From A Cardiac Specialist!
Drinking water at certain time maximizes its effectiveness on the body:
2 glasses of water after waking up - helps activate internal organs
1 glass of water 30 minutes before a meal - helps digestion
1 glass of water before taking a bath - helps lower blood pressure
1 glass of water before going to bed - avoids stroke or heart attack
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Monday, May 2, 2011
Why Chinese Women Don't Get Breast Cancer
Prof Jane Plant
WHY WOMEN IN CHINA DO NOT GET BREAST CANCER
By Prof. Jane Plant, PhD, CBE
I had no alternative but to die or to try to find a cure for myself. I am a scientist - surely there was a rational explanation for this cruel illness that affects one in 12 women in the UK ?
I had suffered the loss of one breast, and undergone radiotherapy. I was now receiving painful chemotherapy, and had been seen by some of the country's most eminent specialists. But, deep down, I felt certain I was facing death. I had a loving husband, a beautiful home and two young children to care for. I desperately wanted to live.
Fortunately, this desire drove me to unearth the facts, some of which were known only to a handful of scientists at the time.
Anyone who has come into contact with breast cancer will know that certain risk factors - such as increasing age, early onset of womanhood, late onset of menopause and a family history of breast cancer - are completely out of our control. But there are many risk factors, which we can control easily.
These "controllable" risk factors readily translate into simple changes that we can all make in our day-to-day lives to help prevent or treat breast cancer. My message is that even advanced breast cancer can be overcome because I have done it.
The first clue to understanding what was promoting my breast cancer came when my husband Peter, who was also a scientist, arrived back from working in China while I was being plugged in for a chemotherapy session.
He had brought with him cards and letters, as well as some amazing herbal suppositories, sent by my friends and science colleagues in China .
The suppositories were sent to me as a cure for breast cancer. Despite the awfulness of the situation, we both had a good belly laugh, and I remember saying that this was the treatment for breast cancer in China , then it was little wonder that Chinese women avoided getting the disease.
Those words echoed in my mind.
Why didn't Chinese women in China get breast cancer?
I had collaborated once with Chinese colleagues on a study of links between soil chemistry and disease, and I remembered some of the statistics.
The disease was virtually non-existent throughout the whole country. Only one in 10,000 women in China will die from it, compared to that terrible figure of one in 12 in Britain and the even grimmer average of one in 10 across most Western countries.
It is not just a matter of China being a more rural country, with less urban pollution. In highly urbanized Hong Kong , the rate rises to 34 women in every 10,000 but still puts the West to shame.
The Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have similar rates. And remember, both cities were attacked withnuclear weapons, so in addition to the usual pollution-related cancers, one would also expect to find some radiation-related cases, too.
The conclusion we can draw from these statistics strikes you with some force. If a Western woman were to move to industrialized, irradiated Hiroshima , she would slash her risk of contracting breast cancer by half. Obviously this is absurd.
It seemed obvious to me that some lifestyle factor not related to pollution, urbanization or the environment is seriously increasing the Western woman's chance of contracting breast cancer.
I then discovered that whatever causes the huge differences in breast cancer rates between oriental and Western countries, it isn't genetic.
Scientific research showed that when Chinese or Japanese people move to the West, within one or two generations their rates of breast cancer approach those of their host community.
The same thing happens when oriental people adopt a completely Western lifestyle in Hong Kong . In fact, the slang name for breast cancer in China translates as 'Rich Woman's Disease'. This is because, in China , only the better off can afford to eat what is termed ' Hong Kong food'.
The Chinese describe all Western food, including everything from ice cream and chocolate bars to spaghetti and feta cheese, as "Hong Kong food", because of its availability in the former British colony and its scarcity, in the past, in mainland China .
So it made perfect sense to me that whatever was causing my breast cancer and the shockingly high incidence in this country generally, it was almost certainly something to do with our better-off, middle-class, Western lifestyle.
There is an important point for men here, too. I have observed in my research that much of the data about prostate cancer leads to similar conclusions.
According to figures from the World Health Organization, the number of men contracting prostate cancer in rural China is negligible, only 0.5 men in every 100,000.
In England, Scotland and Wales , however, this figure is 70 times higher. Like breast cancer, it is a middle-class disease that primarily attacks the wealthier and higher socio-economic groups, those that can afford to eat rich foods.
I remember saying to my husband, "Come on Peter, you have just come back from China . What is it about the Chinese way of life that is so different?"
Why don't they get breast cancer?'
We decided to utilize our joint scientific backgrounds and approach it logically.
We examined scientific data that pointed us in the general direction of fats in diets.
Researchers had discovered in the 1980s that only l4% of calories in the average Chinese diet were from fat, compared to almost 36% in the West.
But the diet I had been living on for years before I contracted breast cancer was very low in fat and high in fibre.
Besides, I knew as a scientist that fat intake in adults has not been shown to increase risk for breast cancer in most investigations that have followed large groups of women for up to a dozen years.
Then one day something rather special happened. Peter and I have worked together so closely over the years that I am not sure which one of us first said:
"The Chinese don't eat dairy produce!"
It is hard to explain to a non-scientist the sudden mental and emotional 'buzz' you get when you know you have had an important insight. It's as if you have had a lot of pieces of a jigsaw in your mind, and suddenly, in a few seconds, they all fall into place and the whole picture is clear.
Suddenly I recalled how many Chinese people were physically unable to tolerate milk, how the Chinese people I had worked with had always said that milk was only for babies, and how one of my close friends, who is of Chinese origin, always politely turned down the cheese course at dinner parties.
I knew of no Chinese people who lived a traditional Chinese life who ever used cow or other dairy food to feed their babies. The tradition was to use a wet nurse but never, ever, dairy products.
Culturally, the Chinese find our Western preoccupation with milk and milk products very strange. I remember entertaining a large delegation of Chinese scientists shortly after the ending of the Cultural Revolution in the 1980s.
On advice from the Foreign Office, we had asked the caterer to provide a pudding that contained a lot of ice cream. After inquiring what the pudding consisted of, all of the Chinese, including their interpreter, politely but firmly refused to eat it, and they could not be persuaded to change their minds.
At the time we were all delighted and ate extra portions!
Milk, I discovered, is one of the most common causes of food allergies .
Over 70% of the world's population are unable to digest the milk sugar, lactose, which has led nutritionists to believe that this is the normal condition for adults, not some sort of deficiency. Perhaps nature is trying to tell us that we are eating the wrong food.
Before I had breast cancer for the first time, I had eaten a lot of dairy produce, such as skimmed milk, low-fat cheese and yogurt. I had used it as my main source of protein. I also ate cheap but lean minced beef, which I now realized was probably often ground-up dairy cow.
In order to cope with the chemotherapy I received for my fifth case of cancer, I had been eating organic yogurts as a way of helping my digestive tract to recover and repopulate my gut with 'good' bacteria.
Recently, I discovered that way back in 1989 yogurt had been implicated in ovarian cancer. Dr Daniel Cramer of Harvard University studied hundreds of women with ovarian cancer, and had them record in detail what they normally ate. Wish I'd been made aware of his findings when he had first discovered them.
Following Peter's and my insight into the Chinese diet, I decided to give up not just yogurt but all dairy produce immediately. Cheese, butter, milk and yogurt and anything else that contained dairy produce - it went down the sink or in the rubbish.
It is surprising how many products, including commercial soups, biscuits and cakes, contain some form of dairy produce. Even many proprietary brands of margarine marketed as soya, sunflower or olive oil spreads can contain dairy produce
.
I therefore became an avid reader of the small print on food labels.
Up to this point, I had been steadfastly measuring the progress of my fifth cancerous lump with callipers and plotting the results. Despite all the encouraging comments and positive feedback from my doctors and nurses, my own precise observations told me the bitter truth.
My first chemotherapy sessions had produced no effect - the lump was still the same size.
