Cervical cancer

Cervical cancer

Cervical Cancer

Location of cervical cancer and an example of normal and abnormal cells
Classification and external resources
Specialty     Oncology
ICD-10     C53
ICD-9     180
OMIM     603956
DiseasesDB     2278
MedlinePlus     000893
eMedicine     med/324 radio/140
NCI     Cervical cancer
MeSH     D002583

Cervical cancer is a cancer arising from the cervix.[1] It is due to the abnormal growth of cells that have the ability to invade or spread to other parts of the body.[2] Early on there are typically no symptoms. Later symptoms may include abnormal vaginal bleeding, pelvic pain or pain during sexual intercourse.[1] While bleeding after sex may not be serious, it may also indicate the presence of cervical cancer.[3]

Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection appears to be involved in the development of more than 90% of cases;[4][5] most people who have had HPV infections, however, do not develop cervical cancer.[6][7] Other risk factors include smoking, a weak immune system, birth control pills, starting sex at a young age and having many sexual partners, but these are less important.[1][8] Cervical cancer typically develops from precancerous changes over 10 to 20 years.[6] There are a few types of cervical cancer. About 90% are squamous cell carcinomas, 10% are adenocarcinoma and a small number are other types.[8] Diagnosis is typically by cervical screening followed by a biopsy. Medical imaging is then done to determine whether or not the cancer has spread.[1]

HPV vaccines protect against between two and seven high-risk strains of this family of viruses and may prevent up to 90% of cervical cancers.[9][10][11] As there still is a risk of cancer, guidelines recommend continuing regular Pap smears.[10] Other methods of prevention include: never having sex or having few sexual partners and the use of condoms.[12] Cervical cancer screening using the Pap smear or acetic acid can identify precancerous changes which when treated can prevent the development of cancer.[13] Treatment of cervical cancer may consist of some combination of surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy.[1] Five year survival rates in the United States are 68%.[14] Outcomes, however, depend very much on how early the cancer is detected.[8]

Worldwide, cervical cancer is both the fourth most common cause of cancer and the fourth most common cause of death from cancer in women.[6] In 2012, it was estimated that there were 528,000 cases of cervical cancer, and 266,000 deaths.[6] This is about 8% of the total cases and total deaths from cancer.[15] Approximately 70% of cervical cancers occur in developing countries.[6] In low income countries it is the most common cause of cancer death.[13] In developed countries, the widespread use of cervical screening programs has dramatically reduced rates of cervical cancer.[16] In medical research, the most famous cell line known as HeLa was developed from cervical cancer cells of a woman named Henrietta Lacks.[17]



Signs and symptoms

The early stages of cervical cancer may be completely free of symptoms.[4][16] Vaginal bleeding, contact bleeding (one most common form being bleeding after sexual intercourse), or (rarely) a vaginal mass may indicate the presence of malignancy. Also, moderate pain during sexual intercourse and vaginal discharge are symptoms of cervical cancer. In advanced disease, metastases may be present in the abdomen, lungs or elsewhere.

Symptoms of advanced cervical cancer may include: loss of appetite, weight loss, fatigue, pelvic pain, back pain, leg pain, swollen legs, heavy vaginal bleeding, bone fractures, and/or (rarely) leakage of urine or feces from the vagina.[18]
Causes
In most cases, cells infected with the HPV virus heal on their own. In some cases, however, the virus continues to spread and becomes an invasive cancer.
Cervix in relation to upper part of vagina and posterior portion of uterus., showing difference in covering epithelium of inner structures.

Infection with some types of human papilloma virus (HPV) is the greatest risk factor for cervical cancer, followed by smoking.[19] Other risk factors include human immunodeficiency virus.[19] Not all of the causes of cervical cancer are known, however, and several other contributing factors have been implicated.[20]
Human papillomavirus

Human papillomavirus type 16 and 18 are the cause of 75% of cervical cancer globally while 31 and 45 are the cause of another 10%.[21]

Women who have many sexual partners (or who have sex with men who have had many other partners) have a greater risk.[22][23]

Of the 150-200 types of HPV known,[24][25] 15 are classified as high-risk types (16, 18, 31, 33, 35, 39, 45, 51, 52, 56, 58, 59, 68, 73, and 82), 3 as probable high-risk (26, 53, and 66), and 12 as low-risk (6, 11, 40, 42, 43, 44, 54, 61, 70, 72, 81, and CP6108).[26]

Genital warts, which are a form of benign tumor of epithelial cells, are also caused by various strains of HPV. However, these serotypes are usually not related to cervical cancer. It is common to have multiple strains at the same time, including those that can cause cervical cancer along with those that cause warts.

Infection with HPV is generally believed to be required for cervical cancer to occur.[27]
Smoking

Cigarette smoking, both active and passive, increases the risk of cervical cancer. Among HPV-infected women, current and former smokers have approximately two to three times the incidence of invasive cancer. Passive smoking is also associated with increased risk but to a lesser extent.[28]

Smoking has also been linked to the development of cervical cancer.[29][30][31] There are a few different ways that smoking can increase the risk in women which can be by direct and indirect methods of inducing cervical cancer.[29][31][32] A direct way of contracting this cancer is a smoker has a higher chance of CIN3 occurring which has the potential of forming cervical cancer.[29] When CIN3 lesions lead to cancer, most of them have the assistance of the HPV virus, but that is not always the case which is why it can be considered a direct link to cervical cancer.[32] Heavy smoking and long term smoking seem to have more of a risk of getting the CIN3 lesions than lighter smoking or not smoking at all.[33] Although smoking has been linked to cervical cancer, it aids in the development of HPV which is the leading cause of this type of cancer.[31] Also, not only does it aid in the development of HPV, but if the woman is already HPV-positive she is at an even greater likelihood of contracting cervical cancer.[33]
Oral contraceptives

Long-term use of oral contraceptives is associated with increased risk of cervical cancer. Women who have used oral contraceptives for 5 to 9 years have approximately three times the incidence of invasive cancer, and those who used them for 10 years or longer have approximately four times the risk.[28]
Multiple pregnancies

Having many pregnancies is associated with an increased risk of cervical cancer. Among HPV-infected women, those who have had seven or more full-term pregnancies have approximately four times the risk of cancer compared with women with no pregnancies, and two to three times the risk of women who have had one or two full-term pregnancies.[28]
Diagnosis
Cervical cancer seen on a T2 weighted saggital MR image of the pelvis.
Biopsy

The pap smear can be used as a screening test, but is false negative in up to 50% of cases of cervical cancer.[34][35] Confirmation of the diagnosis of cervical cancer or pre-cancer requires a biopsy of the cervix. This is often done through colposcopy, a magnified visual inspection of the cervix aided by using a dilute acetic acid (e.g. vinegar) solution to highlight abnormal cells on the surface of the cervix.[4] Medical devices used for biopsy of the cervix include punch forceps, SpiraBrush CX, SoftBiopsy or Soft-ECC.

Colposcopic impression, the estimate of disease severity based on the visual inspection, forms part of the diagnosis.

Further diagnostic and treatment procedures are loop electrical excision procedure (LEEP) and conization, in which the inner lining of the cervix is removed to be examined pathologically. These are carried out if the biopsy confirms severe cervical intraepithelial neoplasia.
This large squamous carcinoma (bottom of picture) has obliterated the cervix and invaded the lower uterine segment. The uterus also has a round leiomyoma up higher.

Often before the biopsy, the doctor asks for medical imaging to rule out other causes of woman's symptoms. Imaging modalities including ultrasound, CT scan and MRI have been used to different extent in order to look for alternating disease/spread of tumor/effect on adjacent structures. Typically they appear as heterogeneous mass in the cervix.[36]
Precancerous lesions
Histopathologic image (H&E stain) of carcinoma in situ (also called CIN III), stage 0. The normal architecture of stratified squamous epithelium is replaced by irregular cells that extend throughout its full thickness. Normal columnar epithelium is also seen.

Cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, the potential precursor to cervical cancer, is often diagnosed on examination of cervical biopsies by a pathologist. For premalignant dysplastic changes, the CIN (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia) grading is used.

The naming and histologic classification of cervical carcinoma precursor lesions has changed many times over the 20th century. The World Health Organization classification[37][38] system was descriptive of the lesions, naming them mild, moderate or severe dysplasia or carcinoma in situ (CIS). The term, Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia (CIN) was developed to place emphasis on the spectrum of abnormality in these lesions, and to help standardise treatment.[38] It classifies mild dysplasia as CIN1, moderate dysplasia as CIN2, and severe dysplasia and CIS as CIN3. More recently, CIN2 and CIN3 have been combined into CIN2/3. These results are what a pathologist might report from a biopsy.

