Why reading on a screen before bed is a bad idea

By: Damon Beres

Source: huffingtonpost.com

You’ve heard that using screens before bedtime can mess with your sleep, but new research suggests the problem is even more serious.

Reading from an iPad before bed not only makes it harder to fall asleep, but also impacts how sleepy and alert you are the next day, according to new research from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, said the findings could impact anyone who uses an eReader, laptop, smartphone, or certain TVs before bed.

How Smoking Harms Your Vision

Source: http://www.allaboutvision.com/smoking/

Smoking is the single largest preventable cause of disease and premature death in the United States. It harms nearly every organ in your body — including your eyes.

Adverse — and often fatal — health effects of cigarette smoking such as heart disease and cancer are all too familiar, but sight-threatening vision and eye problems generally are less well-known.

Here are more reasons you should kick the habit:

Smoking and Cataracts

Cataracts (clouding of the eye’s natural lens) are a leading cause of blindness in the world. More than 50 percent of Americans will have a cataract or have had cataract surgery by age 80.

Smokers significantly increase their risk of developing a cataract compared with non-smokers. In fact, studies show that people who smoke double their chance of forming cataracts, and the risk continues to increase the more you smoke.

Smoking and Macular Degeneration

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) affects the center of the retina, which is responsible for sharp, central vision needed for everyday tasks such as reading and driving.

Macular degeneration causes “blind spots” and often severely impairs central vision. AMD is the leading cause of permanent vision loss among Americans age 65 and older.

Studies show smokers can have a three-fold increase in the risk of developing AMD compared with people who have never smoked. And female smokers over age 80 are 5.5 times more likely to develop AMD than non-smokers of the same age.

But it’s not all bad news: because smoking is the biggest controllable risk factor associated with AMD, quitting smoking at any age, even later in life, can significantly reduce your risk of developing AMD.

Quitting smoking can reduce your risk of eye conditions that cause vision loss.

Syrian refugees at risk from floods (Video)

 Syria’s winter season is usually very cold and includes heavy rainfall, putting displaced families living in refugee camps at risk.There is also a threat of disease spreading among these camps, but the international community can not keep up with the needs and methods of prevention.One of the camps has been flooded and more than 400 tents were destroyed.Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker reports from Beirut.

Mecca transformation poses risk to heritage (Video)

 Two million Muslims are coming to the end of their pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia. However, increasing construction to cope with the world’s biggest annual movements of humanity is leading many archaeologists to warn that large amounts of irreplaceable Islamic history are being bulldozed.

Nepal children risk death to study at school (Video)

 Hundreds of children in Nepal have to make perilous journeys to school every day using gondola-like wire bridges built over dangerous rivers. Risking injury and death, many take the measure so they can get an education and make it to school. Al Jazeera’s Subina Shrestha reports from Dhading.

Healthy ways to reduce cancer risk

By: healthy-holistic-living.com

Source: muslimvillage.com

MV Editor’s Note: The views expressed here are the opinion of the author and are not a replacement for consultation with a qualified medical practitioner. The information is provided by way of general advice.

For more than 40 years the war on cancer has been waged with abysmal results. It’s no secret that we are not winning the war on cancer, as it remains a leading killer in the United States and much of the developed world.

Abu Dharr Al-Ghifari (RA)

Source: http://hadithoftheday.com

Preface: These articles are only a summary of the lives of the great Companions and do not cover all the points of their life stories. These stories are not intended as biographies, but rather to provide a glimpse of the main incidents of each companion’s life. For ease of reading, we have not inserted “May Allah be pleased with him (RA)” each time the name of each Companion is mentioned, but please take it that the salutations apply to all of them, may Allah be pleased with them all.

Ebola epidemic ‘out of control’ says charity (Video)

Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/

Global medical charity Doctors Without Borders has given warning that the Ebola crisis in West Africa is “unprecedented, absolutely out of control”, as states across the world took steps to prevent its spread.

Bart Janssens, the charity’s director of operations, warned there was no overarching vision of how to tackle the outbreak, in an interview with Belgium’s  La Libre Belgiquenewspaper.

“This epidemic … can only get worse, because it is still spreading, above all in Liberia and Sierra Leone, in some very important hotspots,” Janssens said.

Risks from smoking

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