Smoking 101 – Smoking & Pregnancy

 

The above illustration is apply to both mother who smokes and non-smoker who exposed to second hand smokes. Baby who expose to secondhand smoke may also have the risk of underdevelopment!

Let me explain in brief of how smoking lead to these defects:

As baby is a rapid growing body, he need a lots of energy and oxygen to keep the rate of growing fast and optimal, the nicotine and carbon monoxides release by the cigarettes reduce the supply the of oxygen to the baby. The nicotine chokes of the oxygen by narrowing the blood vessels which include the umbilical cord blood vessels (the only blood vessels which supply the blood from the mother to baby), by the narrowing of blood vessel, the blood reach to the baby is reduce. Reduced blood supply decrease the nutrient and oxygen transfer and then slow the development of the baby. On the other hand, the red blood cell carrying the oxygen start to take up the carbon monoxide instead of oxygen which will lead to lesser oxygen receive by the baby. As a consequences of reduce oxygen, the baby underdeveloped. The rate of organ that require huge amount of oxygen and nutrient to growth retarded such as the heart & the brain.

Underdeveloped baby carry the risk such as:

• Underweight (Birth weigh less than 5.5 pounds)
• Heart Defects
• Decreased lung function
• Brain function affected
• Death

For the benefits of your baby and our future generations, Please Stop Smoking now!

Smoking 101- Do You Know Your Cigarettes?

According to WHO, 100 million deaths were caused by tobacco in the 20th century. If current trends continue, there will be up to one billion deaths in the 21st century.

A simple sharing of my Smoking 101

Facts of Vitamin C

 

After reading from the book “What Your Doctor Doesn’t know about Nutritional Medicine May be Killing You – Ray D Strand M.D”, I would like to share some interesting facts which mention by the author in the book.

Vitamin C is a potent antioxidant which our body use to fight radicals we received or produced within our body daily. The RDA ( Recommended Daily Allowance) for vitamin C is 90mg for adult males and 75mg for adult female daily and additional 35mg for smoker, which mean that you must consume to this level to achieve an acceptable level of vitamin C daily to keep you healthy.

However, the RDA have nothing to do with the prevention of chronic degeneration diseases such as coronary heart disease and cancer. The true benefit of Vitamin C comes when the daily intake reach at least 500mg daily.

After reviewing some literature and study, I found out that risk of several diseases can be lowered by intake of high dose of vitamin C, which are:

• Coronary Heart Disease
• Stroke
• Cancer especially lung cancer
• Cataracts
• Gout
• Hypertension
• Diabetes Mellitus

To achieve at least 500mg per day, it would be very inconvenient if one consume large amount of fruits, so the author suggested that we should supplement our self in order to obtain the optimal nutrition for our body. 

The maximum allowed dose of vitamin C per day is 2000mg for adults in order to prevent most adults from experiencing diarrhea and gastrointestinal disturbances. 

 

For more information, u can visit: 

• http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/vitamins/vitaminC/
• http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminC-QuickFacts/
• http://www.vitamincfoundation.org