Why having Friends at any Age is Beneficial for Health

Epicurus said “Of all the things that wisdom provides for living one’s entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship”.

It has been long understood from contemporary scientists to ancient philosophers that having strong social bonds contributes to our happiness and therefore has a positive impact on our overall health and well-being.  However, the importance of friendship is not just something we need and desire as adults, but having friends during childhood is equally as important for our development later in life. 

In a new study from Concordia University, Canada (http://www.concordia.ca/) researchers affirmed that by keeping friends close has real physiological and psychological benefits.

The report which was published in the journal Developmental Psychology, “The presence of a best friend buffers the effects of negative experiences” found that the presence of a best friend directly affects children going through negative experiences.  The study highlighted that levels of cortisol, a hormone produced naturally by the adrenal gland in direct response to stress, is likely to decrease if a child is with a friend during a tough experience.

William M. Bukowski, a professor of psychology and Director of the Concordia Centre for Research in Human Development said, “if a child is alone when he or she gets in trouble with a teacher or has an argument with a classmate, we see a measurable increase in cortisol levels and decrease in feelings of self worth”.   

Previous studies have demonstrated that friendships can protect against later adjustment difficulties.  However, this study is the first to definitely identify how the presence of a friend can result in an immediate benefit for the child undergoing an unpleasant experience.

Bukowski believes these results have far reaching implications because physiological and psychological negative experiences as children can impact us as adults later in life, “excessive secretion of cortisol may lead to significant physiological changes, including immune suppression and decreased bone formation”.  Additionally, Bukoswki points out that if we build up feelings of low self worth during childhood, this will translate directly into how we perceive ourselves later on in life. 

Studies continually show that we need close long term relationships, we need to be able to confide in others and we need a sense of belonging.  Evidence suggests that we tend to feel happier when we are with other people and as a result this has many positive affects on our health.  Strong bonds can contribute to lengthening life, boosts immunity and can cut risks of depression.

Therefore, where possible, it is important for us to make the time to build relationships by strengthening old friendships, deepening existing ones, and making new friends.  

New Nutrition Guidelines published 

for Pre-School Children

This week, the School Food Trust has published guidelines on what foods young children should eat.

The guidelines have been introduced as a result of an independent report in 2010, which flagged demand for clearer guidance from childcare providers and parents.

The report highlighted the growing concern, that a fifth of children are either overweight or obese before they start school.  With Type 2 diabetes on the increase and dental health in young children deteriorating, the School Food Trust advocates that healthy eating before the age of five is essential.   

The voluntary guidelines, which are aimed particularly at nurseries, childminders and other providers of service for preschoolers, is an attempt to educate adults on healthy eating habits for young children in order to help reduce childhood obesity.

The guidelines include recommendations on the types of food to offer young children, portion sizes, sample menus as well as advice on tackling fussy eating and involving children in food and cooking activities.   

Children’s Minister Sarah Teather said: “Healthy eating is at the heart of helping every child get the best start in life”. 

As such, the new guidelines illustrate the importance of a varied diet for the under-fives, one which is rich in fruit, vegetables and dietary fibre, and how to avoid too much saturated fat, sugar and salt, which can contribute to weight gain and tooth decay.

The School Food Trust said; “Children start learning about food at a very early age. The messages they receive during this time lay the foundations for the choices they make about food as they move up to school and beyond”.

To download the Voluntary Food and Drink Guidelines For Early Years Setting in England – Practical Guide please click here.  

Ask your Pharmacist Week

This week is “Ask your Pharmacist Week” whereby the National Pharmacy Association aims to promote the health services provided by community pharmacists, which may not be familiar to everybody.

People generally use pharmacies to collect prescriptions and pills,  seldom realising the wider role that pharmacies can play in their local communities.  Pharmacies offer more than just a place to pick up prescriptions, the pharmacist can advise, support and offer guidance on a number of common health problems and minor ailments.  These range from obesity, diabetes, sexual health, skin conditions, coronary heart disease and airway conditions.

Pharmacists are also able to provide help on dieting and exercise, as well as alcohol consumption and stopping smoking.  

“Pharmacies are there to help you stay well, not just to treat you when you are sick”

Healthy Living Pharmacies

Some pharmacies are known as Health Living Pharmacies, because they have a healthy living champion who, as well as delivering services themselves and advising people on health issues,  also keeps up to date with health services and are able to signpost people to receive further help.

For further information on the services that Pharmacies provide, please click on the Ask Your Pharmacy website. 

The RSPH supports the work carried out in pharmacies and sees their role as integral to helping to reduce health inequalities and ensuring that everyone can access health services as well as getting the right advice.

