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Kids and adults alike often are treated with dental braces to correct misaligned teeth. The options for such treatment have increased dramatically in recent years, including some that avoid the uncomfortable metal braces common in the past. One such recent development is the Invisalign dental aligner. It is a plastic device that sits inside the mouth to reposition the teeth. As it has no metal parts, people with allergies to metals and alloys including stainless steel, nickel, and chromium may find this a major advantage. While it is not suitable for all tooth alignment problems, it is suitable for many patients. Invisalign has distinct advantages in the areas of comfort and appearance over conventional braces. Its removable design ensures that dental hygiene will not be impeded. As braces typically are worn for a year or more and often interfere with flossing and other dental care, this is a major advantage. After all, who wants to spend thousand of dollars on braces only to get cavities as a result?

Invisalign – A Seamless Fit For Your Lifestyle and Your Teeth

Conventional vs. Invisalign braces

The Invisalign dental aligner is one of the newest and most innovative products on the dental market today. The Invisalign aligner is essentially a plastic retainer that is shaped to guide the movement of one’s teeth into the correct position. Many patients today are now opting for Invisalign instead of metal braces, which have been common in the past.

The Invisalign treatment is the same as metal braces, in that it slowly, over time, aligns the teeth into their desired positions. Patients will receive more than one Invisalign aligner in this process so that the teeth are moved in stages. This allows for the best success in tooth alignment.
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Low vitamin D levels have long been tied to malnourishment and resultant health problems such as rickets that involve weak bones. But what is surprising to many is that recent research on vitamin D has found that most people are deficient in vitamin D. In particular, those with dark skin such as African-Americans are at particularly high risk for low levels of vitamin D and a wide range of common health problems including obesity, diabetes, asthma, autism, and depression that research is showing are likely related to insufficient vitamin D.

Vitamin D Deficiency Epidemic Tied to Obesity and Diabetes Epidemics

The mainstream media has been reporting lately on Michella Obama’s efforts to improve nutrition for kids. She is focusing on reducing calorie-laden foods such as soft-drinks and fast-food, increasing the consumption of healthier foods such as vegetables, and getting kids to trade in some of their sedentary activities such as watching TV for exercise. Yet she and her associates appear to be paying little attention to the widespread vitamin D deficiency epidemic that is increasingly being tied to the epidemics of obesity and diabetes.
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I was recently alerted to the actions of Senator John McCain who is sponsoring the misleadingly named Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA). This flawed legislation should concern anybody who wants to be able to manage their own healthcare free from unreasonable prohibitions and cost-inflation caused by the United States government. It should also concern anybody alarmed by the out of control healthcare costs in the county. While McCain’s primary intent appears to be to assist the US sports industry from stomping out illegal steroid use, his legislation is irresponsible, destructive, and won’t fix the problem. This article explains why DSSA is flawed and if passed would be harmful yet not solve any real problems. It also explains how you can easily contact your legislators via two web sites to relay your disapproval of DSSA.

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I’ve been a fan of the nutritional supplement DMAE (dimethylaminoethanol or dimethylethanolamine) for some time. Some women swear by it for reducing wrinkles and age spots, especially when applied in cream form. However, I believe this nutrient has a much wider and more important use than skin care. That use is boosting brain function in people experiencing problems with sleep, focus, and attention.

When I started taking DMAE years ago, I noticed about an hour reduction in the number of hours of sleep I needed each day to feel rested. I also noticed improved ability to concentrate. As with any supplement, your results may vary due to many factors including diet, weight, biochemistry, genetics, dosages, and perhaps random chance. That said, if you’ve got concerns about excessive sleepiness, trouble focusing, and problems maintaining attention, it’s my opinion that DMAE is worth a look as it is an inexpensive dietary supplement with a long track record.

DMAE is especially worth consideration by parents who are being threatened by schools, CPS, and courts with removal of child custody because of their children’s problems with educational achievement due to problems with attention, focus, and hyperactivity. These kids are often diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). Mainstream doctors prescribe Ritalin for this condition, but sadly this drug has killed hundreds of children while safe alternatives such as DMAE are widely ignored. Furthermore, problems with attention and school performance can often be traced back to social problems like the impact of bad parenting and child abuse endemic to divorces. You may be a fine parent, but your child could be stressed out from custody exchange conflicts and mommy-bashing or daddy-bashing from the other parent who is far from fine. The result may be a misbehaving child who seems hyperactive and gets categorized as an ADHD case to be medicated.
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Winter is the time of year with shorter days, lower intensity sunlight, and colder weather leading to most people making less vitamin D in their skin due to less sun exposure. The result is that vitamin D levels decline markedly during the winter in people not taking vitamin D supplements. Scientists believe that this accounts in large part for why winter is also the time of year with higher rates of colds and flus. We’ve discussed this further in our article H1N1 / Swine Flu Risk Increased by Low Vitamin D.
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I’m a typical middle aged American guy with a weight problem. I’d like to share some of the useful experiences I’ve had without blushing, and also want to share some of my personal medical data with readers, too. So I’m writing this under the pseudonym “Lester Waite” because one of my goals, and I’m sure that of many others, is “less weight.”

