Beware vigorous exercise!

To be honest I have never had to be warned about vigorous exercise as it doesn’t suit me at all. As a follower of the D’Adamo blood group diet my ‘type’ works best with yoga and tai chi and whenver I have tried a gym or aerobics class I haven’t had the ‘high’ but only the desire to curl up in a ball and sleep it off. Now it seems that research from New York University Medical Center suggests that the more you engage in vigorous exercise, the more you’re at risk for atrial fibrillation (AF). This is a an irregular rapid heart rate and can result in mild symptoms like fainting to the potentially lethal ones of heart failure or stroke.

If you have serious, unrecognized, heart disease then exercise may cause you to experience sudden death from a heart attack. In fact, the leading cause of exercise-related deaths, even in well-trained athletes, is coronary heart disease. The research showed that men in their study who exercised enough to break a sweat from five to seven days each week upped the chances of developing AF by a massive 20 percent. The control group who did no vigorous exercise didn’t have any increase in their propensity for AF.

This research was not based on older, unhealthy men but rather on healthy men under 50 who ran regularly. In this group AF increased by 53 percent in men who jog, and as much as 74 percent for young men who routinely exercise hard enough to sweat. Anyone for a nice walk?

Pesticides last longer in kids

Summer brings bounty in the fields and the gardens and that applies to the insects that feed off it – which leads the farmers and gardeners to reach for the means to control them. Pesticide exposure poses a health risk to us all, but particularly to children. Obviously children’s systems are more vulnerable to the toxic effects, but new research by the University of California at Berkeley has revealed that their susceptibility lasts much longer than expected.

A new born baby has only one-third of paraoxonase 1 (PON1), an enzyme critical to the detoxification of organophosphate pesticides, than the baby’s mother has. It was previously thought that PON1 enzyme activity in children approached adult levels by age 2, but the horrific figure this research has thrown up is that the enzyme level remained low in some children right up to the age of seven.

This has led the researchers to recommended that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) re-evaluate the current standards for acceptable levels of pesticide exposure. For parents, it means being extra vigilant when using pesticides in the garden and making sure that children are in the house and the windows are closed until several hours after spraying. Organophosphate pesticides in products sold for use in homes, are severely restricted, mainly because of risks to children but are still available for agricultural use. If driving through, or living near, farmland where crop spraying takes place again keep windows closed to minimize exposure.

Cupping and carpal tunnel

If you are a fan of the red carpet you may have noticed Gwyneth Paltrow exhibiting strange red marks on her body. This new celebrity treatment is endorsed by people as diverse as Britney Spears and Patsy Kensit and is an updated take on an established therapy in use in China, India, Arabia, Central Europe and parts of Africa. Used mainly for improving circulation, digestive and respiratory problems it now appears to be helpful for pain relief – particularly for those suffering from Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) – and I believe for RSI for those operating computer keyboards all day.

A new German study at the Immanuel Hospital in Berlin took 52 sufferers and randomly assigned them to a cupping programme or a placebo treatment. Their study, published on 25 June in a peer journal, confirms that this external suction technique is effective for providing temporary relief of pain from carpal tunnel syndrome.

How it works:

The treatment group had the wet cupping glasses applied in an area over the trapezius muscle. Cupping is applied to defined zones of the shoulder triangle which are connective tissue zones at the shoulder-neck region. The cupping creates a partial vacuum as the wet cup adheres to the skin – and also a rather obvious red mark which can take a while to go down. Unlike Gwyneth, you might want to avoid backless dresses until the mark disappears.

Results were impressive and showed that the patients experienced a highly significant decrease in CPS pain and other symptoms. Just one single treatment improved the ability to use the hand and wrist, and improved the quality of life as pain was decreased.

Hay fever and allergies – Acupressure band brings relief

Many prefer to avoid drugs for hay fever and the kind of allergic rhinitis to things like dust and pollutants. A new solution that can help is an acupressure band, the ‘Qu-Chi’ band, which stimulates an acupuncture point to help with hayfever-type symptoms.

