Puberty and children or teens

If the communication between the small children and parents functions properly, it can also be easy during puberty or teenage time.

The important points to be told are:

* The sex health education to the child during puberty is important because it makes them clear about the appropriate and inappropriate touching or other body contacts of the opposite sex. Children ask normally many questions and during puberty they ask more questions and so the parents must have good knowledge in everything including sex health education.

* If they are different than usual talk to them and show that you are always with her/him not only in good days but also in bad days. The problem can be in most of the times very simple. If they want to tell you something, never block them, but listen to them carefully. The child trusts you if it talks to you openly.

* Allow them to invite their friends to your home so that you could also meet them.

* Tell them not to get inside a car alone and this brings risk of sexual abuse and murder in Western countries.

* Inform the children about alcohol and its adverse effects (Read Author Dr. K. Padmanaban’s book on Drugs Abuse. Info: www.aaronverlag.com) and inform them the dangers of alcohol. Alcohol has no nutritive values and the calories are only empty calories. It is not necessary for our metabolism and could be avoided totally. Smoking can bring lung cancer and should be avoided.

* Inform your children about the drugs and their bad effects (Read Author Dr. K. Padmanaban’s book on Drugs Abuse. info: www.aaronverlag.com). With drugs you could be manipulated and you do things which you do not do normally. It is better to avoid drugs in our life. If the children during puberty and teenage have no problems with alcohol, tobacco and drugs it is considered to be the best possible luck for the families in Western countries. This is also applicable here. The problem arises mostly when the parents have less or no time for their children.

Mostly it is the parents who makes the mistakes first and after that blame the children. We must learn till our last day so that our children could not say that the parents have no idea in a particular matter.

Hygiene: Men and Women

It is the best to teach children about hygiene and self-care when they are very young and they learn also very quickly. But during puberty there are lot of changes in the body of girls and boys such as the onset of body odour, acne or pimples, growth of body hair, menstruation and ejaculation. Menstruation and ejaculation mean loss of body fluids and the significance of this must be explained earlier and they are important in sex health education.

Cleanliness is the magic word here, taking bath or showering every morning and evening is the best and it becomes more important during puberty because of body odour, ejaculation and menstruation.

Cleaning the hands before and after taking meals, toilet visits, brushing the teeth in the morning and evening, taking care of their hair and skin regularly must be start when the girls and boys are very small.

Must girls and boys have information about other sex?

At first, the gender-specific hygiene information of her/his body is important but at the same time both girls and boys should also learn the hygiene needs of the other sex. Open discussions among girls and boys; if possible, is good for their later married life too.

Menstruation and hygiene: what are important to know?

Girls can use sanitary towels or tampons to soak up the blood when she gets her menstrual period and usually girls start with sanitary towels. Sanitary towel is worn by a girl inside her panty.

A tampon is a small rolled-up piece of cotton with a string at one end. The girl can push it into her vagina and the string has to hang outside her body. The purpose of the string is to pull the tampon out. The advantage of tampon is that a toilet visit is easy.

Tampons can be bought in every store or supermarket. They are available in different thicknesses and select according to your need.

If tampons or sanitary towels are not available, strips of an old cloth or bathing towel could be used to absorb the blood away.

In emergency situations, soft tissue papers or rolled up toilet papers could also be used.

How often a sanitary towel should be changed?

A sanitary towel should be changed many times during the day, even if the bleeding is not heavy. Tampons should be changed several times in a day.

What about the overnight use?

A sanitary towel can be used overnight without changing, but tampons should not be used overnight.

If somebody is keeping the tampons for a very long time without changing that could make her sick.

How to dispose used sanitary towels and tampons?

They must be wrapped in special paper cover and disposed.

What about taking a bath or shower?

A girl can take bath or shower at any time during her period. It is important to wash the vaginal area daily to prevent infections. It is better to wash and dry from front to back to avoid vaginal infections.

The tampon should be removed during the bath or shower and a new one is used after the bath.

What about swimming?

A girl can use a fresh tampon and go to swim without any problem to the public safety. The sanitary towel should not be used.

How to reduce the body odour?

Take bath or shower regularly in the morning and in the evening and it is important to change your cloths and socks regularly. If a girl or boy wants to use deodorant she should use only under her arms. A deodorant for the whole body is useless and could also make you sick. Regular bath or shower in the morning and in the evening is enough for the body and the deodorant is only for the arm pit. It is also relevant to boys.

The girl must consult a gynaecologist before using any vaginal deodorant because this may cause serious irritations.

What to do if there is acne or pimples?

Almost every girl and boy gets acne during puberty. Wash your face several times in a day with cold or warm water. The soap used must be unperfumed and an antiseptic soap is worth to try. Never pick or squeeze the spots and this paves the way for the infection.

