Health News Blog provides coverage of current health news.

posted by admin on Mar 24

1) Sleeping pills— once again, read the product packaging carefully. You’ll find that over-the-counter sleep aids are approved by the FDA “for occasional use only”. According to some experts, many people try to “anticipate” insomnia by taking a sleeping pill just in case a sleepless night is in store for them. This kind of usage, according to the experts, can lead to psychological dependency.

Most sleeping pills generally contain antihistamines, usually used to treat allergies. Used in sleeping pills, antihistamines can produce such side effects as nausea; vomiting; dizziness; fatigue; dryness of the mouth, nose and throat; and double vision, and are best used on an infrequent basis.

2) Codeine cough medicine— while codeine is a relatively safe drug, some people who take large quantities can become nauseated and constipated. Other people can develop a tolerance to those unpleasant side effects, and become addicted to codeine. Such an addiction is serious and requires treatment under the supervision of a doctor.

3) Eye drops— if you use eye drops three or four times a day for several weeks, you may suddenly find that you need them every few hours to alleviate eye redness. That’s because, when you try to stop, your eyes tend to get redder than they were before you first started using eye drops.

According to many ophthalmologists, the best way to quit using eye drops is to stop, cold-turkey. The doctors admit that it will take up to a month for your eyes to get back to normal, but continued use would only exacerbate the condition. Occasional use of eye drops is fine, but overuse can lead to problems.

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posted by admin on Mar 24

Both sun and wind can drain your skin of its moisture. Air conditioning can also be a problem because when air is cooled and its humidity level sinks too low, moisture quickly evaporates from your skin. Here are some measures you can take to fight dryness and keep your skin both soft and supple:

1) Use a humidifier when your air conditioner is on in order to help boost the air’s moisture level.

2) Don’t take long, hot baths. Such baths will induce a great amount of water loss through sweating. Take quick showers and warm sponge baths instead.

3) Either cut down on soap when you bathe or switch to a moisturizing soap like Vitabar in the Vitabath Plus formula.

4) Use a rich lotion or cream on damp skin after showering, to seal in moisture.

5) Use an emollient-rich sunscreen. Two such sunscreens are Vaseline Intensive Care’s Moisturizing Sunblock and Coppertone’s Moisturizing Sunblock Lotion.

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posted by admin on Mar 24

This is a fat-soluble vitamin which actually encompasses a group of related substances, including ergocalciferol (also known as vitamin D2) and cholecalciferol (vitamin D3) which play several important roles in the body. Vitamin D helps regulate the balance of calcium and phosphate, helps form bones and teeth, and aids the absorption of calcium from the intestine.

The body needs only small amounts of vitamin D, which can be provided by a balanced diet and normal exposure to sunlight. A deficiency of vitamin D may lead to low blood levels of calcium and phosphate, which results in a softening of the bones. In children this condition is known as rickets— in adults, it is called osteomalacia.

The best dietary source of vitamin D is fortified milk. Other good sources include butter, cheese, margarine, oily fish, liver, eggs, fortified cereals and breads, and cod liver oil. Normal exposure to sunlight is the non-dietary source. The recommended dietary allowance of vitamin D is 5 to 10 mcg.

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posted by admin on Mar 24

Different exercises require different types of movement and therefore, different types of exercise shoes. Although there are a seemingly limitless number of different designs available, many athletic shoes are designed with fashion in mind, rather than as protection for your feet. In order to exercise safely and effectively you need to wear appropriate shoes. Here are four expert suggestions for choosing the right exercise shoes:

1) Walking shoes— these should have sturdy soles in order to absorb the wear and tear of walking on pavement and other rough surfaces. The soles should also provide good support for your arches.

2) Running shoes— the best shoes have rigid heel support and flexible fronts which will allow the feet to bend. Some styles provide elevated heels which absorb much of the impact of the feet when they hit the ground.

3) Aerobic shoes— these shoes must be designed for activities that require movement in different directions. They need to have a strong pad underneath the ball of the foot and material that will accommodate the heel so that it is not held rigid. Aerobic shoes should also be lightweight and have flexible soles.

4) Tennis shoes— since the foot moves in all directions during tennis, the best shoes are designed to provide maximum grip on the playing surface. The upper sole should also be cushioned for added protection.