Acupressure is the same as acupuncture, but instead of inserting fine needles, pressure is applied to specific acupuncture points to stimulate the Chi, or energy system of the body. This is to assist the body to function better and stimulate it to heal itself.

The band was developed by Andrew Broch, a qualified acupuncture and acupressure practitioner who is himself a sufferer from hayfever. He found that acupuncture was extremely effective for the relief of his symptoms and after experimenting for a while he produced the band for people to use at any time and without the need for a practitioner.

The specific point used by the ‘Qu-Chi band’ (LI-11 point known as ‘quchi’) lies at the outer elbow, on an energy line (‘meridian’) that runs from the nose to the hand. It pulls energy away from the upper body and the head. It has specific activity in the area around the nose and eyes. By reducing the energy in the face the build up of energy in that area is reduced and so excess symptoms are relieved.

Trials have been conducted which suggest that the ‘Qu-Chi Band’ is beneficial for people with Hayfever and that it is quick acting, comfortable, safe and easy to use. It can be put on when symptoms start or beforehand. It can be used with other medication where necessary and is not associated with any side effects – the only warning is that it should not be worn in pregnancy.

It retails at around £10 and can be obtained from www.quchi.co.uk

Painkillers increase your risk of dementia

We all take painkillers occasionally, but the dangers of becoming dependent on them are well known. However now there is another cause for concern with over the counter drugs such as those containing ibuprofen that are commonly taken to help with a short term headache or a long term condition like arthritis.

Previous studies have indicated that taking painkillers to ward off dementia might be effective, but a new study done in Seattle on 2,700 people found that as many as 66 percent were actually MORE likely to develop dementia if they took heavy, regular doses of painkillers.

They also had a tendency to have more diabetes, arthritis, and signs of heart failure. High doses of painkillers can have serious side effects, including stomach problems leading to ulcers and small bleeds in the brain have also been reported.

Painkillers are strong drugs and very useful for their prescribed medical purpose. Self medicating with them is never a good idea and they are not designed to be a preventive but a palliative for pain.

Oh really? Cocaine and heroin can harm the placenta

Prepare, as ever, to be astounded. Apparently cocaine and heroin can harm the placenta as they increase its permeability and so allow it to be passed through to the foetus. Well really, as it’s already well known that babies are born ‘addicted’ from their mothers who have a drug habit I wonder why anyone thought this needed proving? It seems that Antoine Malek from Zurich University Hospital’s Department of Obstetrics, felt the need to prove the obvious – and guess what, he managed it. Let’s be clear here, all drugs potentially could pass into the placenta which is why doctors are careful about what they prescribe to pregnant women and anyone who is a habitual drug user is usually aware of the risks, even if they ignore them or aren’t able to come off the drugs during the pregnancy. Often the solution is to go on methadone as a substitute, but users need to be aware that too much of it can also harm the foetus, and particularly if it is combined with any other drugs.

Botox benefits overactive bladders

You see, there is a benefit in everything if you just know where to look for it. Botox has never struck me as a particularly healthy way of improving your looks, rather that it preserves a fixity of expression that my mother used to warn me would happen if the wind changed and caught me – however. It now seems that if you have an overactive bladder, which is both a social nuisance and embarrassment for many women as they get older, then apparently Botox injections can help.

Previous research has shown that as many as one in six people over the age of 40 suffer from an overactive bladder so it is an important health issue that is not often talked about. UK urologists from Guy’s Hospital and King’s College London carried out a randomised, double-blind placebo trial on 34 patients with an average age of 50 and all of them had failed to tolerate or respond to the anticholinergic drugs that are usually prescribed for this condition. They then found that the subjects reported significant improvements in their lives, as well as their symptoms, for at least 24 weeks. This is a very small study; of the 34 half were given a placebo injection so we are only talking 16 people, of whom nine were women.

