Potassium is an essential mineral which is known as an electrolyte. Electrolytes are responsible for maintaining the ionic balance of your body. Other electrolytes are sodium, calcium, magnesium, phosphate, chloride. These electrolytes bear an electric charge which manages the electrical activity of your health system. Potassium also helps the muscles of the body to function properly. In fact, it has its contribution in regulating blood pressure; a crucial role for a healthy heart.

Potassium deficiency is a kind of medical condition which is known as hypokalemia. The normal level of potassium in the human body should be in between 3.5-5.0 mmol/L. But the deficiency in potassium can cause severe problems including muscle weakness, nerve disorders, heart problems, etc. Kidney is the organ which is known to manage the potassium balance by removing the extra potassium through urine.

Causes of potassium deficiency:

Lack of potassium in diet
Dehydration
Diarrhoea
Too much sweating
Several medicines also cause potassium deficiency

Signs of potassium deficiency:

You are getting wiped out too often: Like it is discussed before that potassium is responsible for your muscles to work actively. Each and every cell needs the required amount of potassium to work effectively. So, a little deficiency of potassium can leave you exhausted throughout the day. If your normal working routine leaves you exhausted and if you are sweating too often, then there is a chance that you are suffering from hypokalemia.
High blood pressure: Potassium plays an important role in maintaining the blood pressure by helping in relaxing the blood vessels. Low potassium can cause the blood vessels to get constricted, due to which your blood pressure increases.
Muscle weakness: Potassium plays a significant role in building the strength of your muscles. Lack of potassium can easily cause muscle weakness, aches and spasms.
Irregular heartbeat: Anything regarding your heart problem can scare you badly; especially when you experience sudden skipped heart rate or when your heart rate doubles. Low potassium can cause such palpitations and skipped heartbeat.
Feeling dizzy: Lack of potassium in your body can slow down your heart rate and make you feel dizzy or you may feel that you are going to faint. Though many other medical conditions can be responsible for such symptoms but hypokalemia is one of them.
Constipation: Potassium deficiency can affect your overall health. You might encounter symptoms like bloating, abdominal cramping etc.
Numbness and tingling: Potassium is significant in keeping your nerves healthy. Potassium deficiency can make you experience numbness, needle sensations on your feet, wrist, etc.
These are the signs that people encounter when they suffer from hypokalemia. Hypokalemia can make you feel extremely sick and it causes several diseases which are discussed above. It is always advisable to visit a doctor when you encounter any of these above mentioned symptoms.

Potassium Deficiency - 7 Signs You Are Suffering From It!

A great alternative to refined sugar, honey is packed with essential nutrients and is really delicious to eat. There are many health benefits of honey. It can be easily added to any diet as a topping, say for fruit salads, ice-creams or as a spread. But are you aware that the jars of this tasty golden liquid can sometimes not be honey at all but syrup that tastes exactly like honey? So, How do you evaluate if you are buying real honey?

In order to boost profits, honey manufacturers dilute their product with adulterants such as flour, syrup or molasses and even sand and chalk. If you want to get the most out of this tick liquid, you should buy only pure honey.

What Is Pure Honey?
Real honey is not produced in factories but from bees. Usually, organic and natural honey are referred to as pure honey. However, it is not always feasible to tell if the honey is pure by just looking at it. Natural honey is made only by honey bees and when these bees are fed only at organically grown flowers, the honey they produced is classified as organic.

What Is Fake Honey?
Also known as artificial, adulterated or impure, fake honey contains additives including corn syrup, glucose, molasses, sugar syrup, dextrose, invert sugar, flour or starch apart from the floral nectar.

How To Find Fake Honey?
Listed below are a few simple tips that you can carry out at the comfort of your home to determine whether the honey you are buying is genuine or fake.



