Year: 2006

“Diabetes is a growing health problem. Giving antioxidants is recognized as one way of helping people with diabetes to control their blood sugar levels. The herbal medicine extracted from seeds of the Milk Thistle, Silybum marianum (silymarin) is known to have antioxidant properties and research published this week in Phytotherapy Research shows that this extract can help people significantly lower the amount of sugar bound to hemoglobin in blood, as well as reducing fasting blood sugar levels.”

Sugar-Control In Type II Diabetes May Be Improved With Herbal Medicine Silymarin

Milk Thistle is not the only herbal treatment that can benefit diabetes treatment. Other natural supplements and minerals that beneficially impact blood sugar are: Chromium, Vanadium, Bitter Melon, Gymnema Sylvestre, Cinnamon, Fenugreek, Blueberry, Bilberry, and Ginseng… among others! The important thing is a healthy lifestyle, eating a reasonable diet, and watching your weight!

This “Bird Flu” drug now raises suspicions about behavioral effects in children.

Bird flu drug Tamiflu may cause “abnormal behavior,” manufacturer warns

“Hoffman-La Roche Inc. issued a warning Monday for its flu drug Tamiflu, stating patients using the drug must be closely monitored in case they develop psychiatric problems such as delirium and suicidal tendencies. Before the announcement, the pharmaceutical giant had been in talks with the FDA regarding 103 cases under agency review in which Tamiflu users reported strange behavior, usually within a day of the drug’s administration. The majority of abnormal behavior cases have occurred in Japan — where 24.5 million prescriptions for the drug were filled between 2001 and 2005 — in patients younger than 17. Three people — one a 14-year-old boy who had climbed on the roof of his family’s condominium — have fallen to their deaths after taking Tamiflu, says an FDA memo prepared Thursday at a pediatric advisory committee meeting. The memo also reports that an 8-year-old who took a single dose ran out the front door of his home in Japan half an hour later and would not respond to his name, instead just growling. Tamiflu is known to cause fever and delirium, but Dr. Debra Birnkrant, director of the FDA’s division of antiviral products, said it was not yet known if the drug or the flu itself were causing the abnormal behavior.”

If they are having a particularly hard time nailing down a diagnosis, sometimes doctors use Google, accord to an Australian study.

‘Googling’ aids difficult diagnoses

The research was prompted by an incident in which the researchers were treating a 16 year old with an acute subclavian vein thrombosis. As one of them explained that the cause of the thrombosis was uncertain, the patient’s father blurted out: ‘But he has Paget-von Schrötter syndrome.’ He had reached the diagnosis by ‘googling.’ Discussing their results, the researchers acknowledge that the role of diagnostician remains one of the most challenging and fulfilling roles of a physician. ‘Physicians have been estimated to carry two million facts in their heads to fulfill this role. With medical knowledge expanding even this may not be enough. Search engines allow quick access to an ever increasing knowledge base. Google gives users ready access to more than three billion articles on the web and has far exceeded PubMed as the search engine of choice for retrieving medical articles.’ Google Scholar, currently in beta form, is likely to be even more useful as it searches only peer-reviewed articles, they say.”

So, will that include natural health articles? I wonder.

Contaminated acetaminophen made for third parties like CVS, Safeway, Wal-Mart, etc. are being recalled after small metal filings were found in some lots.

11 Million Bottles of Acetaminophen Recalled

“Perrigo Co., the nation’s largest maker of store-brand drugs for retailers such as CVS, Safeway and Food Lion, is recalling 11 million bottles of the painkiller acetaminophen after finding small metal particles in 200 caplets. Neither the company nor the Food and Drug Administration has received reports of injuries or illness related to the contaminated product. Ingesting contaminated caplets could cause minor stomach discomfort or cuts in the mouth or throat. The likelihood of any adverse health consequence is remote, said Douglas Throckmorton, a top FDA official. With 65 percent market share, publicly traded Perrigo dominates the over-the-counter generic drug industry to the point where, on average, every adult and child in the United States takes a Perrigo-made tablet once every four days, chief executive Joseph C. Papa told analysts during an Oct. 10 conference call. Perrigo pioneered store-brand drugs and makes generic versions of Pepcid AC antacid, Claritin allergy medicine, Sudafed, NyQuil and Centrum vitamins, among other products, that are sold under more than 100 store brands.”

This points back to my comment, “YOU are the person most responsible for YOUR health!” Pay attention to news like this, and check the drugs that you may have on your shelf. Better yet, use natural means to reduce headache pain… or use herbal pain relievers!

