans with fat which they rolled into balls and used as food on journeys. By the early 16th century the beverage made from infusing ground roasted beans was well-established in the Islamic world, although a fundamentalist element felt that coffee was an intoxicant and it was banned for a time in several places.

Coffee shops sprang up throughout Europe - coffee was the fashionable drug of the 17th and 18th centuries; its delights, and the cravings for it, were the subject of J.S. Bach's "The Coffee Cantata".

The British were the first to tax coffee; in 1660 a duty of 4 pence per gallon was imposed. The popularity of coffee lead to anti-coffee petitions such as "What a curse it is that ordinary working men should sit the whole day in coffee houses simply to chatter about politics, while their unhappy children are wailing at home for lack of bread!"

It's been suggested that America owes its present day coffee habits to the famous Boston "tea-party" of 1773. As a protest against oppression and excessive taxes, citizens of Boston boarded British ships moored in the Harbour and tipped their cargoes of tea overboard. Since that time, the United States has become the major coffee-consuming nation of the world.



3. How Much Caffeine Is In Different Beverages And Food?

It's usually presumed that a regular cup of coffee contains 100mg of caffeine but it may range between 40 and 176 mg and the mean is closer to 85mg. There's probably less caffeine in a cup of tea - one study showed a median of 27mg per cup with a range of 8 to 91 mg. An ounce of sweet chocolate may contain between 75 and 150mg of combined methylxanthines and a cup of chocolate or chocolate milk may contain 150-300mg.

The principal dietary sources of caffeine are overwhelmingly coffee and tea. Coffee accounts for some 54 per cent of ingested caffeine, while tea accounts for some 43 per cent. The remaining 3% consists mostly of caffeine ingested in the form of cocoa and chocolate products, various fabricated soft drinks and mate (a tea drunk especially in South America).

In Australia a 375ml can of Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola contains about 40mg of caffeine. Regulations allow a maximum of 145mg of caffeine per kilogram of cola-type drink (54.5mg per 375ml can). "Jolt" Cola - said to have "twice the caffeine" - actually contains the permissible legal limit of around 54mg per bottle.

In the USA, the permissible limit of caffeine in cola drinks and other carbonated beverages is 200mg per litre. The US drinks also have higher levels of sugar. Caffeine's bitter taste acts as a flavouring agent to counteract the sweetness of the sugar.



4. What Caffeine Gets Up To In The Body

Caffeine is absorbed rapidly into the bloodstream from the gastro-intestinal tract. It reaches maximum concentration within about an one hour. The blood distributes it throughout the body. It even manages to pass through the blood-brain barrier.

The half life of caffeine in the human body varies between 3 to 7 hours. Throughout the body it increases metabolic rate by around 10%. Females metabolise caffeine 20-30% more quickly than males. However, it will take women on "the pill" twice as long to metabolise caffeine as women who are ovulating.

Early experiments showed that low concentrations of caffeine may produce small decreases in heart rate, whereas higher concentrations may make the heart beat abnormally fast.

In the brain it constricts the cerebral blood vessels. If you're used to drinking several cups of coffee a day but then you quit, those blood vessels will dilate, maybe enough to give you a powerful headache. It's one of the best known withdrawal symptoms.

Many people know that caffeine is a strong diuretic - it makes you urinate more than usual. Apparently this is due to increasing the blood flow through the kidneys.

It can produce insomnia - delaying the onset of sleep and reducing total sleeping time. It has a small effect on respiration by increasing blood flow through the lungs and increasing the supply of air by relaxing bronchiolar and alveolar smooth muscle. That's why it's proving effective in treating the breathing problems of some prematurely born infants.

Some people experience tremors after drinking coffee and tea. That's thought to be due to over-activation of the central nervous system.



5. Sobering Thoughts About Caffeine

"And I'd better have a big cup of extra strong black coffee to get me past the breathalyser."