Read The Label: In addition to buying well-known and reputed brands of honey, ensure that you check the label for the logo and brand name. This will guarantee that the jar you pickup is not only good quality but also genuine. The label on the jar should list only one ingredient, honey, no additives, or flavourings.
The Warm Water Test: Add a teaspoon of honey to a glass of warm water. If the honey is pure, then it will sink to the bottom of the glass as a lump or stick to the spoon when the mixture is stirred. If the honey is adulterated with any kind of syrup, it will dissolve in the water.
The Thumb Test: Put a drop of honey on your thumb. If it spreads or spills, then it is not pure. Pure honey is thick in texture and would remain intact on your thumb.
The Flame Test: Honey is inflammable and easily catches fire. Dip a dry matchstick in honey, then strike the matchbox. If the matchstick lights with ease and continues to burn, then the honey is pure. Due to the moisture present as an adulterant in fake honey, a matchstick dipped in fake honey will not light easily.
The Foam Test: Add 2-3 drops of vinegar essence to the honey and mix well. If it becomes foamy within 2-3 minutes, then the product you have purchased is not pure and contains additives.
The Tissue Paper Test: Put a drop of honey on a piece of tissue paper. If it gets absorbed and leaves the paper wet or a watermark on the paper, then it is adulterated and not pure honey.
The Heat Test: If the honey is pure, then on heating, it will caramelize. However, fake honey tends to form bubbles on heating and does not caramelize.
The Bread Test: Pure honey when spread on the bread, makes the bread hardened within a few minutes. On the other hand, the slice of bread remains soft and moisturized if there are any additives present in the honey.
The Crystallization Test: Pure honey has a natural tendency to crystallize over time because of the presence of glucose oxidase, an enzyme that removes water/moisture from honey. Fake honey does not become thick, when stored.
The Egg Yolk Test: When honey is mixed will egg yolk in a bowl and both are blended together, the yolk looks like it is cooked. However, fake honey does not produce this effect on the egg yolk.
You might sometimes be able to spot fake honey by its taste and smell, though not always. Honey being a natural product and produced from the nectar of different flowers, it does not always taste or smell the same. It is also not possible to taste honey before buying it if as the product comes in a sealed bottle or jar. Therefore, it is recommended to only pick branded or organic honey to ensure that the honey you are buying is pure and genuine.

Honey - How To Spot If It Is Fake Or Not?

Causes of Hairfall and Solutions to Treat Them

In general, you lose about 50-100 strands of hair each day, but the loss is not visible as new hair grow in their place. However, if you lose more than a 100 strands in a day and more than 200 strands on the day you shampoo, you may be suffering from what is known as excessive hair fall. 

Certain factors or reasons may cause you to lose hair at an alarming rate, which are,

1. Thyroid problems
Your thyroid is responsible for your body?s overall functioning. The hormones (primarily T4 and T3), which it produces help in regulating metabolic activities. Problems with your thyroid gland can cause your hormone levels to rise or fall to unhealthy levels, which can result in hair fall. You can improve the functioning of your thyroid gland through a diet rich in calcium, iodine, magnesium, protein and Vitamins A, B and C.

2. Scalp infections
Infections of the scalp can also be one of the factors that may cause your hair to fall at an alarming rate. Of the different scalp infections, the ringworm scalp infection is the most common. Although this fungal infection can occur in any part of your body, when it develops on your scalp, you end up losing clumps of hair. Alongside the use of anti-fungal medications, even anti-fungal shampoos and creams can provide you with respite from the problem.

3. Poor diet
Gorging on unhealthy foods or going on a crash diet can result in the lack of essential nutrients in your body, which are required to maintain healthy hair. Furthermore, since hair is made of protein, having a balanced diet consisting of proteins and vitamin- rich foods is a must.

4. Stress
Stress gives rise to certain conditions such as alopecia areata, telogen effluvium (hair loss caused post-pregnancy or surgery) and trichotillomania (an impulsive need to pull your hair out), which can cause you to lose significant amount of hair. To avert a hair loss crisis caused by stress, make it a point to do some simple stress-reducing exercises, such as meditation or breathing exercises.

5. Hair styling products
Using hair styling products like hair colours and straighteners can cause you to experience hair fall problems. Your hair not only becomes dull and dry due to their use, but also becomes weak and brittle, leading to a gradual loss of hair. Regular oiling and use of homemade hair masks are some of the ways you can try to counter the negative effects of these hair styling products.

6. Cancer treatment
The drugs that are used in the treatment of cancer not only destroy the fast-growing cancer cells, but also the healthy blood cells in your body. For this reason, consuming foods that possess cancer-fighting properties (like oatmeal, tomato, almonds, garlic etc) is a sure-shot way of fighting the disease as well as averting any side-effects that may arise because of the treatment.

7. Alopecia areata
Lastly, hair fall can also be caused by alopecia areata, which is a kind of hair loss that takes place when your body?s immune system erroneously attacks your hair follicles, and prevents growth of new hair.

8. Genetics
The origin of your severe hair fall or baldness can be traced back to your ancestors. So, your genes can be a factor behind your hair fall problem. If this is the cause, your body then becomes unable to produce new hair.

Apart from the changes that you can make in your lifestyle to address the causes of your hair fall, there are also techniques out there that you can employ to permanently treat your problem, such as platelet rich plasma, mesotherapy, stem cell therapy, ozone activated platelet rich plasma & hair transplant.



8 Common Causes of Hairfall + How To Overcome Them

Water effectively constitutes 70-75% of human bodies and keeps us protected from many harmful things. But many people have a frequent question: is it alright to drink water before you brush your teeth? Will it harm your body? Let us discuss the same in this article.

Many people believe that they should not drink water before brushing their teeth because of the bacterias present in saliva after you wake up. But this is a myth and it does not have any scientific logic. When you drink water after waking up before brushing, your saliva goes with the water down into the stomach which results in the killing of the bacteria due to the high acid content inside it. Therefore there is absolutely no harm if you drink water before brushing teeth.

