How Water Contributes to Weight Loss

It seems everyone knows that water can help a person lose weight but how exactly? What does proper hydration have anything to do with weight loss?

In a study published in the Food and Nutrition Board at the Institute of Medicine, women who drank 15 cups of water a day lost significant weight without changes in lifestyle and activity level. Although most experts are divided over the effects of water in weight loss, there is no doubt that proper hydration does a body good. In today’s post, we are outlining the likely reasons water consumption leads to healthy weight loss. We will also share tips to utilizing water to achieve a slimmer frame:

Boosts Satiety

Clinical tests show that drinking water before and during meals increases satiety among participants. Boosted meal satiety is associated with a lower overall calorie intake. All these leads to gradual weight loss.

Speeds Up the Metabolic Rate

Studies show that consuming 8 glasses of water daily helps speed up the metabolic rate. Proper hydration puts the body in a thermogenic state, which leads to better fat burning. When the body is able to process the food you eat, you burn more calories.

Mobilizes Stored Fat

It is hard to lose weight if you have a very slow metabolic rate. When the body burn the food you eat rather than stored fat, you are more likely to gain unwanted weight. Proper hydration triggers the body to burn off stored fat, converting fat cells into energy.

How to Lose Weight Through Proper Hydration

Drink Before and During Meals

Water is a natural appetite suppressant. It fills the stomach nicely, triggering satiety. Drinking water before and during meals will make you feel fuller for longer. When you feel full, you are less likely to eat more. According to WebMD, drinking water before eating could lead to consuming 75 calories less per meal.

Replacing Fizzy Drinks with Water

Do you love sodas, fizzy drinks, or carbonated beverages? These drinks contain copious amounts of sugars that cause weight gain, obesity, diabetes, and other chronic diseases. Instead of chugging down cans of sodas, drink water. Water will fill you up, lubricate the organs, and flush out toxins from the system without the excess sugars. Not a fan of drinking water? Try replacing it with seltzer water or eating fruits and vegetables with high water content!

Go for Ice Cold

According to a WebMD editorial piece, ice cold water boosts the metabolic rate. The cold temp of the water forces the body to work harder to balance the internal temperature. This leads to a faster metabolic rate.

Drink Water During Exercising

Nothing quenches the thirst quite like water and sports drinks make a poor substitute. Drinking water in between workouts lubricates the joints, prevents muscle cramps, and nourishes the cells. Proper hydration ensures that the fluids you lose through sweat are replaced.

Follow the 8×8 Rule

What is the 8×8 rule and why is it relevant to your weight loss routine? The 8×8 rule is simply drinking 8 8-ounce glasses of water every day to maintain an ideal weight. This rule is recommended by most nutritionists for its positive effects on the body. Source:/healthydietbase.com/

The Difference Between Tang Powdered Juice and The Real Thing

Tang is a fruit-flavored drink formulated by food scientist William A. Mitchell for the General Foods Corporation. Today, Tang is owned and manufactured by Kraft Foods. Since being developed in the 50s, Tang has become one of the most popular breakfast drinks in the American diet. Apart from the original tangerine flavor, Tang now comes in a variety of fruit flavors including Strawberry and Grape flavors. Other variation of this popular drink includes sugar-free Tang and vitamin enriched ones.

Tang’s Nutritional Value

Tang comes in 38 flavors. It’s sold in powder form and packaged in canisters or packets. Just one serving of Tang (about 2 tablespoons) contains 90 calories and 24 grams of carbohydrates from sugar. It has no fat, no protein. Vitamin enriched Tang gives 100% of your recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of vitamin C. It’s also enriched with vitamin A, vitamin B2 or riboflavin, B3 or niacin and B6. Tang also contains calcium for stronger bones and teeth.

Ironically, Tang only contains a measly 2% of real orange juice solids. Most of Tang’s flavor comes from a cocktail of food flavorings, sugars, and artificial flavors. Quite simply, Tang is not orange juice. But it does provide all the health benefits of orange juice.

Benefits of Drinking Tang

It’s Full of Essential Nutrients

As stated above, Tang contains more vitamins and minerals than your average orange juice. But that’s because the product is enriched with these nutrients. Without it, Tang is nothing more than a soft drink. Tang is high in vitamin C, a nutrient that protects from cell damage and boosts the immune system. It’s also packed with vitamin A that is important for sharp eyesight. This vitamin also boosts collagen in the body and aids in growth and development.

