Becoming disabled is no laughing matter. For many it means that they can no longer hold a steady job due to their disability. The disability may be a physical one in which they cannot stay on their feet for long period of time or lift anything due to a muscle injury.

The injury may be a psychological one that severely limits their interaction with other people. The sad fact is that many people become disabled and do not know what to do next. This article will address some of the more common questions you or a loved one might have about disability benefits. It definitely pays to be informed and hopefully you will be able to understand the process behind receiving benefits if you are disabled and unable to work any longer.

What are disability benefits?

When a person becomes injured in the United States, they can sometimes find themselves unable to work or earn an income based on their particular injury. If this happens, the United States government has made it possible for them to draw disability benefits. The benefits come from the Social Security Office and are based on what they have paid in over the course of their working career.

In the case of someone who has never been able to work due to a disability, they still can receive monetary and health benefits through the same office. The benefits are a check that is paid every month to help them with living expenses.

The benefits are paid either through the Social Security disability insurance program and the Supplemental Social Security Income program. The ability to receive these benefits will largely depend on exactly what disability that person has and to what extent they are able, if any, to work.

Why was my disability claim denied?

There are hundreds of reasons why disability claims are denied each year. It may be that you did not provide the right documentation. It could be that your disability is not on their covered disabilities list. It may be that you have a felony warrant out for your arrest for some crime and did not report it.

It could even be that the panel feels that your condition will improve within a year and render you unable to receive benefits. That is why it is essential that you read everything you can about disability benefits and understand all of the documentation that you will need in order to be qualified.

How do you fight or appeal to get your disability benefits approved?

If the government denies your disability claim you will receive a letter stating why you have been denied disability benefits. But do not lose hope. You can appeal the process but you should know that sometimes the appeal process takes years.

You may be denied several times and require a disability attorney to handle your case for you. Many people find themselves going to court to prove their disability and having to get a judge rule on their case. There are several levels that you can go through in order to get your case heard and passed through.

Do I continuously report in to my case worker for my disability benefits?

Generally you only need to report to your case worker if something changes in your status. If you find that you want to try going back to work, talk to your case worker.

There are programs set up to help you test your disability while still allowing you to receive benefits and Medicare. The Social Security Administration can help you find a job that may be perfectly suited for your particular disability.

Educate yourself further about the disability form from Mike Selvon portal at http://www.filingfordisability-benefits.com/. We appreciate your feedback and welcome your comments at http://www.mynicheportal.com/insurance/ where a free audio gift awaits you.

Most children with cerebral palsy seem to have a normal development and birth, but wind up being diagnosed later on. Premature birth is one of the risk factors of cerebral palsy, which includes babies who are born less than 37 weeks into the pregnancy (as opposed to 40).

Babies who weigh less than 5.5 pounds are also at a higher risk of developing CP. Sometimes when there are multiple babies fighting for position or when babies are born in a feet-first position, the likelihood of a birthing accident is increased. Mothers with mental retardation, seizures, thyroid problems or exposure to toxins are also more likely to have a CP baby.

Spastic Cerebral Palsy is the most common type of CP. With this diagnosis, children often have rigid muscles, jerky movements and difficulty walking. Spastic diplegia is a condition where the child’s hip and leg muscles are very tight, with the legs crossed at the knee, which makes it extremely difficult to walk. Another condition, called spastic hemiplegia, is characterized by arms, legs and hands that are stiff or do not develop properly, which sometimes results in leg braces. Spastic quadriplegia is the most severe condition and affects the entire body and is usually accompanied by seizures, mental retardation and extreme difficulty walking or talking.

Some types of cerebral palsy are immediately identifiable at birth. For instance, hypotonic CP (caused by brain damage or malformations during development) is characterized by the baby’s inability to hold up the head, delayed motor skills and other muscle control problems.

Likewise, congenital CP is considered a birth defect that occurred during development, rather than an inherited condition or a medical error. There is another type that a child may be born with as a result of a birthing accident.

This type is called Erb’s Palsy (or sometimes brachial plexus palsy) and this happens when a baby’s shoulders hit the pelvic bone too abruptly, thus severing or stretching the nerves. When the baby is born, he or she will have no muscle control or feeling in the affected arm.

