I've had eczema since probably the second grade. It consisted of scaly and blistery skin that hurt (and sometimes wept) and covered my face and scalp. Some prescription medicine helped but what cured it was inexpensive and has lot longer history of use: hydrocortisone.

Just get a tube of 1% hydrocortisone (about 2 dollars) and after you shower put it on any area that has the breakouts including your scalp. Work it into your scalp as you would hair gel. Amazingly, my hair feels clean like when I was in the first grade because the eczema oil isn't being generated on my scalp any longer.

The best part about this solution is that hydrocortisone has a long history of use and it's very safe, so you don't have to worry about unknown side effects like when Accutane was in vogue as the latest cure for pimples. My poor friend used Acutane for years but the truth is that maturity is the only thing that eventually cured his acne. Eczema gets better as you age also but unlike acne it is very persistent and predates puberty and typically lasts throughout adulthood. Hydrocortisone can kick recovery from this nuisance into high gear. Try it because you have nothing to lose but you woes.

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Source

Good advice that I've followed as a vegetarian for almost 10 years now. Nutritionism is the ideology that the nutrients of food are the same outside of their context. Of course, that's only true if you can figure out every interaction with every other chemical that exists alongside your desired "nutrient" - which is impossible. In a nutshell, sprinkling powdered vitamin C on your high fructose corn flakes isn't the same as eating fruit and may be a causative factor in the skyrocketing obesity in the US.

Like what quantum mechanics show us, the farther you go down the rabbit hole, the more vast it becomes. There's no magic, discrete particle at the bottom of it all, only another layer. We know about a lot of particles in food but what's the point of trying to reduce an apple into its "parts" which can then be reconfigured into an "apple"? We'll never know exactly what makes vitamin C work in an apple and not work as an added fortified powder (or even if the so called vitamin C is what's doing anything at all) but the trick may be as simple as "something in our biology knows the real deal when it consumes it."

The food scientists trying to create the next marketing buzz are out of luck because you can't make an apple better than it already is and you can't replace it with something that tastes less healthy - say, an apple turnover, and get the health benefits. Corporations are good at producing twinkies so how about they just stick to that and stay out of the "health" area which is something foreign to the entire idea of creating something for profit. It has never been profitable to be healthy and as we've learned from Fen-phen to diet drinks containing Aspartame to the gut busting Olestra in chips - it's all a bunch of BS.

Food doesn't have ingredients. The more ingredients in the "food" you buy (if you actually know what they are), the less healthy it is and that makes cereal one of the leaders in crap food. Something isn't healthy just because it's sprinkled with 100% of the RDA (whatever that means) of powdered vitamins. Is anything going to change on a global scale? It's doubtful. People are naturally trusting of corporations for some some reason. We'll buy whatever they market to us and feel superior if it's touted as "healthy". I suppose it's a personal journey. Movements by their very nature lack common sense.

As I watched the Super Bowl last night (unfortunately it was incredible boring this year with the exception of Prince), I couldn't get out of my mind that 50% of the players last night were going to get concussions. Concussions end many a football career and Troy Aikman is a recent example that comes to mind who retired after suffering his 10th reported concussion.

Of course it's not surprising that the football industry has come up with their own solution to the problem: helmet technology improvements (or "more of the same"). This will only result in "fewer" concussions but it will never eliminate them because of the actual culprit: the helmet itself. The wearing of the helmet, which I believe is mostly for decorative purposes like the rest of the so called "uniform", gives the player the false confidence to use his head as a battering ram. I speak from experience. Part of the "training" I received in recreation department and junior high football was running at another player header first, battering ram style, and seeing if you could remain standing.

Simply put, Rugby isn't as dangerous as Football because of the lack of padding but even Rugby isn't without its concussions though they occur less. You would never think that you could use your head as a battering ram if you had no decorative "safety" helmet. In fact, all of the so called "safety" padding is mainly decorative and give the player a false sense of confidence and makes the game more risky - and dramatic. I was disturbed during one game when my teammate's foot was dislocated and he was screaming as it dangled from the end of his leg. I have yet to hear of such an injury in any other sport and seeing it first hand as a youngster greatly disturbed me and led eventually to my quitting football in early junior high. I suppose I'm a wimp, huh? I should've shook it off like half of the players that get concussions and continue playing in the game. Maybe we all should grow up a little but I know that's not likely as long as this all makes money.

Sure, it's all macho posturing and the pad and uniform are for dramatic effect but when you consider what an actual concussion is the glamour just isn't there anymore. Andre Waters recently committed suicide after suffering brain damage due to multiple concussions. Now, suicide isn't directly linked to concussions but common sense tells you that it certainly didn't help matters. When I see Muhammad Ali I'm sad because I know boxing caused his condition or at least obviously exacerbated what may have been genetic. Getting hit in the head innumerable times will obviously have consequences.

Football, or the current exploitative version of it, shouldn't exist and neither should boxing because they're barbaric - no different from the lion's den of the Roman times with traumatic, long-term injury replacing actual death, and disproportionately afflicting the poor. There aren't a lot of middle class and above boxing stars and there never will be and football's not far behind statistically.

I used to be a soda-holic. The more high fructose corn syrup, sugar and caffeine the better. But I noticed something over time - my teeth were getting more and more cavities. As a youth I hardly had any cavities in my teeth. Now, surely this is partially due to youth itself and possibly enzymes that some people have and others don't, but this was getting ridiculous. As we age, the natural directions we chose as children tend to drag our immune system down and we get more and more unhealthy and teeth is one of the first things you may notice.

Now, all of this was exacerbated by high sugar sodas I was drinking all day at work (and off work). After a heavy day of soda drinking I noticed that I had a coating on my teeth that turned out to actually be the gunk the dentists were removing whenever I had my checkups. So, why not just keep your teeth (almost) perpetually clean by rinsing?

That was my first step - after EVERY swig of soda I would slosh water in my mouth. This worked wonderfully. After I got my teeth cleaned at the dentist I started my full-time sloshing routine and after almost a year my teeth feel amazingly clean. Sure it was a little annoying to always have a glass of water handy but I was determined not to get another cavity if I could help it. If that worked then why not take it a step further?

The next step was to just skip the middle man and just drink water as my primary beverage. I'm not talking about an unbreakable rule, just a custom and this works even better. After a few weeks of caffeine and sugar withdrawal (headaches and body pains but nothing too drastic) I feel better than ever with more energy and less stress and anxiety. I'm already a vegetarian so the next logical step would be to eat a more natural diet anyway and plus it will preserve your teeth.

Anything you add to your body's natural processes is ultimately a trap. You drink caffeine to avoid something - maybe stress or just boredom. Then, the caffeine itself causes its own type of boredom and stress. Now you have to deal with that on top of what you were avoiding in the first place. You're eventually running yourself ragged like a rat on a treadmill. Try the rinsing and then switch to the natural beverage - water - and see if your teeth don't improve.

Now if I can just get that early rising thing down...

This approach, called calorie restriction, involves eating about 30 percent fewer calories than normal while still getting adequate amounts of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. Aside from direct genetic manipulation, calorie restriction is the only strategy known to extend life consistently in a variety of animal species.

Even researchers who believe calorie restriction can extend life in humans concede that few Americans are likely to stick to such a restrained diet over a long period. The aging of the body is the aging of its cells, researchers like to say. While cell death is hardwired into every organism’s DNA, much of the infirmity that comes with advancing years is from an accumulation of molecular insults that, experts contend, may to some degree be prevented, even reversed.

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