What’s wrong with taking drugs for HBP? Aren’t they effective?In a technical sense they can be quite effective. There is no question that doctors have succeeded in lowering the BP of many people through using one or more of the 50 or so drugs currently available on the market for this purpose. But these drugs do not always work, and even when they do, they usually produce serious side effects.
What are some of these side effects?Nausea, fatigue, sexual impotence in men, and a host of others. Most of these drugs also deplete the body’s supply of potassium and, as will be explained later on, the supplements which doctors often prescribe to compensate for this don’t always work too well. Some drugs even tend to wash vitamin B6 out of the system.A much more severe side effect is cancer. Studies at Oxford University in England, the Boston University Medical School and at the University of Utah Medical School have all pointed to this danger. As a matter of fact, the Food and Drug Administration warned physicians that women taking drugs containing reserpine, a commonly used substance in BP control, ran a risk of breast cancer that was two or three times greater than that of other women.
Does that mean that people with HBP should not take drugs?By no means. But they should simultaneously seek to lower their blood pressure through more natural methods so that they can reduce their need for such medication. Some may reach the point where they will not need drugs at all. Certainly, many have already done so.
If these more natural methods are so effective as you claim, why don’t doctors make greater use of them?Doctors usually do tell their HBP patients to give up cigarettes, cut down on salt and, if they are overweight, to reduce. These are all useful admonitions although, as we shall learn, there is much more to be said about all of them. But, in general, most doctors show little interest in these other methods of blood pressure control even when, as is often the case, they are backed up by scrupulous scientific research. Indeed, most doctors don’t even know about most of this research.
*13/151/5*
It isn’t known how many people with BDD kill themselves, but some do. A study of dermatology patients reported the very sobering finding that of those patients known to have committed suicide over 20 years, most had acne or BDD. The psychiatric literature also contains descriptions of people with BDD who committed suicide because they were so distraught and despairing over their perceived ugliness. And I know of numerous people with BDD who committed suicide. Several were beautiful young women with skin concerns who picked their skin. Another was a young man who had been obsessed with his “misshapen” forehead, and another a young man who hated his hair. Yet another was a man in his 50s who hated his beard and whose life had been devastated by BDD.Bill told me that there were some people with BDD I’d never be able to interview. When I asked why, he answered, “Because they’re dead—they’ve killed themselves.” He should know, because he had attempted suicide 15 times because of the pores on his nose. He could no longer cope with the torment of his perceived ugliness. Another man said something nearly identical: “I think many people have committed suicide because of BDD. I know, because it’s so painful. I made two suicide attempts at the time my symptoms were severe. I felt very isolated, and I lost hope.”I have no doubt that in many cases successful psychiatric treatment (SRIs and/or CBT) prevents suicide. In my fluoxetine (Prozac) study, suicidal thinking decreased significantly more with fluoxetine than with placebo (sugar pill) treatment. Juanita had a good response to fluoxetine. She called me years later to say that she’d gotten married and had a great job. She was no longer suicidal over how she looked. Luke also had an excellent response to the same medication plus cognitive-behavioral therapy. After treatment, his appearance no longer tormented him. He went on to a successful career in television, and gave up thoughts of suicide. “It’s the furthest thing from my mind now,” he told me. “I have a great life. Thank God I got treatment. I owe my life to it.”*146\204\8*
Relationship of migraine to other diseasesAlthough there are many conditions that produce pain in the head region, e.g. sinusitis, high blood pressure, eye strain, there is no proof that these conditions predispose to migraine.On the other hand, many migraine sufferers notice that their attacks are more frequent when they are ‘run-down’ or suffering from general upsets.Case CD, on returning from a lecture-tour of India, suddenly developed frequent (sometimes twice-daily) attacks of migraine, which were produced by slight stress, e.g. a short walk. Analysis of his blood showed evidence of an infection, which later proved to be an inflammatory bowel disorder. When the latter condition was cured with treatment, he suffered no further migraine attacks.
Migraine in the elderlyOld people do not suffer from migraine as commonly or as severely as the young. There are exceptions to this rule, however. Many women whose migraine is worse at the time of the menstrual period are told that their attacks will go with the menopause. This is often, but not always, the case.There is little doubt that, on the whole, attacks change in their characteristics with ageing, e.g. vomiting is less severe and in many cases the disorder becomes less troublesome.
Weekend migraineAlthough migraine is often thought of as a stress disease, there are many sufferers who get attacks only when they are relaxing either at weekends or on holiday. Others will get attacks only when they are anticipating an exciting event, e.g. a party. This can be so distinctive that they will refuse invitations in the certain knowledge that acceptance will provoke an attack.
