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 :)
Following:
Navigate
COMING SOON!
Expand all | Collapse all 
Search
Click Tags under Articles
NOTE: SEARCH BY KEYWORD FUNCTIONS BELOW ARE TEMPORARILY MALFUNCTIONING. USE AT OWN RISK.
Or Display Full Article by
Posts tagged "treatment"
Wednesday, Sep 2nd, 2009 ↓Melons can fight blood pressure →
Sept 2, 2009 (Presstv.com)—Following a diet rich in potassium-rich fruits and vegetables such as melons, commonly found in summer, can help lower the blood pressure.
Potassium chloride had long been used to lower blood pressure levels. A new study, however, finds any increase in potassium intake can also lead to similar results.
According to the study recently conducted at UT Southwestern Medical Center, the high potassium content of certain fruits including fresh melons can help athletes and those suffering from high blood pressure.
Scientists concluded that increasing potassium intake has the same effect as taking potassium chloride.
The US Department of Agriculture officials hence urged adults to get some 4,044 milligrams of potassium from food and beverages each day.
“Melons like cantaloupe and watermelon are particularly high in potassium,” said lead researcher Lona Sandon, adding that one fourth of a cantaloupe contains 800 to 900 milligrams of potassium, roughly 20 percent of the recommended daily value.
Two cups of watermelon contains nearly 10 percent of the recommended daily value.
Dried apricots, avocados, figs, kiwi, oranges, raisins, dates, beans, potatoes, tomatoes and even grapefruit are other good sources of potassium.
Tags: melon blood pressure hypertension vegetable potassium lower prevention treatment fruit cantaloupe watermelon apricot avocado fig kiwi orange raisin date bean potato tomato grapefruit
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
Soluble fibre best for irritable bowels →
Aug 28, 2009 (Cbc.ca)—Soluble fibre is the best line of defence in alleviating symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome, Dutch researchers say.
Tags: soluble fibre irritable bowel syndrome whole grain treatment prevention intestine IBS
Swimming Aids Asthma Symptoms In Children, Study Finds →
Aug 27, 2009 (Sciencedaily.com)—Research has shown that swimming aids asthma symptoms in children. The activity has been proven to be an effective non-pharmacological intervention for children and adolescents, according to a study in Respirology, published by Wiley-Blackwell.
Researchers divided children between the ages of seven to twelve into two groups. One group underwent a six-week swimming program in addition to their regular asthma treatments. All of the children in the experimental program showed significant improvement in all clinical variables including symptoms, hospitalizations, emergency room visits and school absenteeism.
Other improvements included asthma severity, mouth-breathing, snoring, chest deformity, self-confidence and general feelings of disadvantage.
“Unlike other sports, swimming is unlikely to provoke asthma attacks. In addition to improving asthma, swimming promotes normal physical and psychological development, such as increasing lung volume, developing good breathing techniques and improving general fitness,” said lead author, Wang Jeng-Shing from the Taipei Medical University.
He added, “Not only is swimming an excellent form of exercise for children with asthma, the health benefits reaped continued to be observed for at least a year after the completion of the swimming program.”
Adapted from materials provided by Wiley - Blackwell, via AlphaGalileo.
Tags: swimming children child adolescent asthma treatment improvement prevention severity breathing snoring lung physical activity fitness
Green Tea Nutrients Prevent Leukemia →
Aug 25, 2009 (NaturalNews.com) —One of the potent antioxidants found in green tea may slow and possibly even reverse the progress of leukemia.
Scientists have been aware since 1970s that green tea can help fight cancer, as demonstrated by lower cancer rates in countries with high consumption of the beverage. In 2004, a study showed that the naturally occurring tea chemical epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) could actually kill leukemia cells.
In a new study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers from the Mayo Clinic found a significant improvement in the symptoms of cancer patients treated with EGCG extract.
Researcher Tait D. Shanafelt and colleagues became interested in carrying out a clinical trial when they noticed that chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients self-medicating with tea polyphenols actually began showing signs of improvement. They designed a study in which 33 CLL patients were treated with between 400 and 2,000 milligrams of EGCG extract twice per day.
“We found not only that patients tolerated the green tea extract at very high doses, but that many of them saw regression to some degree of their CLL,” Shanafelt said.
Treatment with EGCG led to noticeable decreases in two symptoms of CLL — increased white blood cell (lymphocyte) count and enlarged lymph nodes. Lymphocyte levels decreased by 20 percent or more in 15 of 33 patients, an improvement that lasted for two months in 11 of them. Of 12 patients who began the study with swollen lymph nodes, 11 experienced a 50 percent or greater decrease in swelling.
For full article, see link above.
Tags: green tea consumption prevention antioxidant cancer EGCG kill leukemia cell treatment extract supplement chronic lymphcytic polyphenol improvement white blood cell lymph node swollen swelling decrease survival
New Technology Helps Parkinson's Patients Speak Louder →
Aug 25, 2009 (Sciencedaily.com)—Researchers have developed a new technology that helps Parkinson’s patients overcome the tendency to speak too quietly by playing a recording of ambient sound, which resembles the noisy chatter of a restaurant full of patrons.
