10 Safety Hazards to Avoid During a Hike

Hiking can be very exciting and exhilarating for many of us. But it is one thing to know about the dangers in the form of animals, like bears and cougars, and it is a completely different thing to be aware of the other dangers which surrounds us. Here are the top ten safety hazards that are pretty much guaranteed to ruin a hiking trip.

1. Giardia

When you run out of water sources, you might come across a stream or spring that might just be what you are looking for. However, if the body of water is contaminated by the micro-organisms that live in the fecal matter of cows and other animals they might turn out to be Giardia. These parasites, which live in the water, can cause highly uncomfortable cramps in your stomach, vomit and other health issues that you really do not want to have during a trip. So make sure you carry something to disinfect the water before you drink it and, if possible, carry as much water as possible.

2. Poisonous Plants

Do not eat any berries or plants that you are not 100% sure is safe, no matter how hungry you are. Check out any available information about poisonous plants in your trail before you go out on the hike.

3. Blisters

The friction between your shoes and skin will cause blisters. This will happen more if it is wet and hot. Make sure you wear shoes which gives a lot of ventilation. Bring extra pair of socks and avoid getting your feet wet.

4. Sunburn

The sun can be really intense so wear sunscreen. If you don’t want to put sunscreen on, put clothes which protect you from UV rays, along with a hat to cover your face. Sunburns are not fun and long exposure is dangerous in several ways.

5. Falling/Accidents

As you go on a hike, you are likely to come across opportunities for some amazing views of your surrounding area. However, this might involve standing on some high places. Never hike in the dark and be careful around the edge of a cliff. Even a fall from a few feet might result in a fracture or sprain, which can put you at greater risks.

6. Getting Lost

Carry a map or GPS. Take a picture of the trail map in your smart phone before you set out on it. Some trials are very difficult to follow and this will ensure that you are always on track. Along with all of that, if you have already planned out your trip beforehand, it is a smart thing to consider leaving this information with a friend or family member.

7. Cold Temperature

The temperature can get really cold when you go to higher altitudes. Many hikers find themselves in severe cold and snow storms. So make sure you check the weather report before you go out on a hike. Bring the necessary jackets and clothes and some tools to start a fire if you need to.

8. Flash Floods

Narrow slots in places like the canyon can be extremely spectacular to hike in. But they also get flooded very fast when it rains. Make sure you check the weather and if it is going to rain, avoid the narrow slots.

9. Dehydration

The heat is something you have to come prepared for. Try not to hike in the hottest part of the day. Carry more water than you think you need. Especially when you are hiking in places where it may be harder to come across shade. Heat stroke and dehydration are very real threats and this can happen on any day and not just during the hottest summer.

10. Lightning

Lightning can pose a big threat. If you ever find yourself in a storm, take shelter but avoid isolated trees at all cost. If you are in the open, you should crouch low and separate yourself from your companions. Do not lie down. While you want to stay as low to the ground as possible you still want to have the bare minimal contact with the ground at the same time.

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That Sugar Film: How You Can Develop Liver Disease from Eating ‘Health Food’

Actor Damon Gameau is making his debut as a feature filmmaker and documentarian in a new film starring himself as he participates in a 60 day experiment, in a similar fashion of the film Super Size Me, to test the effect of sugar on his body. The twist is that the sugar he consumes throughout the experiment isn’t coming from soda’s, fast foods, or candy bars, it’s coming from packaged goods that advertise themselves as so-called “health food.”

The motivation for making That Sugar Film comes three years after Gameau decided to eliminate refined sugar from his diet entirely. This meant that at the beginning of the film, his body was basically a clean slate to test these effects on. The average American consumes more than 126 grams of sugar per day, which is roughly 31 teaspoons, and more than twice what the World Health Organization recommends for daily intake. For this experiment, Gameau consumed the average sugar intake for Australians, which is 40 teaspoons of sugar a day.