Unfortunately, this is one of the most enduring myths about caffeine. True, it may manage to puncture that aura of numbness and make you feel a little sharper but it's no better at sobering you up and lowering your blood alcohol level than a glass of water.

On the other hand caffeine is a good friend the morning after. Alcohol can give you a thumping headache by enlarging cranial blood vessels. Caffeine constricts them and so may bring some relief from the hangover blues. That's why it's an ingredient in some over-the-counter pain killers.



6. How Caffeine Disturbs Your Sleep

If you value a good night's sleep then tea or coffee at bedtime probably isn't a good idea. Caffeine lengthens the time it takes to fall asleep, reducing your total sleeping time. But almost unique among drugs, it doesn't alter the normal stages of sleep. That's why it's better to use caffeine to stay awake than other substances like speed.



7. Caffeine, Conception and Babies

One recent report from the US revealed that women who drink in excess of one cup of coffee every day are only half as likely to conceive as those who drink less than a cup a day.

The odds are considerably worse if women drink more than two and a half cups a day. Then they are nearly 5 times less likely to conceive as women who drink no coffee at all.

Because there's not been as much research on caffeine as there has on nicotine and alcohol, this drug's effects on human development are not yet known. However a number of studies have shown that as little as 2 or 3 cups of brewed coffee every day during pregnancy can result in lowered infant birthweight.

Other studies have claimed that caffeine consumption during pregnancy is associated with prematurity, poorer reflexes and neuromuscular development.

It also appears that heavy caffeine use can affect a newborn baby.

When doctors ask mothers if they have been taking drugs they will think of drugs like heroin but they will not necessarily think of caffeine - it's a social drink, not a drug to them. Because caffeine is so widely used many people drink quite large quantities and don't realise that they have taken something potentially harmful to the baby. And this doesn't apply just to coffee and tea. Some pregnant women drink large amounts of cola beverages which also contain significant levels of caffeine.

Caffeine gets across the placenta very easily and if the mother continues to ingest her coffee or caffeine-containing beverage the foetus will end up having as much caffeine as the mother. If the mother stops drinking then within 24 hours the foetus may experience withdrawal symptoms. The same thing may happen immediately after birth when the baby is suddenly cut off from the maternal supply of caffeine, although it should be pointed out that this isn't common. The withdrawal from caffeine has been described as similar to what is seen in babies born to heroin addicts. These babies will cry, they don't sleep, they are agitated and restless, they wriggle and abrade the skin on their hands and knees, and they sweat.

There's a suggestion that such withdrawal "dysfunction" may be a contributing factor in infant disorders like neonatal apnoea (where the baby "forgets" to breathe properly) and sudden infant death syndrome. (For further information see "A Guide to Reproduction: Social Issues And Human Concerns" by Dr Irina Pollard, Cambridge University Press, 1994).



8. Caffeine And Muscle Fatigue

A Canadian researcher, Prof Howard Green, has carried out experiments looking at the role of caffeine in helping to overcome muscle fatigue in the quadraceps (thigh) muscles.

Green is from the University of Waterloo and in 1995 visited Cumberland College, part of the University of Sydney's Faculty of Health Sciences.

In his Canadian experiments, muscle fatigue was induced electrically and then caffeine tablets were taken which were the equivalent of 8-10 cups of coffee. Within an hour the effect of reducing fatigue could be noticed. It probably does this by making more calcium available to the muscles.

Professor Green cautions that his experiment only showed effects of caffeine after fatigue. He doesn't know what happens if you take it before exercising - whether or not it might help prevent muscle fatigue. That's a question he hopes to answer soon.

In whole body exercise caffeine can increase the performance of muscles. The theory is that it does this by making more fatty acids available to the muscles than usual and that delays depletion of glygocen reserves. It's known that depletion of glycogen from the muscles is tied in with fatigue. This kind of benefit should be relevant to endurance events such as running and cycling. But you may need to drink the equivalent of 8/9 cups of coffee to feel the effect!!



