Dr. John's Health Matters
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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 "pain"
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
Natural Therapies: Simple Solutions for Complex Problems →
Aug 31, 2009 (NaturalNews.com)— One question I’m routinely asked is “If you had to recommend just one supplement for __________ (fill in the blank), what would it be?” I could easily spout off a laundry list of safe, natural therapies for virtually all common health concerns. Narrowing it down to only one therapy per condition is much more of a challenge, but based on recent patient and subscriber feedback, here goes.
Manage Pain With MSM
For joint and muscle pain, I’ve been hearing great things about MSM (methylsulfonylmethane), a naturally occurring sulfur compound and close chemical cousin of DMSO-that doesn’t have DMSO’s obnoxious smell. MSM relieves pain by several mechanisms. It’s a powerful anti-inflammatory, it blocks the pain response in nerve fibers, and its sulfur may help with cartilage regeneration.
One of our patients, the mother of a Whitaker Wellness doctor, was bothered by nagging pain in her neck and shoulders- until she started taking MSM. Another patient, who is an actor, used to have such excruciating pain in his knees that he’d have to take Vicodin before going on stage and was considering arthroscopic surgery. He reported miraculous results with MSM and no longer requires painkillers. The suggested daily dose of MSM ranges between 1,200 and 6,000 mg. Start low and increase as needed.
How to Get a Good Night’s Sleep
Occasional sleeplessness is a very common concern. I used to recommend melatonin, a hormone that helps regulate your “body clock”; valerian, an herb with mild sedative effects; or L-theanine, an amino acid with profound relaxing properties. Each of these worked for some people, but not everyone. Then I tried them in combination, and bingo! For the majority of patients and subscribers, this combo engenders a good night’s sleep.
Tom, a VP at the company that publishes Health & Healing, shared his story. He was eating right, exercising, and taking vitamins, but when it came time for bed, despite the fact he was physically and mentally drained, he still sometimes had trouble falling or staying asleep. Since he started taking this supplement, however, he sleeps like a baby.
Look for combination sleep products in your health food store. Suggested doses are 1,000 mcg melatonin, 500 mg valerian extract, and 200 mg L-theanine 30 minutes to an hour before bedtime.
V8 Gives Hypertension the Boot
Experts predict that an astounding 90 percent of middle-aged Americans will develop hypertension at some point in their lives. This sounds extreme, but I have to admit that many of the patients who come to my clinic have high blood pressure. Fortunately, we are very successful at getting them off drugs with diet changes, exercise, and a handful of supplements. But if I had to select just one thing for high blood pressure it would be Low Sodium V8 Juice.
Low Sodium V8 has a slight blood-thinning effect, which reduces pressure on the arteries, and it’s loaded with potassium, which balances sodium and helps lower blood pressure. One of the many patients who has benefited from this therapy is Ted, an old friend of mine. After struggling with hypertension for years, Ted took me up on my suggestion to drink 12 ounces of this juice every day. Much to his surprise, this simple step worked to normalize his blood pressure.
For full article, see link above.
Tags: natural remedy supplement prevention treatment pain MSM joint muscle sulfur anti-inflammatory cartilage regeneration sleep melatonin valerian amino acid V8 hypertension blood pressure blood cardiovascular flaxseed cholesterol zinc lutein energy ribose fatique
Strong Thighs May Mean Less Knee Pain for Women →
Aug 28, 2009 (Therapytimes.com)—Stronger thigh muscles can help protect women, but not men, from the pain of arthritic knees, a new study finds.
The knee is the most common joint affected by osteoarthritis or degenerative joint disease, a major cause of disability in the United States, researchers say. In the United States, nearly 27 million adults suffer from osteoarthritis, and 16% of cases in people aged 45 and older affect the knee. Almost 19% of symptomatic knee osteoarthritis patients are women and 13.5% are men, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
However, the new study finds that “stronger quadricep [thigh] muscles may protect older adults from developing the combination of osteoarthritis on X-ray and daily pain or stiffness in their knees,” said lead researcher Dr. Neil Segal, director of the Clinical Osteoarthritis Research Program at the University of Iowa.
“We already knew that quadriceps strength was associated with better ability to walk and get up from a chair,” Segal said. “However, one implication of these new findings is that quadricep strength may protect against developing symptomatic knee osteoarthritis.”
For full article, see link above.
