[ Organic Herbs of India our Heritage. ]

 https://youtu.be/QUf_C7inNnI

pure Natural orgaNic sustaiNable ethical socially respoNsible
Quinoa
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Source: https://www.organicindia.com/products-information.pdf

[ Good Health]

 South Indian Dosa is a choice anywhere in the world if you know the country you are visiting.

If you don't know you can google it.

However if you are touring in India it may not be available in some states in North India bordering Himalayas. So find out before you land there.

[ Meniscus Tear Knee Injury.]

 

Like a lot of knee injuries, a meniscus tear can be painful and debilitating. Unfortunately, it's quite common. In fact, a meniscal tear is one of the most frequently occurring cartilage injuries of the knee.

So what is the meniscus? It's a piece of cartilage in your knee that cushions and stabilizes the joint. It protects the bones from wear and tear. But all it takes is a good twist of the knee to tear the meniscus. In some cases, a piece of the shredded cartilage breaks loose and catches in the knee joint, causing it to lock up.

Meniscus tears are common in contact sports like football as well as noncontact sports requiring jumping and cutting such as volleyball and soccer. They can happen when a person changes direction suddenly while running, and often occur at the same time as other knee injuries, like an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury. Meniscus tears are a special risk for older athletes since the meniscus weakens with age. More than 40% of people 65 or older have them.

What Does a Meniscus Tear Feel Like?

Symptoms of a meniscus tear include:

• Pain in the knee
• Swelling
• A popping sensation during the injury
• Difficulty bending and straightening the leg
• A tendency for your knee to get "stuck" or lock up

At first, the pain may not be bad. You might even play through the injury. But once the inflammation sets in, your knee will probably hurt quite a bit.

To diagnose a meniscus tear, your doctor will give you a thorough exam. They will want to hear details about how you got your injury. X-rays may be necessary, to rule out broken bones and other problems. You may also need an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scan, which allows a more detailed evaluation of knee cartilage.

What's the Treatment for a Meniscus Tear?

Treatment for meniscal tears depends on the size and location of the tear. Other factors which influence treatment include age, activity level and related injuries. The outer portion of the meniscus, often referred to as the “red zone,” has a good blood supply and can sometimes heal on its own if the tear is small. In contrast, the inner two thirds of the meniscus, known as the “white zone,” does not have a good blood supply. Tears in this region will not heal on their own as this area lacks blood vessels to bring in healing nutrients.

Happily, not all meniscal tears require surgery. If your knee is not locking up, is stable, and symptoms resolve, nonsurgical treatment may suffice. To speed the recovery, you can:

• Rest the knee. Limit activities to include walking if the knee is painful. Use crutches to help relieve pain.
• Ice your knee to reduce pain and swelling. Do it for 15-20 minutes every 3-4 hours for 2-3 days or until the pain and swelling is gone.
• Compress your knee. Use an elastic bandage or a neoprene type sleeve on your knee to control swelling.
• Elevate your knee with a pillow under your heel when you're sitting or lying down.
• Take anti-inflammatory medications. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), like Advil, Aleve, or Motrin, will help with pain and swelling. However, these drugs can have side effects, such as an increased risk of bleeding and ulcers. They should be only used occasionally, unless your doctor specifically says otherwise.
• Use stretching and strengthening exercises to help reduce stress to your knee. Ask your doctor to recommend a physical therapist for guidance.
• Avoid impact activities such as running and jumping.

These conservative treatments, however, aren't always enough. If a tear is large, unstable, or causing locking symptoms surgery may be required to either repair or remove unstable edges. The procedure is usually pretty simple, and you can often go home the same day. You may need a brace afterward for protection if a repair is performed.

For 85% to 90% of people who get the surgery for a meniscus tear, the short-term results are good to excellent. But in the long-term, people who have a large meniscal injury that is unrepairable may be at a higher risk of developing knee arthritis.

 

When Will My Knee Feel Better?

Recovery time for your knee depends on a number of factors, including how severe your meniscus tear is. Full recovery from surgery may take 4 to 6 weeks, depending on the type of procedure performed as well as other factors. But keep in mind that people also heal at different rates. In most cases physical therapy is used after surgery to minimize complications and speed recovery.