These should not be confused with the Bethesda System terms for Pap smear (cytopathology) results. Among the Bethesda results: Low-grade Squamous Intraepithelial Lesion (LSIL) and High-grade Squamous Intraepithelial Lesion (HSIL). An LSIL Pap may correspond to CIN1, and HSIL may correspond to CIN2 and CIN3,[38] however they are results of different tests, and the Pap smear results need not match the histologic findings.
Cancer subtypes

Histologic subtypes of invasive cervical carcinoma include the following:[39][40] Though squamous cell carcinoma is the cervical cancer with the most incidence, the incidence of adenocarcinoma of the cervix has been increasing in recent decades.[4]

    squamous cell carcinoma (about 80-85%[citation needed])
    adenocarcinoma (about 15% of cervical cancers in the UK[37])
    adenosquamous carcinoma
    small cell carcinoma
    neuroendocrine tumour
    glassy cell carcinoma
    villoglandular adenocarcinoma

Non-carcinoma malignancies which can rarely occur in the cervix include

    melanoma
    lymphoma

Note that the FIGO stage does not incorporate lymph node involvement in contrast to the TNM staging for most other cancers.

For cases treated surgically, information obtained from the pathologist can be used in assigning a separate pathologic stage but is not to replace the original clinical stage.
Staging
Main article: Cervical cancer staging

Cervical cancer is staged by the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) staging system, which is based on clinical examination, rather than surgical findings. It allows only the following diagnostic tests to be used in determining the stage: palpation, inspection, colposcopy, endocervical curettage, hysteroscopy, cystoscopy, proctoscopy, intravenous urography, and X-ray examination of the lungs and skeleton, and cervical conization.

    Stage 1A cervical cancer

    Stage 1B cervical cancer

    Stage 2A cervical cancer

    Stage 2B cervical cancer

    Stage 3B cervical cancer

    Stage 4A cervical cancer

    Stage 4B cervical cancer

Prevention
Screening
Cervical screening Test Vehicle in Taiwan
Main articles: Cervical screening and Pap test

Checking the cervix by the Papanicolaou test, or Pap smear, for cervical cancer has been credited with dramatically reducing the number of cases of and mortality from cervical cancer in developed countries.[16] Pap smear screening every 3–5 years with appropriate follow-up can reduce cervical cancer incidence by up to 80%.[41] Abnormal results may suggest the presence of pre cancerous changes allowing examination and possible preventive treatment. The treatment of low-grade lesions may adversely affect subsequent fertility and pregnancy.[28] Personal invitations encouraging women to get screened are effective at increasing the likelihood they will do so. Educational materials also help increase the likelihood women will go for screening, but they are not as effective as invitations.[42]

According to the 2010 European guidelines, the age at which to start screening ranges between 20–30 years of age, "but preferentially not before age 25 or 30 years", and depends on burden of the disease in the population and the available resources.[43]

In the United States it is recommended that screening begin at age 21, regardless of age at which a woman began having sex or other risk factors.[44] Pap tests should be done every three years between the ages of 21 and 65.[44] In women over the age of 65, screening may be discontinued if there was no abnormal screening results within the previous 10 years and no history of CIN 2 or higher.[44][45][46] HPV vaccination status does not change screening rates.[45] Screening can occur every 5 years between aged 30–65 when a combination of cervical cytology screening and HPV testing is used and this is preferred.[45] However, it is acceptable to screen this age group with a Pap smear alone every 3 years.[45] Screening is not beneficial before age 25 as there is a very low rate of disease. Screening is not beneficial in women older than 60 years if they have a history of negative results.[28]

Liquid-based cytology is another potential screening method.[47][48] Although it was probably intended to improve on the accuracy of the Pap test, its main advantage has been to reduce the number of inadequate smears from around 9% to around 1%.[49] This reduces the need to recall women for a further smear. The United States Preventive Services Task Force supports screening every 5 years in those who are between 30 and 65 years when cytology is used in combination with HPV testing.[50]

Pap smears have not been as effective in developing countries.[51] This is in part because many of these countries have an impoverished health care infrastructure, too few trained and skilled professionals to obtain and interepret Pap smears, uninformed women who get lost to follow-up, and a lengthy turn-around time to get results.[51] These realities have resulted in the investigation of cervical screening approaches that use fewer resources and offer rapid results such as visual inspection with acetic acid or HPV DNA testing.[51]
Barrier protection

Barrier protection and/or spermicidal gel use during sexual intercourse decreases cancer risk.[28] Condoms offer protection against cervical cancer.[52] Evidence on whether condoms protect against HPV infection is mixed, but they may protect against genital warts and the precursors to cervical cancer.[52] They also provide protection against other STIs, such as HIV and Chlamydia, which are associated with greater risks of developing cervical cancer.

Condoms may also be useful in treating potentially precancerous changes in the cervix. Exposure to semen appears to increase the risk of precancerous changes (CIN 3), and use of condoms helps to cause these changes to regress and helps clear HPV.[53] One study suggests that prostaglandin in semen may fuel the growth of cervical and uterine tumors and that affected women may benefit from the use of condoms.[54]

Abstinence also prevents HPV infection.[28]
Vaccination

There are two HPV vaccines (Gardasil and Cervarix) which reduce the risk of cancerous or precancerous changes of the cervix and perineum by about 93% and 62%, respectively.[55] The vaccines are between 92% and 100% effective against HPV 16 and 18 up to at least 8 years.[28]

HPV vaccines are typically given to women age 9 to 26 as the vaccine is only effective if given before infection occurs. The vaccines have been shown to be effective for at least 4[56] to 6[57] years, and it is believed they will be effective for longer;[58] however, the duration of effectiveness and whether a booster will be needed is unknown. The high cost of this vaccine has been a cause for concern. Several countries have considered (or are considering) programs to fund HPV vaccination.

Since 2010, young women in Japan have been eligible to receive the cervical cancer vaccination for free.[59] In June 2013, the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare mandated that, before administering the vaccine, medical institutions must inform women that the Ministry does not recommend it.[59] However, the vaccine is still available at no cost to Japanese women who choose to accept the vaccination.[59]
Nutrition

Vitamin A is associated with a lower risk[60] as are vitamin B12, vitamin C, vitamin E, and beta-carotene.[61]
Treatment

The treatment of cervical cancer varies worldwide, largely due to large variances in disease burden in developed and developing nations, access to surgeons skilled in radical pelvic surgery, and the emergence of "fertility sparing therapy" in developed nations. Because cervical cancers are radiosensitive, radiation may be used in all stages where surgical options do not exist.

Microinvasive cancer (stage IA) may be treated by hysterectomy (removal of the whole uterus including part of the vagina).[citation needed] For stage IA2, the lymph nodes are removed as well. Alternatives include local surgical procedures such as a loop electrical excision procedure (LEEP) or cone biopsy.[62] For 1A1 disease, a cone biopsy (aka cervical conization) is considered curative.

If a cone biopsy does not produce clear margins[63] (findings on biopsy showing that the tumor is surrounded by cancer free tissue, suggesting all of the tumor is removed), one more possible treatment option for women who want to preserve their fertility is a trachelectomy.[64] This attempts to surgically remove the cancer while preserving the ovaries and uterus, providing for a more conservative operation than a hysterectomy. It is a viable option for those in stage I cervical cancer which has not spread; however, it is not yet considered a standard of care,[65] as few doctors are skilled in this procedure. Even the most experienced surgeon cannot promise that a trachelectomy can be performed until after surgical microscopic examination, as the extent of the spread of cancer is unknown. If the surgeon is not able to microscopically confirm clear margins of cervical tissue once the woman is under general anesthesia in the operating room, a hysterectomy may still be needed. This can only be done during the same operation if the woman has given prior consent. Due to the possible risk of cancer spread to the lymph nodes in stage 1b cancers and some stage 1a cancers, the surgeon may also need to remove some lymph nodes from around the uterus for pathologic evaluation.

A radical trachelectomy can be performed abdominally[66] or vaginally[67] and there are conflicting opinions as to which is better.[68] A radical abdominal trachelectomy with lymphadenectomy usually only requires a two to three day hospital stay, and most women recover very quickly (approximately six weeks). Complications are uncommon, although women who are able to conceive after surgery are susceptible to preterm labor and possible late miscarriage.[69] It is generally recommended to wait at least one year before attempting to become pregnant after surgery.[70] Recurrence in the residual cervix is very rare if the cancer has been cleared with the trachelectomy.[65] Yet, it is recommended for women to practice vigilant prevention and follow up care including pap screenings/colposcopy, with biopsies of the remaining lower uterine segment as needed (every 3–4 months for at least 5 years) to monitor for any recurrence in addition to minimizing any new exposures to HPV through safe sex practices until one is actively trying to conceive.

