Beaming White: A Brighter, Whiter Smile

BY LORENZO GIBSON

Tired or self-conscious of your dull, yellow-stained smile?

Instead, do you desire a new confidence-building, dazzling white smile – ensuring a winning first impression for a special date or job interview, or just a feel-good New Year pick-me up? And, you want this new smile right away, and at a reasonable cost, and with assurance that it is safe and long-lasting?

If this is you, get yourself immediately to the Beaming White Advanced Teeth Whitening studio in Downtown Denver at 535 16th Street Mall across from the new H&M store for a quick – 30 minutes max - cosmetic double teeth whitening. Guaranteed to make your smile 5 to 10 shades beautifully whiter and brighter and for only $99 – a savings of $50! All you need to do is bring the coupon (this page) and your dull smile. You’ll walk out the door with the brilliant smile you’ve been wanting.

“Give us half your lunch hour – and we’ll give you something to really smile about”, says Jeff Hammerberg, co-owner with Merlin Parker. And, we always welcome walk-ins, he adds.

The Beaming White smile is a new cosmetic teeth whitening concept that utilizes an activated water-based hydrogen peroxide gel that is painted on the teeth. The gel bleaches the stains on the teeth to match your natural or desired teeth color. The gel is not a stain, but rather is a natural teeth whitening product made with organic, plant and mineral-based ingredients. It is made in the US at facilities inspected approved by the FDA. Although the gel is the strongest available on the market for cosmetic dental use, there are no side effects or tooth or gum sensitivity; and it can be safely used with crowns, caps, and dentures.

Because the gel is painted right onto the teeth, there are no annoying strips, painful trays, or overnight treatments. The gel is applied by trained and licensed Beaming White technicians in their beautiful, contemporary, comfortable, private studio. The gel is activated by the most technologically sophisticated teeth whitening retractor lamp in the industry. Based upon your whitening treatment program, teeth porosity, and individual life style and eating habits, your Beaming White smile will last between 6 months and two years.

At the studio, you can pick-up several products enabling you to maintain your new bright smile including whitening pen, complete oxygenation system, and an at-home treatment kit. Also available are gift cards that are great year-round, but specially for your Beaming White Valentine’s Day smile.

Jeff strongly reminds that the Beaming White process is not a substitute for regular dental check-ups, professional teeth cleaning, and good dental hygiene practice. If a dental problem is seen, a visit to the dentist is always recommended before any whitening procedure is started.

“That’s it”, says Hammerberg, “We’re offering convenience with immediate results at a fraction of the cost of a traditional dentist - a beautiful Beaming White smile giving you a youthful, healthy appearance that is simple, safe, and affordable”.

For more information, visit DowntownTeethWhitening.com or call 303-534-1988. See ad below.

Stay Healthy and Happy in 2012

by James N. Martin, Jr, MD

The beginning of a new year is a great time to get your priorities in order and to set goals for the next 365 days. ACOG urges women to put health at the top of their 2010 to-do lists. Remember these healthy living tips:

Aim to eat a balanced diet rich in a wide variety of colorful fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lowfat dairy, and lean protein. According to the US Department of Agriculture, a 35-year-old woman who gets 30 to 60 minutes of exercise per day should eat a 2,000 calorie diet consisting of 6 ounces of grains, 2.5 cups of vegetables, 2 cups of fruit, 3 cups of low or nonfat milk or milk products, and 5.5 ounces of lean meat, fish, and beans. Additionally, cut back on sodium, fats, processed sugar and refined grains.

Regular physical activity helps increase overall well-being while lowering the risk of diabetes, osteoporosis, some cancers, and other illnesses caused by inactivity. Aim for at least 30 minutes of exercise on most days of the week to lower the risk of chronic disease; 60 minutes on most days to maintain weight; and at least 60 to 90 minutes on most days to lose weight. A well-rounded exercise regimen should be fun, sustainable, and include cardiovascular, strength training, and flexibility components.

Despite the numerous dangers of smoking—increased risk of heart disease, infertility, early menopause, and more than 10 different cancers—one in five American women still smoke. Quitters gain an improved sense of taste and smell, better circulation, easier breathing, and less hoarseness. They also reduce their risk of heart attack by 50 percent within a year of quitting.

Alcohol has been linked to both positive effects such as improvements in heart health and bone density and negative ones including an increased risk of breast and other cancers. If you drink, try to keep it to less than one alcoholic beverage a day.

Your body repairs and regenerates tissue, builds bone and muscle, and strengthens its immunity while you sleep. Not getting enough sleep may cause short-term problems such as irritability and memory loss and long-term conditions including diabetes and heart disease. The average adult should aim to get seven to nine hours of sleep each night.

