Early cataract formation can be reversed or halted. Therefore the quicker cataracts can be identified and treated the better. Once cataracts are too far advanced for nutritional intervention, surgery is a must. Unfortunately, well-formed cataracts or excessive damage to the lens is near impossible to reverse.
If a cataract is diagnosed in the early stages, you should work with an eye doctor who is willing to design a nutritional and lifestyle program that will reverse the problem, if your eye doctor is not interested in nutritional intervention, find a doctor who is.
Avoid smoking and wear protective sunglasses or eyewear when exposed to UV light or the sun. Avoid fried food and a diet heavy in saturated fats.
Cure Cataracts with Diet
It is important that take spirulina and eat a diet rich in antioxidants from fruit and vegetables.
Berries, carrots, capsicum, citrus fruits, broccoli, spinach, tomatoes, corn, kale, and all red and yellow pigment fruits, vegetables and legumes have colorful pigments that contain antioxidants which are critical to protecting and restoring vision.
Diabetics should avoid sugar in all its forms as well as dairy products because they contain lactose (a type of sugar known as galactose and glucose).
Cure Cataracts with Supplements
For early stage cataracts the following supplements are recommended:
Antioxidants such as Evening Primrose Seed husk, Green tea, Grape Seed, Pine Bark, Beta Carotene, Vitamins E, A and C,
Minerals such as (Zinc, Selenium, Manganese)
Melatonin is a prescriptive synthetic hormone of the pineal gland that has been shown to inhibit formation of cataracts, act as an antioxidant and also help insomnia by regulating the sleep-wake cycle.
Cure Cataracts with Herbs
Bilberry, Ginkgo and both have special compounds that protect the eye lens and eye capillaries, and reduce cataract formation.
We have never posted an article like this, however if there was ever an exception to promote spiritual and holistic wellness, this is it.
This is a wonderful piece by MichaelGartner, editor of newspapers large and small and past president of NBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. It is well worth reading, and a few good chuckles are guaranteed. Here goes….
My father never drove a car. Well, that’s not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a car.
He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet.
“In those days,” he told me when he was in his 90s, “to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it.”
At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in: “Oh, bull—-! she said. ”He hit a horse.”
“Well,” my father said, “there was that, too.”
So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars — the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford — but we had none.
My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines , would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together.
My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we’d ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. ”No one in the family drives,” my mother would explain, and that was that.
But, sometimes, my father would say, “But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we’ll get one.” It was as if he wasn’t sure which one of us would turn 16 first.
But, sure enough, my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown.
It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn’t drive, it more or less became my brother’s car. Having a car but not being able to drive didn’t bother my father, but it didn’t make sense to my mother.
So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father’s idea. ”Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?” I remember him saying more than once.
For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps — though they seldom left the city limits — and appointed himself navigator.. It seemed to work.
Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn’t seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage.
(Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.)
He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St.Augustin’s Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish’s two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home.
If it was the assistant pastor, he’d take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church. He called the priests “Father Fast” and “Father Slow.”
After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were going to the beauty parlor, he’d sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then, when I’d stop by, he’d explain: “The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored.”
If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out — and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, “Do you want to know the secret of a long life?”
“I guess so,” I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.
“No left turns,” he said.
“What?” I asked.
“No left turns,” he repeated. ”Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic..
As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn.”
“What?” I said again.
“No left turns,” he said. ”Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that’s a lot safer So we always make three rights.”
“You’re kidding!” I said, and I turned to my mother for support. ”No,” she said, “your father is right. We make three rights. It works.” But then she added: “Except when your father loses count.”
I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing.
“Loses count?” I asked.
“Yes,” my father admitted, “that sometimes happens. But it’s not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you’re okay again.”
I couldn’t resist. ”Do you ever go for 11?” I asked.
“No,” he said ” If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can’t be put off another day or another week.”
My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving.. That was in 1999, when she was 90.
She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102.
They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom — the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.)
He continued to walk daily — he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he’d fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising — and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.
One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news.
A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, “You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred.” At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, “You know, I’m probably not going to live much longer.”
“You’re probably right,” I said.
“Why would you say that?” He countered, somewhat irritated.
“Because you’re 102 years old,” I said..
“Yes,” he said, “you’re right.” He stayed in bed all the next day.
That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night.
He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said: “I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet”
An hour or so later, he spoke his last words: “I want you to know,” he said, clearly and lucidly, “that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have.”
A short time later, he died.
I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot I’ve wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long.
I can’t figure out if it was because he walked through life, or because he quit taking left turns.
Life is too short to wake up with regrets.
So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the one’s who don’t. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it & if it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be worth it.
GENEVA - Most of the 2.6 million deaths of young people each year are preventable, according to a new study supported by the World Health Organization and released in Geneva Friday.
The main causes of deaths in the 10-24 age group were road traffic accidents, complications during pregnancy and child birth, suicide, violence, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.
The study, to be published in the Lancet, a medical journal, found that 97 percent of these deaths were taking place in low and middle-income countries.