    Diagram showing the area removed with a posterior exenteration

    Diagram showing the area removed with a total exenteration operation

    Diagram showing the area removed with an anterior exenteration operation

Brachytherapy for cervical cancer

Early stages (IB1 and IIA less than 4 cm) can be treated with radical hysterectomy with removal of the lymph nodes or radiation therapy. Radiation therapy is given as external beam radiotherapy to the pelvis and brachytherapy (internal radiation). Women treated with surgery who have high risk features found on pathologic examination are given radiation therapy with or without chemotherapy in order to reduce the risk of relapse.

Larger early stage tumors (IB2 and IIA more than 4 cm) may be treated with radiation therapy and cisplatin-based chemotherapy, hysterectomy (which then usually requires adjuvant radiation therapy), or cisplatin chemotherapy followed by hysterectomy. When cisplatin is present, it is thought to be the most active single agent in periodic diseases.[71]

Advanced stage tumors (IIB-IVA) are treated with radiation therapy and cisplatin-based chemotherapy.

On June 15, 2006, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the use of a combination of two chemotherapy drugs, hycamtin and cisplatin for women with late-stage (IVB) cervical cancer treatment.[72] Combination treatment has significant risk of neutropenia, anemia, and thrombocytopenia side effects. Hycamtin is manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline.
Prognosis

Prognosis depends on the stage of the cancer. There is a high chance of a survival rate around 100% for women with microscopic forms of cervical cancer.[73] With treatment, the 5-year relative survival rate for the earliest stage of invasive cervical cancer is 92%, and the overall (all stages combined) 5-year survival rate is about 72%. These statistics may be improved when applied to women newly diagnosed, bearing in mind that these outcomes may be partly based on the state of treatment five years ago when the women studied were first diagnosed.[74]

With treatment, 80 to 90% of women with stage I cancer and 60 to 75% of those with stage II cancer are alive 5 years after diagnosis. Survival rates decrease to 30 to 40% for women with stage III cancer and 15% or fewer of those with stage IV cancer 5 years after diagnosis.[75]

According to the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics, survival improves when radiotherapy is combined with cisplatin-based chemotherapy.[76]

As the cancer metastasizes to other parts of the body, prognosis drops dramatically because treatment of local lesions is generally more effective than whole body treatments such as chemotherapy.

Interval evaluation of the woman after therapy is imperative. Recurrent cervical cancer detected at its earliest stages might be successfully treated with surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, or a combination of the three. Thirty-five percent of women with invasive cervical cancer have persistent or recurrent disease after treatment.[77]

Average years of potential life lost from cervical cancer are 25.3 (SEER Cancer Statistics Review 1975-2000, National Cancer Institute (NCI)). Approximately 4,600 women were projected to die in 2001 in the US of cervical cancer (DSTD), and the annual incidence was 13,000 in 2002 in the US, as calculated by SEER. Thus the ratio of deaths to incidence is approximately 35.4%.

Regular screening has meant that pre cancerous changes and early stage cervical cancers have been detected and treated early. Figures suggest that cervical screening is saving 5,000 lives each year in the UK by preventing cervical cancer.[78] About 1,000 women per year die of cervical cancer in the UK. All of the Nordic countries have cervical cancer screening programs in place.[79] Pap smear was integrated into clinical practice in the Nordic countries in the 1960s.[79]
Epidemiology
Age-standardized death from cervical cancer per 100,000 inhabitants in 2004.[80]
  no data
  <2.4
  2.4-4.8
  4.8-7.2
  7.2-9.6
  9.6-12
  12-14.4
   
  14.4-16.8
  16.8-19.2
  19.2-21.6
  21.6-24
  24-26.4
  >26.4
Worldwide

Worldwide, cervical cancer is both the fourth most common cause of cancer and deaths from cancer in women.[6] In 2012, it was estimated that there were 528,000 cases of cervical cancer, and 266,000 deaths.[6] It is the second most common cause of female specific cancer after breast cancer accounting for around 8% of both total cancer cases and total cancer deaths in women.[15] Approximately 80% of cervical cancers occur in developing countries.[81]
United States

An estimated 12,900 new cervical cancers and 4,100 cervical cancer deaths will occur in the United States in 2015.[28] In the United States, it is the 8th most common cancer of women. The median age at diagnosis is 48. Hispanic women are significantly more likely to be diagnosed with cervical cancer than the general population.[82] In 1998, about 12,800 women were diagnosed in the US and about 4,800 died.[16] In 2014 there was an estimated 12,360 new cases were expected to be diagnosed, and about 4,020 were expected to die of cervical cancer.[82] Among cancers of the female reproductive tract it is less common than endometrial cancer and ovarian cancer. The rates of new cases in the United States was 7 per 100,000 women in 2004.[83] Cervical cancer deaths decreased by approximately 74% in the last 50 years, largely due to widespread Pap smear screening.[84] The annual direct medical cost of cervical cancer prevention and treatment prior to introduction of the HPV vaccine was estimated at $6 billion.[84]
EU

In the European Union, there were about 34,000 new cases per year and over 16,000 deaths due to cervical cancer in 2004.[41]
UK

Cervical cancer is the twelfth most common cancer in women in the UK (around 3,100 people were diagnosed with the disease in 2011), and accounts for 1% of cancer deaths (around 920 people died in 2012).[85] With a 42% reduction from 1988-1997 the NHS implemented screening programme has been highly successful, screening the highest risk age group (25–49 years) every 3 years, and those ages 50–64 every 5 years.
Canada

In Canada, an estimated 1,300 women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2008 and 380 will die.[86]
Australia

In Australia, there were 734 cases of cervical cancer (2005). The number of women diagnosed with cervical cancer has dropped on average by 4.5% each year since organised screening began in 1991 (1991–2005).[87] Regular two-yearly Pap tests can reduce the incidence of cervical cancer by up to 90% in Australia, and save 1,200 Australian women dying from the disease each year.[88]
India

In India,the number of people with uterine cervix cancer are rising but overall the age adjusted rates are decreasing.[89] Study have shown that improvement of education in the female population has improved the survival of people with cancers of uterine cervix.[90]
History

    400 BCE - Hippocrates noted that cervical cancer was incurable
    1925 - Hinselmann invented the colposcope
    1928 - Papanicolaou developed the Papanicolaou technique
    1941 - Papanicolaou and Trout: Pap smear screening began
    1946 - Aylesbury spatula was developed to scrape the cervix, collecting the sample for the Pap smear
    1951 - First successful in-vitro cell line, HeLa, derived from biopsy of cervical cancer of Henrietta Lacks
    1976 - Harald zur Hausen and Gisam found HPV DNA in cervical cancer and genital warts; Hausen later won the Nobel Prize for his work[91]
    1988 - Bethesda System for reporting Pap results was developed
    2006 - First HPV vaccine FDA was approved

Epidemiologists working in the early 20th century noted that cervical cancer behaved like a sexually transmitted disease. In summary:

    Cervical cancer was noted to be common in female sex workers.
    It was rare in nuns, except for those who had been sexually active before entering the convent. (Rigoni in 1841)
    It was more common in the second wives of men whose first wives had died from cervical cancer.
    It was rare in Jewish women.[92]
    In 1935, Syverton and Berry discovered a relationship between RPV (Rabbit Papillomavirus) and skin cancer in rabbits. (HPV is species-specific and therefore cannot be transmitted to rabbits)[citation needed]

These historical observations suggested that cervical cancer could be caused by a sexually transmitted agent. Initial research in the 1940s and 1950s attributed cervical cancer to smegma (e.g. Heins et al. 1958).[93] During the 1960s and 1970s it was suspected that infection with herpes simplex virus was the cause of the disease. In summary, HSV was seen as a likely cause because it is known to survive in the female reproductive tract, to be transmitted sexually in a way compatible with known risk factors, such as promiscuity and low socioeconomic status.[94] Herpes viruses were also implicated in other malignant diseases, including Burkitt's lymphoma, Nasopharyngeal carcinoma, Marek's disease and the Lucké renal adenocarcinoma. HSV was recovered from cervical tumour cells.

A description of human papillomavirus (HPV) by electron microscopy was given in 1949, and HPV-DNA was identified in 1963.[citation needed] It was not until the 1980s that HPV was identified in cervical cancer tissue.[95] It has since been demonstrated that HPV is implicated in virtually all cervical cancers.[96] Specific viral subtypes implicated are HPV 16, 18, 31, 45 and others.

