Archive for the ‘Free Health Advice’ Category

Ginger Can Help Soothe Chemotherapy Side Effects

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

A combination of Chinese herbs in use for more than 1,800 years reduced the gastrointestinal side effects of chemotherapy in mice, while actually enhancing the effects of the cancer treatment, a new study has found. It appeared in the latest issue of “Science Translational Medicine.”

Peonies and a purple flower called “skullcap,” together with licorice and fruit from a buckthorn tree, make up the Huang Qin Tang concotion. This is a herbal medicine used in China to treat intestinal disorders such as diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. Recently, a preliminary study found that this herb reduces stomach damage caused by chemotherapy in colon and rectal cancer patients.

Researchers from Yale University used a form of Huang Qin Tang (called “PHY906″) to find that its healing properties stem from an ability to target many biological processes. The subjects were mice, where all groundbreaking findings begin.

Everyone knows that chemotherapy can cause a host of very unpleasant and lifestyle-altering side effects. Identifying ways to relieve these effects will not only improve quality of life, but also help a patient continue with a stretch of therapy that might eradicate the cancer.

In the new study, researchers treated cancerous mice with chemotherapy, which shrank tumors but also caused massive destruction in the intestines. After a few days with PHY906, the medicine restored the damaged intestinal linings. Stem cell signaling molecules were in higher than normal levels in the mice’s guts. It seems the herbal remedy mixed with an enzyme in the gut to replace damaged intestinal stem cells with healthy ones — and blocked inflammation in the gut.

This all came, importantly, without affecting chemotherapy’s ability to kill cancer cells. This amazing ability might represent a new path for dealing with the physical costs of treating cancer.

While we’re on the subject, it’s good to know of another Chinese herb that could help here as well. Ginger has been found effective in reducing or even eliminating nausea and vomiting during chemotherapy. While the evidence is mixed, some have found that taking ginger every day does have a significant effect. Even adding ginger to the mix when taking anti-nausea medications can add further benefit.

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Fewer Cars in Your Town Means Healthier Residents

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

A study out of the University of Tennessee has concluded that communities with more walkers and cyclists are healthier than those where people must rely on cars to get around. While that seems obvious enough, it doesn’t mean it has to be this way, and it’s important to understand why.

It was published in the “American Journal of Public Health” and drew collaborators from the National Center for Environmental Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Researchers analyzed city- and state-level data from across the United States, as well as international data from 15 countries, to study the relationship between “active travel” (bicycling or walking) and physical activity, obesity and diabetes.

The results showed that more than half of the differences in obesity rates is linked to walking and cycling rates. In addition, about 30% of the difference in obesity rates among states and cities is linked to walking and cycling rates. Clearly, how you decide to facilitate transportation is vitally important to your health.

This study is part of the mounting evidence that active travel has significant health benefits. What it also does is reinforce the need for American cities to encourage more walking and cycling. That, of course, takes safe, convenient and attractive things such as sidewalks, crosswalks, bike paths and lanes, and intersection modifications that protect pedestrians and cyclists.

This is a very, very big issue and you can expect it to grow in significance. A growing body of evidence suggests that differences in the built environment for physical activity influence the likelihood that people will use active transport for their daily travel. People who live in areas that are more conducive to walking and cycling are more likely to engage in these forms of active transport.

At the moment, many European countries have high rates of walking and cycling and less obesity than Australia, the U.S. and Canada, which depend on the car. In the U.S., when comparing all 50 states and 47 of the 50 largest American cities, the study found that higher rates of walking and cycling led to a higher percentage of adults who achieved recommended levels of physical activity, a lower percentage of adults who are obese, and a lower percentage of adults with diabetes.

The World Health Organization estimates that more than 300 million adults are obese, putting them at increased risk for diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, gout, gallstones, fatty liver, and some cancers. How you decide to run your life, transportation included, has major impacts on your health.

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Vitamin E Protects Against Alzheimer’s

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

Not every symptom of forgetfulness is a sign that something might be seriously wrong with your brain. There are many reasons for being affected by brain fog (a phrase the medical community has coined for a forgetful and/or confused mental state) including a lack of food and sleep, an allergy to food, or an imbalance of metals in our diets.