Then I eliminated dairy products. Within days, the lump started to shrink
About two weeks after my second chemotherapy session and one week after giving up dairy produce, the lump in my neck started to itch. Then it began to soften and to reduce in size. The line on the graph, which had shown no change, was now pointing downwards as the tumour got smaller and smaller.
And, very significantly, I noted that instead of declining exponentially (a graceful curve) as cancer is meant to do, the tumour's decrease in size was plotted on a straight line heading off the bottom of the graph, indicating a cure, not suppression (or remission) of the tumour.
One Saturday afternoon after about six weeks of excluding all dairy produce from my diet, I practised an hour of meditation then felt for what was left of the lump. I couldn't find it. Yet I was very experienced at detecting cancerous lumps - I had discovered all five cancers on my own. I went downstairs and asked my husband to feel my neck. He could not find any trace of the lump either.
On the following Thursday I was due to be seen by my cancer specialist a Charing Cross Hospital in London . He examined me thoroughly, especially my neck where the tumour had been. He was initially bemused and then delighted as he said, "I cannot find it." None of my doctors, it appeared, had expected someone with my type and stage of cancer (which had clearly spread to the lymph system) to survive, let alone be so hale and hearty.
My specialist was as overjoyed as I was. When I first discussed my ideas with him he was understandably sceptical. But I understand that he now uses maps showing cancer mortality in China in his lectures, and recommends a non-dairy diet to his cancer patients.
I now believe that the link between dairy produce and breast cancer is similar to the link between smoking and lung cancer.
I believe that identifying the link between breast cancer and dairy produce, and then developing a diet specifically targeted at maintaining the health of my breast and hormone system, cured me.
It was difficult for me, as it may be for you, to accept that a substance as 'natural' as milk might have such ominous health implications. But I am a living proof that it works and, starting from tomorrow, I shall reveal the secrets of my revolutionary action plan.
Extracted from Your Life in Your Hands, by Professor Jane Plan
WHY WOMEN IN CHINA DO NOT GET BREAST CANCER
By Prof. Jane Plant, PhD, CBE
I had no alternative but to die or to try to find a cure for myself. I am a scientist - surely there was a rational explanation for this cruel illness that affects one in 12 women in the UK ?
I had suffered the loss of one breast, and undergone radiotherapy. I was now receiving painful chemotherapy, and had been seen by some of the country's most eminent specialists. But, deep down, I felt certain I was facing death. I had a loving husband, a beautiful home and two young children to care for. I desperately wanted to live.
Fortunately, this desire drove me to unearth the facts, some of which were known only to a handful of scientists at the time.
Anyone who has come into contact with breast cancer will know that certain risk factors - such as increasing age, early onset of womanhood, late onset of menopause and a family history of breast cancer - are completely out of our control. But there are many risk factors, which we can control easily.
These "controllable" risk factors readily translate into simple changes that we can all make in our day-to-day lives to help prevent or treat breast cancer. My message is that even advanced breast cancer can be overcome because I have done it.
The first clue to understanding what was promoting my breast cancer came when my husband Peter, who was also a scientist, arrived back from working in China while I was being plugged in for a chemotherapy session.
He had brought with him cards and letters, as well as some amazing herbal suppositories, sent by my friends and science colleagues in China .
The suppositories were sent to me as a cure for breast cancer. Despite the awfulness of the situation, we both had a good belly laugh, and I remember saying that this was the treatment for breast cancer in China , then it was little wonder that Chinese women avoided getting the disease.
Those words echoed in my mind.
Why didn't Chinese women in China get breast cancer?
I had collaborated once with Chinese colleagues on a study of links between soil chemistry and disease, and I remembered some of the statistics.
The disease was virtually non-existent throughout the whole country. Only one in 10,000 women in China will die from it, compared to that terrible figure of one in 12 in Britain and the even grimmer average of one in 10 across most Western countries.
It is not just a matter of China being a more rural country, with less urban pollution. In highly urbanized Hong Kong , the rate rises to 34 women in every 10,000 but still puts the West to shame.
The Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have similar rates. And remember, both cities were attacked withnuclear weapons, so in addition to the usual pollution-related cancers, one would also expect to find some radiation-related cases, too.
The conclusion we can draw from these statistics strikes you with some force. If a Western woman were to move to industrialized, irradiated Hiroshima , she would slash her risk of contracting breast cancer by half. Obviously this is absurd.
It seemed obvious to me that some lifestyle factor not related to pollution, urbanization or the environment is seriously increasing the Western woman's chance of contracting breast cancer.
I then discovered that whatever causes the huge differences in breast cancer rates between oriental and Western countries, it isn't genetic.
Scientific research showed that when Chinese or Japanese people move to the West, within one or two generations their rates of breast cancer approach those of their host community.
The same thing happens when oriental people adopt a completely Western lifestyle in Hong Kong . In fact, the slang name for breast cancer in China translates as 'Rich Woman's Disease'. This is because, in China , only the better off can afford to eat what is termed ' Hong Kong food'.
The Chinese describe all Western food, including everything from ice cream and chocolate bars to spaghetti and feta cheese, as "Hong Kong food", because of its availability in the former British colony and its scarcity, in the past, in mainland China .
So it made perfect sense to me that whatever was causing my breast cancer and the shockingly high incidence in this country generally, it was almost certainly something to do with our better-off, middle-class, Western lifestyle.
There is an important point for men here, too. I have observed in my research that much of the data about prostate cancer leads to similar conclusions.
According to figures from the World Health Organization, the number of men contracting prostate cancer in rural China is negligible, only 0.5 men in every 100,000.
In England, Scotland and Wales , however, this figure is 70 times higher. Like breast cancer, it is a middle-class disease that primarily attacks the wealthier and higher socio-economic groups, those that can afford to eat rich foods.
I remember saying to my husband, "Come on Peter, you have just come back from China . What is it about the Chinese way of life that is so different?"
Why don't they get breast cancer?'
We decided to utilize our joint scientific backgrounds and approach it logically.
We examined scientific data that pointed us in the general direction of fats in diets.
Researchers had discovered in the 1980s that only l4% of calories in the average Chinese diet were from fat, compared to almost 36% in the West.
But the diet I had been living on for years before I contracted breast cancer was very low in fat and high in fibre.
Besides, I knew as a scientist that fat intake in adults has not been shown to increase risk for breast cancer in most investigations that have followed large groups of women for up to a dozen years.
Then one day something rather special happened. Peter and I have worked together so closely over the years that I am not sure which one of us first said:
"The Chinese don't eat dairy produce!"
It is hard to explain to a non-scientist the sudden mental and emotional 'buzz' you get when you know you have had an important insight. It's as if you have had a lot of pieces of a jigsaw in your mind, and suddenly, in a few seconds, they all fall into place and the whole picture is clear.
Suddenly I recalled how many Chinese people were physically unable to tolerate milk, how the Chinese people I had worked with had always said that milk was only for babies, and how one of my close friends, who is of Chinese origin, always politely turned down the cheese course at dinner parties.
I knew of no Chinese people who lived a traditional Chinese life who ever used cow or other dairy food to feed their babies. The tradition was to use a wet nurse but never, ever, dairy products.
Culturally, the Chinese find our Western preoccupation with milk and milk products very strange. I remember entertaining a large delegation of Chinese scientists shortly after the ending of the Cultural Revolution in the 1980s.
On advice from the Foreign Office, we had asked the caterer to provide a pudding that contained a lot of ice cream. After inquiring what the pudding consisted of, all of the Chinese, including their interpreter, politely but firmly refused to eat it, and they could not be persuaded to change their minds.
At the time we were all delighted and ate extra portions!
Milk, I discovered, is one of the most common causes of food allergies .
Over 70% of the world's population are unable to digest the milk sugar, lactose, which has led nutritionists to believe that this is the normal condition for adults, not some sort of deficiency. Perhaps nature is trying to tell us that we are eating the wrong food.
