Zap that verruca

In and out of swimming pools or public showers? An unfortunateside effect can be the development of a verruca, and if you don’t want to wear jelly shoes – or it’s too late – then you might be interested in a new product to treat the problem.

The ingredient most favoured for treating a verruca is salicylic acid, but so far this is not been available in an over the counter product that you can pop into the chemist and buy for yourself. The next most favoured method is to freeze it, also used for warts, and one enterprising company has introduced a product called Bazuka Sub-Zero which allows the user to see when the foam applicator is frozen and direct the treatment quickly and accurately on to the wart or verruca.

Why is this a breakthrough?
Because some freezing treatment formats are hard to target directly at the verruca and wart and can cause damage to the surrounding nerve endings as the freezing treatment hits other skin areas. This is backed up by research taken from the data of doctors and chiropodists, who expressed this concern and said they had seen patients where damage, especially to nerve endings, had occurred.

It’s just one application, and it freezes the wart or verruca to the core. After 10 days or so, the treated wart or verruca will fall off revealing new skin that has formed. Apparently it is easy to use, allowing the user to actually see when the applicator is clearly frozen and ready to apply.

If you want to find it, apparently it is available from pharmacies, Superdrug and Morrisons supermarkets and costs £12.95.

Osteoporosis drugs questionmark

Some years ago I set up the Natural Progesterone Information Service to provide women with the latest news on natural hormones rather than synthetic ones such as HRT. One of the things that John Lee talked a lot about all those years ago was how in his opinion the biphosphonate drugs given for osteoporosis were actually weakening the bone rather than helping to build it. He had seen great results with women using natural progesterone to build bone density, though the medical profession did not accept that progesterone could work more effectively than the drugs. Now after all these years, more questions have emerged about whether long-term use of bone-building drugs for osteoporosis may actually lead to weaker bones in a small number of people who use them. Case reports show an unusual fracture pattern in people who have used bone-building drugs, the biphosphonates, for five years or more.

If you are taking such drugs please ensure you are also having regular bone scans to check your progess and it would be worth looking at your diet and natural supplements that can help build bone such as horsetail and silica. If you would like information on natural progesterone for osteoporosis and HRT replacement (I no longer have any connection with the service since I gave up running it) you can obtain a booklet from the Natural Progesterone Information Service, tel: 07000 784849 or visit their website at www.npis.info.
Wellspring Trading in Guernsey also have an excellent free booklet on natural progesterone cream which is written by my good friend and colleague, Dr Shirley Bond – a private GP who specialises in hormone therapy for women. Wellspring’s telephone number is – 01481 233 370.

Pets and pregnancy – A warning

A new study shows that pregnant women who use flea and tick shampoos on pets may double the risk of autism in their children. This preliminary finding comes from the Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and the Environment study (CHARGE) – a case-control study from the University of California Davis, in the US.

The results are part of an ongoing research project which is following 2,000 children – some with autism, some with developmental delay, and some with typical development – and compares individual genetic patterns with exposure to medications, chemicals, food products, and other environmental factors.

It is believed that it is pyrethrins, commonly used chemicals in insecticides, that may play a role in triggering autism in certain children. Pyrethrins are extracted from Chrysanthemum flowers and are regarded as low in toxicity and there are commercial pyrethrum formulas that are considered safe to use in food preparation areas where flies and other insects can be found. One other product where Pyrethrins are widely used is in lice-control shampoos for humans and pets.

As I mentioned earlier, this is only a preliminary study but it would be a sensible precaution for pregnant women to avoid contact with lice-control shampoos. Let someone else shampoo the dog, or look for shampoos that treat lice naturally with ingredients such as tea tree oil, and not pyrethrins.

Progesterone use for endometriosis

Last week I talked about progesterone and mental health, and just like buses along comes another story about this key female hormone. I have myself written for the endometriosis society in the past about how progesterone can help with endometriosis, and now a study on female rhesus macaques monkeys at the the Oregon National Primate Research Center has brought more proof of the hormone’s effectiveness.

Apparently, female macaques in captivity are prone to endometriosis – a painful, debilitating condition where bits of tissue scattered around the pelvic cavity behave like uterine (endometrial) tissue, filling with blood and then releasing it. Conventional medicine hasn’t had much success in treating endometriosis safely and effectively, but Dr.John Lee, noting that women with endometriosis often get better when they are pregnant, recommended using high doses of natural progesterone and indeed, many of his patients found relief, though not a cure, by doing this.

In the Center’s study, seven monkeys with advanced endometriosis were injected with capsules that released progesterone continuously for up to 20 months. All of the monkeys showed significant benefit within the first two weeks and although two monkeys then got no further benefit, the other five continued to do well. If you know someone suffering from this painful condition it would be worth suggesting they talk to their doctor about obtaining natural progesterone in cream or sub- lingual form – don’t treat it with yam cream which converts insufficient progesterone in the body to be of use.

