What a deer's antler can do for your health

Deer antler velvet is a major curative and health-giving ingredient in traditional Chinese herbal medicine. It comes from male deer, moose and elk which grow new antlers every year. But before the cartilaginous antlers are fully calcified or become bony, they develop soft velvety outer layers which are extracted or harvested in some countries. The stags are not harmed and the extraction often involves local anesthesia and some restraints as supervised by licensed veterinarians. The extract is then dried, processed and formulated in energy-boosting dietary supplements in sublingual spray and capsule forms.

Health benefits of deer antler velvet

In traditional Chinese folk medicine, deer velvet antler velvet provide different curative efficacies based on what part of the antler the substance was taken. The upper section of the antler produces a waxy substance used to stimulate growth in children. The middle section is called the blood piece used to cure arthritis in adults. Lastly, the bottom section or the bone piece is used for treating calcium deficiency and geriatric ailments.

This tradition has not escaped modern alternative natural medicine and the extracted deer antler velvet has found a large market following among athletes and bodybuilders for its claimed promises of boosting strength, performance endurance, and hastening the healing of injured muscles, tendons and cartilages.

What makes deer antler velvet special?

Deer antler velvet contains a growth hormone substance called IGF-1 or insulin-like growth factor 1. These growth hormones are bio-synthesized in the brain and liver to regulate body growth. Not enough growth hormones results in dwarfism. Doctors sometimes prescribe these hormones to children with growth problems. However, too much of it could lead to a type of gigantism or acromegaly.

As a growth hormone, several scientific studies have suggested that IGF-1 naturally stimulates protein synthesis and muscle tissue growth which in turn leads to stronger and beefier muscles. In addition, it reduces fatigue and hastens body repair when recovering from injuries. Despite the preliminary nature of these studies, supplements containing IGF-1 have become a favorite among athletes and bodybuilders to improve performance. While IGF-1 is naturally found in some food groups like dairy products and steaks, it is most abundant in deer velvet antlers.

Deer antler velvet supplements are available over the counter and do not require US FDA approval. However, it should be noted that the FDA, the World Anti-Doping Agency, the National Football League, Major League Baseball and many other sports associations have banned the use of IGF-1 as an unfair performance boosting drug in itself. But as a diet supplement in the form of sprays and capsules, endocrinologist Alan, Rogol, MD of the University of Virginia said little evidence suggests that deer antler velvet has the same potency as pure IGF-1. To date, using the deer antler velvet supplement may be controversial, but it is allowed among professional and amateur sports associations.

The Basics of Personal Branding

When you want to be noticed, whether to get employment, win an election, create confidence in clients and business partners, or simply attract new friends, you need to advertise yourself. In today's digital age where just about every information one needs can be obtained from the internet, that means crafting an online personal brand to your online presence. You would effectively be selling yourself online.

Branding is a common marketing strategy that positions a product or service in the consciousness of target markets or the public so that it gets the right prominence amidst similar products or services competing to be noticed and bought. Its approach makes little difference when applied to creating the online persona that makes you a winner in the minds of the people you want to reach out to. Since Tom Peters, author of several best selling marketing books in the 80s and 90s, first introduced the term in 1997, online personal branding has become the buzzword among people on the move to claim their right to success in their career, business, and socio-political relationships via the internet.

Know yourself and establish what value you stand for

You can't brand yourself if you are clueless about your worth. Take some time to assess yourself. Your personal brand reflects who you are and what value or worth you can bring to society. It encapsulates more than just the explicit information about your statistics, profession, experience, and education you put on the Web, such as an online resume or a profile in a social networking site like Facebook of LinkedIn. Your personal brand must be able to put all these things to bear on what value you can add to your employer, business partner, or constituent. A realistic assessment of what you can do, what you love to do, what your philosophy is and your insights about what's happening around, and how you can make a difference, creates a compelling persona that can win friends, achieve career advancement, and personal success. You don't have to say it, but your actions online will show.

What this means is that you need to be actively involved online. Not only should you have a social networking presence, but be active in updating it. Having a personal blog site or two is instrumental in crafting an online personal brand, as Tom Peters pointed out. Blogs, especially from Wordpress with your name in the URL, not only creates a permanent online presence, but defines your online personal branding identity with what you post in these blogs. Having one or two about your profession or hobby linked to your Facebook page creates a three-dimensional character behind your name. Guest posting, or putting your insights in other people's blogs that interest you can be just as effective in adding the brand character to your online persona.

Create your unique online presence

You can't very well brand yourself without a unique online presence. What you can do is nail down your identity in a domain name. That means buying your own URL or domain name, like www.johndoe.com. For starters, make a Google search of your name and see what you find. If your name is unique enough, it may land on the first page if you have a Facebook, LinkedIn or other social networking accounts. Otherwise, you may find you have several namesakes all over the result pages. This can present an online personal branding problem, like having so many iPhone brands when there's only one that matters. Play around with your name. If you have several namesakes, add your middle initial(s) or spell it out to create a unique domain name for you. Once you have your unique domain name, create your website using conventional tools or use it in Wordpress and Blogspot.