The B vitamins in Tang also promote better nerve function. Some B vitamins help boost the production of red blood cells. Calcium keeps the bones strong and dense. It also regulates blood pressure.

Disadvantages of Tang Juice

It’s Not 100% Fruit Juice

Freshly squeezed orange juice is derived from nature. That’s why it’s good for you. But Tang is chemically developed to mimic the real thing, not replace it. It’s literally full of chemicals, artificial flavorings, and food color to look and taste like orange juice.

It’s Full of Sugar

If you are a diabetic, better not drink Tang. This product is literally made up of sugar. If you check the label, the first on its list of ingredients is sugar. The second on the list is fructose, which is fruit sugar. If you check further down the list of ingredients, you will see Maltodextrin, Sucralose, Acesulfame Potassium, and Neotame. These are all artificial sweeteners. In just an 8 oz. serving, Tang yields about 24 grams of sugar! That’s six teaspoon of sugar! Freshly squeezed orange juice does contain sugar but it’s nowhere near that amount.

It’s Will Make You Fat

Tang is like liquid calories. In a study published in Nutrition Research Reviews, there are over 40 studies related to obesity caused by drinking sugary beverages. The consumption of powdered fruit juices like Tang could lead to higher Body Mass Index. It could also lead to adiposity and weight gain. Source:/healthydietbase.com/

Specialty Scholarships Offer Cash for Popular Majors

Whether you choose a path in the humanities or accounting, there are scholarships to pay for it.

There are many ways English majors can put their degree to work – and many scholarships to help pay for it, too.

History, English and accounting are three classic college majors .  Accounting is often seen as a parent-friendly, safe choice.  While parents and pundits may consider history and English less practical given the high cost of college and the market for them being smaller than that of say, computer science, there is always a huge interest in these two pursuits.  

Some who study these two subjects may go on to teach, and some will end up doing something professionally that does not, on its surface, appear to have much to do with either subject. Ultimately, you should pursue an education and a career in something you enjoy learning about and doing – and keep in mind that there are scholarships to support students in each of these three majors.

• History: Many history majors I've known didn't seem to care about what was going to happen when they graduated from college. They were mostly concerned with getting a bachelor's and, for some, a graduate degree, studying something they loved and confident they would find work upon graduating. Some would even pursue a doctorate in the field. 

 While much has changed since I graduated, there are still students who have a passion for history and, like most students, they will need all the help they can get paying for their education, regardless of what they end up doing afterward. Below is a scholarship for such students.

The Daughters of the Pioneers of Washington offers a scholarship to Washington state residents who are descendants of a person who resided in several states in the Pacific Northwest in the mid-19th century, with preference given to those majoring in history, education or English. The award is $1,500 and the deadline to apply is April 1. Applicants must be at least a college junior or above at a Washington state institution  to qualify.

• English: It may be difficult to land that tenure-track professorship in English down the road or to even foresee what you will do with an English degree. Like a history degree, it is a classic and somewhat maligned major, due to how difficult it has become to directly align it with a career – other than a few fairly obvious ones, including teaching.

But if English is your passion and you want to pursue a degree in that field, there are many different ways you can use what you learn and apply it in daily life and your career.Scholarships for English majors certainly can help make it more affordable, too.

Missouri Valley College offers two four-year scholarships for incoming English majors: the Virginia Zank Scholarship and the Loren Gruber Scholarship. Applicants must have a composite ACT score of 21 or higher, or SAT critical reading and math score of 976 or higher, and a high school GPA of 3.0 or higher. An essay must be submitted for each scholarship.

The deadline for both scholarships, each worth $10,000, is March 31. If you are not planning on attending Missouri Valley College, don’t worry; there are plenty of other English scholarships at schools all over the country.

• Accounting: There have been accountants for centuries, and if you are predisposed to graph paper and 10-page balance sheets, more power to you. A good accountant can earn a prosperous living, and the pursuit may lead to business administration or finance. But it still wouldn't hurt to get a little financial help on the front end with an accounting scholarship.

Accounting majors who plan to pursue a CPA license and who have completed at least 30 semester hours of college course work – six of those in accounting – by the end of the spring semester will qualify for the AICPA/Accountemps Student Scholarship Award. Applicants must have an overall GPA of at least 3.0 on a 4.0 scale and must be enrolled full time. The deadline to apply is April 1 for this $10,000 scholarship.

