7TH MEETING: RESPECT FOR HEALTH (READINGS)

What's the big deal about 'under age' drinking?

Facts about alcoholAlcohol is drug that works directly on the central nervous system. Alcohol kills more male teenagers and young men than any other drug taken to affect mood and behavior. Most deaths and injury due to alcohol are caused by the way people behave when under its influence. Men fight more, drive more recklessly, and engage in more risky behaviors.

Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for the three leading causes of death among youth: unintentional injuries (including motor vehicle crashes and drowning), suicides; and homicides. Alcohol also puts you at greater risk from sexual behavior where you find you have more than you had planned on- a sexually transmitted disease or an unwanted pregnancy!

Alcohol intake and teen health Because the body changes so much as we grow, the ability both to judge and cope with alcohol changes all the time. Everyone seems to know of someone who can drink booze by the bucket-load but this shouldn't be seen as something to aspire towards. Teens are the most likely group to have their stomachs pumped after excessive alcohol intake. At the end of the day it has to be remembered that alcohol is a toxin.

Effects of excessive Alcohol on young bodies
- Youthful 'immature' organs can literally be poisoned by alcohol.
- The liver can be damaged. It takes a few days for it to recover and to get back to normal functioning after a 'session'.
- The heart can beat so irregularly that it can stop.
- The body can lose temperature causing hypothermia. Every year some teens die when they get drunk and pass out in the freezing cold.
- Too little sugar in the body can cause coma and seizures.
- Breathing can become so shallow or slow that it can stop.
- One of the most common ways in which teens (and adults) die from alcohol is by choking on their own vomit. If you vomit when you are unconscious you can easily breathe it in. If your body cannot get the oxygen it needs brain damage or death results.

Knowing when to stop drinking alcoholOne of the dangers of drinking is not recognizing when you have had too much. Different drinks have varying alcohol content and the body reacts differently to alcohol according to whether or not you have eaten, how thirsty you are, even the time of day it is. Even if you stop drinking the level of alcohol can continue increasing. No amount of coffee, cold baths, showers, or trying to walk it off will stop it. Taking a meal before drinking only slows the process. Once alcohol gets to the small intestine the effects kick in. The only thing that reverses the effect of alcohol is time.

Source: "Alcohol and Public Health." National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. 31 Jan 2005. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 29 Nov 2006

Research: Alcohol Damages the Teen-age Brain
June 2, 2000 -- Researchers have just come up with another reason to warn teen-agers not to drink alcohol: Specialized brain imaging studies have shown that teens and young adults, who drank heavily over long periods of time, showed shrinkage of an area of the brain that is responsible for memory and learning. This shrinkage was not seen in teens who did not drink.
The risk of this type of damage is greatest in those who begin drinking at a younger age and those who drink for longer periods of time, according to the study.

"Only in recent years have we have known the extent of brain development during adolescence," says co-author of the study, Duncan B. Clark, MD, PhD. "The hippocampus is one of the areas that's rapidly changing at this time and may be particularly affected by alcohol."
But Clark also suggests that the toxic effects of alcohol on the brain might be reversible, especially if the alcohol use is discontinued early.

Susan F. Tapert, PhD, a research scientist with the Veterans Medical Research Foundation and the University of California at San Diego, reviewed the study for WebMD. "We still need more studies, but it looks like there's a good possibility that drinking heavily during the teen-age years could affect your ability to remember things and learn new things," she says. "If you want to do well in school and be able to remember all kinds of things that you learn, it's best to avoid any kind of heavy drinking."

Many people may be surprised to learn that the brain is still developing during the teen years. "Adolescence is a period during which we now know the brain continues to rapidly develop," Clark says. "We know that alcohol can damage the brain. Adolescent alcohol abuse and dependence may have a damaging effect on adolescent brain development, and it is possible that these effects have lifelong adverse consequences.

In this report in the June issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, a special brain scan, called an MRI, was used to measure differences in the sizes of various brain regions in 12 adolescents and young adults who used alcohol excessively, and 24 healthy youngsters who had no drinking problems.

The researchers focused on measuring the size of an area of the brain, the hippocampus, which is known to be sensitive to the effects of alcohol in adults. The hippocampus is associated with learning and memory functions, Clark says. Two hippocampi are found in the brain, one on the right side and the other on the left side.

Both the right and left hippocampi were smaller in teens with drinking problems in comparison with the normal controls. "The difference was fairly substantial, about a 10% difference, which for this area of the brain is a major difference," Clark says. The shrinkage was limited to the hippocampus; no differences were found in other brain areas.

The shrinkage of the hippocampus was greatest in those who began drinking at an early age and in those individuals who were long-time abusers. The authors say the findings suggest that, during adolescence, the hippocampus may be particularly susceptible to the effects of alcohol.
Clark says that studies conducted in animals, as well as on adults with longstanding alcohol use disorders, suggest that alcohol consumption causes the brain damage. Other explanations, however, may be possible. For instance, the brain changes may have preceded the alcohol consumption and contributed to the onset of the alcohol abuse. Or another risk factor may have caused both the drinking behavior and brain changes.

Clark says that at this early stage, it is difficult to say whether brain changes or alcohol abuse come first. He says that longitudinal studies are needed to confirm and expand the findings.
(Source: WebMD Better Information. Better Health)

Cigarette Smoking
Health Effects of Smoking

Each year, a staggering 440,000 people die in the US from tobacco use. Nearly 1 of every 5 deaths is related to smoking. Cigarettes kill more Americans than alcohol, car accidents, suicide, AIDS, homicide, and illegal drugs combined.