“Young people … often fall through the cracks,” said Daisy Mafubelu, WHO’s expert for family and community health.
She said it was important to improve their access to information and services “and help young people avoid risky behaviors that can lead to death”.
There are an estimated 1.8 billion people that fall into this age group, accounting for 30 percent of the world’s population.
Road traffic accidents could be avoided through more appropriate speed limits, strict enforcement of drunk-driving laws and by the use of helmets and safety belts, the WHO said.
Moreover, young people need sex education, condoms and other contraceptives, the ability to perform safe abortions, access to antenatal and obstetric services and testing and care for HIV/AIDS.
The study also led the researchers to conclude that suicide and other violence could be prevented through life-skills training and positive parental involvement in young people’s lives.
Furthermore, the WHO recommended that access to lethal means of all kinds, including guns and toxins, should be reduced, along with limiting the consumption of alcohol.
There also needed to be better care and support for those exposed to child abuse, youth violence, and sexual assault, to help young people deal with the immediate and long-term consequences of these traumatic events.
The adrenal glands are the part of the body responsible for releasing three different classes of hormones. These hormones control many important functions in the body, such as:
Maintaining metabolic processes, such as managing blood sugar levels and regulating inflammation
Regulating the balance of salt and water
Controlling the “fight or flight” response to stress
Maintaining pregnancy
Initiating and controlling sexual maturation during childhood and puberty
The adrenal glands are also an important source of sex steroids, such as estrogen and testosterone.
What are adrenal gland disorders?
Adrenal gland disorders occur when the adrenal glands don’t work properly. Sometimes, the cause is a problem in another gland that helps to regulate the adrenal gland. In other cases, the adrenal gland itself may have the problem. The NICHD conducts and supports research on many adrenal gland disorders. Some examples include:
Cushing’s Syndrome - Cushing’s syndrome happens when a person’s body is exposed to too much of the hormone cortisol. In this syndrome, a person’s body makes more cortisol than it needs. For example, adrenal tumors can cause the body to produce too much cortisol. In some cases, children are born with a form of adrenal hyperplasia that leads to Cushing syndrome. Or, in some cases, certain medications can cause the body to make too much cortisol
Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia - Congenital adrenal hyperplasia is a genetic disorder of adrenal gland deficiency. In this disorder, the body doesn’t make enough of the hormone cortisol. The bodies of people with congenital adrenal hyperplasia may also have other hormone imbalances, such as not making enough aldosterone, but making too much androgen.
Pituitary Tumors - The pituitary gland is located in the brain and helps to regulate the activity of most other glands in the body, including the adrenal glands. In rare cases, benign (non-cancerous) tumors may grow on the pituitary gland, which may restrict the hormones it releases.
In some cases, tumors on the pituitary can lead to Cushing’s syndrome – this is called Cushing disease. In other cases, the tumors reduce the adrenal gland’s release of hormones needed for the “fight or flight” response to stress. If the body is unable to handle physiological stress—a condition called Addison’s disease—it can be fatal.
What are the treatments for adrenal gland disorders?
The treatment for adrenal gland disorders depends on the specific disorder or the specific cause of the disorder. For example:
The treatment for Cushing’s syndrome depends on the cause. If the excess cortisol is caused by medication, your health care provider can change dosages or try a different medication to correct the problem. If the Cushing’s syndrome is caused by the body making too much cortisol, treatments may include oral medication, surgery, radiation, or a combination of these treatments.
Congenital adrenal hyperplasia can’t be cured, but it can be treated and controlled. People with congenital adrenal hyperplasia can take medication to help replace the hormones their bodies are not making. Some people with congenital adrenal hyperplasia only need these medications when they are sick, but others may need to take them every day.
Doctors can successfully treat most pituitary tumors with microsurgery, radiation therapy, surgery, drugs, or a combination of these treatments. Surgery is currently the treatment of choice for tumors that grow rapidly, especially if they threaten or affect vision. The treatment plan for other pituitary tumors differs according to the type and size of the tumor.
GENEVA - Hormone replacement therapy might be beneficial for postmenopausal women at increased heart risk, say researchers.
“Although it is commonly understood that postmenopausal women, particularly those with early menopause, have an increased risk of developing coronary artery disease and it was thought that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) would help to remedy this, some well-known clinical investigations, such as the Heart and Estrogen/progestin Replacement Study (HERS), were unable to demonstrate an improved outcome in postmenopausal women using HRT,” said Dr. Thomas Schindler, chief of nuclear cardiology at the University Hospitals of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
“The exact mechanism behind this increased risk, however, remains uncertain,” he added.
Some of the factors putting women at risk are an accumulation of body fat, insulin resistance, inflammation, dyslipidemia (disruption of lipid metabolism) and increases in arterial blood pressure.
Another important factor is the deprivation of naturally occurring estrogen.
For the study, the researchers evaluated the effect of long-term hormone replacement therapy with estrogen, mostly combined with progestin, on heart vessel function in 48 postmenopausal women who had been treated for coronary risk factors, such as hypercholesterolemia (high blood cholesterol) or arterial hypertension.
