How Smoking Affects Athletes

How Smoking Affects Athletes by Roger Deso
in Wellness (submitted 2010-01-25)


Smoking cigarettes is a habit that has affected millions of people worldwide. It is a habit that is continually affecting everyone, and that includes athletes. Cigarette may be acceptable in our society and considered as a past time, nevertheless it can affect the performances of athletes. If you are an athlete and you think that smoking can help you relax before or after a game then you are mistaken. Yes, some individuals may find smoking comforting and relaxing, but do not be fooled even for a bit that smoking has good benefit aside from the fact that it can help you relax. Smoking increases the airway resistance. The poisonous substances that get accumulated within the body after smoking a single cigarette, take 24 hours to clear from the system. If you smoke more than one cigarette each day, the body doesn't get ample time to remove the toxins and toxins start getting accumulated within your body leading to health problems like cilia damage and throat cancer. The athletes train and build-up their endurance and strength to make them more competitive even under all stressful conditions. Therefore, if athletes smoke then their performance will deteriorate as they tend to use more energy just to breathe properly. Keep in mind that one of the negative impacts of smoking is a week lung. As you continually smoke then you slowly destroy or fill your lungs with bad elements that in turn affect your oxygen intake. Since you are an athlete you will definitely need a good amount of oxygen to function properly and to become healthy. There will be less endurance and less oxygen capacity. The tar present in the smoke covers the lungs and the athletes find it difficult to breathe especially when they are training. Apart from this, Carbon Monoxide from cigarette also damages the lungs and has detrimental effects on the performance. Yet another problem with smoking is that it slows down the process of healing knee ligament injuries as it hinders the employment of cells to the injury site. Apart from that if you perform Kraus-Webber test on the smoking athletes, you will see that their muscle strength and flexibility of some muscles have decreased significantly as compared to that of non-smoking athletes. At first, smoking cigarettes is deemed as cool and hip by everyone, and that most smokers even today feel that they will be more socially acceptable if they will smoke like other people do. However, now it is no longer just a matter of becoming the coolest person in the school, or the most influential man in your group as smoking is considered as dangerous to smoker's health and the people that are around them. So whether you are a teacher, pianist or athlete, once you smoke cigarette, it can affect your health. The benefit of smoking does not compensate for the negative impact that it can bring to the smokers health. Most people only knew that smoking is dangerous, but what they do not know is the extent of the damage that smoking can do to their health. Enjoy smoking with peace of mind with our cheap E-cigarettes. Electric cigarettes are also designed to help you quit smoking now with their advance smoke less nicotine.

About the Author

Smoking cigarettes is a habit that has affected millions of people worldwide. It is a habit that is continually affecting everyone, and that includes athletes. Cigarette may be acceptable in our society and considered as a past time, nevertheless it can affect the performances of athletes.

The Raw food lifestyle makes you healthier

The Raw food lifestyle makes you healthier by Pankaj Modi
in Food (submitted 2010-01-25)


Raw foodism or rawism is a daily routine diet style which promotes un-cooked, un-processed, and often organic foods as the major diet. Raw food diet enthusiasts characteristically consider this: the more raw food diet you consume, the greater the health benefits. The raw food diet is a diet that comprises of unprocessed and uncooked plant foods, such as fresh fruit and vegetables, sprouts, seeds, nuts, grains, beans, nuts, dried fruit, and seaweed.

It has been proved that heat above 116 degrees F when applied to food destroys enzymes in food which help in digestion and help to absorb food. Cooking is also known to reduce the nutritional value and "life force" of food. Raw food experts recommend that on average, at least 75% of the diet must be raw. Advocates of the raw food diet deem that it has plentiful health benefits, including greater than before energy, enhanced appearance of the skin and hair, better digestion, weight loss, reduced risk of heart disease and cancer etc. The raw food diet is low on trans fats and saturated fat than the typical Western diet. The sodium content is also low and content of potassium, magnesium, folate, fiber and health-promoting plant chemicals called phytochemicals is high. These properties are connected with a reduced danger of diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. For example, a study published in the Journal of Nutrition found that consumption of a raw food diet lowered plasma total cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations.