Source:/usnews.com/education/

2017 Best Graduate Schools Preview: Top 10 Education Schools

Want more than a sneak peek at the rankings of these schools and others? Visit usnews.com on March 16.

Vanderbilt University has one of the top graduate education programs in the country.

Thinking about applying to graduate school? Whether you're interested in pursuing a graduate degree in education, or attending law school or business school, there are some big decisions to make. To help students find the right school for them, U.S. News & World Report surveys more than 1,900 graduate schools and programs and ranks them according to our methodology.

Here, we offer a sneak peek at the 2017 Best Graduate Schools rankings.

U.S. News surveyed 376​ ​schools granting doctoral degrees in education. In alphabetical order, here are the top 10 education schools.

School (name) (state)
Harvard University (MA)
Johns Hopkins University (MD)
Northwestern University (IL)
Stanford University (CA)
Teachers College, Columbia University (NY)
University of Pennsylvania
University of Texas—Austin
University of Washington
University of Wisconsin—Madison
Vanderbilt University (Peabody) (TN)

 

The actual ranking and score of these and other graduate schools will be available March 16, 2016, onusnews.com. Use #BestGradSchools to continue the conversation on Twitter and Facebook.

Source:/usnews.com/education/

Treatments for Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s disease is a degenerative condition that affects the central nervous system of the brain, particularly the motor system. This condition is caused by the death of dopamine-generating brain cells in the midbrain.

Unfortunately, Parkinson’s disease is an incurable disorder. The treatments for this condition are geared towards controlling the symptoms. In today’s post, we are listing down the existing treatments and surgical procedures available for Parkinson’s disease:

Medications

Certain types of drugs reduce the jarring symptoms of Parkinson’s disease such as tremors and difficulty walking. Most of these medications contain synthetic substitute for dopamine, a signaling chemical produced by cells in the brain. Dopamine cannot be given directly because it cannot enter the brain. Medications for Parkinson’s disease include:

• Levodopa
• Duopa
• Dopamine Agonists
• MAO-B Inhibitors
• Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) Inhibitors
• Tolcapone
• Anti-cholinergics
• Amantadine

Although these dopamine substitutes reduce the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, the efficacy wanes over time. However, as long as the patient takes the drug, the symptoms can be controlled more easily. That said, some drugs could cause a range of side effects including nausea, hallucinations, sleepiness, compulsive behavior, hypersexuality, and insomnia.

Surgical Procedures

Deep brain stimulation is an invasive treatment applied to reduce the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. The procedure involves surgically implanting electrodes in specific areas of the brain. The electrodes are connected to a small generator that is surgically inserted into the chest area, near the collarbone.

The generator sends out electrical pulses to the brain to reduce tremors and improve walking. The doctor may adjust the level of electrical impulses accordingly. 

Just like any type of surgical procedures, deep brain stimulation has its risks and complications too. Although the treatment yielded positive results, it could trigger a stroke or cause a brain hemorrhage. Deep brain stimulation increases the risk of infections too. Some patients encounter problems due to electrical simulations or a broken generator. Certain parts of the generator have to be replaced by the surgeon and this requires yet another surgery.

Deep brain stimulation is considered as a last resort treatment for Parkinson’s Disease. It is reserved for patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease who are no longer responding to medications. The procedure can stabilize the reaction to levodopa, reduce the rigidity of the muscles and improves the slowing of movement. Deep brain stimulation can control dyskinesias that no longer respond to medication adjustments.

Although deep brain stimulation eases the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, it does not stop the condition from progressing.

Preventing Parkinson’s Disease

There are ways to reduce your risk of developing this disease later in life. Studies show that caffeine appears to reduce the risk of Parkinson’s disease. Drinking caffeinated drinks may stave off this condition.

Consuming antioxidant-rich foods also minimizes the risk of Parkinson’s disease. You want to eat foods that are high in vitamin C. Some studies also show that foods high in essential fatty acids may reduce the likelihood of contracting Parkinson’s disease. However, more studies are needed to verify this claim. Finally, anti-inflammatory drugs and estrogen are linked to the reduction of developing Parkinson’s disease. Source:/healthydietbase.com/