Drink lot of water (2 to 3 litres/day); if you sweat more you have to drink more. Eat freshly cooked food; avoid processed food, fast food, junk food, chips, sweets and soft drinks to minimize the problems. If it is too serious go to your doctor and he may decide to use hormones or other medicines. But you must ask your doctor to explain you all the advantages and disadvantages of such treatment. Be careful always with hormones.

What about boys’ hygiene?

They must also take bath everyday to keep their body clean. If not, bad smell and infections are the reward.

What is smegma?

When a boy goes through the puberty he produces white/yellow substance around his glans and foreskin. It is normal but it can become smegma if you do not wash it properly everyday. Smegma is very smelly. If not cleaned properly the foreskin can be inflamed, infections are certain and very painful to pull back also. If he learns once then he follows it always.

Breast Cancer, Risk Factors and Symptoms

Risk Factors

Risk Factors are several conditions which makes it likely to get a particular disease. Always remember that having one or even more risk factors does not necessarily mean one will develop breast cancer. At the same time many women with breast cancer have no known risk factors. That means we do not know now many risk factors yet and we must look critically everything which may cause breast cancer.

The known Risk Factors include:

• Inherited genes which increase cancer risk – certain gene mutations, the most common genes are BRCA1 and BACR2.
• A personal history – if you have in one breast the chance of getting in the other breast is very high.
• A family history – if mother, sister or daughter has breast cancer the risk is more. But remember many of the diseased have no family history of breast cancer.
• Increasing age – risk of breast cancer increases with age.
• Late first pregnancy – if one gives birth her first baby after 35 years, the chances of developing breast cancer may increase.
• Overweight and Obesity – these increase the risk of breast cancer
• Early puberty and menstruation - getting first menstruation till 12 is considered a breast cancer risk.
• Late menopause – if the beginning of menopause is after 55 years, this increases the risk of developing breast cancer.
• Postmenopausal hormone therapy – women who take the combination therapy with estrogen and progesterone to treat the symptoms of menopause have an increased risk of breast cancer.
• Oral contraceptives – women with many known risk factors must avoid the anti baby pills with hormones.
• Radiation exposure – if you receive radiation therapy or taken X-rays at any time in your life, later it is a risk factor for breast cancer. Electricity power lines, all radiation sources including cell phones and above all the cell phone towers radiate much and women with risk factor must avoid this. In these cases a plausible scientific analysis is possible after many decades and therefore it is better to avoid.
• Food habit – it plays an important role. One must eat what her/his metabolism needs.
• Alcohol – avoid too much of alcohol
• Smoking
• Being a woman – it is the biggest risk factor. If you understand everything it is a manageable risk for many.


Symptoms of breast cancer

• A lump or thickening in the breast which feels different from the surrounding breast tissues
• Discharge from the nipple
• Inverted nipple
• Flaking or peeling of the nipple skin
• Change in the shape or size of the breast
• Changes in the breast skin
• The breast skin becomes red or orange

In many women the recent mammogram may be normal; even then, if you have the symptoms go to the doctor immediately.
If we diagnose earlier there are many good treatments to heal you.

Risk factors one can control

They include:

• Diet
• Weight
• Alcohol consumption
• Smoking
• Exposure to estrogens, the female hormones, without break as in hormone replacement therapy in post menopause for many years including xeno-estrogens
• Oral contraceptives – it is big business. There are many alternative methods
• Anxiety
• Stress
• Exercise

Learn to avoid these by changing one’s lifestyle. This is worth doing for your health.
Here I have written everything in a very simple way so that everybody could read and understand. I do counseling in this field also to give you tailor-made proposals for everything including metabolism based individual diet plan and environmental assessment. In the coming days there will be separate pages for the counseling information in my web site. Visit www.aaronverlag.com

Our motto is your good Health…

Pimple or Acne and Food

Is acne a skin disease?

Many think so but it is not. The real problem is acne develops from inside the body, not outside. Our skin is an organ of the elimination of waste products from our body, the process is sweating and we loose minerals and other waste products.

What are the causes for acne?

The possibility is, too much of toxins inside our body can lead to inflammation in the skin causing clogged pores and acne. If we cannot remove these toxins, it is also not possible to treat acne.

Food allergies cause acne and other skin diseases.

Acne is a chronic skin disease common in adolescence, involving inflammation of the sebaceous glands and characterized by pustules on the face, neck and upper trunk.

Hormone imbalance may cause, but it is extremely over-rated.


What to do if there is acne or pimples during Puberty?

Almost every girl and boy gets acne during puberty. Wash your face several times in a day with cold or warm water. The soap used must be unperfumed and an antiseptic soap is worth to try. Never pick or squeeze the spots and this paves the way for the infection.

