Information on popular complementary and alternative medical topics

VITAMINS THAT FIGHT CANCER: VITAMIN С

admin — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 19:30:13 +0000

Vitamins are powerful substances, which can help to block cancer. Recent research has shown that certain vitamins can be successfully employed in the fight against this disease and that they can increase the life expectancy of some terminal cancer patients.Vitamin С heads the list of vitamins found beneficial in the prevention and treatment of cancer. It is the most potent anti-toxin known. It can effectively neutralize or minimize the damaging effect of most chemical carcinogens in foods and the environment and, thus, be of great value in cancer prevention programs, as well as, in the treatment of cancer. It can be taken in large doses of 5,000 mg. or more a day.Vitamin С can block the transformation of amines and nitrite into nitrosamines which are deadly carcinogens that can cause all types of cancer. It helps neutralize free radical cancer-causing agents in cell membranes thereby preventing the first step in cancer. It also helps regulate immunity and thus prevents transformation of healthy cells into cancerous cells. In experiments with animals, it has been found that this vitamin suppresses the growth and virulence of tumours.According to recent Swedish studies, vitamin С in large doses can be an effective prophylactic agent against cancer. Noted Japanese scientist, Dr. Fukunir Mirishige and his colleagues have recently found that a mixture of vitamin С and copper compound has lethal effects on cancer.There is growing evidence that many cancers are caused by viruses. Since vitamin С appears to nullify the damage done by viruses, this nutrient may prove to be particularly important. All types of cancer cause severe stress. This increases the need for vitamin С to a very large extent. Most cancer patients show symptoms of bruising, bleeding gums, and often, hemorrhaging, which is characteristic of a deficiency of vitamin C. It has been found that if a patient who cannot be operated, is given 4,000 to 6,000mg of vitamin С daily, it would inhibit the growth of cancer and in some cases, it may even retard its progress.The main food sources of Vitamin С are citrus fruits and vegetables. Among fruits, Indian gooseberry, guava, lime, lemon, orange and papaya are the most valuable sources of this vitamin. Root vegetables and potatoes contain smaller amounts of these vitamins. Cereals and pulses do not contain vitamin С in the dry state. Nuts, if soaked in water for about 48 hours and allowed to germinate, form a good source of Vitamin C.*43/355/5*

TRY DOING SOMETHING TRULY OUTRAGEOUS

admin — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 19:20:50 +0000

I read somewhere that one way you can put more laughs into your life is to do something just plain outrageous. How long has it been since you have done something really GOOFY? Intentionally, I mean. Like jogging in triangles? Or driving in circles in a parking lot just for fun? Or going to the market wearing your wig inside out? I had gone quite awhile without enjoying some goofy fun, so Marilyn (my partner in crazy fun) and I decided to do something about it. We knew of a pastor who had been having some tremendous family problems and who was feeling down and depressed. He had said to me, “What I REALLY need is a visitation from the angels!”Well, that was all we needed. The next day Marilyn and I went by our church, where we slipped into the baptismal room unnoticed and “borrowed” two long, full-flowing, baptismal robes. We drove over to our friend’s home and stopped to don the robes about a block from his house. A mailman walking by nearly dropped his pouch when he saw two women get out of a Volvo and toss on these white robes with heavy weights in the bottom that sort of clinked as we walked.When my husband, Bill, heard about our fun, he thought it was sacrilegious and unspiritual. His main concern was “Did you get the robes returned to the church?” But our pastor friend thought it was great. He got up in church and told everyone about these two women who came to give him a “visitation from the angels.”*28\316\2*

WHY IT’S IMPORTANT TO RECOGNIZE BDD IN CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS: PSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS

admin — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 17:59:12 +0000

Adolescents with BDD may be so excessively and exclusively focused on the supposed defect that they ignore and don’t develop their strengths. They may struggle with school and avoid hobbies and other activities. They may neglect other aspects of identity formation, such as career goals.Other psychiatric disorders that begin during adolescence and have been better studied than BDD have been shown to interfere with identity formation and similar adolescent developmental tasks. Because adolescents’ self-concept hasn’t yet crystallized, they may be particularly vulnerable to the negative effect psychiatric disorders can have on identity and personality formation. Studies have shown, for example, that school phobia interferes with developmental tasks. One study found that young adults who suffered from school phobia in childhood were more likely than other adults to be dependent, and they had more difficulty completing school and earning a living. They were more socially isolated, were less likely to be in a healthy, intimate relationship, and had more problems in sexual adjustment. BDD may be particularly prone to have these kinds of effects because it’s highly interpersonal in nature, perhaps increasing the risk to relationships. In addition, untreated BDD appears to often be chronic, making it difficult to get back on track and resume developmental tasks. Indeed, as Appendix A shows, a significant percentage of adults with BDD (30%) live with their parents; others are unemployed, haven’t graduated from school, and aren’t dating or socially interacting with others. Some do progress in life but much less than they’d like.*158\204\8*