Each Mile You Walk Adds 21 Minutes To Your Life

According to a theoretical model developed by the Rand Corporation, you can add several years to your life by walking for fitness. Each additional mile walked by a sedentary person will add 21 minutes to his or her life, or an extra year of living for 25,028 miles, according to the Rand Corporation’s theoretical model.

People who plan to take up jogging for fitness are advised to build up to it gradually. You can do that by walking until you can cover two miles with no discomfort. Then you can begin alternating between walking and jogging in 100 to 150-yard stretches. As you begin to build up your endurance, you should increase the distance you jog until you are running exclusively. Your goal should be at least 3 or 4 twenty-minute runs a week.

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posted by admin on Mar 23

When using this technique used by Jim Bell, you can also see your pain as a row of nails driven into your scalp; or you could see your neck muscles tied into knots; or you might visualize your head on fire. As you draw out the nails, untie the neck muscles or extinguish the fire with cold water, your headache diminishes and disappears.

The variety of healing visualizations you can invent is almost endless. You can create images and suggestions to reinforce the effects of any other technique in this book, or to boost the effects of medication or medical treatment.

Creative imagery won’t replace such needed therapies as exercise or nutrition, but it can work wonders in reinforcing their benefits. We should also realize that imagery is not a substitute for needed medical treatment. It should not be used to mask pain that has not been medically diagnosed and declared benign. For best results, you should practice creative imagery three times a day for about fifteen minutes each time. Some people have experienced swift results. In others, it may take several weeks, or possibly longer, for the necessary physiological changes to take place. As new neural pathways and improved behaviors occur, you can gradually reduce the number of daily sessions.

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posted by admin on Mar 23

The first step in creative imagery is to enter deep relaxation (Technique # 14). Although not essential, you can deepen this relaxation by adding biofeedback (Technique #15).

You should now be tying down, deeply relaxed Begin by getting in touch with your headache pain and experiencing it. Exactly where is it? What are its dimensions? Is it constant or pulsating? Can you give it a shape, color, smell or taste?

Then continue with one or more of these frequently-used imagery techniques.

• Distorting Time. The rationale behind this popular hypnotic therapy is that time seems to drag endlessly during periods of discomfort while it literally flies during a pleasant experience.

Picture yourself experiencing the most pleasurable sensations you can think of—being given a massage in a luxurious room while beautiful girls bring food and drink—or whatever else arouses sensations of hedonism and deep pleasure. Continue to daydream as you visualize a series of rich pleasures.

As you enjoy the mental feeling, time will begin to fly past just as if you had actually experienced the pleasures you fantasized. And as the passage of time is reversed, so you will find, is your headache pain.

• Bathing the Painful Area in Sunshine. Picture a bright ray of healing sunshine flooding the headache area. As you hold this mental picture, repeat autogenic phrases such as these: “My head is entirely free of pain. I feel happy, relaxed and comfortable all over. As the sun’s healing rays enter my head, I am completely free of pain. I feel deeply grateful that my inner healing power has restored me to pain-free health.”

A few minutes of this imagery usually cuts most headache pain in half. And a few more minutes often ends it completely.

• Glove Anesthesia. Visualize one of your hands immersed in an imaginary bucket of hot water. As you maintain this picture, your hand should become quite warm. As soon as you feel this warmth, visualize your other hand plunged into an imaginary bucket of cold water filled with slush ice. In a short time, your hand will feel numbed with cold and it will tingle as if asleep.

Now use this phrase: “1 now transfer this numbness to the headache area by touching it with my cold band.” As you repeat this autogenic phrase, place your cold hand against the headache area. Almost everyone experiences a cold, pain-numbing feeling in the head while the headache diminishes.

Repeated several times, this imagery often produces quite dramatic results, even when medication has failed. It is especially effective for migraine relief.

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posted by admin on Mar 23

The first step in creative imagery is to enter deep relaxation (Technique # 14). Although not essential, you can deepen this relaxation by adding biofeedback (Technique #15).

You should now be tying down, deeply relaxed Begin by getting in touch with your headache pain and experiencing it. Exactly where is it? What are its dimensions? Is it constant or pulsating? Can you give it a shape, color, smell or taste?

Then continue with one or more of these frequently-used imagery techniques.

• Switch Off the Pain. Visualize the nerve fiber leading from the painful area in your head to the pain gate in your brain and on to the pain receptors. Just before the fiber enters the pain gate, visualize a large switch operated by an equally large lever. As you experience the headache pain, see yourself pulling down the lever. With a loud clang, you turn off the switch. In many cases, the pain suddenly ends.

