by admin Posted in General health
• Stop smoking. Tobacco smoke is the biggest single cause of cancer in the world. In the US, for example, it is thought that about one in three of all cancer deaths is the result of smoking. Most people are aware that smoking produces lung cancer but it also produces cancer of the oesophagus (gullet), bladder, larynx and pancreas. Clearly much of this burden of cancer would be avoided if people stopped smoking. Cancer of the mouth and pharynx are caused by chewing betel quid with and without tobacco in southern Asia, and by the combination of alcohol and tobacco in westernized countries.
• Alcohol has been found to be associated with cancers of the mouth, throat, tongue and oesophagus. Since liver cancer is often associated with cirrhosis it is possible that alcohol consumption plays a part in liver cancer either directly or indirectly. Other dietary factors have also been found to be causative in cancer. Aflatoxins are products of fungi that grow on peanuts, grains and other foods and produce liver cancer in fish and other animals. Nitrosamines and nitrosamides are carcinogenic in animals and these chemicals are often produced in the body as a result of eating nitrates and nitrites used as preservatives. Smoking and curing foods produces polycyclic hydrocarbons and this has led many cancer experts to suggest the avoidance of burned, charred or even heavily smoked foods.
• Obesity has been found to predispose to cancers of all kinds in many studies. This has been especially well studied in relation to breast cancer.
• The decline in primary cancer of the liver is probably due to improved personal and community hygiene. Hepatitis  infection is an important factor in producing liver cancer, and good living conditions and high levels of sanitation reduce the infection occurrence. If vaccination reduced the numbers of carriers by 90 per cent, and if newborn babies in Africa, Asia and China could be vaccinated, then nearly 200,000 cases of liver cancer could be prevented every year. At the moment the vaccination is very expensive but it looks as though cheaper versions, produced by genetic engineering, are on the way.
Cancer of the penis too is declining as personal hygiene improves worldwide.
• Too much sun definitely increases the risk of skin cancer.
• Clearly linked to sun exposure is the exposure to other forms of radiation. There is little doubt that X-rays and other ionizing radiations produce leukaemias. Atom-bomb survivors have more thyroid, breast and lung cancers. Patients being treated for ankylosing spondylitis with X-rays have more stomach and pancreatic cancer. Radium dial painters have more bone cancers and uranium mine workers more lung cancers. If you work with radiation be sure to observe all the safety regulations.
*119/72/5*
by admin Posted in General health
Description and Possible Medical Problems
If you’ve ever waxed your legs at home and you decided to leave the wax on for a while so you could see what it felt like to walk around encased in wax, you already have a pretty good idea of what the disease scleroderma feels like.
Scleroderma is a rare disease that is characterized by tight, shiny skin that severely cuts down on the amount of flexibility you have. The skin may also be swollen and painful. Scleroderma is often associated with arthritis since it is a disease of the connective tissue and advances slowly; it can take two years to develop fully.
Scleroderma occurs when the collagen in the connective tissue starts to harden. The cause of scleroderma, however, is not known, although a defect in the immune system has been postulated.
Besides your fingers and hands, scleroderma can affect the feet and face, as well as the esophagus, which can make swallowing difficult. More women than men are affected by scleroderma.
Treatment
If you think you have scleroderma, you should see your doctor, who will do a blood test and possibly a biopsy of your skin to help confirm the diagnosis. He will also check your ability to swallow; if it isn’t affected, he will want to check regularly to see if it deteriorates. If swallowing becomes difficult, you should see an ear, nose, and throat specialist and/or a speech pathologist. Together, the two will advise you on the best foods and best way to eat.
Along with painkillers or aspirin, your doctor may prescribe antibiotics to reduce the swelling. You may also require regular sessions with a physical therapist in order to maintain your flexibility.
Although the disease takes a couple of years to develop fully, the good news is that that your skin won’t get any worse after that.
*520\167\8*
by admin Posted in General health
Description and Possible Medical Problems
If it feels as though a mass of tissue has entered your vagina from your uterus and you’ve gone through menopause, it’s possible that your uterus has fallen and is protruding into the vagina.
This condition, known as a prolapsed uterus, occurs in women who are not on estrogen replacement therapy because the lack of estrogen causes the uterus and other reproductive organs to lose their elasticity and tone. As a result, the uterus can “fall” into the vagina. Many women with a prolapsed uterus also have periodic urinary tract infections and/or urinary incontinence and even minor bleeding.
In severe cases, the uterus may even start to protrude outside of the vagina.
Treatment
If you have a fallen uterus, you will need surgery to correct it. Since mostly elderly women experience a fallen uterus, the uterus may be removed via the vagina to keep the risk of surgery, which increases with age, to a minimum.
The average hospitalization lasts about a week, but it varies greatly depending on other medical problems a woman may have. Even when an elderly woman has a fallen uterus, surgery is usually the best option. If, however, she is too frail for surgery, the doctor will insert a ring called a pessary that will help support the pelvic floor.
*466\167\8*
by admin Posted in General health
If you’re bloated and gassy, there are several things you can try.
Getting more exercise and using Mylanta or another over-the-counter antacid product that contains simethicone several times a day may be helpful. Quitting smoking and cutting down on the chewing gum, especially sugar-free gum, and other sugar-free candies that contain sorbitol or xylitol should also help to eliminate gas.
If you’re over 50, however, and suddenly become gassy, in addition to losing weight, becoming nauseous, or even vomiting, it’s possible you have an obstruction in your intestine. This obstruction can be due to a stool impaction, cancer, or a condition in which the intestinal walls adhere to each other; this is usually a result of intestinal surgery that was performed a number of years ago. If this is the case, you need to see your doctor; the treatment may include surgery.
