Men's health blog

December 25, 2010

PREVENTING COLDS: WASH THOSE HANDS

Filed under: Anti-Infectives — admin @ 11:15 am

Regardless of who may be correct about how colds are spread (see p. 13), it seems wise to follow the prevalent advice: wash your hands often, especially if you are working or living with someone with a cold. Change towels and washcloths often and wash them in hot water; better yet, give each person in the household his or her own color-coded hand towel and washcloth.
Unless you have just washed your hands, keep them away from your nose and eyes. According to B. Burton, a nurse and infection control specialist at the National Jewish Center for Immunology and Respiratory Medicine in Denver, Colorado, “The average person touches his face within the area of the eyes, nose and mouth about once every 20 minutes.”
Of course, if you are the one with the cold, it’s only common courtesy to wash your hands often, especially after blowing your nose, and to keep your hands to yourself. If you want to show really good manners, when you have a cold and must greet someone, refrain from the conventional handshake. Apologize and explain that you’d rather keep your cold to yourself.
It is also time to question whether it is good manners to cover coughs and sneezes with your hands. To reduce the risk of spreading your illness to others, it would be better to keep your hands away from your face and instead turn your head away.
*16\296\2*

December 20, 2010

суставной синдром

Filed under: Arthritis,General health — admin @ 4:43 pm

Первичным ведущим симптомом является суставной синдром, т.е. периодически возникающая боль и скованность движений в области позвоночника и суставов конечностей по утрам. Больное место слегка припухает. В этот период больные могут активно заниматься обычными делами. Болезнь не ограничивает профессиональную деятельность.
Далее, по мере нарастания болезни, возникает лёгкая атрофия мышц, пигментация кожи. Боли при движении, иногда в состоянии покоя, явно выраженная припухлость и температура кожи над суставом. Больные с трудом могут обслуживать себя, при резко выраженных болях они теряют профессиональную трудоспособность.
В запушенной стадии заболевания – скованность движений, боли держатся и состоянии покоя. Высокая температура тела, значительно выраженная припухлость, покраснение и температура кожи над суставом. Возможна полная потеря движений. Больные не могут обслуживать себя, теряют трудоспособность.

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December 19, 2010

ALCOHOLISM TREATMENT: FACTORS IN SUCCESSFUL TREATMENT

Filed under: Anti-Depressants/Sleeping Aid — admin @ 11:13 am

Having alluded to failure and some sense of what to avoid, let us proceed to success. The likelihood of success is greatly enhanced if treatment is tailored to the characteristics of the disease being treated. The following factors, always present in the alcoholic, should guide both the planning and process of treatment.
Dysfunctional life-style. The alcoholic’s life-style has been centered on alcohol. If this is not immediately evident, it is because the particular alcoholic has done a better-than-average job of disguising the fact. Thus, the counselor cannot expect a large repertoire of healthy behaviors that come automatically. Treatment will help build these, as well as dust off and rediscover behaviors from the past to replace the warped “alcoholic” responses. This fact is what makes residential treatment desirable. Besides cutting down the number of easy drinking opportunities, it provides some room to make a new, fresh beginning.
Few experiences of handling stress without alcohol. Alcohol has been the alcoholic’s constant companion. It is used to anticipate, get through, and then get over stressful times. Alcoholics, to their knowledge, are without any effective tools for handling problems. In planning treatment, be alert to what may be stressful for a particular client and provide supports. In the process, the counselor can tap skills within the alcoholic to be turned to rather than the bottle.
Psychological wounds. Alcohol is the alcoholic’s best friend and worst enemy. The prospect of a life without alcohol seems either impossible or so unattractive as to be unworthwhile. The alcoholic feels lost, fragile, vulnerable, fearful. No matter how well put together the client can appear, or how much strength or potential the counselor can see, the client, by and large, is unable to get beyond those feelings of impotence, nakedness, nothingness. Even when being firm and directive, the counselor has to have a gentle awareness of this.
Physical dysfunctions. Chronic alcohol use takes its toll on the body. Even if spared the more obvious physical illnesses, the alcoholic must contend with other subtle disturbances of physical functioning. Sleep disturbance can last up to 2 years. Similarly, a thought impairment would not be unusual on cessation of drinking. The alcoholic in the initial stage of recovery will have trouble maintaining attention. There will be diminution of adaptive abilities. During treatment, education about alcohol and its effects can help allay fears.
Chronic nature of alcoholism. A chronic disease requires continuing treatment and vigilance regarding the conditions that can prompt a relapse. This continued self-monitoring is essential to success in treatment.
Deterioration in family function. The family needs as much help as the alcoholic. Better outcomes result when they have a treatment program of their own in conjunction with the alcoholic’s treatment.
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December 12, 2010