Many of the symptoms of brain fog can be eliminated with just a slight change in your diet. You can start by drinking eight glasses of water a day. Avoid over-processed foods and don’t eat lots of sugar. If there is a chance it could be an allergy to wheat or lactose intolerance, try not eating both for a few days and see if you feel better. Plus, get lots of sleep. This is when your body has a chance to fix itself. If you’re not sleeping properly or for long enough, you can start to show signs of chronic fatigue, which can include forgetfulness and confusion.

After taking all the steps above, if you still have lingering concerns about the possibility of Alzheimer’s affecting you, here’s one very important vitamin you need to get enough of: vitamin E. Numerous studies have found that this antioxidant plays a role in preventing and treating Alzheimer’s disease by inhibiting damage caused by free radicals.

A recent clinical trial called the Rotterdam Study, looked at a total of 5,395 participants, 55 years and older, who were free of dementia. All the participants provided dietary information at the outset of the study. During a follow-up period of nine years, dementia developed in 465 participants, of whom 365 were diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s.

The research team found that a higher intake of vitamin E was associated with a lower long-term risk of dementia. Compared with participants with the lowest level of vitamin E intake, those with the highest were 25% less likely to develop dementia!

Here are some tips on how to take vitamin E:

–Your body needs zinc in order to maintain proper levels of vitamin E in the body.
–When vitamin E oxidizes a free radical, it can be revitalized by vitamin C and continue its fight against these damaging compounds. Try to take vitamin E together with vitamin C.
–Inorganic forms of iron destroy vitamin E. If you are going to take vitamin E and iron supplements, take them at separate times of the day.
–Adding vitamin E to fats and oils prevents them from becoming rancid.
–Generally, we get a maximum of about 50 international units (IU) of vitamin E in our diet daily through certain nuts, leafy vegetables and oils.
–It is recommended that you take 2,000 IU of synthetic vitamin E and 1,340 IU or natural vitamin E if you have Alzheimer’s, but only 200 to 800 IU if you are looking to obtain its antioxidant properties. Always check with your doctor before beginning to take vitamin E.

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Rooibos Tea, Sweet Cherry Juice Found to Help Fight Cancer

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Food is natural — it has evolved along with us and is specially adapted for use by our digestive systems and our organs. Some foods are healthier than others, while some are not healthy at all. Unfortunately, there are a lot of the latter available in our culture right now. You must make a conscious decision to reach for the healthy stuff. But you will be infinitely rewarded if you do. Healthy foods taste great, boost your immune system, fight disease, slow aging, improve your mood, and give you energy. There isn’t a single excuse for not eating nutritious, whole food.

Now take a look at an interesting study recently conducted at the Institute of Toxicology in Germany. For the study, researchers wanted to look at the effects certain foods had on something called “heterocyclic aromatic amines”, or HAAs. HAAs are often formed when you cook meat and fish at high temperatures. These substances are associated with an increased risk for cancer.

Going on the premise that diets rich in fruits and vegetables could protect against cancer, the research team studied three teas, two wines, and the juices of 15 fruits and 11 vegetables to gauge their protective effect against the toxic effects of HAAs. Here’s what they found:

–Black, green and rooibos tea moderately reduced the toxicity of HAAs, whereas red and white wine were less active

–Amongst the fruit juices, sweet cherry juice had the highest inhibitory effect on HAAs, followed by juices from kiwi fruit, plum and blueberry

–The juices from watermelon, blackberry, strawberry, blackcurrant, and red delicious apple showed a moderate effect against HAAs, whereas sour cherry, grapefruit, red currant, and pineapple juices were only slightly active

–Granny Smith apple juice and orange juice proved inactive

–Of the vegetable juices, strong inhibition of HAA toxicity was seen with spinach and onion juices

–Broccoli, cauliflower, beetroot, sweet pepper, tomato, chard, and red-cabbage juices suppressed toxicity moderately

–Cucumber juice was ineffective

Now here’s where the study gets particularly interesting: it seems that sour cherry, blueberry, and blackcurrant juices suppressed the first step of HAA activation, whereas most vegetable-derived beverages inhibited the second step. What does that mean? It means that when you add fruits AND vegetables to your diet, you are instigating a powerful two-step form of protection against cancer.