9. Does Caffeine Make You Mentally More Alert?

Too much caffeine may not be good for complex reasoning tasks, but it can improve mental speed-related tasks. These are some of the results of research by Dr Paula Mitchell, now working at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne.

In 1989 Paula carried out a study which looked at 3 groups of volunteers (around 8 people in each group) divided into low, moderate and high caffeine users. The volunteers visited the lab 8 times at different times of day and night (7am, 1pm, 7pm and 1am). Before the tests began they swallowed either a caffeine capsule or a placebo capsule. In the lab they were given a series of performance tests covering short term memory, mental arithmetic, verbal reasoning (which is like logic), and a serial search task (which is a measure of vigilance).

Caffeine actually improved performance in more simple mental tasks like searching for one particular letter in a string of printed letters. Mental speed is the critical thing in this test.

Caffeine improved performance best at the 7am testing time - when the body's 24 hour rhythm of arousal is at its lowest.

By contrast Mitchell found that the high-caffeine user group didn't perform as well as the others on more complex tasks such as verbal reasoning.



10. Caffeine And Personality Differences

Recent research in Melbourne suggests that caffeine consumption may be tied in with personality differences including mood, or whether a person is a night owl or a lark (early morning person).

As the result of a questionnaire Dr Paula Mitchell found that so-called "night owls" or extreme evening people had much higher levels of caffeine usage than "larks" or extreme morning people. (Extreme evening people and extreme morning people each account for about 10% of the population). The evening people also scored higher on both the extroversion scale and the impulsivity, risk-taking scale. They typically find it difficult to get up in the morning and give themselves big hits of caffeine to wake themselves up. (It's quite possible they are actually suffering from caffeine withdrawal. In other words if they hadn't been drinking coffee the night before they may not have felt like this in the morning.)

Dr Mitchell also says there may be a link between extrovert behaviour and higher caffeine usage.

Caffeine seems to disrupt the body clock rhythms of extreme morning people. By contast the rhythms of the evening types are disturbed by the absence of caffeine. Dr Mitchell believes evening people use caffeine to keep their rhythms regular.

One of the strongest findings was that if morning people had caffeine after about 10am, their mood went down quite dramatically. This could be because caffeine has disrupted their underlying rhythms.



Producer : Richard Campbell

Writer : Geoffrey Burchfield

Editor : Meredith Hopes

Researcher : Joy Mitchell



Source from : http://www.abc.net.au/quantum/poison/caffeine/caffeine.htm

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Kombucha tea: What are the health benefits?

Answer

Long popular in other countries, kombucha tea is now gaining popularity in the United States. Although frequently referred to as a mushroom, kombucha is not a mushroom — it's a symbiosis of bacteria and yeast. When sugar and black or green tea are added to kombucha, a fermentation process results in the "tea" — a liquid containing vinegar, B vitamins and a number of other chemical compounds. Kombucha is most commonly prepared by taking a starter sample from an existing culture and growing a new colony in a fresh jar.

As with any dietary supplement or natural product, it's critical to do your homework before considering using kombucha tea on a regular basis. First, determine the level of evidence that exists to substantiate the health claims for the product. In the case of kombucha, there isn't a single human trial that has been reported in the peer-reviewed literature. This doesn't mean that kombucha tea can't possibly have health benefits, it just means that at this time, except for some lab and animal studies, there's no direct evidence that kombucha tea actually provides any of the health benefits it's reported to have.

The second "homework" question for any dietary supplement centers on safety. Have there been any credible reports of harm or illness caused by the product? In the case of kombucha tea, there are a number of cautionary reports. The home-brewing process can lead to contamination, with several cases of cutaneous anthrax developing in one community where a tainted batch was widely shared. Aspergillus is a fungus that has been found in kombucha tea and can be potentially dangerous, especially to people with weakened immune systems.

