Herbal Diet Supplements aren’t from the Fairy Godmother

It would take a year if I should mention the brand of diet supplements in the market because they do uncountable. Well, we don’t want to talk about chemical-based weight loss supplements, most of us are now smart enough to avoid such diet supplements due to the compound that can be very dangerous. Now the problem is we can find so many dangerous diet supplements in disguise a.k.a herbal diet supplements that can actually give fatal effects to the body.

We have to understand that herb supplements are able to promote weight loss in several ways. Some of the herbs are telling the brain that our stomach is full, some others are having thermogenical function or the function to improve body metabolism.

Thermogenic Herbs

These herbs are having some substances that work similarly as caffeine that will increase our digestion, heart rate, and respiration system. They will supply us energy and keep us active. There are some safe thermogenic herbs like green tea or dandelion. Green tea is so much safer than prescription diet supplements. We can also find diuretic herbs. It reduces the amount of water in our body. However, stopping these herbs consumption will return our weight.  Some of them can be quite beneficial, but most of them can be very dangerous and intoxicating.

Avoid these Herbs

FDA has banned some products that seem to be safe, but actually can be quite deadly.

First is herbal laxative. We can find hundreds variant of herbal laxative. The tea is given a title as diet tea. Since it works as laxative, then the herb will cause some health problems like diarrhea and stomach cramp. If the herbal tea is used for quite a long period, then it will be able to stop the natural bowel movement. It means we won’t be able to get a bowel movement before we take the tea.

Second is ephedra, which is known as ma huang. It is often used in tablet supplements. The herb is able to increase the blood pressure, heart rate and the most dangerous thing is the herb will over stimulate central nervous system. Based on the FDA report, there are about 800 side-effects report related to ephedra such as seizure, heart papilation, chest pain, heart attack and many others. Some people died due to ephedra consumption.

Third is herbal fen phen. Fen phen is a diet drug which contains ephedra. The drug is linked with various side-effects like stroke, heart attack and heartbeat irresularities.  Until nowadays, there isn’t any medical approval or test on fen phen, so make sure that we keep our hand away from the drugs.

Lindsay Lohan with her 40 Years Old Face Transformation and Wrinkles

It seems that we can no longer see the cute and adorable Lindsay Lohan’s face because if we see Lohan’s face in the recent month, we will see a totally different Lohan. Her face is no longer shining and adorable like she used to be. Lohan’s face transformation becomes a hot issue, moreover in the internet. People are questioning what makes her face drastically change, Is it because she had a plastic surgery or her lifestyle that corrupt her skin and give a different shape to her face? With her look now, we cannot see the 20s Lindsay Lohan, but an aging 40 years old lady. 

A beauty expert said that Lohan seems to have a skin problem since she was a teen. When she was fifteen, we can see so many blemishes, fine wrinkles, pigmentation, damage skin because of sunlight and many other aging signs. Those signs are usually occured in people over 30s or 40s. Lindsay’s lips are also has a shape like someone who have been through a plastic surgery. It makes her face look worse. 

Is it possible that Lohan’s face is caused by her lifestyle? The actress that started her bright career since she played on Parent Trap is known as a party girl that often crosses the line. After her role in Mean Girl, she is known with her alcohol and drug addiction. Three years ago, she was arrested and put into a rehabilitation center, not once, but twice and maybe more numbers to come, only God knows. With Lohan’s hard life style, it is quite possible if drug and alcohol cause her early aging. As we all know, drug and alcohol are able to cause a severe dehydration on skin. A light dehydration is able to cause wrinkle, with Lohan’s unhealthy life style, the wrinkle and face shape transformation are very possible to be caused by her alcohol over consumption and drug problem. 

With what has happened with Lohan’s physical and ethical problem, it seems so difficult for her to grab her success as an A list Hollywood celebrity. None of us want to have a severe early aging problem like Lohan. To avoid wrinkle, we can live a healthy life, consume nutritious food like veggie and fruits, consume vitamin E and do some preventions like using wrinkle remedies that we can use daily.

