Gut Bacteria and Auto-Immune Diseases
New studies show that two auto-immune diseases, chronic fatigue syndrome and rheumatoid arthritis, may be caused by having pro-inflammatory bacteria in your gut. These bacteria are likely to punch holes in your intestines, which allows bacteria to slip into your bloodstream to cause inflammation.
Constipation and Herpes
Herpes may be a common cause of chronic constipation and urinary tract symptoms. This month a study shows that infection with herpes viruses causes constipation in mice . The researchers showed that the herpes virus spread from nerves in the genitals to nerves in the spinal cord, and then traveled from the spinal cord to nerves in the colon and killed them.
Systolic or Diastolic Blood Pressure
You have two blood pressures: the systolic that measures blood pressure when your heart contracts, and the much lower diastolic reading that measures the pressure when your heart relaxes. When your heart contracts, it pushes a huge amount of blood forward to your arteries. Your arteries are supposed to act like balloons and expand to accept the blood and prevent your blood pressure from rising too high.
Blood Type
There are more than 300 known variations in blood types. For example, you are also classified as to whether the surface of your red blood cells contain a Duffy surface. Almost no one in Africa has the Duffy red blood cell type.
Co-Enzyme Q10 Pills Do Not Lessen Muscle Aches from Statins
Up to 20 percent of people who take statin drugs to lower cholesterol suffer from muscle aches, particularly when they try to exercise. A systematic review found eight studies that showed that Co-enzyme Q10 (CoQ10) does not reduce statin-induced muscle pain, compared to placebo.
Manipulation for Low Back Pain
An article in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that spinal manipulation is at least as effective in controlling low-back pain as the standard medical treatments of ultrasound, antiinflammatory drugs, anti-pain drugs, diathermy heat treatments, hot or cold packs, use of a corset or transcutaneous nerve stimulation.
Melanomas are Often Not on Moles
For many years we have been told to watch existing moles for changes that may signal a melanoma, but a new review of 38 studies covering 20,126 melanomas shows that fewer than 30 percent of melanomas are found on moles. More than 70 percent of melanomas show up on previously normal skin.
Aging and Risk for Dementia
Dementia means loss of brain function, and your chance of having dementia increases with age. Doctors can now predict increased risk for developing dementia by ordering an MRI which can show decreased volume of grey matter in the brain.
Protecting Yourself from COVID-19
As businesses and activities are re-opening, many people have decided to relax their precautions to avoid infection with COVID-19. If you are a person who is at high risk for complications from this virus, I believe that you should continue to be on guard.
How Your Diet Affects Your Blood Pressure
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.
Sunscreens and Sun Protection
Sunscreens help to prevent sunburns and skin cancers because they actually block the ultraviolet rays of the sun that damage the skin. However, some sunscreens are safe, while others may not be safe.
Autophagy: Self-Eating Breakthrough
Autophagy means "self-eating". When a cell is damaged or dies, the body quickly breaks down the dead cell’s parts (protein-making, power-generating, and transport systems) into small molecules that can be reassembled to be used for making new cell parts and supplying the energy to power these processes.
How Would I Treat Myself If I Got COVID-19?
If I had COVID-19 and was not very sick, I do not know if I would take anything. Today there are no drugs or treatments proven to prevent or cure COVID-19, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not licensed any treatment specifically for the virus.
Preventing Osteoporosis
Everyone loses bone with aging. A review of 40 studies on almost 80,000 subjects found that more than 35 percent of people over 60 suffer from osteoporosis that increases risk for bone fractures and death. People who suffer osteoporotic hip fractures have a 20 percent chance of dying within the next year. If you have suffered bone fractures with minimal trauma, the odds are strong that you have osteoporosis.
The Hidden Epidemic of Early Diabetes
Many people with high blood sugar levels are told by their doctors that they do not have diabetes because their fasting blood sugar levels are below 100 mg/dl, which is considered normal. Early in the disease, diabetics often have a "normal" fasting blood sugar, but one hour after they eat, their blood sugar levels rise above 140, which signals that they are at increased risk for heart attacks, strokes, cancers, nerve damage and premature death.
How Prunes Treat Constipation
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.
The Search for Drugs to Treat COVID-19
Today there are no drugs that have been proven to treat the coronavirus, COVID-19, but a study from China showed that the inexpensive anti-malarial drug, Chloroquine phosphate, was safe and effective in shortening the course and decreasing symptoms in patients suffering from COVID-19 pneumonia.
