Health News and Information

Fibrous Super Foods are especially helpful in fighting cancer and intestinal disorders. Eating a lot of fiber makes your stool bulkier and softer, pushing it rapidly through the bowels. Getting the stool out faster reduces the amount of time your gut lining is exposed to potential carcinogens in the stool. In addition, fiber promotes the growth of aerobic bacteria (bacteria that requires oxygen to live) in the intestines, rather than the anaerobic bacteria encouraged by the low-fiber S.A.D. The S.A.D.’s anaerobic bacteria can break down bile acids into cancer-causing substances.

Thanks to the large amounts of fiber in my Super Food diet, straining and constipation are eliminated. This protects against hemorrhoids, appendicitis, varicose veins, diverticulosis (weak pockets in the large intestine caused by straining and constipation) and diverticulitis (an inflammation of those weak pockets). Gastroesophageal hiatal hernia, a condition that allows acid to pour onto the lining of the esophagus and cause the common “heartburn,” is also greatly ameliorated by the fibrous Super Food diet.

I’ve found fiber-rich diets to be useful in combating both insulin-dependent and noninsulin-dependent diabetes. Most of my diabetic patients, who have given up the S.A.D. in favor of a Super Food diet rich in fibrous foods have been able to reduce the amount of insulin they must take. Many can eventually do without insulin altogether.

High-fiber diets have another benefit: they can help you lose weight. Since we don’t digest and absorb fiber, it adds no calories to our diet. It also gives us a full feeling, so we don’t rush right back to the refrigerator after a meal.

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Description and Possible Medical Problems

If you’ve been reaching for the salt shaker more often lately because food doesn’t seem to taste as good as it used to, you need to determine whether the change has been gradual or sudden.

A gradual loss of taste is probably due to the fact that you don’t have as many taste buds as you once did—and those that remain gradually lose their effectiveness. However, a noticeable loss of taste doesn’t usually occur until a person reaches the 70s or 80s, if at all. A vitamin deficiency—of zinc and/or vitamin B^—can also cause a gradual loss of taste. And habitual cigarette smoking is one of the most common causes of taste loss.

A sudden loss of taste is usually caused by a specific medical condition; it may be a sign of stroke, infection, or a tumor in the lung.

Treatment

There’s not much you can do if you find you’re gradually losing your sense of taste. Quitting smoking or taking zinc and/or vitamin B12 can help you to determine if these are responsible for your loss of taste. Taking a multivitamin with 100% of the RDA of all recommended vitamins and minerals each day will provide you with sufficient dosages of both zinc and vitamin B12.

However, if you suddenly lose your sense of taste, you should check for recent changes in your lifestyle or health. For instance, antihistamines are frequently responsible for reduced taste sensation, which is frequently accompanied by a dry mouth. And because taste is so closely related to smell, if you have a cold or an upper respiratory infection, you’ll probably lose some if not all of your sense of taste. Psychotropic medications that alter your consciousness—such as marijuana and cocaine—are another cause.

However, if none of these is the cause, you should check with your physician as soon as possible to determine what the cause is. Your doctor may give you a taste test to determine the kinds of tastes you can detect—sweet, salty, sour, and bitter—that is akin to a scratch-and-sniff test. He will place sugar, lemon, bitters, and salt on your tongue in order to determine what specific tastes you can detect.

After a thorough examination, if your physician determines that your taste loss is temporary, you should concentrate on selecting foods that give you at least some sensation of taste. Tangy, sweet, or spicy foods, along with foods that are crunchy or have some texture, will help alleviate the annoyance of not being able to taste your food. If, however, your doctor suspects that your loss of taste is due to an underlying illness, such as a stroke, he will probably order more tests to make a positive diagnosis and then begin treatment for the illness itself.

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Description and Possible Medical Problems

The majority of Americans believe that to have anything less than clean, minty breath 24 hours a day is something akin to sacrilege.

Of course, sweet-smelling breath is a real asset in life, but frequently, eliminating bad breath isn’t just a matter of brushing your teeth and gargling with mouthwash. After all, mints, toothpaste, and mouthwash will only partially mask bad breath that doesn’t respond to improved oral hygiene. Sometimes gingivitis, or gum disease, or a serious health problem such as lung, kidney, or liver disease or any mouth or throat infection is responsible for persistent halitosis. Most of the time, however, the problem can be solved easily with a simple change in diet.

Treatment

The first thing to check—and the easiest symptom to treat—is your oral hygiene habits. If you’re not brushing and flossing properly—or cleaning your dentures thoroughly each day—you should immediately start to pay closer attention to your dental routine. Advanced cases of gingivitis or gum disease can also cause persistent bad breath.