STRESS AND MARRIAGE BREAKDOWN: LOSS OF MUTUAL RESPECT AS A RESULT OF CHANGED ATTITUDES AND IDEAS

admin — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 12:52:48 +0000

Although marriages are made between people who have significant differences in personality, and I believe this to be part of God’s overall design, it is essential that there be common ground and common interests.A love relationship can be seen as a plant with a life of its own; the good soil it needs is the soil of common goals and ideas. A marriage cannot survive easily between people with greatly differing cultural values and concepts. We need a fair amount of things in common, although, as I said before, we tend to be attracted to people who have qualities we ourselves lack in our personalities.One of the effects of stage three breakdown is that a person is no longer capable of holding strong views on any subject, views which would require that person to use psychic energy to negate an opposing view. A person in third stage breakdown is more easily talked out of holding political views contrary to his own; thus, brainwashing techniques usually require the breaking down of the person emotionally until he is experiencing stage three symptoms.Likewise, religious and racial intolerance is likely to be unable to be sustained by a person in stage three stress breakdown. Some people have even regarded their coming through a stress breakdown and experiencing their own inability to hold strongly negative views as a purifying experience which has ultimately done them some good.Some of the concepts by which some people are united in marriage might come into the category of binding concepts, imposing a negating obligation on each person. Marriages contracted under rules and customs of different religious groups, where roles and responsibilities differ from those otherwise held in society, might therefore come under threat from a change in the person’s ability to accept some binding contract requiring that person to negate normally held views.For example, if a strict Roman Catholic couple felt their marriage was valid only if no contraceptive technique were used, then stress breakdown symptoms in the wife might cause her to reject this view; because the validity of the marriage rested on that view, she might reject the marriage as well.Some fundamentalist Protestant sects do not encourage women in further education. If an intelligent woman in such a marriage, experiencing stress breakdown symptoms, began to doubt the wisdom of such a belief, she might let the marriage go as well, if the husband strenuously insisted that she could not educate herself while she stayed married to him.Or a couple might have been married with the resultant union having the effect of uniting the collective hatreds of two families of bigots. A stress breakdown affecting the husband’s 0r wife’s ability to hold such bigoted views might put him or her at odds with the entire clan, forcing an end to the marriage. Such happenings are not unheard of.
*61/129/5*

WEIGH DOWN THE STRATEGY: A TYPICAL BATTLE

admin — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 12:49:20 +0000

Let us walk through a typical daily battle. You have just come home for the day, you are physically tired, and three old lies pop into your head:Lie #1: You have made it through a tough day at work; therefore,you deserve to eat food. Lie #2: When you are physically tired, the food will make youfeel better.Lie #3: You have so much to lose, what does it matter? You may as well eat when you are not hungry. There you have it. The battleground and the test are set up for you, specifically for you. You are standing in front of the refrigerator and you feel this overwhelming, magnetic pull toward the food. Here is what you should do.1. Identify the lies and quote the truth. The first strategic move is to get out of the kitchen and immediately identify the lies of Satan. Note the time you begin this battle. Quote the truth against the lie. The truth is that eating is not something we deserve to do; it is something we are to do when and because we are hungry. Food makes us feel worse, not better, if we are nothungry. And the amount of weight we have to lose is not thecriterion which we use for whether we are going to be obedient. Tell Satan we are to obey the Lord, our God. Matthew 4:4 says, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”Many times Satan does not even have to hang around. After all. He talked us into believing these lies some years ago when he started us out on our first so-called “deserved overindulgence.” Since everyone else in America seemed to be doing it and endorsing it, then we did not even put up a fight. After many years of overindulging, it has become what we call a “stronghold,” and this is very serious business.Get on your knees and submit your will to God. Tell Him what your desire is, and be honest. Say, “God, what I want to do is to go to the refrigerator and eat the rest of the leftover turkey–and the dressing—and some ice cream—to be exact, approximately a half-gallon! And I am pretty sure that if I get started, I will probably finish off the rest of the homemade chocolate pie. At least that is what I want to do. But I know that Your will is for me not to eat a bite of this until my body calls for it. I submit my head hunger or desires to Your will, not mine. I am learning that what You are having me do is life, life, life, and peace. And God, I realize I have been following Satan’s lies and my will, and that is miserable. It has gotten me nowhere but in trouble. So, please, take this desire away and give me a ‘full’ feeling from You.”Submit, and eat less food. Use your remaining strength to determine that when you walk out of your bedroom, you are not going to eat until you feel a growl. You will then start to feel your prayer being answered or the magnetic force of food ending, to the point that you do not even want to eat. You cannot even imagine wanting to eat the food. God has heard your prayer and has taken the desire away and your heart starts feeling happy. One hour later, you fit into an outfit that you have not been able to get into for years! Again, note the time on your watch. You can expect your battles to become less time-consuming as you become more practiced in submitting your will. I know that my battles can last anywhere from ten minutes to an hour, depending on how quickly I go through the steps.Write these three steps down on your bathroom mirror or on your refrigerator. Memorize them for life. The problem with our battles is that we feel so confused and emotional while we are fighting them. But if you follow these steps, watch how the layers of confusion clear up.It is really hard even to know what God’s will is until we have a broken and contrite heart—a deeply sorrowful heart, as shown in Isaiah 66:2b, “‘This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.’ “By the way, contrite means “sorrowful to the point of repentance or change.” The main thing to know is: the quicker you give up your will, the sooner the battle will be over. Once you have truly determined never to give in to food again, the less Satan will even tempt you in that area. Eventually, you will be out of the battle zone for food—and what a glorious day it is to announce perfect peace with food!*57\237\2*