*15/152/5*
The Kinsey studies showed that it was fairly common for males to have at least one homosexual experience during adolescence, while considerably fewer adolescent females engaged in sex with another’ female. More recently, there seems to have been a moderate decline in adolescent homosexual experience. Sorenson found that 5 percent of thirteen- to fifteen-year-old boys and 17 percent of sixteen- to nineteen-year-old boys had ever had a homosexual experience, and 6 percent of all adolescent females he surveyed had at least one episode of homosexual activity. Mass reported in 1979 that 11 percent of the teenage girls and 14 percent of the teenage boys he studied had at least one sexual encounter with a person of the same sex, but noted that this was probably an underestimate because many respondents did not regard preadolescent “games” as sexual acts.
It is important to realize that an isolated same-sex encounter or a transient pattern of homosexual activity does not translate into “being homosexual.” Most adolescents who have had some experience with homosexual activity do not see themselves as homosexuals and do not go on to homosexual orientation in adulthood. Nevertheless, some adolescents develop guilt or ambivalence about their sexual orientation as a result of a single same-sex episode and may experience emotional turmoil.
The teenager who is worried about being homosexual may deal with it in a variety of ways. Some avoid homosexual contacts while trying to reaffirm their heterosexual identity through dating and heterosexual activity. Others withdraw from all sexual situations. Still others look on themselves as bisexual, consider homosexual arousal a passing phase which they will outgrow, or seek help from a professional.
Some adolescents intuitively “feel” that they are homosexual or work through their initial confusion about sexual identity to accept their homosexuality in a positive Way. These teenagers may seek out readings on the subject, contacts with other homosexuals, and a social introduction to the homosexual subculture. As we will discuss in chapter 14, these persons face some difficulties because of current attitudes toward homosexuality, and they may not choose to announce their sexual preferences to family or friends (referred to as “coming out”) until a later time, if at all.
*94\342\2*
Find yourself a quite spot and a comfortable position, possibly sitting cross-legged or on your knees. Try to still your mind and use your breathing to help yourself relax. In any form of meditation you will have many thoughts passing in and out of your brain. Try to ignore them. In the early stages use a word (or mantra) such as peace, relax, love, or one that may have significant spiritual implications for you. Keep rhythms of inhaling and exhaling steady – this is quite important.
Yoga is another way of meditating. This form of exercise combines the balancing of the body and the mind through breathing techniques, as well as strengthening the muscles and joints of the body. Sometimes you may wish to adopt a relaxation technique that yoga classes often use towards the end of the workout. You lie down and close your eyes. Focus on relaxing each part of your body from your feet to your head or vice versa. Relax each muscle group as your mind moves from each specific area. You can then repeat the relaxation again from the head to the feet.
*92\258\8*
The most basic subdivision is into the two main types: HIV-1 and HIV-2. The main group within HIV-1 had its formative period of evolution in central Africa, where the potential for sexual transmission has been very high. The corresponding area for HIV-2 was West Africa, where the potential for sexual transmission has been variable but generally lower. Accordingly, HIV-1 destroys the immune system and brings about AIDS more rapidly than HIV-2. Similar geographic patterns occur within each HIV type. HIV-2 infections tend to be more benign in Senegal, where the potential for sexual transmission is relatively low, than in the Ivory Coast and Guinea-Bissau, where the potential for sexual transmission is higher. The subtypes of HIV-1 that occur in Thailand and in east-central Africa, where the potential for sexual transmission has been high, appear to be particularly nasty.
Similar trends hold for the other major human retrovirus: human T-cell lymphotropic virus (HTLV). Infections in Japan, where the potential for transmission is low, tend to cause lethal cancers and paralysis at a lower rate than they do in the Caribbean, where the potential for sexual transmission is high. In Japan most infections tend to be acquired from mothers, through breast milk. The lethal blood cell cancers, which occur in about one out of every twenty-five infected people, tend to arise late in life; about half occur in people who are over sixty years old. Virtually all these cancers appear to arise from infections that were acquired early in life from mothers. The time between infection and the onset of cancer therefore tends to be about sixty years. In the Caribbean about half the people who develop cancer are less than 45 years old, and most infections are sexually transmitted. The time between infection and cancer is therefore shorter in the Caribbean, perhaps much shorter. The difference isn’t just a consequence of living in Japan or the Caribbean. A similar difference is apparent among Japanese Americans and Caribbean Americans, who have presumably acquired their viruses from their respective ancestral lands.
