HIV Facts

October 1st, 2009   1 Comment

hiv9halfminfactEvery 9 1/2 minutes, someone in the United States is infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.  A startling fact presented by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).  CDC arrived at the 9½ minutes figure by dividing the number of minutes in one year by the 56,300 new HIV infections that were estimated for 2006. This result indicates that, on average, one new HIV infection occurs every 9.34 minutes in a year.

While many people believe the AIDS epidemic is no longer a public health issue in the USA, these facts present that the epidemic is real:

  • In 2006, an estimated 56,300 people became infected with HIV.
  • More than 1 million people in the United States are living with HIV.
  • Of those 1 million people living with HIV, 1 out of 5 do not know they are infected. (People who have HIV but don’t know it can unknowingly pass the virus to their partners.)
  • Despite new therapies, people with HIV still develop AIDS.
  • Over 1 million people in the United States have been diagnosed with AIDS.
  • More than 14,000 people with AIDS still die each year in the United States.

Before we can stop any epidemic, we first have to realize the magnitude of the disease.  Knowing the facts, protecting yourself, talking with partners and loved ones  about HIV/AIDS and getting tested for HIV are the ways to stop the epidemic.

Visit Act Against AIDS and spread the word.

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What is Cholesterol?

September 29th, 2009   2 Comments

A good starting point for controlling your cholesterol is to understand more about cholesterol.  Cholesterol is a waxy, fat-like substance that is found in all cells of the body. Your body needs some cholesterol to work correctly and your body is able to make all the cholesterol it needs.   Your body uses cholesterol to make hormones, vitamin D, and substances that help you digest foods.

Blood is watery, and cholesterol is fatty. Just like oil and water, the two do not mix. To travel in the bloodstream, cholesterol is carried in small packages called lipoproteins. The small packages are made of fat (lipid) on the inside and proteins on the outside. Two kinds of lipoproteins carry cholesterol throughout your body and it is important to have healthy levels of both:

  • Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol is sometimes called bad cholesterol.  High LDL cholesterol leads to a buildup of cholesterol in arteries. The higher the LDL level in your blood, the greater chance you have of getting heart disease.
  • High-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol is sometimes called good cholesterol.  HDL carries cholesterol from other parts of your body back to your liver. The liver removes the cholesterol from your body. The higher your HDL cholesterol level, the lower your chance of getting heart disease.

Too much cholesterol in the blood, or high blood cholesterol, can be serious.  People with high blood cholesterol have a greater chance of getting heart disease.   Many people are unaware that their cholesterol level is too high since it does not cause any symptoms.

Cholesterol can build up in the walls of your arteries (blood vessels that carry blood from the heart to other parts of the body). This buildup of cholesterol is called plaque. Over time, plaque can cause narrowing of the arteries or atherosclerosis, hardening of the arteries.

Special arteries, called coronary arteries, bring blood to the heart. Narrowing of your coronary arteries due to plaque can stop or slow down the flow of blood to your heart. When the arteries narrow, the amount of oxygen-rich blood is decreased. This is called coronary heart disease (CHD). Large plaque areas can lead to chest pain called angina which happens when the heart does not receive enough oxygen-rich blood. Angina is a common symptom of CHD.

Some plaques have a thin covering and can burst (rupture), releasing cholesterol and fat into the bloodstream. The release of cholesterol and fat may cause your blood to clot which can block the flow of blood. This blockage can cause angina or a heart attack.

Lowering your cholesterol level decreases your chance for having a plaque burst which can cause a heart attack.  Lowering cholesterol may also slow down, reduce, or even stop plaque from building up.  Plaque and resulting health problems can also occur in arteries elsewhere in the body.

Knowing your cholesterol level and tracking your progress on reducing your cholesterol level is easy and inexpensive with a home cholesterol test.

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Hair Drug Test Information

September 24th, 2009   10 Comments

The hair drug test is one of the most effective, and only, ways to determine long-term drug use in the home market.  Each one and a half inch sample of hair reveals a 90 day drug history when analyzed by a laboratory.  The hair test you purchase comes with the storage materials you will need for the hair, and a pre-addressed envelope to be sent off to the laboratory for confidential analysis.

It is impossible to tamper with your hair in such a way to alter the results of a hair drug test.   This is because the laboratory evaluates how much of a particular drug’s molecules are embedded in your hair shaft.  Anti-drug shampooing will not effect the hair or alter the results.  This method also eliminates external contamination as a factor.

If you are concerned that you will be unable to collect hair from the head that is long enough for the test, note that two of our hair drug tests accept body hair submissions.  Those tests are the Express HairConfirm Hair Drug Test and the Standard HairConfirm Hair Drug Test.  You cannot mix body hair and head hair when submitting your test though.  Body hair grows much more slowly than head hair and though tested the same way it must be evaluated differently due to the slow growth  – if you were to mix the two types of hair, you wouldn’t have enough of either type to give you an accurate drug history.

