4 Reasons to Use Apple Cider Vinegar on Your Scalp Treatments

Scalps don't get much love. I've never had a buddy nudge me and say, "Hey. Check out her scalp." But we all have scalps. They are there, just under our hair. Our scalps can be a source of consternation when they become afflicted with dandruff. Well, I've got good news for scalps across the land. That good news is eco-friendly Apple cider vinegar. It can bring some much-needed love to the scalps of the world.
1. Apple cider vinegar can eliminate dandruff. Apply diluted apple cider vinegar-50% water, 50% apple cider vinegar—to your scratchy skull. It will unclog your pores and reduce your dandruff.
2. Apple cider vinegar is eco-friendlier than dandruff shampoos. Shampoos are filled with chemicals. Those chemicals don't disappear when you wash them down the drain. They head right into the ecosystem, poisoning fish, making water undrinkable and increasing algae growth where we don't want algae growth.
3. Apple cider vinegar can be used as part of an eco-friendly alternative to head lice medications. If pesticide-filled head lice medications can wipe out a colony of insects in a single application, it can't be that great for the person who owned the head on which these insects died. Apple cider vinegar lice treatments may not be as convenient, but they won't damage you or your scalp.
4. Apple cider Vinegar clears gunk, natural oils and build-up from your hair and scalp. It can also treat acne on or off your skull.

Hair Transplantation

Most Natural Results In Hair Transplantation

09/07/2012   articles

Systemic illnesses or serious health issues of the individual (if there is any) are evaluated during the general examination. The first step for the patients who demand hair transplantation is an examination to be performed by an aesthetics or plastic surgeon.
Taking blood thinners such as aspirin should be quitted 1 week prior to the operation. Hair structure, hair colour, hair thickness, density on the donor site, hair loss level and the expectations of the patient should be evaluated. Hair loss varies on every individual.
Grafts to be transplanted should be counted depending on the level of hair loss.
It is useful to generate pictures showing the look of the patients after the hair transplantation to evaluate the expectations of the patients.
The density of the transplantation may look less in patients who have thin or light coloured hair strings than the patients who have thicker or darker hair strings.
Therefore, planning a denser transplantation for the first group comes up with aesthetically better results.
All these analyses are initial elements which affect the success rate of the hair transplantation. Planning and hair transplantations should be carried out as a result of these analyses.

Why should a hair transplantation surgery be carried out in a hospital environment??

09/07/2012   articles

Despite the fact that hair transplantation is a small operation, it is a serious surgical operation and just like every surgical operation, it should be carried out in an OP environment to avoid complications. OPs which meet the hygienic requirements can only be formed in a hospital structure. Therefore, operations are carried on at Çamlıca Alman Hastanesi. Hair transplantation OPs are specially furnished comfortable environments which you can fulfill your daily needs, watch TV and listen to music during the surgery…

Hair transplantation operations

09/07/2012  articles

Follicular Unit Extraction (FUE)
FUE, which stands for FOLLICULAR UNIT EXTRACTION, is the method of obtaining donor hair from the upper side of the back of your head and the upper side of your ears under local anesthesia by collecting individual follicular units directly from the donor site with the MICROMOTOR method using a punch which is smaller than 1 mm to make a circular incision in the skin around the upper part of the follicular unit which is then extracted directly from the scalp. No stitches required in this method because there is no need for a linear incision.

About hair transplantation with FUE technique

09/07/2012  articles

We use micro motor technique at our centre for hair transplantation and we obtain very satisfying results.We collect an amount of follicular units from the donor site which is located between two ears and on the upper side of the ears. The follicular units are collected by using a micro motor with mini punch bits without the need for a linear incision. Punch bits are thin. The size of the punch bits vary from 0.6 mm to 1.5 mm. We work with the thinnest punch bit which is the most appropriate for your hair. Punch bits are too thin that no stitches are required after the operation and the donor site heals quickly without leaving scars.