Tags: strength knee pain prevention women woman muscle arthritis joint osteoarthritis quadricep
Some Foods Can Ease Arthritis Pain →
Aug 27, 2009 (Mercola.com)—Patients with arthritis are often encouraged to use diet to manage their condition. In one of the largest analyses of diet and various types of arthritis, researchers looked at data on more than 800 patients from 15 studies. They examined several diets popular among arthritis patients and found that the one that had the greatest effect was a Mediterranean-style. In 12 weeks, people on the diet reported about 15 percent less pain.
In other studies, patients who were given daily capsules of fish oil saw greater benefits for swollen and tender joints than patients given a placebo, most likely because of the oil’s anti-inflammatory properties.
In contrast, vegetables in the nightshade family, like potatoes and tomatoes, have long been said to contribute to arthritis pain. Some researchers have speculated that a group of compounds in the vegetables called alkaloids might worsen inflammation.
Sources: 
New York Times August 24, 2009
Tags: pain inflammation arthritis diet mediterranean nutrition fish oil swollen tender joint anti-inflammatory alkaloid
Hypnosis Going Mainstream: Doctors Urged to Use Hypnosis to Alleviate Patient Pain During Some Procedures →
Aug 24, 2009 (NaturalNews.com)— A psychiatric researcher has called upon the United Kingdom’s medical regulatory body to add hypnotherapy to its list of approved treatments for a much wider variety of conditions, in a presentation at a joint conference of the joint conference of the Royal Society of Medicine, the British Society of Clinical and Academic Hypnosis and the British Society of Medical and Dental Hypnosis.
“It is time for hypnosis to work its way into the mainstream of British medicine,” said David Spiegel of Stanford University. “There is solid science behind what sounds like mysticism and we need to get that message across to the bodies that influence this area. Hypnosis has no negative side-effects.”
Spiegel said that hypnosis is an effective treatment for a wide spectrum of conditions including allergies, high blood pressure and pain. He also urged that the procedure be used in lieu of anesthesia during some surgeries.
“It makes operations quicker, as the patient is able to talk to the surgeon as the operation proceeds, and it is cheaper than conventional pain relief. Since it does not interfere with the workings of the body, the patient recovers faster, too,” he said. “It is also extremely powerful as a means of pain relief. Hypnosis has been accepted and rejected because people are nervous of it. They think it’s either too powerful or not powerful enough, but, although the public are skeptical, the hardest part of the procedure is getting other doctors to accept it.”
Marie-Elisabeth Faymonville of Liege University Hospital in Belgium said that she has carried out more than 6,000 operations using a combination of hypnosis and local anesthesia.
“The local anesthetic is used only to deaden the surface of the skin while a scalpel slices through it. It has no effect inside the body,” she said. “The patient is conscious throughout the operation and this helps the doctor and patient work together. The patient may have to move during an operation and it’s simple to get them to do so if they remain conscious. We’ve even done a hysterectomy using the procedure.”
Sources for this story include: www.guardian.co.uk.
Warning Over Codeine Use After Tonsillectomy →
Aug 21, 2009 (Sciencedaily.com)—A report out of The University of Western Ontario, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, warns the use of codeine to treat pain following a tonsillectomy could prove fatal for some children. Dr. Gideon Koren, who holds the Ivey Chair in Molecular Toxicology at Western, zeroed in on the danger after investigating the death of a two year old boy following a relatively easy operation to remove his tonsils.
Koren is a pediatrics professor at both Western and the University of Toronto, and the Director of the Motherisk program at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Enlarged tonsils are usually treated with antibiotics, but Koren says tonsillectomies are still performed in the case of sleep apnea, where the child stops breathing while asleep.
In this particular case, the toddler had a history of snoring and sleep-study-confirmed sleep apnea. He was taken to an outpatient clinic, had the operation, and was taken home. The mother was given syrup of codeine and instructed how to administer it to her child for pain relief. On the second night after surgery, the child developed a fever and wheezing, and was found dead the next morning. Tests later showed the mother had given the proper dosage, and yet the child’s body was found to have high levels of morphine. The coroner asked Koren to look at the case.
“The sudden death of a healthy child was quite sobering because tonsillectomies are done every day, all over North America,” says Koren. “And more and more of them are done on an outpatient basis, with the child going home the same day.” The child was found to have the ultra-rapid metabolism genotype which causes the body to metabolize codeine at a faster rate, producing significantly higher amounts of morphine.
For full article see link above.
Tags: risk codeine tonsillectomy fatal danger tonsil sleep apnea snoring surgery operation pain relief fever wheezing morphine
Health Tip: Managing Menstrual Cramps →
(HealthDay News) — Menstrual cramps signal an unwelcome time of the month for many women.