If your medical team agrees, you could take up a new activity that won't aggravate your knee pain while you recover. For instance, runners could try swimming.

Whatever you do, don't rush things. Don't try to return to your old level of physical activity until:

• You can fully bend and straighten your knee without pain.
• You feel no pain in your knee when you walk, jog, sprint, or jump.
• Your knee is no longer swollen.
• Your injured knee is as strong as your uninjured knee.

If you start using your knee before it's healed, you could cause further injury.

How Can I Prevent a Meniscus Tear?

Meniscus tears are tough to prevent since they're usually the result of an accident. But some precautions might lower the risks of a knee injury. You should:

• Keep your thigh muscles strong with regular exercises.
• Warm up with light activities before taking part
• Give your body time to rest between workouts. Fatigued muscles can increase your risk of injury.
• Make sure your shoes have enough support and fit correctly.
• Maintain flexibility.
• Never abruptly increase the intensity of your workout. Make changes slowly.

Sources:https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/knee-pain/meniscus-tear-injury

[ Short and long naps both have benefits. Photo by Rawpixel.com/ Shutterstock.]

Some people swear by an afternoon nap – whether it’s to catch up on lost sleep or to help them feel more alert for the afternoon ahead. Even Boris Johnson supposedly favours a power nap during his work day (though the prime minister’s staffers contest this claim). Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, and Leonardo Da Vinci were all famous nappers.

But while many of us may not feel we usually have enough time to squeeze a nap into our day, working from home during the pandemic may now afford us an opportunity to give napping a try.

Napping is a great way to feel more rested and alert – and some research shows it can benefit our cognitive function. However, you may want to consider how long you have to sleep before heading to bed for your midday nap.

If you need to be alert right after waking up (for example, if you’re catching a few extra minutes of sleep during your lunch break), so-called “power naps” of 10-30 minutes are recommended. Longer naps may cause some initial drowsiness – though they keep sleepiness at bay longer. But drinking coffee directly before a nap may help you wake up without feeling drowsy while also boosting your alertness.

While short naps are great for increasing energy, longer naps are both more restorative and beneficial for learning. For example, they improve activation of the hippocampus – an area of the brain important for learning and memory. A one to two hour afternoon nap is shown to benefit both your motor skills and your ability to recall facts and events.

A study from China has even suggested that regular afternoon napping is linked to better cognitive function in older adults. The researchers asked 2,200 over-70s about their napping habits before having them undergo a series of cognitive tests which measured things like memory and language skills. They found that those who usually napped were less likely to have cognitive impairments than those who didn’t. This was true regardless of age or level of education.

But nap length may play a role here – a similar study showed that those who usually napped for 30-90 minutes had better overall cognition compared to those who napped for longer or shorter, or who didn’t nap at all.

Why Naps Work.

The reasons why short naps are so beneficial for alertness and focus are not well understood. It’s possible that napping helps the brain clean up sleep-inducing waste products that would otherwise inhibit brain activity, and that they replenish the brain’s energy stores. Short naps may also help improve your attention by letting particularly sleepy areas of the brain recover, thereby preventing instability in the brain’s networks.

A man laying on a gray couch next to a plant, rubbing his eyes.

Longer naps are more restorative, but you may feel more drowsy after waking up. Photo by Dusan Petkovic/ Shutterstock.

Longer naps, on the other hand, are more restorative partly because there is time to enter multiple sleep stages, each of which supports different learning processes. For example, during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, the brain is almost as active as when awake. This activity in different brain regions – including those important for learning and memory – may be why REM sleep supports both long-term memory and emotional memory.

During REM sleep in particular, the brain strengthens newly developed connections that are important for improvements in motor skills. Longer sleep also reduces unimportant connections, and this balance can improve how quickly and effectively the brain works as a whole.

Non-REM sleep – the sleep stage we spend most of our time in – contains both slow brain waves and sleep spindles. The sleep spindles are periodic burst-like signals between different brain areas, which are believed to reactivate and consolidate memories. Both the slow brain waves and the spindles increases plasticity – the brain’s ability to learn and adapt to new experiences.