Before I had breast cancer for the first time, I had eaten a lot of dairy produce, such as skimmed milk, low-fat cheese and yogurt. I had used it as my main source of protein. I also ate cheap but lean minced beef, which I now realized was probably often ground-up dairy cow.
In order to cope with the chemotherapy I received for my fifth case of cancer, I had been eating organic yogurts as a way of helping my digestive tract to recover and repopulate my gut with 'good' bacteria.
Recently, I discovered that way back in 1989 yogurt had been implicated in ovarian cancer. Dr Daniel Cramer of Harvard University studied hundreds of women with ovarian cancer, and had them record in detail what they normally ate. Wish I'd been made aware of his findings when he had first discovered them.
Following Peter's and my insight into the Chinese diet, I decided to give up not just yogurt but all dairy produce immediately. Cheese, butter, milk and yogurt and anything else that contained dairy produce - it went down the sink or in the rubbish.
It is surprising how many products, including commercial soups, biscuits and cakes, contain some form of dairy produce. Even many proprietary brands of margarine marketed as soya, sunflower or olive oil spreads can contain dairy produce
.
I therefore became an avid reader of the small print on food labels.
Up to this point, I had been steadfastly measuring the progress of my fifth cancerous lump with callipers and plotting the results. Despite all the encouraging comments and positive feedback from my doctors and nurses, my own precise observations told me the bitter truth.
My first chemotherapy sessions had produced no effect - the lump was still the same size.
Then I eliminated dairy products. Within days, the lump started to shrink
About two weeks after my second chemotherapy session and one week after giving up dairy produce, the lump in my neck started to itch. Then it began to soften and to reduce in size. The line on the graph, which had shown no change, was now pointing downwards as the tumour got smaller and smaller.
And, very significantly, I noted that instead of declining exponentially (a graceful curve) as cancer is meant to do, the tumour's decrease in size was plotted on a straight line heading off the bottom of the graph, indicating a cure, not suppression (or remission) of the tumour.
One Saturday afternoon after about six weeks of excluding all dairy produce from my diet, I practised an hour of meditation then felt for what was left of the lump. I couldn't find it. Yet I was very experienced at detecting cancerous lumps - I had discovered all five cancers on my own. I went downstairs and asked my husband to feel my neck. He could not find any trace of the lump either.
On the following Thursday I was due to be seen by my cancer specialist a Charing Cross Hospital in London . He examined me thoroughly, especially my neck where the tumour had been. He was initially bemused and then delighted as he said, "I cannot find it." None of my doctors, it appeared, had expected someone with my type and stage of cancer (which had clearly spread to the lymph system) to survive, let alone be so hale and hearty.
My specialist was as overjoyed as I was. When I first discussed my ideas with him he was understandably sceptical. But I understand that he now uses maps showing cancer mortality in China in his lectures, and recommends a non-dairy diet to his cancer patients.
I now believe that the link between dairy produce and breast cancer is similar to the link between smoking and lung cancer.
I believe that identifying the link between breast cancer and dairy produce, and then developing a diet specifically targeted at maintaining the health of my breast and hormone system, cured me.
It was difficult for me, as it may be for you, to accept that a substance as 'natural' as milk might have such ominous health implications. But I am a living proof that it works and, starting from tomorrow, I shall reveal the secrets of my revolutionary action plan.
Extracted from Your Life in Your Hands, by Professor Jane Plan
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Are u Afraid Of Getting Old? - HEALTH-INFORMATION
Different parts of our body ages at different times.
WE all accept that getting older is inevitable, and now leading clinicians have revealed the exact age when different body parts start to decline, most alarming being the brain and lungs.
French doctors have found that the quality of men's' sperm starts to deteriorate by 35, so that by the time a man is 45 a third of pregnancies end in miscarriage. Here, with the help of leading clinicians, Angela Epstein tells the Daily Mail the ages when different parts of the body start to lose their battle with time.
BRAIN - Starts ageing at 20
As we get older, the number of nerve cells - or neurons - in the brain decrease. We start with around 100 billion, but in our 20s this number starts to decline. By 40, we could be losing up to 10,000 per day, affecting memory, co-ordination and brain function.
GUT - Starts ageing at 55
A healthy gut has good balance betwee harmful and ‘friendly’ bacteria. But levels of friendly bacteria in the gut drop significantly after 55, particularly in the large intestine, says Tom MacDonald, professor of immunology at Barts And The London medical school. As a result, we suffer from poor digestion and an increased risk of gut disease. Constipation is more likely as we age, as the flow of digestive juices from the stomach, liver, pancreas and small intestine slows down.
BREASTS - Start ageing at 35
BY their mid-30s, women's breasts start losing tissue and fat, reducing size and fullness. Sagging starts properly at 40 and the areola (the area surrounding the nipple) can shrink considerably.
BLADDER - Starts ageing at 65
Loss of bladder control is more likely when you hit 65. Women are more vulnerable to bladder problems as, after the menopause, declining oestrogen levels make tissues in the urethra - the tube through which urine passes - thinner and weaker, reducing bladder support.... Bladder capacity in an older adult generally is about half that of a younger person - about two cups in a 30-year-old and one cup in a 70-year-old.
LUNGS - Start ageing at 20
Lung capacity slowly starts to decrease from th! e age of 20. By the age of 40, some people are already experiencing breathlessness. This is partly because the muscles and the rib cage which control breathing stiffen up.
VOICE - Starts ageing at 65
Our voices become quieter and hoarser with age. The soft tissues in the voice box (larynx) weaken, affecting the pitch, loudness and quality of the voice. A woman's voice may become huskier and lower in pitch, whereas a man's might become thinner and higher.
EYES - Start ageing at 40
Glasses are the norm for many over-40s as failing eyesight kicks in - usually long-sightedness, affecting our ability to see objects up close.
HEART - Starts ageing at 40
The heart pumps blood less effectively around the body as we get older. This is because blood vessels become less elastic, while arteries can harden or become blocked because of fatty deposits forming on the coronary arteries - caused by eating too much saturated fat. The blood supply to the heart is then reduced, resulting in painful angina. Men over 45 and women over 55 are at greater risk of a heart attack...
LIVER - Starts ageing at 70
This is the only organ in the body which seems to defy the aging process.
KIDNEYS - Starts ageing at 50
With kidneys, the number of filtering units (nephrons) that remove waste from the bloodstream starts to reduce in middle age.
PROSTATE - Starts ageing at 50
The prostate often becomes enlarged with age, leading to problems such as increased need to urinate, says Professor Roger Kirby, director of the Prostate Centre in London. This is known as benign prostatic hyperplasia and affects half of men over 50, but rarely those under 40. It occurs when the prostate absorbs large amounts of the male sex hormone testosterone, which increases the growth of cells in the prostate. A normal prostate is the size of a walnut, but the condition can increase this to the size of a tangerine.
BONES - Start ageing at 35
'Throughout our life, old bone is broken down by cells called osteoclasts and replaced by bone-building cells called osteoblasts - a process called bone turnover,' explains Robert Moots, professor of rheumatology at Aintree University Hospital in Liverpool . Children's bone growth is rapid - the skeleton takes just two years to renew itself completely. In adults, this can take ten years. Until our mid-20s, bone density is still increasing. But at 35 bones loss begins as part of the natural ageing process.
TEETH - Start ageing at 40
As we age, we produce less saliva, which washes away bacteria, so teeth and gums are more vulnerable to decay..? Receding gums - when tissue is lost from gums around the teeth - is common in adults over 40.
MUSCLES - Start ageing at 30
Muscle is constantly being built up and broken down, a process which is well balanced in young adults. However, by the time we're 30, breakdown is greater than buildup, explains Professor Robert Moots. Once adults reach 40, they start to lose between 0.5 and 2 per cent of their muscle each year. Regular exercise can help prevent this.
HEARING - Starts ageing mid-50s
More than half of people over 60 lose hearing because of their age, according to the Royal National Institute for the Deaf.