The U.S. National Library of Medicine offers these suggestions to help relieve the pain and discomfort of monthly menstrual cramps:
- Use an over-the-counter pain reliever, such as naproxen sodium or ibuprofen.
- Apply a hot water bottle or heating pad to the abdominal area.
- Perform regular exercises, such as walking or pelvic exercises.
- Stick to a healthy diet rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Avoid salt, sugar, caffeine and alcohol.
- Perform relaxation techniques, such as meditation or yoga.
— Diana Kohnle
Tags: menstrual cramp menstration pain discomfort treatment heating pad exercise pelvic diet fruit vegetable salt sugar caffeine meditation yoga
Juice Health Benefits →
(NaturalNews.com)— Some mornings on my way to work, I drop by the local Jamba Juice store a block from my office and down 16 ounces of carrot juice and four ounces each of wheatgrass juice and a green tea energy drink. I drink this cocktail for overall health and vitality. The wheatgrass is full of vitamin K and amino acids, the carrot juice is packed with beta-carotene, and the green tea gives me a boost of caffeine and antioxidants to get my day started.
However, this is not a story about general health maintenance. It is about “targeted” juices that have predictable and rapid therapeutic effects on specific health conditions. Let’s start with a very common problem: high blood pressure.
Celery Juice Lowers Blood Pressure
When you think about lowering blood pressure, celery probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. But this crunchy vegetable deserves some serious attention. Loaded with potassium and magnesium, celery contains something even more important: 3-n-butyl-phthalide, a compound that relaxes the smooth muscle cells in the arterial walls, allowing the arteries to dilate and effectively lowering blood pressure.
One of the physicians at Whitaker Wellness decided to put celery to the test. Every day for a month, she and her father juiced and drank one bunch of celery, mixed with a little orange juice for flavor (it’s somewhat bitter on its own). Her father’s systolic blood pressure went from 148 to 128 and hers went from 120 to 105. Imagine results this dramatic without dangerous prescription drugs!
Another great juice for people with hypertension is Low-Sodium V8 Juice. It works on two fronts to lower blood pressure. First, it contains a particularly high dose of potassium (840 mg per eight ounces) that helps keep blood pressure in check. Second, according to a study recently published in JAMA, it is an effective blood thinner, which further contributes to its antihypertensive effects. For Ted, one of my longtime patients, simply drinking 12 ounces of Low-Sodium V8 Juice daily was enough to keep his blood pressure in the normal range.
For full article, see link above.
Tags: juice antioxidant vitamin amino acid celery cabbage stomach blood pressure cardiovascular therapeutic vegetable digestion cherry cranberry pain relief anthocyanin flavonoid gout uric acid urinary tract infection mannose prevention
Do Redheads Feel More Pain? →
Aug 15, 2009 (Mercola.com)—A new study measured the anxiety that redheads feel about the dentist and concluded that they are not only nervous, but are more than twice as likely to avoid a visit altogether compared with their brunette and blonde counterparts.
Previous studies have found that people with red hair are typically more sensitive to pain and more resistant to anesthesia — and require about 20 percent more of it to be effective.
Red hair is usually caused by a mutation in a gene called MC1R, which produces the substance that gives hair, skin and eyes their color. Some studies have indicated that this mutation may also affect the way pain is felt.
Sources: BBC News August 11, 2009
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
Bad News For Coffee Drinkers Who Get Headaches →
Aug 14, 2009 (Sciencedaily.com)—People who consume high amounts of caffeine each day are more likely to suffer occasional headaches than those with low caffeine consumption, a team of researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) reports in a study recently published in the Journal of Headache Pain.
But in findings that had “no obvious reason”, the researchers, led by Knut Hagen from NTNU’s Faculty of Medicine, also reported that low caffeine consumption was associated with a greater likelihood of chronic headaches, defined as headaches for 14 or more days each month.
The results are drawn from a large cross-sectional study of 50,483 people who answered a questionnaire about caffeine consumption and headache prevalence as a part of the Nord-Trøndelag Health Survey (HUNT 2), a county-wide health survey conducted in 1995-1997 on a wide range of health topics.
For full article see link above.
Eggshell membrane may outperform glucosamine for joint health →
Aug 12, 2009 (Nutraingredients.com)—Extracts from the membrane of an eggshell may improve the symptoms of osteoarthritis, and offer an alternative to glucosamine and chondroitin sulphate, suggest new findings.