CHEMICAL MEDIATORS OF ALLERGIC RHINITIS

Filed under: Allergies — admin @ 11:12 am

Chemical Mediators Causing Symptoms of Allergic Rhinitis
Mediator            Symptoms Produced
Histamine            Stuffy nose, runny nose, sneezing, itchy nose,
itchy throat, itchy palate, itchy ears
Prostaglandin D2        Inflammation of nose
Leukotrienes            Runny nose, stuffy nose, inflammation

Each of these mediators exerts its effect by interacting with a receptor on the surface of a specific cell in the nasal tissue. Histamine, for example, binds to one of two types of receptors, called H1 and H2 receptors. Tissue that doesn’t contain either of these receptors cannot be acted upon by histamine. It is mainly through the H1 receptor that histamine stimulates tissues in your nose and causes allergic symptoms. Antihistamines and other medications used to treat allergic symptoms act by blocking the receptors through which the chemical mediators work. Thus, antihistamines work mainly by blocking the interaction of histamine with the H1 receptor.
*10/322/5*

September 20, 2010

USE OF EVENING PRIMROSE OIL IN VIRAL INFECTIONS

Filed under: General health — Tags: — admin @ 10:46 am
How are the essential fatty acids working?
The exact mechanisms are not known and can only be guessed at. It may be that the persistent virus reduced the levels of EFAs, thus causing the symptoms of fatigue and aching muscles. The treatment of Efamol Marine made up this deficit. Secondly, evening primrose oil makes prostaglandins, which are needed for interferon, the body’s own way to fight viruses.
Conclusions for treatment of post-viral fatigue syndrome
Essential fatty acids provide a rational, safe and effective treatment for patients with this condition. Correcting the biochemical abnormality does bring about improvements in symptoms, though it is not a cure. It could be used together with other treatments.
Co-Factors
As in all viral infections, it is very important to take evening primrose oil together with its vitamin and mineral co-factors: Vitamin C, Vitamin B6, nicotinamide (B3), biotin, zinc, magnesium and calcium.
Glandular fever (Epstein-Barr virus infection, or infectious mononucleosis)
Research was done recently in the USA on 20 college students who had had a bout of glandular fever. The results show that this viral infection leaves patients with lower levels of essential fatty acids when the acute phase of the illness seems over, only returning to normal during the next 6 months in most cases.
In 7 of the 20 students their fatty acid levels had not returned to normal one year later. Low levels of essential fatty acids clearly coincided with increased symptoms. They experienced more fatigue, malaise, and difficulty in returning to full activity than the other 13 students.
Infection with the Epstein-Barr virus badly affects the levels of essential fatty acids. But these low levels seem to persist after the acute phase of the illness is apparently over and may leave the door dangerously open to illness some years later which may not appear connected with glandular fever in the teenage years.
A rational treatment for glandular fever and the months following it would be essential fatty acids, in the form of evening primrose oil and fish oils.
Viral infections in atopic eczema
Patients with atopic eczema are particularly susceptible to viral infections. They commonly get upper respiratory tract infections, and have a greater chance of getting an Epstein-Barr virus. They are also at particular danger from the smallpox vaccination.
Viral infections can also sometimes bring on an atopic syndrome in people who have no family history of atopic conditions.
It is now known that people with atopic eczema have a defect in their delta-6-desaturase enzyme, which blocks the metabolic pathway of essential fatty acids. By by-passing this metabolic block, evening primrose oil, together with fish oils, supply the missing essential fatty acids with their anti-viral properties and their ability to help maintain a healthy immune system.
Herpes simplex virus
Although no specific work has been done on evening primrose oil and herpes simplex virus, it is known that essential fatty acids have potent virus-killing properties. In the absence of other effective treatment, evening primrose oil with fish oil would be a rational treatment.
*49/60/5*