In work that was initiated in the mid 1980s, the HPV vaccine was developed, in parallel, by researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center, the University of Rochester, the University of Queensland in Australia, and the U.S. National Cancer Institute.[97] In 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first preventive HPV vaccine, marketed by Merck & Co. under the trade name Gardasil.
Society and culture
Australia

In Australia, Aboriginal women are more than five times more likely to die from cervical cancer than non-Aboriginal women, suggesting that Aboriginal women are less likely to have regular Pap tests.[98] There are several factors that may limit indigenous women from engaging in regular cervical screening practices, including sensitivity in discussing the topic in Aboriginal communities, embarrassment, anxiety and fear about the procedure.[99] Difficulty in accessing screening services (for example, transport difficulties) and a lack of female GPs, trained pap smear providers and trained female Aboriginal Health Workers are also issues.[99]

The Australian Cervical Cancer Foundation (ACCF), founded in 2008, promotes 'women’s health by eliminating cervical cancer and enabling treatment for women with cervical cancer and related health issues, in Australia and in developing countries.'[100] Ian Frazer, one of the developers of the Gardasil cervical cancer vaccine, is the scientific advisor to ACCF.[101] Janette Howard, the wife of former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1996, and first spoke on her battle with the disease in 2006.[102]
United States

A 2007 survey of 3,076 American women found only 40% had heard of HPV infection and less than half of those knew it causes cervical cancer.[103]

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Does A Sauna Really Help You Burn Calories Or Is It A Myth?

There seems to be a lot of controversy going around lately about whether or not a sauna will help you to burn calories and lose weight. Some people think that the whole thing is just a myth, and some people swear by it.
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A lot of the sauna manufacturing companies will tell you that saunas definitely help you lose weight and calories, but this information is not as believable coming from someone who wants to sell you their sauna! Some of these companies' websites even have so called "doctors" who will answer any questions you may have about their saunas, but these people are employed by the company, and are still just trying to sell you their sauna.

Sitting inside of a hot sauna for any period of time will make you sweat. Sweating releases fluid from your body. The longer you sweat, the more fluid you will lose, and this fluid loss is really the only weight loss that you see from sauna use. Once you are done with the sauna for the day, it is highly recommended that you drink lots of water after you've cooled off. This basically puts the lost fluid right back inside of your body.

Many sauna companies boldly state that just twenty or thirty minutes inside of their sauna will burn anywhere from three hundred to one thousand calories. This is simply not possible. People are always looking for an easier way to burn calories than exercise, but exercise is the only efficient way to really get rid of calories. Sitting in a sauna for thirty minutes may burn up to three hundred calories, but this type of calorie burn will not have the same effect on your body as the calories burned during exercise.

Calories burnt off while sitting in a sauna are just calories burnt. There is no muscle building, no fat shedding, no after burn (VERY important!) and no muscle strengthening or toning. When you choose to burn calories through exercise, you not only burn more calories, but you also build and tone your muscle, and you get rid of the excess fat on your body. If you choose the right kinds of aerobics exercises, you will also get the added benefit of after burn. After burn is what the body does after you have finished exercising. After burn can burn calories up to fourteen hours after you have stopped exercising. If the only reason you are using a sauna is to lose weight, there are much better things you can be doing to achieve your goal.

Saunas are great for all kinds of other things though, and they can even help you to feel better about yourself. They will improve your skin, your health and your body. If they are used properly and safely, saunas will do a lot for you. I suggest using one at least two or three times a week, and I also recommend a good, weekly exercise routine for those who want to lose weight

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How to Convert 401(k) to Gold IRA: Don't Overexpose Yourself to the Next Market Downturn!

With the stock market riding at all-time record highs, a day of reckoning is sure to come soon. Now is the perfect time to protect your retirement. Learn how to convert your 401(k) into gold and the virtues of gold and silver vs. a 401(k) with the advice of a seasoned veteran investment advisor.

16 Aug, 2014

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Are You Really Still Buying “Low Fat” Foods…?

Habits are so hard to break, aren’t they?

Just listen to people as they order their food, whether it’s at a restaurant or the grocery store or just their latté at Starbucks.


EVERYONE orders non-fat this and non-fat that… Like the smoked turkey at the cold cut counter. “Which one sir?” “Uhh, which one is lower in fat?”

Or the low-fat section of the restaurant menu. Or even your latté… make sure it’s with low fat milk!

… and if you ask these people why, they all say the same thing: “Well…you don’t want fat. Fat is bad for you.”

But ask these same people where they heard this, or to at least cite one credible source or medical study or something… do you know what you’ll get? Blank faces.

They’ll look at you like you’re the crazy one for even asking the question. After all… everyone knows fat is bad, right…?

Well, sorry but… wrong. Dead wrong.

Of course, it’s really not difficult to understand how the whole “fat paranoia” came to be. First of all, we are hugely influenced by what we read and hear and see in the media. And let’s face it… all the books were saying you need to go low fat.

Furthermore, it’s not much of a stretch to reason that if you eat more fat, you will become more fat…

Unfortunately… that’s just not how it works. It is the various combinations of protein, fat and carbohydrates you eat that work together.

Depending on which combination you eat (and how much of each), your body will either store fat, or burn fat. Not to mention helping with blood pressure and cholesterol, or making it worse!

The Hormone Revolution

I am writing this email sitting at my local mega book store and as I entered the store there was a big table set up boasting a bunch of the latest diet books. I picked up the first four and skimmed the contents, and you know what? “Low fat” is LONG GONE. And it’s about time!

From the handsome star of that new health show, “The Doctors”, to fitness guru and hottie Jillian Michaels, to old standbys like “The Zone”, “Protein Power” and “Atkins” – these books (and so many more) all share the same theme... the theme that has finally, thankfully, replaced the low fat song.

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STOP DREAMING! START LIVING!

 All too often, we can get caught up in living in a fantasy world, always imagining the things we’d like to do, the possessions we’d like to have, and the person we’d like to be.

  But ultimately, while this “wishing” may make us feel good when we become immersed in it, what purpose does it really serve if we don’t ever end up actually living the life we’ve dreamed of?

We can dream of improving our life, but wouldn’t it be better if we actually made the necessary changes?

We can dream of bettering our success, but wouldn’t it be better if we actually became more successful?

Most people fall into habit patterns that will keep them where there are and not permit them to improve their lives in the drastic measures that they wish would occur. Because of this, their fantasy getaway (escaping to the world of their dreams in their imagination) is the only way they’ll ever slightly be a part of such a world.

To help you begin living the dream life you’ve always imagined, here are three steps I recommend you follow:


1) Focus On Your Desires Coming True

The more you focus on what you want actually manifesting, the more you set up a new, positive, constant vibration in your body. In our universe, “like attracts like” so if your body’s energy is resonating in harmony with what you do want, then you’re helping naturally attract it into your life.

Many people are always focusing on what they don’t want. Even if they say something like, “I don’t want more debt,” it doesn’t matter – they’re thinking and focusing on debt, and so they’ll simply attract more debt into their lives.

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Online Article Spinner for Free: A Review of Content Professor

 Body: Being an amateur on the website content business, I have always aimed for high quality original articles, making sure that information will be solidly presented in an orderly, detailed manner using words that will cater to the specific searches of internet users. In turn, I have also been in a vast search for software made to tailor my needs. I am pretty certain you too, have the same qualifications as I do. I want, first and foremost, a free article spinner software, or if not, something that will give me best value for my money. It should aid me in establishing original content with ease; it should make me able to reproduce my articles in bulk while still maintaining my unique content. Most of all, the outputs should be as humanly understandable and coherent as possible. Simple requirements these may seem, but most web based article spinner software I have tried come with a certain fee, and even if they are affordable, they do not give the output I have always wanted to achieve.
Was my search futile? No. After a tedious search, I finally came across a free web based article spinner software available online, that was able to meet my expectations. You heard it right, an online article spinner software application… for free! For those of you experiencing the same problems as I have, Content Professor might be your ultimate solution.
I have tried it out and was satisfied with the results. The user-friendly interface speaks of how efficient your future transactions will be. Basically, its simple, Windows-based form is composed of drop-down menus and tabs that you can access through clicks or a couple of keyboard shortcuts. Your work will start when you open your article on the main tab, highlight phrases or words, and a drop down menu is generated with the common terms with which you can replace those highlighted words with. I was happy with how vast the program’s thesaurus is, which they claim, is taken from the wide array of people-created articles from the Web. The ease of doing word replacements is great, as it allows you to perform nesting, or grouping of synonymous words with curly brackets and color-coding to be replaced on future article spinning purposes.
You can also add frequently-used terms on your favorite list, which is made available with few more clicks. The uniqueness percentage and word count on the upper right part of the interface is highly useful, so you won’t be distracted with your work. The quality of the duplicated articles with original content is far more understandable than the outputs of the other free article spinner software I have tried. Still, be reminded that spun articles are still highly dependent of how coherent your source article is. What impressed me most is the program’s feature of bulk saving the duplicated articles in a zip file and making one spun article ready for further processing. It cuts off the hassle of zipping things up, which saves time. Lastly, I should reiterate this. It is an online application, implying that there’s no need for purchases, compatibility or installation. It is free of charge!

