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by Ed Philips

Alcohol abuse patterns vary. Some people get drunk every day; others drink large amounts of alcohol at specific times, such as on the weekend. It is common for someone with an alcohol or drug problem to call in sick for work on Monday or Friday. He or she may complain of having a virus or the flu. Others may be sober for long periods and then go on a drinking binge that lasts for weeks or months. Someone with alcohol dependence may suffer serious withdrawal symptoms, such as trembling, delusions, hallucinations, and sweating, if he or she stops drinking suddenly (”cold turkey”). Once alcohol dependence develops, it becomes very difficult to stop drinking without outside help. Medical detoxification may be needed.

Is alcohol causing a problem in my life? Have your family or friends ever complained about your drinking? Have you been late to or absent from work because of hangovers? Have you ever driven after drinking? Have you had trouble with the law after drinking? Have you gotten into a fight after drinking? Do you drink even when you don’t feel well? Has your doctor told you that you have health problems related to drinking? Have you ever tried to quit drinking? Have you ever had a blackout while drinking? Do you sometimes have a drink in the morning to stop your hands from trembling or to ease a hangover? Do you end up drinking more than you meant to drink? Have you stopped doing things you used to do because you would rather drink? Do you drink more than you used to drink? If you said yes to any of these questions, drinking may be a problem for you.

Anecdotal evidence also suggests the first six weeks of the first semester are crucial to freshmen academic success, according to the NIAAA report. And because the early part of freshman year is when many students engage in heavy drinking, it may interfere with successful adaptation to campus life, the report read. About one-third of first-year students fail to enroll for their second year.

There are approximately 10 million alcoholics in the United States. On top of this staggering figure you can also add 20 million alcohol abusers. Most of these alcohol abusers are teens and college students. Figures show that 2 out of 3 adults use alcohol. It has been determined that over half of all suicides, accidental deaths and homicides are related to alcohol. More than 10,000 young people were killed and 40,000 more are injured annually in accidents that involve drinking and driving. As you can see the cost of using alcohol is high and these are just the human costs. Let’s also add the cost of productivity and health expenses that occur because of alcohol addiction and abuse. It happens without warning. It creeps into your life and all of a sudden, you’re hooked. At first you’re the life of the party, and later you’re the drunk of the party. When you’re young, twenties and thirties, your body can handle all the booze, no problem. But mentally it impairs the way you view and feel the world around you.

Most of the time, alcoholics don’t know that alcohol has taken hold of their life. This is called the denial stage. Alcoholics feel that if they can get up and go to work everyday, even though secretly they have an excruciating headache, they don’t have a problem. But what keeps the alcoholic going throughout the workday is in knowing that after work, they’ll have those highballs or beers, which will in fact, make them feel like their old self again. The problem is, that’s not our old self, but our new old self on alcohol. You see, alcohol changes the person we are inside, not only does alcohol, with time, rot our insides, but it rots what comes from within us. What we do, how we treat others, and our spirituality. The potential to be a whole person has been put on hold because of alcohol. The booze stunts the mental capacities and impairs the ability to see the world clearly enough to get passed the weakness and mistakes we make in life.

The jovial phase of being drunk. The frontal lobes house the functions that control, among other things, your inhibitions, self-control, willpower, ability to judge and attention span. Suppress it, and your self-confidence increases, you start getting jovial, you become more and more generous, and start talking more. This is why alcohol is seen as a good social lubricant. This effect can already be detected with blood alcohol levels as low as 0,01g/100ml - in other words, while you are within the legal limit of 0,05g/100ml. The problem is that even at this level, which is perfectly legal, your loss of judgement ability and your changed personality already increase your risk of dying an unnatural death, for example as a result of being in a fight. Maybe you are better able to control yourself and your behaviour in this phase as a result of good self-control, or education, and the onslaught of the alcohol might pass by relatively unobtrusively. Maybe not.

Craving alcohol is a complicated process that involves several different factors. We are usually first introduced to alcohol at a young age (in our teens). Since no-one under the age of 21 (in the US) is allowed to purchase alcohol, it becomes “cool” and desirable for young adults under 21 to give drinking a try. Later on people grab a bottle of booze to feel better, gain more confidence in a social setting or to forget about their problems. Since the alcohol makes them feel better, at least temporarily, they start to crave it.

About the Author:
by Roselyn Capen

Underdeveloped as they may be, men too have breast tissues. This means men are prone to developing breast cancer too, just like females, even though their risk is about a hundred times lesser than females. About 1% of breast cancer cases are those of male breast cancer.