SKIN - Starts ageing mid-20s
The skin starts to age naturally in your mid-20s.
TASTE AND SMELL - Start ageing at 60
We start out in life with about 10,000 taste buds scattered on the tongue. This number can halve later in life. After we turn 60, taste and smell gradually decline, partly as a result of the normal ageing process.
FERTILITY - Starts ageing at 35
Female fertility begins to decline after 35, as the number and quality of eggs in the ovaries start to fall. The lining of the womb may become thinner, making it less likely for a fertilised egg to take and also creating an environment hostile to sperm.
HAIR - Starts ageing at 30
Male hair loss usually begins in the 30s. Hair is made in tiny pouches just under the skin's surface, known as follicles. A hair normally grows from each follicle for about three years, is then shed, and a new hair grows. Most people will have some grey hair by the age of 35. When we are young, our hair is coloured by the pigments produced by cells in the hair follicle known as melanocytes.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Sleeping for less than six hours may cause early death, study finds
Sleeping consistently for less than six hours a night may cause an early death, but too much sleep could also mean problems, according to a study that claims to have found unequivocal evidence of the potential harm from abnormal sleep patterns.
It found that those who generally slept for less than six hours a night were 12% more likely to experience a premature death over a period of 25 years than those who consistently got six to eight hours' sleep. Evidence for the link was unequivocal.
"Whilst short sleep may represent a cause of ill health, long sleep is believed to represent more an indicator of ill health," said Professor Francesco Cappuccio, who led the study and is head of the Sleep, Health and Society programme at the University of Warwick.
"Modern society has seen a gradual reduction in the average amount of sleep people take, and this pattern is more common amongst full-time workers, suggesting that it may be due to societal pressures for longer working hours and more shift-work. On the other hand, the deterioration of our health status is often accompanied by an extension of our sleeping time.
dark chocolate may guard against brain injury from stroke
Researchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that a compound in dark chocolate may protect the brain after a stroke by increasing cellular signals already known to shield nerve cells from damage.
Ninety minutes after feeding mice a single modest dose of epicatechin, a compound found naturally in dark chocolate, the scientists induced an ischemic stroke by essentially cutting off blood supply to the animals' brains. They found that the animals that had preventively ingested the epicatechin suffered significantly less brain damage than the ones that had not been given the compound.
Scientists have been intrigued by the potential health benefits of epicatechin by studying the Kuna Indians, a remote population living on islands off the coast of Panama. The islands' residents had a low incidence of cardiovascular disease. Scientists who studied them found nothing striking in the genes and realized that when they moved away from Kuna, they were no longer protected from heart problems. Researchers soon discovered the reason was likely environmental: The residents of Kuna regularly drank a very bitter cocoa drink, with a consistency like molasses, instead of coffee or soda. The drink was high in the compound epicatechin, which is a flavanol, a flavanoid-related compound.The new study was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart and Stroke Association.
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Indian spices may expose kids to lead poisoning--study
A study conducted by U.S. doctors suggests that Indian spices and powders might expose young children to toxic lead.
The consumption of these spices elevates the risk of lead poisoning in children, especially in kids below six, which can further cause neurological impairment. Even low levels of lead exposure can cause behavioral changes in the kids, claimed the researchers.
For the study, 86 Indian spices and 71 ceremonial powders from 15 different stores in Boston were bought and investigated by the doctors. Findings of the study The study revealed that around 22 of the 86 spices and 46 of the 71 powders had high amounts of detectable lead.
The lead concentration exceeded the European Union and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s recommended limit of 2 to 3 micrograms lead per gram of product, revealed the lead authors of the study. However, the spices had much lower lead content than the powders, kumkum(sindoor) ranking the highest with 47 percent to 67 percent lead concentrate.
Other products with higher lead levels were kohl, henna, tamarind candy, mustard seeds, and asafetida. On an average, the Indian products contained double the amount of lead than other foreign brands. "This is not a total shocker," said Dr. David Acheson, the former associate commissioner for foods at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). "Most come from the color dyes, particularly the reds, which often have lead in them."
Kids at risk
The study claims that around 2,50,000 American kids have dangerous lead levels in their body, Indian spices being the main culprit. Though the powders are not edible substances, children might ingest them through the food prepared by the parents. Moreover, infants too are exposed to them through inhalation or breast feeding.
Need of better inspection
The study reveals that a few Indian brands that were earlier banned or recalled were still available in the market, breaking all safety rules of the Food and Drug Administration. "Because of the high lead concentrations found in some sindoor samples, import, sale and labeling of these items should be carefully monitored, and low-lead sindoor (less than five micrograms per gram) could be suggested as a safer alternative," the study said. "Closer inspection and testing of other religious products is warranted." The study has been published in the journal “pediatrics”.
Sources
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Does High Cholesterol REALLY Cause Heart Disease?
Posted By: Dr Mercola
An Interview with Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD
When did you begin to suspect that the cholesterol theory of atherosclerosis might be wrong? What led you to this conclusion? Before then, had you believed in the cholesterol theory? Was this part of your training?
I have never thought that it was true. I heard about it for the first time in 1962 shortly after getting my MD. My biochemical knowledge was still intact at that time and I knew that cholesterol was one of the most important molecules in your body, indispensable for the building of your cells and for producing stress and sex hormones as well as vitamin D.
The idea that cholesterol in the blood should kill us if its concentration is a little higher than normal, as they wrote in the Framingham paper, seemed to me just as silly as to claim that yellow fingers cause lung cancer.
Would you tell my readers about your training, publications, university appointments, other professional activities?
The first seven years as a doctor I worked in different medical departments in Denmark and Sweden. In 1968 I started my academic career at the Department of Nephrology, University Hospital in Lund, where I got my PhD. After a few years I organized a research team to investigate the association between hydrocarbon exposure and glomerulonephritis
Unfortunately I caught one of my coworkers in producing a fraudulent paper. It was unfortunate, because it is risky to be a whistleblower in the academic world. Instead of excluding the fraudulent researcher it was my research that was questioned. The resistance against my research from my superiors became intolerable, and I therefore decided to go into private practice.
Nevertheless I succeeded in publishing the main part of my research in major medical journals after having left the department. I have summarized my findings and conclusions on the web as well.
In the late eighties the cholesterol campaign was started in Sweden. I was very surprised because I couldn’t recall anything in the scientific literature in support of it. I started reading it systematically, and I soon realized that I was right.
Since then I have published about eighty papers and letter, and also books, translated into five languages, where I present my arguments and criticism.
How has your work been received by your colleagues; by healthcare professionals and consumers around the world?
In the beginning nobody took notice. To ignore criticism is the most effective way to maintain a false idea. My first book was published in Sweden in 1991 with a Finnish edition shortly afterwards. The Swedish one made no impact whatsoever, and the Finnish one was put on fire in a television show.
Ridicule and slander have been used as well, as a means to muffle me
After I had aired my warnings against statin treatment in Dutch television, for instance, Dutch researchers described me in a following show as a crackpot who had been kicked from the universities of Copenhagen and Lund. The directors of the show offered my critics a possibility to discuss the issue with me on television, but all of them declined. On his blog, Michael Eades has described how one of them later on belittled me in a scientific paper.
But I have also realized that I am not alone.
Seven years ago I started THINCS, The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (www.thincs.org ), which by now includes about eighty doctors, professors and other researchers from all over the world, who share my skepticism, and I have received two international awards for my contributions.
Also encouraging is the hundreds of emails that I receive every year from patients, who have regained their health after having stopped their cholesterol-lowering treatment.
Your work seems to validate what many integrative health care professionals have been saying for decades. How does the alternative community respond to you?
There is a much more open attitude from these people.
If the cholesterol hypothesis is an error, does this mean that all of its therapies – low cholesterol diet, cholesterol lowering natural therapies and medications -- are wrong?
Absolutely. This kind of treatment is meaningless, costly, and has transformed millions of healthy people into patients.