Does your personal brand have to be your name?

Not necessarily. You may have several brands, the same way that Samsung has several cellphone brands like the popular Galaxy brand among them. If you already enjoy brand equity in your name, meaning you are famous or have significant audience following like a newspaper columnist, politician, or celebrity, then by all means, use your name in your URL as your personal brand. If you are also a professional like a doctor, or an engineer, using your own name as a brand is always a good idea. But you don't have to. Corbett Barr of Think Traffic.net suggests having branding identity that is closer to the general topic in your blog. A blog site name can be specific to a project you are doing, such as photography in Africa, or creating dish recipes. And you can have several that focus on any aspect of your life. Even a movie review, if you love movies, can be a blog site. Then just create your personal profile in an "About Us" section.

Get linked from reputable sites.

Having a blog or website creates an online presence but is just the first step in establishing your personal online brand. As they say, no man is an island. Your online personal branding won't amount to much if no one else online bothers to refer to your sites. Just like in a CV or resume, you add credibility with a list of references, having other sites refer or link to your site pages does the same thing. Quite apart from the fact that back-linking is a search engine optimization method to increase traffic to your website, the fact that your site is being linked to by other websites or blogs completes your online personal branding by creating a vote of confidence that adds to the credibility of you personal brand. Just be sure the sites that link or refer to your site are respectable and adds to your worth, not from notorious or pornographic sites.

A skin disorder called psoriasis

A fairly common non-contagious skin disease, psoriasis causes an overproduction of skin cells that rapidly accumulate on the skin surface to form itchy, dry and thick red skin patches that can sometimes be painful and unsightly. The condition can occur anywhere on your skin surface. Etymologically, the name "psoriasis" comes from the Greek words "psora" meaning "itch," and "sis" meaning "action" or "condition."

Types of psoriasis and symptoms

Psoriasis can form skin patches ranging from one to a few spots characterized by dandruff-like scaling, to major eruptions covering large skin areas in severe cases. While psoriasis symptoms may vary among sufferers, they generally include one or a combination of the following:

- Incessant itching that becomes sore or inflamed with scratched;
- Reddened skin patches covered with silvery scales
- Swollen and stiff joints
- Small discolored scaling spots
- Dry and cracked skin that may bleed with the slightest scratch
- Pitted, thickened or ridged nails

There are at least eight major types of psoriasis based on dermatological signs: plaque, inverse, pustular, guttate and erythrodermic, psoriatic arthritis, nail, and scalp psoriasis.

(1) Plaque psoriasis is the most common, characterized by dry, raised, red lesions or plaques topped with silvery scales. Occurring anywhere on your body, including genitals and tissues inside the mouth, the lesions itch, get inflamed or may be painful and in severe cases, the skin adjacent joints may bleed.

(2) Inverse psoriasis is characterized by smooth patches of inflamed reddened skin appearing mainly in the armpits, groin, and skin folds under the breasts and around genitals. It is prevalent among moderate to severely obese people whose skin between skin folds are constantly irritated with friction and sweat.

(3) Pustular psoriasis is relatively uncommon and is characterized by fast developing pus-filled blisters erupting just a few hours after the skin reddens and gets inflamed. The reddened skin may first appear as widespread patches or in limited areas on the hands, feet or fingertips. The blisters dry up eventually in a day or two, but often reappear with some regularity in a matter of days or weeks. Their appearance can also come with severe itching, fatigue, fever, and chills.

(4) Guttate psoriasis mainly affects people below 30 years of ages and is often triggered by bacterial infection like strep throat. The affected skin area is characterized by small, droplet-shaped sores appearing on your arms, legs, trunk, and scalp and are covered with a fine scaly skin, though not as thick as in plaque psoriasis. They can be single outbreaks that eventually goes away without treatment, but may recur repeatedly especially with repeated bouts of infectious respiratory ailments.

(5) Erythrodermic psoriasis is the least common, characterized by red, itchy or burning rashes over the entire body. The condition is often triggered by corticosteroids and other drugs, sunburn or another type of psoriasis that has not been managed.

(6) Psoriatic arthritis is the appearance of inflamed scaly skin and discolored pitted mails associated with swollen painful joints typical of arthritis. If left unmanaged, it could lead to conjunctivitis or other inflammatory eye conditions. The condition may affect any joint with symptoms that range from mild to severe, causing progressive joint damage that could lead to long lasting or permanent deformity.