When a man has risk factors for male breast cancer, the breast tissues may start developing cancer cells, and he may get breast cancer. There is no age requisite for male breast cancer to occur, however, men between 60 years to 70 years of age are most vulnerable. Exposure to radiation is a common male breast cancer risk factor. Also, the risk goes high if there is a family history of breast cancer. Men with Klinefelter’s disease and cirrhosis have high risks too. Klinefelter’s is when a man abnormally has two X chromosomes instead of one. Cirrhosis comes with high levels of estrogen, which is a big male breast cancer risk factor. Also, men with weight and alcohol problems are more prone to developing breast cancer.

Mutation of genes is also a risk factor. Mutation in genes like BRCA1 or BRCA2 increases the chance of you developing breast cancer, and such mutations generally occur during your life and have not been passed on through heredity. Otherwise, men have a significantly higher chance of developing breast cancer due to heredity; about thirty out of hundred men do get it in this manner, compared to just 5% to 10% female breast cancer victims.

Men show similar symptoms as women when it comes to breast cancer, like a lump in the breast, the peau d’orange syndrome, where the skin of the breast appears indented, like that of an orange, fluid discharge from nipples, thickness of breasts, change in breast size and skin around the nipples, and the breast skin appearing red.

If you think you have a chance of developing breast cancer, get your breast clinically examined regularly. The best method for diagnosis is always a biopsy. Mammograms, ultrasounds, and examination of your nipple discharge can also be done, to detect lumps and cancer cell presence. If you are diagnosed with the cancer, do get your tissue tested for the presence of female hormones like estrogen and progesterone, since these hormones increase cancer activity, and can be removed by treatments.

If the diagnosed breast cancer has not spread outside the original site, that is, if it is in situ, a mastectomy gives great results. If the cancer is invasive, which means it has metastasized outside the site where the cancer started developing, doctors test it to see how much it has advanced. There are four stages, Stage I being the most curable and more reactive to treatment, and Stage IV meaning the cancer has metastasized beyond the stage where a certain cure is possible. This grading helps doctors determine what kind of treatment is needed for you.

Treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation therapy and hormonal therapy are adopted to control cancer growth in the last stage, when total cure becomes difficult. For all other stages, treating male breast cancer is hardly different from treating female breast cancer.

A healthy lifestyle throughout your life, with minimal alcohol intake increases your chances of survival ten folds. Early detection is also pivotal to high survival rates. Telling your closest friends and family members is necessary. If you try to hide your disease, even from your children, you will take undue stress up on yourself. It is also important to maintain a healthy lifestyle with adequate rest during your treatment, and it is never a shame to ask friends or family for any sort of help or support that you might need. Your cancer is curable.

About the Author:
by Ed Philips

Alcohol abuse patterns vary. Some people get drunk every day; others drink large amounts of alcohol at specific times, such as on the weekend. It is common for someone with an alcohol or drug problem to call in sick for work on Monday or Friday. He or she may complain of having a virus or the flu. Others may be sober for long periods and then go on a drinking binge that lasts for weeks or months. Someone with alcohol dependence may suffer serious withdrawal symptoms, such as trembling, delusions, hallucinations, and sweating, if he or she stops drinking suddenly (”cold turkey”). Once alcohol dependence develops, it becomes very difficult to stop drinking without outside help. Medical detoxification may be needed.

Is alcohol causing a problem in my life? Have your family or friends ever complained about your drinking? Have you been late to or absent from work because of hangovers? Have you ever driven after drinking? Have you had trouble with the law after drinking? Have you gotten into a fight after drinking? Do you drink even when you don’t feel well? Has your doctor told you that you have health problems related to drinking? Have you ever tried to quit drinking? Have you ever had a blackout while drinking? Do you sometimes have a drink in the morning to stop your hands from trembling or to ease a hangover? Do you end up drinking more than you meant to drink? Have you stopped doing things you used to do because you would rather drink? Do you drink more than you used to drink? If you said yes to any of these questions, drinking may be a problem for you.

students may choose to engage in activities like funneling and binge drinking or drinking games like beer pong and flip cups. Making decisions about alcohol can be crucial in a student’s first year. According to a 2002 college task force report to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, some first-year students are among those who drink the most in college.

