CDC video: Health experts suggest that you take several key steps to be protected against injury or illness when travelling to developing nations. This includes packing a health kit, bringing medications, and getting immunizations for safe and healthy travel.
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Health experts' tips for safe international travel
CDC video: Health experts suggest that you take several key steps to be protected against injury or illness when travelling to developing nations. This includes packing a health kit, bringing medications, and getting immunizations for safe and healthy travel.
In-flight exercises help during plane travel
Prolonged immobilization can cause circulatory stasis which is one of the predisposing factors for DVT described by Virchow in his famous triad: endothelial injury, stasis and hypercoagulability.In a trial of previously healthy patients who traveled at least 8 hours per flight (median duration 24 hours), duplex ultrasound showed an asymptomatic DVT in 10 % of participants. In other studies, the reported risk of symptomatic DVT after flights of more than 12 hours was 0.5%. According to a 2006 Lancet study, activation of coagulation occurs in some individuals after an 8-hour flight.
This Chicago Tribune article lists some useful in-flight exercises:
In-flight exercises for beginners
- Shoulder shrugs, shoulder rolls. Ten each.
- Short sets of bending and straightening the elbows and knees.
- Walk through the plane every two hours.
- March your knees up and down in your seat.
- Lift and lower your feet on tiptoes to work the calves.
Advanced In-flight exercises
- Neck stretches; hold on each side for 15 to 20 seconds.
- If you can find space (near an exit), work the core with yoga stretches. Pigeon pose — an intermediate move of folding one leg under the body while stretching the back leg out — is an in-flight favorite of hers.
- In your seat, lift your arms over your head, grip your hands together and lean from side to side for a few seconds on each side. Repeat.
- Walk the length of the plane every hour, incorporating deep lunges. Unless you want air marshals on your case, it might be wise to notify a flight attendant.
- Put a small flight pillow in small of back to keep posture upright.
References:
Midair exercise makes for happier landings. Chicago Tribune, 10/2010.
"Avoiding Airport Germs and Healthy Plane Travel Tips" by WebMD http://goo.gl/rLO2h
The risk of VTE (blood clots) is 3 times higher in passengers on long-distance flights than in the general population http://goo.gl/Tk45Z
Exercises for air travel — Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine, 2011.
Exercises for air travel — Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine, 2011.
Will Airplane Air Make Me Sick? No, but proximity to the other passengers very well might. WebMD, 2011.
Your smartphone use predicts your social life, travel, risk of disease - even political views
The Really Smart Phone: Researchers are harvesting a wealth of intimate detail from cellphone data, uncovering the hidden patterns of social lives, travels, risk of disease - even political views.
A microscopic look at hotel hygiene makes a microbiologist travel with an impervious mattress cover
From CNN:
The microbiologist Philip Tierno doesn't feel comfortable staying in hotels. He knows too much. He travels with an impervious mattress and pillow cover to protect against the unseen debris that guests leave behind. When humans sleep they shed about 1.5 million cells an hour.
While the covers were developed for allergy sufferers, Tierno encourages everyone to use them at home and on the road.
And definitely ditch the bedspread, he advises. Hotel bedspreads became a hot topic when one featuring bodily fluids from several sources was introduced in boxer Mike Tyson's 1992 rape trial.
How hotels clean drinking glasses
An Atlanta TV station used hidden cameras to monitor how the drinking glasses in hotel rooms were cleaned. In one case, a housekeeper appeared to clean a toilet and the glasses wearing the same gloves. In multiple hotels, the glasses were rinsed in the sink and dried for the next guests, in violation of health codes.
The Health Magazine lists the 12 germiest places in America or the so called "dirty dozen":
A microscopic look at hotel hygiene, CNN, 2011.
The microbiologist Philip Tierno doesn't feel comfortable staying in hotels. He knows too much. He travels with an impervious mattress and pillow cover to protect against the unseen debris that guests leave behind. When humans sleep they shed about 1.5 million cells an hour.
While the covers were developed for allergy sufferers, Tierno encourages everyone to use them at home and on the road.
And definitely ditch the bedspread, he advises. Hotel bedspreads became a hot topic when one featuring bodily fluids from several sources was introduced in boxer Mike Tyson's 1992 rape trial.
How hotels clean drinking glasses
An Atlanta TV station used hidden cameras to monitor how the drinking glasses in hotel rooms were cleaned. In one case, a housekeeper appeared to clean a toilet and the glasses wearing the same gloves. In multiple hotels, the glasses were rinsed in the sink and dried for the next guests, in violation of health codes.
The Health Magazine lists the 12 germiest places in America or the so called "dirty dozen":
- Kitchen sink
- Airplane bathroom
- A load of wet laundry
- Public drinking fountain
- Shopping cart handle
- ATM buttons
- Playgrounds
- Bathtub
- Office phone
- Hotel-room remote
A microscopic look at hotel hygiene, CNN, 2011.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