Specifically, what are your views on statins?
Their benefit is trivial, and has been seen only in male patients who already have heart disease.
Worse is that their many adverse effects are ignored or cleverly belittled by the trial directors. Independent researchers have found many more and in much higher numbers. If they are true it means that today millions of previously healthy people probably consider their weak and painful muscles, their bad memory, their sexual failure, and their cancer to be a consequence of increasing age, and so do their doctors.
The risk of cancer is most alarming. Both animal experiments, epidemiological studies and several of the statin trials have shown that low cholesterol predisposes to cancer.
The widespread use of statin treatment probably explains why the decrease of the smoking habit that has been going on in many countries hasn’t been followed by a decrease of cancer mortality. We should have seen a decrease because smoking predispose not only to bronchial cancer, but to all kinds of cancer.
Drug companies market vigorously the highest, strongest doses of statins. Lipitor is pushed at the highest dosage, 80 mg. This dosage is the most powerful for lowering cholesterol and LDL, but it also causes more adverse effects and costs more than lower doses. What are your thoughts about this?
The outcome from these trials is a further demonstration that the small benefit from statin treatment has nothing to do with cholesterol.
For instance, although cholesterol plummeted and remained at about 50 percent below the initial value during the whole SEAS trial, it did not change mortality, but it increased the number of cancer with statistical significance.
Even worse was the result of the ENHANCE trial, where atherosclerosis in patients with familial hypercholesterolemia progressed the most among those whose cholesterol was lowered the most.
If statins can be helpful in reducing the incidence of heart attacks, who should take them?
In my view, nobody.
When I was practicing, I used to describe the benefit in this way: Considering your age and your previous heart attack, your chance to be alive in five years is about 90 percent. You can increase that chance to 92 percent if you take a statin pill every day, but then you may also expose yourself to its many adverse effects.
From the data I have seen, statins have not produced a reduction in overall cardiac deaths. Do you have any idea of why this is?
You are right. Heart mortality in Sweden is going downwards, but the reduction started already in the 1960’s. The cause is most probably that treatment of acute myocardial infarction has improved, because the mortality curve has not changed after the introduction of the statins.
The reason may be that their small benefit is counteracted by an increasing frequency of heart failure.
As you know, the statins block not only the synthesis of cholesterol, but also of other vital molecules, for instance coenzyme Q10, and muscle cells, including those of the heart, can’t function properly without Q10.
Do you think mainstream medicine will ever relinquish its view that elevated cholesterol causes heart disease, and that statins are the magic bullet?
I hope so. The failures of the most recent statin trials have been commented on by several journalists in the major U.S. newspapers. In Sweden a revolution is going on. Here, a general practitioner treated her own obesity successfully by eating a low-carbohydrate diet with a high content of animal fat. When she advised her obese and diabetic patients to do the same, she was reported to the National Board of Health and Welfare for malpractice.
After a two-year-long investigation she was acquitted, as her treatment was considered to be in accord with scientific evidence.
At the same time, the Board dismissed two experts, who had been appointed for updating the dietary recommendations for diabetics, because it came up that they were sponsored by the food industry. Instead the Board has asked independent researchers to review the scientific literature.
The subject has gained general attention due to a number of radio and television shows, where critical experts including myself have discussed the issue with representatives of the official view.
Most important, thousands of patients have experienced themselves that by doing the opposite as recommended by the current guidelines they have regained their health!
The effect has been that the sales of butter, cream, and full-fat milk are increasing in Sweden after many years of decline, and a recent poll showed that a majority of Swedish people today think that the best way of losing weight is by a low-carbohydrate, fat-rich diet.
Further progress was achieved this spring. Several times, colleagues of mine and also I, have asked the Swedish Food Administration for the scientific basis of their warnings against saturated fat. We have been met with the argument that there are thousands of such studies, or by referrals to the WHO guidelines or the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations.
As the main argument in the latter two -- that saturated fat raises cholesterol -- we were not satisfied with their answer, and finally the Food Administration published a list with 72 studies that they claimed were in support of their view on saturated fat, and twelve that were not.
We scrutinized the lists and found that only two of the 72 studies supported their standpoint; eleven studies did not concern saturated fat at all, and the unsupportive list was incomplete, to put it mildly.
We published a short report with our comments to these lists in the Swedish medical journal Dagens Medicin. A response from the Food Administration appeared seven weeks later in which they pointed out that their recommendations were directed to healthy people, not to patients. They maintained that they were based on solid scientific evidence, without mentioning anything about saturated fat, and without answering our critical comments.
But this is not all. Earlier this year Sachdeva et al reported that the mean cholesterol in 137,000 patients with acute myocardial infarction was lower than normal.
As usual, the authors didn’t understand their own findings, but concluded that cholesterol should be lowered even more. A few months later Al-Mallah et al. came up with the same result and conclusion, although they also reported that three years later, mortality was twice as high among those who had been admitted with the lowest cholesterol.
These results created a fierce debate in one of the major Swedish newspapers. It was opened by ninety-one-year old Lars Werkö, the ‘Grand Old Man’ in Swedish medical science, retired professor in internal medicine and former head of The Swedish Council on Technology Assessment in Health Care, together with Tore Scherstén, retired professor in surgery and former secretary of the Swedish Medical Research Council.
“Now it is time to sack the cholesterol hypothesis and to investigate the reason of this scientific breakdown” they wrote.
They also criticized American researchers in AHA and NHLBI and their followers for sloppy and fraudulent science.
They were of course attacked by two professors and representatives of the current view, but none of them came up with any substantial evidence, only with personalities.
Are there other risk factors that should be followed? Such as: C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, homocysteine, lipoprotein A... Any other factors?
Such analyses may be helpful for doctors to put the right diagnosis in patients with a disease of unknown origin.
But to check healthy people’s blood to find deviations from normal is the freeway to unnecessary medication.
Are there other alternative therapies besides statins that people might consider?
There is no reason for healthy people to take drugs, or anything else to prevent heart disease, as long as we do not know the very cause.
Don’t forget that people who die from a myocardial infarction have on average lived just as long as other people. In my talks I used to ask people, who put the same question to me, if they know a better way of dying?
What diet do you recommend people follow?
I do not give medical advice to people I haven’t seen and examined myself, and as I am retired, it means that I give no advice at all except to my family and nearest friends. I inform people by writing and lecturing. Then they have to decide themselves what to do.
In 20 years, do you expect changes in how we view heart disease, its causes and treatments?
I am confident that we will see a change in the next few years. There is a growing skepticism among medical scientists. What is happening in Sweden these days may hopefully inspire researchers in other countries to air their skepticism openly.
Recently, experts selected by WHO and FAO published a new report . Here the authors concluded that there was no satisfactory or reliable evidence to support the idea that saturated fat causes heart disease, or diabetes or obesity.
A revolutionary change of direction, you may say. However, they did not change their recommendations!
Together with Kilmer McCully, the discoverer of the association between homocysteine and atherosclerosis, I have presented another hypothesis (You can read that paper in its entirety at this link.)
We think this hypothesis is much more likely because we are able to explain the many observations that do not fit with the present one.
Finally, I assume that much of what I have mentioned here may seem incredible, but all the facts, including references to the scientific literature, are available in my new book Fat And Cholesterol Are GOOD For You!
About Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD:
Dr. Ravnskov graduated from the University of Copenhagen with an M.D in 1961.
1961-1967: Various appointments at surgical, roentgenological, neurological, pediatric and medical departments in Denmark and Sweden.
1968-1979: Various appointments at the Department of Nephrology, and the Department of Clinical Chemistry, University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.
1979-2000: A private practitioner and independent researcher, specializing in internal medicine and nephrology. Honored with the Skrabanek Award 1998, and author of: The Cholesterol Myths.
An Interview with Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD
When did you begin to suspect that the cholesterol theory of atherosclerosis might be wrong? What led you to this conclusion? Before then, had you believed in the cholesterol theory? Was this part of your training?