If you are familiar with Japanese culture then you must know that the Japanese drink two glasses of water every morning immediately after they wake up. Drinking water immediately after you wake up without brushing your teeth does not harm you in any way. Doctors always recommend drinking two full glass or at least one, on an empty stomach. There are several benefits your body receives when you consume water every morning after you wake up.

Drinking water every morning has its own long list of benefits. Let us have a look at them-

Boosts your immunity- Drinking water every morning strengthens your immunity system. Helps you to fight diseases and germs much better.
Clears the bowels- After your drink water in the morning, you will get an urge of flushing out your bowels. This way the bowels remain clear and you do not face any constipation issues.
Speeds up metabolism- Your metabolism gets boosted when you drink water resulting in faster digestion and metabolic rate. It also keeps you hydrated through the day.
Prevents headaches and migraines effectively and it also helps in preventing colon infection because your bowels get cleared easily.
Helps in weight loss- Drinking water every morning helps you to lose weight by a significant margin due to the fact it occupies the stomach killing the desire to eat much in the morning.
Beneficial for skin- Increase in the freshness of your skin complexion which water delivers if you drink it every day in the morning. It flushes out the toxins and dead cells which helps in increase of new and fresh body cells.
Thus as you can see the long list of benefits you will receive if you drink water every day after you wake up.

Is It Alright To Drink Water Without Brushing Your Teeth?

Natural Homemade Recipe for reducing Grey Hair

Greying hair can be a concern, especially if it s premature. Causes of grey hair are many however the most common ones are stress, age, heredity, smoking, pollution, not enough hair care, hypothyroidism, albinism and deficiency of vitamin B12. Grey hair can be reduced with home remedies as well. Some of them are:

1. Take pure ghee on your finger tips and massage on your scalp. Do this twice a week.
2. Rubbing the juice of onions is a good way to reduce grey hair. It is also a good way to reduce hair loss.
3. Shikakai is known to be a good herb for our hair. You can soak about four pods of shikakai along with soap nut seeds in a jug of water. Soak overnight and boil in the morning. Strain and store the water in a bottle to be used as a natural shampoo. With this, you can use water in while amla has been boiled, as a conditioner.
4. We know that oiling the scalp is the best way to have healthy hair. Mustard oil is very good for our hair. In about 250 gms of the oil, add 60 grams of henna leaves and boil will the leaves are completely burnt. This infused oil can be applied on hair regularly to reduce grey hair.
5. Bhringraj oil is also good for hair. Bhringraj can be taken orally for the same desired effect.
6. A glass of fresh carrot juice is said to overcome the problem of grey hair.
7. Henna powder, along fenugreek paste, paste of basil leaves, mint juice, coffee and yogurt when mixed into a paste after being soaked overnight and applied on the hair and scalp, is a good way to treat unwanted grey hair.

If you would like to consult with me privately, please click on 'Consult'.

Natural Homemade Recipe for Reducing Grey Hair

In this health-conscious era, more and more people want to stay fit. They constantly look for ways to maintain good health. Many have even developed a good habit of starting the day with a glass of lukewarm water as soon as they wake up in the morning. Yes, drinking water on an empty stomach offers the maximum health benefits. It not only stimulates the removal of toxins from the body but also benefits the overall digestive system. 

Although warm water isn t the most palatable, there are many reasons to start drinking it this way, either alone or with lemon. Below given are 6 reasons to start drinking lukewarm water on an empty stomach:

Digestive system: The food pipe, after having digested a variety of foods the previous day, would still be left with remnants. Starting the day with a glass of warm water acts as a good flush, which removes all these remnants. The warm or hot water also helps in removing greasiness, which is very helpful in people who eat a lot of junk food.
Helps in Weight loss: Drinking warm water on an empty stomach is perfect for those who are trying to lose weight as warm water raises body temperature and the metabolism. This, eventually, helps in burning more fat and boosting the weight loss efforts through diet and exercise changes. Ideally, you should add some drops of lemon in it. 
Strengthens Immune system: When a glass of hot water along with some lime is consumed early in the morning, it gives the required dose of vitamin C and potassium to the body, which strengthens your immunity system. Also, as the stomach is empty, the absorption is faster. 
Maintains body s pH balance: The body s pH turns alkaline as the ascorbic acid and the citric acid is easily digested and removed from the system. Drinking warm water helps in maintaining the required pH in the body.
Keeps you positive throughout the day: A nice juicy lime smells great, and this can be one of the best mood enhancers to begin your day with.
Skin and hair: For anybody with good skin, the key success factor is hydration, and a glass of warm water in the morning works like a cherry on the cake. When our body accumulates toxins, it becomes prone to illness and aging. A glass of hot water in the morning stimulates detoxification and helps in repairing skin cells and elasticity.
So, start your day with a glass of warm water and feel the difference. In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!

Benefits of Drinking Lukewarm Water in Morning - Start Your Day With It?

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