I am not going to detail exactly where and how the injections were given, I find it too difficult to sit still and write about, but they say it is minimally invasive and involved 20 injections of 200ml of Botox. If you want to tell your own urologist about this, it was five in the midline posterior bladder wall, five in the left lateral wall, five in the right lateral wall and five across the dome of the bladder.

Back pain benefits from exercise

Lower back pain can be so debilitating and also difficult to treat, and if affects nearly 80 percent of the population. You may feel like lying flat on your back and doing nothing, but new research shows you are better off exercising more, not less. This news comes from the University of Alberta in Canada and they found that both men and women with chronic lower-back pain definitely benefited from regular exercise. If they managed to work at a gym with weights for four days a week they improved their quality of life, had nearly 30 percent less pain and an impressive 36 per cent less disability. Those with similar lower back problems who only exercised two or three days a week did not show the same level of change or gain the same benefit.

Working with weights seems to be what did the trick in this study, but please only under supervision and with someone who can give you proper, qualified, professional advice. In the UK the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which is the government’s own health watchdog, has recommended for the first time ever that complementary therapies be prescribed for lower back pain. They suggest a course of acupuncture, exercise classes like Pilates, or massage if the symptoms persist for six weeks or more – I would be there within a week myself!

Can your dentist help your arthritis?

If you are one of the half a million people in the UK who have rheumatoid arthritis, and I include myself among them, then going to the Dentist doesn’t usually suggest itself as a cure. However, some new studies published in the Journal of Periodontology show that there is definitely a link between a healthy mouth and a healthy body.

Research by the Case Western Reserve University School in Cleveland USA supports existing reports linking gum disease with arthritic pain and inflammation. Arthritis is definitely inflamed by toxins in the body and tooth decay and gum disease are both natural homes for toxins. They monitored 40 people with moderate or severe periodontitis and severe rheumatoid arthritis to see if dental treatment made any difference to their arthritis. If the subjects had toothache or painful teeth then extracting them seemed to have a positive impact on arthritic pain. It was made even better if the dental treatment was combined with taking anti-inflammatory drugs.

Gum disease no joke
A huge number of us will suffer gum disease at some point in our lives, with some estimates putting it as high as 19 in 20 people. There are significant potential risks as gum disease has been linked to not only arthritis, but heart disease, strokes, diabetes and premature births.

Language, babies and TV

Parents know that as an unpaid babysitter, television is a highly effective way of keeping children occupied and, hopefully, quiet. But new scientific evidence suggests that doing it too much will cause a child’s development to suffer. If that child is very young the risk is greater of them not being able to improve their social, cognitive and language development.The ‘baby’ language of many children’s programmes such as the Teletubbies can actually decrease a child’s likelihood of learning new words, and it’s passive nature affects their ability to talk, play and interact with others.

Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a University of Washington pediatrician, goes a step further and suggests that these negative effects are made worse when the parents are watching as well, which is not what I would have expected. He found that the parents are more likely to be distracted by watching the TV and less likely to interact with the child. He was able to put a number on the problem as he found that for every hour a television was turned on, babies heard 770 fewer words from an adult, and that conversational exchanges between baby and parent dropped 15%, as did the overall number of words spoken by children.

Television is essentially a passive medium, unless you are screaming at the screen during Big Brother, a football match or the final of Britain’s Got Talent.

Christakis found that on average when the TV is switched on, children spend more time in silence and solitude than they do in active social interaction. Even DVD’s aimed at encouraging interaction and education of children show up in this research as having the opposite effect, however good their intention and may even contribute to a drop in learning new words. The American Academy of Pediatrics discourages television-watching for babies under 2, and certainly unless it is balanced with a high level of encouragement and interaction from the parents it is certainly a babysitter with distinct drawbacks. Face to face, one on one, with good physical and emotional contact and lots of verbal interaction seems to be the best prescription to enhance a child’s development.

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