To control for other factors, he maintained the same level of physical exercise and ate the same number of calories he had consumed prior to starting the experiment. As Gameau explains, the calories might be the same number on the plate, but “once they enter the body they behave very differently metabolically, and trigger different hormones that affect appetite and all sorts of things.” He ate mostly “health food” including cereal, smoothies, breakfast bars, juices, and low-fat yogurt. He purposely chose products that advertise themselves for their health benefits, such as being packed with vitamins or low in fat.

“If I’d gone and consumed Mars bars and Cokes the whole time I think we all would know I’d have had ill effects. We get that,” Gameau says. “Where people have been duped is around the lack of integrity and accountability in labelling. You see some of these products in the supermarket with a sunset on them. Or words like Mother Nature and a bee and a flower or something. And people believe it.”

The results: liver disease, 4 inches of visceral fat around his organs, 18 extra pounds, mood swings, and (according to the doctors he consulted with) early signs of what could lead to cardiovascular problems. After just twelve days he put on his first 5 pounds, and just 18 days in is when he started to develop symptoms of fatty liver disease.

Though his concerns are quite seriously, That Sugar Film tries to deliver it’s message is a fun, accessible way. There are plenty of playful special-effects, animated clips, and jokes to induce laughter. Experts even deliver their insights and expertise within these surreal animations.

The products he consumes in the film aren’t blurred or covered. They’re recognizable brands including Up & Go, Big M, Prima, Sanitarium, Heinz, Tip Top, Fruche, and Kellogg’s. The had a team of lawyers helping them make sure they weren’t stretching or exaggerating anything, just interpreting the label for viewers, which anyone conceivably could do themselves by going to a local health food store and purchasing the same items. The point he wants to drive home is that all the information the public needs to pay attention to is right on the label, if you’re willing to pay attention.

He concludes by reminding consumers that they are in control of the product they buy, so they essentially have all the power they need to demand change. “We’ve been led to believe these companies have all these powers and are very persuasive in their advertising,” Gameau says. “But at the end of the day you make that movement from your hand to your mouth and you can override all the signals they are giving you.”

New guidelines from the World Health Organization suggest that people cut their daily intake of free sugars to less than 10 percent of their overall calories. The best way to do that? Eat fresh, unprocessed foods that you cook or prepare yourself. That way you have total control over how much sugar goes into your system.

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Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail

Joining the list of around 3,500 people who have made the impressive hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, is Ian Crombie or “DirtWolf,” per his trail name. Ian made the 2,654 mile trek from Mexico to the Canadian border from April 2014 to September 2014.

The Pacific Crest Trail makes up what is called the Triple Crown of Hiking, the informal name for three long distance hiking trails: The Pacific Crest (2,654 miles), the Appalachian Trail (2,184 miles), and the Continental Divide Trail (3,100 miles).

Asked why he took on this months long journey in which he did face rather risky situations, such as falling into and almost being dragged away by an icy river, Crombie said that he didn’t want to live always talking about things he wanted to do but never actually doing anything.

Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail will be an exciting thing to attempt, and certainly something to suggest to the family. It is, however, risky although for some people it is a challenge to prove to themselves that they can achieve anything. Hiking proves what people can achieve when they treat the world around them with respect.

This is why the Pacific Crest Trail Association honors those that complete the 2,600 mile trek with their “2,600 miler” list. They also offer hikers a medal or certificate of completion to commemorate their trek.

So what are some necessary items to complete this trail?

Here is some advice gleaned from Crombie:

1. To not lose your sunglasses, useful on those sunny stretches of trail, croakies are an investment. Those are the bands that hold your glasses to the back of your head or around your neck.

2. Lightweight, fast drying trail running shoes…and be sure to be ready to buy more than 1 pair. Crombie went through six pairs of shoes in his 5 month hike. He claims he could average about 500 miles per pair.

3. Calorie dense snack bars and Snickers bars. You will sweat a lot and lose a lot of weight on a 2,600 mile hike. Hikers he met up with, according to Crombie, would try to eat as much as they could whenever they got to towns and visited convenience stores.