“People with Parkinson’s disease commonly have voice and speech problems,” said Jessica Huber, an associate professor in Purdue’s Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences. “At some point in their disease they will have some form of voice or speech disorder that generally occurs a little later in the disease.”
Parkinson’s affects 1.5 million people in the United States and is one of the most common degenerative neurological diseases. About 89 percent of those with Parkinson’s have voice-related change, which is related to how loudly they speak, and about 45 percent have speech-related change, or how clearly they speak.
“A major therapy is to get people to speak louder, which also may cause them to articulate more clearly,” Huber said.
For full article, see link again.
Tags: speaking louder clearly parkinson's disease voice volume speech degenerative treatment
The Relationship of Stress to Allergies →
Aug 24, 2009 (Healthzone.ca)—THE CLAIM Stress can make allergies worse.
THE FACTS
This year’s allergy season has not been an easy one, with pollen counts at record highs in several major cities. But for many sufferers, a less stressful life may ease the allergy burden.
In recent years, studies have shown that psychological stress and anxiety – even at slight or moderate levels – can worsen allergy symptoms.
Scientists suspect that it has something to do with the way stress affects the immune system, causing elevated levels of compounds that heighten the allergic response and remain unaffected by standard treatments for hay fever, like antihistamines.
One of the most recent and striking studies was published this year by scientists at Ohio State University. On two different days the scientists subjected hay fever sufferers to a series of skin prick tests to measure their responses to allergens, including the size of the wheals they developed. On one day, the subjects gave speeches to a panel and then had to solve math questions in their heads. On the other day they had less stressful tasks, like reading magazines.
“Wheal diameters increased after the stressor,” the scientists wrote, “compared to a slight decrease following the control task.”
Even a day after the stressor, the most anxious subjects continued to show severe symptoms, suggesting a lingering response from the anxiety.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Studies show that psychological stress can heighten and possibly prolong allergic responses.
Tags: stress allergy allergies worsen symptom immunity antihistamine treatment anxiety
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.
Sleep Training Eases Insomnia Tied to Arthritis →
Aug 21, 2009 (Therapytimes.com)—Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia helps improve pain and sleep in older people with osteoarthritis and insomnia, researchers say.
Their study included 23 patients (mean age 69) who received CBT-I and 28 patients (mean age 66.5) who were assigned to a control group that received information on stress management and wellness. The CBT-I program consisted of eight weekly two-hour classes in which they received sleep-training tips and exercises.
Patients in the CBT-I group reported significantly decreased time to fall asleep (an average decrease of 16.9 minutes at the beginning of the study and 11 minutes at one year after treatment). The cognitive behavioral therapy group also had a decrease in wake after sleep-onset times (an average of 37 minutes initially and 19.9 minutes one year later) and pain (improvement of 9.7 points initially and 4.7 points one year later). Increased sleep efficiency was also noted in the CBT-I group (improvement of 13 percent initially and 8 percent one year after treatment), the researchers found.
No significant improvements in any measure were reported in the control group.
The findings suggest that insomnia is not just a symptom of osteoarthritis but is actually a co-existing illness, lead study author Michael V. Vitiello, a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, said in a news release. About 60 percent of people with osteoarthritis report pain during the night, and better sleep quality can reduce their suffering, he added.
“The particular strength of CBT-I is that once an individual learns how to improve their sleep, study after study has shown that the improvement persists for a year or more,” Vitiello said in the news release.
Tags: sleep training insomnia arthritis osteoarthritis stress management behavioural therapy cognitive treatment
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
Swine flu drug increases stroke risk →
Aug 19, 2009 (Presstv.com)—While Tamiflu is one of the most effective drugs in treating swine flu infection, a new report warns that the drug may increase the risk of stroke.
Previously, researchers had urged parents to avoid using the drug in their offspring as its risks outweighed the benefits. Nausea and nightmares were among the most frequent side effects reported in children.
According to the report recently released by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), Tamiflu may interact with the blood-thinning medication warfarin, placing the individual at an increased risk of uncontrolled bleeding (INR rate).
A significant increase in the INR rate could consequently lead to the development of a hemorrhagic stroke.
Despite the fact that such a complication was never reported in performed clinical testing, the MHRA has received 418 reports of suspected adverse reactions including two deaths because of Tamiflu.
Some 12 of these reactions were related to warfarin interactions.
Warfarin is known to interact with a wide range of drugs and even some foods and drinks. Many of the consumers, therefore, are hospitalized due to increased INR rates while many others die.
“We have seen indications that INR rates could possibly rise due to interactions between warfarin and Tamiflu. However, flu-like illnesses have also been known to cause this, so at this stage it is difficult to know whether it is the interaction with Tamiflu or the underlying flu,” said a MHRA spokesman.
The government watchdog therefore warned physicians of the high risk of stroke in Tamiflu users, adding that they should ask the patients regarding the use of the blood-thinning drug before prescribing the anti-swine flu medicine.