So, here is a simple task for you: just add sweet cherries, spinach and onion to your diet and you’ll be greatly increasing your chances of maintaining a healthy body.

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Yoga Can Put You in a Better Mood

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Want to enhance your mood, lead a better quality of life and relieve any stress or anxiety? It’s patently clear that the best method may just be yoga.

Boston researchers have found that yoga may be superior to other forms of exercise in its positive effect on mood and anxiety. The findings, online at the “Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine,” are the first to show a link between yoga postures, increased “GABA” levels and decreased anxiety.

GABA is short for “gamma-aminobutyric acid,” found in the brain. It is a very important neurotransmitter (and actually an amino acid) that helps induce relaxation and sleep. In the brain, it balances overexcitement with calm. GABA is involved in many functions, including motor control and vision. The body’s anxiety levels are also regulated by GABA. In fact, there are drugs used to treat epilepsy that work by increasing the level of GABA in the brain.

In the new study, researchers set out to contrast GABA levels of yoga subjects with those of participants who spent time walking. Thus, yoga versus general exercise. They went in knowing that low GABA levels are associated with depression and other widespread anxiety disorders.

The researchers followed two randomized groups of healthy individuals over a 12-week period. One group practiced yoga three times a week for one hour, while the others walked for the same period of time. Using magnetic resonance spectroscopic (MRS) imaging, the participants’ brains were scanned before the study began. At week 12, the researchers compared the GABA levels of both groups before and after their final hour-long session.

Each subject was also asked to assess his or her psychological state at several points throughout the study. Researchers found that those who practiced yoga reported a more significant decrease in anxiety and greater improvements in mood than those who walked. The positive changes correlated with GABA levels that were rising.

This is a promising study, and it illustrates the need for more studies on the relationship between yoga and mood. Yoga might even be considered a potential therapy for certain mental disorders.

If sleep problems and/or anxiety are plaguing your life, yoga is well worth the attempt. It could very well work subliminally, inside your brain, chemically reducing anxiety and improving your life.

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Potato Juice to Relieve Heartburn

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

The good news about heartburn is that it can often be eased by using a few simple home remedies. The simplest of all these remedies is water. The next time you have an attack, drink a large glass of water. If that doesn’t work for you, try a glass of raw potato juice. Just wash a potato and throw it in a juicer. Don’t remove the peel first. Drink immediately after you prepare the juice. Take three times a day. Alternately, a glass of fresh cabbage or celery juice might do the trick.

Ginger is known to absorb stomach acids and, at the same time, it can calm your nerves. Fresh papaya (with the seeds) can aid digestion, as can pineapple. Both contain special enzymes that help food break down in your stomach and keep this part of the digestion process running smoothly. Another popular home remedy that many people vouch for is a vinegar tonic. Mix one tablespoon of vinegar in a glass of water and drink during your meal.

Don’t eat before bedtime. Try to wait at least three hours after eating before you lie down. Some prescription drugs can aggravate heartburn. Even over-the-counter medications like aspirin and ibuprofen can cause heartburn. One more trick for easing heartburn: lie down on your left side. This keeps your stomach below your esophagus, helping to keep it acid-free.

Remember these three basic rules:

1. Don’t overeat.
2. If you’re having a heartburn attack, don’t lie down.
3. Find out your trigger foods and try to avoid them.

Here’s one more thing to consider: a recent clinical trial has a new take on how to prevent and treat heartburn. Researchers looked at celiac disease (CD) patients and found they often complain of symptoms consistent with reflux disease. So, they set out to assess the prevalence of heartburn symptoms in celiac patients and to determine the impact of a gluten-free diet on these symptoms.

The research team evaluated 133 adult CD patients and 70 healthy controls. Fifty-three patients completed questionnaires every three months during the first year and more than four years after diagnosis. Heartburn symptoms were evaluated using a symptoms rating scale.

