Health News resources and information

While we are waiting for this ideal equality to arrive, we can create as much of it as possible under existing conditions. A just as well as a wise man, even though circumstances do not permit his wife to work outside of the home, will wish her to share the control of the family budget equally with him, although she may not possess the power to demand it that comes with a pay-check. The same is true of all property rights. Complete communism and democracy should be the rule of the family: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs, and in family conferences each to count as one and no more than one—not as in past ages when man and wife were one, but that one was the husband.

It might be well to add in this connection that it is no less important that the number of participants in family councils do not exceed two than that it be no fewer than two. Nothing can destroy the love of a man for his wife so surely as for her to depend upon her relatives’ advice in all her decisions. Such dependence is an indication not only that a woman has not grown up but also that she does not truly love her husband. The same may be said for those rarer cases in which a man is tied to his  relatives.

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The need for gradual withdrawal is the justification for use of nicotine gum and nicotine skin patches, both of which release low levels of nicotine into the bloodstream over extended periods to ease withdrawal symptoms. Your doctor can prescribe them for you with specific instructions on their use. Neither nicotine gum nor patches are effective unless used as part of a smoking cessation program. If your doctor prescribes nicotine gum, chew it until you feel a tingling sensation in your mouth (about 10 seconds), then “park it” between your cheek and gums. Then periodically re-chew and re-park for about 30 minutes. Use one piece of gum for every two cigarettes that you would have smoked. Taper off the gum until you stop using it altogether in 3 to 6 months.

Nicotine transdermal (skin) patches have also been shown to help smokers stop smoking. The major advantage the patches have over nicotine gum is the ease with which they are used. The nicotine is slowly released through the skin and enters the bloodstream. Nicotine patches are effective at reducing withdrawal symptoms and then, like the gum, their use is tapered. When the nicotine levels decrease and the addictive “pull” has subsided, maintenance of abstinence will depend on the behavioral adjustments you have made.

Other medications, notably a blood pressure medication called clonidine, which is available in a skin patch form, have been shown to reduce symptoms of nicotine withdrawal. They may be advisable for some people with particularly uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms who do not tolerate nicotine gum or patches.

Of course, the problem with quitting is not the moment of stopping, but the process of never smoking again. Experts now recognize that prevention of relapse is the key to success. Again, your commitment is the mainstay, but many of the strategies to prevent relapse are designed to give you commitment a better chance.

Setting  measurable,  well-defined goals,  recording your behavior to monitor your progress, having frequent contact with health care provides, and arranging for social support and positive reinforcement will help you succeed. Many people use token rewards to encourage their progress. It is also important to maintain this vigilance over a long time to avoid relapse. Regardless of the specific assistance you may need in stopping smoking and maintaining abstinence, a comprehensive smoking cessation center or nicotine dependence treatment center may enhance your effort. In these settings, counseling, prescriptions instructions, and follow-up can be focused on your specific needs.

Quitting smoking is probably single best thing you can do to red your risk of heart attack. Modifying other risk factors certainly will help, but nothing can help more than getting rid of cigarettes. The combinatior of smoking and other risk factors greatly amplifies your risk of developing coronary artery disease. Be a winner and quit.

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Yeast infections (candida albicans) are prevalent, debilitating, and conquerable.

When the Candida or yeast germ gets out of control in the body, it produces a toxin that not only affects the nervous system (causing headaches, fatigue, depression, hyperactivity, and memory loss, among others) but also the reproductive organs, leading to abdominal pain, persistent vaginitis, bladder problems, loss of sexual interest, and more.

Causes

• Antibiotics

• Nutritional deficiencies

• Birth control pills or cortisone

• Diabetes mellitus

• Improper hygiene

• Anxiety or physical stress

• Chronic constipation or diarrhea

• Food or chemical allergies

Cures

• Avoid substances that yeast can thrive on, such as sugar and refined carbohydrates.

