This is a kind of protein that both promotes and reflects inflammation levels in our body. It is elevated in the bloodstream in a number of varied diseases. New research has shown that elevated blood levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) are a major risk factor for heart disease, possibly being more significant than cholesterol levels. CRP is an independent marker for future cardiovascular disease, meaning even if you have a low or normal cholesterol level, you are at great risk of heart disease if you have high CRP levels. Your doctor can easily order a blood test to check you CRP level.

The New England Journal of Medicine published an article stating that inflammation is a better indicator of who will have a heart attack than high cholesterol. In this study almost 28 000 healthy postmenopausal women had blood tests and were monitored for eight years. The women with high levels of CRP were twice as likely to have a heart attack or stroke as the women with high levels of LDL “bad” cholesterol! A study done on men published in the same journal showed that men with the highest CRP levels had three times the number of heart attacks and two times the amount of ischemic strokes as men with normal levels. The really interesting fact is that the incidence was independent of other risk factors including blood fat levels and smoking!

The theory is that having high CRP levels means you have chronic inflammation in the walls of your coronary arteries. This inflammation makes it more likely that fatty particles and immune cells will be attracted to the artery wall in an effort to repair the damage. This sets the stage for the development of a fatty plaque and full blown atherosclerosis. High blood levels of CRP indicate that you are more likely to have a heart attack, and the higher your level, the less likely you are to survive that heart attack. Recent studies have also shown that high CRP levels increase the chance of an artery re-closing after it has been opened by balloon angioplasty.

What causes elevated C-reactive protein?

The following conditions are most likely responsible for high CRP:

• Chronic or acute infections.

• Autoimmune disease.

• Allergies.

• Obesity.

• Diabetes mellitus.

• Consuming trans fatty acids (hydrogenated vegetable oil) and oils high in omega 6 fats, such as soybean, corn, safflower, cottonseed and sunflower oils.

• Diets high in sugar, refined carbohydrates and high glycaemic foods, such as white bread, potatoes, biscuits and breakfast cereals.

• Cigarette smoking.

• Lack of antioxidant nutrients in the diet.

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Posted by admin on April 23rd, 2009 :: Filed under Uncategorized

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Many of the features of OSA are not a direct result of snoring per se but are a consequence of obstructive events during sleep which cause blood oxygen levels to drop to dangerously low levels. The absolute priority given to the body’s need for oxygen can be put into perspective when we consider that a healthy human can survive without food for several weeks, survive without water for days, but will die within minutes of oxygen deprivation. Not surprisingly, snoring is the most prevalent symptom of OSA, occurring in about 95% of patients with the syndrome. A cluster of other symptoms is also very common and will be found to a greater or lesser extent depending on the number of apnoeas experienced in a night and the severity of oxygen deprivation.

Sleepiness

The patient with OSA is classically prone to daytime sleepiness, often found slumped in front of a television or at the table during a dinner party. Most alarming are those patients who seek help after falling asleep behind the wheel of a car or while operating dangerous machinery. The tendency to fall asleep during the day is attributed to poor quality sleep at night caused by arousals associated with each obstructive event. Anyone who has observed a patient with OSA will be aware of the repetitive nature of airway obstruction and the resulting sleep fragmentation. Airway collapse is followed by increasing respiratory efforts to overcome the obstruction and to relieve intolerably low blood oxygen levels (hypoxaemia). The degree of sleep disturbance probably relates to the severity of the apnoeic period; some patients experiencing a mild arousal from REM to NREM states, while others will be fully awakened by such an episode. Sufferers of advanced OSA are caught in a cruel cycle. The relentless process of obstruction and arousal many times a night leaves the sufferer sleep deprived, lethargic and irritable. He cannot help trying to make up for lost sleep at every opportunity yet it is sleep which sets in motion events such as loss of upper airway tone which in turn result in obstruction and arousal.