In addition to the aforementioned symptoms, any type of cerebral palsy may be subject to certain complications. For instance, severe muscle tightening may cause the muscles to pull so tightly on the bones that the limb curls in, the joints may deform and possibly even dislocate.

Many children have trouble swallowing, so they are especially prone to malnutrition. Speech, vision, hearing and dental problems are commonly associated with CP. Two-thirds of children with cerebral palsy suffer from mental retardation and 50% are prone to seizures of some sort.

Educate yourself further about the disability form from Mike Selvon portal at http://www.filingfordisability-benefits.com/. We appreciate your feedback and welcome your comments at http://www.mynicheportal.com/insurance/ where a free audio gift awaits you.

Weight loss isn’t rocket science. If you wish to lose weight, then you must encourage your body to tap into its fatty reserve, which is comprised of unused calories. Be aware that one pound of fat equals about 3,500 calories, so you can achieve this fat loss by reducing the number of calories you eat by 500 to 1,000 per day.

Once you’re on a healthy diet nutrition plan, you should incorporate 60 minutes of exercise into your schedule, at least three days a week. If you encounter steady weight reduction of 1 to 2 pounds per week, then you’ll be more likely to keep it off.

As you begin your weight loss initiative, try to assess your situation. What are your weaknesses? Do you cook with butter and olive oil too often? Are you a sucker for fast food or frozen entrees? Do you suck back carbonated beverages or alcohol like it’s your job?

Are cakes, cookies and sugary snack foods your weakness, or do you have a hard time saying “no” to pasta and bread? Keeping a food diary is a good way to begin your task because then you can identify what your habits are.

Perhaps you can even share your food diary with a licensed nutritionist, who can show you where you’ve gone wrong. Healthy eating doesn’t mean “giving up” your favorite foods entirely, but rather, consuming them less often, eating smaller portions and/or trying lower calorie versions of the same foods.

In addition to healthy eating, your weight loss plan will require some exercise. It’s recommended that you spend 30 to 60 minutes, three to four times per week doing moderate exercise. Moderate workouts may include a brisk 15-minute mile walk, raking or lawn mowing, shoveling snow, playing with children at the park or taking a casual bike ride.

Vigorous activity like running, swimming laps, rollerblading, cross-country skiing, aerobics, competitive sports and jumping rope are also important types of fat-burning exercise options. While it is possible to curb weight gain simply by dieting, adding exercise into your schedule helps increase your calorie deficit so you can lose more weight, in addition to helping you sculpt your body, prevent illness and live a healthier life.

Once you’ve reached your weight loss goals through healthy eating and exercise, you can keep off the pounds by following these simple tips. First, continue to watch your diet. Most people try to continue following a reduced-calorie diet even after they’ve reached their target weight.

Eating consistently and always eating a balanced breakfast are essential components of keeping your weight steady. Secondly, stay active. The healthiest individuals try to squeeze in an hour of exercise each day, whether it’s a solid block of intense cardio or perhaps three brisk 20-minute walks.

Lastly, stay on course by talking with friends and family about your progress. A caring partner can really keep you motivated to stay fit and trim for life!

Mike Selvon has some great articles for the creative mind. Find out more about the weight loss basics at http://obesity.trustprofitableniche.com/. We appreciate your feefback at our blog at http://www.mynicheportal.com/health-beauty/.

Everywhere you look these days you are confronted with articles and images of people trying to get healthier. It has become a wide spread movement because so many people are living unhealthy lifestyles. For some it means more advanced nutritional supplements to add to their diet.

For others it may be herbal supplies to help with a chronic condition. Still others are turning to naturopathy as a means of leading a life that is not heavily dependent on pharmaceuticals and traditional medicines. You may have heard of homeopathy but the naturopathic lifestyle is a bit different.

Naturopath followers can credit John Scheel with the term naturopathy. He coined the term in 1895, in Europe, based on the Nature Cure Movement that was so popular at the time.

It was not until many years later that the naturopathic movement was brought to the United States by Benedict Lust who had studied this lifestyle under Father Sebastian Kneipp. One of the core ideas is to free the body from harsh toxins such as drugs, tobacco and alcohol.