• Eliminate all yeast-containing foods and any that may have mould (for at least several weeks or until the infection is gone). These include cheese, raised breads, sour cream, buttermilk, beer, wine, cider, mushrooms, soy sauce, tofu, vinegar, dried fruits, melons, frozen or canned juices.

• The drug usually prescribed is Nystatin, but there are many natural and extremely effective dietary combatants. Among them are garlic, broccoli, cabbage, onions, plain yoghurt, turnips and other vegetables.

Supplements

• High-potency multiple vitamin, a.m. and p.m.

• High-potency chelated multiple minerals (with at least 1,000 mg. calcium and 500 mg. magnesium, as well as adequate amounts of iron, zinc, and selenium)

• Vitamin C, 1,000 mg. (time release), a.m. and p.m.

• Vitamin E (dry form), 200-400 IU, daily

• Propolis, 500 mg., 3 times daily

• Free-form amino acids (balanced formula) daily

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Mr. Gupta was a very successful businessman, but he was not keeping good health, and was a regular visitor to our dispensary for odd, acute troubles which were relieved by routine medicines. We wanted to take his case history in order to find his constitutional medicine, but he never had time to tell his case history. He was always in haste. He used to jump the queue of the patients waiting for their turn with always the same apologitic “Sorry , but I am in great hurry” remark.

We also noticed that he was in hurry, even on Sundays when his shop was closed and there appeared to be no earthly reason for his indecent haste.

Evidently, he was not in hurry due to necessity, but was hasty as a matter of habit or temperament. We gave him ‘Impatiens’ T.D.S. for one week, and to our agreeable surpirse Mr. Gupta did not visit the dispensary for 8 weeks, and when he came for some small complaint next time, we gave him “Impatiens” for another 2 weeks.

After that he came very occasionally, but did not show his impatience or ‘HURRY’ in his behaviour and most of his ailments disappeared without any medicines.

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In the 1920s and early 1930s, phenobarbital and bromides were the only anticonvulsants available to treat seizures. There is an apocryphal story about the young daughter of a New York dentist who had uncontrollable seizures. She was taken to a group of disciples of Bernarr McFadden in Wisconsin, who would pray and fast with individuals for a price. Miraculously, the young lady’s seizures ceased. Prayer alone had no effect; prolonged fasting was effective but impractical. Searching for help to find an alternative to fasting, the family interested investigators at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere who were, at the time, studying infant nutrition. These investigators found that when an individual fasts, the body metabolizes its own protein, and large amounts of ketone bodies and uric acid are excreted in the urine. Erroneously believing that this had something to do with seizure control, they found that if the fast was broken by eating protein or carbohydrate, the uric acid disappeared. If the fast was broken with fat, the uric acid excretion continued. A diet was then constructed with minimal protein intake and most of the calories as fat. The diet had virtually no carbohydrates.

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Diet and exercise are important for everyone who has diabetes. For those with Type II they may be enough to bring the glucose levels into the right balance. But people with Type I diabetes must have injections of insulin to bring their condition under control.

Most people don’t like going to a doctor for shots, and the idea of having one or more injections every day (and giving them to yourself!) might seem scary. But people lose the fear of injections when they are given frequently, and daily insulin shots soon become routine.

Giving yourself an injection is really not too hard to do. First, you fill the syringe to the proper dose from the insulin bottle, taking care that no air bubbles remain in the syringe. Then wipe a spot on the skin with a cotton swab dipped in alcohol; this cleans the skin and kills any germs that might cause infection. Then, with the hand not holding the syringe, pinch up the skin into a bulge. (In a muscular area like the thigh, it may be better to stretch the skin out tight rather than pinch it.) Quickly insert the needle into the skin. (The quicker you are, the less it hurts.) Then push the plunger down, injecting all the insulin in the syringe; withdraw the needle carefully; and wipe the skin again with alcohol. Plastic disposable syringes are designed to be used once, then thrown away. (Bacteria could multiply on a dirty syringe, so reusing it could be dangerous.)