WEIGH DOWN THE STRATEGY: STAND FIRM

admin — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 12:46:20 +0000

Now you have most of the painted picture. We are at war. The battleground is located in the mind and heart. Our assignment is to put to death the deeds of the flesh and put in their place the precious, wonderful will of our Heavenly Father. Last, but not least, Satan has a vested interest in sabotaging the whole mission by using very clever, deceitful lies.Now that you know the fundamentals, how can you survive and be victorious in warfare? It is going to take your strength—spiritual strength. Let us look at Ephesians 6:13-18:Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit [which means praying for what God wants and not what your flesh wants] on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.Once again, Paul warns us to be alert. And you thought all you had to do today was to go into work, try to please the boss, then go home, cook supper, prop up your feet, and watch the news. That is exactly what the enemy wants us to think! No, you must have an alert heart and mind looking for what pleases God, and be ready for the attack. When you hear the lie, quote the truth and then stand firm and watch God fight the battle.*56\237\2*

BACH FLOWER REMEDIES: SCLERANTHUS – MRS. K. SHARMA’S CASE

admin — Mon, 30 May 2011 12:25:03 +0000

Mrs. K. Sharma was a regular visitor of our dispensary for one ailment or another. She was given homoeopathic medicines according to her symptoms and she always felt relieved, but she would come again with some new symptoms.Once she came and described her condition thus:-Drawing pain in the left arm; constipation with urge but unsatisfactory stool; pain in back (by pressure) coryza with sneezing; headache breathlessness on slightest exertion; painful corn on foot, and a score of other diverse troubles. The symptoms given were so confusing that we could not make head or tail of the case and were at a loss of find a suitable remedy in homoeopathy.SCLERANTHUS was prescribed T.D.S for 3 days, when the patient felt much better and wanted the same medicine repeated, for Scleranthus had not only given her relief in the symptoms described by her but had also removed her sleeplessness. Previously she used to spend several hours in the night, thinking of diverse irrelevant ideas.*178\308\8*