Smart Ways to Increase Alexa Rank

If we want to monetize our blog, then one of the mandatory things we have to do is increasing our Alexa rank. Alexa rank is one of the parameters of our blog value. It becomes the parameter of how popular our website is and how often our websites are clicked by visitors. So when we want to follow paid review program or sell our website, then increasing Alexa rank is a must. The same thing goes for webmasters who want to give their space for advertisement. A website with higher Alexa rank will have higher payment than one with lower rank. Okay now we all know that Alexa rank can be so important, but the problem now: How to increase Alexa rank? There are some smart ways to increase our Alexa rank.

1. The first thing to do is installing alexa widget in our websites or blogs. With the alexa widget, we will be able to check our Alexa ranking any time we want and the widget is able to help us to give accurate information to Alexa because through the widget, Alexa will be able to identify how many visitors visit our page and how many pages in our website they have been clicked. Putting Alexa widget is so simple, all we need to do is visit Alexa.com and we can install the widget there. Alexa widget is an alternative of Alexa toolbar to give Alexa an accurate visitor detection.

2. The second method is by installing Alexa toolbar in our websites or blogs. In the Alexa.com or other tutorial, we can find that the toolbar is made for Firefox, but actually, based on my experience, this toolbar can be installed in other browsers. The installation is so simple as well. We just need to visit Alexa.com, click the “toolbar” panel and download the toolbar.

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3. Beside those two methods, we can also use Alexa redirect. How to use it? We can do this: on our website we can modify is: http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?www.thehappylifetips.blogspot.com . Replacethehappylifetips.blogspot.com with our website URL. To feel the benefits, whenever we make a comment, we can leave the complete URL as our signature. 

4. The fourth method is by giving a webmaster tool on our websites or blogs. It will invite so many visitors that will automatically increase our Alexa ranking.

There are so many other methods that we can try like asking or friend to review our website or using PayperClick, and some others. However, the four methods are methods that proven to be the most effective ones.

The Effective Natural Remedies for Nail Fungus

Last month, I have given a brief explanation about nail fungus. On the recent passage, I will give more detail information about nail fungus and its treatments. Just like its name, nail fungus is caused by fungi or microorganisms that infect nail(s) and most of the infected nail is usually toe. The clear symptom of nail fungus is nail discoloration. After the discoloration, it is followed with other symptoms like nail thickening, ragging, dull or dark color, and odd shape. Besides those symptoms, the finger which is infected by fungi will feel so painful and in some cases it will spread an unpleasant odor.

What are actually the causes of nail fungus? Well, actually nail fungus can be an effect of specific activities and conditions, but on the other side it can be a signal of several diseases in our body. There are several causes of nail fungus such as damp and humid atmosphere on the finger area, sweat, tight shoes, water in the public swimming pool, small cuts that open a space between nail bed and nail, and many others. Nail fungus occur because of the development of microorganism in the area. Why most nail fungus occurs in the toe? It is because toe is having more damp and dark area, a perfect place to the microorganisms to grow. Nail fungus is able to show several diseases or disorders like diabetes, poor blood circulation, poor immunity, and many others. If we see from the causes, it shows that people who have nail fungus do not always ones who have less attention to the hygiene. If we learn further, people who are too hygienist can out themselves in the risk of nail fungus, for example, people who love to cut their nails too deep in order to remove the nail maximally will only make small cut that can be the home of the microorganism. 

Nail fungus can be solved with medical treatment with both oral and cream application. Well, based on my opinion, consuming chemical medication is as the same as supplying toxin into our body, so it will be better for us to try vitamins or the natural remedies first and make chemical treatment as the last option. One of the recommended treatments to support the other treatment is by consuming multivitamins, especially vitamin C because it will enhance our immunity to the fungi. 

When it comes to home remedies, we can use several remedies. The most popular one is tea tree oil. Tea tree oil will remove the nail fungus without any pain. All we need to do is applying the tea tree oil with cotton or simple drop it to the infected parts. It will be better if we apply the tea tree oil when we are about to go sleeping. It becomes the best time since during that time; the tea tree oil will stay in the infected area because we are not doing any activities like walking or washing out feet. It takes several months to feel the maximal outcome, depends on the severity.