There are several new options available for taking insulin. Jet injectors, for example, deliver insulin without a needle, in a tiny pressurized stream that penetrates the skin. An insulin pen looks like a regular pen and contains an injection of insulin.

The belly, buttocks, thighs, and upper arms are the places most often used for insulin injections. (Unlike drug abusers, a person injecting insulin for diabetes does not want to inject the drug into a blood vessel. Injecting it into muscle or fatty tissues allows the insulin to be absorbed slowly, a little at a time, rather than in a big dose all at once.) It is a good idea to rotate the injection sites. Too many injections in the same spot sometimes cause the fat deposits under the skin to be absorbed into the body, producing an unsightly dent in the flesh. Deposits of fat under the skin may also form, causing raised lumps. These effects can usually be avoided by not injecting insulin into the same place more than once every few weeks. Both of these problems are also reduced with the human insulins available today.

Insulin shots twice a day are a rather unnatural way to keep the blood sugar level under control. Medical researchers have been working on devices to deliver insulin in a way that is more like how the normal pancreas releases it—in a small, continuous flow, which is increased when more glucose enters the bloodstream and can be adjusted as needed.

A major advance in this quest was the development of insulin pumps, first introduced in the late 1970s. Today more than 10,000 people with IDDM wear external insulin pumps. A needle is taped in place, and insulin is pumped from a storage container through a plastic tube. The pump delivers insulin continuously, in a tiny flow, which is set by the doctor and adjusted by the user on the basis of frequent blood tests and activities such as exercise. Before meals the user presses a button on the pump to get an extra squirt that will work on the glucose from the food.

Implantable pumps are surgically inserted under the skin of the abdomen. The size of a hockey puck, they include a pump and a reservoir containing enough insulin to last up to several months. The flow rate is set with a radio transmitter. Clinical trials involving 350 people with insulin-dependent diabetes are currently under way in the United States, Canada, and France.

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Intravenous antibiotics should also be started early upon suspicion of a necrotizing soft tissue infection. For necrotizing fasciitis, initial empiric therapy should cover streptococci, anaerobes, enteric gram-negative rods, and staphylococci. Suggested regimens include combinations of a penicillin or cephalosporin, an aminoglycoside, and anaerobic coverage with either clindamycin or metronidazole. Beta-lactamase inhibitor combinations (e.g., ampicillin/sulbactam) have also been suggested. In nosocomial and some community-acquired settings, infection from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus is possible, and vancomycin may be considered. Results of Gram stain, cultures, and susceptibility testing can assist in narrowing coverage.

High-dose penicillin is traditionally considered the drug of choice for treatment of group A streptococci, particularly due to Streptococcus pyogenes infections. However, there are theoretical advantages of clindamycin, including its inhibition of bacterial toxin synthesis. In experimental models of deep S. pyogenes infection, clindamycin has been shown to be superior. For this reason, the addition of clindamycin to regimens has been suggested for any possible invasive streptococcal infection.

Patients with suspected clostridial myonecrosis should be treated with high-dose intravenous penicillin. Some sources also recommend the addition of clindamycin for similar reasons as in necrotizing fasciitis. In penicillin-allergic patients, metronidazole has been combined with clindamycin. Given that infections may be polymicrobial and the diagnosis of clostridial myonecrosis may initially be uncertain, broad-spectrum antibiotic coverage, as for necrotizing fasciitis, is prudent pending surgical exploration and microbiologic testing.