4. A good backpack to carry all the necessary items, especially good. It will be heavy and that’s just a part of the workout. When Crombie started his trip, he weighed 190 pounds and lost over 20 pounds overall after averaging twenty five miles per day carrying 30-40 pounds on his back.

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3 Innovations in Health Care

There are several innovations in the world of healthcare that have extended our life expectancy and
made every day life and medicine much easier and efficient. However, there are also certain innovations that are largely unseen by the average citizen and sometimes not even by fellow medical professionals. These uncredited innovations are making small yet important improvements to everyday medicine. Here are 3 such improvements to the world of medicine:

1. Innovations in cardiac care

Thanks to improvements to how patients are diagnosed and treated for coronary heart disease, death rates have dropped 38% within the last decade. These improvements were largely quiet, incremental and had no spotlight shined on them but a 38% drop in 10 years is an amazing feat.

Hospitals as well as doctors had begun implementing methods that streamlined the process of diagnosing and treating heart disease. EKGs, for example, can now be performed on location by a paramedic when they reach a patient and transmit the data to the ER. Prior to this, an EKG could only be performed after the ambulance arrived at the ER but it is well known that timely response and treatment is critical.

On the more administrative side of things, lawyers have also streamlined the document and consent form process.

2. Leveraging technology and data to improve kidney transplant matching

This innovation came from the field of Economics, where Stanford professor of economics, Al Roth, worked on “matching markets.” This was cleverly adapted to matching donors and recipients of kidneys, sometimes creating a large and intricate web of donation and receipt of these vital organs.

For example, if a family member needs a kidney transplant and you wish to donate but aren’t a match, the hospitals can find someone in need of a kidney with whom you are a match while finding a match for your family member. This way, both people who intended to donate a kidney, donated a kidney and helped two people who desperately needed a donation. 

Sometimes this exchange gets a lot more intricate and has saved many lives.

3. Rise in popularity of “Direct Pay” to Physicians

This is more of a trend than a physical innovation but direct pay physicians are gaining popularity around the country. What this entails is the follow: Patients pay a flat fee monthly to their physician and that gives them unlimited access to them. This could be by phone or email, and they can have routine services like check ups, treatments for cuts and burns, infections, shots, and other exams. Since every American is required to have some level of health insurance under law, and since the monthly fee tends to be very affordable, patients can save money on medical insurance by only getting services that cover surgeries and hospital stays.

Through direct pay, physicians can spend more time with a patient. With normal medical insurance, doctors typical spend no more than 15 minutes with a patient.

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Kitra Cahana leads this Ted Talk giving us a glimpse into life on the road.

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Walking for 2 Minutes

The reality is that many jobs today require workers to sit for hours on end in front of a computer screen. While computers, and technology in general, have been amazing for worker productivity, the act of sitting all day can be extremely damaging to ones health.

Sitting all day can increase the risk of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, inflammation and atherosclerosis. All of these sound horrible. And if you do work a job that requires you to sit in front of a computer all day, it is little nerve wracking not knowing how to prevent this.

New research has emerged, however, that has found that a simple two-minute break to move around every hour may counteract the negative effects of sitting. According to research at the University of Utah School of Medicine, those who moved for at least two minutes every hour had a 33 percent lower risk of dying.

Most of the current national focus has been on moderate or vigorous activity in order to stay healthy and prevent the health risks of the typical desk job. Dr. Srinivasan Beddhu, the lead author of the study and a professor of medicine, stated that “to see that light activity had an association with lower mortality is intriguing.”

During the study, a total of 3,626 participants wore accelerometers to measure the intensity of their activity during the day. They examined light activities such as walking around the office or going up and down a few flights of stairs. What they found is that “even small changes can have a big impact.”

Those with chronic kidney disease saw a 41 percent lower risk of dying in the time period studied, which was about three years on average. These participants were also the most sedentary, spending 41 minutes of each hour immobile, compared to 34 minutes in the group as a whole.

However, it is important to remember that two-minute bursts of light activity every hour should not replace the accepted federal guidelines for physical activity. It should be used as supplement to your 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity every week.

 

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