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Owen Jones
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Posts by Owen Jones
Insulin And Diabetics
Feb 1st
Type 1 diabetes, which is sometimes still referred to as ‘Juvenile Diabetes’ is the diabetes that some people are born with or develop very early on in life because of organ failure.
The pancreas, to be specific, fails to yield enough (or any) insulin to regulate the amount of sugar (glucose) in the blood, which then becomes either (usually) saturated with it or devoid of it.
Neither situation is ideal, so the person with this difficulty, the diabetic, had to inject insulin every day and occasionally a number of times a day. The insulin they injected was taken from cows and pigs. Porcine insulin is still used to help diabetic dogs.
In 1977, it was discovered how to reproduce human insulin, which was far more effective on human diabetics and this went a very long way to making life simpler for diabetics.
Many diabetics developed a tolerance or resistance to animal insulin, which made it less and less effectual. This difficulty almost entirely disappeared with the new ‘cloned’ human insulin.
That was in the late Seventies and now we are in the second decade of the following millennium, more than thirty years later and the state of affairs has progressed a huge amount in that time.
Nowadays, there are different types of (human, cloned) insulin as well and it might take a number of tests, before your doctor will know for certain which one is best for you.
For example, there is Humalog, which is at peak efficiency within the hour and Ultra Lente, which hits its peak after around 18 hours. There are three factors to take into account when considering synthetic insulin:
Onset: the time it takes for the insulin to arrive at the blood stream and start working
Peaktime: the time after injection that the drug is working at its most efficient rate
Duration: the length of time that the insulin remains effective at regulating the blood-sugar level.
This means that a physician has a number of factors to take into account when working out which insulin is right for the patient. Price may also be a factor.
The most welcome modern invention is the insulin pump. The insulin pump is inserted under the skin. It continuously monitors the blood-sugar levels and squirts out insulin to compensate.
However, these pumps can contain several types of insulin so that it is always ready to give you the type of assistance you require.
The insulin pump is a lot more effective at working out a diabetic’s insulin requirements than a human, who frequently forgets or becomes complacent, and it monitors the bllod 24 hours a day not just once or two times. The majority of Type 1 diabetics now use an insulin pump to help them lead normal lives.
Type II diabetes usually stems from an insulin tolerance developed later on in life, frequently well past middle age. This can often be regulated with which tablets or other types of medication. People with iron will power can frequently regulate Type II diabetes by diet and exercise.
Those for whom all the above fail, will almost certainly have to take insulin too and then they fall into the same category as Type I diabetics and a pump may help them too.
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on a variety of subjects, and is now involved with how to lose weight online. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at Cookbooks For Diabetics
How Much Damage Can Termites Do?
Dec 1st
You may be astonished to realize just how much damage termites can do. But you have to bear in mind that while a single termite might be only eight millimetres (a third of an inch) long, a colony or nest can contain between several hundred and several million termites.
Most of this number will be workers and their job is to go out and get enough food for all the inhabitants of the colony. In general, they search for cellulose material, but in practice that could be your house, especially if it is constructed primarily of wood. Not that they will not gnaw their way through other materials too.
Plastic, soft metals like lead, and even concrete are no real barrier to thousands of determined termites. But they would rather timber. Some varieties prefer dry wood and others would rather damp or rotting wood. However, do not think that you will necessarily see termite damage at a glance. Usually termites will eat their way into the end grain of a length of wood and then work their way up through the middle of it.
This section of the timber is the newest growth and, presumably, the most succulent to a termite. Anyway, they will eat into the centre of, say, a floor joist, and make a walk-way or gallery through it to the next piece of timber. So you might not realize that you have termites until they have so undermined your floor that you drop into the basement one day.
This is why, if you live in an region where termites are known to be active, you should have your house checked over or sprayed at least once a year. Just because you have not seen a termite or any termite damage, does not mean that you have not got termites. Not by a long chalk.