Human health is complicated and there can be many different causes behind similar symptoms. It would be nice if there was a “magic bullet” fix for weight gain that will work for everyone, but from my experiences and reading I don’t believe this is likely to ever happen. Having tried a lot of recommendations that worked for others that didn’t work for me, I’ve seen firsthand how weight loss ideas seem very hit-or-miss and for me, unfortunately, mostly miss.

I did, however, finally discover the means to lose some significant weight. But it has some big “gotchas” that really need to be addressed to make it workable for more people. In this article, I’ll explain what I found that has worked for me as it might work for you, too.

Want to Lose Weight?

I wanted to lose weight. Over the years, I tried lots of ideas, ranging from reducing portions to increasing exercise to various weight loss supplements designed to crank up the metabolism. Nothing worked much. Even when I found supplements that helped reduced my appetite and food intake, the weight didn’t come off.
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Dental treatments such as amalgam fillings and braces can induce toxic reactions in the human body. Mercury, a metal that is toxic to human and animal life even in small quantities, is the primary ingredient in dental amalgams, comprising about half of the content of the fillings. While amalgams are likely the biggest toxic metal risk you can find in dental care, metal allergies to components of stainless steel, particularly nickel, also cause some people to become ill. It’s important to avoid the use of dental amalgams and to be aware of the possible symptoms and sources of metal toxicity from other dental procedures.

If you are pregnant, nursing, or have children, for the safety and long-term health of your kids you must be particularly careful to avoid exposure to mercury and other toxic heavy metals. Dental amalgams account for the vast majority of mercury exposure in people who have them, estimated at two to three times the amount of mercury as all other dietary and environmental sources combined. Failure to get the dental amalgams out of your mouth and keep them from ever being put into your children’s mouths can result in your children developing a lifetime of medical problems that could have been avoided.

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If you’re shopping for amino acid and protein supplements, Affordable Supplements is one of the best web sites around. They carry a wide variety of products from hundreds of large, medium, and niche manufacturers including quality low-priced dietary supplement makers such as NOW Foods and 1FAST400.

For the next 3 days, until midnight on Monday, November 30, 2009, you can get an additional 5% off your order at Affordable Supplements by entering the promotional code save9235 in the lower left of the checkout screen. As usual, if you order $75 or more then standard UPS ground shipping is free.

Further Reading

Affordable Supplements profile

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The products mentioned in this post are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Life Extension founder William Faloon has written a detailed 12 page article on what to do if you get a respiratory illness such as a cold or flu. The article, What To Do If You Contract Influenza — Including H1N1 (Swine) Flu or the Common Cold is to appear in the upcoming January 2010 edition of Life Extension Magazine.
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Most adults who are getting regular preventive healthcare are familiar with the lipid panel performed as a routine check for cholesterol levels. What they may not know is that the standard lipid panel can only identify about 40% of the people who are at high risk for heart disease. The result of this is that many adults mistakenly believe they have reduced their heart attack risk when they are actually carrying around ticking time bombs that could be defused with improved treatment.

While the exact treatment for blood lipid problems varies, doctors seldom consider any such treatments without the test data to justify them. You could argue that the conventional cholesterol test actually increases the risk for heart attacks by leaving people unwisely complacent because of incomplete and inaccurate information about the nature of the fats in their blood. For instance, the LDL cholesterol number for “bad” cholesterol in the conventional tests is just a calculated estimate, not a direct measurement. It could be off significantly.

The VAP Cholesterol Test

A newer procedure called the VAP™ Blood Test (for Vertical Auto Profile) helps improve the ability to identify blood lipid patterns associated with heart attacks and cardiovascular disease. Atherotech, the company providing the test, estimates that it can identify twice as many patients at high risk for heart attacks than regular cholesterol lipid panel tests and also identify patients likely to develop type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease that may not lead to heart attacks.
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