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DUODENAL ULCERS

Filed under: General health — Tags: — admin @ 10:44 am
A decade ago ulcers of the stomach and duodenum were thought to be stress related. Even the Duke of Edinburgh was heard to say that the trouble with British industry was that there were too many one ulcer men in two ulcer jobs. It is a fact that many surgeons were kept very busy chopping out bits of stomach and duodenum only to have their patients return a few years later for further re visionary procedures.
In the early 1980s, new varieties of antihistamine drugs were discovered which have the capacity to switch off the stomach’s acid production. The effects were spectacular in terms of healing peptic ulcers. Firstly Tagamet and then Zantac revolutionized the treatment of gastric and duodenal ulcers much to the chagrin of the now idle surgeons and medical students who had failed surgery exams because they didn’t know at least three surgical approaches to the treatment of peptic ulcer disease.
The peptic ulcer plot became even thicker when a team of Australian research workers, operating out of Perth, discovered that peptic ulceration occurs predominantly in the presence of a bacterium called Helicobacter Pyloridi. Both gastric and duodenal ulcers resolve following a two week course of triple antibiotic therapy. More to the point 50 per cent of people with chronic duodenal ulcers are completely cured by the application of triple antibiotic therapy. This result is far and away better than any obtained by Tagamet or Zantac.
The arrival of triple antibiotic therapy has not yet dinted the sales of Zantac, which is the world’s most prolific source of pharmaceutical income. Zantac generates sales in the billions of dollars every year. Doctors at the coal face still await an authoritative pronouncement nominating the use of triple antibiotic therapy as the first line of treatment in any attack on peptic ulcer disease.
Home Remedies
Nicotine, alcohol, aspirin, caffeine and spicy foods relate to higher incidences of peptic ulcer disease. Apart from avoiding these factors, there is now no specific anti ulcer diet.
Since ulcers relate to an infection of the stomach and duodenum, attention needs to be drawn to methods of preventing either cross infection from members of the same family or re-infection from other sources. Anti Helicobacter protocols have yet to appear, but it makes sense to maintain a high standard of personal hygiene, washing hands before each meal and the same again after going to the toilet.
The simultaneous treatment of family members or sexual partners with antibiotics is worthy of thought, but again no guidelines exist. Bananas, liquorices and milk give some protection from peptic ulcer disease.
*48/131/5*

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June 2, 2010

DIETARY AND NUTRITIONAL FACTORS IN CIRCULATORY DISEASE: SALT AND STIMULANTS SUCH AS TEA, COFFEE AND OTHER

Filed under: Cardio & Blood- Cholesterol — Tags: — admin @ 9:44 am
Salt is another tasty hidden additive in commercial foods such as soups, casseroles, and
ready-prepared freezer and microwave foods. Patrick Holford of the Institute of Optimum Nutrition in London (ION) has said in his excellent little book, Super Nutrition for Healthy Hearts that the average person consumes more than 1Og of salt a day which is 20 times what we need.
Salt and high blood pressure are linked, as salt causes retention of fluid in the bloodstream. This raises blood volume and blood pressure. (NB: taking water pills, or diuretics, to solve this fluid problem results in the ingesting of a chemical which leaches out valued mineral sources, quite apart from distorting kidney function. Unless the condition is extreme, there are natural diuretics such as B6, dandelion ‘tea’, etc, which may be implemented – any good herbalist will help with this problem.)
Stimulants such as Tea, Coffee and Other-Stimulants are ageing since they set up an energy overdraft situation in the body bank, drawing on energy reserves which would otherwise be devoted to valuable, even life-saving repair work to body tissues, such as the arterial system.
This is a ‘play-now, pay-later’ policy which unless balanced by compensatory periods of rest and relaxation will lead to some form of degenerative disease.
*79\104\2*
Cardio & Blood/ Cholesterol

