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Welcome from Vantage Business Support & Insurance Services
As an added benefit to our customers and associates VANTAGE is publishing a semimonthly newsletter with information, interactive tools, podcasts and other resources to help you live healthier. We will explore topics on total health and resources for you and your family, including fitness, nutrition, mental and physical health, weight management and more.
Thank you for being part of the VANTAGE family.
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This is just a sampling of what we feel would be important to you. We have much more to offer. If you have any questions or need more information please contact us at 877-886-8277 or click the link below.
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10 Fascinating Facts About Body Temperature
 If you think 98.6 degrees F is the only thing you need to know about body temperature, this temp trivia will surprise you.
Is your body temperature 98.6 degrees and falling? If so, it can reveal a lot about your health. (In fact, it's one of four vital signs doctors watch for, the other three being blood pressure, pulse rate, and respiration rate.) As you probably know, 98.6 F is considered a normal body temperature, though healthy adults can range between 97.8 degrees F and 99 degrees F.
What you might not know is that your core temperature changes as you age, when you smoke, and even when you tell a lie. Read on to find out more.
Body Temperature Can Go Up With Smoke Your body temperature goes up when you smoke. Here's why: The temperature at the tip of a cigarette is 95 degrees C, or 203 degrees F. Inhale hot smoke, and it raises your lung temperature. When your lungs are hot, they are unable to perform one of their responsibilities, which is to cool or remove heat from your body. As a result, it raises your core body temperature. Stop smoking, and your body temperature returns to normal within about 20 minutes.
Tell a Lie and Your Nose Heats Up Fibbing may not cause your nose to grow, but lying will heat it up. Despite this distinction from the wooden puppet who wanted to be a real boy, Spanish researchers at the University of Granada still dubbed their finding the "Pinocchio effect." Using thermal imaging, they were able to demonstrate that the anxiety brought on by a lie causes the nose and the areas around the eyes to get warm.
A Cold Heart May Protect Your Brain Being "cold-hearted" may not be so terrible, especially if you've just suffered a heart attack. Doctors at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore developed a technique that purposefully lowers a person' body temperature to prevent long-term disabling effects. Known as therapeutic hypothermia, the treatment has been shown to prevent further injuries, especially in the brain, when performed within four hours of a heart attack.
Cayenne Can Heat Up Your Body Temperature Red pepper may not only add some spice to your meals, but it also can increase your body temperature as part of the digestive process. Researchers at Purdue University had dieters add about a half teaspoon of red cayenne pepper to their daily food intake as part of a study to see if it helped weight loss. They also noted that red pepper helps to reduce appetite and increase calorie expenditure, and when you burn more calories, your body temperature rises temporarily. All these effects were greater on people who didn't regularly sprinkle on the spicy condiment.
Keep Your Cool to Sleep Better Your body temperature can affect how well you sleep. Scientists at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience in Amsterdam found that people slept better when their skin was slightly cooled. The researchers fitted study participants with special suits that lowered their skin temperature less than 1 degree centigrade. Although the suits didn't affect the core body temperature, the participants didn't wake up as often at night and went into a deeper sleep. Cooling the skin's surface temperature made the biggest difference among older participants who had complained of insomnia.
Older Is Colder When It Comes to Body Temperature If it seems like you're always cold, even during the dog days of summer, it could be your age. Studies show that as we age, our normal body temperature declines slightly. Researchers in Turkey measured the body temperature of 133 nursing home residents and found that body temperature was below average in those 65 to 74 years old, lower still in people 75 to 84, and lowest among those older than 85, some of whom had a body temperature as low as 93.5 degrees F under normal circumstances. This is important to know, because seniors might actually be running a fever at lower temperatures than younger adults.
Body Temperature Can Help Pinpoint Time of Death This isn't just crime-show fodder: When someone dies, their body begins to cool at a set rate, about 1.5 degrees an hour. If a coroner examines the deceased within 24 hours, and the body hasn't been in a room that's not too hot or too cold, body temperature can be used to fairly accurately estimate the time of death. This finding is attributed to an English doctor and amateur chemist, John Davy. In 1839, he reported on experiments using a mercury thermometer to measure the body temperature of dead soldiers to determine when they had died.
That Hat May Not Help You Retain Body Heat Remember your mom telling you to wear a hat when it's cold outside because body heat is lost through your head? Turns out, her advice might not be completely spot-on, according to a report published in the medical journal BMJ. When you lose body heat and your body temperature drops, it does so from all parts of your body at an equal rate. How much body temperature you lose from your head depends on a number of factors, including how thick your hair is and how much energy you expend in the cold. But because a child's head is larger in proportion to the rest of the kid's body's surface, children can lose more heat through their uncovered heads than adults.