I have never thought that it was true. I heard about it for the first time in 1962 shortly after getting my MD. My biochemical knowledge was still intact at that time and I knew that cholesterol was one of the most important molecules in your body, indispensable for the building of your cells and for producing stress and sex hormones as well as vitamin D.
The idea that cholesterol in the blood should kill us if its concentration is a little higher than normal, as they wrote in the Framingham paper, seemed to me just as silly as to claim that yellow fingers cause lung cancer.
Would you tell my readers about your training, publications, university appointments, other professional activities?
The first seven years as a doctor I worked in different medical departments in Denmark and Sweden. In 1968 I started my academic career at the Department of Nephrology, University Hospital in Lund, where I got my PhD. After a few years I organized a research team to investigate the association between hydrocarbon exposure and glomerulonephritis
Unfortunately I caught one of my coworkers in producing a fraudulent paper. It was unfortunate, because it is risky to be a whistleblower in the academic world. Instead of excluding the fraudulent researcher it was my research that was questioned. The resistance against my research from my superiors became intolerable, and I therefore decided to go into private practice.
Nevertheless I succeeded in publishing the main part of my research in major medical journals after having left the department. I have summarized my findings and conclusions on the web as well.
In the late eighties the cholesterol campaign was started in Sweden. I was very surprised because I couldn’t recall anything in the scientific literature in support of it. I started reading it systematically, and I soon realized that I was right.
Since then I have published about eighty papers and letter, and also books, translated into five languages, where I present my arguments and criticism.
How has your work been received by your colleagues; by healthcare professionals and consumers around the world?
In the beginning nobody took notice. To ignore criticism is the most effective way to maintain a false idea. My first book was published in Sweden in 1991 with a Finnish edition shortly afterwards. The Swedish one made no impact whatsoever, and the Finnish one was put on fire in a television show.
Ridicule and slander have been used as well, as a means to muffle me
After I had aired my warnings against statin treatment in Dutch television, for instance, Dutch researchers described me in a following show as a crackpot who had been kicked from the universities of Copenhagen and Lund. The directors of the show offered my critics a possibility to discuss the issue with me on television, but all of them declined. On his blog, Michael Eades has described how one of them later on belittled me in a scientific paper.
But I have also realized that I am not alone.
Seven years ago I started THINCS, The International Network of Cholesterol Skeptics (www.thincs.org ), which by now includes about eighty doctors, professors and other researchers from all over the world, who share my skepticism, and I have received two international awards for my contributions.
Also encouraging is the hundreds of emails that I receive every year from patients, who have regained their health after having stopped their cholesterol-lowering treatment.
Your work seems to validate what many integrative health care professionals have been saying for decades. How does the alternative community respond to you?
There is a much more open attitude from these people.
If the cholesterol hypothesis is an error, does this mean that all of its therapies – low cholesterol diet, cholesterol lowering natural therapies and medications -- are wrong?
Absolutely. This kind of treatment is meaningless, costly, and has transformed millions of healthy people into patients.
Specifically, what are your views on statins?
Their benefit is trivial, and has been seen only in male patients who already have heart disease.
Worse is that their many adverse effects are ignored or cleverly belittled by the trial directors. Independent researchers have found many more and in much higher numbers. If they are true it means that today millions of previously healthy people probably consider their weak and painful muscles, their bad memory, their sexual failure, and their cancer to be a consequence of increasing age, and so do their doctors.
The risk of cancer is most alarming. Both animal experiments, epidemiological studies and several of the statin trials have shown that low cholesterol predisposes to cancer.
The widespread use of statin treatment probably explains why the decrease of the smoking habit that has been going on in many countries hasn’t been followed by a decrease of cancer mortality. We should have seen a decrease because smoking predispose not only to bronchial cancer, but to all kinds of cancer.
Drug companies market vigorously the highest, strongest doses of statins. Lipitor is pushed at the highest dosage, 80 mg. This dosage is the most powerful for lowering cholesterol and LDL, but it also causes more adverse effects and costs more than lower doses. What are your thoughts about this?
The outcome from these trials is a further demonstration that the small benefit from statin treatment has nothing to do with cholesterol.
For instance, although cholesterol plummeted and remained at about 50 percent below the initial value during the whole SEAS trial, it did not change mortality, but it increased the number of cancer with statistical significance.
Even worse was the result of the ENHANCE trial, where atherosclerosis in patients with familial hypercholesterolemia progressed the most among those whose cholesterol was lowered the most.
If statins can be helpful in reducing the incidence of heart attacks, who should take them?
In my view, nobody.
When I was practicing, I used to describe the benefit in this way: Considering your age and your previous heart attack, your chance to be alive in five years is about 90 percent. You can increase that chance to 92 percent if you take a statin pill every day, but then you may also expose yourself to its many adverse effects.
From the data I have seen, statins have not produced a reduction in overall cardiac deaths. Do you have any idea of why this is?
You are right. Heart mortality in Sweden is going downwards, but the reduction started already in the 1960’s. The cause is most probably that treatment of acute myocardial infarction has improved, because the mortality curve has not changed after the introduction of the statins.
The reason may be that their small benefit is counteracted by an increasing frequency of heart failure.
As you know, the statins block not only the synthesis of cholesterol, but also of other vital molecules, for instance coenzyme Q10, and muscle cells, including those of the heart, can’t function properly without Q10.
Do you think mainstream medicine will ever relinquish its view that elevated cholesterol causes heart disease, and that statins are the magic bullet?
I hope so. The failures of the most recent statin trials have been commented on by several journalists in the major U.S. newspapers. In Sweden a revolution is going on. Here, a general practitioner treated her own obesity successfully by eating a low-carbohydrate diet with a high content of animal fat. When she advised her obese and diabetic patients to do the same, she was reported to the National Board of Health and Welfare for malpractice.
After a two-year-long investigation she was acquitted, as her treatment was considered to be in accord with scientific evidence.
At the same time, the Board dismissed two experts, who had been appointed for updating the dietary recommendations for diabetics, because it came up that they were sponsored by the food industry. Instead the Board has asked independent researchers to review the scientific literature.
The subject has gained general attention due to a number of radio and television shows, where critical experts including myself have discussed the issue with representatives of the official view.
Most important, thousands of patients have experienced themselves that by doing the opposite as recommended by the current guidelines they have regained their health!
The effect has been that the sales of butter, cream, and full-fat milk are increasing in Sweden after many years of decline, and a recent poll showed that a majority of Swedish people today think that the best way of losing weight is by a low-carbohydrate, fat-rich diet.
Further progress was achieved this spring. Several times, colleagues of mine and also I, have asked the Swedish Food Administration for the scientific basis of their warnings against saturated fat. We have been met with the argument that there are thousands of such studies, or by referrals to the WHO guidelines or the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations.
As the main argument in the latter two -- that saturated fat raises cholesterol -- we were not satisfied with their answer, and finally the Food Administration published a list with 72 studies that they claimed were in support of their view on saturated fat, and twelve that were not.
We scrutinized the lists and found that only two of the 72 studies supported their standpoint; eleven studies did not concern saturated fat at all, and the unsupportive list was incomplete, to put it mildly.
We published a short report with our comments to these lists in the Swedish medical journal Dagens Medicin. A response from the Food Administration appeared seven weeks later in which they pointed out that their recommendations were directed to healthy people, not to patients. They maintained that they were based on solid scientific evidence, without mentioning anything about saturated fat, and without answering our critical comments.
But this is not all. Earlier this year Sachdeva et al reported that the mean cholesterol in 137,000 patients with acute myocardial infarction was lower than normal.
As usual, the authors didn’t understand their own findings, but concluded that cholesterol should be lowered even more. A few months later Al-Mallah et al. came up with the same result and conclusion, although they also reported that three years later, mortality was twice as high among those who had been admitted with the lowest cholesterol.