NATURAL HISTORY OF TYPE 1 DIABETES: EFFECT OF INTENSIVE MANAGEMENT – INSULIN SECRETION

admin — Fri, 20 May 2011 10:50:59 +0000

Although the autoimmune process may result in complete beta cell destruction, this is not always the case, particularly in the early stages of the disease in youg adults. Before the development of serum c-peptide assays to assess insulin secretion in the presence of insulin therapy, clinicians had noted that people with type 1 diabetes who were treated with insulin may have a “honeymoon period,” during which insulin requirements decrease, but metabolic control is maintained. Subsequently, after the development of the c-peptide assay, it was apparent that this phenomenon was due to the fact that basal and stimulated insulin secretion can be maintained for years in some people with type 1 diabetes.The Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT) afforded a unique opportunity to study the natural history of type 1 diabetes longitudinally in a group 1441 of adolescents and adults with type 1 diabetes.Furthermore, the design of the DCCT allowed analysis of the effect of standard vs. intensive glycemic management on pancreatic c-peptide secretion, a good index of insulin secretion. Cross-sectional analyses of subjects screened for the trial demonstrated that a similar number of adults (45%) and adolescents (37%) with short diabetes duration (1-5 years) had evidence of insulin release with nutrient stimulation. The plasma levels of fasting and meal-stimulated c-peptide levels were closely correlated, and both declined with increasing duration of the disease. Among patients with diabetes for more than 5 years, 11 % of adults (18-39 years of age) compared with no adolescents (13-18 years of age) retained insulin secretory capacity. After one year of therapy, intensive glycemic treatment was associated with less of a decline in insulin secretory capacity than standard therapy. Subsequently, the effect of intensive therapy on residual beta cell function was analyzed in 303 of the 855 DCCT patients with diabetes of 1-5 years’ duration who had c-peptide responses at baseline. Responders who had been receiving intensive therapy maintained a higher stimulated c-peptide level than responders receiving conventional therapy (57% risk reduction, p < 0.001). Maintenance of endogenous insulin secretion was associated with improved metabolic control, a lower risk of hypoglycemia, and a decreased rate of progression of retinopathy. The mechanism for the protective effect of intensive insulin therapy on islet function is not known. It may be due to a reduction of the glucotoxic effect of hyperglycemia on islet cell function or a slowing of the autoimmune process that leads to islet destruction. Whatever the mechanism, the results in the DCCT strongly support a strategy of intensive glycemic management with insulin from the time of first discovery of type 1 diabetes.In a recently reported phase II trial in 35 patients with type 1 diabetes and residual beta cell function, plasma c-peptide concentrations after glucagon injection were maintained for 10 months in patients treated with an immunomodulatory material, heat shock protein. In the control group, c-peptide levels fell to a significantly greater degree than in the treated group. It was postulated that a shift from a proinflammatory t-helper-1 to an anti-inflammatory t-helper-2 population accounted for the results. Presumably, these promising studies will be followed with large-scale trials to determine whether this therapy can produce long-term maintenance of insulin secretion in type 1 diabetes.*23\357\8*

EPILEPSY AND ITS SPECIAL FORMS/EPILEPSY SYNDROMES: BENIGN ROLANDIC EPILEPSY

admin — Mon, 09 May 2011 10:48:01 +0000

In addition to the many types of seizures, there are various patterns of recurrent seizures sufficiently distinctive in their course and outcome and in their response to specific medications to warrant distinct names and separate discussions.Benign Rolandic EpilepsyBenign rolandic epilepsy is a special form of seizures in children. Often starting after three years of age, it has rather typical clinical manifestations and a typical EEG. It is usually “benign” in that it is outgrown at adolescence whether or not it is treated and in that the children are usually normal before, during, and after this form of epilepsy that is outgrown. In many or most cases, the seizures are infrequent and do not need medication.Seizures in this form of epilepsy usually start with a sensation at thecorner of the mouth, followed by jerking of that corner. The jerking may spread to one side of the face or cause a twisting of that side. The seizure may, on occasion, spread throughout that side of the body or become a generalized tonic-clonic seizure. These seizures occur more commonly at night and during certain stages of sleep.The diagnosis of benign rolandic epilepsy is confirmed by an EEG pattern of repetitive spike activity firing predominantly from the mid-temporal or parietal areas of the brain near the rolandic (motor) strip— hence, the name rolandic epilepsy. Bilateral spike activity on the EEG is not uncommon and inter-ictal activity is more common on the EEG during certain stages of sleep.The seizures are often so infrequent and benign, occurring only at night, that most children with benign rolandic epilepsy are not treated with medication. If a child’s seizures are more frequent or troublesome, carbamazepine can be very effective and may be tapered and discontinued after puberty.There may be a genetic predisposition to this form of epilepsy.*91\208\8*

COMMUNITY-ACQUIRED PNEUMONIA: RESPONSE TO TREATMENT

admin — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 10:43:54 +0000

Most patients with community-acquired pneumonia should begin to show clinical response within 3 days. If the patient is improving clinically (with improvement of the fever curve, decreased dyspnea, and decreasing white blood cell count), a switch to oral therapy should be attempted only if the patient is able to tolerate oral medications. Certain nodical conditions are associated with delayed response, including immunosuppression, alcoholism, age greater than 65 years, and multiple Medical conditions. Multilobar pneumonia and bacteremia are also associated with delayed resolution. If a patient fails to improve after several days or deteriorates clinically, this may be due to inadequate initial therapy, unusual pathogens not covered by usual empiric therapy, a complication of pneumonia, or an incorrect initial diagnosis. The initial diagnosis should be questioned, with repeat history focusing on any possible exposures (primarily HIV risk factors, pets, and recent travel) that may suggest unusual pathogens such as Pneumocystis carinii, fungal pneumonia, or psittacosis. Careful repeat physical examination may suggest complications of pneumonia, including empyema, meningitis, septic arthritis, and endocarditis.Conditions other than pneumonia could account for the clinical presentation. Pulmonary embolism, malignancy, congestive heart failure, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, vasculitis, and sarcoidosis can all mimic pneumonia and should be considered. Bronchoscopy may be considered in patients who failed to improve on initial empiric antibiotics for community-acquired pneumonia. Current evidence suggests that the yield of bronchoscopy is low, except in nonsmoking patients with multilobar disease.*44/348/5*