Health News Blog provides coverage of current health news.

During the first few days after you quit, drink large quantities of water and fruit juices. Try to avoid alcohol, coffee and other beverages with which you normally associate your cigarette smoking.
Do something else with your hands. If you used to smoke while driving to work, do exercises with your hands when waiting for the traffic lights to change. If you used to smoke while watching TV, keep a soft drink to sip next to you or munch popcorn or peanuts instead of smoking.
Try to keep away from your smoking friends for a few days.
Don’t sit in your favourite smoking chair.
Change your daily routine: e.g., if you were habituated to a cigarette as soon as you got up, go for a walk instead or have a shower.
Don’t allow you to trick yourself. A few favourite tricks are: “One cigarette won’t hurt”, or “I’ll just have one to prove that I have really been able to quit”. Recognise these symptoms and remember that these are just a momentary weakening of your resolve. Such thoughts should be stamped out as soon as they arise.
Think positive. Keep reminding yourself that you are a non-smoker now. Keep reinforcing the benefits you stand to reap by staying away from cigarettes.
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It comes as a surprise to many that men can get breast cancer – a particularly unpleasant surprise both to the men that are diagnosed with it and their families. One in 1,000 men develop the disease at some point in their lives, which accounts for around 200 cases a year in the UK. Male breast cancer is governed by the same hormonal influences as female breast cancers and there are many similarities between male breast cancer and breast cancer in post-menopausal women. Incidence is more likely with advancing years, with most men diagnosed aged sixty-plus, and the condition being extremely rare under the age of thirty. As with female breast cancer, the incidence is lower in Japan and other Far Eastern countries, and more common in the UK and USA. There is a high incidence of male breast cancer in some African countries where the frequency of liver infections is high. Liver problems reduce the ability of the body to process oestrogens correctly.
Men with Klinefelter’s syndrome, which affects one in 300 men who have an XXY chromosome pattern instead of the normal male XY chromosomes, have hormonal anomalies, and the incidence rate is similar to that of women. A condition known as gynaecomastia is an excess of breast tissue in men, and is associated with male breast cancer in up to 40 per cent of cases. Chest radiation exposure, testicular injury or inflammation, undescended testes, a history of using drugs which raise prolactin levels, a family history of breast cancer (male and female) and obesity are all added risk factors.
As there is less breast tissue in men, lumps are usually found at an earlier stage than for women. However, the lack of intervening tissue also means that spread to the lymph glands happens at an earlier stage. Men are also less likely to report a lump in the breast area than women, and a delay of eighteen to twenty-four months is common.
Bloody nipple discharge is present in about 80 per cent of all male breast cancer cases.
Treatment for men is similar to that for women. This includes surgery, which may also require skin grafts, as there is less ‘surplus’ skin to work with, and sometimes Tamoxifen. There is some evidence that men do not tolerate Tamoxifen as well as women, and in one study one in five men stopped treatment because of unpleasant side-effects, compared to one in twenty women.
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We repeat, water itself is beneficial. The wreckage it causes in our bodies comes from the method of drinking it. When water is consumed in our meals and how.
Bad drinking habits, unfortunately, are often passed on to us by our parents. If, as children, we see a pitcher of water on the table at meal-time, we naturally continue this habit through our adult years. This practice can lead to arthritis, and we later wonder if we inherited the disease. No. We inherited the water fad.
Take a test family of four children, all girls. They grow up, get married, and scatter to their new homes in different parts of the country. They take with them their water habits. If their husbands were not accustomed to seeing water on the dinner table, the men will now be introduced to the water craze.
In the average American home the lady of the house may drink water with breakfast. Her husband does not, but he likes vichy water for luncheon at the restaurant near his office. Their young son drinks water for lunch, instead of milk. Their teenage daughter drinks a glass of water every night before going to bed. She has heard that it is good for the complexion. The whole family is wrong. And they are flirting with arthritis, paving the way to become victims of this dread disease.

How much Water do We Need Daily?
Science tells us our bodies require a cubic centimetre of water for every calorie which our foods produce. Therefore, if you eat a 2,100 calorie diet each day, you need approximately 2,100 cubic centimetres of water. This amount, put into the usual receptacle, is equal to eight glasses of water!
No one would be foolish enough to recommend that you “drown” yourself by drinking eight glasses of water every day. Besides, there is no need to, because other foods contain great quantities of water.
Milk, for example, is 87 per cent, water. Coffee has even a higher percentage. So that arthritics will drink less water, we have prepared a special chart. The figures and foods below will prove to you that you are receiving plenty of water at every meal. Read this helpful list, and use it as a guide:
Foods    Percentage of water
Egg    74
Curd cheese    74
Cream cheese    53-3
Cheddar cheese    39
Butter    15-5
Veal    71
Liver    70-9
Chicken    67-1
Round steak    67
Lamb    66
Frankfurts    64-3
Corned beef    57
Ham    53
Pork    50
Oysters    87-1
Codfish    82-6
Salmon    67-4
Tuna    57.7
Sardmes    47
Cucumbers    96-1
Marrow    95
Lettuce    94-8
Tomatoes    94-1
Celery        93.7
Radishes    93-6
Asparagus    93
Spinach    92-7
Cabbage    92-4
Cauliflower    91-7
Broccoli    89-7
Carrots        88-2
Onions        87-5
Potatoes    77-8
Green peas    74-3
Cantaloupe    94
Water melon    92-1
Oranges    87-2
Peaches    86-9
The above listing offers conclusive proof that water can reach our bodies in adequate amounts while we eat. There is never a need to drink eight glasses of water a day on top of all these waterbearing foods. Three glasses—taken well before meals—should be plenty.
Millions of Americans who are now living healthy, normal lives, drink as little as one glass of water daily. They do not become dehydrated, or suffer any ill effects. Remember, too, that saliva, stomach juices, bile, pancreatic, and intestinal juices all have the necessary water to break down your food by natural means. This is accomplished without help from an extra glass of water.
Your body often decides for itself how much water it really needs each day. When it has enough, your system passes off excess liquids. Approximately four and one-half pints of water are eliminated every twenty-four hours. Most of it in the form of urine. Water is also released in your exhaled breath. Or as perspiration through your skin surfaces.
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