Women should see their doctor regularly for preventive care. Routine visits to the ob-gyn help ensure women receive age appropriate screenings, exams, and immunizations, and they allow physicians to identify and treat common problems before serious health risks develop.

For more information, visit acog.org/For_Patients.aspx.

Save Lives Improve Your Health

In September, Dianna Cillessen arrived at Exempla Lutheran Medical Center anticipating the birth of her second child. After carrying her baby for 39 weeks, she delivered a healthy, 8 lbs. 3oz. boy named Beau. Then the unexpected transpired. With no warning, Dianna began to hemorrhage. For the next few hours a team of doctors, nurses, and medical professionals worked at a furious pace to keep Dianna alive.

While the average adult holds approximately 12 units of blood in their body, Dianna received 41 units that day. At one point, Dianna had no blood pressure, no pulse. Dianna experienced an amniotic fluid embolism (AFE). Most women, including women who’ve had children, have never heard of it because AFE is so rare that most physicians will never encounter it in their professional careers.

Due to the amazing skills of the medical staff and the 41 unknown blood donors, Dianna survived this traumatic experience. It is no wonder that Dianna’s anesthesiologist told her, “You are a miracle!” It took the right combination of professionals and citizen donors to save Dianna Cillessen and bring Beau’s mom home.

While the most obvious benefit of donating blood is the wonderful feeling derived from giving something vital to someone who needs it, the benefits of donating blood may extend far beyond this to having a positive impact on the donor’s health. Here are some of the possible benefits as a result of you regularly donating blood:

Each time you give blood, you lower the iron levels in your body which can help reduce the risk of heart disease. High blood iron levels have the potential to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease because iron accelerates the oxidation process of cholesterol in the body, which damages arteries.

When you donate, you could impact your cancer risk. According to a long-term study that was conducted on over a million Scandinavian blood donors, the more an individual donated blood, the lower their chance of developing some types of cancer, according to Miller-Keystone Blood Center. The study pointed to blood donation lowering cancers of the liver, lungs, colon, stomach and throat

By donating blood, you replenish your blood supply. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center reports that when you donate blood, your body replaces the plasma volume within 48 hours of donation and all of the red blood cells you lose during donation are completely replaced within four to eight weeks.

Someone needs blood in the US every two seconds and one pint of blood can save up to three lives. The need for blood increases during holidays and summer months. Donating is easy and only takes about an hour.

For more information, visit bonfils.org or call 303-363-2300. Courtesy of Dianna Pruden, MT (ASCP) SBB, Blood Bank and QA Manager at Exempla Lutheran Medical Center.

Planned Parenthood Opposes Personhood Initiative

Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains is disappointed in the recent decision by the state Title Setting Review Board to unanimously motion in favor of Personhood Colorado’s push to place a so-called personhood amendment on the 2012 ballot. Today’s effort will make it Personhood Colorado’s third attempt since 2008.

“Opponents of the measure challenged Personhood Colorado’s presentation to the Title Board, stating that their proposal is not consistent with the state’s single-subject clause for citizen-driven ballot initiatives. Planned Parenthood agrees with this claim. Although we believe that the outcomes of 2012 proposed measure would be just as dangerous as the previous two attempts, the new language in the 2012 measure appears to create a plethora of new problems that will require additional legal analysis.

“The new language undoubtedly touches on multiple subjects, which fly in the face of the Colorado Constitution. In fact, the 2012 proposed measure, arguably goes much further than the ballot measure Colorado voters defeated in the 2008 and 2010 elections.

“While Personhood Colorado believes it has addressed the concerns of Colorado voters and answered questions of past attempts, the new ballot language actually poses more questions and greater legal ambiguity. This new language is merely a smokescreen for Personhood Colorado’s real agenda, which is to restrict a woman’s ability to make personal, private medical decisions about her own body.

“Planned Parenthood, in conjunction with the coalition group that defeated Amendment 62 in the 2010 election, is determined to defeat Personhood Colorado’s third attempt to take health care options away from women.”

For more information, visit ppm.org.

Reign in Tech Unleash Mind

This year resolve to use technology as a tool to help run your life rather than allowing yourself to be overrun by it, advises Mark Underwood, a neuroscience researcher, president and co-founder of Quincy Bioscience of Madison, Wisconsin.

Have you ever thought that you live in a world where you feel constantly distracted? Do you feel stuck in a maze of technology overload? Are you constantly checking email and voice mail and can’t seem to stay away from one screen or another: TV, videos or computers for very long? If that sounds like you, you’re not alone. One in three Americans says they are technologically stressed. For better or worse, our daily routines have become ever more entwined with technology.