A hair drug test does not have very complicated instructions and is easy to perform.  It is not recommended however that you cut hair without the consent of the person whose hair is being cut.  Hair from a hairbrush will be difficult to align the way you are supposed to, and also may not be exclusively from the person you want to test.  This is an important point – when submitting a hair follicle drug test, you must be sure to keep all the hair in order, with all the root ends next to each other.  This is necessary for the lab as they measure how far from the root the drug molecules are to determine drug history.

Hair drug testing is a very effective way to determine drug use. You can buy a hair follicle drug test that tests for 6 or 7 drugs.  The drugs in common are marijuana, cocaine, opiates, methamphetamines, ecstasy and PCP.  The 7th drug is amphetamines.  Both PDT and HairConfirm lines are available.  To give you some idea of the effectiveness of Hair Drug Tests, please note that HairConfirm’s hair test technology has been accredited by the Ohio Department of Health, the New York Department of Health, and is a participant in the Federal Voluntary Hair Proficiency Testing Program.

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Anonymous HIV Testing

September 18th, 2009   3 Comments

If you want private, confidential HIV testing and don’t want to be seen going to a clinic or fear making an appointment with a doctor then you should consider a home HIV test.  The Home Access HIV tests are the only FDA approved home HIV tests, but are they really confidential and anonymous?

The test can be ordered online and paid for by credit card or paypal.  The charges will appear on your credit card statement as “homehealthtesting.com”, but it will not reference which test you purchased.  Your hiv test will be sent via mail or UPS in a plain brown box or in a Priority Mail box with a return address of “MLSC Inc”.  We do not use your information or share your information with any other company and you will not receive emails from us in the future.

When you receive the test, you phone an 800 number to register your kit by the Home Access Code Number printed inside.  The testing laboratory never knows your name, but only the kit number.  Follow the instructions for placing your blood sample in the postage paid mailer and send it to the laboratory.  After shipping your blood sample, you call back on the same toll-free number after either two or seven days (depending on which kit you purchased) and provide the code number and they will give you your results over the phone.  You can also request to speak with a counselor after receiving your results and they will not ask your name.

The 800 number and the code number are printed on a card that you keep after you submit your blood sample.  Since there is no name attached to your test, anyone who has the phone number and the code number can access your results.  Keep the card in a safe, private place until you can call and receive your results.

After receiving your results by phone you can request a written copy to be emailed to you.  The email request will also honor your anonymity if you set up a free private email account (like hotmail or yahoo) without your name and send an email to hivresult@homeaccess.com.  Be sure to provide your code number in the email.  When results are sent via email they are sent in a Portable Document Format (PDF) attachment which includes your Home Access Code Number (HACN) and your result. The email is not sent in encrypted form and therefore your result, HACN and email address could be read by someone on the Internet.   If you have concerns about these limitations you can request your results via U.S. Mail, but then you will have to provide a mailing address for the results.

If you choose the phone results option, then the only trace of the test that you will have is the test kit itself which can be safely discarded in your household garbage or you can take it somewhere else to dispose of the box that clearly says “HIV-1 Test System”.

The Home Access Health Corporation has gone to great lengths to insure your privacy while giving you access to vital health information.  The test is 99.9% accurate and you can find out your test results from a phone call and it will remain completely confidential since the testing lab will never know your name.

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Are home HIV tests accurate?

September 16th, 2009   1 Comment

Home HIV tests are convenient, private and confidential, but are they accurate?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved HIV home tests are as accurate as thefda_approved antibody tests done in doctors offices and health departments.  The FDA has tested the blood sample collection process and the laboratory interpreting the results and issued this statement about the FDA approved HIV test:

The accuracy of the Home Access HIV-I Test System is therefore estimated to be 100% (95% confidence interval 99.7-100%) based on correct identification of 1 147/l 147 clinical trial specimens. (FDA Summary of Safety and Effectiveness)

The home collected blood samples are shipped to a laboratory meeting CLIA requirements and complying to the FDA’s Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). The testing of specimens occurs in a dedicated laboratory where all testing processes and procedures are performed in accordance with written standard operating procedures. As per the GMPs, laboratory equipment and the Information Systems system have been formally validated. All laboratory employees are required to undergo GMP training and proficiency generic viagra training.

Only one HIV home collection test system is approved by FDA and legally sold in the United States. This test, sold as either “The Home Access HIV-1 Test System” or “The Home Access Express HIV-1 Test System” is manufactured by Home Access Health Corporation and allows blood samples to be taken at home, which people then send to a laboratory for testing.

The FDA has not approved any home HIV test kit that allows consumers to interpret their own results at home or “instant” kits.  The FDA has a consumer awareness program to warn about some false claims of home HIV test kits with instant at home results.

The Home Access HIV-1 Test Systems were approved by the FDA under PMA guidance, the strictest level of approval from the FDA, in 1996.  While the FDA statement of accuracy cited above can be confusing, Home Access Health Corporation boils it down to this, “Clinically proven to be more than 99.9% accurate“.

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