If you improve your dental hygiene program but you still have bad breath, you should give yourself a nutritional checkup, since, as you age, your digestive system can slow down considerably. And if you eat a lot of processed and refined foods—which take longer to digest than unte-fined foods do—the food can stay in your stomach longet and ferment, producing a noxious gas. Low-calorie diets ate notorious for causing bad breath, as ketones, a by-product of digestion, are produced by the digestion of excess protein and expelled through your mouth as a foul-smelling gas. If improving your diet doesn’t work, you may have a problem in your gastrointestinal tract, which is often responsible for releasing foul-smelling gas through the mouth.

Lung disease and its primary cause—cigarette smoking—can also cause bad breath that doesn’t go away with brushing and flossing. Other serious diseases, such as kidney or liver failure or diabetes, can also cause the breath to smell foul, as can any infection that occurs in your mouth or throat. If your bad breath has appeared suddenly and doesn’t respond to your own treatment, see your doctor to rule out these diseases as the cause. Over-the-counter cold remedies and antihistamines such as Benadryl and prescription medications, especially antidepressants such as Elavil and others that cause your mouth to become dry, can bring on bad breath since adequate saliva production helps to keep your breath fresh. Ask your doctor about switching to another medication.

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If you develop a painful rash along your ear—commonly known as shingles—then it’s safe to say that you had chicken pox as a kid.

Ramsay Hunt syndrome, a form of shingles that commonly appears along your ear, is a form of the herpes zoster virus, the same virus that causes chicken pox in children.

What causes the chicken pox virus suddenly to appear after years of latency? It’s sometimes difficult to pinpoint the culprit, but too much emotional and/or physical stress can often trigger the immune system to become depressed, which may “wake up” a latent virus. And people who have weakened immune systems are prone to repeated bouts with the virus—and attacks of shingles.

To find out if the rash on your ear means you are having your second bout with chicken pox, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Do I have a painful rash or pimples on my outer ear?

2. Did I have chicken pox as a child?

3. Have I lost my sense of taste?

4. Am I sometimes unable to move one side of my face for short periods of time?

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For people who have presbyopia, bifocals—glasses with two different strengths of lenses in them—are the most common solution. The top half of the lens will help you see more clearly at a distance, while the bottom half will improve your reading as well as your ability to focus on objects you need to see up close. Nowadays, new types of bifocals are available in which there is no “line” between the upper and lower halves, so that no one can tell that you’re wearing bifocals.

However, as baby boomers can be as vain as I am when it comes to wearing glasses, there is hope in the form of contact lenses. Bausch & Lomb makes a special bifocal contact lens called Multifocal that is designed to be worn when you don’t want to wear glasses.

Unfortunately, ophthalmologists recommend that you increase the strength of your prescription every three to four years after the age of 40, since the lens of your eye will continue to become stiffer, which will ultimately alter your vision. Fortunately, eyesight stops deteriorating at about the age of 65, making further prescription upgrades unnecessary.

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If you are allergic to a particular substance, the first thing you should do is try to avoid the allergen. If it’s inside the house, open the windows; if the allergen is outside, keep your windows closed.

There are many over-the-counter preparations you can use in a variety of formulas, from pills and capsules to nasal sprays and eyedrops. A diphenhydramine hydrochloride preparation, such as Benadryl, or a chlorpheniramine maleate preparation, such as Chlortrimeton, helps

relieve the symptoms of allergy but causes drowsiness. If this is a problem, you should see your physician to find out about taking some of the new prescription allergy formulations that don’t cause drowsiness, such as Claritin, Hismanal, or Seldane. However, the latter medications tend to be less effective in treating your symptoms than the former are, so it’s your call.

In any case, if your allergy symptoms are particularly severe and include wheezing or shortness of breath, you should see your doctor because you may need to use a bronchodilator spray like Ventolin to help you breathe.

If you think you have hay fever but it’s accompanied by a yellow nasal discharge and head pain, you may actually have sinusitis, a sinus infection.

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New evidence suggests that people over 65 who take modest daily amounts of a variety of vitamins, minerals, and other supplements have stronger immune systems and a better chance of fighting off infections than those who don’t receive them.

The evidence comes from a new Canadian study involving 96 healthy men and women who were living on their own. Researchers examined the effect of 18 vitamins, minerals and other supplements thought to influence the immune system. All of the subjects were evaluated before the study began, and most of them had normal blood levels of the essential nutrients. The researchers aren’t sure which nutrients resulted in improved health.

Half of those participating in the study took supplements, while the other half didn’t. Among those who took the supplements, infection-related illness occurred an average of 23 days per year— the average was 48 days among those who did not take supplements. Also, the group which received the supplements needed fewer prescriptions for antibiotics than those people in the control group.