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Basic Concept of CONTENT PROFESSOR

Content Professor is a breakthrough in article writing or rewriting, it allows you to produce more articles in less time, for example 50 or more articles could be written in as little as 30 seconds, you could potentially flood your website with high quality, original content, you could save a lot of money because you will no longer need to hire article writers. Also when article writing, most people will need to do a bit of research, after that they will need to write the articles and finally they will need to publish them

PROBLEMS WITH THE USUAL WAY PEOPLE SPIN ARTICLES;

Problem 1 - writing and rewriting articles is very time consuming it may take up to an hour to write a quality article, perhaps even longer than an hour if the article is thousands of words long.

Problem 2 - While you are typing manually the competition will most likely be finished writing their articles and are publishing them, especially if the competition is a large company with lots of staffs to do the typing for them.

Problem 3 - Article writing can be risky if not done properly and if this is the case it could potentially cause more damage than good. “Why”? The answer is easy; if Google does not agree with your content it can devalue your "Search Engine Optimisation" (SEO).

When article spinning first took off as a good way to market your business, Google didn't like that their search engine was being exploited by marketers so they fought back... removing adverts from there search results, banning pages and so much more, so nowadays if you rewrite an article it must be done correctly, most marketers will now publish there articles through copyscape, this is a site that will report any duplicate articles that have been published already, If you were to go ahead and publish anyway the worse case scenario would be you could potentially be sued for copyright.

So how can we regain the ease of article spinning while still maintaining good quality articles?

The Content Professor System;

Content Professor is a new article spinning software, with Article Spinner you will have access to the entire system from within your browser, you will also have access to a database that has evolved from user input which will ensure quality content can be found and the best bit is you can use this software to "Auto Spin" your articles and create hundreds of "unique" articles in just seconds.

So how does this help you?

Firstly you will no longer need to spend hours writing articles for SEO, you simply need to copy and paste content and Article Spinner will instantly create unique articles that you can use on your blog, websites and any other social media profiles you have, this will enable you to increase your traffic ranking on Google and can be used on your website with ease for back links etc.

Using Content Professor you will never need to worry about how many articles you need, you will no longer need to spend hours at the computer typing by hand and you will save a load of money because you will no longer need to hire people to write content for you.

Content Professor is really easy to use, simply copy and paste the text from your document that you want spun into the main section of the application, then press "Spin" found at the top left of the screen and it will spin the article. If you want to search synonyms while using Content Professor you will find a drop down menu on the right hand side of the screen, the drop down menu gives you the choice of normal, better or ideal, once you select one, click "Target Synonyms" just below the drop down menu and Content Professor will search for all known synonyms and list the results in the article, (highlighted blue, green or red and you simply choose which words you want to keep.

There are many options available so changing things to suit your personal preferences is no problem. Once you are happy with your spun article click the "Generate Article" button and it appears on a screen just under the screen you are editing from here there are options to change the format of the document and select how many articles to spin.

Content Professor is an amazing piece of kit to aid marketers in there pursuit of SEO.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

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Cholesterol is NOT bad. More myth busting…

There is SO much misunderstanding and misinformation about cholesterol. Things like: * What cholesterol even is! * How you get high cholesterol * How high is “high” * “Good” cholesterol and “bad” cholesterol * Many doctor’s cholesterol tests are wrong! I can’t cover everything in one article but let me give you some of the more surprising facts.


First, know that cholesterol is a hormone produced mostly by your liver. And like all hormones, it has many important jobs to do in maintaining your health. It is a critical structural molecule in the membranes of every one of your cells, and it is an important ingredient of brain tissue – just to name two.


Cholesterol is not an evil beast like so many people think it is – you cannot live without cholesterol! However, just like I’m always saying about insulin, you need the correct amount in your system. It’s true that you don’t want too much, but you sure don’t want too little either! There are two ways to get cholesterol into your blood – by eating foods that have cholesterol (known as “dietary cholesterol”) and through the liver production I just mentioned.


Regarding these two ways, your body has a balance system – if you don’t get enough dietary cholesterol, your liver will produce more to make up the deficiency. (Proof enough that cholesterol is a needed thing… you just don’t want tons too much).

So here’s a hugely popular myth we can go ahead and BUST today: “You get high cholesterol by eating too many cholesterol foods. “ The fact is there isn’t a single test or paper or shred of proof in the medical community that offers any proof of this.

It’s just a theory… a theory that has growing evidence against it. One of my favorite doctors on the subject, Dr. Michael Eades (more from Dr. Eades in a second), has looked for years and he cannot find any correlation between eating dietary cholesterol and getting high cholesterol (and locating this type of research is what he does – if it existed, he’d know). In addition, most people only get about 15% of their total cholesterol from food (the rest is produced by your own body).

So you would have to eat an impossible amount of these cholesterol foods in order to “eat yourself to high cholesterol”. So what causes high cholesterol then? Pretty much the same thing that produces all the high blood pressure of recent generations, as well as the obesity epidemic. A high carb diet!

Eating a diet that is too high in carbohydrates, and not high enough in protein (the typical diet of today), causes your own liver to produce too much cholesterol! THAT’S how you get high cholesterol.

As for the cholesterol testing we all go to the doctor for… this floored me. When doctors do a cholesterol test, the final report covers four criteria:

1. Your “good” cholesterol, called HDL (high-density lipoprotein)

2. Your “bad” cholesterol, called LDL (low-density lipoprotein)

3. Another “bad one”: VLDL (very low-density lipoprotein)

4. Your total cholesterol level.

But here’s the kicker! Testing for your total cholesterol level, and for your HDL level, is pretty straightforward. But performing an actual, physical test for the other two – the LDL and VLDL (the bad ones) is more difficult, and quite costly. And so – unbeknownst to you – these numbers are almost always estimated.

An equation called the “Friedewald Equation” is used to estimate your LDL levels (developed by William Friedewald and others in 1972). This has become the standard, no-questions-asked process. Now, in fairness, the equation has shown to be very accurate most of the time.

But in recent years, more and more situations have been found where this equation produces a much higher number than if you actually tested – the estimate is wrong.

An example of such a situation is people who keep their carbs nice and low; such folks tend to have triglyceride levels lower than 100 mg/dl, which skews the Friedewald equation. Which means those of us who actually eat a correct, healthy, Primal diet would be told that our cholesterol is too high – because of a faulty equation. And then your prescription-happy physician will whip out his pad and prescribe a statin.

The moral of this story?

Keep learning. Become the Captain of your own health. Doctors are one important source to be sure, but only one.

To prevent your liver from over-producing cholesterol, eat a diet made up of about 65% protein and fat, and 35% carbohydrates – just like The Primal You™ Diet Course lays out.


If you are being told that your cholesterol is high, and a statin (or treatment) is recommended, insist on a direct test of your LDL cholesterol level, not the estimated version derived from the Friedewald equation. (Feel free to show your physician this article!)

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

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Toning, Light Weights, & High Reps

I guess you could say it is my mission to show people the
value of intense strength training for fat loss.

Every month more research comes out to support intense training over slow cardio, and light weights. And each week, in real-life, more and more men and women (yes, women too!) see the benefits of pushing themselves with strength training.

The evidence from research and real-life continues to pile up that you need to put down those light weights and cut out those high reps.

Take really light weights, add in isolation exercises, and repeat
for a large number of reps. Do this for 3, 6, or 12 months, and
you're guaranteed to have the same physique you have today. This approach just does not work.

You need to step out of your comfort zone with strength training.

Research has shown using a weight that enables only 8 reps per set results in a greater post-exercise metabolism than using a weight that allows 12 reps per set. And this was in women! So lifting challenging weights is not just for men, but also for the ladies.

Another research study showed that a 30-minute, hard total-body strength training session can boost metabolism about 36 hours. You just don't get that from slow cardio or light, "toning"
isolation exericses, I'm sorry to say.

But what if you are worried about "bulking up"? Just do one or two sets of 8 reps per exercise, rather than three or four.

Bodybuilders know that high-volume training builds muscle. But if you don't want massive amounts of muscle, just don't do a lot of volume. That's just one of the reasons I don't use bodybuilder
workout programs for fat loss.

Another way to avoid "bulking up" while still boosting your
metabolism is to use more bodyweight exercises.