There are three major types of termite: the damp wood termite, the dry wood termite and the subterranean termite. As you can see, no matter what state the timber in your house is in, there is a termite that will eat it. By far the nastiest of these is the subterranean termite and by far the nastiest of those is the Formosan termite. Do not make the mistake of thinking that you are safe from the Formosan termite because you do not live in China. They are all over Asia and in the USA as well.
Subterranean termites, living underground, are evidently much more difficult to spot. Not only that, they are either very clever or very introverted, because they construct walk-ways or tubes of earth from the exits from their underground colonies to the nearest bit of timber. This helps them go unobserved, unless you know what you are looking for, and then, when they have reached timber, they will burrow into the end grain and they are off, eating their way into the very fabric of your home.
Within no time at all all the timber support beams, purlins, rafters and joists could be hollow shells of timber. One serious gust of wind or a heavy snowfall and that might be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many topics, but is at present concerned with pictures of termites. If you are interested in this or if you are wondering: What Does A Termite Look Like?. Please go to our web site now for further details.
Checking Air Conditioning Filters
Nov 18th
Air conditioners have always been popular, but they used to be expensive to buy and costly to run. These days they are less expensive to buy. It is not so bad if you live somewhere where you need heating for three months and cooling for three months, but if you live somewhere where you have one unit or other running twenty-for hours a day, seven days a week, it is still expensive.
However, the luxury that they give to your life is amazing. But, the thing to bear in mind is that air conditioners, like all machines, do require servicing. That is, the actual moving parts, lubricants and other fluids need to be checked professionally every two years (or whatever it says in your handbook). There are other parts though that have to be checked much more frequently than that – maybe even monthly.
The good news is that you can carry out this maintenance yourself. I am talking about the filter. All good, modern air conditioning units come with an in-built filter. It depends on the sophistication of your air conditioner, what its filter can block, but most will filter tiny particles such as pollen and traffic pollution out of the air it is circulating in the room.
These filters need to be cleaned or replaced fairly regularly and you will need to check your air conditioner’s handbook to find out what you can do. Frequently, it will say that they can be cleaned two or three times with either soapy water and a tooth brush or vacuumed clean. After that they have to be replaced, in order for the unit to be completely effective.
If you need to replace your air filter, you may find the following hints useful.
The best place to begin is either the main dealer for your brand of air conditioner, the people you purchased it from or the people that installed it for you. At least, you know you can trust them, even if it is only a matter of ‘better the devil you know’. Many of the shops that sell other makes of air conditioner may stock filters for your sort as a sideline too.
You are already making use of the Internet, so that is another good place to check for current prices and bargains, before you go traipsing around town. ‘Fore-warned is fore-armed’, as they say. You can utilize the price knowledge you acquire from your Internet surfing as a bargaining tool to get the best price locally.
If that does not work or you just cannot be bothered, order on line and your air conditioner filter will be with you in a couple of day anyway. By the way, like with vacuum cleaner bags, it is normally better to purchase several at a time. For example, if you know that they will survive three washes, then each filter will last four months. Why not buy three and be done with it for a year?
Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with central air conditioning systems. If you are interested in Home Air Conditioning Systems, please click through to our site.
Preventing Mosquito Bites And Diseases
Nov 17th
So, you’ve got some time off work, college or school and you want to get in the open air and get pleasure from it. Maybe even go on holiday. What a good idea! Nevertheless what happens when you get where you are going? The mosquitoes come out to get you.
If it were not so routine, it would sound like Freddy Kruger and Nightmare on Elm Street. The female mosquitoes need blood to create eggs and they seek it out as insatiably as any vampire in a horror movie, while the males go sipping nectar from plants like fairies.
Well, that is the nightmare scenario, but it is not that far from the truth either. For many nations in the world it is also a genuine life and death problem. Millions of people die every year from malaria and tons more from dengue too. Yet both of these diseases are curable as are most of the other mosquito-borne diseases like Yellow Fever, Japanese Jungle Encephalopathy and Nile fever.