Retroviruses like HIV and HTLV use RNA as their genetic material. Because RNA viruses tend to be more mutation-prone than DNA viruses, one could argue that HIV and HTLV are special cases. It could be argued, for example, that these RNA viruses are able to respond more rapidly than DNA viruses to changes in opportunities for sexual transmission. But similar geographical associations hold for the DNA viruses that have been tested. Genital herpes simplex viruses, for example, have been tested for virulence by inoculating them into inbred lines of mice. As expected from the theory, the herpesviruses from Thailand were more lethal than those from Japan.
The human papillomaviruses (HPVs) are DNA viruses that have both genital forms, which cause cervical cancer, and skin forms, which cause warts. Just a few of the genital forms seem to be responsible for almost all cervical cancer. As expected from evolutionary considerations, women who have more sexual partners are more likely to have the dangerous, cancer-causing genital forms, whereas women who have few sexual partners are more likely to have the mild forms. During the war in the former Yugoslavia, notorious for the use of rape as a weapon, the dangerous genital HPVs spread much more rapidly than the mild genital forms. The more dangerous papillomaviruses appear to be particularly suited for transmission where the potential for sexual transmission is high.
The theory has not been tested within species of bacterial pathogens, but the differences among species show a pattern analogous to that of the sexually transmitted viruses. The most deadly of sexually transmitted bacteria is Treponema pallidum, the cause of syphilis. It depends greatly on a high potential for sexual transmission. The agent of gonorrhea, Neisseria gonorrheae, and the sexually transmitted chlamydia, Chlamydia trachomatis, rarely cause death in infected adults, and their maintenance in populations is not so strongly dependent on a high potential for sexual transmission. This difference in dependence is apparent in the relative success of control measures, a point well illustrated by a program that was conducted from 1990 to 1993 to increase condom use among prostitutes in Fukuoka City, Japan. Condom use increased to four times its original level; C. trachomatis infection inched downward by about a quarter, N. gonorrheae was down by almost half, and syphilis dropped by nearly 95 percent.
This current state of knowledge about sexually transmitted diseases complements the picture generated by studies of acute infectious diseases. It again supports the idea that damage caused by infectious diseases is probably not just an aberration. On the contrary, the evidence indicates that damaging relationships between us and the microbes that feed on us can be maintained indefinitely when high levels of host exploitation are favored by natural selection. For sexually transmitted diseases, natural selection apparently leads to damaging relationships when the potential for sexual transmission is high. For the diseases that fall more neatly into the acute category, natural selection apparently leads to damaging relationships when transmission can occur from immobilized hosts.
This conclusion has subtle but far-reaching implications for the nature of human disease: infection has more potential than the other possible causes of disease to harm hosts perpetually. Over the long run, even moderately common and harmful genetic diseases will fail to sow the seeds of their own perpetuation, unless they provide some compensating benefit. Without a compensating benefit, harmful genetic instructions can be maintained only at a frequency that is set by their generation through mutation: at equilibrium, the loss in the harmful genetic instructions that results from their harmful effects must match the rate at which the instructions are being generated by mutation. If a genetic instruction is even moderately harmful, then it can be maintained in the population only as a very uncommon instruction. Even if a disease reduced reproductive success by as little as one tenth of 1 percent when averaged over the entire population, the genetic instructions responsible for the disease would dwindle over time. This logic provides deep insight into one of the most important questions we face as a society today: What are the gravest infectious threats for the wealthy countries? The answer is the chronic plagues.
*16\225\2*
RED CHESTNUT REMEDY: Fear and over-anxiety for others. The fear may be justifiable, as of parents whose young child has left the Village School to live in a college hostel in a city; the fear that the child may not fall in bad society, or the fear about a relative who was travelling in a train which has met with an accident. The fear may be unfounded as of a doting mother who feels worried about her child and becomes restless hours before the return of his School bus. So long as this fear or apprehension is for some other person, the remedy called for is Red Chestnut.
ROCK ROSE REMEDY: Terror. Extreme fear, Panic. It is not the fear which is limited to one human mind, like that of Aspen or Mimulus. It is terror. It is panic. The whole atmosphere in which one breathes appears to consist of fear with no hope of escape. Imagine the plight of passengers in a running train which has caught fire or in a car running down a zigzag mountain road with failed brakes or a ship which is being bombarded from outside and has caught fire inside. Even when the condition of the patient is so serious that there is fear in the atmosphere which affects people sitting around the patient, the situation qualifies for administration of “ROCK ROSE” remedy.
*42\308\8*
CHIGORY: Selfish. Always keeps self-interest in view, possessive; undue expectations from others; self-pity if she does not get full attention. Always wants to get and to possess, never wants to give.
CLEMATIS REMEDY : Inattentive, mind far removed from the actual physical surroundings, pre-occupied with a vacant far away look and totally indifferent to what is happening around him. Lives more in dreams even when he is awake.