Natural progesterone cannot be obtained in the UK without a doctor’s prescription, but you can buy it over the internet and import it for your own use with no restrictions.

Progesterone’s role in mental health

Last week I talked about testosterone and this week there is more news on the hormone front – but this time about progesterone. This is one of the key reproductive hormones in women, but it also has a host of other functions; one of the most important being it’s effect on brain chemistry and function. Dr. John Lee, the American pioneer of natural progesterone usage for osteoporosis, once was quoted as saying famously said that if anyone in his family had a brain injury, he would slather them with progesterone cream. He said that over ten years ago, and as ever he was ahead of his time, as new research has vindicated what must have seemed a completely lunatic idea.

Sadly Dr Lee was not given the respect of his peers, but I was privileged to host several seminars for him in London and he was certainly one of the most generous and compassionate of men, as the many thousands of women who benefited from his research have proved. He has been vindicated on the brain chemistry front by a fellow doctor working in an ER department and who saw a lot of saw a lot of head injuries. He was curious about why brain injuries were worse in men than in women, and got approval to do a study in which brain injury patients were given injections of progesterone when they arrived in the ER. His research showed that those who received the progesterone did significantly better than those who didn’t and later studies have also shown the same result.

Around the same time, researchers discovered that progesterone was a key component of the myelin sheath that protects or insulates the nerves-so important in fact that progesterone is made in the myelin sheath. Other research showed that progesterone stimulates the brain’s GABA receptors, those feel-good, calming neurotransmitters. Now we know, according to this review paper, that “…progesterone has multiple non- reproductive functions in the central nervous system to regulate cognition, mood, inflammation, mitochondrial function, neurogenesis and regeneration, myelination and recovery from traumatic brain injury.” Furthermore, progesterone is everywhere in the brain: “Remarkably, PRs [progesterone receptors] are broadly expressed throughout the brain and can be detected in every neural cell type.”

Those who have experienced the mental fog of hormone imbalances – otherwise known as the ‘what did I come into this room for ‘syndrome – can now point to their brain and say, “It’s not me that’s confused, it’s my brain!”

How natural is your shampoo?

Over the last few years shampoos have strived to impress us with the naturalness of their ingredients. If you believe the ads they are all hand-harvested in the Amazonian rainforests and you are getting an amazing variety of herbs, flowers and probably a pounding waterfall or at least a fast flowing river to go along with it. What they don’t tell you is that you are also getting in there an amazing cocktail of chemicals – the word ‘natural’ is one of the most misleading in advertising.

It is estimated by the consumer watchdog group Proof that around 93 per cent of all shampoos currently on the market contain chemicals that are linked to cancer or other health problems. So just becasue your favourite brand contains herbs or is organic doesn’t necessarily mean it is innocent of chemicals. As ever, read the label and try to avoid the following ingredients:

- lauryl sulphates: are the most potentially carcinogenic compounds found in many personal care products

- PEG (polyethylene glycol): this is what gives you that nice foam that makes you think your shampoo is doing a good job. These ‘foaming agents’ often contain the carcinogens dioxane and ethylene oxide, which have been linked to leukaemia, and brain, uterine and breast cancers

- Propylene glycol: you find this chemical in your anti-freeze and in a shampoo it rapidly penetrates the skin. It’s been associated with liver and kidney damage, and central nervous system problems.

It is especially important to be vigilant when buying products for babies and children as a high concentration of lauryl sulphates has been found in a shampoo that’s specially marketed to children, and labelled as being ‘extra gentle’.

Simply Nature have a good PEG-free shampoo you can find on their website at www.simply-nature.co.uk or get your reading glasses out for that very small print on the bottles in the supermarket or your local chemist!

8 ways to prevent heartburn

Heartburn can be mildly unpleasant to really distressing, and although most people experience it occasionally it is when it is more frequent that you need to take action. If you are always carrying a packet of Rennies in your pocket, or some other over- the-counter medicine, then it is time start tackling the probable cause. Symptoms of heartburn include:

- Chest pain, especially while lying down at night
- Sour taste in the mouth
- Coughing, wheezing, hoarseness
- Aggravation of asthma
- Sore throat
- Regurgitation of food or liquid

If you suffer from it frequently – twice a week or more – then first visit your doctor to rule out any other issues, such as angina, which has similar symptoms. What you may be suffering from is gastroesophageal reflux disease, or GERD. This condition occurs in people whose lower oesophageal sphincter doesn’t close properly, and that means that the acid from your stomach is able to flow back into the oesophagus, which can irritate its delicate lining, and that is what causes the pain.

