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Wednesday, August 26, 2009
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Swine Flu - Alternative Medicine Solutions
Swine Flu – Alternative Medicine Solutions
Swine flu cases are set to grow exponentially over the next few months. The chief medical officers have been predicting and warning us all about a flu pandemic for a number of years now. This flu not only brings the same aches and pains but comes with a ‘cytokine storm’ that causes symptoms that may lead to pneumonia. This may be fatal so all asthmatics beware. This time the warnings are real.
In this article I will set out some natural medicines you should be taking to stop getting infected by swine flu and also some remedies to treat it if you do. All of these suggestions are based on modern scientific research. However, if you suspect you have swine flu you must go to your doctor to be on the safe side, especially if you are having breathing difficulties and having chest pain. Best thing overall is to try and make yourself less susceptible. In pandemics like this, large groups of people do not get infected as there are less susceptible.
There are more than 200 viruses that can cause the common cold and flu, and usually the signs of infection strike, 18 to 24 hours after the virus enter the body. So here are some very simple and effective ways of both boosting your immunity so we escape infection and self-treatment if you do catch the swine flu. These will help bring about a quicker recovery. All natural medicine interventions must focus on not only boosting the immune system but rather a balance between stimulating the immunity and reducing the production of cytokines causing a storm and its harmful life threatening effects.
What Is Swine Flu?
Swine flu is the flu that is causing the latest flu pandemic worldwide. The flu is a respiratory disease that affects pigs. However it is now affecting humans at massive levels. Flu normally affects vulnerable people like the very young and old however swine flu attacks the healthy person – the 18 to 50s section of the world. One disturbing feature of this virus is that it causes a ‘cytokine storm’ in the body. A cytokine is a biochemical that normally responds to infections and directs the immune system. However in swine flu they are over produced causing harm to the body organs and causing fluid to build in the lungs. As well as all the regular flu symptoms such as headaches, aches, pneumonia can also develop as a result of swine flu.
The Cytokene Storm – Damage Control
The cytokine storm that is created by the body in response to the swine flu is caused by the swine flu being unaffected by the body’s immune response. This causes an over production of cytokines ( TFN-a and IL-6) by the body. This is what killed many people during the Spanish flu in 1918 in the USA. Foods such as; honey, chocolate, spirulena algae and particularly elderberry need to be avoided as they increase the production of cytokines in the body. Try and drink lots of apple, lemon and cranberry juice who have all shown an ability to decrease cytokine production in the body. . Cut out all mucous forming especially diary foods as the respiratory system is the virus breeding ground.
So it’s not just the virus you have to watch out for it’s actually the cytokine storm. The more people that become aware of this the better for both its treatment and outcomes.
Natural Medicine
Natural medicine has been practiced for centuries and moreover in the prevention of disease as well as the treatment of it. Over 80% of the world use herbal medicine as the first method of medical treatment. Natural medicine has been used very successfully when there has been a major health crisis taking place. Especially during the Spanish flu epidemic where you had a better survival rate if you went to a homeopathic hospital
Neurominidase Blockers
The swine flu virus needs neurominidase enzyme in order to replicate. An enzyme is a biological catalyst. The first thing you must do is to decrease you susceptibility to the virus. In order to do this a vitamin and mineral supplement is necessary as part of your diet. Drink the juices of apple, lemon and cranberry juice. Vitamin C and vitamin E has been shown to reduce flu virus loads and also a reduction in cytokines by blocking neurominidase. Green tea has also a very good effect in reduction of cytokine production.
Vitamin Supplements
You should also be taking a proper vitamin and mineral supplement to guard you against flu and also a whole load of other diseases. However this vitamin and minerals you should be taking must be in a food form and not isolated synthetic chemical like ascorbic acid that is sold internationally as vitamin C. The real nutrients that you are looking for can be found at StarGate Nutrition Vitamin website. All their nutrients are in a nature form that your body will understand. They provide the full spectrum of required vitamins and minerals. You should be focusing on lemon juice for vitamin C and also to alkalize your blood to make it more inhabitable for the swine flu virus. The mineral zinc needs to be also consumed and the best way is by eating oysters and sunflower seeds which are foods naturally high in these minerals.
Homeopathy
Popular for years in Asia with over 250,000 doctors qualified as homeopathy in India alone, homeopathy has recently become Europe’s fastest growing form of alternative medicine. Last year sales of homeopathic medicines in Europe topped £3billion. Debate about how it scientifically works are heated, but most Europeans are now going to a homeopath as their first course of treatment and 20 per cent of Scottish GPs currently practice the specialty. Many scientific studies have been carried out to proves its efficacy medically and especially in flu outbreaks such as this.