Personality changes and memory loss

Memory deterioration and an inability to concentrate are symptomatic of sleep apnoea. The reasons for this are not completely understood but it is suggested that they result from the cumulative damage of perhaps many years of hypoxaemia during sleep. The disturbed sleep patterns of OSA are also likely to result in such impairment, and there is little doubt that both hypoxaemia and sleep fragmentation contribute to the problem of impaired memory and learning ability. As a consequence of the social readjustments that have to be made and the behavioral and personality changes which may arise, these people may be seen in the first instance by Psychiatrists for treatment of depressive illness.

Physiological changes

The behavioral changes which become increasingly apparent to spouse and friends are accompanied by potentially serious physiological changes, particularly to the heart and circulatory system. Some of the changes occur rapidly in response to each of the many obstructive events during sleep. Blood pressure, for example, is normally slightly lower at night than during the day, but in OSA blood pressure rises during apnoeic periods. There can also be quite startling changes in heart rate when the hypoxaemia associated with obstruction induces a slower heart rate (bradycardia) followed by an increase (tachycardia) when normal breathing is resumed. Apnoea may also be associated with irregular heart beats or arrhythmias, which are potentially life threatening.

Superimposed over the transient yet dramatic changes which occur during sleep are several long term and persistent abnormalities. Blood pressure often remains high and may be the first measurable symptom observed at an initial consultation. Increased blood pressure and other changes to the blood circulatory system also affect the heart which may become enlarged in an effort to overcome the harmful effects of hypoxaemia on the cardiovascular system.

*11/51/5*

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Posted by admin on April 23rd, 2009 :: Filed under General health
Tags :: General health

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‘Illness behaviour’ is the term used to describe the way we respond to abnormal body signs and symptoms. Obviously this involves concepts such as how a particular person monitors his or her body and its functions, defines or interprets his or her symptoms, takes action and uses the health-care system.

‘Health behaviour’, in contrast, refers to patterns of response to health, when the person has no specific symptoms. This is an especially useful concept when thinking about prevention because a lot of prevention is done by an individual who is well at the time. Examples of such activities are regular medical and dental check-ups, screening and soon. A lot of research has been done on people’s views and beliefs in this area but the best is the Health Belief Model, which looks at the way an individual assesses the likelihood of a problem having serious consequences. It is really a sort of psychological cost-benefit analysis in which people do things according to how important they consider the consequences of not doing them. So it is that we weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of factors as different as wearing a seat-belt, exercise, nutrition, medical check-ups, clinical examinations, careful driving, sanitation and personal hygiene. According to the effect we perceive each factor as having on our lives (for good or bad) we make decisions about how to maintain our health.

Unfortunately, doctors and their patients tend to see health and illness rather differently Doctors are trained to identify illnesses and to treat them as individual entities, whereas their patients see health as a more global matter which governs their overall sense of well-being. Symptoms and other frank signs of illness are seen by patients in the context of how they interfere with the business of living. In other words, illness to most people has a lot to do with feelings.

Many studies show how people’s feelings influence their sense of physical well-being. People who complain of poor physical health are often depressed, feel neglected, have a low morale, feel alienated and are less satisfied with life than those not reporting poor physical health. Also, it is clear from many studies that psychological ill health and distress lead to a very much greater use of all kinds of health services. So psychological factors influence not only people’s views of their health but also how much they actually use health services.

The way we react to illness varies considerably with our personality type and from culture to culture. Some people are stoical in the face of illness, others matter-of-fact, and yet others hypochondriacal. Some people go straight to the doctor with the most minor of symptoms and others are reluctant to trouble him or her with even quite severe problems. The same person over quite a short time-span can react and behave in very different ways. Most studies of illness show that women go to doctors more readily and more frequently than do men. Just why this should be is not known. Perhaps there are real sex differences in many diseases (i.e. they are in fact more common in women); or women may have a lower threshold of tolerance to symptoms; they may be more likely to accept a symptom and seek help for it; they may be more interested in health; they may be more concerned that they keep well because of the considerable pressures on them to run and maintain family and home life; or they may be culturally conditioned to running (in a little-girl-like way) to an authority figure to sort out problems quickly. Whatever the reason-and it might be that none of these is correct-the difference is apparent very early. Studies have found that young “girls use child-driven school health-care systems more than do young boys. Wherever the truth lies, repeated research has shown that much of the disability associated with physical and mental illness is not the result of illness itself but rather the way the person responds to the condition and the way it is managed. For example, a lot of the aggressive behaviour previously seen with schizophrenia has been shown to be a result of the way that schizophrenics were dealt with by the authorities rather than as a part of the disease itself.