Have you ever heard that garlic is the best prevention and curer for cancer and acne? Well, it is because garlic is having a high antioxidant and anti fungal. To cure nail fungus, we can mash a small piece of garlic and apply it in the infected area. It might be quite painful, but it really works. If we can stand with its taste, we can consume some gloves of raw garlic. Well, boiling the garlic will make it taste better and sweet, but it will not give effective result for our nail fungus treatment. 

Apple cider vinegar is one of the most recommended home remedies. The application is similar with tea tree oil; we can apply the apple cider vinegar with cotton, drop it, or maybe dip our infected finger to a small bowl of apple cider vinegar. 

Used tea is able to make our hair stronger and healthy, not only that, if we apply it on our face, we can remove the acne on our face. What about nail fungus? Well, we can compress the infected nail with a teabag; it will make the fungi move faster. If we love tea, then we can drink three glasses of lemongrass tea. 

Don’t be surprised by this last home remedy because it is Vicks Vaporub. Yes, Vicks Vaporub which contains menthol, camphor and eucalyptus is able to stop fungi growth and it does not give any side effect. The application is quite the same with tea tree oil or apple cider vinegar, but it will be better if we wear socks after we apply it when we want to go to sleep, so it will not stick to our sheet. 

Those are the home remedies for nail fungus. It is highly recommended to try those effective home remedies instead of using chemical oral medications that are possible to give side effects.

Liver Disease in Our Pets

Nowadays, with the modern people’s hectic and unhealthy lifestyle, liver disease seems to be an ordinary disease. As we all know, liver disease is a condition when liver is not able to run its normal function or at least losing its ability to do its work. If in human liver is running one or two roles, the in our pets, this internal organ becomes a major organ than become the brain or food digestion, nutrient conversion, mineral and vitamin storage, and the toxic removal.

The Causes
In human, liver disease can be caused by food, alcohol and drug consumption, and many other causes. However, in pets the main causes of liver disease are drug, bacteria, and virus. Therefore, make sure that we pay more attention to our pets’ condition and environment if we want to prevent this disease from our pets. 
- Based on the age, pets that more than 10 years old are having higher risk on liver disease, but it is very possible if liver disease occur in young pets.
- Some breeds are having higher risk on liver disease. For the dog, Yorkshire Terrier, Bedlington, Cocker Spaniels are having the most risk. For cat, Siamese cat breed is one that has higher risk among all. 
- If drug and alcohol are the main causes of liver disease in human, then pesticide, drug, herbicide and all chemical products are the most common cause. 
- Obesity is one of the causes of liver disease in pets. On the other side, if our pets are not eating for days, then they have higher risk on this disease.

The Symptoms
Liver disease becomes one of the killing diseases in our pets because most of us think that the signs shown are just like the other light disease symptoms. For an early prevention, make sure that we pay attention to these symptoms:
- Unstable emotional and depression 
- Significant weight loss
- Diarrhea 
- Vomiting
- Pale color on gums
- Dark urine
- Thirst
- Skin, gums and eyes yellowing 
- Fluid in the abdomen 

The Diagnosis
In several cases, the vets will be able to identify liver disease in our pets, but to make an accurate diagnosis, these steps will be done:
- Blood test
The blood test is aimed to identify the changes in biochemical. The changes will show the indication of liver abnormal function.
- Biopsy 
Biopsy is a process to identify liver disease by taking a small part of tissue.
- Liver Imaging
This diagnosis is aimed to check the blood supply, live size, liver shape changes with x- ray.

The Treatments
Our body or pets’ body are having a magical ability for self recovery. We can find such thing in our pets’ liver as well. If the liver damage is not too severe, then nutrition therapy can be a good solution because the liver is only need a support for the self recovery process. However, if the disease is in a severe condition, then drug or surgery is the best solution. 

Liver disease can be a deadly disease, but unfortunately the symptoms are sometimes similar with other diseases and can be varied, so make sure that we always give extra attention to our pets, mostly the aged pets.