Hair transplantation 6000-7000 graft insertions can be made per day.

09/07/2012   articles

Hair is an initial accessory which crowns the face for human beings. That is why we act tense about hair issues.Hair loss makes both women and men look older than their actual age. Hair transplantation is a convenient solution to hair loss problems.

Four Ways to Use Baking Soda in Your Garden

Baking soda is one of those items that I find myself turning to more often, for a variety of jobs around my house. It's a vital part of a green cleaning kit -- you can clean ovens with it, freshen carpets, and even strip paint with it. But it's not all about cleaning. You can also use it as a facial scrub, teeth whitener, and deodorant.
While there are myriad uses for baking soda in our homes, I wanted to introduce you to a few ways to use it out in the garden as well. Here are four of my favorite ways to use baking soda in my garden.
Using Baking Soda in the Garden
1. Make a Spray to Treat and Prevent Powdery Mildew Powdery mildew is a problem for many plants, including lilacs, monarda, and zinnias. Squashes and cucumbers are particularly susceptible to it in my neck of the woods. Here is a simple, all-natural spray you can make to treat and prevent powdery mildhttp://cm.howstuffworks.com/list-template.php?step2ew using baking soda, water, and dish detergent.
2. Sprinkle Baking Soda on Cabbages (and other Brassicas) to Thwart Caterpillars If those small green cabbage worms have been making Swiss cheese of your cabbage, broccoli, and kale plants, try this trick: Make a 50/50 combination of flour and baking soda, and dust it all over whichever plants the cabbage worms are eating. They'll eat the combo while munching the leaves, and die within a day or so. Repeat as necessary.
3. Sweep Baking Soda into Sidewalk Cracks to Discourage Weeds
Simply pour or sweep a thick layer of baking soda into sidewalk and patio cracks. The baking soda will kill any small weeds that are already there, and prevent new ones from sprouting.
4. Kill Crabgrass
Crabgrass can be really annoying, and if you're noticing it in your lawn, garden beds, or sidewalk cracks, you can use baking soda to get rid of it. Simply wet it down, then pour a thick dusting of baking soda on it. The crabgrass will start dying back in two to three days. One word of caution: try to be careful where you're applying the baking soda, because you could harm your lawn grass if you get too much of the baking soda on it.
I hope these garden-related baking soda tips come in handy. I think it's time for me to start buying this stuff in bulk!

Tips for Introducing Your Pet to a New Baby

Brought to you by Animal Planet's PetSource
Baby onboard? Congratulations! With a new bundle of joy on the way, the "to do's" might seem endless, but if you've already got a four-legged "baby" at home, preparing for the transition is an important item to add to the list. Dogs and cats are particularly sensitive to any changes in routine and surroundings, including sights and smells, so you'll need to plan accordingly. Know what to expect from your pet when you're expecting - check out our tips before the big day arrives, and make sure keep your household remains a happy one!

Basic Training

Use the next nine months to address any obedience concerns, or even just to reaffirm the basics. What might have seemed like minor infractions before, such as jumping up on the couch or on guests, will be an even bigger no-no once the baby arrives. Best to nip any lagging behavioral issues in the bud now - and don't be surprised if you have to make a return visit to the trainer down the road as well.

Intensive Workshops

Many local humane societies offer special workshops for pet owners who are now parents-to-be. These sessions provide in-depth guidance on the best methods and techniques for acclimating your pet to the impending change in the household, along with an intimate group setting where a trainer can address any specific concerns you might have, such as how to handle the transition with two pets. Visit the ASPCA to find a workshop in your area.

Check-up's

Take your dog or cat in for their annual exam before the baby arrives to make sure your pet is in tip-top shape and void of any dangerous parasites or bugs. While you're at it, stop at the groomer's as well and get pups a "pet-icure" to avoid any accidental scratches.