Although napping has many positive short-term effects, they are not recommended for people who suffer from insomnia. Because naps decrease sleepiness, they may make it harder to fall asleep when going to bed in the evening. Naps should also be avoided in situations where optimal performance are needed instantly afterwards, as it may take some time to fully wake up.

Other research has shown that frequent napping was related to high BMI and high blood pressure. Napping was more common in shift workers, retired people, and smokers, and in people with genes related to sleep disorders or obesity. To what degree napping was harmful or beneficial for these groups remains unknown, but it’s clear that napping is more common in groups who have disturbed sleep or need more sleep.

If you’re finding that your attention span is wavering in the afternoon while working from home, perhaps try squeezing a nap into your lunch break. Short naps are great at improving alertness and attention – and if you have time for a longer nap, this can support memory and learning.

John Axelsson is an associate professor of psychology at Karolinska Institutet.

Tina Sundelin is a research fellow in psychology at Stockholm University.

SOURCES
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/napping-in-the-afternoon-can-improve-memory-and-alertness-here-s-why?utm_source=pocket-newtab-intl-en

Dr Hegde. Eat in Silver Plate & Drink in Silver Glass - Love all to get +energy.

[ The diet and diabetes link: It’s not what you think.]

Israeli researchers find a conventional diabetes diet faulty and offer a new breakfast-heavy approach that reduces weight and blood-sugar levels.

By Brian Blum December 16, 2019, 4:36 pm.

Can diabetics throw away their insulin pumps simply by changing their diets?
Israeli research published in Diabetes Care suggests that the standard diet recommended for diabetics is making things worse.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, eating a big breakfast of starches and sugars can help diabetics replace the need to inject insulin, while at the same time reducing the weight gain associated with diabetes and improving overall cardiovascular health.

Type 2 diabetics must inject themselves with insulin, a hormone that regulates the movement of sugar into liver, muscle and fat cells, up to four times a day. The injections keep patients alive but trigger a vicious cycle where increasingly higher doses are required.

In addition to insulin injections, diabetics generally follow a diet nicknamed “6M” –six small meals spread throughout the day, including a bedtime snack to prevent a drop in sugar levels during the night.

The new diet protocol is dubbed 3M and calls for just three meals a day, starting with bread, fruit and sweets in the early hours of the morning, a substantial lunch and a small dinner (specifically lacking any starches, sweets and fruits).

The 3M diet seems to be better matched to our circadian rhythm, which is optimized for eating in the morning and fasting during the evening and night, the research shows.

The 6M diet, by contrast, “has not been effective for sugar control, so diabetics require additional medication and insulin,” explains co-lead researcher Prof. Daniela Jakubowicz of Tel Aviv University and Wolfson Medical Center’s Diabetes Unit.“Insulin injections [also] lead to weight gain, which further increases blood sugar levels.”

In a study of 29 Type 2 diabetes patients, those on the 3M diet lost weight and experienced substantially improved sugar levels. The 6M diet group did not lose weight or experience any improvement in sugar levels.

“Their need for diabetic medication, especially for insulin doses, dipped substantially. Some were even able to stop using insulin altogether,” said Jakubowicz.

“In addition, the 3M diet improved the expression of biological clock genes. This suggests that the 3M diet is not only more effective in controlling diabetes, it may also prevent many other complications such as cardiovascular disease, ageing and cancer, which are all regulated by the biological clock genes.”

This may be the mechanism that makes the 3M diet successful, “as it enhances insulin secretion and improves sugar delivery into the muscles, creating a balanced daytime and nocturnal glucose metabolism.”

The researchers — also from the Hebrew University, Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, as well as Lund University in Sweden — will next investigate the role certain proteins play in breakfast foods consumed by diabetics.

Source.

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5334192006772610093#editor/target=post;postID=6075533899129824109

[ Caffeine.]

Upswing: Caffeine There are many different ways blood sugar (glucose levels in the blood) can be affected and cause problems with sugar control in people with diabetes. Each person reacts differently to various items that influence blood sugars. There are some compounds individuals with diabetes may want to examine to see how they influence their own blood sugar levels. For example, blood sugar levels can rise after drinking coffee, black tea, and some energy drinks due to the presence of caffeine. There are other compounds that may alter blood glucose levels and methods people with diabetes can use to see what compounds and actions influence their own blood sugar levels.