Health

Tinnitus means that you hear a sound that no one else hears. It can be a buzzing, roaring or ringing and it can even sound like a heart beat. If the sound is pulsatile like a beating heart, the doctor may look for obstructions or widening in the arteries in the brain such as those caused by arteriosclerotic plaques or a ballooning of an artery called an aneurysm

A study this month showed that prunes are an effective treatment for constipation, with 120 healthy adults, who did not eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and had bowel movements only 3 to 6 times a week, assigned to groups given either 0, 10 or 15 prunes per day for 4 weeks.

Extensive recent research shows that high blood pressure is associated with having specific harmful bacteria in your colon, and that reducing harmful colon bacteria and increasing healthful ones can help to control high blood pressure. You can do this primarily by eating an anti-inflammatory diet, as well as by exercising regularly, losing excess weight, and avoiding smoke and alcohol.

If you are a woman who suddenly develops burning on urination, have to urinate frequently and feel terrible discomfort when your bladder is full, or have urgency to urinate whenever your bladder is full, check with your doctor. You could have a bladder or a vaginal infection.

Will a vasectomy increase risk of prostate cancer? Whether the husband gets a vasectomy or the wife gets a tubal ligation is usually decided by who has the strongest will. Vasectomies and tubal ligations are safe surgeries, but the operation on a man is a simple cutting under the skin in an office, while the operation on a woman requires going into her belly in an operating room. Over the long haul, they both are safe and effective in preventing pregnancies.

One of the definitions of "pre-diabetes" is a high rise in blood sugar after meals, and people with pre-diabetes are at significantly increased risk for suffering a heart attack or stroke.

People with no symptoms transmit more than half of all cases of COVID-19, according to a model developed by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This reinforces the importance of following the CDC's basic guidelines: wear a mask, wash your hands, and stay socially distant.

Results from the huge EPIC study (European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition) confirm that eating a lot of junk food increases risk for many cancers. Researchers in Paris followed 471,495 adults in 10 European countries for an average of 15.3 years, and the participants developed 49,794 cancers. The participants' diets were scored using the British Food Standards Agency's Nutrient Profiling System (FSAm-NPS), which ranks foods according to their healthful and harmful components. Those who ate more of the harmful and less of the healthful food components were at significantly greater risk for developing cancers, particularly cancers of the breast, prostate, colon-rectum, mouth, throat, esophagus, stomach, lung and liver.

A liver full of fat can be caused by anything that damages the liver. Doctors used to separate liver damage into that caused by alcohol and that not caused by alcohol (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease or NAFLD). Now we know that a liver damaged by excess alcohol has the same harmful consequences as a...

It should bother you that the nutritional supplement industry is unregulated because there is no way to tell what a supplement contains. Several different studies have shown that at least one third of nutritional supplements do not supply what is on the label.

Eating mammal meat or processed meats is associated with increased risk for diabetes, particularly if the meat is cooked at high temperatures. The authors showed that eating red or processed meat is associated with excess fat in the liver that can cause high blood sugar levels.

A study of 4,519,243 Canadian adults followed for 12 years found 224,016 cases of new cancers, and the people with newly diagnosed cancers were at increased risk for heart attacks, strokes, heart failure, lung clots, or death from heart disease. Patients with new cancers of the kidney, urinary tract, stomach, intestines, chest, nervous system or blood were at the highest risk for heart disease.

Don't put your faith in the many advertisements for ultraviolet light machines making claims that they destroy SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. They have not been shown to be effective, and UV rays strong enough to kill a virus may also damage your skin and eyes.

Most people with high blood pressure are not able to achieve normal blood pressure with daily doses of a single medication. In one study, more than 45 percent of people with high blood pressure did not take their medication regularly, and 84 percent of those with persistent high blood pressure did not take their mediation regularly.

Thirteen percent of North American men and seven percent of women suffer from kidney stones which can be incredibly painful to pass from the kidneys to the bladder. Those who get one stone have a 50 percent chance of passing another stone within the next five years. Here are the current recommendations for preventing kidney stones:

An analysis of 7,743 people suffering from osteoarthritis found that those who took NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti inflammatory drugs) were at 41 percent increased risk for suffering heart attacks, heart failure and strokes, compared to arthritis patients who did not take NSAIDs.