They were divided into groups according to HRT. The first group comprised 18 women who were on HRT at baseline and at follow-up positron emission tomography (PET) assessment of coronary endothelial function (the inner lining of the coronary vessels).
The second group comprised 18 women who were not on HRT; and group 3 comprised 12 women who were on HRT at baseline, but not at follow-up PET exam.
“Given that preventive medical treatment of coronary risk factors, such as statins (cholesterol-lowering agents) or angiotensin-coverting enzyme inhibitors, usually improves coronary endothelial function, it is not known whether HRT, which commonly promotes the release of endothelial-derived NO in postmenopausal women with already medically treated coronary risk factors, might still exert an additional protective effect on the function of the coronary endothelium and, thus, the development of coronary artery disease,” said Schindler.
Applying PET, the researchers found that HRT widely maintained coronary endothelial function, while those postmenopausal women without HRT experienced a worsening in the endothelium function.
In addition, postmenopausal women who gave up HRT during the observational period demonstrated the most severe drop in the coronary endothelial function.
New Brain Pathway for Regulating Weight, Bone Mass Identified
PRINCETON - Yale researchers have claimed that hormone leptin, which is critical for normal food intake and metabolism, appears to regulate bone mass and suppress appetite.
The hormone appears to regulate bone mass and weight by acting mainly through serotonin pathways in the brain.
“Our study challenges the view that the hypothalamus is the critical brain site where leptin acts directly to alter neuronal circuit function to suppress appetite and bone metabolism,” said Yale researcher and study co-author TamasHorvath.
“We’ve now found a novel explanation for how leptin can act on the brain,” Horvath added.
Food intake is influenced by signals that travel from the body to the brain. Leptin is one of the molecules that signal the brain to modulate food intake.
It is produced in fat cells and informs the brain of the metabolic state. If animals are missing leptin, or the leptin receptor, they eat too much and become severely obese.
To determine whether leptin regulates bone mass through serotonin pathways, Horvath and his colleagues analyzed multiple lines of mice that were genetically altered to remove serotonin in the brain.
“We found that when the serotonin pathway is turned off by leptin, the mice ate less, lost weight and their bones became weak,” said Horvath.
“When the pathway is turned on, the mice ate more, gained weight and had more bone mass. This might be why obese people tend to have much lower incidences of osteoporosis,” the expert added.
ATLANTA - Researchers at Georgia State University have thrown light on how pain in infancy alters the brain’s ability to process pain in adulthood.
The study has now indicated that infants who spent time in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) show altered pain sensitivity in adolescence.
The results have profound implications, and highlight the need for pre-emptive and post-operative pain medicine for newborn infants.
The study sheds light on how the mechanisms of pain are altered after infant injury in a region of the brain called the periaqueductal gray, which is involved in the perception of pain.
For the study, graduate student JamieLaPrairie and professor AnneMurphy used Sprague-Dawley rats to examine why the brief experience of pain at the time of birth permanently decreased pain sensitivity in adulthood.
Endogenous opioid peptides, such as beta-endorphin and enkephalin, function to inhibit pain and they are also the ‘feel good’ substances that are released following high levels of exercise or love.
As these peptides are released following injury and act like morphine to dampen the experience of pain, the researchers tested to see if the rats, who were injured at birth, had unusually high levels of endogenous opioids in adulthood.
Thus, they gave adult animals that were injured at the time of birth a drug called naloxone, which blocks the actions of endogenous opioids.
The researchers observed that after animals received an injection of naloxone, they behaved just like an uninjured animal.
Using a variety of anatomical techniques, the investigators showed that animals that were injured at birth had endogenous opioid levels that were two times higher than normal.
Interestingly, while there is an increase in endorphin and enkephalin proteins in adults, there is also a big decrease in the availability of mu and delta opioid receptors, which are necessary in order for pain medications, such as morphine, to work.
This means that it takes more pain-relieving medications in order to provide relief as there are fewer available receptors in the brain. Studies in humans are reporting the same phenomenon.
The number of invasive procedures an infant experienced in the NICU is negatively correlated with how responsive the child is to morphine later in life.
Thus, the researchers concluded that the more painful procedures an infant experienced, the less effective morphine is in alleviating pain.
The study has been published online in the journal Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.
Steroid Hormone Deficiency May be Behind Cardiovascular Disease
BOSTON - The deficiency of steroid hormones called androgens, such as testosterone, may be behind cardiovascular disease, according to a study.
Published in the Journal of Andrology, a report on the study underscores the fact that a number of studies have linked androgen deficiency to an increased mortality in men.
Testosterone (T) is an anabolic hormone with a wide range of beneficial effects on men’s health.
However, according to Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) researchers, the therapeutic role of T in men’s health remains a hotly debated issue for a number of reasons, including the purported risk of prostate cancer.
Working in collaboration with researchers from Lahey Clinic Northshore, Peabody, Massachusetts, they evaluated several relevant articles pertinent to androgen deficiency and vascular disease, and determined that a relationship did exist between androgen deficiency and CVD.
