вторник, 31 января 2012 г.

Top 10 Health Benefits of a Good Night’s Sleep Why sleep matters to you


Sleep, we all love it, especially when you wake up from a great night’s sleep. In the past, sleep was often ignored by doctors and surrounded by myths, but now we are beginning to understand the importance of sleep to overall health and well-being. In fact, when people get less than 6 or 7 hours of sleep each night, their risk for developing diseases begins to increase.


1. Sleep Keeps Your Heart Healthy
Heart attacks and strokes are more common during the early morning hours. This fact may be explained by the way sleep interacts with the blood vessels. Lack of sleep has been associated with worsening of blood pressure and cholesterol, all risk factors for heart disease and stroke. Your heart will be healthier if you get between 7 and 9 hours of sleep each night.


2. Sleep May Prevent Cancer
People working the late shift have a higher risk for breast and colon cancer. Research- ers believe this link is caused by differing levels of melatonin in people who are ex- posed to light at night. Light exposure reduces the level of melatonin, a hormone that both makes us sleepy and is thought to protect against cancer. Melatonin ap- pears to suppress the growth of tumors. Be sure that your bedroom is dark to help your body produce the melatonin it needs.

Do Hair Dyes Cause Cancer?


If your hair is going gray, you may be one of the estimated one-third of adult women – and one-tenth of adult men – who decide to cover it up with chemical color. The treatments range from an occasional set of reverse highlights that put darker color back into hair, all the way to coloring roots to eliminate gray every three weeks.
Some research data have suggested a higher incidence of certain cancers among hairdressers and barbers who use these preparations in their workplace, and among people who use them at home. Other studies have shown no link.


Answer:
Types of Hair Color: There are a variety of products available to color aging hair. Temporary tints are easily washed out because they are not absorbed by the outer layer, or cuticle, of the hair shaft. Semi-permanent colors do penetrate and stain the cuticle, lasting up to six to 10 shampoos. Permanent dyes are by far the most popular, making up about 80% of the market. They last the longest by creating colored molecules within the hair shaft itself.

Top 10 Painless Ways to Lose Weight


1. Slow Down
Almost everyone eats too fast. It takes 20 minutes before the stomach can tell the brain it is full, yet the average meal lasts only about 10 minutes. The result is that we eat far more than we need, making 60% of American adults overweight. If slowing down can save 100 calories a day, that could add up to a pound a month.
2. Small Plates
A scoop of mashed potatoes looks small on our oversized dinner plates. Put your food on small, 9-inch plates and your serving siz- es will be more accurate. This simple trick can convince our brain that we have ‘eaten enough’, saving us 100s of calories a day.
3. Sit at the Table
We can consume 100s of calories of cookies and chips while browsing in the pantry or grabbing a snack. These calories add up. Eat every single bite of food while sitting at the table. The ex- tra effort will scare off weak cravings and allow you to assess how much you are eating.
4. Only Eat from a Plate
Resolve to only eat from a plate. Eating from bags, shared dishes (like chip or popcorn bowls), or straight from the container hides how much we are really eating. Take the time to place all the food you eat on a plate.

Avoid the Top Five Killers of Older Men


Fortunately, there’s good news for men in their quest for longevity. Though women still live longer in most countries of the world, the mortality gap, or difference in life expectancy, is closing. In North America, a man can expect to live to between 75 and 78 years of age, depending where he lives. For women, life expectancy hovers between about 80 and 83 years of age. Though you can’t control your gender, you can take steps to prevent some of the major causes of death of older men. Here they are, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in order of prevalence:
1. Heart Disease
Coronary heart disease, in which arter-
ies serving the heart become narrow and hardened, is the leading cause of heart attacks. A man’s risk of heart disease rises significantly after the age of 45.
What you can do to prevent it:
• Avoid smoking. Tobacco use is associated with a higher risk of heart disease.
• Monitor cholesterol levels and keep them within a healthy range.
• Maintain a healthy weight.
• Eat heart-healthy foods, like the ones associated with a Mediterranean-style diet:
fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, fish, and other foods low in saturated and trans fats.
• Get regular aerobic exercise that boosts your heart rate, ideally 30 minutes, 5 times a week.
2. Cancer
Lung, prostate, and colorectal cancers are the most deadly forms of the disease in men. Though a family history of cancer may increase your chances of getting it, there are steps you can take to minimize your risk.

Top 10 Tax Havens

This country is imploding, and not because of the mounting job losses and mortgage foreclosures, or ex-bankers pole-dancing to put food on the table, or Latvian-owned brothels refusing to accept credit cards. No, I’m talking about something far more dangerous: the rush among the world’s “elite” governments to wage war on simple wealthy folk to recover taxes on income believed to be hiding in offshore shelters.


There are many reasons why this is wrongheaded, foremost of which is a disgraceful lack of respect for the autonomy of the world’s more diminutive nations. Hey, if a small country wants to set a zero-tax policy, as opposed to the 35 percent tax rate in the States, I will defend their sovereign right to do so with well, maybe not my life, but certainly the lives of several thousand of my working-class countrymen.
Herewith, then, is a list of the safest offshore sites for your spare millions. 


no.1 CAYMAN ISLANDS
 A mere 15-minute suborbital rocket flight from Florida, these three little islands south of Cuba attract one big swinging industry: hedge funds. Start up an exempted corporation here and there’s no tax on income, profits, capital, wealth, capital gains, property, sales, estate, or inheritance I’d go on, but the excitement of an equity spike makes me squirt. The capital, and the financial and business center, George Town, is home to more registered businesses than people, a fact that prompted Barack Obama in a 2008 campaign stump speech to attack the Ugland House, a five-story office building that, according to Mr. Big Govern- ment, houses 12,000 corporations. “That’s either the biggest building or the biggest tax scam on record,” he said. “And I think we know which one it is.”
I felt like I’d been gut-punched by Karl Marx (easily the least funny of the brothers), so I checked Obama’s “information.” Sure enough, he was wrong: It’s not 12,000 corporations that are registered at Ugland House, but 18,857. Let’s stick with the facts, Mr. President. 


no.2 LIECHTENSTEIN

In a picturesque mountain valley between Switzerland and Austria sits the world’s oldest tax haven, a tiny pimple of land no bigger than the dog run behind my second home, a micro- state called Liechtenstein. How thrilled am I about its extremely strict bank- secrecy laws? When visiting, I send my underlings out to give every one of its 135,000 citizens a high five (in German, of course—hoch fünf !). But even better, I love Liechtenstein for its famed “rent-a-state” program: For as many as 1,200 at people between $320 and $530 a day per person, you can rent the entire country, granting you access to its restaurants, hotels, castles, and clothing-optional ski slopes—there’s simply no better way to demonstrate wealth than to slalom downhill with three poles exposed. A few years ago, my hadgefund partner, Morty, rented Liechtenstein for his son Benjamin’s bar mitzvah; I’ll be doing the same soon for my son, Grant—and we’re not even Jewish.