Other adverse effects that have been reported include allergic reactions, jaundice, nausea and vomiting, and one suspected death. Lead poisoning also has been reported when a ceramic pot was used to brew the preparation. It's theorized that the acids in the tea leached lead out of the ceramic glaze, resulting in lead poisoning after several months of consumption.

In short, there's no proof that kombucha tea is effective for any of its myriad health claims. At the same time, several cases of harm or injury have been reported. Unless definitive studies are reported that can quantify more accurately the potential risks and benefits of kombucha tea, it's best to avoid it.

source site : http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/kombucha-tea/AN01658
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Time For Tea

You've heard about green tea's health benefits. Read the details here, reprinted from an article in Tea Magazine.

ACCORDING TO A SEATTLE market-research firm, the Sage Group, in the five years between 1990 and 1995, tea sales in America quadrupled to four billion dollars a year. Tea is a drink whose time has come — again.

In the American colonies, tea was the most popular beverage until England's efforts to monopolize the tea trade, undercut American tradesmen, and capitalize on tea taxes turned the colonists against it. Besides throwing British tea into the Boston Harbor, the Americans expressed their rebellion by switching to a thicker, more bitter source of caffeine: coffee. But the Tea Tax no longer exists, and there are good reasons to switch back — not political this time, but scientific.

For years, studies in China and Japan have shown that the folklore about tea does contain some truth — it does promote longer life. In lung-cancer experiments with rats, the rats drinking green tea had only half the cancer rate as the non-tea-drinking rats. In other animal experiments, green tea was found to protect against colon cancer, skin cancer, stomach cancer, and breast cancer.

Japanese smokers have only half the lung cancer rate as American smokers. In areas of Japan where the most tea is drunk, the rate of stomach cancer (a big killer in Japan) is the lowest. In a study of 6000 Japanese women, those who drank five cups or more of green tea per day cut their risk of strokes by 50%.


GREEN EAST VERSUS BLACK WEST

In the West, we've been slow to study tea because, even with the increase in the popularity of tea, merchants still sell four times as much coffee. In addition, the studies emanating from Asia are about green tea, and Westerners customarily drink black tea.

Does black tea have the same health-promoting effect? Zhi-Yuan Wang of Rutgers University wanted to find out. He gave mice some carcinogens that normally cause skin tumors. A fourth of his mice were given green tea, a fourth got black tea, another fourth got decaffeinated black, and the last fourth got plain water. Sure enough, the green-tea-drinking mice developed 70% fewer tumors than the water drinkers. SEVENTY PERCENT FEWER! These are the kinds of findings that have awakened so much interest in tea. The numbers are big.

There are a lot of things people can do to improve their health, but usually the effect of any one of them is relatively small. Tea is different. For something so easy and pleasant to do, it is startling how great a difference it can make. The good news for us black tea lovers is the the black-tea-drinking mice also had 70% fewer tumors than the water drinkers. The decaf-tea drinkers had 60% fewer tumors — still a good showing.


RESEARCH ACCELERATION

Many studies are now being done in the West. Not only does tea reduce the rate of the cancers already mentioned, but it lowers the incidence of esophageal and liver cancers, too — also by dramatic amounts. And there is even more good news: tea lowers the risk of heart disease.

The two deadliest diseases for Americans are cancer and heart disease, and here is one substance — a substance that is easily available, inexpensive, and contains no calories — that lowers the incidence of both, and by a large margin!

A fifteen-year study in the Netherlands on 552 Dutch men aged 50-69 found that those who drank more than two cups of (in this case, black) tea daily were 50% less likely to have a fatal heart attack. The same study found that those who drank five cups of tea a day were 69% less likely to suffer a stroke than those men who only drank half as much tea.

In a study at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, elderly people who drank more than two cups of tea per day and had done so for a long time had a 63% lower risk of pancreatic cancer than people who had drunk less than a cup per day. The Norwegian government did a large-scale study (20,000 people) and found that the overall death rate was lower for those who drank at least one cup of tea per day.