“In view of the emerging evidence suggesting that androgen deficiency is a risk factor for CVD, androgen replacement therapy could potentially reduce CVD risk in hypogonadal men. It should be emphasized, however, that androgen replacement therapy should be done with very thorough and careful monitoring for prostate diseases,” said lead author Dr.AbdulmagedM.Traish, a professor of biochemistry and urology as well as the director of Laboratories for Sexual Medicine, Institute for Sexual Medicine at BUSM.
To further elucidate the role of androgen deficiency in vascular disease, the researchers recommend large, long-term, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled clinical trials be carried out.
“Although challenges might lie ahead regarding how data from such clinical trials are to be properly interpreted and whether long-term safety can be established with T supplementation, these findings warrant definite investigation into the beneficial role that androgens might have in preventing cardiovascular risk in androgen-deficient men,” added Traish.
PLEASE NOTE OTHER POSTS ON “HORMONES” AND “BIO IDENTICAL HORMONES”
TORONTO - Below normal levels of a natural fat hormone may heighten death risk from sepsis — an overwhelming infection of the blood which claims thousands of lives every year — says an Indian-origin Canadian scientist.
The study by St.Michael’s Hospital researchers and the University of Toronto (U-T) focussed on adiponectin, a hormone secreted by visceral fat surrounding the abdominal organs.
“We hypothesised that low adiponectin levels might predispose such individuals to develop sepsis and sepsis-related problems,” says SubodhVerma, associate professor of surgery at the University of Toronto.
“This initial hypothesis was borne out by our latest research.”
Using an animal model designed to mimic what occurs in people with low levels of adiponectin, scientists observed that mice with low levels of the hormone were at much greater risk of dying from a blood infection. Sepsis could be prevented if the animals were given additional adiponectin.
The risk of dying from sepsis after surgery is known to be two-and-a-half to three times higher in people with “metabolic syndrome” — a combination of factors including abdominal obesity, high blood fat composition, high blood pressure, diabetes and high inflammatory and blood clot indicators.
People with these conditions tend to have lower levels of adiponectin which may prime them to greater sepsis related complications, says an U-T release.
The findings were presented Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons held in Chicago.
LUEBECK - A number of studies have linked chronic sleep deprivation to a heightened risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Now, a small study suggests that low levels of physical activity during the day may partly account for the connection.
In a study of 15 healthy men, researchers found that a couple nights of grabbing only four hours of sleep caused the men to curtail their physical activity compared with days where they had gotten the standard eight hours the night before.
In contrast, there was no evidence that sleep loss altered blood levels of appetite-regulating hormones or caused the men to eat more the next day — effects that have been seen in a number of previous studies.
The implication is that there may be a broader range of reasons for the link between sleep loss and weight and health, the researchers report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Practically speaking, the findings offer adults another reason to get enough sleep.
For healthy adults, that means regularly getting seven to eight hours per night, lead researcher Dr.SebastianM.Schmid, of the University of Luebeck in Germany, told Reuters Health in an email.
A number of large epidemiological studies have found associations between poor sleep and higher risks of obesity and other health problems. Since then, a few small studies done in the sleep lab have attempted to find the possible reasons for the connection.
In some, researchers have found evidence that sleep loss alters the regulation of the hunger hormones leptin and ghrelin, and may boost daytime appetite. Leptin, which helps regulate body weight, is secreted by fat cells; low blood levels of the hormone promote hunger, while increases tell the brain that the body is full and encourage calorie burning. Ghrelin is secreted by the stomach to boost appetite.
But another possibility is that sleep-deprived people are just too tired to be physically active during the day.
While that seems logical, apparently no human studies had examined the question before.
For the new study, Schmid and his colleagues had 15 healthy, normal-weight men go through two consecutive nights with four hours of sleep and two nights with eight hours of sleep.
After the first night, the men spent the day doing their normal activities, while wearing a wrist device that recorded their movements. After the second night, they came to the sleep lab, where they again wore the wrist devices and also had their levels of leptin and ghrelin measured and their calorie intake monitored.
The researchers found that, unexpectedly, the men showed no differences in their hormone levels, hunger or food intake after the four-hour night compared with the eight-hour night.
They were, however, less active after sleep-deprived nights — devoting both fewer minutes to physical activity and a smaller proportion of that time to more-intense exercise.
Last Updated: 2010-01-01 13:00:52 -0400 (Reuters Health)
When the men got eight hours of sleep, they spent an average of 25 percent of their active time performing higher-intensity exercise; that declined to about 22 percent with four hours of sleep.
Over time, such differences could affect a person’s weight and general health, according to Schmid’s team.
The findings do not mean that sleep loss has no effects on hunger hormones and appetite, as earlier studies have suggested that it does. However, Schmid said, the results do suggest that even modest sleep restriction — so common in today’s society — reduces physical activity, while hormones and appetite are “less affected.”
SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, December 2009.
Bioidentical hormones are hormones that are identical to what the human body makes. Why do drug companies seldom make and sell bioidentical hormones?
