Monday, January 30, 2012

CDC Marks April as Alcohol Awareness Month

It is known that alcohol consumption is more common among Americans. Alcohol usage causes major health issues in both males as well as female. However, women are more prone to the harmful effects of alcohol. In order to create awareness of the dreadful effects of alcohol usage on women, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) marked April as the Alcohol awareness month. It was intended to raise awareness of the health and social problems associated with alcohol usage by women.

It was created to make people aware of the risks of binge drinking to women's health. Consuming four or more drinks for women and five or more drinks for men is considered as binge drinking. Binge drinking was found to be responsible for more than 11,500 deaths among women in the United States each year. Approximately 32 deaths per day were found to be associated with binge drinking.

It was found that, in 2009, more than 1 out of every 10 women reported binge drinking during the past 30 days. On an average, most of the women binge drinkers consume about six drinks per occasion which is much more than the threshold for binge drinking.

Alcohol consumption is associated with gender differences. Though equal amounts of alcohol is taken, more alcohol is tend to be absorbed by women. When compared to males, much more time is taken by women to break it down and remove it from the bodies. This is because of the differences in the body composition and the chemistry between men and women. So, the effects of impairment are seen for a longer time in women when compared to men.

Taking alcohol during pregnancy increases the risk of having a baby with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs). They include physical and intellectual problems. It was known from the national surveys that out of 10 women of child-bearing age (18-44 years), 6 women take alcohol. About one-third of the alcohol consuming women who belong to this group were found to binge alcohol. Alcohol usage among women makes them more vulnerable to long-term effects like cancer, liver diseases and heart problems. There are more chances of occurrence of these effects in women when compared to men. It is, therefore, necessary to educate people of the problems associated with women alcohol consumption.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Know About Different Types of Eco-Friendly Electronic Gadgets

The regular usage of electronic gadgets is increasing day by day. Due to the increased demand of these devices, they are coming up with new and advanced features to make the usage more effective.

Technology is introducing new environmental friendly devices which are instrumental in reducing the delivery of harmful toxic elements. They also curb the energy wastage. These eco-friendly devices not only make the home convenient and safe, but also greener.

Know some new technologically advanced devices which provide more green outputs in the surfaces.

Green air purifiers: HEPA air purifiers are more beneficial to household purposes for increasing the indoor air quality. These are mechanically strong for preventing the toxic elements, pollutants, dust mites and allergens from air. These are beneficial in increasing the indoor air quality.

Green electric equipments: Houses are filled with various kinds of electric equipments. People use different kinds of electric equipments to have a safe and quick works. Music players, satellite radios, TVs, etc., are now coming with environmental friendly features. These are coming with the advantage of reducing energy consumption.

Green kitchen appliances: The usage of electric appliances in kitchen is increasing day by day. Electronic kitchen hold appliances like the refrigerators, ovens, electric cookers, etc., consume more power. But due to advanced technology, the green kitchen appliances are consuming less power and are also reducing CFC emissions also.

Eco-lights and bulbs: These are also technically advanced household equipments which reduce the overall power consumption by providing accurate outputs. CFL bulbs are high power savers, they generally reduce the power consumption by around 70-75 percentage.

New technology is resulting in eco-friendly devices which are not only human friendly but also user friendly.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Benefits of Conducting Multi-panel Drug Tests at Home

Many researches have shown that teenage is the time in which many people tend to start abusing drugs. This is the most crucial period of human age as a person undergoes intense intellectual growth during this period. Since teen's brain is still in the developing stage they are more in to confusion and often take poor decisions, especially when it comes to abuse of harmful drugs. Hence, there is a need of random and regular drug test at home in order to ensure that the kids are away from those habits and are leading a safe teenage.

Conducting a drug test only when the kid is found suspicious is not enough. Conducting periodic drug tests at regular intervals of time, once your kids have entered the teenage or after significant behavioral changes are found in your is always better to save them from getting used to the habit. For this purpose, if you are not sure about what drug your kid is using, it is always better to go for multi-panel drug test kits which can detect the presence of 2-12 drugs at a single shot using the same specimen.