Studies in both Norway and Israel have found that tea drinkers have lower blood cholesterol. This partially explains the reduced risk of heart disease and stroke, but it's even better than that: studies have shown that LDL, the "bad" cholesterol, only clogs arteries when it is damaged by oxidation. Tea is full of phytochemicals (chemicals found in plants) which act as powerful antioxidants. In a test-tube study of 39 food-derived antioxidants, the phytochemicals in tea were the most potent inhibitors of LDL oxidation. In fact, one compound in tea was found to be 20 times stronger than the potent antioxidant vitamin C.

One of the antioxidants in green tea is epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG); when you brew a cup and then let the water evaporate, half of what you have left is EGCG. Fifty percent of the solid matter of a cup of tea is a potent antioxidant.

We've all heard that a glass of red wine per day is good for us, primarily because of its antioxidants, one of the most potent being catechins. Let's compare tea with wine: a glass of red wine contains 300 milligrams of catechins; a cup of black tea, 210 milligrams. That's quite good; but the winner is green tea, with a whopping 375 milligrams per cup, and you can drive home afterwards.

A Dutch study of some 800 men found that those who had the most flavonoids (another kind of phytochemical) in their diet were 66% less likely to develop heart disease than those who consumed the least. For those who got the most flavonoids, their main source was black tea.

Research is exploding to the point where previous studies are being re-examined. The famous "Seven Countries Study" done in the 1960s has been re-analyzed in light of what we now know about tea. This study achieved fame because it was the first to show that the amount of fat in the diet affects heart disease. Re-analyzed, it seems that a high intake of antioxidants, mainly from tea, explains the lower incidence of heart disease in the tea-drinking countries.

An assistant professor at the University of Minnesota, Wei Zheng, MD, PhD, studied the tea-drinking habits of 35,369 postmenopausal women. Over an eight-year period, the women who drank at least two cups of tea per day had 32% fewer cancers of the digestive tract (including colon and esophagus) than women who only drank tea occasionally or never. They were also 60% less at risk from cancers of the bladder and kidneys. The women who drank at least four cups of tea had even fewer of these cancers.


ANTIOXIDANTS AND BEYOND

The ways in which tea produces its healthy effects go on and on. Women's livers metabolize estrogen and then send it through the gall bladder into the bile to be eliminated. Certain kinds of bacteria in the intestines change that estrogen into a potent cancer-producing hormone, which is then reabsorbed by the intestines, contributing to the development of breast cancer. Studies show that tea stops those bacteria from changing the estrogen into something dangerous, according to Herb Piersen, PhD, former director of the National Cancer Institute's Designer Foods Program.

Another way tea creates a healthy effect is by neutralizing nitrosamines (from cured meats) and heterocyclic amines (from cooked meats). "Drinking tea with meals in Japan and China," says a cancer researcher at the University of British Columbia, "is thought to be a major reason for the low cancer rates in these countries."

Tea also helps prevent tooth decay in several ways. It contains a solid dose of fluoride, and according to researchers at the Tokyo Dental College, it fights the kinds of bacteria in the mouth that cause gum disease and the eventual loss of the teeth. It worked better, in fact, than the antibiotic tetracycline. It also kills Streptococcus mutans, the greatest cavity-causing bacteria in the mouth.

Substances in green tea also lower hypertension in mice. The findings go on and on. In the test-tube, tea inhibits the proliferation of viruses, including influenza.

There is a downside to tea: it increases the passage of B and C vitamins and calcium through the body, although not very much. If you take a vitamin-mineral supplement, you're probably getting enough extra B and C vitamins to neutralize this effect.

One of the paradoxically valuable things about tea is that it contains caffeine. Caffeine is addicting. Once you start drinking tea, you tend to do so regularly, and this turns out to be a good thing. It keeps an uninterrupted flow of antioxidants going through your cells, cleaning up the damaging oxygen, killing dangerous bacteria, neutralizing carcinogens, lowering your cholesterol, preventing cancer, and keeping your veins from clogging.