The reason is - since the late 1800’s, U.S. laws allowed medicines to be patented ONLY if they were NOT naturally occurring substances. If a drug company discovered a natural substance that could be used medically, anyone else could also use/make/sell that substance.
So what the drug companies do is to create synthetic hormones that are intentionally different. Examples are Premarin, Prempro and Provera - these synthetic drugs are different in their molecular structure from the estrogens and progesterone found in the human body.
And the problem with synthetic drugs is - since they are different from what occurs naturally in the human body, the body treats them differently and the result is often harmful side effects.
Even though bioidentical hormones have been around for a long time, the majority of doctors are not familiar with them. Today’s doctors are ordinarily schooled and trained in synthetic drug therapy, not natural medicine.
Finding bioidentical doctors and bioidentical hormone doctors can be done. For example, holistic doctors and naturopathic doctors are regular medical doctors with additional training and experience in using bioidentical hormones.
A holistic medical doctor uses a combination of conventional Western medicine and alternative medicine. A holistic doctor incorporates one or more types of complementary medicine into their medical practice.
This complementary medicine could be acupuncture, herbal therapy or homeopathy. For instance, while undergoing treatment for cancer using radiation, the patient might receive herbal therapy to strengthen the immune system.
Naturopathic physicians are medical doctors that work to restore and support the body’s systems by using medicines and techniques that are in harmony with natural processes.
A naturopathic physician will prefer treatments which keep the risks of harmful side effects at a minimum. Naturopathic doctors will use bioidentical hormones when appropriate, which are safer and with few or no side effects when used correctly.
They are trained to know which persons they can treat - they also know which patients should be referred to other health care practitioners. Since every illness has an underlying cause, a naturopathic physician is trained to find and remove the underlying causes of a disease.
That may include adjusting the diet or lifestyle of the patient, for example. A naturopathic physician will treat the whole person, taking all the factors into account.
Natural progesterone is necessary for the appropriate and balanced supply of all steroids hormones and the increase of energy production.
Bioidentical hormones like natural progesterone supplementation, high quality vitamins/supplements and good Omega-3 fish oil supplements will provide you great health benefits and are a regular part of their recommendations.
Vitamins are essential to improve men and women’s health. This will give you a increased sense of wellbeing, more energy, increase your sex drive, will give you a healthier heart and can help you with some hormone imbalance symptoms.
SYDNEY - A new online survey has found that women are happier than men, and that young people are more likely to be distressed.
The survey of 309 people, conducted by the Mental Health Association NSW (MHA), also found that spending time with friends or being a member of a club contributed much to an individual’s happiness.
It also showed that those unsure whether they would like socialising, “fence sitters”, were more prone to mental ill-health.
A majority of women reported feeling happier than men, and they also had more active social lives.
“The report reveals that there is a strong link between participating and feeling happy when socialising with friends or being a member of a club,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted MHA spokeswoman Nataly Bovopoulos as saying in a statement.
“It was also interesting to note that the majority (72 per cent) of the respondents were female, which indicates immediately that women are more likely to get involved than men,” she added.
Those who were experiencing a disadvantage from factors such as a financial crisis reported being distressed, as did 18 to 25-year-olds, who were unhappier than older age groups.
The survey, which asks people if they attend religious services or use social networking sites such as Facebook, is part of research into community participation, psychological distress, and mental well-being trends in NSW.
Bovopoulos also said it was possible for people to feel unhappy without being depressed or anxious, however, most people who were distressed reported feeling unhappy.
GENEVA - India, Nigeria and Congo account for 40 percent of the 8.8 million deaths of children under the age of five years, a new Unicef study released Friday says.
Though a little satisfied over a drop in child mortality, the UN agency said these three countries were a key to the world achieving the millennium development goals by 2015. The goals have been set up by United Nations.
“A handful of countries with large populations bear a disproportionate burden of under-five deaths, with forty per cent of the worlds under-five deaths occurring in just three countries: India, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the global report said.
Unless mortality in these countries is significantly reduced, the MDG (millennium development goals) targets will not be met, said Unicef Executive Director AnnM.Veneman.
The study said achieving the goal of a two-thirds reduction in the under-five mortality rate by 2015 would require a strong sense of urgency with targeted resources for greater progress.
While praising some countries for making efforts in reducing the mortality, Unicef expressed dissatisfaction that South Africa was not doing enough in this regard.
In some countries, the progress is slow or non-existent. In South Africa, the under-five mortality rate has actually gone up since 1990. The health of the child is inextricably linked to the health of the mother and South Africa has the highest number of women living with HIV in the world, the report said.
Recent commitments by the government to scale up interventions to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS should help improve the situation, the UN agency hoped.
Unicef said the progress could be accelerated even in the poorest environments, through integrated, evidence-driven, community-based health programmes that focus on addressing the major causes of death — pneumonia, diarrhoea, newborn disorders, malaria, HIV and under-nutrition.