LIVING A DYNAMIC, ACTIVE LIFE AFTER HEART ATTACK: GRADUATING TO HIGH-INTENSITY EXERCISE

Filed under: Cardio & Blood- Cholesterol — Tags: — admin @ 9:43 am
As we’ve seen, all it takes to achieve a good level of cardiovascular fitness which will protect you against future problems is a solid program of brisk walking, about three to five kilometres five days a week. Whether you want to walk, jog, cycle, swim, dance, do aerobics, or just about any other kind of heart-quickening exercise, 30 to 45 minutes five days each week will do the trick. Add to that aerobic program some resistance exercise and you have a complete fitness program that any doctor would be proud to see. So is there any reason to go any further?
While all exercise helps to raise the levels of the protective HDL cholesterol in the blood, the more you do the higher the HDLs’go up. Studies have shown that distance runners and other endurance athletes have higher HDL counts than average.
A few research projects have attempted to show an additional advantage of high-intensity exercise for cardiac patients. Most notable is the work done by Dr Ali Ehsani at Washington University in St Louis. His patients, in a closely supervised program, have done significantly better than those receiving typical cardiac rehabilitation. Dr Ehsani employs an experimental regimen that raises patients’ heart rates to 80 per cent of age-limited maximum rather than the 40 to 70 per cent levels in traditional rehab programs.
“Patients improve their myocardial work capacity, exercise ejection fraction, and plasma lipid profile,” the cardiologist says. That is to say, their hearts ate capable of mote work and pump more blood, and their cholesterol and triglyceride counts improve. Very importantly, Dr Ehsani reports, they have reduced exercise-induced myocardial ischaemia as measured by ST segment changes on their ECGs and fewer abnormalities in their heart muscle contraction. Moreover, after a year of such intense exercise, hypotension (a drop in blood pressure that suddenly occurs when an individual exerts himself) decreases markedly.
Patients follow a routine that starts off with brisk walking and gradually increases in both duration and intensity. After several months, patients jog for 50 to 60 minutes a day four to six times a week. Dr Ehsani has worked with more than 600 patients thus far, and deaths and complications have been rare.
But is this approach for everyone? The answer is a definite no! Only those patients who have had an uncomplicated heart attack and who have no severe heart muscle damage should be considered. The program is limited to those low-risk patients who don’t have severe disease. And for those who do opt for this kind of all-out effort, close medical supervision is essential. Leaving a cardiac rehabilitation program and immediately setting off to train for a marathon is asking for trouble.
But for those who do fit all the criteria and are willing to make the admittedly tough effort, the achievement can make every minute’s worth of work worthwhile. Those who “make it to the top” experience a tremendous surge in self-esteem. Levels of anxiety and depression plunge. Studies at the University of Alabama have revealed that those who complete a high-intensity exercise program do decidedly better in terms of psychological testing. They flat-out feel better about themselves.
Let’s look at a parallel situation. If you do some walking on a treadmill in the cardiac rehab facility at the hospital and you realise that there’s not much in the world outside that you’d want to do that would surpass that level of exertion, you feel a definite sense of security and assurance. Now imagine what it’s like to be able to exercise at full-tilt for an hour, sweat pouring off your body, lungs expanding to their fullest. After your shower you feel like you can take on the world and win!
Today I have a resting heart rate of about 50 beats per minute, a blood pressure of approximately 120/80, and a cholesterol level that consistently remains in the 3.9 to 4.1 mmol/1 range. Dr Michael Lawlor at the Heart Institute of the Desert put my vital statistics through the computer program they’ve devised to determine the level of a person’s health relative to the expected levels of performance and physiological measurements for a person of a given age. Some people may be only 50 years old, but they have the body of a 70-year-old. Imagine how I felt when Dr Lawlor sent back the computer-generated determination that, at age 47,1 was performing at the level of a 26-year-old man!
Armed with that kind of diagnosis, along with the angiogram that had shown absolutely no arterial obstruction in my heart’s bypass grafts and native arteries, and you can imagine how I felt. All those little twinges, or chest discomfort, or abdominal disturbances, or other feelings that once I might have questioned of being of cardiac origin I now knew were completely benign. I was a 100 per cent healthy man!
Yes, a program of brisk daily walking can keep you heart-healthy. But there’s nothing like high-intensity exercise to make you feel really alive! And I’m not the only guy who feels that way.
Chuck Whitlock, a good friend of mine, had his heart attack and bypass surgery at age 42. His approach to recovery was much like mine, with a determination not to let this disease get him down. Today Chuck skis at breakneck speed down the slopes, scuba dives, plays a mean game of racquetball and works hours that would exhaust a man half his age. To keep up his pace and his health, Chuck never misses his exercise. He belongs to a health club near his home, uses a few pieces of equipment in a spare room of his house when he just can’t get away, and makes certain that he stays in hotels that have fitness equipment. Is the effort worth it to him? Chuck says without any hesitation or doubt that he’s never felt better in his life, and that he’ll never quit the program.
Barbara Else at Cedars-Sinai Hospital tells a wonderful story about the motivation and rationale to go that “extra mile”. After one patient, Leon, had a heart attack, his wife and kids wouldn’t let up. They worried about him all the time, urging him to take it easy and not exert himself. In his late forties, Leon wanted to live his life, not just exist. He knew he was just fine, that his recovery had been complete, but he couldn’t convince his family. So he entered a five-kilometre race along with his sons, just to let them see that he was, indeed, OK, and that they didn’t have to baby him. It worked.
Please understand that I’m not encouraging you to run a triathlon, a marathon, or even a five-kilometre race. Not everyone is physically capable of such exertion, and fewer yet would want to do so. But these men serve as shining examples of just how far one can take the concept of complete cardiac recovery.
Everyone’s motivation for going all-out in terms of recovery and exercise is a bit different. I can only tell you that in my own case, the second bypass hammered home the idea that I was a mortal man with a condition that could kill me, and that if I didn’t do something it would be sooner rather than later. There was a lot of living that I wanted to do, and I wanted to live that life with gusto, without limitations.
I told you about my success in the formal rehab program. If I felt that good in such a short period of time, I thought, what would I feel like if I gave it all I had? The result of my efforts, as I’ve said again and again, is that I feel fantastic. My exercise program has become like a drug for me; I literally need an exercise “fix” to keep feeling the physical and psychological “high” I’ve come to regard as the standard of living. Being just OK isn’t enough for me.
Yes, a far more moderate program is all you need. But if you fit the medical criteria to allow yourself to try for a high-intensity fitness regimen, give it a try. Talk with your doctor about it. If he feels that there’s nothing in your medical picture to keep you from it, go for it! There’s a big difference between living and feeling really alive!
*79\85\2*
Cardio & Blood/ Cholesterol