Lust believed that homeopathic practitioners had a very good premise about how to cure certain ailments but he also believed in hydrotherapy and herbal supplies to make remedies for certain ailments. He believed in the natural styles, or rather lifestyles, so much so that in 1901 he founded a school and then later a Naturopathic Society of America, which seventeen years later became the American Naturopathic Association.

It is said that with the help of a nutrition professional and the use of homeopathic cures, combined with limited surgical methods, anyone could heal themselves, yet it was not long before these ideas were challenged by medical doctors who did not believe in the naturopathic lifestyle or homeopathy. The ideas and oaths that practitioners were taking just did not sit well with the medical community.

The medical community and scientists believed, and still do, that there is more to healing the body than herbal remedies and inspiring self-healing. After the 1930s, there began to be a significant decline in the number of naturopathic physicians and practitioners. Schools offering degrees began to close. To this day there are only six accredited schools in the United States that offer a naturopathic education curriculum.

Will the naturopathy movement ever have a Renaissance period where people begin flocking to its way of thinking? Everything comes in cycles and just as homeopathy has experienced a resurgence, naturopathic medicine will as well. Most people want to be healthy and so following a naturopathic lifestyle is not that big of a leap. It does require some education but a trip to the bookstore can cure that ailment.

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No one likes going to the doctor’s office and having to take prescription medication. There are always side effects to the medication and sometimes a person has to be on a certain medication for most of his or her life. Homeopathic products have become an alternative to prescription medication.

But do you really know if these homeopathic cures can help your ailment? There is a lot of controversy involving homeopathy and unless you have done your homework and investigated homeopathic ingredients, you could find yourself worse than when you started.

Homeopathy derives its name from the Greek words homois (similar or like) and pathos (suffering or disease). The discoverer of classical homeopathy and its cures is attributed to Samuel Hahnemann, a German physician, who began working on homeopathic principles in the late 1700’s. He was not a fan of the medical practices employed at that time, such as those of blood letting, leeches or purging, and he was right to be so mistrusting of those barbaric practices, as they often did more harm than good.

The current medical practices of the time worked on a principle of opposites. Dr. Hahnemann began to ponder about using a method of “like cures like” through the use of homeopathic medication. His belief was that if a similar agent to what the patient was suffering from was introduced into the patient in small amounts, then the body’s natural healing process would be sped up to cure the ailment.

If this concept seems similar to you it is because that is the basis for vaccinations. A vaccine is a minute amount of a certain disease that has been changed to the point where it is harmless to the person but still causes the immune system to learn its properties and thus becomes enabled to fight it properly.

Through Dr. Hahnemann’s work a complete Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia manual was introduced into the world of medicine. His ideas on homeopathy soon spread to the rest of the medical community and many physicians at the time began to embrace these homeopathy treatment options.

Unfortunately, the practices and products listed in the manual were not scientifically tested so the veracity of them led to many disputes between medical doctors and scientists, and homeopathic practitioners. Today, though the Food and Drug Administration acts as a governing council to verify pharmaceuticals, homeopathic medications do not fall under the same guidelines.

This is why you can purchase these remedies in health food stores, pharmacies and even your grocery store. The real question is whether or not the homeopathic remedies will work for you? Unfortunately, it is a guessing game and you are the guinea pig.

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Obesity is a problem for adults and children across the U.S. Surveys indicate that 31.1% of the male population was considered obese in 2004, which increased to 33.3% in 2006. For women, 33.2% were obese in 2004, which increased to 35.3% in 2006. Additionally, 16.3% of the children (ages 2 to 19) in the survey needed to lose weight to reach a healthy BMI.

The concern about the obesity epidemic is not merely aesthetic. In fact, links between a number of health conditions and weight have been made. Hypertension, heart disease and type 2 diabetes are just a few conditions overweight people are susceptible to.

According to the Center for Disease Control, obesity and caloric intake are interlinked. “Weight management is all about balance — balancing the number of calories you consume with the number of calories your body uses or burns off,” the site says. For instance, if you eat the same number of calories your body is using each day, then your weight will remain stable.