The first thing to understand is that typically these diseases can be inoculated against, particularly if you are going on vacation. The next thing to bear in mind – it might help – is that not all mosquitoes are the same. For instance, in Thailand, the dengue-bearing mosquito (often called the ‘Egyptian’) comes out during the day time and so bites then too. Between about an hour before dawn and an hour after dusk, whereas the malaria-carrying mosquito, the Anopheles, is a night time huntress.
I am not recommending that you can relax your guard during the day, although many people take for granted that they can. Nobody wants dengue fever either.
So, what can you do? Before you go anywhere, read up on the district or check with medical experts. That bit is not difficult, especially, if you know how to explore the Internet. Then prepare yourself with inoculations if the risk is serious enough in your estimation or a medical expert’s estimation. In my judgment, that is the minimum that a conscientious person should be expected to do to protect him or herself, the family and the community at large.
Then there are a few other things you can do. For example, wear voluminous clothes, but long sleeves and long trousers. If you are thin on top by choice or not, wear a hat or cap. Dress in socks or stockings in the evening to safeguard your toes. Get a good-quality mosquito repellent and put it on your exposed skin, as often as necessary by the manufacturer, which is usually every four or five hours.
You could rationally stop there, but I like to go a bit further, if the situation warrants it. If I am outdoors in the garden at home or in a hotel, I like to have one of those tennis racquet style electric bug zappers with me. They are great for zapping the odd mosquito that irritates you. They are good for clearing the bedroom before sleeping too and lastly, if I’m renting, hiking, camping or caravaning, I might find space for a rechargeable lantern-style bug zapper too.
If the little so-and-sos are going to give me a fever, they are going to have to try very hard to do it.
Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on several subjects, but is currently involved with work on mosquito bite treatment problems. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Mosquito Bite Swellings.
Total Air Conditioning
Oct 13th
If you live in a hot country, or even one that merely has hot summers, it is just lovely to be able to sit in your home without sweltering. In particular at night as being too hot can prevent you from getting a decent night’s rest. Likewise, when you are at work. We all know the pleasure of walking into a cool, air conditioned building, like a bank on a hot summer’s day.
Total air conditioning like this used to be the prerogative of office blocks and the very wealthy, but it is becoming more general now. In fact, if you already have ducting all the way through your house to be used in association with a central heating system, a total air conditioning system could cost as little as $4,000.
I know that $4,000 is not an insignificant amount, but if you do not have the ducting already, you can add another $3,000 to $4,000. These figures relate to a typical three or four bedroomed house or apartment.
A total air conditioning package like this will normally be sufficient for seven rooms in one or two zones, which could be two small bungalows next door to each other or a house and a garage or shed. One good point about total air conditioning is that the whole house or just the ground floor can be cooled at the same time so that you can walk around the house as you normally would.
This is in direct disparity with split systems which only cool one room – every time you go out of the room, you let cool air out and warm air in, which makes the air conditioning unit work harder and costs you more money.
Total air conditioning has other less well-known advantages too. It reduces the humidity in a room or house by drying the air as it is returned to the unit for cooling and sophisticated units have filters with additional functions. The more advanced the system, the more germs, bacteria and other substances (like pollen) the built-in filter will do away with.
Because these filters can remove airborne substances they can significantly reduce a person’s affliction from allergies. Good air filtration can help asthma and hay fever sufferers considerably, if the filters are kept spotless.
In general, a total air conditioning system is divided into two major components – an outdoor condenser and compressor and an indoor evaporator in an air circulating system. The air circulation, or air handling system filters and dehumidifies the cooled air, and delivers it, via ductwork, to several rooms. Total air conditioning is frequently much quieter than split air conditioners, because the noise of the latter’s compressor is so much closer to where the cool air is needed.
It is much better to take the ducting into consideration at the design stage of a new house as part of its heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) system, but it can be added later. A good HVAC system should be designed to supply adequate cooling, heating, and ventilation, taking into account such factors as the dimensions of the building, the efficiency of its insulation and the local climate.
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with central air conditioning systems. If you are interested in Home Air Conditioning Systems, please click through to our site.