If you suffer from severe back pain and your doctor has not found a cause, ask him or her if you need a bone density test to determine if you have osteoporosis. All women and most men will suffer osteoporosis if they live long enough.

People who take red yeast rice pills to lower their cholesterol levels may not be getting their expected protection against suffering a heart attack. North Americans spend an estimated 40 million dollars a year on these pills.

At last we have a reasonable explanation why statins can cause some people to suffer skeletal muscle pain and damage, but do not cause heart muscle damage.

Most people who develop diabetes in later life can be controlled so that they are not at increased risk for the many complications of diabetes such as heart attacks, strokes, blindness, deafness, amputations, kidney failure, burning foot syndrome, venous insufficiency with ulceration and stasis dermatitis.

If your doctor has told you that you have high blood pressure or that your cholesterol or triglycerides are too high, ask him or her for your numbers. If would like to find out whether you are one of the 80 percent of people who can control high blood pressure, cholesterol and triglycerides with diet alone, follow my SHOW ME! Diet for just two weeks. Then have your doctor re-check your cholesterol, triglycerides and blood pressure. You'll probably also find that you have lost several pounds.

The standard treatment for chronic constipation is to eat a high fiber, plant-based diet. However, other studies have shown that taking in large amounts of fiber can actually cause constipation in some people. In one study, constipated people on a high-fiber diet solved most of their constipation problems by going on a very low fiber diet..

Deaths from cancer of the liver are increasing every year. Each year, more than 35,000 North Americans develop liver cancer and 25,000 die from it. Less than 20 percent of liver cancer patients are alive five years after being diagnosed. If the cancer is diagnosed after it has spread to surrounding tissues, the five-year survival rate drops to 11 percent.

If you have high blood pressure in the winter, you are at increased risk for a heart attack, even if your blood pressure is normal in the summertime. Blood pressure is often higher in winter and lower in summer, and heart attacks are significantly more common in the winter than in the summer.

In the largest prospective study yet on the subject, researchers followed 1251 participants in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study and the Nurses' Health Study who developed Parkinson's Disease. (JAMA Netw Open, Aug 19, 2022;5(8):e2227738). The average age at diagnosis was 73.4 years. During the 32-34 years of follow up, 942 patients died. They found that compared with those who had the worst before-and-after lifestyles, those with the healthiest eating and exercise regimens prior to diagnosis reduced their all-cause death rates by 49 percent.

Two to three million years ago, our pre-human ancestors had a single genetic mutation in their CMAH gene that protected them from a deadly form of malaria but set them up for risk for heart attacks that increases when they eat a lot of meat from any kind of mammal (PNAS, July 22, 2019)....

Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech, have announced that their COVID-19 vaccine appears to be more than 90 percent effective against the disease. Early data from their 44,000-person trial analyzed the first 94 cases of symptomatic COVID-19 among the participants who received either the two-dose vaccine or a saline placebo.

Many of the more than 150 strains of Human Papilloma Viruses (HPV) are relatively harmless, but about 15 are classified as high-risk types because they can cause cancer and other health problems. A single dose of the vaccine for types 16, 18 and the other high-risk types of HPV appears to provide at least eight years of protection against these infections. These viruses are the most common cause of cancers of the cervix and other parts of the uterus, as well as of the penis, anus, throat, vagina and vulva

Pain messages are passed along nerves by a neurotransmitter called "substance P." Capsaicin, the component of chili peppers that makes them hot, blocks substance P and the resultant pain. A cream containing .025 percent capsaicin has been shown to block pain in joints, nerves and skin

About 70 percent of North American adults will suffer from diabetes or prediabetes. The most common cause of diabetes is excess fat in the liver, which prevents your body from responding to insulin to cause high blood sugar levels. When you have high blood sugar, the sugar can stick to and damage the outer membranes of cells, to increase risk for heart attacks, strokes, certain cancers, and dementia.