Tags: flu treatment tamiflu swine h1n1 infection risk drug prescription stroke nausea nightmare blood thinning illness
Milk May Be Safe, Even Encouraged, For Some Children After Treatment For Milk Allergy →
Aug 18, 2009 (Sciencedaily.com)—Some children with a history of severe milk allergy may be able to safely drink milk and consume other dairy products every day, according to research led by the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and published in the Aug. 10 online edition of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
Investigators followed up with a subset of children who were part of an earlier Hopkins Children’s-led study published in 2008 in which patients allergic to milk were given increasingly higher doses of milk over time. For many of them, continuous exposure to milk allergens – the proteins that trigger bad reactions – slowly and gradually retrained their immune systems to better tolerate the very food that once sent those systems into overdrive.
The follow-up of 18 children ages 6 to 16 whose severe milk allergies had eased or disappeared found that all children were able to safely consume milk at home, and that reactions, while common, were generally mild and grew milder and milder over time. The follow-up varied from three to 17 months, depending on how long it took patients to increase their milk intake.
These findings also suggest that regular use of milk and dairy foods may be needed for children to maintain their tolerance.
“We now have evidence from other studies that some children once successfully treated remain allergy-free even without daily exposure, while in others the allergies return once they stop regular daily exposure to milk,” says Robert Wood, M.D., the study’s senior investigator and director of Allergy & Immunology at Hopkins Children’s. “This may mean that some patients are truly cured of their allergy, while in others the immune system adapts to regular daily exposure to milk and may, in fact, need the exposure to continue to tolerate it,” he adds.
For full article see link above.
Tags: milk dairy allergy child children treatment exposure allergen trigger immune system food
Blueberry Leaves May Heal Hepatitis C →
Aug 15, 2009(NaturalNews.com) —Hepatitis C is a contagious liver disease resulting from infection with the hepatitis C virus (HCV). Although the infection can be mild and not even produce noticeable symptoms, once established in the body chronic hepatitis C infection can progress to fibrosis (when the liver is scarred), cirrhosis, liver failure and even liver cancer. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the virus becomes persistent and chronically infects the liver in about 85 percent of those who contract HCV. Persistent infection is treated by western medicine with medications like peginterferon and ribavirin. And while it’s true these drugs can wipe out the infection, they are only effective about half the time and they can produce very severe, debilitating side effects. So people who aren’t cured by the drugs and who go on to develop cirrhosis or liver cancer may face death from the infection or require a liver transplant.
But now there’s another avenue of hope for the 270 to 300 million people who are infected with hepatitis C worldwide. Research just published in the American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology’s Journal of Biochemistry (JVC) concludes a chemical found in blueberry leaves actually blocks the replication of the hepatitis C virus, shutting it down. This finding could open up a new and natural avenue for treating chronic HCV infections, according to scientist Hiroaki Kataoka and colleagues at the University of Miyazaki in Japan.
Because HCV is localized in the liver and can take two decades or more to develop into significant disease, Kataoka and colleagues reasoned a dietary supplement might help slow or stop disease progression over the years. They decided to screen around 300 different agricultural products for potential compounds that might be effective at suppressing HCV replication. The results? They uncovered a strong candidate for a natural HCV fighter — the leaves of the rabbit-eye blueberry, a plant native to the southeastern US.
For full aticle see link above.
Tags: blueberries cirrhosis liver virus cancer treatment hepatitis c infection supplement proanthocyandin
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
How to Alleviate Eye Strain →
Aug 12, 2009 (NaturalNews.com)— In today`s high tech world, many of us suffer from eye strain. Sitting too long in front of the computer or watching long hours of TV are partially to blame. Other reasons may include things such as allergens, air pollution, sun, stress, and vision problems. Hence…eye strain. It`s normal when we are intently looking at something or concentrating, that our gaze becomes strained. The symptoms of eye strain are not fun and all of us have experienced them at times. They can include headaches, dizziness and blurred vision. We need to remember we are only given one set of eyes in this life. It`s up to us to do what we can to protect them. Here are some healthy ways to give your eyes the care they deserve.
Shop at your local natural health food store and purchase an herb called eyebright. Boil water and place a couple of teaspoons of the herb into the water to steep. After approximately fifteen minutes, strain the herb from the liquid and allow to cool. Soak a soft cloth in the liquid and apply to your eyes. You`ll notice in a short amount of time, how much better your eyes begin to feel.
You can also, relax with a soft cloth over your eyes to which witch hazel has been applied. This is a super soothing remedy for overworked eyes. So soothing in fact, you may wake up an hour later. Or maybe you would prefer, using dried flowers from the chamomile plant to make a comforting compress to place over your eyes. Add one teaspoon of the dried flowers to a cup of boiling water. Chamomile contains an anti-spasmodic that will feel fantastic on your eyes. A chamomile tea bag may be used instead. And while you are at it, why not brew yourself a cup of tea to enjoy as you take time out to rest your eyes.
For full article see link above.