The two leading causes of under-five mortality are pneumonia and diarrhoea. New tools, such as vaccines against pneumococcal pneumonia and rotaviral diarrhoea, could provide (the) additional momentum, the report said.
The data, however, shows a 28 per cent decline in the under-five mortality rate, from 90 deaths per 1000 live births in 1990, to 65 deaths per 1000 live births in 2008 in the world.
According to these estimates, the absolute number of child deaths in 2008 declined to an estimated 8.8 million from 12.5 million in 1990, the base line year for the millennium development goals.
Compared to 1990, 10,000 fewer children are dying every day. While progress is being made, it is unacceptable that each year 8.8 million children die before their fifth birthday, added Veneman.
Hormone imbalances can cause hot flashes, weight gain, night sweats, etc. Many hormone creams, pills, and potions on the market are purchased and used indiscriminately. A more scientific way to deal with the regulation of hormones, however, is to measure their levels in the urine with a 24-hour lab test and then design a nutrition and hormone replacement program to bring the levels to normal.
The hormones measured include all the ovarian, adrenal, thyroid, and pituitary hormones, including growth hormone. Those needing hormone replacement are given bioidentical, non-drug formulations that can be filled at a compounding pharmacy. Both women and men can be tested and treated.
Natural Hormone Replacement Therapy can replace the hormones your body loses - the estrogens, progesterone, and other hormones - with hormones bioidentical in nature to those you lose.
Bioidentical hormones exactly mimic the structure and function of the hormones inside your body. Bioidentical hormones come from plant sources, and help women rebalance hormone levels in their bodies in a natural way.
Bioidentical hormones are hormones that are identical to what the human body makes. Why do drug companies seldom make and sell bioidentical hormones?
The reason is - since the late 1800’s, U.S. laws allowed medicines to be patented ONLY if they were NOT naturally occurring substances. If a drug company discovered a natural substance that could be used medically, anyone else could also use/make/sell that substance.
So what the drug companies do is to create synthetic hormones that are intentionally different. Examples are Premarin, Prempro and Provera - these synthetic drugs are different in their molecular structure from the estrogens and progesterone found in the human body.
And the problem with synthetic drugs is - since they are different from what occurs naturally in the human body, the body treats them differently and the result is often harmful side effects.
Even though bioidentical hormones have been around for a long time, the majority of doctors are not familiar with them. Today’s doctors are ordinarily schooled and trained in synthetic drug therapy, not natural medicine.
Are there doctors who use bioidentical hormones?
YES! A holistic doctors and naturopathic doctors are regular medical doctors with additional training and experience in using bioidentical hormones.
A holistic medical doctor uses a combination of conventional Western medicine and alternative medicine. A holistic doctor incorporates one or more types of complementary medicine into their medical practice.
This complementary medicine could be acupuncture, herbal therapy or homeopathy. For instance, while undergoing treatment for cancer using radiation, the patient might receive herbal therapy to strengthen the immune system.
Naturopathic physicians are medical doctors that work to restore and support the body’s systems by using medicines and techniques that are in harmony with natural processes.
A naturopathic physician will prefer treatments which keep the risks of harmful side effects at a minimum. Naturopathic doctors will use bioidentical hormones when appropriate, which are safer and with few or no side effects when used correctly.
They are trained to know which persons they can treat - they also know which patients should be referred to other health care practitioners. Since every illness has an underlying cause, a naturopathic physician is trained to find and remove the underlying causes of a disease.
That may include adjusting the diet or lifestyle of the patient, for example. A naturopathic physician will treat the whole person, taking all the factors into account.
WASHINGTON - A 16-year-old might be quite capable of making an informed decision about ending a pregnancy, in consultation with an adult. But the same teenager may lack the maturity to be held to adult levels of responsibility if she commits a violent crime, according to new research.
“Adolescents likely possess the necessary intellectual skills to make informed choices about terminating a pregnancy but may lack the social and emotional maturity to control impulses,” said LaurenceSteinberg, who led the study.
Steinberg, professor of developmental psychology at Temple University, added: “This immaturity mitigates their criminal responsibility.”
“It is very difficult for a 16-year-old to resist peer pressure in a heated, volatile situation,” Steinberg said. “Most times, there is no time to talk to an adult to inject some reason and reality to the situation. Many crimes committed by adolescents are done in groups with other teenagers and are not premeditated.”
Steinberg and co-authors recruited 935 participants (age group 10-30) to examine age differences in a variety of cognitive and psychosocial capacities.
The participants took different tests measuring psychosocial (emotional) maturity and cognitive ability to examine age patterns in numerous factors that affect judgment and decision-making.
The maturity measures included tests of impulse control, sensation-seeking, resistance to peer influence, future orientation and risk perception. The cognitive battery included measures of basic intellectual abilities.
There were no differences among the youngest four age groups (10-11, 12-13, 14-15 and 16-17) on the measures of psychosocial maturity.
But significant differences in maturity, favouring adults, were found between the 16- to 17-year-olds and those 22 years and older, and between the 18- to 21-year-olds and those 26 and older. Results were the same for males and females, the authors said.