Critics of homeopathy say that the medicine is no more than the placebo effect psychological factors causing improvement unrelated to drug therapy. However, Dr David Reilly of The Glasgow Homeopathic Hospital led a team of scientists who compared placebo and homeopathy in four trials conducted over 15 years in patients with allergies such as hayfever and asthma. All four studies showed a greater effect from the homeopathic medicine than from the placebo. Overall there have been over 200 trials and over 70 per cent of these conclude that homeopathy is better than placebo. Private European insurers cover homeopathic treatments, and The World Health Organisation recommends them. A few years ago Spain took an initiative to incorporate homeopathy into its national health service.
A report to the American Institute of Homeopathy in 1921 documented the dramatic success of homeopathy in the worst flu pandemic in history. The death rate of 24,000 flu cases under conventional medical care in that study was 28.2 percent, while the death rate of 26,000 cases treated with homeopathy was a nearly miraculous 1.05 percent.
When a similar strain of bird flu, misleadingly termed Spanish Flu, spread around the world in 1918, there is no doubt that it had catastrophic consequences. 50 million people died. Nevertheless, American hospital statistics from the time show thathomeopathic treatment gave a far better chance of survival than conventional treatment did. The statistics are reported in Randall Neustaedter's excellent book "Flu: Alternative Treatments and Prevention".
For at least the past 150 years homeopathic practitioners have used the medicine Influenzinum as a flu preventive.Influenzinum is a homeopathic medicine made from flu viruses. A proprietary preparation is produced by homeopathic pharmacies each year using the flu virus strains recommended by the World Health Organization for the year’s vaccine production (Dolivaxil – containing Influenzinum 9C). The typical dosage is once per week for four weeks beginning in October or later, followed by another dose three weeks later.
You should have Gelsemium 30c in your house and take when someone sneezes in a bus or your office. This can stop the virus taking root in the body and acts as a preventative.
The first medicine used in France to treat flu is Oscillococcinum made by Boiron and sells 7 million euros annually. Boiron was bought recently by the Bayer group.
Oscillococcinum Alternative Medicine To Tamiflu
This remedy recently toped pharmacy sales list and sales in the US alone are in the region of £20 million. A course costs of Oscillococcinum costs £6, which is used regularly by 5 million French for the prevention of colds and flu’s every year. Lets face it five million French can’t be wrong?
However, is anyone planning to stockpile homeopathic medicines proven to effectively treat the flu for over one hundred years?
St Johns Worth & Goldenseal NOT Echinacea.
Many people might be reaching for the herbal remedy called Echinacea to treat their swine flu or prevent it by boosting the immune system. Stop. In swine flu treatment Echinacea will cause the production of cytokines which will further damage your body.
The best herbs to use during this flu are St Johns Worth which is a potent antiviral as well as a famous antidepressant. The herbs adaptogenic qualities may help the body adapt to the cytokine storm making it have less an impact.
Turmeric, the spice, has an ability to be more powerful the pharmaceutical cox-2 inhibitors. Turmeric works in swine flu by blocking the production of cytokines. One herb I have been personally using over the past few years is Goldenseal which reduces colds and flu’s symptoms quite dramatically. Very little is written about it. Garlic is essential to include in your diet and has an affinity for the lungs as a herb. This can assist in blocking the development of pneumonia and reduce any lung infection by taking at least one clove mashed a day. Parsley will reduce the odour if you need it.
Aromatherapy
Tea tree essential oil from Australia that is very popular world wide is really important in terms of it being the only essential oil that is anti - viral bacterial and fungal. Lavender is very useful in the production of white blood cells. Tea tree oil may reduce the viral load causing a reduction in cytokine load.
Probiotics
Natural bacteria in the gut are essential to maintaining proper health and digestive functioning. Antibiotics not only kill the organisms that cause colds and flu’s but also kill the good gut bacteria. In order to reintroduce the effects of the bacteria you reintroduce them by eating bioactive yoghurts made with strains of gut bacteria such as Lactobacillus. This may also help to reduce any thrush symptoms caused from antibiotics.