Drink lot of water (2 to 3 litres/day, if you sweat more, work physically hard, living in a hot country 4 to 6 liters must be drunk); if you sweat more you have to drink more. Eat freshly cooked food; avoid processed food, fast food, junk food, chips, sweets and soft drinks to minimize the problems. If it is too serious go to your doctor and he may decide to use hormones or other medicines. But you must ask your doctor to explain you all the advantages and disadvantages of such treatment. Be careful always with hormones.

Foods which contain hormones must be completely avoided completely. If available use only organic vegetables.


What is your opinion about the use of birth control pills for acne?

It is totally wrong and the full page advertisements in USA addressing directly the young women for this also not correct. The reasons why not to use include:

The reason for acne lies in junk foods and other food rich in carbohydrates like too much of rice, sweets, chips and chocolates. A reasonable food can help when acne is there.

The hormones in the oral contraceptive pills can help but we should not forget the risk of cancer. That means the price for this acne treatment may be very high, breast cancer.

Reduce the amount of carbohydrates, chips and the so called junk foods. Eat more vegetables – here a raw salad would do wonder – and fruits. Fruits and vegetables must be eaten 3 to 4 times a day.


How can food allergies cause acne?

If you eat a food which is allergic to you it may lead to continuous toxic reactions in your body because your immune system fights with this food as if it is fighting against invading bacteria or other micro-organisms. This can cause inflammation of the skin.

Which foods can cause acne?

Any food can cause food allergy and this is capable of causing acne. Milk and milk products are a common cause in many persons.

Is it difficult to find our own allergy to different foods?

This is possible and the best method to find out the allergies, but lot of patience and time are necessary to find out.
Food allergies may happen immediately after consuming or often it is a delayed allergy. We advice the patients not to take processed or unknown foods during this time because milk products, grains, legumes and pulses are almost everywhere and this makes it difficult to find out the problem food.
Take notice of a food, eat it, wait for four days and during this period if you do not have any allergic reaction then this food is safe and in this manner we have to test all your food what you eat. You can identity the villains by yourself and also be happy to see that how many wonderful food you can eat and enjoy without any itching.

Is there any connection between genes and food for allergies?

Few believe this because genes may not be able to recognize many modern food and so the problems. It may be, but when I think about me and brinjal allergy, then the brinjal is a very old vegetable and should be well known to my genes. It may be the same with cow milk. More research must be done to understand more about this.

Are antibiotics good for the treatment of acne?

For the time being you may get some relief from antibiotics but the foods which cause the allergy must be found out and eliminated from your diet and this is the only success in this fight.

Are there medical tests to find out food allergies?

Yes, there are hundreds of food could be tested to find out your allergy to some foods. In extreme cases I have seen persons who have allergy to almost 90% of their food and a good dietician can do wonder there, of course, with the help of the doctor.

Consult your doctor and he will send you to the correct laboratory to do these tests. From very little blood these can be found out.

What is a chloracne?

Prolonged contact with certain chlorinated compounds such as naphthalene, diphenyls can bring an occupational or environmental chloracne.

A friend of mine called me and asked my advice regarding acne of his wife which came very suddenly. Everything was same and there were no suspects and the food allergy tests were negative. Finally I met them and had a talk. She worked in a chemical company where they packed several chemicals in small packets and few contain chlorinated products. She agreed to leave the job and within a short time the chloracne problem vanished.

What about the chlorine in our drinking water and in swimming pools?

Chlorine is toxic and is used to kill the bacteria present in drinking water and swimming pools. It can produce health problems such as chloracne, skin rashes and eczema. It is well known that the chlorinated organic compounds are carcinogens and the list of problems with chlorine and chlorinated compounds is very long. It is better to avoid, if it is possible and a good detoxification system is necessary to eliminate these from our body.

What about water filters?

It is possible to filter chlorine or chlorinated compounds; you ask the shop to give the technical specification for the removal of chlorine and chlorinated compounds and see the capacity of the filter to remove from a big quantity of water. If not, after sometime it is useless and cannot bind these chemicals.

Unfortunately I could not get the information about silver from the companies which market these filters. Six week correspondence through e-mails and phone calls could not bring any result although I promised that my cousin buys it immediately if they give the answer.

What do you forget to tell?

Iodine makes you to suffer more if you are acne prone. Excessive iodine can irritate pores, resulting in acne flare-ups. Excessive use of iodized salt must be prevented and be careful with fast foods and milk.

Avoid seaweeds including the seaweed that is used to wrap Japanese sushi, prawns and shellfish.

It is found that persons who suffer from acne have mostly zinc deficiency and foods rich in zinc must also be regularly included in their food. Zinc plays a vital role in our immune system.

Books advised to read from Dr. K. Padmanaban include:

Food and our Health – Facts and Misconceptions
Sexual Abuse of Children and Sex Health Education
Side Effects of Medicines available in India

To get this as Ebook or to purchase contact Aaron Verlag Publishers Private Ltd., Chennai India. For further information www.aaronverlag.com