The researchers found that, after diagnosis, celiac patients had a significantly higher reflux symptom mean score than the healthy controls. After three months of treatment on a gluten-free diet, they found there was a rapid improvement with reflux scores — so much so that scores were actually comparable to the healthy controls from the three-month mark onward. They concluded that reflux symptoms are common in untreated CD patients and that a gluten-free diet is associated with a rapid and persistent improvement in reflux symptoms that matched the healthy controls.

If nothing else has worked for you, give a gluten-free diet a try and see if your heartburn symptoms disappear.

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Is Social Smoking Okay for Your Health?

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Often, casual smokers think that smoking a few cigarettes a week is no big deal. But, in the world of smoking, good news is hard to come by.

According to a new study, having an infrequent smoke or being exposed to secondhand smoke may be doing more harm than people may think. Researchers found that being exposed to even low levels of cigarette smoke may put people at risk for future lung disease, such as lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Their work is published in the “American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine”.

Long-term studies have long shown that secondhand smoke is dangerous, but there have never been conclusive biological tests demonstrating what it does to the body’s genes — until now.

Even at the lowest rates of cigarette exposure, there are direct effects on the functioning of genes within cells lining the lungs. Genes, commonly activated in the cells of heavy smokers, are also turned on or off in those with very low-level exposure.

While the genetic effect is much lower than in those who are regular smokers, it doesn’t mean that there are no health consequences. Certain genes within the cells lining the airways are very sensitive to tobacco smoke, as it turns out. Changes in the function of these genes are the first evidence of disease in the lungs. It’s where the damage originally takes place, paving the road for cancer.

The study tested 121 people from three different categories: “nonsmokers,” “active smokers” and “low exposure smokers.” Researchers tested urine levels of nicotine and cotinine — markers of cigarette smoking within the body.

The research team then scanned each person to find which genes were either activated or deactivated in cells lining the airways. They found that there was no level of nicotine or cotinine that did not also correlate with genetic abnormalities.

That means that no level of smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke, is safe. The researchers suggest that this is even more evidence to support smoking bans in public places, where non-smokers and employees of businesses that allow smoking are put at risk for future lung disease.

To those social smokers out there, it’s a little impetus to just plain quit.

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A Link Between Alcohol and Breast Cancer

Monday, August 30th, 2010

There is a link between alcohol and breast cancer. Researchers have known that for a while — the former puts you at risk for the latter. But few studies have looked at alcohol’s impact on breast cancer when you break it down into specific tumors. A new study did just that.

Published in the “Journal of the National Cancer Institute,” it found that alcohol increases the risk of “lobular” and “hormone receptor-positive” breast cancer, but not necessarily “invasive ductal” tumors.

While some studies have shown alcohol use is more strongly related to risk of hormone receptor-positive breast cancer (linked with the estrogen and/or progesterone receptors), not many have looked at whether it influences ductal or lobular breast cancer. “Ductal” refers to the milk ducts and “lobular” refers to milk-producing lobules in the breast.

Researchers conducted an observational study, set within the huge Women’s Health Initiative study, which included nearly 88,000 postmenopausal women between 50 and 79 years old. They broke it down and honed in on the 2,944 women who developed invasive breast cancer. They assessed what kind of cancer it was, hormone status, and alcohol consumption, and gathered family history and other pertinent bits of information.

Women were split into groups: those who never drank; those who formerly drank; and those who currently drink. Drinkers were grouped into six categories according to the average number of drinks per week, starting from less than one drink per week to more than 14 drinks per week.

The study found that alcohol use is more strongly related to the risk of lobular carcinoma than ductal carcinoma, and more strongly related to hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer than hormone-receptor-negative breast cancer. These results confirm previous findings of an association of alcohol consumption with hormone-positive breast cancer risk, as well as three studies that identified a stronger association of alcohol with lobular carcinoma. It did not matter what type of alcohol was consumed.

They found that women who had one or more drinks a day had about double the risk of lobular type breast cancer, but no increase in their risk of ductal type breast cancer. Importantly — and good news for women who like the odd alcoholic beverage — ductal cancer is much more common than lobular cancer, accounting for about 70% of all breast cancers. Lobular cancer accounts for only as much as 15% of cases.