*412\167\8*
by admin Posted in General health
Description and Possible Medical Problems
If you have been coughing for more than a few weeks and are coughing up mucus and/or phlegm, you have a chronic, productive cough. If you have no other symptoms of a cold or flu—in which a chronic, productive cough is common—and you’re over 50 and are frequently short of breath, you may have emphysema. If you’ve been a heavy smoker for most of your life, the chances that you do have this lung disease are even greater.
Among my elderly patients, I often see frail older women who smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for many years and who now have a chronic productive cough. Many times, they will also be short of breath.
Emphysema is the most common cause of a chronic productive cough. The emphysema can occur as a result of either long-term cigarette smoking or long-term bouts with chronic bronchitis.
Treatment
If you have a chronic, productive cough and are diagnosed with emphysema, your doctor will treat you with a bronchodilator and various sprays.
*358\167\8*
by admin Posted in General health
If you had chicken pox as a kid, chances are very good that the cluster of painful pimples that appears on one side of your face is shineles. Before the pimples arrive, you’ll feel a sharp pain in the area where the pimples will appear, along with a burning sensation. The rash usually lasts about a week, but the pain may stick around for months aftet the pimples disappear. If the rash occurs near your eyes, you may find you have temporary or permanent problems with your vision.
Shingles, which can also appear on the side of your body just below your chest, is caused by the herpes zoster virus, the same virus that causes chicken pox in children. Shingles appear when the dormant virus is reactivated, which happens most often in adults over the age of 50.
It’s believed that the virus spends its latent years in the ends of nerves that originate in the spine. It’s not known exactly why it becomes active again—and not every adult who had chicken pox as a kid will get shingles. However, the virus’s genesis in the nerves accounts for the sharp, localized pain that characterizes shingles.
*299\167\8*
by admin Posted in General health
One issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (312:1205) contains three papers and an editorial that are concerned with the effects of fish-eating and coronary heart disease.
As previously reported, the unsaturated fatty acids in fish benefit mankind by reducing the amount of atherosclerosis (narrowing of the arteries by deposits of cholesterol) and thereby preserving an adequate blood flow through the coronary arteries that supply the muscle of the heart.
One of the papers reports a study involving 852 Dutchmen, whose health and diets were studied for over 20 years. The incidence of death from coronary heart disease was over 50 percent lower among those who consumed at least 30 grams (about one ounce) of fish every day than it was among those who ate none at all. It was found, furthermore, that some benefit is obtained even when fish dishes are eaten only twice a week.
*152\143\2*
by admin Posted in General health
Researchers at the University of Maryland, according to the Archives of Internal Medicine (140:1269), have found that, in vitamin C deficiency, exposure to light of no greater intensity than that required for reading produces a damaging chemical in the lens of the eye. The photochemical end product, a superoxide, is closely akin to ozone, which can damage any living tissue.
Since the lens has no blood vessels (which would deprive it of transparency), locally made superoxides, unable to be carried away by the circulation, accumulate and have a more than usually damaging effect. Accumulation in the lens alters its chemical nature, making it less transparent, and thereby produces a cataract and blindness. The research strongly suggests that, by taking extra vitamin C, we can help prevent blindness due to cataracts. Cataracts have many causes, but this could be the most common one in people with poor nutrition.
*121\143\2*
by admin Posted in General health
Unquestionably, those with a high blood level of cholesterol are, in general, much more likely than others to have a coronary heart attack or stroke. Cholesterol settles out onto the walls of their arteries and narrows them, so that they easily become completely blocked. Accordingly, Circulation (72:686) recommends, those who have high cholesterol should be treated to bring it down to a safer level. The big question, of course, is what is meant by “high cholesterol.”
In answering this, we must first explain that cholesterol is a mixture of HDL (high density lipoprotein) and LDL (low density lipoprotein), and that HDL is good and LDL is bad. One needs to worry about a cholesterol level only if the LDL fraction is present in excess.
This said, we can go on to say that anyone with a cholesterol above 230 mg-percent needs to be on a strict low-cholesterol diet, and that if the cholesterol is 260 mg-percent or more, a cholesterol-lowering drug is usually considered as well. At the other end of the scale, adults with cholesterols above 200 mg-percent (and children with levels above 170 mg-percent) should not eat much animal fat (i.e: eggs, whole milk, butter, cream, cheese, meat fat, etc.) since their levels are likely to rise above 230, too, if they are not careful.
*88\143\2*
by admin Posted in General health
Most cold remedies contain two ingredients, an antihistamine to dry up secretions, and a decongestant to shrink blood vessels in the engorged lining of the nose. Although this is a logical combination for most people, it is potentially unsafe for anyone with hypertension (high blood pressure), American Family Physician (31#3:183) reports. Understandably, since decongestants shrink swollen nasal membranes by constricting their blood vessels, they can constrict the blood vessels elsewhere in the body as well, particularly when these drugs are taken by mouth.
Because a hypertensive person’s vessels are already prone to contract excessively, they react to decongestants with a sustained constriction that raises the blood pressure. According to the AFP, this drug-induced hypertension has been sufficiently severe in some cases to cause damage to the heart and strokes from bleeding in the brain. To avoid these dangers, people with hypertension should use cold medications that contain only an antihistamine. In severe cases, when they feel that they cannot do without a decongestant, they should ask their own doctors about taking one in the form of drops or a spray that acts only locally in the nose.
*57\143\2*