Welcome to The blog is about health and gives useful information on health and disease.
Add a few paragraphs about your company's products and services here.
You can change this introductory text by editing "home.php", or simply delete that file and then either set a static page, or show your latest news on your homepage.
Latest News
TRIALS INVOLVING MIGRAINE AND FOOD ALLERGY
If foods caused symptoms when they were reintroduced, they were withdrawn again, and the children continued until they had tested all commonly eaten foods. They were then tested again with one of the foods that seemed to cause a bad reaction, but this time the tests were done double-blind – neither the child, the parents nor the experimenter knew which foods were being eaten. To this end, the foods were disguised in a strongly-flavoured puree and supplied in tins to be given to the children at home. The tins were identified by a code number, and it was only when the code was broken at the end of the experiment that it became clear which tin contained the suspect food, and which tin was the placebo – unadulterated puree, that should have caused no symptoms.
For various reasons, some children could not be tested double-blind, but 40 were tested in this way.
The results of this trial were a surprise to many doctors, not least to those involved. Of the 88 children who completed the diet, 78 recovered completely on one or other of the simple diets that were tried during the first stage of the experiment. Another four children ‘improved greatly”, and only six showed no improvement whatever. The response, in other words, was 93 per cent, a staggeringly high figure by any standards. Of the children who improved, eight remained well even when foods were reintroduced, and they continued to be healthy on a normal diet. That left 74 children for whom particular foods could be identified as a cause of migraine in open trial. Of the 40 who were then retested double-blind, 35 were made ill by the tin containing the suspect food, but not by the placebo tin. Three reacted to neither tin, and two were made ill by the placebo. Given the vagaries of food reactions generally, 35 out of 40 is an impressive response. The results would have been more convincing if the children could have been tested for all the foods to which they reacted on open trial, and if they could have been tested more than once, but the practical difficulties of doing this in such a large-scale trial are obvious.
*112\180\8*
Posted: April 20th, 2009 under Allergies - No Comments. Tags: Allergies
INSIDE THE HEALTH-CARE SYSTEM – MEDICAL DEDUCTIONS—WHAT THE IRS DOESN’T WANT YOU TO KNOW (PART 2)
mistake: Many people fail to claim these tax breaks because they provide less than half of the individual’s income— and so mistakenly assume that they provide less than half of the individual’s support.
key: “Support” includes only amounts that are actually spent on items of support, such as housing, food, clothing and medical care. It does not include income that is saved.
By having the parent save enough income in the bank (by putting money in the bank, he isn’t using the money to pay for support) so that you pay more than 50% of his support in the form of medical payments and other items, you can obtain a deduction for the medical bills.
tactic: When several people together provide most of an individual’s support with no one person paying more than 50%, they can file a multiple support agreement, IRS Form 2120, Multiple Support Declaration, to obtain a dependency exemption and assign it to one member of the group (which can change from year to year), provided he pays more than 10% of support.
*91/47/1*
Posted: April 9th, 2009 under General health - No Comments. Tags: General health
INSIDE THE HEALTH-CARE SYSTEM – HOW TO GET THE MOST FROM YOUR HMO (INTRODUCTION)
If you’re not already enrolled in a health maintenance organization (HMO) or other managed-care plan, you may be soon. Three-quarters of American workers are enrolled in some form of managed care (HMO, PPO, POS) plan.
The number in traditional fee-for-service insurance is decreasing every year, and even these plans increasingly incorporate managed care features.
The rules are very different in this new system. To get good care, you must understand how managed care works and adjust your approach accordingly.
The first thing to understand is how the financial incentives for doctors have changed. Under the fee-for-service system, insurance companies paid doctors for every service rendered. Each time doctors stuck in a needle, ran a cardiogram or took out someone’s tonsils, they were paid.
Unfortunately, doctors responded to this arrangement by doing millions of needless tonsillectomies and other procedures.
As a result, medical costs skyrocketed, with health care consuming a larger and larger chunk of the GNP.
HMOs came along and changed the way doctors are paid. Although they use dozens of different systems, the bottom line in many plans is this—the less the doctor does, the more money he or she makes.
*82/47/1*
Posted: April 9th, 2009 under General health - No Comments. Tags: General health
HEALTHY EATING AND WEIGHT LOSS – IS IT WHOLE GRAIN?
When buying any type of bread, look for whole-grain flours in the list of ingredients. These include bulgur, whole wheat, whole rye, whole oats, barley, brown rice and buckwheat. Less common whole grains include amaranth, millet, quinoa, sorghum and triticale (a hybrid of wheat and rye). One of these flours should appear first in the list of ingredients—this means it is the primary ingredient by weight.
caution: Just because a bread package says “multigrain,” “stone-ground,” “100% wheat,” “seven-grain,” or “bran,” it does not mean it is made from whole grains.
important: Serving sizes can be deceiving. Some breads list one serving as one slice, others as two slices.
White bread, which is made from refined grains, will list enriched wheat flour as the first ingredient.
typical nutritional data per slice! 66 Calories, 0.6 g fat,
0.6 g fiber, 170 mg sodium.
important: Sourdough bread does not cause the spikes in blood sugar that result from eating other refined breads. That’s because it has a lower glycemic index, an indicator of how quickly carbohydrates are digested.
The following breads can be among the most healthful available. Just check the ingredients to ensure that they’re made from whole grain.
Nutrient-dense breads.
*73/47/1*
Posted: April 9th, 2009 under General health - No Comments. Tags: General health
HEALTHY TRAVEL AND REMEDIES FOR EVERYDAY AILMENTS – THE HIDDEN DANGERS OF YOUR EVERYDAY COSMETICS
Eye injuries are the most common mishaps when applying cosmetics—especially scratching the eye with a mascara wand, according to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
advice: Never try to apply mascara while in motion, including as a passenger in a vehicle.