RSPH Training Solutions currently offer the Level Two Award in Understanding Health Improvement to health trainers and champions and continue to develop tailored programmes for people working in pharmacies.. 

For more information on this please contact Gina Mohajer gmohajer@rsph.org.uk or 0207 265 7327.

  

Positive Pharmacy

-       There are currently 12,000 pharmacies across the UK, therefore for the majority of us, they are easy to access and tend to be close by.

-       To visit a pharmacy you do not need to make an appointment.

-       There is always a fully qualified healthcare professional and support team who can answer queries and offer knowledgeable advice.

-       Most pharmacies have a consultation room, whereby you can talk with your pharmacist without being overheard.

-       Health checks and vaccinations can also take place in the consultation room

Learning to De–Stress! Celebrating National Stress Awareness Day

Today, 2^nd November, is National Stress Awareness Day, aimed at helping people to deal with and avoid stress.

Stress Management has never been more relevant than it is today.  Recent research has emphasised that stress levels have doubled in four years.  Statistics from MIND show that half a million people in the UK experience work-related stress at a level they believe is making them ill and that twelve million adults see their GP with mental health problems each year, much of which is stress related.

As such, this year’s theme is based on “Wellbeing and Resilience at Work”

Why are we more stressed?

With our current economic climate, the increasing number of redundancies and the growing uncertainty of job security, has inevitably lead to a lot of worries.  People are concerned about their financial situations, paying back mortgages or how they will provide for their families.

In the work place, stress can be caused by relationship conflicts between colleagues, greater workload and pressure, which can also lead to depression.  Depression and issues from work are one of the main causes of stress reported by patients when they visit their GP’s.  

National Stress Awareness Day asks whether you have a technique or routine to help you combat tension?

We all know that stress is harmful for our overall health and wellbeing.  It can have a negative impact on our body, the way we feel and can also affect the way we operate and behave.  However, feeling stressed is reversible and we can all take certain steps to ensure we cope with pressure and also learn how to relax and take time out for ourselves.  It could be something as simple as taking a bath, writing a diary, listening to music, doing physical activity.   

MIND have identified Ten Top Tips to tackle stress, as well as guides on how to relax, manage stress and also how to improve your mental wellbeing.

For further information on National Stress Awareness Day and ways to support it, please visit the International Stress Management Association UK  

Raising Awareness for Lung Cancer

This November in the UK is Lung Cancer Awareness Month aimed at raising awareness of the signs and symptoms of the disease, to encourage people at risk to visit their GP’s and seek medical help.

The Facts

Worldwide, lung cancer is the most common cancer in the world with an estimated 1.61 million new cases diagnosed in 2008.  With the highest rates of lung cancer for men in Central and Eastern Europe, and for women in Northern America.

In the UK, lung cancer is the second most common cancer diagnosed after breast cancer.  Around 41, 000 people were diagnosed with lung cancer in 2008, that is, 112 people every day.

The Survival Rates

As with most cancers, the earlier the diagnosis, the higher the chance of survival.  Currently however, more than two-thirds of lung cancers are diagnosed at a late stage and so survival rates for these patients remain lower.

Overall, the statistics show that less than 10 percent of lung cancer patients survive the disease for at least five years after diagnosis.

Death From Lung Cancer

Worldwide around 1.38 million people died from lung cancer in 2008 and in the European Union more than a quarter of a million people died in the same year.

In the UK, lung cancer has been identified as the most common cause of cancer death, resulting in more than 1 in 5 deaths.

The latest figures from 2008, highlight that around 35,260 people died from lung cancer, that is 95 people every day. 

Causes of Lung Cancer

It has long been established that tobacco and cancer are strongly linked.  Evidence has revealed that smoking causes 90 percent of lung cancer deaths.  The recent figures show that in Britain 1 in 5 adults smoke cigarettes, that is 9.5 million people.

Living with someone who smokes, also increases the risk of lung cancer in non smokers by a quarter and it is estimated that exposure to passive smoke in the home causes around 11,000 deaths every year in the UK.

It has also been recognised that lung cancer can also be caused by heavy exposure to industrial carcinogens and numerous air pollutants, but this accounts for a small proportion of cases.

Despite the known facts and the strong correlation between lung cancer and tobacco, why is it that so many people continue to smoke?  Why do people ignore the health signs and fail to seek medical support? 

We can all help to reduce the risk of lung cancer and potentially save ourselves, a loved one or someone we know.  This month is dedicated to raising awareness about lung cancer and ensuring that people are educated about the disease and know where to find and access help.