As for exercise choice, say goodbye to biceps curls, hamstring
curls, and triceps kickbacks. Seriously, I couldn't think of a more
useless exercise for a fat loss program than triceps kickbacks.

Stick to full body movements. Use squats, lunges, split squats,
pushups, chinups, rows, etc.

Remember, you don't have a lot of time to workout. So you can't be doing bodybuilding splits from the 80's that call for three
exercises for the long head of the triceps, and two exercises for
each of the anterior, medial, and posterior deltoid.

That's just not possible in the real-world. A pushup trains almost all those muscles, and more. It works your abs, chest, triceps, and shoulders. That's the type of exercise that is going to help you get more fat loss results in less workout time.

I train in the concept of a short time frame. That is, anyone that
wants to use my programs has less than 3 hours per week to devote to structured exercise. So there just isn't much room for isolation training in that time frame.

But training should be fun too, and adding some curls as a reward for completing a hard workout is fine, but only if you want to. You don't need those types of exercises to get results.

But remember, isolation exercises are not actually going to
burn fat, but they can build muscle and help you sculpt your body. Here's the list of methods that lead to fat loss, in order of
importance:

i) Nutrition
ii) Burning calories with interval training
iii) Burning calories due to an increased metabolism from interval training and strength training (with multi-muscle movements)

As long as you understand that nutrition is the most important
factor in fat loss, and that strength training is essential for
sculpting your body, than you will have realistic expectations of
success - based on how well you commit to each process.

Sincerely,

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

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Top 10 Foods For Smooth Glowing Skin

People who want great looking skin often look for the best creams and lotions they can find to give their skin a vibrant glow. What many don’t realise is that they can give their skin this vibrant glow naturally by eating all the right foods.

A healthy eating plan rich in vegetables and healthy foods provides countless benefits to your health and skin. Adopting a healthy diet containing the top 10 foods for skin listed below has even been known to reverse diabetes and skin disease, and reduce the risk of cancer.

Healthy eating is the key to having beautiful young looking skin. Here are the top 10 foods for skin put together by Simon Lovell, media expert and author

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

1. Avocado

The avocado is known for its numerous properties that benefit the skin. It contains many healthy fats that plump up the skin and smooth away the dryness. Avocados have the highest content of vitamin E when compared with other fruits, which is a powerful antioxidant that helps strengthen the white blood cells.

2. Berries

Strawberries, blackberries and blueberries are all good for the skin because of their high antioxidant content. These 3 berries have been found to have the highest antioxidant capacity of any foods. They produce collagen which keeps the skin smooth and plump.

3. Low Fat Yoghurt

Low fat yoghurt is rich in one of the most important components of skin health – Vitamin A. Experts have stated that the health of skin cells is largely dependant on how much Vitamin A is present in our diets.

4. Broccoli

Broccoli is a vegetable that contains an abundance of health benefits, and is good for the skin. Broccoli is high in Vitamin A and thus promotes good turnover of skin cells. Eating broccoli can help to renew skin cells quickly making your skin look fresher.

5. Whole-Grains

Whole-grains are rich in the mineral Selenium, which is why they promote healthy skin. Selenium has been shown to reduce skin damage after prolonged exposure to the sun. High levels of selenium in your system prevents your skin from oxidative damage that can increase cancer risks.

6. Spinach

Rich in vitamins B, C and E, spinach possesses strong anti-aging properties and helps to give the skin a healthy glow. Also, the iodine contained in spinach is said to combat skin disease.

7. Omega-3 Fish

Omega-3 is one of the healthy fats that are highly sought after by the health-conscious. Omega-3 fatty acids are good for strengthening the skin cell membranes and preventing toxins from being absorbed.

8. Non-Starchy Vegetables

Non-starchy vegetables are high a fibre and bolster your age-defying bacteria. If you have blotchy or tired skin this can often be due to a lack of fibre. Lack of fibre can lead to disrupted digestion that stops nutrients from being absorbed properly. This starves your skin of the nutrients it needs to look younger and healthier.

The health benefits of a diet based mainly on non-starchy vegetables are endless. In fact, a UK study has shown that adopting a diet consisting of only liquid diet drinks and non-starchy vegetables has been shown to reverse diabetes and cure the condition in just 3 months. Because they are non-starchy, they do not affect blood glucose.

Common non-starchy vegetables include carrots, broccoli, sprouts, celery, asparagus, cucumber, tomatoes, onions, peppers, lettuce, beets and watercress.

9. Green Tea

The health properties of green tea are vast. The list of skin benefits that green tea provides goes on and on. Green tea, whether consumed as a drink or applied to the skin, can decrease risk of damage from the sun and thus lessen the risk of skin cancer.

Green tea also has strong anti-inflammatory properties. Being as it is rich in polyphenols, it prevents inflammation and is beneficial to overall skin health.

10. Lean Red Meat

Not getting enough iron can result in having unhealthy skin. Lean red meat is a good source of iron for anyone who needs it, but you should be careful not to eat any red meats that are too high in fat.

With a healthy diet that includes the top 10 foods for skin listed above, it’s unlikely that you’ll need to rely on creams and lotions to give your skin a healthy glow. Fill yourself with nutritious and healthy foods, and your skin will take care of itself. it great for the skin because it’s packed full of the foods that your skin needs to look smooth and healthy. Within 7 days you will notice a difference.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

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Changing Your Eating Desires Using Hypnosis

Here’s an experience you’re probably familiar with… You have a burning desire to lose weight and you’ve committed to a new diet, but chocolate bars and potato chips are now the foods you are craving the most, and the craving to eat these foods is stronger than it has ever been.

This is what makes it so hard to commit to a new diet. How can you maintain a healthy eating plan when the temptations to eat fatty foods are so strong?

This is where losing weight can be become such a struggle. With it being so difficult to fight off temptation, it becomes almost impossible to stick to a diet successfully. To add to this, the stress it puts you under makes the dieting idea seem like too much to handle. This makes you want to give up all together.

To conquer cravings successfully, it’s good to understand why they exist, and how you can go about eliminating them.

When you start a new diet and eliminate fatty foods, your body will not be used to it. If you’ve been eating unhealthily for a long time, your body will have gotten used to your eating patterns and will expect them to stay the same.

But it goes deeper than just a bodily craving – these eating patterns are also expected from you at a subconscious level. Your subconscious will have learned that your unhealthy eating patterns are normal, and thus it will resist if you try to make changes.

This is where dieting becomes too much for some people. Something deep within them is giving them such a strong urge to eat all the wrong things.

So, one of the secrets to losing weight successfully is to change your desires. It doesn’t matter how good of a diet plan or how much will-power you have, if you can fight off the desire to eat fatty foods, you won’t have much chance of being successful.

Imagine if the thought of eating vegetables gave you the same feeling that you currently get from the thought of eating a chocolate bar. Wouldn’t that make weight loss a whole lot easier?!

Well, this is the goal of hypnosis. The cravings to eat fatty foods usually have nothing to do with our conscious minds. Even though you know logically that eating fatty foods is a bad idea, you still have a very strong urge to do so.

This is because the craving starts on a subconscious level. By bypassing the conscious mind and communicating directly with the subconscious, hypnosis can help you break the desire to eat unhealthy foods.

By communicating with the subconscious, hypnosis can alter your inner desires. If like many people you have constant thoughts like “giving up fatty foods is hard”, it’s going to be very difficult to stick to a healthy diet plan. Hypnotic suggestions implant new ideas into your subconscious, such as “you are forgetting about your old eating habits” or “you have a strong urge to eat healthy foods”.

After constant repetition, your subconscious will begin to believe these suggestions and this will be reflected in your eating habits and desires.

If you have an internal struggle on the inside and you are constantly filled with doubts, it makes losing weight 100 times harder. Hypnosis can be the key to transforming unhealthy desires into healthy desires and making weight loss a whole lot easier.

Summary:

• Your desires to eat fatty foods are based on deep unconscious habits
• Attempting to change your habits will be met by resistance from the subconscious mind
• Changing your desires is key to improving your chances of successful weight loss
• Hypnosis communicates with your subconscious and transforms negative desires into positive desires

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

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Top 10 Tips To Successful Teen Bodybuilding Part 2

As discussed in part one, teen bodybuilding can start at a very young age allowing young fitness enthusiasts a whole new world to pursue. Teen bodybuilding is an excellent way to promote a healthy lifestyle since it requires regular weight training, cardiovascular training, balanced nutrition and even stimulation of the mind since the topic of teen bodybuilding involves constant education. Teen bodybuilding can also help you erase nicknames like “Skinny Mini,” “Scrawny,” “Tooth Pick,” “Twiggy,” and in my own personal case, “Skinny Vinny!”

