The Basics of Sun Protection Clothing
Sun protection clothing can be a useful tool in your plan for healthy skin care, and in your efforts to protect your skin from too much sun, along with sunscreens and sun blocks. This type of clothing is specifically designed for sun protection by covering a maximum amount of skin and being made from a fabric rated for its level of ultraviolet or UV protection. There are hats, shirts and jackets just to name a few types of clothing specifically designed to protect you from the effects of ultra violet rays.
Here are some points to consider when buying clothing with UV Protection, first of all, let’s begin with the fact that all clothing protects you from the sun to a certain degree. However, finding stylish clothing with a good UV protection used to be difficult. Not anymore thanks too many new businesses focused on offering stylish clothing with UV protection.
When it comes to sunscreen shirts, basics are great. However when the occasion-or mood-calls for a little more flair, a quick search with your favorite internet browser produces many choices. Wear them! Sunscreen shirts are a wonderful way to protect against skin damage.
Today’s SPF clothes contain the sun protection factor, just like any sun block or cream has. Searching for SPF clothes you can zip into–and out of–with ease? Sun Block Jacket’s are a perfect choice for upper body coverage.
Do not just buy sun protective clothing apparel for its appeal but rather for its protective quality. Many companies are now offering sun protective clothing, sun protection swim wear, sun hats, and other unique UV protective products for your sun safety. There are also many SPF sun protection clothes for babies and kids as well.
Sunscreen and sun blocks are good (you know to get the organic ones) but your best protection is still clothing. The Sun’s harmful UV rays are exactly that-harmful. Sunscreen, sunscreen, and even more sunscreen combined with shade are still the best way to protect you from the dangers of the sun.
January 07 2011 | Cancer | Comments Off
Hormone Therapy Vs Hormone Replacement Therapy – Are They Different?
Hormone therapy is a treatment option for women with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer. Like chemotherapy, hormone therapy is a systemic therapy, meaning that is works throughout the entire body. Breast cancer hormone therapy should not be confused with hormone replacement therapy, which is used to replenish hormone levels in post-menopausal women. As the two therapies can easily be confused, let’s take a closer look at each.
What are Hormones?
Before hormone therapies can be explained, it’s important to understand hormones and they role they play. Hormones are substances produced by glands and are very powerful. Having too much or too little of a hormone can cause problems. They work as messengers and circulate through the blood carrying messages from the glands to the cells. They also control the actions of certain cells and regulate many biological functions such as:
- Growth
- Metabolism
- Sexual function
- Reproduction
- Mood
Breast Cancer Hormone Therapy
Hormone therapy is a treatment option for breast cancer when cells of the breast tumor are found to be hormone receptor-positive or sensitive. This simply means that the cancer cells have a place where hormones can attach, known as receptors. A receptor is a protein on the outside of a cell where a specific hormone attaches. When diagnosing breast cancer, tests are performed that measure the amount of hormone receptors in cancer tissue. If hormone receptor levels are high, they are considered “receptor-positive,” which means that the cancer cells may use the hormones to grow. Hormone therapy removes the hormones or blocks them from acting to keep cancer cells from growing. Treatment may include drugs, surgery, or radiation. Hormone therapy is most often used to help reduce the risk of the cancer returning after surgery, but is used in cases of advanced breast cancer as well.
Hormone Replacement Therapy
Hormone replacement therapy is used after menopause to replace the hormones that ovaries no longer produce. Whether it begins naturally or follows a hysterectomy, menopause can produce some very unpleasant symptoms – hot flashes, mood swings, vaginal dryness and urinary problems. To help relieve these symptoms, doctors often prescribe hormone replacement drugs.
A number of years ago, it was thought that hormone replacement therapy was the solution to the problems women encounter as they age. In addition to menopause, the medical community believed that increasing estrogen levels could also help prevent heart disease and osteoporosis. This is no longer the case.
Recently, results of a 15-year study that began in 1991 by the National Institutes of Health found a definite link between hormone replacement therapy and breast cancer. The study was initiated to determine what effects, if any, hormone replacement therapy and other factors had on breast cancer, heart disease, bone fractures, and colorectal cancer. Over 16,000 post-menopausal women were to be studied over a 15-year period however the study was stopped more than three years early in 2002, because of the link between hormone replacement therapy and breast cancer. It was found that post-menopausal women taking hormones for more than five years to relieve menopause symptoms like hot flashes have twice the risk of developing breast cancer than women not taking hormones. Fortunately, the risk declines when women stop taking the drugs and returns to normal after two years of being off the drugs.
It’s important to know that hormones can have positive effects in some therapies and negative effects in others. If you have questions about a specific type of hormone therapy, talk to your doctor.
December 25 2010 | Cancer | Comments Off