Posts Tagged ‘Vitamins’

What are different nail problems and home remedies for treating them? – Part 2

Nails are made of keratin, the same type of protein in your hair.
Each nail actually consists of several parts, all of which play an important role in its health and growth:

- Nail plate
This is what you see as the fingernail.
- Nail bed
This lies below the nail plate; the two are attached. The capillaries in the nail bed nourish the nail and give it its pinkish color.
- Nail matrix
It’s below the cuticle at the base of the nail. Cells in the matrix produce the fingernail. If the matrix gets damaged, your nail will be not in shape or may even stop growing completely.
- Lunula
This is the part of the matrix that you can see. It’s the half-moon-shaped portion at the bottom of your nail.
- Cuticle
This fold of skin, made of dead cells, keeps foreign substances, such as infection-causing bacteria, out.
- Nail fold
This is the ridge of skin around the nail.

Facts about Nails:
- Nails can become brittle during the summer months in the sun and swimming.
- Sun and chlorine can make your nails brittle.
- To protect your fingernails while washing dishes, gardening, or cleaning with any type of harsh chemicals, wear gloves.
- If your nails are brittle, do not use perfumed lotions that have alcohol.
- This will cause the nails to become brittle.
- Do not bite your nails.
- Quit using your nails to scrape stuff off the counter top, or off of the dishes.
- Do not use them to open letters.
- Soaps and cleaners will dry out your hands and nails.
- Always use a hand lotion or cream after washing your hands.

Some of the causes of nail problem are:
- Iron deficiency will cause your nails to become spoon shaped.
- Your nails may become clubbed.
- Swelling around the ends of your fingers.
- Sometimes your toes are swollen.
- It might be if you have a respiratory or heart problem.
- If you have psoriasis your nails may become pitted.
- The biggest nail problem seen in toe nails is ingrown.
- Another nail problem is discoloration.
- As you get older your nails develop vertical ridges.

Main Home Remedies
- Avoid the culprits like the detergents and cleansers.
- Keep your nails short.
- Be careful of nail bangers in place of a screwdriver, a scraper, or other tool.
- Moisturize your nails. Your nails contain no fat, so they can’t naturally hold in moisture.
- Complex 15, Aquaderm, and Moisturel are some of the phosphates which can be tried.
- Avoid moisture when your nail becomes infected, particularly with a yeast organism.
- Care for your cuticles and don’t cut them with a mechanical instrument, which breaks down the cuticle’s natural protection from bacteria and moisture.
- Don’t pick or tear at hangnails by making a break in the skin where bacteria can enter and can cause infection.
- Realize the risk with nail cosmetics.
- Forget formaldehyde.
- Cut down on polish remover. Nail polish remover contains acetone, which dries nails.
- Don’t eat gelatin in a hope to build strong nails.
- Use of calcium. It helps build bones but has little or nothing to do with the hardness of your nails.

Home Remedies from the Cupboard
- Baking soda. Clean your nails and soften cuticles by scrubbing them with a nailbrush dipped in baking soda.
- Use Vinyl gloves, Cotton gloves
- Use Biotin
- Soaking painful ingrown nails in a warm saltwater solution will help ease the pain and relieve swelling.
- Add 1 tablespoon salt per quart of water and soak for 30 minutes.
- A saltwater soak can also make tough nails easier to trim.
- Try soaking nails in the same solution for five to ten minutes before trimming.

| More

If you found this post informative, why not sign up to receive new posts ?
It's simple, and free, and you can even opt to receive by email:
Subscribe in a reader
Subscribe to Good Health Tips by Email

What are different nail problems and home remedies for treating them? – Part 1

There are very few nail problems or disorders. Most are associated from the results of injury, from a nutritional, respiratory, or heart disorder. The nail problem can be seen as discoloration or deformity.

What are nails made of?
- They are made of a hard protein called keratin.
- Our nails protect our fingers from injury
- It takes around 90 days for our fingernail and toenails to grow from the base to the tip.

Some of the causes are:
- Iron deficiency will cause your nails to become spoon shaped.
- Your nails may become clubbed.
- Swelling around the ends of your fingers.
- Sometimes your toes are swollen.
- It might be if you have a respiratory or heart problem.
- If you have psoriasis your nails may become pitted.
- The biggest nail problem seen in toe nails is ingrown.
- Another nail problem is discoloration.
- As you get older your nails develop vertical ridges.

The cause is the mal absorption of:
- Vitamins A
- B complex
- Vitamin C
- Calcium
- Magnesium
- Zinc
- Other essential fatty acids

Reasons for discolored nails can include:
- Anemia -very pale nails.
- Liver Problems-nails turn kind of whitish.
- Bacterial- your nails will have dark spots in them that resemble splinters.
- Fungi infections- your nails can turn whitish and soft or even crumble.
- White spots can be caused from a deficiency of zinc or Vitamin A.