Set the Stage

Be sure to set up the nursery well in advance of the little one's arrival to give your pet time to get used to the furniture. Bring in some of basic supplies as well, such as baby powder and diaper rash cream (kept out of reach, of course) - this will give your pet a head start on some of the new smells that the baby will bring. Consider introducing a baby sounds CD for brief periods throughout the day in the time leading up to your due date to give your pet an idea of the audio impact as well.

Once associated with sailors, bikers and weekend benders, tattoos are positively trendy among the rich and/or famous these days. Your favorite star of screen or sport is as likely to flaunt a customized piece of body art as a Vera Wang gown or pair of Versace shades, and the artists who create and apply the designs are becoming as acclaimed as their couture counterparts.
But being a celebrity comes with a price. When your name is writ large in pop culture, your life choices appear like sky-writing in the sometimes merciless media -- especially when you make gaffes as attention-grabbing as any sky-writing.
We've chosen five truly blush-worthy skinterior designs -- not to cast stones, but as cautionary tales. Each is a variation on the axiom, "Look before you leap." Or, in this case, "Think before you ink."
Our first story encourages you to wear your heart on your sleeve -- or your collar, breast pocket or anything else you can toss in the laundry. Then all you have to do is change your clothes if you should have a change of heart.

  

Women and the Risk of HIV

In 1990, when Rebecca Denison learned she had tested positive for HIV, she looked for services for women and didn't find much. Although she lived in the San Francisco area, where AIDS awareness was extremely high, most of the resources she found were targeted to the gay male community, and featured little information about HIV's effect on women.
So she started researching, publicized her findings in a newsletter, and then founded Women Organized to Respond to Life-threatening Diseases (WORLD) to provide practical and factual information to women living with HIV, ranging from treatment options to childbirth and child care issues.
Today the message that women are vulnerable to AIDS is still not widespread in the U.S., where many women believe they are not in a risk category. Yet the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes the illnesses and infections that make up acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is currently the leading cause of death for African-American women aged 25-44 and the sixth-leading cause of death for all American women in this age group. Denison learned about her infection through a test, but many women are not even aware they have HIV until they become ill.
Most women don't even know they have HIV until they get an opportunistic infection, and then they've got full blown AIDS, explained Francess Page, Senior Public Health Advisor at the government's Office of Women's Health. I know so many women who are now dead who didn't have a clue. They thought they weren't in a risk category. Unprotected sex is a major risk for women. But it's also the way that you have babies. Women need to ask a lot more questions of their partners.

Unprotected Sex

Condoms are extremely effective in protecting against the transmission of HIV, and yet the virus is still spreading through unprotected sex. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) most American women with HIV were infected by having unprotected sex with an infected injection drug user, while about one-quarter contracted the virus by sharing needles with an infected injection drug user.
The percentage of AIDS cases among American females has more than tripled in 13 years, from 7 percent in 1985 to 23 percent in 1998. African-American and Hispanic women have been hit hardest, accounting for over three-fourths of the AIDS cases in the U.S. although they account for less than one-fourth of all U.S. women.
Safe sex messages are not really directed at men who have sex with women. Denison said. Many messages put the responsibility on the woman, and let men off the hook. But men need to hear the message that if they care about themselves, and care about others, then they need to use a condom.
She noted that the gay community has done a good job of promoting the use of condoms, with older men teaching younger men about safe sex. That's missing in heterosexual relationships, where heterosexual men feel they're not in a risk category, she said. The risk is also there for monogamous women. People enter into monogamous relationships based on love and trust. But there are too many cases where, as one woman I know says, they may be married, but their husbands are not, Denison observed.

Risk Factors & Treatment

HIV Risk Factors

According to CDC, the most common ways HIV is transmitted are through:

• Sexual intercourse (vaginal, anal, or oral) with an HIV-infected person
• Sharing needles or injection equipment with an HIV-infected injection drug user.
• To babies from HIV-infected women before or during birth, or through breast-feeding.