Raw food diets may possibly comprise a selection of raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds (including sprouted whole grains such as gaba rice), eggs, fish (such as sashimi), meat (such as carpaccio), and non-pasteurized/non-homogenized dairy products (such as raw milk, raw milk cheese, and raw milk yogurt), depending on the results and benefits desired. Specific cooking techniques like steaming make foods more digestible and add variety to the diet. Other techniques are sprouting seeds, grains, and beans, juicing fruit and vegetables, soaking nuts and dried fruit, blending, dehydrating food etc.

It has been seen that some people would undergo a detoxification reaction when they start the raw food diet, especially if their previous diet was rich in meat, sugar, and caffeine. Symptoms can be one or more of bad breath, chills, headaches, daytime drowsiness, mental fogginess, concentration problems, low libido, and unsettling of alertness and emotional states. People who shun raw food diet say while it's true that some enzymes are inactivated when food is heated, it doesn't matter because the body uses its own enzymes for digestion. They also say that cooking makes certain phytochemicals easier to absorb, such as beta-carotene in carrots. Another point they put forwars is that the human body has changed in response to eating cooked foods.

Nevertheless, raw food diet is undoubtedly worth trying and in fact many people have warmed up to it.

About the Author

"Pankaj Modi Says:" Once inside you'll learn: How a Raw Food Diet will dramatically improve your digestion! And Why Raw Food gives you focused mental alertness and fantastic energy levels! For more Interest visit: http://www.rawfoodlifetoday.com

The Different Benefits Of Using Pure Water

The Different Benefits Of Using Pure Water by Jo Alelsto
in Society (submitted 2010-01-25)


There are but a lot of different commercial water available. You have a certain kind of pure water available depending on what you need and what you prefer. There is the deionized water which is ideal for some industrial processes. There is the distilled water which is ideal for drinking. Whichever purpose you have got, there is a kind of pure water available for you to use.

There are many reasons why we need to use water that is pure especially if we are talking about our bodies. Our need for water goes beyond the usual thirst quenching, food preparation and washing purposes. Our bodies consist seventy-percent of water. Water is needed for almost all of the chemical processes that our bodies undergo and it is also responsible for some of our body mobility like the movement of the joints. Aside from these, we also need water to regulate our temperature and to act as solvent for our body waste to be removed. In fact, an average person is said to consume around ten thousand of gallons throughout his lifetime.

So why choose pure water?

Let us face it. The world is under the state of degradation. Pesticides, industrial chemicals, waste dumps, gas leaks, and sewage are being released in our water system. All of these get into our water. If we do not have water purification processes, you can just imagine all of these hazardous elements going into our system.

Chlorine is used to rid water from harmful organisms. The irony is chlorine itself is a very hazardous chemical. Yes, it may save us from ingesting illness-causing bacteria, but it can pose other threatening effects. It is found out that some organic contents in water react with chlorine. The reaction produces THM which is believed to cause some defects in birth and cancer.

Another method used to clean water is through fluoridation. And, the same with chlorine, it also poses some harmful effects to our bodies. It can harden the arteries and the brain and also, it could cause some cancer much faster than other chemicals could. Although the content of fluoride added to water is not toxic, adding this amount of fluoride with all of the fluoride we get from other sources could reach a harmful level.

The waterway towards houses has some potential hazardous chemicals that could go with water. Most pipes used in waterways are made of plastic, metal or asbestos-lined concrete. Since water is a solvent, it could potentially absorb some toxic chemicals such as cadmium, asbestos, lead and chloride. Even if the water is safe to drink, if the water passes through this kind of water way system, then it can still become harmful.

These are but just some of the many reasons why becoming meticulous in choosing the water that you use for your body is very important. Drink pure water and get to live a healthy and fruitful life.

About the Author

Jo is a writer for 'The-Water-Company.com', a well-known UK based high quality water supplier for more than thirty years, providing products such as deionized water and demineralized water to a wide range of consumers in UK, Europe and the rest of the world. If your company has a pure water source requirement then take a look at The-Water-Company.com.