Living in the fast lane of today’s technological advances has some people feeling like they’re running on empty, every day, all day. You might even feel like a character in Alice in Wonderland. In Lewis Carroll’s famous classic, the topsy-turvy world of Alice is described in a warning. “You have to run as fast as you can to stay where you are.”

In a recent study conducted by Cambridge University, they found that nearly a third of the study’s participants described feeling overwhelmed or overrun by technology. Keeping up with technology has some people on the run to buy the latest gadgets. Computers continue to get smaller and faster, and with each new product generation, we tend to integrate even more technology into our daily lives.

If too much technology usage is causing continuous stress its time to look at how you can adjust the cyber overload in your life. Could spending an inordinate amount of time in front of a computer screen be bad for your health?

An overload of stress can lead to numerous health problems; it can lower immune system response, increase blood pressure, lower productivity and introduce a menu of other maladies we have all experienced from time to time. Our society swirls around a constant stream of information. We are inundated with a deluge of sources, from thousands of TV channels to billions of internet pages. We live in an age of search engine results sent to our computers within a quarter of a second. Alice could understand why so many of us feel overrun and lost.

How best to manage technology-related stress?
How do you cope with stress of keeping up with the ever-changing world of cyber space? One word: triage. There is simply too much to do and too much to learn to tackle at once. Our lives are busy enough without adding the stress of technology.

Triage means prioritization to make sure the biggest problems are taken care of before moving on to less important concerns. We have to cultivate a relationship with technology and identify our strengths and stressors. Try decreasing cyber stress this way: Take time to think what may be causing you stress. Remember that computer technology is all about making things work faster. It’s up to you to slow down and evaluate what you need to lower the stress.

Narrow your scope on the worldwide web. Instead of being inundated by information and trying to handle to all, narrow your web browsing to a more comfortable selection. This is the sidewalk view versus the highway view.

In general, technology should be making your daily life a little bit easier-not the other way around. Setting goals for how much you want to learn or undertake is a good strategy for not becoming overwhelmed. Incorporate new technology slowly. Take your time, ask for help, and watch out for rabbit holes.

For more information, visit TheGoodNewsAboutAging.com.

Story Contest for Alzheimer’s Families

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, an estimated 5.1 million people 65 and older have Alzheimer’s disease. They likely will lose one of their most treasured possessions: memories. The I Will Remember for You Family Reunion Giveaway contest recently launched by the Home Instead Senor Care® network can help those families keep their memories alive.

Submit a story in either written or video format about your experience with a family member living with Alzheimer’s disease or other dementias for a chance to win a family reunion. Essays and videos need to:

Share how Alzheimer’s has impacted your life. Talk about the role that memories and remembering have played in your family, especially with regard to your family member who now has or had Alzheimer’s. Share specific stories or examples of how you and your family members cope or coped with challenges of Alzheimer’s disease. Tell why you deserve to win this family reunion.

Entries must be submitted by 11:59 p.m. EST January 31, 2012. Three finalists will be notified by a judge’s panel by February 15. Online voting to select the grand prize winner will occur from March 28 through June 30.

The I Will Remember for You Family Reunion Giveaway contest’s grand prize winner will have the opportunity to experience an unforgettable family reunion. The event, funded by Home Instead, Inc., the franchisor of the Home Instead Senior Care network, will include activities to help family members create and capture special memories together such as a scrapbooking and shadow box station, a memory booth to capture videos, photos or written thoughts, and assistance from a professional family historian to create a family memory anthology.

Attendance of the family member with Alzheimer’s disease will be left to the discretion of the grand prize winner. If the individual with Alzheimer’s does not attend, the Home Instead Senior Care network will arrange for a local office to provide the family member with in-home care services during reunion activities.

“We hope this contest will help turn some of the negative aspects associated with this disease into proactive projects that will preserve family memories for generations to come,” said President and Chief Operating Officer Jeff Huber of Home Instead, Inc. The grand prize winner will be revealed in November, following the family reunion event.

For more information, visit rememberforalzheimers.com and helpforalzheimersfamilies.com.

January Cervical Health Awareness Month

Nearly 13,000 American women were diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2011, and more than 4,000 died from an advanced form of the disease, according to the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Allsup, a nationwide provider of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) representation, works with hundreds of cancer patients each year, and is raising awareness of the need for screening and preventive care during Cervical Health Awareness Month.

