Dr. John's Health Matters
Welcome to Dr. John's Health Matters blog.
The articles posted here are from various sources who are duly acknowledged. I would appreciate being immediately notified, if any copywritten material needs to be removed. This blog is not intended to replace the qualified advice of a licensed health practitioner. Readers should exercise their own judgment. Enjoy, subscribe, participate and tell others :)
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Posts tagged "flow"
Monday, Aug 31st, 2009 ↓Exercise beats angioplasty: heart experts →
Aug 31, 2009 (Cbc.ca)—Working up a sweat may be even better than angioplasty for some heart patients, experts say.
Studies have shown heart patients benefit from exercise, and some have shown it works better than surgical procedures. At a meeting of the European Society of Cardiology in Barcelona on Sunday, several experts said doctors should focus more on persuading their patients to exercise rather than simply doing angioplasties.
Angioplasty is the top treatment for people having a heart attack or hospitalized with worsening symptoms. It involves using a tiny balloon to flatten a blockage and propping the heart artery open with a mesh tube called a stent. Most angioplasties are done on a non-emergency basis, to relieve chest pain caused by clogged arteries cutting off the heart’s blood supply.
“It’s difficult to convince people to exercise instead of having an angioplasty, but it works,” said Rainer Hambrecht of Klinikum Links der Weser in Bremen, Germany.
Hambrecht published a study in 2004 that found that nearly 90 per cent of heart patients who rode bikes regularly were free of heart problems one year after they started their exercise regimen. Among patients who had an angioplasty instead, only 70 per cent were problem-free after a year.
For full article, see link above.
Tags: exercise heart attack angioplasty cardiovascular physical activity surgery artery chest pain clogged blood flow prevention
Whey Protein Improves Heart Health →
Aug 31, 2009 (Mercola.com)—A whey-protein-rich ingredient may improve blood vessel function in healthy individuals, reports a new randomized, double-blind study.
Two weeks of supplementation resulted in a 1.5 percent improvement in blood flow. According to the researchers, the whey protein-derived ingredient may work via an angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE)-inhibitory activity.
ACE inhibitors work by inhibiting the conversion of angiotensin I to the potent vasoconstrictor, angiotensin II, thereby improving blood flow and blood pressure.
Sources:
NutraIngredients August 5, 2009Nutrition Journal July 22, 2009; 8:34 [Free Full-Text Article]
Tags: whey protein heart cardiovascular blood vessel supplement angiotensin vascoconstrictor flow
Acupuncture Proves Successful in Helping People Quit Smoking →
Aug 21, 2009 (NaturalNews.com) —Anyone who has tried to quit smoking knows how hard it can be. The withdrawal symptoms can be too much for many people to cope with for long, and as the stress and edginess builds the first thing they reach for is their trusty old smokes. There are many products and therapies such hypnosis, chewing gum, patches and yoga that all claim to take the edge off and help ease you through the difficult process of quitting smoking. But there is one therapy that many people would never consider, and one that is recommended by the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), acupuncture.
The first thing that many people try on the road to becoming a non-smoker is patches. These patches work by putting the addictive nicotine back in to the body therefore reducing your craving to smoke. The problem is that your body is still used to receiving nicotine, and as soon as you stop wearing the patches you will instantly reach for the smokes to satisfy this craving.
Another popular treatment for people who wish to stop smoking is hypnosis. Hypnosis is meant to work by strengthening your will power. It does this by repeating over and over again that you don’t want to and don’t need to smoke. This is all done while the patient is in a relaxed hypnotic state making the subconscious more open to outside suggestion. Hypnosis practitioners claim that taking part in these sessions will increase your chances of stopping smoking by 1000%. This jump goes from just 6%, with will power alone, to 60% with hypnosis sessions. The main problem with this form of treatment is that you have to believe 100% in hypnosis itself and as there is no real scientific evidence to back it up that can be very difficult for many people.
Acupuncture works by placing long thin needles at specific points all over the body. This will stimulate blood flow, therefore increasing the amount of oxygen that is delivered around your body and the number of toxins that are flushed out. These points are known as acupoints and have been used for thousands of years to help cure all sorts of ailments. But when it comes to smoking acupuncture is so effective because it deals with the main reason that most people smoke in the first place, stress. Experts claim that acupuncture has a success rate of around 85 and 90%, which would make it one of the most successful procedures for helping people quit smoking. The procedure helps relax the mind and releases endorphins in the body. These endorphins will give you an enhanced feeling of wellbeing and will block out any of the negative feelings associated with withdrawal symptoms.
For full article see link above.
Tags: quit smoking withdrawal therapy acupuncture nicotine craving hypnosis success blood flow oxygen stress endorphins
Magnet Therapy Works as a Healing Tool →
Aug 14, 2009 (NaturalNews.com)— As with many natural treatments magnet therapy has a long list of skeptics ready to jump on its back and push it in to the realm of pure mumbo jumbo. But the truth is that magnet therapy has a growing number of people who not only swear that it works, but that rely on it to live fuller, pain free lives.