The condition can also be triggered, or made worse, by a number of factors, perhaps something in your diet, stress, smoking, some medications and pregnancy can all trigger or worsen symptoms.

An alternative approach is to take some responsibility for the condition yourself and try the following approaches:

1 Keep a food and beverage journal. It can help you track and avoid triggers.

2 Eat small, frequent meals, not one huge one

3 Wear loose clothing and maintain a healthy weight to prevent stomach constriction and help reduce GERD

4 Avoiding lying down after eating, a gentle stroll or doing the washing up is a much better idea

5 Practice relaxation techniques such as breathing exercises or meditation

6 Sip chamomile tea as it can help soothe inflamed tissue in the oesophagus – adding some honey could improve the taste and give you extra immune support

7 If you usually sleep on your back, or on your right, try switching to sleeping on your left side. This may help move acid away from the entrance of the oesophagus and be enough to prevent it backing up

8 Experiment with DGL (deglycyrrhizinated liquorice), this is a supplement proven to be effective against GERD – but not if you have high blood pressure as liquorice can raise it

Ovarian cancer risk from food

There is news this month of a surprising finding from the results of an eleven year study on diet and cancer occurrence in the Netherlands. This was a long-term study of nearly 63,000 women who faithfully filled in dietary questionnaires for the whole of that period and what researchers found was a link between a greatly increased risk of ovarian and endometrial cancers with certain dietary habits.

The ‘guilty party’ is Acrylamide, which is a chemical produced when starchy foods like potatoes are baked, fried or roasted, but does not occur with boiling. It was first detected in food in 2002; prior to that, acrylamide was believed to be a solely industrial chemical and a number of previous studies have implicated it as a carcinogen.

Unusually, the problem is compounded if the women had never smoked as statistically the non-smokers from the women in the study were even more susceptible. They had a 99 percent higher risk of endometrial cancer and a 122 percent higher risk of ovarian cancer among those with the highest acrylamide intake. By contrast, the smokers had a 29 percent higher risk of endometrial cancer and a 78 percent higher risk of ovarian cancer, though why this should be the case the research hasn’t yet thrown up.

While some scientists have hypothesized that the human body may detoxify acrylamide when it is ingested in food, or that human intake is too low to pose health risks, the current study suggests that even at dietary doses, acrylamide is a human carcinogen.

What can you do? As ever, balance is the answer. If it is frying, baking and roasting are the culprits then reduce the amount of times you have potatoes, or other starchy foods, done in this way. Enjoy your new potatoes steamed or boiled with some herb butter and keep the roasties and chips to an occasional treat.

Progesterone For Head Injuries?

I am very familiar with this natural hormone being used to treat osteoporosis and alleviate menopause symptoms, but Guomin Xiao, M.D., of Zhejiang University, has been doing a trial on treating head injury patients with injections of progesterone.

What was found was that less-severely brain-injured patients had almost a 50 per cent better chance of survival and better function after six months of treatment. Progesterone appeared to have little or no other effect during the acute phase but the main effect was seen during the recovery period after the patient had been discharged.

Although interesting, this was only a small study of 153 patients and further research is needed. However, certainly one of the benefits of progesterone as I have seen it used is to help alleviate depression, so it makes sense to see it extended to other brain function issues. Other medical research has previously found that the hormone aids in neuronal development and protects brain function in animal experiments.

Please Note: Natural progesterone is not available in the UK without a prescription as it is regulated as a natural medicine, although it is perfectly legal to buy it outside the UK and import it for your own use. Anyone wanting further information on how to obtain natural progesterone can contact us.

Juice benefits for Alzheimer’s

A recently concluded study which investigated Alzheimer’s disease in older Japanese populations living in Japan, Hawaii and Seattle, has found that people who drank fruit and vegetable juices more than three times a week had a 76 percent lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease than those who drank juice less than once per week.

This ten-year study was based on the fact that there is a very low incidence rate of Alzheimer’s disease in the Japanese population in their native country, but when Japanese people in the USA were studied they were found to have almost the same incidence rates as Americans have. Obviously this indicates that environmental factors like diet and lifestyle are important contributors to disease risk, but that the benefit of drinking juice was most apparent in those people who carry the genetic marker linked to late-onset Alzheimer’s disease — the most common form of the disease, which typically occurs after the age of 65.

Further research is being done on exactly what types of juice that would bring most benefit but from a natural healing viewpoint the most likely would seem to be pomegranate, cherry, red grape juice, red wine and fresh juiced vegetables. The researchers say that their findings are not yet conclusive so cannot be guaranteed to prevent Alzheimer’s but common sense would indicate that freshly juiced fruit and vegetables have all their essential minerals, vitamins and enzymes and would certainly improve overall health generally if not Alzheimer’s specifically.

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