For the average American, this amount is about 2,000 calories per day. If you eat more calories than your body can use (“in caloric excess”), these calories will store as fat, so if you’re going far over 2,000 each day, you need to assess your diet nutrition habits. If you are eating fewer calories than you’re using (“in caloric deficit”), your body will begin pulling from its fat cell storage for energy, so your weight will decrease. Most diets suggest between 1,200 – 1,500 calories daily to lose weight.

Genetics may play a role in one’s ability or inability to lose weight, but researchers caution that this should not be used as a way of rationalizing the chance of putting on too many pounds, which is taking place in our population. “Despite obesity having strong genetic determinants, the genetic composition of the population does not change rapidly.

Therefore, the large increase in . . . [obesity] must reflect major changes in non-genetic factors,” reports James O. Hill and Frederick L. Trowbridge. Genes are linked to excessive weight gain in people with Bardet-Biedl syndrome and Prader-Willi syndrome, but in general, any person is capable of adhering to a diet and weight loss regime.

In addition to the overt health consequences, there are also economic ramifications associated with obesity. In 1999, overweight and obese medical expenses accounted for 9.1% of all U.S. medical expenditures, reaching a total of $78.5 billion.

Half of these expenses were paid by Medicaid and Medicare. Today, the expenses are more than $95 billion, which are not only taking its toll with the cost of treatment and diagnostic services, but also in morbidity and mortality costs, with diminished productivity, absenteeism and lost wages.

A state like Mississippi paid out $757 million to service its overweight population’s medical needs. With 19.7% of these people served by Medicare and Medicaid, state taxes will be run ragged.

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In the United States, the leading cause of death is still heart disease, which claims a whopping 652,091 people each year, followed by cancer (559,312) and strokes (143,579). Doctors say that the importance of healthy living and health prevention cannot be overstated. In recent years, so much has been learned about the contributing factors to heart disease, the role of fat and cholesterol, and the steps to reduce the risk.

While researchers are still a little in-the-dark about cancer prevention, they have found that increasing fiber and vegetables, as well as meeting with physicians for early detection tests can have many patients walking away from what would have been fatal diseases.

As the saying goes, “garbage in, garbage out.” Eating the right foods is the most important step toward healthy living. Yet this simple matter of choice can also be one of the most difficult lifestyle modifications as well. Fats, salts and sugars are just so tasty and so convenient, they can be hard to resist! However, just about every healthy eating plan runs off the same principles. Eat more fruits, more vegetables, more fiber and more lean protein.

Eat less saturated fat, less sodium, fewer carbohydrates and fewer calories. When you dine out, try to avoid fried foods and ask for soup or salad instead. You may want to ask for a box so you can set half of your portion aside for later.

You don’t have to give up your favorite foods, but you do have to eat them in moderation. There are a number of websites that offer healthy recipes and diet nutrition calculators to help you get started eating your way to disease prevention.

For healthy living, the appropriate amount of fitness for a normal adult is at least 30 minutes per day or 60 minutes, four days a week. Weights experts will tell you that part of overall fitness is stretching, sculpting your body through resistance training and strengthening muscle mass, as well as bones. You can accomplish this task by purchasing a basic dumbbell set, participating in circuit training at the gym or taking a Pilates/yoga class.

Another component of fitness is ensuring your heart health through cardiovascular exercises like running, biking, brisk walking, dancing, jumping rope, swimming, rollerblading, cross country skiing and playing sports. By creating a diverse array of physical activities that you can stick to, you will decrease your risk of injury, sickness and disease to live a healthier life.

Stress management is an essential component of healthy living, as research shows stress can take years off our lives and can lead to weight gain, depression, hypertension, high blood pressure and heart attacks. Stress is part of your normal physiological reaction to threat, which triggers a sudden release of hormones in what is called the “fight or flight response.”

To keep anxiety at bay, try making lists and prioritizing your tasks, while outsourcing tasks to others to make your load lighter. Strive for a balance of work, family and personal time. Know when it’s time to take a break because your stress levels are jeopardizing your health.

Be sure you are practicing healthy eating, exercising and getting at least seven hours of sleep each night. Devise strategies to help you cope with stress, such as deep breathing, muscle relaxation techniques, yoga, tai-chi, meditation, massage, music, reading or hypnosis. Lastly, if you feel your efforts aren’t working, then you should consider counseling, which will help you identify where you’ve gone wrong and how you can begin living a more satisfying life.