In the interests of alcohol’s effect on health, every bit of information we have is valuable.

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PPS: A Lingering Condition from a Forgotten Virus

Monday, August 30th, 2010

Post-polio syndrome, or PPS, is a condition that baffled the medical community until recently. Patients arrived at their doctors’ offices complaining of stiff and sluggish muscles, breathing difficulties, and an overwhelming sense of fatigue. Unable to trace the symptoms to other disease, eventually a link was made to the polio virus. It seems that survivors of polio can experience physical problems decades after their initial battle with the disease.

Symptoms of PPS can appear quietly, seemingly without cause. Sometimes physical or emotional trauma will trigger the symptoms. However they to choose to appear, here are the most common symptoms to watch out for:

–Overwhelming fatigue
–Muscle weakness
–Muscle and joint pain
–Muscle degeneration
–Sensitivity to cold
–Difficulty sleeping
–Difficulty swallowing
–Difficulty breathing
–Sensitivity to medications
–Lack of endurance

Since the discovery of PPS, researchers have figured out what might actually be happening in the body. Inside your spinal cord are special cells called “anterior horn cells.” These cells are responsible for transmitting nerve impulses to your muscles. When someone contracts the polio virus, some of these cells are damaged and some are destroyed. The body tries to cope with this in an ingenious way: the uninjured horn cells increase their connections to muscle fibers by splitting nerve fibers. This is a great way to cope with a powerful virus, but unfortunately it’s not a great long-term solution. Over the course of many years, these overworked anterior horn cells begin to wear out. Each cell, after all, is performing the duties of the many cells destroyed by the polio virus. Eventually, the horn cells die. And this, in turn, means that your muscle cells won’t receive any nerve impulses, leaving you feeling tired and weak.

If you think you or someone you know may be suffering from PPS, first of all see your doctor. Next, you might be heartened to know that a combination of therapies administered together can greatly improve the quality of life of someone afflicted with PPS. Therapies that have proved beneficial in clinical trials include physiotherapy, massage therapy, aerobics, and hydrotherapy. In particular, hydrotherapy appears to be effective in restoring energy and movement to polio survivors.

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Emodin: The Chinese Herb to Help Type 2 Diabetes

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

A new study found that a little-known natural product could help those with type 2 diabetes. And, as we all know, that is not a small number.

It’s called “emodin,” and it’s a natural product that can be extracted from various Chinese herbs, including “Rheum palmatum” and “Polygonum cuspidatum.” It shows promise as an agent that could reduce the impact of type 2 diabetes.

It’s still a bit early here, but the news is well worth sharing. The study in question is published in this month’s edition of the “British Journal of Pharmacology”. It showed that giving emodin to mice with obesity lowered blood glucose and insulin, improved insulin resistance, and led to healthier levels of cholesterol in the blood. It also lowered body weight and reduced central fat mass.

If these effects are possible in humans, all of these changes would be extremely beneficial for people affected by type 2 diabetes or other serious diseases associated with insulin resistance.

Research is increasingly showing that an enzyme — “11β-HSD1″ — plays a role in the body’s response to sugar found in a person’s diet. When someone eats sugar-containing food, a heavy dose of glucose floods into the bloodstream. In response, the body releases insulin. This hormone triggers various actions that help to clear excess glucose from the blood. The body, however, also has another set of hormones, known as “glucocorticoids”, which have the opposite effect to insulin. Here is where 11β-HSD1 fits in, because this enzyme increases glucocorticoids’ ability to act.

This study is the first to show that emodin can stop the actions of 11β-HSD1, effectively limiting the effect of the glucocorticoids. This, in turn, lessens the symptoms of diabetes and improves insulin resistance.

It’s another great study for Traditional Chinese Medicine, which uses countless herbs for a wide variety of purposes. This new Chinese herbal extract might help point the way to a new way of helping people with type 2 diabetes, and other problems such as obesity and high cholesterol. Stay tuned for more on this great new possibility. There are a lot of answers waiting to be found in the ancient wisdom of Chinese medicine.

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