Chronic Sinusitis
If you have been diagnosed as having sinusitis, and have sought help from allergists, ear-nose-and-throat-doctors, internists or surgeons, you know that you still have sinusitis, even though you may have had surgery, allergy shots, all kinds of medications and shots or any other treatment.
Restless Legs Syndrome is Very Common
One in 20 people over 60 suffers from restless legs syndrome, a common cause of insomnia. Without any warning during sleep. their legs start to tingle, and walk off the bed.
Parkinson’s Disease vs Benign (Essential) Tremors
If you have developed shaking of your hands, you could have Parkinson's disease which is difficult to treat, or Benign Tremors which is usually easy to treat. You are more likely to have the more serious Parkinson's disease if you have the tremor at rest, a slow heart beat, rigid firm muscles, slowness to remember facts, difficulty speaking normally, depression or sleep disturbances.
Lyme Disease
Many medical authors recommend treating all Lyme disease patients with 30 days of intravenous Rocephin. However, intravenous antibiotics may offer no advantage over less expensive pills (1). For many years I have been criticized for treating my Lyme disease patients who have muscle and joint pain and fatigue with 100 mg of minocycline or...
T’ai Chi for Arthritis
People with arthritis should exercise to strengthen their muscles. This helps to stabilize their joints so they are not so loose that every movement chips off more cartilage. Exercises that put hard force on joints break cartilage, so the best exercise for people with arthritis is one that strengthens muscles without applying great force on joints. In T'ai Chi, a person moves very slowly for extended periods of time. Slow movements put great force on muscles to cause significant gain in strength without putting much force on joints.
Glucosamine and Chondroitin Sulfate for Arthritic Pain
Reports have shown that pills containing chondroitin sulfate and glucosamine, two components of cartilage, may help alleviate the pain of arthritis.
Exercise for Arthritis
When you have arthritis, your joints hurt every time you move. When you wake up, your muscles and tendons are so stiff that you can barely get out of bed, but you force yourself to get up and as you keep on moving, the pain lessens and you can move a little faster.
Is your...
Cod Liver Oil for Arthritis
Even the most outrageous quacks sometimes end up as prophets when many years later, a scientific study supports theories that were previously scorned. An article from respected researchers in Berlin showed that cod liver oil helped to relieve pain and suffering in some people with rheumatoid arthritis. This is the same remedy proposed by...
Synvisc Injections Equal Cortisone for Knee Pain
A study presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons showed that Synvisc injections are as effective as steroid (cortisone) injections in controlling the pain of damaged cartilage in the knee. Synvisc costs about $5000, compared to five dollars for cortisone.
Height Loss with Aging
The bones of your spine are separated by pads called discs. As you age, these discs dry out and become smaller. However, regular exercise compresses and relaxes these discs as you move up and down. This helps to keep the discs from shrinking and maintains your height.
Partial Knee Replacement
Until recently, the only effective treatment has been to cut out the ends of the bones of the knee and replace the entire knee joint. Now for some people, a simpler procedure may be effective: partial knee replacement, called unicompartmental knee arthroplasty.
Beta Blocker Side Effects
Research shows that some beta blockers and diuretics that are prescribed to control high blood pressure can cause high blood sugar levels, weight gain, tiredness and impotence
Oxycholesterol and Cholesterol
Most of the chemicals in your body and in your food are safe, but when many chemicals in your body and foods are oxidized and converted to their oxidized forms they become harmful. Cholesterol is pure and safe for arteries. The cholesterol in fresh meat, fish, eggs and milk is safe. In fact, it functions as an antioxidant that protects your arteries.
Arteriosclerosis is Reversible
More than forty years ago, Dr. Robert Wissler of the University of Chicago showed that arteriosclerosis is reversible in animals. Since then, hundreds of papers have shown that it is reversible in humans, even those who have already had heart attacks.
Can Your Cholesterol be Too Low?
Almost everyone agrees that having total blood cholesterol levels above 250 is likely to shorten your life and markedly increases your chances of suffering a heart attack, unless you have a very high HDL (which is good). Other studies also show that people with very low cholesterol are at increased risk for cancer of the stomach, esophagus, liver and colon, but it looks like the incubating cancers cause the low cholesterol, rather than a low cholesterol causing the cancers.