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There are many organizations that homeopathy users can become affiliated with. But the largest and most well known in North America is the North American Society of Homeopaths, or otherwise known as NASH. This organization brings together people from Mexico, the United States and Canada into one organization that helps promote the use of classical homeopathy. If you are new to the homeopathic community, then you may want to make this online homeopathy group your first stop so you can find a homeopath near you or find out more information.

The website for the North American Society of Homeopaths is Homeopathy and is filled with all types of information. The home page displays all of the most current events, news and any upcoming events that will be happening.

It also contains a link for homeopathic practitioners in your area so if you are searching for one who is registered with NASH, then you have definitely come to the right place. There is also a link to the Members Only section so you will have to purchase a membership if you want access.

If you are looking for a homeopath or someone who deals with homeopathy treatment options in your area, then all you have to do is look at the top of the page. There is a link to find a homeopathic practitioner in your area. In the same general area there is a resources, research, contact, join and about links that will give you all the information about NASH and the natural styles it represents.

If you wish to join NASH, then there are several ways in which to do so. Current homeopathy practitioners can fill out a membership form and join for $250.00 annually but the practitioners must be certified by the Council of Homeopathic Certification. If you are not a practitioner but simply a student who is studying to become one, then there are links and forms for you as well.

You can even donate money and become a friend of NASH if that is your desire. The only downside to the website is that it really does not offer much about standard homeopathic treatments for the lay person. There are many journals and articles you can read but you have to do a bit of searching to find them.

Do you really need to join the North American Society of Homeopaths to get the information about homeopathic remedies and products, and to find the homeopathy practitioners that you are seeking? No, but if you are a doctor of homeopathy medicine, then you definitely want to pay the money to join. Not only does it allow you to list your name as a provider but it also allows you to access more information.

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Diets come in all varieties, from liquid and three-day regimes to low-fat, high-protein diet nutrition options. With so many books and different advocates out there, it can be hard to disseminate fact from fiction and decide what plan works best. Deep down, we suspect that healthy eating is more than just a short-term plan to knock off a few pounds.

Yet, with busy schedules and limited time to plan meals or exercise routines, our health objectives often fall by the wayside. Perhaps if we can get started on some program, we’ll stick with it this time. Here are a few of the popular approaches to weight loss to consider.

For people who are severely overweight, it sometimes takes a special weight loss program to keep them disciplined and motivated. After all, when you’re used to living a certain way your whole life, the switch to fewer calories and a more varied diet, without the fat, can be overwhelming.

One of these popular plans is the Weight Watchers program, which is $20 to join and costs about $9/week. The diet nutrition plan emphasizes strict calorie control, flexibility in food choices, exercise and a positive attitude.

Proponents of Weight Watchers attend group meetings and weigh-ins and are not mandated to buy prepackaged food. Instead, they learn about what choices they can make based on a “points system,” as outlined in the Weight Watchers manual.

Some critics say the points system does not necessarily lead to healthy eating, but the diet has fared well in clinical studies. Additionally, because it is cost-effective and flexible, participants are more likely to stick with it.

Atkins is another one of the dietary weight loss programs you’ve probably heard about. Perhaps your neighbor dropped twenty pounds on it or a woman at the bookstore looked over your shoulder and recommended Dr. Atkins’ “New Diet Revolution.”

What doesn’t sound good about gorging on steak with Bearnaise sauce, eggs, bacon and cheddar cheese, without being required to move an inch? While it may not sound healthy at first, Atkins claims that participants can burn fat and drop weight quickly if they drastically reduce carbohydrates down to 20 to 40 grams a day.

You’ll be loading up on fat and protein, while cutting out refined sugar, milk, white rice, white flour, white bread, white potatoes and pasta. While this diet has been championed by overweight dieters who have witnessed the pounds dropping off, experts are concerned about the overall effect of advocating fat over fruit.