As this is a brief visualization, repeat it several times. Eventually, the ANS will turn off the pain gate switch just as you visualized.

• Displace the Pain. Focus your awareness on the painful area and briefly experience the pain. Then transfer your awareness, together with the pain, to any other area of your body such as your left foot or right hand. You should feel the pain in this new location, often quite intensely. Meanwhile, the headache area becomes increasingly pain-free.

Repeat several times until almost all of the pain is in the new location. Finally, visualize the pain leaving the new location by flowing out into the air. By this time, the original headache site should be virtually pain-free.

A variation on this is to imagine the headache pain diffused and spread out equally all over the body.

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posted by admin on Mar 23

The first step in creative imagery is to enter deep relaxation (Technique # 14). Although not essential, you can deepen this relaxation by adding biofeedback (Technique #15).

You should now be tying down, deeply relaxed Begin by getting in touch with your headache pain and experiencing it. Exactly where is it? What are its dimensions? Is it constant or pulsating? Can you give it a shape, color, smell or taste?

Then continue with one or more of these frequently-used imagery techniques.

• Project Your Headache Out of the Body Place your awareness on the location of the headache. Visualize its exact shape and dimensions. Now detach this block of pain out of your head and see it several feet in front of you. Meanwhile, visualize a gaping empty space in your head where the pain was formerly located. For instance, you might picture your entire forehead removed from your body.

You can do several things with the painful area you have just detached. You might “see” yourself dropping it into a garbage can. Connect the can to a hot-air balloon and watch it soar away out of sight, never to be seen again.

Or you can visualize the detached painful area out in front of you and fill it with ice-cold water. After it is completely numbed and blue with cold, return it to your head.

Or you can magnify the detached painful area to ten times its original size. Then shrink it down to one-tenth its original size. Repeat this exercise ten times. When back to normal size, fill the painful area with a soothing, bright green light. After a few minutes, return it to your head.

Usually, these exercises so overload the brain with sensory stimulation that pain impulses have difficulty getting through. By the time the exercises are over, the headache has often disappeared.

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posted by admin on Mar 23

Is breast-feeding contraindicated while taking Prozac? Yes. Like many drugs, Prozac and its metabolite, norfluoxetine, are excreted in the mother’s milk. Since it is uncertain what temporary or final effect this would have on an infant, mothers who intend to nurse their babies should not take Prozac or other antidepressants. Prozac and other antidepressants are effective in treating post-partum depression, but mothers who take these medications should not nurse.

Is it safe to drive the car while on Prozac? Because several classes of psychoactive medications may at one time or another impair judgment thinking or motor skills, people who are beginning treatment with any antidepressant should be advised to avoid driving a car or operating hazardous machinery until they and their doctors are reasonably certain mat their illness is stabilized and their performance is not affected.

The period for not driving or operating machinery is during the severely depressed phase of the illness. When the patient has been stabilized, the depression has lifted, and the dosage of the drug has been established, the patient can usually drive.

What medications, besides psychiatric drugs, must be used cautiously or not at all while taking Prozac? Theoretically, two drugs may require particular caution until all of the data are in: the blood thinner Coumadin (warfarin) and some Digitalis-related drugs taken for heart failure. Those drugs, like Prozac and other SSRIs, are tightly bound to plasma proteins. Administering Prozac along with either of these medications may in theory alter their plasma concentrations, with potentially serious results.

However, contrary to these expectations, a single clinical scientific study looking at the interactions between Prozac, Coumadin, Diuril, Orinase, Valium, and diazepam found that Prozac had little effect on the actions of those drugs. Further drug interaction studies are needed.

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posted by admin on Mar 12

Wear the right clothes for what you are doing

It does not matter much what you wear for digging the garden but almost anywhere else it does. People judge a man by how he dresses, socially or at work. Select what you wear with care; never be sloppy.

This means that you should think hard before you buy an item and visualize when, where and how you are going to wear this particular item. Never buy needlessly.

Going to work, take time to put the right shirt and tie together with the right suit or jacket and pants. Going to dinner dress with the same exactness whether the dinner is formal or informal. And going to the beach do not look as if your clothes have come out of the jumble bag or are a relic of your schooldays. If you can get your clothes right not only do you look right but you feel right.

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