Unfortunately teen bodybuilding is not as easy as it looks and can result in injury, bad habits and frustration if stated with out structure and progression. Here are the next five tips to successful teen bodybuilding:

6. Learn Proper Technique First

How well do you think you would golf without supervision? How well do you think you will skate without coaching? How well do you think you will play piano without lessons? How much muscle do you think you will build without proper lifting technique? Not much!

I hope you are humble enough to swallow your pride and accept the fact that your first step should be getting professional coaching from a reputable fitness trainer. I know many of your friends will not even consider this and you will be told, 'just learn it yourself,' or 'watch others.' Can you imagine a medical surgeon or dentist who took this approach? Yikes!

Think about it. You are going to be lifting weights the rest of your life. Is spending a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars, on a professional fitness trainer, not going to pay you back over and over (for the rest of your life) if you do things correctly right from the start? Definitely! If you start lifting weights incorrectly, get ready to spend the money you saved on a coach for a rehab therapists next vacation! If you don't get injured now, most likely it will be in the next few years.

7. Stretch Just As Much As You Lift

Stretching is the most under rated physical quality which is unfortunate because shortened muscles perform weaker and slower and have a higher incidence of injury. Stretching is the only physical quality which more is better. Stretching is one of the only habits that can not be over trained.

If you are serious about getting into the world of teen bodybuilding, I encourage you to start this habit early. Most text books teach stretching methods that include 20-30 seconds per stretch. Don't even waste your time if this is your idea of stretching. From real world, in the trenches, experience, I would suggest stretching at least the same amount of time that you lift. That means, for every 1 hour of weight training you perform, you must balance the effect of weight training with one hour of stretching. Therefore, if you weight train 4 hours in the week, you better be stretching for at least 4 hours in the week. If you are really lazy, start stretching for at least half the amount of time that you lift. After you see the benefits of increased strength, quicker recovery and less injuries I am sure you will have no problem bumping up your stretching sessions to the recommend 1:1 ratio.

Fail to stretch at least the same amount that you lift is almost a sure fire way of shortening a teen bodybuilding career or lifestyle. Remember, weight training shortens and tightens the connective tissue you train. Stretching counters the effect and ensures your muscles have room to grow!

8. Focus On Bodyweight Strength First

It amazes me at how many teen bodybuilders can barely do a set of 40 push ups, 20 chin ups and 30 dips. In my opinion, these are some standard upper body fitness tests that should be accomplished with ease before loading is introduced (it might take your 3 or 4 months to achieve this if you can't do them right now). I once heard a famous fitness coach say, “You have no freaking business using a load if you can't stabilize, control, and move efficiently using your own bodyweight.” I would have to fully agree.

What's the point of a sloppy 150 pound lat pulldown if you can't do 10 bodyweight pull ups? What's the point of a 185 pound bench press with microscopic range reps, if you can push up your body a couple dozen times? What's the point of a 500 pound leg press if you can do a set of one legged squats down to the floor? Believe me, after a few months of conditioning your body to body weight training, you will be blown away by how quickly your weights climb when you introduce loading.

9. Keep Your Workouts Under 1 Hour

Unless you are in a teen bodybuilding competition for the longest workout possible, it bewilders my mind what you could possibly be doing for longer than a hour! Unless you go to the gym for mirror workouts (that's when you spend more time looking in the mirror than actually lifting)I suggest getting some help with your workout program. If it takes longer than 20-30 minutes of even moderate intensity lifting to fully exhaust a muscle, I have to question your workout intensity. Shorter more intense workouts will always trump longer less intense workouts.

Your goal should be in fact to complete your workout faster and faster. This will force your muscles to condition and adapt to a greater work load. The more work you expose your muscles too, in a shorter amount of time will improve your muscle density. Your bodies ability to tolerate greater workloads.

10. Develop Full Range Of Motion

Initially, teen bodybuilding should involve building strong muscular attachments, tendons, ligaments and bones – text books refer this as anatomical adaptation. Look at building your muscles as the finishing touches on a solid house. You would not want to start framing the house until the foundation has been built. Strengthening your tendons, ligaments and bones would be considered building a strong foundation to build from.

What is the best way to begin a strong foundation for a house to stand on? Build from the bottom up or in our case, from the inside out. This means developing a full range of motion with each weight training exercise to ensure all the muscle fiber gets activated and all the supporting tissues are fully involved.

Think about it. Partial movements will only develop partial muscle. Full movements will develop full muscle. What would get you better results? Squatting 135 pounds with your butt to the floor or squatting 225 pounds for about ¼ of the way? That's correct, involving the entire range of motion with a lighter weight will involve more musculature, improve your mind-muscle connection quicker and strengthen all the supporting tissues more rapidly. Initially, as a teen bodybuilder, you should never sacrifice range for load.

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Top 10 Tips To Successful Teen Bodybuilding Part 1

Teen bodybuilding is growing at an alarming rate, as enthusiastic teens hit the gym every night of the week. I don't blame them. Teen bodybuilding is one of the most effective ways to boost a skinny guys self-confidence and self-image. Did I also mention lots of attention and admiration from the ladies and respect from the guys. Teen bodybuilding does not just help out with vanity but promotes a nutritious diet, disciplined lifestyle, and strong work ethic.

So the question is, how is teen bodybuilding done right? Should teen bodybuilders read the latest bodybuilding magazines? Learn from their friends or a professional? Train every day or every other day? Rely on supplements? Start when they are done growing or earlier? Focus on endurance training heavy lifting? Teen bodybuilding has dozens of questions and many different opinions on each. Here is my top 10 tips to successful teen bodybuilding in no particular order:

1. Avoid Steroids

Duh! This might sound obvious and if you have not been offered steroids yet, make your stand now and be prepared to say 'no' when you get backed into a corner. Your body is flowing with more natural hormones than any steroid could replace. Don't screw up your natural hormonal levels at such a young age. Even though all your friends might laugh at you for not conforming to the pressure of using illegal drugs, be a real man and train drug free. In the end your friends will respect you more for staying away from the dark side.

2. Focus On Clean Eating

Old habits die hard. Believe it or not, the nutrition habits you are creating today will affect you all the way into your adult years. As a young teen bodybuilder, you have an opportunity to create good habits at an early age. Focus on eating clean carbohyrdates like whole wheat breads, oatmeal, brown rice, potatoes, fruits and veggies. Focusing on eating a variety of clean proteins like tuna, chicken, fish, cottage cheese and protein shakes. Balance out your meals with clean fats like olive oil, fish oil, natural peanut butter and nuts. Take pride in the fact that you even know what clean eating is. Look at this as an opportunity to be an example to your friends to be walking statue of health! I promise you that you will have a few friends who admire your physique and ask you for advice!

3. Avoid One Body Part Workouts And Focus On A Full Body Workout

A full body workout? But all my friends are training chest tonight. And tomorrow they are training back. And on Wednesday they are training arms. But if you have the courage, you are not going to follow the herd and trust me. You are too young to be splitting up your muscles groups into only one body part a day. Unless you are pursuing a career in competitive bodybuilding, one-body part splits are an excellent way to over train at a young age. Look at it this way. Do you only eat once per week? Do you only take supplements once per week? Do you only sleep once per week? Do you only study once per week? Than why would you train your muscle groups only once per week? It does not make sense. Full body workouts will allow you to hit all your major muscle groups three times in the week, without overtraining, instead of only one time.

4. Emphasize Your Conditioning

Teen bodybuilding can actually become something that appear to be a lazy man's sport. Next time you walk into the weight room, count how many people are actually doing something. Seriously, I guarantee you will see more people standing around and talking, adjusting weights and staring in the mirror. Not many people are actually hustling from one exercise to another or even sweating. That's another reason to avoid one body-part bodybuilding style workouts. They don't emphasize your fitness or cardiovascular system. Your weight training program should be incorporating more than just weights. Balance out your sessions with some skipping, stair climbing, hard running, supersets, and really short rest periods. If you don't feel like you are going to throw up at the end of your weight training sessions, I have to question your workout intensity.

5. Stick to Basic Supplements

Your a teenager and should be saving your money for college and your first car. Don't get scammed by over hyped supplement ads that promise the world. Follow the saying, 'If it looks too good to be true, than most likely it is!” All you need to budget for now is a high quality multi-vitamin which you should take for life as well as a high quality protein powder in your arsenal and a regular omega-3 fish oil cap. Between these three supplements you are more than covered. Don't worry about creatine, glutamine, fat burners, testosterone boosters or even NO2 products. The first three to four years of your lifting should be done with just the basic supplements.

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The Top 3 Things to You Must Know About Muscle Building

Today I wanted to try and explain exactly what it takes to build muscle without going into too complicated of details.