Regular Pap tests, which detect significant abnormal cell changes that may arise before cancer develops, reduce deaths from cervical cancer. Women who have never been screened or who have not been screened in the past five years face a greater risk of developing invasive cervical cancer.

Most medical experts agree women age 21 (or younger, if they are sexually active) to about 70 should be screened every two to three years. Women should seek expert medical advice about when they should begin screening, how often they should be screened, and when they can discontinue cervical screenings, especially if they are at higher than average risk due to factors such as HIV infection.

Despite the effectiveness of Pap tests in preventing deaths, the most recent NCI statistics (2005) indicate that more than 20 percent of women aged 18 and older had not had a Pap test within the past three years.

According to the National Cervical Cancer Coalition, while routine administration of Pap tests is the best method to detect cervical cancer at an early stage, vaccines have the potential to protect women from the disease by targeting cancer-causing types of human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV, a virus transmitted through sexual contact, is the single known cause of cervical cancer.

Some women may be unable to work due to progression of their cervical cancer or because of cancer treatment. If time away from work is expected to last 12 months or more, they may be eligible for SSDI. SSDI is funded by FICA taxes and provides benefits to Americans unable to work due to a severe, long-term disability. Benefits include regular monthly income, medical benefits, prescription-drug coverage, COBRA extension, long-term disability and more.

Physical and financial health often go hand in hand. Take preventive measures to protect your health, and know your options if health concerns make it impossible to continue working. For more information on Cervical Health Awareness Month, visit the National Cervical Cancer Coalition (NCCC). You can also find free and low-cost Pap tests near you.

For more information, visit allsup.com.

Fresh Egg Resolutions for New Year’s

New Year’s is a time for people around the world to reflect on the year and set goals for the future. A few of the most popular New Year’s resolutions are to eat healthier, exercise more and lose weight.

Those who pursue these admirable feats can prime themselves for success by including one staple in their daily diets: eggs. Often overlooked as a powerhouse of nutrition, one egg provides essential nutrients and high quality protein necessary to help you achieve and maintain health goals year round.

“The nutrients in eggs provide vitamins and minerals that protect against chronic disease and also supply the quality protein necessary for muscle development,” said Terry Tormohlen, a Colorado egg farmer and member of the Colorado Egg Producers (CEP) Association. “If eaten for breakfast, they keep you alert all day and when enjoyed after a workout, they help build muscle mass. Additionally, buying eggs locally produced by CEP members ensures that you and your family are enjoying a safe and wholesome product. We encourage you to continue to support your Colorado egg farmers and buy local.”

Eggs are packed with an abundance of nutrients and have only 75 calories. One serving has 13 essential vitamins and minerals, high-quality protein including all nine essential amino acids, as well as healthy unsaturated fats. By eating eggs for breakfast, individuals will feel fuller, more satisfied and more focused throughout the day.

Nutrients in eggs can improve various health issues, as well. The American Egg Board lists the following on its website: Weight management: The high-quality protein in eggs helps you to feel fuller longer and stay energized, which contributes to maintaining a healthy weight. Muscle strength and muscle-loss prevention: Research indicates that high-quality protein may help active adults build muscle strength and help prevent muscle loss in middle-aged and aging adults.

Healthy pregnancy: Egg yolks are an excellent source of choline, an essential nutrient that contributes to fetal brain development and helps prevent birth defects. Two eggs provide about 250 milligrams of choline, or roughly half of the recommended daily intake for pregnant and breastfeeding women.

Brain function: Choline also aids the brain function of adults by maintaining the structure of brain cell membranes, and is a key component of the neuro-transmitter that helps relay messages from the brain through nerves to the muscles.

Eye health: Lutein and zeaxanthin, two antioxidants found in egg yolks, help prevent macular degeneration, a leading cause of age-related blindness. Though eggs contain a small amount of these two nutrients, research shows that the lutein from eggs may be more bio-available than lutein from other food sources.

CEP is committed to doing what’s right for its community, as illustrated by the regular donation of thousands of eggs to food banks throughout Colorado. CEP also supports education and recently launched a contest for elementary school classrooms through its “Kids who Egg-cell” contest.

CEP is a membership organization representing seven family farms throughout the state. Local egg farmers take great pride in providing eggs to Coloradans. They are also proud to offer consumers the choice between cage, cage-free eggs, organic, nutrient enhanced, brown and white eggs. You can find locally produced, fresh, wholesome and safe eggs in the dairy case of your favorite Colorado supermarkets.

For every pledge CEP receives on its website from people who promise to “Eat good. Do good every day,” it will donate one egg to Feeding America.

For more information, visit coloradoeggproducers.com.