While scientists are encouraged by the new information, they agree that before any firm conclusion can be reached about the findings; more extensive and longer studies need to conducted. That’s because the positive effects initially ascribed to vitamins, minerals and other supplements may in fact have been influenced by other, as yet unknown, factors.

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1) Antibiotics— whenever you take antibiotics to treat bacterial infection, you must take the entire course or risk a recurrence of the infection. You may also increase your chances of bacterial resistance to further treatment when you use antibiotics.

Some antibiotics, such as tetracycline, are rendered ineffective when they are taken with antacids containing calcium, magnesium or aluminum. Dairy products, such as milk, can also keep some antibiotics from working.

Women who are treating a sinus infection, strep throat or bronchitis with antibiotics run a high risk of developing a vaginal yeast infection. Symptoms which can include itching, burning, pain during sex, and vaginal discharge, can begin two days to a week after you first begin taking an antibiotic.

2) Antacids— these drugs to relieve indigestion and heartburn generally shouldn’t be taken within one or two hours of any other oral medication because they may prevent the other drugs from working. If you suffer from congestive heart failure, you should stay away from antacids which contain calcium and sodium bicarbonate. You should also avoid consuming large amounts of dairy products, otherwise you’ll increase your risk of constipation, nausea, and other side effects.

3) Antidepressants— the best advice is to avoid alcohol and to be cautious when driving or doing any kind of hazardous work when you are taking such a drug. The side effects from such drugs—especially when you first start to take them—can include dry mouth, blurred vision, drowsiness, dizziness, insomnia, palpitations, shaky hands, headaches, and nausea. The effects vary from person to person, but used incorrectly, antidepressant drugs can cause some serious problems.

9) Anticoagulants— these drugs, such as warfarin, help maintain normal bladder flow in people who have an increased risk of clot formation— such as people who are bedridden or who have heart failure. Foods rich in vitamin K, including broccoli, lettuce, and spinach, tend to reduce the effectiveness of warfarin, Coumadin and other anti-coagulants. Antacids can also neutralize their effect.

10) Antiseizure medicine— drugs such as Tegretol, Dilantin, and Phenobarbital can all cause dependence. If you want to stop taking them, you should do so under a doctor’s care and guidance.

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Acne tends to be more of a problem during warm-weather months because the sweat glands are more active. The more you sweat, the more the mixture of perspiration and oil spreads on the skin’s surface and clogs pores.

You can fight acne by washing your face more often, especially after working out. If adequate facilities aren’t always available, you can carry a sealed plastic bag, containing cotton balls soaked in astringent.

Another method of minimizing clogging is to use an oil-free sunscreen. Choose one that’s labeled “non-comedogenic” and lists alcohol as one of its main ingredients. Also make sure it is water-resistant.

4 Blemish Fighters

Witch hazel— removes excess oil.

Sulfur— dries up oil.

Benzoyl peroxide— speeds up the healing process by acting as a peeling agent.

Salicylic acid— removes debris from the pores.

Secret To Heal Skin Problems

Some skin conditions such as poison ivy or runny eczema can be successfully treated by a starchy bath created by soaking or boiling a potato in water. This bath in “potato water” can dry and smooth wet and blistery skin inflammations, but before using such a remedy, it’s best to consult your doctor. Sometimes, a potato water bath can further irritate dry, itchy skin or fungal infections.

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Vitamin E (Tocopherol)

Vitamin E is a fat-soluble vitamin which is essential for normal cell structure and the formation of red blood cells. It also protects the lungs and other tissues from damage by pollutants and helps prevent red blood cells from being damaged by poisons in the blood.

A deficiency of vitamin E may lead to the destruction of red blood cells, which ultimately results in anemia.

The primary dietary sources of vitamin E are vegetable oils, eggs, fish, green, leafy vegetables, cereals, wheat germ, meat, and dried beans. The recommended daily allowance is 8 to 10 mg.

Vitamin K

This is a fat-soluble vitamin which is essential for normal blood clotting.

A deficiency of vitamin K reduces the ability of the blood to clot. This condition may cause nosebleeds, bleeding from the gums, intestines, and urinary tract, and seeping of blood from wounds.

The main dietary sources of vitamin K include green, leafy vegetables, vegetable oils, pork, liver, egg yolk, cheese, potatoes, fruits, and grain products. Vitamin K is also manufactured by bacteria which normally live in the intestine. Newborn infants lack such intestinal bacteria and are therefore given vitamin K supplements to prevent deficiency. The recommended daily allowance for adults is 60 to 80 mcg.

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