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inese Medicine For High Cholesterol
much cholesterol in the blood (high blood cholesterol) can be a severe medical condition that can result to varying circumstances that can be harmful to the body. Individuals may not notice that they have high blood cholesterol concentration present in the blood because this condition is not capable of producing symptoms. There are greater chances of getting heart related diseases when there is high blood cholesterol. Just like conventional Western medicine practice, there is also available Chinese medicine for high blood cholesterol. Excessive cholesterol in the blood accumulates in the arterial walls that may cause narrowing of the arteries. This condition can cause hardening of the arteries; medically termed as atherosclerosis. In addition to this, high cholesterol is also a precursor for hypertension. Since Chinese medicine is aimed at treating the underlying cause for medical conditions, hypertension caused by high cholesterol is treated by controlling high cholesterol level initially. While lifestyle modification can help reduce high blood cholesterol, Chinese medicine for high cholesterol can also be an efficient alternative if you want to treat the condition naturally. Acupuncture is an acceptable form of treatment that has long been part of Chinese medicine. At present, several western cultures consider acupuncture as a mew alternative medicine. Acupuncture is one method used in Chinese medicine that is vital in the management of high cholesterol level in the blood.
Is Alternative Medicine Safe and Effective?
For instance, evidence in support of acupuncture, many herbal medicines and manual treatments does exist. On the other hand St. John's wort didn't seem to have an affect on the symptoms of ADHD in children and adolescents (Weber W, Vander Stoep A, McCarty RL, et al, 2008). And that, "I can't say," because research on many such treatments is unavailable.
Is It Safe?
Today, a perception exists that if something is natural or organic, it can't be harmful. This belief might not be true in all cases, e.g. Snake venom is all natural and organic, but is it safe for human consumption?
Sometimes herbs can be harmful by their very nature, e.g. kava and comfrey are herbs but still have been associated with liver damage.
At other times inappropriate regulation or administration of herbs and therapeutic procedures could render highly effective alternative treatments hazardous. Consider acupuncture, though it's been found to be effective, but if unsterilized needles are used it could lead to infection. Similarly, an overdose of Ephedra, a herbal remedy of respiratory congestion may lead to heart attacks, strokes and even death.
Forget herbs, an overdose of water too can lead to water intoxication and even death. Herbs aren't an exception and some of them may even react undesirably with other conventional medication, or some might not be suitable for consumption during pregnancy.
However, undesirable consequences of alternative treatments due to inappropriate administration, by no means imply that alternative treatments are unsafe by themselves. Rather, proven alternative medicines when properly administered, are not only safe, potent and cost effective, but also offer patients a choice.
Nutrition - What Are the Nutritional Needs
Nutrition as it applies to our daily lives means that we take in what we need to maintain our body's healthy state. Nutrition has become an important word thanks to the involvement of the USDA in our daily food requirements, and the FDA's involvement in determining what is and is not dangerous for us to consume.
But what is our responsibility in the nutrition game? Do we understand what our nutritional requirements are, how to fulfill those requirements, and how to look for real nutritional value in our foods?
I'm not sure that nutrition has been successfully addressed in its own right. We hear nutrition in relation to our vitamin intake, our fortified cereals and milk, and in the context that we need "nutritional value" from our food choices. But what really is nutrition when applied to our daily bodily functions?
Today, we must determine how much nourishment we need, how much physical exercise we need, and how best to accomplish those ends. Calorie needs, nutritional needs, physical needs, and education about those needs now is information we should all understand, at least as it applies to our individual self.
If you will visit your local doctor, library, or fitness center, there is massive amounts of information available to help educate and to help you make good health choices, no matter what the age group.
Nutrition refers to the nurturing of our body, in our ability to keep it healthy and functioning as it is supposed to do. Our ability to provide the body with all it's necessary food, vitamins, and minerals so that we continue to thrive in our daily life processes.
If you were to take a cross section of the population, and check for adequate levels of the most used and fortified vitamins and minerals, you would probably find that as high as 80% or the population is lacking in a least one of the vitamins and minerals.
Now, that doesn't sound too bad, until you stop to think, what if it's calcium? A calcium deficiency brings on osteoporosis, a deteriorating of the bone. This disease alone costs millions in medical expense to the population.
Can you see how a little more cooperation and open-minded participation on the part of our medical field could result in far fewer health problems? It would also have provided the general population with a viable way to discern their nutrition, vitamin and mineral needs, accurately.
So how do we determine that we are providing the essential nutritional needs? That knowledge comes by educating ourselves about what our individual needs are, the needs of our family, and then taking that knowledge and applying it to the foods we buy, that we prepare, and that our families consume.