“Our worries over the Atkins diet go way past the question of whether it is effective for losing weight or even for keeping weight off. We worry that the diet promotes heart disease,” Robert H. Eckel, MD of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, says. “We have concerns over whether this is a healthy diet for preventing heart disease, stroke and cancer. There is also the potential for loss of bone, and the potential for people with liver and kidney problems to have trouble with the high amounts of protein in these diets.”

One of the best diets you can be on is not really a diet at all; it’s a lifestyle change that leads to weight loss. In exercise physiologist Bob Greene’s book “The Best Life Diet,” you’re encouraged to reduce your calories to 1,500 to 2,500 (depending on your size and fitness level), eat a wide variety of foods, manage your portion size and increase your physical activity.

The changes are presented in three gradual phases to help you get acclimated to this new way of living and it’s a diet you never quit. Over time, you’ll begin saying goodbye to fried foods, trans fat laden dishes, white bread, sugary soft drinks, white pasta and high-fat dairy, while welcoming more fruits and vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy.

“Once a person decides to lose weight, they want it gone immediately,” says Cathy Nonas of the American Dietetic Association. “And unfortunately, they choose fad diets [and] lose weight quickly only to regain it back instead of choosing a program like Best Life Diet that tackles changing eating behaviors.”

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Homeopathy remedies take a lot of flack from the medical community. So you would think that all homeopathic practitioners would band together to form a solid front for the world to see. Unfortunately, this is not so.

The arguing between the traditional homeopath practitioners and the “new age” users is growing. It seems as if the traditional homeopathic remedy has undergone some changes from new followers and a new line of belief has been formed. Classic homeopaths believe it is nothing more than hocus pocus and nonsense.

At the root of the huge debate among homeopath practitioners is the homeopathic remedy itself. The remedies homeopathic followers use are made up of main ingredients that are diluted with alcohol and/or water to the point where only the “essence” of the original substances remain. Scientists argue that there is nothing there except water and/or alcohol, yet that is not what has the homeopathic community divided.

The interesting aspect has to do with where some homeopath practitioners are divided in their opinions. There are new practices where practitioners believe that the electromagnetic energy is said to have been captured by the alcohol or lactose within the solution, and there is no need for the original substance to be in it at all.

To even further this new thought, the use of paper remedies has surfaced. The substance and dilution are written down on a piece of paper and either the sufferer puts the paper in his or her pocket, pins it to his or her clothing or places it under a glass of water. And here you thought magic didn’t exist!

All jokes aside, the practice of using a homeopathic remedy for what ails you does date back for thousands of years. However, you probably do not want to know that some of the ancient, standard homeopathic cures were created by using fecal matter, respiratory discharges or even blood and tissue. The idea was that if you took something that was similar to your ailment and diluted it down thousands of times, then it would provide the cure.

The old saying of “united we stand; divided we fall” is incredibly apropos when it comes to supplements homeopathic. The more divided that the homeopathy community becomes over traditional homeopathy methods versus new methods, the less credence it lends to the homeopathic remedy practice as a whole. There are two ways to discovering whether these new cures are hocus pocus or are genuine cures and that is to either try them yourself or wait for the results of a scientific study.

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Wrapping one’s mind around diet nutrition can sometimes be confusing. For instance, a 120-pound fifteen-year-old girl will not need as many calories as a 220-pound twenty-five-year-old man. To further confuse matters, that 120-pound fifteen-year-old girl’s 150-pound peer of the same age will need more calories.

A fifteen-year-old girl with juvenile diabetes will have an entirely different set of nutritional needs as well. Online, there are many resources and tools to help the average American figure out what his or her dietary needs are, depending on height, weight and level of physical activity.

The “2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans” are the most current recommendations for diet nutrition, at least until the 2010 edition comes out. According to the guidelines, a “healthy diet” is one that is full of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat dairy products, including lean protein like poultry and fish, beans, eggs and nuts, and is low in saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, sodium and sugar.

Consumers are encouraged to make smart choices and eat a wide variety of foods, while staying within the caloric needs for their height and weight. Each day, Americans should be consuming calories, amino acids, essential fatty acids, minerals and vitamins. While requirements change for people depending upon their size and level of physical activity, the average person consumes around 50 grams of fat and 2,000 calories per day to remain at a stable weight.