Our old friend Vitamin D is getting some more good press! It seems that is helps curb breast cancer!

Vitamin D May Help Curb Breast Cancer Progression

“Vitamin D may help curb breast cancer progression, suggests a small study published ahead of print in the Journal of Clinical Pathology. The authors reach their conclusion from a study of 279 women with invasive breast cancer. The disease was in the early stages in 204 women, and advanced in the remainder. Serum levels of vitamin D, parathyroid hormone, and calcium were measured in both groups of women. The results showed that women with early stage disease had significantly higher levels of vitamin D and significantly lower levels of parathyroid hormone than did the women with advanced disease.”

“Laboratory studies have also shown that vitamin D stops cancer cells from dividing and that it enhances cell death. And the epidemiological evidence points to a link between rates of, and deaths from, breast cancer and exposure to sunlight.”

Once again, I repeat, 20 minutes of direct sunlight per day can help your body naturally produce Vitamin D, and you can enjoy the benefits of better health!

“Considering vitamin D deficiencies are common among type 2 diabetics, I’m not at all surprised to learn the same connection also applies to atherosclerosis, the disease process leading to heart attack and stroke. Italian scientists compared the vitamin D levels of 390 type 2 diabetics to an equal number of healthy patients in addition to measuring the amount of atherosclerotic plaque (cartoid artery intimal thickness) during the winter. Like the earlier study (also conducted by some of the same researchers), scientists found low vitamin D levels were an independent, strong predicator of atherosclerosis, further evidence Prof. Robert Scragg of the University of Auckland was right some 16 years ago, when he discovered diminished vitamin D levels were strongly associated with heart disease.”

Low Vitamin D Levels a Marker for Atherosclerosis

Have you noticed the way that Vitamin D deficiency keeps coming up as an issue? It is because we have become “sun-avoiders” due to the barrage of hype we have had to avoid the sun at all costs! We need solar exposure every day to produce Vitamin D!

Studies with mice seem to indicate that a component in red wine my increase the lifespan of obese mice.

Red wine molecule helps mice live longer

“A compound found in red wine and grapes can extend the lifespan of obese mice and help them enjoy a healthier old age, scientists said on Wednesday. The molecule known as resveratrol not only enabled the mice to live longer than other overweight rodents, it also reduced the negative health effects of eating a high-calorie diet. Resveratrol has been shown to have same effect in studies on yeast, flies and worms but the scientists said their research is the first to show it works in mammals. ‘It is possible to find a molecule that activates the body’s natural defenses against aging. You can use it to enhance the health of a mouse or mammal. That is unprecedented,’ said David Sinclair, of Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts. He added that the study, reported in the journal Nature, is proof of the principle that it works in mammals. But the real test will be to develop formulations or find other molecules to treat age-related illnesses such as diabetes, Alzheimer’s, heart disease and cancer in humans. ‘The goal here is within the next few years to know it is possible to treat diseases in man,’ he told Reuters.”

Have you noticed that kids are entering puberty earlier and earlier? What is causing this change? Some new research is yielding interesting connections.

Preschool Puberty, and a Search for the Causes

“Parents often think their children grow up too quickly, but few are prepared for the problem that Dr. Michael Dedekian and his colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Medical School reported recently. At the annual Pediatric Academic Society meeting in May in San Francisco, they presented a report that described how a preschool-age girl, and then her kindergarten-age brother, mysteriously began growing pubic hair. These cases were not isolated; in 2004, pediatric endocrinologists from San Diego reported a similar cluster of five children. It turns out that there have been clusters of cases in which children have prematurely developed signs of puberty, outbreaks similar to epidemics of influenza or environmental poisonings. In 1979, the medical journal The Lancet described an outbreak of breast enlargement among hundreds of Italian schoolchildren, probably caused by estrogen contamination of beef and poultry. Similar epidemics in Puerto Rico and Haiti were tracked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the 1980s. Increasingly though the science is still far from definitive and the precise number of such cases is highly speculative some physicians worry that children are at higher risk of early puberty as a result of the increasing prevalence of certain drugs, cosmetics and environmental contaminants, called endocrine disruptors, that can cause breast growth, pubic hair development and other symptoms of puberty.”

Hormones and additives in our food have been slowly increasing the onset of puberty. What are the long term effects? I would imagine that they are not good! Again, we need to be aware of what we, and our children eat and drink… as there can be long term consequences to contamination of our food!