Guidelines for COVID-19 Fully Vaccinated People
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released recommendations for fully vaccinated people who are two weeks past their second injection of the Moderna or Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines, or have had the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. As of March 8, 2021, more than 31 million people (9.4 percent of the U.S. population) had completed these vaccines.
High Calcium Artery Score Doesn’t Always Mean High Risk for a Heart Attack
Since heart attacks are usually caused by plaques breaking off from the inner linings of arteries leading to the heart, doctors use a test called Coronary Artery Calcium Score (CAC) to predict which people have the largest plaques and therefore are at high risk for suffering heart attacks that cause one out of four deaths in North America.
Breakfast Skippers Have More Plaques
A new study surveyed more than 4,000 adults ages 40 to 54 about their breakfast habits and then checked them for heart attack risk factors. The researchers found that people who eat a large percentage of their total daily calories for breakfast have the fewest heart attack risk factors, while those who skip breakfast are more likely to have plaques in their arteries and other heart attack risk factors.
High Triglycerides Are a Major Risk Factor for Heart Attacks and Diabetes
Having blood triglyceride levels above 150 mg/dL (1.7 mmol/L) puts you at increased risk for a heart attack, stroke, or heart valve disease, even if your blood cholesterol levels are normal (Eur Heart J, Dec 2021;42(47):4791-4806). About 10 percent of North Americans suffer from high triglyceride levels. High triglycerides are often found in people who are diabetic, obese or alcoholic.
Treating Type II Diabetes and High Blood Pressure with Diet
Type II Diabetes shortens lives by causing high blood pressure, strokes and heart attacks. Diabetics in the DIRECT study in Scotland, who followed a strict 800-calorie-per-day diet and lost a lot of weight, were also able to lower their high blood pressure.
Lifestyle Changes to Prevent and Treat Diabetes
A healthful plant-based diet can help to cure Type II diabetes if you already have it, or help to protect you from developing diabetes in the first place. People who eat the healthful plant-based foods -- vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, nuts and other seeds --are far better protected than those who eat the "unhealthful" plant-derived foods, such as refined grains, fried potatoes and sugar-added foods
Osteoarthritis has Doubled in the Last Fifty Years
Eighty percent of North Americans have X-ray evidence of osteoarthritis by age 65, and sixty percent have significant joint pain. A recent study compared the size of knee cartilage in skeletons, and the researchers found that the incidence of knee osteoarthritis (loss of cartilage) has risen at a frightening rate over the last 50 years.
Dementia Risk Increased by Harmful Bacteria in Your Colon
More than 30 percent of North Americans over the age of 85 suffer from dementia. A study presented recently at the International Stroke Conference 2019 shows that having harmful bacteria in your colon increases risk for dementia.
Reduce Inflammation to Help Prevent Cancer
Certain dietary habits are associated with increased risk for breast and prostate cancer. Of 3184 adults followed for more than 20 years, 565 were diagnosed with cancer. Those who drank sugary drinks had three times as much prostate cancer as those who took in less. Men who ate processed lunch foods (pizza, deli meats and burgers) four or more times a week had double the risk for prostate cancer. Women who ate vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes were 67 percent less likely to develop breast cancer, compared with women who favored refined carbohydrates.
Osteoporosis and Diet
The Women's Health Initiative showed that an inflammatory diet is associated with increased hip fracture rates in women ages 50 to 63 and an anti-inflammatory diet is associated with less bone density loss in this same group of postmenopausal women.
Why HDL Cholesterol is “Good”
For many years HDL cholesterol has been called "good" because it carries plaque-forming particles from your arteries and bloodstream back to your liver where they can be removed from your body. An exciting new study shows that regular HDL cholesterol may not be very effective in doing this, but another form called Nascent HDL carries these protein-fats much more quickly to your liver to be removed from your circulation.
Blocking Inflammation to Prevent Heart Attacks
In the biggest advance in knowledge about the prevention of heart attacks since the discovery of statins, researchers at Harvard Medical School have shown that blocking inflammation helps to prevent heart attacks and cancers.
Drugs Given to President Trump for COVID-19
As reported by the White House medical team, the drugs given to President Trump to treat COVID-19 included Regeneron's antibody cocktail (monoclonal antibodies), Gilead Sciences' remdesivir (brand name Veklury), and dexamethasone.
