Not One Ounce -- Candy at your house

Written by Will Clower, Ph.D.


Here comerepparttar candy canes. In our house, Santa always hung Hershey’s Kisses onrepparttar 114537 tree. Red and Green M&Ms cohabitate withrepparttar 114538 micro-Reese’s peanut butter cups inrepparttar 114539 candy dish. The holiday season is an excuse for saturating your house with sugar in all its forms. And you want to be festive. You don’t want to be a Scrooge about things. But you also know that if it makes it inrepparttar 114540 door, you will eat it. The Short Term Problem Sugar not only provides needless calories for your expanding horizons, but also destabilizes your insulin levels – a result that can lead to overweight, obesity, and even diabetes. Remember that sugar is notrepparttar 114541 problem. Overconsumption of sugar isrepparttar 114542 problem. There is nothing wrong with sugar per se, only when you eat it as a jelly doughnut chased with a soda and a candy cane! The Long Term Problem Sugar consumption leads to more sugar consumption. Anyone with a weight problem will recognizerepparttar 114543 slippery slope this can become –repparttar 114544 more you eat,repparttar 114545 more you want to eat. This is so deadly for your weight, leading straight into a spiral that circlesrepparttar 114546 weight gain drain.

Medical question #2. Ovarian cysts. Part2

Written by Aleksandr Kavokin MD/PhD,


Polycystic ovarian syndrome is a little bit different animal actually. Here is some genetic predisposition.

Classically: an overweight young female presents with oligomenorrhea or amenorrhea, anovulation, acne, hirsutism, and or infertility.

What is what? Poly = many. Many, many, many men. So PCOS means bunch of those bubbles inrepparttar ovaries. The follicles did not rupture on time, as they should. Oligo means a little. Meno is derived from menses. Rrhea means flow in Latin

So olygomenorrhea = flowing a little bit (less than it should). A- is a prefix that means "No". So, amenorrhea = no flow at all. Hirsutism. I don't remember where it came from, but means hairy or hairiness. Actually excessive hairiness.

Causes of PCOD or PCOS (disease or syndrome) are obesity, genetic predisposition and some other causes of Luteinizing hormone (LH) excess.

There is a self-amplifying cycle:

LH stimulates theca lutein cells. Theca means sort of capsule. Doesn't really matter, just an anatomical term. Those cells are special. They produce androstendione and testosterone. Androstendione and testosterone are actually male hormones. You know, bodybuilders use these hormones to get muscle bulk. You probably heard about those hormones. Sport doping uses testosterone. So, athletes build their muscles and trash their liver.

Rumors say that a famous Hollywood actor usedrepparttar 114536 hormones. Later he got liver transplant. Though he always deniedrepparttar 114537 use.

Anyway, female body converts androstendione into estrone (a weak estrogen). Fat cells do this. Estrone is a female hormone already.

Basically any body produces androgens (andros = man) and estrogens (female hormones). Justrepparttar 114538 proportion of those hormones makes us male or female.

The cycle happens in normal person as well.

The estrone stimulates pituitary secretion of LH. Pituitary is a small gland in you brain. Pea Size. It's small, but it sooooo powerful.

Pituitary has another name - hypophysis. Hypo means down, phys means growth, so this gland is growing from belowrepparttar 114539 rest ofrepparttar 114540 brain. Pituitary gets bunch of connections from hypothalamus. Hypothalamus means “below thalamus”. These two areas of brain regulate almost allrepparttar 114541 hormone production in organism.

Higher levels in brain hierarchy regulate them.

Hypophysis gets a command. Then it produces some intermediate messengers and hormones. The hormones go into blood and control whole body.

Hormones are like orders, like messages torepparttar 114542 rest ofrepparttar 114543 body.

Brain may give quick orders: Signals go throughrepparttar 114544 nerves. It is like a phone order or cablegram.

Brain also regulates organism throughrepparttar 114545 hormones. This is like a mail order. Sort of ifrepparttar 114546 brain sends letters by regular mail. The hypophysis isrepparttar 114547 Post Office in this case.

PCOS kicks in when a woman is obese. There are more fat cells to convert androstendione to estrone. Estrone has such effect that it stimulates pituitary secretion of LH. LH in its turn goes back to those theca lutein cells we discussed and turns them on again, to produce more androstendione, which is again converted into estrone.

Self-amplifying cycle

In addition, that increased level of testosterone causesrepparttar 114548 hirsutism (she becomes hairy like a male) and acne in female. In a normal person this cycle is probably designed to supportrepparttar 114549 development of fetus. Estrogen helps placenta to grow. Placenta supports fetal growth.

However, in a person with PCODrepparttar 114550 cycle is going out of normal control. In this case LH causes growth ofrepparttar 114551 cysts inrepparttar 114552 ovaries.

Why?

Becauserepparttar 114553 corpus luteum cyst is partially made by overgrowth of those theca lutein cells. LH stimulates theca lutein cells. Also, women with PCOS have intolerance to glucose (sugar) and resistance to insulin. It means there is a lot of insulin (hormone that helps to utilize glucose mainly).

However excessive insulin does not work. Either receptors to insulin do not work or something else, butrepparttar 114554 glucose is not utilized. Hence, energy insiderepparttar 114555 cells drops. Hence, a big pile of other problems mounts. As if it is Diabetes Mellitus. Diabetes is a different topic of discussion. For us, it is worthwhile to mention that people with diabetes are very much prone to any infection.

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