For further information on supporting the campaign and raising awareness on lung cancer please click here 

For information on symptoms and lung cancer please visit the NHS Choices website by clicking here  

For information on quitting smoking click here

Make A Difference Day – Sat 29^th October

Have you ever considered volunteering and making a difference to perhaps someone’s life or community, but just never got round to making it happen? Well this Saturday the 29^th October is Make a Difference Day, a campaign organised by CVS aimed at encouraging people to get involved in volunteering to help make a difference.

This year’s theme will be highlighting how volunteers can help to tackle loneliness and isolation.  The charity is calling for volunteers to register their activity, which can include anything from creating a bus stop garden to teaching IT skills, renovating a homeless shelter or knitting blankets for cats and dogs in shelters.

For further information or to register your interest click here

To support the work of volunteering and the great work that volunteers do, the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) is offering free* training in health improvement to people who are volunteering / or thinking of volunteering.  Under the East London Health Makers Scheme, participants will gain a Level 2 Award in Understanding Health Improvement, which will enable them to not only understand the importance of healthy living and physical activity, but also how to positively encourage others to make healthier lifestyle choices.  By being educated, proactive and reaching out to people of need, we can all help to diminish health inequalities and improve the quality of peoples lives.

For further information on training please contact Nelly Araujo by email: naraujo@rsph.org.uk or by phone: 020 7265 7322. 

*The funding has been made available through the Mayor's Legacy Fund and the Big Lottery.  To be eligible to receive free training, all applicants must be willing to commit to volunteering work in London and be able to provide information on the organisation they will be volunteering at. 

Tanning Salons and the Risk of Cancer

As summer becomes a distant memory and winter begins to creep in, people in attempt to keep their “summer/healthy glow” conventionally resort to using sunbeds to top up their tans.  But are they taking into account the harm they are doing to their skin and health?

Currently, it is estimated that around three million Britons use sunbeds on a regular basis.  The statistics reveal that 12,000 Britons develop malignant melanoma a year and the disease claims more than 2,000 lives.  This figure has more than doubled over the past twenty years.  
  

Recent news articles from the Daily Mail  and the Daily Telegraph have highlighted that sunbeds are even more dangerous than originally thought.  It was reported that UVA rays, the main type of ultraviolet light emitted from tanning devices and previously regarded as relatively "safer" than UVB, has actually been found to cause the type of DNA damage that can lead to cancer.

The Research

Light from the sun contains two types of ultraviolet (UV) rays, UVA and UVB.  UVB has generally been considered as the major carcinogen in sunlight.  However, scientists now argue that the effects of UVA needs further consideration as there are more UVA than UVB rays in sunlight.

In a recent study carried out by researchers from King’s College London and published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, compared the DNA damage caused by UVA rays to that from UVB rays.

Previously, UVA has been perceived as safer, compared to UVB which has been linked to burning and cancer.  However, the research, which builds on further studies, suggests that UVA is not harmless, and like UVB, can lead to changes in the cell that increase the risk of developing skin cancer. 

A total of 12 volunteers with healthy and similar skin tone were recruited for the research.  A small area of the volunteers’ skin was exposed to UVA and UVB, which was then later examined to assess the degree of skin redness.  The researchers also took pinch biopsies, which extracted skin from the exposed area, to evaluate the chemical changes to the DNA.   

They found that both UVA and UVB could cause similar types of DNA damage, but that UVA was recognised as affecting cells deeper in the skin, while UVB affected cells at the surface of the skin more.

Prof Antony Young, one of the researchers from King's College London, said:

"In the past UVA has been written off as not very serious to the skin...What we are saying is that UVA does cause significant damage to DNA in the skin especially in the base layer, and that is where the damage is important”

The World Health Organisation says “sunbeds – which emit a small amount of UVB as well as the UVA – are as great a cancer risk as cigarettes”. 

The Outcome

UVB has been identified as causing changes to our DNA and where our body’s natural mechanisms cannot repair the damaged DNA, such as in skin cancers, these chemical changes can lead to harmful mutations in the DNA sequence.  The recent evidence suggests that UVA may cause mutations in a similar way to UVB and is therefore not “safer” as previously believed and can thus lead to skin cancer. 

Sunbeds have a particularly high UVA output and evidence claims that these rays can be ten to fifteen times higher than the midday sun.  As such, people using sunbeds should take into account that there is currently no regulation to govern the type or strength of UV rays that is emitted from them.  Consequently, it is essential that whenever we expose our skin to UVA or UVB light, we use the correct factor sunscreen to protect us from ultraviolet rays.

Cancer Research UK have highlighted some recommendations to ensure you keep your skin safe and protected.  Click here for further information and for more information on sunbeds and their safety please click here.