There are preventive measures like:
- Keep your finger nails short.
- Wear gloves when working outdoors in your garden.
- Wear rubber gloves if you are always immersing your hands in water.
- Remember to wash your hands and nails when they come in contact with any type of chemicals like cleaning products.
- The best prevention for ingrown nails is to trim your toe nails straight across.
- Wear shoes that do press on your toenails.

What do you do to keep your nails healthy?
- Nail care is as important as keeping your body and hair clean.
- Eat foods that have calcium, iron, vitamin B and potassium.
- Foods like seafood, dairy products, celery, soy should be included.
- Drink 8 glasses of water each day to keep your body from dehydrating.
- Your nails need water just like your hair and body.
- If your nails are splitting or are weak it could be from not drinking enough water.

There are some natural home treatments which should be taken 4 times a day for up to 3 weeks for the following nail problems:

- In the case of brittle nails, try Antimonium 6c.
- If your nails become deformed with white spots, try Silicea 6c.
- If your nails start to get thick, deformed, start to crumble and are swollen and painful, try Graphites 6c.
- If your nails are brittle with red and swollen skin at the base you should, try Thuja 6c.
- For any finger nail problem you can always soak your nails two times a day in Calendula solution, or apply Calendula ointment.

Treatment for Ingrown Nails
- Put a very small piece of cloth between the side of the nail and the skin.
- Completely bathe your toe with Hypericum and Calendula solution – 5 drops of each to ½ pint of boiled water that has cooled.

Other home remedies for nail problems that involve your toe nails are:

- Magnetic austr. 30c.
- Brittle toe nail problems us Thuja 30c.

What are benefits of Vitamin C during cold or viral?

What is vitamin C?
Vitamin C is an important vitamin and antioxidant that the body uses to keep you strong and healthy. Vitamin C is used in
- the maintenance of bones,
- muscle,
- blood vessels.
- the formation of collagen
- helps the body absorb iron

Vitamin C is found naturally in:
- vegetables
- oranges
- other citrus fruits.

This key vitamin is also available as a natural dietary supplement in the form of vitamin C pills and vitamin C chew able tablets.

Vitamin C and Common Cold
- The common cold is caused by several strains of viruses which includes the rhinovirus and the coronavirus.
- However, vitamin C does not prevent the common cold or decrease the severity of symptoms.
- In the 1970s, Linus Pauling argued that vitamin C could significantly decrease the incidence of the common cold.
- Vitamin C for the common cold is such a widely accepted treatment.
- We seek it in fortified juices, cough drops, and tea.
- Vitamin C was first touted for the common cold in the 1970s.

Other facts found are
- The average adult who suffers with a cold for 12 days a year would still suffer for 11 days a year if that person took a high dose of vitamin C every day during that year.
- For the average child who suffers about 28 days of cold illness a year, taking daily high-dose vitamin C would still mean 24 days of cold illness.
- When vitamin C was tested for treatment of colds in 7 separate studies, vitamin C was no more effective than placebo at shortening the duration of cold symptoms.

A prospective, controlled study focuses on:
- 715 students in a technical training facility found that vitamin C in mega doses administered before or after the appearance of cold and flu symptoms relieved and prevented the symptoms in the test population compared with the control group.
- More than 30 clinical trials with over 10,000 participants have examined the effects of taking daily vitamin C in doses up to 2 g/day.
- A review of Cochrane, PubMed, Natural Standard, and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine databases found that regular vitamin C intake may reduce the duration of cold symptoms in both adults and children.
- It does not decrease the severity of cold symptoms.
- However, in a subgroup of marathon runners, skiers, and soldiers training in the Arctic doses ranging from 250 mg/day to 1 g/day decreased the incidence of colds by 50%.
- Researchers concluded that vitamin C does not prevent or treat the common cold.
- It is better to consume natural foods such as red peppers, oranges, strawberries and grapefruit.
- It is acceptable to consume vitamin C from a supplement and still maintain adequate intake levels.

Daily Dosage
- The recommended daily allowance for vitamin C in the United States is 75 mg per day for women and 90 mg per day for men
- Taking doses above the RDA may have healthful benefits.
- Typically 70-90% of vitamin C is absorbed in the body but when taken in doses higher than 1 g, absorption decreases to 75%
- Further, it decreases to merely 16% after a 12 g dose.
- Popular vitamin C supplementation products, such as Airborne or Emergen-C, contain much higher doses of vitamins than necessary.

Overdose of vitamin C
- Taking vitamin C supplements in the recommended amounts is safe.
- The RDA or recommended daily allowance is 90 mg for men and 75 mg for women.
- High doses of vitamin C (greater than 2000 milligrams per day for adults) may cause kidney stones, nausea and diarrhea.