Men and Women Are Different When you're exposed to the cold, your body begins to conserve heat. It wants to protect your vital organs, such as your heart, lungs, and brain, so more blood flows to these areas and less to your hands and feet. This affect happens to women much more quickly, meaning a woman's hands and feet will get colder more quickly than a man's. Women will feel the effects once the temperature goes below 70 degrees. For men, the chills won't kick in until the temp dips below 67 or 68 degrees.
A Fever Can Be Your Friend You have a fever when your temperature is at least 1 degree over your normal body temperature, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians. Most people fret over a fever, but it actually can be helpful. A reaction of your body's immune system, a fever indicates that you're fighting off an infection, and it can help your body return to normal. In most cases, the higher your body temperature, the harder your body is working to fight the infection. But if your fever doesn't subside in a few days or if your temperature is abnormally high - in kids older than 6 months, that's about 103 degrees F - call the doctor.
SOURCE: Beth W. Orenstein Medically reviewed by Lindsey Marcellin, MD, MPH
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DID YOU KNOW???
Sleep
7 Consequences of Inadequate Sleep
We all know lack of sleep makes us grumpy and less productive. But did you know that sleep deprivation can also have serious consequences for your physical health and may even shorten your life?
Research shows that most people require seven or eight hours of sleep to function optimally. However, many people get by with just five or six hours of sleep a night.
"The effects of sleep deprivation are serious. They range from car accidents and workplace mistakes to immune system problems and cardiovascular disease," says Richard Stack, M.D., a board-certified critical care and sleep medicine physician with Pulmonary Medicine Associates. "And people who have trouble sleeping may have a more serious sleep disorder, such as obstructive sleep apnea."
From babies to seniors, the effects of inadequate sleep can affect memory, learning, creativity and emotional stability, as well as virtually every system of the body.
Seven serious side effects of poor sleep include:
Alzheimer's disease: Sleep cleanses the brain of damaging molecules associated with loss of brain function, the same toxins that contribute to Alzheimer's disease.
Cancer: Studies have found that people who sleep fewer than six hours of sleep are at higher risk of breast and colon cancers.
Cardiovascular Disease: The risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke are higher in people who sleep less than six hours a night. Insufficient sleep is also associated with calcification of coronary arteries. In addition, obstructive sleep apnea is linked with sudden cardiac death, hypertension, left ventricular dysfunction and arrhythmias.
Depression: Poor sleep is a risk factor for depression and substance abuse.
Diabetes: The body's ability to process glucose is impacted by insufficient sleep, which may result in Type 2 diabetes.
Immune Dysfunction: During sleep, the body produces hormones that help fight infections. People who don't get enough sleep are more susceptible to colds and the flu.
Weight Gain: Not only do people who don't sleep well have more time to snack, but the levels of the hormone leptin, which tells the brain enough food has been consumed, are lower in the sleep-deprived, while levels of ghrelin, which stimulates the appetite, are higher.
"If you have trouble sleeping, it's important to talk with your doctor about it. The quality and quantity of sleep you get can be as important to your health as your blood pressure and weight," says Dr. Stack.
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Here's your "QuoteAction" for this issue:
"People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."
Author and Founder/Chairman of BNI-Business Network Int'l, Ivan Misner
Your action for today is to do something special and unexpected for someone in your life whom you'd like to have listen to your advice.
Have an extraordinary day!
SOURCE: Betty Jo Waxman
Productive Learning & Leisure, LLC |
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Disclaimer of Liability
Our firm provides the information in this e-newsletter for general guidance only, and does not constitute the provision of legal advice, tax advice, accounting services, investment advice, or professional consulting of any kind. The information provided herein should not be used as a substitute for consultation with professional tax, accounting, legal, or other competent advisers. Before making any decision or taking any action, you should consult a professional adviser who has been provided with all pertinent facts relevant to your particular situation. Tax articles in this e-newsletter are not intended to be used, and cannot be used by any taxpayer, for the purpose of avoiding accuracy-related penalties that may be imposed on the taxpayer. The information is provided "as is," with no assurance or guarantee of completeness, accuracy, or timeliness of the information, and without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of performance, merchantability, and fitness for a particular purpose.
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| Health & Wellness Products |
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| CONTACTS |
Please contact one of our VANTAGE professionals for assistance or click on the help picture. Paul White 510-595-0904
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