Dangers of Shoveling Snow
What's the most common cause of winter-time heart attacks, shoveling snow or breathing cold air? A study in Toronto showed that most heart attacks occur on the day after a snowfall, not on the coldest days.
Your heart has to work two and a half times harder to pump blood through your arms than...
Slow Heart Rate
A slow pulse rate in athletes usually means a strong heart, but in non-athletes, it can mean heart damage. Athletes often have pulse rates below 60 because their hearts are strong enough to pump large amounts of blood with each beat and therefore don't have to beat as often.
Cholesterol Absorbed from Food
Having high blood levels of cholesterol increaes your chances of getting a heart attack, but your blood cholesterol level is influenced far more by how many calories you eat than by how much cholesterol is in the food you eat.
Diet to Lower Cholesterol
It takes only two weeks for a diet to lower cholesterol as much as it is going to do.
You lower cholesterol by replacing saturated fats from animals with polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fats from plants, and by restricting refined carbohydrates found in bakery products, pastas and sugar-added foods and drinks. Many doctors think that it...
How Diet Can Lower High Blood Pressure
Changes in diet should be the first strategy for anyone with high blood pressure, but most people will need to make drastic changes in their eating habits to succeed. Scientists at the National Institutes of Health have shown why the DASH diet lowers high blood pressure to normal in more than 80 percent of...
Swollen Feet and Ankles
Your leg muscles function like a second heart to pump fluid from your legs to your heart. When your leg muscles relax, the veins near them fill up with blood. When your leg muscles contract, they compress the veins and squeeze blood up toward your heart.
Exercise lowers homocysteine
A regular exercise program helps to lower high blood levels of homocysteine, according to a study from multiple medical centers (European Journal of Applied Physiology, November 2006). High blood levels of homocysteine increase your risk for heart attacks, but at this time, nobody knows why. More than 200 papers show high blood levels of...
Agent Orange Does Not Cause Diabetes
In April 2000, a study from the Air Force was widely reported in newspapers to have shown that agent orange causes diabetes. Only Gina Kolata of the New York Times wasn't fooled (NYT, April 20, 2000).
Impotence in Men with Diabetes
A study from Italy shows that more than 56 percent of diabetic men suffer from impotence, and almost all complain bitterly that it has destroyed something that is very important to them. The study also shows that most men who are impotent from diabetes are depressed. Impotence caused by diabetes can be prevented in almost all men whose bodies can still make insulin.
Who is Pre-Diabetic?
You can tell if you are at high risk for diabetes if you store fat primarily in your belly. Pinch your belly; if you can pinch an more than an inch of fat under the skin there, you are at increased risk and should get a blood test called HBA1C. Having high blood levels of triglycerides and low levels of the good HDL cholesterol that helps prevent heart attacks also increases your risk for diabetes.
PSA Test for Prostate Cancer
Many doctors recommend that every man over 40 get a blood test called Prostate Specific Antigen to check for prostate cancer. Prostate Specific Antigen is made by prostate cells and is released into the bloodstream. Large prostates have more PSA, so a rise in PSA means that the gland is enlarging rapidly, which can be a sign of cancer or that the prostate is irritated by infection.
Frequent Urination at Night
Several papers show that having to urinate frequently at night is often caused by low levels of antidiuretic hormone (1,2) and that taking that hormone can control this condition.
Male Infertility
Infection is the most common cause of male infertility and that standard tests for infertility often do not find the infection. When evaluating a male for infertility, doctors check sperm count and sperm mobility. If a man's ejaculate contains fewer than 50 million sperm, he is infertile, and the most common cause of reduced sperm count is infection.
Male Hair Loss and Heart Attacks
A depressing study from Harvard School of Public Health showed that loss of hair on the top of the head markedly increases a man's chances of suffering a heart attack, and the more hair he loses, the more likely he is to suffer a heart attack (1).
Men with male pattern baldness have higher than...
Baldness
Several years ago I reported that the present treatment for male-pattern baldness is not very effective and that male pattern baldness may be caused by insulin resistance, and that a diet high in sugar and flour may cause irreversible hair loss.