In contrast, differences in cognitive capacity measures increased from ages 11 to 16 and then showed no improvements after age 16 - exactly the opposite of the pattern found in the psychosocial measures.
The findings appeared in the October issue of American Psychologist.
Note: This is a very old story – but, the threat of Milk produced by hormone treated cows, uncovered by two reporters in 1997, is still in our grocery dairy cases.Big business closed this debate – this is still good for everyone to know.
Two veteran news reporters for Fox TV in Tampa, Florida have been fired for refusing to water down an investigative report on Monsanto’s controversial milk hormone, rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone). Monsanto’s rBGH is a genetically-engineered hormone sold to dairy farmers, who inject it into their cows every two weeks to increase milk production. In recent years, evidence has accumulated indicating that rBGH may promote cancer in humans who drink milk from rBGH-treated cows. It is the link between rBGH and cancer that Fox TV tried hardest to remove from the story.
In the fall of 1996, award-winning reporters SteveWilson and JaneAkre were hired by WTVT in Tampa to produce a series on rBGH in Florida milk. After more than a year’s work on the rBGH series, and three days before the series was scheduled to air starting February 24, 1997, Fox TV executives received the first of two letters from lawyers representing Monsanto saying that Monsanto would suffer “enormous damage” if the series ran. WTVT had been advertising the series aggressively, but canceled it at the last moment. Monsanto’s second letter warned of “dire consequences” for Fox if the series aired as it stood. (How Monsanto knew what the series contained remains a mystery.) According to documents filed in Florida’s Circuit Court (13th Circuit), Fox lawyers then tried to water down the series, offering to pay the two reporters if they would leave the station and keep mum about what Fox had done to their work. The reporters refused Fox’s offer, and on April 2, 1998, filed their own lawsuit against WTVT.
SteveWilson has 26 years’ experience as a working journalist and has won four Emmy awards for his investigative reporting. His wife, JaneAkre, has been a reporter and news anchor for 20 years, and has won a prestigious Associated Press award for investigative reporting.
The Wilson/Akre lawsuit charges that WTVT violated its license from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by demanding that the reporters include known falsehoods in their rBGH series. The reporters also charge that WTVT violated Florida’s “whistle blower” law. Many of the legal documents in the lawsuit—including Monsanto’s threatening letters—have been posted on the world wide web at http://www.foxbghsuit.com for all to see.
No one will be surprised to learn that powerful corporations can intimidate TV stations into re-writing the news, but this case offers an unusually detailed glimpse of specific intimidation tactics and their effects inside a news organization. It is not pretty.
It has been well-documented by Monsanto and by others that rBGH-treated cows undergo several changes: their lives are shortened, they are more likely to develop mastitis, an infection of the udder (which then requires use of antibiotics, which end up in the milk along with increased pus), and they produce milk containing elevated levels of another hormone called IGF-1. It is IGF-1 that is associated with increased likelihood of human cancers.[1] (See REHW #381, #382, #383, #384, #483, but especially #454.)
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved rBGH for use in cows in 1993, but the approval process was controversial because former Monsanto employees went to work for the FDA, oversaw the approval process, then went back to work for Monsanto. (See REHW #381.)
Monsanto is notorious for marketing dangerous products while falsely claiming safety. The entire planet is now contaminated with hormone-disrupting, cancer-causing PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), thanks to Monsanto’s poor judgment and refusal to be guided by early scientific evidence indicating harm. (See REHW #327, #328.) The 2,4,5-T in Agent Orange—the herbicide that has brought so much grief to tens of thousands of Vietnam veterans—is another example of Monsanto’s poor judgment and failure to heed scientific evidence to prevent harm. Critics says rBGH is just one more example of Monsanto’s monumentally poor judgment. When Wilson and Akre asked Monsanto officials to respond to these allegations of past poor judgment, Monsanto had no comment.
The Wilson/Akre rBGH series (a script of which is available on the web site www.foxbghsuit.com) makes the following points:
** rBGH was never properly tested before FDA allowed it on the market. A standard cancer test of a new human drug requires two years of testing with several hundred rats. But rBGH was tested for only 90 days on 30 rats. This short-term rat study was submitted to FDA but was never published. FDA has refused to allow anyone outside FDA to review the raw data from this study, saying it would “irreparably harm” Monsanto.[2] Therefore the linchpin study of cancer and rBGH has never been subjected to open scientific peer review.
** Some Florida dairy herds grew sick shortly after starting rBGH treatment. One farmer, CharlesKnight—who lost 75% of his herd—says on camera that Monsanto and Monsanto-funded researchers at University of Florida withheld from him the information that other dairy herds were suffering similar problems. He says Monsanto and the university researchers told him only that he must be doing something wrong.
** The law required Monsanto to notify the FDA if they received complaints by dairy farmers such as CharlesKnight. But four months after Knight complained to Monsanto, FDA had heard nothing from Monsanto. Monsanto’s explanation? Despite a series of visits to Knight’s farm, and many phone conversations, Monsanto officials say it took them four months to figure out that Knight was complaining about rBGH.