Coming to the benefits of conducting multi-panel drug test kits at home, there are many. One - they help us in getting informed about our kids habits. Second - they are easy to use and provide accurate and reliable results depending upon the company of drug test kit used to conduct the test.

Multi-panel drug test cups are even more comfortable to conduct drug test since they avoid the risk of specimen spilling and make us comfortable to conduct the test. The results are also easy to read. They also ensure privacy in conducting drug tests at home.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Tips for Pronouncing Spanish Words Properly

The toughest part of speaking Spanish, by a native English speaker is the pronunciation. Since there is huge difference in sounds between English and Spanish, people tend to get influenced by their English pronunciation. There are more than a couple of sessions to concentrate on when it comes to pronouncing Spanish words. That is why, experts always recommend to listen and practice along with the native speakers speech.

The primary thing is we need to observe to the native speakers way of pronouncing and later we need to imitate them exactly. The practice should be continued till we are sounding similar to them. Here you can take the help of a voice recorder and try to record the speakers voice and then your voice. Once you are done, you can rewind it and can feel the difference.

The vital things to take care are the vowel sounds in Spanish. Spanish vowels have only one sound. Unlike English vowels, they are too short and hence to pronounce them, we need to pull our lips back into a tense smile. You need to tighten your facial muscles and your tongue should be high and forward in your mouth. For example, few English words like cheap, meet, piece should be pronounced like chip, mit, pis respectively in Spanish. Hence crisp and short pronunciation is required for Spanish words.

Similarly few letters like p,t,v should sound a little bit closer so that they sound like b,d,b respectively.

When it comes to 'r' sound, it is represented as 'rr' in Spanish. Means you need to roll your 'r''s while speaking Spanish. It is a bit difficult to English speakers, however, by doing a conscious effort and by practicing the principles we can learn it quite easily.

These are the tips which are easy to explain but hard to do. However, consistent practice is the key to pronounce Spanish fluently within short time.

Monday, January 9, 2012

Benefits of In- House Drug Testing Over Lab Testing

Before the invent of home drug test kits, the only means to conduct drug tests is through a laboratory. It found to be a bit complicated to go to a laboratory and to give the specimen and to wait for 12-24 hours for the test results. Moreover, those processes lack privacy and made many people stay at home. But the latest technology home drug test kits out weighed all these things and enabled the users an error free, convenient way of drug testing. However, many people are still doubtful of using these kits. But by considering the below benefits of these test kits over the traditional laboratory testing, one can be convinced of adopting these kits.

Privacy of test and its results: Home drug testing kits are simple, easy to use and can be conducted by themselves at their comfortable place. Nobody knows that you are taking a drug test. Since we can read the results then and there, we alone can know them. In case of labs, the person who conducts the test, knows the result and hence somebody other than you are aware about your drug abusing habit.

Comfortable sample handling: Since the drug test kits are available with a specimen collection cup, one can easily collect the sample into the cup and another person can handle it with less discomfort. Moreover, using drug test cups is even more convenient since there is no need to dip the cards and read the results. Whereas, in the labs we need to collect the sample, and the technician may find it uncomfortable to handle the sample.

Accurate results in no time: In case of lab testing, we need to wait till the process of drug detection gets complete. It may take several hours and days. But in case of home drug test kits, we can directly read the results within 5 minutes of specimen collection.

Inexpensive: Home drug test kits are often an inexpensive option for conducting drug test. When compared to the fee, which we pay for a drug test at labs, home drug tests are much cheaper and also offer us a convenient way of conducting drug tests. In order to conduct bulk drug tests like in schools and workplaces, we can purchase them in bulk at much lesser prices.

These are the different benefits of using in-house drug test kits. However, the accuracy and the quality of the test depends on the reliability of the kits. Hence, buy only FDA approved test kits for accurate results.