These results created a fierce debate in one of the major Swedish newspapers. It was opened by ninety-one-year old Lars Werkö, the ‘Grand Old Man’ in Swedish medical science, retired professor in internal medicine and former head of The Swedish Council on Technology Assessment in Health Care, together with Tore Scherstén, retired professor in surgery and former secretary of the Swedish Medical Research Council.
“Now it is time to sack the cholesterol hypothesis and to investigate the reason of this scientific breakdown” they wrote.
They also criticized American researchers in AHA and NHLBI and their followers for sloppy and fraudulent science.
They were of course attacked by two professors and representatives of the current view, but none of them came up with any substantial evidence, only with personalities.
Are there other risk factors that should be followed? Such as: C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, homocysteine, lipoprotein A... Any other factors?
Such analyses may be helpful for doctors to put the right diagnosis in patients with a disease of unknown origin.
But to check healthy people’s blood to find deviations from normal is the freeway to unnecessary medication.
Are there other alternative therapies besides statins that people might consider?
There is no reason for healthy people to take drugs, or anything else to prevent heart disease, as long as we do not know the very cause.
Don’t forget that people who die from a myocardial infarction have on average lived just as long as other people. In my talks I used to ask people, who put the same question to me, if they know a better way of dying?
What diet do you recommend people follow?
I do not give medical advice to people I haven’t seen and examined myself, and as I am retired, it means that I give no advice at all except to my family and nearest friends. I inform people by writing and lecturing. Then they have to decide themselves what to do.
In 20 years, do you expect changes in how we view heart disease, its causes and treatments?
I am confident that we will see a change in the next few years. There is a growing skepticism among medical scientists. What is happening in Sweden these days may hopefully inspire researchers in other countries to air their skepticism openly.
Recently, experts selected by WHO and FAO published a new report . Here the authors concluded that there was no satisfactory or reliable evidence to support the idea that saturated fat causes heart disease, or diabetes or obesity.
A revolutionary change of direction, you may say. However, they did not change their recommendations!
Together with Kilmer McCully, the discoverer of the association between homocysteine and atherosclerosis, I have presented another hypothesis (You can read that paper in its entirety at this link.)
We think this hypothesis is much more likely because we are able to explain the many observations that do not fit with the present one.
Finally, I assume that much of what I have mentioned here may seem incredible, but all the facts, including references to the scientific literature, are available in my new book Fat And Cholesterol Are GOOD For You!
About Uffe Ravnskov, MD, PhD:
Dr. Ravnskov graduated from the University of Copenhagen with an M.D in 1961.
1961-1967: Various appointments at surgical, roentgenological, neurological, pediatric and medical departments in Denmark and Sweden.
1968-1979: Various appointments at the Department of Nephrology, and the Department of Clinical Chemistry, University Hospital, Lund, Sweden.
1979-2000: A private practitioner and independent researcher, specializing in internal medicine and nephrology. Honored with the Skrabanek Award 1998, and author of: The Cholesterol Myths.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
The Unromantic Truth About Why We Kiss - To Spread Germs!
The kiss may have evolved for reasons that are far more practical - and less alluring - than previously thought.
British scientists believe it was developed to spread germs.
They say that the uniquely human habit allows a bug that is dangerous in pregnancy to be passed from man to woman to give her time to build up immunity.
Cytomegalovirus, which lurks in saliva, normally causes no problems. But it can be extremely dangerous if caught while pregnant and can kill unborn babies or cause birth defects. These can include problems ranging from deafness to cerebral palsy.
Writing in the journal Medical Hypotheses, researcher Dr Colin Hendrie from the University of Leeds said: “Female inoculation with a specific male's cytomegalovirus is most efficiently achieved through mouth-to-mouth contact and saliva exchange, particularly where the flow of saliva is from the male to the typically shorter female.”
Kissing the same person for about six months provides optimum protection, he added. As the relationships progresses and the kisses become more passionate, her immunity builds up.
Further Readings / Source
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
What the Inventor of the Flu Shot NOW Thinks of the Vaccine...
President Obama and his top health officials are engaging in a major public relations effort to divert attention away from whether its swine flu vaccine is effective and safe by focusing attention on whether there is enough of it to go around. And the media is cooperating fully.
Increasing numbers of scientists and doctors are issuing harsh criticisms of the government’s plan to vaccinate virtually the entire U.S. population with a poorly tested vaccine that is not only ineffective against swine flu, but could cripple and even kill many more people than it helps.
The CDC’s public relations campaign has been running “scare” ads that portray swine flu as a full-blown “pandemic” responsible for snuffing out countless lives. But scientists and health officials throughout the world have called the governments claims unjustified and deliberately misleading.
Source/Further Reading
Increasing numbers of scientists and doctors are issuing harsh criticisms of the government’s plan to vaccinate virtually the entire U.S. population with a poorly tested vaccine that is not only ineffective against swine flu, but could cripple and even kill many more people than it helps.
The CDC’s public relations campaign has been running “scare” ads that portray swine flu as a full-blown “pandemic” responsible for snuffing out countless lives. But scientists and health officials throughout the world have called the governments claims unjustified and deliberately misleading.
Source/Further Reading
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Hack Your Body
Some little-known practical tips about your body
In a very entertaining article "18 tricks to teach your body" from Men's Health magazine you can learn a few astonishing, and practical things about your body. The ones I particularly liked:
1. If your throat tickles, scratch your ear.
"When the nerves in the ear are stimulated, it creates a reflex in the throat that can cause a muscle spasm... This spasm relieves the tickle."
2. Your right ear is better than your left at following the rapid rhythms of speech (good tip for spies!) The left ear is better at picking up music tones.
4. Feel no pain!
Coughing during an injection can lessen the pain of the needle stick.
5. Clear your stuffed nose!
Forget Sudafed. An easier way is by alternately thrusting your tongue against the roof of your mouth, then pressing between your eyebrows with one finger.
7. Cure your toothache without opening your mouth!
Just rub ice on the back of your hand, on the V-shaped webbed area between your thumb and index finger... reduces toothache pain by as much as 50 percent
12. Make your heart stand still!
Trying to quell first-date jitters? Blow on your thumb. The vagus nerve, which governs heart rate, can be controlled through breathing... It'll get your heart rate back to normal.
15. If your hand falls asleep while you're driving or sitting in an odd position,
rock your head from side to side. It'll painlessly banish your pins and needles in less than a minute.
In a very entertaining article "18 tricks to teach your body" from Men's Health magazine you can learn a few astonishing, and practical things about your body. The ones I particularly liked:
1. If your throat tickles, scratch your ear.
"When the nerves in the ear are stimulated, it creates a reflex in the throat that can cause a muscle spasm... This spasm relieves the tickle."
2. Your right ear is better than your left at following the rapid rhythms of speech (good tip for spies!) The left ear is better at picking up music tones.
4. Feel no pain!
Coughing during an injection can lessen the pain of the needle stick.
5. Clear your stuffed nose!
Forget Sudafed. An easier way is by alternately thrusting your tongue against the roof of your mouth, then pressing between your eyebrows with one finger.
7. Cure your toothache without opening your mouth!
Just rub ice on the back of your hand, on the V-shaped webbed area between your thumb and index finger... reduces toothache pain by as much as 50 percent
12. Make your heart stand still!
Trying to quell first-date jitters? Blow on your thumb. The vagus nerve, which governs heart rate, can be controlled through breathing... It'll get your heart rate back to normal.
15. If your hand falls asleep while you're driving or sitting in an odd position,
rock your head from side to side. It'll painlessly banish your pins and needles in less than a minute.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
The Dangers of a High Soy Diet
I used to be a vegetarian, consuming large amounts of soy products, and I got the hyperthyroidisme, or overactive thyroid. I was opearated upon. Soy is no health food, watch this video and you'll see for yourself why.
Soy is bad for kids, will invite thyroid problems plus many more.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Running 'can slow ageing process'
Running on a regular basis can slow the effects of ageing, a study by US researchers shows.
