Dangers of bodybuilding

The recent death of the 28-year old Romanian bodybuilder Viorel Ristea in Miami, just before the start of the Fitness Universe Week-end where he was supposed to compete again, raised the issue of the risks of extreme training to achieve perfection in bodybuilding. He had previously ranked third in the Musclemania Universe contest in Las Vegas and intended to become number one this year. Unfortunately he died while asleep in his hotel room in Miami. Some say that his death is related to the steroids he may have used while others say that his strict diet was the cause, Viorel Ristea`s body succumbing to dehydration. We all know that a popular method among bodybuilders to make their muscles more visible during a competition is abstention from drinking liquids some three days before contests.

Bodybuilding is a sport that sometimes requires extreme efforts to change the aspect of the human body to the extent that most of the muscles become evident. The bodybuilder is training himself to get his muscles grow as much as possible in parallel with loosing fat, finally making his muscles look as a sculpture of Michelangelo.

To achieve a maximum visibility of their muscles the athletes use methods to increase the sensation of evidence for their muscle. They usually place lights in proper places, oil their bodies and tan them according to a carefully programmed training to be in their pick during competitions and doping is firmly ousted from this world.

Arnold Schwarzenegger might be the best known bodybuilder for persons not connected with the sector, but those more interested in bodybuilding most probably also know Jay Cutler, the present day Mr. Olympia, a title that officially recognizes the top bodybuilder of the Charles Atlas, Steve Reeves, Reg Park or Lou Ferrigo. Every newcomer in the bodybuilding training dreams to be their look-alike. Let’s have a look in the history of this sport to see how dangerous it is.

Tips to avoid tears while chopping onion

Everybody knows that chopping onion is a torturing business that and gives you a kind of stinging or burning feeling and makes your eyes water intensely.

What really happens when cutting onion?

We got the real clue only in 2002 when a Japanese researcher discovered the enzyme released by cut onions and named it lachrymatory-factor synthase. In contact with air, this enzyme turns the amino-acids (sulfoxides) into sulfenic acid. Chemical reactions continue with the conversion of this acid into syn-propanethial-S-oxide, an unstable substance that irritates the eye when reaches it. The eye tries to eliminate the irritant and the lachrymal gland starts to produce tears. In this case we are speaking about reflex tears, specialized in removing irritants affecting the eyes. Reflex tears differ from basal tears that avoid eyes from drying out or emotional tears, triggered by extreme emotions - happy or sad.

I am sure that this lecture may have reminded you about your chemistry and biology lessons in school but gave you no clue on how to avoid tears while chopping onion. So let’s see what specialists say about this – and who could know more than chefs that chop hundreds of onions daily. The bad news is that none of their tips proved to be perfect.

Tips to avoid crying while chopping onions:  click HERE to read more...

Tips to avoid headache after putting cold foods and drinks in your mouth

You may have noticed that while drinking a really cold beer or eating an ice-cream, an unexpected headache appears. Some of us are affected more, with short sessions of extreme pain while others simply do not feel such pains. Statistically, only one third of the population is affected by such pains, mainly while eating cold food during very hot summer days, but recent studies showed that it also happens in normal temperature conditions and during cold days.

So, what really happens? When eating or drinking something cold, the nerves in the upper part of the mouth named “hard palate” inevitably make the surrounding tissues lower their temperature and a signal of possible danger of freezing is sent to your brain. To avoid a possible reduction of the brain temperature, blood vessels in the head shrink. As the relatively low quantity of cold food or drink in your mouth cannot keep the sense of freezing for more than a few seconds, the warm blood can rush again through the vessels and the fast change from constriction to dilation triggers the tough headache. This pain is usually felt in the mid-frontal and sometimes in the temporal area and peaks in half to maximum one minute. In medical terms, the fast constriction and dilation of the blood vessels in the brain causes pain receptors to stimulate the trigeminal nerve. The sensory information from the mouth cavity is mainly transported by this nerve and triggers the mentioned pain.

This is not a migraine, it usually fades quickly after it appears but sometimes can last up to five minutes and it does not pose a serious health problem to you. Sometimes, the headache is associated with a toothache, even if teeth are healthy.

If the pain had already appeared, the simple way to get rid of it is to warm up the hard palate (roof of the mouth) either touching it for a few seconds with your thumb or with your tongue, that can get warmer fast after swallowing the cold food/drink. The warming procedure gives a proper signal to the brain and calms down the pain.

As usual, preventing the pain is easier than calming it down, so a better idea would be to avoid direct contact of the cold food with the posterior part of the palate where sensible nerves are placed. A good result is obtained if you eat cold food slower and in smaller bites. Wolfing food down in seconds is bad for your stomach too, so you should make a habit consuming food slowly. Also, liking ice cream is better than taking bites.