A daily supplement of 500 milligrams of the eggshell membrane was found to not only reduce joint pain, but also stiffness, with effects noted after only ten days, according to results of a randomised, multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.
The study, which was funded by Missouri-based ESM Technologies and uses the company’s ingredient, is published in the current issue of Clinical Rheumatology.
Outperforming the established ingredients
The researchers also report that the effects were superior to those recorded in previous clinical investigations for glucosamine and chondroitin, the big hitters in the joint health supplements world.
Glucosamine is extracted from the shell of crabs, lobster and shrimps. Cargill also markets a non-animal, non-shellfish derived product. The ingredient is often used in combination with chondroitin sulphate, extracted from animal cartilage, such as sharks.
According to the Nutrition Business Journal, US sales for these combined supplements were $810 million (€563 million) in 2005.
“The safety profile for [the natural eggshell membrane (NEM) supplement] is also of significance as there are no known side effects, excluding the obvious egg allergy concern,” wrote the researchers. “This is of obvious importance in a condition that requires long-term [supplementation].”
For full article see link above.
Tags: eggshell treatment pain inflammation osteoarthritis glucosamine chondroitin sulphate supplement joint stiffness
Chinese Acupuncture Affects Brain's Ability To Regulate Pain, UM Study Shows →
Aug 11, 2009 (Sciencedaily.com)—Acupuncture has been used in East-Asian medicine for thousands of years to treat pain, possibly by activating the body’s natural painkillers. But how it works at the cellular level is largely unknown.
Using brain imaging, a University of Michigan study provides novel evidence that traditional Chinese acupuncture affects the brain’s long-term ability to regulate pain.
The results appear online ahead of print in the September Journal of NeuroImage.
In the study, researchers at the U-M Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center showed acupuncture increased the binding availability of mu-opoid receptors (MOR) in regions of the brain that process and dampen pain signals – specifically the cingulate, insula, caudate, thalamus and amygdala.
Opioid painkillers, such as morphine, codeine and other medications, are thought to work by binding to these opioid receptors in the brain and spinal cord.
“The increased binding availability of these receptors was associated with reductions in pain,” says Richard E. Harris, Ph.D., researcher at the U-M Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center and a research assistant professor of anesthesiology at the U-M Medical School.
One implication of this research is that patients with chronic pain treated with acupuncture might be more responsive to opioid medications since the receptors seem to have more binding availability, Harris says.
These findings could spur a new direction in the field of acupuncture research following recent controversy over large studies showing that sham acupuncture is as effective as real acupuncture in reducing chronic pain.
“Interestingly both acupuncture and sham acupuncture groups had similar reductions in clinical pain,” Harris says. “But the mechanisms leading to pain relief are distinctly different.”
The study participants included 20 women who had been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition, for at least a year, and experienced pain at least 50 percent of the time. During the study they agreed not to take any new medications for their fibromyalgia pain.
Patients had position emission tomography, or PET, scans of the brain during the first treatment and then repeated a month later after the eighth treatment.
Additional authors were Jon-Kar Zubieta, M.D., Ph.D., David J. Scott, Vitaly Napadow, Richard H. Gracely, Ph.D, Daniel J. Clauw, M.D.
Funding was provided by the Department of Army, and the National Institutes of Health.
Journal reference:
- Richard E. Harris, Jon-Kar Zubieta, David J. Scott, Vitaly Napadow, Richard H. Gracely, Daniel J. Clauw. Traditional Chinese acupuncture and placebo (sham) acupuncture are differentiated by their effects on μ-opioid receptors (MORs). Journal of NeuroImage, 2009; 47 (3): 1077-1085 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.05.083
Tags: pain prevention treatment brain receptor acupuncture therapy MOR cingulate insula caudate thalamus amygdala reduction
Tags: teeth tooth replace jaw mouth dential osseointegration artificial impant titanium inflammation allergy autoimmune risk metal chronic fatigue syndrom pain muscle nerve depression skin
Exercise is Healthy for Mother and Child During Pregnancy →
Aug 8, 2009 (Mercola.com)—Physicians should recommend low to moderate levels of exercise to their pregnant patients, even if they have not exercised prior to pregnancy, according to a new report. Exercise can strengthen and improve overall musculoskeletal and physiologic health as well as pregnancy related symptoms.
Exercise such as aerobics, impact and nonimpact activities, resistance training and swimming:
- Eases back and other musculoskeletal pain
- Lowers maternal blood pressure
- Reduces swelling
- Improves post-partum mood, including sadness
Sources: Eurekalert August 3, 2009