Elderly joggers were half as likely to die prematurely from conditions like cancer than non-runners.
They also enjoyed a healthier life with fewer disabilities, the Stanford University Medical Center team found.
Experts said the findings in Archives of Internal Medicine reinforced the importance that older people exercise regularly.Running not only appeared to slow the rate of heart and artery related deaths, but was also associated with fewer early deaths from cancer, neurological disease, infections and other causes.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Broccoli may undo diabetes damage
Eating broccoli could reverse the damage caused by diabetes to heart blood vessels, research suggests.
A University of Warwick team believe the key is a compound found in the vegetable, called sulforaphane.
It encourages production of enzymes which protect the blood vessels, and a reduction in high levels of molecules which cause significant cell damage.
Brassica vegetables such as broccoli have previously been linked to a lower risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7541639.stm
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Cancer is A Fungus! And There's An Easy Cure!
Cancer is a fungus, so the theory goes, and if you treat the fungus, you treat the cancer!
View the following video with an open mind, a real eye opener!
Doctor: Dr Tulio Simoncini
Link: http://www.know-the-cause.com/Shows/TullioSimonciniMDWithDougKaufmann/tabid/109/Default.aspx
Url:
-
View the following video with an open mind, a real eye opener!
Doctor: Dr Tulio Simoncini
Link: http://www.know-the-cause.com/Shows/TullioSimonciniMDWithDougKaufmann/tabid/109/Default.aspx
Url:
-
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Abnormal sleep patterns in women linked to stroke
Sleep patterns in middle-aged women can increase their risk for stroke. The greatest increase in stroke risk (70 percent) was found among women who slept 9 hours or more per night.
A recent study looked at more than 93,000 women between the ages of 50 and 79. After following the group for an average of 7.5 years, the researchers found that women with a sleep duration of 6 hours or less, 8 hours, or 9 hours or more increased the risk of stroke by 14 percent, 24 percent, and 70 percent, respectively, compared with sleeping 7 hours.
Analysis also suggested that the adverse effect of long periods of sleep was not associated with frequent snoring or sleepiness. This means that a sleep pattern which is longer or shorter than the norm could be an independent risk factor for stroke.
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSCOL16773620080721
A recent study looked at more than 93,000 women between the ages of 50 and 79. After following the group for an average of 7.5 years, the researchers found that women with a sleep duration of 6 hours or less, 8 hours, or 9 hours or more increased the risk of stroke by 14 percent, 24 percent, and 70 percent, respectively, compared with sleeping 7 hours.
Analysis also suggested that the adverse effect of long periods of sleep was not associated with frequent snoring or sleepiness. This means that a sleep pattern which is longer or shorter than the norm could be an independent risk factor for stroke.
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSCOL16773620080721
Monday, July 14, 2008
Pomegranate Top Healthiest Fruit Juice
On The Early Show Saturday, Health magazine contributor and clinical nutritionist Samantha Heller talked about what makes the juices healthy.The study took into account the antioxidant levels of the juices.
Basically, Heller says, anything with a vivid color, like most berries, will be high in antioxidants, so it's no surprise berry juices landed in most of the top 10 slots.
There's always the danger, she points out, that when we tell people something is healthy for them, they'll go out and drink it by the gallon.
The truth is, you consume a lot of calories with juice. No-sugar-added doesn't necessarily mean no sugar at all. And sugar, even though it's naturally-occurring sugar, can really pack on the pounds if you consume too much.
Among the top ten healthiest juices:
Pomegranate Juice
Pomegranate is the healthiest of them all because it contains the most of every type of antioxidant. It wins in all categories. And it's thought that it might do some very good things; it may protect against some cancers, such as prostate cancer. It might also modify heart disease risk factors, and it could be healthy for your heart. So pomegranate was the clear winner.
Concord Grape Juice
Concord grape juice is a source of very potent antioxidants. And there's some research indicating it may be good for our hearts and also help reduce blood pressure. Grapes are also high in fiber, but much of their goodness is in the seed, so you need to consider whether grape juice is the way to go.
Blueberry Juice
The color alone indicates a lot of antioxidants. But blueberry juice also contains tons of fiber, and is also very high in Vitamin C. One of the qualities of antioxidants is that they can lower inflammation, and so there's some indication that blueberries may have some effect on age-related cognitive abilities. And don't forget that blueberries are very low in calories.
Black Cherry Juice
This one actually has scientists a bit excited. Not only is it high in antioxidants, but there is evidence that black cherry juice can actually diminish exercise-induced muscle injuries.
Cranberry Juice
Like all of these juices, it's high in antioxidants. But cranberry juice is also high in Vitamin C. And there's always been a sort of wives' tale that cranberry juice helps prevent urinary tract infections. Well, it turns out researchers are finding evidence that it actually can decrease the number of urinary tract infections. The thinking is, it helps stop bacteria from sticking to the bladder wall, protecting against infections.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Tofu 'may raise risk of dementia'
Eating high levels of some soy products - including tofu - may raise the risk of memory loss, research suggests.
The study focused on 719 elderly Indonesians living in urban and rural regions of Java.
The researchers found high tofu consumption - at least once a day - was associated with worse memory, particularly among the over-68s.
The Loughborough University-led study features in the journal Dementias and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders.Soy products are rich in micronutrients called phytoestrogens, which mimic the impact of the female sex hormone oestrogen.
There is some evidence that they may protect the brains of younger and middle-aged people from damage - but their effect on the ageing brain is less clear.
The latest study suggests phytoestrogens - in high quantity - may actually heighten the risk of dementia.
Lead researcher Professor Eef Hogervorst said previous research had linked oestrogen therapy to a doubling of dementia risk in the over-65s.
She said oestrogens - and probably phytoestrogens - tended to promote growth among cells, not necessarily a good thing in the ageing brain.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Common Cooking Spice Shows Promise in Combating Diabetes and Obesity
Turmeric, an Asian spice found in many curries, has a long history of use in reducing inflammation, healing wounds and relieving pain. Since inflammation is believed to be involved in onset of both obesity and Type 2 diabetes, researchers examined the effect of the herb on diabetic mice.
They discovered that turmeric-treated mice were less susceptible to developing Type 2 diabetes, based on their blood glucose levels and their glucose and insulin tolerance tests. They also discovered that turmeric-fed obese mice showed significantly reduced inflammation in fat tissue and liver compared to controls.
Curcumin, the anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant ingredient in turmeric, may lessen insulin resistance and prevent Type 2 diabetes in these mouse models by dampening the inflammatory response provoked by obesity.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Coconut Supposed To Be Healthy...?
As I grow older, I also grew confused by the science world. Since small, I was warned never to consume too much food with coconut milk such as curry, nasi lemak (Rice cooked with coconut milk), desserts such as mo mo cha cha and the like. Its full to the brim with saturated fat, and very bad for the heart.
Now, some doctors claimed they have done some extensive research on coconut oil and that...
* Coconut oil actually helps you lose weight and beautify your skin and hair!
* Helps protect against heart disease (Funny, all my life, I thought they caused heart disease!), cancer, diabetes, and many other degenerative diseases.
* Fights viruses and bacterias thus helping to strengten your immune system!
How's that? Believe? Of course the coconut oil I refer to is not the hydrogenated coconut oil, oil derived from coconut milk by way of heating the milk, but virgin coconut oil, which is oil derived from coconut milk by way of fermentation. I'll include a few links and you decide yourself. Who knows, someone out there may actually benefit from this little piece of information.
http://www.tropicaltraditions.com/virgin_coconut_oil.htm
http://www.thevirgincoconutoil.com/
http://www.virgincoconutoil.co.uk/
http://www.coconutoil.com/
http://www.earthclinic.com/Remedies/coconut_oil_facts.html
The above sites are not created by me nor am I related to them in anyway. Should you decide to follow some of their remedies, get the advise of your doctor if you are suffering from any chronic disease.
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