There are quite dramatic social and cultural differences in the way individuals and groups define illness and respond to it. Studies carried out in the US have shown that Jewish and Italian patients, for example, have been found to respond to pain in an emotional way-tending to make much of it-whilst the English and ‘Old Americans’ are more stoical and clear-headed about it. Irish patients more frequently deny pain. Whilst Jews and Italians appear to react similarly to pain, their underlying cultures are different. Italian patients seek relief from pain and seem satisfied when the pain is relieved, but Jewish patients seem to be more concerned about the significance of the pain for their future health. So pain relief may be what Italians need most but reassurance about the future may be what is most needed by Jews. Clearly this kind of information is essential if one is to plan any kind of preventive health programme.

*11/72/5*

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Posted by admin on April 23rd, 2009 :: Filed under General health
Tags :: General health

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Eating more can help you realize your weight-loss goals. But you have to be smart about it. If you coat your wonderful lunch salad with a high-fat dressing, it’s not so wonderful anymore. If you slather your whole-grain roll with butter, it topples out of the healthy category and into the not-so-healthy one.

The easiest and fastest way to teach yourself to eat smart is to keep a food diary. In a small notebook, write down exactly when, what, and how much you eat. Was the fish broiled or fried? Did you have one serving of ice cream, or two … or three? Was your baked potato topped with plain low-fat yogurt and chives or with butter and sour cream?

You may be surprised at how your perception of what and how much you eat differs from what really goes into your mouth. You may never have realized how many handfuls of M&M’s you grab from the office candy dish over the course of a day. Or that the bottle of cola that you drink with your lunch contains two servings rather than one. Or that your usual-size portion of fish is three times larger than it should be. All of those extra calories add up.

Learn to recognize portion sizes. Weigh and measure foods until you know what a serving looks like. And always read labels. You’ll be amazed at where you’ll find loads of calories lurking.

Eating smart isn’t about eating boring, tasteless meals—or not eating at all. It’s about eating only when you’re hungry, making healthful food choices, and controlling your portions. It’s about being aware of why you’re eating. It’s about feeding your body properly and feeling good about yourself.

*4\89\8*

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Posted by admin on April 23rd, 2009 :: Filed under Weight Loss
Tags :: Weight Loss

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Yams are probably the best potato substitute. They are a large cylindrical white root with a dull brown outer skin. Firmer and more fibrous than potatoes, they are very similar in taste but with an interesting, slightly bitter aftertaste. They are best if prepared like sauteed potatoes – boiled and then fried. You need a sharp knife and a strong hand to peel them and cut them into cubes. Boil for about 20 mins or until they are tender. If you buy a large piece of yam and boil it, you can then pack the cooked pieces in individual portions and freeze them. You can fry them from frozen in oil – fry slowly over a low heat for best results. Yam can be bought in West Indian groceries, but tends to be rather expensive. Pieces of fried yam dipped in taramasalata are quite delicious.

Sweet potatoes are also found in West Indian and Chinese stores, and occasionally in ordinary greengrocers or supermarkets. There are many different sorts, with flesh ranging from white to deep yellow in colour. Those on sale in Britain usually have a distinctive reddish-purple outer skin. Peel and dice them, keeping them under water as much as possible to prevent discolouration. Alternatively, you can bake them and serve them with butter (if allowed) or slice and deep-fry them. They have a very sweet, slightly sticky flesh which goes well in soups, or with meat casseroles, but is rather cloying on its own.

Serving sweet potatoes with sharp fruit is a good idea, as the acidity offsets their stickiness. Try frying them over a low heat for 20 minutes (after boiling), adding slices of apple and walnuts for the last 5 minutes. This makes a good breakfast dish. Like yams, sweet potatoes can be peeled and boiled in a large batch, then stored in individual portions in the freezer, and fried from frozen.