** Monsanto claims on camera that every truckload of milk is tested for excessive antibiotics—but Florida dairy officials and scientists on camera say this is simply not true.
** Monsanto says on camera that Canada’s ban on rBGH has nothing to do with human health concerns—but Canadian government officials speaking on camera say just the opposite.
** Canadian government officials, speaking on camera, say they believe Monsanto tried to bribe them with offers of $1 to $2 million to gain approval for rBGH in Canada. Monsanto officials say the Canadians misunderstood their offer of “research” funds.
** Monsanto officials claim on camera that “the milk has not changed” because of rBGH treatment of cows. As noted earlier, there is abundant evidence—some of it from Monsanto’s own studies—that this is definitely not true.
** On camera, a Monsanto official claims that Monsanto has not opposed dairy co-ops labeling their milk as “rBGH-free.” But this is definitely not true. Monsanto brought two lawsuits against dairies that labeled their milk “rBGH-free.” Faced with the Monsanto legal juggernaut, the dairies folded and Monsanto then sent letters around to other dairy organizations announcing the outcome of the two lawsuits—in all likelihood, for purposes of intimidation. (Conveniently, the FDA regulations that discourage labeling of milk as “rBGH-free” were written by MichaelTaylor, an attorney who worked for Monsanto both before and after his tenure as an FDA official. See REHW #381.)
At the web site www.foxbghsuit.com, you will find the version of the Wilson/Akre rBGH series as it was re-written by Fox’s attorneys. It has been laundered and perfumed. Most importantly, nearly all of the references to cancer have been removed from the script. Instead of cancer we now have “human health effects”—whatever those may be.
The Wilson/Akre lawsuit comes at an especially good time to publicize the relationship between rBGH and human cancer because new evidence has come to light.
When a cow is injected with rBGH, its milk production is stimulated, but not directly. The presence of rBGH in the cow’s blood stimulates production of another hormone, called Insulin-Like Growth Factor 1, or IGF-1 for short. It is IGF-1 that stimulates milk production.
IGF-1 is a naturally-occurring hormone-protein in both cows and humans.[3] The IGF-1 in cows is chemically identical to the IGF-1 in humans.[4] The use of rBGH increases the levels of IGF-1 in the cow’s milk, though the amount of the increase is disputed. Furthermore, IGF-1 in milk is not destroyed by pasteurization. Because IGF-1 is active in humans—causing cells to divide—any increase in IGF-1 in milk raises obvious questions: will it cause inappropriate cell division and growth, leading to growth of tumors?
The Council on Scientific Affairs of the American Medical Association formally expressed concern about IGF-1 related to rBGH in 1991, saying, “Further studies will be required to determine whether ingestion of higher than normal concentrations of bovine insulin-like growth factor [IGF-1] is safe for children, adolescents, and adults.”[5]
Monsanto’s public position since 1994 has been that IGF-1 is not elevated in the milk from rBGH-treated cows—despite its own studies to the contrary. For example, writing in the British journal, LANCET, in 1994, Monsanto researchers said “…IGF-1 concentration in milk of rBST-treated cows is unchanged,” and “…there is no evidence that hormonal content of milk from rBST-treated cows is in any way different from cows not so treated.”[6] [Monsanto calls rBGH rBST (recombinant bovine somatotropin), thus avoiding use of the word ‘hormone.’] However, in a published letter, the British researcher T.B.Mepham reminded Monsanto that in its 1993 application to the British government for permission to sell rBGH in England, Monsanto itself reported that “the IGF-1 level went up substantially [about five times as much].”[7] The U.S. FDA acknowledges that IGF-1 is elevated in milk from rBGH-treated cows.[4] Other proponents of rBGH acknowledge that it at least doubles the amount of IGF-1 hormone in the milk.[8] The earliest report in the literature found that IGF-1 was elevated in the milk of rBGH-treated cows by a factor of 3.6.[9]
Does IGF-1 promote cancer? In January of this year a Harvard study of 15,000 white men published in SCIENCE reported that those with elevated—but still normal—levels of IGF-1 in their blood are 4 times as likely as average men to get prostate cancer.[1] The SCIENCE report ends saying, “Finally, our results raise concern that administration of GH [growth hormone] or IGF-1 over long periods, as proposed for elderly men to delay the effects of aging, may increase risk of prostate cancer.” By analogy, Monsanto’s current efforts to increase the IGF-1 levels in America’s milk supply raise the question: if little boys drink milk from rBGH-treated cows over long periods, will the elevated levels of IGF-1 increase their prostate cancer rates? This is not a question that should be answered by a wholesale experiment on the American people—but that is precisely what Monsanto is currently doing. It is difficult to put a happy face on this, try as Fox might.
The Wilson/Akre story is one of talented, hard-working journalists trying to tell an important public health story, exposing lies and corruption by Monsanto and by the FDA.If nothing else, perhaps the courage of SteveWilson and JaneAkre will awaken many more of us to the potential dangers of Monsanto’s latest experiment on America’s children.