For someone with type 1 or type 2 diabetes, the normal dietary rules may not apply. Generally, most diabetics will need to reduce the amount of fat consumed (particularly saturated fat), quit smoking and reduce alcohol consumption to no more than 3 or 4 per day. Diets should be rich in mono-unsaturated fats (like olive oil), oily fish, starchy whole grain carbohydrates (bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, cereal), and fresh fruits and vegetables.

A diabetic will need to check his or her blood sugar level before eating to see that it’s 70 to 130 and then again a few hours after eating to make sure it’s below 180. People with low blood sugar will need to have certain snacks handy, like fruit juice, hard candy, sugar or honey, soft drinks and milk. Small or medium sized women should eat 1,200 to 1,600 calories per day (6 starch, 3 vegetables, 2 fruits, 2 milks, 4-6 ounces protein and up to 3 fats).

Larger women or small to medium sized men should have 1,600 to 2,000 calories (8 starch, 4 vegetables, 3 fruits, 2 milks, 4-6 ounces protein and up to 4 fats). For more information, check out the Diabetes Food Pyramid at Nih.

Americans seeking counseling on their dietary habits, whether they wish to gain or lose weight, can find assistance online. Websites like Shapeup or Eatright focus on consumer education centered on diet and weight loss. The National Institute of Health offers information on the 2005 guidelines and Food Pyramid at Nutrition website.

Several nation-wide programs can help dieters find greater online support and practical resources at Fitday, Weightwatchers, Sparkpeople, Ediets, Mywebmd Nutrition, Nutricise, Changeone, Cyberdiet or Caloriescount.

Mike Selvon has some great articles for the creative mind. Find out more about the dietary recommendations at http://obesity.trustprofitableniche.com/. We appreciate your feefback at our blog at http://www.mynicheportal.com/health-beauty/.

It’s hard to say for certain how many Americans have diabetes, since it’s been estimated that as many as 6.3 million people are undiagnosed. You might be a diabetic if you are excessively thirsty and hungry all the time, urinate frequently (as often as every hour), encounter unusual weight gain or weight loss, feel exhausted for no real reason, commonly suffer nausea, have blurred vision, develop vaginal or yeast infections, have dry mouth, take a long time to heal sores or cuts and suffer itchy skin. Diabetes is not contagious, but people who are older, overweight and sedentary are more likely to develop this disease.

There are three main types of diabetes: type 1, type 2 and gestational. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, where the body’s immune system turns against itself, attacking insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas.

Scientists believe viral and genetic factors are at play here, with most people receiving a diagnosis when they are younger. This type of diabetes occurs evenly in males and females, but is more common in Caucasian sectors of the population, particularly in northern European countries like Sweden and Finland.

The onset is sudden for a type 1 diabetic, who has blurry vision, feels constantly hungry, thirsty and fatigued, and loses weight rapidly. If they do not receive insulin everyday, they can lapse into a coma. You may need immediate medical attention if you’re always thirsty, you urinate frequently, if your breathing becomes more rapid, if your abdomen hurts or if your breath smells like nail polish remover.

Type 2 diabetes accounts for 90-95% of all diabetics and is most commonly found in older Hispanics, African Americans and Native Americans, as well as Native Alaskans and Pacific Islander Americans. The onset for a type 2 diabetic is more gradual, but 80% of those who have it are overweight and physically inactive.

Symptoms include slow healing wounds, frequent infections, unusual thirst, frequent urination, nausea and fatigue. Just like type 1 diabetes, glucose builds up in the blood, which prevents the body from using it as fuel. Yet, unlike type 1, the body is usually producing enough insulin, although for unknown reasons, the body lacks the ability to make use of it.

Learning that you are a diabetic can feel overwhelming at first, but you can control your symptoms through lifestyle changes and careful monitoring. Diabetes care includes dieting and exercise. Diets should be diverse, high in fiber and low in fat and salt. Each day, you’ll need to monitor your cholesterol, blood glucose levels, blood pressure, triglycerides and weight.

You’ll need to talk to your healthcare practitioner about a plan for physical activity and meals, as well as medications and self-monitoring. Often your body will be less resilient, so you’ll need annual flu shots, eye exams, foot exams, kidney function tests and dental exams to stay healthy.

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