The Chinese make a soup by boiling sweet potatoes in water or stock until they disintegrate and flavouring the liquid with root ginger. They also make a delicious snack called deep-fried sweet potato balls. To make these, boil some sweet potatoes until soft. Mash them and add rice flour (or wheat flour) to make a stiff dough. Take a small piece of the dough, press it down flat, put a half-teaspoonful of peanut butter (or another nut butter) in the centre and seal the dough around it. Roll in sesame seeds and deep fry in vegetable oil.

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Posted by admin on April 20th, 2009 :: Filed under Allergies
Tags :: Allergies

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Proceed to Stage 2. Stay on the healthy-eating diet until you are ready to start.

If you are satisfied with your improvement, and don’t like the idea of giving up foods, you could stop here. Reintroduce tea, coffee, alcohol etc, to see which was the problem, following the instructions given below.

If you feel you would like to be better still, go on to Stage 2 of the diet. When you have completed Stage 2 (or Stage 3) you can test your reactions to tea, coffee, alcohol etc.

Some people who feel partially better at this stage, may be suffering from Candida overgrowth. Cutting out sugar could have improved the situation, but to get any further requires a full Candida treatment. If you think this is likely, having considered the symptoms of Candida, then you should try the full anti-Candida diet. Bear in mind, however, that the symptoms of candidiasis and food intolerance are very difficult to tell apart. You may be better off proceeding to Stage 2, and then trying the anti-Candida therapy if this does not work.

Feeling a lot better

Good – you can now test the various things you cut out to see which ones cause your symptoms – see the next section for instructions. Testing can begin as soon as you have been consistently well for a week. If you felt terrible at the start of the diet, then caffeine is the most likely cause. Try a fairly weak cup of coffee or tea for your first test. Bear in mind that there are dozens of other nasties in tea and coffee, besides caffeine – you may be reacting to one of these, in which case you could be sensitive to tea but not coffee, or vice versa.

*353\180\8*

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Posted by admin on April 20th, 2009 :: Filed under Allergies
Tags :: Allergies

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Carol was an active woman in her fifties, who had a part-time secretarial job and was a voluntary worker at the local hospital. With a large family of children and grandchildren to worry about, she tended to ignore the odd aches and pains that she suffered. But as the years went by these grew worse, and finally began to interfere with her life. She had difficulty getting out of bed in the morning, her joints were so stiff, and it was only by the evening that she really loosened up and could move around normally. As well as joint pain, she began to suffer from diarrhoea and wind, which was worse whenever she drank alcohol. Headaches became more regular until she had them almost every day, and she often had severe pains in her face due to sinusitis. She also suffered repeated thrush infections and an itchy rash between the toes which looked like athlete’s foot. It was these two items that made her doctor suspect a Candida infection. She put Carol on a sugar-free diet and prescribed an antifungal drug, nystatin. This made her feel much worse initially, but after a month her bowels were functioning normally, her joints were less

stiff and her headaches were less frequent. Since she was still not completely well, the doctor asked her to try an elimination diet, avoiding cereal grains, dairy products and eggs. Carol was impressed by the change this brought about – she felt much better in herself, less tired and able to be cheerful without making an effort. She also lost some excess weight that she had accumulated. On testing, it turned out to be eggs and wheat that caused her problems. Having improved so much, she was now able to notice the specific effects of certain other foods. For one thing, she noticed that foods containing a lot of additives made her feel tired and unwell, with vague muscle aches. Decorating the house also produced these sort of symptoms, and she found later that solvents such as white spirit and dry-cleaning fluid regularly had this effect.

As this case shows, there are often several different factors at work in individual patients. It is not unusual for food intolerance to go hand-in-hand with Candida overgrowth and sensitivity to synthetic chemicals. How these three problems might interconnect is still unknown.