Americans turned away from tea as a rebellion against oppression. Now we're switching back. Times are changing, and so are we — for the better, for our health. We have a new slogan: Drink your TEA. It does a body good.


Editor's note: Iced tea works as well as hot tea in bestowing healthy benefits, as long as it is brewed and not instant iced tea. Iced tea is an American invention and very rare in the rest of the world, but 80% of the tea Americans drink is iced.

This article originally appeared in TEA a magazine in the June/July 1997 issue.

Source Site : http://www.youmeworks.com/timefortea.html

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Definition of Love [ Cinta ]

Mr. Wiki Pedia says :

Love represents a range of human emotions and experiences related to the senses of affection and sexual attraction.[1] The word love can refer to a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes, ranging from generic pleasure to intense interpersonal attraction. This diversity of meanings, combined with the complexity of the feelings involved, makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, even compared to other emotional states.

As an abstract concept love usually refers to a strong, ineffable feeling towards another person. Even this limited conception of love, however, encompasses a wealth of different feelings, from the passionate desire and intimacy of romantic love to the nonsexual. Love in its various forms acts as a major facilitator of interpersonal relationships and, owing to its central psychological importance, is one of the most common themes in the creative arts.


DEFINITION :

The English word love can have a variety of related but distinct meanings in different contexts. Often, other languages use multiple words to express some of the different concepts which English relies mainly on love to encapsulate; one example is the plurality of Greek words for "love". Cultural differences in conceptualizing love thus make it doubly difficult to establish any universal definition.[2]American psychologist Zick Rubin try to define love by the psychometrics. His work states that three factors consititute love: attachment, caring and intimacy.[3][4]

Although the nature or essence of love is a subject of frequent debate, different aspects of the word can be clarified by determining what isn't "love". As a general expression of positive sentiment (a stronger form of like), love is commonly contrasted with hate (or neutral apathy); as a less sexual and more emotionally intimate form of romantic attachment, love is commonly contrasted with lust; and as an interpersonal relationship with romantic overtones, love is commonly contrasted with friendship, though other definitions of the word love may be applied to close friendships in certain contexts. When discussed in the abstract, love usually refers to interpersonal love, an experience felt by a person for another person. Love often involves caring for or identifying with a person or thing, including oneself (cf. narcissism).

In addition to crosscultural differences in understanding love, ideas about love have also changed greatly over time. Some historians date modern conceptions of romantic love to courtly Europe during or after the Middle Ages, though the prior existence of romantic attachments is attested by ancient love poetry.[5] Because of the complex and abstract nature of love, discourse on love is commonly reduced to a thought-terminating cliché, and there are a number of common proverbs regarding love, from Virgil's "Love conquers all" to The Beatles' "All you need is love". Bertrand Russell describes love as a condition of "absolute value", as opposed to relative value. Theologian Thomas Jay Oord said that to love is to "act intentionally, in sympathetic response to others, to promote overall well-being".[6]

In the Holy Bible1 Corinthians 13 Love is defined as:

1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.


A person can be said to love a country, principle, or goal if they value it greatly and are deeply committed to it. Similarly, compassionate outreach and volunteer workers' "love" of their cause may sometimes be borne not of interpersonal love, but impersonal love coupled with altruism and strong political convictions. People can also "love" material objects, animals, or activities if they invest themselves in bonding or otherwise identifying with that item. If sexual passion is also involved, this condition is called paraphilia.[7]


INTERPERSONAL LOVE :

Interpersonal love refers to love between human beings. It is a more potent sentiment than a simple liking for another. Unrequited love refers to those feelings of love which are not reciprocated. Interpersonal love is most closely associated with interpersonal relationships. Such love might exist between family members, friends, and couples. There are also a number of psychological disorders related to love, such as erotomania


SCIENTIFIC VIEWS :

Throughout history, philosophy and religion have done the most speculation on the phenomenon of love. In the last century, the science of psychology has written a great deal on the subject. In recent years, the sciences of evolutionary psychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, neuroscience, and biology have added to the understanding of the nature and function of love.