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The problem is that the human body simply is not designed to handle excess cholesterol very well, and for some people this problem is much worse than it is for others. Population studies clearly show that when the LDL cholesterol level is over 100 (you’ll learn about LDL cholesterol soon), a rise in total cholesterol level over the 160 mg/dl recommended is accompanied by an increased buildup of the atherosclerotic plaque that could eventually block the arteries. And these problems are not related to age. Autopsy research has shown evidence of early development of coronary heart disease in young American soldiers killed in Korea and Vietnam: Atherosclerosis was found in over one-third of 300 soldiers autopsied in Korea, and early development of atherosclerosis was found in 45 percent of 105 soldiers autopsied in Vietnam. Fortunately, even though this clogging of the arteries starts early in life, it’s a disease that develops slowly. Unfortunately, however, atherosclerosis displays no symptoms as it gradually restricts blood flow – until it reaches the life-threatening point. In fact, consider that cardiovascular disease claims well over half a million lives each year.

The most recent cholesterol guidelines announced by the National Cholesterol Education Program state that a “desirable” total serum cholesterol is one that falls below 200 mg/dl, a “borderline high” is from 200 to 239, and any cholesterol reading over 240 mg/dl is “unacceptably high” and in need of treatment. This is a far cry from the 250 to 300 that used to be considered acceptable. Nevertheless, thousands of people with serum cholesterol levels between 160 and 200 mg/dl still die from cardiovascular disease every year, which is why we feel strongly that a desirable cholesterol level – less than 160 mg/dl – is what is needed in order to save more lives. But the fact is that most people cannot attain this truly safe serum cholesterol level by following the relatively liberal NCEP/AHA dietary guidelines, and as a result many people will have to take expensive and potentially harmful cholesterol-lowering drugs in an attempt to do so.

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Dr. Francis Crinella, clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of California-Irvine, has described how the soybean plant lifts up manganese in the soil and concentrates it so that its use in soy-based infant formula can result in as many as 200 times the level found in natural breast milk, thus overloading an infant’s body. New research suggests that high concentrations of manganese found in soybean-based baby formula can lead to brain damage in infants and altered behaviors in adolescents. Newborn infants exposed to high levels of manganese may be predisposed to neurological problems.

The experts are asking very important question these days about soy. Why deprive the newborn infants of perfectly good breast milk — a nutritionally superior food in every way for the baby and feed them soy beans which have serious adverse hormonal effects as well as causing many other health problems? Without a doubt, soy formula is one of the worst food that could possibly be fed to both infants or children.

So, now that the beans have been sPilled about soy formulas, milk might appear as a better alternative. Unfortunately that is not the case. Since commercial milk is super-laden wit antibiotics, bovine growth hormones and a whole host of allergic and indigestible ingredients, it also poses many health problems for the developing infant. The best solution is to learn to make truly safe, beneficial and nutritious inf. formulas.

One of the best sources to understand the specific nutritional needs of an infant and appropriate infant formula recipes is the excellent book Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. The following formulas are recommended by Sally Fallon.

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Obstructive sleep apnea may also lead to a DIMS problem, especially if patients become aware that they suffer from the disorder. This often happens if they remember that they have awakened frequently, or if their bed partners have told them about their snoring. If these patients begin to worry about their impaired breathing, they may develop a fear of falling asleep and thus induce a kind of secondary insomnia by forcing themselves to stay awake as long as possible. Therapy for such a problem must be twofold: the cause of the obstructed breathing needs to be discovered and managed, and the psychophysiologic pattern of behavior must be thwarted before it becomes entrenched.

Management of CSA usually involves the use of drugs, such as protriptyline, imipramine, or aminophylline, which are known to stimulate the breathing drive. Weight loss is also necessary in obese individuals. Sometimes an electric pacemaker designed to stimulate the diaphragm works in cases where the disordered breathing poses a threat to life. Unfortunately, such pacing cannot be timed to synchronize with the natural breathing rhythm; consequently obstructive apnea may develop, requiring separate treatment. For those patients in whom Cheyne-Stokes breathing produces severely lowered oxygen levels, a drug called acetazol-amide sodium has some benefits. The rate of success with all of these therapies, however, is somewhat low.

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