There are approximately 10 million alcoholics in the United States. On top of this staggering figure you can also add 20 million alcohol abusers. Most of these alcohol abusers are teens and college students. Figures show that 2 out of 3 adults use alcohol. It has been determined that over half of all suicides, accidental deaths and homicides are related to alcohol. More than 10,000 young people were killed and 40,000 more are injured annually in accidents that involve drinking and driving. As you can see the cost of using alcohol is high and these are just the human costs. Let’s also add the cost of productivity and health expenses that occur because of alcohol addiction and abuse. It happens without warning. It creeps into your life and all of a sudden, you’re hooked. At first you’re the life of the party, and later you’re the drunk of the party. When you’re young, twenties and thirties, your body can handle all the booze, no problem. But mentally it impairs the way you view and feel the world around you.

Most of the time, alcoholics don’t know that alcohol has taken hold of their life. This is called the denial stage. Alcoholics feel that if they can get up and go to work everyday, even though secretly they have an excruciating headache, they don’t have a problem. But what keeps the alcoholic going throughout the workday is in knowing that after work, they’ll have those highballs or beers, which will in fact, make them feel like their old self again. The problem is, that’s not our old self, but our new old self on alcohol. You see, alcohol changes the person we are inside, not only does alcohol, with time, rot our insides, but it rots what comes from within us. What we do, how we treat others, and our spirituality. The potential to be a whole person has been put on hold because of alcohol. The booze stunts the mental capacities and impairs the ability to see the world clearly enough to get passed the weakness and mistakes we make in life.

The slurring phase of being drunk. The next parts of the brain that come into the firing line, the parietal lobes are affected at a blood alcohol level of approximately 0,10 g/100ml. Then your motor skills become impaired, you have difficulty speaking, you speak in slurred fashion (which oddly enough, you cannot hear yourself), you start shivering, and complicated actions become very difficult to execute (I always used to watched alleged drunk drivers trying to fasten their shirt buttons - an everyday activity that suddenly becomes as difficult as threading a needle). At the same time your sensory abilities are hampered. The can’t-see-properly phase or being drunk. If the occipital lobe is reached, the alcohol level is usually about 0,20 g/100ml. Your visual perception ability becomes limited. You have increasing difficulty to perceive movement and distance. Your depth perception becomes impaired and your peripheral vision decreases. If you now drive at dusk, you will have great difficulty seeing the little boy running after his ball, or your fellow drinking buddy, staggering by the roadside.

Consuming alcohol on a regular basis also becomes a habit after a while, just like driving down a familiar road. If there is a problem, or a social setting that calls for alcohol, you may be grabbing that bottle of beer or glass of wine without even thinking about it. Once you get in the habit of drinking alcohol on a more or less regular basis, your body gets used to the alcohol in the blood stream and reacts with withdrawal symptoms when you stop drinking. These withdrawal symptoms can range from mild to severe.

About the Author:
by Elgin Elton

Today with the male infertility treatment, a large number of men can still inseminate their partners effectively. However there are many other causes for male infertility for which the treatment may not be as successful. This article will briefly discuss some of the causes for male infertility and discuss the issue.

Cause of Infertility in Men

“Varicoceles” is the most common cause and it is the dilated veins group that is usually around the left testis even though affect can be seen in both testicles. Around fifteen percent of men suffer from this in entire age group from the teenagers to the mature men. There are also some other causes such as hormonal disorders, blockages, infections, and exposure to substances which act as toxic to the sperm.

How can male infertility treatment help?

It is possible to explore out plenty of treatments depending on the issue of infertility and a wide range of men undergoing these issue can be well-treated.

* The recent introduced medication is Intracytoplasmic sperm injection which provides a hope to almost entire man having fertility problem. Since the man often still obtain some sperm in his ejaculate, the real issue is to determining the starting point of treatment rather than determining the type of treatment.

* Gluco-corticoid therapy for sperm auto-immunity and gonadotrophin treatment for gonadotrophin deficiency result only with 50% success.

* Artificial insemination is considered as the simplest way when it comes to male fertility treatment. There is almost 100 percent chance for being success in this treatment.

There are other male infertility treatments which involve surgery:

* Transrectal Ultrasound (TRUS)

* Vasography

* Testis biopsy

What is it need to start the treatment

Male infertility treatment starts only after determining the accurate cause of infertility after finishing a series of tests and exams. Since, the reason behind infertility often is extremely vast, each and everything needed to be considered including a full historical background, habits, diets, sexual habits and practices.