Quite often, our vitamin and mineral needs outweigh our caloric needs. In those instances, we turn to manufactured vitamins and minerals to fill the gap. This is a part of our nutritional needs, also.
Nutrition is one of the most complex areas to gain useful knowledge about, because there are so many components, and because each person has their own individual needs.
Women needs differ from those of men, and older women's needs differ from those of a young girl. As we age, our needs constantly change; therefore continual education about nutrition is a fact of life. The nutritional needs of a cardiac patient are different than those of a healthy, middle-aged hiker.
Can you see the complexity of the situation now? What we really need is to develop a scale that determines the nutritional needs of our bodies on a cellular level, so that as we age, as our physical condition changes, or our health changes, we can recalculate our needs, based on cellular changes and content in our body.
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Mesothelioma Symptoms and Tests for Mesothelioma
Mesothelioma symptoms are progressively slow and take years to surface. Early medical testing to confirm the etymology of its symptoms can add years on to your life, and can even offer you salvation from a normally fatal disease. If you’ve been exposed to asbestos and are experiencingmesothelioma symptoms, notify your doctor of any asbestos exposure and monitor your symptoms from their onset. Even short term asbestos exposure can result in non-fatal pleural diseases. Keeping a journal of your mesothelioma symptoms can assist you and your physician in medical diagnosis, and it may contribute to an asbestos claim.
The symptoms of mesothelioma will differ based on their origin. Pleural mesothelioma starts in the lung area, peritoneal mesothelioma starts in the abdomen area, and pericardial mesothelioma starts dangerously close to the heart. Benign and malignant mesothelioma have similar symptoms, and similar tests. Weight loss is a well-documented symptom in the majority of mesothelioma cases. Abdominal pain is a primary symptom of peritoneal mesothelioma. Both pleural mesothelioma symptomsand peritoneal mesothelioma symptoms include chest pain and shortness of breath.
Pleural mesothelioma medical tests look at the pleural lining, lung fluid, inflammatory conditions, tissue, blood counts and cells to help determine what type of pleural activity is going on inside your lungs. The tests will help diagnose whether yourmesothelioma symptoms might be due to pleural effusion, diffuse pleural thickening, asbestosis or other asbestos caused diseases that aren’t necessarily as dangerous as pleural mesothelioma, but can be due to their respiratory nature.
A CT scan will identify pleural thickening better than a chest X-ray. MRI and PET scans can then determine whether the pleural disease is diffuse pleural thickening or if it is malignant pleural mesothelioma. Blood tests can also give an indication of the possibility of cancer. Once cancer is the suspected cause of your mesothelioma symptoms, a biopsy will take place. Thoracentesis removes pleural fluid for diagnosis. Thoracoscopy uses a “camera” (endoscope) inserted into the chest for diagnose and a sample of tissue is taken at that time. Pleural mesothelioma starts in the pleural region, but it will progress to attach other major body organs, such as the heart or abdominal area.
Abdominal pain and bowel restrictions are common peritoneal mesothelioma symptoms. If peritoneal mesothelioma is suspected after the traditional CT, MRI and PET scans, a peritoneoscopy or paracentesis is likely. Peritoneoscopy is done in the hospital with a camera-like instrument called a peritoneoscope. Peritoneal mesothelioma has also been incidentally discovered while performing similar procedures involving infertility examinations on women. A fluid sample is obtained in a process called paracentesis. This involves a needle going into your abdomen to get a sample of the fluid.
Pericardial mesothelioma symptoms always involve severe chest pain. This is a cancer invading the sac over the heart. Thepericardial mesothelioma patient may even experience heart failure. Blood tests, CT scans, MRIs and PETs are just the beginning of pericardial mesothelioma medical tests. There will be pulmonary tests and potentially dangerous biopsies. Pericardial mesothelioma symptoms are frequently misdiagnosed. The cancer is very rare, and many well-known diseases display the same symptoms as pericardial mesothelioma. It is often during surgery that pericardial mesothelioma is discovered, and then it is usually too late.
Mesothelioma symptoms can be suggestive of many cancers or diseases. Medical testing for mesothelioma symptoms requires a long battery of tests to discover symptom origins. Medical tests for mesothelioma symptoms can expedite mesothelioma treatment. Symptoms take decades to surface. Start recording your mesothelioma symptoms and start your tests early. It’s better to test for mesothelioma symptoms early, before it’s too late.