Chemistry

Biological models of sex tend to view love as a mammalian drive, much like hunger or thirst.[8] Helen Fisher, a leading expert in the topic of love, divides the experience of love into three partly-overlapping stages: lust, attraction, and attachment. Lust exposes people to others, romantic attraction encourages people to focus their energy on mating, and attachment involves tolerating the spouse long enough to rear a child into infancy.

Lust is the initial passionate sexual desire that promotes mating, and involves the increased release of chemicals such as testosterone and estrogen. These effects rarely last more than a few weeks or months. Attraction is the more individualized and romantic desire for a specific candidate for mating, which develops out of lust as commitment to an individual mate forms. Recent studies in neuroscience have indicated that as people fall in love, the brain consistently releases a certain set of chemicals, including pheromones, dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin, which act similar to amphetamines, stimulating the brain's pleasure center and leading to side-effects such as an increased heart rate, loss of appetite and sleep, and an intense feeling of excitement. Research has indicated that this stage generally lasts from one and a half to three years.[9]

Since the lust and attraction stages are both considered temporary, a third stage is needed to account for long-term relationships. Attachment is the bonding which promotes relationships that last for many years, and even decades. Attachment is generally based on commitments such as marriage and children, or on mutual friendship based on things like shared interests. It has been linked to higher levels of the chemicals oxytocin and vasopressin than short-term relationships have.[9] In 2005, Italian scientists at Pavia University found that a protein molecule known as the nerve growth factor (NGF) has high levels when people first fall in love, but these levels return to as they were after one year. Specifically, four neurotrophin levels, i.e. NGF, BDNF, NT-3, and NT-4, of 58 subjects who had recently fallen in love were compared with levels in a control group who were either single or already engaged in a long-term relationship. The results showed that NGF levels were significantly higher in the subjects in love than as compared to either of the control groups.[10]

Psychology

Further information: Human bonding

Psychology depicts love as a cognitive and social phenomenon. Psychologist Robert Sternberg formulated a triangular theory of love and argued that love has three different components: intimacy, commitment, and passion. Intimacy is a form in which two people share confidences and various details of their personal lives. Intimacy is usually shown in friendships and romantic love affairs. Commitment, on the other hand, is the expectation that the relationship is permanent. The last and most common form of love is sexual attraction and passion. Passionate love is shown in infatuation as well as romantic love. All forms of love are viewed as varying combinations of these three components.

Following developments in electrical theories, such as Coulomb's law, which showed that positive and negative charges attract, analogs in human life were developed, such as "opposites attract". Over the last century, research on the nature of human mating has generally found this not to be true when it comes to character and personality; people tend to like people similar to themselves. However, in a few unusual and specific domains, such as immune systems, it seems that humans prefer others who are unlike themselves (e.g. with an orthogonal immune system), since this will lead to a baby which has the best of both worlds.[11] In recent years, various human bonding theories have been developed described in terms of attachments, ties, bonds, and affinities.

Some Western authorities disaggregate into two main components, the altruistic and the narcissistic. This view is represented in the works of Scott Peck, whose works in the field of applied psychology explored the definitions of love and evil. Peck maintains that love is a combination of the "concern for the spiritual growth of another", and simple narcissism.[12] In combination, love is an activity, not simply a feeling.


SCIENTIFIC MODELS :

Biological models of love tend to see it as a mammalian drive, similar to hunger or thirst.[citation needed] Psychology sees love as more of a social and cultural phenomenon. There are probably elements of truth in both views — certainly love is influenced by hormones (such as oxytocin), neurotrophins (such as NGF), and pheromones, and how people think and behave in love is influenced by their conceptions of love. The conventional view in biology is that there are two major drives in love — sexual attraction and attachment. Attachment between adults is presumed to work on the same principles that lead an infant to become attached to its mother. The traditional psychological view sees love as being a combination of companionate love and passionate love. Passionate love is intense longing, and is often accompanied by physiological arousal (shortness of breath, rapid heart rate). Companionate love is affection and a feeling of intimacy not accompanied by physiological arousal.