CRAB APPLE: Wants to throw away anything which is unclean, which is undesirable. Wants to dispossess himself of any unclean thought, any unpleasant sensation and even any ugly part of his body.
ELM REMEDY: ‘Weak moments in the lives of the strong”. Even the most capable and efficient people holding most responsible position in society are sometimes so weighed down by the amount of work they are supposed to accomplish, that they feel exhausted and a feeling of inadequacy assails them.
GENTIAN REMEDY: Pessimism, Depression, Doubt, Lack of faith, Always looks at the dark side of the case. Always calls a half bottle empty, never calls it half full. Depression from a known cause. A set-back during convalescence causes undue discouragement.
GORSE REMEDY: Hopelessness. When a patient is fed up with a long treatment of a chronic disease and has been either told by the doctors that his disease is incurable or has himself come to the same conclusion, he becomes thoroughly depressed. Although he may continue with some treatment on the persuation of some well-wishers, he himself is dejected, and has lost all hope to recover his health.
*34\308\8*
Prevention, wellness, and low-tech body wisdom have never been mainstream medicine’s strong points. On top of that, for years “women’s diseases”—osteoporosis primary among them—have been largely overlooked, or assumed to be the same as in men, or, worse still, unquestloningly tolerated. That tide is finally turning. But as our awareness peaks, we need to make responsible choices. If you take a stroll down the aisles of your local health food store—or even your regular drugstore or grocery store— you’ll be bombarded with products claiming to build your bones or balance your hormones or give you all the calcium you could ever need. Suddenly, bone health is in the air, and the folks on Madison Avenue and in Product Development are clearly going to milk our newfound awareness for all its worth. You can’t get all the way through a morning news show, or a woman’s magazine, without seeing an ad for a new product (or an improved or enriched old faithful) that offers the same kind of fountain-of-youth promises. But no matter what the packages promise, there are no magic bullets that go straight to your bones.
This book will sort through the clutter of commercial junk dreamed up by trend-spotting marketers and give you the first complete, integrated program to ensure the health of your bones. We start with a thorough assessment of your level of risk (before you shell out for a bone density scan or even make an appointment for a general checkup). Once you know where you stand, there are no quick fixes, but the holistic program you’ll find here is the real deal:
Foods to eat and foods to avoid to support bone health (or, why kale is better than spinach), the best ways to get calcium into your diet and into your bones (and why that isn’t enough), and complete menus and recipes to successfully launch you into a new way of eating.
The nutrients you absolutely need—and how to get them in the proper combinations and in the minimum number of pills each day if you choose to use supplements to back up your occasionally imperfect diet.
The truth about hormones—both “natural” and synthetic— and which ones you need and when, and when you should pass them up altogether, no matter what your gynecologist says.
The exercises proven to build your bones, and the bone benefits of kinder, gentler forms of movement.
If you’ve already had significant bone loss, which can occur as early as your late 30s, the same areas are crucial to restoring density, strength, and resilience to your bones. As long as you adhere to the 6-Week Bone Density Program, the prescription drugs available for treatment—and some natural options as well—will have their maximum effect. Whatever stage you are at, this book puts all the pieces together into one easy-to-use plan, with help from (among other things):
Checklists to help you keep track of what medical tests you need—and will probably have to specifically ask for in order to get—and when.
“Best of” Lists sprinkled through the book give key information at a glance, like the top five easy high-calcium snacks or herbs that aid in digestion or the top ten flavors to try in a creamy tofu spread/dip.
Action Plans at the end of each week to get you into action.
Things to Think About to keep you on your toes.
Fun with Computers tips to point you in the right direction on the information superhighway, where there’s a wealth of information and support—and even more advertisements, snake-oil peddlers, outdated or biased information, and well-meaning but ill-informed surfers eager to give their two cents to anyone who will listen.
Bone Boosters throughout the book give you quick tips to put into practice right away to jump-start your journey to a strong, tall, healthy you.
*4\228\2*
After reading the previous chapter it should be easier to understand where your symptoms are coming from. Is the stool delayed in the bowel, where it becomes too hard and dry to pass comfortably? Have the muscles given up trying? Or is the bowel so overstimulated that the stool rushes through before the fluid can be extracted, making the bowel movement watery and urgent? In summary, do you have:
a A sluggish bowel b A hyperactive bowel c A confused bowel?
Unless you have definite signs of Candida or food intolerance you can adjust your diet to either slow down or speed up the muscular action of the bowel. However, it would be pointless to do this without also gearing down and building relaxation into your day. If your symptoms are not severe, you could try the following simple suggestions, before looking for problems such as allergies.
*6\326\8*