I find that there are so many people and authors out there today that over complicate this topic to simply lure you into buying their latest program or their newest supplement.

Now of course, I have my own muscle building program and I would recommend some supplements to you as well but I am not saying that it is wrong. Today I simply want to give you good information that will hopefully clear up any confusion about what it takes to build muscle in its essence.

I am going to keep this nice and simple and base it on personal experience because in the end I believe your own personal experiences are the best way to measure any kind of results. You cannot simply rely on 'studies' or 'university tests' as most of these tests are either biased or they are based on genetically gifted individuals.

What do you need to do to build muscle?

Well let's think about this question for a moment.

First, understand that your body is more than content with staying EXACTLY the way it is right now. It would rather not change and it is programmed to be this way after thousands of years of evolution. This means that to make any change in our bodies composition, we are going to have to 'coax' it or persuade it in doing so.

So for today's purpose, building muscle, how do we persuade our bodies to do this?

Well we have to give it a 'reason' to grow!

There are many ways to do this but I am going to break it down into some manageable chunks.

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Caloric Surplus:

One of the keys to gaining muscle and weight is to consume more calories. The reason we want to give our bodies more calories is because if we are going to demand more out of them than what they are accustomed to, then we need to feed them with more fuel.

Think of it as if you want to travel further in a car. If one tank of gas gets you so far but you want to go further, you need to have more gas right? It's the same for building muscle. Feed it more so you have more energy to push it into spurting new muscle.

Now without going into excruciating details (which is not the point of this particular article), you cannot simply overfeed on junk food. Make sure you are eating lean proteins, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats.

Progressive Overload:

Now that you are eating enough to give your body 'extra energy' you will need to stress the muscles so that they respond by getting bigger.

Your muscles are currently the size they are based on the level of activity you have done in the past, your genetics and your strength.

We cannot change your genetics, but we can however change your strength to a degree as well as elicit hypertrophy (muscle building) by weight training.

To put it simply, you need to start progressively overloading your body with some form of resistance training.

Honestly, do not get too concerned about finding that 'Special' program that will be better than all the other programs out there. There are just too many training programs to try and choose 'the best' one.

In my experience, they all work! Yes of course some may be better than others but in the end you will get results no matter which program you try as long as you follow the key rules to muscle building. Rely on the foundation and principles instead of the program. In doing so, you will get results no matter which program you are on.

What are the foundation and principles?

Progressive Overload, Adapt, Proper Form, Mindset, Rest and Recovery.

Pretty simple right?

The main thing is to continue stressing the muscles by either overloading with volume training, getting stronger by strength training and making sure to give your body enough time to rest and recover and therefore GROW!

This is not to say that you can just keep getting stronger to the point that you will be performing 1000lb bench presses, but by cycling your training through different stages, you will start to get closer to what your genetic potential for muscle mass really is.

Eventually the gains will get harder to come by, but if you are just starting out, this will not be an issue.

Accepting the Inevitable:

By applying the right factors for muscle building, you will start to gain lean mass and you will start to gain weight which is good because that is the goal we are after.

However, you need to also accept that when you are gaining muscle that it is almost impossible not to gain a bit of fat while doing so.

Now I know there are going to be lots of people claiming that it can be done but in my experience these are people who are genetically gifted and they are the exception to the rule.

Other people who tell you this may be people trying to sell you something.

Finally, you can gain eliminate fat gain by gaining muscle at a slower rate.

It is your choice, but for those of you who want to build some serious muscle as quickly and effectively as possible, then you will just have to accept a bit of fat gain.

What is a 'bit'?

Well for the most part, for every 4lbs of muscle or lean mass you build, you will probably accumulate about 1-2lbs of fat with this. Of course this is if you are doing everything right and eating relatively clean.

Now you might be saying 'I don't want to gain fat!'.

Just realize that the muscle you build during the course of your muscle building phase will be on your body permanently provided you continue training and eating right.

What you want to do is go on a muscle building phase for about 6 months or so or longer (it is up to you) then you want to go on a fat burning phase for a couple of months to burn off the accumulated fat and keep the muscle!

See how that works?

This is just the way it is and I have experienced this myself and it is not as bad as it sounds. Most people do this continually and they consistently add 5-10lbs of muscle each time they do this until they start to reach their maximum genetic potential.

The good thing about doing this is you also get better each time you go through these phases and you start to optimize your gains and improve on your muscle to fat gain ratios.

Just accept a bit of fat when gaining muscle and don't stress over it. It happens to all of us and you will certainly be more grateful for the muscle after it is all said and done.

Conclusion:

Those are 3 simple areas of muscle building that should help you understand it a bit better.

I hope it is simplified enough and it doesn't make you over-think which is in my opinion the one thing people do too much of (including myself sometimes).

Keep it simple and always go back to the basics.

In knowing about these 3 things, it should put your mind at ease and let you focus on training, eating and enjoying the journey.

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The 6 Steps to Fat Loss Success for Beginners

For beginners, getting into fitness can be intimidating and confusing. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, getting fit is one of the most straightforward tasks you’ll attempt in the New Year. Fortunately, reaching your fitness goals requires only two things; discipline (that’s up to you) and a set of simple guidelines (which I’m happy to provide).

First, you should arrange for a full physical examination from your physician. This is mandatory for people that have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, or are obese. Once you have your doctor’s approval to begin a fitness program, you should schedule a fitness assessment with a health professional at your gym.

While both of these are incredibly annoying, they are essential to your success and well-being. The benefits of a doctor’s visit are obvious, particularly if you have one or more of the previously mentioned conditions but it also allows you and your doctor to discuss your lifestyle. Preventative medicine is far better than reactive medicine. Make your doctor part of your fat loss and health-building team along with the health professionals at your gym.

The real benefits of the fitness assessment aren’t finding out how much body fat you have or how many minutes you can last on the treadmill, but rather getting a better understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. If you want to avoid injury and actually achieve your goals this year, get to know your strengths and weaknesses.

The next secret is to walk, don’t run, to fitness success. If you want to pick up your University running workouts where you left them 10 years ago, that’s fine. But I guarantee you won’t last 10 days. And then it’ll be a dreary 355 days until you’re ready to try exercise again.

The hidden benefit of a good fitness assessment is that it will actually serve as a nice introductory workout to your return to fitness. It will buffer your delusions of fitness grandeur from the reality of what your body actually can do. After the fitness assessment teaches your body a lesson and awakens your muscles from their winter slumber, only then will you realize your limits that you must respect in subsequent workouts.

Goal-setting is the fourth secret to success (and not just in fitness, but in any area of life). It is much more effective to commit to a set of specific short-term and long-term goals than it is to routinely hope for weight loss each year.

Set realistic goals and remember to train within your limits. If you are currently sedentary and haven’t exercised in months (or years), don’t begin an advanced training program. Start with a conservative beginner program. Your belly wasn’t built in a day, and neither will be lost overnight.

Limit your initial workouts to 1 set per muscle group. In week 2, you should be ready to add another set. And if you want to build up to 3 sets, then do so in week 3. Slowly increase the weight and stay within your desired repetition range. At no time should you be too sore to function. And runners should also heed this advice. Too much running will guarantee shin splints in the early going. Avoid running on back to back days for the first two weeks and keep the distance short. Sore muscles are guaranteed when you lift. So keep the volume low.

And now for 2 super secrets that will help keep you committed and consistent with your workouts and will finally help you lose fat for good.

First, build your social support team. Social support is the #1 factor for success for women in fitness programs, and is important for men as well. Support can come from your spouse, brother or sister, child, mom or dad, friend, neighbor, co-worker, personal trainer, or lifestyle coach. Don’t try to go it alone. People respond better when they report to a person instead of a machine.

You also need to know that nutrition is the second most important factor for success in fat loss programs. That’s why you don’t need to train like a world-class athlete when you are starting to lose fat. Most of the fat you’ll lose in the early going is because you have chosen to make better nutritional choices. And if you don’t make better nutritional choices, even the best exercise program in the world isn’t going to help you achieve your fat loss goals.

Nutrition is a lot simpler than you think. Don't over think things. See a nutritionist or listen to what your mother told you as a kid. Food choices should contain a large nutrient-to-calorie ratio. Dr. Phil (yes that Dr. Phil) calls this “High-Response Cost, High-Yield Nutrition”. And follow this rule: Don't eat foods with added sugar or high-fructose corn syrup, but make sure to log your nutritional intake. This is a free website that allows you to track your calories, protein, carbohydrates, and fat.

The consistent use of these 6 secrets will help you achieve your fat loss goals this year. Make this year’s fitness plan a strategic investment in your future health. The most efficient and effective way to lose fat in 2005 is with my Turbulence Training workouts - the choice of fitness professionals.

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