Cancer in Our Pets

Cancer is one of the deadly diseases in human and until nowadays, the exact cause of cancer is still UNKNOWN. Some researches state that cancer is caused by radiation, asbestos exposure in mesothelioma cancer, chemical elements and many others. However, the root of cancer cause is still a mystery. Well, not only in human, cancer can be found in our pets as well, especially in our cat and dog. Surprisingly, cancer in animal becomes the most common disease. 
In a brief explanation, cancer can be defined as an uncontrollable growth of cell in the body that blocking the tissue surrounding it. Cancer can occur in any body part and we can even find it the internal organ lining. Cancer can disturb the function of organs around it as well because if the cancer is growing bigger, it will press the surrounding organs. 

Cancer Factors
Some factors that can cause cancer in our pets are:
- Aging
Dogs older than 10 years old are having a big risk on cancer, so make sure that we make a routine check if we have old aged dogs. 
- Breed
Breed is giving a great influence to cancer development as well. Some breeds are having a bigger risk than the others. For example, Boxers are having a bigger risk on skin cancer, while in giant dog breed we will often find bone cancer. For the cat, Siamese cats are facing a bigger risk for cancer then other cat breeds. 
- Gender 
One gender is not having a bigger risk than another, but it influences the type of cancer. For example, female pets are having a mammary glad tumor risk.
- Environment condition 
Radiation, and pesticide are becoming the main suspects of cancer in pets. 


Symptoms
All dogs and cats are having a risk of suffer from cancer. The big question is how to recognize the symptoms.
- Always check our pets’ body and check whether there is a swelling that seems abnormal. If we do, we can directly rake our pets to the vet.
- Check our pets’ weight periodically. Be aware if our pets are having a weight loss.
- Since we are feeding them everyday, we definitely understand their appetite. Go to the doctor if our pets are suddenly having too small or big appetite. 
- Pay attention to any bleeding, sore, and offensive body odor in our pets.
- Each of pet is having its own character; go to the doctor if our pets are losing their stamina, not like they used to be.
- Check whether our pets are having eating, breathing, urinating, defecating difficulty. 

Diagnosis
How the vets will diagnose our pets? There are several ways to diagnose cancer and vets usually do several tests on our pets 
- Blood test is one of the most common tests. It will help us to find out cancer from damaged tissues 
- Palpation is a method to diagnose cancer by feeling the abnormal swelling
- Biopsy is a diagnosis method that takes a tissue of tumor. The tissue is taken with a small needle and it will be analyzed in the lab.
- Endoscopy is another method than can be used and this method is using a tube.
- Diagnostic Imagining is the way to diagnose cancer with x-ray.

Treatments
The treatments of cancer for pets are similar with human. Don’t hesitate to use these treatments for our pets:
- Surgery
Surgery can be done for local tumor. In some cases, tumor can be directly lifted and our pets will completely recover. However, if the tumor has spreading, additional treatments will be needed.
- Chemotherapy 
Chemotherapy in pets can be done with oral medication (tablet) and injection.
- Radiotherapy
With the radiotherapy, cancer cell is tried to be destroyed with x- ray. 

Now that we know our pets are having a risk on this deadly disease, it will be better if from now on we always pay attention to our pets’ habit, food, environment, performance, and all things related to these human’s best friends.

Constipation and Its Remedies

We should be aware with constipation causes because constipation can spread to other diseases like hemorrhoid. Therefore, it will be better for us to anticipate constipation or understand its remedies so we can handle it immediately. 
- The easiest, cheapest, and most suggested cure for constipation is definitely water. Consume at least eight glasses of water. Not only that the habit will remove the toxin in our body, but also helping the body to absorb vitamins and minerals.
- There are so many ways to help food digestion and one of the ways is by taking a walk after we have our meal.
- For us who suffer from a long constipation, then consuming veggie juice especially cabbage can be a solution.
- Fig can be the best remedy for constipation. We can dip the fig into water and drink it in the morning. The severe constipation can even be cured with fig. 
- The combination of almond oil and milk that we drink regularly will avoid and cure us from constipation. 
- Papaya and banana are fruits that able to avoid us from constipation. For the chronic one, we can eat least one papaya or banana once a day. 

With all the remedies, we can handle even the chronic constipation without consuming medication. It will be better if we can use one of the remedies as our daily habit, so we can maximize the bowel movement, absorb vitamins and minerals easily, and making our body a healthy body.