Studies have shown that brain scans of those infatuated by love display a resemblance to those with a mental illness. Love creates activity in the same area of the brain that hunger, thirst, and drug cravings create activity in. New love, therefore, could possibly be more physical than emotional. Over time, this reaction to love mellows, and different areas of the brain are activated, primarily ones involving long-term commitments. Dr. Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist, suggests that this reaction to love is so similar to that of drugs because without love, humanity would die out.

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The language of adoption

The language used in adoption is changing and evolving, and it has become a controversial issue. The controversy arises over the use of terms which, while designed to be more appealing or less offensive to some persons affected by adoption, may simultaneously cause offense or insult to others. This controversy illustrates the problematic nature of adoption, as well as the fact that coining new words and phrases to describe ancient social practices does not alter the feelings and experiences of those affected by them.

The two contrasting sets of terms are commonly referred to as "Positive (or Respectful) Adoption Language" and "Honest Adoption Language."

Positive Adoptive Language (PAL)

It is believed that social workers in the field of adoption, most notably Marietta Spencer, created and began the promotion of what they termed "Positive Adoption Language" around the mid 1970s.^[74]. The terms contained in ""Positive Adoption Language" include the terms "birth mother" (to replace the terms "natural mother" and "first mother"), "placing" (to replace the terms "relinquishment" or "surrender"), and restricting the terms "mother" and "father" to refer solely to the parents who had adopted. It reflects the point of view that (1) all relationships and connections between the adopted child and his/her previous family have been permanently and completely severed once the legal adoption has taken place, and that (2) "placing" a child for adoption is invariably a non-coerced "decision" the mother makes, free of coercion or pressure from external circumstances or agents.

The reasons for its use: In many cultures, adoptive families face adoptism. Adoptism is made evident in English speaking cultures by the prominent use of negative or inaccurate language describing adoption. To combat adoptism, many adoptive families encourage positive adoption language. The reasons against its use: Many natural parents see "positive adoption language" as terminology which glosses over painful facts they face as they go into the indefinite post-adoption period of their lives. They feel PAL has become a way to present adoption in the friendliest light possible, in order to obtain even more infants for adoption; ie, a marketing tool. These people refer to PAL as "Adoption Friendly Language" or AFL.

Honest Adoption Language (HAL)

"Honest Adoption Language", on the other hand, refers to a set of terms that reflect the point of view that: (1) family relationships (social, emotional, psychological or physical) that existed prior to the legal adoption often continue past this point or endure in some form despite long periods of separation, and that (2) mothers who have "voluntarily surrendered" children to adoption (as opposed to involuntary terminations through court-authorized child-welfare proceedings) seldom view it as a choice that was freely made, but instead describe scenarios of powerlessness, lack of resources, and overall lack of choice.^[75][76] It also reflects the point of view that the term "birth mother" is derogatory in implying that the woman has ceased being a mother after the physical act of giving birth. Proponents of HAL liken this to the mother being treated as a "breeder" or incubator".^[77]. Terms included in HAL include the original terms that were used before PAL, including "natural mother," "first mother," and "surrendered for adoption."

The reasons for its use: In most cultures, the adoption of a child does not change the identities of its mother and father: they continue to be referred to as such. Those who adopted a child were thereafter termed its "guardians," "foster," or "adoptive" parents. Most people use "Honest Adoption Language" (HAL) because it is the original and most widely-used terminology. Many of those directly affected by adoption loss believe these terms more accurately reflect important but hidden and/or ignored realities of adoption. It also has the advantage of not excluding further contacts, sometimes even allowed since the beginning and never totally severed. The reasons against its use: The term "Honest" implies that all other language used in adoption is dishonest.

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