Cigarette smoking accounts for at least 30% of all cancer deaths. It is a major cause of cancers of the lung, larynx (voice box), oral cavity, pharynx (throat), and esophagus, and is a contributing cause in the development of cancers of the bladder, pancreas, liver, uterine cervix, kidney, stomach, colon and rectum, and some leukemia.

About 87% of lung cancer deaths are caused by smoking. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among both men and women, and is one of the most difficult cancers to treat. It is very hard to detect when it is in the earliest, most treatable stage. Fortunately, lung cancer is largely a preventable disease. Groups that promote nonsmoking as part of their religion, such as Mormons and Seventh-day Adventists, has much lower rates of lung cancer and other smoking-related cancers.

But cancers account for only about half of the deaths related to smoking. Smoking is also a major cause of heart disease, bronchitis, emphysema, and stroke, and contributes to the severity of pneumonia. Tobacco has a damaging affect on women's reproductive health and is associated with increased risk of miscarriage, early delivery (prematurity), stillbirth, infant death, and is a cause of low birth weight in infants. Furthermore, the smoke from cigarettes has a harmful health effect on those around the smoke.

Based on data collected from 1995 to 1999, the CDC estimated that adult male smokers lost an average of 13.2 years of life and female smokers lost 14.5 years of life because of smoking.
But not all of the health problems related to smoking result in deaths. In the year 2000, about 8.6 million people were suffering from at least one chronic disease due to current or former smoking, according to the CDC. Many of these people were suffering from more than one smoking-related condition. The diseases occurring most often were chronic bronchitis, emphysema, heart attacks, strokes, and cancer.

Cigarettes, cigars, and smokeless and pipe tobacco consist of dried tobacco leaves, as well as ingredients added for flavor and other properties. More than 4,000 individual compounds have been identified in tobacco and tobacco smoke. Among these are more than 60 compounds that are known carcinogens (cancer-causing agents).

Health Benefits of Smoking Cessation (Quitting)
In September 1990, the US Surgeon General outlined the benefits of smoking cessation:
Smoking cessation has major and immediate health benefits for men and women of all ages. Benefits apply to persons with and without smoking-related disease.

Former smokers live longer than continuing smokers. For example, persons who quit smoking before age 50 have one-half the risk of dying in the next 15 years compared with continuing smokers.

Smoking cessation decreases the risk of lung cancer, other cancers, heart attack, stroke, and chronic lung disease.

Women who stop smoking before pregnancy or during the first 3 to 4 months of pregnancy reduce their risk of having a low birth weight baby to that of women who never smoked.
The health benefits of smoking cessation far exceed any risks from the average 5-pound (2.3-kg) weight gain or any adverse psychological effects that may follow quitting.

The risk of having lung cancer and other smoking-related cancers is related to total lifetime exposure to cigarette smoke, as measured by the number of cigarettes smoked each day, the age at which smoking began, and the number of years a person has smoked.

The risk of having lung cancer and other cancers can be reduced by quitting. The risk of lung cancer is less in people who quit smoking than in people who continue to smoke the same number of cigarettes per day, and the risk decreases as the number of years since quitting increases.

People who stop smoking at younger ages experience the greatest health benefits from quitting. Those who quit by age 35 avoid 90% of the risk due to tobacco use. However, even smokers who quit after age 50 substantially reduce their risk of dying early. The argument that it is too late to quit smoking because the damage is already done is not true.

(Source: American cancer Society Inc.)

Part 2: Care for Environment
Ten Basic Tips To Help Stop Global Warming
(Earth 911, What can I do to help prevent Global Warming?)

Don't have a lot of times, but want to take action? Here are ten, simple, everyday things each of us can do to help stop Global Warming. Pick one, some, or all. Every little effort helps and adds up to a whole lot of good.

1. Change a light. Replacing a regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent one saves 150 pounds of carbon dioxide each year.* Learn more about these bulbs and how to properly dispose of these bulbs when they do burn out.

2. Drive less. Walk, bike, carpool, take mass transit, and/or trip chain. All of these things can help reduce gas consumption and one pound of carbon dioxide for each mile you do not drive.

3. Recycle more and buy recycled. Save up to 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide each year just by recycling half of your household waste. By recycling and buying products with recycled content you also save energy, resources and landfill space!

4. Check your tires. Properly inflated tires mean good gas mileage. For each gallon of gas saved, 20 pounds of carbon dioxide are also never produced.

5. Use less hot water. It takes a lot of energy to heat water. Reducing the amount used means big savings in not only your energy bills, but also in carbon dioxide emissions. Using cold water for your wash saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and using a low flow showerhead reduces 350 pounds of carbon dioxide. Make the most of your hot water by insulating your tank and keeping the temperature at or below 120.

6. Avoid products with a lot of packaging. Preventing waste from being created in the first place means that there is less energy wasted and fewer resources consumed. When you purchase products with the least amount of packaging, not only do you save money, but you also help the environment! Reducing your garbage by 10% reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 1,200 pounds.

7. Adjust your thermostat. Keeping your thermostat at 68 degrees in winter and 78 degrees in summer not only helps with your energy bills, but it can reduce carbon dioxide emissions as well. No matter where you set your dial, two degrees cooler in the winter or warmer in the summer can mean a reduction of 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

8. Plant a tree. A single tree can absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime.

9. Turn off electronic devices when not in use. Simply turning off your TV, VCR, computer and other electronic devices can save each household thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide each year.

10. Stay informed. Use the Earth 911 Web site to help stay informed about environmental issues, and share your knowledge with others. Together, we can and do Make Every Day Earth Day!