The concept of using magnets for health reasons is not a new one. Greek philosopher Aristotle discussed the healing property of magnets in 300 BC, but the earliest recorded mention of magnets within medicine came in around 2000BC. The Yellow Emperor`s Classic of Internal Medicine is one of the earliest medical books ever written. Within its pages there are mentions of many sophisticated and modern day therapies including the use of magnets to control pain.
The scientific theory behind magnet therapy did not appear until the late 1700s, when it was found that the body produces its own magnetic impulses. Many studies around this time led to the belief that placing magnets on an affected area of the body will help align these impulses and therefore ease any pain. With Hospitals now reporting that magnets have a pain relief success rate of around 80%, it is looking like these early studies were on the right track.
Magnets and head aches
Many of the thousands of people who suffer from regular headaches and migraines swear by the use of magnets rather than using any medicinal treatment. It is thought to be such an effective method because magnets help increase blood flow around the body. More blood flow means that more oxygen is able to reach the affected area, which will in turn help relieve pain and reduce any inflammation. This is also great news for people with tendonitis as well as for arthritis sufferers, many of whom live in constant pain.
Magnets and broken bones
While the success of using magnets to ease pain is seen by many people as nothing more than a placebo, results of studies printed in the Journal of Electro and Magnetobiology may help change their minds. The study found that using magnets not only increased blood flow and eased pain, but they also aid in healing bones, regenerating spinal disk tissue and may even help prevent the violent allergic reaction in the lungs that is characteristic of bronchial asthma. While these results have seen a sharp rise in the use of magnets within hospitals to help heal stubborn fractures and to treat tendonitis, in India and China the results came as no surprise as they have used the method for centuries.
http://www.apostle.org/kli/opt28.htm
http://www.healingwithmagnets.com/c…
http://www.healingtherapies.info/ma…
Tags: magnet treatment prevention headache fracture pain blood flow regeneration spinal disk tissue allergic reaction lung bronchial asthma tendonitis migrain oxygen inflammation arthritis
Whey protein may improve heart health: Study →
Aug 5, 2009 (Sciencedaily.com)—A whey-protein-rich ingredient may improve blood vessel function in healthy individuals, reports a new randomised, double-blind study supported by Glanbia.
Two weeks of supplementation with a proprietary peptide (NOP847, Glanbia Nutritionals) resulted in a 1.5 per cent improvement in blood flow, report researchers from the University of Connecticut in the open access Nutrition Journal.
According to the researchers, the whey protein-derived ingredient, isolated from hydrolysate, may work via an angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE)-inhibitory activity.
ACE inhibitors work by inhibiting the conversion of angiotensin I to the potent vasoconstrictor, angiotensin II, thereby improving blood flow and blood pressure.
“The results of this preliminary study suggest that in individuals with normal endothelial function, the acute ingestion of a peptide derived from whey improves both conduit and resistance vascular responses,” wrote the authors, led by Kevin Ballard.
If further studies support the vascular benefits of the ingredient, it could see it enter the already buoyant heart health market. According to a recent market research conducted by Frost & Sullivan, the market is dominated by four ingredients: phytosterols; omega-3s; beta-glucans and soy protein.
For full article see link above.
Tags: whey protein heart supplement blood vessel function flow ace inhibitor blood pressure prevention endothelial cardiovascular
Rush Of Blood To The Head: Anger Increases Blood Flow →
July 4, 2009 (Sciencedaily.com)—Mental stress causes carotid artery dilation and increases brain blood flow. A series of ultrasound experiments also found that this dilatory reflex was absent in people with high blood pressure.
Tasneem Naqvi and Hahn Hyuhn from the University of Southern California and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center evaluated carotid artery reactivity and brain blood flow in response to mental stress in 10 healthy young volunteers (aged between 19 and 27 years), 20 older healthy volunteers (aged 38 to 60 years) and in 28 patients with essential hypertension (aged 38 to 64 years). They found that in healthy subjects, mental stress caused vasodilation. This was accompanied by a net increase in brain blood flow. In hypertensive subjects, mental stress produced no vasodilation and no significant change in brain blood flow.
During the experiments, the volunteers were set a series of tasks designed to provoke mental stress, including reading, arithmetic and anger recall tests. The researchers used ultrasound imaging to measure the effects of this activity on the carotid artery and an artery within the brain, while also measuring blood pressure and heart rate.
According to Naqvi, “Inappropriate vasoconstriction, or lack of dilation in response to mental stress in stable coronary heart disease, contributes to the genesis of myocardial ischemia and confers an increased risk in patients with coronary artery disease. It will be interesting to see whether the lack of mental stress induced dilation we found defines subjects at increased risk of future cerebral events.” Lack of required blood flow increase to the brain during mental activities may potentially affect cognition and cerebral performance during complex cerebral tasks.