Sometime, Male infertility treatment requires a long and stressful treatment along with the negative consequences. So, this treatment is usually started with a team of your partner from whom you can get entire support you need.

Today, the doctors are optimistic when it comes to infertility in man rather than in women due to the advancement on technologies and resources, however, if nothing gets able to treat the male infertility treatment, then a forever hope is always there in the noble action of adoption.

Do not leave out any solution by checking all your options with your doctor or independently online. There are a number of specialized institutes who can guide you step by step through your options and choices for the right male infertility treatment for you.

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by Dan Brown

Alcoholism is an illness marked by drinking alcoholic beverages at a level that interferes with physical health, mental health, and social, family, or occupational responsibilities. Alcoholism is divided into 2 categories: dependence and abuse. People with alcohol dependence, the most severe alcohol disorder, usually experience tolerance and withdrawal. Tolerance is a need for markedly increased amounts of alcohol to achieve intoxication or the desired effect. Withdrawal occurs when alcohol is discontinued or intake is decreased. Alcohol dependents spend a great deal of time drinking alcohol, and obtaining it. People who are dependent on or abuse alcohol continue to drink it despite evidence of physical or psychological problems. Those with dependence have more severe problems and a greater compulsion to drink.

Because alcohol affects many organs in the body, long-term heavy drinking puts you at risk for developing serious health problems, some of which are described below. More than 2 million Americans suffer from alcohol-related liver disease. Some drinkers develop alcoholic hepatitis, or inflammation of the liver, as a result of long-term heavy drinking. Moderate drinking can have beneficial effects on the heart, especially among those at greatest risk for heart attacks, such as men over the age of 45 and women after menopause. But long-term heavy drinking increases the risk for high blood pressure, heart disease, and some kinds of stroke. The pancreas helps to regulate the body’s blood sugar levels by producing insulin. The pancreas also has a role in digesting the food we eat. Long-term heavy drinking can lead to pancreatitis, or inflammation of the pancreas. This condition is associated with severe abdominal pain and weight loss and can be fatal.

Many car accidents are a result of alcoholism. In the United States, though measures have been taken to prevent it, the number of accidents involving alcohol has increased significantly over the last ten years. In the year 2004, 25,000 fatal accidents were the result of alcohol. Besides the terrible loss of life, there is also a cost to taxpayers in the US who have to pay because of others’ mistakes. 21 to 24 billion dollars a year must be paid to the government for alcohol-related accidents. Insurance also poses a problem to the families of the deceased.

Alcoholism, besides being damaging to the drinker, can also cause suffering to the people around them. For example, spouses of alcoholics often become hurt as a result of the other’s damaging or abusive tendencies while drunk. Frequently, spouses can end up dealing with someone who is not the person they originally married. Arguments can be started, words spoken which, when sober, will be regretted. However, this does not lessen the pain. It takes a great deal of courage, patience and love for a spouse to help their loved one deal with and perhaps give up their love of alcohol.

Parents often struggle with what they should say to their kids about alcohol. They also struggle with when to start the dialogue. While no parent wants their child to grow up too early, parents unfortunately cannot afford to wait to address the issue. It is best to arm children with honest answers about health, safety and the dangers of underage drinking before they have fully shaped their attitudes and opinions about underage alcohol use. That means educating kids as young as six on how to protect themselves and make informed decisions about their safety.

Over the past 20 years, modern methods of evaluating medical therapies have been increasingly applied to alcohol treatment. Alcohol treatment centers use both counseling and medications to help a person stop drinking. With support and treatment, many people are able to stop drinking alcohol and rebuild their lives. Alcohol treatment programs work for many people.But just like any chronic disease, there are varying levels of success when it comes to alcohol treatment. Some people stop drinking and remain sober on their own. Others have long periods of sobriety with bouts of relapse. With alcohol treatment, one thing is clear, however, the longer a person abstains from alcohol, the more likely he or she will be able to stay sober.

If you have decided, for whatever reason, that you want to stop drinking, there is a world of help and support available. To get a better picture of where you are now, so that you can make an informed decision about how to proceed, perhaps the first person to talk with should be your family doctor. Sometimes admitting to yourself and others that you need help can be one of the most difficult steps to take on your road to recovery. As the The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) says in it’s information: Acknowledging that help is needed for an alcohol problem may not be easy. But keep in mind that the sooner a person gets help, the better are his or her chances for a successful recovery. Any reluctance you may feel about discussing your drinking with your health care professional may stem from common misconceptions about alcoholism and alcoholic people.

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