Here are some other suggestions from the American Academy of Dermatology to reduce the risk of skin irritation when using cosmetics…
Choose powder-based makeup when possible. It usually has few preservatives and other ingredients that can cause skin irritation.
Avoid waterproof cosmetics, which require solvents to remove them. These solvents also remove the oily substance produced by the skin’s sebaceous glands, leaving skin exposed to potential irritants that can cause a breakout.
Throw out old cosmetics. The lifespan for lipstick and foundation is one year; for mascara, three to four months; and two years for powder and shadows.
Use products with fewer ingredients. The fewer ingredients, the less likely they are to cause a problem.
*63/47/1*
Posted: April 9th, 2009 under General health - No Comments. Tags: General health
HEALTHY TRAVEL AND REMEDIES FOR EVERYDAY AILMENTS – BREAK THE STREP-THROAT CYCLE; THE TRUTH ABOUT LACTOSE INTOLERANCE
When your doctor prescribes antibiotics, it is very important to take the full course. Do not stop before the bottle is finished.
Most people use just enough antibiotics to relieve symptoms, then stop. This may result in symptomless infections that cause hidden damage (rheumatic fever)…a recurrence of the strep throat…or the transmission of strep throat to someone else.
A study suggests that only a fraction of those who think they are lactose intolerant actually are. The others have simply been swayed by widespread publicity about the condition. In a study of 30 people who thought they suffered from lactose intolerance, all were able to consume up to eight ounces of milk daily with negligible problems.
*54/47/1*
Posted: April 9th, 2009 under General health - No Comments. Tags: General health
AFTER THE POSTNATAL EXAMINATION – CONCLUSION
Many of us have difficulty in accepting our own parents as sexually active people and some women may have difficulty accepting their own sexuality now that they too are mothers. There is another group of women for whom the experience of having their own baby brings an ‘echo of the past’ (Tobert, 1987).That is, they are reminded of themselves as babies or of other babies in their life. The episode may be very varied and is specific for each individual woman. Sometimes the memory may be of past sexual abuse and disclosure to a sensitive person around the time of the birth of their own baby is not uncommon. Sometimes the memory is of the death or illness of a sibling.
*181/197/1*
Posted: April 7th, 2009 under Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction - No Comments. Tags: Erectile Dysfunction, Men’s Health
THE STEREOTYPES – ‘MEN NEED TO BE IN CONTROL’ (INTRAUTERINE CONTRACEPTIVE DEVICES (IUCDS))
An IUCD invests much control in the doctor. Maybe it has been discussed, perhaps even with both parties. All the same, it is a foreign body. It is hard, metallic, and considered an abortifacient by some people, as well as being seen as a possible source of disease. Men can frequently feel threads and worry about dislodging it. One man said, T knew when she had a coil in because I could taste the metal when I kissed her.’ There is often disbelief that something so tiny can work. When a small sample of men were asked to rank contraceptive methods in order of efficiency, all men put IUCDs bottom of the list.
Some of the anxiety about the method may reflect the general awareness of the safety of modern contraceptive pills and the threat of pelvic infection, even although that is a small risk in multipara who are in a stable relationship. Many people are well informed and may wish to discuss the risks of specific infections such as chlamydia. Despite reassurance one can hear a certain ‘I told you so’ attitude from men towards the coil if complications arise. This can be interpreted as being an expression of healthy caution about a contraceptive method that asks for such a degree of trust in the doctor from the woman and her partner.
*144/197/1*
Posted: April 7th, 2009 under Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction - No Comments. Tags: Erectile Dysfunction, Men’s Health
THE WANTED BABY – DO I WANT A BABY?
Marie Stopes wrote her book for lovers in the early days of contraception when ignorance of sexual matters abounded. Pregnancy was an inevitable consequence of married love, and contraception was used to space babies sensibly to allow the mothers to recuperate from childbirth. Today women can choose, with varied forms of contraception, either to have no babies at all, to have and space them, or to defer them until the most favourable time. Among these many patterns are women who fluctuate between wanting and not wanting babies.
Mrs N. married on the understanding that neither of them wanted a baby. She was referred by a gynaecologist to a specialist in psychosexual medicine because she was still complaining of dyspareunia following a laparoscopy and urethral dilatation, performed in an attempt to find the cause for her pain. Nothing abnormal had been found. She had been complaining of dyspareunia for 18 months and there had been no intercourse for a year.
She was a smart business woman wearing a suit, who came briskly into the room and sat down. She very quickly began to tell the doctor how angry she was with the people in the hospial. She had felt weak after the operation, so much so that she had to be off work for a whole week. No one had warned her that it would be like this, with so much abdominal pain and feeling so unwell and her original problem had certainly not been resolved.
*107/197/1*
Posted: April 7th, 2009 under Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction - No Comments. Tags: Erectile Dysfunction, Men’s Health
PSYCHOSEXUAL PROBLEMS IN YOUNG PEOPLE (CONCLUSION)
This cautionary tale illustrates how a patient’s thick folder arises. Such a story should alert the doctor to the probability of a psychosexual problem which has not been resolved. It is interesting that at no time was there any exploration of the girl’s own sexual feelings, perhaps because no proper psychosexual vaginal examination had been made, despite various attempts at swab and smear taking, when she was always very tense. Another lesson to be learnt is if there is dissatisfaction with the contraceptive method it is worth referring back to the notes of the very first consultation, for the clues are often there.
*71/197/1*
Posted: April 7th, 2009 under Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction - No Comments. Tags: Erectile Dysfunction, Men’s Health