(7) Nail psoriasis occur on fingernails and toenails, characterized by abnormal nail formation or growth, pitting, and discoloration. In severe cases, psoriatic nails may lead to onycholysis where the nails loosen and fall off from the nail bed.

(8) Scalp psoriasis appears as red, itchy areas with silvery-white scales on the scalp. This condition may initially appear to be dandruff where flakes of dead skin from your scalp fall off on your shoulders after scratching your scalp.

Cause

What triggers psoriasis is not fully understood, but is widely considered among medical circles to be an immune-mediated disease caused by the interaction of the body's immune system with the environment in people with genetic predisposition. The body's immune system, particularly the T lymphocyte or T cell roving the body to detect and fight off bacteria and foreign bodies, mistakes and attacks a normal skin cell like a pathogen and sends out erroneous signals to cause overproduction of new skin cells in an effort to fight infection or heal wounds.

More specifically, the overactive T cells trigger immune responses that include dilation of skin blood vessels and an increase in white blood cells that enter the outer dermal layers. These changes lead to increased production of both healthy skin cells and T cells that create an ongoing cycle where new skin cells move to the outer skin faster than dead skin cells can slough off so that the affect areas develops thick, scaly skin patches. The cycle won't end unless some treatment intervenes to halt or slow the process.

Triggers and risk factors

Psoriasis can be triggered, or if you already have one, worsened with the following factors that you be able to avoid:

- Injury to the skin that involves lacerations as well as severe sunburn and bug bites.
- Stress and oxidative stress which are known to affect the immune system;
- Withdrawal of certain medication such as systemic corticosteroid treatment;
- Prolonged cold or freezing weather;
- Heavy alcohol consumption;
- Smoking which not only increases risk of psoriasis but may worsen its severity;
- Use of certain drugs or medications which include anti-hypertensive drugs like beta blockers, bipolar disease medication such as lithium, as well as iodides and anti-malarial drugs;
- Family history of the diseases; some 40% of those afflicted with psoriasis have at least one other family member similarly afflicted which supports the hypothesis that psoriasis has genetic roots;
- Viral and bacterial infections; people diagnosed with HIV have been observed to be more susceptible than those with healthy immune systems while children with recurring infections such as strep throat have increased risk to psoriasis;
- Obesity increases risk of psoriasis in areas adjacent to skin folds where skin surfaces tend to rub each other when moving.

A scourge to a quality life

Psoriasis is a chronic persistent disease so that you could have weeks or months when its symptoms seem to improve or go into remission, then enter a period when it recurs or worsens. Depending on the type, severity and location of psoriasis, it can be just a simple annoyance for some people, but it can be quite disabling for others, both physically and emotionally. Severe cases can adversely affect the quality of home and work life. Pain and itching can interfere with routine self-care, walking, and sleeping. Plaques on hands can prevent you from performing well at certain jobs, sports or taking care of your kids. People with psoriasis often become self-conscious about their appearance, have poor self-esteem, inadequate sex life, and poor social relations, any of which could lead to emotional distress such as depression and social isolation.

Treating psoriasis

Treating psoriasis generally target two objectives: (1) to interrupt the cycle that leads to overproduction of skin cells, thereby slowing or halting plaque formation and skin inflammation, and (2) to remove existing skin scales and smooth the skin. The treatment can be categorized into three methods: topical treatments, light or phototherapy and systemic medications, but they are not exclusive and depending on the severity, may call for a combined use of two or more therapies.

(1) Topical treatments involve the application of creams and ointments that include topical corticosteroids, Vitamin D analogues such as Calcitrol, Calcipotriene and Anthralin, topical Retinoids such as tazarotine, Calcinerium inhibitors, Salicylic acid, and coal tars. Moisturizers may help soothe inflamed skin but will not treat psoriasis.

(2) Light therapy or phototherapy involves artificial UV light or natural sunlight without overdoing it. Controlled UV phototherapy can treat mild to moderate symptoms of psoriasis. Several variations in the treatment include Goeckerman therapy, Photochemotherapy, Excimer laser, and pulsed dye laser therapies.

(3) Systemic medication involves injected or oral medication that includes the administration of Retinoids, Methotrexate, Cyclosporine, Hydroxyurea, thioguanine, and immunomodulator drugs.

Prognosis

Psoriasis is considered a lifelong disease and there is currently no known single treatment that lasts, but the several medical solutions listed above, taken singly or in combination, have shown their efficacies in providing significant relief from its symptoms. Often the best treatment is coping with psoriasis. This can be a challenge, especially when the skin disorder covers large areas of your body or appears in places readily seen in public. But there are coping mechanisms that make it easier for sufferers to deal with the realities of this ailment. Learning about the disease, finding support groups, altering your lifestyle, undergoing the prescribe treatment regularly, and using make-ups to cover the affected skin can go a long way in coping successfully.