Worldwide, vaginal intercourse is the most common way HIV is transmitted. Scientists have explored whether women are more likely to get HIV than a man when directly exposed, but studies show that the risk for direct exposure is the same for males and females. Nevertheless, because women are generally more vulnerable to sexually transmitted diseases than men, they are also more vulnerable to HIV. Anybody who is having unprotected sex should go get tested, Page recommended.

Access to Care and Treatment for HIV

Failure to get tested and failure to receive proper treatment after infection with HIV appear to be the primary reasons women with HIV develop AIDS and die more quickly after diagnosis than men do, says Phyllis Greenberger, Executive Director of the Society for the Advancement of Women's Health Research. She says this encourages the scientific community to look for gender differences in disease.
The presentation of viral load in women is lower, but the immune system for that level of viral load is more damaged, explained Margaret Fischl, M.D., professor of medicine and director of the AIDS Critical Research Program at the University of Miami School of Medicine. The reasons for this is unclear —it's unknown whether it's hormonal or not.
Because women are more likely to get full blown AIDS at a lower viral load than men, many haven';t been treated properly, Greenberger said. Women were not treated as early as they should have been because their diagnosis was made on the level of viral load and the symptoms that males had, and women had different symptoms that were not understood as the precursors of AIDS.
Gynecological problems, ranging from stubborn yeast infections to invasive cervical cancer, are among the signs of AIDS in women that were originally not recognized because they did not appear in men. They have since been added to the list of AIDS indicators.
Often women do not seek care until they have more advanced disease for reasons ranging from improper diagnosis to the stresses of everyday living, observers of the epidemic have found. If her child is sick, a woman is more likely to tend to the child than to herself. She's the last on the totem pole, Fischl said.

AIDS Survival Rate

HIV/AIDS Survival Rate Improving

Overall survival rate in the U.S. is improving because potent therapies can knock the virus down and the immune system at least partially heals, Fischl explained.
Although this is good news, the CDC is concerned that advances in drug treatment have lulled Americans into a false sense of complacency about HIV/AIDS, noting that while the number of AIDS cases is declining in the U.S., the number of people living with HIV is growing. The HIV epidemic in our country is far from over, CDC reports.
In the U.S., many people are able to live with HIV because they have access to effective drug therapy. But for the most part, people in developing countries cannot afford the necessary drugs, and many are dying. Taking precautions by using condoms, getting tested for HIV, encouraging your partner to get tested, and getting prompt medical care if diagnosed with the virus are important steps every woman can take to protect herself and to keep the epidemic from spreading.
Seventeen years after contracting HIV, Denison is the mother of healthy, HIV-free 4-year-old twins. Her health newsletter for women has 12,000 readers in 85 countries, and she has made it her mission to educate women, and the public about HIV/AIDS. It was a fluke that I found out I have HIV, she said.
"If I could have this, anyone could."

How does a "bionic eye" allow blind people to see?

This is what the world looks like to someone withmacular degeneration.

In the past 20 years, biotechnology has become the fastest-growing area of scientific research, with new devices going into clinical trials at a breakneck pace. A bionic arm allows amputees to control movements of the prosthesis with their thoughts. A training system called BrainPort is letting people with visual and balance disorders bypass their damaged sensory organs and instead send information to their brain through the tongue. Now, a company called Second Sight has received FDA approval to begin U.S. trials of a retinal implant system that gives blind people a limited degree of vision.
The Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System can provide sight -- the detection of light -- to people who have gone blind from degenerative eye diseases like macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa. Ten percent of people over the age of 55 suffer from various stages of macular degeneration. Retinitis pigmentosa is an inherited disease that affects about 1.5 million people around the globe. Both diseases damage the eyes' photoreceptors, the cells at the back of the retina that perceive light patterns and pass them on to the brain in the form of nerve impulses, where the impulse patterns are then interpreted as images. The Argus II system takes the place of these photoreceptors.
The second incarnation of Second Sight's retinal prosthesis consists of five main parts:

• A digital camera that's built into a pair of glasses. It captures images in real time and sends images to a microchip.
• A video-processing microchip that's built into a handheld unit. It processes images into electrical pulses representing patterns of light and dark and sends the pulses to a radio transmitter in the glasses.
• A radio transmitter that wirelessly transmits pulses to a receiver implanted above the ear or under the eye
• A radio receiver that sends pulses to the retinal implant by a hair-thin implanted wire
• A retinal implant with an array of 60 electrodes on a chip measuring 1 mm by 1 mm

­A magnified image of an eye with age-relatedmacular degeneration

Optobionics/Getty Images

The Bionic Eye System

The entire system runs on a battery pack that's housed with the video processing unit. When the camera captures an image -- of, say, a tree -- the image is in the form of light and dark pixels. It sends this image to the video processor, which converts the tree-shaped pattern of pixels into a series of electrical pulses that represent "light" and "dark." The processor sends these pulses to a radio transmitter on the glasses, which then transmits the pulses in radio form to a receiver implanted underneath the subject's skin. The receiver is directly connected via a wire to the electrode array implanted at the back of the eye, and it sends the pulses down the wire.
When the pulses reach the retinal implant, they excite the electrode array. The array acts as the artificial equivalent of the retina's photoreceptors. The electrodes are stimulated in accordance with the encoded pattern of light and dark that represents the tree, as the retina's photoreceptors would be if they were working (except that the pattern wouldn't be digitally encoded). The electrical signals generated by the stimulated electrodes then travel as neural signals to the visual center of the brain by way of the normal pathways used by healthy eyes -- the optic nerves. In macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa, the optical neural pathways aren't damaged. The brain, in turn, interprets these signals as a tree and tells the subject, "You're seeing a tree."
It takes some training for subjects to actually see a tree. At first, they see mostly light and dark spots. But after a while, they learn to interpret what the brain is showing them, and they eventually perceive that pattern of light and dark as a tree.
The first version of the system had 16 electrodes on the implant and is still in clinical trials at the University of California in Los Angeles. Doctors implanted the retinal chip in six subjects, all of whom regained some degree of sight. They are now able to perceive shapes (such as the shaded outline of a tree) and detect movement to varying degrees. The newest version of the system should offer greater image resolution because it has far more electrodes. If the upcoming clinical trials, in which doctors will implant the second-generation device into 75 subjects, are successful, the retinal prosthesis could be commercially available by 2010. The estimated cost is $30,000.
Researchers are already planning a third version that has a thousand electrodes on the retinal implant, which they believe could allow for facial-recognition capabilities.
For more information on the Argus II system, biotechnology and related topics, check out the links on the next page.

Lots More Information

Related HowStuffWorks Articles

• How Your Brain Works
• How Vision Works
• What does it mean when someone has 20/20 vision?
• At night, why does it take several minutes for my eyes to get used to darkness?
• Does reading in low light hurt your eyes?
• How Artificial Vision Will Work
• How LASIK Works
• How Corrective Lenses Work
• How Refractive Vision Problems Work
• How Biomechatronics Works
• How BrainPort Works
• How can someone control a machine with her thoughts?

More Great Links

• Argus™ II Retinal Stimulation System Feasibility Protocol
• Second Sight: Argus II Retinal Prosthesis System

Sources

• "Bionic eye will let the blind see." BBC News. Apr. 5, 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4411591.stm
• Fildes, Jonathan. "Trials for 'bionic' eye implants." BBC News. Feb. 16, 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6368089.stm
• Fleming, Nic. "Bionic eye that restores sight to the blind." ­Telegraph. Feb. 18, 2007. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/ 2007/02/17/nsight17.xml
• Second Sight http://www.2-sight.com/index.html
• "Second Sight Medical Retinal Prosthesis Receives FDA Approval for Clinical Trials." medGadget. Jan. 10, 2007. http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2007/01/second_sight_me.html