March 10, 2010

Get Your Body Moving-His Nickname Still Sticks

Filed under: Weight Loss — admin @ 11:36 am

GET YOUR BODY MOVING: SHE TOOK A DEEP BREATH AND LOST215 POUNDS
LisaKay Wojcik was so overweight and out of shape that even 2 minutes’ worth of exercise left her so breathless that she feared she’d have a heart attack. But finding the way to breathe correctly helped put her at ease to do the exercise that eventually helped her lose 215 pounds and regain her self-respect.
LisaKay, of Romulus, Michigan, watched her weight climb to 325 pounds through two tumultuous marriages. The combination of personal upheaval and unhealthy weigh gain left her an emotional wreck. “I had no self-esteem left,” she says.
But LisaKay believed in an old but true cliche. When things get that bad, there’s only one way to go: back up.
“I wasn’t emotionally prepared to tackle the problem with my marriage, but I believed that I could improve myself,” LisaKay says. So she went out and bought a low-impact aerobics tape, slipped it into the VCR, and started following the instructor. “After just 2 minutes, I was sweaty, beet red, and breathless,” she says. “I thought I was going to die.”
Convinced that she was having a heart attack, LisaKay called
911. “When I got to the hospital, the emergency room doctor tersely told me that I was merely out of breath,” she recalls. “And he told me to warm up next time.”
Too embarrassed to try aerobics again, LisaKay switched to a seemingly simpler activity: walking. Her first time out, she walked one-quarter mile so slowly that it took 40 minutes. Three months later, she could do 1 mile in an hour.
Six months later, LisaKay was ready for a more intense challenge: a “fat-burner” aerobics video. With her legs kicking high in the air and her arms moving nonstop, she was unaccustomed to such high oxygen demands

Get Your Body Moving-She Made Walking A Sensory Adventure

Filed under: Weight Loss — admin @ 11:36 am

GET YOUR BODY MOVING: SHE DANCED HER WAY TO A PERFECT SIZE 8
When Jennifer Johnson decided to work off her extra pounds, she Knew that no ordinary aerobics class would do. She needed an exercise that would be fun. So she signed up for cardio dance lessons at a gym in La Selva Beach, California.
“I’ve always enjoyed aerobic activities,” Jennifer explains. “Between the music and the movement, there’s so much energy. When I observed the cardio dance class, I was excited at the prospect of being able to move my body that way.”
On her first day, Jennifer felt nothing but frustration. The other students were much more experienced, and she questioned whether she’d be able to keep up. But the team atmosphere

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