*305\180\8*

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Posted by admin on April 20th, 2009 :: Filed under Allergies
Tags :: Allergies

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White and brown sugar Honey

Golden syrup Treacle Molasses Maple syrup Malt

Barley sweetener (macrobiotic sweetener) Jam, including ‘no added sugar’ jam Chutney and pickles

Most alcoholic drinks, except very dry wines

Cakes and Biscuits

Ice-cream

Puddings

Chocolate and other sweets Fizzy drinks and fruit squash

Any food labelled: corn syrup, dextrose, fructose, glucose, maltose,

sucrose or sugar Baked beans, including ‘no added sugar’ brands Peanut butter (except sugar-free brands, sold in health food shops) Some other apparently savoury foods contain sugar – some tinned soups

for example, and some meat pies Some medicines, especially syrups and coated tablets Dried fruits, which are rich in natural sugars, should not be eaten Anything that tastes sweet should be regarded with suspicion, unless

designed for diabetics

Quite often, the initial response to nystatin is severe and unpleasant, but this is not usually a reaction to the drug itself. What happens is that the drug kills off a lot of the resident Candida, the yeast cells burst open, and some of the cell contents are absorbed into the bloodstream, producing an exaggerated version of the usual symptoms. This is known as a die-off reaction or Herxheimer reaction. The best way to avoid this problem is to embark on a low.

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Posted by admin on April 20th, 2009 :: Filed under Allergies
Tags :: Allergies

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Not everyone was happy with the change in the definition of allergy. At the time this change was made, several doctors in the US were already studying what they called ‘delayed’ or ‘masked’ food allergies. In these cases, the symptoms were much more varied. They also took far longer to materialize and were less acute. Because they rarely gave positive skin-prick tests, they could not be included in the new definition of allergy.

While the doctors concerned with ‘masked food allergy’ protested at the redefinition of allergy announced by their colleagues, they lost out to the newly arisen orthodoxy. There was pressure on them to conform, both from the medical establishment and, in some cases, from large food manufacturers who were funding research, and were alarmed at the idea of whole sections of the populace discovering they could not eat wheat or milk – the two most common culprits as identified by the alternative allergists. There are very few processed foods that do not contain wheat or milk.

Some of the doctors involved in such unpopular research were highly respected medical scientists, with promising research careers ahead of them. But all this pressure eventually forced them out of the medical mainstream and into private practice, where they continued to use the term ‘allergy’ in their own way – to mean simply ‘altered reactivity’. This tradition has continued in the USA, and many American doctors working in this field still use ‘allergy’ in this much broader sense. Other doctors, especially in Britain, prefer the less controversial terms ‘food intolerance’ or ‘food sensitivity’.

Another trans-Atlantic difference should be pointed out here. The American doctors working in this field describe themselves as clinical ecologists because they are concerned with the effect of a great variety of environmental factors – such as pollens, synthetic chemicals and air pollutants – as well as food. Some of their British and Australian counterparts also use this title, but most reject it because of its perceived links with the worst sort of fringe medicine and bogus diagnostic methods. Nevertheless, most of the British doctors who study and treat food intolerance also consider other forms of allergy and sensitivity, including chemical sensitivity, a subject that is discussed in detail in Chapter Nine.

*7\180\8*

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Posted by admin on April 20th, 2009 :: Filed under Allergies
Tags :: Allergies

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They should try to maintain eye contact throughout the game and notice how they feel about that contact and what makes them want to look away. Once they have assumed their coital position, the wife says to the husband:

“I love you just the way you are.”

Then she says the next thing that comes into her mind.

Then the husband says:

“I love you just the way you are.”

Then he says the next thing that comes into his mind.

They repeat this simple sentence and the follow-up thoughts as long as necessary—that is, as long as it takes to say everything that pops up from their unconscious (or formerly censored conscious).

What happens is that whenever they say, “I love you just the way you are,” the next thought that will come into their minds is a negative judgment, such as, “Except I wish you’d lose weight,” or “Except you come from a poor family and don’t know how to be rich,” or “Except I hate the gap in your teeth,” or “Except I wish you were a little smarter/prettier/a better dresser.” As these negative judgments are acknowledged, the impasse will be broken, replaced by the feelings they have been withholding from one another. Sometimes arguments ensue:

“Oh, so I’m not pretty enough for you.”

“No, you’re pretty enough—it’s just that I have these per-fectionistic standards.”

“Well, you’re no movie star yourself.”

“That’s true.”

*112/196/1*

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Posted by admin on April 9th, 2009 :: Filed under Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction
Tags :: Men’s Health

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